Teresa's Two Cents

2012-01-23T22:30:00.004-05:00

Commitments and schedule fell into place and so I attended the Presbyterian church on Sunday morning. I plan to return to their women's study on Tuesday mornings - Keller's guide to Romans, pray for me! - and wanted to make some personal connections to break the ice. For my sake.

I happened to be running ten minutes late but making a "grand entrance" is less possible now that they've moved into the cathedral. The former sanctuary was stifling, you know. In the larger space, the last five rows are roped off. I squeezed into the last open row, next to Mary. I always seem to plop myself down next to Mary, probably because she sits alone. She remembered me and told me the other Mary had moved to CA which I knew. She told me that she sits in the same spot every Sunday at 10 and she expected to see me every Sunday from now on. I said, "Probably not."

The choir was halfway through its playlist. Above their heads, a screen with lyrics. The background consisted of a rising sun and stars or fireworks coming forward. I was aware that the screen was not static but moved constantly. It conveyed an energy, albeit artificial. I thought to myself, "Right, TV generation: image must always be in motion." Blah.

We were next instructed to greet those around us as the children were dismissed. Everyone was friendly and the pastor's wife even came down from the choir to say hello, not really being sure who I was. The offering was made while the choir performed "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." The lyrics were neither projected nor printed in the bulletin but I knew some so sang along. No one else sang along. Catholics have changed the word "temple" to "altar" but I'm not sure what the Presbyterians said. I didn't hear "temple," either. Maybe they said "presence?"

Before the sermon, a couple announced their plans to go to missions in the Far East. These plans weren't a great surprise - knowing them, I'd suspected for a few years now. But, still, unsettling for a church which seems to have few pillars. The sermon, drawing from 1 Sam. 3, insisted that God speaks to us all the time. Now, I believe that. I do. I don't have a quibble with that at all. But an aspect of the story of Samuel is that the "word of the LORD was rare in those days." (1 Sam. 3:1) I can accept that, this side of the Cross, things may be different but I suppose someone else could have the opinion that, with the Bible, we have everything we need without God speaking directly into our lives.

The preacher referred to Eli incessantly as a "prophet." Nowhere does the text call Eli a prophet. In fact, he's named a priest repeatedly. That's what he is. Look, he's wearing the breastplate. Another egregious error was making reference to Genesis 51:20. Everyone knows there are only 50 chapters in Genesis. The error was even printed on a slide that was projected overhead.

The sermon ultimately encouraged "good works" which was fine by me. Then we stood up to pray and the choir took that as their cue to assume the stage again. Other adults scattered to their "end of service" places: ladies to the back to distribute free books, ushers to the doors. My prayer was so distracted by the movement of people. And they don't even realize how disruptive they're being! Because, for them, the highlight is the sermon. According to their bulletin, listening to the sermon is an act of worship. I don't understand how but that's what they think. It's a good thing, because there's very little other worship going on. Only two prayers, one before the collection and one after the sermon. And a few hymns sung. It struck me that I can be quite comfortable worshipping with these Protestants because they do very little actual praying. Again, at least by my Catholic definition. It's also occurred to me that, over the past ten years, I probably know as many former church members as present church members. People certainly come and go.

2012-01-23T21:47:00.002-05:00

A meeting for parents of first penance and eucharist candidates last week. A full forty-five minutes spent on the former sacrament, the forgotten one. Up front, an assurance that only priests who don't frighten children would be invited to "help out" day of. Does that mean that there are priests who frighten children?!

In a lousy attempt to "relate," shared some Catholic angst, came stories of youthful fear and confusion at confession. And a weird story about a third grade boy admitting in the box to putting his sis's brassiere in the freezer. Father wanted to know whether she was still in it when he did. Most of the mothers told me later they found this story wholly inappropriate. I'm quite sure, if it was even confessed - seal of confession? - it was done as a joke. And either Father is gullible and/or simply relishes the retelling. I wondered what any of this had to do with my child's sacrament preparation.

During Q & A, I asked what sign of reverence the children will be trained in so I can reinforce it. I glanced at the notes being taken by the mother next to me: "Longwinded," she'd scrawled across the top of her tablet. Amen. "Captive audience," thought I.

The following day, a close friend who'd attended confided that she'll switch parishes after first sacraments. She was completely put off. Not the sort of church she'd grown up in.

2011-12-31T23:20:00.004-05:00

Gathering with other Christians inevitably leads to distractions on differences. All personal preferences, I suppose. But, for instance, among the regulars who pray the rosary on Friday morning after mass is a woman who instinctively bows her head at the name Jesus in the prayers. And if a participant drops a Hail Mary inadvertently, not to worry, the next participant says 11 to make up for it. They say the Fátima Prayer before any mysteries or decades.

During the prayers of the faithful at daily mass, a woman prays the same intention, verbatim, every day. I could recite it for her, I've heard it so often. I murmur it under my breath along with her. I'm tempted to throw her off one day by slipping in my intention ahead of hers! I'd have to be fast.

The ladies in Allenwood, all variations on a Baptist theme, similarly bewilder me. Make-up, coifs, manicures, jewelry, accessories. But no perfume, which is, naturally, the only purely feminine item I go for. Instead of showing compassion towards a pregnant middle schooler, one complained that her young niece encounters her in class everyday. Several shared her concern.

2011-12-29T21:48:00.002-05:00

With the kids off school and Jeff on vacation, I've been able to swim every morning this week for as long as possible. Most days, that's worked out to 90 minutes, except yesterday was only 70. On a good day, then, it's over two miles of swimming. It takes me about twenty minutes to warm up and, actually, 45 minutes to "feel good." After 30 minutes, I switch from three stroke breathing to five stroke. I swim five stroke breathing for 30 minutes, then back to three stroke breathing for the final 30 minutes. Today I tried something different: I swam five stroke breathing for 40 minutes without any problem. And the last two laps of that I tried seven stroke breathing. That didn't go too well. I was gasping and one time, I turned my head to breathe and couldn't open my mouth!

Why force this breathing pattern instead of just breathing naturally? Because I hate breathing. That is, I hate turning my head to breathe. I was actually a bit dizzy this morning for the first fifteen minutes or so from turning my head side-to-side. I'd much rather just swim, just pull with my arms and skip the breathing part. The solution is probably to get a snorkel, but I like the discipline of holding my breath and breathing deeply at regular intervals.

On Thanksgiving, I started jogging. I call it jogging because that's what it is, even though it feels like running to me. And I wish it was running. I ~~run~~ jog down the street and back. Nothing complicated. There aren't any significant hills or traffic. I've seen just about all my neighbors at one time or another, so that embarrassment factor is over and done. I had tendonitis in my right knee from running, similar to my shoulder pain from swimming. I used that Icy Hot stuff immediately after running and the pain went away for hours. And now I don't need the Icy Hot anymore. The pain has just gone away.

I wanted to add some time onto my running, so I leave my street at the end and run down the main road to Fairplay. Then I turn around and come back. There's a bit of an incline getting to Fairplay but I tell myself that it's downhill on the way back! Yesterday there was a strong, cold wind blowing. Again, I told myself as I ran into it, that it'd be blowing me home on the return trip! I actually ran the loop two minutes faster yesterday than the day before. I credit the nippy December wind.

I prefer running in cold weather. I've never been one to run in the summer. Off-season training for cross country always took the form of cross training: swimming, biking and weight lifting. But I'm finding out that my college coach spoke the truth long ago when he said that running is the best preparation for good running. Not swimming or biking. No, two miles in the pool or five on the elliptical does not fully prepare one for road running. My breathing is strong but my legs were not quite strong enough to support me for the whole time.

However, now that I am running, my legs are stronger on the elliptical and on the leg weight machines. I'm increasing the total weight I'm lifting with my legs very rapidly since I started running.

And getting good nights' sleep is also very crucial. So, g'nite!

2011-12-17T21:24:00.001-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

A sensible Bible study ends on a stunning note

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2011-12-17T20:57:00.002-05:00

She let it slip that she's a universalist. Given the subject matter - the Book of Revelation - I could understand and wasn't too surprised. The rest were stunned, however, mistakenly thinking she'd have them also adopt universalism. She had no such intention. They sought to disabuse her of her position, citing various Scriptures. Her own son, who had arranged for her to teach at his parish, professed to being as surprised as everyone. "She sees things this way since I've left home!"

But she did persuade some people, I'm sorry to say. Not that I'm so opposed to universalism, but they ended up arriving at the worst conclusions. Must be they just haven't read the books I've read.

For instance, one of them, trying on how universal salvation might work after one died, decided that encountering the overpowering love of God - in the context of a judgment, keep in mind! - would win over absolutely anyone. Well, not according to C. S. Lewis, in a couple of places:

"The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a 'Heaven' for them." (emphasis mine)

It's a little like, "It takes one to know one." Emphatically, opposites do not attract.

So, Lewis again:

"For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. ... That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not." (emphasis mine)

With the recent passing of Christopher Hitchens, I'm reminded that there's much in Scripture and Tradition to caution us against universalism.

2011-12-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Experiencing the revised Roman Catholic liturgy

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2011-11-26T19:19:00.008-05:00

My husband says I'm obsessed. He's probably right.

I'm back from the First Sunday of Advent, experiencing the revised Roman Catholic liturgy for the first time. My main reaction is frustration that maybe about half the congregation appears even aware of some sort of change. About half are referencing the sheets, holding them in their hands. A few others are, like myself, holding a newsprint missal because no reasonably-priced Catholic publisher has released their offering yet. The rest don't seem to notice that they are no longer saying the right words.

The cantor did not pronounce "eleison" correctly. How could she, when she's so young, she's never heard it sung before¹. Again, more frustration because I love a well-done Kyrie. I panicked when we appeared to skip the Gloria, suspecting that the priest thought the changes too much for us! But then I realized omitting it is prescribed during Advent.

Myself, I messed up the Creed, despite holding the missal inches from my face. I was following along, but a rubric appears between a couple of lines in the middle of the text and, as I read that direction silently to myself, I missed following the next line. Instead, I began on auto-pilot, "by the power of the Holy Spirit," before my eyes caught up again with the text.

The changes in the eucharistic prayer appeared even more drastic than they are because my pastor habitually uses one of the two "Reconciliation" prayers during Advent, which aren't very familiar anyway. The priest has always self-edited on the fly, with varying degrees of success, exchanging masculine pronouns for inclusive language wherever necessary. So it's fun to see how he modifies the revised prayer. I've never heard him refer to Mary as "Mother of God," much less now "glorious."²

The so-called "clunky" phraseology characteristic of Latin syntax, in which a prayer's main thought is interrupted almost from the get-go by a subordinate clause, reminds me of the prattle of an excited, tongue-tied child. I'm not sure this is the intended effect.

The disposable, annual missal includes the present pope's name, "Benedict," instead of the customary, generic "N." A first, no doubt.

As I approached for communion, I noticed that my fingertips were dirty from using the inexpensive, newsprint missal. The fresh print had rubbed off. How diligently I had tried to obtain a better quality book for myself before Sunday! I hesitated, then, to receive communion in my hand and so, was struck by the irony of it. "Hadn't traditionalists predicted the new liturgy would move us to a deeper reverence for the eucharist. But for such a reason as this?" I told myself it couldn't be helped.

I'm in the habit of tidying up the choir loft where we sit after everyone leaves. What used to be a quick, simple task has sprawled into something almost out of control, as I separate liturgical cheat sheets from church bulletins mindlessly mixed into the stack. And the presence of loose papers isn't ending anytime soon.

My prediction is the new liturgical words will not promote greater participation, no matter how reverent those words are perceived to be. In fact, reverence is considered pretentious, and Catholic laypeople shun pretense. Instead, as more people realize the old responses won't wash anymore, they'll simply stop responding. They'll close their mouths altogether and not bother learning the new words. So those altar servers better start speaking up!

UPDATED 12/9/2011: I've attended now five of these new liturgies, three Sundays, one weekday and the Immaculate Conception holy day. We've managed to say the Creed only once, on that first Sunday of Advent. On the second Sunday, a prolonged homily addressed to the confirmandi caused the Creed to be omitted. It was skipped at the weekday service, of course and, inexplicably, at the solemnity. I expect the Creed will not be routinely omitted, as it was, I recall, at St. Anselm's in Wayside under Fr. Bob.

At Bible study last night, a friend asked me what "prevenient" means. I told him. He said the word appeared in the offertory prayers for the Immaculate Conception liturgy and even the priest stumbled over the word. I don't actually remember hearing the word myself. My friend had gone home and looked up the word in the dictionary, having never heard it before and was surprised I knew the word. I told him "pre" means "before" and "venient" means "coming," like "vent" in "Advent." I know the word simply from having studied Wesleyanism ("prevenient grace" - Wiki).

¹ I've been again since and she's been corrected by someone, singing it properly now.
² However, at the Immaculate Conception liturgy - he struggles the most on the Marian holy days - he acknowledged Mary's intercession on our behalf.

Comparison of Immaculate Conception prayers
Click to enlarge

2011-11-22T22:41:00.002-05:00

Neither of my regular Bible studies were meeting today so I stopped by the Presbyterian church in town for their mid-morning study with the pastor. I had been reminded of it on Sunday morning when I attended their worship in anticipation of the evening ecumenical prayer service. I'm quite sure I did exactly the same trifecta last year at this time.

It's a comfortable group, only one person I didn't recognize from last time. The first 30 minutes was spent in chit-chat and housekeeping, especially transferring the money collected at the ecumenical prayer service to the one who would purchase the food cards.

Catholics and Catholicism came up rather frequently and without warning. One lady noted that she's heard the Catholics are changing their "form," by which I think she meant liturgy. Another lady talked about gender issues and the suppression of women in Christianity beginning, she supposed, with the Catholic church in the Middle Ages.

There were books kept out of the Bible about women, like Judith. Of course, God told them which books to put in the Bible.

That's what she said.

The pastor showed me a picture of his grandson and I told him he was lucky to have such a cute grandson. He echoed back that he's lucky but it seemed to stick in his craw. I could have as easily said "blessed" but that seems so trite among Christians. I wanted what I said to effect him.

There were some other housekeeping issues discussed, enough to cure me of any desire to know the inner workings of my own parish, thank you very much.

The one lady, Suzie - so says her license plate - is the former Catholic who came in like a ball of fire to tell about a funny video by Sr. Mary Pat.¹ I resisted the temptation to correct her when she fumbled for the routine's proper title, referring to it as "Night Sunday School" and "Nighttime Catholicism." I didn't want to appear to be too familiar with the program. She had, apparently, emailed the video's link to the pastor and some other people in the Bible study. She explained it to me and others who didn't have email. She wondered aloud whether she should forward the link to my pastor, Fr. Mike, but her pastor said he's probably already seen it.

Not that he wouldn't appreciate it.

She seemed to be still a little high from the ecumenical prayer service in which there were so many Catholics "in da' house."

We got to Genesis eventually and the reverend allowed me to read verses 26 and 27. I had the proper version with me this time, the NRSV. He distributed the entry for Genesis in the "Oxford Guide to the Bible," except they called it the Oxford Companion. I almost acknowledged having that book at home but wasn't real sure about it. Turns out, I do have it.

We talked about the first person plural, "our," and what it means to be made in God's image. We went on to chapter 2 and talked about dietary issues. The grown children of several of the participants were vegetarians, looking ahead to another meatless Thanksgiving. We talked about the significance of the sabbath rest and the pastor said that his professional journals encourage him to pick another day during the week for rest. They remembered how blue laws used to be when they were younger: Sunday was a day at home without options. They talked about how chains were drawn across the roads leading to the Methodist town of Ocean Grove. One couldn't drive in Ocean Grove on Sunday. Asbury Park was also mentioned and the pastor noted that "Asbury" is a well-known Methodist name - Asbury Theological Seminary - so he supposed the Methodists had also founded that town. I should have been the one to think of that connection! Cokesbury I would have got!

The pastor read a footnote from the book he had shared with us that he's enjoying at the moment about how when polled people overstate how often they attend church on Sunday. Even though they report about 30% attendance, actual attendance is about half that. Someone worked the numbers out for the town - about 8,000 inhabitants and they draw a weekly Sunday attenance of 70 people. So, the question was raised whether most town folks were going to St. Joseph's on Sunday? What's their weekend turnout like? I said nothing.

However, when the pastor speculated that Fr. MIke offered five weekend masses, I told him three. When he said 6500 families, I said 4,000. When they asked how many actually show up on Sunday, I gestured towards the reference book and said, "A quarter." And I kicked myself all the way to the car for taking the bait. They're designed to sniff people out. It's what they do. As if my name doesn't give it away. Just as well, I don't foresee any occasion to go back.

¹ It seems to be Maripat, one word. Part of the humor, I suppose.

2011-11-11T18:13:00.003-05:00

I cut back on computer usage but the debilitating pain in my arm and shoulder persisted. What's the cause? Only after swimming twice in one day did I realize the pain comes from how I turn in the pool. I can't flip turn, so I used my right arm to hoist my legs to the wall for push off. Too much. I've switched now to using both arms and the pain has lessened significantly.

I recently increased the length of time I swim from 70 minutes to 80 minutes. What I noticed about adding time is it isn't added in the middle when I still feel good. No, the added time necessarily comes at the end of the workout when I'd rather quit. But after a couple of weeks of swimming the extra ten minutes, I've gotten used to it.

I'm also attempting to change my breathing pattern. I presently breathe every third stoke which has the added benefit of working the kinks out of my neck. But some mornings the kinks don't work out no matter what, so I breathe every fifth stoke. I can do this for only about 15 minutes / 10 laps. I pull stronger on non-breath strokes. I equate this to 100 m hurdles technique, 3-step vs. 5-step¹, except the numbers are inverted. Breathing every fifth stroke is preferred but I need to work up to it.

Beginning Tuesday, the swim team takes over the pool from 5 am to 6 am, the principle time I go each weekday, until February. I joined another pool in the meantime which doesn't open until 6 am. The other pool is geographically closer to my house but the later opening still means less time overall. I'll have to see how it goes. Most days I can swim after I've taken the kids to school.

¹ I have never ran hurdles, neither have I ever swam competitively.

2011-10-10T23:18:00.006-04:00

Between my high school reunion and my mother's birthday lunch lay all of Sunday morning.

What to do, what to do.

I'd already taken care of the Sunday obligation Saturday evening at what used to be called St. Joseph's. After mergers, it goes by Resurrection. I was immediately struck by all the gray heads when I entered. A sea of gray. I was early, hoping to make confession for the Day of Atonement but I didn't, and this was 4:30 on a Saturday evening. I didn't like the service in the least. After a million dollar sanctuary renovation, the sound system is still inadequate.

My friend from high school is church secretary for a non-denominational congregation that meets in the old Mancuso movie theater on Main St. She's done that from the beginning, sixteen years or so. I invited myself to her church on Sunday as it didn't seem likely she'd invite me. I opted for the earlier service, 8:30, because I could be sure it would end before the later service at 10 am. God only knows when the 10 am service might end and I had a very important lunch date! At 7:30 am, I attended mass at what used to be called St. Mary's on Ellicott. As this parish is merged with St. Joseph's across town, the music selections were identical. Ever since the outbreak of H1N1 or even before, Western New York Catholics do not make physical contact during the Sign of Peace. They are all overly concerned about germs despite the availability of hand sanitizer stands in the church entryway. I knew the service would run about 50 minutes and I'd have time to get to the next service.

Kathy and I arrived at about the same time. Just as I was asking someone where she might be, she appeared from the back. She'd gotten herself a coffee and offered me one. I don't drink coffee. She took her usual seat but caught herself and told me to select our seats. I moved us to the center of the theater which turned out to be a bad idea because the two screens which display the song lyrics are, ironically enough for a theater, each placed along an outside wall. No wonder no one sits in the center.

Her daughter performs in the band. She did a fabulous job and I told her so afterwards. She looked as if she was really getting into it but wasn't a distraction. She took this picture of us after the service. We didn't sing many songs, maybe three. I don't remember knowing any but they were uncomplicated praise songs. The collection was taken up immediately after, as the pastor said something about joyful giving. The preacher was an evangelist running a mission-type event for the youth that evening. He scared me considerably. I took adequate notes to describe the service here.

The presentation included a slide show in Powerpoint which the speaker referred to as "post-modern stained glass." Every bullet started with "P." He looked at each of the final words of Jesus to his disciples in the four Gospels and Acts. Matthew 28:19-20, "Presence Commission;" Mark 16:15-18, "Protection Commission;" Luke 24:46-49, "Power Commission;" John 21:11, "Personal Commission;" Acts 1:8, "Promise Commission." I was a little disappointed that the sermon didn't require me to flip all over the Bible. At one moment in the sermon, the evangelist seemed on the verge of making a subtle point and the pastor gave him a hardy "Amen" before he actually got the thought out. Inexplicably, the evangelist failed to make his conclusion - whatever it was - and the pastor was left saying, "Bring it, oh, bring it!" It was an awkward Emperor's New Clothes moment. He gave a helpful breakdown of obedience: principled obedience == the moral law, particular obedience is God's call on you, not on me and pointed obedience - do what Jesus says to do now or you miss it.

Something he said made me jot down "Pentecostal?" in my notes. It may have been the bit about asking God for an anointed pickup line, so he could meet his wife at church on Wednesday night. The website says he's Foursquare.

Afterwards, the band did not take the stage again; the service was just over. My friend offered to show me around. I told her that I wanted to make the Episcopal service at 10 down the street but I had a few minutes. She showed me all their space, including a new youth center across the parking lot. "Children's Church" will be taking place there next week. It was set up for a rock concert. She showed me their food pantry which was enormous and their dining hall space that they rent out to local guilds of businessmen. I was encouraged by all the good they're doing in a financially struggling city and I saw no possibility for this former Catholic to find her way back.

I was, unfortunately, a bit late for the Episcopal service. Unlike at the City Church, the bulletin was invaluable for active participation in the service. Jeff's grandmother was Episcopalian but the closest I'd ever come to setting foot in this church as a kid was attending her viewing at the funeral home next door. I came in during the Gloria and immediately recognized that, when the Roman Catholic liturgy changes next month, this liturgy which is nearly identical will remain the same. Quite a revelation. The Gospel was the same - this was the third time that I was hearing this particular Gospel reading - the first and second readings was both "earlier," if you get that. The service relied on the Book of Common Prayer. The sermon was outstanding, really made an impression. I was totally moved. The Peace was something else again. Orderly, yes, but not emotionally restrained. Very heartfelt. Naturally, my feet were bolted to the floor and I couldn't move from my place so everyone came to me! The choir came down and walked the entire aisle, shaking hands. Even the pastor came down, recognized me as a stranger and asked what brought me from New Jersey that weekend.

