Recently in personal Category

Isn't it true that Christians are supposed to seek truth?  That means that seeking truth must be independent of what makes us feel good, or makes us feel secure, or superior, or valued, or respected, or accepted, or included, or anything else, frankly.  If we seek truth, truth must rule the day, else our lives are a lie.

I was thinking about a good friend from college who played an important part of my life during the latter part of those days.  I haven't seen or heard from him for nearly 20 years.  Why? A variety of reasons, I suspect, but that is a fact regardless of why.  Time passes and the general, the mundane, and the profound aspects of life intrude.

I decided to google him this morning just to see if anything came up, and it did.  I listened to a radio interview he did last year about his current career and creative activities.  It was so funny hearing his voice, as if no time has passed.  Yet, so much time and so many changes of life and attitude and perspective.  What can be said?  Nothing really - actually so much if given time.

Looking back over the years of friendships and relationships and acquaintances, of events and activities and and jobs and goals, I wonder from time-to-time what could have been if different decisions were made a strategic points in my life.  My life could have gone in so many different directions, and I have done so many different things.  There was no real plan.  Opportunities presented themselves and at times I fell into them and other times I pursued them.  I am a reluctant cleric.  I've been a bus driver, a graphic designer, a desktop publisher, a network systems director, a data analyst, a teacher, a campus pastor, a missionary, a technology geek, a oil change technician, a college instructor, a student leadership development specialist, a student three times, and coming full-circle now a missioner.

Back in Bowling Green, after my bachelors degree, I took a year of graphic design and photography in a program similiar to the primary course of the old Bauhaus.  I loved it and was quite surprised that I actually had talent.  But, just one year and I moved on to Kent.  What if I continued in design and photography, which is now my hobby.  What if I allowed my creative side to develop rather than allow myself to be taken into fields where logic ruled?  I don't know, but here I am after all that time and all those experiences.

With people, too, how might things have been different.  What might have been if my friend and I kept in contact and maintained our friendship?  I have little contact with people from my past, and that is primarily my fault.  I am terrible at keeping up past relationships.  It isn't that I forget about them, as is evident in my googling this past friend, but I just don't make the phone call, write the letter or e-mail because life intrudes and the immediate cries out and I heed the call.

Sometimes, I really do wish things would have been different.  I'm in one of those times right now.  Why?  I don't know, but I am.  It isn't that life is bad right now, because it certainly isn't.  I have right now the opportunity to do what I've always wanted to do, but the problem is knowing exactly what I always wanted to do. At times I feel like I am the proto-example of the Gen X-Y kind of guy who is just all over the place with no clear direction or intent. 

To be honest, I don't think I would change anything of the strange and winding paths my life has taken.  I just wonder if I went back in time what might or could be different and whether I might be more settled.  God only knows, truly.

Sufjan Stevens released his new EP, yesterday!  The title is, "All Delighted People," and contains 8 tracks.  His sound is a bit different than former albums, but you can tell it is still Sufjan.  Good stuff - give it a listen.  Better yet, but the album!

I worked as the Data Analyst for the three year, multi-million dollar, multi-national research study (it was a real study!) dealing with healthcare benefits for Episcopal clergy and lay employees.  In our research, it became blatantly apparent that clergy are an unhealthy bunch.  The nature of the work and difficulty we have setting boundaries contribute to our lives being less than healthy.  We are undisciplined in this area, too.

I have found that I actually have to physically leave home and neighborhood (get out of town) so that I will  take a true day off!

This article appeared recently on AOL's blog, "Politics Daily."  It is entitled, "No Rest For the Holy: Clergy Burnout a Growing Concern," by David Gibson, Religion Reporter.  Here are a couple paragraphs:

"The untenable nature of the experience for me [being a pastor/priest] was being designated the holiest member of the congregation, who could be in all places at all times and require no time for sermon preparation," Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, said in describing her memoir, "Leaving Church," about her decision to abandon the pulpit. "Those aren't symptomatic of a mean congregation; those are normal expectations of 24/7 availability."

Indeed, unlike doctors or police, for example, pastors are supposed to be people who have dedicated their lives to a spiritual goal and are not expected to focus on themselves and their own welfare in the here and now.

