Category Archives: Faith

7 Quick Takes — Seven Finds via Quick Takes

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7 Quick Takes

I was supposed to be at the Sacramento Zoo on Friday with the family but it’s supposed to be 98F here tomorrow and heatstroke isn’t on my list of things I love. Anyway, I decided to do my Quick Takes this week about people and blogs I’ve discovered from doing them. Enjoy!

–1–

Kathleen @ so much to say, so little time: She actually found me and we’ve bonded over discussing Easter Seals and my love of snark. I read her because she talks about disability issues and just life with little kids. She’s also a FASCINATING person.

–2–

Angie @ The Jammie Girl: Angie is hysterically funny. I recommend her post on the top ten things not to do in the carpool line. She is one of the few blogs where I can laugh to the point of tears at her writing.

–3–

Katie @ Blessed with Full Hands: I’m living life vicariously through Katie because she’s an amazing runner and I wish I could run. She’s also training for a marathon and not whining about doing it like Heather of Dooce.Com is. (Heather, you’re getting to run said marathon with Christy Turlington Burns and it’s for charity. Stop whining.) Katie also homeschools her kids and I love reading about what they do.

–4–

Dwija @ House Unseen: Dwija and her husband bought a house sight unseen and moved their kids from southern California to Michigan. Can we say “has serious faith and guts”? Things are tough for them at the moment because her husband is having problems finding a job so please pray for them in that direction. Having said that, I love seeing the various things they’re doing to remodel.

–5–

Ed @ Catechesis, the Clown, and the Circus: Ed is a DRE (Director of Religious Education — note: this does not equal “youth minister”) at a Catholic church in Minnesota and he seems to have a sense of humor similar to mine. We’ve had some conversations across our respective blogs about life as church workers. He makes some excellent points and I recommend reading his blog for the perspective.

–6–

Jamie @ A Year in Skirts: Jamie embarked on an experiment starting in August in which she will wear a skirt or dress every day for a year. (You can read about the reasons on her blog.) I love finding her entries in my feed reader and seeing what she happens to be wearing that day.

–7–

George @ Convert Journal: George and I met over his blog — or rather he met my snarking pseudonym first and I introduced myself when he responded back gracefully. Truthfully, we’re on opposite sides of the spectrum politically and he has a convert’s zeal about the Roman Catholic Church. He does, however, keep me honest.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Words to Ponder

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I’ve had pieces of this in my head today.

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
— Philippians 2:1-13 NASB (via The Unbound Bible)

I frequently quote the bolded part (v.12) to people because I believe that we’re all in this together and we’re all trying to serve and glorify God as we journey through life. I know that there are things that did not make sense to me 10 years ago that I understand now and things that will probably make sense to me in another 10 years.

(Why yes, I was having a late night theological conversation on Facebook. How can you tell?)

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: September 19, 2011

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY September 19, 2011

Outside my window… sunny and in the 90’s. I’m seriously jonesing for four distinct seasons here — 97 F in September is unacceptable.

I am thinking… that I hope “the Buffet plan” passes and the millionaires and billionaires start paying their fair share.

I am thankful… for our “Winnie the Pooh” DVD. It kept Daniel quiet last week and it’s allowing me to get some web work done.

In the kitchen… nothing exceptional. Lunch for me was a baked Yukon gold potato. (I prefer them because they’re smaller and they have a better flavor than the russet ones.)

I am wearing… black Arabic shirt and black shorts (my “around the house” clothes).

I am creating… details for my NaNo piece.

I am going… to Walgreens today if my doctor’s office calls in my prescriptions.

I am wondering… where my regular cookbooks are and when I’m actually going to feel like cooking from scratch again.

I am reading… Stealing Lumby by Gail Fraser. The A.J. Jacobs book isn’t keeping my attention and I have the Lumby books until October so I’m re-reading them now that I’ve read the first one.

I am hoping… that I’m over Daniel’s bug though I haven’t had the issues that he has — in my case, it’s just a fever.

I am looking forward to… the fall season priemieres on CBS this week.

I am hearing… the refrigerator humming and “Winnie the Pooh” on the DVD player.

Around the house… echoing Dawn on this: don’t ask.

I am pondering… how people can call themselves Christians and yet support Tea Party politics. I’m not trying to start a fight here — the Tea Party rhetoric goes against EVERYTHING in the Bible about taking care of each other in both the Old and New Testaments. They truthfully disgust me.

One of my favorite things… the quiet time I get after Daniel goes to bed.

A few plans for the rest of the week… Daniel’s various therapies on Tuesday and Thursday and the Sacramento Zoo on Friday with my parents.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

A Compelling Question

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The chica over at A Year in Skirts posed the following question in her 9/11 post:

If Muslim families can send their children to public school and STILL have these children grow up to be obedient to their religion and raise daughters who wear a hijab AND these kids are fully fasting during Ramadan even while at school (no food or water during the day), then how is it that this task of raising Christian children in the public school system is too hard?

