Moi?

My Liberal Identity

You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.

Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor

A reminder from the feline bishop, for your health

People are often tired and overwrought at this time in the spring. The resident feline bishop thus begs to remind you of her pastoral letter, "On the Necessity of Naps." Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

Note: The bishop is currently napping, but the Canon to the Extraordinary, who is posting this note, is not doing so because she slept almost all morning. This exempts one from napping in the afternoon, though in cases of major necessity one can make exemptions to the exemption.

Grace, peace, and purrs to you from the Right Reverend and Right Honorable Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire. Now go and have a nap. Or two.

Grading music prescription from Kirkepiscatoid

We had a little conversation going on Facebook last night about the appropriate music to accompany end-of-semester grading. I raised the question and a remarkable number of people chimed in with suggestions.

Our friend Kirkepiscatoid, who is not only an Episcopalian, as her nom de blog indicates, but also an MD pathologist (not to be confused with pathological) who trains and thus grades medical students, had a suggestion I cannot resist posting. It is, as it were, part of the core curriculum of grading music.

Enjoy. And note the brass players tapping their feet to the rhythm!

If you're one of my Facebook friends, you will probably see more links to grading music on FB as the evening continues. Or you can just go to my update from last night and see some suggestions and links already present.

P.S. Kirkepiscatoid is also a thoughtful blogger on matters spiritual and temporal, so you might want to check out her blog.

Dave Walker nails it

We don't report or comment much on "As the Anglican World Turns" here since plenty of other bloggers do, but the one and only Dave Walker has deftly sketched the latest GAFCON public event for the Church Times. Enjoy. Read Dave's accompanying text here.

Liturgical blogiversary

Ash Wednesday is, liturgically speaking, the anniversary of this blog. The calendar anniversary has already passed, but since I am a liturgical creature, today's the day. It's been two years. I started haunting other people's blogs sometime the year before I started my own.

Thanks to all who visit here!

Italian humor (animated) courtesy of Brother of Acts of Hope

This one has been around the internet for a while, but I am pretty sure I have not previously posted it. If I have, my apologies. Brother of Acts of Hope, who lives in Italy most of the time (when he is not in Turkey or one or two other places), just sent this again, and it is as funny the second time around as it was the first. No language knowledge necessary. Enjoy.

Winter tunes: flute and pig

Just 'cause.

Life has been rough, and for consolation we turn to music.

Ever seen these two together?

Brought to you by +Maya Pavlova, FBE, who assures you that the Canon to the Extraordinary is surviving, but would welcome your heartfelt prayers now and in the coming weeks.

Blessed Christmastide. Don't forget to laugh.

The economy, in brief

Hat tip to my friend ILC in France.

Daily comic relief: Chocolate News on the first Black president

You may have to bear with a short commercial first (sometimes it comes on before the comedy segment, sometimes not) but it's worth it.

What? You don't watch Chocolate News? Another Comedy Central winner. With David Alan Grier.

So think about it: America's first Black president?

Warning: Irreverent, with strong language.

14 days.

Brought to you by your daily ¡Sí, se puede!

Activated till the polls close on November 4.

No more Opus :-(

Click to enlarge.

Salon has an interview with Berkeley Breathed, creator of Opus the Penguin and his band of friends, on why he's ending his strip. It has something to do with the quality (if you can call it that) of our national discourse.

Finally, a good laugh

The lovely and talented PJ, who also has a wicked sense of humor, shares with us this video of Barack "Steve" Obama doing stand-up in white tie at the Al Smith dinner. You must watch it. Put down your coffee mug first or your keyboard will suffer.

Enjoy. Thanks, PJ!

18 days.

Brought to you by your daily ¡Sí, se puede!

Activated till the polls close on November 4.

On the Necessity of Naps: A Pastoral Letter from +Maya Pavlova

Beloved two-leggers and four-leggers all, and three-leggers and wheel-riders too,

Grace, peace, and purrs to you in the name of the One who feeds us and keeps us safe and provides us companions with whom to play.

