Salt

Friday Cat and Itune blogging

"Arrepientete"    Ray Baretto   
"Next Lifetime"   Erykah Badu
"Dark As The Dungeon"    Johnny Cash
"Surrey With the Fringe On Top"    Laurie Allyn 
"Train In Vain (Stand by Me)"    The Clash   
"Bodyrock"    Moby   
"Way Beyond"    Morcheeba
"Cripple And The Starfish"    Antony & The Johnsons   
"Miss You"    The Rolling Stones
"Tribute to Caesar"  Arvo Pärt: I Am the True Vine
"The Boy Next Door"    Stacey Kent

Kate Wiltrout on Depression

The first signs appeared my second year in Seoul, when the Asian economic crisis and a Korean presidential election together created more work than I could feasibly handle. I went from writing for  two newspapers and doing occasional radio spots to stringing for  four papers and almost daily radio broadcasts. The day after a  former dissident unexpectedly won the presidential election, I       ended up with front-page stories in two newspapers on opposite sides of the globe -- one in Boston, the other Hong Kong....

I finished my last three months in Asia on a good note then  returned to Pennsylvania, planning to get a newspaper job stateside.  When my father was diagnosed with cancer, I delayed my search.   A few months later, my longtime boyfriend and I called it quits. Before I knew it, my mind had gotten off track again.

With no structure to my days, blackness overtook my thoughts.

For the first time in my life, reading was little solace. Every mediocre newspaper article taunted me. I paged through book after  book for answers and inspiration, to no avail. I went on long, cold walks and scratched for hours in my journal. Empty of everything, I rarely cried. When the house was empty, I would sit in my bedroom  and pray out loud, begging God for direction, for mercy. At the      most desperate moments, one line became a touchstone: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Read it all.

 

LEAC

I'm awaiting word from LEAC.  I'm awaiting their command to rebel against the evil warlords of ECUSA, who have submitted to the Gay Agenda [scary operatic music here].  [update - thanks Lynn!]

They have said that eighty percent of my parish would join: the former catholics with gay relatives and friends.  The anti-gay marriage men who approve of their children being magnanimous towards gay people.  The elderly women who adored the openly - very openly - gay organist.   But they are for leaving ECUSA.

I will begin preaching about the evils of homosexuality, the apostasy of the church every Sunday.

Lets see.  This sunday we've got a reading about the restoring of the kingdom after Cyrus and the feeding of the five thousand.  Hm.  I was going to preach about how we invite people into the parish, and how we are gathering the exiles, but I think, instead, I will preach about the gay agenda.

I don't really know what it is, but I think everyone will know. 

And its bad.

Very bad.

Whatever it is.

Making people gay, or something.  They might steal another excellent word for themselves.

I know.  At the end of every sermon, I will say, yes, Jesus saves.  But not if you accept the gay agenda.

And I know that my parishioners will cheer.

They will abandon their gay friends and hang out with Christian people.   

We will encourage our lesbian family to reconsider their ... pollution.  I will ask them not to come forth to communion until they reject the gay agenda.  Of course, they've told me that they don't get political, but I don't believe them.  I'm sure they are part of it.    As well as those single men who have started to appear in church.  Hm.  Dangerous, I think.

My former Sr. Warden will have to talk to his sibling about her sinfulness. 

And I know that my social worker and psychologist parishioners will have to find christian literature to back up their claims that homosexuality is normal.

And the old ladies who think we should be open and magnanimous will have to reconsider the teachings over the last 75 years of modernist christianity.

But 80 percent of them... they'll join me.

When I explain the gay agenda to them. 

My new friends in LEAC have nice ties.  They are the sort of people I want in my church.  Clean.  Pious.  Holy.  Friendly. 

And afraid.  Deeply afraid. 

Sarah dylan writes of this organization.

Muslims Converting To Christianity

I admit, I am inclined to applaud individuals who are the best representatives of their faith.  Granted, I think that the true faith, which may (or may not) be in most religions is one that recognizes the redemptive, healing, transformative power of Love.   My evaluation of other religions comes down to this.  I'm not a relativist, nor am I a universalist.  A religion can be based, for example, on the redemptive power of money.   So, as a matter of temperament, I'm not the sort who proselytizes, but the recent events in Afghanistan have helped me consider the incentives for Muslims to convert to Christianity.

I once baptized on person who grew up in an agnostic family in Turkey.  I hesitate to call her a Muslim.  She knew nothing about the Koran, and a little less about Christianity.  She knew, however, what Muslims think about Christians.  First, that we worship three Gods and second, that we are cannibals.  I said that the trinity was how we explain God's suffering, and Islam grew, in part, out of a dissatisfaction of having a God that shares in suffering.  I also remarked that the trinity affirmed that we knew God in our relationships.  As far as cannibalism, I remarked that all of society is based upon the cannibalizing, even metaphorically, of hidden victims.  Christianity attempts to reveal the hidden violence we avoid, with the hope that this will create peace. 

I baptized Alex in Korea.  He had lived in Kazakhastan, and had seen all the Russians leave.  He was concerned about the fundamentalism that was growing in Islam, and the hypocrisy he was witnessing.  He came, faithfully, to several bible studies.  When he was baptized we went to Tony Roma's ordered a big plate of ribs and he took out a fifth of whiskey.  He'd finally been liberated to eat pork and drink liquor.  I was sure that wasn't what I was teaching him, but he'd picked up a couple other messages, and perhaps the antinomian heresy, along the way. 

Of course, he was able to emigrate to Canada as a Christian from Kazakhastan, and I wonder if was made a bit easier by my writing letters to the Canadian embassy for him.

