Various & Sundry: Real amazing people and an imaginary theologian

I give up. The day has defeated me. It's 5:00 and I'm calling it quits. Workwise, anyway. But for you (and for my own pleasure, I must admit) I blog.

So many fantastic obituaries this week! Let's start with Scottish eccentricity in the form of the Countess of Arran. The headline talked about her powerboat racing, but I was more interested in how she and her husband felt about badgers. Her husband (are you ready?), Sir Arthur (Kattendyke Strange David Archibald) “Boofy” Gore, "A passionate advocate of homosexual rights, he thrice introduced a Sexual Offences Bill, and also campaigned for the protection of badgers." Meanwhile,

Lady Arran always called her current favourite badger Rosie. A succession of these creatures visited, and left a mark on, the smartest houses in England. “Nobody but Fiona would have carried this off,” remarked a friend. 

Drawn as ever to the lochside, she kept a small house on the Isle of Inchconnachan on Loch Lomond. She boated the loch while her badgers lived beneath the veranda, chasing people hurrying to the jetty.

Then there is the lovely story of Bob Fletcher who quit his job to take care of his neighbors' farms during World War II. That would be lovely enough, but even more so when you learn his neighbors were Japanese who had been interned after Pearl Harbor.

Al Tsukamoto, whose parents arrived in the United States in 1905, approached Mr. Fletcher with a business proposal: would he be willing to manage the farms of two family friends of Mr. Tsukamoto’s, one of whom was elderly, and to pay the taxes and mortgages while they were away? In return, he could keep all the profits.

Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Tsukamoto had not been close, and Mr. Fletcher had no experience growing the farmers’ specialty, flame tokay grapes, but he accepted the offer and soon quit his job.

For the next three years he worked a total of 90 acres on three farms — he had also decided to run Mr. Tsukamoto’s farm. He worked 18-hour days and lived in the bunkhouse Mr. Tsukamoto had reserved for migrant workers. He paid the bills of all three families — the Tsukamotos, the Okamotos and the Nittas. He kept only half of the profits.

I encourage you to read the whole thing.

The last obit I wanted to draw your attention to is for Vollis Simpson, "Visionary Artist of the Junkyard," according to the Times. I'm sorry he didn't live to see the opening of the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. But if you head to Wilson, NC after November, you can see for yourself. It looks amazing. Like a Steampunk theme park.

I haven't mentioned Ta-Nehisi Coates for a while, but this morning he posted an amazing and very personal reflection on what he would say if he were asked to give advice to the students at his high school, or to young black kids in general.

I rarely talk to kids about what they "shouldn't be doing" or what they "can't do. I prefer to talk about what they can and should do. This is not mere phraseology. If you are a twelve-year old black kid who dreams of being the next Kendrick Lamar or Lebron James, I don't really see a problem. If you are are 12-year old black kid who only dreams of being that, I do see a problem. My argument to you is not that you should stop dreaming of rapping or playing ball, my argument is that you should dream about much more. That is part of the magic of being 12.

It's all beautiful. A lovely read.

In church geekery news, I loved this legend of the theologian Franz Bibfeldt, the invention of divinity student Robert Clausen, whose work was then propagated by one Martin Marty. Since Marty is now the dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, Franz Bibfeldt lives on in various ways. My personal favorite (to reveal the depth of my geekery) is this: "[Bibfeldt] responded sharply to Kierkegaard’s Either/Or with a treatise titled Both/And, followed by the conciliatory Either/Or and/or Both/And." Yeah, you probably had to be there.

Man, I wish I could go to this Bar Mitzvah!

Thanks, Kellor! This is awesome!

Review: The Hunger Games trilogy

Book 1: The Hunger Games

I've been meaning to read The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins for forever, but only just got to them last month. They were a very satisfying and interesting read.

Satisfying because they were well-written and plot driven and I love a good, dense, and well-constructed plot.

Interesting because the books allowed things to be complicated. "Good" and "bad" were not as clear-cut as they first appear. Finding the right person for you and falling in love is not a straightforward proposition. And heroic deeds are not all done by heroes, or even by nice people.

Book 2: Catching Fire

Nor is the result of heroic behavior restful sleep and pleasant dreams. Those called upon to kill one another, whether for justice or for entertainment, are severely damaged by the experience. And you don't often see that in hero's quest books of this nature.

