More on Ordinary Time

As I note below, the Ordinary Time book is completed. This is the second book compiled by the RevGalBlogPal web-ring. The first, A Light Blazes in the Darkness , was a set of daily devotionals for Advent. This book covers "Ordinary Time", that long green season between Pentecost and Advent.

I was more involved in the creation of this book than I had planned or expected. I initially volunteered to write two meditations. Wrote those, and thought I was done.

Then, I was in RLP chat, and one of the other writers mentioned he needed someone to pick up at least two of the dates he had volunteered for. The scripture assigned for one pair of dates was the Summary of the Law (Mk 12:28-34); I thought I could write something on that pretty easily, and volunteered to fill in for those dates. Wrote a two-part mediation, and thought I was done.

A few weeks later, I was in RLP chat again. Reverend Mommy, the general editor of the book, asked if I could take on several more dates. Like, maybe, as many as five or six. And, since the deadline had passed two weeks previous, could I write something by that Friday?

Up to this point, the goal was to write meditations on Sunday's Eucharistic Lectionary (most Protestant denominations share a common set of readings for each Sunday). I obtained a dispensation to write on any Bible verse I wanted to.

Thus, I was able to recycle blog entries on the Prodigal Son and Psalm 22. Including the process of polishing those entries for paper publication, I wrote an essay a day that week. I have not written so intensively since finals week in college.

Once again, I thought I was done. Ironically, the first two essays I wrote – the ones I had initially signed on for – were about a page long, and relatively orthodox. The fill-in essays I subsequently wrote were a little over a page long, and some were less orthodox than those first two.

Go figure.

About a week later, Reverend Mommy e-mailed a month's worth of essays, and asked me to share copyediting duties for this section with another member of the web-ring. As it turned out, Lorna and I co-copyedited two months' worth of essays.

Then, then, I was done.

My day job doesn't know it, but they donated my time for this project. The past month has been slow. Naturally, any work-related projects took precedence, but I still had time left to help with this project. My day job involves some proof-reading and copyediting, so I have the experience – plus I would look appropriately busy whenever a supervisor would happen by.

This has been a rewarding project. I was very honored that Reverend Mommy respected my writing skills so much that she asked me to fill in some gaps. I assume the same respect moved her to ask for my help as a copyeditor. So, it's been an ego-validation.

I also put a lot of myself into this project. I lost all track of time, both when I was writing and when I was copyediting. I believe I'm good writer, and a fair copyeditor. As I say, it was nice to have this validated; it was even nicer to put my talents to use.

Ordinary Time, the book

Ordinary Time: Year B Devotions for June to November



On Sale now for $18.99

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If you click through on the book image, you'll notice the second name listed is James C-. That's my birth name. The list is in alphabetical order. I'm one of the five people whose name is listed because I also served as a copyeditor.

I really like the book description, which comes from the introduction:

This particular book of devotional readings span Ordinary Time, that season of the church year in which there are no high holy days to celebrate; the long stretch of green for those of us who are liturgical in our practice. They have been written by women and men of diverse denominational backgrounds; all with the aim of bringing scripture alive for both writer and reader. These writings reflect on the lectionary passages for Year B, and it is our prayer that in the green and ordinary time they will bring forth a bountiful harvest for all who read them.

I'll have more to say about my part in this later today.

Idée d’jour

What people say about you is none of your business.
– source unknown

Idée d’jour (Twofer)

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen, musician/poet (1934- ) [from "Anthem"]

For years I have been repeating formulae I learned to
keep my devils away; and now I don't have any devils, but I say
the same formulae when angels are around
and
of course
they go away too.
— Diane Wakoski, poet (1937- )

Happy Unbirthday

Songbird's Friday Five

1. Favorite birthday cake/ice cream/dessert
   a) Carrot Cake; b) vanilla, with fresh strawberries; c) [alternate to (a)] Black Midnight Cake
2. Surprise Parties — have you ever given or received one?
   No
3. Favorite birthday present
   The wooden whale Dr. Omed gave me last year (pictured below, and above)
4. What do you think of those candles that won't blow out?
   Not my style of humor
5. Best. birthday. ever.
   Last year's concert/birthday bash

Simple Steps to Graciously Accepting Compliments

1. Say thank you.
2. Close mouth
3. Tell internal critic to be silent.
4. Send internal critic to closet if necessary.
5. Use Padlocks, chains, etc., if extreme measures are called for
6. Repeat compliment to self, and drown out inner critic
7. Compliment someone else - pass the compliments along

Written with Spidey & Stacey

Why Jonah?

A correspondent, a fellow member of the RevGal web ring and fellow copyeditor of the forthcoming Ordinary Time book, asks: "Why Jonah?"

Why did I choose Jonah as a nom de blog? Mostly on a whim. That's the short answer.

