CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

          Chicago: Where Obama Found His Political Voice          Photo by Richard Wall

by James M. Wall

Barack Obama’s father was born in Africa. His mother grew up in Kansas. As a child Barack went to school in Hawaii, Indonesia, and Kansas. His law degree is from Harvard.  But it was the city of Chicago, located on the shores of Lake Michigan in northern Illinois, that gave the 2008 Democratic Party nominee his political voice. 

It was here, in the city of “broad shoulders”, that Barack Obama emerged as a young man who believed he could become the president of the United States. He found his voice which combines community organizing street savvy with big city board room sophistication; a voice that blends religious fervor with classroom erudition. 

Reaching the White House is a goal now close at hand. But before he faces John McCain in November, Oboma must face one final gunfight with the Clinton gang in a confrontation that could echo the deadly cinematic “gunfight at the OK Corral”. 

Democratic Party leaders are desperate to avoid a shootout at the Denver Democratic Convention, August 25-28. Party chair Howard Dean, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid have Democrats running in state, local and federal race and they want a strong candidate for president to emerge from Denver.  What worries them is that the Clinton gang seems to have other ideas.

Would you believe Hillary wants her name put in nomination with an attendant celebration so her supporters can shout to the nation that their party is about to choose a candidate who lacks the experience to be president? You don’t believe such a thing?

Then, would you believe the Clintons want to dominate the convention with speeches by both of them to remind the party of a Clinton era of prosperity?  It is true that Bill and Hillary were in the White House before two Bush terms plunged the world into war and high prices at the pump. For them, the shootout at Denver would celebrate those eight years, and maybe, just maybe, weaken Obama enough to set Hillary up to return to the White House for a third Clinton term.

You refuse to  believe any of this?  You prefer to believe that the Clintons only want to get the respect Hillary’s historic campaign deserves?  You prefer to believe that the Clinton gang only wants what is best for them AND for their party? 

So believe what your heart tells you to believe, but before you do, travel back with us to a July 31 cocktail reception in a suburban back yard in Palo Alto, California, an informal gathering of Clinton supporters which was billed as a time for healing.  Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty did not see much healing:

As Clinton took questions from the 150 or so people who had paid $500 and up a head to listen, it became clear that the healing process was far from over. “For so many of my supporters, just like so many of Barack’s supporters, this was a first-time investment of heart and soul and money and effort and sleepless nights and miles of travel,” Clinton said. “You just don’t turn it off like that.”

You don’t?  Is it not inherent that in a democracy voters decide who wins and who loses?  Hillary Clintopn failed to win enough Democratic delegates to gain the nomination. Instead of moving on from that setback, the New York senator tells her supporters that the Obama campaign needs to make them feel better about their loss. 

If this does not sound like the Hillary you have supported since she entered the 2008 primary season as the almost certain nominee, then look at these You Tube clips now available on the internet, here and here, clips obviously taken by an amateur, a supporter who wanted to cherish one final up close and personal moment with the woman she greatly admires.

What Senator Clinton told that group of supporters in Palo Alto were not the words of a gracious loser who came close, but not close enough, to win the nomination of her party. Karen Tumulty’s Time article makes it as clear as anything in politics can be clear, that Tumulty believes the Clintons’ lack of enthusiasm for Obama has an ulterior motive:

In private conversations, associates say, Clinton remains skeptical that Obama can win in the fall. That’s a sentiment some other Democrats believe is not just a prediction but a wish, because it would prove her right about his weaknesses as a general-election candidate and possibly pave the way for her to run again in 2012.

So don’t be surprised by a shootout at the Denver corral. When the delegates gather for battle, watch to see if Harold Ickes, Jr., is mingling with the Clinton delegates,  loading the rhetorical and strategic guns over there in a corner of the corral.  It was this same Ickes who urged Clinton to follow his script through the primaries, demanding that party rules be tossed out so that delegates from “her” states, Florida and Michigan could be seated. It was this same Ickes who would not let Senator Clinton leave the race at an earlier moment in the process, to leave time for Obama to focus solely on McCain. 

 It was also very likely this same Ickes who was behind Clinton’s frequent references to the “sacred” freedom of delegates who had the “right” to forget that they were elected as Obama delegates and vote for Clinton instead. Ickes has previously shown his contempt for convention rules that don’t favor his candidate (Ted Kennedy at the time) when he tried, and failed, to block President Jimmy Carter’s nomination at the 1980 convention. 

You don’t believe any of this?  All you care about is Hillary Clinton getting her moment in the convention spotlight as a reward for almost breaking the political glass ceiling?  And you want us to forget Bill Clinton’s reluctance to throw the weight of his own public esteem behind the last man standing who can prevent a third Bush term and a permanent conservative Supreme Court?  

You liberals who are still angry that your candidate lost, know very well that I am talking to you.  Barack Obama knows how you feel. And he deserves your respect for the manner in which he is trying to ease your pain.  There is a quick and productive way to deal with that pain.

When I complained to a leading Chicago politician that Obama had not supported my candidate in a 2006 Democratic congressional primary race, he looked at me and said quietly, “Jim, get over it.”  Good advice for me, and good advice for the Clinton gang when they head out to Denver.  

In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, 

“Don’t take your guns to town son, 

Leave your guns at home Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

 

Maxwell Smart and 99

99: Oh, Max what a terrible weapon of destruction.

Smart: Yes. You know, China, Russia, and France should outlaw all nuclear weapons. We should insist upon it.

99: What if they don’t, Max?

Smart: Then we may have to blast them. That’s the only way to keep peace in the world.

by James M. Wall

Rick Warren is one smart and not so crazy guy. He names a California church Saddleback and still builds it into a 20,000 member institution that shoots to the top of the mega church charts. He writes a best selling religion/psychology self-help book that appeals to evangelicals and non believers alike. He makes friends easily, two of whom are now running for president. In institutions like the church and politics, it is not truth that speaks to power, but power that speaks to power.

After a few phone calls to his two political friends, they show up on the stage of his Saddleback Church to talk religion and politics.  And right away, we know Rick Warren knows how to conduct an interview to his own liking. He does not want a debate;  he just wants his two guests, Barack Obama and John McCain, to appear on stage with him, separately, before a national television audience, where they dutifully answer identical questions of interest to Warren and his national constituency.  

