Worship Solutions

Not what you’re thinking, if you’ve had experiences like mine in worship problems. And I’m sure Dash will be interested to learn more about hurdles faced by emergent churches. I stumbled across this offering from a music and sound installation store: “Gand Music and Sound has specialized in helping houses of worship solve their sound problems for over 34 years….” As Gand is well-respected (and I’ve had good experiences with them), I don’t mind providing some free advertising in order to illuminate an entirely new avenue of worship humor. Among the problems they can solve:

Problem… Tripping on the way to the pulpit Solution Clean up your stage. Stop tripping on mic cables on your way to the pulpit (unless you are too ‘emergent’ for a pulpit). Go with wireless mics from Shure or Audio Technica. Get higher quality mics with Shure’s Beta series while you’re at it. Audio muddiness will be gone along with the cable mess.

Tripping in the pulpit is a problem I’ve seen more often (theologically speaking).

Problem… The keyboard sounds cheesey, like an 80’s ballad Solution Kurzweil and Korg make wonderful keyboards for use in church. They can sound like a Steinway, or a lush synth backdrop for a quiet moment in need of enhancement. If you want to sound like an orchestra or a gospel organ, you can.

I admit Kurzweil makes some amazing keyboards, but for church, I’m still in love with a certain E.M. Skinner pipe organ.

Problem… The drums are too loud! Solution A Electronic V-Drums from Roland or Yamaha can give you complete control of volume levels. You get however much drumming your room can handle - no more. Instead of hitting a loud drum or cymbal, the drummer hits a trigger pad connected to a sound module. This goes straight to the PA mixer. You can set the balance from the back of the room, where the people sit who complain every week after the service is over - if they stick around at all. Vocals will be won’t be drowned out by the drums anymore.

Not a problem for me—no drums at all.

Problem… Speakers explode when you say, “Paul” Solution The new Countryman E6 headset microphone is the favorite of pastors today. It is a flesh-toned, ultra-thin mic that picks up the orator evenly all the time. Traditional lavalier mics are subject to gusts of breath causing loud ‘boom’ sounds. Also, as the orator turns their head, the volume varies. The Countryman E6 mic avoids these problems. The microphone element is positioned at the corner of the mouth and is not subject to hard consonant sounds. Request special configuration for any wireless lavalier system or wired beltpack. You can order the mic in four different skin tones.

As the church I’ve been attending uses no mics at all, and it’s possible to hear every word, I thank God I’ve been spared this problem, as well as the following three.

Problem… Our existing PA system probably annoys the Lord Solution The best sounding PA system we sell is from NEXO. It is a little more costly than other similar sized, yet not comparable systems. The consensus from our customers, be they churches, schools, or bands, is that the NEXO system is better than everything else they have had or tried. You can hear vocals clearly. The speakers are no bigger than they really need to be. No squealing feedback. These systems come in a package you can’t mess up.

Problem… Every week, the sound is different Solution Digital mixers are a new innovation that allows you to save all the settings of a mixer. Like a ‘Word’ document on a computer, you can simply reload last weeks settings and pick up where you left off. You can have us configure it especially for your needs and/or instrumentation. We can set up effects for certain channels, compression for the sermon recording, de-esser for the entire mix, limiter to protect the speakers, etc, etc, etc… Problem… Monitor speakers make the stage cluttered and ugly Solution Personal wireless in-ear monitor systems are a new way to keep the floor clear of speakers. The players in the worship band each have ear ‘buds’ connecting to a body pack which receives a custom mix from the mixer. The musicians can then adjust the sound to their liking. These are fast becoming the audio industry standard. Setup of these systems is easier when combined with a digital mixer.

Read the entire list here. I’m relieved to know some worship problems are so easily addressed. My brethren and sisteren in the emerging churches have much reason to praise the Lord.

Standards of Democracy

Am I the only one questioning neo-con desires to implant democracy in the Middle East? Iran’s President Ahmadinejad was freely elected—no alerts of election fraud that I know of—and he has proceeded on a course that appears to have little to do with Bush/Cheney/Rove desires for stability (and especially U.S. alliance) in that region. WMDs [Weapons of Mass Destruction] have been pretty thoroughly debunked as a legitimate reason to wage war on Iraq, so all that is left is a desire to implant democracy in a volatile region, with a hope that those who freely elect their leaders will choose those who won’t be hostile to the U.S. first, and to Israel secondarily. Iran’s democracy evolved without any U.S. involvement—in fact, probably in spite of the U.S.’s periodic intervention in the region. Will it be a model for other Middle East nations? If it is, what will follow?

Commercial for the Grinch

“During this season of indulgence, remember this: Take care of the luxuries, and the necessities will take care of themselves.” So advises a Cadillac commercial, urging the purchase of a castle on wheels. First: Huh? You talkin’ to me??? I think not, as I’m still concerned with necessities for myself and a whole lot of people in the world. Those wacky marketing people. Always upping the ante in a bid for attention to their product (and I know that it could be tongue in cheek). They got my attention, though not positively. I guess it doesn’t matter, as my one-person boycott is hollow—I can’t afford the product anyway. So what about those people who can? If this is an effective campaign—probably less than one percent of those who hear the ad and respond to it are more than enough to keep Cadillac afloat—should I be upset about it? For those can’t buy a luxury automobile and wish they could, do they want to be in the ranks of those who say “Let them eat cake?” I suppose a number do. This “gospel”, embraced consciously or not, is one that permits more and more to slip into poverty. “I got mine. If you didn’t, what’s wrong with you?” I do see it as non-Christian, but what does that mean for me? And if I don’t buy into the ad, does that make me a Grinch? Second: There’s the “season of indulgence” part. It is disturbing to consider this term for the holidays alongside claims of an existence of a “vast secular-humanist conspiracy” (as Michelle Goldberg put it in “How the secular humanist grinch didn’t steal Christmas”) to eliminate Christ from Christmas. Leaders of the religious right are battling perceived censorship of Christian celebration in the town square, public schools’ holiday observances, and store cashiers saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Jerry Falwell notes:

We need to draw a line in the sand and resist bullying tactics by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, American Atheists and other leftist organizations that intimidate school and government officials by spreading misinformation about Christmas. Celebrating Christmas is constitutional!

The O’Reilly Factor program from Nov. 21, 2005 featured a debate in its “Impact” segment:

JOHN KASICH, GUEST HOST: [T]he campaign to defend Christmas[] is being led by Reverend Jerry Falwell. Other religious leaders and legal scholars have mobilized promising to file lawsuits and organize boycotts against individuals, schools, government institutions and businesses who discriminate against the upcoming Christian holiday.

The ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Freedom from Religion Foundation, and People for the American Way are particularly demonized as being enemies of Christianity. The Alliance Defense Fund [ADF], a Christian right legal outfit co-founded by the late Dr. Bill Bright, the late Larry Burkett, Dr. James Dobson, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and the late Marlin Maddoux, is providing free legal advice and guidelines for those who fight what they believe are restrictions on their religious freedom. Do they really believe the free exercise of their religious beliefs must necessarily infringe on those of other religions? These concerns of an attempted chokehold on Christian expression aren’t fully borne out by the evidence. As Michelle Goldberg noted on salon.com,

Despite [Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for ADF]’s lamentations, one can in fact offer Christmas greetings without legal counsel. Christmas trees are permitted in public schools. (They’re considered secular symbols.) Nativity scenes are allowed on public property, although if the government erects one, it has to be part of a larger display that also includes other, secular signs of the holiday season, or displays referring to other religions. (The operative Supreme Court precedent is 1984’s Lynch v. Donnelly, where the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a city-sponsored Christmas display including a crèche, reindeer, a Christmas tree, candy-striped poles and a banner that read “Seasons Greetings” was permissible. “The display is sponsored by the city to celebrate the Holiday and to depict the origins of that Holiday,” the majority wrote. “These are legitimate secular purposes.”) Students are allowed to distribute religious holiday cards and literature in school. If the administration tries to stop them, the ACLU will step in to defend the students’ free-speech rights, as they did in 2003 when teenagers in Massachusetts were suspended for passing out candy canes with Christian messages. … The myth of the war on Christmas has two parts. The first… charges that department stores are trying to replace the celebration of Jesus’ birthday with some secularized, universal winter holiday season, a switch encompassed by the godless greeting “Happy Holidays.” The second asserts that the ACLU and other groups like the Anti-Defamation League and People for the American Way are trying to ban public Christmas displays. Like all conspiracy theories, there are a few grains of truth at the center of it—some schools, in an overzealous attempt to promote inclusiveness, have taken silly steps like renaming their Christmas trees “friendship trees.” Some have indeed infringed on religious students’ First Amendment rights. Weaving these stories together, the myth of the war on Christmas claims that the ACLU has forced Christmas into hiding, and that Christians must therefore battle to reclaim their rightful place in the culture. “Those who would ban Christmas and Christians should not mistake the signs on the horizon,” writes [Fox News anchor John] Gibson in “The War on Christmas[: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought].” “The Christians are coming to retake their place in the public square, and the most natural battleground in this war is Christmas.”