There was no elevation of the host during the consecration. The rubrics say not to. I didn't go forward for communion - even for a blessing - because the altar seemed so far away. Seriously. All the music was just perfect and beautiful.

If, by any chance, I could find an Episcopal or Anglican service like this one near my home, I would attend especially if I get frustrated by the liturgical changes this Advent.

2011-10-10T22:48:00.001-04:00

It was the combined events of a high school reunion and my mother's 70th birthday that brought me to my childhood town this long, Columbus Day weekend. I had to shuffle Kenny off to his cousin's house Saturday night as children were not welcome at the reunion dinner. Turnout was low, mostly us out-of-towners. As one old classmate put it, the locals see each other all the time.

I'd never been to the Batavia Country Club before, so I wasn't sure I was in the right place. On the one hand, the voices in the group entering ahead of me sounded vaguely familiar. Yet, on the other hand, they were also just typical Western New York accents. Turns out I knew them as we graduated less than 100 students 25 years ago: we all knew just about everybody then.

I wasn't late, really, returning to the hotel after Saturday evening mass momentarily to retrieve the camera I'd forgotten. I grabbed my one and only alcoholic drink from the cash bar, a white Russian. I'd been up since 4:30 AM, driven 8+ hours, eaten only breakfast and expected to be out until 11:30 or 12 so, as refreshing as the drink was, I did not take a second one. I allowed myself some caffeinated soda instead.

I felt awkward without Jeff. Not everyone had "a date," so being alone wasn't the issue. It was just hard to get past the superficial questions of "Where do you live? What do you do for a living?" And I couldn't remember anything anyone said. We posed for a group photo and watched a video provided by the family of a classmate who'd died in a car crash within a few years of graduation. It became obvious from the remarks made aloud during the showing of that video that some people were already drunk.

Mercifully, dinner was served rather quickly after that. I tried to join a particular table but there wasn't room so I moved to the next one. I felt as if I was following the same people around all night. I wonder whether they noticed. Like I was "clinging." At dinner, we were regaled with the absurd ramblings of a "much older" drunken spouse. My old classmates were polite to him, answering his personal questions. I would not. He got the message and moved on.

As I said, the turnout wasn't great and the hall had a minimum number of 80 people. We were half that, if even. How to raise the difference? Raffles and 50/50's. That's right. After dinner, a line formed in the back, near the bar, and people put down 20's for a strip of ten tickets. I followed suit but declined putting my tickets in the raffle jar. The prizes were for local services anyway, a round of golf at the country club, gift card to the local grocery chain. And the 50/50 prize went to a reunion organizer who almost certainly contributed out of pocket for decorations, etc. Besides, I abhor gambling in any form.

The DJ did a fantastic job. He wasn't intrusive and played the songs we'd requested. He had a setup for karaoke. Believe it or not, I've never done karaoke. A group of us went up and sang the class song, REO Speedwagon's "Time for Me to Fly." I wasn't drunk in the least and found karaoke to be alot of fun!

As the night wore on and more and more people left, it became difficult to find anyone to talk to. Many people were around the bar, but it wasn't as bad as in reunions past. There was a TV at the bar so that helped a bit. I noticed that my former classmates weren't very generous with the bar staff in regards to tips. Drinks were $5 and I saw very little money coming back or being left. So before I called it a night, I gave the girl a $20 - wish it could have been more - and she was appreciative.

2011-10-01T19:17:00.004-04:00

I listened to Marcus Grodi of EWTN's The Journey Home program at a nearby parish today. When he entered the sanctuary, walking a few paces behind the pastor, Fr. Ian, I was quite overcome with joy. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's really him, in the flesh." I was downright giddy. The first thing that struck me is how tall Grodi is, nearly as tall as the towering Fr. Trammell.

The titles of the three scheduled talks over the course of the day were "Why Be Catholic? A Conversion Story," "How to Stay Catholic," and "Keeping Your Family Catholic." Grodi delivered on the first title but not so much on the second two. I think that the parish tried to tie him into their current Pastoral Year of Marriage and the Family program but Grodi talked about what he wanted to talk about. And why not?

First, he told his conversion story to Christ and to the Catholic Church. He was converted to Christ by a concerned friend who challenged him to read the Bible. He picked up St. John's Gospel and swiftly read to chapter 15 before he even realized how deep into it he'd gotten. He recalled a couple of moments from his youth and young adult years when Protestantism wasn't adding up but no one else seemed to be bothered, so he continued to "go with the flow."

But when he read in the paper that Catholic theologian Scott Hahn was speaking, he attended to see whether the rumors about his old seminary friend were true. He half suspected that Hahn had faked a conversion in order to gain entry into Catholic churches by stealth. This is how these people think, I'm afraid. But it was on the up and up, so he listened to Hahn's conversion story on tape and was a goner after 15 minutes or so.

After a break, he spoke about our progress in the faith. He used punctuation marks as a framework. Our initial response might be "Jesus?" - meaning that we aren't familiar - followed by "Jesus," - meaning he's one of many things in our life. Then "Jesus." meaning we're more committed. And "Jesus:" - meaning that we're learning more. And finally, "Jesus!" - meaning he's everything to us. It was an innovative framework.

The local Catholic radio was on site broadcasting live during lunch. I so wanted to be interviewed. I even practiced what I'd say on air on the drive over this morning. But I never even found where they were! While we ate our boxed lunches, Marcus and Fr. Ian were interviewed. Then we said the rosary in the church while the clergy and Marcus went out to lunch with the retired bishop.

When they all came back, Marcus gave his third and final address. He was quite nervous at first with the bishop in the audience but he quickly remembered a time when Billy Graham visited his seminary and he gave the chapel sermon without being fully prepared. Compared to Billy Graham, retired Bishop Smith ain't much, I reckon. He could have just imagined the bishop in his underwear or some other public speaking trick without namedropping.

So Grodi got his groove back and preached on the Beatitudes. He said he never preached on the Beatitudes as a Calvinist minister because the theology of the Beatitudes didn't make any sense¹. He called the Beatitudes the "stair steps to Heaven," saying that the virtues are progressive and build on each other. He pointed us to an outline of his talk.

I'd heard this before, that the Beatitudes are progressive and that one first descends into poverty, mourning and meekness until one is empty and hungry for God. Then the ascent begins. But one lady in the audience was overcome and, with the bishop and all the parish's priests in attendance, she explained that she's never heard such wonderful preaching on the Beatitudes before! I thought to myself, "She's gotta get out more." It's a Protestant commonplace. But I just wonder how the clergy took her comments. I'm sure they were tugging at their Roman collars a bit.

He graciously signed the book that I bought.

¹ I've heard a Calvinist contrast "imperative" and "indicative" in regards to the Beatitudes. Marcus also rejects the Lutheran interpretative prism of Law & Gospel. And the idea that the purpose of the Law is to uncover our sinfulness, to prime us for the Gospel.

2011-09-24T22:01:00.000-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Ladies' Bible Study, Bible church

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2011-09-24T20:56:00.003-04:00

Those Facebook changes are something, aren't they? Whew, I can't keep up anymore.

You know, my kids attended a Vacation Bible School (VBS) at a Bible church in August and the ladies invited me to their weekly Bible study. The funny thing about that is two years ago I had contacted the pastor through their web site about participating in their ladies' Bible study. Whomever he passed off my request to dropped the ball and I never heard back. It's a rare church which would only welcome regular members to Bible study.

So I went on Wednesday morning even though I don't really have time for it now. Wednesday morning is typically my "do errands" time. For instance, next Wednesday I'm chaperoning a fourth grade field trip. And last Wednesday I was having the car serviced, so I missed the initial meeting. The ladies are working through the Sunday school booklet and I had already looked through Chapter 1 online.

The facilitator almost hugged me when I entered the door, if I had allowed her. She really pressed me to identify my church so I looked her straight in the eye and told her. I eventually gathered that she's the pastor's wife. The pastor, since he quit his high school teaching post last spring, was around and came in to answer a question about God. We had read something in Genesis about man being made in God's image (Gen. 1:27) and a participant wanted to know whether God was human like us. My first impulse was to quote Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well, "God is spirit" (John 4:24) but to also say that Jesus is God incarnate. Instead, I decided to see how her question was handled. The pastor pretty much said what I had thought, only mistakenly attributed the phrase "God is spirit" to John, Chapter 6 and mispronounced "anthropomorphism." Still, his giftedness as a teacher came across very well.

We were taking each question from the workbook in round robin form, looking up each verse and reading it. We were jumping all over the Bible because we were investigating a theme: how the Bible describes God the Father. The facilitator was reluctant to put me on the spot even though I showed no qualms about looking up passages and reading them from my King James Bible. Yeah, alright, I stumbled on "shouldest" in the first verse I read aloud but I quickly caught on. Actually, not everyone had the King James and those who did modernized what they read to us on the fly.

When I read Titus 3:5, the lady next to me wondered what "the washing of regeneration" could possibly be. I really could have told her. Then she read her passage and commented on the name "Lord" all in small capital letters. She said, "There's that word again, LORD. What does that mean?" So I explained it's the translation of the divine name and that most Bibles have translation notes in the introduction explaining their choices. It was as if I hadn't said anything. No one acknowledged what I said but rather continued to ponder the significance of "LORD" in their Bibles. I was surprised the facilitator didn't offer any answer or call to her pastor husband again.

Later, this lady identified herself to me as a former Episcopalian before asking about my church. I told her and she said her opinion of Catholics is that they don't read the Bible either.

At the conclusion, I hung around to explain to the faciliator that I enjoyed the study and the company of the other women but that Wednesday is my "errand day." She offered to switch the study to any other morning for my convenience, a proposition that I found quite preposterous. I turned her down. I think she also offered to meet with me one on one.

As I drove home, I was thinking over this experience, laughing about how nice they all were to me and to each other but also considering how stunted they seemed. These critical thoughts were interrupted when my St. Christopher visor clip slipped off and bopped me on the head! I told God if he wants me nice he's gonna have to make me nice.

2011-09-11T21:55:00.003-04:00

My parish hosted an ecumenical prayer service this evening for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The Presbyterians and Jewish Center joined us, bringing their respective choir and cantor. The cantor sang first, accompanied by her own guitar. She performed a couple of folksy songs that made use of several Hebrew words. Most of us were lost trying to sing along. I was pleased to see that folk music isn't only the scourge of liberal Christianity but has found its way to liberal Judaism as well.

The reverend read from Exodus 14 and I followed along in my Bible. He gave a sermon on the reading that referenced a magazine for Presbyterian clergy. Apparently, an article was submitted to the magazine from a Pastor Wilton in Point Pleasant, a major player in the local presbytery, describing his reaction to 9/11 ten years ago. I can't find the article online but he walked out to the beach where he could see lower Manhattan. He saw a pillar of smoke and thought it demonstrated God's presence in the midst. He was recalling the reading from Exodus 14 in which the Israelites were accompanied by a pillar of smoke in the day and a pillar of fire at night. At first, the reverend couldn't see the connection. How could God be present in such a horrible situation? But, then he asked, "Where was God?" and began to hear stories of survivors. Many got down the stairs because the stairwell walls held up ("the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left." Ex. 14:29). The reverend came to see that Wilton had a good point.

Silliness.

The reverend observed that the Revised Common Lectionary specified selected verses from Exodus 14 for September 11. I couldn't believe him because our lectionaries are generally pretty close except, I guess, when we read from something like Sirach. But it's true. Obviously those who assembled the Revised Common Lectionary also see a connection between the Exodus and survivors of 9/11.

For most of the service, I found myself trying to figure who was who based on their apparent comfort level and gestures.

2011-09-10T20:21:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Initial Community Bible Study session

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2011-09-08T15:40:00.002-04:00

There isn't daily mass at my home parish on Thursdays but given today's feast, I wanted to attend mass. I took Ella to the next town over, the one that had had a great deal of flooding from Irene, for their 9 am service. It's held in the chapel adjacent the sanctuary. Huge numbers of people were entering the church building. I was curious why. Sure, it's a significant holiday which tends to draw people out but, well, moreover, these people were well-dressed. All on their way to work?

Turns out, Catholic Charities was having a meeting with the bishop in a room adjacent the chapel. A couple of years back, the parish added the chapel and meeting room and now I see that the bishop gets to use it whenever he wants. :-) I hope that they were evaluating their response to the flooding. I tried to get a glimpse of the bishop through the large glass windows but wasn't able to. I could only approximate where he was seated based on the direction of everyone's attention.

The chapel was packed. I imagine that if some poor souls weren't already in the sanctuary having some quiet moments, the pastor would have jacked on the lights and switched venue to accommodate those pouring in for liturgy. Ella and I found seats up front which meant she could see the proceedings and would have to behave like a perfect angel. She did. To tell the truth, I'm not used to being that close to the goings-on!

Thankfully, he took the shortened form of the Gospel, leaving out the genealogy. The first reading was Romans 8:28-30; Mary's life makes the best case for Christian predestination. During the Lord's Prayer, Ella followed suit and prayed with hands in the orans position, not something I've ever done. But, as she grabbed my left hand, I found my right hand turning out and up.

We sang two hymns, "Hail Holy Queen" (entrance) and "Immaculate Mary" (recessional) a cappella. After the service, we stole into the dark, quiet sanctuary because I had a dollar for a candle. The kids like to light candles and our parish doesn't stock any. There were at least a dozen people in there praying who had not attended mass and several other people wandering about. I've never seen a Catholic church so busy on a weekday morning.

Then we hightailed it over to the Baptist church for the first session of bible study. It was nice seeing some familiar faces. I remember being jealous last year, my first year, not knowing anyone. This year, people are at least saying hello. I have a new small group leader but she's away for her anniversary so we had a substitute. The sub is actually in our group as well but winters in Florida. By January, she's out. Another lady in the group also winters in Florida. It's an incredibly well-off group, in my opinion. But that's what I get attending a bible study near the Shore. Imagine, going from flood-ravaged, working class Hightstown over to Spring Lake?

We had to tell a little bit about ourselves to our neighbor and then they would share it with the group. I'd rather share about myself directly but I guess it's an icebreaker and I do listen better to at least one person! There wasn't a clear pattern in their stories but one lady talked about growing up Catholic - which she didn't regret - and joining the host church a couple of years ago. Another lady, with a very Catholic-sounding surname, talked about her husband who was "another religion" before becoming Christian. And, at least as they told it, it was the wife who converted the husband, rarely the other way 'round. So much for spiritual headship.

Last year I met a woman there who was Catholic but I couldn't spot her this year. The lady sitting next to me was good friends with the sub and after we finished the icebreaking exercise, she talked with our leader about her Saturday evenings after her company has left. She said she sometimes goes over the Bay Head if it wasn't too late but otherwise would go to St. Dom's. She lives in Brick. So, afterwards, we were wandering back to the sanctuary to sing a closing song and listen to a lecture, but we were in a dining room with tables full of books for sale, cheap. So I was browsing and she saddled up next to me. I pointed to a book from Piper, saying I'd never heard of it before. Then the Interior Castle caught my eye and I commented that that particular translation is good¹. Then I pointed to a book by Schaeffer. She just said that my interest in books reminded her of her cousin.

¹ But, in fact, it was Peers which I think is not the good translation. This edition was recommended when I took the class on Christian spirituality authors several years ago (Merton, Lewis, Siena and Avila).

2011-09-04T15:40:00.002-04:00

As I was thinking about Community Bible Study, the telephone rang. It was my new group leader for Community Bible Study calling to introduce herself. Without a visual, it did little good. I hardly know anyone in Community Bible Study, having attended only one year. She sounded like the rest of them, breezy but intentional.

It starts on Thursday morning. Problem is, Ella's school doesn't begin until next week. She offered to check whether I could stick her in their children's program for that one time. As I was thinking about her again, the phone rang with the response that I could. We'll be studying the Acts of the Apostles this term which is convenient because I just finished a Little Rock Scripture study series at my church on Acts.

The Plainsboro church is back to offering Precepts again. Same time, Thursday morning. But I'm just so done with Precepts, you know? I'm even thinking of tossing all my old workbooks. That's very telling. I never throw away any study materials, ever!

At the Princeton church, Janet will use Dr. Keller's materials to study the same book as the Plainsboro church this term, Romans. She had sent out an email about a women's mentoring program and I thought the Bible study was morphing into mentoring. So I checked into Queenship of Mary's offerings in the same time slot. I had done Great Adventure Timeline and Matthew with them two years ago. I think they did Acts of the Apostles last year but this year they are doing Revelation. So I'll be joining them. Unfortunately, I'm going to be late arriving each Tuesday by a good 15 minutes because Ella's school never starts on time!

Still, I bought a copy of Keller's materials, printed them out and intend to work on them, visiting Janet's study whenever QoM doesn't meet. In addition to the video lectures on Tuesday mornings, there's also a live person lecture on Wednesday evenings. I have to check with my husband whether I can attend those. There's a good chance I may because it begins late, 7:30. In sending Janet my regrets, I told her I felt I could deal with hanging with Catholics again.

Every other Thursday evening, Jim is reading the Psalms. My summer goal is to read through the psalms with this church, two a day. But I fell far behind in late July, so I was reading ten a day this past week and now I'm ahead! It's actually better to read several in one sitting so that patterns are more evident. I enjoy the poetic - almost romantic - retelling of Israel's dusty wilderness stories. I've tried reading with the idea that Jesus is the "singer and the subject" of the psalms, a very Reformed idea. But I'm so used to reading as if David's words are my own prayers that, with few exceptions¹, I'm the singer.

¹ Like, whenever my supposed "blamelessness" is mentioned, or there's talk of the "pure oil" running off my anointed head into my beard (Ps. 133:2)

2011-08-20T22:18:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

My experience interacting with other adults at an Independent, Fundamentalist Baptist church.

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2011-08-19T22:30:00.002-04:00

Last night, I dropped the kids off at VBS but didn't stay for the adult portion because I was committed to attending the summer Bible study at my parish which met at the same time.

Tonight I stayed for the adult section. We crossed the road to the church and met in a Sunday school room directly off the main sanctuary. The room is filled with pews but no tables. The associate pastor distributed a worksheet to us that included several questions about Matthew 22:34-40 and directed us to work in teams. He paired me with the couple at the far end of my pew, a youngish set. Before I slid down, a lady behind me said, "Wouldn't you rather work with us and remain where you are?" and I said, thinking of obedience, that I was told to work with the others.

I introduced myself to them and vice versa. Her name was Maria and it struck me as a pretty name so I said so. His was John. He is, I believe, a corrections officer and looks the part, with a muscular build and serious demeanor. I told them both how I had heard this very Scripture passage at church that morning. What a coincidence. I also had in mind the first reading, from the beginning of the Book of Ruth, just in case there was anything complementary in it for our assignment.

After we answered our questions, we had a few minutes to chat. I complimented the man on his Guadeloupe tattoo. If I had been sitting on the other side of them, I probably wouldn't have seen it because it was inside his left forearm. She asked how long I had been attending the [Independent, Fundamentalist Baptist] church and I said that we came only for VBS. She said she's on the fence about the IFB church because she's Catholic. I said that I am also Catholic. She asked where I live and then she confirmed which parish I attend. That was remarkable to me because nobody outside a very small geographic radius has ever heard of the parish. But she said she has relatives that attend there.

At that point, we have to break off our conversation because everyone else was finished with the assignment. The husband's parting words were that he wanted his wife to attend a Christian church and didn't care which one but that they had visited on Sunday and liked the Baptist service very much.

Of course there were things that I wanted to tell her but I had to be respectful of her husband. It would have been a red flag to him if I had disregarded his authority.

After we reviewed the assignment, another pastor stepped in to preach a bit on Philippians 3:13-14 and he gave us time to find the passage by saying a few things about Hebrews 12:1. He's going for the athletic imagery, you see. Gosh, I ran in college, so I've heard it all, long time before. Besides, he didn't think in terms of track or cross-country but football and baseball! Ugh.

The poor guy next to me, John, spent all this time trying to find Philippians. After much page flipping, he came across it. Meanwhile, my Bible pages were stale, having been open to the verse so long. Then the preacher told us to "turn back" to 1 Corinthians 9:24, those subtle, directional clues for them with ears to hear. John had so much trouble finding Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians that he gave up and tossed his Bible at his wife who wasn't about to try.

2011-08-16T22:19:00.003-04:00

The kids were certainly happy to return to VBS this evening. They got points for wearing a hat and bringing a Bible. I gave Ella a copy of Peterson's "The Message," Kenny took a Catholic edition of the GNB in two-tone leather, Chris brought my compact NRSV that I used in Israel ten years ago and Tim carried a flashy NASB '95 paperback, lovingly covered in clear contact paper. Also, we brought more change for the missionaries in New Hampshire but none of them had memorized their Bible verse!

The pastor's composure was better even though he had spent most of the night and a better part of the day with his employee who had broken his leg the night before. We parents gathered together and walked as a group across the street to the Sunday School rooms in the church. He gave us a tour of the church and the rooms, the nursery was really cute. We opened our work packets and he scrounged up Bibles from the church pews for those who had forgotten theirs.

The activity was all multiple choice questions, like a middle schooler's homework assignment, on Christology. Questions like, "Which verse says Jesus is God?" with four scripture references. There were more than four of us, so he couldn't assign them one apiece. Instead it was hodgepodge, "Who has Titus 1:3? Does anyone have Romans 14:18-19?" There were many times I opened my mouth to read the verse when someone else piped up, "Oh, I have that one, shall I read it?"

One man didn't know John from 1 John and confessed, "Usually my wife looks these up for me." But his wife wasn't there. Another lady said, "It would take forever to look all these up!" Meanwhile, I'm halfway down the page, especially because I knew a few without looking them up. When reading Hebrews 1:8, she pronounced "scepter" as "skepter" and her husband needed help reading "Bethlehem Ephrathah" from Micah 5:2.

Giving us time to look up the verses, he would talk about, well, I don't know what. I wasn't really paying attention. Maybe things like, "Oh, that's a good verse, such a good verse" and "Oh, why did God put that in there, it's so hard to do!" And, like any grade school teacher, he can't keep quiet long enough for his class to do their work in peace.

He passed around samples of their Sunday School programs, for children and adults. The kids' is Patch the Pirate written by a man who had cancer in his eye and had it removed. The publisher, Majesty Music, in Greenville, SC also provided the hymnals in the pew in front of me. A reference in our work packet was made to Bob Jones University, in Greenville, SC. The adult materials looked a little more interesting (chapter 1 in PDF).

