It has been almost a year since I left Florida to accept a call to serve in my home state of Iowa. That is hard to believe! Still, I am starting to come around to the idea that this is where I want to be. There is only one thing holding me back, and it is a stupid little thing that really made no difference in my life whatsoever until two years ago. Baseball.
I never really cared for baseball growing up. Sure, I collected baseball cards. I even had a favorite team: the Chicago White Sox. Believe it or not, my favorite player was Ozzie Guillen, the out-spoken and sometime psychotic manager that led the Sox to the series a few years back. Because I spent summers with my dad in Colorado and Wyoming, I was never able to play little league baseball and eventually lost interest in the whole thing. Until I was looking for something better to do.
I was very deliberate when I moved to Spring Hill, Florida that I would try to get into one of the local teams. My devotion to the Broncos meant following the Bucs wasn't an option. I didn't care for hockey, so the Lightning weren't very attractive. But like a ray from heaven (pun intended), I was drawn to baseball. All things equal it was probably a combination of the fact that the D-Rays at that time we offering free parking and cheap tickets that I chose to attend some games. Still, I made my choice to follow the worst team in baseball ball and soon I became (for me) a baseball fanatic.
Tropicana Stadium has been rated by many as one of the worst ballparks in the major leagues. It is true. For me, it was a place of Zen. Sitting in the cheap seats, watching a professional baseball game...amazing! I had never had that experience before. I loved it! Not all the games were irrelevant. There were Yankee and Red Sox games where the building was alive (and where the Rays were the underdog in their own stadium!). There were games that lasted well into the night. There were free cowbells. It was wonderful. Going to the Trop was one of the great joys of my time in Florida, and along with Sea World, is really the only thing I miss about living in Florida.
Sadly, my newfound love of the Rays is something I have had to give up as I have moved back to Iowa. I have to venture far and wide to find games to watch. (Thank goodness they play a series in the Twin Cities and another in KC!) I pray that they play the Yankees or Red Sox so that they might be on television. (I get to watch them on Monday Night Baseball next week!) It will take a little more effort, but I think I can manage. I might be waxing nostalgic. While the Rays were on TV in the Tampa area, its not like anyone supported them. You had to search far and wide to find their hats and jerseys next to the Yankees crap. Yet, it was my team. It remains one of my regrets... that I can no longer root, root, root for the home team.
Alas, I will still wear my TB gear with pride, even if I get laughed at by the guy in the Cubs hat. I made out like a bandit this winter and added three more hats to my collection, on clearance in Iowa. Just in time. They changed their uniforms in the spring.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Theology...bad at it I am.
Maybe a Presbyterian minister shouldn't admit that they struggle to understand theology. I have to say that I am a little concerned that this might be taken the wrong way. Still, I will take the plunge and say it out loud. I don't like theology. Never have, never will.
Oh, I should clarify.
See, the word theology is seemingly simple to define. Theo = God Ology = study of Not to hard to work out, right? You wouldn't think so except for the fact that numerous church fathers, bishops, philosophers, pastors, bloggers, and yes, even theologians have through the centuries hi-jacked the word theology to suit their own descriptions of certain Christian belief systems. Thus you have Pauline theology, Augustinian theology, Calvinist theology (which interestingly enough is NOT always a synonym of Reformed theology), Neo-Orthodox theology... The list goes on, endlessly into yawns. Even worse is the fact that somewhere someone proposed the idea that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. The result? What poses as theology today is an impenetrable force field of long paragraphs, exclusivist systems, and expensive textbooks. That is theology. Or, for lack of a better term, that is what many people today call theology.
Personally I was always a little bit skeptical about this whole theology thing, at least as it is expressed in those terms. It seems that people spend a lot of their 'study time' arguing about their individual interpretations of the bible and its commentators rather than studying. I am even surprised at the vehemence that certain members of my lectionary group display when someone makes a comment with which they happen to disagree. I guess it figures. Go back and read Calvin or Luther. They spend a significant amount of their time arguing points of doctrine by using the pen to rhetorically assassinate their 'opponents'. Bloggers have nothing on the Institues of the Christian Religion!
I wonder why it has served the churches purposes to contain orthodoxy theology into little boxes. My college band instructor reminded us that we played our instruments we weren't merely practicing how to manipulate wooden and metal devices to make certain sounds. We were acting as stewards of creation by mastering our instruments and teaching them to obey us. Musicians are stewards of Creation who use the very air to bring glory to God. Can't the study of music be theology? Surely we can learn about God when we read our bibles. Yet, does James 1:22 tell us that we are are not merely to try to understand the Word by hearing, but instead to practice it by doing? When do acts of justice, love, and compassion become theology?