For that reason, I liked the third book, Mockingjay, best of the three (though I though all were terrific). I appreciated how Collins both resolved the action in a truly satisfying way while writing the experience in a way that seemed emotionally believable.

Book 3: Mockingjay

One of the thought-provoking things about it was how it explored the notion that, one way or another, violence would be done and people would be hurt. So given that you have no perfect option, what is the best option you have? What if you know that no matter what you choose, other people will get hurt? What will you do? It reminded me, of all things, of the movie Lincoln, in which the awful choice is to allow the bloody Civil War to continue so that the violent system of slavery can be abolished. Either way, people suffer and die. So what do you choose? Whose lives do you spare? No matter which way you go, your hands are going to have blood on them. So how do you play the game?

Be warned: these books are very violent. Brutal, even. There's no way you'll get me to see the movie versions. But I doubt I'd want to anyway. The books are told in first person, and part of the pleasure and complexity of these books is thinking along with our protagonist Katniss Everdeen about what is happening and how to deal with it. I'm not sure I'd simply want to see what happens without also knowing the mental struggle that's going on inside.

Taking confirmation seriously

Cross-posted on the Confirm not Conform blog.

I suspect I am one of the few priests in the world whose prayer book falls open naturally to the Confirmation Service. And as someone who has spent a lot of time looking at the confirmation service, I want to know why in the world confirmation was ever allowed to become an exit rite.

You know what I'm talking about, right? That exodus that too often occurs after youth get confirmed; that gap we too often see between the ages of younger and adult members in the church. After doing a lot of thinking about confirmation, I have my suspicions about where this comes from.

I've heard stories of adults telling youth, "If you just get confirmed, you don't have to come to church any more." I've heard stories of church folks saying that seeing youth leave after confirmation is only natural. Does that seem...odd to you? To me, it's kind of like saying to someone, "If you just get married, you don't have to spend any more time with your intended spouse," and all the guests at the wedding thinking that's perfectly normal.

Here's what the Book of Common Prayer says "Concerning the service of Confirmation":

"In the course of their Christian development, those baptized at an early age are expected, when they are ready and have been duly prepared, to make a mature public affirmation of their faith and commitment to the responsibilities of their Baptism and to receive the laying on of hands by the bishop."

Sounds pretty serious to me. Public, mature, commitment. Sounds a lot like marriage. In fact, let's see here..."Christian marriage is a solemn and public covenant." Yep. Sounds pretty similar to me. So why would we suggest to youth that confirmation is their opportunity to leave? Why has leaving been part of the youth confirmation DNA?

I've got to tell you, I don't think this is primarily due to the youth.

If we tell youth, "Just get confirmed and you never have to do another thing," we are betraying the sacrament of confirmation. If we watch them leave and think, "Well, that's just what happens after confirmation," we are complicit in devaluing its meaning. We are the ones who have belittled the service and made it a poor ragged little thing, a scrap of a ceremony with no worth whatsoever. We are telling youth, by word and example, "Make this commitment; it doesn't really mean anything anyway." What kind of witness is that?

The good news is, we can change that. If we change our attitude from "just get confirmed; whatever else you do doesn't matter" to "what you do matters; confirmation needs to be congruent with what you intend to do afterwards," then I firmly believe confirmation will no longer be an exit rite. We need to be willing to stand up and say, "If you aren't truly willing to make a commitment to the responsibilities of your Baptism, then don't get confirmed. If you do want to make the commitment, then take your part in the councils of the church. We take confirmation seriously and we take you seriously too."

I truly believe that confirmation is worthwhile and means something. Let's treat it like it does.

Reflections on World AIDS Day

Cross-posted at the Confirm not Conform blog

 It occurred to me today, on this World AIDS Day, that for many of the youth in our churches, AIDS is something that happens to Other People Far Away. But for many of us who work with youth, we went through the time when AIDS was a death sentence that affected people close to us. I wonder if sharing those stories and memories will help to make our current response to AIDS more compassionate and more urgent.

