Lest Blood Be Shed

A few days ago I was walking through the Pick N' Save family grocery--I'd like to know what other type of groceries there are but nonetheless--to pick up some lettuce, semi-sweet chocolate squares, and some creme for whipping. While I was wandering up and down the aisles, the chip aisle to be exact, a familiar tune starts to play on the speakers. Now, the Pick N' Save is like any other family grocery in that the music is not music at all but lounge type elevator music, like a really bad midi. So here is the scene: I'm walking down the chip aisle surrounded by flashy bourgeois consumer products in the small farming community of Rensselaer, Indiana in a even more quaint family grocery when what should come over the musak... you guessed it; Gangstas Paradise by Coolio--at least originally. I couldn't help but laugh out loud (lol as the kids say). I received a few stairs from the other patrons but I knew in my heart that this was the most surreal thing that would happen to me. I was wrong but that's a different story.

On to even more crazy things. I had a dream last night that was insane... The dream started out with me chasing around some woman through the north side of Rensselaer. Somehow she actually captured me and changed my DNA so that anything I touched would become poison to everyone. Well, everyone except me and her. She takes me to a Syrian Greek Orthodox church and proceeds to show me the food line. I get a bowl but the bowl is dirty and has left over tomato stems, bread crumbs and a half eaten black beetle. I show her the bowl and she cleans it off for me. As soon as I serve myself a bowl of the soup I am somehow in a cave/club. You know like club Zion in the Matrix. When I arrive I feel as if I need to run up a ladder and follow two women in bathing suits. When I arrive at the top of the ladder there is a ledge with a couch. Tommy Lee and Chuck R. (yes you charles) were sitting on the couch and the two bikini women had joined maybe 3 other women. It seems they (the women) were in a beauty contest of some sort. While I'm standing behind the couch facing the room of women Chuck says it would be a good idea to have an orgy. Of course Tommy Lee agrees and as such so do the ladies. I start kissing Chuck and the woman that had joined him and in a flash (literally a flash in the dream as if time fast-forwarded) the orgy was over and Tommie Lee and I were the only people left. He tells me he wants me to have sex with him. I tell him no and I wake up in my dream. So, I'm still dreaming but I have just dreamed I woke up from that dream. I begin to think about Foucault and how he is analyzing second century dream analysis in the book I am reading. So based on what I have read in Foucault, I begin to interpret my dream. According the common understanding of dreams my dream is a foretelling dream but because it is foretelling it is foretelling in symbols and not actual events. Also, my dreams are foretelling a positive outcome for me financially. The symbol of Tommy Lee represents fame and fortune and because Tommy Lee wanted me in the "active" role the symbol indicates that I will take control of the new and strange wealth. The dream also indicates that I will have a time where I will chase unproductive avenues of wealth filling my life with an "orgy" of avenues of gaining wealth and responsibility. At that moment I wake up for real and think to myself, "but you are going to deny the wealth and fame. Good!" I think my sub-concious is saying it wants to read more Foucault. I put him down for about two weeks now and I guess I'm craving deconstructionism or at least I'm actually crazy enough to give 2nd century critiques of my dreams within my dreams.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Genesis 45:1-15
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28

On August 21^st, 1997 I arrived in Rensselaer, Indiana and I have never been the same. When I arrived, I was fiercely PCA and had a lot of lines in the sand that I had drawn when it came to matters of religion and social morality. I was a "born again Christian" as the saying goes, and believe it or not, I was even a little dismayed when I first came to this church and found there was a woman pastor! I didn't know why I was dismayed and I didn't have any real theological backing for my position. I just knew this was not the way "things should be." I had principles, one might say, that guided me in my interactions and reactions to other people, places and things. I had bought into all the propaganda that was fed to me about alcohol, sex, drugs, Catholics, rock and roll without one critical thought to question what was being taught to me. I was well intentioned as you might guess but as we know, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Now, please don't misunderstand me. I don't want to be disparaging to the PCA or to those who hold to what would be called "Fundamentalist social morality." The good Lord knows I still hold on to many of the values I came to Rensselaer with to this day. The point is we all have principles to which we hold on to without even a thought. These are the things that our society, our parents, or anyone else who has had an influence upon us have handed over to us as things that "ought" to be done. The way things "should be" or the way things "have always been." Things in the Presbyterian Church (USA) are as they have always been but the world around us has changed.

Much of the time when we speak of the principles of a church it is understood that these principles will have some basis in how that particular church or denomination views what it believes to be God's Will for and in the world. These principles manifest themselves in a variety of different programs and goals for a church and are slowly absorbed into the psyche of each of the members as the years go by. These principles often start off as massive movements within the church from a minority voice that is calling out for God's justice. Sometimes these principles deceive us into thinking we are working for the building of the kingdom of God but in fact we are building up walls of separation based on our staunch support of a position taken in opposition to others. For example, I have been reading the Book of Confessions in preparation for a class as well as for my ordination exams. In the Scots confession we read the following, "we abandon the teaching of the Roman Church and withdraw from its sacraments; firstly because their ministers are not true ministers of Christ Jesus (indeed they even allow women, who the Holy Ghost will not permit to preach in the congregation to baptize)..." Obviously, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has denied this principle of the Scots but it is still part of our history as a Church. One must wonder what principles we have today that we need to have our minds changed about.

