George of Sylvania

Category: Uncategorized

  • Welp… it isn’t much

    I took that picture on my way into work Monday. What a nice view.

    This week, I do not have much to say. The writers block has been very present these past few weeks, and it is what it is. It doesn’t help we said so long to the interim priest we have been working with for over a year, and everyone’s favorite staff member is on tour for the North American production of Dirty Dancing.

    So what is blocking the ideas from flowing? Well, we are less than a week away from another nightmare of a presidential term, and I am nervous for friends and loved ones. And if the confirmation hearing of Hegseth that occurred yesterday is a taste of what is to come…

    Speaking of cabinet picks, I will never forget when my wife and I lived in West Michigan, and the first Tr*mp administration had been going for a little while. The church we had attended the majority of the time we lived there was Mars Hill Bible Church, founded by Rob Bell. Bell had been long gone by the time we had gotten there, and the place was changing under the newly called pastor. Things started off well, but the moment Betsy DeVos, who had been the Secretary of Education for a few months, came over to me during the passing of the peace. She gave me the most uncomfortable hug I have ever had in my life, and while she was trying to make small talk, I just kept reminding myself that the person standing in front of me was a child of God. We left the church pretty soon after.

    The look on my wife’s face though, seared into my memory. One of shock, horror, and concern about what was going to come out of my mouth. I was in such shock at what was unfolding before me that I was pretty much frozen.

    Scraping the barrel but still showing up is strength in its self, and that is what I wanted to remind everyone of today. So, to close today, I want to offer up the closing prayer I lead every other week during the Wednesday intercessory prayer services. It was introduced to me by a dear friend who passed away almost a year ago called, The Coventry Litany of Reconciliation. Because it is me however, I tweaked a few things to make it more inclusive.

    The Lord be with you my friends, never forget you all are loved, and not alone during this dark time to come.

    An updated version of the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation:

    All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

    The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
    Lord, forgive.

    The covetous desires of people and nations to poses what is not their own,
    Lord, forgive.

    The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
    Lord, forgive.

    Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
    Lord, forgive.

    Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the unhoused, the refugee,
    Lord, forgive.

    The lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women, non-binary, and children,
    Lord, forgive.

    The pride which leads us to trust ourselves and not in God,
    Lord, forgive.

    Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

    In peace, we pray to you, Lord God.

  • Top books/series: 2020-2024

    Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

    I love books.

    Reading them, listening to them, or even collecting, it doesn’t matter. My office is filled with them, and so is our house. It has become a joke among some of the staff, and I have even been at bottom of a few jokes because of it. And you know what? I do not care. By nature, I am dyslexic, and I learned to read via comic books. In fact, I can tell you the first time I remember reading a word by myself.

    For Christmas in 1993 my parents bought me a box of comic books, and my life changed forever. I was already a fan of Batman thanks to the 1966 TV show reruns, but I did not know he was from another media. In that box was Batman 493, aka Red Slash, where serial killer Victor Zsasz take a few hostages and Batman has to rescue them. Well, one of the Gotham Police Officers that Zsasz… does… away… with… had my last name. That week before in kindergarten I was working with someone on spelling it out, and BAM! Right before my eyes, I see the name, I recognize what it is, and it was all downhill from there (except for reading, it took a long time for me to become comfortable with that).

    Over the years, I have spent many hours pouring over books of varying genres, mainly theological and non-fiction. However, in 2021 my wife urged me to pick up some fiction books, and I started to consume more of them. And since I’m one of the people that believes a decade starts in the year that ends in zero, we’re half way through the 20’s. With the over 300 books I’ve read so far this decade, here are my top ten books/series in no particular order:

    1. Operation Hail Mary by Mark Weir
      – Just read it. Incredible science based fiction. 10/10 no notes.
    2. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
      – There is a reason why people love this book. I thought it was going to be overrated, but it just really hit with me.
    3. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a faith and Fracture a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
      – If like me you have some evangelicalism in your background, have gone through deconstruction/reconstruction and want to know some history pick it up. Also highly recommend The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Alison Barr
    4. Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr.
      – I grew up conservative and heard about the Black Panthers. Nothing about them I learned about was true unsurprisingly! This book will learning you something you need.
    5. The Inspector Gamaché series by Louise Penny
      – Look, no one should trust the police… unless they’re fictional and written by Louise Penny.
    6. River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
      – Do you like Indiana Jones and want a true story? This one floats to the top of all those style books I’ve read recently.
    7. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne
      – Required reading if you identify as male. Don’t argue, just read the damn book.
    8. The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees
      – I was going to put The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli author Ilan Pappé but I read it this year. This is neck and neck with that book. Dives into the prehistory of n*zi Germany and is as impactful, plus a nice precursor to Pappé’s book.
    9. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
      – Incredible horror/mind melt of a book. I read this twice last year, and am still decoding the hidden messages in the book. Highly recommend if that’s your bag.
    10. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty AND Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
      – Patrick Radden Keefe is an incredible writer/journalist. These two subject couldn’t be more different, and he makes them attainable in such engaging ways.

    Bonus book series: The Exorcist House/Anathema by Nick Roberts; if you like The Exorcist, you’ll enjoy these. Roberts is quickly becoming my Stephen King.

  • New Year’s Frickin’ Day

    Every year my wife buys me a calendar, and this one may be one of the best yet.

    There has been a lot of shit going on in the past month since I posted. Here is a brief rundown in no particular order:

    • We sold our house and moved out of Sylvania
    • We bought a new house in a new part of town
    • My wife broke her ankle on move in day
    • I work for a church and it was Advent and Christmas, I think that says enough
    • Painted six rooms in the house
    • Organized a basement and garage
    • Read 11 books

    There are a lot of other things, the normal stuff like having a toddler and being the most mobile parent. Usually I use writing as an outlet, but this month whenever I sat down it felt burdensome. Granted, I have five or six drafts, but I just couldn’t bring myself to upload them.

    New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite days of the year, the idea of new and freshness before you just makes me happy. Even though a bigoted fascist is being inaugurated for the second time this year, I am still choosing hope. I have to, I am a person of the resurrection, and must live into the hope and love of the reconciliation of all things.

    That does not mean it is easy, a lot of times it is very hard and friggin’ sucks.

    So long to 2024.

    Hello to 2025.

    Grace and peace my friends.

  • “There’s a moment you know you’re f*cked”

    I am sure a few of my fellow musical theater millennial’s will recognize the title of this post. It comes from the 2006 musical, Spring Awakening. This show launched the careers of Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele, and is based on the 1891 German play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind. Set in late 19th-century Germany, the musical tells the story of teenagers discovering the inner and outer tumult of teenage sexuality.1 It came on the scene pretty hard, and the music and message still holds up. Now, unfortunately, more than ever.

    So Wednesday morning has come and gone, and what are we left to do?

    Work.

    Work harder than ever.

    Last week my co-worker and I asked our interim pastor what we should put on our marquee. “You know, I want the Gospel on it” is what he said. So we spitballed, and landed on “We Still Believe God is Love.”

    The future is dark, uncertain, and we need to hold true to who we are. Eventually there will be more of us that will rally around love. Because at the heart of the Gospel, that is all that’s left.

    God is love.

    And love, in the end, always wins.

    1. https://greenvalleytheatre.com/spring-awakening
      ↩︎

  • Prayer Meeting Reflection

    The second, fourth, and fifth Wednesdays of the month I am responsible for the prayer meeting at work. Here is the reflection from today’s meeting:

    Romans 5:5
    The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

    The word love is translated to agape. Agape love is often talked about in the big “C” church, and what it means, is a type of love that transcends feeling. It is about the outward pouring of caring for one another. The response from the person you’re doing this with should not matter. It is love that is perfectly modeled by Jesus.

    I have spent a lot of time working in food ministries, and often there is an attitude that, “people should be thankful for what they’re getting from us.” It is either on display in a way that people, who are going through the lines are not outwardly joyful or thankful for what is being received.

    There is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian that does a great job displaying this. Michael Palin is begging for alms as a “poor ex leper.” Jesus had healed him when he was not asked, and now Palin’s character has no idea how to live his life being healthy.

