Rules of Life 2007

I got a Facebook message from a friend from high school notifying me that she had unearthed something I had written way back then. I had a habit of compiling random and amusing (I thought) quotes from different sources, and dubbing them 'Rules of Life!'. And I then collected them all into one uber-book upon graduation, as I recall. My friend had recently found her copy, and apparently found it quite funny. Her favorite rule was 'In the eyes of the Lord, we are all ostriches.'
Which, is no doubt true, but I don't quite recall why I thought it was so profound when I was seventeen.
There were others, though. Classics from years before: 'Silly putty is not intended for use as ear plugs.' 'A refrigerator is not an exit. Do not be fooled by signs to the contrary.' These sound random and nonsensical to me now, but they made sense at the time. There is actually a warning on the back of Silly Putty (the brand name stuff, mind you) that says that it is not, in fact, to be eaten, or used as ear plugs. Imagine the law suit that prompted that! And in high school, because I got bored in class almost every second of every day, and had no wireless internet to distract me, I carried Silly Putty with me. And learned these things.
Similarly, in the basement of the community theatre where I performed a lot, there was a refrigerator, above which there was an exit sign. There used to be a door there, but now, there was a prop refrigerator, and no door, just an old exit sign, that mislead people, and the fire department. Again, boredom makes a lot of things funny.
But thinking back, these were the rules that were elucidated. There were all the other high school rules that weren't, and were just as important. 'Carry saltines with you at all times, because bomb scares will close the cafeteria, and you'll spend six hours sitting in a packed gym with no food.' 'The more hall passes you have stored in your backpack, the better off you are.' 'There will be people who will never talk to you on principle. There will be people who will always talk to you. Discern the difference and let it go. Questioning it is for college.'
I think the rules of life we live by change with every period of our lives. There are different rules I live by now; rules I've changed, and rules I've added and rules I've thrown out. Rules different people have taught me, and rules I've decided are better left not followed.
What are your current favorite rules of life?

Modest Proposal

Due to my recent upswing in meta-Episco type activities, I've taken to reading more Episco-type blogs. (You must believe it if it's on the interwebs--Also, I've been using break to catch up on 30 Rock. Yes, and?) The results have been intriguing.
There seems to have been a spate of disturbing and somewhat outlandish accusations towards my little Church by people who you'd think would know better. Or, at least, people you'd think would phrase it nicer. Or, at the VERY least, people you'd think would make better word choices, or recognize sarcasm when they heard it.
Take for example, the Revd. Canon David Anderson, recently elected (or appointed, I'm not sure how they function) a bishop in the Nigerian Church in these here United States. Also, he's the president and CEO of the American Anglican Council. Clearly, he's a busy, busy man. As quoted recently in a letter posted on the Episcopal Cafe, he compares the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Vichy government during the Nazi regime, accusing him in part of "allowing the pantheistic and homosexual agendas to flourish."
Whoa there, fireball.

Look at the guy, does he look particularly vicious?


Granted, maybe the beard doesn't work in his favor......


Ok, look.
Back to my point.

First thing, smaller thing first: Pantheistic?! The hell you say! I spent most of yesterday being unreasonably bothered by this, before I figured out a Theory. Behold my theory!
In an American Western context, being called 'pantheistic' is like being called primitive, being called heathen, uncivilized. It pushes similar buttons. Pantheistic, after all, is what we all were before Abram got his talking to. From a religious studies standpoint, there is a long-standing bias against those traditions that are pantheistic, that has only recently been named and fought against, seeing them as somehow lowest on the totem pole. (No Pun intended, but you see?!) If religious development is evolution, then pantheistic traditions are unevolved, and got left behind. Cute though they might be, there's the belief built in that we've moved beyond them. So, with all that baggage, it's a pretty upsetting thing to be called, and in this context, not a nice thing to say to people who also took the baptismal covenant.
(This is bracketing the fact that pantheism is actually really cool, and works really well for millions of people. However, I strongly doubt any of them belong to TEC, so the name doesn't fit. Some people are pantheists, and are very good at it. We shoudl hire them to fix global warming, on account of we suck. Some people are Christians, and are very good at that, but occasionally do incredibly stupid things, like accuse other Christians of being different religions. The divine loves and dwells in everyone, and that's probably why David Anderson just called me a pantheist, as we'll see in a bit.)
Setting all that aside for a bit, what I think Canon Anderson was attempting to convey, albeit with the sublety and grace of a hippo performing Martha Graham, was that we place too much emphasis on the immanence of God. And he got that confused with pantheism. And in that case.....
There's not a whole hell of a lot I can do. Some one failed you, sir. Someone with a dictionary.

