STOP!!!

Someone is doing descending scales on the carillon - over, and over, and over. My window is directly across from the carillon. I am trying to write a paper. I am annoyed.

(Ok, they finally stopped. I'm confused still, because the scales stopped and then the person rang three bells, as though for chapel, and as far as I know we have no Friday night 7:35 service. But it's quiet again.)

Public Service Announcement

Not everyone is cut out to preach without notes.

Of this, I am living proof. Oi.

I look forward to coming back and writing out the manuscript version for next Thursday. In the meantime, I am pleading with the Holy Spirit for help, because tomorrow morning I have to do it note-free for class.

Did I mention I'm really not good at this?

Spottish

The next week will be one of those where I'll either be posting six times a day, or not at all. Some of you may remember a month or so ago when I announced that I was booked the last weekend of April... well, it's here.

Tomorrow, for instance:
8-8:30 cantor rehearsal
8:30-9 matins
9-11 work
11-12 choir
12-1 chair anti-racism meeting
1-3 class
3-4 spiritual direction
4:15-6 softball
Then dinner and homework - which will be entirely sermon prep for Friday's class, since I'm not as well prepared yet as I wanted to be by now. Which is not for lack of thought or time given to it - it's just coming very slowly.

In the next week, I have one large paper (on which I'm already behind my schedule), two sermons (one to be preached twice), one smaller paper, one project, and one reflection due. Plus, you know, reading and stuff.

A-Z

Another meme. Oh, and apparently it's not Ebert's list on the last one, it's someone else's.

Accent: standard Midwest (slight Ohio quality)

Booze: Champagne is my favorite, but mostly I drink red wine in the winter, beer or gin-tonic in the summer.

Chore I Hate: cleaning the shower

Dog or Cat: I'd like a dog. I like to sit for dogs. But I have no pets.

Essential Electronics: computer, tv/DVD player, iPod, car music

Favorite Cologne(s): I don't wear any myself, but I like it when my clothes and hair pick up liturgical smells like incense or healing oil.

Gold or Silver: silver

Hometown: near Cleveland

Insomnia: not generally

Job Title: Seminarian

Kids: I have none. I'd like to have some, but first I need at least an income and preferably a partner of some sort.

Living arrangements: grad student dorm

Most admirable trait: my own most admirable trait - probably loyalty; what I most admire in others is wisdom

Number of sexual partners: that's kind of an odd question...

Overnight hospital stays: Yes. One as a kid, then... four or five, maybe? last year.

Phobias: Possum. I'm trying not to freak out just typing that.

Quote: "Wherever there is unity in diversity, then we are free to be ourselves; it cannot be done in isolation; we need each other." ~Madeleine L'Engle

Religion: I'm thoroughly Anglican, and not in a separatist way. I'm finding myself more at home in the Anglo-Catholic part than in any other, right now, but I like a lot of different parts.

Siblings: One younger brother.

Time I wake up: 8 am, most weekdays.

Unusual talent or skill: I have incredibly flexible ankles and high arches, so I can point my toes and touch the floor with my leg stuck straight out.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Canned ones.

Worst habit: taking on too much, maybe? there's a bunch.

X-rays: Teeth, chest, I think a variety of others but I stopped keeping track.

Yummy foods I make: red beans and garlic rice; scones; potato soup; veggie chili... I like to cook, when I have a kitchen and people to eat the food.

