dixon

Fr. Dixon from St. B's blogs!
Dixon is a great guy and on our parish's ministry staff. He's director of youth/young adult ministry. He's smart, sharp and I really appreciate his ministry.

Enjoy.

trinity sunday 08

The dance of love is in our bones,
it gives life purpose, shape and form,
it challenges our vast concerns
and questions each deceptive norm.

This cosmic dance inflames each star
and gives the supernova light,
it fashions ethics and informs
each human thought, each human right.

This dance, the universal force,
that brings all living art to be,
will never cease or lose its power,
this ground of loving certainty.
--Andrew Pratt, Whatever Name or Creed

Considering the ancient description of the Trinity as a perichoretic communion of Persons this lyrical text is quite fitting for this Trinity Sunday.

The Trinity not only experiences an interpenetration within itself between the Persons, but also with the Creation that is restored to communion with Trinity by the work of the Eternal Wisdom of the Godhead--the Son, the everlasting Second, Christ.

More on the Trinity: Moltmann, 2007, trinitarian missiology

pax

virgin spanking the christ child

by Max Ernst
ht: Kyle Roberts via Tony Jones

strange, but lovely

fog towers

life?

ht: marc elliott

don't i wish...

now this.
is cool.

lunarama

Nightlife, anyone?

can I just say...

that I think it's fantastic that our parish rector, Jerry Smith, got up and while welcoming us to worship this morning, wished the women of St. B's "Happy Mother's Day", but reminded us all that today is Pentecost and it trumps Mother's Day because it is the day we remember the Holy Spirit birthed the Church?

Can I just say that I think it's great when a community acknowledges God's supremacy over all things and that we are not here to baptize the culture?

Can I?
Yes?
Good.

I think it's great that the action of God was unapologetically given its rightful place today.
I think it's great that we did not baptize a Hallmark holiday today.

There.

It's not that I think Mom's aren't important, or that we shouldn't honor our spouses for their parenting roles, or that we shouldn't, in general, honor women. In fact, I'm all for those things.

Our church gave every woman a flower as they left service and we only had an early AM service to facilitate the day being open for families.

But worship is about God.
And when the people of God are gathered they are gathered to the adoration of the God who mothers us, births new life in us.

pax

pentecost sunday

O Rain from heaven,
Temper us, we beseech Thee!
O Gate of heaven,
Open us, we beseech Thee!
O Cave of the heart,
Illumine us, we beseech Thee!
O Waters of salvation,
Prove us, we beseech Thee!
O Hidden Garden,
Enfold us, we beseech Thee!
O Beauty of the deep,
Sound us, we beseech Thee!
O Guardian of the Dance,
Choose us, we beseech Thee!
O Desire of the Eternal Hills,
Enchant us, we beseech Thee!
--Meinrad Craighead, The Litany of the Great River

These last few weeks I've been thinking about the Holy Spirit. I hope that effort has been as serious as the Subject demands, but one never knows when it comes to theology. I have my problems with some of the ideas of Karl Barth, but I do think he got it right when he offered that all theology is an a posteriori reality/act/event. In other words, theology, as a product of human reason, effort, action comes after revelation--the self-disclosure of God to us.

Theology is not Revelation.
It seeks to articulate, explain, struggle and, yes, even domesticate the encounter of God's Self giving to humanity.

As soon as humans start talking about revelation they are doing theology. There is no place where a human can start speaking that is pure, un-mediated revelation. Revelation is the sole province/work of God.

You can experience it, know it, "feel" it (though I hate, hate, hate that descriptor) directly, but as soon as you start to open your mouth about it, you're doing theology, you're trafficking in human reason, not the unadulterated expression of God. This goes for formal reflection and informal, "popular" reflection--it's all theology and it's all we have. And that's only one reason why theology is so damn important and we ignore it at our peril.

If we understand this about human reflection on God's revelation, we can't help but be circumspect and cautious in our God-talk.

Why? Because there is no place where we can say with confidence that humans and God are speaking as one. God can "use" a person, but their words are not revelation, they are not God.

That is why we are commanded to "test the spirits".

On the other hand...simple devotion is not revelation.
This constant setting of "the heart" and "sense of calling" over against theology is a kind of theology! It's all human reason about, interpretation of, and expression of our understanding of the experience with the God who meets us.

To wit, the Holy Spirit is not some voodoo, mumbo-jumbo, magical thing that is all about letting us do stuff, see stuff, dream stuff, etc. etc. that if found in the hands of a psychic or tarot card reader we would condemn.

It's not some "force" that empowers us to do Jesus-approved, Christian divination or fortune telling.

And frankly, I am deeply suspicious of the person or persons who seek these experiences, going from one to the next, from one 'word' to the next without ever really sitting with the first one, letting it sink in, letting this supposed "word from the Lord" take up residence in your soul and work into your being and reorient you, remake you.

