Further adventures in suburban gleaning

So around 10:30 this evening, I got a voice mail from our church's Dive Team Captain saying she was headed for the [ESTABLISHMENT NAME REDACTED] near us to see what's the what, dumpster-wise, and did we want to join the expedition?

So we said yea verily, and headed over to the [REDACTED] parking lot, consolidated into one vehicle, and dove. (Dived? Huh - apparently it depends on where you are.) There were two bags with what appeared to be worthwhile stuff in them: one with a variety, the other with just some oranges. We ended up with the oranges, some strawberries, figs, little pita breads, and a whole lot of hamburger rolls that we really didn't want, and thus returned to whence they came. ([REDACTED] throws out a lot of those this time of year.) All in all, pretty slim pickins. But we could tell the store employees were still restocking and de-stocking shelves in there, and there were a whole bunch of shopping carts full of who knows what sitting in the store near the entrance, so we figgered we'd stake it out for a while, hoping for the big dump.

We chatted for a while, and then the Captain stated that further waiting would require fuel, so we went to the nearby [FAST FOOD ESTABLISHMENT] and got a couple of shakes (and fries for Tina - OK, LARGE fries to share.) We were now in danger of having spent more on gas and junk food than we had saved through our paltry take.

We also noticed that there seemed to be someone sleeping on the front porch of the abandoned restaurant next door to [FAST FOOD JOINT].

We went back to [REDACTED] and waited a while. While we were waiting, someone got into the car we'd parked next to in the mostly-empty parking lot, drove down to the dumpster, put on the flashers, and futzed around a while there. We were pretty darn curious, I must say. Was this competition?? When he'd gone, we spun back down there and checked it out. Nope, turns out he was making a deposit, not a withdrawal: there was a new bag of garbage in there, and it wasn't [REDACTED] products. Used diapers and such. "Dude," we thought self-righteously, "that's illegal." ;-)

We gave it a little more time, but now it was midnight and we were turning into pumpkins. So we headed back toward the Captain's van, which took us by the abandoned restaurant where we'd seen someone sleeping out front. That person seemed to be awake now, so at the Captain's suggestion, we decided to go say "Hi" and see if he or she would like some food. She turned out to be a very nice lady who was camping out there where there was a bit of shelter. We introduced ourselves and explained where we'd gotten the food, and she seemed happy to accept all of it. We chatted a bit more about the weather and [REDACTED]'s food disposal habits, and then said farewell and headed home. She was cool. We'll definitely keep an eye our for her when we return.

This is fun. Y'all should do it. As I've offered before, if you email me, I'll be more upfront about details and esoteric dive-fu (though due to my relative lack of experience, your mileage may vary).

Do not meddle in the affairs of freegans, for they are subtle, and quick to make off with your discarded organic free-range chickens

I'm back on the Dive Team! (Junior Varsity, natch - if you missed the sad tale of my previous attempt at dumpster diving, you can read it right here.) I went out this evening with a different mentor (plus a fellow n00b), and we successfully rescued a whole bunch of fresh strawberries, maybe ten loaves of assorted sliced bread, some ground beef, shaved beef, sausages, and eggs, and a henhouse worth of organic free-range chickens from their landfill-rotting destiny. Nummy!

New Mentor taught us padawans much about the subtle (and subtlety is key!) art of suburban gleaning. Her dive-fu is strong.

Of course, none of us are really freegans. We all still eat food that someone valued enough to make us pay money for. But now that I've completed my first successful mission, I'm beginning to feel the pride that comes from legitimate street cred.

Yeah, I eat garbage. Picked it m'self, yo. :-D

Cut from the Dive Team

Well, Tina's and my first attempt at (sub)urban gleaning (which is also known by some other names with fewer high-fallutin' Biblical connotations) can only be described with one word: FAIL.

This is a practice which is becoming increasingly popular among the scruffy, remarkably shameless "screw alls y'all principalities and powers of consumer cultural captivity" Christian circles that our friends and we run in. (Well, as you'll see, Tina and I don't exactly run - it's more like stumbling along behind, just within sight of the pack. But anyway.) The idea is that we rescue perfectly good, unwanted food from its landfill destiny, thereby creating space in our food budgets, which in turn enables us to spend more money and time loving God and neighbor. That's the theory, anyway.

Well, despite expert coaching from our wise and experienced mentor, things didn't exactly go as planned. Our first target - the dumpsters behind a certain crunchy-granola-type grocery store - didn't seem to have much to offer upon brief inspection, and we didn't have time for more than that, what with being gently chased away by store employees.

