Ship of Fools, and kindness

Have you seen the website called 'Ship of Fools'? It is an online church, in 3D. The description on the site says "Church of Fools is an attempt to create holy ground on the net, where people can worship, pray and talk about faith."

It's an interesting experiment in bringing church to the people. And as could be expected, it is already bringing out both the best and worst in people. So many people rushed in to yell and swear and otherwise disrupt the services that they had to turn off the 'shout' function -- which was originally conceived as a way for visitors to contribute an 'alleluia' or two.

It's more than just a novelty -- there are actual scheduled services. The Bishop of London delivered the sermon at the opening service. He spoke about the danger and promise of the internet:

So let us take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea to discover ourselves in the light of the Spirit. Let us use this gift which has been given to our generation to heal and not to hurt; to open spiritual ears and eyes and not to add to the noise of self-justification and the rhetoric of hate.

An article on the website summed up a child's response that was embarrassingly accurate:

Church of Fools is a cross between a computer game and an 11th-century Romanesque sanctuary. One visitor looked around with her five-year-old son on her lap. "Wow!" he said. "Who's on your team and which ones do you kill?" – a sentiment many traditional churchgoers will recognise.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all learn to walk into a regular church without the seeds of that same question in our hearts? Jesus prayed that we might be one, but all the inventions of civilization have not helped us to grow in unity (either inside or outside of the church).

Last week's sermon, by Steve Tompkins, used the story of the Tower of Babel, and applied it to the internet:

Our failure and refusal to understand others is deeper than words, bigger than Google, as old as Babel and as (de)pressingly up-to-date as al-Qaeda and George Bush.

This is an ailment no tech, however hi, can remedy. The only cure is something as hard to learn, in its own way, as ancient Babylonian: listening, seeing the other's side. The internet cannot unite people who will not hear each other, but it gives us an invaluable chance to listen.

The other day members of my kinship complimented me on being kind to someone I find irritating. I was totally embarrassed -- clearly, they had gotten used to my usual impatient response with this individual, and were trying to give me positive feedback. It's odd how stressful it can be to simply act kind. At one point, I intentionally dropped something on the floor so I could literally hide under the table and have a little intermission.

Why is it so hard to be kind?

Come Holy Spirit

As one of my VLI leadership projects I'll be helping to lead the Alpha Holy Spirit weekend next Friday and Saturday.

In preparation, I've been praying and studying and teaching on the Holy Spirit. That's one of the advantages of being a leader -- you get to choose the topics! So this week, at both kinship and the nursing home, we studied the Holy Spirit.

The scary part is the ministry time. The reason it's scary is that our church is in a phase where the manifestation of the Spirit is pretty subtle, and many of the people in the church have never experienced a wave of the Spirit, or spoken in tongues. So standing up in that context and praying 'Come, Holy Spirit' is scary because sometimes nothing (apparently) happens. And even if the Spirit does manifest, people are suspicious of anything that they have not seen happen on Sunday morning. So I'm ironically scared both that something won't happen and that something will happen. Because half the kinship will be disturbed with either result. I am committed to waiting on the Spirit regardless, but it is not without its stress.

And then there's the nursing home. They're pretty sure that the Holy Spirit isn't actually part of Christianity. When I try to teach from the Bible, they are pretty sure that I'm wrong, although they are usually very patient with me because I'm 'young' and don't know any better.

Because we visit the nursing home on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month, and because this month actually has 5 Sundays, we won't be there on Pentecost, so I decided to teach about Pentecost today. Along with that, we sang songs about the Holy Spirit. Usually I try to choose hymns, so there is a memory the people can connect with, but today I really wanted to stress the Holy Spirit theme, so we sang Be Thou My Vision, and then some contemporary songs. As we sang 'Sweet Sweet Spirit' I was cringing at how 'modern' it was -- copyright in 1962. After all, if you are in your 90's that is pretty cutting-edge. And then I prayed 'Come, Holy Spirit'. There were 33 residents there this morning, as well as 3 staff coming in and out. About half were still awake at the end of the teaching time, which is about par for the course. But that's ok -- if they don't get bored and fall asleep they are not sure it 'counts' as having been to church. (Parenthetically, that reminds me of one time someone in my kinship complained to me that someone else was asleep, and that it was rude. I laughed and said that it didn't bother me until more than half the people were asleep).

