Be a Champion?

Some of you may know this, but part of my growing up was being a member of Cascade Hills, a megachurch in Columbus, GA.  I don't really talk about it as part of my formation narrative because we didn't go there very long, and it wasn't very formative for me.  I never really felt like I was part of any community.  My mom and stepdad met there, though, so it definitely had an impact on my life.

Since my time there (almost eight? nine years ago?) the pastor now has his own ministries something.  I'm not sure what I'd call it, though the website looks like it's a store mostly.  I don't know how to call it anything because it's so far from my context, I think.  Except when I'm honest it's not.  Barbara Brown Taylor is a personality.  She's a priest, yes, but she's a personality, too.  I'd just call her an author and writer.

I was poking around tonight and came upon the blog entry "Be a Champion" which disturbed me a little.  Here's a (longish) excerpt (emphasis mine):

You and I can have a championship season in our own lives. 2011 is a year for you to start fresh! God already has great plans for you this year. He says in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

The question is, do you believe it’s going to be a championship year for you? As you hit the ground running in 2011, plan for the best. Like all of these teams you should work as hard as you can with everything you’ve got. It may not be without challenges, but that’s [okay] because champions fight all the way to the end. I want to encourage you to set your sights high and keep pressing on. With the right determination you can be a champion in 2011!

While part of me thinks that this might be a few logical steps away from Pelagianism, but that's not my point/focus tonight.  Rather, I ask what about the people who work as hard as they can and lose their job, find late stage cancer, or financially just can't make it anymore.  What about people who find themselves being pressed by systems they can't control, systems that aren't set up to help people, except helping people already in positions of power get more?

I don't want to go on a left wing rant here, either.  I think it's a worthy statement, but my big question/learning here is ambiguity in making statements from someone who's ordained.  The statements Bill makes are certainly good news!  Sort of.  "God's got a plan, you have to reach the places he wants you to prosper.  Just stick to it, and you'll be fine."  That's not life.  And this kind of set-up sets people up to either be very comforted by their faith or start walking the fine line of losing their faith.  Where's God's plan when they can't keep going?  How is cancer part of God's plan to prosper?

Some people's faith gives them comfort and gives them a way to see people getting sick as part of God's plan.  Some people's faith wouldn't ever assign that to part of God's plan but put that more into the realm of theodicy.  And some people's faith reject God because God's plan, if that's what their cancer is, sucks, so they'd rather not have that plan or planner.  I think people in positions of religious leadership (me learning for the future) need to have room for ambiguity and for the negatives of life.  There is hope in bad circumstances, but that requires acknowledging that bad circumstances happen when no one -- not even God -- is at fault.

PS - I also found this gem as I was looking for links for things above: WHY THE BOOK OF REVELATION IS HERESY.  Enjoy.

We Just Can't Win

Yesterday I got a few flame comments on two blog entries.  Go read them here and here.  Afterward I was talking about the comment and Christianists and atheists and people who are douchy and people who are nice and loving.  I've started commenting on some more blogs.  I've been re-posting Joe.My.God's Holy Crimes lists from day to day.  And my friend said something about Westboro Baptist Church and what certain fundamentalists have done to Christianity.  If you read the comments on the Holy Crimes entries (including some follow up comments to what I've said) it's clear that people associate Christians of any stripe with, well, Christians of any stripe.

There are the people who've turned love into hate (see the above video!) and peace into making war to make peace.  And then you have the crooks.  And the people who abuse the relationships that the Church has given them in whatever manifestation it takes.  And that's what people see.  And we just can't win.  We can't have an aggressive media campaign that says "We're not like them!"  We can't get on top of the Christianity game and actively fight the Christianists to beat them into submission.

And I don't think we're supposed to.  I think that's kind of the opposite of what we're supposed to do.  The Christianists have power because they seek it, rather than resisting the temptation to have power (when really we don't at all).  As I follow Christ I know God who became man (giving up power), was born in a lowly state (not into power), had no place to lay his head (didn't acquire or seek power), and gave up his life (didn't take on power at the end).  I think the way to show what we believe it to live it.  To be friendly and love people.  And really loving people means respecting the dignity of every human being.  And seeking Christ in all persons.  That doesn't mean don't talk about our faiths; my friend Dan (from yesterday's quote of the day) and I talk about faith all the time, mostly in the form of questions, since he doesn't really identify with a faith tradition.

