heresy 101

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make
lyrics from In The End
The Beatles

(statue of the sacred heart of Jesus, Kylemore Abbey / Connemara, County Galway, Ireland/
Julie Cook / 2015)

Surely it’s time for a new story, a new thought, a new distraction in this land
of the distractable??!!

Yet Wedding Gate 2018 just keeps on keeping on.

And so I find myself needing to share one more observation and one more offering
offered by those wiser than myself…

Now I totally understand that most folks are more than ready to move on and away from
the chatter over this past weekend’s big wedding…as well as away from the chatter that
continues to reverberate over the guest speaker at said wedding.

Chatter that is causing a new rift within the Chrisitan community.

The 2 billion folks, yes you read the number correctly…of which is according to the networks,
who tuned in and watched said wedding, for the majority, seem to be totally enamored
with the sermon offered by the guest speaker Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry.

The bishop has been catapulted to the forefront and is now the darling poster child for
all things progressive and cultural.
And I suppose that should be only fitting as he is the leading voice behind the
promotion of Gay marriage within the Episcopal Chruch.

And now many folks, most folks it sadly seems, don’t understand why there is any sort
of controversy, brouhaha or criticism over Bishop Curry’s speech because who in their right
mind can or would criticize the concept of love?

Because that’s what the speech was about right?
Love?
And isn’t a wedding the perfect place to talk about love?

So whereas I’m indeed ready to move on as well, I’m opting to linger ever so slightly because,
as you see, the speaker and the cleric presiding over the wedding, the Archbishop of Canturbury,
just happen to each be cogs in the wheel of a Christian denomination in which I grew up.

The Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Chruch is where I was raised and where I came to
know Jesus as both Lord and Savior.

Times, however, have greatly changed since those early days of my youth.

And I would not be doing justice to those Anglicans and Episcoplains out there who
continue in the orthodox tradition of faith, just as I do, clinging to the knowledge
that God’s word is just that…God’s word.
I would not be doing justice to those who continue to cleave to that Word of God’s own
spoken Truth.

It would not be justice to those who choose not to condone the rewriting of scripture and
now the promotion of that rewritten scripture…
A new scripture that is being touted as the new age Chrisitan mantra…
that being simply put, Love is love.
And that notion of love is all one needs.

And if that’s love is between a man and woman, great.
If that’s love between two men, great.
If that’s love between two women, great.
If that’s simply a love of self, great.

Because love covers a multitude of sins we’ve always been told.

And so what if the Bible said love between one man and one woman???
We’ll just rewrite that to make things more applicable and current.
So what if the Bible says to beware of a love of self…
don’t we want to love ourselves??

And so as Bishop Curry was proclaiming love for love’s sake, he proceeded called up those
immortal words of John Lennon.
Maybe because he was in England, maybe because Lennon’s words seem more timely than not.

Imagine.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today… Aha-ah…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You…

Throw love in that mix and love becomes the newest culture god.

Yet what everyone seems to be missing is that this love, this romantic, erotic
love that Bishop Curry spoke of is a far cry from God’s love.

Bishop Curry speaks of a narcissistic and egocentric love.
A love that is not grounded in the Blood of the Lamb despite throwing out the name of Jesus
for good measure.
This is not the love of utter sacrifice.

But who these days wants to hear of sacrifice?

And so our dear rogue cleric Bishop Gavin Ashenden offers a wonderful observation of his own
over what basically boils down to a tale of heresy 101.

Bishop Ashenden cautions that we need to be able to use the repentance test when listening
to a speech such as Bishop Curry’s.
Is there talk of the need of repentance?
Or of the fact that God’s judgment is real and that the consequence of not repenting,
with that being hell, is also very real.
Did we hear any of that?

No, we didn’t hear about that.

We didn’t hear about when the fires of romantic and erotic love fade leaving people standing around
just looking at one another, somewhat bored and wondering what’s next.

Did we hear about the dire need of ours to be saved?
Saved by the blood of Jesus Christ?

No, we didn’t hear about that either.

We didn’t hear about the devil being real and that he battles for each of our souls.
We didn’t hear about the cross and the cost on that cross.

No we didn’t hear about that.

Rather we heard about love, sex, attraction, open arms, acceptance and more love.
Because isn’t love all we need??

And so I leave you with the latest clip from Anglican Unscripted, as well as two posts
written by our friend the Wee Flea, Pastor David Robertson.

