frailb's Xanga

This Friday can seem distant in this Modern world

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:11:40 GMT

I should be the last person to poo-poo modern life. Far from being a naturalist, I’m a man of the great indoors. I enjoy a comfortable bed, functional indoor plumbing, a fast computer, and being to travel what used to be considered long distances because of cars.

But today, I feel the oppression of modern living. Although, as Christians, we call this Friday ‘good’, it is only good because we have seen the ending. It is only good because we have been given the privilege of seeing behind the curtain to what God saw. And so, on this Good Friday, I think the most meaningful response–before all the truly worthwhile celebration–is to pause. To pause to remember the pain, to remember the abandonment, to remember the sacrifice. And to let that pausing be our gratitude. To let that pausing be our worship. To let that pausing be our response to this mind-boggling act of love.

And the oppression I feel isn’t so much the evil that surrounds me, although that is always there. It is the unrelenting pace of this world. It is the constant demand to go-go-go. It is the whip of this world. But it is also an impulse that has been internalized into the very rhythm of our souls. The brand of modernity, seared into our insides.

Who has time to reflect when there’s so much work to be done? Who has time to pray when we have video games, TV shows, and Facebook walls to occupy our time? Who has time to remember when there never seems to be a convenient time anyways? Oh the oppression!

And if you think I’m poo-pooing others. Think again, because I am speaking about myself. But today isn’t a day of self-flagellation–I’m not into that anyways. It’s a day to pause to think about my Lord, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross and all the shame therein. To pause with all creation, to remember when all the world dimmed to its darkest at the murder of it’s Creator, even if few people noticed.

On the church, marriage, and sexuality

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:07:41 GMT

In light of the recent CA Supreme Court decision to overturn the state ban on gay marriage, I thought it'd be worthwhile to post this interview response by Stanley Hauerwas, the liberal ethicist and law professor from Duke, on the issue of gay marriage in the church.

Talking about the unity of the church, how might that apply to the current debates concerning homosexuality in the United Methodist Church, in the Presbyterian USA church, and the Reconciling Congregations movement within the United Methodist Church?

The problem with debates about homosexuality is they have been devoid of any linguistic discipline that might give you some indication what is at stake. Methodism, for example, is more concerned with being inclusive than being the church. We do not have the slightest idea what we mean by being inclusive other than some vague idea that inclusivity has something to do with being accepting and loving. Inclusivity is, of course, a necessary strategy for survival in what is religiously a buyers' market. Even worse, the inclusive church is captured by romantic notions of marriage. Combine inclusivity and romanticism and you have no reason to deny marriage between gay people.

When couples come to ministers to talk about their marriage ceremonies, ministers think it's interesting to ask if they love one another. What a stupid question! How would they know? A Christian marriage isn't about whether you're in love. Christian marriage is giving you the practice of fidelity over a lifetime in which you can look back upon the marriage and call it love. It is a hard discipline over many years.

The difficulty, therefore, is that Christians, when they approach this issue, no longer know what marriage is. For centuries, Christians married people who didn't know one another until the marriage ceremony, and we knew they were going to have sex that night. They didn't know one another. Where does all this love stuff come from? They could have sex because they were married.

Now, when marriage becomes a mutually enhancing arrangement until something goes wrong, then it makes no sense at all to oppose homosexual marriages. If marriage is a calling that makes promises of lifelong monogamous fidelity in which children are welcomed, then we've got a problem. But we can't even get to a discussion there, because Christians no longer practice Christian marriage.

What has made it particularly hard is that the divorce culture has made it impossible for us to talk about these matters--and many of you know, I'm divorced and remarried. It has made it impossible for us to talk about these matters with an honesty and candor that is required if you are not to indulge in self-deceptive, sentimental lies.

For gay Christians who I know and love, I wish we as Christians could come up with some way to help them, like we need to help one another, to avoid the sexual wilderness in which we live. That's a worthy task. I probably sound like a conservative on these matters, not because I've got some deep animosity toward gay people, but because I don't know how to go forward given the current marriage practices of our culture.

(from http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/050602/depfor.html)

It's been so long...

