One Holy Catholic Church at Christmas

Christmas 1984 I was surprised with a large Christmas bonus the last day of work before the holiday, which allowed me to greatly expand my Christmas shopping the last day or so before Christmas. That left me wrapping presents late on Christmas Eve, and, searching for something Christmasy on have on TV as I worked, I first ran across the Midnight Mass broadcast "live" from the Vatican ("Live" because midnight hit the Vatican quite a few hours earlier than it did Eastern Standard Time). I'd been raised largely ignorant of Roman Catholicism and Church History in general--judging from my Sunday school lessons there simply were no "real Christians" between John the Revelator and Martin Luther--and had only recently begun attending an Episcopal Church and getting comfortable with the idea of liturgy not being all "vain repetition" condemned by Jesus. So, I was surprised and intrigued to realize how much of the service sounded familiar (once translated) to what I was hearing and saying Sunday mornings.

Looking back on that now I think of my earlier self as laughably naive. Shortly afterwards one of my best friends (and the only one I can claim in any way to have had an influence on his conversion to Christianity) decided to return to the Catholic Church he'd been raised in (and had pretty fully rejected when I'd first met him in high school), and that--along with my own rediscovery of liturgy--caused me to begin a serious investigation of Catholicism. Some time later I was prompted to do some reading on the Orthodox church, and eventually at seminary I had to take a few courses in Church History (which my wife now teaches). Despite various frustrations with the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism in general, and despite seeing many of my friends from seminary depart for either Rome or Constantinople, I've never felt the need to move any further up the ecclesial family tree (or down towards the roots?) than Anglicanism, but I appreciate what I have and can learn from other traditions and their followers. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey said (in a quote I read a couple days ago):

From the deeds of Jesus in the flesh, there springs a society which is one in its continuous life. Many kinds of fellowship in diverse places and manners are created by the Spirit of Jesus, but they all depend upon the one life. Thus each group of Christians will learn its utter dependence upon the whole Body. It will indeed be aware of its own immediate union with Christ, but it will see this experience as a part of the one life of the one family in every age and place.

--quoted from The Gospel and the Catholic Church (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock (1936/1990), 43-44.

All of that to say, I watched the Pope's sermon on Christmas Eve, and found it quite moving. Though, with an introduction this long, I now will have to wait for a future post to comment on what he had to say.

"And There Was Evening, And There Was Morning..."

"There were a lot of times I had to turn my light out when I was acting out Bible stories," my daughter informed me the other day. "First there was the plague of darkness in Egypt, then there was Daniel in the lion's den, then when I did Jonah in the whale, cuz of course it was dark in there, and then when Jesus was in the tomb before he rose again. Then I had the light off just now because I was doing Revelation and John was in prison."

"And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." And so it has been from the beginning.

I'm glad that my daughter appreciates the difference between light and darkness. I'm delighted that she enjoys acting out Bible stories during her play time, and I'm impressed at her memory and sense of the flow of the sacred story. I'm glad she didn't trip and hurt herself playing in the dark, and I'm glad I wasn't the one who walked in to find her lying still on the ground with her head under the bed.

"Honey, are you all right?" my wife asked.

"I'm PRETENDING to be dead."

"Why are you doing that?"

"I was acting out Bible stories and I was being Goliath!"

December Home Visits

When I first heard about the seminary here in Ambridge, one of the things I was told was that they used to require all of their students to participate in door-to-door visiting in the neighborhood, and I told myself, "If that is still the case, I'm not going!" The church I grew up in was heavily involved in this kind of "witnessing" and some of my deepest feelings of spiritual inadequacy as a teenager grew out of the fact that I simply did not have the kind of extroverted personality that caused me to strike up conversations with total strangers on the street corner and lead them to pray "the sinner's prayer."

Well, such visiting was no longer a requirement for the school, so we moved to Ambridge. And for most of the first decade, no one at my church ever brought up the possibility of me needing to go knocking on doors of people I didn't know. But then we started KidzLife, and somehow it made sense to take some time on a Saturday and try to visit the kids' homes, either to give out invitations for upcoming events, deliver Easter baskets or Christmas presents to kids who didn't make it to one of our parties, or just to get an opportunity to meet the families of the kids. And I've been doing it at various times, for various reasons, with varying degrees of regularity now for about three years. Except for a survey last summer there has been no "cold calling"--we've stuck to families who've had some contact with our church or children's program--and there have been no dramatic conversions (of the type I heard so much of as a teen) to report. But every time I do it, though I feel anxious, disgruntled, or unqualified going into the experience, I always come away from it feeling positive, energized, and thankful for the opportunity.