So we went back to our mentor's house and returned in his car, because we could see that the dumpsters behind the bread-oriented restaurant next door were overflowing. Despite parking around the corner and stealthily sneaking up on said dumpsters, I returned to mentor's car with: two bags of actual garbage. No yummy, not-quite-day-old bread straight off the shelves for us - just trashed, used paper coffee cups and food plates. All the bags looked the same, and I was scared of getting yelled at again, so I grabbed two and ran. Yay me! Good thing it's garbage night.

We spun around behind two or three other such locations on the way back, looking for easy gleaning, but no luck.

If you're coming to our house on Sunday for the post-church Lenten meal, though, do not fear - we have ample fare from previous runs by our mentor and other experienced divers, so you'll not be deprived of your chance to eat genuine gleaned castoffs of the bankrupt consumer culture. Mmm-mmm. Them's fine eatin'. :-D

Foretaste

It's been said that the Church is meant to be a foretaste of the kingdom of God.

In a manner that I imagine to be vaguely analogous, today is like a foretaste of spring in Northern Virginia.

Sadly, I'm afraid that the Church is rarely so lovely.

Thankfully, God doesn't depend on the Church to create loveliness.

I'm going back outside.

~~~

P.S., Our worship gathering this morning, indoors though it was, was quite lovely, though. Didn't want to imply otherwise. :-)

Blogcast of the Common Table

OK, so I can't not post about this. :-) If perchance anybody who reads this blog from afar has ever wondered, "So what do they do at this little coffee-house church called Common Table?", my best advice is to come and visit and stay for at least a month, 'cause no single gathering is going to give you anything like a good answer to that question. My second-best advice is to come and visit at least once. My third-best (and last-ditch) advice is is to check out our (quite nifty, IMHO) web site. But while that will give you some idea of what we think about and how we relate to the wide, wild world, until recently there wasn't a whole lot there that would tell you what it's like when we gather for worship services and service-worship, our two most frequent forms of coming together IRL (in real life) to serve and love God, our neighbors, and each other.

But now, thanks mostly to the tireless creative genius of the mighty iPete, we have a rockin' blogcast site with elements to help you experience (a little bit, anyway) our current worship series, on "Space". So far, we've got posts on our first three worship services in the series: Physical Space (the [human] is in the space), Relational Space (the [healing] is in the space), and Temporal Space (the [funk] is in the space), plus one for this past Saturday's joyous service-worship, in which we made space in the lives of some friends of ours who are parents of young kids, giving them an afternoon to themselves while we transformed the inside of Jack and Pete's house into a (well-regulated) party zone for 11 kids, aged 7 months to 8 years.

There are also podcasts of the worship services, and if you keep on scrolling down, you'll find content from last year's Easter season series ("Blooms"). It's all good stuff, and although it's only a taste of our gatherings, a taste is far better than nothing, and I think it's pretty cool.

Suffering and God

My cousin Cathy's husband John is in the hospital today (as he has been for several weeks now), having his right leg amputated. It's the latest blow in a horrific battle with flesh-eating bacteria. I posted the following note about it to two e-mail lists of my dear faith/church friends:

Sad news on my cousin John

He's going to lose his leg:

http://getwelljohn.blog.com/1554625/

Cathy's my first cousin, but I never really knew her and John. Now, in the context of this incredibly hard circumstance, I'm learning that they're people of amazing strength, courage, love, faith, and determination. They'll get through this, and be a strong and active family again, but - so hard. Asleep on the job *again*, God? :-(

(That's a link to Cathy's blog about their ordeal, if you want to read more about it.)

Tina read my message, and said, sadly, "But that's not God's job." And she's right, of course. It's not. God doesn't prevent us from suffering. God didn't prevent His own suffering on Calvary, and God doesn't save us from ours, either, most of the time. That's just obvious.

But we can't but keep on asking, "Why the hell not???" You could, if You wanted to, couldn't You, God? Or, You could have made us so we understand better, couldn't You? Couldn't You have come up with something better than this, You incompetent hack?"

(But answers apparently aren't God's job either, because we almost never get them.)

I'm not really despairing as that might sound. But I think it's a fair question. And if you read the Psalms, it's certainly the sort of question that's got plenty of precedent in our tradition - even Scriptural precedent.

I kind of felt like Tina was saying, "Take it easy on God." And I thought about that. But I don't think that's right. God deserves our worship, praise, and thanksgiving. God deserves our faith, trust, and confidence. God deserves for us to give our whole lives in service to God's mission and dreams. But one thing God doesn't deserve, in my opinion, is our sympathy. This is one f**ked up world, and a lot of that is clearly our fault, but from my admittedly limited perspective, a lot of that would appear to be Your fault. I got nobody else to blame, unless and until You can fix either the world, or me. 'Cause both of those colossal botch jobs are Your handiwork, you f**king hack.

