Anglicamp

Moving!

2009-03-06T11:21:00.003-06:00

No, we're not buying a new house, but this blog has moved to:
anglicamp.wordpress.com

Blogger has served me well, and now it's time for a new look and a chapter for this blog. I hope you'll follow me! Blessings, Heidi

What a house means

2009-02-21T19:32:00.003-06:00

In a few bursts over the last couple of months, I've been obsessed with house shopping. I grew up in a six-flat in the city, and so houses always seemed magical to me: a building set apart from any other, with a yard, stairs, and its own front door. It's different from an apartment, a duplex, or a trailer.

The houses that seemed most magical to me were old houses, which don't exist here in Bolingbrook. The historic district here dates to 1960. But the houses here still have yards, stairs, front doors, and interesting details like countertops, flooring, patios, etc. I was smitten for a while. And then I began to feel sick to my stomach.

I was looking for something that wasn't there. The real estate listings have all kinds of facts and information. But I think I was actually searching out meaning. A sense of identity -- spirituality, even! Place, home, self, safety, vocation... and those things just weren't there.

Home means more than a building. We are rich enough to have that luxury in our country -- this is not just shelter from the rain, a place to sleep, to cook our meals, and perhaps to make our living. I'm sure people in less affluent places also make their homes their own, but I think the home, here, is a canvas for the self in a dramatic way because there are SO many ways to spend money and time on furnishing, decorating, and making it "just so" and "just for us."

When I realized that real estate listings weren't helping, I found some books.

Clare Cooper Marcus wrote "House as a Mirror of Self." She says our homes are psychological expressions of who we are. (Duh.) About halfway through I got tired of all the "self self self" stuff. But her declaration that we have emotional relationships with places made perfect sense to me. She makes interesting observations about the strong influence on us of the places of our childhood, the emotional nuances of clutter, and that our possessions are crucial pieces of how we understand and define who we are, among other things. I recommend it, although it's got a definite Berkeley bias and a lot of feminist liberation undertones that felt a little dated to me.

Akiko Busch's book "Geography of Home" consists of 13 chapters on 13 places you'll find in most North American houses. It's charming and whimsical -- I especially liked her chapters on front doors and bedrooms. But she didn't dive as deeply as Marcus, and I find I don't remember many of her observations.

I'm in the midst of Witold Rybczynski's "Home: A Short History of An Idea." It's a fun history of how Europeans have inhabited the places where they've lived over the past 500 years or so.

Basically, I'm feeding my "house" bug on its own terms: self-identity, personal space, meaning. We've slowed down our home shopping. How does where we live shape who we are? A house that stands all by itself says something to the world, although we're so used to it, we don't think about it much. A house uses quite a lot of resources so that the family inside doesn't have to share space or possessions with anyone else. A house can become full of meaning, but it is also just a building -- with rooms, appliances, plumbing, wood, and plaster. It's not magical. Or at least not any more than any other place.

I guess what I'm getting at is: what makes us happy? I think I thought a house was another way to be happy. It's a way to be independent, to build equity, to have decorating freedom galore... but it's not a way to be happy.

"The Velvet Reformation"

2009-02-15T15:52:00.003-06:00

This is an excellent article on Rowan Williams and the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, which a friend shared with me.

The Velvet Reformation by Paul Elie

I've clipped out several quotes, below, that struck me most. I do wish the ABC (ArchBishop of Canterbury) would take a position -- I think of Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. But I stand in a particular cultural place and community, and Rowan Williams is standing in between the liberal culture I live in, and cultures where issue of homosexuality could get priests and bishops killed by religious crazies in their countries. It's not simple.

And yet there is something telling in this church struggle, and even in the person of Rowan Williams himself, of the tensions of our time -- the culture wars, the shrinking of formerly large geographical distances by air travel and the internet, the changing understanding of sexuality from something primarily defined by a community's life and spirituality/religiosity, to something with meaning primarily for an individual's life and spirituality/religiosity, and the changing face of religion and Christianity as a whole.

