burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I spent most of today on Twitter reading about #AntonioMartin. Before that it was #DontreHamilton. I tried to make a list and oh, so many...

As per usual, December has been busy with work, and I haven't been especially ~feeling~ the Christmas lead-up. This is probably exacerbated by my being in another "the more I engage with the Bible, the less I identify as a Christian" phase.

I went to Christmas Eve service at my mom's church tonight, expecting the usual warm fuzzy kind of service.

We sang "I Heard the Bells," which I don't think we've sung at Christmas Eve before (though we often do at December Singspiration), which pleased me because we don't usually touch on the sadness, the darkness, the fact that all the Christmas joys we sing of have yet to be fully realized. ( lyrics )

Kevin (the pastor) gave brief reflections after each of the readings, and fine, talk about Jesus as fulfillment of promises, I won't argue with you in this moment about why I feel uncomfortable uncomplicatedly invoking Jesus as fulfillment of Jewish prophecies...

We sang "O Holy Night," though we definitely struggled with it (and not just the high notes in the refrain), which was a bummer to me as some of it is so good. I was pleased that we got to sing

[Her] law is love and [Her] gospel is peace.
Chains [she] shall break, for the slave is our [sibling].
And in [her] name all oppression shall cease.

(Yeah, I didn't edit the Longfellow poem when I c&p'ed it above, but I totally sang she pronouns for Deity throughout the service tonight, as is my tendency when ~inclusifying on the fly.)

In his reflection, Kevin called us back to that bit and talked about how the 2 sins that God was forever chastising Israel about were idolatry & oppression of the poor and the widows ... and I was so stoked and yet all he went on to say was blah blah blah Jesus as fulfillment of promise. Earlier, he had talked about animals in the creche and Saint Francis and Isaiah's promise of the redemption of all Creation, so I was left with the implication that "When God/Jesus redeems all of Creation ... at the Second Coming ... then the oppressed will be raised up etc. [not that we talked about the Magnificat at all] but until then just hang out and trust in God's eventual promise."

When I talked to my mom afterward, she said that Kevin's been talking about discipleship a lot on Sundays, which actually makes it feel worse to me because dozens of people this is the one time you're gonna get them this season and you don't take the opportunity to talk about God's call on their lives? Great, maybe some people learned some new things, but I was left with nothing about why Jesus' birth into the world matters to us now.

Earlier, when the choir director intro'ed "Joseph's Song" (the choir selection), he said something about how we often don't hear much about Joseph, and in my head, I was like, " #WhatAboutTheMen? Really?" The song was mostly Joseph talking about Mary and the baby, so it wasn't that bad -- and I do recognize that there are problematics to erasing Joseph out of the story -- but so often in conversations about folks on the margins/folks who are oppressed, people jump in to try to make sure we also talk about the privileged people and how they matter too, so I'm primed.

Frustrated with the almost-but-not-quite-there mention of Christ's mission of ending oppression, I came out of the service wanting to make my own Christmas (Eve)* service about the inbreaking of God into messy humanity, making Christ's home amongst the marginalized -- possibly incorporating the Jesus wasn't born in a stable argument -- and because I'm me and was cranky about #WhatAboutTheMen and how we skipped Mary's Magnificat in our journey through Luke (1:26-37, 2:1-7, and 2:8-16, but no 1:39/46-55), I wanted to queer the grown-up that baby Jesus would become (trans girl stone butch of my bff's heart or something).

* I admit it hadn't occurred to me until I went to write this just now how this service might be different if it were a Christmas Eve vs. Christmas Day (or elsewhere Christmastide) service ... what it is that we're maybe trying to get at with a Christmas Eve service that might be different from e.g. a Christmas Day service.

Carrie Cheron at Perks tonight.

It's been muggy for days (I disapprove -- it's autumn, yo!), but the weather finally broke sometime before I left work today.  If I'd known how much it would cool off, I would have seriously considered bringing a jacket.  When I got off the train in Norwood, the misty rain had gotten heavier, but I didn't take out my umbrella -- partly because Perks isn't that far from the train station, and partly because I'm stubborn, but also I think because I was really enjoying the cool and the rain.

***

Talking about the pastoral search committee, my mom said that one thing about United that has survived the many iterations is its ability to welcome folks who are odd ducks -- people who don't have people of their own can find a place there.  This made me feel warm about this church that is no longer mine.

In a (locked) post on a community today, someone talked about considering joining her faith community in a more formal capacity and spoke of her resistance to joining things, to putting her name on membership lists, and solicited thoughts on formal and informal membership.

Having put together my reply, I thought it might be of interest to regular readers of this journal as well.

my autobiography is probably not a helpful comment (but here it is)

I grew up with Honesty and Intentionality and Consistency being hugely valued, so I often have a really difficult time labeling myself as a member of a group.  (See also the fact that I tend to feel sympathy/connection to a variety of, if not mutually exclusive then at least not wholly overlapping groups, so I feel not only more at home on the borderlands but also feel that is a truer statement of my identity.)

I grew up in a nondenominational Protestant church, and at some point during my teen years the pastor asked me if I wanted to get confirmed.  I said no, because I didn't know what I believed, nor did I know what I was supposed to believe in order to become a member of this church.  (My mother brought me and my brother to church every Sunday of our childhood, and I continued to attend until I left town for college -- but the pastor's sermons put me to sleep, so I usually helped with childcare rather than staying through the service; I never felt like I wasn't a part of that church family, though.)

