It's all Elizabeth Kaeton's fault for posting this.
It immediately kicked in my "song lyrics muse." I am not kidding; I whacked this out in FOUR MINUTES. Is this my brush with divine inspiration?
Here's to you, Bishop Robinson (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)
And here's to you, Bishop Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know. (whoa whoa whoa)
God bless you, please Bishop Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey
hey, hey, hey
We'd like to know a little bit about your for our files
We'd like to help you learn to damn yourself.
Look around you all you see are schismatic Anglo-eyes,
They can't believe God thinks that you are loved.
And here's to you, Bishop Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know. (whoa whoa whoa)
God bless you, please, Bishop Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey.
Your fame has got your face upon the Daily Show.
Gold star in your tiara, that's for sure.
It's a little secret that you kick schismatic butt.
You represent inclusive love, a thing they fear.
Koo-koo-ka-choo, Bishop Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know. (whoa whoa whoa)
God bless you, please, Bishop Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Sitting on a sofa on a Monday afternoon.
Hit the remote to HBO.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When he does not appear
Every way you look at this kicks rear.
Where have you gone, Queen Eliz'beth I,
Our communion turns its prayer book page to you. (woo woo woo)
What's that you say, Bishop Robinson.
Her Majesty has left and gone away,
Hey hey hey.
(Yes, Elizabeth, I know. Spend the $35 with the copyright office.)
Ok, I woke up this morning thinking about how dogs’ relationships with us are not that far from our relationships with the divine.
It started as part of my New Year’s resolution to “get to know the Book of Common Prayer better.” Well, I thought an easy starting point was just to read all the prayers and collects and hear the poetry of them and think about the deeper parts of that poetry.
Last night, I was reading the prayer “for knowledge of God’s creation” (p.827, BCP) and there was this line in it, “Grant that, as we probe the mysteries of your creation, we may come to know you more truly...” So I must have slept on that somewhat.
So, this morning as I am letting the dogs out and bringing them back in and making “dog breakfast,” and drinking coffee, I got to thinking about the “morality of dogs” and how communing with humans is their way of “stepping beyond just the simple rules of their society’s morality.”
Dog morality is pretty simple:
1. Eat and drink when you’re hungry or thirsty.
2. Sleep when you’re sleepy.
3. Mate when your pheremones and some other dog’s pheremones say that is a good thing to do.
4. Companion with other dogs to the extent the other dogs don’t interfere with the other three, or benefit you (hunting in packs would be a good example of this.)
Where dogs step “out of the box” and go beyond themselves is in their companionship with people. Sure, people feed them and give them comfort, but that is not all of the relationship. They enter in a relationship that both pleases them, and pleases us. They don’t simply come up to you to be fed. They come up to be petted and played with even when they are not hungry. They do not understand our ways. I think about how I can’t sit on the floor and read the newspaper b/c little Eddie sits on it and stares at me, or my friends N.&R.'s dog Darby watching the other dogs on TV, or when Mr. Boomer just comes up and puts his chin on the couch and stares up at me lovingly. I think about this guy in Macon who lived alone with his dog and when he died and the dog was given to someone else, he would now and then run off and go to the cemetery and sit at the guy’s grave even though he did not see that he was buried there.
But something in a dog brain millions of years ago clicked and said, “there is a benefit beyond your morality for this relationship beyond your basic biological needs.”
So, to me, in that sense, what dogs do with us, is very similar to what we are trying to do in our relationship with God—go beyond just simply “our morality” into something bigger and not well understood with the brains we have, but we know that it pleases us, and we at least sense it pleases God. Whoa! That is a huge thought!
As humans evolved the first thing they figured out is they need rules as a society. But as humans developed higher thought, they realized there was some sort of benefit beyond their biology and physiology to have a relationship with this unseen entity we call God. This relationship (well, if you’re not a fundamentalist, anyway) does not directly benefit “enforcing the rules, per se” (although it certainly can be used in that regard) but at least, to me, is simply a sense that I want to be loved and petted by this entity, and my doing the things that make up my “spiritual discipline” give me the sense I am being “petted” and it pleases me, as well as it giving me the sense it pleases God. Sure, I could be doing it simply b/c I am trying to "obey the rules as I understand them," but with so many denominational versions and dissent about "the rules" that can't possibly be the only reason.
