Something Tells Me…

…that this advertisement for the Sacrament of Confession–targeted, obviously, at teens and young adults–isn’t going to have the effect that the Catholic Church is going for.

Having gone through the Episcopal Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation, I can say that irony and parody kind of feel antithetical to the whole thing. Owning up to one’s sins is, in my opinion, the ultimate act of sincerity. I don’t see how an ad that reeks of sarcasm is going to convince anyone to wade into such thorough-going self-examination.

Not that there’s anything wrong with irony and parody and sarcasm, like this, for instance. I just wouldn’t use such stuff to “sell” confession.

- Jamie McElroy

Un-Baptism

Having just celebrated the baptism of three babies last Saturday night during our Easter Vigil, it saddens me to read this news story from the Daily Telegraph in London.

It turns out that an atheist in England has sued to have his baptism “removed” (by having the record of it scrubbed from the rolls of the Church of England). He was baptized as a baby and now that he’s an adult he so emphatically does not want to be identified as a Christian that he has sought this legal remedy based on the argument that as a baby he could not have made the decision to be baptized for himself.

The article also refers to a nascent movement among English atheists to pursue this sort of “un-baptism” that is taking particular aim at the doctrine of “original sin”–the idea that babies are somehow born sinful and need to be cleansed. Any thoughtful church I know has long-ago repudiated the idea of “original sin” and view infant baptism as way of fully including the child in the universal Christian church and not as a cleansing of sin, original or otherwise.

Now, it doesn’t make me sad that he’s chosen to part ways with the church in which he was raised. Anyone who grows up attending church needs to decide on their own whether they want to continue along a Christian path. That’s what I think the rite of Confirmation is all about. (And that’s what I’ve tried to make as clear as possible to the four teenagers in our current Confirmation Class–”If you decide to get confirmed, do it because you want to, not because your parents want you to. If you’re not sure, just wait. There’s no harm in waiting. But make sure it’s your decision.”)

What’s sad to me is that this man is so hurt and/or angry about his experience in church that he’s seeking this particular legal remedy–and of course he’s not remotely alone. One way or another, the church (of all denominations) has scarred so many people so deeply and it’s a crying shame.

- Jamie McElroy

…And the Mustard is Hiiiiiigh

This Saturday, April 18 and the next, April 25, 9:30 – 11:30 am, we are continuing our rehabilitation work on that swath of land we’ve adopted in the Palo Alto Baylands (just past the Duck Pond on Embarcadero). And for now, that consists  of yanking out invasive mustard weeds at the root. Last week, some of those mustard plants were over 6-feet tall before we started pulling them out.

According to the Ranger we’re working with, if we were simply to let this land fend for itself, it would be nothing but a 6-foot high field of mustard. Why does that matter? Well, the mustard dries out the soil by sucking up all the water it can possibly handle since it naturally tries to grow as big and tall as possible, so any available water gets used for that purpose and not for any other plants, wildlife, bugs, birds and so on. Also, mustard doesn’t like salt, so it leaves the salt behind which adds to the problems in the South Bay, where there are huge, destructive salt deposits along the shore. Furthermore, it’s an annual plant so those 6-foot weeds eventually become 6-foot dry husks that make great kindling for wildfires.

Mustard plants like these are a problem throughout California. They were introduced into this area by Spanish missionaries who spread mustard seeds as they wound their way through the region so as to mark their trail. I guess they imagined that they were spreading the Kingdom of Heaven in accord with Jesus’ analogy (“the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…”)

How ironic, you might say. Or maybe it’s just tragic.

- Jamie McElroy