Random patter from one easily amused and more easily confused.
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Showing posts with label Roman Catholic Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Catholic Church. Show all posts
There’s nothing like a good famine to put things in perspective.
On
Tuesday, Andrew Natsios, the head of the U.S. Agency for International
Aid, said matter-of-factly of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur
region of Sudan, "If nothing changes we will have one million
casualties. If things improve we can get it down to about 300,000
deaths.” 1.2 million black Africans have been driven from their homes
by years of fighting, and are living on the run, constantly menaced by
hunger, disease, and the marauding Arab militias that roam the country
unchecked, and sometimes encouraged, by the Sudanese government.
Meanwhile,
halfway around the world, Christians in the richest country in the
world, where the food wasted in one day could probably save those
million people, have other things on their minds.
At the most
recent General Conference of the United Methodist Church (equivalent to
our General Convention), homosexuality was determined to be the top
issue facing the church, taking priority over war and violence, poverty,
racism, and that denomination’s double-digit decline in membership.
Catholic
priests and bishops around the country are not only refusing Communion
to politicians whose positions are not in step with that of the Vatican,
but discouraging those who vote for them from receiving it as well.
Ronald
Reagan was praised by his son for not wearing his religion on his
sleeve, in a none-to-subtle jab at how fashionable it has become among
politicians to do just that. The “WWJD” crowd wears Jesus like a logo,
many with little understanding of who He was or what He stood – and died
-- for.
And within our own Episcopal family, people are leaving
churches they and their families have attended for generations, because
they choose to narrowly interpret some seven verses of Scripture while
ignoring dozens of others, and refuse to break bread with anyone who
doesn’t share their interpretation.
What makes this all the
more frustrating for me is knowing that I’m just as guilty of getting
caught up in the partisan bickering as anybody else. Last week, I heard
that 36 members of a parish in New Hampshire left because they don’t
accept the authority of Bishop Gene Robinson, leaving just three people
to keep the parish going. The following Sunday, when I heard there were
nearly a hundred people in the church, the small wave of glee I
experienced was not exactly charitable. . It’s a small wonder
that a common mantra of the un-churched is “Sure I love Jesus, it’s His
followers I can’t stand!” None of this dirty laundry escapes the
drama-hungry press, and outsiders must scratch their heads and wonder
which liturgical season it is when we take a break from finger-pointing
and actually pray.
Today’s lessons neatly summarize what it is
God expects from us. In Deuteronomy, “You shall … love the stranger,
for you were strangers.” And in the Gospel reading, we are told “Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be
children of your Father in Heaven; for He makes the sun rise on the evil
and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous”
In
other words, none among us is equipped to decide who is deserving of
God’s love, or who deserves to be in God’s house. God is capable of
figuring that out without our help, and the time we use to judge one
another takes us away from the task with which we were entrusted.
Christ made it clear that God’s love is universal, and demonstrated that
by always surrounding himself by the marginalized, unpopular,
“hard-to-love” types who cause us to get self-righteous or crack jokes
or divert our path. Christ asked us to be His hands, He expects us to
get those hands dirty, and give those people who take us outside our
comfort zone the same dignity that He would. If we concentrated on
that, we’d be far too busy to notice one another’s imperfections.
In
the reading from Hebrews, Paul talks about Abraham and Sarah and their
kin, who had little more than their faith to sustain them when they
lived in tents in a foreign country, waiting for God’s promises to be
fulfilled. Fast-forward to 2004, and Abrahams and Sarah’s are all
around us, as many as the stars of heaven, in refugee camps and homeless
shelters, in detention centers and on street corners, barely daring to
dream of a heavenly city of their own design. It’s easier for us to
insulate ourselves in our own cares, blame others for the world’s
problems and pretend they’re not our responsibility, but if we each
tried just that little bit harder to get past the rhetoric and focus on
WWJ really D, then – brick by brick -- that city would be reality,
instead of something millions of people die dreaming about.
Greetings from the Future! I realize that I (45-Year-Old You) am still not on speaking terms with 16-Year-Old-Me for not lifting weights instead of taking gym class whenever you had the chance. For the record, we’re still thudding three miles around the track everyday trying to get rid of that Burger King sandwich you just ate.
However, since New Jersey is in the midst of celebrating Pride, I’m feeling benevolent. I realize you don’t yet know what that is, sheltered little Catholic School graduate that you are. But someday you will not only come to terms with the way you feel about some of the guys you know, but there will be guys who feel the same way back, and you will no longer think you are some kind of alien species with crossed wires.
