Where do they (the Methodists) go from here?

I have to admit that when I speak with clergy in the United Methodist Church, I have this feeling of deja vu.

All over again.

That's not surprising, because this denomination has been struggling with the same questions around gay ordination and gay unions/marriages as has the Episcopal Church.

And though their struggle has made front-page news recently, with medieval-sounding ecclesiastical trials, defrockings and meetings to probe clergy orthodoxy, the UMC has been in the thick of it for as long as the Anglicans.

In the case of the Episcopal Church, conservatives, many of them, decided to find another church home.

That, sadly, may also be the case with some of the dissidents in the United Methodist Church. It's rather hard to see how the center will hold.

Because they are a global church, and meet as one in General Conference, they are even more prone to being influenced by the growing congregations of Africa and their more conservative point of view than were the Episcopalians (though we are part of the Anglican Communion).

As I interviewed area clergy I was impressed by how deeply divided they are, how weary of the controversy, and yet how compelled these clergy are to adhere to their different positions.

We (Episcopalians) are a much smaller shop. Because of that, what happened to us may matter less than a split among Methodist ranks.

I hope, for their sake, that it doesn't happen. Perhaps, like the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), clergy, laity and congregations will find ways to stay together in spite of their disagreements.

But whatever the result of this long, drawn out fight, one thing seems clear -- it is not going to make churches more winsome to newcomers and those seeking to find a spiritual identity amid growing American secularism.

In the meantime, though, they are, as we were, a reliable source of interesting news stories.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/936785_UMC-debate-continues-on-heels-of-defrocking.html

Logs -- and the current

I'd forgotten what this kind of grief was like, how it claws at your insides and renders you mute, or crazed, or afraid.

But under all of these emotions is a deep sense of helplessness, and one of incredulity.

Over and over again, I go over the steps that led us here, and wonder what I could have done differently.

Having lost a sibling when he was young, I am acquainted with the kind of loss that changes your life forever.

After my brother died, I decided that, as much as I could,  my life would be bent towards hope, and open to possibility.

Every Christmas since the one in which he did not come home to see us, his New York family, I have learned, as one using a prosthetic limb, to navigate more easily, with less pain and fonder memories.

But not this one. For reasons which I cannot share here, this holiday has become a festival of horror.

Family splintered.

Relationships sundered.

And over, just over the horizon, the spectre of illness and of potential loss.

What hubris to think that I could create a happier home, and fill it with wisdom, temperance and laughter.

Those aren't my gifts to give. Or perhaps it's fairer to say that they are, in my hands, fleeting and volatile.

It is possible that being a parent will break me, I think sometimes.

My struggle to rescue my fading relationship with one of my children has already broken my heart.

In the wake of the devastation of the past few weeks, no choice seems right.

There are moments when I am free to laugh, to listen, to question.  Blessed with a natural, or perhaps an unnatural degree of curiosity, there are times when I can lose myself in my work.

Is all lost?

I wish I had an answer to that question. I wish I knew if, even if one child is lost to you, it is possible to walk again towards healing -- or if I will limp so much that people will often notice.

One thing is sure -- I am blessed in my friends.  Though I cannot share with all, I have been compelled to alert a few.

They have been wonderful.  Finding the right word at the right time, they comfort me and challenge me to keep forgiving, keep moving, look ahead.

Most of all, they find something worthy in me when I look on the floor and see broken shards of a life I once dreamed could be redeemed, and even, in some small way, redemptive.

It is your words, my friends, that get me through the long darkness of the nights -- and give me strength to face the morning.

If this is indeed grace, and I assume it is, I wish I didn't need so darned much of it.

Not that I am turning help away.

Every step I take in the roiling water is due to God's mercy and the log a friend puts in my path.

Else I should be lost.

Ecumenical dialogue veterans ask: what will Pope Francis do?

My column in Reuters FaithWorld today includes comments from some high-ranking Protestants, among them the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Where do you think the pontiff will take ecumenical discussions?

What will be the "hot-button" issues?

Or will the Vatican focus more on housecleaning.

Please feel free to share your ideas.

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2013/12/20/guestview-among-u-s-ecumenists-pope-francis-kindles-cautious-hope/

Can we follow where he leads?

The man of the year washes the feet of prisoners, reaches out to gays and atheists, has a reformer's passion for change -- and wears orthopedic shoes instead of the scarlet footwear of the Fisherman (not that many actual fisherman wear bright red shoes.

But can we do more than admire him?

Can we actually imitate him (as in "imitatio Christi")?

I have to admit, I wonder how much of the popularity of this Pope is due to the fact that we like what he preaches.

Which doesn't mean that we are really all that good at practicing it.  Read my Lancaster column, and let me know what YOU think.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/931400_Column--Can-we-follow-where-Pope-Francis-leads.html

The end of Advent? And how to bring it back.

Before, I could rest in the bliss of virtual ignorance.

Now, because of Facebook, I am aware that many of my friends already have their trees up.

Not only are they standing in foyers and living rooms, but the trees are actually adorned with shiny bulbs, and ribbons, and lights, glimmering out into the darkness.

Not in our home.

We've got a tradition of waiting until it's almost Christmas Eve before we commit to a tree.

A few days before the holiday, I race down to Dan Messner's farm, and choose one of the last ones.

And we certainly don't decorate our tree before Christmas Eve.

Until then, (or so I learned as a new Christian), it was Advent.

Greenery? Appropriate.

A few chaste ribbons? Lovely.

But an abundance of lights and metal and gorgeous frippery?  That's meant for the season of Christmastide.