I think that if Christianity affirms its innate (although often ridiculed) non-violent urge, it will have a lot to offer people in countries where violence is normal.  I don't want to make the mistake of saying that Christians are more pacifistic than other people.  But peace is an intrinsic part of the teaching, in spite of the tribal impulses that lie at the heart of any cultural enterprise.  Alas, as long as we have invaded with weapons, our sin reveals us to be the hypocrites that our Lord has forgiven us for being. 

Korean Blogger

I lived in Korea for two years, and had a wonderful time serving as an instructor in Liturgical Theology and English at Sung Kong Hoe University.  I was vicar of the English Speaking mission at the cathedral as Luce Scholar.    I fell in love, made some excellent friends, and started dancing salsa there in a small club near Hong-ik university.  The Korean Anglican Church is very Anglo-Catholic and thoroughly justice oriented.  It played a substantial role in helping bring down the dictatorship, and has many social justice projects around the country.

I have now been reacquainted with Fr. Joseph Joo, who is now getting his doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union.  And he has a blog!  In the spirit of brotherhood with the Anglican Communion I am linking to him, although I can't read more than 10% of it.

Welcome Joseph!

Bill Moyers Speaks

Lecturing at Wake Forest University.  [Hi Lisa!]

....There are no victimless crimes in politics. The cost of corruption is passed on to the people. When the government of the United States falls under the thumb of the powerful and privileged, regular folks get squashed. We are dealing here with a vision sharply at odds with the majority of Americans. These are people who want to arrange the world for the convenience of themselves and the multinational corporations that pay for their elections.

With their fundamentalist medicine men twirling the bullroarers in the woods, they would turn America into their petri dish -- a replica of the Marianas, many times magnified: A society "run by the powerful, oblivious to the weak, free of accountability, enjoying a cozy relationship with government, thriving on crony capitalism," in the words of Al Meyeroff, who led a class-action suit in behalf of the worker on the Marianas and learned what they were up against.

Let this, too, sink in: If the corporate, political, and religious right have their way, we will go back to the first Gilded Age, when privilege controlled politics, votes were purchased, legislatures were bribed, bills were bought, and laws flagrantly disregarded -- all as God's will.

Choose This Day

Yesterday, after an LEM meeting and before dancing, I saw the video "Choose This Day" which, apparently, is being sent to many Wardens of the Episcopal Church. 

"Choose This Day" is a video meant to educate, warn, and inspire the laity to reaffirm their committment to the tradition of orthodox Christianity that believes a central aspect of God's word, as revealed in scripture, firmly separates holiness from same-sex genital activity.    Apparently it was not sent to priests, but mainly to wardens.  I can understand - Priests have been indoctrinated with a bit too much Bultmann (although, at Chicago it was Betz all the way.) and are untrustworthy fifth columnists due to their fancy M.Div degrees from apostate seminaries filled with PhDs from Union and Yale. 

They would have had a bit more sympathy if the video was warning us about the undocumented workers three blocks away.  I know that if they take over the church, half the church would leave.   But, that's the Gospel.  You preach it, and people leave.   

Art Blames passer-by

Sculpture accuses patrons of crimes.  Via

Radio Open Source Interview

I'm making a plug for myself - I may have a sentence or two on a delightful show called Open Source Radio, hosted by Christopher Lydon.  The general format had to do with God and evolution - are we hardwired to believe in God?

It's not really a question that I'm quite qualified to answer, but being on a radio show with Daniel Dennett, who is a wonderful philosopher, was just a bit too much of an excellent opportunity. 

Dennett looks a lot like my father, so I wonder if it is genetically demonstrable that big white men with beards are genetically inclined to be atheists.  Kropotkin, Marx, Dennett, de Leeuw.  I'm a short, more indian looking fellow, and I believe I got the God is Good gene.

It's possible.

But as far as my own faith goes, a theory about evolution doesn't really affect my daily work.  In fact, I don't think about evolution that much - although I think its absolutely true.  But I do have a regular sense of awe, appreciation and call that feels a lot like God.  I am fully aware that this could be part of my imagination.  And if I've evolved to have an imagination, then so be it. 

There might be concomitant political questions.  Does my religion required I feel differently about other religions?  Then the form of argument becomes a bit different.  These are properly settled and argued via other public institutions.  Sometimes religious institutions can't agree and state institutions have to get involved.

I'm comfortable being a "religious humanist."  And if human beings are inclined to believe in God, then why not?  The next question is what sort of religion is suitable for the proper, the creative, and the affirming use of our imaginations?

Sometimes I wonder, what would a religion that tried to mitigate the fanaticism of religion, that tried to put limits on the mimetic impulse of human beings, that said "religion can be a projection of our urge to slaughter and scapegoat others."   What would such a religion look like - that destroyed religion?  I admit, I have sometimes thought it looks a lot like a freer form of Catholic Christianity.  And that would be... Anglicanism.  ;)

I did offer a prayer on the show.  I will be doing mass, so if someone is able to listen to it and give me a critique, great!  I think, personally, I did poorly.

Mahoney on Immigration

Mahoney in the NYT.

[beautiful. Just beautiful.]

....As written, the proposed law is so broad that it would criminalize even minor acts of mercy like offering a meal or administering first aid.

Current law does not require social service agencies to obtain evidence of legal status before rendering aid, nor should it. Denying aid to a fellow human being violates a law with a higher authority than Congress — the law of God.

That does not mean that the Catholic Church encourages or supports illegal immigration. Every day in our parishes, social service programs, hospitals and schools, we witness the baleful consequences of illegal immigration. Families are separated, workers are exploited and migrants are left by smugglers to die in the desert. Illegal immigration serves neither the migrant nor the common good.

What the church supports is an overhaul of the immigration system so that legal status and legal channels for migration replace illegal status and illegal immigration. Creating legal structures for migration protects not only those who migrate but also our nation, by giving the government the ability to better identify who is in the country as well as to control who enters it.