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ch 25 2016 revrachel23 1 comment good friday 2016 tamely frail body abstain to day to day my soul eats twice christ hither and away she sees him man so like god made in this that of them both a circle emblem is whose first and last concur this doubtful day of feast or fast christ came and went away she sees him nothing twice at once who s all she sees a cedar plant itself and fall her maker put to making and the head of life at once not yet alive yet dead she sees at once the virgin mother stay reclused at home public at golgotha sad and rejoiced she s seen at once and seen at almost fifty and at scarce fifteen at once a son is promised her and gone gabriell gives christ to her he her to john not fully a mother she s in orbity at once receiver and the legacy all this and all between this day hath shown th abridgement of christ s story which makes one as in plain maps the furthest west is east of th angels ave and consummatum est christ is placed in the arms of his mother stations designed for harcourt parish by barbara tazewell john donne wrote those words in 1608 one of the rare years such as now in 2016 when good friday falls on march 25 the date one which the church typically recognizes the festival of the annunication to the blessed virgin mary it is indeed seemingly incongruous to fall on the same day indeed it will not happen again for another century the promise of the birth of christ linked together with christ s bloody brutal death donne s poem hints at this incongruity with lines such as the cedar plants itself and falls and that wonderful image gabriel gives christ to her and he her to john and yet donne also makes the observation that these two events incongruous as they might seem are indeed two sides of the same coin as in plain maps the furthest west is east indeed there was a period in the early centuries of the church when dates were always shifting around when the annunciation and good friday coincided intentionally while we could get side tracked with many many implications from that there is one that i particularly want to highlight this is something of a theological soap box for me namely the place of the doctrine of the incarnation in our observance of the crucifixion in my palm sunday sermon i mentioned that a central image at the heart of our christian faith is the kenosis the self emptying the outpouring of christ that self giving begins in the the work of the incarnation when god comes to dwell with us in human form but it culminates in the work of the cross the ultimate act of self denial self sacrifice utter humility good friday is a day when we look with honesty at the darkness of our world both the cosmic terror attacks on going racial injustice and the utterly personal short tempers unreflective consumerism this is a dark day but it is also the day that god confronted that darkness head on in defiance of the powers and principalities of a world that so often tells us to look out for ourselves god gives of himself utterly completely willingly the ultimate act of love the work of reconciliation that is first signaled in the angel s proclamation to mary comes to its completion in god s willing self sacrifice and so christ can cry from the cross it is finished many of us are uncomfortable with good friday which is fair enough because there are some terrible theories in the christian tradition about what it is that happened today we rightly push against the idea that of a vengeful god who demanded human blood to atone for our sinfulness but i also want to push against the idea that i hear preached and affirmed in our more progressive christian circles that jesus wasn t really supposed to die he was a victim of human betrayal good friday didn t need to happen the violence of this day says more about us than it does about god it seems we either cast jesus as the hapless victim of a tyrannical deity or an angry mob but in doing so we often rob the christian narrative of its drama the drama of god s totally self giving love for us the drama of power displayed through weakness of defeat that will give way to victory there is another poem that links this theme of incarnation and crucifixion together this one by madeline l engle o you who bear the pain of the whole earth i bore you o you whose tears give human tears their worth i laughed with you you who when your hem is touched give power i nourished you who turn the day to night in this dark hour light comes from you o you who hold the world in your embrace i carried you o you who laughed and ate and walked the shore i played with you and i who with all others died for now i hold you may i be faithful to this final test in this last time i hold my child my son his body close enfolded to my breast the holder held the bearer bare mourning to joy darkness to mourn open my arms your work is done amen it is finished goodbye room march 7 2016 revrachel23 1 comment so i watched the oscars last week which introduced me to brie larson s award winning performance in room which inspired me not only to watch the film and marvel at not only larson s performance but also that of her young co star jacob tremblay but also to read the novel and watch pretty much every interview with the cast i could find i may be slightly obsessive it is difficult for me to figure out exactly why the story of room captivated me as much as it did i mean brie larson s performance is phenomenal but the novel and the film both deal with some graphic and traumatic material if you aren t familiar with the premise room tells the story of five year old jack and his relationship with ma whose real name we never learn in the novel jack our point of view character has spent his entire life in a place he knows as room from jack s perspective room is the world it is a good world he has his friends like bed and lamp and table and he has a very set normal routine it takes a bit before we realize that room is in fact a prison it is the garden shed of a man who kidnapped ma as a teenager and jack is the outcome of her sexual assault without given too much away the pair eventually do escape and the rest of the novel is a fascinating exploration of the most mundane elements of the world encountered by someone who has no frame of reference for them escaping from room and encountering the world for the first time is the real trauma for jack not the imprisonment itself he is confused by colors beyond what he experienced in room and going to a mall becomes like something out of a horror movie we soon come to realize that there is a cost there is something that jack must give up in order to experience all the wonderful things he has been deprived of for so long he must give up the innocence the simplicity we might even say the perceived safety of room in order to experience life as a fully realized human being for all that room deals with difficult subject matter and has an incredibly extreme premise at its core there is something utterly universal in its message not only in ma and jack s relationship as a universal reflection on parenting in all its complexities without ever veering into the sentimental but also in the whole question of what it means for each of us to step out of the simplicity and innocence of childhood as we grow up upon his escape from room jack does indeed encounter much that pushes him to the limits of comprehension but he also gradually discovers exciting things that he can take delight in ice cream and dogs and playing ball in