burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I still haven't really thought a lot about a Lenten discipline. Which isn't to say I think I (or anyone) have to have one.

I would like to start actually finishing sermons again, but that's not exactly a Lenten discipline.

I'll be attending weekday morning prayer at First Church, but that doesn't feel like a (Lenten) discipline either.

I think I'd like to get more intentional about saying grace before eating -- I've developed a habit of saying it as I'm preparing my food or as I'm walking from where I've gotten the food to where I'm going to eat it, and I think I'd like to take a moment to actually stop and be mindful.

SCBC

In SCBC Adult Ed, we've been doing a series of short (~10min) films on faith communities and environmentalism. (Though after Haiti, we did a session on "Where Is God When Disaster Strikes?")

The first one was about evangelicals in Appalachia and mountaintop removal (something Annie B. preached on at CWM some months back).

The second one was an interfaith group in New Jersey -- helping finance solar panels for churches, doing a garbage audit, doing that carbon footprint quiz (which punchline tells you how many Earths we would need if everyone lived like you did); I loved all the practical examples.

This one was a Muslim community around Chicago getting into humanely raised/slaughtered meat. It also talked a lot about Ramadan -- the primarily Muslim woman in the video commented that during Ramadan it is particularly important that the food you break your fast with be ethically raised/slaughtered, which hadn't occurred to me but which made a lot of sense. (Technically you break your fast with like dates and milk before moving on to dinner, but the point still stands.) The same Muslim community also volunteered serving food to the hungry during Ramadan. There was definitely a lot about human connections -- the Muslim woman went out and met (and befriended) the farmers who would be supplying them. And one of the farmers trufax commented in the film that he wasn't sure what to expect at first 'cause he's in a rural area where there aren't very many Muslims, and most of what you hear about Muslims is "terrorists." He totally joined them for Ramadan dinner, though :) One of the Muslims talked about how in Islam it is not good to eat alone, and that the more people are present, the more blessings are in the food.

After the film, the first person who commented was Betty, who said that the dinner made her think of my church, with the dinner afterward :)

Later, I said that I hadn't realized that Islam had like the Jewish kosher rules, though I shouldn't be surprised, and I talked some about eco-kashrut (which I totally learned about at Temple Shalom Medford).

A lot of Owen's questions focused on, like, does this change your preconceptions about Muslims -- which I'm not sure was the most helpful route with this particular group, though an understandable angle (albeit one that totally wouldn't have occurred to me).

Owen asked if anyone want to close us in prayer, and I did.

Afterward, Betty asked me about the retreat. And when I was about done with that, Owen asked how my friend in Kansas City was doing.

As we hit a kind of conversational lull/wrap, Betty asked me what time I had to be at my next church, and I said it started at 10:30 (the wall clock said it was currently like 10:28) but that I wasn't really in a rush.

When she hugged me goodbye, Betty said she's so proud of me. I'm not sure what exactly prompted that, but I was happy to take it.

Walking to CHPC, I felt all bubbling over with joy.

CHPC

So I was ~15 minutes late to CHPC, but I hadn't missed much -- just the welcome and announcements and most of the Introit.

Words of Assurance: it's all about grace -- all we have to do is admit we need it and it's there

During Passing of the Peace, Liz called me "gorgeous" (she complimented me on my shirt -- a black v-neck knit top with patterning along the neckline).

The Scripture readings were First Corinthians 15:1-11 and Luke 5:1-11, which were the assigned lectionary, but I don't think Karl made one single mention of them in his sermon. (This always makes me think of Ellen having commented during Adult Ed one time about how she has so much experience in churches where the sermon didn't relate at all to the Scripture that was read and how here the sermon is always connected to the Scripture.)

The sermon was titled "Being Church, Doing Church." Karl talked about how "being church" is a mindset, a worldview, while "doing church" is action. Okay.
He talked about how the essence of Christianity is community (quoting the saying that "there's no such thing as an individual Christian") -- getting past your self-preoccupation.
He opened the sermon with saying that he was talking about these theme because of the Annual Meeting upcoming later in the day, but he didn't really say useful specific stuff.