Now, I don’t understand this entity any more than little Eddie understands what reading the newspaper is. I’m sure he looks at me and wonders how looking at a piece of paper makes me laugh, or grumble or react. But he knows it gets in the way of him being petted! Well, that is true with us and God, too. There are lots of times we are more or less “obeying the rules” but there is that little niggling that something “isn’t right” with us, and we derive comfort from just the simple act of getting the Sacrament, or hey, reading p.827 of the BCP! We discover that by engaging in the things my priest repeatedly refers to as "the disciplines of our faith", with no thought at all to outcome or no intent to "make us feel better," we become deepened and challenged in this relationship.
So I am convinced that understanding my dogs is a secret window to understanding some things divine. How many other secret windows are out there, d’ya suppose?
One of my (numerous) hobbies is making "liturgical jewelry." With Lent less than a month away, I kind of experimented with making some bracelets and ankle bracelets and an "everyday necklace" in various purples and some gray gemstone beads.
I kind of joke that I tend to be "Kabballistic" with the numbers of beads that make up the patterns. I like to work in patterns of 3, 9, 18, and 36 since they have significance in Hebrew numerology. the smaller beads in the necklace in the picture are 20 on each side, total40, for the 40 days of Lent. One of the bracelets in the picture has six purple beads--for the 6 Sundays in Lent.
It's a relaxing hobby and in some ways, I think, a form of prayer, because I am being mindful about the numbers that make up the patterns. I really enjoy wearing the things I make and they make up 99% of my "everyday" jewelry. I pay attention to the liturgical calendar, so I can use colors that fit the liturgical seasons. I have a tendency to borrow from other cultures (especially the southwestern U.S.) to think up designs. But it's fun.
What I like best about the stuff I wear is it keeps me connected to the church seasons and the numbers that make up the stuff of Scripture.
anyway, enjoy the pics!
I love Indexed. Jessica is so creative. It does, however, bring up one of my more sordid confessions. I am not above dumpster diving. (Remember, I am into simplicity.) I will drive by a dumpster, see something sticking out, and have to investigate. Yes, I can afford to buy it. But that's not the point. I don't want to contribute to the throwaway culture. People throw out perfectly good tools, stereos, etc. in the dumpster, just because they don't like them, or a knob fell off, or who knows why. Maybe it belonged to the ex and they threw it in the dumpster "just because."
In fact, I laugh about my "recruitment incentive" during my second interview for my job in Kirksville. JML, the mutual longtime friend of both Episcogranny and me, saw me during my second interview and said, "You know, it's spring cleanup week. Let's go cruise College Park (a well-established "good" neighborhood in Kirksville) and see what people put out to be tossed. I need a bed frame for A. (her younger child.)"
So there we were, riding around the more "swell" neighborhoods in my pickup truck, checking out the curbsides. I am sure the powers that be did not consider this the normal physician recruitment method. But it was perfect for me, b/c it brought back memories of my college days when JML and I did the exact same thing! Spring cleanup in Kirksville is probably more of a giant swap meet than it is a true spring cleanup.
But I'll be honest, taking things out of the dumpster is probably a sign of something deeper in me. One of the greatest joys in my life is "renewing, re-using, and rejoicing" over something that someone else threw away, that works just fine for me. It is why I actually enjoy working with students in academic trouble. It is why the bulk of my dogs have been "pound dogs" or "give-away dogs." It is a Psalm 118 moment for me, using a "cornerstone that the builders rejected" towards something good.
Most importantly, though, it is a reminder of my own salvation. I have had to struggle with feelings of rejection and abandonment all my life. Those feelings cut me incredibly deeply--more than it might appear on my surface, because my surface appears tough and resiliant for the most part. For me, the simple act of "rejoicing in the salvation of a perfectly good snow shovel in the dumpster" affirms my own salvation. It tells me God always thinks I am worth picking out of the trash, in fact he might have hand-picked me out of the trash now and then!
In a recent post, Renz of Renz in the Woods accepted a challenge to himself, and enlisted my help, since he pegged me as "another secular monastic" on Facebook. Well, I generally do what my friends ask of me!
