The Dublin House in Seaport Square

Old-Fashioned Setting, Real Food: The Dublin House in Seaport Square
On a recent weekday afternoon we had lunch around two o'clock at Dublin House, a restaurant and bar at 9 Stanton Street in Seaport Square. With its vintage mahogany walls, Dublin House exhibits a solid, stable air. It has survived population shifts, retail business exodus, and the rest of the crises of the central cities. It is so much a survivor from another era that one gets the impression it will stay that way, even as another change - gentrification - arrives at Seaport Square.

The atmosphere of Dublin House is Irish, although the clientele – judging by the limited sample of four other diners we saw while we were there – reflected the diverse population of the area. Irish origins show in the faded country scenes of the wallpaper above the mahogany wainscoting, in the waitstaff's lively conversations with the regular customers, in the traditional Irish melodies found amidst the top forty and country-western jukebox selections. Bing Crosby crooned the Irish songs, we might add.

With the same menu for both lunch and supper, Dublin House stays open and serves food from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.. Consequently, the plates we ordered, although a bit high for a workday lunch, would be reasonably priced if ordered in the evening. Three of us were together this time, so we sampled a variety of selections. We ordered Fish and Chips on the regular menu at $5.75, and two of the several daily specials: Chopped Sirloin Steak and Hot Open Turkey Sandwich, at $5.25 each. The fish part of the Fish and Chips was fried haddock, and it was outstanding in both appearance and flavor. The portion was very generous; the filet had been dipped in a light batter and browned perfectly—we can hear someone on TV saying "fried to golden perfection!" The chips were steak fries, and they were greaseless, well-browned and well-cooked on the inside. Along with these went good cole slow made without too much mayonnaise or too much vinegar and a generous helping of classic Tartar Sauce.

Both the Hot Turkey and the Chopped Sirloin came with a choice of mashed potatoes or fries and string beans or cole slaw. The Hot Turkey came from an actual turkey or turkey breast and was not the synthetic-tasting pressed stuff called turkey roll. It was real! The Chopped Sirloin, looking like a large hamburger (definitely more than ¼ lb.) was greaseless and well-flavored. They served both meats with gravy, and (believe it or not!) the two gravies were different. That with the turkey was light and suitable for poultry; the Sirloin gravy was definitely beef. Despite the green string beans coming out of a can, they were hot and did not detract from the meal. Like the turkey, our potatoes were real, and not packaged reconstitutes. We should add that before the actual plates arrived they served us ice water without our requesting it, a basket filled with six slices of good packaged wheat bread, plus a small plate of butter.

To us as eagerly hungry diners, the hallmarks of Dublin House fare are the "realness" of the food and the ample portions. Consequently, although we had to wait a longish twenty minutes before getting our food, we would like to think this related to its authentic quality. Perhaps they actually were mashing the potatoes! However, a more likely explanation is that we arrived to dine at a slow time when the kitchen was not prepared for quick service. We assume food delivery during real lunch hours is faster.

Although our meals cost more than one would care to spend on lunch every day, the menu did contain less expensive items. Sandwiches prices ranged from $2.95 for a Grilled Cheese to $3.95 for a Bacon Burger. So one in quest of a $4 lunch could be well satisfied.

A few final words about the physical atmosphere of Dublin House: the bar is well separated from the restaurant section, a wall with only one small opening between them. The women's rest room, although not well-scrubbed and gleaming enough for a TV commercial, is clean and well-supplied. We found the dim lighting restful and relaxing; the absence of air conditioning might prove a problem on the hottest days, although with low eighties outside, we stayed comfortable.

All things considered, if you're in the area of Seaport Square, you can't go wrong by ducking into Dublin House for lunch or dinner, just as we did!


The low prices reflect the original date of this review during the twentieth century.

current favorite authors

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Disclaimer: I truly am a little embarrassed, since everyone I've listed is a guy and all the theological types are protestants! I've listed mostly in the order the authors came to mind, categorizing each writer according to their literary genre or type I'm most familiar with. If you visit my other blogs, you'll notice I'm cross-posting; I expect to remember some omissions, so most likely I'll be adding to these lists.

Mostly Prose:

William Faulkner
Walter Brueggemann
Tony Campolo
Martin Luther
Martin Luther King
Paul Tillich
Martin Buber
Robert Farrar Capon
Max Lucado
Rick Bragg
James Cone
Matthew Fox
James Agee

Mostly Poets:

Richard Shelton
Hermann Hesse
Heinrich Heine
Conrad Aiken
Walt Whitman
Langston Hughes
Carl Sandburg

How Many Jesuses?

A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative,...emergent, unfinished... by Brian McLaren on Amazon

Well, I'm not reading the chapters in order of appearance in the book, but I sort of read chapter 1 of a Generous Orthodoxy where Brian McLaren describes the seven manifestations (varieties?...try "categories"?) of Jesus he has experienced, so it's time for me to blog about some of my experiences of Jesus. Pastor Brian gets his Jesus-types taxonomy from various traditions and expressions of Christianity and does the biblical number seven with his Jesuses, getting specific with labels like Conservative Protestant, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Liberal Protestant, Anabaptist and Jesus of the Oppressed, grouping more according to style or worldview rather than doctrinal, theological or confessional propensities. I'll try matching his number, seven, and probably include some sub-types, but without taking time to flesh them out...incarnate them?! Here goes!

1. Activist Jesus: coupled with fond memories of the activist Christian community that first nurtured by faith and practice.
• Hand in hand with: Prophetic Jesus
• Closely yoked with: Iconoclast Jesus
2. Cosmic Christ: how many times have I mentioned how much I particularly love the Cosmic Christ of Colossians, the Pantocratur, the Oriental Potentate?
3. Friend Jesus? yes; Jesus reveals my best and my worst to me and helps me change and grow. Besides, most importantly, friend Jesus walks alongside me everywhere I go, even when the rest of the world and church forsakes me—I gotta remember that.
• Pretty much parallels Teacher Jesus, because friends often are our best teachers and our best teachers sometimes become our friends, too.
4. Christ Jesus who meets us and whom we meet in the sacraments and in the commonest stuff of creation; the Risen and Ascended One who dwells in, with and under all creation.
5. The Wandering, Marginalized Man of Sorrows who set out for urban and rural public ministry after being baptized by John the Wilderness Guy and temptations in the desert.
6. Servant Jesus, living among us as one who served and commanding us to serve. Not far distant from McLaren's Jesus of the Oppressed nor from my Man of Sorrows Jesus 5, nor is Servant Jesus more than an eyeblink away from Jesus of Latin American, Asian, African and North American Liberation, Feminist, Womanist Theologies.
• Another especially paradoxical manifestation of Wholly Holiness
7. Jesus desiring to be recalled and Jesus worthy of being remembered: "Do this; remember me..." But how? With unforgettable liturgies? Or with memorable acts of compassion and solidarity?

