I'm still alive, but I'm not heavily blogging until I return to Mesa, AZ from Mobile, AL. I'll leave you with some current topics of thought.

1. Trying to be a monastic in the world (neo-monastic aspirant)
2. Affirmations of a call
3. an awakening and pervasive sense of poignancy in everyday life
4. the act (art) of letting go of family
5. Presence as ministry
5. distance between my biological family and myself
6. Toward better communication with Laura about all of this
7. Meeting with priests
8. my own lack of humility

The Goth Eucharist

"Goths at Church?" Yes.



St. Edward King and Martyr Church is an Anglican in Cambridge, England which holds a biweekly service in the evenings for those who identify themselves as Goth.

"The service is candlelit with a specially written liturgy and uses a variety of modern rock and as well as classical music. The structure of the service revolves around the baptismal candle and reflects a serious engagement with the depressing and darker sides of our lives before moving towards a position of hope and happiness found in the empathy of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Here is a good article about the service and why it came to be; the article is under "Being Christian and being Goth."

The church found that of the ~35 people (and growing) that attend the service, more than half were confirmed in their teens and fell away from the church. Most say that they would not think of returning to Sunday morning services. One possible way to read this is that the church found a marketing gimmick. Recognizing that the service contains such a high number of confirmed Christians coming back, I interpret to mean the church is actively reconciling itself to those that were shunned in misunderstanding. The church recognizes them in terms of their chosen identity, which is a powerful statement.



I have no formal training in liturgy, but I was very impressed when I read their service; it is obviously different from a Sunday morning service but is still very similar. The liturgy was written by the priest in charge and I found it to be beautiful and thought-provoking.

For instance, here is the affirmation of faith that would normally be the Nicene Creed:

We believe in God above us,
Maker and Sustainer of life,
Of sun and moon,
Of water and earth.
Of male and female.
We believe in God beside us,
Jesus Christ, the word made flesh,
born of a woman’s womb,
servant of the poor.
He came to draw all humanity to himself,
The troubled, the terrified,
The doubtful and the disillusioned.
He was tortured and nailed to a tree.
A man of sorrows, he died forsaken.
He descended into the earth to the place of death.
On the third day he rose from the tomb.
He ascended into heaven to be forever with us.
And His Kingdom will come on earth.
We believe in God within us,
The Holy Spirit of Pentecostal fire,
The life-giving breath of the church,
the Spirit of Healing and Forgiveness
and the Source of the Resurrection and everlasting life. Amen.

Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this
night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting
world, may repose upon thy eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

Beautiful.

If I were a priest, could I do this service? I don't know. My problem isn't the Gothic-ness, my problem is my own identity. Priests still have some flexibility in how they perform the liturgy, but it is sometimes obvious when a priest is not in his element or is not being himself. I think this particular service works because the priest who started it was in the culture. If I were to perform services like this, I could not "play the part" because I do not know it. If I tried to, I would do harm and be seen as a poser. If I fessed up to my middle-class white suburbian upbringing, I don't think I could effectively minister to congregants because I don't know them. I could learn it....

Still, I would love to see this done in more American parishes, especially if it serves as a reconciliation with groups that left the church because they were not welcome.

A Rule of Life

These were the requirements for joining St. Brigid's Community.

1) to be under regular spiritual direction
2) that under the guidance of your spiritual director you will be writing your own Rule of Life following the pattern of Benedictine Spirituality
3) you will either pray with us in person or on your own for morning prayers or evening prayers each Tuesday
4) you will join us in the daily practice of reading The Benedictine Rule with commentary by Joan Chittister and
5) you will join us or some other community for weekly Eucharist.

Today I am starting on Number 2, writing the rule of life. The five community requirements are of course included.

At the moment, I've added to pray the rosary daily, read the Daily Lectionary, and to be grateful and humble.

So Rick Warren has proved himself to be of the same ilk as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. How'd he do it? He called for the assassination of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Pat Robertson did the same thing in 2005 when he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez.

Here is the youtube:


"God put government on earth to punish evildoers." Which government, Rick? By your interpretation Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as heads of government have an ability to act as they see fit to destroy evildoers as well. Of course, Rick means the U.S.

From Matt Duss

In any case, if this were a conversation between an Iranian TV host and an ayatollah in which they discussed scriptural justifications for “taking out” high ranking members of the U.S. government, you’d probably see Sean Hannity running the clip on his show — while slowly shaking his head in pious disapproval — as evidence of what crazy extremists those Iranians are. As it is, they’ll probably be running this on Iranian TV as evidence of what crazy extremists those Americans are.

Then, and this is clever, they go back to the Old Testament in order to justify killing. Later, Rick Warren cites Romans 13 incorrectly just to throw in something from the New Testament. Jesus wasn't able to help them out here. Neither of them brought up the fact that both Christianity and Judaism have long histories of just war theorizing that have actually, you know, tried to limit warfare. Hannity, as a Catholic, should look at his own tradition. Then again, I don't think he'll find support much there, so he won't even mention them.

A new rosary

So, I've already written that I have an Anglican rosary. Another one came in the mail today. I had ordered it in early October, but due to issues with the provider it did not arrive until now. Here it is.