But at the rate we flit and fly about, we couldn't remember the first one, even if you held a gun to our heads, since it was so long ago and there's been so many since.

If these things were from God, would we not think that the penetration of God's direct Revelation to us would so confound us, so undo our sense of self and reality, that we should be made to stop, to think, to be silenced by it?

But this apparent in-breaking by God's Spirit sets us off, running about like a chicken with our head cut off.

We've been encountered by God! We need to do something!

And off we go doing very good things, but missing the simple fact that God's call to all the ones we consider great involved long tracts of time in the discipline of the desert--Moses & Paul; the wandering in a land given you, but not yet possessed--Abraham; the waiting a century for one, just one, child--Sara; hiding in caves and fighting for your life--David; working 14 years for the wife of your heart--Jacob; waiting for one who says he is coming soon--all the disciples of the last 2000 years.

Experience without discipline is useless. Revelation without reflection is useless.
Not because God is deficient, but because we are so obtuse, hard headed and overconfident.

Would I love to be in Church and have the rushing Wind and tongues of Fire sweep through the place?

Yes, but only if I could be sure that I, and the others around me, would not trivialize the experience as the experience itself, but would commit to shelve all other activities, considerations and agendas to grapple with that Reality and what it means, and to demand of ourselves that we celebrate the God who moves and not the movement itself.

Otherwise, no. I pray God keeps such things far from us all, for it is better to yearn for it and somehow learn to direct that yearning toward God alone, than toward yet another good thing that God does and just go on piously missing God alone.

Until I know with confidence that all my joy is in God, all my desire is in God, all my being is wholly God's and that holds true for my brothers and sisters, then give me the Spirit of discipline and formation, of maturity and growth, of stability, obedience, hospitality and the deep Silence of knowing.

N.C. Clair
The House in Edgehill
Pentecost, 2008

a year in the life...

The first year at Vanderbilt Divinity School is basically finished. (I have a May-mester course on OT Theology for 10 days in this, well, May.) It's been a great year of learning/training. As one can imagine, the instruction I've received is not only limited to the content of the classroom, but also the benefits of being in an intentionally diverse environment of religious discourse.

When it comes to religious discourse I've discovered some things. I know that these things aren't "new", but they are some awakened realizations for me...

I.
Growing up I always heard the following protestation in church:
Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship.

While I understand what people are groping for with that statement, I've also come to realize it's a really snotty, self-righteous thing to say. It's born of ignorance about the content of not only other religions, but also different brands of Christianity. It implicitly bears false witness against our neighbors.

The simple fact is it's all religion.

And it's all relationship.

Simply put, religion is any organized system of faith and worship. That system relates to faith in and worship of whatever the adherent defines as God, the Ultimate, The Sacred, Divine, or whatever kinds of particular names are favored by any particular group.

Bottom line: All religions are trying to articulate the experience of human interaction (i.e. relationship) with the Divine.

So to say this often well intentioned, but useless statement, only serves to illuminate the speaker's ignorance about those she is implicitly criticizing--as if Christianity has the corner on "relational" inflections of experiencing God.

A casual reading of Hindu literature alone would render a knowledge of a deeply relational sense of connection to the deities of their faith. Hindu devotion is marked by intimacy, argument, etc. that uses a wide range of relational structures (parental, erotic, etc. etc.)--just like Christianity--to express the experience of relationship with the divine in a distinctly relational way.

Likewise, consider devotional forms of Buddhism--e.g. Amida Buddhism in Japan where all one has to do is "call on the name of Amida and be saved"...sound familiar?

The question of the validity of the Hindu faith or Buddhism is a different issue.

My point remains:

Christianity is religion and does not have a corner on the market when it comes to talking about God in relational ways. Other religions do it too.

II.
I am thoroughly convinced that religion or religious language used to generate a sense of security from "the other" (any "other", I might add) or a sense of superiority is a sickness that needs curing. This cuts across every spectrum; from left to right, top to bottom. If curing it means disassociating from formal religious systems, so be it. For Christians that might mean leaving a church so you can rediscover yourself and others as Church and God's loving of you all.

III.
Careful historical study of the context in which specific Biblical documents were generated is key to the proper exegesis/interpretation of those texts.

To interpret the Bible as some whole book that is devoid of literary, cultural, and contextual concerns that are, in some sense, determinative of the meaning of any given text is lazy, dishonest, and does violence to the text.

If you do this, then despite all your objections to the contrary and all your assertions to love the "plain meaning" of the text, you are a liar and, in reality, do not love the Bible you misuse and mangle.

This especially goes for those who believe that the only way to understand the Bible is through a histo-grammatical hermeneutic. These people should not be allowed to preach.

