Something besides Sexuality

My blog, and my brain, has been all abuzz now for almost a month about the resolutions on human sexuality. Not surprising, right? I am a lesbian in the church, one of the faithful sitting in the pews or serving at the altar. And I am taking time to listen and follow as best as I can what I believe God is calling me to do.
One of the big no-brainers that I feel called to follow is remembering my life on the goat farm in Gainesville. It was a very bare-bones existence, something that was a necessary change in this march toward a total transformation of my reporter self to becoming the massage therapist and redeemed child of God I am becoming today. I learned a lot from my landlord about being careful with regard to what I threw away and where. He had me separate out my trash: paper items such as newspapers and jars or bottles could be recycled. My banana and orange peels could be composted. My paper towels and tissues could be set aside for his burn pile. And, in the end, one person living on Worth Auxier's farm would throw away maybe a couple of plastic wrappers and plastic bottle caps. On an average week, the amount of trash I'd send to the Gainesville landfill could fit inside a Glad Sandwich baggie... with some room. It was an eye-opening experience.
So, as I am preparing for another year of Education for Ministry, and hosting meetings of small groups, I have been thinking about the things that we throw away at the end of gatherings. And the thing that leaped out at me were the trash cans filled with plastic cups. And that's when I had the "Eureka!" moment to lay out the money for some tumblers and such that I can always collect at the end of the night, and take home and wash and reuse. I mean, why not? That's how I've been serving the after-massage water to my clients for the past six, almost seven, years. Not much, and yet it's a start toward being more conscious of what we contribute to the waste that seems to be the hallmark of the last several decades in the United States as we consume and consume and consume.
O God, our heavenly Father, you have blessed us and given us dominion over all the earth: Increase our reverence before the mystery of life; and give us new insight into your purposes for the human race, and new wisdom and determination in making provision for its future in accordance with your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
--Prayer for the Future of the Human Race, pg. 828

Smattering of Thoughts

Now I lay me down to sleep... and I am going to bed with a sense of hope after listening, and reading, about the opening day of the General Convention in Anaheim. Our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was her usual steady, forceful, and unwavering self... and spoke words in both her opening address and her sermon on Ezekiel 36 at the daily eucharist. You can see video on demand of both by clicking here.


Jefferts Schori, in her sermon, spoke of the "new heart" and the need for the Church to listen to the beat of "mission, mission, mission". And, as part of that, she made it clear that it can not happen by staying inside our pretty sanctuaries, talking to ourselves, and swinging our incense and thinking all is right with the world. She is absolutely right.


In her opening address to the Convention, Jefferts Schori acknowledges that there is "crisis" within the Church. And she wasn't just talking about the "crisis" around human sexuality issues, but also about the environment. We have been pretty lackluster stewards of God's creation, and it's time to snap-to-it and take responsibility. God's creation is not only the earth, water and plants and animals... I believe it stretches to that last piece of creation: us, human beings, and how we treat each other and take care of each other--or not!

The line that gave me the most hope was when Jefferts Schori said:



"This crisis is a decision point, one which may involve suffering, but it is our opportunity to choose which direction we'll go and what we will build. We will fail if we choose business as usual. There will be cross-shaped decisions in our work, but if we look faithfully, there will be resurrection as well."



She finished with saying that we can make decisions in hope, and we can do it together. Again, she is absolutely right. And I hope there are more than a few members of the House of Bishops, which really isn't the strong arm at these conventions, who got that line about "business as usual". Change will happen. Status quo is not a winning position.


Meantime, the Archbishop of Canterbury took a half-hour to meet with eight LGBT delegates to the House of Deputies in a private meeting to listen to their stories. That's a half-hour more than he's given to +Gene Robinson! The privacy of this private meeting, apparently, has kept anyone from saying exactly what happened beyond that these eight people got to share their stories of being gay with the ABC. Sadly, I'm sure he'll decide this BRIEF meeting constitutes his required "listening" as part of the listening process. We'll see.


And in the meantime, you can watch the convention live at the Media Hub.

