I have been a bit reluctant to delve into church polity and events, but as a new subscriber to Twitter and as one following the Episcopal Cafe, I have been following as well the events of the current ACC meeting in Jamaica. It has taken so much time in my internal conversation, that some sort of reflection might be helpful, to me if to no one else. Some of the news has been as "bad" as it might be. The continuing Windsor report basically asks for a continuation of the "freeze" on the consecration of LGBT bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions as well as a cessation of extra-provincial incursions. It does, of course, encourage more dialogue and listening, which is a good thing. It also leans towards putting some "teeth" it would seem into the "instruments of unity" in the form of the so-called Anglican Covenant.
It is hard for me to sort out how I "feel" about all this. On the first blush, it makes me feel hurt and angry. It seems to continue to delay the full inclusion in the life of the church of LGBT individuals. I imagine this is somewhat like the feeling of a person caught in an abusive family relationship. We wish to remain part of the family, and our desire to remain a part has trapped us in a relationship with certain persons who are not so much conservative in attitude (yes they are that) but also authoritarian. There is so much here that seems to be "really" about authority and power, that one begins to feel like a convenient pawn in a power struggle about just who can claim to be "in charge." Those who espouse a conservative and authoritarian view seem to be struggling to hold onto their authority. The deposed bishop of Pittsburgh had barely received notice of his removal when he was immediately elevated again to a new position of authority. The recent legal challenge to the metropolitical status of the presiding bishop and the general convention seems yet another attempt to assert authority. Perhaps I am self-blinded by my closeness to these issues, but the consecration of V. Gene Robinson and the church's movements towards the blessing of same-sex committed relationships seems more of a "bottom up" growth than a "top down" authoritarian development.
I am, of course, in favor of dialogue, but does that mean that we must resign ourselves to an open-ended and seemingly endless paralysis of action? Must we wait for the entirety of global Christianity to give its assent before moving? I would tend to suspect that, if we had chosen this pathway with regard to inclusion and ordination of women, we would still be waiting and dialoguing, not celebrating the enrichment of our lives that has come from our women deacons, priests and bishops. There is an even more important question to ask, of course, whether it is even possible to have a meaningful dialogue with someone who comes to the conversation with strongly-held authoritarian convictions? When we marry surety of belief with authoritarian power structures, can there ever be any progress in discussion. I would like to believe that "all things are possible" but I must be realistic that not "all things are probable." B033 was passed in a guilt-saturated attempt to "hold us together" and was followed by nearly immediate schismatic retaliation from the very people to whom it was offered.
It is not clear that I even have the concern all for myself. If the Episcopal and Anglican church should choose to marginalize and condemn, this would be no more than I have come to expect through my last 40 years and more. I and others like me would, likely, simply turn inwards, regroup and continue to work. I worry more, however, for those who are not so "hardened" to this. What of the young LGBT people, the teens and 20-somethings who desperately need the welcome and nurture of a church that accepts them fully and wholly? What irreparable harm will we do to them as we convey to them that they are "not quite" as good as the rest of the world? What of those who are older, who have "fought the good fight" and look to leave this life still without a reward for all their long labors? I worry as well about the harm that will come to the Episcopal Church should we walk down this path of never-ending waiting. TEC in North America is simply not the church of Uganda or the West Indies. The "mainline protestant" churches in North America continue to fade, and it would be foolish for TEC to pretend that it is "something other." We might be something other, but not if we walk backwards into ever more authoritarian structures. So much of the growth in our church has been from those from outside the circles of "cradle Episcopalians." What do they come for? The answer, I think, is a corporate experience of worship that is both traditional and new coupled with an openness to explore and develop our own spiritual lives and natures with the blessing, welcome and guidance of a church that "welcomes you." Any backwards retreat will surely dilute the sincerity of that "welcome" and could, I fear, push us closer to the day of our demise. Finally, there is the issue of global justice and humanity. It seems no coincidence that the Most Rev. Akinola presides over the church in a country that appears to be racking up one of the worst civil right records for LGBT persons in the Christian world. What message do we send to them, if we do not challenge the positions of their religious and political leaders? More appropriately, if we do not shine the spotlight on the horrors that appear to be happening there, we become silent conspirators to these human atrocities.
So finally, where did this post get me? A solution? Hardly. A bit more clarity of my own conflict? Perhaps.
Some of the writers in the mystical traditions urge us to turn away from creation to experience God in the formless interior silence. The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing advises this. While he lauds the worthiness of "lesser" thoughts, it is his argument that one must aim "higher" to the cloud of unknowing, that which is beyond thought and "pound at it" to move ever closer and into the cloud.
Other authors, however, write about how God may be experienced through the contemplation of creation, the physical universe of which we also are a part. Today's reading on "The Episcopal Cafe" for Monica, Mother of Augustine, suggests one such experience. In the quoted excerpt from The Confessions, Augustine, describes an experience which he shared with his mother, just before her death in which they were discussing and trying to imagine what the life of the world to come would be like. I will indulge in an extended quote:
"...we laid the lips of our hearts to the heavenly stream that flows from your fountain, the source of all life which is in you, so that as far as it was in our power to do so we might be sprinkled with its waters and in some sense reach an understanding of this great mystery. As the flame of love burned stronger in us and raised us higher towards the eternal God, our thoughts ranged over the whole compass of material things in their various degrees, up to the heavens themselves, from which the sun and the moon and the stars shine down upon the earth. Higher still we climbed, thinking and speaking all the while in wonder at all that you have made. And while we spoke of the eternal Wisdom, longing for it and straining for it with all the strength of our hearts, for one fleeting instant we reached out and touched it."
Pseudionysius similarly writes:
"Hence, with regard to the supra-essential being of God–transcendent Goodness transcendently there–no lover of the truth which is above all truth will seek to praise it as word or power or mind or life or being. No. It is at a total remove from every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, conception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity the totality of existence. And yet, since it is the underpinning of goodness, and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence, you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is there "before all things and in it all things hold together." Because it is there the world has come to be and exists. All things long for it. The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion befits their condition."
I do not want to stray into murky territories of "scientific creationism" or arguments for God's existence, e.g. "design requires a designer," yet there is a "drawing" power, it seems, in the contemplation of the physical universe. The way of interior silence and formlessness may indeed be a way to the mystery of God, but as a sometime scientist and "amateur" naturalist, I find myself "drawn" to the beauty and mystery of the physical universe. Our cathedral dean, in his sermon this Sunday, commented that "like so much of our faith," we find so much that is paradoxical. We may experience God in the interior formless silence, but we may also find the numinous in the "longing" of creation as well.
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