So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old. (Acts 4:18-22, ESV)
Peter and John are facing what would probably be considered the Supreme Court of Jerusalem in their time -- "...rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family" (vs. 5-6). The disciples had been encouraging the people to follow Jesus and the religious hierarchy was nervous. What was at stake was no less than their position of power because these two who had no standing or position within the priestly class were preaching and teaching about an executed criminal who wanted to change things dramatically. And furthermore they had actually healed a man in the name of this executed criminal, a man who was actually standing in the court in mute testimony of what had happened to him! The court could not make charges stick so they told the disciples to just keep quiet and go home. Peter and John couldn't do that, they explained. They were charged to spread the Word. The court again found itself powerless so with another warning they released the two.
The part that struck me this morning was " ' ...Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.' " The disciples simply stated the truth -- they had to do what they were charged to do by an authority higher than the priestly court who had tried to bring them up on charges and silence them.
I wonder what would have happened if Peter and John had given in. They could have slunk off, promising never to be bad again and returning to their little villages and fishing boats but instead they stood up for what they knew God wanted of them --- to continue to spread the word of the good news and the kingdom. At the time of the arrest people were listening to that message and were believing. Scripture reports that just on the one occasion at which Peter and John were apprehended, 5,000 believed enough to accept the message these two Galileans brought. The Jerusalem council didn't, but they had too much to lose and their own conviction that they had the truth about what God wanted. Peter and John could have authored the slogan used by the kosher hot-dog people, "We answer to a higher authority" and it would have been no lie. They had a job to do and only God could turn them away from it, even at the risk of their lives. They had a message all the people needed to hear and, with God’s help, they were going to pass that message as far and as wide as they could.
It reminds me a little of the verbal donnybrook going on in the Anglican Communion these days. There is the demand that all Anglicans/Episcopalians follow the "faith once delivered to the saints" and accept traditional thinking as orthodoxy with no truck being taken for progressive or contemporary scholarship models. Funny, but a lot of this centers around basically two groups of people, two traditional sacraments and three (or maybe three million) ways of looking at things #1 and 2. The people, of course, are (a) GLBTI and (b)anybody who sees them as children of God with no distinction made as to their status as baptized members of the Body of Christ with the rights and responsibilities of any other baptized member of the Body. The sacraments are (a) marriage and (b) ordination/consecration. The ways of looking at things run the gamut from ultra-ultra orthodox through to the far opposite pole, the ultra-progressive liberal. In the vast middle are those in between, many of whom simply see Christianity as their way of belief, they may have answers but aren't particularly worried whether theirs are the only possible ones, and who generally feel that if the church baptizes people and God calls'em, then let'em minister as God calls. If they're in a committed relationship and intend to continue this relationship until death do them part, let'em get married with all the rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married people. Of course there are some of the more conservative who don't particularly get upset at the thought of GLBTI priests or married couples and some progressives who just can't make that step from what they were taught growing up. Still, Anglican/Episcopal thought is all over the place on some issues and that's one of the strengths of the Anglican/Episcopal tradition.
I see Peter and John in this quagmire, standing before accusers, stating firmly that they answer to God rather than that of the humans sitting in judgment of them and that they can't stop what they're doing because this is what God has given them to do. It may not be a popular stance with many, and there are always those who feel called upon to judge what is and what isn't God's will that applies to everybody, no exceptions, but it's their calling, their vocation, their job.
I see The Episcopal Church, and others who see the same inclusiveness of all the baptized, standing with Peter and John, proclaiming what they feel is assuredly from God through the Spirit and in accordance with Jesus' teachings. If others wish a stricter discipline of what they feel is God's will for them, so be it and God's blessings be upon them but prophets and prophetic messages aren't always popular with the leadership or even the rank-and-file. The prophets of the Old Testament were ample witness of that. Still, they held firm to the message God gave them to deliver, come hell, high water or anything else. They stood their ground and answered to a higher authority. They could do no differently. The apostles and disciples of Jesus, including the guy Paul who certainly did a 180° turn, certainly didn't give messages that were popular in all corners, especially among the hierarchy in power. After all, Jesus' message wasn't about any power except God's and about loving God and the neighbors, even the ones who disagreed on how best to accomplish that.
TEC stands accused, just as the prophets and later Peter and John were, in the courts of the powerful, the hierarchy and those who are convinced that only they have all the right answers as to what it is God wants. TEC would do well to take the words of Peter and John to heart, " 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.' ” In this age of soundbyte theology, TEC might do well to appropriate the slogan of the kosher hot-dog maker, "We answer to a higher authority." I think that's a pretty good line in the sand to draw and a statement to defend. I hope we have the courage to do it.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thinking
I just got back from EfM mentor training yesterday and, after reassuring the boys that I had indeed returned and wasn't going anywhere else in the immediate future and taking a much-needed nap, I decided to postpone reorganizing the notes and handouts I'd been given and just sort of take life easy. It was a grueling time, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. It was also exhilarating, frightening (to the point of terror), fun, interesting, stretching, puzzling, fulfillling, educating, sobering and introspective time. It's no wonder I'm tired -- experiencing all that from Thursday afternoon at 2pm until yesterday (Saturday) at 2pm with driving about 175 miles total going back and forth, is enough in itself. But I'm also pumped (or juiced or jazzed or revved up or whatever the current term might be) to dig in to what I have been given and see what I can mine from it. Ok, so I mixed a metaphor or two; the trainer, David, remarked with some amazement that I had strung 3 metaphors together when concluding a TR. I wonder if that was a good or a bad thing? Anyway, for info, they were something about being between a rock and a hard place, watching a wave approach and wash over and then coming out the other side in order to breathe or something like that. I do it automatically I don't always notice or remember.
