Some of you may remember that my wife Jeanene
makes jewelry and prayer beads. Last year she sold some online. She had a great
time, but there was no time to keep it going. Every piece she makes is a unique
creation. It's not like this is mass marketing stuff. Now that Jeanene has left
the hospital, she's getting back into making
jewelry and prayer beads. She now makes
both Anglican and Catholic rosaries, as well as necklaces. She has
9 new pieces for sale, all one-of-a-kind
things. We're looking for ways to make a living, so this will be one piece of
the puzzle.
This time around she has some
crosses and bead selections online, so you
can look through her gallery and if you see something she once made, you could
choose a cross and some colors and she'll make something custom for you.
Here's three of her new things:
Turquoise
Cross
Necklace
$65
Crown of
Thorns
Anglican Rosary/Necklace
$80
San Damiano
Cross
Anglican Rosary or Necklace
$50
There is a retail store
here in town that wants to carry her stuff. But the
markup will be huge. So our first choice would be online
where it's probably 50% cheaper than it will be in the
store.
rlp
ps - you've got to check out the "about"
link. There's a precious picture of Jeanene as a girl in Colorado. That's where
she first fell in love with the rocks she now uses in her jewelry. Cutest
picture EVER.
I want to tell you about something new that I'm
involved with. I'm currently helping two organizations setup their own network
of blogs. In each case I'm acting as a kind of shepherd, mentor, and advisor.
Both organizations hope to form something like the Salon.com blog community
where Real Live Preacher was launched back in 2002. I loved that community. I
was saddened when Salon ran out of energy for promoting it. But it gave a lot of
good bloggers a great start. One of the organizations I'm working with is the
Christian Century. That network will be primarily for serious
theological writers, though we'll be looking for laypersons as well. I'll give
you more information about that one in a week or two.
For today, I want to talk to you about the High
Calling blog network. The High Calling is a non-profit
organization in San Antonio. They have one basic message, and it is a good one.
It is perhaps the most important message that modern, first-world Christians
need to hear.
You should live like Christ in the
workplace. If you are a Christian, your faith should be more than words.
Your faith ought to change the way you live and act in your professional
life.
That message is why I'm proud to write for
these folks from time to time.
I've developed some friendships within the
organization, and we had a conversation that ended with the High Calling
deciding to offer blogs to Christians who are living and working in the real
world. These blogs are not primarily for clergypersons, though we will have some
clergy involved too. What we want most are blogs written by Christian men and
women trying to live authentic lives at work. Let me be clear about a three
things. First, we're not telling you what to write about. You can
write about anything you want. But if you are a person who is attempting to live
an authentic Christian life in the workplace, we feel that issue is going to
come out naturally in your writing. Second, we're not looking for
"churchy" writers. We want people who write about real life and real living. Third, you don't have to be a great writer to be in this network. Not
at all. This is a network of blogs. Some of the people might be talented
writers, but that's not the focus of this network. We want to hear from regular
people about their lives and jobs.
What will being in this network do for
you? Two things: Your site will be promoted at the High Calling Website.
People will find you. And, I'll be reading the High Calling Bloggers, leaving
comments, and writing reviews of their work. If you produce something good, it
might get featured at the High Calling site, which would be cool, right?
Look, I know what it is like to be a blogger.
You pour your heart out into your writing. It's nice when someone reads it. This
is a chance to be in a network that can get your blog noticed. No risk. No cost.
Why not give it a try?
You can join the network in two ways. If you
don't have a blog but have been thinking about starting one, we'll host it for
you and set you up with WordPress. No charge. If you already have a blog, you
can put the High Calling Blog Network logo on your site, linked back to the High
Calling.
I'm about to make a plea for an important
cause. You who come here often know that I rarely do that. I think that a site
like this only gets to plug a few causes before people get numb. So I pick mine
carefully.