the back yard when jack and ma have the opportunity to return to room one last time jack realizes it is far smaller than he remembered asking his mother did it shrink while room is most explicitly a meditation on what it means for us to grow up and move beyond the limited scope of our childhood understanding i think there is also a more subtle challenge to how we approach the issue of faith there is something relatively safe about faith in an understandable controllable god who sits around rewarding good people and punishing bad people if we offer the correct input are decent people good citizens nice to one another we will be counted as good people in the grand cosmic scheme of the universe and yet i cannot help but feel that god as revealed in the christian narrative is a god who cannot be contained in such a clear cut rational box the story of the prodigal son which we heard in as our lectionary gospel just this past week confronts us with the image of god as the father who runs out and embraces us even when we fundamentally do not deserve it god offends our at times limited human understanding of what is just or fair what is right or wrong god cannot be controlled by our behavior because god loves us wildly radically and somewhat absurdly if we are honest about it we can try to lock god into boxes and limited categories of righteousness of our own making but it seems if we do that we settle for a spiritual reality that is far more impoverished that what god would wish to offer us we all need to break out of room and risk the greatness of the world in shocking twist oscars both racist and sexist february 29 2016 revrachel23 5 comments several years ago i was attending an academic conference with a group of colleagues from toronto as we gathered one evening for dinner a male friend observed that the women in attendance were so lucky that we got to have so many different options for how we could dress for potential events whereas men were sadly restricted to the uninspiring business casual option of blazer and slacks unsurprisingly the women in the group quickly assured him that this state of affairs was not a gift to us but a deeply sexist social structure which invariably guaranteed we would somehow be inappropriately dressed for any event we attend fortunately the man in question is still a very good friend with a good sense of humor so he took our outrage in stride and appreciated why his observation might have been a touch oblivious with respect to the lived experience of the women in his acquaintance i recalled that conversation last night as i for some reason watched the 88th annual academy awards it is no secret that for two years now the oscars have come under criticism for the omission of black actors and filmmakers from nominations host chris rock did not disappoint when he confronted the oscarssowhite movement head on in his opening monologue honestly i m not sure what was more entertaining rock s monologue itself or the awkward laughter from the audience as they were forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about the ingrained racism of the film industry perhaps most brilliant was chris rock s articulation of what he dubbed sorority racism but here s the real question the real question everybody wants to know everybody wants to know in the world is is hollywood racist is hollywood racist is it burning cross racist no is it fetch me some lemonade racist no no no no is hollywood racist you re d right hollywood is racist but it ain t that racist that you ve grown accustomed to hollywood is sorority racist it s like we like you rhonda but you re not a kappa this is an excellent observation of the deeply systemic racism that continues to exist even in the nice corners of the world as rock describes in his monologue the corners of the world which are happily progressive and liberal yet still poisoned from the toxic well of white supremacy that has been the consistent undercurrent in our nation s history we all agree that overt discrimination should be illegal but we remain uncomfortable seeing people of color in iconic roles or positions of authority as lupita nyong o r ecently observed this type of insidious racism is harder to fight because it is a battle of the mind not a legal battle so as honest and as necessary as rock s observations on the racial dynamics in hollywood may have been it nevertheless angered me to see him miss the mark so completely on hollywood sexism even as he skewered the marginalization of black actors rock made an entirely unnecessary crack at not being invited to rihanna s panties effectively reminding the incredibly accomplished performer that she remains little more than a sex object even more troubling to me though were the closing lines of his monologue when he took issues with another popular oscars hashtag amy poehler s infamous askhermore campaign the movement challenges red carpet reporters to ask women questions about their acting craft or the characters they have chosen to portray not about their appearance observing that men all wear the same thing rock brushed off the movement with the crack that not everything is racist not everything is sexist there s this whole thing ask her more you have to ask her more you know it s like you ask the men more everything s not sexism everything s not racism they ask the men more because the men are all wearing the same outfits o k every guy in there is wearing the exact same thing you know every guy there might be wearing the same thing because they know they will not be held up to public scrutiny by the media like every woman who has the audacity to set foot on a red carpet it s true no public figure will get it right on every issue all the time and honestly i wasn t looking for chris rock to take up the feminist cause in his monologue the issue of racism in hollywood is one that needs to be confronted without a bunch of white women like myself jumping in and saying look at me but the fact remains rock did address the issue he as a man perpetuated in the same sort of systemic oppression he was calling out in his monologue yet maybe in so doing he provided the perfect example of how all of us are complicit in so many varied forms of oppression we must indeed always be vigilant regarding how we can support those struggles which are not our own and be open to correction when we inevitably fail white supremacy wild seed and wider perspectives february 25 2016 revrachel23 2 comments the nice thing about being married to someone who impersonates a white supremacist is that one does become more aware of what sorts of issues are arising in the white supremacist community while maybe not the desired outcome of their energies racist and misogynistic ire can serve the helpful purpose of highlighting individuals of whom one was shamefully unaware as for example when certain pockets of the weird fiction community became quite incensed at an emerging movement to have h p lovecraft s likeness removed from the world fantasy award in favor of a less divisive figure one name being put forward to assume this honor was the female african american author octavia butler the moral of this story is that angry voices on the internet introduced me to butler as someone whose work i should probably have read years ago i recently finished wild seed the first installment in butler s patternist series and it was indeed unlike much of what speculative fiction has to offer not least because a b...
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