Have I omitted Springtime Jesus? No, not—I do not claim that Jesus, or at least I don't recall ever meeting him! But slowly I have been learning the Crucified One, the Crucified Jesus, Man of Nazareth become the Risen One at Easter Sunday dawn, which without any doubt is a springtime festival!

I'll end with a quote from one of my own blogs, Transfiguration: Until the Day Dawns, from February 6, 2005:

The Sign of Jonah—Death and Resurrection! For two thousand years, theologians and faith communities have struggled to learn and discern what Jesus means to them. We know Jesus as teacher and Jesus as political prophet; doubtless many of us consider Jesus a social activist, too. Jesus as a healer? Probably. But Jesus, the man of Nazareth, who died outside the city on a cross of shame as the Christ of God? At the very heart of the story of Jesus of Nazareth stands the seven days we call Passion Week: a crucified man – but – then an empty grave, a narrative with no easy answers or clear-cut implications, a series of events so far outside the normally credible many of us would like to dismiss it as legend. But today’s lections are not about death and resurrection but about something else altogether—they’re about a spectacular manifestation of God’s Glory on yet another mountaintop.

Of course, I hope that teaser will lead you to read the entire blog! I'm planning to continue blogging about a Generous Orthodoxy and I'm also working on several more blogs for this site.

25 Waterfront Drive

Imaginary and legendary names; real experiences.

Okay, all of you readers—since writing restaurant reviews for the local radical rag may have been my all-time favorite job anywhere at any time, I've decided to post another. These reviews are a indispensable part of my journeying this far by faith, but judiciously I've changed names, places, and some other specifics to continue protecting the guilty. As I chose my revisionist designations, I noticed how constantly seacoast and desert pull me back and forth. No surprise! But this time I stuck with the coast...

Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive: Bright Spot in Seaport Square
Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive was sunlit and inviting as we stopped by a little after one o'clock for Sunday brunch. Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive? On the southwest corner of Waterfront and Seaport Street, it's Seaport Square's newest dining establishment, and it's decidedly taking a bow toward gentrification. It has an air of class-consciousness: its name; its décor—highlighted by single fresh daffodils in depression-glass bud vases; creamy-colored linen tablecloths and beige cloth napkins; its somewhat eclectic though traditionally American bill of fare.

First impressions: a clean, well-contained room with seating capacity around 70, luminous natural light, an abundance of large, healthy plants, and about a dozen framed prints by local artists. Three walls painted white, a single brick wall, an unobtrusive dark Dhurrie-type rug, black ceiling and dark brown molded chairs added up to an aura of self-assured warmth and soft edges. Unhappily, too-loud music and talk from a commercial radio station also formed part of the initial impression.

Written on a wall-mounted chalkboard, the brunch menu for that day included griddle cakes or French toast for $5.85, with specialty griddle cakes, ham, bacon, or sausage an unspecified extra amount; a choice of four different omelets for $6.95; $7.95 for steak and eggs; Turkey Wellington or ham and yams for $8.50; fresh-catch of local fish and a vegetable-of-the-day for $9.35. Fresh cantaloupe or grapefruit listed at $2.35; mimosa (a champagne and fruit drink), $2.75. The menu board cited a fairly extensive variety of wine and beer. By this neighborhood's standards these prices are about average, although possibly a little lower than you'd pay for comparable fare in some other sections of the city.

We began our meal with sweet, flavorful fresh cantaloupe served with a sprig of parsley and a slice of lime. For entrées, one of us opted for an omelet – The Waterfront Drive – the other, for French toast. The omelet was chock full of chopped onions sautéed until transparent, crumbled sweet sausage, and sliced mushrooms, browned until golden and eased onto the plate so it looked like a half-moon. Savory hash browns, diced and blended with onion and cilantro accompanied the omelet, as did a grilled English muffin and jelly. With a glass of white Chablis ($2.65), it added up to a satisfying blend of flavors and textures.

The French toast also deserves a sound commendation! Three hefty slices made from substantial bread, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and spread across the plate arrived at the table. The outside was well-browned; the inside, the color of beaten egg; the edges, a trifle irregular from excess batter; this French toast had been soaked in vanilla-flavored batter along with a trace of an unidentified spice. Coffee and a selection of teas each were $1.45, each refillable.

Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive's current hours are Monday-Saturday from 7-10:30 for breakfast; Wednesday-Saturday 11-3 for lunch, 5-10 for dinner; brunch only on Sunday, from 10-3.

The association of Seaport Square and Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive will be interesting to watch in the months to come, since the restaurant's existence may foreshadow the future of the area. What does Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive say about commercial and residential investments and opportunities in Seaport Square? Waterfront Drive and Seaport Street is enough of a crossroads location that the restaurant's patronage potentially could be quite varied, but Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive's name and atmosphere probably would be likely to attract either those who already consider themselves "gentry" or those who are self-consciously upwardly mobile, rather than those from other groups who now make Seaport Square's surrounding area their home.

If Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive is a sign of things to come, does this mean additional shops and stores of the same general type? Does it thus signal the closing of still more businesses and the reopening of boarded storefronts? Does it mean a future Seaport Square whose stores and homes will not be available to many of the people who live there now? Twenty-Five Waterfront Drive is both a culinary bright-light and a place to watch in an area to watch; I encourage you to try its food and to keep an eye on its future and the future of Seaport Square!


Low prices?! Please note this happened during the last century.

Urban Coastal Cuisine

Here’s a spin on what I did during my probably all-time favorite job—a volunteer gig writing restaurant reviews for the local radical newsrag.

Madison Square's Newest Temptation

"Lunches to Savor and Remember"
With all the yuppies, graduate students, young families, and assorted others who've been moving into town, it's high time for the arrival of an establishment like Urban Coastal Cuisine!

Since we'd been wondering if the restaurant's name was overstated, too trendy, or aptly descriptive, last Tuesday a pair of us ventured into Urban Coastal's luncheon buffet. UCC occupies a storefront on Jefferson Street in Madison Square vacated several months ago by a retail outlet of a recently defunct small grocery chain; current tenants on the surrounding blocks include several national retail outlets.

