This is what he said. This is what Abraham Lincoln said.
I don’t like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees!
Found this courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, who found it in this review of a new biography of Lincoln.
I'm off to get ready for my bee fight.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
John Mason Neale
Continuing in our (somewhat) theme of the week "Not knowing exactly what it is you are supposed to be doing" (or is that the theme of life?), today we celebrate the feast of John Mason Neale.
Because of his chronic illness, he didn't take a parish position and instead was the warden of an almshouse, which doesn't sound any easier to me. He stayed in that position for his whole life. (More about his life here.)
I'm sure this is not what he expected when he entered holy orders. But looking at his life now, what he did seems so obviously good, so obviously right.
I think this is one of the reasons I like obituaries: because you know how things turned out. I've never been one to skip to the end of the book, but obituaries are the end of the book. You can skip over all the doubts, all the false starts, and find out if what was attempted worked or not. Reading this brief outline of JMN's life, I have a feeling we miss the important struggling bits that don't appear in the prayer book bio.
Two other things about John Mason Neale: one is he is best known as a hymn writer and translator. Here are 120 (!) of the hymns for which he is known, which include All Glory, Laud and Honor, and Christ is made the sure foundation.
Secondly, he looks an awful lot like David Duchovny, doesn't he?
Because of his chronic illness, he didn't take a parish position and instead was the warden of an almshouse, which doesn't sound any easier to me. He stayed in that position for his whole life. (More about his life here.)
I'm sure this is not what he expected when he entered holy orders. But looking at his life now, what he did seems so obviously good, so obviously right.
I think this is one of the reasons I like obituaries: because you know how things turned out. I've never been one to skip to the end of the book, but obituaries are the end of the book. You can skip over all the doubts, all the false starts, and find out if what was attempted worked or not. Reading this brief outline of JMN's life, I have a feeling we miss the important struggling bits that don't appear in the prayer book bio.
Two other things about John Mason Neale: one is he is best known as a hymn writer and translator. Here are 120 (!) of the hymns for which he is known, which include All Glory, Laud and Honor, and Christ is made the sure foundation.
Secondly, he looks an awful lot like David Duchovny, doesn't he?
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
A marathon a day
That's not a figure of speech, my friends. That's exactly what Eddie Izzard is doing. I posted one of Eddie's bits, "Tea and Cake or Death!" as a Sunday Funny a while back. Here's the news from his website, posted on July 31:
About 5 weeks ago, Sport Relief, the Sporty part of Comic Relief asked me (and probably a lot of other people) if I would like to do a sporting challenge.
I had always wanted to do a big physical running challenge, and this seemed a great way to do it and also raise money to help Africa and the poorest countries in the world as well as projects that Sport Relief fund in the UK I was also going to be advised by Olympic experts who have worked with Sport Relief before. They would help me keep running in the right direction.
So I told them I wanted to try to run around the whole of the UK. London to Cardiff to Belfast to Edinburgh and back to London, running through as many parts of the UK that lie in between our 4 capitals.
They said great. You're nuts.
I said yes but that never hurt.
They said how far is this?
I said 1100 miles. I will try to run 30 miles a day for 6 days a week. It will probably take 7 weeks.
They said great. Is there anything else you want to mention.
Yes. I will run through England holding and English flag and then I'll run through Wales holding a Welsh flag and so on through all the UK.
But why not just have a Union Jack?
Because this is the thinking for my mission:
WE ARE DIFFERENT
WE ARE THE SAME
WE ARE UNITED KINGDOM
WE ARE AFRICA
WE ARE HUMANITY
They said - anything else?
Yes, I'm leaving in 5 weeks.
He has now done 9 marathons, dealing with blisters and downpours and goodness knows what else. I finally cracked and sponsored him today. I'd probably sponsor him for ANYTHING, given the effort he's put in, but it happens to be for Comic Relief, which is a mighty fine organization.
I'm just so darned impressed, I had to pass this information along. It's not quite like pushing blocks of stone from Wales to Salisbury Plain, but it's close.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The internal moral compass
Yesterday, I wrote about Ahead of the Curve and said I had more thoughts. They're not very clear thoughts, but they are thoughts.
