Beth Johnson, reliable guide

Many of you have doubtless heard about the brouhaha about Elizabeth Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, whose book Quest for the Living God was criticized, yea even condemned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine in late March. If you have not heard about the controversy, all the more reason to read the article linked below and links embedded in it.

Prof. Deirdre Good (who blogs at On Not Being a Sausage) and I have written an essay on Prof. Johnson, her theology, and the controversy. The article just came out today (Easter Monday, April 25) at the Episcopal Café. Have a look here (permanent link, will stay up even when article is no longer on the front page) and please feel welcome to leave a comment at the Café below the article.

December 26: St. Stephen's Day - blog flashback

Well, the Episcopal Church has transferred the feast of Stephen till tomorrow, today being a Sunday (you can't liturgically celebrate a Sunday and a saint's day on the same day, or rather you can, but you may not).

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church --or at least the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops-- has bagged Stephen entirely, because the 26th is not only a Sunday but the first Sunday after Christmas, which in the Catholic Church is the Feast of the Holy Family.

Since I have no liturgical celebrations to attend or at which to preach or officiate, I'm sticking to the original calendar. Today is the feast of Stephen, so there.


No energy, or rather, still hardly any words. Writer's block or something. Here is last year's post on Stephen, which itself has a flashback to two years before that and a feast of St. Stephen poem. Gentle readers, you have probably forgotten both posts anyway, so enjoy the (re-) read.

And thank you for bearing with me. I am well but in a bit of an odd relationship to words. Trying to find a voice again. My job tends to destroy it and I recently spent two or three weeks correcting final papers in other people's voices, many of them with bad grammar, syntax, and usage. Lord, have mercy on your indentured servants in the academy.

Posted on December 27, dated December 26.

Orthodox icon: Stephen the Protomartyr

As Christmas approaches...

... I think back to France, where I lived when I was growing up. I had hoped to be there for these holidays, but for a variety of reasons I could not go. Perhaps just as well since airport and other traffic in Northern Europe have been in a snarl due to snow. I hear from a friend, though, that things are lovely in Southern France.

Here is "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle," which some of you will know as "Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella." This is the way it is supposed to sound.

I know you've all been dying to resolve this one

Web site or website?

See here.

There, that's settled. Or is it?

Musical silliness (related to sheep theme below)

Thanks to Kirstin for this one!

Baa, baa, bamba!

Sing along bilingually!

(+Maya Pavlova says thank you for el gatito.)

Healing Psalms, Day Ten - part 1

I am going to make this 10th healing Psalm last. Mostly because I have had a huge, long day and am cooking a little sniffle and want to take myself to bed and get a good sleep so that I don't get sick.

So I will post the Psalm tonight and then commentary tomorrow.

I'm posting the Psalm twice here, with the traditionally used pronoun in the first version and the other pronoun in the second. If G*d has no gender, then let's use all genders or none.

Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in His Sanctuary;
***Praise Him
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Him for mighty deeds;
***Praise Him
******according to His abundant greatness!

Praise Him
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Him
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Him
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Him
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Him
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Him
*********with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!


Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in Her Sanctuary;
***Praise God
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Her for mighty deeds;
***Praise Her
******according to Her abundant greatness!

Praise Her
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Her
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Her
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Her
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Her
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Her*********

with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!

Scroll down to posts below for previous Psalms and explanation of the origins of this custom of praying ten specific Psalms for healing of body and soul. Thank you, Reb Nachman. Blessings, all.

Healing Psalms, Day Five

P. is out of heart surgery and now begins the recovery, some of it short and some much longer. (The sternum takes a while to heal.)

Modern medicine is amazing, when you think about it, and so is the human body. Glory be to Godde for both of them, the science and the person. And please, Congress of the United States, can we have decent health insurance for all, and soon?

Back to our sequence of Psalms, recommended for both R'fuat HaGuf (Healing of the Body) and R'fuat HaNefesh (Healing of the Spirit). Rabbi Nachman of Breslov identified these ten psalms as the Tikkun HaKlali, the Complete Remedy.

Rabbi Nachman, or Rebbe Nachman as some call him, lived from 1772 to 1810, not terribly long. People died younger in those days. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 38. He lived in the era of the French and American revolutions, deist philosophers, the days of the Terror in France, and Napoleon - and very far away from them all, both geographically and philosophically, in Czarist Russia. He was a Hasidic master and the great-grandson of the Ba'al Shem Tov, the great Jewish mystic and leader whom the editors of our book call "the progenitor of the Hasidic trend in Judaism." This movement stressed the mystical and emotional dimensions of Judaism to complement its intellectual and carefully structured dimensions. Rebbe Nachman was --among many other things-- a great believer in the power of prayer.

