Sacrilicious

2011-08-29T15:02:00.001-05:00

Just Finished:

Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So, by Mark Vonnegut.

His writing style is interesting, but a little frustrating - he is able to tell a story well, and at the same time leave out or allude to things that are coming in such a way that you want to keep reading. A page-turner of a memoir. And somehow the writing seems oddly incomplete - some of the sentences don't seem to be complete somehow, but they are. I don't know how he does that, and don't love it.

The other unsettling thing was that he's a pediatrician and keeps going off on little rants about how bad the health care system is now, compared to when he started as a doctor, which makes me think that things really are bad - I didn't have the basis for comparison that he does. And, a little unsettling for a doctor to have the same sense of frustration I do. Shouldn't doctors have a little more control over the situation? Guess not.

Anywho - there are lots of good parts, too, so overall a recommend. :)

2011-08-23T09:36:00.028-05:00

Church and the Interwebs, Part II

Continuing my thoughts on Here Comes Everybody.

So what are the things that are the essence of the church? On the United Church of Canada's website they describe Five Marks of the Church:

Kerygma (proclaiming)
Didache (teaching)
Koinonia (fellowship)
Diakonia (service)
Liturgia (worship)

It is possible to do all of these things online.

Of course, not all of these things will be as good online as in person, or, the online piece will be better as a reinforcement than as the actual thing. But teaching online, in general, is already a big thing - witness the University of Phoenix. Fellowship online is basically what Facebook is. And podcasts of sermons and livecasts of worship services exist now. Are they a perfect substitute? No. But is the extra effort worthwhile? As you can see, I have more questions than answers at the moment.

2011-08-17T09:31:00.000-05:00

Church and the Interwebs, Part I

I'm about halfway through Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. It's about peoples' ability to organize quickly and easily using the internet, and how that makes a lot of institutions redundant. This is because there used to be a high cost to getting organized, so you needed large institutions to collect the people power to get it done. For example, journalists used to be people connected to publishers who owned printing presses or radio stations or TV studios - the means of producing and distributing information. Now, however, anybody with a cell phone and a web connection can get information out to the entire world instantly. What used to be a tremendous cost is now almost free.

This has me thinking a lot about traditional churches, especially since I'm starting up a church myself. (Here's the website.) What were the difficulties and costs that traditional churches were brought together to overcome? Gathering people into groups, building houses of worship, educated and accountable leadership, economies of scale for overseas mission, and, that's what I can think of right now. Which of these things still require the church as an institution?

On a more personal level, this has implications for the clergy as a profession as well. (Ulp!) Of course, I already knew that, since I know a bunch of people who have become ordained online to do a friend's wedding. But what is the purpose of ordination if what a clergy(man) used to be was one of the most educated people in the village? Knowledge is not a scarcity anymore.

Shirky writes the story of what happened to scribes. Before the printing press, scribes performed the valuable service of maintaining libraries by recopying books. Once people started using printed books, scribes co-existed for a while, but eventually faded out to almost nothing - modern-day calligraphy is about all that's left. Is that the destination of our major institutions, the church included?

2011-08-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

Politician as Person of Faith, Part 97

In this blog post from the Sun, Matthew Brown shares that Archbishop O'Brien urged Martin O'Malley not to support gay marriage based on O'Malley's Catholic faith. This is yet another example of the difficulties presented by separating church and state. (Not that I'm against the separation, of course!)

How does a political person handle this? On the one hand, I look to my faith to shape my decisions and to make me a moral person. And the church has a long tradition of working toward consistency and comprehensiveness in terms of a moral belief system. On the other hand, we have a separate way of judging what is right and wrong in the public sphere, and sometimes that moral code overlaps with religious views, and sometimes not. The US legal system's "belief system" is very much rooted in modernity and the rights of individuals, while those aren't always the first priority for different Christian worldviews.

I'm glad that O'Malley decided in favor of the commonly held view of individual rights.

On a side note, the language of "redefining marriage" that Archbishop O'Brien most likely assumes that marriage is not the union of two equals. Here's a piece from Slate on how gay marriage is good for straight women and men's equality.

2011-08-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

All cuts, no revenue

Now that we have a compromise, I'd like to point out once again that the whole crisis was a tempest in a Teapot, or should I say, in a Tea Party. The debt ceiling gets raised all the time and is something of a formality. Why make a big deal about it now?

The reason, of course, is the 87 freshman Tea Party House Members elected to congress in 2010. I realize that the Tea Party people were as exercised about all the spending during the Bush era, but I really wish they had gotten elected back then to cut spending, rather than trying to force it now at the time when it would actually be more helpful for the government to pump some more money into the economy.

The problem, of course, is that nobody in the Congress really wants to do something to create jobs, because it's not something that the government has a lot of control over, short of directly hiring people a la the Works Progress Administration. Or they could send new block grants to the states to keep all those teachers and police officers employed. That seemed to be helping until the stimulus money ran out.

So, Tea Party freshmen: it looks like spending cuts are in order. When do all the new jobs start?

2011-07-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

Baltimore - More friendly to the car-free?

Here's an encouraging article from the Sun - more people are able to go without or sell their cars thanks to a combo of the Charm City Circulator, Zipcar, their bikes, and other public transit. Great for the earth! Now all we need is a nice heavy-rail system that has more than one line. And connects to the light rail. Such as this one, set to roll out in forty years (see page 8).

2011-07-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

Debt Ceiling Shenanigans

If John Boehner is a moderate, we have a problem

Dan Rodericks pretty much lays out my sense of the politics, knee-jerk liberal that I am. I get the feeling with many of these debates that the people on each side feel as though they are the ones being gamed and the other people are the ones being ridiculous and unreasonable. Otherwise, how could it be that the thing I see as being the obvious solution to the deficit problem - go back to tax rates from the Clinton days - seems to be the very thing House Republicans believe will bring the economy to a crashing halt.

The Christian response to this includes praying for your enemies. I'm doing what I can. It's hard when it looks like the stakes are about to get really high. I wonder when the conversation will turn back to jobs. Unfortunately the best way to create extra jobs short-term is with government spending. There I go again...

2011-07-21T16:51:00.001-05:00

Same-Sex Marriage and Church Freedoms

On Friday, Martin O'Malley is planning to make an announcement on his strategy for moving same-sex marriage forward in Maryland. Which is a good thing, for sure. I think the near miss we had this year in the legislature shows how important it is to have strong support for the legislative change.

It makes me sad, though that the main objectors have been people of faith.

There's the old, sad story of pitting black people against gay people. A few problems with this. First of all, it's not as if there weren't any LGBT African Americans out there. Second of all, when you look at something like Proposition 8 in California, which ended same-sex marriage with the same election that brought in Obama, the first story was, "oh, Obama voters did this." The truth is more complicated than that.

It's frustrating, though, to see religious people arguing that they don't want to offer the same services to same-sex couples as they do to straight couples, and that therefore Maryland shouldn't offer same-sex marriage. In the fallout from same-sex marriage in Washington, DC, Catholic Charities stopped doing adoptions and offering partner benefits to their employees. That's a pretty steep price to pay to keep gay couples from having something straight couples were previously able to have. I think it's called cutting off your nose to spite your face. (On the other hand, here is some interesting news about Catholic Charities USA.)

For a long time, there has been a reluctant kind of truce between civic life and religious beliefs. The same-sex marriage conversation seems to be another opportunity to see where the fault lines are when you try to separate religion from the public square. Yahoo....

2011-07-13T16:44:00.001-05:00

Natural Birth in Baltimore - Top 3 list

So... one of the things that has been keeping me from the blog in the last 2+ years has been having a baby! For people who never plan to be involved in a birth, much less one without pain meds, you may want to whistle and look around the room right now. Here are the top three things that allowed me to say, on day two of my hospital recovery, "Why no, I didn't have any IV's!"

3. Bradley Method classes - it's 12 classes - pretty comprehensive - but you learn all kinds of strategies and have a clear sense of what the birth process will be like. You will be prepared!

2. Pregnancy Yoga - Heather Brown at Charm City Yoga was great. The breathing and focus were key.

1. A Supportive Team - my wife, my fabulous doula Laurie, midwife Kathy Slone, the student midwife who gave great backrubs, and Mercy Hospital letting us do our thing. When I was in the moment, there was not a lot of mental space for rational decisions - I had to trust my team.

Finally, I had a friend who took some of the pressure off - the point, she pointed out, is that the baby gets out. I did as much prep work as I could to get the best chances for a natural birth, and things worked out. Sometimes that's not how it goes, I know. And while there were a few things that didn't go totally according to plan, the baby got out, happy and healthy at 9lbs, 5oz. Thanks be to God!

2011-07-11T15:32:00.002-05:00

Re-entering the Blogosphere

Thanks to some friends' long and faithful encouragement, plus my new endeavors to start a church for people in their 20's and 30's in Baltimore, it is time to re-activate the blog! Thanks to all the faithful followers who have been coming by to check on me from time to time. I am hoping that this will be less of one of those posts that shows up from time to time before I shut the thing down, and more of a Renaissance of fun blog enjoyment. At any rate, I've revised my links and am exploring new blogs to follow, so if you have a recommendation, please share! I'd love to find some good blogs about religion in Baltimore. Thanks!

2009-03-23T14:06:00.002-05:00

Nerd Out - New Interpreter's Bible

I just want to share with all my loyal readers that today I was able to purchase (with a gift card, no less) the final volume of my 12-volume collection of the New Interpreter's Bible. Basically, what encyclopedias used to be to grade schoolers writing reports is what the New Interpreter's Bible is to preachers. Yahoo!

PS I preached this Sunday - you can read the sermon on my sermon blog. It's about baptism.

2009-03-22T22:26:00.002-05:00

Appearances

I wore some lipstick and mascara on Friday, which is an unusual event for me. But it was a big event for work, so I thought it would be worth a little extra sprucing up. What's funny is that wearing makeup tends me make me look older, rather than younger. This is something the teenagers are going for, I know, but I think I might almost be to the age where I want to look younger, rather than older.

At any rate, it brings up an interesting idea about appearances. At first glance (so to speak), appearances shouldn't matter. There is a story about God choosing David to be the next king of Israel, and in the process he chastises the prophet Samuel, saying, "I look at the heart, not the outward appearance." The spiritual is internal, not external, and obsession with clothes, hair, makeup, and all that, becomes a kind of prop for the inner self - a way of finding worth without developing character and an attitude of service.

On the other hand, appearances give us an opportunity to show care. As Ann Lamott put it in her most recent book (I forget the name, but it was good!), you can care for the insides of thing by paying attention to the surfaces. A made bed, a straightened living room, clean dishes, a neat yard, all speak to care and love for self and other.

