"Anglicanism Remixed"

This morning I had the opportunity to head to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to hear Stephanie Spellers speak at a forum. The title of the forum was "Anglicanism remixed: Embracing our Traditions, and Embracing the Other"    Stephanie is an Episcopal Priest, Author and editor for church publishing from Boston, MA.  Her book is entitled, Radical Welcome, Embracing God, The Other, and the Spirit of Transformation.

The message that she is preaching is one that resonates very strongly with me.  She believes that the Anglican tradition must change.  It cannot stay the same or it will die.  The average age of our members is over 65 and that our congregations are over 95% white and include the wealthiest people in America.  We are the church of the Empire.  After all, we are THE Church of England. This is the foundation our tradition is built on.  For the most part, we are not a melting pot of nationalities or races.

Of course their is good in us as well.  The Anglican tradition has a powerful tool in the Book of Common Prayer and we should be proud of it.  She said that it is common in two ways, first that it is used by many people in a similar fashion all over the world and also that it is common in that it is in the vernacular of the people.  Back in 1549, Thomas Cramner wrote the prayerbook in English so the people could understand it and we should be doing the same.  Stephanie believes that we should be able to take the prayerbook and mix into it some modern ideas as well.  In her church, they congregation uses a chinese version of the Lord's prayer because there is a chinese population that worships there.

One of the biggest things she feels that we as a church need to be able to do is allow people to name their fear.  The fear that happens with change within the church as well as the fear that people have about changes within their own lives.  We must be able to accept fear and not try to fix it but allow it to exist in the open and not hidden.  Once that fear has been realized, then and only then can change start to happen.  For church to change it must look at what we are already doing and add to it based upon the needs of the community.  Change must be based upon the strengths of the community not the weaknesses.  It must address what is needed within the greater community.

This is just a small piece of what Stephanie spoke about and I am not doing her justice.  I purchased her book and will be more than happy to share it with any of you after I'm done reading it or you can get your own copy.  Stephanie's sermon is available online at the Grace Cathedral website.  Please listen to it, you won't be disappointed.

If you want to talk more about this subject, please send me an email or stop me when you see me.  I'll be glad to talk about this in more depth as this is something I am very passionate about.

Jesus said: "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." Matthew 10:40

Would you welcome Jesus?  Are you radically welcoming?

Touring San Francisco

I am writing this tonight with the windows open while listening to a Primus concert at the Greek Ampitheater over at Cal Berkeley.  I had tried to read my history of Christianity reading by Pelagius and Augustine of Hippo but the music and the cheering are too loud to concentrate.

If you are suffering with snow, rain, wind and or loss of power and heat, know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.  One of the benefits of living in the bay area is that the temperature here is pretty mellow.  Today was a bright sunny day with the temperature in the mid-seventies.

I decided before reading week began that I was going to work hard the beginning of the week in order that I could take a day at the end of the week and be a "tourist."  I have lived in the shadow of the golden gate bridge for over two months and have never really explored San Francisco other than going into the city for church, after which we immediately leave and come back to Berkeley.  Yesterday, Cathalena, another first year student, and I decided to go into the city for the afternoon.  So we hopped in the car and drove over to San Francisco, had lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, walked to Ghirardelli Square, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, drove down Lombard Street, and visited Sausalito, a small picturesque town on the North Bay and then drove through Japantown on our way home.  All in all it was a great day of exploring parts of San Francisco that we had never seen or visited before.

The seals of Pier 39

Sourdough bread ready for the holiday

Fisherman's wharf sign

Streetcar's waiting for passenger's

San Francisco Bay, notice the swimmer's

Looking to Ghirardelli Square

Top of Lombard St

Starting down Lombard

Looking up Lombard St from the bottom

Sausalito, CA

Golden Gate Bridge looking toward San Francisco

The Pacific Ocean outside of San Francisco Bay

We started walking across the bridge but
this was as far as I could get because the walkway
bounces so much that my fear of heights
took over

Reading Week

I have heard from some of you asking where my recent posts have been.  I haven't posted because I have been in Tucson with Ryan for my reading week.  Reading week for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a week where we have no classes but are expected to read, write, and continue our work.  For me that meant reading about 200 hundred pages, and writing 4 papers.  So far this week, I have written a paper for Greek, Old Testament and Church History.  I still have to write a paper for Anglican Tradition and Life but that can wait until tomorrow as a friend and I are going to go into San Francisco for the afternoon.