This past Saturday was no exception. We had a ton of things planned for the family (our regular Saturday chores plus a few holiday events), so it was really inconvenient to take this break in the middle of the day and head down to church to meet with the team and spend an hour or two visiting. On top of that, the main reason for this week's visits was to invite people to our church's Christmas services, which I felt a little funny doing since our family always travels to Virginia for the holidays, and we've only been home to attend our church's Christmas service once. With us not doing KidzLife this semester (which has generally been my main connection to the families of these visits), I was feeling even more cut off and unqualified than usual. And it was snowing, for the first time this year--nothing particularly beautiful or nasty, but just COLD!

But I went. I was teamed with someone I didn't know well (but who fortunately was more of an extrovert than I), and several of the houses we were assigned to were people I didn't know, people others had made contact with through the summer survey. On the other hand, I had a good time getting to know my partner (who DID have some connections to the neighborhood, both because he lived there and because he'd covered some of these same houses in the summer survey), we had an incredible number of people we actually got to talk to (on a typical visiting day it seems there have been far fewer people at home or who answer the door when we knock; I didn't know, but my partner informed me that there was a "Big Game" on that day, so it was a good time to catch folks at home). Best of all, I happened to encounter a lot of the kids that I had met either through my drama class this fall or through Arts Camp last summer, including a case where several were together playing at the one house we visited, another case where the two sisters were the ones to answer the door (giving us the opportunity to wish one of them a Happy Birthday), and one case where we just happening to run into a girl with her mother walking down the street! Everyone we talked to was appreciative of the invitation and many said they would plan to come to one of the services or the Christmas dinner listed on the invitation.

Definitely God was blessing us, the folks praying for us back at the church were doing a great job, and God wanted ME in particular to be out there in order to encounter those kids and give them a face they recognized to go with the invitation. And once again, I was glad I did it!

"I ain't no Moses but I ain't no clown"

I thought I should provide a bit of commentary on the song I posted last night. Though it made for a great title for my first blog entry in several months, I DO enjoy stories of the sort described, and I tend to follow the "Esther S. Cape School of Conflict Management" (as I spoofed in a skit for the Young Peacemaker's curriculum a couple years ago), the verse that really caught my attention was the one involving Joshua. I don't typically see myself as a Joshua-type figure (partly due to the lack of Moseses in my life), but I find myself in leadership roles and I feel I need someone telling me, "Be strong and courageous" (Josh. 1:6-9). I don't feel like a leader, I don't want to be a leader, I've not always had good relationships with leaders. Part of it, I'm sure, has to do with growing up in the anti-authoritarian 60's, when everyone in leadership roles was thought to be evil or corrupt, part of it has to do with failed father-figures. Whatever contributes to it, I have this dislike/distrust/dishonoring attitude towards authority. And yet--as Pogo observed all those years ago--"we have met the enemy and it is us!" I can't say older white men in positions of leadership are all bad because I am one (unless I just want to be bad and make an excuse for it). Whatever my father or step-father did to me, I AM a father now, and it's up to me to be the best father I can be. I've been appointed as the Director of Christian Formation at my church, and people are counting on me to be a disciple of Jesus and a discipler of others (which I should be anyways, just be virtue of being a Christian, but having that title really clinches the deal!). I ain't no Moses, but that's no excuse to be a clown. There's work to be done and "Christ is counting on me."

"I'm Still Here"

I heard a song the other day on last.fm from the group Waterdeep. I haven't been able to track down sufficiently the credits for words or music (so apologies to those responsible), but the lyrics really spoke to me, and I thought I'd share them with you here:

"I'm Still Here"


I went flying in a dream last night
Whenever I was scared, I took flight
It didn't seem brave and it didn't seem right
but it always seemed easier than puttin up a fight

CHORUS
And I'm almost gone
But I'm still here

Tell me a story that'll make me feel
Something far flung but something real
Something that's human but not depraved
Somebody endangered, but somebody still saved

When Joshua sat them children down
He said I ain't no Moses but I ain't no clown
And I know how that river's wide
But if you follow me we'll make it to the other side

CHORUS
And I'm almost there
But I'm still here

Scatterday Thoughts

Every September there is one day when everything seems to be happening, and that day this year was today. I had an 8 am appointment to meet someone for prayer, my daughter had a birthday party to go to (though NOT the same friend whose party she's gone to the past few years; someone ELSE moved in with a birthday party on the busiest day of the year), the 19th century historic site two blocks from us had their annual fall "Erntefest" with costumed craftspeople and tourguides, the Sewickley Academy had their annual Clotheseline Sale, and a co-worker had a party and ceremony to bless her new home. And it's Saturday, so I made breakfast (thankful for the fact it was an "Egg Day" and not a "Pancake Day") and we did our family trip to the Sewickley Library. In the crunch of events, I RSVP'd that we would NOT be attending my co-worker's party, and we ran out of time to make it to Erntefest (which was probably best, as it was raining and Boo has a bit of a cough). So the busiest day of the year wasn't as busy as it could have been with better weather, better health, and more to spend at the Sale...