My most useful takeaway was the insert (excerpted from the PCUSA Constitution):

The Great Ends of the Church
--The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
--The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
--The shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
--The maintenance of divine worship
--The preservation of the truth
--The promotion of social righteousness
--The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world

The Meaning of Church Membership
A faithful member accepts Christ's call to be involved responsibly in the ministry of his Church. Such involvement includes:
--Proclaiming the good news
--Taking part in the common life and worship of a particular church
--Praying and studying Scripture and the faith of the Christian church
--Supporting the work of the church through the giving of money, time, and talents
--Participating in the governing responsibilities of the church
--Demonstrating a new quality of life within and through the Church
--Responding to God's activity in the world through service to others
--Living responsibly in the personal, family, vocational, political, cultural, and social relationships of life
--Working in the world for peace, justice, freedom, and human fulfillment

During Prayers of the People, Craig lifted up Haiti. Randy told two stories -- one of someone who said he was fine, he just had a rock fall on his foot, but he was dead 1 week later from infection; and one of a person pulled out from rubble alive after 3 weeks. I cried.

The potluck luncheon was quite a spread. I asked Katherine what was in the dishes, and she told me who had made the various dishes so I could ask them and make labels. Ellen is my favorite because she had brought labels with ingredient lists. (Yes, I want labeling the food we put out to be just a natural part of What We Do. I mean, even if I didn't have any dietary restrictions, I would like to know what stuff is before I take a bite. And srsly, Corinne has food allergies -- how is this not already a thing we do?)

The Annual Meeting was better than I'd expected.
The woman who does the newsletter is moving to NYC in a few months. I did not volunteer to take it over (largely because I don't have a good program in which to do it in).
We moved the pastor to quarter-time, and Jeff delineated both Karl's "schedule" and also what Karl will now NOT be doing -- which turns out to all be building maintenance stuff. (My first thought had been: "Oh, so this helps explain why Karl said Session's beginning to talk about lay readers being more involved in leading worship," but apparently not -- and I wasn't gonna bring up worship planning at Annual Meeting, where we're passing the budget and stuff.)
Karl talked about North Prospect Union, which is a product of a merger -- and we wouldn't necessarily have to merge with them; we could worship together but still be distinct congregations. (This seemed bizarre to me, but then at CWM Linda said that she came back from renewal leave to find that her two tiny congregations want to continue worshiping together -- at least until the end of the appointment season -- though they definitely don't want to merge.) Apparently an elderly member of North Prospect has a house that he's basically promised to the church, and it needs a lot of work, but that could be an option. House church is now totally my new favorite option.
Karl said something about the April Session meeting, and I wrote down that I wanted to plan to go, but I forget why now.
There are a couple ethnic Presbyterian congregations (Hispanic, Taiwanese) that don't have their own building. Tufts has also expressed an interest in this building in the past.
We talked about maybe moving to Medford (lots of folks are getting fed up with Somerville -- parking, etc.).

CWM

"Jesus invites you to follow and define your own life in relationship to God. You are a child of God and no one can change that. You can change your name given at birth but the name God has given you will stand forever." -Ruben Duran

Isaiah 6:1-8
Luke 5:1-11

For Children's Time (in between the Scripture readings), Tiffany introduced Nizzi to the children and talked about making new friends and etc. Trelawney was totally crying. At Tiffany's request, I turned a bank of lights on when she started preaching, so she could read her text. Trelawney was sitting on the floor, and I sat down behind her and rubbed her shoulders. I actually sat with her for 15, maybe 20, minutes.

In her sermon, Tiffany talked about how this story of the calling of the first disciples is often told very briefly and is missing an important part of the Call narrative -- the resistance. She said lots of people, herself included, have made meaning out of the story of the disciples just leaving everything they have and following Jesus, but that she thinks there is also importance in this expanded version.

She talked about how Simon Peter in Luke and Isaiah both have the same reaction to the presence of the Divine -- "I'm not worthy."
She quoted Richard Wing -- "it is our feelings of unworthiness that prevent us from giving our gifts to the world."
She said we must respond to God's call out of a sense of our own belovedness rather than out of fear.

We did a ceremony of transition (which had Tiffany symbolically giving Nizzi the keys to the Kindom church).

