Once More Into the Breach

I am waiting...

Not patiently mind you, just waiting. It will be hours, days, but certainly not weeks before my wife and I have a second child. And it is hard to wait.

Partly to kill the time, aprtly to catch up to the Academy Awards, we have been watching movies. Over the past weekend we watched two; "The Departed" and "Stranger Than Fiction."

Now, I am one of those people who thought Pulp Fiction was a waste of celluloid. You should know that before we start - because I thought the Departed was one of the worst uses of two and half hours I have ever put my life to. First off, it is a movie about Boston Cops... do we need to know more about how everyone in Boston is angry and confused about their identity? And speaking of that - why do the people of Boston put up with this crap?

Secondly, this movie was simply Hamlet done poorly. Everyone dies, for no good reason - and that was done, and done to peprfection, by Willy the Bard himself. About the only thing about the Departed that was worth watching was the comment by a store owner when two rival gangs are beating the crap out of each other in his store: "Is everyone in this country crazy? Does everyone hate each other?" Well, apparently, yes.

So my real question is why didn't Stranger than Fiction win awards? Did they not pay enough bribes? Because even the simplist of things, like lighting when an apple falls to the street, are done to perfection. Let alone, brilliant acting, a clever script, and pathos galore.

Here is the plot as a sermon - faith in the outcome makes the difference.

Mark Twain once wrote: “In my life I’ve known many troubles, most of which never happened.”

And the truth is that it is our attitude towards those troubles that makes a difference. When confronted by people who wanted to kill him Jesus responded: "I will be right here, doing what is right and helping people today, tomorrow and the next day..."

The simplist messages are often the best - whether you are a liberal or a conservative, whether a Christian or a Buddhist... This is my advice to you - stay the course, do what is right, believe in the good - it WILL make a difference.

The Sarcasm that Burns Within

I recently mused with Boaz, the Mad Monk, that sarcasm seems to have a way of communicating ideas better than actual knowledge. He understood that, because he is deep. Here's the thing - there is a new website from the United Church called the Wonder Cafe and Mad Monk has, rightfully, attracted quite a following - or perhaps loathing - for asking good questions, sometimes sarcastically.

Is sarcasm necessary to cut through the amount of BS in the world today?

Or - to put it in a way my right qwing sisters and brothers might understand - What Would Jesus Say Sarcastically (WWJSS for short)How about "Oh yeah Peter, step out of the boat 'snicker snicker'"

Okay - but seriously, the problem I have witb being sarcastic about ti all is that I really love religion. I really love faith, I really love the church. At least, I love all those thigns when we are talking about their best possible expression.

More often than not, though, religion is used to justify silly things like homophobia and racism. Faith is used to determine who is in and who is out, and the church is so busy navel gazing that it fails to see wher eit can be relevant in the real world.

I am, like most of my generation, searching for a way to make a real difference in the world. I want to live differently, I want to act differently, I want to be different (but I still want an Xbox 360, a home in the Carribean, and some staff) But is it possible to be different, change and make a difference? or do we just keep becoming who we always were?

Sorry to ask so many questions - I am just in that type of mood.

So here is where I end up. What does it mean to be religious today? I do not think that it measn that we have accepted Jesus into our hearts. I certainly never have when you start throwing it around like that. I have accepted that the creative fofrce of the universd, who I choose to call God, has somehow kept this whole ball of wax rolling. That means, whether thought out ahead of time or not, there is a plan, a right and wrong way to have the universe unfold... I am trying to be part of the "right way" that is what I mean by religious. If things work out - perhaps I am also saved.

Enough of a rant for one night... Good Night and Good Luck

Twas the Month Before Christmas

Well Halloween has come and gone and you know what that means... CHRISTMAS

That's right boys and girls Christmas is coming - or if you live in my world - it arrived with a vengeance. The lights are out on the streets, the malls are congested, I even saw a Christmas tree in some one's front window while walking the dog the other night (It must be fake - poser).

