An Ode to the Erotic

'This land is not your land,
For the right hand takes what it can,
Ransacks to the mad man.
For this land is not yours or mine to have.
This land was made for the good of itself.'
From No Man's Land by Sufjan Stevens


. . .Perhaps. Perhaps English limps, needy promissory notes,
Each next novelty bleeding half-eaten dictionaries
To the point I'd sigh endlessly or weep;
And yet there is room for lack of faith in my lack of faith.

For
Although our language decays, all
Child-hearted Reality rallies still, bursts into laughter lengthily-
Warm gushes, flutters, wonders at each Other,
Rushing but discovers all destination in the journey.

Two souls long for another glimpse of each other, another chance
To exult in holding hands each other with the one they love.
This is not a spelling or a grammar rule, not something to be spelled out-
Delicate and fierce, something vaguely pronounced in embrace,
In the eyelash flutter of one upon a beloved's face,
Perhaps only to be told most clearly in silent presence.

Reality, no object, has freckles
And a peculiar laugh, or perhaps not.
-Somehow that has always been You,
And where would we go besides pursuing You?
Beyond bathroom stalls and tokens,
O Dirty Word - that is, Divinity - not ever enough spoken . . .


[An ode to the Erotic will inevitably be something reflective of what it praises, in that the ode will not be able to fully praise its subject (since the Erotic is always found in subjects - found in particular ways in particular persons and things - not in an isolated, distilled 'compound') but in this seeing beauty in the particular, the ode seeks for something beyond or 'yet again' in Eroticism itself. This is the reality of the Erotic, in its particular manifestations, in its beautiful tension: if lived-out healthily, the desirer truly seeks the Good beyond the particular person/thing, within which the person/thing subsists (not trying to 'freeze' or 'apprehend' the person/thing desired), but at the same time the desirer seeks and loves the person/thing for her/his/its very manifestation of the Good (not seeking to 'overcome' the person/thing in order to 'get at' the Reality 'behind' the person/thing). The Reality is something in which all persons/things subsist, something 'behind' all things, but It manifests itself in particular subjects, whom we must hunger and thirst to love simply because of their own sake.]

-a-

God's Division in Creation as Justification

Here's an odd notion that brought a lot of conversation; as of today, it's been expressed to me on three different occasions: God's creative act always involves division, as we see in the Creation story - God separates light from darkness, water above from water below, etc. And, naturally, God Himself is three-in-one. The thrust of this abstract gesture is one in a long line of attempts I've seen try to make 'Emergents' and liturgically-minded Nazarenes feel like everything is still going along swell on their particular side of the lawn party: Hey, the Reformation wasn't necessarily a bad thing! God's unity is expressed in our division, just like in Creation.

Along with the endless heretical theological/philosophical repercussions of such a statement, there are three problems to be briefly mentioned here:

(1) This notion is dubious in light of Jesus' prayer in John 17.
Jesus adamantly and specifically prayed that we 'be one, as [He] and the Father are one.' I know there is a knee-jerk response to this (and will be addressed under the next heading), but this in itself should say something to those among us who are content with the Protestant mange of our day. Do we really think God is happy with the situation we're in, with everyone doing her/his own damn thing? We wander off away from each other as we see fit, supposedly all under one banner...

(2) This notion is a faerytale rendering of the very real reality of the Protestant situation.
...which leads me to the next problem with this notion. It is foolish to speak as though the situation is so simple. 'We are unified, Rick - we're all part of the catholic Church, though not the Catholic Church.' Okay, cool. Well, then: which has authority? which rendering of the Truth is correct? or did Jesus mean 'you'll be taking various and equally valid stabs at it' when He said the Spirit would lead the Church into all Truth? The Calvinist portrait of God and life in general is a far different picture than that of the classical Arminian portrait, and both are acute disorders of the Catholic spectrum; all of these end up being completely contradictory, in fact. I'm not so silly as to think that all Truth is something to be referenced canonically and unequivocally in an 'Encyclopaedia of the Forms', but in this case there is only a 'harmony' or a 'tension' in the make-believe world of the frozen words on the paper. There is only 'tension' so long as we don't let the ideas talk to each other, because then that might lead to interaction, which would in turn show that something somewhere needs to have authority if the full Gospel does speak of a Saviour who supposedly narrates all of human existence.

