First Friday of Lent: The Prayer of St. Ephrem

Saint Ephrem's Prayer is traditional during Lent. This is a simple video from YouTube with the words set to music.

Functional Noah's Ark Replica

Johan, the head of a construction company in the western Netherlands has constructed this 100-yard long, four-story tall ship:

Mini-lecture Video: LGBT in Ancient Egypt

In this YouTube video, John Johnston, who is pursuing a PhD in archaeology, describes a few of the objects on display at the Petrie Museum in London to celebrate LGBT History Month. He describes some of the mythology and stories that construct ancient Egyptian sexuality. Of particular interest is a papyrus from ancient Egypt's 12th dynasty (1991-1782 BCE), relating the tale of Horus and Set's encounter (see image above). HT: Agade listserv.

Video: Where is God in the Haitian Earthquake?

VTS Alum, and my former student, Frank Logue, recently made this YouTube video in response to this question. Check it out:



For a recent USA Today add on the Episcopal Church, click here (PDF download).

Genesis 1, A Student Video

Diversity in Faith

Father Matthew recently posted this well-done video on YouTube arguing for Christian unity and against scapegoating. If you listen closely, you can detect some ideas from J. Allison and R. Girard. As of this morning, it's been viewed over 1,200 times.

Don't Be Afraid of the Bible (Video)

Anglican Priest Father Steve Rice of St. Michael's Church gives a brief introduction to the Bible's unique nature and unique quirks. The production value is not bad here. What do you think about the content? Comments??

AIDS Beyond the Numbers

The Urbana 06 conference that just concluded had a strong HIV/Aids focus, and produced a short video clip that is well worth watching: "AIDS Beyond the Numbers." It starts by giving the statistics for 2006 and then moves to look at several individual stories. It ends on positive notes of moving forward and outreach. To see the video, click here and press the "play" button on the video player that pops up. (HT: U2 Sermons)

New Year's Fireworks Display in Seattle at the Space Needle

Neat, Short Clip: A Snowman Comes to Life

Just for fun, some interaction with a chalkboard snowman:

What is a U2charist?

This excerpt from ABC news NightLine was posted on YouTube earlier this month. It presents a quick summary of what a U2carist is all about. Speaking for myself, I think we should have one here at VTS. Comments?

Get Centered: Brief Advent Meditation

An Advent Meditation based on music by Paul Simon.
This will help us all slow down and breathe!
(HT: Peter C. at his blogspot; thanks for this... )

U2, The Wanderer (Theological Reflections)

The Wanderer
I went out walking
through the streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking
under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went drifting
through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it

I went out riding
Down that ol' eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name

I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents

I went out searching,
lookin' for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand
I went out walking
with a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus, I'll be home soon
Yeah I went out for the papers
Told her I'd be back by noon

Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you...

Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you...
I went wandering

I've enjoyed and learned a great deal from Robert Vagacs' new book, U2 in Theological Perspective (Vagacs). However, I'm not sure he does justice to this particular song, "The Wanderer." I'd like to offer some brief alternative readings of my own and also ask for readers' comments as to the meaning of the Wanderer for them.

Vagacs is surely on solid ground when he argues that the protagonist of the poem is wandering through "Zooropa," the modern world in cultural winter. As he says, the figure is on a "journey into the emptiness of Babylon" (p. 52), the world bereft of God, a "dystopia."

But Vagacs does not mention the similar journey taken by Qohelet, the writer of Ecclesiastes. Qohelet was on a God-project, a meaning-quest, whereas Vagacs argues the Wanderer does not actively search for spiritual meaning but "moves about aimlessly" (p. 52). Thus, Vagacs gives a pessimistic and negative reading of the figure's wandering rather than understanding him as one like Qohelet, involved in a project to lay out the ground-work for a faith-solution to finding meaning in life.

The relationship of the Wanderer with Ecclesiastes is fairly clear. According to Bono, that relationship is what made him think of Johnny Cash to sing the lead on the song: “Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books,” says Bono. “It’s a book about a character who wants to find out why he’s alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything. You hurry to the end of the book to find out why... There’s something of Johnny Cash in that.” One popular translation of Qohelet is "the preacher," and the Wanderer is about a preacher like Cash. Bono says, "Johnny Cash always left the line about cutting and running out. I always liked that. You know--bottle of milk, newspapers and he's off. He's got God's work to do. He's on tour."

