we’ve got the answers

thanks to for these questions:

1. How did the CyberAmish Pie ceremony get started? (And am I still invited to preach next year?)

From www.cyberamish.com -

The Order was founded in 1998 by Paul Brown at a Coco’s Restaurant in Tucson, Arizona. Paul was attending a bear event known as La Fiesta de Los Osos, sponsored by the Bears of the Old Pueblo, with a group of friends. While waiting in the lobby, the Doubting Lady™ appeared to Paul in a vision and asked him to form the Order. So Paul and his troop of Pie-ists went into the dining room and had the First Supper ™, a meal which has been duplicated annually ever since.

The story is, though, that when I was waiting in the lobby of Coco’s with , , and some others, a late middle-aged woman came up to me, saw us big burly bearded fellows and asked what kind of group we were. On instinct, I told her the Fraternal Order of Cyber-Amish, a religious organization whose motto was “Simpler living through technology.” She looked doubtingly at me, so I had SFKuma whip out his Church ID card that Urso had designed. It pictures him in his monastic garb. The look on the Doubting Lady’s face was priceless, and I knew something special had just been born.

I’m into the idea of guest preachers, if you like.

Pie is baked. Pie is eaten. Pie will come again.

2. What attracts you to the Orthodox tradition?

Initially, what attracted me to Orthodox Christianity was the music. Bishop Elias had lost his chanter and had asked me for about two years if I’d be interested in coming to sing for him. I kept resisting the idea, thinking that I wasn’t ready or willing or able to do what he needing doing. Finally, in 1999 or 2000, I think it was, at Fiesta (something transformative about Fiesta for me, I think), I was sitting in the lobby of the old host hotel and he came up to me and put these headphones on my ears and played a CD for me. That CD, which he subsequently gave me, is called the Gates of Repentance – Hymns for Great Lent. From the first note, I felt the Comfortor fill me and it was then I knew that I needed to explore Orthodoxy.

What keeps me practicing my faith is the holistic approach that Orthodoxy takes to life: orthopraxis, the “right work” that defines what being Orthodox means. Everything I do is worshipping God, whether is as simple as taking a shower in the morning, to giving a massage, or buying a bagel for some homeless guy. St. Paul said, “pray ceaselessly,” and that’s what orthopraxis is. My life is devoted to service to others, and by that, to God.

Orthodox liturgical worship, also, is a holistic form of worship. All five senses are involved – the viewing of the icons, the chanting, the incense (prayers rising like incense), the kiss of peace. Its ancient forms are brought to today’s person in a slow, sorrowfully joyous, yet ecstatic way. It seems very foreign to most Americans, being as they are brought up in the stoic, almost minimalist Protestant way, but the power and beauty of worshipping in a way that has largely remained unchanged from a very early period in Christian history is very appealing. I feel very connected to the past while being focused on the present and moving forward into the future.

3. What’s the sexiest accent a man can have, in your estimation?

Goodness, this is a difficult one. I can only narrow it down to three: Brooklyn, Scots, and Cajun accents all get my engine racing, but more importantly, though is a well-spoken, articulate man. That’s a more sexy thing to me. It’s so hard to say even those three, because I love certain Canadian accents, and a lilting Irish brogue, and the voice of a Spaniard, or an Italian, or a Russian man. Yikes! I’m such a voice whore.

4. Name three things you would love to destroy.

Only three? Hmm. I want to destroy the current attitudes that so many Americans have toward involvement in the process of governing ourselves. The apathy that voting doesn’t matter, all the pol
iticians are the same. This must be destroyed, and renewed awareness in our civic life must be fostered.

I want to destroy the soul-sucking, profit-above-all corporate culture that is enslaving the wage-earners and ruining the environment, here and elsewhere; let’s replace it with a culture that values the individual in the context of community, thinks of the long-term impacts of its actions, and sponsors the arts and sciences.

Finally, the destruction of anti-intellectualism that pervades America is high on my list. I see one of the most important steps in all of these as finding more ways of reducing the public’s dependence on television – destroy your television.

5. What subject would we (you and I) most likely connect the fastest on over coffee?

Our lips? Theatre, and the arts in general, possibly Christianity and gay life. I dunno until we meet for coffee.

Tagged as: Life in San Francisco