The church I attended almost every Sunday my sophomore through senior years of college (two hours away from the town I grew up in) I was never invited to officially join as a member, and I would have said no if asked.

The year after college I lived with my parents and church-hopped some (though I spent most of my Sundays at the Congregational church), knowing I would be leaving town soon, so I saw it as more denomination-shopping than congregation-shopping.

Some months after I moved out of my parents' house (and moved a half hour closer in to Boston) I started church-hopping again and began accumulating church communities.  Two and a half years later, it's almost a stubborn point of pride that I attend regularly (read: weekly) at a number of different churches (two Sunday worship services, one Wednesday night worship service, one Sunday discussion group) but am not officially a member of any church.

I've been referring to Cambridge Welcoming Ministries as my "primary" or home" church for probably close to a year now and Tiffany (the pastor) sometimes invites me to officially join the church (this year I'm on Finance Committee, so I'm not uninvolved), but that means claiming not only CWM but also the United Methodist Church.  In looking at lay speaker certification recently I actually felt a willingness to officially join the church/Church -- though I'm still not ready to do it (yet).

In writing this up, it also occurs to me that because I'm involved in so many church communities, to claim one "official" membership feels problematically exclusive -- even though in some ways it shouldn't since I'm very clear that CWM is the church I feel most at home in, the church that most teaches me how to be church, the church that best embodies how I think church should be, the church that most nurtures my gifts and graces and challenges me (in a growing way rather than a frustrating way -- it does the latter, too, but less so than some of my other church communities), the church I prioritize and privilege over all others.

In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives! -- Parker J Palmer, 1977, Quaker Faith & Practice, 10.19

The Parker Palmer quote [from the OP] definitely resonates with me as often my resistance to claiming a group identity label is very much connected to my resistance to being officially linked with certain other members of that group (political affiliation, church denomination, etc.).

As usual, I can basically copy-and-paste the order of worship from years past. Which is somewhat comforting. And of course there's stuff that reminds me that this really isn't my church.

( Read more... )

Friday

My brother came to pick me up on Friday and commented that it smelled like gas.  I had a cold so I hadn't noticed.  I mentioned the gas oven, he suggested the pilot light was out, I mentioned (which I had mentioned to OriginalRoomie weeks ago) that on one side of our stove the burners no longer work.  Yeah, pilot light.  I've always had the impression that the pilot light being out is this big deal thing to fix but no, it turns out to be really easy.  So that's one new thing I learned.  Now I also need to invest in matches in case this happens again.

In conversation on the ride home I learned that my brother really likes Heroes, including the early episodes (he saw the last 3 or 4 eps and then started from the beginning thanks to NBC having them up online).

Every year we say we're going to get a small tree, and every year the tree we get turns out to be rather large, but the tree my brother picked out this year actually is fairly small (though not, despite our joking, a Charlie Brown tree).  Decorated, it actually turned out well (and my brother conceded to my desire for white lights -- no colored lights -- which made me happy).

I watched so much tv Friday night.

Watching Jeopardy I learned that not only is there is a ballet of Dracula but there is also one of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.  I continue to be struck in watching Jeopardy by how easy a lot of the questions are (though of course the majority of them I don't know at all).

I caught some of The Simpsons due to being on the computer while my brother watched in the adjoining room.

I watched WWE Smackdown with my dad as per usual.  Near the beginning, of the players referred to it as the "cornerstone of the CW network."  Hee.  ( Read more... )

My brother and I watched 1 vs. 100 for the first time.  We were not impressed.  Both the questions and the contestants/mob were stupid (North America/Asia/Africa has the largest desert, static is caused by protons/neutrons/electrons).

We saw Numb3rs (3.07 "Blackout"), which I had never seen before (though I recognized Peter MacNicol from The Practice Ally McBeal; and checking IMDb I was right in thinking Navi Rawat was the name of the actress who played Dana in Angel -- "Damage" 5.11).  The show itself, though?  ::shrug::  ( Read more... )

My brother watched South Park, and when I was home over Thanksgiving I'd seen part of an episode and really wasn't taken with it.  However, I quickly got sucked into the episode that played Friday night, and it turned out to be awesome.  ( Read more... )

I also kinda liked the Christmas in Nebraska one, in large part because I have Santa issues.  ( Read more... )

Saturday

I went to Frank Crowley's funeral because that's what one does.  It was open casket, which I shouldn't have been surprised by, since it was viewing followed immediately by funeral, but I was still a little wigged, especially 'cause he looked kinda yellowish.

While one of the daughters was talking, it occurred to me that in the not too distant future I'll have to stand up and say nice things about my grandmother.  I told my mother this later, and she said I could just be keeper of the tissues.  If she had died when she fell five and a half years ago, I wouldn't have minded, but she's just declined so much that it's hard to remember the good days.

After the funeral, I went over to my grandma's to help her wrap presents.  I was there for four or five hours (the wrapping only took about an hour, but first there was lunch and after there was keeping her company -- i.e., listening to her talk nonstop) and that last hour was painful.

I didn't bring Joyce home with me, knowing I wouldn't have time (or motivation) to work on it.  However, I had ILL-ed 1971 text on masochism which also included an English translation of Venus in Furs (the latter being the purpose in ILLing it).  Saturday night I had time to kill, so I read Venus and then started reading the psych/litcrit text.  I wasn't impressed with either.  Sigh.

Sunday

Fourth Sunday in Advent

(For my reference: there was a program in my hymnal from the Second Sunday in Advent which said "Light the Candle of Love.")  ( Read more... )

Sunday afternoon I worked on a Firefly fic I've had sitting around for quite some time and actually got a couple sections finished (and an idea for a companion piece).  I was really proud of myself, though there's still one section I'm struggling with.  Anyone interested in betaing?