Hey, I know what it's like for you. You want to
be a good person; you want to help in the world. But every time you turn around
there's another cause popping up. You can't fix everything, and you're not even
sure how to get started. I know. Me too.
What you have to do is listen carefully to the
world's needs. And you have to seek diligently to find an outlet for your own
efforts. Then pick a few things and get involved. Don't let yourself get
overwhelmed. Learn
about the needs of the world. Find a way to help. You will feel better, but more importantly, you
will be a part of goodness in this world.
So there is this thing happening, and I believe
in it. So I'm going to tell you about it.
My dear friend Darrell Adams recently brought an
issue to my attention. People are dying all over the world for lack
of clean water. I mean, I knew that people in some countries didn't have clean
water, but I didn't realize how bad the situation is. We take clean water for granted, of course. But in many parts of
the world, there is none. Children drink whatever water is at hand. Sometimes
their immune systems can handle it. Sometimes they get diarrhea and die from
dehydration. As it turns out diarrhea is a huge killer of children in
underdeveloped countries. 1.8 million children died from diarrhea last year,
just because they couldn't get a glass of clean water. The World Health
Organization says that about 80% of the sickness around the world comes from
impure water.
Darrell is a part of SWIM, a movement of people
who are trying to bring simple, easy-to-install and maintain water purifying
equipment to people who desperately need it. (If you want to see the system they use,
click here)
In 2008 Jeanene and I plan to
go on one of their trips and be a part of installing some of these water purifiers
ourselves. That's cool of course, and I'll tell you more
about it later. Heck, maybe some of you can go with us. But you can help right now by
getting the word out about
the world's need for clean water.
Do me a favor. Take a moment and check out
SWIM's website. The current thrust of the movement is to mobilize college
students, but that's not the only way they work. This organization is for all of us.
Take a look. Read a little bit. They did a good
job of keeping the message short. Consider joining or even donating a small
amount. Like $10 or something. I'm telling you, these are good people. The
organization is honest and it has only one purpose. Getting water to people who
need it.
My friend Cynthia and I have conversations
about clarity in writing. She is mostly a poet, so clarity is not her main goal,
though she needs a measure of it. I am an essayist and story-teller, so clarity
is a serious goal for my writing. If you want something really good, combine
simplicity with your clarity. Now you're starting to discover quality.
I came across this video, which I love for its
simple clarity. It makes things clear.
The main point of this video - when it comes to
global warming, we need to be making column choices and not spending all of our
time arguing about rows.
Check it out and pass it on to others if you like it.
HINT: If you
are watching a video online and it keeps stopping, pause it for a short time,
and let the download get ahead of you.
Hugh Elliott is reading through the New
Testament and writing about it over at Bible Versus.
I'm mentioned him before. It's a fascinating thing because Hugh is not a
Christian and is purposefully not reading commentaries or any of that. We talked
on the phone about this whole project. He could call me and talk about the
stories, but he doesn't so that I don't pollute the experiment with my
interpretations. I'm the polar opposite of Hugh. Raised in the church, seminary
degree, and spent the last 20 years wrestling with the gospels and reading
commentaries.
His latest entry is his reaction to one of
the strangest stories in the gospels. It is sometimes called the story of the
Gadarene Demoniac(s). As is often the case, his opening line is hilarious. Hugh
is reacting to Matthew's version. If you are interested, I once wrote a
dramatic account of Mark's version of this
story, which is longer and has more details.
This is what blogs were meant to be, in my
humble opinion. Deep thoughts from people you would never have heard of before
the network of blogs came into existence. This is about as authentic and
gripping as any spiritual journey I've read lately.
"I was in a pickle. Hell sounded
miserable, so I didn’t want to go there. My family and I had gone
occasionally to a Methodist church, and THAT was miserable too. I didn’t
want to go there either. In fact, on the misery scale in my 10-year-old
head, church and hell were a dead heat. Church won because the misery lasted
only a half a day, whereas hell was supposedly a lot longer. On the other
hand, hell was a long way off and church was coming up in a few days."