I have to start, though, with the confession that it took me about two years to accept that I even remotely resemble any kind of "monastic." It took a combination of realizing I enjoy work around my church as a form of worship, reading the book "The Cloister Walk," and about 4 friends all expressing not in the presence of each other that I had various "monastic tendencies." But I still could not connect to it in any great manner b/c the one thing I knew that made me feel "not monastic" was that I did not pray all of the Daily Office or the Liturgy of the Hours or any sort of attempt at "prayer throughout the day." It was not until Renz threw the phrase "secular monastic" out for my scrutiny that I could finally go, "Well...ok. I guess I AM a secular monastic." (Then quickly added to myself, "but I'm not a monastic monastic.")
So, with that intro, if you look at Renz' posts he makes four points in his explanation of a secular monastic. I'll stick to his framework for consistency's sake for my version.
Point 1: Solitude
For the last 22 years of my life, in two different towns, I have lived several miles out in the country and "worked in town", as we say in these parts. In my present locale, I am essentially embedded in 35 acres of pasture. I live alone with two dogs, two donkeys, a mule, and "someone else's horse." There have been times I was home sick, that, other than my letter carrier or the UPS driver, no one has come to the house. I am a bit of a "hoarder of eclectic stuff" and use the clutter in my house as an excuse to keep people out, not "entertain." Although, unlike Renz, I do have TV and Dish Network, and a nice (but 15 year old) stereo, like him I have "too many books and too many CDs."
This is going to sound funny because in a social setting there is no doubt I enjoy conversation, but I also value being able to be silent for hours. Although, when I'm indoors, there is often either the TV or the radio or music on CD's or my iPod going, I enjoy the wall of silence I can create in myself. In fact, when I blog, I REALLY like being silent. I like forcing my fingers to do the work that I either can't or won't vocalize in real life.
I enjoy taking vacations and staying home rather than "going somewhere". It's not like I have never gone anywhere, I have been to 49 states and 5 foreign countries, and once in a while I do enjoy a trip for a vacation. I prefer taking the train or driving over flying, and enjoy the luxury of "taking my time" to get there. I have my sacred spot in the yard, and I like to sit out in it, with or whithout my laptop, even when it is a little too hot or cold for most people. I just like to "sit and be" in that place, hear the wind, the animal noises, feel the sun or the wind on me, and at night, fire up my chiminea and watch the moon and stars.
Point 2: Simplicity
Despite the hoarding tendencies, I live far below my means. I enjoy buying things at consignment auctions. I don't dress flashy. I am graying and I don't care WHAT people think abut that. I drive a seven year old truck with 100k plus miles. I always try to patch up or fix up something before I give up and get a new one. I buy staple foods in bulk. I have a freezer full of meat that I know exactly where it came from, right down to the pasture it was on. I prefer local, home grown foods and cooking from scratch.
I have a tendency to be the last one to turn on either the heat or the A/C, and prefer open windows and breezes. I don't rely on gasoline powered tools (but I will confess liking to use a chainsaw now and then.) I shovel the church walks with a shovel instead of a snow blower. But my carbon footprint is pretty small compared to a lot of people. I live in "less house" than most people these days.
Some day, I'm going on a "decluttering" mission. I do this about once every 10 years. I think I will use the excuse of remodeling the house. I get rid of a lot of the stuff I've hoarded from my pack rat tendencies, start over in a sense. Some day, I want to build a "greener" house on my property. But it will still be "less house" than most people would be satisfied with.
Point 3: Celibacy
Well, I will start by saying I might have more internal struggle than Renz about this, although a lot of what he says rings absolutely true with me, too. There was a time when I was making some incredibly bad decisions on how to channel my sexual energies. There was a point in relationships that I just figured, "Ok, we have kind of reached the point where we are supposed to be doing it, so I guess I will, and enjoy it for what it is," and that's what happened. I did not give a lot of consideration to the big picture of this, that it is a giving of one's self that reaches deeper sometimes than the level of the relationship I was in, and that created conflict I did not expect.