We watched an episode of CSI: Miami (2.06 "Hurricane Anthony").  This show doesn't particularly grab me, but I don't actively dislike it either, so I could easily get sucked into an A&E marathon or something if I ever felt like I had the free time.  I also really enjoy Emily Proctor.  ( Read more... )

Christmas Eve
Looking back at LJ, I'm impressed that the order of worship almost exactly the same as last year.
Only differences:
*First Scripture Reading was listed as John 3:16-18 instead of John 1:1-14.
*After "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" we sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" instead of proceeding directly to the Lighting of the Christ Candle.
*Choral Selection after Lighting of the Christ Candle was "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem" (instead of "Rejoice With Exceeding Great Joy").

What struck me this year in "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" instead of "But please, sir, forgive us Lord, we didn't know 'twas You," was "The world treat You mean, Lord; treat me mean, too. But that's how things is down here, we didn't know 'twas You."

Meditation (sermon) was entitled "What Time Is Christmas?" and I swear I was awake, but I remember nothing.  At least Christmas Eve sermons are shorter than Sunday morning ones are.

The sanctuary wasn't very warm, but then the receiving line afterward?  Someone had left the front door open (our receiving line ends right at that door, mind) and it looked like it was propped open (else I would have pulled it shut when I walked by).  omg so cold.  weather.com when we came home said 11pm: 38F feels like 33F, which made me feel like a wimp since I am she who loves cold and all.  Nevertheless, I felt like death -- which was actually happened once before: cold, achy, occasional stabbing chest pain.  Dunno what causes it.  I was given permission to bust up the heat in the apartment (shockingly, it was already at 68), and I felt better the following morning, and by the end of the day on Christmas felt wholly myself again. 

Because there is nothing on Sunday late-night on broadcast tv, my brother and I watched King of the Hill (5.20 "Kidney Boy and Hamster Girl: A Love Story") and Farscape (3.13 "Scratch 'n Sniff ").

Monday

Remember how FormerUnitHead gave me a gift saying "You may already have this, but I hope you don't"?  Best boss ever.  I also got an amazon.com gift certificate for a quite pleasant amount, but really, the book was the best part.  I have often said that all you need to win me is to be attentive.  (Hee, I just flipped the book over for the ISBN to add to LibraryThing, and it still has the Borders pricetag on it.  Clearly he does not come from my grandmother's school where it is tres gauche to leave price tags on ever.  Personally I don't care much.)

( rest of the loot list )

My brother got Family Guy UNO, and we played a few rounds Christmas afternoon before 4pm dinner.  Grandma was so out of it (and color-blind?) but thankfully the experience was still enjoyable.

Linnea came for a visit.  She brought me a gift basket of apartment stuff (okay, some of which I'm dispersing -- like the meat thermometer :) ) 'cause she couldn't make my apartment-warming.

Maureen also came to visit.  The place she went was sold out of Frangelico (my mom's preferred liqueur), so she got Baileys, which my dad prefers.  I agree with him that the first sip has that overpowering taste of alcohol at the end and the second sip doesn't.  I'm still not really taken with it, though.

After everyone had gone home, I watched a little bit of Remember the Titans with my parents, but then Jonah came over, and of course he trumps movies.  [IMDb-ing: The white coach's daughter?  Is played by the actress who plays Claire in Heroes!]

After he'd left, we watched another episode of 1 vs. 100.  This one was less ridiculous -- some of the questions required niche knowledge (The Night Before Christmas poem, Will Ferrell's movie Elf) -- though 54/99 (plus the contestant) didn't grasp parallel/perpendicular.

I saw an ad for Freedom Writers and it's Sia "Breathe Me" that's playing in the trailer, right?

Tuesday

I saw one of the new MBTA commuter rail schedules.  The shiny is a little disconcerting, though it does have a lot of useful stuff (subway map, etc.).  One of the blurbs talks about this form will be more durable and yadda yadda, in a way which makes me wonder whether they'll have scads of them at the Information counter at South Station like they used to.

Waiting at the Mass Ave.-Alewife Brook Parkway intersection when my brother drove me home, I wondered if it would be more efficient for me to just take Mass Ave. the whole way home if I were walking from Harvard or Porter, rather than switching to Elm St. at Porter, given where I live.  (I also wanna learn how to walk to my house from Alewife T station.)

I came home to a reminder that I live with idiots.  Our trash day is Monday; Monday was Christmas, so trash day would have been today; I came home around 3pm to full trash barrels still sitting by the side of our house.  I hope that OriginalRoomie really did, unbeknownst to me, go somewhere for Christmas, 'cause that would be a reasonable explanation for it.

However, I also came home to mail including a Charlie Card from work and a handmade (purple! my favorite color) coaster from maechi.

I've been seeing so many Yuletide recs on the flist I just wanna immerse myself in that, but I have to write a Joyce paper, plus I have a gazillion writeups I wanna make a dent in.  Speaking of recs, I should really look into renewing my domain/hosting since it's gonna run out in a couple weeks.  There are also lots of people I wanna see over Break, and I fail at coming up with actual plans.

Why can I not find the flyer of Shakespeare productions I picked up at Ladders to Heaven?  I remember it mentioned Titus and I think also Winter's Tale.  I can find the latter on ArtsBoston, but Google is not at all helping with the former.