The author, Philip Delves Broughton, spends a lot of the book wondering whether or not he has an internal moral compass and, if so, what it is saying. At the same time he is agonizing about what he is going to do with himself after he has finished his MBA. He has a vague idea of what it would look like and it involves being with his wife and (by the end of the book) two sons. But none of the clear paths seem to lead to that end.
SPOILER ALERT! Don't read the following italicized paragraphs if you don't want to have the events of the book revealed.
His wife gets pregnant during the first year so he decides that if he is going to do a summer internship, it has to be in Boston so he can be with his family. He doesn't get an internship. He wonders if he's been a fool; would 10 weeks have made that much of a difference?
In the second year, as the school announces that "95.5 percent of the class of 2006 have been offered jobs," he's among the 4.5 percent that has nothing in front of him. He feels like a failure and wonders how he will provide for his family.
OK. Safe to read now.
At every turn, even though he didn't seem to know it, he was making his decisions based on the simple premise, "Will this allow me to spend time with my family?" But he didn't seem to know that was what he was doing. He wandered, taking strange missteps, stumbling around, berating himself over and over for not knowing what he ought to do, feeling his way quite blindly and without any clarity about where he was going or where he ought to go.
In a strange way, I found his confusion encouraging. I've wandered quite a bit myself and berated myself for it. But I think, like this author, I have been blessed not to be on a clear path. I'm not sure why I have been so lucky; it certainly isn't any particular moral fortitude on my part. If things had been easy, I would not have gone to Uganda, for example. Or doing what I'm doing now. But that certainly wasn't because I had cleverly chosen my way.
And in some ways, my path has been a selfish one; there were places I did not go for the simple reason that they did not feel right for me. And I confess that there was pressure to ignore that feeling because why should the choice be about me?
Except my own self and soul is all I've really got. I think that's what Philip D.B. recognizes at some unconscious level: that these businesses where he is interviewing are trying to purchase his self and soul and he simply recoils. Maybe we're both being selfish. Or maybe we're trying to be true to what we are called to be. More likely it's a bit of both, being a stew of mixed motives and external/internal forces. And we probably, none of us, will ever know for sure, but will keep stumbling along.
I keep remembering Kipling's poem, If--
And the thing that struck me was that, in this book and often it seems that the people who are losing their heads seems to know what they are doing. They march steadily onward and seem so confident in their progression. Now, maybe internally, they have no idea. But the path seems so clear-cut for them. But perhaps "keeping your head" is a lot less about being calm in a crisis, but in not simply marching onward when everything in you says, "Stop!" and everyone around you says, "Keep going."
The author, Philip Delves Broughton, spends a lot of the book wondering whether or not he has an internal moral compass and, if so, what it is saying. At the same time he is agonizing about what he is going to do with himself after he has finished his MBA. He has a vague idea of what it would look like and it involves being with his wife and (by the end of the book) two sons. But none of the clear paths seem to lead to that end.
SPOILER ALERT! Don't read the following italicized paragraphs if you don't want to have the events of the book revealed.
His wife gets pregnant during the first year so he decides that if he is going to do a summer internship, it has to be in Boston so he can be with his family. He doesn't get an internship. He wonders if he's been a fool; would 10 weeks have made that much of a difference?
In the second year, as the school announces that "95.5 percent of the class of 2006 have been offered jobs," he's among the 4.5 percent that has nothing in front of him. He feels like a failure and wonders how he will provide for his family.
OK. Safe to read now.
At every turn, even though he didn't seem to know it, he was making his decisions based on the simple premise, "Will this allow me to spend time with my family?" But he didn't seem to know that was what he was doing. He wandered, taking strange missteps, stumbling around, berating himself over and over for not knowing what he ought to do, feeling his way quite blindly and without any clarity about where he was going or where he ought to go.
In a strange way, I found his confusion encouraging. I've wandered quite a bit myself and berated myself for it. But I think, like this author, I have been blessed not to be on a clear path. I'm not sure why I have been so lucky; it certainly isn't any particular moral fortitude on my part. If things had been easy, I would not have gone to Uganda, for example. Or doing what I'm doing now. But that certainly wasn't because I had cleverly chosen my way.
