The Great and the Sad

Most all readers of this blog should know that I'm in the process of moving to Seattle, and tonight's entry is being typed from a motel room in Boise, Idaho, that is lacking most of the buttons on the in-room phone, was lacking toilet paper upon check in, and has a curious brown substance emerging from the faucet when I turn on the cold water.

Yet, this is all part of the adventure for me. I love staying in crappy motels and enjoying all of the fascinating problems and/or challenges that they offer me.

My absolute favorite is the one in San Diego that is directly across the street from the end of the runway of the airport there. When the jets fly over, they fly immediately overhead, such that somebody with a decent pitcher's arm could literally ding the fuselage with a well-lobbed baseball. When the jets fly over, my whole room would quake - and I would squeal with glee at the fun of it.

I'm not trying to make a vacation out of this journey north, but I am trying to be intentional about this process: leaving, journey, experience, reflection . . . and either tomorrow or Friday, arrival.

Let me commend to any of my Phoenician friends with wandering souls the drive from Flagstaff to Page. It's been a very long while since I've driven that route - or, the route from Page to Salt Lake City for that matter. The scenery is amazing along that stretch of road - from the holy emptiness that is the Navajo reservation to the amazing mountains that frame the cities from Provo to Ogden. It is all deeply beautiful.

The holy emptiness is what draws me to my favorite places in the Southwest, because I think myself is reflected back to me. Much of my worldview is that of the Preacher. The writer of Ecclesiastes sees meaninglessness - but sees that in the context of God's meaning that embraces our experience of meaninglessness without nullifying it.

Earlier this week, one of my new colleagues in Seattle and I were talking about the idea of being present to "both the great and the sad", as he put it.

As I was leaving town on Monday, I was having much more of the experience of the bitter rather than the sweet as I was remembering my goodbyes to my Phoenix friends, wondering how many of them I would actually see again. One person who popped up suddenly on that goodbye tableau was a high school acquaintance that I hadn't seen in 13 years. This simply tells me that we cannot ever have any kind of leaving that is assuredly permanent.

At the same time, we can't ever be completely sure we're going to see - in person - these loved ones again that we leave behind.

As one of the members of St. Augustine's reminded me on Sunday - I'm leaving Phoenix for Seattle, but Phoenix is going to go on without me, and when I next step back into its desert, it is guaranteed to be a very different place than the one I've left.

This is a sad reality, isn't it?

Again and again these past week's, I've heard priest friends of mine preaching and talking about the ideas of letting go - of not trying to cling to the past tightly or for unfortunate reasons remaining entangled in one's old life that is left behind - for good or ill.

These messages are so right, so very true, so very prescient.

However, it is a corollary to this thought that is swirling through my head this late night in Boise: letting go of potential situations that, were it not for some slight change in circumstances, would have resulted in a more favorable outcome than what actually came about.

In other words, if the butterfly had flapped its wings a few more seconds, life would have been totally different.

And, of course, I don't know what all of those parameters of that life would be, and nobody does. At the same time, I think that I personally have acknowledge some very likely possibilities that could have arisen should the deck have been shuffled just one more time before the cards were dealt.

This is coming up because I had a very powerful experience yesterday of this very fact. I could see how my whole life could have been different - and someone else's life could have been different - if the wind had just blown in a slightly different direction.

Friends, I am sad this evening that the dice did not roll as favorably as I would have had them roll.

I could patronize myself and talk about how everything that happens is willed by God or some other such pandering crap, or I could go a little more Anglican and talk about how God makes good things come out of a bad situation. Or, I could go a step further and speak like Bishop Shahan used to say, that God's will for any situation is always the same - it is God's will to redeem it.

Those words again are good words, full of truthfulness and wisdom, words that need to work themselves more deeply into my soul and psyche.

It's accurate to say that I am a person that often does choose the road less traveled- in so many ways that are sometimes bewildering to me and my friends, but even actualized rewards can't compensate for a greater potential that could be envisioned.

So, today, I had to spend a little time on the boring road to Boise grieving the economics of life that do not allow us to experience both the well-worn road and the path that we have to blaze for ourselves.

