Arius the Converted Presbyterian

So I’m grading papers for church history.  The question is on the 4^th Century Arian-Nicene controversy, where the matter of the nature of Christ was hotly debated.  A student writes that Arius “switched his faith to Presbyterianism,” a statement so absurd I can barely speak it without laughing.  Not only is it historically impossible (Arius lived in Egypt in the late third/early fourth century; Presbyterianism evolved from the Protestant Reformation, specifically having been crafted in the mid-16^th century in Scotland.), but it’s clearly a malapropism.  Arius was a presbyter, or church official.  Probably because they were rushing to get a paper done, possibly because they didn't understand the material -- for whatever reason, the student clearly associated the word “presbyter” with the “Presbyterian” denomination.

So Arius “switching his faith to Presbyterianism” was my joke for the day, until I realized it’s not at all funny.  As I spoke with the student (who balked at failing the exam and insisted I’d told them all they needed to do in order to pass was to footnote properly – which, of course, they didn’t do) as I spoke with the student I realized their focus was not on learning anything, nor on gaining any perspective, but solely on the grade they were to receive.

Which led me to wonder how many “preachers,” for whatever reason, fail to completely understand what they read and/or study?  How many, instead of learning an appropriate historical context, simply make stuff up?  When one considers the possibilities, Arius the Presbyterian is no longer humorous, but dangerous.  How many other absurdities come out of our mouths while in the pulpit?

The Arian-Nicene controversy had, at its core, concerns about the nature of Jesus.  Arius the Converted Presbyterian speaks to the nature of those who would preach the Gospel – are you truly filled with the Holy Spirit?  Has God truly inspired you to speak that Word, or does it simply “sound good,” or have a hook that “will preach?”  Does it in some other way appeal to our human senses, rather than to our spiritual realities?  Are you bringing us a Word from the Lord, or just telling us what you think or feel?

Arius’ thoughts about Christ (that the Logos was of a similar substance or homoiousia as God) were pronounced anathema, then accepted, then finally pronounced anathema by most Christians (although Mormons, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals (and a few of our Baptist brothers and sisters, if they are honest) still cling to the thought of two separate natures of Christ, or something other than “Fully human, fully Divine.”)  From those who considered Arius’ thoughts anathema, the Presbyterian church would evolve over a thousand years later.  In class, we like to point out that the Arian controversy went on for centuries, and at its core, the two factions were separated by an iota.  The fundamental difference was whether God and the Logos were of the Same substance (homo ousia) or a Similar substance (homoi ousia). 

As I look around and see more and more preachers performing inside the walls of their churches, and see more and people who are bound up by hunger and drugs and other forms of oppression (almost exclusively OUTSIDE the walls of the churches), I can’t help but wonder if their methods and actions will ultimately be considered orthodox or anathema.  I wonder about the power of the English letter "I" to keep the preachers separated from delivering the Good News to those who hunger and thirst for it?

Who knows? Perhaps they will all consubstantiate (or be sacramentally united) within Arius, the converted Presbyterian…

What I'm Eating Now

This is sorta random; a bit too long for a FB post, but something I want to document.  I've taken to using this blog as a de facto public electronic journal, so this posting is in that vein.

As I continue on the journey to optimum health and weight, I've finally enterado (or enterrado adentro*) the fact that results are as much about the fuel we put into the body as they are a reflection of the work we do with it.

So I'm probably in the process of upping my workouts to upwards of 8 hrs/week.  It's not just about the body; when I'm in classes, there's a constant struggle to exceed previously imposed limits.  That's as much mental as it is physical.  When I'm in the water or lifting, there's a focus, a clarity, and singularity of purpose that I welcome, even crave, but for which I find less and less time in this modern world full of distractions.

"...said the distracted woman."  Getting back to the point:  My weight and body fat are starting to move towards manageability, and not at the expense of my muscle mass.  I'm working out more, and am usually famished by the end of a two-hour session.  I've learned to carry bananas and yogurt for that quick fix, but need to have fast, healthy food on hand for when I get home.  Otherwise, I'd probably just do seamless, El Aguila, or some fast food chain, most of which would just defeat the purpose of having been in the gym.

When the weather's warm, I try to always have a big salad on hand, but I like to prep my food for the week, and am not very adept at storing cut veggies.  And if the salad's not pretty and fresh, I won't eat it, so tryna make a big salad doesn't always work.

I was surfing some vegan website recently and came across something that gave me the idea for my new staple food, which is what this post is about.  It's nutritious, quick, easy, and tasty, and I can make a big batch of it for the week.  It's basically greens and beans with some complex carbs thrown in.  The list of ingredients was originally just stuff I had in the fridge and needed to eat before it went bad; I spoze you could tweak this any way you want.

My pots always start with lots of garlic and onions.  I saute them in some EVOO, and add peppers, shallots -- whatever I have.  Then I add the greens.  First time around I think I used collards and kale, but tonite it was collards and spinach.  Remembering my friends in Brazil, I wash my bunches of greens, bunch or roll them up, and then slice or julienne the rolls, so I end up with strips of greens. I'm not chopping them, I'm slicing them horizontally across the leaves.  So I have this big mixture of collards and spinach, which I mix together again while washing again, and then add to the sauteing onions.   (I save part of the greens for making my Nutriblasts during the week, and find that cutting them cut into strips makes it a lot easier to get other stuff into the bullet.  But that's another digression.)

So we have onions/garlic and greens sauteing.  Last week I used some leftover cooked brown rice in this thing.  I was thinking that quinoa would be a better option, and this week decided to try some Goya product that is a quinoa/brown rice mixture.  While it serves the purpose, it is prepared food, and as such has way too much salt for my taste (another distracting aside:  when did salt become a food group rather than a taste enhancer?  What is it with putting salt on EVERY. FREAKING. THING?  Can we distinguish no taste but "salty?").  While the greens were sauteing, I prepared the quinoa/brown rice mixture mostly according to the package instructions, although I tend to add a bit more water because I don't like my quinoa too hard.  After the quinoa cooks, you're spozed to let it sit for a few minutes. During that time, I added the black beans to the greens, and when it had finished sitting, the quinoa mix.

It was so good I had to write a blog post about it.  As I said, it's quick, it's tasty, and I can now put it in the fridge for the rest of the week. If I want meat, I can add some of that leftover turkey; if I don't want meat, I can eat it as is.  When I come home hungry, all I need to do is nuke it a coupla minutes, and I have my green leafies, my complete protein, and my complex carbs.  That's worth writing about.,

And on that lovely note, my friends, I am turning in....


*"Enterar" is "to learn," but "enterrar" is "to bury."  At some point I've come to associate the notion of complete learning with "enterrando adentro," or "burying something inside yourself."  Not sure if it's an idiomatic expression or if I've mis-heard something and created my own malapropism.

Where Does It End?

The following article was written in August 2014 and published as a general submission in the August 2014 edition of 
"The Christian Index, The Official Organ of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church."
The expressed opinions are my own and not those of the CME Church.

While they are horrific, it's not just the constant killings of unarmed black men that's the problem. It's the consistent, systematic devaluation of the black person in American society. That's the problem. As unpopular as this position may be, I think a large part of that problem begins with us.  The internal forces that tear us apart: black on black crime, lack of education, spiritual malaise, complacency regarding social inequity - those forces leave us, as a people, weakened and an easy target for the external forces that would destroy us.  When we refer to our females as dogs and garden tools, and when our males kill one another over a misdirected glance, what message do we send about the value we place on our own black lives? When we constantly assault and fill our senses with messages of black people as lawless gangsters and thugs, what message do we deliver about the value of our black lives?  If we place no value on black lives, and if we are not collectively appalled and called to action by the non-publicized atrocities that occur in our communities EVERY DAY, then how much integrity is in our protests when an outsider defiles or murders one of our own? Have we not done or tolerated the same thing on a regular basis?

