Category Archives: Community

Significant Books

Fr. Chris was posting on books that had been particularly formative in his faith journey and, turning it into a meme, tagged me for it.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I find it a very difficult one to answer. There have been so very many books that have influenced me in many ways. But—fitting in my turn away from true protestantism—when I think about my faith journey people have been more formative for me than books. Or—to mix it up, what certain mentors taught me with certain books has been incredibly formative…

None of that answers Fr. Chris’s question which is partly about recommending really good books to other people. I’ll morph it a little bit too–I’ll list what I currently think to be the seven most important books for my faith formation and theology. There are, of course, three that should go without saying so I’ll just stick them here at the top for the sake of form and make it a round ten:

  1. The Bible
  2. The 1979 American Book of Common Prayer
  3. The ’82 Hymnal
  4. The Book of Concord: Ok—here’s the first book that I’ll explain, and that needs some explanation. For those who don’t know it, the Book of Concord is that official collection of theological writings that Lutherans accept. I don’t accept it all (one of the reasons why I’m not currently a Lutheran pastor), But I find myself very frequently going back to Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology. The Small Catechism in particular is a key work for me.
  5. The Rule of Benedict/John Cassian’s Institutes and Conferences: Three books for the price of one… Benedict’s work is fairly widely known in Christian and Episcopal circles and is justly honored for its wisdom, structure, and humanity. Cassian’s works are still fairly obscure—and that’s to our detriment. The early church didn’t write systematic theologies. However, Cassian’s work is the closest that you’ll come to a systematic spirituality. Filled with theological and psychological insight, Cassian focuses less on doctrines and more on practices, on communicating a path for cultivating disciples. I find myself at a place in my spiritual and intellectual life where I can’t see these three works as truly distinct from one another. The Rule is in many respects a distillation of Cassian and yet the Rule becomes a lens for reading Cassian as well.
  6. Monastic Practices: This is a supremely practical book written for Cistercian novices. It introduces them to the basics of the monastic spiritual practices. Ever since I first encountered it in a theology library in Tokyo during undergrad this book has been having on me.
  7. On Christian Doctrine: This is Augustine’s main work on hermeneutics–how to read Scripture and get stuff out of it. The center of his argument is caritas: If you are reading and you find something other than love, read it again because you missed it. Of course, love is not a gooey do-whatever-you-like; it’s love with depth and integrity. Like the Rule & Cassian, this one has been very influential in my spiritual and intellectual lives.
  8. The Soul in Paraphrase: This was a very important book for me because it introduced me to the notion of the religious affections. It gave me a vocabulary for thinking about a range of human experience I didn’t know how to describe. In many ways this book laid the groundwork for me to appreciate what Stoicism is really about and therefore monastic spirituality which is fundamentally a kind of Christian Stoicism. 
  9. The Temple: For a sacramental Anglican who loves poetry, this is simply a no-brainer. Herbert’s verse sings. He soars up to great heights but—just as important—he plumbs great depths too. His poetry of misery in relation to God is second only to the Psalms in my opinion.
  10. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters: This work begins by affirming that the creed is not an easy thing for modern people to affirm. Then, rather than making excuses for it or weaseling out of it, affirms the importance of a literal reading of the Creed and ties each article into classic Christian theology and spirituality, explain why each one is important and the broader ramifications of it.

What are your picks?

Medical Limbo

Yesterday the doctor told me that I could stop doing the daily IV treatments and go to oral antibiotics. You’d think that would make M and myself quite happy. Instead we were (and remain) vaguely uneasy.

That’s because he’s revised his diagnosis.

After my first MRI the radiologist, the orthopedist, and my doctor–the infectious disease guy–all said that the scan indicated osteomyelitis: infection of the bone.

After this second, the radiologist and orthopedist are still saying the same thing. My doctor has decided that it’s not really osteomyelitis, buit that it’s inflamation of the outer layer of the bone due to the infection. Antinflammatories should clear that up.

Except that I’ve been taking them all along for pain…

So—I’m off the IV antibiotics and on orals. My foot still has some swelling (but not as much as there was) and it’s painful to walk too much (but I couldn’t walk at all before).

What exactly’s going on?

