…bending toward the light

I haven’t been blogging here for quite a while because I lost my voice. I ceased to like the tone of much of what I was tempted to say, and found myself even deleting some old posts because I didn’t like myself when I read them.

My season of self-examination during the Lenten 40-days before Easter have continued now up to the eve of Pentecost!

• And all I know is that if blogging and ranting are synonymous, my blogging days are done.
• I’m tired of getting caught up in the fever of “A VERY SIGNIFICANT CONVERSATION” — which will, of course, be even more important, since I weighed in with my 2-cents (what’ll we do if the entry level coin of the realm becomes the nickle? but I digress).
• I’m especially tired of the self-important delusions of grandeur that afflict so many of the religiously-oriented blogs that I’d gotten in the habit of reading.

Blogging has become more of an addiction than anything else, with the habit needing to be fed at least daily, if not hourly at times when the iron is hot. One isn’t a ‘real’ blogger without daily posts, and a high Technorati ranking. There are more rules governing the blogosphere than you can shake a mouse at. And the result is that seemingly unless you’re approaching the world with a jaundiced eye that appreciates the dichromatic poverty of red-and-blue, and have the links and trackbacks and metrics to show everyone is listening, you’re really not a part of the blogospher, which means you’re not really ‘real’ after all.

So the web is beginning to be populated with all too many who log on assuming the role of omniscient narrator about “the known world,” omnipresently retrievable on every search engine that exists, all-wise in all things, and dreaming of becoming all-powerfully able to command the heavenly hosts themselves, if we so wished them, to comment on topics that we have categorized and tagged to our own heart’s delight. We are not real bloggers until and unless we covet to speak with the very voice of God.

Having given up on that ambition, I am still examining my motivations and purposes in continuing to choose to flirt with even the sheer potential of ubiquity - of floating my perspective out onto the “world wide Web.”  What voice is it that is speaking in this journal of my soul’s journey, and why do I think I shouldn’t just pull the plug, let my Web domain name expire, and leave the blogosphere to those who are sure they belong here?

O.k., I admit it; when it comes to food, I really don’t have much self-discipline. I take that last bite of dessert. I eat the last cookie in the bag. Three scoops of ice cream can’t be that much worse than two. Just a handful of pistacios before bedtime. And so my pants seem to be shrinking. And my Lenten disciplines have been such a dismal failure that my piety feels like it’s shrunk, as well, allowing no cover this year for any spiritual self-righteousness.

So I’m not rationalizing away my own abominable self-control when I say that, theologically speaking, I’ve always had a problem with the voluntary renunciations of Lent. For suffering in itself grants us no privilege in God’s sight.

We do not please God because we suffer. We take on the suffering of voluntary renunciation, of denial of self, so that we may learn how to live in solidarity with the suffering of others.

This is why Anglicans always have taken care that the denial of the self in the renunciations of Lent is intimately linked with service to others — that what we give up is for the sake of what we take on, a Lenten discipline of service, compassion and forgiveness.

The point of our suffering is holy only when it points us towards others through concrete acts of love.

We must realize that to take on the poverty or suffering of others voluntarily is in itself an act of privilege— an act of one who can choose when to suffer, and when not. The discipline of Lent, and the voluntary suffering of deprivation that it entails — however harsh our version of it, even if we wear hair-shirts and draw blood with our self-flagellations as some medieval Christians were prone to do — is different, we must remember, from the involuntary suffering of those of God’s creatures who have no other choice.

We can choose to suffer in a holy way only if our voluntary suffering through self-denial binds us closer in love with those whom the world makes suffer against their wishes — and God’s. A ‘holy’ suffering remembers that when we live in solidarity with the poor, as the Catholic writer and social activist Dorothy Day once pointed out, “we cannot get away from our privilege background. We are not really poor. We are always foreigners to the poor.”

Dorothy Day’s warning about the false piety of voluntary poverty or suffering is a reminder that just as much as God does not desire us to suffer, even so God does not desire the suffering of others, either. Rather, God’s desire is redemption from suffering.

