Monday, December 25, 2006

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Luci Shaw

Friday, December 22, 2006

There is no chance that snow will fall on San Diego for Christmas. My three year old is already getting into her annual Grandparent's house, Christmas time brats. Indeed, there aren't enough Christmas carols, rolls of wrapping paper, or servings of honey-baked ham to make me feel very Christmasy. For the first time in my whole life I am sick of the commercialization of Christmas--even if this does make me sound like a Charlie Brown Christmas rerun. The low point was time spent at the Christian books store looking for gag gifts. There they are diligently putting Christ back into Christmas--"Jesus is the Reason for the Season"--and in case you might forget, you can get it emblazoned on a teashirt, coffee-mug, note-cards, bookmarks, Christmas card, magnet, garden banner, poster, socks, flip-flops, key-ring, or cash box. Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.

No shepherds on the hills they say in the winter in Palestine? So perhaps the snow is not necessary.

And Johanna has now settled down for a long winters nap after screaming for two hours ...perhaps sugar plums dance in her head...

But, this other problem that I am dealing with. This problem of the West and it's wealth is harder to just think myself out of. What does it mean to confront the poor baby Jesus as rich young rulers. The manger that calls judgment down on my opulence.... Are all these royal velvets and feasts really in celebration of this new born King? I am at a loss. Most of all I really want to stand in awe at that incarnation and to be able to judge the babe in the manger worthy of the following:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Adventous

It snowed last night. The ground, like a powdered doughnut, was just a bit dusted, but I was thankful for it. Thankful for the two minutes Simeon spent at the window in awe, for Johanna's breaking out into "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" and for the way the snow reminds me of my wedding day. I didn't even know Johanna knew "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, nor did I expect to be overwhelmed by the immensity of love, now growing, remembered at it near beginning. Of course that is the bright side of the day. A lot of it was spent swearing at the cold, cursing my chapped lips, frustrated by hyper, slightly sick children, and by German. Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht..... Not quite. Oh yes, and cursing my groom, my blissful mate for having the audacity to get sick the day before my German exam. In sickness and in health... Sure, as long as it is not a annoying head cold.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

GREAT message and series

hello, my dear friends.

i truly miss you all and look foward to our coming together sometime soon (or at least within the next 8 months or so ;)

below i get into my life and what's happening, i want to invite you all to listen to probably the BEST series i've ever heard about controversial issues in the church/society. chip ingram, who used to be the pastor of santa cruz Bible chuch when i worked about mt. hermon in for two summers--camp, is now part of an international ministry based out of atlanta, ga, called "living on the edge." check out his well-reserved, loving, thought-provoking series on the following:

--sexuality
--homosexuality--chip was in the homosexual lifestyle for 3 years before coming out--he claims that this is one of his best researched teachings and one closest to his heart--amazingly done!
--feminism
--the church and politics
--abortion

access soon, b/c the lessons are only posted for a fairly short time.
how?
1) go to: www.oneplace.com
2) go to: "living on the edge" and click on it
3) either click on one of the talks that shows up at the top of the screen OR click on "show archive" where you'll scroll down to the broadcast of interest

let me know what you think, if you get a chance to have a listen! :)

in other news, i've been involved in a myriad of "short term"classes/groups. i finished a financial class (which has made me ever more confused), am finishing ALPHA (great course!), and am in the midst of a healing prayer course--awesome! i'm helping with HS girls' Sunday school too.

work continues to humble me, challenge me, and keep me seeking/depending upon God. it is strange how God keeps calling me to arenas that seem so difficult for me. at the same time, it is clear that He is working on me in my brokenness as my weaknesses, fears, insecurities arise as i work with broken young women, formerly in foster care, who mostly don't know the Lord and His life-transforming love and power.

every so often, i'm publishing my poetry in my vineyard church's womens' newsletter, which is a baby step foward in helping me to write and share my writing. amazing how personal one's writing feels. i'll include one of my pieces below and sign off. it's not my best work, but i can cut and paste it, since i've already typed it out. ;)

sending my love, ang

Poetry
Nomadic Heart
Nomadic heart, called to pitch a tent,
not build a house of steel or stone.
Nomadic heart, called to live the life of wandering where led;
stayed ever fast in Him.

Following Holy Spirit
cloud of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night.
Gazing heavenward, where my heart will wander no more.

Nomadic heart, called to pitch a tent,
not build a house of steel or stone.
Nomadic heart, called to live the life of wandering where led;
stayed ever fast in Him.

Ever tempted to extend my stay,
where familiarity and comforts lie,
though the whispering wind of the Lord gently blows.

Nomadic heart, called to pitch a tent,
not build a house of steel or stone.
Nomadic heart, called to live the life of wandering where led;
stayed ever fast in Him.

Ever questioning: to whom? to what? to where?
Fear mingling with memories of fleshly weakness,
wandering beyond my Father’s boundary lines.

Nomadic heart,
physically wandering through each mortal day.
mentally resting in Truth beyond the moment.
Nomadic heart:
a foothold on earth, a foothold in heaven.,
ever seeking, forever found.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Warming


We drew lots at the beginning of this month in order to choose a spiritual leader for October. Angela was appointed and she has been leading us in reflection and prayer. We also have initiated at Sunday Soup and have started to invite people into our home for an informal supper.

Fall in Southern Ontario is all glory and we have all been warmed by the autumninal trees afire, and the bright blue sky, and October's last bow to summer.

We wish that you all could make it for Sunday Soup and for a walk by Lake Ontario for the Fall leaves.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Dylan's Modern Times


At its worst, especially in "When the Deal Goes Down" (track 4), Nashville Modern Time Out of Line, comes off like a Willie Nelson "b" side. Near its best Dylan's latest album 'conjurs up long dead songs from their crumbling tombs.' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (track 3) channels the sound of Blonde on Blonde's "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine" and is almost certainly this set's catchiest tune with a vintage Dylan scheme built on repeating lines followed by one liners rather than on a chorus/stanza structure: "Well the warm weather's comin' and the buds are on the vine/ the warm weather's comin' the buds are on the vine" followed by "ain't nothing more depressing than trying to satisfy this woman of mine." So, yes, Dylan the heartbroken misogynist comes out in nearly full force here. From the same song: some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains. And, "this woman so crazy, I swear I ain't gonna touch another one for years." As is usually the case, however the act can't last: Well I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long ... Let's forgive each other darlin', let's go down to the greenwood glen/Let's put our heads together now, let's put old things to an end."

Also here is the Dylan of the Christian phase. From "the writing on the wall" near the outset of track one ("Thunder on the Mountain" - rockabilly at its finest possible) to the penultimate lines, "Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon/There's no one here, the gardener is gone," of track 10 ("Ain't Walkin'), Modern Times oozes theological themes and Biblical references from every pore. The eery sound of Ain't Talkin' (just walkin') feels like an extended rumination from beyond the grave, or "the mystic garden," and that even more than any of the offerings with a similar ambiance on 1997's Time Out of Mind. Ain't Walkin', and thus the album, ends with Dylan's "Heart burnin', still yearnin'/In the last outback at the world's end." Of course, it wouldn't be Dylan if there weren't some downright loopy lines. A ryhming scheme in Thunder on the Mountain "... said my religious vows/Sucked the milk out of a thousand cows" recalls some of the other rare couplets from Dylan's past that don't quite work ("little red wagon, little red bike/I ain't no monkey, but I know what I like" from Blood on the Tracks' "Buckets of Rain").

The best this album has to give in the way of political protest is in its offering of a different kind of cowboy. Self-assurred, yes. But also deeply reflective, jilted, often dwelling in the lonesome valley of the shadow of night. The most explict attempt to live in a political world withers on the vine. Verse one of "Workingman's Blues #2" (track 6) fires up with extraordinary promise

There's an evenin' haze settlin' over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak


but begins to sputter before the first go at a chorus that manages to carry the listener through the following verses as they cough, spin their wheels, and finally collapse in the platitudinous final lines of the final verse: Some people never worked a day in their life/Don't know what work even means.

