She notes the news of Barbie being banned in Iran, and while she makes it clear she has no love for Iran’s policies, she suggests that we could do a better job of providing role models to our girls than the classic Barbie. Some of her suggestions for Barbie dolls that send the right message:
Tina Brown (controversial at times, but successful in her chosen field)
Maya Angelou
Margaret Mead (posterity has not been kind to her, but she was a trailblazer)
Sally K. Ride (the first woman in space? absolutely!)
Nancy Lopez
and last but certainly not least
Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
There has been plenty of press about the “princess syndrome” in today’s young girls, and as one who, as I have said before, was raised by feminists in the 1970’s at Pitzer College, I think this is a marvelous idea.
Somehow, though, I think that Mattel is not likely to buy into this.
Perhaps you’re familiar with the game Word Whomp. A group of cartoon gophers present a set of random letters and you click (or in the case of my iPad, tap) on the gophers to create words from the letters available.
Recently I was playing and the letters a-l-b were among those displayed. So, of course, good Episcopalian that I am, I entered “alb,” at which the gophers shook their heads and rejected the word.
What? As a practicing Episcopalian I resent that! I would expect the makers of a word game to recognize such a word, even if not in common use by most of the population.
Ever since St. John’s swapped the 9:00 and 10:30 services it’s been tough for me to get out of bed at that earlier hour. Yesterday morning I just couldn’t deal with it. It was cold, I was sleeping comfortably, and I’d had one too many glasses of wine the night before. That, and the annual meeting was yesterday. I didn’t want to deal with that, and I knew that if I went to church it would look odd if I left before the meeting. So I fed Tasha and went back to bed.
The thing is that when I miss church I really do miss church. The Eucharist is important to me, and I miss it when I’m not there.
Maybe it’s not so bad to miss church once in a while, just to remind me about how important it is to me.
One of the things I like about St. John the Divine is the attention that Fr. Phil gives to individual parishioners. A few times now I’ve gotten email from him that had nothing to do with church business, but commented on matters of my own personal interest. He sent me an email when Meg Whitman was named CEO of HP and one when he got word that Good Shepherd had voted to move to the ELCA. It’s a small thing, but it indicates that he takes his pastoral role seriously, and I, personally, really appreciate it.
One of the things I liked about the Lutheran Church was that the color used for Advent is blue rather than purple. The idea was to represent Advent as less a penitential season and more of a season of preparation and expectation. This was first instituted in the Lutheran Book of Worship which was published in 1978.
In the Episcopal Church, of course following the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, purple is still the color. I’m not exactly in love with the somber Kyrie we have been singing on Sunday mornings at St. John’s this Advent. It’s appropriate if you look at Advent as a penitential season, but it just doesn’t seem to me quite right for Advent. In his sermon for Advent 2, Fr. Phil explicitly said, and I paraphrase remembering as best I can, that Advent is a penitential season where we let go of the things, good and bad, that get in the way of our being ready for the coming of the Christ.
That does make sense. But my spiritual director suggested that I look at purple not as a penitential color but as signifying awaiting the coming of royalty. I like that. It takes me back to preparation and expectation, which is what I think Advent should be all about.
A while back Diana Butler Bass posted the following reflection on Facebook:
I’m increasingly worried how emerging theology is at odds with liturgy and hymnody. Can we get a bunch of new hymns, for example, that do not reflect substitutionary atonement? How about liturgy that emphasizes what we do here in this world rather than just looking forward to the next? Or, prayers about the reign of God now instead of personal salvation?
An interesting thought. More recently, Jane Redmont exchanged comments with a friend on Facebook who suggested that the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal contained too many hymns that “continue to push the bloody substitutionary theory of the Atonement, [and] seem to glorify violence and war….” He says that “ ‘Lift high the cross’… with a catchy melody also suggests that the goal of the church should be to convert the whole world to some version of Christianity.”
Certainly many people who call themselves Christians would like to do just that. But the “emerging theology” Diana mentions takes a broader view and accepts that Jews, Muslims, Hindus and all other religions have the right to their own beliefs and practices and that they are just as valid as ours.
