A Theological Reflection for Advent 3

For many adults attending church, the only Christian Formation/Education they receive is during the sermon. Our priest does this in a variety of ways. Sometimes she incorporates elements of Godly Play and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd into her sermons. Other times she does an interactive sermon, often using a form of Theological Reflection based on the methods we learn in Education for Ministry.

I got to a stuck place several times preparing my sermon for yesterday and started thinking about adapting the Godly Play Advent lessons to do with the congregation. But that got complicated in terms of what I'd need to bring and where I'd actually present it. Still contemplating my options, I looked up at the mantlepiece where I put out a few of the nativities from my collection, my eyes stopped on one that proved to be ideal for a theological reflection.

Here is what I presented to the congregation. We had some really good converstion.

I wonder what your thoughts might be?

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May the Words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It’s the third Sunday of Advent, and I’m preaching. It’s a tradition!

And why do I preach on the third Sunday of Advent, Tevye the Dairyman might ask? Well I’ll tell you, he would continue. I don’t know, but it’s a tradition.

For those of you who don’t know Tevye, he is the narrator and main character of the musical Fiddler on the Roof, which is based on the short stories of Sholem Aleichem. Sholem Aleichem was a contemporary of Mark Twain and came from the Ukraine region of Russia. Fiddler is the story of life in Anatevka, a shtetl, or small town in Russia, where everyone’s lives are rooted in traditions.

I had a whole sermon prepared about the traditions of Grace Church and how today’s reading from Isaiah serves as a lens for us to view those traditions. But the more I thought about it, the less it sounded like something we, including myself, needed to hear today in the middle of Advent. So I brought something from a tradition that legend says goes back to Saint Francis and was probably brought to the Americas by the Spanish. This particular one is from Peru and is called a retablo.

I’m going to pass this around, so you can all look at it, touch it, hold it, examine it. While you’re doing this, I’d like you to think about these four questions:

What is the world like here?

What can go wrong in this world?

What challenges us in this world?

What could fulfill the promise of this world?

Don’t worry about remembering them all, I’ll repeat them once you’ve all had a chance to see the piece.

What is the world like here?

What can go wrong in this world?

What challenges us in this world?

What could fulfill the promise of this world?

When we look at our modern culture, what does it how does it view this world we’ve been talking about?

Drawing from this conversation, what are some of the things we believe? What positions do we hold?

What does this mean for us when we walk out those doors and return to the world?

Heading South

I managed to pack everything in the purple knapsack. How much do I really need for two nights away from home? If I can go to Ireland for two weeks in a carry on... The only thing I ended up leaving behind that I would have liked to have brought was a crochet project. Fortunately, I have plenty to read loaded onto my Kindle. And if I forgot something important, it's not like I'm in the middle of nowhere for the next couple of days!

The shuttle arrived to pick me up at 3:40 a.m. In our family we refer to these early morning departure times as 0 Dark 30. I completed the security screening by 5:05. Then I sat and waited for my 7:00 flight to Atlanta. Fortunately, Delta has set up areas with small tables for plugging in electronic devices. So I checked email, updated Twitter/Facebook, and started today's blog post.

The flight left on time, and we arrived in Atlanta early. I think it was colder in Atlanta than it was in New York City! After a short layover, I flew to New Orleans where I met up with three other board members. We shared a van to Christ Church Cathedral where we met today and will be meeting tomorrow.

This is the first time I've been to New Orleans. Several years ago I sat on the tarmac for an hour or so on a plane bound for Houston that had been diverted due to weather. But that doesn't really count as having been to New Orleans. And I won't be seeing a lot of it this trip, since the reason for being here is the National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors (NAECED) board meeting. What I have seen is a city still recovering from the flooding after Hurricane Katrina. Many houses are still boarded up. Many are still being rebuilt and restored.

We are staying at the Double Tree on the edge of the French Quarter. Our annual conference will be here in February, so part of our meeting will be taken up with planning for that event. We walked about six blocks to the Oceana for dinner, which was wonderful. Good food, good conversation. We walked back on Bourbon street--noisy and lively, though not as much as it will be in a couple of months! Even so, there were a few folks standing on balconies throwing beads to tourists walking along. I now have a strand of Mardis Gras beads tossed to me on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
It's time to turn in. It's been a long day, and tomorrow will be a full one. Sleep is a good thing.

Can You Even Call It A Marriage?

Over the past couple of days upcoming divorce of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries has received almost as much coverage as the pre-primary election campaigns. It's receiving about as much coverage as the wedding did. And what a wedding it was according to all the media accounts.

But was it a marriage?

Some say that the whirlwind courtship didn't allow enough time for the two to get to know each other before wedding. Male bovine droppings! I know of couples who wed less than two months after meeting and remained married for more than 40 years, until the death of one spouse. I've also known couples who dated for years before tying the not and ended up divorcing less than a year after the wedding.

No matter how long the courtship, a wedding is a social event; a marriage is a commitment. How much of a commitment did you make if you throw up your hands and toss in the towel at the first bump in the road? It takes work to make a marriage.

You may ask what I as a single man know about marriage. A single gay man at that. I spent 11 1/2 years with the same man. At that time marriage wasn't an option for lesbians and gays. But we exchanged rings, combined our households, and built a life together. We slept in the same bed right up to the very end. There are many reasons the relationship ended, and I take my share of the responsibility for its failure.

Sixteen years after we separated he is married to a man who seems to be good for him. They've made commitments, helped raise a child, and built a life together.

While I've dated off and on, I remain single. Sometimes that happens. Should the relationship come along that merited it, I would get married. Hopefully, I'd do a better job of it the second time.