The first congregational responsory was "While we are sad to part, we look forward to the new journeys on which we both embark," and I was okay, but then the next one was, "Thank you for the time we had together," and I got all choked up. Then I was okay again, but then I looked at Tiffany (who actually looked fine -- unlike during her sermon when I thought she looked red around the eyes like she was teary) and got all choked up again.

We are doing a lay-led Ash Wednesday service. \o/
(I still don't know of anywhere locally that's doing a Shrove Tuesday service, but that's okay. I sort of expect that First Church will have one, but they went on retreat this weekend and are going on a mission trip to Mexico next weekend, so I'm not sure how much they're on top of their programming.)

It hadn't occurred to me to think about a Lenten discipline until Trevanna asked over dinner. Yeah, I am increasingly liturgical, but I still spent my entire pre-college life thinking that Lent was just a Catholic thing (yes, I was that Low Church).

(Trevanna said she'd Googled our new interim pastor, and one of the results was my blog. I forget sometimes how Google-indexed this LJ is. Looking at my LJ -- pretty much all the recent public entries are about church.)

"The number you have dialed is not in service."  I was talking to Gillian last night, and she commented that once when her phone was near the end of its life it was giving a "not accepting incoming calls" message, even though she could call out fine.  This lends credence to that.

+

I decided to read one psalm a day (with the goal to actually read it reflectively and meditatively) as my Lenten spiritual discipline. I figured I'd just read the first forty Psalms (well, more than 40, since I don't take Sundays off from Lenten discipline the rare years that I do it), since I don't have any sort of "reading the Psalms" book and it's a bit late to acquire one for this year, but Alixtii mentioned "The Psalms (from the Daily Office)," so I Googled Daily Office, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that dailyoffice.org exists.

+

I had dinner at Mr. Crepe (Nutella+banana+almonds again) and felt like I'd had my own little Mardi Gras.

I called Ari and walked along the bikepath and then just walked up and down streets, maintaining enough sense of direction to get myself back to church with time to spare before Ash Wednesday service.

I forgot that there is actually a whole worship service (no sermon but yes Children's Time), including Communion and everything.  The crosses on our foreheads are thick dark and striking.  I like thinking about Lent as a time of preparation, even a time of starting over -- and was thinking about how many opportunities we get in the various calendars to let go of the things that have been weighing on us, have been keeping us from God, and to rededicate ourselves, reorient ourselves.

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." -from 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

Five good things about today:
1. This morning, Ranjan was heading over to Spangler and asked me if I wanted anything, and I actually did.  Yay for yogurt parfait delivered to me.
2. Taking online typing tests [typingtest.com] reminds me that yeah, I do actually type well.  (My mom can type at actual dictation speed -- and I expect with much better accuracy than me ... though even though my accuracy goes down when I'm under pressure, it was still apparently above 80% -- so when people comment that I type quickly, I'm often a bit thrown, but my wmp of <70 Net / 80+ Gross is apparently better than average.)
3. RC NEG teaching binders got distributed.  I borrowed Katie's at one point last year to read the cases, 'cause I had finally started having an interest in what it is that we do here, and I don't think I got through the whole binder, but there are only a few new things this year, so it's not like I'm gonna be reading the entire binder.  In all that free time I have, I know.
4. [CWM Ash Wednesday service] Leyalyn and Telynia are beautiful and adorable.
5. I get to go to bed like right now.

Three things I did well today:
1. I did all my requisite morning stuff (I'm better at requiring myself to eat breakfast [provided I'm hungry enough] and brush and floss my teeth than I am at requiring myself to get up with my alarm, which is problematic) and went to the ( gym )
2. I gave Sara a hug.  (It was a bit of a morning, and she was looking a bit worn out, so I asked if I could give her a hug, and she gratefully accepted.  When we were walking out at the end of the day, I asked how she was feeling about tomorrow, and said she should feel free to ask me if there was anything I could do to help -- "whether that's 'can you check this Excel sheet?' or 'can I have a hug?' " -- and she said, "Both of those were amazing today."  I like that I'm starting to feel more like we're actual friends.)
3. I did laundry, and dishes.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
1. Lunch with Sarah [whom I feel needs a unique identifier, so as to not confuse her with sk8eeyore, sarah_p, RA!Sara, etc.].
2. "Sacred Eros" at ASC.

