$#!+ my dog does

I'm coming to terms with a disturbing behavioral trend in my 3-year-old, 48-pound Boxer which indicates he's a racist. He barks at a selection of our Asian neighbors, most of the black ones, and every Mexican he's ever met.

Two evenings ago he identified a new threat. A girl in a wheel chair.

He also barks at cars that fail to align with pre-drawn parking spaces, which may point to a prejudice against folk with diminished mental capacities, like me.

Floyd continues to mature and may yet learn to read.

Floyd the dog has a 3 year old Border Collie friend named Layla, who lives with her people in the next building over in our apartment complex. He has figured out where. Recently, on our circuits of the parking lot, he has started pausing outside her building and trying to encourage me to do the same. He has also learned the sound of a door opening and insists on waiting to see just who will emerge. (He has a long memory for people who have scratched his ears, not to mention, it could be Layla.)

All this strikes me as a coherent if unsettling mix of endearing and creepy, until I recognized that I used to/would still do the same thing in Mueller Hall, Huegli Hall, the Valpo Chapel, the Duke Chapel, the Langford basement, the Langford sub-basement...

The Perception of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod at a Pretty Okay American Divinity School

Just in case anybody was wondering.

The back-story: making broad sweeps in my History of Modern European Christianity class, we touched on the "Confessional Awakening" that accompanied Lutherans' 19th-century emigration to America. The awakening bit was defined as follows, that these sojourners were arriving at the view that the Lutheran Church was the best model among churches because it possessed the fullest truth of Christianity. Then, the comment was made, "Now... If anyone knows anything about the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod..."

In case you were wondering. Yes, people know about us. Here's what we've taught them.

In an era when the question carries particular force as well as open-endedness, "What does it mean to be a Methodist/Episcopalian/Baptist/Presbyterian/Lutheran today?" the LCMS cuts a figure as a church body that does a fine and thorough and admirable job of building confessional identity among its member congregations. This is directly a result carried over from that sense of confessional awakening, which expounds upon the belief that Lutheranism (later, LCMS Lutheranism) is the purest and fullest truth of Christian doctrine and practice. The other direct result to carry over from that sentiment, and so the other inevitable aspect of that figure the LCMS cuts in the imagination of our fellow pilgrims, is elitism, exclusivity, and pride.

In other words, as a church body, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is known for knowing who it is. And claiming that identity, often in very harmful ways.

Now maybe that confessional elitism reading sounds implausible to you. Maybe you think close communion practices and the marginalization of women and homosexuals within the denomination are harmless idiosyncrasies, part of being "conservative," or maybe you think it's right. You'll be happy to know I made the case (since I have some experience with this), that there are LCMS pastors out there who have no investment in this confessional awakening hooey and have as their priority simply ministering to their people, to the best of their abilities. There are wonderful examples of this mentality; my pastor in Florida is one of them.

And now let me lay out the other side.

When I was in high school my LCMS congregation decided to revisit and reviatalize its Christian practice of hospitality. Part of this involved swelling the lists of congregation members who would serve as ushers or greeters. That's where I got pulled in; and that's where I had the opportunity to hear a pastor (he's no longer there) describe our intention thusly: We were there to welcome people to a church that would be good for them. We already had the best theology; now we were going to show them we were loving, too.

Kind of sounds like my class notes: "the Lutheran church as the best model among churches because it possessed the fullest truth of Christianity."

This is not the isolated view of a single clergyman. It's being taught at the seminary. Once, when I thought St. Louis might condescend to let me study there for a masters of divinity, I wrote to them that my desire to apply stemmed from my desire to be formed by their standards for the exposition of scripture and Christian doctrine. The reply came, informing me that part of what made their standards for the exposition of scripture and Christian doctrine so great, so in possession of the fullest truth, was the exclusion of people like me from that degree program. (That would be women.)

All that's to say, when the comment came up in class, what most struck me was not the fact that other denominations pay attention to us. Just that they've paid enough attention to know us quite so well.