Going back a bit, I haven't seen Ryan since August before school started, so you can imagine how excited I was to see him.  I flew out at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday with the hope of making his baseball game.  Of course, the fog in LA was so bad, that my flight was delayed by an hour.  Luckily, I still was able to make it to the game to see the last inning.  I got to see Ryan bat as well as play second base. I missed seeing him pitch.

 

 On Sunday, Ryan and I went to see Shrek, the Musical which was part of the Broadway in Tucson Series of plays.  I thought it was good for Ryan to see what a Broadway show was like and he really enjoyed the show.  If the show comes to your hometown, I highly recommend it.

By coincidence, it was also reading week for Ryan as well.  Of course, his reading week is a theme week around books.  On Tuesday, I got to have breakfast with Ryan at school and then at 8:30 the school, had a character parade, where each student dresses like their favorite book character.  Ryan dressed up at Raul Ibanez, the Philadelphia Phillies player.  A good friend dressed up at a storm trooper.

Overall it was a great week spent with fabulous little boy.  I know I am his father but I am so proud of him, I amazed at the number of people that compliment him on his manners and his helpfulness.

I will post some pictures of my adventure this afternoon later in the weekend.  Until then, I hope everyone has a great day.

Jay

Another Week comes to a close

It's official.  The first academic research paper of my seminary career is finished and has been uploaded.  We no longer turn papers in, you upload them and the professor's read them electronically and comment on them without ever printing the paper out.  Isn't technology awesome!  Over the past week I have spent roughly 20 hours working on a six page paper entitled, The Nicene Creed: An Important Transition in Trinitarian Doctrine of the catholic church.  Notice the little c in catholic as I'm not talking about the Roman church but the church universal of the third and fourth centuries.  I never thought that I would be reading the works of Origen, Irenaeus and other theologians and applying their theology to Trinitarian doctrine but it is such an interesting subject.  On Sunday when you recite the Nicene Creed, do you ever really think about what you are saying and why?  Although I only saw the tip of the iceberg, the research process was really an energizing experience.  

It is Sunday night and I have spent almost the entire weekend studying for my Old Testament mid-term on Tuesday afternoon.  My years of EFM have definitely helped me with this class because I am already familiar with the documentary hypothesis by Wellhausen who states that there are four sources of the Pentateuch, namely E, D, P & J.  If you don't know what I am talking about and the idea intrigues you, I strongly encourage you to take Education for Ministry (EFM).  Unfortunately, EFM can only go into so much detail and I am going deeper than my EFM experience.  I am learning about all the different myths that exist within other cultures that parallel our old testament stories.  Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, Ugaritic,  and Baal are just a few that I am learning.  Of course, the big question that I am currently searching for is: What is the importance of learning the stories?  What do these stories tell about our Christian history?  When I come up with a good answer, I'll let you know.  

Each class at seminary is not really that difficult.  Unfortunately, I am taking and so the workload is incredible.  After studying all day, I am now researching a paper for my Greek class.  In this paper, I am looking at Matthew 7:1-14.  In this paper, I am supposed to explore the passage in English looking at 3 translations to see where words were translated differently.   I then pick two words to look at how they were translated from the original Greek and what the difference could be if the translators would have chosen a different English word.  I just started this process but again, I find it very interesting to see how a word choice many years ago can effect how modern Christians interpret the bible.  