Okay—in the secularized Christian world, Christmas is more important than Easter, yet in the Church Year, which goes from Advent (what’s that???) through Easter and Pentecost, Easter holds primacy. It is Easter that gives meaning to Jesus’ birth. I’ve seen no such battle over repression of Easter displays. Americans, even those of the religious right, evidence no such strong emotional ties to Easter. No nefarious plot needs to exist, as even Christians have sent Easter to the minor leagues. So how does all this relate to the ad that I quoted at the beginning? It seems that the focus of Christian expression is on being able to exchange greetings of “Merry Christmas,” sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in secular settings, set up a crèche in front of City Hall. The Christian right promises boycotts of anything that threatens those expressions. Would they see the Cadillac commercial as a threat, a bullying tactic? At the very least, the ad should be offensive to those who follow the Jesus who was all about bringing the widowed and orphaned, the poor and the marginalized into full relationship with the Father. Should we try to make Cadillac stop those ads? What is Christian expression anyway? I have Jewish, Hindi, Muslim, nominal Christian and agnostic (and maybe atheistic) co-workers. In this country, they need not have my Christianity thrown in their faces as something to which they should adhere, just as I need not adopt their credos. The Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer asks, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” An expression of Christianity that would respect the dignity of every human being would be reaching out to and helping those on the margins, the helpless who are so vulnerable to famine, hurricane, earthquake, war, disease. I really don’t see how saying “Merry Christmas” fulfills the Covenant.

Torture and generosity

I’ve probably never seen those two words so close together. This week’s Sojourners e-newsletter has two potent items on torture and generosity. The title that grabbed my attention was “Who would Jesus torture?” The author, David Batstone, observes in part:

Christians of strong religious faith and sound moral conscience often end up in disagreement. Human affairs are a messy business, unfortunately, and even at the best of times we only see through a glass, darkly. It is hard for that reason to call Christians to a universal standard of behavior. At this moment, however, we cannot afford to dilute the message of Jesus into meaningless ambiguity. There are certain acts that a follower of Jesus simply cannot accept. Here is one: A Christian cannot justify the torture of a human being. … When the existence of secret CIA detention centers became public this week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called for investigations - not about whether they violate laws governing human rights - but about how the information was leaked. But members of their own party are keeping the focus where it belongs. The Washington Post quoted Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) as saying, “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The real story is those jails.” Admittedly, Christians of good faith part paths when political conflict leads us to consider what constitutes a just and righteous war - or if any war can be just. Though we may not consent on the means, we do consent on the need to confront the spread of evil in the world. Yet we can all affirm scripture when it says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all…. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17, 21). When we confront evil with its own means, those means mark our own character. In that regard, the practice of torture so fully embraces evil it dehumanizes both the torturer and its victim. No just cause can be won if it relies on torture to succeed. Democracy and freedom cannot result from a war fueled by torture, which is why so many Americans were shocked and angered by the disturbing incidents that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. All the more so, Christians must oppose torture under any circumstances. Consider this: Who would Jesus torture? I cannot imagine Jesus finding a single “exemption” that would justify such an abuse of any individual made in God’s image. Though I bristle whenever I hear someone refer to the United States as a Christian nation - it is such a loaded phrase - many in the Muslim world see us as such. How tragic it would be for Muslims to identify the message and mission of Jesus with torture and terror. We must not allow that to happen.

The second provocative article is “Wal-Mart and frugality’s folly,” by C. Melissa Snarr:

Frugality is not a spiritual discipline. Yet Americans regularly follow weekend trips to places of worship with drives to giant discount stores. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions unite in challenging those of us who would save a buck at the cost of another’s well-being. Unfortunately, in our current culture, getting a “deal” has largely displaced righteous dealings as our first consideration in the marketplace. Within the Christian tradition, the term frugal is wholly absent from the biblical text and is not among the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Generosity is instead the prized theme in stories of faith. God enables human generosity by promising a care for believers and creation that allows us to put our store in heaven, not in barns or walk-in closets here on earth. The images are numerous: banquet tables set for the homeless, fishes and loaves multiplied, water turned into wine, and manna falling from heaven. Throughout scripture, generosity is structured by obligations to the most vulnerable. Rulers, merchants, and nations are judged by how they treat the poor, widowed, and orphaned. Faithful generosity follows God’s preference for those normally forgotten by society.

Read the full article. From time to time I read thoughtful questions from various columnists, wondering where the “non-fundamentalist” Christians are—why are they silent? They aren’t—but offerings such as the above seldom are noticed by the major media players. They need to be. If you’d like to receive the Sojourners weekly e-newsletters, subscribe here.

On white bread and white toilets

Whew. How are those connected? Odd reminiscences here. Cleaning my bathroom yesterday, I suddenly recalled how intrigued I was with white toilets as a child. (My bathroom has pink fixtures, coordinated with chocolate brown/pink tiles—not my choice.) My family’s bathroom had gray fixtures—at the time, non-white porcelain was pricey, and we couldn’t afford luxuries. As my uncle was a plumber, I’m guessing my parents got a pretty good deal on the tub, toilet and sink. Gray figured prominently in my mother’s bathroom decorating scheme (and I think, in retrospect, that it was a good color scheme, though never completed). When I was nine, we moved to a house that had white bathroom fixtures, which I liked. Now, for the bread. Decades before organic farming was in vogue, we baked our bread from wheat organically grown on our farm. Brown, real whole wheat bread, made with honey, not sugar. I grew up with it, I knew how to grind the flour (we had a small flour mill), mix and knead the ingredients, shape the loaves, bake and package for the freezer. We made twenty loaves at a time. Until fifth grade, I brought my brown-bread lunch sandwich to school. Whenever we visited someplace food was served, I was entranced by white bread (Wonder Bread—Builds Strong Bodies Twelve Ways!). It was so marvelously spongy, even though it didn’t spring back. I couldn’t get enough of it, despite my mother’s frowns when I chanced to look at her. “People will think we never feed you!” And then there were the light switches. My father was an electrician, and in building our house, he incorporated features that most people didn’t have. Each bedroom had light switches that controlled both the room and hallway lights—tap lightly to turn on, again to turn off. My parent’s bedroom also had switches for other house lights and the yard light. So the house we moved to when I was nine was also special to me because the light switches were “normal”—the kind you flicked up and down for on and off. Maybe the house made me feel like I finally belonged. (Even though we continued to make our own bread, I ate school lunches from fifth grade on. Quite the rebel.) Just because everybody else had these things: white bread, white toilets, regular light switches.

When I was a child, I thought as a child. Now I know why we didn’t belong—we truly didn’t—and the externals I focused on were only the tip of the iceberg. Story for another time.

Lessons in littering

A woman said to her young son, “I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Throw it on the floor.” (“Floor” in this case appeared to be her word for the sidewalk.) He hesitated, looked down, then dropped the empty candy box he’d been holding. The garbage can was about five steps away. At my bus stop, a woman and her children were waiting. She appeared to drop her transit card, so I picked it up and handed it to her. She said it was no good and dropped it again. Trash can was right behind her. Outside my office building is a smoking area. One woman threw her cigarette butt behind her, way into the corner, though she was near the ash receptacle. She looked like one of those people who would put up a sign in the office saying “Clean up after yourselves. I’m not your mother.” Perplexed? I am. I find it utterly bizarre, too, that these three instances featured women. If there was a stereotype, it’s been smashed. Women are always cleaning up after men? Maybe it’s a subtle revolution. Yoiks.

Right. Now I'm Proverbs

Thanks so much, Dash, for pointing me to Which Book of the Bible are you? At least you can't claim this one's rigged! (Unlike the Peanuts one.) You are Proverbs. Which book of the Bible are you? brought to you by Quizilla Gotta say, though, this doesn't strike me as wrong. Whatever that means.

And now I'm Rerun...

Courtesy of LutheranChik Not that I'm a huge Peanuts fan, but here I am: You are Rerun! Which Peanuts Character are You? brought to you by

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday. She died 14 years ago, way too soon. And I thought today, as I often have, of things I wish I’d known about her before she died. After her death, I learned the following from the woman I studied piano with from 5th grade through high school. (She and my mom had gotten to be friends, but I didn’t know more than that.) My piano teacher lived miles out of town, and didn’t have a washer, much less a dryer—but she had a toddler, before disposable diapers. So Mom would drive over (we were a couple of miles on the other side of town), pick her up and bring her to the town’s laundromat. I guess that was during the school day. At the funeral, so many people I didn’t know came over to tell me how much they would miss Mom. She had been intensely involved in politics, Farm Bureau and the Solörlag (organization of descendants of immigrants from Solör, in Norway), and had served as the March of Dimes’ county chapter Executive Director. It was clear that she had touched people’s lives in many ways. I wish I had known. I wish she had known. She died horribly from cancer, which I didn’t know she had until ten days before she died. It had metastisized to her bones. Only Dad knew, and it was something they dealt with in the usual way—avoiding it until way too late. That colored everything so that it was hard to remember, let alone think about, the mother I loved. A Lutheran pastor my parents knew from the Solörlag delivered the eulogy at her funeral. He gave my mother back to me, retrieved her from the horrible, dark place of “why didn’t she tell us—tell me.” He recounted how she so loved unexpectedly meeting up with previously unknown relatives (it did happen rather often—at Mt. Rainier she struck up a conversation with another person only to discover the connection). The pastor imagined her in Heaven, joyfully going from one relative to the next, catching up. Yes. And when she laughed, it was with her whole being. Wiping tears from her eyes. At least I had that with her, but the circumstances of her death had obscured my memories of shared glee. I’ll forever be grateful to Pastor Grefsrud for this tremendous gift. Maybe this is something you had to be there to understand, but when I was young, Mom and I had blowing contests. We’d see who could “outblow” the other—in the face. Guess halitosis or spittle wasn’t an issue. She’d fake holding in a huge breath, with the funniest expression on her face, and I’d burst out laughing—and lose the contest. I can’t recall ever winning, but the laughter was payoff for winner and loser alike. And her love of meeting relatives rubbed off on me in at least a small way. After the funeral, a number of us gathered at her sister’s home, and I kept on feeling the impulse to call and tell her all about it. So many people she would have loved to talk to. I still miss you, Mom.

