St. Paul writes, at the end of his famous chapter (1 Corinthians 13), "Now there abide Faith, Hope, and Love, these three, but the greatest of these is Love."
Right. So when I was recently in Grand Rapids I noticed a Faith Reformed Church and a Hope Reformed Church, but no Love Reformed Church. Indeed, there are pleny of Faith Reformed Churches and Hope Reformed Churches in many towns and cities, but when do you ever see a Love Reformed Church?
I mentioned this to my wife, and she said, "That's easy. Sex."
Showing posts with label Notions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notions. Show all posts
Friday, May 07, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him
This morning I am working on my sermon for the second Sunday after Epiphany. The gospel text is the story of the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine. I am reminded of an event in my own life.
I am quite content to be a parish pastor. But for most of my life it had been my dream to become a seminary professor. Twice I got very close. In 1991 I was one of the finalists for a position in teaching liturgy at the University of Toronto.
In the final interview with the search committee, one of the theologians asked me something like this, “I wonder if you could teach our students some new traditions and new kinds of sacraments. I am thinking of a kind of sacrament that is not violent. You know, Holy Communion uses violent symbols—the broken bread for a broken body and the poured out wine for bloodshed. What would you think about teaching a non-violent sacrament?"
I remember not answering right away as I tried to figure out what I would say.
Then the theologian added this: "What about teaching a sacrament where we all ate fruit together?”
At that point I knew I would not get this job. But I did control myself—I did not say, “You mean like in the Garden of Eden,” or “I wonder how the fruit feels.”
Inventing new traditions is not my gift (or my desire). And as for the violence (maybe they were testing me because I was American), the violence signified by broken bread and poured out wine, well, it’s not the violence itself, but that we find ourselves in the middle of violence and brokenness and grief, the reality is that our lives are constantly poured out.
The tradition of Holy Communion is so powerful because it allows us to accept the reality of our lives and our suffering, and to believe that God meets us there, and goes through it with us. It is the acknowledgment that we are violent, and that God comes through our violence to bring us peace, that God passes through our mournfulness to bring us joy, and that Jesus wept so that we might laugh.
Oh how we fantasize of getting back to the Garden. But there's an angel with a sword of fire in the way. "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." And, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." You know what I mean?
I am quite content to be a parish pastor. But for most of my life it had been my dream to become a seminary professor. Twice I got very close. In 1991 I was one of the finalists for a position in teaching liturgy at the University of Toronto.
In the final interview with the search committee, one of the theologians asked me something like this, “I wonder if you could teach our students some new traditions and new kinds of sacraments. I am thinking of a kind of sacrament that is not violent. You know, Holy Communion uses violent symbols—the broken bread for a broken body and the poured out wine for bloodshed. What would you think about teaching a non-violent sacrament?"
I remember not answering right away as I tried to figure out what I would say.
Then the theologian added this: "What about teaching a sacrament where we all ate fruit together?”
At that point I knew I would not get this job. But I did control myself—I did not say, “You mean like in the Garden of Eden,” or “I wonder how the fruit feels.”
Inventing new traditions is not my gift (or my desire). And as for the violence (maybe they were testing me because I was American), the violence signified by broken bread and poured out wine, well, it’s not the violence itself, but that we find ourselves in the middle of violence and brokenness and grief, the reality is that our lives are constantly poured out.
The tradition of Holy Communion is so powerful because it allows us to accept the reality of our lives and our suffering, and to believe that God meets us there, and goes through it with us. It is the acknowledgment that we are violent, and that God comes through our violence to bring us peace, that God passes through our mournfulness to bring us joy, and that Jesus wept so that we might laugh.
Oh how we fantasize of getting back to the Garden. But there's an angel with a sword of fire in the way. "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." And, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." You know what I mean?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A Form of Daily Prayer
Are you looking for a form of daily prayer? Maybe you want to pray, but you don't know what to say. Try the "Daily Office," as it's called, which exists in many different forms, from simple to complex. For a relatively simple form, which is also very contemporary, let me direct you with this link to the Northumbria Community in Great Britain. Click on "Pray the Office." Thank you to Paul Miller, a friend of mine from St. Catherines, Ontario, who introduced this to me.
(And thank you Amy. Oh, I remember with what wonder my brother and I contemplated our first pomme grenate ("seedy apple") when my mom brought it home from the grocery. I think I was nine. I should eat one every morning, and use it as rosary.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"I Want A Sober Mind"
Last Sunday we sang two relatively unfamiliar hymns. We sang The Royal Banners Forward Go and I'll Praise My Maker While I've Breath. The first is a grand Anglican processional hymn based on a late Latin poem. The second is a Watts / Wesley metrical version of Psalm 146.
I had lunch with some regular worshippers and I asked them which of the two they liked better. They both preferred the latter. I was intrigued, because the lyrics of the second are stiffer and more, well, Protestant. At the same they are more direct, more personal, and more intense. The whole hymn is an "I" statement, after all.
I think that's the appeal of lot of the best gospel songs, and of those older hymns of Wesley, Watts, Doddridge, and all. How they speak for the "I" of the singer and of our close experience. Their poetry is often less exalted then some other more lofty hymns, but as Erik Routley used to say, the poetry of hymns should not be overdone, and is often best understated. That doesn't mean the poetry shouldn't be excellent. It's very difficult to make poetry that's both good and understated.
I heard a really good example this the other week when the Dessoff Choirs were singing at Old First. They sang one of my favorite Sacred Harp numbers. The music is great to begin with. With it's fuguing chorus it's slow -fast, like a Hungarian csardas. But the lyrics are what really struck me. Note how forceful and direct they are:
I want a sober mind,
An all sustaining eye,
To see my God above,
And to the heavens fly.
Chorus:
I'd soar away above the sky,
I'd fly, and fly,
To see my God above,
I'd fly to see my God above.
I want a Godly fear,
A quick discerning eye,
That looks to Thee, my God
And sees the tempter fly.
Chorus
I had lunch with some regular worshippers and I asked them which of the two they liked better. They both preferred the latter. I was intrigued, because the lyrics of the second are stiffer and more, well, Protestant. At the same they are more direct, more personal, and more intense. The whole hymn is an "I" statement, after all.
I think that's the appeal of lot of the best gospel songs, and of those older hymns of Wesley, Watts, Doddridge, and all. How they speak for the "I" of the singer and of our close experience. Their poetry is often less exalted then some other more lofty hymns, but as Erik Routley used to say, the poetry of hymns should not be overdone, and is often best understated. That doesn't mean the poetry shouldn't be excellent. It's very difficult to make poetry that's both good and understated.
I heard a really good example this the other week when the Dessoff Choirs were singing at Old First. They sang one of my favorite Sacred Harp numbers. The music is great to begin with. With it's fuguing chorus it's slow -fast, like a Hungarian csardas. But the lyrics are what really struck me. Note how forceful and direct they are:
I want a sober mind,
An all sustaining eye,
To see my God above,
And to the heavens fly.
Chorus:
I'd soar away above the sky,
I'd fly, and fly,
To see my God above,
I'd fly to see my God above.
I want a Godly fear,
A quick discerning eye,
That looks to Thee, my God
And sees the tempter fly.