I have been meaning to write this pastoral letter since my return from London and Lambeth, but have been much preoccupied with {{{yaaaawwwwn}}} the very subject of this letter. Canine and feline time, as my brother bishops +Clumber, +Airedale, and +Rowan have noted, is a time unfettered by the meetings and schedules of humans.

Yesterday afternoon, on the blessed Day of Resurrection, my Canon to the Extraordinary, having returned from church, had a light repast and headed for her bed, declaring that she ought to make up a deficit of sleep from the previous night. After jumping onto the bed and sniffing about, I decided to depart curl up on my own, on the other bed in the house, in another room. I am +Maya Pavlova and I sleep wherever I want.

We slept for well over two hours, so the two-legger said. Myself, I do not count.

When we got up, she was of a peaceful spirit and I of a sprightly one.

This led me finally to compose this episcopal admonition to you, my beloved.

I have noticed that the Canon to the Extraordinary is occasionally cranky. "Occasionally" is a kind, moderate, and appropriately Anglican word. So is "cranky."

There seem to be two ways of applying a remedy to this most unpleasant state of hers: dipping her in hot water (what she refers to as "a bath" or "a nice soak in the tub") or seeking the blessed peace of sleep.Only one of these remedies, the second of the two, functions in all seasons (hot water is no remedy in the muggy summers of our fair state), is appropriate for all species (we felines never engage in such wet pursuits as "baths") and requires minimal shifting or changing of the clothing which fur-less two-legs must wear. The short version of this happy remedy is the nap.

Where, you may ask, is this nap mandated in Holy Scripture? And if we are Anglicans, what of the other sources of our common life? Are we not departing from tradition? What of reason? Notice, my friends, the three legged stool: and what better place for a small cat like me to curl up in a ball and slumber?

But I have digressed, or perhaps not. That is my privilege as a cat.

Holy Writ, my friends, does mention Jesus going to a place apart in the midst of his ministry. Certainly he prayed. But think you not that he had another thought as he drew apart to commune with the Creator? Get me away from these people!
 
You will argue that there appears to be in Holy Scripture no explicit reference to naps. There is, friends, there is. I speak not only of the blessed sleep of Jacob and his visions, and of the exhausted slumber of the weakened friends of Jesus in the garden --surely a sign of nap deprivation over the long term-- but of even more certain and detailed nap references in a recently discovered non-canonical writing, the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena.

Maya Magdalena, an ancestor of mine, is said by this scriptural fragment to have been a four-legged companion of one of the friends of Jesus. Certain references even indicate that she was for a time a faithful companion of Jesus himself. The surviving fragment of the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena states that on several occasions, this four-legged feline wrapped herself around the ankles of Jesus and twice slept on his lap. Yes, Jesus had a lap. Was he not fully human and fully divine? Do humans not have laps?

Did Jesus not embrace small children and praise the insight of such little ones? Surely he saw also the beauty of dogs and cats. Anthropocentric editors of the Gospels and Epistles have suppressed the tales of animal companions. They have paid some attention to other animals: the wild beasts who with the angels fed Jesus in the desert, the ancient sacrifice of animals (+Maya does not want to hear of this), the beasts and birds and dragon in the Apocalypse of John. But what of the real and daily creatures, four-legged, winged, and slithering animal companions? Were they only the dogs in the story of the Syrophoenician woman, eating the crumbs under the table?

The Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena shows us that creatures of all kinds, especially felines, were bearers of the Gospel. Indeed, it is in a scene depicting Jesus with the sleeping Maya Magdalena that we hear him say, softly and admiringly, "Be ye like this feline of peace, and nap often, for of such behavior is the kin-dom of Godde made."

Increase the number of naps in your life, beloved. Your level of doctrinal irritation will decrease immediately. You will neither sue nor be sued. All creatures will appear more beautiful to you when you wake, though before you gaze at them you will feel the need to stretch and sigh, and so you must do, extending your limbs and breathing and perhaps grooming yourself before rising to greet the world again.

