As you may have noticed from my weekend writing, I recently spent some time in a Benedictine (Roman Catholic) monastery. To the Conservative Baptists among whom I grew up, such a forray into Catholic territory might have been considered a step outside the faith: paying homage to Rome's Evil Institution, allowing a part of the money spent for my accommodations to go towards "statuary, and buying the souls of pagan babies, and buying diamonds for the Pope's shoelaces" (to quote from the ubiquitous Midwestern humorist, Garrison Keillor).

I, however, thought my time at the monastery was a wonderful experience which really brought me closer to God.

Granted: the Catholic monastic experience had both its joys and its difficulties. For instance, I genuinely enjoyed the push back to an appreciation of the simple elements of faith, seeking God, depending upon God, cutting myself off from distractions and focusing purely on God. And because of the monastery's focus on these elements, I ultimately decided to stick with the full cycle of the monastic rhythms (7 prayer services per day). At the same time, however, I noticed (and noticed some irritation at) the cultural differences I experienced.

The morning prayer services got to feel very long and laborious. Their liturgy used a very limited Scriptural pallette (almost entirely chapters from the middle part of the Psalms). And perhaps most notably, I felt bothered by the emphasis on formality and hierarchy, particularly in the daily celebration of Mass. I've never understood the apparently-varying levels of access to God's grace: first to the bishop, then to the father of the monastery, then to the other brothers from the monastery, then to other clerics from the church, then to other Catholic believers, and only then to everyone else (including me). I don't understand why I should be excluded from sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ (though I could have easily faked my way through the line, if I had wanted to). These things don't make sense to me.

Even so, I can appreciate the solemnity and ceremony of the Catholic culture of worship. I admire the way that their traditions tie in so directly with the ways Christians have been worshipping for thousands of years. I enjoy the multi-sensory worship experience, utilizing sight (beautiful robes, a simple-yet-magnificent sanctuary, a white haze of incense smoke), sound (singing, speaking, the clinking chains of the censer), smell (incense), taste (the Eucharist), and touch (standing, kneeling, sitting, holy water, and crossing oneself). Furthermore, I really appreciate the sense of holiness that pervades Catholic worship. At the monastery, all of the monks bowed deeply before the cross on the altar, both upon entering the room and upon leaving the room. The priests all bowed before the Eucharist at (what they believe to be) the moment of transubstantiation. They administer the mass from behind the altar, so that Christ gets top billing. And in this I can see that, for all their issues with formality and hierarchy, they've at least got that much right: Jesus is King. He deserves to be treated with some degree of reverance and respect -- probably more than our church in Amsterdam typically gives Him. So as much as I can be irritated by the cultural differences, I can also appreciate them and let myself be instructed by them.

In the end, I really came to appreciate the monks' rigorous traditionalism: wearing the robes, singing in Latin, maintaining the Benedictine rhythms... I felt glad, actually, that some Christians feel so strongly led to maintain these traditions. I do wonder, though, about the future of these traditions. I reckon that the youngest of the monks at the Benedictusberg was in his 40s, and a couple might even have been in their 80s. With only 12 of them on-site, how will the traditions continue into the future?

I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for the plane that will take me to Minnesota, to Grandma's funeral.

Even as I was writing out my thoughts and prayers yesterday, considering the more ominous signs of Grandma's life slipping away, it turns out that she was breathing her last breaths. Early in the Minnesota morning, the first morning in July 2011, Elizabeth (Betty) Asp "went to her reward."

I've been thinking a lot about that phrase over the last 24 hours or so: My Grandma, gone to her reward. It's kind of an old-fashioned euphemism for death, something that I assocoate with old Baptist clergymen preaching in a little, white-sided, sharp-steepled church-house, planted out among the waving grasses of the North American prairies. But then again, that's not so far off from the life that my Grandma Asp actually lived. Up until yesterday, when she went to her reward. One of the items that I made sure to pack, as I was scrambling to prepare for a last-minute booking to America, was the self-published memoires of my Grandma's life. Now, when I say "self-published," I mean a three-ring binder filled with plastic sleeves containing print-outs from the senior citizens apartment complex community computer. It's totally hand-made, totally unpretentious... totally Grandma. She's filled out the binder gradually, over the last couple of Christmases, and I find myself absolutely spellbound by the stories from decades and decades of being a "missionary" (Grandma enjoyed using that term, only half tongue-in-cheek) to the Swedes and Norwegians of central Minnesota. She and my Grandpa worked in little churches in little places with names like Clotho and Kerkhoven and Lake Crystal. But their impact was big. It wasn't the kind of thing that would garner national headlines -- a church building project there, a few folks baptized there -- but looking at their overall "body of work," including post-retirement ministry and family involvement, it really is quite impressive to see the way that they lived their lives.

