[Rough Draft]

Manifesto

2009-06-18T09:36:00.004-04:00

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Stockholm Syndrome

2009-05-19T14:37:00.002-04:00

Well, this is what I was doing much of the morning.

How do we soar?

2009-05-18T14:22:00.002-04:00

Ueli Gegenschatz is out of his bleedin' mind. But what he's able to do in a wingsuit is beautiful. As I listened to his talk, I was taken by the following quote:

Extreme sports, top level, like this is only possible if you practice step-by-step if you really work hard on your skill and your knowledge. Of course, you need to be in physical, very good condition, so I'm training a lot. You need to have the best possible equipment. And, probably the most important, is you have to work mental skills, mental preparation. And all this to come as close as possible to the human dream of being able to fly.

Is it just me, or don't the same principles seem to hold true for discipleship and the virtuous life? Train, use the best possible equipment, prepare mentally, all toward the end of one day being able to soar. Sounds suspiciously like a self-salvation project, but we do have to pull some of the load in this divine/human synergistic endeavor that is "being conformed to Jesus" and growing into the divine life.

Vid of the Vig

2009-04-14T13:48:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter!

A friend and chorister posted some video from Saturday night's Great Vigil @ ASA. It's about 20 minutes long and runs from the Litany of the Saints in the still-darkened church through the Gloria and the Gospel. Thanks, Chris. Pretty cool stuff.

Crisis/Krisis

2009-03-31T10:04:00.003-04:00

Renee' gave up TV for Lent, which pretty much means I gave up TV, too. But I sneak enough minutes during the day, and I listen to enough podcasts, read enough papers to know that the #1 story on the news is, as it has been for some time now, the "Crisis in the American economy." A mortgage crisis; failing banks; businesses bleeding money; round after round of layoffs; modern-day shanty towns springing up from California to Georgia.

It's crisis time, and people are ticked off.

Fr. Davenport's sermon on Sunday (not up here yet, but it will be soon) talked about the justified anger against the "Masters of the Universe" financial guys who bear a large part of the responsibility for this crisis. He confessed to secretly (turns out it won't stay a secret long after you preach about it) wanting to see them paraded in shame wearing manacles and riding bulls from Wall Street to Central Park, a perp walk complete with jesters, floats and balloons. Or, he'd settle for some of them going to jail. I can't even begin to understand the complexities of the economics involved, but I'll admit I'd like to see some get-back too. I'd like to have some justice; let's have some righteousness raining down over here, thank you very much.

But what are our options, justice-wise, in this crisis?

Off the top of my head, it seems the first option is that nothing happens. No justice @ all, not even a head fake to it. Simply let people walk scot free. Some would say that's the Christian thing to do, right? WWJD and all that? But that's viscerally unsatisfying because it's not fair. No matter how much we believe God = Love, that kind of emphasis on mercy and glossing over wrongdoing offends our sense of justice, so let's ditch that option. The second option is @ least some kind of justice now. Mete something out to somebody -- jail terms, restitution, stoning, the dunking stool, whatever. Get medieval. But the problem is that lots of people (especially rich people) don't get their just desserts in this life, so that's unsatisfying, too. So a third option: Justice not in this life, but in the next one. This is how it goes: The Madoffs of the world die some day, the first sound they hear after it goes dark is the "doink doink" that signals that Law and Order is coming on, and they find themselves 'cuffed up and in a courtroom. God gavels the proceedings to order, hears evidence about greed and Ponzi schemes and fraudulent derivatives (of course, an expert economist would give testimony here b/c probably not even God understands how derivatives work), renders a guilty verdict and sentences the defendants to a gazillion years in Purgatory. But there's a problem w/ that option, too -- If those guys get justice, I should expect to get it, too. And I'm just as culpable, only to a different degree. I haven't bilked investors of billions of dollars, but I've been a user. I've gotten over. I've lied, cheated, stolen, hated. So, if they're screwed, I'm screwed.

But my hope is that there's another option. It's an option w/ justice (God's holiness cannot allow sin, whether it's mine or Bernie Madoff's, to go unpunished), but it's merciful, too. It's an option rooted in "crisis," or, more accurately, it's rooted in "krisis," the Greek term John uses to record Jesus' words just hours before his arrest, trial and lynching. Jesus tells his friends: "Now is the judgment (krisis) of this world; now the ruler of this world be cast out." (John 12.31) There was a time when justice and mercy met. In the "now" of Jesus' death, the sins of the world were judged, and the punishment was meted out on God himself.

It's really the only option that satisfies. And, ultimately, it's the only one that can free my soul from bitterness and hatred toward Fr. Davenport's Masters of the Universe because, when I see the justice of the cross and understand my own implication in it, in short, when I see grace, it drives me to mercy. Instead of being driven by lust for vengeance and comeuppance, we can start to feel something of the mercy that Tim Keller describes as "the spontaneous, superabounding love which comes from an experience of the grace of God, [and t]he deeper the experience of the free grace of God, the more generous we must become." (Ministries of Mercy, p. 63.)

Slack-jawed again

2009-03-28T10:48:00.002-04:00

On the plane to California (Virgin America rocks, btw) I watched 3 TED Talks, all of which were just great. If I could talk the way those guys talk, I'd be a better preacher, I can tell you that. In one talk, ocean explorer Robert Ballard shared his obvious enthusiasm for exploration and his goal to infect kids w/ that same enthusiasm. What caught my attention was the look on the face of this girl @ 17:10 of the talk. Ballard says of her: "When you get a jaw drop you can inform."

Indeed. And the same thing should work for enthusiasm about Jesus, should it not? If people (and by "people," I mean pretty much "me") heard the gospel and got that slack-jawed look, seems like they'd be hungry to know who Jesus is, what God is doing in history, how the redemption of creation in general can sweep me and my neighborhood up in particular.

Anyway, I had been thinking about that look off and on for a few days, and when I couldn't sleep last night after the 4.5 hour flight back to DC, I flipped through Donald Miller's Jazz Notes, which a friend had loaned me. Miller writes about his friend, Alan, who went around the U.S. asking questions of religious leaders. This time, it was the following anecdote that caught my attention:

It all sounded boring except for one visit he made to a man named Bill Bright, the president of a big ministry. Alan said Bill was a big man, full of life, who listened without shifting his eyes. Alan asked a few questions, closing with "What does Jesus mean to you?"

Bill Bright could not answer this question. He just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair at his big desk and wept.

When Alan told this story, I wondered what it was like to love Jesus that way. And I wondered, quite honestly, if Dr. Bright was nuts, or if he really knew Jesus in a personal way, so well that he could cry at the mere mention of his name. I realized that I wanted to know Jesus like that. With my heart, not just my head. I felt like that would be the key to something. (p. 118-19.)

Then I had two images in my head: A middle-school girl awed @ seeing something for the first time, and a grown man reduced to tears @ the mention of a name he'd heard a million times. Somehow they're linked in my brain now. I suspect if I could just get an inkling of the depth of the love of God, if Jesus would "happen to" me like that, I'd get slack-jawed again. And I'd hope the inevitable result would be a swelling of the heart something like Bill must've had. And heart-swelling love like that drives a body to do strange things, feats out of the ordinary, cross-taking-up and loving-thy-neighbor and whatnot.

I don't know that, mind you. But I suspect it.

Paul Soupiset's Lentblog 2007

2009-03-11T16:38:00.002-04:00

Been so busy the past few days that I've had no time to think of posting anything, just to work, be a family man, pray when I can. I remember two Lents ago I was just as busy, but every day I looked forward to opening my laptop and clicking over to the next entry in the "Lentblog" of Paul Soupiset. In fact, Paul's the reason I carry an extra Moleskine and a small set of Faber-Castell water-colours in my bookbag, although I never get to use them (I do have some things I painted when I was on my pre-ordination retreat -- likely the last time I'll ever have blocks of hours when I have nothing to do but pray, think and paint -- that I'll never, ever show you).

Right-brained, left-brained, whatever you are, whatever moves you -- If you're busy this Lent, too busy to pray much or to make it to mass even, you should click through those old sketches. Time well spent.

Booklist

2009-03-07T14:03:00.003-05:00

My friend Robert asked me to jot down a "Top Ten" list of books I would recommend, and it's taken me over a week to actually try my hand @ the task. I think I wanted to make a definitive list, which appears to be impossible, but here's the first draft I sent him. I based my categories on a list I copied years ago from Terry Glaspey's Great Books of the Christian Tradition, and have carried in my bible ever since, not even bothering to read some of the books Glaspey listed (far too much time required to blog about books I think other people should read, I assure you). I tried to limit myself to ten authors (some w/ more than 1 title listed).

Books Every Christian Should Know

Confessions and City of God, St. Augustine
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a'Kempis
The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Resurrection of the Son of God, N. T. Wright
Christian Proficiency, Martin Thornton
Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine Pohl

Books Which Help Develop a Christian Worldview (assuming you believe there's such a thing as a "Christian worldview" -- please don't send me emails about this)

For the Life of the World, Alexander Schmemann
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin
The Urban Christian or A Theology as Big as the City, Ray Bakke
Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, or Creed or Chaos, Dorothy Sayers
Knowing God, J. I. Packer
The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis
Church History in Plain Language, Bruce Shelley
No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology, David Wells
Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge, Kevin J. Vanhoozer
The Reason for God and Ministries of Mercy, Timothy Keller

Books I Can't Imagine Not Recommending to Anyone and Everyone I Know

The Prodigal God, Timothy keller
The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning, or Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
Brother to a Dragonfly, Will Campbell
Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
The Liturgy Explained and On Being Catholic, Thomas Howard
The Rule of St. Benedict
The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard
The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Any page of Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth

So, there. A nice distraction during a busy day. Please feel free to admonish, mock and berate me, but please add your own suggestions to the list.