With these interviews Warren attempts to seize Billy Graham’s mantle as the nation’s national chaplain. The secular media is eager to help. Religion can be so frustratingly complex that the media measures the level of religious faith by asking “do you go to religious services once a month, every week or every day?”  They do appreciate it so much when the professional God people keep it simple.

      Keep It Simple, Rick

Rick Warren sure did keep it simple at his Saddleback colloquy, so simple that post-colloquy discussion hardly noticed what he let slide and what he cherry-picked by his questions that played to the public and media crowd that prefers to keep religion on the surface: Are you for or against same sex marriage?; do you want to eradicate disease and poverty?; have you done bad things in your life (like stealing an apple or cheating on your spouse.)? 

No wonder John McCain was judged to be the winner. The place was wired for him, the questions, the easy answers, the audience, the media’s ignorance on religion and its disdain for nuance. McCain was chosen to go second but would not be able to hear the questions and Obama’s answers. Warren promised us he would keep McCain under a “cone of silence”.

Hey, folks, this is television. They were expected to abide by a code of honor they first broke on the playground when they played hide and seek? The term comes from a television series, for goodness sake, with Maxwell Smart sitting under a “cone of silence” so the enemy would not hear his secret. Not even McCain’s favorite former president, Ronald Reagan, would fall for that one. Remember, “trust, but verify?” 

      Of Course He Knew

Of course, McCain knew the questions going into his segment and he knew Obama’s answers. Frankly, what difference did it make. What the colloquy, with Warren’s questions skewed to his own political views, actually revealed was the character of the two candidates. By exposing their world views under the spotlight of Warren’s softball evangelical-oriented questions, viewers saw the stark contrast between Obama and McCain.

Obama, going first, answered Warren’s question on the existence of evil in his careful and thoughtful manner, while McCain promised to see evil as the current incumbent president sees it (third term, anyone?). Complex awareness versus militant “us against them” simplicity; which man do you want answering that 3 a.m. phone call?

The moment Rick Warren asked his question on evil,  blogger Gary Paul Corcoran, writing on the Talking Points Memo website, saw McCain for what he is, a politician playing to an audience which has been conned into believing for the past eight years that military power is the answers to all problems.

Warren had asked, “does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it or do we defeat it?” Obama answered the first part of the question to the affirmative, went on to explain evil’s many guises, from Darfur to ourselves and our own domestic policies, spoke in terms of “confronting” it but cautioned about the need for humility. A lot of evil has been perpetrated over the years in the name of good.

When asked the same question, McCain, who we now know was peeking from behind the curtain, channels Charlton Heston as Moses in contrast to Obama’s answer. “Defeat it,” he says to a raucous round of applause and with a look as stern as old prophets.

The fact is, McCain never even bothered to address the first part of the question, or to frame his answer in terms other than us against them.

What the colloquy revealed about McCain is that his value system is narrowly focused, far too much so for a multi-cultured nation like ours.  McCain said:  ”Our Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we do what we can to help people who are oppressed throughout the world.” McCain’s fellow world traveler and dark horse vice presidential possibility, Joe Lieberman, echoes this same focus when he campaigns for McCain. 

          McCain’s Judeo-Christian Focus

The Boston Globe has studied McCain’s steady use of “Judeo-Christian” in his comments on religion. In a column written (August 19),  the Globe’s Washington bureau chief Peter S. Canellos noted an early primary Judeo-Christian focus by McCain. 

On a frozen winter evening at a Town Hall meeting in a school in the Manchester, N.H., suburbs, John McCain expressed surprise and irritation with an intelligence report downplaying the threat of Iran’s nuclear program.

At the end of a long list of reasons to be suspicious of the Iranians, McCain declared: “And they sure don’t share our Judeo-Christian values.”

It seemed at the time to be an odd thing to say about a Muslim country. After all, even if there were no nuclear program, no oil, and no rabble-rousing president, Iran still wouldn’t have Judeo-Christian values. And it’s troubling to wonder if that alone would be a reason for suspicion. . . .

McCain’s view of American power harkens back to the World War II era, when the United States held the moral high ground as liberator. He is a staunch interventionist, both on humanitarian and national-security grounds.

To most of the world, especially in Muslim nations, there is an enormous difference between standing up for freedom and standing up for Judeo-Christian values, but McCain conflates the two. And sometimes, his use of the term seems more than accidental.

New York Times Columnist David Brooks defends, or more often explains, McCain, speaking as an old friend who wishes the “old” McCain could return to his senses. He blames the staff and not McCain for his current tactics. 

The man who hopes to inspire a new generation of Americans now attacks Obama daily. It is the only way he can get the networks to pay attention.

Some old McCain hands are dismayed. John Weaver, the former staff member who helped run the old McCain operation, argues that this campaign does not do justice to the man. The current advisers say they have no choice. They didn’t choose the circumstances of this race. Their job is to cope with them.

And coping is what McCain is doing. The polls say it is working; the race is still close. So far, McCain, and his advisors are counting on the media to help them keep the voting public under Warren’s “cone of silence” long enough for McCain’s tough talk–and his insensitivity to all religions and cultures not under the Judeo-Christian blanket–viable through November 4. 

                     The picture and excerpt at the top of this post are from the archives of the Museum of Broadcasting Communications, Chicago, Illinois. They are from the Get Smart episode Appointment in Sahara. Behind the two characters is an image of a mushroom cloud.

 

"While English is Jamaica's official language, most Jamaicans speak patois. But it does not yet have a standard writing system. Those opposed to the translation project have argued in the country's newspapers and other media outlets that formalizing a written standard for patois would undercut efforts to promote Standard English." --"Translation Tiff," Christianity Today (Jocelyn Green).

In art, one of the lines that divides high art from pop art is dialect.  Yet there are often grey areas.  For instance, Warhol used the dialect of consumerism.  Twain used the dialect of the poor, the slave, and the lower class.  Copeland and other Modern composers used the dialect of folk music. 

Christianity often finds itself in the midst of translation battles, high church versus low church, and the valuation of worship.

