Stuff grows out of S***

There's this little space of yard beside our deck where Bern has been dumping dead leaves and I've been throwing corn husks for the nearly 30 years we've lived here.

And stuff is growing there--flowers, ferns, plants. Lots and lots of stuff growing out of rotten leaves and corn husks.

The rest of our yards are full of life--but so is that rotten, dead, sh***y place.

Life is stronger than death. Life grows from death.

Which means (if I'm allowed to Hope in this dark time of our President Who-Will-Not-Be-Named) we may bloom again after so many attacks on immigration, equality of race and gender, climate change, green energy, the power of Congress, Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Stuff grows out of S***.

Maybe there is reason to hope, to dream, to imagine a future where my grand-daughters will flourish.

I pray it might be so.

I pray with all my heart and soul and mind.

Then I go over to the edge of the deck and watch life emerging so vibrantly from death.

Hope, Beloved, Hope!

OMG, Jerry Falwell and I agree!!!

Well, we agree but for different reasons.

I am horrified by the Alabama anti-abortion law because it limits the choice of women about who controls their bodies--them or the government.

Jerry opposes it because he thinks it is so 'extreme' that the Supreme Court won't overturn Roe v. Wade because they won't find the Alabama law constitutional.

But it is truly amazing for Jerry Falwell and I to be on the same side of anything!

Are you getting the picture now?

Several states passing anti-abortion laws (including, amazing to me, Ohio).

The rise in hate crimes against Jews and Muslims and Blacks and Latinos.

The total lack of empathy for those wanting to come to this country for a better life and to escape danger in their home countries. (Take down the Statue of Liberty, she must be ashamed....)

The President and his people refusing to accept the Constitutionally given power of 'oversight' of the Congress.

I feel like the 1950's are coming back--minus the good TV shows.

And what does all this have to do with?

The person in the Oval Office, that's what.l

The demonizing of the press. The normalizing of lies. The monarchical attitude of the President. The embracing of authoritarian leaders around the world (North Korea, Russia, Egypt, the Philippines, Hungary). The challenges of our own intelligence agencies. The trade wars and rumors of wars our allies don't think should happen. The ending of treaties and agreement. The denials of Climate Change.

I could go on, but why bother.

We are in grave times, beloved.

We need to get our backbones back and act.

All this must stop or our democracy is in danger.

Really.

Really!

Come on, Mike!

The Vice President, Mike Pence, gave the commencement at Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) and told the graduates to 'prepare to be shunned' for being Christians.

Mike, like most of the graduates, is an Evangelical Christian. Most Evangelicals (though not all, I hasten to add) think that they are 'right' and anyone who disagrees with them is 'wrong'.

They won't be 'shunned'--they will be disagreed with.

Even the Episcopal Church has evangelicals (I don't capitalize it to make a distinction--they are evangelicals who are Episcopalians, not Evangelicals).

One of them came up to me at the all day meeting on Safe Church I mentioned (disparagingly) in my last post. He said, "I want to tell you something I should have told you long ago. Once you and I were in a long discussion in which we disagreed. But you told me, 'I want to understand where you're coming from even though I'm not going to agree with you." He went on to say, "that meant so very much to me: that you wanted to 'understand' me. That meant more to me than your 'agreeing' with me."

I honestly don't remember any details of that years ago conversation, but that sounds like what I would have said.

I am a Christian, for goodness sake. I am a priest in a Christian church. And I am about the polar opposite of an evangelical. I wear a button I've mentioned before that says 'Heretic'. And I am. I saw Bishop Curry, who gave me the button with great glee in Columbus. Ohio, and showed it to him. He said, "I hope you still are."

"No worry there, Bishop," I said.

I wish I could address the graduates at Liberty.

I'd say, in part, "We're all Christians here--me and you. But my view is not your view and your beliefs are not my beliefs. But we should understand each other and know where each of us is coming from and agree to disagree in peace."

I heard a clip on the radio from "The Good Place"--a TV comedy about the afterlife--today in an interview with the great theologian Elaine Pagels.

In the clip, a character who lived a really dissolute life, can't figure out why she's in the Good Place. She has a conversation with a heavenly being named Michael (the archangel???) and asks him, "so, who got it right?"

"The Hindus and Muslims," Michael replies, "got some of it right. As did the Christians and Jews and Buddhists and all other religions. They all got some of it right."

Well, that's where I am. All of us get 'some of it right', but none of us get all of it right.