"I really don't think people think about their pastors," said Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, research director of the Duke Clergy Health Initiative. "They admire their pastor, and their pastor is very visible. But they want their pastor to be the broker between them and God, and they don't want them to be as human as they themselves are."

Further on:

A program called the National Clergy Renewal Program, funded by the Lilly Endowment, has been underwriting sabbaticals for pastors for several years; the program will provide up to $50,000 to 150 congregations in the coming year. And places like The Alban Institute in Herndon, Va., are studying the topic and offering expertise and resources to denominations trying to make their clergy healthier...

But experts also say the solutions have to start at the congregational level.

Congregants can encourage pastors to take time off, and not view everything in the church as the pastor's responsibility. They can also be sure to provide healthy food at church events. But clergy must also learn find time to exercise or relax, even if it means saying no to some requests. Otherwise, they won't be healthy enough to serve their flock later on.

Alright, here is "Coming Up Close."  IMHO, one of the best songs ever written.

I loved 'Till Tuesday - the name, the music, the look, the album covers.  I've followed Aimee Mann long after the band broke up - have all her albums.  She has been referred to as the "last of the tortured artists" and an "artist's artist".  I remember in the mid-1980's sitting in the studio working on my graphic design projects listening to this album.  "Coming Up Close" is easily the best song!  New Wave, female vocalists with low voices... I had a platonic crush on Aimee Mann.

 


Well, she really needs to have a guitar in her hands in this video - not so good at free dancing.  This was when MTV had "VJ's" and actually played videos - all day!  Then, of course, there was the keyboardist.

Another photo from Red Hook.

I really do miss riding the subway, daily.  I even kind of miss the crowdedness of the trains during rush hour - all of them.  To ride the train is to experience all kinds of cultural and social forms - great rudeness and even more kindness... frustration and wonder... selfishness and compassion... the very young and the very old - it is all here.  Perhaps I'm waxing nostalgic, since I rarely ride the subway these days, but on Monday night as I was traveling to and from seeing Willie's musical (Willie Martinez is a parishioner and Jazz leader - he is the drummer for the band), "This Side of Paradise" about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, it felt good sitting on the subway and watching the people and their interactions, seeing the "up and coming" cultural changes, the vast array of cultures and dress and languages and attitudes, and knowing that this is New York City, the center of the known world.

Incredible views of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland and the resulting aurora borealis!

Link to the TimesOnline (UK) photos

Another Valentine's Day passes.

Another big snow storm is supposedly upon us. Friends of mine in Baltimore said they measured three feet from the last storm. We, in Brooklyn, lost out. We got barely a dusting. This time, however, may be different. The weather guy said last night that we could get 8-12 inches. I'll believe it when I see it. Snow is falling at this point...

I have been mulling over in my mind how this blog might take shape in the future. As I have always intended, it is a place for me to "dump" things to which I can return later - to keep track of links or quotes or ideas and to "think out loud" as I try to figure out this crazy world of ours. I've been doing less "thinking out loud" and more posting of quotes.

I thought that I might us this space to chronicle this new ministry project in which I find myself. It is the creation of something completely new from scratch, from the ground up. It makes me nervous, but also excited. Getting used to doing ministry full-time is challenging. For the past 4 3/4 years, I've been a working priest. I've worked full-time and then did ministry during my "down" hours. I worked two jobs, and that was very frustrating. Months would go by and I would have no days off. It wore me out... it is an unhealthy way to live. Now, for these past three weeks, my job is my ministry. I don't quite know what to do with myself. I feel guilty spending hours in a row planning or reading or thinking about the work of a priest and the work of the Gospel of Christ in this blistered world of ours.

Society and culture is changing so quickly. As a tech-guy, I love the advances in technology and what they allow us to do - and be. But, the changes that are going on go far deeper than just the advancement of technology and our use of the new technology. My mind whirls when I think of the possibilities of the iPad (and like instruments), but my mind shutters at the thought of what is developing within the hearts and minds of people. The changes go to the heart of who we think we are and how we deal with one another. Technology may augment or finder aspects of that deeper reality, but technology is neutral - it is we that change. (Should I use "us" there instead of "we"? I'll be lazy and not use the technology to investigate the correct grammatical usage. My failure, not the technology's failure!)

