Legal risk

Mrs. Curmudgeon and I are certified foster parents in Adams County, Colorado (where we reside). This is because we hope to adopt a baby girl through social services. The system has labeled us "foster-to-adopt;" this is because while, Lord willing, a baby whom we will eventually adopt will be placed in our home as soon as she enters the social services system, we will officially be her foster parents unless and, should it please God, until the parental rights of the birth parents are terminated by the courts.

At a meeting last week, a county attorney observed that people like us used to be labeled "legal risk" parents to help judges understand that children placed in our homes were not guaranteed to be taken away from their birth parents and be adopted. "Legal risk" means that, by law, we take the chance of welcoming a baby into our home only, after some period of time, to have her returned to birth parents who have proven their competency to the courts.

For obvious reasons, "foster-to-adopt" sounds much better for recruiting purposes than "legal risk." And yet, there's something profoundly right about the latter term. Parenting is risky business. It is the constant, and often realized, risk of loving a person far more than that person will ever love you in return. It is the risk of a life of sacrifice without any real reward. To be the kind of parent whose children will not be removed by social services is to risk the loss of one's self, of one's identity, for the sake of one's children.

To be a parent is to be willing to lay down your life for your children, and, in the infinite sacrifices and concessions by which we surrender our individual identities to be forever labeled in their eyes, and in the eyes of society, as, finally and ultimately, their parent, is to in a very real way lose that life. To be a parent, to be a parent properly speaking, is to take up your Cross and in imitation of your Savior to crucify self, and to have that choice overlooked and ignored. As, indeed, only Joseph of Arimathea seemed to have the wherewithal to realize a burial was necessary.

To be a parent, that is, to be a disciple of Christ, is to be at risk. As it should be.

Resurrection & the Church

The wise of this present age find the notion of resurrection impossible to believe. They therefore explain the accounts of Christ's resurrection in the Gospels as an existential attempt by the community of the early Church to make sense of what they had experienced. That is, it was a myth generated by those committed to Jesus' ministry which was meant to symbolically, not literally, vindicate the validity of his preaching in the light of his shameful death.

But as Luke Timothy Johnson notes on page 390 of his commentary on Luke's Gospel, this account gets things precisely backward. The Gospels do not show us a cohesive community immediately after Jesus' death, but an assortment of discouraged followers on the brink of scattering to the four winds. Memories of Jesus' earthly ministry did not keep them together. Rather, they were brought together into the community which would become the Church by the coming of the resurrected Christ to them.

The Church did not invent Christ's resurrection; rather, Christ's resurrection created the Church.

Presbyterian statuary

Our friends the Boersmas, who are missionaries in South Africa, recently visited Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, they found what claims to be the first Presbyterian Church building in that nation (although I wonder if they didn't put up something a little more modest to begin with). In the plaza it faces are several statues demonstrating presbyterian distinctives. Notice how everyone in the pews are carefully examining their Bibles in response to the preached word. Does my curmudgeony heart good.

Two other criminals

Luke 23:32 tells us Jesus was led away to be killed along with two other criminals. Quite literally, that's what the text says; in the Greek, "other" is an adjective describing "criminals," a noun. That being the case, it's interesting to see the various circumlocutions employed by the allegedly literal English translations, such as "two others, who were criminals" (ESV). In this case, they unnecessarily turn a noun into a participial phrase. This verbal mangling seems motivated by an overly pious desire to avoid the implication, created by Luke, that Jesus was a criminal.

This pietism is not only misguided, it has the effect of denying the truth plainly stated in one of the best-known prophecies of our Lord's Passion: "[He] was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12)

Happy days are here again

Thanks to the hue and cry raised by you, the vast legions of Presbyterian Curmudgeon readers, Dreyer's has restored Girl Scouts Thin Mint ice cream, in all its fat- and sugar-laden glory, to the freezer shelf of my local grocer.

I am recomfited.

Lincoln & Darwin

I heard on February 12 that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day 200 years ago. The amateur cultural observer cannot help wonder, then, which has proven more important. An obvious case can be made for Darwin; evolutionary theory everywhere dominates the hard and social sciences. Moreover, it has allowed materialism of all forms to claim legitimacy, and therefore to deny the Creator's claims over his creation.

For all that, my choice is still Lincoln. Without Lincoln, historical circumstances would very likely have led to the rebellion of the Southern States, but without Lincoln, it's very difficult to envision how the Union would have been preserved from its darkest hour. And as Lincoln observed in the Gettysburg Address, without the Union to embody the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, they would have become discredited and lost as a practical basis for governance.

In other words, Lincoln is more important than Darwin because all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Go ahead, curse the darkness

I'm thinking of having this line by the late Richard John Neuhaus translated into Latin and added to the family crest: "And yes, I know that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. But sometimes it is necessary to curse the darkness as well, just to prevent our getting used to it."

Richard III in Denver

I'm largely in agreement with Lisa Bornstein's review of Richard III in today's Rocky Mountain News (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/12/comedy-upstages-villainy/), although I think she is far roughter on Andrew Long in the title role than is warranted. I saw the show on Tuesday, and I walked away thinking, as Bornstein notes, that the show very much belonged to the women. The strongest moment of the production was the scene between the three queens in the second act; and although it's been at least a decade since I've read or seen this play, I tend to think its power comes more from the lines as written by Shakespeare than from the relative weakness of the remainder of this particular staging.

If nothing else, I was once again struck by the wonder of Shakespeare's dialogue, even when character development is somewhat absent. (Actors playing the two murderers may have more to work with than those playing Hastings.) The man could, indisputably, write; it's impossible to imagine a better way of phrasing what his characters have to say. Every time I lay out hard-earned cash for a Shakespeare play, I wonder if it's worth the expense. Every time, I walk away knowing it was.

One last note for those intimidated by Elizabethan English: at a performance, one is never confused as to what the words and lines mean; instead, one's understanding and appreciation for the possibilities of our language is only increased. Yet another reason Shakespeare is immortal.

The word of the day is "recomforture"

Also "recomfiture," meaning "new comfort" (as defined in the Shakespeare Lexicon by Alexander Schmidt, p. 949). Contextually, "to receive renewed comfort."

Ex. "Every year, Girl Scout Thin Mint ice cream has been my recomforture."

Extreme cleverness at the Sacred Sandwich

http://sacredsandwich.com/archives/2472