Wikicreedia Is Happening!

Well, everyone, after a productive and encouraging meeting this afternoon, it looks like we have the technology; Wikicreedia is on its way!

What we need to do, concerned citizens and clergy, is meet to talk about the first steps, secondary thoughts, and real vision we want to bring to Wikicreedia.

In other words, it's time for the Wikicreedia Steering Committee. And by my adamant and inflexible timeline, we should meet at least once in August, so we can actually get underway in September. Possible issues for the meeting include:

What Should be On the First Page?
Should Wikicreedia's Timeline Be Changed?
Who Gets Access, Editing, and When?
What is the Role of the Clergy in Wikicreedia?
Should Wikicreedia Address the Technology Gap?
Statement or Story? Style?
When Should We Meet Again?

And of course, any issues you bring yourselves. If you've read to the bottom of this, by the way, you're officially nominated to participate. And you're more than welcome to invite someone else. If I can't get at least four people, I'll come around and nominate you personally. Possibly with Aron as backup.

The thread attached to this is in my mind's eye the place where we agree on a time and date to meet. I'll start by proposing we meet at Gethsemane the second Tuesday in August, 7:00 PM. One Hour.

You can reject this, but only if you have something different to offer. So have at it!

And Thank You, So Much, for The Interest!

Old School: Reverend Neville Tinker

And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead. And he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there, he would be there..."

- No Country for Old Men

During the tenure of Nevill Tinker, Gethsemane came for the first time to be on the border of an underprivileged neighborhood. There were several break-ins, as a result of which Tinker stepped up the community welfare program. He hired a director for the new Downtown Foundation and its recreational programs and basketball games. Finally, the church joined the Displaced Persons Project, and adopted a 17-year old girl from central Europe.

For the church itself, Tinker added a 9:30 service and enlarged the choir. He also taught adult education classes, and added an extra Friday Lenten service. Inspired, the Women's Guild increased their pledge. The whole congregation liberally contributed to missionary funds and church memorials.

In 1950, Tinker hired one Reverend Harlan Coykendall as curate, and it was Coykendall who took over Tinker's position as rector when he moved East one year later.

Old School: John S. Higgins

"And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead. And he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there, he would be there..."

- No Country for Old Men

The Reverend Higgins began his ministry by restarting the Parish Visitor and announcing a five-year plan to restore and preserve the now-historic church. Massive repairs followed, fiscally provided by the congregation. However, the repairs were not without controversty, as new memorial projects had to replace old ones. To resolve this, Higgins created the Book of Memorials, a permanent record of all memorial projects.

Meanwhile, WWII began, and the rationing of oil required Gethsemane to switch to coal heat. Higgins oversaw this change, and erected the first war memorial in Minneapolis, to remember those from Gethsemane who had given their lives, and to offer a place for prayers over the fallen of any denomination.

Yet in these sober times, church attendance continued to grow, requiring the purchase of new pews. Higgins installed a library for the Campfire Girls; in collaboration with The Eliot Park House, Gethsemane started a program for eight to twelve-year olds. After the war, the men's club restarted.

Reverend Higgins resigned effective August 1.

Editorial: Let Them Grow Together

Let Them Grow Together

“In gathering the weeds, you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”- Matthew 13

The Quaker John Woolman had a message from God. He had to stop supporting slavery. And he did, wouldn’t even buy the products. But the mission grew. He had to stop slavery altogether. He had to change the way that other people lived, immediately, entirely, and forever.

Now he was not going to accomplish this alone. So he took it to his church. And it seemed hopeless. John Woolman’s integrity and character were beyond question; his message was authentic. But his community was the thriving Quaker merchants and tradesmen of colonial New Jersey, growing prosperous on the very trade Woolman decried as the brutest of evils.

They lacked the will to change. So did Woolman. And Quaker meetings then and now only reach decision by consensus. No authority was going to produce a decree. No backroom brokering was going to shuffle out a deal. The decision had to be the product of Spirit creating consensus among equals. And it wasn’t going to happen.

So his church, even while upholding slavery, said an astonishing thing. They said, “Because of your authenticity, John Woolman, we will entirely support you and your family as you go out and preach your message among us, for as long as it takes. We will hold this tension, and see what new revelation you can bring.”