    Something I have found in my personal, and from speaking to other people I have known journey is, this is where lust sets in. I am not talking about the sexual desires that it is often associated with, but the idea of figuring out what mountain to conquer next.

    I was re-listening to a sermon, that turned twenty years old a few days ago, from a former pastor I really enjoy. And he was speaking on how lust promises what it can never deliver. The idea of what is next. Or what more can we be doing?

    This is the type of lust that permeates through churches and people disguised at times of agape love. It isn’t bad to ask what more can be done; in fact, it can bring about really great change. But sometimes, what we are searching for is never enough.

    The Mandate, St. Thomas Aquinas – Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West translated by Daniel Ladinsky

    Because of my compassion, the sun wanted to be near me all night,
    and the earth deeded her fields to me,
    and all in heaven said,

    “We have voted you our governor; tell us your divine mandate.”
    And I did, and God will never revoke it:
    Nothing in existence is turned
    away.

    More tender is my Lord’s heart than any heart
    has ever been.

    So, when the divine realm asked me to govern it
    with one simple
    rule,

    I looked into His eyes and then knew
    what to say to any angel
    who might serve as
    a sentry to
    God:

    No creature should be
    turned away.

    The monotony of good work can breed discontent without realizing it.

    As we go through this week, may we remember that the love we model in Jesus is about the people we are serving and engaging with, not just ourselves.

  • “Awaking” from our “Dullness”

    “We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.” – Hildegard of Bingen

    This morning in the Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, I came across this quote. In one of the many iterations of a blog, I wrote a series on Hildegard. This included writing on her life and going through some of her works. As a recovering evangelical-received-Episcopal, I am still familiarizing myself with the saints and quite a bit of church history. Spiritual practices like reading the Daily Office, and others were okay to adapt to. But the idea of “awakening from our dullness” struck me this morning. And I think I know why.

    I have a two and a half year old who has been awake between, 3:30am and 5am, for two months. Some days he naps well, and others he does not. At times he’s fighting his two year molars. Other times, he just wants to get a jump start on the day. My wife and I take turns getting up with him. Depending on how the morning goes, it is a long day for everyone. At this time in our life, there is no awaking from our dullness.

    There is only dullness.

    Dullness, Ms. Rachel, Elmo, and the Toy Story saga.

    Without knowing it, in an attempt to break the dullness, I started decorating my yard for Halloween a month early. This year I decided that instead of spending one marathon day getting it all up, I’d take my time and enjoy it. This is something I look forward to every year. This has been a small way of awaking from the dullness for me. But it has done it in a different way that I awaken from the dullness with my kid. Right now, as we are in “second summer,” our kid’s favorite pastime is turning on the hose and watering our house and everything else he can. He will do this every day, and he will find joy in it. I, at times, find it monotonous.

    Dullness and monotony are synonyms, they are ways to describe mediocrity.

    I have one compact disk in my car, and it is the second half to the Mars Hill Bible Church worship album that came out in the early 2000s. Between songs, Aaron Niequist, former worship pastor (I think that’s the title), quoted a G.K. Chesterton book. In Orthodox, Chesterton writes:

    The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

    It is hard to awaken from the dullness of life without coffee and being sleep deprived. But this guy, God bless him, awakes every day saying, “do it again!” and I’ve been too old to hear him. Instead, I have been trying to re-enter practices, and trying to find different ways to awaken from the dullness, when one person right in front of me is showing me how to do it.

    Grace and peace.

  • Ignorance isn’t Bliss, it’s Dangerous

    Trigger warning: this post addresses bigotry against the LGBTQIA+ community.

    Something I have learned as I have aged is my opinion is not needed on most things. Especially as someone who society has catered to for a very long time. It has been almost a month since the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, and I am still upset about some of the backlash. The weird moral outrage thinking it was aimed as an attack on the Last Supper is laughable. But one post in particular still gets under my skin, and it came from a family member’s blog.

    A few weeks ago, a friend of mine messaged me asking if I had read their newest post, and to be honest, I try hard not to. It is usually filled with bad grammar, and rambling thoughts one would expect from a conservative religious boomer who lives in an echo chamber. The title itself was a redflag, I had a feeling this one would be different than normal. Looking back, it took me somewhere around 10 minutes to click on the link because I had to try and prepare what was about to unfold.

