Christmas

For Christmas, my husband gave me the flu.  Of course he didn’t mean to, but because of the flu, the sermon I was supposed to be preaching tomorrow is still in its embryonic phases, written in lucid (hopefully) moments between Tylenol doses.  No worries though, the sermon isn’t getting preached anyway.  I’ll be spending tomorrow, most likely, the same way I’ve spent the last five days.  Thanks to Fr. Paul for covering my tail, when I was supposed to be covering his.

But I thought I’d post here the sermon fragment that won’t get preached.  For your edification or, if I wasn’t as lucid as I like to think myself, entertainment.

Blessed Christmas, folks.  Hope yours is healthy and happy.

Because I have kids, I’ve spent a significant portion of my life enduring talking cartoon vegetables attempting to define the “True Meaning of Christmas.” I have to admit, the little asparagus summed up the cultural Christmas pretty well with “Christmas is when you get stuff.” Indeed, the secular Christmas has come to be about nothing more than greed and material status. We buy gifts to make us look good when we give them and we look forward to getting “stuff.”

Having had the flu for the majority of the week leading up to Christmas, I had some time to explore some of the cultural icons of Christmas. Religious context stripped away, symbols floated meaninglessly across my computer screen. A Simpsons episode stated it best, what is the point of a tree which, in Lisa Simpson’s words, has been cruelly chopped down and “tarted up.” Gifts, trees, without meaning, it is just more stuff.

Another of my flu-ridden cultural studies noted that our culture has shaped our Christmas, because indeed our culture’s god is greed. Some Christians may, as the commentator said, put on a good show, but really its about greed. He cited televangelists and Oprah as the icons of Greed-worshipping modern spirituality. Again, its just more stuff.

And then there’s that iconic secular Christmas tune: Santa Claus is coming to town, with its message “so be good for goodness sake.” Now if that isn’t the very opposite of the Gospel message that the real St. Nicholas so boldly defended, I don’t know what is!

So we come to church and look for the true meaning of Christmas here. We find a baby in a manger, a sanitized and romanticized birth story, some cuddly thoughts about shepherds and sheep. But no real answer to the “so what? How then shall we live?” Jesus was born, hooray… but does that change anything? Just like those trees and stars that floated across my screen devoid of context, the baby in the manger is just an absurdity if you don’t know the back-story.

If you want to know the real meaning of Christmas, you have to know the context. John, the beloved disciple, begins, as good stories often do, at the beginning. Literally. In the beginning, was the word. This is John’s Christmas story. In the beginning, before there was anything else, there was the word. His Hebrew readers would know this story; Genesis one begins with those same words “in the beginning.” In fact the Hebrew word for Genesis means beginning. And John’s Hebrew reader would know that in the beginning, God spoke, and nothingness became everything, the cosmos obeyed his command came into existence. In the beginning was the Word.

John’s Greek readers would get the point, too. They would read John’s words as “in the beginning was reason.” Reason, they believed, ordered the universe and held everything together. In other words, in the beginning was the one through whom all things were made. Nothing was made without him. Psalm 19 says that “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” And Christmas is about the Word by which all things are made “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” The word by which the heavens were made left the glories of the Father’s presence, and became flesh, and dwelt among us.

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“He was a baby and a child, so that you may be a perfect human.  He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that you may be freed from the snares of death.  He was in a manger, so that you may be in the altar.  He was on earth so that you may be in the stars.  He had no other place in the inn, so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. He, being rich, therefore became poor for your sakes, that through his poverty you might become rich.  There fore his poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord's weakness is our virtue. He chose to lack for Himself, that He may abound for all.” - St. Ambrose

Its not about us!

I've occasionally made the jest that my memoirs could be entitled "Raising Father." After all, at home I spend my days picking up after little boys, errant toys and school assignments. Not so different from picking up errant prayer-books and stray altar-ware in the church. Set the table, do the dishes... not glamorous tasks, no matter how we may dress ourselves up to do them.

Once upon a time, a wise priest told some of us that the job of the altar party was to be in icon through which worship could be aided... an icon, what a lofty goal. He is right, but it seems more accessible to consider ourselves a window- invisible by itself but pointing beyond to what's on the other side. Visible invisibility.

Occasionally, while tripping through some liturgical oddity or another I find myself pondering that idea visible invisibility. After all, there is much to be done with dignity and order, but its not about us.

To be present, ready.
Invisible and unobtrusive.
The servant in the King's presence chamber.
To be Visible and incarnational.
Flexible and flowing.
Icon unseen.
Would that it were easy as all that.

On Alban and Missionaries

Missionaries get all the fun. They get to go to exotic places, eat exotic food, hang out with exotic people who need Jesus in an entirely incomprehensible language. Sometimes they even get to have exotic near-death experiences and catch exotic diseases. And when they come home everybody looks at their slides, even the people who groaned at your vacation slides in equally exotic places. In fact churches will even interrupt their Sunday school programs for their slides and talks and appeals for money.

But alas, we can't all be missionaries. Some of us have the unglamorous jobs of earning money, showing up for church, pretending the choir is on key, mopping floors, living domesticated lives. And sometimes we wonder, how in our domesticatedness can we be like those missionaries out in the wilds.

I spent today at St. Alban's Church and the history of the saint was alluded to briefly. But for those of you who may not roam in Anglican clergy circles, perhaps St. Alban is not someone you know well. He's certainly not on the Billboard top forty all time best known saints.

Alban was a pagan, which is pretty much how all the celtic saints started out. You kind of get the impression that Alban was just living his domesticated life, sweeping his floors, when BAM this priest shows up on his doorstep with a few fleets of Roman Soldiers on his tail. He lets the guy in and in the course of letting this fugative missionary priest in to his little domestic scene (in order to escape yet another missionary exotic adventure, death by Roman Military) Alban hears the Gospel.

And knowing himself, new convert that he was, ill equipped to be a missionary, he puts on the priests cloak and takes the place of the priest when the Romans draw near and is martyred. Alban, without ever leaving home becomes the first Christian martyr in the British Isles. But moreover, without ever leaving home, he enables the missionary to spread the Gospel a bit further through the land.

Today nobody remembers the name of the missionary. But they name churches after Alban. Alban, in his little domestic scene, in his one moment of glory, was the reflection of Christ who took on our death when he took on the cross.

I think that's important for those of us who don't go to exotic places. Jesus is the one who is sent, but he is also the great sender. We can reflect him whether we are obediently going out, being sent or whether we obey a call to a more domestic life and remain faithful to sending the faithful.

Kind of cool, that Alban.

A bizarrely domestic posting...

Totally out of place here, but a couple of people have asked for the "Drunken Pumpkin" bread recipe, just because it sounds interesting. So here it is:

2 c. flour
1 c. brown sugar
1 T. baking powder
1 T ground cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/8 t. ground ginger
1/2 c. milk
1 c. canned or home processed pumpkin (add extra spices for home processed if you like)
2 eggs
1/3 c. shortening or butter (mmmm... butter)
1 generous shot of rum, brandy cognac or other "warm" spirits
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 c raisins (optional)

I know the orginal recipe from which this is modified probably has instructions on how and when to add what, but who reads that stuff? Just throw everything willy-nilly in the stand mixer and mix. Bake at 350 for about an hour (less if making small loaves).

I like to top the loaves with cinnamon and sugar or some sort of crunchy caramel sprinkles I got from Pampered Chef when once roped into a party somewhere.... sprinkle on before baking so it sticks. yeah, you knew that.

Ghosts of sermons past....

I recently came across a pile of church bulletin inserts, the ones with the Scripture passages on them, on which I had made notes while listening to sermons during the three years I served at Church of the Nativity. None of the words in bold are my own. The preachers are rarely noted in my scribblings but could be any of the regular staff who were there at the time. But I though a few excerpts were worth sharing, for the good of the order.