Pantheism is the belief that all living things have a spirit that is divine. i.e. a separate divine force for each thing. Ex. "I worship the spirit of the tree. Not the spirit that unites all living things that I find uniquely visible in this tree in it's tree-like form, but this tree!"
Immanence is the belief that God is present throughout all creation by the very act of creating living things. God, despite being transcendent (totally other! sui generis!) also decided to create a world that lives, thus imparting spirit and life into the world. (This also involves fun things like contingency. Find a systematic theologian and make them explain it all to you one day, grasshopper.) Thus: "I worship the spirit of God I find in the tree, that spark of life I find here that unites all creation, and me with it. (so goes a non-denom theist) That spark of life that also occasionally has been known to get incarnated in unwed teenage girls in 1st cen Palestine and get killed as a criminal then get resurrected. (so goes the Christian version.) " So. Like pantheism, in that we believe the divine is in all living things, but not like pantheism in that we believe that it's united, and in God, and also not limited to living things.
And about the whole Nazi thing.....can we just agree not to call people Nazis? Let's just not do it. Especially when they're in your own church. (Especially when it makes no sense. Who are the Jews, in this scenario?!) Especially, when you're supposed to believe that God lives in them, just like God lives in you, just like God lives in everyone.
And have you heard? We also eat our babies and drink their blood in some sort of ritual sacrifice! I expect a full color flyer about that one to come out within 6 months.

In Which We Discuss Music you should listen to

For the past two or so years, really since I left college, I've made playlists of new music that I listen to repetitively in any given period. There's been an upswing in this lately because in college, I used to have helpful/similarly obsessed friends who did this for me, and now it's rubbed off on me. It was a good way to find new music, this trading of playlists with people, and also, in retrospect, to figure out what sort of mood I was in over any given season of my life. (This was how I discovered that CPE-summer was much angrier than I had originally known. No one listens to that much hard rock for that long for no reason.) So in that spirit, here is my current playlist, in no particular order, composed of whatever I've been playing a lot this summer and this fall.
Ahem. And I can pretend that I'm as cool as those people with the celebrity iTunes lists.
1. Feel to Believe-Beth Orton
(It doesn't sound like anything else on that album, somehow very cool.)
2. the Times, They are a changing- Brandi Carlile
(yes. She didn't write it. I know. But her cover of it is very good, and as I've told a number of you, I like Dylan songs better when Dylan himself doesn't try to sing them.)
3. Burning Down the House-John Legend
(I'm on a covers kick, and how awesome is it that John Legend covers a Talking Heads song?!)
4. Four Winds- Bright Eyes
(Yeats reference! Whee!)
5. Antichrist Television Blues-Arcade Fire
(Apparently it's about Joe Simpson and Jessica's deranged career. That, however, manages not to diminish the radical awesomeness of the song for me. A statement of how much I like this whole album, actually. Listen to the whole thing, in order.)
6. Through to Sunrise-Girlyman
(They're so cool. I'm going to miss NYC....)
7. Still Beating- Josh Ritter
(If I were interviewed by James Lipton, and he asked me what other career I would most want to attempt, I would want to be a singer/songwriter, but then I think of Josh Ritter, and I know I would FAIL MISERABLY, because of the sheer contrast. This and 'Girl in the War.' Gah.)
8. Picture of Success-Rilo Kiley
(Don't know what this song is about, but I like being unreasonably pissed at Mexico, and having really good shoes. And ruminating about death. And feeling oddly emotional about weird things. Like Mexico and shoes. Dude! It's like seminary!!!!!! :)
9. No Bad News-Patty Griffin
(I saw her in concert last spring, and it was awesome. And on my way, I saw Taye Diggs on the subway. Best. Night. EVER.)
10. Angels Hung Around-Rilo Kiley
(I, for one, like the new Rilo Kiley CD. Possibly because I was never a big RK fan prior to that, and don't know any better. Anyway...)
11. Cinnamon Road-Shawn Colvin
(Oh! Since there are enough scary conspiracies out there to freak me out and depress me-i.e. Christian Zionists and red cows in Texas, Heritage Foundation funneling money into my church, etc, I consider musical conspiracies to be the antidote. Consider please, Patti Griffin and Shawn Colvin and Mark Knopfler, I think?, singing a Patti song to be a pretty strong dose.)
12. John Saw that Number-Neko Case
(There should be more joyous songs about the eschaton. And Neko Case would be just the person to provide them, assuming that Regina Spektor is otherwise occupied. She just sounds so damn intrigued by the whole visions thing.)

So go! Run to iTunes, or BitTorrent, and play! And also, send me your recent listenings. That's the only way this works.
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Now playing: Brandi Carlile - Again Today
via FoxyTunes