It's interesting to observe Christianity's
movement around the globe. Christianity thrives in cultures of oppressed people,
but soon Christians rise in the social order and gain power. They then structure
the Church into organizations and forms that match up with their culture. After
that the faith becomes stale and seemingly irrelevant, and Christianity moves
on. I once read that Christianity began as a religious movement in Judea, moved
to Greece and became a philosophy, moved to Europe and became a feudalistic
government, then came to America and became a business. That's a bit simplistic,
but the idea behind it is true.
And of course in America, Christianity has
taken on a business model based on growth and material success. The gospel of
health and wealth was born right here in the USA. If God loves you, OF COURSE
God will heal you of all your diseases, fix your problems, and shower you with
material blessings. Amen and God bless America.
This
month's Christian Century has a fascinating
article that points to a disturbing trend.
Apparently, the prosperity gospel has now moved into Africa, where it is quickly
taking hold. And why not? Some of the poorest people in the world live in
Africa. They are eager to hear how God might make them rich and successful.
The gospel of success does
little to challenge this dysfunctional political structure. For one thing,
many preachers openly claim that the political-economic system simply
doesn't matter, because a born-again Christian will prosper under any
political or economic regime... I've heard a Winners pastor in Ghana
even tell his congregation to stop complaining about the collapse of the
currency...
Among the large churches
promoting the prosperity gospel is the Nigerian multinational Living Faith
Church Worldwide Inc., better known as Winners Chapel, founded in Lagos by
David Oyedepo in 1983. Winners has over 400 branches in Nigeria and can be
found in 40 African countries. It boasts that its facility in Lagos, which
seats 50,400, is the biggest church auditorium in the world...
Winners exemplifies the
emphasis on success. Last year Oyedepo made this pledge to all church
members: "In 2006, everything that shall make your laughter complete and
total shall be added unto you. The desires of everyone's heart shall be
delivered. Every trial shall be turned to testimonies. Every struggle shall
be turned to miracles. Every form of barrenness shall be turned to
fruitfulness. Every frustration shall be turned to celebration. Every
humiliation shall be turned into honor. Every shame shall be turned to
glory. And every curse shall be turned into blessings."
Paul
Gifford - Christian Century July 10, 2007
I don't know what to say about this. It's so
terribly sad to me that my own faith tradition is so frequently warped and
skewed, becoming hurtful to powerless people. I try to remind myself of one of
our central doctrines - humanity is screwed up. And everything we get involved
with - including religion, maybe especially religion - gets screwed up too.
United Church of Christ minister Norman Bendroth
describes depression as a "Brainstorm" in the latest online issue of
Christian Century. I've written extensively about my own
depression - so much that I'm probably going to give it a rest for a time. But I
am intrigued by his description of this condition. Remember that depression is
just a word we use to describe something that needs a label. It may be a term
that needs retiring. Perhaps it has become too loaded and narrow. Others have
suggested "depletion" as an alternative. "Irrational Despair and Uncontrollable
Thoughts" might be another possibility. Certainly Brainstorm is a term to
consider.
If you like Dilbert at all, you don't want to
miss this. Scott Adams has inserted himself into his own comic strip. The first
two in the series have been created. I don't know where this is going, but it's
going to be good.
Hugh takes a crack at understanding one of the
more mysterious characters from the New Testament -
John the B. In the process he imagines
teen-age Jesus dropping a hilarious line. "Mom, why do we have frankincense in
the house?"
There is a very exciting and promising new blog
out there. If you check it out, you will be
among the first to read it. But before I tell you where it is and what it's
about, please allow me a moment or two to talk about my friendship with Hugh
Elliott, the writer behind Standing Room Only,
a blog currently on hiatus.
