Politics, Religion, Irony, Food, and Television

 

I haven’t blogged in months, but I’m in the process of deciding whether to let it die or try again.  Part of this is that I am on Facebook and, there, share all my passing thoughts with the planet so I don’t know why I need to do it 2 places.
But it occurred to me the other day that almost all of my interactions with everything tend to fall loosely into 5 categories-and many in more than one category:(In no particular order)  Politics, Religion, Irony, Television, or Food.  

Marriage falls mainly in the first 2, but also possibly into Food.  The rhythms of my life fall mainly into Religion and Food.
The rhythms of my Thursday nights fall almost entirely into television.  

So here is this week broken up.

I understand politics to be, not government alone, but acts of the community whereby we shape our community practices, identity, and creed and out of that, interact with the Other and the larger community.  Thus, the church, in being an alternative polis, is a political entity. So not spending money on Sunday this week, even though I really wanted to because I was thirsty and we were driving, was a political act.  We were talking about this last night and the movement of New Monasticism and worrying about how the machine of celebrity might change it. We also explained pacifism to a friend and answered the insightful question, if Christians are not to fight, “Why is there fighting in the Old Testament?”- –Politics

After a long, good week of, as my priest says, ” darkness getting two punches for every one light gets,”  which is his description of the week leading up to good friday and good friday itself, I wasn’t able to make it to church on Easter Sunday because I was in Atlanta and J’s grandpa is in the hospital very sick, so we were in crisis mode.  Here’s the good news: Easter isn’t a day, it is a season.  —-Religion

 I would venture to say that thousands of people who don’t normally go to church, show up on Easter and Christmas.  I go to church every Sunday and have missed church this year on Easter and Christmas. —Irony

As the Office is less funny, more of a dramady than a comedy, I still am in love with Kenneth Parcel. —Television

I cut open a perfectly ripe avocado last night and had to restrain myself from not bursting into the doxology, the two-toned greenness, the softness and not-too-much-but-just-right squishiness, the richness.  Praise God from whom the blessing of avocados flow.  —Food (okay and Religion too, but they are all very interconnected) 

For my seminary buddies

I got this from Father Thomas’s blog.  You should watch it. It is dorky, but oh so fun.  (sorry I was going to embed it but I lack time to figure that out)

Follow link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvVylnHnn9s

Food for thought: Fiction, the body, Acedia, and Food (January’s books)

Hello 2009.  

So I finished up my Master’s degree in Theology from this fine institution, and then I was part of a home birth (no kidding.), got sick for a few days, and went to Austin for a couple of weeks or so.  After an intense and often lethargically death-defying year, I had a bit of a sabbatical.  And, as you can see, I had a blog-atical as well.  

So if anyone is left out there, hello again.  

A great thing about finishing all my must-read-300-pages-in-the-next-three-days-for-school reading is that I have been able to reach for some books that I just feel like reading so I’ll tell you about them here:

(in no particular order)

(1) Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis- This is the 2nd time I’m reading this book, and I do not often reread books.  It is that good.  I may even make it a yearly advent tradition to start this book (and a yearly epiphany tradition to finish it).  I think that it is Lewis’s best fiction and an absolute must-read.  It has been in my “top 5 of all time” and it remains there for me.  I find bits of myself in every character in this book.  Its keen insight into human nature and magical, old-world rust make me feel like I discovered an old abandoned tool-shed or secret hide-out where I can rummage through and discover wonky old cast offs and the sort of treasures that you keep with you as you go.  The best part of this book is that it wrestles more profoundly or, closer to the point, more humanly, with theodicy than any book I’ve come across (if you are wanting theodicy in fiction, skip The Shack and go for this book!)

(2) Taking Charge of your Fertility by Toni Weschler- I never knew this much about my body.  I wish I would have had this book 5 years ago.  The information in it would have saved me much distress.  If you are a woman,  please read this book.  If you know a woman, buy her this book. Wherever you land in your thinking about fertility and birth control, that’s not exactly the point.  The point is getting at an understanding of yourself and your body.  Totally helpful.  And by the way, because of this book, I am even more amazed at women’s bodies. It’s incredible what goes on in us. Miraculous. 

(3) To continue the body theme, Eve’s Revenge by Lilian Calles Barger.  The subtitle of this book is Women and a Spirituality of the Body.  I’m 2 chapters in.  So far, it’s quite good.  I’ll write more as I progress.

(4) Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life by Kathleen Norris- I have wanted this book for months now, so when I found it right after Christmas at Half Price books  (for 1/2 the price!) I spent all my January coffee money budget for it.  So the bad news is, I can’t read it while getting a cup of coffee and a chocolate walnut cookie from the place up the street, the good news is, that I can at least  read it now.  Why did I spend all my coffee money on this book ?  Because from the first moment I heard about the Christian concept of Acedia (at Papa fest last summer during a seminar), I felt I’d named a giant part of my story.  I found a name for my nemesis.  I haven’t finished this book yet either, but thus far, Norris’s description of her own struggle and discovery of Acedia are helpful and insightful.  Reading this book is like reading my journal, except way WAY better written and much clearer.  

(5) Lastly, a cook book.  Beyond the Moon Cookbook.  A friend loaned it to me (and I promise I’ll eventually give it back!) by Ginny Callan.  If you get your hands on it, you will not be disappointed.  It is all vegetarian recipes, and I am not a vegetarian, but this isn’t a vegetarian cookbook–this is a really  GOOD cookbook that happens to be vegetarian.  Ya dig it?
The best part of this cookbook is it’s recipes for cakes, muffins, and desserty things.  I love them because many of them use honey or fruit as a sweetener and not sugar.  So if you are trying to avoid refined sugar (even if you are just trying a little bit) and you like cooking, buy this cookbook and send me muffins! I’m baking Beyond the Moon’s carrot-raison-walnut muffins (honey-sweetened) as I write, and they are ready, so I’m gonna go eat.  You stay here and read all these books (& tell me what you think!)