"When we start trying to separate the holy from the secular, it is almost impossible." I have no idea what the context of that quote was, though I'm sure there was some riff on separatist movements humming in the background. But the quote is a worthy one. While indeed we can go on about how it is not for us to judge the world, to separate out the holy from the profane, that is God's work... the more interesting aspect of this was the occasion of the sermon: Christmas Day. It is telling, is it not, that man seems to have this inborn need to try to separate ourselves off as holy, to draw the line beyond which there be dragons, to divide the spoils on behalf of the king, when it was Jesus himself who left the realm of holy to join the world of the secular, profane.

"The 'if it feels good' generation yields to the 'whatever' generation." The background hum here was the idea that America is entering a period of "nervous breakdown" and eventually "suicidal tendancies." How does the Gospel preach to a people whose motto is "whatever" and how do we give good news to those who relish their corporate depression. The preacher's answer was in self sacrificial love, which in a culture of depression both speaks to the self loathing tendancy but also stands out sharply with the naval gazing tendancy, both of which seem to accompany depression. What if the depressed are right that we're worthless, that we don't deserve what we have... you see, of course they're right, which is why God's grace is such an amazing gift, which is why we give away our honor, our possessions, our love. The preacher noted that apathy feeds depression, so surely the antidote is action. And the preacher notes the need for genuine action, not only lipservice or obligation works. "Let your love be genuine" he cites, and in a depressed cynical culture, nothing else will speak anyway.

God uses the Assyrians and Cyrus though they do not know god. Israel knows god and refuses to be used. (paraphrased) How amazing that God uses all people, even before the time of Jesus. How amazing that when the faithful refuse God, he still continues to show forbearance. How humbling that the outsider is the one who sets the insiders free to do God's purpose. The preacher pointed out that Cyrus came along with alot of messianic language, anointed king, God going before him... not just in his own culture but in the Scriptures. How awesome that an outsider like us could reflect the work of Christ, even before the incarnation. And of course, Christ was the ultimate outsider, though the people never would have expected their messiah be an outsider. He was outside the system of sin and death in order to lead the people to life eternal.

Which brings us full circle to the outsider stepping inside, the holy stepping into the profane, love breaking into the cynical world. Light in the darkness.

Blessed Advent.

Stray marks on paper

I always hated "fill in the bubble" type tests. Even in elementary school, the idea that you had to make perfectly round dark dots with no stray marks that the computer couldn't read made me crazy. I secretly admired the smart-alek kid in fourth grade who, when told to go over his dots with a "fine tooth comb" took out his comb and raked over his completed paper. The paper of course tore. The teacher seemed to come apart a the seams a little too. The kid is now a medical doctor. Good on ya.

One year, in frustration, I just filled out the dots on my test willy nilly, making stray marks wherever I liked. I got called into the office for that one and was forced to fill in a new test form. I hated those tests even more after that day.

Government forms are the same, with their warnings of "do not write below the line"... no stray marks, no creativity, fill in the dots and be done. Do it right or do it over. Our way or the highway. Thanks guys, for caring.

Even little check box forms that don't come with dire warnings aren't really very interesting. As an undergraduate, I earned some of my tuition money doing data entry for the admissions department. As clever as high schoolers think they are, there are really no computer programs to encompass their wit, remarks, and petty rebellions. Care not to share your racial background? Data entry will just record you as "white" since there's no place in the computer for "not telling." (Its a reasonable guess; nobody in America has less ethnic pride and fewer scholarship incentives to reveal their race than the middle class white kid.) Got an interesting hobby you want to share? The data entry slaves might get a kick out of it, your card might even be passed from one workstation to the next, but after that it goes no further. There's no computer entry for your witty little hobbies, your unusual characteristics. Cookie cutter or nothing.

As a culture we begin to ignore little relational things, stray marks on a page. Growing up in the computer age, the age of stranger danger, the fill in your bubble and keep your head down era, we've stopped admiring the artistic goofiness that is the person next to us.

Christmas shopping kind of gets to be the same way; buy off the rack, enjoy the cookie cutout gift, smile, spend. Do it all next year. Y'all know I'm working at getting outside of that, digging deeper... and in doing so I found an order form (for slippers and other warm fuzzy things) that read as follows:

SHEPHERD'S FLOCK'S OFFICIAL ORDER FORM (Footnote 1: says "As opposed to our “unofficial” order blank which is whatever piece of paper you can come up with. We are people who can read (as long as it is
legible). Avoid things like toilet paper, paper towels, etc. as the ink bleeds. “Post-Its” with the order details attached to your check are quite acceptable.")

Ha, stray marks with a sense of humor. Its not every day I find an order form that I read out loud to my husband before sending it in. (For the curious, the rest is here, in PDF format.)

What followed are a series of brief exchanges in which I learned such things as: the guy that makes my slippers owns a cat, has an interest in politics, and think rabbits are too much work. Further search of their website shows an appreciation for stray marks on a page along with a significant portion of society who seems to also enjoy making stray marks, being creative or just downright goofy. I don't doodle on order forms (mostly because all my drawings look like the rabbits made them) but those who do show their humanity, their reality.

And our conversation started simply because I responded to his postscript with a postscript of my own... He wrote to tell me my order was shipping, but he wrote (and I read) below the mythic line. Signature line: "It is so darn hard to do email with a cat sitting in your lap" enticed me to talk to strangers, to reply "PS. Its also hard to email with a rabbit on your lap." And a stranger replied, related, and became a former stranger.

The slippers I ordered are warm and well made... but its the stray marks on paper that last longest.

Cracked Walls

I went to WalMart today, which I almost never do.  A few random thoughts that floated through my head:

• Can’t find a coffee grinder… do people not grind their own coffee anymore?  Everything’s been taken over by those over priced single cup, premeasured hermetically sealed monstrosities.  Too few variables in those things.  No common pot for making enough to share.  Does that reveal something about our grab and go society?  (As I write this, I’m drinking a cup of home roasted coffee that I came dangerously close to setting on fire the other day… yeah, it tastes a bit smokey… oh well, it has its charm but not its intended quality.)
• The louder the Christmas music blared the more depressed I became.  Especially the “you better be good because Creepy Santa is watching you” theme.  Since when does Christian culture equate to “be good and get stuff.”  I could have sworn the opposite was the faith: we’re not good, we deserve nothing, God gives, we can’t.
• Everything I picked up was made in China…. read down a few blog posts.  ‘Nuff said.  I came in for socks, I left without them.  No non-Chinese socks to be found.  At least not ones worth buying.
• There were entire lines of products intended to be gifts for my stuff.  My ipod has no needs.  Its an inanimate object.  It will  whatever it is without accessories.  There were also tons of things nobody needs being snapped up by unthinking people.  Synthetic pillow pets that serve neither as pillows nor as pets; trinkets and gadgets that clutter and get used once a year if at all.  Garage sale fodder.
• I did find a sweater.  A boring thing.  Not made in China.  Made instead in Bangladesh.  Yea. Exploiting sweatshop laborers for a sweater I don’t actually need.
• Nothing here is real… those words kept going through my mind over and over as I looked on at slick packaging, advertizing galore, phony “jolliness” blared over the speakers, synchronized television displays,  color, shazaam, kitsch and glassy eyed unquestioning customers that never question it all.
• It was awkward to walk from WalMart to meet my family nearby. The dug out shored up landscape was made for cars, not feet. Instead of taking the direct route, I had to go the other way, walk in the road, pretend to basically be a car. Human feet were not expected.
• I understand the premise of the Matrix movie; stay in and feel good, get out and understand what’s really going on.  The truth hurts.  Some days I can live right alongside the rest of the world, happily doing stupid stuff.  Some days I’m outside the Matrix, out of sync with “normal” and knowing that being depressed is the right thing to be.
• I walked out of WalMart empty handed, an hour wasted, and depressed.  Why do so few people question this futility? 