Both of these men heard, or perhaps didn’t hear is more appropriate those same things I didn’t hear.
And I for one am glad that each man is voicing concern over what was missing and why this sudden
hysteria over Bishop Curry is a very dangerous thought for all of us, Chrisitans as well as non believers.
For it is indeed heresy 101

The good news of Jesus Christ…that is what we need in the end

“Let me stress the importance of this another way.
The cameras lingered a lot on the Clooneys, Oprah and the Beckhams.
What struck me was the haunted, sad and lonely look on Victoria Beckham’s face.
I have no idea what was going on – but I know this.
Whatever the problem, the cure is the good news of Jesus Christ.
It’s such a shame that she did not hear it.”
David Robertson

The Wedding, the Sermon and the Reaction – Article on Christian Today

Ravi praises, Curry explains and Cranmer Spins…

dreams

“Yes: I am a dreamer.
For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight,
and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Oscar Wilde

Spare a little candle
Save some light for me
Figures up ahead
Moving in the trees
White skin in linen
Perfume on my wrist
And the full moon that hangs over
These dreams in the mist
These Dreams lyrics
Heart

(super moon 2016 / Julie Cook)

Maybe it was the moon…all that super business doing some massive gravitational pull
on my subconscious…
Or maybe that’s just it in a nutshell, my subconscious…

It was about 5:30 this morning when I woke from a night of fitful sleep.
I had a headache.
If it’s not my back, it’s also my neck—
as in all my discs are giving out…
and obviously the warranty has given out as well…

I got up and rummaged around in the oddly lit house under the watchful eye of the latest super moon,
looking for a couple of motrin to alleviate the gnawing aching pain.
I thought I’d just go ahead and get up since I was pretty much wide awake…
But knowing I had a long day in Atlanta with Dad, what harm would laying back down do,
just for a minute….

Bad idea.

Obviously I fell back asleep…into one of those massively deep sleeps…
as in out like the dead.

It was during this dead sleep that I found myself having the most crazy and vivid dream.

But of course I don’t know why that would be something new or out of the ordinary because
all of my dreams are pretty much crazy.
They often seem quite real albeit bizarre, odd and absolutely not normal.

In this particular dream I was somewhere, though I knew not where,
I just knew it was not home, nor any place familiar.
I was pushing my son in a baby carriage…whereas in real life he’s almost 28…
yet in the dream he was a baby.

We were trying to get away from some bad guy who was following us.
The next thing I remember is that I’m reading in a newspaper in some sort of room
that was again, not familiar.
It was the obituaries and I was reading that both my dad and godfather had each died as
I suddenly found myself desperately trying to text my mother to tell her what I’d read…
because I knew she’d need to know and would need my help.

Ok, so in real life, my mom has been gone now for over 30 years, long before texting ever existed,
let alone living in a society that is now joined at the hip with their cell phones.

I remember that I frustratingly couldn’t get the text right….
which just means that some part of my brain knew that mother was not exactly in texting range….
and yet I couldn’t find my right clothes or any of my “stuff” …
because remember, I was someplace unfamiliar….

Thankfully I finally woke up…only to realize that both my husband I had overslept—
I jumped up, he got up…
and off we both raced for the day.

As he was getting ready to leave for work, I told him briefly about my dream—
and in his typical nonplused fashion…
“I can tell you where you were.”
“Really?!
You can?!” I marveled.
“Yeah, you were in the nut house because all your dreams are the stuff for loony bins”

And I suppose he has a point.

The night before last, I dreamt someone was trying to kidnap and kill my beloved cat
and that I had gotten Carrie Underwood to watch him and help keep him safe.

But I knew where that bizarre dream was born…
it was the direct result of the heavy birthday supper I had eaten that night—
very rich and overfilling…resulting in very poor and fitful sleep.

Last night’s dream however was so vivid that I woke with tears in my eyes and immediately hit
the computer to scour over the obits for my godfather…who thankfully was not there.
A bit irrational but that’s how clear it all seemed.

He and dad are in equally poor states of health…both physically and mentally
with him in a facility while dad is still at home….
So I imagine that that constant worry over both of them,
simply lingers somewhere past the waking and cognizant part of my brain.

And then there was / is mom.
Obviously I am missing her tremendously as I now go it alone caring for dad.

