So, Reverend Lovejoy and his wife on the Simpsons rekindled their sex life after getting Homer and Marge’s mattress. (To understand how they got the mattress in the first place, you will have had to have watched the episode.)
The Lovejoy’s station wagon pulls up in front of the house. They jump out and run towards the front door. The Rev. Lovejoy says, “You put on the Michael Bolton CD while I put on my eatable vestments.”
Eatable vestments. That’s funny.
Category Archives: personal
Will I arrive?
We truly know not what our future holds. I do not know.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
If we know what is in store, we may never arrive.
First Communion
I am in Ohio this weekend for my nephew’s first communion. It really wasn’t his “first communion,” that happened in The Episcopal Church, where he was baptized. Now, he is going to a Roman Catholic school and participating in the Jesuit parish church, so the need for his first communion. It was good.
There was a reception for family and friends at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s house afterwards. Lots of people. A whole slew of kids below 10 and most below 5. Uncle Bob (that’s me) is not used to being around so many kids for such an extended period of time. I had a lot of fun and the kids were great, but man does all that energy wear one out. As all the parents will say, “We’ve learned to tune it out.” Oh, well, good for that, but I am yet to learn that particular skill.
Here comes my nephew down the stairs. He is 3 and about the cutest little guy you could imagine!
Found this while reading: Confessions of a Carioca, so I took it.
I like his Title line, “‘Liturgy Nerd’ was not one of the options!” Ditto.
| What Be Your Nerd Type?
Your Result: Literature Nerd
Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it’s eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today’s society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. |
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| Social Nerd |
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| Drama Nerd |
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| Gamer/Computer Nerd |
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| Science/Math Nerd |
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| Musician |
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| Artistic Nerd |
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| Anime Nerd |
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| What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace |
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I just love Christians, part 2
So, after my lengthy post (read the receding post), my protagonist continued to ask:
“I kindly invite you Bob G+ to provide sufficient detail on the particular forms of same-sex behavior that you believe are not forbidden by God.â€
I thought and wrote and thought some more in an attempt to come up with a new way of presenting the “material” that just might make a dent in his armor. I decided to ask how he thought I would respond. You can read his responses (posts #125 & #126).
Here is how I finally responded:
——-
Truth Unites…Truth Divides –
You wrote: “My hope and prayer, as you meet and are led by the Holy Spirit in prayer and in His Word, is that you are led by intellectual honesty and spiritual integrity…”
This part of your sentence is exactly what I have done over the past 30 years. And that searching, seeking, praying, studying, discerning, listening, humbling myself, wrestling, more studying, more praying, has lead me with all integrity and intellectual honesty to conclude that Scripture, rightly divided and rightly understood in proper context and intent, does not say what anti-inclusion folks want/demand it to say. Scripture does not condemn all forms of gay relationships.
Now, if you can’t accept that this is where the Spirit of God has lead me (and an increasing numbers of people in all Christian communities), I can’t help it – as you alluded to in your second post directly above, my judge is my Savior (thankfully), and in His providence and grace I commend my soul, my future, my hope, my salvation, my joy, my sorrow, my life. In Him I live and move and have my being.
I just love Christians, don’t you know
I’ve been having another debate on Titusonenine. It all started with comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the Church needing to be a safe place of gay people.
Here is the link to the whole thread.
Here is what I final wrote to a sarcastic challenge to prove what I think.
Kendall Harmon’s Mother
Canon Kendall Harmon’s mother passed away yesterday. Please pray for the repose of the soul of Mary Ann Harmon. Pray, too, for Kendall and his family. We know it is a hard time.
Kendall posted her obituary, here.
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon earth. After my awaking, he will raise me up; and in my body I shall see God. I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger. (491, BCP)
Most merciful God, whose wisdom is beyond our understanding: Deal graciously with the Harmon family in their grief. Surround them with your love, that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in your goodness, and strength to meet the days to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (494, BCP)
First things
I have said for a while now that one of the main schemes of the Enemy of our Faith in these times is to encourage us to be so busy that we no longer have time to sit, to be quite, meditate, listen, and rest in the presence of God. We don’t take the time or make the time to be with God and to hear His voice.