If I had to guess, I’d say that my doctor knows the daily schedule is hard on all of us and he doesn’t know what else he can do to go after the infection. Thus, he’s scaling back to see if it comes back or not. I kinda feel like a guniea pig…

Needless to say, we’re still going to leave the pic line in just in case. M’s suggesting I push for a bone scan which would tell us for sure whether the infection’s there or not.

Crap…

Preliminary results from yesterday’s MRI indicate no change in the bone infection. I’ll learn later in the week what exactly that means in terms of my treatment plan.
I was hoping the news would be better but feared this might be the case. Even though last week’s blood work resu.lts looked promising, I still have infection symptoms.

Spider-bite Update

Well, we’re hoping that the spider-bite drama is finally heading towards its conclusion. While I still have swelling in the foot, a really warm red patch where the infection is hanging out and am still going for daily IV treatments, it seems like we’ve turned a corner.

The swelling isn’t nearly as bad as it was–I can see some (ok, a little) definition in my foot now and in a strong light can see my toe tendons when I wiggle them. I continue to keep it elevated and iced and evenings can be rough. More importantly, the foot supports weight now and I can walk around without crutches. I still limp a bit, but that too isn’t as bad as it was. Most encouraging is the results of my blood-work. The doctor said it’s basically back to normal. I have an MRI tomorrow which should tell us if the infection is out of the bone. I’m hoping—and I think all of this indicates—that the infection is no longer in my bone and blood and is just in the soft-tissue of the foot.

If the doctor likes what he sees, this Friday should be my last daily IV session and I’ll be able to move to oral antibiotics!

I never thought this would take as long as it has. I’m thankful that I was in pretty good shape to start with health-wise or this would have taken even longer (or I just might not have made it those first hours in the hospital). As M keeps reminding me, caring for my health and my body is part of our responsibility to care for all of God’s creation. Because I tend toward the lean side I’ve never had to watch what I eat; that will be changing  and once the foot gets better I’ll be working on getting more aerobic exercise…

Call for Papers: Daily Office Propaganda

Ok—you asked for it…

One of the purposes of this site is to advocate for liturgically grounded Christian spirituality. Being in the Anglican tradition—particularly the strand that appreciates our catholic and Benedictine roots—that means celebrating the balance of the Mass and the Office. Had I been born in an early time, I imagine I might have been an advocate for the Parish Communion movement that pushed for more common celebration of the Eucharist. I wasn’t, though. With the ’79 American BCP restoring the Eucharist as the normative Sunday liturgy, things (in the States at least) have swung the other way and many current Episcopalians—espeically those not native to the tradition—are unfamiliar with the Daily Office, what it is, and why it matters if we and our parishes do it.

In that vein, I’m inviting submissions of propaganda for the promotion of the Daily Office. I’m thinking of something basic—one page, front & back—that can be handed out, put in a tract rack, discussed, used for a Sunday School/Adult Ed class, etc.

As these come in, I’ll note them here and post them on the Promoting the Daily Office page on the side-bar to maintain a repository of possibilities for printing, replication, and use in YOUR parish.

And while I’ve thrown around the word “Anglican” a couple of times, let’s not forget that the Office belongs to the whole Church and all of the Western Christian traditions have it in their ancestry. Yes, even you Lutherans… Submissions are welcome from all!

Cat’s in the Doghouse and Other News

  • My cat is so in the doghouse right now. I have two computers by my bed—my work laptop and a PC I use for my other work. Connectivity is made possible by two fifty-foot ethernet cables running down the hall to the library. The cat chewed through one of them… So now I have to alternate between one and the other. And I’m (successfully so far) fighting the temptation to hack one of my neighbors’ unprotected wireless networks…
  • Just returned home from my daily IV treatment at the doctor and got an update. There are still no plans for surgery but the daily IV treatments will continue through the end of March. I think I’m going to have a pick(pic?) line put in. That’s an IV site that is implanted in my arm and snakes through a vein to the heart. It can stay in for up to a year and means I won’t need a new IV site every couple of days like right now. The pick line will be a good thing because I don’t think the veins in my arms will last another month…

A Purposeful Meme

This one’s from the Young Fogey

Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List the rules.

Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.

Why I Blog…
1. The original purpose of this blog—see the first post—was to serve as a kind of public accountability for dissertation progress. That didn’t work! Although, the dissertation is drawing to a close… I suppose it’s good that that didn’t become its central purpose; if it had I suppose I’d have to stop blogging once the dissertation was done.