I accept that I have to labor within certain bounds to keep my theology orthodox. I am, after all, a Presbyterian minister and I should expect to keep some level of consistency with others of the same denomination. I am not going to start praying to Mary or go on a pilgrimage to Mecca any time soon. I am safe. Yet, there are those whose box for God is so small that it truly frightens me. They create a club within a club, seeking converts and slaying enemies. I really don't want to participate in that enterprise. I will admit, I am not theologically adept. I forgot Hebrew the minute I passed OT II and I didn't even read half of my Theology assignments. But I love reading and praying and hearing hymns and seeing what the people of my congregation can do. I may not know for sure if I can assent to the Five Points of Calvinism any more, but I do know that God is working in me, through me, and with me to do some pretty neat things. I am going to spend some time figuring out what that is. I'll save Barth for later.
Oh, I should clarify.
See, the word theology is seemingly simple to define. Theo = God Ology = study of Not to hard to work out, right? You wouldn't think so except for the fact that numerous church fathers, bishops, philosophers, pastors, bloggers, and yes, even theologians have through the centuries hi-jacked the word theology to suit their own descriptions of certain Christian belief systems. Thus you have Pauline theology, Augustinian theology, Calvinist theology (which interestingly enough is NOT always a synonym of Reformed theology), Neo-Orthodox theology... The list goes on, endlessly into yawns. Even worse is the fact that somewhere someone proposed the idea that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. The result? What poses as theology today is an impenetrable force field of long paragraphs, exclusivist systems, and expensive textbooks. That is theology. Or, for lack of a better term, that is what many people today call theology.
Personally I was always a little bit skeptical about this whole theology thing, at least as it is expressed in those terms. It seems that people spend a lot of their 'study time' arguing about their individual interpretations of the bible and its commentators rather than studying. I am even surprised at the vehemence that certain members of my lectionary group display when someone makes a comment with which they happen to disagree. I guess it figures. Go back and read Calvin or Luther. They spend a significant amount of their time arguing points of doctrine by using the pen to rhetorically assassinate their 'opponents'. Bloggers have nothing on the Institues of the Christian Religion!
I wonder why it has served the churches purposes to contain orthodoxy theology into little boxes. My college band instructor reminded us that we played our instruments we weren't merely practicing how to manipulate wooden and metal devices to make certain sounds. We were acting as stewards of creation by mastering our instruments and teaching them to obey us. Musicians are stewards of Creation who use the very air to bring glory to God. Can't the study of music be theology? Surely we can learn about God when we read our bibles. Yet, does James 1:22 tell us that we are are not merely to try to understand the Word by hearing, but instead to practice it by doing? When do acts of justice, love, and compassion become theology?
I accept that I have to labor within certain bounds to keep my theology orthodox. I am, after all, a Presbyterian minister and I should expect to keep some level of consistency with others of the same denomination. I am not going to start praying to Mary or go on a pilgrimage to Mecca any time soon. I am safe. Yet, there are those whose box for God is so small that it truly frightens me. They create a club within a club, seeking converts and slaying enemies. I really don't want to participate in that enterprise. I will admit, I am not theologically adept. I forgot Hebrew the minute I passed OT II and I didn't even read half of my Theology assignments. But I love reading and praying and hearing hymns and seeing what the people of my congregation can do. I may not know for sure if I can assent to the Five Points of Calvinism any more, but I do know that God is working in me, through me, and with me to do some pretty neat things. I am going to spend some time figuring out what that is. I'll save Barth for later.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
I miss CCM
Going to the mall is one of my favorite escapes. I know. This is a pretty shallow indictment of my own materialism. Yet, there is something about malls that still relaxs me. Just sitting in the food court, watching people mill around. The mall, of course, is where 80's movies tell us that teens love to hang out. We had to drive an hour to the nearest mall, but it was still our favorite destination when we went to see our grandparents. There was one place I would head as soon as I entered into that hallowed halls. You might be thinking...the arcade? Spencer Gifts? Game Spot? No, no and no. It was the Christian bookstore!
The fact that I could spend an hour in a Christian bookstore did not make me very popular with friends. It didn't even make me very popular with my mom. But I was interested in one thing and one thing only: the Christian music racks. I loved CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) as it was called then. I could spend hours listening to every demo cassette on the demo rack, trying to find the next Christian band to 'get into' before I got dragged out of there. I loved Christian Rock, even before it was cool to walk around with a Relient K t-shirt on. Boy how I miss those days.