Instead I think we have to wait for the Lord.  And keep working for justice and doing service work and loving all people.  Really loving them...and that means not calling names, folks!  On Advent 1 the Vicar preached at St. Paul's Chapel and talked about staying awake and working to be ready for the judgment day....and that every day is judgment day.  Every day there are actions that we take where we choose to do good or not.  And I try (and fail miserably, often!) to not seek control or dominance of others.  Wait for the Lord!  Keep watch.  His day is near.

Who Reads/Visits My Blog?

Here are two examples from today on Statcounter.  I'm sort of amused.

 

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

I have some entries set to post tomorrow through the course of the day, but they've been set beforehand. I think tomorrow I'm going to try to keep my computer pretty much closed and my iPhone pretty much not in Safari. I might do some Old Testament work tomorrow, but really feeling like cutting off from a lot of communication tomorrow, not just those things which I've cut out for Lent. Maybe texting to coordinate food, but not a lot of just browsing. Or streaming things on Netflix. Time to sit and meditate and read and see God around me and pay homage.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

Labels

This should be publishing as I'm trying to get on the elliptical. I'm writing it the night before but figure that five entries in one day is a little excessive, as if four in one day weren't. I've spent the last hour and forty-five minutes applying labels to most of my blog entries. Someone on statcounter looked at the ones I'd labeled quotations, and they were probably disappointed, at how few things were labeled. But no more! I've gone through and stuff is labeled now, and I'm going to try to set up some kind of side thing that shows certain labels (but not all of them). I'll do that tomorrow, though.

Of Course, I Could Be Wrong

I should be taking a nap, but I'm too amused at this moment to really take one. :). I had a busy day yesterday between meandering around in a cassock for about two hours and being trained in keeping the church safe by Safeguarding God's Children/People. I did, in fact, get some boots yesterday afternoon, and that made me late for evensong's set up. I'll post some pictures from my iPhone later today (with another very fun, surprise picture or two). After I worked on the thing in the surprise picture(s), I went to dinner with friends, came back, did homework, and then went out for a few hours. I had to come back because I needed some sleep (hence needing the nap now) so that I could go play in Central Park this morning.

I did that! I played in the Park for about two hours before going to the Metropolitan Museum. I'll write about that later, I think. I got a comment on here while I was there and it was nice. I don't get a lot of comments. When I got back to my room I logged in to Statcounter to see that I had 92 hits (up to 99 now). As I often do, I checked out visitor paths and saw that lots of people were coming to me from MadPriest! Not only was I added to the Neighbourhood, I'm featured in an entry which says about my blog, "Its creator, Joseph P. Mathews, OSL, is far too young and good looking and I hate him already."

If you haven't ever been over there, go check his blog out and read regularly. There is excellent humor, nice caption competitions (of some great photographs), good analysis, and a Church of England perspective on what's going on. There is also prayer sharing. It's an excellent community with nice dry talk and smart thinking. If nothing else, go read the entry about me and Kelvin Wright. The comments are humorous, and I expect as they accumulate will only get funnier.

In a different vein, I think the Blogpress app that Colin introduced me to is outstanding. I think it will encourage greater content generation in smaller forms, and enable me to share pictures with this community that I put on Facebook. I'll try to start posting album links here to over there so that my Senior Warden can see my adventures.

Statcounter

In January I installed an invisible counter on my page so that I can see how many hits I get each day. Additionally, I see how people go to my page (from Twitter, my Blogger profile, googling me, etc.) and I see where they're from. And I've gotten somewhat amused by some of them, but am also just fascinated by other. I can intuit how people came sometimes. If they came from my blogger profile (like my visitor from Capetown, London, and Monterrey, Mexico), I assume it's because they clicked me on a comment, which took them to my profile, and thus led them to my page. Sometimes people come from the OCICBW Neighbourhood.

I like looking at the visitor paths and seeing when Judy Dye visits; she's in Troy and usually comes from Ryan's page, which links to me. Fr. Jeff comes straight there because he has it in his favorites. That's my guesses, anyway.

I assume that the Catholic University of America visitor is Matt. My favorite person, I think is the person in Enterprise on the Alabama Supercomputer Network, who seems to google my blog each time they want to read. Curious: the person at Collegetown Center in Ithaca, NY. Someone in Montgomery apparently follows me on Twitter and checks out my entries, but I don't know who it is. Today (and once before) someone from Searcy, Arkansas (White County Video), has been by. The person in Madison, AL (at Dynetics) is amusing to me.