Chorus
Monday, January 28, 2008
Study Week
Today I begin a study week. I am very grateful to my congregation, which sees fit to give me a nice amount of time each year for study and reading and writing.
This week my two best buddies are coming down from Canada to join me. We three will take rooms at the St. Hilda's House, a convent and retreat center of the (very high and spiky) Episcopal Sisters of the Holy Spirit up in Morningside Heights.
We have been given library privileges at Union Theological Seminary.
In case you want to know, my companions will be Rev. Dr. Orville James, of Wellington Square United Church, Burlington, Ontario, and Rev. Robert Ripley, of Metropolitan United Church, London, Ontario. Not bad company, what.
Orville will bring a bunch of books. Rip will bring his materials to move ahead on his doctorate from Fuller.
I will bring my books for the course I'm teaching on Reformed Church History and Missions.
I will also bring the very lovely cigar I was given as a Christmas present by my favorite druid, one Jack Gavin, of Park Slope.
This week my two best buddies are coming down from Canada to join me. We three will take rooms at the St. Hilda's House, a convent and retreat center of the (very high and spiky) Episcopal Sisters of the Holy Spirit up in Morningside Heights.
We have been given library privileges at Union Theological Seminary.
In case you want to know, my companions will be Rev. Dr. Orville James, of Wellington Square United Church, Burlington, Ontario, and Rev. Robert Ripley, of Metropolitan United Church, London, Ontario. Not bad company, what.
Orville will bring a bunch of books. Rip will bring his materials to move ahead on his doctorate from Fuller.
I will bring my books for the course I'm teaching on Reformed Church History and Missions.
I will also bring the very lovely cigar I was given as a Christmas present by my favorite druid, one Jack Gavin, of Park Slope.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Christmas Pageant
We just finished our Christmas pageant. O magnum mysterium. Not just animals, but children!
Jessica Stockton, aka Booknerd, and one of our Sunday School teachers, sent us this reflection by Rick Moody:
"Why is it that the worse the Christmas service, the closer we get to the idea of Christmas? Children's services, with children running aimlessly in the aisles in lamb costumes or dressed as wise men, neglecting or refusing to say their lines, why so much closer to the idea of Christmas?
What is this thing about Christmas, the paradoxical tendency of Christmas, that the more heartbreaking it is the closer it seems to get to the point? Why is failure and awkwardness so human and so natural at Christmas?...
Why is it that desperation is closer to God?...
At the same time, what about the Mean Estate stuff, what about Mary lying in bad circumstances? Why is it that the no-room-at-the-inn part is inevitably moving, even when you are skeptical about the whole thing?...
And why an ideology of the neglected and left out and miserable and disinherited and lonely and poor and ill and exiled, anyway?...
And why is it, meanwhile, that singing is the thing that enables me to understand this, why is it that singing makes the Christmas holiday what it is, what it can be, what it ought to be?"
- Rick Moody, Christmas 2006
Jessica Stockton, aka Booknerd, and one of our Sunday School teachers, sent us this reflection by Rick Moody:
"Why is it that the worse the Christmas service, the closer we get to the idea of Christmas? Children's services, with children running aimlessly in the aisles in lamb costumes or dressed as wise men, neglecting or refusing to say their lines, why so much closer to the idea of Christmas?
What is this thing about Christmas, the paradoxical tendency of Christmas, that the more heartbreaking it is the closer it seems to get to the point? Why is failure and awkwardness so human and so natural at Christmas?...
Why is it that desperation is closer to God?...
At the same time, what about the Mean Estate stuff, what about Mary lying in bad circumstances? Why is it that the no-room-at-the-inn part is inevitably moving, even when you are skeptical about the whole thing?...
And why an ideology of the neglected and left out and miserable and disinherited and lonely and poor and ill and exiled, anyway?...
And why is it, meanwhile, that singing is the thing that enables me to understand this, why is it that singing makes the Christmas holiday what it is, what it can be, what it ought to be?"
- Rick Moody, Christmas 2006
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Teaching Junior Highs
I notice that Rabbi Andy Bachman also teaches Junior High kids in his shul. And then every week he writes about it in his blog.
I love it. I teach Junior High too. Actually I team-teach it with Theresa Levin, and lately she's become the leader in the team. She's Pettite, I'm Posada.
I am a little jealous that Andy gets to do it on a weekday afternoon. That's the right time. You just can't do it right on Sunday mornings before church.
As I read his blogs (Andy is a wonderful blogger) I am reminded that teaching Junior High can be one greatest pleasures of the ministry. Stimulating, satisfying, challenging, engaging. What a privilege. Makes one a much better theologian. Every theologian should teach Junior High.
How come our society doesn't regard Junior High teachers with greater esteem than Harvard professors?
I look forward to that Junior High class every week, as short as the sessions always are.
I love it. I teach Junior High too. Actually I team-teach it with Theresa Levin, and lately she's become the leader in the team. She's Pettite, I'm Posada.
I am a little jealous that Andy gets to do it on a weekday afternoon. That's the right time. You just can't do it right on Sunday mornings before church.
As I read his blogs (Andy is a wonderful blogger) I am reminded that teaching Junior High can be one greatest pleasures of the ministry. Stimulating, satisfying, challenging, engaging. What a privilege. Makes one a much better theologian. Every theologian should teach Junior High.
How come our society doesn't regard Junior High teachers with greater esteem than Harvard professors?
I look forward to that Junior High class every week, as short as the sessions always are.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Bobs Lake Gang
This Sunday through Tuesday I will be attending the 31st session of the Bobs Lake Gang. Our name doesn't say much for our imaginations, but hey, we're guys, and we're pastors, so who expects imagination?
In October 1992, a Canadian pastor friend of mine, Rev. Dr. Orville James, had the idea of starting a small pastors' group to meet on retreat at his cottage on Bobs Lake in Ontario. We were joined by Bob Ripley, whose star was just rising. We talked, prayed, smoked cigars, read scripture, played air guitar, repeated Monty Python scripts, did dishes, prayed some more, and failed to shower and shave.
On Monday night, we lay on the floor in the dark and listened to the Blue Jays play their first World Series. It was a tiny old AM radio, and the woodstove was on to keep us warm.
We met again in the spring, and three more pastors joined us, Drew and Andrew and Orville's brother John. Or did Andrew come the next time? Or was John there the first time? We've been going long enough to need an historian.
Since then we've added new members, three of them, and we've had vacancies and visitors along the way, but there's no question that we have forged ourselves into something; just what that something is I am not sure I want to know.
We are all Canadian pastors, mainline denominations, United and Anglican, except for me, a Dutch Calvinist from the States (though I am a dual citizen, and a subject of Elizabetha Regina and her heirs-by-law). I used to say that they wanted me in so that I could buy the single-malt Scotch at the Duty Free at the border. Then my wife and I bought the cottage next door to Orville's, and if they kicked me out I could just go up any and blast my radio like at General Noriega. And now some of the other guys are bringing the Scotch.
Fifteen years, now, or 31 sessions, without a break. We're the only group we know to have endured so long. Orville is the leader, and the rest of us have different roles to play. Andrew makes breakfast, Ripley cooks a formal dinner on Monday night (despite our lack of shaving and showering). John and I fight over the control of the coffee. We've been fighting over the coffee for years. It's what we do.