Bottom line: Context is king--literary context, social context, historical context, etc. If you don't acknowledge these things, you're in for a world of hurt. Ben Witherington III--no liberal he--said: A text without a context is just a pretext to make it mean whatever you want. (To which I would add...or whatever you've already decided--as is the case with most evangelicals.)

IV.
I've come to realize that I have more disdain for right-wing evangelical misuse of the sacred texts than for left-wing misuse or ignorance of the texts.

Why? Because the "theological rightist" claims to be the "true" Christian and the genuine speakers of genuine facts about God. Nevermind all the while they are twisting the text themselves.

I expect all of us to make mistakes with the text, but people who act like they've got God figured out and then demean and ostracize others really just suck on a whole different level.

People who for purely ideological reasons have ignored the last 150 years of serious biblical scholarship without coming to terms with its insights--other than just writing it off as "God-hating liberal dreck"--are irresponsible, pious pinheads--See point III above.

V.
People with a theological education actually do know more about the Bible, etc. than those without it. That's why we get said education as a condition of our taking the role of "religious leadership". That's why people without it aren't taken as seriously. We need to stop apologizing for our expertise.

I don't get why people resent this or say it's being elitist.
I don't resent a mechanic for knowing more about my car than I do.
I don't resent a doctor for knowing more about my insides than I do.
I don't resent a realtor for knowing more about housing markets than I do.
I don't resent...you get the picture.

(Who knew folks with training are just so elitist? What's the world coming to? I mean we wouldn't want a trained health professional telling us what to do when it comes to our health. That's just so arrogant.)

It's our job to help bring the theological knowledge we have to the people we serve.

That way those people can make informed, responsible interpretive decisions about how to understand the sacred texts, theological formulations, etc. etc.

To be clear, I believe in the Holy Spirit. And as of yet, I've yet to witness that same Holy Spirit give someone a "word of knowledge" about the literary/historical considerations of any given text and how it affects the responsible interpretation/proclamation of it or download the weight of 2000 years of theological thought.

(There's a reason why Ephesians 4 describes the people who lead/teach are themselves the gifts to the church.)

VI.
I don't buy into the "consumer" spirituality of evangelicalism that worships at the altar of every "it-boy or it-girl". I'm over the trend driven dreck that passes for "deep" thought and "powerful" witness. I can't stand the "alternate culture of celebrity" of whatever theological stripe that makes people think they're so "edgy" or "with it" or whatever. It's all crap.

VII.
If I hear about one more "mega-church" starting satellite campuses and being told that such plans are cutting edge and innovative, I'm going to puke. It's basically an evangelical version of the diocese and parish structure. It's nothing new--it's been around for a long time--and if these people knew their church history they'd get over themselves.

VIII.
Pastoral Care really only takes:
(a) Listen to the person's problem
(b) Tell them to stop sinning
(c) Recommend a good therapist
(d) Assure them God loves them no matter what
(e) Exhort them to remain in the Eucharistic community

IX.
While it's true one can know a lot about God without knowing God, I'm pretty suspicious of the person who claims "to know God" but revels in their ignorance about God, or refuses to do the work needed to know about God--as if good intentions and personal devotion are enough.

How can you confidently "know God" without also knowing things "about God"? How do you know that you know God if you don't have the necessary/right information about God?

How do you know that what you know is God and not some emotional experience, or your highest ideals, or that you're just very imaginative, or that the "feeling" you have right now is just the after effects of too much spicy mustard on a sandwich last night, or your hormones, or stress, or lack of sleep?

X.
It is not wrong to be angry at crap in the Church that hurts people and the proclamation of the Kingdom.

It's actually wrong to not be angry at it.

And it's intellectually dishonest and weak to make that right and holy anger "the problem". This whole "let's just be better and get along" attitude only sweeps things under the rug.

The Church can't be healthy until it faces its issues and owns its crap.

12-step groups get this, why can't the Church?

The fact that vigorous critique of the Church is what gets painted as the problem only further demonstrates my point.

It doesn't matter that people are sincere. If you're wrong, you're wrong. If you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. If you're hurting people, you're hurting people. If you're messing with the Kingdom, you're messing with it.

It's not hurtful or being unhelpful to deal with this stuff. Criticism and people motivated to confront problems are the only ways we can get to something constructive.

____________________________________

So there you have it. Some preliminary summary ruminations. I'm sure there's more to come...

pax

eliot

Thanks to Bean and Lu I was a total mess at work...
Go meet Eliot.

pax

ectomo: freaky cool

weirdness.
the whole site is cool strange too.

ken garduno

This guy's work is cool. I don't know how to classify it..."surrealist", maybe?
Enjoy.

jerry no too fat for me

Thank you, Tony Jones.