Yesterday my second day of vacation I went down to the MCA and saw the Olafur Eliasson exhibit Take Your Time. The works in the exhibit range from 1993 to the present. Eliasson describes his works as "devices for the experience of reality". Each work is emersive and experiential. Even his series of photographs of rivers, caves islands, etc. in taking up a wall are something I more experienced than observed. Some of it was subtle like the hall lit with only orange light, to stark, a black room lit only by a single light shining on mist of water near the back of the room. There was also the walls of moss or bricks of fired soil mounted on a wall. The moss was according to the exhibition brochure living and changing over the course of the exhibit, and you could certainly smell the moss, and one person while I was there had to leave the room immediately as his alergies almost immediately acted up.
Three works left a lasting impression on me, one a light shined upon a ring that turned hung in the middle of a room, you then saw both the shadow of the ring on the opposite wall of the light, but also a ring of light passed along the walls of the room. At some point of watching the ring, the shadow of the ring and the rings of light passing along the wall I had the sensation of having an insight. Eureaka! yet about nothing in particular. then there was the circle of light panels you entered into and the light cycled through the wavelengths of the light spectrum. As the light changed there was subtle changes in my mood. Well actually it felt more like the light was affecting me in ways that I could not articulate that I was shifting as the light changed through unnamed changes in myself. The third work was the black room with light and mist. I saw it immediately after being in the light ring and so at first I could not see at all as I entered the room and as you entered the room you could not initially see the light and mist. Once I entered and turned into the room and saw the light and mist, immediately I thought how beautiful. It was indeed quite beautiful. These three have stayed with me I think because they in differing ways isolated aspects of spiritual or religious experiences, whether of prayer or meditation, or worship. The play of light and darkness, and color often are components of worship and meditative spaces. Though rather than a full experience it was like aspects of these was isolated to be experienced on its own without association to anything but what was used in the work to produce the experience.
In some sense this seems to be what is going on in most of Eliasson's work, picking out a narrow range of experience of light, shape, color etc., and thus also isolating emotive or psychological states that may be induced or associated with the arrangements of the work. For something like the wall of moss for me it was more recall of being in forest and stepping upon moss. But other than that it was more a piece of novelty to find a wall of moss in a museum, other works hit me as mere novelty without much else to them. Overall thought it was fairly impacting exhibit that has stuck with me and has left me mulling over the various experiences of each work, for the past 24 hours or so.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Some thoughts on Health Care reform and the current "debate"
(Edited 8/21/2009 5 pm. Also have posted what I hope is a more pastoral post on Reconciler's Blog)
So that my reader will be able to know where the following comments begin from I will say that overall I think that our current system of providing health care to people in this country is deeply flawed. That our system creates a situation in which a large number of people mostly poor cannot afford basic regular health care and rely on emergency rooms for that care is unacceptable. I am avoiding talking about insurance because I am not sure relying upon health insurance to provide for good health care was the wisest course of action: profit motive is a bad reason to care for others. I believe part of the current problem is that health care is almost entirely based on someone making a profit off of our health or ill health.
I will admit that I read Sojourners, their weekly newsletter and blog etc., for much of my sense of the state of these things. Though, this is not my only source, I also read the NY Times and the Economist. I don't watch any TV news not even the Daily Show, though I do like the show when I have seen it. I say all this because I may have missed some of this so called "debate" over health care, and I am not familiar with all the sound bites out there.
Sojourners and other progressive religious types have been drumming the beat of the moral imperative of accessible affordable health care for all. Got it and I agree. Yet From what I have read and seen in response to the fear-mongering of the opponents of health care reform, there have been two responses from Sojourners et al. First is to say that all these things people fear, death panels, a fine for having private insurance, etc., are lies and point to the portions of the bill that show that the claims are lies. Second response is to simply repeat that it is a moral imperative that all have access to affordable health care, underscoring that to oppose the proposed health care reform because it isn't perfect is to deny this moral imperative. I agree with Sojourners that there is a moral imperative here and yet I find these responses ineffectual and unacceptable, and only a little better than the accusations, and lies flying about among opponents of reform. Let me say there is no debate currently about health care reform there is only assertions and countering assertions but not substantial debate (that I have seen) concerning the actual details of the bill.
I will admit that I have not read the bill in its entirety though through the internet I have ready access to it, I am a slow reader, and there are pressing responsibilities I have of community church and friends and family. Yet I believe that in the face of the lies we who are proponents of health care reform in the apparent absence of the opposition really wanting to look at and debate the actual details we should do so among ourselves. I will begin this by looking at the portion of the bill that is the probable source of the claim that the government would set up "death panels". As I read it the bill references various other legislation and regulations that I think have to do mainly with Medicaid. My understanding is that this fits with the nature of this overall reform which is simply an extension of Medicaid. First question I think should be asked and debated is if this is a good way to reform the system? Is expansion of Medicaid a good thing, or will it perpetuate aspects of our system that we do not want to perpetuate?