Perceptions while profiling

I’ve been pondering something I witnessed a couple of nights ago by my place. These were my observations that night:

Several young adult African-American males walk down the street. An unmarked police car pulls into the alley near them; one of the cops yells, “Over here.” The young men all immediately approach the nearest car, arms up and mostly in front, and they place their hands on the car, spread-eagled. The two cops frisk them all, one by one. No struggle or audible protests from the young men. I’m too far away to hear any conversation, but it goes on for awhile. I don’t know when the police left. An hour or so later, five of the young men have recongregated kitty-corner from my building (if there were more initially, I can’t be sure). They’re talking, then they split up; three head the other way, the other two get into a nearby car. I hear this repeatedly from one of the two: “I don’t need no gun.”

I tried to write the above as neutrally as possible, and realized how difficult it was. Is it possible to be a clear, dispassionate observer? Even the details I noticed were likely influenced by my biases, conscious or not. Shedding prejudice is a rigorous activity. Thoughts running through my mind simultaneously: “Had the cops received a crime report?” “Were they patrolling and believed that more than one young African-American male walking down the street was cause for investigation? I’m also trying to profile the cops. If any of the young men had been carrying a gun, he would have been arrested (Chicago has a gun ban) and there’s no way any could have been back on the streets so soon. I didn’t feel the need to seek cover. Influences on my perceptions and thinking: 1) I’ve noticed an increase in police patrols in my area. On the one hand, it should make me feel safer, but on the other, I wonder what it signals. Are they only now taking notice of something that may have been going on all along? Or are the seemingly stepped-up patrols an indication of growing problems in the area? 2) More than a year ago, I noticed a group of young people gathering frequently outside the building across the street. On one occasion, it looked an awful lot like gang activity (guys repeatedly driving by, hanging out the car windows thighs on up and hollering at the more than 20 people hanging out on the sidewalk and alley—they were clearly looking for someone and both they and the group sounded hostile). I called the cops. I haven’t seen anything like it since a week or two after that incident, but what does that mean? Did the person(s) at whose place they were congregating move? (The building is rental units, not condos—and of course the perception is that gang members wouldn’t be owners.) Or were the aggressors neutralized? 3) I absolutely believe that unjust racial profiling occurs. Even though I know that the other extreme, stopping an old Scandinavian grandmother from boarding an airplane for carrying banned articles, in an effort to be “fair and impartial” would be just plain absurd. (Justice is blind, after all, right?) To date there have been no Norwegian suicide bombers. But “Driving While Black,” even “Walking While Black” is an “offense” that seems to occur disturbingly often. 4) One of my brothers was particularly delinquent in his youth, and on more than one occasion I happened to drive by his car (it was a small town), pulled over by a cop who was just checking to see what he was up to. Once he had gotten the cops’ attention they kept close tabs on him, and he preferred to believe that they had it in for him. It was easier to get into the finer points of cops of German ancestry “harassing” an idiot of Norwegian ancestry (the town and nearly the entire county then was Caucasian, so racial profiling had to be taken to a much lower level). Not all scrutiny is unearned. But zeal is particularly susceptible to blinders.

Hurricane reflections

I lived in Houston from 1985–1987, and in 1986 Hurricane Bonnie threatened our area. As I researched it (my memory of it is poor) I discovered that it was at most a Category 1 hurricane, and upon making landfall was downgraded to tropical storm. Still, we had our warnings, which back then consisted of: stock up on batteries, water, nonperishable food and candles, and criss-cross tape your windows so that if they break, they won’t shatter all over your place. (And if you’re really ambitious, board up your windows.) We lived in the Heights, so flooding was not an issue, but we would still have been vulnerable to high winds and possible tornadoes. We went to bed that night not knowing what we’d see in the morning (I confess we didn’t do the window thing) and discovered the storm had veered northeast on nearly the path Rita took. I never fully understood what torrential rains were until I saw the aftermath. Two days plus of a solid wall of water coming down. And of course, the city’s seven bayous overflowed, which they do in “regular” thunderstorms. As my ex-father-in-law still lives in Houston, and I’m still reeling over the emotional impact of Katrina (even from my safe distance), I did watch Rita with concern. My ex-FIL had planned to evacuate, but when he and his neighbors saw the impossible traffic jams, they decided they’d best just hunker down (he did board up his windows). He’s not in an area prone to flooding, so it was a better choice than getting caught on the highway. It’s nearly impossible to get around Houston without a car. Public transit? I’m still not sure it exists there. And on the best of days, Houston’s “rush hour” runs from early morning to early evening. Even with the reasonable advance warning that was heeded, there’s no way all those people could get out. Houston is the nation’s fourth most populous city. (I’ve witnessed a million people trying to get out of downtown Chicago following July 3rd fireworks, so I’m even less convinced that Chicago could evacuate in any imminent disaster—though we don’t have to fear hurricanes, thankfully.) Comparing Rita to Katrina seems like comparing the proverbial apples to oranges—and not just because of the storm strength. In Rita we had a potential disaster that was taken seriously because of Katrina’s lessons, even though the lessons are somewhat different. New Orleans and Houston are different in a number of ways. The economic bases are different (New Orleans’ base is tourist/entertainment, which requires a ready pool of the hardworking poor), though both still are vulnerable to catastrophic storms. But in terms of potential loss of human life, Houston has the advantage. More people had the means to protect themselves and the geographic advantage of being far enough inland that storms are more likely to lessen in intensity before hitting. The people outside those two cities will likely be quickly forgotten—no solid entity or identity that allows people to remember—even though their losses are as complete as many of those in the two cities (especially New Orleans) that we can so easily pigeonhole.

Sins of the parents

Bemused at Blogging through the Bible has noted the constant theme of children paying for their parents’ sins (she’s nearly through II Kings now), and I have found it as perplexing and disheartening as she does. However, theology does shift in the Old Testament, though it’s a detail that escapes most people’s notice. The Lectionary for today includes Ezekiel 18, which provides an uplifting preview:

Ezek 18:1 (NRSV) The word of the LORD came to me: 2 What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.

Read the remainder of the lesson here (scroll down to the section for ECUSA).

Messy community

Dave at The Grace Pages talks about churches trying to offer something for everybody by segregating them ("ghettoization" he calls it). I found his comments a welcome antidote to the solutions presented by Episcopal Church "experts" on growing churches (which I might address sometime, if I can raise the stamina to do so) to my former parish. (Former parish's mission was pretty near "Grow or die.")

Jesus is…

I don’t know who wrote this—it came via e-mail—but I find it wonderfully thought-provoking enough to share: There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black: 1. He called everyone brother. 2. He liked Gospel. 3. He couldn't get a fair trial. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish: 1. He went into His Father's business. 2. He lived at home until he was 33. 3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian: 1. He talked with His hands 2. He had wine with His meals. 3. He used olive oil. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian: 1. He never cut His hair. 2. He walked around barefoot all the time. 3. He started a new religion. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian 1. He was at peace with nature. 2. He ate a lot of fish. 3. He talked about the Great Spirit. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish: 1. He never got married. 2. He was always telling stories. 3. He loved green pastures. But the most compelling evidence of all—3 proofs that Jesus was a woman: 1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food. 2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it. 3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was work to do. AMEN

Not for Catholics only

This has made the e-mail rounds, but as I know all three of my readers enjoy church jokes, I thought I would share this way. And in my experience, "Episcopalian" could substitute for "Catholic."

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This information is for Catholics only. It must not be divulged to non-Catholics. The less they know about our rituals and code words, the better off they are.

AMEN: The only part of a prayer that everyone knows.

BULLETIN: Your receipt for attending Mass.

CHOIR: A group of people whose singing allows the rest of the Parish to lip-sync.

HOLY WATER: A liquid whose chemical formula is H2OLY.

HYMN: A song of praise usually sung in a key three octaves higher than that of the congregation's range.

RECESSIONAL HYMN: The last song at Mass often sung a little more quietly, since most of the people have already left.

INCENSE: Holy Smoke!

JESUITS: An order of priests known for their ability to found colleges with good basketball teams.

JONAH: The original "Jaws" story.

JUSTICE: When kids have kids of their own.

KYRIE ELEISON: The only Greek words that most Catholics can recognize besides gyros and baklava.

MAGI: The most famous trio to attend a baby shower.