Prelude and Silent Meditation
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."
-James Baldwin

Scripture Lesson: Luke 9:28-36
Contemporary Lessons: "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar and "Masks" by Sonia Sanchez (excerpt)

Tiffany opened her sermon by talking about masks (and actually wearing one).  She talked about Mardi Gras and how people would wear masks so they wouldn't get found out -- and the debauchery got so bad in New Orleans that the wearing of masks was made illegal in New Orleans.  She talked about how masks limit our own ability to see (and hear, and etc.).  She talked about how we construct masks for ourselves and also often get handed masks.  She talked about the social convention of "How are you?" / "Fine." (which is totally one of my Issues) and said that FINE can be "Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, Exhausted," which is how "when I'm feeling really harried, I can say that I'm fine with integrity" (heart!).
     She talked about the Transfiguration story, when Jesus took off his mask so to speak, and how she thinks that the disciples didn't get it because they were still wearing their own masks.  She said that Peter says, "You can stay up here and be glorious."
     She talked about how those who appear with Jesus are not David and Aaron (royalty and ritual) but Moses -- who led the Israelites out of oppression -- and Elijah -- who was called (by someone who's name I didn't recognize) "the troublemaker of Israel."  She said that this tells us what kind of Messiah Jesus is.
     God says, "listen up," and Jesus tells them to go back down from the mountain, back down to the people, to the work.

***

Bulletin insert (with my comments in the bold brackets -- it's a checklist which you're invited to think about; obviously you're not required, or really even encouraged, to do all of them):

Lenten Disciplines

As part of my Lenten journey I plan to strip away those trappings that keep me from God and to create space to listen to God's call in my life by committing to the following: ( cut because this got long )

***

We had Church Council, and Dan introduced me as the new Financial Secretary (replacing Thi) and later DavidP. commented that I seemed to still have both my arms intact (i.e., I didn't have to have my arms twisted to the point of breaking).

After Council, we had the last session of the Racism and White Privilege study (though we may come back to it later -- we already have a post-dinner study for Lent), and we talked specifically about the institutional level.

Near the end, Sean said that's hard for us to talk about the ways that we fail, said that when Joy had asked us to look at the chart on p. 234-5 and say where we thought CWM fell, "There was an uncomfortable silence across the table, until Elizabeth bravely said, 'Well, it is a factually true statement that CWM is mostly white people,' but that's still distancing..."

MarkM. mentioned a joint meeting of Fellowship (predominantly African-American) & ONA and how there was this big culture clash.  Joy said that was a really good point -- to not just look at how we worship, but to look at how other people worship.

We talked about ways to be welcoming, and Tiffany mentioned that we don't provide translations, and she speaks Spanish so there are visitors who are more comfortable speaking to her in Spanish than in English, but what about the large community of Portuguese-speaking people, for example.

I brought up the food that we have, referencing a passage from When the Drama Club is Not Enough: Lessons from the Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students (scroll down here).

Afterward, Sean and I and Joy and Tyler were in the church office, and Joy was trying to keep track of all the different stuff Sean does, and Sean said he does gay stuff in three different jobs -- but he doesn't do gay stuff at College Ave.  Joy said that was just youth stuff, right? and Tyler asked (in a kind of joking tone) if he had any gay youth, and Sean and I kinda looked at each other, and I said, "Do I count?" and Sean kinda shrugged and he and Tyler said I would have to answer that for myself, and I said I could be the token queer, libertarian, under-30 person, and someone said that every organization needed one of those, and I agreed :)

I was reading a post by a friend last night, and she mentioned the (now familiar to me) concept that the commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself" requires that you do in fact love yourself, and how this self-love continues to be a challenge for her.  [Edit: Er, I seem to have neglected to actually write up the bit about my reaction to that.  I had intended to say that self-love I really don't have much difficulty with, which would then lead into the following thought.]  Later I was thinking about how the next day was Ash Wednesday and wondering whether I wanted to go to an evening service and get ashed, and I was thinking how it would be appropriate to confess my brokenness before God, in keeping with the theme of Lent of desert days and how as Tiffany mentioned it used to be a period of preparation for catechumens before baptism, and I was struck by just how resistant to that idea I am -- how I want to have it all under control on my own.

