*grumble* disturbed rambling

I just couldn't think of a title for this post. Basically I feel grumbly, and heavy hearted, so "grumble" will suffice.

I don't know how long this post will be. I just wanted to note that I just found out another portion of one of the parishes in my home/sponsoring diocese has decided to leave their parish (and Episcopal Church from what I can tell), taking their priest with them. This has happened several times in recent months and each time I find it disturbing and sad.

Today's news has me wishing in some ways that I hadn't found my current placement so that I would be free to return "home" and maybe help in some way, help congregations heal, be a reconciling voice or something. Also to be supportive of my Bishop, I can't imagine the amount of stress this must be causing. How do you have a pastoral relationship and build bridges when people seem to have their minds made up and won't give you a chance?

Would Jesus want to see us fighting among ourselves like this and forming more divisions? In recent years there seems to have been more progress made toward ecumenism. Why can't we be focusing on that?

Although maybe I am just as bad as those who I don't understand and feel confused, angry and sad about. Clearly I have chosen one demonination over another, and there are things in others that I'm not sure I'd want to live with long-term (although depending on the parish and congregation I would probably do okay with a Lutheran or Methodist parish) ... so if I have a preference for our worship, doctrine, theology what makes me different? Maybe nothing.

For instance, what if an ultra conservative presiding bishop had been elected who was rumored to be against women's ordination and there was speculation that he might encourage the chuch to reverse it's prior decision about that. This would be disturbing to me and cause me anxiety. What if the church had made some decisions I didn't agree with (no examples come to mind at the moment)? I might wait to see how it played out and how much the voices on the otherside were listended to and taken into account... but I have to be honest. If I were a lay person I probably would at least consider the option of leaving or branching off, whether I actually would would depend on the circumstances. As an ordained person it becomes more tricky, I have taken certain vows and made a commitment that I take very seriously. I'm not sure what it would take for me to consider going back on them? What would be so huge or be the last straw in a series of events that would create such a situation?

I've thought a lot about our current situation. Where does it stem from? Have people forgotten that our church was formed by combining two completely opposed approaches and trying to fuse them together to form a both/and, encompassing a wide range of ideas and beliefs? Why can't we handle the both/and now? Why do we want the either/or? Why do we feel we need consensus on every point? Is it from growing up in a time of divorce when while sometimes warranted, too often people take the easy way out and separate instead of doing what's harder, having conversation, listening to the other, being open to making changes and concessions?

Some would say that earlier the divisions weren't theological, it was surface stuff about whether to have candles, etc. That now there is a division that goes deeper because of theology or interpretation of scripture. I think the discussions about candles and everything else at issue in the reformation did have a theological grounding. At issue was how do we approach God, how do we worship, what is our relation to God. Is using a candle in worship becoming idolatry, does it take our focus off God... or does it help us to see, and connect to God and to appreciate and wonder in God's creation and beauty?

A man told me we can't compare women's ordination to ordination of gay clergy because it wasn't a theological issue, or something like that... the word theology was used. It wasn't the time to get into it and I may go back and have a conversation with said individual. But I wanted to say, "What???!!!" Until you've been told that you can't be ordained because people don't think it's biblical, and toss scripture verses at you as proof-text for their statement, and that a priest (in their view) is supposed to be in persona Christi and since you are a different gender from Jesus then you can't really be that, and you question your call and you find yourself scouring through Timothy and looking for evidence of the variety of ways your gender participated in ministry... don't tell me that the way people are using theology and scripture in the issue of ordaining gay people is not similar or even exactly the same as it was and continues to be when many people talk about their objections to ordaining women.

People conveniently ignore the verse about elders having to be married and have children and a huge laundry list of other qualities. Don't need to follow that one though, it's okay to send single men. They focus on sexuality, being a same-sex couple is a sin, don't want someone who's a "sinner" to be ordained, they're not doing anything to change their behavior or get right with God some say. Well, there's nothing in the 10 commandments about this (unless you lump it under adultery). What about coveting things, or dishonoring your parents, etc. How many people would honestly pass with flying colors if using that as your standard? Also, I don't recall Jesus giving a long teaching or parable about sexuality in the gospels. Jesus ministered to the outcast and hung out with sinners and tax collectors. He said the greatest commandment was to love God and to love our neighbor, and we were told not to judge others but to worry about the huge piece of lumber in our own eye before worrying about the speck of dust in our neighbor's. Jesus came for sinners. Hello, aren't we all sinners whether we're clergy or laity? Being clergy doesn't make you immune. And what about those stories we here about clergy who have had affairs? Unfortunately it happens from time to time.

I'm disintegrating into a lot of rambling and stream of consciousness, off the top of my head stuff here... I didn't even necessarily mean to go into the ordination of gay people.

I just wanted to note that I'm disturbed by portions of the church saying we don't want to be in conversation with you, we think we're right and you're wrong and we have no need of you... good-bye. That's not what they're thinking necessarily, but that's what it feels like. You're not following the authority of scripture, you're not following the Bible, we think you're wrong, we think you're misled, we think you're in trouble with God, we think you are not true Christians, we don't want to be associated with you.

But there seems to be something off to me, a double standard or something. Homosexuality is wrong, see, the bible says something about it right here... you're trying to include homosexuals, that's wrong. Ummm okay, but God is creator and said it is good. A person doesn't have a say-so over their genetic make-up and there *are* people out there born with something different that XX or XY, sometimes people are born with both sets of sex organs, sometimes people have XXY or something. Where you got that verse you're pointing to... are you following all the other rules and laws listed there too?

Look at the people God used in the Bible, Moses didn't want to speak tried to weasel his way out of it but was given Aaron, Jonah ran the other way and didn't think the people deserved God's mercy, David coveted another man's wife, slept with her and plotted to have her husband killed, Peter denied he knew and followed Jesus, Paul as Saul was persecuting early Christians.

If God could use this rag-tag lot of folks, you don't think God could use any one of us with whatever quirks, warts, sins, etc. that we may have, whatever they may be? If God called and used those folks, and calls those of us who are so surprised that we periodically pause and say to God, "Really? Are you sure about this?," what would prevent God from calling and being able to work through someone who is gay, especially when Paul writes that in Christ there is no longer male or female, gentile or jew - in Christ the playing ground is leveled, we are the same? Would who you're attracted to be any more of a consideration in God's eyes than a person's eye, skin, or hair color? Some would say yes, which is why they are upset and leaving. I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around why one would think so and where they are coming from.

So see... I (or others) come back with... but you’re not following *this* part of scripture, you’re not being biblical, I think it’s you who are wrong and misled. And on it goes.

And then back to why I wrestle and am confused by this. I say we need to be in conversation and be listening to each other and trying to work together, but if I have a hard time wrapping my mind around where someone with an opposing view is coming from, can I truly listen to them? (Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes I feel myself listening to someone with a different opinion on whatever and know I'm open to what they are saying, other times I'm polite and listen, but with an internal resistance, I'm in the mindset of I'll agree to disagree). So do I say that I want dialogue, but what I really mean is let's talk about it, but in the end I want you to see it my way? Is there a way to have a real conversation when both sides feel so strongly and think they are right and the other wrong? Is there any room to collaborate? Is there a way to live together as a range and variety of voices without falling apart at the seams and disrupting into chaos, sniping, name-calling, becoming us and them?

Because of all the tension and attention in the wake of GC 2003, Windsor, and GC 2006 I'm still working through my own thoughts on questions raised by it all, and in my dream-world where would I stand and how would I want the church to proceed, versus in reality as it is now, how might be the best way to respond and proceed.

Okay... far too much brain-dump rambling, and I still have things I want to accomplish today.