Today's Psalm is Psalm 59, with Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg as commentator. I'm going to be brief because I've just realized I'd better stay within Fair Use. And you really do want to buy this book. (Info at bottom of each post.) It's quite wonderful and you don't have to be Jewish to use or appreciate it. It might make you a little more Jewish, though.

Rabbi Peltz Weinberg writes:

This very personal psalm contains the cries of someone searching for help in the face of life-threatening danger, beginning with a plea in despair and ending with a song of praise and thanksgiving. It moves from terror to serenity in a three-fold structure telescoped into a mere 18 lines.

Just a few lines tonight, and then you can read the full psalm on your own.
...
Rescue me from enemies, my God:
***from those who rise up against me --strengthen me!
Rescue me from those who act treacherously;
from bloodthirsty people --save me!
For they lie in ambush for my soul,
***brazen ones gather against me;
***yet I have not transgressed,
*******nor sinned against them, Adonai!
...

But you, Adonai, You laugh at them,
***You scorn the evil among the nations.
***My Strength--
******for Your Help I wait,
******for God is my Haven
God, my Hessed/Faithful One,
***You will go before me. ...

Rabbi Peltz Weinberg writes:

... As the enemy is named and acknowledged, so is God, source of help, strength, and support. Three words appear in the Hebrew. Each word as it is pronounced allows the suffering person to leap across a chasm of hopelessness. The words are names of an intimate reservoir of help, an answer to the cries at the height of panic. The words are personal - ozi, My Strength, misgavi, My Haven, and hasdi, My Faithful One. As we name the unseen hands that cradle us in our most bereft moments, we can allow ourselves to lay some of our heavy burden in those hands. The psalmist takes a breath. We pause. Selah.

Previous posts on the Healing Psalms are here:

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four

From Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed. Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

The daffodils are back in business

The snow has come, the snow has gone. The temperature went down to 9 degrees early in the week overnight and yesterday it was in the low 70s.

The daffodils survived, except for a few blooms which doubtless froze. But the buds were just fine, insulated from the cold by the layer of snow, and in the last two days they have been popping out in full force. So we now have daffodils, jonquils, and crocuses (purple ones) in front of the house. I have brought in some jonquils and daffodils for my desk, since I am writing a lot over spring break.

In French we just say "jonquilles" and I think that covers both daffodils and jonquils, so I am never quite sure of the English difference. Whatever it is, the flowers are both bright yellow and white-and-yellow, and they are pretty.

Spring has sprung.

More on inclusive language and public prayer

Re: the post below and its many comments (read it and them first), it turns out I had posted a little piece of the Jaci Maraschin essay a little over a year ago.

You can read that post here.

For another Brazilian perspective, from Silvia Regina de Lima Silva, posted around the same time, see here. (Tracie, this may speak to you, though Silvia doesn't use "Goddess." But she is a radical woman after your own heart, and full of passion and fire.) It is important to listen to this voice from a Black woman of the Southern Hemisphere.

For the struggle to come to words we barely know are within us, especially if we are women, see here. (Nelle Morton's classic essay on "Hearing to Speech.")

One among many examples of the beautiful Anglican, inclusive prayers by Janet Morley of England.

I've got a chapter on language in When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life, as I mentioned in the Comments section of the post below. Thought I had posted part of it once to this blog, but perhaps not. It's not showing up in two searches I just did in the archives. I'll look again later. Some of you have the book, anyway. (The rest of you should buy it ;-) - just sayin'. And thank you.)

Lots more on language, prayer, and gender in the church in the archives of Acts of Hope.

For instance, Julian of Norwich (14th century) on the Trinity. Today some of us would find the language less than satisfying but in the context of the 14th century, it's marvelous. So, as many pointed out when our Presiding Bishop began to use mothering language for Jesus and some got their knickers in a knot about it, this is not exactly a newfangled idea. Even earlier in Christian history, there were maternal images for Godde. There are also such images in the Hebrew Bible, though the patriarchal images dominate.

I thank you all for your courtesy and honesty in this conversation. Let it continue, and do share resources with us.

Speaking of the Daily Office: the St. Helena Breviary - and some musings on inclusive language in liturgy

I want one of these (the full monastic edition) in the worst way. I think that part of what keeps me from praying the Daily Office when I don't pray it is the language.

Interestingly, sexist language bothered me less when I went to pray with the monks in Berkeley (they've now closed their Priory and merged with the two other houses in the U.S.), the brothers of the Order of the Holy Cross, Anglican Benedictines. Perhaps because of the chant, perhaps because there isn't much macho-ness or hierarchy there. I miss those times of going up the street for Vespers.

In Berkeley, I worshipped at a congregation that had done a thorough revision of the liturgy, under the careful shepherding of a liturgical scholar who is also a priest and a feminist, and it was the first time I didn't have what I call "the cringe reflex," both because there were women clergy (and men clergy too) and because of the language. Female clergy alone won't do it, friends. What words do we use to talk about God and about each other?