"Spirit on the Water" (track 2) and "Beyond the Horizon" (track 7) could become the most ground breaking musically. They have a neo-1940's, one might say even a slow, big band rhythm. Spirit on the Water is a love song, but leagues and leagues below the standard set by "Make You Feel My Love" on Time Out of Mind. In fact, I only somewhat unfairly jotted down CCMesque lyrics in my notes the first time through the album. The ever ambigous "You" rears its ugly head as Dylan croons such lines as "I wanna be with you in paradise." To be more charitable it must be added that that line is followed up with "And it seems so unfair/I can't go to paradise no more/I killed a man back there." Beyond the Horizon, however, sneaks up on you. It wasn't until the third or fourth listen that I realized what a wondeful piece this is. It is indeed "touched with desire"; if you want a love song, here it is:

My wretched heart is pounding
I felt an angel's kiss
My memories are drowning
In mortal bliss


Beyond the horizon, the night winds blow
The theme of a melody from many moons ago
The bells of St. Mary, how sweetly they chime
Beyond the horizon I found you just in time


One reason this song took a bit of listening to in order to truly discover is that its sound contrasts so starkly with those that its sandwiched between - Workingman's Blues and the trio of tracks that complete the album with a pensive flourish. Besides Ain't Talkin', that trio includes "Nettie Moore" (track 8) and "The Levee's Gonna Break" (track 9). "If it keep on raining the levee gonna break" is twice repeated in every chorus before a line such as "Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make," "some people don't know which road to take," or "some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones"; but also "without you there's no meaning in anything I do" and "I tried to get you to love me, but I won't repeat that mistake." In other words, this is only obliquely and in part a song about New Orleans. It is also a break-up song, a break up song with spiritual themes making their appearances here and there.

I must admit that a large part of me hoped beyond hope that the five years that have transpired since 2001's Love and Theft might have gone some way toward reviving the Dylan of the sixties. I knew that the album wouldn't disappoint, but that it wouldn't be nearly as political as those of us who love Dylan, but especially the Dylan of The Times They Are A-Changin', could possibly hope. This song is nothing if not emblematic of such ambivalence. So Dylan sings a song that can't help but be inspired by Katrina and its aftermath, and it's a right good song. A kind of muted buoyancy pervades. But isn't there anything, anything at all that could reinstigate that flamethrowing pillar of fire of the turbulent sixties?

But so it goes. And that leaves us with Nettie Moore (track 5 "Someday Baby" is relatively humdrum for a Dylan song). By far and away my initial favorite. The song is governed by a soft, but constant beat on a solitary drum. More Indian than Cowboy. And most definitely reminiscent of Oh Mercy's "Man in the Long Black Coat." Together with Ain't Talkin' the very picture of the kind of driving but piecemeal poetry that could only be written by the aged travelling bluesman who also happens to be the greatest English speaking poet of the twentieth century. So he has to fight with T.S. Elliot in the captain's tower for that honor. A whale of a fight, indeed, but one that Dylan's endless range of styles, tricks, and weapons wins in my mind. "Lost John sittin' on a railroad track/Something's out of whack," begins the song. "Blues this mornin' fallin' down like hail." And the chorus

Oh, I miss you, Nettie Moore
And my happiness is o'r
Winter's gone, the river's on the rise
I loved you then, and ever shall
But there's no one left here to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes


It has its levity too: They say whisky'll kill you but I don't think it will. If anyone would know, surely its Dylan. He keeps on riding. Keeps on producing. Keeps on carrying his heavy burden. And, of course, continues to tour--which is where you have to go to find him at his very best these days, he's been talking about how much he hates the way album's sound on CD's. To this musical ignoramous the album sounds haunting, glorious, track after track of music that will sustain a thinking man for a long, long time. But for the man now nearing seventy who gave birth to Modern Times if not modern music, "the sun is strong, I'm standing in the light/I wish to God that it were night."

Thursday, September 21, 2006

blinded by the steady lights

Many unconnected thoughts churns in my mind tonight regarding: Antigone, Natural Law, The Acts of the Apostles, M. Atwood's Alias Grace, the conjugation of the German verb Sein, Dylan's Modern Times, and a conversation I was honoured to have today with a talmudist on Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

I no longer try and place such disparate discussions into one unifying paradigm. I learn everyday and yet sometimes feel further from the truth.

I miss the orderly cosmos of my time as a fundamentalist or even of the time I spend caught up in Calvin Colleges reformed vision of the world.

But, I can't force the world back into any mould. Or to quote the sagacious Bob:

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around



However, I am thankful that I don't inhabit quite the same dark cosmos as Dylan. He seems to turn to the more enigmatic ending of Mark where it is unclear whether Jesus is just gone or has been resurrected:

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, a hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone


I believe as Peter proclaimed at Pentecost that God did not abandon Christ's body to Hades but vindicated him. However, that does mean the world makes sense. In fact, by making the cross the pre-eminent moment in divine history it seems to put an end run around human quests for a rational, natural law. Foolishness to the Greeks...

Indeed, it is to the constancy of the God that keeps Israel even if unfaithful, and who did not abandon Christ, the God who we can address in the familiar du bist... that I turn to now to make sense of life that indeed seems at times like a dark pathway.

Indeed it is not unbelief I fear. I believe. And yet, I fear that I lack the kind of certainty necessary for faithfulness: the bold, living, ethical trust in God.

I have one of those questioning faiths so praised in intellectual circles (fides quarens intellectum)

But has this somehow alienated me from the kind of assurance that can stand up like Antigone or like Peter and John and proclaim "it is better to obey God than men."

I am standing in the night wishing to exchange places with Dylan who sings:

Today I'll stand in faith and raise
The voice of praise
The sun is strong, I'm standing in the light
I wish to God that it were night


Indeed, I can relate to this feeling of doubt that surrounds even my greatest assurances. Or, perhaps this hope that end will find me faithful.

I wish deeply to no longer be blinded by light, but to see.

Jodie

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

A Year All DUNN

The first post was September 22nd of last years so WNR has been up and running for almost a year. So far this venue has not been quite what I've expected--ie. a forum to discuss community. Instead it has become a Jodie authored blog. I am very happpy to see some recent contributions by Doug, Angie, and Heather. I would have pulled the plug on this blog a long time ago if I hadn't cherished some hope that it would still someday become a place to think community and communally together.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Challenging Sermon, Masonry, & a Provacative Commentary by Ben Stein

While the Nations Rage
I think I'm posting. I hope I'm posting. Dear Jode might think I've forgotten about this post this so I better be posting. Here are a few things I've sent out via email that perhaps would be read (by Jo, of course ;) if posted on the blog.

Today for devotions, I knew I needed some encouragement. What I got was not only encouragement but a challenge...the kind of challenge that I daily need reminding of, and that I need to have accountability for. Just as I am praying for the Lord to change my heart and grant me greater faith to choose Him above that which frightens, depresses, and otherwise temps me to turn "e-orish," may He also bless and challenge your hearts with this awesome sermon from the Word (another by Jon Courson).mms://65.117.84.168/topical/T347.wmaIf that doesn't work, try the following steps:1) Go to http://www.joncourson.com 2) Click on the side bar entitled, "Miscellaneous Teachings"3) Scroll down to the following and click: 01-02-00 T347 Achieving Your Destiny Numbers 13-144) Be blessed.

---
Background:
A friend of mine recently joined the Masons, and I was rather freeked out. I'd been interested in finding out more about this secret society, of which I had great misgivings, even before learning of his decision to join. Below is a lot of info. that I amassed. It is important that we as Christians know the truth about what so many men join simply b/c they claim that it is a place for "brotherhood." Lord, make our church the truth place of brotherhood and sisterhood, where our allegience is to Christ as head and one another as brothers and sisters.

Here's some of the info. that I've amassed thus far. I've read all of the links below and found them very informative and helpful. As I discover something, it seems to bring up new questions which leads me deeper in my quest for understanding. Hope you find this info. as helpful as I have.

In Christ alone,
ang

Info. on Masons:

Extensive Commentaries on Masonry by Christians:

http://www.withoneaccord.org/store/SecretSins.html
http://www.ephesians5-11.org/
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-nwsl/crn0004a.txt

Ex-Masons for Jesus (Some great testimonies):
http://www.emfj.org/

Sermons about (amid a list of other sermons: see Stuart Crane's teaching on the Masonic Order 1 and 2):
http://server.firefighters.org/catalog/1998/00132.mp3

http://www.religion-cults.com/Secret/Freemasonry/freemas2.html

Description and personal opinion of theWorld Religionsand 101 Cults and SectsDenominations, Traditions, BranchesThe Occult, Freemasonry, New Age... FBOs, Mind Sciences, Ku Klux Klan...
J. Domínguez, M.D.

Main Objections to Masonry:
1) You swear in the name of a "god" but you are not able to profess ultimate allegence to Jesus Christ
2) Blood Oaths--although supposodly allegorical, they are still oaths that are taken very seriously
3) EXTREME Secrecy
4) Extensive power wrought in alligning self to people believing in all sort of "gods," including many extremely involved in the occult at the higher ranks of masonry: agendas found in their magazines
5) Occultic rituals and symbols--including a reinactment of a fellow--Hairam Abiff) who they "put to death" and ressurect--a mockery of Jesus Christ (Teaching salvation on the basis of imitating Hiram Abiff constitutes rejection of Jesus Christ); use mystical writings of Kaballah; Baal symbols; Egyptian emblem of male fertility; pentagram; etc.
6) Much more...