Speaking of which, not three months ago, two of those boys in your high school class, who weren’t always the nicest to you, manned up and apologized for the way that they acted, completely unbidden. I know it’s hard to believe now, but 45-Year-Old-You wasn’t even overwhelmed with surprise at this development. People change and grow, and — if you have any kind of conscience at all — it seems to be human nature to carry around those little hurts that you cause, like pebbles in your shoes. Redemption — when you find it — can feel be a relief, and 45-Year-Old-You was actually glad to be a part of that exchange.
We’re not supposed to give spoilers, but you’ve seemed kind of in the dumps lately, so I’ll throw you one. Breathe a word of it and I’ll deny everything, mind you, but listen: Right now, in a house not that far from your freshman dorm room with the roommates you’re afraid of, a ten-year-old boy is growing up fast. Years from now, when you’re both what you currently consider ancient (don’t think I didn’t hear that!), he will cross your path and catch your eye. In a church, no less. Yes, I know a church just told you to take a hike, but God won’t give up on you just because that nun did, and when it’s time, you’ll grudgingly come around.
A few years after that (I should warn you, they keep going by faster, like some crazy carnival ride) you and he will be the proud uncles of nine (count them, nine) beautiful and intelligent nieces and nephews, and each of your families will treat you like there’s nothing wrong with you being together. Because there isn’t.
So hang in there, 18-Year-Old Me. The best is yet to be.
Knowing what you do now, what would you tell your eighteen-year-old-self?Keep the party going by replying to Brita's original letter, and/or using the hashtag #Dear18YOMe.
It's been over a decade since I found a home in the Episcopal Church and -- almost immediately thereafter -- got involved in ministry with LGBT people. As society's attitudes about sexuality have evolved and congregations have become more willing to acknowledge the diversity in their midst, this has shifted from providing "safe spaces" off to the side for our folks to pray and socialize as their whole, authentic selves, to actually getting whole faith communities to weave universal welcome into their mission and identity.
What I haven't yet offered up here is how I came to be an Episcopalian in the first place. At the tender age of 18, I was a member of the Antioch young adult group at a Roman Catholic parish. Caught up in the emotion of a retreat, I shared with a trusted friend, and a priest, the secret that I was experiencing same-gender attraction. Despite being assured that this would be kept confidential, I got a phone call (from a nun, no less!) several weeks later saying it would be "better for the others" if I wasn't around. "Some of the parents have concerns," she explained, without elaborating.
I did not actively attend church again for over ten years. I was in church, because I worked as a paid musician here and there, but it felt like a job and I was an outsider there to perform a service, not a member of the community.
At some point, I went to hear my friend Jennifer sing at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Maplewood, N.J. The denomination meant nothing to me at the time. We were both raised in the days of the Baltimore Catechism, and my CCD classes left me with the kind of "us-and-them" mentality that meant there were only two kinds of churches you needed to worry about: the Roman Catholic Church and Everybody Else. But that visit -- where the Right Rev. John Shelby Spong preached about the nuances of sin in a way I had never heard -- set me on a new course. When 9/11 devastated our area, I found myself delivering donations to another Episcopal parish, with a partnered gay priest. Okay, I get it. I said grudgingly. I went back a few times, ended up on a committee or two, and was received (a service for converts, very similar to confirmation, where you formally commit yourself as an adult member of the church) a few years later.
It should not be a surprise that my area of ministry quickly ended up being to other LGBT people. I have now worked in diocesan ministry for nigh unto ten years, and on the national level for about four. The most profound thing I have learned is -- as traumatic as my own experience was -- it was peanuts compared to what some of my brothers and sisters have experienced at the hands of the church. And, in the ecclesiastical equivalent of PTSD, the collateral damage of all those individual little wars reveals itself on a regular basis, even (aye, maybe especially) among leaders of the movement.
I have witnessed spectacular displays of distrust and hostility (some of it richly deserved) leveled at institutional religion, and sometimes laser-aimed at the unfortunate soul who naively identified as a member. In my official capacity, I attended a memorial for a man I had never met, and my expression of gratitude for his decades of service was lost when a complete stranger, learning what group I was there to represent, proceeded to publicly lambaste me for ten minutes about events that took place in that organization while I was many miles away attending grammar school.