Hugh and I were both a part of the Salon blog
community. We started our blogs in 2002, he in July and me in December. When I
began Real Live Preacher I was touched by how quickly and completely the Salon
bloggers accepted me into their community. No one was
more welcoming than Hugh Elliott. And that's really something if you consider
that he is a gay man living with AIDS in Los Angeles. We're not the sort of
people who generally hang out together, if you know what I mean?
Hugh was the first person to comment on the
second post ever at Real Live Preacher. The original comments are
still online at the salon server, and you
can hear his welcoming voice even before he knew if I would welcome him back. If you keeping reading the comments, you'll see that Hugh jumped in to
defend me when Raven asked a very straightforward question. It was a mild
confrontation, but there was Hugh - he had my back.
I didn't know how to work the Salon blog
software very well, so I decided I should ask someone. I can see now why I chose
Hugh. He was delighted to help me, and I think our friendship began in earnest
there. I'm a Christian, as you know. Hugh was...uh...well, let's see - a man of
the world, you might say. Been a lot of places and done a lot stuff. Seen a lot
of things. We became friends because we respected each other. And in time we even
came to love one another. I've never met Hugh face-to-face, but I do love him
and cherish his friendship.
It's interesting to me that when I turn off my
conscious mind and write from the gut, Hugh often appears as a symbol of some
kind. He is in this post
and is the friend I write about in this post,
though he is not named. He plays a major role in this two-part fantasy piece.
It ended up in my book.
So that's the story of Hugh and me. Here's the
story of his new blog:
Hugh watched my "How to
Read The Bible" video series and decided he was going to read the
New Testament and Psalms for himself. And now he's decided to blog his way
through this little adventure.
Do you get this? Do you know how interesting
and rare this is? A man with no real adult connection to the Christian Church is
going to read our scriptures and write about what he finds there. This is a
spiritual experience/quest for Hugh, who now calls himself a "Christianist."
(He explains what he means by that on the new blog) He and I are going to
email and talk on the phone during this journey. I guess I'm a kind of guide or
mentor for him in this, but I will definitely only be there to give careful
feedback when asked. I don't want my insider views getting in the way of his
honest writing.
He's no Biblical scholar, so I'm sure there
will be many times when he is very unorthodox. So what? Good! That's what I want
to hear. I want to hear what a gay man in Los Angeles has to say about this
collection of writings that is so precious to us. I'm looking forward to it. I
think you'll enjoy it too.
And now, let's give a big blogosphere welcome
to
Bible Versus
My dad has posted something
on his blog about our oldest daughter turning 18 and preparing to
leave home. And he quotes William Blake, which impresses me to no end. He was an
English major, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Christian Century has launched a blog for the
magazine. The idea is to connect their readers with their writers and start
some conversations. That's always a good thing.
Anyway, I was nosing around Theolog and noticed a good
article by James Howell on the latest
ridiculous craze about Jesus, bones, bone boxes, and all of that. None of it has
any credibility, but it does bring up some interesting issues. I think James
hits it on the head.
I present to you, a short film called "Credo"
by director Keith Snyder and starring Larry Picard. Keith describes this film as
"yet another 9-minute screen opera about God and religious violence."
But first a quick story about how I discovered
Credo. Keith Snyder emailed me a long time ago. Then he came to hear the sermon
I did last Spring at Cornell. He handed me a copy of his short film, "Credo." I
took it home and lost it. Then I was embarrassed to admit that I had lost it, so
I just said nothing. Finally he wrote to see if I had watched it. The truth came
out, but he was kind and sent me another copy, which I sat on my desk at the
church, where I looked at the cover day after day.
I have a strange way about me. There are
certain things I don't do until the right time. I have no way of explaining to
anyone how I know it is the right time, but I feel it. A number of weeks went by
and then one day, not too long ago, I decided it was time to watch Credo.
I loved it. It's lovely, precious, and
endearing. And it's certain to spark some pretty intense conversations. As you
watch it, remember this: It is a work of art, not a theological treatise. Don't
pick the theology apart. Also, you should remember that in the Jewish scriptures
(Old Testament) God repents several times. In Genesis God repents and is sorry
that he created humankind. In First Samuel God repented that he made Saul king.