Tim told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to sign him up for Sunday School. I wouldn't dream of it, he can be sure.

We walked back across the street and, by this time, it was dark, being well after 8pm. He said they usually hold VBS in July when it's still light after 8 but this year they picked August way back in February and didn't think about the shorter days. I'm glad they didn't hold it in July. But we'll skip it tomorrow because there's a parents' picnic at the kids' camp and I wouldn't miss that for anything.

2011-08-16T08:55:00.003-04:00

On the way to a bowling party for Chris on Sunday afternoon, I spotted a VBS sign at a church in Robertsville. I couldn't see the dates on it, only that it had evening hours. So this morning I googled the church and then called about it. They sounded delighted to have four last minute registrations. OK!

I got the kids checked in, the boys are all together and Ella is on her own. She doesn't mind that. The theme is racing/race cars which seems a little masculine (and hick) but we're keeping positive. During an opening game, a man taking photographs of the activity - for the week's-end slideshow - fell off the stacked plastic chairs he was on, for a better shot - and broke his leg in two places. An ambulance was called but I think someone could have simply driven him to the hospital. An ambulance seemed excessively cautious.

When the kids went to their groups, the pastor led a session for the adults. He was still so shook up about his injured, hospitalized friend that his presentation was all over the place. He distributed materials that he says he's "working on," a hodgepodge of boxed text he's clipped from various books, mostly by John MacArthur. It's supposed to be a study on the life of Christ but it primarily involves authenticating the Bible.

He quickly got off-topic, however. He talked about chips getting put into people's wrists and a parent blurted out, "Isn't that in Revelations [sic]?!" EXACTLY! came the pastor's reply. In another exchange, he said we're supposed to love our enemies and an older man lamented, "Does that included Muslims?!" When told yes, he buried his head in his hands and shook his head back and forth. I don't want to think that these are plants but I know the type.

In fact, that one admitted to having a "Catholic upbringing." He said that he used to feel better "for a little while," after going to confession on Saturdays. But then he got saved and ... what, 1 John 1:9 doesn't apply anymore?

We did talk about the rapture quite a bit and read 1 Thess. 4. In finding the book, the pastor said that God, in his wisdom, placed all the 'T' books together in the New Testament. I refrained from pointing out to him that Θ is different from Τ. He seemed to get such a kick out of how the Bible was crafted. Since he was reading from the King James, he had to translate "prevent" as "not going before" (cf. modern translations' "precede").

Then he took us to the Ten Commandments, for some reason, and I followed from Exodus 20. Of course, he got the numbers all wrong and downplayed the necessity of honoring the sabbath because it's Saturday: "The only one of the commandments not repeated in the New Testament." He teaches Bible at Timothy Christian School ("Brodie") and he came across as a teacher much more than as a pastor, despite the M.Div. On the 6th commandment, according to his numbering, he read "Thou shalt not commit murder" even though my King James in my lap has "Thou shalt not kill", both in Exodus 20 and Deut. 5.

I looked over the materials when I got home. We'll see what tomorrow night brings.

2011-08-11T16:51:00.004-04:00

I was at the pool this morning somewhat later than usual. The later I am, the more crowded it is. A much older man was already on the pool deck just ahead of me. Common courtesy dictated that I allow him to pick a lane first. Initially, I thought there were two lanes available so I quickened my steps, not in competition with him but in case anyone was behind me.

Within a few steps, however, I saw my mistake and slowed down. I recognized a couple of the swimmers and knew their approximate daily schedule well enough to guess they were about done with their workout. In which case, I didn't really mind waiting what I supposed would be only a few minutes.

Instead, a man exited the pool from Lane 6, right in front of me. I gestured to the older man who was, in my mind, ahead of me, to come over. The man exiting the pool told me, "You know, you don't have to wait. It's two to a lane. There's no reason on earth why you should be standing here. Get into Lane 2." I replied that I know it's two to a lane but that I was deferring to the other gentleman who had arrived first.

At which point, he came over and I offered him the lane. He protested, "I'm not sure which of us was here first. But, well, if you have to be at work or something, just go ahead. I'll wait." I said, probably too proudly, that I don't work.¹ He said sincerely, "Beautiful. Finally!"

I'm not certain what he meant by "Finally!" My first thought was that he was commenting on my not working. But then I thought he was just happy about getting a lane or pleased that a woman had let a man go first for a change. I mentioned the conversation to Jeff and he thought it was the first thing, about me not working. There's all kinds where I swim, ages and cultures and professions, and it isn't always easy to figure where people are coming from. Some are courteous and some are disrespectful, for instance. But I can only do my best to act in good faith.

As soon as the man took Lane 6, Lane 1 opened up completely for me and I had a good swim.

¹ However, naturally, my husband does work but he's home watching the kids while I swim, waiting for me to return so he can go to work!

2011-07-18T18:23:00.002-04:00

Ella's morning swim program takes us forty minutes from home for the next two weeks. Since it's just me, it makes sense to hang around in the vicinity until she's done. Their instructional policy is that parents cannot remain to observe.

What to do, what to do?

My first impulse was to check out the camp meeting at Ocean Grove. I've always wanted to but never been able because it begins so early and I'm coming a distance. Now, I had heard that exiting the swim school's parking lot takes a great deal of time and patience. Worse than a church lot. I was afraid that rushing over to Ocean Grove and back would waste my time.

Instead, I found the nearest public library. I always have things I want to read or study. The library doesn't open until 10 and I figured, as slow as the parking lot may be, I'd get out well before then. After dropping off Ella, I checked my GPS for the nearest Catholic church. There's one in Sea Girt a couple of miles away. I figured that if they had a morning mass, it would have been at 9 or earlier but I went over to visit and pray a rosary.

There was a man working the grounds but the side door was open. The outside sign announced a 7:30 am and an 11:00 am daily mass. I slipped inside and milled around a bit. A stack of Sunday bulletins lay on a high table with the top one face down. I saw only the standard small business advertisements on the back and paid no attention. I found the church inside to be beautiful despite a lack of coherence in decor. I'm not sure if, taken as a whole, it was breathtaking but features of it were tasteful. I had left my camera in the car and was kicking myself for not bringing it in. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some pictures.

The first thing I noticed, after the tabernacle, was a low, marble altar rail. It surprised me to see an altar rail. But it's marble so why not keep it? For the final decade I knelt at it and found the silestone floor more comfortable than the tile in the pews. The marble was, of course, cool to the touch as I rested my arms.

Before leaving, I gave myself the grand tour. A large pipe organ was situated in the choir loft above, 'though I saw a covered-over piano and drum kit below towards the front. I exited the heavy wooden doors to the vestibule and saw a makeshift nursery with no connection to the sanctuary. I picked up a bulletin out of curiosity as to whether I'd ever heard of the pastor and my jaw dropped because my former pastor from ten years ago, who married us, is assigned there. And, of course, I knew that but all the shore parishes begin to sound the same after a while.

I thought if I returned for the 11 o'clock service, I might see him. Or I might not. The service would let out with enough time for me to get back to Ella at her swim lesson, so I decided to attend. I got to the library ten minutes before it opened, but a good thing I was early because the small parking lot filled up quickly. A half dozen people waited at the side entrance, most to return books. I found a seat and desk inside, one of two, and got to work on my weekly Acts Bible study homework. I had forgotten a Bible which was only needed for a few verses outside Acts, most of which were familiar. That is, I could guess the reference from the context. Still, when I'd worked my way through all the questions, I walked the perimeter of the library, looking for the reference books. In less than a minute - it's a small library, I found the dictionaries, encyclopedias and Bibles. I brought an RSV back to my place and double-checked the references to Paul's letters. They were all as I had thought. My pen was struggling to put out ink and the last word I needed to write was little more than an indentation on the page. Bring another pen or two tomorrow.

I arrived back over at the church well before 11 because I wanted to be assured a decent parking space. The church seems to have no parking lot, only street parking. My GPS told me it would take seven minutes to get from the church to Ella's swim school and I was quite sure the service would run only 30 minutes. It began on time. The place was packed with mostly older folks. The responses were hardly said in unison at all. I was really thrown off by the lack of unity. But, except for some minor improvisation, the service followed the prescribed liturgy. I must have seemed as if I was in a hurry to leave when it was over but I was trying to move slowly for the sake of the others. Due to traffic heading into the swim school, it probably took twice as long as my TomTom said but I still made it on time. Ella had a wonderful time and can't wait to return tomorrow. Me, too.

2011-07-11T22:55:00.000-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Fielding questions on predestination and Corpus Christi proceedings

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2011-07-11T17:08:00.004-04:00

I missed my parish's Bible study on Thursday night because I was taking another class. But last Thursday a couple of topics came up that I want to mention.

The first was kind of strange: a man who attends "ecumenical" Bible studies with his wife asked the deacon about predestination. The deacon replied gruffly that the word "predestination" can't be found in the Catechism. I didn't have a Catechism with me but I reasoned to him that since the word "predestination" appears in the Bible, it necessarily appears in the Catechism. Here's my research, after the fact:

"Predestined" is mentioned in 381, 600 and 2012 (quoting Romans 8:28-30).

In regards to "Mary's predestination," paragraph 488 says "from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee." The same section quotes paragraph 56 of Lumen Gentium (as well as paragraph 61), "The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life."

Paragraph 307 says, "Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers, and their sufferings (Cf. Col. 1:24)." Paragraph 1037 says, "God predestines no one to go to hell (2 Pet. 3:9)," a point I affirmed to the group twice.

The document "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ," put out by the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) reads in paragraph 54: "Viewed eschatologically, Mary thus embodies the ‘elect Israel’ of whom Paul speaks - glorified, justified, called, predestined. … Mary is marked out from the beginning as the one chosen, called and graced by God through the Holy Spirit for the task that lay ahead of her."

Catechetical texts in conformity with the Catechism should "teach that man is predestined to reproduce the image of God's Son made man, the "image of the invisible God."(381)"

I think the point the deacon failed to make is found in paragraph 1993: "Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom." The text goes on to quote the Council of Trent: "When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight."

The second topic was also a little strange, as regards the deacon's reaction. This was the Thursday after Corpus Christi and a member of the Bible study group said he'd heard about a eucharistic procession in nearby Monroe (Metuchen Diocese).

Sounding apologetic and sad, the deacon explained gently, "They're not allowed to do that any more." I was so taken aback by his ignorance that I prodded, "What do you mean? On Corpus Christi? Of course, they can. There was a procession at St. Veronica's in Howell and another one at St. Raphael's in Hamilton. Do you think Fr. Williams would do anything irregular?" The deacon thought a procession was only for Holy Thursday night.

I had heard these ceremonies announced on the new Catholic radio station and had hoped there was a way to attend the one in Howell. But I couldn't get there. What I didn't know at the time until I read this week's diocesan newspaper is that the bishop also participated in a procession that day. He appears in the photo on the right, below.

2011-07-04T08:06:00.000-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

St. Veronica's Tent Revival

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2011-06-29T21:13:00.002-04:00

Top 10 Childhood memories, a meme:

Winter! Especially the Blizzard of '77 during which my father was stranded in Rochester, NY for two weeks until he followed a plow home and my mother boiled pots of melted snow on the gas stove to keep the house warm because the electricity was out.

How my father would bundle up, even in more normal winters, using a scarf my mother knitted, to plow the snow from the driveway.

Summer! Especially all the tennis we played.

Those long, exploratory bike rides, especially to Hamlin Beach.

Those rare visits to my dad's brothers in Newfane for block parties. The even rarer long walk through the vacant lot to my aunt's neighbor's pool, seemingly abandoned. The murky, cold water, the overgrown weeds around the chain-link fence, the feeling that we were trespassing, a sense of the deserted. Fourth of July at the family friend's farm, the smell of the barn, pig roast, wagon rides, fireworks in the distance and softball games.

The ability to predict my mother's whereabouts at any time of her workday as a letter carrier in our small town and riding my bike to ask her for whatever was on my mind. I was sure she had the best job for a mom, better than a school teacher.

Not being able to wait for school to be out so that I could spent time studying what I wanted to study, referencing my parents' paltry library, the decent public library in town and the larger one in the county seat. When home life stunk, the library was my sanctuary.

My newest brother, the youngest, coming home from the hospital after five days on my fifth birthday and Mother's Day.

My husband's valedictorian speech at high school graduation.

Flipping off my high school cross country coach when he teased about not having any water on a long run. And his little red car! And all those hills we ran!

My father's restaurant and his bankruptcy. And his rotten luck as a rate clerk for the trucking industry. He took me to an office in Buffalo when he cleaned out his desk. A secretary put me on her lap and had me type my first name using the home row on her electric typewriter. I realized then my first name is all on the left hand. I remember how my dad used a calculator, collected bicentennial quarters - I wonder who has his collection now?

The moment I realized that my older sister was growing up and would soon be leaving home and how much our lives would change as a family. Including getting our room to myself! Painting it and wallpapering it.

Playing around in my friend's building, the town's former middle school, in the summer before it was renovated into senior housing. Including, but not limited to, sunbathing on the roof.

Working graveyard shift summers during college at the town's only 24 hr. convenience store. After getting off third shift, riding my bike six miles to the YMCA to lift weights and swim and riding home again, in order to be in shape for Fall cross country at school.

The night a kid asked to write me an I.O.U. for gas. And the night a guy asked me to unlock the beer cooler after hours. I wisely said no to both requests and called the police in the second instance.

My friend who lived across the street coming home from her job at McDonald's and giving me whatever "expired" food she's managed to take away.

Staying awake for about 30 hours after pulling a double shift (2nd and 3rd) then day-tripping to Sherkston Beach in Ontario with friends. It's been built up some since, I guess. I feel asleep on the beach, briefly, then worked third shift so sunburned I could barely stand. My stovepipe pants stuck to my swollen, blistered legs.

1978-1982: Three Mile Island, Love Canal, JPII's election, Lennon's assassination, the royal wedding. Getting cable TV. Playing Atari. Jeff's TI-99 and Commodore 64 home computers.

2011-06-27T00:58:00.004-04:00

Jeff took all the kids to the movies late this afternoon - as Ella calls it, the "fee-ater" - so I had a few hours to myself.

He suggested I exercise so I did. And even though there was plenty to do around the house, what with summer camp starting tomorrow for the boys, I ducked out and went down to Howell for their annual tent revival. I've never been and I picked a good year to go as it's their last one ever.

I checked out the book table. Mostly the typical titles: Navarre commentaries, Benedict's encyclicals¹, missals and prayer books. A thin paperback caught my eye, The 10 Most Important Things You Can Say to a Catholic from Harvest House. There wasn't really anyone manning the table but I wanted to ask whether the bookseller had mixed up his boxes, confusing his target audiences. I could imagine some venues where such a book would be appropriate. I had enough money to buy the inexpensive book but I decided against it. There was also an anti-Mormon pamphlet there.

I went under the tent and got a very good seat near the front. Some people had saved a couple of rows ahead of me but most people filled the back ~~pews~~ folding chairs. Right on time, five people mounted the stairs to the platform and led the audience in a rosary. I had prayed one on the car ride over but dug my beads out of my purse and went along. I was distracted by people's arrival, sometimes large groups of people. "Holy Rollers," I thought to myself. Yes, some looked the part.

One lady sat near and joined in the prayer without beads. I'd read somewhere that it doesn't "count" unless you have the beads.² At the conclusion, the leader led us in prayers for the Holy Father's intentions in order to "get the indulgence," but we weren't in a church, so the plenary indulgence was not available anyway.

A band called "Our Refuge" passed out song sheets and performed a few numbers. They said they were from St. Francis Cathedral in the Diocese of Metuchen. There was considerable feedback in their audio but tolerable. I knew two of the songs they played. There were others that I would have liked to hear. One was by Kristyn Getty. The audience was very charismatic, waving hands in the air, swaying, yelling "Amen" and "Alleluia." At one point, a lady seated behind me pulled a tambourine from her pocketbook and began rattling it. Some came very prepared.

In due time, the speaker was introduced. He came to the platform carrying a thick Bible with four multi-colored ribbons. I wondered which Bible but it seemed to be for show because I didn't see him open it. True, I wasn't able to stay for his entire talk. His presentation didn't really seem to be going anywhere. I was disappointed that he couldn't cut to the chase.

I walked out without being noticed and went over to the Catholic Radio table to say hello. Both of the people staffing the table were deeply engaged in conversations so I moved on without having the opportunity to verbalize my support. I returned to the book table with the intention of buying Rhodes's anti-Catholic pamphlet but it was gone. Either someone bought it or the bookseller realized his mistake. The anti-Mormon booklet was still there; a lady was reading from it to her male companion, laughing.

¹ which are free online

² Then, what about this Kindle rosary?

2011-06-27T00:21:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Session of Little Rock Scripture Study

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2011-06-24T17:02:00.002-04:00

I bought a pair of swim gloves last week because I'm no good at keeping my fingers together. Even if I could, I wouldn't get the same amount of resistance that these gloves provide. I've used the gloves three times so far for, at most, a third of my time in the pool, and I feel stronger already. So I'm really excited!

I notice other swimmers wearing two suits during their workouts. The idea of more laundry strongly repels me. But since I finally received the new suits I ordered for myself for Mother's Day, wearing a worn out suit on top of a new one might be better than throwing the old ones away. The old suits are see-through in spots, thanks to careless laundering practices (i.e., the dryer). So they can't be worn alone.

I also bought flippers. Some other swimmers use flippers for part of their workout. I haven't used mine because they seem so awkward. But I'm planning to bring them with me tomorrow because I found a net bag to carry them in.

2011-06-24T13:14:00.002-04:00

We met last night to cover the second lesson in the Little Rock Scripture Study on Acts of the Apostles. The deacon stood in for the pastoral associate. That made little difference since he was just returning from a business trip and had prepared the wrong week's lesson.

I also was returning from vacationing out of town but had managed to read the text and commentary before leaving. I crammed the week's worth of questions into an hour. They were easy questions. Much less work than the Matthew study. The text covered chapters 3 to 5, including that curious story about Ananias and Sapphira.

Several questions include in parentheses references to other books of the Bible in order to answer fully. So, a personal application of the story of Peter and John healing the cripple (3:4-6) asks in what ways are we to help those in need. The references point to Genesis 18, Matthew 10:41 and Romans 12:13-18 but I didn't have to look them up. I knew that Genesis 18 is about hospitality, Matthew 10:41 is about giving a cup of cold water and Romans 12 is about how to get along with people in community.

Can the question be answered without looking up the references? Of course. Everybody knows about helping those in need. But the lengths that the Bible recommends might be just beyond what comes naturally. And so, we won't know how much is called for (and how much grace is needed) unless we reference the recommended texts. It's a Bible study.

One of the questions directed an analysis of Isaiah 53 from the perspective of fulfillment in Jesus' passion. Nobody else had a Bible with them, so I opened mine (cheaper editions elsewhere) and read the verses that resonated. I just assumed everyone was familiar with the passage but maybe it's only familiar from stations. Our deacon said Isaiah originally wrote it for a contemporary king but it also applies to Jesus. I hadn't heard that before and initially thought he was rather thinking of earlier Isaian chapters (7 and 9). But then I came up with a possible royal candidate and asked him whether it was Hezekiah. He didn't know. But I've since searched and found some support.

An aspect of Peter's preaching in the early chapters of Acts that I find interesting is the technique the commentary calls "pesher." It's only since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that we've fully understood this Jewish method of interpretation. It involves plugging specific, contemporary names into general, ancient prophecies. So, in chapter 4, Peter quotes Ps. 2:1-2 before the Sanhedrin and explains that Herod and Pontius Pilate stand in for the "kings of the earth" and "rulers."

I read a footnote in the LRCSB to answer someone's question about Acts 3:21 - an apocalyptic designation of the messianic age, fitting in with the christology of Acts 3:20 that associates the messiahship of Jesus with his future coming. Another participant asked where, in Jesus' own words, he said he was coming again. I read Matthew 24:3ff.

From the video, I learned that Luke is building a legal case in the early chapters of his Acts. He is showing his side as being righteous and the other side as being criminal. He is showing by the healing miracles in Jesus' name that Jesus is not dead but still alive. I immediately developed an even greater appreciation of Luke's careful presentation.

I had seen a friend from Jim's study there last Friday morning after mass but didn't see her again this morning. I didn't actually have time to hang out after mass so maybe she eventually arrived. Another friend from his study said she also planned to attend on Friday mornings but I didn't see her either.

2011-06-11T22:42:00.000-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Visiting a sick friend in the hospital

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2011-06-06T17:48:00.006-04:00

A friend is in the hospital. I was strongly encouraged to visit her by a mutual friend who would be out of town. She had me cover for her, it seems. I don't mind. How often do I get to visit friends in the hospital?

The hospital is located near a state university that I didn't attend. Not even socially. Years ago, I took Timmy to the nearby medical offices because he was (and still is) underweight. Even so, I can't admit to being familiar with the area. It was twilight and as I turned onto Livingston, I saw the plain white cross of the hospital above the low-rise city buildings. I drove to the main entrance hoping to ask the valet where I could park. There was no one out except an alabaster statue of St. Peter. I recognized him by the keys in his right hand.

Turning back onto the street, I saw a statue of Fátima.¹ I really felt at home but quickly thought about my Reformed friend in the facility.

As I entered the parking garage, I was greeting with a CASH ONLY sign. I handed over my credit card but the gatekeeper refused it. I told her why I was there and gave her all I had, ten quarters. She took my name and raised the gate. I must have that kind of face. I was prepared to show ID at the security gate and received a hall pass. I found my friend's room which was full of immediate family. It was as if they were having a quiet evening at home but, I was expected, so I didn't feel as if I was intruding. The eldest daughter stayed with us while the rest went home.

I saw the flowers that I had ordered through the hospital gift shop. They looked just like the image on the website. I saw a small, thin crucifix on the wall, rather high up. Maybe intentionally out of reach. Perhaps out of sight unless one is looking for it. The room was nicely appointed with wood trim. Not large but private. As the shift was just changing, the new nurse came in, introduced herself and looked my friend over. Then she excused herself saying she had many other patients to see but call her if needed. On the weekends, I know, hospital staff leave you alone.