The problem was (and still is, and probably always will be) that I am a high-energy person. That includes sexual energy. So in some ways, my celibacy is not something I have totally accepted. I think I tend to be a little like St. Augustine and St. Jerome. That energy does and will always cause some degree of conflict and the lack of being able to disspate it in the "usual manner" causes consternation and loneliness some days. There is a part of me that will always long for sexual release in "the usual manner."
But I also realize that part of why I have the time to do a lot of the things I do is because I am not exerting energy on that whole "dating/romance/romantic relationships" schtick. I'll be honest, I always hated dating, because I really fear that moment when you are going with someone and they start in on the "why don't you...(fill in the blank)...you'd be so much more attractive if you did," schtick. It can range from wearing a certain cosmetic product, or coloring my hair or wearing something I don't normally wear. That is when I went "full stop/full speed backwards." That moment is so betraying to me. It screams, "YOU DON'T LOVE ME FOR WHO I AM, AS IS, and I am NOT going to give up pieces of myself for superficial bullshit" and I run from it. There's just too much rejection with dating, and I don't need to be diving into the rejection pit all the time.
I fear that so much, I just decided, "You know, I'm not saying I will never have a complete soul mate," but I think if I did, it will be someone who for some time will interact with me on many different levels, and over time we more or less grew into a deep realization that we really ARE soul mates, that there is a growing sense of total companionship, and a sense of completeness in each other's company that does not demand change of anything in either the inner core of our beings. This may never happen. That's okay too. I am happy as I am now, not having to worry about that business of aiming for romance, aiming for sex, and having to "fit" to get it. I have plenty of love to give in a lot of ways, and I am learning to feel the energies of that love coming back to me in ways I never imagined. I have learned to de-couple "sensual" from "sex". We ruined the world "sensual". It is so much bigger than just sex. I'm trying to take that word back.
Point 4: Prayer
That was my last hang-up about admitting I was a secular monastic. I figured since I don't have a day-long cycle of prayer, I don't qualify as "monastic." But I have, in the last two years, developed some practices of spiritual discipline, like my working backwards through the Psalms, my present project of working through the last ten chapters of Isaiah, my "seasonal projects" like Advent and Lent. I read, I reflect, I write and blog. That is a form of prayer, I decided.
I work on "fixit" projects and maintenance projects at church. That is a form of prayer. I spend time in my sacred spot in the yard. That is a form of prayer.
I am blessed in that I have "clergy friends." I am able to interact with them on a different level than I am used to interacting with clergy. Sometimes it is hard, b/c you are not sure "which hat" each is wearing in the conversation, but overall, this softening of boundaries is good for me, because I realize that for me to grow in my own spirituality, I need a certain degree of bonding with those who made it their life's work. I sort of chuckle at my Facebook friends...there are a lot more of them wearing collars than I like to admit! It's kind of embarrassing to admit, "Yeah, I have a lot of clergy friends strung all over the country," but it is also kind of nice. I also realize it is good for them, too, in odd ways. So that is all good.
I like my life overall most days, love it intensely some others, and have bad days in it like everyone else. But I am so grateful to be able to disengage myself from some aspects of "the world" and "our culture" and am growing into the notion that this "fits" me in a way I never allowed myself to believe. It is in some ways, a submission to God that he made me a quirky and unusual person for a good reason, and I am learning to accept there is a covenantal power in that.
Litany of Penitence
The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling
Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have let our laundry pile up.
The Celebrant continues
We have not paid attention to how many pairs of underwear we have left. We have not realized that the one pair of jeans we love the most lies dirty. We have run out of white socks.
Have mercy on us, Lord.
We have been deaf to your call to buy laundry detergent, and our manifold sins in this issue are intolerable to us.
Have mercy on us, Lord.
We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the
lack of attention to "delicate cycle" and "regular cycle",
We confess to you, Lord.
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation
of wearing certain items of clothing after picking them out of the dirty clothes basket,
We confess to you, Lord.
Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those
who get their laundry done in a timely manner,
We confess to you, Lord.
Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and
our dishonesty in mixing "colors" and "whites",
We confess to you, Lord.
Our negligence in cleaning out the lint filter in the dryer, and our failure to
commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to you, Lord.
Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to our bulging dirty clothes basket, and our
indifference to what remains that we can wear to work and not look like a fool,
Accept our repentance, Lord.