So, if others don't admit you got it 'all right' is being 'shunned', then the Vice President was right down at Liberty University.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm going to spend from 9 to 4 in Thomaston at 'Safe Church Training'.

Priests in this Diocese have to do it every 3 years or get defrocked. I'm not kidding! And if you are 'defrocked', you are (excuse the dark humor) 'frocked up'!. You can't serve as a priest.

That is, by the way, the only reason I'm going.

My friend, who is taking me, called and said, "Jim, are you going to this totally useless day in Thomaston? If so, I'll pick you up at 8."

I didn't name my friend in case anyone in the Diocesan hierarchy reads this, which I doubt. I don't care if they know what I think and say and write.

Here's the deal, as I see it: 'Safe Church Training' is more about safety for the insurance company than for the members of the churches.

If the Diocese can point to triennial proof that they told you not to do this and that which is wrong, the insurance company doesn't have to pay damages when some priest does 'this or that which is wrong'.

The training is boring and rote and never interesting or new.

Maybe tomorrow will be exciting and novel and new.

Probably not.

I'm a cynic about it all.

Most priests are not going to do something they shouldn't do. And day every three years is not going to prevent someone who is a sexual abuser from abusing.

But it will save the church from having to pay the victim.

I'd rather we did something that helped the victims of clergy abuse.

That's what I wish.

But I want to stay 'frocked'. so I'll be there.

Going to be hard to sleep tonight

If you don't watch Game of Thrones you could do well to stop reading now.

If you do watch it, I'm sure you'll agree that it's going to be hard to sleep tonight after the penultimate episode.

I didn't think they could outdo last week--a battle at night--but then did. The King's Landing troops surrendered but Danny and her dragon destroyed the city any way.

It was amazing.

Danarius can't be Queen now. All her allies will be against her for the senseless deaths and destruction.

What will happen is beyond my imagination. Really.

One more week.

Lordy, lordy, I never thought I'd be glad it ended. But now I will be.

The carnage of the last two weeks is all I can bear.

what do pro-life ("Anti-Abortion") folks think?

With the anti-abortion legislation in Georgia and Alabama and other states moving forward, it makes me wonder what Anti-Abortion folks think of me.

I think abortion is hideous and horrible.

But I also think that I have no right to tell a woman what to do with her body--no right at all.

I am against abortion but in favor of a woman's choice to make her own decisions and live with them.

I wonder if pro-life folks think I was fetuses to be removed from women's bodies.

I don't--but I strongly believe women have the right to decide for themselves what they want to do with their bodies.

The Georgia legislation, which is now signed by the governor and will become law in January of 2020--though lots of court cases remain to be heard--assigns 'person-hood' to fetuses. Which raises lots of questions, like can a pregnant woman be put in jail since her fetus has done no wrong and can a woman who uses alcohol or tobacco or drugs be stopped because her fetus didn't make that decision (but that would mean putting her in jail, which goes back to the first question).

I wish men had babies, just to see whether people would be as anxious to take away the right of the bodies of men as they are to take away the rights of the bodies of women.

I would bet not.

All this anti-abortion stuff is just another symptom of the anti-freedom tone of the presidency of He Who Will Not Be Named.

We're in real trouble in this land of the brave and home of the free. Real trouble. I hope Congress can hold the dam against the rising anti-democracy waves.

clergy

I had lunch today with 6 clergy from the Higganum area.

I like several of them very much--but I have trouble with them gathered around a table in a not-too-good restaurant.

Will Rogers said of Methodist clergy (I think it was) that they "were like manure. Spread out they did a lot of good, but all in one place, they tend to stink."

I just don't like being around a lot of ordained people. The one exception is my Tuesday morning group--but I know all those folks well and there are usually lay folks there as well. That makes it palatable.

Next Tuesday I have to go to an all-day "Safe Church Training" with other Episcopal priests. The training is required every 3 years. It is about making the Diocese 'safe' from law suits rather than making congregations 'safe'.

Having given your clergy 'training', if they do something wrong of a sexual nature, the diocese can say, "Hey, we told them not to!" and the victim can't sue the larger church.

If you don't go you can be 'defrocked'--your priestly standing taken away.

When means if you do go you are still "frocked"--which is a good way to describe being ordained.

I'm already dreading it.

For one thing most of the people there will wear clerical collars--even though everyone knows if you're there you must be clergy.

I haven't worn a collar for like 12 or more years. I know I'm a priest, why do I have to wear a collar and blare it out to the world?

For another thing, we'll spend the day trying to impress each other. Tiresome.


Manure is a good metaphor for clergy.