Now what this portion of the bill would legislate is that living wills are a good that all should have and that everyone should have access to a professional who understands the nature of living wills and be able to advise patients when they are creating a living will. When I was trained in chaplaincy at North Western Mememorial Hospital, chaplains were the professionals who provided this service, though not the only ones. I caried with me at all times living will forms to give to patients, though the impatus for creating a living will had to be from the patient and not from myself as the chaplain. If a situation warrented it and I knew that a patient did not have a living will I would suggested it, sometimes the patient would not want to fill it out. Then that was that. My second question is do we really need this legislated to the detail that the bill prescribes? Why is this even in the bill ? I think I understand the fear of congress legislating in the area of end of life decisions: What are we potentially creating when we have government funded advisors of living wills? What sort of subtle presures, and power dynamics are we suddenly introducing into the equation of end of life questions? As a chaplain I was not paid or mandated to offer living will advice, it was a service among others that I provided to patients in the hospital as a chaplain. The potential of a discussion of living will with me as chaplain being one of pressuring or coersing a patient to do something with which they were not comfortable was extreemly low. However a government mandated program and advisor coming to you in your hosptital room or your physician coming to you based on such legislation, that has power behind it and potentially coersive power. I think this potential is behind the lies about the "death panels". Yet by simply pointing to the legislation and saying there are no "death panels" legislated does not address the actual fear. Such a response also does not examine the moral and ethical issues of this bit of legislation. Sojourners, et al. tell me why this should be part of this legislation? Why must the government be involved here? What injustice does this right, and does it right it without creating other unethical and injust situations? Why should I accept this use of power, even if I believe living wills to be a good thing? to be clear I do, and I advise people even as a pastor to have them.
How much of this legislation is riddled with this sort of questionable (not because having X is a bad thing, but is it a good thing to have them mandated by the federal government) material? We are in a crisis, I agree, but I do not believe anything is better than nothing, and I think such thinking sells ourselves short. We need to get off our moral high horses and step back from the moral imperative rhetoric and start conversing about the details of such legislation, take our time, argue from details, ask questions of what should or should not be legislated, what and how should or should not the government use its power to achieve certain ends. If these are such high moral stakes as is claimed then lets start talking and arguing among ourselves about the actual virtues and potential dangers (real dangers) of the currently proposed reforms. I think if we would actually do this we could stop the fear-mongering in its tracks, because people would not feel pressured into accepting things they don't fully understand the consequences. Of course this may mean encouraging congress not to pass legislation immediately but to allow the time for the public to examine and allow time for churches and other civic organizations to gather in groups and discuss these issues. Stop advocating implicit trust of the goodness of our politicians; they are humans like us, they have a mixture of good and bad motives like all of us, they are fallible like all of us, they are perhaps more prone to expand their own power at the expense of others than many of us. We need to slow down not speed up. We need to stop with the high sounding rhetoric of morality and settle down into the muddy waters of the realities of the messiness of governance and the fallenness of all political powers, and seek the best possible solution, not the perfect solution, but one that doesn't unwittingly give power to the government bureaucracies that it shouldn't have, and that admittedly we have already given to for profit insurance corporations. However, we should no more trust government bureaucracies than we should trust corporations. Sorry Obama and Democratic legislators, I don't trust you and don't think we should, even if we elected you! Give us time to really examine this, face the reality of the emotions this stirs up, and the reality that even you can abuse power, not just those Republicans and those corporations! It is clear the citizenry is not clear about the details and the consequences of proposed reform, give us time to mobilize and educate ourselves, and lets have this be put on hold for a year or so. I know ridiculous idea, much better to just accept the nice comforting rhetoric than actually ask us to wade through the issues for an extended period of time. Obama after all has other things he needs to get to, and there's the war in Afghanistan etc. We need this solved and solved yesterday, now if we only accept what is proposed and be done with it. Sorry not buying that one.
So that my reader will be able to know where the following comments begin from I will say that overall I think that our current system of providing health care to people in this country is deeply flawed. That our system creates a situation in which a large number of people mostly poor cannot afford basic regular health care and rely on emergency rooms for that care is unacceptable. I am avoiding talking about insurance because I am not sure relying upon health insurance to provide for good health care was the wisest course of action: profit motive is a bad reason to care for others. I believe part of the current problem is that health care is almost entirely based on someone making a profit off of our health or ill health.