On sexuality and grace (see his famous essay "The Body's Grace"):
The full expression of this grace through sexual relations takes time and the commitment of the partners to come to know each other—through the commitment of marriage or something like it. Sexual fidelity is akin to religious fidelity—“not an avoidance of risk, but the creation of a context in which grace can abound.” For the church to stand in the way of such relationships, straight or gay, is to stand in the way of God’s grace.

Here was a church leader considering the shape of sexual experience, not the structure of the church, and doing so through the notion, at once ancient and utterly familiar, of sexual fidelity: as a means of grace; and as a figure for the life of the church, in which believers can know the way forward only by going there together, staying faithful to God and each other even when they disagree.

On his value for church unity:
"Now my responsibilities are different. The responsibility is not to argue a case from the top or cast the chairman’s vote. It’s to hold the reins for a sensible debate—and that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"It doesn’t mean you stay together at any price, but it is a matter of whether we can demonstrate to the world a slightly different mode of operation than that which the world commonly operates with."

On Rowan Williams, himself:
“God has given you all the gifts,” one friend told him, “and as your punishment, he has made you archbishop of Canterbury."

Rowan Williams is one of the strongest, subtlest voices in all Christianity. Surely it is right for him to try to moderate the discussion about the place of gay people in the church. But that is not enough. He is a leader, not a stage manager. He should also take part in the conversation; he should somehow declare himself for the course of action he favors—which seems obvious—if only to say that he doesn’t favor it yet.

Finally, on what is perhaps the cowardice inherent in the secession movement:
The founding of a neo-traditional Anglican movement in Wheaton, Illinois, in early December actually confirmed the point. The event made the front page of The New York Times, but the facts belied the claims about its impact. The announcement took place not in Jerusalem, but in a borrowed church in a midwestern suburb, and none of the African bishops was present. Although the breakaway bishops claimed the support of 100,000 people, the 800-seat church was half-empty, and already those bishops faced conflicts among themselves—about the status of women priests, for example. It is the threat of schism, and the dramatic Reformation history that the word calls to mind, that gives the dissident bishops their power. Should they actually secede, they would soon be reduced from headlines to footnotes.

More productive or more anxious?

2009-01-31T10:11:00.002-06:00

This article is so chock-full of information that I had trouble processing all of the ideas and implications! It really made me think. It's about class differences, the current recession, and changes in the American work ethic.

We e-mail, we text, we Facebook, we blog. Are we more productive today or just more anxious?
By Katharine Mieszkowski
(about the new book, Elsewhere, U.S.A., by Dalton Conley)

I got thinking about my own work ethic. I take one full day off a week, Fridays, to make sure I get a Sabbath from ministry to rest, take time to do personal things, and spend time with Adam. But sometimes it's hard for me to slow down enough to really enjoy these things -- I often get sort of "stuck," going from 70 mph to 0 or 5 on my Sabbath. I feel agitated, distracted, and unable to really sink my teeth into rest. Even when I can continue to zip around because I'm using my Sabbath to do errands, I end up feeling resentful that I'm spending rest time "doing" instead of resting and just being. What is really rejuvenating? I'm still figuring that out.

This article made me wonder if that's because there isn't a clear division between work and leisure anymore, or at least not the way there was in the 1950s, or even the 1980s. Technology means most of us don't really "leave" work. I don't have a Blackberry, but I'm on email and Facebook often enough. And most Americans find their identity and strongest life satisfaction in their job. Most clergy do, certainly. And so, taking a day off from work can be tricky: how do I take a day off from all the thoughts and loves that consume my brain and heart, and that are fun and rewarding to think about?

But God made Sabbath one of the Ten Commandments. So I feel compelled to keep trying to explore it, and make it a less anxious and confusing experience for myself! I have a book I've been meaning to read, Receiving the Day, by Dorothy Bass. Maybe I'll finally sit down and read it next Friday, my next Sabbath.