Jesus came to earth in a body, not as a mist or a ghost. This is an affirmation to me of the goodness of the earth, of bodies, and of appearances. Attention to the outside should not overwhelm attention to our faithfulness, kindness, and contributions to others, but care for our bodies can be a part of caring for our hearts.

2009-03-18T20:50:00.004-05:00

Over it

I know there are lots of people getting worked up about AIG bonuses, and all the money going to those bankers who made the very mistakes that got us to where we are today. And I am glad that there will be consequences for those mistakes - public opinion and politics are catching up to accountability, a few billion dollars later.

What I wonder about, though, is how much of this is really just a spotlight landing on a symbolic target? It wouldn't surprise me if there are other wealthy bankers out there who are drawing the same salary and bonuses as ever and anon, in spite of getting caught up in the flood of easy credit. Still, I agree it looks bad to be getting hundreds of thousands in bonuses when people making significantly less than $100,000 a year are losing their jobs.

So, all that being said, I'm about ready to be over the recession. People who have good credit and a 20% down payment can get a house. People with not-quite-as-good credit can, too, they just have to pay a higher interest rate. Inflation is inching up, ever so slightly. There are utility crews all over the roads, fixing things up. Stuff is working, slowly, and we're just not in the same situation as the Great Depression.

This isn't to say that people who have been laid off aren't in trouble, or that it's easy to get a job now, just that some of the trends are slowly reversing. The one thing that's very difficult, though, is health care. Hospitals are laying off nurses because their work is dropping off. Not only are people putting off surgeries, but uninsured people are leaving easily treatable conditions untreated until they become deadly. This is how it has been with our health insurance system, but with the recession, things intensify.

Maybe I shouldn't say "over it," just "ready for it to be over."

2009-03-08T20:52:00.002-05:00

That Truth Thing

So, I was talking to a friend about the two creation stories in Genesis, (See Genesis 1-3) and how both of them are true, in spite of being contradictory. But then the conversation moved elsewhere. The basic answer to that is: each of them is telling a story about the way God is, or the way the world is, or the way people are. It's not a scientific or historical account.

This beginning of a conversation got me thinking, though, about what it's like to try to live into what Jesus called the kingdom or the reign of God. In his teaching, this is like another dimension directly mapped onto our own. It's a different way of life, a strange and peaceful revolution, and there are signs of it around us. The thing is, though, we have to look for them. Which raises the question of confirmation bias, as in, I see the things I am looking for. On the other hand, if you are NOT looking for something, you are also biased in favor of not seeing it.

I know in my head that faith, in terms of belief about intellectual propositions, etc., is a gift from God, and not something I can manufacture in myself. Still, I think it's easy to fall back into the modern project for Christians: believing things that are hard to believe through effort of will, and then counting that as the work that saves us. In some ways, that kind of trust is easier to manufacture than living in trust of God. The second kind of trust requires taking more risks, for one thing.

2009-03-04T18:33:00.004-05:00

Losing Your Life

In reading about the upcoming text in this week's lectionary, which is about Jesus telling his disciples that he's destined to die on a cross, I had one of those moments where I was remembering or realizing something I'd already known. Jesus says: "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."

We talked some about how people can view things like serious illness, or difficulties with relatives as their cross to bear. But those sufferings don't necessarily mean losing your life for the sake of the gospel. To me, what that means is suffering that comes about in the course of following God's call to build a new way of life - suffering that happens because we forgive, trust, show mercy - suffering that comes from love.

Is all suffering redemptive? I would say no - the vast majority of it is not. But some suffering is done for a greater good. Maybe that's one of the meanings of this particular thought-puzzle by Jesus.

2009-03-01T20:55:00.003-05:00

Death and Emptiness

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and I was on retreat with the people I serve in my job, who are spending a year in service. I led a service in which I reminded the volunteers about their impending deaths. "You will not be able to accomplish everything you want to accomplish," I told these bright and dedicated young people. "Some of your labors may bear no fruit." And then, I rubbed these old, grimy ashes between my fingers, and smeared them on foreheads, one at a time, whispering, "You are dust, and to dust you will return."

In some ways, religion is all about preparing for death. It gives us the tools to live a good life, and hope for something more on the other side of the veil. At the same time, it is stunning to be the one doing the marking, making black crosses on the faces of people who are almost all younger than I am. These too, will pass away, and so will you. But the strength of the Lord will endure forever. What a stark reality to confront.

2009-02-13T17:06:00.003-05:00

It's nice

It's nice, in this era of economic uncertainty, to have a certain amount of stability. No matter what the situation is, Republicans in Congress seem hard-pressed to have any response besides "we can't spend more money." Here's the latest article with said typical responses.

There are a few dependable exceptions, of course: tax cuts for people in the top income brackets, wars, and other times when they're in power.

In some ways, I think the Republicans are doing a very good job as a party of opposition - it's nice that the stimulus bill got some trimming. On the other hand, I'm very glad they're not the ones in charge of the basic approach. We did tax cuts and deregulation for 8 years, and here is where we ended up!

/end rant

2009-02-05T11:11:00.002-05:00

Like a Ripening Apple

When I was ordained, one of the spiritual disciplines I took on was reading from the Bible every day. I have a book (an ordination gift) that has daily readings and the church's weekly readings from the Bible, and then a selection of readings from the compilers' favorite authors.

A quote from Thomas Merton out of one of last week's readings for reflections sticks with me: "How does an apple ripen? It sits in the sun."

I think the unpredictability of prayer life - sometimes it feels fruitful, sometimes it feels dry - is part of the larger experience of being acted upon by God. It's paradoxical in a way - prayer is something people do, of course - but at the same time, prayer is something God does to and with us.

2009-01-26T17:51:00.002-05:00

Savor Like Crazy

The inauguration ceremony only 6 short days ago was so good in so many ways. I went to the Baltimore Convention Center to watch it. It was warm and the TV screens were big. My favorite part, though, besides being treated to a performance of "Poison" as made popular by Bel Biv Devoe while various dignitaries appeared on the huge screens, was seeing a group of women in their thirties and forties starting up a line dance to a performance of "Get Ready."

So, that was a week ago tomorrow, and the NYTimes just posted a story about 62,000 jobs being cut. The inauguration speech mentioned some sacrifices. Who knew it would be so soon? If you're not the praying type, I suggest you become the savoring type to make it through this here downturn.

Savor the changes we're already seeing - Guantanamo Bay on the chopping block, Starbucks doing ads about community service, stronger standards for car emissions, and smart people in place in the administration to make good decisions carefully. Savor the connection to history that Obama spoke about - this isn't the first time that our nation has faced difficult times. And finally, savor what you do have. If you have a job, if you have your health, if you have your own computer to read this, savor those things. If you have friends and loved ones, spend time with them. Enjoy what you do have.

Finally, if you do happen to be the praying type, you can savor the promise of faith, which is that ultimately God's kingdom is bigger and more essential than the US economy. We are in God's hands, and that is the deepest source of security there is.

2009-01-16T11:56:00.004-05:00

Landings

I hope Barack Obama will be as steady-handed and lucky with the US economy as Capt. Sullenberger was yesterday as he carefully ditched his US Airways flight into the Hudson River after both engines lost power.

Thanks to multiple bird strikes - the collapse of the housing bubble, the credit freeze it precipitated, and two ongoing wars (do I need to say that wars cost a lot of money?) the economy's engines have choked. Inflation in 2008 was 0.1%, with the last three months of dropping consumer prices figured in. Usually, annual inflation is about 30 times greater - 3%.

Congress is mulling over a landing package of 825 billion dollars. Even if we land just right, without breaking off our wings or turning over in the water, it's likely that many of us will have to stand with freezing water up to our waists for a while, anyway.

The key to yesterday's rescue, and perhaps to the longer economic one will be not only the skill and luck of our pilot, but the fast arrival of ferries and rescue teams - a collective team effort - to make sure that not one person is lost beneath the freezing waves.

2009-01-15T21:53:00.003-05:00

Yes, Virginia, Waterboarding is Torture

One of the big "news" items from the Eric Holder confirmation hearing is that he agrees that waterboarding is torture. Of course it is torture to almost kill someone by drowning and then bring them back from the point of death to do it over again. What is crazy about how things have been run for the past 7 years is that there were people who tried to pretend it wasn't torture.

Interesting historical notes: not only did the US prosecute Japanese soldiers for waterboarding after WWII, we also prosecuted our own soldiers for doing the same thing during Vietnam.

2009-01-13T17:06:00.002-05:00

Inauguration Preachers

So I already dished a little about Rick Warren, but here's some more interesting information - other preachers will be doing other preaching, etc., during the weekend of the festivities. Two in particular are of interest to me: Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal church, and the General Minister and President of the Disciples of Christ. Here's the Slate article on it.

One thing I disagree with in the article is that Gene Robinson's take on gay sexuality goes against the beliefs of the Episcopal church. That might be true for the international Anglican church, which the Episcopal church is part of. But the conservative groups that are getting ready to leave the Episcopal church because of Robinson's election as bishop are much smaller than the main body of the American church -- about 100,000 people, compared to 2.3 million. That doesn't mean that the people who are staying are necessarily on board, but it does mean they don't see it as important enough to make a break with their church.

One of the quotes in the Slate article is that Bishop Robinson felt called to come out of the closet by God. I'd agree with that sentiment in my own life. Coming out requires courage and serves justice and truth. I hope we'll get coverage of what he has to say Sunday.

2009-01-06T15:11:00.003-05:00

Happy Epiphany!

January 6th marks one of the lesser-known Christian holidays, Epiphany. It is the day to celebrate the visit of the three wise men to the baby Jesus. For what it's worth, the nativity scenes that have the shepherds, angels, and wise men in them are kind of condensing things. But no big deal.

The visit by the wise men to Jesus' birth, as told by Matthew signals a kind of stamp of approval from the ancient wisdom traditions. In the gospel of John, we don't get any stories about the birth of Jesus, just a meditation of what it means for the Word of God to be made into an incarnate human being. In both cases, Jesus is a symbol of the wisdom of God.

There's a story about an ancient Buddhist teacher who hears Jesus' core teachings in his Sermon on the Mount for the first time. "That's what I've been trying to say," is his response. Perhaps the wise men, too, on seeing Jesus, said "This is what we've been trying to say."

