I am neither a prophet nor a prophet's daughter...

Anyone who may tell you that I interrupted two seminary students arguing Biblical Interpretation and the Three-Legged Stool, handed them trays, and said, "Go and live your Gospel! Feed these hungry kids!" is LYING.



One of them doesn't go into seminary until September.

Coming from you, 'friend' is a four-letter word.

Grar. I'm going to vent now. There's going to be very little high-fluffy-can't-we-all-just-get-along content, so you can skip this, I won't get mad.

* * * * *

I really, really, really love my friends. I have great friends. I don't make friends easily, so the ones I do have I keep around for a long time, like, more than half my life.

Of course, that becomes problematic if, you know, at one point you had a friend who became more-than-a-friend who went back to being a friend and for some reason (maybe from watching too much Sex in the City) believes it's now their job to ensure that you are getting laid.

No, seriously, after saying, "Hi, darlin'!" when I called, the next words out of my friend's mouth were, "Are you getting laid?"

First of all, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!

Second of all, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!

Ai yah, hui-ah lei! Can people PLEASE stop thinking with their gonads / about other people's gonads for just TEN MINUTES?


If you'll excuse me, now I have to go place some orders for the OB/GYN department.

A couple of things you were just dying to know...

1) I went ahead and got a Voodoo doughnut of my very own today, so you can stop worrying about my immortal soul, and start worrying about my hips.

2) I think I'm going to try and go to Washington, DC for the Investiture of the new Presiding Bishop. Even if I don't get tickets to the actual party, there are going to be some interesting protests to watch, I tell you what. And November is the absolute best time to go to DC, and I haven't been to the East Coast since 2001 and the last time I went to the Smithsonian, they'd just broken ground on the American Indian Museum... and dangit, I'm 26 years old and I'll go on a 2800 mile, fiscally-ill-advised trip if I want to! *stamps foot*

I'm too lazy to be a fundamentalist.

I've tried, several times in my life, to follow a more-- drastic version of Christianity.

I'm just too lazy to be a fundamentalist (either liberal or conservative), and I'm reminded of that fact when I read articles like this one. There are just so many *rules* to follow, and too many things to worry about all day (OMG, is my chest covered enough that I'm not a temptation to others, and exposed enough to show I'm not ashamed of being female? Was that television show blasphemous for showing demons, or misogynistic 'cause the demon was totally going to sacrifice a woman? Is my desire for a doughnut shaped like a voodoo doll a sin of gluttony, a sin of overcomsumption of the earth's resources, encouragement of witchcraft, insensitive to Vauduan practitioners, or just plain coveting my cubicle-neighbor's breakfast?)

[Dangit. Now I really want a doughnut.]

Sometimes, though, it would be very, very nice to have All The Answers™. Although, as I read more and more on what draws people into fundamentalist groups on both sides of the fence, the most common thing that draws people into these groups is the people are nice to them. They invite them to meetings. They share food. They invite them to come back.

They listen to their hopes, fears, and dreams, and then give people a goal greater than their individual selves to strive for.

Is that what's missing in these big, empty churches?

*shakes head*

According to this NY Times article (annoying registration required), people are now hiring funeral planners, who will take care of planning the memorial service, the catering, and the post-funeral golfing trip.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??

Seriously, if you have that much money to waste, I know a couple of rather good charities.

Occam's Razor as Applied to World Peace

I come from a long line of educators (and if National University, the place I graduated from an entire year ago and they have somehow yet to send me any of my accredidations and licenses, would get off their behinds-- I will join that line). A lot of my family works with high-risk populations.

Dealing day-in and day-out with high-risk populations, you develop a situational vocabulary much different from that of dealing with normal-risk populations. And that vocabulary really the only difference between high-risk and normal-risk populations, because if you tell a normal-risk to "knock that crap off and get back to work", the normal-risk student's parents will be in the principal's office demanding to know where you get off talking to their child like that.

One day, Mtr. Mother was driving down the road, and she was stopped at a light in a not-terribly-nice part of town. One young man (still in his teens), a few feet away on the sidewalk, pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd at a bus stop. Mtr. Mother (a middle-aged, overweigh woman in a business suit) jumped out of the minivan and yelled at the top of her lungs, "What the HELL do you think you're doing?"

The young man startled, looked into her eyes, dropped the gun, and ran like hell.

Mtr. Mother will be the first one to tell you what she did was purely instinctual, and utterly crazy. But you know what? I bet you five dollars that if we parachuted in a battalion of teachers and grandmothers (especially those with big purses), we'd have world peace right quick.

The reason, though, that caused Mtr. Mother to jump out of the van was she saw someone in trouble, and she just reacted.