Here's the longer answer.

In high school, I was "jac", which are also my initials. In college, my poetic alter-ego was Jason. I chose Jason because he was a seeker. I perceived the Golden Fleece as an aspect of the divine (may've picked this up from Joseph Campbell), and this fit where I was at during that time.

One day, a little over three years ago, I was leaving a comment on a friend's blog. I started to type "Jason" in the name slot, but that didn't seem to fit. Not that I've "found what I'm looking for", but because I don't feel quite as spiritually restless.

I was in a puckish mood, so I typed "Jeremiah". Maybe I was feeling prophetic. Maybe I was feeling "assaulted" or "ravished" by God. Honestly don't remember.

The Salon system stores a cookie on the user's computer which remembers the name you use. So I was Jeremiah for a while, until the next time I cleared out the cookies.

I often speak of being in the "belly of the beast", meaning American consumer culture. It's also a term I use when I am going to be in large crowded situations (e.g., the state fair). Jonah spent time in the belly of leviathan, so the connection seemed obvious.

So, I typed "Jonah".

Shortly after that, Real Live Preacher had moved to his new server and offered the opportunity to register as part of his community, which is also expressed in the chat room. "Jonah" still felt right, so that's what I typed when I registered.

The name was beginning to stick. All because I felt like I was in the belly of the beast one day.

The thing is, as I have mentioned a couple of times before, Jonah's time in the big fish wasn't necessarily negative. Sure, Jonah's response wasn't positive – he compares it to dying. But if the great fish hadn't swallowed him, he would have drowned. One might argue that Jonah's time in leviathan was a protected time, preparing him for his ministry – prophesying to the people of Nineveh.

It occurs to me that the next logical question is whether the name still fits, given my revised interpretation of Jonah's three-day sojourn in the whale. I don't think I need to change my blog identity – most people still think of the time in the whale hotel as a negative event. But the question does deserve some attention.

In what ways am I like the Biblical prophet, and in what ways do I differ? Let's compare.

To begin with, I'm no prophet. Well, probably not. I'm not shy about sharing my opinion, goodness knows. I'm often quite discerning about hearing what a person is really saying, or what the mood of a group may be. These may be gifts, as the Apostle Paul defines gifts, but they are not necessarily associated with the gift of prophesy.

One gets the impression that Jonah was a bit of a kvetcher. He complains about being sent to Nineveh – in fact, he deserts. He complains about being in the whale. He complains about the Lord sparing the Ninevites after they've heeded his prophecy. Only a consummate kvetcher could complain about having a successful preaching mission.

Now, I'm not exactly Mr. Happy Go Lucky. It's possible, if you caught me during a bad week, that you'd think I was a chronic complainer as well. On the other hand, I do strive to find the best in people. While I acknowledge that people are as capable of great evil as they are of great good, I try to emphasize the good.

I have inklings that God is leading me in a certain direction, and I'm doing my best to test those inklings. Included in this testing is service on a number of church boards and committees. I have complained about frustrations connected with this service, but I haven't run away. Nor have I complained when the work is successfully completed. You're not likely to find me sulking under any tamarisk trees.

Just yesterday afternoon, I was told I was compassionate. I don't think Jonah felt compassion for the Ninevites. He was more interested in seeing them receive the punishment he felt they deserved. We might say Jonah was judgmental, though we have little evidence outside of his eponymous book.

I recognize that I can be judgmental. I don't suppose I am more or less judgmental than the next person. It's still a part of my personality I don't like, and on the average day I'd rather deny it.

So: how much am I like Jonah? I report, you decide.

Idée d'jour

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
— Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Recommended Reading

From the prophet, Dr. Omed: When Will the Progress Stop

Like unto it, Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

On a more pleasant note, Sam greets the day with rhetoric worthy of Barry Lopez.

Best Of, 03/05 - 03/06

I've finally gotten around to compiling what I perceive to be the best entries I've posted over the past year. Something new this year – in addition to essays and poetry, I have included a selection of Images.

There are about ten items in each category (depending on how you count). Included are links to each individual part of the autobiographical digest, My Half Decade.

Please take a look at my selected "Best of" for the past year. You may recommend additions, deletions, and substitutions in the comments below.

Idée d’jour

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
— Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)

City Art

This parking garage is located about two blocks north of the National Oklahoma Memorial. There is so much art like this in the down-town area that a local gallery has created an "Art Walk" map.

Chlorine Days, Lysol Nights

Furrowed brows over cloudy eyes:
Why are you so troubled?
Why are you amazed?

Do not be afraid.
Fear is a poor pet.

Release it to the wild, and
let it return to its dark home.

Grey thoughts, and silver heartbeat.
Cool air drifting through your daydreams.

Are you troubled?
Have we lost the gift,
the gift of amazement?

