The Contradictions of Our Being and Our Longings: A sort of Heideggarian theologico-anthropological reflection.

I have been confronted with contradictions lately: My own, of the varieties of Christianities demanding I recognize them as true (even if some may not use "truth" to describe their position, and "justice", "prophetic", "inclusion", and "welcome" are the preferred symbols that pretend to not be about "Truth" but are still claims to Truth). I feel the contradictions arise in an attempt to be full. Full of whatever is considered to be good. The contradictions also arise as the Good is defined by what is only present at hand. The contradictions arise then out of simply seeking to be, and yet believing that simply by acting according to our being there (or here) we can transcend whatever we believe to be false, evil or unjust (depending on the linguistic conventions we are comfortable with, though any of those linguistic conventions fails if they attempt to stand alone apart from the other.) But how can a being here (or there) and a being that is towards death, ever be full? How can any of my actions be truly and fully good, true, just, perfect?

It seems to me that my mortality, while simply part of being a creature (That is created and contingent) is also bound up in other limitations. As a being towards death I am always incomplete, partial. I am always already dependent on others: people, systems, institutions, technology. None of which are full of goodness.

I wonder if much progressive Christian emphasis on achieving a just world, while commendable seeks to in fact distract us from a longing we in our own effort and being can never achieve. I have long felt that conservative Christian emphasis on personal morality and narrow theological positions also so distracts us. We want to deny our being towards death and that there is only one escape from such a being: The Crucified Human Divine one who beat down death by death. He became Dasein that being towards death may lead to life, and fullness. But this way does not lead through our own efforts to be good, true, just, or correct.

I am always already Dasein, being there, a being towards death, incomplete and never full, grasping but never achieving, in its fullness, the Good. Only in accepting the coming of the Good, True and Just into the world of Dasein, can I ever hope to be full of the Good, I long for and long to be. But this means that now I am always already in contradiction, in two worlds, I am a being there and a being to come. I am a being towards death, a project whose completion is beyond my control, and yet in my hands, present to hand. I, in the face of the divine human one, must lay aside my seeking to be full, that I may be filled.

If our seeking and acting to be in the truth, to do the good, and the just, do we not hide from ourselves our own failures to be good, true and just? Yet at the same time these actions can lead us to lay aside pretensions of being fully these things, and embrace ourselves as beings who are contradictions, that is as projects, towards death. This laying aside or pretension and embrace of our being towards death, should also send us to the one who is full of all we long for and seek and who in being towards death passed through death to fullness of life. This one is the only true, good, just one, our only hope to be freed from our own contradictions that we hide from ourselves in our attempts to make the world, good, true and just.

In Los Angeles

My wife and I came out to LA for a Friends Wedding this past Saturday, and are staying on for a few days. The wedding was very beautiful ceremony. Roman Catholic wedding and the priest an elderly man who has been priest at the church for a very long time officiated. The priest weaved a quite beautiful and quirky commentary and explanation into the liturgy. A practice he explained he took up because he knows that Weddings include people often who rarely if ever go to church and of people of a variety of religious backgrounds. One friend commented that there seemed to also be a strong proclamation of the Gospel. I pointed out that yes that was there, but because the liturgy of matrimony and the Eucharist are when fully understood are themselves proclamations of the Gospel, so if one is going to give such a running commentary one is also going to be making explicit and thus evangelizing those in attendance.

I was able to meet and hang with some friends some of home I hadn't seen in 15 years others that I hadn't seen since Kate and I moved to Chicago. So the party was great fun and a time to become reacquainted.

The city of of Los Angeles itself seems to have undergone quite a change with the its public transportation which seems to be expanding and getting even more use than when we were last here two years ago. If the song "No one walks in LA" ever was true it certainly is not rue any longer. I am noticing on this trip a emerging distinction between Los Angeles proper and its surrounding suburbs. It feels more urban than it use to I was downtown on Sunday to see the Brewery Artist Colony(that is a separate post), and downtown was quite full of life something that I think was beginning to happen when we left for Chicago but not to this degree. In all LA itself is feeling more urban and I felt a difference driving down to the coastal towns and suburbs to the south that I had not experienced before in driving around LA.

Coming to LA is always a little strange for me. I have so much history here, and know it very well, but very significant changes have occurred in the last 11 years much of it connected with being in Chicago. To some degree it is a simple as that I wasn't married except for my last six months in LA and I wasn't a pastor. But Also I hadn't expected or planned to be the leader of a small intentional community or to plant a church. In any case for whatever reason being in LA feels odd and at times a little awkward, like encountering my old self that isn't radically different but different enough.

Last Night we went to the Goth club the Malediction Society, The moment I entered the club the awkwardness and weirdness of being in LA melted away. I am not exactly sure why that is. The LA Goth scene and the Chicago Goth scene each have their quirks. So it is not that the club felt exactly like a club in Chicago. It may be that the Goth subculture I chose in the last 7 or 8 years of living in LA, and something that has definitely persisted as part of my identity. We also ended up running into a guy we know from the Chicago Goth scene. Which was cool, though at first we were like is that... No it can't be he's in Chicago. Once we established that we knew each other from Chicago we didn't ask him nor he us why we were in LA.

