The older I get, the more I realize that I need to question my assumptions.
I'm not talking about the fundamentals of faith (though I have learned to live with, and to accept doubt as my shadowy companion).
Rather, I often question the nature of knowing itself.
Fear not, I'm not going all epistemological on you.
Instead, I am learning to question what is proffered, 24/7, as knowledge, via scientific certainties, statistics, studies, and surveys.
A few weeks ago, the Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life came out with the results of a poll it had done last spring, revealing an apparent growing discrepancy between what Republicans and Democrats think about the scientific theory of evolution (Darwin and all that).
The media, including me, leapt all over it. I solicited comments on my FB page to explain the results. Some saw them as predictable. Others questioned the results. Still others queried the way the poll was done.
Fortunately for me, I got sidetracked, and didn't end up writing about the Pew poll until this past week. By then, experts on statistics had time to take apart the results, and to argue that much of the media frenzy was a tempest in a teapot.
What do you think? Feel free to comment, either here or at wwwlnpnews.com.
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/945349_Column--Our-evolving-provisional-knowledge.html
samedi, janvier 18, 2014
mercredi, janvier 15, 2014
Defrocked pastor Frank Schaefer: a lighting rod and a storyteller
Because I didn't attend the denominational trial and hear his testimony, I haven't spent a lot of time sorting out my impressions of Frank Schaefer, defrocked by United Methodist Church leaders for officiating at his son's same-sex wedding (and then refusing to promise he would abide by denominational proscriptions) .
But after speaking with him, I had one clear impression -- this is a man without guile.
That's a pretty remarkable trait in any professional environment. Yes, even in the church. Perhaps especially in the church.
He's preaching at three services this Sunday in Lancaster's First United Methodist Church.
Go listen, and judge for yourself. Whatever you think of Schaefer's choices, his story is still compelling. And whether the context is a lecture, a book or a sermon, the story is often what we remember, isn't it?
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/944167_Defrocked-Lebanon-pastor-to-speak-at-Lancaster-church.html
samedi, janvier 11, 2014
The real world, and those who live in it
It would be too easy to dismiss the two writers here as self-satisfied polemicists. But, as exasperated as I am by their rhetoric, I can't quite do so. Sadly, I think their "top-down," often patronizing tone is typical of the kind of spiritual leadership we often see in public life (the fact that the two concerned are men doesn't make this easier to swallow).
Don't you think we need sages who will talk WITH us...not AT each other?
Who will treat us as adults trying to make difficult decisions, not think of us as pawns on a chessboard?
Where are the leaders who have inhabited the difficult places in which we often find ourselves?
Where are the women and men who help find solutions...instead of signing on with the problem?
Feel free to comment, please.
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/942614_Column--Views-from-the-murky-middle.html
Don't you think we need sages who will talk WITH us...not AT each other?
Who will treat us as adults trying to make difficult decisions, not think of us as pawns on a chessboard?
Where are the leaders who have inhabited the difficult places in which we often find ourselves?
Where are the women and men who help find solutions...instead of signing on with the problem?
Feel free to comment, please.
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/942614_Column--Views-from-the-murky-middle.html
dimanche, janvier 05, 2014
Kindness (and manners) matter
Last week my son invited a few school friends over to his dad's home for movie night.
He had the menu all planned out. He was pumped, looking forward to an enjoyable evening with his pals.
A few hours before I was to drive him down to his dad's house, one of the students canceled.
Then, in quite succession, so did the other.
Looking at his dejected face, my heart ached for him.
It's one of those parenting moments when you want so much to comfort your child, but the words just don't come.
Instead, thinking it might make him stronger, I told him that many adults were just as commitment-phobic.
But it doesn't mean, I said, that you should respond in kind. Courtesy in small things makes a big difference.
I still believe, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary around me, that the small courtesies matter.
A few years ago I started having a small open house to mark the new year.
It's relaxed, not at all fancy, and, I hope, enjoyable.
Yesterday's event was lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed my guests. It was a really nice afternoon, at least for this hostess.