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:49:26 GMT

I don't remember what the average price for a 14" laptop was back in 2000. But would you believe that a standard 34" tube TV was selling for $400? Now, whenever you walk into any store, it's hard to feel like you're not a cheapo unless you fork out at least $700 for a similar size LCD. Sure, it's flatter and it's HD -- it's way better. But what's considered standard technology now is almost double what it was a decade ago. And, more realistically, since 42" -- which is over $1200 -- is the new standard we're now paying three times as much for a television as we used to. I don't know why I found this blog-worthy.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/hdtvs-shrink/index.html

Pet Peeve: Peeled Ginger

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:36:23 GMT

Now that my culture has been absorbed into the smorgasborg of American cuisine, I've been seeing more ginger being used on more cooking shows than ever before. I laugh when they shrink their shoulders, close their eyes, smile dreamily, and stick a giant piece of ginger up their nose as they try to convince all of us how amazing ginger is. I laugh every time the cooks go all orgasmic over the "scintillating, spicy-sweet, pungent, exotic" taste of ginger (obviously, they've never bitten into that gigantic chicken-looking piece on accident before). I laugh whenever they try to show off their cultural awareness by bragging about how "the Chinese" have used ginger in their cooking and medicines for "thousands of years", etc., etc., etc. It's all very funny because I don't really know any Chinese (outside of Chinese newspapers) who speak of ginger in this way -- it's something we grew up with, accidentally bit into.

But the laughing stops at this: peeled ginger. Never...NEVER have I once seen my mom, my grandmothers, my aunts, my friend's mom's, nor their grandmothers -- not even Mr. Yan Can Cook peel ginger. Never have I seen them pull out a paring knife and skillfully shave off the "tough fibrous exterior" of ginger as if it were an apple pear. Never. Then again, I've never seen any Chinese person use water chestnuts in their cooking either, so so much for anecdotal evidence...

Midnight thought

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:02:32 GMT

It's past midnight. Feeling a bit tired right now. Not feeling particularly encouraged as of late. Yet, tomorrow, I will become a godparent (for the first time) to my cousin JC's baby boy. And in two months time, I will be officiating (for the first time) my cousin CC's wedding. These things puzzle me but also make me pause in thanksgiving, that God could be so present in my family in ways that I didn't think he would be. And that I get to be a part of it.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:36:12 GMT

the metaphor of fam'ly
isn't what it used to be
maybe because families
are not what they used to be

What does it profit?

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:34:42 GMT

Pushing and plowing in pursuit of the prophetic
Pouring it purposefully passionately prayerfully
Perhaps a pat perhaps a pittance
Pondering in retrospect the prospect of the profit(phet)

Another Lent Update

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:56:51 GMT

I've gotta admit Lent hasn't really been what I thought it would be. Which maybe is a good thing, but I shouldn't be so quick to justify myself.

Originally, I envisioned myself giving daily updates on my blog about my experience. That didn't happen. I thought that my daily sufferings without coffee, tea, or Coke would draw me into this vortex of spiritual contemplation with the suffering Christ of Gethsemane. That hasn't really been the case (although it has been suffering). It seems to me, that as Easter approaches, the only thing I can walk away saying is that I did this. I did it. And really, what kept me going all along wasn't that I figured if I kept going that I would reap the benefit, but really, I was doing it for a rather simple reason, namely, I wanted to do it for God.

Alright, so that sounds cocky, or cheesy, and maybe a few other things. But really, that's what it's been about. I've been reading this pretty entertaining book, The Year of Living Biblically, and in one of these sections, where the author talks about the benefits he gets from praying and Sabbathing, his rabbi stops him mid-sentence and tells him he's treading on dangerous ground. If he's praying, reading Scripture, Sabbathing for the benefits, then he's denigrating these sacred acts into self-service or self-help; they're no longer about God. Sure, God is part of the equation, but he becomes more like some secret ingredient. That really struck the agnostic Jewish-like-Olive-Garden-is-Italian author. And it struck me.