[Advent day 28] Luke 2:16-20

¹⁶So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Zomg I have so much stuff.  Rearranging the house to fit Christmas (namely, the tree) I was reminded of this.  And of course it feels overwhelming like, "How do I even start?"  Which doesn't help.

I'm working on clearing out the huge amounts of fic I've bookmarked to read and I find I'm just commenting on the parts I like and not mentioning what didn't work, and I feel like I'm a slacker plus I'm losing concrit karma, though at least the fic isn't making it onto my To Rec list, so I know I still have standards.

scrollgirl brought to my attention that the Smithie Republican on The West Wing is played by the same actress as the blonde chick on CSI: Miami.  The conspiracy to get me to watch The West Wing continues.

An overnight in a Newark airport hotel and now it's off with the family to warm places for a week which will, I trust, burn off this hellish cold-cough-sneezy thing. ("If I die," I told Mike, with the gloomy relish of the afflicted, "this will all be yours." "You're giving me your cold?" he asked, unimpressed.)

In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas, Chanukkah, Kwaanza, Mithras's Birthday, Festive Wossname etc. Or have more than one.

And please don't break the internet while I'm away.

-Neil Gaiman

Commenter #1 on the LJ feed (svetosila) commented:

The Internet is a Godsend,
so I doubt it'll be that easily broken even on HIs\Her\Its B'day

---

10pm Christmas Eve service at United.

I think I'm used to Smith Vespers, 'cause I was totally expecting the sanctuary to have low lighting when we came in, or to at least have the lights dimmed once the service started.

Oh, and we have blue pulpit drapes even though the Advent Wreath has purple candles.

• Hymn: O Come, All Ye Faithful
  
• Call to Worship: Isaiah 9:6
  
• Scripture Reading: John 1:1-14 ["Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."  On whom his favor rests?  I am disconcerted.]
  
• Vocal Selection: Sweet Little Jesus Boy [Pastor Bill sings this every year, so I have animosity toward it -- at least in this context.  It is a good song, though.  "But please, sir, forgive us Lord, we didn't know 'twas You," is always what strikes me most -- "Whatever you did to the least of these you did to me" and all that.]
  
• Lighting of the Christ Candle [including reading: Luke 1:68-69]
  
• Choral Selection: Rejoice With Exceeding Great Joy
  
• Offertory: O Holy Night [harp&organ, no vocals]
  It always feels sort of dirty to me to take an Offering during Christmas Eve service, like that's not what it's supposed to be about
  
• Scripture Reading: Luke 2:1-8
  
• Hymn: Angels We Have Heard On High
  
• Scripture Reading: Luke 2:9-14
  
• Meditation [I always forget there's a sermon on Christmas Eve.  Again, it feels like not the point, though tonight at least I was actually glad, as listening to a sermon forces you to think at least a little and I endorse thinking -- since I'm all intentional about my hymn singing and most people aren't necessarily.  4 points?  Seemed a bit much to me.  He actually only talked for ~15 minutes, which for him is amazing.  I think it would have been a better sermon if it had been more focused.  Highlights: "Do not be afraid."  Apparently variants on "Fear not" appear 365 times in the Bible -- convenient for the calendar we have.  God came not to bring religion but to bring relationship.  God wants us to know Him.  Christmas is not about Santa or anything else but about Jesus.  All the good things we associate with "the holiday season" should be year round.  He said the holiday season can often be a time of conflict and he didn't mention the "war on Christmas" but instead listed examples such as having to see relatives you don't particularly like, and he talked about relationship there, too, about asking ourselves who we need to forgive and whom we need to ask forgiveness -- and because I went to school with Ruhi I thought of Yom Kippur.]
  
• Hymn: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  
• Communion Observance [I always say I'm jarred -- though pleased -- that we have Communion on Christmas Eve, but I've talked about it so much that I was actually expecting it.  In the Invitation this time, though, PB talked both about confessing our sins before we come to the table and also about being cleansed by Christ's blood.  I admit I haven't been to UCN on a Communion Sunday in a while and I don't pay all that much attention to the Invitation, but I definitely don't have any sense of having grown up with a pre-Communion Confession tradition, and since it was part of the Invitation it definitely would only have been a personal silent Confession.]
  
• Lighting of the Christmas Candles [This is when they extinguish all the lights in the sanctuary.]
  
• Hymn: Silent Night! Holy Night!
  

Last night was a rip-roaring game of Monopoly with Michael's friend Tony. It was fun until I went bankrupt, but I've been led to believe that's really how the game is supposed to work. Michael kept throwing the dice a little too hard, knocking houses and hotels willy-nilly. Apparently natural disasters follow us wherever we go.

No word on Ophelia yet. If she does come this way, I'm going to have to scatter some rosemary to the wind. You know...for remembrance.
-Joe

---

My mom mentioned there was some same-sex marriage type bill up in the legislature so she thought this Sunday would be a good Sunday to not go to UCN. Of course I kinda like making trouble, so that made me want to go. Plus, I had thank you notes to drop off.

I had been reminded a couple times that today was September 11th (passing it on the calendar at work a few days ago when I went to schedule something for next week, and glancing at my phone after midnight last night before I charged it).

So there was no way I was going to the liberal Congregational Church this Sunday.

Quickly checking my flist before church I saw Alice Sebold’s (author of The Lovely Bones) NYT piece.

Do the dead wish you to suffer? Do they want you to watch CNN and Fox News for days on end? Do they want your guilt or pity? All of these things are like jewels to them. In other words - valueless where they have gone.

[...]

