Look Closer

Wanting to Come Back....

2011-06-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

I really need, want, to write again here. In the quippish world of facebook world there is no anonymity. Here, I had (some) anonymity but I never knew who read. It's a lot easier for a friend of mine to write some funny comment (quip) after a post on facebook; less common, exponentially less common, to get comments to know who is reading here. And so for two years I've been stuck trying to decide: do I blog again here, do I write posts under my actual name, do I just do notes in facebook?

More and more I'm leaning here. I want to write a memoir, and this will provide me a place to sketch vignettes, moments...memories.

Plus, I wrote a lot here about my recovery over the years and that recovery is proceeding pretty well right now. I'm in a good spot for the most part though I have plenty left to process. I can do that here also.

So, it's summer; I hope to get something up here before too long.

love to all.

Reading Old Posts

2011-01-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

I have been having a tough year, really, a tough few months, since our son left for college especially, though I was having some issues with depression/ocd before that. Lots of times I have wanted to blog about it, but I remembered this blog as a sort of quasi amateur theo-blog. I remembered writing posts here on the NT or whatever I was reading, but totally forgot how much I put my nuts out there all the time up here, five, six, seven years ago. I have been struggling with a very old obsession (teenage years) off and on, and putting off exposure exercises because, well, it's exposure work, and I was looking here to see when I did my last batch of it.

It was 2004 that I started with exposure therapy exercises, and then after a few months, did a little, like once a week, two years later, according to this blog anyway. But while I have told myself many times that the depression and anxiety I've had (again, off and on) since about June were unlike anything I've known since the mid nineties, and that still feels true, I am amazed how much hard work I was doing back in the mid oughts! I had forgotten until I read about it here. And man was I transparent on the blog!

So, while nobody may read this anymore (but I can point a few friends who really matter this way) I'm going back to the kind of writing I was doing five and more years ago up here. I cannot believe, cannot believe, I was posting here in 04, almost seven years ago. And so honestly, so from the heart, the soul!

Since it has been so long, and reading those old posts, let me share the good things:

My wife has a great job now, making good dough, and the pressures are off us there, even with a son in college. We have a housecleaner! She's only been here twice, but I think having a housecleaner is the most important thing in our budget besides true essentials. Like, I would quit drinking beer over losing the housekeeper if I had to, hah. This was something I wanted years ago and wrote about on the blog; should have done it years ago. Also, I think my wife and I are getting along better. The empty nest is a bitch, but we're working through it. I express myself, communicate, during or after conflicts better than I ever did in the old days, though I am still working on that! And I have a new, good, therapist. I'm using leadership skills at work and getting lots of confirmation for that; actually held back how much responsibility people wanted me to take this next year, waiting until I feel more ready. I'm feeling pretty sure I don't want to give up my job to become a priest, as cool as that might be. That was a very hard decision, and the first of the really hard things that began the ramp up to this depression/anxiety stuff more than a year ago now. There is always the diaconate, and life is long, but right now, I'm focusing on the job that pays my bills and keeps affirming me as I do more interesting things. Also, I love that we can support our son in college! Oh, and we moved closer to my work; I now live in civilization! Around people! Am at work four days a week, not two! I love every freaking piece of that. Long term goals accomplished, friends, critical changes have taken place for the good!

Other than that, my time is short, but let me say I've had insomnia, as I've written about below, and that the lunesta I took every night for four or five months just quit working very well. I see my psych in a week, am using xanax for sleep in the meantime (not the best, but the fucker did not return my call from earlier this week, maybe he misunderstood it; should I call again, tough for me to do that) so I am getting some sleep. I also just got an insomnia workbook, which I'm very excited about, and busted out my old ocd/exposure book. You know, I didn't even get very far in that Edna Foa exposure work book thing, like only into the first chapter or two of self help exercises, not even into the "intensive" section, but those exercises totally helped me.

I can honestly say I lived obsession free (not worry free, not without spending too much time in second life maybe) but obsession and depression free for several years. I looked on that stuff as past stuff. Pretty cool. I will do so again.

Anyway, no reason I can't spill my guts up here again. I don't think many people knew about this blog from my rl, and those that did I cared about. It helps to write, it helps to write, it really does help to write.

more later :)

De Activating

2010-10-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

Since I went down on the remeron my anxiety/ocd has been cut by 90 percent. Maybe more. It's too soon to say exactly how this will pan out, but one thing is clear: the med I took to help me sleep, to make sure my mood stayed level and perhaps counteract some of the deep seated tension I know I still hold, that med turned my ocd on like a switch at doses over 15 mg. At 15, I feel sort of caffeinated, even after nearly five months on it. Taking lunesta to sleep every night the last few weeks. Seeing the psych tomorrow and asking about going OFF. But since I dropped my dose, a few days after that, tremendous relief.

Figure that shit out.

Yes I have life stressors that happened at the same time I went up on the dose. But it is remarkable to me how agitated I felt, and how easily that agitation became obsession. I mean some obsessional thinking every day for the last six weeks, now completely gone the last few days. Crazy. To give him credit, with my history of ssri's, the psych said it could happen. Tomorrow I find am asking questions.

I don't know if I even need to be on any anti depressant med. I was in need of help last spring, six, almost seven months with trouble sleeping most nights, a deep down body fatigue, in short, a milder form of depression than in my twenties. Then some depression end of May, nothing too serious, and some free anxiety, just a few days really, and I went right on the med. I'll never know what the summer would have been like without the med; it helped me sleep like crazy the first 3 months on it or so and that WAS very helpful, but I do know it ended up making the last few weeks very hard, and probably has been effecting me all summer.

That's all I can say right now; I got nothin else.

I am working through some hard shit, and hard shit is simply always hard. Doing a lot better the last few days though! Late, I'm tired. much love.

Activation

2010-10-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

It's been a hell of a year. Well, a helluva last 10 months or so, with the last five having some banner scary moments.

It sucks but it's true. After months last winter, like six, of not getting enough sleep, of experiencing a new kind of depression for me, not dramatic, overwhelming, but mostly insomnia, early waking (five or six nights a week unless I took ambien) and then a bone deep fatigue, a constant feeling of being stressed as I was pushed, and I mean PUSHED, at work, home. Taking on much more responsibility at work, in fact, becoming a central figure in a large scale firestorm; realizing I was not now and maybe never am going to go to seminary (son in college, at the least); panicking about money (until my wonderful wife got a very good job); knowing my son was moving away to college...maybe the hardest piece of all of it.

Oh, and a six month short sale purchase and choosing to find a renter for our other house, which we did. Right now, I type on a counter top, long granite slabs, I imagine is worth more than my truck. We got a nice house at a great price.

Anyway, after months of that, not seeing a doctor about all of it and seeing a half incompetent therapist (not seeing that person anymore, and did not see her long)...it was the last day of school, near the end of may, depression hit me, some real free flowing anxiety. I had, in the months before, short pieces, meaning a few hours, of a very old, very awful obsession, one that has not haunted me since my early twenties. That began to perk up a bit more. So this May I did what I could: I got a new and better therapist, I saw a psychiatrist to check into the latest in meds. I don't think I'd had a free flowing panic attack in over twelve years.

The first med I tried, luvox, I had only been having anxiety issues for a couple of weeks; luvox sent my panic soaring, and as with other ssri's I tried in the past, it is so insidious it takes me a couple of days of thinking I'm just going crazy to realize the med is at fault. I came off that, but spent a few days after still pretty anxious (would not take any xanax; should have) and then the old obsession really parked itself with me. How horrible that was, driving home, feeling that old de realization thing surface after more than two decades.

Anyhow, I went on a different med, remeron, and it knocked me out so hard I slept like a rock, ten or eleven hours, for the first few weeks of summer. It seemed to stabilize my mood, my anxiety. I stayed on 15 mg., a small dose, all summer (and, and there was a lot of feeling work even then I needed to do; I guess this is my "mid life crisis;" so far much easier than my young life crises.)

When my son moved out in August, I was very, very sad for a couple of days, and then the depresssion came in. Awful. Not like my twenties, but more pain than I'd felt in a long time. My psych had been encouraging me to go up on the med anyway, so i did, to 30 mg. Truth is, it was so sneaky it took me five weeks to realize I was activating, having huge panic attacks which were getting slowly worse, not better, on the higher dose. I just went back to 15 earlier this week. Yes I left a message for the psych.

Why all this? Because the fact is, "they" really don't understand how these meds work, or why they don't work for some people, not yet anyway. It seems that meds (like all ssri's and remeron) which affect serotonin make me worse, though remeron did seem okay for a couple months at the low dose I'm trying again now. And my guess is the reason ssri's help so many with ocd (and thank God they do help) is that they lower anxiety deep in the brain, just as, somehow, they manage to raise mine!

All if it, I think, driven by trauma.

It's been a helluva month.

So now what?

Well, I crafted my own set of exposure exercises for a different, I will say milder, obsession some years ago and worked them with my old therapist (who, sadly, retired). And you know, that particular thing, after doing exposure with those thoughts for a while, mixed in with conventional therapy, that thing has not returned. I feel like I closed a mental door. So I could, and maybe will have to, create exposure scenarios for my current obsessional stuff. Thing is, I'm hoping at 15 mg., or even if I come all the way off the remeron in time, maybe, maybe, that shit will blow over. Exposure is not at all fun. It's hugging Satan to get saved.

But I may have to do it. It's so hard to know, because I've been activating (that's what they call it) for over a month. Even the psych missed it, because I went up on my dose at the same time my son left. I figured his leaving was the sole trigger. It was surely some of it! However, since I've gone back down on dose (Monday) my panic has diminished notably. Notably.

Underneath all of this, I know, so, so, so much emotion. That is what drives it all: fear, maybe over all; and sadness and anger, horror even, at having my son leave; the great, thick, emptiness my childhood left that he and my wife filled so poignantly almost 15 years ago now; my need to take even better care of myself, put some more stuff into that void!; adjustments, likely to be ongoing, as I continue in visible leadership at work. The empty nest, which is different but I think we'll survive. That is still a lot of shit. God I wish we had had more kids. We tried for a number of years. I wish it had worked.

I've been coasting for several years, just living, enjoying food, drink, simply living. It's been years and years since I "had" to go to the gym; I'm having to go now, two and reaching for 3 times a week, each time very helpful. Years since I felt gut wrenching panic, or the movement of very deep, powerful feelings, depression mixed into all of it. Or I might have had a day or two like that. But this, like driving on snow and breaking free...

But as my wife put so well: this is a different level of hell. And it is. I guess I haven't been "here" for more than a decade, maybe, really, since I met her, or very rarely only in those early days. But this is easier, even with the activiation!, than what I lived 15-20 years ago. Oh, those were dark years. Or the anxieties of my late teens, early twenties, longer ago than that! This is not that, at all. And I am functioning at a very high level, even with this, at work and (I hope) home.

For that, I'm grateful.

But it's hard. I don't have meetings like I did before we moved years ago. I realize, with my son leaving, I don't even have the the number or depth of friendships I need. I am, in short, often very lonely. It is why I moved out of the freaking mountains; closer to work, to humanity in all its absolute wonder. The mountains were gorgeous, but not good for that part of me that needs company, and that is a big part of me. (Thought they brought me in touch with a very wonderful family I plan to never leave).

I'm at work more days a week now. Do have a couple very "real" friendships, but when I come home to an empty house now, even for a couple of hours, it is very hard to separate that from the absolute EMPTY vacuum I grew up in. Empty. Separation anxiety my oldest, oldest, oldest fear. All the rest of my anxieties, including ocd, grew out of that childhood terror of being left alone. 19 months old, arm broken, in traction, and often alone for 20 fucking days. Then a home where neither parent was home much, or awake, or able to connect psychologically/emotionally when they were. My parents never touched me in a loving, nurturing, way.

You know, I forget who used to read this anonymous blog. Now, I am sure almost no one ever reads it or remembers it, but I wonder who will stumble across this new part? It's for the good. Mental health issues are real shit, man. Even for gifted, sensitive people like me.

I know how together I appear at work. Truth is, like Mr. Monk, I can zoom into the meeting, say just the right thing, impress everyone, and be anxious the rest of the time. But just for now. This too shall pass...it will indeed pass, and I will grow.

It's unfortunate, truly, that the meds I have tried that help many (so far, prozac, lexapro, paxil, luvox, remeron) have not been the magic bullet for me at all, in fact the opposite!! On the plus side, xanax works like an angel...a slightly tipsy angel, maybe, but it really, really works. I have taken hardly any all year (cept when I fly, when I load up on a milligram). I mean, apart from flying, I bet I've taken five or six milligrams in all these months, total; needed a lot more. But it works, and fast. Yes, I wish for, and may someday find, a better med; and surely, now that the medical community FUCKING ADMITS activation happens in some anxiety/ocd patients (who are not necessarily bipolar and don't have personality disorders) it may be in time they'll tailor meds for people like me. Shit that would rock.

But meds, at least the current crop, aren't a real cure for many or even most. It still takes cognitive tools and exposure work; it still takes, imho, lots and lots of feeling work, getting underneath to what is driving the ocd loop in the first place; ocd, if nothing else, must have energy to push it, and that energy is fear/feeling. And you know what, I'm doing the work. I'm good at that. I spent years in the gym doing cardio just for that reason (and hell I was in shape from 29 to 34). I'm going back to the gym now. Going to try some emdr when I get up to it with my new person. She keeps emphasizing attachment, opening up in my marriage, to friends, and that may be the greatest gold of all that we have on this earth. It's also more "advanced" than the gym, in a way. A new and blessed level for me to grow into.

There's a lot more treatment and understanding than twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Exposure therapy alone: powerful as hell, maybe the single most powerful thing I know for obsession. There's fucking parity laws, so I can see my therapist and psych for the same as any other co pay (in my twenties, first half of thirties, I paid out of pocket).

But of course, I've had depression too, and that's all about feeling work. Deep anger and sadness, coming out around the edges of depression, or in good hours, taking center stage completely, lots and lots of feeling. Even if that's hard, that's good. I would say more feeling than depression through all of it; pretty cool. I thank God for it.

***

You know, I'm a decent writer when I take the time to craft/edit, but that is not this time. This was one long, much needed share. It's surprising to me how very few people know what I've been going through. Like, I need to tell my brother for example. It's odd how private I became when the shit got hard in May. Becoming little. Little. Young where I don't talk about feelings because with my parents I could not, ever, do that thing. So, I'm doing it now.

Been writing poems again; has felt very soothing, very satisfying.

love to all, including me!

slogging

2010-09-24T13:49:00.001-07:00

yes, still slogging. writing between classes, breaking through, the emotion under my skin like heavy water. doing okay, not seriously depressed, but riding the mix of depression and feeling.

the summer was hard some days, easy other days. i can remember one month I told my therapist I had only one hard weekend. in a month. then, my son moved out, the part of my job that is new started, and almost every day for the last five weeks has been something: anger, sadness, strong feelings I can hardly identify; or depression, some; or, worst of all because it gets me no place, obsession. I've wrestled with obsession this summer, a particular obsession, I have not struggled with since I was in my early twenties. not to the same degree, no. but a very old, very scary obsession.

so far mirtazapine 30 mg. only helps me sleep. it seemed to have a levelling affect on mood/anxiety early in the summer, now, hard to say.

I have xanax but almost never take it. when I do take it it helps a shitload.

I'm glad that obsession has been a small part of this compared to the old days, but hate every minute I spend in that junk. my psychiatrist (surprisingly to me) actually helped me a lot a couple days ago by reminding me with great authority: you will never, ever, ever go crazy. that will never happen. that, lowering an unconsciou anxiety, helped pull me out of several days of struggling with obsession. for that shit runs and feeds on fear (and any other feeling below the fear).

my regular therapist, a sweet person certainly, is using all the traditional tools; and I've told her, while traditional tools work for depression, while they work to get to and through the feelings beneath the ocd, nothing shuts ocd down like exposure work. learning to sit with the anxiety. you can't do much of any kind of other work when the obsessions are roiling in the mind. and roil they can.

there is an anxiety speciality center where I live and I have considered checking them out; groups maybe.

not much of a share, and I want everyone to know while the last five weeks have been hard, harder than all of the rest of this year before, I have good tools, tools, like working out, I could use more than I do, but tools i am using. I am talking to my wife. and every ounce of the pain, every angry minute, every hard day, moves me closer to a fuller and deeper wellness than I have ever known, than I had before this summer (and I have been doing well for years). that is the great truth: the process works, and it lasts.

more later, and love to all. back to class.

the late shift

2010-03-28T02:18:00.000-07:00

sometimes, you want the anonymous blog.

I have been having trouble sleeping enough, falling asleep and some night staying asleep, since last fall when everything went nuts at work. I've been doing better, not using ambien much, making 30 pills stretch 3 months or close, but tonight, for some reason, I cannot sleep and I don't want to take anything.

I know writing will relax me. it always does.

my theory is actually this: since my ocd is under much better control, I am not really clinically obsessing, or at a low level anyway, the emotions I used to regulate with that disorder, or that used to be regulated, whatever, are springing out in new ways. trouble sleeping is the new thing. I don't have an egregious problem, I think, though I may have to talk to my doctor about better meds for it, hope not.

and I am exercising again, and feeling much other times. I can discuss parts of my childhood, and the associated feelings, in ways I could not before. I know I did the really hard work, the ass falling off work, in the early 90's when I had a series of major depressions. this, compared to that, is amateur. but it is real, and vibrant in a way those depressions were not. then, seriously depressed, I didn't even know why I was depressed, let alone connect it to childhood experiences.

now, I can see much more clearly. and it all makes pretty good sense, my life struggles in light of how I was raised and not raised. more on that later.

so, I'm doing okay, actually consider this an improvement and a time I am growing in my marriage, at work, and emotionally. I have set aside the idea of the priesthood for the next few years anyway as my son goes to school, maybe set it aside for good, I can't say, more on that later too. so spiritually I may not feel as strong, or consistent, or focused, but it seems in every other way I am growing, healing, even if right now I am up far too fucking late and need to go to sleep.

***

one thing did happen while I was out here, maybe an hour ago, wasting time in facebook. I found my high school girlfriend's page and picture. oh, gosh. what a story that is. we broke up over a teacher, my first mentor in literature, hitting on her and trying to date her; he was 20 years older. and I moved on, fast, to find another girl to lean on. but, what will I call her, Kathy? Kathy was awfully cool for a teenager. and I have to say, seeing a couple of pics of her, she must have sold her soul. she looks amazing, truly. it was bittersweet, that crooked smile. I can even now hear how she sounded.

we were together over 3 years. it has been so long now, more than 25 years ago, and she found a nice guy soon after and has been married to him since, has 3 boys, one just married! wow. but her family took such good care of me then, she feels even now like family, like a long lost sister (sort of). I don't have any actual exes on facebook and I like that; I don't think I'll ask to add her, who knows, but I'd like to email. I saw her before we moved north, around the time I got engaged to my wife.

anyway, yes, feelings there.

after I saw her, again more than ten years ago, when we had lunch before I moved north, I went through a few heavy days, and I remember thinking: we could not have worked out, the major depressions of my mid twenties would have been too much pressure. but you know, maybe, but estella, years around/with her, and then our disastrous marriage, were contributors to tha depression. kathy and I might have been okay; she would have loved me sincerely, I think.

sometimes, well, I don't know.

my marriage now is a pretty good one, our dating years were great, my wife and I continue to grow and she is educated, smarter, we share more interests than I think kathy and I could have. but damnit. how can she look better than she did 12 years ago? smiles...the camera maybe. I am very glad she is happy and has done so well. and we can never go back. I'll wait a bit until i can send her a nice, mellow message. I tend to spill my guts with old friends and sometimes freak them out, I think.

anyway, 30 years later, I think I look better than I did when we dated, hah. but oh, she was a dear one and a dear friend. we were too young, too poor, and my ocd began in earnest, took control, over events in my family life while I was with her. but of everyone I dated, she was the kindest, the only other real match in the bunch besides my current wife. estella was one long train wreck cloaked in what i thought was holiness.

***

now, I am off to bed. you see, a few minutes of writing (and I type pretty fast, hah) and I feel better. I think this blog is again changing. I have facebook, even a select group within facebook, but baby there ain't nothing like anonymity.

work really is going well. I have catapulted into leadership, using my gifts in what feels like a sustainable pace (let's hope) and feeling emotionally ready to lead there. leading on campus interests me, the issues and ideas and challenges and problems interest me.

***

oh kathy. if I had time I'd write a poem about that sad and sweet time, the fun we had, then the loss, my illness rising to swallow us both, and the betrayal by a trusted man, the many many years and all that has happened since.

now, love to all out there. it is 2:40 in the fucking a.m.

this is now official recovery blog. uncensored. I'll change the header soon. when I think of it I'm turning off comments and plan to use this as I am using it now. the polished me lives elsewhere.

I do know, though, a few old friends will find this eventually, and this share is dedicated to all of you. where would I be without support in my life?

selah.

You Know, I Miss This Blog

2009-12-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Reading just the "recent" posts here I find that while I love facebook, my fl has grown so large, so many people from work, etc., that even though I have created a little sub-list in fb to talk about more personal things, I am not even sure that is private.

This, this place, this place feels great.

My tone in my posts here is different from either facebook or my new, under my actual name, blog.

Perhaps I will post here again. Who knows. Right now, buried under work and dealing with a lot of issues personally. That is a sucky teaser I know. The recession sucks; my wife is lucky to be working; discernment, priesthood, seems years off, seminary, if ever. I want to write a memoir. Should be writing more poems. My friend J and I even talked about a screenplay today.

Whatever, it is good to write naked, and that is just how this feels.

love to all. more later I hope.

Facebook

2009-10-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

For a long time now, months, I have been using facebook to blog and have even created a blog using my real name and workplace. I don't know if anyone who read this blog is not already in my facebook, but it's funny: I find myself checking up on blogs I have not seen in months or years. If anyone reading here wants access to my "real" blog email me at this address.

I may use some of this content here, so much in draft form, cleaned up and republished. We'll see. In the meantime, know that I and my marriage are doing well, and much love to all.

Just a Share

2009-03-27T10:27:00.001-07:00

Just an update post.

The last two weeks, since my back injection, have felt like a year. For one, the initial lidocaine injection into the facet worked; I came around with no pain at all. That lasted for a few hours, and it wasn't until Sunday night, two days later, that the sharp pains returned. And then what a ride.

Because Monday was absolutely hell. It caught me so off guard. My pain must have quadrupled, and it was much more constant. I was so shaken up I forgot to take enough vicodin, hardly any. Then Tuesday it was the teeniest bit swollen and I laid on my back for several hours grading online papers; that caused about 3 hours of exquisite pain Tuesday night. Why am I so puritanical about taking Vicodin? I don't know, but if I ever have another injection I am sure as hell going to plan on spending a week on it.

Maybe all the stories my dad told me about how my grandfather got addicted; he lost his hand in some machinery and used to ask my dad to inject him with morphine or some other narcotic. Somehow, after some time, he simply kicked it by himself. I haven't thought about that in years. Obviously, taking a few vicodin is not the same as shooting fucking morphine.

Because the other thing was that I became a bit...stimulated, animated, as if I had a couple cups of coffee. I was just a little bit jittery, and more scared and emotional than normal. I'm not sure, but I was told the steroid can do that too. Who knows. I am feeling less jittery, less nervous, and sweating a lot less during sleep. All good, but all side effects I was not told about ahead of time.

The sad thing, truly, is that while the lidocaine worked and acted as a diagnostic tool the steroids did not. I don't think I received any relief from those meds. I called my "second opinion" ortho, the guy who suggested the facet block, and left a message with his assistant. She called me back but we haven't spoken yet. There are a couple things we could do that I know of:

1) since this injury was the result of trauma I want to know if we need to xray or mri or ct scan the actual facet to see what happened to it; that may not be the case, but that is my first question

2) a facet rhizotomy. this is where a needle is inserted and the two nerves in the actual facet joint are basically cooked using radiofrequency pulses...oddly, this only provides pain relief about 50 percent of the time, but the pain relief can be significant, even total, and can last as long as two years; typically, maybe a year, but then the procedure can be repeated. my concern with this, after my injection, is an increase in pain. that can happen I read and can last not a few days but a few weeks though it is unlikely to happen

3) there are less dramatic treatments, physical therapy mainly, working with the injury to minimize discomfort and to strengthen the muscles around the spine; this is the thing I'd like to talk about first...this injury has never completely gone away, but it has been essentially pain free or close, felt like a tightness in the area, for months at a time. if I could get back to that place I think I'd be alright with it and there is no surgery involved.

On my back, that's about it for now. It flared up a bit yesterday. I think I stretched it too much, went too deep, on my inversion bed. I have been walking almost every day...ran twice at the gym on a treadmill and while that felt fantastic overall the second time irritated my back a bit. My son tells me to swim and that is not a bad idea.

Oh, and there are other treatments like accupuncture and other alternative treatments. One thing I am glad about is it does not seem to be a disc...that is even harder to treat, often, than what I have. But this is about all I know; I will learn more as I go.

The emotional impact has been real. I am going to see the therapist I saw this week next week and if she works out I'll continue to see her for a while...I just have so much going on!

My three days working from home alone has gotten more annoying than ever. I am finding ways to cope but I hate it. And now that I am involved in campus governance and come down a third day...this would be less, but my back has caused me to miss some meetings because driving (for the first time in 2.5 years) has become an aggravating factor.

My wife and I do want to move closer and I'd love to do that this summer, even half the way closer, but with my son in his final year of high school next year, and even more, me considering commuting part time to seminary from near my job...this decision is very difficult. Buying a house halfway down he could still go to his high school, I'd be closer to work and so would my wife; but if I want to go to seminary in one or two years part time it is farther, harder to do, maybe impossible.

On that topic, will my back injury effect my discernment? It might, but I don't want to get that far ahead. Driving has only been an issue for a few weeks, about a month, actually less. This flare up may lessen and driving may be a non issue again. But still, why be that much farther from the seminary? I am overwhelmed, because the benefits of being closer are vast to me personally, emotionally, even, probably, economically. One more year up here, though, and we could move anyplace, including very close to my campus. That puts me closer to sailing and closer to the seminary...closer to work and all the good that entails.

Sighs. Only time will tell.

That is about all I have. I won't call this rant, I'll call it 'sharing.' If I can't do this on my blog, what can I do? I need direction or a good decision making process and right now feel short on both.

At least I have a good job which isn't going anyplace; I am not dying or in danger with my injury (a 34 year old friend of mine is dying of leukemia) and my spiritual life has strengthened since I entered discernment. I have a new therapist who might be okay with other names if I want to continue to shop. I am exercising again, even if it's just brisk walking up and down around my neighborhood for 40 or 50 mins. I have a loving family; this is priceless beyond measure. My wife and stepson have done more for me than anything ever.

Well, that's enough for now. I was so mountaintop when I was at the seminary just, what, five or six weeks ago? It feels like a lifetime. May God grant me my desire to one day go there one way or another. May he draw me closer to him. And, somehow, may my back get better.

Love to all, including me :)

Pee girl gets the belt...

2009-03-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Listening to Hole's Live Through This today on an old, burned cd. When that album came out all I could think was, Courtney didn't write this by herself. The lyrics, sure, but not the music. Whether Kurt helped her or not (and how the hell would I ever know) that really is a hell of an album. It reminds me of the days when physicality was my salvation; when going downstairs, numb with pain, and hitting the punching bag till I was exhausted kept the death-wolves at bay. I remember doing that, beating the bag, and screaming to Lithium from Nevermind. I didn't know how to box then, or evenif I had any vague memories, I just swang away...

And running. Before I became a true gym-rat, a stairmaster regular (I didn't really lift then, only a little) I would beat the bag and sometimes run. Not run far or well, but run, and listen to Courtney's album...

For what it's worth, when I saw Kurt on MTV unplugged, half of the time having a fight with Moll on the phone, when I saw him, I had enough recovery then to know, what did Burroughs say about him...there really is something wrong with that boy. I knew he was emotionally unstable, angry as hell, and depressed even more. When he was dead that next year I was shaken up but not stunned.

God, I loved that music. In Utero was my favorite album for a long time...replacing the Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magick for a time even. My other favorite band then (and I am embarrassed to admit I was in my late 20's) was Bikini Kill, the raging riot girl poet punk band. That music helped me as I saved my own life.

Which brings me to today. I have been therapist hunting again. I am not in serious depression, anxiety, or obsession. The biggest issues in my life now are, well, real: the isolation of living so far from work, way up in the wild woods, continuing growth for my marriage, discernment, and dealing with my back (which is doing better, more on that later; I may always have to manage that but my hope is for better if I put in the work). I am not in crisis, but it's great to have someone out there to connect with, and I realized after just two visit with two different people (it really is a nice feeling to shop therapists) that I have trauma I still need to process. A lot of that processing happened way back in the early days; shit, a lot of it happened listening to punk rock music, to Nirvana and Hole and many other bands. In my garage and even at clubs, screaming and wheeling. But now that I am older, a homeowner, a tenured professor, now I find a need to still go back. A lot of things that happened to me I just wasn't strong enough to handle at the time. I did not have resources, or even know what resources were. And OCD, even if it lends survival power, a mild insanity instead of the real thing, OCD blocks the process of real emotion. Now, I think, I'm ready.

Granted, I may not be beating on a bag with my back (but who knows). And I tried running on the treadmill yesterday and that final set caused my back to tighten and hurt a bit. But I can walk briskly, and often do; that can be used to process. And I can write. And talk.

Damn, I miss Sharon, my last therapist. The one who retired...So far both of the women I've met have been good, one early in her career, the other much farther along. One does EMDR and I am curious about it's application to trauma; the other is all old school feeling based work, and I know that stuff works. I am living proof.

Before I forget, on my back injury: the injection proved the source of the pain, the sight of the injury, my lowest left facet joint. But the steroids did not work for long term pain relief. But walking, and my new inversion table, and watching posture and using heat...all that is helping. I don't know why it recently flared up so dramatically and awfully, but it did. Of course, the injection did not help...heh. I was sore from that for several days. Driving is hard but getting easier. This is good, as I can get to campus easier and that means less isolation.

So, there you go. Just an update on life. I have a facebook now with over a hundred "friends" and when I post there I got comments, many respond...here I have a smaller audience, I guess. Who knows. But I can say whatever I want here, mostly, and not worry about that information ending up on my dean's desk, or higher up, or worse, on the Bishop's desk...hah. Not that that would be the end of the world, but I like the anonymity here and long have.

Oh, Moll contacted me on facebook. I never got to write about her in my ongoing Estella saga of long ago. I will; I deserve to talk about it. I politely declined her friend request but did give her an email. She was an 8 month girlfriend, while I was going through my divorce, and I have to admit a place I leaned emotionally and sexually. I deserved that too. The problem with Moll was that she was, and is, nuts. I mean, what is it called, attachment disorder. Sexually charged but incapable of emotional bonding or intimacy or even normal attitudes towards those things. I thought maybe because she was so young then, 22, 23, that that she was just immature. Based on what she wrote me, not much has changed. She has not responded since I sent a longer email telling her my experience with her and I, not a mean email, but an honest one; I don't think I will hear.

Oh, any honeymoon I might have had with NTW is over. His attitudes towards homosexuality are unsupportable, as is what he says about the larger scriptures. I still have not found an NT critic that matches my own feelings on the bible, or what I'm reaching for. Not Borg; he is close but goes too far (looking for symbolic meaning in the miracle accounts, and ruling out the miraculous all together). Not Wright who is a fantastic NT critic but something of a closet fundamentalist when he feels like it. Not Moo and his gang who really are fundamentalists as far as I can tell. Maybe LT Johnson comes closest. I am very interested in reading Barth on the bible. Eventually.

Well, enough for today. This has been a good post for me; I can feel my emotions, like heat, just below my skin. What a gift it is to access them so freely now, so easily. In spite of all my trauma in and out of therapy. Note, I only see women therapists now. But I'm sure I've talked about that.

burn the witch, the witch is dead,
burn the witch, burn the witch,
just bring me back her head...

Of Nerves and Men

2009-03-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

Many people who are in my facebook know most of this story; but here, in blog, I can tell is at leisure and include more intimate feelings. This I like.

As I note in the post below my back pain has indeed flared up. Ironically, it was the week I saw a specialist 90 minutes from my house. That week I was on campus 3 days, and it was driving home that 3rd night that the pain really hit: like a fire below my skin, really, a burning, awful pain. With rest from pressure, either directly on my back or sitting, that eased and I was able to go back to work the next week though I missed my department meeting. What that visit with a genuine orthopaedist led to (as opposed to the utter idiot that I saw twice near my house...the ortho who just kept telling me: exercise, no matter what it is, it will get better if you exercise) what the genuine orth did was set me up for my second spinal injection. I had an epidural to one of the nerve roots three or four months ago and it did nothing. This shot, though, was different; the anasth doc (no idea how to spell that) injected two shots into one of my lumbar facets on the painful side. An simple idea, when one thinks about it. Diagnostic as well as potentially therapeutic.

I woke up Friday from the injections (no memories of any of it) completely pain free. That is very important because it tells my docs where the pain has been coming from all this time: an injure facet joint, wounded 2.5 years ago in that grappling match with that fool who hurt me.

But that is not all the news. The fact that I was pain free for a few hours, actually the pain gradually resurfaced until about two days later when I when the pain came slamming back, this is good to know. But now the longer acting meds, the steroids that are also injected, get their chance to work. Some people are pain free for several months. I am a bit disappointed here; it's been four full days and so far no long term relief. Yesterday the pain really flared up horribly as the anaesthetic was gone and no steroids were working...it was the very worst ever and it caught me off guard and I was panicked and not taking enough pain meds. Today is more like a normal bad day in the last two weeks. I took Monday off work and today missed a meeting but plan to drive down tomorrow.

So, the steroids may yet kick in; if they don't within a few more days though it is apparently unlikely. Luckily, the steroids are not the only option for long term management of my symptoms. There is a procedure called rhizotmomy where a doc goes in through a tube, I guess a kind of scope, and uses radio waves to cook the two nerves in the facet that cause the pain. That sounds pretty scary, but if this injection fails to help I would consider it unless they want to do another injection and see if different meds do the job. I hope so.

The rhiz, if it works, is supposed to work for a long time, maybe a year or more until the nerves grow back. Still, it's a newer procedure and spooks me.

I am very sad the steriods are not (yet) working from this recent injection. I think they should have by now, but I know it depends on the person, etc.

Well, at least we know what is broken. It makes me very sad I did not know this earlier. Sitting compresses the discs but also the facets, and I sat an awful lot the 18 mos. I was in second life. If I knew I had a structural injury I would never have done it. I don't know how much difference knowing would have made in the long term, but there it is. I think I would have really tried to strengthen the muscles that support my spine, etc., had I known the problem was on the spine itself.

Damn. I did have a few truly pain free hours. I could not sleep Fri and Sat night because all I could think about was working out: sparring, lifting, all the things I used to do. I wanted to run again, most of all kickbox. Now, I'm not sure. The orth did tell me cardio is helpful in healing back injuries, and I did walk 3 days straight this weekend, a brisk walk, up and down around my house.

I've also relaxed about taking the vicodin. Sorry but it doesn't seem that strong. It makes me tired like cold medicine, maybe a bit spacier, sure, but it helps with the pain. Not as much as I'd like with the amount I take, but it helps. It seems totally fine to use that to manage the flare ups like this one.

Last fall, walking 3 times a week and not sitting, I managed to get things feeling a lot better by December, and that includes all my driving. Then, I spent 30 hours in SL or so, crouched in front of my computer in January during break, and that was the beginning of the slide. fuck. that does piss me off.

Well, the docs seem optimistic, at least my primary doctor, now that the problem is isolated. I ordered one of those inversion tables cause I heard that helps with facet problems and it just seems like a great stretch anyway. who knows, it might help a lot. It shipped today from amazon.

And that is it right now, gang. A mixture of news good and not so good. At least it doesn't seem to be the disk causing pain. Those are harder to work with, I think, depending on what the problem is.

Right now, it hurts pretty good though. Burns. Is that bone on bone or muscle in spasm? It reminds me a bit of the pain of levator...I don't know. It's much better than yesterday though! That pain, coming off having a needle stuck in there and stuff injected, that was the worst. Sorry for the graphics....

Keeping up hope.

The 5

2009-03-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

The back injury I have had for two and a half years has flared up and in a bad way. Now, driving hurts it. I live an hour from my job and this is suddenly a critical issue. As much as I enjoy being on campus more, going down 3 days a week for Senate, last week I came home after 3 days going back and forth and was in genuine pain. So much so I saw my doc the next day. I'm trying some new meds, celebrex and flexeril (just one a day) and have yet to touch the vicodin he gave me for times it really, really hurts.

On the plus side I saw a different orthopaedist, convinced the one up here by me is a complete idiot. I drove a long way, almost 90 minutes, but the guy was worth it. This Friday I get another injection into the spine (woot that shit) but in another spot, a different spot. And he's not done with me if that doesn't work; there are a number of other things to try. Thank God.

Oh, and if it really IS just a very oddly unhealed tendon injury from so long ago (which should have healed two years ago) he assured me...eventually, it will get better. He thinks that likely the spine or a disc or nerve is involved somehow, he did say more than once that he was mystified, but I could tell he was thinking-mystified and not tossing his hands up mystified. Good. I have hope.

We plan to move closer to my work, maybe right next to it! But not while my son has another year of high school to go. So for now, I am looking at all other options. Living near campus I wouldn't have to drive much at all; I could walk year round, etc. Walking helps.

And besides all this (and why did it suddenly start killing me when I sit in a car...it didn't do that before all this time) the stress of discernment continues. Rather, the fear. My current job is a good one; it provides flexibility and almost ultimate security. I'm big into security. When I went down for my first Senate meeting a couple weeks ago, well my second, I realized how much I loved being there, even if the things we were talking about were not critical things, really, parking problems and such. Just the intellectual community. Then, drinks after with a half dozen colleagues...it was great. So, I admit, was my lunch in between with a priest who runs a parish right by my college. Another place I am sharing and listening. But sometimes my job seems hard to leave; other times, it seems far from vital to who I am as a person.

