Interpret this

Martin Luther made a point to say that there are not multiple interpretations for scripture. Rather there is but one interpretation, which has many applications. While originally I was opposed to this, with some thought, however, I find that I am inclined to agree with this statement. Often while I am meditating, I see cogs and gears. As though I am sitting within God's divine pocket watch.

If I liken a piece of scripture to one of the gears, Luther's statement makes sense. If I were to stand upon a giant gear, I could ride it around. As it turns according to its design, I can ride it up, I can ride it to the left, right, down, basically any direction I wish to go, with patience I can find myself in the position I wish to be. The gear, however, has its purpose and it is fulfilling it. It spins in the direction and at the speed that it was intended to do so. No amount of wishful thinking is going to speed it up, or make it change in its direction. It simply is what it is. I can make use of it accordingly, or I can step off and make my own way. Fighting against the motion of the gear will not gain you anything, but it may result in you being taken in a different direction than you wish, and possibly chewed up by the teeth, and weary to ever try and take the ride again. Watch the world around you, observe the patterns in nature, and if you need to ride the gear, or tube down the river, make sure its going in the direction you wish to go. Why hate the river for taking you downstream? *Edit* I missed my point in this. The gears spin regardless of what we think about it. The universe is bigger than human comprehension. Just because you think the gear is there to take you somewhere, doesn't mean that that is the case. The gear is there for the purposes that the watchmaker had in mind upon construction. Seldom do we understand the true intricacies of the watch that we are residing in.

Quick update

Hello,

Just a quick update.  I know I haven't posted in a few months.  Things are moving along, albeit slowly, with the church.  Palm Sunday is quickly approaching and then Easter.  I hope everyone celebrates accordingly and helps to bring in the hope that is associated with the season into their lives.

Also, on a side note, as a way of raising funds to help me pay for the church I have started to offer Geomancy readings through Keen.com  If you're interested please feel free to click the button.  :)

Merry Christmas, and Thank You!

As someone who works in law enforcement, I work many Holidays. In fact, with the exception of 2012 when I was on worker's comp after getting into a fight with a criminal where I was injured and required a surgical procedure to fix my wrist, I have worked every Christmas for the past 10 years (fortunately I am off today). I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone working today. Soldiers/Sailor/Airmen/Coasties/Marines who protect us,Cops on the beat, COs on a tier, Fire Fighters/Paramedics standing by (or responding) to save lives, Security Officers protecting our property, Dispatchers answering the calls for help, the factory workers who have to keep the great machine working, "bean-counters" who keep our books in check, custodians who keep our floors from being dangerous to walk on, maintenance workers who keep everything going, Physicians and Nurses who work to keep us alive and comfortable, Clergy who help us to understand God, and everyone else who helps to keep the Magnum Opus of Humanity working and thriving. Thank you to everyone who works to help keep everyone safe, alive, and thriving. Without your sacrifices we would still be living in caves. Thank you to everyone who has helped humanity progress to where we are now, and through whose efforts, we shall eventually reach the stars. Amen.

Who Are You?

So I haven't updated this blog in quite a while.  And there is a very good reason for that.  I'm remarkably lazy.  So lazy, that I didn't even write a sermon for today's service.  Fortunately, one of my friends, Adam Grossheider, who is in the minor orders happened to write an essay recently, and agreed to fill in at the podium for me.  Here is his writing "Who Are you?"

Who Are You?

By Adam Grossheider

 

 

“Who are you?” This question is one of the most daunting questions we could ever be asked. The struggle of identity is probably one of the single most troublesome issues that humanity has ever faced. It is the root and cause of much internal conflict as individuals and, also on a larger social scale, within groups. When we aren’t worrying about who we are, we often distract ourselves by worrying about who other people are, or who they claim to be, and how we can or cannot relate to them. This is no doubt the seed of conflict that stretches back to the beginning of time.

 

 

I once had a trusted friend challenge me with this question, Who are you? Who were we at birth before our experiences shaped us, if even our names were chosen for us as well? Never before had I been blatantly stopped in my tracks, and I found myself in a confused moment, fighting the urge to answer immediately to satiate my upset ego. Did my friend want an answer? I don’t believe the question was anything more than a rhetorical one, but one that was meant to be a catalyst. I sat at my computer like a cartoon with a giant exclamation point over my head and a grumbling scribble in my thought bubble.