There's a room on the wing devoted to quiet meditation. My friend walked me down to see it. She calls it the "Zen room." The sign on the wall said "Healing Room." Chairs line all four walls and in the center is a pergola without slats along the top. Between the four upright posts of the structure are live, green, leafy plants and a pile of large, assorted river stones. On the far wall is a shiny mosaic of a tree. The soft sound of a local radio station could be heard over the PA. My friend said she heard morning prayers said over the PA once but didn't tell me the nature of those prayers.² That is, whether they sounded Christian. But the room sticks in her craw. She associates pergolas, plants and rocks with Zen Buddhism; I associate them with the outdoors. Not altogether in bad taste for patients cooped up.

She said a hospital chaplain had visited a couple of times but she turned her away:

She was a nun.

When I was in the hospital with my first child, I had disclosed my religion on the pre-registration forms, rather proudly, as I remember. Sort of thinking the information would be necessary in the event of my death, actually. Then, early on my first morning there, a woman came with holy communion. I wasn't in the right frame of mind so I thanked her but sent her away. She came back the next morning and I asked her not to come back. On subsequent pre-registrations, I omitted details about my religion. Yes, if I were in the hospital for serious reasons, I'd think differently.

We returned to her room and her daughter left. She had her text when she reached the car and text again when she got home. I never gave personal safety there a second thought, actually. I had brought my Kindle with a FREE edition of the ESV Bible (thanks, Ellen) on it and wanted to read a couple of passages I'd heard on Ascension Thursday in church. I like reading aloud and she tolerated it. Days earlier I had asked her to pray for me in return for all the prayers I was making for her. And her prayers were answered very soundly. Which poses the problem of why, if God so clearly hears and answers her prayers, she is sick in the hospital and not actively doing her ministry at home and in church.

¹ Three children. I reflexively thought Fátima, then second-guessed myself and thought Lourdes. But three children is Fátima. Three secrets, three children.
² Whether they were Divine Office or whether she would even recognize them as such.

2011-05-15T19:42:00.003-04:00

This isn't going to turn into an "exercise blog" or anything like that, but I am working out just about every day.

So exercising is a major way that I'm spending my time lately and blogs are usually about how we spend our time. A bit.

The exercise logging system offers a number of metrics, including a ranking system. I wish I hadn't stumbled upon it because I was ranked first in my age/sex last month and kind of sat back on my laurels for a week. But then I realized that I couldn't do that and maintain my standings!

Last week, I received an email from my "trainer" (actually, I think the message was automatically generated by the logging system) informing me that I'd surpassed my goals by a significant degree and that I ought to seek some advice in taking my routine to "the next level."

I thought I could just "up" my goals, but it doesn't work that way. I was afraid that I would have to pay extra for individual training services, but it's nothing like that. No, instead, I told a staff person my typical workout and she recommended weightbearing exercises¹ to fight osteoporosis, the buzz word in women's fitness for decades. That is, she got me on an elliptical machine.

I'd been dying to try this machine since joining the gym about two months ago, but I knew I wasn't physically ready for it. I'm sort of ready now. That is, I don't think I'm getting ahead of myself by starting to use it. I did fifteen minutes at the lowest resistance and thought I was going to collapse. What's worse, I had no time for the pool after. Rather, I spent five minutes in the hot tub, a poor substitute.

The trouble is whatever time I give to elliptical training necessarily takes away from swimming. In comparing the two exercises, I prefer swimming for many reasons. I use swimming for recovery as much as anything. Swimming soothes my aching muscles, relaxes me, has improved my circulation and flexibility and coordination. I feel great after an hour or more of swimming.

In contrast, after fifteen minutes of elliptical, I can barely walk, even the day after. The pain in my legs, ankles and feet is pretty bad right now. I don't like sweating indoors. I get thirsty and am probably becoming dehydrated. Both exercises burn 400 calories an hour so it's sort of a no-brainer: pain vs. painless. The only thing swimming is bad for is my hair - but my stylist recently gave me a terrific leave-in conditioner!

Regardless, I asked my husband's opinion and he suggests I give the elliptical a chance. So I will give up some of my swimming time to the elliptical machine and see how it goes.

¹Already, I'm completing a circuit of Cybex machines three times a week which qualifies as weightbearing exercise.

2011-05-01T13:44:00.002-04:00

I found out through Facebook, as well as in private email, that a congregation with whom I've been in very loose association over the past ten years moved into their new sanctuary for worship beginning last Sunday, Easter. I was sorry to have missed the big event but I understand that the Easter service was SRO. My acquaintances who were there tell me it was packed.

The congregation experiences a great deal of churn or turnover in families, as people move in and out of the area. Several people I've grown close to there moved away. The construction of the new sanctuary, which must be complete enough to obtain a CO, took many years. It's a relatively small congregation, as most Protestant churches are, with limited resources. The economic downturn hit the area hard and church leadership was committed to not acquiring debt.

Besides being personally interested in the "end result," I chose to post pictures of the interior for those who had moved away. So I visited this morning on, as it happens, their annual "youth weekend." Dumb luck that. I had brought in a couple of still cameras deciding my video camera wasn't necessary. I was later sorry. One of the youth performed a breakdancing routine right there on the platform at the front of the sanctuary. The pastor had set up the introduction to the youth service as a whole by reminding us that Wesley's hymns employed bar tunes and were roundly rejected by the ecclesial establishment. Yet we love these songs today, 200+ years later!

The breakdancer was very talented, there's no question. He did a nice job. But in the back of my mind, I supposed he might recall this occasion twenty or thirty years from now and ask why his elders allowed him to embarrass himself like this. "Where was the leadership?! The guidance?!" Because things that are momentarily "cool" have a way of biting us down the road.

Otherwise, there was a praise band which also played exceptionally. I was familiar with two of the songs, one of which I liked very much the first 500 times I heard it. These things get overplayed in churches and on the radio. Somebody so unevangelical as me shouldn't even know the words to these songs, but I do.

The pastor had the day off preaching because the man who conducted the youth weekend preached on 1 Peter 1:13 to, I think, verse 23. I brought my own NIV, providentially, because it seems they haven't added any pew Bibles despite now having many more pews. Maybe new Bibles are on order or they are contemplating a switch to the ESV. Or counting on people to bring electronic Bibles? It's moving in that direction.

Someone read the passage and her words didn't match up with my NIV text. The preacher also seemed to be working from a version different from mine. It could have been the ESV in both cases. Nobody uses the new 2011 NIV, right? The preacher was eager to provide context so he applied the "20/20 rule" which means to read 20 verses before your passage and 20 after. But, of course, verse 13 doesn't have 20 preceding verses and he certainly didn't read beyond verse 23 because he ran out of time!

I was a little excited that he covered the preceding section because we'd read 1 Peter 1:3-9 last night and, either the way the lector read it or the way it was punctuated in my missal, it made no sense. So I intended to look at the passage in another translation and here was my chance ...

The only bit about the sermon that I liked was when he said that a more literal translation of verse 13 is "gird up the loins of your mind"¹ and he referred us back to Exodus 12. For myself, it was meaningful because we'd just gone through Passover/Easter and the Exodus traditions were fresh in my mind. Moreover, I'm finishing up a Community Bible Study of 1 & 2 Peter and the study commentary also translated verse 13 in that literal, very graphic way.²

Things that were missing from the service: no corporate confession of sin³, no Creed, no Lord's Prayer, no Lord's Supper. It was praise music, breakdancing, testimony, offering, preaching, and benediction. When I entered the sanctuary, I walked in directly from the parking lot rather than wind my way through people in the Fellowship Hall. But exiting, there was virtually no way to avoid passing through the Fellowship Hall. I had heard that it had been turned into a Seattle's Best Coffee House and so it has. In the past, Christian Adult Education used to meet in the Fellowship Hall. I asked the lady who runs a number of things in the church and she says that one Ad. Ed. group does still meet there very informally but other groups meet in logical spaces: the parenting class meets in the nursery and the Chesterton book club (yes, you read that right. More on that in a second!) meets in the pastor's anteroom.

The announcements made mention of a weekly church book club. I've always wanted to be in a book club. My parish started one last summer and it's going strong but they don't read religious books. It's large and packed with school teachers who monopolize the conversation. I could never get a word in. I had to quit when school resumed again anyway. So the book is Orthodoxy and the group is two weeks in. I think I can catch up especially because they aren't meeting for Mother's Day. I'll let you know how that goes!

¹ which is exactly as the NAB renders it, surprise! (note 7)

² "The English paraphrases a more graphic figure of speech in the original Greek: gird up the loins of your mind. The image of a man cinching up his cloak in his belt before beginning his work was a familiar one (see also Ephesians 6:14)." Community Bible Study materials, page 25 (authored by Dr. James Edwards).

³ you'll find this in more liberal quarters!

2011-04-30T18:45:00.000-04:00

After the noon mass on Friday, out of town, I stayed a bit to pray for some intentions. A lady touched me on the shoulder and said that she'd walked by me on her way out but that God had told her to turn around and talk to me. I had not noticed her pass as I was deeply involved in ~~prayer~~ unknotting my rosary. But with that sort of conversation starter, I'm rather obliged to hear her out.

She invited me to their upcoming "Life in the Spirit" seminar, weekly on Tuesdays until Pentecost. I didn't think that parishes were still running that ancient program but I listened politely to her pitch. I told her that I'd check with my husband, etc., etc. She retrieved a couple of flyers with information from a back table for me.

She left me and I said my prayers, all the while trying to figure how to fit this into my schedule. I couldn't fit it and apologized to God before walking out.

Leaving the parking lot, I thought about asking my pastor whether he'd run the seminar at our parish.

Saturday evening's service was lightly attended because the weather was so dang nice. Surprisingly - it surprises me every year - hospitality was moved up so as not to conflict with Mother's Day next Sunday. And it was offered on Saturday evening as well, to honor St. Joseph the Worker, our parish patron. Now the choir loft where we sit was a disaster: missals and hymnals stuffed together, remnants of palms from two weeks ago. I sent the boys downstairs to hospitality while I tidied up.

There were even fewer people who stayed for hospitality! The church hall was mostly empty. And I just knew by the look on his face that the deacon was going to sit with us. He did, but he kindly asked permission first. I asked after his wife because I didn't see her and he said she's fine. He remarked that my missal looked old or well-used, and I said it's becoming obsolete but I bought it in '99¹ so it isn't so old. I said something about wondering how many missals I'll go through in my lifetime.

Then I related the invitation from the previous day to attend "Life in the Spirit" at a Catholic parish some distance from my own. I said that I thought the amount of traveling made the invitation impractical² and maybe our parish could hold one. The deacon asked whether it wasn't a charismatic program and I said that it could be run that way but probably didn't have to be. Then he told me about a mass that was held in honor of a returning vet who happened to have enough of a relationship to our deacon that the deacon was invited to the mass. It was a charismatic mass and he described the hands waving, etc. So I guess I've received my answer: they won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

I sent a two-line email to my pastor and his associate anyway about "Life in the Spirit," just to make sure.

¹ It's copyrighted 2001, so I don't think I was accurate. I just knew that the revised lectionary for Sunday was published in '98 and that it took some time before I could find an updated missal. I think I even used my old one for a little bit because it wasn't that far off and it was better than nothing.
² yes, daily mass there is a bit out of the way too but not as much because my daily routine has me near there.

2011-04-16T21:27:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

David Haas's Lenten concert last night

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2011-04-16T12:57:00.005-04:00

I attended this concert last night:

The church is only twenty minutes from my house. I arrived by 7 and checked in immediately. There were a few CDs on sale in the vestibule. David was at the grand piano in the sanctuary preparing. We weren't allowed inside until he finished.

This was only my second time inside this church. I had visited about a year ago to pray but found the sanctuary undergoing such a major renovation that it wasn't quiet enough. When I heard that the concert was to be held here, I was surprised that the renovation was completed. It had seemed so involved.

I took a good seat expecting to be in his line of sight. A lady sat down next to me and I started the conversation with the typical, "So is this your parish?" She went into an explanation on how it now is and contrasted it with her former parish at which she didn't feel welcome. On top of the fact that her previous pastor wouldn't marry her daughter in the time frame needed, this parish hands out things on special occasions:

Flowers on Mother's Day, York Peppermint Patties on St. Patrick's Day, Hershey's Kisses on Valentines Day!

Really, that's a reason she switched. "Tomorrow you'll get palms!" I wanted to point out to her the socio-economic differences between her previous parish, comprised mostly of immigrants, and this one but she would not hear.

David came out and played the first song. Many began to sing along. The lyrics were printed in the program but I wanted to hear him sing and play. I didn't know the songs as well as everyone else. And I don't sing well. But the intimate setting put pressure on me to participate so I reluctantly joined in.

Halfway through, he encouraged us to rise, stretch and give the person to our right a brief back rub. I did my best with my neighbor but she was still wearing her overcoat ... because ... she's a Catholic ... so I don't know how effective I was. Hers wasn't very great towards me, either.

David took up a collection for his summer music camp after explaining the work. Then he did a few more numbers and quietly walked out during a singalong of "Steal Away to Jesus", a cappella so we wouldn't notice the piano cease. He greeted us in the vestibule. I dug a pen out of my pocketbook and asked him to sign my program for my son, Christopher, who's learning the piano. He was happy to.

At the opening of the show, he said it was his fourth time to NJ. I'd overheard Sr. Trudy of the Upper Room say that last year's concert had been at St. Anselm's in Wayside and 400 people turned out. How they squeezed 400 people into St. Anselm's I'll never know. But the change of venue only turned out about 100 people. I have the feeling that people may be unfamiliar with his name even if they know his music.

I heard him perform one other time, in Washington, D.C., about fifteen years ago at a religious educators conference. We happened to ride up the elevator together. I remember him being very humble and nice. Last night he smiled the entire time. Just a happy guy.

2011-04-08T11:17:00.000-04:00

"If you're going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi's grandfather all wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as you'd like him to have been. You don't face any facts. This same damned attitude of not facing facts is what got you into this messy state of mind in the first place, and it can't possibly get you out of it."

"The part that stumps me, really stumps me, is that I can't see why anybody- unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim- would even want to say the prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls- but, my God, who beside Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that- but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God... Oh, my God, what a mind!" he said. "Who else, for example, would have kept his mouth shut when Pilate asked for an explanation? Not Solomon. Don't say Solomon. Solomon would have had a few pithy words for the occasion. I'm not sure Socrates wouldn't have, for that matter. Crito, or somebody, would have managed to pull him aside just long enough to get a couple of well-chosen words for the record. But most of all, above everything, who in the Bible besides Jesus knew- knew- that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff. Why don't you think of these things? I mean it, Franny, I'm being serious." - Salinger, Zooey

2011-03-28T23:31:00.002-04:00

A friend from Tim's previous school stayed the night Saturday into Sunday. We all attended a Saturday evening liturgy because the prospect of getting them up for Sunday morning was too intimidating. As it turned out, they were all up by 7. But anyway.

Tim's friend attends Catholic school now. That was his mother's intention even before the former school closed down. And, I'll tell you, he participates at mass. I mean, shoot, he almost sings louder than me. And that's pretty loud. But, for a kid, it's different, you know?

Even so, I couldn't believe how many people were looking back at us, especially when he recited responses, clear and crisp. Not only were young kids looking back but also grown-ups. Kenny noticed their glances and told our guest to hush up some. I told Kenny to let him be; he isn't going to change him for one service.

Yes, ours is a quiet church, apparently. We mumble our prayers.

2011-03-26T23:04:00.003-04:00

I joined the YMCA a month ago as a facility member. The first three weeks I was really great about keeping a work-out schedule. The last week hasn't been great for different reasons, primarily half-days for the kids due to parent/teacher conferences. Next week I hope to get back into it again.

Part of the facility membership includes use of the Cybex weight machines. Before using the machines for the first time, I met with someone to set me up on them. Each machine has one or two adjustments, in addition to the weight setting, so that I'm positioned properly. On leg machines, that would be back and leg settings. On the arm machines, it's just seat height.

I told the trainer that it had been twenty years since I'd lifted weights with any regularity. She must have thought I said that I've been lifting for twenty years because at each machine she impatiently asked me how much weight I could lift on it. I had no idea. I generally offered conservative amounts and she urged me to go higher.

So in the twenty years since I've used Cybex, they've gained touch screens like everything else. I have an account and the computer tracks my statistics. I can access my results over the web. I've done that ~~once~~ twice. The results are fairly meaningless to me so far.

There's a facility-wide ranking and I began at dead last. I've moved up since. :-)

The computer also reminds me of my custom machine settings. The first machine in the circuit - and I don't always have the luxury of starting at one end and going down the line because people jump in here and there - is squats. I do 90 lbs. on that right now. Because you have to type in your account number each time you get on a machine, most people do their two sets back-to-back without getting off the machine. That's not how I was taught to do it. My habit was to do one full circuit and then come back around for the second set. But now I do my two sets back-to-back like everyone else.

The next machine is for glutes. I'd never used a machine like that before. It's alright. I can't remember my weight on that, maybe 37.5 lbs. The next machine is leg curl for the hamstrings and then leg extension for the quads. There's a calf muscle machine. Abductor and adductor machines - two separate machines, not combined in one. There's a row machine without chains.

I have the most trouble with chest press and overhead ("military") press. I've even dropped down the weight on both of those machines. Next weakest are my biceps and triceps. Oh, well, and my abs too. We won't even talk about that. The ab machine is a little too painless. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

If there is no one on the machines, I can get through two sets in an hour. I move really slowly on the machines. The display screen shows desirable range of motion and also points out when I'm going too fast or in danger of letting the weights touch. I find that I don't take my eyes off the screen when I'm lifting. I'm used to watching myself in the mirror to check my form, but in most cases, there isn't even a mirror and in other cases I can't see myself. I think there ought to be more mirrors and the machine's display ought to be on the mirror, too, so I have to look only in one place.

I'm also very used to counting the reps myself. Even though the machine counts for me, I still count along mentally. I've also been swimming in the pool anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, but usually around 45 minutes. The pool is getting shorter, thank goodness, but it still takes me a minute to swim a length (25 yds., I guess). So, in an hour, I swim 1,500 yards perhaps. It's a start. I was never a competitive swimmer.

2011-03-26T23:02:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Reid's commentary on The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

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2011-03-26T22:30:00.004-04:00

I missed the Matthew Bible study at my parish yesterday because my daughter was sick. I kept her home from school. I did some of the commentary work but none of the questions.

Reid's commentary on the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18 is well-presented. I'd love to share it verbatim, but let me try my skills at summarizing.

You know the story. A king settles accounts with his servants. A debtor can't possibly pay back what he owes and asks for patience, not forgiveness. The king grants forgiveness. Then the servant turns around and fails to forgive or even show patience towards his fellow servant. When the king catches wind, he tortures him like he should have done in the first place.

Reid is careful to say that, like with all parables, the God-like figure is both like and also unlike God. The king has shown his servant how to obtain loyalty and respect from his fellow servants. If the first servant had fully understood the king's actions towards him, he would have imitated them. By failing to replicate the king's approach, the servant is judging it ineffective. Since the servant thinks that physical abuse is the way to demonstrate power, the king debases him in just that way.

Even though Reid thinks Matthew 18 is directed at church leadership, the same goes for us laypeople. God has forgiven us in Jesus and we ought to act with the same graciousness towards others.

2011-02-19T23:42:00.002-05:00

The house was almost sold out for the first time, five tiers.

"Mostly white people."

And alot of men. Three rows solid behind us were packed with 'em.

"Lions Club," I muttered. "Oh, no, K of C," he came back.

And a fella mentioned he ought to bring his wife sometime. I just didn't like the way they kicked the back of my seat.

As usual, the band was a little slow to get warmed up. Starting with "Octopus's Garden," I really began to think they were doing a great job. The drummer, who had been the foley artist/jack-of-all-trades during The Wall, sang with a heavy, put-on Liverpudlian accent that captured it. He had done "Oh! Darling" before but his voice was too gruff, as if he had actually achieved what McCartney wanted but failed to accomplish: the sound of having sung all night. But it didn't fit the original.

I ought to say that the mic on the first guy who had sung "Come Together" wasn't at the proper mix level and was fairly inaudible for a quarter of the show. He used another singer's mic for "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window," then dashed off stage. When he returned to his mic, it sounded much better. I don't know what the guys at the sound board were doing but I can't believe they didn't fix it sooner.

I was dreading "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" because it's almost 8 minutes of grunging, heavy guitar. But hearing it performed live I got an appreciation for what a tight song it is musically and with each measure or so the lights changed and even intensified until the abrupt ending. It was my favorite up 'til that point in the show.

And what could be brighter after that than "Here Comes the Sun?" It's so plucky. After that Harrisong, the guys behind us remarked with a degree of relief, "Now, that song I liked." During the intermission, Jeff and I compared notes and we had both thought that if they liked only that song so far they were certain to like none of the rest!

There was a time when I thought "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was a deliciously wicked number but my opinion now is that the album might be better without it! Lennon and Harrison turn in great performances on this album but Paul contributed some real throwaways. He wasn't there. "Oh! Darling," maybe and "Golden Slumbers."

I noted for the first time how many of the verses are just "Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh" on this album. Compare that to the swooning "Whooo" of "I Am the Walrus" (Magical Mystery Tour), for example.

The conclusion of the first hour before intermission was fabulous. "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" were really well done, so well done in fact that the audience didn't hold their applause for "Her Majesty." I'm sure there were some people who knew a final song was coming. Wiki has interesting background on that song which makes sense:

The loud chord that occurs at the beginning of the song is the ending, as recorded, of "Mean Mr. Mustard". "Her Majesty" ends abruptly because its own final note was left at the beginning of "Polythene Pam". [...] Consequently, both of the original sides of vinyl close with a song that ends abruptly (the other being I Want You (She's So Heavy)).

I always thought it was written about Princess Margaret who seemed to be a fan.

After the intermission, the second hour was more Beatles songs. "Nowhere Man," "Can't Buy Me Love," "And Your Bird Can Sing," "Two of Us," "Blackbird," "Glass Onion," "Martha, My Dear," "Honey Pie," "Birthday," "I Am the Walrus," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." As you can tell, more than half from The White Album. Jeff was like, "Hey, we already saw this show!" Yeah, but with a live performance, it's always just a little different. And the guitarist who had channeled David Gilmour during The Wall show managed an equally good Clapton on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." In fact, we detected a little Floyd sound during "Something!"

2011-02-17T23:16:00.002-05:00

It's very difficult to bring four kids to the library. But we can at least attempt a quick trip. For emergencies.

The oldest wanted books on his bio selection, Da Vinci. The online card catalogue wasn't working fast enough for us, so I took Kenny to the biography section in the (juvenile) stacks and we found several books. Sounds simple, but we were interrupted many times by the other three kids.