If you have not known the bliss of the nap, seek out a napper who may witness to you calmly and joyfully.

Are naps with other creatures permitted? I have napped with my human companion, when I so please. The decision is mine. The two-legger Caminante, a friend of creatures of many nations and a Canon in fair green lands, has shown us, in her electronic epistles, her feline companions curled up against one another. Love and nap with each other in freedom, dear ones, as the Spirit and your own free will move you.

+Maya has spoken.

Yours in the grace of recurring snoozes, with pastoral love for all, without exception,

The Right Rev. and Right Hon. Maya Pavlova, F.B.E.
 
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to curl up in the sun by the window of the study. Meet and right it is that the Canon to the Extraordinary set up a cat-sized perch parallel to the window and the desk so that I might enjoy my leisure. I wish for you the very same. And if no one makes you such a perch, make it yourself. I also recommend the top of a pile of clean, soft laundry. - +MP, FBE.

P.S. To behold me in detail, click on photos to enlarge.

July 14 blog flashback #2: secular France, with affection, wit, and charm

Blog flashback: last year on this date....

Thoughts on France, with pictures. Note the artistic dog poop disposal and the dishy firefighters.

Writing (with continuing doggie theme)

Father of Acts of Hope, who is a pretty good writer if I may say so my(daughterly)self, once gave me a copy of this -- I think when I was working on my first book. He gave me the black and white version, though. I still have it. Lo and behold, there is a color version on the Web.

In lieu of Friday cat blogging. Told you, we are dog-friendly here too.

Blog flashback: last year on this date

Blog flashback:

Last year on this date...

Academic writing (with a little assist from our friends Calvin and Hobbes)

Grouchy (with a historical aside from the Napoleonic era)

It's getting a little monomaniacal around here with the grumpy academic theme. Don't worry, this too shall pass. Meanwhile, have a look at Calvin and Hobbes, today and on last year's page.

Opus the Penguin weighs in

Thank you, Salon. CLICK TO ENLARGE.

Woot!

What spice are you?
Your Score: Habanero Pepper
You scored 75% intoxication, 75% hotness, 50% complexity, and 75% craziness!

You are Habanero! You're hot and very flavourful. Unlike most hot peppers, your fruity goodness really comes through. You're great in unexpected situations, and quite vibrant, to boot. You're fun, spontaneous, and have been known to cause intense giggle fits. Woot!

The "Which Spice Are You?" silly test.

Laughter and justice

Some friends and I just went to a hilarious and moving one-woman show by Jennifer Lanier this evening. I almost didn't go, but it was well worth it and everyone needs a good laugh.

I recommend Jennifer Lanier to you. Note that she does shows for schools (high schools, colleges, et al.). The show we saw is called "None of the Above." The title makes sense as soon as you learn that Ms. Lanier is part African American, part American Indian and a little bit of White Euro-American and that she is a lesbian who tried for seven years to be both heterosexual and "feminine" -- and is much, much happier and saner now.

One of the evening's sponsors was the local organization GSAFE, which stands for Gay Straight Advocates for Education. Their mission statement is here. (With passive verb forms, oy, but the mission is a worthy one.)

There were also people there from Equality North Carolina with information on the School Violence Prevention Act, which "would require schools to adopt strong policies against bullying and harassment, including bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression."

Another sponsor was the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute. Dr. Cole (an Oberlin alumna, yay!) is president emerita of Bennett College for Women, a historically African American institution in Greensboro. (She was president of Spelman College before that.)

The evening was also sponsored by New Garden Friends School, the Quaker private school down the road from Guilford College (yes, they have common origins), and by Greensboro College, where the performance took place.

Friday cat blogging: this one's for Padre Mickey

I couldn't think of the right music for Padre Mickey when I was doing my blogiversary dedication posts a couple of weeks ago, but here is a cat post he will like. Here's to you, Padre!

(I know, bad day to do this when the Chinese government is being repressive with Tibetans... Gimme a break, okay?)

