Sunday, March 02, 2008
Day on monotonous ritual
From The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker:

Ritual, how could we do without it! Though it may seem to be gibberish and irreverence, though the Mass is offered up in such haste that the sacred sentence, "hoc est corpus meus" was abbreviated into "hocus-pocus" by the bitter protestor and has come down into our language meaning trickery, nevertheless there is a sureness and a  conviction there. And just as a husband may embrace his wife casually as he leaves for work in the morning, and kiss her absent-mindedly in his comings and goings, still that kiss on occasion turns to rapture, a burning fire of tenderness and love. And with this to stay her she demands the "ritual" of affection shown. The little altar boy kissing the cruet of water as he hands it to the priest is performing a rite. We have too little ritual in our lives (200).

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posted by Peter at 3:25 PM
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Recalibration
From With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray:

Our daily life in the world is the test of our communication with God in prayer. How often the Christian, when he comes to pray, does his utmost to cultivate certain frames of mind which he thinks will be pleasing. He doesn't understand (or he forgets) that life does not consist of a lot of loose pieces which can be picked up at random and then be discarded. Life is a whole. The hour of prayer is only a small part of daily life. God's opinion of what I really am and desire is not based on the feeling I conjure up, but on the tone of my life during the day.
The other day at work I was asked to recalibrate the milk thermometers. This involves filling a small pitcher with ice water and a digital thermometer, and then you have to adjust a nut on milk thermometer until it matches the digital one. Any number of things throughout the day--from changes in barometric pressure to somebody putting it in the hot dish sanitizer--can throw a thermometer off.

And so when I read this passage, that image of recalibration hit me. And I kinda like that. I'm trying look and act like Jesus, and any number of things throw that off, some things a little, some things a lot. Prayer is the moment I get turned and twisted aright again, recalibrated to go back out into the world.

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posted by Peter at 8:52 AM
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Monday, October 01, 2007
Pastor as ward heeler
From Blue Collar Ministry by Tex Sample:

The key to the power of the political machine was the ward heeler, the person who had a thoroughgoing knowledge of the ward. The ward heeler knew who needed a half ton of coal, who needed a job, who needed help with a hospital bill, or whose taxes were overdue, and so on. The ward heeler knew where the trade-offs were and where a bargain could be struck that would meet the needs of disparate parties and turn them into a coalition.
...
First, it is a role that can work in the complex relationships found in church and community.... Second, when properly conceived and practiced, it addresses the question of dignity in the relationships between pastors and working-class people (134-35).
Makes me think of Karl Malden's priest character in On the Waterfront, in one of my favorite all-time scenes in a movie.

Aaron's got me reading some Tex for my independent study. Tex spends about two-thirds of this book just describing the social framework of working-class white people. And at about this point he's got this great chapter about the role of pastor as "ward heeler." It has historic precedent in the 19th and early 20th centuries when politicians would work the streets to gain peoples' favor in exchange for votes. It may sound crass on the surface, but the process of quid pro quo and the idea of reciprocity are hard-wired into people.

For many of us, we've forgotten ministry is a two-way street. To give and give and give and never let the "poor and needy" give to us robs them of some of their imago Dei human dignity. I mean, think of the quid pro quo of the cross. Is that manipulation? Jesus died with an agenda. So we love God because he first loved us.

And so maybe one day the world will love the Church because it sees the Church, the bride of Christ, acting on behalf of Jesus, first loving the world.

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posted by Peter at 6:32 AM
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Merton on money
From Seeds of Contemplation (I found this first edition with a burlap binding at Half Price Books a month or so ago. Best $5 I've spent in a long time):

If you have money, consider that perhaps the only reason God allowed it to fall into your hands was in order that you might find joy and perfection by throwing it away (107).

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posted by Peter at 8:45 PM
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Friday, January 12, 2007
Community: Day 3
Again yesterday, as we learned to do from Bonhoeffer, we began the day in prayerful gratitude followed by a Scripture reading from Philippians 2 and prayerful response.

