What is “Mercy?” Really? If one where taking a photograph of “mercy,” what would it be? What would be the tableau?

It is days like today that make me glad to still be in New York City. Over the last couple of months, what I wanted most of all is to be in a much less populated area – and to chop wood! I used to chop wood every now and then when I was a kid, and that is simply what I thought about doing. Good, physical work, good exercise, good time to think – yup, give me an axe, some wood, and let me go at it.
Today, however, the weather is beautiful and I walked over to Bryant Park in Times Square for lunch. I love being there in nice weather – so many different kinds of people, so many different things to observe, to see, to experience. While eating my salad and watching all the people go by, suddenly someone decided to practice his bagpipes during his lunch break – just for a while, but it was very nice. Today, I am glad to still be in New York!
I missed an episode of “Lost” two weeks ago. I’ve waited until iPods were able to show video before buying one, so now I did as part of my birthday and Christmas presents. I downloaded the episode from iTunes for $2.00 and watched it commercial free. (Okay, either pay or suffer through commercials, I know, but sometimes paying is worth it!) Oh, technology!
The SLVR is a mighty fine cell phone!
Sufjan Stevens is a mighty fine tunesmith!
N.T. Wright’s book, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture is excellent.
Our Lenten project for St. Paul’s youth (and a couple adults) is going well. “ImageFaith” is the project I came up with – during Lent, we take foundational concepts of the Christian faith, like Grace, or Mercy, or Hope and we learn a little more about them, discuss them, and then for the coming week we take our little disposable cameras and by noticing the “noise” all around us (all the stuff we miss in our incredible busy lives – stop and smell the roses kind of thing) we find “images” that connote the concept.
This past week Grace was the concept. It dawned on me that a wonderful image of “Grace” is sunlight falling on leaves. I took pictures of sunlight streaming down on plants. Unmerited favor, freely given by the sun, is “received” by the plants and made into substance. We receive unmerited favor from God, engage with it, and we are changed.
There were some great photos! It is a fun and interesting, and very challenging, project.

We hear so much about “experience” being an “authority” in our lives – we use experience to justify all manner of things. It often trumps all other authorities as if my own personal experiences can determine the right or the wrong, proper or improper, acceptable behavior or unacceptable behavior, right thinking or wrong, etc. I’m just not “all that,” as if I am competent to always make sound judgments all on my own.
There are two sides of experience, I think. Well, actually many sides, but these two are the particular ones I am thinking about right now.
First, there is the healthy aspect of personal experience that does inform our understanding of things. Most certainly our personal experiences lead us to and away from many things – thoughts, ideas, behaviors, places, etc. – often depending on whether our past experiences of those things brought harm or enjoyment to our lives. We are not, however, islands unto ourselves.
There is also a very unhealthy aspect of person experience due to the fact that we are creatures who so easily engage in self-deception. “If it feels good, do it” is not really a good motto to live by, despite what so many ’60’s generation baby-boomers want to believe. Sex, for example, in free-love with anyone we want any time we want does not bring us sexual-freedom or long-term fulfillment, does not contribute to healthy relationships where we are able to love and be loved in an environment of trust and vulnerability, does not contribute to healthy families in which children are raised to have a good sense of self-worth and self-respect, but it does help created isolation, lack of concern for the wellbeing of the other, and contributes to unwanted pregnancies, STD’s, and HIV infection. Is titillation really the best consideration? The same can be said for drugs, pornography, money, and so many other things. We are very creative in the ways we justify our self-destructive/deceptive behaviors and ways of thinking – and we compel others to join us.
It isn’t a question of whether sex (or any thing else in-and-of itself) is a good thing or not – of course it can be, is! The question is always about the responsible experience of such things, which brings me to my second thought about experience – our collective experience.
A better judge of what is good for us and what is not is the collective experience of many people over many generations. This may also be termed, “Tradition.” Because we are prone to self-deception within our own narrow bounds of maturity, education, and understanding, we will be wise to consider tradition regardless of whether it agrees with what we want to be or do at any given time.
There must be a balance between individual experience and collective experience – tradition. The ’60’s generation has made an art of elevating personal experience over collective experience and declares it a most important “authority” in our judgment of what is right or wrong for us individually and for society. Later generations have followed along, with corrections as they move from Modernity to Post-Modernity and rebel against the conventional doings of the preceding generation. And, of course, we Americans have so little regard for tradition. Well, we also are losing our ability to think collectively as our society fragments into individualistic isolationism – rugged individualism run amuck.
The tradition is not always right. Sometimes correction must be made, and it is a very messy time when correction takes place. We must avoid the pendulum swings that move us too far into individualism or too far into collectivism. There are times when I (we) must yield to tradition and the collective wisdom, because I am limited and narrow and inexperienced. There are other times when I (we) recognize something isn’t right and fight the majority opinion found in the tradition. Again, balance and a realization that my own opinion is not paramount are needed.
It is funny how the hard-conservatives and hard-liberals both rely upon extreme individualism when making their claims. We see the result in the polarization of our politics and in the culture-wars, which have intruded upon the Church. It seems that individual experience speaks to the authorities we use to make judgements, in relationship with tradition, but is not an authority all by itself.

