conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

blueridge bound

Trish and I leave for the mountains of home today. There is yet another wedding to attend! Huzzah! Long and happy marrige to Todd and Emily. They too live in Chicago and have roots in Lynchburg.

We leave at five this afternoon.

This photo is from blueridgeblog. I love her stuff.

theology as performance: assembling an office

This man is preaching at my ordination: the enigmatic Trevor Bechtel. Have I mentioned that I am excited about this? I am excited to have him preach. I am excited about being ordained. And, to be candid, I am looking forward to just a little down time from all the transition.

si

I've been thinking a lot about this guy of late. Rockstar dreams and road trips. I have never performed Finnegan's Wake with such punkish glee before. I think I need to do that again.

Si, I am off to VA again today. Trish and I were thinking that you might wish to tag along. We could stay atthe cabin again.

healed, whole and holy - part two, are you qualified?

So it begins again:

The marvellous thing is that this holiness is nothing we can earn. We don't become holy by acquiring merit badges and Brownie points It has nothing to so with virtue or job descriptions or morality. It is nothing we can do in this do-it-yourself workd. It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognised and received. We do not have to be qualified to be holy. We do not have to be qualified to be whole or healed.

Art can be a helpful escape, a place of solace from the world's burdens. It can be a vehicle to articulate our hurts and burdens. Panacea. Solace. Grace. We participate in someone else's rage as articulated in art in order to give voice to our own. I think about Sting's "The Mothers of the Disappeared." That serves well. Are can give voice in image, song or through the written word. There is a scriptural basis for L'Engle's thinking in this. Such people as Moses come to mind for her.

In a very real sense, not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God contuinually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there is no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.

This speaks of being "a slave to Christ." Humility. Service. Discipline. Talent.

How are these ideas related for us? How do they seem oxymoronic or contraditory?

ordination vows

Here are the vows that will be in the service on Nov. 7th.

This should be pretty easy to live into...heh. Oy!

VOWS:

Leader: You have come here today to stand before God and these people, your community of faith in this church, in the wider American Baptist family and in the ecumenical body, in an act of love and submission to your God and as a declaration of your willingness to serve the Lord Jesus Christ as an ordained minister within the American Baptist Churches. Before God and these people, you are called to answer, in all sincerity of heart, these questions now asked of you.

Are you persuaded that God has called you to be ordained a minister in the church of Jesus Christ and are you ready to take upon yourself this holy ministry and to serve faithfully in the responsibilities of that calling?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I am.

Leader: Do you affirm your commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and your commitment to allow God�s Spirit to transform your life by the renewing of your mind, heart and soul?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I do.

Leader: Will you promise to be faithful in prayer, in the reading of scriptures and through study to deepen your knowledge of divine truth, human experience and the love of God?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I will.

Leader: Will you be faithful to the work to which you have been called: in preaching and teaching the Gospel, administering the Word and Table, and in exercising pastoral care and leadership?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I will.

Leader: Will you endeavor to reconcile those who are estranged, to bring individuals to a realization of their need for God and to declare to them God�s acceptance? And will you work toward greater understanding, love and trust between all God�s people throughout the world?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I will.

Leader: Will you offer your loyalty to the American Baptist Churches and as a minister in this denomination, will you work toward the unity of the whole body of Christ?

Candidate: By the grace of God, I will.

CHARGE TO THE ORDINAND:

As a minister of the Gospel, I beseech you to walk worthily of the calling by which you have been called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, giving diligence to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything, give thanks; hold fast that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. Give heed to reading; study to show yourself a minister approved of God�rightly handling the Word of Life. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought; but think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every person the measure of faith. Never be overcome by the evil around you but overcome evil with good. Do these things and you will be a good minister of Jesus the Christ.

the headline

I was elsewhwere...speaking with Larry about Jesus and Christian community or watching the lunar eclipse...and this happened.

Red Sox Erase 86 Years of Futility in a 4-Game Sweep of Cardinals

You can go to this link for more. (free registration yada yada)

healed, whole and holy - part one, I love to tell the story

L'Engle is an interesting woman. I am not sure what was going on in her life when she wrote this chapter, but she was very concerned that people in general were forgetting how to be creative, to create and appreciate art and religion. For her there is a misunderstanding of "growing up." It is not supposed to be about letting go of myth and story so that one might engage the world. Instead, it is a living more deply into story so that one might be a better adult and then witness to God's presence in the world. She says that this "letting go" is a sign of corruption akin to original sin: a loss of innocense. We must hold on to stories. They are spiritual identifiers. They hold truth in confidence for us. Any thing else is a sgn of corruption.

This attitude is a victory for the powers of the world. A friend of mine, a fine story-teller, remarked to me, "Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories"...St. Matthew says, "And he spoke to them in parables and without a parble he did not speak to them."

When the powers of this world denegrate and deny the value of story, life loses much of its meaning; and for many people in the world today, life has lost its meaning...

A story can critique us in ways that can mold and shape. It is not simply our job to critique a story (say...a parable), but to allow ourselves to be open to be shaped by the story. I imagine that L'Engle might not be a great fan of the historical critical method gone to the extreme as some say it has with the Jesus Seminar.

For L'Engle, art, story, can teach us to be healers, servants, seekers of truth. Their loss does more than inhibit our ability to live into these roles, to be obedient to God. Their loss signifies a loss in ourselves, a spiritual amputation if you will, where our abilities to be creative and responsive to the world and not to just drown in it are dulled if not destroyed.

This made me think of a hymn...

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know 'tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story; 'tis pleasant to repeat what seems,
Each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God's own holy Word.

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
'Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

- Words: A. Katherine Hankey, 1866
- Music: William G. Fischer, 1869
The lyrics are similar to those of "Tell Me the Old, Old Story."Both come from Hankey's original poem "The Old, Old Story." link

sleepyhead

Ah...to sleep, perchance to dream.

Yesterday I came home early. I stretchedout on the couch and that was iit until almost seven. I had an interesting three shifts. Monday at the hospital began at 8:30 and ended at 12:30am. It was not an overly stressful night, just a long one. I was in bed by 1:30-2:00 and up again at 5:00 so I could go back to the hospital to work some more. Yesterday was a great day at the hospital. I spent most of the day with my unit, even got in on the Thai food festivities for lunch (lad nar with tofu makes me very happy). I have been working hard to "break in" to the group there, to be seen as a useful part of the care team. Yesterday felt like a little success. I am glad for it.

No, for those who may be wondering, I did not sing to any patients.

Last night Trish and I went to Pier One to return some duplicate gifts and to take advantage of a sale. So, for $29.32, we came home with 12 napkins that match the table runner Trish likes, seven new coffee mugs to complete the set and a quilt rack for the bedroom. It was a fun trip. I love loot.

And, though I feel badly for Justin and the Cards...

GO SOX!

icons of the true - part two, the return of the incarnation

So, the last post got some interesting conversation going. It is interesting that we focused on the issue of incarnation and what it means. How would you all define it?

The appearance of God in the flesh? Emmanuel?
The Spirit of God rendered in sign and symbol?
Things that make you say "Hmmmm"?

L'Engle, as I said in one comment, is treading a fine line. As artists, and Chritians:

...We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful to never get set into rigid molds. The minute ewe think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.

Larry and Jane have sermons on this scripture. They may be helpful in unpacking the parable a little for us all. Anyway...Being a Christian artist is about being open to God. This is not the generic "In God We Trust" god that is supposed to cover all theological bases, but it is the Christian God. Now, before all the orthodox among us get all excited let me follow this with another quote.

If we fall into Satan's trap of assuming that other people are not Christian because they do not belong to our particular brand of Christianity, no wonder we become incapable of understanding the works of art produced by so-called non-Christians, whether they be athiests, Jews, Buddhisst, or anything else outside a frame of reference we have made into a closed rather than an open door.

So, it is not a matter of denominational affiliation or religious tradition, but it is always a matter of God.

Being a 1928 prayerbook Episcopalian, I assume she means Father, Son and Holy Ghost when she spaks of God. It is an interesting dialectic that she claims. I cannot tell if she is generous or if she is co-opting what she likes. It is hard to say.

Nevertheless, the issue of incarnation is one that plagues her.

