Category: Meanderings

Playing Through

OUCH!! Bishop Suspended Over Facebook Comments About Royal Wedding (via Mashable)

A Church of England bishop has been suspended indefinitely after posting a series of negative comments on Facebook about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement.

Pete Broadbent, the bishop of Willesden, wrote that their marriage would last a mere seven years and that their wedding day would be full of “nauseating tosh,” according to The Guardian.

“We need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can’t stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event,” he wrote.

The comments have since gone public, inciting the dismay of politicians and fellow members of the Church. Broadbent has since issued an apology, but it was not enough to save him from suspension.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Broadbent’s superior, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres, said, “I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice.”

via mashable.com

Anne Jackson suggests we learn to appreciate this abundant resource in “My Toxic Bottle of Water” (via Anne Jackson).

I have a terrible habit of not finishing beverages.

Size doesn’t matter. Whether it’s a 16 oz bottle of water or an 8 oz tiny can of Diet Coke, I don’t finish it.

Bottled water for some reason takes the brunt of my compulsion. It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are times where I’ll just take a sip or two of a bottle of water and never touch it again.

Such was the case with the bottle of water in my car. It was the middle of August and on this particular day I grabbed a bottle of water on my way out to run errands. I took two sips and it had been boiling in my car ever since.

On my way home from visiting a friend a few days later, I realized I was extremely thirsty. I hadn’t had a bit of water all day.

via annejacksonwrites.com

Pay attention to tradition and let the accretions go in “When Is a Pipe Organ Just a Pipe Organ?” (via Alban)

Why do churches like this one, and so many others today, fight so strenuously over tradition, only to give up their tradition a generation later? The answer is that they aren’t fighting over traditions. They are fighting over accretions. People confuse accretions with traditions, and this confusion leads to worship wars.

Adrian van Kaam, a Roman Catholic priest and spiritual writer with whom I studied in the early 1990s, describes a tradition as the body of wisdom and practices that the church passes down from age to age. It connects us to the Holy. It binds us in faith with all who have come before us. According to van Kaam, we cannot be intentional about connecting with the Holy through our practices until we are able to distinguish between what is accretional and what is foundational to a tradition.

In its original meaning, an accretion is a buildup of sediment atop a rock formation or within water or soil. The sediment is not the foundation. It is the dirt, sand, or eroded minerals that accumulate over time. We confuse this junk with a foundation because it often either surrounds a foundation or is infused in it. When it comes to religious and spiritual practices, accretions are practices that build up around a tradition and become the ways a tradition is embodied in any day and age. For example, singing to God in worship is a foundational tradition. The songs we sing, which change from era to era, are the accretions. So singing is foundational, but whether we sing classical hymns, gospel, Taizé chants, a cappella psalms, or contemporary songs, they are all accretions. Instrumental music in church is foundational, but the use of an organ is accretional. While pipe organs date back to the eighth century and have been used in cathedrals and churches for centuries, they really only came into widespread, common use in the United States between 1860 and 1920. Thus, they are part of our musical accretions, not our musical foundations.

via alban.org

Some mornings you just need to laugh with Jon Achuff. Check out “Awkward moments with Ke$ha” (via Stuff Christians Like)

Awkward moments with Ke$ha.

November 22, 2010 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

As an author, you have a pretty fantastical expectation of what a book signing event is going to be like. You imagine dozens, if not hundreds of people. You envision a scene like Wal-mart during Black Friday, people shoving each other, old ladies knocked askew or at the very least, akimbo.

The truth is, it’s never like that.

A book signing event can be wildly awkward.

You, as the author, essentially stand next to the creative project you’ve worked hardest on. It is the culmination of a lifelong dream. Then you watch as someone walks up, flips through it, shrugs in apathy and then walks away without the book.

It’s like a chef standing beside your table waiting anxiously for you to have a bite of what they just made you.

That’s exactly what happened to me at the National Youth Workers Convention. While talking with a girl, two of her friends walked up. In an exciting tone she said, “Hey! Have you guys ever read the blog Stuff Christians Like?” They looked at her with disdain and said, “No.” She continued, “It’s awesome and this book is hilarious, you should check it out.” They literally looked me over, stared at the book and then shrugged, refusing to even pick it up. We all then stood there for a few tense seconds, like a Mexican standoff that the most interesting man in the world didn’t show up for.

So I said, “Wow, we all just shared an awkward moment, didn’t we?” The two youth ministers looked at me and then walked away without saying a word.

That was awkward, but for some reason those kind of moments happen to me often. And once we’re in up to our knees, I figure we might as well dive all the way in. Don’t pretend it’s not awkward, let’s do the backstroke.

But awkward moments happen more in Christianity than I think we realize. Awkward conversations, awkward inter digit handholding at church with complete strangers and awkward brushes with pop culture.

I had one of the latter recently while listening to the radio.