(3) This notion ignores the very real reality of present-day Catholic harmony.
As usual, Protestantism gets caught up in its own amnesia and locks Catholicism out of the shoe-box council from the very beginning. If someone would like to see the idea of 'division' or 'harmony' or 'tension' in relation to the unity Jesus prayed for, one need look no further than the Catholic Church. Sure, the Latin Rites are the most prominent in the Church, but the Latin Rites comprise several different Rites, and there are also the Eastern Rites and the Alexandrian Rites. The Mozarabic Rite, for instance, breaks the Eucharist bread into seven (or nine) in correlation to the notable mysteries in Jesus' life; the Eastern Rite priests can marry, and many churches of the Eastern Rites use the ancient Confessional that is in front of the church. Yet all of these Rites in their various expressions of the Faith are in complete union (theologically and politically) with the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, which continues to teach the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

-Rick

An Ode of Sorts

(The two remaining papers will be the final chore before a return to a balanced lifestyle, and I'm looking forward to it.)


Man measuring heads
Hovers over a knife with a steak
Quivering jaw on fat knife stalling
Sawing on, 'I saw, I taste, I
Analyse; I
Am man measuring heads well (by
The men measuring heads).
I, yes, probe little skulls-
Know what they say? I can't say,
But know: humans are sad little things,
My little onions to peel,' and
Gulps he his predictably sweet tea.

Sawing steak, sipping tea, - but not from Olympus?? Lo, now
Descended, he holds our pitiful little spheres in his encompassing head:
Every galaxy is precise and precisely spaced;
Space itself is lined precisely-
Patients and faces, sterile placards
(The catfooted smothering of the void arriving no worry).

He slipped his list out at lunch;
I saw his today to do list:
-
(1) Distill mysterium
(2) Get coat lined
(3) Line universe

Cross-armed with bulging keys,
Ogling in Id his next act of soul cannibalism,
Gnawed he a steak in no
Straight jacket, so
Methinks he is wearing the sleeves
We beware in our closeted hearts all along.


-Rick

Criticising the Catholic Church

'You apparently think the Catholic Church can do no wrong.' Well, I think the Church will be continually 'led into all truth' as Jesus promised, but no, I'm not about to put a fresh coat of white-wash on everyone and everything that has ever been or been done within Christ's Church (and using Christ's name). I could spend the rest of my life offering honest and heavy criticism of the Church past and Church present, and most of us probably will spend our lives in such a way (in one way or another). There is scandal there that would actually make Her accusers blush - carousing priests, Jew-killings, wars over who is Pope, etc. etc. etc. Personally, I'm always quick to remember, however, that I'm one of these idiots that God has had to answer for; yes, guilty as charged: the Church seems to be full of us sinners.

Truthfully, there is much more to critique in Catholicism, since she aimed/aims for complex/harmonic Truth, the Truth that her Founder taught and actually was. Perhaps this is why there are so many Protestants - a dime a dozen - who are anxious to give the world two earfuls of the 'whore of Babylon' spiels and all that crap; they must have run out of things to critique in Protestantism and thus needed to start finding elsewhere dragons to slay.

I say this all in good humour and good fun, but being immersed in a Protestant culture, the lazy and propagandist way in which the Church is theologically criticised truly grates my nerves. I'll be the first to criticise the Church when she doesn't proprely educate her children in matter of Faith (and though I'm new to the scene and speak with no authority, I've been told that this is the current case in American catechism). Then again, in this our 'information age' Catholic teachings are not hidden in a closet somewhere, and it never fails that core Catholic beliefs are ignored, butchered, or translated into something completely different by Protestant critics. This is simply unacceptable; in that context - that of the open-mouthed, closed-ear Protestant - I'm hardly interested in playing along. There is certainly room to criticise, but let's make sure (on the broader spectrum) that we're criticising the same Institution - the one that exists, and not the one that suits Protestant protest.

