Lucinda Williams and David Byrne

Luncinda's new album "West" is haunting and beautiful, and I commend it to all. Also, for those who are Talking Heads fans, I just learned that David Byrne has a great solo career. The "father" of Indie rock, or something, so says NY Times. I've been getting as many of his albums from the library as I can find, and listening to them quite a lot (the cool thing about older albums is there aren't usually many holds on them at the library, so you can get them immediately, and renew. These are the kinds of things you learn when your spouse is a public librarian).

Re-read the paragraph above. Blogging and grammar, at least on Lutheran Confessions, don't always go together.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I was on the phone today with a member of our church, and we started talking about the next Harry Potter. This led immediately into a discussion of whether Dumbledore would come back from death, whether Snape was actually a turncoat, or whether the whole thing was a profound ruse, and whether Ron and Hermione will survive.

We're both grown men with day jobs. I paused and said, "Listen to us..." Some imagined worlds are so imagined they are invitational and the most comfortable and homey way.

Truth and the Flag

In a book dealing with the power of the American flag to motivate people to sacrifice themselves in war, the observation is made:

"In the religiously plural society of the United States, sectarian faith is optional for citizens, as everyone knows.  Americans have rarely bled, sacrificed, or died for Christianity or any other sectarian faith.  Americans have often bled, sacrificed and died for their country.  This fact is an important clue to [the flag's] religious power.  Though denominations are permitted to exist in the United States, they are not permitted to kill, for their beliefs are not officially true.  What is really true in any society is what is worth killing for, and what citizens may be compelled to sacrifice their lives for."  (Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag)

Excerpted in Stanley Hauerwas's new commentary on Matthew in the Brazos Theological Commentary series, page 110. 

The Logic of Love

"For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves" (Galatians)

From Martin Luther's lectures on Galatians:

We are all equal, and we are all nothing. Why, then, does one man puff himself up against another, and why do we not help one another? Furthermore, if there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is to the law of Christ. And if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself. Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe them... Thus my wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed. Thus my wealth belongs to the poor, my righteousness to the sinners. For these are the forms of God of which we must empty ourselves in order that the forms of a servant may be in us.

This is a worthy meditation in preparation for preaching on Luke 6 this coming Sunday. It synthesizes the Beatitudes, Galatians, and the Christ hymn in exemplary fashion. It is a wonder.