10 things you need to know today: March 30, 2014

1. John Kerry to meet Russian counterpart in Paris
While headed home from Saudi Arabia Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry abruptly turned his plane around and traveled instead to Paris to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two are expected to meet Sunday evening, two days after President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone, in hopes of reaching a diplomatic solution to the situation in Ukraine. As of yet, there has been no breakthrough on that front, with Russia insisting it was within its right to annex Crimea, and the U.S. and the international community alleging the annexation was a violation of international law and of Ukraine's sovereignty. [The Guardian]

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2. Turkey holds crucial local elections
Turkish voters head to the polls Sunday to vote in municipal elections widely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Though Erdogan himself does not appear on the ballot, he has campaigned for candidates from his Justice and Development Party (AKP.) The party has dominated Turkish politics for a decade, but a corruption scandal and political unrest could begin to chip away at that. [The New York Times, Associated Press]

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3. Florida advances, Arizona stumbles in NCAA tournament
The Florida Gators, the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament, punched their ticket to the Final Four Saturday night by knocking off the Dayton Flyers, 62-52. Meanwhile, fellow No. 1 seed Arizona squandered a couple of chances to tie or win their game against Wisconsin in the closing seconds, falling to the Badgers in overtime. Michigan will play Kentucky and Michigan Sate will take on UConn Sunday to determine the last two teams into the Final Four. [CBS Sports]

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4. Australia, China yet to link recovered debris to Flight 370
Search crews from Australia and China continued to pull debris from the Indian Ocean over the weekend, though they've yet to definitively tie any of it to missing Flight 370. Close to a dozen ships and ten aircraft are combing the water west of Perth, Australia. The Malaysian government last week said the plane had most likely gone down somewhere in that area, killing all those on board. [The Washington Post, AFP]

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5. Tally of missing in Washington mudslide falls to 30
Officials in Washington said this weekend that the number of people missing following last weekend's fatal mudslide had fallen from 90 to 30. Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 18, and it could rise higher yet as responders dig through the rubble of mud and splintered buildings. "The slide hit with such force," Jason Biermann, of the Snohomish County Office of Emergency Management, said, "that often times, the rescuers are not recovering full, intact victims." [NPR]

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6. North Korea threatens 'new form' of nuclear test
Pushing back against the United Nations, North Korea on Sunday threatened to hold a "new form of nuclear test," though it did not specify what that would entail. The threat came after the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's recent test-firing of ballistic missiles. In a statement, the North's foreign ministry said it was "absolutely intolerable" for the U.N. to turn "a blind eye to the U.S. madcap nuclear war exercises" while criticizing its tests. [Reuters]

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7. Philadelphia 76ers avoid record-setting losing streak
The Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday decided to win a game for a change, and in doing so halted their 26-game losing streak one game shy of setting a new record for futility in pro American sports. The 76ers beat the Detroit Pistons 123-98 in Philadelphia, leaving them tied with the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers for the longest losing streak in NBA history. The NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in the 1970s, also lost 26 straight games, the only other team to ever do so. [ESPN]

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8. At least 16 dead in Iraq attacks
A string of attacks in Iraq killed at least 16 people, with some reports pegging the death toll higher, at close to three dozen. Police said attackers opened fire at a checkpoint and, hours later, a suicide bomber detonated the car he was riding in near the city of Ramadi. [Al Jazeera]

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9. Baseball season kicks off Sunday night
One week after the baseball season technically began with a couple of games in Australia, the 2014 season will officially begin stateside Sunday night when the Los Angeles Dodgers head to San Diego to take on the Padres. Opening Day festivities will be held around the league Monday. It will be the first season to feature expanded use of instant replay, which has so far only been tested out in spring training games. [Sporting News]

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10. One Direction, Hunger Games win big at 27th Kids' Choice Awards
Perhaps not too surprisingly, the latest installment in the Hunger Games franchise and boy band One Direction cleaned up at the 27th annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards Saturday. One Direction captured top music group and favorite song honors, while Hunger Games: Catching Fireearned three blimps, including one for best movie. Awards show host Mark Wahlberg, meanwhile, got slimed. [NBC News, Time]

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

The previous post was unedited and contains many typos and errors. Mea culpa.  This is just one more example of how I am still a notorious sinner.  Ora pro nobis.  In the interim I promise to be more careful.