 

This question led to others, chief among them being “Where are you going?” Not only did I have no idea who the hell I was, but now I naturally faced the inevitable question of purpose. What am I doing with myself? I felt small, confused, and inept. My friend had dropped the mic and walked away, but with the best of intentions. So there I sat, slightly angry and disappointed at myself. Granted, this was not any sort of catastrophic dilemma. I certainly was annoyed that my immediate answers to the question were feeble and only revealed how hard my ego was fighting for self-importance. In the coming weeks, the question loomed and persisted.

 

Let’s change gears for a moment and put this into context. Since I am mostly interested and involved in the Western Mystery Traditions, I will relate this subject in terms of those with which I am most familiar with. Within the Initiatic structures and even the religious traditions, at certain points you are charged to create for yourself a new name. In the magical traditions such as the Golden Dawn or similar organizations, the Magical Motto is chosen early in the journey to represent your inspirations, or most importantly, your spiritual aspirations. Dean Wilson of the same affiliation reminds us that “It symbolizes the end of the old way of life and the beginning of a new.” This implies and requires that transformation take place, that forward movement is necessary for advancement, as opposed to any sort of empty accomplishment. Those who view the motto in this light are misunderstanding its purpose and possibly setting themselves up for difficulty, delusion, and ultimately failure.

 

 

Within Freemasonry, one does not choose any sort of mystical name, but something even more elusive; the Mark. The Mark is chosen as a personal insignia upon completing the Mark Master degree. This degree, in the American York Rite arrangement, is the 4th degree and beginning of the Chapter after completing the Lodge degrees. To understand the philosophical context of the purpose of the Mark, consider both the operative and speculative purposes. Within operative Masonry, the stonecutter would “mark” his work as a sign of completion and submitted it to the overseers for inspection. In Speculative masonry, the “works” are his Thoughts, Words, and Actions, and his Mark is the sign that he has taken full responsibility for his moral and spiritual endeavors. Within this degree, for those that explore the esoteric side of the Craft, the candidate finds that the work of square angles may represent the Physical world and Material things, and that the work of circular curves may represent Spiritual things. This is directly reflected in the two principal symbols of the fraternity, The Square and the Compasses; representing the active and passive interplay between Heaven and Earth, the Above and the Below, Body and Spirit, Man and God, etc. To me, the Square has also always been Human Intuition, and the Compasses were Divine Inspiration. Where we have our identity and purpose is where we meet in the middle.

 

I was told to take my Mark seriously, even if those administering my own degree had no intention of interpreting Freemasonry in an esoteric way whatsoever, so I did. I produced a sigil made of a word that represented a guide toward my highest aspirations morally and spiritually. This was, in a way, my new name. It makes me think of the symbolism of death and transformation within the Initiatic and even the Ecclesiastical traditions, black habits representing the new role of becoming “dead to the world”, truthfully becoming dedicated to new service to God and Man.

 

 

To get back on track, there’s that word again, identity; the struggle that dawns on everyone of us. Who are we, and where are we going? In Masonry we simply ask “Whence came you?”, and “What came you here to do?”, the answers to both being quite purposely ambiguous and equally unhelpful unless you are willing to meditate on the subject of identity and purpose. The real answers of course, are much more personal and incommunicable.

 

 

This brings me to a possible explanation. What if all we can claim to be is all we aspire to? A fixed identity is an all too comfortable, lazy, and dangerous attempt to satisfy the ego in the world of meaning, which is far from the world of truth. It is a safe illusion we indulge in regardless of our intentions. The truth is, we are constantly changing, adapting, growing, and learning. This is the real struggle of identity, knowing that we might not have a face behind the mask at all, even though we often try to cement ourselves into a category. This threatens our tendency to feel special and unique, while the Greater Mysteries has been described as becoming willing to give up all individuality in the name of the greater good.

