V or U Crotch

We just had to have an old hickory tree removed. The base of the trunk is over three feet in diameter. We really did not want to cut the tree down. However, it had a tight crotch which over the years had allowed water to penetrate and with freezing and thawing had begun to split. Eventually, it would have split and fallen on our house. This picture illustrates a tight crotch tree and how the tight V leads to deterioration. Our tree was in the form of a Y with the single trunk splitting into two trunks.

There is another type of crotch which is much stronger than the tight V crotch. It is one where the crotch is more U shaped. The wider U crotch allows more wood to develop between to two upper trunks.

Here are pictures of a cross-section of the healthy upper trunks and of the problem from the point of the crotch down about six feet into the single trunk.

 

I just read the white paper produced by the PCUSA Office of Theology and Worship entitled Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, andMarriage. The paper points to the adoption of an authoritative interpretation and a proposed amendment to the PCUSA Constitution which would allow members and those in ordered ministry to hold diametrically opposed options on the issue of same gender marriage. Those opposed to and those in favor of same gender marriage may both faithfully remain in and function within the PCUSA.

It seems to me we run the danger of growing into a tight crotch tree like the one we just took down in our yard. The upper trunks were strong and healthy. However, from the tight crotch down about six feet the single trunk was seriously deteriorated, hollowed out, with the remaining lower three feet of the trunk still relatively solid. Will we see the PCUSA develop with a V tight crotch with two healthy branches above or with a U crotch with more wood to hold the upper sections together?

Early in the white paper the writers briefly refer to forbearance. If we can exercise enough   forbearance it is possible a strong U crotch may develop. If there is little or no forbearance then the danger of a V crotch developing weakening the singular trunk from the inside. The future of the PCUSA tree depends on our mutual exercise of forbearance.

Need a New Image for Santa

Now that Christmas Eve and Day are past my natural Scroogeiness can rear its head concerning Santa Claus.

Our theology is formed in our early years of life. Very little of the secular ethos of Christmas carries any indication of grace. I remember being told as a kid, “If you aren't good Santa will only bring you a lump of coal and a bundle of switches.” Doing some reading, via Google, I discovered this goes back a long way in history. Those with whom Santa (by any of his names) was not pleased would receive these symbols of his displeasure as an incentive for better behavior in the coming year. From occasional experience I knew the switches were for a type of behavior modification applied to one’s backside. My great-grandfather lived across the street from us as I was growing up. He heated his small four room house with a coal stove. I knew coal to be dusty and dirty, necessary for warmth, but to be thrown out as a useless cinder. A single lump of coal wasn't of much use. The lesson was be good and receive gifts. Be bad and it is a lump of coal and a bundle of switches.

I also grew up hearing the song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Again, via Google and Wikipedia, I learned the song first was heard in 1934. The message was very clear. Santa keeps a ledger of who is naughty and who is nice. There is no hiding from Santa who sees you when you are sleeping and when you are awake.

These images are imprinted on young minds even before they begin to have awareness of God. It is but a small leap to transferring the characteristics of Santa Claus to understanding of God. There is no place we can go, nothing we can do, that God doesn't see us just like Santa seeing us when we are sleeping when we are awake. Good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. God must be keeping a list and checking it twice just like Santa.

Yes, we could proof text those attributes of God and God’s relationship with us. In some quarters those attributes are the primary ones which are taught. Lived is lived under the constant threat that if we are not good enough God will be displeased. If God is displeased God will withhold good things from us in this life and the afterlife will be unending punishment.

Is it any wonder works righteousness dominates so much of the Church’s lived theology? Lived theology is how we practice our faith in differentiation from our orthodox and academic theology. How can we construct/deconstruct/reconstruct the stories and fables about Santa Claus which are imprinted on young minds so that God’s grace, love, abundant providence and other positive attributes inform more of our lived theology from a young age?

As leaders in the church this is critical for us to figure out, especially in the modern cultural ethos. The Nativity story requires too much interpretation to become easily imprinted on young minds. How do we appropriate the prevalence of Santa Claus from a psychological manipulation of the young to behave into a positive image of grace, love and abundant providence upon all? How do we move from the early imprinting of works righteousness to “doing good” as a response to what we already have received without merit or goodness?