In reviving and redesigning the site, Abigail Janssen and Rich Krone, the restaurant's owners/managers, both recent graduates of Johnson & Wales, retained the original plate glass windows and one of the original entryways, blocking the 2nd door with a subtle, freeform graphic done in densely textured acrylic with metallic accents by local artist and teacher Maya Gutierrez. Banner signage announces "local seafood and ethnic cuisine"; a quartet of Seats of Consciousness, commissioned from Mariela Santos of Community Fair Food's bevy of co-workers and fans, offer inviting spots to rest, wait, converse, or meet people. Inside the windows and peering out to greet passersby and potential diners, window boxes filled with floral plantings add a spot of bright color to an otherwise subtly sophisticated presentation mostly done in natural hues.

Once inside UCC, we discovered the atmosphere attempts to mimic what I've experienced in Cambridge's Harvard and Central Squares but in a less in-your-face "this is the way to be 'in' these days" manner. Clearly there is "a way to be" if you're well-educated and you've opted for inner-city rather than suburban living, and one of the requisite lifestyle accoutrements includes at least occasional dining at places that serve other than the more classic and traditional Americana vittles.

As we perused the bill of fare, we noticed the prices were high for lunch in Madison Square. But sometimes the image is costly, right? So going for the expected splurge, one of us ordered grilled (unspecified) seafood fajitas with Caribbean chutney-style salsa and "Thai Style" fruit compote. Yes. The other decided on non-coastal, choosing slightly blackened (that's still current?) chicken breast au poivre, wild rice medley, (local!) and a garden-fresh tomato and mixed green salad with the obligatory house vinaigrette. Since the wine selection was too pricey for us, we decided to drink bottled water. Then on to dessert—this time a different ethnicity with Tiramisu and an American favorite: strawberry-rhubarb tart crowned with housemade vanilla ice cream. To accompany dessert one of us had an herbal and black tea blend created by one of our J&W graduate hosts and served with honey from New Hampshire; the other chose a double latté from a plethora of specialty coffees. On a side note, while we were lunching, folks at two nearby tables stopped in for coffee and pastry, so that less-expensive option may help restaurant revenue.


The food? Yes, the food! Presentation of all the cuisine that came to our table was clean, fresh and appealing, served on natural-colored stoneware. All the flavors of everything were nicely married, with no particular accent overwhelming another one. However, none of the food we ordered had a particularly distinct or novel taste, either: it was more in keeping with the expected standard of this kind of cuisine, but that works well!

Ambience definitely is a big part of this restaurant's draw, with interior walls painted a light sandy beige, pale wood tables and chairs, and newly-refinished wide-plank floors coupled with stoneware dishes, silk flowers on the table and a diversity of silk-screened city scene, beach scene, and city beach scene prints hanging on the walls—including Malibu, one of my local favorites. The calming effect of it all took me back to a more tranquil era and soon will draw me back to Urban Coastal Cuisine. Recorded music definitely would enhance the entire mise-en-scéne or – ideally – live music, such as guitar or mandolin. But I can dream! Rich Krone, who together with Abigail Janssen is UCC’s owner/manager, told me a live music series s part of his vision, and acquiring an arts grant to provide live music performances is another hope for the future.

Baptist Blog

I'll begin by paraphrasing Luther: Condemned are the Anabaptists, who imagine they can do anything on their own. From Heidelberg Disputation(?)—I'm not sure. I've just finished reading Chapter 13, "Why I am (Ana)Baptist/Anglican" of Brian McLaren's a Generous Orthodoxy, so here's my blog; I'm actually allowing myself latitude about not compulsively linking to and referencing absolutely everything, but you can find a direct link to the book in my Products and Packaging from July 28.

A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative,...emergent, unfinished... by Brian McLaren on Amazon

At this moment I don't recall what I was reading by whom at which time, but something I read not too long ago mentioned people in the churches sometimes designated "historic peace churches" are not reluctant to talk about the wrath of God, while mainline-types often hesitate to talk about sin and depravity and many conservative evangelical types are into sweet, friendly Jesus—"springtime Jesus" but not the Crucified One become the Risen Christ at Easter's dawn. So for a while I referenced Mennonite, Brethren and others birthed from the Radical Reformation as "Wrath of God" churches. A while ago I also mentioned that God had (sort of) taken me out of the liberal, activist American Baptist church that shaped my early Christian journey - though in my late teens and early 20's I wasn't all that young - because there aren't many Baptists writing heavy-duty theology. I've long been aware that a huge part of my attraction to the Reformation tradition has been its huge quantity of well-considered theology. McLaren mentions a scarcity of Baptist theologians, too—right on track with my own perception! As I continue research and consideration of my future book about ecological theology...

I love this chapter—esp the Ana/Baptist section, but also the Anglican one. Here's this blog's point of departure for me:

from Afterglow — Sarah McLachlan

"Fallen"

Heaven bend to take my hand and lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer to a long and painful fight
Truth be told I tried my best
But somewhere long the way I got caught up in all there was to offer
But the cost was so much more than I could bear
Though I've tried I've fallen I have sunk so low...

Heaven bend to take my hand I've nowhere left to turn
I'm lost to these I thought were friends to everyone I know
...and there doesn't seem a way to be redeemed

Excerpts in my mind from "Way to Go", an autumn 2004 blog on city delights round out this Sunday evening's sentiments.

Although I'm trying to be a little whimsical, I'm also trying hard to say conventional mainline protestant churches have not been working for me, for whatever reason. In addition, as I contemplated returning to the East Coast and scoped out websites for the two churches close to Harvard Square that logically would be my first places of inquiry – First Congregational and University Lutheran – and then checked out Old Cambridge Baptist, everything about OCBC seemed to make it my way to go. Notice the not-oblique reference to my blog quoted supra! By the way, every one of those churches I just mentioned is liberal and activist, so in those terms any differences are negligible. The Theology page on OCBC's website reads,

Some of our visitors marvel . . . "and all this at a Baptist church!" We take our theological bearings from deep within the European and British tradition of anabaptists, which held that the Gospel, rightly interpreted, was the a matter between an individual, his or her community of believers and God.

Before reading Chapter 13, I read Chapter 12, "Fundamentalist/Calvinist." Discussion question #1 asks about "fundamentals of the Christian faith that we're willing to fight for." I'll reply yes, definitely: Solus Christus!