At any rate, I have a stack of paper, pages of notes to decipher and transcribe, piles to sort and categorize so I can put them in relevant sections of a binder and will be able to find them again when wanted. I have groceries to buy, water to fetch, a house to de-fur and tidy, a bit of laundry to do, and most of all another nap. There is work to be done at the office tomorrow so I have to gird up my mental loins for that but I also, for the first time in three days, have to plan what to eat and decide how willing I am to spend the time preparing it or whether I would rather jsut throw something in the microwave. It was lovely having someone else cook and wash dishes, especially serving some things I seldom have (like fresh fruit already cut up) . It's also got me more motivated to buy some of that at the store instead of some of the more junky junk I love.
I will be processing what i have learned for quite a while yet. I will have questions and luckily I know people who are so patient in answering them. I have some personal planning to do and some work to do ahead of this year. I also have to be ready to accept disappointment if it comes. I'm not sure I will ever be ready for that but for my sanity's sake, I must. I also have to do some financial management matters that I have been postponing until I finished the class so that I wouldn't be distracted.
Enough blather. it's time to work.
At any rate, I have a stack of paper, pages of notes to decipher and transcribe, piles to sort and categorize so I can put them in relevant sections of a binder and will be able to find them again when wanted. I have groceries to buy, water to fetch, a house to de-fur and tidy, a bit of laundry to do, and most of all another nap. There is work to be done at the office tomorrow so I have to gird up my mental loins for that but I also, for the first time in three days, have to plan what to eat and decide how willing I am to spend the time preparing it or whether I would rather jsut throw something in the microwave. It was lovely having someone else cook and wash dishes, especially serving some things I seldom have (like fresh fruit already cut up) . It's also got me more motivated to buy some of that at the store instead of some of the more junky junk I love.
I will be processing what i have learned for quite a while yet. I will have questions and luckily I know people who are so patient in answering them. I have some personal planning to do and some work to do ahead of this year. I also have to be ready to accept disappointment if it comes. I'm not sure I will ever be ready for that but for my sanity's sake, I must. I also have to do some financial management matters that I have been postponing until I finished the class so that I wouldn't be distracted.
Enough blather. it's time to work.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
After a long silence
It seems trite to say it's been a long time since I posted anything. Of course it has. It's been even longer since I started this blog as a place to think thoughts on paper. Yet more water has gone over the dam since that first post --- losing a house, moving to another, cut back in hours at work and the threat of even more cuts, the deaths of more than one or two people of whom I was fond or at least had some connection to, no matter how tenuous, the completion of a 4-year course of EfM -- and I'm still not much better at the widowhood thing than I was so many months ago. I live quietly, pay my bills, keep the cats fed and the house tidy, keep in touch with friends, go to work, come home and start all over the next day. I'm alone most of the time (well, except for the cats) and that's fine with me. I feel more comfortable in my little place than anywhere else and friends are almost always as close as a phone line if I need human contact. Except for the same worries millions of others have these days, what with the economy tanking and all, things are fine, thanks.
And thank you, God, for getting me this far. I won't even ask what's next becuase I'm not sure I want to know -- or need to.
And thank you, God, for getting me this far. I won't even ask what's next becuase I'm not sure I want to know -- or need to.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Early Denominationalism in the American Colonies
Question for Year 4, Chapter 1
• Outline the rise of religious denominations in North America
Very familiar ground -- the rise of denominationalism in the new colonies that would become the US and the reasons for it.
The chapter brought to mind the often-repeated statements that one hears especially at election time, "This country was founded on Christian principles" and "This is a Christian nation!" That may seem to be the case if one only examines the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies which were made up of Puritans who left England because they could not accept an established church. What is often glossed over, however, is that those very Puritans fleeing the established church quickly established their own even more rigid and theocratic government which allowed for no interpretation or religious practice but their own. The Jamestown colony, founded 13 years prior to the landing at Plymouth Rock, was an economic, not religious, enterprise although religion (Church of England) came along and was an important part of life -- just not the ruling part. Oftentimes when a denomination becomes too full of itself (and sometimes when not full enough), too set in stone where doctrine, practice and belief are concerned, a wind blows through it and a re-formation takes place. One of the closest to the Anglican/Episcopal church was the inadvertent separation of the followers of the Wesleys in England and the Colonies from the Church of England. Wesley never intended to do anything other than return the CofE to its more protestant roots and more closely resemble the early church. Like most re-formations, though, it took on a life of its own and became one of the largest mainline denominations.
