Core values

Six months ago, I received an invitation to attend a spiritual retreat offered by the Episcopal Church. Each conference is limited to 24 clergy members. After I accepted the invitation, I received a packet of logistical information, questionnaires and a list of materials that were instructed to bring to the conference. One of the preconference subjects was core values. Core values were defined as "those basic beliefs or organizing principles that give our lives meaning and shape our relationship to the world around us. When we get in touch with what truly matters to us, we discover what makes us alive and we rediscover what God intended in us and for us."

A preconference exercise was to name five life events corresponding to these five key moments: Major Shifts, Break-throughs, Life Changing Events, Traumas and Blessings.

At the conference, we shared our lists with our small group. Later with the whole group, we heard a presentation on Core Values, and then we were challenged to dream in each category about the future.

I have chosen to share with you my response to a future trauma I believe many Christians could experience. It grew out of a painful event I witnessed in the baggage claim area of the airport with the man that was transporting me to the retreat center.

As we waited for my luggage to arrive, the man's rabbi had just arrived from California where he went in support of the Rabbi at the Poway Synagogue. He saw the man and rushed up to him and told him to call his wife, the rabbi's secretary, and have everyone meet him that night at the synagogue at 7 p.m. and to also notify the leader of the group of Christians formed a human shield around their synagogue.

Just like the dramatic increase in donations to the NRA after a mass shooting, the violent hate directed at Jewish communities dramatically increases after a murderous attack at a synagogue.

My deep soul-wrenching dream that night was looking out the door of St. Thomas and seeing a human shield surrounding the church because we had been singled out as a target by those that decided we just weren't American Christian enough and therefore were their enemies and needed to be killed -- men, women and children.

I later discovered I wasn't the only one that had that fearful nightmare. We had all heard about the threats to the priest of Charlottesville, Virginia. Many of their colleagues and pastors of other denominations had moved because of the threats they had received from white supremacists that have been emboldened to cast out lightning bolts of hate and dared to wrap themselves up in American flags.

Our forefathers envisioned in the Declaration of Independence and in The Constitution a tolerance for all people and a peaceful co-existence. They recognized the need for all people to worship in freedom and peace and to respect the sacred beliefs of all people. Violent irrational hate is not an American core value.

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Ken Parks is the former rector of St. Theodore's Episcopal Church in Bella Vista. He can be reached by email to [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.