At St. John's Oakland, where Confirm not Conform was developed, we are lucky enough to have a story of AIDS from halfway across the world who came to live among us. Chris Ategeka, whose parents both died from AIDS in their home in Western Uganda, was sponsored by a family at St. John's and eventually came to live here. Last May, he graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. You can see his commencement address here. He is now the executive director of Pedal or Power, a nonprofit that helps people in Western Uganda build their own bicycles and scooters. Among its goals, this program will allow AIDS/HIV positive patients easier access to anti-retroviral drugs.

The youth of St. John's have had the opportunity to see up close that AIDS is not just something that happens to Other People. What stories do you have in your congregation that can help your youth--and other people--see AIDS as something real, present, and worth fighting?

Remember this? 

Various and Sundry, September 10

I'm on my way to Fort Bragg shortly, so this will be brief.

Let's start with an obituary for the fabulous Miss Betty Skelton, daredevil, stuntwoman, test driver, potential astronaut, and all-around record breaker. I'll give away the ending: "Latterly, with her second husband, Allan Erde, a retired Navy doctor, who survives her, she lived in a retirement community at which most of the residents travel about in golf carts. Betty Skelton, however, drove a red Corvette convertible that almost matched the colour of her hair."

I stumbled across this site that obsessively (or perhaps compulsively) catalogs the religious affiliation of comic book characters. Supervillains have a strong predilection towards atheism. Lex Luthor, I am sorry to say, is a lapsed Episcopalian. I found myself thinking, "What could his youth minister have done?" (Superman is good Midwestern Methodist.) You will also be glad to know that Captain Underpants is Jewish. I told you they were obsessive.

Finally (I did mention this would be brief), I loved this Ted talk on tinkering. True for kids, true for adults too. I think we worry too much about Messing Up. What if Messing Up were a good thing and part of the whole process?

Various and Sundry

Yet another week in which I let other bloggers and writers and artists do the heavy lifting. I'm glad to be busy, but sorry not to have the time to blather on with you.

Let's start with the obit section, shall we? There were a number of good ones this week, but the obit for Albertina Sisulu stands out for her valiance in the struggle against apartheid. Here's the line that killed me:

“I did not mind going to jail myself, and I had to learn to cope without Walter [her husband, who was imprisoned for 26 years],” Mrs. Sisulu once said. “But when my children went to jail, I felt that the Boers were breaking me at the knees.”

The obit ends: "Her daughter Lindiwe Sisulu is the nation’s defense minister. Her son Max is speaker of the National Assembly. Another daughter, Beryl Sisulu, is South Africa’s ambassador to Norway. She is also survived by her son Zwelakhe Sisulu and daughter Nkuli Sisulu."

Just...wow.

Gee, thanks, Dad.

I loved this story about the dad who embarrassed his high school age son by donning costumes and waving at the bus as it passed by every day. Did I mention, every day? Wearing a different costume? It inspired me enough to write a post for the Confirm not Conform blog about how this relates to youth ministry. I love how the Wave at the Bus blog with pictures of all the costumes has a donate button for the son's college/therapy fund.

I thought this article on 10 common mistakes made by non-profits in social media was spot-on...and that they apply equally to churches (with the possible exception of #3). And for churches, I would change #7 to "Ignoring Yelp and other user-generated review sites."

Finally, two visuals. I loved, loved, loved this list of Sexual Assault Prevention Tips:

And I also loved, loved, super-loved this ad from the Alamo Drafthouse. Really, it will make you happy. (h/t Andrew Sullivan)

It gets better

It's Thursday so it must be time for me to swoon over Tim Gunn yet again. Well, I can't help it. Not when he does things like this:



I hope you've all heard about the "It gets better" project, sponsored by Dan Savage in wake of the numerous suicides of youth in the past month. Gays and lesbians from all walks of life have been invited to make videos to reach out to youth, sharing their experience and saying, yes, life does get better.

But it does raise the question: why is life so bad in high school? Surely it doesn't have to be that way. What do you think could be done to make high school a better place for young people to be?

The kids are all right

I'm not talking about the movie in this instance, but a comment thread among some teenagers who have been gracious enough to friend me on Facebook. The author of the thread has given me his permission to reprint the comments here.

