A few nights back, I watched pseud0-working class Detroit schlub Michael Moore castigating capitalism with talk-show host/regular guy, Jay Leno. In reality, both are multi-millionaires profiting from stocks held in the most ethically suspect corporations. And they did it all with straight faces.
I'm waiting for them to tell the Nigerian AIDS widow who gets a micro loan to start a fabric business that the system that allows her to create wealth to sustain her children is inherently evil. Apparently, she is better off being poor and destitute, in Moore's eyes, so that he can sleep with a clean conscience. Assuming he has one.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
WAFERGATE--I was right.
Right after the original wafergate story broke, I told a couple of friends that it was no accident that the story erupted just before Prime Minister Harper was supposed to meet the Pope.
Yesterday, we found out that the whole thing--including quotes from an "outraged" Catholic official--was invented--ready?--by a staffer of the Liberal Party of Canada and fed to a Liberal Party friendly newspaper. The paper apologized.
Today, we learned that an editor was fired and the publisher suspended for 30 days. I bet he got off with a suspension because daddy owns the paper. The Irvings need to stick to lumber and oil.
Why has the LPC not intervened to disown themselves from this? Where is Mr Integrity Michael Ignatieff? What members of the LPC leadership are going to track down and fire the inventor? The more they stay quiet, the more it looks like they approved of it.
The more they try to get away from it, the more it's going to come back and get them. I can see the new Tory attack ads now. And they'll have the added advantage of telling the truth: Liberal Party Lies, Inflames Religious Sensitivies, to ReGain Power. Great line.
Why is this not the #1 news story on every news website in Canada? A political party fabricated news, trying to use religious sensitivies against a sitting Prime Minister. IT WAS A LIE.
It was the #1 story for a week even though it smelled fishy. Far more than that one paper owes Prime Minister an apology.
And by the way, Maida, I told you so.
Yesterday, we found out that the whole thing--including quotes from an "outraged" Catholic official--was invented--ready?--by a staffer of the Liberal Party of Canada and fed to a Liberal Party friendly newspaper. The paper apologized.
Today, we learned that an editor was fired and the publisher suspended for 30 days. I bet he got off with a suspension because daddy owns the paper. The Irvings need to stick to lumber and oil.
Why has the LPC not intervened to disown themselves from this? Where is Mr Integrity Michael Ignatieff? What members of the LPC leadership are going to track down and fire the inventor? The more they stay quiet, the more it looks like they approved of it.
The more they try to get away from it, the more it's going to come back and get them. I can see the new Tory attack ads now. And they'll have the added advantage of telling the truth: Liberal Party Lies, Inflames Religious Sensitivies, to ReGain Power. Great line.
Why is this not the #1 news story on every news website in Canada? A political party fabricated news, trying to use religious sensitivies against a sitting Prime Minister. IT WAS A LIE.
It was the #1 story for a week even though it smelled fishy. Far more than that one paper owes Prime Minister an apology.
And by the way, Maida, I told you so.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
On A Different Note
For those expecting something deeper, sorry. I just gotta say this.
Chris Neil: For taking a 500k/yr pay cut to stay in Ottawa, thumbs up for loyalty.
Jason Spezza: For dealing publicly with being left off Team Canada honestly without being lachrimose and and for publicly honoring both friendship and team responsibility in the same press conference, thumbs way up for class.
Dany Heatley: You are dumber than a sack of doorknobs, whinier than a first violin lesson, and, for having a friend of your parents write a letter to the editor to try to garner sympathy from Ottawa fans, a sucky-baby (I mean really, is there another word that works? I'm open to suggestions). You could stand to learn about being a grown up from your (former) teammates.
Chris Neil: For taking a 500k/yr pay cut to stay in Ottawa, thumbs up for loyalty.
Jason Spezza: For dealing publicly with being left off Team Canada honestly without being lachrimose and and for publicly honoring both friendship and team responsibility in the same press conference, thumbs way up for class.
