Day 231 (Happy Easter!)

Gonna keep it short today because I have been sitting in front of a computer screen for WAY too many hours today. I just finished my Prophets paper and am looking forward to turning off my computer for the night. I started it around noon today, and because of my natural tendency to prefer distractions to homework, took me until about 9:00 pm. Now, I just have to finish my Theology reading, O_o.

I went to my Baptist church this morning, hoping for some kind of special Easter service, especially since I haven't been there in almost a month. It was pretty much the same-old, same-old. I was also kind of disappointed in the sermon because it was mostly an apologetic on how Jesus actually did raise from the dead. I spent most of it wondering why he was trying to prove to a bunch of people sitting in church that Jesus' resurrection wasn't faked. I came to the conclusion that should we encounter a non-believer asking for proof, then we would have some kind of answer for them, but I was always taught that you could never prove the events of the Bible. Doesn't the ability to believe come from God? Maybe it's a Baptist thing.

I've been eating peepshi to sustain myself through the paper-writing process and I think it's high time for some real food. Happy Easter everybody!!!

Day 175 (The Bounty of SFTS)

Because I am more than the sum of my parts and don't want to be identified by what I am as opposed to who I am, I am changing the format of by blog titles. I was having a weird moment at Abiding Way today; I haven't been there in 2 weeks. The last time I went was the Sunday after I had coffee with the pastor and we talked about our differences in theology. Today's sermon was about how Jesus changes lives, and I sat there the whole time scared that he was going to make some kind of negative remark about gay people. Not exactly how I want to feel when I go to church. I could barely focus on the sermon because all I kept thinking about was how I was supposed to react when he does make a negative reference to homosexuals. I figured I could just leave and never come back, but what would that really accomplish.

Luckily, we were able to make it through the service without a showdown. One of the guitar players in the band invited me over to watch the Superbowl, but I told him I had too much homework to do. This is true, even if I probably wouldn't watch the Superbowl if I had no homework whatsoever.

When I got back to the school, I decided it was time to do some foraging. I don't know if any of you remember the weird wrinkled black mushroom I took a picture of a few weeks back.

It's called a black elfin saddle, scientific name helvella lacunosa, and I originally wasn't going to try to eat it because it seemed like it would disappear to almost nothing when I cooked it. Well, they started popping up all over the school! As I was telling Kimberlee, when you put enough insubstantial things together, pretty soon you end up with something substantial, and I figured there were enough of the things growing to cook up something. Here's a picture of my haul!

This one was as big as my hand!

Miner's lettuce has also started to sprout up everywhere, so I decided to pick some of that to cook with the mushrooms. All of this (the mushrooms and the lettuce) was collected from the campus. Miner's lettuce, as its name implies, tastes like lettuce if you eat it raw, and spinach if you cook it, but it doesn't have that weird alkaline thing that spinach does.

I found this huge one growing in the shade. You can't tell all that well, but it's kind of variegated with green and yellow. The flowers grow in the middle of the circular leaves, so it's really easy to identify this plant.

This is a normal sized one, about the size of a quarter.

And, this is the finished dish! As you can see, the vegetable shrunk a lot.I sautéed the mushrooms with olive oil, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and then threw the miner's lettuce in the end just to wilt it. It was delicious, and although all of the stuff that I've read on the Internet says that this mushroom doesn't really taste like anything, I found that they did have a unique "musky-mushroomy" flavor that went really well with the other flavors. This mushroom is easy to identify because no other mushroom in the area look like it, except for false morels, but those are brown, and it seems like it would lend itself well to almost any dish you would want to put it in, so it gets a thumbs up from me!

While we're on the topic, if you do choose to pick wild mushrooms, please be careful! Do your homework and absolutely do not eat any mushroom unless you are 100% sure of what it is. Only you can prevent mushroom poisonings!!!

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 147 (Fire and Brimstone)

I went to Abiding Way for the 3rd time today. I kind of felt like I had to because the pastor there called me almost 2 months ago inviting me out for coffee, but I never called back 'cuz I got sick, then there was finals, then my phone broke and I went home for the holidays. We're gonna have coffee this Saturday... and I'm a little bit nervous.

