Bad Joke

Shawna, over at Mystics, Poets and Fools (a grouping to which I belong in one capacity or another) http://mysticspoetsandfools.blogspot.com/ has embarked on a necessary course of action, one that will be long and painful, but eventually uplifting to her, her Meeting and many people who have lived in shadow for years. She is asking her Meeting to follow her discernment that same sex relationships are not sin. Tough parlay in a Conservative Meeting, though probably not as tough as in an Evengelical one.

Anyway, I was reminded of a recent exchange with a conservative Christian friend when we were talking about gay relationships and i expressed the view that we should really study what the precise meaning of the various words used in scriptural references, both literally and in social context. I expressed the idea that I have that God's proscriptions, when analyzed are about what is helpful to people in their relationships with others as well as within themselves, and that nothing is prohibited without specific such reasons. He expressed the idea that sometines God just says somethinbg is wrong, and that's the end of it.

I told him the old joke about the guy who had a really hard time his whole adult life. I mean, if it could go wrong for him it did and he suffered reverses that would drive some insane for years. Finally, after such a series, he looked at his life and decided to end it. As he was standing on the bridge railling, as people will, he looked up to the sky and said, "Why me, God? Why do these things always happen to me?"
The sky clouded over and the thunder rolled and a voice came out of the clouds, saying in slightly puzzled tones, "Something about your face just ticks_me_off."

Silence.

My friend was not laughing.

After a moment, he said to me, "I think even indicating that God would act like that borders on blasphemy."

"Yes," I said, "Precisely."

I don't think he changed his mind.

Labor-saving bloggers

I love the conversation in the blogosphere, and one of its aspects is really wonderful: sometimes somebody else says what is on your mind and you don't have to. The other day, Cat, from Quaker Pagan Reflections commented that I had written down what she had been struggling to express. That's great....mostly. I mean that it is good that the thought could be voiced and be a help in conversation, though In some ways I wish I had shut up and waited until Cat got it done as she does a much better job of writing.
I just had that experience form the other end, as I had in my notebook, the beginnings of a post that was waiting for me to find a way to express what I wanted to say. Then George Amoss at The Postmodern Quaker posted this:
http://postmodernquaker.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/the-heart-of-quakerism/
Wow. WAY better than I could have said it.
But that's the nature of the conversation, and the movement of the Spirit that i believe is right in the middle of it.

"New Covenant"

The establishment of Law as basis for relationship with God was a major shift in perception in the ancient world, which had largely viewed the gods in highly anthropomorphic perceptions, acting on whims and emotions having only to do with their personal desires. For a fascinating study of a primitive mind working out such a projection, I recommend Browning's Caliban upon Setebos. To say that these are the things that please or displease God put the relationship on a much more secure footing. It should be no surprise that there are two major threads to these "Laws:" those which made for an orderly society, and those which established the priveleges and practices of the priestly class, who by some coincidence were the ones teaching the "Law."

Hebrew thought before Jesus was tending in the direction that it was really those social perceptions that were important to God and not the system of sacrifices and minor ordinances so important to the priests. Jesus' ministry and teaching was simply an extension of that, and a paradign shift from the importance of law for responsibility and order to the idea that the spirit that animated the idea of law, the concern for others as members of a whole society, is what is important in relating to God: fulfilling "law" as opposed to abolishing it.

When we operate in love, there is, for instance, no requirement for a law against murder. And, as noted, the law's requirement not to murder is really superficial in comparison to love's requirement that we not maintain anger against our brother. Therefore there are no "laws" that are a requirement, though such things may be set up for easy reference, each is subject to review as to whether it promotes a Way of love within our society. As Paul said in 1 Cor 10:23, " All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify." This is essentially the "New Covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah in which God's "laws" would be written on the hearts of those who operate in love. Our actions as well as our words will come from the abundance of our hearts.

Clearly the original disciples remained a part of the Jewish religion, and saw no conflict, though the attitude toward the priestly class and offices must have been quite different. That changed when Peter and Paul in particular started sharing the gospel with those who were not Jewish and the question arose as to whether those converts needed to convert to the Jewish faith, or only to the Way that Jesus taught, which was not confined to a faith tradition. The decision of the council was that they were not so required and their faith was able to operate outside of a religious tradition.