So I'm not sure God deserves our sympathy. Except maybe on Good Friday. And even then, my heart breaks more for the human nature of my brother Jesus than for the Father, who, again, it seems, could have come up with something better.

Sorry, the warning at the top of this blog about rudeness and spicy language isn't usually necessary. But two posts in a row, it has been. Maybe I have some anger management issues to work on this Lent.

UPDATE: HOPE!!! Holy crap! God, you wily old bastard! Follow through, now, will you please??

http://getwelljohn.blog.com/1557397/

Another one - on origins

OK, here's another one from the same conversation. I'm replying to the following post from my friend Brock, which in turn was responding to part of my previous post:

"That's the whole question here I think: Is evolutionary change God's mechanism for creation. If so, wow. But how does that relate to Genesis? Does that mean we equate about a billion years to each day of creation? Or, do we hold what the Bible says as the complete Truth of God's Word? I wrestle with this all of the time, in many areas of Scripture."

There was some intervening discussion (very good stuff; too bad you're not a Looney - unless of course you are) ;-) from both Brock and my friend Peri in which they mused on the necessary inexactness of divine communication and Biblical interpretation. Then I contributed the following:

----------

I don't know that I have a lot to add to the good thinking Brock and Peri have done on this issue. Brock, this sort of question is something I think all Christians (probably people of any faith) struggle with, except maybe for those way on either extreme. ("Every single word of the Bible is absolutely literally true in the most literal, simplistic, easy-for-me-to-understand interpretation possible, and that's all there is to it." -or- "Well, it's all a bunch of myths made up by dudes who didn't know the world was round, so there's no reason for me to bother trying to take seriously anything in the Bible that seems difficult.") Those are caricatures, of course, but either one is, in my opinion, a major cop-out for a thinking Christian. I struggle with this stuff all the time too. I think one key is to have the courage to doubt our own infallibility. We aren't God, and deep down, I think we all know that there are some things that we don't know, won't know, *can't* know in this life. And you know what? We'll probably get by just fine not knowing them.

So we might as well admit that some things (the origins of the universe and mankind, for example) are bound to remain somewhat mysterious. But we should let the scientists do their bit to shed light on them, and oppose them at our peril - at one time, the Church was completely convinced that a plain reading of Scripture indicated that the sun orbits the earth. We treated Galileo and a bunch of other guys really poorly over that colossal mistake. Oops. Definitely not the Church's finest hour. Let's not do it again.

But that doesn't mean that we have to concede the sphere of all "real" knowledge to the scientists, and say that everything worth knowing can only be known through the scientific method. Christians also need to let Scripture (including, for example, the first two chapters of Genesis) speak its truths to us, and we need to live and practice them. Among those truths:

- The universe and everything in it - including us - was created (is still being created) by a loving God, who saw that it was good.
- In resting on the seventh day, that God made holy something that our culture tends to regard as highly suspect: leisure. What a gift, if we only accepted it!
- God created us, male and female, in God's image; this is our most fundamental identity; as beings who are meant to image our loving God.
- Despite our being made in the image of God, we have become flawed. We have rebelled, we continue to rebel, and we separate ourselves from God through what is called "sin".
- Despite our sin, God still loves us and is committed to our welfare and to inviting and welcoming us home.
- Women, ever since Eve, are the root of all evil.

Put down the guns, Tam, Dani, everybody - I was *just kidding* on that last one!!!!!!

But anyway, those are some more thoughts on origins.

Post to my college friends' Yahoo group

Well, I'm posting this here because my philosophy is that if I'm going to write over 1,000 words, and it's not either personal/private or dreadfully boring (read "work-related"), then it's going up on the dern blog. Below is a reply I just sent to an unprecedented, long, spirited discussion on the Yahoo group I set up years ago for my circle of college friends. (We refer to ourselves as "The Looneys".) We have generally only used the group list to plan our yearly reunions, but someone posted something about a group opposing the Christian right, and thus were a great many words born. Our group of friends includes conservative Christians (Protestant and Catholic), liberal Christians, Deists, Pagans, agnostics, and atheists, and all kinds of other flavors too. We're all pretty educated and opinionated. So it's been quite a ride. But anyway, here's what I wrote. You can get a sense of the themes in the discussion so far by reading below.

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Hi everybody!