She recognises that the listener, reader, onlooker is trapped within their own framework...their own culture...their own heads and lives. She trumps herself by saying that "religious art transcends its culture and reflects the eternal." Yes, all artists are reflections of their own time, but the work that they produce can transcend this limitation. She lists Bach, Mozart and Wagner as examples of musicians who do this. Yes, they reflect a period, but their art is a vehicle for revelation. It matters not if the baroque period is revealed or if the romantic period is revealed. It is that God is revealed that is essential and life-giving within this art.

The St Matthew Passion is an icon of the higest quality for me, an open door into the numinous. Bach, of course, was a man of deep and profound religious faith, a faith which shines through his most secular music. As a matter of fact, O sacred head now wounded, was the melody of a popular street song of the day, but Bach's religious genius was so great that it is now recognised as one of the most superb pieces of religious music ever written.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.

This is where she ends the chapter. Her final statement makes me think of the Paul (sorry, Megan) passage where he says that all things have been made new through Christ. I wonder if this is what L'Engle had in mind. God restores. God renews. God transforms. An icon is only and ever patina, paint and wood. That is all, but through the skill and faith (recognised or not?) of an artist coupled with the willing participation of an onlooker, it becomes an icon and not just an interesting picture. Um, somehow God works in this for her, though somehow God is limited by our being in teh way? Or not. She seems to say both and that may be appropriate for this very complicated subject.

I think she avoids the issue of "taste" in all of this, however, and it bothers me. What if I think baroque music is, well, dull? What if I prefer Rachmaninoff? Mozart? Heck, the Beatles or John Denver? What then? Am I an unwilling listener or am I too limited by culture so that I cannot perceive the divine sung before me? "The St Matthew Passion is an icon of the higest quality for me, an open door into the numinous." This line suggests she recognises the place of the individual within all this, but some of her other thinking causes me to doubt.

Do you think she believes that religious art is an objective thing? Is religiousness an objective quality?

icons of the true - part one, what makes religious art?

Here is a little more about Christianity and the arts. This second chapter of Walking on Water is less introduction and more about depth and discipline and finding God in surprising places.

Basically there can be no categories such as "religious" art and "secular" art, because all true art is incarnational and therefore "religious."

I think we could chew on that one for a bit.

L'Engle goes on to speak about proclaimed athiests who are really disillusioned faithful proclaiming God through their great skill and tallents. Their desire to proclaim a loving God, to deny the perceieved cruelty of the institutionalized God, comes to the fore as they witness through their creativity. Then she says that those little figurines that one finds in religious bookstores are not true art...and are therfore secular. It is an interesting chain of thought, though I think her conversation borders too much on the realm of taste and not faith.

For her, however, it is a question of suffering. Does art incarnate all of life, including suffering? "The son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his." This is a George MacDonald quote that L'Engle leans upon. Disillusionment, struggle, humor...a depth of experience that suggests moments of chosing that shape life and love and our engagement with the world all make for religious art. All religious art suggests choice and struggle.

But to serve any discipline of art, be it to chip a David out of an unweildy piece of marble, to take oils and put a clown on canvas, to write a drama about a young man who kills his father and marries his mother and suffers for these actions, to hear a melody and set notes down for a string quartet, is to affirm meaning, despite all the ambiguities and tragedies and misunderstandings which surround us.

Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

L'Engle also writes about religious icons, but that will be for another post. Still, let me share this because it speaks to some of my struggle of using music in my pastoral ministry at the hospital.

Icons are painted with firm discipline, much prayer, and anonymity. In this way the iconographer is enabled to get out of the way, to listen, to serve the work.

Art...music...confirms the compexities of life. It points to something beyond the composer or the performer. Music used in a pastoral setting may simply illuminate (name?) the pain of the moment, and in that illumination there may be healing. "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" may be a deep prayer that has nothing to do with my singing ability, my skill in choosing the appropriate song at the appropriate time or my relationship with the patient. Or does it? Certainly the relationship is central. To incarnate the presense of God, to get out of the way so that God may be manifested in my relationship with the patient as revealed in music is absolutely the point of this "performance." Without relationship, incarnation is impossible. Without the incarnation, all relationship is impossible.

I am still not certain where skill comes into the equation. I do not think that my having a good voice and some skill has a lot to do with whether or not my use of music would be pastoral. A poor singer can enter into the suffering of a patient and lead them out of suffering or allow them to assign greater meaning to their suffering. Their skill matters not. It is the compassion that matters.

civil disobedience

Been reading through a book of William Sloan Coffin's work. Interesting stuff. He can be strident and off-putting at times, but I like much of it.

Certain questions need rigorously to be answered before undertaking any act of civil disobedience: how clear and great is the evil one hopes to oppose by civil disobedience? How hopeless is the remedy within the law? Is it possible to be disobedient without harm to innocent people? And what is the possible efficacy of the act - though this of course is penultimate, never an ultimate consideration.

For further guidance one is really driven to one's knees. To Peter, of course, all was illuminated invitably and right, but for many of us, acts of civil disobedience will have to be undertaken with fear and trembling, perhaps out of a sense that not to disobey would be even worse.

I assume he is refering to Peter's healing in Acts and appearing before the Sanhedrin...Acts 5...(We ought to obey God rather than any human authority.) I dunno. Here I wish for a footnote.

Jesus was more, not less, than a prophet; more, not less, political than others. Only his were the politics of eternity. And the politics of eternity insist not only on non-violence - an affront to almost every revolutionary; they insist on "one world" - an affront to every nationalist. We shall begin to understand the politics of eternity when we recognize that territorial discrimination is as evil as racial discrimination.

What is interesting to explore in this last bit is that "race" is passive. One does not choose to be caucasian, for example. But one can choose national affiliation. That is often a conscious allegiance. Perhaps that makes it that much more insidious that we kill and are killed in the name of nationalism, of ideas, ideologies, powers and principalities...Christians especially should witness to the sin of this. The Reformation was a bloody time, not just a period of intense debate. Zwingli died on the battlefield...not in the pulpit...not on his knees before God in prayer or fasting. It is our great shame. Why then are we so quick to settle a score in the name of democracy? I do not understand this. Then again, it is early in the day. I could use a cup of coffee.

this day in 1945

The UN Charter was ratified.

Cool.

OTHER HEADLINES
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65-Cents Minimum Wage Urged by Schwellenbach:Secretary Tells House Group That 15-Cent Rise Is Needed Now and a 75-Cents-an-hour 'Floor' Ultimately

American Airlines Ends Chicago Trips Because of Strike:Suspension of Service Comes as UAW Seeks to Cripple Traffic All Over Nation: Flights Maintained Here: National Mediation Board to Send Representatives to Make Inquiry in 2 Disputes

Korea's Division Held Bar to Moves to Independence:Yalta Accord, Separating North from South, Keeps Badly Needed Coal and Railway Cars From American Area

City's Plans Made for Gala Navy Day and Truman Visit:President to Ride in Motorcade to and From Navy Yard to Commission the Roosevelt: To Speak in Central Park: Will Have Luncheon Aboard the Missouri and Then Review Fleet for Two Hours

Japan Told to Set Press, Radio Free:Editors and Officials Warned by U.S. on Concealing and Distorting the News

Arabs Plan Oil Ban if U.S. Aids Zionism:American Firms Face Loss of Concessions in Reprisal for Intervention

Balkan Elections to Ignore Allies; Regimes Backed by Reds to Stay

Vote of 325,000 GM Men Expected to Bring Strike

Forecast '46 Rise in Factory Profits:Experts Report to DWMR That Gains Will Be 6 Billions, Enough for Higher Wages

150,000 at Zionist Rally Here; Britain Assailed on White Paper

Soviet's Approval Instrument Is Deposited, Bringing Total to Required Minimum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BYRNES SIGNS PROTOCOL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secretary and Stettinius, in Statement Sent to Ceremony, Hail Peace Structure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By BERTRAM D. HULEN
Special to The New York Times

Washington, Oct. 24--The United Nations World Security Organization came into being when the Soviet Government in mid-afternoon deposited its instrument of ratification, the twenty-ninth necessary to bring this about, and James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, then signed the protocol at 4:50 o'clock, Eastern standard time, formally attesting that the Charter of the United Nations has come into force.

In signing the protocol Mr. Byrnes said the Charter was now a "part of the law of nations" and that it was "a memorable day for the peace-loving peoples of all nations." But he warned that peace depended upon the will of the peoples for peace rather than upon documents.

The ceremony of signing took place in the reception room of the Secretary of State before press, radio and picture representatives, but without foreign diplomats being present, because of inadequate time to notify them after the Soviet Government had acted. William Benton, assistant secretary, and Archibald MacLeish, former assistant secretary, were present along with a few subordinate officials of the department.