Unfortunately, the followers of the Way were not appreciated by orthodox Jews, particularly the leadership, and the whole group, Jew and gentile, began to have to operate outside a religious tradition until a new "clergy" or priesthood established itself and started constructing a religion around the Way taught and exemplified by Jesus. They didn't do so good.

One of the most interesting constructs has been the perception of "Atonement," and that perception is one of the cornerstones of the new "religion." The idea that Jesus somehow took away our culpability for failings when He was crucified is an essential part of the perception of Jesus as the founder and foundation of that system. How that worked is another problem entirely. There is a great (and short) review of some of the explanations that have been offered over the years, along with their attendant problems, in section II-the end of: http://www.quaker.org/quest/issue-9-gulley-01.htm and it is well worth a study.

My main point is that, with such a weak link as a foundational element, it has to be difficult to support the validity of the "religion" constructed with it. We have to wonder just how far past James' definition of "true religion" in James 1:27 we should depend on constructs and doctrines of men, and seriously examine the elements used in that construction.

However, for those who see beyond 2,000 years of that "religion" to the Way, it is indeed a "New Covenant" and consciousness concerning our relationship to God, our fellow humans and our world.

Recovery

I'm walking again.

Sounds like a major breakthrough, huh? Well, all I mean is that protesting muscles have recovered enough that I felt like taking a substantial walk yesterday: about 3 miles round trip to the grocery store.

The family backpacking trip was a great success.... even better than the year before. This was largely because we were not quite so innocent as our first trip. I briefly mentioned our first trip based on my nephew Daron's nostalgia, but let me fill in a little detail: he remembered the trip from the standpoint of an early teen, and the hike was the least of his concerns.

A quarter of a century makes a difference. The fact is that there are three ratings for hiking in the guides: easy, moderate and difficult. They missed "brutal." Kids don't notice stuff like that.

Last year we set out early afternoon with light hearts and heavy packs (well, 40 pounds seems pretty hefty after awhile on the trail, and my sister's 28 was no slouch) early in the afternoon, expecting to have supper at our destination. Wrong. About 2/3 of the way up we pooped out and made camp in a nice little meadow not all that long before dark. The next day we ate lunch on the trail before our destination. NEVER trust childhood memories.

But we really did enjoy the trip (as well as the results of our cardio-vascular stress testing) SO, we planned a trip for this year. We chose a less difficult hike. My sister and I even checked it out earlier in the Summer with light packs for a day trip. Not too bad

THIS year we set out before lunch, ate on the trail and were at our destination in plenty of time for supper. Good planning, huh? The trail was a good mix, with a moderate start, a long easy section and three relatively short difficult sections spaced out with short easy sections. It was all we wanted to do for sure, but not a killer by any means. I will say that one of the teens asked what the last "difficult" section was like, and I told her that it was about like the previous section.
Her response was, "Good," and I didn't even hit her for that.

We spent about 5 days in all and had a ball. My only regret was that I only brought enough to make one breakfast of biscuits, but they were a hit. I did do one more climb on the way back with a light pack just so I could see a cirque we had not visited. It was great. We got back to where the rest of the family remained in a sort of base camp... tired, but happy.

"Base camp." NOT a good idea if your focus is "backpacking." You see, there are no lounge chairs on the mountain. You do NOT pack a six-pack of Bud UP the mountain.

NEXT year we are thinking Base Camp with day trips and maybe an overnighter or two.

I think I see a pattern about energy expended emerging here.

A Modern Council of the Church

My spiritual language is "Christian." For me, the "Way of Life" is embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus and is stated in essence in the "new commandment" in which Jesus calls us to love one another just as He loved us. Ask any Christian what the heart of the Gospel is and most likely they will agree that it is "The Sermon on the Mount" as reported in Matthew 5-6. Ask them what the heart of that "sermon" is and they will be likely to say "The Beatitudes." I disagree

For me, the heart of the message is found in Matt 5:43 to the end of the chapter, which is essentially about loving our enemies, stating that God loves everyone and we should try to be more like God. To my mind Jesus was just picking the most glaring example of where to expand our consciousness of relationship, and the idea applies equally to anyone who is different from us in any way. I doubt that very many would disagree on that part.

