Category Archives: Faith

Reflections on Atheism (VII)

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I reading my Twitter feed a few days ago and saw some tweets from Jen McCreight of BlagHag who was frothing at the mouth with anger. Why pray tell? (No pun intended. Seriously.) A student at a Louisiana high school had protested against a school-sponsored prayer being offered at graduation and was receiving death threats. (Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist has a timeline of the events.) His parents have disowned him and he has moved to be with his brother in Texas.

Oh boy…

As I’m all about providing fair and balanced commentary on this blog, let’s look at both sides of the coin.

HEADS!
As irritating as it might be for Damon Fowler to have to sit through a prayer to a deity in which he doesn’t believe, his classmates’ wishes for their graduation ceremony got ignored because one person felt their rights were violated. It sounds like those students who planned the graduation and chose the speakers *WANTED* this prayer to be part of it and the majority of their classmates agreed. It’s unfair that the desires of many got ignored to appease one person and I understand people being upset over it.

TAILS!
This is a *PUBLIC* school and having a prayer at graduation is a violation of Lousiana state law and a violation of the First Amendment. Yes, this is the Bible Belt and yes, the vast majority of people are Christian but it’s a public ceremony and Damon should not have had to participate in something that violated his right to freedom of religion.

My Take
Neither side is in the right here. Damon should not have reacted as he did but… he also didn’t deserve to receive death threats, his family disowning him, one of the teachers from the school making some really nasty comments about him and how he “hasn’t contributed anything to graduation or to [his] classmates”, or any of the bad things that have happened to him. It is really tragic that these things had to happen.

Update and a Compromise
Hemant put up a ChipIn widget on his blog to create a scholarship for Damon and as I’m blogging this, people have donated $6,657 toward Damon’s education. Duuuuuude… The Freedom From Religion Foundation has also given him a $1000 scholarship. In other words, people are making sure he’s being taken care of during all of this. His sister and older brother have gotten (or are getting him) to Texas to live with his older brother.

OK… so here’s the compromise that could theoretically have happened if all parties had reacted rationally and not emotionally: the prayer could have been replaced with an invocation that was some other creative form like a poem, a song, or even a reading from a famous speech. For example, the San Jose City Council has an invocation before every meeting and I’ve never seen it actually be a prayer given by a clergy person. Then again, this is northern California and hardly a stop on the Bible Belt so people would probably not tolerate a prayer being given. (I live in a rural community here so it could theoretically happen.) Another alternative would be to have a baccalaureate service separate from the graduation where the student giving the prayer was invited to participate in the service.

As I said before, it is tragic that things had to turn out this way.

7 Quick Takes Friday — Positives If Apocalypse Happens Tomorrow

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7 Quick Takes

According to Harold Camping at Family Radio, the world is ending tomorrow. With my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, here are the positives of the apocalypse if it does indeed happen tomorrow.

–1–

No campaigning for the Republican ticket in 2012. The election isn’t until next November. I don’t give a rat’s butt about who is running and who isn’t. And seriously, I don’t think the Republican Party can put forth a candidate that I’ll actually *like*.

–2–

No more “Real Housewives of ______”. The mere teasers for the shows make me turn off the TV and run screaming. I’m looking forward to less botox, less hair-pulling, and less DRAMA in heaven.

–3–

Getting to see my deceased loved ones again. I am missing my grandfather (who is in the picture in the frame holding my hand when I was five years old) a lot and the Rapture would mean that I’d get to see him. There are some other people I’d be excited to see as well.

–4–

No more fibromyalgia pain. I’m not going to lie — Revelation 22 describing no more pain and suffering is really tempting when random parts of your body start hurting at bizarre times.

–5–

No more church politics. I’m getting kind of sick of churches splitting left and right and hearing how ________ aren’t Christians or how ________ are deluded. C’mon people! We love Jesus. Let’s focus on that!

–6–

No more Fox News and Bill O’Reilly and all the talking heads. Enough said.

–7–

It’s giving Christians a chance to laugh at ourselves and joke about things. I can’t think of anyone in my Christian circle of friends who believes that the world is going to end tomorrow. However, it doesn’t mean that we’re not enjoying the opportunity to laugh at ourselves a bit while feeling embarrassed about being associated with the Family Radio crowd. It was actually one of my pastor friends who alerted me to the post-Rapture looting plans on Facebook. 🙂

(For more of this, head to Conversion Diary.)