Steampunk

Tonight we are having a birthday party for two members of the community: a steampunk birthday party. several of the members of the community have in the past year begun to take more interest in Steampunk. This feels very familiar to me because at least in terms of fashion and aesthetic I have long encountered elements of Steampunk in the Goth scene. At some point I'd like to discover what the connection if any between these Steampunk aesthetic and fashion elements in the Goth scene and the Steampunk literature. I wonder also if some would take issue with my connecting Steampunk and Goth. Certainly it is becoming a scene and sub-culture all its own. However, Goth often embraces and encompasses scenes and sub-cultures that are also separate from the Goth scene. The Fetish scene is one that immediately comes to mind, as does cyberpunk. I have heard there is now a Steampunk club or bar in LA. So, at least in LA it perhaps has moved beyond the goth scene though it seems to me that those into Steampunk in Chicago at least go to goth clubs.

So, this goth is very pleased that his Hippy house mate and Quaker house mate are into Steampunk aesthetic, it feels quite familiar and I have been seeing Steampunk fashion and aesthetic in Goth clubs for years.

Where to begin

I am immersed in many things. On the Goth end of things I have become involved with the magazine of Gothic Art Chicago, Kilter. On the other end I am now the sole pastor at Reconciler and our "annual meeting" this year has become a series of gatherings to sit and reflect together about Reconciler, our sense of call and how we see church.
There are a whole slew of reasons for not posting for two months, mostly it is various changes at the church. Thought it isn't the changes themselves necessarily but that I had been mulling some things, some of which has been coming out in sermons (that I would post except there have been no manuscripts, still working from notes and outlines, and the sermon is completed only in the preaching). I am sitting here typing probing to see if there is anything to report out of those musings. I am searching for a starting point. What I think I am attempting to work through is the connection between identity, appearance and faith, not just for myself but on some theoretical and generalizable way. Which may be why I am taking this season after Epiphany to preach a sort of series on discipleship. I looked at the lectionary readings for the period between the Baptism of the Lord and Ash Wednesday and I saw that it would be quite easy to preach consistently on the topic of discipleship.

I then came upon David Augsburger's recent book Dissident Discipleship, and each of his chapters seemed to be in someway following themes that could be found in the remaining weeks of the Season After Epiphany. I was a student of David Augsburger's at Fuller Theological Seminary, all in Pastoral Theology. In one of our meetings for a class (I don't remember which one) we had been sitting talking and were nearing the end of our conversation when inexplicably a book fell from the shelf right next to me. I picked it up and he asked me what it was (I don't know recall) I told him and he said "I several copies of that book, and if you want it I think it should be yours. I keep more than one copy of certain books to give out to students. Stumbling upon Dissident Discipleship just as i started to preach a series on Discipleship kind of felt like that moment of the book falling off Augsburger's shelf. I didn't know Augsburger had a new book out (publishing date of 2006) and I came across it while looking for another book that turned out to be unhelpful, or uninteresting, which is kind of the same thing. Then to find it parallel, at least in my mind, themes I was seeing in the lectionary texts for the next two weeks was just a little eerie, almost like the book falling off the shelf all those years ago was in fact this book and not whatever book I actually took out of his office.

It is odd reading Augsburger about ten years out from being his student. Although I am finding the book helpful for my preaching I also see that I am taking much of what he is writing in a direction he does not in the book. David Augsburger has become a companion on the way and not my professor. It makes sense but I had not chance to experience that until now reading his book as a resource and conversation partner as I prepare for preaching these next few weeks.

I have a rough manuscript from my sermon I preached on Sunday, that I used to create the outline I used in the pulpit. I will look at it and see if it is worth cleaning up and posting. I ended up not following the outline so the manuscript wouldn't be of the sermon I preached but more a parallel article on the same theme. There are other things but this is all I have for now I think.

Aftermath

Last Monday after an incident with a homeless man on the Sunday, I stepped out my door on rainy cool fall day. As I walked down the street with the yellow and orange standing starkly against the grey of the sky, I found twinges of fear come over me as a guy was walking towards me at some distance and put up his hoodie against the rain. People I would have passed with little thought were now a threat that my mind focused on and watched, just in case. This pattern worsened as I walked toward the "L" stop. By the time I got on the train I found my self resisting all my attention being put on select individuals who were black or Hispanic and looked for whatever reasons slightly threatening. I though was only vaguely aware of this narrowing of my attention and vision. I was on my way to the art store that I could get to be either staying on the Red Line or switching to the Brown Line. When I arrived at the last place to Transfer I had not decided whether to stay on the read and walk a little further or stay on the brown and take slightly longer to get there but not have to walk. As we got to the stop I noticed a guy who looked reminded me of Bill ever so slightly and before I knew as the doors of the car opened I was on the platform to avoid being in the same car as the man. I was shocked at my own actions and looked at the guy as he settled into a seat in the car and listed all the ways he looked very different from Bill, except being about the same height and black. Upon doing that I became fully aware how fear was threatening to take over and was narrowing my experience and how I had become aware of very little but what my paranoid instincts were focusing on out of a desire to seek out possible threats. I had never felt this way not since I was 12 in the first months of moving to inner city LA (Carson to be exact) and facing the violent environment of a large LA City Junior High School.