Sunday night we kick back and let loose. We report the news, and we tell the stories that pastors never dare tell anyone else but pastors. I always try to have a long joke ready. Early on I told the one about the Lutheran pastor who wakes up in hell. It remains the unbeatable standard, like Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters.
Monday, after breakfast, we spend all morning in scripture and prayer. We use the Anglican service for morning prayer, and whatever lessons that come up in the lectionary. We try to do that sitting outside on the deck above the lake, if it's not too cold. It's never too cold for me; I love to wrap myself in blankets like a sachem and talk about the Eternal, and then talk to the Eternal.
Soup and sandwiches for lunch, then we split up for exercise and naps and conversations, and golf or hiking or canoing on the bright, cold lake. Monday dinner is nice with napkins and wine. Monday night, the talk is quieter and calmer.
Tuesday morning, prayers and scripture again, but less intense. A quick lunch and then off home.
We have prayed each other through many difficulties. We have prayed each other through broken marriages and tough times in the ministry. Wandering children and troublesome staffs. Clergy stuff. We challenge and support each other. We probably should use more soap.
In October 1992, a Canadian pastor friend of mine, Rev. Dr. Orville James, had the idea of starting a small pastors' group to meet on retreat at his cottage on Bobs Lake in Ontario. We were joined by Bob Ripley, whose star was just rising. We talked, prayed, smoked cigars, read scripture, played air guitar, repeated Monty Python scripts, did dishes, prayed some more, and failed to shower and shave.
On Monday night, we lay on the floor in the dark and listened to the Blue Jays play their first World Series. It was a tiny old AM radio, and the woodstove was on to keep us warm.
We met again in the spring, and three more pastors joined us, Drew and Andrew and Orville's brother John. Or did Andrew come the next time? Or was John there the first time? We've been going long enough to need an historian.
Since then we've added new members, three of them, and we've had vacancies and visitors along the way, but there's no question that we have forged ourselves into something; just what that something is I am not sure I want to know.
We are all Canadian pastors, mainline denominations, United and Anglican, except for me, a Dutch Calvinist from the States (though I am a dual citizen, and a subject of Elizabetha Regina and her heirs-by-law). I used to say that they wanted me in so that I could buy the single-malt Scotch at the Duty Free at the border. Then my wife and I bought the cottage next door to Orville's, and if they kicked me out I could just go up any and blast my radio like at General Noriega. And now some of the other guys are bringing the Scotch.
Fifteen years, now, or 31 sessions, without a break. We're the only group we know to have endured so long. Orville is the leader, and the rest of us have different roles to play. Andrew makes breakfast, Ripley cooks a formal dinner on Monday night (despite our lack of shaving and showering). John and I fight over the control of the coffee. We've been fighting over the coffee for years. It's what we do.
Sunday night we kick back and let loose. We report the news, and we tell the stories that pastors never dare tell anyone else but pastors. I always try to have a long joke ready. Early on I told the one about the Lutheran pastor who wakes up in hell. It remains the unbeatable standard, like Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters.
Monday, after breakfast, we spend all morning in scripture and prayer. We use the Anglican service for morning prayer, and whatever lessons that come up in the lectionary. We try to do that sitting outside on the deck above the lake, if it's not too cold. It's never too cold for me; I love to wrap myself in blankets like a sachem and talk about the Eternal, and then talk to the Eternal.
Soup and sandwiches for lunch, then we split up for exercise and naps and conversations, and golf or hiking or canoing on the bright, cold lake. Monday dinner is nice with napkins and wine. Monday night, the talk is quieter and calmer.
Tuesday morning, prayers and scripture again, but less intense. A quick lunch and then off home.
We have prayed each other through many difficulties. We have prayed each other through broken marriages and tough times in the ministry. Wandering children and troublesome staffs. Clergy stuff. We challenge and support each other. We probably should use more soap.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
On Widows and Apologetics
I just had a little piece published in a theology magazine, under the title above. It's about how God seems to have set things up in such a way as to make God's self more credible to orphans, widows, and the poor than to intellectuals.
And I say a word of two about our desire for intellectual respect, which can be a kind of covetousness.
To get to the full journal, called Perspectives, go here: http://www.perspectivesjournal.org/index.html
There are some other worthwhile articles as well.
To get to my little essay, go here: http://www.perspectivesjournal.org/2007/10/seeit-widows.html
And I say a word of two about our desire for intellectual respect, which can be a kind of covetousness.
To get to the full journal, called Perspectives, go here: http://www.perspectivesjournal.org/index.html
There are some other worthwhile articles as well.
To get to my little essay, go here: http://www.perspectivesjournal.org/2007/10/seeit-widows.html
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Everyone Has A 9/11 Story
It was in the evil tragedy of 9/11 that I was called here, to Old First.
In the summer of 2001, the pulpit of Old First church was, as we say, "vacant." Pastor Otte had moved on to Tarrytown, and an interim pastor, Dr. Washington, was filling-in part-time, while the Search Committee looked for a new pastor to fill the pulpit.
I was the senior pastor at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had applied to Old First, and had been interviewed. My wife Melody did not want to come to Brooklyn: she had a good job in Grand Rapids, we owned a home (for the first time), and we were near her parents.
The other candidate preached her trial sermon at the "neutral site" of the Flatbush Church on Sunday, 9/9, where the Search Committee had gone to hear her. I was scheduled to preach there on 9/16. It was all very confidential in Grand Rapids; I had used the excuse that our Grand Rapids church was considering a partnership with the Flatbush Church, which was not untrue. Only my church officers and my associate pastors knew the whole story.
On the morning of 9/11 I was visiting a neighboring African-American pastor with whom I was trying to do some joint programming (Grand Rapids is very divided racially). His secretary ran in to the study and told us to come look at the television. We watched, transfixed, unbelieving, and listened to Bryant Gumble, who seemed just as shocked as we were.
I raced back to my own church. Immediately I began working with other city clergy to prepare a city-wide prayer service at the cathedral. And then I got a phone call, from Rick, the vice chair of the Old First search committee. He was at the Grand Rapids airport and could I maybe pick him up, and could he stay with us (the hotels were full) and could we send some clergy to the airport to minister to the people there?
It seems Rick had been flying to San Francisco for business, and his plane got put down in Grand Rapids. Coincidence? Providence? I went to the airport and picked him up. As we drove we agreed that I might have to postpone my trial sermon, as I really had to be with my own people at this time, and Rick understood, but the problem was that the next available date would be in October or November, and they already had a good candidate. I was very disappointed of course.
That afternoon, Melody got home from work, and there was Rick on our front porch. She looked up to heaven, and said, "Did you have to drop him right on the porch?" Then I told her that my trial sermon was now up in the air, so to speak.
That night I led some of the prayers at the cathedral downtown. My congregation's own service was scheduled for Thursday. On Wednesday I met with my leadership. They encouraged me to go to Brooklyn anyway. They said, "Of all the times to preach in New York, it's now. Especially since you're from there. You'll be with us tomorrow. We can cover the rest." Okay. It's on.