Denominationalism also followed geographical migrations such as the Presbyterian Scotch-Irish to the Appalachian mountain area. Regionalism in religious denominationalism still exists to some extent, but like regional accents it is less cut-and-dried than previously and that is both a good and bad thing. It is still evidence that Christianity is a dynamic religion that grows and changes while (usually) maintaining it's core belief in Jesus as Messiah, Savior and Son of God who was born, lived, died and rose again. The devil, they say, is in the details of those events and how they are interpreted by individuals and groups including denominations.
• Outline the rise of religious denominations in North America
Very familiar ground -- the rise of denominationalism in the new colonies that would become the US and the reasons for it.
The chapter brought to mind the often-repeated statements that one hears especially at election time, "This country was founded on Christian principles" and "This is a Christian nation!" That may seem to be the case if one only examines the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies which were made up of Puritans who left England because they could not accept an established church. What is often glossed over, however, is that those very Puritans fleeing the established church quickly established their own even more rigid and theocratic government which allowed for no interpretation or religious practice but their own. The Jamestown colony, founded 13 years prior to the landing at Plymouth Rock, was an economic, not religious, enterprise although religion (Church of England) came along and was an important part of life -- just not the ruling part. Oftentimes when a denomination becomes too full of itself (and sometimes when not full enough), too set in stone where doctrine, practice and belief are concerned, a wind blows through it and a re-formation takes place. One of the closest to the Anglican/Episcopal church was the inadvertent separation of the followers of the Wesleys in England and the Colonies from the Church of England. Wesley never intended to do anything other than return the CofE to its more protestant roots and more closely resemble the early church. Like most re-formations, though, it took on a life of its own and became one of the largest mainline denominations.
Denominationalism also followed geographical migrations such as the Presbyterian Scotch-Irish to the Appalachian mountain area. Regionalism in religious denominationalism still exists to some extent, but like regional accents it is less cut-and-dried than previously and that is both a good and bad thing. It is still evidence that Christianity is a dynamic religion that grows and changes while (usually) maintaining it's core belief in Jesus as Messiah, Savior and Son of God who was born, lived, died and rose again. The devil, they say, is in the details of those events and how they are interpreted by individuals and groups including denominations.
Friday, July 4, 2008
The Tug of War for God
The doings around the Anglican Communion for the last few years certainly have been drawn-out and painful all the way around. Conservatives vs. progressives, literalists vs. non-literalists, anti- vs pro-, north vs. south, Anglo-Catholics vs. Calvinistic Anglicans and both Anglo-Cathoics and Calvinistic Anglicans against the vast majority in between. Those who lie along the continuum between the two regardless of with which end they find themselves more closely aligned are left to try to figure out how to continue to do what they feel is needed to answer the challenge of being Christian in a world where being Christian can be a defnite perceptual negative if not downright deadly.
Parts of the Anglican Communion argue about whether women can be bishops (they apparently have half a gene too many and a plumbing system lacking a few parts), others disagree whether GLBT folk can be considered able to answer the call of God to service in the clergy and episcopate or while a third group wrangles over whether the Bible should be read with an eye to "what it says is what it means" or more critically and in a it-meant-this-then-but-can-translate-to-this-now. Meanwhile there is a deafening silence in most quarters about the death and serious injury of Anglican worshippers in Zimbabwe. Darfur and its environs are still locked in mortal combat. Women are being raped as spoils of war and children pressed into armies where the guns are almost as big as the children who are forced to carry them. Famine is rampant in parts of the world while earthquake and flood damages in other parts are costing millions of lives, Christian and non-Christian alike. Earthquake and flood claim thousands upon thousands of lives in one quarter while famine reigns unchecked in another with the same result. In Jerusalem a group of disaffected Anglicans met and decided to form a church within a church in order to maintain a purity code that seems incredible to many of their fellow religionists and seemingly with more interestin keeping the Anglican Communion a male heterosexual bastion with a decided Calvinist bent than with listening to the cries of the poor and truly oppressed. Something seems out of whack here.
What seems missing in all this is where is God? It seems God is the fulcrum of the tug-of-war going on about what God expects of us, what God wants from us and what we must do to please God and live as God's people. A person's gender, orientation or Biblical literacy seems more important than whether they even have the minimum number of things that create any kind of quality of life -- food, clean water, clean air, sanitation, education, affordable and decent housing, uncorrupted governments and churches and a chance to live and work in safety and freedom. Seems too much to ask, if you ask me, but danged if it isn't what God seems to want if I read the Bible correctly. There seems to be quite a lot about feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting the prisoners, caring for the widows and orphans, living righteously (not rigidly), etc., but very little about creating a greater gap between rich and poor, expecting blessings for people who cry "Lord! Lord!" on Sunday but who go out to screw their neighbors on Monday or cutting off members of the family with whom one disagrees on doctrine. There's a lot more about loving one's neighbor than there is about "loving the sinner but hating the sin" especially if it's a "sin" most aren't likely to commit (being homosexual). Jesus said to let the tares and wheat grow together until the harvest; he didn't say to go out and try to uproot the weeds while the crops were still unripe. In fact, he said that that the separating the two was specifically God's job, so why are so many humans so anxious to take care of it for God?. Either God is big enough to do it or God isn't who we claim God is.