It took only two minutes, Mr. Byrnes reading a brief statement, and then using two pens to sign the protocol.

He will give one of the pens to Cordell Hull, whom the late President Roosevelt termed "the father of the United Nations." He may keep the other pen himself, or possibly give it to President Truman, he said, if he couldn't talk the President out of it.

Under the terms of the charter the five big powers and a majority of the smaller countries, or 29 out of a total of 51, had to deposit their ratifications for the charter to become effective.

Great Britain took this action on Saturday and Egypt followed on Monday, but four more were still necessary. Poland brought her instrument to the Department this morning. A few minutes after 3 o'clock this afternoon Fedor T. Orekhov, first secretary of the Soviet Embassy, brought the instruments of ratification of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and, as the 29th ratification, the instrument of the U.S.S.R.

He took all three to the Hill building, an adjunct of the State Department at 17th and I Streets, N.W., two blocks from the main building of the department, and gave them, as required, to the Department's Division of Treaties.

While the Russian action was regarded as a happy augury at a time when relations with the Soviet are clouded and she is still holding back from attending the forthcoming meeting of the Far Eastern Advisory Commission, Secretary Byrnes referred only to the broader significance of the event in his remarks before he affixed his signature to the protocol, and again pledged the United States to cooperation for peace.

Byrnes Hails "Memorable Day"

"The United Nations Charter is now a part of the law of nations," said Mr. Byrnes. "This is a memorable day for the peace-loving peoples of all nations.

"As I have frequently said, the maintenance of peace depends not upon any document, but upon what is in the minds and hearts of men. But the peoples of this earth who yearn for peace must be organized to maintain the peace. This charter provides the organization."

Edward R. Stettinius Jr., former Secretary of State, who piloted the Charter first at Dumbarton Oaks and then at San Francisco and is now our representative with the United Nations, expressed his delight in a statement sent here, and added:

"I am sure the American people share with me a strong sense of the significance of this occasion and are prepared to give their full support to the United Nations to the end that our common aim of building a new and better world shall be attained."

The executive committee of the preparatory commission of the United Nations on which the representatives of fourteen nations are serving, is scheduled to complete its meetings in London this week. Then, in November, the full preparatory commission of representatives of the fifty-one nations is due to meet, act on recommendations of the executive committee and set a date and place for an organization meeting of the General Assembly.

Tentative plans call for the assembly to meet in London on Dec. 4. It will consider the recommendation of the preparatory commission and set the date for the first formal session of the world organization.

Forecasts have been made that this would be held in the city permanently selected as headquarters of the United Nations, probably San Francisco, and on April 25, the first anniversary of the opening of the San Francisco conference at which the charter was drafted.

By Cable to The New York Times

Bogota, Colombia, Oct. 24--President Lleras Camargo gave final approval to the United Nations charter today at a ceremony attended by the Cabinet, the speakers of both houses of Congress and heads of United Nations diplomatic missions.

merton speaks

Sometimes I think Merton is nuts. Then there are these little gems that make me think that I must be the one who is nuts.

We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of forgone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture.

He's right on target here and I appreciate his words. Wow. How do you all experience this interaction of a growing faith and "inner life" or "outward gesture?" This is a quote I would like to place near the altar at Reconciler. What a great reminder for us all. Theosis is a difficult concept to explain to many. Merton's comment serves well in helping my understanding.

gitali 33 - cosmos from the chaos

While following the path all alone,
I see that my lamp has gone out.

The storm has come,
and now I have the storm as my companion.

Every now and then in a corner of the sky
Destruction lets out a mad laugh.

Calamity revels
on my head.

All this has force me to lose the path
I had been going along.

Now, which way must I go
in the inky darkness?

Perhaps the thunder-clap
will give me news of a fresh path.

Where can I go
so my night changes to day?

Been reading Walking on Water and finding it challenging and helpful.

She asks a good question:

Why is it that I, who have spent my life writing, struggling to be a better artist, and struggling also to be a better Christian, should I feel rebellious when I am called a Christian artist? Why should I feel reluctant to write about Christian creativity?

This is a great question for me to entertain. Why would it be a struggle to combine the two? Why the fear? I am a musician and a Christian. Heck, music is a significant part of why I am Christian at all. It is such an irony to me that I am afraid of its potential as a pastoral care tool.

But then that may be the problem. Music has never been a "tool" for me. It has always and ever been solace and gift, grace harmonized. It may read a little meoldramatic, but it is true. This is what music has been for me. It is healing.

Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madnessin the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to the strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go of our sane self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting go is part of listening to the silence and to the Spirit.

This seems true to me...the fear of encountering God and enfleshing God. It is not so much to "be spiritual" and finding God there waiting for us. God's love can be a shelter in sstorms. The trouble is that God is fleshy, incranational, and as such our lives are changed, how we create and engage relationships is changed by our encounter with God. God's will transforms us. What a tired phrase, but it is true. This is where the fear is for me. "I have gifted you with music, shrouded you in music. Can you not enflesh me and gift others? Enshroud others?"

Rats. This accountability thing is a real kicker, no?

Leonard Bernstein tells me more that the dictionary when he says that for him music is cosmos in chaos.

She speaks of obedience and service and how one gleans from the chaos the wider and deeper presense of God. In art, memory becomse sacred (anamnesis anyone?). It becomes coherent and real, perhaps healing, perhaps troubling, but it is nonetheless lifted out of the chaos and articulated as truth. "Do this in remebrance of me."

Maybe I'll say more later.

unreal

They won.

They actually did it. They spanked the Yankees. This is a good, good day.

Vincent Laforet/ The New York Times

Jubilant Red Sox players celebrating at Yankee Stadium after erasing a three-game deficit and beating the Yankees in Game 7, 10-3, to advance to the World Series against St. Louis or Houston.

gitali 66 and liturgical thoughts

O Pilot,
this time if You have reached the shore,
leave the helm
and take me by the hand.

For a moment
seat me at Your side on Your forest grass.

My nights have passed
rolling with the waves.

O Helmsman,
if my home is not far away,
if that's my homeward flute
playing a morning tune,
O for the last time play in my heart
in a tune of tears
Your flute of the way
under the wayside tree.

Some of my SWTS friends may be a little disappointed by the ordination service. I hope not, but disillusionment does that to a person. I keep hearing things like "I can't wait to see what a Baptist ordination service is like!" This is a generous curiosity and I appreciate it. I just wonder if they realize that here is no one/prescribed/traditional way for an ordination to happen.

I get to put the service together. That is a tradition.
There will be laying on of hands and a charge to the Ordinand.
Someone has to preach.

That is about it. I will have communion. No one at the meeting last night has seen communion at an ordination service. One person asked if there would then be no communion at the morning service (first Sunday of the month!) since we were having it that night. Um...communion offered twice in one day may challenge some Baptists at NSBC. So, communion is atypical...maybe.

The Prayers of the People will be from the BCP. This is not unusual. The last guy North Shore ordained used the BCP almost exclusively. I am hoping that a strong SWTS presense will give this some appropriate energy.

In any case, I think it shall be a fun service. I am looking forward to it. I am hoping for a good party afterward at the reception. A good day. Heh.

who am I voting for?

You Should Vote for Ralph Nader.

Sorry - Shirts and Shoes are Required in the Voting Booth.

Well, that's depressing.

walking on water

Madeleine L'Engle wrote a lovely volume entitled Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. I have decided to use it for part of my CPE study. As some of you recall, I pitched a whine about music and its place in my life a week or more ago. More than once, my talent as a musician has been a subject of conversation here at the hospital. People expect that my musicianship is or should be an active part of my ministry. I have often thought it was. I sing in choir. I lead singing at church. I play in the band. The usual drill, if you will. I think that my fellow residents have something else in mind.

Should I be singing to the patients? One of my colleagues does. She is from Arica and sings hymns and service music to her patients on the hospice floor. I have never had the guts (gall on bad days) to do such a thing, but I am hearing the challenge differently and think I need to do some more active discernment of how or if my musical gifts should eb used similarly. I just do not know, but I hear the questions and wonder myself why I do not sing (play) as part of an active pastoral ministry.

So, I thought I'd get back into this book and see what it has to offer me. I have other books on church musicians and the like, but this one came off the shelf as something useful. This is the quote from the back jacket.

To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth giver. In a very real sense the artist should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me."