Whatever it is that comes to you in three months, six months, a year or more, don't turn the page of your book and forget, don't stab the elevator button trying to hurry up the trip. Stop.

These tragedies, it's worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. The way we at our best treat one another. The way we listen to one another. The way we grieve.

[...]

So grieve for the particular lives that come to you. [...] Let them guide you to understand that it is our absolute vulnerability that provides our greatest chance to be human.

I had forgotten that today is the Sunday after Labor Day and thus “Homecoming Sunday” at UCN (which also means Communion, which I continue to not take there). Assorted people I had hoped to see were not in attendance, sadly. (Though John P.’s father just died, so it was understandable that that family was absent.)

I don’t know what it was specifically that my mom had been thinking of, but there was no mention of anything in church. I was disappointed.

UCN always opens now with “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” That no mention was made of what happened on this gorgeous day four years ago made me uncomfortable.

PB did talk a bit about Katrina and the special offering they were taking -- to be funneled through the Salvation Army. I’d seen the letter that got sent to our house and it said something about “to minister to the people . . .” and I was discomfited ‘cause I was like, “Are you just gonna go preach to them or are you gonna minister to their physical needs?”

One of the opening Worship Sequence hymns was “Victory in Jesus.” I was discomfited by the incessant “victory” theme in the song, especially because the song never makes clear what the victory is (over). The “He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood” line implies to me victory over sin, which would have been my guess anyway, but I would have liked some sort of clarity.

I had recently read The Signs that We Missed, which quotes Holland telling Angel, “We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as 'winning.' [...] See, for us, there is no fight. Which is why winning doesn't enter into it. We - go on - no matter what. Our firm has always been here . . .” Yes he’s talking about Evil, but I rather like the idea of just living one’s life the best one can, of not viewing it as a contest with winners and losers. (See also my interest in being a witness with one’s life.)

[Of course, now I have the blasted song stuck in my head.]

The Unison Reading was the UCN Church Covenant which as per usual I recite maybe ten percent of. For the first time I actually read the line, “Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we commit to a common life which is characterized by the love of Christ,” though. I had always connected the “love of Christ” phrase with the worship-of capacity that UCN so often places Christ in (and which doesn’t resonate with me and in fact makes me uncomfortable) but reading it today it occurred to me that it could be interpreted as something more like “abiding in Christlikeness,” which I am all over.

Jeff gave the Children’s Message because Tim&Carla were absent. He said Tim was “crying in New York” and I was confused, thinking, “Is John P.’s family in NY?” (‘cause I know the families are good friends) but then he explained that Tim had gone to NY to see the Yankees game (and of course the Red Sox clobbered them last night). He then cracked that God likes us/the Red Sox better. Wow, way to make me wanna weep while bludgeoning you. (Unfortunately, as soon as the service was over, Jeff was talking to people, and then I was talking to people, and then he left, so I have to write him a note calling him on that.)

Then he talked about the name of the church (which immediately made me think of when Joe F. gave the sermon last time I was at UCN and mentioned that unity != unison) and he referenced Ephesians 2 about how we are not strangers (looking it up later, I imagine he meant the whole “One in Christ” section) and asked the kids to look at the people next to them and talked about how they’re not strangers and how we’re all part of the family of God (the title of the offertory selection to follow, I noted), we’re all brothers and sisters with God our Father. And then he closed with a prayer and dismissed them. Shortest Children’s Message evar.

The Scripture reading was Mark 2:12 and the sermon as “Christlikeness: Forgiving.” I was confused as I always read that story as one of the proofs of Jesus’ divinity. I don’t think of “forgiveness” per se as one of Jesus’ biggest messages, but I’m not about to get all opposition-y on the matter. He talked about how Christlife “desires and requires” forgiveness, and I thought about one of the few UCN Covenant lines I will willingly recite -- “Together we will pursue the ways of forgiveness and reconciliation, and as Jesus taught, do it as quickly as possible.” On the whole I was unengaged by the sermon and totally dozed.

And dude, we got out at 5 minutes of 11. Have we ever gotten out early?

---

Oh, and I got sidetracked by the whole “I am newly unemployed” thing so it didn’t get posted, but I am a huge sap and the NYT Op-Ed I read last Thursday morning on the 1906 SF earthquake made me all teary.

The mayor, a former violinist who had previously been little more than a puppet of the city's political machine, ordered the troops to shoot any looters, demanded military dynamite and sappers to clear firebreaks, and requisitioned boats to the Oakland telegraph office to put the word out over the wires: "San Francisco is in ruins," the cables read. "Our city needs help."

[...]

To the great institutions go the kudos of history, and rightly so. But I delight in the lesser gestures, like that of the largely forgotten San Francisco postal official, Arthur Fisk, who issued an order on his personal recognizance: no letter posted without a stamp, and that clearly comes from the hand of a victim, will go undelivered for want of fee. And thus did hundreds of the homeless of San Francisco let their loved ones know of their condition - a courtesy of a time in which efficiency, resourcefulness and simple human kindness were prized in a manner we'd do well to emulate today.

-from "Before the Flood" by SIMON WINCHESTER (NYT - September 8, 2005)

It occurred to me on Saturday night that i would be returning to UCN for Memorial Day Sunday.  Poor timing choice.

The service started with The Pledge of Allegiance, which always wigs me out.  Counter-intuitive, much?

Then we sang the first and final verses of "The Star Spangled Banner."  Oh the final verse.  (Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land / Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. / Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, / And this be our motto: "In God is our trust.")