I'm sad that I'm not an electron - I cannot potentially live the consequences of all of the butterfly's actions in the same instant and then, also in the same instant, choose the one I like best.

Instead, I - like all of us - have to make the best decisions we can based on limited data and our most realistic projections and contingencies, and then live through the consequences of those decisions.

Which means that before, during, and after any decision, we do have to be intentional - or, as my Seattle colleague said - be present . . .

...to both the great and the sad.

Aspirations

I have had to ask of myself some of the hardest questions I've ever had to ask lately.

Whatever this life-changing experience is that I seem to have had, I don't know much of what to make of it. I only know that I believe I have heard God's voice telling me that I have to give up my life to Him. That I literally have to give away or give up everything I have to follow Jesus Christ.

Sometimes it's not figurative. It's literal. And when I had a dream earlier this year to go to Seattle, a city that had called to me deep within my soul for a long, long time, I knew that it was time. I couldn't say no to that call, because God's voice is unmistakable.

This is scary for me to say that I hear God's voice actually calling me (well, it's not a literal voice – it's just a very deep desire combined with a literal vision) to go do something. So, I'm facing the music and wondering what it means. I realize that on some level, I am transformed to the core of my being because now I have heard God's call.

The real trouble now is that I have to make myself vulnerable enough to others in order to let them help me, and I hate being that vulnerable. I have so many insecurities. Insecurities that feed my own ego, making me want to put on a show for people so they know that I'm competent. But that's not a holy way of being. So that part of me has to be burned away with the holy and terrifying love of God.

So, walk with me down this road and help me to understand where I am, if you would, please.

I have what I judge to be an epiphany. I'm really the only one that can describe what has happened. Nobody else can verify that what I experienced is “real”, because it was a subjective experience. That is how faith comes to us is in these subjective experiences. People can only listen to what those experiences are and agree with you that you have had them and that you seem otherwise sane.

So, assuming that I am sane (and I do question this at times, but let's just go with it for now, okay . . . ummmmmmm . . . . that was supposed to be funny . . . I hope you're laughing . . . laugh, dammit!) I believe that I can present this experience to others and have them at least validate that I believe this has happened. They can also validate any change that has taken place within me as a result.

Know that I say this in all humbleness, but last night, when I needed encouragement from my best friend Tyler, and I was telling him about how I get swallowed up in my overgrown and insecure ego, he was baffled by my analysis. He felt as though I was one of the most self-effacing people he has known, and that he'd never seen this current side of me – a confident, not arrogant one – in the entire four years that he's known me.

That's not something that I could do by myself. The courage to do these things had to come from outside myself. It is so profoundly not me. Because I am the insecure and egotistical teenager that thinks he can and needs to solve all of the worlds problems so he doesn't get blamed for them by the powerful/angry oppressors.

But something from outside of me, something I'm not really in control of, is letting me know somehow what I need to say to those who would oppress me or oppress others. I feel like something outside of me is also letting me know what I need to say to encourage and help others hear what they need to hear to feel validated in places where they do not feel validated.

Man, this is fucking scary.

I'm serious!

Now, I could be wrong about what it is I'm hearing or being led to do.

And I hope I am in many, many ways, because please understand that I don't want this to be me.

I want to run away from this. I want to hide in my corner and geek out over urban planning or music theory or otherwise find some other little obsession to take over. Or find about 14 situations to simultanteously micromanage in order to impress people until the whole ponzi scheme of my existence crumbles. (I think this analogy is especially relevant now . . . some of you will know exactly what I'm talking about.)

So, here's where I am, and this is why I've been reaching out in sometimes very crazy ways, drawing a lot of people into my crazy.

[Insightful (?) Digression: And I'm sorry about drawing too many people into my crazy lately. When you are going through difficult experiences, you lose sense of appropriate boundaries. Luckily, other people have appropriate boundaries and they say, “I love you, but this is not my business nor my problem.” Thank the Lord for people who know the right thing to do and do it, because I certainly didn't remember in that moment. I haven't remembered in a lot of moments.]

Where I am is this: I believe God has called me powerfully. In my religious tradition, I see that when we speak about being called by God, the box that fits into is called either Deacon, Priest, or Bishop. Otherwise, some people might be called, and they might get a nice certificate or something, but the church really won't help them out a whole lot.

