Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

Grace Abounds

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I occasionally proofread articles for Pravmir.Com, a Russian Orthodox site that seeks to evangelize young people on behalf of the Orthodox Church.Â? It gives me a chance to hone my theology skills as well as my grammar ones while doing something to help the mission of the Church.

Today, I found an email from one of the webguru’s in my e-mail.Â? It was the story of a young woman who had an abortion in 1989.Â? In the next few years, she divorced, remarried, joined the church, and had children; but her soul still felt stained by her sin.Â? Finally during the Great Lent, she confessed to her priest, thinking that he would upbraid her and deny her communion.Â? Her priest’s response:

Go take communion.Â? Such wounds need to be healed.

Yeah… that is such an amazing show of grace.Â? If only more Christians were to show God’s grace like that…

Metanoia Within

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The Daily Telegraph: Gays must change, says archbishop

Here are some salient points:

The archbishop of Canterbury has told homosexuals that they need to change their behaviour if they are to be welcomed into the church, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Rowan Williams has distanced himself from his one-time liberal support of gay relationships and stressed that the tradition and teaching of the Church has in no way been altered by the Anglican Communion’s consecration of its first openly homosexual bishop.

The declaration by the archbishop – rebutting the idea that homosexuals should be included in the church unconditionally – marks a significant development in the church’s crisis over homosexuals. According to liberal and homosexual campaigners, it confirmed their fears that the archbishop has become increasingly conservative – and sparked accusations that he has performed an “astonishing” U-turn over the homosexual issue.

…

The revelations came in a newspaper interview last week in which the archbishop denied that it was time for the church to accept homosexual relationships, suggesting that it should be welcoming rather than inclusive. “I don’t believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don’t say ‘Come in and we ask no questions’. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions,” he told a Dutch journalist.

“Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics.”

At the same time he tried to distance himself from a controversial essay he wrote 20 years ago, in which he defended same-sex love. “That was when I was a professor, to stimulate debate,” he claimed. “It did not generate much support and a lot of criticism – quite fairly on a number of points.”The archbishop said that he was determined to preserve the unity of the church from being destroyed by the warring factions in the gay crisis. He said he has backed a resolution which says that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.

OK… my reason for posting this is not to talk about the gay issue or to debate whether or not homosexual relationships are a sin or not. (Hint: Comment-bombing me or flaming me regarding the subject will cause me to I.P. ban you and will put me in a foul mood, so I don’t recommend doing it.) If you want to know where I stand, feel free to surf my archives.

My reason for posting this is to point out what the archbishop said about conversion:

I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, [and] emotions.

I muchly believe that this applies to every one of us regardless of gender, race, orientation, creed, whatever.
When we accept Christ (inasmuch as we can do so), we accept that our old life and our old lifestyle is dead and we determine that we are going to live our lives by God’s rules and not the rules of the world. I’m not saying that it’s easy — I’m saying that it’s what we are commanded to do. After all, if we live our new life in Christ while caught up in our old ruts of sin, what’s the point? It’s like injecting ourselves with the same disease again. We need to live as if we have been redeemed, casting off that which was tying us down before.

This doesn’t necessarily just apply to sexual sins — it applies to drug use, alcoholism, jealousy, anger, pride, lust, gluttony, gossip, and other sins which cause us to put something in place of God in our lives or cause us to destroy the lives of others. Sin is something that separates us from God and ALL of us are sinners.
(For those who want to snark and say that I’m saying this as one sitting comfortably in a pew, I’ll point out that I didn’t grow up in the church and am a convert. So… I do actually know the subject about which I speak.)

On the issue of welcome, EVERYONE should be welcome in the church. Christ died to save all of us, not just those sitting in the pews every Sunday and I think we as Christians need to keep that in mind. We are no better than anyone else — we just know where to go for help with our sin problem. It’s one of those things that I think we as the people of God around the world need to address and work on before we try to evangelize the world.

Impetus to Get Organized

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The minute I can figure out a filing system for the junk on my desk, it is going to be dismantled and used to light the trash barrels.

(The people helping us move out of the parsonage decided that it probably wouldn’t go down the stairs despite it going up the stairs and getting moved around the upstairs when we first moved in so they dismantled it.Â? A cardboard box in the corner is the only thing keeping it up at the moment.)

My Kingdom For Some Zantac!

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(I am going to admit right here and now that I’m ripping this idea off from Sir Sours. After all… I’m religious not schizophrenic as Herr Pisco would say.)

