Prayers, or something

This was a comment made by a women on a website for new software that “cleans up” our iTunes library. I cracked up!

“thank the lawd bb jesus for this one. can’t wait for the mac version because my itunes definitely needs a tune up. forrr sho’.”

I have to remember that, “Thank the lawd bb jesus!” Almost like “weejus” prayers I learned about while doing “CPE” (Clinical Pastoral Education) as a chaplain in a hospital during seminary. What are “weejus” prayers, you might ask? Well…
“Lawd bb jesus, weejus ask that you take care of sister…”

Kirstin Dehaan

Had a very nice conversation with her and her friend/boyfriend/husband(?) one evening a couple weeks ago, by chance, eating good pasta on the bar at Fragole.
She is in Berlin about now, on tour.

Kirstin Dehaan

Under the Richter Scale – Russian Roulette

And I’m screamin’ cause no one’s listening
To our children whose eyes are watching
Oh we’re defining what’s worth living
Should be deceiving or should we be giving
Oh I’m begging for a little

The City #24

Okay, I’m getting to work a little late today because of a blood test (cholesteral). Coming out of the subway on 6th and 40th, by Bryant Park, suddenly the line up the steps stop. There is a crowd, and I think, “What is going on?” Finally, I’m getting closer to the top and I hear all kinds of screaming and hoards of people. Then I though, “Oh, yeah, its the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in Bryant Park – they do this every Friday.
There is a cop right there at the subway exit blocking entrance to the sidewalk leading east along 40th St., across the street from the park. I had to actually show my work ID to get through the barricades.
Swarms of pre-pubescent girls everywhere – all texting like mad, all taking photos of themselves and their friends with their cell phones. I guess they started lining up last night. They had sleeping bags. I wondered why, on the way home last night, GMA and Bryant Park had all kinds of extra barricades and “General Admission Signs” all over.
It’s the Jonas Brothers! Damn Nickelodeon, or is it Disney?
Overheard: “I’ve got to get home. I’ve been up 24 hours.” That isn’t so bad, but as I turned the corner onto 5th Ave…. Okay, I’m four stories up in CPG and on the other side of the block and I hear them screaming… anyway, I turned the corner and there was a bus for, I guess, the brothers, girls everyone. They were kissing the bus. They were actually kissing… the… bus.
Well, there you go. A “typical” day in the City. By the way, Feist certainly didn’t get this kind of attention. Hum….

Get back to

To return to later:
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Sermon at York Minster (describe as “the heavy yoke of self-justification“)
Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks’s address to the Lambeth Conference:
Text
Video
Alan Jacobs has a good thing to say about the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Alan has joined a breakaway Anglican church, rather than slogging through Anglicanism’s (or The Episcopal Church’s) problems, and he describes why. I fully understand his reasons. Yet, both of us will look in some way to the See of Canterbury as one of our loci of identity. He writes of Rowan Williams:

But in these past few days I have been wondering whether there might be a method in Rowan’s madness — or rather in God’s. Might it be possible that while Rowan is most certainly not the kind of leader we want, he is precisely the kind we need? That his leadership is not that of a Churchill but rather a Desert Father? We want decision, action, clearly set plans; Rowan offers prayer, meditation, stillness, silence. He models those disciplines for us, and in so doing (silently) commends them… What if that is what we Anglicans actually need? What if our desire for decision and action is actually distracting us from what the Lord God is calling us to do and be?

A very good question!
I think I am coming to a place of, words fail me – something, in all the troubles of this Church. Men will do all manner of things in their high minded certitude that result in dissolution, if not destruction. We can’t help it, really, because self-centered self-righteousness has gotten into our bones. There is, of course, a way out or over this particular human proclivity, but few will take up the cure.
So, for me, within the worldly realm and within the Church structures, I will look to the See of Canterbury as a locus of my identify as an Anglican Christian, regardless of what high-mined men and women decide they must do. If others want to do the same, great. If we don’t agree on most things, so be it. If they want to yell at me and call me names or cast me into outer darkness, then so be it. I will not return the favor (but I reserve the right to critique). I do think Rowan is a good person in this office to look to.
As Julian might say, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Blogging as a Pensieve