Add to this the "gift" of the last generation that pulled us away from any mooring or tether to anything tried or solid to help ground us in something other than the immediate, the trendy, the superficial... as we stumble along trying to find our way unable to receive and recognize the lessons from lives past.

The next twenty years should be amazing, from the standpoint of a neutral observer of people and society. I don't know were we will be, and I think few people will be able to imagine where we will be. These are strange times, as if all times are not strange, but these truly are fundamentally strange times.

As people who deal with people who are living out their lives in "real time" and as people who talk amongst ourselves a lot, I keep hearing from priests that something just isn't right. Something strange is doing on in the underlying strata of our society and lives. There has been some sort of turning, and we can't at this point quite figure out to what. Some say they think we will enter into a new Dark-Ages. Some say they think we may be coming close to an end of the age of democracy. I don't know - that may all be extreme. Something, however, is certainly up.

In the changing and the new contexts, where is the Gospel? Where are the people who live lives so rooted in the Way of Christ that the image people see in them, in us, is something profoundly different than what is "imaged" or seen in most worldlings?

The way we live out our Faith in the coming days will have little in common with what has been commonly experienced in this country since its inception. These are heady times, these are challenging times, these are times that will look in many ways far more like pre-Constantinian times that post (our recognizable times). How do we navigate these coming days?

The snow is falling hard, now. Perhaps we will have a big snowfall, after all.

The beginning of the year 2010... 2010 years in the designation of time that began with the life and death (and resurrection) of a Nazarene. (If the claim of resurrection was made then, I doubt time would have been designated different then the current method.) In these days of global plurality, it is often called CE or the "Common Era." A.D. or "anno domini," "the year of our Lord," has fallen out of favor.

With the coming of each new year, there is a kind of optimism (hopefully) that the days ahead will be better than the days behind. I certainly feel this way. Sometimes, I know that the coming year will yield some very different experiences and outcomes - I will be changed. This is one of those years.

I will be changed through the experiences of the coming months, and I'm honestly excited to see how I've changed by this time next year. This is my last week at CPG. With the coming of next week, I take up my new position as Diocesan Missioner for the Red Hook Project and ImagoDei. What all that means, I have no clue at this point. I will be responsible for making it mean something and doing something that will benefit the cause of Christ in the Diocese of Long Island. I've nervous. I'm excited. I'm afraid. I'm expectant.

I will not be the same person I am right now at the beginning of 2011. By the grace of God, I will be more of the kind of person I was created to be, more able to love honestly, less hypocritical, more humble in my understanding of myself and the world around me, wiser to the ways of the Systems of this World and the Kingdom of God, and having a good and beneficial influence on those in my life - to be more fully the imago Dei to those around me. This is my hope.

So, in the Episcopal Life Online edition this morning, in the section reporting on what is happening at diocesan conventions, here is this "paragraph" (sentence) among the discription of what happened at the Long Island convention:

"The bishop announced the creation of a three-year Red Hook, Brooklyn Project, a model community and liturgical ministry as well as residence where the spiritual needs of people can be met."

That's me. I am privileged to begin a project to situate the doings of the Church (liturgy/worship, discipleship/formation, the cure of souls, good works) within the contexts of Postmodernism and Post-Christendom among generations that are primarily unchurched and unimpressed with the institutions of American Christianity.

We are, we have become, consumption robots, consumer automatons.

Within a free-enterprise system, it is the business of companies and corporations and industry to build demand for their products or services. Without demand for and the consumption of their goods and/or services, there is no reason for their existence. They will not exist. This is simple economics. For those who are persuasive enough to convince you that you need "x," and that their version of "x" is better then that other company's version of "x," they will prosper economically. There is a difference, however, between persuasion and manipulation.

What has happened over the last few decades is that the extent of social manipulation by "Madison Ave." - the advertising agents of their client companies - has become so pervasive and the public's willingness to be manipulated so complete that we have become nothing much more than consumption tools, robots, automatons.