Worship doesn't need to be quantified, it needs to be qualified.  We are priests, we are the leaders and followers of one who is the leader of the angel armies that sing for joy: "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty."

Whether one worships and reads in patois or English or Spanish, we must serve God faithfully and trutfully.  And then the division between high and low will fade away.

© Jan L. Richardson ◊The Painted Prayerbook◊

When I was in seminary, one of my professors threatened each year to give a Rock of Ages award to the student who made it through their theological education the least changed. We didn’t have such folks in abundance, but they were evident in each class: those who were present solely because their church or denomination required that they have a seminary degree. Sticking it out until they had that parchment in hand, these classmates went through the motions of education but remained impervious to the transformation that it offered.

Though Jesus refers to Peter as a rock in this week’s gospel lection, I suspect that Peter would have eluded such an award as my seminary professor threatened to give. Matthew 16.13-20 tells us that Jesus and the disciples visit Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus, after asking his companions who others say that he is, then turns the question on them: “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter, in a dazzling moment of clarity and insight, tells Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”

Jesus is elated by Peter’s insight, and he begins to lay a blessing on him. He opens with calling him Simon, harking back to his follower’s former name. Jesus goes on to tell him, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Jesus’ naming of Peter plays on the Greek word for rock, petra; his name is sometimes translated as Cephas, from kepha, the Aramaic word for rock.

Peter, however, is a rock of a different sort. Unlike the folks who were candidates for my professor’s Rock of Ages award, Peter is not impervious to change. He exhibits his own points of resistance, to be sure, but he also harbors a fundamental openness to the transformation that Jesus offers. Jesus recognizes that Peter is still in formation. This disciple will yet do things that will provoke Jesus’ ire and disappointment. The human and earthy still run deep in Peter. Yet Jesus glimpses strength within him, and an openness that he knows will become a habitation for the holy.

Pondering this Petrine passage, I find myself thinking of Jacob in the wilderness. Genesis 28 describes how Jacob, having fled for his life, finds himself in a place between the home he has known and the life that is yet ahead of him. As darkness falls in that place, Jacob settles down to rest, laying his head upon a stone. During the night, he dreams of a ladder stretched between earth and heaven, with angels ascending and descending the ladder. He becomes aware of God standing beside him, offering words of promise and sustenance. Waking, Jacob cries, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” He takes the stone he had used for a pillow, sets it up as a pillar, and pours oil on top of it. Jacob renames the place Bethel: House of God.

Jacob’s stone marks that spot as a thin place, to borrow a notion from Celtic traditions. Celtic folk have long held that in the physical landscape and in the turning of the year, there are places where the veil between worlds becomes thin. It’s not that God is somehow more present in those places, as if God could be more there than elsewhere; rather, something in those places and times invites us to be more present to the God who is always with us. We open, and we see.

Jesus names Peter the rock. In doing so, Jesus signifies that he both recognizes what is within Peter and is also calling forth what has yet to take form in him. In an action that echoes Jacob’s sacramental gesture, Jesus pours a blessing like oil upon Peter. After telling Peter that he will build his church—a house of God—upon him, Jesus goes on to say, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” His words have the tone of incantation, of ceremony, of one who is initiating another into a sacred role. And, in fact, “binding and loosing” are words that come from the rabbinic tradition; they refer to what happens when a question arises about whether an action may be permitted. Steeped in the law, the rabbis had the power to determine which actions would be forbidden (bound) and which would be allowed (loosed). Jesus confers power upon Peter, an authority so profound that what Peter does will have import in both heaven and earth.

Like Jacob who recognized the presence of God in that in-between place, Peter knows Jesus in an instant of brilliant clarity. Where Jacob turned his stone into a sacrament and renamed that place the House of God, Jesus marks this moment by blessing his disciple and renaming him as a rock who will become a dwelling place for God. Peter himself becomes a thin place; within him meet the things of heaven and the things of earth. What Jacob knew, Jesus knew: this is a place upon which to build something holy.

And so I am asking myself this week, what is solid within me? What do I contain that would serve as the ground for a holy place, a sanctuary? How do I allow sacred ground to inhabit me even as I remain open to transformation, to change, to renovation and renewal? How does this happen for you? What thin place might God be seeking to create in the midst of your life and your own being? What might we need to let go of in order to make room for such a space?

May you recognize the holy in your midst this week, and be a place for it to dwell.

UMCYoungClergy.com has posted videos on the issue of Young Clergy and Bishop Willimon is featured in the series. Please visit this site and watch all seven video clips!

Part 2

What light does Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra shine on infidelity? As I wrote Part 1, news broke of John Edwards’ affair.

Grief

I’m finding this piece more difficult to write than I thought. I guess because I’m grieving.

• Grieving for America. Right now we need all the good ideas and the best people we can find. We can’t afford the loss of any, especially people like John and Elizabeth Edwards who inspired us and who were lifting up the needs of the poor.
• Grieving for the Edwards family. She has cancer to deal with. Now this. “Anguish” is the word one news blog used. And for Edwards himself; the blog quoted one democratic insider who said, “He’s finished.”

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in the same mood:

O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
     for the slain of my poor people! …
For they are all adulterers,
     a band of traitors.

Jer 9:1-2 (NRSV)

Here the adultery is both literal and figurative, representing the people’s unfaithfulness to God.

The grief in the play is nowhere clearer than when Antony sees his friends after abandoning his fleet and pursuing Cleopatra from the battle (Act 3, Scene 11). “I have lost my way forever,” he says. When Cleopatra shows up, he cries, “No, no, no, no, no.” Nothing will ever be the same.

Sin

I almost hate to use the term, because it’s a favorite of politicians who point fingers at others while secretly carrying on affairs of their own. But no other word will do.

We see here the deceitfulness of sin. While Mark Antony acknowledges he must leave Cleopatra because  the affair is causing “ten thousand harms more than I know,” he continues it. He seeks death like a bridegroom leaping into his lover’s arms. His servant’s name, ironically, is Eros, the word for self-gratifying love; he repeatedly calls “Eros!” in his final scenes.

Most teens believe they’re invulnerable, contrary to all evidence; politicians who have affairs believe they’re the exception, the one who won’t be caught. We also teach our politicians they’re special. Their every need is catered to, in the bubble of privilege they live in. So why shouldn’t they gratify sexual impulses?