Monday after joining the ranks of those who call police and having to physically back up my non-violent beliefs to counter violence of word and action, I was feeling fear. I have traveled neighborhoods considered far more dangerous than where I live now traveled the CTA in the middle of the night and never felt the fear and anxiety I felt on Monday. So, I understand a little better some peoples anxiety for Kate and I that we would travel so freely and without fear in Chicago and lived for a time in Humboldt Park on a gang line. Thankfully as I came back from the store and in the rest of the week as I traveled on the CTA and walked through my neighborhood and the fear and anxiety have steadily abated. I have found just how this fear narrows ones attention upon the perceived potential threat, and this narrowing of attention is frightening in and of itself as ones attention is almost wholly on the source of the perceived threat and on nothing else in the surroundings. So at least as I experienced this fear and anxiety it is a sort of cascading of fear and anxiety that if one does not arrest it simply builds and builds. This is the opposite of how I generally engage my surroundings and live out my life. I am always aware of my entire environment, As I walk through my neighborhood I am aware of people that may be behind me or in front of me, but also notice the squirrels, plants, cats and the conditions of the sky. I do generally notice people who might be suspicious or groups gathered in a way that could be threatening, or at night people seemingly lurking in shadows, etc. Yet those things have never elicited fear and anxiety before. What I felt on Monday and diminishing all of last week (once inside a busy hardware store of all places!) I had never experienced or felt before. I was shocked how the fear caused me to cower and narrowed my attention so that in that fear and anxiety I became unaware of my surroundings. Thankfully I am now more or less back to my way of being in the world.

My mind is full

Let's see where shall I begin. In September I have co-officiated at a wedding, been working as a temporary church administrator at the church the AngloBaptist pastors, lead a weekend retreat for that same church (I had agreed to lead the retreat late spring long before the Anglobaptist asked if I needed some temp work), lead the retreat for the Community of the Holy Trinity, all the while keeping up with my pastoral responsibilities with Reconciler.

In the midst of all this there is much going on around us, the Presidential race of course is in full swing and we are finding ourselves in an economic crisis that brings up comparisons to the period that began the Great Depression.
My mind is full because I am still trying to process my experiences leading the two retreats the past two weekends and trying to figure out what I think about this Presidential race and the economic crisis we are in.

Until, this week I thought I was balancing all this pretty well. This week I have found myself a bit of a muddle, finding it difficult to remember where I am or what I am doing. At one point I answered the phones at the church with "the Community of the Holy Trinity... Larry speaking how may I help you." As I said the last bit I realized that I had not said the right name of the church, and was about to correct myself when it turned out it was a member of the church who was also at the church retreat so we ended up having a good laugh about my not knowing where I was. I am finding that keeping the life, schedule and patterns of three different religious communities in my experience and head is to much for one person. It has been fun to work with the AngloBaptist again even as his support personnel, but I will be glad when they will not need me anymore.

Holy Trinity's retreat at St Gregory's Abbey in Three Rivers Michigan was an amazing time. We prayed with the monks and reviewed our Rule and life together. In that we discovered somethings about ourselves that we want to continue to do and do so with greater intention and recommitted ourselves to aspects of the Rule that we had not been attending to recently. I think the highlight for me was when Abbot Andrew came and talked with us, and gave us an excellent brief history of Benedictine monasticism and western monasticism, and also was able to learn about our group enough to give us some suggestions on how we might adapt aspects of Benedictine sprirituality and practice to our context.

I thought there was a post here

It has been a while since I posted here. It has been a season of few posts this late spring and summer. The reasons are complex, but largely are due not so much to not having time as that there is alot going on that makes blogging and the interwebs more a distraction than an aid. Or in the least things that are uppermost in my life and spiritual journey are not easy to plot out in a blog post.
I am wrestling with community and the varieties of ways it is simplistically conceived in our context especially on the internet. Also, I am still living in that space I described in some posts this past spring of being on the edge of my faith and wondering about a nomadic faith. And it seems now that I am here to write a prolegomena about these sorts of things. I thought I might have something more specific to write, but now that I have sat down to type it has gone out of my head.
On a completely different note I have joined last.fm and am currently listening to some Darkwave, and was introduced to some German Darkwave I had not known before. Very nice. Last night I listened to a whole set of Psychobilly, very cool.
Well, that's it for now. Things are brewing and some of it may make it here. I am also preparing to lead a retreat for another church here in the Chicago area, and some of these things I am working out to lead that group through on their retreat. I am looking forward to that but it is also a good bit of work. Also, I am preaching this Sunday and it seems the contemplative mystical basis of our faith simply wont let me go. I will probably post on that sermon next week sometime. Or if there's something to share before I preach the sermon there might be post.

On Being Goth

This is another post inspired by visits from Google searches. As I have mentioned before, this blog regularly (several times a week often at least twice a day)get visitors here who come from a Google search such as "Goth Blog", "Goth" "Blog Goth" "Blogspot Goth". Also, as I have mentioned before I wonder what it is exactly people who place these searches are looking for and if what they find here fits what they are looking for or if what they find here is not at all what they were expecting. Given that most of these do not appear to stay long (though I am not certain of Sitemeter's accuracy on this) and as far as I can tell the people who make these searches and visit here tend not to come back.

