Dan J. Brennan

U2, Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom

I really did want to go to the Wild Goose Festival. I wanted to meet virtual friends face-to-face for the first time. I would have loved to have met Mike Morrell, Steve Knight, and others for the first time. Hearing Jennifer Knapp would have been sweet, too.  I would have enjoyed meeting many new people for the first time. It would have been great to have connected with my virtual friends who made the journey to Wild Goose. 

But there was U2, and a symbolic Christmas gift from my son.

I had two tickets for a U2 concert in East Lansing Michigan on Sunday, June 25. These were not just two tickets. They had rich symbolic meaning for me: they were given to me by my son as a Christmas gift to attend U2 with my friend, Jennifer. Jennifer and I have done a lot of things together, have traveled on all-day trips together, but this was the first four day trip.

Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. I felt I was given a great gift  of deep freedom ("where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty"). To attend U2 in East Lansing with Jennifer was an act of deep social freedom and beauty.

Capsizing the Kayak

I was looking forward to my first kayaking experience. It was a part of the four day cross-gender friendship weekend which included U2. My friend, Jennifer Ould and I decided to go kayaking on the Pere Marquette River on Saturday afternoon. We have enjoyed our previous canoeing experiences and we were going to experiement with a kayak.

What's Your Top Ten U2 Songs?

In anticipation of U2 playing in Lansing Sunday night, Anne Jackson, a writer for Lansing State Journal gave her top ten U2 songs. 

 

Thankful

Several things have happened in the last couple of days to make me pause and give thanks for what a rich, rich life I am currently living. No, I don't mean rich in terms of $$$. The housing market crash has put us quite underwater on those terms, but I mean rich relationally as far as my immediate relationships. 

My son 26 year old Jonathan posted on my FB wall for Father's Day, "Happy Fathers Day to a man who has taught me, among many other things, to practice patience and give grace in relationships with family and friends. Here's to you, Dan Brennan." That so blessed me. I have a good, flourishing relationship with Jonathan. It was a beautiful experience to grill steaks with him on Sunday. Jonathan personally cut me this enormous ribeye steak for Father's Day and he put his steak on the grill. 

Liturgy, Love, and Pentecost

Just a simple, but not-so-simple story I want to share with you. Simple, in the sense that it is wholesome, unsophisticated, and ordinary. Not-so-simple in the sense that the story draws attention to the ever-widening depth of peacemaking, flourishing, and love between men and women who are not in a romantic relationship. There is a great current of estrangement, fragmentation, distrust, disconnect, and superficiality between men and women in the church today--that is, if they are not on the path for romantic trajectory. As my ongoing friends who read this blog know, I believe friendship between men and women is a journey toward communion, toward oneness, toward deep spiritual intimacy. Marriage and friendship are not mutually exclusive relationships. I believe that the Spirit's work is to nurture, shape and form communion among his people--including men and women. 

This simple story I want to share is so interconnected with liturgy, communion in friendship, and Pentecost. 

Anthony Weiner, Cyber Love and Infidelity

Some rambling thoughts on Anthony Weiner.

"To be clear, I have never met these any of these women."

 

The virtual world of connecting with our opposite sex neighbors is just one click away. Cyber relationships can be pretty deep and intense. It is reported by some that their online affair along with cybersex was the most intense experience they have ever experienced. Some of them have never met face-to face. Imagine that. Anthony Weiner certainly isn't the first one and he's not going to be the last. 

My regular readers of this blog know I believe one can have intimate cross-gender friendships and still be faithful to one's spouse. It follows that one can also develop virtual cross-gender friendships and honor their spouses and their marital vows.

Friendship: An Alternative Ethic

I have richly enjoyed reading Anna Perterson's book,  Everyday Ethics and Social Change: The Education of Desire.

Marriage, Vocation, and Discipleship Between the Sexes

Discipleship and sexual holiness. It comes as no surprise that some online reflections from evangelicals have appeared reacting to Arnold Schwarzenegger's infidelity.  There was bound to be a call to protect one's marriage and sure enough, Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson Publishers stepped out with a post on doing just that: "What Are You Doing to Protect Your Marriage?"  Hyatt's post generated a lot of comments (over 367 as I write this).  

In a fascinating response to Hyatt, Gina Dalfanzo wrote a post for Her.meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for evangelical women, called, Guarding Your Marriage Without Dissing Women. Under that heading was a striking observation followed by a question: "Women aren't disappearing from the workplace or ministry staff teams. How will married men adjust?"  

In other words, discipleship and sexual holiness among evangelical men and women are going to have a more prominent place in dialogue when it comes to vocation and sexuality in this century. We've come a loooong way since the beginning of last century, where women were not even allowed to vote yet much less have such a powerful voice in public like Gina Dalfanzo exercised in this post. According to Betty DeBerg in Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism many Christians who ascribed to premillennial views in the late 1800's, thought women working outside the home was a sign of end times in which lawlessness would run rampant.  

Drew Marshall Interview

I was on the Drew Marshall Show, Canada's most listened to spiritual talk show on Saturday, talking with Drew about Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions.

Here is the link