Oh, and the tweeting has already begun w/ Nate weighing in: Flatland, Edwin A. Abbott.

Via crucis

2009-03-05T09:23:00.002-05:00

"[W]e must submit to change if we would be formed into this cruciform faith. We may come singing 'Just as I am,' but we will not stay by being our same old selves. The needs of the world are too great, the suffering and pain too extensive, the lures of the world too seductive for us to begin to change the world unless we are changed, unless conversion of life and morals becomes our pattern. The status quo is too alluring. It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the six-thirty news, our institutions, theologies and politics. The only way we shall break its hold on us is to be transferred to another dominion, to be cut loose from our old certainties, to be thrust under the flood and then pulled forth fresh and new-born. Baptism takes us there."

William Willimon, "Repent," in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Farmington, Pa.: Plough, 2003): 9-10.

Thoughts from Azi's Cafe

2009-03-04T10:54:00.002-05:00

A deep dread of opening up my laptop this morning (sermon prep for Sunday is already behind schedule) took me to Azi's Cafe for M/P and caffeine instead of directly to my office. It was there that I read the epistle for today, part of which reads:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Heb. 3.12-13)

So, it occurs to me to ask, seeing as how it's Lent and all: If I'm struggling to sustain effort toward forming Christlike character (and I am, and so are you, so don't say you're not), what is it that I don't believe, and what deceit is it that I do believe instead? For the "deceitfulness of sin" part, these jump readily to mind:

"I'll make you reeeeally happy"
"Who're you kidding? You can't really ever get free from me; you know that, right?"
"C'mon, just this one time . . . ."
"Look, my ultimate agenda is not to kill you. I swear. I don't know where you got that idea from."

And what is it that I don't believe, @ least not deeply enough? The gospel. God loves me. He loves me when I'm good; he loves me when I'm not so good. Jesus died for us when we were still rebels, and dead rebels @ that. Somebody, I don't remember who, said to me once that Luther carved into his desk (monks have desks?) these words: "I am baptized." Well, so am I. And being baptized, being in Christ, means I've been born of water and the Spirit, born from above, from outside myself, and I've been given to see the kingdom of God all around me. Part of life in that kingdom is sanctification, progressively getting free from the sin that so easily entangles. I know I can see that from here; I just need to keep walking in that direction.

Somebody exhort me, would you?

If @ first you don't succeed . . .

2009-03-03T11:10:00.002-05:00

I told our community group in an email today that, a week into Lent, I've already renegotiated a little w/ God, had some slippage, gotten back on the horse, and find myself most days alternately optimistic and just barely hanging on by my teeth. I'm drawn again and again to a passage from a book Fr. Conner recommended I read a couple of years ago.

No progress in Christian life is possible, alas, without the bitter experience of failures. Too many people start fasting with enthusiasm and give up after the first failure. I would say that it is at this first failure that the real test comes. If after having failed and surrendered to our appetites and passions we start all over again and do not give up no matter how many times we fail, sooner or later our fasting will bear its spiritual fruits. Between holiness and disenchanted cynicism lies the great and divine virtue of patience -- patience, first of all with ourselves. There is no short-cut to holiness; for every step we have to pay the full price. Thus it is better and safer to begin at a minimum -- just slightly above our natural possibilities -- and to increase our effort little by little, than to try jumping too high at the beginning and to break a few bones when falling back to earth.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's, 1969): 98-99.

Policy shift

2009-03-03T11:06:00.002-05:00

I've noticed lots of my pastor/priest friends maintain their blogs pretty regularly, so it occurs to me that I should give this another shot. I should make clear @ the outset that the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily the opinions of Ascension & St. Agnes parish, the Episcopal Church, the Worldwide Anglican Communion, my wife, my father or the Boston Red Sox.

Panic button: Check.

2008-09-08T15:35:00.001-04:00

Damn.

Ambivalence

2008-08-13T11:48:00.002-04:00

I honestly didn't know whether to celebrate or vomit last night. Both, I guess.

Thy mighty grasp

2008-07-28T16:08:00.003-04:00

‘Twixt gleams of joy and clouds of doubt
Our feelings come and go;
Our best estate is tossed about
In ceaseless ebb and flow.
No mood of feeling; form of thought
Is constant for a day;
But thou, O Lord, thou changest not:
The same thou art always.

I grasp thy strength, make it mine own,
My heart with peace is blest;
I lose my hold, and then comes down
Darkness, and cold unrest.
Let me no more my comfort draw
From my frail hold of thee,
In this alone rejoice with awe –
Thy mighty grasp of me.

John Campbell Shairp, 1819-1885.

It Changed My Life

2008-07-19T00:16:00.006-04:00

Heather recently posted a list of things (in no particular order) that changed her life. Here are some of mine:

Getting on that boat w/ my future wife @ a Wesley Foundation retreat in Mississippi
Moving back to Oxford and mistakenly receiving a former tenant's CD of Tim Keller in the mail
Being adopted by Maddie and Webb
Listening to "Transit" @ Allan's urging
Dave Roberts stealing second
Going to Sydney Stevens' baptism @ Christ Church
My first dip of Copenhagen
Learning to read
"The Gospel in a Pluralist Society" and "The Cost of Discipleship"
MHD and the original Monday Night Group
Dunkin' Donuts "regular"
Discovering I could manipulate people by singing near them
Cookouts on Bart Stevens' deck
CPE
Some threes: C. S. Lewis, Lesslie Newbigin and Tom Howard; Chris Carter, Aaron Sorkin and David Simon (watch the interview that follows Remnick's to see just a few of the myriad reasons I love David Simon); Michael Card, DWebb and David Wilcox
Finding the Sacrament of Confession
My iPod

These are just some of mine, and the list is likely to grow as I think about this more. Following Heather's lead, I ask: What are some of yours?

Red's Ring

2008-06-18T14:05:00.004-04:00

By Dellplain

17 on the 17th

2008-06-18T01:39:00.000-04:00

The Birthday Girl

2008-05-03T00:06:00.000-04:00

Cake, fairy wings, school friends. What's not to love?

Arrrgh

2008-05-03T00:04:00.000-04:00

Maybe it was Ellie's birthday, but Paddy got maximum joy from his party favor.

Chopper2

2008-05-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

Chopper1

2008-05-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

Peeping the Pope

2008-04-17T10:13:00.005-04:00

Renee' sent around an email last night w/ the details of her bundling off our kids to see the Pope's motorcade yesterday. Pretty much made my week. Here 'tis:

My kids' perspective on the Pope's visit to DC 4/16/08

Me: Get your coats.
Ellie (Age 5): Where are we going?
Me: We're going to the Pope's parade.
Patrick (Age 3): The Poke?
Me: The Pope.
Patrick: The Pote.
Me: The Pope, with a P.
Ellie: The Pope has to pee!

giggles

Ellie: Mom
Me: Yes.
Ellie: Who is the Pope?
Me: He's the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Silence

Ellie: He doesn't have a body?
Me: Of course he does honey.
Patrick: I'm going to catch some candy!
Me: It's not that type of parade, Buddy. The Pope doesn't throw candy.
Patrick: Because he doesn't have any arms?
Me: He has arms.
Ellie: Why are we going to see the Poke?
Me: Because the Pope is a very holy man.
Patrick: Oh, I'm a holy man!

Silence

Me: It'll be fun. The Pope rides in a funny car called the popemobile.
Patrick: The poopmobile!

more giggles

Me: The popemobile has an open seat in the back so we can see the Pope when he passes by.
Patrick: Mom?
Me: Yes
Patrick: The Pote has to ride in a car seat?
Me: Sort of. It's surrounded by a special glass that protects him.
Ellie: That's why he doesn't throw candy, Patrick. Because it would hit the glass!

You can't make this stuff up.

dc4free Returns!

2008-04-16T13:55:00.003-04:00

This week:

Watching some guy in a car.

2008-04-14T21:03:00.004-04:00

This one makes me happy . . .

. . . this one, not so much.

The New Big Sis/Bro

2008-03-03T21:23:00.000-05:00

Elmo and Paddy are proud of their new baby sister, although they still maintain they dress better than she.

Stuff I'm Diggin' of Late

2008-03-03T14:09:00.003-05:00

In no particular order:

An old cover of "Cold Missouri Waters" by Cry Cry Cry
The scene in Once where Guy and Girl first play "Falling Slowly"
Flannerys (new daughter and her namesake)
How memories recede and the hope springs eternal
Dunkin' Donuts coffee

Dr. K @ GU

2008-02-26T15:06:00.002-05:00

Bringing my longstanding hero worship and my current vocational responsibilities into a violent clash (the latter wins out, btw -- I'll most certainly be @ mass), Dr. Tim Keller is scheduled to speak @ the Veritas Forum on the campus of Georgetown University tomorrow night. I was pleasantly surprised to learn from this interview @ First Things: On the Square that Dr. Keller's book has reached #18 on NYT. I say it the news was pleasant, but it was certainly a surprise to me because I have been assuming we've heard all but the last, faint echoes of the death knell of apologetics in the West due to what Keller calls the "cumulative" effects of the "the rise of narrative and loss of trust in logic," plus a "rationality-attention-deficit disorder." Keller seems to hold out hope that "something of a mixture of logic and personal appeal" can still move people. Perhaps I was wrong in my initial suspicion that The Reason for God is answering questions that a broad swath of the populace just isn't asking anymore. We'll see.