She mentioned that a lot of these families send their kids to private school for a year or so in elementary school so they can learn Arabic but the rest of the time, they’re in public schools. My experience was that some of the girls were sent to Catholic all-girl high schools but we did have a handful of girls at my public high school who wore hijabs. I think all of them went K-12 in the public school system and learned Arabic (or their native language) at home or at their mosque.

I think it’s a matter of the parents. I know of several evangelical families who sent their kids all the way through the public school system in San Jose (where I grew up). Everywhere else I’ve lived where Jon has served, homeschooling has been pretty rare and all the kids, Christian or otherwise, go to the public schools. (There hasn’t been the option of Catholic schools in those places.) The parents are hugely involved with their kids and they know exactly what is being taught or done at a given time. They talked to their kids about anything they felt was contrary to family values and they took their kids to church on Wednesday nights and Sundays. The kids know what their parents believe and what their families believe.

This is one of the reasons why I’m against homeschooling Daniel unless there becomes a compelling reason. I see no issue in letting him go to the local elementary school and talking with him about what he is learning. If something he is learning conflicts with what we believe as a family, we’ll deal with that when it comes.

I Remember

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I wrote this back in 2009 but I felt it deserved to come out again today.

Eight years ago today when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, I was sitting in my Person in Ministry class at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. I remember walking into Gloria Dei chapel after class and hearing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. At the time, I thought it was just a small plane because they’d had one crash into a building in Florida and it wasn’t a big deal, so why was everyone flipping out? Our dean of the chapel read St. Patrick’s Breastplate to us after letting us know that DC and New York were effectively shut down. Still… I wondered what the big deal was. It wasn’t until I walked into the student lounge and saw one of the towers collapse in real time that I understood what the big deal was.

I remember the first thing I did was to call my mom who was still asleep and going to be flying to Cleveland that day on business. She didn’t know what I was so upset about until she turned on the TV. Then, I heard her gasp and wake my dad up.

I remember everyone who was on campus that day crowding into Schenk Chapel for a prayer service at noon. I remember lots of tears and Dr. Mark Ramseth, our seminary president, sitting on the floor in the midst of us leading the prayers. Never has the song “Lord Listen To Your Children Praying” had such meaning. Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day so that people could go home and track down family and friends in that area.

The next few days were a blur of prayer services and candlelight vigils. One very distinct memory I have is of the Community Eucharist the next morning and the Litany being sung acapella and it just being very haunting and evoking the feeling that we were standing in the presence of the Almighty asking for protection. I also remember listening to the National Prayer Service on the local NPR station which our circulation librarian had turned on.

Besides that week, I have other very distinct memories.

I remember hearing horror stories about what Muslims across the US were dealing with from bigoted people who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) distinguish them from the fanatics who had been the actual hijackers. The story of a Sikh man in Arizona being beaten to death because of his turban still saddens me to this day.

I remember the idiotic comments of prominent right-wing Evangelicals like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Franklin Graham about Islam. The latter saddened me the most because I have so much respect for his father (the Reverend Billy Graham) and he was the one chosen to take over at the time.

I remember weeping when I heard about troops being sent to Afghanistan to bomb the Taliban because I knew that innocent people would die regardless of how “careful” we were.

I remember it being seriously politicized and becoming the rationale for the War in Iraq even though none of the hijackers were Iraqi (15 of the 19 were from our supposed “ally” Saudi Arabia) which angered me greatly.

I remember being in Detroit 3 months after it happened and around the time Attorney General John Ashcroft had “asked” all Muslim men between the ages of 18-35 to voluntarily come in for interrogation questioning. It was somewhat painful that the first words out of anyone’s mouth at the mosques we visited were “we’re not ones that did it” and I felt awful that they had to apologize for the actions of a small group of people that in no way represented the larger Islamic faith.

Most of all, I remember just being disgusted 6 months and then a year later when there were “retrospectives” on TV and all. I felt it was incredibly disrespectful to the families of the victims who were having the scabs on their emotional wounds ripped off again and again. It was why I created the September 11th Media Fast in 2002 — I just didn’t feel like I needed to watch hours of footage to remember the horror of that day. I also feel serious disgust at the renaming of today as “Patriot Day” — I feel like it is such an insult to those who died.

As I sit here 8 years later, I really feel no compelling reason to re-visit the horror of that day on a yearly basis but rather to remember how my world has changed since it happened. In the last 8 years, we’ve toppled the regime in Iraq, seen our own civil rights taken away in the name of national security (*waves to the nice NSA people who are reading this*), seen the day taken and used wrongly for the purposes of electing or re-electing people to office, become more fearful as a nation, and decried what we went through so many times that the rest of the world is dying to tell us to SHUT UP ALREADY. (You’d think we’re the only country that has had a terrorist attack take place on our soil.)

What I wish we could do is remember the day but also realize that maybe some of our foreign policy decisions could have been a little better and that the hijackers do not “hate us because we’re free” but because they’ve been taught that we’re occupying their Holy Land and we’re supporting Israel in persecuting the Palestinians. I wish we could use this day as a reminder of what happens when we preach an “us vs. them” mentality and eschew tolerance of the beliefs of others.

Mostly, I wish that we as a nation could join together as we all did on that day and all be “Americans” once again.