I will admit that I read Sojourners, their weekly newsletter and blog etc., for much of my sense of the state of these things. Though, this is not my only source, I also read the NY Times and the Economist. I don't watch any TV news not even the Daily Show, though I do like the show when I have seen it. I say all this because I may have missed some of this so called "debate" over health care, and I am not familiar with all the sound bites out there.
Sojourners and other progressive religious types have been drumming the beat of the moral imperative of accessible affordable health care for all. Got it and I agree. Yet From what I have read and seen in response to the fear-mongering of the opponents of health care reform, there have been two responses from Sojourners et al. First is to say that all these things people fear, death panels, a fine for having private insurance, etc., are lies and point to the portions of the bill that show that the claims are lies. Second response is to simply repeat that it is a moral imperative that all have access to affordable health care, underscoring that to oppose the proposed health care reform because it isn't perfect is to deny this moral imperative. I agree with Sojourners that there is a moral imperative here and yet I find these responses ineffectual and unacceptable, and only a little better than the accusations, and lies flying about among opponents of reform. Let me say there is no debate currently about health care reform there is only assertions and countering assertions but not substantial debate (that I have seen) concerning the actual details of the bill.
I will admit that I have not read the bill in its entirety though through the internet I have ready access to it, I am a slow reader, and there are pressing responsibilities I have of community church and friends and family. Yet I believe that in the face of the lies we who are proponents of health care reform in the apparent absence of the opposition really wanting to look at and debate the actual details we should do so among ourselves. I will begin this by looking at the portion of the bill that is the probable source of the claim that the government would set up "death panels". As I read it the bill references various other legislation and regulations that I think have to do mainly with Medicaid. My understanding is that this fits with the nature of this overall reform which is simply an extension of Medicaid. First question I think should be asked and debated is if this is a good way to reform the system? Is expansion of Medicaid a good thing, or will it perpetuate aspects of our system that we do not want to perpetuate?
Now what this portion of the bill would legislate is that living wills are a good that all should have and that everyone should have access to a professional who understands the nature of living wills and be able to advise patients when they are creating a living will. When I was trained in chaplaincy at North Western Mememorial Hospital, chaplains were the professionals who provided this service, though not the only ones. I caried with me at all times living will forms to give to patients, though the impatus for creating a living will had to be from the patient and not from myself as the chaplain. If a situation warrented it and I knew that a patient did not have a living will I would suggested it, sometimes the patient would not want to fill it out. Then that was that. My second question is do we really need this legislated to the detail that the bill prescribes? Why is this even in the bill ? I think I understand the fear of congress legislating in the area of end of life decisions: What are we potentially creating when we have government funded advisors of living wills? What sort of subtle presures, and power dynamics are we suddenly introducing into the equation of end of life questions? As a chaplain I was not paid or mandated to offer living will advice, it was a service among others that I provided to patients in the hospital as a chaplain. The potential of a discussion of living will with me as chaplain being one of pressuring or coersing a patient to do something with which they were not comfortable was extreemly low. However a government mandated program and advisor coming to you in your hosptital room or your physician coming to you based on such legislation, that has power behind it and potentially coersive power. I think this potential is behind the lies about the "death panels". Yet by simply pointing to the legislation and saying there are no "death panels" legislated does not address the actual fear. Such a response also does not examine the moral and ethical issues of this bit of legislation. Sojourners, et al. tell me why this should be part of this legislation? Why must the government be involved here? What injustice does this right, and does it right it without creating other unethical and injust situations? Why should I accept this use of power, even if I believe living wills to be a good thing? to be clear I do, and I advise people even as a pastor to have them.