I have also seen it -- heartbreakingly often -- among our own: we shoot accusations like arrows from the safety of our Facebook chairs, far enough away to avoid getting splattered with the mess. Too often, people all theoretically working for the same cause fall into predictable opposing teams, mess with one of us, you've messed with all of us, or something like that. Simply disagreeing with a person’s ideas or interpretation of an event is immediately labeled as bullying, slander or worse, and decades of toxic history are dragged out yet again like some kind of dystopian yearbook to prove... what exactly?
It is contagious, this; I have been guilty of it myself, which I deeply regret. I can get caught up in the need to avenge wrongs that had nothing to do with me. I have walked away from conversations and shut myself off from further contact with people who seem to be repeated triggers. And I have, truth be told, contemplated frequently whether the rate of progress, which feels downright glacial at times, is worth the emotional toll. Maybe I should just fold my tent quietly, dust myself off, and walk away. What’s another ten years in the desert?
In trying to atone for and heal from my own contribution to this malaise, I keep coming back to a conversation I had with a friend about her troubled son, whose treatment of her ricochets between intense devotion and blinding rage. The words that entered my head, which I wrote on a napkin while she was describing one such encounter, was:
HURT PEOPLE
HURT PEOPLE
Now if you are not "hearing" that in your head, maybe you recall seventh-grade English and how much fun it was to diagram sentences:
Or, to put it another way: "Hurt (adj.) people HURT (verb) people."
The one thing LGBT people almost universally have in common is that we have all been -- at one time or another -- treated badly. As children, we got mocked for being different or strange; for not liking dolls when we should, or walking funny. Later, we may have been rejected by family members, passed over for jobs, kicked out of churches, or accused of being immoral and a danger to children simply because the gender that turns our head, or that we claim as our own, is not what others expected it be. I have yet to meet the person who avoided it totally, although it is getting better, thanks be to God!
The Velveteen Rabbit
illustration by William Nicholson
Public Domain (1922)
Those of us who are doing inclusion work are -- by definition -- revisiting those old personal hurts, over and over again; either by talking other people through them, or trying to explain to potential allies how it feels to be a person like us. We don't have the luxury of shutting those bad memories in a box and celebrating the happy, well-adjusted person we became, safe to pursue career and relationship goals by nature of the progress the church and the state have made. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, it is our scars that will make us “real” to those wounded hearts whose trust we must carefully earn.
Perhaps this is the gift that we carry to the altar. Maybe we sacrifice "moving on" in order to build the church and the world where others may someday do so undamaged. If that is so, then we must acknowledge what that costs, and the attendant dangers.
This means we can, if we're not careful, see our present circumstances only through the scratched lenses and battered, taped, frames of the past. We are liable to interpret the words and actions of others as if we were back in that awful place we fought so hard to overcome, particularly when we find ourselves under stress. In that dark world, allies can easily be mistaken for tormentors, and that puts us at a higher risk of inflicting further wounds on them, if we can’t see their vulnerable spots past the scales on our own eyes. Trust me, I know there are some people who just manage to push your buttons, but in the heat of the moment it is easy to confuse the person and the issue; what is really their damage and what is just our own stuff, coming back to haunt us.
It also means we can become so used to victimhood that it has become too comfortable, or too scary, to give up. We have fought hard to achieve wider acceptance, but with equal rights comes equal responsibility. It is good that we are different, and it is important and wonderful that we are survivors, but it doesn’t make us "special" in the sense that we should continually expect to get a pass for bad behavior because of it. We find it exhausting when others do it; we should learn to recognize it in ourselves.
With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
So what next?
As a souvenir of that fateful weekend, I have -- shoved into the top of a closet -- a grocery bag full of palancas, letters of affirmation from other Antioch members, parishioners and others that I received on the retreat. The word palanca is Spanish for "lever" and the purpose is to give someone a spiritual "boost" through prayer or encouragement. So this is my palanca for you, 21st-century style:
If any of this struck a chord with you, I invite you to play the video below, eyes closed if you want, and think about your own experience while you listen. Hold up the hurts you’ve endured, and the hurts you’ve caused, and allow yourself to feel forgiveness, given and received. Think about what you might say or do differently next time. What if you shared one of these vulnerabilities with the person who causes you the most angst, and asked them to share one of theirs with you? What would your relationship be like after that?
That song was composed by Gregory Norbet, a former member of the Benedictine monastery at Weston, Vermont. It is a working farm in a rustically beautiful setting, particularly in autumn, and has been a "go-to" place of refuge for my entire life.