After twenty long, hard years of John Woolman’s itinerant preaching, the Quaker meetings slowly began to see the light. And Quakers soon became most strident Abolitionists- not because of their collective moral clarity, but because of this oddball decision: to pay someone to subvert them.

They decided to grow together.

Today we have a lot of weeds. I don’t know how many enemies we have, I don’t know how much that language resonates in a country so historically secure. But I know we have weeds. You do too.

You know who they are. They are those people. They don’t understand us. They irrationally cling to their beliefs in spite of overwhelming evidence. They are petty and small- minded and bitter and vindictive and afraid. And they work to overcome and undermine us and the greater good. They make us want to pull out our hair. No matter what we say to or do with these people, they just will not see the light of day in spite of what is transparently just and fair and right.

You know them. They’re your neighbors. Not because they are right, but because they will not go away. We cannot get rid of them without in some way getting rid of us. So they will be there.

Now what are we going to do about it? In the parable, the premier itinerant preacher described the kingdom of God as a mess. It’s not going the way it’s supposed to. Some plants clearly shouldn’t be there. They’re the products of the enemy! The enemy! Even according to God!

Small wonder the field-hands wanted to go get them, yank them out and burn. But the Kingdom of God is not like that. The place we’re in is the place we’re in together. And what is Christ’s solution? Let them grow together. Wait till God can tell wheat from weed. Until then, everything must grow.

Did you catch that? Fields need tending. Harvests require water. Not only is Jesus telling the hands not to pull the weeds, but also to take care of them. They must irrigate the infidel! Not because everyone’s good at heart, and not because everything is helpful, but because we all share common ground, humus, the material of which human life is made.

Let them grow together.

The kingdom of God is not the domain of wheat. It is the power of God and the principality of love. So weeds get invited. Immigrating irritants sit at God’s table right along with us. So you might as well enjoy the feast, because everyone gets fed.

But what does this mean? People are not wheat or weeds. We have water and earth and sunlight, and we still don’t grow. We don’t live on these alone. We need more. We need to furrow our hearts. To see the kingdom of God we must irrigate our souls.

How? We’re Episcopalians! We know what to do. What we pray shapes what we believe, and the Kingdom of God is built upon belief. So over the next several months we’re going to be talking about prayer, having a conversation about contemplation. And we’re going to be doing it. No one else is, not here, not in this city, even though our culture needs, above all else, the stillness to hear a voice. It’s an exciting thing, and I don’t know where it’s going.

But I can tell you this. In the last five years, the best thing I’ve done, and that includes half a dozen careers and a full-length novel, the best thing I’ve done in five years is sit for half an hour in silence. And I’m terrible at it! I quit. I come back. I skip it on weekends. I skip it to see friends. I only do it half the time I should.

And that failure’s given me the Spirit in a new way, after sixteen years of Christian faith. I’m just tired of doing it alone. So we’re going to talk about prayer, we’re going to do it. And we’re going to invite others to join right in. New Monasticism, a movement that’s reviving ancient spiritual practices and putting them right in modern urban settings exactly like this, is chiefly populated by evangelicals.

Turns out they need silence, too. So we’re going to invite them. We’re going to invite everyone, quietly, because we’re plants in a field, or in a garden, if you prefer that language. And our objective is fertility: be fruitful. And we know that prayer in stillness is how that happens.

So let them grow together. We don’t know much about the Kingdom, but we do know two things: it is already here, and we already have everything we need. So we have a policy and we have a currency and we have some citizens. A few citizens. Okay, not that many citizens, but we’re looking for more. And we are, we are getting more.

Except that Jesus had some other things to say about wheat. The Gospel of John, Chapter 12: “Most assuredly, I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it.”

So we need to die. We need to pray, and then we need to die. Think I’m joking? Look at that window. Gethsemane. As a child, that was my favorite Scripture, which no one understood because it was so dark and scary. Maybe that’s why I liked it. But Gethsemane doesn’t feel that scary anymore. It’s a garden now. You grow your tomatoes and strawberries and take care of them and water them and it’s nice. You probably don’t think about death. I wouldn’t.