How much of this legislation is riddled with this sort of questionable (not because having X is a bad thing, but is it a good thing to have them mandated by the federal government) material? We are in a crisis, I agree, but I do not believe anything is better than nothing, and I think such thinking sells ourselves short. We need to get off our moral high horses and step back from the moral imperative rhetoric and start conversing about the details of such legislation, take our time, argue from details, ask questions of what should or should not be legislated, what and how should or should not the government use its power to achieve certain ends. If these are such high moral stakes as is claimed then lets start talking and arguing among ourselves about the actual virtues and potential dangers (real dangers) of the currently proposed reforms. I think if we would actually do this we could stop the fear-mongering in its tracks, because people would not feel pressured into accepting things they don't fully understand the consequences. Of course this may mean encouraging congress not to pass legislation immediately but to allow the time for the public to examine and allow time for churches and other civic organizations to gather in groups and discuss these issues. Stop advocating implicit trust of the goodness of our politicians; they are humans like us, they have a mixture of good and bad motives like all of us, they are fallible like all of us, they are perhaps more prone to expand their own power at the expense of others than many of us. We need to slow down not speed up. We need to stop with the high sounding rhetoric of morality and settle down into the muddy waters of the realities of the messiness of governance and the fallenness of all political powers, and seek the best possible solution, not the perfect solution, but one that doesn't unwittingly give power to the government bureaucracies that it shouldn't have, and that admittedly we have already given to for profit insurance corporations. However, we should no more trust government bureaucracies than we should trust corporations. Sorry Obama and Democratic legislators, I don't trust you and don't think we should, even if we elected you! Give us time to really examine this, face the reality of the emotions this stirs up, and the reality that even you can abuse power, not just those Republicans and those corporations! It is clear the citizenry is not clear about the details and the consequences of proposed reform, give us time to mobilize and educate ourselves, and lets have this be put on hold for a year or so. I know ridiculous idea, much better to just accept the nice comforting rhetoric than actually ask us to wade through the issues for an extended period of time. Obama after all has other things he needs to get to, and there's the war in Afghanistan etc. We need this solved and solved yesterday, now if we only accept what is proposed and be done with it. Sorry not buying that one.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Evangelism, Church or to dechurch
(Editorial note: published before rereading and I was quite muddled at points, edited for clarity 8/13/2009 8:15 pm. LEK)
Last night, I went to a presentation at an Episcopal Church on Evangelism by the Episcopal priest who (along with Tripp) thought up the idea of an ecumenical congregation that became Reconciler, David Gortner. Essentially he said that evangelism is not a programmatic thing but a Spirit empowered and lead relational activity of Christians consisting in listening and conversation born out of joy and gratitude. As a spiritual director this sounded somewhat similar to spiritual direction, another spiritual director,who is also the priest of parish that held the seminary, made this observation during the discussion as well.
As a basis for his discussion of Evangelism we read the passage from Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and the passage of Jesus with the Woman at the Well (St Photini). This is fairly standard in my experience in talking about Evangelism and I have seen these texts used to back up most approaches and methods of evangelism. It was pointed out that these stories of evangelism happen while traveling,(going out where people are) and that they are conversations in which much listening happens as well as naming the holy in the persons life or story. Lastly ordinary things, things that are at hand are used to convey meaning due to that ordinary things are already filled with meaning.
What has stuck with me the most was his he directing us to think about joy wonder and gratitude as the place out of which evangelism should take place. Commencted with this that David sees evangelism as a spiritual practice. The Spiritual practice of evangelism involves three steps:
1)Remembering joy wonder and gratitude, as those who have encountered God in Jesus Christ.
2) Speaking of this joy, wonder and Gratitude, with fellow Christians and those outside the church.
3)As we meet others and converse with them listening for the holy in their lives.
About the other half of the time dealt fear and dread that come with the idea of evangelism, the ways to address this and the state of the church and the Episcopal church in the US. I am now a bit fuzzy on this portion, in part because it was directed at an Episcopal audience and partly because it was not clear where exactly this all was going (admittedly we did not get to some role playing exrecises that might have clarified things). though, I also wonder if by addressing anxieties around evangelism and institutional barriers to evangelism lead to comparisons between the Episcopal church and other more conservative bodies that either seem better at evangelism and/or are seen as growing. This line of conversation was reinforced by David giving statistics about the decline of the number of Christians and religious.
In all this the seminar lost a bit of focus for me and seemed to be dominated by concerns of retention of members and why denominations are shrinking, and specifically what needed to be done. This was not entirely David's fault it was where people were at. I certainly understand this anxiety though where I am at with Reconciler it is more simply facing the fact that at least for the context the two passages shared since they end with the Ethiopian eunuch being Baptized and St Phontini spreading the news about Jesus in her town all in one sitting for both stories don't quite fit my context. I am involved in the sort of activity David sees as evangelism, and the case of St Photini is the most similar to my context but the conversation is something that is extended over much more than an hour conversation or even a day, more like months and maybe years.
The other thought I came away with that connects up with something David said as an aside about evangelism bringing about conversion in us as Christians as well as the one evangelized; the sense of evangelism as spiritual practice that David is advocating actually calls for the evangelism and conversion of most Christians. Part of that conversion seems to let go of denominational identity and stop trying to make Episcopalians, Methodists, Covenanters, Baptists etc, and focus on sharing Gospel as it has been handed on for 2 millennia. This means learning to become intimately familiar with the Tradition, and not just our own denominations, and certainly going deeper than the Reformation. And now I am sounding like the various essaysists in Remembering our Future: Explorations in Deep church.