So Friday we drove to Brooklyn. No planes were flying, of course, and rental cars were scarce. Rick and Melody drove, and I sat in the back seat and rewrote my sermon.
Crossing the Tappan Zee we could see the fires and smoke at ground zero. Coming in over the Triboro was where it hit me emotionally. It was a familiar route from my childhood, how we drove back home to Bedford-Stuyvesant after visiting my relatives in Jersey. As you know, the whole city felt stunned and shocked and wounded. No airliners over the Grand Central Parkway, but fighter jets circling, a powerful symbol. That's where I "lost it."
We got into Park Slope Friday night. We walked around. The doors of Old First were open, people were there, candles were burning in and out, sheets of newsprint were hanging in the narthex and people were writing their prayers. The laymembers of Old First, without any help from any clergy, had decided to make this grand old building a sanctuary for everyone. I was impressed. This was the kind of church I'd like to serve. And every other church in the neighborhood was closed up and their gates locked.
On Sunday I preached the 9/11 sermon at the Flatbush Church, and the text from Jeremiah was perfect. As I came down the aisle, I was greeted by Mr. Woodson, an elder from the church of my childhood. He calls me Danny and he welcomed me home.
I have never felt so "called" as I felt then. And Melody began to believe that maybe this could be okay.
A week later the Search Committee offered me the pulpit. They made a great offer to Melody as well. Over the next two months we went through the normal approvals of the consistory, the congregation, and the Classis of Brooklyn, and in December, 2001, we moved to Garfield Place.
I am always uncomfortable in pointing to this or that in my life and saying, This was God. That feels presumptuous to me. I certainly do not believe that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an act of God, or was endorsed by God, or desired by God. And I do not want to trivialize 9/11, or make it overly personal for myself, when it was far more personal for many other people.
But it is very strange and mysterious to me how such an evil thing should have been, in my own life, for good. But in the midst of that awful event, I was called here, and I came.
In the summer of 2001, the pulpit of Old First church was, as we say, "vacant." Pastor Otte had moved on to Tarrytown, and an interim pastor, Dr. Washington, was filling-in part-time, while the Search Committee looked for a new pastor to fill the pulpit.
I was the senior pastor at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had applied to Old First, and had been interviewed. My wife Melody did not want to come to Brooklyn: she had a good job in Grand Rapids, we owned a home (for the first time), and we were near her parents.
The other candidate preached her trial sermon at the "neutral site" of the Flatbush Church on Sunday, 9/9, where the Search Committee had gone to hear her. I was scheduled to preach there on 9/16. It was all very confidential in Grand Rapids; I had used the excuse that our Grand Rapids church was considering a partnership with the Flatbush Church, which was not untrue. Only my church officers and my associate pastors knew the whole story.
On the morning of 9/11 I was visiting a neighboring African-American pastor with whom I was trying to do some joint programming (Grand Rapids is very divided racially). His secretary ran in to the study and told us to come look at the television. We watched, transfixed, unbelieving, and listened to Bryant Gumble, who seemed just as shocked as we were.
I raced back to my own church. Immediately I began working with other city clergy to prepare a city-wide prayer service at the cathedral. And then I got a phone call, from Rick, the vice chair of the Old First search committee. He was at the Grand Rapids airport and could I maybe pick him up, and could he stay with us (the hotels were full) and could we send some clergy to the airport to minister to the people there?
It seems Rick had been flying to San Francisco for business, and his plane got put down in Grand Rapids. Coincidence? Providence? I went to the airport and picked him up. As we drove we agreed that I might have to postpone my trial sermon, as I really had to be with my own people at this time, and Rick understood, but the problem was that the next available date would be in October or November, and they already had a good candidate. I was very disappointed of course.
That afternoon, Melody got home from work, and there was Rick on our front porch. She looked up to heaven, and said, "Did you have to drop him right on the porch?" Then I told her that my trial sermon was now up in the air, so to speak.
That night I led some of the prayers at the cathedral downtown. My congregation's own service was scheduled for Thursday. On Wednesday I met with my leadership. They encouraged me to go to Brooklyn anyway. They said, "Of all the times to preach in New York, it's now. Especially since you're from there. You'll be with us tomorrow. We can cover the rest." Okay. It's on.
So Friday we drove to Brooklyn. No planes were flying, of course, and rental cars were scarce. Rick and Melody drove, and I sat in the back seat and rewrote my sermon.
Crossing the Tappan Zee we could see the fires and smoke at ground zero. Coming in over the Triboro was where it hit me emotionally. It was a familiar route from my childhood, how we drove back home to Bedford-Stuyvesant after visiting my relatives in Jersey. As you know, the whole city felt stunned and shocked and wounded. No airliners over the Grand Central Parkway, but fighter jets circling, a powerful symbol. That's where I "lost it."
We got into Park Slope Friday night. We walked around. The doors of Old First were open, people were there, candles were burning in and out, sheets of newsprint were hanging in the narthex and people were writing their prayers. The laymembers of Old First, without any help from any clergy, had decided to make this grand old building a sanctuary for everyone. I was impressed. This was the kind of church I'd like to serve. And every other church in the neighborhood was closed up and their gates locked.
On Sunday I preached the 9/11 sermon at the Flatbush Church, and the text from Jeremiah was perfect. As I came down the aisle, I was greeted by Mr. Woodson, an elder from the church of my childhood. He calls me Danny and he welcomed me home.
I have never felt so "called" as I felt then. And Melody began to believe that maybe this could be okay.
A week later the Search Committee offered me the pulpit. They made a great offer to Melody as well. Over the next two months we went through the normal approvals of the consistory, the congregation, and the Classis of Brooklyn, and in December, 2001, we moved to Garfield Place.
I am always uncomfortable in pointing to this or that in my life and saying, This was God. That feels presumptuous to me. I certainly do not believe that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an act of God, or was endorsed by God, or desired by God. And I do not want to trivialize 9/11, or make it overly personal for myself, when it was far more personal for many other people.
But it is very strange and mysterious to me how such an evil thing should have been, in my own life, for good. But in the midst of that awful event, I was called here, and I came.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Oh Canada
I'm off to Canada on Tuesday, June 19, for nine days. It's a study and writing week. Thank you Old First for giving me this privilege.
No internet, no cell phone, no email, no blog. No Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, no Brooklyn Jews, no Tugster, no Gibbsville Transformers.
No use checking this blog, the average-of-29-per-day who do so, there will be no entries for a while.
The lake, my white pines, white oak, white ash, loons, eagles, the odd beaver, turtles laying eggs in the afternoon for raccoons to eat at night.
An old dial telephone, CBC on the radio, digestives, mosquitos at night, Nabob coffee in the morning and porridge if it's cold. Orville on his dock and on my deck.
Prayer on the rocks at dawn. The Anglican daily office. (Not "The Office!") The laptop and eight new talks (lectures?) for the fall on "Why Be a Christian."
Don't wish me luck. Calvinists don't like luck, and are embarrassed by good luck when they get it. Wish me Godspeed.
Schrijf niet even spoedig terug.
No internet, no cell phone, no email, no blog. No Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, no Brooklyn Jews, no Tugster, no Gibbsville Transformers.
