HELL ON WHEELS
By DAN GERINGER
Philadelphia Daily News
ON THE HEELS of winning No. 1 rankings as Most Out of Shape and Ugliest city dwellers in America, Philadelphians have just won another national dubious-achievement award - Most Dangerous Drivers.
After studying its policyholders' car crashes for two years in cities with more than a million residents, Allstate Insurance Co. named Philadelphians the nation's most reckless drivers.
Just in time for Fourth of July weekend!
Titled "Philadelphia Drivers Skid In Among Worst," the Allstate report found that Philly drivers averaged 6.6 years between collisions in 2005-06, making them 50 percent more likely to crash than the national-average of 10 years between collisions.
"You know how men are always blaming it on women drivers, and older drivers are always blaming it on younger drivers?" said Tracey King, Allstate communications manager. "Well, in Philadelphia, it's everyone."
In the Allstate survey, Philly's collision numbers were found to be equally dismal among males, females, pre-baby-boomers, baby boomers and Generation X-ers - and even scarier among Generation Y-ers (4.9 years between accidents).
New York City drivers average two years longer between collisions. National-best Tucson, Az.? Fuhgettaboutit! More than 10 years between crashes.
Broad Street distractions
What gives?
Responding by cell phone on his way to teach a class yesterday, Frank Farley, Temple University professor of educational psychology, said: "I'm driving down Broad Street right now and it's a crazy street. I mean, are they nuts?"
Farley was referring to the median merchants hawking their wares to passing motorists who swerve over and stop suddenly to do business, regardless of traffic.
"I've been in a lot of places," Farley said, "and I don't know of any other city where they got this middle lane thing going on with people walking around selling things to drivers.
"People are in the middle of the street selling your wonderful newspaper to drivers who stop their cars and get their money out, regardless of the traffic coming up behind them.
"Other people are flogging flowers and, around Temple, pies and bottled water," he said. "I've seen drivers get very distracted when they suddenly decide they need to get some flowers without letting the drivers behind them know.
"Are the distractions on Philadelphia streets like Broad Street above average? Does this affect the collision rate?"
Farley said that when you add double parking to the mix - "I have never been in a city that allows so much double-parking" - and the habitual running of red lights in anticipation of them turning green, you've got a recipe for Philadelphia leading the nation in collisions.
"We also have a lot of old, narrow streets and one-way streets," he said. "It's tricky navigation in Center City. It's easy to get hit. Bing!"
At A Confident Driving School in Bala Cynwyd, which advertises "Results Without Yelling," an instructor identifying himself as Mark R. said: "They used to have the serpentine course in the drivers-license test, but no more.
"To drive that snake pattern between the cones without knocking them over," he said, "you had to visualize where the back of your car was. You kind of developed eyes in the back of your car.
"Now, a lot of people are only driving the front half of the car. They feel like the car is driving them. They are not in control."
Mark R. also blamed driving schools that "just teach you how to pass the driving test instead of teaching you how to pass the real test, which is staying in one piece once you get your license."
It's been a while. Let's not talk about it. Wasted energy, dontcha know? Anyway, I'm back... in some form and frequency that has yet to be determined.
I am doing some new work writing and composing Mass settings in a variety of American idioms like blues and jazz. Not like the typical Jazz Mass that so many of our churches do -- the kind that just plunks the jazz into the midst of a 1970s Rite 2 liturgy with no relation to anything else (they also do this with far too many U2charists, but that's another post entirely). My work is altering the entire ethos of the liturgy so that everything relates, most especially the vocalized portions of a sung Mass, to work well within these genres.
Imagine the Eucharistic Prayer fully sung in a blues progression. Amazing stuff! My hope is to provide the resources that make it possible for even our smallest churches to achieve while also expanding the resources to utilize professional choirs and instrumentalists and more into a full communal celebration.
Anybody want to help me publish?
What bothers me most about the current Anglican crisis (and I do believe we have ben thrust into crisis by the Primates-- the question remains whether or not we will allow a crisis on their part necessitates a crisis on our part) is the human factor. We can argue over doctrine and polity all day long, but where those things really matter is in their incarnational praxis.
I've been asked if I could find a place within myself to willingly consent to the kind of "pause" our presiding bishop suggests we are being asked. How can I possibly answer that question knowing that I speak as an insider? I am a priest who is gay and partnered and who made it through the machinations of the curch to claim the place I now hold within it. Insiders have the kind of voice and power that such a pause necessarily prevents for others. To be asked to use that power over my brothers and sisters is untenable. It potentially places my ordination vows and my baptismal vows in direct conflict with one another. It is a deeply painful place to be.