All this early Christmas got me thinking about two things. CHRISTMAS HASN'T STARTED YET! and secondly, Santa with the letters rearranged is Satan...

But I digress. In a continuing effort to counter the misinformation that our more right handed denizens foist upon an unsuspecting population... I offer the truth!

The Season of Christmas

Christians did not even start this festival - in fact, the Vikings did! And it was all about light and dark - winter and spring.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days.

In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia - a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture — was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun.

So how did the church get on board? well, it all started when we decided to co-opt the pagan holiday... The Bible never mentions a time of year for Jesus birth - our best guess, and it is already a generation after the fact, is that there were shepherds hanging out in the field. But ti really didn't matter... there was a ready made holiday just waiting... Pope Julius I chose December 25 in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival.

First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.

WHAT ABOUT SANTA?

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. One of the best known of the St. Nicholas stories is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas's popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6.

St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death. The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick's Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas).

Stores began to advertise Christmas shopping in 1820, and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday advertisements, which often featured images of the newly-popular Santa Claus. In 1841, thousands of children visited a Philadelphia shop to see a life-size Santa Claus model. It was only a matter of time before stores began to attract children, and their parents, with the lure of a peek at a "live" Santa Claus. In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families. They began dressing up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations. Those familiar Salvation Army Santas have been ringing bells on the street corners of ever since.

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled, "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas." Which we now know as "Twas the Night Before Christmas". This poem is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a "right jolly old elf" with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head! Although some of Moore's imagery was probably borrowed from other sources, his poem helped to popularize Christmas Eve - Santa Claus waiting for the children to get to sleep the now-familiar idea of a Santa Claus who flew from house to house on Christmas Eve - in "a miniature sleigh" led by eight flying reindeer.

MY POINT!

Is really two-fold. First and foremost; Christmas is a festival that predates Christianity and Santa predates the shopping malls... whether we are celebrating the winter solstice and the 'light' coming back into the world or the birth of a mythical baby in Jerusalem - the intent is the same. It is a reminder in the darkest days that good things are on the horizon. And santa, far from being Satan as some fo our brethren claim, is the epitome of all that is good and right in this world.

Or to qoute Francis P Church's editorial, "No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

And secondly... Christmas is moving; it is evolving. The church ahs fought to keep the season where it should be (the proverbial twelve days of Christmas, December 24th to January 6th) for a long time and we jsut are not winning. Better to embrace the changes, roll with the punches, and admit that whenever and for whatever reason people choose to celebrate - they are celebrating what God intends us to celebrate. Light, life and love.

A Post Samhein Primer

The Mad Monk, Boaz; points out on his blog that in our fair city the religious radio station spent the entire festival of Halloween praying for the city to survive the evil of the night. I wonder if they succeeded? But I digress...

The problem I have with this comes from the speed at which we jump to beleiving that everything that is different is wrong. We are talking about the type of exclusivism that says 'my understanding of faith is the only understanding of faith' and then superimposes it on the rest of the world. This, I would argue, is the real sin.

Second, there is a failure to understand that pagan is not a swear word.

I suggest reading Plutarch's Lives, Life of Numa, in particular. The original usage meant "parish", as a division of the country side under authority of an official. Basically we are talking about being from the countryside. Numa founded the original state religion of Rome, c. mid 1st century after the founding of the City. Many of the terms for Christian clergy and functions were borrowed from Numa's statutes. And so Pagan might actually be translated as 'that old time country religion' (but don't tell anyone.)

Third - do they really stop and think about where Halloween comes from? Some 2,000 years ago the Celts, crazy purple people that they were, celebrated the New Year on November 1st. The day marked the end of the warm, growing, harvesting season; and the beginning of the cold, dark, dying season. They also believed that on the night before the changing of the seasons the veil between the two worlds - physical and spiritual - was weakened. This made it easier to see the future and to determine where fate was leading you. So they built bonfires, wore animal skins, danced, prayed, sang and celebrated.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the Eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

NOW and FINALLY to the point. Even if the fact that the ancient celebrations make a whole lot of sense especially to an agrarian culture does not convince you; and even if the fact that every single one of our Christian festivals is stolen from its pagan antecedant still doesn't inch its way into your consciousness... Consider the greatest fault with the narrow viewpoint. It ignores the reality of the human being.