MANGER: Where Mary gave birth to Jesus because Joseph wasn't covered by an HMO. (The Bible's way of showing us that holiday travel has always been rough.)

PEW: A medieval torture device still found in Catholic churches.

PROCESSION: The ceremonial formation at the beginning of Mass consisting of altar servers, the celebrant, and late parishioners looking for seats.

RECESSIONAL: The ceremonial procession at the conclusion of Mass led by parishioners trying to beat the crowd to the parking lot.

RELICS: People who have been going to Mass for so long, they actually know when to sit, kneel, and stand.

TEN COMMANDMENTS: The most important 'Top Ten' list not given by David Letterman.

USHERS: The only people in the parish who don't know the seating capacity of a pew.

Huh. I'm St. Francis of Assisi

Thanks to LutheranChik's pointing, I now know that if I were to be a saint (hah!) I'd be Francis. You are Saint Francis of Assisi! You don't care what you look like (or smell like) as long as you can live simply and help the poor. You should be receiving your stigmata any day now. Which Saint Are You? brought to you by Quizilla Well. I will be pondering this. I do kinda care about smelling.

Measuring loss

If the rich and the destitute lose all their material possessions, whose loss is greater? I’m asking the question because of recent remarks by Barbara Bush (noted here, here, and here) about displaced people from New Orleans being sheltered in Texas. She seems to be clueless as to what it’s like to walk in those shoes, with the apparent conclusion that if one loses what little one has, the loss is little. I think of “The Widow’s Offering,” from Mark 12:41-44:

[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny, Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

New Revised Standard Version

The Tie Goes to the Poor

There's a rule in baseball that I like a lot: the tie goes to the runner. I think there should be a rule like that in life. If there's a conflict between someone with power and someone without, the one without power should prevail.

So what’s wrong with a feminized Christianity?

Dash reports on a speaker she heard, who noted that “for about a century now religion has been becoming more and more feminized, that is, more oriented toward women,” along with raising the question of what it would take to get more males (young and otherwise) involved in church. I lay that alongside something from John Dominic Crossan:

…we sometimes talk about the public spaces belonging to men and the private ones to women in the ancient world. And, of course, public is much more important than private! Rose-Gaier quotes this comment by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (citing Yonge 611): “There are two kinds of states, the greater and the smaller. And the larger ones are called really cities; but the smaller ones are called houses. And the superintendence and management of these is allotted to the two sexes separately; the men having the government of the greater, which government is called a polity; and the women that of the smaller, which is called oeconomy.” (Special Laws 3.170) That puts men in charge of “politics” and running the government and women in charge of “economics” and running the household. But earliest Christianity was far more involved with the household than with the government. Whether it liked it or not, therefore, women were extremely important in its organizational basis in house-based communities and house-based churches. It was a question of authority and power. At later stages, as Christianity moved more and more into the public and governmental sphere, men had actively to retake such control from women. Women, as Luke 10:38–42 put it, should passively listen like Mary rather than actively administer like Martha.

Crossan, The Birth of Christianity [HarperSanFrancisco paperback, p. 372] (First, the last sentence—an utterly provocative take on Mary’s and Martha’s roles, different from any I’ve ever heard—makes sense in the context Crossan has carefully provided in the book, drawing from historical, anthropological, literary, etc. disciplines.) I can’t help but wonder if the Church’s descent from near-absolute power has lessened its appeal for men who might otherwise “join up.” The sacrificial message of the Kingdom of God, as embodied in Jesus, has little or nothing to do with power, especially in our highly political world.

Dialogues on democracy and terror

“Two weeks after the London bombings, openDemocracy and Q-News convened a meeting at London’s Chatham House to debate the origins and consequences of the attacks and let Muslims and non-Muslims thrash out the issues.” View article at openDemocracy—free thinking for the world. I especially like the tag line “Nobody pulls our strings”—I hope that’s true. (Via Ray at Minor Wisdom and Faraz Rabbani at Seeker’s Digest.)

Simplicity and Challenge

I’m attempting to organize some of my utterly hyperlinked thoughts (my brain tends to work rather like the Internet, and an orderly line of reasoning comes with great difficulty). As one of the tasks of writing is to organize one’s thinking, here goes. Perhaps some of you will be kind enough to let me know if I’m making progress. First, the anecdote that helped me to frame one particular issue: A couple of nights ago, I was part of another conversation, where the story was told of the [Espicopal] diocese’s Assistant Bishop’s (A.B.) attendance at a vestry meeting. He was questioned rather strongly about his vote in support of the ordination of homosexuals (I presume the vote to confirm V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire). The A.B. was quoted as saying something along the lines of “The New Testament changed the Old Testament, and now we change the New Testament.” To which the response was, “You are not God.” It reminds me of Lloyd Bentsen’s remark to Dan Quayle in a vice presidential candidate debate, “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Whether I agreed with the A.B.’s vote, I would have been insulted by such a simplistic and, I believe, misleading explanation for what is a difficult, complex process. It sounds downright condescending. If what I’ve related is a fair representation of what he said, he deserved the answer he received. As I know how much my thinking has changed over the past 20 years (going from no thinking to probably too much), I think the A.B. absolutely lost an opportunity for fruitful discussion. He certainly lost any respect or forbearance that the vestry may have retained for him following his vote. Because of numerous interactions like the preceding, I’ve been quite interested of late in the history of the earliest Church. The major spark was Garry Wills’ “Papal Sins: Structures of Deceit,” in which he traces the impact of personalities (I would say personality disorders, based on descriptions of several Popes’ actions) and politics on the doctrine of the Catholic Church over the past couple of centuries. Wills skillfully utilizes incidents from more ancient history to illuminate dubious decisions of the Magisterium. He is an historian who makes the past come alive, and he lays out some startling information, which is too big to do other than mention in this post. In brief: One of his assertions—evidence for which comes from secular Roman historians, not church writings—is that even the earliest Church had a serious split. Some believers were betrayed to Roman authorities by believers with whom the rift occurred, and it’s one plausible explanation for the deaths of Peter and Paul (about which the N.T. is silent). So much for my thoughts on early Church unity. Several other points that have spurred me on to further reading: 1) there were no priests in the New Testament; 2) the earliest priests were not ordained by a central authority, answerable to a hierarchy, but were ordained by the community of believers in which they lived; 3) considerable evidence suggests that women were equal to men in the earliest Church, and held such positions of authority as existed. The last point I’d heard before, but Wills provides convincing argument. I can’t say I’m simply advocating a return to Church as practiced by the earliest Christians, for several reasons. One is that changes that were made had to have been meaningful to the community that made them, and it’s disrespectful and kind of stupid to throw out tradition simply because it’s revealed to be quite different from predecessor tradition. Mostly it’s that I want to understand the dynamics of changes as they occurred. Who, what, when, where, why? Throughout the Church’s history, besides the likelihood of personality-disordered believers sometimes gaining the upper hand (they were human after all!), choices were made based on the information at hand. Thanks to archeological discoveries, scholars today know a lot more about the earliest Church than did anybody in the intervening centuries. That helps us understand the nature of changes that were made, and perhaps we gain a new understanding of and respect for the resulting tradition. Or, we realize that they did the best they could with what they had, and those changes are no longer necessary to uphold. I next turned to John Dominick Crossan’s “The Birth of Christianity.” It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years, but I no longer find it intimidating (it’s 653 pages including appendices, bibliography, and indices). Though I must confess I’ve been at it for two weeks and am only a third of the way through—all I can absorb of it in a day is about 40 minutes’ worth. If I were marketing this book, I’d call it a Classroom in a Book. Or, a Seminar in a Book. I’m pondering blogging through it after I finish slogging through it. He writes very clearly and methodically, but it’s slow going simply because he provides meticulous definitions of terms and concepts that either have been used sloppily or I simply haven’t known, as he uses a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic. There’s a LOT to ponder. However, I much prefer his respectful, caring, honest approach, as contrasted with the glib sound bite of the Assistant Bishop in the anecdote at the beginning of this post. Crossan provides his definition of history: “History is the past reconstructed interactively by the present through argued evidence in public discourse.” Whew. I take a major risk in trying to distill the 28 pages of Chapter 2: Reconstructing Earliest Christianity, but as my understanding has been deepened tremendously by them and my search fueled further, here I go, mindful of the dangers of oversimplification. Why reconstruct (he prefers that term to “search” or “quest”)? Every generation needs to engage with the historical Jesus as best it can. It is not a task that is done, once and for all (though it would be much easier if that were true).

Historical reconstruction is always interactive of present and past. Even our best theories and methods are still our best ones. They are all dated and doomed not just when they are wrong but even (and especially) when they are right. They need, when anything important is involved, to be done over and over again. That does not make history worthless. We ourselves are also dated and doomed, but that does not make life worthless. It just makes death inevitable.

Crossan, p. 43 I can well imagine that millions of people would respond much like this commenter on a related topic at Blogging through the Bible in this post:

You know what, I don’t think this [blog] is the place for me. It’s my own fault, really. But in all honesty, I don’t want to waste my time debating the authenticity of the Bible. He said it...that settles it. Whether I or anybody else believes it...doesn’t really matter.”

