society for the prevention of cruelty to animals

Being the awesome and involved mother that I am, I went with Elphine on a little field trip on Wednesday to the SPCA in Ithaca. Wow. Talk about the hilton of SPCA's....I don't even know how to complete that sentence. Each dog has a private room and the cats have little sort of condos with gorgeous big windows and climbing structures. The animals receive up to date and thorough dental care--we watched a cat sleeping peacefully while having its teeth cleaned and a cavity drilled--not to mention medical care. The dogs are walked and played with individually every day and the cats are petted and played with. Each room had the name of whoever payed for the room and a quote by that person about some particular animal they loved in some kind of hip font. The front desk was modern and pristine with ultra modern fancy chairs so the person coming to consider an animal would be comfortable and feel happy.

"We work really hard," said our guide, "to place our animals in a forever home."

As we went round and looked at everything she often spoke of an animal's "forever home."

And me, in my sarcastic nasty way, kept thinking all the time
1. so many babies deserve a 'forever home' but never manage to see the light of day. No slick beautiful individualized birthing center for them. No birth at all in fact.
and
 2. so many people around the world would love to have these nice rooms to live in--clean, bright, food, water, medical, dental care.

Now, of course, as a political conservative, and a christian (oh shoot, those should have been put the other way round, oops) I don't for a second begrudge all the lovely cats and dogs at that nice shelter the lovely and wonderful care they're receiving. And I'm delighted that they are all adopted and they avoid so much suffering. Except that the whole place, what with it being Ithaca and all, just breathed an air of moral superiority. As far as I can see, animals, in the west, are a thousand times more valued than people. I speak hyperbolicly of course. It's probably more like two thousand times more. We pour money out like water for our animals. Me included. I spent 400$ once for a cat ultrasound of all things for a cat that then died.

"Animals are so special" our guide said, "they love us and accept us and are always happy to see us when we come home."

Well, that's true. And people can be rotten mean. And turn out badly. And cost a ton more money. And not be happy to see us when we come home. Maybe I've been reading too much Mark Steyn lately but it just seems like as a society we've given up. We're not interested in the work. We want a warm cuddly to see us through our days but can't be bothered to relate to other people in a meaningful way, to care for one another through the difficulty and mess of human life.

"What should you do" the guide asked toward the end, "if you see someone being unkind to an animal?" The girls in the group thought about it and decided it would be good to tell a grown up.
"That's right," said the guide, "or you can call the police, because its against the law to be unkind to an animal." She gazed at us meaningfully and paused to let the full weight of this important message sink in. My own child is very interested in the law. This impressed her very much. I don't think she was planning to be unkind to an animal, but the threat of the law will certainly bring her in line. Of course, other times, we've talked about how the law allows us to kill babies before they're born, just because we want to.

I didn't bring it up on this occasion. We went home thinking about that future day when we will convince Matt to let us have a puppy, because dogs and cats are wonderful and we love caring for them. But more than that, let me just buck the cultural trend, I love the church because in the church people struggle to relate to one another and care for one another and do the hard work of building relationships even when its very painful and hard. And we don't need money or fancy stuff or nice fonts, we really only need Jesus who comes into the middle of it all and gives us himself.

This Fisk Wasn't for Me but I'm taking it anyway

One Phyllis Strupp, of whom I have never before heard, thinks that Father, and by that I presume she means God, doesn't always know best. Father, by whom we assume she means God (I'm kidding, I know she doesn't mean God, I'm  just messing with her), needs the Holy Spirit, whom it's clear she assumes is "female" to get it right.

Jesus was loud and clear on this point: God has both masculine, left-brained qualities in God the father as well as feminine, right-brained qualities in God the Holy Spirit.

And then there's this

Is the idolatry of male power in a patriarchal society preventing us from seeing the Trinity more clearly -- and receiving the wisdom and aid of the Holy Spirit? Do we grieve the Holy Spirit, as Paul warned us not to do in Ephesians 4:30-31:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Is that right? Men are filled with all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice? Whereas "the ladies" are not?

Father doesn't always know best. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. He's only human, after all. Sometimes mother knows best. No one person is the only source of grace in a family, congregation, diocese, business, or society -- and no one person should shoulder all the blame for failures. Let's give father a break and put our heads (left brains and right brains) together and find new ways to welcome the Holy Spirit and satisfy the spiritual hunger of our times!

To which I reply
Phyllis, Know Your Limits!