Flannery Agnes Arrives

2008-02-19T11:32:00.002-05:00

Born @ 9:24am on 2/17 here in DC.
7 lbs, 11 oz; 20" long.
And surprisingly pink.

She's headed home w/ moms and grandma in about an hour.

Thank you for your prayers (and keep them coming, if you don't mind).

Happy Truck Day!

2008-02-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

And what a day it is!

Lent

2008-02-09T10:48:00.000-05:00

After 4 quiet months (and a terribly disappointing end to the NFL season), newly priested and growing into a new role in our faith community, the first thing I have to say to you is this:

Lent scares the bejeezus out of me.

We talked a bit about this @ our Community Group on Thursday night, when I somewhat inartfully used the lyrics to "Transcontinental" as a springboard to get us thinking critically about Lent, what it means, what we really think we're doing by mortifying our flesh, the nature of sin and sanctification, etc. The most poignant response of the night was probably from DM who said: "You really think about sin a lot, don't you?"

Why, yes. Yes, I do.

It's hard to say what scares me about Lent, though. I certainly didn't explain it too well on Thursday. But today I read this from George Herbert's poem "Lent" (p. 84 in The Complete English Works):

Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.

In short, the third line doesn't describe me @ all. A face not fearing light? My face, which happens to be attached to my body, positively recoils from true Light, like Daniel Plainview exhorting "Just give me the blood, Eli, and let me get out of here. Give me the blood, Lord, and let me get away!" I'm not sure what I would even be without my particular sins, and I'm loath to let God cut them away. I'll take some salvation, please, but easy on the sanctification, thank you very much. I'm not proud of that; it's just the way it is.

O, fie upon thee, Shelfari

2007-10-30T09:26:00.000-04:00

An open letter to all my (former) friends:

Please accept my sincerest apologies for inviting you, along with all the other 600+ people in my gmail address book, to join shelfari. I had no intention of inviting anybody to do anything of the sort. I haven't the time to read all the emails I got yesterday that were some permutation of: "Dude, why in the world did you send invites to some book thing to all 4 of my email addresses? What the f*#@ were you thinking??" Suffice it to say, I was just surfing around, exploring the website, when suddenly I was tricked into inviting everyone I know to join up. It shall not happen again. Or @ least I hope not.

Sincerely,

Sammy

p.s. You should really sign up for Facebook and use the Books iRead app, though. It's the awesomest. Trust me.

Little does he know

2007-08-14T11:29:00.001-04:00

Poor guy; doomed for my sins, and doesn't even know it. The things we do to our children.

Update: Patrick is eagerly anticipating Spring Training so we can DEFEND OUR WORLD CHAMPIONS STATUS! Sorry, the smack just slipped out.

Hmmmm.

2007-07-26T23:39:00.000-04:00

Just curious: What do you think of this? Struck a nerve w/ me, a good nerve, mind you; I've been thinking this for a while. But it may be the sort of thing that would bring me hell from both sets of people I care about: My old friends, whose depth of discipleship awes me, and my new ones, who made church alive for me again. My old friends might not recognize my "discipleship" these days; but my new friends may think "making disciples" is naive, arrogant, dangerous, maybe all three. The post implies says the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle of the thing I've been and the thing I may be expected to become (something I'm resisting becoming, btw, but maybe not w/ the best intentions). I don't know; I'm sorry this is a cryptic post, but I'm in a fairly solidly cryptic place these days. But maybe I'm confused b/c I'm standing in the sweet spot, and no one else seems to be exactly here.

Hmmmm.

Foolish Adoration

2007-07-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

Had an odd, and quite wonderful, experience earlier today. With our rector on vacation, one of the other priests closely associated with our parish filled in @ daily mass for the Feast of Mary Magdalene. Normally we have a few communicants for our mid-day low mass on weekdays, but it just so happened that today nobody showed up. Just me, the priest and our faithful altar server, Walt. However, that didn't stop the priest from pulling out all the stops -- we broke out the gold vestments, I vested and read the gospel, Walt loaded the thurible and incense bellowed in the empty (to the naked eye, that is) church. We said the confiteor, we dutifully followed the choreography of the mass (allowing for a few unorthodox steps, given our unfamiliar configuration), Fr. Conner censed the altar and the elements and then preached a full sermon (w/ insights I'd give my left arm to be able to preach myself, to be honest), and the whole thing had about it a sense of, I don't know, joy. Just unmitigated joy in performing our appointed tasks in worshiping God. And nobody else was there.

It was, as Fr. Conner noted in his sermon (did I mention I covet his ability to preach like that?), "foolish adoration." It's what history as far back as Hippolytus has ascribed to Mary Magdalene, identifying her w/ the woman in Luke's gospel who was so moved in Jesus' presence that she wiped her tears from his feet w/ her hair and anointed his feet w/ oil. ( Luke 7:36-50). Such adoration is, indeed, often seen as foolish to the eyes of the world, but it's what Fr. C said "happens all the time in heaven." Our acts today wouldn't make much sense in many of the buildings surrounding our church in Washington, DC, because there were so few people there, our church was literally "burning" our resources (the olfactory ones @ least), two thirds of the worshipers were literally paid to be there. But, like Mary's tenderness toward Jesus, it's foolish adoration that is the true calling of the church, really of the whole creation. When pragmatism may say "Just rein it in a bit, after all it's only three guys in the church," or "Get out there in the business world and create something, for Christ's sake, don't just sit around in a church praying," the foolish adoration compelled by the gospel says "Be lavish, offer your finest efforts in the Holy Liturgy, go all out b/c this Jesus, whose feet Mary Magdalene's hair may have once caressed, was lavish in his love for us, gave his finest efforts to redeem us, went all out to see us mended."

Foolish adoration. It's what goes on in heaven all the time.

Report from Work

2007-07-15T07:18:00.000-04:00

At work . . . I am doing a little better. I mean, I am less tied up in it, more peaceful and more detached. Taking one thing at a time and going over it slowly and patiently (if I can ever be said to do anything slowly and patiently) and forgetting about the other jobs that have to take their turn . . . . I wonder if I will ever be able to do them. If God wills. Meanwhile, for myself, I have only one desire and that is the desire for solitude – to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His face.

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1956: 26).

I'm angry today, but I smiled anyway

2007-06-28T10:25:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Jess, who sent me this picture. She derailed my firm intention to just be ticked off all day @ the world, @ my family, @ you.

On Ordination, capital letters and Facebook

2007-06-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

Notice how I haven't been posting anything lately? Yeah, I noticed that, too. I can only say that I've been really busy, what with ordination to the diaconate in Boston, starting my real job as curate @ ASA, moving offices and apartments, and watching the inevitable collapse of the Red Sox (and it's not even August). So I apologize for those of you who actually read this blog semi-regularly (Hi, mom). Loads of change seem to keep me from being expressive in any way (which means this Sunday's sermon will likely suck). However, you probably also notice I'm using capital letters, which I promised my friend Rebekah I would do once I became a grown-up, got ordained and started a real job. Finally, I didn't want to completely unplug, so I've made myself a Facebook page. I'm surprised, but I like it. It's certainly less work than keeping up [RD], and it serves roughly the same purpose, which is just to tell the world whatever random thing I'm doing @ any given time. So come over and check in @ FB once in a while (sorry, but I think you have to click here, then sign up to see the page), but don't completely abandon this page. Maybe once I figure out exactly what a curate does, I'll have more time to post.

Pax,
SLW

Get this thing off me man!!

2007-06-03T00:33:00.000-04:00

Oh, but I do so love things like this.

dc4free#24: airshow

2007-05-31T14:54:00.001-04:00

don't get to post much anymore, what w/ all my important sportscenter-watching duties and all, but recently we did get out to a free event @ andrews air force base in md. we took the kids on a train-bus trek to the base to see an airshow featuring the air force thunderbirds and some little plane called the f-22 raptor (the website plays "highway to the danger zone," no kidding). not being a very militaristic guy, i was a bit skeptical about the show, but when we got there i was amazed @ what these planes can do. they're incredibly loud and fast, but what stunned me was that they can almost stop in mid-air (i'm sure they're still flying hundreds of miles per hour, but the effect is that they appear to practically hover). i had no idea.

the kids had a great time (they probably enjoyed riding the metro as much as anything), and paddy literally vibrated when the planes would buzz us. all in all, a nice saturday.

my own private rabid squirrel

2007-05-16T14:29:00.000-04:00

like my friend, amy, i had a run-in w/ a dc rodent today. the windows of my basement office open @ street level, and they're up today b/c it's hot as 900 hells in here. while typing on my laptop a few minutes ago, i looked up to see a squirrel had come in the window and was peering @ me from the sill. scared the bejeezus out of me.

note to self: make more substantive posts in future. people probably don't care about my encounters of the furry (albeit menacing) kind.

veronese's feast

2007-05-07T12:25:00.000-04:00

this post is a note to self, so feel free to disregard:

fr. davenport hinged his sermon yesterday (eventually it'll be posted here) on paulo veronese's feast in the house of levi, the artist's interpretation of the last supper but w/ its title changed under pressure from the church. a line from the sermon, one i wish i'd written, follows:

veronese’s interrogators didn’t get it. frequently, we don’t either. the faith doesn’t need to be protected. the faith needs to be lived. not only should buffoons be in veronese’s last supper, but jesus could be kneeling at their feet. (emphasis mine)

orthodoxy and orthopraxy go together. they have to. what i do today may be far more consequential than what i believe (although what i believe will certainly flower into what i do). i'm just saying.

