Lucky goes into committee

It’s hard work being a bear. I had to sit still nearly all day and listen to the boring deliberations of church leaders concerned for good order. Good order needs to happen of course. All that good order is preferable to bad order, or unjust order, or ‘oops-we-forgot-about-that’ order. It’s just that I’m a bear who likes to play, and laugh, and create… Oh well, maybe I can crash a party tonight or something.

We sat around circular tables in diocesan groups and have our diocesan opinions canvassed. The lawyers talked too much – their concern with words seems to override any awareness of the somatic effects of their tones. I think there was one or two laughs, although I can’t remember any jokes.

Mind you some of the language in the papers was laughable. How about this one: ‘the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd’. When the Church resurrects a Greek word from the first few centuries CE you know you are in trouble. ‘Catechesis’ is a dumb way of saying ‘a learner’s guide’. This particular guide for the about-to-be-educated was called the Good Shepherd. Again relevancy to contemporary culture has never been the Church’s strong point. There are no shepherds or sheep in downtown Auckland and we’d like to keep it that way. For the biblically minded Jesus was a carpenter not a shepherd. Yes, he once used the language in a parable, a made up story, to illustrate his point. In downtown Auckland we don’t need carpenters either – they tend to be in the ‘burbs. Made up stories, like mayoral speeches or newspaper editorials, though are part of our life.

As a bear I dream of the day when the Church will make up some new stories about Jesus and us. He could be the ‘good bear’ who tells the hungry cubs and their parents where the honey is. Or he could be the ‘good hunter’ who only shoots us with a camera. As a downtown bear JC could be the good barista who knows what we want before we enter the shop. Or the good parking warden [if that’s not an oxymoron] who only puts tickets on the cars of rich people.

Another language thing today in the General Synod was the promotion by Wellington Diocese, and most of the UK Anglican apparatus, of ‘Back to Church Sunday’. Lucky immediately thought of all the ways that church is backwards including its marketing department. The promotion of course assumes that once upon a time you went to church. Most of my friends at the café and on the street haven’t. Then again do you really want some of those who left church to come back? You know the bossy bank manager who was trying to create a new fiefdom? Or the organist who couldn’t play for peanuts but thought she could?

I think I will need to download some more stamina before tomorrow,
LB