Sarx

O & READ Some of the reviews of the Orthodox Study Bible. Some have not read the book - but almost all of them are suffering from “Orthodoxer than Thou”. I particularly like the one that seems to remind us that canonically we’re not supposed to use English. Yup.

Tags: orthodoxy, piety

ANKEE POLITICIANS can be just as stupid as anyone else. And, btw, his fear of what the Mexicans might be taught is 100% right. Southern California, Arizona, Texas… all belong justly to Mexico. He wants another civil war, and he wants an all-white USA.

Ah. Joy. This man, Jack Davis, is running for Congress. Sadly, he’s a Democrat - although he’s created his own political party in case he looses in the primary!

But we’ll still call the Southrons racists.

I grow weary of the word “illegal” to refer to persons created in Gods image. It’s too clinical. It’s akin to saying “homosexuals” in that it is a label applied by external criticism. It’s not self-applied.

We should say, “unwelcomed”, “unwanted”, “rejected” or “despised”. These words describe these persons. We could also say, “neighbour”, “brother/sister in Christ”, “fellow icon of God”, “Angels unawares” or even “God the Word coming amongst us as strangers again.” But then we might have to treat them like, you know, white people.

Tags: racism, stupidity, yankees

PR today was filled with reminiscences of Chicago in 1968. This AM, listening to Morning Edition, I was overcome with the emotions I was feeling. I was flooded with feelings. Strange. I spent a good part of the morning doing a sort of self-analysis: even walking to the coffee shop to process caused me to nearly cry.

In 1968 I was nearly 4 (my birthday was after the convention). The news stories about demonstrators who were bashed, gassed, beat-up and otherwise destroyed by Chicago police at the behest of polite, “liberal” Democrats and Mayor RJ Daley were broadcast live into the homes of everyone in America and around the world. This use of the TV as propaganda tool was intended exactly to intimidate and terrorise anyone who dared to speak up against the Gov’t’s powers. It is a message burned on whatever tiny part of my brain was turning on at that time: police can’t be trusted. A uniform is a sure sign of terror about to be inflicted. Gov’t is a lie and all we can do is subvert, ignore and run away.

40 years ago the Democrats sucked up to authoritarianism, colluding (maybe accidentally) in the election of RM Nixon and, setting up the next 40 years of Republican power (there’s only been 2 years of Democrat power since 1968). The events of that August led directly to multi-national corporations swallowing our freedoms and destroying our planet, and oil companies enslaving us and sending us off to war to defend them. The religious right has presided over it all offering a benediction on not only our destruction, but also a malediction on anyone who dared to question participation in the social contract of capitalism and the religious left has offered a polite counterpoint to prick our conscience but never pulling us out of the system and never offering us the tools to overthrow it. Instead the religious Left keeps trying to play with the same gov’t that has never once proved itself capable of living in the Kingdom because, at heart, it’s the same Gov’t that beat up kids in 1968 for exercising free speech. All that gov’t can do is throw crumbs around to keep the religious left addicted to the game.

40 years ago, a child learned to fear the people he’d been taught to trust: pretty much everyone.

Tags: 1968, chicago, DNC, hippies, progressives

HE BACKGROUND Image has changed from a solid colour to a very old background: I think I used it in 1999. The reason: someone just gave me a polo shirt that is a near-exact rendition of this background!

Tags: blog, css

Continuing in my reverse order - Eucharist to Incarnation to Trinity (like good labyrinth walkers, we will turn around and come out the other way) - we come to Incarnation, now. The complete menu for this series is located in the sidebar, just below the Peace Cross.

HE EXPERIENCE of the Early Church was that God was doing something in Jesus that God had never done before. This was more than just a Prophet. Something was different.

But it wasn’t the teachings, per se. Most of Jesus’ ideas - save one - are heard in various other parts of the Rabbinic culture of the period. Hillel, Shammai, Gammaliel, etc, all taught things that Jesus taught. There may have been a uniqueness in the constellation of Jesus’ ideas - but not in the ideas themselves. Even in the famous passages of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says “You have heard… but I say…” Jesus’ teachings are within the spectrum of a Judaism that included the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, etc. Continue Reading »

Tags: incarnation, jews, pagans, revelation, revolution, s=tie

HEN YOU Put ‘em both together you end up with this odd word:

Obamabiden: clearly a Germanic word, it’s the sort of thing that the Governator said in his youth. “Ya! Ve vent down unt zaw zee Obamabiden.”

Maybe, in Germanic, “biden” means person who lives there so, in the case of an election, we who live in the Obamanation can be said to be “Obamabiden” by Germans?

In a sentence: When we are all Obamabiden, will John McCain remember how many houses he owns?

Of course, this assumes that “biden” is pronounced with a long, “eye” sound.

If we take the shorter sound, like in Bidden, and we get “Obamabiden” (rhyming with “priest-ridden”) we get “followers of Obama” which is what many of the “Obamanauts” are.

In a sentence: Hillary will soon join the Obamabiden.

Now, what to do with Barak-Joe, which is a Biblical sort of name from Appalachia… “Miriam-Lou! Deborah-Lynn! Barak-Joe! Time to get warsh’tup and come in for supper!“

Tags: biden, obama, politics

PICKED This up out and about on the web. It seemed to interesting to pass up.

How the Omnivore’s 100 Works:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

Continue Reading »

Tags: eat, food, meme, omnivore

HIS MEME Is moving through the Presbyterian Blogs. It’s currently filling up my ecumenical/emergent RSS feed. It was started by the moderator of PC(USA), Bruce Reyes-Chow in his own blog. When your Primus Inter Pares gets her own blog, then you’re using the internet.

I know in the old days of ECUSA no one at 815 would let Ed Browning say anything unless it had been vetted by Ellen Cooke, Diane Porter, Patrick Mauney or anyone else who was in a given chain of command. I’m sure it’s much the same for the current occupant of the Penthouse.

But with so many TEC Bishops blogging, it would be nice if +KJS were out here among the people starting Memes, furthering discussion and community building.

Or, to address my past: imagine Mtr Phillip with a blog, or Mtr Herman.

Tags: blog, ecusa, meme, pcusa

ACK IN 1999, working at Gay.com, one of the owners and I went out to lunch at the Taco Bell, located on the first floor of our building. Yes, I know: Taco Bell. Anyway, Jeff and I were standing at the cash register, waiting for our $1.99 Tortilla Pizza (or whatever it was) and laughing at the signs suddenly announcing that “due to a national shortage” there was no corn chips. (You may remember that was the first time GMO corn was acknowledged to be in the food supply.) Continue Reading »

Tags: guru, mantra, orthodoxy, palamas, prayer, yoga

UB SCOUTS In the UK say a a young boy who refuses to say the Scouts’ pledge of allegiance to Queen can’t be a scout.

Indeed.

In this country you can’t be a scout if you’re gay. The Papists are in odd company, but in the *right* company I think. I would that everyone who claims to be a Christian would refuse to say an oath of allegiance to the crown over their heads.

I would that we’d get kicked out of voting booths and government jobs all over the world; that we’d stop sucking up to the very powers that oppress us at every turn and get on with being the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Indeed.

Tags: queen, romans, scotland, scouts, UK