[RANT: Why does this happen? Because this church is chock full of clericalism and doesn't really want to empower the laity. That would mean that all of those people with collars on might find themselves out of work and out of pension funds and health benefits. It's a self-perpetuating system that really is crumbling. What does the priesthood look like if we say that people besides priests can actually do some of the things that people traditionally think priests are supposed to do. I mean, come on, we're burning out the clergy. Look at what's happening with the clergy. Some are crying about how the church is crumbling, dying, broke, etc., and these poor priests are taking that all upon themselves and trying to solve this. We have an environment of panic and fear that all of these angry people in the top levels of our leadership are pushing out in order to create division, and then we're pushing that panic out and down into our congregations, making them unhealthy. We're not doing this to keep them informed – because it's not helpful information. It is anxiety! Be worried! The church is dying! Be worried! Be anxious! What ever are we going to do! Time to panic!!!!! That's the message of some leadership in the church right now. Let me tell you, this is not a non-anxious presence. This is anything but. You need to be that non-anxious presence that speaks prophetically, that brings forth a new vision for what the church can be. The vision will be compelling, people will rally around it, the church will become more healthy, and things will get better. This is what has to happen throughout the whole mainline church. Stop standing on the ship and screaming about how it's sinking and instead start yelling about where the lifeboats are without mentioning the obvious and getting people paralyzed with fear. It's not working church! It's not working!]

Whew. Sorry about that. Had to get that out there.

Okay, so . . . where was I?

Oh yeah. We can get a nice certificate that says that we're lay preachers or lay readers or LEVs or whatever we are. (And I'm speaking in Episcopalian terms here, because that's the polity that I know. Tell me about your denomination and I'll try to find something corresponding.) People may truly have it within them to do some of these things. Deeply within them.

But we sort of offer this half-assed certificate system that nobody really knows about, so people don't really feel recognized or empowered to do anything. There's not really much of any training involved. It's a low commitment, and therefore something of low value.

Whereas with the priesthood or the diaconate, this is something that requires a significant commitment. So significant, in the case of the priesthood, that it's now not affordable to people in this terrible economic climate. People can't cash out of their successful careers in the business world when they're middle-aged and then use the money to go to seminary. This ain't gonna work anymore.

And everyone realizes this. I'm not saying anything new. The only thing (maybe, I dunno) new I'm saying is that you better pay attention to they gays who are coming, because they are the young people who are going to save the church. Why? Because most everybody under 40 doesn't give a damn about whether or not you're gay, as long as it's not in their face. And, in the church itself, it's not appropriate for some details, straight or gay, to be in people's faces.

So, it's okay to have gay priests. These young people are on fire for God because the Episcopal church has offered something that speaks to them. Yes, I could go into a lot of stereotypes – and I did do that in an earlier post. But let's say that the Episcopal Church offers this sort of Ancient/Future type of vision. And this is what's drawing people in. This is our time .

I think God has blessed us because we've chosen to follow in the Church's teaching and be a place where we welcome those who happen to be gay and lesbian.

So, I think you guys need to get over your concern about ordaining us to something, and this needs to be a big goal of bishops and priests, is to put some of these gay people in leadership positions across the church so that everybody can realize that “gay is OK”. Because young gay people can reach other young gay and straight people. We absolutely can. And we gays can raise up other young people, straight and gay, and inspire them and fire them with God's message.

Please know, my friends, that I do not know whether I am called to be a priest. But I do want to simply and with humbleness offer myself over to the process to see if this is what I am called to do. Now, I'm going to make a lot of trouble along the way. I'm just like that. Because of this and other reasons, I may not get very far, and that's okay.

But I still think I'm called by God to do something. So, we'll say in all humbleness and humility that I'm an aspirant to be a Priest for now and see if that's it. We'll see if somebody thinks they should stick a collar on me.

But I'm not worried if not. God has called me, and God will show me . . . even if I have to route around interference to get to wherever God would have me. I don't need to wear a collar. I don't need to look impressive and have people call me Father this or Father that. I'm not interested in how you hold the bread or how you bless the wine, as interesting as all of that is. I don't care about the fancy vestments and swinging the thuribles. Now, I'll learn all of that if this is what I'm called to do. No problem. And that's beautiful, I enjoy it, of course. But this is not what the church is about, and this is not what the priesthood should be about.