All I can say is, "wow!" Here's what's neat: the surprising thing is *not* that the Looneys can have such a civil and friendly conversation about such deeply divisive issues despite an obviously W-I-D-E range of viewpoints. The surprising thing is that nothing like this has happened on this list before, as far as I can remember.

So - I've been gone (with Tina and our dog Machig and our friend Tim) since Saturday backpacking through Maryland on the Appalachian Trail, which explains why I haven't weighed in on this discussion thus far. And - um - there've been a lot of words written while I was away! Lots of wise words, lots of speculative words - good, mind-stretching stuff. So, I won't attempt a point-for-point engagement of anybody's arguments. Instead, I'll just briefly state my own opinion on some of the issues that have been discussed, in case anybody's interested.

First of all, I'm a Christian. If you don't believe me, check out my blog at www.rudetheology.com. A lot of you remember me when I was a student-of-all-religions, practitioner-of-none, and then a Tibetan Buddhist for three years. I won't launch into my whole spiritual autobiography, but suffice it to say that I'm a pretty committed Christian (strongly considering seminary, among other things). Here some other adjectives which help describe my particular location within the body of Christ, though some of this might not mean anything to y'all (though Google and Wikipedia could help if you're interested): Anglican, missional, emerging/emergent, Celtic, Anglo-Catholic, liturgical, postmodern, post-liberal. Some other adjectives that somewhat describe me, but may not mean to me exactly what they mean to you: evangelical, born-again. To be maybe a little more clear: I'm very serious about my ongoing attempt to follow Jesus, I take the Bible very seriously, and I consider myself to be within the bounds of the traditional orthodox Christian faith. However, when I say "post-liberal" that doesn't mean conservative; it means that I embrace my liberal background, but I embrace it both lovingly and critically. I embrace my "modern, rational, skeptic" background and my Tibetan Buddhist background similarly. Actually, same goes for "Anglican", "missional", "evangelical", and the rest. All of these help form my point of view, but none of them are immune from critique.

So anyway, that's a long-winded way of stating where I'm coming from. From that point of view, I'll throw out these opinions:

- One of the things that's been debated here is the existence of God. Let me state my opinion on God: I'm definitely pro-God. God and I have a relationship that I value very highly. I get a lot more out of it than I put into it, that's for sure. So I believe in God like I believe in Tina. I have a lot of faith in God like I have a lot of faith in Tina. But as for whether "God" "exists", you'll need to define those two terms in quotes pretty precisely before I'll even begin to consider debating the question with you.

- Another thing that's been debated is creationism, "intelligent design", and evolution. One of the ways I relate to God is as Creator - of me, you, everything else. It would appear, based on the best science we've got so far, that one of the methods God uses to create this universe is evolutionary change. That science is what should be taught in science class. "Intelligent design" is speculation, not science, and does not belong in public school science classes. However, the first two chapters of Genesis also tell true stories about how we got where we are. I agree with Tom that stuff like that, from many world religions, should be taught in religion (not science) classes in public schools.

- That touches on probably the biggest thread in this discussion: church and state. Here's the deal about that. In the early fourth century CE/AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine, who had converted to Christianity, first changed the faith's status from a despised, persecuted cult to an accepted religion, and then made it *the* official religion of the Empire. Thus began something called "Christendom", the wedding of some very strange bedfellows: 1) The faith of the followers of Jesus Christ (who spent his life and death peacefully yet powerfully opposing the "powers and principalities" of Imperial oppression and the culture of domination), and 2) The State (first the Roman state, then the European nation-states, then the US and other colonial nations), which is inexorably bound up with those powers and principalities, those systems of domination that are completely at odds with, to take just one example, the Beatitudes in the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. This may be what had to happen for the church to survive, but on balance I think it was a terrible move. I think it led to centuries - over a millennium - of compromise of the gospel of grace and freedom in service to the powers of domination and capitulation to the dominant culture.

But here's the good news: Christendom is *so* over! It's done, dudes, and the efforts of the Christian Right to restore it are, I hope and pray, doomed. Christians do not need state support (legislated Christian values, etc.) in order for the church to flourish - look at the first three centuries of the Christian era! Look as St. Paul - he sure didn't have state support! We don't need it, and we (in my opinion) don't want it: getting in bed with the state means compromising the gospel, and in my opinion that's too high a price to pay. Good riddance to Christendom, I say. It's no good for atheists, it's no good for Deists, it's no good for Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, or Muslims, and it's no good for Christians either. I dance on its grave, and I respectfully disagree with anybody who says we need it back in order to raise our kids right. Let's strengthen our families, our church communities, and our neighborhoods, but let's keep the church the heck out of the state. The closest Jesus ever got to the halls of government was on his way to the cross. There's a lesson there, I think.

