More TJ wines

My lovely wife and I went to Trader Joe's this past weekend and picked up some wine as well as many groceries. Two wines that I like so far include the La Boca Chardonnay 2008. I found a review of the 2007, which should give you some idea of the characteristics.

Another wine I really like was a blend called Pancake Cellars Big Day White. It's "60% Sauvignon Blanc, 27% Chardonnay, 12% Gewurztraminer and 1% Pinot Blanc." I'm no wine aficionado, but I would say this wine is very light and could easily be overpowered by something spicy. It's nice, though. I think the label shows a grape dreaming of stomping on people or cities or something.

By the way, these wines are very inepensive at $5 and $6 each. Not bad.

Whine

At this moment (yes, at almost 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon) I'm having a glass of red wine. It's an inexpensive Merlot my wife and I picked up at Trader Joe's on a recent trip. It's the Viñas Chilenas Reserva Merlot 2007. I've found a review of the 2006, which uses words like astringent and medicinal. Ditto. Yeah, this isn't my favorite wine in all the world, but I'd hate to waste it. ;-)

I much prefer the also inexpensive Epicuro Salice Salentino Riserva (also from TJ's). This wine is "crafted from 80% Negroamaro and 20% Malvasia Nera" grapes, which are two varieties I had never heard of before trying this wine. That wine is much better. In any event, just give me a nice Malbec and and a nice medium to medium-well steak and I'm good.

Judging other people's religious beliefs?

I've been judged and/or criticized for my religious beliefs over the years and it's not fun. I remember showing off my first rosary (as an Episcopalian) to some folks. When they thought it was a piece of jewelry for a girl I liked they were impressed, but when I told them what it was they quoted Mathew 6:19-24. This made no sense to me at all since the material value of the rosary was relatively small. The beads were plastic and any metal on the rosary was probably stainless steel or aluminum. Somehow these folks felt I was storing up worldly wealth for myself. I suspect they just didn't like the fact that I was using a rosary as a devotional aid.

Sometimes, though I can't help but wonder what people are thinking. This guy asked a (Catholic) priest on the radio once if a woman who had an abortion needed an exorcism. He said no, but I didn't feel like he went far enough in finding out where this guy was coming from. Then there is Mel Gibson. He's a traditionalist Catholic who only uses the Tridentine Latin Rite and recently built a church for himself and other like-minded folks. But then he's been a naught boy lately in a very public (and scandalous) way.

And then I know someone who is getting married and family members cannot come because they aren't members of this particular faith. Sometimes I just don't know where people are coming from when it comes to religion. What happened to "God is love"? I don't know. I don't understand.

Spiritual disciplines

I've been wondering for quite some time how much spiritual disciplines one should undertake. I've been in churches where people were generally encouraged to read their Bibles, pray and go to church. Also expected of course was to abstain from activities that are considered contrary to God's will (murder, theft, premarital/extramarital sex, etc.).

I've also been in churches with rigorous fasting schedules and strict rules. The clergy took a very strong role in each person's life, often hearing confessions, telling people whether they had his blessing to do or not do certain things and so forth (and it wasn't a Roman Catholic church). I guess you could say I've done a lot of church hopping and church shopping, which can be bad. I think a person can get a lot of conflicting ideas and theologies in his head and become very confused.

These days I'm hoping to find a good church for my wife, my son and myself. I don't really want a church where people show up on Sundays and think that's it and that anything more than that is trying to buy your salvation. On the other hand, I don't want to be handed a list of foods that I shouldn't eat on certain days and be told when I can and cannot do certain otherwise acceptable activities. I believe that part of being a Christian is doing things to put us in line with God's will and that doing those things is often unpleasant. Our fallen natures are bent toward doing the will of the flesh, so spiritual discipline seems important.

Self-denial sounds like something we should practice, but how? How much is too much? What is acceptable and what is not? How much of a role in determining the answers to these questions should others have in a person's life? To what extent should we have a spiritual guide or father/mother/"discipler"? These are all questions I've picked up from too much church hopping I think. I wish I knew.

Words?

As a former journalist the meaning and use of words is very important to me. Once, when I was a sports writer covering a girls' basketball game, I asked the coach what happened during the game and he said that his team had been manhandled. The fact that we were talking about a basketball team made up of teenage girls made that particular word stick out to me.

When people talk about their faith they often downplay the importance of using the right words. I'm trying to find the right answer myself. How important is the use of the right words? Last week I was listening to a religious program on the radio and a minister was telling this woman about the importance of the Incarnation. She said, "Oh, I believe that Jesus is God in human form." That reminded me of the Wonder Twins who could lightly punch one another's knuckles and say, "form of a glacier" and transform into the form of a glacier. They did not actually become a glacier. They were super heroes in the form of a glacier. See the problem? They only appeared to be a glacier.

So, is the wording "in human form" correct? In my humble opinion this woman's words did not describe Jesus Christ. The Council of Chalcedon said the following:

Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul [meaning human soul] and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted. Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in respect of his deity, and now in these "last days," for us and behalf of our salvation, this selfsame one was born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect of his humanness.

That's why I have trouble with the idea of Jesus being "God in human form." The teaching of Christians for so many centuries has been that Jesus is God and man, not God in the form of man. But, how much does it matter that we all talk the same? This woman, who was really more concerned about kicking her nicotine habit than deep theology, probably isn't sitting at home right now thinking about personhood and what it means to have a rational human soul and/or a divine nature.

Hebrew 2:14-15 says, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."

I think it's important to speak clearly about the Incarnation because without Jesus assuming our nature we cannot be saved. However, I struggle with how much emphasis we should put on speaking correctly. I think I should make sure I don't say something that seems to "water down" the reality of Jesus' humanity or divinity, but should I appoint myself the language police for others? Can I assume that this woman I heard on the radio doesn't truly believe in the Incarnation? How do I know that she doesn't have a correct understand of this great mystery and just chose her words poorly? I don't.

However, I think it's bad to let people be ignorant of what our faith really teaches. I think it's uncharitable to let people think that, for example, Jesus only looked like a man and was only divine. So, where is the balance? I've been in churches where no one seemed to worry about what anybody really believed, and I've been in churches where people will make sure you know you're wrong if you speak incorrectly about an article of faith. I've been uncomfortable in both settings.