Besides the biography books, I figured it was high time that Ella got her own library card. She's four after all. A little overdue, even (ha-ha). She was thrilled with it, especially the color. After she got it, we went back into the children's section and I helped her pick out "girl books." The boys had picked out all war, army, navy, battleship type books.

The boys all have wallets to keep their library card in. Ella wanted a wallet, too. Since the library card is purple, she wanted a purple wallet. I took her to the Jackson Outlets this afternoon to look at wallets. Out of habit, I parked near Wilson Leather, also near Fossil, thinking we could find something there. But at the last second, my eye caught the Coach store. I thought Coach would be my best bet for finding a non-brown wallet, i.e., purple.

I've never been in the Coach store at the Jackson Outlets. In fact, I've only entered a Coach store once, probably three or four years ago, at the Freehold Mall with a friend who was returning something. I was quite unprepared. There was loud music and lots of women. There was a special 30% off event, in anticipation of a Presidents' Day Weekend sale. It was clearly not an outlet store: everything appeared to be full price. I knew that I couldn't get her a $79 wallet.

But we looked around. She wanted to buy the first thing she saw. I let her carry it but I told her that we would keep looking. It's a terribly small store, a feature of the Outlets that I appreciate. There's no getting lost. So, why not look through the entire store?

Well, but we didn't because it was too busy. In clearance, I found a wallet for $39, plus the 30% off. The snap closure billfold was what I was looking for in terms of features, size, price and color (plum). The woman who rang us up made a big deal about the purchase, even saying to Ella,

"You're a very lucky girl to be getting a Coach wallet."

My husband accuses me of strong brand loyalty but I haven't any idea what distinguishes a Coach from any other manufacturer of handbags. It really seems rather silly. Anyway, I didn't appreciate the cashier's attempt to foster enthusiasm for shopping in Ella.

2011-02-13T13:05:00.004-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Little Rock Scripture Study on Matthew

Click to join sunday_snippets

2011-02-12T16:48:00.001-05:00

Through the efforts of the pastoral associate, my parish just began a 10-wk Little Rock Scripture Study on Matthew's Gospel using the new Collegeville commentary and a video lecture. During the brief Advent study from the same publisher, I learned that there's a great deal of reading and preparation necessary for the small group discussions. So I wasted no time and completed this week's work in a couple of days. I'll probably tweak my answers over the coming days as there are a couple of issues that I want to research in greater depth.

The first matter for further investigation is the commentary writer's observation that Matthew must have omitted a name from Jesus' genealogy. Either that or ol' Matt couldn't count because there are only thirteen names in the third group, since the Exile. My opinion before I begin any additional reading is that someone is to be counted twice.¹ Since he skipped generations at some points, he certainly had enough names to work with. Interesting that Rahab is said to be the mother of Boaz, even though she lived at the time of the conquest and Boaz lived at the time of the judges.

The major insight that I got from the Collegeville commentary was Reid's comment on 2:17-18:

"Whereas Matthew uses this text [Jer. 31:15] to express the bitter lamentation of Israel over its slaughtered children, in Jeremiah it is part of an oracle that promises an end to the suffering and the return of the exiled Israelites (Jer 31:16)."

In following down that cross-reference, I never read past verse 15 in Jeremiah 31. Maybe Matthew intended us to and then we would see the hope of Jesus bringing us back from exile, too.

Doing some homework yesterday, I read chapters 3-5 and was surprised to hear portions of Matthew 5 again at mass this weekend. Reid's commentary on verses 38-42, under a heading "On nonretailiation," is outstanding:

The first example (v. 39b) involves a backhanded slap, meant to insult and humiliate. Turning the other cheek is a creative response that robs the aggressor of the power to humiliate and shames the one who intended to inflict shame. [emphasis mine] It interrupts the cycle of violence [and i]t could begin to move the aggressor toward repentance, leading to reconciliation.

[...]

In a smiliar way, a debtor who stands naked in court, after handing over both under and outer garments to a creditor (v. 40), performs a shocking act that places shame on the creditor. See Genesis 9:20-27, which asserts that it is the one who views another's nakedness who is shamed. Isaiah (20:1-6) made use of this strategy. This tactic exposes the injustice of the economic system to which the creditor subscribes and opens the possibility that he may repent, perceiving the common humanity that unites him with those he had exploited. [emphasis mine]

Wow. Definitely wisdom literature.

¹ In fact, Hendriksen believes Jechoniah ought to be counted twice because, between the account in 2 Kgs 24:8-12 and 1 Chr. 3:17-18, the king goes through such an amazing conversion that it's as if he's a new man. While I'm ok with counting someone twice, this explanation is not sensitive to the theological differences between Kings and Chronicles, the latter always portraying the monarchy in a relatively better light. Someone in our small group suggested that Jesus and Christ are to be counted as two distinct people but that idea reminds me of an ancient heresy.

2011-02-10T12:56:00.004-05:00

The conversation started with talk of colonoscopies and coin-operated restrooms. Clear signs that this is an old crowd. Doesn't matter how old I get, I never seem to catch up!

At some point, though, we came to our senses - after all, we were having brunch - and directed the conversation towards the "question:"

What makes you feel loved?

I had a general answer about simply being noticed, but when the green box from ProFlowers arrived this morning, I got more specific.

You see, I was just about to go out to this fellowship session of Community Bible Study but heard a knock at the door and took a few minutes to put the two dozen roses in water and food packet. I mentioned to the group that flowers for Valentine's Day make me feel loved. And I shared about my sister-in-law, whose one-year anniversary is approaching later this month. I was quick to add that my husband has always given me flowers, even having them delivered one time in high school French class, so I know he isn't motivated by guilt or fear of missing an opportunity.

Then the young mother next to me said her husband used to give flowers when they were dating but not anymore. She'd rather he use the $50 or so on important things, like the electric bill. And then all the ladies fell in with opinions that flowers aren't important, they only die, and they'd rather feel loved every day instead of only on one day (did they think I was saying that?) and that Valentine's Day is made up by the card companies to sell things.

Phew! My head was spinning and I sure wasn't feeling loved anymore. And then they turned back to me and asked,

"Does he get you anything on Valentine's Day itself, like chocolate?"

Wait, I thought we just got done saying that the day isn't significant, but a marketing ploy? Instead, I just said, "I'll let you know whether he gets me more the next time we meet."

After grace was said, a sunny woman remarked that she'd once eaten with a couple who said grace after the meal as well. She thought that was unusual and perhaps indicated that the food was good. Everyone chimed in on how superfluous it was.

"You thank God for the food whether it's any good or not!"

and other such moralizing.

For those who'd never heard of such a thing, I said it's an old-fashioned practice that one finds in the mid-west and the woman confirmed that they were in the mid-west at the time. I didn't say it was Catholic¹ but I've only ever heard Catholics pray after meals. When I lived in Ohio, a co-worker took me home to her German immigrant small town and her Catholic mother prayed after breakfast. Like face-in-hands prayer. I think she thought I would join in but I had no idea what she was doing.

Rather than a lecture or exhortation, since we've finished 1 John and haven't yet started 1 Peter, we had a "music ministry" which means just singing songs. I'd noticed last week that the NIV pew Bibles had all been replaced with the ESV translation at this Baptist church where we meet. Couldn't wait for the 2011 NIV edition? I only knew one song, "I Love You, Lord" from my "other life" in Campus Crusade. But, sheesh, that's a twenty year old song.

¹ this line might give some Christians trouble: "May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace."

2011-01-27T13:10:00.003-05:00

The 1 John stuff isn't all bad, of course.

For instance, as a result of being in this study, I was able to recognize the scriptural source of this prayer spoken Sunday:

"Almighty Father, the love you offer always exceeds the furthest expression of our human longing, for you are greater than the human heart.¹ Direct each thought, each effort of our life, so that the limits of our faults and weaknesses may not obscure the vision of your glory or keep us from the peace you have promised, through Christ our Lord. Amen."

¹ 1 John 3:20

2011-01-25T20:14:00.002-05:00

The honeymoon may be over.

I had a feeling I wouldn't like this 1 John study and it's turning out just that way. Unfortunately.

The evangelical reading of 1 John, if you don't know, is that the letter includes "tests" for the reader to measure up against. So, for example, if the reader has a sense of love - and "love" means quite literally "charity," not emotion - towards everyone in their religious community, they can enjoy some confidence that they are "alright." Adiuva me, Domine!

It so happened that my study leader engaged me in a discussion about my feelings after the plenary worship time and lecture. I told her that I had been fine with the booklets on the previous epistles (1 & 2 Thess., James) but that I had not been brought up to read 1 John in this self-examining way. And while I might reflect on my conduct at the end of each day and ask forgiveness for offenses and omissions, I don't dabble in those larger concerns of ultimate destiny.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

But instead of acknowledging that, yes, the booklet questions and commentary dwell upon these "tests" for believers, the study leader denied that the material approached 1 John like that!

So, here we go with direct quotations:

[John] is concerned that those in his congregation not be deceived about their Christian standing.

John supplies tests to destroy false assurance and to confirm faith that is genuine.

[John] asserts that if you believe Jesus is the Son of God who came in the flesh, if you live a righteous life compatible with the nature of God, and if you habitually express love consistent with the character of God, you can be certain that you are a child of God.

[John] is careful to give both subjective and objective tests.

[John] begins an explanation to clarify the difference between true believers and the unfortunate peole who are self-deceived. ... they have a false sense of security. ... John's intention is to give assurance to those who know God and seek to live in obedience to Him. He intends to remove assurance from those who do not know God or who do, but are presuming on His grace.

And so throughout. But there's more:

Our spirituality is judged not only by our prayer life and Scripture study and meditation, but by the way those prayers and Bible truths are translated into action in our lives.

Note well, it says, "not only."

When we were going over the questions, I wanted the group's opinion on #10C in Lesson 3, on pericope 1 John 3:19-24. The question asks, "How does God grant us assurance and confidence about ourselves?" Look at verse 22: "and receive from him anything we ask." (NIV) So I asked whether a track record of answered prayers was commendation from God and I received a resounding "no" from a couple of people. That's a relief. But isn't that what the text says?

We skipped ahead a couple of questions to #12 which says, "State the conditions given in verse 22 for receiving positive answers to our prayers." I wrote, "obey God's commands and do what pleases him." As if I know what that is. Skipped another couple of questions to #14 in which we were directed to read John 15:1-9, which says in part, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ... bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. The question asks "What further assurance do we have that Jesus abides in us?" Hands down, answered prayer.

I could say more but that seems to be the gist of the 1 John study. Without results, we are nothing. So I'm back to being in a heap o' trouble again. Just as I was starting to calm down and relax.

2011-01-22T23:17:00.001-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Newsweek book review

2011-01-22T22:37:00.006-05:00

As I was letting the color soak into my hair at the salon tonight, I flipped through last week's Newsweek. All the way in the back was a book review. Even though I'm not interested in yoga, I have many acquaintances who are. There was a nice picture of Marilyn Monroe to head off the page, and the word "Christian" in the first few sentences caught my eye. Why shouldn't I read the article? What else am I going to do?

So, I'm reading the article and I see a slight error in the print edition (it has been corrected online):

It’s hard to imagine C. S. Lewis writing about his conversion to Catholicism and making fun of the goofy priests and wacky incense.

I can only wish!

Even in the corrected, online edition, the belittling isn't entirely erased because the phrases "goofy priests" - I don't know any goofy ones - and "wacky incense" - wacky, really? - remain, although without their antecedent. Not every Christian church features priests or incense, wacky or otherwise, so the general reader has a keen sense of who is cited.

The concluding line ought not be missed:

A yoga memoir by a conservative Republican Catholic NRA member? Now that would be a real stretch.

Again, really? The second page of the full article appears below.

2011-01-17T23:19:00.004-05:00

I arrived too early and sat in the car for ten minutes. I noticed that one quarter of the parking lot wasn't even plowed. It wasn't needed.

I waited, all the while resisting the temptation to simply return home. With Sunday School occurring before the morning service, most were already inside. Only a few cars trickled in after mine. I couldn't get lost, entering with a stream. There was no stream. And I felt underdressed.

But I grabbed my NIV for balance and walked in with the air of one who does every week. Because I do. I knew the greeter. I saw the Bible study leader and the pastor was quitting his chamber. There was sort of a bottleneck in the hallway. I felt like I was pushing people to get through, embarrassed at being recognized so quickly.

In the Hall, I encountered two other women whom I knew. One was stuffing a couple of small, chocolate cupcakes into her mouth. She acted hungry and rushed. She said she had taught this morning, so maybe she left home without breakfast. As we talked, the Hall lights dimmed aggressively and then remained off. No one budged or even batted an eye. They knew what the signal meant, of course, but they would not be pressed. I was the one who reacted, asking my companions whether they would enter and they agreed. But they took their usual seats and I found one next to another lady I knew, behind a couple of other ladies I knew.

This first lady chatted with me quite a bit about her week. I'm not used to conversing before a church service so I smiled and nodded and said nothing as politely as possible. With the Christmas trees still crowding the raised platform in the sanctuary, the pastor's chair was absent and the man sat in the pews. A choir of eight people, four men and four women, shared the platform with a grand piano. They did not wear robes and sang well for their size. I knew half of them. The woman who played violin played so beautifully for God.

The woman who I intended to visit with arrived a few minutes after the service started. But her seat was available. Late last year, the church dropped from two to one Sunday service. In the past, I might attend the earlier service hoping to catch my friend only to discover she'd waited 'til later. That wasn't going to happen this morning. We sang three songs as projected on the overhead screens. The ~~receipt~~ bulletin has very little in it anymore. But under the date was the line "Walk in the Light," which I recognized immediately as coming from John's first epistle¹.

How convenient, a sermon on 1 John 1.

The choir performed a nice song after an elder offered a wonderful prayer but the sound of folks ruffling around for their offering marred the moment. There was supposed to be a double baptism but the children were sick. In general, there was a lot more commotion and unrest in the sanctuary than I remember in the past but no where near approaching the freedom of a Catholic service. When we sang, I was grounded by the voice of the man behind me who sang so well.

The children were dismissed and the 45 minute sermon on a few verses from 1 John 1 began. He quoted C. S. Lewis four times which suited me fine. He even quoted from his collected letters. He related a short story from H. G. Wells² in great detail. I could have done without that because I was sure the blind people were church folks.

There was no recitation of the Creed, no confession of sin, no intercessory prayer and no holy communion. The lady I intended to visit noticed me as everyone left and talked with me for a good ten or fifteen minutes. She expressed suspicion that I had really intended to visit her. Yes, it's true but I had to hold that hope loosely because I'd been disappointed in that effort before. She updated me on the state of her illness and then she offered to escort me on a tour of the new sanctuary under construction. I had yet to step inside there, not from want of trying. But I was pleased that she took the opportunity.

It's very nice in there but I won't take pictures until it's done. There's a choir loft and mostly clear glass in the many side windows. The rose window is stained glass. I didn't see any overhead screens. My guide pointed out that the pews have cushioned seats and backs which reminded me of St. Mary's in Colts Neck. I visited there for the first time on Friday afternoon and their pews are that way. Very comfortable. These were now covered in plastic tarp but she said they all sat in them for the vision dinner. She wondered whether she'd ever get to sit in them again. She probably isn't the only one to wonder. The laminate floor was buckled in a few places.

Considering how the service has changed over the ten years that I've been visiting, I would like to know how it will be arranged to complement the new worship space. The new sanctuary isn't stuffy-formal but it is more elaborate than the present space. Will they still be singing the inane praise songs after they move in? Today, the hymnal went unused in every pew.

I was invited by the pastor's wife to join their choir. When I declined with the excuse that I don't sing well, she thought I was claiming to be too busy. There are seasons in life, I know. You have young children now. There's that, too. And, in fact, they missed me. Jeff said they were very quiet when I was gone but I discovered that the younger ones had taken every single stuffed animal out of Ella's bedroom closet ... and there are alot of stuffed animals in there. Very upsetting to come home to that. A clear message that they don't like it when I'm out.

¹ I'm studying First John at the Community Bible Study on Thursdays and we covered chapter 1 last week.
² "The Country of the Blind" - Wiki

2011-01-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

I finished Cavins's book.

Picking up the narrative from my earlier post, Cavins's choice was between taking a radio show job or attending Franciscan University in Steubenville for an M.Div. He took the latter which resulted in more professional connections and extensive Catholic fellowship.

My brother went to Steubenville briefly in the early 90's. I visited him there at least once.¹ Rick's impression was that some well-intentioned students were actually brainwashed. He felt like he was being pressured to join some cult. It was the reason he left for SUNY Brockport. Maybe it's toned down some since. My impression from his stories and from being on campus is that the college is charismatic, a movement that my family has no experience with. But Steubenville's spirituality suited Cavins fine and he found his way into EWTN from FUS.

I was unfamiliar with the story of Mother Angelica's miraculous healing. It's hard to believe but I don't see how it could have been faked. The story might be less mysterious if she would identify the guest who prayed with her. But the good health was short-lived because within a few years she suffered her first stroke.

So the highlight of the book for me was the middle part that took place in southwestern Ohio. Otherwise, the story dragged and was pretty dull.

¹ the exterior images in this youtube video look familiar to me.

2011-01-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

After reading Cavin's "My Life On The Rock"

2011-01-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Ella will sit in the shopping cart seat if I put down a warm blanket first. So I used one of those brown ones that we have so many of and placed her in the seat. As we went through the store, she was attracted to a few items that I picked up: small orange juices for Kenny, coffee for Jeff, a jar of peanut butter - so attracted that she had to have them next to her in the seat.

At the checkout, she moved the items from her seat to the belt and I took care of the items in the basket. She swiped my credit card and would have entered most of our phone number if the checker hadn't reached over and put in some other code. Ella selected "Credit" and we checked out rather quickly because we didn't have many things.

Unloading the items into the car, I noticed that the coffee was not in a grocery bag but was loose in the brown blanket in the seat. I talked with Ella about it, asking her whether she'd put the coffee on the belt. I was pretty sure of the answer already. She apologized about it, but she's very quick to apologize even if she isn't guilty. So I looked over my short receipt just to make sure and didn't see coffee listed.

In my younger days, I would have been quite proud to march back into the store and happily announce that I was paying for something that got overlooked. Now, with the cold and other pending things on my "to-do" list, my response to my conscience was more like, "Do I have to?" I even thought about just leaving the coffee in the shopping cart. "Is it stealing if I abandon it?" I don't drink coffee anyway!

But, alright, I took Ella and the item back into the store. She was still eating the bagel that we had bought on our first trip. I muttered, "Oh, they'll think we need to pay for the bagel too, huh?" I went to the seven items and less lane, put the coffee on the belt and didn't say anything about the bagel. The checker asked, "And the bagel too?" and I said it was our second time through, so no, thank you. I didn't really care, actually. A bagel doesn't cost much so if she chose not to believe me, no biggie, I'd pay again.

So it was all kinda painless and, frankly, by the time I'd gotten over to school to pick up the boys, I'd forgotten all about it. But I kept the coffee receipt on my front seat as a reminder. And now that I think about it, I left the jar in the car!

Does coffee freeze?¹

¹ I told Jeff the story and after he called me nuts for going back into the store, he quipped that coffee is already "freeze-dried!"

This is all because I bought decaf by mistake on Sunday!

2011-01-12T09:13:00.008-05:00

Since Christmas, I've been reading Cavins's confessions which my niece bought me in a gift exchange tradition among my husband's side of the family. I was bowled over with his early, consistent success in making impressions on people, being handed opportunities, and getting conversions. This all made sense, however, when I reached the book's center and saw Cavins's personal snapshots. I saw how good-looking he was as a young man. People react positively to good-looking people.

My interest was piqued when I read that we were both in the Dayton, OH area in the early 90's. He writes on pages 101 and 102:

... in January 1990, we parted amicably with Open Arms [in Minneapolis] and moved to Xenia, Ohio, full of fire, and started meetings on how we were going to develop an authentic New Testament church. [...] The church in Xenia was called "New Covenant Fellowship." ... met in a warehouse.

Within a few years, he wanted to move the church to Dayton in hopes of attracting more people. However, instead of relocating, the church split.

There was, in fact, an animosity toward the people from Dayton who were increasingly filling the pews of the church. These new people upset the apple cart and forced the folks from Xenia to begin to think and do things in new ways.

He visits an Episcopal church and picks up Howard's book from the back table. He develops a desire to go to mass and finds a Saturday evening service in Centerville at - he doesn't say.

Map

"C" is where I attended, St. Henry's.
But, with today's map, it could have been St. Francis of Assisi ("B") or Incarnation ("D").¹

I wasn't very adventurous in those days, not exploring much. And, hard to believe, there was no internet then. I found information about things in the neighborhood by looking in a phonebook or local newspaper. Without a TV, there was no way to know. I did venture to Holy Trinity downtown a couple of times for what was, in the early 90's something novel, especially to me, the Tridentine Latin Mass. They don't even seem to offer it any longer. They've turned it over to the FSSP which may be more fitting. Pretty church, wish I had visited there.

So far, one other mention Cavins makes of central Ohio is St. Mark's bookstore. It's difficult to tell from the website whether it's still in business. In those days I didn't buy many books, trying to live very simply, and rather made use of the public library. So I wasn't in the market for books and didn't visit any Catholic bookstores,² just like I didn't visit many churches. I do remember taking a business trip to Columbus in '93 and visiting a bookstore to order some foreign language bibles. Sounds strange now that I get ABS's catalog in the mail. The store had to ship the books to NJ. I bought a German one and a French one which I could ~~read~~ puzzle out then. I haven't tried lately. Now that these and all my other books are out of storage, maybe I'll try, just as soon as I finish Cavin's book!

¹ St. Leonard's ("E") seems a little different. The archdiocese doesn't even list it. If Cavins had dropped in there, he might still be an evangelical.

² I have a bookmark from Books & Co., so I must have gone there once or twice, in Kettering.

2011-01-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

On the bus, Chris mentioned that this was his fourth field trip. Of course he's right and I've been on them all. When we got to the State Theater, I recognized it. Kenny had seen The Nutcracker there for Emily's birthday probably when he was in first grade. Jeff had seen Caillou with Timmy there, also when he was in first grade. So, it's a first grade attraction.

We had good seats on stage left and I let Chris sit on the aisle. There were second graders behind me so I had to slouch down the entire performance which wasn't very comfortable. I mean, when the encores began, I tried to move and straighten up and discovered that I was quite stiff and almost stuck! At the moment the curtain went up and the first inflatable appeared on stage, the kids were giggling. I didn't see what was so funny, actually. Maybe it was nervous laughter, not knowing what to expect next or hoping it gets better.

