"Good morning, Laser Monks, greetings and peace"

This story in the New York Times shows the overlap of ancient and modern in a religious setting of current-day Wisconsin. The Cistercian monks maintain practices of monastic life--simple work, daily prayer (much in Latin, even) several times a day, and quiet self-dedication.

On the other hand, the monks support themselves in a completely modern way. They (along with two lay women who run the day-to-day operations) sell computer printer ink jet and toner cartridges over the internet.

This past weekend, my aunt and I were discussing the entrepreneurial endeavors of some in the Amish communities of Minnesota. Similar to the monks, some Amish workers have taken up more value-added enterprises to support themselves. Even without computer-based businesses, the Amish enterprises can stretch their simple lifestyles by incorporating electricity, motor vehicles, and telephones to produce high-end furniture or specialty cheeses, for example.

Holy Week and Easter

One of my pet peeves about Holy Week and Easter is the tendency (urge, perhaps?) of some factions of Christians to turn the commemorations of Jesus's last days into dramatic re-enactments. Recently, Slate.com noted the shortcomings of passion plays and similar dramas in conveying the full message of Jesus.

Why aim for verisimilitude in violence but not in other historical points? The typical Passion-play Jesus, grinning warmly in his bright white robe, doesn't tell us much about the first-century Jewish itinerant whose bold, sometimes bewildering stories and proclamations led him to the Passion path.

Churches should also consider other approaches to storytelling. Their ur-story should be not just epic but multiform. To quote writer and preacher Frederick Buechner, the Gospel is "tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale"—it happens on scales that are grand as well as domestic, historic, comic, mythic, realistic.

And there are also other Jesus stories to tell—including the ones Jesus shared. One famous Gospel phrase is (in the Latin Vulgate) compelle intrare, meaning "compel them to come in." The words come from a stirring parable Jesus told about a rich man who sends invitations for a fabulous dinner party, only to have no one accept. So the rich man has his servants round up "the poor and crippled and blind and lame," ending his pronouncement with a rhetorical flourish: "Compel them to come in." (St. Augustine co-opted the phrase, making it a theological basis for state-sponsored acts against heretics.)

It's Easter. Spring is here, though the calendar doesn't quite match the weather in many places. With the fast of Lent over, churches hoping to share their beliefs could take Jesus' parable as a suggestion: Throw a dinner. Make it lavish. "Go out to the highways and the hedges," as the rich man said, and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. What kind of story would that tell?

In a related piece, Slate also looked at the history of "Why was Jesus Crucified?"

Church shopping is an American tradition

Slate.com reported that church shopping is very common among Americans, including now the first family. The idea of applying American capitalism to religion is deeply rooted in our country's history, along with the ideas of freedom of religion and individual autonomy. However, the idea of "commercializing" God gives rise to criticism from some.

Church shopping, marketing, and the not-so-sanctified practices that go with them make easy targets for criticism. But competition among churches for worshippers has always been fierce in the United States, to the benefit of American religion and individual churchgoers. The prohibition against establishing an official state religion helped give us the shoppers' paradise that is our religious marketplace.

(Photo by iboy_daniel; used by permission.)

Beginning of Lent (AKA day after pancake race)

Yesterday, for Shrove Tuesday, citizens of Liberal, Kansas and of Olney, England raced for the 60th annual Internation Pancake Day race. This year, a member of the Kansas team won. A short news story, from Wichita television station KAKE (I'm not making that up), describes the events history.

A slightly longer news story, from the Wichita Eagle, elaborates on this year's race. An earler Wichita Eagle story explained how last-minute individual donors came to the event's rescue after the long-time donor--a pancake and muffin mix company--chose not to donate the pancake mix for this year's event. By the way, besides the 5,000+ pancakes made for the event (eaten by hungry crowds, I presume), another 100 "super-duper extra tough" pancakes were made for the flipping race.