Today is Advent Sunday 1. I love Advent. It is a season of active waiting for God's return. It's interesting that Christianity places Advent just before Christmas. We await for the second coming right before and while reenacting the initial birth of the Christ child.
What I love about advent is that it is the only season we have throughout the year in Christianity that has intentional weekly themes. I like nicely organized themes. They are:
Advent 1: Hope
Advent 2: The Way of the Prophets
Advent 3: Gaudete Sunday/Joy
Advent 4: Angels
Of course, I always know people have a good time with my name at this point of the year due to the song O Come, O Come Emmanuel. It is one of my favorite songs. It has a lot more verses than people think it does. To me, it follows the Way of the Prophets more than any of the other hymns that we have at any other point of the year. I also love Advent because people of multiple faiths are all in a waiting period for the Messiah at the same time.
My favorite week is Sunday 2. Interestingly enough, it is about patience and suffering. It is all about abiding in Christ regardless of what happens. It is the message within Christianity that I think is more confused than any other message that the church places in the world. Abiding and knowing that God is God does not mean that people need to cause more suffering in order to train others to persevere through long-suffering. There is enough suffering in the world that human beings create and live through that no one really needs to cause more. We do and the second week in advent shows us that we don't need to do so.
The first week that we are in right now is about hope. We hope for the future. The entire season of Advent is placed in hope that the Messiah is coming for all people. My advent discipline this year is founded in hope. I am using this season to send in a poem or group of poems to total the amount of days in the season in for review and hopeful publication. This will sow seeds of hope for the future, pave a way for my writing, bring joy to those whom know me and myself, and may even need some divine intervention and aid. Publication, like the Messiah, is a discipline of watching and waiting.
Stay Awake!
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Remnant: The Global Future of Faith
Remnant theology, which is accepted in the Anglican Communion, is one of the ways that Christianity interacts, or rather, unifies with Judaism. Instead of replacing Judaism, which is an atrocious thought, or separating completely from Judaism, which leave Christianity a rootless, dead plant, remnant theology grafts its shoot into the olive tree of Judaism and is supported by its root system. It seems so foreign to me as someone of The Middle Way that people would try to choose one way or the other in this sense. Thankfully, I don't have to. It's actually possible for Anglicans to do both without leaving the denomination. I live in a diocese that is known for it's conservatism and close-mindedness when it comes to matters of difference, so I have been accused of apostasy constantly.
It used to be that people weren't allowed to be liberal in this diocese and now conservatives face things the other way. The Middle Way includes both and doesn't segregate difference. Most people can't live it; it's really difficult. As someone who believes in remnant theology, it would be impossible for me to live my faith fully without formation time in a Jewish community. I am blessed and grateful that I have one in El Paso which doesn't exclude me since I was told to leave the church for my own safety because the people couldn't control themselves from retaliating.
It feels weird sometimes to be praying at a Jewish Temple. However, in the last eight years, I have come closer to God the more I understand and embrace the Jewish roots that supports and infuses the Christian faith. Without Judaism, Christianity would not exist. I believe that it can't be fully lived functionally without having a practical understanding of living Judaism in some form. I also know that some people think that I have converted which I haven't.
Remnant theology allows for a faith that is inherently formed by understanding the traditions and experiences found within Jewish civilization and culture. It would be impossible to fully embrace remnant theology without it. I started this specific part of my religious quest about eight years ago and am very blessed to have done so. I know people think that I started this as a result of people fighting over property in the church which was scapegoated as being about the Bible and GLBT people. It's larceny and extortion in the name of God which also isn't new. Nonetheless, I am happy that I kept finding that my life worked better the more I embraced structure, liturgy, and ritualism with the church, and in this case, within the community that has so graciously given me a space to explore and seek God.
The global world is changing. We are not meant to replace or even tolerate one another. We are to accept one another as we are. We are all evolving and growing while hopefully learning throughout our lives to embrace our own humanity. It's difficult to embrace human beings for being human. Globally, faith is being renewed and re-explored which makes this an awesome time to be alive.
It used to be that people weren't allowed to be liberal in this diocese and now conservatives face things the other way. The Middle Way includes both and doesn't segregate difference. Most people can't live it; it's really difficult. As someone who believes in remnant theology, it would be impossible for me to live my faith fully without formation time in a Jewish community. I am blessed and grateful that I have one in El Paso which doesn't exclude me since I was told to leave the church for my own safety because the people couldn't control themselves from retaliating.