derby day

2007-05-06T20:16:00.000-04:00

alanis' interp + sox bomb bombers

2007-04-24T11:31:00.000-04:00

ok, now this is just weird. but this is absolutely perfect.

dc4free#23: ms walk

2007-04-19T16:44:00.000-04:00

it wasn't exactly "free" (i have to get a serious move on if we're going to make our goal), but our friend meagan put together a team from asa to participate in the ms walk in dc last saturday.

watercolors and work

2007-03-29T12:38:00.000-04:00

i'm sitting in my office shooting out mundane emails and answering the phone. i click on the link for the lenten watercolors i sent to our 20/30s group earlier this week, and i think "why can't that be my job?" then i come across this post @ the agora about god's glory in the monotony of work .

thanks be to god.

if your life is all keystrokes and depositions and deliveries and tomes of reading, maybe you should be reminded (as should i) how much god glories in all that stuff. "the preacher" (aka tim keller) says a mother combing her daughter's hair is bringing order out of chaos, and that's the work of god.

cool.

my favorite songs

2007-03-20T14:56:00.000-04:00

last night caught me in a contradiction: i told a friend that "baker street" might be my all-time favorite song (heard a snippet of it when we recently watched a guide to recognizing your saints, although the best use in a movie has to be the slo-mo brawl in good will hunting), although i recently posted that "creep" held the #1 spot. the problem is i just can't quantify songs i like in a way that assists in making a true "top 10" list. it depends on the day, the season, whether i read the bible that morning, what i ate, how many beers i've had, who i just listened to, whether i'm trying to impress someone, whatever. but, for the sake of the exercise, here's a top 10 for 4:21 p.m. on 3.20.3007:

radiohead, "creep"
al stewart, "baker street"
player, "baby come back" (seriously)
david wilcox, "how did you find me here"
blue mountain, "jimmy carter"
richard shindell, "the next best western"
john williams, "the pulse of events" (meet the press theme song)
beastie boys, "shake your rump"
derek webb, "wedding dress"
harvey danger, "cream and bastards rise" (you can download the whole album here)

honorable mention: al stewart, "year of the cat"

ok, during the time it took to type that list, it changed, so this isn't definitive.

delta spirit

2007-03-20T14:26:00.000-04:00

no chickens were harmed during the making of this video. very nice song, in a kings of leon kind of way. thanks to cory for the link.

creep

2007-03-08T12:01:00.000-05:00

i hate to keep doing this nate, but jk beat me to something again, namely an old you-tube clip of my all-time favorite song. oh, that makes me feel like i was way back in, way back in, uh, my last year of law school. damn, i'm old.

art in the anglo-catholic church

2007-03-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

thoughts from daniel siedell on visual arts and "spanning the space" b/tw the emerging church and the anglo-catholic church

15 minutes - 50 states

2007-03-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

thanks to an old link from kottke.org, i find myself sitting @ my desk this morning, w/ way too much to do already, and trying to name all 50 u.s. states in 15 minutes. i got 49 in 6 minutes (a fact i'm not all that proud of, really), but it took me until minute 11 to get the last one (our esteemed vp's homestate, which i don't want to name so as not to give you a freebie in case you decide to play the game).

dc4free#22: playin' in the snow, part deux

2007-02-26T13:57:00.000-05:00

i apologize for using the same activity for two dc4frees, but last time wasn't really "snow." yesterday's one-day storm was different -- beautiful big-ol' flakes falling all during mass, a blanket of 4 inches outside ready-made for snowball making (i tried a snowman but failed miserably). nate has some great pix @ his flickr page.

and notice the hope-springs-eternal greenie i'm sporting. oh, yeah, i know manny reported yesterday, baby!

memento, homo, quia pulvis es . . .

2007-02-21T10:05:00.000-05:00

et in pulverum reventerum.

on ash wednesday three years ago, i wrote:

you see, i've had some sins longer than i've had almost anything in my life except my parents. those are they whose talons are so deep into me that i can't imagine what my life would be like were i to ever get free of them. in an odd way, i wouldn't even be me if i didn't have them . . . . these are mine, by god, and i aim to keep them! therein lies the rub. that which i aim to keep, jesus died to take away, and his death is stronger than my twisted desires. so, in fits and starts, and sometimes quite painfully, i'm being healed, thanks to the skill of a friend, the love of other friends, the prayers of people i may not even know, the indefatigable love of a godly woman and the innocent hope in my daughter's eyes. i still say w/ paul that i am the least of the saints, the most sinful of men, but oh how the hunger for sanctification is growing! if and when i get there, i'll drop you a line.
now it's 2007, and i'm not "there" yet. but, by god's grace, i'm closer than i was. i still cherish my old secret sins, but i understand the gospel a little bit better which makes me less anxious about my sins while moving me toward the faintest glimmers of sanctity (on my good days). and i have a new community of friends standing beside me working out what membership in god's kingdom means for their own pet sins. it's comforting, this standing among sinners, and it moves me toward holiness in ways i could never muster alone.

what-wha-what-what-what's it all about?

2007-02-02T14:01:00.000-05:00

if you're old enough to place the title of this post, and you happen to find yourself within any religious institution, you may be wondering, along with me, about issues of church, emerging and otherwise. what, indeed, are we all about? as i sit @ a corner table in a nw washington coffee shop, do i have anything -- anything @ all -- to say to this blackberry-toting, iBook-laden, frayed-jeans-wearing, american idol-watching generation?

nope.

i'm all for contextualizing the gospel, making the age-old message of redemption and forgiveness ring in the words and images and music and ideas of whatever culture holds sway @ any given time. but if the church is really supposed to be answering questions the culture's asking, we may be screwed b/c i'm afraid we quit listening to their questions a long time ago. as a result, we have no message of any kind. nada. we do our thing, in my case the anglo-catholic thing, and slouch toward irrelevance to be bored. and it's not b/c we don't have anything to say -- the words of the one who calls us, forms us, sends us are relevant by definition -- it's b/c we want to say what we want to say when we want to say it, thank you very much. and if we choose to whisper, then that's just the way it is. as howard hendricks said: "in the midst of a generation screaming for answers – christians are stuttering."

you know what frustrates me, though? it's that we know. we know! we've experienced something transformative, something true, something of ultimate relevance, but (a) we live like we haven't, and (b) even if we acknowledge what we've experienced, most of us have no idea how to communicate that to others, which is one of the primary reasons why we're here in the first place. so i want to think about what we can do about it.

first off, i think a re-introduction is in order: church, the gospel; gospel, the church. i think you met @ a party a while back. you know all that work we're doing -- whether it's throwing food @ hungry mouths or bowing and genuflecting ourselves like contortionists -- i get the sneaking suspicion we're doing it to justify ourselves. we're committing the sin of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and it's killing us. we need to re-experience what we've experienced, namely the undignified love of a god who forgives us before we even think about repenting. all our righteous deeds are filthy rags, but god loves nekky-birds (ellie's and patrick's term for being stark naked and running through the house giggling). we need more brennan manning and less, i don't know, everything else.
shhhhhh. listen. the world is asking questions, i promise you. one question i hear, both inside and outside the church, is "how exactly am i supposed to hope right now?" iraq, global warming, poverty, terrorism, britney galavanting w/o underpants -- that stuff scares the crap out of us, so how are we supposed to be optimistic about life? better to cynically deny there's anybody behind the curtain so we can say "see, i told you so" one day, right? well, wrong. i've been reading lesslie newbigin's the gospel in a pluralist society (apparently they're reading him in parts of malaysia as well, and i've been referring to him in another context @ nate's blog), and i'm taken by his image of the church as a (the) clue to the meaning of history. he writes:
"we are to understand the mission of the church in the light of the fact that the meaning of contemporary history is that it is the history of the time b/tw christ's ascension and his coming again, the time when his reign @ the right hand of god is a hidden reality, the time in which the signs are granted of that hidden reign but in which the full revelation of its power and glory is held back in order that all the nations -- all the human communities -- may have the opportunity to repent and believe in freedom . . . . the church, reaching out to every human community, living a life which is centered in the continual remembrance and reenactment of that central revelation offers to all peoples a vision of the goal of human history in which its good is affirmed and its evil is forgiven and taken away, a vision which makes it possible to act hopefull when there is no earthly hope, and to find the way when everything is dark and there are no earthly landmarks."
we can help them find answers. after all, we stumbled into the answer, and we're not any smarter or better than they are. go ahead and hope, i dare you. then, when they ask (and they will ask), be prepared to tell them why you'd do such a thing in a world such as ours.
go outside. do it. right now. leave those pretty stained-glass windows and live the gospel in the marketplace, the theater, the art house, the bar, the public square. incarnate! be christ! if we reaquaint ourselves w/ the gospel, and we hear the world's plaintive questioning, and then we only respond by eloquently stating our answers from a pulpit in the direction of a gathering of well-coiffed, middle-class, umpteenth-generation christians, we may as well have stayed home and and made waffles. jesus showed up; we need to show up, too. everyone's waiting. what the devil's taking us so long?