Anyway, I was surprised to find that when we went around to the people in the nursing home individually at the end of the service, that more of them than usual seemed to be desiring specific prayer. So while we didn't have any miraculous healings (that I know of), we did seem to have more people connecting with God than usual.

One gentleman was getting a bit agitated, because he had a speech impairment, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. It sounded like he had had a stroke, and also perhaps a stutter, and was speaking a foreign language. Finally I asked him if he was French speaking and he said yes. I know a little French, but the last time I studied it was in 1977, and we certainly were not learning any Christian vocabulary words. So I resorted to reciting the words from a musical composition by Poulenc that we sang in college, in around 1979.
Dieu le pere, createur, ayez pitie de nous, dieu le fis redenteur, ayez pitie de nous, dieu le sante esprit, santificateru, ayez pitie, ayez pitie de nous. [or something like that]

And the agitation in the man immediately left, and he became peaceful, and seemed to be listening and comprehending when I switched back to English.

Who would have thought, when I was in the college choir, that God had a plan for Litanies a la Vierge Noir?

What does it take to be 'openminded'?

We're studying evangelism in VLI, and there was considerable discussion about communicating with post-moderns.

A friendly colleague of mine has been busy planning her weddings, and our lunchtime conversation usually touches on the latest highlights. You probably thought that 'weddings' is a typo, but it's not: she will have a 'Christian' wedding in Columbia, and then a Hindu wedding in India. She mentioned the difficulty of finding a minister who is open-minded enough to marry a Christian and a Hindu.

It was clear that the expected response was to sadly bemoan the narrow mindedness of the pastors who won't officiate at this kind of mixed marriage. I'm not sure what I should have said, but what I actually did was chicken out -- I said something that was non-offensive and was true, but that did not shine any light either. I simply said: "I can see that that would be a problem". Apparently, they even considered having one of them convert, just to make the wedding simpler, but they didn't really think that made sense. And again, I chickened out and said something that was non-offensive and was true, but that did not shine any light. I agreed that it didn't make sense to convert just for the purposes of a ceremony.

Frankly, I've never understood the logistics of double weddings. I can see the appeal, for people with divergent backgrounds, but what I don't understand is whether both weddings really 'count'. After the first wedding, are you married? If so, is the second wedding just for show, or does it mean something? What if you go through with the first wedding, and then someone gets cold feet and you don't accomplish the second wedding? If the first wedding is in the 'A' tradition, for person 'A', and the second wedding is in the 'B' tradition for person 'B', and you only have wedding 'A', could you end up with a scenario in which person 'A' is considered married, and person 'B' is not? If this is the case, then to whom is person 'A' married?

Maybe my problem with this isn't religion, maybe it's logic!

But in any event, I'm getting a real-life example of the post-modern worldview.

Pray for 'C'

What do John and Barney have in common?

I don't know much about John. In fact, all I know is that he is in the air force. I've never actually met him. I don't know what religion he is.

I know a lot more about Barney. I know he celebrates Hanukkah. He lives on the upper West Side of Manhattan, likes to sing when he's happy, and suffers from sinus and lung problems, so he hasn't been singing as much lately. When I first met him, and heard him sing, he made me laugh so hard I sat down on the sidewalk and held him in my lap. Barney is a dog. The 'singing' is because he is a basset hound. He sounds as if he thinks he is in an opera: awooo, awooo, awooo-oo-oo-oo-ooooooo.

