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It's been a fascinating education learning about institutional Catholicism these past few weeks. I won't reveal how and what I know, but I think I have a good picture of the culture inside the bishop's inner circle and I'm pretty sure I understand his long-term agenda. The current lightening-fast closure of sixty-some churches is the first step of an ambitious plan; manufactured priest shortages and soon-to-be overcrowded churches will be used to justify even more radical changes. In about twenty years time, the 125 churches that exist today will have been sold off. What's left of a half million faithful will be herded into a dozen or so mega-churches, with theology borrowed from generic liberalism, style from feel-good evangelicalism, and organization from consultant culture.

When diocesan officials come by to read this blog (and they do now), they will smile at that last sentence and nod their heads approvingly. The conspiracy is real.

But I don't want to talk about Catholicism again. Let's talk Quakers instead, why not? I should be in some meeting for worship right anyway. Julie left Friends and returned to the faith of her upbringing after eleven years with us because she wanted a religious community that shared a basic faith and that wasn't afraid to talk about that faith as a corporate "we." It seems that Catholicism won't be able to offer that in a few years. Will she run then run off to the Eastern Orthodox church? For that matter should I be running off to the Mennonites? See though, the problem is that the same issues will face us wherever we try to go. It's modernism, baby. No focused and authentic faith seems to be safe from the Forces of the Bland. Lord help us.

We can blog the questions of course. Why would someone who dislikes Catholic culture and wants to dismantle it's infrastructure become a priest and a career bureaucrat? For that matter why do so many people want to call themselves Quakers when they can't stand basic Quaker theology? If I wanted lots of comments I could go on blah-blah-blah, but ultimately the question is futile and beyond my figuring.

Another piece to this issue came in some questions Wess Daniels sent around to me and a few others this past week in preparation for his upcoming presentation at Woodbrooke. He asked about how a particular Quaker institution did or did not represent or might or might not be able to contain the so-called "Convergent" Friends movement. I don't want to bust on anyone so I won't name the organization. Let's just say that like pretty much all Quaker bureaucracies it's inward-focused, shallow in its public statements, slow to take initiative and more or less irrelevant to any campaign to gather a great people. A more successful Quaker bureaucracy I could name seems to be doing well in fundraising but is doing less and less with more and more staff and seems more interested in donor-focused hype than long-term program implementation. 

One enemy of the faith is bureaucracy. Real leadership has been replaced by consultants and fundraisers. Financial and staffing crises--real and created--are used to justify a watering down of the message. Programs are driven by donor money rather than clear need and when real work might require controversy, it's tabled for the facade of feel-goodism. Quaker readers who think I'm talking about Quakers: no I'm talking about Catholics. Catholic readers who think I'm talking about Catholics: no, I'm talking about Quakers. My point is that these forces are tearing down religiosity all over. Some cheer this development on. I think it's evil at work, the Tempter using our leader's desires for position and respect and our the desires of our laity's (for lack of a better word) to trust and think the best of its leaders.

So where does that leave us? I'm tired of thinking that maybe if I try one more Quaker meeting I'll find the community where I can practice and deepen my faith as a Christian Friend. I'm stumped. That first batch of Friends knew this feeling: Fox and the Peningtons and all the rest talked about isolation and about religious professionals who were in it for the career. I know from the blogosphere and from countless one-on-one conversations that there are a lot of us--a lot--who either drift away or stay in meetings out of a sense of guilt.

So what would a spiritual community for these outsider Friends look like? If we had real vision rather than donor vision, what would our structures look like? If we let the generic churches go off to out-compete one other to see who can be the blandest, what would be left for the rest of us to do?

I guess this last paragraph is the new revised mission statement for the Quaker part of this blog. Okay kids, get a stepstool, go to your meeting library, reach up high, clear away the dust and pull out volume one of "A portraiture of Quakerism: Taken from a view of the education and discipline, social manners, civil and political economy, religious principles and character, of the Society of Friends" by Thomas Clarkson. Yes the 1806 version, stop the grumbling. Get out the ribbed packing tape and put it's cover back together--this isn't the frigging Library of Congress and we're actually going to read this thing. Don't even waste your time checking it out in the meeting's logbook, no one's pulled in down in fifty years and no one's going to miss it now. Really stuck, okay Google's got it too. Class will start shortly.

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C Wess Daniels has challenged us all to become Clean Slate Posers and how can I pass it up?! Man, those Evangelicals have all the fun...

Okay, yes it's insane to go on a vacation when one is unemployed. But logistically, it's the best time to go: no juggling work schedules, no finishing up projects before you go, no taking cell phone calls from harried colleagues. Julie had saved up the money and started planning a getaway this summer and reservations were all in place when I suddenly found myself out of a job. We could have canceled but October brought us more than our share of disappointments and we decided to go for it. Three guesses where we are:

More photos:

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See all the WDW photos

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Click on any of the pictures above for captions, etc. Here's the photoset of our whole trip. Apologies to all the Theo fans (you know who you are) for not getting these up sooner.

My wife has now finished the first trimester of her pregnancy so we can let people know that our little Theo's going to be a big brother this fall. That means it's time to think of baby names.