As a practice for ministry, I want to do a book study at my parish this summer on a novel, maybe Till We Have Faces. Then, in the fall, perhaps a study in Mark where I can inject literary discussion (the synoptic problem, marcan priority, the marcan "sandwich," his use of irony, etc.) along with the usual kind of thing done at bible studies. And I am thinking: at a big or medium parish, a parish with larger numbers of educated people, that kind of thing might fly well. Will it even work at my parish? I think again of what one staff person at the seminary I visited said: "If you can learn to minister to all kinds of people, to just about anybody, you've learned the single most important thing." How much I agree with her. My little mountain parish fits that bill rather directly.

Underneath all, all of it...fear.

I did make an appt. to see a new therapist this Thursday. I had some depression a couple weeks back, home alone by myself, nothing harsh or major, and it lifted each evening when my family came home. It was only two days. But it reminded me that I am going through a lot with the discernment process, shaking and changing in my core, and it cannot hurt to have someone I can see every couple of weeks. I'm not thinking weekly, unless at the very first. She uses the same waiting room as Sharon, my other therapist (yes, transitional objects can be rooms) and I think it's okay that I drink that in. She seemed nice on the phone. The funny thing was she said Sharon used to text with her clients, take calls late, be more available outside the office time and this new person can't do that so much. I had to laugh because I never talked to Sharon outside the office. I think Joy's boundaries are okay as I am not in crisis. I have done my crisis days, rather years, and that is behind me, I believe, barring a major life loss or some such thing. And even then. I have changed who I am on the inside through years of therapy. No, I need maintenance. Anyway, it was a good move on my part to set something up so I can have someone "out there" when and if I need her.

***

And I end with this: the 5. The psalmist sounds self righteous in some of these lines, and he seems to have specific persecutors in mind, but what a poem. If this were all we had...it would almost be enough. This is the genuine outcry of a man in need; it is my prayer to my Father this morning. Fear, pain, these are humbling. And sometimes, the KJV simply dominates, whatever its shortcomings.

Love to all; please read this with me to the end:

Psalm 5

Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.

Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.

The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.

For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.

But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.

For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

Week of Ash Wednesday 09

2009-02-26T09:12:00.002-08:00

I have posted before on Ash Wednesday (or during that week). I'd like to continue that mini tradition. As always on blog, I break all rules of writing process and begin with no idea where I'm heading. Kinda like therapy :)

I begin by noting that the post below is mostly rant. That is fine. If I had time, I'd estimate what percentage of the Psalms could be labeled "rant." A fair chunk, I think. So, I continue that tradition, as well.

My spiritual health has improved since I entered discernment in November; I have no doubt. I have more faith, a stronger connection to God (or if you wish, the Divine) and I feel motivated to begin things at my church, a book study for example, where before I had only nebulous goals and a less focused motivation. This summer I'm thinking of using a novel with religious themes; maybe doing that again in the fall or perhaps doing a gospel study. I'd love to do a blended academic/devotional study of Mark where we read the text as scripture but also raise some of the academic framework (its role among the synoptics, Mark's apparent rhetorical devices such as irony and the famous "sandwich," etc.). I know I have to teach to the audience, and my priest tells me our parishioners don't always "do their homework." We'll see. Also, there is such a delicate balance when it comes to introducing academic perspective, including even a little skepticism perhaps, to a community that is not used to it.

But I am rambling. The gist is that my spiritual life has come unstuck and for that I am very grateful.

Yesterday, at Ash, when the priest (a woman) put the host in my hand, she held onto my fingers just a bit, a very loving, very nurturing touch/grasp; I have not experienced that before and it was so powerful I think I gasped. That is the essence of the Eucharist to me, God and the priest expressing love to the communicant. I have always enjoyed communion, but that experience, and the Eucharist at the convention in November that sent me into discernment (after years of kicking it around)...those were peak moments. I believe I have a stronger spiritual sensibility. I remember when I entered discernment telling God, quite pragmatically, that I needed more faith if I was going to do this. So far at least that has happened even though I realized it long after I had forgotten that prayer. My faith is moving beyond the academic thrashing I know so well and into something with texture and depth.

All this is very wonderful, and I should be focusing on this. But I admit, as in my prior post, that the difficulties between me and ordination, let alone a job in ministry, seem enormous.

The commenter below suggests participation in shared ministry. That is a term I have heard before, and it is not a bad idea. Shared ministry means active, dynamic lay involvement. It might even mean unpaid ordained persons assisting, or lightly paid, ordained people with other incomes, but that latter model I don't know about. Shared ministry is a good thing, but will it ever fulfill the desire I feel now to represent God directly to the community as a priest? Maybe.

Anonymous also notes that the E church has been shrinking for some time. This is true, probably since the 60's or 70's. I think it is also true of many of the mainline Protestant denominations (Methodists, Lutherans) but there I have no data. TEC has surely been hurt by the installment of Gene Robinson in 2003, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, and, in my view, by the flaccid response so far coming out of Canterbury. I have mixed feelings here. Those who are not tolerant of gay persons, who are not willing to be educated and approach the bible realistically....how much have we really lost? Should we have asked gay persons to wait another generation or two or three for open acceptance as they pursue their own calls? I don't think so. I know the questions regarding unity of the communion are powerful questions, and I grieve at these losses (my first two priests, the ones who married us, have left over this issue), but if one is going to use the bible books to claim homosexual love and sex are outside God's will, then, ripping off C.S. Lewis I'll say it again: those who cannot read books written for grown-ups should not try.

My sense is that in the long term (and sadly, long term is likely to take all my life and longer) gay persons will be accepted, fully, by Christianity on a large scale. In some parts of the world that may never happen or may take centuries, but eventually, the fact that these persons have been marginalized for millenia will be obvious. This means, to me, that the fundamentalists in America, the many, many evangelicals who read the bible as the direct words of God, eventually they are going to lose the argument or better, realize they have already lost it. It is so clear that every document, including the biblical documents, must be placed in their historic contexts. They must be read and understood in this way. Sadly, changes in the church take a very long time, but I think TEC is on the right side, the Christian side, of the question. Unless some new information surfaces regarding gay orientation...and even then; I just can't see why God would care about the sex of the person we decide to commit our lives to. Sin must always defined as that which hurts another, and we as a race live and breathe in that activity as our atmosphere. But actions which are meant to enhance love I cannot see God opposing.

So why is TEC shrinking? Is it really a bad investment for my future? This is a fascinating question; I confess I like challenges, but I'd also note that many parishes are thriving and growing. Even in the first link Anonymous gives below, while the rector notes that pledges are down because of the economic crisis (something to be expected), she also notes that every year pledges have been increasing annually for some time at that rector's parish. One problem may be that TEC is not as, I want to say, as flexible, as the independent evangelical churches. I mean flexible geographically and architecturally. The old TEC parishes, many of them, go back to the second war and long before. So we find buildings meant to hold small numbers of people, often a half dozen churches in a single city. I think the city where I teach has at least four within fifteen minutes of each other, and more within easy driving distance of the city center. The, often newer, evangelical churches begin in a junior high some place and then build the buildings they need. People shift in and out and between the larger evangelical parishes. TEC is geographically and architecturally structured for a bygone era.

But what else? We don't often do outreach or evangelism. We don't have a simple gospel package message (though the Alpha class is doing this, and other programs) and probably the liturgy and our more formal, and participational, style has become remote for the average American. I am sure someone is studying this; I'll find out more later. Maybe we just need better bands...better and more dynamic presentations...

What do we have in our favor? Tolerance, for one! An intelligent (may I say modern) attitude towards the bible and science (sometimes). A gorgeous liturgical and symbolic tradition (depending on the diocese...some are still rather low church). A strong commitment to social action and charity many of the evangelical churches (polluted, in part, by social conservatism) seem to be only now discovering (pushed in part, I know, by the interaction of liturgicals like Richard Rohr with pastors like Rick Warren). The "emerging" church, exploding in numbers, is emerging in a social and doctrinal direction where TEC has been for decades. And again I stress, many parishes are thriving, consolidating into larger communities which represent the religious experience of many contemporary Americans. No, for now at least, I have great hope for TEC. And if the Anglican communion kicks us out, tragically, then so be it, though I would never wish it. How will they look to church historians in 200 years? How will those who choose to oppose gay marriage but allow remarriage for hets (out of pastoral care) look in 200 years?

The TEC does need to reinvent itself in some ways, ways I don't yet know, and frankly, I want to be part of that. I have for a long time. I want to reach the younger generation with the same practice/ritual/community/prayer book that has had such a dramatic impact on me. I guess that, too, is Call.

***

So, there it is. My wife and I tried to be more frugal this month and we still spent almost everything we brought home. She still has loans. My son still starts college in 18 mos. Even with "plan C," the only plan I can envision at the moment, where I move close to my college teaching job and then take the train or drive to the seminary campus (and that I can do; it is less than 90 minutes) there are tons of questions still. Could I really do my job and take six units of seminary a semester, even if some of that was online? Do I even WANT to take any of my seminary education online? There are a few summer courses and that is hopeful, but less than I'd like. Even if I could physically/practically handle the workload (and I have real doubts; my career keeps me pretty busy) could we then afford it? At least I would have my salary; we might be able to swing the costs loans; remember, my son starts college in 10 mos.

Of course, with Plan C, I will be even older when I come out of seminary. And the dark shadow of retirement reality rises...priests do have a retirement, as do teachers, but I think if I retire early from the college, before 55, it might have a big impact on what I collected. And I'm sure if I put in 30 years as a priest I'd do fine, but I will not be able to do that. Even if I work till 70 as a priest, and I might be able to do that (my own father is very healthy; he's 72 and still likes to work)...even at 70 I might, stress might, be able to do 20 years if I trot off to seminary full time. If I go part time, it will be less. Maybe 15 or 18 years at the very most...you see, I have lots of fears, lots of questions, lots of unknowns. My wife and I need to cut back even more on our spending and we are already trying. If I become a vocational priest, we probably will have to do that for the rest of our lives even when her career fully begins. Oh, and I'll work every Sunday and holiday for the rest of my life.... :)

Sighs.

Well, there you go. In closing, I still love Ash Wednesday and Lent. I am dust and to dust I will return. I appreciate the chance to reflect on my spiritual journey, party less (or not at all...still haven't decided if I will not drink at all this Lent but that is likely). So I welcome this Lenten season as a chance to grow as a spiritual person (another great thing TEC has: the Ecclesiastical calendar).

Errata: oh, my back injury is bothering me again...I did yoga and didn't give myself enough time to rest and soak after. Odd how that works. I'm supposed to see another specialist on Monday...it seems to be a soft tissue injury which still hasn't healed completely. Prayers appreciated.

Also, I really should find another therapist. I'm doing fine, managing well, not obsessing. But as my doctor says, it's nice to have a therapist out there someplace, even if I don't see him/her often. I've been out of therapy completely since last May...it's something I need to address. It costs me almost nothing with my insurance.

love to all.

Seeing Seminary

2009-02-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

I visited a seminary recently, an Episcopal seminary, and those of you who are in my facebook (which is most of the margin) know the gist: well, part of the gist. Overall, the experience was very powerful, deeply communal, and even though I was scared half the time I was there I felt very centered, very home. I thought again: man, this is what I should be doing, this is where I should be using my gifts.

Since I entered Discernment my spiritual life has clearly improved. I was mired in doubt-dialectic, the obsessive alternative to spiritual experience and faith, but discernment has kicked me into a solid spiritual place for the most part. My wife and I are putting more energy into our little parish; we have decided to stick it out and dig in for now. And I already want to use it as a sort of early field education...in the M.Div., one has to do one or two years of field ed, often at a parish, sort of playing priest-ette, assisting, and getting support during the process. On the job training (without a paycheck of course). I plan to do at least one book study this summer at my church, you know, branch out and be involved. It's good for me anyway.

The dirty dark of the seminary visit was what my wife described as "sticker shock." And there it is: the awful rub. She just finished graduate school and a long educational path. So far, her salary is low and job insecure as she builds her MFT hours. But she has student debt in the upper 20's. With the loans consolidated and at a very low interest rate that is not hard to manage for us at all, not with me still teaching and her salary only going to go up. But seminary could easily cause me to have to borrow more than that; 40K for an M.Div in debt is not unusual. And here everything spirals out of control: what about my retirement, what about our home, how good are the medical benefits for priests. In short, I have plenty of "temporal concerns." With my son graduating and going to college in a year and a half, even with his father sharing the costs with us and him choosing a State school...frankly, I feel pretty fucked right now. I have found something which has drawn me in many ways since I was in my early 20's; back then, I was trying to decide (with very little information about either) between seminary and English graduate school. I pulled off one of those careers rather handily, holding tenure and a good paycheck. Now I want the other? hah. But the Episcopal church, the energy I experienced this weekend, it is an entirely different culture from the evangelical world I knew in my 20's. The beauties of the service and the liturgy; the tolerance; the intelligent positions one finds on the bible; the deep commitment to the sacred. I am totally sold and believe in my heart I would make a good priest and even, with great luck, a good college/seminary instructor. I know I am a fine teacher and think I could learn the ins and outs of priest life.

But the rub returns. When, when, when can we afford this? And while I came back from the seminary with a different view of material things, feeling that the nice home is passing away, the clothes...needing only security and, sorry, good health care for my family...I do not know how my wife and I, who have never been bad with money but also never great with it...how could we become as fiscally conscious as one has to be to do what I want to do?

Right now, while part of me is hoping to enroll at least part time the same semester my son begins college, fall 10, part of me thinks it may take much longer than that. That we need to pay of my wife's debt first, get my son halfway through college or more, maybe even work longer and save...I should be happy, I am growing spiritually and have found a sense of vocation I have only glimpsed before (I used to talk about the call feeling like a lighthouse beam...it would hit, then pass, hit, then pass; lately I feel the light is much more consistent and surprisingly gentle.)

It also makes me angry, as it must make priests who are trying to make a living while pledges remain low angry (and that is a hypothetical scenario) that the tremendous wealth in the ECUSA community, the people who attend the Episcopal church and have substantial means and they are many, that more of that money is not directed towards Christian education, i.e. priests in training. Is this a further outgrowth of the serve-me-for-cheap culture we all are getting used to? I hear about building projects from time to time and certainly people need buildings, but someone needs to make the seminarians a priority. How difficult to borrow 40K or more (and the student I spoke to this week has noticeably more but he did 4 years) and then come out and make whatever beginning priests make...not much. Even full rectors, not much in the many smaller parishes which are part of the EC. Our denomination, one of the wealthiest, has less resources for its postulants than any other mainline group (or so I have read). What the hell is wrong with this picture?

And so there things sit for now. I have stuff to do and must get ready for work. I loved seminary, loved visiting and sitting in on classes, loved the community and the staff and faculty I met. I should have been there when I was mid 20's and not mid (yikes, just barely) 40's. But my head had to be put together and that took a long time, a long time. Again, I should be content: I am reasonably happy and well and spiritually growing; I already have a great job. Why I am not feeling called into the diaconate where I could keep my day job? I might at some point in the future feel that, but not at this time. Right now, it's all about getting that theological education and going into ministry in some form. I would never have believed I was writing this post 6 months ago; heck, not even 4 months ago. Still, there it is.

I tend to write long blog posts I know. So I'll cut this for now. But I woke this morning feeling anxious, scared, discouraged. Even if I get into seminary and I believe I would, even if I get through the diocesan discernment and I believe I have a good chance, even then...no one is going to hand me a check. A couple I met this week is getting financial help from their diocese back east. I don't think it happens out west. Again, a lot more money in TEC on the east coast.

So I ask again: how the hell do the people who take so much from TEC, from its liturgy and symbol and beauty and intelligence....how do they expect to continue to be served if money is not provided to help seminarians as educational costs rise and rise? We get what we pay for in this economy.

Oh, yes, and speaking of this economy, we still have equity in our home (thank God) but not very much...enough to pay for seminary three times over has evaporated in the last two years. Funny that I get my call now, so strong, and not as strong then. But then I have been putting my family first: getting wife through graduate school and making sure my son is well dressed, supported in his sports, always has money when he needs some. Sacrificing for others, for my wife's education. Now, wtf. I am angry a bit, mostly dismayed. The future does not look impossible, but it looks hard and it looks long. I fear if I wait too long, graduate at too late of an age, I will not be able to get a rectorship. But now I am far ahead of myself. I am a good leader and communicator...I will always have those skills.

all for now. peace and love.

More From the Rough

2009-02-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

I went back and read the post below and really don't like it. If I am going to bring in Paul's comments in Corinthians I feel I should have a library of secondary sources behind me...I don't. But I want to say one more thing (and I really do wish I had more time for this):

As I note below, some of the more moving (for me) ethical passages in the Torah come when Israel is reminded that they themselves were delivered from slavery and oppression. To me, a very similar thing is critical to understanding Paul.

Paul really does seem to say (and I find Horsley's notes in my Oxford study bible very thought-provoking) that singleness trumps marriage unless the sexual passions are just too powerful. Now, this may be in response to some ascetic sexual practices among the Corinthians as Horsley maintains. But it's hard not to see Paul elevating the unmarried state, and suggesting that those engaged (or maybe, I think I read elsewhere, with virgin daughters) remain celibate and single if they could because of the imminence of Jesus' return. This is all to be found in 1 Cor. 7. When Paul says the present time is short, it seems clearly eschatological (and, I'd note, dependent on or at least fueled by Jesus' own apocalyptic proclamations). What I find here is a very early Christian, an apostle, one who has seen the risen Jesus, trying to figure things out and provide humane guidelines to a rather disordered community in light of what he felt to be the historical picture. Is the suggestion that it is better to not marry (though Paul is very clear both marriage or non marriage are perfectly fine) a contention the church continues to hold up outside of Roman Catholicism and monasticism...not that I know of. But this is the point I was trying to make below: Paul does his best, but he is limited by personal and cultural and even local conditions.

Now, look at chapter 8. Here the issue of eating meat sacrificed to pagan idols is brought to his attention. Again, my sources are limited, and I have heard a range of readings on this, from one source saying that almost all meat offered for sale in the market in Corinth would have been previously offered to a pagan deity to Horsley's reading that this meat would have been offered in the "temple environs." It doesn't matter. Paul does not seem to care. He notes that there is only one God anyway, the idols are not real deities, but his central argument is that one must never do something to injure the conscience of another. Now, I am not sure this principle can be universally applied. If it "stumbles" (as we used to say) another Christian because I wear earrings, I am likely to keep wearing them figuring, in the long run, this will be better for us both. Me, because I am not doing anything to harm anyone, and the other person because I am causing him to grow in his spiritual reflection. But Paul does not say that here: he says the most amazing thing: if "food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat."

That is simply extraordinary. He doesn't just say meat sacrificed to idols, though he might mean that. He just says meat. And my sense is Paul is giving us a foundational principle of behavior based on the sacrifice of the Son of God; he is willing to go to whatever length to not injure his brother or sister (and, pragmatically, he is perhaps chiding the Corinthians and getting them to let go of the topic).

I share this because I do not want anyone to think that just because I find problems in Paul that I do not also find glorious, essential, sublime material as well. Paul is strongest when he is moved by his own sense of Jesus' sacrifice for him. That awareness of God's love enriches his ethics the way the redemption from Egypt enriches the Torah. But I still think Paul's letters are Paul's letters and I do not need to dig out every ethical precept (let's find a new Law we can use to control people whether it is good for them or not) and then enforce those today.

***

Sighs. I spent much of today thinking how weak my prior post was, and I will likely spend the rest of the day thinking about all the problems with this post. NT studies reminds me of wine. Yes, I said wine. Sixty years ago, a century ago, there were only so many great houses in Europe one had to know to be wine literate. Now, sheez, there are hundreds of good wines coming from all over the world. It is very, very hard to "know" wine unless one works in the business full time, and even then! The same thing has happened with NT studies! I (again) envy BW3 and those that can dedicate so much time to immersing themselves in the sources so necessary to make sense of such ancient documents. Me, heck, I'm just trying to read through the bible and figure out what do to with it as I go. As I said below, it's part of why I don't post so much.

The things I know well, my recovery from depression and ocd, these I have yet to write about in any detail. I can't think where to begin or what to call the series. When I get around to it, it will do more good than my NT posts I am sure. For I developed a powerful personal tool set that brought me from violent major depressions and crippling ocd to a normal life. Yes it took more than a decade of therapy, but I take no meds and am very proud of who I am now compared to how I suffered. Someday, I'll get to writing out my personal toolkit here in the hope that it might help someone.

Really have to go. Love to all.

Some Opening (Rough) Thoughts on the Bible

2009-02-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

It seems the only times I get time to post is when my wife is in bed and I am up later, an infrequent thing. But here I am, at only 10:00, been reading about Rob Bell at BW3's site for an hour (and much on homosexuality); a friend gave me Velvet Elvis and I have read a little. The funky format bothers me, but will read more when I can.

So, this little post is not about Rob Bell.

Nor is it a full treatment of the Bible, homosexuality, or any of the other things I have said I would write on here. But is is a beginning. A snapshot of my current struggle/thought.

My understanding of the Bible must begin with how I read the NT. I am no NT scholar, but I know its contents decently well, with maybe a weakness in Hebrews...for some reason I have never gotten around to reading that entire letter. But the four gospels I know, and the epistles, decently. And let me just say this: I think Paul's letters are just that, Paul's letters. Did Paul have a miraculous conversion experience (are they not all miraculous)...sure. Did he actually perform miraculous cures...he claims in the first person to have done so. Did God reveal himself to Paul in some direct way, in short, give him the "gospel" directly as he emphatically states in Galatians? Paul surely believes this, and I have not reason to deny that some kind of special, direct revelation occurred (whether that involved any interaction with the earliest Christian doctrines, the kerygma itself, is open for discussion....Saul thought the Christians were heretics for some reason). But does this mean that every word Paul wrote back to the churches he founded, every letter to support them, encourage them, and address specific concerns, does that mean that GOD wrote each line of those letters, that every bit of advice given and viewpoint taken are Divine? To me, such an assertion is preposterous. It is not only preposterous, the letters themselves neither claim nor support such a view: they reveal an apostle (and those with him) reconstructing the Jewish faith in light of the radical news of the resurrection and the growing reverberations of Jesus' teaching/life-impact. To illustrate this would take some time, and I must assume it has already been done in detail.

To wit: Paul's emphasis on the eschatological eminence of singleness...of (according to my NRSV translation anyway) not marrying one's fiancee because singleness allows to one to focus more directly on the things of God...this is a very personal position. I will say idiosyncratic. It violates, to me, much of what Ben Witherington (a scholar in whom I find much to like even if we disagree on about everything I am going to say in this post, and whose name I have long just typed out as BW3) says about the imago dei as a critical procreative union. Paul really did seem to think Jesus would return within his own generation, or easily could (evidence, if nothing else, that he was utterly convinced of the resurrection and ascension). In light of this, Paul recommends individuals who can remain single do so.

This seems rather odd two millenia later. I am not even so sure the single person can be more focused on the things of God than the married person whether the return of Jesus is immminent or not. My family has had enormous positive spiritual impact on me. In short, Paul was wrong in my opinion. He was expressing a personal perspective, and while he may be right for some, while those words may lead some to lives of tremendous spiritual accomplishment, they surely do not apply to most.

This is one small example. But in fact there are many. BW3 and others in the long threads at his site on Bell are right: the Bible condemns homosexual activity between men in the Torah and between men again in Paul and calls it unnatural, condemns it implicitly (probably, am thinking of Romans 1) for both sexes again in Paul. And I have to echo the quote attributed to Marcus Borg on BW3's site: we just know more about these things than did the Biblical writers. I have, have to agree. Even if gay orientation is set aside, the NT letters absolutely bleed human influence throughout. Do they contain the gospel as we know it? Sure. But plenty besides.

The four gospels are even more complex. NTW (N.T. Wright) rather sidesteps the synoptic problem (something BW3 mentions someplace) by arguing that the four gospels may simply rely on many tradition strands for their sayings content, hence their differences (and no need for Q). He might be right, at least with Q (though the order of that material is rather suggestive) but surely, the four gospels represent four different collections/interpretations of the words and deeds of the most extraordinary figure in human history. They do not agree on every detail or point, divergent sayings traditions aside! To argue that they do is simply silly. I have read some of Geisler on this, on that need to make every detail of the NT and (worse, for me) the OT products of the Divine voice and I find these efforts completely fruitless.

Let me close with two things (and my time is so short for these posts, let alone the time I get to read sources). One, I completely understand the need for believers (and we see this in several large religions) to feel they can place their sure faith in something concrete...in a book. A perfect, divinely authored book from the sky. When I explain my views on scripture (as embryonic and amateur as they are) to Christian friends I often see that anxiety well up, or see it quickly shut down. Or better, they simply cannot conceive of Christian faith without having a God-written book we must spend our time decoding. Without the Book, what do we have? It's easier to reach this point with liturgicals, it seems, as we can always look to the Eucharist, or the church structure, or tradition, but I think those things are also simply vehicles God uses to reach us. So let me say, and I will say it many times on this blog: I understand the need, the emotional need (in my view, though it is often cloaked as theological/intellectual necessity) for a perfect Book. I'm sorry, but we don't have one. The NT is a remarkable record of the life of Jesus, but is is culturally time-bound as any other human document, or at least culturally influenced. I can assure any reader, very honestly, that I have no ancillary motive for this. There is no personal sin I need to justify by seeing the NT as a human product. This is simply how it reads to me after years of reading it.

Does that make it the same as the other religious books in the world? For me, no. It is the historic ripple of the God-man himself.

Which brings me to point two as in closing: just because I do not believe the NT to be inerrant, or infallible, or Divinely written on every line, just because I think the writings are human productions does not mean I toss the entire thing out. This is the sad case of things, it seems, in North America. I tell friends I don't think the entire NT is God's Word and they assume I am a Jesus Seminarian. Far from it. Responsible literary scholarship leaves me very optimistic that we can know many things about Jesus, and certainly the central things: Jesus lived, healed, taught as no one else ever has, died and rose from the dead. At the very least, this was the message carried forward by his earliest followers (and Jesus is Divine even in Paul...that belief entered monotheist Judaism so fast via Christianity even I can hardly believe the speed with which is appears in the record).

For NT buffs, I find myself firmly on the eschatological highway. Wright is very strong here, though I admit I am not as widely read as I should be among those on the "wredebahn," those who view the gospels as ahistorical not just in terms of the miraculous but also in terms of Jesus' teachings, deeds, even passion account. No, I think the core events and certainly the teachings, even if imperfectly depicted in the four gospels we have, those are as the gospels give them to us. And I think historical immersion the finest, the first and most significant, way to read the gospels. Here, again, I agree with BW3 and NTW, both men with higher views of the bible books than me.

So, I see several things coming out here: one, the bible, including the NT, is NOT one book but a collection of writings; and I find those writings, on repeated examination, rife, rich, absolutely soaked in the cultural contexts which produced them. Do I think God himself enters the texts at any place? That is a good question, and one I will have to save for another time. But you see, this is why I do not find the last word on homosexuality to be what the biblical writers have to say by any means. Nor, despite some pretty creative attempts to the contrary, do I think Jesus addressed this specific issue. Nor, and now I really go out, do I think every word that came out of Jesus mouth was necessarily Divine will either...Wright is strong as he suggests an extended struggle/growth period within Jesus as his ministry and mission came into focus. Jesus was also a human being; we cannot forget that.

Still, God was with/in/was Jesus in a way unique in all history, and that is why I unabashedly place the gospels over any other texts in the biblical record. What Jesus says (via Luke, say, or Mark) is much more significant to me than what Moses tells me, or Paul, or Peter, or any other biblical writer.

This is something of a via negativa, and I know this. All I have mostly said is what the bible is not: a single divinely inspired book; or left one with the impression that the bible is no different from any other religious text. Here is where I want to get a hold of Barth on this issue. For the Bible is God's Word when he uses it as such. It contains the Great Thread, the writings of those who were interacting with the Divine in a very special (if not perhaps unique) way. I do not want to get into the Torah in this post, but one thing that strikes me is that when the ethical teachings of the Torah seem most elevated (and really, Deuteronomy is a bit of a revision of other materials, or a differing application anyway) is when it reminds the Hebrews of their own release from slavery: you will treat the alien well for you were once aliens; you will treat the slave well for you were once slaves until God rescued you...that experience they had, that belief that God rescued them from oppression leads to some of the most empathic moral content in the Torah. We see the same thing happening in the NT in my view; we see the same thing happening now as our knowledge of God and his love for us grows. The Bible is not a Divine rule book to whose authority we must bow on every point; rather it points to the One for whom our treatment of each other matters the most.

Now, bear with me with this analogy please: in Bruce Lee's film Enter the Dragon, he tells a student who is not kicking him with the right energy, that if one points at the moon and concentrates only on the pointing finger and not on the moon, he will miss "all that heavenly glory." To me, the Bible is a little like that. I have not read this essay in many years, not since my (re)conversion in 99, but I think of C.S. Lewis' essay "Second Meanings in Scripture" in Reflections on the Psalms.
I recall thinking the Bible is something like that. I know I need to branch out, read Borg and others who hold a similar view to mine with a lot more education, but I have not yet done so.

I realize this view raises as many questions as answers, more, but if there is one thing I feel strongly about at this time, or rather certain about, it is this: I apparently hold to a "low" view of scripture though I hate that term. I am all for getting as deep a cultural reading into the Torah as I am the gospels; we must have this to understand what the material is trying to say. But we must also be open to the cultural limitations such study reveals! Just because something leads us to the Divine does not make it a perfect divine revelation. Believe me, I wish it were so! We would not really need apologetics. But the book we have, the collection of books, is not perfect, not authoritative in my view in the way BW3 and others keep insisting. That does NOT mean an end to what I still consider orthodoxy; it certainly does not mean an end to Christian faith.

More later. Late now and very tired. I rant and rave all day to my students that they must pre-write, you know have some notes of where they're going, draft, and then EDIT their essays. I have done none of that with this post nor most of the rest of the stuff I toss up here. Tomorrow, if I have time, will take a second look (all writers need to); for now, up this goes as is. It is a start, at least.

Love to all.

Wind Moving Through Branches

2009-02-09T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in my office at work with about fifteen minutes before I'm "on," teaching Frost and talkin bout writin. My gig. Not a bad gig.

But I wanted to say a few things: one, I am moving toward a fuller committment to writing on this blog. It's good for me, mostly. And it is something I enjoy. As I've been sorting out what I can and can't do in ministry now and in the next few years, one thing I know I can do: spew here. Having to read the entire bible for Discernment is extremely powerful...it is like being immersed to my neck in a fast moving river of ideas; I can't help but need to sort through that. I don't attempt formal apologetics here; well, maybe I did years ago a little, but now I would like to say some things on that topic (main point: in my experience, belief and lack of belief in religious experience go much deeper than clean reason). Oh, well, I just want to write more here is all. I'm not BW3 and will likely never be (what a job...read and write and talk about the NT for a living); and I am always painfully, painfully aware of the limitations of my own posts. At least I have been for some time. I think that's part of why I haven't been writing.

All that said, it's good for me to express myself here.

And my wife and I do have a seminary plan that just might work. She is recently finished with graduate school, building hours herself, and there are some student loans though she worked through that time and of course I did. But we are thinking: when our son goes to college in 1.5 years we could move out of the hills and down near my job; I could, just maybe, commute part time to a seminary that is not all that far away. Perhaps continue teaching for two more years, then go live on campus for the final two years of my M.Div. I would not lose my teaching job that way. I can take a leave of absence and return in case there are no priestly type jobs in the hopper when I graduate. It's just an idea, but it's the most financially feasible one we have found yet.

It also means years more of doing this. Self-educating, writing here, and waiting, somewhat wincingly, for the chance to live in an actual Christian graduate community. I crave, crave that. Oh, one other advantage to moving near my job would be we could go to a much larger, read, full sized, Episcopal congregation. That would assist with some of our struggles, I think. I have learned that where two are three are gathered...God is there. But sometimes, it's nice to have a few more bodies around, at least when one grew up in the big city.

Well, that's not much. But I just wanted to say hi and to share the new seminary idea. I visit this school in a couple of weeks and will surely blog about that experience. I wish I was 24 and could start all over in NT studies, do the Ph.D., be in active ministry (one of the things I admire about NTW...world class scholar, actual acting Bishop) but that is not the path I have walked. Actually, considering many parts of that path, things I have only hinted at here, it is amazing I'm even on my freaking feet at all.

Have to run. What the heck is a hopper anyway? Just sounded right.

Love to all. More here when I can.

Back Again

2009-01-29T23:42:00.000-08:00

I am again up later than my wife; we have fallen into the cycle on the days I work from home (3 a week). I work on the computer, do laundry, clean the kitchen...maybe run errands or shop. She comes home and dinner is usually ready (often from things she has already cooked, especially lately) she has a cocktail/glass of wine or two, we watch tv for too long, she goes to be early reading. I read with her, sometimes fall asleep sometimes come out here. I am the househusband with the full time job, the primary bread winner, but working from home can be rather lonely as I used to say up here a lot (before I was in second life I guess).

I took most of last semester off from sl, mostly so my back could heal (it suddenly flared up in the fall and it seemed very connected to sitting at that computer for two or three hours at a stretch). The old injury which had never healed completely, what I am sure is a soft tissue/tendon injury (not my spine, which has been mri's and xrayed and even had an injection) suddenly became very irritated from all the sitting and very painful. Lying down helped, of course, not sitting, and so I pretty much left second life. Overall, much for the better for me as fun as that place can be.

This winter break comes around; most of it, or at least half, was spent out of town, but then the last week I was back I peeked back into the grid. I had great fun running around shooting arrows at people, etc...you know, the old combat sims. And I tried to limit my sitting to 3 hours at most per day; maybe I did that five days over a week or so? Not sure. Anyway, my back got sore again, after some improvement from walking and stretching and limiting my sitting (I do most of my schoolwork on my wife's laptop now, stretched out and back-supported, as I am now). I decided yoga would help, it seemed to help a little long ago, so I went back to a class last week.

And my back did feel better, a lot, for two or three days after. Of course, second life was again history for me, even more than before. Then it seemed my back started hurting again so I went to yoga Wednesday morning. It's great, but I had to drive a lot that day and that may have aggravated things. It felt more sore today. And then I did one of those elliptical cross trainers at my house; my cardio is sadly neglected. After that, it really hurt.

So here I am. I well know a soft tissue injury should have been better two years ago. I have waited, and waited, as I was told to do; seen an idiot specialist twice. Finally, I called my HMO last week about getting a second opinion with an orth doc in the valley who has a good reputation. They said they'd get back to me, nothing yet. I have to call tomorrow. My doc said he'd send me to physical therapy again, but I was waiting to meet with an orth.

Fact is, the orth may not be able to tell me anything except what they all keep saying..wow, this should be better by now. I can't say. And yoga seems like physical therapy on steroids...such deep stretching and strength work in the core. But PT may be where I end up; don't know.

I know that tonight my back hurts. I'm long out of mobic, need to get the refill. Did take a valium as that seemed to help lately. I try to think positive: maybe this pain is something healing...no idea.

So, there you go. The loneliness of the long days in the mountains alone is hard once again. My wife and I are trying to reach out to our friends more. We have something Sat. night and for the superbowl. I love that. Dinner with friends at their place or here. Love it. Sunday I am the EM, or chalice bearer, and what an honor that is. It should be a good weekend I remind myself. The papers have not begun to slam in yet; I am working on my online class but it doesn't take all day. Reading Boadt still on the OT; reading a fascinating book about Barth. His view on scripture interests me. Also reading NTW's Simply Christian. I could write about that for an hour, but the simple answer is there is much to like and much I don't like. His section on the bible I especially don't like. The little I read from Barth on scripture was encouraging. I have simply come to believe the Torah is not "God breathed" in the particular sense; meaning, the larger themes, quite possible; but the individual rituals and laws. Sorry. Parts of it, maybe; the experiences which produced it, possibly, sure. But so much of it is just ancient practice, so brutal I don't know how fundamentalists deal with it; well, I do know: the holy and judging God. the God of stoning. Save that for another time.

And as I ramble: the back thing is hard because it's not defined. If they said, oh, you have a nerve root inflamed, or a messed up disc or something...there are therapies for that. But this unknown, undiagnosed injury....the primary doc just sends me to the specialist who is only interested in my spine MRI. Detecting a soft tissue injury, no dice. And he says nothing can be done for those anyway....they just get better with time. Yeah, we'll see. Not as long as the time I've waited.

oh, I am ranting and so tired now. good. sleep is good.

I miss vigorous exercise. I miss weights. I miss all that because I'm hurt. martial arts most of all. I know this thing could resolve in a year; maybe sooner with help. maybe it will always be like this. I surely can't say. but while it's usually not too bad, tonight it really hurts. could take some ibuprofen I guess, but ready to sleep now that it's midnight.

no news on discernment. same. I keep looking at the good parts of the job I already have. and the bad parts. but I am trying to talk to at least one other priest, and I visit the seminary in three weeks. that, I think, will be great. I imagine it to be the very opposite of lonely.

love to all and peace.

Late, not Sleepy

2009-01-22T00:01:00.001-08:00

Hey all. I've been working on a longish post on the Torah, and I am finding it difficult. Parts of that collection of books moves me with an ominous fear of a moral Divine...parts of that collection strike me as nothing more than very ancient, and painfully human, moral and ritual codes. I ordered two (cheapish) Intros to the OT and am reading Boadt. I like his approach so far. He notes what could only be expected: cultural similarities in the Torah what little we know of that region and time. I read much of the famous Code of Hammurabi, and do not find the regulations in the Torah any more humane; in fact, in at least one place, cursing a parent, the COH is more lenient. It also concludes expressing concern
"that the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans." Sure there are things in the COH that I find morally deficient; likewise the Torah. I really am trying to consider the fundamentalist viewpoint, the position the text itself takes in many places: that what we have in the Torah is close interaction with an utterly ominous and judging moral God; that may in fact be true, but I still can't believe all the ritual/moral/purity instruction is God-given even if the books themselves claim to be.

