There shall be a tabernacle
providing shade from the heat in the daytime
and a place of refuge and shelter from storm and rain.
(2 Nephi 14:6)
I'm praying for those in the path of Irene, especially in North Carolina.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
New school year
I teach my first classes of Fall 2011 tomorrow. It's been a crazy few days, finishing up syllabi. With the last-minute dissertation defense and the out-of-state move, I haven't had as much time as I normally do to put my classes together, so it's been an unusually hectic process this time around. I still have to finish getting the online components of the course in place.
It's very late, and I need to get some sleep. But I want to do a virtual version of my old custom of dedicating my classrooms. I used to do this back when I taught at the University of Utah: I would go into each of my classrooms a couple days before the beginning of the semester, while there was no one around, and pray. Then the custodians tightened up security and started locking the classrooms, so I couldn't do it anymore, at least not as physically present.
So here's a "distance" version. If we can have distance learning, why not a distant classroom dedication?
God of Light, Master Teacher, Spirit of Truth—
You have taught your children to seek learning by study.
You have urged us to seek words of wisdom from the best books.
You have urged us to gain a knowledge of history and of countries; things which have been and are; things at home and abroad; the conflicts and perplexities of the nations.
You have taught us to magnify our talents and to use our gifts in the service of our fellow beings.
I pray for the students I will serve this semester as their teacher.
I pray that I can inspire them with enthusiasm for the subjects we study; that I will be guided to discern clearly the connections that will make this material relevant and useful for them.
I pray that I can help them develop their intellectual gifts, their critical acumen. I pray that I can help them pursue their interests in ways that they find fruitful.
I pray that I will be inspired to provide them with effective feedback.
I pray that I will be led to be appropriately demanding and supportive.
I pray for the gifts of effective communication and discerning judgment.
I dedicate the classrooms in which I will teach this semester to be temples of the Spirit of knowledge.
I pray these rooms be filled with the Light that illuminates the mind and enlarges the understanding.
I pray these rooms be dwelling places of the Spirit that reasons and edifies.
I pray that here there be no influence maintained except by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, and love unfeigned, without hypocrisy.
May my performance this semester be consecrated for the welfare of my students.
May their performance this semester make some lasting difference in the magnifying of their talents and in their ongoing progress into their full potential.
In Christ's name, amen.
It's very late, and I need to get some sleep. But I want to do a virtual version of my old custom of dedicating my classrooms. I used to do this back when I taught at the University of Utah: I would go into each of my classrooms a couple days before the beginning of the semester, while there was no one around, and pray. Then the custodians tightened up security and started locking the classrooms, so I couldn't do it anymore, at least not as physically present.
So here's a "distance" version. If we can have distance learning, why not a distant classroom dedication?
God of Light, Master Teacher, Spirit of Truth—
You have taught your children to seek learning by study.
You have urged us to seek words of wisdom from the best books.
You have urged us to gain a knowledge of history and of countries; things which have been and are; things at home and abroad; the conflicts and perplexities of the nations.
You have taught us to magnify our talents and to use our gifts in the service of our fellow beings.
I pray for the students I will serve this semester as their teacher.
I pray that I can inspire them with enthusiasm for the subjects we study; that I will be guided to discern clearly the connections that will make this material relevant and useful for them.
I pray that I can help them develop their intellectual gifts, their critical acumen. I pray that I can help them pursue their interests in ways that they find fruitful.
I pray that I will be inspired to provide them with effective feedback.
I pray that I will be led to be appropriately demanding and supportive.
I pray for the gifts of effective communication and discerning judgment.
I dedicate the classrooms in which I will teach this semester to be temples of the Spirit of knowledge.
I pray these rooms be filled with the Light that illuminates the mind and enlarges the understanding.
I pray these rooms be dwelling places of the Spirit that reasons and edifies.
I pray that here there be no influence maintained except by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, and love unfeigned, without hypocrisy.
May my performance this semester be consecrated for the welfare of my students.
May their performance this semester make some lasting difference in the magnifying of their talents and in their ongoing progress into their full potential.
In Christ's name, amen.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Catching up
The past couple of weeks have been crazy—we just moved out of North Carolina to Ohio, where I'll be teaching for the next year. I haven't been online in several days as a result, so let me do some catching up.