In many ways, this blog is like a “Pensieve” from the Harry Potter books. What is a Pensieve, you might ask. Well, a “Pensieve” is a stone receptacle in which to store memories. It contains memories that take physical form as a type of matter that is described as neither liquid nor gas. A person can extract their own memories or another person’s, store them in the Pensieve, and review them later. It also relieves the mind when it becomes cluttered with information. Anyone can examine the memories in the Pensieve.
As I’ve said before, much of what appears in this blog is not really my attempt to make declarative statements about issues or beliefs, but as a way to work through or wrestle with issues and ideas “out loud.” I may “try out” an idea. I may play “devils advocate.” I may vent frustration or disappointment or anger over something or someone. I may post something simply because it simply pleases me and I want to remember it.
Like reading through the Harry Potter books one after another and observing the progression of maturation and experiences lived through by the characters, I see this life as a progression and as much as I hate the word “journey” as it is used in the current vernacular, our Christian lives are nothing but a journey into an “undiscovered country,” the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus tried to convey to his disciples in the Gospel lessons a couple weeks ago. In this sense the Christian life has much in common with the Buddhist life. They are both means for living, and not religions. Christianity is different and distinct, however, because of the claims of Jesus and issues of the divine that have to be dealt with, but the way of life called for by both is similar. Religions have grown up around both, also.
Anyway, blogging (and journaling in general) reveals the journey. As a “Pensieve,” I put things in this blog that I fully intend to return to. Other people can witness this process, this journey, these memories and these thoughts that I intended to pick more fully, later. Not as fully experienced or fleshed out as within a “real Pensieve,” however. I’m sure some think I’m, well, “nutters” in one way or another.
The point of a “Penseive” is not to impress people or to persuade people or to cause them to like you. The point is to deposit thoughts, ideas, memories, that clutter the mind but to which you wish to return. “Oh, that’s good, I don’t want to forget that, but I don’t have time right now to deal with it,” might be the thinking. Sometimes, there is just too much to think about at any one time.
So, this is my “Pensieve,” for what it’s worth.

We think we have problems…

Over at SARX, there is a good post the touches on Anglicans, the Orthodox (as in Eastern Orthodox), and the idea that if we look at the world of Orthodoxy, we realize that our Anglican problems are not the one problems.
A couple take-away sentences:

Bishop Alan posted a joke about Episcopalians being a disorganised religion and I noted in my reply that, in fact, many Orthodox (converts, mostly) are horrified to realise exactly how disorganised Orthodoxy is… Add to that infighting over “modernism” and “traditionalism” as well as ecumenism (which means, in the states, just accepting the baptism of other churches, while in some other locations it means inter-communion and intermarriage) you end up with a picture of Messy that far outstrips or, maybe, exactly parallels Anglicanism.

Will we end up like the Eastern Orthodox, will we end up like the Roman Catholics, or will we remain distinctly Anglican?
I want to remain Anglican, frankly. Let those who want a pope cross the Tiber, let those who want the Orthodox model go over to Constantinople, but why do they insist that Anglicans cannot or should not remain, well, Anglican?

Harry Potter and Jacob

I feel like I should be posting something…
Has anyone noticed how Harry Potter and Jacob (son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham) are a lot alike?
I celebrated at a different parish this past Sunday (yesterday).
At one point, I equated Harry Potter with Jacob wrestling…
I explained that the reason I brought up Harry Potter is because to a generation of people, Harry Potter exerts a great deal of influence upon their understanding of their times. They see in Harry and Ron and Hermione, themselves. They see their own life stories in the characters of the Harry Potter books.
Scripture used to play that kind of role for far more people than it does, today. People much more easily experienced the stories of Scripture by seeing themselves in the lives of the characters of the Bible. The West made Scripture into an object to examine and deconstruct, rather than seeing a story through which we better understand ourselves. We have to prove it, rather than feel it. People feel Harry Potter. They don’t have to deconstruct or prove anything.
We lost the forest because we focus so much on twigs.
Kind of like the different between Latin and Sanskrit.