I know the Divine nature is whatever it is, and I do not want to bleed too much into the longer post I'm working on, but frankly I find all of this very frustrating. Personally discouraging.

Getting into the Episcopal war blogs again today a bit: they are almost all about homosexuality, though some deal with salvation questions. I have been reading the "conservative" side. For them, it all gets back to the book, the collection of texts we call the bible. It doesn't really matter, or doesn't seem to, if homosexuality turns out to be the deep seated orientation it seems to be, that gay relationships can be loving and committed...what matters to the conservatives are those verses in that book. And they are very creative, arguing that dietary laws were clearly set aside by the NT but not the moral laws of the Torah. Okay. So when do we start stoning people? Maybe the famous story of Jesus saying, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone" is apocryphal, showing up in some odd spots in the old manuscripts and missing in most that we have from John. But I just cannot believe that ALL biblical books are not culturally bound. That God is breaking through uniquely in Jesus, but that the composition of the books, whatever God was trying to say through them, was shunted through a very human author who made sense of his revelation and religious experience in light of his cultural norms.

Look, we didn't put women on juries or let them vote or hold public office for MILLENIA. Does that mean the civil rights movement for women and minority groups, newfangled as it is, should be discarded in favor of the "traditional faith." Oh, I know what the conservs would say; I don't even want to get into it here. But right now, the Torah is challenging my faith. The best solution really seems to be that God was expressing himself through various religions in the region, and that somehow the Jews got involved with him in a more direct way. But even the stele with the COH on it shows the King bowing to a god, maybe the god of justice, and it declares the King to be delivering the law at the behest of the gods. This, of course, is centuries before the Mosaic code. The Torah does not strike me as markedly more enlightened. Enlightened in passages, yes, concern for the alien and the poor and the oppressed figures largely in many places. But so much of it is culture dependent: death as punishment for crimes large and small, ritual sacrifice as atonement for sin, an extensive purity cultus, food restrictions which cannot be fully explained for health reasons and of course, the blatant marginalization of women...even if the social classes are compressed in at times remarkable fashion (the years of jubilee, lending without interest, etc). At least, if one was living among the Hebrews, there were some noble protections. But it seems to me law-writing, much of the ritual practice of ancient Israel, was drawn from surrounding phenomenon.

Now that in itself proves nothing. God could use any kind of ritual program for his work. Providing a written moral code must have been revolutionary for these societies (depending on the code, I guess). But again, reading these laws and histories as the Word of the Divine God...I just can't see it that way. Certainly, Jesus acted differently. But now I am well into my still in draft form entry here.

A long, long day at work. S is asleep and I'm couching it because I'm up so late and will be snoring likely...wonderful time to read and write, coveted time, but no clear focus tonight.

And on discernment: I'm 44 with a great job; my denomination is struggling within itself...a low point in the journey for me tonight. I visit the local seminary in Feb.; still looking forward to that. Would LOVE to talk over some of these questions with a professor of OT. Anyway, before I get incoherent with sleep, love to all.

:)

Onto Dangerous Ground

2009-01-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

I don't know much about politics; I know even less about the modern middle east. But one strange phenomenon I see, a result of reading the Bible, specifically the HB, as the literal words of God, is that events in modern day Palestine are interpreted through the lens of the Torah.

And it is quite clear: according to the first six books anyway, Palestine was given to Israel, to Abraham, forever; when they re entered the land after the Egyptian captivity they were to butcher entire cities because of Canaanite religious practices (offering children to Molech and other much less heinous things like tattoos). In the OT story, the Israelites are the intended heroes. Obedience to the Torah their ticket to being a global witness for their God. If a few small civilizations get wiped out, including in some cases the children and animals, so be it. The Holy God has spoken.

Now this is a very, very interesting perspective. And Christians have to concede, for whatever reason, the Savior was born into a Jewish family, in Israel, though centuries after the alleged events of the conquest of Canaan.

I have a number of problems with this story line. For one, I am not sure the ancient Jews were the only people God was speaking to and through. Did they have a special covenant or agreement with God? This is possible. The stories in Exodus and Leviticus about God's Glory settling on the tent of meeting, participating with and among the people...these are powerful stories indeed. But there is much content in here I would be surprised to find unique: extensive animal sacrifice, the altar, perhaps even the general structure of the tent itself, the graduating levels of holy regions, the garments and sacred lots the priests wore. Did all these rise out of nothing among Israel? Direct commandments of God? Here my skeptical self kicks in again.

But this is what this short (and largely uninformed) post is about: I think that even if the special covenant with Israel is accepted, it's pretty clear they blew it as a nation. Their own texts admit it via the Babylonian captivity and one could argue the Roman occupation. If Jesus was in fact the Messiah, only a portion of the nation responded, and, whether by accident or Divine purpose, the Temple was laid flat in 70 by Titus and diaspora became the norm until a few decades ago, when Israel was restored and, unfortunately, Palestinians were thrown out of their homes with a tone rather reminiscent of the original conquest literature in the HB.

Now, I find many Christians supporting Israel as if they are still God's chosen vehicle to reveal Himself to the world. With all respect to my Jewish friends and to Israel itself, Christians have to see the Church as having been handed this role. Paul says (oh, where) that a true Jew is one who is a Jew inwardly. The new religion (our religion) opened its boundaries to include Jew and gentile. From that moment on, any special status Israel may or may not have held must have shifted.

All that said, I still don't think God told the migrating Jews to butcher entire cities. I know they believed that He did, and my well-arguing fundamentalists friends will tell me that a Holy God was using Israel to exact judgement on nations He considered immoral, and to keep Israel from falling intermingling with such people they had to die (they intermingled anyway).

It is easy to forget that Jesus, in any fair reading, began to work outside the temple cultus completely. He forgave sins personally; he rewrote portions of the Torah in his speeches; he re interpreted the ancient codes. He distilled them, as some of the other prophets had done before him, into loving action. We do not see Jesus arguing for enhanced Temple ritual; his action in the Temple (and scholars debate what to call this) seems, if anything, a prophetic gesture directed towards the predicted end of the Temple cult and quite clearly the Temple itself. If nothing else, Jesus was right about that. The Temple was destroyed and within the lifetime of some of those who heard his prediction.

It is typical for ancient peoples, nearly all I know, to see divine action in historical events. A natural or military disaster must be the action of God or gods, and hence a reflection on the religious purity of the clan or nation. What did we do to bring this on ourselves? Ancient Israel clearly believed they held a special status with God and other nations were to be either eliminated or drawn to God through their example, depending where one reads. I really do not know if I believe this, but I very much think it is dangerous to apply this reasoning today. I have seen this idea transferred to my own country: America is viewed by so many Christians as the chosen nation, the new Israel, and to me that is simply absurd. It has been used to justify aggression against innocent persons. I know of one massacre of native Americans (including women and children) during colonial times that was later defended using those same examples of wholesale slaughter from the Torah.

From what little I know, I do not think Israel is innocent in their treatment of Palestinians from the 1940's on. Nor do I support, of course, terrorism or missile attacks or suicide bombings, especially of civilian persons. I am a believer in non-violence whenever such is possible. But what little of the mess I know over there tells me both sides need to make concessions, need to seek peaceful resolution; find an end to the hatred. I cannot believe Israel continues in some special status with God over and above any other people, including the Palestinians. Anti-semitism I find repugnant; what thinking person would not. But the fundamentalist view that Israel is still God's chosen people, that they have a right to that land at any cost...that they are innocent or justified in all that they do in Palestine as they are still God's holy warriors...this view I find very troubling.

***

I want to write a series of posts; heck, I'd like to write an article or two if I had any idea where to send it and how to do the necessary research considering where I live, on Jesus' comments on the Hebrew Scriptures. His positions are not unified or always clear; some redaction must be accounted for. But I have always found it interesting, when the divorce question comes up (and as in so many cases, Jesus is answering in a manner to confound his would-be confounders) Jesus says that Moses wrote this because of the hardness of your heart. Now, the passage from the Torah his interlocutors quote is supposed to God-given law, the Divine instruction, without error; Jesus does not read it that way in this context, as he goes deeper than the old commandment and stresses, as my brother notes, the nature of the heart. That all hearts are adulterous, all lust, all fall short of the loving ideal of the lifetime companion. Some in reality, some in thought, it does not matter to God. But, in this passage, Jesus seems to toss out a small portion of the Torah. He says equally puzzling things in other places, and there are hints he does not keep all the ritual practice. Whether, as I have heard argued, he only sets aside the oral tradition (and what makes that less important; the Jews saw it as equally important and many still do) and keeps the written Torah is an interesting question. In short, it is a complex subject and if anyone knows of any books on the topic (Jesus' statements regarding the HB and especially the Torah) I'd dig reading them. As with anything else in NT studies, my guess is the answer is going to be complex. Even the historical use of the HB during Jesus life was complex, I know.

Well, enough for now. I am going to go and darken the door of my gym for the first time in about a year. My back injury is not healed (and I need to plod to another specialist) even though I am told soft tissue injuries always heal in time; mine should have been fully healed a year ago. Anyway, it seems to be doing well enough that I can work out some. I miss the gym very much. Exercise has been important to me since my late 20's, and I could write an entire post on the ruined cathedral of what used to be my personal fitness. There is nothing like it for stress; and I find weights, and sometimes cardio, lots of fun. Oh, do wish I had not lost my ipod. It blows working out without an ipod.

Well, love to all. Being on vacation I have no excuse not to make the 30 minute drive to the gym. Wish me luck. I will be careful, take it easy, lift lightly (so my arms don't snap out of socket) and try to get in the all critical cardio. Sighs. Been a tough year without any serious working out.

Christmas Rappings

2009-01-04T23:04:00.001-08:00

S and I spent two weeks away, Christmas and New Year's, most of it with family in so. cal., three wonderful days in San Fran including New Year's Eve itself. The odd thing is that I got food poisoning my first day back with family (ate out twice, can't say which place) and was sick with that for two or three days. Then a cold set in just a couple of days later so I was sick the entire time in San Fran. Not real sick, a cold only, but not that has (as always) settled into my chest. I beat bronchitis this time, remarkably; I get the wicked bronch. But I took a dose of narcotic cough syrup last night and tonight to help me sleep without hacking still, and my snoring is so bad my poor wife ended up on the couch last night and I volunteered tonight. She goes back to work tomorrow; I'm off for another week or so though I have some work to do to get ready for the semester, not much for at least a week. Heck, I don't even know the exact day school starts. Nice job.

I have a ton of things to talk about. I want to babble here; I love that I can. So, babble on.

For one, I went to a great Episcopal church in Long Beach, St. Luke's. The rector there manages to have traditional worship and music (and a stunning choir); all the formality I have become familiar with. But more importantly, the parish is very diverse, highly welcoming. A gay men's spirituality group, gay couples, straight couples, all ages and colors. A very nice thing to see in any church but especially my own denomination. We visited twice; my hat off to him. I hope I can speak with him some day in more depth to see how he did and does it.

For two, I had a couple of great phone conversations with Sandalstraps. What a remarkable man he is. I am glad we spoke, and I at least hope to make that semi-regular.

For three, I spent some great time with family and friends; S and I had to dig pretty deep in and through our own stuff (and how much farther I have to grow is continually apparent). As always, I love time in San Francisco. What can I say about that town? Eat, drink, walk, eat and drink some more; MOMA, architecture...authentic Italian for a two hour lunch and French for a three hour dinner. As I always say, it is a great place to bleed money. If we had more, I'd go more often than I do. And it was great to spend New Year's Eve in a little hotel room with good friend, eating great munchies (if fresh bread, camembert cheese and truffle salt count as munchies). Even sick, I love the City.

But now for the rest. As I said, a lot of my vacation was hard emotional work. Within my relationship, yes. We came out stronger, but two weeks vacation with so many family of origin moments is challenging. I feel good about my love right now; it feels much stronger, or I do anyway within it, than when I started this blog. I thank God and lots of therapy and a loving wife for the outcome.

Oh, the cough medicine is making me a bit sleepy.

Discernment was very hard over the last month or so. It did not feel like a relaxed and organic God-supported journey; it felt like shit. Fear mostly. Lots of fear. My mom tried everything to talk me out of it when I told her; she means well in her frantic terror way, but she told me stories about how congregations turn on pastors, etc. If I have time, I'll rewrite the conversation up here. What I just said does not do it justice. It seems every part of me is getting squeezed in a garlic press. My own doubt/faith issues; more so the last few days, as I relax on my long Christmas vacation and watch my paycheck roll in, the amazing nature of my own job. I do not have a shitty job. I have a great job. There are things about it which grind, yes; too many papers! And it keeps me so busy I feel intellectually limited. I mean I need something more: more education, a real attempt at a writing career, something. But let me say, teaching community college pays well enough and gives me a real life most of the year. Much of it is interesting and fun. Why chuck that for so much uncertainty? And at my age, now mid 40's? Those continue to strike me as very good questions.

What is wrong with financial security, with lack of drama? I am one of those people who never stops re inventing my self; someone who never wants to stop growing and learning and changing. I would do more of this if I did not live to far from colleges (including my own) where I could take French, philosophy, things I missed as an undergrad. Is the priest thing just another curious journey? If so, why toss my livelihood for it? I could surely travel as the years go by and S begins to make a full salary and my own salary goes up. Yes, these are good questions even if I have raised them before.

So right now, I feel awfully cautious about entering ministry. Is that the word? Maybe exhausted from the emotional stress of seriously considering it and taking a break. That might be the best description.

Oh, I've read Genesis and Exodus and am almost done with Lev. Very interesting. I read them before, in EFM, but my mental background was pretty fundamentalist and I was overwhelmed, shocked even, by the human content of the OT. Now, coming back and reading from the other side, with a "low" view of scripture, I find much of interest. I also had some very good discussions with my brother who is an evangelical, fundamentalist I guess. No, I'm not going back, but I have put all my energy into NT studies and find the Torah exponentially more complex than the gospels.

And finally, my own little parish continues to struggle. It needs help, every body that can contribute must, and I have contributed a lot already. Enough said there. I want to visit a parish or two not that much farther than mine. If I left my parish I'd feel like a complete ass. But I know my son has suffered from not having a genuine youth community; my wife has felt the lack of community; so have I. There are some very sweet people there, people we like, and maybe they are enough. I can't imagine the original house churches were much different in size than what we have (30 or so) in our later service. Well, I don't really want to go into details here, even on this blog.

Oh, enjoying Made Men on DVD. We saw season two before season one, and working through one now; recommended fiction, that.

And this is really all I have. It's late; I haven't been able to blog while away, even when I really needed to, so this is my sort of catch up. More focused posts to come later.

Love to all.

Just Thoughts

2008-12-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

nice to be back in blog :)

First, while I find it a nice idea to write four posts on the issues dividing TEC as I suggest belwow, all I can offer when I do get to those is my own opinion. It is a real goal in my life to get an actual graduate theological education, but in the meantime, I can do nothing but offer personal thought processes. Even then, it may take me a year to write the posts, and this blog has always been more about the private than the public (I couldn't even find it in google today). Maybe writing those posts will serve more to orient me than to reach anyone else. Who knows.

Second, reading at Sandalstraps again has been wonderful. What a heart that man has. I find discernment, right now, to be emotionally taxing. Maybe it shouldn't be or doesn't have to be, but when I felt the desire/call to begin work in the Episcopal community at this convention, I hadn't even been in a great spiritual place before that weekend. I was letting my doubt side dominate my faith side. Still practicing my faith, but so stymied by the biological realities of being human (random death and suffering) that I was spiritually stuck, stagnant. Then, out of nowhere, all this talk about discernment among the people I was with all weekend (perhaps because I turned the all on to the Lagavulin 16) and then even more out of nowhere, that urge to "use my gifts in this community." That strikingly powerful Eucharist the final day. I don't think I have even told that story here. If not I will.

But lately, reading at scribere orare est (another great blog; lately it has been both personal and rather like wonderful reality Christian television as Jared takes his Orders) I find myself stranded considering the role of priests, the nature of priesthood. Just what the hell am I getting into anyway? Whatever it is, I have to be able to my real self; it has to be an expression of who I actually am.

I know from my last conversation with my priest the Evangelical model still dominates in my mind: gifted teaching as the center, the Pastor/Priest as the personality holding much of the community together. I don't think that is the usual liturgical model. And then I wondered about just what priests can and cannot do. I think of a story a good friend told me, a spiritual person but not necessarily a Christian (though I don't know). His father attended seminary when he was beginning college and my friend asked a priest whether he should pursue engineering or social work. The priest told him engineering. He is now a social worker and fantastic in his field. He shared that story as if it was a spiritually significant event. Sighs. I always think: specialism matters. If I want therapy, I find a good and experienced therapist; if I want my car worked on, I find a good mechanic; so what should/do priests get sought out for? What is their specialty?

To add to the complexity: it is no secret on this blog I suffered from major depressions, anxiety and OCD. I am relatively depression free, certainly the serious deep stuff (and this is a story I have never told in detail here; I just have not wanted to go back and remember those years, but let me tell you all, they were dramatic, explosive, hellish, and grim). I am also generally free of clinical obsession. I need more therapy, I have decided, to work on myself emotionally. But how did I get healed from that deep, deep sickness in my mind, heart, soul? Did God or a priest heal me? No. I say in all fairness, skeptic that I am, that on one or two occasions God indeed seemed to intervene, and he may have been involved more than that. But I was healed by no magic. A tenacious committment to therapy did it. Years of therapy. One of my therapists was a Christian, one wasn't (I don't count the one that took my wife...but he was a Christian too). Whatever priests are, they aren't Gandalf, magicians, seers, magical healers. They aren't therapists. Therapy itself, the thing that has completely changed me, uses technology not explicitly found in the bible. I have a lot to sift, you see.

And I find all that frustrating, painful, even (technically) depressing. I am evaluated at my teaching job, now that I have tenure, every 3 years. I always expect my evals to be awful, I go in ready for the criticism. This year, as last time also, no recommendations for improvement at all. Even my Dean, work-ethiced boy scout that he is (and I love him) had nothing but admiration for my student evals. But so far, I have not found my ministerial niche in my own parish. (Or maybe I have and don't know it). Besides reading and chalice bearing, both of which I love...the little marriage class my wife and I have been hosting has kind of fallen apart, partly because I've been too busy with the job that actually pays me to schedule the meetings far enough in advance. Maybe not that, who knows. But I am used to teaching in a very structured environment, with certain expectations and settings. Translating that to parish life; confusion and dismay. I don't know. I knew my discernment would take a long time. I hope I'm not too old for my diocese already. Bottom line is I'm scared.

I need to talk to more people. My priest, yes, but more people. People in the field, people who walk spiritual journeys as a vocation. Cause right now, if God did "call" me, I'd have to tell him: you sure you're not mistaken? Maybe it was the guy behind me in the communion line. Lots of fear.

Of course, I was afraid to get married, am afraid to fly still, am afraid of being close, afraid of people's anger, afraid of criticism, afraid of failure, afraid to trust. Plenty of things I am afraid of are good things. I remind myself of that.

Pray for me, those who pray.

We'll be out of town two weeks and likely not in the blog. As we always used to say when I was in grade school, the day before winter break, "see you next year."

Handel and Reaching Out

2008-12-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

Using my napster subscription to listen to Handel's Messiah, a yearly Advent ritual. What glorious music; what outstanding poetry put to music. The words of Luke, Isaiah, Micah..."and he shall purify the sons of Levi..." According to our faith, he has, with the righteousness of another, Jesus. We, all Christians, we are the purified sons of Levi. What a cosmic honor beyond belief.

I have been thinking, and reading online (often to dismay) about/within the split in the The Episcopal Church. It's big news, maybe bigger headlines in the secular press than it needs to be: four diocese and some parishes have realigned themselves as Anglican, renounced membership in TEC. Why? Well, the installation in 2003 of Gene Robinson, the gay N.H. Bishop, seems to be the most common thread. But also, ordination of women comes up, views on the Bible, and views of the Atonement. There are disagreements among those who have split on these issues (the ordination of women, for sure), but these are the issues/reasons I see raised as I read in the blogs and sites of those who have left.

I find it sad, truly. TEC has been, since its long and rocky inception, committed to accommodating different Christian belief structures and to maintaining openness on issues. Granted, the original issues it united over under Elizabeth I, the Protestant/Catholic tensions, are not what is splitting it now. We have managed, for the most part, to be high church and low church and maintain the communion for centuries.

However, I would like to address each of the above four issues, homosexuality, the Bible, women priests, and the atonement, from a compassionate and understanding position (unlike what I usually do on this blog, which is sort things out for myself and rant, often without counter discussion of any substance). As one who is staying in TEC. As one who has been impressed by some of those he has spoken with who disagree.

And on that note: let me say that the radical margin does not interest me. The blog I ran across yesterday that calls PB Shori the "witch-bishop." The blogs I have found full of blatantly racist, sexist, xenophobic, gay-hating voices on both sides of the Ocean. Those voices are out there. To those people I have nothing to say except this: you had better read the gospels a bit closer, and God help you as you do. I may still be an ass at times, but there was a time I was a great deal of ass; God's mercy changes me. But it can be one hell of a rough process.

In contrast to the extreme voices, many people I read or speak with who have split or who hold conservative positions on the above issues express themselves in responsible, even gentle, terms. And I can appreciate much of what they say: most of this conflict comes back to how we understand/read/apply the Biblical writings, and as all vessels which communicate the Sacred to us, from the person to the ritual to the written word to the bread and wine: it is naturally human that we elevate these to supra natural status. It happens in many, if not all, world religions. Sitting here, listening to Handel, I am shaken by those verses from Micah, for example, as redolent with meaning as they are for Christians. It is very easy to go from that place to asserting everything in Micah is God's voice for the modern world. But I get ahead of myself.

I don't know how long it will take me to write these four essays. Nor do I think I am an expert in any of them. But I see this as reaching out: if even one struggling Christian in TEC or out of it finds a morsel...then good. I think I would like to start with the atonement as it is the easiest to address of the four from my perspective.

But not today, friends. I have grading to do, lots, and will be out of town for 2 weeks after. Whether I will be blogging on the 4 before then or not I don't know. But in the meantime, my love to all.

"For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

There are few moments that great in ANY poetry, secular or sacred. When the Christian gospel complements it, then truly, light shines in the darkness.

Happy Advent to all. And if you have time, by all means, get a copy of Handel's Messiah on your ipod and listen in :)

Love to all.

Advent 3 (the satan)

2008-12-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

It is snowing. It has been cold, below freezing, for a few days and lightly snowing most of that time. Not much has accumulated, less than a foot, but winter wonderland is back. I am typing on our sectional, with a big window looking out into our front yard behind me, and a big shelf of snow just fell off the roof; it took about twenty seconds. For that time I was looking through nothing but that wispy white sheet. For twenty seconds, I was inside an avalanche. It is all very, very lovely.

Reading (interminably) N.T. Wright again last night. I find I like to take him a section at a time. While I finished NTPG, I have been reading JVG for a couple of years, in pieces. I think it's because he is explicating the gospels and each section is like a sermon or homily. I find I need time to reflect. Also, of course, his take on apocalyptic is different from all I was taught as a young person and that kind of realignment takes time.

Last night I read the section on "the satan." A brief discussion of the Temptation narratives. Wright notes the story shows up in Mark and Q, and while he considers the possibility earlier in the book (dare I say, smiling, tome) that none of the solutions to the synoptic problem are conclusive because there may be far more strands in the gospel records than we can ever identify (a historically reasonable solution, in my view) here Wright argues for the historicity of some foundation in the temp narrs using the most plausible solution to the synoptics we have: Mark came first, but another document of Jesus' sayings called Q was incorporated into Matthew and Luke. There are problem with this, and he describes them well earlier, but if that explanation is accepted, then the temp narrative is indeed old.

And what does it mean? I personally do not know if a personal being, an evil spiritual being, Satan, exists. I do not know if demons are real. NTW doesn't seem to argue either way here in any depth; he mostly posits that Jesus must have had some kind of struggle-experience after his baptism, at the beginning of his ministry. For me, that could have been spiritual, psychological, or both. The things Jesus is offered by the satan, the adversary, represent conventional Jewish kingdom expectations which Jesus, typically for Wright, overturns. It is a good analysis.

I am reminded again that while I believe NTW to be very brilliant, he is by no means the only gospel historian writing now who is highly intelligent. I think what makes his book most readable for me (for it is not clear, concise style) is his very, very ambitious attempt to avoid what should be called "the Schweitzer fallacy." Schweitzer is still famous for undermining earlier attempts to find the historical Jesus, illustrating how many of those Jesuses were only reflections of the social or political agendas of the author/period. NTW, conversely, tries to climb into the mind of a first century self-proclaimed prophetic Jew. I love it. Not just because it provides a kind of (neo) neo-orthodoxy, but because it is the only responsible way to proceed historically. Everyone has biases, Wright included, and his show from time to time. The criticism which could most be leveled against him, I think, is that he is a Christian: the gospels are the documents which support and illustrate his faith-core. But as I have long said, and everyone who has looked at NT studies has said: no one is neutral; no one is objective. But Wright's strength is that he is methodically, painstakingly trying to be ancient. Once, after a gospel reading in a service, my son, about 13 at the time, turned and looked at me and said, with utter heartfelt integrity, "he was weird," meaning Jesus. That struck me as a better assessment, a better critical reaction, to the gospel record than I find in many professional scholars.

This post (and a stack of papers waits to be scored) was not supposed to about NTW at all. Or only briefly. It is supposed to be about my own struggle with the satan as I step out, tentative and searching, into my own ministry.

For while I have been active in my parish almost since I got there, as lector, as warden on vestry, I have not (ever) thought of my life in terms of converting it into a life of ministry. Well, not since my early 20's anyway, and I had no idea what the hell I was talking about then. But since my "call" about a month ago (and reading Genesis, I love to see how Abraham got several calls, not just one to get him to where he needed to be; bring on more, God) I have opened my heart and mind to the idea of serving in the priesthood. I still almost chuckle when I say it. I have thought about it for several years, mostly because others mentioned the idea, but I have a good tenured job and while I think I have some of the gifts priest need to have, much in me must be shaped and distilled. My call came as a desire to work in the community of the church full time. I still like that idea, but I look at my self and life in very new ways as I proceed.

Now, for the satan. I found myself Sunday, in church, not passing the chalice but just attending, thinking how much I struggle in my parish. My second meeting with my priest went very well. I saw more of his personality than I have in eight years. He is opening up, yes, but also, entering discernment has put us on a different footing. I like it. He is an intelligent and good man; I see it more every time we talk. But he is also, most of the time, inside himself, a very private and shy person. As he is our only clergy person, that can be tough. In some ways, he reminds me of my father, though my dad was much more withdrawn and much more chaotic beneath that withdrawal. Also, my church is small, mostly older people, still without a choir. There is much I like about our traditional service; the music isn't one of those things.

But how odd, after all this time, to be standing there and looking so critically at the small numbers, the age of the people. I may well need a larger community, but as I have said, I have to stay connected to this parish while I am in discernment or start all over. Of course, it's true I just entered discernment! But my wife and I seem to take just enough to keep us in the parish, and its location has always been the selling point.

Then, last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, from a dream, thinking, "man is only a material being; he has no spiritual component." Now, I am fully willing to admit man is only matter and mental phenomenon; that latter, the utterly complex set of sensation, thought, will, and emotion I call me. I don't think man has to have a spirit. But as I enter discernment, predictably, the tension I have long allowed (struggled with, suffered under?) in my own mind: God and my faith are real/God and my faith are not real; that conflict has to be worked out more fully.

I swear, I feel like someone brought into a college football team because he throws a football once, for the first time, well. He has natural aptitude, maybe, for throwing the ball. But he doesn't know much about football or playing on a football team or strategy or plays or clock management, etc. In short, I have to learn much and grow much more if I am ever going to wear a collar. The exciting thing, for me, is that that process itself may show me God in a way I have not known. God may have revealed himself to Abraham a piece at at time (same with Isaac, same with Moses) but what if at the first theophany Abraham (or Moses) said: forget it. Nope. Not budging. God might have pulled a Jonah on them; no way to say (and as I write of these persons, of course, I see them through the thick myth/literary/historic lens). Had they rejected their first theophanies/calls, their lives might have been completely different. If Moses had heard I AM in the burning bush and then hustled it back down the hill to check on his sheep and his wife, he would never have stood on Sinai/Horeb.

The thing this most reminds me of, the process in my own experience closest to this, was my own recovery. As some who read here know (and really, no more than "some" have ever read here: hah!) I had some very bad depressions, major depressions, in the early 90's; and I had anxiety, and OCD, since childhood. Climbing out from beneath mental illness is the crowning achievement of my life. I forget that, often. But I have not had serious depression, even briefly, in well over a decade. And I have been free (almost) of clinical obsessions and pathologic anxiety for a two or three years, maybe, with a gradual decrease before that during the years I saw Sharon, my last therapist (though, as my doctor notes, I really should get another therapist, even for occasional visits, as a sort of second string bench-resource should I need it). I still struggle with vestiges of fear, anger, what I would consider normal everyday human neurotic stuff. Even there, I gradually heal, uncover new serenity and intimacy. But the violence of my depressions, the dominance of my daily OCD. Not a part of my life. I take no meds.

When I began recovery (1990) all I could see was a dim, I want to say liminal, path ahead. Recovery, now, was painful as hell. Discernment can't be that bad! But the feeling, as my brain works through issues of faith and community, is similar.

I told a good friend I had entered discernment, an older (of course) guy at my church who, with his wonderful wife, was one of the key people who brought me to this place. We didn't have much time to talk, but he said something like, "this is going to be good for you." He could not have said a better thing. It was exactly what I needed to hear. "This is going to be good for you." What a glorious thought. Discernment is meant to be good for you, however it turns out. The church canons, my own priest, show a deep respect and concern for anyone crazy enough to begin exploring. You see, I can only hope and pray, it may well be God himself who gives me what I need to make the journey. And now, if I was wearing shoes and not wool socks, I'd take my shoes off. For to make such a claim, that the Holy Spirit would support and nurture a single person on this globe of suffering and death...that is walking on to holy ground. May God continue to let me walk there.

For if my life and faith were put together enough to enter ministry while I am solidly in "mid life," what a gift. If not, I am going to grow in one direction or other! Such exploration can only produce growth. But if God is genuinely calling me, or will genuinely respond to my awkward and human progression...what a thing that will be.

***

I know evangelical friends who might tell me Satan (not the satan) is already opposing my new inquiry, maybe. I know recovery friends, many of whom I have not seen in years, who would tell me God has been protecting, preserving, healing me all along. He didn't wait for discernment! Maybe. But whatever lies ahead, it will be more genuine, vital and authentic than much of what lies behind. May God bring me into his kingdom as he wishes me to be.

"By him, with him, and in him." Amen.

Advent 2

2008-12-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

I think this is the week of Advent 2; last Sunday was Advent 2....just what kind of Episcopalian am I?

Tomorrow is my second meeting with my priest, and my real job has kept me so busy I haven't had much time for spiritual reflection or introspection; I even missed my last walk. Several things are on my mind, and as this blog, even though I think it needs to consider audience more when I express theological opinions....this blog is still about me. Weblog. Etc.

Going into my second meeting I haven't lost my interest in ministry, but questions about money remain. Again, not big money, but financial security. And paying for seminary, hah, when my wife just finished grad school with a small to middle sized stack of loans. Also, my doubt issues surface a bit, as always; not a crises of faith, but the thoughts of the modern person.

I heard a very good interview on NPR this morning with Frank Schaeffer, son of the famous Francis. I think of the role of apologetics in the evangelical community I once inhabited, maybe in most Christian communities. For me, then, for us...someone who could argue the faith, who could present a rational bridge to Christian Theism; that person held saint status. It's funny to me how in my evangelical days we didn't think much about extra biblical characters who had gone before, traditional saints, but those who could argue the faith, who could give us, or at least me, reason for the hope within: they were revered. As if we were the prisoners in Plato's cave and they had seen the Light and returned to testify that it was in fact true; as if the great apologist was the perfection of Christian virtue, accomplishment, vision. The apologist had seen through the veil...reading them was like putting my hand through the dark mirror if only for a moment and feeling the heat of God's real being.

Now (and oh I have had a long day and am tired) now I don't think Christianity can be proven. I don't think theism, belief in a God who is concerned with humans, that cannot be proved because of the problem of biologically random suffering. How few, how few, of humans born into this world even have even reached adult age and been able to speculate on spiritual matters. How many innocents have suffered, children with cancer, all of it. I said a few words on this at Sandalstraps' blog the other day; I have not had the time to go back and read them.

That said, existence remains the great puzzle. For the order and beauty of this world, the aspirations of our spirituality, the meaning in ritual...the DNA strand alone; these beg the question of design. I don't care if it all evolved; that does absolutely nothing in my view to undermine design. It is only the brutal components of evolution, from animals eating each other to viruses and mortality; these remain the problem. In short, I do not think Christianity can be proved though I admire the work of those who try and think that work is often helpful to many who have faith; nor do I think Christianity or theism can be disproved.

And in the middle of it all we have the gospels. I am no innerrantist, but the religious brilliance of the biblical books is remarkable, at least to me. Likewise, the force of the personality who moves through the pages of the gospels (and whose phrase it that, I read it) is undeniable. My sheep hear my voice. That really does seem to be how it works.

While I still admire apologetics, I question the great number of American Christians I meet who think that on the rational level, the God question is settled. Far from it, in my view. I also question, at least as much, atheists who likewise think the question is settled on the rational level. Even more, I dislike any subjugation of faith and religious experience, prayer, ritual, worship...the encounter with the sacred; I much hate how that is considered secondary to reason by agnostics. Reason is over here, it's much better; there, you can have faith...but reason is implied to be the greater gift.

Are we so sure about that? Might not faith mean more, be greater than, have more lasting value, than human reason? Surely, if it connects us with the divine (and that is a big if; this is reflection, not apologetics :) ) faith and piety are of infinitely greater value than human reason. I am a fan of reason and logic; I have taught written argument, and tenaciously, for more than a decade. But might not faith belong with that set of traits we sometimes call inner beauty: mercy, compassion, optimism, humor, courage, love, hope, and faith. Is not faith a character trait which leads to humility, while knowledge, including religious or apologetic knowledge, tempt us to a false, secure pride?

I do not know. I am glad Frank S. is now in a liturgical tradition, the Greek Orthodox (as I have said before to friends who are "emerging" from the evangelical world: welcome to the liturgy...it's been here for an awfully long time. And any branch of our faith which can embrace reason, revelation, and experience but also embrace paradox and mystery...now that is a great strength of Episcopalianism.

Which brings me to my last: I am very sad to see churches splitting from TEC and forming another Anglican branch, or trying. The priest who brought my wife and I into the E church, the one who married us, and the priest who was rector in our first parish: both have left the E church, mostly over the Robinson issue. I don't know much about this, but I found it odd that in the founding documents released from the convention in Wheaton, I believe women will be ordained by the new break away group (I wonder if all parishes/diocese will follow this) but homosexuals, no way.

Oh: Lewis said it some time ago: those who cannot read a book written for grown up should not try. I do not know what view he would take on this issue were he alive today, but the way scripture is used to marginalize a group and not another (divorced hets, women priests) when there are texts which could allow such is simply beyond me.

But now I am much off topic. I've read Genesis and am halfway through Exodus; part of my discernment you know. More on that later.

love to all.

Advent 1

2008-11-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

I had the fortune of going to two services for this Sunday, the first in Advent. One, last night at the cathedral some distance from my house (wife and I were out of town for a play) and then this morning, at my own little parish. Both were nice.

There is no doubt entering discernment has raised my anxiety level. Not to painful or pathological levels, but the uncertainty is always with me. I am finding one of my very oldest tools still works: exercise. As my back/tendon injury still heals according to geologic time, I find walking both helps and can do nothing to strain it. So, considering the beauty of where I live I don't know why I haven't done it more....I am walking a few times a week. Walking and talking to, of all people, God. Also sorting out my own anxieties and concerns with myself.

Fact is, while discernment sounds like and should be a positive process no matter what the outcome; while my "call" the final day of convention felt as real as my (re)conversion to Christianity in March 2000; while the idea of trotting off to live in an intentional community of believers and study my faith in a graduate setting sounds AS COOL AS HOGWART'S (and always has)...and frankly, while I feel about freaking blasted with grading a few hundred freshman essays each term and wince when I think of at least twenty more years of grading (also, the trend these days seems to be to make community college teaching more and more like high school teaching: only we get to sleep in and are on campus less...more on this another time). While all this is true (and yes, that string of dependent clause fragments joined by semicolons was intention :) ) two things, right now, two unknowns, are scaring the pee out of me (well, not quite the pee, but close).

I know I can find out answers to both these unknowns over the next few months. That is one of the great things my therapist Sharon (may she Retire In Peace...but live on in my caring memory) taught me: I can effect real world solutions to many internal anxieties. Information and action matter.

Question One: what is working in a parish actually like? There is much I know here: I've been senior warden two years (a very funny term considering the average age of my parish :) ); I am a Eucharistic minister; I've been on a couple other committees or at least visited them. I think I've been to 3 diocesan conventions now. I have certainly been behind the curtain. But I have more questions, and my parish is representative of only one type of parish (and, I reflect at this point, perhaps not the environment I'd thrive in most as priest...can never take the City, or at least the suburbs, completely out of the boy).

But what is a priest's life/job really like? I plan to look, interview, and learn as I can. The more priests I talk to the better.