Exerpt from Ex-Masons for Jesus:
In these days, the words of Paul, Jude and other apostles who warned believers to stand firm, reverberate loudly. The church is under attach from without, from within, and sometimes even from the pulpit. Many congregations have been infiltrated and compromised. The most cohesive group of infiltrators the church has ever seen are the Freemasons. They work behind the scenes to subvert the Gospel, and in fact, meet in secret to teach salvation on the basis of another savior. We know this to be the fact, because we were members of the organization. We were Freemasons.
Masons are sworn to secrecy, not once, but three times, before they participate in the ritual in which Hiram Abiff willingly dies, is buried and then raised from the grave. At the conclusion of the ritual, those in lodge are told to imitate Hiram Abiff so that they can get into heaven. When the fact that all of the men who participate in the ritual do not claim to be Christians is considered, this is seen not only to be a mockery of the death, the burial and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, but a clear statement that faith in Jesus Christ is not required to get into heaven. We are deeply grieved that we have participated in this falsehood and were taken captive by such heresy. God, in His mercy saw fit to lead us out of Freemasonry and following our repentance, He has cleansed us from unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9) He has released us from the ungodly oaths we took in the lodge. (Lev. 5) We are not the only ones to leave the lodge; others men continue to renounce Freemasonry. Some of them are bold enough to speak truth about the lodge, while others are so spiritually wounded from the experience that they remain dysfunctional for some time. A few former Masons continue to defend the lodge, due to fear and spiritual bondage.
Many of those who are currently involved in the heresy of Freemasonry claim to be Christians. A significant number became Freemasons before they became church members. Some of those men have infiltrated the church and by claiming that Freemasonry is not a religion, have taken many captive by a hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on the teachings of a corrupt world system, rather than on faith in Jesus Christ.
Since Freemasonry teaches salvation on the basis of imitating Hiram Abiff, rather than faith in Jesus Christ, it seems absurd that a pastor would condone Freemasonry, let alone defend it, or actually embrace it. Yet that is what has happened in these last days in more congregations than we can count. Apostasy is widespread today.
---
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning CommentaryHerewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of Peopleand Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often askthe checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either.Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have brokenup? Why are they so important?I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about TomCruise's wife.Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive?Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.Next confession:I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not botherme even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmastrees. I don't feel threatened. I don' t feel discriminated against. That'swhat they are: Christmas trees.It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me.I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebratingthis happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yardsaway.I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christianslike getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in Godare sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the conceptcame from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.Or maybe I ca n put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understandHim?I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from andwhere the America we knew went to.In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intendedto get you thinking.Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson askedher "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina)Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "Ibelieve God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.And b eing the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expectGod to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think itstarted when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently)complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shaltnot kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehavebecause their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem(Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he'stalking about and we said OK.Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don'tknow right from wron g, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, theirclassmates, and themselves.Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I thinkit has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world'sgoing to hell.Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfirebut when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice aboutsharing.Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace,but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.Are you laughing?Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your addresslist because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of youfor sending it.Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what Godthinks of us.Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one willknow you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complainabout what bad shape the world is in.Gratitude Is A Memory Of The Heart--French Proverb

Lots to chew on. Maybe next time I'll actually comment on life as I know it--lots going on at my work with emancipated foster youth. Keep us in your prayers. We NEED God's wisdom.

Much love,
angie

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Baby Yana

My 12 days at Mike's and Heather's are over. It will be so good to see my runts again.

Yana is a bright, happy, beautiful baby with a long stubborn streak and real love of green trees and fresh air and naps on Daddy's and Mommy's chest.

Yana' feeding schedule remains complicated. She is fed every three hours in the daytime and each feeding takes a little over and hour: heather pumps, feeds by bottle, and administers the rest of the food through a tube in Yana's nose. This rigorous schedule makes doing the rest of the life's stuff extremely difficult.

As you can all imagine Heather and Mike are wonderful parents! I am really proud of the patient, loving, dilligent, care they give to her.

I wish Canada was not so vast so that the distance between Toronto and Lethbridge wasn't so great.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Yana



Jodie is here to visit...therefore the mandatory blogging! (haha) Well, I now know what it's like to be a fuzzy headed momma living in babyland. Yana, Mike and I are faring well - establishing new routines (especially around feeding) and enjoying our little girl's pretty normal babyhood. We're so happy that besides a rigourous feeding schedule and once a day meds, Yana's life is pretty similar to any other baby without heart problems - and she's such a happy, content kid! Our docs have given her straight A's so far and say to expect her 2nd surgery around November - that one is open heart, so it's quite a bit more serious than the first one. It's a series of 3 surgeries to recreate the circulation in her heart using just one pumping chamber instead of 2. The 3rd surgery will be when she's 2 or 3. Please pray for us as we head into the beginning of Mike's busy season. It will be an adjustment for us all from the lazy dazy days of summer! We've come to think of ourselves as living in a dictatorship - speaking of which...the 10 lb dictator calls! HEATHER

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Go Trolley Go

I cut out of my Lazarus Rising street walk early tonight so I could get home to help put the kids to bed. Jodie's gone to visit Heather, Yana, and Mike in Lethbridge. Both had taken long naps so I said I'd try to be home by 9:15 and Sim could stay up until then and Johanna later. I was at Queen and University at 1/4 to, but had to wait till a few minutes after nine before a trolley came along - a double car, quite packed, of course, after such a long wait.

Just after Dufferin the trolley suddenly stops, second time this has happened today - other time with Sim and Jo on the way to see a friend from the street in the hospital, the driver comes on over the speakers and says there's some guy who has gotten on and won't pay the fare and won't get off and he's not moving until the guy gets off or TTC supervisors or security come and remove him. Well, lo and behold, this muttering old timer plops his ass down two seats over from me. I'm in the very back reading Moby Dick. Everyone just waits for awhile while the driver and he go back and forth a bit. He shouting "Thou shalt not kill. I've got to get to the hospital; i'm going to have a heart attack." The driver insisting he's staying put. Our fellow, inviting him to come back and have his adam's apple ripped out - "Thou shalt not kill" - or his head cut off or to perform a lewd act.

After a few minutes, the other passengers start getting into it. At first, I'd just chuckled a bit, as did the African Canadian dude a seat up and to the right. Now, I notice a hospital bracelet. "Hey buddy, you trying to get up to St. Joseph's." "Yeah, can't walk that far. Tired. Gonna have a heart attack." "Okay, well why don't you get off here and wait at the Coffee Time. I'll get my van and come back and take you to St. Joe's." "Alright" he says and storms off the bus, leaving a few invectives hanging in the air behind him. Says my chuckling buddy incredulously, "you aren't really going to come back and get him are you?" "Yeah," I shrug, as if its all in a day's work. And why not? Last night at Sanctuary's dinner I was in the thick of an even more delicate situation with an aboriginal fellow who a decade or so ago held our nurse Keren at knife point for 20 minutes insisting that he needed to kill a white person to settle historical wrongs. "Be careful" exclaims another, somewhat amazed passenger, and off we go.

So I get home a bit before 9:30 and Angela is just tyring to put Sim to bed. He's quite excited to see me and they say he's ready for bed, but has just started to say Mama, mama, mama. He goes down easily enough for me with a round of Go Dog Go, Goodnight My Child and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Johanna comes in the door right as I'm getting ready to put him down, but that doesn't bother him a bit.

Jo had taken a long nap so I take her along in the van with Ben to see if our friend is at Coffee Time. He is. We get him down to emerg without incident. Doesn't seem to be much too much wrong with him, though there's some bombast along the way. Offers to fix, paint, or whatever we need for the van: "oil jobs, breaks, I do it all. And I don't charge nothing except maybe a cup of coffee and a donut. Maybe a beer. She's running pretty right now, doesn't need anything. What year is she '95? '96?" "'98 I think." "You just give me a call." "Sounds good!" He wants me to stay with him until he's registered in case the guard is there that doesn't like him. I show him in, but beg off staying as there's a line at the desk. "Gotta get my daughter to sleep." "Oh, okay. I'll be here most of the night." "I'll come back a bit later."