In no way is the intent here to blame the victims, nor to justify, minimize nor diminish the state of siege under which Americans of color often find themselves.  Rather, I am suggesting that people of color need not always assume the attitude of victim, no matter the external circumstances.  I’m suggesting we begin to recognize and avail ourselves of the existing opportunities in a society that revolves around power. We as a people HAVE power, but we give it away bit by bit, leaving ourselves open to be ravaged by those who can or simply will do so.  America, for the most part, is driven by economics.  African-Americans are projected to have a collective buying power upwards of $1,000,000,000,000 – one TRILLION dollars – in 2015.  Yet corporate advertisers spend little time, money, or effort marketing to the African American community – they know they’ll get their share of that money whether they advertise to that market or not. They know our collective memory is short:  we filled the streets protesting the Trayvon Martin injustice, but still flocked to Florida’s shores for vacations and continue to drink its orange juice for our breakfast.  We know that people who neither know nor care about our communities control the corporations that produce the media which  projects negative stereotypes of our community, but we download the tracks, buy the CDs, sing the songs, and go to the movies, anyway.  As long as we fail to use our collective strength, we send the message to others that all is well and there is no reason to change.  Why should an advertiser pay for a share of the African American market if statistics show they will likely get a share of it without even acknowledging African Americans in their marketing?  When the taking of black lives is met with the collective strength of the black community, perhaps then we will see some sustained change.  Why is it that the shootings in Norwalk, CT precipitated Congressional hearings, but the genocide in our communities is ignored?  When there is a connection between the taking of black lives and the deprivation of the collective black buying power, I believe a shift will begin to occur. 

“Why do ‘they’ do it?” doesn’t seem to be the question.  “Why do we allow it to continue?” or “How do we stop this?” seem more appropriate questions.  I’m concerned about a continual outward gaze in our communities.  I’m concerned that when injustice against us is exposed, that we always look to the oppressors (as if somehow they could be expected to behave any way other than oppressively).  Why must we wait until tragedy happens before we act, and why must we only focus our attention outward, at the injustices that have been committed against us?  This question in no way minimizes the specific tragedies that occur far too often; the question attempts to get at a larger issue.  What steps can we, as followers of Christ and as people of color, take to affirm the sanctity of black life?  What changes can we make in our pulpits?  In our Sunday Schools?  In our economic endeavors?   In our Local, State, and National politics?

As a resident of major urban center, I am routinely infuriated not only with racism, but with the hypocrisy and ignorance that accompany it.  Born and bred in the rural south, racism has always been a fact of my life; it's a system one attempts to learn to navigate, with the hope of ultimately dismantling or overthrowing it. Racism was there when we were the first kids in town integrating an elementary school. But the love, the pride and the support we got in our homes and our communities was SO much more powerful than the racists, even when they attacked our homes in the middle of the night, and even when they physically confronted us. No, everyone didn't live through the skirmishes and the physical confrontations, but when one person occasionally fell, others sprang up to take their place. We were a people united -- we couldn't be defeated.  When we thought we couldn’t stand, the wisdom, knowledge, and strength of our community supported us. We thought of ourselves as trees planted by the waters, and we would not be moved. 

I'm not minimizing the wrong others do, nor the effects thereof.  I have come to believe that it is not the goal of people of color to attempt to change others’ racist views.  It is the goal of people of color to instill and reinforce the truth among ourselves, despite what the dominant culture may think.  It is the business of people of color to acknowledge, affirm, and act to honor the sanctity of ALL our lives.  Racists will say and do racist things; that’s their nature. But others’ racism need not define us.   Attention should not be called to the plight of people of color in the US only when a wrong is committed against a person of color; that is a form of giving away our power. Rather, people of color would be well served to systematically and routinely celebrate our rich heritage; our many accomplishments; our communally undergirding, if disparate, faith traditions; and our nearly superhuman progress by surviving and thriving in a strange land.  We would be well served to move forward continuing to build on that foundation.  We as a people have so much to celebrate, so much to be thankful for!!  We have myriad reasons to march and celebrate without atrocities being committed, and reasons come together on one accord other than when something horrible has happened.  I'm looking to see more of the right we do for ourselves. I think that's a better place to start, and not reactively, not necessarily proactively, but simply because we love ourselves that much. 

A Gift

It was late summer, 2003.  I’d just had a party celebrating my new coop, graduation from seminary, and another birthday.  One of my dreams in NYC was to live near green grass and trees, in a doorman building.  Not only did I get that, but this place was catty-corner from a park that had a SWIMMING POOL!!! There was only one logical course of action:  to go there and swim.

Whether normal or note, massaging the breasts when changing is an habitual, and possibly life-saving act for me.  I’d had the routine mammogram several years earlier when I turned forty, but found it so painful that I vowed never to go through it again.  But here I was 7 years later and there was something in my booby that didn’t feel right.

It took three weeks to get an appointment for a mammogram, even with a lump.  I think I saw a surgeon during that time; I remember picking her because her name was Faith.  While she thought the wait a bit unusual, she reassured me that it was “probably nothing,” and that 3 weeks were not likely to make a difference if it did turn out to be something.

It did, of course, turn out to be something.  There was a cancer growing in my breast, one that required two or three surgeries just to get it all with good margins, another two surgeries to get I think the sentinel node and then all the lymph nodes; and a fifth (unsuccessful) surgery to attempt to implant a PICC line for me to receive chemo.  I ended up getting the chemo with a new IV stick every other week for six months, followed by six weeks of daily radiation therapy (one dose, they said, was equivalent to spending a week at the beach), followed by five years of oral chemotherapy.  During treatment, I lost my taste for all food except watermelon, mango, and pineapple; I lost every follicle of hair on my body;  I learned that yes, I can get dry heaves; and I learned that sometimes you have to take your medicine.  I learned that breast cancer is the only one for which there is no “cure;”  other cancers are considered to be in remission after 5 years, but breast cancer is equally likely to return at any time.

During my treatment, two coworkers were diagnosed with cancer, both after me. One was diagnosed also with breast cancer and ended up with a radical double mastectomy; another was diagnosed with stomach cancer and subsequently died. A cousin who had struggled with breast cancer for years also died during this time.  All three of these women had offered love, care, and support to me upon my diagnosis, none of us knowing they would experience outcomes far more severe than mine.

At first diagnosis, I was really mad with God. “What happened?!?”  I screamed as I punched a wall.  “I’m spozed to be your girl! How can you do this?!?!”   At that point, the sacrifice of Jesus was brought to my remembrance.  “Yeah, but I’m not Jesus.  I’m me, and I don’t do the whole pain and suffering thing well.  You KNOW that.”  And then I was gently reminded that “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”  I decided right then that I didn’t want to suffer.  So I didn’t.

All the above is background.  People often remark on my joie de vivre, my zest for life.  While I don’t choose to advertise it, my life is probably about as bland and as normal as anyone else’s, jumping out of planes and ziplining through the rainforest notwithstanding.  I’m always aware that each day could be my last – not necessarily from the cancer, but because I live in NY City.  But at some point during the months of surgeries and chemotherapy, I wrestled with questions about quality of life.  Is it worth it to be brought literally to the point of death and kept there for a while to kill a parasitic mutant inside your body?  Or is it perhaps better to live each day to the fullest, and be prepared to go Home whenever one is called?

I suppose the answer is a matter of personal preference.  I don’t know that I’d choose to go through chemotherapy again; if a more aggressive form of cancer were to return, the likelihood of my undergoing the regimen would likely decrease.  I say that, but at the same time, I’m very careful to maintain top shelf health insurance, just in case I need it.

All of which is hypothetical.  Though I'm not very good at it, I do try to live in the moment.  I'm a bit better at my attempts to live as healthily as I can (I’m not rigid and there are no absolutes; but it’s a lifestyle that actively embraces life). I recognize each day as a precious gift from God, and attempt to make the most of it.  I recognize that, even in the midst of physical, spiritual, psychological, emotional, financial, romantic, or any other kind of mess into which I could conceivably get myself – in the midst of all that, at the center of all that, is a God who is working things out, and through Whom all things work together for my good, given that I love Him and am responding to the call according to His purpose. 