It feels weird sometimes to be praying at a Jewish Temple. However, in the last eight years, I have come closer to God the more I understand and embrace the Jewish roots that supports and infuses the Christian faith. Without Judaism, Christianity would not exist. I believe that it can't be fully lived functionally without having a practical understanding of living Judaism in some form. I also know that some people think that I have converted which I haven't.
Remnant theology allows for a faith that is inherently formed by understanding the traditions and experiences found within Jewish civilization and culture. It would be impossible to fully embrace remnant theology without it. I started this specific part of my religious quest about eight years ago and am very blessed to have done so. I know people think that I started this as a result of people fighting over property in the church which was scapegoated as being about the Bible and GLBT people. It's larceny and extortion in the name of God which also isn't new. Nonetheless, I am happy that I kept finding that my life worked better the more I embraced structure, liturgy, and ritualism with the church, and in this case, within the community that has so graciously given me a space to explore and seek God.
The global world is changing. We are not meant to replace or even tolerate one another. We are to accept one another as we are. We are all evolving and growing while hopefully learning throughout our lives to embrace our own humanity. It's difficult to embrace human beings for being human. Globally, faith is being renewed and re-explored which makes this an awesome time to be alive.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
I Remember "Tubthumping"
The song "Tubthumping" came out when I was an undergraduate. The Sodexo cafeteria ENMU came with a free jukebox and my classmates and I consistently requested this so much that during lunch almost every day I heard it about five or six times. The Greyhounds did not win a lot of football games; we needed a pick-me-up and lived on a dry campus. We were required to live in the dormitories for at least the first year of our educational careers and thought that our fraternity brothers at San Angelo State were oppressed by having to live in them until they were seniors.
Looking back now, Hurray for San Angelo State! Now that I teach, I see my students who live in the dorms and have meal plans awake and working while the others are becoming vicious hungry zombies. I am happy that I experienced living in a dorm. It was a great experience. I also liked my on-campus apartment as I grew older. I am thankful that I have students living in dormitories.
"Tubthumping" while seemingly unimportant and focused on partying is really about living your life with haters. There are always going to be haters. I have published poetry since I was in high school. I was the English department senior award winner and worked two jobs during my last semester in high school. I was in the band, and people hated that I was as out and proud as we could be in '96. I wore a tie to school; it was metallic magenta and black checkered. It was gaudy, but it was 90s. I played chess and wore driving caps. We had just left neon which is back but never left as I still have some of my original neon.
When I went to the university, I continued writing poetry and focused on the trumpet for a long time. I was continuously teased by haters as my hair was every color, and I dyed it green to match things for Homecoming and purple to match fraternity robes. I did everything I could to make sure that my hair color told a story. That narrative was rainbow because the campus was dry! No alcohol allowed! It just made people creative. It was then that I knew that the point for most people was getting away with whatever they could instead of actually following what we had agreed to.
Anyone who majors in music, religion, philosophy, theater, or poetry is going to have haters who question their sanity. I knew that "Tubthumping" was going to be a theme song for me for my lifetime.
I have gotten knocked down several times since my undergraduate years. I thought leaving the ministry was the worst thing that I could have ever done just after graduation. Actually, I learned that ministry was everyone's life. Thank God! I quit! I can minister to others effectively now. Church planting was crazy, but getting the bishop to let me come home as a part of the laity was easy. We all fall short when we pastor out of the institution, apparently. Rogue pastoring is against the rules unless they join the church, then it's fine. I had only been part of the Episcopal Church for about four years anyway. You know --- new guy? It was the most stressful part of my life. I thought I was entering graduate school in shame at UTEP as I never wanted to go there, and it turned out that it was where God wanted me to be.
About five years ago, I lived through something that caused me to believe that I was going to live without reading and writing functionally ever again. Although it hasn't been accepted, yesterday I submitted a collection of poetry for publication. I was "Tubthumping" and remembered the song when I was sending the information off to Bright Hill Press.
"Tubthumping" is one of the hymns that no one recognizes as one. If the point of religion and a relationship with God is to persevere through ridiculous things, and from time to time it is, then "Tub Thumping" illustrates exactly what Acts 2:15 is about. The Spirit-filled people raised us up for finals as spirits brought some down. "Tubthumping" is about Pentecost.