And in some ways, my path has been a selfish one; there were places I did not go for the simple reason that they did not feel right for me. And I confess that there was pressure to ignore that feeling because why should the choice be about me?
Except my own self and soul is all I've really got. I think that's what Philip D.B. recognizes at some unconscious level: that these businesses where he is interviewing are trying to purchase his self and soul and he simply recoils. Maybe we're both being selfish. Or maybe we're trying to be true to what we are called to be. More likely it's a bit of both, being a stew of mixed motives and external/internal forces. And we probably, none of us, will ever know for sure, but will keep stumbling along.
I keep remembering Kipling's poem, If--
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
And the thing that struck me was that, in this book and often it seems that the people who are losing their heads seems to know what they are doing. They march steadily onward and seem so confident in their progression. Now, maybe internally, they have no idea. But the path seems so clear-cut for them. But perhaps "keeping your head" is a lot less about being calm in a crisis, but in not simply marching onward when everything in you says, "Stop!" and everyone around you says, "Keep going."
Monday, August 3, 2009
It's just business
A friend of mine encouraged me to read Ahead of the Curve by Philip Delves Broughton. It was an unnerving experience. The author is a man who left his job as a bureau chief in Paris to enter the Harvard Business School class of 2006. The unnerving part is that everyone now knows What's Going To Happen, but these students, of course, do not.This book was published early in 2008. In his chapter Extreme Leverage, the author writes, "Debt, we found, is the fuel of modern finance...Debt focuses the mind and forces people to concentrate on the only thing that matters: the cash flowing out of the business. If Gordon Gekko were speaking today, he might have to reword his classic boast about greed. These days debt, for want of a better word, is good. Debt works."
Ah, those heady days.
I was reading this in conjunction with preparing a second sermon on the David and Bathsheba fallout in 2 Samuel. I kept trying to come up with the word that describes David’s attitude when he sees Bathsheba.
The easy answer would be “lustful,” but I don’t think that quite captures the very cavalier way in which David goes about his one-night stand. He has wives and concubines a-plenty at home, and there’s something so casual about his acquisition of this woman he sees from the rooftop. Greedy isn’t the right word. Selfish doesn’t quite fit either.
There’s no thought or consideration between the wanting and the getting. No planning or work or sacrifice is required. The best word I can come up with is that David, in this situation, is a consumer, in the worst and most literal sense of the word. A mindless consumer, someone who consumes, getting something he likes on a passing whim, taking it in and then passing it out again without ever considering how much it might actually cost, and not expecting it to cost him anything.
And it is the mindlessness that is the problem. Thoughtless behavior, which hardly seems life-threatening at the time. Being thoughtless hardly seems like a sin. But the thoughtlessness led to cruel and callous behavior which, if Nathan had not intervened, would, I suspect, have led David into becoming a cruel and thoughtless person. And where does that line lie, between doing cruel and thoughtless things and being cruel and thoughtless?
I realized, writing this sermon, that we become what we do. These folks taking jobs out of Harvard kept saying, "I'm just going to do this for a while, then get out and spend time with my family." Well, good luck with that. At what point does their behavior and the excuse "It's just business" become the more painful reality "I am business"?
Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called." Jesus said, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life." And I begin to see that this work happens by actually doing it, not waiting until conditions are right or until things are safe. The doing and the being are closely intertwined.
Do read this book. It was incredibly thought-provoking. In fact, I have more thoughts about it and will probably post more.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Sunday funnies
From The Onion, the world's finest news source:
Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards To IHOP Door
SIOUX FALLS, SD—Managers of an area International House of Pancakes discovered 95 comment cards nailed to its front door Sunday, which were later identified as the work of local resident Ronald Lyman, a 53-year-old contractor and onetime regular customer who is calling for wide-scale reform of the venerable chain.
"IHOP has grown weak on powdered sugar and fruity garnishes, forsaking the righteousness of its original rib-sticking mission," said Lyman, who nailed his 95 comments to the door shortly before the morning brunch rush, when they would receive maximum exposure. "This house is no longer a house of pancakes—it is a house of lies."