Huh. Live into that one, you Baptist. Ha!

twosday stuffe

Um...let's see...

The Times has an article about the latest develpments in the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality. It is worth the read. Dave has been trying to print up the 93 page document at the SWTS computer lab. I wonder if his task is complete of if the printer is still posessed.

I spent a little time last night working on my ordination service bulletin. It is official. My this is a huge deal. Wow.

Lord Willing and The Creek Don't Rise
North Shore Baptist Church Will Ordain
Tripp Hudgins
to The Christian Ministry
on the (movable) Feast of All Saints
November 7, 2004
4pm

Trevor Bechtel, guest Preacher

So, everybody come who can. I am encouraging those interested to sing in the choir that day. More information about that is to follow. Wow.

Peace and all good things.

weekend in review

All the world is liturgy...just chewing on these words lately. I wrote a verbatim for CPE that i entitled "Where Do I Put the Pulpit?" That was fun. I had a patient reveal to me that I was in her congregation. Those were her words, not mine. So, I've been resting in those words. Then the care coordinators were asking me about the differences between Protestant and Catholic when someone said "You know, we need a Bible study...you know, something specific to the hospital."

Wow. Um, okay. So, this has been on my mind over the weekend.

Friday was an odd day for me. We were short-staffed at the hospital, so things were busy. But I was exhausted from my week. We spent a lot of time last week digging in the dirt during our CPE group work and then there was the ordination commission...urggle. I was beat, so Friday was tough. That evening, Trish and I went to a party. There were some folk who are friends of Trish's from college who were unable to come to the wedding. They invited several people over for conversation and pizza. It was fun. i stayed up past my bedtime...which is quickly becoming 9:00pm. How did I get old?

Saturday, Cliff and I went to New Buffalo to get one last antique which Trish and I had purchased on our honeymoon. Cliff has a "mid-sized" SUV and the baker's hutch fit perfectly. It was great to see Cliff. We spoke about Delane (Cliff had driven Anna and Sofie to MI to meet her parents so that they could all go together to PA where Delane is being treated). We spoke about how political liberals are really pessimists. This is how this liberal sees it at least. We spoke about the latest Lambeth conference and what the results could mean to our Episcopal brothers and sisters. We spoke of John Calvin (His Name Be Praised). I have missed my time with Cliff. We are good friends. Blog entries are an incomplete witness to our relationship.

Saturday night I was at the hospital. It was steady, not horrific.

Sunday was busy. I am slowly getting used to thinking of it as a work day. I had not quite finished the sermon, so after attending North Shore and going out to Augie's for brunch I came home to work. I find this work wondrous. I am so fortunate to find (to be found by?) this vocation has been gifted to me. Things look rosy right now. I'll enjoy that while I can.

Here is a little quote from Tertullian, an early apologist and theologian. He may have been made a saint had he not joined up with the gnostics in the end. Ah well, no one is perfect?

We wage a battle when we are challenged to face the tribunals of law. There, in peril of life, we give testimony for the truth. Guards and informers bring up accusations against the Christians as sexual deviants and murderers, blasphemers and traitors, enemies of public life, desecrators of temples, and criminals against the religion of Rome. Look, you do not deal with us in accordance with the formalities of criminal cases even though you consider the Christian guilty of every crime and an enemy of the gods, emperors, laws, morals; yes, of the whole of nature. �You do not,� so they tell us, �worship the gods, nor do you make sacrifices to the emperors.� Accordingly we are charged with sacrilege and high treason.

Here is the book by Eberhardt Arnold.

AKMA has this to share about Tertullian. I love trading cards.

Have a good day!

sermon

This is the sermon preached at Reconciler tonight.

Psalm 119:97-104
Jeremiah 31:27-32
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Are your ears itching? Mine are.

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray always and not lose heart.

I was sitting there in an uncomfortable chair, dry-mouthed and stunned. One of the members of the Ordination Commission had asked me about my answer to the first essay question: Please share with us a concise statement of your faith. Somehow the Apostles' Creed* was not sufficient. So, I sat there stupidly while the seconds ticked away...What were they looking for?

What do you believe, Tripp?

Um...well...(The Creed is my answer...I don't know what else to say.)

I had no idea what they were looking for. Then Pastor Carol rescued me. God bless that woman.

"Tripp, how would you say it? I mean, could you preach the Creed?" She smiled as she asked the question.
"Sure! What part?" I responded.
Carol answered, "'And on the third day he rose again from the dead...' Pretend it's Easter and give me the first paragraph of your sermon."

Her response freed me. I spoke about mystery and hope, of renewal and promise. I brought to the fore themes of the Resurrection...how the impossible history of our tradition allows these things, these themes, to be possible. From there the interview continued.

I'm glad that Carol was there to bail me out. I'm glad she was there to help me understand exactly what it was they were asking. But I've been puzzled as to why the question was so hard for me. Then a line from our Gospel reading was given to e to preach.

pray always and do not lose heart

Huh. What does this mean?
Am I reading correctly that somehow prayer and hope are connected? Really? I want to ask the stupid question...Why? Why does it matter? Why pray and why not lose heart?

This is the skeptic in me speaking. This is the voice in me that stubbornly denies faith and hope and charity - the mysteries of our shared tradition. Our faith is a challenging one and it asks us to trust in a the midst of uncertainty, to go along with a Savior who dies to bring life.

In this passage about the judge and the widdow, I imagine the disciples on one of their bad days. This is not one of those days when Peter is walking on water or when someone else may be healing in the name of Jesus. This is one of those days when you wonder why it is that Jesus singled them all out. I imagine them saying, "Pray? You want us to pray? But, Jesus, prayer doesn't do anything...not really. I mean, maybe I relax a little or get something off my chest, but c'mon. Keep praying? Really?"

The emphatic answer to this skepticism is "Yes! Yes, really."

God is greater than our skepticism and doubt.

And yet there is skepticism and doubt. I still wrestle with it in my own life.

Hear again the words of Paul.

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

There will be competing voices within your own heart. Your own ears will itch. Standing firm and not losing heart...with prayer to uphold you is easier said than done sometimes midst such noise.

The scripture lessons speak to us of the competing voices in this world. There are "false ways." Sometimes these ways come from voices within...sometimes from without. Our ears do itch. This is, at least, what I experience.

Still we are asked to reside somewhere, we are called to bear up persistently, to proclaim, to convince, encourage and even rebuke (the greatest of challenges in a community is to rebuke in love), but all of these happen within the person of Christ Jesus. Through constant prayer and not losing heart. We must pray.

Jeremiah also holds a promise before us.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they teach one another, "Know the LORD", for they shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive them their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

God will act.

Bear patiently and live the life you have been given and God will act, showering forgiveness upon us.

There is hope.
There is mystery.
There is redemption.
There is reconciliation.

There are also itching ears and false ways.

But God will not be overcome by these.

The struggle I had with the question from the ordination interview becomes clearer for me now.

You see, the themes from our tradition have never been difficult for me. Rebirth I get. Hope? Sure. Mystery? Eh...yep. The thing I always had trouble with is the Creed*. This is where my ears would itch. This is where my struggles are.

All of the work that Paul assigns Timothy, all the things that Paul swears are true, are handed to him from Jesus. Timothy's work cannot come to fruition without the faith proclaimed within the Creed.

For the Christian. the hope of Jeremiah would be false hope without the faith stated in the Creed.

Certainly, the parable from The Galilean is just a clever story without the impossible truth proclaimed in the Creed.

You see now? Without belief in the content of the Creed, these themes are nothing.

Please share with us a concise statement of your faith.

My answer is the same...only this time, my ears don't itch so much.

*I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.

bush for president

Hermann Hesse

We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard heartedness, all indiffer�ence, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering every�where, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.

The Chicago Tribune has thrown its support to W. Excuse me as a sit stunned.

Here is the article from the Trib's Op/Ed section.

George W. Bush for president

October 17, 2004

One by one, Americans typically settle on a presidential candidate after weighing his, and his rival's, views on the mosaic of issues that each of us finds important.

Some years, though, force vectors we didn't anticipate turn some of our usual priorities--our pet causes, our own economic interest--into narcissistic luxuries. As Election Day nears, the new force vectors drive our decision-making.