Reflections on Atheism (VI)

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I have to say that the beginnings of the comments from Peter and Sean to my last post saddened me.

From Peter:

First off, thanks for stating the blindingly obvious. I genuinely mean that: I??ve read all too many blogs and forum posts which say that morality without religion is impossible, so thanks for being reasonable.

From Sean:

I??m glad that you so easily come to the right conclusion here.

The reason it saddens me is that it should be pretty obvious that atheists do have morals. I even posited a number of rules or norms in my last post on which we could pretty much all agree and both Peter and Sean seemed to agree that those were fair game though Peter didn’t like the thought of rules as the basis for morals.

One interesting thing about Peter and Sean being the atheists with whom I am in dialogue is that Peter is in the UK (national church of which the queen is head) and Sean is in Colorado which is home to the Focus on the Family people. I’m in northern California which tends to be a fairly secular part of the U.S. compared to the Bible Belt, the Midwest, and maybe even parts of New England. The UK apparently has had atheist prime ministers and has what I’m guessing is a more secular society than the U.S. does apparently. As far as having a secular society is concerned, I think a problem is that there is division on what would be too secular and what would not be secular enough. An extreme example is Turkey which is a Muslim country but… veiling is forbidden in government and in a university setting. Another example would be the burqa ban in France which wants to make men and women the same… but is disenfranchising a number of Muslim women who want to be niqabis because they view not doing so as being immodest. (Note that this is the women who are making this distinction, not the men.) Of course, you can cite a number of Muslim countries as examples of the extreme of not being secular, the worst offender probably being Saudi Arabia where churches/synagogues/temples are banned.

So what would it look like for the U.S. to be a completely secular country? Things I’m envisioning:

[+] No laws banning homosexuality or abortion
[+] Evolution taught in school instead of the Genesis account or Creation Science
[+] No National Day of Prayer
[+] The Bible not taught in public schools except perhaps as literature

Other than not having laws banning homosexuality and abortion, this is pretty much what I grew up with in California. We *DID* have to read the Bible for Junior Honors English and AP English but that point of that was understanding the context of the literature we were studying, not for the purpose of indoctrination.

OK… ready for comments on this.

7 Quick Takes Friday — Weird Things About Me

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7 Quick Takes

I figured I’d do one of these posts where I name some quirks that I have.

–1–

I separate M&M’s, Skittles, jelly beans, and other candies by color and number. Why yes, I have seen “As Good As It Gets” and the jars of separated candies in Jack Nicholson’s apartment. Shut up.

–2–

I like my drinks cold. Stuff has to be refrigerated and cold for me to drink it. I even chill my glass.

–3–

I like my sheets cold. Jon knows not to “warm my spot” on the bed. The sheets have to be reasonably chilly. Cat-warmed sheets are acceptable however.

–4–

I hate watching movies of books that I’ve read. I’d prefer to use my imagination to visualize characters and watching someone’s interpretation of them ruins it for me. (I’m also a stickler for following the book which is why I haven’t gone beyond the third Harry Potter movie.)

–5–

I’m not a fan of pop-culture Christianity. Many people swear by The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. I’d rather swear AT it. (Seriously, I hated the book so much that I had to stop at Day 32 because I was going to burn the thing if I didn’t.) I’m also not a fan of Joel Osteen (long rant there), Joyce Meyers, T.D. Jakes, or anyone else like that. I am, however, a fan of Billy Graham and Tony Campolo because they preach the Cross and repentance and not the patsy crap that the others espouse.

–6–

I have to have the tabs on scrollbar (or whatever that bottom thing is) in a specific order. I think we’ve established that I’m a little OCD.

–7–

I prefer the older hymns to modern worship music. Give me a good hymnal any day. I could care less about overhead projectors — I want to read the music and words and turn the pages. The older the hymn, the better.

(For more of this, head to Conversion Diary.)

The Promise Walk for Preeclampsia

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On May 7th, I participated in the Promise Walk for Preeclampsia with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and Daniel. As many of you know, I’m a preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome survivor so it was a way for me to get some emotional healing from the experience. Originally, I was going to be helping with the social media presence but we had the move and then Daniel got sick.