    Truely, I wish I were surprised but, there was a lot of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric, though the author I am sure would never see it that way. From comparing the film, The Dallas Buyers Club, all but stating that is how “real” marginalized Drag Queens live, to reminding readers that the world has always been this way and that’s why God destroyed it during Noah’s time. Stating that there has been “queer” behavior all over the pagan world, until the rise of Christendom, in which it went underground.

    The ignorance displayed in this post, is the same we see all over social media when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community. It reminds me of a story my dad told me about he and his dad. My father was born and raised in Dayton Ohio. During the 1960’s, he was in elementary school, and one day my grandfather and he were walking into the library. When my dad looked down the street he saw something he didn’t understand. So, he asked, “dad, what are all those people doing wearing their bedsheets out?” Not knowing he was witnessing a Klu Klux Klan demonstration, my grandfather responded with, “son, that is ignorance personified.”

    This, without a doubt in my mind, is ignorance personified.

    This type of ignorance is a choice, and people use it as a crutch. It is not on anyone but themselves to learn about what they do not know after they have become aware of it. I have had a lot of conversations with family, friends, and others about the LGBTQIA+ community, and what it means to be an ally. It is always clear who engages, those who are afraid to give up social or societal standing, and those who know they’re “right.” Continued intentional ignorance about the LGBTQIA+ has cost a lot of lives. Especially in the trans community most recently, for example, stated in the medical journal, Innovation in Clinical Neuroscience, “Gender-affirming care has consistently been shown to improve quality of life, improve health outcomes” yet religious conservatives continue to try and block it.

    This week is Pride in exotic Toledo Ohio, and the church I work for has been planning our involvement for most of the year. Pride, being radically welcoming, and actively being a safe space is who our big queer church is. It is how we show others we can be the hands and feet of God. It is how we express the love of Jesus to the stranger, and those millions of sheep that have left the flock. It is how we reach out and say, I see you, and I love you. And I am so honored to belong to this house of worship.

  • Concerning Judas

    Photo by MAURO FOSSATI on Pexels.com

    Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

    In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus– for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us– one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

    In this passage we see Peter standing up and speaking to the crowd of believers. He states that scripture foretold his betrayal. Someone that was counted among the twelve, and was “allotted his share of ministry.” Because they have to replace Judas, they decided to elect the next leader in a way that I’m sure most vestry would not do. They cast lots to see who gets picked.

    Matthias is elected to the office of disciple and apostle and is seldom heard about again in the scriptures. What happened to him remains a bit of an official mystery. There are reports of him being stoned to death and then beheaded in Judea, while other sources say he died of old age in Jerusalem. It is also believed that Matthias went and preached the Gospel to cannibals. Now this is a disciple I’d like to see a movie about. Just imagine being elevated to that level of leadership. It’d be terrifying! I mean, considering the shoes you have to fill from the person that left it vacant, maybe there was some relief. I mean, it’s not like you can lead Jesus to his death twice, right? But today, I don’t want to spend a lot of time writing about Matthias. There is a disciple mentioned in this story that rarely gets his day in the sun, outside of maybe one week a year. That disciple, as I am sure we’ve all guessed by now is Judas Iscariot.

    Judas is someone I like to bring up because he isn’t someone we usually spend time thinking deeply about. We read about him betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, typically zoom over his repentance, and then he surrenders himself to the same fate Jesus had. Death on a tree. Now, whenever we see someone who is killed and hanging on a tree, the writers may be trying to spark our memory.

    Deuteronomy 21:22-23 ,

    If someone is guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave that body hanging overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

    In Matthew’s account of the betrayal of Jesus, Jesus say to Judas, “do what you came for friend.” We also see Judas toss the silver at the chief prints, repent, and then goes out to hang himself from a tree. Judas is guilty of a capital crime, betraying the innocent, and he takes the Torah into his own hands. Judas condemns himself to the same fate that befell Jesus, death on a pole. Cursed under the eyes of God according to Deuteronomy 21. But let’s think about this for a moment, the overriding guilt and repentance that Judas has for what he did to Jesus takes him to this awful act. However unlike Jesus who broke the curse of death, Judas was left on the tree.