Favorite quote of the day

2009-01-23T17:41:00.002-06:00

"The only surer route to Oscar credibility than making a Holocaust movie is being dead."

(Re: Oscar chances for The Reader and Heath Ledger)

Slate.com

Sorry, Bishop Gene

2009-01-20T15:49:00.004-06:00

but the Rev. Joseph Lowery pretty much topped everyone today. I like how Eve Fairbanks, writing for The Plank, a blog sponsored by The New Republic, put it:
"... Lowery's benediction had what Rick Warren's earnest invocation, Barack Obama's powerful address, and Elizabeth Alexander's limping poem all to some degree lacked: rhythm."

Amen to that. And starting with that verse from the Black National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"? Brilliant. That hymn almost always makes me cry.

Here's the transcript, courtesy of the L.A. Times website:

God of our weary years, god of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our god, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption -- and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, first lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around . . .

. . . when yellow will be mellow . . .

. . . when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Robinson's Prayer, take 2

2009-01-19T17:33:00.001-06:00

Here's the youtube of Bishop Robinson's invocation...

Gene Robinson's invocation

2009-01-19T17:18:00.003-06:00

Thanks to my friend, the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel, for this transcription. Robinson is using the 4-fold Franciscan blessing as his base for the first part of the prayer. You may have heard it before -- we used it during Lent at St. Benedict last year.

Since HBO did not broadcast it, here is Gene Robinson's prayer from the Lincoln Memorial yesterday:

"O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears -- tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger -- anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for all people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.

Give him stirring words; We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen."

The Spiritual Meaning of House Shopping

2009-01-18T16:57:00.004-06:00

Dwellings are spiritual things. Space is sacred, because we inhabit it on a daily basis and so it shapes our daily lives. As Adam and I start to look at houses here in Bolingbrook, we're thinking about these things.

We've actually played around with the idea of buying "beneath our means." In part, this is because we're not sure what Adam will be doing to make a living next year. But what would it mean to look at -- or choose? -- a house that was smaller and less polished than what the market tells us we can afford?

Oh, but it's hard not to go out and think only in terms of the lofty ceiling of our price range -- ooh, fancy pants kitchen! three bathrooms! brand new construction! Two car garage! And the higher you buy, supposedly, the larger return on your investment.

But isn't that what got so many people in trouble recently? Buying above their means? A woman at church told me that she and her husband purposely bought a house they could support on one income, just in case.

And perhaps there are spiritual reasons to consider a house smaller or "less perfect" than what the bank says you can afford.

Adam often says: "I don't want more space so that we'll go out and buy more stuff to fill it up."

If we had less space, we might have more cash to spend on furnishing it with furniture we REALLY LIKE (instead of all IKEA, all the time) and actually moving my childhood piano out here from my parents' house. Or we could make the house ultra energy efficient (Adam's parents have geothermal heating). Or we could travel more (the bishop says he wants to organize a trip to the Holy Land in a year or two). Or maybe we would simply pay more attention to what home means to us, since every square foot would count. Or maybe pay less attention, since there would be LESS roof, less plumbing, less wiring, fewer windows, etc. to think about. Not to mention less space to heat.

I'm not sure where this journey will take us, but it is making me re-examine what's important to me. I'm sure I'll learn a lot about myself in the process.

(But gosh, it's embarassing how SILLY LITTLE things catch my attention: "ooh, a birdbath!" "ooh, cool light fixture!" "ooh, a cherry red bedspread!" Things that have NOTHING to do with the overall quality or value of the house.)

lentil soup report

2009-01-15T07:16:00.003-06:00

I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath:
Adam thought it was alright, but doesn't really care for the texture of lentils.

News at 11.

Coffee, cold, and lentil soup

2009-01-14T17:44:00.002-06:00

Some friends came to visit last week, bringing some very strong coffee beans with them. Like I mean, beyond anything you could buy at Starbucks if you asked for it. Boy was that coffee good (Adam didn't like it much). But this is the second day I've had to fight a headache in the morning. No more of that! I'm off coffee entirely until maybe next week.