I was, in other words, an Advent purist (I also am allergic to Christmas music 24/7 for a month before the actual day, so perhaps that makes me an Advent snob).

But a few days ago, I realized something incredibly elementary: it's possible to separate a large, decorated, fragrant fir tree from a man crucified on a tree.  Or even from a small baby asleep in his crib, surrounded by the a family and barnyard cows.

After all, the fashion of adorning trees with ornaments came in with, let's see, Prince Albert. I believe it was the German priest who married young Victoria who really introduced the celebration to England. From thence, like many other wonderful traditions, it made its way over here to the former colonies.

http://www.historytoday.com/alison-barnes/first-christmas-tree

Not to mention that we mark the birth of the Christ child around the time of an ancient pagan festival, the Saturnalia.

In other words, Christmas can be celebrated in ways both secular and sacred.

The secular celebration doesn't have to start the night before Christmas (when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, because, you see, we have two cats...).

I do object to Christmas at Thanksgiving (or, even worse, Christmas in October), but to each his or her own.

Not everyone who commemorates the holiday is a Christian, and this is a secular country. So if you like an abundance of decorations, music and greens, bring 'em on.

What troubles me is that we seem so caught up in rushing around that, even those of us who follow Christ seem to have closeted, tamed,  and forgotten the reason we celebrate the liturgical season of Advent.

What ever happened to waiting, watching, forgiveness and expectancy?

I happen to be a fan of the liturgical calendar, but in many churches, including my own, it has taken a back seat to other priorities.

The calendar disciplines us, teaches us. The ancient stories of the prophets, the Baptists, the birth remind us that we are timebound creatures.

That sometimes, all we can do is wait.

This waiting itself is a gift from a generous God.

Sometimes we don't know what fruit that waiting will bear until it (he?) appears.

I'm not even sure (perhaps this sounds a wee bit like heresy) that we need to celebrate the birth of the Christchild at Christmas.

Perhaps what I ought to say is that as long as we celebrate God's coming among us in every season, it's o.k. to indulge in all of the very secular festivus that goes along with this particular day in December.

And, while we're at it, let's not confine expectation to Advent. 

Hope, and humility, fear and awe, joy and fulfillment are part of a life lived in the shadow of grace.

Maybe we'll buy a tree a few days early this year.  And perhaps I'll try to see more, feel more...wait more.

After all, I don't want to miss any signs of His presence among us.

Even if he shows up before December 25.

Why I indulge in 50 Shades of Gray

 I'm surrounded by partisans, fire-breathing men and women of strong convictions.

They know black from white (sorry if you thought I might be WHIPPING a dead horse in this post, or CHAINED to reviewing a certain novel).

They sleep well at night.  They aren't dogged by questions, don't wonder if they got it right, veer from ambiguity like a mediocre wine.

They are my friends, my colleagues, my sounding boards. I have many friends who would as soon agree with each other on political, religious or ethical matters as swim the English Channel. In winter. In a bikini.

I'm in the muddled middle -- which can be, and often is, a rather lonely place.

Part of my inability to commit stems, as I confessed to a friend recently, from my understanding of history as a playground, oftentimes a battleground, of competing ideas.

Men and women have behaved nobly in the past.  They have also treated one another with disdain, ignorance and violence.

Reforming movements have bred bad outcomes. Evil men and women have accidentally done good.

(I'm sure, at this point, I've ticked a few people off. After all, how can corruption breed anything but ill?).

Another element of my ambivalence? I have a family that includes a multitude of political viewpoints. We choose to live together and love each other, even when we drive one another crazy.

It's hard to think you have cornered the market on righteousness when your second cousin once removed has a very different point of view.

There are a few matters on which I am absolutely, some would say rigidly, convinced that science and reason are on my side.

Yet as a convert to Christian faith, I am also very much an outsider.  In some ways that is a gift -- but an equivocal gift indeed.

Belonging to any clan, or sect, is often an outgrowth of where, when and with whom you grew up.

I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, a jongleur, a curiosity.

If you allow, I'll sit down beside you, listen to your story, and ask if I can walk beside you for a while.

But whether by choice or by nature, I find, I cannot stay in one place for long.

I envy you who can.

What we lose when we lose Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving -- it really didn't begin with the Pilgrims.  Yes, they had days of thanksgiving for the harvest, for God's providence, and for their ability to survive in this new land.  (I don't know if they dealt with the moral complexity of surviving at the expense of native peoples. That's a fascinating question for those who have dug deep into early American literature).

But Thanksgiving, the holiday was institutionalized by President Lincoln in 1863. It became a reality during the Civil War, when we really probably could not have been more torn as a nation.

It was, and is, a day when families get together (and strangers are invited to share a meal). A time for celebration. A moment in the year when we take a Sabbath (broadly defined) from our divisions.

That's the ideal, anyway.  As I said in a previous post, the reality is that we are a very divided country right now -- and this Thanksgiving had, at least in the media, a distinct air of anxiety.

To my mind, opening the stores and besieging us with coupons and emails is a slap in the face of our traditions, and our sense of community.

Going shopping on Thanksgiving is so...Donald Trump.

Being behind a cash register on Thanksgiving because you have been coerced into it is so..."Brave New World."

From my perspective,  it's time to rebel against the ongoing onslaught of commerce that has infested every corner of our life.

For our health.

For our sanity.

For our brothers and sisters sake. That, in part, is what my column is about -- my attempt to rabblerouse and to stir you up a little bit.

What's your opinion? Have I overreacted?

Speak.



http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/925477_Holiday-s-loss-wears-away-fabric-of-society.html