There’s a lot to unpack there.  In a nutshell, sometimes the things I want don’t work out because they’re not the things to which God has called me.  And sometimes the most bizarre seeds get planted in my head or elsewhere and work out in equally unlikely ways, ways that could only, in retrospect, have been orchestrated by God. 

Like being ecstatically happy, then finding you have cancer,  and then leading worship in the midst of treatment, finding a way to encourage the kids who are freaked out by your bald head.  And though I’m not a fan of tats, I thought it was interesting that one of the kids decided to get the words “Trust God” as his first tattoo.  I like to think they’ve seen me trust even in the midst of uncertainty, and that they are able to trust a bit, themselves.  I’m not naturally a very trusting person; only an omnipotent God could use me to exemplify trust to a child.

But that’s the gift.  It is a gift to be used fully and completely, to pour oneself out in the doing of God’s work, not because of some expectation of reward in this life or in the life to come, but simply because one has been afforded the privilege to do so.  This thing we call life is a gift, and to live it to the honor and glory of God is quite the privilege.  And though I regularly fall miserably short of the mark, I’m quite grateful for the gift.  

Final Full Day in Costa Rica

Today was my final full day in Costa Rica.  Today is May Day, and Danny, a tour guide, went to downtown San Jose to be in a parade with other workers, including his fellow tour guides.  I slept in, as did Sophi, who didn’t have to work today.

So about 10:15 we headed to the hotel where expediciones tropicales was to pick me up.  We chatted about the fact that yesterday when Danny dropped me off, he’d met her old friend.  But we thought she wouldn’t be working today, so Sophi dropped me off and I went inside.  The friend was, of course, at the desk.  I called and texted Sophi “can you please come back to the hotel?!?”  I didn’t tell her why.

She showed up in a few minutes and I waved her inside.  She laid eyes on her friend (her former best friend with whom she hadn’t spent time in several years), and they started hugging and celebrating.  It was great!!

At that moment, of course, the driver showed up, and we took off.  We did manage to stop by the wall and take pictures of the sign that says “Antes de ser viejo y sabio, hay que ser joven y estupido” (Before you can be old and wise, you have to be young and stupid).  So I got that picture and we took off through San Jose.  Got a couple of shots of the ever-present McDonald’s ads (I don’t think I’ve been anywhere in the world without seeing at least one of the following: the Golden Arches, McDonald’s, or Burger King.  All three, along with Pizza Hut, Tony Roma’s, Subway, and I don’t know what else, are all in Costa Rica).  We drove past the Central Valley, and I got some shots of the soccer stadium (the park beside it used to be the airport, but as the area grew, the airport was moved to Alajuela, and the former airport site became the site of the soccer stadium and a park. 

We drove up to the Barceló San Jose Palacio, an apparently luxury hotel, where we waited for a transfer from another group. They arrived, and we headed up to Poasito where we would make the final transfers, some going to the waterfalls/botanical gardens/zoo, and others going to Dokka/Grecia/Sarchi.  On the way, I had very nice conversation with a young man named Tomas.  He’s a biomedical engineer and travels all through Latin America.  He loves animals, so I showed him my dolphin, parrot and stingray pics and talked to him about visiting Jamaica.  He thinks he’ll do it.

We got up to Poasito and we all split up. Our group was mostly Spanish speaking:  A mother and adult daughter; a mother and adult son (Rodolfo, who gave me a pin that is a Mexican flag) from DF, Mexico; a woman who’s Guatemalan but has lived in Nicaragua for 30 years; two friends, one from Birmingham and one a retired professor who’s just moved from Boston to NYC, and me.

Before leaving the Central Valley, we’d passed by a park with a big statue of a coffee bean.  Coffee undergirds much of this economy, and I forget how much is grown here, but 99% of it is exported. We got to the Dokka plantation.  We saw the Arabica plants, saw the coffee picking buckets, saw the Eucalyptus trees and banana trees that are also grown on the plantation, and saw lots of coffee beans on the tree.  They are still green now; they will turn red when ripe.

Once ripened, they go through a process of being sifted ad skinned and washed and air-dried and toasted.  We saw a big bodega (in the traditional, warehouse sense).  We looked at the various stations for each of this and got to see the different types of beans and the effects of different kinds of drying.  We went to the roasting room where we saw the coffee being roasted and packaged (all by hand).

After the coffee tour, we had another typical Costa Rican lunch.  After that, we got to look at souvenirs, then headed down the mountain to Grecia.

In Grecia is a church made entirely of metal.  The story goes that the coffee barons told the citizens of the town that if they wanted citizenship, they had to build a church in the town.  They built a wooden church which burned down.  Then they built a stone church but it was destroyed in an earthquake.  Finally, they had a metal church shipped in from Belgium.  It arrived in pieces, and it was years before they got someone who could put it together.  But they did, they painted it with some sort of red Rustoleum-like paint, and it’s been standing ever since (don’t know when it went up; think it was the late 1800s).  We went in to worship and take pictures, and then I went to a park and took pics of a guy building a replica of the church.  Leaving the church and heading down the mountain we passed through sugar cane processing plants, but didn’t stop.

Our final stop was at Sarchi.  Sarchi is where they make oxcarts.  The oxcart is sort of a national symbol of Costa Rica.  In the late 1800s, they were used to transport coffee and sugar cane.  We saw a monument to the Oxcart, which was a giant oxcart in a public square.  Across from there was another church, so we went in to worship and take pics again.  Next we went to the actual place where they make the carts.  It was a holiday, but there were still craftsmen around, doing both the making and the decorating. We bought gifts and headed home.  Rodolfo and his mom invited me to Mexico.

As I travel around, I wonder why it is that we Americans make so much money, but I see so few of us on vacations.  I wonder why so many people from “poorer” countries can afford to vacation for 2 and 3 weeks at a time, but we often can’t?  I wonder if it has to do with priorities?  I don’t know, but do know that I’m going to start saving now for next year.

You can find pics from the day here:
(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202870766824041.1073741878.1048146180&type=1&l=ec0f18d16d)

Costa Rica, Day 2: Ziplining at San Luis

Costa Rica, Day 2

Not much to talk about yesterday.  We got up, had breakfast, and Danny took me to the hotel to meet the pickup for the tour.  The hotel receptionist was a friend of his daughter.  We all chatted for a few minutes, then the van came to  take us for the 1.5 hour ride to San Luis.  There was a father from Oklahoma  (works for Ralph Lauren) and his schoolteacher daughter from Kansas (teaches special-needs children, also does hair on the side). Later on we picked up a woman from LA, but since she sat way in the back and I sat way in the front, we didn’t have the opportunity to talk much.

While we were driving from Escazu (where Danny lives) to Santa Ana (where the LA lady lives), we passed by the house of the US Ambassador to Costa Rica.  It's a big, walled-off structure (when we returned in the afternoon, we would see a motorcyle accident in front of it).  When our driver pointed out that the US Ambassador lived there, the father from Oklahoma asked "The whole staff?!?"  It's that big, that the whole embassy staff could probably live there....Danny says they have Fourth of July parties there for the US expat community and include a Marine Corps band.

When we go to the San Luis, the woman from LA met an Indian guy from NYC who’d been on the tour with her the previous day.  He was with another group of 4 more people; they were from Puerto Rico.  So we went, the 8 of us, to do ziplining.  Not only do they allow the use of the gopro, but they had special helmets for it.  The mount on them fitted a newer model than my camera so the fellow secured my straps, buckled us all up, and we were ready to go.

