The Good the Bad and the Ugly (no apologies)

Two groups and two events - well - actually one non-event have captured my attention the past several days. There are times, I have to tell you, when it is hard to defend the faith in light of mis-directed folks like those expecting the world to end last Saturday, coupled with that,(pardon me for judging), evil body that calls itself "Westboro Baptist Church." I am relieved they didn't claim the title "Episcopal", but I feel badly for my Baptist friends in the faith.

We could say that the first group - led by a retired civil engineer turned fortune teller - is harmless. There are quasi-prophets all over the place predicting the end of the world.  In this case the original prophesy was that the saved would be taken up last Saturday, while the world would rumble on for a few more months, killing off those left behind (sound familiar?).  This has been modified - in light of the non-event. The prophet now claims total destruction in 5 months. Last Saturday was an invisible, spiritual rapture of the saved. Whatever.

This isn't harmless at all. A whole bunch of people gave up their jobs and spent their retirements promoting this false prophesy, and Oh by the way, lining our engineer cum prophet's pockets in the process. Additionally, many who might have considered a relationship with a true faith community are now reassessing that idea. Scripture is pretty clear: "Not even the angels in heaven know the time." That's good enough for me. Claiming to know the unknowable is putting yourself in a position above God. Last time I looked we called that pride - the original sin. With so much real hurt and need in the world we don't need people diverting spiritual and temporal energy into fruitless pursuits.

Bad as that was, the ugly was just beginning in Savannah, my fair city, Georgia.  The Westboro crew came to town carrying their hateful and hate-filled signs and causing the usual stir among decent people of all religious and non-religious stripes.

The message they spew is a perversion. Individually they may simply be misled or emotionally wounded or (frankly) stupid. But as a "church", better yet, cult, they are evil and dangerous. It is a microcosm of the kind of paranoia and obsessive fear of the other that allowed Hitler and his henchmen to kill millions of Jews, religious and gypsys.  It is dangerous not to take these people seriously because they are infecting souls around this country who are on the tipping point of joining in this godless movement.

"Be sober, be watchful," Saint Peter wrote, "for the devil like a prowling lion roams about seeking someone to devour."  A perfect description of Westboro.

Thank God he also wrote, "Love one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." Amen to that.

The Joys of home ownership

I am upstairs in my office with the door shut. If Leslie were to call me from downstairs I would never hear her. Not so the floor sanding machine grinding away at the finish of our dining room floor. The living room is finished, but you would never know it because all of our downstairs furniture is residing comfortably in that space. The foyer and staircase anxiously await their time under the sandpaper, or whatever they use to scrape decades of stain and varnish away.

Not to be overtly theological - but it is my job sort of - seeing the floors stripped bare of their colorful but faded and scratched pretentiousness, makes me think that it isn't such a bad idea to clean up the accumulated worry, anxiety, sin, and spiritual scars and scratches on a periodic basis. We call it confession or reconciliation in my denomination, but however you name it, we all need, as bad "B" movies will tell you, to come clean. A teenager whose confession I heard later told a whole room of folks that her first confession made her feel clean and new.  And she hadn't lived all that long. Think about the real benefits for those of us who have layered ourselves with coat after coat of cynicism and world weariness. Might do us a world of good.

Saint Stephen, protomartyr

The Lessons for this coming Sunday include the story of Stephen, a young man chosen by the Apostles as a prototype for the later office of deacon. A convincing preacher, he crossed verbal swords with the religious authorities, and was stoned outside the walls of Jerusalem. In imitation of Jesus he prayed as he died that his attackers would be forgiven.

What bothers me is that many of us today would be throwing the stones as opposed to being the one stoned. I include myself. Even though I know better, I am too often quick to judge. I think I am not alone in this. We attack people and ideas that threaten us and do so at a very visceral level. Common sense and common decency would tell us that we might do well to set aside mindless fear of "the other" every now and then, in order that we might begin to see some common understanding replacing that fear.

We are, as it were, all in this leaky boat together. It might be nice, for a change, to trust each other enough to let someone else row while we take a nap. As it is now, most of us sleep with one eye open. Makes for a long night let me tell you.

PS

I did mean to mention an explanation of the moniker "fatherjimpa." As you might expect, the "father" part comes from my vocation as an Episcopal priest. The jimpa is what most of  my grandchildren call me. So now you know - well if you're reading this you know.

There is always a first time

Well! if you had told me that I would one day have a blog of my own, I would have (1) asked, "What's a blog, and (2) said you were crazy. But here I am.

I will be an irregular poster I am sure. An Episcopal priest by trade, I have led a nomadic life in many ways so my meanderings will probably move beyond my vocation. You may have to suffer through some of my photographs, observations on being 63 before I am ready for it, the woes of home ownership (three weeks into a floor refinishing and counting) and my culinary endeavors. I will also make you sick of hearing about my Italian heritage (Mom born 6 weeks after her mom's arrival in the US).

So that's it for now
Pax