Craziness
Things have been crazy these past few months : we've moved 2ce since October! We are Aunt and Uncle! Congrats James and Claire! Welcome to the world, Julia! (she gets baptized on Easter!) We live in a city called Colmar now. Pretty old, steeped in history, with mazes of cute streets. Some friends came over last weekend and said I gave "the perfect tour" : well, Colmar speaks for itself. Come on over and visit! We have a guest room and a 3rd set of keys!
"Changes ton regard, et crois à la Bonne Nouvelle" he said as he put the ashes on my forehead. "Change your way of seeing things, and believe the Good News."
It's in the simple; it comes from the meek; Strength is made perfect in weakness; the Answer is in the Good News.
We are going to a Gallican church now -- 5 minutes on foot; rather nice. Le Collégiale de St. Martin, or, Marty's. Yes, I like having my piety look like the Alsatian pasta I tried to make last night -- messy. With a copy of "Let's Pray in Church" (Prions en Eglise), the latest Ben XVI bit, and a book written by some Southern Baptist guy, this little redneck is takin' Europe by storm. No longer content to dodge bullets in an unorthodox no man's land of orthodoxy, we are swimming the Tiber.
Soooo, the found Jesus's tomb, and Mary and their son...ummm, I tend to take ZZ Top's version, and believe the he's done left Chicago, and gone down to New Orleans. You might not see him in person but he'll see you just the same. You don't have to worry 'cause takin' care of business is his name.
posted by Franco-Walpolian @ 5:11 AM
3 Comments:
Swimming the Tiber seems like bliss these days: but for me 'twould carry more than just water (same goes for the Bosporus). Though it would be a joy to know that we are part of one Church in more than just spirit (whether or not I become a priest).
I am entering perhaps the most serious stage of discernment I have yet attempted. I don't know if you have heard the latest Anglican stuff (God bless you if you haven't), notably this document, and perhaps here for the best response to it. Anglicanism in North America may not be dying per se, but if it has any future (whether in the Episcopal Church or the emerging breakaway entities), it can hardly be called "catholic" in any meaningful sense. I am now at the point where I must actually investigate options rather than simply pondering them.
Sancta Maria, sedes sapientiae, ora pro nobis.
Obviously a swim means more than water because it means a drastic reconstruction of what I am doing now.
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Wow man, crazy. It sounds like a whole bunch of the wrong kind of college professors got a hold of the EC. Or, maybe they should just admit "We don't give a flying stink about the Gospel" and become college professors, or social workers.
Go through with your seminary, then English grad school, and become a deacon with the RC in A.
Or not, and say you did?
It's easier to "swim the Tiber" here as you can imagine. Remember the old allusion to the "other" form of crucifixion? Where the living guy was tied to the corpse, and died that way? I see this as my calling in France. A way to die to one's self and live in the Gospel, by cheerfully living/dying with the Church's eldest daughter.
Not one to spurn the Great Commission; amma take as many people as ah kin witmeh!
All that being said, I think that place, ideas, culture, economy, all have a way of influencing our calling. Think of American religion as having a baseline of the Pilgrims, a City on a Hill. As was best-said in a recent Foreign Policy Magazine article, Americans see themselves NOT as being united by a common culture and history, but as brought away from the "Old World" to be saved from its impurities and curses.
The EC, perhaps, now sees itself as liberated from the "constraints" of old world religion.
Even the PCA in all its Calvin-glorifying, "Orthodox and Angry about it" TULIPness provides yet another niche in the market that is American Religion. I don't think they can be accused of the same Gospelrupture that the EC can be. Nor the Gallicans.
But hélas, the Gallican Church is perhaps characteristic of French mysticism and one of maybe 3 choices in (a store)(the ideological marketplace)(the market)(a bar with 1 beer on tap and a menu comprised of 6 plats du jour, one per day)(a noncompetitive car market that turns out practically the same thing).
That being said, I think I'm going to go ingest some sunshine...fruit de la vigne et travail des hommes.
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