It. Was. Awesome.  First of all, they did the braking for you, which was nice. We had the rollers with two hand grips, so all you had to do was hold on, and you didn’t have to worry about your speed at all.  You could also lean back a little more than on the zipline at Miguel Antonio.  The zipping was fairly standard;  we did a coupla baby zips, 40-50 or so meters, maybe 5 meters off the ground, then we went on to the real lines.  They increased in height and length as we went, and for the last two or three, we actually had to subir the mountain.  Of note:  about halfway through, we did a Tarzan swing.  This is not a zipline, but a swing.  They strap you in, raise you up to give you a good pushoff, and you go swinging through the tops of the trees.  It was amazing, although I was always looking up and didn’t get very good video of it.  The 3^rd or 4^th to last line was over a river.  It was 4 or 500 meters long and a very scenic view.  The second to last was one they called the drunken horse.  It was maybe 100, 150 meters long but the two guides on each end shook the rope so you had a bouncy ride.  That was also fun.  Somewhere along the way, we climbed the mountain to a big surprise:  they had a water dispenser ready for us, which we appreciated!  Then we were off to the last line, the Superman line.  It’s over a 522 meter long stretch; I think it’s 47 meters high, and you get strapped into this apron-like garment,  you get up on a table, then a plank and raise into a downward dog so they can buckle you in.  Once you’re in, you just lie down and enjoy the ride.  It was fabulous. 

Video here: (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202864455506262&l=8455696336015717429)

And here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202862974069227&l=1567077544098907767

(this is the same zip.  The first one is them recording it; the second one is recorded from my helmet cam.)  You should be able to see them by clicking on the blue hyperlink, but I've included the full address just in case.

Here is another video; seems to be just a short line:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202863296997300&l=8837041810299161196

And, finally, here are some pictures from the trip:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202863446121028.1073741877.1048146180&type=1&l=db84db5528

There are more which I may add after I get home:  scenery on the way up, a big logging truck in front of us, coffee farms, the food we ate, etc.  Interestingly, at lunch I sat across from the two folk from Kansas.  The daughter, the teacher, Facetimed her students back home.  The three of us had a conversation about the challenges of doing ministry in an increasingly skeptical and apathetic world; I was surprised to see that the skepticism and apathy are spreading even to the Bible Belt.  But we encouraged one another and praised God together, which was good.

Lunch (black beans and rice, salad, fried yucca, your choice of meat, and mango juice) was over fairly quickly.  The driver had said we could possibly stop at a butterfly farm on the way back, but after we ended, everyone wanted to buy CDs, and then it started to pour, so that didn’t happen. I had an awesome day, though!  Now about to go do my last tour before leaving…

Costa Rica, Day 1

Last night I was so tired I completely knocked out.  Head hit the pillow and I was out.  That never happens.  It felt good to come, not to a hotel, but to my friend’s home.  It’s good to see his younger daughter,  Sophi, all dressed up and going to her new job as an attorney.

We got up and by 10 Danny had cooked breakfast, we’d done laundry and run some errands.  We got me a Claro sim card, taking advantage of a special that gives unlimited data and texting for three days (the amount of time I remain here), and doubling the ₡1,000 minimum recharge to ₡2,000.  So for ₡1500 (about $3.00; ₡500 for the card and ₡1000 for the recharge), I have unlimited service while I’m here.  It will expire after 3 months, or I can recharge it for about $1.00 a month and keep a Costa Rican phone number.  Now I have a Costa Rican number, a Jamaican number and, somewhere, an Egyptian number.  The cost of the Jamaican and the Costa Rican sim cards combined is slightly over what ATT charges to ACTIVATE international service, so I think this is the solution that will work for me.  Recharge the SIM on the internet before I go, and have service the minute I set down.  By way of comparison, ATT charges $0.50 per text with international service.  The Costa Rican and Jamaican costs are about 10 cents per text.  It may seem trivial, but pennies make dollars.  Developing the practice of saving where I can allows me to squirrel money away to take trips like this.

Danny is a tour guide, so he always wants me to see and do things in Costa Rica.  I’ve pretty much done all the touristy things, but I wanted to go ziplining, so we went by Expediciones Tropicales.  I started with their online brochure and picked out two things:  the Doka, Grecia, and Sarchi tour (coffee and sugar cane plantations, an old church, butterfly farm, and oxcart factory); and the Monte Zurqui Canopy Tour.  We went by their office only to find that the Monte Zurqui Canopy Tour no longer exists – it’s now enhanced and is the Canopy San Luis Tour.  It includes something like 12 zips with 18 platforms, a superman line, and a rappelling line.  I was excited, but this is the end of the tourist season, and they didn’t have enough people to do the trip.  So I booked the Doka, Grecia, Sarchi tour (which now has only a drive through the coffee plantations, and no butterfly farm).  They gave us a couple of names of other  zipline tours, one of which is close to one of Danny’s other properties, so we left his number with them in case something opened up, and decided we’d check out the other tours.

We ran some errands, including a trip to the grocery store where I bought food/snacks for the next three days for under $20.00.  We got something called peibaye, which is a date but isn’t sweet and looks and tastes like a small yam.  That’s my new food for the trip, I guess.  We went out to lunch, trying first at a Chinese joint in San Jose then moving to a Columbian place in Escazu.  Before we’d finished, Expediciones Tropicales called to let me know that they would, in fact, be doing a zipline tour tomorrow.  Not sure how that’s going to work out since this is the rainy season and it is POURING right now, but I’m excited, and they will allow me to use my gopro. So we shall see.  The zipline tour is scheduled for tomorrow and the coffee plantation tour for Thursday.  I leave on Friday morning.

On the trip from Jamaica to Costa Rica, I wore these Tommie’s Copper compression thingies.  They’re supposed to be for my knees, but they don’t seem to do much good.  They did, however, manage to really irritate my skin, causing first something some kind of irritation that turned into some nasty looking bumps.  My friend Danny went into his garden, cut some aloe vera, and came to put it on my sores. Honestly, they don’t make friends like this any more!!

I’ve just transferred my dolphin pics from cd and dvd to my hard drive.  I can never figure out how to upload a dvd to youtube though, so that may have to wait til I’m home. This has been an amazing trip. (note to self:  take the external hard drive tomorrow and see if they can load the pics directly onto it rather than onto a dvd.)

 Prayerfully, I’ll be energized to go back to work.  It seems we got the last contract we bid on, and they’re asking me for budget numbers.  That’s always something worth interrupting your vacation.  

My Adventures in Jamaica

So Annual Conference was over, and the delegation left to return to the US.  I’d found a MoBay hotel on Expedia.  It’s the Wexford, it’s on Gloucester Street in Mobay, it’s Jamaican-owned, and many Jamaicans seem to patronize it.  (As a matter of fact,while writing this, in the lobby, I ran into Dr. Marjorie Lewis, the President of United Theological College of the West Indies, and one of our Annual Conference guests!  She's been staying here with her mother).   I talked with another guy who got it on Expedia,  His rate was higher than mine, but they were both under $100/day, with taxes included.  That includes breakfast, a pool, access to a private beach area/water park, and wifi in the lobby.  He is from Martinique, and we both noted that the hotel is Jamaican-owned and patronized largely by Jamaicans.  It is fairly well appointed; slate veranda, faux marble lobby, a decent elevator, wood trim,  wood flooring.  A step up in quality and down in price from our Annual Conference hotel.  I don’t know if there would ever be an Annual Conference in MoBay, but if there were, I would certainly recommend this hotel.  It’s right beside the Pelican restaurant, a place to which Bishop Reddick treated us last year, and that is right beside a Burger King, for all those who miss American food when traveling abroad. Additionally, there's a Chinese restaurant on the other side of the hotel.  It's secure, and has easy access to shopping in MoBay, including a crafts area.

I hired a driver and took some time to explore.  I made another genius move and contracted with the driver, someone I knew, before contacting an American who was familiar with the environment.  Big mistake.  While the driver told me he’d have to rent a car and I’d have to pay for the rental and for gas (which decreased the amount I paid him), the tank was on E and he filled it up.  We used between a quarter and a half tank of gas.  So I’m wondering if he used the rest of the gas for himself personally or what?  Not a big deal, but it added to my out of pocket cost,  and when I told someone who’d done it before how much I agreed to pay him, and then when I found one of the places I was going to would have given me a round-trip ride for a fraction of what  I paid him – well, I decided to make sure I got my money’s worth.  I didn’t choose to renegotiate because I choose to keep my word; next time I’ll just be wiser, even with people I trust. And I have to say that the guy was a GREAT driver/tour guide, threw in a couple of extra sites, got me some local fruit, fronted me money when I had no Jamaican dollars or small US bills – he was great and did everything I wanted, I just think I paid for an extra half tank of gas and I don’t know why.