That's it in a nutshell. Anything else is about how to acquire a heartfelt appreciation of that principle and then apply it, or it is about personal perceptions of our relationship to God.

It is clear that the first followers of the Way that Jesus embodied remained in the Jewish religion. They continued to meet in the Temple court and used Jewish practices such as water baptism. Until Peter and Paul expanded the horizons of the fellowship. Then a huge question arose as to what was required of a follower of Christ; was a convert required to convert to the Jewish religion?

The council of the Church at Jerusalem recounted in Acts is a fascinating study, but the result hinges on one perception: the report by Peter and Paul that the Spirit manifested in gentiles without the need for them to do what was necessary to come under the covenant with Abraham and with Moses as representative of the Hebrew nation. The Way is not dependent on at least that particular religion.

Within the diverse Society of Friends there is currently a question about whether a profession of faith in Jesus as the mediator between God and man is necessary for membership in that Society, an organization that has always professed to follow the Way embodied by Jesus. The more theologically liberal elements of the Society have pretty much decided for inclusiveness for any who wish to join and work together to make the basic element of the Way work in our lives and our relationship with others. The more theologically conservative are adamantly opposed to any but professed "Christians" becoming members.

"The Doctrine of the Light" was from near the beginning of the Society a foundational element of Quaker perception, though I understand some elements of the Society have relatively recently repudiated it. That doctrine states essentially that God speaks to everyone in the world and an appeal to "that of God" in a person may bear fruit in causing that person to come nearer into alignment with the Way. There have been various perceptions of how that works, but exposition of the doctrine by Barclay and expressions of the kinship of those who work for an increase of love as active principle in the world regardless of religion by such as William Penn indicate that the perception was that one need not know the name of Jesus to work in the Way.

I think we need to examine the direction perceptions were moving even before the Ministry of Jesus in such prophecies as that of Jeremiah in which he indicated that there would be a new covenant in which God's precepts would be "written on the heart" of the people. I think that means that actions would be the natural result of the attitude of love held by those who have come close to God AS love. The statement in Hosea 6:6, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings," seems to me to be a clear direction that love of God is to be practiced in relating to others as opposed to simply religious observances. And the same thing is true of Micah 6:8

What IS "The Religious Society of Friends?" That is the question we have to answer when we ask whether it is a community based on a religious perception of Jesus AS "the" Christ, or on following the Way that we have said God makes available to all men through the light Christians see as the light of Christ. This is the choice that faces the Society as some face it and others choose to ignore. I love Jesus for what I see Him as having done for us, and relating to the Divine in the Light of the message and the person of Jesus is a source of joy to me, but that love and joy in no way precludes fellowship with those who live in love and have different perceptions.

To me the question hinges on whether the Spirit can be seen to be operating (as at least some early Friends said it does) within the framework of other religious structures or philosophical perceptions which can be seen as vehicles for the Light insofar as they really do express the same way that Jesus said His disciples would be recognized: by their love. If the Spirit is to be our "guide" as stated by Jesus, can that Spirit be seen at work in members of the Society who do not share religious perceptions with the Christians who have historically made up the majority of the Society?

I have seen it working. End of question for me, it only remains to see how we can work out the details of living together in the Light.

So, if it's that simple, what's the problem?

Perhaps it's the weight of 2,000 years of catering to the propensity of humans to make a religion, a set of forms around the conduct of our life. Veneration of the messenger is a natural response, especially when the message is so much embodied in the ministry or life of the messenger, but is it appropriate to make that veneration a requirement for participation in a Society based on the message? Is our language to be restricted to one description of how the Spirit moves? Is "renewal" to be merely a matter of getting back to earlier forms rather than expanding our perceptions to see what the root of our faith rests in?
I hope not.

