Nick's Bytes

The Names of God

2008-09-07T07:13:00.009-04:00

YHWH

Back in 1906, Albert Schweitzer published a book entitled The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede. For years theologians had been attempting to develop of portrait of Jesus based on history rather than the limited information contained the four—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—canonical gospels.

Schweitzer concluded that the “historical Jesus” presented in such studies were reflections of the authors' own historical and social contexts. In other words, if the author was a conservative German theologian then the Jesus he portrayed would have all the attributes of a conservative German Lutheran theologian; if the author was a liberal Scottish Presbyterian pastor, then the Jesus he portrayed had all the attributes of a liberal Scottish Presbyterian pastor.

I was reminded of Schweitzer’s conclusions last week as I read an email forwarded to me by another United Church of Christ pastor. She (rightly in my view) was concerned about the email’s author’s fundamentalist view of God. In part the email read:

…to believe that God is not male is a heresy deserving of eternal damnation.

The email was, of course, written by a man. I was reminded not only of Albert Schweitzer’s finding but also of the statement that in the beginning God created human kind in God’s image and human kind has been repaying the compliment ever since.

As I see it, one of the (many) problems of describing God—or Jesus or Moses or Buddha or Mohammed, etc.—in our own image is that the very act proclaims that we are OK and everyone not like us is not OK. Or worse, that indicates that we are superior to all who are not like us in skin color, gender, education, national origin, and everything else.

That kind of exclusivity at the very least makes dialogue between folks difficult and at the worst easily leads to genocide.

In the third Chapter of the book of Exodus, Moses asks God’s name and God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And (God) said, "Say this to the people of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"

YHWH—I am—says that God is who God is, not who you and I or anyone else wants God to be. I like that. I like that a lot! I like it much, much better than human beings creating God in their own image.

And, I really like then inclusivity of this hymn and I hope you will take a moment or two to listen to it:

Bring Many Names

Bring many names, beautiful and good,
Celebrate, in parable and story,
Holiness in glory, living, loving God.
Hail and Hosanna! Bring many names!

Strong mother God, working night and day,
Planning all the wonders of creation,
Setting each equation, genius at play:
Hail and Hosanna, strong mother God!

Warm father God, hugging every child,
Feeling all the strains of human living,
Caring and forgiving, till we’re reconciled:
Hail and Hosanna, warm father God!

Old, aching God, grey with endless care,
Calmly piercing evil’s new disguises,
Glad of good surprises, wiser than despair:
Hail and Hosanna, old, aching God!

Young, growing God, eager, on the move,
Saying no to falsehood and unkindness,
Crying out for justice, giving all you have:
Hail and Hosanna, young, growing God!

Great, living God, never fully known,
Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing,
Closer yet than breathing, everlasting home:
Hail and Hosanna, great, living God!

The Fine Art of Cat Napping

2008-09-06T02:00:00.001-04:00

While other bloggers are presenting exquisite photographs of their vacations, of neat places they have visited, of family celebration, of flowers, mountains, and the sea, I have been taking photographs of Alex sleeping.

Below are a few that demonstrate the Fine Art of Cat Napping:

An Explanation

2008-09-05T00:01:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I received an email from a friend who is also a blogger asking me why I haven’t been visiting her blog as much as in the past. I sent her an answer and later realized that other bloggers may be asking the same question. Please allow me to explain:

My health is deteriorating. It’s not that I am on my last legs or anything like that, but I do lack the energy I had just a few months ago. Therefore, I don't read as many blogs each day as I once did. I am often lucky to be awake long enough to able to post on my blogs.

For example, yesterday I awoke at 7:30 a.m. and by 10:00 a.m. needed to nap. I napped until about noon and by 2:30 p.m. I was down for another nap until about 4:30 or so. Again, around 7:00 p.m., I was again asleep and napped until about 10:15. I was exhausted again and retired a bit before midnight.

With more than 160 blogs on my blog roll—which is, I might add, again back on the sidebar of Nick’s Bytes—it now takes me as long as two or three weeks to visit all of the blogs.

So, if you don’t see me commenting on your blog, it is because I lack the time and energy to get to every blog that I truly want to read. If there happens to be something special that you want me to see or comment upon, give me a holler—email—and I’ll be over to visit.

Below are a couple of photographs that I snapped of Alex when I inadvertently awakened him from one of his naps yesterday. From the last several photos I have posted of him, you may have noticed that the furball has now appropriated my desk as well as my kitchen table.