For some reason I feel like I should offer something for those of you who find your way here wanting to read a Goth blog. What is a Goth Blog after all? Who are we these Goth's? This might be unfair to these searchers of blogs of the Goth kind but I imagine that at least some of them are hoping for some dark melancholy rants or poems, or some regular account of this or that drama in the goth scene. In that sense they are perhaps expecting (if my imaging in anyway hits the mark) a blog that is something like the Goth comic book GloomCookie.? Which btw is a great comic and very funny. If you are interested in things Goth and aren't so uber-Goth that you can't laugh at yourself and the Goth scene then you must find yourself a copy of Gloom Cookie. But I digress, Priestly Goth blog is nothing like GloomCookie. A simple glance at the tags on blog posts it is not what is written most about. Posts on faith and theology feature much more prominently. Yet, This is among other things a Goth blog.

I must admit that my imagined reasons of why someone would search "Goth Blog" in part has to do with how people not infrequently receive what in most instances appears to them as contradictory data: this person before me is both a goth and a pastor. There are of course many reasons these two things seem contradictory but I think one of them is that Goth is viewed as this all consuming thing. This reminds me that occasionally I get a visit from someone whose Google search is "Goth Philosophy". LOL, Oh that just cracks me up. I suppose one could (and I am at times) philosophical about being Goth, but I really don't know if there is a particular Goth philosophy or ideology, there is an aesthetic to being Goth, but not really a philosophical aesthetic. Though, come to think of it this is part of what creates the dissonance for many about Goth and Pastor and perhaps also which perhaps is what is intreageuing about Priestly Goth. Though I wonder if on first seeing the title of this blog a certain visitor has in his/her head another Goth stereotype, neo-pagan.

However, really while there perhaps aren't many pastors or priests who continue to publicly self-identify as Goth, I don't think I am that uncommon a Goth. You may brush shoulders in your office with a Goth without knowing it. We too have to have jobs and while we may not completely conform to office business attire one might be amazed at how one can twist corporate attire to the Goth aesthetic ever so subtly that only the astute may know. That temp in your office, just might have been a Goth (and might have been me and so also a pastor). My point while for some Goth is all encompassing perhaps even an obsession for many perhaps most Goths it is simply part of life we work, we may even get married, or at least have a partners, have kids etc. I do know some former Goths and it seems that to some degree for them Goth was this all encompassing thing. However it is quite easy to get the former Goths I have met and know to talk about things Goth and bands like Bauhaus, Sister's of Mercy, Dead Can Dance, the Cure etc., and they may even make it to a show now and then and even dress the part. Really, still Goth at heart. I will out (though really he hides this rather poorly so I don't feel too bad ) one of these My friend and former co-pastor the AngloBaptist. He does admit at times that part of his love for liturgical and clerical vestments and liturgy (liturgical vestments are flowy and at times black!) connects up with his old Goth self. But I he's working on the eccentric Southern gentleman thing which kind of occupies a similar terrain as goth as does his being in a Irish band.

My point is that to paraphrase Eddie Izzard: Goth is a much wider community, a wider community than you might think. We do not all obese with the various dramas that might play themselves out in the Goth scene in what ever city we live in, we are not all constantly depressed and under a little black cloud. So, ya I don't write much about being Goth or the Goth scene in Chicago, but write about theology and art and politics and movies. So, that temp with slicked back hair button down shirt, black dress pants, and black patent Kenneth Cole shoes might be a Goth, and the attendant at your towns community center... ya that guy with the blond buzzed hair in black jeans and faded black T-shirt and black engineer boots who plays basketball regularly with a league that plays in the gym, ya he's Goth too. Yes this blog is a Goth blog even though it doesn't have a black background and has no bad melancholy poetry, and little word about the ins and outs of the Chicago Goth scene. Just in case you were wondering and were scratching your head about "Goth" in the title of this blog and were disappointed in what you've found.

A.O.T.C. the Association of the Cross

Within the last five days I have received two visits to my blog based on Google searches for the Christian Punk band Association of the Cross also known as AOTC. My Goth Roman Catholic friend Alex Makarczyk's younger brother, and also a friend of mine, Jamie was the bassist for the band. As I have mentioned here before they were part of the LA Christian music scene in the mid to late 1980's. The second hit also had the name Neal Vorndran. I had forgotten he was the drummer for AOTC as well as the band Delirium Blue that Alex Fronted. I don't think any of the members of AOTC still play in any bands. Jamie I think still does sound and lighting for community theater in LA among other things. Neal I didn't know well in part because after he got married his relationship with Alex and Jamie sort of faded away (there was some conflict between them as well but I don't remember the details and not actually relevant to this post or blog anyway.)

I didn't know Jamie or Neal when AOTC were still together as a Band. By the time I met Alex the three of them had formed Delirium Blue (though the two bands may have overlapped for a time). I also knew the guitarist of AOTC, Denise Taylor, but not well. I probably also met the front man Mike Smith, unless he had already moved on.

I am not sure what has prompted to people one from Minnesota the other from Kentucky to Google Association of the Cross and Neal Vorndran (I believe I misspelled his name in previous posts) but the author of this blog new the members of the band (after the band had broken up) and still keeps contact with one of the members.