-Rick

Romancing Our Age

A Litany to Excommunication (In Praise of Its Intended Purposes)

[Nail this down for our communities,
So they may offer it up:]

When Incarnation is lightninged into two-
Offer this up.
When incarnation is splintered and distilled-
Offer it up.
When existence is no longer a tangible love or even a word to pursue-
Offer it up.
When what was said kneels to what has been stilled,
to what has been said to be misunderstood-
Offer it up.

When roses become removed from their stems and petals-
Offer this up.
When flowers are called by any other (regardless) name-
Offer them up.
When all words become promissary notes and nickels-
Offer them up.
When they're repealed into hibernations and safe-
Offer them up.

When certain bubblings are rescued from laughing inaccuracies-
Offer all of this up.
When vulgar is blushed away,
When they are dredged up to be a cornerstone-
Offer all of this up.
When the seams of the human universe's vocal-cords clench upon themselves,
the astral expanses written in the heavens
ever tightening out rivets and soon-to-be-scissored excesses-
Offer all of this up.

When a man avoids staking his lot to any Ship,
who drowns in his vessel-of-flesh critiquing their drowning-
When the tolerated Interval becomes holy Reality,
what we see beholding what is that which we see-
When Meaning is wrung from the gleaning,
wrung and ringing any sweat from the bell-
When Virtue turns to Vice for advice, relative to the age,
asking Her shadow if shit or smoking is acceptable these days-
When all that is Seen and Unseen becomes what has Not,
When Light is seen to be lapse of the Dark-
It is then,
It is now:
There is nothing
to offer.


-Rick

Asyndeton

33 me but
love-seat bowers open to
me to you or whomever
rushing
ahead

thoughts've boats
now we grin motors
rush to the end
the question
meaning?


-Rick

Actually, Yeah: Scientific Feminisation

(A big thank you, Mr. Forscythe, for the heads-up.)

Good evening, Pantheist and/or Protestant America! Pack your old thinking cap and saddle up!
'Fiddlesticks,' I hear consistently in so many (or few) words, 'Why does the Catholic Church have such a big beef with all these silly, optional, peripheral issues?!' Well, my environmentally concerned friends and acquaintances, the Catholic approach to one of these 'silly, optional, peripheral issues' - a teeth-gnashing hot topic, no less - looks like a much less silly option after all:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/nsae-fdb021308.php

If you don't want to read the whole article linked there, here's the basic idea: Hey, let's sterilise ourselves so as to save the planet (read further in this entry for an explanation on that tangent), and in the meantime, we'll indirectly sterilise small fish so as to eventually wreck the eco-systemme. Fantastic! Here's the ironic and not-so-shocking truth: Catholics and other persons who abstain from artificial 'birth' control have been helping stem a real though ignorant assault on Mother Earth all along (in 100% organic ways, no less). Viva Wisdom, Viva Saving The World, but also Viva Logical Consistency (and this as well will be explained further on in the entry).

This recent study scratches a surface of sorts; I find myself wondering how these chemical deposits in the water table are affecting or will eventually affect all of us humans as well as the fish - even affecting those humans among us who don't mess around with that stuff. This could potentially be one of those 'God, help us all' situations. Every action has consequences, no matter how 'advanced' we think we are in avoiding the consequences. So, we want to manipulate our fertility? Thanks to the marriage of socially-acceptable, Humanistic egotism and recent technological advances, it's now possible to artificially manipulate our own bodies however we see fit; but beyond the known consequences (in our principled lives and obvious physical attributes), in doing this we suddenly discover that we're hurting other creatures and ourselves in the process. Yet I have my doubts about how 'earth conscious' we will truly be when it's all said and done, even upon learning these facts, because for so long we've enjoyed sex being a non-Sacramental act (there's a lot less pesky accountability that way).