As I fondly reminisce about First Mariner's ABC that nurtured me so, I do realize its very small size was a major part of its effectiveness for me. My youth and shapeability, bendability or whatever you want to call it doubtless was another overwhelming factor! I've told about this in person but haven't blogged many details, but the community was demanding and intense: in order really to belong they expected and pretty much directed you to be at worship, at Bible study, participate in and when asked lead a discussion; we had a close to locally legendary Holy Club that met weekly to discuss a book chapter or sermon, quite apart from Bible study groups. Baptist?! As I've previously mentioned, I was baptized in an Episcopal church as a young child, but when I asked the 1st Mariner's pastor if I needed to be baptized again (ana), he asked why would I!? We routinely took part in both everyday and specific issue-oriented neighborhood goings-on. When local and national political campaigns were on the docket, we were expected to work for the candidate or cause of our choice: no particular position dictated, but you'd better be there and you'd better show you care! A couple of times a group of us ventured out to the countryside on weekend retreat; those times we observed regular periods of silence and prayed the canonical hours, so I got to borrow the office books from the Franciscan Friary a couple doors. That discalced order of brown-robed brothers would traipse around the snowy winter city sidewalks and streets in sandals! One might imagine "Baptist" by default would be liturgically low-church, but we weren't exactly so. BCP worship was not unusual for us, and when a friend expressed an interest in elaborate liturgy, the pastor (who also was executive director of the multi-service agency housed in the same building) sent her around the corner to Old North. The same pastor, observing my interest in theology, suggested I attend Krister Stendahl's Wednesday morning Eucharist at UniLu; those Wednesdays, followed by breakfast and discussion at a local restaurant for anyone with time who was inclined, helped define my future. I'm not at all sure I outgrew the bounds of the now-disbanded First Mariner's Church, but God sent me in other directions.

McLaren distinguishes churches such as the American Baptist, which for the most part claim a British Isles heritage and Anabaptists of continental European origin, but in the blog at hand I'm grouping them together as being different and distinct from Reformation, Methodist (ummm, Arminian, Pentecostals...) and those on the Canterbury Trail. And again, while the person in the pew or on the streets might imagine mode of and age at baptism the primary dissimilarity, that is so not so. In fact, I don't perceive it as counting much at all, and I'm not sure McLaren does, either. I'll quote him from page 229: ...Anabaptists have long understood that what really counts is a fruitful way of life." Omigosh! On page 231 he says, "As outsiders [Anabaptists] learned to function at the margins, and they learned that the gospel functions there just as well as or better than at the centers of power, prestige, wealth and control." Part of my own story, and these days I'm saying it out loud: over the past dozen years I have felt and literally have been pushed to the edges, out from the center of society, of the church and of the human endeavor and in the process, I know I have experienced the heart of God, which is the heart of a stranger who doesn't really belong anywhere. During this time I've actually emerged as a theologian, learning to articulate God's passion and human reality. After all, throughout the witness of the Bible and history's witness, we learn the fullness of divinity and the fullness of humanity are the same, captivatingly revealed in Jesus Christ. Got it? I'm finally getting it! Pages 232-223: "Anabaptists know that community is far more costly than that [the candles, programs and training videos McLaren cites as examples]: one cannot add it to anything, rather one must begin with it in order to enter it, practice it and preserve it." Since Brian McLaren says it so well, here's my final quote, from page 223: "The exchange of treasures around that table can enrich us all, and without the Anabaptists there, the party is hardly worth having." He's talking about Christian – possibly formal ecumenical - conversation, a vital aspect of the eschatological feast of redemption's completeness, but it must go far further, to the Welcome Table of the Eucharist we celebrated this morning; it needs to culminate and then continue with the sanctuary and the healing embrace of the Welcoming Community I long for and finally am admitting in words I need in order to be alive (yes) and even to survive much longer.

Brian McLaren includes four pages about Anglicanism; I've blogged some about my experience with the Episcopal Church, especially last winter when I wrote about the short-lived Book of Daniel TV program, but in a day or two I'll write a few responses to the end of this Chapter 13.

Big Dig Boston Blog

James Taylor, Never Die Young

We were ring-around-the-rosy children
They were circles around the sun
Never give up, never slow down
Never grow old, never ever die young

Synchronized with the rising moon
Even with the evening star
They were true love written in stone
They were never alone, they were never that far apart

And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it
We got to close our eyes
Cut up our losses into doable doses
Ration our tears and sighs ...

Oh, hold them up, hold them up
Never do let them fall
Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin
That names us and claims us and shames us all

It's about time—lots and lots of time plus lots and lots of $$$, making the now-notoriously legendary CA/T Central Artery/Tunnel project, a.k.a. Big Dig the most expensive public works project ever in the history of this realm of the Americas; the latest cost quote I could find cited $14.6 billion, spelled out as $14,600,000,000. But trust Boston to do things right—maybe especially when it comes to scale! After all, when the Red Sox finally won the World Series, they wowed the entire world by coming back from 0 for 3 in that series, and from an incalculable disadvantage for oh so many seasons prior to 2004.

The Big Dig operates under the aegis of the Turnpike Authority! "Mass Pike" evokes drives to Lenox and Stockbridge; I have memories of betting $2.00 on Mass Pike to place or show at Suffolk Downs.

Most expensive...what then are we to say about this? From scripture's standpoint of covenantal justice, what was happening and what's going on now? Lots of pork doled out for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' congressional delegation's constituency: that's a fact. Has The Big Dig generated a lot of jobs? At what wages? Employment for people who otherwise might not have been working? How about the multiplier effect TBG has had on companies and corporations that mine and manufacture inputs for physical infrastructure? Kickbacks? Must've been a lot of those, and not only because TBG is about Massachusetts, but simply because Tip O'Neill's aphorism about back room deals always obtains.

Of course you gotta consider cost-benefit ratio; whenever I use the word "even" I always feel like apologizing, but even within the closely linked temporal/spiritual sphere, you need to give up some thing to get a desired other thing. Therefore let's ask, "Who has benefited and how? Who will continue to benefit?" While I was living, or sojourning – or whatever you want to call it – in Boston during summer 2000, my friend and housemate (landlord, too) Nick frequently ventured out to artistic and musical venues (churches, too, but Nick and church is another story for another blog). One afternoon he returned home and told me about a building-to-building art exhibition he'd just experienced in the South End.

