Random patter from one easily amused and more easily confused.
I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU
Comments, criticisms, or (one can hope) compliments are more than welcome! Please let me know what you think, tell me I'm crazy (I suspect this) or what you'd like to hear about. Comments are screened before publication, so if you want to share something with me only, just put that in the comment and I'll keep it to myself.
Those in our area could not miss the headline earlier this week of a five-alarm fire that destroyed much of an apartment complex known as Avalon at Edgewater. If you've been around a while, you may remember that the same complex burned in 2000 as construction neared completion.
I'm not really wild about the trend toward wood frame construction for high-density housing like this. With over 400 apartments in a city block, that's a lot of stoves, candles, extension cords, heaters, potentially careless smokers, etc., in a small area. The building is still relatively new, but what happens when wiring and other material is 30, 40, 50 years old? It is not as if it is cheap to live there, either; I saw mention of rents upwards of $3,000 a month. We're getting two similar complexes in our town (one by the same developers) and I expressed concern to town officials that we may be exposed to similar risks.
On Thursday the Newark Star Ledger reported that a worker's blowtorch accidentally started the blaze, and that the crew called and spoke to their supervisor for 15 minutes before dialing 9-1-1, thus critically delaying firefighters' response. This reminded me of another fire, which took place right across the river at Pier 88 in the Passenger Ship Terminal, seventy-three years ago this coming February 8th.
The SS Normandie, luxurious flagship of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, took shelter in New York when World War 2 began. Her crew remained on board until December 1941, when she was seized by the U.S. Navy and renamed the USS Lafayette, vessel AP-53.
Workers using blowtorches to remove iron handrails in the ship's cavernous first-class lounge accidentally ignited a stack of life preservers, which were full of a very flammable substance called Kapok. They attempted to extinguish the fire, but the ship's sophisticated sprinkler system had been abandoned by the Navy and they quickly discovered that the fittings did not match American hoses.
The fire spread rapidly; the Normandie boasted numerous large public spaces (the First Class restaurant was longer than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles) which unfortunately acted like a giant chimney. The FDNY used every means at its disposal to pour water on the ship, and she soon began a dangerous list away from the pier. Her Russian-born designer Vladimir Yourkevitch arrived at the scene and attempted to provide expertise that would have possibly saved her, but he was ignored. In the middle of the night, like a suffering whale that beaches itself, the beautiful ship fell on her side in the muck.
Burned-out wreck of the USS Lafayette (ex-Normandie) lies on her side at New York's Pier 88
PHOTO CREDIT:
James Vaughan. Used under Creative Commons License. Some rights reserved.
She would remain there for a year, an embarrassing waste. The Navy considered re-purposing her as an aircraft carrier, but the damage was found to be too extensive and they focused on other priorities. She was scrapped at Port Newark after the war's end. Luckily, much of her interior fittings had been removed and stored before the disaster, and can be seen in places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Our Lady of Lebanon (the Maronite Catholic Cathedral in Brooklyn), and the Chicago Hilton.
Like the Avalon fire, her loss was ruled an accident, and--also similarly--the response immediately after it began played heavily into the outcome. The design of passenger ships has changed significantly since then; the SS United States, launched 12 years later, had almost no wood on board, and both she and the SS France employed large amounts of asbestos, which was also subsequently ruled to be hazardous. Large spaces like those aboard Normandie now have to be subdivided by fire-suppressing bulkheads and doors.
But, on land, are similar precautions being taken? Hopefully we will not have to wait 73 years for a lesson from the Avalon fire to be learned.
So, a friend posted this list of forty sucky things that a 40-year-old woman experiences, and it got a chuckle. I thought it would be funny to compare my own list, much of which overlaps. It will be funnier if you read that list first, as they sort of line up. Sort of.
I have no clue what's on MTV. Do we get MTV? I can’t find the remote.
Gay shelf life is a thing. Bars and parties that seem fun in the constant promos they send... yay Netflix!
My entry in “movember” or any other facial-hair trend will be gray/white and thus put on ten years. What works for Anderson Cooper makes me look like an aging owl during molting season.
Should we fool around or watch a mo… zzzz
The beer I drank on Super Bowl Sunday is still inside me somewhere.