And Question two, even scarier because it's much more unknown: what about money? Benefits. Especially retirement. I have a great retirement with my district and my wife and I are depending on it. But if I switch careers after, say 12 or 13 years of service, how will that play out? My diocese has a retirement. But what if I only get 20 years in it? You see? Switching careers tends to hurt retirement plans like these. I can find the answer to this question by talking to someone from my district and by talking, somewhat delicately, to someone who understands benefits and retirement in my diocese. But while my wife and I are generally responsible with money, we haven't put much extra aside for retirement as we've put her through grad school. If I stay in the teaching biz and she someday becomes a successful therapist (which I believe she will) we will do fine. No silver spoons, but we'll do fine. But if I shift into the priesthood? That is very scary. I hate to sound mercantile; I didn't go into teaching to get rich either! But I don't know specifics about compensation, benefits, and retirement for priests in my diocese. This is not the first thing one brings up when one is "called," but I have a family, it's not me and my books sitting here, and these things matter.

Ah. I feel better already. Journaling: writing: my OLDEST tool of all!

Much love to all, and my thanks for listening :)

In the imitation of Christ

First Step and the Consiliari

2008-11-28T00:02:00.000-08:00

Wife and son have the bug and went out late to the midnight after thanksgiving sales...best of luck. I am far too old for that madness.

I had my first meeting with my priest and formally announced my intention to enter discernment. Or, in the lingo, "articulated my call." I really don't like the "call" term. I mean, St. Paul, blinded for three days in Luke's account; now that's a call. Surely, Peter, fishing when Jesus shows up and says follow me; that's a call. My own complex process of discernment? Not sure if the term fits.

I said a long time ago, right here on this blog, that I'd only enter ministry if 1) I had the desire 2) others had the desire for me and 3) circumstances permitted. I actually think number 2 has been the case, quietly the case, around me at my parish for some time; I'm sure I'll get the chance to explore that more deeply. Right now number 1 is pretty much still the case for me. I am trying to be very careful, analyze my self and my motivations skeptically as I go. I am good at doing that.

Number 3 will not become known for a long, long time. And the really important, the critical piece, of 2 is the same. Meaning, the Bishop and the Diocesan Committee on Ministry and a therapist and a doctor and a psychiatrist and the Standing Committee and I don't know who else. The leaders of the Diocese and professionals at sifting people: they will have to agree. I actually think it might be less work to become a naval officer on a submarine. Or it is something along those lines.

Now, for the consiliari. I have no idea if that word is spelled right and no desire to look it up at the moment. I laid around sick recently for a day and watched all 3 Godfather movies in one day. There, the consiliari (that may be the singular don't speak italian) were advisors to the godfather. Funny, I know. But since I ended my relationship with my therapist; well, since she retired and I haven't yet found the need to get another one...I have 3 consiliari, not counting my wife. Let's say, C1, C2, and C3. These are all men in whom I confide and have known for years. I have a C4...have not told him about this yet.

C one through three are all spiritual men of different hue. One, evangelical, one, contemplative/recovery, one, recovery spiritual in ways I still don't know fully. But each of these men know me very well.

One, when told, said: congratulations, fantastic, I think you'd make a great priest...that was nice to hear; I respect this man's viewpoint very much.

Another said: something positive, great, good for you; I work with this one and I think he does not want me to leave my job but he understands my yearning for deeper meaning in work. He understands how community college keeps you so busy there is little room for any real intellectual growth.

The third said: whoa; be careful. And he had a very provocative suggestion. Since my call finalized, centered, cemented maybe after Diocesan convention, after the energy of a few hundred episcopals in one place, he told me I should leave my little, struggling country parish and drive a bit do a much larger, thriving one. Do work there, lay ministry in a community that size, then see. This is a powerful idea.

For now that my priest and I must meet regularly over months, not that, get this, I must read every book in the bible as part of my initial discernment; my priest and I will be spending some time together. His initial recommendation, and I hate to go on with mafia imagery, is deeply important. He must get to know me and my qualifications, strengths and weaknesses, in every area, before he recommends me to the Bishop. And perhaps someplace in this conversation I may have to tell him: while we have made friends and experienced real growth in our little church, it has slowly shrunk, mostly from deaths, since we got there. I was put into vestry very quickly really. We've tried hard to get it to grow but for a number of reasons, new members have come very slowly. And the oldsters are locals, mountain bred people. Nice enough, but very different from my wife and I who were raised in the very big city and always enjoy visits back. We went pretty far to one extreme moving out to where we are; our next home will likely be something in between the woods and the urban desert we grew up in.

So. C3 makes a good point. Now, I don't really know if that would do it for me; if my call to priesthood, which I still feel, would be satisfied by lay ministry alone. If lay ministry would really utilize all my gifts to their fullest. It is very complicated in that a parish must launch a candidate. The rector must recommend you, but also the parish commmission on ministry and the vestry. In short, a parish and its leader present the candidate to the Bishop after a year or two of active service and discernment in the parish.

Now seems like an awfully bad time to leave. And I don't know, I don't think, our rector understands where the challenges have been for my wife and I. It has not been all bad! When it comes to theology my priest and I have similar views on many things. The two priests who got my wife and I into the E church, from two different parishes some distance apart...both have left the ECUSA and started "Anglican" branches over the installation of Gene Robinson. In brief, both these men ministered to my wife and I very much but I am glad as hell we don't go to either of their churches.

I will just have to take this one step at a time. I am about halfway through Genesis (I read most of the bible for EFM a couple years back) and see my rector again in a couple of weeks. Always careful about serious decisions, I don't mind a longer discernment. If it takes a year to send the Bishop a letter, I'm okay with that. For it's true the high energy of convention may not match parish work at all. Even in a larger and vibrant church. And I can go to seminary for a degree in NT without the ordination track. Oh, my decisions why I entered discernment are so complex...I will share them another time.

Thanks to all who read. And happy thanksgiving to all as well. Much love.

Anonymity....

2008-11-18T15:57:00.000-08:00

It hasn't taken me long to realize it will be very hard to remove all traces of my former quasi-anonymous self; even the url of this blog, which I cannot change, is a dead give away to anyone local. I will think on this.....

In Fear and Trembling

2008-11-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

I don't have the time to discuss the reasons why, but I have made my wish known to enter formal discernment for ordination into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. This blog is one of the very first people I have told besides my priest.

It's a long and even grueling process, culminating in a three year and very expensive seminary degree. I know I have ten years in my school retirement, a good income (finally) but it is just something I feel I need to explore. Right now, I feel it is the work I should be doing, a work much more vital than this work. I will have a chance to learn much more as I go along.

I am taking my first name off this blog and making it as absolutely anonymous as I possibly can so that I can describe my discernment process here, truly anonymously. I would like to start another, public blog, and will link it to my facebook when I do. For now, love to all and hope for prayers.

Boo

2008-11-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

okay, late for Halloween, but I haven't posted here in so long...right now I do feel the need.

I joined facebook as many of you who read here know. Not sure what to make of it so far but I am using it; as KMJ put it: it's blogging in reverse, all the comments and no posts. I, of course, want to do actual posts, but as the field of friends has grown dramatically fast, some people I know very well some I hardly knew when I knew them twenty years ago, I'm not so soure what I'll do with facebook. If you read here or used to and want to be added, just send me an email; I don't mind.

A lot is on my mind, more than I have time or energy to blog about. I live depression free and (almost) obsession free and have for some time. Oh, I have my issues, but then so does every living person I know. No, the things that occupy me right now are different things.

I am happy Obama won. I don't know how well he'll do, but as a teacher who works in a state funded community college, whose wife works with kids mostly from medi-cal families, those communities are the ones that I want to see given help and opportunity. I don't really care much about the expansion of the upper classes. And, I hate the Iraq war, think O is a much more intelligent than McCain..., yes, I am glad though I am no political expert.

I am very sad to see Prop 8 win in California. 8 makes same sex marriage illegal. I am astounded and embarrassed by this proposition and by the attitudes which allowed it to pass. It is even more frustrating to me that many years ago I too thought sexual orientation was a choice, like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, to use recent examples offered to me by a close friend in an argument over 8. Where can I even begin?

I can't. I don't have the time or energy to write a full post on this and the writing has already been done by others better and more educated on this issue than I. Let me say that everything I know and hear from gay friends is that orientation is a deep seated part of who the person is (as it is for me, a hetero male); they do not talk about their behavior and desires anything like smokers and alcoholics talk about their addictions. And to me, whether orientation is a product of genetics or environment or both or neither, it does not matter. Allowing those couples the same legal protection, the same public moral committment, seems a clear civil rights issue to me in and out of the Christian world. Loving my neighbor as myself is the only argument I need.

I also believe that the fundamental issue, for Christians, is how we read the bible. Surely proof texts can be found against men having sex with men in Leviticus and there is a description of the behavior as unnatural in Romans, though Paul does not seem to be talking about loving couples; he may not have known one. I sat at a friend's house recently and picked up a book on parenting which had some good content and then a couple of chapters on "the rod," or spanking children...when the author related stories where parents said they liked the rest of his approach but wanted to suspend the spanking part, use time outs or something instead, the author said something like: doing that is disobeying God; God tells you to spank your children and you must do so or you are disobedient to your Creator. The author, of course, is drawing on two passages in Proverbs (and if Solomon wrote those parables, look at his kids).

Give me a break.

The fact is there was a time when I could not imagine questioning the bible, when I thought I had to believe every word of it, that it functioned as a sort of cure all guidebook to life. I absolutely do not believe this any more. Why? Because I read it. The books in the bible must be understood for what each is and the human authors and historical and social realities which affect the writing acknowledged. Our view of God has changed over the last few millenia.

The fact is, as I've said here before, while liberals like myself are sometimes described as "cherry picking" because we set aside some parts of the bible and use others, the fact is every mainstream fundamentalist I know does the same. (Jesus seems to have done the same thing himself). Head coverings in Paul are cultural, his attitudes towards homosexuality divinely inspired. His occasional words to the Corinthians on women submitting to husbands quoted endlessly, his naming of female leaders (perhaps even an apostle?) in the church conveniently ignored as are the rest of his comments on equality of sex in Christ (Luke Johnson is very good here). I would not care about all this except that slavish reliance on biblical proof-text wounds a lot of people: women, gays, children, the kind of oppressed people who get so much attention in the gospels and prophets (in my opinion I can include gays as they are marginalized in our society and denied fundamental rights by the ruling, and straight, majority).

If we err at all, we must err in love. Love truly must explain all things, reveal all things, guide us in all. Without love we are lost. I am sorry; there is no divine and perfect book I have read on this earth. I think evangelicals (really descended from the puritans) emphasize biblical proof-text so much for a handful of important reasons, but their loss of the centrality of eucharist and ritual symbol, the Mystery, is not least among them in my view. The bible came to the forefront of the common experience of our faith in the reformation period, and sadly, become an idol like the "idols" which the puritans too eagerly stripped from the service.

I am not saying the bible is not important, even critical to our faith, or that it is not used by God uniquely. But it has silver and dross, and we must continually strive to use love to seperate the two. It really does take a textual critic to understand chunks of its content. Why didn't God give us a perfect book? I have no idea. One would think He would. I'd think He would get rid of cancer too but that remains. We live by faith. He gave his Son. That must be enough.

Regardless of my tone in spots here, love to all. This weekend S and I go to Redding for the Episcopal Convention. Pray for wisdom. There are times I despair that it exists on this planet.

t

Home Alone, Too

2008-08-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

One thing I'll note about my post below, about sailing the SF Bay. It is indeed technical sailing; there is the risk of collision above all, with other boats or land, but the adage: if you can sail SF Bay you can sail anywhere is simply not true. Sea swell is usually easy to manage, but the thing I do not want to ever have to do is ride out a storm at sea. Boats, even relatively small sail boats, can do that, and experts vary on which of the handful of methods of riding out a gale or storm is best...but it is the waves, not the wind, that can flip a keelboat over. Specifically, breaking waves, steep waves that the boat loses control of going down (or up) the face...any boat can capsize in bad enough wave activity. The bigger ones are just safer because of size (paraphrasing Nigel Calder in his monumental book).

The thing about ocean sailing is that, unless one is in a storm or some bad swell, the waves and swell are generally easy to manage (though seasickness is an issue for many, including me). While the Bay, because of its wind and traffic, can be pretty technical almost any day! Especially in the summer. And heck, I still think docking in a marina under power is harder than anything I've had to do while on the water.

So, that said, a quick share.

My wife is out of town for a few days for a conference related to her profession. She is actually only an hour plus from here, but with our son still not driving by himself, I sort of had to stay and hold down the fort. And the first night she is away I never sleep well. I went to bed at five, had to take our son to school around 8:30...went back to sleep. A lousy, lousy day. Drank too much (limoncello is a lot stronger than it tastes, as I work my way thorough our first bottle) was in second life WAY too much last night as our son slept...had fun there, sure, but really needed the sleep. Work meetings begin day after tomorrow, and the Friday meeting will likely have some pretty significant issues, even votes, on things I have worked on for a long, long time. That is part of my stress. But why I just don't let myself feel whatever feelings I am dodging when S is gone the first night of every trip, I don't know. I would never drink and play sl to escape any other kind of trauma (let's hope). I mean, a bad day at work may deserve a good martini when I get home, but nothing like last night. Somehow, the feelings I have when she is absent are so subtle I don't notice them except as I find myself acting out, on my computer at 3 a.m., feeling wide awake.

Damn, I am tired today.

Also, I have totally let exercise slip these last few months. I have worked out some, but not enough and surely not enough cardio at all. It's hard, living as far as we do. Sure, I could hike, but that is hard (how funny, after all those years I hiked, I have nearly stopped while living in the mountains); I could go the gym, but that is nearly 30 mins. away...as each season goes by, S and I know more and more we need to go down the hill. At least half the distance to my work, 30 mins. or less, and we'd be close to all the shopping we would need, really. Close to a gym. A Costco! Hah! The Sierra experience has been great, but as I have often said here, lonely. I have gotten better at managing the lonely piece, but I know I am a social person and do best in a social community. Also, not in a parish all too often much like the one in the hilarious Vicar of Dibley. If we moved, we would surely change churches.

And I am considering changing colleges, even, out of my district to get near the coast (oh, this is my deepest wish and prayer). We left the coast in so cal, but would settle happily for anything near enough the nor cal waters to get the breezes and cooler summers. To do that, I'm going to have to get another job at a different school; S will likewise have to establish a practice in a new area, and things have opened up for her so well since she graduated in May, she is scared to do the move, I know. Though one summer in the inferno of the central valley might motivate us both to do more. We will see. We won't move this year because our son cannot yet drive alone. But next year, when he will be a senior with a license and car...we could. Surely, the year after when he goes to college.

That is all gang. Feel crappy. Can't get motivated to clean or do laundry, my usual occupations. Haven't even had lunch yet. I'll feel better tomorrow; the campus meetings (they begin tomorrow, I note, not the day after) will center my head in the world of the real.

Love to all. My Thanks to all who read. This blog will never die, and may one day truly rise again :)

t

Sailing Bay and the Sea-Father

2008-08-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

More than twenty years ago, I sat in a small bleacher in one of the gymnasiums at CSULB, first day orientation for a sailing class; just curiosity. The instructor, maybe in his fifties, went into his spiel: "All the stuff you see and hear and read about the myth of sailing boats...the blue blazer and white trousers, the captain's hat, the ascot, dinners at the yacht club...the skipper quietly smoking a pipe while staring out to see...the first thing we have to do is clear all that up; I want you to know that all that stuff is totally and completely true."

We all laughed. It was quite a few years later before my first time on a small sailboat, a very funny story I wrote about here a couple years back. But I did not really sail or learn to sail until about four years ago when my wife said a group was going from her work, mostly nurses, that one of the ICU nurses was a skipper, and that we could sail on San Francisco Bay for the day for about sixty or seventy bucks a piece, maybe less. That was expensive, and a bit of a drive, but we decided to try it. I talked to the skipper on the phone; I was told to call the ICU and ask for "Captain Diego." I did, and to my surprise, someone got on the line and gave me directions to a sailing club in the Berkeley marina. I was told when I got there to just go to the desk, and again, ask for Captain Diego. I thought that was half joke, but my wife and I found the club...a large building (as sailing clubs go) at the end of a dry dock boat yard and when we approached the two young (and very sailing myth looking) guys at the desk and asked for Captain Diego, they sent us right to his boat.

I have told other stories about sailing here, and sailing with the man I came to know, and still call, skipper. Nobody wore a blue blazer or white trousers on any of those sails, I'd note. None of the sailing class orientation myth was part of these sails or even part of my experience at other sailing clubs, except when jokes are made (though when I arrived the first time after dark, I found my skipper at the Berkeley marina entrance, wearing a black watch cap and a dark blue wool pea coat, talking about the wind direction as though he were savoring a wine).

The fact is, on those early sails I was too dumb to be scared, even when things were getting a bit scary. I found sailing absolutely entrancing. Sleeping on the boat (when there were not many of us...with six snoring guys, it's much less romantic). The interior wood and designs of the boats themselves. Pounding upwind, close hauled, in the slot between the Gate and Berkeley in 30 knots of wind, practicing man overboard drills with a lifejacket in conditions nearly that bad, the jib sheets banging on the dodger, or plastic boat windshield, so hard it broke. As I have said here before, a dozen or so days on the Bay led me to sailing classes in Santa Cruz, my own "skipper" license (just to charter boats; we're not talking Coast Guard Captain for sailboats here; such a thing exists, and it takes a year on the water and very tough exams). I did my first two days of skippering with two friends from work in Santa Cruz in 06. Then, I began grappling, and a guy who now describes himself as professional cage fighter (four and one) snapped some tendon in my back when we weren't even sparring, just drilling. The next time I tried to sail, the pain was just too much.

Now, the pain is much less. It is not all better; I do not know if it will ever be all better, but it gets better, very slowly, month by month. Enough that I took the step of joining my own sailing club, out of Sausalito, on the recommendation of my Santa Cruz sailing colleague (and because their monthly dues are the cheapest I found...and the people who work in the tiny square building so far very cool). It is more down to earth (and I did mention cheaper) than my skipper's club (he left the country to work with Doctors Without Borders for two years and quit his club). Since I joined, I have done one club day sail with a skipper on board, retaken my own bareboat class, or final class in the series to get one's charter license (two nights at anchor in the Bay, night sailing...things we did not do in SC). Called the next weekend to bring my wife on a club sail and ended up being the skipper myself on a boat I did not know with only one other person who knew even the basics of sailing; then, yesterday, another day sail with my colleague from work. I want to tell the story of my first skipper day in detail; it was quite something (I realized, coming back into Sausalito, that I had never piloted into the club slips before and had no idea where they were).

What I am going to write about first though is the emotional. For the early days of sailing with James (Captain Diego, a self moniker quite silly for a man of his Buddhist sincerity) are in my past now. You see, I have skippered. I can skipper. And the difference between going along for a boat ride in the Bay, aware of one or two or three things that are actually going on with the boat and wind, and skippering, or even being on a boat with the knowledge of a skipper...these are very different. I feel I have lost a father. That is it. I am not ready to go from son to father. There. Touch that and feel it.

I will say my instructor for my bareboat class at Sausalito could slip into the sea-father role very well. I would love to sail with him again in any capacity, but it is not likely I will do so much, if ever (my first day skippering, again, with my wife and two strangers aboard, I had trouble backing out...I don't have much experience in marinas under power and was getting stuck, backing slowly towards boats behind me: my new sea-father happened to be in a boat with a class right behind me...he told me what to do, and I motored out). I have come to know that part of my love of sailing was working under a skipper with so much more knowledge than I...no matter what happened, and in the SF Bay, shit happens every time one sails, I knew sea-father, either James or my latest instructor (whose name I withold for his privacy) would get us out of it. Tanker traffic, fog, squall lines, 35 or 40 knot winds, a broken boat, a person overboard (very, very rare, that last one...the rest, normal to varying degree)...whatever it was, skipper would know. Skipper could get us all home alive.

Now, I am turning skipper.

Yesterday we had twelve people on a large and well maintained boat. We had moderate winds for the summer in SF Bay (20-25 knots) a typical strong flood, or incoming current, only two tankers come by in the lanes when were were around, and a very competent captain, my friend (too much of a friend, maybe, to be a sea-father, though time will tell...he sails constantly, and there moments he was at least older brother). Besides myself, the newbie wonder, there were two other skippers on board, on very experienced in chartering all over the world. And I enjoyed myself. But I find now that when sailing I am facing fears in a new way. My appetite for adventure has dipped a bit past 40 maybe (read, fear has increased a pinch in some areas) and if there is one thing sailing the Bay is not, it is not the myth I began this post with. Well, that is there, at the expensive yacht clubs, on boats that go out 3 or 4 times a year. But the true sailors and racers on the Bay know the truth: it is one of the world's most challenging places to sail. The famous saying is if you can sail the Bay, you can sail anywhere in the world. I do not believe that. The Bay does not get sea swell or breaking waves of any height (though it can get choppy, and waves can break there, they are not large); try Point Conception, or any other of many places around the world that are just downright dangerous.

Still, all in all, the Bay has everything else that makes sailing challenging: for starts, hammering wind in the summer as the valley heats up to 100 degrees and the air lifts inland and the sea air, and often sea fog, is sucked right through the venturi of the Gate. Again, 20 knots is an easy average; 25 common in the afternoon, even 30 and more. I have been out in 35 when you have to yell to be heard. The Bay has many days like that, and wind like that without the kinds of seas one would get offshore in that kind of wind are what makes the Bay a world famous sailing destination. There are also shipping lines running all over the Bay, going to Richmond, Oakland, Alameda, Benicia...tankers and freight ships that cannot stop except in miles. They and their rugs run round the clock, every day of the week. And there is very much boat traffic of the smaller kind: fishing fleets, the ferries that crisscross the bay like rabbits in a field, and often scores of sailboats, with full scale races common. Oh, and lots of land to run into: Angel Island, Tiburon, SF itself, and many points and even a few smaller rocks. And current...as the tide rises and falls, ripping current moves in and out of the Gate. It is possible to be stuck under the Gate (happened to my first skipper, not me) in a decent sized boat (say 36 feet) sailing full speed and not moving at all because the water under the boat is tearing out to sea at 5 knots. Better than getting sucked out to sea and dying as happened to a couple of windsurfers a few years ago. Lastly, the water is cold. As cold as water off the coast of Washington or Oregon....in the fifties generally. A body can last in water like that an hour or two, less or more, depending on several factors. But the fact is, if you go over in the Bay, and your recovery mismanaged or delayed, you can die.

So you see, friends, when I first went out sailing, I did not know about any of this. All in all, the Bay is safe as many things are done to assure the safety of those who play on its water. The Coast Guard runs a helicopter out of SF Airport and has cutters and small rescue boats which seem to appear hauling ass out of nowhere every time something goes really wrong. I carry a radio, a gps, wear a top of the line life jacket with a strobe inside it and a built in harness so I can clip in if I need to (haven't had to yet, now that I have it...will, though). But a sea-boy, someone just discovering the love of the wind and water...knows none or little of this. He has the sea-father to guide him, watch over him, explain and instruct.

I could spend months at sea, maybe a year or two, with a sea-father. That, I know, is not likely. I will have other trips I go on with instructors or those much more experienced than me; one or two may have the charisma to hold me the way James and my recent instructor do. They are each more than just sailors, and of course older. But to spit out a metaphor not fresh since Tennyson, I have crossed that bar. I know too much; and only time and experience will free me of the fear I feel just below the surface now every time I go out...fears amplified, quite literally, a hundred times when I am myself the skipper. There is no way past it but experience.

This would be much easier, I know, in Southern California, or off Catalina (very calm places to sail most of the year...up here, sailors will chuckle when they meet someone who has sailed, say, out of San Diego for years but never even set a reef or shortened sail). Well, it might be easier. Because what is happening now on that Bay is that I am facing my Core Fear. Left alone to figure out the chaos of my childhood most of the time, with a mother who freaked the apocalyptic fuck out every time the slightest thing was wrong and a father with many of his own fears, I have quite an apprehensive nature. This causes me to prepare, sure, but the only thing I've found that works with fear is to face it, to do whatever it is that scares the shit out of me. I do not have to rush myself into skippering (there is no compensation at all for taking the extra emotional and financial risks) but I am surely going to be doing it again, and eventually, doing it more often than not. And I will continue to sail the extreme waters of the Bay, I know: at 11:00, in front of the Gate, freezing wind and fog and dark gray cover rolling overhead...an utterly black green sea with bare white caps forming...at 2:00 behind Tiburon, hella sun and plenty of room to dogdge the tankers (and their large navigation buoys)...at 5 or 6, when the Valley is really hot, wicked chop and 30 knots of solid wind with gusts to 35. Boats, many of them large and powered, moving around all the time. Yep, that's the Bay. Never the same.

***

Behind all of this is something else. I miss Sharon. These are the kinds of things would talk to her about (my ex therapist). I would share these stories, these feeings, these fears, and we would talk them through. Is it Kubler Ross (sp) who has the famous (and I hear, unproven) 5 stages of grief? If so, I am moving from denial, where I genuinely was...I did not feel her loss yet, to anger (don't know if that's next on the list, but it is for me). And sorrow. And of course fear. I am not losing myself in clinical obsessions so I am holding off finding another therapist. But I still am fairly intense, emotionally, sometimes quite intense, and I must find a way to manage that! Exercise is infrequent. Talking, writing like I am writing now, not frequent enough. Sharon was my sea-mother, in a way. Of course we never sailed, but she always helped me to think in rational terms...she would say that over time, these fears will diminish; that if I got in trouble the coast guard would come, that fatal accidents inside the Bay are very rare (I don't know the last one). That I am growing as person; that she is proud of me, maybe she would say that, or I would sense it anyway. That this is something S and I can do together. That even with the fear, there is much pleasure I derive, and something else: utter distance from the other stressors in my life. In that way, it's like scuba. Being on the Bay is so consuming (and by now, dear friends, you know it is not the tropical thing at all: girls in bikinis, a blender below making mai tais, bare feet on teak decks and steel drums and tans....most of us sail encased in rubber or something like it...but what I am doing can lead to the tropical adventure! and will). Sharon would tell me all that. And after 50 minutes, I would feel more centered, less terrified at some deep level.

Well, that is what I am doing here. You, all who read, are my silent sea-parents. At least, listening, even if you have never sailed.

Sailing, for me, is still recreation, but it's also very difficult personal growth work and that is just how it is right now. The day I skippered on my little 32 foot boat with a crew who could not really sail, I actually did not eat or drink anything for the seven hours we were on the boat. I was too focused on every little thing. S has known me 12 years and said she has never seen me like that before. So, you see, though I take so much from sailing, love so much about it...the wind, the adventure, the friendships, the boats, sleeping below...all of that; I am still scared spitless. I am learning to ski on a black diamond slope. Hah. And now guiding other beginners myself! That analogy works, for wind is to sailing what straight down (vertical slope) is to skiiing or snowboarding.

Thanks, all, for listening. I am logging off, let's say. I have this crazy belief that I could be a good writer, but good writers rewrite and strive for craft and access this part of their brain, the creative part...all I'm doing here is sharing. So, whatever good writing I might be capable of (or not) this is not it; this is just sharing (without even rereading for edits). But my sincere thanks to all who read here...you are few, I know (I should get a counter, though) and some of you I barely know; some of you I know more; one or two I care about much. But I appreciate every single person who has gotten this far in my narrative.

And hey, if you're ever in Nor Cal....you know, shoot me an email. Because I'll take you on a day sail. And I am grinning, and serious as I say it.

Much love.

Troy

Another Rare Check In

2008-07-28T09:52:00.001-07:00

Last night I had bad dreams. I don't have a therapist anymore (and am generally doing okay with that) but need a place to process the feelings. So, here I am.

Estella was in the dreams. I still have to write the final chapter or two of her story, and mean to. I am finally emotionally strong enough to do it. But she was in the dream, as was R, the therapist who pulled her from me, even if our marriage sucked, we had a real friendship, and usurped her for himself.

There are only two things I remember from the dreams though the emotions were so, so strong. One: I have been watering the vinca on our "lawn" (and I don't know any real lawns at our altitude)...trying to get the vinca, which is supposed to choke out anything and take over as ground cover (and is not that name related to "conquer" in Latin). Anyway, as the vinca fights with some hella tough clover, every weed known to man, and oregano I think, it surely needs water. So I ran the sprinkler in a couple spots much of yesterday afternoon and evening to soak the earth.

And in the dream, I was looking out my window and the yard was buried in water. Like, the whole left half there was no vinca, only several inches of water and large clods of dirt (which somehow seemed important, like they had killed the vinca). Not a green strand to be seen (vinca looks kind of like an ivy). I do not remember what the other half of the lawn looked like...but it was flooded too, the vinca gone or buried in water. Somehow, I felt like I had ruined the lawn.

And then, somehow connected to this, my current family was actually on a trip with R, my ex therapist, Estella's current husband. Like, a day trip or short vacation. All I remember is that I felt very angry, but he had this powerful guru sort of personality (which he sort of does, or did) and I could not tell him what I really wanted to say, or, in the dream, do what I wanted to do, which was probably hit him (we're talking dream now). He just kept talking as we went from place to place, and I was walking around near him with my head down, my face flushed, unable to really confront him. At least, that's what I think. Or maybe eventually, I did, and he had his own perspective. If so, I do not remember.

But there was just a tough of the Longing. I used to have dreams, for the first few years after Estella left me, several years, even after I had moved to the mountains, I had a few, at that was eight years after she left me with the note on the mirror and the little pink shavers in the shower (everything else, except the lingerie she got for the wedding, she took). I would have dreams where she and I would be talking, and all of a sudden, everything was okay. We were friends again. Never lovers in the dream, just suddenly close once again, talking, I could feel her presence, something I think I have to admit I have missed horribly at times, or did, those early years. Why so many of those dreams? What we had, even as friends, was not all that spectacular. We were critical of others, clinging to each other, very afraid, but somehow felt related like family. Anyway, last night, a bit more of that Longing...after all these years.

I do not know, I will never know perhaps, why I clung to Estella with such tenacity over the 8 or so years I knew her. For cling I did. Letting other women, a fair handful as I was in a popular social group in college and had lovely women all around, letting other women slip past me (sometimes with E's subtle, but skillful, interventions, sometimes not). Watching E and I draw together, then push apart in our anger and fear. I had two prior, rather serious for teenage years, relationships before E. Both involved physical release. Both women were committed to me and we had somewhat normal relationships. But not so with E. She was, truly, we were, truly, like something out of Fitzgerald. My Daisy. Dear God. The crazy thing is that we sort of managed the savage ground of our very late teens and early twenties and actually change and grow as people, even in the same direction. It was marriage, her suddenly flaring up incest issues and my utter incapacity to understand our sexual problems...it was her fear of anger, her own anger, and my depression and anger...the closer we got, the more destructive we were for each other. In the last letter she ever wrote to me, just before the divorce was final, she said "we were not good for each other, Troy." And I have to admit, she was right. I wish we had never met, in fact, certainly never dated.

But why, why, did I continue to fight to keep that thing alive? Sexless as it was from the beginning...precarious as it was. My brother used the very good word aloof: Estella was so aloof much of the years I knew her, even if we were sleeping together in the fold out bed in my mother's house when she worked night shifts (without doing anything, even kissing). We formed some kind of brother sister bond, but beneath that was always the Promise of something enormous. She was the Golden Girl. Sometimes, especially in college, I'd find flaws to push her away (oh, she's put on weight...man, was I distorted in my perspectives, but then I still struggle with that problem though much, much less) but mostly I saw the relationship, ragged and consuming and enmeshed and even addictive or obsessive as it was, in utterly glowing terms. We'd have arguments where I'd point out all that was good and great (whatever I said I don't even remember) and she'd refute me. I am sure it went the other way other times.

But much of this story I've told. The boyfriend she had not long before she and I became a "real" couple and got engaged. That was, perhaps, a relationship that gave her some sexual optimism but I do not know as it did not last long and I think that poor guy, the one time he and I talked about it, was having some experience like me (he said, on the phone, "sometimes I feel like I'm on solid ground and sometimes I feel like I'm hanging, clutching at a weed on a cliff").

What drove me to hang on to her so tenaciously no matter what? I actually still do not have that answer. Why did I turn down so many girls/women who would have made me a good wife? I think of one who lived in PV, short dark hair, lovely wide hips, who really like me. But when E showed back up on my doorstep I never even called her back. Why?

I still don't know. It was like some kind of chemical thing. Like naturalism in fiction, beyond my control. Until R came along, saw all for what it was, and made his own fucking choices. And E too. I finally wrote R my long letter, told him to fuck off, basically, in the final lines, and it was deeply, deeply healing to finally confront him with my anger after all these years. But my brother is right: I have found anger against R, but never fully been angry with Estella. Oh, I'm getting some of that now, getting closer to the rage she genuinely deserves from me (part of me continues to see her as a victim too, but after all these years....) I know I asked for the divorce, I know R was pulling strings with both E and I; I know, above all, that as Sharon, my last therapist said, something had to end that relationship because it was so bad for both E and I! Something dramatic did. A friend of ours, a woman I talked to not long ago, said something like "don't you think E needed that to feel safe, that she finally felt safe?" Yes. Her therapist built a trusting relationship, allowed her to feel safe, but then used it for romance. For that, he should never practice again. She should have gone out into the real world (even sans me) and found that with someone else. But she is not complete victim. My brother talks about "what they did to you" and I guess I am still reaching that level of awareness. And I am embarrassed to say she left me, uh, it will be 16 years this November. Twice the time I knew her, or she was in my life one way or another. And I am still healing.

I long ago quit trying to write well in posts like this up here. This is just one long share, as if I'm talking. It takes so much energy to do this, maybe, I don't want to put energy into the other. But whatever the enormous failings of that relationship, I still get the Longing; I can feel it, faintly inside, even now. Though I know if we saw each other...she would be very angry, I think; if she were not...I probably would. That was how it went, mostly. Mostly, if I saw her, I would see how she has aged (my brother says dramatically as he saw her at a theme park, and I only put that here as I know she could not possibly read this blog...even now, I would not hurt her over something as natural as age)...but I would see her age, hear her talk, know she is nowhere near the girl I knew when she was in her late teens and twenties. In fact, I might not like her at all. Or we might 'click' again, but considering she is married to R, well, would not be much of a click.

And I end on another odd note: in my current relationship, my marriage (12 years now we have been lovers, married 8) I have a woman who really does love me. Oh, we face it all: her graduate school, her new full time job (as a therapist, can you believe that lovely karma, truly) the house cleaning, the budget, the issues with our teenage son, the fatigue, too much television, not enough saved for retirement, not enough exercise for either of us (though let me say, we're not in serious debt trouble, never borrowed against our house, etc.) The struggle I do not understand to manage a love life after a dozen years when two of us have full time careers. Even there, it happens, but we are a shadow of the couple we were in the early years. All of the above is relatively normal...we will find solutions when and as we can as we grow together, and older together. But from the very beginning (and this is where I was trying to head) I have found faults with her. Where Estella was the Golden Girl without issue, the Daisy from Gatsby, the One (in my very, very young mind) I have always struggled with obsessing (often, literally, though not so much of late) with S's perceived "flaws." Oh, my wife has this or that wrong with her personality, she gets angry too easily, she can be dominant in her interaction, her body changed, from childbirth at a young age, rather genuinely; I long wrestled with that, though if you met her, all who meet her, tell me she is utterly striking and I know that to be true. And I have spent days and weeks obsessing over those flaws. In fact, I spent six years in therapy with Sharon working mostly on that. And thank God, literally, most of that is gone. But it is so odd to me that Estella, who was the complete wrong person for me from the beginning (issues with sex and anger and intimacy and nurturing), got the soft lens glow treatment, and S, my current loving wife who has stayed close to me since the very beginning, has gotten my Mother's critical glare on the stage of my mind since the first dates. I used to keep a list in my journal of all the things "wrong" with the two of us. And the odds of us working out (started at 20 to 1). The problems became less, the issues, many of them, resolved, but I still focused on other "issues" in my own anxious mind. S, who deserves it more than any other, has not gotten the "soft lens" treatment until perhaps recently, when I could let myself feel the way most men in love feel about their wives. I have learned to bracket off the unimportant things, focus on the soul, the gem, within.

What a tale this is. Drawn like a moth to the inferno of Estella for a decade, still missing what little we had in dreams (and I guess there was a real friendship there) still unable to get fully angry with her; while pushing away, fault-finding, critically observing a woman who has loved me without qualification for a dozen years.

Whew.

Damn, that was a post. I wanted to talk about the dream, but talked about something much more profound. I have to (really) close by saying: my work with Sharon cut my obsessive anxiety over S's "flaws" by a very high percentage. Some days I say 90, some days I say more (some a little less). S and I are settling into normal middle life with mostly normal middle life problems.

Still, I will continue to wonder why I so put E on a pedestal, so denigrated poor S for everything "wrong" with her. Enough for now. My damned dog is on the cable outside barking like I am his butler and why the hell haven't I let him in yet.

My love to all. Thanks for letting me get so raw. Feel a bit naked, but I know a few souls I can trust still check in here from time to time. I don't write often, so it may be a long time, but that is okay. To some of you, Happy Halloween...maybe even Merry Christmas :) Can't blame you, I never write.

Love and peace.

t

My Sincere Thanks

2008-05-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

to those who commented below, and others whom I am sure read who did not comment, but stood alongside me, and even stand alongside me, during this time. I'll take this time to update...

I saw my therapist, Sharon, for the last time Tuesday morning. She had been off Monday for the holiday and it was her last week in practice after many years of seeing clients. I know she had a long stack of people, some she had not seen in years, waiting to get in to say goodbye. My heart goes out to her, actually, during this week.

And the parting was wonderful. It really was. I can look back on six years and say that she acted in my best interest at every turn; that she never lied to me or acted in an insidious manner. In short, she did her job as a therapist and a human being. May God, in whatever form she understands God, walk with her the rest of her life. I was lucky to know her. The sad thing is that she was only a therapist, of course, not a family member, can I even say a parent. But history, and the past, and the hell-mess I grew up in cannot be dissolved; it can only be addressed.