So we head back. Johanna gets the chips I promised her as we were heading out the door to Coffee Time. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Crictor. E-cards from and to mama. Goodnight my child, twinkle twinkle, hey diddle diddle, the Shema, Our Father, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, and she's out. Back to St. Joe's, he's out. Sprawled slack-jawed across a chair in the emerg waiting room. I consider waking him slightly to just say hello, but think better of it when I glance at his comrades-in-waiting, viscerally glad that he's conked out. Perhaps I'll go by again tomorrow if time allows.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

New Orleans--2005

Morning has broke
The mayflowered breeze of that dawn
Not so early and what light?
Nothern?
Slaves running...
Dreaming.
Falling Rocks. Not on me.
I ain't
Man or a woman until the roads are traversable
and whose gonna bury the dead?
Don't matter no more!
Quilts with birds or any the like
Ain't gonna save the ship.
No pretending
When the saints roll in all our waters gonna be troubled.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Yate's Trial

Andrea Yates judged not guilty, by reason of insanity. It was this case, in particular the miscarriage of justice in a judicial pronouncement of “insane, but guilty”, that prompted me towards my current research interest: “Sin and Sanity in 19th century America.” Strangely, I find this verdict (almost) as unsatisfying as the first. At first my interest in the case was stoked by the callousness of some theological commentators on the case; specifically, a discussion of the Society of Christian Philosophers over whether some one with diminished will or reason could even be considered a “person.” The conversations were carried on from the raving lunacy of the syllogism (as if one could understand such a dark mystery of human fragility through A causes B (mitigated by C only if D, E, and F). I then turned to the public debate

The National Review blamed feminism. They satirized a letter from NOW. “Stop Persecuting Andrea,” it read, “defend her liberating views on the origin of human life. Fight our culture’s war on women.” It is time that the world gets the message, “a home paid for by a man is no place for a woman.” Yates was far from a feminist. She accepted the control of her husband including his command that she only have one friend. Yet, the Review lampooned NOW in part because its members did defend Andrea Yates – donations came in to help defray her legal bills and dozens of famous women recounted their experience with post-partum depression and the rigors of motherhood. While not condoning her actions, they could sympathize.
Many implicated the Yates’s Christianity, faulting the biblical narrative of Abraham, belief in demons and hell, and the crazy itinerant preacher who convinced Andrea that bad mothers are witches. Others blamed Randy Yates, Andrea’s husband, and the “conservative Christian culture that continues to empower controlling and abusive husbands.”

Some conservative Christians, most notably James Dobson, defended the validity of Andrea’s illness on the basis that no well mother would ever do such a thing to her children. However, several other notable conservatives thought Yates was either a sinner or wickedly insane. Chuck Colson suggested that “scripture should have been the arbitrator of Andrea’s worldview” and if she had only read her bible more she wouldn’t have fallen for such malicious lies. World Magazine took a similar tack suggesting that Andrea was “guilty of not feeding truth to her conscience.” They argued, using the first chapter of Romans, that humans are culpable both for irrationality and the malicious acts which may result: “to despoil a moral compass by a history of small rejections of the light is to become more (not less) culpable for the immoral action that may result, though the subject does not feel guilty.” Yates could have resisted the suggestions of the devil just as Christ did: “when he heard voices saying ‘Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple…’ he rebuked them.”7

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the articles that circulated at the time of Andrea’s trial was how very much they tried to see in her actions a place for broader social commentary – motherhood is too difficult, Christianity is too oppressive, abortion is too accessible. Many mentioned post-partum depression. Few mentioned that Andrea actually was diagnosed with schizophrenia and rare post-partum psychosis. In fact, even in the articles defending Yates, mental illness played a secondary role in commentators’ explanation of her actions. She murdered because she was insane with too many children, insane and a conservative Christian, or insane and a dominated housewife. It is little wonder that the courts concluded that she was insane and guilty. It is not easy to explain insane acts without confusing them with sin.

The problem is hard to solve. Sin and insanity are difficult to distinguish. Is it possible to differentiate the environmental factors which trigger mental illness from the evil habituation which is the cause of human sin? How is the vitiated reason of fallen humans different from the impaired reason of mentally ill? What distinguishes the bound will of the cussed from the involuntary actions of the mad?

I suppose in the weeks ahead we will be treated to more commentary on these matters. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it. I have my own ideas on to theologically understand such matters. And yet, mostly I am left saying with
Augustine:

Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered. St. Augustine, City of God.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Long Silence

Boy. It has been a busy couple of weeks culminating with Doug and I both preaching on the same Sunday last week. Sometime soon I will post that sermon. I went with Doug on one of his street walks this past Friday. This experience brought me closer to the heart (and the loins) of Toronto. We passed along the border of four of the major sex trade districts: "high-end" girls, "middle-range" girls, transvestites, and boy's town. (This disturbs the heart and the senses). We also visited some people at a harm-reduction shelter for alcoholics (they serve alcohol throughout the day.) Our companion on the street walk was a fellow church member, communist ex-pat, a one time writer for the Globe and Mail, and one hell of a story teller. I think Doug would admit that our friend ended up leading the walk with his ability to initiate a bull session with just about anyone. He was making fast friends, giving out his phone number, and talking like an insider about the shelters in town.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Monday Night Prayer


It is almost too hot tonight to pray. Lord, I ask that you would bless this experiment in life together. The heat makes it all too concise and clear that community is difficult. Protect us from irreconcilable differences. Give us the grace to accuse and forgive, argue and apologize, think new thoughts, and deconstruct our perspectives. We are more than two or three please let your spirit come, pouring holy manna all around, bending and breaking our flinted hearts, granting us the wild eyed wonder of a child in a garden fixated on teleology. Oh how things can grow. And we could grow, but, only with your help. Oh, husband of the good vine keep us painfully aware of what must be pruned. And please teach us to glory in each other’s blooms like they were are own. Amen

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Agatha, Andrea and my interest in psychology

I recently finished a ridiculous Agatha Christie novel “Trial by Innocence.” The whole plot depended on biological determinism. A mother of six adopted children is slain in her home. Potentially any of the children adopted out of situations of extreme poverty could be the assailant. They are all essentially unstable stock: cussed misfits, born swindlers, and homicidal maniacs.

Last week the USA Today featured a story on Andrea Yates the Texas mother who killed her 5 children because she believed Satan commanded her to do it. The psychological expert called on by the prosecution Park Dietz testified that while her actions sprang from delusion (Satan told her through morning cartoons to slay her children she nonetheless) knew right from wrong. In fact she testified that she wanted George Bush and the rod of human justice to rid her of her demons. Instead of being evidence of a lack of mental competence Yates aspirations were deemed by the witness for the prosecution to be a clear sign that she knew right from wrong. Dietz asserts,

“Under Texas law, if a mentally ill person commits a murder in response to command hallucinations from God, they would surely be insane," he said. "If they did it at the direction of the chief of police, they are arguably insane. If they believed it at the direction of a gang leader, at the direction of Napoleon, at the direction of Satan, they are not insane. Gang leaders, Napoleon and Satan do not have moral authority in Texas.”

Use your delusions I guess. The situation is made all the less clear cut by the recognition that Yates believed that God was using her sinful act as an avenue for the salvation of the children. She would face civic punishment (which would incidently rid her of the Satan within.) They would merit eternal life (having been sacrificed before the age of accountability.) That such thought patterns represent a knowledge of right and wrong is ludicrous. Her civic punishment might be fine with Andrea Yates and Park Dietz but it ain’t justice. While, I could never embrace the absolute determinism of Agatha I nonetheless believe that insanity exists and sometimes in our fallen world people are not strictly responsible for their actions. In part we have a judicial system precisely to arbitrate these sorts of exceptional situations. Pandemic fears of the abuse of the insanity defense was born in large part as a reaction to the eugenic thinking represented by Christie in her novel. It is time to snapback from the long arch of this backlash. Justice demands that we do so.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Community News

Jodie and Doug became members of TUMC (Toronto United Mennonite Church) last Sunday.
They also recently trekked to California and Oregon for vacation. While there they attended John and Brooke's wedding and got a chance to catch up with Jessica, Angie, Anne, Naji, Jonathan, Sebastian, and Emmanuel.

Doug is moving to a 3/4 time position working with the homeless as the street pastor for Lazarus Rising.

Simeon is adding words to his vocabulary by the scores every week. This Sunday he managed to smash a score of glasses all over the church floor during coffee hour. He recently got his first hair cut and enjoyed time spent with Grammi, Grampi, Nana, and Uncle Jeff out in California.

Johanna enjoyed being a flower girl in John and Brooke's and Uncle Jeff and Aunt Cyndia's wedding. She is planning ahead already to her next visit to Grandma's at Christmas and to her own wedding.

Steve is becoming more and more at ease living with us crazy kids and continue to remain very active at Sanctuary.

Angela is enjoying mothering Jacob, gardening, and soccer (watching and playing.)

Ben and Angela are doing and are doing a good job making friends amongst the neighbors. They enjoy worshipping at Parkdale Neighborhood church and revel in the unexpected there (for instance just this week someone asked "can I get some butter with this bread" when they were having communion.

Jacob is sitting, verbalizing, smiling and giggling, and all-in-all getting to be a very big boy.