Dany Heatley: You are dumber than a sack of doorknobs, whinier than a first violin lesson, and, for having a friend of your parents write a letter to the editor to try to garner sympathy from Ottawa fans, a sucky-baby (I mean really, is there another word that works? I'm open to suggestions). You could stand to learn about being a grown up from your (former) teammates.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Redeeming God's Wrath
Some of you know that I have been doing a unit of CPE at an Ottawa-area hospital over the last 12 weeks. It has been a very good and moving experience. A wonderful opportunity to begin to integrate what I've been teaching with pastoral practice and good preparation for parish ministry. Because of the nature of the facility where I work, I have been introduced to suffering in profound and unique ways. Throughout, I have been exhorted to imagine the wounded Jesus entering fully into the suffering of others. This is good pastoral advice, but incomplete. I don't need a wounded Christ so much as an angry one. The image of Jesus—one well attested to in the Gospels—that my situation calls for is not the suffering Christ (what good is a suffering Christ who actually changes nothing?), but a wrathful one, incensed at the harm done to his creation and radically intervening to change the outcome. (Think, the scouring of Temple, the anguish over Jerusalem, etc.).
The wrath of God, and even more so, the wrath of His Son are not exactly popular matters when discussing the attributes of God. It is, to put it mildly, a neglected theological theme. And yet, it re-appropriation of it, it seems to me, is absolutely necessary. Theologians and pastors need to redeem God's wrath. Not only is it true, it is full of pastoral resources necessary for people who suffer and their care-givers.
For the wrath of God is not alien to God’s love (as though God could “contain” what are often understood to be polar opposites). Rather, the wrath of God is the “appearance” of the triune God who is love from and for all eternity when confronted by that which harms God’s good creation. Anything that harms, binds, or causes to suffer is judged by God. And in God’s wrath, that judgment is complete negation. It is, to borrow from Karl Barth, God’s “No!” to their rejection of God.
Without such a robust understanding of God’s wrath, it seems to me that our pastoral care will always appear anemic. God-in-Christ suffers alongside us, but there is no victory, no resurrection or ascension, just an end. Nothing (with a capital “N”) really does win after all.
And that’s not good enough. Ivan Karamazov couldn’t (rightly) bring himself to believe in a God for whom human suffering was necessary to bring about a greater good. I think I’m pretty close to Ivan’s protest here. I can’t bring myself to believe in a God who has not intervened to rescue the good creation—especially human beings—from all those things which mark that good creation—and we human beings—as fallen.
This does not solve the problem of evil, but rather actually sharpens it. For I am left with the words of the prophet that begin each Advent, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!” But sharpening the problem is better than sidestepping it. For without wrath, I can only say that God has entered into our suffering in Christ. And that’s not good enough. With wrath, I can add the eschatological hope that in the end, all will be well. Hope is not the answer to the riddle of suffering, but it’s enough to go on in the midst of it.
If the Cross-Resurrection-Ascension is not God’s decisive, wrathful, intervention to conquer das Nichtige, it’s just a nice myth. And it’s a myth I can do without.
The wrath of God, and even more so, the wrath of His Son are not exactly popular matters when discussing the attributes of God. It is, to put it mildly, a neglected theological theme. And yet, it re-appropriation of it, it seems to me, is absolutely necessary. Theologians and pastors need to redeem God's wrath. Not only is it true, it is full of pastoral resources necessary for people who suffer and their care-givers.
For the wrath of God is not alien to God’s love (as though God could “contain” what are often understood to be polar opposites). Rather, the wrath of God is the “appearance” of the triune God who is love from and for all eternity when confronted by that which harms God’s good creation. Anything that harms, binds, or causes to suffer is judged by God. And in God’s wrath, that judgment is complete negation. It is, to borrow from Karl Barth, God’s “No!” to their rejection of God.
Without such a robust understanding of God’s wrath, it seems to me that our pastoral care will always appear anemic. God-in-Christ suffers alongside us, but there is no victory, no resurrection or ascension, just an end. Nothing (with a capital “N”) really does win after all.
And that’s not good enough. Ivan Karamazov couldn’t (rightly) bring himself to believe in a God for whom human suffering was necessary to bring about a greater good. I think I’m pretty close to Ivan’s protest here. I can’t bring myself to believe in a God who has not intervened to rescue the good creation—especially human beings—from all those things which mark that good creation—and we human beings—as fallen.
This does not solve the problem of evil, but rather actually sharpens it. For I am left with the words of the prophet that begin each Advent, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!” But sharpening the problem is better than sidestepping it. For without wrath, I can only say that God has entered into our suffering in Christ. And that’s not good enough. With wrath, I can add the eschatological hope that in the end, all will be well. Hope is not the answer to the riddle of suffering, but it’s enough to go on in the midst of it.