In my opinion, God seems to want to be the center of our lives and actions, not the center of a tug-of-war with two sides pulling this way and that away from the center. When we cannot share an altar rail as fellow Anglicans much less as fellow human beings and fellow sinners, God loses and so do we. God created diversity; we should celebrate that, not fight it. Each has something to bring TO the table; let ALL sides listen and ALL sides speak.
I think that is the aim of the indaba studies proposed for Lambeth. May there be as much listening to ALL sides as there is preaching on the "one true way". Take God out of the tug-of-war and let God be the center of the circle of humanity all working together for good.
It would be lovely.
Parts of the Anglican Communion argue about whether women can be bishops (they apparently have half a gene too many and a plumbing system lacking a few parts), others disagree whether GLBT folk can be considered able to answer the call of God to service in the clergy and episcopate or while a third group wrangles over whether the Bible should be read with an eye to "what it says is what it means" or more critically and in a it-meant-this-then-but-can-translate-to-this-now. Meanwhile there is a deafening silence in most quarters about the death and serious injury of Anglican worshippers in Zimbabwe. Darfur and its environs are still locked in mortal combat. Women are being raped as spoils of war and children pressed into armies where the guns are almost as big as the children who are forced to carry them. Famine is rampant in parts of the world while earthquake and flood damages in other parts are costing millions of lives, Christian and non-Christian alike. Earthquake and flood claim thousands upon thousands of lives in one quarter while famine reigns unchecked in another with the same result. In Jerusalem a group of disaffected Anglicans met and decided to form a church within a church in order to maintain a purity code that seems incredible to many of their fellow religionists and seemingly with more interestin keeping the Anglican Communion a male heterosexual bastion with a decided Calvinist bent than with listening to the cries of the poor and truly oppressed. Something seems out of whack here.
What seems missing in all this is where is God? It seems God is the fulcrum of the tug-of-war going on about what God expects of us, what God wants from us and what we must do to please God and live as God's people. A person's gender, orientation or Biblical literacy seems more important than whether they even have the minimum number of things that create any kind of quality of life -- food, clean water, clean air, sanitation, education, affordable and decent housing, uncorrupted governments and churches and a chance to live and work in safety and freedom. Seems too much to ask, if you ask me, but danged if it isn't what God seems to want if I read the Bible correctly. There seems to be quite a lot about feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting the prisoners, caring for the widows and orphans, living righteously (not rigidly), etc., but very little about creating a greater gap between rich and poor, expecting blessings for people who cry "Lord! Lord!" on Sunday but who go out to screw their neighbors on Monday or cutting off members of the family with whom one disagrees on doctrine. There's a lot more about loving one's neighbor than there is about "loving the sinner but hating the sin" especially if it's a "sin" most aren't likely to commit (being homosexual). Jesus said to let the tares and wheat grow together until the harvest; he didn't say to go out and try to uproot the weeds while the crops were still unripe. In fact, he said that that the separating the two was specifically God's job, so why are so many humans so anxious to take care of it for God?. Either God is big enough to do it or God isn't who we claim God is.
In my opinion, God seems to want to be the center of our lives and actions, not the center of a tug-of-war with two sides pulling this way and that away from the center. When we cannot share an altar rail as fellow Anglicans much less as fellow human beings and fellow sinners, God loses and so do we. God created diversity; we should celebrate that, not fight it. Each has something to bring TO the table; let ALL sides listen and ALL sides speak.
I think that is the aim of the indaba studies proposed for Lambeth. May there be as much listening to ALL sides as there is preaching on the "one true way". Take God out of the tug-of-war and let God be the center of the circle of humanity all working together for good.
It would be lovely.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Faith
What precisely does faith in God mean? What does it entail?
Funny question for someone who's been a baptized Christian for over 55 years, an Episcopalian for 32 and an active one for 15 or so, off and on. But trust me, I have thoughts about what faith means and what it doesn't and a lot of it revolves around prayer.
Prayer is described as a conversation between an individual or group and God. Prayer is a form of worship, a safe platform for a rant against someone or some group or some thing and sometimes even against God Godself. Prayer is for acknowledging misdoings and asking for forgiveness but also for guidance to help render misdoings not done. According to some, it's a vehicle to claim what they believe God intends for them to have: a big house, good schools for the kids, a better (higher paying) job, or whatever it is they feel they deserve and should have by simply using the "name it and claim it" formula.
For me, faith is something I have but that I don't ponder a lot. Oh, I ask when I need something --- sometimes. Basically, though, I figure God will give me whatever it is God wants me to have and not necessarily what I want. According to my theology, God may send trials and some tribulation but it's my job to do what I need to do to get through them as successfully as possible without relying on the old formula of God sending this to test me or my faith. Sometimes, to quote the old saying, s*** just happens.
I also don't speak of my faith at the drop of a hat. I'm not ashamed of being Christian and Episcopalian (I'm really sort of proud of being part of The Episcopal Church, truth be told) but I aside from a window sticker featuring the Episcopal shield and admitting to being Episcopalian if I'm asked, I don't advertise. I can't decide whether my faith is mature or childlike because I can see aspects of both in it.