And, most stunningly, in Exodus God is angry and about to destroy the children
of Israel. Moses intervenes and demands that he repent of this anger.
"Why are you angry with Your people,
which you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand? . . .Turn from your
fierce wrath and repent of this evil against your people...And the Lord
repented of the evil which He said He would do unto his people."
(32:11-14)
This notion of God experiencing regret is only
a problem if you are into the whole omniscient and omnipotent thing. And since
those ideas are NOT IN THE BIBLE, I don't feel obligated to believe them myself.
Yeah, not in the Bible. The omni concept is
more of a Greek, philosophical thing. Surprised aren't you? Here's a
little article about this by Tony Campolo, who
is a huge hero of mine.
Keith Synder explores the idea of God, evil,
and repentance in this wonderful little film. And if you can let go of the omni
stuff, then you make room for the idea that Larry Picard's God character might
actually be possible. Which is cool because I absolutely adore Larry in this
film. I wish he was my friend in real life, but I'd have a hard time not always
wanting to pray to him. ;-)
Follow the link below and
you can watch it online. Enjoy!
The website has the lyrics,
which are worth reading
to make sure you didn't miss anything
The thing is, staying the course is sometimes a
pretty good thing. Heroic even. Like when you feel like running away from your
responsibilities, but you decide to stay the course instead.
But staying the course can be a very bad thing.
Like when you're 180° off. If you're going the wrong way, staying the course is
not heroic.
The war in Iraq is unwinnable. That's just the
reality of things. Hell, no one has even said what it would mean to win this
war. The new Iraqi government will never be able to control their country. WE
can't control their country, and we're the mightiest nation on earth. So any
mythological notion of getting things stable before we leave is just a fantasy.
At some point we will finally get sick of being there, and then we will leave.
On that day the forces of revolution will have their way. Revolution is
inevitable in all human affairs. When people are unhappy for a long time - for
any reason, real or imagined - revolution comes like a cleansing fire and burns
down the house.
Revolution is ugly, and things are going to be
very ugly over there. For a long time.
A friend of mine likens George Bush's
unwillingness to admit that this war is the mother-of-all pooch screws to his
unwillingness to pronounce the word nuclear correctly. Oh, he knows how to say
it. He just won't.
It's a brilliant piece of analysis and
observation, if you ask me.
This guy
is a friend of mine. I went to his wedding; I've slept at his house; I've petted
his dogs, and admired him from afar. Milton is a seminary trained minister, and
one of the smartest and most passionate I know. And he doesn't give a rip for
things that don't matter, which means it's never been easy for him to find a
place in church. That's because churches so often emphasize and obsess over
things that don't really matter.
So now Milton is a chef. And like everything he
does, his work is deep and thoughtful.
You want to hear a deeply spiritual man, one who has
serious theological training and can cook like the guys on TV, talk about lent,
ashes, and how reducing our lives to their essence is like preparing a demi-glace
sauce?
We are now asking the question that nations
closer to active terrorists have been asking for years. What can be done about
terrorism? It's easy to create a simple dichotomy with two solutions on the ends
of a spectrum. We can either get angry, go out and find the terrorists and
destroy them. Or we can try some diplomatic solution that seeks to address the
causes of global terrorism.
Perhaps the first way makes us feel strong. It
makes us feel like we are "doing something." Maybe the second way feels weak to
some people. It doesn't seem tough enough for our nation's ego and status as the
current world superpower.
I don't know what the answer is. I know we've
tried the first way, and so far it is an ABSOLUTE disaster.
There is a pretty interesting article over at
Christian Century entitled,
"What If? The Missed Opportunity of 9-11.
The author suggests that we face some hard realities: we will never be safe from
terrorism, and indeed, we have some responsibility for the root causes of it.