We fill our minds and our emotions with so many other things that either do nothing to bring us closer to our true selves or actively work against it. Our true selves, by the way, are realized through our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
I realize that all this religio-political crap has done nothing to encourage me on my way to knowing God more fully and knowing God’s will for my life. It crowds out so much, it burns-outs my brain-cells and keeps them from firing in ways that enable understanding. Wisdom is lost.
I’m not talking about doing good theological work or Scriptural exegesis – thinking about the things of God, but about just listening and participating in the banality of the Anglican blogshere as we fight like worldlings, using the rhetorical and physical weapons of this world.
Fr. Cullen keeps telling me, “Bob, you’ve got to get away from that stuff.” I do. The political animal that I am keeps drawing me back into the fray. I suppose I should, as others have done, fast during this Holy Lent from such things and focus instead on my prayers and filling my brain with good things. These are the first things, it seems to me.
The world goes on…
My senior year in high school the yearbook (or newspaper?) took a survey of the seniors – most likely to do this, most likely to be that. I was voted most likely to be president. I loved politics – mostly international affairs.
When I was in jr. high I had the paper route in my neighborhood. It was just right for a jr. high kid. I had to give it up when I entered high school because of marching band. I was a percussionist, later to become a saxophonist. Anyway, so I would read the newspaper as I went on my route. I would get home and watch the NBC and ABC nightly news shows, and finish it off with the McNeal Lehrer News Hour on PBS. I was in jr. high. I haven’t admitted that to anyone in a very long time.
It didn’t get much better in high school, although I didn’t have much time for news programs – too busy with other stuff. I became a Social Studies teacher.
Just to prove I wasn’t absolutely a total freak, I also was voted one of the most “watchable” guys in school my senior year. Yup, that was me, breaking young girl’s hearts all over the place. All wasted. Of course, I got picked on, too. I wasn’t the most “sportlick,” as they say in Germany.
I was also voted most likely to become a reverend.
I became a “reverend” – a priest to be exact (never refer to an Episcopal priest as “reverend”).
Well, I love politics and I’m a priest. So, politics in Church is, well, it gives me goose bumps.
As an academic exercise it is very interesting to watch the power plays and the scheming and the conniving and the spin and all that. In the Church. It is sad, isn’t it?
I am always brought back to the ‘cure of souls.’ That is what I need to be focusing on, not ecclesial brinkmanship. It is too easy to get lost in the battles and the accusations and the misrepresentations of the truth. It is too easy to forget the fact that the world sees all this and runs away. And, I don’t really blame them. I wish they could get past the news reports and blog entries.
The life situations of real people – rich or poor, white or black, male or female, straight or gay, this or that – continue on. Life is hard all the way around. It is particularly hard, almost impossible in fact, for the people of most of the rest of the world. And we watch and participate in the crass politics and power plays of this Church and Communion while the real world goes on and tries to get by – a world moving further away from God.
I have a vestry meeting to get to. We welcome the new members today. Life goes on…
Here is an option…
If you’ve been keeping up with the statements from around the globe concerning the doings and goings on at the Anglican Primates Conference, then you are privy to a interesting process. (Check Titusonenine and Thinking Anglicans for the most current updates.) The “reasserts” are not at all happy, at least at the time of this posting. Just a few days ago, the sub-committee that was charged with evaluating The Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report was being hailed as the point of condemnation for the current liberal leadership of TEC. Now, since the sub-committee’s report didn’t say what the “reasserters” wanted it to say, the more radical elements are revealing their true nature.
When I was doing my graduate work at Kent State University in College Student Development (an obscure degree), I had an Assistantship working for the Office of Campus Life. Campus Life, among other things, coordinated all the different student organizations on this campus of 23,000 students. One of my responsibilities was to help oversee the Student Activities Board (SAB), which brought educational and entertainment programming to campus. They had a nice budget of almost $200,000.
