Back in my college days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was a hippie and a spiritual seeker. The range of spiritual options on campus was broad, and I sampled a bit of everything: Hinduism, Ananda Marga Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Hare Krishna, Transcendental Meditation. I say I was a “seeker,” but that’s not exactly right; I didn’t expect to reach a destination. I was, more accurately, a spiritual explorer, always journeying toward a new horizon.
[June 15, 2018]
The latest installment of The Incredibles is incredibly good. To start with the film’s noisiest aspect, there are four major action sequences, and they’re terrific. I’m not a fan of action sequences; I usually just tune out till they’re over. But the scenes in The Incredibles 2 are so brilliantly executed that I was literally holding my breath. All the ways animation can be superior to live action were exploited brilliantly. The fourth such sequence begins with leaders from all the world’s nations meeting on an enormous ship to sign a treaty, already a promising situation. Then the host proudly announces, “This ship is the largest hydrofoil on the planet,” and you can only say “Oh goody.”
Anger is an emotion that can carry us away so easily. Back when I was in (Episc) seminary, in the 1970s, pastoral theology students were taught that it was important for people to express their anger. Don’t repress it! Let it out! When counseling parishioners, that’s what they were trained to say.
Then a few years later, some revised wisdom appeared. It was that this was actually very bad advice.
I got a tattoo!
In general, I don’t think tattoos are attractive, and sure never expected that I would get one. I mean, I just turned 65, and I had never gotten a tattoo in all those years, so it seemed a safe bet.
But I’ve always thought it was a beautiful witness, how the Coptic Egyptian Christians get a small cross tattooed on the right wrist, to claim the identity of a Christian. The tradition possibly began when the Muslims conquered Egypt 1500 years ago, and would brand or scar a cross on the Christians who refused to convert to Islam. For Coptic Christians, it is a way of claiming an identity that is somewhat despised by the powerful, and to “glory” in nothing but “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul said (Galatians 6:14).
I was disappointed by how Karen Heller’s profile of Rod Dreher turned out, in today’s Washington Post. Especially I felt bad that the quotes she has from me, which make Rod sound manipulative and self-centered. That’s the opposite of how I described him. That’s so frustrating. I wrote up some notes about what I’d said immediately after our conversation, which provides a better context.
Someone emailed me to ask: When did people start to expect worship to be something that would benefit them? Something that will inspire them, resonate with them, give them strength for the week ahead, etc? When did it stop being something we render to God for his own sake, to express our gratitude and awe? He notes that all the things he loves about high-church worship, the music, solemnity, the processions, even the architecture, though they move him deeply, the friends he brings to church just shrug them off.
The Good Samaritan Written by Armenian Patriarch Narses Snorhali (1102-1173). From Jerusalem, our Paradise, guilty like AdamI went down to vile Jericho,And fell into the hands of the Brigand. They stripped me of light;They covered my soul with sores of sin;They did not depart leaving me half dead;But after death,…
I haven’t done much writing about “The Benedict Option” by my friend Rod Dreher, but this image gave me some things to think about. It’s the cover of the French edition of “The Benedict Option,” which comes out in September, and it’s better than the original cover, isn’t it? It expresses the central concept better than the original cover did, though that is admittedly a beautiful photo. The original cover shows Mt St Michel, literally a monastery on a hill, so is it any wonder people think that’s what the book is about?
I was just writing to a friend who’s had a hard diagnosis:
When I was young I noticed how all older people have something physical to complain about, sometimes something very serious. Each one had a body part that was failing faster than the rest. A part that had been set, like a clock, to be the first to give way. And we don’t know what they are, when we’re younger. We carry them around unknowing, while the clock steadily circles around to the time they are set to bloom forth—“booby traps” that we don’t know about and can’t anticipate, but every day get closer to being activated.
Here’s a provocative and compelling post by Fr Stephen Freeman, explaining why it is hard for people in a democratic society to grasp the very idea of God. It is hard even for people who consider themselves “religious.” The assumptions of democracy, that every person freely defines himself and determines…