Even if the ending of the seminar with David last night lost me a little over all it has got me thinking and got the Anglobaptis ruminating as well. But I also wonder at the insistence that evangelism is not institutional, and that institutions got us to where we fear evangelism or fit it into a narrow program. Now let me say that I agree with David that evangelism can't be a program, this has been a long held belief of mine. However, even as a relational organism the church is an institution, the basis of its worship was instituted: we speak of the institution of the Eucharist by Christ (though as with most things many dispute this assertion, but I don't hold with those). Baptism was instituted as the means of entrance to the church, most denominations and the Ecumenical convergence documents still hold to this. These things are not the reasons we have difficulty with evangelism. I think we need to be more nuanced in this ubiquitous tendency to blame institution for all our problems, and think that "organic community", whatever the hell that is, would solve all our problems. Now admittedly I obviously don't think the institution of denominationalism is a good expression of the institution of the church, though churchly things may happen in denominations, they are not the church. I'd say, this is the problem not the institutional per se. When Tripp speaks of "institutional loyalty", I think he actually means denominational loyalty, though he also as a Baptist may mean congregational loyalty. But The problem isn't necessarily loyalty but a loyalty in the place of Christ and the Body of Christ. For instance demanding Loyalty to the Evangelical Covenant Church even though one knows that the Covenant church isn't the Body of Christ in its fullness. I am not sure right off hand what all is actaully wrong in denominationalism beyond the problem of loyalty, but I am quite certain it isn't the institutions of the sacraments, nor is it anything that helps us hand on the Gospel, ie Tradition. But in the end I think David Tripp and I are in agreement, this way of thinking, seeing evangelism as spiritual practice, and a Spirit lead and filled activity of listening sharing and naming first requires we evangelize ourselves and our own conversion. This itself may be a long process, especially as we Christians seem hang on to our anxiety about our loss of significance in the cultural and societal landscape, and in someway trying to find our way back to that influence. Granted it is an unfortunate reality that some (possibly looking like many) of our parishes and congregations will find themselves unsustainable. This is painful for those Christians and their pastors, and it is a threat to the continuation of some denominations. It may not be so dire but that fact that we all seem to know something is wrong and yet don't really want to ask some very fundamental questions like "is denominationalism really a good thing?", don't leave me too sanguine for the larger picture. Except in the cases where Christians are actually looking beyond survival and asking what it means to be Christian. I may disagree with many peoples answers at the moment, and tend to look to those aspects of Christian faith that can show some continuity that goes deeper than 500 years ago. What I found helpful and clear in Davids seminar was where it asked us to reflect on what it meant to be a Christian in action and relationship in the world. The rest was fascinating statistics and distractions.
Ps. I'll post more on this but on the way to my "office hours" for Reconciler having been reflection on evangelism all day and remembering my joy gratitude and wonder, and looking for holiness in the world, had three people talk to me on the way to the coffee shop. Granted I was wearing a colar as I usualy do. All three were in some form of need and a bit off, and a challenge to in relating and conversing. It leads me to an other reason why many people avoid this sort of attitude towards Christian faith it lead you into some strange places and to find oneself out of one's depth.
Last night, I went to a presentation at an Episcopal Church on Evangelism by the Episcopal priest who (along with Tripp) thought up the idea of an ecumenical congregation that became Reconciler, David Gortner. Essentially he said that evangelism is not a programmatic thing but a Spirit empowered and lead relational activity of Christians consisting in listening and conversation born out of joy and gratitude. As a spiritual director this sounded somewhat similar to spiritual direction, another spiritual director,who is also the priest of parish that held the seminary, made this observation during the discussion as well.
As a basis for his discussion of Evangelism we read the passage from Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and the passage of Jesus with the Woman at the Well (St Photini). This is fairly standard in my experience in talking about Evangelism and I have seen these texts used to back up most approaches and methods of evangelism. It was pointed out that these stories of evangelism happen while traveling,(going out where people are) and that they are conversations in which much listening happens as well as naming the holy in the persons life or story. Lastly ordinary things, things that are at hand are used to convey meaning due to that ordinary things are already filled with meaning.
What has stuck with me the most was his he directing us to think about joy wonder and gratitude as the place out of which evangelism should take place. Commencted with this that David sees evangelism as a spiritual practice. The Spiritual practice of evangelism involves three steps:
1)Remembering joy wonder and gratitude, as those who have encountered God in Jesus Christ.
2) Speaking of this joy, wonder and Gratitude, with fellow Christians and those outside the church.
3)As we meet others and converse with them listening for the holy in their lives.