You may be wondering what John and Barney have in common. They are both on my prayer list. I signed up through The Presidential Prayer Team to 'adopt' a troop, and commit to pray for him/her. It's probably pretty understandable why I pray for John, even though I don't know him.

But I bet you're wondering about Barney. Barney belongs to a co-worker and his wife, 'S' and 'S'. They have become friends as well as colleagues, and I enjoy eating dinner with them every couple of months. They are non-practicing Jews, who have been very courteous about politely asking me how my various Christian activities are going. One day, 'S' said to me:
"Ann, you tell us all about the people you pray for, and you told us you even prayed for a rabbit, so why haven't you ever prayed for Barney?"
She was right. There in Niko's Greek restaurant, while nibbling on grilled octopus, I had to apologize for not praying for the dog. So of course, I then promised that I would start praying for him. He was suffering from a chronic respiratory ailment, requiring daily medication. It was so expensive that they were even considering going to Canada to stock up.

VLI taught me that the most effective witness is one that meets felt needs. So it seemed right to pray for Barney.

Anyway...Barney has begun to feel a little bit better. And even though we have not discussed it, I think that 'S' and 'S' are wondering if maybe there is something to this prayer thing. Maybe the time will come when they ask me to pray for them.

Remember to Pray for Barney! (and John)

Did Jesus do Yoga?

One of my co-workers has been taking a meditation class, and knowing my spiritual interest she eagerly shared the fascinating insights she is being taught.
I was taken aback to hear that Jesus was a practitioner of Vedanta Yoga. I didn't handle it very well. In fact, I think I gave an unfortunate little yelp. What?

'C' explained that Jesus was very spiritually advanced, and that's why people didn't understand him, and so he intentionally covered up his advanced Vedanta practices so his teachings would be simple enough for all people to understand.

I was so torn -- I wanted to just jump up and refute this, and yet I also wanted to keep the lines of communication open, so after my strangled yelp I tried to mildly say that this was a new way of looking at it. With a glowing face, she explained that all meditation is actually the same.

Internally, I feel a drawing to spend more time in communion with the Lord, so I have more personal experience to bring into the conversation. And then I wonder whether that is a good motivation or not, even though my goal is evangelism. After all, I should want to spend time with the Lord for no other reason than Himself. And yet it doesn't seem fruitful to avoid spending time with Him for fear of having the wrong motive. Maybe I need to resort to the Nike slogan: just do it.

Meanwhile, pray for 'C'! She's clearly seeking for something...

Aslan

Trivia for the day:

To everyone who ever wondered where C.S. Lewis got all those creative names from, it turns out that Aslan is actually a Turkish word that means.....

...lion!

I am now the egg and idiom expert

More bridge-building with my co-workers.

Back on the topic of food, some of my co-workers describe themselves as eggetarian (vegetarian but also eat eggs) while others call themselves vegetarian (no meat, fish or eggs, but they do eat dairy). And some like to consider themselves vegetarian, but will eat foods such as cookies that might have a bit of egg mixed in, as long as it's not the feature of the dish.
I asked if it would make a difference to them to know that in America, the normal eggs that are found in a supermarket, or in processed foods, are not fertilized. As it turns out, they had wondered, but were pleased to have this confirmed, since it makes it easier for them to find stuff to eat if they don't have to avoid eggs. So I am now considered the egg expert. I've had worse titles.

I've also been sharing idioms. I used to avoid using idioms with foreigners, but now I do the opposite -- I use the idiom, and then explain it. For example, when the cricket matches between India and Pakistan were almost over, 'P' kept running over to share his excitement that India was ahead, but then he would catch himself and say "but it is not over yet, so you cannot be entirely sure". This was a clear setup for "it's not over until the fat lady sings". And yesterday one of the developers was trying to explain that a certain error condition had not repeated while he was monitoring the situation. Obviously, it called for "a watched pot never boils". They eagerly ask followup questions to verify that they understand the usage, and then they recite the idiom a couple of times to make sure they can say it properly.