More cat world domination stuff here, and if you canine lovers click around the site you'll find dog stuff too.)

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

A disclaimer, or rather, a note about context. All preaching is contextual. I would not preach this sermon, or rather, I would not use some of its language and style (I would certainly preach the same message) at some of the larger and more --what's the right word for them? I can't say "established" since we are over 100 years old, that's pretty established-- parishes in town. The famous line from Rhett Butler wouldn't fly in the pulpit there. Nor, probably, would my hamming it up as Scarlett quite as much as I did. And I'm not sure that I would use these particular movie characters in humorous tones in another setting.

We are a small mostly White congregation (with an African American pastor) which is also a chaplaincy for three area colleges and universities. While there is a separate Sunday evening liturgy for students, on any given Sunday morning you will find at the 11 a.m. liturgy a few students, a few retired academics, some high-tech-y types, musicians, the news editor of the local alternative weekly newspaper, college professors and teachers of young children, one or two semi-employed people, and nobody very stiff or formal. This is an unpretentious group and if you stick around, you find out that this modest and unpresuming crew are disproportionately involved in leadership and service in the city's environmental, human rights, human services, and political groups. The congregation happens to include both straight and lesbian/gay/trans people, including a fairly significant proportion of gay men. (Not that anyone keeps track in our congregation, but you may or may not see in the sermon a reflection of this particular audience.) We used to have a few young children but because of the chaplaincy focus, they and their families moved to congregations that could better meet their needs. We can't do everything, though there were times when we tried. We do outreach and we also learn our limits. Okay, enough preliminaries.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year A

Sunday, March 2, 2008
St. Mary’s House (Episcopal)
Greensboro, North Carolina

[Revised Common Lectionary]
 
I Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:9-16
John 9:1-41



It’s a week after the Oscars,
and it’s time we got back to the classics.
The Scripture classics, of course,
and the movie classics.

So remember with me
the final scene of “Gone With the Wind.”

Scarlett O’Hara,
wearing basic black,
in a flouncy, Hollywood 19th century mourning
kind of way,
is in the throes of what will be
her final conversation with Rhett Butler.

And among her memorable words
in this scene
are these:

Oh Rhett! Rhett!
Rhett! Rhett!
(She really does say his name four times.)

If you leave,
Scarlett says,
where shall I go, what shall I do?

Where shall I go?
What shall I do?

Scarlett is having
what in Christian spirituality
we call
a discernment issue.

Today I want to talk about discernment.
I think our scriptures have something to tell us about that.
The season of Lent, too, has something to offer
about discernment.

Discernment.
That’s fancy Christian language for
trying to figure out what to do next.

Though there’s more to discernment
than decision-making.

Today’s scriptures are about seeing, and hearing,
and choosing.

They are also about reversals -- God’s reversals.

But first, a reminder about Lent.

We are, on this Fourth Sunday
in Lent,
deep into it.
We’ve been engaged in our Lenten practice
for a while now –
or, perhaps, engaged in bemoaning the fact
that we never quite got started on a Lenten practice
or discipline
for this year.

Either way, we are at
or somewhere near
the stage I am about to describe:
At some point in Lent,
or sometimes during all of it,
we encounter the chaos within.
You know what I’m talking about.

We’ve all got it.
In our Lenten discipline,
or lack thereof,
we wade into the murky, messy
landscape within.
Or perhaps it’s not murky and messy;
perhaps it’s desert and wilderness.

Right around the same time
that individually we encounter
the inner challenges,
and some outer ones as well,
we encounter, as individuals
but also as a Christian community,
the mid-Lent questions.

Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday in Lent,
those calls to return to God with all our hearts,
to refocus our lives,
to begin again
to reflect on the path of dying and rising
which is Christ’s way,
are no longer new.
After the initial call,
the initial return,
the beginning of the Lenten practices,
then what?
How
are we going to live the next steps of our Christian life?

How, in fact,
are we going to live
and are we living
the whole of our Christian life?