So. The plan was to go to 9 Mile, Bob Marley’s birthplace/resting place, and then to swim with dolphins.  On the way to 9 Mile, we stopped at Discovery Cove, the place where Columbus first landed in Jamaica.  I took pics of and with a lot of 15^th Century items, and then we were on our way.  We passed by huge ships processing bauxite (a raw material for aluminum), and by the big cruise ships.  He showed me lots of mountain communities, including communities where people have no water and have to collect water for the whole town in big reservoirs.  He showed me yam farms and how the farmers have them to grow up on poles.

Finally we arrived a 9 Mile.  It’s up a mountain.  On the way in, you see the school that Bob Marley’s mom built.  The road to 9 Mile is lined with people begging for money.  Once inside the complex, you have to pay a $20.00 entrance fee for a “tour.”  The tour is a bunch of stoned (I swear they were high; Gary says they weren’t) Rastas making dumb jokes and stretching out what should be a 20 minute photo op into a painful hour of attempting to make Bob Marley into a saint.  Do’t get me wrong, I love Bob, and there was a time when I loved smoking weed.  When I smoked weed, though, if I offered it to you and you said no, I was like “Cool.  More for me.”  These folks offered you weed literally every 20 yards, and after a while it was no longer novel, it was just annoying.  I couldn’t help but wonder if we Christians are as annoying in our presentation of the Gospel.  Do we make it relevant and appealing to those to whom we offer it, or is our attitude simply “here.  Do this.  You need it.  It’s good for you.”  Because that latter attitude doesn’t work. 

So you see the house where he was born, you go up the hill and see the place where his maternal grandparents are buried, you go up the hill some more (or maybe this was below) and see his albums, you see a room with his mother’s bed in it.  Then at the top of the hill (I think this is before his mother’s bed), you have to take off your shoes.  You see what used to be their kitchen, you see the meditation rock upon which he used to sit and write songs, you see his mother’s mausoleum, and you see his mausoleum.  The spaces around his mausoleum in particular are very tight;  I saw a fellow in a wheelchair being wheeled up the mountain and felt bad for him, as there’s no way his chair can fit around the mausoleum.  The weirdest thing about it was that inside Bob’s mausoleum no pictures or video are allowed, no alcohol or cigarettes are allowed but you can smoke all the weed you want.  No one in our group chose to do that, but still the stench of old weed permeated the structure.  There was a time when I loved the smell of weed, and when my own house probably smelled like that.  Thankfully, that time is long gone

So that, along with incessant offers to smoke weed, two gift shops, a group of drummer/musicians (I often find myself wondering if Bob Marley is so revered because he’s the only Rastaman who can actually hold a tune…), and a whole lot of weak, quasi-narcissistic banter about Rastafarianism was 9Mile.  Glad I did it.  Never have to do it again.

From 9 Mile, we made it to Dolphin Cove.  I was spozed to be there at 2, but the swim didn’t start til 2:30.  We actually got there about 1:45, but there still wasn’t time to do anything else before the swim.  I did the same swim as last year.  I toyed with the idea of swimming with two dolphins, but wasn’t sure how it worked.  I think I’m going to try that next time, though.  So I did my dolphin swim, watched a little bit of the shark show, and went snorkeling while waiting to hold a stingray.  I held the stingray, and by the time I finished, realized I’d lost my key while snorkeling.  The shark guys said they’d look for it and they took their snorkels and started searching.  I wanted to go in and help them, but the folk on deck wouldn’t let me.  After a while, I decided to go ask the locker attendant if they had a master key.  Of course the person with the master key was off site…

At which point the diving guys showed up with my key!!!  That may have been the highlight of both our days.  The signs said “No Tipping,” but he went above and beyond, and I showed my gratitude.  Afterwards, I walked through the park and took some more pictures with the birds.  Last year, there were several birds on me and in my arms.  This year, I just held Mango while he kissed me.  So I kissed fish and birds on this trip.  Maybe I can get some monkeys in Costa Rica.

While worshipping with Good News CME Church in Jamaica, I noticed they don’t use the CME Hymnal, they use a hymnal called Redemption Songs.  I noticed the ladies with it (probably have a picture of it), and immediately recall Bob Marley’s song of the same name.  In that song, he’s talking about freeing oneself mentally, by using Redemption Songs.  (Marley, incidentally, was buried with a soccer ball, a Bible, and a spliff.  Maybe something else, but that’s what  I remember.  While his theology appeared to be Rastafarian (the union of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba produced the line from which the Messiah comes,  and that Messiah is, I believe, an Ethiopian head of state.  Or something like that.  It’s like the Kebra Negast, but with weed).  While his theology appeared to be Rasta, he certainly revered the Bible.  It’s not a big stretch to think that this book, Redemption Songs, containing hymns based on Biblical passages, would be the tool he thought of as emancipatory.  That just blows me away!!!! 

So of course I had to get a copy of the hymnal.  That’s the one thing I would have bought on 9Mile, but it wasn’t there. So Gary took me into Ocho Rios and we found a bookstore, but they didn’t have it.  They directed us to another bookstore, which was closed.  He asked them to open up, they did, they had the book, and they sold it to me!!! (See why I can’t be too upset for paying him a little extra?  The guy is good.).  We had patties and then headed back to MoBay.  He stopped a couple of times for me to  get pictures of sunsets.  And he must have noticed that I like trying new things:  As we were leaving MoBay, everyone was asking about sugar cane, so I bought a bag (it was $1.00) and we cut it up so whoever wanted to could try it.  Gary stopped on the side of the road and got this really cool fruit called jackfruit.  It’s interesting looking, and it was very tasty.  He’s a good tour guide – show me new and interesting things, teach me about your home, and give me photo ops.

When I can get to a pc with a DVD drive, I will put the dolphin pictures here.

The rest of the pictures from the day can be found here.  Again, you should be able to click on the blue hyperlink, but if that doesn't work, just cut and paste the text below:

Mobay at Sunset:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202828451286179.1073741872.1048146180&type=1&l=234eeca66e)

"Discovery" Cove and 9 Mile:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202835712067694.1073741874.1048146180&type=1&l=d620b1b204)

My pics from Dolphin Cove and with Mango the parrot:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202835786389552.1073741875.1048146180&type=1&l=80e9243598)

And now I’m off to Costa Rica! Pura Vida!

As I leave, some thoughts on the Jamaica Annual Conference

In a few hours I leave Jamaica, after a wonderful week here.  Last year, I blogged daily on my experiences; this year I found myself more caught up in those experiences and less inclined to step back and look at them critically.  I do have some thoughts about the church experience, but will come to that later.

I was writing this while sitting in the lobby of the Wexford hotel, tuning in to the livestream of Carter Tabernacle CME Church (www.cartertabernaclecme.org).  While the internet access here does not appear to be high speed, which causes the feed to cut in and out, I didn’t have to put on anything other than shorts and sandals.  That’s important to me. While The Church of the Inner Spring or its cyber derivatives are never a substitute for f2f fellowshipping with the Saints,  this was a delightful way to worship while on vacation.

Where to begin? We got here on Easter Monday, and aside from the airline losing one member’s luggage, our arrival was relatively uneventful.  (I’m seeing right now that I should write every day.  There are SO many experiences that don’t get recorded if I don’t write them down at the time).  The members of the delegation were:

(I'll have to come back and list the members and churches after I get them from the organizers.  I dare not do it from memory lest I leave someone out...)

Some of them were with the group last year; some had come in previous years; some were new.

