Fairy Tale Wedding

On November 12, 2011November 12, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

My two and a half year-old daughter is currently obsessed with Disney princess movies. If I have to sit through them daily, then I reserve the right to watch them from a professional perspective. This is for anyone out there who has ever wanted a ‘fairy tale wedding’.

Let’s pretend that I was the minister who was asked to solemnize Cinderella’s wedding at the end of the movie…

“Let me get this straight, Cinderella:

You grew up as a workaholic orphan with no self-esteem in a psychologically abusive foster home.
You have delusions of talking to animals and make miniature clothes for the rodents infesting the attic where you sleep.
You have audio-visual hallucinations of a ‘fairy godmother’ who magically turns fresh produce into transportation (but only for a few hours at a time).
In order to escape your unhappy home-life, you are determined to impulsively marry this admittedly irresponsible (but wealthy) young man who you’ve met only once and whose name you don’t even know (yet you are convinced that this is what true love is).
As for him, his primary criterion for a spouse is her shoe size and he plans to continue living with his father, who has been shown to have severe tendencies toward verbal abuse and domestic violence.”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot ethically participate in this wedding ceremony.”

Update:

I made a funny follow-up cartoon based on this post. Here’s the link:
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12672382/premarital-counseling-with-a-disney-princess

Wonders Known In The Place Of Darkness

On November 3, 2011November 3, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

This is my column for this month’s church newsletter:

Dr. Rodney Duke, my former college professor, was fond of saying, “My favorite thing about the book of Psalms is that these poets say things that would get you kicked out of church.” I think he’s right. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Psalm 88.

Many of the psalms are brutally honest about hard times and hard feelings in life, but most of them resolve with a statement of joy or praise at the end. The notable exception to this rule is Psalm 88. It ends with the chilling phrase, “darkness is my closest friend.”

The popular conception of spirituality in our culture is that it will make you into a happy, well-adjusted, and peaceful person. When many people hear the term “spirituality”, they picture someone sitting serenely in the lotus position, chanting “all shall be well” over and over again. Such a people are either lost in the exercise of “navel-gazing” or else wandering around with their heads in the clouds. Seeing them, one can understand why Karl Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses”.

True spirituality, as I have come to understand it, enables its practitioners to honestly face the darkness of life without reverting to fantasy as a crutch. It can ask God, with the author of Psalm 88, “Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?” Such people don’t often think of themselves as particularly religious or spiritual, yet their authenticity speaks for itself. They are in a privileged position to discover, with the author of Psalm 51, that God has little to no interest in those who go through the motions of religion in order to “look spiritual” to others. In fact, God has little interest in religion itself. Psalm 51 says, “You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise.”

Those broken souls who often feel (or appear to be) farthest from the life of religion are often the ones who are most ready to be honest about themselves. If the ministry of Jesus taught us anything, it is that these broken hearts are welcomed by God. When we finally get real enough to say, “darkness is my closest friend”, we put ourselves in a position to find the presence of our Eternal Friend within the darkness itself. Only then do we begin to see a way out. Only then are we ready to hear the answer to the question, “Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?”

I dare to posit that, in such a moment, an inaudible voice whispers back to us through that darkness: “Yes.”

The Prophetic Paradox

On November 2, 2011November 2, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

An excerpt from The Shaking of the Foundations by Paul Tillich:

All people desire false prophets, who, through the glorification of their gods, glorify their followers and themselves. People long to be flattered in regard to their desires and virtues, their religious feeling and social activity, their will to power and utopian hopes, their knowledge and love, their family and race, their class and nation. And a false prophet can always be found to glorify the demon they worship. But when the voice of the true prophet is raised, they shut their ears, they contradict his statements, and they ultimately persecute and kill him, because they are not able to receive his message…