About the other half of the time dealt fear and dread that come with the idea of evangelism, the ways to address this and the state of the church and the Episcopal church in the US. I am now a bit fuzzy on this portion, in part because it was directed at an Episcopal audience and partly because it was not clear where exactly this all was going (admittedly we did not get to some role playing exrecises that might have clarified things). though, I also wonder if by addressing anxieties around evangelism and institutional barriers to evangelism lead to comparisons between the Episcopal church and other more conservative bodies that either seem better at evangelism and/or are seen as growing. This line of conversation was reinforced by David giving statistics about the decline of the number of Christians and religious.
In all this the seminar lost a bit of focus for me and seemed to be dominated by concerns of retention of members and why denominations are shrinking, and specifically what needed to be done. This was not entirely David's fault it was where people were at. I certainly understand this anxiety though where I am at with Reconciler it is more simply facing the fact that at least for the context the two passages shared since they end with the Ethiopian eunuch being Baptized and St Phontini spreading the news about Jesus in her town all in one sitting for both stories don't quite fit my context. I am involved in the sort of activity David sees as evangelism, and the case of St Photini is the most similar to my context but the conversation is something that is extended over much more than an hour conversation or even a day, more like months and maybe years.
The other thought I came away with that connects up with something David said as an aside about evangelism bringing about conversion in us as Christians as well as the one evangelized; the sense of evangelism as spiritual practice that David is advocating actually calls for the evangelism and conversion of most Christians. Part of that conversion seems to let go of denominational identity and stop trying to make Episcopalians, Methodists, Covenanters, Baptists etc, and focus on sharing Gospel as it has been handed on for 2 millennia. This means learning to become intimately familiar with the Tradition, and not just our own denominations, and certainly going deeper than the Reformation. And now I am sounding like the various essaysists in Remembering our Future: Explorations in Deep church.
Even if the ending of the seminar with David last night lost me a little over all it has got me thinking and got the Anglobaptis ruminating as well. But I also wonder at the insistence that evangelism is not institutional, and that institutions got us to where we fear evangelism or fit it into a narrow program. Now let me say that I agree with David that evangelism can't be a program, this has been a long held belief of mine. However, even as a relational organism the church is an institution, the basis of its worship was instituted: we speak of the institution of the Eucharist by Christ (though as with most things many dispute this assertion, but I don't hold with those). Baptism was instituted as the means of entrance to the church, most denominations and the Ecumenical convergence documents still hold to this. These things are not the reasons we have difficulty with evangelism. I think we need to be more nuanced in this ubiquitous tendency to blame institution for all our problems, and think that "organic community", whatever the hell that is, would solve all our problems. Now admittedly I obviously don't think the institution of denominationalism is a good expression of the institution of the church, though churchly things may happen in denominations, they are not the church. I'd say, this is the problem not the institutional per se. When Tripp speaks of "institutional loyalty", I think he actually means denominational loyalty, though he also as a Baptist may mean congregational loyalty. But The problem isn't necessarily loyalty but a loyalty in the place of Christ and the Body of Christ. For instance demanding Loyalty to the Evangelical Covenant Church even though one knows that the Covenant church isn't the Body of Christ in its fullness. I am not sure right off hand what all is actaully wrong in denominationalism beyond the problem of loyalty, but I am quite certain it isn't the institutions of the sacraments, nor is it anything that helps us hand on the Gospel, ie Tradition. But in the end I think David Tripp and I are in agreement, this way of thinking, seeing evangelism as spiritual practice, and a Spirit lead and filled activity of listening sharing and naming first requires we evangelize ourselves and our own conversion. This itself may be a long process, especially as we Christians seem hang on to our anxiety about our loss of significance in the cultural and societal landscape, and in someway trying to find our way back to that influence. Granted it is an unfortunate reality that some (possibly looking like many) of our parishes and congregations will find themselves unsustainable. This is painful for those Christians and their pastors, and it is a threat to the continuation of some denominations. It may not be so dire but that fact that we all seem to know something is wrong and yet don't really want to ask some very fundamental questions like "is denominationalism really a good thing?", don't leave me too sanguine for the larger picture. Except in the cases where Christians are actually looking beyond survival and asking what it means to be Christian. I may disagree with many peoples answers at the moment, and tend to look to those aspects of Christian faith that can show some continuity that goes deeper than 500 years ago. What I found helpful and clear in Davids seminar was where it asked us to reflect on what it meant to be a Christian in action and relationship in the world. The rest was fascinating statistics and distractions.
