I got a call from my daughter Ruth on Saturday, the first time we had spoken since she returned from Colombia, S.A., a few weeks ago. She had gone to Medellin in particular because that is the city where she was born twenty-seven years ago. We adopted her when she was six months old and suffering from malnourishment. I remember our time in Medellin as a nightmare of Colombian bureaucracy and poisoned air. The city sits in a bowl among mountains, and in those days the atmosphere was a barely breathable carbon monoxide soup. The day we were supposed to leave Medellin for Bogota to pick up her U.S. visa, we learned that the embassy would be closed in observance of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Say, what? I spoke with an official there who said that the closure was out of respect for the local customs and that she would ordinarily be glad to come in and handle the visa for us except that her daughter was being confirmed that day. A big party was planned.
Ruth tells me that Medellin is now a tourist destination, a pretty cool place. While she was there, I saw an article in the New York Times Sunday Travel section saying the same thing. The city has come a long way from the 1980s when the drug trade was about to take over the economy. There are still dangerous parts of the country, of course, because a civil war continues. I confess to having worried about her while she was gone, but every now and then I’d get a text message from her saying something like, “Spending the day at the beach. Having a great time.” She’s a gregarious young woman and met a lot of people, it seems, who took her around to see the sights. She was in good hands.
When she called, I asked her, “What’s up?” And she started to giggle. “I’m the Rev. Ruth Arnold,” she laughed. And what did that mean? I asked.
“Well,” she said, “my friend in Albuquerque” where she went to college “wants me to marry her and her fiancé next June and they said I could go on this website, Universal Life Church Monastery, and get ordained. So I did.” She laughed and laughed.
I looked up the website while we were talking, and there it was. I loved the headline, so reminiscent of the early McDonald’s burger stands: “Over 20 million ordained since 1959.” I should have known about this option back in the late 1980s when I was turning my life inside out to get the Episcopal Church to agree to ordain me. I noticed on the ULC website that I could still become a Doctor of Metaphysics, which has a certain appeal. (How many certified metaphysicians do you know?) But my daughter clearly loved the fact that she got ordained in fifteen minutes on line, whereas I had spent eight years in order to become a . . . deacon. She’s right. It’s pretty funny.
But, you might say, that’s different. You’re ordained in a real church by a bishop in Apostolic Succession, a direct line straight back to Jesus himself.
Right.
I’m going to fill out this application for my metaphysical degree. Won’t take a minute.
Uh-oh, I hear Bishop Ken stomping down the corridors of the other world heading my way. I’m in trouble. Hit “Send” now!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Justa!
“Justa, Justa. Come quickly.”
I was working quietly in my new home office here in Portland this morning when Bishop Ken interrupted, as he has a habit of doing, by calling to me imperiously from the other world. [For those of you who missed last week's post, Bishop Thomas Ken was active in Britain in the 17th century; he has begun to visit me, Deacon Ken, from the beyond, attracted, I believe, by the similarity of our names. A friend wondered if the bishop speaks to me from the radiator. He does not. He speaks to me as all bishops do, out of nowhere and in a loud voice.]
“I’ve told you, my name is Ken,” I said.
“No, no,” he chortled. “Justa. As in, Justa Deacon.” He laughed uproariously. “S'blood, I crack me up.”
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“Did I ever tell you about how I refused to allow the King to park his trollop, Nell Gwyn, in my residence? You see, I was Royal Chaplain to King Charles and he thought maybe he could hide his mistress in my apartments and escape notice. Well, I can tell you I wasted no time in sending His Royal Highness a pretty sharp rebuke.”
“I’ve read about it. Very courageous of you.”
“But did you hear what I wrote? ‘The Royal Chaplain shall not double as the Royal Pimp.’ Pretty good, eh what? Anyway, that is how I came to be appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells. The King reportedly declared—I have this on the highest authority—‘None shall have this bishopric save that little man who refused lodging to poor Nellie!’ And when he died, the King that is, it was I he summoned to be with him at the end. Not that I’m actually such a little man, mind you.”