Wise Words for Anaheim

Today's Collect, I think, is one for all to reflect upon as they start the work of the General Convention in Anaheim:

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor; Grant us grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

As Bishop Marc Andrus mentioned on Facebook, it IS possible for the Episcopal Church to do justice in the world through the Millenium Development Goals... tackling the ever-present problems of global poverty... AND commit to do justice on human rights when it comes to the LGBT community, recognizing that we have come to the end of this "season" of "gracious restraint". It is now time to celebrate, not separate, our presence in the Church.

All of this is possible, as +Andrus says, because of the endless love of God. All of this is possible through Jesus Christ, who came into the world to live, die, resurrect and ascend into heaven for the love of everyone. All of this CAN happen if we allow the Holy Spirit to guide and govern our actions.

We CAN do it. The real question is WILL we do it? Will we, or they who are meeting in Anaheim, have the courage to recognize that the Church exists for God... and not the other way around? Will they see that in order to truly be the people of God they must get quiet and listen for what the Spirit is saying to them?

I hope they do. I really hope they do.

Yes, I Am My Brother's Keeper

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.”
--Genesis 4: 8-11

I read this passage recently as part of my class, and immediately I thought, “What a greedy, arrogant bastard that Cain! ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’! Jackass!”

I had a visual of him: he had a big head, cocked off to the side, little bit overweight, his pectoralis minor muscles are pulling his shoulders forward and in….hmmm, funny he looked like the previous Republican Governor of Florida from a very famous family….

And yet, he could just have easily looked like me.

Or you, maybe.

Or maybe not even looking like an individual person, but like a nation of people, who upon realizing that God hasn’t looked with favor upon their offering, has turned bitter and ruthless toward the one who has received God’s blessing. The favored one doesn’t deserve that attention, not when we have something just as good...or better!

In the Cain and Abel story, God cautioned Cain to not let his jealousy of Abel and his fatted portions of his flock get the better of him. However, there was no stopping Cain and his rage, and he whacked his brother in the field. And then gets that attitude with “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

In many respects, I see parallels between the jealousy and greed that drove Cain’s actions and the public policy behavior of those in the developed countries such as the United States toward those parts of humanity who live in places without means and the ability to meet basic needs. In this country, we panic at the idea of gas costing five bucks a gallon for unleaded. And we can actually fathom the idea of bailing out greedy financial institutions with $700-billion dollars. In parts of Africa and Asia, such numbers are inconceivable because the average person makes less than a dollar a day…and that’s if they’re doing well. There are no televisions with reality TV shows; no radios with NPR. Frankly, my dears, we have a whole lot that nobody else has got, and we use more of the world's resources than most other countries. So why don’t we share?

In fairness, I think the American people do open the hearts and their wallets to those in need. Recently, the congregation of St. John’s, in a couple of days, pulled together $5,000 for our companion parish in Cuba that had been devastated by recent hurricanes. But our government, and the corporations that benefit from our developed-nation status, bear the sin of Cain when we have the means by which to aid a country toward self-sufficiency and instead keep the knowledge and resources to ourselves or, worse, exploit the people of another country to enrich ourselves. Probably one of the most disturbing things to read in the book by former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill about our current administration was the trip he took to Africa, in conjunction with the rock musician Bono, to see how an irrigation system could turn a fallow dry piece of land into a place where farming could happen. When O’Neill returned to Washington, DC, with this proposal for creating sustainable agriculture in Africa…he was shut down. And an opportunity to address global poverty in at least one nation and one continent went up on a shelf in DC to gather dust.

When you think about the commandment from Jesus to “love thy neighbor”, you have to wonder: what the hell is wrong with our foreign policy? Why haven’t we done more to act on the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals? The Millennium Development Goals ought to be efforts we can all embrace: ending extreme global poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, improving maternal health, ensuring environmental protection, and promoting global partnership for development. In this increasingly interdependent world, we all ought to be committing to seeing these areas addressed, not just abroad, but at home as well.

The question remains: can those of us in the developed world overcome the Cain-like envy which leads us to want to always be the favored one, so that we do right by our under-developed neighbors? How will each one of us examine how we live in this world, and make a change and demand our leaders do the same?

Can we accept that we are our brother’s keeper, and not his eventual killer?