As I said, I saw her once a week, most weeks, for six years. That is a long time. In defense, let me say that OCD is a very tricky disorder and that my past abuses in therapy certainly do slow down my ability to progress, tragic as that is. We worked on all of it. My fears in my marriage, my struggle to communicate with my wife, my chronic anxieties, my lingering depression, my family of origin issues, the therapists that betrayed me, and the obsessions. Always, always, retooling my brain in the face of the ocd. I cannot explain ocd, and I'm not at the place where I want to, not yet. That is the better way to put it: I do not want to explain it here yet, describe it in detail. But I will say it is a thought disorder with many components, driven by powerful underlying emotions and always by fear...strong fear. It involves the "loop," that chronic and persistent thought or action that oftentimes disturbs, even torments, the sufferer; but it also involves other things: catastrophic thinking, over focus on some thing that is wrong or out of place, hypervigilance...those patterns run so deep it takes me a long time just to see them. And the very hardest time not to obsess is when faced with the phobic object, whatever that is, and even more so, more importantly, when strong negative emotion is present.

Now I have come a long, long way. And I must say that I accomplished a set of remarkable goals: a master's degree with highest honors (the outstanding graduate in my discipline for my year); and even more remarkable, a tenured community college job...getting one of those in my discipline is incredibly difficult: when I got my job, 175 people applied for 2 positions. A family. A home in the mountains. I did all this while still suffering with my disorder, before I even understand I had it really. I did not start using the term ocd, as I recall, until Sharon. That is rather sad, for knowing my disease has helped me make progress with it. It is not the same thing as depression or other forms of "acting out." It is related, but not identical.

But back to strong negative emotion: the last two days since our goodbye I have been grieving. Genuinely and actively grieving. This is a great accomplishment for me. The fact that I have such a hard time staying in my feelings, purely, should remind me, the rest of my life, of the futility of egotism. I began to lose that center and obsess just a little, get anxious, yesterday afternoon, but I distracted myself, did other things, and continued to feel, just not as intensely. But before that, genuine and normal grief. Writing, here and now, I feel it again. Good for me. When someone has lived with those kinds of feelings shut off, or managed in abnormal ways (better) it is a victory to be in them and not be obsessing. Oh, I've felt pain in the past, plenty, plenty. But it was always controlled, kept at a distance, with powerful obsessions. I felt, at some level I think, that I had to do that to survive. Maybe or maybe not. But I have survived, and healed.

When I began to see Sharon, long ago, I was going through some hard feelings those first couple of years. She let me pick a cuddly, a little stuffed animal, to hold. I have not held that little guy, nor seen him, in at least three years. He is a little striped tiger. But the last time I saw her she said she had a gift for me, and tiger was it (I don't think I have ever named him). What a beautiful memento of our time together. A stuffed animal I can keep for the rest of my life. I am deeply grateful. My thanks, Sharon.

In return I gave her this blog address. She tells me she is not computer literate, does not know how to even go online...it may be she will not check this for years, if ever. But all my major life events, at least, are registered here. If I ever move this, I would post the link here. So I feel this blog has given me another unexpected gift: a chance to let her remain informed, over the years, should she so choose.

I will also note that today, waking up, the pain was much less. The fact that I only see her for an hour a week, that it is one sided and not mutual like a normal relationship...that lessens the intensity of the grief. During those two days I was thinking: dear god, how do people lose spouses and go on? I don't know, though I lost one once and did, I'd note, in a way worse than death. But if one say one's spouse only an hour a week over the years...well, there it is. It is good that I can take so much from Sharon, but in such a safe way. I will continue to grieve. I have to face my future without a therapist (for now, I have names...) and make decisions about my current situation and need, or lack of need, for more therapy at this time. I will miss her. I will be talking, sharing, with those I know more (and likely blogging more, too). But I want to stretch my mental legs a bit...see how I feel, one day and week at a time, without that formal support. If I need to find another one in two weeks, fine. I expect I likely will want to see someone, intermittently, as I continue to recover. As I have said and say again: ocd is an insidious, deeply rooted, powerful thought disorder. It responds to some therapies very quickly, like exposure work; but it has other components, and it has impacts, which take much longer to resolve, in the individual and the family, sadly.

Other than that: my wife graduated with her master's, is now a therapist herself working with kids (how cool is that) and we had a huge party. I am glad that is in the past, for it was very hard for us as a family. She was gone all the time, busy and stressed the rest of the time, for several years. That is done. Now she is working full time (plus, actually, just a bit) and I am playing Mr. Mom, waiting for my summer class to start, and enjoying my own summer break...even if it means laundry, shopping, cooking...at least there are no papers to grade.

My faith again is in a strange place. I do not have time or energy in this post to discuss this, but listening to an excellent teaching company series on religions of the "axial age" (Karl Jasper's term)...learning about the roots of Hinduism and Buddhism...their belief systems...I am not going to convert to either in any full sense; they are utterly diverse, anyway...that is not it. But as someone who does not believe the Christian bible dropped from the sky but is in fact a human record of interactions with the divine (of varying authenticity, I'd add) it is amazing to see the connections. It may well be God is speaking, has spoken, through or to Zarathustra (Zoroaster) or through Hindu practice, for example. And I am ashamed at my own church's history of doctrinal manias, violence, etc. One would think that the presence of the Holy Spirit would make our faith stand out, not leave the church with (some) of the history it has). But then the organizational church is not the church...just because someone holds or has held a position of influence and power in Christianity does not mean that person is in Christ. Jesus talks about that all the time...good trees bear good fruit...the rest of you claiming to work for God, who aren't aligning with the values of God....look out. Anyway, I am reading the gospels again, closely, as a critical academic more than a seeking believer. I am convinced, again, that there is no one single way to understand or experience the gospel: that the Eucharistic Mystery holds more interest to me than any idea or systematic belief set; that the loving gesture, the slow crawl towards love, remains the center of the Christian life, not some special, and of course "correct," distilling of the Biblical books. But that is me. Some find the heart of the gospel in how they understand predestination, say. Fine. I am as far from that as I could ever be. But it seems to me different understandings of Jesus are necessary for different human beings. We continue to try to find the center, sure. But for some, it's individual experience; for others, the Book; for others, the liturgy and mystery...and mixes of all. For some, it is music. If it is true there is a God, and if it is true he loves us, that is the single greatest philosophical, metaphysical, epistemological fact in the universe. The problem of suffering remains. Other problems remain. But I cannot deny the strength of that idea, nor its Christian originality.

But I am drifting again....

Very nice to be here. Thanks for letting me share. I go out into the larger world now...I will keep you all posted. Love to all.

The Heavys

2008-05-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hello to all who read here. This is a personal post, a support post; I am reaching out, even in the blogsphere here where I rarely journal anymore. There are a few things I need to say and I have a prayer request or two. Considering I rarely ask, I figure this is okay :)

One.

I have talked about my therapist retiring at the end of the month. That is a fact I have to accept. My winter and spring have been good, good enough that I would have cut down on my visit frequency, I think, if she were not retiring. My time with S has been very, very helpful, though it was me who brought in Foa's awesome book on OCD two years into my therapy! My therapist had heard of those tools, but I take credit for bringing them exposure work into that relationship. S was very good with seeing the interpersonal, emotional fuel that feeds the OCD fire, my struggles with intimacy and fear or anger and criticism; it has been a good six years.

Yeah, six freaking years.

Today I got up the courage to call my insurance company and say that while I didn't think I needed long term weekly work, I surely still needed some contact with a therapist. I was surprised how cool they were; I was very afraid they'd tell me I couldn't keep going, etc. But in California, land of much regulation and law, there is one truly astounding law; the finest law I can think of at the moment: parity. Parity means that people with mental health issues should have their services covered by insurance just the same as people with bad kidneys or diabetes, etc. It sounds common sensical when I describe it, but in America, the land of the bottom line, it is a remarkable piece of legislation. That law allows me to have weekly therapy visits for my usual office co-pay: currently, ten bucks. I paid for therapy for years and years, to those who deserved to be paid and those who didn't, and that when I had little or no money. What a wonderful benefit of my job to have Healthnet, to have parity. It has completely enriched my life and done much to ease my suffering without putting financial strain on my family.

So, they sort of HAD to help me as OCD is a parity diagnosis. But still, the fears ran high. But after just a few minutes I had the names of five female therapists, all probably closer to my house than my current therapist, and three who say they have experience with OCD. We will see. Tools have changed much since my current therapist came on the scene: EMDR, CBT and specialized therapies for OCD. I know, lots of acronyms, but I am pleased. Five names to begin with is a lot! And none even in the city where S is now, a good half hour from my house. My plan is to phone interview, maybe meet a couple (will have to pay out of pocket for that) and then pick one...see her maybe six week in a row, or a month, and shoot for every other week (but all that I will play by ear).

Heavy thing two.

I mailed a letter to my perpetrator therapist Friday. Finally, after more than a dozen years, I mailed a very direct, descriptive, and clear letter...even an angry letter in places! detailing what I think he did to me.

I don't think I've told that story on this blog. Not in detail. It is the end of the Estella story, and I stalled when I got to this part a long time ago. Considering how depressed, self-blaming, and in pain I was all day Friday, the day I mailed the letter, I know why I have taken to so long to get around to it. S's retirement sort of forced it. It was one of my top goals when I came to S six years ago: I want to send a letter to this guy...it took me six years of work to be strong enough to even do it.

Because here are the facts: the first therapist I really connected with, many years ago, Keith, I had to quit seeing (just after I went back to him after my first Major Depression...suicidal thoughts running over me like mice) because he got sexually involved with a client. That was completely horrifying for me. And so I found another therapist and limped into his office in a completely awful state. I cannot even think back to those days yet to really write about them. They say, and I know, depression is often rage turned inward as a result of self hatred. I KNOW that was my story. And I had LOT of rage and a LOT of self hatred. I was utterly and completely falling apart when I began seeing R, the second therapist. He was as appalled by the Keith fiasco as anybody would be, and I began seeing him twice a week, then once a week, for four and a half years.

But my fledgling marriage to Estella (which I have written about, some) had never been happy. It was surely a trigger for the major depression I had in 90. And so after a couple years of me seeing R, I agreed to let Estella see him too, or meet with him to talk about seeing him. Her last therapist was so incompetent she actually feel asleep during a session. I was very nervous about letting E go into therapy with R...I wonder why so nervous...but I did it, truly, to save my marriage.

Dear. God. In. Heaven.

A few months after she began seeing him she left me. There are more details than that, and I need to write them when I am ready. But she left me with a note on the mirror. And part of her conditions was no contact, phone or face to face...she did not even want me to know where she lived for a long time; ostensibly because she was afraid I would physically hurt her. I have no doubt she was afraid of that, but that is also the most lameass excuse I have heard...I never laid a FINGER on E or any other woman or man (outside martial arts sparring). Well, as months went by, there was no contact; nothing got better. She filed for a legal separation at the six month mark. Still, she would not talk to me. Then I began having crushes where I was working (by this point, I had been separated four or five months; had not made love in quite a bit longer than that). And here is where R, our therapist, comes in. He began to suggest I date. After some time, I went out once. He then suggested I see the same girl again, rather than a rotating set of friendly dates like I had in mind. And then he suggested, both directly and indirectly, that I have sex with the rather crazy girl I was seeing. Then he suggested I ask for a divorce. All that is the bloody truth of it.

And so nearly a year after Estella left me, I did take a lover; reluctantly, but soon the unbelievable relief of having sex, finally, did its work. My lover was not a safe or stable person, but there you go. R even met her. Anyway, I asked for a divorce, E did not fight much over it, and while I think we both had doubts, at least I did, we finally were divorced...about 8 months after my crazy girlfriend left me to hump other guys. That whole relationship lasted about 8 months, I think.

Yes, I asked for a divorce; even told her when she wasn't filing (but was not talking to me about ANY of it either or even trying to talk) that I was in love with said crazy girlfriend. I probably was, or thought I was. I do remember I was very, very conflicted about saying that, but that R said "it was a good letter." Yeah.

Anyway, I tried to get back with Estella before the divorce was final. She said there had been a "window of opportunity" before, but that was past...I have asked myself a lot of times just what that window was, and when, and how was I to know about it. She NEVER ONCE SAID she wanted to get back together. NEVER ONE TIME. In fact, she told me the opposite: she wanted to leave and not come back. But I was the one who had to get his sheets dirty, I guess, to provide the christian legal cause.

Fuck me man.

Anyway, our divorce was final; she called me to say she has quit seeing R, that she was done with therapy. I found that remarkable. Then R told me he had "befriended" Estella and I needed to find another therapist...my divorce was final in December and I was out of his office by July. By that fall, I forget the black month, I found out the truth: they were a couple. They have been married now more than 10 years (according to his website where I had to go to get his address) and have a couple kids that I know of. R has always wanted to be a guru, and continues his extended courtship with the media. The problem is he does not like to work hard at it and his ideas and talent are marginal. But whatever he says, there is some dark personality disorder at work, and guru he believes he is.

To me, he is a weak, lustful predator who showed no concern at all for my well-being, mental health, or even survival.

And I told him that, over and over, in about six pages.

Why did I do that? Why write and stir that enormous wound up again?

Because I did not want him to think my silence was ANY SORT of acquiescence. You know, nothing from me after a dozen and more years, must mean I was okay with it, got over it, understood what he did. NOTHING could be farther from the truth, and my letter lets him know that.

And also because I still do believe, despite all the power of cognitive therapy, exposure work for OCD, that you "feel it to heal it." I really do believe that every time I work through old pain, and sometimes that pain can still be very strong, I grow as a person. My capacity for intimacy and self-care go up just a smidgen each time. I need more of both in my life. So, I went back and wrote the letter and mailed it Friday.

It was much, much harder to do that I thought it would be! Friday was a day almost like the days of years ago. The good thing is, as I was told a long time ago, the time one spends there shortens each time. So I felt like total shit for one day, took care of myself as best I could, but had a decent weekend with my family. Now I can feel myself going back into the pain a bit, but I do not have to be owned by it as I once was; I have a strength I did not have in the 90's, a self, and tools of several varieties to cope. In short, I am going to be okay.

I am going to be okay. I am going to be okay.

But I do request prayer as I seek for another therapist. Did I pray when I was looking for Robert? I don't know. But it can't hurt to pray now. I am not desperate; my ass is not falling off as we used to say in program. I face continued challenges, yes, but I continue to grow. I just don't think I am ready to be without any therapist support at all! And it cannot hurt me to have someone to help me do continued OCD work as well as heal the past. I need to find deeper resources in my life outside of therapy, I know, but I do have some connections and their depth grows.

The story I told here was told without ornament of any kind. I remember a post at Romy's site where she included dialogue, heart wrenching dialogue not far from what I knew with Estella, from the break up of her marriage. But I have not done that. Someday, maybe. But it has been tough to even write this. And this semester I have 3 long days home alone where I work...my wife is still in school some nights. Those long lonely days are hard. I get stuff done, but they are hard anyway. Today was one of those days.

My sincere and heartfelt love to all. It has done me good to write here. I promise to update my new therapist search with you all. I do not expect R to try to contact me (there was no return address, but this is the modern age) nor even Estella if she somehow finds out about the letter (she may well not). Still, I am very afraid he will try to contact me. I will surely write about it here if he does, but I do not expect it.

This world is often far from fair. Times like this I pray for karma, for Christian justice "God is not mocked." All that. But I can control none of that. All I can control is my own continuing improvement as a person. My own growth. It will be tough this summer with S working full time now and me home every day alone, my son home less and less. I will have to find people to hang out with; they do exist, even in the middle of the woods.

Oh, and may I say, the Sierra spring is stunning beyond description. After the long cold winter, it is like recovering from an illness, waking the first day after a fever or bronchitis has cleared; it is like the good feeling that comes after heavy emotional pain moves through.

I am very afraid, of course, I will find another therapist who is insane. I use only women, since Robert. But the odds are very long, and I do not think I would EVER give anyone the power I gave him, and I have two good female therapists since him (D and S...God knows who you are).

Love to all.

Late Night Blah Blah

2008-04-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

Big changes are on the way for me; well, one at least. My therapist of the last six years is retiring. Yes, that does rather suck, though I am glad she is moving on with a new phase of her life, I have just weeks to figure out whether I want to contact my insurance company and look for someone else to continue work.

Mostly, I've been thinking that I wanted a break. I beat serious depression years ago, and with S (short for my current therapist) have made enormous strides with my anxiety/panic/OCD. The latter, surely, a tenacious and clingy monster to fight. A true mental illness, in my view (and I guess just about everyone else's). This last year or so has been especially good for me, even the last 9 months. The long, at times imperceptible climb out has finally appeared to be just that: a climb, OUT, not a walk through more thick woods. I have greater insight, meaning (clinically) I can sense an obsession more often than not...of late at least. For quite some time I had only a vague, half sense that what was tormenting me was in fact another obsession, like those that have controlled me most of my life (putting it that way, it does sound serious; all true, however). Now, after six years with S, my marriage is stronger, I am stronger, my OCD is much smaller. I would not be going every week, still, if I had not known for some time that she was retiring. Since I knew our time was limited, I have continued to go as often as always.

And I have been thinking, actually: I can use a break from therapy. I have great tools. My wife and I have grown so much in the last six years...all this is true. Then today came. Today. Not a hellish day. On the old 100 point anxiety scale, maybe cruising in the 30's; oddly, aware of the relational triggers (I never used to know why I was getting anxious or obsessive...it really felt like it "just began happening." I stayed up past my wife, grading papers, and now, approaching 11 and time for me to be in bed too, I write here. And I thank God for this place, as neglected as it has been. I am one of those who journals when he hurts, is scared or confused. Welcome back, that part of me.

I am so, so, so sensitive to anger. I cannot stress this enough. An angry comment, a single critical word or glance when I am in the wrong place, and I begin pulling inside, withdrawing, getting anxious and usually, along with that, obsessive. Obsession is like the surface, albeit a forceful and miserable surface, of the anxiety river beneath. A comment by my wife last night where I felt controlled, a small noise made this morning when I knew she did not see many clean socks in her drawer (or so I assumed, waking up) one or two other little things...no huge conflict or fight even, just small things, and I have been wrestling with the fear, the mental, what is the word, hyper vivisection of the relationship, catastrophization. That. The encouraging thing is that I have been able to SEE all of it as it has unfolded, see the trigger, my reaction, the anxiety and obsession (though not bad obsession, just a bit...a bit is enough, trust me...it is like having a little bleach spilled on your floor while you're eating dinner). I have seen it all unspool. And I do not feel utterly distant emotionally, not fully estranged, from my wife. I still have felt some closeness, some moments of warmth. Anxiety, driven by relational issues, is the opposite of warmth.

Writing tonight I am thinking: I really should hook up a back up therapist, so to speak, with my insurance company. Someone I see twice a month, maybe, to transition. I do not even know how it will feel when things end with S and I after six long years. I have never seen anyone that long, and I am more aware of her personality, able to know I am close in some special way. Well, at least I have an insurance company, and a parity diagnosis, so that I can proceed if I need to with finding someone else. But this is very much on my mind, sitting here, reading shitty papers (some) about novels I have discussed to bloody death in the classroom.

What else?

Oh, my faith is once again under a bit of siege: the problem of suffering, again. The Great Issue with any benevolent theism. I don't have time or energy to address my thoughts on that now (though a post, or series, seems to be building in my mind) but I will say the Teaching Company series on Faith and Reason in the Middle Ages (professor escapes my mind atm) is extraordinarily good. Christians have almost always felt the need for some combination of both, but it is amazing to see how many Christians have simply believed reason by itself could never convert a person. Sure, Aquinas' work...a remarkable project....Scotus....but when someone like Ockham comes along and simply says...I don't feel the force of these arguments, there is not much one can say. It reminds me, it is related to, the believe in Platonic type universals. Some people believe in such non-material entities, some simply do not. I know what Plato would say: they lack intelligence, the proper faculty, or reflective experience. But even P knew things were not that clear. The point I am making is that reason can only take me so far towards God, or so it seems. There are times I think it can take me pretty close, and times I think I believe in the face of an apparently random and horrific universe. I think of my dear friend's example below, Alison's: let us assume God did in fact heal her wrist; as she herself notes, what about those dying of cancer every day? Would God heal a wrist and let children die of cancer, or starvation, or be beaten to death? That is an ethical problem I cannot even bend my mind around right now.

Though I joke I am still half Platonist, the truth is I share Plato's passion for ethical and reflective living (or hope I do). I appreciate his belief in something beyond this world. I am impressed by some of the arguments for his Forms. But at heart, really, I have always been at least as much like Ockham, even Hume. Skeptical, doubting the existence of anything non-empirical, a nominalist (denying any abstract relational entities or Forms). These two patterns war in me. I'd note with some mirth that they have been warring with each other in all philosophy since at least the time of Socrates. I guess, then, I am in good company.

But if Aquinas could look at the visible world and see it as an Effect of the Creator, I do not know what he said about the problem of suffering. For surely, though Jesus' mission seemed connected to suffering, as well as atonement and reconciliation, apart from that (and that is one VERY large apart from) the world of human experience is a mix of great pleasure, insight, beauty, elevation, love, and dismay and horror. Religion can certainly increase our sense of meaning and purpose; it can provide some notion of final justice, even of life after the death of the body. Christianity does this explicitly. I know this. But even with the wonders and comfort of spirituality (in its broadest sense) bracketed to one side, the world, just as we see it, is both utterly beautiful, remarkable, full of wonder and human closeness and pleasure, and all that stands opposite to those things. For me, the hardest thing is never natural disaster (though those surely suck) nor even human evil, as unbelievably gruesome as that can be (especially when directed at children or the weak) but disease, especially in kids or the young. I always say: leukemia in children. That, to me, is the hardest of all things to reconcile with theism.

I am curious what we see in Jesus attitudes towards suffering, and must look again. I know the relationship of God to his creation is likely one so complex, human reason cannot approach it, not from God's view. To paraphrase something I read years ago in Lewis, what does my dog think I am doing while I sit here and type? Almost EVERY piece of my experience right now is not open to his dog brain. And the gap between dog and man may well be much, much smaller than man and god. Even that, we do not really know.

Well, it is getting late indeed. I have to get up. Works is awfully busy right now, and I need my energy for tomorrow's long day. May God find me in the thick of it, and remind me that Love lies beyond the shimmering molecular wall, the space and time block-set we know to be the universe. This is the great truth, as absurd as it sometimes seems to me. God, acting uniquely through one human person, an ancient Jew butchered by Rome...what madness it seems; until I read a few chapters of any gospel. This does not always work, but often, I once again hear the Voice...promise after promise made on my behalf. "I am the good shepherd..." That entire passage in John is exquisite. The claims of my faith may be astounding, perhaps absurd, but I have not walked away from them yet. Oh, may the answers, or at least the peace, one day come.

Must go now though. Quite tired. Thank you so much for posting Alison. I do not have a counter, and have no idea who reads this blog, especially now that the once active community is long disbanded and irregular. Myself part of that, of course, as I so rarely post.

But oh! How good it felt to write here tonight!

Love to all, including me :)

Peniel

2008-03-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

If this blog had another name, that would be it: Peniel. Is that not, "one who wrestles with God." Something close. That would be me.

It's strange, since I began writing about Brian's book (and I am not done, as you will see) I have cut the personal content here, as if I suddenly found myself in the book review pages of a newspaper. Posh. I must remind myself this is not publication, this is a web log.

The hardest thing about this activity is the lack of community sense. I need to put a counter up; I surely get very few comments, nearly none. Writing into the void. Rather existential.

I had my vasectomy Friday, finally. Stayed home from work Monday (though I thought I would not have to beforehand). I am sore, and the stitches are bugging the heck out of me, but it was not that bad. I will say, when they ask, "would you like a valium IV?" say yes. I did. Almost worth the surgery. My friend Allen who drove me there and then home (very kind of him) said he was so jealous of my elevation he was going home to have a martini. And he did, so I am told.

I am sleeping in the spare room as there is no way I can sleep on my side or stomach yet, and I snore no matter what, but I snore on my back very much. And here: Peniel.

Peeking in at Sandalstraps today brought me into Debunking Christianity, a blog I have been to before, still visit from time to time. I read some intelligent and passionate articles there on suffering. Also, I saw an article, well an interview, with a nobel laureaute physicist who went on about human beings not needing a God explanation anymore. We have cracked enough of the universe's particle code. I continue to find the first argument against theism, the problem of human suffering, profound; the second, that a grasp of the natural processes which underlie phenomenon lead us away from intelligent design or a Creator, I find very weak.

I do not know why there is childhood cancer. Or adult cancer, for that matter. Nor does the suffering of any innocent make sense to me as a Christian (if I held to karma, and samsara, this would be an utterly different issue). Nor do I know why God does not answer all prayer, nor heal when he is asked to heal (in most cases, at least). I do know this, and I think atheists who highlight the fact of so many unanswered prayers for healing or relief from physical pain should consider it: if God healed even one person, let me say, even one person, things stack out much differently. the argument against theism is done. We could say such a God, who heals only rarely or singularly, is a God we do not like, but he is something well Beyond us nonetheless. If he is also Creator (and here I admit I make a leap) we must question his actions carefully. I wish I could say I have been physically healed in some clearly miraculous way. This has not happened. I had one very powerful experience praying about my OCD, well, two, but my final relief from that came from a mix of simple therapeutic techniques and deeper therapeutic healing (and God's role...perhaps that too; I have already written about this). I have also written on this blog, in the On Holy Ground posts, about the closest I, and those close to me, have come to a direct experience of the Divine: One story comes to mind, my friend David, did I include it? it is thought-provoking indeed...so much so, I will tell it again.

My friend David still brings a copy of the letter from time to time. I have seen the original. About twenty years ago David was baptized and received his first communion (as an adult; he was raised Jewish). I wish I had the letter to post, but he believed that when he went forward to the altar rail (and certainly one's first communion would be, or might be, a dramatic emotional event) he believed he saw some kind of energy force in front of the altar. I would have to let him describe it, but it was something like that, an energetic presence or cloud of light-energy. Now, I am willing to believe someone in a deeply spiritual state could have this experience by himself. But what is odd is the letter the organist wrote to David after his communion. The one I read to myself. Something like: I have never sent a letter to anyone after a first communion before, but I wanted to tell you I thought I saw some kind of spiritual presence in front of the altar (and now I know I need to get the actual wording from the letter)...I spoke with a friend who is also sensitive to such things, and she saw it too...

Now, the friend may have been influenced; no way for me to know. I do not know if that friend is still living; the organist, whom I knew briefly, is dead. But what am I to make of such a story? A God who may manifest himself so subtly, like shifting light...no thunderbolt, no floating angelic beings...a brief Vision like the scene from Lewis' Till We Have Faces where Orual sees the Palace of the god through the mysts...but only briefly! One brief revelation is all...that is so like my friend's story, maybe like my story. Why?

This I cannot say. God, apparently, will not allow himself to be tested in a laboratory. That seems clear fact. Even Jesus wrote no book himself, at least nothing has survived and there is no reliable tradition of any written Christ material. Why would God ask for faith? Why would he not leave himself open to a full and rational inquiry? Why do we still suffer; why do most who are prayed for still die (I have yet to write off the entire gospel record: in my view, many were healed by Jesus, even raised from the dead). I do not have answers. But with miracles, all it takes is one. One. And the entire weight of argument shifts in a new direction, or some new direction.

And on intelligent design:

The universe is full of extraordinary things. Matter. Gravity. Predictable motion. Biology. The mechanics of stars. The fact that we can describe how more and more of these things work says nothing to me, and I speak honestly, about God's existence or lack thereof. If anything, the striking precision of the entire thing, the fact that unliving chemistry and movement has brought about reflective life...even if these processes are someday finally and fully understood as "natural"...can be described from singularity to human consciousness....the question of where the processes originated, of why they are here, of where the "stuff" and its mechanisms come from...that is not answered. The only problem, the only problem (and it is a bloody real one) with seeing an intelligent, and marvelous, Creator behind all of it is human suffering, animal suffering. That, and perhaps also, the fact that the Creator has left us to our own devices without communication. Christians believe, of course, he has communicated in the form of a unique person.

That is enough for now. The Teaching Company Series on Luther (who is the professor, Carey?) is simply remarkable and surprisingly relevant to my thoughts on EMC. Likewise Lewis' book The Discarded Image, though in a much different way. I really do have more things to say. Right now I'm getting my wife through her last semester in grad school, surviving, and striving, within some very tough battles and questions at work, and waiting for my nuts to heal.

Could be one hell of a lot worse, and I know it.

Love to all, faith or no. Any reasonable person can agree on that, even me, finally.

No time or energy to edit. Apologies.

Another Place EMC is Getting Discussed

2008-02-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

I find I do like the interactive nature of the discussion; it helps me collect my thoughts and of course feels less isolating: so I am posting on EMC in this blog but also here:

http://readingforchange.wordpress.com/

It's a good beginning discussion. Check it out if you can :)

t

A Quick Post

2008-02-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

another sitting in my office quickie post.

I am taking my time with Brian for good reasons (and now will be watching and maybe participating in another online discussion of the book; see the comment below). When I was young(er) I was the quickest parrot in the birdcage. I had a fast response, usually wrong and borrowed from someone else, for every theological question. Brian's book has introduced me to the emergent church; that diverse movement, and his representation of it, deserves time.

In the meantime and as I think about my response, I am rereading the gospels, especially Luke and John; rereading Wright, especially his section on Judgement in JVG. For there he finalizes the leap he began in NTPG: a highly realized eschatology. I know he does not like that term, prefers "ignaural" eschatology, and discusses that in both books; fair enough. But it must be admitted, so many verses Christians have taken to refer to hell fire and a final day of judgement after death Wright goes after with single minded tenacity: these are current day prophetic warnings against Israel and especially Jerusalem. Some scriptural writings do clearly teach a resurrection of the dead, including the gospels (Mark and John I can say without doubt), and NTW is not negating that, I think. Still, I can see why emergent has latched onto at least that part of his exegesis. It lies behind chunks of EMC, for sure.

So, there you go. I'm busy but good. Have given up all alcohol for lent and am once again enjoying this very special season (once more, I am so glad to be a liturgical). I love serving communion at the altar whenever I am the Eucharistic minister/chalice bearer. In fact, I have known nothing like it. How lucky I am to experience that! What a gift to my life which has been so much struggle and suffering looking back!

But I must run. Students waiting :)

Sincere love to all, and more on BDM soon!

Ash Wednesday 08

2008-02-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

The three readings for today's service, if they were all we had, would almost be enough. (Isaiah 58: 1-12; II Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)

And lest anyone think Brian is fabricating his emphasis on caring for the poor in EMC, or that I am making it up in agreeing with him, let me include today's reading from Isaiah. It is all I want to put up today. Let it stand on its own:

Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
"Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?"
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

Isaiah 58:1-12

Everything Must Change 1.0

2008-01-31T19:42:00.001-08:00

Introductory Comments

This set of essays on Brian McClaren's new book, Everything Must Change, is in response to a request from Anne at Thomas Nelson. As I have already said, I am honored, humbled, and affirmed by this request, three things I can surely use. I had heard a little about Brian and the emergent church, not much, and this is the first book I have read by him. So far, the only one. Hence, the scope of this discussion is limited only to the content of EMC.

I also must confess at the outset: I was prepared to not like this book, or to not like it much. Why? Well, for one, I am a fan of field-specialists. Brian (and I feel comfortable, after reading his book, using his first name in this series) is a pastor, and as he notes in his intro, not an expert in any field. Of course, I realize my reservations appear ludicrous for a community college teacher who has written no books himself! Also, there are excellent books by non-specialists all the time. Finally, I was correct in believing Brian was somehow associated with the emergent church, and while I knew very little about that group (which, one would think, should have kept me from forming any judgments about it) I believed emergent to be a breakaway faction concerned with individuation more than unity, the next generation of young Christians reinventing certain perspectives of their faith, focused on terminology and presentation more than substance. I admit all this because I do not want readers to think I came to Brian already a fan of his work or of the emergent project.

What I actually found in this little book, though, was and is a remarkably humane, relevant and thought-provoking Christian vision. There were times I was reading and thought I could sum up my review in one word, "duh." Or in two, "of course." As in, "isn't much of this emphasis on charity and service obvious to any Christian who has read the gospels and bothered to think about his world?" I realize that is a presumptuous position. Considering the amount of controversy Brian has generated in Christian circles, presumptous indeed.

That said, I do have qualifications and critiques, and also important questions.

Some things must be noted at the outset, even if they are obvious: Brian has had a particular experience of protestant, evangelical Christianity, and it is that understanding and experience of protestant orthodoxy that he is emerging from. I realize he is by no means alone, however, in that experience or in his larger dissatisfaction with American Evangelical doctrine and culture. Another thing which is much more signifcant for me is that, in this book anyway, Brian feels the need to read the gospels in a distinct way; primarily, he draws on a particular set of threads in their narratives. They are important threads, but his explication of Jesus' message in EMC is not exhaustive. In my view, he trims a bit more than he needs to in his eschatology; and much of his anti-imperial political interpretation feels frankly modern, though I realize he is drawing on accomplished scholars in these sections, that Jesus does make critical statements about the power plays among the 'gentiles' in the gospels, and also that Brian himself is figuring things out. That said, and this is far from a thorough discussion of these items, it is blatantly clear throughout the book that Brian is all the while driven by the most Christian of motives: loving his global neighbor in active and sacrificial terms. This is a message much of American Evangelicalism needs to hear, tragically. It is a message I personally need to hear again and again! It is also a core tenet of Christ' teaching. This book is meant to correct an imbalance in Protestantism, in Christianity, with which the church and its individuals have always struggled in varying forms. Good. In that sense, it is a prophet's message, and a very old one. I give him kudos for expressing it in such kind and collegial terms. None of the ancient prophets, nor Jesus, was ever so gentle on the same topic! Read the calamitous, apocalyptic parable at the end of Matthew 25 for a chilling refresher.

In summary then, the spirit of this book, its core, its foundational tenet, is mercy. EMC is continually informed by concern for the poor and controlled and suffering, and anger at the wealthy and oppressive and comfortably self-absorbed and the systems which support and prolong these inequities; quite similar themes run deep in the prophets and inform many statements by the Jesus of the gospels. And this is content far too many Christians ignore! The core ideas in EMC are not new; they are at least as old as the prophet Amos and, in varying forms, they can be found in Christian teachers from the first century forward. But Brian presents these ideas in fresh and relevant ways to a contemporary, and sometimes tragically ignorant, American audience.

In closing my introduction, I note once again: I am not a biblical scholar or expert! I have not had time to research or read many of the outside sources Brian relies on (though some I know). Believe me, I want that education! (Whenever I hear an actual NT scholar speak about spending decades thinking about a biblical textual issue, I wince with envy). I am just a human man, an English teacher, struggling day to day, finding meaning in his Christian practice and scriptures and trying to reconcile that with reason and other experience.

On that note, let's begin.

***

First Questions

I had many questions on how to organize my review. This is an already published book, so I am not making suggestions for change during the drafting process. And as I've said, EMC covers vast ground! Some areas intrigue me much more than others. And so since this is a project gratis…I am simply going to take particular sections of the book which catch my attention and discuss them one at a time. Perhaps it is my English teacher vocation, but I must begin with a bit of critique and question.

Postmodern. What does this word mean, and does it matter?

In literary theory, if it is even possible to define postmodern literary theory quickly, postmodernism relies on a very pessimistic epistemology, largely as a result of the perceived weaknesses of human language. (For those who would like an infinitely better definition, I recommend Terry Eagleton's book Literary Theory.) Hence, the postmodern or deconstructionist critic will take a traditional reading of, say, the Henry James short story "The Beast in the Jungle," where the author seems to have a clear didactic purpose (as is true in nearly all American realism) and then undermine that apparent meaning by drawing on small pieces of the text. Unravel the center from the inside. A line by one character, a particular descriptive sentence or even a single word. The deconstructionist will use any piece of the narrative she can find which seems to stand in contrast to the central "meaning" of the story, and there make an incision in the (we are now shown) illusory meaning of the text, and the point is proven in fact that the story is an unfocused, though perhaps intricately beautiful, blur of linguistic symbols without an unchallenged center.

Now that may be a bad definition, but it is a start. I have always thought literary postmodernism was the application of existentialism, especially atheistic existentialism, to language and literature (for a first hand experience of the existential crisis, I recommend reading Sartre's Nausea). While the early wave of literary postmodernism has passed, to the genuine relief of quite a few faculty and students in the field, its influence remains clear in later forms of theory, as movement succeeds movement in the push to publish; it is clearly evident in new historicism or revisionist history, where one can no longer say easily, "the Renaissance man thought like this." History has become a much more complex discipline after postmodernism, and I think this has merit. I am no longer involved in current literary theory; in fact, my disillusionment with it was one of the reasons I did not pursue a Ph.D. But I believe what thrives in lit theory now is a mix of postmodernism, feminism and other civil rights concerns, neo-Marxism, and psychoanalysis post-Freud. Those strands, blended different ways, have given birth to post colonialism, for example, where what matters in the text is not so much aesthetic value (none of the above schools are focused on aesthetic value), but the detection of the "colonial gaze," of how colonial metanarrative has influenced a particular piece of literature. By colonial I mean generally what Brian means by colonial, incidentally: the assumptions and presuppositions historically found in aggressively expansive communities of any size, the tenets of empire.

Hence my confusion over what the emergent church means by postmodern! They do not mean what literary critics mean. As an English teacher, I have to get that obvious point out at the start. So, what does Brian mean by the term? As pomo has become something of a badge for the emergent community, what is it?

Brian defines postmodern on pages 34 to about 39 (though he discusses it later also) drawing on a Walter Percy essay I have not read. Still, Brian's definition is startling…for him, postmodern is really a critique and reflection on modern; and for Brian modern means, of all things, a deadly cultural overconfidence (36). And not just any overconfidence, but an overconfidence which led to Nazism, Stalinism, and both World Wars. This is a striking definition! It deserves discussion.

While many sections of Brian's book are well footnoted, this is not one of them. He notes some European and American thinkers came to this conclusion without providing one name! I believe he is telling the truth, but I would certainly like to read them on my own! Who are these "many thinkers" (38) and "certain philosophers" (39). We are not told. He does bring in Descartes; apparently, this "excessive confidence" (38) can be traced back to Descartes' philosophy which is here called foundationalism. The second cause of the destructive overconfidence which led to the disasters of the first half of the 20th century is to be found in metanarratives, or "framing stories" (39). By these, I believe, he means presuppositions and attitudes which permeate any culture.