Humans have certain innate qualities - for better and for worse. The Right Wing crowd of Christians want you to believe that humans are basically evil despite all that "it was good" nonsense from the opening monologue of Genesis. Therefore, if it is human to be happy; being happy is bad... if it is human to be afraid, then being afraid is bad. (fear, by the way, seems to be one of those things we are born with - babies develop a sense of fear around 7 months whether they have anything to be afraid of or not)

According to Leon Rappoport, professor of psychology at Kansas State University, we need to be afraid for the same reason we all want to go to amusement parks to ride roller coasters.

"It goes all the way back to sitting around the camp fire telling ghost stories and folk tales," Rappoport said. "It's a very prevalent, deep-seated, human characteristic to explore the boundaries where they can tolerate fear and anxiety, and then master that fear and anxiety by working through it."

Rappoport says that Freudians and analytical thinkers believe that the more we develop and progress as a civilization, the more repressed problems we have. "The more civilized we get the more we repress our sort of uncivilized nature," Rappoport said. "And one way to release that is through festival occasions, vicariously enjoying horror movies and all sorts of related things."

So, I would like to argue that it is necessary to indulge in a little fantasizing about the dark side every now and again. It helps us to recognize ourselves for what we really are and to not push everything below the surface. Witness the recent news report about Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals. (or google something like 'evangelical scandal massage' I got 192,000 hits).

Halloween is Evil! Yeah, sure... and perhaps some people take it as an excuse to anonymously do things they would never otherwise do. But it is also a very real way to let out some of the demons that this stressful world forces us to keep locked inside. When we start thinking we are so much more righteous than everyone else... well... that is when we are really in for a fall. I for one will keep carving the hell out of that pumpkin...

Why Am I Here?

James Fowler once wrote a book titled 'Stages of Faith.' In it he described the fact that human development leads us through six distinct religious beleif stages. In a nutshell they are:

1. Projective - where we project our own fears and imagination outward on the universe

2. Mythic Literal - where we focus on certain stories as right, and begin black and white thought

3. Synthetic - where values are so deep that we think everyone in every place should have them

4. Reflective - where we begin to think deeply about how it all affects me

5. Conjunctive - where we finally see it is all relative and everyone else is probably right too

6. Universal - This is Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and the rest - everyone is light and power

Now, I try very hard to live in stage five. There are days when I slip back to one and have to start all over; but hey... we all have days like that. But I was getting to something... why am I here? I have watched with fascination as blogs become active ways to comunicate ideas and truth be told - I want in. But I want in with a purpose. I studied modern systematic theology under Dr Doug Hall in Montreal. I also studied historical theology under Dr Ed Furcha in Montreal. If you don't know these two names, buy some books; no seriously -think Tillichian theology redone for North America and attribute the entire Protestant Reformation to that most novel, but undersold of thinkers, Ulrich Zwingli and you have them.

I also have spent some 13 years working as an Ordained Minister for the United Church. And frankly, when you put it all together - I am tired of the reputation that Christians have in the world and tired of getting judged as just another member of the lunatic fringe. Most Christians - especially those of us who believe in the world, are the type of people who would fit stage five above. we integrate our faith beleifs into our daily living - we look for example of grace in the midst of the reality of the world - and we certainly don't check our brains at the door when we start to pray.

But all the people on the outside see is what my friends laughingly call the "Jeeeezus Weeeejus" crowd; those who pray "Jesus, we just want to thank you that you didn't make us like everyone else..." I want you to see something different! I want you to see ministers who question everything and still manage to believe in something better. I want you to see people who think about God and read Stephen Hawking. And I want to openly challenge all those people who tell me that because I am confident God loves everybody I am going to hell...

But enough with the small talk - let's get on with the show...