“That’s great,” I said, putting a Charlie Parker disc on the Bose. “But no one cares about King Charles and his mistress anymore. The church has more important matters to attend to than who’s sleeping with whom.”
“Ah,” Bishop Ken sighed. “I could have been executed for my stance. For what are your bishops prepared to die?”
“Church property and pensions.”
There was a knowing silence from the other world.
“Oh, dear, Justa. I’ve run out of tobacco. Be a good lad, will you, and fetch some for me.”
I turned up the volume on “Salt Peanuts.”
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Bishop Ken Speaks
It has come to my attention that the author of this blog, whatever that may be, hath written calumnies against the Church, and yet being a deacon hath not attached himself as he should to a Bishop upon whom he may rely for counsel. I, Bishop Ken, have offered myself in Christian Charitie to tutor this wayward deacon in the ways of his calling. I may therefore on occasion intercede for him here and correct his lack of knowledge (but he being but a deacon is not charged to know anything but rather to do as he is told).
First, it is to be acknowledged that my half-brother-in-law, Izaak Walton, angler of some fame, who with my half-sister Anne did rear me from my birth in 1637, has informed me of Deacon Ken’s prowess as a fisherman, a sport of dignity, which alas I never learned from Mr. Walton. I know not what became of my natural parents. Nonetheless, it is a good thing to spend time in the country among rivers and the fishes and I commend the deacon for his attention to God’s creation.
However, and second, the goodly deacon, as I understand his wife Constance is prone to call him, for reasons unclear, has on occasion spoken sharply to bishops, admonishing them in their behavior. I hereby order him, in love and charitie, as his new bishop father in Christ, to desist from such speaking. The bishop is the sole keeper of the Word and it is his office to admonish, not the deacon’s. The deacon's office is to be admonished.
Deacon, I command you to attend upon me in the morning with my tea and toast and prepare to dress me for the Lord’s service, after which you may eat and take communion to the poor and sicke, whilst I attend to higher things.
Hold it, Bishop. I just want to point out that you challenged the king in the matter of the Declaration of Indulgence and were imprisoned in the Tower of London. And then refused to take an oath to William and Mary and were relieved of your office as a result. Like you, I think that there are times when leaders in the church have to speak out against those who abuse their power. For example, we have a regime in this country that tortures prisoners, denies health care to children, murders the innocent citizens of other countries, lies to its citizens, deports and mistreats the strangers in our midst....
Ah, Deacon Ken, it is true that on occasion one must refuse illegitimate power. In telling me, your bishop, of these terrible acts, you are doing your diaconal--and indeed Christian--duty. I commend you for it. What benighted country is this that you speak of? Its leaders are behaving shamefully if what you say is true. Perhaps you could tell me the name of church leaders to whom I could speak about these deplorable conditions. I wonder that they, your bishops, are silent on these matters. They too, by their inaction, abuse their authority.
First, it is to be acknowledged that my half-brother-in-law, Izaak Walton, angler of some fame, who with my half-sister Anne did rear me from my birth in 1637, has informed me of Deacon Ken’s prowess as a fisherman, a sport of dignity, which alas I never learned from Mr. Walton. I know not what became of my natural parents. Nonetheless, it is a good thing to spend time in the country among rivers and the fishes and I commend the deacon for his attention to God’s creation.
However, and second, the goodly deacon, as I understand his wife Constance is prone to call him, for reasons unclear, has on occasion spoken sharply to bishops, admonishing them in their behavior. I hereby order him, in love and charitie, as his new bishop father in Christ, to desist from such speaking. The bishop is the sole keeper of the Word and it is his office to admonish, not the deacon’s. The deacon's office is to be admonished.
Deacon, I command you to attend upon me in the morning with my tea and toast and prepare to dress me for the Lord’s service, after which you may eat and take communion to the poor and sicke, whilst I attend to higher things.