Hee Hee

From Charles Williams Decent into Hell

"Don't you think so?" Watteau, whose actual name was Myrtle Fox, asked, "It's what I always feel--about trees and flowers and leaves and so on--they're so friendly. Perhaps you don't notice it so much; I'm rather mystic about nature. Like Wordsworth. I should love to spend days out with nothing but the trees and the leaves and the wind. Only somehow one never seems to find the time. But I do believe they're all breathing in with us, and it's such a comfort--here, where there are so many trees. Of course, we've only to sink into ourselves to find peace--and trees and clouds and so on all help us. One never need be unhappy. Nature's so terribly good. Don't you think so, Mr. Stanhope?"

Which obviously brings to mind a brilliant Wodehouse quip which I've lately been using on my children,
"If it isn't too much trouble, would you be so kind as to stop driveling."

Hope you have a very pleasant Monday and take a moment to thank God and pray for our troops. Thank you Grandpa!

A Lament in Cold Weather, if I was a different sort of person, it would be a poem

I've got a baby, a little boy, a cat and a computer all keeping me warm and making it extremely hard to even consider getting out of bed and into the cold.

Really, I've been so looking forward to global warming and its turning out to be such a huge disappointment, at least here in New York. Instead of warming we're daily experiencing global cooling and dimming. Alright alright, I'm not trying to start a climate change debate. I'm just putting off the inevitable minute I have to get up.

Did I mention that I have to take a Tupperware of Ice to school today?

I don't understand the purpose, what with God being sovereign and all, of cold weather.

Quotes from the Week

I was sorely tempted to do a Saturday on the Links: Highly Infuriating Blogs that Make Me Want to Jump Out of My Own Skin and Run Away Screaming but that seemed awfully negative. So instead I offer you

Quotes from the Week
Me: What is Promised in the Covenant of Works?
A: (thoughtfully) A Turkey

Much Later, Picture in Hand
A: This is a picture of Columbus. He's crying because his shirt is on the wrong way and his tag is scratching him. He is on one of his trips and he is sitting in a chair next to a table. What does he look like?
Me: I'm not sure.

And finally, Matt, in frustration: Anne, you're your own Pharisee. You tie up heavy burdens for yourself and then refuse to carry them.

The Fisking of Rob Bell

I don't know if you're allowed to 'fisk' actual books, but I'm going to anyway. As I mentioned days ago, I'm reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis at the request of a friend, and I'm trying to read it quickly so that I can give it back. However, practically every line cries out for a response. I don't know if I'll have time or inclination to do this for the whole book, but here's what I got through just in the doctor's office yesterday.

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
The title and layout alone, for me, are a hang up. I was a lit major in college, and I reveled in deconstructionism and gender studies and all that, how shall I call it, c***, and had a marvelous time (really, if you want beautifully written deconstructionism, go to Jonathon Culler, go to Helene Cixous, seek out The Eloquence of Silence, but by no means waste your time on Christians trying to copy it. It just feels like walking into a Christian book shop to find "art". There probably isn't any). However, real life doesn't bear deconstructionism out, and this book seems to me, on its face, as a not very good copy of all that other interesting literature (as well as being ever so completely untrue). In other words, the title and layout alone says to me that Mr. Bell is trying a tad too hard. Let us consider the actual writing.

Mr. Bell first discusses his painting of Elvis and how things become dated and need to be rethought for each generation. Fair enough. I don't like the language but I'll save my quibbling. Then he goes jumping on his trampoline and considers who has faith and who doesn't, concluding, rationally enough, that everyone has faith. And then we come to page 22, entitled Springs.
He writes, "Take, for example, the doctrine-the spring-called the Trinity. This doctrine is central to historic, orthodox Christian faith. While there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere. People began to call this presence, this power of God, his 'Spirit'. So there is God, and then there is God's Spirit."
Alright. Stop it right there. Just a moment ago, in a part I didn't quote, Mr. Bell made a point of saying that the "springs" are "doctrines", they are not God, they are ways of talking about God. So one of the main "doctrines" or "springs" is the Trinity, which, in one summery paragraph, Mr. Bell manages to completely mangle. Matt could put a couple of labels on all the heresy going on here. So God is "somehow" present everywhere, and we, in our great wisdom and understanding, came to think of that "presence" as "God's Spirit". I know I'm being fast and loose with the scare quotes, but Mr. Bell is being fast and loose with God. Its not that we came to understand God in this way, but Rather that God choose to make himself known, first through Scripture, and then perfectly through his Son, as One in Being and Three in Person.
"People began to call this concept the Trinity. The word trinity is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't use the word, and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word. But over time this belief, this understanding, this doctrine, has become central...It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it."
Honestly. You believers out there will be able to see plainly what is wrong with this writing. But for anyone else who might be reading, Jesus himself plainly used the Trinitarian Formula, "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" when commissioning his disciples before Ascending into Heaven in what is traditionally come to be known as "the Great Commission" (Matthew 28). The church didn't "come to understand" God in this way. They may have later applied the word "trinity" but Jesus himself made it very clear that He was God, that his Father was God and that the Holy Spirit was God. God has always been this way, he just choose to make himself known at a particular moment in history.