Wake up with that “but it’s a good hurt” feeling, like you did a heavy workout the day before… but you didn’t.
Doctor’s appointment beginning to resemble a bad encounter with the TSA.
Not that I'd leave my job and family to become a rich guy's houseboy and live on his yacht, but it was nice when that was at least a remote possibility.
Going shirtless in public is seeming more and more like an aggressive act.
The "me" in my head gets hit on by the “me” in the mirror... and shot down
Mark Wahlberg still has that body. I, on the other hand...
If I strolled across a college campus, people would ask I was lost or possibly tell security about the homeless-looking old guy
The only place I get carded is the airport. Bonus: car insurance keeps dropping
The mall, once my place of employment and the social epicenter, is like a visit to another, hostile planet. Any clothing that appeals to me is “too young for you” and doesn’t come in my size. Have actually purchased clothes at Costco. Does it have a drawstring or elastic waist? Take four of them.
Random hairs. Wherever they feel like. Try and stop ‘em.
I still like new music and go see it live, but people assume I’m there to clean up afterwards.
Everything I wore in high school is probably somewhere in the house. If the hipsters want it, they can come find it.
Whole TV series have been created, cancelled and become “classics” and I still haven’t heard of them. Where’s the remote?
My employer will be paying my Medicare Part B someday and I actually understand what that means.
I would not know Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, or any of these people “you’re supposed to like” if I tripped on them. Whatever happened to Cher and Madonna?
Christmas, which used to start after Thanksgiving, now starts before Halloween. I think in our lifetimes, next Christmas will start before this Christmas.
All the Abercrombie & Fitch went to the church thrift shop a while back. “Tell your son thank you for us!” Um, yeah, sure will.
Have you seen my glasses? $300 designer frames once every two years has morphed into a new $18 pair of readers from the drug store every few weeks because I keep losing or breaking them.
Now that everybody has unlimited talk time, all my phone conversations are conference calls for work.
All the concerts, clubs, and clothes I used to scrimp for are more within the budget, and yet I’m usually home on Saturday night and fine with that… mostly.
If I was to flirt with the cable guy, police would probably be called. I just want the remote.
If a good-looking, 21-year-old guy is friendly to me, he is trying to sell something.
Naked pictures? I’d rather have Stacy’s Naked Pita Chips… with hummus please!
I’m tempted to put tape over the front camera on my phone to avoid an accidental “selfie"
Sagging your pants is not a fashion or political statement, it means your gut is pushing them down! Forget your suspenders again, grandpa?
Touching my toes is easy… I’m already sitting down!
When we go on a date in a classy restaurant, the mood is broken when I use the flashlight on my phone to read the menu. Left my glasses in the car.
Impulsively buy vitamins, take them for three days, find the expired jar a year later. Can't read the label anyway.
A dog used to be a social accessory, so you could meet guys while walking/running him in a park. That rarely happens when you push him out on the back deck in your sweatpants and slippers.
Every new exercise, eating, or other good behavior is going to happen “starting on Monday”.
Post-bar at the diner, with the attendant flirting and gossip, has morphed into brunch at the diner with everybody looking at their phones.
Instead of open bar, we look for BYOB and show up with Costco wine.
Birthday party went from all-night in the city to … could we just forget about it please?
I have nine pairs of $#@*(#@( glasses, where the #$@*#$@(*#@( are they?
In my head, I am “dude” or “bro”. To the world I am “sir”. Can’t “sir” be my dad for just a little longer, please?
HEARD TELL, PERHAPS APOCRYPHAL, SOME YEARS AGO OF A SERMON given--if memory serves me--by our former bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong. His Grace began by drawing a Johari window-style diagram, with four unlabeled panes, on an easel pad and asked the congregants to rattle off things they knew about the Christmas story ("laid in a manger" "three wise men" "answering the census", etc.) which he proceeded to put in one of the boxes without comment.
When he was satisfied, he labeled the boxes "Matthew" "Luke" "John" and "Hallmark". Guess which one had the most in it?
The sermon was intended to educate us about what we know, vs. what we think we know about the birth of Christ. As I have embarked as an adult on a more informed understanding of my faith, I have discovered that much of the "givens" with which I had grown up are not scriptural in origin, and even the ones that are still find themselves subject to nuances of interpretation. For example, nowhere in Scripture does it say there were three wise men, but yet we "know" this and we even "know" their names.