We don’t engage in our Lenten disciplines,
--the traditional ones of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
or our individual adaptations of these for this year’s Lent--
for their sake alone,
though even alone
they are salutary for us
and for our sisters and brothers,
for the earth on which we walk
and for the social world in which we live.

We engage in them
so that we might live a life
more attuned to God,
more attentive to the Spirit.

We engage in them
so that we might know more intimately
in our bodies
in our hearts,
in our minds
what it means to follow Christ.

Following Christ.
Being attentive to the Holy Spirit.

How do we learn this?
How do we do this?
And how do we recognize the promptings
of the Holy Spirit?
How do we know it’s not our stomach growling,
or the emotion of the moment speaking?
 
How can we know it is God’s voice we hear?

Where shall we go?
What shall we do?

And so we come to the prophet Samuel.

Samuel is not too happy about this trip he has to take.
God has asked him to choose a new king.
The current king, Saul,
is still alive.
The journey to Bethlehem,
not a long one,
is still burdensome,
since Samuel, in addition to
the donkey he is presumably riding,
has to take a heifer with him.

So we’ve got a middle-aged man
in fear of the king
and apprehension of what he will encounter
dragging a cow behind him
on a mission from God.

The two books of Samuel
and the two books of Kings
are great drama.
Prime time television
has nothing on them.
And who needs soap operas when you have
David and Bathsheba?
Or rather, David and Michal,
David and Jonathan,
and David and Bathsheba,
and I am leaving out a few of David’s
companions.

In the same saga, we will also have
David and Goliath.
And we will have
David’s military prowess,
David’s deceit and manipulations,
David’s political skill,
David playing his lyre and singing,
David dancing before God. Whew!

God, war, sex, power, men, women,
intrigue, lies, love, friendship,
politics, prayer, dance...
what else?

The Bible. God’s own reality show.

Samuel the prophet
ought to know from discernment,
though as a child he certainly needed help.
Remember little Samuel,
living with Eli in the temple?

-You called me?
-No, my son, I did not call you.
-You called me?
-No, my son, go back to bed.

Finally, Eli, wise old man that he is,
and discerning,
after many years of prayer
and attuning his heart
to the voice of God
and the signs of God’s presence,
helps little Samuel understand
that this is God calling,
and that he needs to go back to his room,
and listen,
and be
there
attentive
to the voice of the Holy One
who is speaking in the night.

The Samuel we meet in this scene of the drama
is at a later stage of life.
He is, as it were,
an established prophet.
He is, in fact, part of the establishment,
though the call from God to go on the road with the cow
reminds him that the establishment
is not his primary allegiance.
Still, he has a position
that is well known.
Notice that the people in Bethlehem
are quaking in their boots,
or rather in their sandals
until Samuel reassures them
that he has come peaceably,
and that the imminent death of the little cow
will be a sign of this intention.

Samuel, still not too happy,
goes about his mission
to find
and anoint
King Saul’s successor.
And then a surprise takes place.
A reversal.

Samuel does the logical thing,
in his society and in many of our societies.
With Jesse’s help,
he goes for
Jesse’s first-born son.
Eliab:
he’s tall, he’s the oldest.
Nope, says God. Not that one.
Aminadab, the second oldest.
Nope.
And on down the line.

Did you notice that God, by then,
had already told Samuel
what not to look at
and how
God sees?

Seven sons
file before Samuel.
Finally,
they have to fetch
the shepherd boy.
That was dirty work, by the way.
Sheep are smelly,
and not always very bright,
and the shepherd’s job,
though requiring attentiveness, care,
and agility both mental and physical,
was
a low status job, and one
often given to younger persons
like David:
beautiful, tan, rosy David.

This shepherd boy,
says God,
this
is the one.

Earlier, before the parade of tall,
older, not so smelly sons,
God has said:
Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature…
for the Lord does not see as mortals see;
they look on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks on the heart.

“Surprise,” writes the Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast,
“is a name for God.”

Surprise
is a name for God.

And attentiveness
to God’s tendency
toward surprise
and reversal
is part
of what discernment is about.
 