This was brought home to me in a fundamental way right after the 9/11 attacks. Our President was very fiery in his speech about retaliation and defeating the enemies of America. Yet, the solution he boldly declared to the average American citizen was that we should go shopping. Go buy more stuff... go collect more goods... go make your "mountain-o-things" even bigger (as Tracey Chapman sang about). Now, I know that what he was suggesting was that we continue on with our daily lives so to not "give the victory to the enemy." See, you didn't destroy our resolve... you didn't succeed in demoralizing us... etc. Well, is that all that we are? Is the demonstration of our national resolve, our virtue, our reason for being all about buying things?

We are attached on our own soil. A war on terrorism has been declared. We invaded countries. What are Americans supposed to do? Go shopping. Brilliant and creative solution! What sacrifice we have to endure? None - that is supposedly to prove to the enemy how great we are. All the while, the very force that made American great and that has inspired freedom seeking people for generations has demoted to irrelevance - materialism and consumerism is now what American stands for. The American birthright has been sold for a bowl of pottage.

Another problem is that when there is nothing more in the national imagination beyond the next thrill or titillation, what is left but a constant seeking to fill the void with stuff and a willingness to believe whoever promises to deliver? When the Baby-Boomer generation of the 1960's-kind thought that it was a good thing to throw off the "oppression" of the past, of the wisdom and insight of generations past, in order to make a brave new world that was supposed to usher in the Age of Aquarius, what can we expect but a descending into manipulation and triteness?

In the past, there was a governor on corporations' and Madison Ave.'s attempt to move from persuasion to manipulation. There was a culture understanding that there were things more important than the individual and the self. There was a common understanding that happiness and satisfaction of life and a sense of significance in one's own life went beyond things. We did not so much define our lives, our selves, by what we had or what we accumulated. Money didn't maketh the man. Yes, yes, there was the whole "Keep up with the Jones," but again, that was Madison Ave.'s attempt to manipulate us to buy more things so that we "kept up with the Jones." Yes, there are certainly examples of greedy people, and all that. Yet, there was still an understanding that when all was said and done, out happiness didn't rest on a new toaster or dishwasher or car or video game or jet ski or snow board or house or shoes or or or.

One of the aspects that were thrown off our societal shoulders by this generational thinking was religion. Those who believed in such superstitions where just ignorant and willfully manipulated by unscrupulous priests or pastors bent on control and power. Religion was just another occupier and oppressive agent that only tried to steal from people their person-hood, their joy, their freedom, their creativity. The thing is, the generation that through off the oppressive and moralizing force of the Christian religion had already been formed in those religious principles that had developed and been passed down for a millennia and a half - the wisdom and experience of generations past. They still were imbued with a mitigating inner force, whether they recognized it or not.

What would be left for this generation to pass on to their children? It ended up being a chaotic amalgamation of trendy fads, because the wisdom of the past was not to be trusted - it was oppressive. With each passing generation (X, Y), there was less and less of the taint of Christian moral structures - you know, like love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

From the stand point of the movers and shakers, this has been a glorious triumph. After all, how can you sell the idea that everyone has to consume, consume, consume when there is a cultural mitigating force that says that happiness is not found in material things, that we should focus on the well-being of our neighbor before our own, that we should give to the poor, that we should live simply, that we should not allow yourself to be consumed by treasures on earth, etc., etc., etc. When the mitigating force has been ejected from the culture, what is left? When the mitigating force was advertised effectively to be an enemy, what is left? When the Church buys into that idea, what is left?

The culture progressed to became in these days Post-Christian, and over the past four decades the Church responded by simple aping the zeitgeist of the culture, after all the leaders of the Church become those who were out to gloriously remake all of society in their bold, new image. It didn't work. Aquarius did not come. The Church has became irrelevant and bankrupt (exceptions do certainly exist!) in its attempt to offer any positive alternative to a culture becoming more banal and self-centered. The Church as been duped by that which filled the void as the Church gave up its birthright. It is a nice circular phenomenon.

So, where are we now? People are certainly not happy. People have become profoundly insecure because there is the possibility that someone might take away all of our things, and by now our whole self-definition is based on material things. We don't sacrifice for freedom any more, we demand more things. We now torture with the best of them. And the Church is irrelevant, no one listens, because we have become just like everyone else. The funny thing is, the later part of Generation X and a good part of Generation Y are coming to realize the fallacy in the Baby-Boomer endeavor.