I wonder what you think? Clearly there is no
easy way out of Iraq. But as far as terrorism is concerned, where do we go from here?
I'd love to hear from you in the comments on
this one.
I have fought over the Bible and minor points of
Christian theology. I know what this kind of fighting is like and the passion it
can create.
I went off to Baylor University in 1980 to major in
religious studies. The fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist
Convention had just begun. At issue was which group of Baptists had the stronger
belief in scripture. Well, that was the stated issue anyway. I was into it.
Fiercely for the moderates, I argued and harangued my way through college and
seminary. Sometime in the early 90s it became clear that the Fundamentalists had
won, and I ran out of steam. I have wondered what outsiders thought of our fight
to the death over smalls points of theology and Biblical tradition.
Now I think I know.
Christian Century
has an article by Sam Robinson called,
“Infallible Preachers.” In it he outlines current internal
struggles and debates between various Islamic mullahs representing different
factions of Islam. It’s fascinating stuff. At issue are things that sound very
familiar. Preaching styles, the authority of scripture, and the roles of
women in religious practice. Even the proper posture of prayer is a matter of
fierce debate.
Apparently the fight isn’t just between the Arab world
and the rest of us. There is plenty to fight about at home as well. It all
sounds very familiar to me. And very sad.
The emergent and postmodern movement within
Christianity is nothing new for ministers, but if you are not a part of the
Church, you might not know about it. I think a revolution is happening. I don't
think the current forms of the emergent movement are any more sacred than any
that came before, but clearly many within the church are shrugging off a lot of
excess baggage.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on Jacob's
Well.
Here are some thoughts/questions I have about
the emergent Christian movement:
First, I think if you are trying to be
postmodern, you aren't postmodern. Be yourself. Do what you think is right and
leave the results up to God, or whatever you want to call the intelligence
behind the Cosmos. Emergent Christian churches have this feel to me. I like
that. I notice that many people who attend Jacob's Well have never heard of
Brian McLaren. That's a good thing.
Second, I like the emphasis on practice along
with theology. This is an approach to spirituality that makes sense to people.
And anyone who thinks practice and devotion are less important than doctrine has
not been reading the gospels.
Finally, I like the idea that at Jacob's Well,
you don't begin with doctrines and eventually find your way into the community.
Instead, you can become a part of the community and see where it takes you. My
friend
George became a Christian in just such a
way.
Who doesn't have a blog these days? Well, up
until this week, my wife didn't. She does now. Her blog is called "Sum of the Parts."
The first entry is still at the top.
Jeanene and I met in 1982 at Baylor University.
It was a chance meeting. We were paired together to lead a freshmen orientation
group. Whoever shuffled the files that day shuffled our marriage and the lives
of the three sisters into existence. That's weird to think about.
We married in 1985. August 10th, to be precise.
In eight days we will celebrate or 21st anniversary. How time flies.
Jeanene juggles a lot of things in her life.
She is an ordained minister. We went to seminary together. She has been a chaplain in the Baptist Health Care System of San Antonio since
1989 and is currently head of pastoral care at one of their hospitals. She is
a wife, a friend, and a mother of three. She's a busy girl.
I'm grateful that she has been patient with me
as I've tried to build a writing career over the last year or so. I had to drop
out of web designing to do so, and that's a risk. But she was and is willing to
take that risk. But just to be safe, she has started to sell some unusual items
online.
That adds another facet to her life, but she's game to try it. Currently she is
selling
natural soap made by a friend of ours in
Tennessee, and
Anglican prayer beads made by a woman in an
Episcopal hermitage in central Texas.
If you want to see what she has to say, drop by
SumOfTheParts.us
No, not Jeanene and I. That's one of my
nightmares, by the way. Sort of like the dream where you find out at the end of
the semester that you were registered for a class and forgot about it. In my
dream I still show up for the final, hoping for a miracle. Then I realize to my
horror that I'm only wearing underwear.