Also I discovered that AOTC made into a CCM newsletter Alternative Christian Music Enthusiast(ACME), published between 1983 and 1986. According to a comment on the blog cataloging the newsletter ACME was published by a couple of Students at Taylor University. ACME had an article on AOTC in their May 1985 issue.

Well this might all be uninteresting to most of my readers but maybe of interest to someone.

It's been quite a Weekend

Friday night Kate and I went with a friend to see One of the Girls Play at the Town Hall Pub. ( Tripp also has his own account of the show here and of this weekend here) The guy checking ID's and taking money at the door was quite chatty and Kate was flirting with him (as she does with waiters, or bouncers or other service industry types. She comes by it naturally her grandmother did it and her mother does it.) Eventually he asked if this was the first time seeing the band commenting that they were good guys. I answered saying not only was this not our first time seeing the band but one of the members of the band was my co-pastor. Which was a little bit of a mistake, because then I had to try to explain what an ecumenical congregation was to someone who knew enough to ask what denomination, but not enough for "ecumenical" to have any meaning, and simply gave me a blank stare as I attempted over loud music and echoing conversation that three denominations were represented. He then said so kind of congregational. Kate answered yes kind of like that and not. It then hit me that after this weekend I could no longer say my co-pastor was in the band. Friend yes, fellow pastor and colleague, yes, but not co-pastor of a congregation we started.

The show was good fun, as always. One has not truly heard "I wanna be Sedated", by the Ramones, until you have heard One of the Girls cover it. There is nothing so in the spirit of Punk and yet so not Punk as to see a man on an upright base just go nuts jumping, well more like bouncing, around his base, and and see someone wail on a mandolin, and with the accordion in the mix, and it is just amazing! It occurred to me as I and most those in the pub were singing along with "I wanna be Sedated" as well as a number of other tunes One of the Girls played, that I should have answered Charlie Peacock's question about the last time one had sung along to music, was at a One of the Girls show.

There were several people from Reconciler at the the show, and I had a beer. About the time I was thinking of having a second, friends of ours invited me to help them finish off a pitcher saying they couldn't finish the pitcher on their own "...so why don't you get a glass and help us finish the pitcher." So I did. Helping them finish the pitcher I think meant that I had two more glasses of beer. And then they ask if I would have another beer, and I said I probably would and so another pitcher came. I think I had at least two more glasses of beer. I haven't drank that much alcohol in awhile so I got a bit drunk. On the bus home it dawned on me that I didn't really know how much I drank. I do not like hangovers, and so I try to avoid them. But sometimes you are just enjoying yourself and the company and a good band and friends ply you with beer. So, needless to say I did not get up very early Saturday morning.

Then Tripp picked me up Saturday afternoon to move a piece of furniture, a very large and heavy armoire from a friends house to his. The trick was that we had to maneuver it through some very narrow steep twisty stairs. We got it down mostly with out injury, Tripp smashed his thumb a little. Then when we got it to the SUV we found that it did not fit through the back gate of the car. It would have fit in the cab if it wasn't for all the ergonomic rounding off of corners. So we ended up leaving it in Tripp's friends storage unit in the building.

Then yesterday was Tripp's last Sunday at Reconciler. Tripp preached in good Baptist fashion a kickass farewell sermon. And we had a party for him after worship at the 'Nidge. Good fun. the party ended with those of us remaining most of whom were some kind of Southern (Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas) and swapped southern family stories. As the party ended It occurred to me that I had seen alot of Tripp this weekend, Which I think bodes well for our continuing friendship. Though it will be a little odd not working together as pastors. Tripp and I met and have become friends around the work of Reconciler, but we are truly friends beyond our work with the church. Working with Tripp the past three and a half years has been amazing and of God. Like Tripp I know his leaving now is God's timing and of God, and what Tripp needed to do, but I will miss the camaraderie of the past three years.

I don't have the One of the girls version of, but here's the Ramones video of "I wanna be Sedated." Enjoy!

On Set Again

It has been quite a weekend. On Saturday I had the opportunity to be on a film set again. I was able to do so because, Reconciler had a joint service for All Saints Sunday with our host congregation Immanuel Lutheran Church and the Arabic congregation that also worships at Immanuel, Saint Elias Christian church, and I had no role in the leadership of the worship service, Laura our episcopal priest presided and the pastor of Immanuel preached. Since All Saints Sunday is a sort of combination of All Saints Day and All Souls Day Immanuel has a period in the service of lighting candles for those who have passed on and I was asked to create two stations with Icons and people also brought images of those who have died and have played a significant role in their spiritual lives. I set up these Friday night.

Then Saturday I was on the set of a Fringeelement Entertainment production, a promotional trailer for an up coming film. Kate is the Art Director, she also was recently the Art Director of a Fringeelement short currently called "Fall". Kate needed an extra hand for her art department crew so I was an art PA for the day. I love being on a film set, though it is hard to account for how great it is to be on set and work on a film.