Cold cold cold is settling in. We watched the sun set through a sky hazy with blowing snow. Now it's dark, and the main road, which I can see from the window, is almost empty. This is unheard of during rush hour! We're all hiding inside to be safe and warm.

When I've lived a life that had more walking in it, winter was less of a burden. Being out in the cold just means you get used to it -- and you get more sun and exercise, too. Alas, this is not much of a possibility in the 'burbs. You can't even walk in the forest preserve without snowshoes (And I gave mine away a couple years ago. Dumb). I do have a dusty pair of backwoods xcountry skis in the closet...

I'm going to make lentil soup. Adam says this will be interesting, because he's never tried a lentil soup he liked, and yet he's never had a soup I've made that he didn't like. Stay posted for results.

A New Year

2008-12-31T20:12:00.002-06:00

I've been at the Church of St. Benedict for a year and a month.
I've been married for four months and a day.
I've been living in this apartment for almost five months.
I've been living in Bolingbrook for almost 14 months.

2008 was a year of many changes for me. Most of my energy this year has gone into just weathering all those changes. It's been wonderful and exhausting. I'm ready for a year of doing things for the second time (although not the getting married part!), and putting down some roots. We'll probably buy a house and get a dog. And I like the advice of the Dalai Lama on living well: eat less, sleep more.

But perhaps I should pay more attention to the intangible things I want to do this year. I'm going to pray on that a little. I think prayer actually is something I need to deepen in my life. Maybe bible study, too. It would be a solid foundation for my ministry work each day, but I also find spiritual routines difficult because I have a terrible weakness for distractions! My aunt sometimes says she things everyone in our family had mild ADD. Sometimes I think most Americans have mild ADD these days. Perhaps with the exception of the Amish?

I've thought for many years about becoming an oblate -- an associate of a Benedictine monastery. Yesterday, I got a letter from a monastery I've been connected to for years, Holy Wisdom in Madison, WI, inviting me to consider their oblate program again. It's a big commitment, but I wonder if it would be a good discipline for me. Not a decision to take lightly.

And if we get a house in 2009, I will have a garden. This is both a concrete and a deeply spiritual joy for me. To have a relationship with a piece of dirt, to grow some of our own food, to plant flowers, to see worms and bugs... wow. That will be what I remember when I get flustered with house showings and layouts and numbers of bathrooms. In some way, having that sunny backyard will overshadow anything about the inside of the house. Stay tuned....

2008-12-31T20:10:00.002-06:00

My bagger at Jewel saw all the vegetables I was buying and told me he's never eaten celery. Wow.

"I mean, I've heard about the whole peanut butter thing, but I just never tried it."

I think I don't realize how sheltered I am from the world out there.

Christmas reflux

2008-12-27T13:34:00.004-06:00

When I was little, in the week after Christmas, my dad and I would exclaim over the Christmas trees that had already been abandoned in our alleyway, waiting for the garbage trucks. Now, my parents weren't like the couple in the beautiful brownstone two houses down who left their (gorgeous) tree up in their big bay window until early February, but the Haverkamp tree was up into the second week of January, usually.

Adam and I put our tree up in early December. I loved it. I put little rainbow lights on it, a few gold balls, and the half dozen ornaments we have so far. But today it's December 27, and I'm sick of the tree. The needles on the floor. That it blocks the window. That there are still wrapped presents under it for folks we haven't see yet. But Adam has convinced me to leave the tree up until we get back from Iowa on Tuesday.

I have become the people my dad and I scorned.

Maybe it's because this is my second Christmas as a parish priest? Christmas is a little more intense when you're responsible for producing a liturgical experience to mark its significance. But even if I never went to church, the secular world produces an intense Christmas cloud of color, music, and stuff stuff stuff.

I'm also tired of the colors red and green. So, I really appreciate the liturgical colors for Christmas: white and gold is clean and simple, but rich without giving me aesthetic indigestion.