After WalMart I stopped off at my mother-in-law’s house… there’s a crack in the brick wall at her house with flowers growing right out of the wall.  About 18 inches off the ground, I have no idea where their roots could be, but the little Johnny-jumpups are indeed jumping right out of the wall, still blooming a little in the southern climate.  Okay, so its not the best thing that could ever happen to her wall, but its made me smile.  Beauty unexpected, out of place.  Sterility betrayed by beauty.  Cracks indeed in the walls.  

And I guess that’s the Gospel; hope emerging from the cracks in the foundation.

The Other Side of the Story

I thought some of you might be interested in reading the North Korean side of the story... Its boilerplate North Korean rhetoric; nothing unusual here except perhaps that they informed their people as the news was breaking instead of the usual weeks of media delay that would be typical of the propaganda machine. I'm concerned here that the North is attempting to build a case for war, but the North is always building that case among its people. Nothing new under the sun.

calendar>>November 23. 2010 Juch 99



KCNA Blasts US Moves to Tighten Its Alliance with S. Korea


Pyongyang, November 23 (KCNA) -- It is reported recently that the U.S. is working hard to tighten its alliance for aggression with south Korea in all aspects.

The U.S. worked out new "defence cooperation guidelines" on the basis of upgrading its alliance with south Korea with its level and prospect in the new century in view. High-ranking officials of the U.S. Administration in public appearances asserted the importance of a new alliance with south Korea.


There came into being a strategic consultative mechanism for commanding a U.S.-Japan-south Korea force for actual operations and military consultative systems for various branches of arms were rounded off under the pretext of coping with the non-existent "threat" from the DPRK.


It was against this backdrop that the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would stage the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises in the West Sea of Korea at any cost with its nuclear-powered carrier George Washington involved.


The evermore undisguised moves of the U.S. to tighten the above-said alliance hint at a new phase of unchallenged military action to put not only the Korean Peninsula but the whole of the Asia-Pacific region under its control.


The peninsula is the main target of the U.S. Asian strategy from a geopolitical point of view.


In pursuance of its political and military purposes the U.S. is desperately driving the south Korean bellicose forces into confrontation with the DPRK and thereby pushing the situation on the peninsula to an extreme phase.


The Korean Peninsula is the region where the north and the south are standing in acute confrontation and it is surrounded by big powers. It is, therefore, the strategic calculation of the U.S. to overpower its military rivals and realize its ambition for dominating the above-said region, taking advantage of the role of south Korea, its junior ally.


This is clear from what was stated in the new "defence cooperation guidelines." What merits most serious attention is that these guidelines call on the U.S. and south Korea to boost the regional "cooperation" through bilateral, tripartite and multilateral activities while maintaining what it called "firm combined defence posture" on the peninsula.


What should not be overlooked, in particular, is the fact that the guidelines envisage expanding the scope of their application by including Northeast Asian countries in the "defence cooperation" projects, going beyond the limit that "both sides shall defend themselves from outside armed attack" stipulated in the "U.S.-south Korea mutual defence treaty" concluded several decades ago.


The above-said facts provide an irrefutable testimony that the U.S. strategic scenario for carrying out its strategy for dominating the Asia-Pacific region is at the phase of its implementation.


The moves stepped up by the U.S. to tighten the alliance under the fictitious "threat" from the DPRK are nothing but a serious military provocation as they drive the situation into an extreme phase.


The U.S. is the arch criminal threatening the peace and stability of the region including the peninsula and making the hostile relations persist there.


The above-said moves of the U.S. should be held in check at once.

Where I wish I lived.

Sixty degrees and sunny. The perfect day to pick up a few odds and ends at the local mom-and-pop grocer for breakfast. Perfect for a stop in the local nobody ever heard of these guys coffee shop for a cup of slightly too weak but decent brew. Perfect day for walking amongst the fallen leaves past the tree planted in my grandmother's memory, down past houses I knew by the owner's names, once upon a time thirty years ago.

I always wanted to live here. When I was little all my friends lived in town, and I lived too far out to walk over and play. Now that I'm grown, I still crave walkable towns where the coffee shop owner knows me by name and the houses are all tiny and there are sidewalks everywhere, but its perfectly safe to just walk in the street too.

My mother-in-law lives across the street from my grandmother's old house; my children visit grandma on the same street I did. The "old man" who I remember from my childhood is still there, but he doesn't seem to have aged. He's still an eccentric old man, though my kids won't remember him as I did. Last time I was here, I talked to a nameless neighbor on the corner. I don't know him, but I remember that he gave the best candy on the street on Hallowe'en. I remember the little shop where grandma had her hair blued. And the houses where here blue-haired friends lived, now long gone. An old man stood behind me in the grocery store; when I lived near here, he must have been somewhat young. The old ladies in the store were not old then, they were my friends' parents.

It is strange how this town seems to have stepped outside of time. The houses, trees, streets don't age. The grocery looks the same. The drugstore has changed hands and is a coffee shop, but it still looks like the drugstore. But the people age and change, one generation steps up and takes the place of the one before. My grandparents are gone, but their friends faces are echoed in the next generation of townspeople. Ageless.

My mother-in-law blogs about this town. I'm glad she lives here. It is the closest thing I have to a hometown. I think I'd still like to live here. But part of its charm is that at the end of the week, I'll leave... back to another world, where time marches at a more typical pace.

Safety, sterility, and the general store

Today I ended up needing gas in Nowheresville, PA (also known as Ruff Creek). The interstate sign promised me a BP station (and nothing else) and the car was down to one bar... so off we went to the local BP.

The BP sign was fresh and green, bright cheery 21st century advertising. We're used to it. But what was unusual was how it stood out, garish against the muted landscape. Expecting the standard gas and go quickie mart next to the filling station, I was a little surprised to see that the sign next to the BP sign, was a rusted 1950's vintage general store sign. The building itself was a little dilapidated, but having need of a bottle of water, I wondered in. Passing the bags of dog food on display that gave the shop the air of a feed store and opening the door, I was greeted by a scent I couldn't quite place. After a few steps, my foot slipped a little, a quick adjustment, a look down... the wooden floor had recently been oiled. Ah, that was the scent. A fifties era painted tin sign told me I could get my hunting license at the counter. It was an old-fashioned country store, and I had stepped back in time.

Most people would drive on by. If my tank hadn't been empty I would have too. Surely no one other than the fuel desperate would have much reason to pull off at metropolitan Ruff Creek (no doubt pronounced "crick"). Surely passers by don't often wonder into general stores whose exterior blends into the landscape, where the dilapidated facade fails to call to strangers. But inside the welcome was warm, the atmosphere worth the trip alone.

I found the contrast shocking. How long has it been since you stepped into a general store with fresh oiled wood floors? Usually they floors are all the same, industrial tile. The goods are all the same, prepackaged, premeasured.

In Pennsylvania, farmers markets are endangered by legislation which tries to measure out food "safety" so that large corporations give us our pre-packaged, premeasured sterility. While local famers, markets out of time, wood floored general stores are driven out of business by the same "safety" concerns that drove used clothing stores to close over legislated fears over lead paint on children's buttons. (If my kid is eating buttons I have bigger worries than a microscopic amount of lead.) We worship at the idol of safety, sterility, conformity.

Relationships aren't safe... exchanging greetings with my favorite Korean grocier, the general store clerk, the farmer who grew my produce... but relationships, and the risks involved in them, actually produce more safety than TSA, FDA, the CDC or whatever government agency has been charged with "public safety" today. Instead of stabbing an innoculation for every passing germ into my children's and my own flesh, buying soulless prepackaged measured "nutrition" and shopping only in brightly lit, standard issue Targets and Walmarts, I'd rather support the local mom-and-pop shop, eat a little dirt along with a fresh garden carrot, slurp up a little local honey from the county fair.