Both of my grandparents understood, appreciated, and lived by, the grace of God, which means they would be the first to admit that no one "earns" their way to Heaven by doing good things or being nice people; still, it somehow feels appropriate to say that their promotion to Heaven is "going to their reward." It feels deeply satisfying and gives great peace to know that Grandma and Grandpa are now both together in God's presence. Rewarded indeed.

What a week to be a citizen of the American republic, living in the midst of northern Europe's (constitutional) monarchies! On Friday morning, the British royal family will be celebrating its crown prince's wedding; and then from Friday evening through Saturday night, the Dutch royal family will be observing its annual Queen's Day festivities.

It's all utterly foreign -- the hysteria over the royal families and all their comings and goings -- but I have to confess that it's somehow fascinating, at the same time.

There's something charming about the Old World traditions... the story-book imagery... the inborn sense of familial loyalty and its corresponding national symbolism (which seem quite a different breed than the American patriotic ideals with which I grew up). Sometimes I find myself genuinely wistful for the lack of such a royal tradition in the United States of America... And then other times, I think it's just plain silly.

This weekend, though, we're going to join in the revelry.

On Friday morning, Marci is planning to make tea and scones and watching the British royal wedding with Olivia (and possibly some other lady-friends) -- essentially re-enacting the scene from her own childhood when her mother went out of her way to borrow a television (since they didn't have one of their own at the time) and share in the special mother-daughter experience of watching the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Marci was six at the time Charles and Diana's royal wedding, and coincidentally Olivia is also six at the time of William and Kate's royal wedding -- so it's pretty cool to see the way things line up in that regard.

Then on Saturday, we'll get to celebrate Queen's Day with a million other Amsterdammers and yet another million out-of-towners. Elliot is already planning to dye his hair orange on one side and striped red-white-and-blue on the other side (prior to a long-established plan for shaving it all off on the following day). We still don't have all our plans worked out for exactly how we'll take part in the festivities this year... But in any event, it's always a spectacle.

How are you planning to celebrate the upcoming "Royal Weekend?"

I was recently approached with a request to submit an article in Arseh Sevom's new on-line magazine. Although I am not well-versed in political affairs or civil rights issues -- and especially not in the area of Iranian society -- I was honored to be asked for a submission. And when I was told that the topic was to be "Networks and Networking," my thoughts eventually drifted towards an examination of the tension that many Christians experience between the "Gather-and Celebrate" dynamic of ministry (an internal form of networking) and the "Scatter-and-Serve" dynamic of ministry (an external form of networking). This magazine is, of course, not a Christian publication (if anything, the audience would be primarily secular and/or cuturally-Muslim) -- so it was an interesting challenge to write about these Christian networking issues for a relatively uninitiated audience; but I feel like both I and the editors at Arseh Sevom were generally pleased with how things worked out.

The result is an article, just published today, entitled "Killing the Church by Networking." If you get the chance to read it, I'd love to hear your feedback. 

Is it possible to contend without being contentious?

Is it possible to write a compelling argument without coming across as being unnecessarily argumentative?

These are questions that are buzzing around in my mind these days. I recently finished reading T. David Gordon's Why Johnny Can't Preach, and I was thoroughly impressed by the information that was presented in the book... but there was something that bothered me about it, and it was only a few days after my final reading that I was able to put my finger on the problem. Despite the excellence of Gordon's material, I feel that its impact was hindered by the authorial tone: a tone which I experienced to be subtly obnoxious.

Now, I've heard that Dr. Gordon can be very pleasant and charming, in-person; so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as a person. Nevertheless, without any personal context, it's hard to interpret the way that Gordon builds his argument (albeit an excellent argument) as being anything other than belittling, brow-beating, and curmudgeonly. As far as I can tell, he doesn't even attempt to disguise his disdain for people with different opinions and practices (in this case, people from the emergent church movement and unskilled preachers of all different theological persuasions). And when he makes his points (excellent points though they may be!), he regularly leads into them with words like "clearly," or "obviously" -- and the general tone is such that "any idiot should know this, and if you think otherwise, well, then you're just a dummy." He doesn't say it in so many words, but let me just say that I was able to pick up the cues -- and I'm not even a very intuitive person.

The thing is: it's not just one book by one author. I get this same vibe from a lot of Christians -- preachers, especially. And if I'm irked by it (even though I am both a Christian and a preacher), I can only imagine what people outside the Church must feel in the midst of such contentious communication. To me, one's tone speaks just as much, if not more, than one's words; and I'm just saying that our tone all-too-frequently fails to communicate the message that Jesus said we're really supposed to be sending.

I understand the need to be committed to Truth. I understand the need to argue intelligently and articulately about important issues. And I understand that polarizing and passionately-argued books might sell better than books marked by moderation. Still, I wish for a different way of forming arguments -- with humility and gentleness and empathy. I wish for a way to contend without being contentious -- to present arguments without being argumentative.