Lenten renunciation-of-self and service-to-others are meant to lead us further into the mystery of God’s own suffering on the cross — for it is this suffering, and none other, that is redemptive.

Only because of Christ’s suffering, does any other suffering, especially our voluntary suffering through renunciation, have any meaning at all. It is because God has chosen to suffer, that any and all other suffering can be redeemed.  It is because God has chosen to suffer with our suffering, and that of our neighbors’, that our suffering becomes incapable of defeating any of us. It is because God has chosen to die in the midst of God’s creatures’ dying, that even death itself has been overcome.

It was with this in mind that the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison facing his own death: “Only the suffering God can help.”

This was one of the favorite T.S. Eliot poems of my late friend Peter Bocock, with whom I learned so much about “the observance of a holy Lent.” May peace be yours, Peter.

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs’s fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Whe walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs
Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,
Sovegna vos
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.
The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word
But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken
Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew
And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice
Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.
O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings
And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.

St. Thomas’ Parish, Dupont Circle, Washington, DC

It’s the journey. Spiritual life, that is.

We live, however, in a destination culture. Just look at travel ads in newspapers and magazines; almost none of them are about ‘traveling’ - the point is what to do once you ‘get there’.

Christians are no less susceptible to this than anyone else. Christmas itself has become a destination-event. Once you get there, you’re done - trip’s over.

To begin to try to experience Christmas not as just a day but a twelve-day season requires us to shift our attention from the destination to the journey. Advent tried to slow us down a bit, emphasize the expectation.

© AP Image

The part of the Christmas story about the Three Wise Men (or, equally likelely, wise women), as told by the writer of Matthew, is a strange and disquieting interlude. It is about their long journey looking for a special child — and about the King of Judea, Herod, who himself wanted to use their curiosity to find this child so Herod could kill him, lest he grow up to threaten Herod’s power as King.

© Gisela Ueberall, “Three Wise Man II”

Herod wanted to turn the Magi into Wise Guys, as Gisela Ueberall’s painting portrays them, not a little scarily. But they decided otherwise, being warned in a dream. And having found the child Jesus — perhaps days, or even weeks or months after his birth — they journeyed back home without word to Herod, who in turn responded by killing all the male children young enough to include this messianic threat. These are the Holy Innocents commemorated in the Prayer Book calendar each year on December 28.

Throughout this season the wise have always been “on the way” to finding and being found by God among us. Time has gotten stretched out again into it’s more normal scale, rather than being compressed with everything appearing to happen simultaneously as in a medieval tapestry. The Magi in liturgical time have not yet arrived at the manger, despite all the Christmas creches that suggest otherwise. Their day is yet to come, Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th, when we recollect that this infant Jesus has unveiled for all the world the very heart of who God is and who we are, as well.

Spiritual life, as I understand it, is lived always “on the way” to understanding the wisdom of God who took flesh to dwell among us, and who in doing so, as the 16th century Anglican theologian Richard Hooker has put it, “hath deified our nature, though not by turning it into Himself, yet by making it His own inseparable habitation.”

“Wait” photo © Jan L. Richardson

I have a wait problem. Maybe some of you do too.

I hate to wait.

And if one of your favorite oxymorons is the sign that reads “emergency waiting room,” then maybe you have a wait problem too!

Waiting for the bus.
Waiting for water to boil.
Waiting for the paint to dry.
Waiting for your beloved to get home.
Waiting for the check in the mail.
Waiting for the alarm clock to go off.

When we have to wait, time gets heavy.
It’s hard to have time on our hands; so we stay busy. We don’t waste time.
But then there’s too much of it, and we find ourselves killing time, instead.
Maybe it’s that we’re afraid of running out of time.
In any case, speaking personally, after not much waiting, my patience runs out.
“Are we there yet?” the inner child in each of us sometimes screams. I can’t wait! I hate to wait!!

I’ve tried time management; now maybe I need wait management.
The problem with waiting is that when you’re waiting, as for a bus, many times you don’t know if you’re early or late.
And you don’t know what time is hiding from us round the next corner.
We don’t know if we’re optimistically waiting for the check in the mail, or pessimistically for the other shoe to drop.

