Diaspora: Word Shop Newsletter July 2008
It's been ten years since I read Isaiah 49 and walked out of church, the wind slamming the door behind us; ten years since we left and walked into a church down the street just in time for the Gospel: "Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world." Since then I have bounced around, sometimes feeling like a kid who's left home to go off to college, sometimes rejoicing in the unity of those beholding and sometimes experiencing the heart ripping anguish of divorce. "Great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart," Paul said in regards to his people.
I grew up in a liberal, academic household. I remember my father refusing to sign the anti-communism loyalty oath demanded of professors in the 50's. We were pro civil rights, pro free speech, anti-war; nonconformists, effete intellectual snobs, hippies. What a shock it has been to watch so-called liberals move into behaviors I would have once attributed to "red-neck fundamentalists." I personally have experienced hate mail, book banning and up shutting from the liberal front. Those whom I'd expect to applaud a forum of freely exchanged ideas, suddenly can only tolerate ideas in agreement with theirs. Since when do liberals demand loyalty oaths like the Presiding Episcopal Bishop did while collecting delegates for her puppet diocese? Why have there been more priests and Bishops deposed in the last two years than in the previous 200 years of the American Episcopal Church? It is very odd.
Reading over a century of encyclicals on Social Justice, I was struck by how the church is unable to rest on the right or on the left. Instead she is always shifting, one foot in front of the other, arms swinging in opposite directions. The belly button insists that we should all just find middle ground, but the church is on the move, always has been. Right, left, right. Sometimes she looks quite drunk, staggering down the hall, bouncing off the walls. Sometimes she is drunk on the finest of wine. Meanwhile, some of us get bruised. This love stuff is not for the faint hearted.
"I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." - Charlotte Bronte
The Resurrection ladies are reading The Shack by William P. Young for September. "Where tragedy meets eternity." Lynn brought it to me a few months ago with rave reviews. I suppose I didn't write about it because I didn't much like it. (If you can't say something nice....) Obviously I'm in the minority here, because Costco is selling it. In moments like these I wonder why I think I can write a bookish newsletter.
or any newsletter...
Truth is, I don't much like allegories. I like my stories to be stories, not thinly veiled propaganda or discussions in costume. All sorts of books that other people love, offend my sense of STORY. Like Grizone's Joshua, Bunyons Pilgrims Progress, Hurnard's Hinds Feet on High Places or one I just read last week The Servant by James C. Hunter, in which a workaholic businessman is forced by his wife to go on retreat where he and a CEO-turned-monk sit around discussing leadership issues. Other people obviously love these (not quite) stories, some of which are even Christian Classics.
Last night I dreamed a revelation about the Jews' sense of story. I felt unsure about being able to communicate it, but the revelation seemed very important. Something about story being larger than ideas. That boiling a story down to it's doctrine isn't the point. That a story is in itself the point--and can often be used to illustrate various different ideas. There is a difference between propaganda and story. The story unfolds. Like life. It is bigger, more complex and more compelling than a mere concept. Hence, the incarnation.
"It's said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But in spiritual realms the shortest distance to spiritual maturity is a wandering path, because along the journey you have encounters that reveal wisdom and truth. Don't long for the shortest route take the scenic one. -Bev Peltzer
Around the Wicket Gate by Charles Spurgeon presents various arguments to move the almost Christian into the inner sanctum. Unfortunately, 'almost Christians' don't read books like this. It was, however, a great airplane book because it's quite slim. Although maybe the reason the person sitting next to me wouldn't say two words was that the book scared him off. What was reallyweird, is that the same person sat next to me on the return flight. What are the odds of that? He still wouldn't talk to me. No, it wasn't my husband or kids. Just some stranger. Still a stranger. Bizarre.
The other book I took on an airplane recently is The World's Best 100 Detective Stories, printed in 1929. Edited by Thwing. Eugene Thwing. (Not a typo.) There aren't 100 stories in this little hardback. The thwing is only Volume One. I wish, however, more books would arrive that were this size and shape. It fit perfectly in the outside pocket of my carry-on. Stories weren't bad either.
"Good books don't give up all their secrets at once." -Stephen King
There are two more books on the floor under my dove coffee table. If I wrote about them, I could take them back to The Word Shop. However, I'd rather tell you this story: I wrote about Shoemaker's I Stand by the Door and a priest in Colorado asked for it. I promptly shipped it to her. OK, maybe not hyper-promptly, but promptly enough. That was last May. Two days ago the postman pulled into my driveway and beeped her horn. I thought perhaps someone had sent me a lovely present. Instead it was I Stand by the Door, winging it's way home. Seems the package lost it's label. The dead letter office opened the large envelope and found my address on The Rose Church, a story manuscript I had included. For a mere $2.57, I got I Stand by the Door (and my story manuscript) back. In the interim I had sent another copy to Colorado, so this one is now up for grabs. It's currently standing by the door--a nice hardback copy, and well worth reading--especially if you have a church that you want people to come to.
The moral of this story is put tape over the labels when you ship books.
My latest plan is to gather a dozen or so diaspora and we'll visit churches together. Then we'll go out to lunch and kick around the sermon, music,liturgy, whatever. We'll become known as the dirty dozen. The unApostles. Then I'll write a book where a bunch of people with names like Not-so-nice or Shut-up or Tithe-less sit around discussing church. The title will be I Stand Behind the Door. You'll find it at Costco.
A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free. -Nikos Kazantzakis
Blessings,
Alliee +
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