I think I maybe know what the priesthood is about. I'd like to think that I've paid attention. But, seriously folks, I don't say that I know anything. What the hell do I know?

What I really don't know is whether or not the vision God is revealing to me – the call that I believe I have from God – is a priestly call. I think it is, but it's not up to me.

God leads people directly and personally to follow him – to give up their all. And God, through the Church, calls people to the ordained ministry. I know the first has happened. We'll see if I'm supposed to put a collar on.

Mother God is Really Pissed!

Many of my friends know that I have recently had some type of spiritually transformative experience.

At the risk of sounding very crazy, I will say that God gave me visions, either in dreams or awakening me from sleep. I feel these dreams were God-given, as I've seen how some of the things that have happened in them have come to fulfillment.

I also feel now that I have a confidence coming up in myself from somewhere I do not know that is showing me some of the things I need to say to people, and I realize what I need to say to people is going to get me in a whole lot of trouble in some cases.

Of course, I've always had issues with being able to believe that God actually loves me. I hate having to admit that, because I want to love God so very much. But I've always wondered if ultimately, after my death, I would end up sent to Hell for reasons I don't understand. I read the stories of the God of the Old Testament, and I see a God that seems to kill people frequently and for not much reason – or for only small mistakes. While I know that this is a simplistic view of scripture, one has a simplistic view of scripture that is implanted in oneself during childhood.

I feel like I'm growing up from that understanding of God – as the church throughout the ages has grown up in its understanding of God. We have to do that as people and as a church if we're going to be able to speak the word to people that they need to hear.

Because I'm openly gay and very serious about my faith and about organized religion, I have the opportunity to meet a lot of young gay men who are also serious about their faith and about organized religion.

I've mentioned in other posts how we need to do more to channel their energy in positive ways. That the church needs to respond to these people who feel called to serve the church. And these are scary people: young, gay men! EEEEEEK! Here they come and they actually love God and are on fire for God!

Let me tell you that these people are scary to a lot of folks in the pews. Young people bring new ideas and change. We don't like change. Young people often, but not always, mean that we'll have to do things differently. It's not that we do something fake and make ourselves into someplace that is attractive to young people to get butts in the pews.

Oh, that is such a stupid idea, church. Young people need authenticity. Authenticity is everything. They see right through that silly crap. “We'll just have a drum set and rock music, and then the young people will come.” That's pandering, stop it. Those are exactly the kind of ideas I heard when I was studying church music in college. Some even said that if I didn't jump on the boat, I was ignoring the needs of the people whom we were called to serve, since most of the people in our future congregations would be younger.

Well, maybe that could be true in the growing evangelical churches, but not in the mainline churches with largely older and declining membership. Yes, there are exceptions to this in the mainline church, and Diana Butler Bass and others have looked at what these growing, mainline churches are about and have called the greater church to adopt more of these ideas. Many of them are ideas that feel more evangelical.

So, one thing the church needs to hear is that we can be more evangelical without needing to adopt the exclusivist theology of the evangelical church. The whole concept of fundamentalism is itself relatively new, and that's what people don't realize. They've forgotten their church history and gotten buried too much in their own ideas. (This is why schism is so problematic for us, because we'll end up going down the same road if we all start to fracture.)

However, God preserves the church. We can't be in the business of maintaining an institution. Because if the church doesn't change, God will change it. We can leave that up to God, but we also have to make sure we listen to what God is telling us to do.

I've been told that our seminaries are full of middle-aged women who have made a mid-life career change, possibly after a divorce that showed them a deep spiritual truth. That's a valid thing to have happen, and it's a good thing.

But I also know that the church is going to need more younger priests going forward, because the simple fact is that young priests are better able to minister to people around their own age.

But where are the young people in the pews? They're really not there a whole lot in most of the mainline churches.

But guess what? Guess what young people are there? The gays! Those scary people . . . we don't want to deal with them. We don't even know what to do with them. Should we ordain them? Can we support them in their sexual development? We talk to straight kids about dating. What are we saying to the gay kids?