Back in the 80s and 90s, Christian rock music was very much a novelty. Most of the posters on the wall were of milquetoast rockers like Stephen Curtis Chapman and Micheal W. Smith. But if you dug deep, you could find the real diamonds in the rough. Christian metal! While I listened to bands like Cinderella, Poison, Bang Tango, and Skid Row I always felt secretly guilty for doing so. When I heard about Stryper, a real live Christian metal band, I was hooked. From then on, I would head straight to the Rock section to see (and hear!) about other bands that jumped on the bandwagon.
Back then I was in the loop. I loved all the stuff on Frontline Records: Vengeance Rising, Tourniquet, Mortification, etc. My taste became harder as CCM embraced more extreme forms of metal. Tooth and Nail records introduced punk, hardcore, and alternative. Before long even the clean-cut kiddie groups like DC Talk and Newsboys began to get a harder edge. Oh, I didn't know what I had until it was gone. I listened to heavier music than most of my friends and could also pull of the whole "indie" thing because no one had ever heard of most of my music. It was great. I even swore one day I would kick the secular music habit completely.
Well, that day never came. Honestly, there were a lot of things that went into that. Mainly it was because like all good things, CCM came to an end. Don't get me wrong. You can still buy music in Christian bookstores to day. But little of it is CCM. A lot of bands have ditched the 'Christian' thing, which is fine in some cases, but then why would I buy their CD instead of the more talented mainstream equivalent. Much of the Christian music is not what I would call contemporary. Praise Music has ruined much of CCM's musical innovation. And well, I will just be a jerk and say that much of what is pressed on CDs and labelled CCM these days is such bad music that it is just...well, sad.
These days I don't care much for most Christian bookstores. Many only carry books and resources by conservative evangelical publishing corporations that confuse the word 'theology' with 'End Times prophecy'. Of the few I frequent, I usually stay away from their music section. Too many memories. I'd rather remember the music I liked from those pioneers of pop culture. Tattooed emo kids will never understand.
The fact that I could spend an hour in a Christian bookstore did not make me very popular with friends. It didn't even make me very popular with my mom. But I was interested in one thing and one thing only: the Christian music racks. I loved CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) as it was called then. I could spend hours listening to every demo cassette on the demo rack, trying to find the next Christian band to 'get into' before I got dragged out of there. I loved Christian Rock, even before it was cool to walk around with a Relient K t-shirt on. Boy how I miss those days.
Back in the 80s and 90s, Christian rock music was very much a novelty. Most of the posters on the wall were of milquetoast rockers like Stephen Curtis Chapman and Micheal W. Smith. But if you dug deep, you could find the real diamonds in the rough. Christian metal! While I listened to bands like Cinderella, Poison, Bang Tango, and Skid Row I always felt secretly guilty for doing so. When I heard about Stryper, a real live Christian metal band, I was hooked. From then on, I would head straight to the Rock section to see (and hear!) about other bands that jumped on the bandwagon.
Back then I was in the loop. I loved all the stuff on Frontline Records: Vengeance Rising, Tourniquet, Mortification, etc. My taste became harder as CCM embraced more extreme forms of metal. Tooth and Nail records introduced punk, hardcore, and alternative. Before long even the clean-cut kiddie groups like DC Talk and Newsboys began to get a harder edge. Oh, I didn't know what I had until it was gone. I listened to heavier music than most of my friends and could also pull of the whole "indie" thing because no one had ever heard of most of my music. It was great. I even swore one day I would kick the secular music habit completely.
Well, that day never came. Honestly, there were a lot of things that went into that. Mainly it was because like all good things, CCM came to an end. Don't get me wrong. You can still buy music in Christian bookstores to day. But little of it is CCM. A lot of bands have ditched the 'Christian' thing, which is fine in some cases, but then why would I buy their CD instead of the more talented mainstream equivalent. Much of the Christian music is not what I would call contemporary. Praise Music has ruined much of CCM's musical innovation. And well, I will just be a jerk and say that much of what is pressed on CDs and labelled CCM these days is such bad music that it is just...well, sad.
These days I don't care much for most Christian bookstores. Many only carry books and resources by conservative evangelical publishing corporations that confuse the word 'theology' with 'End Times prophecy'. Of the few I frequent, I usually stay away from their music section. Too many memories. I'd rather remember the music I liked from those pioneers of pop culture. Tattooed emo kids will never understand.
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