Shine on, Surfer Jesus
A lot of my early faith experiences were surrounded by imagery that --although we kidded around about it during my formative years in Roman Catholic youth groups and campus ministries--undoubtedly had an effect on how I "saw" the people and places in these stories. For the most part they were depicted as photogenic Caucasians, generally Nordic-looking (Jesus) or Slavic (Mary), spotlessly clean and groomed, and always with a white dinner plate inexplicably fixed to the back of their heads. As a child I wondered is it strapped on, or is it just hovering behind them, like the Good Witch Glinda's transporter bubble?
Even today when I search Youtube to hear some of the music that evokes that time for me, the videos (often lovingly if amateurishly produced by the faithful) show Jesus tall and chiseled, his grin perfect and his blond highlights catching the sun off the Galilee, looking for all the world like he might have just left his surfboard on the beach.
This does of course not fit with even the assumptions we can safely make in absence of facts. Icelandair did not serve Tel Aviv in the time these stories described, and nothing we've been able to find suggests Jesus worked as an Abercrombie & Fitch greeter prior to his public ministry. The Holy Family and Jesus' subsequent followers were in--all likelihood--short (by today's standards), olive-skinned, hairy, and frequently wont of a bath.
This was all brought to mind recently by a wonderful article by Joe Kay about holiday manger scenes, where he asks why these characters are all portrayed as serene and picture-perfect (and, inexplicably, Norwegian) despite what little we know about the journey they took, the conditions in which they lived, the money they didn't have? I won't try to paraphrase what Mr. Kay says, because frankly I can't improve upon it:
"If our manger scenes were realistic, Mary would be recovering from a painful labor full of sweat and blood, with a look on her face that’s anything but serene. And Joseph — wouldn’t he be a nervous wreck, too? His hand too shaky to hold a lantern?
And about that newborn. Shouldn’t he be red-faced and screaming? Eyes clenched closed and wisps of hair stuck to the top of a head that‘s still odd-shaped from all the squeezing?
Instead, we’ve sanitized and romanticized it. We’ve removed all the blood and sweat and tears and pain and goo. It’s no longer something real.
We’ve left out all the messy parts. The oh-my-God-what-now parts. The I’m-screaming-as-loud-as-I-can-because-it-really-hurts parts. The oh-crap-I’ve-stepped-in-the-animal-droppings parts.
The real parts."
Nativity scene at St. George's Church, Kobanya, Budapest, Hungary
PHOTO CREDIT: András Fülöp Used under Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved
Since we have artistic control of how we "see" them, why do choose to make them look perfect and unflustered when we know this was not the case? Why--as we struggle to make this more than a season of spending money we don’t have to buy people, some of whom we don’t even like, gifts they don’t need; eating and drinking too much and then feeling guilty--do we give the heroes of this story supernatural powers they didn’t have (endless energy, patience, WetNaps...) and make them less like us?
I think it is a shame that the canonical Gospels don't include the argument after Joseph refused to ask for directions and the donkey ended up circling Bethlehem for 45 minutes with his left signal on, or the talking-to Jesus got when the bus had to go all the way back to Jerusalem because he was still at the temple, wowing 'em with his mad parable skillz. We set ourselves up for disappointment when we fall for the notion that everybody else's Christmas looks like the families in TV ads, with nobody arguing or making hard choices about how to afford it all.
As for me and my house, we’d prefer a savior who chuckles and nods knowingly when we vacuum around the piles of clutter, or "phone in" the office potluck by putting something from the deli in our own Corningware. That is the God who may wince a little when we are short-tempered or selfish, but has been there and gets it. This is a time of year when many of us are faced, more than any other time, with the urge to curl up in a ball, mid-gift wrap or bike-assembly, and cry a little. That is a God I could call on in my darkest hour and expect to be understood, and Kay seems to agree:
"We acknowledge our brokenness, and God responds with a kiss on our sweaty faces and goo-covered foreheads. Reminds us that even though we make mistakes and bad choices, we ourselves are never a mistake or a bad choice. Instead, we are always a chosen miracle. And when we feel totally broken, that’s when we’re the most beloved."