Ps. I'll post more on this but on the way to my "office hours" for Reconciler having been reflection on evangelism all day and remembering my joy gratitude and wonder, and looking for holiness in the world, had three people talk to me on the way to the coffee shop. Granted I was wearing a colar as I usualy do. All three were in some form of need and a bit off, and a challenge to in relating and conversing. It leads me to an other reason why many people avoid this sort of attitude towards Christian faith it lead you into some strange places and to find oneself out of one's depth.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
A quote on Church evangelism and worship.
So, I have been attempting all week to post something but what I have attempted to write was still not ready to post. Couldn't find that place between posting something that could give some idea about my thoughts on some things I ahve been reading and short essays that really need more work and may or may not work for this blog.
So instead here is a quote from the last essay in Remembering our Future: Explorations in Deep Church.
"Church is not another organization primarily committed to individual or community development. It is a community of worship who express their love and gratitude to God. Worship is not the method of evangelism it is the sacrificial offering of the community in love with their redeemer and their creator; it is the spirit-filled response to a gracious invitation." Mark Wakelin "Education, Discipleship and community formation" (pg. 224, Remembering our Future)
I think I mostly agree with this, though I may nuance things a little differently.
PS. this is an interesting collection of essays of evangelicals and charismatics, mostly British who are attempting to get at Emergent questions and critique evangelicalism and charismatic renewal from the perspective of Tradition, or what they are calling Deep Church.
So instead here is a quote from the last essay in Remembering our Future: Explorations in Deep Church.
"Church is not another organization primarily committed to individual or community development. It is a community of worship who express their love and gratitude to God. Worship is not the method of evangelism it is the sacrificial offering of the community in love with their redeemer and their creator; it is the spirit-filled response to a gracious invitation." Mark Wakelin "Education, Discipleship and community formation" (pg. 224, Remembering our Future)
I think I mostly agree with this, though I may nuance things a little differently.
PS. this is an interesting collection of essays of evangelicals and charismatics, mostly British who are attempting to get at Emergent questions and critique evangelicalism and charismatic renewal from the perspective of Tradition, or what they are calling Deep Church.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Wind of Change
Johnny Indovina, the lead singer and songwriter of Human Drama, formed Sound of the Blue Heart in 2006. The band's second album, Wind of Change, was released mid July 2009. One can hear in this new album that Johnny Indovina was the stylistic driving force behind Human Drama, but also how Indovina and Sound of the Blue Heart are forging a new sound. The album simultaneously dips back into the Human Drama era and is a mark of departure from Indovina's previous work, including Sound of the Blue Heart's first album Beauty?.
When I was hanging out in the Goth scene in Los Angeles in the 1990s I was only vaguely familiar with Human Drama, even though they had been around L.A. since 1985. My friend who introduced me to the L.A. Goth scene, Alex Makarczyk (also lead singer of the now defunct L.A. band Delirium Blue), had met Johnny and the band as they were transitioning from being The Models, based in New Orleans, to Human Drama, based in L.A. At that time Human Drama was becoming a part of the Scream scene. Alex wasn't much impressed by their music or style but says they persisted and became part of the L.A. Goth scene, and improved as a band - though their "Romantic Operatic style" (as he recently put it) never appealed to him. Much of Human Drama's sound had a dramatic romantic element that, while often well done, just as often seemed unnecessary and overwrought - at times narrowly missing some of the bad Goth stereotypes. Indovina's lyrics, touted as meaningful, often seem to try too hard to be full of meaning. I find much of Human Drama's music corpus hit-and-miss, excelling in their covers, especially their cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and Neil Young's "Old Man," both named as influences of the band. (Ironically, Alex was at Human Drama's last concert in 2004 where they played with Faith and the Muse.) Human Drama's last album is sort of the epitome of the large romantic operatic style of their previous albums, with the lyrics dripping with meaning, but by the time of this album it feels like the band had exhausted this style. They had come to the limits of their sound. Interestingly, Johnny Indovina has indicated that this may have been part of the reason for the end of the band when explaining why the band had as their last recording a single cover of "Let it Be." He said that he wanted to write a song as good as this song which he sees as the best song ever written, but couldn't. The single of the cover was distributed to fans at that last concert with Faith and the Muse.