Next to the SAB office was the office for the primary African-American student organization – Black United Students (BUS). We co-mingled a lot. Ideological differences ebbed and flowed within BUS as the years rolled on. At times they were quite radical in a “Nation of Islam” kind of way, and at times they were a bit more “mainstream.” I was looking for a Bible at one point and walked into their office and asked the folks present if anyone had a Bible. The response by one of the officers was, “Why the hell would we have that racist and evil book in here?” Okay…
BUS encouraged its members to be a part of SAB, which was a good thing (and still is). One particular BUS member was chair of the committee that brought in live entertainment. I oversaw her committee. She told me once that the then Bush, Sr., administration was actively engaged in attempting to eradicate the black race. I asked her if she really, honestly, thought that the Cabinet sat around and strategized about how they could get rid of all the black people. We couldn’t even agree on the meaning of English words, since all the dictionaries are written by white people, and were naturally racists and prejudiced against black people.
Of course I challenged her on these things and she really hadn’t that ability to make a reasoned response. (Then again, “reason” is a white construct and blacks didn’t have to abide by the concepts of white devils.) Some members in BUS where used to cowering guilt-ridden-white-pseudo-liberals, and I was not any of those things. We functioned together, but that was as close as we got. Generally, I liked her, but she was in a particular stage in her development that made her not very pleasant to be around, at least for the devil white folk.
Now, part of my education in College Student Development dealt with all kinds of personality theories and scales and paradigms and stages of development and all that. There was one particular scale – the Stages of Minority Development (don’t remember what theorists put it together) – that proved to be pretty accurate, as least in my dealings with my advisee and her cohorts.
One evening after we completed a show – Adam Sandler when he was really hot – I asked my advisee and her right-hand-girl how they thought it went. My advisee’s right-hand-girl was particularly radical in her view of the evil and satanic white race, literally snarled and told me that it was a failure, ridiculous, and pathetic (it was their committee’s idea to bring Adam to campus, by the way). It did nothing for black people and was worthless. They had to spend all this money (the black people’s money) on worthless events to entertain white people. Now, a few thousand people of all different hues showed up. It was actually quite successful and the committee did a great job. So, I asked why she thought that.
I sat there in the “Lost Leader Lounge” (a big open lounge area into which all the student offices spilled) with my advisee and her right-hand-girl for the next hour and a half while the right-hand-girl went off on me and parroted the “party line” of the more radical part of the black-liberation, all-blacks-are-decedents-of-Egyptian-kings-and-queens, Louis-Farrakhan-whites-are-the-devil kind of thinking. She was obviously in State 3.
Well, she just became more and more extreme as her rant went on (I was a captive white who represented the white power structure of KSU that was putting down the black race – the opportunity was not going to be lost); she finally just went over the top. My advisee at that point stopped her, and our “conversation” was over. Other SAB committee students were furtively walking through the lounge and appealing to our staff supervisor to “save me.” My supervisor simply told them that, “He can take care of himself.” I’m sure to her it was a good learning experience for me. She was right. I really just sat still and quiet and took it all, a bit surprised and amazed, to say the least.
My point is – the irrational nature that is inherent in radical movements will eventually become apparent. This is happening within our Anglican family right now. The radical “liberals†are showing their hand and most people reject them. The radical “conservatives†are showing their hand in Tanzania right now, and most people will reject them. They will always be myopic.
What I think we should do is simply step back and let the radicals reveal their true natures and watch the whole think blow up – we can watch them self-destruct, just like my advisee’s right-hand-girl before my advisee wisely stop her. At some point, their true intent and inner issues are revealed quite apart from the good PR work they engage in.
It’s just an option. The only problem is the carnage that is left behind after everything falls apart. And, as a priest who is charged with the cure of souls of all people, and as a person trained in personal development issues, it is very difficult to just to sit back and watch. I want to help people develop well! I want to help people avoid the personal carnage that always results from such radically charged beliefs and incidents. Radicals, however, hardly ever receive from anyone they oppose or who does not prove that they already agree.