Fallen Baby Names List Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop 1 Herbert 32 962 930 1 Edna 17 986 969 2 Herman 45 974 929 2 Louise 24 977 953 3 Floyd 50 964 914 3 Beatrice 44 982 938 4 J 35 920 885 4 Bertha 26 963 937 5 Fred 19 876 857 5 Gladys 15 945 930 6 Earl 27 882 855 6 Lucille 49 954 905 7 Clarence 18 717 699 7 Dorothy 7 846 839 8 Howard 30 721 691 8 Hazel 20 681 661 9 Alfred 33 683 650 9 Edith 25 683 658 10 Ralph 23 660 637 10 Frances 16 580 564 11 Elmer 36 654 618 11 Irene 21 581 560 12 Harold 15 595 580 12 Marie 8 496 488 13 Ernest 26 599 573 13 Martha 31 487 456 14 Eugene 49 578 529 14 Alice 10 426 416 15 Leonard 48 571 523 15 Helen 2 389 387 16 Harry 13 517 504 16 Ruth 5 350 345 17 Francis 37 509 472 17 Rose 14 358 344 18 Willie 28 454 426 18 Annie 28 339 311 19 Roy 24 433 409 19 Clara 23 295 272 20 Walter 11 356 345 20 Esther 30 297 267 21 Arthur 14 353 339 21 Josephine 33 260 227 22 Carl 20 357 337 22 Eva 39 215 176 23 Lawrence 34 344 310 23 Ruby 42 197 155 24 Albert 16 311 295 24 Margaret 3 130 127 25 Joe 38 321 283 25 Catherine 19 106 87 26 Theodore 42 313 271 26 Laura 50 122 72 27 Louis 21 278 257 27 Mary 1 61 60 28 Leo 44 288 244 28 Evelyn 34 89 55 29 Frank 8 228 220 29 Anna 4 21 17 30 Raymond 22 188 166 30 Elizabeth 6 9 3 31 George 4 137 133 31 Mildred 9 n/a 0 32 Edward 9 128 119 32 Florence 11 n/a 0 33 Paul 17 124 107 33 Ethel 12 n/a 0 34 Henry 10 116 106 34 Lillian 13 n/a 0 35 Peter 46 148 102 35 Gertrude 22 n/a 0 36 Kenneth 47 109 62 36 Mabel 27 n/a 0 37 Richard 25 86 61 37 Bessie 32 n/a 0 38 Charles 6 59 53 38 Elsie 35 n/a 0 39 Robert 7 35 28 39 Pearl 36 n/a 0 40 Thomas 12 36 24 40 Agnes 37 n/a 0 41 John 1 17 16 41 Thelma 38 n/a 0 42 James 3 18 15 42 Myrtle 40 n/a 0 43 William 2 11 9 43 Ida 41 n/a 0 44 Jack 41 46 5 44 Minnie 43 n/a 0 45 Joseph 5 6 1 45 Viola 47 n/a 0 46 Samuel 31 23 -8 46 Nellie 48 n/a 0 47 David 29 14 -15 47 Grace 18 13 -5 48 Anthony 43 10 -33 48 Julia 45 33 -12 49 Andrew 40 5 -35 49 Emma 29 2 -27 50 Michael 39 2 -37 50 Sarah 46 12 -34

Most new parents want to give their child unique names and want to steer clear of the most over-used names. Yet if you tell your friends you're naming your boy Jacob or Joshua, they'll all cheer you on. If your little girl goes by Emily, Emma or Madison, they'll think that's darling. Yet those are the top three boy and girl names for 2003.

They are tens of thousands of kids getting these top names every year. All of the kids with these names are going to be getting nicknames to differentiate them from one another: just hope your little angel isn't the one that gets tagged "The Ugly Emily" or "The Stupid Joshua" by their third grade classmates!

There are definite trends in names. Certain names tend to sound fresh and daring even when they're overused and trite. The only way to train your ear away from such trends is to methodically study the data (the New York Times had a fasincating article on all this when we were pondering Theo's name, Where Have All the Lisas Gone?).

Fortunately the U.S. Social Security Administration provides a list of the most popular baby names by year, going back to the turn of the twentieth century. Using this, my wife and I were able to choose "Theodore" for our first child's name; born in 2003, he name is the 313th most popular boy's name and dropping. Yet it's a known name and there have been great twentieth century folks who have answered to it (e.g., Dr. Suess, Theodore Geisel).

How is a parent to choose? One recent afternoon I cut and pasted the top fifty boy and girl names of the first decade of the Twentieth Century. I looked up their current status (the 2003 data) to see what movement has occured in their placement. The old names are still known but some have fallen far out of use. Herbert, for example, was the 32nd most popular boy's name in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, but now ranks a dismal 930! If you want a name everyone knows but no one is giving their kid, Herbert's your choice for boy's and Edna's your choice for girls.

Now these fallen names probably sound awkward. But that's the point: they run counter to the trends. I'll admit that some deserve their reduced status; I cannot imagine saddling a little girl with "Edna." But in the list are some gems which have been unduly demoted by the trend-setters.

We've been very happy with "Theodore," the 26th most fallen name of the Twentieth Century. He's officially named after his great-great uncle. The social security datebase assured us that the name was safe from trendiness.

So what will the new baby be named? Check in soon!! The due date is the end of August.

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Update: drumroll please.... Our new son's name is Francis.