Welcome Congregants of the Blogosphere!
You have stumbled upon a brand new blog. It is a sometimes serious, but always real attempt to return religious vocabulary back to its rightful roots. And if the roots are rotten, we’ll creatively reimagine these words so that they work for us now, in the 21st century. You know many of the major religions as well as secular humanism tout lofty goals, such as moving towards a harmonious interdependence of the world’s inhabitants (since forever), whilst quibbling over dogmas and dictums. Here is where they can come and get a soft nudge or a solid knock upside the head, depending on whether they are the feather or the 2×4 variety of person, and we can get comfort or empowerment or meaning or whatever it is we’re looking for.
This almanac will include, but is not limited to:
* Providing you with brief but accurate and researched information about particular aspects of the world’s religions to fodder questions and discussion (will vary daily on how the spirit moves me.)
*Sharing my own personal musings on the sacred journey or anything related to the collective spiritual quest (this could mean outlining various meditation techniques or what it means to be in a faith community or probing the nature of serendipity…).
*Religion is a word that has been used and misused ad nauseum. Its definition, its meaning, is very simply that which binds us together. The religion of this blog is: compassion, an openness to others’ beliefs and ideas (or at the very least, let’s not get nasty) and exploring ways to engage in the simple daily practices of spiritual fitness.
Finally, while I am a highly trained theologian, you can try this at home. I can wax theological with the best of them, using big academics words like hermeneutics and exegesis, and I like to, at times. But mostly, people’s eyes glaze over.
I am committing to blogging daily while reserving the right to an occasional lapse, for excuses such as : the Sabbath (everyone needs a rest), illness that raises my temperature or upsets my digestive tract, a paying gig, or a TIC (Teenager in Crisis, one of mine).
My oath to you: I will not daunt, I will not proselytize. I take my opinions seriously until I change them, at which point, I take those opinions seriously.
What about the Name?
I am Nun Tuck, because I can’t be Friar Tuck. I’m a girl, and while I’m not a Catholic and only play a nun on this blog, the Good Friar and I share four important things in common:
1. I too would much prefer the company of a community of outlaws enforcing a little social justice to a band of self-satisfied complacent Sunday morning hypocrites.
2. Now while stealing from the rich to give to the poor may sound to some as Anti-American sentiment (can you say “Bolshevik Plot?”) many of us are sufficiently outraged by the unadulterated avarice of the past several years/decades to think this perpetually populist idea particularly poignant (take that, Peter Piper).
3. Both of us enjoy our carnal indulgences served with any generous volume of carbohydrates. We continue to attempt to live simply and faithfully (lots more on future blogs regarding this) but alas, the flesh is weak.
4. While friendly and gregarious (we are in the business of saving souls after all), we are fiery by temperament. Friar Tuck was expelled from his order due to a lack of respect for authority, and I chose to leave my childhood denomination as the chasm between the choices made by the church’s hierarchy and true care and concern for its people became too great. If authority wants to be respected, it has to earn it.
The Almanac is simply a nod to another historic figure, Benjamin Franklin (one to whom I give Rock Star status) and his version of an 18th century blog of sorts, Poor Richard’s Almanac.
Tomorrow’s post: “Does it matter what you call yourself?”
Book Pick of the Day: Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott
Quote from the Book of the Day: “My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night. The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so that the neighbors wouldn’t see him, until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, ‘Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.’ And I am slowly, slowly in my work-and even more slowly in real life-learning to do this.”