In another friend's post, mrs_redboots commented, "I was once told that having the ashes imposed is a sign of humility - but failing to wipe them off before you leave the church can be a sign of spiritual pride!"  I definitely understand this idea, but my perspective was very much one tied in with Coming Out.  I was hugely hesitant to be visibly ashed because it's a very public declaration and as someone who is very hesitant to claim an identity of Christian believer, this is an anxious thing (there are also other identity/honesty issues tied up in that because I think of getting ashed as such a Catholic thing and I am so not Catholic).  So for me, going out ashed would be a brave and frightening thing, though admittedly there are issues of pride in there.  Having moved from a Catholic town to heavily secular environments, I'm far more inclined to viewing going out ashed as a brave thing, though I can certainly see how it could be a pride thing for some people.

I did end up going to Ash Wednesday service at CAUMC tonight.  My first ever.

We sang "Sunday's Palms Are Wednesday's Ashes" (The Faith We Sing 2138) which I liked a lot and could really get into as a statement about Lent.  Sadly, the words do not seem to exist online.  Will have to steal a copy from the church.

Gary and Tiffany talked about how Lent shouldn't be about beating ourselves up but about working toward wholeness, and about the catechumens and learning/teaching how to be a Christian/follows Jesus.

Tallessyn and Dan and their wee girls were in front of me, and Gary said, "This is a reminder that Jesus loves you very much," as he ashed the wee ones.  ♥  (He did the traditional "ashes to ashes" bit with all us big people -- though earlier one of them had said that yes we are dirt but we are dirt formed in the very image of God.)

There was also Communion.  Tiffany held the bread and started her statement to me with my name, which I always find powerful, and said something about, "May you rejoice in God always," which I interpreted as connected to our conversation last night about my faith struggle.  Andrew held the cup and said, "The cup of love, given for you."  I'm used to hearing "Cup of Life," which I like fine, but I really liked this new way, especially because it made me think of the idea of replacing "blood" with "love" in hymns [blood is powerful, so I'm not endorsing this as an entire thing, but an overemphasis on suffering can be detrimental, and it's also just really interesting how easily "love" can replace "blood" in so much hymnology].

Interestingly, I passed various people on my home from service and almost never actually thought about the fact that I was ashed.

***

Beth Moore's Believing God is currently sitting in my bathroom.  Huh.

***

In other news, I stopped by Staples after work to get a new keyboard, and I was totally failing at gauging what felt right, so I ended up just picking one and as I was setting it up at home I was thinking, "Wait, this resembles the new one my parents got -- which I hated."  Yup, sure enough, I keep messing up using the Home/End/Delete/PgUp/PgDn keys, and occasionally some of the regular keys as well.  ::smites::  I love staples.com, though, for having a thing you can print out and leave for the driver to tell them to leave the package without a signature.  (Having ordered things and found out after the fact that the delivery would require someone to sign for it, this is rather a big deal for me.)

What Are the Days?
-Colette Inez

They are pilferers
stealing our resolve,
Thomas broods aloud.

Or stones
to use for good or ill,
says James sitting
on a rock with Peter.

Soon, Jesus
comes along saying:
all days are our brothers.

Aren't days fish
swimming to shore?
asks Simon, the fisherman
mending his nets.

They are coins to hoard
or to spend, Judas frowns,
and looks at his palms.

Twaddle, says Martha
running to fix supper.
You talkers, get me a hen,
get me an egg.

I bet you think
all the days are women
pouring wine and honey.

They are what they are,
says the hammerer of nails,
securing thieves
and Jesus to the cross,
nothing more.

from Sweet Jesus: Poems About the Ultimate Icon (ed. Nick Carbó and Denise Duhamel) p. 117-8.

---

sangerin mentioned recently how, "Technically, Sundays aren't part of Lent, and therefore are a break from whatever Lenten Discipline one has decided to follow."  While part of me validates and can even theoretically get behind the idea of Feast Days during Desert Days, this has also always disconcerted me.  However, it occurs to me that this means I'm gonna hit "40/40" when Holy Week starts.  I could just call it quits at that point, but there are poems I've already selected for wanting to use at the end of Holy Week.  Sigh.