Jodie and Angela are excitedly planning a trip to Alberta to see Heather, Mike and Yana.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Wedding

Doug and I enjoyed John and Brooke's wedding very much. It was sacramental to see them so in love, rendered giddy with anticipation, and filled with deep thanksgiving. I remembered the most powerful moment in my own wedding was the singing of the doxology because I felt encircled with love and overwhelmed by blessing.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Two Weddings and a Funeral

Doug, Johanna, Simeon and I will be leaving tonight for John and Brooke's wedding. We will be stopping in Ripon to attend Angie's Grandma's funeral (Wednesday morning) and then we will be off to Oregon hopefully arriving just in time for John's reception. The following weekend we will be back in San Diego for Doug's brother Jeff's wedding. A busy week replete with deep, sorrowful, and joyful moments with/for our dearest friends and relations.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Excuse the mess!

My internet connection kept failing and I loss my corrections to the previous post twice. Sorry, you got such a rough version! I decided to leave it up "as is" because I haven't the energy to correct it once again. I know. I know. It is rough. And it wouldn't convince anyone who wasn't already persuaded. Just some liberal Christian rant!

Haditha

This is what I have had my mind on today especially as it recapitulates this.

What is a Christian response to such things? Why I know it is not this! I still can't fully comfortable in my own pacifism. Does my pacifism alone render me guiltless of the crimes of my country. I must admit that I feel responsible. I am a citizen? Right!? This violence was for me?! Right? For my Freedom? I remember prayers as a child: Thank You that I live In America and have religious freedom! As if Nuclear Bombs and Marines are what preserve our freedoms and not the cross of Christ. But, I don't see anyway that this war machine is gonna grind to a halt and I know to many beloved Christian friends and neighbors who have never paused a millisecond and thought--Maybe, just maybe, shooting one year old babies for any cause at all is not right. Even our cause!? Even if it were Jesus's cause. Of course I am being overly dramatic. My guess is that they would simply not believe that such acts as the slaying in Haditha would be carried out in our names and by some twisted extension in the name of Christ. However, I can't see any other way to look at it. Surely, the God of Israel hate idolatry as much as ever. Are we worshipping GOD or are we worshipping Mars? Are we worshipping GOD or the flag. It seems to me that there are lines being drawn in the sand at places like Haditha.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Remains of the Day and CD IV.2

I confessed to my lack of good reading last Thursday. I have been attempting to amend my ways and read the Remains of the Day and started Barth's Church Dogmatics IV.2 this weekend. Barth says that a Christian is one that not only hears and struggles with God (ie. Israel) but accepts a role in being God's co-worker in the task of redemption. Of course, "co-working with God" always means for me something like: whatever you do in word or in deed do it all for the glory of God. Of course this attitude I learned amongst Calvinist where it meant too often--be an investment banker ad majorem deo. Here God is preeminetly the God who is concerned with human excellance. So, are major task is to preform are calling with virtuosity. This attitude make sense as long as one is serving the right things and people. However, the Remains of the Day gently delineates the ambiquities of human virtue that makes this a task that requires much critical facility and a good deal of moral trepidation. Certainly post-Holocaust we can no longer ever think of duty the same way again.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Sunday Night Prayer

Lord God,
I pray for Yana and Heather and Mike. Deep thanks for Yana's gracious arriving. I ask that Heather and Mike might be able to craft moments of normalcy for themselves. Time when they can exult in toes and noses and little yawns. We ask in hope that she will be healed and quickly.
Amen

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Nothing to say.

I find that most days I have nothing worth saying. In part because I spend my day wrestling with esoteric archival stuff or reading (and also watching) intellectual junk food. I confess that I am finding myself watching Oprah during the kids naptime, that I have been thumbing through old copies of Parent magazine, and that I even watched a whole episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?" My academic enterprise finds me giddy every time a mention of prophecy, city of refuge, cain, or total depravity is mentioned in the American Journal of Insanity (1844-1860). But, I can't yet explain the significance of my reading. No wonder I have nothing to say. I have been reading the NY Times. However, I find my self attracted to pop psychology, movie reviews and articles on Garrison Keillor and the Dixie Chicks. Perhaps, I have unknowingly suffered a head injury. This also might explain my preference of Yahtzee over Scrabble, for Agatha Christie over W. Somerset Maugham, and Coke over Coffee, and the worst confession of all: I actually know the name of Brad and Angelina's baby.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Dr. Benjamin ElzingaCheng

Ben is back from Vancouver with his diploma in hand. Congrats to Dr. Ben!

Sunday, May 28, 2006


God. It has been a long time since I have longed for you. In the excess of praise choruses, upon my bed at night, or even the longing that is mingled with tears. Please fill us with love that sets our hearts restless. Please set us seeking the peace found only in your finality. Give us the grace to love what is divided and broken, fragmented and partial all around us... not as a temptation from the ultimacy of your love but with an eye towards the time when you shall be all and all, before the rocks cry out, before tears are wiped not wrung, before the beast rests with prey... Until you come again let us trust in your unfailing love. Lord, God Strong to Save. Teach us to find ourself at rest in your promises and spured on by your peace.
Amen

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Intentional Christian Community

Whenever I talk about Christian community I find myself using the word intentional. "Intentional Christian community," "Intentionally living the Sermon on the Mount," "Let's be intentional. . " Although it slips smoothly off my tongue "intentionally" still strikes me strange. Most willed actions are intended? Aren't they? I mean perhap this reflects too much time spent thinking about the insanity defense. But, I think most acts are intentioned (in fact this is what makes most standards for what passes as sane so twisted in our justice system.) One could argue that gestures and fidgits (and with Aquinas rubbing one's beard) are unintentional... But, decisions about the way we live are usually intended? I know. I know. When people you the term intentional they are invoking a strong sense of intentionality. But, when it is used in this strong sense I am not sure if it ever fits me. I feel more like a plodder than an intender. I keep going. Trying my best. Most of the time. Heading forward as a sort of experiment. I think we are living in experimental Christian community. Does that doom us from the start? Will some day I say: if only we were more intentional? I don't know. I do know that one think in Hauerwas has always challenged me and that is his statement that Christians should live life out of control. Does this make us at too high a risk to go the way of experimental communities of the 19th century: I Don't know?

Friday, May 26, 2006

Courage

Doug and I will be joining the Toronto Mennonite Church later this month. It is so Duke Divinity to be becoming Mennonite. However, Doug has found really satisfying work on the streets of Toronto ministering to the homeless and is completely at home with the Mennonites. I can't say that I really have any theological disputes. I am still longing for the day in which the Amish rise up, get on their horses, and start preaching pacifism in the US like the early circuit riders. Ahhh! If that is not a pleasant dream. Two weeks ago a very timid Marine came to our church to speak... a war resister.... who fled the war and Iraq in part because his superiors commanded him to practice shoot to kill-make-them-look like insurgents later policy. In part because of the dehumanization of the fellow soldiers he met there. He told a story of another soldier pulling out a wad of picture (including a marine lighting a cigarette off a corpse, a man with his head split open, and a man crying over a dead baby) and laughed and glouted about them. It was clear that all this guy ever wanted to do was be a soldier. That he had no idea what his place in the world was now. That he was harldy ready to be placed in with a crowd of pacifists or to be a public figure in any way. I left very impressed with his moral courage. It is clear that this young hispanic fellah lost everything: his cultural mooring, his occupation, his familes support, when he decided that the war practices were immoral. Of course we all know that such people are always liars, pawns of the left, fabricating their anti-American stories because they are not brave enough to stand combat. Ridicules. Lord Jesus. Alone Lord. Please free us from our idols.
Chilling New York Times Article!

More accurate info

The name Yanna Corin. The birth weight 6lbs 4 oz. No need to give oxygen at birth. Heather is going to get to see the baby today having got a pass to go to the other hospital.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Another Update

They are doing a C-section. The bad news is that Heather is not going to be allowed to follow the baby to the other hospital for its assessment. In fact they want to keep her in bed for 4 days!

Keep Praying!!

Heather Tigchelaar

She is at 8 cm.

A prayer

Lord God, Creator of the Universe who brings life out of naught and who hovers over the water of our chaos bringing order and shaping justice. We Pray for Heather and her baby, for Mike... We have long been asking for a healing. Perhaps, it will be a healing by the efficacy of Doctors. But, Angela has prodded us to ask for a miracle. We still ask! And Hope! Keep Heather safe. Keep her strong. Fill her with the strength to make a womb for this babe in this world in her strong fierce love and yours. Amen

Latest News on Heather

No new news. Heather is having a long labor. This morning at about 11 she was still at 5cm. Keep praying.

Struggling to be born(e)

We are still nervously awaiting news about Heather and the baby. Writing a blog entry gives me an excuse to be on the web so that I can check my email every couple minutes. Last night Doug and I had dinner with another couple interested in the community venture. They have quite a lot of experience in community living so I am sure we could learn much from them. Tomorrow Steve will be moving in.