So anyway, that's what I think about that. :-) Sorry I lied about being brief.

Idolatry bad

E te whanau / My brothers and sisters,
our help is in the name of the eternal God,
who is making the heavens and the earth.

So for a while - like, over a month - I've been teasing about an upcoming post on "Leadership and Technique" or whatnot. It was going to be an attempt to comment on recent events at both my big church (Holy Comforter) and my little church (The Common Table, formerly Mars Hill). My life's been fairly fully full o' stuff these days, so as you may or may not have noticed, it's been a long time since I've posted anything but a quick thing about big events in my personal life (wife leaving, dog dying, wife returning) or a link to somebody else's blog. So now I'm finally writing something again, but the events I wanted to write about are over a month old. That being the case, this post is going to be slightly less high-fallutin' than it was originally going to be. Instead of "Leadership and Technique", you get (with a nod to Boris Karloff) "Idolatry bad".

So here's my point: I think it's really, really easy for us talking monkeys to forget what is God and what isn't God. It's pretty simple. God is God. Anything else isn't. Two things in particular aren't God: nature/humans/revelation (stuff created by God) and tools/technique/technology (stuff created by us talking monkeys). When we become too attached (as the Buddha would say) to things in nature or to man-made things - when we grasp them tightly, elevate them, and treat them as absolutes - we are guilty, to some extent, of idolatry.

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, has a lot of stern things to say about idolatry, and for good reason. Obviously and primarily, idolatry directs "worship" of a sort away from God and toward something that isn't God. But secondarily, our gods tend to make us in their image, just as the real God does. When we idolize something dumb and wooden or cast in stone, it tends to cast us in stone. What I mean is: when we do this, we are acting on our built-in desperation for control and stability. When we grasp something tightly and make it an idol, we are looking for something set in stone, stable, that we can control and always expect the same results from. Something unchanging that we can count on. And so, very often, when we're in "idolatry mode", we stagnate. We resist change, both internal and external. We grasp our idol tightly and refuse to let go.

The problem with this approach, I think, is that the world God is creating isn't hospitable to this kind of behavior. You can argue until dawn about the Greek view of God (an unchanging, unchangeable archetype) vs. the Hebrew concept (changeable, temperamental, anthropomorphic), and I'm not going to contribute to that argument right now, but whatever you think about the nature of God, I think this world of God's is one in which change is the norm, transformation is a basic survival skill, and if you're sitting immobile in your corner grasping your idol, you're probably in for a rude awakening.

The quote at the top of this post is from the Compline (night prayer) liturgy from the New Zealand version of the Book of Common Prayer. I think the Kiwis have it right on several counts: our help is in the name of the Lord - not in nature, not in other humans, not in our technology, technique, and knowledge, and not even in an idolized, absolutized concept of God's revelation in scripture. Further, God is creating the heavens and the earth. Creation isn't something that happened at the dawn of time and finished soon after. Creation is ongoing. God's world is always changing, and we need to change with it. Standing still (for long) is not an option.

Specifically (and this is where this relates back to stuff from a month ago), among the things that I would call "tools/technique/technology" are all the methods we've invented for getting stuff done. This includes decision-making methods like consensus, democratic voting, and command decisions, as well as every type of church "program". Like everything else from God (nature, revelation, other people) and man (knowledge, technique, science), these things are fundamentally neutral. They aren't evil - all of these things can be good and can bring us closer to God and others - but they aren't fundamentally good either, because they aren't God. They aren't absolute, and we need to relativize their value and importance and to grasp them lightly. This is really hard, because of our aforementioned natural desperation for control and stability. The only way we can do this is to have a real, abiding relationship of faith, trust, confidence in the real God. And even when we have that, we will naturally and repeatedly fall back into our habit of tightly grasping one or another non-Divine thing.

Anyway, I think I may well be stating the obvious, but that was the train of thought that was on my mind on and off for the past month or so. Much of this was inspired by the excellent teachings of Fr. John Ohmer of St. James' Leesburg at the recent Holy Comforter Men's Fellowship retreat, whom I am privileged to now count among my teachers. So thanks, Fr. John, and thanks to the folks at both of my churches who got me thinking about this stuff.