No use checking this blog, the average-of-29-per-day who do so, there will be no entries for a while.
The lake, my white pines, white oak, white ash, loons, eagles, the odd beaver, turtles laying eggs in the afternoon for raccoons to eat at night.
An old dial telephone, CBC on the radio, digestives, mosquitos at night, Nabob coffee in the morning and porridge if it's cold. Orville on his dock and on my deck.
Prayer on the rocks at dawn. The Anglican daily office. (Not "The Office!") The laptop and eight new talks (lectures?) for the fall on "Why Be a Christian."
Don't wish me luck. Calvinists don't like luck, and are embarrassed by good luck when they get it. Wish me Godspeed.
Schrijf niet even spoedig terug.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Humor of John Calvin
That would be a very short book. John Calvin, one of the founders of the Reformed Church, is a crab. It's true. He's a great theologian, and a great scholar, and a wonderful commentator on scripture, and, more than anyone else, the father of modernity (really!), but he just ain't very charming. Everyone considers him a monster. Well, he had irritable bowel syndrome, or something, and he was so damn smart that everybody bugged him. Poor guy.
He gets the worst press in the world. He gets dumped on for everything. The poor suck. He gets mistreated by pundits and ignored by historians. The public school curriculums have been telling students for years that we get democracy from Athens, when actually we get it from Geneva. Oh well.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson considers herself a Calvinist. She lives in Iowa; there are many Calvinists in Iowa. I consider myself a Calvinist. Am I the only Calvinist in Park Slope? I don't think my wife is a Calvinist.
Right now I am reading Calvin on the Gospel of John in preparation for my sermon this coming Sunday. And I've been laughing out loud. He's the Don Rickles of theology. This is what he writes, and tell me if you don't think it's hilarious:
John 14, v. 12. Verily, verily, I say unto you. All that he had hitherto told his disciples about himself, so far as it regarded them, was temporal; and therefore, if he had not added this clause, the consolation would not have been complete; particularly since our memory is so short, when we are called to consider the gifts of God. On this subject it is unnecessary to go to others for examples; for, when God has loaded us with every kind of blessings, if he pause for fourteen days, we fancy that he is no longer alive.
He gets the worst press in the world. He gets dumped on for everything. The poor suck. He gets mistreated by pundits and ignored by historians. The public school curriculums have been telling students for years that we get democracy from Athens, when actually we get it from Geneva. Oh well.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson considers herself a Calvinist. She lives in Iowa; there are many Calvinists in Iowa. I consider myself a Calvinist. Am I the only Calvinist in Park Slope? I don't think my wife is a Calvinist.
Right now I am reading Calvin on the Gospel of John in preparation for my sermon this coming Sunday. And I've been laughing out loud. He's the Don Rickles of theology. This is what he writes, and tell me if you don't think it's hilarious:
John 14, v. 12. Verily, verily, I say unto you. All that he had hitherto told his disciples about himself, so far as it regarded them, was temporal; and therefore, if he had not added this clause, the consolation would not have been complete; particularly since our memory is so short, when we are called to consider the gifts of God. On this subject it is unnecessary to go to others for examples; for, when God has loaded us with every kind of blessings, if he pause for fourteen days, we fancy that he is no longer alive.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Squad One
Hooray for Squad One. Park Slope people know. But do Park Slope people know how far they go?
I sit at my window in the mornings, at home in Windsor Terrace, looking out over Prospect Park Southwest, almost in Kensington. Often I'll see the Squad One truck racing down P.P.S.W., off to somewhere south in Brooklyn.
Did you know they go this far? Of course you had an inkling, you knew they went to the World Trade Center, one of the first, and that fourteen died there. But then they weren't the only truck that went there, so maybe you thought it was extraordinary.
But apparently it's normal for them. I don't know how often they go to Manhattan, but I do know, from my perch above Prospect Park Southwest, how often they to to places in Brooklyn most Park Slopers have never been to.
John Wesley said, "The world is my parish." Well, for Squad One it's not the world, but it is a lot of Brooklyn. Hooray for Squad One.
I sit at my window in the mornings, at home in Windsor Terrace, looking out over Prospect Park Southwest, almost in Kensington. Often I'll see the Squad One truck racing down P.P.S.W., off to somewhere south in Brooklyn.
Did you know they go this far? Of course you had an inkling, you knew they went to the World Trade Center, one of the first, and that fourteen died there. But then they weren't the only truck that went there, so maybe you thought it was extraordinary.
But apparently it's normal for them. I don't know how often they go to Manhattan, but I do know, from my perch above Prospect Park Southwest, how often they to to places in Brooklyn most Park Slopers have never been to.
John Wesley said, "The world is my parish." Well, for Squad One it's not the world, but it is a lot of Brooklyn. Hooray for Squad One.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Protestant Poetry
I grew up in a traditional church, and that meant I learned a lot of poetry. Maybe not great poetry, but decent poetry. Some doggerel, of course, some mere rhyme, but in spite of that, lots of decent serviceable poetry.
I don't mean the Psalms. Those too, and of course they are poetry, and greatly so.
But what I mean here is the hymns. All the lyrics of the hymns, especially Luther and Watts and Wesley and Doddridge and Cowper and Winkworth. Such great amounts of poetry we regularly repeated growing up, in the form and dress of the hymns we sang.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.
In deep unfathomable mines
of never failing skill
He conjures up his bright designs
and works his sovereign will.
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, how long,
and soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
The earth with its store
of treasures untold,
Almighty, thy power
hath founded of old.
Hath stablished it fast
by a changeless decree,
and round it hath cast,
like a mantle, the sea.
I could go on. And on and on. My head is full of lines like these. I don't have to look them up, I just know them, and there are lots more I could write from memory. I memorized these on Sunday mornings, quite unintentionally, by simply showing up in church.
No, it's not T S Eliot or Chaucer or Spenser. But it is decent poetry that serves a people. It is memorable, it honors its words and makes its images, it expands the mind and delights the ear, and it has grammatical integrity and discipline.
But this body of poetry seems to be invisible to the academic study of literature. Yes, our greatest poetry is admired and given much prestige, but the decent and serviceable poetry that nourished ordinary people is neglected and dismissed. I can't imagine a graduate student at a university being encouraged to study the common hymns as poetry.
But even in terms of cultural anthropology, isn't it obvous that something like "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" is as significant as any other poem in the English language?
Sadly, our Protestant poetry is being lost to us. Poetry in general is not a value of our culture. And poetry is not a value of our church leadership. Certainly not in my denomination. When our denominational leaders gather us together, all they want to talk about is statistics and organizations and management techniques. They don't want to talk about:
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I'll never, no never desert to his foes.
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.
I don't mean the Psalms. Those too, and of course they are poetry, and greatly so.
But what I mean here is the hymns. All the lyrics of the hymns, especially Luther and Watts and Wesley and Doddridge and Cowper and Winkworth. Such great amounts of poetry we regularly repeated growing up, in the form and dress of the hymns we sang.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.
In deep unfathomable mines
of never failing skill
He conjures up his bright designs
and works his sovereign will.
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, how long,
and soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
The earth with its store
of treasures untold,
Almighty, thy power
hath founded of old.