Doug, Jo, Sim and I have lived in Parkdale for almost a year now. The community commenced in late November. From that perspective we are making good progress on community living. But, with Angela and Ben away most of this month and Doug and I gone for most of next month things seem pretty scattered. I am anticipating a big coversation in late June about community matters and maybe a camping trip. :) If any of you are interested in coming to join us feel free.

Just checked my email. No news! Keep praying and I'm going to try and call Heather's dad.
Jodie

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Call for Prayers

My dear friend Heather is in labor with her baby today. They are thinking that they might have to do open heart surgery on the babe soon after the birth. Pray that won't be necessary. That the baby's heart is healed.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

What People Are Up To

I added two links on the side bar--one called Doug arguing and the other called Jessica's work. They are just that. Doug posts with some regularity on a theory and theology website.
Here is a taste: Here is Doug I also found this moving publication by our friend John K. I am not sure of the date. It looks like Angie is running:


Ben is going to cross the podium and from henceforth will officially be Doctor Ben.

All this news (except Ben's) is brought to you by Google and Jodie.

Some Thoughts

Now it is feeling like Spring. We have a set of very nice tomato plants sitting on the window sill, rain everyday, the world a riot with purple, Dandelions already to seed, and grass growing faster than one can mow. I have been busy working through 18th century Asylum publications. Of particular interest is an Asylum Literary Magazine from the 1850s. My attention was caught in particular by one article in which the patient viewed the Asylum in light of the New Testament command that if you find yourself persecuted by a city--flee!
Augustine once commented: "Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered." St. Augustine, City of God.

I am hoping that in my work I am capturing some of the pathos and tragedy that Augustine grasps in this selection. Doug is working with such issue in a visceral way as a street pastor with Lazarus Rising. Perhaps, one of us will eventually be able to articulate our thoughts on these matters. For now, we are left a little shy of Augustine's tears, yet still touched by sadness.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

New Member



We have invited another person to live here at the home of the PROTESTANT SLACKERS or perhaps at Christian Community Parkdale (CCP)giving us a more Soviet era collective farm feel as is Doug's preference. His name is Steve. He is in his early 60s and perhaps eventually he will chose to write more about himself. This is a big decision for us so please keep us in your prayers. Above are some pictures of the 'hood... In case you were curious.

Monday, May 15, 2006

My ongoing attempt at this act of worship

While this may look like I am posting as Jodie - I'm not....It's Angela sneaking in on an opportunity to post.

I am off tomorrow morning for three weeks in Vancouver. I had visited back in the beginning of April to introduce Jacob to his family and be part of an A Rocha retreat. It was both very hard to be back and a bit like being held in the embrace of the community there and sent off again to Toronto.

The retreat to Galiano Island immersed me in the world of birding, the green and blue colours of God's creation, and what seemed to me, the surreal world of academics, environmentalists, and hands-on people who all have incredibly caring hearts. Well, I don't count myself an academic, I do love God's creation, and have a passion for people and relationships...perhaps I will fit in somewhere. I returned to the paved world of Toronto and wondered in dismay how to make a connection not only between the urban and the wild, but between Toronto and British Columbia, between me and a much different board, between people and A Rocha, and throw in a strong desire for social justice and a yen to meld it with the environmental...so what's my role and where do I start??

I have concluded I am a seed planted. We all will see what grows, trick now is to discover what or who is my water and sunshine.

Christian community:
I was struck recently that in our walk with Christ we move towards becoming more Christ-like. Anyway you put it, we are clay being molded by God, we are running a marathon, we are being born again in a new life. It all comes down to one thing; this is a process, a living into the life God would have us live. There is no majic wand that will make me be full of grace, do my chores on time, love everyone well, not grumble under my breath or push me to clean up my socks laying around the house. Angela, give yourself (and others) a break - we are living into this crazy, chaotic vision God has placed before us.

I am a seed planted with others as a community to be Christ followers to each other and planted in this neighbourhood to be Christ followers to others. This is my ongoing attempt at an act of worship I am just beginning to live out.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Doug's Sermon: Standing in Common by the Name of Jesus

Doug preached the following sermon at the Warden Woods Mennonite Church this morning:

Standing in Common by the Name of Jesus

Drunk? Who? Us? We are not Drunk it is only 9 am in the morning. Thus, Peter, in Acts 2, answers crowds perplexed at a group of uneducated Galileans speaking in the language of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and a host of others - a host of Israelites gathered in Jerusalem from as far away as Rome for the first national festival since the execution of the agitator from Nazareth. What did THIS mean? Why some scoffed—“THIS-- it is only Rude Galileans and CHEAP wine” other paused to listen to Peter’s speech.
Apocalypse NOW. The Day of the Lord has come. And the Spirit is poured out to overflowing on the flesh of men and women. The vision of Joel is being fulfilled: Daughters will rise up and prophesy! The Very Old shall dream new dreams…slaves shall lift up their voices and be heard .…. And EVERY one who CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.
Some more than paused to hear this message. They became faithful. Faithful to a renewed political movement. An extraordinary movement in which all things were held in common.
In the text for this morning Peter and John stand for questioning, questioning for their part in healing a handicapped panhandler. “By what power or by what name did you do this?” What medical board authorized you to heal? Are you properly licensed? What power, dunamas, has moved you to act in such a way? But perhaps this isn’t the question at all. Peter and John insist on attributing the healing to Jesus, but the inquiry seems bent on who authorized them to speak in the temple. They are arrested while preaching and released with a solemn charge to speak no more in Jesus’ name. Over and over again the first few chapters of Acts underscore the importance of the very name of Jesus. It is a question of authority nearly every time. It is a question of power, of political allegiance. The very name of Jesus, it seems, is subversive.

In the Sunday School hour, I spoke with some of you about the causes of homelessness. We made a long list of reasons why people might end up on the street. As I said then, many people suffer the effects of more than one of those reasons. Some people wind up on the street for, really, just one of those reasons. A lost job. An injury or a disability. When I think, however, of people afflicted by a multitude of street issues, my mind goes first a foremost to a man named Jeff. The causes that keep Jeff on the street are legion. The first time I met Jeff, I was on a street outreach walk. I was so new on the job that I didn’t say a word, but only listened as Jeff spoke with my outreach partner. His wheelchair was broken. One of the footrests had been completely destroyed by another fellow on the street whom I later found out had once been Jeff’s lover. Jeff is aboriginal. He would have to wait several days or even weeks before all the bureaucratic work with ODSP could be completed and his wheelchair fixed. Of late, at night, Jeff has taken to plugging his electric wheelchair into a socket on the outside of the building at Sanctuary. He has at least a drinking problem. An empty flask of Listerine sat abandoned under Jeff’s chair the last time I saw him. And, oh yeah, the chair is broken again. One of the wheels completely flat. Jeff has apparently lost any sense of hope. There’s a permanent spot set aside for him at one of the handicap accessible shelters, but he rarely uses it. More often than not, he simply urinates in his chair without so much as an effort to make his way to any number of accessible washrooms in the downtown core. I’ll be honest. I probably have as little hope for Jeff as he does for himself. If the Lord is my Shepherd, he’s certainly not Jeff’s. [pause before slowly reentering exegesis].

The setting for our passage from Acts 4 today is tongues of fire, the spirit overflowing, and a community of women and men living together and sharing all their goods in common. Acts tell us that many became faithful as a result of John and Peter’s Pentecost message. They numbered about 3000 and they took to breaking bread together and to praying. While according to the church’s calendar we remain between the Resurrection and Pentecost, the lectionary reading for today has us circling around Pentecost already. This is what it means to live out the Resurrection. The community of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is growing exponentially. The powers that be are taking notice. But, what really gets the authorities’ attention in a big way is a healing, a healing and a sermon that adds 5,000 to the 3,000 of Pentecost.
Peter and John meet an old, lame beggar at the gate called beautiful. He asks them for money. Peter answers I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you in the NAME of Jesus Christ of NAZARETH. Get up and walk…
And the man “entered the temple with them walking and leaping and praising the Lord.”
Peter takes this opportunity to preach a sermon. He claims that this act of healing is proof that Jesus is who he said. As chapter 3 verse 16 puts it: It is faithfulness to the NAME of Jesus, his name itself that has made this man strong.”
In the middle of such speaking Peter and John are seized. Fearing perhaps the same fate as their Lord they come before the rulers, elders, scribes and the chief priest, Caiphas to be questioned. It should be noted in passing that there are no Pharisees here. Eventually, Peter and John are freed. Those who have taken them captive find no way to punish them, as chapter four says later, because of the people, who were praising God for what had happened. Along the way, Peter and John speak the famous words “We must obey God rather than men, for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
As the story continues in chapter 4, John and Peter return to their friends, where there is a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And, in a repeat of chapter two, we are told in verse 32 that, “the whole group of those who were now faithful were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.”
A few weeks ago, I spent time in Ottawa at Street Level, a conference for “Truthtellers and Peacemakers” put on by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness. Sister Sue Mosteller and Bill van Buren of L’Arche Daybreak were there to focus our attention on a spirituality of brokenness and presence through stories, joke telling, and reflections upon art and Scripture. Of the plethora of poignant stories shared at the conference, perhaps most poignant for me was Bill’s story. Bill, who has an intellectual disability and a high-pitched, contagious laugh, was the first core member of L’Arche and traveled and spoke for years with Henri Nouwen. Over a long period of time, Nouwen and others urged Bill to make a life book, a collection of letters, pictures, and other scraps from his life. After constant refusal, Bill finally agreed with the caveat that nothing from his first sixteen years of life be included. You see, before Bill arrived at L’Arche, he was homeless. Decades later, Bill is one of the fortunate ones. Rather than revolving his way through asylums, group homes, boarding rooms, and further stints on the street like so many others similarly situated, Bill has found supportive housing in the context of a permanent Christian community, for the entirety of his adult life. This story is an inspiration for the work of Lazarus Rising, indeed.