But there are many individuals and groups who would deny me the legal right to marry. Because marriage is between a man and a woman. Even if it lasts only 72 days. Or Britney Spears' 55 hours. What hypocrisy!

Marriage is essentially a civil contract. It existed long before Christianity arrived on the scene. Even then, it was centuries before the church decided it should be part of the contract--primarily because church and state were hopelessly intertwined. They still are when it comes to marriage, especially in this country. Stop trying to equate civil contracts with religious belief.

It is not the church's business to enforce a civil contract. Should the church be involved in supporting the relationship of two people in a marriage? Absolutely! Bless them, provide a community of support for them, help them through the milestones of their life together.

I'm Dreaming of A White...

Well, it probably won't be a white Halloween, but it certainly is early for snow of this magnitude. They did break snow records all over the place, but that wasn't hard to do. Other places definitely got hit harder than we did here in this part of Connecticut. And I hear there was almost a foot of snow not all that far north of here.

So I can admit I was wrong. The storm was worse than predicted in some places. And in spite of all the pre-storm hype, many people were caught unaware--at least to hear the news reports.

Trees down, power outages, transportation delays, and slippery driving conditions. These are not unusual for a winter storm. Just because it's October doesn't mean we don't know how to cope with winter weather. We may not like it, but we know how to cope with it.

Well, most of us anyway.

Honestly, what is so important that you would risk your life, and the lives of others, not to mention those of emergency workers, to drive with unsafe road conditions? And if tree limbs are falling all over the place, why are you even risking going outdoors?

Sometimes I wonder if we've forgotten how to slow down. Are we so afraid of time alone or with our families that we have to be doing something not at home?

Board game anyone?

The Hype Man Cometh

IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING! don't panic. RECORD SNOWFALL EXPECTED IN THE CITY! 0.8" maybe. IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING!

Fully half the evening news focused on the coming storm, what the City (New York City) was doing to prepare, and what people were flocking to the stores to buy before the storm arrives. Can round the clock news coverage be far behind?

We've gone from the information age to the too much information age. Does a Nor'easter really merit this much news coverage? Honestly, we did just fine with "just the facts, ma'am" when I was a child. I suppose we should be grateful that it hasn't been labeled "The Storm of The Century."

Yet.

On the other hand, the impending storm has taken the media's focus off the incessant bad mannered posturing of Republican presidential wannabes.

Shawls Plus!

I planned on walking down to church this morning for the gathering of our shawl ministry, but I had extra stuff to carry and ended up driving. I'll walk down tomorrow.

I FINALLY finished two shawls I've been working on for two months--one knit and one crochet.

Pattern: Cozy Mohair Wrap: Free lace Shawl Knitting Pattern (www.abc-knitting-patterns.com/1120.html)
Knit using Size 13 needles with one+ skeins Caron Simply Soft Dark Sage

This pattern was a bit of a stretch for my knitting skills. I had to count stitches at the end of every row, and I did a lot of unknitting and picking up of dropped stitches. I learned a lot in the process.

Zig Zag Shells Stoll (patbythehook.blogdrive.com)
Crocheted using a Size K hook with three skeins of Red Heart TLC Essentials Aran. I made it a little longer than the pattern called for, and I think it turned out nicely.

My friend Rachel donated some yarn leftover from a project she completed, so I whipped up a quick cowl using an N Size hook and a pair of fingerless mitts using a J Size hook. The mitts work quickly, so I made both of them in during our gathering this morning.

When we gather our conversations meander through a many different topics. Today we talked about the fact that we don't really have a name. I've been calling it Grace's Shawl ministry on the parish web site and the parish Facebook and Twitter accounts. Given that most of our members come from Iglesia Betania and Grace Episcopal Church, and that we want to be open to anyone, we gave it some thought. Also, we're creating more than just prayer shawls. Our deacon came up with a suggestion that we all liked: Holy Needles. Brochures in Spanish and English and a listing on the Prayer Shawl Ministry site coming soon.

1600 Steps to the Library

Yesterday I arrived early for our Education for Ministry seminar at St. Paul's Fairfield. Since I hadn't yet taken my walk for the day, and I had 45 minutes before the seminar started, I walked then. Before starting out I searched my iPod for an audio book I'd downloaded. I eventually found it hidden in the Music section of the menu, but while looking I stumbled across the Fitness menu. I knew it was there, and I sort of knew what was on it, but I never really looked at it before.

It has a Pedometer. Not only does it count my steps, it records the total number for each day and tracks it on a calendar. How cool is that? All my favorite music AND a Pedometer in one nifty gizmo. I'm currently going through my music to create a walking Playlist of songs that will keep me walking at a steady pace.

So it took me 1600 steps to get to the Norwalk Library--approximately 15 minutes--this afternoon. The closest branch of my bank is probably less than 400 steps beyond that, as is the Post Office. Within that 1600-2000 step radius are also a small grocery store, a CVS Pharmacy, Dunkin Donuts, a couple of convenience stores, a laundromat, a variety of restaurants, a couple of liquor stores, H & R Block (where I get my taxes done), and the hospital. Oh, and my church. It's probably about 4000 steps to the South Norwalk train station, and I'm thinking that 5000 steps or so would probably get me to the nearest Shop Rite, Stop & Shop, and Barnes & Noble.

It's not New York City, but it is an urban area. I could really cut down on the use of my low-mileage but aging car. Not does walking help keep me fit, but it could help cut my expenses.

Now if I could find a job within a 10,000 step radius, or allowed me to work from home...