Reading here about a conversation that's started up about renewing denominations, I'm struck with my initial sense of apathy: is there any hope for real denominational life?
We're taught by professional theologians that denominations are a "must" in a fallen world. Best as I can figure, this is basically like international boundaries or fences between neighbors.
(Ever wonder what the wildlife on the border between Mexico and the US think about the border fence? I can see it now: the endangered Sonoran desert Jaguar is stopped at the border and asked for his identification papers as he migrates north to find a mate. "Shoot!" the Jaguar says, "...woah, buddy. I didn't mean that literally. But darn-it, I left 'em on the kitchen counter!)
Anyway, denominations. My sense is that our structures constrain us, and when we toss them, newly unconstrained, we create another whole set of problems.
So denominations are intended to keep us connected. But, I've heard about connectional churches that are practically independent. So independent churches are supposed to keep us from becoming wrongly ruled by someone else. But I've heard of independent churches that are, for all intents and purposes, connected to other churches.
Whatever the answer, it seems like a good reason to pray. Pray that the Church would as St. Paul urged her to do, "walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which she has been called."
Where I live, city officials and developers are pursuing something like a humane redevelopment of a rebirthed urban core. As a way to this goal, reviving a noble pedestrian existence has made the top of many lists. Such an existence is one in which walking to and from work, home, and play is not just a figment of the past, but a present reality.
In a recent issue of the New York Times magazine, a fascinating web 2.0 Internet application was featured that attempts to quantify just this kind of walkable urbanity with a number. That site is called Walkscore (www.walkscore.com). Type in your address and you can find out how easy it would be to live in a place without a car, or, put differently, to live in a place where you could walk to most of the things you needed.
Here's how it works. The more things you can walk to in your neighborhood means that you're going to be more healthy, you're likely to have more transportation options, getting places will be better for the environment, and you'll see an increase in social capital--an elusive measure of how livable a place is.
A score above seventy is deemed to be an indicator that it is pretty walk-friendly. A score below twenty-five means you're likely driving everywhere. Plugging in my address registered a barely double digit number. (Better keep the gas tank filled!) On the other hand, plugging in my city's downtown registered a whopping 92.
While this is great for folks who live THERE, suburbanites like myself are not without options. I've started riding my bike here and there and taking the bus to work. I even rode my bike to the Chinese restaurant nearby the house with my daughter to pick up our carryout order the other day. What fun!
So, wherever you live, your "walkscore" can be the start of something good for you and for your city. Check it out and see what your score is. Then, let me know what ideas you come up with!
Amid all the hoopla extolling our new urbanism, one down-to-earth mom defends suburbia here.
I love folklore. Lewis's conversion is spurred, I'm told, by a conversation with Tolkien in which the old mythmaker challenged Lewis's atheism/agnosticism with this idea: "Christianity is the One True Myth."
This proverb makes all other myths borrowers from the Real Story. So, I read folklore like a gold miner.
I read a Russian folk tale recently that I had heard before, but never read in this form, called the Frog Princess. You can read it here. I loved this line: "Morning is wiser than evening." I find that to be true as well, though as a recovering night-owl, my findings are coming at a great personal cost.
Getting up early (and the corresponding commitment to get to bed before too late) has seemed to open up options. And yes, morning seems to give wisdom that the evening doesn't give. But, is morning wiser than evening as a rule? I must admit that even as I write this, I am still convinced that night counsels deep wisdom that the morning never knows. David knew this, and writes in his famous 119th Psalm, "At midnight, I rise and give you thanks."
Aaahh...vindication!
