AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Cancel My Reservation at the Academy Awards

It was a busy day. The honorable, reputable part of the day involved going to early mass at St. Luke’s, then sprinting downtown (in the car) (not sprinting in the car, but driving fast) (no faster than other traffic on Lake Shore Drive, in fact less fast, but not lolly-gagging either) to St. Chrysostom’s to lead the adult education hour talk about St. Paul. Good sign: I found a parking place on the street, which is nearly impossible in St. Chrysostom’s neighborhood. I think that all those cars in parking spaces never move at all, but simply occupy the spaces that intruders might use to infiltrate the neighborhood.

This week was “Paul the Pharisee,” in which I coached the group on just how deeply Jewish Paul was (and remained even after he stopped persecuting and began working for the followers of Jesus). And even people who acknowledge that Jesus was Jewish have a hard time remembering just how Jewish Paul was; they can read passages such as “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” (Romans 11:1) and “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! . . . [T]he law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Romans 7:7, 12) and “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:Ýcircumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless,” and still imagine that Paul was crushed by his incapacity to fulfill the odious, burdensome Torah, so that he turned to the gospel of grace that put no particular demands on its adherents. Sigh. So I walked the St. Chrysostom’s adult class through Paul’s solemn insistence that God has not revoked the covenant, had not reneged on the promises to Israel, and that Paul retained the sense that being a Gentile was not the ideal state (he evidently said to Peter, “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. . . .”).

A good hard-working hour, and then I came back north to pick up Margaret and Pippa after the nine-o’clock service at St. Luke’s. We had our lunch, and then Si and I wandered over to Frank’s office where we pursued the less distinguished part of the day: the conference call with Oklahoma and Maine that convoked the annual Balking Heads Fantasy Baseball League auction. I came away from that draft with a moderately good team, although I spent too much money too early. I have a marked propensity to get annoyed when players are selling for less than they should, so I then bid for them and get stuck with bargain players who don’t fit into my team (and who use up salary money that I had planned to spend on others). But a good time was had by all, even if Alan does win the league again.

When I got home at about six, I checked my email and noticed that Alex had sent me a note directing my attention to BoingBoing, where Cory Doctorow had pointed to an exchange of messages between Stewart Butterfield (lead developer of the Game Neverending) and me, concerning the role of religions in the forthcoming, super-duper version of the game. Who needs Oscars when you can get BoingBoinged?