The pond at Weston Priory
We can… you and I can… build that place of sanctuary for each other. We can learn to help each other heal from what has happened to us, and be the palanca, the lever, that helps them accomplish what they otherwise could not. We can have the grace to ask for forgiveness when we screw up (and we will screw up… I know I will) and know that it is offered with sincerity. We can know that it is okay not to always be perfect, and not always be right, and not always have the last word.
We can do this, aye, we have to do this. We are called to be a force of good in the world, are we not? How can we take that on with so much distrust and resentment underfoot? We need each other on this road, flaws and all, and we can get there much quicker if we learn how to bring out the best in one another, instead of the worst.
“Jesus Consoles the Women”
from Clarence Enzler’s Everyone’s Way of the Cross
Christ Speaks:
How often had I longed to take the children of Jerusalem and gather them to me. But they refused. But now these women weep for me, and my heart mourns for them-- mourns for their sorrows that will come.
I comfort those who seek to solace me.
How gentle can you be, my other self? How kind?
I Reply: My Jesus, your compassion in your passion is beyond compare. Lord, teach me,help me learn. When I would snap at those who hurt me with their ridicule, those who misunderstand, or hinder me with some misguided helpfulness,those who intrude upon my privacy – then help me curb my tongue.
Many of us, even those with little or no direct experience, are amused by the notion of nuns behaving badly. The idea that religious sisters, whom we associate with placid, regimented lives, might get up to all sorts of mischief has been a popular theme in entertainment for generations. From Julie Andrews' Maria and Sally Fields' airborne Sister Bertrille to the gaggle under the stern eye of Maggie Smith in Sister Act, we identify with the idea that these disciplined figures might have a frivolous or even wild side bubbling under the surface. A line of greeting cards and calendars featuring the habit-clad doing everything from riding motorcycles to skeet shooting pokes gentle fun at this concept. Listening to some rather timid hymnody in church, I couldn't help but
wish that Whoopie Goldberg's Sister Mary Clarence would appear and
encourage us to start singing so God might actually hear us. Even the feisty Sophia Petrillo gave religious life a go, but found difficulty adjusting to the point where the Mother Superior told her, "I'm going to go pray now. I won't tell you what I'll be praying for, as it would hurt your feelings." These are just a few of the dramatizations portraying nuns, in varying degrees of accuracy.
In fact, there are orders who shun all or most of the world's distractions, and being forced to partake of them can be extremely traumatic when one feels called to do live in seclusion. In 1988, while I was involved in a Catholic youth organization called Antioch, we learned that four Carmelite nuns at the cloistered convent nearby barricaded themselves for nine months in the infirmary in an attempt to shield themselves from what they viewed as an imposed modernization or diluting of their "rule of life". The changes, including eating candy, watching videos and leaving the facility for walks around the parking lot, were contrary to what the sisters and novitiates saw as their calling. The prioress and her supporters contested that these things were not new to the house, and it was a question of alliance to her predecessor and resistance to her authority vs. the acts themselves. As with most conflicts, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.
A community of brothers in Vermont, the Carthusians at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration, live almost completely as hermits in solitary confinement. Each brother has a small apartment with a workshop, walled garden, and indoor space to eat and pray. Food and other necessities are received through a "turn", a pass-through of sorts that does not require interaction with the person delivering them. These brothers gather only for communal prayer and one weekly meal, eaten in silence, and they leave the monastery only a few times each year for a group walk in their wooded surroundings. Annual visits from their families are their only contact with the outside world.
Most religious, of course, live and work among -- and more or less like -- the rest of us, vows notwithstanding. I attended high school under the Sisters of Mercy and Brothers of the Sacred Heart, but by that time the ruler-wielding tyrants of my parent's generation were reduced to folklore (thank you, DYFS!) so my impression of those in religious life was generally a positive one. I mostly stayed on their good side, with the exception of the morning my friend Staci ran up to the school bus one morning with a made-up "emergency" that was in reality the desire to have me join her for a few minutes of new-found freedom, thanks to her newly-acquired driver's license. Needless to say the bus driver (who was also our science teacher and the wrestling coach... our school was so small, the jocks had to moonlight as drama geeks!) dutifully reported said "emergency" to Sister Pat. When we arrived a few minutes later (coffee and bagels in hand, such grownups!) she was waiting for us at the door, wearing an expression right out of the Book of Revelations. Generally though, she was a benevolent and fair leader, and an interview when she left a few years after my graduation revealed she had survived a difficult childhood, losing both parents at a young age.