They had a group of high schoolers helping with registration. There were tables with preeclampsia shirts, hats, and stuff and I got a survivor shirt from them. There were also face-painting and crafts for the kids, a silent auction, tables from various birth groups and an OB-GYN, a table for a sporting goods store, and a lot of activities going on. They had a speakers at 9:30 a.m. (one survivor who had lost her daughter and two publicity people for local blood banks who were also preeclampsia moms), a dove release remembering those who had lost kids/moms/daughters to the condition, and the two co-coordinators spoke. One common thread was that it is just awful that a condition this prevalent (5-8% of all pregnancies) is so relatively unknown. I think the first speaker would have moved me to tears if I hadn’t been so tired — Daniel woke up at 6 a.m. and I was feeling pretty flattened. The dove release was pretty spectacular — they were trained birds and were flying in formation around the area.

The walk itself was “interesting”. Somehow, we all missed the signs so we ended up taking a wrong turn on the trail and walking much farther than anticipated. I kept a good pace and was proud of myself since I was also dealing with a migraine and fibro pain.

Afterwards, Sean (my evil twin) and Dad headed home with the stroller while Mom, Jeanette (sister-in-law), Daniel, and I hit up Costco and Trader Joe’s.

I’m glad I got to do it — preeclampsia awareness is one of my passions and this was a way to use it. One really wonderful thing is that of the $200 I raised myself, $150 of it was from Jon’s congregation. (Go Metanoia!) I’m very thankful that there are now people in the congregation who know about it and I’m hoping that maybe one of them knowing what it is will save a friend’s life or a daughter’s life or a grand-daughter’s life.

Reflections on Atheism (V)

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One sore subject that comes up in the dialogue between Christians and atheists is the idea that atheists have no morals. Let me make this very clear from the beginning:

BEING ATHEIST/AGNOSTIC/FREETHINKING DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU HAVE NO MORALS.

I want to be clear on that.

The difference, I think, is that Christianity has one sense of what is moral and what isn’t and we get really irritated when others don’t conform to it. Purity is a virtue which is why we frown on adultery, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, and pr0n. If I was judging atheists by those I knew in college or who I read online, this would be a bit questionable (i.e. Jen McCreight’s post on the Dan Savage pr0nfest in Seattle and her comments from the AHA gathering in Boston). However, I know that she isn’t representative of all atheists and she and I also would agree to disagree on that. (At least… I think she would.)

I think that there is a set of morals that all of us (believers and non-believers) can agree to:

-no cheating
-no murder
-no stealing
-no adultery
-fair wage for a day’s work
-help others who need it
-Golden Rule: do unto others as they would do to you

Having said that, there exists the question of atheists/agnostics not having a chance against Christians when running for office. I think I’ve addressed this before but I think it is unfair and that the Christian generally has the upper hand because they’re a known quantity (in theory) and they’re expected to uphold a certain moral standard. On the other hand, I really have a problem with those who run for school board elections that make their faith/philosophy into an agenda, be it Christians wanting to put God back in the schools or atheists who want to secularize things. I have no problem with secularization and evolution being taught in science classes — I have a problem with it when it is taken to an extreme.

This is kind of a lukewarm post based on my last ones but the issue of atheists having morals isn’t a hard one: they do — they just may differ from ours. Again, I’d love to have feedback on this.

How To Be A Perfect Pastor’s Wife

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My favorite Byzantine Catholic priest’s wife posted today on how to be a perfect priest’s wife. She mentioned me in her post so I thought I’d play off of what she said and add a few of my own thoughts.

Know that there is no such thing as “perfect”. You may be married to a man of God but both of you are still human, even if this thought completely SHOCKS your parishioners. Realizing this early on will help you preserve your sanity.

Make peace with the fact that your husband works over holidays. That wonderful image of the kids opening their presents on Christmas morning while the parents and extended family look on? Not going to happen unless you take your kids to be with your extended family and leave your husband to do Christmas morning worship on his own. (Not that I’ve done that… multiple times.) Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter are insane and it means Wednesday services/soup suppers, special services for the Triduum, and generally not seeing your husband for about 4-6 weeks. My friend mentioned her husband possibly having to work on their anniversary — that was a Lenten soup supper/service this year for us. We STILL haven’t gone out though that’s more to do with Daniel flipping out if we leave him with a babysitter. You find ways to celebrate holidays at “alternate times”.