I used to us blogger for my weblog until a year or so ago when I switched to Moveabletype. My original blog was still available.
I’ve decided to rechristen my original hypersync blog – “hypersync :: reconciled.” I am posting to that blog once again as a place to delve more deeply into the whole “how to live life as a Christian who is also gay and what that all means…” kind of thing.
The ironic aspect of it all is that I am not particularly reconciled with all of it – questions linger. There is always the big question of how to navigate through all the cultural and sub-cultural minefields that plague anyone trying to live out a faithful life, be a witness, and still believe that honest and true relationships are possible. There is always the reality that most gay people have to play catch-up in terms of discovering how to have a relationship, which most straight people learn in their teens and early twenties.

It is difficult attempting to live into my new identity when I am surrounded by my old one. It is hard to realize the coming completion of a long process when the current situation does not encourage its realization.
I remember a movie I saw a few years ago. I don’t remember the title, but it was about the final few Carolingian monks and their fight against evil (or some such thing). There was a scene where the protagonist Carolingian priest was fighting against his attraction to a women and the temptation to stray from his vows. While talking to his mentor about what he should do, the mentor asked him, “Are you a man?” His response was something like, “I am not a man; I am a priest.”
There is an element of truth or reality in that kind of response. Over the last several years, I have gone through a process that has set me aside for a purpose that is fundamentally different than that of most people. Not that I am any better or more enabled or whatever than anyone else in this new identity or purpose, but it is different. It is difficult to really feel the reality of it all when I am not doing the work – much, anyway. It is frustrating. What does it mean to say, “I am not a man; I am a priest!”?

Blanket Lyrics
Desperate for changing
Starving For truth
Closer than where i started
And chasing after you
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all i’ve held onto
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you
Forgetting all i’m lacking
Completely and complete
I’ll take your invitation
You take all of me
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all i’ve held onto
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you
I’m living for all that i think i know
I’m running here i’ll crash you into go
I’m tired of all the love divide in two
Just thinking about a moment here with you
‘cuz nothing else evolves
There’s nothing else to find
There’s nothing in the world
That could change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
Desperate for changing
Starving For truth
Closer than where i started
And chasing after you
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of what i’ve held onto
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m thinking about a moment here with you
I’m living for all that i think i know
I’m running here i’ll crash you into go
I’m tired of all the love divide in two
Just thinking about a moment here with you
Just thinking about a moment
Thinking about a moment (here with you)
Thinking about a moment (here with you)
Thinking about a moment here with you.

So, a day after Valentine’s Day and many people are now wondering – What is love, anyway?
So, here is a possibility for consideration:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:1-8)
That last one – “Love never fails” – is a tough one. Those of us in these mortal bodies will always find ourselves failing. Yet, if we want to know what love is – this is it!

How frightening it can be! What do I do? How can I handle this? There are times when I feel as it I am pressed against a skim, a thin thing that molds to the shape of my body. I can’t help but press against it – I am compelled to do so. I feel as if I am about to break through… brake through to something, something new. It’s a bit frightening, the unknown, the mysterious.
There are times when I feel as if I am in the thin-space where the dividing line between me and the presence of God is so less significant. It is a good time; it is a terrifying time, and I fail so.
Something is coming, I think. Something. Anticipation. Restlessness.

When I started writing a blog, I wanted a place to dumb thoughts and ideas. I tend to ‘process out loud’ and this provided a means of doing just that, although through the written word rather than the spoken word. I also have a written journal, which is more personal but less convenient.
Anyway, from time-to-time I get an e-mail from someone (or perhaps a comment to one of my posts), and that person tells me that he or she reads this blog often and gets a lot out of it. Frankly, that surprises me – really! I’m not very eloquent… I’m a terrible proof-reader, etc. I do this for myself and don’t think any of it would really be of much interest to other people.
Okay, so now I am kind of interested in whether there are in fact people who read this stuff on a regular or semi-regular basis. I’m not out for an ego boost or anything like that, but I am interested. If you read this blog from time-to-time, let me know. Just send me an e-mail that says something like, “Yup, I do.”
bob@hypersync.net
Thanks. If there are in fact a good number of people who read this, well, that kind of makes me nervous. Kind of like chanting the Gospel during the liturgy makes me nervous.