 

 

Maybe this is it, that our aspirations are, for all immediate intents and purposes, our identity. Are we not shaped by our habits and goals, and are these not supposed to evolve on the spiritual path? I have not answered the question. I might never, and that no longer bothers me. I have a blurry idea that if my aspirations are noble and that my intentions and actions reflect them truthfully, I can honestly say that this is all the identity needs to be.

 

 

So where does this leave us? Don’t freak out over who you are or where you’re going, because you might not have the foggiest. Take time to form a goal worth striving for, and this journey towards that goal will truly shape who you are, and that may be all that matters in this life, and we can only hope to help others along the way.

 

ISM Frontiers

Quick a very quick post today.  Bishop Lainie, Father Greg, and myself have been working on a podcast aimed at the ISM.  The show is called ISM Frontiers.

The first episode is about what the ISM is.  The link is here:  http://ismfrontiers.com/what-is-the-ism/

The second episode is the first in a two-part on why some ISM churches fail.  http://ismfrontiers.com/ism-community-dissolution-and-failure-part-1/

And finally here is a link to the show's website direct.  http://ismfrontiers.com/

Take care.

READ A BOOK!

Today I stopped at the drug store to refill my prescription of "Happy Pills".  Or perhaps I should call it "Happy Juice" since I take medications in liquid form these days due to my digestive system looking more and more like a Rube Goldberg Machine these days.  While I was at the drug store, I happened to look at the bookshelf and saw a series of religious books.  I suppose if you're taking medications to keep you alive its not a bad idea to have some religious study material just in case the pills don't work so good.

One of the books I saw happened to have a small sticker on it that advertised that its only $1.99.  Being a cheapskate (renting a church space isn't cheap folks) I picked it up and decided to give it a read, taking Handy's coveted advice.

Fans of The Tick shall rejoice

The book was "Know your Bible Illustrated" by Paul Kent.  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to put that in quotes or to underline it.  College was a long time ago, and I doubt I did it right back then either.

Its a very brief book that gives a very simple overview of each of the books of the bible, some nice quotes, some handsome photos, and a couple of key scriptures of each in order to convey some of the more important elements of that that particular book is about.

If you yourself need a basic intro book, or more likely someone asks you to recommend one that is VERY easy to read and fairly inexpensive, I'd recommend it.  GRANTED, I have not completed the book, but so far what I've read is very basic and ideal for a beginner.  It is written with a more protestant mindset, but its a good introductory material for anyone who might be a bit curious about where to start with scripture reading.

I was able to get it for 2 bucks, which is a very good price, but amazon has it for $6.  Which isn't terrible, but I'd avoid spending any more than that.  I have a link below for you to click on to get it.  Because I'm thoughtful like that.

Know Your Bible Illustrated

Be safe

On June 17th, 2015, a group of 15 men, woman, and children met at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina for a Bible study class.  When they met, they found that a newcomer had dropped in.  For about an hour the young man sat and participated in the class, before eventually pulling out a weapon, began to shout racial slurs, and eventually opened fire on the group.  9 were killed, and 5 others were injured.

I thought about this and the Community of St. James that I serve at.  As someone who works in law enforcement, I have the privilege of carrying a firearm off duty.  For a brief moment, I though that I would be able to stop such a thing.  But soon I gave some thoughts to the fact that I carry my firearms in an inside-the-pant holster in my waistband.  Over which is my cassock.  Over that is my alb.  Around that is a cincture.  And over that is a stole.  By the time I got my fairly ridiculous fancy dresses off to even reach my gun, I and everyone around me would likely be dead.

This is not, unfortunately, the first attack on a church.  In fact, they're more common than one would think.  Shootings, bombings, and other attacks on churches and other religious buildings are on the rise. 

Its easy to think that churches in the ISM community would be immune to this, either for reasons of small congregations or just being obscure, but frankly it would be foolish to truly think that this sort of thing could never happen to our community.  Ours, much like any other community, is just as likely to attract someone who happens to be disturbed and in need of help.  Most ISM churches are very small, but the Charleston attack happened during a very small class.  In fact, it may have been chosen specifically for its size where he would likely face fewer people who could try and intervene (rather than during the church's Sunday service with far more people).

