Well, it’s the 4th of July weekend - in New England, the height of summer and vacation season. In Arizona, well, just more of the same. Millions of people everywhere are heading out on vacation, so today seems a perfect one to share this little vacation tale:

I got this note yesterday from my friend and co-worker Sharon, who just returned from an unplanned, extended spearfishing weekend on the island of Andros, in the Bahamas. Seems there’s only one company that flies planes in and out of there and it’s a “first come, first serve, unless you got da money, honey” system when the island gets as overcrowded as it did last weekend. Anyways, yesterday was her birthday, and she filed the following report to us at work, which I thought too good not to publish. She writes:

Thank you all for your good wishes! I made it home today finally, although with a considerably lighter wallet after what it took to find a way off this morning.

Now, however, I am missing terribly that warm, azure water and the lazy days, and now of course wish I could have put aside my worries about work and other obligations while stranded, so that I could have enjoyed it even more fully.

However, I really can’t complain — one guy came back without his arm. A shark ate it.

Well that’s one way to come back from vacation lighter than you when you left. I wonder if that fellow can now call himself an “arm”y of one…

Yep, the title of this post is nicked from the Bee Gees‘ own follow-up album to Saturday Night Fever. Kinda lame album cover, dontcha think - very ’70’s-ish, eh? OK, so the title of this post lacks creativity, but no one ever accused The Great White Shank of being that creative. After this post, I hope you’ll understand why…

Last night, I was sitting on the couch and minding my own business, enjoying watching the Red Sox treat Pedro Martinez and the New York Mets to an old-fashioned, “Welcome-back Petey!” whupping. Tracey was in her usual place at that time of day - in the office with the rabbits, using our $2K+ computer in its primary role (a solitaire game). I had just finished supper and had nothing on my mind other than anticipating Youk getting another hit (which he ultimately did!), when all of a sudden the strongest scent of Easter lillies overwhelmed me. As strong as if I were back at St. Anne’s Episcopal on Easter Sunday. Then, not seconds later, it was gone. Completely.

Immediately, I checked the clock - it 7:22 PM AZ time. The reason I checked was just in case I later found out someone I knew or was close to had died - then I could ask what their time of death was and see if it was one of those spooky Twilight Zone-kinda things. Where could the scent have come from? There was no need to see if it had come from outside - there’s no such thing as an open window or door here in Arizona come late June; heck, the temp was still over 100 at that time. I checked around the corner, and there was Tracey, still absorbed in her game. I knew we had no flowers or even scented candles in the house, so that wasn’t the cause.

The odd thing was, for that brief moment in time, the Sox seemed a million miles away, and I was left with a soft, lingering sense of emptiness - not calm, not sadness, not joy, just the kind of emptiness one feels when someone has left the house and all is suddenly quiet.

Very strange.

One of the shining stars of the Red Sox season thus far is first baseman Kevin Youkilis. Over the winter, after kissing Kevin Millar’s lard a$$ goodbye, I think the Sox had confidence in Youk make the full-time transition from third and do the job, but, just to be on the safe side, they also signed free-agent J.T. Snow with the intention that the two would likely split time between first over the season. (Snow was also acquired as an insurance policy in case the newly-acquired Mike Lowell’s offensive woes in 2005 weren’t just a one-time thing.)

Boy, do things look different come the end of June.

Let’s first take a look at the hot corner: not only is Lowell playing arguably the best defensive third base in the American League (far better in my view than that perennial stiff/choker Alex Rodriguez), but he’s been cranking out doubles about as often as Gilbert, AZ does 100-degree days, and kept his average above .300 all season. Unless the injury bug rears its ugly head, manager Terry Francona should have nothing to worry about from this position for the rest of the year.

And over on the other side of the diamond? Hard to deny that Youk has surpassed nearly everyone’s expections. Not only has his defense been rock-solid, but he has become a fixture at the top of the Sox’ line-up. This is, in my view, one of the keys to Sox’ offensive success this year. Originally, Covelli Loyce (!) (Coco) Crisp was expected to replace that money-grubbing Yankee traitor Johnny Damon in the lead-off position - and he started out that way - but when he got injured a few games into the season, Youk took his slot and has garfed onto it like a sea leopard on an unsuspecting emperor penguin (yes, I watched “March of the Penguins” the other night).

Even after Coco returned, it took only a few games for Francona to realize that re-inserting Youk in the lead-off position served three vital purposes:

1) Youk’s command of the hitting zone and his high on-base (.422) and slugging (.496) percentages (both higher than traitor Damon’s, BTW) exploits Mark Loretta’s bat-handling skills and helps set the table for big dogs David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez;

2) By putting Coco down to eighth (!) in the order the power in the Red Sox line-up gets extended in a very! big! way!;

3) Youk’s hitting presence gives the ninth hitter (more often than not, shortstop Alex Gonzalez) better pitches to hit. You can already see the difference, as the normally-anemic hitting A-Gon has pushed his average up 75 points (to .267) in the last few weeks.

Most people figured that losing Damon and third baseman Bill Mueller (now on the DL for the Dodgers) would cost the Sox in offense this year, but largely due to Youk, the Sox actually have a more well-balanced attack than they did last year, with the benefit of a much improved defense. If the Sox can figure out a way to jettison the disppointing Rudy Seanez, reduce Julian Tavarez‘ overall exposure, and pick up another reliable veteran arm for the bullpen around the All-Star break, they will be a force to contend with the rest of the year. And it’s really all because of one guy.