Church, society is changing, and you better get with it, because the more states that approve gay marriage, the more the tide is turning. If you don't do something, you're actually going to lose the very young people God is calling into your midst to serve you.

Maybe they're kick-ass lesbian girls or smells-and-bells Anglo-Catholic boys. Either way, there needs to be a place for them. And a lot of churches can't deal with a partnered gay or lesbian priest in a healthy relationship. That's too scary to have as rector or senior pastor of a church. It's okay if their on the margins. It's okay if they're the church musician and they can be whispered-about in the back pews on Sunday with a wink and a nod.

But healthy, well-rounded gay people in leadership positions. No way.

Okay, so, we're not ready to deal with this.

So, here's how it works. Very few young adults machete their way into church. They don't stick around until they have kids, and by that time, they've already got their hands full with careers, etc. They don't have time to be priests until they're middle-aged. And you can keep having middle-aged priests, but then you'll have a middle-aged church. I think that's just reality. And maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I think.

So, of the young adults who do come, they must be really damn serious about their faith. And so it's not surprising that a lot of them will feel called to be priests because they're so serious.

Not all of them will really have a vision that is priestly, and they shouldn't be pushed into a collar.

But here's the problem. And it's a big one. The whole seminary model for training priests requires you to have a lot of money, to go into a lot of debt. So the church gets pretty desperate for young priests, sends them to seminary to get into a lot of debt, then they come back and they're not good priests.

They're bad priests who are doing the wrong job for them, and then they fail and create bigger problems and then more people get frustrated and leave the church. Or never show up at all.

Okay, so, we need to rethink how we raise up and train priests. This is what I'm getting at.

People are pushed into the priesthood because they are serious about serving God. I'm serious about serving God, and I'm discerning the priesthood myself.

Why am I doing that? Because that's the only way I can really get the support of the church. There's just no way I can dedicate my life to the church and still feed my belly and put a roof over my head and serve the church unless I want to be a monk and be celibate.

I'm not called to celibacy. Not my thing. Sorry.

Although, quite frankly, I would be celibate if it meant I could serve the church. But I don't think that's really necessary for us right now.

The church needs to find a way to change. It needs to accept that partnered, out gay people can be effective ministers, even to “old-fashioned” places. Don't get trapped in that kind of thinking. Sometimes you just need to try and see how it works. People won't be as afraid that way. Gay priests won't have to hide in the closet or feel they have to keep their private lives and partnerships well hidden for the sake of serving God.

Because if they do, you run the risk of the priesthood becoming just another exclusivist club of all of these church geeks. People who get into smells and bells and argue about how to hold their hands during the consecration. People who literally start yelling at each other about the right ways to swing the thurible.

All of the beautiful liturgy in the church is worthless if we don't agree right now that we are all called to be saints. That means we have to be open to God's change. We must all be willing to be saints and to give up the trappings of the priesthood to become real priests.

And damn, church, is that scary. Change is scary. But you better do it. Pentecost is coming, and God is going to show you how pissed She is about this if you don't.

Bringing A Lot of Baggage

We are sometimes people who have a lot of baggage we're carrying around. We have a "backstory", as one priest friend of mine said this past Sunday.

This backstory - these experiences we take with us from childhood - can be very helpful to us in deep ways. But they also create a lot of issues if we don't deal with them. And then keep dealing with them. And then keep dealing with them.

We have to constantly do the work to make sure our shadow selves do not step back up again and run our lives.

I know that I personally have my own issues from my family dynamics. I was, essentially, born unwanted into this world,first abandoned, and then only picked up again to be used as a pawn in a messy custody battle. My very young self was something that brought negativity into the world, totally apart from my own actions. Later in my own family dynamic, I was made the scapegoat - everything wrong that happened to me or to the relationship was my fault. An angry parent constantly criticized and was controlling, offering me the message that I was essentially deeply, deeply incompetant, keeping me in a place where I was able to be vulnerable to further abuse. And there was further abuse in deeply harmful ways.

So began rejection on just about every level of life for me. Even to the point of rejection on the doorstep of the church as punishment for my showing an act of a 6-year-olds love to his own Grandmother by calling her on the phone early with a happy good morning message.

