RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

Sequestration is hurting real people.  Food pantries are closing; Head Start classes are being shut down; people who run the programs are losing their jobs; grants for scientific research are cut.  Cut, cut cut.  I could go on, and on, and on. 

The Keystone Pipeline is quite likely to be approved.  When the pipeline is built or perhaps while construction is taking place, there will surely be a catastrophe.  Thick and tarry bitumen from fracking is nastier than - well - regular oil is nasty when it spews all over the environment.  And that's not to mention what fossil fuels spew into the air.

The response to shootings in schools?  Guns in the schools.

What kind of awful place are we running here in the Sweet Land of Liberty? I Googled the lyrics of "America, the Beautiful", and the words seemed to mock me.

Resistance is futile. Some days, I just give up and take selfish comfort in the fact that I am old.  And then I think of my children and grandchildren. The circle of concern widens a little, but it's still selfish. If I could just bundle us all up and head for another planet....  But that would mean I was in control, and, as I've already said, resistance is futile.

Photo from Wikipedia.

CAN GOD RISE?

WHERE TO NOW?

So there you have it–my argument that the stool upon which we sit when we do theology is horribly unsteady. No matter how careful we are in our deliberations, the work is little more than individual and societal projections on material that is more or less archaic and irrelevant. Theology may be helpful for critical self-reflection but I am not sure about much else. However, the big problem is not for theology as a discipline. There is still much to be examined and dissected–histories to reconstruct, ideas to be unpacked, theologies to be contextualized. What is scarier to me are the implications of this post (and they do scare me). I am not just talking about the limits of our understanding but also how we encounter and understand the divine. If text, tradition, and reason/experience are unreliable guides, where then shall we turn?

The big question for me as the sun sets on Good Friday is whether or not I should be waiting for a resurrection. God is dead. Can God rise?

The three legs of the stool to which David Creech, a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the humanities at Loyola University Chicago, refers are Texts, Tradition, and Reason - yes our own Anglican stool, which is perhaps not so useful to us Anglicans as it once was.  First off, I'd suggest that you read Creech's entire post in which I found much to value.  At the end, he asks for feedback, and I left the comment that follows.

Grandmère Mimi

I agree that each of us who thinks seriously about our faith makes up our own theology based in one degree or another on text, tradition, and reason (and experience). Is God dead? Yes. Can God rise? Yes. For me the cycle happens every day. Daily, I experience death and resurrection with God. Without the grace of God in my life, I don’t know that I would be capable of carrying on. Not that my life is extremely difficult, for it is not, especially compared to the lives of others whom I know and others whom I don’t know, but I hear their stories.

The Scriptures contain a few verses which I call my touchstone verses, which I firmly believe point to the way I ought to live my life.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22:36-40)

Holding on to these life-giving words as my ideal as to how I live my life, I’m able to theologize away and, at the same time, keep my my view of God and my faith life simple. Even if I completely lost my faith tomorrow, I believe I’d still want to live my life according to the instructions in my touchstone verses.

Theology is all well and good, and I enjoy reading, discussing, and thinking about theology, but the practice of my faith has much more to do with what happens to me in my encounters with God, because my relationship with God is what gives true meaning to my life of faith.  Intellectualizing my way into faith would not take me far without the experience of what happens between God and me.  A purely intellectual faith, if such a faith exists, is an enigma to me.

And, as I said in my comment, for me, it is necessary to find a way to keep my faith simple for those periods when I have much on my mind and little time for theologizing, and I want to acknowledge and accept the grace of God operating in my life.

H/T to Jim Naughton at The Lead for the link to David Creech's post.
 

TRUE MEANING OF THE 50 DAYS

 

SO JESUS AND THE EASTER BUNNY WALK INTO A BAR

 

From nakedpastor.

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN!

GIOTTO di Bondone - Scenes from the Life of Christ: Resurrection (Noli me tangere)
Fresco, 1304-06
 Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

(John 20:11-18)

Alleluia. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, 

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia. 

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 

So also consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia. 

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 

For since by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.

(Book of Common Prayer)

A Blessed and Happy Easter!

THE MORNING OF THE ROLLING STONE

Delightful.

Thanks to Fr Kirstin via Kelvin Holdsworth.

PERSECUTION! PERSECUTION!

Fraser: "It is an insult to Christians in genuine persecution."

Yes! To say that Christians in England, or the US are persecuted is nonsense. Let those who think so go live in certain countries in the Middle East, such as Iran or Pakistan, for a while, and they'd know what it is to fear for their lives in the practice of their Christian faith. I'm thoroughly sick and tired of the whining. Good for Giles.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy tried to pull the same persecution stunt over rules that require health insurance companies to provide coverage for contraceptives for their employees.  You'd think the bishops themselves were being forced to hand out condoms and birth control pills.

What Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in England and the RC hierarchy here in the US want is for everyone in the respective countries to live according to their rules.

CHRIST IN THE TOMB

HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger
The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb
1521

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Image from the Web Gallery of Art. 

CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST

GIOTTO di Bondone
Scenes from the Life of Christ: Crucifixion
Fresco 1304-06
Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

We glory in your cross, O Lord,

and praise and glorify your holy resurrection; for by virtue of your cross joy has come to the whole world.

May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance, and come to us.

Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

We glory in your cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify your holy resurrection; for by virtue of your cross joy has come to the whole world.

(Book of Common Prayer)

 Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

JESUS WASHES THE FEET OF HIS DISCIPLES

GIOTTO di Bondone
Scenes from the Life of Christ: Washing of Feet
Fresco 1304-06
Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

The Lord Jesus, after he had supped with his disciples and had washed their feet, said to them, “Do you know what I, your Lord and Master, have done to you? I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done.”
Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I now leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.

I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.
Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I now leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.

By this shall the world know that you are my disciples: That you have love for one another.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.