Yo God… we need to discuss a few things.

Jen! So nice of you to talk to me at a time other than your daily devotions! By the way, you realize that you should ideally pray even when you’re not going through Sacred Space, right?

Point taken. Now what’s with this acid reflux? I’m asking you for health and strength and all good things and you’re giving me this stinkin’ acid.

Said stinkin’ acid is from the garlic bread you ate at 3 a.m. and the cans of soda you’ve consumed today. Have you ever thought about giving up soda for a reason other than Lent?

Ummm… did it last year and then you let my gallbladder become a dead lump of flesh so that I was living on clear liquids like ginger ale?

You know that I created you perfect and that included a gallbladder that was designed to fulfill a certain purpose. You’re the one who downed the McD’s as a child and all those carbs.

And you knit me in my mother’s womb and gave me the predisposition to high cholesterol. As for creating things perfect, why did you have to create rattlesnakes? I spent all morning terrified that I was going to step on one.

We’ll discuss the whole creation issue later and I recommend that you look at what I said to the last person who asked that question.

I know… read those chapters in Job. That’s very nice. Now onto the job front: am I going to be subbing this year? Do you happen to have any bright ideas about what you want me to do if that doesn’t work out?

Jen, have you not forgotten what Jeremiah told the Israelites when they were in Babylon? I’ll give you a hint: you quoted it to all your frosh in college.

OK… so you know the plans you have for me. Mind enlightening me as to what you’re gonna do? I mean… it would be *nice* to know and all.

Jen, Jen Jen. You need to learn to trust me. By the way, you need to go sing at both services tomorrow.

Are you going to give me good sleep and not keep me awake after I pray for sleep like you did last night so that I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and not rip peoples’ heads off?

That’s up to you and your Coke addiction.

*rolls eyes* Fine, I’ll sing tomorrow but you’d better help me get sleep tonight without the use of pharmaceuticals or ethanol-based liquids!

Good khouria. By the way, keep up the intercessing on behalf of others. It builds character and shows others my love.

Will do. Amen and all that jazz.

Let’s Get Some Things Straight Here

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CNN.Com: Plan B advocates seek access for all

Since one of the idiot LCMS seminarians on LJ has proclaimed that “now you don’t even need a doctor to murder children” and I’ve heard others refer to it as “candy for sluts”, I think we need to get some things straight:

  • This is not an abortion pill. It creates conditions in which the fetus is unlikely to form. (It causes the endometrium to change.)Â? If the fetus doesn’t form, you don’t have a living being and thus cannot be killing. I’m not sure what’s so difficult about the idea of not being able to kill something that isn’t alive. The abortion pill is RU-486. That one *is* actually dangerous and there have been women who have died while using it. Go rip that drug company a new one!
  • This is simply a more concentrated dose of birth control. It’s the equivalent of taking 2 doses of 4 birth control pills at 12-hour intervals. How do I know this? I’ve lived in a part of the country where they don’t dispense it and so doctors will prescribe birth control pills and give specific dosing instructions.
  • It will not cause a rise in promiscuity. Ironically, the group that would be most promiscuous in this circumstance is the “under 17” group who still needs a prescription to obtain the medication. The 18+ crowd would either remain constant or drop due to correct contraceptive usage.
  • It will not cause a rise in teen pregnancy. OK… if the under-17 crowd can’t get their hands on it, exactly how will its OTC status raise the teen pregnancy rate? Most 18 year olds are at least smart enough to use contraception if they are going be sexually active.
  • It will not be taken like candy. OK… this is emergency contraception. One does not take it unless… it’s an emergency!!!! Those who have taken it report moderate to severe nausea and cramping being among the side effects. If a medication is going to make you severely nauseous, why would you be taking it on a regular basis?!?!?!?

I hate to break it to those in the pro-life community but… you either need to be pro-choice or pro-contraception. You can’t have it both ways because morality cannot be legislated. While I am pro-life in that I do not believe that abortion should be a viable form of birth control, I also believe that we live in a fallen world and if people are going to be engaging in sexual relationships outside of the context of marriage, there needs to be adequate contraception.

Would The TSA Allow Mentos?

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Due to my addiction fascination with Mythbusters, I came up with a thought/question that I posed to Jon one night while we were out walking:

Given the reaction that happens when one puts a Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke, wouldn’t it be appropriate for the TSA to ban them on commercial flights because some idiot could think it would be funny to stick one in a can of Diet Coke or Pepsi on a plane?

I’m just sayin’…