My notes say that I’m first to talk about the wonderful hospitality shown us by our hosts at Good News CME Church, and indeed the entire Jamaica Annual Conference.  Every day we were treated to a family-style feast featuring curried chicken, curried goat, fried chicken, escovietch fish, peas and rice, and salad  This open-air church always had bottles of ice-cold water and other cold beverages available for us to drink.  Our Jamaican hosts always made sure that we, the visitors, were fed first, and offered us the comfort of dining in their newly built Steph's Place, an addition to the Pauline B. Grant Early Childhood Education building.  The namesake, Stephanie Crispinelli, perished in the Haiti Earthquake and her family set up a foundation to assist people in developing countries.  I think it merits highlighting that they chose the Pauline B. Grant Early Childhood Education center, under the auspices of the Good News CME Church, as a recipient of that funding.  The building is newly-constructed, and can serve as a multi-purpose facility.

I may be out of line for these comments, but this is my personal blog with my personal views.  From what I can gather, the CME Church in Jamaica appears to be growing via both planting and assimilating/converting.  I think the number of people may be greater via the latter method, while the number of charges increases via the former.  Either way, the people, coming from a wide diversity of spiritual and theological backgrounds, have to be taught the basic tenets of Methodism, and the history and polity of the CME Church.  Much of this happens at Annual Conference.  Every interaction has the potential to be a teaching moment.

I’ve only visited one of our CME Churches in Africa, but the recent influx of several hundred thousand new members there suggests to me that the situation is similar in the Motherland.  Which is why I believe there is a need to put SEASONED leaders in our overseas assignments, as these leaders must teach new converts AND navigate a myriad of cultural factors. (I’m can't even comment on the implications of sending the Bishop elected with the least number of votes to the Motherland.   Between that and the indigenous African Bishop, what message does that send about how we regard Africa?  And have we no thoughts for expanding into  the rest of the world?  What will happen then?  Will we have an indigenous European Bishop?  An indigenous Asian, South American, or Australian one?  What does the term “overseas missions” mean to people who live outside the US, people we regard as potential recipients of our missionary efforts?  I totally understand the North-American-centrism of our US-originated  Christian denominations; I just think it might be time to re-think it.  And I’m not talking just about the CME church.  OK, end rant.)

Some members of the USA group were particularly taken with one chorus sung at Good News: 

I want to go to holiness.

I’m tired of the lukewarm-ness

I’m tired of the poor conditions.

I want to go to holiness.

It sort of caught fire with us, and we found ourselves spontaneously breaking into  the chorus on the bus on our last trip away from the Conference.  It’s quite a fitting song.  Not just in Good News CME, not just in the CME Church, but in many of my interactions here in Jamaica, I see a fervor for holiness, a thirst for knowledge of the True and Living God.  I see a marked contrast between some of us who have so many material things, but who can’t be bothered to pray too often or too long – between us and between those who are willing to gather in a borrowed location (or even in changing locations) just to come together and praise the Lord.

In the Annual Conference, I sat immediately behind the Pastors’ bar.  When they were making their reports, I noticed the report of a man who has Bible Study only once a month, but when he has it, the majority of his members come.  It seems to me that things such as sacrifice, perseverance, and endurance here are more than just concepts:  They are very real phenomena, very real in a Third World sort of way, which is a completely different scale than those phenomena in a First World kind of way.  (The fact that I use the terms “Third World” and “First World” rather than “Developing Countries” and “Industrialized Countries” highlights not only the differences, but some of the attitudes that make those differences so pervasive.)

The Annual Conference began on Tuesday morning.  Like every other Annual Conference in our church, there were morning devotions, and then the presentation of the Bishop.  Don’t know if it’s because he’s a Dukie or because he’s SUCH a Methodist, but Bishop Reddick has a clear and logical organizational style that’s been missing in our Zion.  I didn’t take notes on all the sermons and Bible studies presented, but I did note that the opening teaching was from John 21:20-22, and the topic was “You Must Follow Me.”  He started out by going through the seasons of the Christian year, and arriving at Eastertide (as he went through them, he explained their theological meanings and significance in the life of the church; e.g., not just Kingdomtide, but “Kingdomtide comes after Pentecost, and its color is green, which is the color of growth.  He is already the King; the kingdoms of this world become His Kingdom.  He is here.”)

So we then moved to Eastertide, and Bishop Reddick compared Peter’s response to Jesus’ questions about loving Him to our own responses to Jesus:  “Yes, Lord,  but …..”  In this text and in our lives, Jesus is telling us to follow Him.  This text reminds us to grapple with the question, “what is the Lord calling me to do?”  and as a corollary, “what purposes does God have for the CME Church in Jamaica?”  There are lots of bodies;  what does God call THIS body to do? 

I’m skipping over a few examples of Bishops and Missionaries in Jamaica responding to  that question, and going to the closing, which reminds us that perhaps God is calling us to FOCUS.  Bishop Reddick left us with three closing points:

·         We are each called to be not someone else, but ourselves.  We are God’s richness. What does God call us to do? What is our identity?  The richness of Christian fellowship is learning to appreciate one another.

·         Christ wants us to be constantly edified in His Grace and Love.  God wants to build us up, and we are to build each other up in the Lord.

·         The church is not just a building; a building is where the church meets.  But there must be a plan for the building – a plan from the inside out.  We must count all the cost to finish the building, and then must persist in working the plan.

I thought this address was particularly well done, for two reasons:  1) there is the teaching element. As I said, people come from diverse theological backgrounds, and every moment is a teaching moment.  The address started out by taking people through the Christian year:  the times/duration of the seasons, the meanings, the colors and their significance.  We have plenty of CMEs Stateside who have served for decades and don’t understand these things.  2) this address was also well done because it emphasized individual importance.  I can’t know what it’s like to live in a lesser-developed county with lots of people from industrialized countries always coming in and throwing their cash and culture around.  (The closest I can imagine is being a poor Southern black girl in a New England prep school.  Even if the people don’t say it, there’s a marked difference – I remember one weekend trying to scrape up enough money to get from Boston to NYC.  Kids in my class were going to Aruba for that weekend.  I didn’t even know where Aruba was. We were in academia, and I could hold my own with or best most of them intellectually, so that’s how I coped,) But there could be a tendency, when two very disparate cultures or economic situations come into contact – there could be an opportunity for resentment, dependence, and/or an air of superiority.  I think Bishop Reddick’s teaching was designed to emphasize individual importance, and rightly so.

I’ve gone off topic again.  But it's my blog; I can do that.  The Annual Conference was great:  Presiding Elder  Rev. Dr. Ore L Spragin, Jr. did Bible Study each morning, taking us through the 5^th and 6^th (and maybe into the 7^th) chapters of the Book of Acts; Presiding Elder Rev. Elroy Ewart preached the Communion sermon; Rev. Clementine Mays did the morning meditation on  the first business day, and Rev. Lena Laing preached the closing service that night.  Both the Connectional Lay Leader, Mr. Cliff Harris, and the Connectional Missionary President, Dr. Princess Pegues, were present and had breakout sessions to instruct the congregations in how to organize Lay Departments and Women’s Missionary Societies.

A few of us from the US:  Rev. Clarence Kelby Heath, Rev. Manuel Henderson, Rev. Clementine Mays and myself, all serve on our Annual Conference Committees on Ministerial Examination.  As such, we were privileged to sit with the Jamaica Region’s Chair as she examined some candidates.  It was sort of like building a house while living in it:  candidates were present, and clearly active in ministry, but the undergirding structures (study, examination, and understanding of the Holy Word and the Discipline of the CME Church) needed shoring up.  We agreed to keep in touch, and I believe this process will be useful to everyone, as this is another place where teaching and training can occur.

There were some deviations from the scheduled order of business, mostly necessary training breakouts.  The Jamaica Conference took time during one of the worship services to have the Quadrennial Celebration for Bishop and Mrs. Reddick.  They then showed appreciation to all the missionaries and to every single member of the visiting US group.  That was amazing, and we are deeply appreciative of the great lengths to which they continually went in order to welcome us.  It was beyond kind.