Here I must interject. I have read Descartes' Meditations and Discourse on Method. I recommend them both as very readable but important philosophical documents (and they can easily be found in one volume). Descartes, of course, was a Christian who spent a fair amount of energy attempting to prove God's existence and a subsequent optimistic world view purely using reason. By this I mean Descartes shut himself up in his room with a stove and thought. His reflections and conclusions are presented in these two short books.

I simply cannot believe that the grotesque and widespread violence of the 20th century has anything significant to do with this man or his philosophy. And why? Because what made the 20th century different from any other century in recorded history was more efficient killing, communication and transportation technologies. It is convenient to think that Descartes, a relatively recent figure in history, may have sparked proto modernism which resulted in multi-national catastrophes as it flowered, but this is simply not the case. Humans have always done horrific things to each other, individually and within groups. Why is a question I'd like to consider in another post in this series, but it is clear to see this is true. We can indeed hope that emphasis on individual civil rights, widespread education, and global efforts against disease and poverty may make the post European colonial period different from the post Alexandrian, or post Roman. Metanarratives do matter, and I will have more to say here also. But I simply do not believe the recent modern age was a whit less humane than prior ages. If the Nazis had excessive confidence, what do we attribute to Phillip's son Alexander? Or the Roman generals, like Ceasar, who butchered for career advantage (and in Caesar's case, then took his ambition into Rome itself). Or the English Kings Henry 4 and 5 who promoted an incredibly prolonged conqest of France? The exploitation of nationalism in the service of aggression is an old trick; even the Roman poet Horace speaks out against it! And to what do we attribute slavery in any age, including American slavery, a repugnant, racially based and typically permanent condition which took centuries and a bloody civil war to end? I often have students read Frederick Douglass' Narrative, his personal account of his slavery experience, and I ask them, 'how could individuals and groups who claimed to follow Christianity, the Jesus of the gospels, committed such acts?' If you have not read Douglass, you must. It is provocative to ponder this. I would agree metanarratives, cultural assumptions, in service to other drives are responsible. But the drives behind human aggression and the ease with which we ostracize, dehumanize the 'other' are forces that are always with us. If there is any hope for our future age, our postmodern age...it is learning viable alternatives. Those alternatives, as Brian correctly notes, form a significant portion of the gospels. They are also the focus of his book.

That is enough for now, friends. I finished EMC a month ago, but it has been a busy month as it always seems to be. I enjoy the reflection on Brian's ideas as much as I enjoy the writing! Please be patient, Anne, as I churn these posts out; it may reasonably take me all semester to finish.

And if you have not gotten the book, do! My critiques do not undercut the Christian importance of these ideas. But for now, sincere love to all.

2008-01-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

Sitting in my office with twenty minutes to go until my next class. This will be a busy semester; two basic intro to grammar courses, one lit., two online advance comps and one face to face comp. 16 units. Six classes. Ow. And that does not include any overload; this is my normal load.

My first response to Brian's book is already pretty long, sitting on my desktop at home; I was hoping it was in blogger's server so I could tinker with it but no such luck. I must upload it. This is just quickie blog, a few thoughts tossed out from a slight sense of being overwhelmed, a little loneliness, and a touch of confusion.

My basic grammar classes look very much now like they did when I taught them in so. cal. I mean the students. My college now is as diverse as the truly urban colleges where I cut my composition teeth. It is moving to see students begin their college careers with me in a class so far below freshman level; some will make it all the way through college; many will not. But they are a fun bunch to work with because they are so damned grateful when they can tell an instructor is trying. And in that class, most days, I try so hard I burn calories.

What else? My marriage is stronger every season, my therapy going well and due to end this spring (my therapist is retiring). I have more freedom from depression and even the sticky cling hell of obsession than I have ever had. Less anxiety than I have ever had. In short, my life is getting close to normal! Or whatever normal is. It has been such an adventure, such a dramatic and enthralling and difficult journey. If nothing else, my recovery story must be written, here or elsewhere. I am not sure when, but it will be done. I think many would benefit from my own journey to health...over two decades, with plot twists, villains and heroes...and all truth! I will get there. It would be deeply therapeutic for me to write it as well.

I am still considering entering Episcopal seminary in two to five years, after my son is out of high school, if all could fit with my family's life. My wife finishes grad school this spring and it has been a long, long road for us. Surely for me! I have tried to be a Christian servant and think I have done that. I am not sure I am ready to put another one of us into grad school, but I have time to think as my son still has two years of high school to go and we won't move him during that time.

But one overarching thing is clear to me: to enter priesthood, especially preiesthood, I believe I need to develop my faith. I read Luke while reading Brian just to keep my NT bearings, and I am reminded how the literary puzzles of that book, and the other gospels, out puzzle almost anything I've read. The literary and historic issues alone are enormous, but Jesus intentionally spoke in parables, in the constant metaphor of apocalypse, and he puzzles me as a reader at times as he puzzled so many who heard him in person. But while I struggle with other issues when I consider the priesthood...pay, benefits, retirement, job security, the nature of the job itself...I know my always dialectic faith would be an issue. At least in parish ministry. All this may change! I may find myself with a clear call and vision...I scarily say I hope so, but I am not there at this moment.

I used to know this much: I wanted to study the NT in a scholarly-spiritual setting. I still do. I have told myself many times that if I could do it over I would enter grad school for NT studies and pursue a career as an NT scholar...in my early 20's and not early 40's! That interest is still with me, though I am more aware than I used to be that such an education might build a richer faith foundation, but it would not answer all my questions or build a faith foundation out of nothing. I'll add to that interest, though, my very powerful experiences being an EM, or Eucharistic Minister. "May the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in eternal life." Praying that with each person at the altar...it is so emotionally powerful! It is a unique form of connection, of giving...and it is one of the key things priests do?

I have to run, but I think of Jesus noting that no man builds a tower without first looking into the costs and problems down the road; I contrast that with the rapid response of the apostles when called, as their response is described. Jesus says follow me, they go. Things that once seemed immovable in my life have moved, like my OCD. What awaits next?

see you soon

Oh, for such a unity of vision!

Prelude to Brian

2008-01-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

We were without power over the weekend, almost 3 full days, and the snow is still falling. Nature, when it intervenes directly in life, tends to do so dramatically. This week has been no exception. We are hoping we do not lose power again tonight; we shouldn't, but one never knows. This is my seventh winter in the mountains, and the longest we've gone before was maybe 20 hours, and that was during our first couple of years. Lately, power outages, even in big storms, are uncommon and brief. Hence, we have never invested in a generator as many of the old timers up here have (well, those who can afford one). Physically we were fine, plenty of wood, food, and running water. But psychologically! I cannot say how much I appreciate electricity now that I have been without for 3 days. Everything changes! The first day is fun, but the fun wears off quickly as cabin fever sets in....no tv, radio, dishwasher, washer and dryer or vacuum cleaner. As soon as we were plowed out, we drove to a Costco and got a portable weather radio with a hand crank and b and w tv. Contact with the outside world! That is what the little gadget is for. We have a weather radio in our Subaru, and of course check that even when the power (and hence the internet!) is down. But it's nice to know that little black box is standing by, ready to talk to us if we are again abandoned by the last century of technology and cast back in time.

***

As you know if you read here, I was given a copy of Brian McClaren's new book, Everything Must Change, to discuss on this blog. I am highly honored by that request, touched even, and I have begun reading it and am more than half way through. The book reads quickly, easily, but covers many things. Many things! I want to make sure I am digesting before I attempt any kind of thorough discussion. In the meantime, I would like to use this post as a prelude, introducing where I am in my own philosophical and spiritual journey, in brief. I'd also like to do something else: tell you all to buy the book. If I did not think it was worth reading, I would never suggest you do so. But the fact is it is worth reading, and that is your homework: if you're interested in what I have to say about EMC, please, buy it and begin reading yourself. Or if you can't afford that, head to a bookstore and, uh, browse from the shelves. What I have to say will be utterly enhanced, enriched, if you have have read the work itself. You all know I teach college English for a living, and there is no such thing as a lecture or discussion with any life energy (for professor or student) apart from the individual experience of reading the work beforehand.

***

On Caution

I remember the maxim in graduate school: by the time one is done with the thesis, one will know it is a piece of junk (actually, we said piece of shit). I am not even that far in my theological or bibical studies; I have no formal graduate or undergraduate training in those areas...so I am quite sure my discussion of Brian's book will be less than perfect! And I think of Martin Luther, changing his mind about the number of sacraments within a single essay! (Thanks to Professor Carey and the Teaching Company for another fantastic course). I too am figuring things out, and I do not have a developed personal creed (and may never have one). As I have said openly in this blog before, though a true Christian (in my own view at least) I consider the possibility of atheism rather often, usually in light of the apparently random nature of suffering and death, let alone various perspectives on the many difficult issues in the faith I continue to hold (hold warmly, glady, and gratefully I might add). However, there are a few things I'd like to say before I leap into Brian in the next post (and depending on the weather and family responsibilities, that could take a week or two, hard to say).

If I had to sum up my approach to Christian theology, really to all knowledge, I can say I favor, and experience, a fair amount of epistemological caution. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which considers what we can know about our world and ourselves and how well we, as humans, can know it. I like to believe I am generally careful when it comes to knowing. That is why this blog (drawing on N.T. Wright's description of "critical realism" in NTPG) is called Look Closer! It is so easy, even natural, for our race to make erroneous judgements, to cling, even when the stakes are enormous, to fallacious beliefs (of course, some beliefs are too complicated to be all right or all wrong...they represent a complex fabric of individual positions and presuppositions). There are many challenges on the path to truth; I feel the best we can hope for in human knowing, no matter the field of inquiry (including science) is a distinctly human knowledge, and that even reaching that usually takes work.

That said, I do not consider myself a postmodernist in the way I understand that term in literary studies or philosophy (Brian uses this word freely, and he is perfectly within rights to do so; I simply find in his work a different meaning for the term than the one I have understood). I do not deny corporate meanings. I do not believe the limitations of language, nor the limitations of mind, nor the remoteness of history, leaves us on a "darkling plain," to quote Matthew Arnold, where there can be no meaning save the personal, non-discussable, and self-deduced (a great introduction to thinking critically about critical thinking can be found in Bacon's Four Idols...it is must reading). Some ideas are true; some are false; some ideas are clearly better, we could say more true, than others. Humans do in fact have a capacity, utterly unequalled in any other animal, to interact, to dialogue and discourse with reality as we receive it through our senses and the mental stages of our minds, and to uncover truth as we can know it with varying success: metaphysical, moral, and even, in my view, religious.

What I mean when I say that all truth, even scientific truth (water will boil at this temperature at this pressure every time) remains human truth is, I know, a bit obscure. Even I do not know the complete ramifications of that statmement though I am quite sure it is true :) But I know my sensory world is not that of the duck or dog (let alone that of God, whose perceptions we cannot even explore); the way I see this computer, thought aside, is quite human, and when emotion, preconception, the rest of the human phenomenon is added...how human knowledge remains distinctly human is quite complex indeed. What, except in thought experiments, can we even compare it to? The very best we can hope for as we reach for truth will still be human truth, through and through. Rather than continue to watch me drown in abstractions, think with me for a minute about the color blue. We see blue because certain wavelengths of light, photons (which are matter and energy) move in certain speeds and spacings, and we perceive this as blue or shall we say blueness (please correct my weak physics if required). I am willing to admit the normal human eye perceives blue essentially the same across the globe, but it has to be conceded that the color blue and the light patterns my eye and brain turn into blue are two distinct things. Does this mean blue does not exist. Not at all. But blue is a distinctly human sense-mind experience. Other animals may not perceive blue at all. Hence, blue, and all colors as humans see them, are distinctly human. Forgive me if this is an elementary point; even the scattered philosophy I know has much to say about this from many convoluted angles. But just as color is human, for me, all ideas about the universe and God we can hold are also shaped by human mind. We simply can not, will not ever in this life if any, know the mind of God as God knows it. If you doubt this, consider the size and complexity and enormous vigorous energy of the known universe for a few minutes...then begin to contemplate what kind of Mind is responsible for that! Or is larger than and utterly beyond that! Not a human-animal mind, surely. Here, in my view, Plato is closer in his descriptions of Divinity (via the Absolute Beauty and the Good) than some portions of the Hebrew Bible.

But we do have reason, and intuition, and conscience; we also have, in complex form, revelation from God. And these things, though imperfect, can provide us with meaningful world views and life narratives and ethical positions which depend on truth as we can experience it!

As you can tell already, I do not believe truth often reveals itself easily. Uncovering truth, generally, takes effort and multiple minds (working at the same time or asynchronously, as one mind draws on the prior ideas of others, or both). This is why I call myself a Christian skeptic. If none of the rest of what I've said clicks for you, know that I am skeptical about nearly everything. I come to conclusions but distrust myself if that happens too quickly. How did I get this way?

Part of my epistemological caution, much of it in my view, comes from living in an empirical, scientific age. This may seem odd, considering the certainty which science can at times provide. Yet science and empiricism, despite impressive successes, often analyzing things which, in some sense anyway, can be laid out on a lab table or tested and observed directly, still struggles= and disagree within its ranks about many things; its truths continue to grow; its knowledge is also often provisional...the revolutionary changes Einstein's relativity made to Newton's laws come to mind. Knowing this is true regarding our study of the material world, how can I make certain proclamations about things which lie outside the material world? This is a critical point for me. When I was young, I was aggressively into theological certainty. If I could have burned some heretic or other, God help me, I might have. I was into doctrine, into it. I remember beginning Latin studies when I was about 24 and thinking...Latin is so systematic, it is just like theology! All those tables of noun declensions and verb conjugations reminded me of the order I expected to find in the theological world, the order I thought I had already found. Oh, but further thought and life experience have shown me I had built a house on sand, friends, emotionally and intellectually. When it fell, it was a great fall indeed. I thank God and Christ it was not a destruction, for God heard me in my horror, and raised me to continue. This blog, when I give it the attention it deserves, is part of that continuing exploration. Ditto this essay.

Science, with its many successes and failures (generally at the cost of enormous effort) has influenced my epistemological caution, but I also live in a philosophical zheitgheist post-Kant, post-Bacon, post-Enlightenment, and in Brian's sense of the word, post-modern. I have seen human project after human project fail; been lied to by my politicians and leaders; been lied to, with much greater impact, by some quite close to me. Trust has been violated in my life, horrifically...I almost said diabolically, but that would unfairly take the sting away, for a human being who injures another is no demon, but remains quite human and free in his choices, at least in the case of the one who hurt me. I cannot pretend my wounds have left no impact on me. Also, I have seen technology used to hoard resources and dominate communities as it has always been, from the spearhead and sword blade to the computerized "smart bomb." I can look all around me at the bizarre, truly bizarre, mix of Christianity and capitalism in America, the blindness to the suffering and poor which has plagued our faith in parts of its existence in every age and currently does so in my own country on a grotesque scale...when someone tells me the Bible is God's Word and does not show a heart, let me say bleeding heart, for the poor, at least a desire to somehow assist those in need by parting with some of what one has now or in the future--at the least guilt over not doing more--(I sit and wonder what I myself do...not near enough) I must conclude this person has not read the gospels or the prophets! You see, truth is hard to hold! And I too am a sinner!

However, as this is meant to be brief, without going into other pieces of the zeitgheist which shapes me, there is a critical piece to my wariness in matters of knowing, especially religious and Christian knowing, and it is the other key thing I must adress in my preface to EMC as epistemological caution is connected to it: the nature of the Bible.

On Scripture

I want to know more than I do about the millenial history of scriptural interpretation/reading in Judaism and Christianity, but at least in the western Protestant tradition, the tradition I know a little about, the Bible has usually been considered the ultimate authority in questions of doctrine and moral direction. Not always...some established groups did and do maintain that God speaks directly to them in addition to the canon (the Friends come to mind). But the Bible sits there on the table, can be opened and read by anyone literate, and is believed by millions of Christians to be the Word of God, a book without error or contradiction, God's divine and direct communique to humanity. I once believed this myself; now I reject this thesis completely. Not because I have some personal agenda, some secret sin or need that requires I sweep away this or that biblical passage; not because I believe God could not have provided a perfect Word-book if he wished (I really cannot say what his limitations might be). I don't believe the Bible is God's inerrant Word for many reasons, but all of them stem from the fact that I have read parts of it closely with an open mind. Not just liturgical size pieces, but entire books at a time. Now, this is complicated, and black and white thinking (at which I am so good) must be avoided: our faith depends on the biblical books; I do not deny this. But the Bible is used so irresponsibly and simply often misunderstood by those who are using it inside and outside the faith! Proof-texting is the easiest thing to criticize, common as it is among Christians. Individual verses or passages are lifted out of the written Torah or Prophets or NT and used to provide guidance for life or proof on this or that point. After all, this is God's word to humankind! Of course, oddly, other times key themes, like Christ's (and the prophets) emphasis on the poor somehow get left out. Rather than looking at the entire book being drawn from, or even the entire biblical collection, a few verses in Romans 1 or 6 or 9 are trotted out as certain evidence of a moral or theological position without seeing the limitation of the text, without relying on love, without using the conscience and reason. When this is done, the result is invariably selective, many time disastrous. The doctrine of predestination comes to mind. I realize this is about as tough a nut as there is to crack, but while Romans 9 seems to teach individual predestination to salvation or damnation (Luke Johnson disagrees, arguing the categories are corporate) there is no one who will ever convince me that 2 Peter 3:9 does not say that God delays his final judgement so that all may come to repentance!

The funny thing is, we can see selective use of the scripture right in the NT! Satan uses Tanahk, or passages from the Hebrew Bible, to attempt to persuade Jesus in his temptations; Jesus answers with passages in turn (both sides relying on interpretations of the passages...there is no such thing as a reading without interpretation...even by the Jesus of the gospels; I'd say especially by him!) In other places, we see Jesus bracketing off portions of the Torah (as in his discussion of divorce law or dietary restriction) yet using others, sometimes in ingenious fashion, to confound his interlocutors or to make (often grandiose) statements about himself. The fact is, everyone who proof-texts uses the Bible selectively, even the Jesus of the Gospels! Jesus was a first century Jew, and Wright's belief that he was providing a "critique from within" of the Judaism of his day is persuasive. But Jesus does offer a critique, and part of his critique is a complex, at times free and even inconsistent (at least on the surface) reading of the Hebrew scriptures. He uses them to fit individual circumstances, always holding, in my view, to a higher narrative which can be derived from the HB, but which is FAR from represented there in totality.

For one thing, we must admit at the outset, the Bible is simply not one book. It is a library, a collection of books, which, as my priest says, dialogue with one another. That kind of dialogue, point counter point without resolution, is quite Jewish, I am told by a Jewish friend. I am not going to point out contradictions in the gospels or places Paul is struggling to mesh divergent theological points. I want to give just one example, something quite large.

Hosea tells us, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." (6:6) Matthew's Jesus quotes this verse twice in that gospel (chapters 9 and 12). This same theme is even more explicit in Micah 6:6-8, which I will lay out as a poem:

With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

These are two passages from the Tanahk, the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets. And they come after the extensive and very detailed sacrificial codes in the Torah. Did God say both of these things? Is the sacrificial code wrong? Did God not write both the Torah and the book of Amos? I mean no disrespect to any Jew or Christian, nor am I attempting to make a straw man of this complex textual conflict. I admit this is supposed to be my brief intro to a discussion of Brian's book. But I think Brian is often misunderstood (based on online reading I've taken up in the last few weeks) and we as Christians need to, frankly, grow up into a mature intellectual species. At the very least, the conflict between the two passages above and the temple sacrificial cultus we see in the Torah and in Jesus' lifetime (and remember, Priests in Israel during Jesus' time were essentially butchers, offering animal after animal to God) shows that ancient Judaism was not a monologic thing. Their sacred books reflect these tensions. In my own view, the passages in Amos and Micah stand in direct contrast to the entire Temple cultus established, according to the Torah, in the wilderness by God and enforced by exclusion or death. They are a revision of the Law itself, especially Micah, who provides a new set of behavioral standards entirely! A simpler, and utterly more enlightened set! Of course, the Torah is not all legal codes...it too has moments of genuine religious elevation which resemble Micah's passage, but that can be discussed at another time. I'd suggest, of course, you read it for yourself.

Now, I understand what the responses to this might be: God does not care about empty sacrificial offerings; the prophets here speak about offerings devoid of faith or genuine, sincere concern for God's law or the principles underlying the law. Also, the historical context for Amos and Micah needs to be brought into the discussion, as well as the rest of the books' content. Agreed! But even when these things are done, I do not believe my central point changes: the Bible is not a perfect and divine code-book which, when cracked, provides the answer to every question...even less so when it is not cracked, or studied carefully, as is often the case. It is also not a single book written by God, nor a collection of books which were kept from any and all error by God in their composition. Again, my reasons for believing this are many; some relate to my profession. I read texts for a living (I have a cousin who, when I told him I have a "low" view of scripture...a term I like less and less...told me, "of course, you're an English professor"...how that is relevant I do not know). The Bible, I believe the evidence shows, is a collection of human books, written over time by individuals and communities who had varying types and degrees of religious experiences. Each book in the Bible is unique and each is different. I do not believe I must hold Mark's gospel, say, on equal footing with Proverbs. I have struggled very much with these ideas over the last seven or so years, and will have more to say, I am sure, later; I do hope this beginning is helpful to some.

Does this then mean we toss these books out! No! Does this mean our faith must divorce itself from these books? No! But the bible must be read carefully! Does the Bible (using the famous phrase, I believe it is from Barth) contain God's word if it is not God's Word? I believe it does in some very mysterious way. At least, it has been used by God as no other book has been used, in my view. I'd suggest that "word" is actually different for different people, or presents different emphases for different individuals; and it has been used to utterly uplift and heal and utterly oppress and debase and wound. God help us. All of us, all our theologies and belief structures, are limited to historical and individual circumstance. I have heard Gustavo Guttierrez says this; if so, I agree. Martin Luther saw in Paul what he needed to see in Paul, and I am glad for it. But that is not all there is to Paul!

This is one of the reasons why N.T. Wright's work holds so much interest for me. I do not know what he thinks about the Bible, actually; I think he may maintain some positions, or is subltle or silent on some things, out of a need to maintain Anglican and Christian unity, but I do not know. What Wright tries to do in his work on Paul and Jesus, though, is get back to the texts in their true first century context, before centuries of theological interpretation, expectation, and calcification were laid down on them by thinkers drastically removed from the original culture and historical period. This approach I like very much, even if the Bishop and I may not agree on all things. (And I am an Episcopalian who still considers himself part of the Anglican communion...in short, Wright is not my bishop, but he is a Bishop to me nonetheless...I pray for him at this moment as he would for me).

In closing, I'd restate the obvious: my reading of the Bible certainly influences my theological caution. It's hard enough to interpret the biblical books if one believes they are all written by God to unveil some unified divine plan (actually, I think they were, but not in the way this is meant by fundamentalists or inerrantists)! How much more difficult it is if one believes they each have human authors capable of opinion and error! I think the fact is that for many who believe the Bible is God's inerrant Word in every line, the idea of making it something less than that is terrifying. What do we cling to then? How do we know what to believe and how to act? Very good questions! And God has given us the answers! In our own consciences, and in the prophets and the historical record of Christ himself, not to mention however the Holy Spirit works in his Mystery...we can know enough to act lovingly, to love God and neighbor, even through a very dark glass which is much less dark than it was before Christ came and died. Jesus, famously, drawing on (certain) ideas which preceded him, tells us the entire law and prophets hang on one thing: Love God and your neighbor. The Prodigal parable tells us who are neighbor is. Jesus, as much as is possible, has shown us something of God. You see? How very simple the Christian life can be at its essence.

So, these are two "negatives." I am cautious in asserting belief, though far from despondent. And I do not believe the Bible is God's Word as I understand that term to be used in American circles, anyway. I'd like to briefly state, as I have begun to shift in that direction, two "positives." Things I do believe in. I will be very brief, and these make good segues to Brian's book.

Two Things

One, we cannot know precisely what is in the afterlife, but we damned sure are held responsible for what we do in this one. And that means acting in love as best we can with the help of the Holy Spirit and God. Loving our neighbor, actively, fully, and sacrifically. Anyone who tells me the gospel is about something else will have a hard time convincing me based on the NT record and its pre-echoes (if that is a word) in the HB. What does it actually mean to love our neighbor, to act in a sacrifically loving manner? It means different things to different people, but there are plenty of things it surely is not! I will leave discussion of those for when we get to Brian's book. This, this, is what Jesus shows us in the gospels: 'here, you really haven't been getting this...let me show you how it's done.' Loving sacrifice for the other, obedience to God as he demands that very thing from all of us, in Jesus' case the ultimate sacrifice. That is the central Christian metaphor. It resonates through my soul when I think of it like an explosion.

Two, while I may be cautious in affirming belief or "knowing," I actually do believe Jesus was a unique and utterly vital figure in human history. I do not believe he was a man like other men. I do not believe he has been replicated in any other literary-historic figure. Period. Further study (and I have plenty of this left, God willing) may cause me to change my mind (though I hope not...but I try to always remain open, truly). Also, human beings all over the world have a spiritual sense, or many millions, billions, of us do at least. It is still my belief that Jesus presents an electric, though challenging and difficult!, Vision which speaks directly to essential human nature, directly to that spiritual sense, to that longing. To paraphrase Professor Carey, the Christian story is a good story! It's a wonderful story! The problem is when we find reason to believe it is not true, to discount it, or when we misunderstand it. And that, frankly, happens often when Christians do not know what we are talking about. Or when we forget the central core-essence of our faith: Love.

And this is a good place to stop before I dive into Brian. Brian's book has a very noble and simple to understand mission: what are the biggest problems in the world, what is causing human suffering right now, and how can we set about solving these problems and helping people who need it? To me, this is UTTERLY Christian. It is certainly not something Brian has invented nor claims to invent! Nor is it a discovery from the emergent church. It has been part of Christian experience and tradition always, but sadly, oftentimes too small a part. Think about it: Mother Theresa was not a postmodern emergent. Go argue with that life. Christianity in this country has been eerily highjacked by those who wish to hoard resources and increase personal power. But I am stealing Brian's thunder :)

My goal is to approach Brian the way Carey approaches Luther in the audio course: a sympathetic but critical reading. There is much in EMC I agree with; I certainly support its central contention. But questions and isssues remain; those will also appear here (eventually....I do hope to be done, competely done, with my series of posts before, say Easter :)

So, the homework is: get a hold of Everything Must Change and begin reading. Buy it, borrow it, or check it out from a library, etc. We begin discussion soon, family obligations and weather allowing (and it is dumping outside as I speak).

***

Sincere love to all. And deepest gratitude to Anne from TN who gave me the book and this assignment. I have not asked why it was sent to me; I imagine a series of keywords (like Wright:)) showed up in technorati or something. But this experience has been delightful, and energizing, and deeply, deeply affirming. So far at least! It is possible no one will like what I have to say! But let us hope all take away at least one thing positive from the discussion.

As always, comments are welcome (sighs). Peace.

Until next time....when it is Everything Must Change 1.0

Eight Songs (from Chris' Blog) 1.0

2007-12-29T19:20:00.000-08:00

I am so happy to see my name (alongside the dashing Brian's) at Sandalstraps, I cannot resist the opportunity to respond: what are 8 songs that have been important to me, had meaning or impact?

I have interpreted 'songs' very broadly, and I know Chris will not mind.

1) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (especially the famous Ode to Joy in the final movement).

If there is a finer melody in western culture besides the Ode, I am not sure I know it. I have known this music for many years, and while my appreciation of classical music is very pedestrian, two times in my life this particular piece of music impacted me come to mind: The first was when I was hospitalized, before this blog even began, for a vicious inner ear infection. I had the spins so bad I could not open my eyes for a week, and I spent three days in the hospital. It was, quite simply, the sickest I have felt physically in my life. Because my wife works in the hospital, I was given the private room, the one used for people with tuberculosis or other communicable diseases, and a huge air filtration unit ran over my head continually. I was behind a closed door, isolated completely except for when my i.v. was changed or my loving wife came to visit. All she could do was talk to me, and I was really too sick to say much back. But she brought my discman (long before I had an ipod) and it held only one cd: the Ninth. I listened to that piece of music over and over for many hours as the sun's light came and went far from where I could see or feel it. What did I decide? That the music was perfect. Now, it probably is not perfect, it cannot be (I am still half a Platonist, you know) but its exquisite, and deeply romantic, construction reminded me then, and now, of Beauty rising from Chaos. For the beginning of the symphony, and the beginning of the fourth movement where the tremendous Ode eventually dominates, are wildy disordered in my view. And then the Great Theme appears fitfully until it takes complete center stage, the Goddess, the Form, of Beauty itself, rising from the emotional holocausts of the earlier bars.

On a happier note: when my wife and I were married in a little Episcopal church in so. cal., chosen merely because it looked so lovely, the priest would not allow secular music at all. That includes Wagner. So, while I have forgotten our entry music (probably Bach) our exit music was tremendous: the theme from the Ode. We snuck that in, of course, because it has been used for the Christmas Carole Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee! As we were pronounced man and wife, the very sweet organist pulled out the stops (if this is the correct term) and blasted, I mean blasted, the Ode out of that giant pipe organ. When we were outside, I heard her playing it on electronic bells. Yes. The Ninth has to go into the list.

2) Here I cheat and name a class of songs: Christmas songs. I love many: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Good King Wencelas...these little hymns hold theology more pure and true, reflect trust and peace more adequately, than most of the theological volumes in my library.

3) Springsteen's The River. I am not particularly a huge Springsteen fan; I have never even owned an album. I was much more into the blues of Zeppelin or the post punk of Nirvana. And I didn't get my girlfriend in high school pregnant or make love with her beside any lake (or really, fully, make love with her at all). But the poignancy of this song, the sense of doom in the young couple, can I use the term literary naturalism...oh, I would listen to this and cry sometimes when she and I were in conflict. The song gave me strength to continue, to go to Heartwell park and pick a bunch of those little white lawn daisies and carry them to her when we spoke there after a fight. That kind of song. Doom and hope. We knew both.

4) Sarah MacLachlin's Angel. You know, I don't even know what this song is really about. But I don't think I have heard a lovelier ballad in the world. And the line...something like...'there's always a reason to feel not good enough, and it's hard at the end of the day' pretty much sums up half my emotional life. The constant fight against the withering inner critic. The fatigue that brings. And the elation, release, the catharsis I feel whenever I hear this song. It brings a physical change.

Part Two, the second four, comes tomorrow :)

Merry Christmas to All

2007-12-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm a few days late, but as busy as we've been (grading essays in between holiday dinners and family guests) I must note, it really is the thought that counts.

Christmas Eve at the Episcopal Cathedral an hour from here was simply amazing. Great music, great crowd, great sermon...everything. Another reason to consider moving down the hill in the future.

And while this is not my first post on BDM's new book Everything Must Change, I will say I have begun reading it. There will be much to talk about! I cannot wait to truly dig in...after the second of the year, when my grades are in (they are due then, so they will have to be done) and my brother and his wonderful, wonderful, wonderful family head back home to the warmth of so. cal., then, I promise, I will finish the book and begin posting. The issues raised already are profound: on one hand very simple (though often misunderstood), on the other, quite complex (even more often misunderstood). All of it is drawing on my favorite field of study, the NT and its compelling, and deeply complex, portrait of Christ and the first Christians.

But this was supposed to be a happy holiday post! Merry Christmas! There is no season like advent season, at least for me. Love to all.

On San Joaquin

2007-12-09T17:58:00.001-08:00

If I ever wished for time to blog on an issue when I had no time, it would be the vote taken recently by the Diocese of San Joaquin to leave the ECUSA. I find it an enormous tragedy, though less a tragedy than the attitudes which have driven the vote. As I may have said, the church in So. Cal. which took my wife and I in when we were unmarried, when I was divorced, and nurtured us spiritually has also left the communion, although as an individual parish.

It is time for my blog to grow up. The Brian McClaren assignment is proof for me (or maybe I'm the one growing up :) ). My brief rant on inerrancy below is utterly inadequate, completely non pastoral, and the kind of solipsistic outburst one finds, oh, in Eliot's The Waste Land. It is true: I cannot believe a reading person who puts sufficient and genuine energy into studying the Bible can affirm it the "Word of God" with the meaning the Bishop of SJ does, or turn to its writings, selectively, for proof-text individual positions on critical moral matters. The fact also remains I know the Bible is the foundation of my own faith, that it is used by God in remarkable and mysterious ways (how many of us, including me, have had the tolle lege), and that it contains the things into which angels dared to peer (figure of speech or actual angels, no idea). The NT remains, in my view, unique in all world literature, though the books it contains remain fraught with the marks of their human authors, authors who were not taking divine dictation, but doing their best, in differing rhetorical situations, to promote the faith which had changed their lives forever. Any other position is untenable to me. That we set aside so much of the Levitical law, allowing children born out of wedlock into church, or the crippled or injured; that we have sex with our wives during menses if so inclined (maybe if the bottle of wine was just that good)...yet grasp like madmen onto verses which support our fears and biases, which thereby ALIENATE human persons from the full experience of Christ in their lives...I find this calamitous beyond description. I find such a reading a gross misunderstanding of the NT epistles and the Gospels.

And in the meantime, I applaud the Presiding Bishop Katherine for her leadership during this time, our own Diocese for taking a different stand on this issue, and frankly, the huge number, I would argue the majority, of Episcopalians who realize proof-texting on an issue as critical as homosexuality is a failure to act in responsible wisdom. That many other genuine Christians in other denominations agree I know. And for those who cling to a simpler understanding of Scripture as a perfect manual for living, a God-dictated book without any human component, an aproach, incidentally, which usually works, which preserves a faith I would agree with on many key points, but which can lead one horrifically astray in matters which involve the love of neighbor as self...for the rest I pray sincerely. We used to debate slavery in this country using the Bible. And women speaking in church or wearing slacks. The time has come for a widespread and honest assessment of what the Bible really is by those who continue to cling to its every single phrase and passing comment, but who are missing its central focus completely.

I will say more when I can on the Bible. When I can. For now, I have to run...essays stacked about me like, oh, the excessive quail. My sincere love to all who follow Christ...there is no faith like our faith, no tradition like our tradition, no love like the love God has expressed in Christ.

Brian on Deck

2007-12-06T16:54:00.000-08:00

True to her word, my friend from NY sent me a free copy of Brian McClaren's most recent book: Everything Must Change so that I can review it on my humble blog. Have to say, without opening the book, I like the title :)

This is the busiest time of my semester, and I will have to climb out from under stacks of papers on Emerson (read a very good one today comparing E to punk rock ethics), Hawthorne, Bacon and Plato. But when I do...reading and commenting on EMC (I plan to do more than a simple review, of course) is the next thing on my list. As I told Anne, I am deeply honored, touched and encouraged, and hope to earn the purchase price with the work I put in here (I am not being paid any money, of course, as this is really a very humble blogship).

What is most fascinating is that I have not read a line of BMc. Not a line. I heard about him when this blog was new from Dave T. I was rather shocked, as a Christian newly returning to church of any kind (and faith of any kind) to hear that an emergent church existed, that people were upset and trying to leave the church I was re-entering after such prolonged effort! But in all fairness to those emerging (and is BMc a self-proclaimed emergent or merely scooped up, don't know), I re-entered worship as an Episcopalian and have never doubted that choice, or that accident, as it nearly was. I have written about this before, but I have been a Pentecostal (if childhood counts; I was certainly around Pentecostals), an active Campus Crusader, a Baptist, a Five Point pipe-smoking Calvinist, a Baptist again, a disillusioned critic and skeptic, then nothing. Now I consider myself a liberal Christian. I do not know if I have emerged or not, but I certainly do not believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, which has been for me a critical, critical sticking point most of my life; I have no philosophical pre-issues with a perfect Bible existing; indeed, I would love to have a book straight from the Creator. But what we have in the Bible collection, surely, is not that book. For in whatever manner it was inspired (or not) it came from human authors, and their mucky fingerprints are all over it. Surely the NT writers had extraordinary, even unique, religious and spiritual experiences. And then they wrote about them. But to confuse the written word, or reading the written word, with the experience itself is a grave error. A perfect, gleaming God-sent life-manual is a very comforting myth, but it does not exist. Neither, of course, do I deny the Bible's role, really the NT's role, in bringing me into the faith-fold and keeping me there. But it must be understood for what it is, as it is.

I mention this as I have heard, again very second hand, that BMc is controversial for his views on scripture and on soteriology (salvation). We shall see. If so, he is not the first! I actually think it was C.S. Lewis who said every view has been held by some man in every age. Liberation theologians have been issuing passionate calls to social justice since the 1960's...St. Francis did a similar and even more radical thing in the late twelfth century; we can never forget the social force of Luke's gospel or the Thread that requires protection of the poor and marginal going back to the Law and Prophets. Still, I am not a Crossanite, not yet at least; I do not think social justice is the distilled core of Christ's message...you can see I am chomping to dig in to EMC! I am inventing content based on its catchy title!

Within a month, by mid January, I will have something up here, probably a short series of posts, at the very least the first of those. I do hope the book is engaging. I read somewhere (perhaps the back cover) that BMc used to teach English, then became a pastor. Hah! It was the papers, I tell you! Too many bloody papers. They fry the mind.

***

Other than papers, some of which really are interesting, it is just that there are too many, I am doing pretty well.

Snow coming tonight, our first. I am more and more certain I live in one of the loveliest places on earth; I am also increasingly certain that we want to move when my son finishes high school. Helping my own wife through grad school has been utterly exhausting. She finishes this spring...or so I hear. What will life be like, with her done with school, working full time (for the first time ever) and my son gone...living closer to my campus? Let us hope I am still here, writing about it in three years.

Love to all. Must run. BMc on deck.

