AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Well, it was a long twenty-four hours of travel, but we have arrived safely for Juliet’s wedding. On the plane flight out, however — and this slightly modifies the adverb “safely” — Margaret turned and asked me, “So, how’s the sermon?”

I had been so determinedly focused on grading the stack of papers on my desk before I took off that I had entirely forgotten that I should prepare a homily. So for the time being, I’m thinking evangelical nuptial thoughts, and reminding myself that it’s unkind to preach more than a couple of minutes at this sort of occasion.

Two years ago, I think, I posted a quotation from Henri de Lubac that Margaret sent me as a Valentine.

This year, she’s studying de Lubac in her doctoral program, and she regularly sends me clippings from her reading. This week, she excerpted some words from Catholicism, the 1950 translation of the French edition of 1947:

“Just to imitate primitive Christianity or the Middle Ages will not be enough. We can revive the Father’s all-embracing humanism and recover the spirit of their mystical exegesis only by an assimilation which is at the same time a transformation.
For although the Church rests on eternal foundations, it is in a continual state of rebuilding, and since the Fathers’ time it has undergone many changes in style; and without in any way considering ourselves better than our Fathers, what we in turn have to build for our own use must be built in our own style, that is, one that is adapted to our own needs and problems.”

De Lubac proposes two conditions on those who would take up, perpetuate, and renovate the Fathers’ teachings:

“We must recognize in the first place the great diversity of the theories which have been professed in the course of Christian history on those innumerable subjects where religious truth comes in contact with our human preoccupations. Secondly, we must realize to how great an extent these theories depend on social, intellectual or cultural conditions in a state of contstant development.”

“For although dogma is essentially unchanging, the work of the theologian is never ended.”

I really, really dislike the use of “reference” as a verb.

As I fight my way through a small stack of papers and fend off the daily barrage of small-but-urgent tasks, I’ll take a second to add yesterday’s homily to the “Extended” portion of this post. Everything went smoothly, I think, aided considerably by the fact that we used the same liturgical from all the way through the service (a rarity here). The sermon would benefit from some simplification toward the middle — I recognized, as I was preaching, that at least one clause had outgrown its surroundings and needed to be a sentence on its own. If I were preaching it again at another service, I’d have been busy editing and emending. . . .
Continue reading “Monday’s Homily”

No, it’s not a Rageboy post (I know, I know, I owe you a letter, Chris). I’m just looking for a good tutorial about implementing the Box Model Hack or one of its derivatives. The heat is on to make the Seabury site work for non-compliant browsers (Explorer), and I’d prefer to have as elementary a walk-through as possible. I understand what I’d be doing in principle, but I’d really like to have the templates work the first time through. Or second, maybe — but I don’t have the time to shoot for the seventh.

One hesitates to think what Michael Bérubé’s “Mr. Answer Man” would say if he were turned loose in the field of liturgical vestments.

Does anyone have any ideas for extracting pizza from the speaker of my iBook? Back at Blogwalk Chicago, I launched a slice of deep-dish pizza several inches from where I was carefully eating it away from my laptop, end-over-end, flop down on top of my formerly white iBook keyboard. . . and the left speaker.

Is there some way to clean out that space? It didn’t look as though there was an obvious way of gaining access to that when I removed the keyboard for a quick check. Margaret just gave me a stern look and said, “That will not continue” — so I have to find a way to fix it.

I’m up to preach tomorrow morning, though I’ve been hiding from that circumstance for the last few days. Providence has assigned me Amos 5:21-24 and Luke 4:14-21, texts that the lectionary uses to arm-twist me into preaching about “social justice.” I appreciate the good intentions; some preachers would never acknowledge the existence of poverty or social inequality if the lectionary didn’t oblige them to. Still, those of us who try to integrate the church’s social teaching into a seamless cloth of theological ethics, resist the days that take out a two-by-four to whup you upside the head till you agree to homilize about justice. “Justice” doesn’t stand on its own; it derives its hold on our hearts from its situation within a tightly-woven network of convictions and practices, and a leaden mandate to preach about justice feels like the liberal equivalent of a hair shirt.