Hath stablished it fast
by a changeless decree,
and round it hath cast,
like a mantle, the sea.
I could go on. And on and on. My head is full of lines like these. I don't have to look them up, I just know them, and there are lots more I could write from memory. I memorized these on Sunday mornings, quite unintentionally, by simply showing up in church.
No, it's not T S Eliot or Chaucer or Spenser. But it is decent poetry that serves a people. It is memorable, it honors its words and makes its images, it expands the mind and delights the ear, and it has grammatical integrity and discipline.
But this body of poetry seems to be invisible to the academic study of literature. Yes, our greatest poetry is admired and given much prestige, but the decent and serviceable poetry that nourished ordinary people is neglected and dismissed. I can't imagine a graduate student at a university being encouraged to study the common hymns as poetry.
But even in terms of cultural anthropology, isn't it obvous that something like "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" is as significant as any other poem in the English language?
Sadly, our Protestant poetry is being lost to us. Poetry in general is not a value of our culture. And poetry is not a value of our church leadership. Certainly not in my denomination. When our denominational leaders gather us together, all they want to talk about is statistics and organizations and management techniques. They don't want to talk about:
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I'll never, no never desert to his foes.
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Long Distance Grieving
I was on the subway yesterday, reading about each victim of the massacre, and I was sobbing in my seat. I'm glad the car was almost empty. I kept my newspaper up for privacy.
This morning I got an email from our Old First family that moved to Blacksburg two years ago. The mother brought me up to date on the kids, all four of them. And I started to grieve for them too. Quietly crying while at my laptop.
They're safe, they're fine, but I realized how much I missed them. I used to teach them in Sunday School, I used to pray with them and talk to them about God, and I loved to hear what they had to say, not just about God, but about their lives. And then they moved away.
Then when another family announced in November that they were moving to Michigan, with their two little kids, my wife said, "Damn, now we'll never see those kids grow up."
The turnover in our membership is hard to take. You build relationships with people, and then they move away, and all you can do is grieve. You can't hang on to them, they have to join some new congregation where they have gone to live, but you feel it when they're gone. It's a problem in Brooklyn. The turnover, the moving in and out.
And to compound the issue, pastors tend to move around. We leave relationships behind. Our former parishioners have to connect with our successors. I'm in my fifth congregation. I just can't afford to keep connected to the people in my former congregations.
In January a couple from my second congregation had a terrible car accident. He was badly injured, she was killed. I had counseled and married them, they had been our friends. But, not atypically, we hadn't had contact for some years. They have had two pastors since we left. I felt so disconnected. What could I do but grieve at a distance.
It's one of the reasons why so many pastors keep the walls up, why they hold back from opening themelves to their congregations. The emotional outlay is just too great.
Somebody said to me on Sunday that the reason he attends Old First, even though he's Catholic, is that we are "open" with our emotions, we are candid and vulnerable and real. I was grateful that he said that. But I know why many pastors aren't that way---the grief.
This morning I got an email from our Old First family that moved to Blacksburg two years ago. The mother brought me up to date on the kids, all four of them. And I started to grieve for them too. Quietly crying while at my laptop.
They're safe, they're fine, but I realized how much I missed them. I used to teach them in Sunday School, I used to pray with them and talk to them about God, and I loved to hear what they had to say, not just about God, but about their lives. And then they moved away.
Then when another family announced in November that they were moving to Michigan, with their two little kids, my wife said, "Damn, now we'll never see those kids grow up."
The turnover in our membership is hard to take. You build relationships with people, and then they move away, and all you can do is grieve. You can't hang on to them, they have to join some new congregation where they have gone to live, but you feel it when they're gone. It's a problem in Brooklyn. The turnover, the moving in and out.
And to compound the issue, pastors tend to move around. We leave relationships behind. Our former parishioners have to connect with our successors. I'm in my fifth congregation. I just can't afford to keep connected to the people in my former congregations.
In January a couple from my second congregation had a terrible car accident. He was badly injured, she was killed. I had counseled and married them, they had been our friends. But, not atypically, we hadn't had contact for some years. They have had two pastors since we left. I felt so disconnected. What could I do but grieve at a distance.
It's one of the reasons why so many pastors keep the walls up, why they hold back from opening themelves to their congregations. The emotional outlay is just too great.
Somebody said to me on Sunday that the reason he attends Old First, even though he's Catholic, is that we are "open" with our emotions, we are candid and vulnerable and real. I was grateful that he said that. But I know why many pastors aren't that way---the grief.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Atlantic Yards and Two Biblical Images
There are moral issues with the Atlantic Yards development. The moral issues are what the church can speak to. In the American system of church and state, where the state is meant to be neutral in religion, the moral issues need to be addressed by institutions like the church.
It is not for the church finally to judge the Atlantic Yards project, or to approve it or deny it on behalf of the public. That belongs to the government. But the government, in its judgment, must take moral issues into account. And the voice of the church can contribute to the moral discussion which will inform the decisions of the government.
Let me say in passing, that in the case of the Atlantic Yards, the government appears to be prejudiced. It has bypassed the normal processes of public judgment. If the government is supposed to be an umpire or a referee, in this case, it is playing for one of the teams.
That itself is a moral issue. And it's an occupational hazard of government. Governments are drawn to power. No wonder, because governments are designed to manage power and deal in power. We give power to government, that's the point. Or, I should say, that's one point.
The other point is that we give power to government in order to bring justice (and in the case of democracies, liberty and equity) to all the other holders and users of power. What we see so often is how power loves power. Those who are given power for government are drawn to the interests of those who have power from other sources, especially the economic.
The concentration of power is a moral issue, because it affects human freedom and human choices, especially the freedom and choices of the weak and powerless. The Bible regards the secure possession of private property and its protection from eminent domain as a sign of human freedom and dignity. The defining story is 1 Kings 21, the story of Naboth's Vineyard.
Naboth had a vineyard. A little vineyard, because he was a nobody. But it was close to the palace of King Ahab, and Ahab desired it. Had Ahab been king of any other people than Israel, he could have just taken it. It's what kings do. But the Torah forebade it. The Torah protected as sacred the private property of the family. But Queen Jezebel, herself a gentile, and familiar with the ways of gentile kings, found this preposterous. So she used the tools of royal power to get Naboth's vineyard.
They got away with it. God did not intervene. But the anger and judgment of God was made clear, and in the end, the House of Ahab paid. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house." In the Israel of God, not even kings have eminent domain.
The moral issue is what kind of country do we want? What kind of concentrations of power? What protections of private property? Who determines the public good, especially when the differences in scale are so great, and the government is drawn to the interests of the economically powerful? In the Torah, the public good is determined by the interests of the small piece of private property.
The second Biblical image is the Tower of Babel. It's in Genesis 11. The Torah is pretty clear on this. God was against it.
Not because God is against big buildings and skyscrapers as such, but because of the concentration of power which the Tower represents. Such concentrations always require hierarchies, and bosses, and dictators, and centralizations, and the sublimation of the individual to the vision of the leadership.
The second reason that God was against the Tower is because it represents the refusal to accept our limits. We don't know when to stop. We don't know how to say No, Enough.