For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our
neighbors who actually IRON their clothes, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those
who never seem to "run out" of any item of clothing,
Accept our repentance, Lord.
For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of
concern for using "earth-friendly laundry products",
Accept our repentance, Lord.
Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.
Accomplish in us the work of our laundry,
That we may show forth your glory in the world.
By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection, white as snow, like bleached socks and underwear.
The Bishop, if present, or the Priest, stands and, facing the people, says
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
desires not the death of laundry slugs, but rather that they may turn
from their wickedness and live, has given power and
commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to
his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of
their manifold laundry sins. He pardons and absolves all those who truly
repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.
Therefore we beseech him to grant us true repentance and his
Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do on
this day, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure
and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Time for another silent movie break. From TCM:
In a small village on the coast of England, Theodora Fitzgerald marries elderly millionaire Josiah Brown in order to please her father, Captain Fitzgerald, and her two older, unmarried half-sisters. On their honeymoon in Switzerland, Theodora is taken under the wing of American widow Mrs. McBride, who accompanies Theodora on a mountain climb. When Theodora slips over a precipice while trying to take a photograph, she is rescued by the young and handsome Hector, Lord Bracondale, who earlier had saved her from drowning near the Fitzgeralds' cottage.
Fearing her growing attraction to Hector, Theodora flees to Paris with her husband. Hector follows them to Paris and encounters Theodora again while she is dining with her father and Mrs. McBride. The next day, while they are touring Versailles as Josiah rests in their hotel, Hector and Theodora realize that they are in love. Knowing that their love is too strong to allow them to see each other as friends, they decide to part.
Brokenhearted, Hector asks his sister, Lady Anningford, to befriend Theodora, which she does. Back in England, Lady Anningford invites Josiah and Theodora to her country estate for a weekend house party. Despite his best intentions, Hector again declares his love. Theodora resists him, however, but sends him a note confessing her feelings, at the same time sending a note to Josiah saying that she will soon join him back in London. Morella Winmarleigh, who loves Hector and had once considered as his future wife, sees Theodora drop the two letters into the estate's mailbox and redirects the letter for Josiah to Hector and the love note intended for Hector to Josiah.
After a confrontation between Josiah and Hector, Josiah decides to sacrifice himself for his wife's happiness and accompanies an exploration party to Arabia. His party is attacked by bandits, and he is fatally wounded just as Hector, Theodora, her father, and an escort arrive. Before he dies, Brown wishes the lovers happiness.
I have seen plenty of Valentino silents, but really, the bulk of my experiences with Gloria Swanson's films is pretty much wrapped up in "Sunset Boulevard" in her (somewhat autobiographical) portrayal as an aging star of silent film. I was captivated by her range of facial expression. I was also sort of surprised, that, devoid of flowing, flashy sheik costumes, Rudolph Valentino was a rather slightly built man.
But I guess what this film got me to thinking about was the whole business of how we often never truly follow our "heart's desire"--not necessarily in just romantic things, but just things in general. All the trouble in this movie starts because Theodora gets roped into doing something she knows is wrong for her.
It make me realize that a lot of times we are even afraid to express our heart's desires to God, and instead, we just do "what we think everyone expects of us," hoping that it is the right thing, figuring if everyone else feels this way, we must be the problem. Then we find out that because we did not really take our heart's desires into consideration in counsel with God, we settled for less than what God expects of us and what would have truly made us happy, even if the road to it seemed "harder", somehow.
I have been incredibly impressed with the number of Psalms in which it is apparent the psalmist was lying awake in bed, in either the early morning or late night, pondering God. I kind of had the delusion I was the only one who did that. I have a feeling this is much more universal than I realized.
We can't always be as lucky as Theodora, whose elderly rich husband conveniently died at the end of the movie. So part of what I am realizing is that my prayer time is not just "time to ask of God," or even just "time to hang out with God," although both of those functions are very important. Part of it is using time with God for "sorting things out." Part of it is to uncouple our heart's desires solely from ourself and lay them out there for God, so we can use discernment. Of course he knows what these desires are, but I think to release them from ourselves connects them to his realm so we can better understand his desires for us, and how these things all "fit".