First, gratitude for a safely completed move: "Eternity was our covering, and our rock, and our salvation, as we journeyed" (Abr. 2:16).
On our last night in North Carolina, I fed the cats for the last time, then stood there in the dark and prayed for them in the most powerful way I know, making the signs of the holy priesthood, as in a temple prayer circle. I named the cats individually, I thanked God that my friend Jill put me in touch with the organization that's going to take over feeding them . . . and then I really didn't know what to say beyond that except to commend the cats into God's hands. But that's already where they are, so that prayer makes no practical difference in their lives. The prayer left me feeling powerless: this was the most potent kind of prayer in my tradition's repertoire, and it still doesn't change anything. I do it because I can no longer do anything else for these animals. And then I sat on my steps and blubbered for a little while as one of the cats, Huga, stood a couple feet away, staring at me with those enormous yellow eyes of hers, mewing plaintively and waiting for me to do for her whatever it is she's always hoping I'll do.
And speaking of grief and loss, I read this morning that Marion D. Hanks and Chieko Okazaki have both died. Why is it the liberals die young while decrepit conservative patriarchs just go on and on? Bargains with the devil, I assume.
I once had the opportunity to have dinner with Chieko, at the home of a friend who had served his mission in Japan under the leadership of Chieko and her husband. I couldn't figure out if she was savvily resisting the church's dominant conservative ethos, or if she was naively doing her thing without recognizing that people in high places would find it problematic. It's hard to imagine that she could advance as high as she did in church leadership if she were simply naive rather than savvy—but then again, maybe a liberal needs to be naive to function in the system. I really don't know. Of course, she wasn't all that liberal—neither was Marion Hanks—but she was about as liberal as you can probably be in the LDS Church without having your faithfulness become suspect. I hope there are great things for both these individuals to do beyond the veil.
First, gratitude for a safely completed move: "Eternity was our covering, and our rock, and our salvation, as we journeyed" (Abr. 2:16).
On our last night in North Carolina, I fed the cats for the last time, then stood there in the dark and prayed for them in the most powerful way I know, making the signs of the holy priesthood, as in a temple prayer circle. I named the cats individually, I thanked God that my friend Jill put me in touch with the organization that's going to take over feeding them . . . and then I really didn't know what to say beyond that except to commend the cats into God's hands. But that's already where they are, so that prayer makes no practical difference in their lives. The prayer left me feeling powerless: this was the most potent kind of prayer in my tradition's repertoire, and it still doesn't change anything. I do it because I can no longer do anything else for these animals. And then I sat on my steps and blubbered for a little while as one of the cats, Huga, stood a couple feet away, staring at me with those enormous yellow eyes of hers, mewing plaintively and waiting for me to do for her whatever it is she's always hoping I'll do.
And speaking of grief and loss, I read this morning that Marion D. Hanks and Chieko Okazaki have both died. Why is it the liberals die young while decrepit conservative patriarchs just go on and on? Bargains with the devil, I assume.
I once had the opportunity to have dinner with Chieko, at the home of a friend who had served his mission in Japan under the leadership of Chieko and her husband. I couldn't figure out if she was savvily resisting the church's dominant conservative ethos, or if she was naively doing her thing without recognizing that people in high places would find it problematic. It's hard to imagine that she could advance as high as she did in church leadership if she were simply naive rather than savvy—but then again, maybe a liberal needs to be naive to function in the system. I really don't know. Of course, she wasn't all that liberal—neither was Marion Hanks—but she was about as liberal as you can probably be in the LDS Church without having your faithfulness become suspect. I hope there are great things for both these individuals to do beyond the veil.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Thanks for the Advocate
Today the Church of the Advocate bid a liturgical farewell to Hugo and me in anticipation of our impending move. Some of the songs that were chosen for today's service were related to the two of us in different ways, including the new lyrics Hugo and I wrote for the hymn "Earth and All Stars" (which I don't think I've ever posted to this blog, have I? I'll have to do that sometime). Since today was Pioneer Day, and since I was cantor, I also slipped "Come, Come Ye Saints" into the service—it appears in the Episcopal hymnal, but the lyrics have been revised to make it less pioneer-y and more generically Christian.