And maybe in the short-run I may catch a little bug now and then, but in the long run, germs build immunities... and that's a metaphor for life.

11/18/2005

A stranger
A sister,
A mother unknown.
Across a room, across a globe.
While others laugh, she has lost.
While others smile, she mourns.
Time slips away, he grows unseen.
A letter unread,
A whisp of memory,
A song, a name, a cry.
Does he know her name?
Would he know her face?
Will he speak her tongue someday?
To meet,
To know,
To hear,
To love,
A stranger, a mother unknown.

Lies my culture told me.

So I guess this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the birth control pill. From time to time someone references this in the media, as it floats into my email inbox. It all leaves me to wonder, what is there to celebrate? I'm a GenX woman, "the pill" has always existed in my world. It is taken for granted by people my age. Its hard for people who hold certain truths to be self-evident to realize that the premise is based on a lie, but my generation believes the freedom of the pill to be self-evident indeed, it was the woman's Declaration of Independence, back in its day. And so, what follows are the lies my culture has told me.

The pill will give you freedom. Ah freedom from slagging around a gaggle of children. But instead the modern American household is now a two income home, mom is chained to an office as much as dad is. And in the meantime someone still has to do the laundry. Women are more stressed out, scheduled, and burdened now than they ever were. So much for freedom.

You don't have to risk 'losing your body.' I love this one... the idea that children make you fat. Clinically proven, its the pill that causes weight gain. Birthing babies may cause some changes, but wider hips are nothing, a few curves here and there; the alternative is actual weight of the kind that puts women at risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes.

Birthing more than a culturally accepted number of children cannot be healthy. In fact, pregnancy and breastfeeding reduce a woman's risk of a number of cancers. Birthing and breastfeeding, it seems, are actually good for our bodies. Since when is it healthy to dose our bodies with hormones that don't belong there?

Women have more important things to do. Like what? Earning the almighty dollar? Promotions don't give you grandchildren, and corporate awards don't give you snuggles. You live, you earn, you die, and you can't take it with you. With kids, there's someone to outlive you, from generation to generation.

Women don't need men. Nope, with the pill women can just use them. But funny, we've become a culture of women who seem to need someone to use.

Birth control is good for families. Oh, except for all the little family members hormonally aborted. Never mind them.

When are we going to stop buying into this rubbish and see the truth? Hormonal birth control hurts women.

A Sermon on Revelation 7 for the Feast of All Saints (transferred) with baptism.

One of the things that I’ve often been asked is what is my favorite passage of Scripture. And often I’ve felt that choosing a favorite verse or chapter is like choosing a favorite child; after all, we’re supposed to love them all, right? But of course, we don’t love them all. There are passages we just don’t understand, would rather not have to preach or teach on, or find somehow distasteful. We’re fallen people, imperfect and limited, and so we fail to wrestle perfectly with the full implications of the Scripture. For a lot of Christians, the book of Revelation is one of those parts of the Bible that they’d rather not approach. It frightens us, it’s disturbing. The images are vivid but full of unknowns. It doesn’t help that the plot is so readily made into an apocalyptic horror movie and modern writers have abused the text to sell sensationalistic novels.
The truth is that over the years, I’ve come to realize that I don’t love every passage as I should and there are passages I love more than others, even though I ought to love them all. And one of my very favorite passages of Scripture is in Acts, where the officials at Thessalonica accuse the Christians of “turning the world upside down.”
For the record, my other favorite passage of Scripture is in Genesis in which Joseph tells his brothers that what they intended for evil against him, God has intended for good. You might wonder why I have chosen those two verses as my favorites; they’re certainly not the cuddly usual choices. But the reason I love those two passages is that the one, what man intends for evil, God redeems for good, is the summary of the entire Bible. Man intended evil in the garden, throughout the course of human history, and most supremely at the cross of Christ. And it is at that point of utter darkness, on Good Friday, that God turns the world upside down. The son of God who existed from eternity dies. The crucified and buried Christ raises himself from the grave. Time-bound and mortal man is given release into eternity. Christ was scarred to make us perfect, he became sin who knew no sin, so that we might be raised to life immortal. In other words, what man intended for evil, God redeemed for good, and thus the whole created order is turned upside down.
It is the upside-down-ness that is our lens for viewing the Book of Revelation. I know that a lot of American Christians shy away from Revelation. In almost every church I’ve served, there has been at least one brave soul who admits that they have not and do not plan to ever read that book! And I don’t think I’ve ever had someone answer the “favorite passage” question with: “Revelation! I just LOVE Revelation!” Especially not stuff like we find here in the first few chapters.
And most of us know the sixth chapter in the context of apocalyptic horror movies. Even without the movies, the Bible’s words are vivid, shocking. The whole company of heaven is gathered around to read the scroll, the last will and testament of one so great that none can be found worthy to break the seal. And then, one by one, the lamb, surrounded by the strange and mysterious and powerful company of heaven, begins to open the seals. The tension builds, as each seal is broken. Each seal brings forth an angel at the ready with power to harm, destroy. The armies are lined up, but not unleashed. War, death, famine. At the fifth seal the souls of those who have been martyred for daring to proclaim God’s truth cry out, how long? How long must evil reign? How long must the suffering go on? The faithful cry out, the sun takes on mourning clothes, the skies are rolled away and left naked of the stars.
This is what people think of when they think of Revelation. Terror. But it is the nature of our God, remember, that the world is turned upside down. The powers of destruction are held back by an angelic hand, as the sixth seal is broken. While the pressure of the narrative builds, while terror is added upon terror, the Lord interrupts the story. He musters his army, marks them for his service. No assurances are given of safety; for God’s people are about to face a great tribulation.
More and more the pressure builds. And just when we think the top is going to blow off the whole thing, St. John says he looked, and he sees something startling. In the middle of the darkness, he sees an image of those clothed in white robes. Amid the terror, he sees those who are at peace. The same God who musters his army is the one at whose throne they are permitted to worship, who wipes the tears from their eyes, who is their shade against the scorching heat of the sun. Famine is at the gates, but these will neither hunger or thirst. It is like a painting, dark and brooding, and in the middle is a stark contrasting point of light. Who are these?
These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation.
Americans are afraid to read Revelation because we’re afraid of tribulation. We are afraid to suffer, to take risks, to die. We say we want to live for Jesus, but we don’t understand that the only faith worth living for is one which is also worth dying for. We are afraid to read Revelation because we cannot identify with these who come out of the great tribulation, because we ourselves are too timid to enter the tribulation at all.
But Jesus says, blessed are the persecuted. Again, the world is turned upside down. Blessed are the persecuted. Not only in the sky by and by, but blessed here and now are the persecuted. I think we, in the comfort of our American churches, can easily turn a blind eye to the reality of persecution in the world. We don’t want to see it for the same reason we’re afraid to read the book of Revelation, we are afraid that these things could happen to us. We like to think that persecution no longer happens in the world, but persecution is not limited in time or geography. But in all times and all places, blessed are those who are persecuted for the love of Jesus. In the prison, Paul and Silas were singing hymns. Even today in China and Iraq, Christians are imprisoned and the hope which they have is reflected in the singing of hymns. And by this hope, despite the high cost in their countries, many prison guards have become Christians. In the face of imminent death, Stephen announced that he saw angels. For God did not abandon him to suffer death alone. In North Korea, Christians are placed in prison camps, never allowed to look at anything other than the ground. Their backs are permanently stooped over. And in North Korea, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, and many other places, even today, Christians face death for our faith but never alone.
Following Jesus means persecution, for we follow him to the cross. It was by his cross that the world was turned upside down. Jesus who existed from before eternity, the immortal one, died on that cross. The world was turned upside down. Jesus a man, in frail flesh, crucified and buried, retained the power and the authority to raise himself from the grave. The world was turned upside down on Easter Sunday. Christians are to turn the world upside down because Jesus turned the world around. From death to life eternal, from fallen and frail to whole and perfected. Jesus turned the world upside down, changed the very fabric of the universe. And it should come as no surprise that he rightly demands no less than our very lives in response. If we withhold ourselves from him, there is no hope for us. But if we are his, there is no need to fear what the world calls fearful. Our world is upside down, even persecution becomes a means of his blessing and there is no such thing as hopelessness.
Today, we will welcome into the household of God a new child of God. Small and helpless, we want to believe that nothing will ever harm her, that her days will be long and pleasant. It may even be offensive to you that we would talk about persecution at such a time as this. But we welcome her, not only into our little congregation, but into the whole family of God. Our people will become her people. Her family will now go back through the generations to a people who stood bravely in persecution, remained faithful in times of plenty. She will carry the legacy of those who lived imperfect lives devoted to a perfect savior. And while no one can promise that she will never face adversity and even persecution, the promises of God have never been broken; that she will be filled with hope, her world turned upside down.
For those of you, therefore, who remain afraid of the words of Revelation, this is my advice. Know that this God of ours has turned the world upside down. The powers of destruction that are promised to be unleashed are unleashed on all the evils of our world. What harms you, causes you agony, grief, fear, these things will be destroyed in the last days. Even death itself will be trampled down. The process isn’t pretty, but he does not leave you hopeless even in the murky midst of your troubles and the depth of your tribulations.
I find it helpful, if you are taking on reading these things for the first time, to begin at the end. To know how the story comes out. I think this is what God wants for us, to know that his promise is full of hope and beauty. Read the end first, and then read the rest with the knowledge that it marks the destruction of all that is wrong and evil, all persecution and plague, and that even if you stand in the very midst of the chaos, you do not stand alone.
And, in the words of Revelation after all that is wrong with this world has been destroyed, “the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and its leaves were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.”
Today we baptize a new sister, whose true destiny is indeed to reign with Christ forever and ever.