Rant Addendum

2007-11-28T10:36:00.000-08:00

It is so, so, so, good to hear from you FK. Yes, I am supposed to call you, and yes, I keep bloody forgetting to do it at a time when you would be home (i.e., the evenings...it's always daytimes, like now, I'm sitting around working from home). But you are on my list, brother. I miss the few times we had before you moved, and hope your children and wife are all well.

And Doug, you know, thanks. It seemed at first like a little commercial, but your site is useful and interesting. And I would agree with some of those who post there, the Great Christians series is far from my fave...but it introduces me to Christian history I don't know and stimulates further reading. I want to read St. Anthony and the sayings of the desert fathers, and the rule of St. Benedict, two things I would not even be considering if I hadn't heard the course. There is a stress on the development of personal spiritual experience, and I need to hear that very much; the successful Christian life is not about having all the right ideas. As someone else notes at your site, Luke Johnson is a very good lecturer. He writes well, but his lectures on the gospels and Paul were completely first rate. So far, he is my fave.

Anyway, I love the Teaching Company stuff...I am merely glad I get to borrow it from the library and don't have to pay for each one as they are quite expensive.

And as rants go, of course, today I feel better. I had been sick all last week and pretty isolated, even with the holidays. Yesterday, showing up at school, looking at my students faces, being in a room full of human beings...well, it felt good to have company :) I still want to move down the hill when we can, when my son's education and the odd housing market cooperate, but the stars up here, the air up here, they are amazing. I have to enjoy the beauty while I have it. Someday I'll walk out into my front yard and be lucky to find Polaris.

I remain frustrated at work, feeling like I am not contributing enough outside the classroom (and why do I beat myself up over that!), but if I do not have opportunities clicking for me there, I seem to have them coming up other places. I believe I mentioned I met at the diocesan convention the woman who coordinates campus ministries in the town where I teach (there is a University and several community colleges) and now I am having dinner with her and meeting with the Board in a few weeks to see what they are up to. They offer free student housing, semester or year long intentional student communities which stress community service and spiritual development. I think that is fantastic. It would have changed my life completely at that age. I am willing to help them any way I can. Since everyone in my parish is pretty much over 60...being able to work with college students will make a nice balance if anythings comes of it :)

Well, this is all I have time for now. I did read the first third of so of Mark again as I begin moving through the NT. Part of me really wants to take my time, read slowly and reflect (like the monks do...something I wouldn't know apart from the Great Christians course). Without doubt, the Markan document remains the greatest historical puzzle in literature; I really think I can assert that. It is a long list of miraculous events, placed smack into apparently real geographical and historical time, with, as LTJ notes, "uncanny" details from the events themselves (the words Jesus used in Aramaic, the cushion in the boat he was asleep on, the reactions of the religious leaders) which seem to present a first hand origin for at least some of the material. More troubling for me, we get demons! Demons who talk...I have no idea what to make of that, but am certainly willing to withhold judgement on the historicity of any and all of Mark for certain moments on the intellectual level.

On the spiritual level, the level of the inner man...I again hear the Voice. Even though Jesus doesn't say much in Mark! What he does say! What he does do! The utterly real reactions of those around him! If ALL we had from the four gospels, I mean ALL, was the account of the healed paralytic...the man lowered through the roof. Here the Son of Man forgives sin, heals, elevates himself over the religious cultus...that alone would still be studied and read.

But I am getting ahead of myself...jotting notes for something I hope to write in then future to friends who have plenty to do besides read my notes.

Be well, all, my love to each and every. And God's peace to each, as much as we can know it in this difficult and fragile world.

Mountain Living Rant

2007-11-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

Funkiller has been very transparent on his blog about the difficulties of relocating from so. cal. to the PNW. My heart goes out to him. This is one of those days, one of those times even, when I am sitting here at home alone and thinking "why the HELL did we move to this dinky town an hour from the nearest real city?"

Wife and I know we are going to move down, probably when our son finishes high school and (so the plan goes) trots off to college. He is a sophomore now, and I know those two years will go fast, but I must say, while the mountains are stunningly beautiful, every changingand magic, while we have a lovely older couple around the corner from us, parents of one of my best friends (whom I hardly see, though he too now lives 20 minutes away) it is often very hard to be here. In short: we have to drive, a lot; I'm far from my work and that makes it very hard to feel integrated and even to do the 'extra' kinds of things one is supposed to do (though I think English teachers should give themselves as much of a break on the exra things as we can, especially for those of us teaching all baccalaureate comps); long held plans to move to the college nearer my house collapsed a couple years ago as my blog friends know (for now at least, with the Pres. they have); we are far from culture, art, and wide restaurant selection; and mostly, I am alone more than I'd like as my son expands his social life and my wife is gone so much, especially this last two years as she has hammered through her final years of graduate school. The culture up here is very different also! And it's different a good way down the hill from here. There are some very good things, families who really care about their kids and their time with them (it has been a great place to raise my son) but there is much that has been challenging, and that has been as true at my parish, older and slowly shrinking as it is, as anyplace.

I actually think living up here, being alone so much, has changed me, some, and not all for the better. I should have begun by reading the desert fathers and mothers and tried to make the isolation some kind of spiritual discipline (guess I still could try this) but I notice at work now I shut my door in my office. Mostly, that's to work without interruption; I pour myself out in my classes, I work very hard in the classroom, and the last thing I want is some student who is not my student asking me where room so and so is, or where is so and so's office, etc., and my office is positioned above the English floor and gets lots of traffic along its hallway. And, as I said, my English friends are not near me; they are one floor down. But I do have friends near me! The thing is, working alone, 'with the door closed,' has become natural, an instinct.

I think this is part of the pull for me to (some year) go to seminary. Two (if I were very lucky, three, but probably two) years living in a spiritual community! What a deal! What focus on my self, my spiritual self. For with my wife in graduate school more than ever this last year (and she warned me....this will be the worst semester) I spend all my time giving. Well, being responsible for the housework, the bills, etc. I guess that's normal! But it feels like giving because I can't really insist on any kind of parity, and mostly because I do most of it alone, when I'm home by myself. She works hard around the house when she can and still cooks probably as much as I do, but mostly I feel like I'm in a support role.

Above all, I feel strange at work. I have gone from skyrocketing local campus star six years ago to something very different, I do not even know what. Well, thank God for tenure:) I am still a very good teacher, better each year I think, and I am sure I can work out the details with my dept. over time. And we won't be up here all that much longer.

That's about it. I needed to share some hurt.

On another note, I was at my dear older friends' house around the corner (and they are more my parents than my parents, as I've said before) yesterday for even more Thanksgiving stuffage and A, the husband, had found my blog. He approached it very kindly; he was looking up material for a 'reflection' on the burning bush, googled the phrase, found Sandalstraps, and apparently a comment of mine. He said, 'it was your first name, your age, and it sounded just like your language.' I have no problem with A reading here, but if he can find it...I have to do something; maybe purify my old posts here a bit (there are some I should pull down) or build another blog. Heck, I don't have time to worry about it right now, but it is on my mind.

On another high note, and I think I mentioned this, I met the woman who handles college ministry for my diocese at convention, really quite strange that I did meet her and that she heard what I do for a living, actually. Anyway, they have an outreach across the street from my freaking campus! I have told her I will help anyway I can, for oddly enough, my faith is growing; my belief in Christ, my experience of God's love, is on the upswell again. I have always struggled with doubt, for emotional as well as intellectual reasons I am quite certain, and it is wonderful when that demon steps back and I can feel the clear fresh water of the gospel pouring through me. There were times this week I did feel that.

Reading Johnson is good for me, but so is listening to one of those Teaching Company Great Course lectures on the Great Christians of History (and I apologize I do not remember the professor's name; he is in NY someplace). My church has a bunch of these in their library (thanks to one very kind person who keeps donating them) and they really, really help my drive. I thought I would hate this Great Christians thing, that I would feel guilty and inferior compared to the 'Greats,' but the opposite has been true. Much of it has been very inspiring, though so far I'm only up to Claire of Assissi. The professor, who admits he is Christian and Roman Catholic, has been fairly open minded and academic, but today he mentioned that Francis of Assissi 'received the stigmata.' Now that is something utterly foreign to me. It is something I'd like to know more about, but even more, I'd like to know more about Francis' life and values. What a compelling personality as the prof represents him; such a committment to charity and direct spiritual living, to poverty and eternal values, to Jesus' own life as we can distill it. All I knew about Francis before was all those little stone garden statues with the animals around him I see everywhere. Goofy, but true. I spent so many years as a Protestant, I sort of assumed we had St. Paul, the Apocalypse of John, and then, oh, Luther on Galatians and the Institutes.

Anyway, online classes await. Thanks for letting me spill my insides out here! How I have missed it. And thank you Mrs. Fish for reading. I really am back, here, for good.

Oh, and go Packers!

Those of you who pray, please say a short prayer for me: for my job, for my family, for my life in the middle of the bleeping woods, for guidance for any future career/ministry decisions. Life is surely a struggle, no matter who we are. I am okay, I am not crashing emotionally, but the dark and cold mountain weather is here now, and it can be bloody lonely. Lonely like a presence itself. I may need to work on getting myself some company again, as I have done before with martial arts, etc.

Love to all.

Happy Almost Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T21:45:00.000-08:00

Dear wife is in bed, I am sitting up with a headcold, looking forward to my second night on the couch. I have not been exiled of course; it's just that I can't sleep normally when I am sick, and I sleep better alone, out here, off and on, blowing my nose and propping my head up. I am looking forward to more reading as soon as I finish this. I am burning through Luke Johnson's Intro to the NT (actually something like, The Writings of the NT, an Interpretation). It is a good introductory text, fluently written, one I wish I had consulted earlier as I awkwardly continue to self-educate.

Some thoughts on blog:

It's good to be back. I was trying to think of a metaphor for my blog, and what I came up with was this: this blog is like being not quite ready for a dinner party, and the guests come early anyway. My t shirt is wet from the navel down, there is flour on my right jean leg, and I haven't shaved. But the food is mostly cooking, and the wine comes out, and everything ends up warm and comfortable regardless. That sounds over optimistic, considering how much I used to stress over my lack of prep time for my posts and the general lack of comments...but I think there is truth to that metaphor. Getting caught in the open as who I am. I have shared much of that here. What a journey. I have said some very meaningful things and some very silly things. Thinking back go my oldest posts, I see growth.

I am drafting yet another post, one I hope actually makes it here, something which mixes the reflective and the theological (or at least, addresses my personal struggles with an issue in the NT). I know that I cannot crack the puzzle of the NT and find the concrete phenomenon beneath. It does not work like that. Some study the texts deeply and lose faith, like Ehrman, or never really find faith at all. Some study the NT closely and their faith grows, morphs into something dynamic; I can name many scholars in this camp. Frankly, it is a difficult and at times stressful journey. And yet I must look. I have to. I am driven to do so, and hope at the end that my own faith survives in some orthodox fashion (and for me, orthodox pretty much requires belief in the resurrection in some form; belief that a Creator God acted dynamically through Jesus of Nazareth in history; that may not be full orthodoxy, but it is enough these days).

For scholars do and say strange things when they look up from reading the NT over years. I have long found some of the arguments for innerrancy remarkably strained (no, there were two demon possessed men really and one acted as spokesperson for the other); likewise (since Professor Ehrman's name has already appeared) Bart Ehrman's comparison of Apollonius of Tyana, Honi the Circle Drawer, and Jesus, I find equally strained. I struggled manfully through Philostratus' account of Apollonius, or most of it, certainly the parts where the 'miraculous' appears. Read it, friends; then go read the first few chapters of Mark. The first two chapters is enough. I see more difference than similarity.

What is it about the NT that affects people with such radical variance? Why does the impact of the gospels on a person change even over some person's lifetimes? These are potent questions that lie outside the realm of critical historical inquiry.

For me, entering the historical critical fray, I know there will be things I must bracket. That will be hard to do though I have done some of this already. Although I am willing to suspend judgement rather than take a position on historicity (and even that term is complex) when there is insufficient information. But even I will have presuppositions working in me. I am quite willing to believe a man was healed who had a withered hand; but demons rushing into pigs! Demons aren't real; they don't inhabit beings...do they? Certainly not in my experience. That is certainly embellished. You see, as is true for everyone, I arrive at the door of the gospels with plenty of luggage.

My plan is to read all of Johnson's intro and the respective NT books in the order he covers them. Sure I've read most if not all the NT at some point, but this will be more systematic and guided. The fact is, I love to do it. And the struggle rises in me once again: I am a good English teacher, though my campus activities, or service, could perhaps be more than they are lately (wife in grad school and distance from the campus, mostly). But the amount of free time I spent on my avocation, my NT self-education...well, it is looming large again. I would get much more done if my family didn't like to watch so much tv, but hey, I'm not going to lock myself in a room when they're home. That would be too much like a real scholar :) But how odd, that I finally have the tenured English position, and I spend more time reading NT studies than anything in literature. Well, at least the last couple of years. I suppose that is one of the luxuries of my job...intellectual variety.

Be well all. I am pooping out, sick boy that I am (echoes of the old social d. song). More to come, surely :) God be with all.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! Wife is working and son is at his dad's....I'll be home on the couch blowing my nose and watching the green bay packers......love Favre to death.

:)

Still Peaking...

2007-11-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

I must share a few things:

One, note the date below...I am posting twice in two days! Feels like recovery to me. Oh, I laughed out loud at that.

Two, a publisher contacted me in the email here and asked me to review a Brian MacClaren (sp?) book on this site. At first, I was sure it was a bizarre hoax; but no, in fact, she is sending me a free copy. I used to do that as a part timer professor...review texts for publishers. But this is something utterly new. I told her I have not read a line of BM but look forward to doing so. I realize he is a popular voice among the emergent. However, I also know I tend to shoot straight, especially when "grading." Luckily, I am not being paid (except for the free book). Still, I feel quite honored to be considered and do not know what led her to this previously nearly defunct and quite humble blog. I promise, I'll edit that post for mistakes.

Three, I am still peaking from the weekend. Convention has had a profound impact on me, and I am seriously considering entering discernment for the priesthood or diaconate again. I've always known I wanted to trot off to Holy Hill to study the NT for a couple years (though I note, at this time, CDSP has no full time NT professor; well, I would not be there for a few years anyway; plenty of time for them to hire one). I have analyzed my experience at convention as I always do. But beyond all the personal psychoanalysis (and who says God does not work through our emotional selves anyway) I still have the insistent sense there was Something More present, moving among us, at the convention. My hair stands up as I write it; I am not referring to the gay issue in specific either. Simply the gathering of that many people all attempting to find God's will, of all worshipping the living and loving God....whatever, I am slammed to the floor. I have run and run (or is ran the past participle?) from any sense of call. If I have not made that clear on this blog, I make it clear now. I do not believe in calls in the traditional sense (well, okay, Paul is a special case). But whatever...I am feeling directed towards a larger sense of Purpose than I have ever known. I can say that. May God not lose sight of this one...may I live long enough to explore that Vision. May I not be a damned enough fool to utterly discount it. At the very least, may it inspire me to more ministry right now.

Finally (I guess this is four) I would like to do a little series on the gospels. Call it Blogspell :) Well, I won't call it that, promise. I would promise to edit my writing, ahem, and plan an outline for the writing. My idea is for an intro to an intro on the four gospels...on the synoptic problem, Mark, Matthew and Luke and John. For those really interested, there are many books on this topic by actual scholars! I note I really haven't read all that much scholarship myself. Still, I thought I might do a series at my church, and this is a place to begin. If I do so, though, I am starting a new blog where I reveal my true self, a public blog I can refer friends from church to, etc. I also don't know if I could begin drafting until summer comes and I am out of school, but who knows. Another long term goal.

I have been lifting again, too, and doing cardio. Shooting for three days a week. There is nothing like the steel, brothers and sisters. I love every set. Sick puppy, I know.

Be well, and love to all.

t

Peak Moment

2007-11-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

I am considering more and more the future of this blog, and am pondering having two of these things; one I still keep anonymous, in fact more anonymous than this blog is now, and one which is public, made available to my church and others. If I do this, if I create another blog besides this one, I will note it here and anyone who reads this (all five of you sweet souls) can email me for a link to the public blog. For the moment this remains as is.

What a weekend.

Each year my church elects delegates to Diocesan Convention at the annual meeting. I have never considered running as it involves a weekend several hours from my home, and because I really didn't know what happens there. Somehow, this year, I suppose because I had been senior warden twice, I was nominated, said sure, and won one of the three delegate spots. It's never that competitive; a bit of good natured cajoling usually occurs. I never have had the sense anyone was that passionate about attending.

The annual meeting is in January, and in truth I forgot all about Convention until my rector handed me the info about a month ago. I put off making my hotel reservation (if you can call where we stayed a hotel) and ended up having a buddy who was gong get the room and sharing it with him. I had very neutral expectations.

I did not know what the resolutions would be until Friday afternoon. But I had a good week spiritually (in my own way) listening to LT Johson's lecture series on Paul, beginning to blog again, attending church. How much Johnson prepared me for what was coming this weekend I did not know until Saturday, but let me say: one of the resolutions involved the blessing of same sex unions. Our Bishop has already said he will not sanction any such blessings unless General Convention approves them when they meet again in 09. All this measure was asking was that we vote to ask General Convention to develop rites for same sex blessings. Meaning, it is a request that we be allowed, under the direction of the National Church, to hold them. It was not a vote to begin holding them. According to hearsay anyway, such a motion had been presented to the motions committee, but as the Bishop reaffirmed his unwillingness to allow same sex rites without consent of the Deputies at General, the motion was rewritten, or removed, in favor of what we voted on Saturday. Even though it was a conservative request in one sense, there was no doubt that it was still very radical and contentious. My diocese is large and there are many mixed feelings on this issue. A few churches have tried to leave the Diocese over this already as our previous bishop voted to affirm Gene Roinson's election by his diocese. Well, one that I know of. I do believe a few churches, and certainly a number of individuals, have requested no money go to the Diocese from their parishes or persons in the wake of that vote. Overall, though, the discussion has been open, honest, and good.

This Saturday was no exception. I was amazed that over 300 people could discuss the issue with passion, from both sides, and treat each other well during and after the debate. But debate we did. It was a remarkable time. The motion was almost tabled until next year; that vote came so close the tellers had to hand count the for and against. But I remember the proposer of the initiative quoting Martin Luther King in the hall: "if not now, when; if not us, who?" It was very moving.

I had decided at lunch I wished to speak myself. There were several microphones, and I got in line early with a few notes on a sheet of paper. But with many, many strong feelings.

I used to condemn homosexuality as a neurotic aberration; I certainly opposed gay marriage and the gay lifestyle. I was a Baptist literalist, after all, and didn't know any gay people. Or the ones I did know in the church were guilt consumed. My views changed very slowly, very slowly. At first from knowing a lesbian couple in southern california....hearing their story of walking down a street at night, unclasping hands as they walked into the streetlight light, then retaking them as they moved into the darkness between. Then I began reflecting on the issue on this blog and reading ohers who were doing likewise. For me, though I have held to an imperfect Bible in theory since my (re)conversion in 00, the deep seated myth of the God-written book has lifted very slowly for me. Not as the result of any abstract theological discussion, but as a result of actually reading the (almost) entire thing. I am well aware of the verses in Romans, Leviticus, and elsewhere in the NT. I am also aware of the verse in Deuteronomy (or Lev....no time to look it up) where the illegimiate child is excluded form the Sanctuary for several generations. LTJ put things together very nicely for me in his series on Paul and the Gospels; I listened to the latter a couple of years ago. Still, I know the verses, I realize the import of this issue, I understand the pressure on the Anglican Communion. I did not approach my time at the mic lightly.

Yet, with an utterly clear conscience, I argued fully, passionately, and with all I could must (in 120 seconds) in favor of the resolution. I admit I am quite glad we have no comment from Jesus on this issue (any attempt to show we do is painfully forced in my view) and I find it quite easy to see Paul's writings, while deeply valuable, as quite human. Paul never addresses this issue except in asides anyway. Those he describes in Romans 1 are somehow gay, and otherwise deeply messed up, a a result of their idolatry. It strikes me as odd that some see the pressure to perform same sex unions as a symptom of our age, our zeitgheist, but think everything Paul wrote which has survived somehow transcends his own.

I told my own story. Jesus, rather clearly, forbids remarriage in the synpotics, or so it seems, yet when my girlfriend and i walked into an Episcopal church merely because it was cute on the outside we were warmly welcomed. My divorce was discussed, yes, but not in great depth (of course, the story is rather dramatic....but I did have a girlfriend during my separation, even if I was pushed into that). The fact that that church wanted to see us spiritually supported and nurtured, that it was the only one we visited that did want that, rather than just to make a few hundred bucks off the ceremony, was what got S and I attending church after both of us being long away. It led to us joining a parish in Nor Cal, attending Alpha Class, was part of what led to my reconversion, and the rest, well, is personal history. All the ministry I have done since or will do in the future is in part a result of the church's willingness to marry us though I was divorced and we were living together already. The heteros learned a few decades ago to cut themselves some slack....

And then I talked about King's letter from jail, his definition, drawn from Aquinas I believe, that a just law is one which uplifts human personality. I talked about loving gay couples I have known, about how a public blessing allows them to have the same support structure, even accounability, around their families I enjoy around mine. I was very scared, and said so; it was my first convention, I was fifty feet from the Bishop and in a hall with three or four hundred people. No one else from my parish spoke. But I will tell you: the entire blog has been worth it, it all has been worth it, for the little part I played. Many others spoke also, of course. But when the motion to postpone failed, and the motion to affirm the resolution passed, when the gay couples present began hugging those who supported the resolution....I say again, it was all worth it.

We too easily forget what Paul set aside when he insisted that Gentile converts did not need to conform to the law. Had they converted to Judaism, circumcision would have been required as I understand the times. But Paul, that deep student of Torah, set aside Torah in favor of a different law entirely, the law of love. It was very strange that the reading of the day, as part of morning prayer, was the famous (and infamous) passage in Matthew when Jesus says that the entire law must be kept, that the one who does not keep it and teaches others not to keep it is least in the kingdom. That is a very troubling passage for me; I believe it is unique to Matthew, and the church has surely disregarded it, except maybe the Matthean community (and the odds of Matthew being written by an actual eyewitness I feel are slim). Whatever that means, it stands in contrast to things Jesus says elsewhere in that gospel and the others, at least as Matthew has redacted it. And it surely stands in contrast to Paul. I do not mean to get off the main issue, but I feel I did God's work, was a small part of it, this weekend. If we are wrong then we have erred on the side of grace, and over committed sex with a lover, surely one of the least harmful things I can imagine.

After the motion passed, I was very impressed, moved, by the sense of family that remained in that room. Several delegates from another parish were at my table, all voted against passage, yet afterwards acted as if nothing happened; they were very warm towards me, even after my vocal position! It was remarkable.

And this entire thing has me thinking again......Deacon school? Seminary and priesthood? Something, surely. What a feeling to be a part of the work that the the diocese does. Their outreach to the poor, the hungry, the ill and mentally ill is astounding. And the sense of community there was so great! I know I have things to work out for myself and my own faith, but I cannot understate how powerful this weekend was for me. I would go again in a flash.

It is one thing to know I gave a good lecture, on rare days a great lecture, in a writing or literature course. But to use my speech for God's kingdom, to incorporate the outcast...that is truly something. I have so much to sort out (like the passage in Matthew!) but right now I am just basking in the beauty of being a small part of something so lovely. Of seeing so many small pieces fall into place, and such an important, even historic, issue proceed.

Well, I must run. Sincere love to all, and thanks to A for posting below, truly. That kind of honesty is where this blog began....it sustains me still.

Just a Long Catch Up Post to Dear Friends

2007-10-21T13:16:00.001-07:00

I wanted all to know I am doing okay, some days better than okay.

My marriage is growing stronger in spite of the current ridiculous pressure my wife's graduate school puts on my wife and I. Though I am the laundry man, the dish man, and in general the housecleaning and take our son everywhere he has to be man...and do that in addition to my career, somehow she and I have managed to grow and not disintegrate into chaos. We have days that simmer or when I sink into exhaustion, but the overall trend, the line graph of our love, is on the upswing and has been for the last few years. Considering the challenges our childhoods present us, as well as her education and my portfolio of emotional/mental issues, I am pretty damned glad to be able to say this. Some days, I admit, it still feels like the house is on fire and we're glaring at each other through the smoke; but less and less. We are beginning a ten session marriage class at our church, and it was so freeing to hear couples share at the first preliminary meeting. Lo and behold, most people have messy houses, isses between them, and strained budgets and take little time for deep communication; S and I fit right in. I can't wait to hear what comes out when the actual class begins! For surely, I do not know what normal is, as the ACA problem said many years ago, and it is always deeply comforting and reassuring to see my struggles are not that different from others'.

I am still in therapy, though my therapist retires in May next year (and I feel like Mr. Monk...I don't just work my way through therapists but through therapists' careers). I am growing there, though very slowly, but without doubt, growing. The huge stones of OCD are moving. I have entire days now where I dwell on normal problems, real world problems. I am so thankful for that my eyes tear. I do get stuck in the shit, yes; but so far, I keep shovelling out, and each time I stand just a bit higher.

While I have not posted my final post or two on Estella, on the dramatic destruction of my first marriage, I am thinking about that dark time quite a bit. Working in therapy on it, sometimes hard. The feelings I have even after all these years are still strong; the work is always painful, as she and I held such a strong dream, or at least I held one; but reality is always good (how often the gut-core feeling-work of therapy reminds me of weight lifting or any hard exercise...I feel like I can't take it, can't do it, am overwhelmed...and then it passes and the glowing glory of growth-sense takes its place; are there many better feelings in life than the afterwards of these two things...) Even writing now, I feel the heat beneath my skin, the anger and hurt that still remain as I sort my head around what happened. The greatest barrier to my moving on remains self blame, and I spend quite a bit of time talking to my therapist and others trying to come to a reasonable cognitive position on what REALLY happened to me (my brother, who knew Estella since she was 18, is better than any with this). That final post is coming, but how freeing to continue to heal that wound. It is a direct part of my growing contentment (ah, that word, in a post from me?) in my marriage now.

Spiritually, my situation remains complex.

The truth is, I spend less and less and even less time in second life, if for no other reason than that I have no time! Housework and schoolwork and family work fill my days (why do I find laundry or cooking stressful?) and I trot off to SL, infrequently, for relaxation the way most people watch tv (and I still think it's better to be in my own story than watch most of what is on television). But second life has detatched me, as I've said more than once here, from some of my first life spiritual reflection, and I am glad to see that changing in myself as I once again begin to wrestle. I find the war continues in my mind between the ponderous zeitgheist of my age, the pressing-stone of skeptical agnostic empiricism whose great weakness and strength is its narrow empirical method, and my faith in the Jesus of the gospels (though he appears a bit different in each). It is an odd place to live, but there it is. I continue to view much of what I believe skeptically at least some, if not most, of the time, and thereby deny myself the nurturance faith is supposed to provide us wish-fulfillers who believe. And yet, there are moments. Events. Times I know I am called to serve in the church in some capacity the way a younger man is the obvious choice to lift the refrigerator at the yard sale (and that analogy is fraught with weakness, as I am also fraught with weakness, I know). Times a theological question I am wrestling with moves forward. Often, I wish I had attended an NT studies program in my twenties, but the fundamentalist colleges I knew then would never do now and would not do then. I wish I had been raised an Episcopalian, returned to it in my twenties, and gone to graduate school for NT studies. But life is often tricky, and I cannot deny I enjoy what I do now.

And as I said, I still get moments. Heck, maybe as many as some NT professors :)

As I noted in a post below, I have a new job at church; I began serving as what the Episcopal Church calls a Eucharistic Minister, the old title being chalice bearer. I bring the wine to those at the communion rail about once a month, following behind the priest who gives the bread. For some, I tip the cup to their lips and say the ancient words....."The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation;" others either dip the wafer themselves or have me dip it, and then I say, "May the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in eternal life." This is what I say, by direction, by genuinely ancient tradition.

Let me tell you all, that is something to experience. I am not good at lying; I am not good at hypocrisy, at least when I know I am being a hypocrite, and serving at the altar forces me to dig deep into who I am, who God is, and what my role on this planet should be.

For there are people who are nearly trembling, are trembling, to hear the words and receive the elements. Some are old and know death, that horrible and anxious absence, will come for them soon; some are wrestling with the pains and challenges of mid-life and family as I am, of money, children, housework, monogamy; almost all come forward genuinely desperate to meet God. To be, paraphrasing our liturgy, "restored in Your Image." Walking the rail is like praying with every person who comes forward; it actually is that! What a gift to be able to do so. The power of it has nothing to do with doctrines about the elements, or whether one stands or kneels or dips or sips...the power of it is God meeting people in need. That miracle happens over and over each time. What a vision. May I never take it for granted.

***

What else? Oh, saw the 25th Hour last night...fantastic film. And have been driving to work listening to Luke Johnson's Great Lecture series on Paul. That has truly moved me. It has been a long, long time since I have read or heard something I wished I had written! His final two lectures on Paul's letters, for me, hit the nail directly. This is a human author writing who has had a resurrection experience, an encounter with the risen Christ, but these letters are surely not divinely written! Of course, LTJ says it better. And he has opened up an appreciation for Paul I did not have before. Grand.

Well, I must run. But sincere hellos to all

What I Want to Write About When I Take/Have Time to Write

2007-09-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hello all. My dear, dear friends, what a pleasure and honor to write here, even though I have a very short time to write. Soon my wife will be home, and my strange and challenging saga as primary breadwinner primary housekeeper continues...but hey, I can't complain too much. I have lots of flexibility in my time, even though today, with the cold weather coming in and my son staying with his friends after school, was rather lonely. The dark sky, the unending, unending, house work and house projects, the computer screen, my online classes.

But all around, the glory of the Sierra.

So, when I take/have time to write, what do I want to write about?

Spiritual practice (something I am beginning, hesitantly, to crave) and the historical gospel work of N.T. Wright. I know I've written about NTW a little, but what I was really doing up here (with all your indulgences) was scribbling notes to myself. I have begun reading his second volume on Jesus' life again, starting about midway through where I left off months ago. It is a remarkable work. As a writing teacher, I could make some suggestions regarding repetition, clarity, and style...but it is generally well written and the underlying ideas explosive. Not since Marcan priority took center stage has such important work been done on the synoptics.

But I must give a bit more than that teaser.

The truth is, I do not know what NTW thinks on many larger issues. I am familiar with his (still controversial, drawing on Sanders) work on Paul; that is not my area of interest. Believing, at this point in my journey at least, that the bible is a collection of very human books, what Paul really said is interesting to me, but not gripping.

Waht Jesus meant and said is another issue entirely.

No, my area of interest, as I believe I said long ago, is Wright's reading of apocalyptic in the synoptics, his interpretations of the judgement passages. These are some of the most difficult passages in the NT for two reasons: one, Jesus has often been taken to predict the end of the world as immiment (as in Schweitzer) and he was apparently wrong (I remember even CS Lewis wrestling with this); and two, the images of the unrepentant or unprepared being tossed into eternal fire (where the worm does not shrivel) or being thrown out of the wedding banquet to weep and gnash their teeth or tossed into the smolder of Gehenna, etc., these are remarkably disturbing to me as a Christian. Why? Because I have a conscience which uses reason and empathy in a grossly limited human fashion, this leads me to value mercy over all thihngs, and I hope God has these traits to an infinitely higher degree. And lo and behold, though I do not know what NTW thinks about the doctrine of hell, his reading of the judgement passages opens dynamic new ways of understanding. So far, at least.

In short, for NTW the judgment and apocalyptic language in the synoptic traditions exemplifies Jesus living the role of judgement prophet in Israel (as so many before); he is critquing Judaism from within in typically harsh prophetic terms; and in doing so, making significant use of apocalyptic metaphor as he describes the oncoming and predictable descent of Rome. There is more to it than that, but all this second coming on the clouds, the damned being cast aside like straw, NTW argues persuasively that the synoptic apocalyptic passages (like Mark 13, etc.) are not and never were about the end of the space-time world. They are warnings to Israel to repent on Jesus' terms. In short, Wright is undertaking a remarkable, dynamic revision (relying on the work of Caird, I know). Do I still have questions? Do some troubling passages remain? Yes, but NTW plods ahead with me as I read.....

Since this potentially alleviates the two problems I mention above for me as a believe I should be skeptical, surely. And I am. But while I do not have time to go into it now, Wright is making remarkable sense. Though I do not consider myself either emergent or postmodern (I have been told my theology is both a couple of times) I am a genuine believer in Mystery. There is much I do not and can not know about God and his purposes in this life; call my faith Christian existential, if you wish. But Wright's analysis is changing my thinking in remarkable ways. And strengthening my faith, slowly. My always battered and weak faith.

So, yes, I want to write about him in detail, when I can, and apologize for not doing so now. It's hard, because his ideas are built up over long chapters, many digressions, and multiple, multiple outside sources. But in the end, he is moving me, at least in the area of reading the Jesus apocalyptic language. For truthfully, while many critics dismiss that material as later church addition, there are compelling reasons why it is historically strong, in my view. One is its difficulty! That it began to be misunderstood by non-Jews in the diaspora makes good sense. But I am truly out of time.

Sorry for the teaser post. I just wanted to shout out to my few friends who I know will still stop by, and say that it seems God, once again, is finding me out in the dark mazes my mind tangles through. Second life recedes a bit at a time to a normal hobby; the horror of my own faith-questions begin to find answers once again. I still hope, when S is done with school and my son done with college (it will probably take that long, who knows) that I can do graduate work in the NT. You know, take a vacation from grading papers and write a few dozen :) Why not? May I live so long.

Love and peace to all. Sorry for the rough format here.

Shift

2007-08-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here, at something like 3:30 in the morning, just hours before fall convocation...some, of much, of which I will surely miss. That is okay, as the meetings run all day, and I will sit my butt in hard wood seats plenty. That first day, the Friday before classes begin, is often my least favorite day of the entire year. I do not know how other people hold down normal jobs, where meetings all day long are normal, perhaps good, as they pull one from the cubicle.

But now I sound silly.

So much has changed in my old online community. Hence the title, Shift. So much has changed for me.

Looking at my last couple of posts, I see a certain agony, and a certain something almost priggish. That last is an odd word. What is Second Life that it has derailed a blog habit I had, and shared, for something like two years? What have I done in the cartoon world? That could keep me writing until dawn.

I spent a lot of time using sl weapons systems, bonding over the combat in that potent esprit de corps which holds all fighting communities together, from martial arts schools to online ones where all the fighting is done with fingers on keys. Being good with weapons on sl provides a strange sensation: power, security, competence. One senses wherever one goes in that vast landscape, one can take care of oneself. The reality is not so precise, but there it is. Also, it is fun just to learn, to get better, to acquire new skills in a supportive environment. Usually, that is how it has been. We call that fighting with Honor: keep a good attitude, encourage each other always, lose and win well. Below that, or above it, as I have noted above, is the sense that one could throw down if required at any time in the role play communities I inhabit. I never have....except for one mini battle months ago, but that readiness is frankly an extension of my rl (or real world) personality. It grows exponentially in sl, as most things do.

When I was a boy, I had complex, serial fantasies. I was a spy, with a secret support staff and espionage electronics in my attic....I would stop activities to go into the closet to send and receive special communiques....these fantasies would continue for weeks, even months. Develop plot lines. And always, soothe. I do not know if this is true for the thousands of others who role play in sl, but that cartoon world has become a very creative, and truly interactive, extension of that childhood habit, and of my personality as it is and as I'd like it to become.

For I am genuinely a nice guy, temper in the game notwithstanding. I try to act in a loving way, in a way which uplifts all those I interact with. And in the community where I own land and live, where I actually bear a title now, the people are not college students blowing off exams, they are for the most part adult professionals, sharp, unbelievably creative, and I live and move there wrapped in an aura of principle. I don't know how else to put it. I live there, where decisions are less complex perhaps, in a sea of chivalry and Honor and comedy.

Forgive if this post drifts, those friends who will eventually stumble back here and read this someday, some week, some month even. It is late, and I cannot rewrite. Or early in the diurnal scheme, which for me is much worse.

Sitting here and writing, though, is so refreshing. This is not role play. This is not a projection of my personality, whose positive, even prodigous reputation I sit back and bask through and in. This is the real guy. Stripped of the fantasy, grand as it can be, close as it can be to my real personality and that of those around me. And I have to ask, what negative things has sl brought to my life?

For one, lack of fitness! My back is now for the most part healed (but still now 100) and I had two pretty tough workouts this week, trying to pare the 10 pounds, maybe more, I gained laying around all winter and then discovering sl. I have long needed exercise to mood manage, and have taken pleasure in developing my body, in learning martial arts, in the incredible release of cardio work. I've missed too many workout sitting in front of the cartoon screen, and I miss it and want my body back. Not in appearance, I mean, but just the sense of my body, working as it should, straining and healing. The heart thumping over time, lending me a peace I know almost no other way.

For two, I have quit blogging for months, though I never abandoned this site. I would have posted a note, if I had. Ideas for blog continue to flit through my head. And though I bemoaned the lack of responses, the fact is I know I was regularly heard by at least five very amazing people: Chris, Scott, Sherry, Romy, Amanda. And others, I am sure. What a priviledge that was. One I have taken for granted. For now I see not all are blogging as they once did either. Chris, yes, still going off. Sherry. But what has happened to Romy's site? Scott is not posting much. Funkiller has resigned, tragically, and I have not spoken to him since his move. The Fellowship seems to have broken, or moved on to other fellows. Or, dare I say, to real life.

I have stories I never finished here. Estella's for one. The story of my own suffering and recovery was never really written. I danced around it, but never put it down. I cried out here, and I wrestled here with ideas, striving to understand why I can and should have faith in Christ, in light of issues with scripture, the problem of suffering, the random nature of death and life in human experience. Did I get answers? Some. But then I left, abruptly, and have not considered many of these questions for six months. Do I still have doubt, and question? Oh yes.

