Medicine of Immortality "It's a cold, and it's a broken, 'Hallelujah!'"

A Marked ManPosted by Rick on September 28th, 2004

The story goes that an older Jesuit priest baptized a baby saying, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spiritlike it or not. While we may laugh at the priests words, he hit the nail on the head: Whether we like it or not, baptism does something. Being a Christian means being a part of something bigger than oneself and ones individual choices. In baptism, God claims us. He puts His mark on us, and we bear on our bodies the very marks of Jesus.

High or Anglo-Catholic?Posted by Rick on September 28th, 2004

I firmly believe that the most biblical form of worship is high church worship. Now, when I use the word high, I mean that I believe that worship should be sung. This is the traditional use of the word high. From the Kyrie to the Great Thanksgiving to the Agnus Dei, we should be singing the majority of the worship service.

Moreover, I am in favor of large processionals on feast days, joyful music, the clerical collar, and liturgical colors. However, I do not believe in Anglo-Catholic excesses. I do not see what the attraction to this form of worship is. I find it weird when I see a priest kissing the Gospel book, genuflecting every four seconds, and wearing mitres or golden crosses that weigh more than the bishop that wears them.

This was originally an email, but I didn’t send it, so out of boredom, I will post it herePosted by Rick on September 14th, 2004

Hello all and sundry,

I know, I know. I’ve disappeared into oblivion. With the blog down, and my general lack of motivation to write out an email, I’ve left you in the dark. But alas, no longer. Since many of you have heard from my wife throughout the summer, I’ll just give my perspective of what’s been going on.

Well, some of you may not have even heard from me since before I got married, so I’ll start there. After our honeymoon in St. Augustine and New York City, we went on family vacation with Rachel’s family (who, by the way, I really miss).

Then Rachel and I got jobs working at Day Camp Sunshine in Liberty Corner, NJ. I taught 7-9 year old boys while I was at camp. I taught a survey of the whole Bible in about 40 lessons. About 30 of those were on the Old Testament. It all became worth it when I asked one of my nine year olds if he understood what it meant in Hebrews where Jesus is said to be a “purification” for our sins.

He proceeded to explain the purification offering in Leviticus our confession. We draw near to God placing our sins on Him, and He is slain. He continued by explaining the Ascension Nearbringing (burnt offering) as consecration and related it to Christ’s own ascension. He concluded by stating that we have peace with God by the Fellowship Nearbringing, and he related it to having peace with God through union with Christ. He went on to tell me that he noticed that he noticed that they used the Levitical sacrifices as the order of worship at his church (he was Roman Catholic).

I found this a bit scary, but I can’t deny that I hope I have a kid just like him. After breaking his collarbone halfway through camp, he continued to play in games that make football look like a sissy sport.

After camp, we settled down in Monroe, LA, as I hope most of you know. Our address is 204 Gilbert, Monroe, LA 71203, just in case you wanted to know.

I’m teaching four classes at the university. I teach about 14 hours a week, and I have ten office hours (this is an office hour…I’m slaving away, huh?).

I’ve been doing a lot of research, reading, and I’m planning to do quite a bit of writing this semester. We’ll see.

Our house is wonderful. It has the usual kitchen, dining, and laundry room. It has a sun room that we’ll probably end up using as a guest room. It has one of those already, but we don’t have any real need for a sun room. We have a decent size bedroom with a king size bed (I don’t know how I slept on beds smaller than king). It also has two rooms that shoot off the bedroom. One is being used as my office. My office at school can’t fit all my books even though it has 22 shelves, so it’s nice to have a home office. We haven’t figured out what to do with the other one. Maybe if we have a kid, we can throw him/her in there (well, hopefully we won’t throw him/her).

Uh, I think I’m done, and I am not sure I said anything interesting. Hopefully, we’ll get the blog up soon, and I won’t feel the need to send out an email again.

Rick