Emma and peoples were reading/talking about this at lunch today. Interesting. As i told Ruhi, while people use the terms "good" and "evil" in everyday conversation, i think it is very problematic for them to be used in any sort of an official capacity outside of an explicitly religious one.

I'm not sure exactly yet what I'm doing for Lent. I don't really think of it as giving something up with the implication that, well, the implication is usually that it's sort of a pointless exercise in self-deprivation. Lent should never be pointless. The point of Lenten devotion (including fasting, broadly defined), as I understand it, is twofold. First, Lent is an exercise in spiritual discipline. By the very act of intentionally doing anything, we are reminded daily throughout the season that we belong to God. Second, by cutting out the extraneous things in our lives, we make room for God, make ourselves holy vessels for God's presence. I think we (and I know often I) use Lent as a time of self-improvement. Which is not bad in and of itself, and I've broken some bad habits (i.e., Baby-Sitters Club books in sixth grade, and if you don't think that was a bad habit, you don't know how good that crack is.) over Lent. And I don't want to imply that any way of "doing Lent" is wrong or bad, just that I think that at its core, Lent is about making yourself good for God.
-Ari

I grew up Protestant and never did the Lent thing, but then i got to Smith and lots of people, including non-Christians, were doing it or talking about doing it, so it always gets me thinking around this time of year about what the purpose of Lent is within a Christian context and whether it could be spiritually valuable for me. For secular people, i think it's often a trial run (i'll be vegan/vegetarian for 40 days and see how it goes) or is an excuse to give up (even if only temporarily) something they know is bad for them. The above quotation from Ari is the best explanation i have seen of the spiritual purpose of Lent for Christians.

A comment from dlgood reminded me that my understanding of the kosher rules has for a long time been about being aware of God throughout your daily life. (And yes there was much interesting discussion about the kosher rules in Joel's Old Testament class last semester, but this remains my dominant thought about the kosher rules.)

In thinking about Lent, i also find myself thinking about Advent. That same idea of preparing oneself for Christ.

At RCFOS tonight, SarahNewby talked about Lent being a way for us to in some measure share Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness.

I was thinking about which icon to use with this post, and the obvious choice would seem to be the "want to believe" one mys1985 made, but "I want to believe" really isn't accurate at all. I was discussing with i think sk8eeyore a while back and saying that honestly, i wanted my academic analyses of Christianity to rip apart the foundations of Christianity so that i could not possibly believe that it was Ultimate Truth because that would be so much easier. If my analysis of the historicity of the Gospel accounts and so on lead me to make that leap of faith that Jesus truly did rise from the dead, then i can't not be a Christian. Then i have to wrestle with all the troubling things Jesus said and did and with all the difficult things in the tradition he came from and with all the difficult things that came from his followers through the ages. But if i can't believe that he truly did rise from the dead, then i can't be a Christian. Then i can say that Jesus and the traditions he came from and the traditions that came after him had some interesting ideas but i can just pick and choose what i like. I am reminded sometimes of how i really am attached to my Protestantism, but there's also so much baggage with the Judeo-Christian tradition and it would be really nice to be able to just pick and choose what i like and not have to somehow reconcile all my problems with the Bible with the idea of it being Revealed Truth (though i know i already do more interpreting than some theological stripes would like).

In contrast, my seminar is currently focusing on issues of authenticity in/and folklore, which is perfectly legitimate given the class, but i'm just not deeply interested. I'm drawn to what causes stories to get told and retold and to the stories themselves and their various incarnations. I'm really interested in the stories themselves in their various forms and not particularly in any "truth" of them (though i am interested in why stories get changed as they get retold).
One of the readings for this week is Chapter 7 (From Fakelore to the Politics of Culture: The Changing Countuours of American Folkloristics) from In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies by Regina Bendix.
On page 205 she writes: "D. K. Wilgus had argued that folklorists were attracted by the material rather than the processes of folklore, and they 'certainly [did] not need to justify the study of any production of man' (1972:245)"
And on the next page, she quotes Dan Ben-Amos as saying "Traditionality is a temporal dimension of the past, either real, imagined, or projected into expressions, beliefs or behaviors" (Ben-Amos 1979:51; italics belong to Bendix)
And she closes the chapter (217-218) by quoting Nick Spitzer (1992:98-99): "I sometimes think that all people are folklorists of sorts (perhaps one reason the term os widely, loosely, and sometimes maddeningly applied by nonprofessionals) in the sense that we all consciously or unconsciously assess our relationships to cultural tradition through the metaphors we inherit or create. . . . In this view, perhaps cultural conversation is a stronger universal metaphor for our public practice than cultural conservation. In representing ourselves to communities through talk, we learn their meanings and they ours. We negotiate mutual representations in museums or in the media, on the festival stage or in the text. . . . Folklorists can be catalysts with metaphors, methods, theories, and acts that help to achieve a cultural equity that enriches us all."

