A mistake in directions leads to a Sunday morning visit.

Click to enlarge: Luther's Rose, a symbol designed for Martin Luther at the request of John Frederick of Saxony in 1530.

Tomorrow I plan to attend a traditional 8:30am service at a nearby Lutheran church with Dee Dee. A mistake in directions took my wife to their front door. The minister who greeted her, and got her directions straightened out, was very kind.

The church is LCMS (Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod), a conservative confessional Lutheran denomination. This particular church has an early traditional service and a later modern one.

If we have time, Dee Dee and I will get a donut at Tim Horton's after the service and before we pick up Jing and Mimi and head out to Res Life in Rockford (which is much larger and charismatic / nondenominational; we've been there for a few years; well, Jing goes into the service, I stay in the foyer on account of the volume, which is unpredictable and painful, but decibels aside, they are good God-fearing people).

All this depends on my getting up by 7am and getting Dee Dee dressed and combed and fed and into the car by 8:15. But the promise of a donut works wonders (for both of us).

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My great grandfather Bauer was Lutheran, a German immigrant (Grandma Cairns's father).

Grandma Cairns talked a couple times of an image she remembered from childhood: Her father sitting in his chair, his face hidden behind a large bible, and smoke curling up behind it from the pipe he was smoking.

I have a copy of his baptismal certificate somewhere, in German of course, very ornate.

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I consider myself a Baptist, but only because I was baptized a Baptist and have never been anything else, and that was so long ago, that church has long since removed me from the membership role.

For good or bad, Baptists are particular about such matters. In fact, most evangelical denominations are. That seems natural for a system built around local independent churches.

Centralized denominations allow you to carry your membership and privileges with you from town to town, since every church in the group confesses the same thing and (ideally) enforces the same guidelines. Since independent churches can't be sure this is true from one congregation to the next, they make you start over each time you move.

How far back you have to go to start over varies. Most Baptist churches will accept a previous adult baptism by immersion, but they usually won't accept sprinkling or infant baptism. And most will let you participate in communion if you are "saved, since immersed and walking with the Lord," eg, made a decision for Jesus, been baptized by immersion, and are following Jesus today, in that order; but again, some are stricter and will insist on membership or public testimony or attendance, etc.

(I love that phrase, BTW, "since immersed and walking with the Lord"; I heard it each month my whole early life. It's very poetic, part of what you might call a Baptist liturgy.)

[2013-08-06]

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This method of self-directed learning works.

Click to enlarge: In this cartoon, the guru says: "You'd better have a seat - people tend to fall down the mountain when I tell them the meaning of life."

The best way to learn about something is not at the feet of one person who knows a lot about it (though that is not a bad way), but to consume enormous numbers of perspectives on the same topic from a variety of knowledgeable people. Only then can you discern what are likely the most central ideas, likely the most peripheral, and the rhythm among them.

I've listened to a dozen books at least on quantum mechanics and string theory; after the first few, you begin to see the nuts and the bolts. After a few more, the major disagreements among theorists, and after a few more, the intriguing alleys between them where most of the next big ideas are.

I'm not an expert on anything (except writing, and a few folks might dispute that), but I do know this method of self-directed learning works.

 

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"You gotta believe in foolish miracles."
--Ozzy Osbourne

 

 

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In the beginnings... (lessons built on old anticipations)

Click to enlarge: Jacob de Backer, "Garden of Eden." De Backer (c1555-c1585) was a Flemish Mannerist painter in Antwerp.

The beginnings of things occupy a special place in our experience and are often more intense and evocative than the things themselves, such as...

• TV and movie themes
• The opening riffs of a song
• Meal appetizer
• Battle cries
• Foreplay
• Births
• The Pledge of Allegiance
• Starting out on a trip
• Can of pop opening
• Brewing coffee
• Shopping

The list is endless.

Timing is everything: a school bell can mean the beginning of recess or the end of it; a steam whistle once meant your shift was starting or ending. Some sounds mean only one thing, like an alarm clock or crying baby, and are universally despised.

Beginnings are where mistakes are made - shopping while hungry, sex with someone you meet in a bar, trying on an expensive pair of shoes.

Endings are where we achieve our greatest successes - scientific discoveries, religious enlightenment, great novels and music and inventions.

We’re creatures of anticipation. Our next meal, our next  paycheck, our next drink or cigarette or romantic encounter. We live for something that hasn't happened while ignoring a storehouse of lessons built on old anticipations.