In n. 30 on p. 53, Vagacs explicitly calls Bono's own understanding of the Wanderer overly "optimistic." He disagrees with Bono that "The song is definitely the antidote to the Zooropa manifesto of uncertainty." He does not see how Bono can say that "this track gives one possible solution." Interestingly, the faithful have often voiced just such doubts about the book of Ecclesiastes itself! Speaking of Ecclesiastes, H. Wheeler Robinson wrote, "The book has indeed the smell of the tomb about it." Fortunately, recent scholarship is often much more appreciative of Qohelet's theology.

The Wanderer is not aimless or prodigal, he's conducting wisdom-experiments, he's "looking for you." As Vagacs writes, "you" here is probably imagination---imagining God and the world interconnected, imagining transcendent meaning to life. The Wanderer goes out confident that "you'd be there too." The world, Zooropa, is bereft of God, but the Wanderer certainly is not. Certainly, he is on a "pre-repentance" experiment, but he promises Jesus "I'll be home soon."

Isn't the faithful thing to come home right now? No. Consider Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison. There and then, it was not his time or season to be "home." From the Nazi Tegel prison in 1943 Bonhoeffer wrote, "When the time comes (but not before!) we may go to him with love, trust, and joy." "Sooner or later there will be times when [one] can say in all sincerity, 'I wish I were home.' But everything has its time, and the main thing is that we keep step with God, and do not keep pressing on a few steps ahead--nor keep dawdling a step behind. It's presumptuous to want to have everything at once."

Vagacs complains that the Wanderer is "powerless to break out of Zooropa" (p. 53), yet should this be his goal? Ecclesiastes 2:24 reads, "There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil." In a post a few days ago, we looked at the metaphor of "eat and drink" as an expression of contentment in where God has placed us for the time being.

Martin Luther emphasized this as a key theological insight of Qoheleth: "Don't let the present moment, our moment, slip away," wrote Luther. No matter how strongly we might want to jump to the wonderful things God has in store for us in the future, we must not do it. "Do not desert the battlefield but stick it out."

U2: Beautiful Day (theological reflections)

Discussion of David's branch / sprout over the last few days reminds me of the mention of the power of the sprouting shoot mentioned near the start of U2's hit, Beautiful Day. Here is a video, lyrics, and some theological reflections (interconnected with next Sunday's reading of Jeremiah 33). Comments welcome, of course.



Beautiful Day
The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground
But there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care,
The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere.
You thought you’d found a friend
to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace

It's a beautiful day, the sky falls
And you feel like it's a beautiful day
It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away

You’re on the road but you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud, in the maze of her imagination
You love this town Even if it doesn’t ring true
You’ve been all over and it’s been all over you

It's a beautiful day Don’t let it get away
It's a beautiful day Don’t let it get away

Touch me, take me to that other place
Teach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colours came out

It was a beautiful day A beautiful day
Don’t let it get away

Touch me, take me to that other place
Reach me, I know Iím not a hopeless case
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
You don’t need it now, you don’t need it now
Beautiful day

As in Jeremiah 33, which we've been discussing, this song of hope and promise is set amid sorrow and shadow. For a lot of people in this Advent world of bullying and hoarding, there is "no space to rent," "no room," no more "luck."

Yet, it truly is a beautiful day. The world is far from totally dark. From Heaven, you can see green and blue, and canyons in all their beauty. The problems are there, such as tuna fleets clearing the sea out, but the world is full of ambiguity and promise.

Noah's bird bears "a leaf in her mouth" symbolizing hope after the flood. Jeremiah 33 similarly points to this hope after Jerusalem's world came crashing down in 586 BCE.

In the midst of the darkness and ambiguity we face in the here and now, we've got to keep focused and oriented on how "after the flood all the colors came out; It was a beautiful day." A shoot is pushing up through the stony ground. It is Advent, and God's messiah is on the move to usher in "that other place," viz. that righteousness within community spoken of by Jeremiah 33.

In the new Jerusalem (Jer 33:16), bullying and hoarding will vanish. People will realize that King Josiah had it right in Jer 22:15. He got along just fine, had plenty to eat and drink (NLT), and was blessed besides, because he didn't orient his life around an abundance of possessions. What he did not have, he did not need, just as U2 sings.

The Gobble Song

The Gobble Song


The title says it all! Enjoy...

Do Other Seminaries Have Ghosts?

Just for Fun Clip: A Haunted Episcopal Seminary


Just for Fun: The Rev. Tom Winslow, seminary archivist and episcopal priest, shows us the seminary ghosts of Nashotah House Seminary. If you watch toward the end, you even see a photo from the archives showing two shades that are said to haunt the little Wisconsin seminary, founded in 1842.