Time for a rerun: The Freakin' Hilarious Dog Wranging Story

OK, I have a couple of blog posts coming that have been incubating for a while as my life has been driving over bumpy roads for a bit: the next CCotC installment, and one on "Leadership and Technique", in which I will make a lame attempt to synthesize recent observations from both of my churches.

Those will probably surface some time this holy weekend. In the mean time, in honor of my dearly departed snow dog, I'd like you to travel with me back in time - to a blog post from three years ago, when both this blog and Blade's membership in our family were very new and unfamiliar things. It features our two bunnies (Ziggy, who has since passed on, and Teresa, who still hops around the room in the basement mentioned at the end) and three dogs: our beloved Blade, our sweet girl Machig, and our Temporary Foster Scaredy-Dog, Max. (For brief background on Max, read this post first.)

So, without further ado, The Freakin' Hilarious Dog Wranging Story. (Note: Parental guidance is suggested due to some naughty language.)

Blade, 1992(?) - 10 April 2006

Our cuddly, fluffy, cheerful, stubborn, faithful, love-demanding, lovable, uber-omnivorous snow dog has gone home to his Creator. We already miss him so much.

Thank you so much to Liz, Kate, Maggie and Schuyler for bringing your wonderful kids over yesterday to play with him. I can't imagine a better day for him than yesterday. After everybody left, we went for a nice walk, and this morning was so beautiful - he got to lay out on the lawn in the sun and smell the grass, even though he could barely lift his head off the ground. Our vet has been wonderful through this - compassionate and gentle. It was so hard to say goodbye to our sweet boy, but he lived his last days as he did the last three years that he's been with us - smiling and loved.

Loving Father, hold our snow dog close. Our house is empty tonight.

Reality

Well, my puppy's home. He's doing OK, all things considered. However, realistically, barring a miracle he's only got a few weeks to live. The ultrasound revealed that he does indeed have tumors on both his spleen and his liver, and they're probably multiplying, so although he's getting better, this will happen again. Surgery would maybe add a month or so to his life, if all went well. And, due to his bad arthritis, recovery from surgery would be very painful for him. So far, he hasn't really been suffering (except from the arthritis, which he's been living with for years), and I really want to keep it that way.

So we're not going to do that (surgery). When Tina calls tomorrow, I'll find out if she wants to come temporarily off the trail to say goodbye. If so, I'll do what I can to make sure he's here when she gets here (assuming that doesn't involve him being in pain), but beyond that, next time he gets really sick, I'll probably say goodbye too. We'll miss our cuddly snow dog, and I'm incredibly thankful to have a little more time with him after all.

He's coming home!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!! :-) !!!!

The emergency vet’s prognosis yesterday was very grim, as was our regular vet’s prognosis based only on the report from the emergency vet. However...

After actually getting a chance to examine Blade and do an x-ray, our doc says if it were his dog, he wouldn’t even open him up for surgery, much less euthanize him. :-) !!! The abdominal bleeding seems to have healed since yesterday, his red blood cell percentage is back up to 27% from 21%, and the x-ray didn’t reveal anything conclusive. He’s very arthritic, he’s lost weight (which is troubling), and he almost certainly does have at least one tumor, but at this point he should just come home and take it easy. I authorized the doc to do some bloodwork and an ultrasound to try to get more info, but I’m taking him home at 12:20!

It’s likely that there’s stuff going on in his belly that’s going to kill him sooner or later – but not today!

Emptier house :-(

So Tina and I are both feeling pretty lonely right now. This is because in all likelihood, tomorrow morning our family will become a lot smaller. And we're both wishing Tina were here right now.

Our doggy, Blade, a roughly 13-year-old Samoyed whom we adopted from a rescue organization three years ago (after his family gave him up after 10 years because they apparently could no longer deal with his beautiful, long white fur all over their furniture), and with whom we've had many walks and adventures and cuddles and disagreements over food ownership, is probably not going to be with us after tomorrow morning. He was OK last night, but when I woke up this morning he couldn't stand up. I took him to the emergency vet with the help of my friend Jessica (thank you soooo much, Jessica!!) and they did some tests, and it turns out he's bleeding internally due to at least one tumor on his spleen. (He's so weak due to low red blood cell count.) I'm going to take him in first thing tomorrow morning to our regular vet, and they'll prepare him for surgery to remove his spleen. As part of preparations, they'll do an x-ray, and find out if (as is somewhat probable) the cancer has already spread, in which case there's really no point in surgery, and we'll probably put him to sleep. Thank God Tina was in phone contact today, and she's camping out tonight near town so she can be in contact tomorrow morning when we'll need to make decisions. But like I said, we're both feeling pretty lonely tonight.