Lyman's 95 cards assail IHOP for what he perceives to be an "unholy alliance" of the sweet and the savory, a dangerously narrowing blueberry-to-batter ratio, hard-to-open butter packets, and an increasingly tall short stack. Fifteen cards alone attack the excessive breadth of syrup selection.
"IHOP is about pancakes, not syrups," card 41 reads. "No pancake can exist drowned in a pool of lingonberry. No man who comes hungry can leave happy on artificial orange-flavored goo."
Lyman said that his pancake fundamentalism is based on "the trinity of griddle-fried batter, butter, and maple syrup, as directed by our breakfast elders more than two score years ago." His beliefs were forged by years of increasing dissatisfaction with the "internationalist" influence within IHOP, which he said stresses flavor over substance.
"The course of my life changed last week when a waitress dropped a tray and I was struck with hot coffee," Lyman said. "As I wiped my eyes and opened them, suddenly I became aware of the full extent of the corruption. Sweet crepes mingling with egg runoff. The sickening decadence of Belgian waffles. A waitstaff more concerned with lining their pockets with tips than with dedicating their lives to service. I stormed from the wicked place without settling my bill, finally realizing what I must do: devote my life to bringing down the House of Pancakes. To bring it down, then build it anew in righteousness and customer satisfaction."
IHOP manager Dennis Ryskowski said that he has tried to read some of Lyman's comments during his breaks, but has so far only made it to card 26, "On the Blankets of Pigs."
"We welcome all customer suggestions and feedback," Ryskowski said. "That's why we provide the comment cards. I do, however, wish Mr. Lyman had simply placed his in the box by the host station instead."
Several customers who had come to the restaurant after bars closed Sunday night agreed with Lyman's stand, saying they, too, often feel disconnected from the IHOP experience.
"I really like what he has to say about returning to the basics," customer Kelly Grabler said. "Sometimes you just want a nice fat stack of pancakes, but you end up overwhelmed by the choices. Lots of the stuff isn't even breakfast. An IHOP meal should be a straightforward relationship between an individual and some pancakes."
Card 63 perhaps most eloquently summarizes Lyman's condemnatory stance.
"These steep and serene blue roofs, which arc to the heavens, in truth house corrupt souls who once sought succor in a simple pancake, but have now succumbed to the temptation of caramel cheesecakes and Caesar salads," Lyman wrote. "Only by returning to its hearty breakfast roots can IHOP save itself and its customers."
Lyman suggested that, should his recommended changes not be instituted, he will have no choice but to break with the restaurant and start his own International House of Pancakes, Reformed (IHOPR) off I-229 by the airport.
Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards To IHOP Door
SIOUX FALLS, SD—Managers of an area International House of Pancakes discovered 95 comment cards nailed to its front door Sunday, which were later identified as the work of local resident Ronald Lyman, a 53-year-old contractor and onetime regular customer who is calling for wide-scale reform of the venerable chain.
"IHOP has grown weak on powdered sugar and fruity garnishes, forsaking the righteousness of its original rib-sticking mission," said Lyman, who nailed his 95 comments to the door shortly before the morning brunch rush, when they would receive maximum exposure. "This house is no longer a house of pancakes—it is a house of lies."Lyman's 95 cards assail IHOP for what he perceives to be an "unholy alliance" of the sweet and the savory, a dangerously narrowing blueberry-to-batter ratio, hard-to-open butter packets, and an increasingly tall short stack. Fifteen cards alone attack the excessive breadth of syrup selection.
"IHOP is about pancakes, not syrups," card 41 reads. "No pancake can exist drowned in a pool of lingonberry. No man who comes hungry can leave happy on artificial orange-flavored goo."
Lyman said that his pancake fundamentalism is based on "the trinity of griddle-fried batter, butter, and maple syrup, as directed by our breakfast elders more than two score years ago." His beliefs were forged by years of increasing dissatisfaction with the "internationalist" influence within IHOP, which he said stresses flavor over substance.