2009-01-05T17:17:00.003-05:00

Family & Poverty

In this week's Christian Century, (not up online yet - I have the analog version), a writer tells the story of his son's untimely death at 38. This son left behind a pregnant wife and toddler child. The writer points out that while friends slowly faded away in the long course of grief, family made sacrifices to be nearby and to support his daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Family, he argues, is ultimately a stronger source of support than friends, and policies and practices that weaken the family come at a cost.

Being hundreds of miles away from my nearest blood relation, the idea makes me a little nervous, personally. BUT! it also has interesting implications for poverty. What if poverty is nearly always a problem of family? Either a person has no family to care for them in crisis, or has destroyed family ties through addictions, or else a person's whole family may already be poor, which means the culture and connections to rise out of it are essentially not there.

This is probably fairly obvious, but I am used to thinking of problems like poverty as localized in an individual poor person, rather than being connected to a slightly larger family system.

Jesus was not particularly pro-family in his teachings. It may be that he recognized that families do not always manage to care for all of their own. In the kingdom of God, then, we are all one another's family, and care for each other as such, regardless of blood or marital relationship. In other words, no-one slips through the cracks. What would that look like in practice, I wonder?

2009-01-04T19:59:00.002-05:00

Obscenity

I was watching "A History of Violence" on TV this weekend, and in one of the scenes, three men get killed trying to kill a different man. The boss who ordered the original killing gets mad that it has gone awry, and he shoots one of the already dead men in the chest and yells at him, "How the **** do you **** that up?" That's a direct quote, because the swear words have been blocked out.

Doesn't it seem to be a little bit beside the point to edit out the swearing on such a violent scene? Or, to be more to the point - which is more obscene, really? A few swear words, or shooting a man in the chest instead of trying to save his life?

2009-01-01T23:37:00.002-05:00

Storms

I paid $16 to fill up my gas tank today, which about matches the prices we were paying when I was in college 10 years ago. Because of inflation, this is actually much less expensive, even than it was then.

While it's nice to pay less, I can't help but think that this is something I've never seen before, and it makes me nervous. What I'm used to seeing the price of gas do is go up, sometimes in big increments, sometimes in small ones. Occasionally, it will fall back down, too. But not by well over half its cost.

It reminds me of the tsunami at the end of 2005. As the ocean drew away from the shore, farther and farther, the people rushed out onto the uncovered land, picking up fish and marveling at how far out the ocean had gone. They didn't know that a wave was coming back - huge and ominous and as fast as a train.

2008-12-30T23:18:00.002-05:00

Self-Control and Religion

So, thanks to the NY Times for an article about studies of self-control in intrinsically religious people. For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It. It seems like a pretty positive article, except, of course, for the fact that it seems to assume that the reader will not be a religious person. Maybe they're just trying to be cute.

Choice quotes:

Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

Does this mean that nonbelievers like me should start going to church? Even if you don’t believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organized religion.

But that probably wouldn’t work either, Dr. McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.

2008-12-28T22:29:00.003-05:00

Priests Needed

I saw this in the NY Times: "Divine Recruits - Serving US Parishes, Fathers Without Borders"

Clearly, it's not news that the number of Catholic priests is significantly less than the number needed. What I enjoyed about this story, though, is that the US is no longer necessarily THE SOURCE of spiritual authority. Priests can come from India, Africa, South America, and provide spiritual care and guidance. A kind of reversal, and somehow an encouraging one.

2008-12-27T18:02:00.006-05:00

The 12 Days of Christmas

So, in the church calendar, it is still Christmas until Jan. 6th. I think it's interesting that the secular culture tends to focus on the LEAD-UP to Christmas, and then to pretty much be done with it after the BIG DAY.

I think this is because it's very hard in a consumer culture to spend a lot of time on gratitude. You can't sell much by putting gratitude advertisements on the television. Although that's funny to imagine:

"Aren't you glad you already have a roof over your head and food to eat?"

"Yeah, I sure am!"

"And isn't it nice that you and your friends are a little weird, but you accept each other for your weirdnesses and nobody has to impress anybody when you're hanging out together?"

"Yeah, I love my friends, even if we're a little odd sometimes. In fact, that's half the fun!"

"And isn't it wonderful to be married to someone attractive? We sure wouldn't want to show you pictures of someone more attractive!"

"It's true! I can't imagine being with anyone else!"

"Cool! Buy an iPod."

See how that doesn't work very well? :)

I'd like to propose that we re-invigorate the twelve days of Christmas as twelve days for being grateful. (We already got a warm-up day on Thanksgiving, BTW) Now would be a good time to enjoy all the stuff you got for Christmas. And even more than that, it's a time to enjoy your friends and family and be glad for things like compassion, forgiveness, love and understanding. These are gifts from God to us. So, thanks be to God and here's to twelve days of Christmas!

2008-12-24T12:19:00.003-05:00

Silent Night

In honor of Christmas Eve, I thought I'd take a look at a favorite hymn: Silent Night. I've gotten to do a little more caroling than usual this year, and have listened to more Christmas music, too. The carols have deep meaning for me. They remind me of home and family because they're so familiar. And their descriptions of faith are so beautiful, it is an encouragement for me in my faith.

In particular, I love the beauty of the third verse of Silent Night:

Silent Night, holy night,
Son of God, love's pure light,
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth!

What a beautiful image! Light, beauty, grace, come together and are born into the world as a baby. But somehow that light also foretells Jesus' ministry as a grown man, and what his other, divine identity is. It is like watching the sun rise, bringing with it warmth, safety and a new day.

------
P.S. If you're looking for a less familiar Christmas song, this version of Come Thou Font of Every Blessing by Sufjan Stevens is beautiful.

2008-12-23T12:43:00.006-05:00

OMG Can We Please Get Over Rick Warren?

(And, while we're at it, Jeremiah Wright, too...)

I know that Rick Warren supported Proposition 8. And there is a little bit of extra annoyance about his being the inauguration pray-er because he's a pastor from California. That part does feel a little bit like salt in the wound.

HOWEVER, the truth is that the overwhelming witness of the Bible puts poverty at the top of the list of God's big concerns. This debate over the gays is peanuts, really, and mostly a fund raising and distraction tactic for at least some of these Pat Robertson types. Abortion has been similarly exploited, and is similarly, biblically, peanuts.

What's refreshing about Warren is that while he may hold these views, he puts them in the proper position on his list of priorities - near the bottom.

Jeremiah Wright comes into this for me because (Press Club weirdness aside, although maybe that's the actual problem) his pro-African American stance, and his honest confrontation of American hubris and imperialism got turned into a caricature in the national media.

Rick Warren already has a book out and a much bigger church, so I don't expect the outcry, so to speak, to hurt him nearly as much as the feeding frenzy hurt Jeremiah Wright. But still, at this point I'm amazed at how little time gets spent paying attention to the core of peoples' ministries. Thanks, sensationalizing newsmedia.

One last thought - it's interesting how the vehement editorializers never manage to suggest somebody else. I'm free that day, if Pastor Rick needs to bow out....

PS Thanks to H for this commentary by Melissa Etheridge

2008-12-22T13:01:00.002-05:00

NC Theologian on Suffering

Today I read a second review panning Barth Ehrman's book on suffering: God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question. I had tried to read this book, and had gotten similarly annoyed with it, because this guy obviously had very little actual experience with people who face poverty and suffering. Basically, he's decided he doesn't believe in God because if the God he wants to believe in were real, there wouldn't be suffering.

I know that there are many people wrestling with this question, and that it is a very serious question to ask - where does suffering come from, if God is really a good God? And the truth is that I don't have a good answer for why there is suffering. My answer to Ehrman would be something like: There is suffering because suffering is a part of life, just like death is. It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, any more than the fact that trees exist means that clouds do not.

A favorite quote from Proverbs comes to mind:

"[G]ive me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, "Who is the Lord?" or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God."

2008-12-21T21:54:00.002-05:00

Homelessness Awareness

I went to the Homelessness Awareness service today at 5 in the Inner Harbor amphitheater. I was worried that it would be too sad to handle, but this morning at church we did a litany about homelessness that I found very moving. So I figured it might feel good to my soul somehow.

The main event was the reading of names, followed by, "We will remember." There was a decent-sized crowd there, too, in spite of the cold. I found it encouraging to be lighting candles together, honoring the dead, and committing to the struggle once again. One of the best parts, really, was when some of the men from Earl's Place (a transitional shelter) sang some songs. They had great voices. Like angels? :)

2008-12-20T16:31:00.002-05:00

Yearly reckoning

I didn't write a Christmas letter last year, but this year I plan to after all. It's funny how I don't really remember much before May. Is it possible that the human memory only stays vivid for about six months? The other possibility is that these things are being stored for when I am old. Then I will have lightning-fast recall of every thrilling detail of the Barack Obama primary season, but way more of those moments of walking into a room and forgetting what I came in there for. That's right, I said MORE. I definitely do that all the time now, as it is.

2008-12-19T11:58:00.001-05:00

Hey Rob, what's up?

This blog goes out to Rob, who moved to Texas and then Pennsylvania. He is an encourager of blogging, when I have been a slacker. Thanks, Rob!

As you may see below, I have added a site reader, because I find those little numbers encouraging. Let's hope for a Renaissance of blog in the New Year!

<3 Amy

2008-10-16T21:41:00.003-05:00

Good Books to Read about the Bible

So my friend Mike organized this cool 5-minute speech event for tonight, and I got 5 minutes to talk about the Bible. It was a lot of fun. I had one woman come up to me afterward and tell me that although she wasn't a very religious person, she really identified with the apostle Thomas, who was a doubter, and in fact had named her son after him. If Jesus loved Thomas, her reasoning went, then he can handle me, too, with my doubts. It didn't hit me until a few minutes later how brilliant that was.

So, here were my suggested books for further reading on the Bible:

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg.
Borg, a Lutheran theology professor, lays out some basics for approaching the Bible.

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McClaren
McClaren discusses new research into the core of Jesus’ teaching – his message about the Kingdom of God. Turns out, it has very little to do with clouds and angels.

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Jacobs, a mostly secular Jew, spends a year trying to follow the laws of the Bible as literally as possible.

Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman
This book describes the process of assembling the first five books of the Bible, along with some other later works. Accessible, but somewhat academic.

The Good Book by Peter Gomes
My preaching prof! Gomes delves into some of the controversies surrounding the interpretation of the Bible in such areas as race, anti-Semitism, homosexuality and women.

Translations

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Message by Eugene Peterson (paraphrase)

2008-10-08T21:41:00.003-05:00

Brain.... full.....

