No, we're not buying a new house, but this blog has moved to:
anglicamp.wordpress.com
Blogger has served me well, and now it's time for a new look and a chapter for this blog. I hope you'll follow me! Blessings, Heidi
Friday, March 06, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
What a house means
In a few bursts over the last couple of months, I've been obsessed with house shopping. I grew up in a six-flat in the city, and so houses always seemed magical to me: a building set apart from any other, with a yard, stairs, and its own front door. It's different from an apartment, a duplex, or a trailer.
The houses that seemed most magical to me were old houses, which don't exist here in Bolingbrook. The historic district here dates to 1960. But the houses here still have yards, stairs, front doors, and interesting details like countertops, flooring, patios, etc. I was smitten for a while. And then I began to feel sick to my stomach.
I was looking for something that wasn't there. The real estate listings have all kinds of facts and information. But I think I was actually searching out meaning. A sense of identity -- spirituality, even! Place, home, self, safety, vocation... and those things just weren't there.
Home means more than a building. We are rich enough to have that luxury in our country -- this is not just shelter from the rain, a place to sleep, to cook our meals, and perhaps to make our living. I'm sure people in less affluent places also make their homes their own, but I think the home, here, is a canvas for the self in a dramatic way because there are SO many ways to spend money and time on furnishing, decorating, and making it "just so" and "just for us."
When I realized that real estate listings weren't helping, I found some books.
Clare Cooper Marcus wrote "House as a Mirror of Self." She says our homes are psychological expressions of who we are. (Duh.) About halfway through I got tired of all the "self self self" stuff. But her declaration that we have emotional relationships with places made perfect sense to me. She makes interesting observations about the strong influence on us of the places of our childhood, the emotional nuances of clutter, and that our possessions are crucial pieces of how we understand and define who we are, among other things. I recommend it, although it's got a definite Berkeley bias and a lot of feminist liberation undertones that felt a little dated to me.
Akiko Busch's book "Geography of Home" consists of 13 chapters on 13 places you'll find in most North American houses. It's charming and whimsical -- I especially liked her chapters on front doors and bedrooms. But she didn't dive as deeply as Marcus, and I find I don't remember many of her observations.
I'm in the midst of Witold Rybczynski's "Home: A Short History of An Idea." It's a fun history of how Europeans have inhabited the places where they've lived over the past 500 years or so.
Basically, I'm feeding my "house" bug on its own terms: self-identity, personal space, meaning. We've slowed down our home shopping. How does where we live shape who we are? A house that stands all by itself says something to the world, although we're so used to it, we don't think about it much. A house uses quite a lot of resources so that the family inside doesn't have to share space or possessions with anyone else. A house can become full of meaning, but it is also just a building -- with rooms, appliances, plumbing, wood, and plaster. It's not magical. Or at least not any more than any other place.
I guess what I'm getting at is: what makes us happy? I think I thought a house was another way to be happy. It's a way to be independent, to build equity, to have decorating freedom galore... but it's not a way to be happy.
The houses that seemed most magical to me were old houses, which don't exist here in Bolingbrook. The historic district here dates to 1960. But the houses here still have yards, stairs, front doors, and interesting details like countertops, flooring, patios, etc. I was smitten for a while. And then I began to feel sick to my stomach.
I was looking for something that wasn't there. The real estate listings have all kinds of facts and information. But I think I was actually searching out meaning. A sense of identity -- spirituality, even! Place, home, self, safety, vocation... and those things just weren't there.
Home means more than a building. We are rich enough to have that luxury in our country -- this is not just shelter from the rain, a place to sleep, to cook our meals, and perhaps to make our living. I'm sure people in less affluent places also make their homes their own, but I think the home, here, is a canvas for the self in a dramatic way because there are SO many ways to spend money and time on furnishing, decorating, and making it "just so" and "just for us."
When I realized that real estate listings weren't helping, I found some books.
Clare Cooper Marcus wrote "House as a Mirror of Self." She says our homes are psychological expressions of who we are. (Duh.) About halfway through I got tired of all the "self self self" stuff. But her declaration that we have emotional relationships with places made perfect sense to me. She makes interesting observations about the strong influence on us of the places of our childhood, the emotional nuances of clutter, and that our possessions are crucial pieces of how we understand and define who we are, among other things. I recommend it, although it's got a definite Berkeley bias and a lot of feminist liberation undertones that felt a little dated to me.
Akiko Busch's book "Geography of Home" consists of 13 chapters on 13 places you'll find in most North American houses. It's charming and whimsical -- I especially liked her chapters on front doors and bedrooms. But she didn't dive as deeply as Marcus, and I find I don't remember many of her observations.
I'm in the midst of Witold Rybczynski's "Home: A Short History of An Idea." It's a fun history of how Europeans have inhabited the places where they've lived over the past 500 years or so.