Now, Pentecost is a completely different season from the one that most Christian churches are entering into. Advent is almost near. Advent is my favorite season. It is a season of preparation. We prepare and wait for the Messiah. It is about active waiting to be filled by the Spirit as well. Advent and Pentecost are related through the filling of the Spirit in different ways. I am already waiting in anticipation for Advent. In my life, it will lead to --- Chanukah for the first time!
This year, I am celebrating Chanukah and several other things for the first time. I am finding a path that is causing me to live and breathe God again. Why is that? I'm "Tubthumping." I am getting up again to live in God, with God, and in community with God's people --- humanity. Thank God for "Tubthumping."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc
Looking back now, Hurray for San Angelo State! Now that I teach, I see my students who live in the dorms and have meal plans awake and working while the others are becoming vicious hungry zombies. I am happy that I experienced living in a dorm. It was a great experience. I also liked my on-campus apartment as I grew older. I am thankful that I have students living in dormitories.
"Tubthumping" while seemingly unimportant and focused on partying is really about living your life with haters. There are always going to be haters. I have published poetry since I was in high school. I was the English department senior award winner and worked two jobs during my last semester in high school. I was in the band, and people hated that I was as out and proud as we could be in '96. I wore a tie to school; it was metallic magenta and black checkered. It was gaudy, but it was 90s. I played chess and wore driving caps. We had just left neon which is back but never left as I still have some of my original neon.
When I went to the university, I continued writing poetry and focused on the trumpet for a long time. I was continuously teased by haters as my hair was every color, and I dyed it green to match things for Homecoming and purple to match fraternity robes. I did everything I could to make sure that my hair color told a story. That narrative was rainbow because the campus was dry! No alcohol allowed! It just made people creative. It was then that I knew that the point for most people was getting away with whatever they could instead of actually following what we had agreed to.
Anyone who majors in music, religion, philosophy, theater, or poetry is going to have haters who question their sanity. I knew that "Tubthumping" was going to be a theme song for me for my lifetime.
I have gotten knocked down several times since my undergraduate years. I thought leaving the ministry was the worst thing that I could have ever done just after graduation. Actually, I learned that ministry was everyone's life. Thank God! I quit! I can minister to others effectively now. Church planting was crazy, but getting the bishop to let me come home as a part of the laity was easy. We all fall short when we pastor out of the institution, apparently. Rogue pastoring is against the rules unless they join the church, then it's fine. I had only been part of the Episcopal Church for about four years anyway. You know --- new guy? It was the most stressful part of my life. I thought I was entering graduate school in shame at UTEP as I never wanted to go there, and it turned out that it was where God wanted me to be.
About five years ago, I lived through something that caused me to believe that I was going to live without reading and writing functionally ever again. Although it hasn't been accepted, yesterday I submitted a collection of poetry for publication. I was "Tubthumping" and remembered the song when I was sending the information off to Bright Hill Press.
"Tubthumping" is one of the hymns that no one recognizes as one. If the point of religion and a relationship with God is to persevere through ridiculous things, and from time to time it is, then "Tub Thumping" illustrates exactly what Acts 2:15 is about. The Spirit-filled people raised us up for finals as spirits brought some down. "Tubthumping" is about Pentecost.
Now, Pentecost is a completely different season from the one that most Christian churches are entering into. Advent is almost near. Advent is my favorite season. It is a season of preparation. We prepare and wait for the Messiah. It is about active waiting to be filled by the Spirit as well. Advent and Pentecost are related through the filling of the Spirit in different ways. I am already waiting in anticipation for Advent. In my life, it will lead to --- Chanukah for the first time!
This year, I am celebrating Chanukah and several other things for the first time. I am finding a path that is causing me to live and breathe God again. Why is that? I'm "Tubthumping." I am getting up again to live in God, with God, and in community with God's people --- humanity. Thank God for "Tubthumping."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Shaped by Texts
Bishop John Spong, thank God for him asked, "Which book/s helped shape who you are?" In this post, I am going to answer the good Bishop and hopefully he will accept text/s instead of book/s.