If the Cross-Resurrection-Ascension is not God’s decisive, wrathful, intervention to conquer das Nichtige, it’s just a nice myth. And it’s a myth I can do without.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Courage and Pastoral Care
Lately, I’ve been struck at how much courage figures in good spiritual and pastoral care. Specifically, the courage it takes for caregivers to initiate relationships with others in the hope that these will be healing. Courage here is required at, at least two levels.
The first is the basic courage required to take the initiative in establishing relationships. I confess that this is an area of personal struggle and weakness. I am not “wired” to be outgoing. I can remember very distinctly wishing I could chat with strangers as easily as my friend Eric did when we were in College. There was no one he could not talk to; there was nothing he could not talk about. And I was the silent sidekick. When we were on tour together in a musical group, we were always billeted together as a result. In the 20 years that have passed since then, I’ve consciously worked on this area and I have improved. (The best thing for me, as in so many other areas, was getting married). But it’s still an issue that needs work, especially as I seem to be moving toward a more parish oriented phase of ministry, where I won’t have the luxury of waiting for people to come to me.
The second, and more difficult requirement is the courage to risk doing the person harm. It is not, of course, that I would intentionally harm anyone in a caring relationship. Rather, it is simply to acknowledge that to truly help a companion toward healing and wholeness, is to risk harming them in profound ways. Here, good pastoral care is a lot like open-heart surgery. Sternum cracked. Ribs spread open. Heart stopped. Breathing and circulation maintained artificially. Heart re-started. All of these actions are necessary in open-heart surgery. All of these actions risk seriously harming, even killing, the patient. And if the surgeon didn’t risk harm, the patient would die. The pastor or spiritual care-giver is—I am—in an analogous situation. Leading someone towards a more authentic relationship with God and with others can inflict a great deal of emotional and spiritual harm, and yet without risking such harm, those same relationships will likely remain dysfunctional or stunted. It’s a hard place to sit in and certainly one in which I will never be comfortable.
And yet, over the last six months, I have been the beneficiary of courageous pastoral care. So I have seen the reward that comes from skilled practitioners who know how to balance risk and reward and act. And I know I have to work at this, too. If I am called to help people grow in their relationships with God and with others, then I am called to risk harming them, too.
There is no solution to this dilemma. It comes with the job. So I find great comfort in Luther’s words, “Sin boldly,” which I take to mean, “For God’s sake, do something!”
The first is the basic courage required to take the initiative in establishing relationships. I confess that this is an area of personal struggle and weakness. I am not “wired” to be outgoing. I can remember very distinctly wishing I could chat with strangers as easily as my friend Eric did when we were in College. There was no one he could not talk to; there was nothing he could not talk about. And I was the silent sidekick. When we were on tour together in a musical group, we were always billeted together as a result. In the 20 years that have passed since then, I’ve consciously worked on this area and I have improved. (The best thing for me, as in so many other areas, was getting married). But it’s still an issue that needs work, especially as I seem to be moving toward a more parish oriented phase of ministry, where I won’t have the luxury of waiting for people to come to me.
The second, and more difficult requirement is the courage to risk doing the person harm. It is not, of course, that I would intentionally harm anyone in a caring relationship. Rather, it is simply to acknowledge that to truly help a companion toward healing and wholeness, is to risk harming them in profound ways. Here, good pastoral care is a lot like open-heart surgery. Sternum cracked. Ribs spread open. Heart stopped. Breathing and circulation maintained artificially. Heart re-started. All of these actions are necessary in open-heart surgery. All of these actions risk seriously harming, even killing, the patient. And if the surgeon didn’t risk harm, the patient would die. The pastor or spiritual care-giver is—I am—in an analogous situation. Leading someone towards a more authentic relationship with God and with others can inflict a great deal of emotional and spiritual harm, and yet without risking such harm, those same relationships will likely remain dysfunctional or stunted. It’s a hard place to sit in and certainly one in which I will never be comfortable.
And yet, over the last six months, I have been the beneficiary of courageous pastoral care. So I have seen the reward that comes from skilled practitioners who know how to balance risk and reward and act. And I know I have to work at this, too. If I am called to help people grow in their relationships with God and with others, then I am called to risk harming them, too.
There is no solution to this dilemma. It comes with the job. So I find great comfort in Luther’s words, “Sin boldly,” which I take to mean, “For God’s sake, do something!”
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