Once again, my friends and acquaintances, we see the importance of having a Sacramental and logically consistent world-view. Lately it seems we've been wanting to save God's good, green earth, but we've also been approaching God's gift of sexuality as a Hindu/Jewish person at a Shoney's buffet (scarf down this aspect, religiously avoid that aspect, etc.). And, unsurprisingly, we have further clouded our ability to spot our own hypocrisy: In matters of the environment, self-control is the watch-word and song, with our ever-vigilant awareness of the fatal consequences; in matters of sexuality, however, the idea of birth control based on self-control is regarded as pre-'enlightenment' and idiotic. 'Silly rabbit,' we say, 'sex doesn't have consequences anymore; we took care of that a long time ago. Get off the soap-box and start focusing on the very real consequences of humanity's other actions - such as, say, environmental irresponsibility.'

Hilariously enough, numerous 'green theologians' that I've been dipping into lately have connected the dots between the two issues. These theologians are unhesitant to hastily suggest that earth is about to be overpopulated by humans (let's sort through that fluffy stuff sometime, by the by) and that we need more and more 'responsible' birth control - that is, chemicals and doctored-up condoms instead of self-control - in order to save Mother Earth from our raping and pillaging that is the fruit of our lack of self-control.

No, we are not about to overpopulate the planet, speaking in sheer numbers of humans. But humanity's insatiable and unchecked hunger has already overpopulated the planet. Virtue cannot be isolated into tidy little compartments. All in all, I mean, seriously: how long can we continue stubbornly wandering in circles around the Wilderness before growing tired of it all? This chosen exile must eventually become too burdensome . . . mustn't it?

Let's make a bumpersticker - something catchy. 'Fish don't count. Viva La Pill.' Someone with more time on her/his hands will be able to come up with something good, I'm sure . . .

-Rick

Post-Modernity and a Feminist Poem

There was a conversation the other day with someone concerning feminism (as well as a trading comments on here with Graham about our post-modern situation in general), and it reminded me that I needed to figure out how to express my hesitancy toward various post-modern agendas/views while still acknowledging and talking about truths therein. I think I've figured out how to word my objection while still acknowledging truth when it arises in its various manifestations. Borrowing a frame for this. . .

'. . . [T]he metanarrative [of Christianity] is not just the story of Jesus, it is the continuing story of the Church, already realized in a finally exemplary way by Christ, yet still to be realized universally, in harmony with Christ, and yet differently, by all generations of Christians. The metanarrative, therefore, is the genesis of the Church, outside which one could only have an ahistorical, gnostic Christ. But once one has said this, one then has to face up to the real implication of a narrative that is at one and the same time a recounting of a "real history", and yet has also an interpretive, regulative function with respect to all other history. . . . In this fashion a gigantic claim to be able to read, criticize, say what is going on in other human societies, is absolutely integral to the nature of the Christian Church, which itself claims to exhibit the exemplary form of human community. For theology to surrender this claim, to allow that other discourses - "the social sciences" for example - carry out yet more fundamental readings, would therefore amount to a denial of theological truth.'
-Theology & Social Theory by John Milbank

I've had countless conversations regarding the moral agendas of the day, and various persons have said, 'We can obviously be Christian and also an environmentalist.' Well, yes, of course; but doesn't quite get around the reality of the historical/political situation. The issue arises in what we regard to be our metanarrative (that is, the 'story above') - the Story that gives definition to all our various life stories. That is, what is giving context to what? I'm hesitant toward flippantly throwing my arms around our recent post-modern environmentalist movements, because these movements generally stake out a comprehensive 'sphere' for themselves. Most have been steeped in and arisen out of a non-Christian, atheistic, nihilistic, and sometimes even neo-pagan metanarrative. We must acknowledge the baggage that we are so hastily accepting under the banner of [insert agenda], because I'm noticing how quickly we are surrendering Christian truth, though we are ignorantly doing so. A chapel speaker (Dr. Sleeth) asserted that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, central in the Garden of Eden, is the symbol of God in the Garden - overlooking the very notion of Mankind being God's symbol in the Garden. While studying with a friend, this friend suddenly did a double-take, pointing me to the commentary he was reading; Dr. Striebel is a feminist Biblical theologian who asserted in this particular Biblical commentary that the suffering of Jephtha's daughter far 'out-does' the 'overrated' suffering of Jesus on the Cross. What is giving context to what? When I see large elements of Christianity being stripped out and renarrated, I have to wonder what is being given precedence.