The Shower Curtain

2008-09-04T00:01:00.001-04:00

She walked into the kitchen where I was cleaning up after dinner and said, “I want this.” Actually, it was more like a command than a request or a statement.

I turned from the sink and looked at what she was holding. It was the new shower curtain that I had recently purchased, still enclosed in its clear plastic case.

“You live in a hotel,” I replied. “What would you do with a shower curtain?”

“I’m gonna cut it up and make it into a dress,” she said.

“That’s absurd,” I said. “That cloth is too heavy for a dress. Besides, I just bought that and…”

“But you ain’t using it now and I want it!”

“I am going to put it up. Soon. So you can’t have it.”

“Well, can I have your coffee maker then?”

Do you get the drift?

Every time she came to my house—no, every time I was in contact with her anywhere—she wanted something.

Once she “borrowed” my expensive (to me) Bose radio because “I ain’t got no music to listen to in my room.” When I asked for it back, I learned that her boyfriend had pawned it. (Luckily I was able to retrieve it after paying $70.00 to the pawn broker).

Another time she left my house with my nicest chess set in her backpack. By the time I had realized that it was gone, she had lost four of its pieces.

I could go on, but the memories actually hurt.

I had tried to help her when she was down and out and stranded in Louisville. She had been introduced to me by an ex-parishioner who, I later learned, was fed-up with her “I wants.” I assisted her in returning to her Pennsylvania home and thought I had done a mitzvah—a good deed. Within three months she was back in Louisville—and in need.

In that manner she bounced in and out of Louisville—and my life—for two years. And each time she contacted me her situation was… desperate.

Eventually even an old helper-dude like me learned and I would say no to her demands and not back down. Eventually I learned what it means to befriend a manipulative drug addict. It’s a relationship with lots of pain and few, if any, rewards.

The last time I heard from her was about 15 months ago. She telephoned—collect—from a jail in Arizona. I did not accept the charges.

The shower curtain she wanted now hangs in my bathroom.

FYI: Alex is still taking his meds OK, napping a lot, and spending his awake time wherever I am. I snapped this photo of him at 9:09 p.m. this evening:

Wednesday Coffeehouse: Theolonious Monk & Lenny Bruce

2008-09-03T00:45:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the coffeehouse! Today we feature jazz pianist, Theolonious Sphere Monk, and the foremost comedian of the Beat Generation, Lenny Bruce.

Robin D. G. Kelley, Professor of Anthropology, African American Studies, and Jazz Studies at Columbia University, says of Theo Monk:

Today Thelonious Monk is widely accepted as a genuine master of American music. His compositions constitute the core of jazz repertory and are performed by artists from many different genres. He is the subject of award winning documentaries, biographies and scholarly studies, prime time television tributes, and he even has an Institute created in his name. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was created to promote jazz education and to train and encourage new generations of musicians. It is a fitting tribute to an artist who was always willing to share his musical knowledge with others but expected originality in return.

Lenny Bruce, like Theolonious Monk, was a trendsetter. He brought onto the stage a kind of humor that not been shared in public since before the Victorian age. David Skover writes:

Lenny Bruce's words had the power to provoke laughter and debate—as well as shock and outrage. It was the force of his voice that would place him on the wrong side of the law in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York…

Lenny committed his life to telling the truth. But the truth he told infuriated those in power, and authorities in the largest, most progressive cities in the country worked effortlessy to put him in jail. To them, Lenny's words were filthy and depraved. But to his friends—the hip, the discontented, the fringe—his words were not only sharp and hilarious, they were a light in the dark to the repressed society of the early 1960's.

Please don’t be concerned about Lenny’s poem below, Psycopathia Sexualis; it is very tame.

We begin with a jazz set featuring Theolonious Monk. So grab a cuppa joe and jive to the beat.

Theolonious Monk: April in Paris

Theolonious Monk: Introspection

Before Monk’s second set, allow me to introduce the foremost comedian of the Beat Generation, Mr. Lenny Bruce.

Lenny Bruce: Psycopathia Sexualis

And now, back to the magic fingers of Theo Monk.

Theolonious Monk: Round Midnight

Theolonious Monk: Theolonious

Previous Coffeehouses featuring

Leonard Cohen

Bob Gibson & Bob Camp

The Kingston Trio

Carmen McRae, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Steve Allen, Dave Brubeck, Del Close & John Brent

Judy Collins & Arlo Guthrie

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

In case anyone is interested, all of the audios I post are from my own CDs.