Some people might think it's creepy that all these different people that they don't know are reading their page, but that's why we put stuff on the internet and not in a diary, right? That's why I do it, and I think it's fascinating.

Seersucker Seminarian?

Those of you who visit my blog probably noticed a change in the layout and title. I've abandoned "An Enigma Wrapped in a Riddle" because I don't think that fits me anymore. My dear friend Ricky Lee used to call me that, and I was to him. I was because in large part I was to myself as well. I didn't know who I am or whose I am, really. But as I've come to terms and acceptance and embracing those things and getting comfortable in my own skin, as Bishop Duncan observes, I've stopped being so puzzling. And as such, I've changed the name of my blog from that to "Seersucker Seminarian" complete with seersucker background. No, it's not "a bed."

I've considered changing some other stuff, and I may in not too long. But right now I want to keep most of the other stuff the same. I think my little bio to the left of the entries needs to be updated, and maybe I need a picture of me in seersucker. But I'm going to try to be more thoughtful about worshipping a vulnerable child, a nonviolent teacher, a crucified troublemaker from an occupied land. As I was telling a friend of mine the other night, it's very real now. I'm a seminarian. For now, though, stuff on my blog will be as it appears in this entry. I've started trying to write titles of entries down and just save those as drafts so that I can remember to come back to them. This is one of those entries. Some other include one about my first week in the City, my first Freecycle adventure, and women and gays in vestments (oh my!)

I plan on being up every morning and trying to blog something then. Maybe not two entries, maybe some narrative, maybe some thoughtful things. Probably nothing really profound. And in the interim I'm going to always try to be going to chapel, saying my prayers, and doing my homework.

I'm in the City!

Yes, indeed, I made it. I'll regale you all with the tales of my travels perhaps tomorrow, but wanted to tell you that I'm having a good time and really looking forward to my class. In addition to having spent the summer at church with Cathy, I'm getting to know some classmates pretty well. I also have an amazing suitemate.
I'm blogging so late because I can't sleep, but I plan on blogging more regularly. I just think about Judy Dye checking my blog and she'll have an upper hand in conversations about the ongoings of my life if I blog them...for her and for other Troy people. I know some of my more recent Facebook friends might be embarrassed by what I write, but hey, if Michael can tweet things I can blog them, right? I also want to keep a record, and I think that blogging is a good place to do that. I'm going to try some new things with my blog, too:

• blogging things that I post on Facebook - this means links, videos, articles, others' blog entries, whatever. I want the information that I share that way to be made available other ways, too. That might mean a lot more content, but it will be nice for me to share doubly.
• blogging more regular daily events - so that I can remember what I did and so that others can keep up. We'll see how well I do on this one, as that it's pretty much always my goal to blog more, and it has yet to happen up to this point.
• blogging reflections - on biblical texts, on services, on hymns, on sermons, on news (church and secular), on things that happen in my life, on books that I'm reading and their affect on me, on things for which I am grateful, on things about which I've prayed, on things for which I need prayer.
• blogging things on my mind - mostly song lyrics, probably, but other media that I don't necessarily post on Facebook, such as quotations from books I've read or am reading but that stick with me and cause me to meditate, but posting them little or no commentary, just them in their typed or linked form.

I'm up so late because I prayed Compline with two guys in my class and then we sat and sang hymns a capella for at least an hour and a half, maybe longer. It was like singing Sacred Harp, but just singing what we had available...and it was great. We made up harmonies, we used the harmonies in the hymnals, we sang in unison. I look forward to more of it, and hope that others in our class will be able to join. I hope that the de facto separations between the two sides of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and the Close and 422 don't stay too intact as we get more people from our class in and moving around.
We closed with
Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm
be there at our sleeping and give us we pray
your peace in our hearts Lord at the end of the day.
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Heads Up

Just so y'all know, there are going to be a lot of days coming up that may be just lyrics. If they aren't just lyrics there will be lyrics and analysis. I still have a few reflections from Harry Potter, too. Sacred Harp is getting to me with some of the songs. Check out this article from the Boston Globe about it.

More to come...