dc4free#21: playin' in the snow

2007-01-30T17:01:00.000-05:00

it took 'til january, but the first snow of the season finally came (all 1 inch of it), and i got to break out my snow shirt. i've got an old j-crew flannel shirt that is (a) out of style, and (b) about to fall apart, so i only wear it on the first snow day of every year. i got the idea from my friend, george, who is church-planting in london, ontario now. this year was a bit different b/c the snow came so late, and we live smack in the middle of the city, so there's not a lot of room for the kids to run and sled.
some friends stopped by, though, and we made some snowballs and even ate some snow ice cream (nobody else had ever heard of "snow cream," so maybe it's just a southern thing, i don't know). it's been cold almost every day since, but no more snow.

washington dc winter = sham.

greening

2007-01-24T09:56:00.000-05:00

ok, i confess: i really was moved by "an inconvenient truth." i think protecting the environment is a moral issue. it just so happens that it's currently cool for evangelicals to get gushy about the environment, so i feel a little smarmy for not being so green when green wasn't the new black, and i'm wary of bandwagon-jumping.

that being said, however, our family is intent upon becoming less of a drain on the earth this year, and i'm in the market for suggestions. how easy is it for my friends (you know who you are) to go green? seth suggested looking into the citizenre REnU program. i'm buying a terrapass for our minivan, we use twisty lightbulbs, and i intend to keep the environment in mind if i get input on decisions about the asa physical plant renovation. i've got to start somewhere, so -- any ideas about what else my family can do?

update: i bought the terrapass (since we live in the city, we don't drive all that much, so the pass was only $30 for the year), and i'm taking some of the suggestions in the slate green challenge (thanks for the link, amy): unplugging what i can and using power strips to cut down on passive energy drain; buying more cfls and led bulbs; dropping the thermostat a couple of degrees; buying locally-grown produce and shopping @ our farmers' market; line drying more clothes (it's hotter than 900 hells in our basement laundry room, so i just fling clothes about and come back in 5 minutes) and cleaning the lint filter more often; using less water washing dishes and showering; and shutting down my laptop @ night.

eve of st. agnes

2007-01-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

tomorrow is the feast of st. agnes, the patroness of ascension & st. agnes here in dc, and i'm scheduled to preach. the picture @ left is of the st. agnes window in our sanctuary, and you can see her name @ the top, an image of a lamb in the middle (the latin for "lamb," agnus, sounds like agnes, plus lambs symbolize virginity and innocence), but all around are implements of torture: a dagger, a pyre, a sword. wha?

well, i read about agnes this week, and the story is that she was martyred by the roman emperor diocletian around the year 305 when she was only thirteen years old. one source says she became a christian when she was ten, and she got in trouble when she rebuffed the advances of a high roman official and told him: “the one to whom i am betrothed is christ whom the angels serve. he was the first to choose me. i shall be his alone.” not a good idea, survival-wise. she was cast into a brothel and finally sentenced to die, purportedly b/c she was a christian and an empire-wide persecutions of christ's followers was underway about that time.

so, here's my question: what, if anything, am i supposed to learn from agnes' story? supposing, for a moment, that the legends are true (they actually conflict, some of them saying it was the emperor himself that was smitten w/ her, some saying she was beheaded, others that she was burned or strangled, etc.) . . . what that got to do wit me? i'm writing this in dc @ a caribou coffee, for god's sake. nobody @ the next table's going to throw down w/ me b/c i've got a bible in my bookbag.

i suggest we can learn that there are things worth dying for, whether we actually have to do so or not. i read an interview with gordon brown, the english chancellor of the exchequer (a cool-sounding job), who said courage is “not the absence of fear, because we are all afraid. courage is the belief that there is something more important than safety.” agnes reminds us there are things more important to our souls than, in no particular order: acquiring stuff, getting that next promotion, living in the right neighborhood, driving the right car, going to the right parties, wearing the right clothes -- more important, even, than living. the question for us today probably won’t be whether we are be brave enough to die violently for our lord, but whether we are brave enough to put to death our sinful selves for christ’s sake day after day after day, in the petty, unnoticeable, haphazard circumstances of our lives. the stories of our saints remind us that, by god's grace, it may be so.

saint agnes, pray for us.

a long strange trip

2007-01-12T14:23:00.000-05:00

twenty-five years ago tomorrow, i was fourteen (i think) and delighted that mississippi high schools were observing one of a series of several snow days. where i grew up, a quarter inch of snow = no school for a week. my friends, squeak and ed, spent a lot of time @ our house the next few days, sledding down the big hill toward town and getting my father to pull us back up w/ his 1960 corvair fitted w/ snow tires. oddly enough, what i remember most about the storm is how ed got so upset over how an airplane crashed into the 14th street bridge over the potomac river. ed was always a current events kind of guy, and he was irate that such a debacle could happen. the post article reflects about how the accident changed aviation and, in retrospect, makes ed sound like he was a 16-year-old prophet.

now, a quarter of a century later, i live two blocks off 14th, and that bridge was my main way to work until we moved into the city. long and strange, indeed.

billions of balls

2007-01-10T12:10:00.000-05:00

you know, i've said for several years that i want to live in a city, i want to live where it gets cold, i want to live right next door to the church where i work doing cutting-edge urban ministry, i want to live in a place where you don't have to own a car, etc.

forget all that.

i just want to live in a place where this happens.

(thanks to amy, who nurtures and cares for cool blogs here and here, for the link)

ascension and st. agnes

2007-01-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

every once in a while i update our 20/30s page @ asa w/ a new pick. this one is one of the coolest i've seen, although i can't say i took it. actually, i did "take" it, just in the sense that i nicked it from the website of a new apartment building going up down the street. i especially like the darkening sky and whatever aperture they used to get the little blurry auto headlights on m L street. anyway, if you're in dc and you can't find us, look for this steeple. find it, then just stand outside and shout. eventually you'll be arrested, and you can just call me to come pick you up @ the precinct.

dc4free#20: national cathedral

2007-01-05T13:13:00.000-05:00

we've made the trip to the national cathedral several times now, but neither renee's parents nor mine had been, so we went again over xmas. it's a beautiful, awesome building to tour, even if it does leave me a bit cold sometimes. i much prefer little tiny incense-scented anglican chapels in the woods of england somewhere (although i've never actually been in one of them) to huge stone buildings that took like 80 years to build and have no steel in them (my father-in-law was quite impressed by that architectural detail). this pic is one my mom took of the altar in what i believe was the st. joseph chapel. the whole place is beautiful, but i'm always happiest when i think that i am standing in the place where pres. jed bartlet gave his great "two cathedrals" soliloquy.

gratia tibi ago, domine.
haec credam a deo pio, a deo justo, a deo scito?
cruciatus in crucem.
tuus in terra servus, nuntius fui; officium perfeci.
cruciatus in crucem. eas in crucem.

best. tv scene. ever.

dc4free#19: national christmas tree

2006-12-30T00:36:00.000-05:00

this was a week or so before xmas, but i was a chaperone for ellie's class trip to see the national xmas tree in front of the white house. one little girl (not my own) was heard to say: "i sure hope george bush won't be there!" as if he were a dragon or something that haunts dreams. for some, i suppose, he is (lee, christopher, aa, you know who you are).

nevertheless, i had a great time w/ ellie looking @ the tree in a lightly falling rain/snow (weird b/c it was above freezing on the ground), watching the model trains circle the tree, listening to burl ives and bing crosby (they need some new music down @ 1600), and looking for our states' trees (the little ones that encircle the tree are from every state in the union, so we made sure to find mississippi and massachusetts). it's cool @ night, too -- so cool, in fact, that when i drove my parents by to see it one evening, i slammed into the back of the car in front of me. merry xmas to the guy i hit, wherever he is. hope it's not "in traction."

the smallness of god

2006-12-25T22:26:00.000-05:00

merry christmas everyone (did you hear that the avg. readership of a weblog is now one? so i suppose the emphasis in my xmas greeting is on the one in "everyone," and the real message is: "merry christmas, mom.").

by now everybody knows about the recent votes cast by va parishes to leave the episcopal church. if you ever read this space (and i actually estimate that mom only reads it quarterly, if @ all), you probably have noticed that i don't comment on the state of the my adopted church. i love it, i have no intention of leaving any time soon, i wish this all weren't happening, it breaks my heart generally to see xtns fighting (and nastily so), and listening to the noise from both sides of the debate tends to just tire me out.

i say that as a preface to my xmas post here b/c i link to a guy who clearly sympathizes w/ the episcopalians who are opting out. but what he had to say is something i think about quite a bit -- forget who wins the property war, the mantle of "anglican church in america," all the rest. in fact, forget about "winning" @ all. the blogger, who put it much better than i could, prays:

that god give them the gift of smallness - to be meek, to be weak, to lose if need be. no one can defeat you if you are willing to be small enough, meek enough, weak enough, if you are willing to lose. christ traded a throne for a cave. some may have to trade buildings and beloved properties for the kingdom of god. it’s a swap that’s been made before.

that's my prayer for my family and for the church this christmas. the mystery of the incarnation continues even now, in xt's extant physical presence on earth, his church. this year, i pray that we will learn to be smaller and not be afraid to lose everything for the sake of the world for whom god laid aside his god-ness to save. as my friend nate and i talked about a couple of nights ago on our front stoop, if xtianity means anything, then it's worth everything. tonight, in the sermon for the first mass of christmas, fr. davenport said "2000 years ago, god wriggled into our cramped darkness," and, if we can be more like the first xtns (read the epistle to diognetus), we'll be far more successful in winning the world.

blessings to you this christmas from our family in dc --
~ sammy

incarnation

2006-12-19T13:29:00.000-05:00

last night's community group discussion was about the incarnation, and i tried to find this poem but couldn't until afterward. so, for your advent contemplation, here it go:

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small, hot, naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest . . .
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God
sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so light it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know
my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended,
I must see him torn.