Hold it, Bishop. I just want to point out that you challenged the king in the matter of the Declaration of Indulgence and were imprisoned in the Tower of London. And then refused to take an oath to William and Mary and were relieved of your office as a result. Like you, I think that there are times when leaders in the church have to speak out against those who abuse their power. For example, we have a regime in this country that tortures prisoners, denies health care to children, murders the innocent citizens of other countries, lies to its citizens, deports and mistreats the strangers in our midst....
Ah, Deacon Ken, it is true that on occasion one must refuse illegitimate power. In telling me, your bishop, of these terrible acts, you are doing your diaconal--and indeed Christian--duty. I commend you for it. What benighted country is this that you speak of? Its leaders are behaving shamefully if what you say is true. Perhaps you could tell me the name of church leaders to whom I could speak about these deplorable conditions. I wonder that they, your bishops, are silent on these matters. They too, by their inaction, abuse their authority.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Cycling to St. Paul
Last Friday, I went cycling with Mark, a new friend here in Portland. He drove us to Champoeg Park (pronounced “shampoo-ee.”) twenty miles or so out of the city. Because I don’t have a car, I bike mostly in and around the city, which has miles of paths and bike lanes. It was good to get out and see some of the Oregon country, which is flat where we were riding. Along the road were fields planted with firs of various sorts, mostly Christmas trees, I think, and a couple of large hickory nut groves (around here, the nuts are called filberts). The nuts turn up in creative restaurant dishes around town. You can buy them fresh in the open air markets. The nuts were lying on the ground along the road we were traveling.
We decided to go to St. Paul, a town that hosts a somewhat famous rodeo on July 4th. The town itself is not much. Not far from the Willamette River, which also flows through Portland, it is a Roman Catholic hot spot. The church is located centrally—and I did not see any other denominations represented there, just the brick RC Church and the high school, also Catholic. Street names like Mission Road, Convent Avenue, Church Avenue gave away its identity. We rode into town by the church and out again into the countryside, noting on the way a couple of coffee shops we might visit. We decided on Banker’s Cup, which had a porch and pretty good coffee. Mark and I sat on the porch, looking across the parking lot at a couple of sheds that stored farm equipment (or something else, I couldn’t tell what). On the side of one of the sheds was an old billboard advertising the rodeo. On the bumper of an SUV in the parking lot was a sign reading: “You can’t be Catholic and pro-choice.”
“I told you it’s a Catholic town,” Mark said.
The sky is wide open in Oregon and out there on the plain you could see its great expanse. There were some puffy clouds behind the sheds. Not much was happening and we were happy to sit there drinking coffee.
Mark told me he had been raised Catholic but by the time he was twelve or thirteen he and his friends had figured out that the religion was essentially bogus, even as they went through the motions. When they skipped religious classes, they spent a lot of their time talking about the “theology” of avoiding the priests and their increasingly doubtful view of reality. They understood, he said, that it all rested on the veracity of the priests, whom they knew to be untrustworthy. Once their authority was in question, the rest of the infrastructure fell with them, all the way up to the Pope. He was talking as much about Christianity in general as Catholicism in particular.
I said that, indicating the expansive sky and clouds in front of us, many people I know in the church would talk about the beauty of God’s creation and describe how their emotions reflected God’s call to them from and as part of that creation. Mark responded that he saw the natural world as it is, and that is good enough.
Knowing that I am ordained in the Episcopal Church, I think Mark was curious to know how I would respond. And basically I had to agree with him. These days, when I look at the world I do not see a deity, nor do I hear a deity’s call to creation. What Mark had abandoned was a belief system—Christianity’s doctrines—that no longer reflected what he saw around him or what he experienced. And the argument for abandoning the system is a strong one.
I think a lot of people feel the same way. The Christian creedal world does not speak to them, except as a framework for control or denial, and they want none of it. Around here, in Portland, I’m told that about ten percent of the population attends church.
“People want meaning,” I said. “The church for the most part doesn’t give them a sense of meaning. It explains nothing. If the church is going to survive, it needs to figure out how to do that again.”
I still have an interest in the church's survival, but it's a hard position to maintain.