If your sugarplums are all color-coordinated and your family beach photo with the Santa hats came out perfectly on the first try, more power to you. Go ahead and carve your nativity figures out of cream cheese just like Martha taught you. We, the Chaos Muppets, may need to tape a sheep's leg back on or bring in the Power Ranger understudy for one of the shepherds, but each will nonetheless be a familiar home to the Savior when he comes.
I knew very little about Alda's life other than his involvement with M*A*S*H, and was intrigued to learn about his upbringing. His father Robert Alda was an actor and his mother, Joan Browne, was a homemaker who struggled with mental illness and died when he was ten. As a child, he survived polio and endured his father's misguided attempt to console him over the untimely death of his cocker spaniel by having the poor animal stuffed (referenced in the title of Alda's memoir).
From a young age, Alda was brought along on the burlesque circuit with his parents. He vividly recalled life at age three, being collectively mothered by chorus girls and watching the show from the wings, triggering his ambition to follow his father into show-business. From that young age, he had an understanding of the inner workings of entertainment that few get to see. "I knew where he hid the pigeons," he said of the show's magician.
Subscribers to the lecture series were able to submit questions, which sparked a discussion after the lecture itself was over. Predictably, many of them were about M*A*S*H and Alda's character, Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce. I learned that the show had originally been conceived as a comedy along the lines of Hogan's Heroes, but Alda -- believing the show had a responsibility to more accurately portray life in the midst of war -- convinced the producers to take it in a more sober direction. He wrote and directed many of the later episodes himself, including the series finale, which was at the time the highest-viewed television episode in history.
Among Alda's favorite memories of the show was the episode in which his father guest-starred as a visiting medic. Their characters each sustain injuries to one hand and perform an operation together, each using their "good" hand. This was the senior Alda's idea, which his son originally rejected but then agreed to use, and still cites as a major growth point in their relationship.
Besides M*A*S*H, among other acting and producing roles (including The Four Seasons and The West Wing, for which he was considered for the lead), Alda produced a series of interviews for PBS with scientists in various fields of study, which at one point took him to an observatory 8,000 feet up a Peruvian mountain. While there, he was struck with an intestinal malady requiring emergency surgery (ironically, a procedure with which Alda was familiar because his M*A*S*H character "Hawkeye" had to perform it). He described how surviving that experience made him feel incredibly alive and appreciative of the world around him, and resolved to keep that awareness and gratitude intact for the rest of his life.
Alda also founded and is an active part of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University on Long Island. Alda had realized, through his work interviewing researchers and other experts, that there is frequently a disconnect between these highly intelligent folks doing very important work, and those who need to understand its potential benefits. He gave an example of a congressional hearing where the politicians were clearly mystified by what was being presented, despite being charged with determining if it should be funded. The Alda Center is charged with helping science students communicate the purpose and importance of their work to those outside the discipline, including the media, government officials, and the public as a whole.
Yesterday, I was privileged to see a performance of Sting's new musical The Last Ship, currently in previews on Broadway. A project that had been in the works since 2010, the production follows a concept album in 2013 last year (from which only some tracks made it to the score as presented to us) and a short run in Chicago.
Set in the village of Wallsend-on-Tyne in northeastern England, the show is a stylized account of the conclusion in 2007 of shipbuilding activity by Swan-Hunter, whose accomplishments include the legendary Cunarders RMS Mauretania (holder of the transatlantic speed record) and Carpathia (rescuer of the RMS Titanic survivors). Wallsend produced the last passenger liner built in the United Kingdom (the MS Vistafjord for Norwegian America Line, which later also sailed for Cunard as Caronia) in 1973.
MS Vistafjord, the last liner built in the UK, shown here in Cunard colors at anchor in Geirangerfjord, Norway in 1993 PHOTO CREDIT: flickr.com/aah-yeah Used under Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
The show begins with a flashback of sorts, as Joe Fletcher (Jamie Jackson) is injured on the job and wants his son Gideon (Montclair's own Collin Kelly-Sordelet) to assume his place as breadwinner by becoming an apprentice at the yard. Gideon rejects this idea and instead signs on as a merchant mariner, promising girlfriend Meg (Rachel Tucker) he will be back for her.