Among the details he described a couple of guys living in a loft that amazingly was appointed exactly according to the early 1970s—"red candles melting down the sides of Chianti bottles and a paisley tablecloth, too." Meanwhile, Nick exclaimed, the entire world outside their windows was being disrupted for about the 345,567,678^th time, but between their nirvana and their painterly endeavors they remained oblivious. Immediately outside their studio loft home, TBG kept noisily rolling along.

But I began asking about benefits, and for sure government of all sizes has learned it is no more politically correct than it is morally so to dislocate lives and families by destroying their habitats and disarticulating their physical environments which, after all, have become an integral aspect of their psychological and spiritual milieus. JT speaks of sighs and tears, and agonizingly I recall tearfully sighing at yet another fire-gutted building, yet another boarded-up house.

During my high school years, live experiences of blockbusting, white flight, redlining, urban blight and inner-city decay made me learn to cut up my losses into doable doses…just the same as my current style of operating. I'm not sure, however, those concerns need to be part of a chronicle about TBG?! No more razing – and killing – communities to present the outside world another Lincoln Center in the wake of needless unredemptive death; no more demolished West Ends...the world learned what transpired in those and closely-related "cases" hardly amounted to resurrection! But nonetheless, we did study them seriously in my Urban Studies program courses—you know Case Studies in Urban Renewal.

In the Hebrew scriptures God refers to the city Shiloh – one of the shrines of the Tribal Confederacy – as the place God's Name first dwelt. The city! Not the apparently forsaken desert of wilderness wanderings that yet was the site of identity-formation and teeming with undetected life beneath the immediately observable, but the city: communications, infrastructure, cash transactions, middle-class and middle-person, near-infinite cultural and ethnic and educational diversity, where people imagine they know the source and time of their next meal and next pay envelope or paycheck, imagining themselves no longer dependent upon gracious gift, imagining their living actually secured—but by what means, and by whom? There's well-developed theology about the concept of God's Name/God's Presence in the Hebrew Bible, and centuries later, we have Martin Luther's theology of the ubiquity of the Risen and Ascended Christ. Ubiquity: the Crucified, Risen and Ascended One indwells The Big Dig and all its artifacts and excrescences! Yes!

With at least a half-dozen more blogs in mind and needing to be in class at 7:00 tomorrow morning, I'll sign off from this with a couple more song lyric quotes; just in case you even wondered, I'll tell you JT is one of my favorite songwriters and performers. Beyond the referenced song and album, I'm not familiar with Martin Page or much more so with Eddie Money, whom I heard at a pre-Winter Olympics campaign rally in Salt Lake City during the mid-1990's, and a few Faith Journeys back I quoted "Peace in Our Time." I'll try to retrieve a copy of that document and blog it onto this far by faith.

Martin Page, "In the House of Stone and Light":

O Mount Kailas, uncover me
Come my restoration; wash my body clean
I've been walking along a crooked path
Where the walls have fallen and broken me in half ...
I'm telling you I will not rest till I lay down my head
In the house of stone and light
I make my way; O gonna be such a beautiful day
In the house of stone and light

Eddie Money, Peace In Our Time, from The Sound Of Money

Never gonna break down the walls
And build the prison with the stone
Cause you and I know what love is worth
We're gonna build a heaven on earth
Running in the wheels of fortune turning water into wine
Gonna make love the bottom line gonna find peace in our time
We're gonna build a heaven here on earth
Turning water, water into wine making love the bottom line
Finding peace, peace in our time

public domain photographs from wikimedia commons

Grace for the Journey

Proper 9B/Ordinary 14B/Pentecost 5/July 9, 2006

Mark 6:1, 7-13 NRSV

1 Jesus...came into his hometown; and his disciples followed him.
7 And he summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits;
8 and he instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belt—
9 but to wear sandals; and he added, "Do not put on two tunics."
11 "Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them."
12 They went out and preached that people should repent.
13 And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.

Prayer:

God, sometimes as thunder rolls, we barely hear You whisper through the rain, "I'm here with you," as Your mercy and grace fall upon us. God, we'll praise You through our lives; You are with us here; You never leave our sides or leave us on our own. We praise You forevermore, in Jesus' Name, Amen!

Casting Crowns' song, "Praise you in this Storm" from their Lifesong album inspired this prayer.

Proclamation: Grace for the Journey

We just heard a narrative about us from the gospel according to Mark. Jesus summoned or called his followers and sent them out "in pairs" – not alone, but two-by-two, with each other for companionship [explain further]. And Jesus tells them to travel with only bare essentials, to trust that God will supply their needs for food and shelter—through the welcoming hospitality of people they meet along their journey. That sounds a lot like here, too. [explain further]

Mark's account mentions Jesus' hometown, and in a real sense Jesus' hometown is what we have here, because wherever God's Holy Spirit gather God's people together, God dwells among them and within them; God dwells within us and among us, right here, as well.

Jesus sends them – Jesus sends us – to share meals and sustenance with each other but amazingly relying on gracious gifts of strangers they encounter along the way. All that spells interdependence—just like here!

Jesus gives his followers authority over unclean spirit: addictions, demons, distractions, consternations—everyone has some of those! And Jesus' disciples call folks to repent, to make a 180-degree turned-around attitude and a turned-around lifestyle. Each of us needs some changes of direction away from situations and behaviors that have become negative and life-defeating.

But in plain human term, all of this does not sound possible; it goes way far beyond a tall order and moves right into the realm of human impossibility!

Let's hear some words of scripture from the apostle Paul [explain Paul: Romans, Galatians]. In this passage, Paul begins by referencing life's experiences of contentment, well-being and success, but goes beyond that to talk about some of those more difficult times that happen to all of us, and sometimes far too frequently. I'm going to read from Leslie Brandt's version of 2 Corinthians, called Epistles Now! [explain translation and version]

2 Corinthians 12:2-10 | From Leslie F. Brandt's Epistles Now! © Concordia Publishing House 1974, 1975:

Praise God for these cases of ecstasy that occasionally spice up our travels through the alleys and valleys of human suffering!

We cherish them—for ourselves and for others.

Nevertheless, our relationship to God is not dependent upon them, these mountaintop episodes in our lives, nor are the irrefutable proof of such a relationship.

God's Spirit indwells and empowers us regardless of the highs and lows of our day-by-day existence.

Over against the ecstatic high points of irrepressible joy are those balloon-puncturing experiences that flatten us in despair.

It may well be that we need both in our lives to keep us close to our Creator and Redeemer.