In this nightmare Jeanene tells me she's
pregnant. "What? How? What?" I say, stunned into monosyllabic bursts. "But I
took certain snips steps to insure that we were done with
that!"
Then she tells me it's twins.
So no, it's not us. The
Chick Truths woman is
thinking about and trying to have a baby,
somehow at the same time. Somehow she is trying to decide if she really wants a
baby, even as she and her husband are trying to have one.
I remember that. Jeanene and I had a plan.
Married at 23 (both of us), she felt the first child should come around 27.
There were biological reasons for this or something. I agreed at 23, then was
shocked when she mentioned it again when we were 26. I went ahead, but I really
wasn't sure I wanted a child until Reiley was about 3 months old. And there were
times in that first three months when I was sure I DIDN'T want a child.
Chick Truths was my first blog. I found it in
the salon blog community back in 2002. No one knew what blogs were back then
except the very few people who had them. I got hooked on hers and went back
EVERY DAY to see if she had written anything. I remember sending her an email
and being a little scared about it. I sort of had this feeling that she was some
kind of "real writer," you know? Back then I still thought there was a clearly
defined boundary between real writers and the rest of us. But I wrote her anyway
and she wrote back, shocking me.
So then I wondered if maybe I could do a blog
or something.
Anyway, she writes about this experience with
her usual grace, startling honesty, and humor. I love her writing.
"Chick Truths woman, I wish you well on this
new journey."
First, I have to
give you a link to one of the funniest things I've come across lately. A guy is
trying to live for 7 days eating only monkey chow, the food zoos feed to the
large primates. He notes that technically large primates include humans, so he
assumes he will be okay. There is the
Monkey Chow Diaries page, a
companion blog, and a series of videos. The
videos are what you want; you'll find them linked from the Monkey Chow Diaries
page.
He is allowing himself vodka and black coffee.
When he slammed a shot of vodka with monkey chow in it, trying desperately to
find a way to get monkey chow down, I laughed so hard. The guy has a very nice,
dry sense of humor and the sort of personality that goes along with that. I like him.
Michael, thanks for the link to this guy.
Second, I'm
enjoying a few days of not having the constant and ever-present burden of blog
posting. I've learned to live with this burden after 3.5 years of Real Live
Preacher. Pretty sure I could go on indefinitely. But any creative deadline will
take its toll. Strangely, I haven't stopped writing. I finished a piece for the
Christian Century and another one for The High Calling. And I've started a
couple of other things. I'm writing as much as usual, but it feels like a
vacation. Interesting.
Our little church has a poet. I'll resist
saying, "Though some don't know it." That would be sooo tacky. But we do have a
poet. Her name is Cynthia, and she is our poet laureate. I don't suppose a lot
of churches have an official poet, but we do. What I like best is that no one
can remember exactly how or when she became our poet. I think she just stepped
into the job gently and over time. I remember she wrote one after 9-11. And I
remember some that she's read at our summer talent shows. She made me cry with a
poem
at Ben's retirement thingy. And some of her work appears in our prayer book from
time to time. By the way, Cynthia is the
woman who brought that prayer book to our
church.
I've been pestering Cynthia to start a blog for
a LONG time. The problem was, she had this classified government job many years
ago, and when she left she had to agree to submit anything she wanted to publish
to the government for approval first. I'm afraid this stipulation can
make blogging a little more complicated than it is intended to be. So no blog
for Cynthia. This was particularly frustrating because everything she knows
about the government was declassified years ago.
But recently a very good addendum to the law
allows for innocent publishing of poems and the like without having to submit
them in triplicate to a secret government agency or anything. And so our friend
and poet is free to post, publish, or do whatever she wants with her poems. This
is good news for you and me, because it means we don't have to worry about
reading one of her poems and then having to be killed for it. So relax, we're all going to be
fine.
One last thing. Often when someone tells you
that his friend is a poet, you expect that person to be "cutesy" good at best.