Ke$ha, who is from where I live, has a new song. In it, she mentions that she wears a “Jesus necklace.” Awww, isn’t that great? Jesus got a shout out? Every rapper on the planet name drops God, but Ke$ha actually mentioned Jesus. That’s great.

But then you start to listen to the other lyrics and realize it’s a little awkward.

Here are the lyrics:

“And no you don’t want to mess with us, got Jesus on my necklace.”

That’s not so bad. I mean it seems a little violent, but doesn’t Matthew 11:12 say, From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” Maybe Ke$ha is quoting the book of Matthew. What are the next lyrics?

“I’ve got that glitter on my eyes.”

Hey, that’s good. Vacation Bible School is all about the glitter! This song is a great VBS song! What’s the next line?

“Stocking ripped all up the side.”

Ohh, not going to be able to use that one at VBS after all. My bad, I jumped the gun. Let’s give the lyrics one more try. Maybe she ends with a shout out to the Holy Ghost. Nobody does that.

“Looking sick and sexy-fied.”

Is that how you spell that word? I know I before E and other rules but I always forget if you drop the Y to an I when writing sexified. I’d ask Ke$ha, but one of the rules my grandfather always told me was, “Never take grammar lessons from someone who spells their name with a dollar sign.” I can’t ask her. I’m sorry, that’s just how I was raised.

Turns out the Jesus line was just used to for the rhyme. She needed words that fit. Maybe we can help her out today. Let’s give Kesha (I can’t keep spelling that with a $) some alternative lyrics for that Jesus line.

You have to rhyme it to the preceding line. I’ll give you a few of my own ideas:

“And no you don’t want to mess with us,”

Alternative lyrics:

1. The Kardashian credit card is ridiculous

2. And no I’m not going to say a cuss

3. The Acuff girls don’t eat their crust

4. Buying Jon’s new book is a must

5. Oxidation is fancy talk for rust

Your turn, what lyric would you write instead of “got Jesus on my necklace.”

via stuffchristianslike.net

Donald Miller laments how many of us are “Living From Our Squirrel Brain” and this is driving him (and me) nuts. (via Donald Miller)

I was recently troubled to learn I think like a squirrel.

A friend told me a story a while back about a squirrel he saw on the deck of his condo. He put a couple nuts out one day, and the squirrel came back the next day looking for more nuts. So he opened his sliding door, and placed a nut just inside. The squirrel studied the distance he’d have to run to get in and out of the house, then took the chance, grabbed the nut and escaped back to his tree. Each day my friend would bring the squirrel further inside the house, until, after a few weeks, he could feed the squirrel from his hand. Awesome story. Except for what happened next.

My friend decided to stop feeding the squirrel. And the squirrel went nuts. The squirrel put it’s paws (whatever they are) on the glass door and shook it, chirping and squelching at my friend to let it in to get it’s nut. My friend tried to scare it off, but the animal only hissed at my friend. My friend now hates squirrels. He thinks they are spoiled animals and essentially slightly cuter than rats, though less friendly and human like.

via donmilleris.com

Donald Miller laments how many of us are “Living From Our Squirrel Brain” and this is driving him (and me) nuts. (via Donald Miller)

I was recently troubled to learn I think like a squirrel.

A friend told me a story a while back about a squirrel he saw on the deck of his condo. He put a couple nuts out one day, and the squirrel came back the next day looking for more nuts. So he opened his sliding door, and placed a nut just inside. The squirrel studied the distance he’d have to run to get in and out of the house, then took the chance, grabbed the nut and escaped back to his tree. Each day my friend would bring the squirrel further inside the house, until, after a few weeks, he could feed the squirrel from his hand. Awesome story. Except for what happened next.

My friend decided to stop feeding the squirrel. And the squirrel went nuts. The squirrel put it’s paws (whatever they are) on the glass door and shook it, chirping and squelching at my friend to let it in to get it’s nut. My friend tried to scare it off, but the animal only hissed at my friend. My friend now hates squirrels. He thinks they are spoiled animals and essentially slightly cuter than rats, though less friendly and human like.

via donmilleris.com

Jake Kircher asks “Is the Church Lost?” and suggests others ways of evaluating good churches. (via RELEVANT Magazine)

The fact is, the questions we use to assess our churches are not the same questions that God wants us to ask.

In Crazy Love, Francis Chan writes, “God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.”

This love is uncomfortable and it means sometimes listening to music that’s not your style or understanding a sermon that didn’t do much for you might have helped someone else that Sunday. It means that sometimes church isn’t big and cutting edge, but small and simple. More so, it means not coming to a church focused on consuming but instead coming to give and serve.

Christians must understand that God does not define “good” churches by the quality of their programs, the size of membership or the look and feel of a facility. Focusing on those things can cause us to completely miss the point of what God actually wants of His Church. God has called us to draw near to Him, share the freedom and life of Jesus, and to love and serve others. Everything else must come second to these goals.

via relevantmagazine.com