As Easter approaches, to be quite honest, I'm really looking forward to a rich frothy cappuccino. I keep fantasizing that I'll be preaching with a cup of coffee in my hand while people wonder why I'm so unusually happy. But it's been a pretty hard month. I don't say that in a "woe is me" sort of way, but just to say that it's been hard. But what's mitigated the thirst, or at least helped me to get through it, is the thought that I'm giving up something that is really a rather arbitrary pleasure for the God who has been immeasurably gracious to me. In other words, I didn't have to do this, because it's not like I feel like I should be giving it up anyways; God never asked me to do it. And so really, it's just an act of devotion I chose to do. There's nothing satisfying about that thought, nothing self-congratulatory about it, just a straight-forward thought.

I think when Easter comes, I don't know if I'll be able to walk away particularly refreshed spiritually. I'm not sure I'll be bragging to everyone about the wonderful benefits of fasting. In fact, I think I'll probably soon forget that I even gave up anything for 40 days. But I'll have done it. And I will have done it as an act of worship. It will be unspectacular, but I think it will be just fine.

On being human

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:37:52 GMT

There's something that offends me about people who impose on me a style of religiosity that makes me feel that I'm no longer very human. Since I'm a pastor, I think I end up being 'that guy' that a whole range of religious people feel that I automatically agree with them about stuff -- e.g., that I understand their lingo, that I agree with their disdain for 'secular' things, that I always like to talk about 'church', etc. The truth is, I'm not nearly as interested in talking about that stuff as they'd think. The truth is, I only enjoying talking about 'church' so much. The truth is, I enjoy talking about life a lot more.

I've been studying and reflecting on the resurrection for the past few weeks. And one of the things that I keep rediscovering that the resurrection, as religious of a concept as that is, is really about God making us more, not less human. And, if I could nail some particularity to this idea -- that being 'in Christ', that is, the resurrected Jesus, is about becoming human again (or anew). I think that's a pretty hard idea to swallow sometimes mainly because it sounds like a rather 'religious' idea. And, I have to say, that it is. But it is not only a religious idea. Because, if we can trace this whole resurrection thing, this Jesus thing, all the way back to where it all started -- in creation, it's a lot easier to see that what God has in mind for us is not to join a religion (or whatever other synonymous evangelical phrase you might use) but really to become human again. God created us as human beings and since the Fall, we have become so much less than human. That's the problem. The problem isn't that we don't belong to a certain religion or go to a certain kind of church (although, that ends up being part of it), but from the beginning, the problem has been that we've fallen short of our essential humanness. But, when we are recreated in Christ, we are entering into a new beginning of a new humanity. We are getting back our humanity. Scripture calls this the "image of God."

And so this is partly why I don't take well to religiosity that denies or denigrates my humanity. Because the goal is to become human again, not to become suprahuman. True religion isn't meant to help us to transcend humanity but to become more fully human.

Now, I know some will naturally feel that I am leaning dangerously toward some sort of humanism. First of all, I hope it's clear that I don't lean toward any "secular" humanism. But secondly, I don't mind being called a humanist so long as people understand that I believe that Jesus was the perfect human being. And by "perfect", I don't simply mean that he somehow didn't have to wipe his ass after he did his business but that he was a human being in the very fullest sense. Jesus was the human being we were all created to to be. Jesus was/is the human being we could not be. And when we are reborn in him, we are inheriting a new genetic code, so to speak, and suddenly placed back on course to becoming human again. And so, in this sense, God is the quintessential humanist. And thank God for that. Thank God that his desire for us was never to become 'more than human' but to become precisely human and all the glory, wonder, and beauty that entails.

Lent update

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:42:23 GMT

Kinda tired. But let me give a brief update.

First few days of Lent were killer. Massive headaches that woke me up in the middle of the night. Very sleepy. VERY. I could barely carry my stuff around during the day without help.

One of the most difficult things was not so much that I craved coffee and tea, but that it had become so much a part of my daily operation that I had to keep reminding myself that I had given them up. It's like my mind would take a step toward a drink, and then it'd have to remind itself to take a step back. Very revealing. I didn't realize just how much coffee and tea have been a part of my...diet.

Still need to learn more about Lent. Still need to find a bigger connection to God.