I believe in the free-enterprise system, but there must be a governor because the hearts of men are exceedingly wicked, and selfish, and greedy, left unchecked. But, persuasion is not the same as manipulation. We have let ourselves be deceived by the Mad Men. They are very good at what they do! We are now, as Americans, worth not much more than being the world's consumers. How sad.

Thomas Jefferson said that democracy was not possible without religion. We all know that he had great problems with religion and Christianity, but he recognized that there must be a mitigating force within the framework of democracy, and I say free-enterprise too, that calls to one to whom we are ultimately accountable - and that one is outside ourselves or our group or our nation. We don't like to hear that, because we have bought the idea that we are an island unto ourselves. "I" am the final arbiter of all that I am and do and think and feel. As a seminarian a year behind me said, "I don't believe in the resurrection, but I'm okay with that." How lonely. How sad.

I hear too many people who work with people saying something is up... something is coming because something isn't right... we feel it in our bones but don't know how to describe it yet... don't know how to put our finger on it just yet. A society can maintain this kind of existence for only so long. Can we not learn from history? Oh, I forgot, the past is oppressive. We are destined, then, to repeat it. We are coming to the breaking point.

For the last six years, I've been avidly following the political, social, and ecclesial meanderings of so many people dealing with our current Episcopal Church (TEC) crisis. Like Christianity itself, there has never been a time when all was well in either Anglicanism or TEC or when everyone agreed, but during these past six years I have come to the conclusion that much of the problem, at least in this country, is generational. The most ardent of both those who are organizing a new denomination (in very American-Evangelical fashion, but not at all by Anglican-Evangelical norms, since Anglican-Evangelicals understand that Anglicans of whatever strip are Catholic) and those who will snub their nose at the worldwide Communion are generally of a generation.

Six years past, a whole lot of typing and argument and mental and emotional turmoil, and I've determined to let go of this whole thing. Those whose purpose in life is to fight and destroy in all their vainglory can go right on doing so. I don't want to play any longer, basically because no real good is coming of any of it. Those who are determined, will be determined, and will do what they will do.

For me, I am sidestepping all this and returning to intention, persistence, humility, and simplicity as I strive to live out the Way of Jesus Christ. If this Church is ever to regain its balance (for surely it is out of balance now and getting more so everyday), the next generations will make it happen. Of course each generation will have its problems, but this present generation is worthy of an asterisk in the history books. The next generations are not out to usher in the Age of Aquarius or remake all things old into their new and sparkly image. So, while we will eventually winnow out the bad from the good contributions of this present generation, during that time of transfer of authority we will realize continued decline and the rebuilding will be all the more difficult. With God's help, it will be so. Of course, what I just wrote smacks of generational arrogance, but for this piece I will claim myself to be a Baby Boomer, even though I am on the cusp and really regard myself as an X'er.

I am hoping that the ImagoDei Society and its ministries and the doing and thinking of the Red Hook Space will be the realization of a different way of doing things, that are really the very old ways of the Faith from generations past to generations present.

I've spent the last two weeks on vacation, first with my brother, dad, and brother-in-law salmon fishing in Alaska. The first photo above, with me on the left (then Todd, Dad, and Tony), was taken with the Childs Glacier and Copper River in the background). The second photo is during a sunrise with fog surrounding everything, the third photo is mist rising off the Miles Glacier, and the final photo is me with two salmon caught in the Eyak River.

Then, I it was down to Portland, OR, to see two old friends. Steve was my best friend in High School, and I hadn't seen him for nearly 29 years. While our time together was brief, it was wonderful reconnecting with him. Our lives lived were and are very different. He has a 23 and a 21 year old sons (I think those are the correct ages). He is a successful family man. His kids grew up in the same house - they have a real home. My life has been all over the place, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of lives. I was honestly surprised by how our memories differed on a variety of things. He talked about significant events that I don't remember for the life of me, and the same with some of my memories.

Russ I met and grew to know while living in Akron and working at Kent. We went through a variety of personal things together and he became one of the people with whom I can share very personal things. Not quite a confessor, but a friend with whom I can confess. Not quite a spiritual director, but a friend with whom I can struggle through the faith. I am challenged by him and encouraged. My contact with Russ lessened dramatically when I left for New York and he ended up in Texas, and two years ago to Portland.

