Go read “Prayer Book as Our Regula” Right Now.

Seriously, if you haven’t read Christopher’s post called “The Prayer Book as Our Regula, you really should. It is a fantastic piece.

Excerpty!

In fact, the Prayer Book is a distinctive enfleshment of a moderate, generous, gentle, common, and above all else, awed way of being together in the world that insists that we are homo adorans and asks that because we praise God, we reverence one another and creation by making our own contribution in daily life (“contribution” is a term I shamelessly borrow from Dr John Booty who describes Anglican response to awe of God in this way).

In other words, our Prayer Book is the heart of St Benedict’s instruction: Prayer above all else.

Being a liturgist, Christopher dives into suggesting a new format for the Prayer Book, which I heartily approve of. As a self-taught Prayer Book pray-er, it took me forever to understand that you don’t have to say every line printed, in order. I hated doing the Sufferages, because I’d pray A and B back to back, and that’s just ridiculous.

Christopher insists that the goal should be pattern formation, which as an educator I nod sagely at, and as a person with I bounce around shouting, “YES! So true, it’s the only thing that keeps my hectic life on– OO A BIRDIE!” It’s not just ADD people who need a schedule with postmarks for the day, though it is a little tougher for us to stick to a schedule.

But I am a self-taught Prayer Book pray-er, and that is because despite joining the Episcopal Church officially in 2003, I can count on the fingers of both hands times when I have been at community worship and the Prayer Book was used instead of a printed bulletin. The little red books in the pews are only touched by the people dusting and the people who are really bored and are looking for anything to distract them.

I’ve argued before that one of the great tragedies of our education and formation programs at the parish level is the lack of serious, concrete Bible study that emphasizes both familiarity and functionality. I would also argue, as frequently and loudly as I can, that the number one greatest tragedy of our education and formation programs at the parish level is the lack of serious, concrete Prayer Book study that emphasizes both familiarity and functionality.

Now, in my dream parish, the best way to foster the familiarity and functionality of the Prayer Book is through offering Morning and Evening Prayer seven days a week. Whenever I mention that (or even offering it one evening a week– ONE EVENING and I’m volunteering to organize and to be Reader!) the old familiar refrain rears its ugly head: “It will never work, no one will come, we’ve tried it before.”

I believe the greatest tragedy of our parishes is the unwillingness to foster old ideas. If it’s not new-now-withit-shiny-on the cover of the Rolling Stone, it tends to be shot down. But people are starting to slowly come out of the consumerism coma and seek that which has been proven stable through time. I believe the resurgance in interest in the Rule of St. Benedict is an example of this.

Pagodas in Japan have stood for hundreds of years, through severe earthquakes and hurricanes because they are built to flex around a central spine. One of the greatest strengths of Christianity is its ability to flex with the times, and yet it is built around the solid core of the living Christ, from which every individual Christian branches off. Episcopalians are rooted in that spine through the Prayer Book, and if we are to survive as a Christian community, we cannot cut ourselves off from the Prayer Book.

Oh, we’ve all heard it before…

…someone says, “I’m not worth it, don’t bother praying for me.”

My response is usually, “Whoops. Too late.”

Episcopal Church to Dedicate Bike Shrine

As reported by BikePortland.org, since I can’t find a blessed thing about it on the St. Stephen’s page.

Here’s the thing– we have a LOT of people who ride bikes in Portland, and unfortunately we have a LOT of people who have been injured and killed while riding bikes in Portland. My favorite cafe waitress this week was wearing a sling and moving slowly ’cause someone opened a car door into the bike lane directly in front of her.

The shrine will be dedicated to La Madonna del Ghisallo, who was originally the patron of vulnerable travelers, but then asked to also take care of bicyclists, too.

Why is this so awesome and important? Well, a few reasons that I’m coming up with are:

1) Roadside shrines cause traffic issues. People slow down to look at them. Pedestrians cross traffic lanes to leave flowers. There was a woman killed in my hometown who was taking care of a roadside shrine and someone lost control of the car and ran into her.

2) Portland is a very unchurched town. Lots of us are ’spiritual, not religious’. This gives those people an open space to mourn and remember and pray for safety. It takes a little bit of that fear of the Church Building away, that fear of walking into a new place and being judged, and honestly? A little bit of that fear of the Christian. Because a lot of ’spiritual, not religious’ people are only familiar with Christian beliefs a la Jerry Falwell and George Bush, and they be scary men, yo.

