3 posts tagged “transgender”
Sounds like the title of a child's book? The Canoe and the Church? Some of the photos on my Facebook page have been of canoes and me canoeing.
These pictures were posted to show my pleasure in participating in a canoe team - in spite of the moments while practicing that I think to myself "Argh.... why am I doing this!!!!".
Of course, my time in and around canoes - limited though it has been - is not without reflection on the beauty of the metaphor of the Church as a ship or boat, and of Jesus' time on or near the water and our life on board.
There is something beautiful, I think I've already called it Benedictine, about the spirituality of paddling on a team. But now that The Episcopal Church is having it's grand synod in Anneheim, the General Convention is making me wonder if the metaphor of six people rowing in complete unison is perfect or flawed.
Yes, in a sense our unity, our oneness, our being one voice is beauty, and symbolizes the prayer of Christ, 'that we all may be one'.
However, what of the times when we paddle out of sync? Then we fail to be 'productive' - something over valued in my estimation. Maybe the church, like canoe teams, needs times when we can all jump out of the boat and forget about making it move faster and farther - just taking time to play around and cool off in the peaceful ocean's undulations. That reminds me of Catherine of Siena, who talks about the pacific abyss, the peaceful depths of God's love. Is it that we are on a linear trajectory as a church, a boat moving to a particular distant harbor? Or is it really that the boat is always where it needs to be when it is in the middle of God's sea, whether paddling or swimming?
Musings that come with denominational angst.
The issue of civil unions is considered before the Hawai`i senate this week. I am reminded of the image Jesus gave to us: new and old wine, and new and old wine skins.
Something is happening in society - a new consciousness (these moments of awakening are painful for some, exiting for others, and always potentially transformative if we do not recess into our past).
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people are not new to the world, even if growing awareness of their presence among hetero-society is. And we must, absolutely must, call upon our government to create the new civil wine skins that can contain the fermentation of news ways in which the legal and financial arrangements of heterosexual marriage can be extended to relationships that have, do and will continue to exist. We need the structures in which these relationships can ground themselves in finding a healthy moral framework, receive the same protections and support, and have the sam accountability as hetero relationships. This can help make a healthier society, and help support stronger families.
Marriage is like wine. In each generation, there are subtle (and sometimes dramatic) differences. Marriage is not today what it was twenty years ago, two hundred years ago. Even today, across cultures, there are minute and extreme differences. But hopefully, we are getting better. If we let LGBT relationships mature, and teach our society, we will find that the next movement will be forward towards a better society, a stronger society, a more just society.
Subtle, and at times dramatic, changes have been made in both civil and religious language to acknowledge those new understandings. The wineskins are built around existing and changing institutions to allow for their newness, without abolishing the good that comes from the old. Civil union is a new wine skin that can allow LGBT people to have relationships held within a framework that sets boundaries in legal, economic and civil terms, while also creating space for the tumult of fermentation. Of course, we need churches to provide the moral foundation and theological vigor, but that's another blog post.
Like wine interacting and effected by the tannins in the wood of oak casks (new or treated casks are required for each harvest!), these relationships need both the support and boundaries afforded by civil unions in order to become stronger, and tastier. We need statesmen/women who are willing to acknowledge that they represent not only barking voices, but the "best interests" of all the people they are elected to serve - to strive for a more perfect union, and more just society.
Creating a new civil wine skin, far from undermining society, will actually serve to strengthen it, while bridging the good of the old to the new that will come for the generations ahead. LGBT unions will continue to become not only more palatable, but overtly healthful for society, as they are provided opportunities for making their own unique contributions to the strengthening of society. And of course, this is happening, and will continue to happen, in-spite of the dying wind of the unjust. And like the old institutions of marriage, civil unions too will change, and adapt, and become part of the great wine-making history, love-making history of society as we advance in our understanding of our humanity held within the just, loving hands of the Creator.
The God I serve is a God who asks us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the Divine Presence. The Jesus I love saw that things change - our understandings, our perceptions, our knowledge of God's love revealed to us. I'm thankful that my married LGBT friends can reveal this to me. I hope one day, when I'm in a relationship with the man I most love, that I too can "bear witness to the love of God in this world, so that all those to whom love is a stranger will find in [us] generous friends" (marriage rite, the United Methodist Church).
*The above video can be found on youtube, and at the following website:http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce
I listened carefully to Rick Warren's prayer this morning. Would I be able to pray those words along with him, or would I be 'left out'?
Yes, I could pray with him.
Many friends were quite upset with his being picked to give the invocation. Why? Well, the injuries for LGBT rights on November 4th left many of us sensitive to insult. Yet, I held my tongue, trusting that Mr. Obama was not intentionally snubbing the LGBT community. I trusted that Mr. Obama was really doing things differently - not in the sense that a different voice would get to overturn the voices that prevailed the last eight years. But really,
authentically a different way of doing business in the District.
Today, as I heard Rev. Warren's prayer, a counter point to the prayer of the +Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson earlier, I realized this is a great sign for a deeper, richer, more complex change in Washington, D.C. Perhaps, instead of just a new voice replacing the old voice, a new way is really coming down. President Obama really seems to be drawing together, uniting us around the possibilities of what can be. That is good difference, not mere difference.
As a gay man, I am frustrated with people like Rev. Warren. As a Christian, I recognize that he is a brother in Christ, and person I need to love, not just love me. I need to hear his witness, and pray for him, and with him.
The understandable, though petty, bickering among the LGBT community about who should and shouldn't pray is a sign that we are getting stuck, as other groups have, in our personal hurts, injuries, angers, resentments, etc. We are loosing hope.
In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter in the slightest that there was no overt reference to lesbian, gay, bisexual or trasgendered persons - God willing that may one day not be the case. There were many others who remained unnamed, but they, and we, are NOT invisible (and if one must, once can look on the white house website, updated at noon today) and see where they might stand - who really is left out, or welcomed inside.
What does matter is that we are moving forward, inching forward, in hope, toward a more just vision of the perfect union, the liberty our nation espouses.
We need to remember that at a time when the issues of justice in this world are so demanding, so pressing, if we step up to stand in solidarity with those who are working for, praying for justice, even if their vision is different from our, we will find ourselves propelled along that moral arch of justice along side them - as we and all of us together are changed - nay, transformed - into something greater than any of us can ask or imagine.
We need to remember, as to which Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery alluded in his benediction, that God's hands cover the whole world. There in the emptyness of our brokenness, our hurts, and cries for justice and peace - there is the resurrection event, already at work.
May it be so.