One thing I envied of Ashton was his life-long friendships. He is still good friends with and in regular contact with friends he developed in his latter elementary school days. To have people who have known you for so long and through all the stuff of life we suffer through, to be so well known, to be so comfortable with people must be a wonderful thing. I can sense that kind of wonderful from only the edges. I'm terrible at keeping up with people... that is my fault. I also know that many of my closest friends from years past would not easily abide with where I have landed concerning orientation and faith. Such is life, I suppose.

Two weeks ago, we had a death in my family. My maternal grandmother died at the age of 87. She hadn't been doing well for a while (several years, actually). She died relatively quickly, which frankly was a blessing because these kinds of things can often last for many, many months and become quite agonizing in the end. I remember my paternal grandfather's death. He suffered.

For the past few years, she lived between Bedford, PA (her and my late grandfathers home for 40 years) and my parent's home in Lima, OH. She would demand to be in her place - her home with her things and her memories and her life dependent on no one else. This was her place where she could just be herself and do what she wanted. This was her home where she had remaining friends. Everything was familiar.

When I was a child, I would spend a few weeks each summer with my grandparents, first in the mountains of Kentucky's coal mining region (Pike County) and then in Bedford. I knew those places (as best I could as a kid and now). I remember vividly the smell of coal on fast moving, big coal trucks and slow moving, creaking coal cars being pulled along the railroad tracks. They were right there - I could touch them... mountain, train tracks, house, road, house, creek, mountain. I remember shucking White Half Runners and my great aunt making Apple Stack cake. Eating a piece of icebox cold Apple Stack cake on a sultry summer day was wonderful. I remember the sound of cicadas coming like waves from the mountain trees. I remember the aftermaths of terrible floods that ruined everything in the valleys. I remember driving on the curvy roads between Williamson, WV (their "downtown") and up the holler to McAndrews, KY, where my other grandparents lived (the house my dad grew up in is still there). I remember my grandmother's house in Kentucky, where I spent most of my time. That house suffered through one too many floods. I remember going to school with my paternal grandmother - she was an elementary teacher. I first learned to eat mustard on my potato chips that day.

I remember the poverty - tar paper shacks next to mansions, literally. Coal made some people quite wealthy. I remember the closeness of neighbors and the overpowering sense that this place was very different from my place, my home town along the southern banks of Lake Erie.

Then, it was to Bedford - a quintessential New England kind of town. "George Washington slept here" signs on the downtown buildings. The old, stately Bedford Inn and gold course was a short drive away, but seemed like it was worlds away. My grandfather used refer to gold courses as "cow pasture pools." Why, I don't know, but he was an avid golfer. One year, during the Bedford County Fair, I was walking through the grounds with a neighbor boy my own age (we actually got to walk to the fair on our own!), and I got on TV for the first time. Just a local station interviewing a couple boys at the fair, but I saw myself on TV. They talked funny there in Bedford. Not quite as funny as they did in Kentucky, but more kind of like Canadians. Then, of course, there was Shawnee State Park and the cool lake we used to swim in. It was a place different than my place in Vermilion, OH.

My grandmother always wanted to be in her own place. She would insist on being there (sometimes to the point of getting a bit violent about being taken back home). It didn't help that she wasn't remembering very well, either. She would be there a few months, but her health would deteriorate to the point when my parents had to go and bring her to Lima. She did not want to be in Lima! She did not want to be in my parent's home, but her own. She would get well enough and then demand to be taken back. This cycle repeated itself for a few years. It was very tough on my parents.

She just wanted to be in her own place (and she was used to getting her way). I can understand wanting to be in one's own place.

Now that all my grandparents are dead, I sense this loss not only of them but also of their places. I have no reason to go back to Belfry, KY. All my relatives are gone (except for a great aunt up one of the hollers). The train tracks have been pulled up as the coal mines closed. I didn't even smell coal in the air two weeks ago. I was sad. I have no reason to return to Bedford, PA. Those places are gone to me now with the passing of those who made them real and available to me. Particularly in Kentucky, I no longer belong to that place... the place that is so terribly different from were I now live. There is a different kind of living, a different way of living, down there that is frankly more sane and civil that here in New York City.