sk8eeyore mentioned being an Epistles girl versus a Gospels girl, and i thought again of how i think Jesus is central to Christianity and so i'm far more concerned with what Jesus said and did (though obviously these are mediated narratives, etc.) than with what those who had been taught by him said and did. I'm fairly certain i've read the four gospels, but i'm equally certain that i've only dabbled in the rest of the New Testament. I keep meaning to read the whole thing, but i'm oh so much more interested in rereading the Gospels and struggling with Jesus' words than with dealing with the writings of the Church founders.

"True prayer is not about gritting our teeth but about falling in love."
-from Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home by Richard J. Foster

I know i don't spend nearly enough time talking to/with God, but other than that aspect, i have never understood why/how people talk about prayer being difficult and have always had issues with the idea of intercessionaries. God is always there for you ready to listen. You can always, silently or aloud, say "I'm sorry" or "Thank you" or "I'm confused" or "Please help me" or whatever. Okay, so the idea of actually listening for a response, that's hard too. I find it really easy to talk to God, but that whole "discerning God's path for you" or whatever, yeah, not so much. Ages ago, sk8eeyore quoted Juan Martin Velasco calling the praying attitude, "awareness of the presence of the Mystery and welcoming of its presence." I really like that.

In an old Ash Wednesday post, wisdomeagle wrote, "I love my church, but I hate that they don't have monthly communion. I hate that I never know when I'll next get body and blood. I miss that. I miss feeling holy." I was struck most immediately by the Communion food being called almost literally "body and blood" and also by how powerful Communion was for her. sk8eeyore and i have talked before about Communion, both in the context of church community and when she was reading about eating Jesus. While the readings of the Last Supper story that accompany Communion are very powerful, the actual partaking of Communion is really not powerful for me. I think in part because the food is so insubstantial. I have long wished that we had pita bread or something evoking the unleavened Passover bread instead of regular white bread. (I really liked a few weeks ago at First Churches when we had bread the confirmation class had baked because that was bread to be chewed.) If there were a ritual sacrifice (by which i mean that i'm thinking of how strict Jewish law requires that animals be slaughtered a certain way, with all the blood drained, and the preparation be overseen by a rabbi) and i held flesh in my hands, particularly because i don't normally partake of meat (because of the pain/suffering/death involved), then that would be powerful to me. That would be a powerful reminder of the flesh suffering and sacrifice that Jesus underwent for me personally and for all of humanity. But Communion as is now, just doesn't do it for me. (I've also had Communion at Anglican Mass, and the foodstuffs there also totally didn't do it for me.)

At RCFOS tonight, Joha (sp?) said, of Catholic masses, "You kill Jesus every week." I had forgotten that Catholics have the Eucharist at every Mass.

In a later entry, Ari said: "The chaplain had this to say about Lent: Lent is about learning to view the world through God's eyes. God looks at the whole world with love, and Lent is learning to look at the world the same way."

And her answer to the "Why do you have ashes on your forehead" question is "because I am a beloved and chosen child of God, marked, made, created, and saved by the sign of the cross, because I am a dusty earthy creature and thus marked for death but I am also chosen by God and thus marked by the cross."

And last piece from RCFOS: SarahNewby talked about Layna's idea that God has multiple plans for us, sees many possible paths, that believing God has a plan for us doesn't negate the idea of free will and the belief that we have agency in our own lives.

I think one of the great values of college, particularly a liberal arts college, is discovering -- in classes and out of them -- what you're passionate about. At least, that's what *i* am finding. Discovering a passion for things, learning what drives me, what i care about doing.


"I leave you with this good news: Lent will end."

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.