    If he had held out for three days, he would have known all would be well. It is no wonder that Judas is so easy to scapegoat because there is no reconciliation between him, Jesus, and the disciples. It’s easy to imagine ourselves in the roll of Peter who denied Jesus three times but then had the ability to reconcile with him. The denial didn’t matter anymore because of the grace Jesus had for Peter. This is something I think scares us if we spend time thinking about it. It is scary because I imagine that Jesus would have had the same warmth for Judas as he did Peter.

    Judas couldn’t lay down his life for his friend because, he sent him to unknowingly be killed. At least, according to Matthew’s Gospel he did.

    Asking people what they think about Judas is, I think the ultimate litmus test for how we respond to loving our enemy and praying for those that persecute us. Jesus, knowing what was going to happen still washed Judas’ feet and invited him into the new covenant of his body and blood. Judas accepted, then realized the depth of his betrayal. He then repents. I like to think that Judas is a model for showing us that there is no path we can walk down too far, that Jesus’ grace can’t reach us. 

    May we remember that in our times of despair.

  • Toledo Area Gay and Lesbian Affiliation’s Digital Exhibit

    Mayor Wade and the raising of the 2023 Pride Flag at One Government Center

    This week I was reading our local paper, The Toledo Blade, when I came across an article by Andrew Cramer (which you can read here). It is about the Toledo Area Gay and Lesbian Affiliation newsletter which ran from 1983 to 2019. The Toledo Lucas County Public Library has released a digital exhibition, housing all of the 442 issues released. As we are planning our August Pride festivities for our church it is nice to know this exhibition exists.

    According to Cramer, TAGALA’s newsletter stood out as a, “single publication for a wide range of LGBTQ+ groups, including those focused on political activism, religion, community service, and more.” My uncle Ricky and his partner Ken were staples at big family parties when I was growing up in the 90’s and 00’s, and I couldn’t help but think of them while reading. They both passed away from cancer in the late 00’s, and I was very fond of them, especially Ken.

    I work at one of the oldest churches in downtown Toledo, and everywhere you walk there is a sense of history passing through its doors. The history this church has with the LGBTQIA+ community in Toledo is long lasting, and firm. Long before the days of Obergefell, people were safe and welcomed here. In the 90’s we hosted the Toledo Gay Men’s Chorus, and I can’t help but think of the newsletters from TAGALA that came through these halls.

    One of the things that jumped out to me from Cramer’s article was how different the coverage in the newsletter is versus national press:

    “TAGALA’s more private dialogues stand in stark contrast to the mainstream storytelling. First-person opinion pieces offer genuine response to the events of the day, not as an observer, but as someone who has lived the relevant experiences.”

    The first person narrative in a time of great oppression, discrimination, and harassment (which unfortunately continues today), is crucial. This resource that the library is hosting is such an important part of history, and as an ally, I am excited to share the news about it. Last year I had the honor and privilege of attending the raising of the Pride Flag outside of One Government Center (as seen above). During this time I heard tales of the way Toledo has grown over the decades to become such an open and affirming place.

  • Welcome

    Welcome

    This is my personal website. The thoughts here reflect my own, and not those of my employers, unless they overlap.

    The title of the blog came from Sister Joanne Frania, a spiritual director I saw for a short time. During one of our sessions, I was lamenting about identity in ministry. During it, she blurted out, “what do you expect, you’re just George, George of Sylvania.” At some point I knew I’d restart a blog and I had found the perfect title.

    This is a space where I’ll drop ideas about religion, poetry, or whatever thing I’m writing about. Mostly religion though, as I work in a professional religious setting.

    A little about me, best I am infrequent blogger, and it’s been that way for years. It will most likely stay that way. I’m a suburban dad that lives in an affluent part of Northwest Ohio, with his family and three cats. Privilege is something I recognize and try to use mine to support others.

    Black lives matter.

    Trans lives matter.

    LGBTQIA+ support is not a negotiation.

    Abortion is healthcare.

    God loves everyone, no exceptions.

    I’m George of Sylvania and this is my dumping ground, welcome.