My Lent... and Beyond

Something that's big in Christianity is taking care of God's creations. We preach taking care of the environment/earth/animals/other humans... But what about taking care of ourselves? Sure, there are definitely those out there who remind us that we should do this for God, but Christians aren't overly good on following through on this.

John Wesley, and his fellow early Methodists, were big on taking care of the body - sort of. He believed in only sleeping just as much as necessary (for him, that was rumored to be 4 hours a night; I know I need more than that). He wanted his preachers to 'exercise,' and to ride horses (I guess as opposed to carriage?) through their circuits. They weren't supposed to overeat, or indulge in various unhealthies...

For years, I've struggled with being healthy... So perhaps it's time to come at it from a different perspective. I don't do it for me, and I don't do it for other people... So what if I do it for God? Lent seems to be as good a time as any to start - living healthy is, in a sense, making a sacrifice. To that end, I've added a couple of tickers to my blog. One's for my weight loss (goal of about 100 lbs, or 45.5 kg), and the other is for a running program I'm starting: Couch to 5K (I've done it before, about 3 years ago, and had GOOD success, but never finished). Eventually, I'll hopefully move beyond the 5K!

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Happy Valentine's Day

So obviously I'm not Catholic, but there's more to today than just candy hearts...
St. Valentine - Who was he? (besides my middle-namesake)
Patron of love, young people, and happy marriage (apropos, no?)
The first Valentine was one of those Roman Catholic priests who lived during the days of serious persecution (against the Christians) in the Holy Roman Empire. He was martyred, which then was nigh on the BEST of the best ways to die; it was pretty much a guarantee of going straight to heaving and getting saint-hood while you were at it. How much of this story is accurate is unknown, but he definitely existed, and he was definitely sainted in the 5th century. That being said, I use the word "first" for a reason... There were others, of the same name, who were also martyred. With similarly limited current knowledge.

And in other news...
Transfiguration Sunday - What is it? (hint: it's got nothing to do with Valentine)
The three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), and possibly other biblical sources, refer to the event on the mountain where Jesus is made radiant in front of eyewitnesses, and God names him as his son. This year, that was celebrated today... In case you were curious. The whole Jesus = messiah thing is, after all, what distinguished ancient Christians from ancient Jews.

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What is my Identity?

With thanks to one of my Methodist Polity professors...

Scratch a United Methodist in New England, you'll find a Congregationalist
Scratch a United Methodist in the South, you'll find a Southern Baptist

I can't rightly argue with either of these statements; in fact, they're what has made it so hard for me to find comfortable fits in both regions. Despite having spent the majority of my life in either New England or Georgia, I can say - fairly passionately - that I am neither a pseudo-Congregationalist, nor (especially) a pseudo-Southern Baptist.

So what does that mean for my faith identity? I suppose I don't rightly know. I'm not sure I'm a true United Methodist either, after all the work we've been doing reading the Book of Discipline. I think (and this realization kind of whacked me over the head and made me see stars) that there's too much Catholic in me. I wish I could blame my lovely Catholic high school for that, but I can't. It's all me. And you know, even that doesn't fully sum it up, because there's a wee bit of Unitarian Universalist, too. There's just no good answer.

In other news: pristine white snow, crisp clean air, sunny blue skies, and old New England homes... Yesterday morning was so totally why I came back north. Thank you, Mother Nature (and, I suppose, God, since I'm supposed to be a good seminarian), for reminding me.

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The Personal "IT"

A big thing at school - and I suppose in the broader religious community, as well - is inclusive language. I don't consider myself prejudiced in any form (RE race, age, sex, sexuality, handicaps, whatever), but I have some issues with the over PC-ness of "inclusive language."

1. Jesus had a penis. Get over it.
2. Not all black people are African-Americans. It's okay for me to say "white," so I'm gonna say "black," too. Although usually, I'm not going to distinguish skin color at all.
3. The Bible was written in sexist times. By translating it into non-sexist language, you are changing its history. Interpret it however you like, but stop changing the Book.
4. He IS my Lord. He IS superior to me. I will not make myself equal to God.
5. The prayer is "Our Father," not "Our Mother." I could get behind "Our Creator," if you wanted to go that route, but using "mother" and other feminine language is being exclusive against men, unless you genuinely do alternate between the two.

I proposed on my Twitter feed the other day that we bring back the personal "IT." All caps because I am, of course, referring to God* in this case. Hundreds of years ago, "it" was a personal pronoun... It gradually devolved. Since we're so determined that God isn't male, and I refuse to make Him (IT?) female, we need a gender neutral.

IT is my shepherd. I shall not want.

*Note that no disrespect is meant to God. Rather, this is a rant about the inadequacy of human language and the over-zealousness of Political Correctness.

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The Church and Politics, Part Deux

So I went on a mini-rant, ah, two weeks ago now? About the rash of political messages coming from the pulpit recently. See here :)

This evening, I read from the United Methodist Social Principles in the Book of Discipline, 2008. Quickly:

The Social Principles, while not to be considered church law, are a prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of the General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions. they are a call to faithfulness and are intended to be instructive and persuasive in the best of the prophetic spirit. The Social Principles are a call to all members of The United Methodist Church to a prayerful, studied dialogue of faith and practice.
~Part IV, Social Principles, Preface

That being said, most of those political messages I was ranting on are reiterations of statements made in the Social Principles. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I agree that individuals should be encouraged to live biblically, and make decisions based on scripture. I'm not sure, however, that I agree that the Principles should be telling me which way to sway in socio-political issues. I do realize that most denominations take hard-line stances on things, and I'm probably not going to agree perfectly with any of them. Since these are not church rules as such, I'm not bound to them in the way I'm bound to the Constitution.

Food for thought, no?

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