We are all eager for the prophetic spirit. We are anxious to lead the people to a new justice and to a better social order. We long to save the nations from a threatening doom. But does our word, if it be God’s word, have better effect than that which Isaiah saw in his vision and experienced in his life? Are we more than he was? Are our people today less devoted to demons than his people were? If not, can we expect anything other than what he was told to expect through his vision? We must pray for the prophetic spirit which has been dead for so long in the Churches. And he who feels that he has been given the prophetic task must fulfill it as Isaiah did. He must preach the message of a new justice and of a new social order in the name of God and His honour. But he must expect to be opposed and persecuted not only by his enemies, but also by his friends, party, class, and nation. He must expect to be persecuted to the degree to which his word is the word of that God Who alone is holy, that God Who alone is able to create a holy people out of the remnant of every nation.

Copied from www.religion-online.org

On “Organized Religion”

On October 31, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

What a fearful phrase this is when one stops to think about it, and how calamitous that Christians should have come to find themselves committed to its defence. That the Church has a concern with religion – as with every other aspect of human life – no one would doubt. That it must be organized – and efficiently organized – is equally clear. But that Christianity should be equated in the public mind, inside as well as outside the Church, with ‘organized religion’ merely shows how far we have departed from the New Testament. For the last thing the Church exists to be is an organization for the religious. Its character is to be the servant of the world.

-Bishop John A.T. Robinson, in Honest to God

Mission and Vision

On October 29, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This past Thursday, the people of St. James Mission officially adopted their new Mission and Vision statements during worship. Many months of thought, prayer, and discussion have gone into the production of this document. Unintentionally, this process has finished on the first Thursday after the Feast of St. James the Just (October 23), from whom our community takes its name!

Our Mission

St. James Mission is an inclusive, Christ-centered community where all people can experience the love of a living God through healing and free-spirited reverence.

Our Vision

At St. James Mission, different individuals find common ground in the context of experimental, alternative, Christ-centered worship; seek spiritual truths together through study and conversation; and embrace our spiritual commonality through weekly celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion.
We aspire to accept and include everyone, especially those who have experienced exclusion and wounding in the past. We strive to be open to voices that have yet to be heard and to the spiritually homeless.
We invite people to experience the Divine with us in community, but without any pressure. We believe it is necessary to create a space where all questions are welcome – a space that is peaceful, safe, non-violent, and non-abusive.
We will increase our visible presence in the community; facilitate healing for those in crisis; and encourage & empower people in other churches who share a similar vision.
With the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we seek first to attend to people’s physical needs and then their spiritual and other needs. We want to communicate unconditional love and peace, not only in our worship but also in our daily living.
Trusting in the Holy One who speaks through scripture, we will answer the call to do justice in the world. We are assured of divine love and seek to return that love in the way Jesus taught us, by loving others.

Click here to visit our website!

Political Songwriting Revival

On October 25, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Driving to church last Sunday, I heard a new song on the radio called ‘I Get By’. The artist is Everlast. Here’s the video:

What struck me about this song is how similar the feel and content is to the old folk tunes by people like Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie. Their work was edgy and controversial. It spoke directly from and to the experience of marginalization. Compare the Everlast song to these:

The only place where consciously political songwriting has maintained any kind of presence is in hip hop. Nas is my favorite. Check it out:

Finally, just because I can’t resist getting theological, here’s one last comparison. The language is rough and offensive, but there are some pertinent insights, if you have ears to hear:

Slippery Slopes

On October 22, 2011October 22, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Another “informed and compassionate” response from the happy elves at Crisis Magazine:

You want contraception; someone else wants easy divorce. You want easy divorce; someone else wants homosexual marriages. You want homosexual marriages; someone else wants threesomes. You want threesomes; someone else wants children. You want children; someone else wants sheep. And his reason for wanting sheep will be just as good as yours for wanting contraception or easy divorce or homosexual marriages.

You heard it here, folks:

Using condoms leads to sex with sheep.

I took this paragraph from an article entitled Gay Marriage and the Slippery Slope to Polyamory.