[2013-02-20]

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Once upon a time mistakes were only stumbles on the path to restoration.

Click to enlarge:Top: Hill Street Blues’ Phil Esterhaus, played by Michael Conrad, was one of those cops that confronted a bad guy from his earlier days and instead of a confrontation, was gifted with a bible (IIRC). Sheriff Taylor (Andy Griffith) played out the same storyline. In both shows the cop was wary and guarded for the entire show, then speechless at the unexpected actions of the reformed criminal at the end.

There’s is an old TV drama/sitcom plot that goes something like this:

• A cop once arrested a really bad guy and sent him to jail for a long time.

• Many years pass, and the bad guy is out of jail, back in town, and looking for the cop.

• The cop watches his back the entire episode, certain the bad guy is out for revenge.

• The cop and bad guy finally meet. The bad guy puts his hand in his pocket like he’s going to pull out a gun. Instead of a gun, he pulls out a bible.

• The bad guy says something nice about how the cop changed his life, and the cop’s faith in humanity is restored.

This plot line works for westerns and other genres that feature outlaws and peacekeepers.

This never happens on TV anymore unless you’re watching old reruns, snapshots of a time, not too long ago, in which mistakes were only stumbles on the path to restoration, not accumulating layers of tragic flaws that would eventually destroy the stumbler.

Sure, there’ve always been anti-heroes that invite a sort of reluctant admiration for being irredeemably evil (eg, Milton's Satan), but they have no quality outside of the reflection of Good they’re standing in.

We've lost the reflection, like silver backing rubbed off a mirror, or a pond so turbid all you see is undulating mud.

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Click to enlarge:Demon thing from the movie Spawn. I saw the movie in the theaters and couldn't tell you what he was or why I should care.

This isn't just about an aging product of the 70’s (me) reminiscing about how things used be and isn't it a shame tsk tsk kids these days you’da never seen that on TV in my day.

It’s rather a deterioration in decency and moral bearings. Kindness, patience, tolerance have become quaint and naive.

I first experienced this with the film Spawn. I cut work with some colleagues and we went to a matinee showing. One of my coworkers idolized the graphic novels it was based on.

I didn't get it. Evil vs. evil? That’s like flavoring salt with salt. Yeah, you can do it, but what’s the point?

The same coworker was fond of Korn, two members of which have since become Christians.

(No connection, just an interesting aside. Sometimes those you think are utterly lost are just walking on the berm for a while.)

[2013-02-28]

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More Secular Than Thou

Click to enlarge:Top: A piece of stone box discovered during excavation of the Balatlar Church in the northern province of Sinop, Turkey. Archaeologists say the stone box contained what its owners believed was a piece of the cross of Jesus. Bottom: Gulgun Koroglu, an archaeologist at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Turkey, didn't give a reason for her conclusions. I have a Google alert set up to follow this. Regardless of the accuracy of the claim, it's a fascinating archaeological find.

Story: We found piece of Jesus' cross > 

John Calvin's been quoted a lot recently on this, even in secular media. This is what he wrote:

... there is not a church, from a cathedral to the most miserable abbey or parish church, that does not contain a piece [of the cross]... ; if we were to collect all these pieces of the true cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship’s cargo. Source: John Calvin's Treatise On Relics >

I'll bet old John kept stuff around that meant something to him, a lucky rabbit's foot from Noyon Elementary School, perhaps.

Everyone keeps artifacts that remind them of pleasant memories. I have something I call my "Dee Dee Box." it holds all sort of things from my daughter Dee Dee, from hospital bracelets and onesies to preschool artwork. Since Mimi was born, I've been adding her stuff too.

It seems to be a human quality to imbue physical objects with non-physical energy. That's why we collect things that belonged to famous people - signed books, athletic jerseys, classic cars.

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Click to enlarge: Signpost from the TV series M*A*S*H at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Every one of us has had the experience of seeing or touching something that was used by someone else and feeling closer to that person for it. I first recall having had that experience when I saw Archie Bunker's chair, Dorthy's emerald slippers, and the signpost from M*A*S*H, all in one visit at the Smithsonian.

It's no different with splinters of the cross or hems or bones.

So let's stop being more-secular-than-thou and making fun of those that revere holy relics. We all do it.

[2013-08-02]

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[still testing some things; pls bear with me]