I have to go hug my doggy. Thankfully, he's not in pain, or at least not much, just very weak. He's eating and drinking, and I gave him some junk food he likes today because, hey, what the hell.

I'll let you know how things go tomorrow morning.

Empty house

It's hard to feel completely lonely when surrounded by two dogs, three cats, two ferrets, and a bunny, but the house seems awfully empty right now. I keep finding socks, though, which continues to bring a smile to my face. (Tina is famous for leaving her socks anywhere and everywhere, so before she left she hid socks everywhere in the house. Everywhere - the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, the box of Boca Burgers in the freezer, the ferret food bin. I keep finding them, like Easter eggs, and I won't be surprised if some remain unfound when she returns in six months.)

I've learned an awful lot of things this weekend, from a variety of sources. It's been a real learning weekend. Some of the church-related things I'll blog on later, but I'll just mention one thing I learned here: shaving my head is harder than Tina made it seem.

I know a lot of you are praying for Tina and me. It's deeply appreciated.

The web will never be the same

Just needed to announce that Tina (aka Dr. Evil) has entered the blogosphere. She (with a little help from her more wired hubby) will be journaling her Appalachian Trail oddysey (2,175 miles, Georgia to Maine, April Fool's Day 2006 until roughly 1 October 2006) at the following web address:

http://cattailsgonewalking.blogspot.com/

She's already got several posts up about pre-trail preparations.

Check it out!

God in full view!

Wow, the translation of Psalm 84:5-7 in The Message is gorgeous:

And how blessed are those in whom you live,
whose lives become roads you travel;
They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,
discover cool springs and pools brimming up with rain!
God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and
at the last turn--Zion! God in full view!

Some of Peterson's translation of the rest of that Psalm is a little awkward, and say what you want about free paraphrase transation of poetry, but as a poem in its own right, I think that's right purdy-like, not to mention evocative in its imagery. It makes me think of John 7:37-39. I also love the way it subverts "spiritual journey" talk (which I'm fond of in its unsubverted form too): our lives become a road God travels. Neat.

Anyway, just wanted to share.

Walkabout

I've blogged a couple of times about works by one of my favorite storytellers, Joss Whedon (Buffy, Serenity). Another one of my fave modern storytellers is J. Michael Straczynski, the mind behind Babylon 5 and, most recently, a bunch of really excellent comics. (Joss writes kick-ass comics too.) Anyway, I've been watching Babylon 5 again from the beginning, which is the only way to watch it. (If you've just seen one or two episodes, and concluded that it was just Deep Space Nine with silly hair, I encourage you to rent the DVD's starting from Season One--it's one of the biggest, richest sustained story arcs ever told in moving pictures, and the characters--ach, don't get me started.)

So in Season Three,one of the main characters, Dr. Stephen Franklin, experiences a major life crisis. He is made to realize that he's become addicted to stimulants, and he resigns as medical officer on the enormous space station and goes on "walkabout". (Franklin, by the way, is a Foundationist, a member of a faith that studies the cultures and faiths of humans and aliens, searching for spiritual truth.) Here's how he describes walkabout:

"You just leave everything and you start walking. The Foundation adopted the idea from the aborigines back on Earth. The theory is, if you are separated from yourself, you start walking and you kept walking, until you meet yourself. Then you sit down and you have a long talk. You talk about everything that you've learned and everything that you felt. You talk until you have run out of words. Now that is vital. 'Cause, the real important things can't be said. Then, if you are lucky, you look up and there is just you. Then you can go home."

On April 1st of next year (an auspicious day, to be sure), my wife Tina goes on walkabout. When she heard those words again the other night, she said, "Yep, that's what I'm doing." She's become separated from herself. So in less than seven months, she'll sling her pack on her back on Springer Mountain in Georgia, and won't stop walking until she reaches Katahdin Mountain in Maine, 2,175 miles and six months later. Or, until she meets herself.

I'll join her for stretches--a long weekend here, a week there. But I'm not cut out to walk for six months straight. So for most of those months, we'll be apart. I'll be lonely, and worried, and I'll miss her almost unbearably. But I understand. She's become separated from herself. I can tell that as well as she can. We've been married 12 years, together 16 years, and friends 20 years. I knew her when she was herself, and I miss her. So I'll miss her hard for 6 months in hope of meeting her again when she's done. It worked for Dr. Franklin, though he had to get himself stabbed in the gut and almost killed before it did. Er.

So I ask your prayers for both of us, but mainly for her. I figure if everybody I know starts praying seven months early, I'll be able to worry less. Maybe. A little. :-) And I'll be praying not just for her safety, but her success in finding what she's looking for. Amen.