Beyond words, just beyond words.

A few weeks ago, ToAllTheWorld blogged about Calvary Church's so called "Seusscharist" and I was beyond words. It took me days, really, before I could even say anything about this, and then words still were inadequate.

But it's Pittsburgh. I have friends in Pittsburgh. I care about what they do here, even if this is a TEC church and should therefore no longer be my concern. And really, I wanted to hold out the opinion that maybe this wasn't as tacky, pedantic and condescending as it looked.

I'm sorry. I was wrong. I would very much like to say that I was wrong in my assumption that a "Seusscharist" was a bad idea. That's not the kind of wrong I was. Calvary now has their liturgy, all of it, online here. I can't say I've read it all. So far I've not gotten past the "readings." But here's an excerpt:

The Collect for Purity, those ancient words "to you all hearts are open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid" has become this:

Almighty God
to you all hearts are open wide,
All of our want-wanting in you we confide
and from you our secrets we just can not hide:
Clean the thinks of our thumpers
And we shall be happy jump-jumpers.
So, by the help of your Holy Ghost,
Your Name we may deservingly boast;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I think I'm going to vomit in my striped hat.

Words fail, again when the first lection is the Book of Yertle the Turtle (no kidding) and for those of us on the ACNA side of the ugly divide that brings to mind a rather less than glamorous blog post from Jim Simons of TEC-PGH likening our Bishop Duncan to that same tyrannical turtle. I shall spare you that link. Hopefully Calvary's connection there was coincidence, but it makes my stomach roll just to think on it.

If you can handle more, the "Confession" is certainly note-worthy:

God, we have wronged you
And we need to say boo-hoo
For the things we did and didn’t do
We are not content
we want to repent
One hundred percent
Oh so sorry we say
Won’t you forgive us this day;
So we can walk in your way
Absolution
All Powerful God have mercy on yous
And forget the sins of we Whos
Keep you from all strife
And lead you into new life

I'm sorry friends in TEC. I don't know what to say, what comfort to offer. With regard to Seusscharist, my mamma done taught me...
if I can't say anything nice, I musn't say anything at all.

I remain speechless.

Vines and Branches

By reason of circumstance, I find myself pondering out the John 15 narrative of Jesus as the true vine and us as the branches. I guess it is what my friend Paul referrs to as a blinding flash of the obvious, but there's more to this passage than the idea of being attached onto Jesus. There's a profound statement here about community, who we are, not just who I am.

I think we like to imagine that we are the vine, and Jesus is the soil. We're rooted in Christ, we say. We take our nourishment directly from him. Me and my Jesus. We're tight, me and him, we like to believe.

But when we do that, we promote ourselves into his place. I am the vine, not Jesus.

But if Jesus is the true vine, we are still tight with him, still taking our nourishment from him. But the image is less individual. We are not one by one rooted in the soil, but we are all part of one whole, of which he is the center, the support, the source. All nourishment still comes through and from him, but we are not individually rooted, we are grafted in, one by one still, but all grafted into the same source. One source, one life, one vine.

If Jesus is the true vine and we are the branches, we also look like him. When we promote ourselves to vine and say we're rooted in Jesus (as the soil), we excuse ourselves from bearing resemblance to the source. But the vine has the same texture, only greater, bears the same leaves, only more. The vine bears the same nature as the branches, but reaches farther, nourishes the branches, supports the whole structure.

There is no idividualism in branch-ness as there is in vine-ness. Jesus can, as the vine, exist on his own, without us. But as the branch, we have no life in our selves. As the branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine... you know the passage. I suppose there are other vines that exist apart from the true vine, but what sort of fruit do the bear? Only the true vine endures.

I don't really know why I'm blogging this, except as a way of thinking out loud. I guess the revelation that modern individualism does promote us to being our own vine, and that if Jesus must be the vine then such individualism is heresy. I guess I'm just trying, yet again, to get into the ancient mind.

Baseball Haiku

A swing and a miss--

Ball or strike, who can decide?

Redlegs lose again.

 

You know, I almost wish they’d come in second for the season.  Then we would have had an unspoiled though lesser victory, the first winning season in ten years.  To lose at home in the first post season game in the Great America Ball Park, to not even score.  Just sad.   Well, maybe in another ten or fifteen years, we can actually win a post-season game or two. 

Big market baseball wins again, gotta be a hollow victory for Philadelphia.

Birth Control and Beasts of Burden

I was having a conversation with a friend tonight, and I have no idea how the conversation took this turn (you know those type of conversations) except that we were discussing the Pro-Life movement, abortion, and society. And I pointed out that the ancient bedoins used a kind of interuterine device on their camels, to prevent them from being incapacitated by birthing and nursing. They placed a stone in the camel's uterus, so that little baby camels wouldn't prevent would-be mamma's service as a beast of burden.

Which does lead one to wonder what the real impetus behind the feminist movement might be. After all, women mustn't "sacrifice" their careers (burden bearing) for child bearing.

Sounds snarky, I know. But look at what our culture has become since women turned from child bearing to burden bearing. For a while, we all lived on one income (male as wage earner or combined family business model) and we did quite well. Then women joined the burden bearing and more material possession came to be seen as accessible luxury and then necessary to our families. Now most American families would say that it is difficult if not impossible for the family to "get by" on one income. Inflation, joblessness, materialism; these are the burdens we bear.

Birth control and feminism have turned women into camels, who have a load other than life to bear. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? So much for women's liberation.

A random thought

We recently added two bunnies to our household. They're only four months old and very cute. But they have our littlest guy worried. He asked me a couple of times this week which one was the mommy bunny, and today he was able to articulate a little more of what was going on inside his mind. When he figured out that neither bunny was the mommy, he was desperately concerned. Where was their mommy? He asked me over and over, trying to discern where the bunnies' mommy was, who would take care of them, who would feed them.