Meanwhile, sin continues its silent certain destruction of life. Antony compares himself to the shape of a bear or lion in the clouds, that vanishes in a moment: “Here I am Antony: yet cannot hold this visible shape” (4.14.)

Sin leads us to violate our own best nature, to participate in self-destruction.

John Edwards, like Mark Antony and all of us, is responsible for his sins. But there is a communal aspect here as well. For, all of us are responsible for the kind of society we live in. We’re responsible for the sex-drenched advertizing, television, and movies that consume us.

The modesty my Mother believed in strikes us as comical, quaint, maybe puritanical. Perhaps a little. But our sexual openness has gone way too far.

Spiritually, sex is like fire, one of the primal energies. In the hearth it provides warmth. In the stove it cooks our food. But fire, out of such bounds, burns down the house. The Commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” interpreted by Jesus’ emphasis on the lustful look and heart shows us where the boundary is. When we find sex outside the boundaries of marriage and monogamous lifelong relationships, we don’t have to wonder, analyze.

The song says, “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right.” But it is wrong, no matter how it feels; it’s destroying us and all that we love.

Is this the Felix Culpa?

The corny words of scripture turn out to be right on the money: “the wages of sin is death” Romans 6.23.

And the verse goes on: “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” My hope is that this is a personal turning point for John Edwards, the felix culpa, the sin which God uses to redeem. Though he may never be the presidential hopeful he was, God still has plans for him.

And for the rest of us sinners, too.

It’s hard to know what to do when you have friends whose children are sick or hurt or dying. You want to do something, of course, but what should you do?

I’ll tell you. Do what they want and need you to do. You have to find out what that is. When you know, just do it. Some very close friends will have intimate things to do. They will help in intimate ways. Other friends will listen and watch and be a listening ear when needed. You can pay attention. You can remember that it’s all about them. It’s not about who loves them more or who is a closer friend. Just quietly find out what you should do and then do it. And if it seems right to back off, do that. Just back off and wait. I can’t tell you how to find out what you should do. But if you are gentle and cautious and more quiet than loud, and if you’re trying hard to find out what you should do, you’re probably okay.

I currently have two friends in this situation.

Rohan is a man who did a lot of the work on this blog. He works with Tim at Jethro in Australia. He has a daughter who was born without eyes. Her name is Caitlyn. I am in no way a close friend of the family. But I know the work Rohan has done, so I feel that I know him in some small way. I know about Caitlyn. I’ve prayed for Caitlyn. The family has a website for her, and it seems to be a really nice thing for them when people visit and drop them a note to let them know. Rohan has recently written about their first year with Caitlyn.

Maybe it helps them feel less alone when people drop by to read. And when you have a child who is sick or hurting or facing some kind of challenge, you can feel very alone sometimes.

If you are a praying person, you can read about Caitlyn and pray. If not, you can read about her and think and nod. You can send a quick note of encouragement. Those are small things but also good things.

I think I will write Caitlyn’s name into our church prayer book, the one I look at every Sunday when we pray for people. She can join Zane, who is a young man that we pray for because his father asked us to, even though we’ve never met him.

So I'm putting Caitlyn in the book with Zane. That’s a small thing for me to do. Don't be ashamed of doing small things. I think most of the really great things that happen are small things.

I’m also sad to tell you that Thomas Bickle has died. Thomas is the son of two dear friends. (I don't think any of us are ready to say "was" yet.) I am not one of their very closest friends, but I’ve always considered Sarah and Scott to be kind of secret, special friends. The kind you don't see much because life didn't put you close to each other geographically, but when you do see them it's great. Especially Sarah, whom I’ve loved as if she was a little sister for years now, ever since she was in 8th grade and I met her at a Bible study. Sarah wrote a guest blog here about her last days with Thomas.

For Sarah, I watched the phone in case she called needing to talk. That was my small thing. And going to the funeral with David Gentiles was something I was supposed to do. I felt that inside. David had to speak at the funeral. I only had to sit and watch and listen and allow myself to be sad with them.

When you have friends with sick and hurting children, you don’t have to be a hero. You just have to find the small things you should do, and do them.

Be small.
Be present.
Be watching.
Be listening.
Be quiet.
Be gentle.

Remember those things and you’ll be fine.

rlp

 

So we’ve spent the past few days in Austin searching for a place to live. There is a part of me that would love to live in the quirky, educated, central part of the city - the parts that inspire the “Keep Austin Weird” bumper stickers. You know the ones connected to public transportation and near co-op’s and farmer’s markets. But homes in those areas are just a few hundred thousand outside our price range. Frustrating that living within our means and within our ideals are hard to do concurrently.

But as we’ve looked in the pockets of town we can afford - generally the low-income, ethnically diverse areas (a plus in many ways) - I’ve noticed a pattern. Surrounding these neighborhoods are convenience stores and fast food places. No real grocery store, no access to healthy food choices. In fact the closest access to any groceries whatsoever is a Wal-Mart some miles away. It’s a pattern I saw in Chicago as well. The poorer a neighborhood, the harder it was to find healthy food options. If one doesn’t have a car and gas money the choices stocking the aisles at the local 7-eleven are what’s for dinner. And people wonder about the links between poverty, nutrition, and school/work performance…

I just find it frustrating and am pissed off at the latent injustices in our socioeconomic system. And stressed at how much more difficult house hunting is when not just economics and aesthetics but personal values are involved. Knowing that where we live reflect who we are and what we value - and that many of those values will have to be compromised - makes it all that more complicated.

Decisions, decisions…

Ode to Joy: Great Choral Masterpieces
Sydney Philharmonic Choir

An album with the Sydney Opera House on the front has to be at least enjoyable, does it not?  This album features the live recording of the Sydney Philharmonic Choir's "Great Choral Masterpieces" concert.  All the big ones are on here: Mozart, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Hayden, Beethoven, Verdi, and Mendelssohn.

A greatest hits of sacred music, if you will, is a peculiar phenomenon.  This is the cream of the crop, and it took all my strength not to stand in my cubicle and sing "King of Kings, Lord of Lords" during Handel's Messiah.  But on the other hand this performance has ripped great choral music out of its context.