I'm ready for some emptiness. White. Clean surfaces. Foods without copious amounts of butter.

After church tomorrow we're driving to Iowa to have a few days of Christmas with Adam's family. There will probably be red-and-green, decorations, a tree, ham and/or turkey, foods containing butter, and wrapped gifts in the neighborhood. It will be a great time, but my hunger for emptiness may need to wait a little longer.

Well, I may as well go eat another raspberry Frango.

God makes us and remakes us...

2008-12-20T10:56:00.002-06:00

We did not make ourselves,
it was the Lord who made us,
and it is the Lord, too,
who has remade us

From a letter by St. Paulinus of Nola, found at Episcopal Cafe, daily reading for Dec. 17.

One of my parishioners, a long-time student and teacher of the 12-step movement, is slowly recovering from her cancer treatments. Healing is not easy, as she is teaching me; being remade can be painful. But she told me, quoting a 12-step phrase she used in her social worker days: "Every day is a new beginning."

I am often struck with how powerless I feel as a priest. Ironically, this happens most often on my day off. On Fridays, when I take my sabbath day, I suddenly have time to breathe and sometimes all that time gets me brooding: about what I could do better, or ways I have come up short.

The best way to bring myself back is through prayer -- filling the stillness of my sabbath day with a sense of the presence of God, instead of the busy buzz of my own fretting. Especially in the holiday season, where so much is going on and so much needs to be done, we do well to let go of own own agency in it all and remember to let God move through us. This doesn't mean doing nothing. (Although sometimes praying, to me, feels like doing nothing, which I know is wrong.)

We do have power. How will we use it? How will I keep worry or fretting from driving my ministry, rather than what the Spirit is calling me to?

God has made us and remade us. Jesus is coming into the world to be born. Every day is a new beginning. Thanks be to God.

from the Christmas pageant files

2008-12-15T17:30:00.003-06:00

This was posted on the Christian Century website, Theolog. It's from Christian Coon, the pastor of a church in Deerfield. Here's his blog: GenXRev

"Who Wants to Be Mary?"

Our music director asked a group of seven-, eight- and nine-year-old girls this question a couple weeks ago, as children from the church gathered for their first Christmas pageant rehearsal. A handful of would-be Marys eagerly raised their hands, each wanting the chance to stand up front with a (probably uncomfortable) young Joseph and hold the baby-doll Jesus

After a bit of deliberation, the director chose a second-grader named Sophie. Sophie's eyes opened wide behind her glasses, and she whispered in joyful disbelief, "Me?"

Sophie's a bright young girl, the child who always has just the right thing to say during the children's sermon. I delighted in hearing about this scene. But some of the girls were disappointed. Elizabeth, also a second-grader, was told that she could be a lamb. She was silent for a moment as her brow furrowed; then she looked at one of the pageant coordinators. "Well," she asked suspiciously, "what does the lamb do?"

Just the question I would ask. "Lamb 1" is hardly a consolation prize for being Mary.

I was Gabriel three times as a child. No joke.

I finally got to be Mary in a living tableau when I worked at Gould Farm. The Farm stages a nativity in one of the barns every year, or used to. A group of staff and guests (or patients) would dress up and stand in the cold cold barn for a couple hours on Christmas Eve night, and people would drive out to come look, and listen to one of the board members play the recorder, hidden in the hayloft. Bucolic, huh?

It really was, actually.

The year I was Mary, I was also supposed to drive the 15-passenger van full of shepherds, wise men, and Joseph down the hill to the barn. And I was in a hurry -- getting a group of people dressed in costumes takes more time than you think. I hopped into the driver seat, dressed in my long, blue robes. I waited for everyone to hurry up and get their seat belts on, and then I threw that van into reverse and backed RIGHT into the minivan of the recorder-playing board member. WHAM! And rather than ponder these things in my heart, I'm afraid Mary swore, even with the baby Jesus doll lying right next to my seat. It was a story told about me for many months after. My friend Monica still likes to remind me of it, 10 years later.