It's really sweet, but his concern began to border on the unusual, and I wondered if he was reading just a little of his own life into these bunnies, in that non-articulatable manner of a preschooler. He doesn't ask much where his own birthmother is, but he knows that unlike his brothers, he was never "in my belly" but was "in birthmother's belly." He once told me out of the blue he wished he had been inside my belly. I'm glad he wasn't; I like how he's different from the rest of us in a way that's complimentary, completing.

But he does ask often when we will get to go visit his foster mother in Korea. He wants to take Omma on a field trip, he says. His imagination makes Omma whatever he wants her to be. (In resonse to overheard news of North Korea, he once informed me that Omma has a tank and if the bad guys invade she's not afraid to use it.) I wonder if there's not a little bit of lost bunny in him, though. He knows who is his family, who loves him forever; but even at his young age, he's aware of a missing face at the table too. From the day of his birth, he's had someone to miss. A birth mother, a foster mother... it makes sense that he should show such concern for these helpless little bunnies.

Mercy, anger, and righteous idignation.

I'm admittedly a bit on the conservative side. And so are a lot of my friends. So people assume that I listen to all the typical conservative talking heads. I don't. My instant response when someone asks me if I heard this or that on Glenn Beck or Rush or whoever is a knee-jerk "I don't listen to angry white men." Occasionally that elicits a chuckle from friends who know that there's truth behind the gut reaction; that there's something poisonous about ranting on the radio, no matter what side it comes from.

Today I heard an interesting sermon which began with the question, why are Americans so angry? Injustice and loss have happened at other times and places greater than our own, but Americans are the ones who seem to take our lumps with indignation, even anger, and call it righteous. My first answer to the preacher's rhetorical question is that Americans have a sense of entitlement that the world has never really known. If we feel entitled, we can baptize our anger into righteous indignation and think ourselves pure.

But the sermon went on quickly to draw out that Americans are angry because we do not know how to reflect the mercy that God has given us. If we were a people of grace and mercy, these things would, by their nature crowd out anger. Believing the best in one another, exercising the power to forgive when finding the worst in one another, showing mercy. It is true, mercy and anger do not easily coexist.

But mercy comes from having received mercy. Entitlement and mercy are the result of two opposing views of ourselves. Feelings of entitlement exalt the self, believing that we deserve a perfect world because we ourselves are, well fill in the blank: good, hardworking, superior in some way. But a mercy mentality means that we understand that we require mercy. On the way home from church an old line from a Star Trek (yes, Star Trek preaches) episode came to mind, where the disembodied alien voice referred to the humans as "Ugly. Ugly bags of mostly water." If in fact we are ugly, ugly bags of mostly water, what good are we? Why are we worth saving, worth dying for? Surely in God's eyes we are, well not ugly for he did call us good, but nothing more exquisite than a bag of mostly water. Why offer mercy, why send a son? Why take on flesh at all? Mercy understands that, far from superior and entitled, we are in fact spiritually ugly, and that God took on our frailty to make us beautiful. Instead of being entitled we are not worthy, yet we are still richly blessed. That's mercy.

It's healthy for us to acknowledge in our prayers that we are not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs under God's table, and yet this the same God whose property it is always to have mercy. It should come as no surprise that we who are unworthy are banished from picking crumbs under his table, but it should come as a holy astonishment that instead of throwing us into the street, he pulls out from under the table and sets a place for us among his honored guests. We didn't earn the seat, it was freely given.

Americans are a prideful people who want to earn what we get and keep what we earn. I can't find fault in that, it is merely justice. But I also have to understand that on the day of judgment, the last thing I want is justice. I much prefer to lean on mercy.

In The Land of Invisible Women

Islam is, without any shadow of a doubt, fundamentally incompatable with Christianity. The one says that Christ was not crucified, for Islam considers Jesus a prophet but cannot handle the shame that is the cross; the other hinges upon the historical truth of the crucifixion and resurrection. If Christ crucified is the only way to God, then there can be no hope in Islam. Islam, to the Christian is, in fact, a particularly insidious false religion, borrowing much and twisting, changing.

But equally false is the false teacher in Florida who claims to be Christian but speaks not the love that Christ demands but spews angry venom. And yet, in our culture there is a place for this man. I'm not referring to the legality of his actions, for I do believe he has every right to burn any book legally belonging to him, but for his venom. Such a response to the foreigner is a pathetic American tradition. When waves of Irish immigrants flooded the New York job markets, suddenly the Irish were unwelcome. Likewise the Chinese in California during the peak of their immigration. Japanese in World War two, loyal Americans of Asian descent, were herded into concentration camps right here on American soil. And so it should not shock us that in this era it is the Muslim who is the faceless, nameless enemy within our borders.

And how easy it is to persecute the nameless and faceless.

I recently picked up Dr. Qanta Ahmed's book In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom. I'm not sure it is what I was expecting when I bought her book, but I highly commend it to you to read. In this book, the faceless are given names, stories, wit and warmth. Using the veiled, anonymous women of Saudi Arabia, the book does not come out as a scathing review of the unknown, a rally to liberate women whether or not they wish for liberation or see themselves as imprisioned. Instead, the book is a view into the other, a person behind a label, a world not our own. Flat stereotypes are brought into three dimensions; and while stereotypes are easy to label and hate, multifaceted human beings with stories and foibles of their own, are much harder to despise.

The book itself is a view into Islam which the average Christian can never experience. It is a worthy read for that alone. The author seeks neither to vilify nor to extoll, just to understand as an insider her own worldview.

I own a Qu'ran. I won't be relinquishing it to the flames any time soon; neither do I esteem it over other books. Likewise I own a book of Mormon and a few other religious texts from my undergraduate studies in comparative reigions. I don't begrudge any who would wish to burn a Bible, either (for the word of God can not so easy be destroyed... if the word made flesh rose from the dead, surely there is nothing man can do to extinguish the Holy Word) though it is the Word which I esteem as authority, revere as holy. Men have scoffed at the Word before, nothing new changes under the sun.

Pondering Racism and Modernity

I have been told that all middle class Caucasian Americans are racist, and when someone claims not to pay much attention to race, I have heard that person accused all the more of racism.  I try to think that I don’t buy into such cultural training, motivated as it is by self pity among some and thinly veiled noblesse oblige from others.  I neither make racial commentary nor tend to be offended by anything but the most obviously inappropriate comments of others.  There’s just not a racist demon under every rock.

But raising an Asian child has brought out new and intriguing experiences with race expectations.  I don’t much mind when people assume that my youngest is smart because he’s Asian, but I do wonder what races the same people would therefore assume are natively dumb.  After all, if one race is inherently smarter, others must be natural idiots, right?  Darwin thought as much.  I shake my head and wonder.

I have to chuckle and wonder  a little also at the little boy in a kid-run “talent” show who decided that it would be a good idea, an amusing thing, to get up in front of everyone and scrunch up his face calling it his Chinese impersonation.  Okay, kids have no brains.  We did similar things growing up.  I wonder a bit too at his poor mother, who having newly befriended our family, was clearly mortified.  It’s okay, lady, just be aware that there is someone in the room who might be a little more realistic in that impersonation.  We want our children to understand the difference between cluelessness and real malice, and to be able to be comfortable enough in themselves to laugh off the former.  We don’t care to be easily offended.  Really.

But I have to admit I was a bit speechless when speaking with a very new friend, a first generation Korean-Chinese immigrant. and she commented that Asian-American kids are “bananas; yellow on the outside and white on the inside.” 