Things We, Say, Do and See at the Eucharistic Celebration: THE LORD'S PRAYER

The Pater Noster or, Our Father, or The Lord's Prayer is chock-full of theology.  Unfortunately, we have become so familiar with this all so important prayer that we recite it uncritically.  Perhaps, one habit that we might acquire is to pray and meditate on it more mindfully and in sections as illustrated below.  Perhaps praying and meditating on the Our Father in daily sections.

1.  "Our Father who art in heaven"

In the address, we call God "Our Father in Heaven," literally in the Greek "Abba" or "daddy."  This pulls our attention in two directions.  On the one side, calling God our Father assumes an amazing intimacy with The Creator and Ruler of the universe and that can prompt us to praise and thanksgiving.  We have this intimacy, not because God is, in general, the parent of all humanity (although he is), this is the gracious gift of Jesus: He knew he was God's only begotten son, but he tells us to pray, "Our Father."  

We who are far away from God, guilty and broken, are now invited into Christ's own family; we are rust adopted by God.  We can praise God for more than forgiveness.  in Jesus, we are lifted up--in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the process of theosis, or divinization; becoming like God--into fellowship with God.

This profound intimacy is balanced by it's opposite: the God who has drawn us so close is outside of us, "in heaven".  God is always beyond our control, greater, wiser and more powerful than we are.  Wonder flows as we remember the One who spread out the heavens, who guides all creation to his own glory and who mysteriously called each of us into existence.  

As we call out to Father, remembering that God is in heaven may stun us to speechlessness--a kind of silence that is a prayer of praise in and of itself.  Praying the Our Father, especially this clause of it, can help us to reflect on our own relationship, turning us to pray for new life and deeper knowledge of Him.

2. "Hallowed be thy name."

Having called out to the beloved and mysterious God, we make our first request:  Jesus has us pray . that God's name may be "hallowed" or "made holy".  In biblical terms, the name of God points directly to Hod's essence--and of course nothing could be more holy.  When we reach this part of the outline, we take time to ask that God be honored in us and everywhere.  we may offer praise and thanks for things that do reflect the holiness of God--places and instances where God is known and honored, where love and peace and justice prevail.  Or, we may think of things in our lives that do not honor God and ask for help.  We ask God to make us fit followers of Jesus, people who can rightly bear his name.

3.  "Thy kingdom come."

In the second petition, we ask that God's kingdom may come, and we face the same paradox:  God is surely King of all creation already.  The problem is that we do not live like God's citizens.  Reaching this point in the Lord's Prayer we spend time reflecting on and praying for God to reign more thoroughly and visibly in our lives.

But what do we pray for when we pray for the kingdom? Scripture guides us to include a number of things.  The kingdom is made up of people who acknowledge Christ as Lord so we pray for more or come to faith and for those in the church to really live under his rule--for mission in terms of discipleship and evangelism.  Our King fed tre hungry,  healed the sick and cared for the outcast, so we ask God to make God to make these priorities ours too.   We also pray with the early Chirstians, Maranatha, or come Lord, come into the world and into our lives.  As we turn to reflect on our lives , we ask God to shine in our relationships, or our work and our churches.  We need to bring all of life before our Lord, asking him to reform it according to his sovereign intentions.

4.  "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

In the third petition we ask for for God to do what God wants done.  By praying this we acknowledge that God's plans are more important than ours.  This petition is paradoxical, like the earlier ones, since surely God guides the world with or without us.  Mysteriously though, in God's design we are made partners in his planning.  Because of this partnership, this clause can lead us to confident intercession. In Jesus' teaching and his actions we learn in detail what God's will looks like.  Then we can pray for God to heal the sick or feed the hungry or to bring justice and peace, we can say "Thy will be done!  I am confident that this is your will because you said so yourself."  This is no guarantee that God will do what we ask, but it does prompt us to pray in the spirit  Jesus seems to intend.  We pray for our lives, our churches  and the world to look more like what God intends and for God to overcome every kind of opposition to his kingdom of love.  This clause is a wonderful opportunity for self examination."O Father, do not let me get to the point where my will is done.  Break my will.  Deist it.  No matter what happens, let my life be governed not by my will but yours." 

