Some things are just plain foolish

One such foolish thing is driving from Glen to Long Island for the evening. It's expensive (gas, tolls), exhausting (especially when it involves encounters with hordes of people headed home from weekend sojourns and to Yankee games and Billy Graham crusades...2 hours on the GW Bridge...ugh), and is bound not to produce the desireable results. I know this because I made such a trip last night to meet with some like-minded RCA individuals and talk about how we should proceed. It was good to see friends and strategize a bit, and I wanted to make sure I expressed my desire that we not leap headlong into the media circus or start wildly bringing retributive charges against everyone in sight. The meeting was brief, and I'm not sure that others will take my concerns to heart, but oh well. By the time I arrived at home at 3am, I had been awake for 21 hours, and having had only 3 hours of sleep the night before, I was a little weary.

I'm not certain it's related to the trip, but today I am physically ill. Not just vaguely nauseous in the way I've been since Norm's trial, but truly sick. My body seems to be purging all that my mind cannot. I'll leave the gory details to your imagination.

It's amazing how the body reacts to mental stress. Mine does so all the time, perhaps in response to the fact that I seem simply incapable of anything resembling self-care. For example, when I graduated from seminary, my house was full of family members (not a relaxing factor), I was about to depart from a pleasant little world that took me three years to create, and I was scheduled to speak as the representative of my graduating class. Emotionally, I felt calm, cool, and collected - shockingly so. But at the rehearsal, someone pointed out that my neck and chest seemed to be sprouting large red welts. Hmmm. By the time I got to the lectern to speak at graduation, only my face remained clear of hot, itchy bumps. I made it through the ceremony and reception, but ended up in the emergency room at 5am, barely able to breathe and so delusional with fever that it didn't occur to me to wake up one of the packed household to drive me to the hospital. It only took a $1,200 IV of Benadryl and considerable incoherent shouting at nurses to restore my skin to normalcy.

Now it appears that my body is again reacting against the stress I willingly take upon myself. Perhaps I am not so different from the "body" of the RCA, which roils and heaves against the stress we've brought upon ourselves by refusing to deal with our conflicts in the past few years. We've just maintained ourselves like good, reserved, Dutch Puritan stock, rather than addressing not only homosexuality (the symptom into which we're currently trying to plug an IV called "dialogue"), but increasing disregard and ignorance of the doctrine and polity on which we are founded.

In the meantime, we're all treating each other like the poison that needs to be purged. Which is sort of like me trying to peel off my skin to get rid of the welts.

I'm not disregarding the potential efficacy of dialogue. After all, we do need to "treat the symptom." But perhaps we need a bit of holistic healing here, a look at the root causes of all this bodily insanity. Fortunately, unless I mistake the whole point of the Church, we do happen to have one heck of a physician...

Stacey, Thy Name is Anathema

anath·e·ma
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin anathemat-, anathema, from Greek, thing devoted to evil, curse, from anatithenai to set up, dedicate, from ana- + tithenai to place, set
1 a: one that is cursed by ecclesiastical authority; b: someone or something intensely disliked or loathed -- usually used as a predicate nominative
2 a: a ban or curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority and accompanied by excommunication; b: the denunciation of something as accursed c : a vigorous denunciation : CURSE

Julio informs me that the Orthodox have an entire service dedicated to the anathematization of iconoclasts, so I guess it should come as no surprise that the word "anathema" is now being used to refer to those of us who, by our support of Dr. Kansfield and advocacy for homosexual persons, have apparently shattered commonly held images of God. Yes, despite the RCA's continued affirmation of their position against same-sex marriage and ordination of those practicing homosexual 'behavior,' some continue to ask whether the entire denomination should be considered ANATHEMA. (Sorry, it's just the kind of word that should be capitalized from time to time.)

It sounds like a fun ritual, and believe me, I would very much like to be able to shout out certain names followed by cries of "Anathema!" Alas, some crap about the communion of saints prevents me from doing so in good conscience.

I often wonder, what is the Church coming to, that we are so willing to declare one another heretics and ANATHEMA? But then I remember that the whole history of the Church is like this, full of people who think they have the exclusive claim on truth. Full of, well, people - faulted, sinful, depraved humans. Not a particularly comforting thought, but then, somehow we trust that God has kept on doing all of that creating, redeeming, and sustaining stuff not only in and through us, but despite us.

Back to the mundane...sort of

Alas, the growth of my lawn did not cease for General Synod. And here I was, thinking the world had surely stopped for such a momentous occasion. Startlingly, the movements of creation have carried on as though unaware of the importance of our decision-making. My grass became a veritable forest while I was obsessing over the RCA, and so I receive a reality check and a broadened perspective on life: God is still at work, and I am still the worst mower of lawns in the history of civilization.

This Sunday I will be preaching on Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel. Am I my brother's keeper? Much to my irritation, God's answer seems to be yes; I am indeed responsible for "keeping" my brother (and sister), for protecting life rather than destroying it. I do not wish to be reminded of this responsibility today. Others have sucked life from me today by slandering my friends, accusing me of ignoring the Bible, and inferring that I preach a watered-down, powerless, self-help-aisle masquerade of the Gospel.

I utilized my time on the lawnmower to calculate stinging responses to my detractors. The great thing about lawnmowers is that they tend to be loud enough that one can talk to oneself aloud without incurring the curiousity of the neighbors. In full preaching voice I composed retorts of such rhetorical power that surely those who dared to challenge me would bow their heads in shame. As the lawnmower plowed through the burgeoning jungle, I just as deftly chopped down my opponents to a meager and manageable height - all within the confines of my mind, of course.

But there's something a little sad about a newly mown lawn, with all the variety of plant life trimmed into uniformity (well, near uniformity, given my complete inability to mow properly). Likewise, remorse crept in as I considered charging in to send out all those responses, and the refrain of my sermon echoed through my anger: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, God prodded me, and their blood, whether literal or figurative, will cry out to me from the ground if you destroy life rather than keeping it.

We Reformed types believe in the power of words. God spoke the world into being, Jesus was called "the Word," the Word of God in Scripture and its preaching are at the center of our worship - and likewise, our words have the power to affect change. Words have the power to wound or to heal, to destroy or to bind up, to kill or to give life. We are responsible for keeping our brothers and sisters with our words.

And so, I will continue my attempt to choose to give life rather than taking it through my words, especially as our conversations surrounding the actions of this year's Synod continue. I will drop my sword and drag my wounded self to the table, with faith that I will find there healing and life in the body and blood of Christ. To those who read this, I hope to meet you there.