John Milton's Aeropagetica shaped my life more than others. When I first read about censorship, I had been so censored in my life that I never spoke my own thoughts about anything. Although, I'm an American by the time I was in Graduate School the ability to have my own thoughts and words expressed had already been suppressed and removed from my life by public schools and higher education. Mind you, I currently teach in higher education and value public schools in America. Standardized testing and regurgitation of someone else's thoughts were more of a goal thank thinking myself. It wasn't until I really read Aeropagitica that I really thought about my own textual freedom and began to care about how our tradition was formed in a time of tumultuous incivility and frequent beheadings of those with their own points of view. http://www.bartleby.com/3/3/
George Herbert's collection The Temple was the next text that changed my life and became the primary text for my research. I was fascinated by the way that he used imagery, structured his poetry, and created verse through his own life experiences. I was also fascinated that somehow a priest was not so disillusioned in his own life that he actually thought about those around him in his parish and and yearned for them to know God as individuals. http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/HQ.html
While it may seem childish, Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20mMbEB0OhA I've always gone places. I love different places. Dr. Seuss always makes my inner child happy. There's just something very freeing about this book.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the next one. I found Walden when I wanted to live deliberately and was finding that I experienced God through creation around me. I was at one with the universe in nature and not in a church while I still needed the liturgical rituals that were necessary to structure my very unstructured life. I read Walden for the first time at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, NM. They have an awesome little stream there where ducks frequent, and I yearned for God more than anything else sitting with Thoreau in my hands by the stream. I found a kindred person in Throeau's penning of Walden. I spent part of my life on my grandfather's farm and Walden returned me to that part of my life when I had found spirituality by a pond in Chandler's Valley, PA for the first time. http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html and http://pecosmonastery.org
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is the final book. It was in Whitman's collection that I found humanity deeper than other places. His relationship with the world around him and his ability to place his own story into verse captivates me. "The Song of Myself" guided me to consider Self as reality. Walt Whitman gave me rhythm and song just as my music education did, but found a place in humanity for himself without losing his own thoughts in those around him. Whitman gave me the variation of Self I needed in Academia. I read Whitman when I find that I have found too much time in the institution and need to find me again. http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/books/other/rhys.html
Interestingly, I found these texts in Graduate School. My late twenties were the point in time when I refound mystery, my Self, and explored monasteries in the woods.
I would love to tell you that the Bible was in the top five. Maybe next year, Bishop Spong; the Apostle Paul is not going to hold up to Dr. Seuss this year.
John Milton's Aeropagetica shaped my life more than others. When I first read about censorship, I had been so censored in my life that I never spoke my own thoughts about anything. Although, I'm an American by the time I was in Graduate School the ability to have my own thoughts and words expressed had already been suppressed and removed from my life by public schools and higher education. Mind you, I currently teach in higher education and value public schools in America. Standardized testing and regurgitation of someone else's thoughts were more of a goal thank thinking myself. It wasn't until I really read Aeropagitica that I really thought about my own textual freedom and began to care about how our tradition was formed in a time of tumultuous incivility and frequent beheadings of those with their own points of view. http://www.bartleby.com/3/3/
George Herbert's collection The Temple was the next text that changed my life and became the primary text for my research. I was fascinated by the way that he used imagery, structured his poetry, and created verse through his own life experiences. I was also fascinated that somehow a priest was not so disillusioned in his own life that he actually thought about those around him in his parish and and yearned for them to know God as individuals. http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/HQ.html
While it may seem childish, Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20mMbEB0OhA I've always gone places. I love different places. Dr. Seuss always makes my inner child happy. There's just something very freeing about this book.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the next one. I found Walden when I wanted to live deliberately and was finding that I experienced God through creation around me. I was at one with the universe in nature and not in a church while I still needed the liturgical rituals that were necessary to structure my very unstructured life. I read Walden for the first time at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, NM. They have an awesome little stream there where ducks frequent, and I yearned for God more than anything else sitting with Thoreau in my hands by the stream. I found a kindred person in Throeau's penning of Walden. I spent part of my life on my grandfather's farm and Walden returned me to that part of my life when I had found spirituality by a pond in Chandler's Valley, PA for the first time. http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html and http://pecosmonastery.org
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is the final book. It was in Whitman's collection that I found humanity deeper than other places. His relationship with the world around him and his ability to place his own story into verse captivates me. "The Song of Myself" guided me to consider Self as reality. Walt Whitman gave me rhythm and song just as my music education did, but found a place in humanity for himself without losing his own thoughts in those around him. Whitman gave me the variation of Self I needed in Academia. I read Whitman when I find that I have found too much time in the institution and need to find me again. http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/books/other/rhys.html
Interestingly, I found these texts in Graduate School. My late twenties were the point in time when I refound mystery, my Self, and explored monasteries in the woods.
I would love to tell you that the Bible was in the top five. Maybe next year, Bishop Spong; the Apostle Paul is not going to hold up to Dr. Seuss this year.
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