Chasing Cars…

I love this song by Snow Patrol.  Especially this part:  “I need your grace, to remind me to find my own.”  That is so beautiful.  It reminds me of this post I wrote a few months ago, and especially of The Body’s Grace, by Rowan Williams.

j

We’ll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don’t need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Geraldine Ferraro, the Gospel, and the Gays: Post-Modern Advocacy in the Church

I know, I know: I just said I was done writing for a while. But I have had something on my mind lately and I’ve decided to write this post, so maybe I’m pulling a Barbra Streisand…

What has caught my eye lately is all of the political fuss over Geraldine Ferraro and the Clinton campaign—the allegations of sexism and racism and the furor it has generated. It seems to me that much of the same stuff gets roiled up in church politics: secular advocacy rolls over into the church because we don’t (and shouldn’t) compartmentalize our lives between what happens in the public square and what happens in our houses of worship.

Perhaps what should happen, though, that doesn’t happen as often, is that we should take our gospel values into the public square (keeping the separation of church and state distinct, for reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere). Those values, I think, shed some light on the problems that have been raised in the recent political campaigns. Namely, inequality in power and the resulting injustice cannot be solved by obtaining and using the same kind of power that originally created the inequality. To do so is a little bit like using the military to oust a military dictator in a coup, and then putting another dictator in his place. Perhaps the new dictator has a different face, but he is still a dictator. It does not fundamentally change the dynamic of the power structure.

Yeah for California!!

Woo-hoo!!

Of course you’ve heard the news from California by now– there are plenty of sources to find the church’s reactions, good and bad, on it.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m slowing down on posting– I haven’t written much original material this year and am not likely to for a while.  Sign up for email subscription on the right if you don’t want to have to visit to see if I’ve posted everything.

I’m doing CPE (chaplaincy) this summer and then will turn my attention to my last year of seminary formation.  I’m sure something will prompt me to write every now and then, but I’m not going to make intentional efforts to keep the blog updated any more– at least for now.

Thanks for all your support, readership, and comments!

j

And Tango Makes Three

From Advocate News, about a story that my kids absolutely love…

“Gay penguin” book most hated, again

published Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A children’s story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the public objects to the most.”And Tango Makes Three,” released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association. The book is based on the true story of two penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo who became a couple and fostered a third chick named Tango.

Read the rest here.

If you’d like to buy the book, click here.

j