The Family Letter

Okay, I'll cave. Here:

I saw this posted the other day on Jane's blog and also Susie's blog. I posted to both their comments, so I guess it is only fair if I set myself up for the same thing. So, as Jane said, here goes:

• If you read this, even if I don't speak to you often, please post a memory of me. It can be anything you want, it can be good or bad, just so long as it happened.
• Then post this to your journal/blog. See what people remember about you.

Many people of late in the Episcopal Church (and others, I am sure) have been arguing that the Church is letting culture lead the way too often. Most often I hear that associated with the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. Culture, they say, is becoming more and more accepting of homosexuality. The Bible teaches us homosexuality is wrong. Despite this, the Church is trying to be more and more accepting, just like culture, despite the fact that "we" know it is wrong. (This is not my opinion, I'm repeating things I hear other people say.) The Bible also says that we must not be of the world, so letting culture lead the way is wrong.

I'm not going to argue for or against this position. However there are definitely some times that we do not want to let culture or politics lead the way. Take one of today's news stories, for example: Groups seek to change hate crimes law (Yes, I live in the same, fine state we're talking about.)

Essentially what this boils down to is a group of people that want to make it legal to "pick on" homosexuals. It wouldn't be okay to hate blacks, women, Jews… That's clearly wrong. But hating people based on their sexual orientation, that should be okay. If you can't express your hate about homosexuals, after all, you don't have free speech!

According to Jane, one of the women or the group involved in this movement was also a devout speaker against equal rights in the last century (ERA, Jane says). Apparently having lost the fight then and is now seeking another group to oppress.

And how about the part where they are arguing that crime is crime: Why do we have special crimes against hate, since all crime involves hate? Apparently none of these folks are lawyers. We have crimes against rape, robbery, murder (in a dozen or more varieties), kidnapping, … And the list goes on an on. So to argue that we don't have special types of crime is a dead-end argument, and just plain incorrect. We do. And hate is a special kind of crime, the kind that kills someone inside.

No matter what you believe the Bible teaches about homosexuality, I will debate you to the bitter end if you feel that the Bible in any way teaches us that hating is acceptable. Even one of the folks I know who is a self-avowed homophobic has said that the Church needs to welcome everyone and love everyone. I am reminded of so many passages of scripture that teach us to love everyone and hate no one. The Bible doesn't teach us to inflict harm on anyone, and even goes so far as to say that if you hold malice in your heart toward your brother than you have, in essence, killed him. Committing a hate crime may not be the same as committing murder in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of our Lord it is.

Stupid. Just plain stupid.

The only good news in this is that it isn't likely, right now, to go anywhere. But still, it angers me to see people using homosexuality as a political thing, crying "ethics" and "morality," when we aren't worried about the poor dying on the streets and people failing to get proper heath care. And even worse when we try to legalize hate. Sigh.

(If you are wondering where the fun comes in, scroll down a bit more.)

So, I tried something new this weekend: Snow tubing. But I didn't go to the local neighborhood sledding hill, get on a tube, and go down. No sir! I went to the AvalanceXpress near Meadville, PA. The pictures on the web site don't do this place justice. They have five lanes, each one of a good layer of snow covered with what is essentially a layer of ice. For those of you who studied physics, that means a very, very low coefficient of friction. For those that didn't, that means there isn't much that slows you down. Adding gravity into the picture, that means you keep accelerating. I don't know how fast we were going, but it was pretty darn quick. You drop 7 storeys in 900 feet (three football fields), and it takes between 15 and 20 seconds. Thanks to Jane, that works out to 30 to 35 MPH. On a rubber tube. With no brakes.

It is even better when the guy at the top who gives you a push also givs you a spin.

Who wants to go?

As with last Sunday's sermon (scroll down) I haven't proofread my notes. I'm just posting so that those who say I don't post often enough (hey, Si!) will be happier.

One of my GOE questions two years ago had to do with Ash Wednesday… It was about the apparent conflict between the Gospel from today and the fact that we are about to have ashes imposed–a very outward and visible sign of our piety. Why do we do this if Jesus warned us to keep our fasting, prayer, etc. to ourselves?

Two things came to mind back then, and as I reflected on the readings today they occurred again. Firstly, the sign of ashes, indeed the entire Ash Wednesday service, stands as a reminder of our mortality. Even in this new age of terrorism when the media and the government work hard to make sure we’re afraid–at the same time they tell us not to fear–we Americans tend to live in denial of death. We refer to people who have “passed on” or who “are in a better place,” avoiding outright saying, “she or he died,” “he or she is dead.” We screen our children as much as possible when someone is dead or dying. And yet out of a family of six that lost their 45 year old father, it was the eight year old who first began helping the family grieve.

We watch extreme sports on TV, and marvel as people taunt death, but seemingly are untouched by it–almost immortal. Indeed o