The narrative of sacred music is the Holy Scriptures, and like taking a verse out of context, these songs seem a bit out of context.  Like Easter-and-Christmas only worshippers, these songs create a two-tiered nature to sacred music, focusing on one part of the story that is great musically but maybe not as important to the story the whole piece is trying to tell.

And that's the trouble we find ourselves in with the Bible.  Sometimes a verse really hits hard or sounds great as a zinger in a sermon or a theological showdown.  But really we're not telling the whole story.  

We as Christians need to always be telling the whole story, the whole gospel, for that is Christ.  When we rip Scripture out of context and distort it to fit our views and tastes, we are not sharing Christ but our ideologies.  Ode to Joy sounds really cool right now coming through my laptop speakers, but without the context what am I being joyful about?

We need to be inside the story, from beginning to end.  That's when the sacred begins to make sense, and we know not only that we are joyful but why we are.

We started out long ago and
high above the river and ended
up here, again, last night watching
the rain fall in the darkness, looking
down across the river valley. Here,
in a land defined by drought, it has
rained since we arrived – not
sprinkles, but sheets: the kind of
deluge that sticks your shirt to skin
running from the car to the house.

I expected to wake up this morning
and see a stream running between
the banks below, life flowing again
in the dry bed. I was not disappointed.
The questions, I think, have fed
our lives between the two rivers;
we were never much for answers,
when it comes to what matters most.

Why am I moved by stories of Eden,
you wondered once: Adam and Eve,
in their garden between their rivers.
What does their sadness mean?
Life flows to sadness like our rivers
to the sea. It’s all headed downhill,
and – not but, AND – life fills with
joy and grace the way the showers
feed the streams and soak the land.

By the time we said good night to
the river and each other, the house
was strewn with empty wine glasses
and coffee cups. I carried a full heart
back to my room. Now that I’ve had
my morning coffee, I think it might
be time to run out under the rain
and soak in the grace and gratitude.

Peace,
Milton

Who you are Exodus 1:8-2:10, Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20 By Kristin Swenson About 150 years ago, Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed, "There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is...

Clarification:

Some comments on my last post have made me realize how badly I wrote something. When I referred to people who are outside of Christianity as not having scriptures, I was thinking of people who are outside of the worldviews of organized religion. Of course I know that other religions have their own scriptures. I wrote that quickly and really just as a quick update. It was written poorly and not what I intended.

When will you hear something about the results?

I had hoped to spend some time this week working with this, but I really wasn't thinking clearly about my calendar. I leave Tuesday evening to go to Laity Lodge to lead a retreat with Jeanene and our friends Milton and Ginger Brasher-Cunningham. A number of you know Milton from his blog. The four of us will be leading a retreat through Saturday. If I can get internet access there, I'm going to post some photos, etc. during the retreat. But I'm not going to take the time I need to process all the emails. That will be a project for the week after. I'll keep the hell@RealLivePreacher.com open for a few more days to gather any more emails that come in. Then I'll wade into it all and try to make sense of it.

rlp

Nineteen years ago tonight I gave Ginger her ring.

We had already decided together to get married, but I wanted to be able to make a big deal about the diamond. My friends Billy and Patty helped me put together the evening of a lifetime. Nineteen years later, that lifetime continues, full of love and good things.

I'm a fortunate and grateful man.

Peace,
Milton

that has carried us between
family and friends, sharing
stories and meals, planning
and remembering, feeling
the rise of old feelings that pull
like an undertow, and relishing
new experiences that carry us
like rapids so that we don’t have
time to take in all we are feeling
has left me exhausted and exuberant.
I’m back in old places, but the
water is new; things are not the same,
except, it seems, for the things I
wish would be different. The rocks
that would break our boats never move.
Tonight, as we stood on the porch and
the rain percussed on the tin roof, and
we stared out across the dry river bed
in the valley below, I could not help
but believe that all that was being
washed down the hillside would not be
lost, but would feed the strong current
that will carry us on into the days to come.

Peace,
Milton

So we made it to Texas and it has been a crazy week. I finally have my laptop connected to the internet and am stealing a few minutes to sit down and write. But as I considered what to blog about (usually whatever is on my mind at the time…), I realized that I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about vampires. Yes, vampires. But bear with me here.

I actually bloged about my encounters with vampire (books) three years ago (here), so it’s not a new subject on this blog. But after reading through Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series recently, vampires have once again been on my mind. If you haven’t heard of the series that means you are most likely not a teenage girl (or a huge fantasy geek). I was intrigued by any book that merited a midnight release for it’s fourth installment and had been following the debates as to if the books were sexist or not (I personally think not). So I decided to give the books a go and ended up throughly engaged.

As you probably gathered at this point the books are about vampires (sorry for the spoiler). But the main characters in the books are “good” vampires - they feed off animal blood, not humans. What I found most intriguing though was the process by which these characters became vampires. Each of them had been at the brink of death and were at that point transformed into vampires - immortal, perfect creatures (at least in this series). Given the author’s expressed religious devotion, I can’t help but see the spiritual parallels there. The chosen ones being essentially resurrected into strong, beautiful, gifted, eternal (yet physical) beings. Interesting concept.

But the obvious spiritual connection in the books reminded me of other conversations I have had relating Christianity and vampires. The whole concept of blood being shed to give another eternal life mirrors vampire lore. There are of course those that recognize that with derision as this quote demonstrates -

“Almost two billion people on the face of this planet are Christians,” he said. “That means every Sunday you’ll find hordes of these creatures lining up to drink the blood of their god in a ritual called communion.

“And what does their god and his church offer them in return? “Everlasting life …

“If that is not the promise of a vampire religion, then I don’t know what is …”

Sinton said Christianity was the only religion that worshiped a corpse and one of a handful that still engaged in blood rituals.

“Visit one of their churches and you’ll often find a huge statue of their vampire Christ looming over the congregation,” he said. Instead of blood dripping from fangs, Christ’s blood drips from his hands, feet, side and crown.