(“Mary’s Song,” A Poem by Luci Shaw, I think from Listen to the Green, but I’m not sure)

kiddies@christmas

2006-12-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

sufjan's seasonal sessions

2006-12-15T11:22:00.000-05:00

merry xmas to my ears!

"an inconvenient truth"

2006-12-09T00:39:00.000-05:00

@ long last, i got partial control of ye olde family netflix queue, so the docs are rolling in. i'm very late on this, but go immediately and watch this movie. it's one of the best i've ever seen.

and if that's not enough to quench your appetite, eugene jarecki's film is great, too. neither film is bitter or self-righteous, a la "bowling for columbine" or "farenheit 9/11" (both of which i liked, but moore is too caustic and cocksure to spearhead any sort of real grassroots change).

something gore said moved me (xtns would say "the holy spirit convicted me") when i heard it: doing something about the issue of global warming isn't just a good thing to do, it's a moral obligation. (i got the same feeling of "i'm going to have to answer to god for this someday" when i saw all the civilian casualties in jarecki's film). i don't know for sure what to do, but i know i have to do something, as inconsequential as that may be. i owe my children, and god, that much.

the blind men and the elephant

2006-11-28T15:55:00.000-05:00

i haven't posted in quite a while, primarily b/c we've been traveling and work has been really busy lately (plus, "friday night lights" and "heroes" are way better than i thought they'd be, and i still owe aaron sorkin some loyalty). but after last night's community group meeting, i thought i'd throw this out and see what happens.

last night's issue was whether muslims and christians worship the same god, and one of the guys brought up the "blind men and the elephant" argument, an standard illustration of the "all religions are the same" position, and something i'd been thinking about lately even before last night. so, what w/ the pope in turkey and our community group hashing through all this stuff, for your consideration is tim keller's (and lesslie newbigin's) take on the elephant argument:

it’s a kind of fun illustration. it’s about a group of blind men who come up to an elephant [a]nd they all grab hold of it, and everyone begins to say what the elephant is like. and one grabs hold of the trunk, and he says “ah, elephants are long and flexible creatures.” but another one has hold of the leg, and says “No, no, no, no, no . . . elephants are very short and thick and stiff creatures, they’re not long and flexible . . . ." and another blind man has a hold of the side, and says “you’re not right at all; it’s huge and flat.”
they begin to argue, and each one says “no, no, your view of the elephant isn’t right.” and as they’re arguing we realize that every one of the is right and everyone of them is wrong: they all have part of reality of the elephant, they grasp part of it, but nobody can see the whole picture, and therefore none of them should say they see the whole picture . . . . and so, the illustration concludes: religions are the same. all religions see part of the spiritual truth; nobody can see the whole thing; no one should say insist that they have the entire truth; and that’s how we ought to understand religions.”

lesslie newbigin, who was a british missionary to india for many years, writes in a book called the gospel in a pluralist society that over the years he got that illustration thrown @ him over and over [a]nd one day he was listening to it and it suddenly hit him: the only way you could know that none of the blind men had a grip on the entire reality of the elephant was if you could see the whole elephant. the only way you could tell the story othe blind men and the elephant is if you saw the whole elephant. you can only tell about the blind men if you see. and that means, he suddenly realized, the only way you could possibly know that every religion only sees part of the truth is if you assume you see all of the truth. it’s the only way you could know that religions only see part of the truth is that you assume you have the whole truth, which is the very thing you say nobody’s got.

and so lesslie newbigin concludes this page in which he suddenly realized how incredibly arrogant and imperialistic intellectually it is to say "all religions are equal," and he says:
“there is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but it may be, in fact, an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to all others. so we have to ask the person, what is this absolute vantage point from which you claim to be able to relativize all the claims these different scriptures and religions make?”

see what the point here is? when you say “no one has a superior take on spiritual reality,” that is a take on spiritual reality which you say is superior to everybody else’s. and whey you say "no one should convert everybody else to your view of religious reality," that is a view of religious reality that you want the listener to convert to. there is no way for you to know that all religions are equal unless you assume the kind of knowledge you say nobody has, and so how dare you have it? how can you have it? so it just doesn’t work; it doesn’t work in the slightest. it’s imperialistic. it looks humble, but it’s not.

(from a sermon entitled "exclusivity: how can there be just one true religion?" by dr. timothy j. keller, redeemer presbyterian church, new york on 24 september 2006)

old vs. new

2006-11-03T14:34:00.000-05:00

old sammy: bought 2 copies of every book; one, w/ mylar cover, to read for myself, and one to let anyone else (wife) read.

new sammy: "if it ain't got coffee stains on it, it ain't a book."

the ministry of "active helpfulness"

2006-11-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

being part of the community group that meets in our apartment on monday nights has challenged me to grow in many areas, and an aid to this growth has been bonhoeffer's life together, which i'm re-reading for about the 5th time. here's a snippet that speaks to the part of me that is overwhelmed w/ keeping the kids and still trying to be a decent pastoral assistant:
we must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by god. god will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people w/ claims and petitions. we may pass them by, preoccupied w/ our more important tasks, as the priest passed by the man who had fallen among thieves, perhaps -- reading the bible. when we do that we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised athwart our path to show us that, not our way, but god's way must be done. it is a strange fact that christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. they think they are doing god a service in this, but actually they are disdaining god's "crooked yet straight path" (gottfried arnold). they do not want a life that is crossed and balked. but it is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by god.
(dietrich bonhoeffer, life together (san francisco: harper & row, 1954): 99.)

dc4free#19: hill-o-ween

2006-11-02T10:24:00.000-05:00

this week's outing was to the eastern market area of capitol hill for some trick-or-treating. some friends from our church graciously invited us to their home for pre-game pizza, then the kids scoured the neighborhood en masse for goodies. we didn't make it on the hayride b/c our fairy and pumpkin were melting down, but we had a great time and saw a part of dc that we seldom get to see.

bling, bling

2006-10-31T10:53:00.000-05:00

spent the weekend in boston @ diocesan convention, and was able to attend christ church for mass on sunday. i do love that place. and the fact that their bulletins read like this only makes me love it all the more!

(look closely)

has pumpkin; will party.

2006-10-31T10:21:00.000-05:00

s'long red

2006-10-29T09:18:00.000-05:00

marriage counseling w/ an oomph

2006-10-18T23:02:00.000-04:00

i've been meaning to post a picture of this for a while, apropos of absolutely nothing. it's just that every time i drive by it, i giggle.

dc4free#18: punkin' patch

2006-10-18T22:53:00.000-04:00

last saturday was a bright, crisp autumn day in the city, so we . . . left.

continuing a longstanding october tradition for the wood family, begun back in our days @ st. peter's in oxford, we visited a pumpkin patch. this year's outing was to the patch hosted by immanuel church-on-the-hill in alexandria, right next door to vts. we had great fun, got to wear sweaters, ate a couple of cupcakes and brought home about 15 pumpkins (12 for ellie's classmates).

dc4free#17: national book festival

2006-10-18T22:43:00.001-04:00

sorry for being tardy in posting this, but life in the cap city has been hectic. still, nadie found time to take the kids to another freebie a couple of weekends ago. this time it was the national book festival on the national mall. as you can see, curious george made an appearance (and, apparently, groped my family), much to everyone's delight.

adopting your enemy

2006-10-07T18:05:00.000-04:00

"Christ has adopted the enemy. He has adopted us. His call to us in Scripture is to do the same, to adopt the enemy. Those we think we could never love become the ones God uses. He shows us our deep need and failure as well as the depths of his love for us. My perceived enemy has now become the way of salvation."

(From Scott Roley, God’s Neighborhood: A Hopeful Journey in Racial Reconciliation & Community Renewal (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004), 129.)

my birthday

2006-10-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

i'll just show you the picture of renee's birthday gift to me and leave the rest up to your imagination.

show the way

2006-09-28T12:27:00.001-04:00

it's thursday, and i should be writing a sermon; instead, i'm reflecting on seeing david wilcox @ the birchmere w/ dennis last thursday night. great concert, fantastic performer, albeit one who sometimes wanders a little afield into the realm of cheesiness. as a songwriter, he swings and misses sometimes, but when he connects, he drives the ball out of the park. for the non-baseball-minded, that translates: david's reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, but when he gets it right, he can be almost perfect. today i'm thinking about show the way (b/c my sermon text is from genesis):

you say you see no hope,
you say you see no reason we should dream
that the world would ever change
you're saying love is foolish to believe
'cause there'll always be some crazy
with an army or a knife
to wake you from your day dream,
put the fear back in your life

look, if someone wrote a play
just to glorify what's stronger than hate,
would they not arrange the stage
to look as if the hero came too late
he's almost in defeat
it's looking like the evil side will win,
so on the edge of every seat,
from the moment that the whole thing begins

it is love who makes the mortar
and it's love who stacked these stones
and it's love who made the stage here
although it looks like we're alone
in this scene set in shadows
like the night is here to stay
there is evil cast around us
but it's love that wrote the play
for in this darkness love can show the way

so now the stage is set
feel your own heart beating in your chest
this life's not over yet
so we get up on our feet and do our best
we play against the fear
we play against the reasons not to try
we're playing for the tears
burning in the happy angel's eyes

greatest walkoff?