At the end of the service, everyone gathered in close to lay hands on Hugo and I (or to lay hands on someone laying hands on us, like a big net), and there was a final blessing to send us forth. (Hugo and I had had the vicar's family to our home for dinner a week or so before, during which he and I had given her a Mormon-style blessing as gratitude for her ministry.)
The Advocate has been our spiritual home while we've been in North Carolina. I'd been quite active in a Hispanic Episcopal congregation back in Salt Lake City, but then that ended in a contentious way, and when we came out to North Carolina, I wasn't looking for a new church. But Hugo found the Advocate's website, and we liked what we saw. They were a new mission—just completing their first year—and they talked on the website about their commitment to "radical hospitality," which both attracted me and made me nervous: I anticipated we'd be worshiping alongside schizophrenic homeless people. It wasn't quite like that. But the congregation has been rather eclectic, with all kinds of people passing through: young families, seniors, graduate students, gay/lesbian couples, interfaith marriages, multiracial families, Obama zealots, quiet Republicans, prisoners on furlough, a very vocal young adult with autism. Plus a pair of Mormons in exile.
I don't have time right now to gush about the Advocate the way I'd like to. It's been a welcoming community for us during our time here. The Advocate was happy to be my home even when I didn't want to claim it as my home. For the first four or five years, I was standoffish: I was a Mormon in exile, not an Episcopalian, and I guarded that barrier by abstaining from communion. Eventually, I started communing because I didn't feel right holding people at arm's length who were making a point of welcoming me, though in my head I always recited the LDS sacrament prayers at the same time the priest was blessing the bread and wine. When I was being excommunicated, a member of the Advocate's liturgical community, who was also a pretty close friend, called me at home to say that the Advocate was available to help me ritually mark this transition in my life in some way if I'd like that. I didn't take them up on that offer, but I appreciated it.
The Advocate has given me opportunities to use my gifts to serve others and to glorify God in worship. I'm grateful for that. I've been surprised and moved by what a big deal has been made of our moving away. Hugo and I were hardly pillars of this community (certainly not financially: we could have done more on that front than we did, I'm ashamed to say). But people have evidently valued what contributions we've made to the community's life. As I'm writing these words, I'm realizing this can be read as calculated modesty. And I won't deny that my ego derives gratification from the discovery that we're valued. But it has been a genuinely surprising discovery, which leaves me feeling more grateful and embarrassed and sad and ashamed than anything else.
Blessed be the name of my God,
who has been mindful of us,
wanderers in a strange land.
(Alma 26:36)
At the end of the service, everyone gathered in close to lay hands on Hugo and I (or to lay hands on someone laying hands on us, like a big net), and there was a final blessing to send us forth. (Hugo and I had had the vicar's family to our home for dinner a week or so before, during which he and I had given her a Mormon-style blessing as gratitude for her ministry.)
The Advocate has been our spiritual home while we've been in North Carolina. I'd been quite active in a Hispanic Episcopal congregation back in Salt Lake City, but then that ended in a contentious way, and when we came out to North Carolina, I wasn't looking for a new church. But Hugo found the Advocate's website, and we liked what we saw. They were a new mission—just completing their first year—and they talked on the website about their commitment to "radical hospitality," which both attracted me and made me nervous: I anticipated we'd be worshiping alongside schizophrenic homeless people. It wasn't quite like that. But the congregation has been rather eclectic, with all kinds of people passing through: young families, seniors, graduate students, gay/lesbian couples, interfaith marriages, multiracial families, Obama zealots, quiet Republicans, prisoners on furlough, a very vocal young adult with autism. Plus a pair of Mormons in exile.
I don't have time right now to gush about the Advocate the way I'd like to. It's been a welcoming community for us during our time here. The Advocate was happy to be my home even when I didn't want to claim it as my home. For the first four or five years, I was standoffish: I was a Mormon in exile, not an Episcopalian, and I guarded that barrier by abstaining from communion. Eventually, I started communing because I didn't feel right holding people at arm's length who were making a point of welcoming me, though in my head I always recited the LDS sacrament prayers at the same time the priest was blessing the bread and wine. When I was being excommunicated, a member of the Advocate's liturgical community, who was also a pretty close friend, called me at home to say that the Advocate was available to help me ritually mark this transition in my life in some way if I'd like that. I didn't take them up on that offer, but I appreciated it.
