More Goth & Gothic ...

I found several more photos in my files from the Goth & Gothic photoshoot with Ivy Blue which, as it turns out, took place in July, 2003. This was just a few weeks before The Episcopal Church (although it was still calling itself ECUSA* back then) held its General Convention in Minneapolis. Something noteworthy happened at that year's General Convention, but I cannot quite recall what it was.

Oh, yes, I forgot to say in the last entry: The church is St. John's Episcopal Church of Detroit.

And the car ... The car is the original Mr. Venables, the first 1963 Mercury Meteor I owned, named after Theodore Venables, the Rector of Fenchurch St. Paul, in the Dorothy L. Sayers mystery, The Nine Tailors.











*Old enough, now, to change your name ...
When so many love you, is it the same?
-- Neil Young (Cowgirl in the Sand)

Anglican Goths?

Baby Blue blogged here regarding a parish which is holding Goth Eucharists. It reminded me of some photos I took several years ago for a "Goth & Gothic" series of paintings (which of course, I never got around to painting). Here are a few. The model is Ivy Blue (Not Safe For Work).



The Episcopal Church Welcomes You:

In Praise of Repetitive Liturgy

One sometimes hears the criticism, from fellow Christians who worship in "non-liturgical" churches, that having a set Liturgy is "vain repetition." But actually, it is the best kind of repetition there is. One might just as easily accuse a Kindergarten teacher of "vain repetition" for going through the alphabet with the students more than once!

Cindy kept very nice "baby books" for our kids, and I was browsing through Eliot's the other day when I found this entry:

Parents: Eliot, do you know why we go to church?

Eliot: Have mercy upon us!

I can hardly think of a better answer than that, and he was able to give it because the phrase appears so often in the services of the Book of Common Prayer. That was when he was two-and-a-half years old!

Thank God For Enemies

One useful thing about having real and powerful enemies is that it should clarify one's thinking about one's friends. Often between friends (or those who should be friends) there is a rivalry that makes them act in unfriendly ways toward one another.

This blog entry is one of the few that is fully worthy of the title of the blog, as it will deal with both Hot Rods and Anglicanism. I mean to talk about the enemies of Hot Rods and the rival factions within hot rodding. Likewise, I mean to touch on the enemies of Anglicanism and the factions within Anglicanism.


An Enemy of Hot Rods


An Enemy of the Gospel

Within what can loosely be called Hot Rodding (and I'm having to be generous here), we have what I would call proper hot rodding (meaning old school hot rodding), but also 1960s muscle cars, custom cars, newer muscular (American) cars, and import Tuner cars. There, I've said it. In times past, I would now wash my mouth out with soap. Because Tuner cars and their drivers have always been the Enemy! They are the hated and despised rivals of the true hot rodder, with their front-wheel-drive, ugly rear deck spoilers, and diminutive scale.

But is the Tuner crowd really the enemy of hot rodding? Or should they better be seen as another stripe of hot rodder, as allies, even? Contemplation of some true enemy, like Henry Waxman (Democrat - California) brings things sharply into focus for us. Compared to Waxman, the Tuner guys are my blood brothers. I need to start treating them as such.

Likewise, in Anglicanism ... we have Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals and Charsimatics. What about that rag-tag bunch down at the local AMiA franchise, with their happy-clappy worship, 1979 Rite II liturgy, and ridiculously good Rwandan coffee (okay, that's just jealousy talking, right there) ... are these Anglicans my enemies? God forbid ... they are brother Anglicans! But ... but ... don't some of the bishops in communion with them ordain women? (Women's Ordination is the ecclesial analog of front-wheel-drive, just as the 1979 BCP is the Anglican analog of the ugly deck spoiler.) I think so, yes. But even a cursory study of Gene Robinson (Apostate - New Hampshire) will show us the difference between an enemy and a rival (but real!) Anglican.

I think that we need to quickly adopt a more fraternal and loving manner toward our brother hot rodders on the one hand and toward our brother Anglicans on the other. My hope for the newly-formed Anglican Province of North America is just this: that we will love each other as brothers.

What can any of us do, as individuals? Here is my own plan: At the Detroit Autorama this year, when I'm crusing around the basement of Cobo Hall, I will not spend the entire time drooling over the rat rods ... I will go over to the Ricer Tuner section, look at their cars, compliment the builders, and ask real questions. I will show a real interest.

Oh, yes, and I'll visit that AMiA parish at least twice this winter, too.

What Would Archbishop Cranmer Think?

The Book of Common Prayer ... now has a MySpace.

GKC on Cocktails / The Future of Hot Rods

I inherited from my grandfather, the Rev. William J. Jones, a hardcover book of G. K. Chesterton's (1932) entitled:

SIDELIGHTS

ON NEW LONDON AND NEWER YORK

In it is an essay entitled, The Cowardice of Cocktails and Other Things, which contains these words:

Cocktails are perhaps the only practical product of Prohibition. They are certainly, I should imagine, the only part of Prohibition in which America will really succeed in setting a Great Example to the world ...

It was necessary that the sort of drink should be one that could be gulped down quickly; it was necessary that it should be very strong for its size; and it was natural that it should be made a sort of separate science of luxury in itself.

I hope Chesterton is correct (and he usually is) in saying that the prohibition of something results in a more potent variety of it being produced. I will leave you to draw the obvious analogies in the area of politics, where I hope that a shrinking Conservative movement will have more kick to it than this very watered-down variety of Conservatism we've all been given to drink lately.

As I say, I will leave that for you to ponder, because I have weightier matters on my mind. I mean hot rods! As with Prohibition, government constraints on auto manufacturers (I know, I work for one) have forced them more and more to produce bland, overly-safe, overly-quiet, transportation appliances ... the very opposite thing of what a hot rod has always been. As the new, draconian CAFE standards come into effect there will be, to the minds of many, no new cars worth owning or driving.

And this is where the Old School (a.k.a., Ol' Skool) rodder will begin to shine. Because the need for hot rods, the glory of hot rods ... these are things that will not be denied. If Chesterton's cocktail theory is accurate, increasing government restrictions will only make the fires of automotive love burn hotter in the hearts of customizers and hot rod fabricators. And I believe that you can already see this happening. Behold, the impractical, loud, danger-defying creature that is Aaron Grote's Atomic Punk.











As if a 1959 Plymouth Savoy wasn't badass enough to start with, Aaron totally reshaped this beast, giving it a bubble top and a 392 Chrysler Hemi engine. This is to me a thing of such beauty that I can scarcely describe the effect it has on me. God being our Helper, my son and I will work to carry on this cocktailization of the automobile.

Litany Fragments #1 and #2

Although I am not a big fan of, for instance, the guitar Mass ... there was a time when I fancied myself a sort of Anglican version of John Michael Talbot. At one time, I had hoped to write music for the entire text of The Litany. I never finished that project, but I have a few "fragments" of Litany music saved up in my head from when I wrote them back in 1996. Here are a couple of them, recorded last night ...

O GOD the Father, Creator of heaven and earth;
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Son, Redeemer of the world;
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful;
Have mercy upon us.
O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God;
Have mercy upon us.

REMEMBER not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins: Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for ever.

Spare us, good Lord.