Luckily, both the Farm and the board member had insurance.

My mother leads prayer

2008-12-11T20:26:00.003-06:00

My mother teaches middle school kids at a private Catholic school in the city. She leads her homeroom in prayer every morning. My mother in many ways is a very patient woman. However, she has little patience for some of the "special intentions" her students make during prayer time, many of which, I'm afraid, cause her to roll her eyes at the sheltered lives her students lead.

For instance, once a girl asked to pray "that my grandmother have a nice birthday at the Bulls' game tonight!"

My mother said: "Well, is there any chance that she WON'T have a good time at the Bulls' game tonight?"

The girl thought about this and said, "Well, no."

And my mom replied, "Well then, I'm not sure we should pray for that, then."

Over the years, my mom has also heard many prayers for animals and pets. She created a separate category called "Prayers to St. Francis," to keep prayers for animals in a different category from prayers for people, or say, an end to war, famine, and pestilence, for example. (Not that her kids every pray for those latter things.)

Mostly, my mom keeps her cool about these things and lets them go by. But not always, as you can see from the story above. And this week, she told me, a girl prayed "that my kitty will stop climbing the Christmas tree."

My mother lost it: "I'm afraid in this case, [Sally], St. Francis can do nothing to help you."

[Sally]: "Oh, ok. My mother gets mad."

Mom: "Just tell her to relax."

On the Alternative Anglican Province for North America

2008-12-05T16:35:00.007-06:00

You may want to read this first:
Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group

On the Proposed Formation of an Alternative Anglican Province in North America

The Very Rev. Matt Gunter, Dean in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago

As members of the Episcopal Church and of the World Wide Anglican Communion, we are saddened by the creation of a supposed alternative Anglican Province in North America. We regret that some members of the Episcopal Church have decided they are unable to worship God with us or to bear witness with us to the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are diminished by their absence from our midst. We suspect they are diminished as well. We need the encouragement and challenge of one another in our diversity in order to more fully live into our call to be the body of Christ in these times.

Contrary to what some claim, the Prayer Book and the doctrine of the Episcopal Church remain solidly in line with traditional creeds of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. It remains the official Anglican presence in the United States. The Episcopal Church does much good in reaching out in service to a hurting world in the name of Christ’s kingdom. It is a church where the scriptures are read and the sacraments celebrated. While there is considerable disagreement on a range of contentious contemporary issues, we remain a comprehensive church which includes members of Evangelical, Catholic and more Liberal convictions. There are bishops, priests and laity who, while sharing some of the concerns of those who are leaving, are unconvinced that splitting the church solves more problems than it creates.

We are saddened by the cycle of provocation and reaction in the church which all too often mirrors the polarized rhetoric of our society. As sharers in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation, we all need to find better ways to engage one another over serious disagreements that reflect forbearance and charity toward one another if our witness to a broken and divided world is to have any credibility.

In the Episcopal Church:

All are welcome (and welcome back)

All will be encouraged.

All will be challenged.

All will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Or, then there is this Response:

Top Ten Reasons to Start Your Own Non-Geographical 'Anglican' Province

10. Frequent travel to warmer, more exotic climes: The Southern Cone, Africa, etc.

9. Evangelicals get to triumph the 39 Articles and Anglo-Catholics get to ignore most of the 39 Articles and everyone else doesn’t really care as long as there are no LGBT people around or women leading worship (neither of which is mentioned in the 39 Articles).

8. You get to pray with your own prayer book – or not – and in your own way: standing up with your arms raised; or head bowed and on your knees; or with prayer beads in hand; or, while listening to traditional hymns played on an organ or contemporary songs accompanied by a praise band.

7. Never any confusion or need to consider the ‘real meaning’ of scripture – a male, orthodox priest, bishop or primate will tell you what it means.

6. You know the ‘Way, Truth and life of Jesus’ and no one else does, and you don’t have to share it with anyone unless they agree to sign the Jerusalem Statement.