Behind the scenes film work is a lot of work, at times boring (there is often alot of waiting, generally being on set is anything but glamorous. Filming also has a strange rhythm to it or perhaps a complete lack of rhythm. Especially for art: mad dash to get actors in costume and make up, get a set dressed, and then you wait. One waits to touch up an actors make up or fix some aspect of a set, or ready with a prop an actor needs (once yesterday I stood by with scored chalk as a young actor was filmed breaking chalk as she wrote and a chalkboard). Then you rush to strip down the set and move on to the next scene/location, and repeat above. And I loved it, not as much as I did being script supervisor for Clive, and if I worked on movies on a regular basis I do not think I'd want to be part of the art department. I want to have an excuse to be at the camera. At times in the art department you have an excuse to be around the camera but much of the time your off somewhere else making sure everything looks good and is ready to shoot, or returning a set to its previous condition.

Eventually it came up with various people on set that among other things I am a pastor(since some of those on set yesterday know me, Steve Luce the director is a friend and is also the founder of Back Burner Films the AD was an actor in Clive, it was perhaps inevitable that it would come up.) Some are intrigued by the revelation, others are surprised and taken back, and others ignore the revelation (I think either because it is an irrelevant piece of information about me or it makes them visibly uncomfortable.) The greatest response to this revelation yesterday was a not uncommon response but it is the most satisfying. "I would have never guessed." I like that response because it evidences a breaking of a conception of who and what a pastor is. It is though even for me a little odd to have been on set All day Saturday, and then to be in church the next morning as a pastor and then going to lunch with some of my congregation, and talk about my day on set the day before. I like my life I love film and being on set and I love pastoring, it can though get a little surreal feeling as a flit between different groups and different environments that don't mix in most peoples lives.

Much has happened

The past 10 days or so have been very full. I haven't posted much because either I have not been near a computer or I have been busy with various things.
St Gregory's Abbey is as one of my readers noted a holy place. Upon arriving I could feel just how much I had gotten caught up in rushing about, as much in my head as actual activity. Praying with the brothers helped slow me down a bit. I also ran into at the monastery one of the professors at North Park Theological seminary. We had not been in much contact since my graduation and it was good to see him. He was finishing up a retreat as I was beginning mine.

Upon ariving back from the St Gregory's I had to jump back into the flow of things, there was Reconciler stuff of course, but also finishing up the icons I have been painting. I was also preparing for the wedding I officiated this past weekend. So much of last week is a little bit of a blur, with writing the homily for the wedding, and making sure any last minute details were taken care of on my part for the wedding, working on the icons (I was able to finish one of the two). I flew out of Chicago at 8 in the morning on Friday heading to California for Bear and Kristi's wedding.

the flight was fine and arrived on time in Oakland but then there was some problems with availability of cars at the car rental place, and then what could have been an hour and a half drive to Healdsburg, in Sonoma county,where the wedding was, took a little over three hours due to construction and late Friday afternoon traffic. So that meant I did not see where the wedding was to be held until Saturday, the day of the wedding.

The only complication was that I realized once I arrived that I did not have paten and chalice nor linens for communion. So I spent Saturday morning shopping in Healdsburg for items that could serve those purposes in the midst of a festival celebrating the towns 150th aneversary. But it all worked out the wedding went more smoothly than the others I have officiated at. No unforeseen last minute complications. The reception was fun and the food was some of the best food I have had, and possibly the best food I have had at a wedding reception.
Sunday I was able to meet my parents and sister at a Covenant church in the area, and had an early lunch and then drove back to Oakland for a late afternoon flight and I arrived home a little after midnight last night.

I have been in some very beautiful places the past several days. And also have experienced many things that have given me much food for thought. So, I have thoughts and reflections on most of what happened in the last 10 to 12 days, we'll see how much makes its way into blog posts.

Intermitent

This title pretty much describes my posting on this blog, and my reading of other peoples blogs. It isn't something completely intentional. I don't post for a few days and then.... I find its been two weeks since I last published a blog post, and then as often as not that I have posted hardly at all in the last three to four weeks. And such is the case this time.

Then I do as I am doing now and write a post about it. I do so because this pattern is a bit of a puzzle, largely because I have things to write about and post but when I have time to post I have no desire to do so, and when I am busy with other things my mind is full of ideas. For example I have been working on a post on Oscar Wilde for weeks, its still just a draft amongst my posts and its not the only draft sitting there.

Part of it is that I am very much aware of the public nature of this medium, and that does effect what I write here. What I do or do not write here can effect people I know. That thought can be paralyzing, especially when I have no desire to write here that which might be silly or inconsequential. My words have consequences and although at the moment those consequences are limited they are very real.

Writing this I think I have discovered the cause of my recent slowdown in blog posts. At the beginning of July I discovered that a post I made quite awhile ago had hurt someone close to me and it had taken them a long time to ask me about it. It was mainly a misunderstanding and a feeling that I had spoken ill of something they not only held dear but also believe in quite strongly. And I found myself in a peculiar situation, sorry that I had offended and hurt this person but not sorry for what I wrote, nor the opinion I expressed and continue to hold.

This has probably effected my posting not so much because of the disagreement and hurt, but because had I said what I said to the particular individual in person, I probably would have known more or less immediately the effect of my comment. But also what I wrote was not directed at the individual effected, in fact I was simply expressing my opinion about the state of American Christianity using an experience and a group of Christians we held in common. At times the idea that these words of mine simply sit out there and it seems that at least at times it takes awhile for the effects of these worlds to come home to roost. That is a daunting thought for this introvert who uses this blog to explore his thoughts, many of which are formed in the process of posting, like has happened with this very blog post.