[Ellipses in original] Well, I can relate to that thinking, as it used to be mine as well. What gets people beyond that? An ability to leave one’s comfort zone—a willingness to encounter challenge. If the challenge turns out to be unfounded, one learns from that. If the challenge results in enlightenment and growth—yes, deepened faith—we all benefit.

Liturgy and Preachers and Dreams…

…oh my! I have lots of weird dreams, and most of them don’t mean anything. But as I’ve been trying hard to process where I am in light of recent and current discussions at Dash’s and Dwight’s blogs, I don’t doubt that Tuesday night’s dream was my brain working overtime. I found myself in the Lutheran church where I was confirmed, with Dash and her mother (they’ve never been there), a collection of people I knew then, and the pastor who confirmed me. They were in the middle of a service, with a different pastor presiding. My old pastor was assisting, but when he saw me, he came right over and we had a great big hug. It was so good to see him! I realized that it was disruptive, but I hoped nobody would mind too much. I can’t remember too much of the service itself (how high, how low) but I do remember wondering if Dash would like it. I neither liked nor disliked the service itself—I realized I was focused most on the reunions with people I haven’t seen in more than 20 years. The biggest change in that church (besides having a new pastor) were a curious and creative (and impossible!) solution to sharing worship space. The church had been altered quite a bit, so that the rear of the nave was now a detachable chapel, which is where the service had been held. I think it was on a weekday, not the main Sunday a.m. service. Immediately following the service, preparations were made to detach the chapel and move it several miles away to attach it to a Catholic church. It appeared to be mounted on some sort of track, and we gathered in the chapel for the trip to its other “station.” Once we arrived at the Catholic church, the chapel locked into place (too many science fiction movies, I guess) with some sort of connecting wall to be opened into the church. Those on the other side had not only assembled already, but apparently hadn’t waited for preparations/reorganizing of the chapel’s “furniture,” and their Mass was in progress. So Dash and her mom opened a door in the wall to duck into the Mass, and I could see it was almost completely dark in there. They looked at me to wonder if I was coming as well, but I was rather undecided. Why? I thought. I’m familiar with all this. No reason I couldn’t. But I didn’t. Some of this seems quite obvious, and almost literal. The pieces that are specific to me, however, I find difficult to articulate. As I’m still on sabbatical from organized religion, I know I’m in the middle of some paradigm shift, and I don’t know yet where I’ll land. I know that the issues being aired: who joins with whom, how they join, how those decisions are made and by whom, are precisely why I’m outside the church (any church) right now. This is me, the Bag Lady, standing on the corner, the intersection of a number of viewpoints, watching and wondering, seemingly unable to find my voice to join the conversation. All viewpoints claim to hold to “The Truth,” which more or less preempts anybody outside that viewpoint. This is obviously a much bigger topic than 1) I can organize neatly and 2) would be of an appropriate length for the medium. So I will continue in a future post.

Situation hits home

On my way home from the Loop after work, we all had to get off the el at the Sedgwick stop and catch another train. As the train hadn’t given any appearance of malfunction (doors refusing to close, stopping between stops for no apparent reason, etc.) my brain got going: I thought, there’s been a bomb threat. Yes. The Chicago Tribune reports that the Purple Line was shut down because of a threat. Now, the Purple Line is the lowest-volume line of the CTA (only 14,000 riders a day), but as it serves people going from Evanston to the Loop, it’s more of a symbol. It wouldn’t cause the severe damage and loss of life that a bomb on the Red Line would, but a lot of people who ride the Purple Line live on Chicago’s North Shore, primarily Evanston and Wilmette. Either a crackpot out there has something against the North Shore (which narrows it down to several thousand people) or a crackpot thought that people who are perceived as wealthy and powerful make a worthwhile target. What scares me (immediate danger having passed) is that what I suspected was correct. Man, I’m not in the boondocks anymore (well, haven’t been for 24+ years).

Eureka in my world (and welcome to it)

Friday I made what was, for me, an amazing discovery: My body can, in fact, produce the much-lauded endorphins after physical exercise. To make sure, I tested it out again yesterday, and yup! I’ve got those lovely little brain chemicals. How did this discovery elude me for decades? Running was no help—I never got any “runner’s high,” probably because I never lasted long enough to trigger those little buggers, always simply collapsing. I’ve never displayed much physical prowess—while I do have fast reflexes (and they pay off big time when playing piano) they don’t translate into running speed. Races in “physical education” (I didn’t learn a whole lot there) were a matter of torture, and back then it was all a matter of being the best. As I wasn’t even close to the best, I never experienced any rewards simply for moving. I have understood (intellectually, anyway) that some people enjoy physical activity just for its own sake. That enjoyment probably is a significant motivator for staying in shape, whereas my only motivation was negative—trying to pull on jeans that no longer fit. Well, I had enjoyed riding my bike, though I hadn’t done that for more than three years, as my bike was mishandled by the movers during my last move and I didn’t have any bike maintenance know-how. Without a vehicle to transport it to the nearest bike repair shop, I periodically attempted to put it back in order and gave up in frustration. My bicycle repair manual is very detailed, but it still stymied me somewhat. If I had known how certain parts of my bike assembly looked before they were thrown out of whack, it would have been easier to translate the instructions (and photos) into reality. But Friday was such a perfect day to be outside that I attempted repair once more. This time I succeeded! (At least the brakes appear to be working properly, and nothing else seems to be awry.) So off I went, on one of my favorite rides. There’s a lovely bike and running path through a sculpture park situated (unfortunately) alongside Chicago’s sanitary canal. Getting to the beginning of the path is a challenge, as it requires riding along one of Chicago’s crazy, biker-hostile streets before reaching the water treatment plant near the sanitary canal. Scary and smelly! After that point, all is good. Both days I rode for about an hour, returning to collapse not in agony, but in a quiet, good tiredness. And then I realized my brain’s chemical soup was bubbling happily. Ah, yes! Like the effect of a good beer without the somebody’s-sitting-on-my-head part. Now that I know what it is (and my muscles are telling me that they’ve been worked but they’re not giving me hell about it) I’m looking forward to more. Perhaps I’ll discover a bit more wisdom (and ditch some of the madness). Next plan: eat lotsa fish.

So who else is Catholic?

My long-intended follow-up to this has been delayed mostly by clumsy attempts to understand the issues facing Catholic dissenters. It also seems somewhat presumptuous, as I’m not Catholic—what can an outsider know and feel? But because the Anglican Communion has been in conversation with Rome for quite some time, exploring common ground (raising some Anglicans’ hopes for reunification), it does concern me. Garry Wills in “Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit” has nailed one piece I’ve been struggling with:

…why do not all the Catholics who disagree with the Pope just get out?… Who am I—or who is anyone except the Pope—to decide what a Catholic may or may not accept as binding doctrine? …the question is based on an assumption that is not only challengeable but extremely unhealthy. It assumes that the whole test of Catholicism, the essence of the faith, is submission to the Pope… It is not a position that has a solid body of theology behind it, no matter how common it is as a popular notion… [p. 6]

I have a number of friends who are active Catholics, who disagree with much of Church teaching on ordination, gays, birth control—basically the big, hot buttons. So long as they remain an indistinguishable part of the flock, neither occupying leadership positions in the Church nor serving as elected government officials, little will happen to them. It’s priests who would rise in the hierarchy, theologians who teach in Catholic institutions, writers who publish under Church imprimatur, and politicians whose votes are a matter of public record who are vulnerable to being silenced.

Returning to letting go

Today was the first time since September 28, 2003 that I’ve attended a Sunday morning Eucharist in an Episcopal church. It is only the third time I’ve received the Eucharist in an Episcopal church during my sabbatical, the previous times having been at funerals this year. It’s about the fourth time I’ve attended church on a Sunday morning, the other times being a visitor at my friend Dash’s Lutheran church about 600 miles from here. The Gospel for today [Matt. 9:35–10:8; Jesus sends out the disciples to proclaim the Gospel] is one that has been in the back of my mind for several years now; first, when considering leaving my former parish, and then throughout the extended leaving process. The last verse included by the lectionary compares the fate of unreceptive houses and towns with that of Sodom and Gomorrah. So the preceding verse, which instructs the disciples to shake the town’s dust off their sandals, has always seemed an inextricable part of a curse—“I shake your dust off my sandals, you—you—you bad, bad people!” (with emphatic fist-shaking, if the dust is all off). Maybe a year ago or more, a different possibility was posed for me (I wish I could remember by whom). Shaking the dust off one’s sandals makes a lot of sense from a psychological standpoint: if one concludes that one’s actions are of no use, it’s best to let go of the situation. Even the dust is excess baggage. Move on. With that in mind, I’d resolved to not harbor bitterness over my former parish. In a situation where I’d actually had the chance to make a difference but failed, I did at least come to an understanding of the problem. That helped an awful lot in letting go—I’m not sure where I’d be now without that understanding. The church I attended this morning is one where a friend of mine (a fellow refugee from my old parish) has “landed.” I will probably also begin to check out a couple of others in which I’ve been interested. As I’m still pondering some theological concerns (about which I haven’t even begun to blog), it’s impossible to know where I’ll end up. It would be nice if I’d shaken all the dust off, but I guess I haven’t finished, as I’m still somewhat numb.