Zodiac sign: Libra. I think. Maybe. I can't decide... :)

Movies I Haven't Seen

I'm having significant problems summoning the wakefulness and energy to write my paper right now. Ergo, I offer a meme - this is Roger Ebert's list of movies everyone should see, via One Bright Star (to whom I'd link except I'm tired and lazy), with the ones I've seen in bold and the ones I've partly seen in italics.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
"The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut
"8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog
"Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott
"All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
"Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
"Bambi" (1942) Disney
"Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler
"The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
"The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica
"The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks
"Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott
"Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
"Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch
"Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Arthur Penn
"Breathless" (1959) Jean-Luc Godard
"Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks
"Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
"Casablanca" (1942) Michael Curtiz
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
"Children of Paradise" / "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne
"Chinatown" (1974) Roman Polanski
"Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles
"A Clockwork Orange" (1971) Stanley Kubrick
"The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise
"Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick
"Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel
"Do the Right Thing" (1989) Spike Lee
"La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini
"Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964) Stanley Kubrick
"Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) Steven Spielberg
"Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
"The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner
"The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
"Fargo" (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
"Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
"Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
"The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
"The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming
"GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
"The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
"Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester
"Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith
"It's A Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra
"Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg
"The Lady Eve" (1941) Preston Sturges
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean
"M" (1931) Fritz Lang
"Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller
"The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) John Frankenheimer
"Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang
"Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
"Nashville" (1975) Robert Altman
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero
"North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
"Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau
"On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone
"Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier
"Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman
"Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters
"Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
"Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
"Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa
"Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray
"Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks
"Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski
"Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir
"Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks
"The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg
"Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg
"The Searchers" (1956) John Ford
"The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa
"Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder
"A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor
"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
"Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
"The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed
"Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
"Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) John Huston
"Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
"Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
"West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
"The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah
"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming

Thoughts?

The Happy Feminist has a post today considering what responsibility women bear for men's lust, particularly as it affects the way they dress.* This is a topic I've gone over and over in my mind without ever coming to a satisfactory conclusion, and I'd be interested to hear what y'all think about the issue. (I surmise that Happy Feminist and I have some overlap in reader demographic, but some major distinctions there too.) So go, read what she has to say and check out the comments thread, and let me know how you might reconcile feminism and Christianity on this one.

*I'm very aware that women lust after other women, too, and that some of the problems of dress carry across gender boundaries, but I'm not quite ready to broaden the conversation just that far at this moment. Right now, I'm interested in the M-F interaction - which is at least somewhat pertinent no matter what one's sexuality, I think.

Good to know

There's a piece of paper in front of me informing me that I'm a Candidate for Holy Orders.

Ew.

Cockroach. In. My. Teakettle.

I just looked at a tape measure to check, and the thing had to be at least two inches long. I am not given to exaggerating or freaking out about bugs, but neither am I accustomed to finding two-inch cockroaches In My Teakettle (which we used last night).

Cockroach, you have your home and I have mine. They are not the same place. Please advise.

(Of course, Cockroach has just taken a three-story dive out the window and may not be paying much attention right now....)

Ew.

Welcome, happy morning!

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
I'm always delighted beyond words, and a little relieved, to hear those words again.

It feels strange not to be in church at 10 am on a Sunday, but that seems to have been the appropriate decision for this year. Instead, since we didn't sing it this morning, I offer my favorite Easter hymn:

"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say:
hell today is vanquished, heaven is won today!
Lo! the dead is living, God for evermore!
Him their true Creator, all his works adore!
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Earth her joy confesses, clothing her for spring
All fresh gifts return with her returning King:
bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,
speak his sorrow ended, hail his triumph now.
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Months in due succession, days of lengthening light,
hours and passing moments praise thee in their flight.
Brightness of the morning, sky and fields and sea,
Vanquisher of darkness, bring their praise to thee.
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Maker and Redeemer, life and health of all,
thou from heaven beholding human nature's fall,
of the Father's Godhead, true and only Son,
mankind to deliver, manhood didst put on.
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Thou, of life the author, death didst undergo,
tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;
come then, true and faithful, now fulfill thy word,
'tis thy own third morning! rise, O buried Lord!
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Loose the souls long prisoned, bound with Satan's chain;
all that now is fallen raise to life again;
show thy face in brightness, bid the nations see;
bring again our daylight: day returns with thee!
"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say!

Confession?