I knew there was something to my not posting in the last couple weeks and to the current infrequency of posts, I just couldn't put my finger on it until I started typing.

Weighing ones words as you are exploring new thought territory can be exhausting work, work I at times simply don't have the energy for even if I have things I want to write about.

I brood. At times I like to brood in this "space", but this is very public place to do so. It reminds me of my experience of the poetry scene Kate and I were a part of in LA, Poetic License. I loved the reading, enjoyed the people, but there was this expectation of regular reading, or at least I felt pressure to do so. Sometimes I wanted to spend several readings in a row simply letting the words of poetry wash over me, and interact little with the other poets. Brooding in public is often frowned upon. This is perhaps another reason why I like Goth clubs: brooding is completely acceptable and no one expects you to be particularly social or cheery. If you want you can dance the night away or sit in a dark corner of the club and no one will bother you. It is quite wonderful. Which reminds me it has been far too long since I have been to a club. There is a new Goth club in Chicago on Tuesday nights that I have yet been to, that is a situation that needs to be repaired.

So, ya if there is nothing new here for a few weeks, just know that I am off brooding and/or dancing the night away amongst my fellow Goths. I'll be back sooner or latter, sometimes its best not to brood in public or do it where no one will mind.

Eight Things about Me: meme

Tripp "foolishly" (his word not mine)tagged me and I "foolishly" posted.
Here are the rules...

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3.At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

The radom facts habits:

1) During the nearly 38 years of my life I have lived in the country on a farm, in a small town, in the suburbs, in the inner city and in the city.

2) The longest I have live anywhere has been LA and I do not consider it home.

3)Have I mentioned I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

4)When I was 8 and 9 my family live in France in a small town outside Bordeaux.

5) I can't manage to speak French but I can read and understand most things said to me in French.

6)At Birthday parties when I was a kid I would refuse a second helpings of cake and I still do not like sweets all that much.

7) I do some of my best thinking while taking naps- If I need to write or solve some problem I often need to take a nap and when I wake I have what I want to write or have solved the problem.

8) I have come to prefer public transportation to driving a car in the city.

Jorge, Huw, Vince, Steve of Notes from the Underground, Amy, Benjamin, Katya, Geoff

Reflection on Preaching Blogging and other things in my life

My energies have been elsewhere. I am not one that can easily dash off a blog post, when I am not ready or don't have the energy to write something substantial. In part this is because I don't want to say something just for the sake of having something to post on my blog. I have plenty of things I'd like to blog about, but none of my ideas of come into a coherent form. Plus, preaching is becoming more challenging. I am honing my style and skill, but also, I think Reconciler is growing as a congregation and it is a more challenging place to preach than it was a year ago. I am also growing as a pastor and I am more aware of the various currents in our small congregation. So since I posted at Pentecost I have been preparing for and recovering from preaching on the Trinity for Trinity Sunday.

I am attempting to work out how I want to present my sermons now that I don't write out a manuscript. My process seems to be to write a rough manuscript and then reduce it to an outline, and expand the outline and then preach with simply outline and Scripture text. Which means the sermon is only finally "written" when I preach. From the responses of my colleagues, congregation and wife this process is very good for preaching. However, thus does mean I don't have a coherent written form to post on the congregations blog. At the same time I am finding that my theology is being clarified and formed by may preaching, that I think it is worthwhile to find a way to have a written form of what I have been preaching of late.

In a sense I am doing theology with my sermons. Now one might say, isn't that what sermons are preached theology? Well yes, or at least I hope so, but in the past my preaching has been a form of applied theology. I would read the texts and say oh yes this is what I feel lead to say around these texts, things I already knew about the texts. But now I am finding that the Scriptures are pushing my own thinking and reflections and that I am finding my thinking formed in the process of sermon preparation.

And that is only one development. I am painting more, and have more ideas for painting. I have also been asked to write an icon for my friends Wedding in the fall. And I will probably be making a processional cross for Reconciler. The Pulse was great and we are in the process of planning the next one, while that is quite wonderful planning such a thing even when I am not the main organizer takes energy and time.

I have been for sometime rethinking certain positions I left seminary holding. Can't really say my positions have changed, put I can't say either that they haven't. On these issues it isn't so much the conclusions I believe to be wrong as what underlies the conclusions, and some assumptions and presuppositions held that I am now questioning. This largely I think is the fruit of a trajectory I began to head down right at the end of my seminary and only took full root in the two years between receiving my M. Div. and being called to join the church planting team of Church of Jesus Christ Reconciler. This trajectory was in taking more seriously that the Church is a particular thing, and that the Gospel is not simply an idea that can take a number of possible forms but is itself a form. That is Tradition rightly understood is a necessary component of Church and Gospel. I cannot understand the Gospel unless I understand its form and the its development through its transmission from Jesus and the Apostles to our own time. Taking on such a robust view of Church and Gospel challenges much of what passes for Christianity in our current context, as well as challenges positions I have held and still hold.

Time to mul and reflect, or "I'll emerge sooner or latter"

Last Friday I was going to post a longer reflection in response to a post by the Winged Man. And didn't. Might do so still. You can read the core of what that post would be or might be in the comments I left on that post.