Well, obviously, I have a lot more to say, but looking at the clock, I see that it is 10:15 and I have to be up at 5 to finish off things for church. But don't worry, I'll be back on this important subject. In the meantime, pray for the state of the church. Lord knows, it sorely needs it.

Here's what you can do with your "Anglican Communion"

Getting ready for Vestry and Fretting about HOB providing us the 'clarity' we have all so longed for. Still reading various threads. Will post my thoughts when I gather my wits.

Another Brilliant Example of American Second Rate Journalism

Even before I could choke down my first cup of tea this morning I was annoyed to find, along with Matt, that the Press and Sun has managed to do it again. This is the first and foremost reason why I wouldn't bother to shell out any of my hard earned pennies to receive this paper at home. Bill Moyer consistently and unrelentingly manages to put his spin on a crisis he knows nothing about again and again-from 2003 on. That's right. Poor struggling bigoted traditionalist churches should die as quickly as possible while righteous rights based inclusive denomination should triumph. Now, how can I write an article that will accomplish this necessary outcome.

Trouble is, Mr. Moyer, Good Shepherd isn't the one struggling. We've been growing on a nice upward tick for several years now. Meanwhile, the diocese of CNY has closed several churches, plunged themselves into a serious financial problem, continued to loose membership, and has become utterly directionless. And its not us, as we've said over and over, who are leaving. The Episcopal Church is on the chopping block here. They've got a short number of months to decide what to do. Its fine for Norreen so say, oh, we can't possibly do anything until 2009, but that decision is a Big Unequivocating No to the communion. And the communion will hear it loud and clear.

Yes, surprise, I'm angry. The issues in our church are messy enough without Mr Moyer getting in and stirring the pot. If he's going to bother to do an article, he, like, indeed, the leadership of TEC itself, should stop and discover what it is Christians actually believe, before rejecting it outright.

I will now drink my tea and recover my calm.

news

I'm sitting here listening to the baby scream and VGR be fawned over by NPR. Thank you so much, Bishop, for everything you do. Thank you so much, Bishop, for everything you are. Thank you for your courage, Bishop. Thank you thank you thank you. Honestly. Glad the screaming baby is making it difficult to hear.

Its already afternoon, because of blighted Daylight Savings, and I am sitting in my bathrobe, on the couch, surrounded by bills and slips of paper with telephone numbers on them. There is glass everywhere because E flung a bowl on the floor this morning while trying to extract a waffel from the toaster. There is syrup lathered over everything because she then ate said waffel with syrup she'd poured herself. There is potting dirt liberally sprinkled over the carpet because, well, I don't know why. I must have been looking the other way.

Into this chaos, mayhem and filth I am happy to announce that we expect Baby Number 4. I know, I know. These kinds of things can be prevented, but not when you practice NFP, which, as we all know, doesn't work. So we're delighted, while the world, the church, and everyone else we know, laughs at us in shock and horror. This news will explain to you the lack in blogging, of late. I haven't been able to think, or stand up, or do work, or anything without fighting down some of the worst nausea to which I've ever been subject.

But I hope you will whole heartedly congratulate me. I'm having my fair share of babies, and someone else's fair share as well.

This is a picture of my world view

In an effort to be properly submissive AND proverbs 31, I am obediently going to school even though it makes no sense, to me, to do so at this time. My husband told me to get this degree, and so I'm getting this degree. Maybe God will let me know why as I go along. So my first class is Bible Interpretation and the syllabus is impossible to understand. We're supposed to go through first and second 'naivete', by which I assume the professor means 'iteration' or 'first try, second try' or something. Then a week ago, the week's homework popped up before my eyes, the first task of which was to 'draw a picture of your world view'. Isn't that nice. Problem one being that I don't know how to draw. I'm learning, but I havne't got very far yet. And second, 'world view'? So this is what my husband suggested as a good option. I think it should go over well. After all, we're only spending one whole day of the four day intensive time covering 'fundamentalism', because that's the gravest threat to the church today. That should be fun for me, holding the Scritpures authoritative in all my antiquated primitivism.