And as I sat listening to Bill and others at the conference, a name and a face kept forcing their way into my mind. There’s an older man who is a vital part of the community at Sanctuary. In his early sixties. Hunched over a good bit. Long white beard. He faithfully leads outreach walks on Monday and Friday evenings. If you ever come out for one of Lazarus Rising’s walks on the third Friday of every month, you’ll meet Frank. I’ve learned a lot already from Frank. At first, I guess I just assumed that he was a staff member. But he’s not. Just before we went to Ottawa, we learned that Frank has been on the streets again for a few months. Unlike Jeff, Frank is one of those who is out on the street for a single reason. At some point in his fifties Frank lost a decent job as the result of a merger, a job he’d held in an office downtown for years and years. At his age and with his routinized disposition, Frank was simply not able to begin a new career from scratch. He has a reasonable sized RSP that matures when he’s sixty-five, one for which he’d incur sizable penalties for early withdrawal. The folks who run welfare have found out about the RSP and are insisting that he has to take the penalty, make use of those funds now, and that he can go back on welfare when he is penniless again. But Frank is loathe to take any sort of penalty, he’s had sixty-five as a goal in his mind for some time, and so, he’s on the streets again.

As I racked my brain in Ottawa, wondering who might take Frank in, I considered challenging Mennonites in the GTA to take Frank or someone like him in when I had opportunities to speak such as this one this morning. But then I got to thinking, you know, my wife and kids and I live with another couple and their kids in a situation that’s trying to model itself on these early chapters of Acts, would we be willing to take Frank in? Frank has no substance abuse problems, no psychiatric diagnoses, no history of criminal activity, and yet there is something about the way our society works that tells us that it would be dangerous, wrong, extraordinary to take Frank in. Someone else should do it. It’s the government’s responsibility to deal with these people. The real problem is with the welfare folks, right? What’s needed is more money, lest stringent regulations. But what about the kingdom of God? What would the folks in Acts do? Well, I couldn’t get these questions out of my head. And so, we are in the process of seriously considering inviting Frank into our community house.

You know, someone asked me just the other day if I really thought an end could be put to poverty in this world. I assumed they had in mind the recent head-line grabbing, bracelet wearing “Make Poverty History” campaign. I was and will be rather blunt. Taking a very small percentage or even a very large percentage of G-8 countries Gross Domestic Product and setting it aside for the poor will not end poverty. Poverty is and will be a continual by-product of our entire economic way of life. We could get everyone off the streets tonight, and a new crop of homeless folks would begin arriving in the morning. An assault on poverty can only be launched from an entirely other political and economic perspective. In point of fact, these early chapters in Acts finds us near the beginning of what is the most fecund moment in revolutionary political history. This is a time before the Constantinian sell-out of the Church to state violence. This is a time before a deep rift between Jewish and Gentile Christians. This is a time when Jesus’ teachings regarding wealth and poverty are taken so seriously that Church members begin holding all things in common. And this is also a time when Jesus’ disciples are determined to multiply into militant cells. In short, from the Resurrection through the first fourteen chapters of Acts, we have record of a time when a group of pacifist radicals who reject the law of empire in favor of God’s law are militantly recruiting for membership in their communist collective. Can you even imagine the violence of reactions to a similarly committed collective in North America today? Communism. Pacifism. Radical Missionary Recruitment. A rejection of secular Law. Now that is a recipe for a political nightmare.
But what about Jeff? Our native friend in the wheelchair? I began by talking about Jeff because he’s someone I can’t even imagine reaching. I’d like to say that the Holy Spirit moves as she will. I’d like to say that its still possible that a Christian follower of a radical political movement might eventually be able to pass by Jeff on the way to worship and say “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise up and walk.” It would be lovely to rejoice with a paraplegic “walking, and leaping, and praising God.” But you know what, I can’t honestly say that I believe that that will happen. Do I believe that God could and might still do such things? I constantly tell myself that I do. [long pause]

As we move in the life of the church toward Pentecost, it would be lovely to see the Holy Spirit create a community of 3,000 Christian Communists. It would be lovely to be a witness to the type of sign or wonder that would immediately add an additional 5,000 people to share all things in common. 8,000 or more radically faithful people of God with a common purse. And, what’s more. All of this happens in Acts, in a population the size a small North American town!
Could it happen here? Now? The twenty-first century? In Toronto? It is only in the name and by the power that has gathered us together here this fourth Sunday of Easter that we even dare dream such things. [more quietly] Jesus. Of Nazareth. The Messiah of Israel.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Mayday at Calvin.

To celebrate this year's May Day I am planning on learning Spanish. Perhaps, soon you will see side-by-side my rudimentary Spanish with my rudimentary English. If anyone is interested I am including a link to this years Chime's spoof edition. Spoofing daily devoes and DeVos proved inimical to the new Calvin spirit. Here is the pirated version: www.calvinspoof.com
Rumour has it some chime's staffers head rolled and they were banned from printing it.

Commencement speeches are not authorized by the administration. Oh no, it is just an honor to have a sitting president. However, Chimes clearly now requires official authorization. The donors we are courting prefer saber rattling to rib tickling.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Spring Semester

I am hating schools with and almost pure hatred right now. Almost any other works is more appealing than finishing up this last paper of the semester.

For a second I will pretend that I have actually enjoyed Spring. Ahhh Spring. There is nothing quite like the filigree of buds against the true blue sky.. and yes, with ee cummings I enjoy the all that is true and infinite and yes.... I am not feeling reborn though. Nope. No Osiris here.. No Golden bough of spring. I am still in the garlic rut of mud of the nearly spring. So, I am worrying about school work again. I need to stop!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Easter is all over. I have had random thoughts of taking in Eastern Orthodox Easter next week as everything just seemed to have gone by too fast. We attended church up in Buckley and instead of a strident version of "Up From the Grave He Arose" we sang some bland chorus that I've never sung before and will never sing again. Whatever side your are on in the politics of praise songs... They can neither carry Easter Joy nor Good Friday pathos. The only way I can recover from "Were You There?" is to confidently sing Christ, the Lord is Risen Today! This year I had the sorrow with out the release. I've tried to sing "Christ, The Lord is Risen Today" by myself but the Alelluias always end up sounding like cat torture.

Monday, April 10, 2006

An unplanned, unexpected life...



I suppose the title brings unexpected pregnancy to mind. I have been thinking to day of the iron cage of planned life. I seems that if we as modern American could say in a word what makes for a good life it would be that it is planned. It is in are planning in minutiae, perhaps more than the culture of death, that makes the Unexpected pregnancy such a big deal. Perhaps, all this planning is the origin of the culture of death?

Perhaps, this only my way of justifying what is anything but a planned exsistence: The dishes all over the kitchen, the dried boogers on Simeon's nose, and the lapse in thoughtful replies to old friends conform to no aesthetic. If when the day is done we are not any steps closer to financial ruin, we can still get to our beds at night, and our children have been kept sound--we count it a successful day, crawl into bed and comment that "Tomorrow we need to wash these sheets."

But, I do think that the whole project of creating shalom in our homes, and in our sub-conscious does tend to mitigate against (at least sometimes) being agents of shalom in our worlds, and churches, and amongst our friends, and old tired bothersome family members [the one's who no longer look cute with strawberry Jelly smeared on their faces.]

All that said. I'd really like to get organized. I'd really like to enact a plan. And I am hoping the next month things will look more sane and our house could reflect a hospitable welcome. But, I still suspect that upon coming into our homes you might first be welcomed by two toddlers with noses still red from a recent bogger scrubbing (one of whom could tell you if you asked her about the mess that is hiding up in Mama and Dada's room.

Friday, April 07, 2006

a friday night discussion

Doug and I have decided to post together. Dear Friends, it has come to my attention that (no, I don't like that) ... how bout. Lets just go watch our friday night movie.