The remarkable thing is that the Spirit of God is often more obvious and more capable of using us during these low points of our lives.

They may actually, though indirectly, be the means by which we recognize and learn to rely on God's promised grace.

God is great; God accepts us as we are.

He can work out His purposes through us—even in spite of us.

We need only to submit to Him our whole beings—strengths, weaknesses, and all—and let Him have His way with us.

A more familiar, direct translation says, "my grace is enough for you because God's power becomes perfect in weakness." The word used for perfect literally says God's grace achieves its goal of filling and indwelling us when our human resources are so gone we have no choice whatsoever but reliance on God. Just as Pastor Leslie Brandt expresses it, God's Spirit often becomes more capable of using us for God's purpose during those times of total and near-total devastation and helplessness because they typically are the times we know we need to depend on God. So those are the times God's Holy Spirit fills us, making it possible for us to be the apparently humanly impossible presence of God in each others' lives.

The word Paul uses for grace, the free to us, unearned gift from God is charis exactly as in the word "charismatic." To be charismatic means to be a bearer of grace, to carry gracious, loving, welcoming acceptance to others wherever we go.

In the New Testament book of Romans, Paul charges us to "welcome one another as God in Christ has welcomed you!" How has God welcomed us in Christ?

In the cross of Calvary, Jesus draws all creation to himself so we live reconciled, put back together with God, each other and all creation. In the cross of Good Friday, Jesus is the supreme bearer of grace – the ultimately charismatic One – offering each of us unearned gifts of forgiveness and brand new beginnings. New beginnings? Yes! Because Jesus' God, our God, is the God who raises the dead to new life, and who would not dare trust such a God? Who would not want to follow the God who raises the dead?

Jesus calls us and draws us to himself, and in the Holy Spirit sends us out from his hometown—from here, where God has gathered us together. He sends us out with a Holy Spirit-filled measure of his authority, which is the authority of God, the power of heaven on earth, to cast out demons, to heal, to raise the dead!

How do we attain and maintain that divine nature, the nature of God? It happens when we obediently live connected to God in Christ, because then we live connected to God's power and authority, exactly like Jesus Christ himself. But how exactly? Some ways include attending bible study, participating in bible study, going to church, praying, reading the scriptures...[more]

God is here with us! Jesus Christ sends us out with his authority, the authority of the God who raises the dead, and who is with all of us wherever we go!

To God alone be glory,

Amen and amen!!!

Spaces Places

Here's a short continuation of Products and Packaging in the guise of another containers, borders, wrappings and enclosures essay; I'm still emphasizing church but won't take time to focus on anything specific.

Spaces, places: boundaries of spaces get named as particular places. The Great Church or Cathedral shelters Square and Marketplace, a prime locale for news, information and announcements and a trustworthy general gathering space. Quadrangles surrounding churches became the very first financial districts, original Central Business Districts—you know all about the CBD! Around the Grote Kerk's perimeter people still buy, sell, trade and barter hand-crafted goods as well as manufactured ones and garden-grown produce, with these days' offerings including local stuff plus imported goods and bads.

In casual speech even those of us who are theologically articulate refer to a church building as "the church." One can see church steeples from a distant and far land: "One if by land; two if by sea!" ...although there are very few of those steeples here in the Southwest. Nevertheless, church buildings of all dimensions in towns and cities of every size remain landmarks and tourist destinations, sometimes targets for inopportune activities, such as negative graffiti and arson.

Frequently a church building's interior becomes the space describing life's most significant events for both traditionally churched and not so church-wise: blessings and baptisms; quinciñeras, nuptials; funerals, memorials and farewells. In some older European churches, people are buried underneath the church! University chancellors used to teach in the chancel of the church or cathedral, acquiring that privileged location in response to their academic position, receiving their title from the place called "chancel."

Let's bring time into this blog, too, because it serves a similar bounding function! In his his 1990 Brazilian Rhythm of the Saints, Paul Simon sang "Born at the Right Time":

Down among the reeds and rushes A baby boy was found
His eyes as clear as centuries His silky hair was brown
Never been lonely Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear Nothing denied to
Born at the instant The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering Born at the right time . . .

But among the reeds and rushes A baby girl was found
Her eyes as clear as centuries Her silky hair was brown
Never been lonely Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear Nothing denied to
Born at the instant The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering Born at the right time . . .

Announcing linear time, church bells ring out hours, half hours and quarter hours; at least as often, particularly in more rural areas in this country and abroad, church bells announce births, deaths and impending disasters. I heard about a town in rural Pennsylvania where every family had its own melodic bell pattern! Very cool, in my opinion.

We chronicle wind events, cardiac events, this current nation-wide ultra-hot weather event, terrorist events (too close for comfort?), Christ Event, all of these being measurable in longitude, latitude and calendar time. Human creatures need those parameters! We celebrate the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Yahweh of the Exodus, God of the Prophets, God and Father of Jesus Christ as One who supremely self-reveals in measured history, who became incarnate and still is incarnate in creaturely history.

Nearly everyone knows Robert Frost's "Good fences make good neighbors"; a little while ago the gates of this condo complex disappeared for needed repairs and since then several bicycles have been stolen and there have been a few incidents of less than welcome intruders, so it's possible reliable gates keep mischief at bay. That's all for this topic at this particular time; may the spacious place known as home welcome you at whatever time you need it to be there for you!

Products and Packaging

Late October 2007 update: on the PCUSA blog, Stushie recently wrote about picking blackberries.

My original title, since I needed to call is something: Ecclesiology Containers Conveyers Packaging Freedom

Paraphrased from an internet search:

From 1950 to 1975, the now late Container Corporation of America ran an advertising campaign, "Great Ideas of Western Man," in periodical publications such as Time and Fortune. Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer, who at the time was CCA's Art Director, commissioned eminent illustrators and designers to illustrate quotes from a many-centuries-long continuum of philosophers, writers, scientists, politicians, cultural and religious luminaries. But this is on desert spirit's fire, so clearly it's going to be theology!

Since around Christmas-time I have used up lots of time hankering after blackberries, checking the stores to find out if this week maybe they're on sale at a good price and getting a dozen packages whenever the blackberry acquisition fee has been right. I need to clarify I'm writing about edible consumables and not electronics—but you know that!