For that is another thing sl has taken from me. Though I live there as a Christian, complete with iconography and an attempt to live by Christian values, (oddly complemented by all the weapons play) I have fallen out of faith practice in many ways. In the Episcopal church chalice bearers are called EM's, or Eucharistic Ministers. I can hardly describe the spiritual force of giving communion to the parish a couple months ago, my first time as an EM. I do it again soon. And yet that spiritual reality, for there is no better word, was sandwiched amidst hours of role play online a week....buying land, buying a house, shopping for furniture and art (hey, don't laugh, I have a nice place...you all are invited). I have good friendships in sl, a few of genuine power. And serious topics come up in discussion, including religion at times. But the immersive power of the cartoon world somehow has seperated me from more authentic spiritual sense. It is not true for everyone there. It may not always be true for me. But sitting in an sl chapel cannot, cannot, compare to the real thing (and now my dear wife calls out, at 4, are you coming back to sleep...she probably thinks I'm in sl).

One thing I'll say is that my weekly time there has slowly diminished. The occasional six hour day (yep, I said six....during break between terms, left home all alone for the day....it has happened) has been cut in half. It's not good for my back sitting that long. I have learned to make better use of my time while in there.

There are times I have thought all is vanity, vanity, and what does it matter if I spend hours a week in an avatar. There are times I think my own principles of life, charity and service, are compromised by doing so. Sure I have given of myself in sl, personally, financially, even spiritually....but again, is is the same?

Now I truly begin to tire. A good use of blog. The lullaby of the soft keystroke concerto.

My wife will sleep better if I am beside her, and she is up at 6.

I have enjoyed this, and I have barely begun to cover the ground I need to cover here. In general, I am well. My marriage gets stronger in fits and starts as I learn, slowly, what it means to really love a person. My greatest phobia of all, flying, was faced this summer as I flew seven times on two different vacations. I saw places I never thought I'd see: namely, the midwest and DC. What an accomplishment that was, flying; I cannot even say. My son is very much a teenager, and I grieve the loving little boy he once was, but also see that same boy beneath the surface of his frustration and enormous energy. I am lucky to be alive. Mostly healthy. Still able to think. My birthday comes up soon; I will be 43. Every year I count a gift, now, as I have seen some younger than me go. Where did they go? I admit, right now, I am not sure.

All my NT work, Wright's second book, has been on hold since sl. It has been a nice break, under the pressure of my wife' grad school schedule and the ton of housework I do to supplement. She is doing very well in her program, and is in her final year.

Oh, I am still a pretty good teacher. I look forward to seeing those little buggers next week :)

But now, I must sleep. I'd like to see myself posting once a week, or at most every two weeks...beginning the blog again. How odd it is to find such little material at Romy's site, but maybe I don't understand how it works now. How reassuring, to see Sandalstraps still doing his thing. I used to see blog as a step away from real intimacy, an attempt to have it in spite of where I lived and my busy schedule. Believe me, this is pretty damned real. I miss it. May God give me the grace to pick it up, eve just a little, this semester.

Love to each of you. Miss you all.

My So-Called Second Life

2007-03-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

Beauty is momentary in the mind--
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

Again, sorry to all that I have not written. I did write one other thing: I submitted an article to a wine and spirits newsletter...a retail rag, really, and my little piece is going in. It was fun to write what those in the biz call 'shelf talk,' and I hope to become a semi-regular contributor. Fame on the small scale :) Who knows, could lead to wine at wholesale if I help their sales.

The multi-textured fact is that Second Life has come to take the time this blog used to take, and how I feel about that remains uncertain. But why? How has a virtual world full of avatars taken the place of my reflections here?

Fundamentally, the issue is that I stress over everything; I always feel tension...always. Work scares me, I am often scared of my wife, house cleaning, cooking...except for exercise and alcohol, very little doesn't make me nervous. Oh, and sailing, but I haven't been in months...the new season is rolling around. My anxiety/tension is nowhere near where it once was, granted. But it's still there, simmering, clenching, and always fatiguing. And frankly, Second Life gives me something else to do and think about than the things that make me nervous, especially when I'm home alone. It takes the fantasy world of novels, film, and legend and drops me smack in the center. It is difficult to understate its power for those who have not spent time there, or in the right places there. Sure it's thrilling to watch a heart-rending, purgative story like Cameron's Titanic (for Hollywood, a moving film); now imagine if you could go on the ship, speak with the characters, live the experience...the rage and tears. But not the fear. Not the fear because role playing in SL is a lot like method acting...the scene ends whenever you want it to. There are no real threats to the people behind the terminals. And while feelings can linger into the day, even painful or angry ones, overall, I have found it an extraordinary experience that ends when the program closes, provides a generalized soothing effect. I'd also note that I have found myself better at assertion in the real world, because I've had to do it in the virtual.

Have I spent too much time there? Some days, yes. Overall, maybe. But then it's new and I'm finding my balance. I'm still reading The Yellow Admiral, still watching a few good shows on tv (Jon Stewart, Medium, and the Time Goes By reruns are my faves) and still interacting with my family! As I said, I generally only enter the Grid when I'm home alone. The time elapsed since I began hanging out there...maybe three months...is too short to give a definitive assessment.

One thing I will say, since I say it in SL often enough, is that I have honored my wife every time I've logged in. I did not know this when I went there, didn't know it for a while, actually, but avatars can be animated so it appears they're having sex, and though I've never really seen that, I've surely never done it! No av sex, no romantic relationships....though I've seen already that flirting and the feelings that go with it are rampant in SL. Someone might flatter just a bit more than he or she would at a real cocktail party...and while it's mostly harmless fun, I had to set my boundaries some time ago. To this day I've kept them :) It's surprisingly complicated in role play, or can be at moments, but I often talk about my rl wife. Again, the best analogy I have would be theatre, method acting in particular.

Is the magic of this place genuine or counterfeit? Only time will tell me. In the meantime, though, it's nice to fall asleep thinking about my swordfighting and not trying to solve the problem of evil in a theist construct. Breaks are good. And I believe God is still reaching in, teaching and molding. I've had little recreation, certainly almost none on a regular scale, since my back injury (and I had an MRI last week, and get the results tomorroww: after 7 months of dealing) and SL does give me that. It's an adventure, if nothing else...and soothing.....a dynamic combination for me .

Peace and acceptance to all...

Ash Wednesday 07

2007-02-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on Ash Wednesday...here I am at 2 Lent and have not returned to it; as usual, I began with a personal reflection and ended up in the infinitely deep sands of the problem of suffering. I decided to wrap up what I have and post as is :)

A dark day, with our first real winter storm coming in, heavy clouds and cold rain sure to follow. By morning, snow. I went to the little parish near my campus, not my usual haunt, for services at noon. I had to leave before communion, but got the critical piece: remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

An excellent reflection for all, theist or non.

I have not been thinking about my faith as much lately. This is perhaps good. I find, after 10 weeks spending of too much time in the hypnotic interface of Second Life (though this does seem to be balancing out), that I still have faith. Ash Wednesday did what it did for me last year: shook me out of my fat complacency and forced me to look within, to confess, to bow my knees and let the tears come. And that, friends, is pretty fucking First Life.

Yes, it was good. Oddly enough, today in my American Lit. class we discussed Stephen Crane's dark, naturalistic and surreal poems, an incredible accident that these little gems fell on the first day of Lent, and I was surprised how much of me identifies with his vision of nature (or Nature) as a random, non-sympathetic force. My own Christianity has become something close to 'God has acted in history to save my ass,' and what he's saving it from isn't so much his own wrath and judgement in Hell...these are things I cannot see or understand--an anthropormorphic emotive-symbol attached to what may be an eschatological manifestation of our need for retribution (or Not). No, He's saving me from This World, from Nature, from emotional and physical suffering, and above all from the awkward accident which will someday be my death.

And I cannot stress enough how absurd this claim is: that the Creator God entered history to save my ass.

Absurd. I must know this. If I as a Christian cannot face the absurdity of my faith claims, I am not reflecting in depth. For it is a fair rule of inquiry that I, that we, should be suspicious of conclusions we need to be true. I know Lewis' argument from desire, and in rough outline Augustine's; their experience reflects that of billions including my own. But the tenet that God must exist because I need him so much, because human experience is at its heart absurd without God, this must be balanced against the fact that humans sometimes hold as true what they want or need to believe. Apparently not all need to believe in God...there are plenty of happy atheists, but my experience is that the happy atheists have often left a faith that somehow repressed them, or they have simply not thought existence through. Death and suffering are not good things; a God who has acted to intervene on my behalf in the Face of both...surely, if anything, is a Good Thing. I must look carefully at any such claim. And simply using the dark threads in religious experience and doctrine, legalism or everlasting punishment, to argue against any wish-fulfillment in our faith, as Lewis does in his first book The Pilgrim's Regress, is far from a full response.

No, Christians believe the absurd: The Creator of this enormous, random and energetic Universe came down, in some manner, to complete His action in human history and draw or reconcile individuals (some or all?) to himself through the life and death of Jesus, a first century Jew. And not just reconcile or draw them close in this life, but in the next. Although all physical evidence seems to be that my conscious mind simmers in essential symmetry with the meat we call brain, that the death of the brain is the death of the individual; still, somehow, Christians believe through the preservation of a non-material piece of me (soul), or simply the resurrection, or better, re-creation of the essence of me into another form/body (complete, we assume, with memories and feelings from this life!) God will preserve us through even the death-oblivion and elevate us to His Love-Presence as conscious beings.

That, friends, is Absurd. I cannot attempt anything like a full response here, nor do I have answers to all my questions, some of them serious questions.

But I would argue this: Christian belief is absurd primarily in the face of the random suffering we experience in nature and the fact of Death itself. It is easy to use quantum theory, or biological complexity, to argue for a transcendent Creator. Childhood leukemia, cancer, death of the innocent and the beloved...these are another thing. All theists have to address this tension, and as Christians do not (generally) resort to samsara and karma as explanations, the Puzzle remains.

Yet it must be admitted: the relationship between the Creator (assuming there is one)and the Creation, including biological us, must be complex beyond human comprehension. If saying God loves is anthropomorphic, so it is anthropomorphic to imagine what I'd do if I were God...and bloody hell why doesn't he tow the line! We cannot know what the extent of God's power is over human experience, nor what His plans were, if any, when this universe was made, nor why he does some things and doesn't do others. It is quite possible we evolved through a blend of amazing Principles designed to foster life in this Universe and gross Accident into beings with enough moral preoccupation to require a savior, an ambassador, the Son of the Landlord himself. To use a lame analogy (and I hate any sci fi or fantasy analogies in apologetics with a bias) the warp signature went out and the Vulcans came calling. Only instead of Vulcans, it was God himself.

I have not, and do not, find solace in the Fall. It seems a simple human guess, even when articulately laid out as in Lewis' "free will experiment;" the Jewish mythic belief that Adam's fall and original sin are responsible for suffering, for me, remains a guess. If I ever get an Answer...I will have to wait past my own death for it.

And when reflecting on suffering I always end here: Jesus healed. Shitloads. Attempts to compare him to other ancient healers and thereby dismiss the miraculous element in the gospels remain tenuous and weak. There is no record in human history, certainly not ancient history, of an individual like him. If I am wrong, please direct me. And no, Apollonius, for me, doesn't cut the mustard (sorry Penn and Teller). I am not being facetious; at this time, I find Jesus unique in the ancient world. Scores of healings are attributed to him...and not for show, nto as displays of power. The best reading of the evidence seems to be he healed because he felt compelled to alleviate human suffering in his presence.

And there, for now, I park this essay. If I get time, I'll tinker with what I have. In the meantime, this felt pretty good to write.

Peace to all in this season of suffering.

In the Land of the Lotus Eaters

2007-02-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

It is not quite that, O my brothers (just taught Clockwork Orange again). Second Life is not quite like eating the lotus. It has been recreation without purpose or goal, and that has been generally good. Is there a hypnotic component? Yes, as there is to general web surfing and television; while SL generally lacks the rich art of good film, it is certainly more interactive than tv or general web surfing. I'm part of a community there now which has bloody nothing to do with anything intellectual; I spend most of my time sword fighting.

Sl is deeply immersive, in a way I can't describe. For some, it just doesn't work. For others, those of us closer to fantasy moment to moment perhaps, it works very well. The early hypno-immersion is passing, though, and I'm getting more balanced in my use of the Grid as the Wonder dissipates. Frankly, you can do just about anything there...what you can't do yet you will be able to eventually, you just do it through an avatar, a little cartoon you. I've taught Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash before, and I think of that novel often, or did, at least, my first few times in.

I know that I have friends who blog, people I care about whose blogs I have not been reading anymore than I've been writing in my own. This does make me sad, and I hope to 'catch up' someday. The dark side of blog always was, as other bloggers have noted also, that I'd spend an hour or two writing my brains out...digging deep into my life or mind, and get a single comment, or two...for some time now it's felt a little like waiting for a parent to arrive home when I was alone in my room. Waiting. Or like emailing, almost, between myself and Sandalstraps (whose work I miss dearly...I'll trot by and read a bit after this). In short, the effort and return ratio reminded me a bit too much of my childhood. I don't think I'll ever fully quit blog, but it feels good to take a break from a hobby which was more like graduate school than a hobby.

Oh, I still have my questions about the human experience, about my faith in particular, I'm still in EFM (though I miss once a month or so to be with my family) and my mind continues to churn over spiritual questions at a lower chew-rate. Frankly, I'm not going to think my way into closeness with God. At least not solely or primarily. And I want a further spiritual experience than historical inquiry can give me. Taking a blog-break is also about that.

I will say that my son is doing well, my wife also, though school has started for her again and though she is near the end of her graduate program, she and I both feel the pressure. Another reason, incidentally, I've put seminary into the warming drawer, even off the back burner. My job is fine...I underappreciate it all the time. We want to move down the hill a bit, even 15 minutes closer to civilization would help us; we'd be closer to church and the martial arts gym (where I've hardly been...my torn ligament is healing, but slowly...thank God for physical therapy). If so, we won't move until summer. It's a weird market, and I can't predict if or when, but we'd like to. Sure I'd miss the snow...but I also wouldn't miss waking up at 5 to shovel my wife out or driving on steep ice covered roads in the dark. It's been a grand adventure, but it might be time to leave Walden.

You know, it does feel good to write here. I had forgotten.

Peace and love to all. My heart, my heart.

The Prodigy

2007-01-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

Listening to Their Law, the Prodigy singles...man, they rock.

Working from home today; the weather in the mountains is very beautiful.

Love to all.

The Blog Skids and the Second Life

2007-01-21T19:05:00.000-08:00

I have enjoyed blog, and I'm not quitting for good, but I have taken an unexpected, and extended, break. Why? Partly, I was out of town for a couple weeks; I was getting my grades in; now I'm back at work. School, church, family...all these take time...the most prolific bloggers, in general, don't have both family and career. But I've managed to be fairly regular up here nonetheless, whether the post was crafted or not. I still consider it a valuable place to share. Why am I hesitant to continue working on it at the moment?

Hesitant may not be the right word. The answer is really two words: Second Life.

I'm surprised how many people, how many students, haven't heard of SL. It's a three-dimensional interactive avatar-based world. It is Neal Stephenson's metaverse from Snowcrash. I bipped in before I left town because I have a friend whose college is buying an 'island' there. I had no idea what that meant. And I admit I got a bit hypnotized. When I returned, still on vacation and with lots of extra time, I played some more.

How will this feel long-term? I don't know. Am I giving up on my blog friends, on Chris and Romy and Scott and the Funkiller? No. They have golden hearts all. But for the moment, I'm spending time in the grid. It's a strange and marvelous place. Equal portions of both.

And I've been working my butt off as an NT amateur, digging into the professional scholarship, struggling with fundamental questions of existence. For me, the NT stuff was never just about sorting the details, it was about the Big Picture itself. I was (and am, still) on the track of Something significant. You know, that work was hard, a rigorous hobby even for someone perhaps born for difficult challenges. I still hold those questions in my mind, but it's nice to spend time doing something completely meaningless, silly, fun.

Is there a dark side to my SL adventures? Perhaps. I can be, uh, obesessive. I am easily drawn in and hypnotized by the environment. I've found myself, once or twice, playing well past when I'd normally eat lunch, for example. I'm using my brain in a way that doesn't directly profit me. But I've only been doing it for three weeks or so (not counting vacation) and I may well tire of it.

In the meantime, school is on with force. My job at the church is not quite over (though I'm looking forward to the break) and I continue to make my family my first priority...at least I believe I'm doing that.

I was always part geek, part 'white and nerdy.' SL is chock full of people like that. Well, the people behind the avatars. It's living sci-fi.

I know the key is balance, to most everything that is the key. My back injury has not let me work out and SL has filled some of that time void. Again, it's a strange thing that's happened to me. Probably a temporary one. In the meantime, I encourage exploration by those of you with time. It's vast and growing daily. It's what the Web will look like, perhaps, in a dozen or so years. IBM is there. And since it's all built by the inhabitants so is much creativity.

Well, that's all I have time for. I haven't played all weekend; I sailed yesterday, actually, and then spent today with S working around the yard (what in this life is as much fun as chain sawing trees) and watching TV. I'm okay. I think. But time will tell better.

I will still blog here, but perhaps not as often. Sad, really. I haven't made any decision, it's just been happening...

Peace to all.

"Well, I'm back," he said.

2007-01-05T13:28:00.001-08:00

Or something close to that.

I am back. I graded every paper before Christmas for the first time in 12 years of college teaching. S and I left town early the next day and returned late last night. I've been off-blog for longer than ever before I think and don't even know where to begin.

The long car drive was hard on my back injury and sitting now isn't great. This will likely be short until I can get back into my physical therapy. Something about that electrostim...really numbs the pain.

I will say this: we spent the last two days in San Francisco and I must recommend the Hotel Carlton. The neighborhood is non-remarkable, north of Tenderloin (where I don't want to stay) south of Nob Hill (where I can't afford to stay) and somewhat northwest of Union Square (where I like to stay when I can afford it). The Hotel was renovated two years ago and what we got for the price was unequalled in my experience. Smallish room, yes, but nicely decorated and above all, superb staff-service. Think Nordstrom service, Mervyn's price. With valet parking (highly recommended) it was 105 bucks a day plus tax. Not cheap, true, but there are hotels which charge 44 bucks a day just for a car.

We also had drinks, a crab cake and oysters at Holy Grail, a restaurant just down the street from the Hotel. Very nice. And dinner at Cafe Jacqueline where all the entrees and deserts are souffles. Oui. Made in an open kitchen by a French owner-chef in a restaurant with maybe a dozen tables. Thumbs up, though skip the caviar appetizer (not much actual caviar and the egg and creme drown out the Beluga...it was the only time in my life I've had Beluga, though); instead, save your appetite for a desert souffle. Best of all, Hotel Carlton has a restaurant called Sasha on its first floor; the food is...Moroccan, Turkish, Yemeni? Not sure, but it was absolutely remarkable and also well priced with a Prixe Fixe menu of 35 bucks a person.

I love San Fran. Eat, drink, walk, eat and drink some more.

We also saw the new de Young museum and after my Coit Tower adventure two years ago I had no trouble looking out of the ninth floor observation glass. The art in those buildings is mind-draining good. We also saw the new Asian Art Musuem; I was very moved by their large selection of 1st to 3rd century Buddhas and Buddha-art, as well as by the work of the Fillipino-American painter Zobel. His Icaro is remarkable in person.

We did a lot in two days.

A lot of other things happened on this trip. We New Yeared with our wine buyer friends and drank more champagne in a night than I'll drink in a year. The star was the Billiot, as last year. Much more strange, I saw my father and my entire step family. Most of them I hadn't seen in 15 or more years and that evening deserves an entire post in itself. The executive summary is that I survived (granted, the Patron shooters helped) and it was one kind of pleasant to look at what I have accomplished against enormous odds. You see, I felt compared to my stepbrothers all the time as a teenager, and not favorably. They are both disturbed middle-aged men now, making it in their own way but scraping. And after just a few hours with my stepfamily I can see why my anxiety spiked when they entered my life when I was 16. My stepbrothers pain provdes echoes of my own twenties, except I was in therapy for years seeking any tool, any door, any window in heaven to move forward. And I moved. I don't know if they are moving or not.

I also look younger better than any of them! Small comforts. Time will change that as well.

The highlight of the entire trip, though, was the days we spent with my brother, his wife, and my wonderful niece and nephew. If you had been there, you would know how luck I am, how lucky my brother has been to have the family he has, the one he shares with me now. There was more sanity in that family than in my entire step family (and it's a large one now). My.

A late Merry Christmas to all. I hope to begin blog-reading again, but as I said sitting is hard and I have work to do on my own blog. I've already seen Sandalstraps is going off at full-tilt brilliance as usual. Romy will be my next stop.

Love to all.

t

The Paper Chase

2006-12-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

These are the times that try men's souls...

Just a quick note to the friends who read that I haven't given up blogging...I'm just busy earning a living which right now means grading lots of essays, online and in hard copy. It's like being a wine taster, except I have to suggest ways to fix what's wrong and, of course, I'm not drinking. However, I hope to be done before we leave town just before Christmas. I've taken papers with me before, and this year I'm determined not to do that.

What else? Only random notes: I'm beginning to read Wright again after taking a break. One of the great questions in the gospels, and there are many, is what to make of Jesus' proclamations of judgement. I read a passage like Luke 7:36-50, the famous passage when Jesus is annointed by what is probably a prostitute. If you have time, please read that passage, regardless of your belief. You will see what drew me to Christianity and what continues to draw me. Of course, how do we locate that story within Luke's overall composition, within the possible, and different, annointing parallels? Above all, how historical am I to take the words and event? Or better, how in line with Jesus' historical character (for this is the real question; not is this event exact, but did things like this happen, things like this get said?) Those are fair questions and I will soon have something to say about them. But as it stands, the story provides a picture of deity (for surely Jesus is divine in some sense in Luke) unequalled in world literature. Or perhaps equalled only by other stories about Jesus!

And yet Jesus, like other Jewish prophets before him, has lots of judgement-warnings. Who are those for, and what do we make of them? Ultimately, will God send people to hell forever to be tormented? Wright is about to take the judgement sayings on in his book, and I'm curious what he has to say. As always, Wright is not the final word (sorry for the pun on another of his titles). And he emaphasizes one aspect of history while sometimes setting aside others which may have existed alongside. Carson notes this with the New Perspective. Still, he's a breath of fresh air in many ways, a brilliant mind who is trying to walk the middle ground between blind belief in the biblical texts as God's own words and utter skepticism and dismissal. Or so it seems. I haven't read his book on the bible.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope I have time to post something longer before I blow town. It will be nice to be back in so cal.

I really must finish the Estella story. I now know the end.

t

Dialogue and Dark Magic

2006-11-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

This is a remarkable blog. Not only for its concept, but for the strength of its content. I've only been reading Soulster for a bit, but I'm impressed with his writing and his personal story which has similarities to my own. And his dialectic partner, drunkentune, shows in this post alone that he's worth the read.

As I focus more and more on the gospels, this kind of debate really isn't my strength (not that it ever was!) It doesn't mean I still don't ask the same questions I see coming from many intelligent atheists/agnostics. When I have tried to write marginally apologtic writing, I've found it woefully inadequate. If I ever get around to What We Are 2.0, I want you to know I begin by pointing out the questions my arguments in 1.0 raise. I'm not a believer in Jesus because of the moral sense in man, or because of the intricacy of the universe, or because of the argument from desire or the reality of beauty. Those are powerful facts, yes. Those things might lead me to some kind of tentative theism/deism, but the reality of suffering, the random nature of life and death...these might in fact balance the equation quite neatly. I believe in Jesus primarily because of the gospels, because I believe God spoke to me through them, and I want to know as much about these documents as I can. I would also note that I find it worth my while to be as skeptical of the skeptical critics as those who accept them as perfect histories.

And there are days I think and feel as if there is no God at all. This can feel neutral, inquisitive, anxious, compelling or tenous. I actually don't know if this is normal, but I am surely not alone in being a convert who considers both sides often.

It is increasingly apparent that God-argument cannot lead to a universally accepted conclusion about his existence. Individuals convert over various issues, many of which appear again and again; it's worth noting that individuals deconvert over various issues, many of which also recur. For most, conversion or deconversion is a complex process which involves the heart and the mind. I'd remark, though, that even in the gospels, after Jesus publically raises Lazarus from the dead, some believe and some plot Jesus' death! Whatever we think about the miracle in the story, the reaction seems quite realistic to me. A man with such power must be worshipped or killed. And yet why did not all worship! For many reasons, I'm convinced that even the overt miraculous would not convert many who don't believe (and trust me, I'd like to see some overt miraculous myself...though I have another story to tell in that vein). I don't mean to insult any skeptic, including myself, who feels otherwise, but this is my view at this time.

How can God hold us reponsible for our spiritual choices at all? I don't know.

***

I'm looking for a Christianity which is both liberal and orthodox. And I admit when I find it, it will have to feel rationally consistent in issues where reason can be applied. And morally superior as well. I do not believe God ordered the death of children (though I admit my reaction, which seems quite sane to me, is knee-jerk and human-limited). Regardless, I've found plenty of other reasons not to read the OT as 'God's word' without the military history of Joshua or Samuel. Neither do I believe, at this time, the empty tomb stories were fabrications, the resurrection appearances lies or wishful thinking or delusion. A quick case in point:

I read the exorcism accounts in the synoptics very critically. I've never seen a demon, thankfully, and I understand the idea of the demonic to have descended from ancient Baylonian and Canaanite deities, etc. I also know many people in Christ's time, not just Jewish people, believed demons causes various physical and mental illness. So when Mark tells me "Jesus healed many who were sick and cast out many demons" I can figure that this perhaps means he healed many who were sick, period. Of course the demons speak to Jesus on two occasions that come to my mind, and there are many possible explanations apart from the existence of a real demon.

Fair enough.

But today, discussing Plato and the non-material in an English class, I had a student from Pakistan tell me a story. He is a magician (by hobby or trade I don't know) but also believes in what he calls 'dark magic.' I asked him what this was, and he told a story of a man he knew who could curse a cow and cause the cow to excrete insects with its milk. I made a Lord of the Flies joke, lamely. He also told me he saw a man produce sweets, candy, in his hand...open hand empty, closed hand, hand opened to reveal candy...by the power of a jinn. Of course I told him this must have been slight of hand, and my student said he was a magician and understands slight of hand and there is no way that was what he saw.

What do I make of this? Right now, nothing. But I admit, even though I don't know if the demonic is anything more than supersitious fantasy, stories like that are real stories. He's an intelligent and articulate man, sensitive, quite sane, pragmatic. He understands slight of hand; he also believes in 'dark magic.' Of course, I asked him to write a detailed paper about this!

The world is a big place, and my 21st century dismissal of the demonic in the gospels may be correct; it may actually be naive error. It may be a blend of both.

This is all I have time for. Since I said I'd start revising my posts and actually crafting drafts, I've posted exactly one drafted post (What We Are). I have nine drafts in my blogbox that I feel still need work. Nine! In two months! My poor blog will die if I don't water it from time to time.

Love to all, Christian and atheist and all between.

Winter White

2006-11-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

Though we live far apart, Sherry and I are writing about the same thing: snow is coming. It's in the mid thirties outside now, but a significant system is supposed to move in tomorrow afternoon and turn to snow through Monday. Our first true winter front. Cold. White. Hope my son is up to shovelling because with my back I surely am not. I always wondered what would happen if I couldn't get up at 5:00 on a snowy morning to dig out my wife's Subaru...it looks like I'll see this winter.

My rant below, days old, really did help my mood. It's been so long though I'm almost ready for another one! My back remains injured, probably a ligament or tendon which feeds into my hip is torn or strained, and recovery has been slow, slow. Bloody slow. I bought my Danskin ball, though. It's about all the exercise I'm supposed to do. The hard thing is that I use my back so many ways, for exercise, yes, but also for all kinds of work around here, especially in winter.

Other than that, as a fan of Carol Ballard's Never Cry Wolf I was quite pleased to see The Snow Walker for the first time yesterday. What a magical piece of film. The myth of the North has long been with me; it's part of what got me into the mountains. Some day I'm going to visit the art festival in Inuvik.

This post is not going to be anything significant, just a check in. I continue to read the NT and books about the NT. I continue to be busy at church, home, and lastly but not leastly, at school. I had a wonderful thanksgiving; S and I cooked our brains out for our family of three and my mother. I love holidays. I also love this year's Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Highly recommended. And I've been sipping the Glenfidditch in the evening (I have to find Bowmore for a decent price); life could be hella worse.

Love to all. More later.

Rantage

2006-11-15T14:06:00.000-08:00

In blogland this is called rant. To me, it's just share. Whatever works.

My physical therapist tells me I tore a tendon in my lower back and the miracle cure is...rest. Meaning I can't use my lower back in any vigorous way. Meaning no boxing, no lifting, no grappling, no nothing. Yeah, that is going to be an issue as well. I injured myself a good 10 weeks ago and should be mostly healed by now, but I've been continuing to work out, albeit on a lighter scale; to me lighter has meant rounds on the heavy bag punching and kicking, light grappling (or "rolling" as these guys keep saying...as in "yeah, he rolls here"). The problem with this is that exercise is a critical mood manager for me. It's possible I might be able to ride a stationary bike with a back support or some such thing, but most activity is out. It's going to be an emotional two months. I'll gain weight almost surely. The cardio shape I have so recently been getting in will fade.

Well, perhaps I can find a lighter way to burn calories; perhaps I'll heal a bit sooner. It's an old injury already, and time is a good thing.

On top of that: driving is killing me. I was never a fan, and though I've politicked hard at work to keep my two day a week schedule, my driving reality is far from that. This week: 30 minutes each way to the gym Monday; an hour each way to work Tuesday; thirty minutes each way to see my therapist this morning followed by a twenty minute trip each way to go to EFM tonight (and miss my family, again). Tomorrow, an hour each way to work again. And for Friday, an hour and twenty minutes each way to take my son to the airport. Saturday I may be going to a friend's party, my first friend, my anthropology friend, someone I haven't seen in two years; an hour each way again. Sunday night, back to the airport (though S may drive that one). I'm sick of it. I love the seasons up here, the fall is extraordinary, snow in Christmas, bulbs thrusting color in spring...all that, but the driving this semester has been outrageous.

And with S taking 13 graduate units this fall I'm hardly seeing her. She took too many, and she knows it, but I'm tired of doing more housework, of seeing her less, of having less time with the three of us. She's leaving early, coming home late many nights, and is always tired.

At least I'm not pissed at my dogs right now.

I had my first 'discernment' meeting with my priest today. It went fine. He told me that it's a long, long track just to get admitted into the M.Div. towards ordination. A meeting with the parish commission on ministry (currently all my friends), a meeting with the vestry (which I currently chair), approval of the parish priest (I'd get this I think); then the hard work begins. A discernment weekend which is essentially a series of interviews, a medical examination, psychological and psychiatric interviews, the interview with the Bishop tossed in someplace amidst all this. Once one is a postulant and admitted to seminary it's not so tough, apparently, though the professors provide quarterly reports on each student's progress and spiritual development to the Bishop.

This sounds like being an astronaut. Without the cool jacket patches and cash.

Overall my priest was very open. He's deeply introverted, and was trying very hard, and was successful, in staying connected. He knows I am considering the diaconate instead of the priesthood, considering academic work as well (though this seems the least likely option because of my age and my current lack of a Ph.D. in anything, though it's a serious interest). None of this process will get rolling for two or three years until my son is a junior or senior in high school.

My entire definition of success in ministry may need to change. Of what is means to 'use my gifts in the church' may need to change. What I wouldn't give for fifteen years of youth.

The involved ordination/education process, including my own discernment, is something I can't predict or even control. It's a long, long road and one I need better light to guide me down. Whether that will be provided or not is open to question. Does God call anyone, or very many, personally? Is he that directly involved in human affairs? I don't know. My own priest felt a distinct call at a retreat, with murmurs long before. I've had murmurs going back into my twenties. We'll see.

And to end my rant: I've been trying to write more developed posts online but have been hamstrung by three things: 1) lack of time--too bad I can't compose on the freeway; 2) trouble with focus--I begin by clarifying a comment I made about Nietszche on another blog and end up over my head in a full blown discussion of the atonement; 3) and this is the most frustrating of all--lack of knowledge. A first year literature student, or more accurately, someone reading through a set of English novels for the first time, could certainly provide a blog with reactions, comments, insights. As a beginning NT autodidact, that should be all I do up here. But my questions run deep, and my need to answer them runs even deeper, and I find myself wanting to discuss complex issues which outpace my education. If I were honest, I'd say I find myself wanting to teach, to write graduate level articles. Now that is humorous; it's also my nature. I've covered a fair amount of ground, if I may say so, in the year or two since I started the path, but so much more remains. I'm back to where I started: I need a graduate level education just to begin writing. As that is years away from reality, if it ever becomes real, here I am.

Ecce, homo.

Look closer.

Pissed and ranting.

Why does Luke provide divergent details regarding the ascension and Paul's conversion within his own document? Because he doesn't care much about historical accuracy? (Ehrman). Because he integrates varied sources without redaction (but then how to explain his seamless integration of Mark)? One thing I do think: the manner in which Luke rewrites and personalizes Mark, at least, seems to argue against his cut and paste of the 'we' travel-passages in Acts. Luke could have redacted the freaking pronoun. But you see, I'm over my head already.

I should provide some positive self-talk here: not that long ago (one year, two?) I was shaken loose by arguments via EddyF at edgeoffaith: Paul was a gnostic, Jesus never existed, the Christians changed their NT texts beyond recognition. Those no longer trouble me, though all deserve more reading and reflection. The first claim, that Paul was a gnostic, strikes me as particularly odd. Paraphrasing Johnson: Paul's writing is deeply exoteric, not esoteric as all gnostic documents extant. But then Johnson recommends Pagel's early work on how later gnostics read Paul and John and that is at the bottom of a very long reading list. Pagel's later, famous work is yet another example of one who has chosen not to believe and constructed the texts accordingly. I believe this paragraph now lacks unity.

The fact is some choose to believe and construct the textual world accordingly. Some choose not to believe, ditto. How hard to attempt scholarship in between! And I believe! God, help my unbelief!

I'm a bit behind at work, to boot.

I feel silly posting this. I know the few friends who read here (and each is cherished) read many blogs and I want to limit my output to thoughtful content. I'm posting it anyway.

Here's to hoping I get to work more on my current posts in draft. Without enough time, focus, or education. This is the internet, after all.

Love to all.

Almost Famous

2006-11-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't had time for blog, but the quick update is:

I had a good weekend. Steph and I had company for the first time since the summer; someone from work Saturday night (ham, my grandmother's candied yams, green beans, homemade pumpkin pies...oh yeah) and then also on Sunday night as my dear older friends around the corner, my surrogate parents, came by (fondue: three cheeses, sherry, kirsch, nutmeg, garlic). Both nights were good. It was great to have S home, to be cleaning house together, cooking and having friends.

Friday night was harder.

I know a Genuine Rockstar through my wife (her friend lived with him for years and had his child); another guy in his band is a Near-Rockstar, or NR, and S went to high school with NR and still cares for him. Whenever I've met Mr. Near-Rockstar, he's been genuine and told me over and over how cool my wife is, how beautiful she is inside and out (hard not to like a guy like this). S and I have been to a handful of shows in different clubs near us over the last couple years. This time they were local again, and I had my Almost Famous moment: 'backstage' for the first time, in a little cubby closet in a small club (the band is not doing any big shows which is amazing to me); while sitting with S, I met my first groupie (sort of met, she was introduced to the room like a delivered pizza); I saw the ice bin full of beers and the gallon of tequila, gratis, for the band.

All this could have been fun. NR is genuinely talented and the band has had a couple of hits he's written; it wouldn't surprise me if they went big. But then, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't. A couple years ago we saw them in two years ago and NR just got out of rehab. He was rehab name-dropping, if you can believe that. Rick James was in with him. Rick James, the funk genius, was found dead not long after he was discharged with nine drugs in his bloodstream. And now, clearly, though no hard drugs were used in our presence, hard drugs are in this band. I would like to use much more profanity in my non-theology posts in this blog than I do (it would be so much more true to life) but I don't want to alienate other Christians. Let me say, though, that the motherfucking pipe kills all that is normal in life. My wife was very sad about the whole night, the show, all of it, sad and angry. It was very dark. NR came in after we'd been in the cubby a while, bouncing off the floor and ceiling, glazed to the peak (a phrase I believe I just invented). Later, when he said he was on the downhill, I said, "Just be careful you don't go too far down, man;" his intense eyes met mine and he said, "yeah, I hear you brother." I don't know that he did. I told him my wife loved him, and hence I'd help him any way I could. Told him to let me know if he needs anything, any help at all. He made a gesture to show me the offer went both ways, and then kept bouncing.

Rockstar life. Yikes. Free tequila, not to mention constantly proferred sex and unlimited drugs of every variety, these can't be good for the soul. Based on my limited experience, why do so many use so hard? There are probably many reasons, childhood experiences high on the list. But my sense (based on all of two examples) is there are enormous pressures on the band to produce new hit music, and many believe drugs help creativity while also helping to manage the tension that comes from needing to produce; plus, like the groupies, drugs ease the inhuman nature of touring on the road. For a bit.

***

I don't have time to blog anymore. I'm doing pretty well in life, something I wish to savor, though I have several blogs in draft and no time to finish any of them! I'm still married and not a drug addict, and but there for the grace of God go I. I took EFM off this week and stayed home with my family and cooked for them. What a treat that was. Sometimes the cure for having too much on the plate is to shove something off the plate and not look at it.

I see a physical therapist tomorrow about my back injury (going on what, ten weeks or more). I'm hopeful about that, though the last couple of days I've felt better. Probably because I haven't exercised in over two weeks! I'm resting, which is both hard and good.

Love to all. More to come when I have time. Pray for our friend, Near-Rockstar. May he live long and well enough to find God's peace.