We then continued our discussion of Bonhoeffer. He has some really harsh words for "emotional high" experiences, and so we talked about how that might translate into our own experiences with youth camp or retreats like Emmaus Walk. He writes,
Nothing is easier than to stimulate the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together, but nothing is more fatal to the sounds, sober brotherly fellowship of everyday life (39).

He seems to have a very strong reaction against defining Christian community by emotional experience.

The proximity of location of members is significant as people live near one another. Also significant are shared meals, or the fellowship of the table, and its intersection with Eucharist, especially when they are done in the same space. There is a sense of Sabbath to regular mealtime as it creates a rhythm of rest throughout the day. You stop what you're doing. You sit down. You share and you eat together.

Several practices of sustaining community are implicit in Bonhoeffer's writing. There's the ministry of listening. If you're not listening to your brothers, then you are not listing to God. There's the ministry of helpfulness, a willingness to be interrupted because more often than not, opportunities for service come as interruptions. There's the ministry of bearing one another's burdens. The peculiarities of others becomes an opportunity for bearing. It is crucial that we have a sensitivity to others' frailties. There's the ministry of proclaiming the Word person-to-person.

There's the ministry of confession. Though, for Bonhoeffer, there is a limit to our self-revelation. We are not called to reveal all of our deepest, darkest secrets as confession can often become extremely manipulative within community. And with that we wrapped up the Bonhoeffer material.

Next, we poured over Community and Growth by Jean Vanier. Vanier has a PhD in moral theology and philosophy but is best known as the founder of l'Arche, an international network of communities that live with the mentally and physically handicapped. It's a great book, though a bit difficult to digest over a couple of days as I did. Sometimes I felt like I was reading Mr. Miyagi--these disjointed aphorisms, though extremely wise thoughts about life together.

He has this idea that a community is either increasing or regressing. That made me think about the Woody Allen quote about relationships being like a shark: It has to constantly move forward or it dies. Like Bonhoeffer, he's critical of emotion as he emphasizes the day-to-day ordinariness of community:
A community which is just an explosion of heroism is not a true community. True community implies a way of life, a way of living and seeing reality; it implies above all fidelity in the daily round (109).

He's aware of the dangers of idealizing community, and yet he's sensitive to the harsh critique of individualism. A Christian community is not supposed to be like the Borg where individual identity is dissolved and resistance is futile. A community needs individuals to be individuals. For a person to love community, it means loving the least and the poor. What it is we offer to others outside the community is an extension of what we offer to one another. Friendship that encourages fidelity is the sweetest.

He also makes an interesting comment regarding the bane of the existence of chuches everywhere: meetings...
If we are to love, we have to meet. Creating community is something different from just meeting one with another, as individuals. It is creating a body and a sense of belonging, a place of communion, and this means meetings! (284).


Here are some other quotes that jumped out at me...
But then too, as they lift their masks and become vulnerable, they discover that community can be a terrible place, because it is a place of relationship; it is the revelation of our wounded emotions and of how painful it can be to live with others, especially with some people. It is so much easier to live with books and objects, television, or dogs and cats! It is so much easier to live alone and just do things for others, when one feels like it (26).

It is difficult to get people to understand that the ideal doesn't exist, that personal equilibrium and the harmony they dream of come only after years and years of struggle, and even then only as flashes of grace and peace. If we are always looking for our own equilibrium--I'd even say if we are looking too much for our own peace--we will never find it, because peace is the fruit of love and service to others (46).

People enter community to be happy. They stay when they find happiness comes in making others happy (78).

It is only as we put our roots down into the earth that we begin to see the fruits. To be earthed is to come alive in a new sense of mission. A new capacity to give life is born, not by myself but in the body of community (83).

Yves Beriot, a French educator, has said how important it is for people to visit communities and act as sponges which soak up the anguish. All communities feel far from their ideal, and more or less unable to cope with the violence and anguish of the people they welcome. We are all far from the ideal of the Gospel and this causes a latent anguish and guilt which sap our creative energies and can lead to sadness and despair (129).

There's so much more, but it's a text I can go back and chew on over and over again.