You know what surprises me? I am surprised by what this crisis brings forth for some of my straight friends and parishioners. I've been surprised by their very clear conviction that if our church does not have the courage of its convictions then they will seek God elsewhere. They don't say it as a threat. They say it out of a deep belief in their baptismal vocation-- a vocation that we gave them-- that all are made one in Christ Jesus and now that that work is done our task is live into that reality. This crisis for them is not about people like me (as much as they may love me and wish to protect me), it's about people like all of us.
They believe the church is less about preserving things like buildings and doctrines and traditions, and more about allowing the love of Christ to set us free from those things that bind us. They believe that closing the door to changes in buildings and doctrines and traditions (things we might choose to do out of love for our traditions and communities) may actually close the door on the Holy Spirit.
I'm also caught by the predicament of our gay seminarians, postulants and candidates for Holy Orders. For some reason I'm in more constant contact with several of them since this mess began. When asked why they should continue on this journey I can only tell them that the "call" is about them and God but the ordination process is about them and the church. They must never confuse those two and learn to discern the limits the latter sometimes places on the former. We're all learning about that right now but I must confess I prefer this side of the collar to the other in which almost all the power is over you rather than even a little with you.
The incarnational power we may lose is with these folks, the ones I call the 2nd generation. Many of them have had the courage to consider ordained ministry because they first experienced the church through the ministry of the first waves of openly gay clergy. Not unlike young girls who felt the undeniable affirmation when they experienced a woman at the altar for the first time, gay folk have claimed their own incarnation as God's children in part because of the visible witness of gay clerics the church has offered them.
I remember back in Memphis when my own baptismal community raised me up for ordained ministry, seeing in me things I could not see in myself. I've used that experience as I've raised up others to consider discernment toward Holy Orders. Most often I see gifts in them that make my own pale by comparison. That's as it should be. The 2nd generation holds the potential for something different for the church in this regard. I long for the church to benefit from their ministries with and to us all. I confess it's a very personal longing, for I fear that we (I) may have lied to them about who and what the church is. We've taught them that baptism is the foundational ordination from which all else flows. We never taught them that subsequent sacraments sometimes call that foundation into question.
If we're not clear what kind of baptismal community we are offering, then I suggest a necessary "fast" so we may get our houses in order and stop the unintended spiritual violence we may cause some in our number. Until we are clear that we, like Jesus, invite everyone to God's table and to full participation in the life of the His body, then we are no longer able to baptize new ones into the household of faith.
I believe that makes crystalline the crisis we now face.
Is anyone else feeling trapped?
Most Episcopalians have never experienced anything like it. We clear the church, put up tables, and eat a complete meal together.
It was 7 o'clock. Time to start. All the tables were filled, but the people kept coming. We added an extra chair to every table, but the people kept coming. When everyone was settled, we began with the ancient blessing over the first cup of wine, broke bread and passed it around. During the meal we tell the story of Jesus washing the feet of his friends. I then tell a story of a time when someone unexpectedly served me and how that simple experience changed my life, if only for a moment. Then I ask everyone to share that same kind of story around their table.
The sharing is amazing. People were really getting into it. If we had done that for two hours it wouldn't have been enough time, so wonderul was the sharing. Those simple stories are our witness to the living presence of a living God. The vulnerability it takes to share those stories changes the energy in the room. The breath of God was palpable. I hated to interrupt but we had more work to do.
Then comes the footwashing. We have a large immersion font so we get in the font to wash feet. Yep, that's right-- in the font. It's wonderful and messy and chaotic. There were so many people there we did it in pairs and still it took over 45 minutes to get everyone washed. The Feast is filled with music, all sung to the beat of drums and other rhythm instruments. Our voices literally fill the room--some might say we shook the walls, too. I looked up to see people waiting for the font lined up and snaking their way around the room. Singing, chatting, moving to the music.
This footwashing thing is profound. You can't do it and leave unchanged. At our place, folks tend to hang out around the font as others get washed. Eventually everyone ends up crowded around.
That's when I saw it. A blur of palm fronds and arms and bare feet went by. Some of the women were holding hands, armed raised like in a Greek folk dance, waving the palms they were holding, and dancing! Spontaneous dancing! Unexplained dancing! Unfettered spirits! A blend of how much we love each other, how much we love God, and our gratitude for both. A distinctive blur of the holy and the human at its finest.
The dance line began to grow. Eventually it became a full circle. Then another formed behind that first one. It was so beautiful it took my breath away and my eyes filled with tears. As the tears rolled down my cheeks the Spirit that was in the room came full into me. There has been no finer moment in my ministry than this one.
Today, one of the newer members of our community emailed me. He told me that he had never experienced anything like that night in his entire life.
Me, too.
Click here for another person's experience of this same night-- with pictures!
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