Some dogs go to Hell, and I remember I'm Lutheran

Shortly before I left Florida, a cold front swept through, dropping temperatures and kicking up winds and giving Holly the idea that we should fritter away an afternoon flying kites. So Saturday found us crossing the vast parking lot at my mother's apartment complex for an open field across the street -- 'us' here including Holly, Holly's dog Molly (a two year old spaniel), our mom, me.

Rounding the dumpsters, we heard before we saw, "KILLER! NO! STOP! KILLER!" Given that those particular verbal signifiers might signify any among a great range of content, we immediately actualized the worst possible reality when a pitbull crossed with something meaner and then named "Killer" charged around the corner, chain dragging uselessly behind him.

All of us used to dogs that are not monsters, we watched for a split second that lasted its proverbial eternity while the pitbull continued on its merry way to Molly's neck. The spaniel yelped and twisted, the pitbull dropped her, and before he could have second thoughts I'd moved in, kneed him in the jaw and stepped on his chain. Neutralized. (Just picture Liam Neeson in Taken. That was me.) Mom scooped up the spaniel, the owner came and collected "Killer." We flew kites.

In other news, chief among the virtues of a position in any church's back pew is proximity to the liturgist who mutters to her acolyte minions "Time to rock and roll," over the opening strains of the processional hymn. I was recently delighted by this, so much so, that by the time I'd sufficiently recovered, the entire assembly was looking at me. Then I remembered, "Ah yes, this is a Lutheran church and we do that here," and I, too, turned to face the processional cross.

On Being Kidnapped by Methodists

That I don't have a home congregation yet in Durham, or a job in that congregation, or a standing invitation to take over services with liturgical dramas, might surprise anyone who knows the ending to the story that starts with a group of CC freshman looking at each other after Scott's 10:10 seminar and saying, "So...were the rest of you thinking about going to Morning Prayer, too?" (I remember Miriam and Dan; probably Karl had wandered over from Creech's seminar... We were small once.)

Since moving to Durham I've been to three Lutheran churches, the Duke Chapel, a United Methodist church, an Episcopal church, and a synagogue. They are good at welcoming students here. My first Lutheran church, I got a mug and a magnet and my name remembered at the communion rail. I thought that was so cool -- even cool enough to overshadow the fact that just a moment before, I'd realized almost too late that the way communion was going, that usher was going to call upon me to lead my pew up to the head of the sanctuary. (Questions of, "Oh my god, left or right? Kneel? Get up right away? Wait for a blessing?" took on vital existential importance; I rocked, though, in the face of such pressure.) Sam Wells himself said hello to me outside the Duke Chapel; but only because he didn't know who I was. At the synagogue, one of the rabbis recognized me from a guest lecture he'd delivered in our Old Testament class, and I recognized the other rabbi when he stopped into my restaurant the following Monday for a margarita. (I handed it to him in awe and haven't felt such vicarious cool since I communed Martin E. Marty and his bowtie.)

I don't know why I haven't settled. But I can at least report that this morning I checked "Attend Regularly" in the roster at (sorry, you're sitting down for this, right?) the UMC sanctuary I keep wandering into downtown.

It often defies explanation how certain places start to feel like home. I like the stained glass and the bell tower, and the visibility of the children. The only place I've seen a wider variety of willing musicians and instruments is Holden under Jonathan Ruening-Scherer's village musicianship. I've only heard one of the pastors preach, and I could listen to him all day. And maybe best of all, the ushers wear purple "usher" badges, which remind me of the red "usher alert!" flags we stole from the pews in a church we visited one day and brought back to the Fellowship House.

On the other hand, they don't commune often enough, and the young people tried to evangelize me once. A woman announced meaningfully that they met for a Bible Study about once a month after the service at a Mexican restaurant nearby. Caught off guard, I replied that I had a boxer named Floyd. Since we seemed to be sharing personal information...?

There are a few other Divinity students that attend, and one rockstar professor; my closest friends are actually an older couple, Linda and Tom. We sit in the back and quietly perpetuate the rumor that I'm one of their grandchildren. How we met was this: it was my second time at Duke Memorial UMC, and I stood outside, stamping my foot like a child because the service had already started, and suddenly there emerged two people from the building adjacent to the sanctuary. "Hi," I announced, "I'm late; can you tell me which door to go in so not everybody notices?"

