Barkings Of An Old Dog

Molly Ivins, we shall miss you…

as she said:

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war,” Ivins wrote in the Jan. 11 column. “We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!’”

Over on Preludium, Mark Harris (major, major thanks to people like Mark Harris, and Father Jake, and Jim Naughton and MadPriest and all the rest of the people bringing the newsfeeds) invites us to experience a period of “non anxious waiting“…

Along with this news and all the rest of the EpiscoNews, I am reminded of a story that a friend of mine likes to tell about the time he took his daughter to a play. Midway through, his daughter began to get concerned about where the plot was going, and she began to get very upset…. and then one of the actors stopped and looked down and said “Don’t worry, it’ll all turn out okay in the end.”

I think that’s a great little saying. We see people coming forth each day who speak words filled with sense and courage to counter the silly talk of being in a battle… who speak of the unity of God’s people in spite of those who threaten otherwise… who say that the tent is big enough for all in spite of those who want to huddle under separate coverings… and we can likewise be filled with confidence that Bishop Katharine will lead us all with similar courage and as the Spirit directs. Fear not. As we learned in obedience class when I was a young pup, just pay attention to your master and it’ll all turn out okay in the end.

The Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida

Well, it’s the movable feast of the Cross of Jello today. It usually occurs the Sunday before the Superbowl, and it’s when our annual meeting is held. We’re a smallish church, the kind of place where everybody knows your name, and there’s a good chance they’ve known it for a long time, know your parents as well as your brothers and sisters, and probably tried to teach you in Sunday school when you were younger. I’ve been wondering in the last few days after reading the latest round of he said/she said, who’s in/who’s out, who’s going to Africa/who’s staying home whether the average butt in the pew (BIP) cares. Are we paying too close attention to every nuance, every jot and tittle of every missive thrown out in the blogspere? The internet has shown an amazing capacity to amplify voices which have never been heard outside their parish walls. (cough*StandFirm*cough - oh, and mine as well!). In our church, I think we lost 1 family over the current crisis, and even then the suspicion was that they just wanted to go someplace else anyway, as our mission and ministry is usually marked by fairly mundane subjects. Anyway, that’s enough rumination - gotta get the casserole out of the oven and head off to get my own BIP.

Tom Robbins, on Joseph Campbell:

In actuality, myths are neither fiction nor history. Nor are most myths - and this will surprise some people - an amalgamation of fiction and history. Rather, a myth is something that never happened but is always happening. Myths are the plots of the psyche. They are ongoing symbolic dramatizations of the inner life of the species, external metaphors for internal events.

It is only when it is allowed to crystallize into “history” that a myth becomes useless - and possibly dangerous. For example, when the story of the resurrection of Jesus is read as a symbol for the spiritual rebirth of the individual, it remains alive and can continually resonate in a vital, inspirational way in the modern psyche. But when the resurrection is viewed as historical fact, an archival event that occurred once and once only, some two thousand years ago, then its resonance cannot help but flag. It may proffer some vague hope for our own immortality, but to our deepest consciousness it’s no longer transformative or even very accessible on an everyday basis. The self-renewing model has atrophied into second-hand memory and dogma that the fearful, the uninformed, and the emotionally troubled feel a need to defend with violent action.

There, I guess you probably know now where this old dog sits on the issues.

A while back the gang over at MadPriet’s Pub had a heated discussion on the Beatles and other song stylists worth putting hard money down on… I got to the discussion board late that day and felt one more voice in that joint would never be heard. Now that we’ve opened our own kennel over here, it seems a good time to say that for me (and I know you MP people all have your undies in a bundle over the Stones and the Beatles and the other 60’s, 70’s and 80’s bands), but for me, Paul Heaton is the best lyricist recording today… and what’s really really sad is that the his music seems lost and missing from the shelves of American stores. The good news is that Amazon UK ships to the colonies.

Three quick examples:

“If“:
If the Messiah
Is due back down
How come the highest priests
Dressed up as clowns

If the Bible’s made up
Which it is
The last laugh can’t be ours
It must be his

“Let Go With the Flow“:
And if he knows where he was standing
When J.F.K was shot
Chances are though time’s passed him by
He’s still standing within yards of that spot

“101%Man“:
I’ve seen these people described as mad
But find men kissing too odd
Say all their friends are gay when in fact
They gave a man in tight vest a quick nod

And all those threats if you keep kissing
They’re gonna go report you to god
Yet if Christ really had that many disciples
There was probably one of you in his squad

There, give me a stack of Housemartin’s, Beautiful South, and Paul Heaton CD’s and throw in a few Laurie Anderson tunes and I’m set for a long, long drive… Beatles? Stones? Time to move on…

There, now discuss among yourselves. Time for a dog nap.