Indovina formed Sound of the Blue Heart in 2006 with the release of the album Beauty?. The two tracks I have heard off this album feel a bit aimless, clearly trying to break from Human Drama but not completely succeeding either as a break from Human Drama nor as its own thing. I was interested in what this second album would bring, and it offers hope in its title, Wind of Change. This second album has broken from the Human Drama age but keeps some of what I suppose I find compelling in Indovina's lyrics and songwriting from the Human Drama days. In Wind of Change Indovina has transformed the operatic and romantic into a certain meditative and ethereal sacred quality one finds in Dead Can Dance, and some of Faith and the Muse, but without reference to or use of chant or other medieval and Arabic-influenced sound. When Wind of Change fully achieves this quality, the music is hauntingly and subtly beautiful. Unfortunately Indovina continues to be an inconsistent writer of lyrics, and the temptation to the overly dramatic and romantic remains. This continued tendency overshadows what seems to be a meditative ethereal album. But then I am not a Romanti-Goth and that which sweats out meaning from every syllable feels overdone. Indovina has a penchant for the Baroque that unfortunately tends towards kitsch, but he is not alone among Goth acts that also fall into this from time to time: older releases from Black Tape for a Blue Girl come to mind. However, this tendency mainly shows up in the ballads on the album and does not color the whole album.
I do not know how fans of Human Drama and Indovina will receive this new Sound of the Blue Heart but I think they may find much that will feel familiar while being drawn into a new direction with Indovina: less drama and more searching that gives us a glimpse of something sacred- a beauty directed towards otherness. This is fitting for an album with such a spiritual title as Wind of Change. If Indovina and Sound of the Blue Heart continue in this direction I will certainly continue to listen. I am curious what it would be like to see them in concert, and hope to do so soon.
When I was hanging out in the Goth scene in Los Angeles in the 1990s I was only vaguely familiar with Human Drama, even though they had been around L.A. since 1985. My friend who introduced me to the L.A. Goth scene, Alex Makarczyk (also lead singer of the now defunct L.A. band Delirium Blue), had met Johnny and the band as they were transitioning from being The Models, based in New Orleans, to Human Drama, based in L.A. At that time Human Drama was becoming a part of the Scream scene. Alex wasn't much impressed by their music or style but says they persisted and became part of the L.A. Goth scene, and improved as a band - though their "Romantic Operatic style" (as he recently put it) never appealed to him. Much of Human Drama's sound had a dramatic romantic element that, while often well done, just as often seemed unnecessary and overwrought - at times narrowly missing some of the bad Goth stereotypes. Indovina's lyrics, touted as meaningful, often seem to try too hard to be full of meaning. I find much of Human Drama's music corpus hit-and-miss, excelling in their covers, especially their cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and Neil Young's "Old Man," both named as influences of the band. (Ironically, Alex was at Human Drama's last concert in 2004 where they played with Faith and the Muse.) Human Drama's last album is sort of the epitome of the large romantic operatic style of their previous albums, with the lyrics dripping with meaning, but by the time of this album it feels like the band had exhausted this style. They had come to the limits of their sound. Interestingly, Johnny Indovina has indicated that this may have been part of the reason for the end of the band when explaining why the band had as their last recording a single cover of "Let it Be." He said that he wanted to write a song as good as this song which he sees as the best song ever written, but couldn't. The single of the cover was distributed to fans at that last concert with Faith and the Muse.
Indovina formed Sound of the Blue Heart in 2006 with the release of the album Beauty?. The two tracks I have heard off this album feel a bit aimless, clearly trying to break from Human Drama but not completely succeeding either as a break from Human Drama nor as its own thing. I was interested in what this second album would bring, and it offers hope in its title, Wind of Change. This second album has broken from the Human Drama age but keeps some of what I suppose I find compelling in Indovina's lyrics and songwriting from the Human Drama days. In Wind of Change Indovina has transformed the operatic and romantic into a certain meditative and ethereal sacred quality one finds in Dead Can Dance, and some of Faith and the Muse, but without reference to or use of chant or other medieval and Arabic-influenced sound. When Wind of Change fully achieves this quality, the music is hauntingly and subtly beautiful. Unfortunately Indovina continues to be an inconsistent writer of lyrics, and the temptation to the overly dramatic and romantic remains. This continued tendency overshadows what seems to be a meditative ethereal album. But then I am not a Romanti-Goth and that which sweats out meaning from every syllable feels overdone. Indovina has a penchant for the Baroque that unfortunately tends towards kitsch, but he is not alone among Goth acts that also fall into this from time to time: older releases from Black Tape for a Blue Girl come to mind. However, this tendency mainly shows up in the ballads on the album and does not color the whole album.
I do not know how fans of Human Drama and Indovina will receive this new Sound of the Blue Heart but I think they may find much that will feel familiar while being drawn into a new direction with Indovina: less drama and more searching that gives us a glimpse of something sacred- a beauty directed towards otherness. This is fitting for an album with such a spiritual title as Wind of Change. If Indovina and Sound of the Blue Heart continue in this direction I will certainly continue to listen. I am curious what it would be like to see them in concert, and hope to do so soon.
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