The final day was for Disciplinary Questions and the most beautiful part of Annual Conference, the Ordination service (when I take my kids to conference, I give them a pretty long rope, but they have to make Communion and Ordination).  Again, I was privileged to participate, not only with the laying on of hands as an Elder but also with reading Scripture.  I’m not trying to brag, but I am incredibly grateful when I realize that I’ve participated on the Annual Conference level in Holy Communion, Ordination and, in my own Conference, as a Bible Study teacher.  It’s quite humbling to look around and realize that so many people who are equally qualified never have those opportunities.

Annual Conference Pictures can be found here:  You should be able to click on the blue hyperlinks, but I've left the web address in (in parenthesis) so you can cut and paste that if need be.

Getting there:
(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202808351783704.1073741867.1048146180&type=1&l=9013b31c6c)

Opening Day:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202808395264791.1073741868.1048146180&type=1&l=6d28765c93)

4.23.14 before Breakfast:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202810512037709.1073741869.1048146180&type=1&l=4c1f34d61e)

Day Two:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202815043350989.1073741870.1048146180&type=1&l=33504670ed)

Final Day:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202828551768691.1073741873.1048146180&type=1&l=ee51601db6)

Leaving:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202826620400408.1073741871.1048146180&type=1&l=f66c3760eb)

Mobay at Sunset:

(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202828451286179.1073741872.1048146180&type=1&l=234eeca66e)

Aprill 21 - First Day

Not in the mood to write much, but here are a couple of things I've noticed so far:

      1)  Getting out of NYC is like flipping a switch. I unlocked my phone and brought a spare, but since yesterday was a holiday here in Jamaica, I couldn’t buy a sim card.  I’m not even bothering with international service any more, so my phone is off.  And I’m still alive!!  I struggle so hard to manage my expectations when I’m in the City; as soon as I leave it, I’m reminded of Paul in his letter to  the church at Philippi, where he says :”…I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to  be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” 

2    

2         2)  I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m talking about anyone, because I’m not.  But as I travel, I am acutely aware of how much of our own expectations we bring to any given situation, and how our interactions then become an exercise in dealing with our expectations rather than in dealing with the reality before us.  Sometimes we’re so entrenched in our expectations that they warp or completely obscure any reality different from them.  And then I wonder if the same might be true of our relationship with God.  Is it possible we’re so busy trying to view God through our own individual lenses that we miss the opportunity to view ourselves and the world around us through the Divine lens of the Creator?  How much do we miss because we’re waiting for God to send a thunderbolt from the sky and are unaware of the gentle caress of the wind?    

3    3)    So my task becomes to live more and more in the moment, to value each moment as a Divine gift, to appreciate the beauty in it, and to treasure it as such.  I’ve got a lot of work to do, but that’s the next step for me.

     Got a message from a preacher in Philadelphia whose daughter lives here in Jamaica.  We communicated last night; she wants to come to the Annual Conference.  I'm looking forward to going to Good News, seeing the good people, and hearing more of the Good News.  We're heading to breakfast now; I'ma go be social.

Transformation and the St. Patrick's Day Parade...

A lot of beer distributors pulled out of NYC’s St. Patrick’s Day parade because the organizers won’t allow LGBT groups to carry signs.

Now y’all know I’m the progressive Christian in the room and gay rights isn’t even an issue for me.  But I don’t see this as being about gay rights.  Granted, St. Patrick’s Day, like Christmas, Easter, and All Souls Day, has become increasingly secularized.  I don’t know who organizes the parade (the 5^th Avenue one, not the Queens alternative that allows LGBT people to march), but I’ma go out on a limb and say that it’s an Irish Catholic group.

But here’s the thing:  Catholicism, like the rest of Christendom, has traditionally displayed lots of bias.  There were biases against non-Christians, against women, against gays, etc.  These biases were simply a result of the way people read and interpreted their Holy Scriptures -- most bias is a result of our social and cultural location.  I'll come back to that in a minute.

The First Amendment to our Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  I’m no Constitutional lawyer, but to me that says we get to practice our religion as we see fit.  Despite the gay-affirming leanings of the present Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic Church, much like my own denomination and much of organized Christendom, holds that homosexual behavior is sinful. If that’s your religious belief, you get to practice that.  You have the right to say, “I believe homosexual behavior is sinful and for that reason I decline to allow people who affirm their homosexuality to march in the parade I’ve organized to honor a religious figure.”

I don’t get why all these beer companies are boycotting the parade.  I get it that they may not agree with the parade organizers’ decision, but why is everything in this country always about some form of economic or material coercion?  First off, who gives a flying fig if Heineken and Sam Adams and all the other supporters of Drunk White People Day don’t support it?  It’s not like there’s going to be any less vomit in the subways.  People will still drink, they’ll just find other alcohol.  And people will still support the St. Patrick’s Day Parade; they’ll just be more conservative.

I have a couple of issues with this.  One is the secularization of religious holidays and then the attempt to force those religious holidays into a secular mold.  Stop it.  Just have a Drunk White People’s Day and stop pretending it’s about St. Patrick or Irish or anything else except getting drunk and acting a fool. 

The second issue I have is shifting standards. How come we want to beat up on the St. Patrick’s Day people for sticking to their beliefs? We are not called or compelled to agree with those beliefs, and we are not called or compelled to support or even to acknowledge St. Patrick or his day.  When we have the anniversary of Israel, I don’t see people getting upset or boycotting their parade because they are a nation that systematically discriminates against people of color.  They have their parade, they go rah rah for the IDF, they do what they want and nobody really cares except people with a vested interest in Israel – we all have a vested interest in human rights, but when celebrating Israel, that’s not the focus – Israel’s independence is the focus.  Why is the standard different for St. Patrick’s Day?  Is it because we have effectively secularized the once-religious and are now upset that that which was religious is not completely secular?  

As a female preacher, I’m not surprised by yet another expression of religious bigotry in any church; certainly not in the Roman Catholic church.  Based on their interpretation of Scripture, the Catholic church would prohibit me from proclaiming the Gospel.  They’re allowed to discriminate that way; sadly, they’re also allowed to discriminate against the LGBT community.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to attempt to punish the church or its adherents for their religious beliefs; I think a more productive course of action (I’m Methodist) is to hold those beliefs up to an honest and thorough examination through the lenses of Scripture, Experience, Tradition, and Reason.  The place for that dialogue is not in the midst of a publicized controversy, not at the effect of the latest hot-button social concern, but in sustained, reasoned dialogue.  Human rights are not a lobbying chip or publicity stunt for an alcohol distributor.  How many people honestly think the beer folk didn't do a P/L calculation before deciding to pull out of the parade?

Now for the bit on bias and socio-cultural location.  There are those who will argue that an evolution in the theological position of homosexual behavior as inconsistent with Christian teaching amounts to Christians becoming “too worldly,” and/or that such a position is unBiblical.  That’s a continuation of the train of thought that we Christians shouldn’t mix too much with “the world,” lest we become “contaminated” by it.  It seems to be a riff on the Pauline admonition to not conform to “this world.”  Except that admonition goes on to issue a directive, which is that we are to be TRANSFORMED by the RENEWING of our MINDS.

Maybe it’s me, but I believe that if God still speaks, then maybe I don’t know everything.  (I wrote more about that here).  Maybe I could learn more about some of the things I think I know.  When I say this, people invariably respond "but where are the standards?  Where does it all end?"  It ends and begins with Jesus Christ, who came to show us the Way, who IS the Way and the Truth and the Life.  We need always look to Christ, and not to those attitudes and beliefs we think we hold.  The other night in Church History we were reminded that the lens through which we look at Christianity can cause all kinds of distortions, because history often looks natural.  It’s the boiling frog syndrome -- we are in the midst of it, so it looks and feels natural to us.