2. As a forum for discussing religion/spirituality/theology that is liturgical, biblical, traditional, yet meaningful to a postmodern, post-Constantinian world. My firm conviction is that the Gospel—the Good News of what God has done for us in Christ—does not change, but the way we proclaim must be ever renewed and reformed from the distortions and misunderstandings that inevitably occur when we frail humans try to communicate it. (Thanks be to God that the power of the cross speaks even through our failures…) As a result, it’s not enough to repeat the words and principles of the past. However, the past is a key repository of Christian wisdom and for examining how the Spirit has worked amongst us in different times and places and that show us how to proceed—and how not to proceed—today.
3. Shameless Narcissism. I get to make all the stupid comments I want about whatever I want… :-) Especially the Anglican Communion. But there’s been less of that recently. I really do want to get back to talking about medieval things, especially medieval liturgy (see point 1…). Hopefully that’ll be coming soon.

Tag Three People
bls
Christopher
LutherPunk
and, of course, anyone else who’d like to play along…

Spider Bite Update

Got back from the doctor; the news is not good.

After almost three weeks afterward—and two weeks out of the hospital—my foot is still swollen and in pain. The doctor explained the results of yesterday’s MRI to us; the infection has moved into the bones of my feet.

He’s going to explore surgical options with a friend who’s an orthopedic, but is of the opinion that another two weeks of daily visits (and co-pays…) for IV antibiotics ought to do it.

So–more IVs, more hours out of M’s day when she has to drive me out to the doctor, and lots more co-pays. Please keep us in your prayers…

Mission and the Mainlines

There’s been some interesting talk recently that I’ve only half been able to follow: Christopher had something on the Daily Office as the core of a new way of doing Church, and on what mission could look like in his area which was a riff on what LutherPunk was talking about here in a look at the practical issues of growing a community.

Add into the mix Andrew Gern’s piece yesterday at the Cafe on the Mainlines and the recent Pew Report

It’s clear we’ve got a problem. And by “we” I mean people in churches, people who call themselves Christians, people who care about encountering God and helping others find the same God.

I like the notion in Gerns’s piece that we have to have a sense of who we are and that we have to be open at the same time. I certainly have a vision for what that should look like—and I doubt it will be a surprise to anyone. I also get a liitle nervous when we start using marketing language because of its connotations of manipulation. Our marketing vision has to match with what others see when they encounter us; if the marketing vision doesn’t have integrity and authenticity, it will be obvious and all the work in the world won’t fix the credibility gap.

Who do I see the Episcopal Church being? I see us as a community that understands the search for God as pre-eminently rooted in the corporate liturgical cycles of Mass and Office and in the theologies of those texts.

Furthermore, I see us not just holding those boundaries but encouraging play within them. That is, we are a people who accept the scientific study of Scripture as well as the scientific study of the universe in all its splendor. We firmly believe that we need not be afraid of the answers and new questions we find, knowing that faith seeking understanding is a better path than either understanding seeking faith or faith hiding from understanding.

In many ways I think we fail on both counts. We don’t do full justice to our heritage of worshiping God in the beauty of holiness nor—as was taken up after the rant yesterday—are our clergy and people as rooted in the traditions, liturgies, and Scriptures of our church as I would wish them to be. These are the groundings that making the second part possible and fruitful. Faith must be our starting place—only then does the understanding have a framework within which to fit. Recognizing the proper place of understanding is one of our current problems–personified by Spong and his approach which is to say if there is any potential conflict between a scientific worldview and a traditional Christian worldview, the scientific wins. That’s not right either.

There’s a lot to be said for recognizing that all of our worldviews are just that—models that we use to function constructively on a day-by-day basis. What some seem to find so hard to understand is that a scientific worldview is not scientific fact, rather it is a construct based on a host of facts, theories, and assumptions that proceed from a scientific understanding of the universe. As such, I suggest we wear our models lightly and recognize that we live in the midst of several, and not require that we force resolution between them.

(I might add that when we talk about worldviews, Scripture itself contains not one but several, some that are compatible with one another and some that conflict more or less violently. Ditto for Christianity throughout the centuries…)

So that’s my vision for us. We need to be the church that worships God in the beauty of holiness and that encourages dialogue between the worlds of faith, science, and technology. To get there we need to work on our beauty, and our holiness, and our groundedness.