There's not much for me to say about Good Friday - Good Friday pretty well speaks for itself. So instead, I'll bare to the world all the signs of my relative wealth.

Do you have:
(1) your own cell phone
(2) a television in your bedroom (it's not precisely in the bedroom - it's cleverly located so that I can watch it from any room in the suite - but yes, I can watch tv from bed.
(3) an MP3 player
( ) a photo printer
( ) own phone line
( ) TiVo or a generic digital video recorder
(4) high-speed internet access (i.e., not dialup)
( ) a surround sound system in bedroom
(5) DVD player in bedroom (see the tv thing)
( ) at least a hundred DVDs
(6) a childfree bathroom
(7) your own in-house office
( ) a pool
( ) a guest house
( ) a game room
( ) a queen-size bed or larger
( ) a stocked bar
( ) a working dishwasher
(8) an icemaker (well, it's not mine, it's in the refectory, but I can access pre-made ice without going outside)
(9) a working washer and dryer (ditto number 8, except it's in the basement proper, not the refectory)
(10) more than 20 pairs of shoes (although it depends on how you count - I have 15 pairs of street shoes and 2 pairs of dance shoes here in Evanston, but I still have at least seven pairs of dance shoes at my parents', and possibly some street shoes too - at least my creeking shoes are there)
( ) at least ten things from a designer store
( ) expensive sunglasses
( ) framed original art (not lithographs or prints) (I suppose technically I do, but I made the art, so I don't think that's what they mean)
(11) Egyptian cotton sheets or towels
(12) a multi-speed bike (it is, however, in Ohio and unusable)
( )a gym membership)
( ) your own set of golf clubs
( ) a pool table
( ) a tennis court
(13) local access to a lake, large pond, or the sea
( ) your own pair of skis
( ) enough camping gear for a weekend trip in an isolated area
( ) a boat
( ) a jet ski
( ) a neighborhood committee membership
( ) a beach house or a vacation house/cabin
(14) wealthy family members (not incredibly wealthy, but as far as I'm concerned, yes)
( ) two or more family cars
( ) a walk-in closet or pantry (I am not counting the kitchen half-room)
( ) a yard
( ) a hammock
( ) a personal trainer
(15) good credit
( ) expensive jewelry
( ) a designer bag that required being on a waiting list to get
( ) at least $100 cash in your possession right now
( ) more than two credit cards bearing your name (not counting gas cards or debit cards)
(16) a stock portfolio
(17) a passport
( ) a horse
( ) a trust fund (either for you or created by you)
(18) private medical insurance (at least in theory)
(19) a college degree, and no outstanding student loans

Do you:
( ) shop for non-needed items for yourself (like clothes, jewelry, electronics) at least once a week
( ) do your regular grocery shopping at high-end or specialty stores
( ) pay someone else to clean your house, do dishes, or launder your clothes (not counting dry cleaning)
( ) go on weekend mini-vacations
( ) send dinners back with every flaw
( ) wear perfume or cologne
( ) regularly get your hair styled or nails done in a salon
( ) have a job but don't need the money OR
( ) stay at home with little financial sacrifice
( ) pay someone else to cook your meals
( ) pay someone else to watch your children or walk your dogs
( ) regularly pay someone else to drive your taxis
( ) expect a gift after you fight with your partner

Are you:
( ) an only child
( ) married/partnered to a wealthy person
( ) baffled/surprised when you don't get your way

Have you:
( ) been on a cruise
(20) traveled out of the country
( ) met a celebrity
( ) been to the Caribbean
( ) been to Hawaii
(21) been to New York
( ) eaten at the space needle in Seattle
( ) been to the Mall of America
(22) been on the Eiffel tower in Paris
(23) been on the Statue of Liberty in New York (really, I've been in this, not on it, but ok)
( ) moved more than three times because you wanted to
( ) dined with local political figures
(24) been to both the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast

Did you:
( ) go to another country for your honeymoon
( ) hire a professional photographer for your wedding or party
(25) took riding or swimming lessons as a child
( ) attend private school (I'm guessing this means elementary/secondary, not college?)
(26) have a Sweet 16 birthday party

I heart

this post.