Learning Through Community

I've been thinking lately about why I attend church. Not that I'm having second thoughts about being "regular in attendance." But it seems a truism that one finds primarily what one is looking for. Though it is possible to be surprised, or to discern additional benefits as time goes on and one matures.

When I originally rejoined the church, in the early 80s, I was seeking structure for my spirituality. I had spent the previous two years trying to create a synthesis of world religions (via Joseph Campbell, et al), Gnosticism, William Blake, and Leo Buscaglia. The result of this undirected search was extreme anxiety and something like a nervous breakdown.

An additional benefit I discerned within the first year after I returned was community. I am an introvert, and can be content (up to a point) sitting in my room alone with my thoughts. The downside to this comfort zone is loneliness. Attending church forced me to be with people, and allowed me the opportunity to form friendships. This is still true, and I have done social things outside of church with friends I have made there.

There are times when attending church seems like an opportunity to recharge one's spiritual battery. A notion I had for a time – which I suspect was not a unique notion – was that one went to church to "plug into God" so one could make it through the week in the working world.

Let's face it, we are darned lucky if the morals of our wage-earning life even come close to the morals espoused Sunday mornings. Capitalism, at best, is amoral. The current version of pseudo laissez-faire capitalism has a strong Darwinian impulse. Which may be translated as "it's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got to get mine before anyone else does." This is the exact opposite of the "love your neighbor" goal taught in most mainstream religions (most share some version of what we call the Golden Rule).

The latest benefit of involvement at church that I've become aware of is a combination of the social interaction I refer to above, and to this sense of recharging the battery. I use the term "involvement" advisedly, for I just began my second year on the Vestry (church board), serve on three committees, and have led discussions for several adult classes.

This level of involvement requires interaction with a wide variety of people and personalities. This variety is a microcosm of the types and conditions you will encounter the rest of the week. Thus, church is a protected environment in which one learns how to love and work with all sorts of folk.

Ideally, one applies the ideals one has heard on Sunday morning to one's behavior on church committees. Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, has suggested a paradigm for the monastery which seems to apply to the church board: one assumes that the other has my welfare in mind, just as I have their welfare in mind, just as we both have the greater good of our Christian community in mind.

As I say, this is an ideal. Being a human institution, the church is susceptible to conflicting egos, control needs, and other aspects of politics. It may be that the best one can hope for is that more good is accomplished than harm. This position may seem outrageously naïve, but it seems precisely the place Jesus would have us operate from.

I have two illustrations for this. The first is the situation with my co-worker, which I obliquely referred to in my Saturday morning post. For me, the resolution came when I ceased to take her tone of voice personally, and when I assumed we both had positive intentions.

The second is my work on the soon-to-be published book Ordinary Time, a collaborative project of the RevGalBlogPals web-ring. In a sense, the Rev Gal ring is as protected an environment as church is – the vast majority are not only Christians, but are ordained ministers in their denomination (I am of the handful who are not ordained). They call themselves an intentional on-line community, and appear to strive for that goal.

In working on this book, a collection of meditations for Ordinary Time (from June 1 through November 1), there was just as ripe an opportunity for conflicting goals and egos as on any church committee or in any business boardroom. And, because most discussions were conducted via e-mail, there was an even greater opportunity for cross-communication and hurt feelings.

There were at least a few opportunities for me to take offense. There was, in fact, cross-communication and duplication of effort. It would have been easy to rail against inefficiency, and poor planning, and people failing to fulfill their commitments (or forgetting what their self-defined commitments were). It might have been tempting to express all this in ill-considered e-mails.

Happily, neither of these things happened. Oh sure, I grumbled sotto voce now and again. But each time I did, I also reminded myself that all involved had a common goal – the best book possible. I think I was tempted to send an angry e-mail only once, and happily gave myself about half a day to consider prior to hitting the send button. I focused on our common goal, and the belief in our shared good intentions; the grumbling went away, and I was able to write an e-mail which maturely addressed the situation.

I give thanks for how my Christian life is shaping me, and how I am able to practice what I've learned in my daily life.

Quote d’jour

The fact is that, as adults, we need the Scripture in more powerful ways than we did as children. We need the text ... to contain some truths for us so that we can be linked, through it, to the idea of God. As children, we played with Scripture. As adults, we work with it.
— Rabbi Ben Kamin, Thinking Passover, pg 85 [Dutton, New York, © 1997]

Report on Mid-Week Service

Went to a comtemplative service this past Wed.

It was held at St. John's Episcopal the church I was confirmed in (May, 1968). St. John's is very close to my current house. It might be a little over a mile away. I have no doubt I could walk there in less than an hour.