But it was curious how the performers did what they did. I found myself wondering, "How?" It was a good mix of acts that would appeal alternately to girls and boys. That is, alongside the masculine feats of strength like walking on his hands, a ballerina came out en pointe wearing an array of beautiful gowns, waving folding fans and long ribbons. Very complementary. I got a little uncomfortable towards the end when the male performance seemed to get romantic with his female partner, talking about kissing and such. But Chris's reaction was appropriate: he stroked my forearm tenderly. Still, I would guess the performers are involved offstage. At least I would hope so. Anyway, the male performer's ego was insatiable. He begged the audience to clap often. I reminded myself, "Oh, yes, this is why I loathe small-time theater." Done all in the name of training kids how to be a good audience.

On the ride back to school, Chris was tired and mostly looked out the window. Finding it strange to be in a vehicle but not driving, I fumbled through a rosary. This was interrupted a bit by the mother behind me who blurted out, "Shit!" (I kid you not, on a bus with K-2 students) when she realized that she'd left her son's hat in the theater.

She got the theater's number from the kindergarten teacher seated ahead of me and negotiated with the theater on how to retrieve the hat. Then she coordinated with her husband with whom she was supposed to rendezvous for lunch as soon as the bus returned to school. She explained the whole saga to her spouse and I could tell from her reaction that his reaction was, "How does this all concern me exactly?!" I wanted to ask her, "How long you been married?" because she didn't seem to have a clue about men and their principles of "division of labor." The marriage might be "a team" but that doesn't mean the players work together or simultaneously at the same activity. In other words, he wasn't interested in driving back to the theater with her for the hat and grabbing lunch along the way.

2011-01-08T23:11:00.001-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

Midnight Mass

2010-12-26T16:30:00.002-05:00

I arrived thirty minutes early to hear the wonderful choir and instruments. The chatterboxes seated around me were a bit of a distraction. I couldn't help but overhear the young man behind me give instructions to his date on how to receive communion. And she, in turn, explained to him the difference between Easter and Christmas, historically-speaking. I almost turned 'round and suggested that neither of them receive communion. But I decided to mind my own business. I wish I hadn't heard. A woman who arrived after I, in fact, made an effort to quiet them down, which they resented.

It's been a long time since I've turned towards the main celebrant as he enters. Just about everyone around me did. Were they curious about his getup? What's Father wearing tonight? Not the least interested. Apart from the beautiful music, I'm fairly low-church¹ but I've made my peace with an increased use of incense, even though I can no longer smell it, and with processions of a sacred text or Holy Communion. So "clothes that make the man" don't turn my head. There was some business about bringing in the infant statue for the creche which was also lost on me.

His homilies are almost always the same, about the sacraments. He went through each one, except matrimony, concluding - like some climax? - with holy orders. I don't know whether his omission of holy matrimony was accidental or intentional.

He also talked about the nativity set in the vestibule. How it had been in storage since 1985 needing repair. How it had been sent to the artisans in Italy several months ago and arrived back just in time for Christmas. I looked it over on the way out. It was very beautiful. Worth the expense? Hard to say. As I was admiring the set, a woman snuck up next to me and withdrew a couple of pieces of straw from the bedding. Our eyes met - I looked bewildered, I'm sure - but she made no explanation.

The very curious thing during the Roman Canon was that the presbyter omitted the variant Communicantes for Christmas:

In union with the whole Church
we celebrate that night
when Mary without loss of her virginity
gave this world its savior.
We honor Mary, the ever-virgin mother of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God,
etc.

I don't know whether this omission is a big deal but I know he said it last year.

The 2011 calendars available at the back of the church were devoted to the "15 promises of Mary" with which I was wholly unfamiliar. I took a calendar out of curiosity.

Is it ok to pray the rosary without being mindful of these promises? I suppose I'm afraid of these things affecting my motivation.

¹ and a cappella is fine, too.

2010-12-21T22:37:00.002-05:00

I went to the Bible study at the Presbyterian church in town again today. The same people were there as last time. The pastor remembered my name. He said they left off in chapter 5 last time but I couldn't recall which letter to the Corinthians it was. I opened to the first letter but the pastor mentioned verses 11 to 21, so I flipped over to Second Corinthians as discreetly as possible.

I brought an NRSV this time because that's what he and his denomination use. The guy next to me still had his TNIV and another lady read from the NIV. We covered only those eleven verses in the 90 minutes. A great deal of time was spent trying to puzzle out verse 11, especially the final word in most of our translations, "conscience."¹ Then, in verse 14, we considered what could be meant by "therefore all died." We considered what it meant to no longer see anyone from a worldly point of view (verse 16). Someone described her practice of conditioning herself to acknowledge, at least mentally, Christ in everyone she meets. The pastor said that he tries to remind himself that Jesus loves everyone he meets. No one had any concerns about the "new creation" language in verse 17!

My eyes skipped ahead to the next chunk of text and fell upon the red-letter word "reconciliation" ... in my black-letter edition. I braced myself. A lady knew, as did the pastor, that the "Romans" now refer to the sacrament of confession as "reconciliation." The discussion quickly turned to a treatment of the Catholic "Old Testament" model of priest interceding for the people before God, and a lament that Catholics aren't allowed to go right to God, etc. I thought to say, "Well, no, because God comes to us," but didn't. The guy next to me said that he was invited to a Bible study at Nativity on Applegarth before he learned of this study:

"Catholics have their little Bible studies."

But his friend had to check with the priest at Nativity first on whether it would be ok to let in a non-Catholic² and the priest hadn't gotten back to them yet.

And then the lady next to me who used to be a Catholic said that Catholics aren't allowed to think for themselves, they can't have an open discussion about the text, they can't have a Bible study without a priest there to tell them how to understand the Scriptures. So I considered what she said because I had just completed an Advent study at St. Joseph's on the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke on Friday. No priest joined our little sessions. The deacon was there but not to monitor our interactions, only to see how things were going. However, each session concluded with a video lecture from Fr. Stephen J. Binz³ telling us how to understand the Scriptures. But any biblical scholar will do, it doesn't have to be a priest.

I really wanted to tell them about the Advent Bible study at the Catholic church across town and the Matthew study planned for January. Maybe if I get a flyer, I'll just share that with them. I mean, why not get things firsthand rather than rely upon outdated memories and rumors. There were some non-Catholic Christians at the Advent study, I remember. When the guy plopped down next to me with his New King James, I thought to myself, "Here's another Catholic who doesn't know what Bible to choose!" Even when he mentioned having been born-again, I mistook him for a Catholic. But then he said that he tries to live "by the Bible" and was a deacon in a Baptist church before dropping out of "organized religion" altogether. Boy, did I have some verses for him! But he gave me Isaiah 11 which I read on the spot and couldn't see any specific point. And that Sunday, we read the first part of Isaiah 11 at mass and I was struck by how John the Baptist is described as having a leather belt but the Lord has justice and faithfulness around his waist (verse 5).

At one point, the pastor checked himself and acknowledged that he didn't want to go on "bashing the Roman church," but the former Catholic next to me urging him, "Please, bash away!" After he had his say, she recalled how the teachers at her grammar school all thought she had a vocation to religious life.

"I got out of that one, boy!"

She recently became reacquainted with a former teacher who's now at Georgian Court and, "the first thing she brought up was, 'We really all thought you had a vocation!'" The lady next to her quietly admitted that she'd always wanted to be a nun but, "I wasn't Catholic."

A couple of things happened just before we wrapped things up. First, the pastor admitted that after the 11 pm service on Christmas Eve, he's too keyed up to sleep so for the past several years he's flipped on the pope's midnight mass service from earlier in the evening and watched that. He said he never expected to actually look forward to that service but he now does. Secondly, one of the ladies on the interfaith council, a "Roman Catholic," was praised for her prowess with sheep⁴.

"And she's a very nice person, too."

I can return to this Presbyterian study on the 4^th. They are certainly entitled to their opinions.

¹ The NAB follows a more basic rendering (συνείδησις ), as usual.
² I would think it would be alright.
³ Except he seems to be married now.
⁴ One of the Presbyterian services includes live sheep on Christmas Eve. A "treat" for the kids.

2010-12-19T13:55:00.000-05:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My post this week:

A trip to New York with the youth group

2010-12-05T22:13:00.003-05:00

The youth group took a day trip to New York. I'm not involved with the youth group but wanted a trip to New York. I contacted the youth group leader about chaperoning and she agreed.

We met at church and drove to the Princeton Junction train station. We bought round trip tickets on the 9:44 train to NY Penn, arriving at 10:53. The tickets cost about $30. When we boarded, I sat with the youth group leader and got acquainted. First off, we exchanged cell phone numbers. As I entered her given name into my directory, I said, "'Karis' ... is that short for anything? I suppose it's Greek for 'grace.'"

And she was like, "That's right, but how could you know that?"

I can't remember all we talked about. Our kids, our husbands. We managed to talk the entire ride in.

When we got to Penn, it's easy to just follow the crowd. And yet she hesitated. I thought she wanted to exit the station immediately so I suggested the 7th Ave. side. But instead we walked up for the restrooms which had a line at least 20' long. The line moved fast and, of course, by the time our party got out, there was no line.

We weren't in any hurry to walk up to St. Pat's. We made our way over to 5th so we could see the windows at Macy's and Lord & Taylor. I couldn't get a decent picture of the public library because it was surrounded by scaffolding and plastic tarps. I got so giddy at Rockefeller Center that I temporarily got separated from the group. I was surprised that the teens were so uninterested in sightseeing.

We crossed over to St. Pat's and found seats up on the right. Our party was too large to sit together so I moved back a number of pews and sat next to a serene man, maybe my age or a little older. A man from our party also chose to move back and sat next to me. The service was really very wonderful. I'd never attended a service there before. The last time I was in St. Pat's was, I remember clearly, '97, sightseeing with my in-laws. The pope had just declared Therese of Lisieux a doctor of the church. It was the 100th anniversary of her death and her relics were touring the country.

But, as crazy as the vestibule is with tourists, once you're past that and take a seat, it's another world. I didn't expect that. Oh, it's still a big church, no doubt. One is always aware of that. It doesn't cease to be big, neither does it become intimate, even though the presider certainly tried to convey an hospitable warmth. I felt welcome and not out of place.

I tried not to disturb the experience of the man next to me. He seemed to be deeply involved in the proceedings, even though he didn't sing, recite prayers or kneel. He was engaging the service in a different way. The Agnus Dei was sung in Latin and I confidently participated in that prayer with pleasure. For communion, I just got into the aisle when everyone else did and walked forward, hoping that a minister would be available at the other end of the line when I got there!

After mass, the streets were noticeably more crowded. During that hour we sat in church, more and more trains had arrived at Penn Station! We were supposed to go ice skating at Bryant Park. Jeff had told me that the park is behind the public library, but I forgot that. Someone in the group knew where it was, so we walked there together. I suggested that we go down 6th because 5th was too crowded and we'd already seen the shop windows anyway.

We wanted to eat at Bryant Park but someone in our group warned that there aren't any restaurants nearby¹. It was so very cold outside that it was nice just to sit down in a warm place. It was going on 2:30 and I hadn't eaten all day. Out of the blue, I saw another family from my daughter's preschool. They were in town to see Spiderman which was playing just down the street².

After lunch, we walked back to Bryant Park. The Zamboni was just cleaning the ice. The line was very long because I think they kick everyone out. But the line moved very quickly. Within 20 minutes we were on the ice. I was the only adult who opted to skate. The teens seemed a little amused by the idea. The rented skates were really very good. No laces, a ski boot design. No excuses of "weak ankles." I got pretty comfortable on the ice after a few laps.

The difficulty was the wide range of abilities of the other skaters. Some were passing at great speed, weaving in and out, doing turns and whatnot. Others were always on the verge of falling down and taking you with them. I came close to falling several times, especially when the ice got rutted again. The only time that I fell was when posing for a picture. So, yeah, I had to brush the snow off my knees to make a good picture!

At one point, I noticed some young men talking to two girls from our group. And my responsibility occurred to me as the only adult on the ice. But I was already by them because they were standing still on the side of the rink and I was skating. So I decided that I'd stop on my next pass but they had broken up by then. It's a different set of dangers with teens vs. the age group I'm used to. The whole day I was worried about someone getting separated from the group. But I should have been worried about the girls getting hit on. The youth group leader discussed it with the girl on the way home. She could see the whole thing from where she was sitting inside.

The only frustrating thing was when it was time to leave. We walked back to Penn Station and the youth group leader paused at the corner and did a 360 because she couldn't locate the station. But it was right in front of her. So I told her to head for MSG. The man in our group started to walk up the stairs to MSG but I instinctively headed downstairs. Trains are always down, you know. I haven't been to New York in 13 years but we always took the train, so that route is sort of ingrained in my memory.

And they never post the track number until just before boarding. The youth group leader wanted to head downstairs before the track assignment was posted but I cautioned her that you can't hear the assignment down there and can't move from quay to quay without coming back upstairs ... or crossing the tracks. Once the track number was announced, it's always a mad dash to the gate. Our party got separated into three. My group walked forward and found seats. The other two groups got stuck behind people who refused to walk forward and stood for most of the ride home.

¹ This warning was, in fact, incorrect. On the southwest-ish corner of the park is a franchise of the same chain we ate at, Pax. We walked to the Pax location at 42^nd, between 7^th and 8^th but later, I noticed the location at 40^th and 6^th. I don't understand why the website says the shops are closed on Sundays.

² A preview, apparently.

Interpreting Scriptures and What the Authors Intended - Catholic New York

2010-11-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

Interpreting Scriptures and What the Authors Intended - Catholic New York

2010-11-26T13:14:00.007-05:00

She almost gets it ...

2010-11-23T18:38:00.003-05:00

They started in on the Italians from the very start. The pastor was asked about his Thanksgiving plans and he said that he was cooking for extended family, including some relatives who are Italian. He'd heard that Italians eat pasta for every holiday, including Thanksgiving.

"I won't be serving any pasta, 'though, so I hope they like the food!"

I'm new to the group which started gathering last week or the week before. Everyone introduced themselves in an orderly sequence and stated how long they'd been church members. Most had joined within the last year which surprised me. Was this a sort of "new members" class? Do the participants expect to get connected to the church through this group? But everyone else is also new and unconnected.

By way of introduction, one lady said that she grew up in Jamesburg, you know with the Italian Catholics - as if it's common knowledge - and she used to scratch her head that they'd go to confession on Saturday night for the things they did on Friday night, get a clean slate and then go out the next weekend and repeat the pattern.

"But the penance was always the same, ten Hail Marys. It ought to have increased because they were committing those same sins over again."

I had a flurry of questions that I didn't ask: Does God forgive your sins? Do you recommit those sins? Aren't prayers better than not praying? Given human nature, isn't penance a sort of deterrent? Hers is a common criticism, stemming from the unspoken assumption that the sacrament itself is ineffectual.

At the previous meeting(s), they had covered the first two chapters of Second Corinthians. The approach was for someone to read a few verses and discuss. The pastor had a commentary from a familiar series, along with a leather-bound edition of the Access Bible and another book that I tried to make a mental note of but forgot it. He referred to the commentary a couple of times, mentioning the author's name, saying he was a contributor to the NRSV and the RSV. I just checked the list of contributors for the fourth edition and don't see his name (Ernest Best). That's not to say that he didn't contribute to earlier editions but it's just as likely that he contributed to the RSV only. I know that I have the Revelation commentary in that series and I may have one other, too, an epistle, perhaps.

I had my thin, blue-bonded imitation leather, silver-edged, personalized "classic" NIV because I forgot they are NRSV readers. The guy next to me had a TNIV and everyone else had the church's preferred version. When he read his verses, I followed along alright in mine. When I read my verses, the pastor re-read the verses from his translation as if he hadn't understood what I had read.

I said very little. For the most part I agreed with everyone else's take on the text. The first few verses of the chapter explain how the Corinthians serve as Paul's recommendation letter. The pastor related that when people come into his congregation they may bring letters of recommendation from their previous church. He said it is a common practice among Protestants, Methodists, Presbyterians, Reformed, Church of Christ.

He said it is possible to handle the transfer "within the session" without a public declaration of faith, but in the case of recent joiners, he had them get up in front of the congregation and make a profession of faith so everyone could see how friendly they are. I was familiar with all this already and considered bringing a letter with me from St. Dorothea when I moved out here. Msgr. Flynn had told me that if I ever needed a recommendation ... but the Catholic Church doesn't work that way 'round here.

I remember pointing out that in Moses' day the glory didn't spread to anyone else but in Paul's day they were all being transformed into his glory (v. 18). I thought to myself about the lady at St. Veronica's on Monday who wore a mantilla but who also could have veiled her face because it was radiant. I was certainly stunned and couldn't take my eyes off her. Haven't they also seen such things?

I thought that the pastor had figured out my background but when he said something about Catholics having "the best toys," liturgically speaking - robes, incense, etc., which he intended as a backhanded compliment, I realized he had no clue. At least, I hope he wouldn't say that if he knew. And I got sick to my stomach thinking about the ecumenical prayer service a couple of nights ago in his church. He stumbled to come up with the word "tabernacle" and I didn't dare help him but he knew communion is called "eucharist." Another participant said that Presbyterians have so little and nothing, and another came up with "tabernacle" to which the pastor conceded, "Oh, well, that's an Old Testament word."

As I departed, I informed him that I'm committed to attending another Bible study in Princeton on Tuesday mornings but I would come to his whenever they don't meet. He said, "Sure, come here and maybe, over time, you'll dump them." Well, I might.

2010-11-21T13:58:00.000-05:00

Jeff took the boys to see Harry Potter this morning, so I took Ella with me to the white church in town, with the intention of "breaking the ice" in advance of this evening's ecumenical prayer service. Immediately upon entering, I identified myself as "a visitor" and asked about the nursery. The greeter told me that the girl who runs it may show up, in which case she'd introduce me.

I let Ella pick our seat and she chose a side pew with no cushion. An unfortunate choice because the pews were so close that the seat pressed into my calves when I stood, which - truthfully - wasn't often. The morning service - very like this one - was a wonderful preview of the evening service to follow. Rev. P. welcomed everyone to what's now called in the PCUSA "Reign of Christ Sunday," but he confessed to being partial to the old "Christ the King" designation.

While the organ played, a young acolyte entered from the vestibule in the back and walked along the center aisle carrying a lighted candlelighter/snuffer. He lit the two candles on either side of the pulpit, then recessed to the vestibule. His action was the extent of formality or ceremony during the service.

The "call to worship" was Jer. 23:5-6 and was followed by a hymn. There was an opening prayer and a prayer of confession said in unison, not confession as in a creed¹ but an admission of guilt which was followed by the pastor's assurance of pardon. The congregation sang the "Gloria Patri" with everyone, including the pastor, facing the front wall of the sanctuary, i.e., north. The passing of peace totally upset the atmosphere which went from this pensive, soothing, mental exercise to physically walking around, bumping into people and greeting and chatting and ... such a complete change!

The children's message was delivered by a PTS seminarian/intern. I was very impressed with her. She'll make a great pastor someday. Ella went up front to sit with all the other kids. She was slow getting up there, though, because she lost her shoes just as the children were called forward. Then she struggled to get them back on the correct feet and one went far under the pew and the seats were so close together that I couldn't help her go faster! But, she's very brave and found her way up there.

The adults grew instinctively restless during the children's sermon, mostly filling out their offering envelopes. One man had a printed text that he was looking over. Turned out that, after the children disappeared into the room behind the front sanctuary wall, this man went up to the pulpit to read from his papers. Part of it was called a "prayer of illumination" and then he read Col. 1:11-20, nearly identical to last night's second reading.

But, before all this, the handbell choir played "Give Thanks." One woman, only one, was very good. One lady lost her place and her neighbor tried to help her recover it. The two youngest players messed up the middle pretty good.

After the First Lesson, we sang "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" which I don't really know. But I'd noticed something strange: two rather large people, a husband and wife team, sat in the front pew and seemed to be informal worship leaders for the congregation. Now, it's typical for Catholics to stand as soon as the hymn music begins to play but these two waited through the musical introduction and stood just as they were about to sing!² And the rest of the congregation followed their lead!

Before reading from the Gospel Lesson, Rev. P. told the congregation about a party he'd been to the night before. Several people expressed sounds of mock disapproval but he let it be known that it was a rare and special event, the centennial of the town's synagogue, at the Excelsior. I'd forgotten all about it. Not that I was invited. But how nice that it was scheduled just before the ecumenical prayer service.

Again, the Gospel reading was about the same portion as we heard last night. He observed that readings about Jesus' crucifixion usually come up on Good Friday or during Lent but here's this odd - his word - Scripture reading on the last Sunday of the church year. The only point I remember of the sermon was that it's as if the cross is Jesus' throne, the seat of his power, the place where he speaks to his people. He said that the Gospel reading is filled with irony.

The offering was announced as our "worship" of God with our gifts and tithes. In the pews were envelopes towards poinsettias for the sanctuary at Christmas. I took one with the intention of returning it that evening, either with money if I could get some or without. I guess, then, the offertory, which is listed in the bulletin immediately after, is when the plates are brought forward to the pastor. We sang the doxology which I know by heart. The seminarian read the prayers of the people and led us in the Lord's Prayer. We sang "Crown Him with Many Crowns" and received the benediction and rather than simply dispersing, the acolyte came again with his snuffer and took the flame from the candles.

Fortunately, Ella came running out from the back room just in time! She came out carrying a reindeer. I asked her whether someone gave it to her or whether she just took it. She said that she just took it and that she wanted the penguin instead. She's such a crook.

¹ strangely, no creed was recited.
² when I told Jeff later, he surmised they were conserving their energy.

2010-11-17T21:41:00.002-05:00

On the fan page of a nearby church plant I follow, the pastor posted a request for a complete Thanksgiving dinner. I got everything except the gift card because I doubt it would be used. I always feel that way about gift cards. I had trouble finding a large enough basket and ended up parting with one I'd had for a number of years and occasionally used. Maybe I'll get around to replacing it because I liked it.

So I made a special trip there today with the stuff because I wasn't able to swing by yesterday when I was over that way. Then, since I had some time afterwards, I popped into QoM, for olde tyme's sake. I had to rummage around in my car's armrest compartment for a rosary and found only my least favorite one, from Medjugorje, given to me by an acquaintance who had been there. The beads aren't spaced properly for me but I made do.