Unfortunately, as a non-professional blogger, I haven't been able to follow each crazy twist in the presidential election with sassy rejoinders, & etc. I have been following it, but it's really hard to know what to say. So, here are some random and unfinished possible blog thoughts in my head:

McCain Suspends Campaign: Okay, this could be McCain "showing leadership," it could be a publicity stunt (approximately the same thing), or it could be a brilliant tactical move. After the fact, of course, it mostly looks like a failed publicity stunt.

Strategy vs. Tactic: McCain comes across as condescending, and gets one of the few rises out of Obama when he suggests that Obama doesn't know the difference between a strategy and a tactic. Other debate moments to check on Wikipedia for later: Palin's McKiernen vs. McClellan (I thought it was surprising that the general in Afghanistan had the same last name as W's old press secretary!) And Bosnian vs. Bosniak. Turns out Biden was right. Of course, that didn't help Dan Quayle when everybody thought "potatoe" was a misspelling. Turns out it was an accepted spelling in the 19th century.

Sarah Palin: Still not sure what to make of her. She winked and doggone'd her way through the VP debate, and toward the end I was actually feeling annoyed at her. She lost likeability for me.

I think if you're going to pull off a "There you go again," like Reagan did, you're going to have to be as relaxed in front of the camera as he was. She was talking way too fast, and her voice was pitched way too high for the type of language she was using. It was her accent, but in that context, the way she talked seemed fake. I know they all launch into pre-rehearsed bits during these things, but it seemed like with her you could tell when the script was kicking in, and part of what was written on the script was "say it ain't so, Joe," and "there you go again," (which, incidentally, I would find to be extremely irritating to hear from someone I was debating, Ronald Reagan or no.)

Of interest, however: the accent sounds like Minnesotan because the part of Alaska where she grew up was settled by Minnesota farmers during the Great Depression. That part's authentic, anyway, don'tcha know!

2008-09-17T18:40:00.002-05:00

Somewhat Facetious

Hey guys, now is a great time to start investing in the stock market!

Bailout Fails to Stem Global Stock Slump

I'm kind of joking - after all, who knows how far down the bottom is? But kind of not - now is when stocks are relatively cheap.

*end financial commentary*

2008-09-10T16:20:00.002-05:00

And yet another article:

Why do people vote Republican?

Apologies to my many, many Republican readers for some of the more blunt passages, but I found it helpful/insightful in other ways.

2008-09-09T18:34:00.002-05:00

Full of postings today

Hi folks.

So, what with the election and all, there are lots of interesting articles out there. First of all, a refreshing cheer for liberals from the NYTimes opinion section!

Hold Your Heads Up

Some highlights:

Without the many great and noble deeds of liberals over the past six or seven decades, America would hardly be recognizable to today’s young people. Liberals (including liberal Republicans, who have since been mostly drummed out of the party) ended legalized racial segregation and gender discrimination.

Humiliation imposed by custom and enforced by government had been the order of the day for blacks and women before men and women of good will and liberal persuasion stepped up their long (and not yet ended) campaign to change things. Liberals gave this country Head Start and legal services and the food stamp program. They fought for cleaner air (there was a time when you could barely see Los Angeles) and cleaner water (there were rivers in America that actually caught fire).

Liberals. Your food is safer because of them, and so are your children’s clothing and toys. Your workplace is safer. Your ability (or that of your children or grandchildren) to go to college is manifestly easier.

And then a very interesting blog post for my many, many libertarian readers. I don't necessarily agree that the government should be as small as humanly possible, but if you do believe that, then it's interesting to think through the consequences, in terms of deciding to vote for one or the other of the major party candidates.

Why Libertarians Should Vote for Obama

Salient quotes:

Have libertarians gained... in the past eight years? Not at all. Under the Republicans we have been sailing due South-West on the Nolan Chart – fewer civil liberties and more government, including the largest new government program in a generation, the Medicare prescription drug plan, and the biggest nationalization since the Great Depression. Tax cuts, the summum bonum of Republican economic policy, are a sham. The only way to cut taxes is to cut spending and that has not happened.

Lack of power is no guarantee of virtue but Republicans are a far better - more libertarian - party out-of-power than they are in power. When in the wilderness, Republicans turn naturally to a critique of power and they ratchet up libertarian rhetoric about free trade, free enterprise, abuse of government power and even the defense of civil liberties.

2008-09-09T10:34:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin/Gender Card

This is just too good to pass up: O'Reilly, Karl Rove, and others demonstrating how big a difference politics makes in the way they dispense judgement about candidate's experience, and what constitutes sexism.

Gender Card

Thanks, Daily Show!

2008-09-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

Also, this is funny:

Rednecks for Obama

2008-09-01T12:57:00.003-05:00

Now this is a Presidential Race!

So, a lot has been happening with the Presidential race, as you probably know, since this blog is a terrible source of up-to-the-minute news. Some thoughts on the VP picks:

Joe Biden: I saw him speak when I was finishing my undergrad in Delaware, and he impressed me then, explaining why it was important to renew the Violence Against Women Act. He's got strong foreign policy experience, and (hopefully) useful connections in Pennsylvania, a battleground state currently leaning Obama. Pulling from my dad's thoughts on these things, he's also been in the Senate long enough for people to owe him something, making it possible to get some stuff done.

Sarah Palin: This certainly mixes things up. A woman with strong, strong conservative credentials, and about a year and a half of experience as governor of Alaska. It's interesting that this is supposedly more experience than Obama has. Anywho, to me this feels a little like the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court appointment - put a black man in place to dismantle affirmative action, put a woman in place to dismantle abortion rights. To be fair, she takes the pro-life stance seriously - Palin recently gave birth to a child with Down's Syndrome, and her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and set to marry the child's father. Article here (from FOX news, for the sake of balance :) ).

2008-08-27T22:55:00.007-05:00

Guess who's been staying up too late b/c of the Democratic Convention?

I've been fascinated by the benedictions at the end. How can you pray and be a tiny bit political, but not too political? The pre-written teleprompter prayers seem to walk that line fairly carefully.

Anywho, thought this video comparison between Fox and MSNBC reactions to Michelle Obama's speech was interesting. I've also been thinking about how important commentary is to my assessment of various news items.

P.S. Thanks, Fox, for pointing out how attractive Michelle Obama is.

2008-08-08T15:38:00.004-05:00

Um, no.

No, no, no. Obama is not the Antichrist. Thanks for spreading ridiculous crap, John McCain's candidacy.

I wish I had a snappier comeback - or something more insightful - but basically I've moved from thinking the Left Behind series was just poorly written and harmless, to being a dangerous tool o' manipulation. What else is there to say?

2008-08-08T07:10:00.003-05:00

McCain's Race Card

About a week ago (I know, I'm slow on the news cycles...) John McCain jumped on Barack Obama for "playing the race card," by saying that the people running against him will point out Obama's differences from the guys you see on the dollar bills. Now, it might not be a fair accusation, but on the other hand, the McCain campaign moved pretty fast to highlight this remark of Obama's.

The main point here, though, is that while Obama may be trying to turn his racial identity into an advantage, John McCain has a race card that he can play every day, without having to say a word: he's white. That's all the race card he needs.

2008-08-04T15:39:00.001-05:00

Dark Night

So I saw The Dark Knight on Friday, and I will try not to give away any plot points, but will just say what everyone else is saying, which is that Heath Ledger's acting is very, very good in it.

What I found very interesting about the Joker's character was that he liked to put people in situations of kill or be killed, and then see if their self-protective, animal side would come out. At one point, he literally calls it a sociology experiment.

I don't know if the movie was going in this direction, but it's interesting how much power the Joker was able to amass by framing problems as ones in which only one person or group could win. Since people accepted his framing, there was very little room for creativity in collectively addressing the real problem - him. And the result: chaos.

By contrast, it's very rare that someone has set us up completely in conflict situations that if one person wins, the other has to lose. The Joker is wrong; peace is possible.

2008-07-23T11:15:00.002-05:00

Placebo Effect

Had an interesting conversation the other night about "The Secret," and whether or not your attitude toward something can affect its outcome. This write-up in Slate harmonizes with some of my personal skepticism on the subject.

What's interesting to think about, though, is that much of our social reality is constructed. I was trying to use the example of the 4-minute mile, which at one time people thought was impossible to beat. Turns out it's not. The problem, with this example, though, is that it's anecdotal evidence - impossible to repeat the experiment, so to speak. We can't go back in time and re-do the breaking of the 4-minute-mile record, this time without a widespread assumption that it was impossible.

The placebo effect, though, seems like a good example of the social construction of reality. People feel like their pain medication is working better if a doctor in a white coat gives them an injection, instead of getting an intravenous drip that doesn't signal when the medicine is going in.

I thought this was a fairly well-established phenomenon, but it turns out there's controversy here as well. Anyway, the pain relief scenario seems to be fairly well-established. And to me demonstrates a good example of reality as socially constructed. A lab coat signals "doctor," and therefore means less pain. But the placebo effect in any given experiment doesn't show up in the same number of people, nor does it work with a uniform intensity.

If the placebo effect is related to the human tendency to construct reality, then it doesn't give us an answer as to how much of that reality is indeed susceptible to placebo reactions. Unlike what the book "The Secret" might say though, our minds' influence is at the very least less than 100%.

2008-07-08T11:47:00.001-05:00

Where the Hell is Matt?

For some reason, I find this video very hopeful:

Thanks, Pa, for pointing it out. :)

2008-07-01T10:44:00.003-05:00

Obama Approaches Young Evangelicals

I'm excited to hear that Obama's reaching out to evangelical voters. It's even more interesting to learn he has plans to launch a "Joshua Generation" project for young Catholics and evangelicals. The basic idea is that there are some conservative Christians who are never going to vote for him because they disagree with him on abortion and gay marriage.

But there are others who see other issues as important values questions: poverty, the AIDS epidemic, and the environment, for example, and who might be willing to put those concerns ahead of the traditional "family values" litmus tests. I read a quote from one such person in the Christian Century a few weeks ago. He said (I am paraphrasing), "We like to joke that the people having the fewest abortions are married gay couples."

So, they've come up with a name, "The Joshua Generation Project," which is just about pitch-perfect as far as names go: it could be the sequel to The Prayer of Jabez, or one of the Left Behind series books. The basic idea is that Moses brought the Israelites to the promised land, but Joshua had to lead them into it to settle it.

One personal qualm about that choice of a name - Joshua was responsible for a LOT of killing to clear the land of Canaanites. I guess we'll have to assume the Joshua Generation's battles are not going to be quite so bloody.