Of course, it is Sunday so that means that I went to visit another church this morning.  This morning, three other seminarians and I walked down to Bart and took public transportation to St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in San Francisco.  St. Aidan's is a smaller Episcopal church in a relatively new neighborhood.  The sanctuary was open with no fixed pews, altar or organ.  The entire space is flexible.  It was also the first church that I have ever attended that uses a Xylophone and a piano for music.  It was  so enjoyable to listen to the music that I found myself forgetting to sing.  The parish definitely sees Christ in everyone and ministers to all people.  They started a before and after school program for the neighborhood so parents had a safe place for their children, they provide food to both the homeless as well as to the neighbors, they have a Sunday night service called Community of Traveler's which is a "contemplative ancient-future progressive Christo-centric" service.  They also have weekly fellowship called Sacred Cocktails at a local watering hole.  As we were leaving, each of us were given a welcome bag which included some information about the church as well as a personal loaf of sourdough bread.  The bread was welcome relief  for my stomach because I ate mine while waiting for the bus to come.  As is my usual custom, I took a few pictures of the building as well as the sanctuary.  I hope you enjoy.

Weekends

One of the first things that I have come to understand about seminary is that weekends really aren't weekends as I used to know them.  For me a weekend is a time to get caught up on reading, paper writing and homework for following week's classes.  Classes may end on Friday but the work doesn't.  This weekend is no exception.
I have my first six to eight page paper due in History of Christianity I this coming Friday.  In the paper we are expected to take a primary source document that we have read in class, and write a paper exploring the environment when it was written, the issues surrounding the document and the importance of the document in history.  I decided to challenge myself and write a paper on the Nicene Creed.  Now mind you, I cannot use the Nicene Creed as we know it today but rather the Nicene Creed that came out of the Council of Nicea in 325.  That version is all of eight lines long.  My thesis for the paper is The Nicene Creed of the fourth century is a transitional point in the formation of Trinitarian Doctrine within the catholic church.  Sounds fun doesn't it!  I currently have three pages written and have come to a block in my writing so I am hoping that by changing what I write, I will break the block.  I really need to finish the first draft of the paper tonight because this week is a week full of activities and I don't have much spare time.

This is Sunday and so that means that I went and explored a new church today.  This morning Rob, another first year seminarian, and I attended St. Mark's Episcopal Church right here in Berkeley.  The parish is directly across the Cal Berkeley campus so it was short ten minute walk to get there.   We arrived around 9:30 just in time for their blessing of the animals service on the front lawn.  I would guess there were about 20 animals present, mainly dogs but there was one cat and three rats that I saw.  It was a nice blessing and then we, animals of all kinds, proceeded to the sanctuary for the main service.  The building looks Spanish mission from the outside but on the inside it is very open and inviting.  The Choir loft is in the back of the parish and there is still a high altar against the front wall, but it wasn't used during our service.

This parish had a very large choir similar to my Trinity, my home parish, and the choir sang beautiful.  This was the first parish that I have been to out here where I recognized the service music.  I felt like I was back home again.  I could tell we were at a parish close to seminary because there were two professors in the congregation with us.

I'm now off to continue writing my paper so until next time, Peace

Food for thought

“Don’t listen to those who say, ‘You’re taking too big a chance.’ Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says. ‘They’re all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections. I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respects.”
- Neil Simon

This is something that I believe needs to be said more often:

Change happens

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the senior prom that was held here at CDSP.  I have read it and re-read it a few times and I think that I need to clarify a few things about that post. My intention was not to disparage the event or the school at all.   A lot of people went to a lot of time to put the dance together and it was nice to socialize with seminarians in an environment outside of the normal classroom setting.    I also want to apologize to the person that stepped up to the plate to introduce me.  They were honoring a level of confidentiality and didn’t have a chance to vet my introduction beforehand.   Further, they had started my introduction prior to me entering the building so I had it wrong. So I have decided to remove the post from the blog as it detracted from the other great things that take place here. 

Craziness

Tonight in greek, we were talking about different translations of the bible specifically how some versions are more word for word while others are more thought for thought translations.  This is important because it can truly change the way scripture is interpreted based upon the word choice of the translator.  The professor said here is an example of how words can be minced in translation.

Now I must warn you that this video is pretty bad.  I am not condoning what he says in the video but showing how word choice can be used inappropriately.

Please give me your thoughts after you watch this video.

St Francis Day

As I had mentioned last night, a group of us got up before dawn and drove into the city for a service in Presdio park.  I wasn't sure what to expect because all I knew was there was a bird watching piece from 7:30 - 8:30 and then a service at 8:30.