I’ll do almost anything; just don’t ask me to wait!

Commuting to work early today, I was reminded how not alone I am in hating to wait.

I got off the Red Line METRO train, ten minutes ahead of schedule and facing a cold wait out in the snow for my ride to pick me up to carry me on to work. As I came up the escalator, a lone trumpeter was playing already at 6:45 a.m. the familiar Christmas carol, “The Little Drummer Boy.” “Ba Rumpa Pum Pum!!” It hit me: None of us know how to wait for Christmas.

So we drag the ecclesiastical 12 days of Christmas back into the 4 weeks after Thanksgiving, and by the time Baby Jesus is in the manger, we’re already plotting which of the toys we got for Christmas will need returning, and many of us are planning for our Super Bowl party.

We just can’t wait!!

What if time wasn’t such a burden, but more often really felt like a gift?

It’s easy to understand why some kinds of waiting are burdensome: Fear is just a kind of waiting in the expectation of an unpleasant outcome, and stage fright is simply a kind of anticipatory waiting for the curtain to rise on the unexpected.

It’s so easy to forget that hope, too, is an essential form of waiting.
What if we could go home after work saying, “WOW! Tonight I’ve got time on my hands!!”
What if tomorrow morning I could stand in the 29 degrees forecasted and say, “WOW! I get to wait for the bus!”

What if we could redeem time, turning our anxiety, fear, and boredom into sheer anticipation?
“Wait, wait, don’t tell me!” - a child may say, exhibiting pleasure at the anticipation of figuring out a riddle. So how come by the time we are adults has time become thoroughly infected with irritation at having to wait, or, even worse, at dreading what we think we know is coming?

Why is so much of our waiting frosted with disappointment, which is, after all, just waiting that we decide wasn’t worth it?

The Buddha, it is said, achieved Enlightenment simply by waiting beneath a Bodhi tree - waiting and waiting as long as it took. The sole difference between the Buddha and every other person is that, while he sat waiting, the Buddha remained fully awake. He taught that Enlightenment isn’t primarily about wisdom or fortune; it’s about staying awake to experience living whole-cloth while we wait. It’s about remaining vigilent. Even when we’re tired. Even when we get impatient. Even when we’re afraid.

Jesus the grown man taught his followers in the lesson we use during Advent that says: “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. … Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. … Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

This is the same Jesus whose birth we await during Advent — the child who is born in the dead of night while most of the world was not awake but sleeping — except for his parents, a few shepherds, and the Three Wise Ones from the East who stay awake, traveling and following a star — who stay awake and find Jesus “at an unexpected hour” and in what others saw as “an inappropriate place.” “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” And remember, as the angel tells the shepherds in Luke’s telling of the nativity, “Fear not! For this night is born to you a saviour!” And this is GOOD!

But I get ahead of myself; I’ve committed a boundary violation and wandered over into a Christmas pageant. I really do have a wait problem!

Tonight, in the dark of Advent, we must still wait … singing in voices of hope, the Taize hymn: “Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord, keep watch, take heart!”

Powered by ScribeFire.

Progressive Episcopalians in the United States now and again need to be reminded that there are others in the Anglican Communion who not only support our decisions about the full inclusion of women as well as gays and lesbians in the church, but who are getting on with the business of doing just that.

For example, the Diocese of Toronto has elected a woman as the new suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Toronto. Canon Linda Nichols will become the 4th female bishop in the Canadian church. And the southern Ontario Diocese of Niagara this past week approved blessings for gay couples; previously their bishop, The Rt. Rev. D. Ralph Spence had issued guidelines for the reception and blessing of civilly married gay and lesbian couples.