But getting to the afternoon was aggravating, to say the least.
A few people say "yes" and "no" to my invite, almost as soon as I created and posted the Evite. Gold stars for being so conscientious.
A few said "maybe" (I couldn't figure out how to eliminate this term from the invitation).
From the rest? Crickets.
Descending to passive-aggressive plaintiveness, I posted a carefully worded reminder on Facebook for those on the site. In addition, I sent the invitation again to those who hadn't yet replied.
That elicited a few more responses, which was very helpful.
I never heard from roughly half of those invited.
And some of those who responded with a "yes' never showed up, the majority without any explanation (though Facebook is useful in this regard).
As Emily Yoffe points out in this post from Slate, people generally know whether or not they can make an event when they get the invitation. A minority may actually have a conflict (a friend of mine was recovering from major surgery). But the rest? It does, as the columnist suggests, make the host or hostess wonder whether they are social pariahs.
I found Yoffe's reflections both helpful and straightforward.
Yet I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Am I too uptight? Should I just feel positive about having had such a lovely time with those who did show up?
I don't know. As usual, I live in the grey zone. Some of these folks are friends of long standing, and I'd like to remain friends with them. Others? Well, probably, it's better to just strike them from next year's invitation list.
I just wish that some of the people who never bothered to answer from the git-go would ask themselves how they would want to be treated in such a situation -- and then act accordingly.
He had the menu all planned out. He was pumped, looking forward to an enjoyable evening with his pals.
A few hours before I was to drive him down to his dad's house, one of the students canceled.
Then, in quite succession, so did the other.
Looking at his dejected face, my heart ached for him.
It's one of those parenting moments when you want so much to comfort your child, but the words just don't come.
Instead, thinking it might make him stronger, I told him that many adults were just as commitment-phobic.
But it doesn't mean, I said, that you should respond in kind. Courtesy in small things makes a big difference.
I still believe, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary around me, that the small courtesies matter.
A few years ago I started having a small open house to mark the new year.
It's relaxed, not at all fancy, and, I hope, enjoyable.
Yesterday's event was lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed my guests. It was a really nice afternoon, at least for this hostess.
But getting to the afternoon was aggravating, to say the least.
A few people say "yes" and "no" to my invite, almost as soon as I created and posted the Evite. Gold stars for being so conscientious.
A few said "maybe" (I couldn't figure out how to eliminate this term from the invitation).
From the rest? Crickets.
Descending to passive-aggressive plaintiveness, I posted a carefully worded reminder on Facebook for those on the site. In addition, I sent the invitation again to those who hadn't yet replied.
That elicited a few more responses, which was very helpful.
I never heard from roughly half of those invited.
And some of those who responded with a "yes' never showed up, the majority without any explanation (though Facebook is useful in this regard).
As Emily Yoffe points out in this post from Slate, people generally know whether or not they can make an event when they get the invitation. A minority may actually have a conflict (a friend of mine was recovering from major surgery). But the rest? It does, as the columnist suggests, make the host or hostess wonder whether they are social pariahs.
I found Yoffe's reflections both helpful and straightforward.
Yet I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Am I too uptight? Should I just feel positive about having had such a lovely time with those who did show up?
I don't know. As usual, I live in the grey zone. Some of these folks are friends of long standing, and I'd like to remain friends with them. Others? Well, probably, it's better to just strike them from next year's invitation list.
I just wish that some of the people who never bothered to answer from the git-go would ask themselves how they would want to be treated in such a situation -- and then act accordingly.
mercredi, janvier 01, 2014
Between "law" and justice is a great gulf fix'd
So often we go to secular courts seeking answers, endings, panaceas, reconciliation or fulfillment.
Why then, when a verdict is handed up or down (or reversed, as in the case of Msgr. Lynn) do we often end up feeling so empty?
Perhaps we are looking for justice in the wrong places.
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/938378_Column--Justice-denied.html
samedi, décembre 28, 2013
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
mercredi, décembre 25, 2013
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.
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.
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