No, I think that we should post something together so that we can be exemplars of how a good marriage should work! (J)

Why is watching movies on a Friday night a bad thing?

I am &*(&*(& sick of being the only one who posts to this &*(&*(& blog!

But, I just posted earlier today! Give credit where credit is due.

Well, you SHOULD post as it is more or less the case that Robert and Lauren are the only ones who read this thing anyways. I know they like me and all. But, really they are looking for news about YOU.

John Knoester.

That reminds me is his middle name Clarence or Carl? I have been under the misconception for well-nigh 6 years that it is Clarence and then I get his Wedding invite today and it says Carl. What do you make of that???

John would rather share a middle name with the first name of a famous theologian than with the angel from ITs A WONDERFUL lIFE?

Well, does it really matter they are both Universalists?

Angela and Ben and Jacob (but not Charlie) are in Montreal.

What does that have to do with John Carl?

I don't know.

You know what Doug. I think we should go watch that movie. So much for showing how well we work together as a married couple.

Yes, forget about all that exemplar crap.

Update on my work


I recently attended a conference for “Truthtellers and Peacemakers” put on by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness. Many there were impressed by Street Level’s clarion call for evangelicals who walk alongside poor folks “to add to material action a clear, creative, and challenging public voice,” a public voice insisting “that homelessness will be a priority” for Canadian “policy makers concerned with justice and mercy.” Almost everyone there signed their names to the Roundtable’s Ottawa Manifesto (http://www.streetlevel.ca/manifesto/) which was published in last Monday’s Ottawa Citizen. As an American leery of nationalism, I was nevertheless blessed simply to be present with three hundred and fifty delegates, 75% of whom occupy their time as front line workers with those who are street involved. Steve Bell sang. Ten year old Hannah Talyor of the Ladybug Foundation delighted the crowd by speaking in one of the plenary sessions, and Sister Sue Mosteller and Bill van Buren of L’Arche Daybreak daily focused our attention on a spirituality of brokenness through stories, joke telling, and reflections upon art and Scripture. In two of our other plenary sessions, Sanctuary’s Greg Paul called our attention to the potency we have been gifted with in the stories of those we encounter, while Rick Tobias of Yonge Street Mission spoke prophetically of the absolute necessity for those who would fight poverty to stand against violence, especially violence against women and children. My imagination was fired by a workshop on mobilizing volunteers and Ray Aldred’s session on First Nations reiterated just how important an intergenerational atmosphere is both for those who find themselves socially isolated and for the wider church. Of the plethora of poignant stories shared at the conference, perhaps most poignant for me was the story of Bill van Buren. Bill, who has an intellectual disability and a high-pitched, contagious laugh, was the first core member of L’Arche and traveled and spoke for years with Henri Nouwen. Over a long period of time, Nouwen and others urged Bill to make a life book, a collection of letters, pictures, and other scraps from his life. After constant refusal, Bill finally agreed with the caveat that nothing from his first sixteen years of life be included. You see, before Bill arrived at L’Arche, he was homeless. Decades later, Bill is one of the fortunate ones. Rather than revolving his way through asylums, group homes, boarding rooms, and further stints on the street like so many others similarly situated, Bill has found supportive housing in the context of a permanent Christian community for the entirety of his adult life. An inspiration for Lazarus Rising indeed.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Update

This is a busy month for us Protestant Slackers. Jodie's papers are all due: one on typology and Roger Williams, another on eugenics and a 20th century missiologist, and the last one on a 19th century literary magazine published by asylum patients. Doug just returned from a conference on street ministry. Ask him about it. Angela and baby Jacob are off to Vancouver for a meeting with the board of A' Roche. Ben is off to Montreal to conduct some experiments, and Johanna, Jacob, and Simeon daily learn more than any of us could handle at our current stage of development. :) We enjoyed Heather's visit. We are still praying daily for her little baby. Heather is beautiful and healthy looking and full of love and spunk and courage. I just puttered out on the lenten reflection. I wish I would have kept going.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

News

Heather is coming to visit tomorrow.

Jacob is rolling over.
Simeon just got two molars.
Johanna learned to write "JO"
Angela is applying to work PT in food security.
Holly got sprayed by a skunk
Doug was commissioned today with at Toronto Menn. Church for work with the homeless in Toronto.
Here is the liturgy:
People: As God’s Spirit calls and the church commissions,
the servants of Jesus Christ are scattered in places of need
throughout the world.
In company with your faithful people in every age,
we have called out those with gifts for your service, O God.
Fill Doug with the love of Jesus Christ
and the power of the Holy Spirit
as he carries out the ministry of Toronto area Mennonite churches

Doug:

Grant me wisdom, patience and hope when I falter.
Give me joy in serving your church
and keep me faithful to this calling to minister to the people of Toronto’s streets.
May they be for us an icon, opening to the riches of your presence.

People: We accept your service as an extension of this congregation
and pledge our support of your ministry.
We join with you in seeking first the peaceable reign of God.
Consider your assignment as God at work in you,
ministering to human need.
May you be given a deep love for those among whom you will work,
And may Jesus Christ be known through you in word and deed.
Our prayers will continually support you.
Go now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Hymn 545 Be Thou My Vision


Jodie gave here first lectue on the Scopes trial: Here's a taste
In the aftermath of the Scopes trial, the fundamentalists seemed for a long time to disappear. In reality they had moved under ground. Leaving the hollowed halls of Princeton Seminary, the biology department at Harvard, and the First Presbyterian Church of NY, they begin to establish or strengthen their own institutions - places with out recognizable names, places like Buckley Gospel Tabernacle, and The Open Bible Church, booming churches such as Thomas Road Baptist and colleges such as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles - they began to establish Elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges, seminaries and new denominations with new mission boards and new popular figures. In the mid 1970s in the wake of Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the turbulent sixties, and Watergate, the fundamentalists reemerged in American Political Life. Jimmy Carter’s more benign Christianity can be seen in this light, but it was ultimately rejected and replaced by the strength of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s Moral Majority which was critical in ousting Carter in favour of Ronald Regan. By the mid 1980’s, fundamentalism had initiated one of the largest cultural revolutions that America has ever known. It took up lessons and language from the black civil rights movement and organized itself into a stunning and well oiled machine.
Today, originally fundamentalist organizations have broadened their tents politically and religiously and go more often under the banner of Evangelicalism. Once again, those opposed to evolution have entered into the fray in Ivy League institutions, national politics, and the media. Today, however, there is one crucial difference from Dayton, TN 1925. The spokesmen for evangelical opposition to evolution are no William Jennings Bryans. Rather than a popular democratic progressivist opposed to big business, eugenics, and militarism, the champions of Creationism today are fully aligned with the forces of economic Darwinian capitalism, might makes right militarism, and those who oppose unions, social welfare, and affirmative action. Meanwhile, the democratic left seems not to have learned the lessons of past eugenic programs and insists on the scientific merit of renewed attempts to clean up the human gene pool.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Community Meeting from Angela

Dear friends,

This weekend our new community got together to dream and plan. No name yet - except for Jodie's appropo Protestant Slackers - in response to being a block away from the Catholic Worker houses. Perhaps we should come up with a translated version of it in latin to make it sound cool.

My Brother's family house-swapped with us - so we ended up in the small town of Beamsville and they ended up in big city of Toronto. A plus for both of us! Especially for the kids - as they both had a house full of new toys to play with.

Friday night was a night for relaxation and gaming. We had a gender war for Trivia Pursuit. The woman were kicking butt for most of the game, but fell behind in the very end, to lose to the guys who pulled up from behind in their maiden game together. Which, according to Trivia Pursuit, is something that horses in their maiden races never do (win that is).

Saturday we started off with a great breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes to energize us for a day spent indoors. Johanna and Simeon were babysat by my niece Erin and her friend for the day. The kids loved a day spent with their very own playmates.

Now to the matters we spoke about:
Our long term mission statements
Our short term vision
Spirituality
Sharing Resources

Everything we came up with is open for comment, and we just started the foundational conversations.

Some of the highlights include:
- plans for a garden this summer,
- welcoming someone into our house in May,
- creating a space for meditation
- beginning Wednesday evening worship times together (Lenten season a great time to start) - along with weekly reflections on the blog
- a discussion of what a common purse looks like and how we might move towards this as a community
- a discussion of financial priorities
- starting a car coop with our van with people around the neigbourhood, basically being more conscious and deliberate with our use of the vehicle (saving money... :-) )

This is obviously a short summary of day long conversations and we will hopefully be putting together minutes that will include mission statements that we were working on as a group as well as more details of the common purse and other items.

Love to hear any comments,

In Christ,

Angela

Monday, March 06, 2006

Lenten Reflection 6

A Better Resurrection
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Christina Rosetti