Basically, I'm feeding my "house" bug on its own terms: self-identity, personal space, meaning. We've slowed down our home shopping. How does where we live shape who we are? A house that stands all by itself says something to the world, although we're so used to it, we don't think about it much. A house uses quite a lot of resources so that the family inside doesn't have to share space or possessions with anyone else. A house can become full of meaning, but it is also just a building -- with rooms, appliances, plumbing, wood, and plaster. It's not magical. Or at least not any more than any other place.
I guess what I'm getting at is: what makes us happy? I think I thought a house was another way to be happy. It's a way to be independent, to build equity, to have decorating freedom galore... but it's not a way to be happy.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
"The Velvet Reformation"
This is an excellent article on Rowan Williams and the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, which a friend shared with me.
The Velvet Reformation by Paul Elie
I've clipped out several quotes, below, that struck me most. I do wish the ABC (ArchBishop of Canterbury) would take a position -- I think of Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. But I stand in a particular cultural place and community, and Rowan Williams is standing in between the liberal culture I live in, and cultures where issue of homosexuality could get priests and bishops killed by religious crazies in their countries. It's not simple.
And yet there is something telling in this church struggle, and even in the person of Rowan Williams himself, of the tensions of our time -- the culture wars, the shrinking of formerly large geographical distances by air travel and the internet, the changing understanding of sexuality from something primarily defined by a community's life and spirituality/religiosity, to something with meaning primarily for an individual's life and spirituality/religiosity, and the changing face of religion and Christianity as a whole.
On sexuality and grace (see his famous essay "The Body's Grace"):
The full expression of this grace through sexual relations takes time and the commitment of the partners to come to know each other—through the commitment of marriage or something like it. Sexual fidelity is akin to religious fidelity—“not an avoidance of risk, but the creation of a context in which grace can abound.” For the church to stand in the way of such relationships, straight or gay, is to stand in the way of God’s grace.
Here was a church leader considering the shape of sexual experience, not the structure of the church, and doing so through the notion, at once ancient and utterly familiar, of sexual fidelity: as a means of grace; and as a figure for the life of the church, in which believers can know the way forward only by going there together, staying faithful to God and each other even when they disagree.
On his value for church unity:
"Now my responsibilities are different. The responsibility is not to argue a case from the top or cast the chairman’s vote. It’s to hold the reins for a sensible debate—and that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"It doesn’t mean you stay together at any price, but it is a matter of whether we can demonstrate to the world a slightly different mode of operation than that which the world commonly operates with."
On Rowan Williams, himself:
“God has given you all the gifts,” one friend told him, “and as your punishment, he has made you archbishop of Canterbury."
Rowan Williams is one of the strongest, subtlest voices in all Christianity. Surely it is right for him to try to moderate the discussion about the place of gay people in the church. But that is not enough. He is a leader, not a stage manager. He should also take part in the conversation; he should somehow declare himself for the course of action he favors—which seems obvious—if only to say that he doesn’t favor it yet.
Finally, on what is perhaps the cowardice inherent in the secession movement:
The founding of a neo-traditional Anglican movement in Wheaton, Illinois, in early December actually confirmed the point. The event made the front page of The New York Times, but the facts belied the claims about its impact. The announcement took place not in Jerusalem, but in a borrowed church in a midwestern suburb, and none of the African bishops was present. Although the breakaway bishops claimed the support of 100,000 people, the 800-seat church was half-empty, and already those bishops faced conflicts among themselves—about the status of women priests, for example. It is the threat of schism, and the dramatic Reformation history that the word calls to mind, that gives the dissident bishops their power. Should they actually secede, they would soon be reduced from headlines to footnotes.
The Velvet Reformation by Paul Elie
I've clipped out several quotes, below, that struck me most. I do wish the ABC (ArchBishop of Canterbury) would take a position -- I think of Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. But I stand in a particular cultural place and community, and Rowan Williams is standing in between the liberal culture I live in, and cultures where issue of homosexuality could get priests and bishops killed by religious crazies in their countries. It's not simple.
And yet there is something telling in this church struggle, and even in the person of Rowan Williams himself, of the tensions of our time -- the culture wars, the shrinking of formerly large geographical distances by air travel and the internet, the changing understanding of sexuality from something primarily defined by a community's life and spirituality/religiosity, to something with meaning primarily for an individual's life and spirituality/religiosity, and the changing face of religion and Christianity as a whole.
On sexuality and grace (see his famous essay "The Body's Grace"):
The full expression of this grace through sexual relations takes time and the commitment of the partners to come to know each other—through the commitment of marriage or something like it. Sexual fidelity is akin to religious fidelity—“not an avoidance of risk, but the creation of a context in which grace can abound.” For the church to stand in the way of such relationships, straight or gay, is to stand in the way of God’s grace.
Here was a church leader considering the shape of sexual experience, not the structure of the church, and doing so through the notion, at once ancient and utterly familiar, of sexual fidelity: as a means of grace; and as a figure for the life of the church, in which believers can know the way forward only by going there together, staying faithful to God and each other even when they disagree.