Filtering sanctification

LutheranChik’s musings on sanctification have triggered some processing. In particular, she observed:

My own dad, on one of the rare occasions when he waxed theological, tried explaining to me that the Sermon on the Mount was designed not to actually give us guidance in living but simply to make us feel so guilty about our inability to follow Jesus’ impossible instructions that we’d be driven to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, which is what God really wants all along. Which, if you’ve grown up in a Pietistic Lutheran household, makes a crazy kind of sense.

It reminded me of an exchange with my mother, following my nephew’s baptism years ago. The baptism took place in a small-town (pop. 258) Lutheran church (one of two in that town!) that wanted to secede from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America synod (ELCA), which it saw as too liberal. But first, the backstory, which has a number of intertwined strands that are difficult to separate out--the influences are not excusively Lutheran. I grew up Lutheran, but left on the cusp of some major changes (formation of the ELCA, ordination of women, new service book and hymnal), which I never fully assimilated. I knew intellectually that they were good things but I was apathetic. Nominally my first, little country church (not the one where the baptism took place; this one was 10 miles from town) was a part of the American Lutheran Church (ALC), which later merged with others into the ELCA. Out in the boondocks back then, the local sensibilities had more pull than a synod. I really couldn’t tell you what part, if any, the synod played. To further complicate matters, from grades 6 through 8 I attended a parochial school of the Missouri Synod. That synod was way more conservative than the ALC. To give you an idea: one of my school-mates, when we all hit the local secular high school, told one of our friends that she was going to Hell because she was Catholic. Perhaps the Missouri Synod guy wasn’t representative in other ways, because he didn’t seem to see his rock band, drinking, smoking, and sexual activity as way stations on the slippery slope to Hell(!). I attended a college of the Lutheran Church that had a requisite three credits in religion. One of the courses I took was “Folk Religion in Taiwan,” which was my way of eluding any further potential indoctrination. So I’m not sure if I learned the prescribed theology, but I can sure tell you the lessons carved in my heart and soul. There was no forgiveness for divorce (true of most, if not all Christian denominations then). The pastor of my little church had refused to marry my parents because my mother was a divorcee. Never mind that she had endured every kind of abuse at the hands of her former husband, the son of a southern Baptist minister, which set the scene for many of her resultant biases, and also makes it quite difficult to sift out what in her mindset came from her own upbringing (Lutheran, but with a crazy mother) and what resonated with her because of that first marriage. (Needless to say, “Son of a Preacher Man” was not a favorite tune.) Though my brothers and I were dutifully baptized, and Mom and Dad were members, our family was marginalized until a new pastor arrived. Communion (never referred to as Eucharist and always held at an altar, not a table) was so very important that it had to be guarded from all unworthy. Below a certain level of development, one was unworthy--unable to receive the Body and Blood with proper understanding, which could be developed only by the confirmation process. Intellect was an important tool in battling evil and the will, and the intellect couldn’t effectively battle without requisite instruction and proof that the instruction “took”. Now I contrast that with “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith…” [from the explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, Luther’s Small Catechism]. When we moved, the new church held confirmations in the tenth grade (my one brother and I were quite annoyed because our older brother got to be confirmed in eighth grade back in the old church). Important as Communion was, it still took a back seat to the Word. Sermons (lectures, really) ruled, every Sunday, while Communion was held once a month (whether we needed it or not). And Communion was something a number of people endured while gritting their teeth, not because of differing theology but because it made the service run long. It could add on as much as 15 minutes; as church was already punishment (the only good part was the music--hymns and choir anthem or “special music”), Communion extended the sentence. The sermons were not shortened on Communion Sunday. Because there was no nursery in my first little church, children attended the entire service. I still remember my mother frowning at me as I squirmed yet again, holding my doll with the matching dress (as I have a photo of us then, I know I was around three). My parents both sang in the choir; lacking a babysitter, I ended up processing with the choir, following my mother, and sitting at the end of a pew where she could keep an eye on me. I hated that! It certainly hammered home the “children are to be seen and not heard” rule. Even though the church in which I was confirmed was much “kinder and gentler,” and I certainly participated fully there, I know my first impressions ran deep. The pastor who confirmed me had a wonderful sense of humor, and I knew he was truly a pastor, someone one could turn to in difficult times, yet certain rules held fast. I memorized Luther’s Small Catechism (1921 transl.) in preparation for confirmation (one could not be confirmed without passing the memorization test) and through the years had memorized many Bible verses in Sunday school. The double whammy of also attending Trinity Lutheran parochial school had meant that I also did their requisite memorization along with their confirmands (in eighth grade!) without being confirmed there. Rules, rules, rules. I knew the words “grace” and “mercy,” but they had only the meaning LutheranChik’s father knew. I never felt particularly assured, contrary to certain Bible verses. Faith? I was chided in high school by a charismatic when I confided my fears about our family situation. Fear was a sin, the absence of faith. Believe and trust in God, bad things can't harm you and good things overflow on you. I understand much differently now. Martin Luther's struggle over grace certainly resonates deeply. I know from my Lutheran friends that their churches aren’t like those of my upbringing, but to describe my further journey would require probably multiple posts. Back to the exchange with my mother. She and my father had attended my Episcopal church a couple of times, at a time I was finding great meaning and deriving much-needed strength from being there. They loved the music, but had said nothing about any of the rest (other than my mother’s concerns about the incense, kneeling and vestments--too much “like Rome!”). The pastor who baptized my nephew preached the kind of fire and brimstone sermon I hadn’t heard in years. It certainly took me back. Back to LutheranChik’s father’s theology. And I remember looking over at my brother (the baby's father) and knowing, just by his posture, that it would be a good many years before he set foot in a church again. My mother had quit attending church by then (yet a different Lutheran church), but had dutifully gone to the baptism. “Now that was a sermon,” she said. “Not like that watered-down stuff you’ve been getting.” At that moment her experience was encapsulated for me (though not for her): she hadn’t been to church if she hadn’t been beat up.

How Does a Leopard Change Its Spots?

Or, Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks The old dog would be me. The new trick would be my concept of time. When I was a new dog, life was lived often in kairos: time without measure, also sometimes referred to as “God’s time.” Crops growing, animals gestating, the seasons—all follow a schedule not imposed by a clock. Chronological time, chronos, has no meaning. Impatience holds no sway over kairos. Distance was measured in miles. Given the speed limit in the boondocks, the number of miles traveled equaled roughly the number of minutes to get there. When I was a medium dog, I moved to the big city. The miles=minutes concept took a beating, but a number of years passed before I finally accepted that five miles could easily take half an hour to travel. However, I still lived in kairos. Put me in front of a keyboard and the clock had no relevance. A number of years ago, as a new manager, I was sent to management classes. About the only thing I remember from them is a concept I’ve pondered but not lived until relatively recently. Dr. Karl Robinson, a psychologist who taught a couple of the classes, discussed being on time. The world, in terms of time management, is divided into two kinds of people: those who plan their schedules so as not to be late, and those who try to be on time. The former category is always early, and the latter, nearly always late. Well, I knew which category I fell into. I also knew some of the reasons I tried to be on time: I was afraid to be early, because I was just plain socially awkward. I loved interaction within programs because it gave me a legitimate reason and structure for interaction. Outside that framework, I truly feared the types of cuts and snubs I’d endured growing up. As a grown-up it took a long time for me to grasp that painful kinds of interactions weren’t so inevitable—adults don’t always behave as children, who I knew could be most cruel. As I’ve learned to let go of that extremely self-protective stance, the habit has remained of trying to arrive just in time. Add to that the fact that I always pushed the envelope—just one more page, just one more note before breaking off, to head onto the next item in my schedule. I found it quite difficult to stop doing something if I couldn’t find a natural break point. Or sometimes it was like trying to find any way possible to stay up beyond my bedtime (another child-like behavior I retained well into adulthood, easily aided by my night-owl nature). Well, circumstances at work have changed that. From a place that only a few people arrived at on time (though many, like myself, always made up the time) it has gone to zero tolerance on tardiness. Doesn’t matter if you put in a lot of overtime or work through lunch; one minute late more than five times a year (excluding verifiable transit delays) incurs consequences. As Rabbi Edwin Friedman would say, people usually change only when put in a situation where they must. Interesting to watch this experiment first hand, though I would have preferred not being one of the lab rats. The upshot is that I am now someone who schedules myself so as not to be late. And my co-workers who swore they just couldn’t get anywhere on time mostly found a way to make it happen. I no longer reside in kairos; chronos contains my life. I have moved. How does a leopard change its spots? You know the old joke—by moving, of course.