Returning fifteen years later upon the news of his father's death, Gideon (played as an adult by Michael Esper) learns that the yard is to be closed for lack of any further work. This is semi-factual: Following delays and cost overruns, the still-incomplete HMS Lyme Bay, the last vessel to be laid down at Wallsend, was towed in 2006 to a competing yard and Swan Hunter was barred from further naval contracts, ending 130 years of shipbuilding on the Tyne.
Gideon seeks out Meg and discovers she is less than receptive to a reconciliation, her feelings complicated by a teenage son Tom (also portrayed by Kelly-Sordelet) and another man, Arthur (Aaron Lazar), who wants to marry her. Arthur (also a former shipbuilder) has taken a job with a company that wants to see the yard sold and used for shipbreaking and scrapping, an idea the workers find repulsive and insulting.
Encouraged by the parish priest (brilliantly wrought by Fred Applegate... if ever there was a right priest for a particular congregation, Fr. James O'Brien is it!), the workers, including Gideon and Tom, defiantly embark -- against all odds -- on one more project, which symbolizes their collective well-being and pride.
In 2007 the Wallsend cranes, which had dominated the skyline for generations , were dismantled and
shipped to India.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mick Gallagher. Used under Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved
I will not spoil with more details of the plot. I have read that the show is semi-autobiographical, which leads me to wonder what Sting's upbringing was like. There is no mother in the play, and the relationship between Gideon and Joe is clearly freighted, with allusions to abuse. The singer's parents died of cancer within months of each other in 1987 and he explained in a 1996 interview with Q that he declined to attend their funerals, and later regretted it. A period of writer's block followed, and it was not until he released The Soul Cages in 1991 that he felt properly able to mourn.
"My father was... snatched away from me at the wrong time. For me and
for him. It was just at the point when I was beginning to make my
journey home and understand my parents more - the decisions they made," Sting observed. "Having written the songs, what I learnt was to forgive myself for
my part in it and forgive my father and my mother for what they did that
hurt me."
In parallel, Gideon misses Jim's funeral by mere days and is forced to work through unrequited feelings as the story unfolds. Two tracks from The Soul Cages, "Island of Souls" and "All this Time", accompany original songs in the show.
The play gives you a lot to chew on. The theme is one that has repeated itself many times, some of them in places a lot closer to home, as traditional ways of earning a living handed down by generations give way to technology and globalization.
Layer that with the complex relationships between the players as they make difficult choices, and a cast that does well to get you invested as if this was really happening around you. Musically, Sting's influence is heavy, but he draws well from the history of the area, particularly for the company pieces.
The Last Ship is in previews at the Neil Simon Theater.
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
I feel surrounded by so much sadness and strife lately. Beyond my job (which is a blog unto itself) and the conflicts in the the world (anybody notice how the Ukraine bit seems to have been eclipsed by the ISIS, which was in turn eclipsed by the Ebola? It's as if we have only the brain-power for one crisis at a time), I was involved in a leadership change at an organization of which I am a part, with the attendant posturing and choosing of sides. And before that could settle down, there is the upheaval at General Theological Seminary, which does not affect me directly but has had a profound impact on many of my friends in the church, either alumni or friends of faculty and students. Meanwhile, two of my siblings were trying to comfort their spouses and their families through painful times, and I find myself struggling to be Useful and if not Useful at least not Part of the Problem.
I can't speak with any great wisdom on any of these things. I am not politically savvy, I have no thirst for debate or inherent desire to be right. I can only tell about the way they make me feel, wonder where Christ is in all of this, and maybe hold your hand for a minute and extend the notion, perhaps a naive one, that it will all sort itself out.
If you are not already a fan, I commend you to the earthly patron saint of the Chaos Muppets, Anne Lamott. On a recent Facebook post (and if you're not following, you simply must), she began:
"Many
mornings I check out the news as soon as I wake up, because if it turns
out that the world is coming to an end that day, I am going to eat the
frosting off an entire carrot cake; just for a start. Then I will move
onto vats of clam dip, pots of crime brûlée, nachos, M & M's etc.
Then I will max out both my credit cards."
