Eclectic Amateur

I suppose these results aren’t terribly surprising … I’m so “new”, I’m not yet Catholic. And I do love Pope John Paul II of happy memory, and I do feel as if I’m rediscovering a lost faith.

The 2% “Liberal Catholic” result would explain my disconnect with the official ECUSA party line on … well, just about everything.

I was meditating a bit upon Lepanto, and fell into a moderate case of Catholic envy.

After all, the Catholic church has these wonderfully triumphalistic feasts such as Christ the King and Our Lady of Victory.

I’m pretty sure as Episcopalians, our corresponding feasts are of Jesus the Really Nice Rabbi and Our Lady of Perpetual Dialogue.

Now that I’m envious and depressed, I think I’ll go read The Ballad of the White Horse as an antidote (“hair of the dog”, perhaps?). At least we haven’t taken Alfred the Great off of the list of feasts yet.

The NEW Eclectic Amateur! Now, with ads from Google!

We’ll see if this is beneficial or baneful …

Dale mentioned the other day (I am unsure how much in jest) that it was “time to start collecting those distributist books.“

There’s one I’m sure he already has — the Bible. It was my attempt, some years ago, to read through all of the Bible that got me started down the path of distributist thinking.

This version of Psalm 37 is the translation from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and was this morning’s appointed reading. How could it not be dear to any agrarian/distributist’s heart?

37

Part I Noli aemulari

1. Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *
   do not be jealous of those who do wrong.
2. For they shall soon wither like the grass, *
   and like the green grass fade away.
3. Put your trust in the LORD and do good; *
   dwell in the land and feed on its riches.
4. Take delight in the LORD, *
   and he shall give you your heart’s desire.
5. Commit your way to the LORD and put your trust in him, *
   and he will bring it to pass.
6. He will make your righteousness as clear as the light *
   and your just dealing as the noonday.
7. Be still before the LORD *
   and wait patiently for him.
8. Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, *
   the one who succeeds in evil schemes.
9. Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; *
   do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.
10. For evildoers shall be cut off, *
    but those who wait upon the LORD shall possess the land.
11. In a little while the wicked shall be no more; *
    you shall search out their place, but they will not be there.
12. But the lowly shall possess the land; *
    they will delight in abundance of peace.
13. The wicked plot against the righteous *
    and gnash at them with their teeth.
14. The Lord laughs at the wicked, *
    because he sees that their day will come.
15. The wicked draw their sword and bend their bow
    to strike down the poor and needy, *
    to slaughter those who are upright in their ways.
16. Their sword shall go through their own heart, *
    and their bow shall be broken.
17. The little that the righteous has *
    is better than great riches of the wicked.
18. For the power of the wicked shall be broken, *
    but the LORD upholds the righteous.

Seen in the October, 2005 Ann Arbor Observer calendar of events:

spiritsisters Women’s Circle.
All women invited to discuss spirituality, relationships, empowerment, metaphysics, and healing. Short meditation session. Bring divination tools, if you like. Temple Beth Emeth/St. Clare’s Episcopal Church, 2309 Packard. $3. 741-0478.

At least they’re not hosting a group whose practices are are really offensive to what the Episcopal Church stands for — you know, like those nasty knuckle-dragging Boy Scouts.

When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
— Isaiah 8:19 (NIV)

God have mercy.

So, the entire crew of us went to see yesterday’s Tigers game at Comerica Park. (I didn’t know that I’d miss Michigan and Trumble, the Only True Home™ of the Tigers, so much, but that’s another story …)

It was a beautiful day for a baseball game, sunny and hot, but with a breeze. Marring the perfection, however, was the blaring of the speakers directly above our heads as we sat 4 rows below maximum nosebleed.

I was coping, but Nancy was developing a horrific headache. It didn’t help that the Princess Rachel, in her cheering enthusiasm, had developed a rather piercing shriek to her constant “Go Tigers! Go Tigers!”

By the fifth inning, Nancy had to finally tell Rachel to please tone it down. “Save it for when someone hits a home run.”

Rachel, disappointed but obedient, puts on her sad face, quietly nods her assent …

CRACK!

… and Brandon Inge knocks it out of left field for a tie-breaking two-run homer.

“Yay Tigers! Yay Tigers!”

The sheer choreography of it was breathtaking, and a thing of beauty. 🙂

Time for some question-and-answer about the general state of the Episcopal Church:

Another stealth homeschooling endorsement:

The mindset that leads to consolidation in agriculture, so evident in the chicken business, has also taken place to an alarming degree in human culture, especially in consolidated schooling. Just as we herd more animals into confinement buildings, we herd more children into classrooms. Then we have little choice but to follow the rule of the chicken factory: one size fits all. And we justify both kinds of concentration camps with that all-American article of faith: it’s cheaper per unit; we can’t afford to do otherwise. Then we wonder why we must de-beak the chickens and frisk schoolchildren for firearms.

From All Flesh Is Grass, by Gene Logsdon (p. 137)

One of the more pernicious effects of the election and consecration of V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire (and of the sexual morality “debate” in ECUSA and the Anglican Communion) is the way that any serious discussion of the moral and theological disaster overtaking ECUSA can be dismissed as “homophobia”.

Especially if it gets to the level of “what should we then do?” and of taking action. No, “listening” and “dialogue” (as those words are currently used) are not actions, but ways of avoiding taking action. More precisely, they are ways of having “conservatives” avoid taking action while “liberals” merrily continue doing more and more of what they wish.

Wendell Berry, on the importance of being current:

Contemporaneity, is the sense of being “up with the times,” is of no value. Wakefulness to experience — as well as to instruction and example — is another matter. But what we call the modern world is not necessarily, and not often, the real world, and there is no virtue in being up-to-date with it. It is a false world, based upon economies and values and desires that are fantastical — a world in which millions of people have lost any idea of the materials, the disciplines, the restraints, and the work necessary to support human life, and have thus become dangerous to their own lives and to the possibility of life. The job now is to get back to that perennial and substantial world in which we really do live, in which the foundations of our life will again be visible to us, and in which we can accept our responsibilities again within the conditions of necessity and mystery. In that world all wakeful and responsible people, dead, living, and unborn, are contemporaries. And that is the only contemporaneity worth having.

— Wendell Berry, Standing By Words, (p. 13)