Spring

has definitely arrived. Today I saw an inch-long cockroach on the stairs on my way to morning prayer, and now a Japanese beetle is flying bopping breakdancing around my room.

Palm Sunday

I've had various bits of unfinished thoughts floating around my head all day, none of them ready for a post. Since it's been a couple of days, though, I'll share the Palm Sunday sermon I preached in class Friday, which is of course already written. I didn't preach it absolutely precisely according to the script, but this is pretty close. (I should probably note that the audience for this sermon was a classroom full of seminary people, not a parish congregation.)

*******

Palm Sunday makes me batty. We start out with a beautiful liturgy of palms, which fits well into the Lenten progression of time through the Gospel, and then bam! before the service is over, Jesus is dead – except, not really, because we’ve still got Maundy Thursday and Good Friday ahead of us, and he can’t really die until we hear it from John’s Gospel on Friday. We’re expected to fit all of Holy Week into Palm Sunday - not giving anything away for those who will actually be around for the Triduum, but also making sure that the people who won't be back until Easter don't walk in and say "Jesus died?" I just don’t understand Palm Sunday.

Add it to the list of things I don’t understand about Holy Week. Palm Sunday, I can scoot by on. Last year, I had a much more terrifying realization during Holy Week: when Good Friday came, I discovered that I didn’t know who Jesus was. And in fact, a year later, after courses in systematic theology, in New Testament, in biblical theology, I can report that I still don’t know who Jesus is.

Don’t get me wrong here - I both loved and passed those courses, and wrote more than one of my papers on who Christ is and what the cross means. In fact, my final paper for theology talked about that Good Friday experience and how Dr. Wondra’s Magic Chart describing the main theologies of the work of Christ had helped me find some clarity about the matter. And it was all true. Theologically - or, more accurately, intellectually - I can manage. I can do the mental gymnastics. But it’s like taking an online quiz: “What’s your soteriology?” So I can confidently tell you that on that quiz, I scored as a mix of Christus Victor and union/communion with God - God is the agent of our salvation, we experience sin as having power over us, reconciliation plays out in union with God, etc. That’s my preferred theological understanding of Christ and salvation.

I just don’t know who Jesus is. I don’t get it, deep in my gut, even after a year of letting it marinate, just as I know in my gut that it doesn’t make sense to skip straight from the procession into Jerusalem to the crucifixion. This year, though, I think I'm ok with that.

I’d still prefer to know. I’m used to knowing things. I like knowing things. That’s where I’m comfortable, is learning and knowing and understanding things inside and out. And I still think it’s important to keep pushing at that understanding. But it’s ok, for now, that I don’t entirely understand this.

Thinking about the Palm Sunday propers this week, I started humming a song that I hadn’t thought about in several years, at least since college. It says:

Listen to the Lord as he speaks softly
Listen to the words of a perfect man
Listen to the miracle of God incarnate
Listen even when you don’t understand

We used to sing it as a round, so that the last line would echo - “listen even when you don’t understand, understand, understand.” That’s how it sounded in my head this week, too. And as powerful as that line can be in the middle of July, I think it speaks especially directly to us as we prepare to enter Holy Week. Listen even when you don’t understand. Not “listen to hear x, y, or z” – as I learned last year, we don’t get to qualify what we’re willing to hear. Just listen.

So that will be my discipline for the rest of Lent this year, as we head through Holy Week. I’m asking for God’s help in trying to unclench my intellect’s iron grip, and in listening even when I don’t understand. I expect to understand very little, this week - and perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to work. But I’ll be listening, and I invite you to listen with me, as we move through the marvelous, terrible, mysterious events of Holy Week, watching and hoping for Easter.