But we need to die. We need to die individually, and this church needs to die. We’ve died before, right? Before I came here. The doors were all but closed. Now we’re up and walking around again and wondering what to do. And that’s all right. We have other things like that. We have something that’s dead and reanimated by outside forces that gets up and stumbles around, walks kind of slow. But I don’t want to be a zombie church. I don’t think we are one. But I think we could be.

Yet that wasn’t the first time we died. In the middle of the Great Depression this church lost between two and four thousand dollars every year. That’s dying. That’s going the other way. But the fundraising committee, the fundraising committee, went around to every parishioner and asked, what can we do to help? And we opened up the church to let every misbegotten young man have a program here, entirely on our dime, just to get them off the streets. Not a survival strategy.

So you see there’s a way to die. You cannot die alone. What good is one stalk of wheat? No, you die for the field, for the harvest. Die unto yourself. Die for others. So where is the growth in Minneapolis? Surely there must be something. What are other churches doing for the kingdom of God? We need to find that out. What are they doing for children, for the poor? We need to find that out, and then we need to ask them, what do you need, and how can we help?

Let them grow together.

Now I understand we have enough money to keep this church going for two more years. That’s entirely too much. Gather no manna for tomorrow. So that’s another thing to ask the churches that get it right: will you take our money? Will you take our service, our people and talents? Even without our oversight? If they’re evangelicals, we need to help them evangelize. If they’re Pentecostal we need to help them sing. Because selves die for other selves. Churches die for other churches.

How can churches work together? To change the world we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to figure out how to steer. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should not best Christ in partnerships.

See, it’s not that there are too few Episcopals. It’s that there are too few Christians. So how can there be more? How can we build church attendance generally? How can we make church better? Not by filling it up with us. I don’t know, maybe we can swap churches. Bring the Pentecostals or the African Methodists in once or twice a year. They come here, we go there. If a few people get confused in the shuffle, maybe all the better for the harvest. This is a beautiful building inside. It stops people. That’s why it cannot be for us. That’s why we need to pour it out, empty it of us.

Let them grow together. It’s a biological axiom that if you’re not growing, you are dead. The Christian rule might be that if you’re not dying, then you’re not alive. So we need to pray, and then we need to die. Not because I said so or even because the Gospel says so, but because in the words of the poet Gwendolyn Brooks,

“We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. And we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

Cliff Notes: Saintliness

This lecture marks the begging of the second half of the Varieties, and we can sense, perhaps, where James is ultimately going when he reiterates the four fruits of the conversion process:

1. A feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world. In Christian saintliness this is always personified as God.

2. A sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power with our own life, and a willing self-surrender to its control.

3. An immense elation and freedom.

4. A shifting of the emotional centre towards loving and harmonious affections, towards "yes, yes," and away from "no," where the claims of the non-ego are concerned.

The "yes, yes" and the "no," James refers to are the "pushing forward" of impulse and the "pulling back" of inhibition. In James' estimation we live always in a sea of these opposed forces, and our actions and decisions always favor one or the other. Apparently in James's view conversion means a shift toward the affirmative- presumably following our more beneficent impulses.

At any rate, the four psychic fruits result in four practical results:

Asceticism (self-surrender)
Strength of Soul (patience and fortitude)
Purity (psychic cleansing)
and Charity (tenderness for fellow creatures).

The rest of the lecture on saintliness consists of detailed exempla of all these eight practical and spiritual fruits and their combinations.

Thoreau gives us wider life, "in the midst of a gentle rain I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature. Every little pine-needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me." Christ gives us charity, "Love your enemies." St. Francis gives us Strength of Soul by kissing lepers. John Woolman gives us purity by refusing to wear dyed clothing, even hats, as dyes came from slave trade and labor.

And Saint John of the Cross gives us Asceticism:

"Let your soul therefore turn always:
Not to what is most easy, but to what is hardest;
Not to what most pleases, but to what disgusts;
Not to will anything, but to will nothing;
Despise yourself, and wish that others should despise you;
To know all things, learn to know nothing.
For to come to the All you must give up the All."

And here James quotes lengthy examples from Catholic asceticism, noting that the most extreme cases must be deemed pathological, as in the founder of the Sacred Heart order, who said, "nothing but pain makes my life supportable." Where the ascetic and purificatory impulses are married, the individual often "may well find the outer world too full of shocks to dwell in, and can unify his life and keep his soul unspotted only by withdrawing from it."