Please note: I would very much appreciate if you would NOT comment on the rightness or wrongness of the arguments presented below. I'm hoping you will note instead the carefulness, thoughtfulness and kindness of them all. Are the commenters echoing what they hear at home? Possibly. But I wouldn't discount their opinions as mere parroting. God knows teens form their own opinions. At any rate, it's a heck of a lot deeper commentary than, say, who's your favorite Real Housewife.

Enjoy.

Monday, 8/16 21:15

A: Today, equality was stalled by the courts, but one day the constitution will prevail, but we must still wait for America to stand up to its promise as the land of equality. I have confidence in my generation however that we will be able to cast off old fashioned views and allow all people to marry who they wish. And to... my conservative friends, allowing gay marriage would help stimulate the economy slightly.

B: all i heard was gay rights were put off

A: the appeals court decided to stall gay marriage until it goes through their court.

B: woowwwwwww
whats there to stall about?

A: idk questions about the constitutionality about not allowing a group of people the benifits of legally being married.

B: thats also bull

A: well their entire argument does not stand up to the constitutional test, when they throw out religion technically no religion has to recognize any marriage, but there is seperation between church in state, and my other question is how does adam + steve ruin your marriage, marriage is a holy sacrament so shouldn't all be able to enjoy it.

B: it goes against the constitution.... pursuit of happiness

A: actually it goes against the part that says equal protection under the law, pursuit of happiness is not mentioned in the constitution it is mentioned in the declaration of independence, but if we are following the ideas of natural law it violates that too.

B: whatevers.... prop 8 is against federal law

A: true.

C: marriage is a sacred practice between a man and a woman and unholy between two people of the same sex. here these liberals are targeting one of THE number one most important things to a conservative, their own religious practices, which is ...not a legal matter. they are treating it as though it hardly matters and destroying good values. domestic partnership but slightly improved should be enough and they can have their own little ceremony. this takes constitutional rights out of context. every person has the right to marry the opposite gender, and this is a nonsecular matter...nothing against gays just wanting to explain another viewpoint most people don't understand correctly

A: We are not arguing in favor of forcing faiths to recognize gay marriages, I make that clear in my third comment, but legally all people must be equally protected under the law. Domestic partnership is a seperate but "equal" type law which is not usually equal in truth, so constitutionally your argument holds no water.

C: constitutionally? the american people have rights just as well as groups and ideas..it is not a government matter, it's a government decision when it comes down to it, but it's a controversial subject about beliefs. marriage is a holy ancie...nt practice and yes, ur argument if it only pertains to the law, is solid. but marriage in itself is and should be very separate from state law. if all the rights of legal marriage were separate and marriage itself did not require a permit there would be almost no problems with this. i would give homosexuals the rights if it were up to me but i think it is fair and within the confines of equality to deny them the title of marriage. constitutionally they all have the same rights, marriage has always been defined as heterosexual which they can do if they want or legally become the opposite sex. however economically they are good because they account for a large sum of adoptions and if they were to be in a partnership similar to marriage many couples are more in demand for adoption. should they have the same rights as married couples? sure. should they be allowed to take on 'marriage'? no.

A: I will address your argument in many parts at a time
1. It is a government matter, married couples get benifits that unmarried ones dont and it is in the law too.
2 If it is not a government issue than Prop H8 should be thrown out immediatly ...judging that it deals with the state constitution
3. Religious communities do not have to recognize anything.
4. Not all heterosexual marriages are religious or for having kids, atheists get married too.
5."legally become the opposite sex" what part of same sex do you not understand they like the same sex, that is what they are physically attracted too. and you are also saying that stripping people of their idea is more acceptable than simply allowing them to marry.
6. Final question will the world fall apart if we allow gay people? It did not when they were legal in the summer of 2008.
Thank u for your argument you make some compelling points.

Rogation days: Beating the Bounds

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (the three days before Ascension Day) are Rogation Days, from the Latin "rogare" which means to ask and during which people prayed to God for a good harvest and safety from natural disasters. In Elizabethan England (and beyond) people would also "beat the bounds," walking around the perimeter of the parish lands, "to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands."

I was going to be all reverent about this practice, but then I read this:

The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible.

Well, that's one way to do it, I suppose.