The responsive reading was partly good.  There was one section that was just for men to read, which confused me, as it was something like "Do to others as you would have them do to you; this is the Law and the Prophets."  Somehow the word "men" was in there (KJV), but that isn't usually enough for them to sex-segregate a reading, and there was nothing else in the reading that was sex-segregated.  I read it anyhow.  Especially since it is rather uncommon for me to be willing to say any of the words in a church service.

A later part was a reminder of how Paul is sometimes on crack, though.  Romans 13:1-7.  And this had been immediately preceded by the recognition of the veterans, which made it extra-bizarre.  If all authorities are authorized by God, then the only time there should be any conflict would be if a particular national government wanted to expand and inflict itself upon another country, but otherwise we should have left Hitler alone to do what he wanted in Germany.  America probably should never have rebelled against England, and we certainly shouldn't have gotten involved in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East.  Dude, this is the epitome of isolationism.

[Edit 'cause i forgot to write originally: I told my mom this is why i'm not allowed to do Readings; i would have actually stopped and explained why i wasn't willing to read that section. I'm actually not enough of an assertive brat to do that with everything, but that was intense enough that if i was up there doing the Reading there is no way i would have gone through with it, and i absolutely would have made a statement about why. Oh for a pulpit...]

Children's Message.  Wow, making the Joshua-Jordan River story into a Memorial Day parallel.  That takes talent.  I mean, i get that it's a physical memorial, but Memorial Day is about remembering those who died in wars.  The pile of stones in that story is a memorial to God's power and His actions on behalf of the Israelites.

The Scripture Reading for the sermon was Romans 5:1-11.  The sermon ("The Price of Peace") was little more than 20 minutes, which is short for PB, but it seemed scattered and i didn't really get it.  He shared a story about the insanity of war, and then he talked about how glad he is to be an American and how grateful he is to those who fought and died for his freedom (and either here or elsewhere there was griping about making it unconstitutional to say the Pledge of Allegiance or taking "under God" out of the Pledge, and i got riled ‘cause what people argue is that it is unconstitutional to force children/people to say the Pledge, and "under God" was only put in fifty years ago during the Communist scare), and then there was blah blah blah Jesus, and he said something like "and my third and final point is" and i hadn't really registered the first two points.

Afterward, i complained to my mom, and she said something along the lines of, "The price of worldly peace is war; the price of spiritual peace is Christ's sacrifice."  If PB had said something short and direct like that, i would have actually gotten it.

I have an issue with Romans 5:7-8.
"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
But see, if you say ‘no one will die for a righteous man though some may die for a good man,' then the next logical step is ‘lots of people would die for a sinner,' so how is it a big deal that Christ died for a lot of sinners?

We ended with "God of Grace and God of Glory," which is a hymn i actually like.

Apparently Sunday June 12th is Children's Sunday, and after the service there's an All Church Potluck Lunch and "Town Meeting."  I tend to starve at potlucks, but in the bulletin there was an RSVP thing, and it included space to write in "Something I would like to see added to or changed in our church" and "A question about our church that I would like to have answered."

Of course i'm going to write in that i want them to rotate who does the readings.  George K. actually retired, so i don't have to suffer through him anymore, but John P. is doing them now, and he shouldn't have to do it all the time, and really, couldn't we at least pretend that more people than i could count on one hand are involved in the church?

I have visions of seething rage, but i am so attending the "Town Meeting."

The Christian Education Hour listing included, "The class that meets in the Council Room is studying Answers in Genesis – Answers ... with Ken Ham."  I was intrigued; mostly having taken Joel's Intro Old Testament course.  Turned out they've been watching (and then discussing) a 12-part video series (hence the italics), and of course i came in for the last in the series ("How can we evangelize a secular world?, Part 2").

The video was nearly useless, aided of course by the fact that i'd missed everything that led up to it.  The idea of prepared ground makes sense, that you have to be talking a language people understand, but there wasn't anything about how you go about convincing people that there are moral absolutes and that you know what they are (i totally monopolized the discussion time and got useful thoughts from the discussion leader).  I did like that he argued that you need to connect the Bible to the real world in order for it to work.  The impression i got from the video series is that he focuses on Genesis and interprets existing scientific evidence to support the Biblical account of world history, even going so far as to disavow evolution and to argue for a strict literalism of the 6 Day Creation account.  I just interpret the six days as a metaphor and felt that evolution can be a means of creation and have been far more interested in narrative and historical inconsistencies.  I'm a Text Girl, not a scientist, what can i say.  Plus, a lot of the FAQs he was listing just weren't ones that come up as major stumbling blocks for either myself or any of my friends who tell me they have trouble with the Christian Bible.  I checked out the AnswersInGenesis.org website when i got home, and the Q&A looks like it'll provide me thought fodder for ages.

I chatted with Michael F. briefly afterward (he'd come down to clean up).  He asked me what my ideal job would be, and i said reading books and talking about them.  I think i need to find myself a book club.  What i really wanna spend my life doing is engaging with texts (hello, fandom).

Picking up where i left off last entry.... Friday was an okay day. I was the first person into the dining hall for breakfast and pretty much inhaled my food. I didn’t get to hang out with a whole lot of people since a lot of people were leaving early and, as on Thursday, everyone else was packing or doing last minute shopping or what have you. Bummer.

On my way back to my staircase from the computer lab to take a shower before breakfast, Sara(h) and Adam ran by me. I wouldn’t have even noticed except that Sara(h) yelled some stuff to me, all of which i forget except “running to catch a bus,” to which i responded something including “talk to you later.” They’re going to visit family of Adam’s in Ireland, but we definitely need to keep in touch. I thought it was cute that the visiting gf, not the guy who’s been in the program with me for 6 weeks was the one who bothered to yell at me as they ran by.