James concludes the lecture by mentioning to broader traits of saintliness he admits that he does not understand: the vows of obedience and poverty prevalent across religious orders the world over. Of obedience he notes, "it evidently corresponds to a profound interior need of many persons, and we must do our best to understand it." And of poverty he concludes, "Only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away."

Excerpt: Saintliness, from the Varieties

For your edification, the account of Suso, a fourteenth-century German monk, as recounted by William James:

"He was in his youth of a temperament full of fire and life...and he sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjugation. He wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain, until the blood ran from him...He secretly had an undergarment made for him; and in the undergarment he had strips of leather fixed, into which a hundred and fifty brass nails were driven, pointed and filed sharp, and the points of the nails were turned always toward the flesh. In this he used to sleep at night.

Now in summer he would, when it was hot, and he was very tired and ill, and he lay thus in bonds and tormented by insects, cry aloud and give way to fretfulness...so he devised something further- two leather loops into which he put his hands, and fastened one on each side of his throat, so that even if his cell had been on fire he could not have helped himself.

This he continued until his arms had become almost tremulous with the strain, then he devised something else: two leather gloves, and a brazier between them, studded with sharp-pointed brass tacks, so that if he should try to throw off the hair undergarment, or relieve himself from the gnawing of the insects, the tacks might then stick into his body. So it came to pass. If ever he sought to help himself, he drove the sharp tacks into his breast, and tore himself, so that his flesh festered.

He continued this exercise for about sixteen years. At the end of this time a messenger of heaven came to tell him God required this of him no longer. Thus he took all these things and threw them into the running stream.

Then in imitation of Christ our Lord, he made himself a cross with thirty protruding iron needles and nails. This he bore on his bare back between his shoulders day and night. The first time that he stretched out this cross upon his back his slender frame was struck by the terror of it, and blunted the nails with a stone. But he then repented of this womanish cowardice and pointed them again with a file, and wore the cross once more.

It made his back, where the bones are, bloody and seared...if anyone touched him unawares, or pushed against his clothes, it tore him. For penitence he devised means of pushing the nails deeper in his flesh by striking the cross.

Also at this time he procured an old castaway door, and he used to lay upon it at night without any bedclothes...hard pea shalks lay in humps under his bed, his arms were locked fast in bonds, the horsehair undergarment was locked round his loins, and he sent up many a sigh to God.

In winter he suffered very much from the frost. If he stretched his feet out they lay bare on the floor and froze. If he gathered them up the blood became fire in his legs and this was exceedingly painful. His feet were full of sores, his legs dropsical, his knees bloody and seared, his loins covered with scars from the horsehair, his body wasted, his mouth parched with thirst, and his hands tremulous with weakness. All this he suffered for Christ our Lord.

It was also his custom, during these twenty five years...never to go after Compline in winter into any warm room, or to the convent stove to warm himself, no matter how cold he might be...Throughout all these years he never took a bath, either a water bath or a sweating bath, and this he did in order to mortify his comfort-seeking body. He practiced during this time such poverty that he would never receive nor touch a penny.

For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save his hands or feet.

It is pleasant to know that after his fortieth year, God conveyed to him through a series of visions that he had sufficiently broken down the natural man, that he might leave these exercises off."

Old School: Reverend Austin Pardue

Austin Purdue became Gethsemane's eighth rector in August of 1931, on the very brink of some of Gethsemane's darkest economic hours. The budget dropped several thousand dollars each year of his tenure. Yet the church's woes seemed to become the congregants' opportunity to help one another. Rather than ask for money, the Every Member Canvas asked what it could do to help each parishioner. The Boy Scouts gave up their night in the hall to a neighborhood organization, and the organist practiced under a tent to save on heating.

Yet Pardue continued to draw large crowds on Sundays, and the sheer numbers of membership kept the church fiscally afloat- along with many anonymous donations. And Gethsemane continued to reach into the religious and social spheres of downtown Minneapolis. The church opened freely to social service work. More, Pardue opened the hall to every imaginable activity, lest the young linger unemployed in the streets: classes, sports, and musical gatherings, with all heat and electricity at the church's expense.

After this, and after the addition of accoustones in the church for the hearing impaired, just as the church seemed once again on the right economic track, Pardue resigned in March of 1938.