It's not wholly different from the original sin of Adam in the Garden. The chance to not eat the fruit is what made Adam a human being, and the opportunity to say no to the fruit is what gave him wisdom. He had to use his judgment. He had to accept his limits.
Tragically, Eve and Adam couldn't accept their limit. They wanted more. They wanted to be like gods. And the builders of the Tower of Babel wanted to live among the gods.
I don't know what Frank Gehry wants. I don't know what Bruce Ratner wants or what Marty Markowitz wants. I don't think they want to be like gods. But apparently they don't know when to say, No, Enough.
The Bible is not against development. The Bible does not advocate a return to the garden. The Bible's vision for the future is a city. Buildings, streets, gates, towers. But it requires some moral expertise to judge between one kind of city and another, between, in Biblical terms, Jerusalem and Babylon.
The scale of a project can affect its relative morality. I recently saw the documentary Brooklyn Matters. The scale of this project is astounding. Are people aware that its size is monstrous? It's a moral issue.
It is not for the church finally to judge the Atlantic Yards project, or to approve it or deny it on behalf of the public. That belongs to the government. But the government, in its judgment, must take moral issues into account. And the voice of the church can contribute to the moral discussion which will inform the decisions of the government.
Let me say in passing, that in the case of the Atlantic Yards, the government appears to be prejudiced. It has bypassed the normal processes of public judgment. If the government is supposed to be an umpire or a referee, in this case, it is playing for one of the teams.
That itself is a moral issue. And it's an occupational hazard of government. Governments are drawn to power. No wonder, because governments are designed to manage power and deal in power. We give power to government, that's the point. Or, I should say, that's one point.
The other point is that we give power to government in order to bring justice (and in the case of democracies, liberty and equity) to all the other holders and users of power. What we see so often is how power loves power. Those who are given power for government are drawn to the interests of those who have power from other sources, especially the economic.
The concentration of power is a moral issue, because it affects human freedom and human choices, especially the freedom and choices of the weak and powerless. The Bible regards the secure possession of private property and its protection from eminent domain as a sign of human freedom and dignity. The defining story is 1 Kings 21, the story of Naboth's Vineyard.
Naboth had a vineyard. A little vineyard, because he was a nobody. But it was close to the palace of King Ahab, and Ahab desired it. Had Ahab been king of any other people than Israel, he could have just taken it. It's what kings do. But the Torah forebade it. The Torah protected as sacred the private property of the family. But Queen Jezebel, herself a gentile, and familiar with the ways of gentile kings, found this preposterous. So she used the tools of royal power to get Naboth's vineyard.
They got away with it. God did not intervene. But the anger and judgment of God was made clear, and in the end, the House of Ahab paid. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house." In the Israel of God, not even kings have eminent domain.
The moral issue is what kind of country do we want? What kind of concentrations of power? What protections of private property? Who determines the public good, especially when the differences in scale are so great, and the government is drawn to the interests of the economically powerful? In the Torah, the public good is determined by the interests of the small piece of private property.
The second Biblical image is the Tower of Babel. It's in Genesis 11. The Torah is pretty clear on this. God was against it.
Not because God is against big buildings and skyscrapers as such, but because of the concentration of power which the Tower represents. Such concentrations always require hierarchies, and bosses, and dictators, and centralizations, and the sublimation of the individual to the vision of the leadership.
The second reason that God was against the Tower is because it represents the refusal to accept our limits. We don't know when to stop. We don't know how to say No, Enough.
It's not wholly different from the original sin of Adam in the Garden. The chance to not eat the fruit is what made Adam a human being, and the opportunity to say no to the fruit is what gave him wisdom. He had to use his judgment. He had to accept his limits.
Tragically, Eve and Adam couldn't accept their limit. They wanted more. They wanted to be like gods. And the builders of the Tower of Babel wanted to live among the gods.
I don't know what Frank Gehry wants. I don't know what Bruce Ratner wants or what Marty Markowitz wants. I don't think they want to be like gods. But apparently they don't know when to say, No, Enough.
The Bible is not against development. The Bible does not advocate a return to the garden. The Bible's vision for the future is a city. Buildings, streets, gates, towers. But it requires some moral expertise to judge between one kind of city and another, between, in Biblical terms, Jerusalem and Babylon.
The scale of a project can affect its relative morality. I recently saw the documentary Brooklyn Matters. The scale of this project is astounding. Are people aware that its size is monstrous? It's a moral issue.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Maybach
Today on 60th at Lex I saw an unfamiliar car, a grand touring sedan, very large and impressive. Kind of ugly, though.
I crossed the street to look. It was a Maybach, a specialty label of DaimlerChrysler. They run $350,000. The plates said MD, and I noticed a parking privilege placard on the dashboard, for Cabrini Medical Center.
We might not like it that a doctor has that much disposable income to spend on an ugly car. (Though I'm sure it's got a great ride and great back seats.) But even if we don't like it, we certainly find it tolerable, and our whole health care system supports it.
In different centuries it was clergy who had that kind of excess wealth. We didn't like that either, back then, but we tolerated it, and our whole cultural system supported it.
I don't want to go back to that. But I do notice that, if money expresses cultural value, how much more our culture values the health of the body than the condition of the soul.
I crossed the street to look. It was a Maybach, a specialty label of DaimlerChrysler. They run $350,000. The plates said MD, and I noticed a parking privilege placard on the dashboard, for Cabrini Medical Center.
We might not like it that a doctor has that much disposable income to spend on an ugly car. (Though I'm sure it's got a great ride and great back seats.) But even if we don't like it, we certainly find it tolerable, and our whole health care system supports it.
In different centuries it was clergy who had that kind of excess wealth. We didn't like that either, back then, but we tolerated it, and our whole cultural system supported it.
I don't want to go back to that. But I do notice that, if money expresses cultural value, how much more our culture values the health of the body than the condition of the soul.
Mary from Midwood
Jesus was Jewish, right? Then how come his mother was a Catholic? I mean, she was born Jewish, and she had a bunch of Jewish boys (you can look it up) and she was kind of pushy about her oldest son's career (John 2), but how come on Good Friday she so quickly turned Catholic and became the BVM?
We were never able to turn her Protestant. We did it with St. Paul, we made him a Lutheran. J. S. Bach tried to convert her with his Magnificat, but she made him write it in Latin, not German, and she only politely applauded.
Bernstein made her Puerto Rican, and there's no Pentecostals in West Side Story. But at least he gave her back some real sexuality. Maybe someone could write music for the Magnificat that sounds like "I Feel Pretty." Only, in the gospels it's not about pretty, even though she's like a handmaiden in the palace kitchen that the king has taken notice of.
I wouldn't make her Protestant, but I would make her Jewish again. I'd put her in Midwood, on Avenue P, and have her fiance come from Borough Park. I would give her hair like Carole King, and her nose, and her voice. I want her to sing the Magnificat like, "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet." You go girl.
We were never able to turn her Protestant. We did it with St. Paul, we made him a Lutheran. J. S. Bach tried to convert her with his Magnificat, but she made him write it in Latin, not German, and she only politely applauded.