And part of what we do as Christian theologians (or church historians) is to disturb that comfort.  We were reminded that 100-150 years ago there was another issue threatening to divide world Christianity, and it wasn’t slavery.  A little more than a century ago, most Christians on the face of the earth, being led by Rome, would have said the notion of an elected government was blasphemous because the Bible calls for kings. Authority comes from on high through kings, not through the people.  The notion that you could ELECT a government was considered blasphemous and unChristian. The Bible does not speak about constitutional government, the Bible says all authority is given by God through kings, who rule (side note:  the Bible also speaks about Covenantal authority which, while usually in the form of a covenant between a more powerful and a less powerful entity, was never a democratic covenant).  But that was the issue 100 or so years ago: "What was the proper state for a Christian to support?"

 No one before the modern period would have said “you will elect your officials.” 

What happened was not necessarily that the church became more worldly, but that people who actually lived through democratic revolutions began to read their Bibles and say “oh, that was an older cultural tradition…”  or some people made it into a language thing, or an eschatological issue “When God comes again He’ll be king, but right now we have elected officials. “ 

The point is that our lens and consequently our perceptions change.  God’s Word doesn’t; God's Way doesn't change, and God's Truth doesn't change.  Our ability to understand and apply them is what changes.  We need to perhaps set aside some of our smug self-assuredness and realize that we can't get to Jesus without going through the lens of history.  Then we need to unpack that history.  Really unpack that history (which is impossible, because history is usually only recorded through the lens of the victors),

With the possible exception of some ultraconservative fringes, no one considers it unchristian to vote, or says that if you vote you are participating in a worldly system that’s antiBiblical.  On the contrary; imagine trying to move people from a constitutional government and re-establish a monarchy!!!  What has happened over the last century and a half has been a realization that history has TRANSFORMED how we read the Bible.  It didn’t transform the truth of the Bible, only our ability to understand it.  Eventually Rome even gave up the teaching that an elected constitutional state is wrong.

The concept of “State” went through a TRANSFORMATION in the modern period.  We are now looking at our understandings of “marriage,” or “family,” or “sexuality” going through similar transformations.  But it’s a TRANSFORMATIVE process, not necessarily a revolutionary one.  However you feel about the transformation, whatever you think about marriage, or family, or religious expression, they all deserve much more than to be a side note on someone’s beer bottle or pawns of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. 

Black Pastors Call for Holder's Impeachment

So someone posted this link today, about the Coalition of African American Pastors attempting to impeach Eric Holder.

I'm sorry, this is just dumb and hateful.  I get and respect that your reading of your sacred texts may lead you to the understanding that homosexuality is sinful.  My reading doesn't take me there, but I respect that you are where you are.  And to you I would offer the following:

1) If you are against gay marriage, then don't marry (you may use the verb transitively or intransitively here) a gay person.  It's that simple.  While I happen to believe that this country was, indeed founded on Christian values, I also believe:

• those Christian values include both tolerance and pluralism; and
• the founders of this great nation, themselves having fled from religious oppression that attempted to impose uniform religious practices upon them, later saw fit to build into our Constitution a separation of spiritual/religious values and the workings of the State. The fact that this Constitution was drafted nearly 150 years after those first immigrants landed, yet the writers still saw fit to include this separation as its First Amendment is, I think, significant.  

But my issues with this CAAP nonsense are a bit deeper:

2) On the CAAP website, I don't see any mention of educating kids, feeding the hungry, or sheltering the homeless.  I don't see any response to the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative, and see nothing about gun control or racial profiling.  How is gay marriage more important to an African American Pastor than any of those issues?  And what about the whole concept of racial unity?  Do y'all really think that black people in America (or ANY people of color in America) have arrived to the point where we can afford to be taking one another out?  I remember reading this book that said that if your brother sins against you (not sure how advocating for the rights of gay people is a sin against you, CAAP, unless you're thinking with the mind of closeted gay people.  But that's another conversation) -- this book I read said that if your brother sins against you you should go to him and tell him his fault.  If he listens to you, cool; if not, then take a couple of people with you to tell him; if he still doesn't listen, take it to the church, and if he still doesn't listen, then let him go on his way.  I don't see anywhere where it says to try to stop him from doing his job, or for humans to assume the Divine role of judgement.  If you're thinking that attempting to get a million signatures and sending them to Congress is somehow equivalent to telling the church about your brother's sins, I would suggest that you might want to re-evaluate what god you serve.

As a matter of fact, that same book I read talks about how ugly going to court is (I'm going to extend the concept of going to court to this attempt to influence Congress to impeach Holder), and the fact that this sort of drama does more harm than good, providing fodder for more wrong and injustice. I get it that y'all don't think Holder is one of the Saints (in which case, btw, you shouldn't be arguing with him, but attempting to strengthen him in faith) -- I get it that you don't think he's one of you Saints.  But surely you must not be unaware of the fact that the Christian community has divergent views on the matter of human sexuality?!?  Do you really think this calling for impeachment is a way of doing no harm?  This book I read has a lot of solutions for dealing with people with whom you have a disagreement. None of them include trying to get them fired, just as none of them include flaming them in your blog.  So I get it that the easy accessibility of social media sometimes allows us to take shortcuts.  But at the end of the day, what is it that you're trying to achieve?  Have you thought this through?  What's driving this?

I could go on and on about the Book and how it dictates people's behavior towards one another. I could give anecdotal evidence of how the most rabidly anti-gay people I've ever known were either knowingly or unknowingly closet cases (I don't say that lightly; I realize that some people are simply incapable of acknowledging their own homoerotic tendencies, and because of their conditioning or environment or whatever, they sublimate either those tendencies or their self-hatred because of those tendencies into an irrationally rabid homophobia).  I could talk about how some people genuinely and sincerely believe that homosexuality is an abomination proscribed for Judeo-Christian believers, in the same way, in the same place, and for the same reasons that tattoos, pork, and shellfish are proscribed for Judeo-Christian believers. Some people adhere to all these laws; some not so much.  That, too, is another discussion.  What I get from the Book is that God still speaks, and that there is room at the Cross for every one of God's creations.  But everyone doesn't get the same thing from the Book, so I'ma leave that alone for now.

My last thought on the matter is this:

3) The CAAP site lists a link to something called "Why the Conservative Mind Matters."  Isn't "conservative mind" an oxymoron?

ttfn...

Anticlimax...

So today I was given a Kindle Fire.  Cuz, you know, I don’t have enough electronics. I have an Android tablet (I think I saw it under a pile of books last week), a Windows Ultrabook that’s a tablet/laptop hybrid, a Windows laptop, and iPad mini, a coupla iPhones, and an Android phone.  The Kindle adds no discernible value to my arsenal, and wasn't even something on my wish list.  It just appeared, one in a series of recent anticlimaxes.  (Which, unfortunately, are not the same as ante climaxes.  Which could be a term I've just made up. But it's a tangent, and I'm trying to focus, so let me go back to the thread).

Recent antIclimaxes include absently staring at that divine creation in the gym and then realizing a bit too late that not only were you staring, but you were noticed.  And then they come over to speak to you!  … Sadly, as soon as they open their mouth you realize either 1) they’re insane, or 2) their accent is so thick it’s not worth the time it takes to interpret.  By then, of course, the fantasy is ruined and you can never look at them the same way. My gym is full of fine bodies that I can’t enjoy any more because I've actually spoken to them.

It’s the same kind of anticlimax as listening to commercials on TV and then buying the product.  You KNOW it’s never going to be as good or as fast or as durable or as interesting as it looks on TV.  But now you've bought it.  And it sucks.  Which, logically, you sorta knew.  If it didn't suck they wouldn't need to advertise it.  Advertising is all about reeling folk in.  So then you sit with the under performing product in your hand and the realization you've been snookered once again.

All of which serves to keep things in perspective.  At the end of the day, it’s not how much stuff you have, it’s not how good the body looks or how the voice sounds, or even if they’re crazy.  At the end of the day, the true climax comes in embracing each and every moment in its fullness, being completely present and fully experiencing it.  And that’s NEVER anticlimactic.