2008-06-30T11:16:00.002-05:00

Climate Change, Population Change

So I was listening to my birthday present from Heather - Death Cab for Cutie's new album Narrow Stairs, which is good, but has a certain fatalistic bent (see, for example, the lyrics to "No Sunlight,"). It got me thinking about what's going to happen when the sheets of ice in the Arctic melt, and so on, raising ocean levels and (ideally) making my house beachfront property. Could the economy's woes, and the flooding and monsoons be part of the global warming trap we're caught in?

This scientist (James Lovelock) seems pretty sure that we've passed the point of no return. He may be engaged in a certain amount of hyperbole, but on the other hand, if our carbon dioxide emissions are irreversible and long-lasting, who knows when we will have passed the point of being able to do anything about this?

This shouldn't seem like a cheery topic, but on the other side of the coin, people in Europe have been experiencing lower-than-replacement-rate birthrates for many years. And, the worldwide average birthrate is down from 6.0 per woman to 2.9. A major shift like this might be the only thing that can really make a difference in our consumption and emission habits. The question is, will it have come too late?

2008-06-27T16:56:00.003-05:00

Confession Time - Things I Like to Read Online

This may qualify as the lamest confession ever, but here goes. Things I like to read online:

--Advice columns
--Ideas about saving money, especially in list form
--Weird news about human genetics
--Movie reviews, especially bad ones
--Weird crime news

Wow, I feel cleansed. Thanks, guys!

2008-06-26T19:25:00.002-05:00

Sorting Through Papers

Before sixth grade, my family moved from Iowa to Minnesota, and I remember my mom asking me what I thought about moving. I told her it would be a good opportunity to get rid of some stuff - to simplify & pare down.

I believe that I have always been inclined - whether because of genetics or early influential childhood experiences - to be a "saver," although I'm not this bad. If something is old, unusual, or memorable, I'll stick it in a file. I like to go through things later, and wonder what I was thinking when I saved them.

I was wrong, at age 11, to think that moving is a motivation to sort through your things and get rid of stuff. Now that Heather and I have lived in our house for two years (as of next week), I've discovered that it's actually reasonably long periods of stability that make throwing stuff out possible. The thing is - when you're moving, you don't have time to sit down and decide what's important and what's not. Now that we're in a small house, though, I have the time & motivation to go through the old papers and sort the truly memorable from the detritus.

The thing is, though, there's something fun about even the detritus in my little walks down memory lane. Sure, they may not carry much actual meaning for me, but they are a physical remnant of a time gone past. And these bits and scraps are evocative in their specificity. For example, the church bulletin from the day I was baptized is hand-typed. Who would remember that's how the old programs used to look? Still, cuts have to be made, and I am only keeping one copy - rather than three - of the paper I wrote for the ordination committee in 2003.

2008-06-23T12:36:00.003-05:00

George Dies

So, I was taking my cat to the vet, which is a horrible, stressful event for me. (She doesn't like it, either). And as I'm listening to the radio, they announced that George Clooney had died. I was kind of surprised, especially when they said that he was 71 years old and had invented the 7 words you don't say on TV. Seemed odd, but I figured, maybe there's another George Clooney out there who was some kind of sociologist or something.

Actually, it was George Carlin. Seems appropriate on a day when my cat lost her breakfast twice. (The performance I remember most vividly of his was a disgusting routine from The Aristocrats).

Best wishes to you, George.

2008-06-19T15:22:00.002-05:00

Happy Juneteenth!

Today is my birthday, and growing up I knew that I was exactly one year older than Garfield the cat. (The link will probably only work today - sorry.

But on my 20th birthday, I was doing a summer of service in San Marcos Texas, and I learned that June 19th is also known as Juneteenth. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation -- freeing all the slaves in the United States -- on January 1, 1863, but that order couldn't really be put into effect until the rebelling states were brought back into the Union. On June 19, 1865, slaves all over Texas learned that they had been freed from slavery. In Texas, this is a state holiday.

Last night on NPR, they had a story about the importance of freed and escaped slaves to the North's war effort. African American soldiers were 25% of the (integrated) American Navy, and it was a troupe of African American soldiers who captured the capital of the Confederacy - Richmond, VA. It hadn't occurred to me before the difference freed slaves made in the Civil War. I'd always imagined an intra-white fight, with slaves waiting passively to be freed. The truth is, free slaves fought to bring an end to slavery in the United States.

When the colonies fought in the Revolutionary War, they were fighting to end taxation without representation. They were fighting for political and economic freedom. When former slaves fought, it was to end the brutal and dehumanizing practice of slavery. They were fighting for political, economic, personal, familial, cultural freedom. It is hard to capture quickly the suffering, the cost of slavery, and it is indeed America's original sin. But it is also a tremendous accomplishment that the slaves had an important part in winning their own freedom. This is no less an Independence Day for Americans than July 4th.

2008-06-17T21:10:00.002-05:00

The Bus in Baltimore

So, I try to ride the bus about once a week, but the bus system is not helping me be excited about that. Today, I got on a bus at 5:30 at North Avenue (Schedule here), but he was only going as far as Monroe (about a mile short). So I got off the bus and waited another half hour for the next bus. Time spent on the bus: 30 minutes. Time spent waiting on a sidewalk: 40 minutes.

To paraphrase Obama (from somewhere, I forget where): programs for poor people are poor programs. It's too bad, with all the environmental challenges presented by the one-person per car approach, that using the bus can't be just a shade more convenient.

2008-06-16T21:40:00.003-05:00

The Obamas leave Trinity

Well, this has been out in the news for a while, I know, but I have still not decided how I feel about it. It is a shame that this year, at least, it isn't possible for a successful presidential candidate to be a serious, committed member of a progressive Christian church.

When I was a volunteer in DC, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Foundry United Methodist Church, which was reasonably progressive. There was a GLBT fellowship group, for example, and during one uncomfortable sermon moment, the pastor looked directly at the President and told him to expand a nuclear arms treaty. But he was a white pastor, and this wasn't being recorded for YouTube.

In all, this is a clear reminder to me of the value of separating church and state. The aims of faith and the aims of politics diverge quite a bit. How much worse would it be for Trinity to compromise its faithfulness to God for the sake of political gain! I agree with Obama that his staying at Trinity would continue to provide a wealth of resources for journalists interested in scandal.

I know this, and yet it's still sad.

2008-06-16T21:26:00.002-05:00

Readership

So, based on some conversations lately, I've learned that people actually do read this 'ole thing. Now that I am getting the hang of my new job, I will try to be a little more frequent in my postings. You are always welcome to make comments of encouragement, since I chucked my little widget that counts readers a while ago, and can therefore no longer be numbers-driven. Thanks for reading!

2008-05-30T21:17:00.002-05:00

Staying Thin

My next door neighbor asked me today, "How do you stay so thin?" It's always weird when somebody makes a comment like that. I know she's trying to be nice, or maybe she really wants to know. Eventually, I said, "just lucky, I guess - it's in the genes."

Here's my real answer:

I eat what I'm in the mood for, and stop when I'm full.
I don't eat a lot of snacks.
I try not to eat a lot of processed foods or other kinds of junk food.

There you have it: The Amy Diet. Should I expand this by 100 pages and sell a book?

Stay healthy, friends.

2008-05-14T20:32:00.002-05:00

The I'll Follow You Into the Dark video
....does not lend itself to Christian symbolism.

This song by Death Cab for Cutie, is about a lot of things - love, death, faithfulness, but the video uses its own imagery to illustrate the tensions.

Some of the lyrics:

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

I think the whole song turns around this rejection of "fear as the heart of love." Love is built on courage, and in this song, on facing death together. So when the man falls, he comes to learn that what he was afraid of isn't so bad after all. He can live without fear, having faced his own death. (Or maybe - he dies, and the death is not the terrible thing he expected it to be. It's ambiguous what the fall symbolizes.)

I think I part ways with the song on the idea that human love alone can survive death. But the promise of resurrection is the promise that God's love is greater than death - that God follows us into the dark.

2008-05-11T22:55:00.004-05:00

Unconventional Bible Study - Jesus Walks by Kanye West

Okay, Chris Scharen mentioned this one and I hadn't seen the video - the imagery here is amazing.

The lyrics are here.

A little context: Here are some white people singing the song "I want Jesus to walk with me," if you're not familiar with it. (It's originally an African-American spiritual)

And now a little commentary: First, part of this song is testimony about Kanye West's love for Jesus,

I ain't here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way I need Jesus

against the advice of the music industry.

So here go my single dog radio needs this
They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope it take away from my sins

Obviously, there's some dissonance when rappers talk about "gun, sex, lies, videotapes" and then turn around to praise God. (Here's a perfect example from the Office Space soundtrack. Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta. Check the end of verse 2, compared to the chorus. :) ) I'm not going to be able to resolve this question, but I think there's a little bit of the answer to that in this video, which is that God isn't only (or maybe at all) in the business of blessing the establishment. When the doves fly out of the packages of cocaine, it carries with it a sense of blessing that is totally unexpected to the police officers, eager to catch drug-runners in the act.

This reminds me of a text from Matthew, which suggests that people on the margins of society are sometimes more open to God's grace than the religious establishment.

Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Related to this the song and video together show powerful images of resistance to evils of authority through faith. The opening lyrics:

Yo, We at war
We at war with terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves

I am fascinated by the end of the video, when a KKK member, who has worked hard to hew and build a cross to burn, follows it as it falls down a hill into water that quenches it. Another baptism? Perhaps into a new life in opposition to racism? The quote from Jesus that applies most clearly here:

"You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

2008-04-18T20:42:00.003-05:00

Unconventional Bible Study

So, I was at a conference this week that was mostly about helping people under 30 pay attention to a sense of being called into ministry. One of our presenters, Chris Scharen, who wrote a book about the theology of U2, had this really interesting presentation on Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. He compared it to a story about Jesus' disciples meeting him after the resurrection and not realizing it was him. So, I thought it might be interesting to see if there are other music videos out there that have spiritual content that could interplay in interesting ways with Scripture. So here's one Unconventional Bible Study.

Basic directions: as you watch the video, pay attention to moments or images that stand out to you as having spiritual significance or depth in meaning. Then you can see if I saw & heard the same or different things, and see if my readings resonate for you.

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

Read the lyrics to Chasing Cars here

Some random Amy reactions: I'm interested in the water imagery of this video. Is the singer going through a kind of baptism? The lyrics would make me think this song is about/to another person, but the singer is alone. When he says, "your perfect eyes," is he singing to God?