5. You have sole ownership of the ‘faith first delivered to the saints’.

4. No yucky female bishops or primates thinking they can tell you what to do – female priests in the former Diocese of Pittsburgh, however, are in impaired communion with the former Bishop of Fort Worth (but the male priests, apparently, are not).

3. No LGBT people in the pews or in vestments, unless they are healed and celibate and tithing – and even then . . . . .

2. You can really believe that Jesus loves you best, even if the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t.

And, the number one reason to start your own non-geographical Anglican province:
1. The folks over at TEC will always leave the porch light on so you can find your way back home.

by Elizabeth Kaeton

Our Christmas Tree

2008-12-05T15:27:00.004-06:00

Adam grew up with artificial trees, only. I grew up with real trees, only. He was gracious enough to let me have a real tree for this first Christmas together! We bought it today, from some Michigan guys who camp out in a church parking lot every December, sleeping and eating in a cold trailer.

It's a bit mis-shapen. Maybe you wouldn't notice that kind of thing. But my dad was very particular about our tree every year: it's shape, fullness, and symmetry... He still wanted the CHEAPEST tree possible, but each tree (in for example, the Home Depot parking lot) was carefully examined for quality.

I saw this tree, and I liked it right away. It's sort of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, though. This isn't its best angle -- it actually looks a little less skinny-on-top and fat-on-the-bottom in person. For some reason, I like that it's uneven and has holes in it. It's seems like a very honest tree.

We haven't decorated it. In this way, I am still like my dad. You let the tree "rest" for a day or two first, so the branches can "settle."

Here we are, in our apartment parking lot, bringing the tree inside.

Adam couldn't get over how weird it was to him to bring a real tree into our house. Or even to carry it. "It feels like I'm holding a bazooka!" he said. And so, he aimed it accordingly...

Sedan Chairs

2008-12-03T21:58:00.001-06:00

Not that I'm getting any ideas, but a friend and I were talking about these things, and how unsteady they must have been. Watch Pope John the 23rd wobble about.

This is what church dorks talk about.

And earlier today, someone DID say to me: "Everything is on YouTube." This video makes me think that must be true... commentary in Italian and all.

From the sermon cutting floor

2008-11-29T22:14:00.002-06:00

So, I collect all manner of scraps and threads when I'm writing a sermon, but I never can use all of them. And I just can't stand to throw them away! Here are a few from this week, late on a Sabbath Eve:

Tony Campolo, a well-known author and speaker, said once in a sermon: “Frankly, the argument against believing in God or against placing one’s trust in Jesus is every bit as persuasive as the argument for it. So I chose to choose to believe and trust. And that choice has made all the difference.”

Nicholas of Cusa, a dialogue between a Christian and "a Gentile" (or nonbeliever), circa 1444:
—translated by William F. Wertz, Jr..

Gentile: I wish to know, who are you?
Christian: I am a Christian.
Gentile: Whom do you adore?
Christian: God.
G: Who is the God, whom you adore?
C: I do not know.
G: How can you so earnestly adore, what you do not know?
C: Because I do not know, I adore.

In Iowa

2008-11-26T14:11:00.002-06:00

Adam and I are in Iowa for Thanksgiving, with his family. We're having a slow, quiet day, waiting for the festivities to rev up.

I decided to talk a walk this afternoon, to loosen up my legs and look around the neighborhood. Adam's parents live on a road of farms and homes on big tracts of land. The local government is building a new sewer line out here, so there are huge mountains of dirt, big earth-moving machines, and lots of trucks around.

As I was walking of of those dump trucks drove by, and the driver waved. A big wave! So I waved back.

And then another truck drove by. And that driver waved, too. So I waved again.

And then began a slow parade of never-ending, jovial, friendly truck drivers. Some waved, but not all -- but something in me felt like I should wave to all of them. That it was my neighborly obligation. And I began to feel a little stressed out.

I finally turned around and came back. The city-girl just couldn't handle it.