Interestingly, blackberries belong to the rose – Rosaceae – family, with thorns on their stems just like both wild and cultivated roses, and producing highly desirable results, just like roses. As they grow, the fruit-bearing older growth of blackberries makes brambles or briar thickets that sometimes seem impenetrable to humans, but serve as great refuge and shelter for some wildlife species. One easily could say the thorns, the brambles and those briars are a stipulation of enjoying the product: succulent berries. In other words, briarpatches are necessary conditions of having blackberry consequences! Yum! Although I enjoy other berries, especially straw and blue, so far as I'm concerned, blackberries wear the Berry Kingdom's crown.

My intro paragraph referenced CCA, and with bounded, boundless, contained, and uncontained I'm thinking sacraments and authority, too. One of the classical descriptions about sacraments cites them as evidence of the capacity, capability – capax – of the finite to contain the infinite. Contain. This is fire season in Southern California, reminding us a contained fire is not an extinguished one, but nonetheless, containment often leads to a beneficial outcome.

Just this past week a friend gave me my own copy of Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative,...emergent, unfinished... by Brian McLaren, which has been on my Amazon wish list since I first heard about it. Without a doubt I'll be blogging about the book, but a few days ago I read at least one thing applicable to this blog I started a few weeks ago. Nothing I shouldn't have thought of, given this blog topic, but it was the word permeable. I'm writing about containers, containment, vessels, thorns, briars, roses, fruit and a long list of acquisitive concepts. Here in Alta California we live constantly aware of the permeability of the borders, the legal boundaries and sometimes the cultural ones between this territory and Baja California, but I want to compare the containers, boundaries and borders of ecclesiastical life with boxes, jars and envelopes where the content doesn't leak or scatter beyond the bounds, but the container exudes heat, or cold, or some kind of aura one can see or smell, maybe even taste. Compare ecclesiastical committees, judicatories and the formal "offices" (job descriptions plus associated buildings, floors and rooms) of denominational officers with briarpatches! At a later time I'll say more again about brokenness, shards, tatters and splinters, ruins and rubble: bread and lives, pottery, vessels, buildings, cities and civilizations, broken yet blessed and distributed ultimately to enable living as a result of that once un-wholeness.

Church buildings, and in many cases we find church complexes (double meaning intended) of not only a building with worship space or sanctuary but what we call a campus, with "country" as a possible connotation. Those buildings in some sense contain and in-clude the Church, the body of Christ, which is called to freely function as a living organism. In teaching and writing, often I refer to the Jerusalem Temple with its containerized deity, so remote from the free, elusive and infinitely faithful to creation Yahweh of the Exodus; frequently I talk about the Jerusalem Temple, so distant from God's self-revelation in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ shows us the Divine not in formal structures and intricate liturgical rites, but in fully real presence alongside creation and in total response to creation's needs. Roman Catholic ecclesiology tends to focus on more visible, touchable external structures – probably a too vulgar way of saying something from a Traditio Protestantica (Martin Marty's phrase—in any case I got it from him) perspective that doesn't state the reality more than marginally, while Protestant ecclesiology is more about invisible, intrinsic ones.

Containers, etc.: as I observed in conversation a few weeks ago, the UCC, PC(USA) and the ELCA are splintering seriously because "a human institution cannot contain that much diversity!" Of course the flip, the B side is "a human institution can contain only so much diversity." By definition, any institution has limits. However, logically, if something cannot be accessed, in some sense claimed and contained, it's not worth much to us. How about "God-moments" some people talk about? Are there times we can recognize God's presence while we're thick in the experience or situation, or is that acknowledgment possible only in retrospect?

Containers: printed bibles; internet scripture; paper and ink on our more recent ecumenical accords; I'm particularly thinking of the so dear to my heart A Formula of Agreement and of course, the Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith. Containers, packaging: the famous quote from Luther describing the Bible as the cradle in which the Word of God is laid. Luther railed against the way people try to domesticate, to contain God—again, recall the tamed and domesticated God (should be small "g" maybe) of the Jerusalem Temple and the Temple system's outcome in imperial religion? The Religion of Empire--perhaps similar to Dubya's far-flung, carefully-controlled empire. Remember the prophetic voices subsequent to The Temple's establishment: how about us, right here and right now? Do our words and do our actions help dis-establish imperial religion or do we make excuses to further entrench and ensconce it?

Regarding church buildings and their boundedness, a few days ago I told someone despite my feeling tremendously betrayed by the Protestant Mainline (caps?), still I cannot stay long away from the church; "The church is where I find the sacraments," I observed. Someone else mentioned Darrell Guder's in effect saying "God does not limit Godself to the means of grace." But speaking of boundaries, my semi-rejoinder to that needs to be, "Nonetheless, God does bind Godself to the means of grace." Think about it! Bounded freedom has become a familiar theological and psychological idea.

Another observation about Generous Orthodoxy: the author states he doesn't have the kind of formal theological education and credentials we in the mainline churches insist on; until he left in 2006 to pursue writing, McLaren pastored at the nondenominational Cedar Ridge Community Church, and a quote from Karl Barth banners the church's site. McLaren grew up in what he approximately describes as a twig on a branch on a limb of a church in a very conservative church tradition. Despite having been an English major and a professor of English, doubtless by now he's read a whole lot of theology, but he has not laden the first part of the book with heavy God-speak and the accompanying vocabulary we who have attended high-end and other seminaries regularly use to spice our speech.

Brian McLaren's intellectual abilities are what we hope for in our (possessive intended) churches that have a well-articulated, formal and long process for eventually attaining and obtaining (possession again) what we call ordination to Ministry of Word and Sacrament. One of the questions of any candidate for seminary and eventual ordination by a described, delimited ecclesiastical body (presbytery, diocese, conference, synod) remains "Does this person have the intellectual gifts?" Sacraments: by what and whose authority does the presider recount the history of God's faithfulness and invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and cup? Authority? By what authority are Brian McLaren and the other staff at Cedar Ridge Community Church declared ecclesiastical leaders? Checking them out, I noticed all of them have excellent academic qualifications but no formal theological ones. We talk about authorized ministry, whether commissioned, licensed or ordained; we also insist on a formal call or appointment process. "We" as opposed to "they"? "Us" and "them?" In the mainline Roman Catholic and Protestant and in the more conservative churches, we claim the Holy Spirit as ultimate authority, despite the human(oid?) appearance of those assorted Committees on Ministry and local church Call Committees.

Here's a relatively recent hymn:

God Marked a Line and Told the Sea

1. God marked a line and told the sea its surging tides and waves were free
   To travel up the sloping strand but not to overtake the land.