That is my kind of prophesy. Hold the clam dip in my case, but feel free to improvise as local custom dictates. The point is that -- as you keep reading -- you learn that she is facing an unspeakably sad situation, surrounded as many of us are with many others. But she approaches each with tenderness and grace, humor when appropriate, and handfuls of M&M's if that's what it takes. She messes up, as we all do, and owns up to it readily. That is the person I strive to be, and -- short of any gifts of healing I haven't yet discovered -- that is probably about as close to "Christ's hands on earth" as I am likely to get.
In the midst of all this, I was lucky to spend a few days with a dear friend at Weston Priory. As I alluded to in the recent post "Hurt People Hurt People" this Benedictine monastery is my muster station for the zombie apocalypse, the thinnest thin place I know, where I can actually believe for a moment that I might be a beloved child of God.
The Brothers say very little in public, but their tranquility speaks volumes, and their smiles reflect an inner peace that I envy. They work hard (maintaining a working farm of many acres, and they are not teenagers) but in prayer and song they are extremely gentle, and the very simple services (you get no hymnal or missal, not even a piece of paper... just listen, listen and repeat) are rich with moments of profound holiness for those present.
The altars at Weston are the only Roman Catholic ones where I still feel called to receive the sacrament. All these years later, one thing I still miss about the Mass is this verse (rough recollection of how they say it):
Lord Jesus Christ, you said
to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins,
but on the faith of your people, and grant us the peace and unity of your realm where you live for ever and ever.
On this day, the church remembers an idealistic young seminarian who lost his life defending a friend from shotgun fire during anti-racism demonstrations in Alabama in 1965. You can read a biography of him by clicking his name above.
His home church in New Hampshire, St. James: Keene, honored him this past Sunday with a transferred feast. The Gospel and a sermon, by the Rev. Canon Ed Rodman, can be heard here.
I'm struck by how little we seem to have learned in the years since. Even as we seem to be making glacial, grudging progress on sexuality issues, there seems to be a tension around race that bubbles much closer beneath the surface than I think I realized even a few years ago. Sometimes it shows itself in subtle ways, like how people who largely support his policies still won't cut the President a break. And then there are weeks like this one, where I'm sure -- for those who lived through it -- it feels like Selma all over again.
The nominating committee for the 27th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church released its candidate profile this week and invited members to present their nominees.
Having read the profile, my choice, made quite a while ago, was only more apparent. We have
many deeply spiritual and talented people leading us, but yet we
continue to be bogged down with apathy and fatalism, and many of our
people and congregations have seemingly not overcome their squeamishness
about evangelism and offering unabashed welcome. Visiting many
churches feels like wandering into a private club whose signs and
symbols are presented in a way that makes you feel as if not knowing
them means you don't belong.
Meanwhile, outside the walls, the
American public continues to equate Christianity with (at best) insipid
platitudes and (at worst) attempting to erode their civil rights, fueled
largely by the media power of the far-right machine and the
politicians it controls. We continue to regard people of color as a
threat, mock or disregard those who don't adhere to our expectations of
gender and attraction, vilify the poor, and remain largely indifferent
to the violence and exploitation going on both here and abroad.
In my admittedly limited experience, there is one person who has spoken
truth to these things in a voice powerful enough to be heard over the
din. He has, in my mind, the credibility and the charisma to wake this
church up and inspire it for true mission, and he does so with grace and
self-effacing humor.
For this reason I have informed the
Committee that I nominate the Right Rev. Michael Curry, sitting bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina,
to lead us forward.
If you are
not familiar with Bishop Curry, and haven't seen it the last 4,962 times
I have shared it, please screen his sermon from our last General
Convention, "We Need Some Crazy Christians". It is, I promise you, well
worth your time, and I trust you will understand my enthusiasm.
And if you've seen that one, watch this one, which was given at the annual Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut. He addresses the very squeamishness I speak of above and the effect it is having on our ability to reach people. Oh, and baseball.
If he wins, I believe we need to devote
considerable resources to get Curry's message beyond our own membership and
to the world at large. We need to support him in this as if our very
future depends on it, because it very well might.
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.
HEARD TELL, PERHAPS APOCRYPHAL, SOME YEARS AGO OF A SERMON