This is one of those years--distinct in ways best framed by Sen. John McCain, perhaps this country's most broadly respected politician. Seven weeks ago, McCain looked with chilling calm into TV cameras and told Americans, with our rich diversity of clashing worldviews, what is at stake for every one of us in the first presidential election since Sept. 11 of 2001:

"So it is, whether we wished it or not, that we have come to the test of our generation, to our rendezvous with destiny. ... All of us, despite the differences that enliven our politics, are united in the one big idea that freedom is our birthright and its defense is always our first responsibility. All other responsibilities come second." If we waver, McCain said, "we will fail the one mission no American generation has ever failed--to provide to our children a stronger, better country than the one we were blessed to inherit."

This year, each of us has the privilege of choosing between two major-party candidates whose integrity, intentions and abilities are exemplary.

One of those candidates, Sen. John Kerry, embraces an ongoing struggle against murderous terrorists, although with limited U.S. entanglements overseas. The other candidate, President George W. Bush, talks more freely about what is at risk for this country: the cold-eyed possibility that fresh attacks no better coordinated than those of Sept. 11--but with far deadlier weapons--could ravage American metropolises. Bush, then, embraces a bolder struggle not only with those who sow terror, but also with rogue governments that harbor, finance or arm them.

This was a radical strategy when the president articulated it in 2001, even as dust carrying the DNA of innocents wafted up from ground zero. And it is the unambiguous strategy that, as this page repeatedly has contended, is most likely to deliver the more secure future that John McCain wishes for our children.

A President Kerry certainly would punish those who want us dead. As he pledged, with cautiously calibrated words, in accepting his party's nomination: "Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response." Bush, by contrast, insists on taking the fight to terrorists, depriving them of oxygen by encouraging free and democratic governments in tough neighborhoods. As he stated in his National Security Strategy in 2002: "The United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. ... We cannot let our enemies strike first."

Bush's sense of a president's duty to defend America is wider in scope than Kerry's, more ambitious in its tactics, more prone, frankly, to yield both casualties and lasting results. This is the stark difference on which American voters should choose a president.

There is much the current president could have done differently over the last four years. There are lessons he needs to have learned. And there are reasons--apart from the global perils likely to dominate the next presidency--to recommend either of these two good candidates.

But for his resoluteness on the defining challenge of our age--a resoluteness John Kerry has not been able to demonstrate--the Chicago Tribune urges the re-election of George W. Bush as president of the United States.

- - -

Bush, his critics say, displays an arrogance that turns friends into foes. Spurned at the United Nations by "Old Europe"--France, Germany, Russia--he was too long in admitting he wanted their help in a war. He needs to acknowledge that his country's future interests are best served by fixing frayed friendships. And if re-elected, he needs to accomplish that goal.

But that is not the whole story. Consider:

Bush has nurtured newer alliances with many nations such as Poland, Romania and Ukraine (combined population, close to 110 million) that want more than to be America's friends: Having seized their liberty from tyrants, they are determined now to be on the right side of history.

Kerry is an internationalist, a man of conspicuous intellect. He is a keen student of world affairs and their impact at home.

But that is not the whole story. Consider:

On the most crucial issue of our time, Kerry has serially dodged for political advantage. Through much of the 2004 election cycle, he used his status as a war hero as an excuse not to have a coherent position on America's national security. Even now, when Kerry grasps a microphone, it can be difficult to fathom who is speaking--the war hero, or the anti-war hero.

Kerry displays great faith in diplomacy as the way to solve virtually all problems. Diplomatic solutions should always be the goal. Yet that principle would be more compelling if the world had a better record of confronting true crises, whether proffered by the nuclear-crazed ayatollahs of Iran, the dark eccentrics of North Korea, the genocidal murderers of villagers in Sudan--or the Butcher of Baghdad.

In each of these cases, Bush has pursued multilateral strategies. In Iraq, when the UN refused to enforce its 17th stern resolution--the more we learn about the UN's corrupt Oil-for-Food program, the more it's clear the fix was in--Bush acted. He thus reminded many of the world's governments why they dislike conservative and stubborn U.S. presidents (see Reagan, Ronald).

Bush has scored a great success in Afghanistan--not only by ousting the Taliban regime and nurturing a new democracy, but also by ignoring the chronic doubters who said a war there would be a quagmire. He and his administration provoked Libya to surrender its weapons program, turned Pakistan into an ally against terrorists (something Bill Clinton's diplomats couldn't do) and helped shut down A.Q. Khan, the world's most menacing rogue nuclear proliferator.

Many of these cross-currents in Bush's and Kerry's worldviews collide in Iraq.

Bush arguably invaded with too few allies and not enough troops. He will go to his tomb defending his reliance on intelligence from agencies around the globe that turned out to be wrong. And he has refused to admit any errors.

Kerry, though, has lost his way. The now-professed anti-war candidate says he still would vote to authorize the war he didn't vote to finance. He used the presidential debates to telegraph a policy of withdrawal. His Iraq plan essentially is Bush's plan. All of which perplexes many.

Worse, it plainly perplexes Kerry. ("I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat," he said Oct. 8, adding that Bush was preoccupied with Iraq, "where there wasn't a threat.") What's not debatable is that Kerry did nothing to oppose White House policy on Iraq until he trailed the dovish Howard Dean in the race for his party's nomination. Also haunting Kerry: his Senate vote against the Persian Gulf war--driven by faith that, yes, more diplomacy could end Saddam Hussein's rape of Kuwait.

- - -

On domestic issues, the choice is also clear. In critical areas such as public education and health care, Bush's emphasis is on greater competition. His No Child Left Behind Act has flaws, but its requirements have created a new climate of expectation and accountability. On both of these important fronts, but especially with his expensive health-care plan, Kerry primarily sees a need to raise and spend more money.

The failure of either candidate to offer spending and taxation proposals that remotely approach balancing the federal budget is an embarrassment to both. The non-partisan Concord Coalition calculates the 10-year impact of Bush's proposals as a negative $1.33 trillion; the impact of Kerry's is a nearly identical $1.27 trillion. Kerry correctly cites the disturbingly expensive legacy of Bush's tax cuts--while, in the same breath, promising new tax cuts of his own.

This is a genre of American fiction that Bush, if he is re-elected, cannot perpetuate. To Bush's credit, his tax policies have had the aggregate effect of pushing Americans toward more savings and investment--the capital with which the world's strongest economy generates jobs. But he has not shown the necessary discipline on discretionary spending. Two particularly egregious examples: Medicare prescription drug coverage and an enormously expensive farm subsidy bill, both signed by Bush.

This country's paramount issue, though, remains the threat to its national security.

John Kerry has been a discerning critic of where Bush has erred. But Kerry's message--a more restrained assault on global threats, earnest comfort with the international community's noble inaction--suggests what many voters sense: After 20 years in the Senate, the moral certitude Kerry once displayed has evaporated. There is no landmark Kennedy-Kerry Education Act, no Kerry-Frist Health Bill. Today's Kerry is more about plans and process than solutions. He is better suited to analysis than to action. He has not delivered a compelling blueprint for change.

For three years, Bush has kept Americans, and their government, focused--effectively--on this nation's security. The experience, dating from Sept. 11, 2001, has readied him for the next four years, a period that could prove as pivotal in this nation's history as were the four years of World War II.

That demonstrated ability, and that crucible of experience, argue for the re-election of President George W. Bush. He has the steadfastness, and the strength, to execute the one mission no American generation has ever failed.

Copyright � 2004, Chicago Tribune

kerry for president

Hermann Hesse

We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard heartedness, all indiffer�ence, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering every�where, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.

The NY Times endorses Kerry. I know Cliif is shocked.

Here is the article from the Times.

John Kerry for President

enator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.

�

There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right.

Mr. Bush installed John Ashcroft, a favorite of the far right with a history of insensitivity to civil liberties, as attorney general. He sent the Senate one ideological, activist judicial nominee after another. He moved quickly to implement a far-reaching anti-choice agenda including censorship of government Web sites and a clampdown on embryonic stem cell research. He threw the government's weight against efforts by the University of Michigan to give minority students an edge in admission, as it did for students from rural areas or the offspring of alumni.

When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed. No Child Left Behind, his signature domestic program, imposed higher standards on local school systems without providing enough money to meet them.

If Mr. Bush had wanted to make a mark on an issue on which Republicans and Democrats have long made common cause, he could have picked the environment. Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor chosen to run the Environmental Protection Agency, came from that bipartisan tradition. Yet she left after three years of futile struggle against the ideologues and industry lobbyists Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had installed in every other important environmental post. The result has been a systematic weakening of regulatory safeguards across the entire spectrum of environmental issues, from clean air to wilderness protection.