In Youk we trust.

I have resisted writing at length about last week’s Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church U.S.A. general conventions; I hesitate to do so even today, for, although a life-long Episcopalian who has preached in United Methodist churches and attended (albeit for a brief time) a Presbyterian seminary, I’m not sure: a) if it’s even my business to render an opinion, and b) that it even matters what the these ecclesiatical bodies do anymore, given the lack of influence they have both on their membership and society as a whole.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: the only ones who still care what The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA) do at their conventions are the rapidly-shrinking numbers of people who still call themselves members of these churches, for both not only have ceased to be a driving force in mainline American Prostestantism (having been replaced long ago by non-denominational “megachurches” who continue to thrive and grow by leaps and bounds), they have become virtually irrelevant (if not non-existent) as well, given their seemingly-innate ability to live in a never-ending state of controversy and chaos while turning a blind eye to the members they are losing in ever-increasing numbers.

Why this sad state of affairs? In my humble view there are two primary reasons:

1) A general de-emphasis of sin in any and all of its forms, which has resulted in: a) a watered-down commitment to the historical and moral teachings of the Church, which in turn has: b) reduced the overall meaning and importance of the sacraments of the Church as a vehicle by which the Church has importance and relevance in peoples’ lives.

2) The increasing willingness (and indeed, desire) to embrace a radical, so-called “progressive” gay/lesbian social agenda that seeks to undermine (and I would add, destroy) 2000 years of historical and moral teachings by hiding its agenda behind the oh-so-trendy and comfortable buzzwords of “diversity” and “acceptance”.

And I’m not the only one with this view. A decade ago, in his ground-breaking book “The Empty Church”, Thomas C. Reeves pinpointed exactly the challenges faced by traditional churches who abandoned the teachings of traditional Christianity to instead market themselves as “inclusive”, “diverse”, and “welcoming” as a path to renewal. And Colleen Carroll, in her book “The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy“, provides numerous examples (anecdotal, but powerful nevertheless) of young people rejecting the churches of their youth and turning towards Roman Catholicism and orthodoxy in their personal search for direction, knowledge, meaning, and sacredness in their spiritual lives and church-going experiences.

They say nature abhors a vacuum, and in the case of TEC, PCUSA and others of their kind, the kind of people whose youth, commitment, and, yes, money that can invigorate dying parishes and denominations: young families, white- and blue-collar professionals, and new arrivals from foreign countries and cultures are voting with their feet and choosing religious institutions unafraid to teach and proclaim a strong belief system based on (gasp!) traditional Christian values. Just as important, these institutions expect their members to reciprocate, whether through tithing, ministry, or evangelism, in their personal lives and communities. Rather than worship at an altar of post-modern relativism erected on the dust of late ’60s/early ’70s progressive liberalism, these people are unafraid to embrace and proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, leaving TEC, PCUSA, and those like them older, grayer, and at the mercy of radical gay/lesbian activists hell-bent on breaking any and every kind of perceived barrier in the name of inclusiveness and diversity as they themselves define it.

My good friend Dona and I have had this argument over and over, and it’s become increasingly clear to me - as it has to those in TEC who call themselves orthodox, conservative, or Anglo-Catholic - that there really is no more wiggle-room for compromise on these things. Given the decisions made by TEC and PCUSA in their most recent conventions, both denominations have made it clear the direction they intend to go, and the once-meandering brook of progressive liberalism that in such a short period of time has become a rushing river will further accelerate into a tidal wave that will soon swamp and extinguish all remaining vestiges of orthodoxy and tradition. On the TEC side, David Virtue believes the 2006 Episcopal convention is paving the way for an alternative worldwide communion. On the PCUSA side, highly-respected theologian Mark D. Roberts believes it’s the beginning of end of the church he once knew and loved.

The question is: Does it really matter? I mean, let’s face it, the old paradigm associated with the traditional church has, in almost every way, manner shape, and form, been completely and utterly swept away by a highly-mobile society and the information age. No longer are people bound to the geographical and theological confines of a given denomination. Whether it be the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Baptist, there are virtually hundreds of splinter churches available to anyone who has the time and passion to check them all out. Much like the modern-day supermarket, the Christian marketplace features a virtual cornucopia of options to choose from. Whether or not this is a good thing is something that can be debated, but it certainly can’t be ignored.

One indicator of the failure of mainline Protestant churches to attract, promote and teach the faith and faithful is the rapid growth of house churches. Jim Rutz, the chairman of Megashift Ministries and founder of Open Church Ministries has long been a major proponent of the house church as an alternative to the traditional mainline Protestant model. He notes in this article for WorldNet Daily that the house church community in the U.S. ranks second (behind the Roman Catholic Church and ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention) in overall attendance.

Please don’t think of the house church as a new fad. For the first 300 years of Christianity, house churches were the norm. In fact, church buildings were quite rare until the fourth century, when the power-hungry Roman Emperor Constantine suddenly outlawed house church meetings, began erecting church buildings with Roman tax money, and issued a decree that all should join his Catholic Church. If you want to stick to a biblical model, the house church is your only choice.

In China, the world’s largest church (120 million) is 90 percent based in homes. The cover story in this week’s World magazine (June 24) is on how Christian business leaders in China are beginning to change the whole situation in that country. Yes, even while Christians in many provinces are hunted down and tortured, CEOs of corporations in areas with freedom are changing the way government looks at Christianity. That is major. </