Why did I cringe a little inside?  Why did her comment catch me flat-footed?   She was simply making a reflection her own subculture; why, as an outsider, does that give me pause?  My only answer is that, as a culture, we’ve lost a sense of casualness about our ethnicities.  We’ve taken race so seriously for so long that we can no longer make honest reflections and casual comments.  This woman was simply reflecting the same comfort in her Asian skin that I would hope my own Asian child would know as he grows up.  And her reflection also revealed that many Asian kids don’t have that comfort and internal self-honesty.  They want to fit in with the American mainstream, they want to become a culture of people who would take pause and cringe at her frank “banana” comment.  The white inside cringes, the Asian outside takes it to heart.

And it makes me wonder, if much more has been lost than has been gained.  While we should certainly be glad for the gains of equal access and the ability to befriend those whose backgrounds are different from ours, as a culture we’ve also lost our sense of humor amid a sense of self-importance.  We’ve lost a casualness about who we are, a sense of comfort; and our discomfort stands in the way of real relationship. 

My youngest is destined to be another cultural “banana” but I hope he’ll be comfortable enough in his Asian skin to have a sense of humor and humility about himself.   Our family’s Celtic ancestry certainly informs his identity.  On the inside, he’ll be as Scottish as his brothers in a lot of ways.  His biases and world-view will likely reflect our own.  Nature and nurture being what they are, he’ll no doubt always reflect his birth parents too, but his life experiences will be western.  While his Korean ancestry forms our family as well, these things have shaped us by our choice; that’s not so for him.   He is who he is, and nobody really has control over who their parents, by birth and adoption, are.  The only question is what we will make of it.

A modest proposal.

If America is, as some claim, a Christian nation, then I think America should put feet on that proclamation. After all doesn't Jesus demand "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?" I propose that the US Congress declare a national month of prayer for each of the twelve most notorious enemy states over the next year AND that the American people (including our government officials who claim to be Christian) then write to the leaders and embassies over the course of the appropriate months and tell them that we're praying for them and want God's blessings for them.

I wonder how that would change our foreign policy.

The County Fair By Day

The sun shines hot on the cheerful fields. No noise from a midway breaks its late summer spell. Only the lowing of cows, the rooster's crow, carry through the air. The animals, all groomed and fresh from showing are escorted back to stalls smelling sweetly of hay. Their owners have decorated their pens, and ribbons adorn the stall gates. A goat quietly attempts to chew his way to freedom while three other goats watch on, peering over the next stall. The rooster again crows loudly.

There are no children running about, only those dressed for showing their livestock, tending their animals. 4-H ribbons scattered about displays. The soft smell of funnel cakes being prepared for the crowds to come.

A short walk from the car. A nod of greeting from the parking attendant, an elderly gentleman with a cane. No cheap prizes, noone enticing my children to play their overpriced games, no crowds or noise or demolition derbies. The fair is softer by day.

My kids are laughing now, as they hear me say I don't care for the noise and hoopla. We'll take them to the fair tonight, but it is yesterday's afternoon walk through the animal stalls and 4-H displays that I prefer. The grounds won't smell so sweet or sound so soft tonight, but this is what my children crave. They want the noise, the bright lights, a child's eye view of the "big city" brought to the countryside. But the freedom to let the smaller ones run ahead a little, to stop and let the goats take your scent, to watch the bunnies' noses twitch, these are the details that the night misses. For me, I prefer the fair by day.

Top ten things I want you to remember (and why)

When I took Greek, my instructor gave us a list of the ten things she wanted us to remember. On the list were nine basic survival rules for dealing with Greek. The tenth thing to remember was "we had fun."

Maybe "we had fun" should be the number one thing, though, because if you remember having fun with what you learned, you're more likely to use the knowledge, be passionate, grow and learn more. Or at least try not to lose it.

Since I'm teaching "Gospel Proclamation for Deacons" again I thought I'd reprise that list, for preachers. So dedicated to this year's crop of deacons-to-be, here is the top ten list of things I want them to remember:

1. You can prepare all you want, pray and craft a homiletic gem; but if you don't speak clearly and project your voice to the whole room, nobody but you will benefit from your work. A beautiful sermon, muttered, is wasted.

2. You can speak eloquently and even receive many compliments and still have a lousy, pointless, or even heretical sermon. Prepare with fear and trembling and a heart rent before God.

3. Most jokes told during sermons are not nearly as funny as the preacher thinks they are. There's a reason professional comedians tend to get paid more than we do.

4. When in doubt, leave it out. If you're not sure about an illustration or you haven't chased the implications of a bright idea through to their end, please don't force your congregation to wonder what on earth you are talking about. Likewise, not everything you learned about a passage needs to be in the sermon.

5. Don’t shy away from difficult texts; sometimes, that’s where the most profound discoveries are to be found.

6. Take passages in context. Assume that the original writer did not have attention deficit problems and really meant the text to come out with that flow of thought.

7. The Holy Spirit can inspire you in the pulpit on a Sunday morning. The Holy Spirit can also inspire you in your study during the week.

8. Talk to the congregation, when appropriate even to individuals within the congregation. It helps them pay attention, and put you at ease.

9. Sermons age rather more like fish than like wine. No matter how good they were the first time, leftover sermons almost always stink. Fresh preparation grows you and helps you own the Scriptures afresh each time, no matter how busy your week was.

10. And yes, remember that we had fun. Love preaching and the people will more likely love listening.

Finishing a thought...

Faithful cross above all other,
one and only noble tree,
none in foliage none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peer may be.

These ancient words came to mind this week as I was percolating my sermon for today. As I read the lesson in Ecclesiasties about vanity and the trinkets we gather, my thoughts turned to slavery and what life looks like without Christ. The preacher is clear that without the Word the life is lost from before conception. And Paul, in Colossians 3 sets the comparison image in even better focus, put off the evil ways and put on the fruits of the Gospel. And as my mind wandered deeper, into meditation and out of sermon, I pondered the fruits of the two different trees in the Garden. Knowledge of Good and Evil, that ancient tree, brings forth the blighted fruit Paul warns against, immorality, deceipt, evil desire, greed. That ancient tree brings forth the wrath of God and stands between us and the tree of life. Genesis 3 makes it clear, man cannot eat from both trees, either he must grow accustomed to the sticky sweet of rotted fruit, or he may eat freely of the tree of life. Never both; for to allow man to live in blighted rottenness forever, consuming both evil and immortality is cruelty.

So in the garden, God removed the tree of life.

The tree of life is promised to us again in the new heaven and earth. In the final two chapters of the Bible, as in the first two, the tree stands prominently in the midst of the Garden, man eating freely of it.

But what about today? I pondered Paul's words, put to death that which is earthly in you... put it to death. Why such severe language? It is because death is the prerequisite for resurrection. Because you are so far from your old slave masters as to be dead to sin, dead to death. So put to death the old master's blighted fruit. Put to death the fruit of the old tree.

But if the tree of life, the new tree to which we are promised access is only in the renewed Kingdom, then all we have is pie-in-the sky religion, and practical everyday spiritual starvation.

But it is the nature of God to take the symbols of this broken world and turn them upside down; thus it is that an instrument of death, of curse, -- cursed, says the Law, is him who hangs on the tree-- to become the tree of life and blessing. The dead wood of the cross becomes the tree of life, the son of God becomes accursed that we might be blessed, death gives way to resurrection and immortality.

It makes sense, then, doesn't it, that Jesus says in John's Gospel that whoever does not eat his flesh will have no part in him, for the fruit which hangs on the tree of life is the Lord himself. He who does not not eat of the tree of life, will surely die. There is no other option.

All of this leads, no doubt, to some very interesting Eucharistic theology, does it not?

A few random thoughts on preaching.

I almost always enjoy preaching. I even, in my own warped sort of way, enjoy short notice preaching and the few times I've thrown away a sermon between services I've gotten really jazzed on the impromptu replacement sermon. Maybe I'm addicted to some sort of endorphin rush or maybe I just like expounding the Scriptures. Some would probably correct me and insist that I just like the sound of my own voice.