�

The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.

The president's refusal to drop his tax-cutting agenda when the nation was gearing up for war is perhaps the most shocking example of his inability to change his priorities in the face of drastically altered circumstances. Mr. Bush did not just starve the government of the money it needed for his own education initiative or the Medicare drug bill. He also made tax cuts a higher priority than doing what was needed for America's security; 90 percent of the cargo unloaded every day in the nation's ports still goes uninspected.

Along with the invasion of Afghanistan, which had near unanimous international and domestic support, Mr. Bush and his attorney general put in place a strategy for a domestic antiterror war that had all the hallmarks of the administration's normal method of doing business: a Nixonian obsession with secrecy, disrespect for civil liberties and inept management.

American citizens were detained for long periods without access to lawyers or family members. Immigrants were rounded up and forced to languish in what the Justice Department's own inspector general found were often "unduly harsh" conditions. Men captured in the Afghan war were held incommunicado with no right to challenge their confinement. The Justice Department became a cheerleader for skirting decades-old international laws and treaties forbidding the brutal treatment of prisoners taken during wartime.

Mr. Ashcroft appeared on TV time and again to announce sensational arrests of people who turned out to be either innocent, harmless braggarts or extremely low-level sympathizers of Osama bin Laden who, while perhaps wishing to do something terrible, lacked the means. The Justice Department cannot claim one major successful terrorism prosecution, and has squandered much of the trust and patience the American people freely gave in 2001. Other nations, perceiving that the vast bulk of the prisoners held for so long at Guant�namo Bay came from the same line of ineffectual incompetents or unlucky innocents, and seeing the awful photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, were shocked that the nation that was supposed to be setting the world standard for human rights could behave that way.

�

Like the tax cuts, Mr. Bush's obsession with Saddam Hussein seemed closer to zealotry than mere policy. He sold the war to the American people, and to Congress, as an antiterrorist campaign even though Iraq had no known working relationship with Al Qaeda. His most frightening allegation was that Saddam Hussein was close to getting nuclear weapons. It was based on two pieces of evidence. One was a story about attempts to purchase critical materials from Niger, and it was the product of rumor and forgery. The other evidence, the purchase of aluminum tubes that the administration said were meant for a nuclear centrifuge, was concocted by one low-level analyst and had been thoroughly debunked by administration investigators and international vetting. Top members of the administration knew this, but the selling went on anyway. None of the president's chief advisers have ever been held accountable for their misrepresentations to the American people or for their mismanagement of the war that followed.

The international outrage over the American invasion is now joined by a sense of disdain for the incompetence of the effort. Moderate Arab leaders who have attempted to introduce a modicum of democracy are tainted by their connection to an administration that is now radioactive in the Muslim world. Heads of rogue states, including Iran and North Korea, have been taught decisively that the best protection against a pre-emptive American strike is to acquire nuclear weapons themselves.

�

We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge. Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis.

Mr. Bush remains enamored of tax cuts but he has never stopped Republican lawmakers from passing massive spending, even for projects he dislikes, like increased farm aid.

If he wins re-election, domestic and foreign financial markets will know the fiscal recklessness will continue. Along with record trade imbalances, that increases the chances of a financial crisis, like an uncontrolled decline of the dollar, and higher long-term interest rates.

The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management. The Department of Education's handling of the No Child Left Behind Act has been heavily politicized and inept. The Department of Homeland Security is famous for its useless alerts and its inability to distribute antiterrorism aid according to actual threats. Without providing enough troops to properly secure Iraq, the administration has managed to so strain the resources of our armed forces that the nation is unprepared to respond to a crisis anywhere else in the world.

�

Mr. Kerry has the capacity to do far, far better. He has a willingness - sorely missing in Washington these days - to reach across the aisle. We are relieved that he is a strong defender of civil rights, that he would remove unnecessary restrictions on stem cell research and that he understands the concept of separation of church and state. We appreciate his sensible plan to provide health coverage for most of the people who currently do without.

Mr. Kerry has an aggressive and in some cases innovative package of ideas about energy, aimed at addressing global warming and oil dependency. He is a longtime advocate of deficit reduction. In the Senate, he worked with John McCain in restoring relations between the United States and Vietnam, and led investigations of the way the international financial system has been gamed to permit the laundering of drug and terror money. He has always understood that America's appropriate role in world affairs is as leader of a willing community of nations, not in my-way-or-the-highway domination.

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.

fragmented life and mumblings of such

...and everything that is hurt, everything that seemed to us dark, harsh and shameful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is in Him transformed and recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His light we awaken as the Beloved in every last part of our body. -Symeon The New Theologian, 949-1022 A.D.

Praise my soul the King of Heaven...for some reason this hymn is running through my head. It is unceasing...and a little unnerving.

Today has been a good day at the hospital, but I have not been so able to enjoy it. The week has been full, almost too full. We have been going through our mid-term evaluations. This year-long program is divided into three terms. The first began on September first. It is amazing to think that we are half way through. Honestly, this year will be done before I have even started to get my head on straight. I am barely afloat.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray and not to lose heart.

This is what it feels like to be working in the midst of chaos. That is what a hospital is. There are systems and rules and governance and yet it cannot contain the chaos. All it can do is stand in the face of it and respond. It can welcome the chaos and make room for it. That is all. The structures are for our protection. They rest, well, the rest is the shared wisdom and knowledge of medical staff, patients, chaplains, administrators and others. The chaos is overwhelming. The hospital is huge. But somehow it is right....good (meet and right).

I am resting in the arms of its structure right now. I wear the "hot pager" and know who I can call about what. I can respond to the surging tide. If no one can help me, I know that I can go to the place of concern and stand in the chaos myself.

I have been reminded lately that I am an introvert. I love people and sometimes forget that my limitations are not where I think they are. The loving and lovely journey of getting married has taken its toll. The same can be said for ordination. That journey is not quite over as there is a worship service to plan. Glorious stuff! But I am bushed. Whew!

There is still the thesis. A friend offered to hold on to books for me, or to check out new ones. I am not certain that my library card at SWTS is still valid. They are all due October 28th. I will have another draft by then. I love my friends.

Then CPE is doing its work. I have been speaking with my companions about some of my musical frustrations and they have voiced what they think I should do. I am still uncertain. I never knew I was so selfish about my music before now. Good to learn, really. I am one who believes that God does not gift us for no reason. So, then the next odyssey is that search. It will be one of many I embark upon in this year.

And certainly not least is the church plant. Reconciler is a good place. Do please pray for us as we feel our way in this. God is calling. It is our response that I am struggling to articulate.

Brave the chaos. That's my job...to brave the chaos and perchance to sleep. See y'all Monday. The computer is down for now at home and the weekend is a busy one.

Pax!

unanimous!

It is done.

My second ordination interview was lively and challenging...and they approved me for ordination by North Shore Baptist Church.

So, um, yeah.

Tah dah!

Come to North Shore on November 7, 2004. I'll post an invitation with the time and everything later (4:00?). But there you have it. Trish is to be a pastor's wife!

Henri J. M. Nouwen
We have been called to be fruitful--not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.

debate forethinking

My only line for tonight's debate is this:

Now girls, try to get along. You're both pretty.

evaluations

Went through mid-term evals. They went quite well. Took five hours for three of us, but that's how it is with a bunch of pastors. Oy.

Then I went to Wes' blog. This would have been better, I think.

You are water. You're not really organic; you're
neither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acid
and a base at the same time. You're strong
willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready
to flow. So while you often seem worthless,
without you, everything would just not work.
People should definitely drink more of you
every day.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yeah. It is a good sign, I think. As a Baptist I should be water. Makes sense somehow. Maybe it is a positive sign for what is to come tomorrow. Who knows?

wednesday morning update

1. Bugger the Yanks.
2. Working on my mid-term eval this morning for CPE. Eh. It's okay.
3. Tomorrow morning at 10:00am I will sit before the Baptist firing squad known as the Ordination Commission. This is the final meeting I have with them. If I have pulled the wool over their eyes and they do not call me the heretic I am, then I will be ordained on November 7th. So, the next couple of days are big.

Thanks. That's what I got. Off to finish the eval. Pax!

Oh, right. Thanks again Kate! The pink pj's are great!

general overview of life these days: the abbey pub and creative commons

So, does anyone really watch baseball on TV?