Adult faith says I screw up and must pay the consequences. I assume God's forgiveness even if I don't ask for it but I often acknowledge the mistake for MY sake, not for God's. It's like at work. If I make a mistake in data entry into the database my boss uses a particular color of orange to call attention to the mistake and signal that it needs to be corrected. I admit my own mistakes by using a darker, more visible shade of orange to indicate I know I made a mistake and I've corrected it, thus kicking my own butt harder than he could over having screwed up in the first place. It works for us. With God I don't usually spend a lot of time going over again and again that I'm a miserable worm of a person who messes up again and again and not worth the love and forgiveness God offers me even without my asking. Sometimes I don't even admit the fault aloud or directly in prayer. I figure if God can see inside me God can see the intent of fixing the mistake and judge whether it is self-protection thing or whether I truly am sorry. Maybe that's not a proper way of having faith but it's what I've got to work with.
The childlike part of me feels that God is always there, even if I don't consciously feel or know it. Like a kid who tries things on his or her own, I try things without necessarily having a parental figure constantly on guard in case I fall down when learning to walk or crash into a tree while learning to ride a bike. Like a child, I figure Daddy is somewhere watching over me but I don't have to continually ask "Are you still behind/with me, Daddy?" I guess I expect God to be there and don't really have to ask for it. I trust God will be/is there. We learn by making mistakes and good parents allow us to make those mistakes while still more or less covertly watching to make sure the mistakes are learning experiences and not fatal or even life-threatening ones. God's like that: watching, sometimes with bated breath and sometimes even reaching out to steady the wobbly but not continually pushing or propping up unnecessarily.
So for me faith in God involves a mutual recognition of each other's presence and requirements. I can ask for things just as any child would ask for a toy or candy but maturely realize I may not get what I ask for or even that whatever it is might not be good for me.
And most of all, it's recognition that God is there, even when I feel there is an unbridgeable chasm between us. that's the difference between being human and being God. God doesn't have unbridgeable chasms. Somehow that's a comforting thought.
Funny question for someone who's been a baptized Christian for over 55 years, an Episcopalian for 32 and an active one for 15 or so, off and on. But trust me, I have thoughts about what faith means and what it doesn't and a lot of it revolves around prayer.
Prayer is described as a conversation between an individual or group and God. Prayer is a form of worship, a safe platform for a rant against someone or some group or some thing and sometimes even against God Godself. Prayer is for acknowledging misdoings and asking for forgiveness but also for guidance to help render misdoings not done. According to some, it's a vehicle to claim what they believe God intends for them to have: a big house, good schools for the kids, a better (higher paying) job, or whatever it is they feel they deserve and should have by simply using the "name it and claim it" formula.
For me, faith is something I have but that I don't ponder a lot. Oh, I ask when I need something --- sometimes. Basically, though, I figure God will give me whatever it is God wants me to have and not necessarily what I want. According to my theology, God may send trials and some tribulation but it's my job to do what I need to do to get through them as successfully as possible without relying on the old formula of God sending this to test me or my faith. Sometimes, to quote the old saying, s*** just happens.
I also don't speak of my faith at the drop of a hat. I'm not ashamed of being Christian and Episcopalian (I'm really sort of proud of being part of The Episcopal Church, truth be told) but I aside from a window sticker featuring the Episcopal shield and admitting to being Episcopalian if I'm asked, I don't advertise. I can't decide whether my faith is mature or childlike because I can see aspects of both in it.
Adult faith says I screw up and must pay the consequences. I assume God's forgiveness even if I don't ask for it but I often acknowledge the mistake for MY sake, not for God's. It's like at work. If I make a mistake in data entry into the database my boss uses a particular color of orange to call attention to the mistake and signal that it needs to be corrected. I admit my own mistakes by using a darker, more visible shade of orange to indicate I know I made a mistake and I've corrected it, thus kicking my own butt harder than he could over having screwed up in the first place. It works for us. With God I don't usually spend a lot of time going over again and again that I'm a miserable worm of a person who messes up again and again and not worth the love and forgiveness God offers me even without my asking. Sometimes I don't even admit the fault aloud or directly in prayer. I figure if God can see inside me God can see the intent of fixing the mistake and judge whether it is self-protection thing or whether I truly am sorry. Maybe that's not a proper way of having faith but it's what I've got to work with.
The childlike part of me feels that God is always there, even if I don't consciously feel or know it. Like a kid who tries things on his or her own, I try things without necessarily having a parental figure constantly on guard in case I fall down when learning to walk or crash into a tree while learning to ride a bike. Like a child, I figure Daddy is somewhere watching over me but I don't have to continually ask "Are you still behind/with me, Daddy?" I guess I expect God to be there and don't really have to ask for it. I trust God will be/is there. We learn by making mistakes and good parents allow us to make those mistakes while still more or less covertly watching to make sure the mistakes are learning experiences and not fatal or even life-threatening ones. God's like that: watching, sometimes with bated breath and sometimes even reaching out to steady the wobbly but not continually pushing or propping up unnecessarily.
So for me faith in God involves a mutual recognition of each other's presence and requirements. I can ask for things just as any child would ask for a toy or candy but maturely realize I may not get what I ask for or even that whatever it is might not be good for me.
And most of all, it's recognition that God is there, even when I feel there is an unbridgeable chasm between us. that's the difference between being human and being God. God doesn't have unbridgeable chasms. Somehow that's a comforting thought.