On his value for church unity:
"Now my responsibilities are different. The responsibility is not to argue a case from the top or cast the chairman’s vote. It’s to hold the reins for a sensible debate—and that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"It doesn’t mean you stay together at any price, but it is a matter of whether we can demonstrate to the world a slightly different mode of operation than that which the world commonly operates with."
On Rowan Williams, himself:
“God has given you all the gifts,” one friend told him, “and as your punishment, he has made you archbishop of Canterbury."
Rowan Williams is one of the strongest, subtlest voices in all Christianity. Surely it is right for him to try to moderate the discussion about the place of gay people in the church. But that is not enough. He is a leader, not a stage manager. He should also take part in the conversation; he should somehow declare himself for the course of action he favors—which seems obvious—if only to say that he doesn’t favor it yet.
Finally, on what is perhaps the cowardice inherent in the secession movement:
The founding of a neo-traditional Anglican movement in Wheaton, Illinois, in early December actually confirmed the point. The event made the front page of The New York Times, but the facts belied the claims about its impact. The announcement took place not in Jerusalem, but in a borrowed church in a midwestern suburb, and none of the African bishops was present. Although the breakaway bishops claimed the support of 100,000 people, the 800-seat church was half-empty, and already those bishops faced conflicts among themselves—about the status of women priests, for example. It is the threat of schism, and the dramatic Reformation history that the word calls to mind, that gives the dissident bishops their power. Should they actually secede, they would soon be reduced from headlines to footnotes.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
More productive or more anxious?
This article is so chock-full of information that I had trouble processing all of the ideas and implications! It really made me think. It's about class differences, the current recession, and changes in the American work ethic.
We e-mail, we text, we Facebook, we blog. Are we more productive today or just more anxious?By Katharine Mieszkowski
(about the new book, Elsewhere, U.S.A., by Dalton Conley)
I got thinking about my own work ethic. I take one full day off a week, Fridays, to make sure I get a Sabbath from ministry to rest, take time to do personal things, and spend time with Adam. But sometimes it's hard for me to slow down enough to really enjoy these things -- I often get sort of "stuck," going from 70 mph to 0 or 5 on my Sabbath. I feel agitated, distracted, and unable to really sink my teeth into rest. Even when I can continue to zip around because I'm using my Sabbath to do errands, I end up feeling resentful that I'm spending rest time "doing" instead of resting and just being. What is really rejuvenating? I'm still figuring that out.
This article made me wonder if that's because there isn't a clear division between work and leisure anymore, or at least not the way there was in the 1950s, or even the 1980s. Technology means most of us don't really "leave" work. I don't have a Blackberry, but I'm on email and Facebook often enough. And most Americans find their identity and strongest life satisfaction in their job. Most clergy do, certainly. And so, taking a day off from work can be tricky: how do I take a day off from all the thoughts and loves that consume my brain and heart, and that are fun and rewarding to think about?
But God made Sabbath one of the Ten Commandments. So I feel compelled to keep trying to explore it, and make it a less anxious and confusing experience for myself! I have a book I've been meaning to read, Receiving the Day, by Dorothy Bass. Maybe I'll finally sit down and read it next Friday, my next Sabbath.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Favorite quote of the day
"The only surer route to Oscar credibility than making a Holocaust movie is being dead."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sorry, Bishop Gene
but the Rev. Joseph Lowery pretty much topped everyone today. I like how Eve Fairbanks, writing for The Plank, a blog sponsored by The New Republic, put it:
"... Lowery's benediction had what Rick Warren's earnest invocation, Barack Obama's powerful address, and Elizabeth Alexander's limping poem all to some degree lacked: rhythm."
Amen to that. And starting with that verse from the Black National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"? Brilliant. That hymn almost always makes me cry.
Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.
And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption -- and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques or wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, first lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.
With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around . . .
. . . when yellow will be mellow . . .
. . . when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.
"... Lowery's benediction had what Rick Warren's earnest invocation, Barack Obama's powerful address, and Elizabeth Alexander's limping poem all to some degree lacked: rhythm."
Amen to that. And starting with that verse from the Black National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"? Brilliant. That hymn almost always makes me cry.
Here's the transcript, courtesy of the L.A. Times website:
God of our weary years, god of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our god, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
God of our weary years, god of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our god, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.
We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.
We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.
He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.
We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.
Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.
And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption -- and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques or wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, first lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.
With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around . . .
. . . when yellow will be mellow . . .
. . . when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Gene Robinson's invocation
Thanks to my friend, the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel, for this transcription. Robinson is using the 4-fold Franciscan blessing as his base for the first part of the prayer. You may have heard it before -- we used it during Lent at St. Benedict last year.
Since HBO did not broadcast it, here is Gene Robinson's prayer from the Lincoln Memorial yesterday:
Since HBO did not broadcast it, here is Gene Robinson's prayer from the Lincoln Memorial yesterday:
"O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears -- tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless this nation with anger -- anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.
Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.
And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for all people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.
Give him stirring words; We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen."
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