Rocky Roman Road

Is it an old road in disrepair, or is it an ancient ice cream flavor?

I've been preparing to teach on the book of Romans tomorrow night and have been digging into the relationship of Julius Caesar and Octavian Caesar.  May sound boring, but it's actually pretty interesting.  I might blog some on it later.

Until I get something more substantive and original, like the first part of my autobiography, here's a poem the priest that facilitated our Vestry retreat wrote.  He based it on a session in which he asked we all bring "sacred objects" and tell something about why it was important to us.  I brought a book, and those that know me may well be able to recognize the section about me.  

I've edited what was forwarded to me because what I received appeared to leave a line out and the original included a misreading of a block of text on my t-shirt.   So, here's a lightly edited version a poem by Father Eric Duff of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California.  :)

Bracelet

Biggest fan

The sergeant

Raised to be a host

New mother

Another fan

Went to get a mammogram

Don’t get a referral

I’m sure its cancer

Surrounded by support

Appeared on my doorstep

Finished workshop

He cared for me in ways I could never imagine

Gone

I do ideas

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Gave up on objects

The truth possesses me

Valid criticisms

God’s very much alive

I’m uncertain about Quantum Mechanics

Brought this little Bible

NRSV

Still didn’t have a clue

Making disciples through covenant

Every week it came alive

All kinds of written things

A touch of heaven

The word is life

Got a little bit of wear on it

Seven story mountain

A conversion of will

Turning your will over

Deep connection

Made that transition

Turn that on its head

I’m new

Don’t have anything to say

My son had cancer

Thought he was going to die

Hung on to medal of Saint Jude

And rosary

Cancer free for 12 years

I love my son

Stuck to the fireplace

Split up

She started going to church

Turned their lives around

She crocheted

Sits in my front room

Life changed

Holy Spirit came

Saint David’s

Patron Saint of Whales

Pirates can’t see it

Connected through the generation

So simple

Just wood

He read it as part of the Eucharist we celebrated.  I thought it did a good job expressing our unity and diversity.

I'm starting.

Tonight I started actually typing my autobiography.  Right now I'm doing my childhood and the narrative is a bit fragmented, not to mention not in chronological order.  I plan on poking at it again tomorrow evening.

Don't expect anything world changing.  

And now...  my favorite stanza from No Line on the Horizon by U2.  The song is called Stand Up Comedy.

Stand up, this is comedy
The DNA lottery may have left you smart
But can you stand up to beauty, dictator of the heart
I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I'm getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady

I love this quote.

Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world. I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies. That I may have spoken well at times, is not natural. A wonder is what it is.

Wendell Berry

This page intentionally not left blank.

I’ve been sick for the better part of the last week and tonight I’m finishing an outline for a class I’m teaching on the first half of the Book of Acts tomorrow.   I hope to get the first installment of my autobiography out in the next week or so.  (I have to teach on Romans in 2 weeks, so I better not sit on my hands).

I thought I'd post this rather than continuing to do nothing.  :)

If there is no line, it is a horizon?

Ok, it probably won't be as world changing as the work of the Wyld Stallyns but it's pretty good stuff.  No line on the Horison is a bundle of contradictions.  It bitingly satirical, reverent, inspirational, full of arrogance, and self deprecating.   Typical U2 fare.  

I've been pondering my autobiography.  I'm wondering just how much to include.  One might say, only the parts that are spiritual.  My reply would that it is all spiritual.  My 'mother issues', my relationship with my dad (hmmm... note the "dad" versus the more formal "mother"), my love of science and math in high school, finding a job in an arboretum on a job board in college, my inability to fit in with most people, my possible mild asperger's syndrome, my accidently job in a rehab after college.  I do need to get it started though.