*Looks around this world* I dunno about you, but I see some people who need to be asked just what the hell they are doing. Politicians, religious leaders, the guy in the house next door, bloggers...

I double-dog dare you.

No words.

I've just gone through my blogroll's accumulated aggregations from the weekend.

I saw angry Christians, I saw upset Christians, I saw thinking Christians... didn't see any happy Christians. I didn't see anything that made me say, "Ayup, I'm really glad I'm a Christian!"

Actually, I saw one thing that made me wish I was still practicing Buddhisim, and that was on a Christian blog.

Why does the Internet bring so much of the rougher side of our natures out? Why do we spend so much of our time here arguing amongst ourselves, when we have a global forum the Apostles would have plotzed themselves to have, we have the ability to reach people across all sections and sectors of global society.

What *is* the point of being a Christian? Because I'm not seeing anything, really.


Please pray for M's family, as he was found dead of a gunshot wound last week.

Grumpy Friday

I really, really, REALLY want one of those t-shirts that says "My manner of life poses a challenge to the wider church."

Unfortunately, if I wore it around Portland, no one would get it. 85% of this town does not go to church, and of that teensy-weensy percentage that do, an even smaller percentage are Episcopalian, and of that eeeny-meeny percentage of people who go to church and are Episcopalian, a squinchy-winchy percentage are the kind who keep up with Church politics and know that more went on at GC2006 [quota!] than electing someone with girl cooties as Presiding Bishop.

Actually, that would be a better t-shirt. My Presiding Bishop has girl cooties!

I'm thinking a lot about what the Church looks like to the rest of the world right now because A Certain Church has formed a Communications Committee, and I'm on it. I now know that the Greatest Commandment I learned when I was a United Methodist is a direct result of Apostolic Succession, since Episcopalians also follow it. The Greatest Commandment, by the way, is Wherever two or more are gathered in My name, form a committee and bring a covered dish.

Everyone's getting excited and deciding where we should spend our not-yet-allocated advertising budget. They're talking about logos and outreach and I've even heard someone mention the thing that strikes fear into my heart: Saturday Night Young Adult Services.

I must be turning into a reactionary in my impending old age (I'll be turning 27 in September), because my first thought was, "I don't want to change!" I joined A Certain Church because it's small, because in such a small place I'm known and my skills are not just that I'm a Young Person™, but my ideas and talents and energies are also needed just to get things done on a weekly basis.

And my second thought was, "How will these advertising budgets and SNYAS distinguish us from the other bazillion tiny churches in the area? How will they show off the special callings of A Certain Church, the things that make me return every week and throw so much of my ideas and talents and energies into it?"

And the reason I'm grumpy? I don't know if I have even a hint of where to find the answers to these questions.

Hmpf.

I dreamt about blogging.

No, I'm not kidding. Surrounded by God's glorious creation, up a mountain with no Internet connection, after spending many hours spent in meditation (both on the Scriptures and on The Food Network), I had a dream about blogging.

And you were there.
And you were there.
You? I don't know you. Who are you? How'd you get into my house?!

I'd taken a whole bunch of books on St. Francis with me, hoping to catch up on my reading. However, there is a branch of Powells in the terminal, coincidentally next to my gate, and they had a copy of one of my favorite scifi author's new 700-page novel--- AUTOGRAPHED! Which makes me mad, since that means she was *in* Portland and I missed her. Grrr. Oh, well, the nice thing about Powells is they don't hike the price just 'cause it's autographed.

When I was done with that (and it took until Thursday), I started re-reading In the Spirit of Happiness (which really has nothing to do with dogs, no matter what the blurb says). Which EVERYONE needs to read. Seriously.

As for now, I jumped back into the real world with both feet, and am still trying to catch up. I had all these big plans about getting my life in order and balancing work/prayer/rest-- HA!

But I'm not giving up!

And because God knows we Episcopalian bloggers can't post anything without mentioning GC 2006, if you haven't read this post at Fr. Jake's place, you really need to. It's a copy of a .pdf that outlines some of the claims made by various people (you know who you are!) about what went on at the Convention, and what *really* happened. The most important bit to me:

Claim: That Presiding Bishop-elect, Katharine Jefferts Schori, introduced radical feminist theology by referring to “Mother Jesus” in her homily at General Convention.

Fact: The image of “Mother Jesus” was used widely among patristic and Medieval theologians and Christian mystics [...] These church heavyweights got their inspiration from the Bible, which itself uses such imagery. See, for example, Deuteronomy 32:18; Isaiah 46:3–4; Hosea 13:8; and Mathew 23:37.
(emphasis mine, Copyright © 2006 by Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, http://progressiveepiscopalians.org)