The Advocate has given me opportunities to use my gifts to serve others and to glorify God in worship. I'm grateful for that. I've been surprised and moved by what a big deal has been made of our moving away. Hugo and I were hardly pillars of this community (certainly not financially: we could have done more on that front than we did, I'm ashamed to say). But people have evidently valued what contributions we've made to the community's life. As I'm writing these words, I'm realizing this can be read as calculated modesty. And I won't deny that my ego derives gratification from the discovery that we're valued. But it has been a genuinely surprising discovery, which leaves me feeling more grateful and embarrassed and sad and ashamed than anything else.
Blessed be the name of my God,
who has been mindful of us,
wanderers in a strange land.
(Alma 26:36)
Blessed, honored pioneers!
Pioneer Day, and the first day that same-sex marriages are being performed in New York state. As if that weren't already queerly appropriate (get it, get it?), one of the very first people to be married under the new law, Kitty Lambert, is apparently from a Mormon background.
I love it.
I think I hear the sound of gnashing of teeth in Salt Lake City.
But let's end this post on a more positive note than that:
They, the builders of the nation,
blazing trails along the way;
stepping stones for generations
were their deeds of every day.
Building new and firm foundations,
pushing on the wild frontier,
forging onward, ever onward,
blessed, honored Pioneer!
As an ensign to the nation,
they unfurled the flag of truth,
pillar, guide, and inspiration
to the hosts of waiting youth.
Honor, praise, and veneration
to the founders we revere!
List our song of adoration,
blessed, honored Pioneer!
Lame poetry, but it's the sentiment that counts.
I love it.
I think I hear the sound of gnashing of teeth in Salt Lake City.
But let's end this post on a more positive note than that:
They, the builders of the nation,
blazing trails along the way;
stepping stones for generations
were their deeds of every day.
Building new and firm foundations,
pushing on the wild frontier,
forging onward, ever onward,
blessed, honored Pioneer!
As an ensign to the nation,
they unfurled the flag of truth,
pillar, guide, and inspiration
to the hosts of waiting youth.
Honor, praise, and veneration
to the founders we revere!
List our song of adoration,
blessed, honored Pioneer!
Lame poetry, but it's the sentiment that counts.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
God's word for job creators
In line with the Republicans' new strategy of referring to the rich as "job creators"—as in, "Don't raise taxes on the job creators"—here are some things the scriptures have to say to that group:
God has pulled the mighty down from their seats
and has raised up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things
and has turned the job creators away empty-handed.
(Luke 1:52-53)
Congratulations to the poor: God has named you heirs to his fortune!
Congratulations to the hungry: you will eat your fill!
Tough luck for the job creators: you already received your compensation package!
Tough luck for the well-fed: it will be your turn to go hungry!
(Luke 6:20-21, 24-25)
Note that the poor inherit the kingdom simply because God deeds it to them—like when someone leaves you an inheritance in their will. The poor don't earn the kingdom through their ingenuity and enterprising spirit and hard work. To those who do get ahead in life through their ingenuity and enterprising spirit and hard work, God says, "Well then, since you've already made your fortune, I don't need to include you in my will. I'll leave the kingdom and its riches to those who don't have so much." That's the way Jesus' God works. He doesn't buy into Ben Franklin's "God helps those who help themselves" philosophy.
Wo to the job creators,
who are rich as to the things of the world.
For because they are convinced
that they earned their wealth through their effort,
they despise the poor and persecute the lowly.
And their hearts are upon their treasures;
therefore their treasure is their god.
And with their treasure, they will perish.
(2 Nephi 9:30)
And it came to pass
that the people were all converted to the Lord.
They had all things common among them;
therefore, there were neither job creators nor poor.
(4 Nephi 1:2-3)
Capitalism—the economic system of an unconverted people.
And then there's this classic story from the New Testament:
A certain job creator said to Jesus,
"Good Master, what should I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him,
"You know the Ten Commandments."
The job creator said,
"Yes, and I have kept all of them since I was young."
Jesus said,
"Then all that remains for you to do is this:
Restructure your business as a co-op
and deed it to the workers, with no compensation to yourself.
Then liquidate all your other assets
and donate everything to programs helping low-income people—
all your wealth will be in heaven!—
and come follow me."
When the job creator heard this,
he was bitterly disappointed,
for his business was very profitable,
and despite the validating capitalist mythology that says profits go back into the company,
he had become filthy rich.