I know they're Baptist..I KNEW that they were Baptists, but I kept telling myself, "They're in Marin County. How conservative can they be?"

Well, the answer is basically as conservative as you could expect Bapists to be. I wasn't expecting to hear it, especially considering how laid back these people seem, but the pastor delivered a full-fledged "Fire and Brimestone" sermon today. For those that don't know what that means, the liberal Protestant way of describing these types of sermons are "Turn or Burn" sermons. In other words, he was saying, "If you don't already accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you better convert right now or you might go to hell." Seriously.

This highlights the fundamental difference between Baptist faith and Presbyterian faith. What Baptists teach is that it is each person's individual responsibility to "believe," meaning they essentially have to do the work of saving themselves. Presbyterians teach that God is the one that moves in individuals to allow them to believe. Even as I write this, I am aware of how this contradicts my own beliefs, but that is not the point of this particular blog entry.

To get to the point, I don't like "Turn or Burn" sermons. I don't like it when someone threatens you with an eternal damnation in their effort to convert you. I don't think that is what we are supposed to do... but again, it boils down to a difference in theology. I appreciate that they are doing it out of love because of their very real fear for what could happen to your immortal soul.

And then (just when you thought perhaps it wasn't so bad), he criticized how society accepting homosexuality as a part of life saying, "That's just the way it is," lumping it together with adultery. How are these two things even in the same ballpark?

Saturday should be interesting.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 084 (Abiding Way)

After my drunken experience on Friday, I decided to go to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Tom and Ryan went with me for support. The cover story for my "problem" is that it was an assignment for The Sacred and the Substance. For anyone that's not keeping track, I've had to do more strange things for that class than I've ever had to for any other class I've ever taken. So far I've read an article about cannibalism, made a pot of chicken noodle soup, listen to a rap song about making crack, write a paper on My So-Called Life, read a book on zombies, and go to an AA meeting.

The AA meeting was so depressing! I just felt sorry for all of the people talking about how many days they had sober and the horror stories that brought them to AA in the first place. I totally take it for granted that I can have a fun drunken night and think nothing of it. These people can't do that. The weird thing is that AA totally functions as a religion. I almost felt like I was at a church service.

Speaking of church services, I went to Abiding Way for church this morning. I think I may have found my new church home away from home for my time up here, but there's just one little hiccup. They're Southern Baptist. Now, I'm not saying Souther Baptists are bad people; my youth leaders when I was in high school were a Southern Baptist couple from Tennessee, who I love dearly, but this does pose some problems. Not only is Southern Baptist theology very different from Presbyterian theology, but as far as I know, they're not very accepting of the GLBT community. I feel drawn to it as a possible "home" church because the people were very welcoming and friendly and the praise band was really good, if a little bit more mellow than I'm used to. No offense to anyone out there, but I don't like hymns. Like, at all. They just do nothing for me spiritually. The pastor delivered a great sermon, but he spoke for much longer than a typical Presbyterian minister would. He was very dynamic though, so I didn't mind. I initially thought Abiding Way was a non-denominational congregation, but as the pastor continued to preach, I started to get the feeling that the he might be Baptist. They served lunch, which is something I think they do every week, and we got confirmation that the church was in fact associated with the Southern Baptist denomination. Now, what this means in conjunction with the fact that they are situated in Marin County, one of the most secular places in the United States, is anyone's guess.

I wanted to ask the pastor how open they were to the GLBT community, but I didn't feel like asking it while we were all sitting in a group. I was going to preface the question by letting him know his answer wouldn't necessarily affect whether I would come back, but I thought it would be important for me to ask just so that everyone would be on the same page. I feel really drawn to that church, and I struggled with the whole Southern Baptist thing for a while, but I'm starting to think that's where God wants me to be. The message of love and tolerance is not for the Presbyterian Church alone, after all. I'll probably go back there next week and try to have a private word with the pastor. I'll let you all know how it goes.