For me, the natural world has meaning, but it isn’t Christian meaning. The Buddhist explanation of reality resonates more strongly with me these days, but there is something missing there too. Its explanation of the origins of things makes more sense—all arising in mutual dependency out of the void—and its rejection of a theistic deity also sounds right. But that does not answer the twenty-first century yearning for meaning, which for most people is found more often in the company of another, whether a friend or a family member or a lover, or in a book or in music.
We had a good ride. On the way back we talked about some books we both like, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and the fiction of Haruki Murakami, for example. Sunday morning we plan to ride again, this time along the Columbia River.
We decided to go to St. Paul, a town that hosts a somewhat famous rodeo on July 4th. The town itself is not much. Not far from the Willamette River, which also flows through Portland, it is a Roman Catholic hot spot. The church is located centrally—and I did not see any other denominations represented there, just the brick RC Church and the high school, also Catholic. Street names like Mission Road, Convent Avenue, Church Avenue gave away its identity. We rode into town by the church and out again into the countryside, noting on the way a couple of coffee shops we might visit. We decided on Banker’s Cup, which had a porch and pretty good coffee. Mark and I sat on the porch, looking across the parking lot at a couple of sheds that stored farm equipment (or something else, I couldn’t tell what). On the side of one of the sheds was an old billboard advertising the rodeo. On the bumper of an SUV in the parking lot was a sign reading: “You can’t be Catholic and pro-choice.”
“I told you it’s a Catholic town,” Mark said.
The sky is wide open in Oregon and out there on the plain you could see its great expanse. There were some puffy clouds behind the sheds. Not much was happening and we were happy to sit there drinking coffee.
Mark told me he had been raised Catholic but by the time he was twelve or thirteen he and his friends had figured out that the religion was essentially bogus, even as they went through the motions. When they skipped religious classes, they spent a lot of their time talking about the “theology” of avoiding the priests and their increasingly doubtful view of reality. They understood, he said, that it all rested on the veracity of the priests, whom they knew to be untrustworthy. Once their authority was in question, the rest of the infrastructure fell with them, all the way up to the Pope. He was talking as much about Christianity in general as Catholicism in particular.
I said that, indicating the expansive sky and clouds in front of us, many people I know in the church would talk about the beauty of God’s creation and describe how their emotions reflected God’s call to them from and as part of that creation. Mark responded that he saw the natural world as it is, and that is good enough.
Knowing that I am ordained in the Episcopal Church, I think Mark was curious to know how I would respond. And basically I had to agree with him. These days, when I look at the world I do not see a deity, nor do I hear a deity’s call to creation. What Mark had abandoned was a belief system—Christianity’s doctrines—that no longer reflected what he saw around him or what he experienced. And the argument for abandoning the system is a strong one.
I think a lot of people feel the same way. The Christian creedal world does not speak to them, except as a framework for control or denial, and they want none of it. Around here, in Portland, I’m told that about ten percent of the population attends church.
“People want meaning,” I said. “The church for the most part doesn’t give them a sense of meaning. It explains nothing. If the church is going to survive, it needs to figure out how to do that again.”
I still have an interest in the church's survival, but it's a hard position to maintain.
For me, the natural world has meaning, but it isn’t Christian meaning. The Buddhist explanation of reality resonates more strongly with me these days, but there is something missing there too. Its explanation of the origins of things makes more sense—all arising in mutual dependency out of the void—and its rejection of a theistic deity also sounds right. But that does not answer the twenty-first century yearning for meaning, which for most people is found more often in the company of another, whether a friend or a family member or a lover, or in a book or in music.
We had a good ride. On the way back we talked about some books we both like, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and the fiction of Haruki Murakami, for example. Sunday morning we plan to ride again, this time along the Columbia River.