It really is possible to name God and to preserve the Holy Trinity without being male-dominant. It takes work and mindfulness. I am always amazed that the conversation about inclusive language, which began when I was in divinity school 35 years ago and which we took to congregations and judicatories of many denominations and communions, is still in its infancy in some parts of our church -- and invisible in others. It's as if our conversations of the 1970s (and 1980s, and 1990s), with some serious thoughtful work and plenty of theology and poetic compositions by now) had never happened.

This is true in other communions, but I wonder if in the Episcopal Church it has to do with a certain literalism of the Prayer Book and the way we use the book. Is the Prayer Book a springboard or a stranglehold? Discuss.

The New Zealand Prayer Book is beautiful and many of us use it. But we are mostly not authorized to use it in public worship, e.g. for the Eucharist. And it is inculturated for Aotearoa New Zealand, not for the U.S. The issue isn't only language that is gender-inclusive (or, as some in the Episcopal Church formal commissions and publications name it, expansive language) but also language that includes images of nature and creation and that is rooted in the life of our local church, in the country or rather countries of the Episcopal Church.

In any event, as soon as I have a bit of disposable income I am going to invest in a St. Helena Breviary and Psalter.

Note: The great irony is that there is sometimes more linguistic change going on in Roman Catholic churches than in Episcopal churches, because parish priests sometimes just go ahead and change the language. Because hierarchy in the Episcopal Church is in some ways more functional than it is in the Roman Catholic Church, it has more of an influence on whether or not folks change language at the local level. I have seen far more Episcopal churches not change the language "because the bishop won't allow it" than Catholic churches; the Catholic churches just go ahead and do it. The bad side of this being that often it's spontaneous and less studied and thoughtful, with a few exceptions. In the Episcopal Church, when the language changes, it's often after a lot of work. (Note: when we changed the language in Berkeley after all the scholarly and pastoral study, it was with the bishop's permission and blessing.) But does this also hold us back?
Yes, we have Enriching Our Worship. But if it's not in regular use at Sunday Eucharist and other public prayer of the church, what use it is?

You want to start a firestorm in the church? Never mind the discussion on lgbt people (well, do mind it) - try changing the language.

And these discussions are not unrelated. They all upset people's cosmologies -- the way they view the order of the universe and who decided and decides what it should be. (Certain blog sites that will remain nameless, in fact, are as upset about language as they are about gay bishops.)

Also, remember, the Daily Office isn't everyone's way of praying. Just a reminder brought to you by When in Doubt, Sing. ;-)

Photo: Sr. Cintra Pemberton, OSH, with the Breviary.

And the great sucking sound you hear...

...is me, whirled into the Facebook vortex.

I have succumbed.

A note on the reactions to the death of John Updike (R.I.P.)

This isn't really about John Updike, may he rest in peace, but about the descriptions of John Updike on the radio.

I found myself yelling at the radio this morning. Yes, me, yelling at my blessed NPR shows in the car on the short drive to work.

Updike was a great writer, no doubt about it, and an art critic and thinker and many other things. So this isn't a dissing of Updike.

What is getting to me is how everyone is speaking of him as a writer about (the United States of) America, American post-war life, the American middle.

Excuse me?!

Updike wrote about white American post-war life.

Of course, he wrote about other things too. I have had his novel about a fictional African country, The Coup, on my shelf for years and have been meaning to read it, and I will read it in memory of him. Updike was, as one critic said, kaleidoscopic.

But Rabbit is not (the U.S. of) America.

Is Rabbit a part of it? Of course. A significant part of it? Of course. The whole story? No. "Representative" (of the whole story)? No.

We are so (as the kids would say) not out of the era of white privilege.

If we're going to name the fact that people are chroniclers of Jewish life or Black life in these United States, then let's name the fact that people are chroniclers of White or White Protestant life in the United States. (Or, for that matter, of the U.S. white middle class, or of middle-class Northern men.)

Either that or I want the obits for Toni Morrison (long may she live and continue to write) to say as much as the obits for Updike that she wrote the Great American Novel.

'Cause if you think that slavery and its aftermath or love and work in Harlem or the U.S. South have not been as American as apple pie and as the life of suburban white businessmen, you are still thinking of white America as normative --as the rule, the standard, the "normal"-- and the rest of these United States as the exception or the other.

White privilege is not just present in what we do or in what happens to us, but in how we think and how we speak. *

Think about it.

*See, for instance, re: the American novel, item 7 in the list on the document at the "white privilege" link above.

No more Opus :-(

Click to enlarge.

Salon has an interview with Berkeley Breathed, creator of Opus the Penguin and his band of friends, on why he's ending his strip. It has something to do with the quality (if you can call it that) of our national discourse.