The image of the camera pulling up and away at the end, and the lyrics "if I just lay here," reminds me of this quote from Waiting for God by Simone Weil:

There are people who try to raise their souls like a man continually taking standing jumps in the hopes that, if he jumps higher every day, a time may come when he will no longer fall back but will go right up to the sky. Thus occupied, he cannot look at the sky. We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up. He raises us easily.

Finally, there are a lot of detailed close-ups of the singer's hands and face. I see some parallels with Psalm 139 - a sense of wonder at the creation. This version is from The Message, a translation by Eugene Peterson (sections).

God, investigate my life;
get all the facts firsthand.
I'm an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of your sight...

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration - what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
You know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
How I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Oh man, and I didn't even get into what "the garden bursting into life" could be about.

So, what did you see? (And am I crazy? :) )

2008-04-15T12:55:00.001-05:00

White Guilt

So, white guilt.

I think that for white people it's unusual and uncomfortable to be lumped together with other white people as a group, and to be pre-judged accordingly. White people are used to being seen as individuals and not having to represent their race, or to be pre-judged because of it.

So, for example, after it was discovered that, in fact, Middle-Easterners were not responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, but that two white men were, there was no heightened screening of white men for terrorist tendencies. White men weren't stopped disproportionately in airports, or questioned more closely for renting trucks. In fact, even as I write this it sounds ridiculous.

On the other hand, in the wake of 9-11, there has been heightened suspicion and screenings of Muslims and people who look like they might be from the Middle East.

So, discussions about race have a double-discomfort: 1. Being lumped in with people you're not used to being lumped in with and 2. Being lumped in with them for doing bad things to another group of people. And voila: the dreaded WHITE GUILT.

Is white guilt a good thing? I think: yes and no. First the no part - white guilt doesn't really accomplish much. Mostly, white people want to avoid it, which makes sense - it's unpleasant - and avoiding leads to things like denying the reality of racism. Guilt by itself doesn't really change the situation.

So why do I say yes, too? Because I think white guilt is the beginning step to accepting responsibility. Now, do I as a white person go around trying to oppress people of color by saying insensitive things or by taking away jobs, or trying to give their children substandard educations? No, of course not. I'm not personally responsible.

But on the other hand, I personally benefit from the structures set up in society. Some examples: the way of speaking and writing I grew up with is the "correct" way of doing it. I don't have to learn a different way to be considered a professional at work. My family benefited from housing programs that weren't available to people of color. This allowed us to build wealth that made it possible for me to get a first-rate suburban-school education. And, if I need to call the police, I know they'll listen to me.

So here is the conundrum: I'm not actively supporting racist structures, and yet I still benefit from them.

The best way out of the guilt is to say "Yes, that's how it is, and I do have a responsibility," and to start working to change the system. Guilt may not be the best motivator, but if it is transformed into an acceptance of responsibility, then it will have served its purpose.

2008-04-02T10:55:00.002-05:00

Martin Luther King - "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution"

Hi folks -

Friday marks 40 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Sunday before, he preached at the National Cathedral in DC. Here is the sermon text.

A few good quotes:

Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

For more than two centuries our forebearers labored here without wages. They made cotton king, and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of the most humiliating and oppressive conditions. And yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to grow and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face will surely fail.

2008-03-30T10:48:00.003-05:00

Monday Morning Preacher - The Spirit-Storm

Today's text: Acts 2:1-13

In this story from the book of Acts, the disciples have gathered after the death of Jesus. Suddenly, there is a noise, as if a wind is blowing. The people are lit up, as if there are flames coming from them, and they start speaking about God, spontaneously, in foreign languages they don't even know.

What would it be like to be in the middle of this strange storm of holiness? When a regular storm is about to blow in, there is a charge in the air. The wind picks up speed, and there's a sense of danger and anticipation. Have you ever had your breath catch at the first sound of thunder? Or the smell of those first raindrops kicking up the dust on the sidewalk? Has a powerful blast of wind ever made you want to shout?

Jesus' return from death to life brings on this strange storm of holiness. The disciples are caught up in it, as though they were in the clouds before the lightning. It charges the air with energy and joy, and it is a shared experience. They all feel it, they're all caught up in it, and the power of it is so great that even people who never knew Jesus can hear and see the difference. The disciples are breathing the breath of God.

2008-03-27T12:43:00.002-05:00

Of National Lies and Racial America

Hi folks -- I got this e-mail from one of my volunteers, and it's really good at tying together a bunch of different threads. Tim Wise is a white man who is active in combating racism. If you are white and haven't done a lot of thinking around race (what, my blog posts don't count?) prepare to be challenged.

Of National Lies and Racial America by Tim Wise.

Here are some quotes that said things I wanted to be able to say, but better:

...[A]s much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.

Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn't he say that America "got what it deserved" on 9/11? And didn't he say that black people should be singing "God Damn America" because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?

Well actually, no he didn't.

Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around--a notion with longstanding theological grounding--and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.

Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America . I don't care what the facts are."

Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church , because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

2008-03-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Sugar Mill

Last year, I was doing some repair work as a volunteer for a family that lived in a town with a sugar mill. The mill smelled so bad, I had to breathe through my mouth or shirtsleeve until I got used to it. It was terrible - almost metallic, but also an organic burning smell. Indescribable and distinctive. The first thing our volunteer coordinator told us when she met us was, "They say it's not supposed to be dangerous."

At the house toward the end of the week, the white owner told us that the black people living close to the sugar mill got some kind of a subsidy in exchange for putting up with the smell. He was jealous of them, and wanted a subsidy himself. They got all the breaks, in his estimation.

I didn't say anything at the time because the man was seriously ill, and was being very gracious about letting us help out. What I wanted to say, though, was that his problem wasn't with the people living in the stench of the sugar mill, it was the sugar mill itself.

There's a saying that if you can't face your real enemies, then you should pick smaller enemies. I think that's exactly what racism does - distracts people from their real problems, and keeps them from teaming up with people who are living with the same awful smell that they are.

2008-03-19T14:05:00.002-05:00

Angry Black Man

I think what is really going on with these clips of Jeremiah Wright's sermons is that most white people aren't used to the traditional black style of preaching. Part of the deal is that you bring emotion and passion to it. So, compound that with a common white tendency to fear any black man, and to really be afraid of angry black men, and you'll realize that these video clips are fear-mongering, manipulative, and directed straight at white people.

If racism is still negatively affecting the lives of black people - which it is - then some anger is in order. Anger, by the way, is not the same thing as hatred. It is possible to be angry with someone you love. I, for one, am angry right now with white Americans who don't realize when they're being manipulated.

2008-03-18T21:20:00.004-05:00

The HIV Question

So, I saw the clips. And it looks to me like most of what Jeremiah Wright said was about on-target. Easy to take out of context, and maybe with a little hyperbole thrown in, but for the most part, he's making some important points.

There was one clip I disagreed with, though, which was when Pastor Wright said that he believed the US government had invented the HIV virus to destroy people of color. I don't believe that. But I think I can understand the suspicion of the medical establishment, because as late as 1972 the US Public Health Service conducted experiments on black men by infecting them with syphilis and waiting for them to die of it so they could conduct autopsies. Here's the story about the Tuskegee Syphillis Experiment. And a second article here on it. A relevant quote:

In 1990, a survey found that 10 percent of African Americans believed that the U.S. government created AIDS as a plot to exterminate blacks, and another 20 percent could not rule out the possibility that this might be true. As preposterous and paranoid as this may sound, at one time the Tuskegee experiment must have seemed equally farfetched.

Who could imagine the government, all the way up to the Surgeon General of the United States, deliberately allowing a group of its citizens to die from a terrible disease for the sake of an ill-conceived experiment? In light of this and many other shameful episodes in our history, African Americans' widespread mistrust of the government and white society in general should not be a surprise to anyone.

2008-03-18T11:27:00.003-05:00

Obama's Speech on Race

Hey folks,

I really liked Obama before this speech. Now I know he is a leader.

Here's the NY Times posting of the speech.

To be completely honest, I didn't think the things I'd seen from Jeremiah Wright were all that bad. Racial oppression is still a problem in the US. It seemed like he was just being honest, and that it's something a responsible pastor should address: the pain his congregation is experiencing.

Anyway, I think Obama takes this to a whole other level. My response: Yes, exactly! Now what can we do?

2008-03-12T21:10:00.003-05:00

Another - Heard on NPR

The new movie "21" coming out in theaters soon is about some MIT students who figured out how to game Las Vegas without getting caught (for a while anyway). Apparently, the four main characters from the book it's based on, Bringing Down the House, were Asian (and were partly able to pull it off because of this). Interestingly, most of the "21" cast is white (and all the guys I saw in the trailer definitely were).

2008-03-04T22:17:00.001-05:00

Heard on NPR the other day

I appreciated this quote from a conservative commentator on NPR a couple days ago:

"I feel bad for Hillary Clinton. She's trying to conduct a job interview while [Obama] is on a date."

2008-03-01T12:30:00.001-05:00

Religion Stats, Part III

So, the last thing I wanted to say about this religion survey is that I was interested to learn that 16% of the US population is unaffiliated/agnostic/atheist. Many of those people were unaffiliated, moreover, because they had left a religion. I think something I am slowly learning is that people leave religions, usually, because of bad personal experiences.

Sometimes those experiences have to do with the reaction they get when they question the religion's belief systems. But more often, it's experiences in which the religion doesn't live up to its own ideals, and people get hurt in the process. Not that everything is determined by our experiences, but it's a lot harder to know God when the people you meet who claim to speak for God don't actually embody God's love, beauty, and open forgiveness.

2008-03-01T11:30:00.006-05:00

Obama Speech Part II

So, I've been doing a little more reading about the principles of tax law (any comments, my lawyer friends?), and it seems like the UCC might be in the clear if we consider the fact that Obama's appearance was not an endorsement of his candidacy by the church. It was probably supportive to his candidacy, but the basic purpose of the UCC is not to funnel money to Obama outside the campaign finance laws, or for other hidden/secret political purposes. We have some other stuff to do. So I'm feeling a little more hopeful.

Here's the Associated Press article.

2008-02-29T11:20:00.003-05:00

Religion Stats, Part II

So, back to the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life Religious Landscape survey.

My first reaction to this was to want to know about my own location. And, guess what? the UCC makes up 0.5% of the entire population of the United States. And then beyond that, how many of those folks really have similar views to mine? Who knows?

But it started me thinking about being in a minority group and a majority group simultaneously. As a Christian, I'm part of the 78% majority religion. But as a liberal mainline Christian, I'm probably in a group that's closer to 8-10% of the population (I'm guessing - I just divided the mainline churches (18%) in half to get that number).