A number of years ago, my wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to St. Deiniol’s Library for a week long course with Bishop John Spong. In checking, he will apparently be back again in 2007 in October to teach a course in “Jesus for the non-religious”. Bishop Spong was entertaining, but in many ways, it felt like some sort of slippage in time for where his views were. The majority of attendees were English, and you could feel what a breath of fresh air that he was for them (not all Anglican). Seems like what he said was new and revolutionary to them… in a celebration of the library’s 200th anniversary (200, 300, 100, something, I forget, let’s just say the place is old) in a tent out back, Jack spoke to the public about his life and about his faith and about the things that he’d done in the past to bring justice and truth to the church. One young man stood up during the Q&A period and said that he lived in London, and quite frankly he had a hard time seeing what was particularly revolutionary about what Jack had said or done… that for him and where he lived, that was just the reality of life. All of which indicates to me that there has been progress in the way we treat each other and love each other and live with each other.

Late afternoons were reserved for hiking in the beautiful hills of Wales, and Jack and his charming wife invited the crowd to join them on the trails in the area. Now I can report back for all you StandFirm and Titus 1:9 people that I watched closely. I hid out in morning prayer to observe the good Bishop. I walked stealthily with Jack and Christine, and I can report that his horns and tail never once were evident. Occasionally his mind wandered off into subjects that were not terribly interesting or fruitful, but then that happens to all us old dogs I believe. I even took his picture when we were all out hiking, and much to my surprise his image was able to be captured! So while many think of him as “the enemy” and “satan incarnate”, I just found him to be a nice guy. Anyway, perhaps someone else out there in the blogsphere can attend this year and report back to see what they can find out….

So for various and sundry reasons, my wife and I went to a dinner put on by some friends of hers. To be fair, she did tell me to expect the unexpected.

Even with this warning, I was surprised. First we started with a sort of communion. Matzoh bread passed around with little bitsy cups of grape juice. Okay, I can do this. Then after dinner we moved into the “spiritual” part of the night. With over an hour long drum accompaniment, we heard a) speaking in tongues b) birthing of the spirit c) laughing in the spirit d) laying on of hands e) various “prophesies” f)breaking the chains holding us, various shouts of “ya ya, ya ya, ya ya”, exhortations of “by his stripes you are healed” , and “Jesus suffered pain and humiliation and death to take away your infirmaties”, and the occasional shofar blowing..

Oh, and various prophesies that several of the men there were destined to become great preachers of the word. Never a woman, but almost all the men were destined to do good things in preaching for the Lord.

Excuse my Episcopal conservatism. Excuse my wanting to at least think about the theology being espoused (oh, it’s just the Holy Spirit a talkin’ tonight, ain’t it)…. but I don’t picture Jesus exactly signing up for this sort of stuff. Color me a curmudgeon of the first order, but this stuff is pretty far from holy worship to me. Am I gonna go back anytime soon. I sure hope not. I’m afraid the next time they’ll passs out snakes for us to play with.

These people really do want it both ways… You want the rest of the church to follow Windsor and you don’t think it applies to you? And talk of lack of charity… “Shove it?”… gee Phil whoever you are, get a grip, like it or not, we are all the Church, the Body of Christ, pledged to encourage each other to love generously, to uphold each other, and to see the Christ in each and everyone we meet (even virtually)… and yes, I do recognize the hypocrisy in what I just wrote.

While we’re going on about politics (I promise that this will be my last one for a long while), I always find it odd that we have pushed native Americans into the casino business. Maybe there’s some long tradition of gambling in their culture, but something always feels strange about going by the native American casinos of this great land. So here’s a counter-proposal (again, maybe it’s a plank of my run for President)… they let go of all the casinos, turn them over to some group who we readily identify with gambling (suggestions?), and in turn we give them the National Park Service. They are in charge of the most beautiful parts of our great land. The places that we would pay money to see. Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali… and they can charge whatever they want for people to get into these beautiful spots… they can’t put up casinos and they have to preserve the places…. jobs, a cash flow, a mission, a sense of purpose, what could be better? But by no means close the parks to dogs, hear?

woof!