The politics of division

This Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, we will hear the story of the Tower of Babel and the gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, resulting in them speaking in a myriad of languages.

We are hearing these readings when the Anglican Communion still struggles to remain unified. We are hearing these passages when our country is more divided than ever-- by race, by class, by gender, by sexual orientation, by religion, by politics. Unity is a great dream, but unity is also at the same time a great challenge.

The problem is, we are often not honest with ourselves when we say we want unity. We want people to be unified with us through agreeing with us and validating our position. We want unity to occur when others move to US, rather than being forced to move to THEM. We want unity on our own terms.

Which is why we never get it at all.

We say we want unity, yet we worship individualism. Note, I said "individualism," not "individuality." "Individuality" are the various characteristics which make us unique from others. "Individualism" is the idea that the interests of the individual to act independently are of paramount importance. A companion word in the political can't of the times is the word "liberty." Those who currently like to imagine that their liberty is being taken away by nebulous forces are fond of quoting our founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Jefferson famously said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants." What people do not understand is that he said this attempting to justify the most horrifying excesses of the French Revolution. When this quote is used today, it lacks this context. For instance, many people also do not remember that this is the saying that was sprawled across the chest of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, when he was captured after killing and maiming hundreds, all in the name of his own "liberty" which he claimed the federal government was attacking. Patrick Henry, of the famous "Give me liberty, or give me death!" exclamation, was a slaveowner, as was Jefferson, which certainly was understood by those of our founding generation as being the absolute opposite of liberty. And neither Henry nor Jefferson ever actually served militarily during the Revolution, greatly reducing the chances that the blood to be spilled in defense of liberty would be their own. I am not saying that they were not great patriots, but their words did not always match their deeds, as is so often the case for all of us.

In modern society today, we see the same people bemoaning the alleged crisis in "morality" also trumpeting the right of the individual to trump any consideration for one's fellow human beings or citizens. This hypocrisy is generated by a failure to think about what these terms actually mean.  Questions of morality only arise when one lives in the society of others. Further, these questions almost always arise when one is seen to be violating the community standards of morality by expressing one's individualism in a way that is seen as being detrimental in some way to the functioning of the group. You might even say that those accused of immorality are actually living in truth to their individuality.

The handmaidens of unity are compromise, civility, and kindness toward one another. Vitriol and hatred are poison to society. It is time we remembered this, both in the affairs of our Anglican Communion and in our political discourse.

Of Communion and Covenant

With General Convention coming up, the topic of the Anglican Covenant is on everyone's minds, it seems. Even though the Church of England itself has shot the thing down pretty resoundingly, I think that the advice from our Scottish friends cited in the recent Episcopal Cafe article is wise. Kelvin over at What's in Kelvin's Head? writes:

I was surprised though recently to hear from American friends who were saying that they thought that the US based Episcopal Church was likely to affirm the first three sections of the Covenant but not the fourth section. The fourth section is the one that deals with discipline – the ability to throw a naughty Province off the councils, networks and committees and what have you that make up the Anglican Communion’s ways of working.
I was surprised because it meant that there were no apparent fears about the first section, and it is that which I think is the more dangerous. This may be because theological statements are sometimes read differently by different people.
In Scotland we used to get people saying that we should affirm the first three sections but not the fourth section only up until the time when we really got down to talking about it. At last year’s General Synod it became apparent that some of us were very troubled by section one – particularly because affirming it would mean that once again we would have to affirm the Thirty-Nine Articles.
Now there are all kinds of reasons why affirming the Thirty-Nine Articles isn’t a good idea. I was on my feet a year ago saying that coming as I do from a city troubled by Catholic-Protestant sectarian tensions, the last thing we need to be doing is affirming once again the anti-catholic Thirty-Nine Articles. And that isn’t even to begin to deal with the things that those articles condemn which some of us hold dear in our worship still.
Now, the US-based Episcopal Church has the Thirty-Nine Articles in its Book of Common Prayer and we in Scotland don’t. (We did for a bit but we don’t affirm them any more). The Americans cope with them, I think, by thinking of them as Historical Documents – things that show us where we have come from but don’t necessarily regard them as things which should guide our faith for today.
Not so the Church of England. Or at least, not so all of the Church of England.
The release this week of a long denunciation of same-sex marriage from the Church of England Evangelical Council should give the Americans pause for thought before they affirm any part of the Covenant which promotes the Thirty-Nine Articles. Anyone reading it will be in no doubt that the Thirty Nine Articles are no mere historical document in some parts of the Church of England. For some, they are the Thirty-Nine Weapons of the Church of England in this long and tiresome culture war in which all the bullets are theological concepts ad all the collateral damage seems to be in terms of souls lost to the church and wholesome relationships between gay folk traduced by the loud, the ignorant and the shallow.
The US based church should make no assumptions at all about the nature in which the documents listed in the first section of the proposed Anglican Covenant are read in other parts of the world.
I remain convinced that we need to say No to the Covenant and say an unequivocal Yes to the Anglican Communion. And that No needs to be a clear and deliberate rejection of all the sections of the Covenant. Our American friends put themselves at some risk from those who would do them harm if they don’t understand this.

This is so well-stated, and it brings up a point I think many of us overlooked in our anger over what seemed at least to me to be an attempt to punish the Episcopal Church for disagreements about human sexuality and what that means for how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. Kelvin makes a good point that even removal of the most obviously punitive part of the Anglican Covenant still makes it possible to use any instrument derived from the Covenant as it now is into a punitive weapon of division. 