So there are some advantages to this - Christmas is a national holiday, after all. But also some disadvantages. If you read much by Christopher Hitchens, you'll see that he's decided he knows what all Christians are about (actually, all religious people), and if I disagree with the picture he paints, well, I'm not really a Christian. Here's a writing sample. This interview on Interfaith Voices is even better.

But you know what? Why shouldn't Hitchens confuse fundamentalists with everyone else? They're kind of the loudest and most dramatic part of any given religion. I mean - who really wants to read about word-smithing at somebody's national church meeting? It's much easier to see and understand the people who do things in black-and-white. Plus, as the survey seems to show, there are more evangelicals than other kinds of Christians in the US. Not that all evangelicals are fundamentalists. But it's a good-sized number. And they have a relatively large number of television shows.

I mean, sure, he's a writer and should probably do his research and try to understand his subject with some nuance. But as an entertainer and seller of books, it's more important that he play off shallow stereotypes. So, I think he's just managed to nail the shallow stereotypes. I seem to have drifted into sarcasm. Time to stop. My basic point: being in the minority (a boutique Christian?) means people tend to misinterpret and misunderstand what you're about.

2008-02-28T18:32:00.002-05:00

Something I am worried about

So, some of you may know that back in June Barack Obama spoke to the UCC General Synod. Well, we got a letter from the IRS that the denomination is under investigation to see if our tax status was violated. Some things that suggest we did what we were supposed to do:

-- Obama was invited before he was a candidate

-- People who wanted to campaign for him weren't allowed into the civic center and had to stay outside. Similarly, we were told that this wasn't a campaign speech, and no signs were allowed inside.

Some things that are less clear:

-- During the speech, he made references to the campaign, and pledged to vote in universal health care

--On our website and in other publications, we mentioned that he was a candidate for office.

Here are the IRS' guidelines on inviting a candidate to speak at your non-profit organization. A relevant quote:

[T]the organization must ensure that:

The individual speaks only in a non-candidate capacity,

Neither the individual nor any representative of the organization makes any mention of his or her candidacy or the election, and

No campaign activity occurs in connection with the candidate’s attendance

I really hope this works out well, because it would SUCK to lose our tax-exempt status. *crosses fingers*

2008-02-26T11:02:00.003-05:00

A Picture of Religion in America

Heather sent me a link about this survey

Basically, it's one of the biggest and most in-depth surveys of religious affiliation in the US, possibly ever. Definitely in recent times. It makes it possible to have good estimates about how many people are affiliated with pretty small groups, as well as to differentiate between the many types of Baptists, who, it turns out, represent about a fifth of the US population.

A few things that stood out to me as particularly interesting:

--People are changing religions at a much faster rate than they used to.

--"Unaffiliated" has grown as a category, and now represents about 16% of the population

--There are more evangelical Protestants (26%) than Catholics (24%) and more Catholics than mainline protestants (18%), and then only slightly more mainliners than unaffiliated (16%).

--Only 51% of the country is Protestant, with that number slowly dropping.

I am planning to comment more on this, but thought I'd toss some facts out first. Don't want to make my post too long. :)

2008-02-17T20:56:00.003-05:00

Monday Morning Preacher - John 3:16

I finished reading The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McClaren this week, and it was so wonderfully enjoyable. I always like the chance to get a review of what Jesus' message was, because it's so easy to get caught up in the "what should we do about this message" part. Sometimes things just need to be about God.

So this morning's gospel reading (John 3:1-17) was a story about a smart guy - a Judean teacher & authority - who sneaks out in the middle of the night to ask Jesus what he means by this idea of eternal life. You may be familiar with this verse of the story: "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life" John 3:16.

Let's look at that again in a modernized/different/fresher? translation: "This is how much God loved the world: he gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life." (The Message)

Here's what I see as the good news: this new life, this "whole and lasting life" is a gift from God. It's not something we can earn, purchase, find for ourselves, or otherwise develop/create or force.

I think the key to the passage is the idea of "believing in" God. We can believe in God in the sense of philosophically believing in God. God=first cause, or God=ominiscient + omnipotent + perfect. A lot of folks run into trouble with this approach, because the Bible wasn't written by Greek philosophers, and God doesn't always fit into mathematical/logical categories.

Or, we can believe in God the way we believe in another person. If you believe in somebody, you believe that they can accomplish what they say they will, even if there are setbacks. It's about trust and confidence. What would it mean to say, "I believe in you!" to God? It's much more personal, much less intellectual.

Of course, beyond this I can't give you the mechanics. How does trusting God lead us into a whole new way of life? How does it bring us into a post-domination, peaceable kingdom? That's the gift and the mystery of it. Sometimes things just need to be about God.

2008-02-06T19:01:00.000-05:00

Class Differences for Super Tuesday

It doesn't seem like there's much commentary about this at my usual watering holes, but I was really interested in the unusual distribution of wins in various states. Why did Clinton dominate in Massachusetts, but not in Delaware? Something not getting much attention at my various news watering-holes is this question of class. People with less education and lower incomes tended to vote for Clinton over Obama. And vice-versa: people with higher incomes and more money voted for Obama. To me that difference, combined with the tendency of working-class folks to vote Republican in some states, rather than Democrat, explains many of Obama's wins in places like North Dakota. At least to me.

But I wonder, too, if Obama and Clinton's basic messages are heard very differently based on a person's social location. One of the things I like about Obama is that he is focused on building a movement of people committed to service and working together to improve the United States. Clinton tends to speak in more "patronage" types of terms: elect me and I'll solve you problems. Which is not appealing to someone with a sense of their own agency, but might sound better to somebody who hasn't felt empowered in the political realm, as working-class people often are not.

A thought.

2008-02-05T10:23:00.000-05:00

Discovering the Kingdom of God

I've been thoroughly enjoying The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McClaren. He talks about the kingdom of God, which was Jesus' main topic of conversation. In other words, talking about what Jesus was talking about, rather than focusing in on Jesus so much. It's really good.

So, I've been thinking about the kingdom of God as something that we build as humans trying to do what God wants us to. But really, the kingdom of God is at least as much something to be discovered and accepted. Something to be noticed and enjoyed as much as it is something to be constructed with human hands. In fact, it's possible that by trying to construct it, we sometimes cover it up.

2008-01-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't seen it yet, but...

I think I have an idea of how First Sunday will go. The basic plot: two guys try to rob a church after a big fundraiser. My prediction: a little bit funny, a lot of almost-jokes, and then finished off with a serving of second chances. ( I am cheating, since I've already read one review)

Anywho, I think a movie like this raises lots of fascinating questions. First, is this a new low in the esteem people hold for churches? What makes someone think of a church robbery as a key to a movie's plot?

Second, how crazy is it to think that a church would have that much money in it? My church has been broken into three times in the last year and a half, and I don't think any of the robbers got more than $5 in cash. They did get a TV set on one occasion, but still.

Hmmm..... that's probably enough questions for now. Cheers!

2008-01-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

^Huge Surprise^

Apparently, reading the news today, it's a big suprise/upset that Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire. I have two comments on this:

1. For the last 6 months (or more, really) she's been the front-runner in this election. Why would it be so surprising for her to win in New Hampshire? As a Red Sox fan, I know better than to turn off the game before the last out is played.

2. Her win was by 3% - about 8,000 votes. It's not a huge margin of victory.

2008-01-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

New Year, Day 3

It's still Christmas, liturgically speaking, so I hesitate to post, but having a new year to start blogging more faithfully makes the blank screen so much more appealing.

New Year's Day, really, is so arbitrary. It's kind of like your birthday - do you really feel older on your birthday? No. Because you're actually just one day older than you were the day before. Still, it's nice to have some of these arbitrary markers to prod us to rethink life & etc.

I read a good article in the NYTimes suggesting a kind of life-map review of the year for goal-setting and planning purposes. I've never been much of a write-down-your-goals kind of person. Probably because (as Heather can attest) I'm thinking of them constantly. Well, maybe not constantly.

Anywho, I did the little exercise, and it made me realize how thankful I am for many different creative outlets - this blog, for example. And this year, the activity that stood out the most was getting into improv comedy with Heather. I've really enjoyed mastering a new art. Not that it's mastered. Just that I'm working on it. Plus, the people are fun.

So, I hope your year was wonderful, and that you have things to be grateful for and to look forward to.

Blessings,

Amy

2007-12-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

Sometimes, I like to debate things in my head and get worked up over whether the way Americans celebrate Christmas is really all that Christian. But you know what? It's still a chance to spend time with family, and to experience the joy of generous love, kindness, and reconciliation. If you are able to enjoy those things this Christmas, God bless you. May your gratitude multiply your joy. If not, God bless you, too. Jesus sought us while we were still strangers. May God be present with you even now.

From one of my favorite hymns:

Who would think that what was needed
To transform and save the earth
Might not be a plan or army
Proud in purpose, proved in worth?
Who would think despite derision,
That a child would lead the way?
God surprises Earth with heaven,
coming here on Christmas day.

May you be surprised and blessed this Christmas season. Amen.

2007-12-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

Dual Salvation

I've been thinking, lately, that salvation means different things to different people. Salvation is from the Latin root salve, which means health, or wholeness. So maybe it seems obvious, now that I'm writing it, but the path to wholeness/shalom/salvation is going to be different for every person, because each of us has our own faults & strengths, our own weak spots and home bases. And, incidentally, it's not only about "the spiritual" or "the physical," but about God loving and healing each whole person. Salvation.

So, having broadly talked about salvation as personal, I'm going to make some generalizations about power and salvation. Salvation/wholeness/shalom looks different depending on your social location. If you are poor and powerless, salvation is about material support and gaining power - accepting your place as God's beloved, and taking responsibility to speak with your own voice. If you are rich and powerful, salvation is about learning to relinquish the power and wealth that might make you think you're in control of your own life. A few quick examples from Scripture:

Mary's Song: Luke 1:39-56

The Rich Young Ruler: Luke 18:18-30

Okay, so those are some Bible examples. But since we're coming up on Christmas, it seems like we could also pull from that Victorian reinvigorator of Christmas - Charles Dickens. In A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim's salvation from death comes through enough to eat, and medical care. For Scrooge, his salvation comes in learning generosity, giving his money away to his employee and his nephew. Salvation comes by letting go.