Bewilderment
What do you do when you don't know which way to go. You're stuck in a time and place and there's no clear road ahead in any direction. There isn't even a discernible road, only piles of rubble and shifting sand in all directions other than back where you came from and that direction is closed by a solid steel fence with no gate. You have to go somewhere and you have to do it soon. What do you do?
The intellect says to take baby steps in one direction or another, even if it turns out to be the wrong decision. Ok, that would work, I suppose. The emotion says to be like a bird caught under a net who finds that thrashing around only makes it become more enmeshed while sitting quietly and looking about for a hole would result in freedom from the trap.
Like everything else in the world, things are seldom all one thing or all another. The world is made up of colors, an infinite range of them, not just black and white. Adding that to the mix, that there are not just two possible ways to go but literally dozens (simplifying the color palette for simplicity's sake). With that thought the whole thing gets even more unwieldy and even more bewildering.
What to do. What to do.
Inertia strikes.
The intellect says to take baby steps in one direction or another, even if it turns out to be the wrong decision. Ok, that would work, I suppose. The emotion says to be like a bird caught under a net who finds that thrashing around only makes it become more enmeshed while sitting quietly and looking about for a hole would result in freedom from the trap.
Like everything else in the world, things are seldom all one thing or all another. The world is made up of colors, an infinite range of them, not just black and white. Adding that to the mix, that there are not just two possible ways to go but literally dozens (simplifying the color palette for simplicity's sake). With that thought the whole thing gets even more unwieldy and even more bewildering.
What to do. What to do.
Inertia strikes.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Thoughts on THE Gay Blessing
The headline of the article reads:
Gay priest resigns after furore over church blessing
The furore? He and his partner, also a priest, had their commitment blessed IN a church BY a CofE clergyman WITNESSED by hundreds of family, friends and well-wishers USING the order of service for a EUCHARIST . From the article:
How dare they! How dare they want their civil partnership AND commitment to each other blessed? How dare they want the same thing that thousands of more-or-less worthy young women pouring over bridal magazines and with probably far less sacramental feeling or knowledge want -- a church wedding with friends and relatives witnessing a momentous occasion in the lives of two people who have every intention of living together as a copule and growing old together? How dare they? How dare they indeed!
It's okay for brides and their families to go into debt to buy the perfect dress, perfect flowers, perfect rings, music, and even rental of the church (if necessary) in order to produce the "perfect" wedding of which they'd always dreamed. That probalby 50% of those marriages will fail and all will have the potential to fail has nothing to do with it. The church is willing to gamble and marry them to each other anyway. Oh, they undoubtedly love each other passionately at the time and fully intend to live up to the words they say to each other but it doesn't always work. Still, the church takes the risk of allowing a marriage ceremony to take place, sometimes scripted more carefully than a Hollywood movie shoot or theatric performance. It's perfectly okay --- if the two people getting married are of different sexes.
But turn the page and just let two homosexual men want to celebrate their commitment (after having already undergone a civil union) in a religious service of the Eucharist and the wailing and gnashing of teeth stretches around the world. How dare these two MEN flaunt GOD'S HOLY WORD and GOD'S SACRED SACRAMENT with their definintely UNHOLY and ABOMINABLE behavior? How dare they indeed! Honesty doesn't count for much and intent even less, it seems.
Funny -- the church doesn't seem to object to blessing dogs, boats, cars, snakes, houses, religious callings, fox hunts, intermnents, commercial fishing ventures, agricultural fields, cats, etc., but let two same-sex partners wish to have their commitment blessed and the outcry is deafening.
I wonder what Jesus would say? But then, Jesus didn't marry any couples of either orientation.
How dare these two men flaunt convention and even church law and custom? How dare they indeed. That there is more furore over their "blessing" than there is over the atrocities in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Myanmar is telling far louder than the dismay over two men having a so-called "wedding." How dare they?
How dare we ignore the plight of millions while busily condemning two?
I wonder what Jesus would really say? Where would Jesus put his efforts? Where shoud we as Christians?
Think about it.
Gay priest resigns after furore over church blessing
The furore? He and his partner, also a priest, had their commitment blessed IN a church BY a CofE clergyman WITNESSED by hundreds of family, friends and well-wishers USING the order of service for a EUCHARIST . From the article:
Much of the anger toward the couple came after details of the service were revealed. Traditionalists were angry that the men were able to enjoy a ceremony almost identical to a traditional church wedding, with readings, hymns, a Eucharist and a version of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer's Solemnization of Marriage.
How dare they! How dare they want their civil partnership AND commitment to each other blessed? How dare they want the same thing that thousands of more-or-less worthy young women pouring over bridal magazines and with probably far less sacramental feeling or knowledge want -- a church wedding with friends and relatives witnessing a momentous occasion in the lives of two people who have every intention of living together as a copule and growing old together? How dare they? How dare they indeed!