Anyway...This is a post about general news and an experience I had at the Abbey Pub recently that has taken its toll on me. First, the news.

I carry a pager at work. One of the funky options from this service is that we get littel news briefs and weather reports. Kinda cool really. I could check baseball scores when a Cub's game was on during the day. Huzzah! Today there was a little blurb about Creative Commons finally getting big enough that it has to be recognized as a voice in the copyright debate. This makes me happy. I like CC. They have been up to something good. And they posted an AP article on their own blog. We will use them for our church site as well. Though, this raises a few questions for me. Should we have a license at all? What do you all think of how churches should "license content?" Product? Is it a theological impossibility?

On a more personal front, I went to the Abbey and boy did that suck (long post follows).

(begin: whine)

Let me give you a little background. Well, a lot of background.

Once upon a time, before I lived in Chicago, I would visit and on my last night in town I would go to the Abbey Pub to sit in on the session and play. It took some time to warm up to this, but even when I simply sat back and listened (with Guiness in hand) it was always incredible.

For a while I went pretty regularly. There were a couple old timers there who would encourage everyone to play. They would teach the progressions since most traditional Irish stuff is modal and not yer typical 1-4-5-1 progression, I was always grateful for the assist. One time I even got up the courage to sing fo everyone (Bright Morning Stars). I started bringing my mandolin and my guitar. I would pitch in where necessary. It was a great confidence booster. It helped out my more professional choral endeavors as well by improving my ear. Simply by expanding the musical vocabulary, I was becomming a better classical musician. What a great gift.

Once, when I had been out of the session loop for a while, I went to a new place and it was less friendly. Though the people in the sessions we talented and such, they were not welcoming. The music they played was very difficult and thus somewhat beyond me. I was asked to come back when I had learned to play. Yeesh! Wow. Okay...so I never went back. Never. I popped my head in at the Abbey once or twice, but that too felt a little odd.

Then I stopped drinking. The pub scene was right out. After that came seminary and I did not have time. All completely understandable but sad nonetheless. I chose seminary knowing that I would have less time for musical endeavors. My professional chorister life dwindled down to nothing. Again, expected but sad. I regret none of it, but I know I am not the player/singer that I was. I hoped to gain some of it back after school was done.

This weekend was a kick in the teeth. I went to the Abbey with some guys from The Girls. Al and I got there early. The Abbey is different now. The clientele has changed. Gone are the booths and the bare lightbulbs. In are the high tables and halogen lamps with blue shades. In a back room are the guys who play in the session...relegated to some oversized closet. It broke my heart. But then I realized that the old timers are gone (dead? retired?) and only a couple of guys from the Other Pub are there. They play so well and are not welcoming. I did not even break my bouzouki (another instrument to learn) out of its case. Al and I went out front to wait for Sean and play in our own corner.

That was a bummer. Then this guy come out to listen to us play. He had been in back, but was not entirely satisfied. He listened, played a little but by the time that happened I was already out of sorts. I could not hear even simple changes. Blergh. I have forgotten all of it...rusty does not even begin. He got up and left Al and I sitting there feeling like dogs. He was nice. We just felt dumb.

Sean showed up. We played through a bunch of songs for his sister who was in town to run the marathon. It was fine. But I feel deflated now. I am left wondering if I should even try to shake off the dust and rust and find another session. People are kind and often compliment me on my playing/singing. And I feel somewhat competent. But I can tell the difference. "Use it or lose it" keeps running through my head. There seems so little time to use it. It has been a tough realization that I am not the musician that I was.

Maybe God has something else in store for me. Maybe it is music. Maybe it is not. Maybe the time for musical excellence is past. I was never Great but I was damn good. I am young-ish for a singer and could work that up if I wanted to, but the reality check has been a hard one. I am stumped...and disappointed.

"Sing a loud shout to Him with psalms...for our God is a great God." But what if you could and now you feel like you can't? (end: whine)

a fight! a fight!

"There are teams that believe they can't beat the Yankees. We're not one of them." Curt Schilling, Boston Red Sox pitcher. link

"academic who ha!!"

...a sermon preached at North Shore Baptist Church, October 10, 2004.

Note: There were props to this sermon. I brought a bunch of the books I used to research this sermon as well as a red pen to edit as I went along. It played pretty well. I am a little silly and it comes to the fore in my preaching from time to time.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Luke 10:21-28

Study.

This is what I have been asked to preach about this morning. Study. Since this is one sermon in a series about the long life of this congregation, I thought I would take a moment to celebrate some moments of the past that demonstrate North Shore�s desire to be a place of study.

1927: Dr. J.R. Mantey, a professor of New Testament greek at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and a member of North Shore Baptist Church served as �acting pastor� during Rev. Whiting�s trip to the Holy Land. Professor Mantey also authored the church covenant.

1932: Dr. Will H. Houghton, the President of the Moody Bible Institute and member of North Shore led evangelical revival services here.

1957: Dr. Harold bailey, the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of Illinois (Navy Pier) led a discussion entitled �Should We Have Baptist Schools.�

1958: Dr. Don Norman, a member of North Shore and a world renowned expert on the Gutenburg Bible returned after a six-week lecture tour in Europe.

1959: Dr and Mrs Henry Halley are featured as the Bible Pocket Handbook. It is now in its 22nd edition totaling more than one million copies with translations in several languages.

1964, the church celebrated Dr. Halley�s 90th Birthday. You can find this book on amazon.com if you�d like your own copy.

1972: Dr Don Norman was awarded the Gutenberg Award by the Chicago Bible Society.

Thanks to John Dawson for all of this information. There was more, believe it or not. For those who do not know, Ralph Elliot, a former pastor here, has published several books. There have always been leaders in this congregation who clearly have made study the focal point of their ministry and life. There is a throughline of scholarship in North Shore�s history. It has had a significant impact.

I asked Wallace Bubar, one of North Shore�s own, and ordained here, who now serves as pastor at First Baptist Church in Iowa City, IA, how this aspect to North Shore�s community influenced him. Wallace said this: �The initial thing that attracted me [to North Shore] was knowing that Ralph Elliott had been the pastor. That was all I knew about the church when I first visited. I knew much of him and his career in the academy, and figured that a church that he served would value the life of the mind and the discipline of Christian scholarship, as I did.�

(I want that to let that sink in for a second.) This is a church which values the life of the mind.

In addition, let me share a bit from my own journey. For those who may not know, I was not raised in the Church. There were attempts. There was some interaction, but other stresses of life seemed to draw my family away from life in the Church and Christian community. In college, however, I was more free to explore life as a Christian on my own.

I have spoken before about the place of music in my life, how it speaks to my soul. I have spoken about how life in community and the grace of healing I received through it has shaped and healed my heart. I have to now confess that my experience of coming to God in the classroom had an equally profound impact upon my growing commitment to faith and life in the Body of Christ.

I was in college during much of the political strife in the Southern Baptist Convention. Since my grandfather was a Baptist preacher, I was deeply influenced by and found myself constantly aware of the division and anger that existed in the SBC because of differences in Biblical interpretation. From the outside looking into the Church, this appears to be insanity at work. Why all this fuss, this pain and suffering over a book? Come on, people. There are lots of ways to see the world. It just did not make any sense. Brothers and sisters, I must sadly report that to the rest of the world we look like little children fighting over a favorite toy. And the fallout that follows, people losing jobs, families being broken, missionaries being stranded in the field, only serves to confuse and even outrage others. Maybe this does not matter to you. Maybe I am the only one who is particularly effected by this, but I was, and I am.

So, I studied the Bible in college. I studied Greek. I studied history and even anthropology hoping to gain some wisdom and understanding about the Bible. I wanted to challenge the conservative judgmental God on his own turf. I wanted to redeem what I thought was only an historical document and establish it firmly in the realm of a global religious tradition.

Welcome to the Land of Pride and Arrogance. I was successful at neither task. It was not until much later, when I discovered the connection between heart soul and mind and life in community that I began to understand the place of scripture and study in Christian life.

In his ordination essay about the authority of the Bible, Jonathan Nambu said, �I believe the Bible is the living word of God. It is �living because it is dynamic, it imparts life, and it has continuity. It is the �word of God� in the sense that it contains messages, stories and revelations from and about God for people. It is, in fact, through this written word that we have found the living word � Jesus Christ � who is the complete revelation of God to people.�

This is the great mystery of study. This is the gift of meditation. We do not simply learn about Jesus in the scriptures. The mystery is that we encounter Christ as the Word of God, real and fully present in the written word. The love of God, who walked the earth and taught people young and old, educated and not, is revealed to us in the scriptures. Here we learn that God first love us and that all we do in this world is a response to that love.