Closer to hand, there are efforts among some United Methodist clergy, such as Rev. Dean Snyder, Senior Minister of Foundry United Methodist Church, Washington, DC, who has just issued a pastoral Letter concerning the way in which he intends to provide liturgical services to recognize and honor lesbian and gay committed relationships, while at the same time trying to live “as a loyal United Methodist pastor … within the covenant of the United Methodist Church as set forth in our Church’s Constitution, General Rules, and Book of Discipline.” While the United Methodist Book of Discipline states that “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches” (Para 341.6), Rev. Snyder says that in not responding to the reality of faithful lesbian and gay couples in his own congregation, “the failure of their Christian community and their pastor to properly recognize and honor their committed relationships formally denies them, at the very least, an encouragement and spiritual support the Church provides to other couples. At the worst, it undermines and dishonors their commitments by withholding recognition and prayerful support.” Significant in its own right, Rev. Snyder’s letter may gain additional attention if Foundry United Methodist Church remains the congregation in which the Clintons worship, if Hilary follows her husband Bill as the President of the United States.

Finally, I encourage you to look at the video presentation by The Rev. James Alison based on his book Faith Beyond Resentment (Video courtesy of Trinity Television and New Media.) that is posted on the Diocese of Washington blog. It is a striking example of the sort of deep theological contribution that is being made to the whole of the Christian community by theologians like Alison reflecting on the impact that his identity as a gay man has on the way he understands the theological tradition we all share.

I am tired of blogging about turmoil; it is so refreshing to be able to share news of those who are “getting on with business” as Christ’s Body on earth, which of course includes the business of living into our commitments to diversity and full inclusiveness of all of God’s people in the business of the Church.

From Scott Pelley’s 60 Minutes interview of Bruce Springsteen last night about his new anti-war album, “Magic”:

“ … We’ve seen things happen over the past six years that I
don’t think anybody ever thought they’d ever see in the United States.
When people think of the American identity, they don’t think of torture. They
don’t think of illegal wiretapping. They don’t think of voter suppression. They
don’t think of no habeas corpus. No right to a lawyer … you know. Those are things
that are anti-American.” “It’s unpatriotic at any given moment to sit
back and let things pass that are damaging to some place that you love so
dearly. And that has given me so much. And that I believe in, I still feel and
see us as a beacon of hope and possibility.” “There’s a part of the singer going way
back in American history that is of course the canary in the coalmine. When it
gets dark, you’re supposed to be singing. It’s dark right now,”
Springsteen says.”

Powered by ScribeFire.

and other news from today’s Washington Post.

“… We will need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to bring our infrastructure systems — roads, bridges, aviation, energy, ports, inland waterways and other facilities — to good condition.  That’s $320 billion a year. … There must … be a significant increase in government funding for infrastructure, which means we will have to consider an increase in the federal gasoline user fee. … We are a growing country. It’s time we understood that if we want a new road, new runway or new transit system, we’ve got to buy it.  No one is giving them away.” (Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce)

“I really appreciate the Lancaster Chamber of commerce for giving me an opportunity to explain why I have made some of the decision I have made.  My job is a decision-making job.  And as a result, I make a lot of decisions.  And it’s important for me to have an opportunity to speak to you and others who would be listening about the basis on which I have made decisions ….” (”The Decider” himself)

“Pamela Anderson tied the know with boyfriend Rick Salomon Saturday in Las Vega.  This is the third marriage for teh actress and for Salomon, best-known for his sex tape with Paris Hilton.  The couple found romance, Anderson told Ellen DeGeneres, when “I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors, and I fell in love.”

Powered by ScribeFire.

‘Being the Church’ should take our breath away. The very images we use are graphic: we are ‘grafted on’ to the vine that is Jesus — we are the very Body of Christ.

Then, unfortunately, these days, come the asterisks. Yes, but ….

It is a good thing that the House of Bishops affirmed in their final statement from their just-concluded meeting in New Orleans their “commitment to establish and protect the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons, and to name and oppose at every turn any action or policy that does violence to them,encourages violence toward them, or violates their dignity as children of God.”

And who can argue with their strong affirmation, saying: “We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church.”

But, then, the asterisks …

They continue to hold to the lamentable last-ditch language of Resolution B033, from the last General Convention, agreeing “to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” And then they now add: “The House acknowledges that non-celibate gay and lesbian persons are included among those to whom B 033 pertains.”