The reason I’ve been away…Happy day

I just turned in my last seminary assignment.  Finished with my Masters in Theology. Now it’s time to just sit back, relax, and let the big bucks roll in…oh…wait.

You might be a grad student/grad student spouse if…

 As I near the end of my Masters and J revs up for his PhD, I paused from editing papers to bring you…

You might be a graduate student/ graduate student spouse if… 

[This list is based on a true story.]

1. Your adviser’s wife gives you a gift of extra-large packets of toilet paper and you are really, truly happy about it.

2. After unearthing something from the back of the fridge, you have uttered the phrase “one month past the expiration date isn’t THAT long.”

3.  You have been at a party and someone asks you what you/your spouse is studying.  Ten minutes later you finish the explanation and realize everyone around you has walked away.

4.  The phrase “no talking about Foucault/ black holes/gender roles in modern Iran before 8 am” has been uttered in your home.

5. “Under the pile of books” is the answer to all questions you ask beginning with the phrase “where is the…?”  This question could refer to a bill, a domestic animal, your couch. No matter. The answer is under the books. 

6. You will go anywhere, hear any sales pitch, or be anyone’s friend that offers you a meal.

7.  The sentence “I was studying and then Lost/The Office/ old episodes of The Daily Show and then 4 a.m.” makes logical sense to you. 

8. “I found it on the floor/in the trunk/in the library and so I ate it” has ever been uttered by you.

9.  Free things, no matter how unappetizing they appear, are your favorite foods. 

10.  You have ever had the urge to shout or have actually shouted “I am/my spouse is ALREADY in the real world” to a near-stranger. 

11.  You have ever said to a spouse/significant other/close friend “okay, so I’ll see you in about 2 1/2 weeks” and neither of you was going out of town.  

12.  You know the exact amount of alcohol, to the ounce, that can be consumed if you/your spouse want(s) to study afterward.  

13.  You have ever dug through the crevices of your car to get the money to buy feminine hygiene products. 

14.  You know the exact amount of butter to put in mac and cheese, the exact amount of water for Ramen noodles, and you know at least 3 ways of making rice and beans. [Note: I’m still a person of principle so I only eat organic, no MSG, no artificial flavor Ramen for 99 c as opposed to 59 c.) 

15. The idea of getting gift cards to grocery stores for Christmas jazzes you up and you aren’t eighty. 

16. You think that “uh……. I gotta go” is a perfectly acceptable answer to the question “What do you plan on doing when you finish?”

17.  The phrase, “How many days have you worn that shirt now?” has been asked by you or to you. 

18. The answer “I’m not sure” has been the response to the above question.

Sound Bite: John Kavanaugh on prayer

 

From Following Christ in a Consumer Culture:

Prayer is not only a counter-cultural act.  It is a reappropriation of our personhood and identity. It is a dealienation, a decommodification of our very lives. 

 Besides working at my part-time job (that I just put in 2 weeks notice for), this is all I’ll be doing the next week–  Writing on and reading this stuff.  So enjoy, and I’ll maybe blog again in the Christian New Year.  

 

Checking in

(1) I’m sorry to the few of you who read this that I’ve not written much.  I have less than 2 weeks until both my job and my Masters are over.  Until then, I have to focus on getting through the next 2 weeks.  So no blogging.  

(2) For those of you who commented on my last post.  Thank you! It was fun to read your comments.  I admitted it before and will admit it again, it is a loaded, crappy question, but I still like it.  Mainly because it makes me flesh out and think through what I believe.  If I say prayer is more important than say, voting or caring for a neighbor, am I elevating the seemingly “spiritual” act over the rest and thus creating a false secular/spiritual dichotomy, but if I say that all the acts are equally important or virtuous then I fall into a sort-of leveling that robs all things of depth and context (prayer and watching the daily show as equally worthwhile) and also leads to a sort of pluralism that is unbiblical (Thomas hit on this).  So I don’t really have an answer.  It led to an interesting discussion with the gnome, and I basically said that it sort of depended on the person- doing- the- act’s (in this case, my) sin patterns. If a person was deeply idolatrous of money, then perhaps tithing would be a major step of repentance for them. If it is fear, then maybe reaching out to a neighbor.  But if push comes to shove,  I believe that, as far as I know, the kingdom comes by the act of God through the church so, in that case, prayer and/or tithing are pretty key.  Again, I sort of think that that which proceeds from repentance and faith is the most important.  In my case, that is probably prayer.  It is the hardest work for me.

A thought experiment for Jesus followers on election day

A curious question–

I don’t know the answer to this, but it is interesting to think about and challenges me.

 

Today I did all of the following:

(1) Voted for Barack Obama. 

(2) Wrote Sen. Obama telling him why I voted for him and asking him to make sure that none of my tax dollars are used for abortions by not repealing the Hyde Amendment.

(3) Finally got organized enough to write a check to my church for our tithe from the last 2 mos. of income. 

(4) Prayed for 3 friends who are struggling right now and are abandoning orthodox Christianity.

(5) Asked a little boy sitting on the street outside my house if he was okay.  (He was. Just chillin’). 

So, here’s the question, which of these activities today is most important or productive in terms of bringing forth the kingdom of God?

(and the answer “they are all equally important in different ways” may be true, but it is also dismisses the question too easily–it’s more fun to think about it.)

Vote today. Check.

 

Here’s more or less why.  

Everyone has a right to put up signs.

 

….true on so many levels. 

The rector (which is the head priest) of the  church we go to  made this video about an instance of vandalism. His mad journalism skills are sharper and more sane than most media outlets in our town.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. You must watch it.