Strange Britain reports that

Curiously, certain stones, trees or other marker points around the boundary would also be beaten by literally bumping a boy (often a choirboy) against the mark. The boy would be suspended upside down and his head gently tapped against the stone or he would be taken by the feet and hands and swung against a tree!

Photographic evidence:

To be honest, doesn't that sound like something a lot of the boys at church would love? To be swung by your hands and feet by the boundaries of the church? Not violently, but, you know, for fun. If they wanted. I could see kids vying for the opportunity. OK, so it's strange and arcane, but goodness, it could be kind of fun.

Add that to the lovely prayers for the day, and you might have yourself quite the intergenerational event

I hope you're able to get out and about today to see what's going on in your neighborhood, to enjoy creation, and to discover ways we can be better stewards of God's good gifts. And if you see any choirboys, make sure to bop 'em on the head.

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

But the facts of life keep changing!

So there's been a few things in the news this week about sex education. Last Sunday, Ross Douthat had a thoughtful editorial in the NY Times that (I think rightly) points out that much of the battle over what is effective is a disguise for "a battle over community values"--or personal values. Much chatter ensued.

Then on Tuesday, the Washington Post ran a story provocatively headlined, Abstinence-only programs might work, study says. There really should have been an asterisk after the headline. People jumped all over this, but the upshot was that this abstinence-only program wasn't what most people think of when they think of abstinence-only programs. "Ms. Brown noted that the abstinence-only classes in the Jemmott study centered on people with an average age of 12 and that unlike the federally supported abstinence programs now in use, did not advocate abstinence until marriage," it says VERY late in an article in the NY Times.

The thing I keep missing in all these discussions is any mention of how to help parents share their own values with their kids. What I'd love to see are programs for parents while their kids are in elementary school--not while their kids are in the heat of hormonal fury.

I remember with what trepidation I went to a workshop called Holy Hormones at the 2005 Earl Lecture series, Sex and the City of God. I still remember with what vehemence I insisted on bringing the workshop leaders to our parish to present--not to the kids, but to the adults.

The primary thing this workshop made me realize is our very paltry and limited our definition of sex education--indeed, sexuality--often is. Sex education for parents is about so much more than telling kids, "Don't have sex! (but if you are, here's how to do so safely)." The presenters had us asking ourselves, what's the right age for a person to see an R-rated movie? Shave their legs? Wear make-up? And then ask at what age we did those things?

There's also a curriculum for youth that I never used, called Love--all that and more, which sounds very good.

But the main thing for me is that I don't think we do enough in any area of society to help adults articulate what they have learned about sex and sexuality, and then what they would like their children to know. I wish there were a lot more of that. It's so ironic that we call teaching about sex "the facts of life" when the huge bulk of it isn't factual at all, is it? The basics are pretty simple, but the truth is--well, wow, a mass of culture, mixed messages, and the unknown.

Then, of course, you could always get the friendly school nurse to make things clear.

Explosive Graphite at the Riled Marmot Film Festival

On Sunday, I got to go to the Riled Marmot Film Festival, an event sponsored by my former parish which used to be more about showing movies that youth would probably find interesting and has become a time for youth to showcase their own blockbusters.

This year's festival was particularly spectacular. It was in one of the stadium-seating theaters of the local cineplex (theater 3) and featured a film more than a year in the making and more than 30 minutes long called Explosive Graphite.

The thing I found most wonderful about this movie was the participation of so many adults of the parish. The choir director played the nefarious criminal mastermind (a real stretch for him, though the shades help), the youth activities director plays his henchwoman Janine, the children's and youth education director plays a rather forbidding secretary (heard on the phone in the clip below. Completely out of character, she does not call anyone angel).

But besides the church staff, there were adults who put themselves in service to this project. One former vestry member was the Stunt Coordinator. On Sunday, when asked about it, he said he'd always wanted to do that. In the video below, you see a former senior warden, first in the credits chasing someone down a hall, and then in the clip trundling a box labeled "explosives."

The thing that was so great about this was that this was not about adults having the youth participate in church events. It was about the youth having the adults participate in a church event.

I also have to say I'm impressed as all get-out at Spenser Linney and the other youth who took on this huge project and saw it through to completion. This was no small effort.

Enjoy the clip below. When it's posted, I'm going to put up the segment with the GREAT fight scene. Stay tuned....