It appears as though the Bishops are ready not only to refuse to consent to the legitimate election of a non-celibate gay or lesbian Bishop - including, potentially, Tracey Lind, Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Cleveland, OH, who has been nominated to be Bishop of Chicago — but to continue to blame it on her “manner of life” (wink, wink) because it “presents a challenge to the wider church”. People wept openly at General Convention when this language was pushed through at the last moment in the summer of 2006 - don’t the Bishops remember?!

And they “pledge not to authorize for use in our dioceses any public rites of blessing of same-sex unions until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action.” Some may feel off the hook by pointing out that no public rites have been authorized for use in any dioceses, and so perhaps use of ‘unauthorized’ rites will pass muster (wink, wink).

As I see it, either all baptized Christians are a full part of the Body of Christ or we aren’t - ANY of us! And if we are, then we’re not just eligible to be called by God to serve the Church as the Church discerns is the most faithful use of our gifts. It’s incumbent up us all that when called we say yes, even if that works out as gay=Bishop.

We can’t be about the business of saying “Welcome to the Body of Christ! But just because you’re a lung, don’t expect to go about breathing around here!” Every part of the Body is essential. Essential, not just ‘eligible’ for participation.

In my parish, our gay asst. rector and straight rector — who happens to be my spouse — made the same promise to their Bishops when they were asked: “Will you do your best to pattern your life in accordance with the teachings of Christ so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?”

What matters most in “the teachings of Christ,” Jesus himself told us, is to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. To do our best to pattern our life on that teaching — not our sexual orientation, which Jesus never talked about at all - is what makes any one of us a wholesome example to anyone else — and fit for any role to which the church legitimately calls us.

It appears to have been Rowan Williams who planted the idea at the House of Bishops meetings that, in his words, “one can say you accept gay and lesbian persons as the Body of Christ and turn right around and raise questions about their eligibility for active roles in the Church.” And so they did. Turn right around.

But in my parish — which happens to be more than 60% gay and lesbian — we are way beyond ‘acceptance’ or ‘tolerance’ or even ‘inclusion’ of gays and lesbians. We actually believe that when God’s table — and as a result, Christ’s Church — is open to all, one can actually get a glimpse here of the Reign of God breaking in. And either we ALL are essential to the Body of Christ, OR NONE OF US ARE!

We really believe we all are called as a community to be Christ’s Body — fully, however God and the Church call us to make that manifest. So the most hopeful thing to say here, despite deep sadness at yet one more exhibition of a willingness to buy unity at the price of love and justice to gays and lesbians, is just this — and I say it to ALL of us Episcopalians, straight and gay. Our Bishops have spoken. Now so should we. “Go! Be the Church!” It’s who we are. All, or none.

Powered by ScribeFire.

It’s our generation’s Pearl Harbor.  Working that stunningly beautiful September day unpacking boxes of books into my study, my Rotteweiler Max as happy as he ever could be, having me home with him all day, and then the first pictures on TV.  From then on I think I was mainly numb.  My local hospital a block away wouldn’t take blood donations for the victims; “there aren’t many survivors needing blood,” I was told.  And all I knew for sure is that our lives had somehow forever changed that day.

We acted like we were shocked, and we were, although my same generation had practiced “duck and cover” civil defense drills since early grade school, the wholly ineffectual proposed response to a surprise atomic attack.  We’d lived with the threat of violence all our lives, somehow convincing ourselves when the Berlin wall fell that the Cold War ended and with it our insecurity.  So then we acted surprised at the pictures of airplanes and violence and New York, although E.B. White (author of the children’s book, Charlotte’s Web), had already written these words  in his 1949 book, Here Is New York:

“The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions.”
 
“All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.”

Prescient?  Or just the price of the threat of violence that hung over the entire twentieth century - from WWI to the Holocaust to Korea and Vietnam and Pol Pot?  What price did we pay that September morning, that each day since we have had to live with this specter?  Where did it start?  And can it ever end?  And what does it do to our spirits, to live with violence over our heads like this?  And what can we learn about the lives of others in our world who have known it far longer, and suffered from it equally, and at times worse and more frequently?  What does it mean to be faithful to the Christ-story in this world marked by the image of violence and mass destruction?

Powered by ScribeFire.