But right now I'm feeling really uninspired about Sunday. I've had that feeling before and a little time pressure is almost always the remedy, but the experience is making me wonder just what it is that I actually like about preaching. And what is it about Sunday's lessons that leaves me feeling uninspired.

Sunday's lessons are all about how life can get you down and how we are to be "good people" in the face of what can only be described with modern grunt "meh." It's all about when bad stuff happens to good people and how to go on being good anyway. I hate moralizing. And I have heard way too many pedantic sermons on how bad life is and how we are to play nice that I could scream. There's no way I will allow myself to participate in that nonsense. I have too much pulpit integrity (or arrogance, take your pick) for that.

But there is an element in the Scriptures of "how then should we live," as Paul says. Don't assume I'm on the "free grace, no obligations or expectations" bandwagon. Grace is certainly free, but nonetheless demanding. But there is more to the Gospel than "stuff happens, now go play nice."

And I am very sure I preached a decent enough sermon on these lessons three years (or, gulp! was it six years) ago.

All this makes me wonder what it is I like about preaching. And I think the answer is that I enjoy the many facets of the biblical text, drawing them out, tuning them like a musical instrument, and making them sing for the congregation. The text preaches itself, at least most of the time. I love the feeling that I'm soaring to the heights on the back of the biblical eagle, riding along on a great swooping dance among the clouds, and taking the congregation along with me.

Oh well, if you are in Carnegie this week and find that the sermon soars to the clouds, you'll know that's not the preacher's doing... the preacher grunts along on the ground, wholly unimpressed with herself. Oh well, such an accurate self-assessment is at least a sound beginning.

This just in...

University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs

Published July 09, 2010
| Associated Press

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URBANA, Ill. -- The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.

The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, has taught at the university for nine years. He says his firing violates his academic freedom.

A professor at the university who is also president of the American Association of University Professors agrees. Cary Nelson says teachers are allowed to express their own beliefs.

University spokeswoman Robin Kaler declined comment because Howell's firing is a personnel issue.

The student had a friend register his complaint and has remained anonymous.
(found at foxnews.com)



So much for freedom of speech in our public universities. I could understand this if the man were engaged in something illegal, but the University doesn't seem to understand that they are making a value judgment here. They are promoting the state religion (humanism) and drawing a clear line saying that this man's beliefs are immoral and repugnant to their humanistic religious philosophy. It is more important to them that they promote their ideals than that the basic American liberty to hold and express an opinion counter to the majority be upheld. Oh, if only this were an isolated incident.

Actually, we saw the reverse, the promotion of the closed-minded secular liberalist when little or no academic merit warranted it (or the occasional outcry when such an instructor was not given the undeserved tenure) in my undergraduate school. Granted, not all of the professors were hostile, not even most, but the ones that were seemed to trade on it. And that was fifteen years ago.

My shockingly obvious revelation of the day:
Kids aren't made to be kept.
My eldest is away at service camp, sort of a mission trip youth group trip kind of thing. I expect this to be a remarkable week for him, a chance to explore the world a little without mom looking over his shoulder. Maybe he'll learn a few practical skills. Definitely he'll have a fun time with his friends. I'm almost certain he'll grow up a bit more this week.
But I miss him. We birth (or adopt) them, we raise them, tend them, feed them, love them. Somewhere in the middle of all that, we forget that they aren't really ours.

There But For the Grace of God...

Stumbled across this one today:
Battle Escalates over Homeschooled Child Seized by Swedish Govt
ADF, HSLDA file suit with European Court of Human Rights



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STRASBOURG, France, June 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights Friday asking it to hear the case of a 7-year-old boy seized by Swedish authorities because his parents homeschool.

“Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who is based in Europe. “A government trying to create a cookie-cutter child in its own image should not be allowed to violate this basic and fundamental human right."

"The refusal of Swedish authorities to respect that right has left us no choice but to take this case to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Swedish authorities forcibly removed Dominic Johansson from his parents, Christer and Annie Johansson, in June 2009 after the family had boarded a plane to move to Annie’s home country of India. The officials did not have a warrant nor have they charged the Johanssons with any crime. The officials, say ADF lawyers, seized the child because they believe homeschooling is inappropriate and insist the government should raise Dominic instead.

Social services authorities have placed Dominic in foster care and a government school. Christer and Annie are only allowed to visit their son for one hour every five weeks.
The rest is here.

Similar cases have happened in Germany. I find it particularly cruel that government forces can dictate by force the education of children. It seems to me that parents themselves have the greatest "vested interest" in their children's education and the greatest knowledge base with which to custom design a child's learning experience to the child's maximum benefit. If a parent is willing to sacrifice his own time, monies and effort to educate their child, what cost is that to the society? Unless of course the cause of the culture is one of indoctrination, in which case one can only say that such countries must truly fear that they have given their citizens something against which to rebel.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (moved)

While it isn’t quite the right time of year for “what I did on my summer vacation” reports, I couldn’t resist sharing with all of you what I experienced during my recent trip to Denver, Colorado. I had the opportunity to spend a day at the national offices of Overseas Mission Fellowship (OMF), a mission agency specializing in the unreached people groups of East Asia. God’s timing being what it is, while I was there, I received email from the diocese to the clergy asking us all what our own unreached people group might be. All this together made me ponder on what principles I see at work in our missionary fellowships that might be applicable to the domestic mission field.

The first characteristic that I observed at OMF was that they were perfectly comfortable waiting on the Lord. Here in Pittsburgh, we have a sense of urgency and the intense desire to make an impact for our Lord; but our brothers and sisters at OMF share the same intensity. The waiting, keeping watch, listening, these things are not exclusive of our desire to move forward. Individuals within the OMF structure are transparent in explaining that the system is slow to the point of frustration, but the urgency for the Gospel does not suffer. Slowness comes out of prayer, not fear, intention, not laziness. We may pray a lot in Pittsburgh, but we don’t like to wait, but I think we do realize that prayer is more about listening than speaking.

The result of that intentional listening is the strength of vision and mission shared by the people at OMF. Every step of the vision is articulated to the people (which is something we also do well here in Pittsburgh) and then the people are systematically equipped to fulfill their part in that overall plan. The word of the day was mobilization. Everywhere I went, people articulated the same vision but with their own contributions and enthusiasm because they had been systematically brought along and mentored in their work and faith.

I also observed a sense of community at OMF, not only in the way that they pray together, but in how families were cared for, children welcomed, and joys and burdens are shared. Not only do the staff members come together to pray daily, but they also shared a clear ease with one another that carried easily over to welcoming a stranger into their space. People I had never met before seemed perfectly at ease with me because of our common passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I saw people who trusted and encouraged one another. I saw space given to children (one office sharing perfectly professional pace with a colorful array of toys, and a couple of dedicated kid-in-the-office areas in other parts of the building) and to the artifacts of the Asian peoples who OMF members have a passion to reach for Jesus. All these things, the risks the people were willing to take, the trust they had in one another, and the concerted effort to bring those who are far off near to their hearts were all visible signs of Christ’s love in Christian community.

Third, I saw a culture of adaptability, willing to use whatever tools God presented in order to accomplish the express goal of raising up indigenous leaders for peoples yet unreached. They use the same model domestically while raising up partners in ministry, prayer and financial support, home based leadership. Again came that word, mobilization; we aren’t called to do all of God’s work ourselves, but we are to give ministry away, equip and encourage others, multiply the mission. I suppose it only makes sense that if your entire message is that God has a place for you in his Kingdom, that we must also equip and encourage kingdom citizens to take up the work of the kingdom on earth.

So if we’re thinking of our own unreached people groups, perhaps we can learn to think a little more like missionaries, being passionate, connected, mobilizing and encouraging one another. I am really excited about what I experienced at OMF and I think we have the same potential for building intentional prayerful community here among our leadership and indigenous leadership among the currently unreached of Pittsburgh.