I thought the sanctuary was empty and was lamenting that fact. Such a quiet, peaceful space. But, in fact, as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw a woman at the feet of a statue of Mary. The third row is close enough for me! But sometimes I'll venture to the prie-dieu situated just in front of the tabernacle. I doubt I disturbed her.

That reminds me, the place I'm going to tomorrow morning is collecting coats. I'd better see what I have to spare.

2010-11-07T00:42:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My submission this week:

Workshop at a spirituality convention

2010-11-06T21:14:00.006-04:00

I remembered where the Little Theater is from the spring and was the first to enter and grab a seat. Immediately, I went out again, though, hoping the campus book store was open. Ella needs a new college shirt. But, no. I'll have to order online.

As others filed in, Fr. Rich inquired about the book in my hands, thinking I'd purchased it on site. I explained that I'd taken it from a church library in the process of being purged and had it autographed. As I opened the book to show the author's signature, my right hand trembled uncontrollably. I had no idea how nervous I was to talk with him. He noticed and moved on rather quickly.

He explained to us that he named his lecture long before he developed its contents because that's marketing's timetable. Here's the blurb (click to enlarge):
We began with a hymn by Bernadette Farrell which I didn't really know (lyrics). He cited the contrasts between ourselves and Abram: he had no Bible, no catechism; he barely knew God but obeyed. He walked everywhere; we drive down the street. He started in Genesis 12 and pointed out that God always takes the initiative.

He quoted 1 John 4:10 to demonstrate God's initiative:

"In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us ..."

I had a Bible but he said that his Powerpoint slides contained all the verses cited in his lecture. Besides, the mini pull-up desktop wasn't large enough for my notebook and a Bible.

He moved on to Genesis 18, the promise of Isaac and he gave an informally dramatic reading of the exchange between Sarah and God over whether she laughed at the promise or not. Later in the same chapter, he read the exchange between Abraham and God as Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah. He said that he grew up liking Noah, probably because the story had lots of cute animals. But now he sees that Noah sold everyone out and should have pleaded for people's lives like Abraham did!

He admitted that Genesis 22 is one of the more difficult chapters in the Bible to take. He displayed several instances of famous paintings and shared that Caravaggio's is his favorite because the artist "gets it right" in terms of emotion. He said it's an instance of Abraham finding out that God is different from the Canaanites' gods and he referred us to Micah 6:8 for what God expects of us:

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

He quoted Lewis which I knew well:

"Remember, I had always wanted, above all things, not to be 'interfered with.' I had wanted (mad wish) 'to call my soul my own.' I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight. I had always aimed at limited liabilities."

He said we need to be more open to God's calling.

Here are workshop descriptions of the other options for the morning session (click to enlarge):

Of course, Dr. Schubert (#6) was a close second choice. All these presenters are well-known in the diocese and I believe Fr. Bausch's reputation extends beyond the diocesan borders because he's published books which have not always garnered favorable reviews.

To my best recollection, I've never met Fr. Bausch. I've never heard him lecture. I know people from St. Mary's in Colts Neck who are his devotees. I give him the benefit of the doubt and respect his professional accomplishments, but I've never myself consciously been a fan of his.

2010-11-01T23:04:00.002-04:00

I would like to forget today. Maybe if I put it all down here, I'll forget it.

I took the boys to school, then took Ella with me to church because Jeff couldn't take her to school. So she went to school late without her sleeping bag because it wasn't washed from the weekend. She reminded me on the way over to school that she didn't have her sleeping bag, which I appreciated, but I already knew.

Instead of going swimming, I went back over to the boys' school to "work" the Scholastic Book Fair. I detest Scholastic. I don't understand the relationship/appeal/deal that goes on between that company and public (& private) schools. I hadn't been in the foyer ten minutes before seeing all three of my sons. Timmy really seemed to be loitering. I had to chase him and Kenny back to their rooms. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?!"

From 10 AM until 12 noon, there was a steady stream of students "previewing" the book fair materials. Tim's class was first. I know those kids the best having been on several field trips with them already this year. They needed some help finding prices. The second group was more challenging, preschool. Even with a teacher, two aides and two volunteers, the kids still had to take turns. It really made no sense to me that preschoolers would be shopping for books without their parents' help. Especially because Scholastic offers more than books available for sale. Kenny's teacher from last year was slow to bring her class down, so under orders of the PTA secretary, I went to her room to get her. She had gotten the time wrong so she quickly brought her class. Good thing, because two classes were due simultaneously in the next slot!

After her, sixth grade came down with the kindergarteners. I thought they were working in "buddy" fashion but they were all on their own. So I helped about four kindergarteners fill out their wish lists. One girl had money and bought the book she wanted. The others were supposed to take their wish lists home and bring money in the next day. Then Chris's class came with 2nd grade too. That was alot of kids and they all needed help. Finally, Kenny's fifth grade came and Kenny actually bought the book that he wanted.

The books got very messed up on the tables with so many kids looking at them. So even though we straightened up each chance we got, there was still a need at the end to give everything a once-over again. By then it was close to noon, so I got out of there because I'd forgotten all about lunch ... and I hadn't eaten anything before going to church!

But since the kids had a half day, I was due back to the school at 12:30 for early dismissal. I managed to get only something to drink and nothing to eat. Then they wanted to play on the playground, so I foolishly let them. I was supposed to pick up Ella at 12:30, especially because she didn't have her sleeping bag. I actually don't know what time her "rest" period is. But I called over there and delayed her pick-up until 1:30.

We left the playground around 1:10 and drove over to Ella's school and got her just as she was about to go outside to play on the playground! About 1:20. I felt so bad! But it was cold today anyway. We dashed home for a few minutes and I got those guys some crackers and then we were back at school for parent-teacher conferences at 1:50 and 2:10. Chris's conference was first and since he's doing so well, it was over in five minutes. Then I had to wait around for Kenny's conference. And the parents in there ahead of me talked over by fifteen minutes. So, it was difficult to keep those guys behaved in the school hall for 25 minutes!

Last year, Kenny was scoring well above grade level. This year, not so much anymore. So that private school foundation that he has hasn't lasted.

We got out of there by 2:30 but it's good that I had picked up Ella already because 2:30 is her dismissal time. I would have never made it over there by then. Besides, we had to leave for fencing practice 45 minutes away in Tinton Falls by 4! So, again, a quick trip home for a nibble of food - the boys hadn't had any lunch and I hadn't eaten anything all day but crackers. We left the house around 3 and got to fencing quite early, 3:45. Last week there was construction on 520 in Lincroft that made us late, so I allowed myself enough time for that - and it was already completed. My boys didn't know what to do with the extra time.

But class started soon enough and was over by 5. I had to swing by the bank to get money for the babysitter. We were home a little after 6 and Jeff was already home. I started dinner even though I knew I wouldn't get it completed. I fed the kids. The babysitter arrived on time and we went out to our conference with Tim's teacher. We were done with that by 7:30 and back home. I got dinner on the table by 8:15.

Tomorrow promises to be better. I am still working the book fair and the kids have another half day. But without conferences and the drive to Tinton Falls, we'll have more time at home. Oh, wait, I have to go grocery shopping!

2010-10-31T00:31:00.000-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My submission this week:

Spiritual Mentoring

2010-10-29T23:25:00.003-04:00

I was asked to participate in a spiritual mentoring program at a church using a book that draws upon the biblical mandate in Titus 2:3-5 --

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Biblical mandate. I know, right?

I'm put off by the intentionality of this because relationships ought to form naturally. For instance, when I first volunteered to teach, I was friended socially by another who became an informal mentor, most memorably recommending the prayer of the rosary to me, and otherwise setting a fine example.

Was I just lucky then? True, I haven't experienced a similar relationship since.

This isn't at a Catholic church.

Particulars aside, the proposal, as well as my other reading, has made me aware that I'm not in the habit of putting into practice specific scriptural advice, like mentoring. The tendency can't be found in the popular Catholic ethos and that concerns me.

2010-10-23T21:18:00.003-04:00

To complement our trip to Hershey last weekend, I bought the family tickets at Allaire Historic Village for their haunted hayride on Friday evening. I bought the tickets in advance over the telephone two full weeks ago. For a family of six, it was expensive. Jeff noted that the charge went through on the credit card. But when we went to pick up the tickets, they had no record of the pre-purchase. So they took our contact information and kindly let us in anyway.

The village isn't big and we're familiar enough in the daytime, so we found our way to the hayride queue. The moon was full but didn't offer much light. Propane lanterns lit the paths adequately. The blurb on the website does not describe the hayride accurately at all. The subjects were horrors from literature: Jekyll and Hyde, sirens, Robin Hood, Frankenstein's monster, Harry Potter's nemesis, the giant squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And others. I can't remember them. And really I could have done without them. It was pleasant enough to ride through the woods on a crisp, autumn evening without things jumping at our wagon.

After the ride, we were let off outside the carriage house where some witches had a cauldron on a fire. We were invited inside the carriage house to hear scary stories but the kids wanted to go to the bakery tout de suit. So we did and they got their $2 cookies.

I had also purchased haunted express train tickets on site. Those were significantly less expensive but were for a particular "departure" time. In other words, we had time to kill. After the bakery, we went into a row house which is set up as a museum. At least we could get warm. The older two kids have some experience with NJ museums so they learned from the displays. In fact, Tim recognized mention of bog iron from his fossil-finding field trip to Poricy Park earlier in the school year. We were literally the only ones in the museum besides an "historian" of sorts, whose repeated offers to give us some information we declined.

We waited at the train station for about 30 minutes. But the time flew. Really. We saw some characters from the haunted express train milling about. Took the edge off, I guess. We could see the train moving very slowly along the circuit and then it stopped for a bit before resuming again and pulling into the station. Kenny speculated that someone boarded the train and then had to get off. I just replied that whatever they did for the previous ride, they'd do for us, so we'll see what it is.

Our turn came and we took our seats in the open-sided passenger car. Jeff had Ella. Facing them was Tim with Kenny. I sat with Chris across the aisle. I thought it was a good idea to have Chris on the inside, away from the open train car sides. A lady asked whether she could sit facing us and I said, "That's fine." She said she didn't want to ride alone. She freaked me out during the ride because she seemed to be staring just over my shoulder with a frightened look on her face. I thought to myself, "C'mon, lady, this is for kids!"

The train pulled out from the station heading clockwise around the loop. Every other time I've been on that train it's gone counterclockwise. The first encounter along the tracks was with another engine, set up near the tracks to simulate a head-on collision. The smoke makers were a nice effect too. But we dodged the collision and passed a graveyard in which people stood up from behind the grave markers and started to walk towards the train. Jeff Goldblum's "Must go faster" from Jurassic Park always comes to mind in those instances.

Along the center of the track route were stakes with ghosts and other creatures affixed to them. Jeff was riding backwards so he brushed up against these things before seeing them. They were positioned closer to the train on his side anyway. I could see them in the light of the train but once I reached them they were in darkness. They really needed to have lights on the side of the train or something.

We went around a second time and encountered the engine threatening another head-on collision. This time in passing the cemetery, the train stopped and those things from behind the headstones boarded. I had Chris cover his eyes and put his head down. I held him tight. Sitting on the inside didn't seem like such a bright idea anymore. Tim put up his dukes and was going to punch anyone who went for him. He is a tough customer. I found myself warning the actors: "He will punch you, seriously. And leave a mark."

The train resumed course and these things menaced us. We stopped again at the last turn before the station and they were going to get off. But they said they needed to take someone with them. They settled on the lady facing me. She tugged at my coat and begged, "No, take her instead!" I wasn't too impressed with her selflessness. When they succeeded in pulling her from her seat, I put my feet up for the remainder of the ride. Chris found her boarding ticket on the floor - she'd dropped it in the struggle. We passed her after we got off the train. She'd be needed again for the next trip.

2010-10-22T22:31:00.002-04:00

I'd be ready for a normal week next week.

We drove out to Hershey on Saturday after tennis lessons. We didn't tell the kids where we were going. They don't like surprises. Neither do I. Just before we exited the PA Turnpike, Kenny figured it out. Well, there's a huge sign, how could he not?

We stayed at the new Country Inn & Suites that just opened up on 39. It's so much closer to the park than the other one. And new translates into "clean" when speaking of hotels. We arrived at the park at 4 and got a two-day pass. We stayed until 10 and did the usual things.

The one difference is that Tim moved into a taller ride category over the summer and could ride with Kenny on all the roller coasters. That alone made the trip worthwhile. But also, Ella got on the merry-go-round first. Her asking for the ride was the primary reason we made the trip!

Something different for Halloween is trick-or-treating near Fahrenheit. There's a cute village set up in some catering pavilion. Oh, and all the rides have specifically seasonal names. We've only ever been there right after school lets out in June so this was new to us. But not confusing - we caught on quickly.

People were bundled up on Saturday night. We had two layers of clothes, but other people had winter coats, hats and gloves! It wasn't going to get that cold! Pulling into the hotel parking lot just before 10:30, my car reported a major transmission problem. I had trouble in late summer with the transmission fluid and, of course, two years ago had the transmission replaced. But they didn't do it right and axle grease go into the transmission fluid and ruined the transmission.

Nothing to be done about it. We didn't change our plans. Swam in the hotel pool for a couple of hours on Sunday morning, visited Chocolate World and then got into the park when it opened in the afternoon. We stayed until after 6 and I was dreading the ride home. Jeff agreed to drive the car for me. Ella fell asleep within ten minutes of getting in the car. She woke up after an hour but went back to sleep again for good.

Once the car got into high, it drove fine. There is construction on the NJTP Extension near exit 6 where the turnpike is being widened to three lanes. Traffic was backed up for a couple of miles. We lost about twenty minutes there and moving at low speeds was so painful with the bad transmission. But Jeff got us through it and we were home between 9:30 and 10. The kids went straight to bed and had something interesting to say at school in the morning!

2010-10-03T09:35:00.002-04:00

Enough time was allotted to meals to get into some interesting discussions. At dinner on Friday night, I sat down at table with a woman from New York City, so said her name tag. Underneath, her church was listed, "Redeemer Presbyterian Church."

Oh, you attend Tim Keller's church. What's that like?

She was surprised to learn how popular Keller is with this gathering. She seemed rather blasé about Keller being her pastor. After she left the table, someone speculated that she probably never sees him.

At lunch yesterday, my friend spoke freely about her non-religious upbringing, her conversion to Catholicism in college and then her adoption of Reformed theology. I didn't press her for specifics, even though I was curious. I just let her say what she felt led to say.

I met her at the Reformed church years ago and she recognized my NCPL conference tote. She said she was living with the man who became her husband while she was very active in church ministry, teaching religious education.

And no one said anything to us about it, even though they all knew.

I do wonder what she expected. Did she mean to say that she didn't know it was wrong? Would she have respected the recommendation that she withdraw from active ministry? She attends an Arminian church now, for her husband's sake, and she's frustrated by the fact that she can't teach the Bible there. The fact that nobody said anything to her about her sin isn't the reason she left Catholicism - there were many other reasons - but it's something negative that she remembers of her Catholic experience. She asked me whether I'm in the Catholic church for the sake of my husband and I said, no, that I want to be there. She seemed surprised and a little sad. I think she thought I was a prisoner of male headship or something, like herself.

Another lady joined us from New Life Church in Glenside. I was able to share with her that last summer our Bible study relied on the Psalm material on their website. Someone was trying to name the man most associated with Ligionier Ministries and I was able to supply that. Someone expressed concern about the plenary sessions and what's the difference between teaching and preaching. I'd have to agree that the exhortations with which Connie concluded her third plenary bordered on preaching. When about the only thing a pastor does is preach - and not offer a sacrifice like a priest - it's very difficult to distinguish gender roles in ministry and very hard to say "men only." Yes, I was thankful to be affirmed in the Catholic notion of priesthood.

My study guide leader took me aside and inquired so gently, "How did you become a believer?" I told her my story of reading Mere Christianity in college and realizing that I'd never heard a description of Christ's work on my behalf before, despite being in church my whole life. But that, if it's is true, and I think it is, I want to believe it. Then, at church, I had "new ears" and could hear what had been said all along. I'm not sure whether my story convinced her.

2010-10-03T08:47:00.003-04:00

I heard the "c" word quite often at the women's Bible conference this weekend.

No, not "church," nor "Christ," nor that other word, not even "coffee," but "caffeine." Maybe I'm just more sensitive since I've given it up. But even when I had an addiction, I don't recall myself being so open about needing my fix. I felt a bit like a recovering alcoholic because cans of Pepsi and Coke were readily available on ice for nothing. But I stuck to my Seagram's ginger ale and thought it a shame there wasn't any rum.

The final small group session had us study Ps. 73, looking for the central idea. I had plenty of prior experience with this psalm because I presented it at a Bible study last summer. We broke out into a smaller group of only three and went to an area with a library. Frankly, there were books strewn about all over the church hall, like most church halls. But this spot held a concentration of volumes and so, was referred to as "the library."

Earlier I had looked at the spines of the books. The one that caught my eye was a very old hardcover called The Secrets of Romanism. I flipped to the opening page and read that this book - or any other - is unnecessary because the best book against Catholicism is THE BIBLE. Then Zacchello should have left it at that. I was tempted to "misplace" the book somewhere on the shelves, but instead I reasoned that none would be inclined to read such a book.

I tried to explain the narrative of Ps. 73 to my two partners but they weren't interested in listening to me, at least at first until they saw that I had a decent handle on it. Still, we weren't the only small group in the library so the conversations of others interfered with my partners' concentration. Somewhat uncharacteristically I was able to tune out the others perhaps because they sat to my "deaf" side, i.e., my right.

We returned to "present" to the rest of our small group who also worked Ps. 73. They grasped the flow of the narrative quite well also. The central idea that I saw was something like "the psalmist's belief in retribution theology is reaffirmed by what he hears in the Lord's sanctuary," presumably the preaching of the Old Testament. But the other group came up with "God is good when he is near" or, something like that, and allusion was made to Christ's incarnation, his "tabernacling" with us, as John 1:14 puts it. I think our respective approaches reflect our religious sensibilities, Catholic and Protestant.

2010-10-03T00:34:00.004-04:00

I was assigned Psalm 8. From the public library I picked up Alter's book. I didn't look at any other book, except the NAB notes. I overheard someone mention the Jewish Study Bible and kicked myself for not even glancing at it!

I decided to work from Alter's translation because his verse numbers follow those in the NAB, i.e., according to the Hebrew. I prepared a handout that reproduced the psalm. The worksheet came in the text of an email, not as a document. So I pasted the text into a Pages document and replicated the formatting as best as possible. In fact, the font size is larger than the original which seemed necessary.

The first question on the worksheet asked for a short sentence relating the central idea of the psalm. So I studied the passage and noticed that the middle of the psalm seems to carry the punchline:

What is man that You should note him, and the human creature, that You pay him heed?

The psalmist is astonished that the LORD regards him. Someone in the study group bristled at the word "astonished," as if the word had a negative connotation, expressing doubt. I thought of the idea in terms of "blown away" or "bowled over."

The next question requested two or three verses to back up my identification of the central idea. The heart of the psalm, verse 4-6, carry that. I didn't neglect the refrain repeated at the beginning and the end, forming an envelope or inclusio, but it was secondary.

The question that tripped everyone up asked to provide an illustration. I dreamed up a sketch about an out-of-our-league suitor who calls upon little-old-us. Then we were to connect this passage to the rest of Scripture. Obviously the original readers would "hear in all this a beautiful poetic reprise of Genesis 1"¹ and the New Testament authors associate Christ with the one made a little lower than the angels, with all things subjected to him [Heb. 2:6-9; 1 Cor. 15:27].

I delivered my presentation fairly late in the program, by which time the tone was already more or less set by the previous presenters. We got into this horrible habit of interrupting each other quite freely, to the point that one woman was cut off with one full page to go! The thing is that, when people aren't confident, it's too easy to jump in, even out of empathy.

The curious thing is that I was (1) challenged on my selection of the central idea: someone thought the opening and closing refrain ought to serve. And (2) asked about the meaning of verse 2. Alter said that no satisfactory interpretation had been found so I took his word for that. But someone's Bible cross-referenced Matthew 21:16 and I was astonished that I missed that!

The study leader said that when the New Testament interprets the old, we're on very sure ground. Yes, but, of course, Jesus quotes the LXX which has emended the unintelligible Hebrew! And it's amazing to me that a translation like the NIV imposes Jesus' words from Matthew 21:16 - itself a quotation from the LXX - upon their English translation of Ps. 8:2, merely footnoting the Hebrew!

I sensed that both my view of man and Alter's view of man were just a little too esteemed for this group. However, to my surprise, just about everyone copied down the ISBN to Alter's book!

¹ Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007) p. 24.

2010-10-02T22:28:00.002-04:00

An original thought came to me as I planned an overnight in Willow Grove: seek out a nearby Catholic church with some liturgical events scheduled.

The thought was likely prompted not so much by an awareness of First Friday / First Saturday but rather by the feasts of St. Thérèse and Guardian Angels. On the former, I found nothing and decided to attend locally in the morning before heading out. Not even an evening holy hour in the vicinity. But on the latter, masstimes.org turned up a service at OLHC in Abington, about one mile away, an hour before the workshop's Saturday morning start time.

Still, I arrived early enough on Friday to locate the church. Funny, I drove by St. David's in Willow Grove on the way - even the hotel directory listed St. David's. But, as far as I could tell, the first weekend service there was Saturday evening about when I'd be leaving town.

Nothing was doing at OLHC mid-morning Friday but I slipped in for a rosary, I think, even though the devotion would mean forgoing lunch. I was too nervous to be hungry. Then, the next morning, I arrived just before 7:30 and said another rosary. The 8 AM liturgy was well-attended and I hung around afterwards expecting another - this time corporate - rosary.

There were three others, plus the acolyte joined us more than halfway through. Not quite a minyan. The members took turns with the decades and I wondered whether, I, a newcomer, would receive a part and how I would know. So, the acting leader nodded to me for the third Glorious mystery and I counted very carefully on my beads because there's no greater offense than saying too few ... or too many! Aw, we've all been there.

I was so uneasy, at first, at the sound of my solitary voice in the large church that I caught my breath during the second half of the Aves. Soon I got comfortable with it and was able to utter the full Marian prayer.

Now, the acting leader was curious because he took no decades for himself. "What's he waiting for?" I wondered. Something big, no doubt. Turns out, it was one of those rosary recitations that never seems to end! More and more, tacking on a dozen or so incidental prayers, one of which I couldn't understand,¹ much less say. Pray for the pope's intentions, fine. Pray the Memorae, ok. Pray for Right-to-Life, yes. Pray for our intentions, naturally. Pray to St. Michael, alright. But I had my eye on my watch!