5.  "Give us this day our daily bread."

After three petitions about God we turn to ourselves.  The fourth clause starts with the very human simplest human need: we need food to live, and bread is a a basic as it gets.  No concern is too small for God. To care about or too great too manage.  We take time to ask for food, clothing, shelter, work relationship.  If we are well provided for we can pray for those who are not.  Jesus' point is that God wants to provide for whatever we need, so whatever we need should be part of the conversation.

This petition gives us both a permission and a challenge.  We are permitted to bring our mundane personal need to God in prayer.  Actually it is more of an invitation: Jesus commands us to pray for our bread.  He wants us to acknowledge that we are always dependent on God for everything.  But we are also challenged to simplicity, not luxury; we are not praying for daily cake.  Jesus gives us a measuring stick: we should pray for what is really good for us and for the world.

6.  "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

From the practicality of bread, we turn to intangible spiritual needs: in this petition we pray for forgiveness.  We admit that we have done wrong, and we ask God to restore us.  We take time to seek reconciliation too God and neighbor.  It takes effort to look at our lives and courage to admit to actual faults, even in prayer.

Here we also pay attention as well to the harm others have done to us and we talk to God about forgiving them, since we ask for forgiveness as we forgive others.  The "as we forgive" is a conditional clause.  We as to be forgiven, only to the extent that we forgive others and, that, as we pray, that if we do not forgive, the let us not be forgiven.  When we critically think of what we are praying for we recogniize that praying the Pater Noster is dangerous if we refuse to forgive others.  By asking God to forgive others , we too, take steps toward forgiveness.

However, forgiveness is not pretending that no harm has been done--that is denial.  Nor does it mean that the painful feelings melt away--that is healing, which may come much later.  Forgiveness is when you have been harmed, but you actively, prayerfully lift the sentence and decide not to exercise your right to prosecute or avenge.  Praying for forgiveness is about living into what is already true, recognizing and accepting the forgiveness that Christ offers.  In Jesus, we are already forgiven, but the Lord's Prayer keeps us honest: every time we pray we admit that we bring nothing to the relationship but our debts--every time we pray we take a little step toward receiving grace with confident trust.

7. "And lead us not into temptation."

This may seem puzzling since the letter of James says that God never tempts us, but modern translators point out that temptation can be translated as "trial."  Thinking of temptation we ask God to guide us, leading us away from any things that us away from the way of Christ.  Thinking of trials, we ask God to mercifully spare us.  And, if we are so blessed as to have no trials or temptations--and there are few of us who are so blessed--it is an excellent opportunity for those who do.

"The flesh" and "the world" and "the devil" can be construed as the negative influences of the worst of societal influences on our character and behavior: consumerism, greed, lustful envy and the desire for approval and power are good examples.  Human existence is basically good.  Christ came in the flesh and incarnation all theology points us to the goodness of our creation in the "imago Dei"' in themage of a God.  But, we also recognize that this Imago Dei can be distorted through or deviation toward apparent rather than real goods.

8.  "But deliver us from evil."

Praying for this means asking God for protection from all things that worry us.  If we feel uncomfortable, this petition reminds us that God is constantly preserving us from countless troubles that we do not even notice.  And, of course, we remember that the Pater Noster is corporate: "deliver us" we pray, and so we take time to lift up the millions around the world who are really in danger.

Danger could be anything: flood, famine, war or poverty.  Martin Luther, and we might too pray, "Protect us from every bodily evil and woe to the end, however that all this rebound to the honor of your name, the increase of your kingdom and the accomplishment if your will."