2. God set one limit in the glade where tempting, fruited branches swayed.
   And that first limit stands behind the limits that the law defined.


3. The line, the limit, and the law are patterns meant to help us draw
   A bound between what life requires and all the things our heart desires.


4. But discontent with finite powers, we reach to take what is not ours
   And then defend our claim by force and swerve from life's intended course.


5. We are not free when we're confined to every wish that sweeps the mind.
   But free when freely we accept the sacred bounds that must be kept.

By Thomas Troeger, 1986; © 1989 Oxford University Press, Inc.

Christian marriage is a covenant; Jewish marriage is a contract. We Christians emphasize the covenantal nature of our interrelationships with one another and especially our relationship with the God of the covenants, The One those New Englanders of yore insisted never dealt with, interacted with humanity, with creation in any way other than covenantally. Do we in the churches need to look carefully at the contractual sides of our lives together?

To be continued.

Red Blog!

Something just for fun:

***Your Blog Should Be Red***

Your blog is full of intensity and passion.
You are very opinionated - and people love or hate you for it.
You have the potential to be both a famous and infamous blogger.

What color is your blog?

Denominations.

Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

This year is the PCUSA's 217th General Assembly. Although this is not a General Synod year for the UCC nor does the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly convene this year, during 2005 both those church bodies discussed and passed controversial resolutions, resulting in too many local churches and pastors breaking away from their now former denominations.

Just about every day for the past couple weeks, during the local early morning news I've watched headlines scroll across the bottom of the TV screen and yes, not only has the Episcopal Church's election of a woman as Presiding Bishop at this year's General Convention been sensational enough to make waves in the secular Mainstream Media (equivalent of Mainline Church, which is what all these denominations are considered—whether or not they actively consider themselves such, but I definitely would), news from the PC(USA)'s GA has been regarded worthy to be featured in the news headline loop.

These calamitous (you know my passion for words and how I love taking almost everything to its limits, but in using that word I have not over-spoke) goings-on in all these denominations (remember, denomination is an American invention) is particularly haunting given the Reformation heritage claimed by the PC(USA), ELCA and UCC—less directly Canterbury's kin make a related assertion. But back to the Reformation, its ethos and especially its spirit! After all, during the 1600s the Spirit of God and of the Christ overwhelmed the Western World; although wherever and whenever we be Church or churches, despite our primary loyalty being (no brainer?) to Jesus Christ, the written, recorded Word's ultimate interpreter, in order to live as daughters and sons of the Reformation we need to continue reforming, which totally must include new scriptural insights.

Remember the paraphrase of John Robinson's words to the pilgrims embarking (from Leiden? I'll correct that later if necessary) ? "The Lord has yet more light and truth to spring forth from His Word." Even the Roman branch of the Church recites the phrase Ecclesia semper reformanda! We Churches of the Reformation? How about us? I recall hearing Martin Marty preach on Reformation Sunday evening many years ago; throughout his talk he repeated the phrase, "We Churches of the Reformation." It impresses me that so much of the controversy centers and revolves around interpretation of scripture. Not remotely is that observation unique to me, but possibly to sound a little arrogant, over the centuries we've learned certain exegetical and expository methodologies that we in the protestant and Roman Catholic mainline assume lead to responsible (read: "faithful") outcomes.

Much of this debate not only is about reading the Bible as other than a product of the historical period and ethnic culture from which it sprung, but sexuality sensationalized keeps taking over! The earlier preoccupation with gender and gender roles may have diminished some – but then again maybe not – though still many people do not realize or won't admit every one of us functions on a gender continuum.

Possibly more than anything else, for me denominations are the way to be connected vertically and horizontally with the Church in all the ages. Are the dissenters (in all the denoms) saying they don't want to remain connected? In the ELCA, some of those who most have insisted upon staying and continuing conversation have been the Seminex guys (yes, all guys) who during the (late? I wasn't there, though for a while I dated a Seminex grad and knew a couple of others from ministerium) 1970s helped birth the AELC—Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches—specifically as a uniting church structured eventually to dissolve.

I wonder if Martin Luther is watching the recent and current goings-on in American Protestantism?! I wonder if Pastor Martin grieves the shuttings-out and exclusions?! How about reviving the tradition of historic condemnation and maybe even anathemas (just kidding – I do not believe that would be remotely helpful)? My heart aches with this burden not only because I'm a Christian in the Reformation Tradition but more than that, because continued conversation truly does build bridges and obliterate unessential differences. Oh, I know about myself: overdeveloped skills in reconciliation, accommodation and peacemaking, but how else can one live? Is Martin Luther himself an example of Christian faithfulness? Of faithfulness to Jesus Christ who showed us how to walk in trust, often in outrageous ways?

Word Claim

In bible order rather than according to purported chronology, here are some of my current favorite scripture passages, mostly NASB, because I just got a outstanding deal on a parallel NASB/Message Bible! I'm cross-posting this, and at another time I'll make a separate Isaiah list.

• And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.'" Exodus 5:1


• Into the land, into the land, into the land, into the land... Deuteronomy


• Then the whole people assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there; the land lay subdued before them. Joshua 18:1


• Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is nothing on earth I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forevermore. Psalm 73:25-26


• O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD! Jeremiah 22:29


• I will open your graves. Ezekiel 37:12


• When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. Luke 24:30-31


• Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. John 20:1


• For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26


• Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21


• For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:13-17


• Thou hast taken Thy great power and hast begun to reign. Revelation 15:18

Pentecost Present

Yes, I do realize today is Sunday after Ascension Thursday—Exaudi, from the beginning of the introit in the Latin liturgy. Nevertheless, for the past 2,000+ years the Church and the World have been living in the Reign of the Spirit, and in preparation for next Sunday, I wanted to blog about it.

[More than] Probable Pentecost!

Alleluia! The Spirit of Life fills the world;
Alleluia, Alleluia!!!
0 for 6 in a 7 – game series and asking, "was there any sound before first creation's primal Word?"

Abandonment. Then. Silence. Then
hankering after noisy anger or raucous discordance or
any sign of life aligning to life
Longing to balance days in the tension of misunderstandings and channel time into revelation's common wealth
precariously drawn out of chaos by speech
Silence cannot hold history's weight
Wordlessness cannot shape hope
Speechlessness cannot imagine creation formed from chaos
But this is Pentecost, right now and for always
and the Spirit of Resurrection fills the world;
Alleluia, Alleluia!!!