I'm going to bed, but I'm going to try to blog a little more regularly. I know I've said that about a billion times in the last three years between this blog and my Xanga, but what I wrote yesterday turned out to be a lot more honest than I'd actually planned, and it was good for me. Blogging just because is nice. It's good to decompress. Jacob Lyon gets a lot of letters that are blog-esque. I also got some great feedback on Facebook over the last two days.
Guide us waking O Lord and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.

Check This Out

While I don't necessarily agree with the name of this blog, I really like what it has to say about education, evangelism, and stewardship.

Check it Out

More Coming

More reflections on Tuesday's shanking and its aftermath later "today" (assuming that this is posted on 31 October 2008.

No Middle Ground?

I'm trying to get back into blogging again. I enjoy it, I just don't make a priority of it. Maybe if I did more narrative of my day I would, but I don't know that that's the direction of my blog life anymore. Sometimes things inspire me to make blog entries. Someone might say that my blogging about things rather than talking about them/confronting them head on is hiding online, but I don't necessarily think so. I think that some people need the screen for their own confidence; there are those not confident enough to stir pots online, or disagree online. There are others who are not confident enough to do either of those things in person. I think that being able to speak - in any capacity, even if it doesn't involve a face-to-face confrontation - should be applauded more than criticized. I do, however, think that there's a difference between speaking online (such as commenting on something posted in a public area or writing a response to something in your own area) and being passive aggressive by doing things like writing things directed at someone unnamed but using "you" repeatedly and then not sharing with them. This talk about speaking, however, isn't the point of this entry. It's just something on my mind.
This entry was inspired by a blog entry I read elsewhere this morning while cleaning out my Gmail inbox, although I'm sure it's made countless other places throughout time. One of the issues the author addressed had to do with for/against things - if you're not against something you're for it. I'm not entirely certain how I feel about that statement, although my initial reaction is that there isn't a whole lot of room for grey, I like shades of grey, and my worldview doesn't force me to see things in black-and-white. But then grey: the author tempers the statement to say that if you aren't working against something you are, if nothing else, passively working toward it. Tacitly approving, as it were. I greatly agree with that. To allow something bad to happen when you bear at least a small part of responsibility (like being the citizen of the US ergo the vote and keeping those elected responsible) is to not be working against it. I don't know that I'd say that it's "for," but it's not using voice to keep things from happening.
With that in mind I have some examples for people to think about, particularly those who say "I never did _____." By being in the US (and these will mostly be US examples since that's my primary context) we bear responsibility for things that we ourselves have never directly done. We also bear responsibility for not using our voice to change things that can be changed (while other things really can't be changed: what's done is done in some instances). Allowing the continued dehumanization of the US's indigenous peoples by sports teams and allowing the US to continue to not uphold a single treaty it's signed over the course of it's history with those same people is our fault. Were we signers? Did we elect the people who signed them? No, probably neither. Are we citizens now? Is the US still bound to its word? Do we have a way to ask the US to keep its word? Yes, we do. We elect. We can lobby. We can vote a different way.
We are guilty of whenever the US bombs innocent people just to make a point or to make things move more quickly. Certainly there are times when our rules of engagement allow or require fire to be returned to places that should be left alone (such as mosques), but if the people currently being opposed are using that as a base and are firing for it, I certainly see a rationale for returning fire. Air strikes against hospitals full of civilians, though, leads to guilt of a corporate nature for a corporate sin.  Are we giving the orders? Maybe not. Did we play a part in a)electing the Commander in Chief b)letting our elected officials (some of whom have oversight of the armed forces via committees, funding, and war resolutions) know how we feel about things? Maybe, maybe not. Either way we have a part to play and responsibility to bear.
Is there no middle ground? I don't think so. In case that's unclear (which I think it might be to me), I think there is a middle ground, however I think it's hard to maintain staying in the middle ground and still being an active part in society. If there isn't, whoa nelly. We, particularly those who were told to feed the hungry and care for the poor all around, have a whole lot of corporate guilt behind for not fighting it. If there's not a middle ground, the people who aren't fighting for poverty - are actually supporting it and saying that those on the margins of society should stay there (often so that they don't have to share). However, I do think there's a middle ground. I don't dare suggest that the majority of people not working to alleviate poverty support it. By the same token, though, by not working for its eradication I think they - we - are (if only nominally) guilty of allowing it to persist
As an aside, I was published today in Faith in Action, the weekly e-newsletter of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society. The piece can be found here.