When I was young and foolish I would, from time to time, imagine what it would be like when I
was like my parents who, at the time, were caring for both of my grandmothers—
it’s just that I never imagined what we’d all be living, or in mother’s case not living,
as we are today.
And maybe that’s the thing—life is never what we imagine nor dream what it will be.

Sometimes it can be the stuff of dreams—
all good, all nice and all delightfully other worldly…
but for the majority of the time,
it is humanly real, raw and very very hard.

I think that’s why I’ve let what’s going on in this country of ours bother me so badly…
as it’s just left me feeling so depressed, not that my own life hasn’t been depressing enough.

Life is hard.

And it requires a great deal from us just to make it through.

I work hard just getting through each day…
as these past two years have been all but draining of all emotions and physical well being.
It’s as if I’ve been living under a very heavy grey cloud…
ever since, having lost their cognitive and physical freedoms,
Dad and my stepmother required outside help.

And it is very much that I have bordered on depression on and off these past two years.

Yet I work very hard to make certain that they are ok in their own home…
cause that’s how dad wants it…
to go out in a box from his own home…whenever that day comes—
despite me explaining to him that I don’t think a box will be involved….

There is the day to day running of their household…
the caregivers, the housekeeper, the nurses, hospice, the bills, the taxes, the invoices,
the groceries, the doctors, the hospitals, the maintenance on a older home…
And then there is our household 75 miles away—
as in me the caregiver, the maid, the cook, the yardman, and everything else in between…
when and if there is time or energy or even desire…

People wonder why I don’t have time to do this or that anymore…
why can’t I squeeze in anything for me or for them or for whatever…
I obviously don’t even have time to sleep worth a flip let alone the nicer things about
nurturing self or that of friendships….

So I grow angry when I see on the news the sea of protesters across this county.
Surely I’m not the only person who has life issues to contend with.
My life is more than enough to keep me busy and focused…
Lord knows how’d I manage to balance protesting, marching, walking out of class…
all the while fussing and cussing with my neighbors on the street…

Life is bigger than any of us realize…
It’s bigger than this election.

When it is all said and done…
presidents will come and go,
elections will come and go…

Some elections will go the way we want and some will not…
that’s how life works—not always as we’d like…

That’s simply life and it is what it is wherever or not you and I like that…

And I can honestly say that anyone battling a catastrophic illness, caring for loved ones,
watching elderly parents slowly slip away or who has been devastatingly injured,
will tell you that that is not how they ever would have imagined or dreamed their lives would go.

So everyone out there who seems to think they have all sorts of time for all
this bitching, complaining and nasty fussing and cussing…
because that’s what protests are are they not…glorified bitching and complaining…
obviously has way too much time on their hands to waste…
the otherwise precious energy for living.

My God, can’t those of you just be thankful that you can afford to be in college?
And can apparently afford to ditch class…
not to mention all these high school kids out there walking out of class who can’t yet even vote.
Stay in class for heaven’s sake and learn something about being a decent citizen
because wandering around on the streets fussing and cussing your neighbor
isn’t gaining anything but expending wasted anger….

Instead of wrath and anger, be thankful that you live in a country that affords you
the opportunity to vote—
Never mind that whomever it was you wanted to win may not have won…
because that’s simply the result when two people run…one wins, one does not.
That’s called democracy and you have a military that has lost countless of lives
of men and women over the generations who sacrificed everything for you…
you who now use your protected freedom and wasted time in life that you cannot get back
to bitch, complain, fuss and cuss and march…

But be glad you have choice…so many countries don’t get choice.
That little fact is in part why other nations view us as entitled and spoiled—
we bitch and complain even when we have options and choice…
as in we never really seem happy.

Be glad that obviously you are healthy enough to go out, ditching class or work,
just to bitch and complain…
because those who are sick, hurting or busy with the demands of life, simply can’t fit any of that in.

Dream…dream big…big wonderful sorts of dreams…
because one thing we know about America is that dreaming and working can make dreams come true—
because America has always equated to opportunity…
where in other nations…
opportunity not so much….

Don’t fuss and cuss…because life is simply too short…
Dreaming is so much more important and much more fun and much more hopeful and much more productive
than bitching and complaing and marching and fussing and cussing our neighbors….

Just ask Dad….who just wishes he could have a little more time in life to dream….

“In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams….”
Acts 2:17