“Slippery Slope” is an interesting choice of words. I use this term with my Philosophy 101 students at Utica College. The “Slippery Slope” is an example of what we call an “informal fallacy” (i.e. an error in the logical process).

This next paragraph is taken from the textbook I use with that class:

Sometimes people argue that performing a specific action will inexorably lead to an additional bad action (or actions), so you should not perform the first action. An initial wrong step starts an inevitable slide toward an unpleasant result that could have been avoided if only the first step had never been taken. This way of arguing is legitimate if there is good reason to believe that the chain of actions must happen as alleged. If not, it is an example of the fallacy of slippery slope.

So, before you go looking for a hot date in a barnyard, remember that questioning one boundary does not necessarily mean eliminating all boundaries.

I Am the 99%

On October 21, 2011October 21, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Link to ‘Notes From a Dragon Mom’

On October 19, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This NY Times article came my way through Facebook and… well, you’ll just have to read it.

This woman’s hard-won wisdom and insight reminds me of Lao-Tzu, Krishna, and Jesus. I cite these sacred texts below, but I make no claim to have obtained the wisdom.

Notes From a Dragon Mom

“Therefore the sage produces without possessing, Acts without expectations And accomplishes without abiding in her accomplishments. It is precisely because she does not abide in them That they never leave her.” – Tao Te Ching

“Therefore without attachment, do thou always perform action which should be done; for by performing action without attachment man reaches the Supreme.” – Bhagavad Gita

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” – Matthew 6:34

WWJD?

On October 13, 2011October 15, 2011 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

For those who are uninformed about what Occupy Wall Street is all about, read this article first:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/14/understanding-occupy-wall-street/

Taken from a Facebook discussion, here’s why I think this joke is relevant:

Let’s look at the setting: The Temple. It’s a fair bet to say that it was in the outer court of the Temple, most likely in the Court of the Gentiles, which is the only section …of the Temple where non-Jews were allowed to worship (it reminds me of the balcony in my wife’s church, where slaves were segregated out and forced to sit apart from the rest of the congregation back in the day). The money-changers came in and set up their business in that section, forcing people to exchange foreign coin for Temple shekel (because the former had images of ‘foreign gods’ on them) in order to buy animals for sacrifice. I should add that this was done for profit.

It’s no accident that Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 on his way in: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people”. This comes from a larger section of Isaiah where the prophet describes how non-Jews will be welcomed as part of God’s people. God’s wants to be known as the one who “gathers the outcasts”. Going back to Isaiah 2:1-5, God’s ultimate goal is to make Jerusalem into a multi-cultural center for education in agriculture, nonviolence, and spiritual enlightenment.

Jesus knew all of this and was angry that the powers-that-be had taken the one small place that non-Jews had in the Temple (the one place that could fulfill the divine vision), and had taken it away from them in order to keep their profit-making machinery going. Jesus intended to give it back.

So, without the approval of the authorities, he set up an unlawful occupation of the Temple courts. Every day for that last week of his life, Jesus and his followers gathered in that section to teach and learn. He was fulfilling Isaiah’s vision to make Jerusalem a multi-cultural center for education in agriculture, nonviolence, and spiritual enlightenment. The powers-that-be questioned his authority and tried to shut it down, but were unsuccessful. In the end, the text tells us that this was the point where they started the conspiracy to have Jesus killed. He was too much of a threat to their power.

Occupy Wall Street isn’t a perfect reflection of this action. I’m not arguing that it’s particularly Christian in nature. However, it’s appropriate to note the similarities between the two: A powerful populist movement of marginalized people (i.e. “freaks and geeks”) sets up an illegal occupation of a symbolic power-center in protest against profiteering schemes that rob people of their God-given rights.

To the extent that this works, the authorities lash back with violence and death (hence the crucifixion). Or, as Gandhi put it: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.”

Hopping Hadrian's Wall

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