Monday, October 1, 2007
New Church, True Church
I understand that the dissident Episcopal Churches meeting in Pittsburgh last week intend to move forward with the formation of an institution reflecting a “more unified orthodox Anglicanism in North America,” now that the House of Bishops has failed to accede to the demands of the Anglican Primates A joint statement from the Anglican Communion Network affirmed: “We, with others gathered in Pittsburgh for the Common Cause Council of Bishops, are committed to remaining within biblical Christianity even as The Episcopal Church once again has chosen to continue on its own tragic course.”
Good idea. I know that the leaders of the Episcopal Church are trying to keep the dissidents from leaving by creating special arrangements for Episcopal visitations and so forth, but I think that the church should encourage those who disagree with the direction the church has taken to leave. This position is contrary to the long-cherished Anglican desire to keep everyone together by following, as a church, the middle road, the way of compromise. The problem is that the differences between those who believe that the Episcopal Church is on the right path and those who disagree reflect completely different religious perspectives.
The dissidents espouse a faith based on the notion of a Sky God who hands down immutable laws, found in the Christian Bible, to priests and bishops who are authorized to speak authoritatively for this God. The myth on which their faith is built describes the sacrifice of this God’s son for the salvation of sinners, who may receive this grace by repenting of their sins (as described in the above-noted immutable laws) and returning to righteous ways (as described by the above-identified priests and bishops).
The Episcopal Church opposed by these dissidents actually believes pretty much the same thing when it comes to official doctrine (see, for example, the Nicene Creed), but is nonetheless struggling with the idea that a church might be born that is about a path of spiritual maturity following the way of Christ as opposed to a set of orthodox beliefs required for admission to heaven. The House of Bishops made statements opposing the war in Iraq and racism (good, good), as well as affirming its support for justice and dignity for gays and lesbians (very good).
These two branches of the Anglican Communion are not speaking the same theological language. Two churches are already in place. Why not allow them to be formally established? Some suggest that this approach does not reflect Christian virtues of love and community. But on the contrary, we Christians have always found our way along the path of Christ by stepping out of the existing institutional structures. The reformation must be ongoing or the church will simply whither and die. I believe that the Episcopal Church that seeks justice for gays and lesbians is going in the right direction, but I do not want to stand in the way of those, like Robert Duncan, who believe otherwise. We should support his and his fellow orthodox believers in finding the way back to their true faith.
Good idea. I know that the leaders of the Episcopal Church are trying to keep the dissidents from leaving by creating special arrangements for Episcopal visitations and so forth, but I think that the church should encourage those who disagree with the direction the church has taken to leave. This position is contrary to the long-cherished Anglican desire to keep everyone together by following, as a church, the middle road, the way of compromise. The problem is that the differences between those who believe that the Episcopal Church is on the right path and those who disagree reflect completely different religious perspectives.
The dissidents espouse a faith based on the notion of a Sky God who hands down immutable laws, found in the Christian Bible, to priests and bishops who are authorized to speak authoritatively for this God. The myth on which their faith is built describes the sacrifice of this God’s son for the salvation of sinners, who may receive this grace by repenting of their sins (as described in the above-noted immutable laws) and returning to righteous ways (as described by the above-identified priests and bishops).
The Episcopal Church opposed by these dissidents actually believes pretty much the same thing when it comes to official doctrine (see, for example, the Nicene Creed), but is nonetheless struggling with the idea that a church might be born that is about a path of spiritual maturity following the way of Christ as opposed to a set of orthodox beliefs required for admission to heaven. The House of Bishops made statements opposing the war in Iraq and racism (good, good), as well as affirming its support for justice and dignity for gays and lesbians (very good).
These two branches of the Anglican Communion are not speaking the same theological language. Two churches are already in place. Why not allow them to be formally established? Some suggest that this approach does not reflect Christian virtues of love and community. But on the contrary, we Christians have always found our way along the path of Christ by stepping out of the existing institutional structures. The reformation must be ongoing or the church will simply whither and die. I believe that the Episcopal Church that seeks justice for gays and lesbians is going in the right direction, but I do not want to stand in the way of those, like Robert Duncan, who believe otherwise. We should support his and his fellow orthodox believers in finding the way back to their true faith.
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