"The course of my life changed last week when a waitress dropped a tray and I was struck with hot coffee," Lyman said. "As I wiped my eyes and opened them, suddenly I became aware of the full extent of the corruption. Sweet crepes mingling with egg runoff. The sickening decadence of Belgian waffles. A waitstaff more concerned with lining their pockets with tips than with dedicating their lives to service. I stormed from the wicked place without settling my bill, finally realizing what I must do: devote my life to bringing down the House of Pancakes. To bring it down, then build it anew in righteousness and customer satisfaction."
IHOP manager Dennis Ryskowski said that he has tried to read some of Lyman's comments during his breaks, but has so far only made it to card 26, "On the Blankets of Pigs."
"We welcome all customer suggestions and feedback," Ryskowski said. "That's why we provide the comment cards. I do, however, wish Mr. Lyman had simply placed his in the box by the host station instead."
Several customers who had come to the restaurant after bars closed Sunday night agreed with Lyman's stand, saying they, too, often feel disconnected from the IHOP experience.
"I really like what he has to say about returning to the basics," customer Kelly Grabler said. "Sometimes you just want a nice fat stack of pancakes, but you end up overwhelmed by the choices. Lots of the stuff isn't even breakfast. An IHOP meal should be a straightforward relationship between an individual and some pancakes."
Card 63 perhaps most eloquently summarizes Lyman's condemnatory stance.
"These steep and serene blue roofs, which arc to the heavens, in truth house corrupt souls who once sought succor in a simple pancake, but have now succumbed to the temptation of caramel cheesecakes and Caesar salads," Lyman wrote. "Only by returning to its hearty breakfast roots can IHOP save itself and its customers."
Lyman suggested that, should his recommended changes not be instituted, he will have no choice but to break with the restaurant and start his own International House of Pancakes, Reformed (IHOPR) off I-229 by the airport.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Gnome rescue
Enough of all this negativity. Here is a heartwarming story from the land down under, brought to my attention on Twitter by @growwit. And I am not making this up. Here's the article from the Cootamundra Herald:
THE LIFE’S passion of a Cootamundra woman has found its way to national and international fame following the rescue of more than 2000 gnomes from a Warren Sub home last week.
Shirley Elford, a long time Cootamundra resident, died recently leaving her beloved gnomes orphaned.
Mrs Elford, to the bemusement of friends and family, was a passionate collector of the vertically challenged works of garden art, amassing an enormous collection during her lifetime.
A rescue mission mounted by the Lower Blue Mountains Rotary Club in Glenbrook, with the assistance of Cootamundra Rotarians has resulted in the collection now being prepared for a mammoth gnome exhibition to be held on Australia Day next year.
The gnome rescue squad, complete with white coats and obligatory little red hats, spent a full day collecting the orphans.
According to local Rotarian Neil Wilcox there were gnomes in every part of the garden and on the walls of the Berthong Street home, ranging from very small to super-sized in stature.
The gnomes are currently being fostered during restoration in the gnome capital Glenbrook and will form the centrepiece of the Annual Gnome Convention prior to the gnomes being offered up for adoption - to good homes only of course.
THE LIFE’S passion of a Cootamundra woman has found its way to national and international fame following the rescue of more than 2000 gnomes from a Warren Sub home last week.
Shirley Elford, a long time Cootamundra resident, died recently leaving her beloved gnomes orphaned.
Mrs Elford, to the bemusement of friends and family, was a passionate collector of the vertically challenged works of garden art, amassing an enormous collection during her lifetime.
A rescue mission mounted by the Lower Blue Mountains Rotary Club in Glenbrook, with the assistance of Cootamundra Rotarians has resulted in the collection now being prepared for a mammoth gnome exhibition to be held on Australia Day next year.
The gnome rescue squad, complete with white coats and obligatory little red hats, spent a full day collecting the orphans.According to local Rotarian Neil Wilcox there were gnomes in every part of the garden and on the walls of the Berthong Street home, ranging from very small to super-sized in stature.
The gnomes are currently being fostered during restoration in the gnome capital Glenbrook and will form the centrepiece of the Annual Gnome Convention prior to the gnomes being offered up for adoption - to good homes only of course.
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