My strongest association with a religious community, however, has been with the brothers at Weston Priory, a Benedictine monastery and working farm in the woods of Vermont (more on that next week!) that my family has been visiting for most of my life. My sister and I agree that the Priory would be our post-apocalypse "go-to place" assuming we could fight our way past the zombies on the New York Thruway. If anybody would know how to deal with whatever was coming next with zenlike grace, it would be the Weston brothers.
After moving to the Episcopal Church for other reasons, I discovered that religious orders exist for us as well, albeit on a smaller scale, like everything else. In our area is the mother house of the (Augustinian) Community of John the Baptist, and up the Hudson a bit is Holy Cross Monastery, a Benedictine community. Both host retreats and invite visitors to their historic grounds.
All of this means that I was, as were many, very disheartened by the idea that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the office of what used to be known as the Inquisition, and most recently led by the current Pope) this past week portrayed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which oversees some 57,000 American nuns, as an unruly gang of Pied Pipers who are leading the unwitting Catholic faithful away from its doctrines, particularly on its favorite subjects of late, abortion and homosexuality. It wasn't so much that the sisters were making statements contrary to church doctrine; but they were not using their influence with the people they serve to echo the party line about the dangers of same-sex marriage and the scourge of free condoms. It called elements of Sr. Laurie Brink's 2007 address to that body a "serious source of scandal." in that it suggested sisters might find a spiritual calling "beyond the church" or even possibly "beyond Christianity." The Congregation announced that Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle had been appointed to give the Conference a thorough going-over and knock them back into line.
The reaction was, predictably, swift and overwhelmingly on the side of the sisters. The Rev. James Martin, who writes for America,says, "More often than not, it is women religious who precede the men in
working with the poor, in giving voice to the powerless and in dying on
the fields of martyrdom. It is the women who do, do, do, and have done
so with little recognition and historically even less pay, and all in a
church where women's voices are often unheard, ignored or denied." Martin started a Twitter hashtag #WhatSistersMeanToMe, which has taken off with a life of its own. In her Washington Postblog, Melinda Henneberger says "The Vatican, of course, knows a lot about scandal — to the point that
the nuns are the only morally uncompromised leaders poor Holy Mother
Church has left." Sr. Joan Chittister, a well-known writer who once led the group facing the charges, said that a reformation from outside threatened the unique relationships sisters have with the people they serve, and that the questions this work causes them to ask must be answered if the church is to remain vibrant, relevant and respected. "When you set out to reform that kind of witness, remember when it's
over who doomed the church to another 400 years of darkness. It won't be
the people of the church who did it."
From my perspective, the nuns are the only participants in this quarrel who are dealing in reality at the moment. A person discovering an unplanned pregnancy or attraction to the same sex is less likely to be shunned by secular culture today than thirty years ago, so if the response is anything other than empathy and compassion, he or she is more likely to just walk away and seek help elsewhere. The sad reality is that Americans are abandoning organized
religion in droves, in part because they are no longer afraid of what
the church or society will do to them if they don't follow its rules. While the mainline Protestant denominations and reform Judaism are responding (admittedly in fits and starts) by wrestling with these issues and trying to put them into context, the Vatican and the U.S. Council of Bishops seem to be stepping backwards and snuffing out any room for conversation. Comparing gay activists to Nazis or the KKK and other extremist rhetoric from the pulpit will not draw the disaffected back into the fold; it will only cause them to tune the church out. Withdrawing from social services ministries to avoid complying with laws requiring equal treatment of everyone won't get the laws rescinded, it will just punish those who benefited from those worthwhile ministries. Unfortunately for us moderates, the increasing ranks of the unchurched seem to make little distinction between one group of Christians and another. In the end, we get lumped together as an anachronism from a another time, amusing at best and destructive at worst, and we all stand to lose.
It remains to be seen what the sisters will do. As described above, a calling is not something a person walks away from easily. This is not the first time a religious order has run afoul of the Vatican, and the response hasn't always exactly been timid. Sr. Sandra Schneiders, who teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California responded to a similar 2009 inquiry, "We can receive them, politely and kindly, for what they are, uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house. When people ask questions they shouldn’t ask, the questions should be answered accordingly."
If all else fails, they can always steal Archbishop Sartain's carburetor.