“1.9 billion people believe this immortal god is their salvation and that his blood can redeem and protect them. “Listen to some of the hymns they sing,” he said, “as they sway hypnotically before this eerie preternatural creature …”

Are You Washed In The Blood?
Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness
Nothing But The Blood
Saved By The Blood
The Blood-Washed Throng
The Bloodwashed Pilgrim
There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood
There Is Power In The Blood

“With all this blood imagery,” Sinton said, “no wonder the congregations descends like vampires when the priest calls them up for communion …” The Christian Bible states that Jesus actually said “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54).

By drinking the blood of Jesus and eating his flesh, Christians believe they die and are reborn as immortals.

But others see those same elements and embrace the similarities. I’ve heard of goth oriented churches that play up the vampire connection especially related to communion. I guess it’s just another form of cultural contextualization. Some churches reach yuppies by presenting Christ as the ultimate CEO, other churches reach the goths by comparing Christ to vampires. (I think I’d rather attend the vampire church…)

The connection of shed blood and immortality is an ancient one - one of the oldest religious beliefs around. Some dismiss Christianity for dwelling on it. Others (like C.S. Lewis) believe that in Christ myth became fact - making it all resonate with our deepest cultural longings. As he wrote in God in the Dock -

The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens — at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.

In Christ in a way we have the fulfillment of legend. An interesting concept if nothing else.

But I’m sure that’s not the reaction most have to the books. Obsessing over Edward Cullen seems more the norm…

Part 1

It’s been awhile since I spent serious time with Shakespeare, which I find cleansing, rigorous—aerobic exercise for mind and spirit. So I recently tackled Antony and Cleopatra, reading and re-reading.

Then I hear the newsbyte that John Edwards has had an affair. Damn! He was talking about the poor, like no other presidential candidate.

Is this getting old, or what? Maybe if we can find a public official who hasn’t had an affair, he or she should get the headline.

Having read John 8, I’m not one to throw stones. But I’d like to understand what’s going on here. That’s why we read classics like Shakespeare, isn’t it, to understand the human condition?

So we begin. Married to Fulvia, later to Octavia, Mark Antony is having the time of his life—with Cleopatra. He says to her:

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch / Without some pleasure now. 1.1.46-47

Sounds like a guy planning his retirement, doesn’t he?

At the same time, he recognizes that the affair is doing damage:

I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. 1.2.127-129

Of course, he doesn’t do it.

During the decisive battle at Actium, Cleopatra flees and, abandoning his forces, Antony follows her. His soldier Scarus says:

We’ve kiss’d away / Kingdoms 3.10.7-8

I never saw an action of such shame;
Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before
Did violate so itself. 3.10.22-24

Antony confesses,

…  I / Have lost my way forever. 3.11.3-4

He dismisses his soldiers, rejecting their arguments that they should stay with him. Realizing he has reduced himself to a thing, he says:

 Let that be left / Which leaves itself. 3.11.19-20 

He confronts Cleopatra with her total control over him:

 O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me. 3.11.59-61 

Just as a cloud “that’s dragonish, / a vapour sometime like a bear or lion,” vanishes before his eyes, he is disappearing:

Even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water. 4.14.11-13

Next, he calls on his servant Eros to kill him. Instead, Eros himself suicides. Antony fumbles, wounding himself but remaining alive for yet one more love scene with Cleopatra. Rather than being taken to Rome as a prisoner, Cleopatra has servants bring in vipers to bite her to death.

Shakespeare paints a fascinating, indepth portrait of persons who are poisonous for each other.

In Part 2, I’ll share my own reflections.

                           John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart in a John Ford political film

by James M. Wall

Critics and scholars may differ, but what do they know.  With two national nominating conventions looming, it is time to single out the best film ever made about politics. I have my selection, you will have your own. Your choice may be better than mine. If you want to agree or disagree with my choice, write to wallblog@aol.com and voice your opinion. I won’t argue with you but I will learn from what you write.

When the two conventions are held in the next two weeks in Denver (Democrats) and Minneapolis (Republicans), the dramas will be shown on television. If you don’t have cable in your home, the major non-cable US networks will limit your viewing to one hour per night, leaving you plenty of time to view films that delve into the manner in which citizens actually choose their leaders.

Of course, if you have cable, and you feel strongly in favor of one of the two parties, then turn to pro-Democratic MSNBC, or pro-Republican Fox, for gavel to gavel coverage. Or you may want to check in on CNN and let political reporter Wolf Blitzer tell you which party has been nice to Israel, lately, something that is terribly important to the former AIPAC staffer, the Wolfster man.

Whatever your attitude toward the two parties, there will be some serious time available for major DVD viewing time. And if your library is as good as mine, it will have a good selection of current and classic films. I judge films not on their genre nor their entertainment success, but on their significance as works of film art. 

Looking at the options for the best political film ever made, Citizen Kane is often viewed as the best filmof any genre,  ever made, a legitimate claim. It is, indeed, about the political rise and fall of an ambitious man who moves from journalism to politics, assumed to be based on William Randolph Hearst.  Orson Welles directed, wrote and starred in a story about lust for power.  But I don’t view it as a political film because politics is the stage on which Charles Foster Kane’s career rises and falls. The dynamics of politics itself, is not the film’s focus.  

The best ever political film list has to include the 1949 film, All the King’s Men, a fictionalized version of Louisiana’s Governor Huey Long. In the original novel by Robert Penn Warren and in the film, Long is Willy Stark. He is played by Broderick Crawford in Crawford’s finest performance over a long film and television career.  Crawford serves as a (uncredited) narrator in another good, though not great, 1972 political satire,The Candidate, which starred a boyish looking blond Senate candidate, Robert Redford. 

Closer to the top of my list is John Ford’s 1958 film, The Last Hurrah, the story of big city Irish American mayor Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy) who seems to float above the ugliness of his final campaign for his reelection. It is clear that Ford sees him as the quintessential political boss, part rogue, part tough guy, and always pragmatically oriented to every important wake in the city. The film is based on Edwin O’Connor’s 1956 novel “The Last Hurrah”, is a fictionalized version of former Boston Mayor M. Curley. 