Find your niche. My friend did a great job on this one, mentioning that people get a little prickly if they think that you’re going to replace them. (OK… in my experience, people get A LOT prickly.) One thing I make VERY clear is that I may be the pastor’s wife but my view of my job is to enable others to do their jobs better and this means that I’m not going to be the WELCA president, Sunday school superintendent (even though I have part of a Masters degree in theology), or on council. (Being on council would be a MAJOR conflict of interest.) The job that I tend to find myself doing in every parish is sacristan/Altar Guild because I’m detail-oriented enough to know what colors need to be on the altar, how much wine/bread to prep, and what banners would fit the season best. The best arrangement I had was in Minnesota where my partner did the altar flowers and I did the sacristan stuff. Another thing I’ve also done is be the back-up person for coffee hour if someone was going to have to miss. My favorite job is lectoring but so far I haven’t had any offers here.

Learn early on how to keep a secret. We’ve had someone in every parish but this one who has called “innocently” to find out where Jon is. (Translation: they’ve called to mine me for gossip because Jon is probably meeting with someone and getting information that would be great when put through the rumor mill. God bless small town life.) My answer: “he’s out doing visits” and I leave it at that. If they ask me who, I claim blissful ignorance (though I probably know where he is) and tell them to call his cell phone if it’s an emergency. With rare exception, that cell phone call doesn’t happen.

Help your husband. Mine has had to be his own secretary in two of the three parishes he has served. This means that I’ve had to fold bulletins, run them off, deliver them on my way to town, assemble reports for the annual meeting, and that kind of thing. I’ve also had to adjust his stole on occasion, fix his microphone, and that kind of thing. It’s harder now that I have Daniel but I view my job on Sunday morning as being that extra pair of hands for him to make sure things go off OK. I love my friend’s suggestion of having a box for those things that need to make it to church. Thankfully, we live around the corner from the church and my husband’s church stuff is contained THERE but I could really have used that in the last two parishes.

Pray for and with your husband. This does seriously make a difference when things are going crazy.

Be social. I’m off the Myers-Briggs scale as an introvert. (Being a cloistered nun would be perfect for me at times.) Smile at people and say “hi”, especially to people you don’t know. If they’re visitors, they may actually return. One thing I do tell people is that my hearing isn’t great when I have a cold and that I hyper-focus so they need to tap me on the shoulder if I don’t hear them or respond to them.

Establish VERY clear boundaries. The parish called your husband, not you. Thus, you should be theoretically off-limits. This means that you are not your husband’s secretary, people should not be telling you things about other people, and they need to meet your husband at the church instead of the parsonage. You are only required to be at worship — everything else is your gift to the parish. I make it clear to people that they need to talk to my husband if they have a message because my short-term memory is not great… especially when I’m chasing a two year old. When people start telling me something about someone else, I explain that I really shouldn’t be hearing whatever they’re saying. I don’t invite people over to the parsonage for coffee because it’s our private residence — not an extension of the church fellowship hall. (I usually will get together with people in public, like on the playground.) I also do not discuss church business at work and have thankfully had bosses who will back me up when people try to do that. (Yes, I’ve seriously had parishioners call me at work when they can’t reach Jon. When they get huffy at me, I transfer them to my boss who tells them firmly that this is a business establishment and that they need to wait until I get home to talk to me.) People will try to challenge your boundaries so be firm (and tactful).

Make friends outside of church. I have a blogging network for a reason — I can talk about things other than whatever is happening at church or in the community. It’s also mentally healthier for me when the church isn’t my social life.

Learn to smile and nod. You know how kids say the darndest things? Parishioners are the same way. I’ve had people ramble on to me about their opinion on something which is 180 degrees from mine. (Case in point: The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. I’ve had people swear by it while I would rather swear AT it and burn it.) Telling them that they’re wrong and misinformed does not work well, especially since they’re the ones paying your husband and controlling your housing. 🙂 Learning to smile politely and nod while listening is essential. You can roll your eyes later when you get home.

Figure out what works for you. Every parish is different and every marriage is different. Learn how to balance your the part of your identity as a pastor’s wife with the other parts of who you are. Blogging is how I reconcile everything. I also write murder mysteries. Find out what works for you.