Thinking Ahead

I wonder if anywhere sells a lapel pin that says something like, “I am observing Advent”

Just wondering out loud.

The Episcopal Church – Who Are We?

“A covert group of Christ-like ninjas” of course!

HT to Fr. Mark Harris.

Where have I been?

Oh, you know, here and there.

Shhh, be vewwy, vewwy quiet

It’ll probably be quiet around here until the end of September. I’m doing a lot of working and a lot of traveling (Three different time zones in two weeks! WOO!)

And honestly? I’m really sick unto death of everyone all “Oooh! Anglican Covenant! It’s coming! It’s not coming! Two-tracks, it’s coming and going!” and the constant singing of “Who’s Splitting Now?”

Our Jewish brethren and sistren have a term I think applies to the situation: lashon ha’ra. Loosely translated (as all my Hebrew is) it means ‘evil speech’ and is often identified with the English word ‘gossip’.

Anyone ever taken a CALL class?

That is, a Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership class? They’re apparently available online from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and the price is pretty reasonable. I know because I’ve been pricing out how much it would cost to take some classes on the Scriptures at local colleges, and just to audit a 12 week class it seems to be about $1200 (with fees and stuff). Most of the local colleges that have such classes also tend to have a requirement you sign a Statement of Belief that I, good little Anglican that I am, have trouble signing (what do you mean by ‘infallible’, exactly?).

I’m kind of hoping someone who has taken one of these online will pop by and let me know what it’s like. I’ve signed up for one anyway, can’t hurt to try it.

It’s funny in a prayer/coincidences way that my student loans just reconsolidated and the payment dropped almost exactly the amount of money I need for one of these classes.

Today’s Gospel Message

BoingBoing had this video up with the caption “Johnny Lee Clary explains how Reverend Wade Watts [...] engag[ed] in some first-rate psy-ops.”

What Doctrow calls psy-ops, we call the Gospel (with a healthy dose of fool-for-Christ).

You know, I’ve been having conversations with a beloved friend who’s a premillenialist. My friend keeps saying that ze wishes Jesus would come back today, and ze gets a little disconcerted (probably just as disconcerted as I do when ze says that) when I ask the deadline be pushed back a bit farther. Because I’m pretty darn certain I’ve got a little more work to do on this earth, and 99.9% of that work is taming my anger to be a witness like Rev. Watts.

The Fatty Preaches.

Everyone and their auntie has an opinion about the photo of a size 10/12 model’s belly that appeared on page 194 of this month’s Glamour.

*yawn* Wake me when it’s over.

*snore, snort, whuzzay?*
What do you mean, “What do I think?” I think I’m a 5′4″, 300lb woman who’s female but not feminine and wouldn’t buy a copy of Glamour unless it had a hard-hitting investigative piece on the impact of Final Crisis on Earth-52 sandwiched between a review of entropic dice towers and the monthly feature “Zombie Attack Preparedness”.

I’m not the niche market for the kinda crap Glamour advertisers peddle.

Yeah, it’s crap. Makeup is crap, ‘beauty creams’ are crap, don’t even get me started on diets and diet pills (CRAP!), and they sure as shootin’ don’t advertize clothing for women like me in Glamour. I have to put all those skills I’ve learned working in Logistics to source hard-to-find well-fitting and not-muuumuuy clothes in size Fat.

(Okay, I cheat and crib notes from Fatshionista a lot.)

So, yeah, this rant is on my religion blog. Why is it on my religion blog? Let me tell you why it’s on my religion blog: Sit your asses (skinny or fat) down and quit judging people’s bodies.

Especially your own.

God created you in your mother’s womb, and we now know the Creator Herself did that by knitting together the strands of your DNA (knit two adenine, purl one thymine) and determined you’d be about yea high, with that colored hair and your Auntie Ro’s pug nose and Uncle Jeph’s knobbly knees. God created you differently from everyone else because God delights in creating, delights in originality, delights in you.

And magazines like Glamour and television and movies and all the media sits down and explains that you really, really shouldn’t look like God made you, you should give them money and they will make you look BETTER than God made you, because God made you WRONG (for twenty easy payments of $199.95 plus shipping and handling).

I call bullshit on that, and I will continue to call bullshit on it with every breath I take, with every step I dance, with every ounce of joy and love I can muster for myself and for the wide, wonderful, uniqueness of myself and of this world.