2006-09-19T10:25:00.000-04:00

apologies to papi, but an old friend (and a manager dennis won't speak of) did him one better last night, if only b/c of what led up to it. down 9-5 in the bottom of the 9th, the dodgers hit 4 back-to-back homers to tie. now, 4 in a row's only been done 3 other times in mlb history, but after giving up one in the top of the 10th, nomar hit a 2-run shot to stinkin' win the game and yank back 1st place in the west. there are video clips @ mlb.com, but vin scully had the call and made it sound almost boring. i heard charlie steiner's radio call this morning on mike & mike, and it gave me chills (even though i hate, hate, hate the dodgers). if anyone finds a clip of the kfwb call online, email me.

(speaking of steiner, this is always worth 46 seconds)

update: i just heard the call again on dan patrick's radio show, and it is awesome. i'm telling you -- go find a clip of it somewhere.

dc4free#16: alexandria festival of the arts/arts safari

2006-09-18T09:54:00.000-04:00

we can't seem to stay away from old town alexandria for long. this news is a week old now, but renee' and i took the kiddies out to the festival of the arts last saturday (the day upon which notre dame actually won). i enjoyed watching the people way more than looking @ the art, which was from all over the u.s. but was almost uniformly boring or tastelessly kitschy (little metal sculptures of dogs peeing and the like).

we did get to stroll by the river, and the kids got balloon animals, a now expected party favor from a day in alexandria.
plus, elmo got to try out some facepainting @ the arts safari in the torpedo factory, so she had a grand old time. in sum, it was a nice day (spectacular weather), but uneventful; far from being the best of our dc4free weekends.

so, what are you going to do today?

2006-09-12T14:41:00.000-04:00

i found this a couple days ago in an anglican breviary i was trying (unsuccessfully) to navigate:

alexander elchaninov wrote in the diary of a russian priest:

our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or in the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. and we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag. constantly, each day, each hour, god is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist god's will for us. indeed, how can god help us? only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. if we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God's will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life — what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul! let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill god's will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.
(quoted in “the Handicapped convert” by priest joseph huneycutt)

(thanks to kevin basil whose site helped me place the quote)

dc4free#15: picnic in the park

2006-09-11T13:18:00.000-04:00

a nice day, some sandwiches, lots o' birds (view the avian horror). for this short dc4free outing, we were in franklin square in downtown d.c., across the street from renee's office, and the scene of alexander graham bell's first wireless message.

9/11

2006-09-11T09:20:00.000-04:00

paddy and i are watching cnn's pipeline coverage of 9/11 in realtime. surreal. same thing w/ watching united 93 the other night. makes 5 years seem like a lifetime ago, and just like yesterday. i remember so much of that day, the most momentous of my lifetime, i suppose. i remember listening to imus describe the chaos as i drove home from hebrew class, then just wanting renee' to be out of boston and @ home. i remember trying to make sense of what happened w/ jeremy and april and our youth group from fbc in marblehead, and the memorial service @ seaside park. i couldn't make sense of it then, and i struggle w/ it even now. nothing else to say today; just felt like saying something.

psu @ nd

2006-09-09T23:14:00.000-04:00

fourteen years is a long time.

fourteen years ago penn state came to south bend to play the irish in a game billed as "the end of an era." my friend, john, and i flew up for the game, stripped to the waist in the snow and wrote "irish" on our chests (almost caught pneumonia, but got on national tv, and i've got the videotape to prove it), rushed the field after brooks' 2-point conversion catch, and i grabbed a big hunk of "god sod" to bring home and plant. the grass is now quite dead and in a photo album, but i have great memories from the game.

and i got this great t-shirt that i now wear only on special occasions, such as a 41-17 drubbing of the lions.

dc4free#14: monument-al undertaking

2006-09-07T21:06:00.000-04:00

ok, so i'm tired and the title is too kitschy. sue me.

labor day was jon's last day in d.c., so we sent him out w/ a bang by making the rounds of several monuments on the mall and eating some seafood from the wharf. this was about my 5th tour of these monuments (wwii, lincoln, vietnam, korea, fdr, jefferson), but it was by far the most enjoyable. i think it was a combination of the weather (finally cool in d.c.) and the fact that i'm becoming so familiar w/ the sites that i'm not just overwhelmed by them anymore.

ellie, of course, was far more interested in ducks and rocks.

{scene: ellie and mama sitting on a bench outside the vietnam memorial eating patriot rocket frozen treat -- no kidding, that's what the red, white and blue sugar rush delivery devices are called --

ellie (after long period of silence): "mama, are you thinking what i'm thinking?"
mama (surprised @ the question): "i don't know honey. what are you thinking?"
ellie (after more silence): "i'm thinking i need to pick up some rocks!"}

paddy, on the other hand, had an absolute conniption over fdr's little dog. a swell time was had by all.

and i got some rocks.

dc4free#13: national cathedral

2006-09-07T20:10:00.000-04:00

r's brother, jon, was here over the weekend, and the remnants of ernesto dropped a lot of lot of rain on us on saturday, so we needed some indoor activity.

after b'fast (if it's saturday, it must be waffles), we decided to drive around a few places in d.c. and then head over to the national cathedral. having been there a few times now for lectures or mass, i forget how stunning it is when you first see it -- it's huge, for one thing, and you catch glimpses of it through the trees on the way up mass. ave., plus the stained glass and all the chapels are really beautiful (there are behind-the-scenes and virtual tours of bethlehem chapel and some other features on their website). we made a swing through the bookstore and went up to the 7th floor to see the view of the city, but it was too cloudy to see much.

to be honest, i have some mixed feelings about the cathedral. it makes such a big deal about being "a national house of prayer for all people" that they appear ashamed to be episcopalian @ times. and the vibe i get from the place is that their "gospel" is some sort of vague interfaith celt-ish spirituality, and they may be more proud of darth vader than they are of jesus, but that's just me. still, it's a distinctly american place of worship, and if you're in d.c. it's definitely worth a few hours on a rainy afternoon. good luck parking!

dc4free#12: "the boy who ate catholic u"

2006-09-07T18:00:00.000-04:00

i've been remiss in not posting our free-scapades in a timely fashion, so i'll do a few in quick succession to bring you up to date:

for no. 12, paddy (doesn't he look gigantic in the pic?) & i went up to catholic u to visit our friend mary, who is a graduate student there. patrick got to flirt w/ "catholic school-girls" (they were college aged, but he got the practice anyway), and i got to see the highest concentration of priests i can imagine. just about everybody but me, paddy and mary had on collars.

during our short visit we saw the crypt church, the national shrine of the immaculate conception, and a big ol' scary, very manly jesus growling down on us from the ceiling. it's a cool place to visit, although i prefer cathedrals (cathedra?) that look older and more, i don't know, rough hewn than the cu shrine. good bookstore, though; much better than vts'.

deus lux mea est.

6 days and counting down

2006-09-04T20:59:00.002-04:00

to season 4 of the best show on tv. it's worth the time in purgatory that stealing cable will get you.

update: kottke agrees

nyt

photos from fiacre

2006-08-31T11:38:00.000-04:00

here are the pix from the feast of st. fiacre. anybody know why blogger isn't letting me post pix like i've always been able to do? i've got to be doing something wrong, but i don't know what.

thanks again for the pix, christopher. your camera kung-fu is superior to my camera kung-fu.

"firetrucks receive timely blessing @ church celebration"

2006-08-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

the first vehicles to arrive [sunday] for the “blessing of the cars” @ the episcopal church of [the] ascension and st. agnes spent little time proving why they needed to be there. w/in minutes of their arrival, the two d.c. firetrucks turned on their sirens, carefully drove through parishioners attending mass, then sped to an apartment fire six blocks away.

“it was our first run this morning, [but] nobody was hurt,” lt. leo e. handley of engine 16 from tower 3, said of the kitchen fire on seventh street northwest.

the firefighters returned w/ their trucks to church, in the 1200 block of massachusetts avenue northwest, where they were invited to partake of the snacks and drinks on the front lawn. the ceremony was part of the feast day of st. fiacre, who was born and raised in ireland in the seventh century.

st. fiacre was raised in an irish monastery and became known as the “glorious hermit” b/c of his healing power. the hotel de saint fiacre in paris was named after him. the hotel rented carriages and cabs, which became known as “fiacres.” over centuries, the word also came to identify taxicabs.

aug. 30 eventually became the official feast day of st. fiacre for the blessing of cabs and drivers.

“we had just finished blessing the firetrucks when the bells started ringing,” said the rev. father ronald conner. “so we went ahead w/ the blessing of other cars.”

the blessing consisted or prayers, waving of incense and sprinkling of holy water on cars and motorists along massachusetts and 12th street northwest.

the ceremony began about 30 minutes after the 10 a.m. mass. some parishioners drove away after their cars were blessed, but others stayed for the snacks of cookies, crackers and sandwiches, and drinks of coffee, sodas and fruit juice.

yesterday marked the first st. fiacre celebration @ the church of [the] ascension [and st. agnes]. father conner hopes that it will draw the attention of neighbors and visitors in nearby hotels and that more such celebrations will follow.

parishioners such as christopher whittington, an altar aide and native of houston, expects the blessing will become as popular as the animal blessing the church started several years ago.

“parishioners brought their pets, dogs, cats, birds,” mr. whittington said. “someone brought an iguana. ugly. some neighbors came and brought their pets.”