Advent Conspiracy

2008-11-25T07:58:00.001-06:00

This is pretty cool. You know the usual, "Jesus is the reason for the season" stuff. This takes it a little deeper (and it's a well-designed and edited video, too).

And who doesn't want to join a CONSPIRACY?

Economic crisis and personal morality

2008-11-24T08:08:00.006-06:00

An article from slate.com that I thought I'd share.
Don't get depressed, It's not 1929

Here's my favorite quote:
Instead of workers with 5 o'clock shadows asking, "Brother, can you spare a dime?" we have clean-shaven financial-services executives asking congressmen if they can spare $100 billion.

It's true; there are many differences between this economic crisis and that one 80 years ago. And yet I think the commonality that has so many of us looking back to the 1930s is the sense of the unknown -- the failure of institutions that we didn't think could fail. And now gas prices have plummeted. It's just weird. It feels like something more is happening than just a plan ol' little recession. Time will tell.

Regardless, many clergy I know are saying that the crisis has motivated them to focus their churches on the things that are really important in our lives -- family, God's love, service to the needy. I have preached that, too. People are responding to that message; it's hitting home for most of us right now.

But sometimes I romanticize the Great Depression, because there are so many wonderful stories along the lines of: "we didn't have much, but we had each other!" Or stories and statistics I've heard about the genuine joy and happiness of people in third world countries, even though they live with dirt floors and water an hour's walk away. Does poverty make human beings better, more moral, and happier people? Christianity would say no: the potential to sin is always present in us, we are human.

This is also a quote from the slate article:
...wealthy Treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, saw the downturn as a force for good ... "People will work harder, live more moral lives."

Eek. Easy for Andrew Mellon to say! He was one of the four richest people in America in his time.

But I sometimes long for a community where people are interconnected and share what they have, where we can find enough in very little. I think of the early Christian communities. (Acts 2):
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

But am I being simplistic? How does the coziness and simplicity of small, interdependent (closed?) communities (large interdependent communities, in my opinion = communism, which is beyond the scope of this blog post) compare with the freedom, creativity, and fertility of relative wealthy communities? Education, communication, pluralism, ease of travel...does it makes us better citizens of the whole world, and not just our immediate communities? (To say nothing of our ample food, sturdy shelter, clean accessible water, health care...) Am I saying the community of Acts 2 was provincial and judgmental of the outside world? Well, the Bible can be pretty judgmental of nonbelievers or those who don't conform to the immediate community. (Ananias and Sapphira, the insular Johannine community, Matthew's sheep and goats, routing out the original inhabitants of Canaan...)

I don't know. I'm still sorting it out.

Gratitude and thanksgiving

2008-11-19T08:14:00.002-06:00

We studied these verses as our devotional at the bishop's committee meeting last night. (That's what we call our church board, as a mission parish in the Episcopal Church.)

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.”
- Meister Eckhart (Dominican monk and mystic, 13th century)

(2 translations of 1 Thessalonians):
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
- St. Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, New Revised Standard Version

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
- St. Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, The Message (Eugene Peterson)

People has some interesting reflections. One of us said "Thank you" didn't seem like enough -- she talks to God about everything. Other didn't like Peterson's translation of "rejoice" as "be cheerful." It sounded superficial, like "Keep smiling."

The whole idea of giving thanks can start to seem trite around Thanksgiving. It can be a Pollyanna exercise, or a list-making, or something that shuts down our valid feelings of grief, anger, or fear. And yet, it's a pretty powerful spiritual discipline to try to find something to thank God for in all circumstances. As one person said in our meeting, it's a discipline that opens you up to God's presence, instead of closing you up in despair or anger. "Giving thanks in all circumstances," while not always easy, might actually make our lives better.

But the wording: "thanking God no matter what happens" sounds more like a directive or a forcing of gratitude. And spiritual disciplines can never be like self-punishment and be effective. Sorry Eugene -- so often I find your translations to open up God's word, but here I think they close it in.