"The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn't that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?"
-Henri Nouwen
Welcome
I was half-expecting Tiffany to include something about football loyalties in her "You are welcome whether you are ... or ... or ..." litany, but she didn't.
Call to Worship: "I Want Jesus to Walk With Me" (hymn, sung)
Scripture Lesson 2 Peter 1:16-21
Will was the other lay reader and he did this reading, which was good, as he effortlessly elided all the gendered language (Kirk had dumped in the RSV without really thinking).
Children's Time
Tiffany talked about how she had switched schools between first and second grade (the girls also recently switched schools) and nobody wanted to play with her and she would go home and cry to her teddy bear, but that a few weeks later a new girl came to school and no one wanted to play with her either so Tiffany asked her to play. Tiffany said that like her teddy bear, God is always there for us and always loves us and listens to us. She also said that God wants us to share that love with others.
Scripture Lesson "Life of the Beloved" by Henri NouwenFred, all I want to say to you is "You are the Beloved," and I all I hope is that you hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being -- "You are the Beloved." The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn't that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness? Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: "You are my Beloved," on you my favor rests." It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: "You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody -- unless you can demonstrate the opposite." These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That's the great trap. It is the trap of self-rejection.
Special Music "In the Garden"
Will said this is a "moldy, oldy . . . goldie?" but that he has a problem with it. ("Only one?" I asked.) He said it uses a lot of imagery of hearing, and what must that be like to receive as a hearing-impaired person. He said they were gonna rewrite it, but it was six minutes before service, so . . .
My memory of this song is basically the "and he walks with me and he talks with me . . ." refrain and my problematic with the "none ever has ever known" sentiment, but listening to them sing it, yeah, he's right.
Reflection
Kirk opened with playing an out gay Israeli pop star singing Gershwin's "The Man I Love." He talked about wistfulness and "cleverly devised myths" (cf. the 2 Peter reading). He talked about heteronormativity and how we are taught that our loves, our desires, are not allowed, and that we ourselves are unloveable. He talked about how the New Testament uses the word "agape" only, never "eros," and mentioned the scholarship of Theodore Jennings and said that that doesn't mean that erotic love was absent but rather that romantic and divine-social love were not separate. He talked about how our culture is often so hostile to intimacy between people of the same gender and also reminded us that we are Beloved of God. His sermon was better than my summary notes are making it sound. He talked about coming out and linked it (or something) at least loosely with transfiguration -- it wasn't a major part of it, but I was pleased to hear the word "transfiguration," the nod to where we are in the liturgical calendar.
Call to Prayer: "Lord Love, Listen to Your Children Praying"
Prayers
Offering
Doxology: "Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit" (refrain)
Passing of the Peace
Carolyn told me that Leland (whom I met at Convo, didn't get a chance to ask her how she knows him) says hi. W00t! [Edit: I facebook messaged him to tell him so, and he replied: "I'm glad Carolyn found you. I told her to look for you and say hi on my behalf! I'll thank her for being faithful to do so!" Heart. /edit]
Will got his hair re-dyed and cut, so it was brilliantly bleached blonde again (the roots had been growing out, so while I'm always a little taken aback every time I see him, it's extra-strong when he's just re-dyed it). However, for once he didn't have any product in it, so I was stroking it every chance I got. Kirk said he's like the anti-gay 'cause he doesn't put product in his hair. He thinks what's the point of having hair if you can't touch it?
Communion
Hymn: "Precious Love, Take My Hand"
Closing Prayer
Announcements
Closing Hymn: "You Are Mine"
Benediction
***
Unsurprisingly, church ended around 6:30 (as per usual). Various people had other plans, but Beth and Rob and Kirk and I went over to Tiffany's (though only Kirk and I stayed until the end).
Most of the game was a whole lot of nothing (Kirk had asked us to count the ass-pats during the game, because our culture's comfort level with same-gender intimacy really is connected to the "bigger" issues like same-sex marriage; we only saw ass-pats during the commercials, but in their defense there weren't a whole lot of big celebratory moments during that game), and the commercials were similarly unimpressive on the whole.
Most of the good commercials seemed to be early on.
The Bud Light commercial early on with Hank the Clydesdale was sweet.
I loved the cars.com commercial with the Plan B of a deathmatch in the stone fire circle against Glondor or whatever. That was totally the best one of the night, and it aired during like the first quarter. The one that aired much later, with the headshrinker, I was less into, in part because it was closer to being culturally offensive. It was directly followed by an ad for an internet sales website, with the animated pandas and bamboo furniture, and both Tiffany and I said we didn't know what to think about it.
I did enjoy the Sobe Life Water lizards "Thriller" dancing.
The E-trade commercial with the baby? I was like, "Is 'even I can do it' really the message you wanna be going for? In this day of identity theft and all?"
But the later commercial when he buys a clown? I loved the "I underestimated the creepiness" punchline, 'cause the clown was actually creeping me out and I don't have a clown phobia.
My reaction to an anti-drug commercial should not be to laugh at it, but that was my reaction to the one with the drug dealer who's losing business 'cause kids can get high out of the medicine cabinet. Tiffany said it was controversial, that there was a thing on NPR, 'cause the drug dealer's sympathetic. I said I think most if not all drugs currently illegal should be legalized (and hi, there are good capitalist reasons to want them legalized; get with it, Republicans), so I'm not exactly their target audience anyway.
They kept having the Terminator robot* and I was like, "Summer Glau and Lena Headey are hot; show them," so I was pleased when we finally got a real ad for tomorrow's episode. (The second ad I was less into.) Kirk hasn't seen the show (Tiffany had seen the pilot and said it was fairly good) but said something about
Summer Glau beats up everyone and I was like, "Duh." He said that was totally the best scene in Serenity and again I was like, "Duh."
*TLGN says it was a Terminator fighting the FOX NFL robot. That makes more sense now. I hadn't realized there was a FOX NFL robot. Since I'd previously watched one game this season and before that probably none since sometime in college.
Man, I love Sia's "Breathe Me," but hasn't it been used in umpteen shows already? (It was in the House ad.)
Oh, and near the end of the game there was a Victoria's Secret ad, which began, "Victoria's Secret would like to remind you" and I was like, "What? That girls are hot?"
Edit: The Coke commercial with the politicians ("jinx rules")? The execution wasn't anything to write home about, but the concept had me thisclose to making a heart with my hands as I watched. /edit
The first time we saw an ad for American Idol I said they should make a clips show just of Simon Cowell saying mean things in a British accent, because I would watch that.
I actually knew all the Tom Petty songs except the last one. When after two songs it seemed like they were done, I was like, "That's all we get?" Tiffany said the halftime show's only twenty minutes long.
Josh says they sell separate tickets for the people who rush the field during the halftime show, that they don't actually get to see the game.
I'm not much into sports, period. I was confident about the Patriots winning. The last Giants touchdown took me by surprise. I was surprised at how bummed I felt at the Patriots' loss, since I really have no emotional investment in this team.
Off the fflist: Kos'
Origins of Super Bowl Sunday (St. Vincentius of Lombardy)