I taught my second session of Fall Drama Camp on Tuesday. There was no other adult on hand to help me (though there was a guitar class down the hall), and things were a bit chaotic. I'm still finding it difficult to wrap my mind around this class--I enjoy it, and the kids seem to enjoy it, but a lot of the things I've done before in similar situations aren't working. Part of the problem is I'm used to working in theater with older kids or young adults, so I'm having to adjust and pitch things for a younger group of actors. But I think I'm probably also dealing with some levels of ADD in some of these kids, which is something new for me to try to tackle (both in teaching and in group dynamics). I'm trying to read up on the subject and make MORE adjustments to my goals and methods of teaching...

Praying at the high school this morning, I realized how totally out of touch I am with what is going on there. A decade ago, when I started working with the youth group at church, we had quite a number of kids who not only attended the high school, but who were all pretty active in band, theater, and other activities, so I had a pretty good idea from them on what was going on on campus. The youth in our church today are few in number, and the vast majority of them attend other schools. The two who do attend the local high school are both introverts, so even if I asked them directly, I don't know that I would get any clear sense of what life is like for the majority at Ambridge High...

Aside from the Drama Camp, I am not actively engaged in any outreach projects at the moment. There may be an Alpha Course in the Spring, and we may have a youth track to that I can be involved in, but we could not field enough volunteers to continue offering the KidzLife program, and what needs our teens have for a youth group seem to be being met by their Sunday school teachers. I've not been asked back to teach any classes for the Center for Hope, and I'm feeling a bit rudderless. My wife says God is giving me time to relax, be refreshed, and work ahead on some projects, but I'm having a tough time seeing where we're going from here...

We finally got around to getting a converter box for our TV. For years (since cable got pulled) the only channel we have received was ABC, with a lot of snowy static. As the only TV show we watched with any regularity was LOST, that worked out fine, but with the switch to Digital, we got nothing. So now we get CBS, NBC and something called RTV (which we'd never heard of, but airs reruns of REALLY old shows--the same ones that were in reruns when we were kids 40 years ago!). My goal is to find ABC before LOST starts its final season this winter...

In the meantime, we've been catching up on episodes we missed (most of Season 3), and that has been fun. I'm developing a theory that the entire show my be an adaptation of Archibald MacLeish's J.B., with Jacob and his Nemesis sitting in for Mr. Zuss and Nickles (who in turn stand in for God and Satan in the book of Job), observing human suffering and placing their bets on how it will all turn out. We shall see...

"Babies Are Happy..."

Last night my daughter asked me to draw a baby crawling. I did so (in my typical Disneyesque fashion), with a short-sleeved shirt, long pants and socks. Then she did her 7-year-old version (evolving from stick-figure to a beginning sense of mass and perspective), but when it came to clothing the crouching figure, she asked how to draw a diaper. Then she asked how to draw diapers by themselves, and did three of different sizes across the top of her drawing. She asked about the different kinds of diapers she had worn and then asked how spell "HUGGIES" and added that in large capitals at the bottom. She then informed us she was drawing a diaper ad, and asked what else an ad would have in it; I suggested she put a price in one corner and label the three diapers across the top "Large," "Medium" and "Small". Then she added other smiling baby faces around her full-figured baby and explained "Babies are happy when they wear Huggies!" I told her that was a great slogan ("What's a 'slogan'?") and she asked me to write it above her big "HUGGIES".

I've often thought I could have made a decent living on Madison Avenue (if I could only shed my conscience), but I attributed my fascination with advertising to certain teachers I had, especially in Jr. High, who stressed educating us as critics of media, and advertising in particular (we had to collect or journal examples we saw of "snob appeal," "sex appeal," "bait-and-switch", and other tactics). I thought I could be successful in the field because I could identify (and then master) the tricks.

My daughter, however, has largely been shielded from mass media. We don't have TV, rarely listen to radio, hardly ever purchase a newspaper, and what magazines we may have had subscriptions to have almost all lapsed. I'm not sure where she got the idea to create an ad, much less where she got her sense of layout, design, and her ease with summing up the whole appeal in such a snappy little saying.

I guess maybe it's not all "tricks" that can be learned. Partly it must be innate.