The service was held in the "Lady Chapel", which is separated from the main chapel by a wall which does not quite go to the roof. The wall contains a columbarium. The space is very nice - just right for a sparsly attended mid-week service. Has 2-3 icons. There's something resembling a place mat on the altar - has picture of Christ & disciples at sea. Afraid I didn't get a good look at it.

I didn't know ahead of time that the service was "contemplative". I'd run into a member of the church last Sun who simply told me there was this mid-week service. Life had been somewhat stressfull through Wed, so a service seemed like a good idea.

The service was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. There were three other people in the chapel with me. Shortly before 5:30, a member of the altar guild came out and placed the chalice and host on a side table, then she lit the candles on the altar. A few minutes later, a bell rang. The congregation stood.

The bell was no doubt in the grand tradition of the sanctus bell - the origin of which was to let the congregation know that something important was about to happen. As you may know, the Catholic service was originally in Latin - which was by no means the "language of the people" in the Middle Ages. Most people were illiterate in Latin. The whole service was a great mystery.

So, when it was time for the congregation to do something - stand, kneel, etc - the priest would ring a bell. It was, in a sense, a way of saying "wake up".

Anyway, the priest read the service very slowly. He allowed long stretches of silence. He read the Epistle and Gospel slowly and deliberately.

A sermon normally follows the Gospel. The priest sat down. I wasn't sure what would happen - maybe a dialogue sermon. But he re-read a few lines from the Gospel, closed the book, set it to one side, and sat in silence.

This was the time for contemplation. Ironically, the Gospel appointed for Wednesday was the pericope which includes John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world". This is probably my least favorite verse in the New Testament, because of the way I believe it has been abused. But this was the verse used to lead us into contemplation.

I let go of my judgment concerning the verse and the ways I think it has been abused. I let go of the situation that had made the week unhappy and somewhat stressful. I released what resentments I was aware of.

I closed my eyes. I breathed. I focused on my "third eye". I aimed the arrows of my heart toward the divine, as the anonymous author of Cloud of Unknowing puts it.

I found I had dived in, like some deep sea diver.

There were some typical physical manifestations. They may be sign posts that one is on the right path, but they are not to be sought.

I suppose the only sign that really matters is how one lives his/her life after this time in contemplation.

My stress had been connected with a person at work. The problem was either in how she was communictaing with me, or with how I was hearing her. It was certainly clear that all I could do to ease the situation was maintain a level of emotional distance and to wear the perceived conflict as a loose garment.

Thursday morning, my co-worker greeted me with a neutral tone of voice, and asked how I was doing. I said I was better, and that was that. We had limited interaction after that, and it was not 100% what it would have been a month ago (we've historically been very friendly), but I didn't take it personally.

My goal is not to give my co-worker the cold shoulder. I suspect she is going through something in her personal life which is unconnected with me. If I am a part of any work-related problem, I don't think it likely it is but a very small part. My goal, then, is to give her some space.

Part of this started Wednesday afternoon, before I went to service. But the full fruits were realized Thursday. After I had dived into contemplation, and drank the living waters.

Friday's Cat

Friday's Cat

DJ takes a well-deserved break from bird watching.

This chair is in my bedroom, and is one of the Lady's favorite places to camp out. The afgan was a present from the mother of my first girlfriend - so it has followed me since high school.

Miami Mice

Hello, I'm here to tell you about an exciting new program coming to The CW. The name of the program is Miami Mice. That's Miam-ah Mice. My partner and I investigate cases of extreme rodent infestation in the bustling burg of Miam-ah, Oklahoma. That's "Miami Mice," Fridays at 8 p.m. Oklahoma time on The CW.

Idée d’jour

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces.
— Judity Viorst

She Inspects My Moonsmile

She’s observing the perspective of the sidewalk
to my sideways moonsmile. She’s got
alien pigtails and honorable horn rims.
She’s wearing drug counter perfume
and lavender jellies.
She’s drinking plum green tea.
She’s plumbed the depths of her heart.
She’s found the inner fountain.

She’s observing sidereal time.
She’s counting on the losses.
She’s wearing a fedora.
She’s not from Kansas.

This machine is not a war machine.
She is not a machine.
She is wonderfully and marvelously made.
This human is not programmed to self-destruct.
This human will not drown.
This human is not alone.
This human loves smiling.
This human loves walking with other humans.

These humans.
Oh, these humans, and their fountains.
Oh, these humans, and their infinite hearts.
Oh, these marvelous humans
who shine light in the darkness.

These humans will surround fascism
and convince it to surrender.
These humans will tempt hatred
to love itself to understanding.

She knows her wounds.
She can count her wounds.
She can love her wounds.
Her wounds teach her, night by night.

She climbs my moonsmile.
She paints my eyes.
She smoothes my forehead.
She parts my tender hair.
She practices patience at my earlobes.
She opens the secret spring
which feeds the fountain of my heart.