In his ordination essay, Wallace Bubar reminds us that we are people of the Book. �Whenever the Church gathers around the Book, it gathers to hear, to encounter, and to obey the Word that comes through Scripture.�
The hearing of the word is not an empty thing. As God is made present for us through the hearing of Scripture, through our study of it, we are transformed, we are reconciled to one another. The grace of God is poured out upon us through scripture.

In my ordination essay, I wrote �At the most basic, the New Testament is a collection of stories and letters from the period when the church was first being formed. It is a document. It is an expression and catalogue of the desires, theologies and experiences of God in worship, prayer, ministry and the daily lives of people. At its most profound, the Bible is the living Word of God. It is God�s revelation to God�s people, providing a theological compass for the believer. It is the collected revealed wisdom of what it is to be Christian.�

The Gospel has shaped my soul, my heart and my mind. It tells me who I am. Jesus tells us who we are, the beloved Children of God. He tells us how we are to be. Love the Lord. Study. Teach your children. Live into the Word.

Again, when I spoke to Wallace he told me why he stayed at North Shore. Wallace continues: �I think I found [at North Shore] a healthy balance of mind and heart. It was refreshing to come to north shore and find pastors and people who embraced both.�

I want you to hear that again. �I think I found [at North Shore] a healthy balance of mind and heart. It was refreshing to come to north shore and find pastors and people who embraced both.�

Wallace�s statement brings us immediately into the heart of our scripture�the heart, mind and soul are all intertwined. What creates relationship in communities is this interaction where all we are is brought to the fore. We are not our whole selves unless we can engage the heart, the mind and the soul. We have not loved God until we have loved God with all that we are.

What Wallace was attracted to was the place of �study� in the life of the congregation. This is a virtue that North Shore possesses, but this is not all of what makes for Christian life and witness. What kept him in relationship with this congregation was witnessing the entire commandment lived out in his experience of North Shore Baptist Church. Heart, soul and mind are bought to the transforming word of God. All aspects of who we are as a people are brought to the word. This, brothers and sisters, is love revealed.

In Deuteronomy we are instructed to love God with every fiber of our being, our hearts, our souls and our very might are brought into loving God.

We are instructed to teach our children. Certainly our young people are to be guided in the faith. We are to exemplify for them what it is to love God and to be the beloved of God. It is also true that all of us are one another�s children. All of us bear the burden of God�s love for us. When we rise up, when we lie down, when we are at home, when we are away�our hands, our faces and even our homes are to be places where the Word is revealed.

In Luke, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. This love does not begin and end on Sunday mornings, or on Wednesdays when we gather. Our whole being, our whole life, heart, soul and mind reflect the glory that from the very beginning God has loved us.

In Luke, Christ teaches us to love. We study love.

I keep having to remind myself that this sermon is supposed to be about study. I thought I would bring some translations from the Greek or the Hebrew. But isn�t that the fallacy? It is not academic rigor that saves us�not alone at least. It is God�s love for us revealed through academic work which saves us.

We must study. And, as much as study is important and as much as we have to celebrate here at North Shore, the reality is that all of the accomplishments listed at the beginning of the sermon are the tip of an iceberg. Those individuals studied because they loved God. They loved God because they studied. The study of scripture is not God�s homework assignment to us. The study of scripture is an inroad to the love of God. It is prayer, the encountering of Christ in the Word. It is meditation. The �academic who ha� is a glorious sign of that love. It is the result not just of academic skill and discipline, but it is the result of the discipline of praying the scriptures, meditating upon them and allowing them to transform us into what God wills us to be.

As we celebrate this centennial and as we remember and rediscover who we are, may God bless us in the hearing of God�s word bringing us to greater love of our children, of one another as neighbor and may we proclaim God�s love to the world.

Let us take time to pray the scriptures, to celebrate the love revealed to us through the Word so that we too may love the whole world.

alternative election coverage

First, there is the Noz. He's got a spin on spin.

The Wondering Wanderer is trying to beat Cliff to the punch...or is that punchiness?

Cliff imagines all rock stars wearing dark suits and power ties...or something like that. I am very confused. But I like the post. He's wrong, but like the post.

Karl thinks that both parties benefit by losing. Hold on...yeah...um...that's what it says. You know, these Orthodox people are more and more confusing to me every day.

Sarah is troubled...deeply troubled. I say she moves to Canada in 2005. What is the going line on that Bet? Noz? You have any ideas?

And in a legitimate turn of the political wheel: Luke Shaefer and the rest of CYSI Online is at it for real. They posted a couple of interviews worth reading. Eli Pariser and William Upski Wimsatt are both interviewed.

My two cents: Kerry is more liberal than he lets on. Bush is more conservative than he lets on. Welcome to "How to Get Elected Using Polling Information 101." Wow. What radical political theory we have going on here.

If you are liberal, Kerry is a good candidate.
If you are neo-con, Bush is a good candidate.
If you are anyone else, you are voting against someone.

The Wanderer suggested that a new political party called "Progressive Democrats" may be in order. I think I like the idea.

I think that the Neo-Cons should do the same. That way the GOP can just nominate Arnold now and get it over with. No infighting. Four parties and not two. Soon enough we can be just like Italy but without the really old plumbing.

living god...

Living God, you want us to have hearts
that are completely simple,
to the point that the complicated things in life
do not bring us to a halt.

Through the Holy Spirit,
The spirit of the Risen Christ,
you come to open a way for us,
a way that is possible;
on it we understand that you love us first,
before we loved you.

-Bro. Roger of Taize

two weeks!

Today is our two week anniversary!

picture ala rev mark juchter

a reflection by a favorite reputable source

The Town Hall Debate

ala the NY Times...not as happy as perhaps they wished.

I was unable to watch the debate...well...I saw five minutes of it before I had to go to the ED. The rhetoric was flying from both sides. Oy...veh even!

Town hall meetings are one vestige of early American democracy that modern presidential candidates know very well. No one who has survived a New Hampshire primary season needs to be told what it's like to answer questions tossed out by a group of average citizens. It's the democratic process in its most amiable state: earnest Americans asking serious questions about the issues. Last night's format was much more suited to George Bush's talents than the hard-edged debate last week, but John Kerry still managed to goad him to irritable near-shouting at some points.

One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked President Bush to name three mistakes he'd made in office, and what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president's insistence on defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Even worse, the president's refusal to come up with even a minor error - apart from saying that he might have made some unspecified appointments that he now regretted - underscores his inability to respond to failure in any way except by insisting over and over again that his original decision was right.

Unfortunately, for long stretches of the evening, the format did not lead to such telling responses. On occasion, the arguments were impossible to follow. Heaven help any citizen who relied on last night's debate to understand what is going on with North Korea or who tried to understand the fight about tax cuts on Subchapter S corporations.

Mr. Bush was deeply unpersuasive when asked why he had not permitted the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. He claimed that the reason was "I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you." Mr. Kerry cleanly retorted that four years ago in a campaign debate, Mr. Bush had said importing medicine from Canada sounded sensible.

And the president was utterly incoherent when asked about whom he might name to the Supreme Court in a second term. His comment about how he didn't want to offend any judges because he wanted "them all voting for me" was a joke - but an unfortunate one, given the fact that the president owes his job to a Supreme Court vote.

Mr. Kerry was weaker when he had to respond to a woman who wanted to know about spending federal money on abortions. Social issues seem to bring out the senator's worst tendencies to paint a word picture in shades of gray and equivocation.

Both men seemed overly defensive at times, as if they were fighting shadow opponents that were not even in the hall. Mr. Kerry seemed intent, without much prompting by Mr. Bush, on countering the attack ads run by the president's campaign and by other Republican organizations. Mr. Bush sometimes seemed as if he was trying to make up for his weak performance in Debate No. 1.

Mr. Kerry demonstrated, at the very minimum, a stature that was equal to the president's. If Mr. Bush was hoping to recover all the ground he lost last week, he failed in his mission.

The president seemed to fall back frequently on name-calling, denouncing his opponent as a liberal and a tool of the trial lawyers. "The president's just trying to scare," Mr. Kerry said. It will be another few weeks before we see how well that works.
Town hall meetings are one vestige of early American democracy that modern