Seminary Flashback

Daily Office Mark 10:46-52

Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus (as if we weren’t certain)… he brings the ole memories back.  I remember having to do an in depth study into this passage for my introduction to the New Testament course.  I researched the meaning of every significant word in the original Greek, cross referencing with other places in the Bible those words had been found, comparing meanings, secondary meanings, tertiary meanings, and finally honed in on one or two points and wrote a several page paper on these six verses.

Do I remember one single, solitary thing about it?

Proper 14, Year B

Weekly Prayer

Spirit of God, lend us your liveliness and courage to time and time again think and do and be in the world in the spirit of love taught to us by Jesus, we ask through the same Messiah, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Jesus *facepalm*

Daily Office: Mark 10:32-45

There are days I wonder how Jesus put up with his disciples.

Yes, okay, most of the time I have the proper humility and I put myself in their shoes and I think, sure, sure, that would be difficult, anyone would kick their best friend when they were down, in the face of the Roman Empire, and with the threat of your own painful death before, sure, sure…  But days like today… well, if I were in charge of a modern-day reinactment of this part of Mark, I’m sure Jesus would have done a *facepalm*, possibly growled and might have let loose a string of profanity.  I’ve got the phrases all lined up.  I shant repeat them, here.

It’s just one of those moments – you know them.  It’s the moment when you and someone you love/trust are going along and you think you’re on the same page.  You think you’ve been on the same page for quite some time.  You’re in the lead, but that’s only because you intuitively get the lay of the land a bit better, but it doesn’t matter, right? Because you’re all on the same page! Right.

And then the person/people you’re with who are supposed to be on the same bloody page as you bust out with the classic stupid question that flaunts their ignorance.  

Now, I’ve always considered myself of the school that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I think I could refine that.  I think there is no bad in a questioning attitude, a discerning mind, but when people bring their arrogance, their power, and going beyond this story, their hatred and malice, when they bring these things and throw them at you in question form…  Oh, no. No, no, no.

Jesus doesn’t roll that way.

Desert Pack Animals & Sewing

Daily Office – Mark 10:17-31

There are two things I think about when I read this passage these days.  In no particular order, as the order depends on my mood on any given day, I think about the weirdness of translation, and I think of some of my favorite principles of Buddhism.  So let me tell you what a camel and a sewing machine have to do with Zen…

Weekly Prayer & Exercise

Howdy!  Here is this week’s prayer and exercise.  Enjoy!

Prayer

Let your never-say-die love, O God, renew and remake the Church; and, because it cannot continue in health without your help, feed and water it with your Spirit so that it may flourish enough to bring light and life to all the world; through Jesus Christ our Messiah, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Exercise

Spend five minutes, three times a day, looking within yourself to see if you can find the seed of love that God has already planted within you.  Maybe it’s still a seed.  Maybe it’s already starting to take root in your life. What does it look like? What does it feel like?  How is it affecting your life? Having trouble finding it? –recall a time you felt affection, or compassion, or joy, or hope, or peace. Relive the experience.  This will be the opposite of what you feel when you’re having road rage, or busy being quietly resentful against a colleague or family member.  Get in touch with that positive sensation and explore it.  Look at it.  Poke it once or twice.  Get to know it.  See if you can provoke it into happening…  But mostly, just find it, this week. (Advanced studies on love and compassion to follow…

Saul’s Madness Leads Us to This?

…when they heard this, they lost all hope.

Daily Office for Thursday  in Proper 9, Year 1.  We’re sticking with First Samuel today, and the story continues on, 16:14-17:11, in which we see God exit stage left, Saul go mad, his court present the the harp cure, thus introducing David into his good graces… and the beginning of a battle scene with the philistine threat, as my OT professor always used to say. (Threatening because they had advanced metalworking and chariots, besides whatever strength of numbers they also might have had.)  But the story stops before they get to the good bits – the whole slingshot David-n-Goliath episode.

Nope.  Tonight’s episode simply ends after Goliath challenges the army, utterly intimidating them.  And when they heard this, they lost all hope.

I’ve got no other commentary on that, other than to say, yep.  Been there.  In all sincerity, I’ve been there.  Haven’t most of us?

Barbecued Rattlesnake v. Undercover Work

Daily Office. Yep, it’s back.

There’s all kinds of good stuff in the readings today.  In Acts 10:1-16, Peter has his vision about what to eat, and over in 1 Samuel 16:1-13, God is telling Samuel to calm the hell down, get over Saul, and go do a little spy v. spy and anoint the new king.

As interesting as I find food (and dude, I finally cooked something for potluck, and it rocked. No one died) let’s talk about Samuel, because a little undercover work always beats out barbecued rattlesnake in my book.  Okay.  I admit.  I’ve never actually had barbecued rattlesnake, and the closest I’ve come to undercover work is the International Spy Museum and the collective knowledge of entirely too many Cold War movies, but we’re still going with Samuel.

Pride Festivities

Hey yall!  Lenore and I had a great time passing out suckers with our flyers attached at Pride weekend.  Lenore was at the Dyke March yesterday and we were both at the Parade today.  The suckers were popular, the flyer was read, and we went through 600 pieces like they were nothing at all.  Young and old, straight and gay – everybody loves a sucker!

It was great to see so many people whose t-shirts and outfits proclaimed they were exploring their own sexuality in healthy ways mingling around with families, kids, the religious, non-profits, for-profits – as if to say, ‘God made me like this – whether or not you want to accept it is moot.’

I was part of a twitter conversation between some people who had divergent views on whether or not the Pride festivities should be family friendly, and one person said yes, the other no.  I understand where the ‘No’ vote was coming from – he was on the Marcella’s float, which always has many beautiful people wearing not so much clothing, but my view is this: God made us beautiful, and beautifully.  If more children got a chance to witness more people secure in their sexuality, in their bodies… well, in the words of one my parishioners, ‘maybe we’d have fewer gay teens trying to commit suicide.’  Indeed.  Maybe we’d have few straight teens committing suicide as well, to say nothing about our culture’s serious issues with eating disorders.

Anyway, on an up note: it was great fun, passing out a little cheer and having a little impact on the lives of complete strangers.

The ‘What Was Jesus Thinking?’ Potluck

John 15:9-17

We’ve decided that to call our group ‘Bible Study’ is a misleading title for the amount of fun, humor, and wisdom that is shared, while eating the variety of different foodstuffs that we each bring.  When we discussed new names and I glibly called our gathering the ‘What Was Jesus Thinking?!?” Potluck, there was near unanimous approval.  So that’s the working name, until we come up with something even spiffier.

But of course there was more than that.

What does it mean to be a friend?  What is the role of joy in our lives?  What does it look like when ‘love one another’ is the most basic, the most grand truth that there can be in the world – or, what could it look like?  All questions we wrestled with, hymned and hawed about, and rendered our own opinions on.

Daily Office Romans 12:1-21

Daily Office Romans 12:1-21

It’s not that I don’t love Paul, so please don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to listening to someone explain Jesus, I just don’t always find Paul so helpful.  Call me crazy.

Granted, it’s not so bad in the Message version, put into contemporary language, so okay, when we can actually get to the gist of what Paul is saying without having to bridge the gulf between the two of us for every single word that is read, he’s pretty cool.  But it irks me that I have to have someone explain and make comprehensible the person who is trying to explain and make comprehensible someone else.  I mean… how many middle men do I need to go through to understand Jesus, already?

Good thing I’m a follower of Jesus and not of Paul.  Honestly, when it comes to explaining Jesus, I’d much prefer Eckhart Tolle then Paul.