Bernstein made her Puerto Rican, and there's no Pentecostals in West Side Story. But at least he gave her back some real sexuality. Maybe someone could write music for the Magnificat that sounds like "I Feel Pretty." Only, in the gospels it's not about pretty, even though she's like a handmaiden in the palace kitchen that the king has taken notice of.
I wouldn't make her Protestant, but I would make her Jewish again. I'd put her in Midwood, on Avenue P, and have her fiance come from Borough Park. I would give her hair like Carole King, and her nose, and her voice. I want her to sing the Magnificat like, "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet." You go girl.
Visionary Leadership
Being a "visionary leader" is all the vogue. From Washington to Wall Street to San Jose. Pastors are expected to be visionary leaders too. And that can lead to problems.
My second church was in the countryside of Canada. We had issues. Most of them were cultural. We didn't expect them, because these were Dutch immigrants and their children, and I am considered very Dutch (by Americans) and I even speak the language. But we all found out I was more New Yorker than Dutch. The streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant are not a good nursery for a Dutch personality.
I was out of sorts there. I was determined to love the landscape (a matter of principal for me) so I used to take long walks around the church. The land was flat and open, with straight dirt roads at half-mile sections, and all wide fields with the odd stretch of bog or bush. There were birds and foxes and deer, and you could hear coyotes at night. Parishioners would drive by, see me, and offer me a ride. They didn't get what I was about. Why should they?
We had a conflict raging during my third year there, and my wife and I went for some counseling to an Anglican priest who specialized in helping clergy. One week my assignment was to think about "my vision for my church."
As we were driving to our appointment I told my wife Melody that if she promised not to laugh, I would tell her my vision for our church. When I told her, she broke her promise. I said that, to be honest, if I really tell the truth about my vision, judging by my doodles in my study, my vision for our church was a big tall steeple with a bell in it that you could see and hear from all around the countryside.
Romantic, sentimental, or just plain foolish? If it was right for Groningen and Utrecht and Chartres and Salisbury and thousands of villages in Europe and New England and Quebec, why not our corner of Ontario?
When the guy said "vision," I responded with something visual. I am told that I am overly literal. I always got the color "aqua" wrong as a kid because I thought it should be the color of water and that was kind of brownish-green, like the East River at 67th Street, or at the Battery.
A decade later, in my fourth church, in Michigan--a great big thing with a proud congregation--we were spinning our wheels, and so one of my predecessors, Bud Ridder, whom I came to love, took me out for lunch and said, "Dan, what's your vision for this church?" Oh no, not that again.
I remember going home and thinking, "Vision shmision, they asked me to come here to be their pastor, and I came. What else do they want. I have no vision for this church. I have a scripture lesson every week to preach on and they have kids for us to catechize and troubles for us to help them through. They asked me to be their pastor. Here I am. Who said anything about a Vision?"
So I spent the next year working on my "vision." I attended seminars and confabs. Finally, one day, it hit me, in California. My buddy Orville and I were driving up to Big Sur. We had just attended a conference at the Crystal Cathedral and it was "vision" from morning to night.
Orville was driving, he was turning right at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and I said, "Orv, I have to go to Brooklyn." He asked why. "Because I suddenly see what my vision is, and if I tell my church they won't want it." He said, "You don't know that. You have to give them a chance."
I did. I presented it. They turned it down. Definitively. They said, "We like you, Daniel, as our pastor, but we don't like your vision, we don't want to go where you want to lead us."
Eventually I got to Brooklyn. I told the search committee the same things I had said in Grand Rapids, and they said yes.
And last week, a new person at our worship service told me that what she felt in our church was "room." I was moved and more than gratified to hear her say that because "room," a visual category, has been a key part of my vision for Old First. If she felt it, it means we are achieving it, and that suggests that I am, at least minimally, a visionary leader.
I guess it's a good thing we already have a big steeple. (It might be the tallest in Brooklyn.) Otherwise I'd be imagining that all day. And as I tramp around this landscape (which I have loved since my childhood), nobody stops to offer me a ride.
My second church was in the countryside of Canada. We had issues. Most of them were cultural. We didn't expect them, because these were Dutch immigrants and their children, and I am considered very Dutch (by Americans) and I even speak the language. But we all found out I was more New Yorker than Dutch. The streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant are not a good nursery for a Dutch personality.
I was out of sorts there. I was determined to love the landscape (a matter of principal for me) so I used to take long walks around the church. The land was flat and open, with straight dirt roads at half-mile sections, and all wide fields with the odd stretch of bog or bush. There were birds and foxes and deer, and you could hear coyotes at night. Parishioners would drive by, see me, and offer me a ride. They didn't get what I was about. Why should they?
We had a conflict raging during my third year there, and my wife and I went for some counseling to an Anglican priest who specialized in helping clergy. One week my assignment was to think about "my vision for my church."
As we were driving to our appointment I told my wife Melody that if she promised not to laugh, I would tell her my vision for our church. When I told her, she broke her promise. I said that, to be honest, if I really tell the truth about my vision, judging by my doodles in my study, my vision for our church was a big tall steeple with a bell in it that you could see and hear from all around the countryside.
Romantic, sentimental, or just plain foolish? If it was right for Groningen and Utrecht and Chartres and Salisbury and thousands of villages in Europe and New England and Quebec, why not our corner of Ontario?
When the guy said "vision," I responded with something visual. I am told that I am overly literal. I always got the color "aqua" wrong as a kid because I thought it should be the color of water and that was kind of brownish-green, like the East River at 67th Street, or at the Battery.
A decade later, in my fourth church, in Michigan--a great big thing with a proud congregation--we were spinning our wheels, and so one of my predecessors, Bud Ridder, whom I came to love, took me out for lunch and said, "Dan, what's your vision for this church?" Oh no, not that again.
I remember going home and thinking, "Vision shmision, they asked me to come here to be their pastor, and I came. What else do they want. I have no vision for this church. I have a scripture lesson every week to preach on and they have kids for us to catechize and troubles for us to help them through. They asked me to be their pastor. Here I am. Who said anything about a Vision?"
So I spent the next year working on my "vision." I attended seminars and confabs. Finally, one day, it hit me, in California. My buddy Orville and I were driving up to Big Sur. We had just attended a conference at the Crystal Cathedral and it was "vision" from morning to night.
Orville was driving, he was turning right at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and I said, "Orv, I have to go to Brooklyn." He asked why. "Because I suddenly see what my vision is, and if I tell my church they won't want it." He said, "You don't know that. You have to give them a chance."
I did. I presented it. They turned it down. Definitively. They said, "We like you, Daniel, as our pastor, but we don't like your vision, we don't want to go where you want to lead us."
Eventually I got to Brooklyn. I told the search committee the same things I had said in Grand Rapids, and they said yes.
And last week, a new person at our worship service told me that what she felt in our church was "room." I was moved and more than gratified to hear her say that because "room," a visual category, has been a key part of my vision for Old First. If she felt it, it means we are achieving it, and that suggests that I am, at least minimally, a visionary leader.
I guess it's a good thing we already have a big steeple. (It might be the tallest in Brooklyn.) Otherwise I'd be imagining that all day. And as I tramp around this landscape (which I have loved since my childhood), nobody stops to offer me a ride.
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