Certainly, let the prophets and prophetesses speak. There's plenty that has been historically troubling. I'm all about being responsible stewards toward our universe, recognising and responding to oppression, and so forth. However, if we seriously believe that Christ and Christian theological truth is sufficient enough for us to stake our lives on it, we have to recognise that these post-modern agendas can't be isolated, violent movements; they should be various conversations for us that we frame within our Christian world-view that we hold to be truth. Now, we can take the truth from the post-modern agendas around us, but we must always be careful that we don't approach these outside agendas as though they are 'inventing' something that has never been comprehended in the Incarnation and His outpoured Incarnation (i.e. His Church), however ignored or unemphasised the point of discussion may be. Otherwise, we are admitting a central theological deficiency. The theological book title Outercourse (regarding the sexual act) intrigues me from the very title, and I would like to read it. But we're in danger of surrendering our particular metanarrative - serving another master - if we jump on a bandwagon without careful consideration of the baggage or the inherent need for 'translation.'


A Biblically Feminist Critique

God
-Man, His Iron hands
Span His empire galaxies
Lease His steel lightnings
Jehovah Thor Mars
His (Mine!) lightning.
Iron Iron and Steel in Threes.

. . .Mary, Mary and Martha, the dog-at-the-table mother. . .

-Alas, the truly mighty God,
Whose hands we hastily and daily pierce,
Whose strength indeed
Is shown in cosmic feats
But also daily makes in silent weavings,
His eternally unrequited love,
His patient everlasting waiting.

-Rick

Emergent Church of the Nazarene...or not? or...?

This is like watching a train-wreck, and it kills me; there are people I care about in the Church of the Nazarene. And it's horrible to watch the denomination that helped introduce you to Jesus Christ as Lord flirting (in some segments of her constituency) with Arian/Gnostic flavours of the month. Now, this sounds alarmist because there's nothing substantial - that is, demonstrably substantial - taking place yet; but many of us have seen this coming for a long time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22A48jCstJI
This is Nina Gunter at the M7 Conference with her frank assessment of the major challenges to the Church of the Nazarene.

And kudos to Kody for this one...
http://emergentnazarenes.blogspot.com/2008/04/emergent-church-in-nazarene-manual.html

This latter link is small, ambiguous, and yet to be fully seen in all its glory, but it worries me. Many Nazarenes seem to have a huge fascination with the 'Emergent Church,' failing to recognise this as yet another liberal (in the modern philosophical/theological sense) surrender of Christianity under other a priori agendas and concerns. As our Nazarene professor/leader Steve Hoskins has observed in this article, what Wesleyan-Holiness peoples desperately need at this point in history is something - anything - of a liturgical identity. The Church of the Nazarene is currently caught up in a 100-year-old identity crisis, not only between its various schools of thought concerning 'holiness' (as has been the historical case) and the Anglican vs. evangelical Protestant tension, but now the secret struggle with liberalism (again, modern theological term).

The 'Emergent Church' (yes, in the Nazarene manifestation, it's as arrogant as it sounds) is no solution for the Church of the Nazarene's current crisis; in fact, it only complicates the problem. Yes, we live in a post-modern world. Yes, we need to be reflective about who we are as Christians. Embracing further ambiguity because it glitters with 'social justice' and 'openness' only further compromises what has been compromised in dogma.

I'll spare my meta-commentary, because everyone know where I stand; I've left the denomination to be reconciled to the [Catholic] Church, if that's any indication of anything. I have doubts that the Church of the Nazarene will even be around (at least in any recognisable form) in the next hundred years, but embracing the Emergent Church in baby-steps is a sure-fire way to abandon any hope of an identity altogether. When church bus programmes were the 'next big thing,' we bought into that and suffered financially. If Nazarenes bank too heavily on the 'Emergent movement' because it's the next big thing, the Nazarene denomination will lose itself when the movement goes out of style.


-Rick