Grace Cathedral used to have in its liturgy something to the effect of “We pray for all Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.” That was great. As Diana says, we need liturgy that emphasizes what we do here in this world and we need prayers about the reign of God now.
Perhaps the Episcopal Church would be better off working to update the liturgy in this manner instead of spending so much time getting exercised about the proposed Anglican Covenant, which appears destined for defeat anyway.
I had a telephone conversation with an Episcopal priest last week. We’ve never met in person, I’ve never been in her church when she preached a sermon, and I’ve never held out my hands to her so she could put the wafer in them. But I feel I know her well. I have listened to many of her podcast sermons, and her words have always resonated with me. She tells the truth, and she tells it with clarity, but at the same time with wit and humor. Her sermons rival or exceed those of the most experienced and respected of preachers. It’s the sad reality, though, that she hasn’t been treated well at all by the Episcopal Church.
Which was the occasion of our phone conversation. I had wanted to express my outrage at her treatment in my blog, and in an email exchange she asked that I not do so. We talked on the phone so she could explain her feelings in a more personal way than could be done by email. I understood where she was coming from entirely.
In the course of our conversation she asked me if I was a writer. I appreciated that. A lot. I explained to her that I toiled in the fields of high tech, and perhaps while not my vocational calling, it pays the bills and allows for a nice life for Terry and me.
But to have someone whom I respect so much acknowledge my writing — well, that meant an awful lot to me.
I’ve been attending St. John the Divine for more than a year now. I’ve liked the 10:30 am Choral Eucharist. I like the service and being able to being able to sleep in on Sunday but still get to church. Church dynamics, though, are changing and churches need to change to keep up.
At St. John neither the 8:00 am service nor the 10:30 am service were getting great attendance. And the board and the vestry noticed that parents were having trouble getting their kids to church for the 9:00 am family service. So they combined the 8:00 am service and the 10:30 Choral Eucharist into a 9:00 am Rite II Choral Eucharist and moved the family service to 10:30.
Needless to say I wasn’t pleased. This meant that I needed to get up at 7:00 am, the same time I get up most weekdays. But being at church and receiving Communion on Sunday is important to me.
The first two Sundays I am managed to get my rear our of bed at seven, as much as I would have love to have stayed under the covers. We had a critical mass at both services, which was nice.
This past Sunday was different. With Terry being away at the 3-Day walk, my weekend rhythm was out of whack. Add to that Sunday morning was cold and wet. I fed Tasha at seven and when I got out of the bathroom she was there on the bed. I looked at the bed, and I looked at the shower. The bed won. So I missed the Last Sunday after Pentecost.
But I think it will work out. I fully expect to be in church for the First Sunday of Advent.
I get up earlier, but we have more energy in the church service and I have an extra ninety minutes added to my day on Sunday.
On Reformation Sunday Good Shepherd Gilroy voted to leave the Missouri Synod and join the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Fr. Phil sent me an email expressing his approval and saying perhaps I was part of that. I responded:
“I was glad to see that, even if that vote should have come several years earlier. Perhaps I was part of it. I would like to think so. But even during my Good Shepherd days, I never thought of myself as a Lutheran, but rather as an Episcopalian who attended a Lutheran church. It’s good to be back where I belong.”
I almost said “Episcopalian in exile,” but that really wasn’t right. I enjoyed my years at Good Shepherd, but the bottom line is that I’m an Episcopalian, and I am indeed happy to be back where I belong. (With apologies to Hello Dolly.)
The fifth Sunday at St. John the Divine is always Youth Sunday, when the youth of the church lead the liturgy. That was the case on Sunday this week, and they did a great job as always. Normally the music on Youth Sunday is a bit different than usual, and this week was no exception. The offertory song was “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Marvelous! As I was leaving, Fr. Phil, who is about three years older than I am, said to me, “I bet an old hippie like you knows that song.” But of course. I like it that our rector sees that in me.