It's okay for brides and their families to go into debt to buy the perfect dress, perfect flowers, perfect rings, music, and even rental of the church (if necessary) in order to produce the "perfect" wedding of which they'd always dreamed. That probalby 50% of those marriages will fail and all will have the potential to fail has nothing to do with it. The church is willing to gamble and marry them to each other anyway. Oh, they undoubtedly love each other passionately at the time and fully intend to live up to the words they say to each other but it doesn't always work. Still, the church takes the risk of allowing a marriage ceremony to take place, sometimes scripted more carefully than a Hollywood movie shoot or theatric performance. It's perfectly okay --- if the two people getting married are of different sexes.
But turn the page and just let two homosexual men want to celebrate their commitment (after having already undergone a civil union) in a religious service of the Eucharist and the wailing and gnashing of teeth stretches around the world. How dare these two MEN flaunt GOD'S HOLY WORD and GOD'S SACRED SACRAMENT with their definintely UNHOLY and ABOMINABLE behavior? How dare they indeed! Honesty doesn't count for much and intent even less, it seems.
Funny -- the church doesn't seem to object to blessing dogs, boats, cars, snakes, houses, religious callings, fox hunts, intermnents, commercial fishing ventures, agricultural fields, cats, etc., but let two same-sex partners wish to have their commitment blessed and the outcry is deafening.
I wonder what Jesus would say? But then, Jesus didn't marry any couples of either orientation.
How dare these two men flaunt convention and even church law and custom? How dare they indeed. That there is more furore over their "blessing" than there is over the atrocities in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Myanmar is telling far louder than the dismay over two men having a so-called "wedding." How dare they?
How dare we ignore the plight of millions while busily condemning two?
I wonder what Jesus would really say? Where would Jesus put his efforts? Where shoud we as Christians?
Think about it.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
A Memory of Childhood
I am young --- somewhere between 8-10 years old -- and I am sitting in one of my favorite places on earth, on a bluff overlooking my river back home. To my left and just down the hill slightly from me is a very tall, old pine tree that has withstood many storms that have felled lesser trees and even some that seemed greater. It must have very strong roots buried in the soil covering the rock of the bluff. While the roots cannot grow down perfectly straight because of the angle of the hill on which the tree grows, the trunk is straight and gives rise to many lush branches which produce many cones that are its way of reproducing itself. I love that tree.
I sit just over the crest of the hill so that I can't be seen unless someone walks close to the edge of the bluff and looks. Just from the road or even from the monument on the flat ground away from the edge of the bluff I can't be seen. That is fine with me; this is my secret place where I can hide in plain sight, where I can sit alone yet not entirely alone. I have the river, the tree, the birds and grass and all of nature to keep me company. I live in a small town and don't fear violence or danger because everybody knows everybody else and crime just doesn't happen there. I'm glad I grew up in that kind of safety.
The river below fascinates me with its tides and changes. Uncle Roy, who lived on the bluff several miles away, taught me to look at the river and see the ebb and flow of the tide without looking at the sandy beach below. He taught me to see the areas of red tide and the eddies where the rocks were close to the surface. I had already learned to see the imaginary white horses that rode to shore when the winds blew and the storms were coming and to listen to the gentle rush of the small wavelets as they lapped against the shore, pushing shells, bits of seaweed and other flotsam against the sand. I can't always hear the river's sounds from my perch on the bluff but hearing by the ears isn't always the only way of listening. I watch the color of the water change from blue to brown to gray and back again, not every time I visit it and certainly not changing color as quickly as chameleons and geckos can. Still, it happens and it reiterates that the river is a living thing, changing according to circumstance and reacting according to outside situations.
As I sit near the tree and look out at the river, I feel the soft leather of the book I brought with me. I bring it quite often when I visit this spot and even if I don't have it with me, parts of it are engraved on my brain and come to mind easily. I was given the white book on a special occasion and was told to treat it respectfully. Somehow taking it with me to the bluff didn't seem to be disrespectful; after all, what better place to read the Psalms, the book I usually chose to read, than sitting alone in the midst of creation with God's creatures around me. Sometimes I read to the tree, sometimes just to myself -- and God. It was very easy to feel God there, probably easier than almost anywhere else I have ever been. It is my childhood "sacred space," more sacred even than the church I attended every Sunday and sometimes during the week for rehearsals, Bible study or prayer meeting. It was my very own church and I loved being there.
The last time I went home it had changed. I could no longer sit where I had so often as a child and watch the river because the hillside had been covered with gigantic vines with huge leaves that blocked the view while, I suppose, "stabilizing" the soil of the bluff so that it did not erode and endanger the monument. Still, my tree was there, looking older and a little more tired as if competing for nutrients the vines stole from the pine tree's reserve was becoming too hard a task. The river seemed to watch the struggle but could only observe from its bed, the part of the world God had carved out for it. That was some years ago. Does the tree still stand? Has someone cut some of the vines so the river can be seen again? Have human beings "improved" the whole area so that it seems more natural and more stable? I don't know.
I only know that I have the memory of the safety and comfort of the place I love best in the world. For me, that will be what "home" is: the river, the bluff, the tree -- and God's presence.
I sit just over the crest of the hill so that I can't be seen unless someone walks close to the edge of the bluff and looks. Just from the road or even from the monument on the flat ground away from the edge of the bluff I can't be seen. That is fine with me; this is my secret place where I can hide in plain sight, where I can sit alone yet not entirely alone. I have the river, the tree, the birds and grass and all of nature to keep me company. I live in a small town and don't fear violence or danger because everybody knows everybody else and crime just doesn't happen there. I'm glad I grew up in that kind of safety.