Softball!

So, the Saints won our first softball game of the season last night. That might not sound like particularly amazing to many, but the Saints... have a bit of trouble, sometimes, beating teams of any sort, and especially teams of in-shape college students (our average age is probably 10 years older than theirs). So a win was exciting. Getting to play in the infield was also exciting. I'm not a great player, but the chances of my doing something well improve if I don't have to throw too far.

Tomorrow morning, we have practice. Tomorrow morning during practice, it's forecast to be 38 degrees. Brr.

Sermon update

I should clarify here that I have significant problems with the idea that pride and low self-worth split cleanly along gender lines - my besetting sin is much more pride than lack thereof.

It seems also at this point that this is not the sermon I'll be preaching on Friday. Another one, which I thought was a Good Friday sermon but wrote down anyway because I couldn't get it out of my head, seems now to be appropriate for heading into Holy Week rather than Good Friday itself, and may actually be my sermon for Friday (once it's fleshed out and polished).

Strange day

~At lunch, a friend told me that if I didn't make sure I heard the helpful noise when I closed my ziploc bag, my piranha would get out and eat my flesh. He later offered to piranha-sit for me if I agreed to play softball again this year.

~Also at lunch, the apple I was halfway through eating magically leaped right out of my hand and across the table to hit another classmate in the face. Very out of the ordinary in my world.

~There was a new episode of Gilmore Girls tonight. (Hey, there hasn't been one in weeks. It's become a strange thing.)

~I spent the morning successfully making conversation with various people I don't really know.


Ok, the two top ones are the weirdest part. Now I'm trying to write a sermon about pride and humility, coming out of the propers for Palm Sunday, which is itself a strange thing to me. If anyone has helpful input, particularly about the notion that pride is men's sin and unworthiness is women's, I'm open.

Lately

My mother was here for a few days. We:

~ate a lot
~went to the Botanical Gardens
~went to Ikea
~went to the Talbots Outlet
~walked on the beach during a few exceptionally warm hours
~watched a family history video and a quantum physics and spirituality one
~found me a bridesmaid dress for summer

Pippa was here last night, and will stay tonight as well because of the weather. We:

~ate dinner with Hope and Andrew
~read
~welcomed prospective students
~played Uno and Zigity
~went to church
~ate pizza with prospective students
~sang evensong with prospective students

Now we're watching Hook, and then we will go to bed, because that's what people do at night.

Coffins!

My mother is visiting right now. (Hurray!) She brought with her a DVD that traces the American Coffins (her father's family) directly back all the way to 1066 - the family estate is listed in the Domesday Book. How cool is that?

Coincidentally, to enter the estate you pass between two pineapple-topped posts. To enter my parents' house through the garage, you walk into a pineapple-decorated family room.

This is very exciting.

*Ok, and parts of the house are timbers from the wreckage of the Spanish Armada, as it washed up on the shores!

**And it has a monk's cell, for the monk who lived on the property to run the family chapel!

And the nearby church had close ties to the family, and the Coffin pew (way up front) is still there, though the family now sits with the congregation.

In the clear, more or less

18.75 %

My weblog owns 18.75 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

I'm surprised it's that high - I suspect it has a lot to do with my membership in multiple webrings.

And now, a musical interlude:

On the fourth Lenten Sunday, my task list showed to me:

12 dirty dishes
11 loads of laundry
10 sources to find
9 verses to translate
8 preaching chapters
7 emails to send
6 trash runs
5 foods to buy
4 history readings
3 rooms to clean
2 beds to make
and an essay to outline and write!

(N.B.: I do not actually live in the kind of filth and squalor this list implies. A visit from Mom at the beginning of spring = spring cleaning. If it was washable, it got washed today. Which is not to say I did the rest of the list - more like half. 11 loads of laundry, it turns out, takes a while, even with three washers and dryers.)