Having decided that we really need a spiritual community, for the kids’ sake as well as our own, we went to church for the first time in a long time last Sunday. Specifically, we went to the Unitarian Universalist Church in York, which we figured was pretty much the only option for a pair of ambiguously spiritual parents, a borderline Athiest son, and a Pagan daughter. Found myself thinking the same thing I always do: I really want to like the UU church. I like what they stand for. But to haul out an oversued quote, there’s just no there there. It’s like someone took a Methodist church, and carefully excised it’s soul, so that only the trappings remained. It has none of the grandeur and mysticism of High Church; none of the energy and spontaneity of the Charismatic Movement; none of the down-home-ness of the Restoration Movement. In their desperate rush to offend no one their speakers often wind up sounding like announcements from a Human Resources department. Plodding, spiritless hymns and a few platitudes: it’s everything I’ve always gritted my teeth through while waiting for the real purpose of meeting, the fellowship afterwards.
Overheard at Borders last night:
It’s a self-development program disguised as a skin-care company.
– Woman presenting something called “Arbonne” to a gaggle of other women.
FInally reading (well, listening to) The Cluetrain Manifesto. It’s all stuff I knew already, but entertainingly told (unlike The World is Flat).
Down on the planet, Wesley is jogging around with his new friends. Unlike the adults, who are busy getting their freak on in Plato’s Retreat, the kids are busy showing off their gymnastic skills. One of the Edo boys walks on his hands! Oh! Wesley got served! But wait! Wesley serves back with some cartwheels and a roundoff, and IT’S ON!
In fact, it’s so on, the girl (who was played by a really sweet girl named Judith Jones, who played my girlfriend on an after school special called My Dad Can’t Be Crazy, Can He?) gets so hot for Wesley, she asks him if he’ll “teach her” how to “play ball.”
Oh, you bet, baby. Uncle Wesley will teach you how to play ball. Why don’t you just slip into this latex bodysuit and put on this wig first, and then we’ll play all sorts of ball, you dirty little bitch.
Uh. What just happened? Sorry about that.
Wesley tells them to get a bat. When they don’t know what it is, he describes Worf’s penis. It’s not awkward at all.
You might want to look into Quakerism. There’s a “there”, there, or so I like to think, and you can believe whatever, really.
I almost put in a note that effect “time to check out the Quakers”.
Perhaps you can correct my ignorance; I had the impression that while they were very liberal, they were at least loosely Christian; i.e. Jesus is their primary inspirational figure. Which is one reason I hadn’t given them more consideration. It seemed to me that, for instance, while they might accept my Pagan stepdaughter, she would find no actual encouragement or support in her path. Again, correct me if I’m wrong.
There are different kinds of Quakers. There are actually Quagans, i.e., Quaker Pagans, though they are not universally accepted at every Meeting. You might want to take a look here: http://community.livejournal.com/quaker_pagan/ . I think most Quakers respect Jesus’s teachings, but some find nature and such more inspirational. It depends on the Quaker.
Good luck!
for your dad! May he be successful and return in 1 breathing and healthy piece.
As for your search for churches–I’m kinda consused… You seem to want something very involved with passion–but also something that is entirely rational and accepting that people are taking very different paths… In my experience.. it’s very hard to find a person–much less a group of people–who will all get together while they passionately go in radically diffferent directions believing very different things…. I only meniotn this because going to a unitarian community for a passionate experience seems about as reasonable as going to a charsimatic-speaking-in-tonuges-church and expecting level-headed reasoned and tolerant discourse…
I guess I have it easier… I don’t ever seek such passionate expereinces from churches–only when I go to dance or fuck do I seek such things…
Re: Good luck!
I demand to own as well as to consume my cake!
Re: Good luck!
Clearly you need two peices of cake!
haha…
Well Put…
After doing a translation of “Von Guten Maechten” over Christmas, I’ve been reading http://www.amazon.com/Cost-Discipleship-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/dp/0684815001/sr=8-1/qid=1169077617/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3276200-4653707?ie=UTF8&s=books
with my wife, just a few paragraphs at a time, every night for the past couple of weeks.
The genuine article.
Yeah, George RR Martin is doomy and gloomy, but the story is so engaging I can’t put it down. (I’m working my way through the books again so I can read the fourth one) The LARP is similar: it isn’t a matter of IF you will come to ruin, simply a matter of when and how. But that’s half the fun.
There are two internet resources for stuff like character relations, but be careful scrolling through them, because they may contain spoilers to the future books, and you DO NOT WANT to read spoilers! Here they are anyway:
The Tower of the Hand
The Citadel
I started but
I started the series, but lost interest. The quote I remember about the series is Robert Jordan plus incest.
Thanks!