The familiar ending to this prayer, "for the kingdom and the power are yours, now and forever," is not found in the earliest New Testament manuscripts or in the Latin Vulgate used in the Middle Ages.  Nevertheless. We can approach this doxology with an attitude that what we want is for God to answer or prayers in a way that brings glory to his own kingdom,  that means concluding with the praise that we began with in our prayer.

So, perhaps, one way that we can grow closer to God this Lenten season is to more critically pray, affirm, reflect and meditate on this all so important prayer through which we so often and cavalierly breeze by.  

Thinkers Anonymous

Thinkers Anonymous

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true.

Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was  thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunch time so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doinghere?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it \hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." 

This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking ..." "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" 

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door. I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors... They didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground, clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting.  

At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.

Five Great Ideas

1.  We are saved in community.

2.  The kingdom of heaven begins on earth (right where we are at this instant).

3.  God respects our human freedom.

4.  Scriptural interpretation is the work of the whole church.

5.  Great ideas (i.e. the development of doctrine) develop over time.

Name That (M)(B)illionaire

Item: Two-meter deep fish tank, filled with Koi carp, cost of $300,000.

• Item: garden. Bill: $917,000. Fun Fact: it was called the “Garden of Silence.”
• Item: hanging an advent wreath. Bill: $25,000. Fun Fact: Workers had to open up the chapel roof — with a crane — to install it.
• Item: heated stones. Bill: $26,000.Fun Fact: They were used to line outdoor paths for more comfortable walking.
• Item: Bronze window frames. Bill: $2.38 million. Fun fact: The cost was supposed to be half that. But he, the report shows, really wanted his window frames to be bronze.
  
• Item: light switches. Bill: $27,000. Fun Fact: Really, they’re just light switches.
• Item: doors. Bill: $673,000. Fun Fact: They were of the “highest quality.”
• Item: art. Bill: $1.6 million. 
• Item: LED lights. Bill: $894,000. Fun Fact: They were built into floors, the walls, underneath steps, inside handrails and window frames — which were of course 

Multiple choice.  Was it:

A.  Bill Gates

B.  Warren Buffet

C.   Carlos Slim Helu
D.  None of the above

Answer:

Bishop (Blimg-bling) Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany. See story

Total cost of luxury renovation?  $43 million.

Getting fired by Pope Francis?  PRICELESS

So how about us this Lenten Season.  Can we pass the show-me-your-checkbook-and-your-day planner-and-I'll-show-you-your-values-sniff test?

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” ~ Hans Hofmann

Never Deny, Seldom Affirm, Always Distinguish

Welcome to "Never Deny, Seldom Affirm, Always Distinguish"

Break down of the “Never deny, rarely affirm, always distinguish”

Never deny: this principle presupposes charity in requiring the responder to take seriously the objections made to any answer he might give; that is, by never outright denying a conclusion, the Master presumes the good will of the objector and averts any attacks on the person. By disallowing the outright denial of an opponent’s premise or conclusion, the ‘never deny’ pushes us in charity to recognize that even an assertion erroneous on the whole may contain some partial truth. The next two steps in the method assure us of ferreting out whatever truth might be found error. (NB. This technique also tends to kill in its cradle the all-too-often virulent disease we call “flaming”).

Rarely affirm: this principle frees the Master from the traps in the objections that might inexorably lead him to conclude that the objection is correct. It also serves to push the argument beyond merely polite agreement and force the debaters to explore areas of disagreement that could lead to a better answer.

Always distinguish: this principle allows the Master to accomplish the first two principles while still giving him plenty of room to disagree with the objections. By requiring the Master to carefully parse his words, this step in the argument recognizes the limits of language and logic when discussing any truth and acknowledges that there is some hope of finding better and better definitions.

So, in practice, you will hear those who use this method say things like, “If by X, you mean Y, then X” or “I would distinguish between X and Y” or “You are right to say X, but X does not necessarily entail Y” and so on. The goal is to parse proper distinctions with charity until there is some clarity with regard to the use of terms and their place in the argument.