The ISM community, just like mainstream churches, need to give some thought to emergency planning.  Take into account that some ISM churches actually meet in private homes, where strangers may enter to a place where our families are, and this is even more apparent. 

I'm certainly not about to advocate that everyone start packing and turn your average mass into a scene from the Boondock Saints, but some common sense security protocols are easy to implement. 

Have a safety and security meeting.  Discuss plans for certain members to be the ones to call 911 immediately when someone starts to act in a manner in which you feel they may become a danger to themselves and others.  Have a drill to practice evacuations, not only for security reasons, but safety as well.  Candles, incense, flowing robes, and altar linens are a recipe for greater risk of fires.  Make sure you have a fire extinguisher for obvious reasons, and that people know where it is and that its accessible. 

Make sure exits are marked, accessible, and easy to find.  You never want to put something in front of the door for convenient storage only to find out later that you now have a mother and baby who can't get around your giant stack of hymnal books that you were going to find a place for some other time.

Know your congregants.  Anyone who has ever gone to a bar that has newly opened will discover that after the doors first open all the people who have acted up and been banned from other taverns will flock to the new one.  People who are difficult, stalkerish, and/or just plain nuts may look for new church communities after being tossed out of their previous environments.  If your church happens to meet in a private home, try to have new potential members meet for a church "Coffee meeting" or brunch or something similar at a more public place before inviting strangers into your home.

Talk to your police and fire officials.  Ask them about crimes in the area.  Have there been a series of hate crimes, or burglaries to churches in the area?  You may be able to have a police officer or firefighter come and give a presentation about what to do in an emergency.  Fire departments frequently have first aid classes, or fire prevention presentations (often these are around Christmas time).  See if your area has a neighborhood watch, perhaps invite one of them to speak, or better yet, join them at a meeting and see what they're working on.

Secure your stuff.  In my job I am surrounded by criminals.  One of the charges that I see quite often is Burglary to a Place of Worship.  Churches tend to have very fancy candles, monstrances, stuff made of gold (or brass that looks like gold and is just as enticing), and often there is money lying around.  At my old church money was just kind of kept lying in a box, which in my security-prone mindset I found maddening.  Keep doors and cabinets locked.  Have adequate lighting on the exterior.  Even if you just go to a hardware store and get some solar powered lights.  Having complex security systems is of course expensive, and things that are too expensive are just not very feasible in the ISM or small churches in general, but fortunately cell phone and internet based "local" security systems are available from distributors that are easy to install by yourself and don't cost and arm and a leg.  The presence of a few door and window sensors along with a control panel on the wall and warning stickers (which you can get a wireless set with a couple sensors, a panel, and motion detector for roughly $200 if you shop around) may make a would-be burglar pick another place to target. 

If you have a physical building, take a moment to think about who has keys.  When was the last time you changed the locks?  Have they ever been changed?  How many copies of those keys have you passed out over the years to people who have quit, died, or moved away?  Who had copies before you moved in?  Do you have renters?  Are you a renter, and wonder how many people can let themselves in while you're in the middle of a service without you knowing?

Are you in the city?  If so you've probably got a good chance that if you call 911 police, fire, or paramedics will show up fairly promptly.  What about if you're rural?  If you've got a volunteer fire dept. in your town, how long will it take for them to get there if there is in fact a shooting, or just a member with a heart attack.  Does anyone in the clergy know CPR?  Do you have an AED machine and/or know how to use one?  First aid kit?  Flashlights for power outages?  If for some reason the EMTs can't get to you in time, do you know how to get to the hospital?  Does your deacon?  How about your subdeacon?  (Subdeacons are fairly clueless aren't they?)

I'm giving consideration to writing a book about some basic security and safety procedures for small churches.  If you have any questions anything else related to this subject, please let me know.  I have 15 years of law enforcement and security experience, but that certainly doesn't mean that I know everything there is to know, so if you have any advice to share I encourage you to do it here, or one of the various ISM forums or groups online.  Often we find ourselves squabbling with one another, but when a disaster strikes one of us, it strikes all of us.  And when it comes to protecting ourselves we all need to work together in this, regardless of our denominational tendencies.