I learned that since i’d packed light on the way over and then bought things, i needed an additional bag. Boswells was having a sale on luggage, so i got a nice black duffel bag for only ten pounds.

It was a beautiful day, so Long-Haired Brian (who now that the-program-with-three-Brians is over can be referred to as just Brian) and i hung out for a while before heading out to the airport. New people were moving in on Sunday, and the housecleaning staff finishes at 1 on Friday, but as long as we and all our stuff were out of our rooms we were free to hang around on the ground.

Mark the Porter has an e-mail address! He said some people had gotten it, so i should ask around. Oh yeah.

We finally left Trinity around 1. At the Queen’s Place stop i remembered “High Street - Queen’s Place” and thought, “I’ll never do this again.” Shortly thereafter i passed out for the duration since i hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. We got through Heathrow with little difficulty and hung out for a while before boarding. I didn’t do as much reading on the plane as i’d expected since (surprise!) i kept dozing off.

I’m glad all my NYC peoples are okay. Boston was unaffected, thankfully, and my flight actually arrived early. My baggage did not, however. Chloe (who was the one who was actually worried about her luggage getting lost) said, “I have a loved one waiting who is probably paying dearly for parking.” Brian did, too, but the sweetheart waited with me. Ultimately i had to file a lost luggage claim and he went to meet his gf. I almost told him, “If you see a woman with long red hair, that’s my mother and you can tell her i’m just filing a lost luggage claim.” My mother in turn, saw him and wondered if he was my Long-Haired Brian.

9 times out of 10 your luggage arrives on the next flight, and so it was with mine -- around 1:30 on Saturday a guy drove up and i signed for my bag. Mostly it was just clothes and toiletries, so i wouldn’t have been traumatized if it vanished into the ether, but unpacking it i saw my striped shoulder bag and was so glad i hadn’t realized that was in there because i love that bag and haven’t seen anything similar.

I love Lileks sometimes. On the NYC blackout and the news coverage thereof he writes:

I’m sure no one was happy to be standing there in the dead black dark, but what could you do? Stick someone up, take his credit cards and fashion them into a small portable fan? Stab someone in the foot, and hope he hops around and creates a small breeze? Set yourself on fire to take your mind off the hunger?

I came home to lots of mail, some of it even worth having. I am indeed on the list for SAA, though they still haven’t told us where our temp housing is. *growls* Training looks like it’ll kinda suck, but at least it isn’t ResLife.

Speaking of heading back to Smith, suggestions for a title for my editorial column as well as what to write about for the Back to School issue (Cate said: "The Back to School issue is usually geared toward the incoming 1st years, so we'll probably keep it kind of low-key.") are welcome.

Saturday i went to Wal-Mart with my mother. I now have, among other things, platform Mary Janes. Finally! The front of the sole does this weird curl up thing, but they’re good enough. I still plan to seek out more permanent shoes. I also decided Sunday evening that i want to get myself some sort of faux men’s suit. No reason.

Saturday evening we had my homecoming dinner at my grandmother’s, which was nice. Later that night i went to (the NC-17 version of) Showgirls at Dedham Community with my boy (and Jon and Elena and other peoples). There’s something i read once, “There is nothing less erotic than a completely naked body,” something like that, and it’s definitely accurate. What is hot is tension, is mystery, is NOT KNOWING. The porntasticness of the movie was not hot. There needs to be Nomi/Molly and Nomi/Cristal slash, because those were hot. (Ooh, and anniesj has a random porn thread.) I was not warned about the incredibly disturbing scene. I can even understand a narrative necessity for it, but i was not warned. And yes, one definitely would skip over it in repeated viewings. While for much of the movie i understood why Joe thinks it belongs in the comedy and not the drama section, disturbing scene aside, the movie just holds no appeal for me to rewatch. (I was amused that while Joe has watched it more times than is healthy, on the drive home he mentioned plot problems that i had explanations for after that single viewing.)

Meredith, Joe says Entertainment Weekly has a list of the top cult classic movies – wanna bring that issue to Smith so i can check it out? Thanks so much.

Sunday’s sermon was on keeping the Sabbath. It was okay. I understand that it’s one of the commandments, but i just don’t see it as key. I think things like, oh, being nice to people, are much more key.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
”The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
-Mark 12:28-34 (NIV)

He said that Voltaire was once asked how to get rid of Christianity and his answer was stop them keeping the Sabbath. He also mentioned that the question early Christians were asked (in areas where it was illegal) was “Do you keep the Lord’s Day.” Later i thought, though, that that was about the fact that Christians said that God’s law superseded that of government and that didn’t make rulers happy, and keeping the Sabbath was the easiest example of that (much of Christian law meshes nicely with most government’s rules). He definitely got into iffy church/state area. He said that Glasgow’s motto used to be “May Glasgow flourish by the praising of the Lord and the keeping of His Word” and the citizens took it to heart and the city flourished, but then politicians decided to cut it down to just “May Glasgow flourish” and since then the city has gone downhill morally and every other way. The idea of worldly prosperity as a sign of God’s approval always makes me uncomfortable.