You expect to read a poem or two out of politeness, and then try to think of
something nice to say about them. Not
this time. This woman is seriously good. I won't spend any time trying to
convince you of this because you can go and
read her work for yourself.
Tom Reindl wrote me, concerned about a game
that adolescents play. It's called The Choking Game. He was pretty concerned
about it and wanted parents to know about it. Normally I avoid causes here, in
part because I don't want the responsibility of being the world's watchdog. But
Tom's been reading my blog for a long time. We've emailed a time or two, so I
wanted to direct you to
his blog to
read more
about this if you are interested.
What I remember about Milton is he was always
the coolest, edgiest minister in the world. Seriously, there was no competing
with him. You thought you were hip until you saw Milton in his high-top
Chuck Taylor's, wearing a batman mask and
cramming an entire hamburger in his mouth, a la John Belushi, while hundreds of
kids pounded on the church camp lunch tables to show their appreciation.
And I don't mean to suggest that he is trendy.
NO! He is Milton. He's been wearing Converse Chuck Taylors since they first came
out in the sixties or whenever. These shoes go in and out of style about every
ten years, but Milton keeps wearing them. Some decades he is hip; others he is
just...Milton.
True story: Milton got married in his Converse
tennis shoes. Tux and tennis. And I don't mean to suggest that the wedding was
some outdoor, silly affair. Church wedding, serious, everyone dressed up, and
Milton in his tennis shoes.
Of course Milton would be the one to move to
Boston with his equally cool wife, decide that ministry was best done by
teaching English to inner city kids, get rid of his cars, let troubled kids live
with them in their cool, 1865 row house, adore schnauzers, make candles by the
beach, and become a serious cook and writer.
The only time I got to Boston I remember Milton
making his own spaghetti noodles one at a time, disdaining those who would buy
their noodles at a store. About every 10th noodle he threw on the floor for his
dog, who was getting a little chubby as I recall.
Milton and I seem to connect every few years,
for whatever reason. And I wish that my commitment to life and truth could be as
courageous as his. But there is only one Milton. Accept no substitutions.
And now
Uncle Milty has a blog. A cooking blog, to
be exact. It's brand new, just a few entries. Knowing Milton, it's going to be
something I won't want to miss.
I wanted so badly to like "The Book of Daniel,"
NBC's new series about an Episcopalian minister and his rather interesting
family. I wanted to like it if only because some of the religious right are
soundly condemning it. I usually can't pass up an opportunity to distance myself
from those guys. But I couldn't like it. I just couldn't. Not because it is
sacrilegious, but because it is bad. It is very bad. This is a bad and boring
show...
I'm pretty thrilled to have been invited to
write something for Salon.com. They asked me to watch the pilot of NBC's new
series,
"The Book of Daniel," reviewing it and
including some commentary on the negative reaction from the religious right.
This is very big deal to me and quite a lot of fun. Or at least fun in theory.
"The show is Friday night. We need your
piece by Sunday."
Oh yeah, deadlines. This is something I'm
familiar with, though my own self-imposed deadlines here at Real Live Preacher
are very flexible.
The writing muse loves to be gently courted.
Not seduced, not tricked, no one night stands. Where you take her is VERY
important. My current spot is
Caffegio, a little coffee shop here in San Antonio. It's usually
not crowded and doesn't have the rush, rush feel of Starbucks. The last Foy
story was born there, and the labor was the easiest in memory.
However, if you have been faithful to your
muse, been patient and indulgent, on occasion you may demand her favors, as I
did yesterday. Just don't try that too often or you will kill her.
The piece goes online sometime today. I'll post
a link then.
This guy
is a friend of mine. I went to his wedding; I've slept at his house; I've petted
his dogs, and admired him from afar. Milton is a seminary trained minister, and
one of the smartest and most passionate I know. And he doesn't give a rip for
things that don't matter, which means it's never been easy for him to find a
place in church. That's because churches so often emphasize and obsess over
things that don't really matter.