7 Quick Takes — Things to Do Instead of Watching Endless Hours of TV on 9/11

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7 Quick Takes

Sunday is the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and that fact hasn’t escaped me. I’m sure there will be televised memorials and lots of footage of the towers falling. Thing is… we know it happened. I have memories of that day and of the prayer meeting that happened when the entire seminary crowded into Schenk Chapel at noon as well as the prayer meetings in the coming days. I also memories of sheer terror when it came to board a plane to fly home at Christmas and having to take some Xanax to even make it through security. I’m not going to deny that all of us were changed by it in some way; but I have a problem with those in the media and elsewhere who want us to stay mad about it instead moving on with our collective lives.

My Quick Takes this week are all about things to do instead of dwelling on what happened ten years ago.

–1–

Go to church. The Gospel lesson that day according to the Revised Common Lectionary is Matthew 18:21-35 which is about forgiveness. The alternate Old Testament lesson? Joseph forgiving his brothers. I think that the message here is that we’re preaching forgiveness and moving on this Sunday.

–2–

Do a service project. This is actually what President Obama has called for us to do. Why not re-author the meaning of the day by making it a day of service to others? Collect food for a food pantry. (They’re getting more clients and getting desperate.) Clear some nature trails. Hold a blood drive. Plant a tree. Put together care packages for soldiers. Do SOMETHING to help someone else.

–3–

Go to the movies. I’m the last person in the world to know what’s playing this weekend but there’s probably something good? I went on Yahoo Movies and it looks like The Help is kicking butt and taking names. (I couldn’t get into the book but I’ve heard good things about the movie.) On the coming soon page, it says that Contagion and Warrior are coming out. If you’re into thrillers and mixed martial arts, go see those.

–4–

Have a picnic. Even if you live in a concrete jungle, there has to be someplace you can go and picnic. Trader Joe’s has some good recipes. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, check out Whole Foods. If you don’t have either one, go to your local grocery store deli and get sandwiches or something.

–5–

Go to IKEA. This sounds cheesy but it’s kind of a fun experience. They have great food and if nothing else, you can walk through a bunch of showrooms and explore.

–6–

Read a book. I’m almost all the way through the Lumby books. I also recommend anything by Jan Karon, Charlene Ann Baumbich, Phillip Gulley, or Joan Medlicott. All of them write about small town USA and the ideals that a lot of people have about what the heart of America is.

–7–

Go to the zoo. If you have a zoo nearby, go on Sunday. If you happen to go to the Bronx Zoo, M.I.A. the Bronx Zoo’s escaping cobra is claiming that you can get in half price if you bring a glass cutter.

Again, I’m not advocating the idea of forgetting what happened. I just feel that it’s more productive to do things other than giving into our sensationalized media.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

The Reality of Being A “Priest’s Wife”

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My favorite preoteasa posted her thoughts on being a priest’s wife and had some fisking to do of a comment to this article. The comment read:

I once went to a talk given by a married priest who was refreshingly honest. He said that he doesn’t work on weekends or after 8PM. If you call his house after that time you better be almost dead because his wife will be mad.

Uh… no. The “refreshingly honest” married priest was either lying or the commenter was. I can’t think of any pastor’s wives (or pastor’s husbands or priest’s wives) who would be mad if someone called after 8 p.m. That’s considered fair-game! If someone calls at 3 a.m. and it’s not an emergency, that’s a different story. If someone calls on Jon’s day off (the existence of which is mandated by the denomination AND the congregation) and it’s not an emergency, I’ll generally tell them that he’s unavailable and will call them back later. (We had someone who did this weekly in Montana. We just screened calls on that day.) In both of those cases, I will move heaven and earth to get in touch with Jon if it’s an emergency.

Another comment with which I took umbrage was:

I think the priest is just acknowledging the obvious: if a priest has a wife and children, he cannot give priority to his priestly ministry; it must, naturally, come behind his duty as a husband and father. It is self-evident.

No, it isn’t self-evident. He can give priority to his priestly ministry while also honoring his commitments to his family. I can’t think of anyone who married a priest or pastor who didn’t know that their spouse would have evening meetings or have to be at church an hour before worship on Sunday. I can’t think of any of my clergy spouse colleagues who bats an eyelash when their spouse gets a phone call, tosses on clericals, and runs out the door. Does it impact our lives? Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a surprise. I also can’t think of any parish who doesn’t give their priest/pastor a day off. Jon’s is Friday and we do family stuff that day and also on Saturday if there isn’t something that comes up. If it’s important enough, you make it work.

The issue behind all of this is priests being married in the Latin rite of the Catholic church. I know for my preoteasa friend, this is an issue that is frustrating because she, like, has a husband who is a priest (Eastern rite) and they make it work. I think that it’s one of those things that will be allowed to happen in the West on a case-by-case basis and isn’t going to be a sweeping change that happens all at once. I can’t imagine that priests currently serving would be amenable (well… some might be) to marrying and parishes would have to get used to “sharing” their priest with someone else. (We clergy spouses are nice about sharing though… most of the time.)