They said, "Oh, follow us, we're late all the time." And that was that.

Today they invited me to lunch after church. We went to the old American Tobacco warehouses (they're restaurants and shops and live music venues now), and caught up on siblings and classes and how this winter compares so far with others, and I found out about the guy who performs Mark Twain in Hillsborough, in case I ever have spare time again. They drove me back to the church and a parking lot that was deserted except for my bike chained to the fence, and I realized abruptly that I should have used the bathroom at the restaurant to change from my skirt back into my shorts. Linda and Tom insisted on waiting while I tried every door to every building on the church campus; they were all locked and they all had signs urging me to ring the bell, only I realized that if I rang the bell and anyone actually answered it, I would have to explain that I was just trying to get into the building to change into shorts in a bathroom so I could ride my bike home.

In the quiet of their car in the deserted parking lot, Linda and Tom were having a conversation about how all the doors were probably locked, but I could maybe change out of sight behind the columbarium? Which is exactly what I did, and why (I think) they were laughing when I returned, in shorts, to say good-bye and collect my bike.

I'm not saying I'm Methodist or anything. Yet.

Augustine's CONFESSIONS, Textual Errors in the last two Chadwick reprints thereof

So time is a distension, we know this, and when Augustine writes of reciting a psalm that he knows, he directs his expectation towards the whole and proceeds to make one word, one verse at a time, the object of his memory through the act of recitation, while continuing to hold the rest in expectation. The act extends in two ways, so that Augustine holds in memory the verses he has already recited, and entertains an expectation of the verses he will shortly recite, until the psalm is past and the act is done.

All this is in XI xxviii 38.

Now. If Augustine were to miss a word or a verse during his recitation (he does not posit this as a possibility in XI xxviii 38), it would screw him up: time is distended in two directions, both equally capable of being confounded in the memory. Likewise in any experience of recitation or reading. When a word or a line is skipped, an interruption appears between the reader's past experience of a sentence's beginning and future expectations of the conclusion of the sentence's syntax and thought content, creating in the present a moment for the reader of, "Wait, what the hell?"

On now to the errors in the Chadwick reprints. As far as I can tell, if you have the title of the work backlit in red instead of blue, these are in your book. Depending on your paper topic, it matters.

ERROR #1 -- VIII vii 16

Bottom of page 144, in any edition. Try reading, "If I and you once again placed me in front of myself" and have it make sense. Go on. Or, rather than engage in profitless gymnastics of grammar, consult an older blue copy of THE CONFESSIONS and note that a line has dropped out from the bottom of p144.

Between "If I" on 144 and "and you once again" on 145, pencil in the following: "tried to avert my gaze from myself, his story continued relentlessly," and you'll be fine.

ERROR #2 -- XI xxiv 33

Bottom of page 263, "and I pray that, of" (turn the page) "with utter confidence that in your" -- what? Consulting the blue copy again, there's a line missing at the top of 264. Write in, "your mercy, I may render to you my vows (Ps. 115: 17-18). I say" and keep reading.

Seriously? I thought scribal error was an eighth century thing. But it's alive and well. Now you know.

Meet Floyd

So, abruptly, I've become a dog person.

This is Floyd. He's a boxer. He's a bit of a spazz, but on the whole a good buddy to have around in Durham. Likes long walks and cardboard and meeting new people. And he's picking up on "fetch."

He has a witching hour, around eight o'clock at night. I've noticed, because what do I have better to do than notice Floyd's behavioral patterns -- and also it's hard to miss a 48-lb. boxer tearing back and forth across the apartment floor.

So here's the bizarre thing that makes this a story.

Tonight, the witching hour hits. Floyd is on the loose and digging his nails into the carpet and banging around fit to trouble the neighbors. He sits when I ask him to, and he even stays, but we're only up to ten seconds on that trick. At my wits' end, I call, "Floyd!"

He looks at me.

"Come here!"

He follows me to the bathroom. Pokes his head in the door. I make sure he sees me picking up the toothbrush, applying the toothpaste, yes: brushing. My. Teeth. All this is done with raised eyebrows and a very serious expression.

The dog is now curled up on the bed. Silent as the grave.

A little early, but he'll never know.