Tracy invites a nephew who is also a journalist, to travel with him through the campaign, and we are meant to see the campaign through the nephew’s eyes. When he loses, Skeffington consoles his nephew with the understated, “sorry I could not provide you with a better ending”. Tracy as the mayor is superb.  His opponents, however, are all stereotypes and the nephew is bland. My favorite character, after Tracy, however, is one of those loyal Ford sidekicks, “Ditto” Boland (Edward Brophy) whose disappointment at the defeat leaves him furiously jumping up and down on his hat. 

The runner up as the best film ever made on politics is The Best Man (1964), written by Gore Vidal from his own original stage play. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, the film centers on backstage dramas that unfold during a party’s nominating convention. William Russell (Henry Fonda) is the idealistic liberal candidate whose main opponent is a political hack, Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), who is troubled by neither idealism nor values.

Both candidates hold smear cards against the other, ready to be played. The cards are familiar to us today: homosexuality (rarely mentioned this overtly in films in the early 60s), a pending divorce, and mental episodes from the past.  Will they be used and who will use them? 

Vidal’s writing is sharp. The outgoing and dying president, Art Hockstader (Lee Tracy, in his final and oscar-nominated role) hits Fonda with this pragmatic advice:

 Power is not a toy we give to good children. It is a weapon. And the strong man takes it and uses it. If you don’t go down there and beat Joe Cantwell to the floor with this very dirty stick, then you’ve got no business in the big league. Because if you don’t fight, the job is not for you. And it never will be. 

Hockstader would be right at home in what is for me the best film about American politics ever made, John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The two stars of that 1962 release are John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, pictured above at the top of this posting.  This picture is always viewed as one of Ford’s westerns, which it is, but the deeper significance of what was in my mind, Ford’s best western (even better than The Searchers), is its insights into the American political process.

At the center of the film is the conflict between the traditional story of the early American west, where the white invaders often confronted one another in gun fights in places like the OK Corral.  Liberty Valance (an over the top performance by Lee Marvin) is the embodiment of absolute evil, a killer who uses fear as an instrument of control.  The film is told in a flashback: A US senator named Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) returns to the town of Shinbone to attend a funeral of an old friend, Tom Doniphon (Wayne). The local newspaper reporter and his editor insist that the senator explain why this funeral is so important to him.

He agrees to do so and the flashback begins from the moment of Stoddard’s arrival outside Shinbone when he first encounters Liberty Valance in a holdup. Stoddard is from “the east” and he has come to this western frontier town to set up a law practice. He meets Hallie Stoddard (Vera Miles), a local beauty, when she treats his wounds from the holdup. He also meets Tom Doniphon who is courting Hallie and who is the only local willing to stand up to Valance.

The town is in need of a savior from Valance’s control. Doniphon cannot do it alone and Stoddard is not ready, with his law books still unpacked, to be that savior. But together, in the film’s pivotal moment, they rid Shinbone of Valance in a gun fight in a darkened street. Everyone assumes Stoddard killed Valance in self-defense.  Doniphon knows better, but he lets Stoddard take the credit, and as an added benefit, marry Hallie.

The eastern lawyer is nominated for a  territorial political role which takes him all the way to Washington as the state’s first senator. Before he starts that political career, Doniphon tells him who really shot Liberty Valance.  No longer filled with guilt for a “cold-blooded murder”, Stoddard allows his political career to be built on a falsehoodl

When he returns for Doniphon’s funeral, Stoddard decides to tell the truth to the local reporter and his editor. The two journalists listen and the reporter writes it all down. At the end of Stoddard’s story, the editor, Maxwell Scot (Carleton Young), tears up the notes.  

Ransom Stoddard: “You are not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?”

Maxwell Scott:  ”No sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

The funeral over, Stoddard and his wife catch the first leg of the train trip back to Washington.  A political career built on a lie remans unscathed. When the legend becomes fact, the legend is printed and it becomes the fact.

This is a rich film, an old fashioned western, a love story and a story of a lost love, a favorite Ford theme. But it is also a story of politics and how sometimes goodness makes its ambiguous way into the future, there to look for even more creative ways to address the truth, ambiguity and all.  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance demands that viewers remember it as a work of political art.  

After all, “I give you the man who. . .” is a phrase that has rung through the rafters of political conventions since the time of Senator Ransom Stoddard’s rise to the heights of political glory.  Like many others before and since, he is doomed to live out his life hearing the words the train conductor speaks when he tells Ransom and Hallie that the train will make up time and connect with the express train to Washington.

Punching their tickets, the conductor proudly proclaims, “After all, nothing is too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance.”  Nothing, that is but the truth.  Which is why one of John Ford’s final pictures is the best film ever made about politics.

 

 

 

 

© Jan L. Richardson ◊The Painted Prayerbook◊

It took a couple of days to get here, but I’ve made my way back from my sojourn at The Grünewald Guild. My travels home included hitching a ride from the Guild with a friend who lives near Seattle. En route we stopped by her sister’s home and had a mid-afternoon meal that involved homemade tortillas and salsa, courtesy of her in-laws who were visiting from Texas, yum. Midway through the meal we were joined by a gaggle of girls—my friend’s nieces and their cohorts. One of the girls was sporting a decorative Band-Aid, and another commented on how the Band-Aid had migrated from her lower arm to her upper arm. Another girl said the Band-aid was for an imaginary wound. The girl next to me, all of ten years old, dryly observed, “Yeah, those things hurt.”

I’m not sure when it happened, probably because it evolved so slowly, but somewhere in my adulthood I began to discern that motherhood was not part of my calling in life. When it comes to children, I’ve worked instead to cultivate being The Odd Aunt, and I am navigating the delights and challenges that come in sharing a life with a man who has a teenage son. Still, I get a twinge once in a while, like when I sat at that table of splendid girls on my way home from the Guild, and I wonder for a moment what the path of parenthood might have been like.

Had I become a mother, I hope I would have shared some of the qualities of the one we meet in this week’s gospel lection, Matthew 15.(10-20), 21-28. This Canaanite woman, whose name has gone unrecorded, offers an intriguing contrast to last week’s gospel reading. Where the storm-tossed disciples found it difficult to recognize and know Jesus, the Canaanite mother is replete with the gift of sight. Like so many women in the gospels, she recognizes Jesus, sees him, knows full well what he can do.