A sense of place is important to us, I think. It helps define us and form us. Part of my formation happened in Kentucky and in Pennsylvania in my grandparents' homes and in places very different from my own. I regret that with the passing of my grandmother I no longer have not only her, but the places she represented and the way of life found only in those places. It is a loss of connection, a loss of history, a loss of a bit of who I am.

This is going to be a rambling journey through a variety of stuff, I think. That, I suppose, isn't so unusual, but as I'm trying to make connections and put things in some sort of rational order so to make an argument (or statement) that makes some kind of sense, this is just what I have to do. I process "out loud."

I attended the first week of the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I had a great experience seeing people, witnessing a process that can be tedious, but always precise. Our polity is different and regrettably hard for some around the world to understand.

I watched this video on YouTube for Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtGD6t75HS8 (not available to embed)

So much of our current culture drives us down a path that belittles and denigrates in one way or another our humanity and common good for the purposes of power, privilege, and greed. I can't but head the words and the images of Jackson's song and this video and say that this world desperately needs a different way of ordering itself. I think the Gospel of Jesus Christ presents us a way, but it is a voluntary way, a very difficult way, a costly way, a humbling and self-denying way, a way that will not be accepted by entrenched interests that thrive on maintaining the status-quo even if it means the death of the common good.

This different way in a Christian understanding is a way that is not possible by our own means or determination, but first by the transforming of our souls (the Cure of Souls) by God. It isn't just institutional evil that causes and perpetuates our human ills, but firstly the evil that resides within all of our hearts - our rebellion against God's good way, as the 1979 Pray Book Catechism stresses. We see from history that even religious institutions can often be humanity's worst enemy!

Atheists and non-Christians do great charitable things, and we see many providing a far better example of the "caring for the least of these" than do many Christians, yet the way of which I speak comes only from God's restorative work within our own souls. From that beginning point, institutions are changed by the people within them, our processes are improved, and our world is made better.

Some in this Church of ours (and the greater Body of Christ), have allowed themselves to be co-opted by some Systems of this World. This is true of liberals as well as conservatives, just in different ways! For example, I think that many people within The Episcopal Church have taken to an idea that the foundation of our work is a sort of psycho-therapeutic model that strives to make people feel good about themselves, a sort of institutional purpose that promotes self-esteem or being well-adjusted. If we make people "feel" welcomed, esteemed, and good about themselves then we have succeeded in fulfilling our Gospel mission. It is as if God is the great therapist in the sky (or the new-age kind of daddy-guru figure), rather than the great redeemer and restorer of souls.

For many, this way of thinking has replaced, for whatever reasons, the idea that the Church is to be about the "Cure of Souls" (predicated on the understanding that humanity has been impossibly burdened and bound by ways of thinking and being that separate us from God - sin - and irrevocably destroy true relationship with one another absent the restorative work of the Holy Spirit). I believe giving ourselves to this way of thinking and being has caused the Church to give over its vital purpose for a lesser one, to lose its reason for being (which might be shown by fewer and fewer people wanting to be a part of us). For people seeking a faith community of restoration, I think they recognize that in many ways our Church doesn't look much different from the World - from those systems that perpetuate division, hatred, uncompromising attitudes, and the impoverishment of soul and the common good (even as we do some good works).

I have to ask what kind of foundation the current structures of this Church are being built. Are the structures able to withstand the test of time or the trials that inevitably come as the Systems of this World work their best to overcome and destroy the Way of God? I consider our current troubles and watch the actions and resolutions of General Convention, and I have to ask upon what foundation are we making our decisions. Do we consider the well being of the whole community as vitally important - in the U.S. and around the world - or do we continue to simply concentrate on our own limited and myopic goals and special interests? (It isn't that I am not supportive of the desired outcomes of most of what is being proposed by General Convention as an example, but I question whether the reasons for the proposals are based on Christian precepts - understood through time and trial - or trendy precepts that have their origins in systems that in the end only perpetuate our continued boundedness by sin.)