I keep meaning to post something here, but it takes to much energy. I do not seem to have the ability (other than in this meta way)of quickly shooting off a blog post. What you encounter here is fairly filtered, as I believe such a public forum as a blog should be.

What this filtering means is that at times I have a lot of things on my mind, but none of it ready for posting. the Winged Man's post is just one of many topics and ideas floating around in my brain, and that is stuff that doesn't have to do with sermons to be preached and Bible Studies to lead. Those take a good bit of energy as well.

So the week or so of not posting is due to this pattern of needing to work through my thoughts until they become cogent enough for presentation.
One post I have attempted twice now to write up is on Christendom, but my thoughts are still too disorganized.

I also find that in this phase of things I also read other blogs less, and the Internet itself is just a little odious. Essential e-mail and that is about all, maybe read a news article or two, one or two blogs but that is about it.

I have thought just about finished the paining I have been working on and will post a photo of it in it nearly finished stage today.

A Moment in My Current Spiritual and Intelectual Development

On occasion I review my approach for this blog. One of the reasons I finally decided to start a blog in the fall of 2004 was to have place to develop my thoughts.
I realized today that I hadn't finished updating this template after the move to the new blogger. (that work is still to be done in the side bar)so in the process on working on the blog I ended up reviewing my archives and ran across three posts written in February 2005 that i think mark a significant moment in my current thinking and spirituality.:
The first post was occasioned by a friend of ours leaving Chicago to become a novice in a monastery, he ended up deciding not to become a monk.
the second post was a further reflection on the issues I was exploring in the first and developing in conversation with Graham Ward's book Cities of God .
The third was an attempt to contextualize the first two posts and concluded with these words:"My hope is that for myself and those of you reading this that we may renew our minds that we would truly come to share the Mind of Christ in the area of our sexuality, letting go of what ever sexual ideology and soteriology we may hold."
I spoke of sexuality and "sexual ideology", because that was the primary focus of these posts. However, what I was writing and attempting to articulate was much broader than issues of human sexuality. I set my mind and self from that point very clearly to the seeking of the renewing of my mind and gaining some portion of the Mind of Christ. This has lead me to question most everything I had come to hold and the thought I had developed through out my years in the academy and seminary. some of it has stood up firmly under this scrutiny, some of it is now uncertain, and some of it has been left completely behind in this seeking after the Mind of Christ.
I think these three posts mark an important moment in my recent intellectual and spiritual development, and so I bring them forward now as I think they may bring to light what had become oddly implicit in my preaching and in my comments on various things. I was struck how what seems to me to be such a significant turn in my thinking could have so readily become implicit. Of course I have also moved from that moment and the ideas in those posts do not exactly reflect where I am at now but the do point out a trajectory that I am still following. Understanding that trajectory may be important for understanding some posts I have been intending to write.

Reminiscence of Poetic License occasioned by the Deathof a Friend

A friend of mine from Kate's and my time in the LA/Hollywood poetry scene, Donn Deedon, died recently at the age of 67. The venue was Poetic License and it was held in various cafes around the LA area, Pasadena and Hollywood mainly.
Donn always wore a fedora with long mop of grey hair cascading down with a goatee. He smoked cigars. He was a good poet, though at the moment I have to admit that I don't remember any of his poems. But then I did and still do have a love hate relationship with poetry readings. Donn though was one of the poets the definitely made Poetic License a good place to read and hang out.
Donn was about living life to the fullest, I think he probably crammed more life in his 67 years then many people who live well beyond that. That lust for life made him very enjoyable to be around, it also made him quite opinionated. He had experienced various situations of life. I seem to remember he understood though that there was a cost to this sort of life, a cost he was willing to pay. I seem to remember him being critical of the laziness of some of the younger poets. They looked up to Donn but he seemed to think at times that they weren't willing to do the hard work to experience life to the full.
I don't think I will forget that broad faced smile that often crossed his face, nor the selective way he would reveal things about his life. There was always a bit of mystery to Donn Deedon.
However, we differed on what constituted a full and exuberant life, not all experience is good or necessary. Not knowing how he died I don't know if his approach to life contributed to his early (or so it seems to me) death, but I would not be surprised if that was the case.
My life is richer for having known Donn Deedon.
Lord Have Mercy.

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Weather

We have had warm almost summery weather here in Chicago. Today we have a more typical spring day in Chicago: overcast rainy and temperatures in the forties (Farenheit). I couldn't be happier. I love days like today, possibly more than Sunny and warm days.
I realized though that i find myself comiserate with others who find the drearyness of such days to be unpleasant, as if I too think days like this are unpleasant. But I don't deny that today is a gloomy day, it just weather like this makes me very happy.
So, I am glad our almost summer weather has left us and probably wont be back until the end of May or early June.
I have no idea why I wanted to post on this.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog program.

Things seem to be hitting the Fan

I have meant to post in the past few days. But the weekend didn't quite go as planned. Still settling into this new schedule. And I recieved some distressing news, that is depressing and could have a significant effect on not only my future but a number of other people as well. I have plenty of things to post about just no real desire to do so.When I get some clarity on the meaning of the piece of news I recieved last week, I will probably blog again. I hope that will be soon.
I am being criptic, I know but not in the mood to explain especially in this forum but did want to at least give an explanation for my absence when I had of late been posting regularly to this blog.