The river below fascinates me with its tides and changes. Uncle Roy, who lived on the bluff several miles away, taught me to look at the river and see the ebb and flow of the tide without looking at the sandy beach below. He taught me to see the areas of red tide and the eddies where the rocks were close to the surface. I had already learned to see the imaginary white horses that rode to shore when the winds blew and the storms were coming and to listen to the gentle rush of the small wavelets as they lapped against the shore, pushing shells, bits of seaweed and other flotsam against the sand. I can't always hear the river's sounds from my perch on the bluff but hearing by the ears isn't always the only way of listening. I watch the color of the water change from blue to brown to gray and back again, not every time I visit it and certainly not changing color as quickly as chameleons and geckos can. Still, it happens and it reiterates that the river is a living thing, changing according to circumstance and reacting according to outside situations.
As I sit near the tree and look out at the river, I feel the soft leather of the book I brought with me. I bring it quite often when I visit this spot and even if I don't have it with me, parts of it are engraved on my brain and come to mind easily. I was given the white book on a special occasion and was told to treat it respectfully. Somehow taking it with me to the bluff didn't seem to be disrespectful; after all, what better place to read the Psalms, the book I usually chose to read, than sitting alone in the midst of creation with God's creatures around me. Sometimes I read to the tree, sometimes just to myself -- and God. It was very easy to feel God there, probably easier than almost anywhere else I have ever been. It is my childhood "sacred space," more sacred even than the church I attended every Sunday and sometimes during the week for rehearsals, Bible study or prayer meeting. It was my very own church and I loved being there.
The last time I went home it had changed. I could no longer sit where I had so often as a child and watch the river because the hillside had been covered with gigantic vines with huge leaves that blocked the view while, I suppose, "stabilizing" the soil of the bluff so that it did not erode and endanger the monument. Still, my tree was there, looking older and a little more tired as if competing for nutrients the vines stole from the pine tree's reserve was becoming too hard a task. The river seemed to watch the struggle but could only observe from its bed, the part of the world God had carved out for it. That was some years ago. Does the tree still stand? Has someone cut some of the vines so the river can be seen again? Have human beings "improved" the whole area so that it seems more natural and more stable? I don't know.
I only know that I have the memory of the safety and comfort of the place I love best in the world. For me, that will be what "home" is: the river, the bluff, the tree -- and God's presence.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Current Reading
I've finished reading a few more books: +Gene Robinson's In the Eye of the Storm, John H. Westerhoff's Living as a Prayer Book People and Fredrica Harris Thompsett's Living With History. Although different in outlook and premise, all three seem very closely related in my mind because all of them deal with not just the past or the present but the future as well.
+Robinson's book deals with his own history as well as the page of history in the church which was ending the day he was elected Bishop of New Hampshire. That page was turned and a new page begun upon his consecration. Since then he has been at the center of a storm. Storms are caused when cool/cold air collides with warm/hot air and the dichotomy of inclusivity/exclusivity or "traditional orthodox"/"progressive reappraisers" seems to be another such collision. As well as being the person at the center of the storm and some see the precipitating event, +Robinson also represents the eye of the hurricane that seems to swirl around him, the eye that is calm, clear and quiet. History is not always kind to those who stand in the middle of the storm: think of Galileo, Luther and even the Apostle Paul. Gene Robinson is a story of the present.
Fredrica Harris Thompsett looks at history as an unfolding and we as human beings are part of that unfolding. History involves all of us, not just the names in books that remind us of events and controversies. This is a book that focuses on our past and how we came to where we are now. The book was written in 1999 but it is easy to see in the 1999 words some of the coming troubles and squabbles we have in the current church as a whole and not just the Episcopal Church in particular. There have been schisms, squabbles and dichotomies throughout the history of the church, even from the very beginning, and that trend has continued through the whole of church history. There has never been complete agreement on everything, sometimes not even on essentials. History continues to repeat itself, it appears.
John Westerhoff looks at history through specific lenses involving the Book of Common Prayer and its meaning and effect on us as Anglicans and Episcopalians. He uses history to trace the development of the prayer book we use and how those developments have shaped us as a denomination and as individuals. From the history of the creeds, our common statements of faith, to the covenants in which we enlist (such as baptism, marriage and ordination) and even how we pray collectively and individually, it has all come about through changes in understanding and culture as well as perceptions of the guidance of the Spirit over all.
I love it when things come together. I didn't deliberately plan to read those specific books, especially right now, but having done so I'm glad I did. Much of what I read was familiar from having just finished Year Three of EfM (Education for Ministry), echoing what I read in the text during the year. From that and the books I've read lately I've come to the conclusion that the more things change the more they remain the same. History is not a set of dead dates and people but a continuum upon which we move, sometimes with giant strides and sometimes with seemingly drunken lurches. Sometimes we retreat, sometimes we go forward. All we can do is pray to God, follow Jesus' lead, trust the Spirit and try to live a Christian life.
Then all we have to do is figure out what that "Christian" life means based on lessons from the past, experiences of the present and hope for the future.
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