Why do we do what we do? The injustice that infects this world, the bigotry and exclusion that overwhelms our societies, the selfishness that enables starvation, the myopic vision that encourages war and deprivation - all of these need to be called out and confronted, even unto death. Yet, why and how do we as the Church pursue the remedy of these things? For the Church, I don’t think the “why” or “how” rests on trying to make people feel good about themselves, to be self-actualized, or to be esteemed. That kind of psycho-social work is important and we should encourage and support it, but it isn't the work of the Church. Our progressive sense of wellbeing, from a Christian perspective, comes from the results of a transformation of the soul. What good is it for a man or woman to inherit the world, but lose his or her soul? For the Church, we are to be about the Cure of Souls - salvation, forgiveness, restoration of relationship between God and man and between one another. It is profoundly difficult to give up one's life in order to gain life. It is a long and hard row to hoe for the Church to stand in prophetic opposition to the Systems of the World, predicated on the salvific and restorative work of Jesus Christ.

What was (is) our motivation for BO33 or DO25? What is our foundation?

You know, it is the strangest thing. It is going on a week now that Michael Jackson died. I am surprised by how hard his death has affected me. I am really saddened by his death, almost like something inside of me has died, too. This is honestly unexpected.

I've been watching, reading, and listening to everything that has been going on since the announcement. There is, of course, the reporting of his phenomenal talent, but the reaction of people world wide... I've heard people say that his music was constantly positive and encouraging and inspiring humanity to make a difference in the world for positive change. This is true. Perhaps, because so many entertainers (particularly in certain genres) are so negative and foul and present to the world the most banal stuff, yet there was Michael Jackson. A New York Times report quoted a industry person saying that they will never be another world-wide rock star with so much appeal and influence and talent as Michael Jackson.

Perhaps it is the tragedy of his life. A childhood that never was and his sometimes bizarre attempts to reclaim it. I can't imagine what is was like or him - adults from the earliest years doing not much more than manipulating him (and his brothers), lying to him, cheating him, using him, and his father was one of the primary culprits. Perhaps, I am just so sad to see a lost soul with so much talent and so much pain. Perhaps, it is that he was always there during my life and became so significant in times of our lives. Perhaps, I did expect him to die while I'm still around. There are those who hated him.

He had problems, big problems, and he didn't seem to understand why people did'nt understand him - or perhaps believe him. Whether he really did abuse the boys or whether their parents were just another bunch trying to bleed him dry I don't know. My suspicion is that he was innocent, but he certainly kept putting himself in situations where people could easily make accusations and exploit his vulnerabilities. Then, all the revelations about is three children that are not really his after all. Not his biological children. The man was messed up, but why? I think, because, of us - people, the public, the exploiters.

So, I downloaded several of his videos. I wanted "Man in the Mirror," but iTunes doesn't have it, for some reason. "Cry." "Scream." I'm just honestly saddened by his tragic death more than I ever thought I would be.

I wonder whether his death simply brings to mind people that I have been very close to and who are now in terrible situations. Perhaps, his death reminds me that those friends for whom I care terribly could come to the same kind of end. I do fear for them, and wish horribly that they would take the steps needed to make healthy decisions for themselves. I pray for a particular friend constantly. I could see his innocent heart, exploited by others, making terrible decisions and now so messed up, I could see him come to such an end.

Life is so precious, but the "systems of our world" work so hard to destroy the simplicity, trust, faith, and innocence that we have when we are children. Jackson seemed to long desperately for those things. What is left when a culture no longer values them? What happens when we are complicit in their demise?

May his soul find the peace and tranquility he so long sought after. Lord, by your grace and mercy. May we learn something... even a little something.

So, next week I will be off to Anaheim, CA, for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I will be there from July 7th through the 12th working for passage of Resolution A177 concerning denomination-wide heathcare benefits (the research project I've been working on these past three years). We shall see how it fairs. The situation with the economy might impact its passage, but all around this proposal saves the Church money!

I'm looking forward to listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who will be giving an address. I've gone through several stages of feelings toward Rowan - from jubilation when he was made Archbishop (a real theologian as Archbishop of the Anglican Communion!), to frustration at want seemed to be ineffectual leadership concerning our Anglican troubles, to now thinking that he is one of the few in the midst of this ignoble fight that is acting like a real Anglican!

Since I've never been to L.A., I'm taking an extra day and a half to be a tourist - probably only enough time to do the standard stuff. I'm staying between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Why not?