My Good Goodbye

I have been working as a Hospice Chaplain for a short time that has effected me a great deal. I do not think you can work with the dying and not be think about your own death. So I am stuck thinking about what would be a good goodbye for me? Let me explain what I mean...

As I am percent with people who are dying I do a lot of talking about what is a good goodbye. Very simply a good goodbye is when a person is able to say four things; Forgive me, I forgive you, Thank you, and I love you. The goodbye is said to everyone and to no one at the same time.

What do you think of this idea of a good goodbye?

What would be a good goodbye to you?

My New Job

This last week I was offered a job with Heart and Home Hospice and Palliative Care LLC. Starting in June I will be serving as their chaplain to the sick and die and to those who care for them. I take the job with mixed fillings. I see the great need and service that comes with caring for the dyeing, yet there is a great nagging in me as I think of the weight that comes from walking with another to eternity and I wonder about my ability to handle it. I pray that I will have the insight and presents to stand for Jesus beside the dyeing.

May I never forget what a privilege it is to walk with someone to the end of this life.

My Review of Vincent J. Miller

Consuming Religion by Vincent J. Miller

This is a short review of a book that I read for my theology of Church class. This book has informed me more than any other book I have read in some time. In fact I am sure that there are some out there who are sick and tired of me talking about this book. That is why I chose to write about it instead. Please give it a gander and leave some feedback.

The Dangers of Commodification

Our consumerist culture has immersed us in the practice of commodification. As people become consumers, they stop being producers. A deskilling happens that causes individuals to look to the consumer market to replace what they once could do for themselves, I.E. buying food, clothing, and shelter instead of producing them oneself. This cycle causes individuals to disconnect from the creativity of their jobs and to see their time as an exchange for a wage. Commodification turns individuals into commodities.[1] Moving from looking at commodification and its effects on religion Miller suggests commodification takes belief and practice out of their traditional contexts and makes them marketable commodities. By using corporate media, religious leaders encourage their followers to engage religious beliefs and symbols with the interpretive habits and dispositions they use for commercial popular culture.[2] Belief and practice become disconnected; belief does not always inform practice. When beliefs are embraced outside of their traditional context it is less likely that they will affect ones actions in life.[3]

The Hope that Stewarding Religious Traditions Would Counter Commodification

Miller suggests that commodification is countered by reembedding and deepening agency.[4] By strengthening the connections between symbols and beliefs with their communal traditions, people might change their role in culture from consumer to agent. People now readily engage all of culture, including their religion, as an object for passive consumption, rather than active, tradition-bound engagement. The latter is precisely the sort of agency that must be strengthened within religious communities to counter the erosion of consumer culture.[5]

Conclusion

Miller upholds that commodification is countered as each religious community opposes the cultural tide of commodification from their own resources.[6] In my assessment, this is a great thing. It means that there is no perfect answer, that each community of faith will need to work out the problem of commodification in its own context and find gospel responses that are relevant there in.

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[1] Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion (New York, NY: Continuum, 2003),15

[2] Miller, Consuming Religion, 73

[3] Miller, Consuming Religion, 76,83

[4] Miller, Consuming Religion, 182

[5] Miller, Consuming Religion, 188

[6] Miller, Consuming Religion,

My Question For You.

I had the privilege of taking a class with Jason Clark on the theology of church. The class was killer. It has helped to reinforce my hope for the church and my desire to work with it. The class covered such topics as consumerism, deep church, emergent church, bricolage and so much more. Which I will post on if there is any interest, or if I have time.

While checking out Jason’s blog I came across a conversation on universalism. For those who need clarification and what universalism is (as I did) I have provided a brief definition.

1. EXCLUSIVISM: Those who live and die without receiving christ will go to Hell, whether or not they heard the Gospel. This is a postion Calvin took in the reformation, developing Augustine’s dislike of broad salvation. Sometimes this is known as ‘restictivism’, where by the majority of mankind will not be saved. This view was not that of the early church, but after the reformation can be traced as a dominant view in fundamentalist churches, and more generally in evangelical churches, asserting that unless people accept christ personally, they won’t be saved. However even most evangelicals make exceptions for mentally ill people, and children, which leads us to the next version.

2. INCLUSIVISM: This asserts that anyone saved will only be so through Jesus, and in no other way. But it allows God’s grace and salvation to extend to others who have had an imperfect knowledge of him, i.e have not had the chance to know who he is and chose or reject him. People are saved on the basis of what they have know not on what they haven’t. This allows for people before the time of Christ, i.e Israel in the OT, children, mentally ill people, but opens up the possibility of adults of other religions or none to be saved (see The Last Battle by C S Lewsi for an example of this!).

3. PLURALISM: The idea here is that all relgions point and lead to God. It does not assert that everyone will be saved though, and allows for some people to not be saved, ie Hitler etc.

4. UNIVERSALISM: This goes further than pluralism, in that you don’t need any religion to be saved. Everyone regardless of what they believe, or have done, is saved, unlike pluralism which allows for the idea that some people won’t be saved.

So, where would you place yourself on the topic? What are you out of these four and why? Or are you something not named here, and if so what is that and how do you define it.

My Attempt at Mouth Juggling

This morning while at church I was enjoying a delicious piece of Mojito Mint gum. All was going well until it came to the Lord's supper. When the tray with the bread came my way I was forced to take one of two courses of action. One, spit the gum into my hand and pretend nothing was wrong while I took the bread, but this course requires both steady hands and the ability to endure the feeling of my own saliva on my hand, which I have neither, so I choose the other course. I would mouth juggle. (I know what you're thinking-he could have swallowed the gum, but Mojito Mint is hard to come by, plus it takes seven years to digest and I just don't have that kind of time.)

Mouth juggling is a tasked preformed when you have to hold both gum and another food particle in your mouth at the same time. The juggling comes into play when you start to chew. You have to use your tongue like a juggler uses his hands to keep the particles of food from coming into contact with your gum.

Not an easy task but with at little practice anyone can become efficient at it. Give it a try next time you take communion.

My Little Insight

Here is a man that takes old nails out of boards for a living. As I watch him at his work it was clear to see that he enjoyed his job. This got me thinking about a young friend of mine, and how this would be the prefect job for him,

If you can tell me whom I am talking about. I'll give you a dollar.

My Random Mind

May latest Class

"Can truth be taught?" my teacher asked as she entered the room. "Well of course not. Which is it's self a truth."

This was how my week of class started. The class over all was good. We talked about a lot of thing that I'm going to have to spend some time getting my mind around them. But the one thing that struck me and I hope will stay with me is that not knowing is the begging of knowing. The idea is that we as people of face or of the habit of knowing. We know right from wrong, good from bad. We are Christians thus we have it all figured out. If at any given time we admit we don't have it all together we are seen to be fake. Why is this? Only God knows. If we could say that we don't know. We don't know fully what God's will is. We don't know fully what is right. Then maybe we could start to learn. Not to come again to knowing but rather to journey in not knowing.

My Favorite Job

For the past few months I have been a stay at home dad. Who knew that I could love this so much. In Fact I truly would not mind making this my life. To be with my girl and in the future the other that will be my children. It's a great thing to be with ones baby.

Here is a picture to show you what I mean.



That will come in handy down the road. Did some one say black mail.