Finally, oh, finally, the lovely praying came to an end and the acting leader nodded to me again, a "thank you," and I returned the gesture and quickly left for Calvary.

¹ maybe this was one.

2010-10-02T22:22:00.005-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My submissions this week pertain to a recent Bible workshop:

Ice-breaker faux pas

Saturday morning rosary

Psalm 8 Presentation

"Pick up" - Ps. 73

Incidental conversations

2010-10-02T22:02:00.002-04:00

We took to our groups in the dining room for what the schedule called "Tea." In years past, I had "missed" the Tea, arriving too late, but I never actually "missed" it, as I detest informal social situations.

The ice-breaking exercise, I reckon modeled on speed-dating, instructed us to find at least two things in common before switching partners. The Baptist and I made short work of it, both hailing originally from NY and having attended the workshop previously.

I turned to the next partner whom I'd asked perfunctorily whether she'd ever been overseas. She said she'd spent about four months at L'Abri in Switzerland under Dr. Schaeffer. Since I am vaguely aware that Dr. Schaeffer died some time ago (but I wasn't exactly certain - it seems more than 25 yrs. ago) and my new acquaintance didn't look terribly old to me, I asked whether she was there while he was still alive. A silly question, I suppose, but I think it was an awkward attempt at flattery. After some sarcasm, she said that she visited just after the film "How Should We Then Live?" came out.

In trying to find a "connection" with this, I blurted out that I'd read Crazy For God. Well, most of it.

You mean Frankie's book in which he smears Os Guinness and everyone?!

I responded that Frank's a fine writer but maybe next time I'll try his fiction! Had I recalled sooner Dr. Schaeffer's reputation for accepting "girls in trouble," I might have had another question for her!

Fortunately, I seemed to hit it off with everyone else, especially the study group leader who's been to Israel many times. I discussed many of the sites there with her during our "turn" together.

2010-09-30T13:47:00.002-04:00

Chris's pumpkin-picking field trip was rescheduled to next Thursday. But I was tempted to still use the excuse as cover and rather just stay home this morning. That would buy me little, though, as I knew I'd actually miss next Thursday for his trip: I'm one of the volunteer parent drivers.

I just wasn't in the mood to go this morning. That's very unusual for me. I guess I'm a little run down. But my conviction trumps my moods often, so I forced myself to go. Still, I was five or so minutes late. They were singing something by Wesley that was new to me but I heard only the final verse. Never mind, I liked only the refrain.

The pastor addressed us about not neglecting the fellowship of gathering together. Our numbers were down today. Typical, especially with Nicole.

I had done the entire week's work yesterday afternoon in 90 minutes. The amount of time is right but it's supposed to be spread out over the whole week. But I found my answers were fresh in my mind so I had more confidence in offering them to the group. If too much time has passed, I can't be so sure of my state of mind. So, in other words, I spoke too much.

We are in 1 Thess. 4 and 5. One question took us to Amos 9:9-15. I can't turn to the Minor Prophets without thinking of Fr. Boadt, but that's a good thing. :-) Fond memories. In answering the question, someone quoted verse 10, "All the sinners will die by the sword," but she left out a key clause, in my opinion - "among my people". Now, if they are into dispensationalism, maybe that phrase doesn't matter. Or it speaks only of physical death, not spiritual death. Another question took us to Amos 5:18-27 and, in answering, one lady said the people were caught up in "religion" and "tradition."¹

There was no lecture so we got out early. Arriving late and leaving early was just what I needed today. It felt right.

¹ and music? Verse 23.

2010-09-23T22:29:00.003-04:00

Not being late today made me realize how much I missed last week.¹ A tamed version of "Shout to the Lord" is still in my head. I was the only one with my eyes open, who needed them open. During the announcements, I continued to read a pamphlet I'd picked up from the back table answering "Which Bible?" It's a pitch for the ESV, and a pretty lame one because I recognized immediately the cut & paste job from esv.org - this page with HCSB omitted and this page of endorsements, reordered with "favorites" near the top (R.C. Sproul heads it up).

My attention returned to the address when the director of the children's program got up. She explained the "process" of meaningful crafts and coloring sheets:

"The coloring hangs on the fridge using the magnet your child made that first week ..."

Oops.

"Then it goes into the folder."

She said that the children's program is different this year because they need two adults in the child care rooms at all times. So CBS participants, like me, will be volunteered up to twice a term. Somehow they have it worked out so I won't miss any of my program but I think that involves me arriving early and leaving late. I just might not.

I keep forgetting how little I have in common with these ladies theologically. I was reminded with a jolt when one of the questions asked why Paul refers to Timothy as "God's fellow worker" but to his other companions as "my fellow worker" (e.g., Romans 16:3, Philippians 2:25, Philemon 1,24). The answer was that Paul's companions truly followed Paul, not God - these latter weren't (yet?) genuine believers.² Appeal was made to 1 Cor. 1:12! But Timothy was a believer, even before he met Paul.

Then again, it could just be an insignificant difference that's been blown out of proportion by a verbal plenary mindset.

The talk after our bookwork mentioned the devil alot. Alot. The lecturer's delivery had the cadence of a sermon. That was fine. I took a better look at the sanctuary, spending more time in it this week. I expected the architecture to imitate or show dependence upon Presbyterian forms but not in this case anyway. There's a raised platform or stage with chairs for the choir. But there's space behind that and a curtain ... which hides the baptistry? It just seems a throwback to "mystery" that I supposed all Protestants were leery of. Maybe they're just leery of "the other guy's," and theirs is alright because they know it/understand it.

Eh, I'm getting tired. Just one more thing: the director of the children's program came up again and told us that the children created paper arks and learned about Noah.

"But their arks don't have any animals because they ate them for snack, animal crackers."

And I thought to myself, "That's in the Bible, too!"

When I walked in to pick Ella up, they were all gathered around a laptop looking at this Elfred Lee drawing. And when we got to the car, Ella told me that she held "the Bible" above her head. Sounds like they had a book parade or something. She mentioned alot of water flowing all around.

Maybe volunteering in the child care program once or twice wouldn't be a bad idea.

¹ When I went the opposite direction first to pay for the book for a study I'm not going to do.

² I think Philippians 4:3 blows that idea out of the water because "my fellow workers' ... names are in the book of life." Not to mention Romans 16:21 in which Timothy is merely called "my fellow worker" by Paul.

2010-09-11T23:50:00.000-04:00

The Precepts facilitator is taking a sabbatical this fall and, instead, the Thursday morning group plans to work through this book until Thanksgiving. The regular leader may be back by then.

I'm in the mood for a change of pace so I searched on Community Bible Study and found one in Allenwood. I registered a few weeks ago. The core leader called last week to remind me of the first class. Turns out the kids were off school (and we went to the Philadelphia Zoo) so I was unable to make the first class. I'm surprised they held it. Maybe not many participants have school-aged kids. I was invited to pick up my workbook this weekend from someone's front porch.

Allenwood isn't near my home but it's near where the kids take tennis lessons on Saturday mornings. So, this morning I dropped them off at their lesson in Manasquan and went over to Brielle to the house. I'm only vaguely familiar with the area from having taken my car to the service place on St. Rt. 35 several times years ago. And passing through to Pt. Pleasant. My GPS showed a circle for the intersections of 34, 35 and 70 but it's been upgraded to a cloverleaf several years ago. So I tried my best to follow the "directions." Thank goodness TomTom doesn't yell at me for driving on what it thinks is grass!

It just so happened that today was Brielle Day or something and there was a 10k foot race along the roads I traveled. I had to go real slow and watch for runners passing. Then, pulling into the driveway, I wondered how I would back out without hitting anyone, as runners were on both sides of the road. Fortunately, by the time I retrieved my workbook from a bag on the front porch and programmed my GPS to take me back to the kids' tennis place, a race official was at the end of the driveway ready to assist me in backing out. I appreciated that very much.

Really beautiful area down there in Brielle. The golf course was super-packed with work hard, play hard types.

The workbook contains six lessons on 1 & 2 Thessalonians. The commentary material was written by a man with degrees from Princeton, Dallas, SMU and Fuller. The materials profess to be "mainstream Christian" and with that background, there's a good chance of that. At least the author didn't spend all his time at WTS. Of course, I'd feel really great if the commentator didn't think Paul wrote 2^nd Thess. (cf. Support for Authenticity - Wiki, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor). Or make a big deal about Paul being "in the lead" despite co-authoring with Silas and Timothy. Why insist on Paul's leadership?

I finished lesson 1 in short order today. I probably have to do lesson 2 before Thursday. I absentmindedly requested a copy of the Prophets & Kings book (above) so I'll pay for/pick that up before excusing myself and heading over to Allenwood later this week.

2010-09-08T17:38:00.002-04:00

With the boys back to school and Ella's preschool program not yet started, she's been coming to church with me in the mornings this week. She's been good and quiet and still. Except this morning, she inadvertently bumped me in the nose and immediately sang out "Sorry" before she could check herself.

I usually favor the "long reading" when given a choice, but this morning I was struggling to hold Ella along with her Build-A-Bear bunny and Thomas the Tank Engine blanket. But the lead-in to his sermon depended on the long reading and, besides, the length of the Gospel reading off-set the brief, three verses from Romans.

On Sunday, the lector had bobbled pronouncing "Philemon" so much that she didn't recover in time to pronounce "Onesimus" correctly either. So it was very pleasant to hear the priest properly pronounce ten or so "tricky" names. And what I was really grateful for was that, of those listed before the Exile, I knew pretty much something about them and was pretty sure I could find their "stories" in the Scripture. It takes time but, with repetition, some stuff sticks.

2010-09-05T00:26:00.005-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My submission this week:

"Thoughts on last Sunday's readings"

2010-09-04T21:40:00.003-04:00

It's a man's world.

The first time we went seining, the fuse in my cigarette lighter blew. The battery in my (nearly) four year old GPS no longer holds a charge, so I lost that device immediately. Plugging into the secondary cigarette lighter offered no alternative as both outlets are on the same fuse. I navigated home "blind" but it was alright because I remembered the area - eastern Monmouth county - from my professional days.

In asking to borrow Jeff's GPS for our second seining trip that week, I was indirectly informing him that my car needed a fuse. He had changed this particular fuse for me once before and maybe he remembered that there were no longer any spares of this type.¹ His got me there but I ran into the same trouble as before on the way home. It seems his (two-year younger) GPS doesn't hold a charge either. On the third and final trip seining, I had no option but to navigate unassisted and missed only one turn which I quickly recognized and corrected.

I might be taking the kids to the Philadelphia Zoo for their days off school this week and, so, would really need my GPS. How to find an auto supply store without a working GPS? I knew of one down 130 in Robbinsville but when I drove by there on Monday, it was closed up rather permanent-looking. I had bought floor mats for my new car there about five years ago. The floor mats are long gone but I still have the car.

So the online Yellow Pages turned up Paris's near H&H Gas in Windsor. We had toured H&H's showroom more than three years ago looking at ranges and dishwashers. But since Jeff had driven us there on a blustery winter day with little visibility, I needed to click the directory listing's map to find the place on my own. So the Robbinsville store had moved to Windsor, a bit closer.

I went over there first thing this morning before I was really awake. Jeff asked me to pick up a case of 10W30 motor oil for his lawn tractor. It's a small store so I wasn't as overwhelmed as usual and I spotted the fuse kiosk immediately. I pick out the right amperage and purchased it.

That was quick.

A little too quick for, as soon as I stepped out of the shop, I recalled the motor oil. Actually, cases of motor oil caught my eye as I walked out. So, I turned 'round and bought a case, after admitting somewhat casually that I'd forgotten something.

When I got home, Jeff was eager to insert the new fuse ... and just as eager to tell me I'd bought the wrong size.

Is the oil OK, as I'm going back anyway?

I walked back in with the receipt and the unopened package and told the checker that I wanted to exchange it for the right one.
Oh, did you buy the wrong one?
Such a patronizing tone. But I fully expected it. I just left the receipt and small package at the counter and walked to the kiosk for the correct size.

Oh, you needed a mini. That's actually 81¢ more.

And whether or not that included the mandatory restocking fee, I don't know. Then and there, then, I opened the fuse panel and inserted one of the new ones, plugged in the GPS and selected "HOME."

¹ I noticed that none of the fuses in use had the needed amperage, so I couldn't "borrow."

2010-08-31T18:40:00.002-04:00

I must have been complaining about the meager pickin's of upcoming Bible study programs this fall, because Mary suggested I check out what her church is offering. I attended the informational meeting last night even though I was pretty sure the time slot wouldn't work for me.

The church music director had assumed coordinator responsibility when the associate pastor got her own church down south. He probably has enough to do and doesn't seem interested in facilitating the group. He's gotten two former participants to cover for him.

The group meets for 34 weeks, for 2.5 hours. There's homework every day and it promises to cover either 70% or 90% of the Bible, I can't remember which. I would think 70%.

The materials are available at Cokesbury, a workbook and a recommended but bland-sounding study edition of the Bible. I've seen that version in bookstores and was never once inclined to peruse it.

I begged off and gave my sincere intention to consider "Disciple" again in 2011. However, I might order the materials just to have them. Maybe I'll have time to look them over. But, you know, I'm getting a little sick and tired of these introductory programs and I would probably only participate for the fellowship.

On the way home, I passed St. Greg's in Hamilton Square. The lights were on so I went inside maybe to pray. The choir was practicing. A very intimate group of five or six. Their voices filled the huge church. They were practicing the responsorial psalm. And then I'm pretty sure they practiced this song with such a haunting melody, "Camberwell." I'm not sure how focused my prayer was ... I seemed to be doing more listening than mumbling intentions.

2010-08-31T11:55:00.004-04:00

It's been a month since I stopped drinking caffeine. I asked Jeff whether he thought I was any better without it and he said, "Yes, of course." It was his idea in the first place so he's somewhat obligated to think/say that.

Am I better? I don't know. I'm not as tired as I was. The numbness in my hands and feet has subsided a bit. The joints hurt a little less. The mind has cleared up somewhat. I had a dizzy spell last night and feel mildly dizzy today. So that's not good considering I've quit everything long time. Otherwise, I won't really know for sure how I am until I get back to the fall schedule. The dead of winter is usually my worst time physically because the house is so cold.

Perhaps providentially, my favorite caffeinated drink has redesigned its label. Thankfully, it doesn't even catch my eye anymore. I have no cravings for caffeine but still like carbonated drinks. So I have several bottles of Perrier on hand. And this week I picked up some of this, but it was so refreshing that I've already drank too many. I just figured it was a good substitute to this which I had been drinking even though it upsets my stomach.

2010-08-31T09:59:00.004-04:00

I heard something rather disturbing on family radio last night. I know, right?

I was driving back from, well, that bit doesn't matter and tuned in to the Open Forum. In response to a previous question, a caller asked about the supposed dangers of the King James Study Bible. It seems that Camping had taken a stand against study Bibles with notes at the bottom of the page because a reader could mistakenly recall someone's opinion about the text as "something read in the Bible."

He's got nothing against commentaries, as some Bible readers might, so long as the notes are contained in a distinct book and not on the sacred page. Cross-references - linking God's word to God's word - are alright, despite the fact that any such connections are the result of someone's insight.

Usually, editors take effort to distinguish the biblical text from study helps with headings, text boxes, font size and boundary lines. Getting familiar and comfortable with the layout of a study Bible's page doesn't take much.

2010-08-30T09:32:00.002-04:00

I don't take the time to prepare myself beforehand with the Sunday readings. Usually I'm familiar enough with the context to understand alright.

This week's first reading and the Gospel are clearly in the wisdom tradition but my skeptical side always ponders just how wise the advice really is.

Take Sirach 3:18 -

Humble yourself the more, the greater you are,
and you will find favor with God.

If I must ask myself whether I'm great then I'm obviously not and, so, am off the hook!

Certainly the next verse resonates with me, loud and clear -

What is too sublime for you, seek not,
into things beyond your strength search not.

But the next verse appears to be some sort of built in protection against criticism -

The mind of a sage appreciates proverbs,

I don't always appreciate proverbs, therefore I'm not a sage? Who'd be happy with that assessment? Better to pretend to appreciate proverbs?

The Gospel reading applies Sirach's advice in a real-life setting, dinner with one of the leading Pharisees. Kenny recognized the Scripture from the handful of parables covered in VBS this summer. Good for him.

Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’

On the other hand, if you're like me and habitually arrive late (and last), just take whatever seat is available, if any.

But is the proper motivation for humbling oneself the hope of promotion? I mean, come on. Does this passage actually encourage ulterior motives? And so, if I reject the ethic of this passage - refuse to affix hope of promotion on the virtue of debasing myself in social settings, am I not living according to biblical teaching?

I prefer Sirach whose focus is on finding favor with God because there's no mention of pleasing God in the passage from Luke until, perhaps, the final verse -

Blessed indeed will you be ... For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

The part about feeding people who can't repay you reminded me of the scene from the original Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) after the desperate farmer tries to shoot Deeds and Deeds gives him a meal.

The second reading gives a compelling contrast between Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion which may be only vaguely related to (Christian) wisdom literature, in the idea that there are "two paths" (Deut. 30:19; Prov. 9). I was reminded that Pilgrim's Progress makes use of those symbols, Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion, for law and grace.¹

¹ Pilgrim's Progress - Wiki

2010-08-28T21:54:00.001-04:00

Sunday Snippets - a Catholic carnival hosted by Rann at "This That and the Other Thing."

My submission this week:

"At mass for the feast of St. Bernard"

2010-08-25T22:16:00.002-04:00

The kids used their birthday money to buy scooters on Sunday afternoon. I had them bring their wallets, pay the checker, save the receipt and put away their change. Tim left his wallet in my car. That's so Tim. Later on Sunday, Jeff took my car to pick up a 5' piece of counter top for my desk. He found my sole credit card in the driver's cup holder and placed it in my "wallet." At least that's what he told me afterwards.

I went out Monday but paid cash everywhere. I didn't go out yesterday. This morning we had plans to drive to the shore and I needed to fill up the gas tank. I couldn't find my credit card and, by this time, I had conscientiously returned Tim's wallet to its proper place for safekeeping. So I got $20 worth and, when I got home, asked Jeff to remind me again where he had placed my credit card.

"In your wallet."

Now, 'round here, people use different terms than we did growing up for purse, wallet, pocketbook. And I knew that my wallet wasn't in the car. I'd forgotten that Tim's had been. But I had enough cash to get through a few hours at the shore, so I didn't sweat it. Much. In the back of my mind, I still worried where my credit card could be.

When we got home from the shore, I checked all my pants pockets, clean and soiled clothes. I checked under seat cushions of favorite chairs. I checked the floor of my car. I asked the baby sitter whether it was in the folded cash I'd given her Monday. I returned to the restaurant we'd eaten at Monday. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not until Jeff got home tonight and we had a chance to compare notes:

"I put it in your wallet. The strange thing about your wallet is that there were so many empty slots. Did you have someone else's wallet in your car?"

Then we walked together to where Tim keeps his wallet and Jeff pulled out my credit card.

"I couldn't figure out why you had one of my old, expired ACM membership cards in there, either!"

2010-08-24T11:14:00.002-04:00

To bigger and better things, one hopes ...

2010-08-24T09:08:00.002-04:00

Just ahead of me, a woman entered the church carrying a dog like someone would carry a child. At nine in the morning, it was already hot so I was sympathetic but also wondered whether today wasn't the feast of St. Francis.

She waited outside the secretary's office. Sure I hadn't succeeded in wiping away my puzzled look, I gave her an as-generous-as-possible, "Good morning" and headed up the stairs.

I can never remember what week it is, but Father came out in white so I turned to the back of my missal where the feasts and memorials are arranged according to the calendar. Father opted for the European pronunciation of St. Bernard¹. Having seen a dog in church only moments before, this tasteful touch wasn't lost on me. Lest anyone think we're invoking the intercession of a dog, however conscientious the breed about helping people. 'Though the pronunciation sounded strained.

He said that the vision in Ezekiel 37 isn't about resurrection but about the people returning from exile. And I was glad that he said that. I don't think it's necessary to stop there, with the original audience's interpretation. But too often it's a step that is skipped altogether. The vision is a little more beautiful when taken figuratively, in a way. But then could anything be more beautiful than resurrection?

The twentieth week, the twentieth day. Yes, I like that sort of thing.

¹ bur-NAHRD (US), BER-nəd (UK) - Wiki

2010-08-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

I totally agree with Seth's comments:

Dr. Laura and Leviticus, Fr. James Martin, S.J., America, 8/18/10.

via Abbey-Roads

2010-08-23T22:41:00.002-04:00

The tone in the diocesan newspaper has perceptively tightened up as of this week but, for now, Fr. Dietzen's column still appears. This week, the question was about how books of the Bible, like the Gospels, disagree on objective facts, like Jesus' ancestors. Fr. Dietzen quotes something from the PBC:

"The truth of the story is not at all affected by the fact that the evangelists relate the words and deeds of the Lord in a different order and express his sayings not literally but differently, while preserving (their) sense."

And I just wondered that if it doesn't matter in the Scripture, why should it matter so much in the liturgy¹.

¹ "the need to be as true as possible to the original languages in which the prayers were first written"

2010-08-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

I took my car in for regular service, 120,000 miles, early Thursday morning. A few hours later I was in Pt. Pleasant playing rooftop golf with Ella. The shop called to say the car's transmission fluid is black. I nearly fainted. How does this happen, especially when I'm so faithful about maintaining the car? But the line is always the same, I really can't let you drive this car out of here when it's like this ... Very suspicious. They've used that line with tires and brakes. I'd like to believe them.

I was assured that all the needed parts were in stock and the car would be ready later that day. Then when I was about to leave to pick it up, the shop called to say the car would be ready early Friday. Not everything was in stock. Inventory showed more than the parts people could locate on the shelves. I thought to myself that if a repair shop is going to push superfluous repairs, at least have the parts available.

The next day I went to pick up the car. And as I walked into the garage area, I overheard the guy, Andy, who handled my car, on the phone explaining to another customer that their transmission fluid is black. Oh, sounds like a special on black transmission fluid this week.

Jeff's told me I gotta find another place to take the car. I don't think he'd buy me another of the same brand if I can't get it serviced reliably. And I want to call the Better Business Bureau about these guys. When I dropped off the car, I remember now, Andy was expressing concern to a co-worker about still having a job and the service shop still being in business. He sounded desperate but shady deals aren't the solution.