Institutions and prophets

An institution is about the status quo; a prophet isn’t. An institution can be immensely successful, long-lived, and have much good to its credit—even beauty. It might even be a pearl, but a prophet is always a grain of sand. The oyster needs the irritant in order to form a pearl, but once a pearl is formed, can it want any more sand?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Remember the wise-acre comeback for any question with an obvious answer? (“Is Michael Jordan the best basketball player ever?” “Is the Pope Catholic?”) Not being Catholic, I’ve been safely ensconced in the peanut gallery, watching all the hoopla surrounding the papal selection process. So many possible angles from which to approach, so many levels on which to observe (if not participate). You might say I’m a Cafeteria Commentator. Observational Relativism rules! And, of course, I tend to be a delayed-reaction commentator, and most of the initial surge of interest has done gone went in search of the next Peeping-Tom session. Or reality TV—I get confused. So only now is it time for me to expound. Now it’s not just yesterday’s news, it’s last month’s news, and that’s as good as last millennium’s news. Most people are moving on except me, because I haven’t fleshed out how I feel about it all. Here goes, in the interest of my moving on to the next opportunity for opinionated procrastination. Or procrastinated opinionation. The process of selecting a new pope more or less guaranteed the outcome. I don’t mean the choice of Benedict XVI specifically, but certainly of someone whose theology would make him somewhat interchangeable with Benedict (leaving aside the issue of leadership skills for now). John Paul II made a large majority of the current Cardinals. Could anybody reasonably expect that he would make someone a Cardinal that he perceived as being out of line with the Catholic church’s (his) theology, in the interest of making sure all voices are heard? The idea of considering dissenting voices just in case you might be wrong (or for other plausible reasons) is rather rare. Well, if you are a trustee of a very strong institution, charged with maintaining it and seeing to its continuance, and your position is based on conscience shaped by your many years in the institution, are you going to change course abruptly? I can imagine that a significant number of the Cardinals believe that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I suspect they can easily describe the problems facing the church as being not of the church’s making. That original sin continues to dog the world, as ever. And changing one’s theological stance in an attempt to fix problems has never impacted the effect of original sin. Then, to avoid the possibility of being confused (or swayed) by differing viewpoints, you go into conclave, where all contact with the outside world is cut off. That is sort of the game plan for brain-washing, isn’t it? Yes, I know that sometimes one must diminish the opportunity for distraction as much as possible, but then one invokes an incredibly vulnerable situation that can lead to really bad thought process. (I’m mindful of the think-tank that produced the Bay of Pigs incident. Sorry--I’d point you someplace if I could, but my sources for this are somewhat long-ago and not well-researched online.) Did anybody realistically believe it would go another way? That there’d be a Saul-to-Paul-like conversion on the Damascus road, whereby the Roman Catholic church would choose someone who would take the church in the direction of considering ordination of women and gays, marriage for priests, etc.? Guardians of the faith did what they were expected to do: guard the faith as they understand it. Well-trained, thoroughly indoctrinated. The cardinals did their job. They ensured that the Catholic church would continue as it has done. Is the Pope Catholic? Yes. Yes, I believe he is.

I don't think I’m going to sleep any time soon

And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just extremely difficult to settle down after something like tonight. Tonight was the first concert in the 2005 Bach Week Festival in Evanston (first ’burb north of Chicago). I sing in the festival chorus; we have three concerts to go (Sunday evening, and then next weekend Friday and Sunday evenings). The chorus is really hitting its stride in its fourth (?) year of existence. The instrumentalists and vocal soloists have always been fabulous, being among the top musicians in Chicago. I do know from various people over the years that an orchestra gig can be just a job, just like any number of other things the rest of us do for a living, but these musicians are here in this festival because they love it. On tonight’s concert, we sang the Bach Cantata 190: Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (“Sing to the Lord a new song”) as the last piece of a splendid program. From the first notes of the first chorus, it felt good. It’s been a long time since anything felt so good. Bach was my first musical love—in high school, I just couldn’t get enough (via keyboard—I seriously avoided singing then). But as my voice is now finally getting the hang of navigating some of those incredible runs, I can really enjoy the feel. I can even almost sing credibly in German, having mostly banished the weird Scandinavian accent. The harmonic progressions I’ve loved for most of my life. They’re so logical. You get to scratch the itch at just the right time. The best part: following the concert, we did a photo shoot, and as the goal of the shoot was to catch us “in action,” we performed the opening chorus again. It’s a challenging chorus, and I think it contains the musical meat of that cantata. And it’s just plain glorious. The atmosphere was electric, and if anybody resented having to do it again, they wouldn’t have dared to say so, because the enjoyment of doing it again just because we could was proudly displayed everywhere. The photographer finished just before the end, but Richard (the director) kept right on going. One of the trumpeters remarked that even if Richard had stopped us when the shoot was over, we would have kept right on going. Many voices agreed. When you’re in that groove and you know it, and you know your fellow travelers know it, there’s nothing else on this earth that can top it.

Rejoicing and Whining

Yep, I can do both at once. Mainly because I’m ba-a-a-a-ack. My dead computer was not resurrected. I bought a new one, which arrived today. A bigger, better, faster one. Hence the rejoicing. Mistakes I made with the last computer (not whining, yet, though): 1) I opted for middle-of-the-road in what was available two years and one month ago, and learned just how fast obsolescence can set in. So, long before The Crash, I was hating how long some things took, and was plotting upgrading memory, processor, etc. 2) Because of my middle-of-the-road approach (to save money, of course), I had a less than satisfactory back-up procedure. Which means I was anything but diligent. The only thing I backed up religiously was my Quicken data (financial clarity and ease are essential for me). Oh, does the back-up lapse of everything else hurt now. 3) Knowing what I know now, I would have handled differently the initial problem that led to The Crash, and possibly could have squeaked by with some sort of save. So (still with the rejoicing), I’ve taken steps to avoid repeating mistakes. Let me make some new ones! As it so happens, my computer at work was replaced two weeks ago, without the trauma of crash and subsequent loss. I really like the new one, so when I realized I had to get a new home computer, I ordered my work computer’s twin. Hey, my buddies in the computer department did good spade-and-shovel work in writing the specs, so I simply “leveraged” their know-how. (Uh-oh—if I suddenly use the word “metrics” you’ll know I’ve been sucked into the latest business jargon—yuck!) The upshot is that my beautiful new beast at home has almost as much memory as God. Which may last me, oh, three years if I’m lucky. Now for the whining. Having just gone through installing a lot of software on my work computer, I was anything but thrilled at having to do it at home. I load my software at work because it’s specialized and I make sure all the parameters fit the work I do (graphic design, layout, print and online publishing). Adobe Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Professional, Quark Express. Besides Microsoft Office XP and Project. And then there are the specs for the high-end print vendors, so it’s not mindless magic-button-pushing. I’m never a big fan of upgrades, etc., at work, because they inevitably require trouble-shooting (no software ever works perfectly out of the box, despite all the hype). So I do the trouble-shooting and tweaking, and I do it well, but my brain does rebel at times. When it isn’t leaking. Leak-tweaking. Or tweak-leaking. I don’t want to come home and do it here too, but as I have yet to acquire my own personal IT department (I am my own IT department), there’s no escaping it. And needless to say, I’d acquire a housekeeper/cook and/or a personal secretary first. Well, I’m partly done with the software installation here—I also have the Adobe software at home, as well as Finale and the afore-mentioned Quicken to do yet. Whine, whine, whine. I guess it’s just that I want to use the tools, not create/adapt/modify them. But I do love them when they work. And the withdrawal I went through last weekend was quite amazing. I can’t recall the last time I went even 24 hours without touching a computer. Some people have house blessings. Could I have a computer blessing?

Inadvertent hiatus

My home computer's hard drive bit the dust last Friday, so I'm out of commission until I can remedy the situation. (Drat and curses!)

Expectations, imagination and teaching

I’m tremendously interested in how people learn. Everything I run across about the brain, I read. But knowing something about the brain’s potential is only a starting point. The more I read, study, and work with people, the more I believe that the most important ingredients are expectations and imagination. Maybe in that order, maybe not. I like what Carl Sagan had to say (though he was specifically concerned with science, I see the application across many disciplines):

Why should it be hard for scientists to get science across?… Knowing and explaining, they say, are not the same thing. What’s the secret? There’s only one, I think: Don’t talk to the general audience as you would to your scientific colleagues. There are terms that convey your meaning instantly and accurately to fellow experts. You may parse these phrases every day in your professional work. But they do no more than mystify an audience of nonspecialists. Use the simplest possible language. Above all, remember how it was before you yourself grasped whatever it is you’re explaining. Remember the misunderstandings that you almost fell into, and note them explicitly. Keep firmly in mind that there was a time when you didn’t understand any of this either. Recapitulate the first steps that led you from ignorance to knowledge.

The Demon-Haunted World, Ballantine Books, p. 333. He also quotes John Passmore, who describes science as often being presented

as a matter of learning principles and applying them by routine procedures. It is learned from textbooks, not by reading the works of great scientists or even the day-to-day contributions to the scientific literature… The beginning scientist, unlike the beginning humanist, does not have an immediate contact with genius. Indeed… school courses can attract quite the wrong sort of person into science—unimaginative boys and girls who like routine.

The Demon-Haunted World, p. 335. J.K. Rowling must have had this kind of learning firmly in mind when she created the character of Professor Binns in the Harry Potter series. Binns teaches History of Magic at Hogwarts, and is described as having gotten up from his chair one day, leaving his body behind, never noticing that he’d died. Granted, he teaches history, which can be trickier to teach than most subjects (I tended to fall asleep while studying music history), but he routinely puts all his students to sleep, without registering that fact, as he drones on. Over the past several decades, a number of often conflicting theories have been put forth explaining a) what’s wrong with education and b) how to fix it. I’ve witnessed pendulum shifts, but while spikes of improvement do occur, the overall trend isn’t reassuring. I look at the teachers I know who’ve succeeded (and by success I mean even their poor to “average” students learn and grow) and I see first that they have expectations (which can require great imagination when considering some people’s potential). But I think imagination also plays a part in enabling the teacher to know where the target is, and that textbooks and tests are only guides in aiming for the target, not the target themselves.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

I suspect Schopenhauer didn't have teachers in mind here, but it's going to take genius teachers to raise up successive generations of effective teachers (and I can't even begin to get into the infrastucture and budget concerns here...).