P.S. I am enjoying this song right now: In the Sun by Joseph Arthur

2007-12-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Lots of thoughts

I've been thinking about lots of things lately, but thought I'd start up slow with a write-up from Slate on emergent/missional churches:

The New Church Nomenclature

A quote of interest:

The early Christians formed networks of small groups, pooled resources, and established what amounts to an early form of welfare for the poor. In short, they were social activists. Which would seem a contrast to the individualism of numerous mainline Protestant denominations and many of the consumer-driven evangelical organizations. By participating in the popular movement toward stronger community bonds—starting with their names—these younger churches are returning to their roots.

2007-11-15T20:12:00.000-05:00

The Writer's Strike affects even me

Hey people, it's getting pretty desperate - even I am feeling the effects of the big TV/movie writers' strike. My favorite show is the Daily Show, and now it's all in reruns. Fortunately, they've just come out with a (beta) way to see all the clips:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

Don't watch it too much, though - I think that would technically be union-busting.

2007-11-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

Wish I Could Quit You

I'm about 3/4's of the way through If Grace is True by Philip Gulley & James Mulholland. In the book, they explain why they believe God will save every person. It's a pretty interesting book, although a little repetitive. Maybe I should say thorough instead of repetitive.

Short summary: God is able to transform every person into someone who accepts God's love and loves others. God is going to do this, but because there is life after death, God is not limited to our mortal lives here on earth.

The reason God does this is out of a sense of tremendous, tender, parental love. The thing I wanted to pull out from the book, though, was this quote from Hosea:

How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man -- the Holy one among you. I will not come in wrath. --Hosea 11:8-9

(I realize, typing it out, that there are a lot of place names - Ephraim, Israel, Admah, Zeboiim, in the quote - sorry if it's confusing.)

Okay, so if you're still here with me, I just want to say: this quote totally reminded me of Jake Gyllenhall's character in Brokeback Mountain saying "I wish I knew how to quit you!" I know that the quote became kind of a joke, but I think that kind of strong love - one that doesn't change even if we sometimes wish it would - is a good miniature of God's strong love. And a good demonstration of why God would persistently work to save all people.

Sorry if that was a lot of lead-in for not very much payoff.

2007-10-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

Monday Morning Preacher

So, I don't always look at Scriptures for the week ahead of time, since I'm not always preaching. Here's my take on this week's gospel passage. Here's the reading.

Here's my creative retelling:

At a certain church one Sunday, a deacon was praying to herself during the time of confession like this: "Thank you, God, that I'm a respectable person who knows what's right. I read the Bible every morning, I give away a tenth of my income, I'm admired by the other people in the church, and my husband and I have a good marriage, because we work at it. Thank you that I'm not looking for a handout or giving excuses like some people."

At the same time, sitting in the back of the church was someone new to the congregation: a drug dealer from the neighborhood. He prayed to himself during confession like this, "Oh God, have mercy on me. I'm such a mess right now. Forgive me for this life I'm living. I know it's not what you want. Have mercy on me, a sinner."

Jesus says, "I tell you, the drug dealer who humbles himself will be forgiven before the deacon who exalts herself."
...

I think we've all met people who are into one-upsmanship, are self-righteous, or otherwise super-irritating, and who not only talk the talk but back it up with perfect lives. Terrible. And it's possible to be this way about any number of things: how you raise kids, how you remodel your house, how you create art or music, how you protect the earth, or, as in this case, how you lead your spiritual life.

What's the antidote? Recognizing that everything doesn't depend on you, and that, in fact, it relies on God. God is the one who can decide to forgive us - we don't earn God's forgiveness or love. So, it's less pressure, but it's also less control.

The important reminder that this gives me is about using practices as a way of defining what it means to be Christian. In other words, approaching church life as an immersion in the practices of Christianity - worship, forgiveness, care for the body, shaping communities, prayer, testimony, and so on. See the Practicing Our Faith website if I'm not making sense.

The way that this can backfire, though, is if people see the practices of faith as replacing our need for God, rather than as paths to God. Which is an understandable impulse, since God is beyond our control, while faith practices are not. So my reminder from Scripture today is: as soon as God stops surprising you, you're probably not worshiping God anymore.

2007-09-13T20:43:00.000-05:00

Link Ethics

So, thanks to Heather, mostly, I've begun to be re-interested in the old Nintendo game "Legend of Zelda" See the website that has a bunch of the old games here.

Some things I've noticed as I'm re-learning the game & attempting to rescue the princess:

1. It is impossible to win without killing a large variety of alternately fuzzy, grumpy, and winged creatures.

2. Such creatures are usually out to get you, and once killed they sometimes leave behind money, weapons or life-force.

3. New lands mean new things to kill.

So, maybe this is basic training, but it is interesting how closely these principles seem to echo real-life war - killing other people allows mercenaries and looters to get money, weapons, and food (or whatever else constitutes life-force) from dead enemies. I have to admit though, sometimes it's really nice to catch a life-force fairy and see those little empty hearts fill up.

Perhaps with love, the true life-force?

[Post-script 9.18.07 - The better I get at killing little creatures, the less I contemplate it.]

2007-09-06T20:30:00.000-05:00

The Book of Philemon

For those of you interested in reading the Bible, but also wanting to impress people with how many books you can read really quickly, I recommend Philemon. It's not even long enough to have a second chapter. And, as a bonus, it's written by Paul, but has very little of his convoluted theologizing. It could almost be a blog entry.

Some caveats: in the letter, Paul is trying to get Philemon to accept back gracefully a slave who had run away from him to serve Paul. So in the past people used the text to justify slavery. I would say that Paul is mostly just working within the status quo, not necessarily agreeing to it. In fact, he seems to be trying to get an exception made to the rules based on his authority as an apostle.

Still: There's something about the rhetoric of the book that I really like. This is Paul at his most appealing and personal. You get the feeling he really loves Philemon, the householder, and Onesimus, the slave, and wants both of them to do the right thing out of love for each other and Christ. Like I said: short on theologizing, long on personality.

And if you didn't like it, it's technically pretty short on everything.

2007-08-30T15:48:00.000-05:00

A Short Comment on Senator Craig

It is interesting that Senator Craig, after admitting to signaling a police officer in an attempt to initiate sex in an airplane bathroom, is now saying over and over again that he is not gay. My first reaction to this was to think: "Oh he's gay, he just doesn't know it."

But maybe part of what it means to be gay, or to say it about yourself, is having the strength of character to be honest about who you are, what your attractions are, and to be able to live with being different. In that sense, Senator Craig is, in fact, not gay.

2007-08-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

Enough of the Electoral College Already!

Hey - check out this website: National Popular Vote. Basically, it's a way that state governments can work together to make the electoral college system of electing the president irrelevant. In other words, if enough states pass this legislation, the president would be elected by the majority of the US population, instead of the weird 270 electoral vote system that we have now. Go write your state reps and senators! (Unless you live in Maryland - we've ALREADY passed this legislation.)

2007-08-07T17:03:00.000-05:00

Religion & Violence

So I was reading this interesting article on religion and violence in my Harvard Divinity School magazine. The basic gist of the writer's argument was this:

1. People like to say that religion/religious conflict is the cause of many, many deaths.

2. These same people have a very hard time defining what exactly religion is. For example, if it's a set of beliefs about God or gods, then Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism would have to be left out.

3. In fact, "religious violence" is something of a false category used by Westerners to separate "religious" violence - i.e. irrational, uncivilized and therefore wrong - from "secular" violence - i.e. unfortunate but rational and necessary violence.

Does this mean that no-one has religious motivations for asserting their violence? Or that religious beliefs and practices do not sometimes lead to violent actions? No, of course not. What I am saying, though, is that practically speaking there are a lot more people in the United States willing to kill for their country than they are for their God.

In other words, nationalism is at least as deadly as any other form of belief, and separating "secular" violence from "religious" violence is really a strategy for letting Western countries off the hook for their violence.

This is the article, by the way: I've linked to the issue & the cover - the article itself isn't online.
Does Religion Cause Violence? by William T. Cavanaugh

2007-08-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

I HAVE BROADBAND

Hey everybody! I don't actually have broadband, but I do have DSL now, which makes it much easier and more pleasurable for me to go online when I am not at work. I am hoping that this will mean more posts for you. Aren't you happy? And then one day I am going to figure out how to put an mp3 file up on my sermon blog, because I have four of them recorded by now. One day. The main problem is probably that they're about 4 times as long as the average song, and therefore take a long time to upload. Any advice from my computer-savvy readers?

Anywho, I saw the Bourne Ultimatum yesterday afternoon. Loved it! It's one of those movies I might actually go see again in the theater, which I never do. (I think ET might have been the last time I did that, except of course for those times when you've seen the movie already but none of your friends have, so you figure you might as well go along).

I think if you've seen the other ones you'll already know this theme, but I really enjoy the idea of someone trying to fight a corrupted system (not just a single bad guy) from the inside. Which, when I write it here sounds cliche'd, but the movie lays it out with a sense of the ambiguities involved. One thing that's crazy to me is that it's rated PG-13, considering all the violence. It's definitely a movie for grown-ups. But actually, it's kind of nice not to have a bunch of swearing & sex get in the way of the story. One warning: they did the hand-held camera thing again, which can be a nice headache-inducer.

All right, that's my latest thoughts, for now.

2007-08-05T11:54:00.000-05:00

Sermons up

Hey folks, I preached this morning, and finally have put up some sermons from the last several months. Soon, very soon, I hope to develop a podcasting system of some kind.

Best,

Amy

2007-07-12T12:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry I'm a post-slacker. Saw this article on health insurance. Thought it was interesting:

http://www.slate.com/id/2169131/nav/navoa/

Basically about how the current health care system is bad for American businesses.

2007-04-08T19:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter friends! Today is the day that Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Which you probably know, and probably already realize is an outlandish claim. What can I say? It was a one-time thing.

But to be honest, many of the other claims that we make as Christians are just about as outlandish -- that God loves each person deeply and fully, whether that child be Iraqi or American, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist or Christian, woman or man, gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender, rich or poor, and without regard for the any of our mistakes, or, for that matter, our intentional cruelties either. The love of God is not something that we have any control over. It is a free gift.

Equally outlandish is this idea of the Kingdom of God, that Jesus brought and that is still in development -- a place where all people are loved and welcomed and treated with respect.

Given these extravagant claims, and the many ways that still, after thousands of years, our societies still do not live them out, it only seems to make sense that something as outlandish, as unnatural and as unexpected as the resurrection could offer any promise of the life that is to come. And come it will, soon and very soon.

2007-03-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

In honor of the 4-year anniversary:

Point/Counterpoint

Ah, how far we've come.

2007-03-07T13:02:00.000-05:00

Defense insurance

Interesting little thought-piece on what it would be like if we privatized the military the way health care is privatized.