So I’m working on a sermon to turn the force of the readings a little bit, to inflect the determined obligation to preach on justice toward a less stultifying, finger-wagging sense of justice, toward the liberating joy of the freedom to thrive among other free souls, to live in a world of mutual respect and cooperation. But if I write more, it’ll poach the prose I’m reserving for the sermon. I’ll post it tomorrow, God willing.

My morning exercise workout (such as it is) passes more nearly tolerably by virtue of my iPod. Every morning I pedal for about four songs’ worth of mileage, then come upstairs, do some sit-ups, and shower — before morning Prayer (or, today, Sunday Mass). So, this morning’s workout DRMA included “Girl Blue,” by Stevie Wonder; “Tusk,” the cover version by Camper van Beethoven; “D’yer Mak’er” by Led Zeppelin; and “Pinetop’s Blues” by Memphis Slim.

All of the above serves partly as a rationale for my including here the news that the Dave Rogers of “the Dave Rogers Music Alert” has opened a new blog, UXCentric, which signifies (if I understand him correctly) not “I find your outlooks and behavior unaccountably odd,” but “User Experience – Centric.” He’s not closing down Connect & Empower, which means that now I’ll have yet another blog to fall behind in reading. . . .

This morning’s interview and background shooting at St. Luke’s seems to have gone quite smoothly. I greatly enjoyed meeting and talking with Florent, Roger, and the other gentleman (whose name eluded me when first we were introduced) (later: I checked, and he’s Arnaud — Bonjour, Arnaud!); I experienced that very odd sort of double-language consciousness overhearing them converse in French, while I relied mainly on English. It’s been years since I used my French for anything other than reading, and I kept finding myself eager to jump in with an observation en français, but realizing that one of the ten words I needed had utterly fallen out of my vocabulary.

The congregation was fantastic. Jeanette, our priest-in-charge, was very generous in allowing the crew space to work, and the church was relatively full. The choirs sang wonderfully, and all worked together to show our parish at its ordinary-Sunday best.

I hope that our interview provides Florent with useful material for the special he’s working on. A number of people have asked to know when the special airs — they have relatives in France, or they know someone who can receive the French station in New York, or they just want to see a copy of the tape Florent sends me. When they finish production, I’ll be able to look foolish in front of audiences around the world. This constitutes one of the great accomplishments of blogging: universal embarrassment!

I don’t know what I said at all — I kept reaching desperately for the spirit of David Weinberger, for his wit and insight, and unfortunately I kept getting a busy signal. So France 2 will have to settle for a slow-talking, easily-distracted theologian.

Jordon points to a post from Wayne Jacobson to the effect that too many leaders treat the church as a project with which to tinker, to provide the correct model. If a consultant, or a candidate for a pastoral or staff position, or whomever, doesn’t make clear from the start that “the right structure” grows from the congregation’s character and its circumstances, its flavor and texture, environment and gifts, then by no means should we be encouraging them (much less paying them). Such a person reflects an idolatry of her or his preferred model — not a deliberative awareness of how the Body of Christ flourishes.

I have seen the havoc that “correct model” leadership wreaks. At best, the correct model actually bears a vague resemblance to what befits the congregation, so congregational life doesn’t suffer much. The alternatives only go downhill from there, though.

If we believe that the whole body promotes the growth of each part, when the parts are ordered toward the One who defines our identity and our way (Ephesians :15f, roughly), then we should understand that these mutually-dependent, mutually-supportive parts differ in fundamental ways, and that the love with which we strengthen one another forbids our imposing one-size (or “one-method-” or “one-model-”)-fits all answers onto sisters and brothers whose role in the body diverges from ours.

“On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. . . .”

Listen, children, I remember way back when your Uncle Joi pronounced email officially broken. We’re still using email two years later, but today I shut down Trackback on this blog; I like Trackback when it links two related blogs, but the unmoderated character of pings has made Trackback too attractive a target for parasites. I’ll code in a “Threadorati” link tomorrow, probably. tonight, I’m just turning off the valve.

[Later: Done. I should’ve noted that the first few words of Shelley’s post prompted me to take the plunge. Now, all I have to do is go back and turn off Trackbacks on every post so far. . . .]