Responding to Hurricane Katrina

I got the following from my rector's blog, and he found out from fellow Episcoblogger Sarah Dylan Breuer: it's an effort by concerned bloggers to raise awareness and funds for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. I'm glad to join in. Episcopal Relief and Development is one of many organizations responding and I encourage those who read this blog to consider a gift toward the effort.

ERD Responds to Hurricane Katrina

8/29/2005
[Episcopal Relief and Development]

As Hurricane Katrina leaves behind devastation in Florida and Louisiana, and closes in on Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, Episcopal Relief and Development has mobilized in support of communities affected by this disaster.

After tearing through Florida on Friday, the Category 4 hurricane regained force over the Gulf of Mexico, with winds topping 145 mph.

This morning, Katrina touched down again, just east of New Orleans, Louisiana. Hurricane-force winds caused a path of destruction 250 miles across. A million New Orleans residents avoided harm by obeying a mandatory citywide evacuation.

Seventy percent of the coastal city is below sea level, and is protected from flooding by levees and pumps. After pumps failed in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, filling the streets with six feet of water, dozens of people had to be rescued from the roofs of their houses.

Katrina is over Mississippi this afternoon. Storm surges in Gulfport, Mississippi have already plunged the city under ten feet of water. Winds tore the roofs off buildings in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Disaster officials will begin assessing the damage to Louisiana and Mississippi today.

Hurricane Katrina is one of the most destructive hurricanes ever to hit the US. Experts estimate that it could cause between $10 and $25 billion worth of damage. If the higher assessments are confirmed, Katrina will be the most expensive hurricane in US history.

On behalf of Episcopalians, ERD has sent emergency funds immediately to the Diocese of Mississippi. This emergency assistance will help vulnerable people whose homes are destroyed or severely damaged. ERD support will help the diocese provide aid to community members through two mobile response trailers, which are equipped with supplies like chainsaws and generators to assist in the recovery.

We are waiting to hear what kind of aid is most needed in Louisiana. We have also offered emergency assistance to dioceses likely to be affected as the storm moves inland, including Alabama and Tennessee. Forecasters also warn of the risk of high winds, flooding, and scattered tornadoes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

We offer our prayers for the people affected by this disaster--those whose homes are under 10 feet of water, those who have lost family members, and those whose businesses have been blown down and swept away. Please join us in praying for people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

To make a contribution to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina, please donate to the US Hurricane Fund by credit card via this page or by calling 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Gifts can be mailed to: Episcopal Relief and Development, c/o US Hurricane Fund, PO Box 12043, Newark, NJ 07101.

Episcopal Relief and Development, an independent 501(c) 3 organization, saves lives and builds hope in communities around the world. We provide emergency assistance in times of crisis and rebuild after disasters. We enable people to climb out of poverty by offering long-term solutions in the areas of food security and health care, including HIV/AIDS and malaria.

I'm including the following Technorati tags 'cause TTLB told me to: flood aid and Hurricane Katrina.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage

You know, I tend to talk an awful lot about Jesus in this blog. It's true that I'm pretty hung up on the guy, but in the interest of equal time, I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't make a passing reference to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He may not quite be my kind of deity, but he has every bit as much of a place in the science classroom as does Biblical creationism (or some watered-down version of it called Intelligent Design "Theory"). Some day soon, in the name of giving kids all the "facts" and letting them make up their own minds, high school science students will have the opportunity to choose between Judeo-Christian theism, FSM Pastafarianism, and, well, just learning actual science. That is, if there's still time to learn science in between all the vague, neutered Biblical exegesis and the dressing up like pirates to learn about His Divine Noodliness. And don't forget the Norse point of view.

But hey, how are kids going to make informed choices if we don't give them all the information? And Flying Spaghetti Monster is relevant to other subjects too. (Math--who created all those numbers? English--whose meatballs rumbled with the first syllables of language? Home Ec--well, it's obvious.) So He should be part of the curriculum in every subject. Then, and only then, will students have all the facts. And every moment of their public school education will be an opportunity to by Touched by His Noodly Appendage. I just hope that the same thing is happening in other countries, or we may find ourselves in a spot of trouble a few years from now....