Next we cracked open Gerhard Lohfink's Jesus and Community. This is a work in biblical theology is response to Adolf von Harnack who wrote, "The kingdom of God comes by coming to individuals, making entrance into their souls, and being grasped by them. The kingdom of God is indeed God's rule--but it is the rule of a holy God in individual hearts." Lohfink isn't too keen on this idea. Rather, his basic idea is that the reign of God is manifested in the people of God, not the persons of God.

Lohfink looks in depth at the synoptic Gospels, situating the words of Jesus in their Jewish context. He places the work of Jesus in continuity with the Old Testament, and then analyzes the faithfulness of the work of the apostles and later church fathers in this transmission of the message of the kingdom of God.

He's deeply concerned about the gathering and restoration of the people of God (again, not individuals). He recognizes the diversity of the first community of Jesus, the Twelve, and offers the symbolic and theological significance of these characters:
Some evidence suggests that Jesus deliberately chose the Twelve from different regions of the country and from different factions within the Judaism of the day in order to make obvious the gathering of all Israelites (11).


For Lohfink, the contrast-community of the Church is to look like the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Pohl broke us up into groups and assigned us each blocks of Matthew 5-7. The question she posed was, "What would a community look like for whom the Sermon on the Mount is a joy and not a burden?"

We had about half an hour to work this out together and then report back to the rest of the class. This proved to be a valuable exercise, and it ended our day.

I'll need to give you Fridays notes tomorrow. This is enough to ruminate on at once, and the bed is calling since work comes early in the morning.

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posted by Peter at 10:18 PM
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Community: Day 2
Today we discussed two of our texts--Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam and Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They make a pair, complementing one another quite well. Putnam is a contemporary American political scientist playing with social theory; Bonhoeffer is a German pastor during the second World War. Bowling Alone is a thorough analysis of the decline and renewal of American community; Life Together is a manual of what Christian community does together.

Putnam's key theme is something he calls "social capital":
By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital--tools and training that enhance individual productivity--the core of social capital theory is that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so to social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups (19).
Throughout the book he explores the decline in participation in the politics, civic engagment and religious institutions. While his perspective is purely sociological, he recognizes a high value in religious communities:
Faith communities in which people worship together are arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America... Religious institutions directly support a wide range of social activities well beyond conventional worship (66).

It's purely a pragmatic view he has of the role of religion in communities:
Churches provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, community interests, and civic recruitment.
It really is a shame that Putnam doesn't show any more interest in religious communities. That's a fascinating idea--the associative nature of churches and participation in other communal activities. But he never really hits the nail on the head as to what makes churches such catalysts for involvement. Just what is the unique nature of a church that inspires participation in the rest of the world?

This is where Bonhoeffer comes in. He identifies the unique character of Christian community as the presence of Jesus:
Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only though and in Jesus Christ (21).

I particluarly like the goal that Bonhoeffer sets for Christian community:
And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. As such, God permits them to meet together and gives them community (23).

In this, community is not something manufactured but a grace from God. I just like that image that I'm carrying your salvation to you, like a little wrapped present, and you're carrying mine. He's also very wary of the motivations for community, fully aware of the loneliness of some people that drives them:
The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear. He is really not seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, the very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man (76).

Bonhoeffer sees a symbiosis between time together and time alone:
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone (77).

He saw that solitude benefited the group dynamic:
Blessed is he who is alone in the strength of the fellowship and blessed is he who keeps the fellowship in the strength of aloneness (89).

For Bonhoeffer, the Christian community is guided and shaped by prayer, intercession and Scripture reading.

After all that talk about social networks, social reciprocity and social capital, I couldn't resist a viewing of The Godfather this afternoon. Somehow, I'm going to have to swing a Godfather reference or two into my research paper.

I'm thinking I'm going to write about the ancient near eastern concept of the beth-ab (the father's house), the single most important social network in the Old Testament and its implications in interpreting the New Testament ekklesia (Church) as well as on contemporary Christian community.

Tomorrow we discuss Lohfink's Jesus and Community.


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posted by Peter at 11:15 PM
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