... Whatever you want it to say! So last night I was sitting down to a nice dinner of spaghetti and homemade sauce. I have like a bazillion cherry tomato plants in the back yard and I needed to use up the 3 cups of tomatoes that I had collected on Tuesday. The sauce was delicious, just ask Maura she had some too. My delicious sauce is not the point of the story though... During dinner the phone rings. I get up and check the Caller ID and it's some 800 number. Now, I've been having collection agencies call my house for random people lately so I thought it might be a bank. I pick up the phone and am greeted by an automatic message that starts out. "Are you aware of the need for a ban on same-sex marriage?" What a delightful dessert for dinner! I hand the phone to Maura because I've actually already heard the recorded message the last time these people called. From what I can gather they are a "christian" Fundamentalist group that is working for an Indiana state senator who is in support of SJR-7. At any rate, at the end of the recorded message they ask if one wants to take s survey. Maura presses the button to indicate taking a survey and is connected with a real live person. I tried to take the survey last time but when I pressed 1 I was hung up on. Maura freaks out that it's a real person and tells the person she can't take the survey and passes the phone on to me.

Question 1: Do you support same-sex marriage?

I answer, "Yes."

Voice on the other side, "Wha... You support same-sex marriage?"

I respond again, "yes, I do"

Voice on the other side says, "We don't need you for the survey then. Thank you for your time."

This is getting interesting, I think to myself. "No, no, I don't mind taking the survey. I would love to give my input. What's the next question."

"You said you support same-sex marriage you can't take the survey."

"Why not?"

"Because we only want people who support banning same-sex marriage."

"Well, wouldn't that skew the results of the survey? Don't you want a random sampling to better represent your data set?"

"We are only looking for people who do not support same-sex marriage."

Fast forward a little bit. I ask him more about the survey and tell him I am perfectly willing to take the survey. He also mentions that this is a "christian" organization to which I respond I am a Christian and in fact even preach.

"Well, what are you going to use the survey for?" I ask him.

"You obviously didn't listen to the recording. We are going to present the results of the survey to congress to show them how many people are in support of a ban on same-sex marriage."

"Your results will be skewed. Just let me take the survey."

"No. I have already explained to you that you can't. Stop wasting my time." CLICK.

The moral of the story is... people are not even trying to give unbiased information to the public. Never trust a survey presented to you by the "Moral Majority" They are intentionally trying to deceive the public and care not thing for the truth or critical discussion on issues. They are liars of the worst type bent on their evil goals of patriarchy. Down with the "christians!" Now back to writing my sermon

Instead of putting together the liturgy for the August 14th service I'm preaching at the Presbyterian Church, I decided to watch a movie. I had been pointed to The Mudge Boy about a month ago and I picked up about around that time but just haven't had the time to watch it. What better time than procrastination time to watch a movie?! I picked it up originally because it looked like it would be a super crazy and super fun movie to watch. The pre-review I received: "Duncan (Hirsch) and his mother had always seemed nothing short of unconventional, a shared personality trait that folks in their tiny farm town had whispered about. After Mrs. Mudge's untimely death, Duncan finds himself unable to part with her spirit. He mimics her voice, wears her fur coat to bed and carries her pet chicken with him everywhere." How can a movie about boy carrying around a pet chicken be bad! Well the movie wasn't super great but it was a good way to procrastinate.

After the movie I wanted to get other people's take on the symbolism in the movie. I wouldn't have even blogged about the movie until I came across a review for it that made me almost want to vomit...seriously vomit. This review is just further proof (and now actual documented and not just made up in my mind from deconstructing social structures) that christian Fundamentalism are mindless patriarchal imps. The movie is about how power can be used to abuse people in times when they are vulnerable. The aforementioned review paints the victim in this movie (Duncan) as an evil sodomite (though he is not even homosexual in the movie) and mentions nothing of the perpetrator of the abusive power. In the end the review blames Duncan for the abuse he receives because he is not masculine enough and that if we bind ourselves to a strong Father figure (namely God) we won't have to worry about being effeminate or getting the abuse we deserve for being effeminate. This is a "christian" review. Now, I know none of you will watch the movie so I'll give you a spoiler filled sequence of the movie so you can judge for yourself.

The movie opens up with a woman struggling to carry some eggs in a bike basket up a hill. When she gets up to the top of the hill she falls over and we the audience assume she is dead. The next scene is a boy in a chicken coop collecting eggs. He greets each chicken by name and thanks them for the eggs. One chicken that is different than all the rest (it has white feathers instead of red and brown feathers and it doesn't lay eggs) is fussing to the side of the coop. The boy picks up the chicken and tries to calm it. He ends up sticking the chicken's head in his mouth and the chicken calms itself almost immediately. We come to find out that this boy is the earlier woman's son and that he lives with his father on a farm. Both of the men are struggling to come to grips with the mother/wife's death but in a quite kind of way. We see this in how the boy, Duncan, tries to start conversation at the dinner table and fails. After the failure he tries to pretend to be his mother at the table and even mimics her speech, topics of conversation and voice. This doesn't go over well. The next few scenes develop the strong connection between the boy and the chickens especially the white feathered chicken. This includes a scene where the father gives away two of the chickens to a friend and snaps their necks in the process.