The Pioccones had a pool party which we went to in the afternoon, and that was nice. Though at one point some people started talking about evolution, and i was not about to start arguing with people who say that evolution “is a mockery of Christ.” Later some people were talking about homeopathic medicine and i was a bit thrown because i associate that mindset with people other than fundamentalist Christians, but thinking about it a bit i realized that it makes sense, flows from the idea that God can provide better than men ever can and so on. I want to learn more about nutrition, specifically re: veg(etari)anism and “natural” remedies for colds and menstrual cramps. Gah, there is so very much i want to do/research in the near future.

I got sucked into playing volleyball and on occasion i didn’t suck. It’s one of the few sports i’m actually capable of being decent in. And it’s one of those convenient lessons about the importance of just going for it, of not being timid, of not being able to succeed if you don’t try, of needing to always be ready.

Back at the library on Monday for a full day of work. Boy was it busy. (We’re closed weekends in the summer, and school starts up in 2 weeks so hello summer reading.) Busy is good, though. And Terry totally still loves me. I like my life.

Yes, the England trip is really over, though i’m still translating prices and time zones and typing as if it were a British keyboard. I miss big breakfasts, hoummos & roasted vegetables baguettes from Mortons, and pesto tortellini. Anyone just tuning in can read it all starting here.

Extraneous linkage: I have never understood the fuss over precious stones. This, however, is quite interesting.

So my brother comes home from work around 5:15 yesterday. (He works at Puddingstone, the used bookstore downtown where Joe and i met -- because we were both working there -- and which Joe loves way more than i do.) “Joe says Hi” he tells me. “Joe [last name withheld because i feel like it]?” “Yeah, he’s down at the store now.” So of course i had to call him on his cell. We had chatted on AIM a bit the night before, but we were basically, “Yeah, I’ve been really busy,” without really saying anything. So i called him and he said he’d just gotten home, hadn’t really expected to come home and was going to call me but then he saw my brother and figured i’d call him. 0:-) Anyway, he was still at the store, talking to Diane (the proprietor), so he said he’d call me back. I even kept people offline and was annoyed when he never called. So i called him this afternoon and he said he’d called around 7 last night and it had just rung and rung. Why is our phone messed up sometimes? So we were both sad about that, but i was happy that he really had called. He was gonna have family dinner, though, (that afternoon Sunday dinner thing) and then head back to school ‘cause he has work and class tomorrow, so he couldn’t really talk, but he said he’d call me this week. Yay! I’m honestly not crushing, but i am fond of this boy and would like to stay in touch with him.

Dragged myself to church today. This guy talked about the weekly men’s fellowship group at our church and said, “Come three times, and if you don’t feel blessed, don’t come back.” If that were true of my church i would be so gone so long ago. It made me think of a conversation i had with a couple of my high school teachers a year or two ago, though. I said i would send kids down to the office much more often than they do, and they said that part of it is a belief that if the kids are in the classroom there is at least the chance that they’ll learn something, whereas they can’t if they’re down at the dean’s office. I thought that was interesting.

There was this teenage boy at church today. Short spiked black hair with two long blue strips and a nose ring. Definitely looks a bit out of place in my church. I was definitely intrigued, though. I wanna talk to him. My mom said she’s seen him with Rebecca, the mother of the baby who was baptized last week. She said maybe he’s the father. She said his hair was orange last time.

Read Are Gay Rights Right?: A Controversy, a 1990 book by Roger J. Magnuson yesterday. Made me furious. Misperceptions and exaggerations galore, though even more annoyingly there were some good points made as well. I think i need to do some fiction reading. Getting sucked into research/political reading can be depressing.

Somehow i got on the Traditional Values Coalition mailing list, which is interesting. I get to hear about cool stuff like Nickelodeon’s My Family Is Different program (scheduled to air June 18) and interesting stuff like a new “Gender-Neutral” Bible and “the first transgendered pastor assigned to a Christian church in America.” The only problem is that in making me aware of all these news stories it means lots more research for me to do because i’ve inherited from my dad a need to do thorough research on issues before making up my mind on them. Semi-relatedly, i really need to get better about writing letters to people about stuff i care about, applauding or criticizing broadcasters, legislators, etc.

I’ve changed my default icon. It’s an icon i made with Angelfire GifWorks. Not great, but i like it. You can still vote for my new Tara icon, though. Eventually i’m going to give in to temptation and icon lust and get a paid account.

Yay for being able to continue being a Buffy addict even in my non-FX household. Last Sunday i got sucked into watching King of the Hill at 11:30 because there was this vegetarian girl and i thought it sounded like she was being voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar (she was). After it was over my brother reminded me that Buffy reruns at midnight on Sundays. It turned out to be “This Year’s Girl,” which comes right after “Goodbye Iowa” which was the last FX rerun i saw. I’m not super excited about “Who Are You?” (tonight’s episode), but the rest of Season 4 (Superstar, Where The Wild Things Are, New Moon Rising, The Yoko Factor, Primeval, Restless) is great. Gonna have to tape some of them when we’re away in July. Then today my brother starts to channel surf and hits Buffy. “Beauty and the Beasts.” Good ep. The end reminded me of why B/A soulmate shipperdom runs so deep. I’d forgotten about Scott. He’s so sweet. And normal. (Is there Buffy/Scott fic anywhere?) 'Course that probably means he would be too normal, unable to cope with the whole Slayer thing. Riley had issues, but Buffy didn’t have to hide Slayer stuff from him. She didn’t even have to protect him from it, much, which seems to be a recurrent theme in her relationships (with everyone, not just dating), the problem of having to protect people from the hazards of Slayerness. Yes, i am an addict. So this summer will be almost all of Season 3, then most of Season 4 Sundays at 6, and the rest of Season 4, then Season 5 Sundays at midnight.