Backpacking Biscuits

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It's my Dad's fault.

He was the one who decided that my parents should take up backpacking when they were in their 50's. Not that my Mom was not game.... one of my great teen memories was of her attempts to learn to water ski. She could get on top of the water, but somehow her legs just would not straighten and so she would drag half around the lake getting a terrific spanking as her bu.... uh, derriere dragged in the water. She was grimly determined to do it and have fun if it killed her. Backpacking would not have been her idea, but she did it and was good at it.

So, we all got into it. One of my nephew Daron's fondest memories was of a backpacking trip with my Dad and my nephew Tom......... SO, after a hiatus of some years, he got us to go backpacking as a group again last year. My Sister, Bobette, Daron and his kids, and me. It was fun. Honest. And we are getting ready to go again. Tom and his kids will join us this year, as will Jim, Tom's brother.

On that trip I tried the old boy scout trick of roasting biscuit dough on a stick over a campfire.
I was never a boy scout. There had to be a reason, and my results with biscuit making may indicate some of them.

BUT, I do love biscuits and the idea of biscuits on a backpacking trip is just so compelling. AND my later experience with a Dutch oven in camp were really encouraging. So, why not do that on a backpacking trip? Uh, no way am I gonna lug a dutch oven up a mountain. But why not do some experimenting with those lightweight aluminum throw away pans and see what can be done, right?

THIS is why a grown man was baking biscuits in a make-shift dutch oven over a campfire in his driveway at 7 o'clock in the morning.

It was my Dad's fault.

Dutch ovens really work!

I love cast iron cookware. I dunno, maybe it's just the straightforward heavy duty utility of the stuff. I mean, a lot of it is as plain as a mud fence. I don't really know what is available now, 'cause I buy mine at junque shoppes, but there have been some interesting things made for cooking, from little bitty frying pans to huge ones, griddles, sauce pans, tea kettles, muffin pans.
Hey, one of my favorites is a special pan for baking individual serving cornbread in which the cornbread is molded to look like half an ear of corn. Top that!. I've even got a waffle iron made for the top of wood ranges with the round lid over the firebox removed. The iron itself hinges at the end away from the handles and the hinge turns into a ball which then neatly fits into a socket in the holder which looks kinda like an upside down saucepan with no bottom. the side of the iron by the handles is a sort of roller when it is closed, and that fits neatly into a slot in the holder. This is to allow the waffle iron to be turned over without removing it from the holder..... neat, huh? Hey, I wonder if I could make waffles over the grill on a campfire...... Anyway, the utinsil that impresses me most is the dutch oven, that relatively shallow pot with a bail and a lid that covers the edges of the pot itself. This is important because to use the dutch oven you move the coals of your campfire and set the oven down on a shallow bed of coals and cover the lid with more coals and you don't want ashes getting inside the oven. This allows the heat to come down on top of whatever you are baking just like a..a.. well, an oven. Kewl. I picked up one at some yard sale or whatever and it only needed a little cleaning up, so I scoured that puppy out and baked the proper glaze into the cooking surface so stuff wouldn't stick and took it camping this weekend. I made biscuits. I'm no baker, and really not much of a camp cook, but how hard could it be? Anyway, it's more fun to approach new stuff with the attitude that "When all else fails, read the destructions." Did you see Lonesome Dove? Remember the scene where Gus is up way early with his coffee and is making biscuits in a dutch oven? He brushes off the coals and ashes carefully and lifts the lid and there are these beautiful fluffy golden brown sourdough biscuits. Wow! I make drop biscuits from Bisquick. I'm just not that ambitious. So I carefully let the fire build a bed of coals while drinking my camp coffee, and I put the drop biscuits into the dutch oven, covered it and properly got it bedded and covered with burning coals. NOw, normally, I make biscuits in a toater oven and you can see the things through the glass door. Cast iron lids aren't that easy to see through, so I did it by guess and by golly. I decided that the time was long enough before carefully removing the coals, brushing off the ashes and lifting the lid. The time was long enough. Dutch ovens are also great for making charcoal.