(reprinted from the 28 august 2006 print edition of the washington times, pp. b1, b8; photographs by christopher whittington to be posted separately b/c the stupid blogger uploader won't work again).

katrina plus one

2006-08-29T23:26:00.000-04:00

even as i type, i'm watching act vi of spike lee's "when the levees broke: a requiem in four acts," and i don't know what to say. i just know i have to say something. this is an extraordinarily affecting piece of television. i remember watching the media coverage of the storm in late august and early september of last year, paying especial attention b/c renee's family lives in hancock county, ms, and we didn't know whether they were safe for several days after the storm made landfall, but until i saw lee's film, i really had no idea. i've been to new orleans twice since the hurricane, and i've driven all over the ms gulf coast to see the devastation -- and it is truly mind-boggling to see it in person -- but i don't think i appreciated the human suffering and agony until tonight. the show isn't really about placing blame (well, some of it is, and justifiably so -- a guy just said "somebody needs to go to jail," and i have to agree), but i can't watch this w/o thinking that the tragedy could have been ameliorated @ so many points along the way . . . but it wasn't. i commend the show to you, as painful as it is to watch @ 1 go. i supposed lee would make a spectacle of the event, but i was wrong. i actually think this film is far less sensational than most of the anderson cooper 360s and nbc world news tonights i watched a year ago, and it takes watching hours of this stuff to gain any real appreciation of the event. little 3-minute news clips of geraldo in rain boots don't get it across. i know lee will take flak for being too hard on the federal gov't (even the nyt acknowledged a "cheap shot" or two), but it's a film worth watching, even just to spend 4 puny hours watching what to the eye-witnesses must have seemed like a lifetime of hell. i feel like i owe the victims that much (and a lot more).

1st day of school

2006-08-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

i'm torn today -- proud of my big/little girl, but sad that she's off to pre-k. they grow up so fast. (god, i sound old)

choose!

2006-08-26T22:05:00.000-04:00

"choose you this day whom you will serve . . . ." (josh. 24.15)

i was asked to preach the homily @ low mass tomorrow, which i have now come to rue. the 12:30 mass homily is preached extemporaneously, is a few minutes long, and -- when preached by our regular priest -- is a theological gold mine. now, @ 10p on sat. night, i'm learning that if asked to preach a big sermon @ high mass, i'll spend a lot of time in prayer and study and turn out something i think is pretty sound; however, asked to preach a little, easy sermon @ low mass, i'll exclaim "oh, crap" around bedtime on saturday b/c i've blown off the sermon all week.

that being said, here's a good quote about "choosing" --

every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. and taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony w/ god, and w/ other creatures, and w/ itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred w/ god, and w/ its fellow-creatures, and w/ itself.

(from c. s. lewis, mere xtianity, 86)

maybe i'll just read that and sit down.

say it ain't so, wally

2006-08-21T21:47:00.000-04:00

i am so ashamed. my sweet little daughter sleeps w/ a wally doll every night. i gave her the doll myself. accordingly, i am to blame for any psychological distress she and her brother experience over the course of their lifetimes b/c of debacles like this. bob ryan asks "how could it get any worse?" (and that was before they swept us out of our own ballpark and the playoff race today). the answer, mr. ryan, is: by dooming your own children by saddling them w/ these guys. i freakin' knew better. mea culpa, honey. i hope you can find it in your heart someday to forgive me. i'll pay for your therapy.

is no news good news?

2006-08-16T13:44:00.000-04:00

the comments generated by my post about the palestinian/lebanon rally got me to thinking just how confusing watching/reading "the news" can really be. my ideal friday night is to plop down on the couch for the newshour b/c i like shields and brooks, stay tuned for washington week, then, if i'm not fried, i might suffer through mclaughlin (i've grown to really hate the arrogant old guy and his yellin' cronies). i give cnn, msnbc (i admit i love don imus) and fox a chance to catch my interest in the mornings (i hate the network morning shows), i make the rounds of the networks around 6:30 most nights, i listen to npr and even to conservative talk radio if i'm in the car (i used to love listening to this severin guy in boston b/c he was so outrageous), and renee' and i wind up our day w/ stewart and colbert, plus charlie rose late @ night if i can stay up. i read the nyt on sundays, but that's my only print journalism aside from vanity fair. what i'm getting @ is that i may not be sharpest tool in the box, but i'm not an ostrich either.

what troubles me is that the only places in that list where time or column inches are spent really developing a story are: vanity fair (seriously, go read it for yourself, if you can make it through the 50 pages of ads, some of them semi-pornographic, that usually come before the table of contents), the newshour, the times, and most of all charlie rose. when you couple the shallow coverage w/ outright fabrication like reuters doctoring pix and fox, well, being fox -- the temptation is to deem "the truth" to be beyond apprehension and form opinions straight from the daily show b/c, let's admit it, @ least it's entertaining. as i see it, the trio of evils for americans are information overload from a 24/7 news cycle, overly simplistic reporting and media bias (toward the left and the right).

i'm not sure what the best strategy is, but i like what brett mccracken had to say in a recent 850 words from relevant magazine:

and so what are we, as christians, to do with all this fuzzy truth and sensationalized news in the digital domain? should we shun all technology, swear off cable news, read the bible and nothing more? probably not. what we can do is approach all media cautiously, critically and thoughtfully. bias is hard to overcome, no matter who you are, but awareness that all mediated messages carry some measure of subjectivity might just help the truth to emerge. at the end of the day it will not be technology (which can be used to simultaneously distort, refute, support and ignore the same truth) that will bring us into clarity, it will be our own god-given, critical-thinking, underappreciated minds.

pix from the rally

2006-08-15T01:42:00.000-04:00

i still don't know why blogger isn't letting me upload photos directly into a post (perhaps it's my snazzy new computer i'm still tinkering w/), but here they are anyway, via flickr

the glorious assumption

2006-08-15T01:16:00.000-04:00

the glory which thou hast given to me, i have given to them . . . . father, i desire that they also, whom thou hast given to me, may be w/ me where i am, to behold my glory which thou hast given to me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world (jn. 17.22, 24)

when we ponder the significance of the words just quoted, we see that the feast of the assumption must be one of the most humanistic festivals in the calendar of the church. it is not just a celebration of mary (though she is celebrated in it as an individual as well as a type and representative), it is @ the same time a celebration of redeemed humanity. sometimes theologians have in the name of xtianity denigrated the human race, dwelling on our sins and depravity, as if they could glorify god only by putting down man and emphasizing the infinite difference b/tw creator and creature. but surely that is not god's way and is contrary to his intentions as xtns have been taught to understand them. irenaeus, in some often quoted words, declared: 'the glory of god is a man fully alive [remember matt?]; and the life of man consists in beholding god.' these words give clear expression to what we understand by 'assumption.' god created human beings in his own image that they might enjoy communion w/ him, he sent his eternal son as the one who descended that he might also ascend again and bring w/ him the men and women whom he had gained in the world to share his glory w/ him. we are now coming in sight of the full scope of the dogma of the glorious assumption, and we can see it as one of the most hopeful and encouraging items in the church's belief, and one that gathers up the implications of many other doctrines, xtological, soteriological, anthropological and so on.

(from john macquarrie, mary for all xtns (grand rapids, mich.: eerdman's, 1990): 92)

dc4free#11:activism

2006-08-13T22:58:00.000-04:00

well, maybe "activism" is a bit of a stretch, but the woods got our feet wet a little bit.

ever since i developed a deep friendship w/ a palestinian guy during my anglican year of seminary, our family has been struggling to understand the political and human rights situation in israel/palestine (a year ago, i wouldn't have thought to say "israel/palestine," to be honest) and articulate some sort of a coherent position of our own. my bishop has been outspoken and visible in his support of the palestinian cause, but i'd never been to a rally or anything. so when a new friend told us about a rally in lafayette square supporting recently war-torn lebanon, we decided to check it out. a group called answer sponsored the rally, and no doubt i'd support some of their positions and oppose others (i don't know enough about the organization to know what they're really about), but the issues of the day were palestinian rights and bringing an end to the violence in lebanon, and i definitely can support those causes. we originally heard that 30,000 people were there, but the post reported official estimates of around 10,000. however many, it was a good experience.

you want to know what's weird? the thing i noticed most was how friendly the people were to us. that's obviously not what i went down there to find out, but despite the fact that we weren't bedecked in green, black, red and white (my st. paddy's sox cap notwithstanding), and we weren't carrying placards, the people @ the rally were so, i don't know, nice, i guess. sounds stupid, but that's something i noticed.

one other thing i did come away w/ -- this was the first time i'd attended a demonstration of this type and size, but it strikes me that despite how many good things may come from such events, they aren't optimal venues for gathering information and hammering out a position on whatever issue's got everybody riled up. issues like palestinian liberation, israeli military action in lebanon and hezbollah are too complex, too ephemeral to be decided or even really investigated on the basis of a series of 5-minute speeches yelled from a stage to a partisan crowd. maybe that's why i was moved more by the fleeting interaction w/ the people @ the rally than the speeches or the march. it seems i didn't care enough to put in the mental discipline to find a place to stand on the middle-east, @ least until i met a palestinian i came to know and love. sari's friendship spurred me to @ least get engaged, try to understand. maybe the people i brushed against yesterday will help me on my way.

(for some reason i can't upload pix of the rally to blogger, but there are a couple on flickr i can put in a separate post. sorry.)