A reversal
is also what goes on
in the story of the man born blind.
It’s not the only thing going on
in that very rich, complex story.
Not by a long stretch.
But it’s there.

It’s there in the physical healing.
It’s there in the approach to sin.
It’s there in Jesus’ dealings with family
and religious authority.
It’s there in the placing at center stage
as the Gospel of John did last week with
the woman from Samaria,
of
an unlikely witness:
the man born blind
who now can see.

I do not know whether [Jesus]
is a sinner.
One thing I do know,
that though I was blind,
now I see.

When Jesus engages in reversal,
as God does in Samuel’s anointing of David,
he is squarely within his Jewish tradition.
God has done this reversal thing before.
Again and again:
Picking prophets away from sycamore groves.
Blessing barren women with children,
including Samuel’s own mother Hannah.
Healing blindness.
Forgiving sin.
Lifting up the lowly.

The facts of the story
and its literary structure
and its theological message
are not so much
what I’m inviting you to look at now.

Look on the edges of the story
or rather
into the fabric of the story,
to the blind man’s knowing.

I do not know whether he
is a sinner.
One thing I do know,
that though I was blind,
now I see.

Proof positive.
Concrete evidence.
A fruit that we can know.
Discernment.
Seeing.
Seeing and then
-- this is very important in the Gospel of John—
following.
Sometimes at a cost.

Concrete evidence.
A fruit we can know.
But also
God’s reminder to Samuel
to look with the eye of the heart.
This is not as much of a contradiction with the Gospel as it seems.

Discerning.
Watching for God’s reversals.
Noticing how God speaks to us
in the way that we need to hear.

This is part of what we practice in Lent.

How do we know?
Who and where is God in all this?
Where shall I go?
What shall I do?

We ask this in
the momentous decisions:
Taking a job;
leaving a job.
Helping an aging parent move to a new residence.
Beginning a relationship or ending it.
Deciding to become sexually involved with someone
or to stop being sexually involved.
Thinking about being a teacher; or an artist; or a scientist;
or a deacon; or a mother or a father.

There are also
the little discernments of every day,
the tiny Lenten steps that face us
in the desert or chaos of our inner life
and in the demands and pressures
of our external life.

A very wise and wonderful spiritual director
who walked with me during the end of my time in Boston,
in the mid-1990s,
once said to me:
We can make too much of the process of discernment
as a series of steps
and neglect to pay attention to what God is doing with us every day.
It’s not focusing on this discernment or that,
he said
that is most important.
Discernment is a lifelong process.
Becoming discerning persons
is much more important.

Developing the capacity to discern,
he said,
is part of the prayerful practice of attention.
Noticing what occurs in our prayer and in our daily life,
being attuned
–that will lead when necessary to discerning decisions.

Hearing the voice of God is intimately related
to living in the presence of God
and being attentive to this presence.

In Lent, we learn anew to do this,
we clear space and time.
In that space and time and attention
we let God tune us again
like a piano that needs to learn to make music anew

Where shall I go? What shall I do?
You remember Rhett Butler’s answer:
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

God is not Rhett Butler!

Banish that swashbuckling, disillusioned, mustachioed, handsome male figure
from your vision of the divine.

We hear today who God is
–another reversal—
a shepherd.
Which is not to say that we are
smelly and not very smart sheep.
The focus in the 23d Psalm is on God
and who God is for us.
For us:
leading us beside still waters,
reviving our souls,
walking with us even in the dark valley.

Remembering this
is part of why we have Lent.
That’s why we take time.
That’s why
the long, patient, stumbling, purifying and confusing process
of prayer.
That’s why the communal journey,
for Lent is never only a private enterprise.
It is the retreat of the whole church on the road to Easter.

So
listen.
Look.
Look not upon the sins of your parents
or your enemies’ parents
or your friends’ parents.
Look not upon your own sin
as the engine for your life in Christ.
Look into God’s own heart.
Watch for God’s reversals.
Stay awake.