When Jesus saw how disappointed the job creator was, he said,
"How hard it is for a job creator to enter God's kingdom!"
I'm aware that because I'm a First Worlder, all the scriptures' warnings to the rich apply to me by default.
God has pulled the mighty down from their seats
and has raised up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things
and has turned the job creators away empty-handed.
(Luke 1:52-53)
Congratulations to the poor: God has named you heirs to his fortune!
Congratulations to the hungry: you will eat your fill!
Tough luck for the job creators: you already received your compensation package!
Tough luck for the well-fed: it will be your turn to go hungry!
(Luke 6:20-21, 24-25)
Note that the poor inherit the kingdom simply because God deeds it to them—like when someone leaves you an inheritance in their will. The poor don't earn the kingdom through their ingenuity and enterprising spirit and hard work. To those who do get ahead in life through their ingenuity and enterprising spirit and hard work, God says, "Well then, since you've already made your fortune, I don't need to include you in my will. I'll leave the kingdom and its riches to those who don't have so much." That's the way Jesus' God works. He doesn't buy into Ben Franklin's "God helps those who help themselves" philosophy.
Wo to the job creators,
who are rich as to the things of the world.
For because they are convinced
that they earned their wealth through their effort,
they despise the poor and persecute the lowly.
And their hearts are upon their treasures;
therefore their treasure is their god.
And with their treasure, they will perish.
(2 Nephi 9:30)
And it came to pass
that the people were all converted to the Lord.
They had all things common among them;
therefore, there were neither job creators nor poor.
(4 Nephi 1:2-3)
Capitalism—the economic system of an unconverted people.
And then there's this classic story from the New Testament:
A certain job creator said to Jesus,
"Good Master, what should I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him,
"You know the Ten Commandments."
The job creator said,
"Yes, and I have kept all of them since I was young."
Jesus said,
"Then all that remains for you to do is this:
Restructure your business as a co-op
and deed it to the workers, with no compensation to yourself.
Then liquidate all your other assets
and donate everything to programs helping low-income people—
all your wealth will be in heaven!—
and come follow me."
When the job creator heard this,
he was bitterly disappointed,
for his business was very profitable,
and despite the validating capitalist mythology that says profits go back into the company,
he had become filthy rich.
When Jesus saw how disappointed the job creator was, he said,
"How hard it is for a job creator to enter God's kingdom!"
I'm aware that because I'm a First Worlder, all the scriptures' warnings to the rich apply to me by default.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Consummatum est
Today I turned my completed dissertation over to my committee. The past several weeks have been hectic: Finishing the last chapter. Writing the intro and the conclusion and various prefatory matter. Cleaning up the footnotes—a big operation: there were over 700 of them, and I'd just been sketching them really roughly as I drafted. Compiling the bibliography—which I still do by hand, rather than with these newfangled automatic programs, which strike me as more bother than help (though check back in for a second opinion as soon as a publisher makes me reformat all my citations).
It's a relief to be done. I wrapped up around the same time as the four-year anniversary of my excommunication (July 17), whatever significance that has. I celebrated (the dissertation, not the excommunication) by buying myself a bottle of merengue, this Dominican cream soda I liked on my mission, which is now available in the Mexican foods aisle at my local Food Lion.
And now I wait for the defense and start working on revising the manuscript and shopping around for a publisher. Oh, and finalizing the classes I teach in the fall and gearing up for another round on the job market.
I owe thanks to—and for—a whole lot of people and institutions who helped me get to this point. In my mind, I'm placing the acknowledgments section of my dissertation on the altar and praying on behalf of the persons whose names are listed there.
It's a relief to be done. I wrapped up around the same time as the four-year anniversary of my excommunication (July 17), whatever significance that has. I celebrated (the dissertation, not the excommunication) by buying myself a bottle of merengue, this Dominican cream soda I liked on my mission, which is now available in the Mexican foods aisle at my local Food Lion.
And now I wait for the defense and start working on revising the manuscript and shopping around for a publisher. Oh, and finalizing the classes I teach in the fall and gearing up for another round on the job market.
I owe thanks to—and for—a whole lot of people and institutions who helped me get to this point. In my mind, I'm placing the acknowledgments section of my dissertation on the altar and praying on behalf of the persons whose names are listed there.
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