We arrived at the park around 7:30  and walked to the location where we thought we were to meet.   Luckily someone was already there.  The gentleman started off by telling us a little bit about the location and then started pointing out all the different birds that we were seeing.  Not being from California, it was pretty amazing to hear about a bird that was there today but summers in the Arctic Circle and was on its way to South America.  What a long way to migrate.  We probably saw 12 - 15 different types of birds.  Some of them are pictured below.

After birding, we walked over the the grove of Cedar trees where the Rev Canon Sally Bingham had set up the service.  Sally is the President and Founder of Interfaith Power and Light.  According to their website:

The mission of Interfaith Power & Light is to be faithful stewards of Creation by responding to global warming through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. This campaign intends to protect the earth’s ecosystems, safeguard the health of all Creation, and ensure sufficient, sustainable energy for all.

Global warming is one of the biggest threats facing humanity today. The very existence of life — life that religious people are called to protect — is jeopardized by our continued dependency on fossil fuels for energy. Every major religion has a mandate to care for Creation. We were given natural resources to sustain us, but we were also given the responsibility to act as good stewards and preserve life for future generations. 

IPL has over a decade of experience helping congregations address global warming by being better stewards of energy. The campaign has a track record of tangible results: shrinking carbon footprints and educating hundreds of thousands of people in the pews about the important role of people of faith in addressing this most challenging issue.

In addition to practicing energy stewardship in our facilities, IPL brings the voice of the faith community into the policy-making arena. We know that our actions alone cannot stem the tide of climate change – we need to enact public policies to advance clean energy and to limit carbon pollution. IPL is working to support policy change at the local, state, and national levels.

As people of faith, our mission includes being advocates for vulnerable people and communities that are the most heavily impacted by climate change. From air pollution to droughts to rising seas, it is poor people who are being hit first and worst by global warming. Our goal is to ensure that climate policies provide adaptation and mitigation support for communities domestically and internationally whose health and survival is at stake. We also aim to make sure that all people can participate in and benefit from the growing clean energy economy.

IPL is a field education site for seminarians that don't want to work in a typical parish setting.  According to a former seminarian, working with Sally allows seminarians to see how the church can interact outside the normal religious circles. From just the short time I witnessed Sally today, she is an impressive woman and a faithful servant of the environment.

We started the service on the beach of San Francisco Bay with the Golden Gate Bride as the backdrop.  When it came time for the homily, Sally said, I am not going to speak this morning but will allow nature and all of God's creation to speak for itself.  Let's just listen and observe. What a powerful time it was, as we all just watched the bay as the fog floated past the Golden Gate bridge, listened to the waves lapping at the beach, and the dogs barking in the distance.  And in the midst of all that, a lone seal pops its head out of the water directly in front of us, looks up towards us and then turns and swims away.

After the silence we began with "A Creedal Declaration" printed below:

We believe in one God, Creater of land and sea and sky.
Through God all things were made, and from God and god alone they have their being.
Wherever there is life, God is its sole sustainer, and all forms of life on Earth derive from God.
We believe in the sanctity of life, and the inherent value of each of God's creatures.
We revere the majesty of creation in all its richness and diversity, and all of God's wondrous Kingdoms on Earth.
We recognize the interdependence of the human family, and the families of animals, plants, sea creatures and ever family that is.
We value God's command to be stewards of creation, and regard it as a privilege to be given power to be its stewards, and to keep and serve creation with glad devotion.
We believe in the God of History, who through time has loved all in creation, and who thus sanctifies and redeems the keeper's of God's Garden, the Earth.
Amen

We then shared the Eucharist together before closing with the Prayer of St. Francis.  A prayer that I need to remember more often as I go through my daily life.  The prayer is:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.  Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.  Amen

In the end, the service was a very powerful service not for what was said but what was left unsaid.  To have a service celebrating St Francis Day on the beach in the presence of all of God's creatures, is truly an amazing experience that I will not forget for a long time to come.

Me reading the lesson

Sally and her dog, Obi

Sally with the film crew

View looking East into San Francisco Bay

View looking west from the Cedar Grove

For more information about Interfaith Power and Light, click here