Can unity be maintained despite the presence of seemingly unyielding disagreement?

I’m reposting my commentary, which first appeared under the handle of Julesrud here (it’s the post that got me into my own blog--for good or for ill). Though it concerns the ordination and marriage of gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church, I believe that one could substitute any of the issues facing the Roman Catholic Church as the conclave to select a new Pope begins tomorrow. Dissidents see an opportunity for moving the Church in directions that John Paul II, however beloved, firmly quashed. (The chance of publicly airing dirty laundry was also greatly minimized by him--no such luck for the Anglican Communion.) --------------- My commentary is too long to post as a response (hence the kind invitation of Sister Dash for me to guest-post), though it is my contribution to the discussion going on (regarding the unity of the church throughout the issue of the ordination of gays and lesbians) in Sister Dash’s and Brother Dwight’s respective blogs. I’ve been trying to figure out for days why the discussion at large is so frustrating to me. It often feels that the various sides find it difficult to get beyond gainsaying (“Is so!” “Is not!”) to a real discussion. And I don’t mean the discussions going on in Dash’s and Dwight’s blogs--I believe that there is genuine honesty, listening, and charity for the participants there. I mean instead The Discussion in our world, whether in synods, blogs, letters to the editor, private conversations. I’m trying to come at this from a different angle, because The Discussion more or less feels stuck. Or, perhaps more accurately, I feel stuck. What seems amazingly clear to me seems devastatingly sinful to a large number of my brothers and sisters, regardless of the faith to which they adhere. I suppose I seem willfully disobedient to them. I know that it’s possible, or probably likely, that all of my processing on this topic is guided by a desire to discover and share information that supports my position. I know it can lead to intellectual dishonesty to start with a thesis that I’m trying to prove, because it’s quite convenient to ignore anything that doesn’t support my viewpoint. I’m leading with my heart, here. Not only that, I find that each piece of this I write reveals new concerns to me--holes left unfilled, so that I know my position is anything but finished. (A very dangerous position for a perfectionist to place herself in!--I so love to construct airtight arguments, and will have to confess that much of this is a leap of faith.) Not to mention only loosely organized. So I must acknowledge that I believe marriage is, or should be, a covenant between two people, not governed by regard for gender or sexual identity. And I believe that other people’s opinion of that covenant is irrelevant; approval from any human outside a relationship isn’t what validates the existence of a relationship. At the same time, though, we are to be married in the context of community (at least according to the Church), so that our brothers and sisters may uphold us in our commitment--we don’t have to “go it alone,”--indeed, we are expected not to. Same as for any of the Sacraments. I guess that’s the sticking point: one can’t uphold a couple in their marriage if one doesn’t believe that that couple may be married. Anybody who’s been married knows how difficult it is, even when you are upheld--how much more difficult when no one approves, or even vigorously fights against it. I also must acknowledge that until my early 20s, I believed that homosexuality was a sin, a horrible depravity, as I had been raised to believe. How that changed is a topic for another time. The parallel for a paradigm shift (sorry about that phrase--I know it needs to be retired, but I haven’t got a better one) was introduced to me by Father David Cobb in a sermon I read online somewhere. Around the time of the ECUSA’s [Episcoapl Church-USA] general convention last summer (which included the Convention’s consent to the consecration of Father Eugene Robinson as bishop), Fr. Cobb likened this dispute to that of the early church over converting Gentiles, both in its intensity and the potential for a bitter split. Yet the early church emerged from its dispute unified, joyfully welcoming Gentiles into the church (Acts 10 and 11). My ever-evolving path still stops at this point: how does a community interact, especially when faced with difficulties and issues? Considering the requirement of obedience to church authority, especially when there’s honest dissent, I wonder how to challenge church authority without doing damage to church unity (if indeed, I as a dissenting individual hold so much power as to be able to damage an institution). Some authorities are so fragile as to claim any challenge (valid or not) is an attack on church unity. And rarely can a community rise above the maturity level of its leaders. I ponder the nature of the early church--what was it that allowed them to hear and accept Peter’s vision? Acts 10 and 11 seldom get a whole lot of airplay, and I don’t really know why. 10:27-29: “[Peter] went in and found that many had assembled; and he said to them, ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection…’” and Peter then preached the Good News to the assembly at Cornelius’ house. Later, in verse 44: “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” [NRSV] Interesting that Peter acted first--there was no consensus, as he most definitely acted unilaterally--and then in Chapter 11, responding to criticism from the “circumcised believers,” he explains what caused his change of heart: his vision. The community’s response? “And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’” What one was born as, in this case, a Gentile, was no longer an obstacle. DNA, accident of birth--irrelevant in the eyes of God. From “Listening Hearts”:

The prophet is not an easy person for the community to accept. It can be a trial for a community to hear the prophet’s voice and acknowledge that it comes from God, since the very task of the prophet is to challenge the status quo. A hundred years before the Civil War, John Woolman felt called to be an abolitionist among the Quakers, but he also felt that he should not undertake this without the blessing of his Meeting. As a result, Woolman wrestled with his faith community over this issue for two years; many members of the community owned slaves. While many did not agree with the abolitionist position, they came to believe that Woolman did have a call and promised to support him and his family while he responded to it. During the two years Woolman stayed and presented his call, the community’s members were deeply affected. Because of Woolman’s faithfulness to his call and willingness to work out that call in the community, the Quakers eventually came to oppose slavery. We can never achieve wholeness simply by ourselves but only together with others. Consequently, as we involve the community in discerning call, God enlivens and strengthens both us and the community.

[Farnham, Gill, McLean, Ward; Morehouse Publishing 1991] I’m attempting to contrast the examples of the early church and the Quakers with today’s disputes--I suspect there are differences, but what, exactly, are they? I was rather young when the ELCA [Evangelical Lutheran Church in America] opted to ordain women, so I can hardly address whether they did it better than the ECUSA (Dwight’s blog, 12/21/04, paragraph 14). Nor do I think that the ECUSA’s consecration of Eugene Robinson is as horribly disrespectful to the other members of the Anglican Communion as some think (in comparison with other church conflicts it’s not--for instance, right now I’m reading about the Borgias, Estes, and Pope Alexander VII in a biography of Lucretia Borgia). I know only enough Anglican Church history to make me dangerous. The Elizabethan Settlement is what really established the Anglican Church, not so much Henry VIII. The goal was to stop Catholics and Protestants from killing each other following the death of Mary Tudor. Shaped in compromise, the Anglican Communion has long followed its Via Media (“middle way”), though it has of late seemed more like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The most rapid growth of the Anglican Communion has occurred on the African continent and in Asia, while the ECUSA and the Anglican Church in Great Britain are experiencing great shrinkage. What “saved” the early Anglican Church is what may now lead to the seemingly inevitable rupture: No one was required to resolve any differences of belief, so long as they all used the Book of Common Prayer and gathered together in the pews. The Anglican Communion has barely acknowledged the existence of the very real, significant differences in doctrine, history, and culture among its member bodies. The potential for rift has existed for a long time, but it commanded little attention or energy so long as no provoking acts were committed. Even among those who have recognized the sleeping dangers, the learning curve is quite daunting. Are actions taken by the ECUSA (i.e., consecration in the face of expressed opposition) any more reprehensible than the refusal of the anti-gay ordination majority of the Communion to consider the idea without immediately labeling it “sinful”? Prolonged discussion seemed to be mere foot-dragging, of the sort where you keep someone talking, hoping, and maybe they won’t notice that no action is being taken. Talks can be a mechanism for avoidance of decision or action, a passive-aggressive reaction. Note that Woolman’s Quaker community required only two years to begin to change its heart. The ECUSA has been talking about the issue of the ministry of homosexuals in the church for far longer--and other members of the Anglican Communion have been iterating the “gay is sinful” position for at least the same amount of time. How can a community honestly enter into discernment when one or more parties claims veto power? (Can’t even touch the Roman Catholic Church on this one…) I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence of openness to prophets on the part of the anti-gay majority--if it’s there, it certainly is cloaked. Just as it was for equal rights--civil rights for second class citizens in this country have taken a long, tortuous path--every possible delay, every possible obstacle. If the ECUSA’s handling of the ordination of women, adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and the consecration of Eugene Robinson as a bishop seems overbearing, unilateral, and sinful to many, is it a surprise that a blow-up had to occur in order for the issue to ripen in a way that could not be ignored any more? Why hasn’t the model of the early church been mirrored in our time, resulting in the fruit of the Spirit? The biggest enemy of church unity is not that of dissent, but of complacency. I don’t mean the usual implication of lowered standards leading to descent down the slippery slope. I mean “self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies” [Merriam-Webster]--allowing calcification of one’s beliefs. It leaves no room for prophets. Yep, that’ll threaten unity more than any overt act.