As Grand Moff Tarkin said to Senator Leia Organa in Star Wars, "You're far too trusting."

Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated

There has been some interesting discussion while I have been away about the demise of Church, especially the flavor known as Episcopal, around the blogosphere. I was challenged, in a good way, by this discussion over at the Episcopal Cafe, in a discussion of a "manifesto by Crusty Old Dean (aka Tom Ferguson, dean of Bexley Hall). Here is a link to the original post.

But one of the points that has been discussed all over the place is restructuring the Episcopal Church. Crusty Old Dean challenges the idea of restructuring in order to preserve the status quo, and challenges us to think outside the box. I am still digesting this.

But for all of the criticism of some Episcopal parishes as being comfy "clubs" (the word "country" just aches to be inserted there, doesn't it?), I also have to notice that those congregations in American Christendom that are showing phenomenal growth have gotten there exactly by functioning as clubs. I am thinking of those loosely- denominational or non-denominational mega- mini malls for Jesus that sport climbing walls for the kiddies and the prosperity gospel behind toothy grins and viciously shellacked hair. It seems those congregations are reeling them in by focusing on the personal relationship with Jesus over engagement in the world at large. All this in a supposedly "post-Christian" era, too.

For me, I am deeply concerned about my place in a society in which the surest path to power is trumpet one's mediocrity as a lure for the votes of everyday folks; in which the politics of jealousy, envy, and division are the easiest ways to rally masses to one's cause; in which self-proclaimed identity is more important than achievement or attitude.

It is obvious that there safe many parts of the Christian message that are out-of-step with the temper of the times. But is that necessarily a bad, or more importantly, permanent, situation?

If I believed that, I would certainly despair.

No, I believe our message is one this world is literally DYING to hear. Is it really so bad to be counter-cultural in times such as these? Yet how can we claim any sort of traction against dwindling membership numbers so that we can get the message of God out into the world that certainly needs it desperately?We just have to find a way to make ourselves heard among the din of the snake-oil salesmen who promise that salvation is to be had through selfishness, that love of self is the path to love of God. We just need to figure out how to do it. But it is obvious that the path to reclaiming the gospel message of love must begin with mission, mission, mission, something with which the Episcopal Church has been historically been quite uncomfortable.

This post is not finished. I put it out there anyway.

I'm baaaaccckk....

For those who have been wondering, I have spent the last month immersed in preparing my students for their advanced placement exam, dealing with some family schtuff with my mom, and being driven insane by other family members. Sorry for the drop-off. Add in that blogging from an iPad, which I have been using most often due to the impending death of my laptop, is not the easiest thing in the world, and it adds up to me being a bad blogger.

I will try to be better now that I can take a breath and the school year is almost over.

Midweek Poem 8: Love and forgetting

Love

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the
perfumes of spring.
   I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;
how did your lips feel on mine?
   Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
   I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten
your eyes.
   Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of
you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will
do me irreparable harm.
   Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
   I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every
window.
   Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because
of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting
stars, falling objects. 

--------------------------------------------------Pablo Neruda

Stone of Witness

"So Joshua made a covenant with the people at Shechem, committing them to follow the decrees and regulations of the LORD. Joshua recorded these things in the Book of God's Instructions. As a reminder of their agreement, he took a large stone and rolled it beneath the terebinth tree beside the Tabernacle of the LORD. Joshua said to all the people, "This stone has heard everything the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to God."--Joshua 24: 25-27

"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
the one who relies upon it
will never be stricken with panic.
I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the plumb line;
hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie,
and water shall overflow your hiding place."-- Isaiah 28: 16-17


"When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and annoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?' When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

"But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, this is the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.'"-- Mark 16:1-7

Midweek Poem 7: May she be granted beauty

 For the parents of daughters

A Prayer for My Daughter

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid   

Under this cradle-hood and coverlid   

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle   

But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill   

Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind,   

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;   

And for an hour I have walked and prayed   

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour,

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come   

Dancing to a frenzied drum   

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty, and yet not   

Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,   

Or hers before a looking-glass; for such,   

Being made beautiful overmuch,   

Consider beauty a sufficient end,   

Lose natural kindness, and maybe   

The heart-revealing intimacy   

That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen, being chosen, found life flat and dull,   

And later had much trouble from a fool;   

While that great Queen that rose out of the spray,   

Being fatherless, could have her way,   

Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.   

It's certain that fine women eat   

A crazy salad with their meat   

Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;   

Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned   

By those that are not entirely beautiful.   

Yet many, that have played the fool

For beauty's very self, has charm made wise;   

And many a poor man that has roved,   

Loved and thought himself beloved,   

From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree,   

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,   

And have no business but dispensing round   

Their magnanimities of sound;   

Nor but in merriment begin a chase,   

Nor but in merriment a quarrel.   

Oh, may she live like some green laurel   

Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,   

The sort of beauty that I have approved,   

Prosper but little, has dried up of late,   

Yet knows that to be choked with hate   

May well be of all evil chances chief.   

If there's no hatred in a mind   

Assault and battery of the wind   

Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,   

So let her think opinions are accursed.   

Have I not seen the loveliest woman born

Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,   

Because of her opinionated mind   

Barter that horn and every good   

By quiet natures understood   

For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,   

The soul recovers radical innocence   

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,   

And that its own sweet will is heaven's will,   

She can, though every face should scowl   

And every windy quarter howl   

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house   

Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;   

For arrogance and hatred are the wares   

Peddled in the thoroughfares.   

How but in custom and in ceremony   

Are innocence and beauty born?   

Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,   

And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

---------------------------W. B. Yeats, 1919