This Canaanite mother calls upon Jesus in his role as the Son of David to help her daughter, whom she says is tormented by a demon. For all her fervor, Jesus meets her shouting with silence. She has stirred up the disciples, however. As on previous occasions, they petition Jesus to send away someone who is making them uncomfortable. Yet unlike the instances involving children and hungry people, where Jesus stepped in to take action, he assumes here a stance of indifference. When Jesus finally speaks, it is to claim that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

It is not enough for this desperate mother. She kneels before him, saying simply, “Lord, help me.”

To the woman’s plea, Jesus responds, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In the absence of hearing Jesus’ inflection and seeing his face, it’s difficult to discern how he intends these words. Is he weary by this point and short of temper? Is his human side feeling overwhelmed by the work that yet remains for him within the house of Israel, let alone the world beyond this house? Or does he know full well what this mother is made of, and chooses to use this as a teaching moment and an opportunity to match wits with a worthy opponent?

Whatever Jesus’ intent, it’s hard to avoid hearing the insult that lurks within his words. The woman, however, refuses to be dissuaded. Rather than hearing Jesus’ response as a barrier, she uses it as a doorway.

The woman is kneeling before Jesus, but she is not merely a supplicant. She is poised to wrestle a blessing from him. She is in a stance designed to disarm Jesus, to sweep him from his feet. She is in a posture from which she can look for crumbs and, from them, make a feast. She knows there’s one here somewhere for her and for her daughter.

She knows that Jesus knows this, too. She knows that Jesus carries abundance with him. It hasn’t been so long since he presided at the feeding of more than five thousand women, children, and men. She can smell the feast on him, the scent of the crumbs that cling to him.

“Yes, Lord,” the Canaanite woman responds to Jesus, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

This woman knows there is a whole other world beneath the table. She recognizes that beyond the tabletop of privilege, there is yet a place for her and the daughter whom she is desperate to save. Taking what lies beneath the table, the woman makes a feast. And in that place, the unnamed woman becomes a celebrant. She leaves with the blessing she has wrestled from Jesus; she leaves with a healing for her daughter.

Though I may not be a mother, the encounter between the Canaanite woman and Jesus challenges me to ponder what I’m feeling fierce about in my own life, and to what lengths I’m willing to go in order to save and preserve what lies within my care. How about you? What are you feeling fierce about in your own life? For what are you willing to cry out and challenge Jesus? Do you believe he can stretch himself to help you? What is the blessing that you need to wrestle from him?

Peace to you as you search for what will sustain you and all that is within your care.

Image via Wikipedia

What is a Protestant to do at the table of the feast, when we so seldom practice them?  And more important on this day, The Feast of Assumption, how do we feast to something we don't verify or know or assume from Scriptural evidence and textual criticism?

The Protestant (more specifically non-high church Protestant) comes to the feast table often unaware, and often cautious of anything idolatrous.  We are supposed to only celebrate divinity, right?

The importance of a feast, to persuade the Protestant, must be rightly seen not in the superiority of the saint (for we are all them), but in the celebration of the Kingdom coming to earth through the lives of these saints.

It's hard for me to think about the Assumption without the assumptions of my Protestant upbringing.  It's hard for me as a person who tries to find the path between divisions and disagreements to find a middle ground on something like the Assumption of Mary.

But we can still celebrate the greatness and beauty of Mary's life.  Maybe she was given such grace from God that she was assumed like Elijah.  I don't know.

I do know that Mary spoke with the voice of God, "all generations will call me blessed."  And on this day, the feast of Mary's Assumption, all Christians should remember the prophecy of Mary the Mother of Jesus, who is a blessed saint and deserves a day of celebrating all that God did through her to save the cosmos.

Greetings everyone,

I have received a number of very good responses to my post on hell. I'm most pleased to say that every single one of them was polite and careful. My experiences with more conservative theologians have often been unpleasant. Perhaps this is because I was always a little outside of the norm in my Baptist seminary training. I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction, expecting to receive a lot of anger and suspicion. This is not the case with these emails.

My intent is to spend some time with all of these emails next week. Lord only knows where I'll find the time for that, but that is my intent. And then I plan to summarize them and present the information here.

One word for those outside of the religious traditions of Christianity. You have things a little easier in that you have no scriptures to study. You simply think about what you might believe and choose what seems best to you. I don't resent the fact that I have to struggle with the Bible. It's a pleasure for me to do so. But struggle with it I must. It is the anchor that keeps us grounded. Each age must struggle with how to make the New Testament teachings work within its culture. So Christianity will vary from place to place and from one age to another, but Christians in 2008 struggle with the exact same scriptures that Christians in 1008 struggled with.

I would imagine that our struggle seems rather silly to you. Hell makes no sense, so why believe in it? I guess I'm asking you to be a little patient with us as we work with our traditional scriptures, using our traditional way of study. We call it exegesis - taking meaning out of the text - though in all honesty, no one can avoid reading our cultural beliefs into the text. Perhaps the most dangerous form of this is when we read the cultural norms and desires of the current Church into the text. The dance between our desire for exegesis and the unavoidable prejudices of our culture is itself a mysterious process. The process should teach us great humility, though it often leads to anger. That is heartbreaking to me.

I am reminded of something that my dear friend, now deceased, Rabbi Yonah* once told me. I asked him if he thought I should become Jewish. He said, "Heaven forbid. You don't want to be Jewish. I have to abide by 613 commandments in my daily life. Currently you have only the Gentile requirements of your tradition. God is obviously using Christianity in this world. I would stay with Christianity."

And that was that. He did not complain about his greater religious obligations, and he always sought ways to celebrate my tradition of faith. I always loved the way Yonah stayed faithful to his tradition without pressuring me to join him.

So while we take a look at the scriptures together next week, I invite you who are not within our tradition to watch if you wish. I intend to make the discussion open. And if our struggle with the New Testament doesn't make sense to you, perhaps you can think of us the way I thought of Rabbi Yonah. Our arms are open. Our discussion is open as well. You are welcome to watch how we do this.

rlp

*Yes, that is "Jonah" from the book and my early essays. I changed his name back when I was anonymous. He's dead now, and there is no reason not to use his real name.