When the church does what the church is supposed to do, one finds welcome and healing. Besides the love of one family member, this was the only place that I was able to find love and healing - through the actions of people involved in an organized religious institution.

Is it any wonder that I would then feel called to use my gifts to the service of God's church? I could do nothing else.

Literally.

I could, and can, do nothing else.

Myself and other people share this common story, and this is a reason why a lot of people jump up and say they want to be ordained as clergy. And this itself is not bad . . . but there are issues here that must be addressed before one can walk down that road. If they're not addressed, there are going to be big, messy problems later on.

I mean, let's face it. The church is, as it should be, a place where broken people come to God's table to be fed. And the experience of this is transformative and healing. But sometimes these buried issues aren't dealt with. And then people begin to maladapt and dysfunction.

Ordained clergy and even lay leaders in the church get into problems. They overfunction, thinking (umm, like me) that they need to be Jesus himself and solve every problem in the church and all of the worlds problems. They begin to look to the bottle to feel better. Maybe they get entangled with problematic relationships, or do not respect or understand clear and appropriate boundaries for behavior. Maybe they become greedy and decide that the church is a place where they can somehow pull in a lot of money for themselves in evil and tricky ways. Maybe they just give up and detach, becoming gradually ineffective while Rome burns down around them.

My former Baptist minister used to talk about this, saying that Satan especially seems to attack clergy. I disagree with that way of phrasing it and that type of language. I'd rather say that God calls broken people because they can be so effective in bringing healing to broken communities, but that it's easy for people to fall back into patterns of brokenness if they are not doing everything they need to do to place themselves fully in God's will, letting their own will be conformed to God's will.

So there are all kinds of unhealthy ways to go about giving yourself to God, and I think every single clergy and lay professional in the church enters into these behaviors during one time or another. To degrees great and small. And really, we fall into these behaviors because people are using the church to meet their own psychological needs.

This is profoundly unhealthy and creates a lot of problems.

What needs to happen in this case is this: Somebody needs to be Priest. Somebody needs to hold up the mirror to these individuals in a deeply loving way and get them to gaze into it. They must gaze into it so that they can see who they truly are. And once that happens, the healing and wholness can begin. Confession comes. We tell our stories to each other. Reconciliation happens.

Eventually, then, you come to a deep realization that you are doing all of the wrong things. What you are doing supposedly in God's service is exactly the opposite of what's really helping. And you realize that you are part of a system that is sick, and you're not making it better.

God sends you messages, but you're not ready to hear them. You're too busy trying to be Jesus, or detaching in some way. You're not seeking God's spirit. You begin to allow your own insecurities to feed your ego until it is massive and desires to tell everybody what to do and how to do it. You're too busy trying to do God's work for him and eventually you might actually think of yourself as something like God.

Wow this pride can be dangerous if left unchecked.

Luckily, God is bigger than us, and when I am very, very prideful, God brings about a profoundly transformative experience into our lives to shake things up and to redeem us.

This way, we no longer have a pride that shows a lack of faith in God and a total lack of trust in God's ability to bring about healing and reconcilation.

This has much to do with the difference between God fixing things by replacing them completely or by redeeming them. There is a huge difference here, and I believe that God's salvation in the church works through the latter actions and not the former. Jesus' resurrection shows that we are transformed, not replaced. Therefore, it is like Bishop Shahan used to tell us: God's will is always the same for every situation. It is God's will to redeem it.

For God to do his work, sometimes very painful things have to happen. Deeply, deeply painful things.

God gives us a message, saying that now you are beginning to *see* - really *see* - you can trust Me to give you everything you need, and you don't need to try to be everything to all people. You can let go of all of the work that makes you crazy. You can allow Me to place you in situations that build up your gifts and strengths and do not exploit your weaknesses.

For in God, all things are possible. This is not a strength we have in ourselves. This can only come from God.

First, all the crap needs to just be burned away as you begin to see yourself truly as you are on your deepest levels, you accept who you are, and then you begin to find a way to integrate that deep pain in a way that it makes you more powerful for the Kingdom.

But that's still a lot of crap that needs to be burned away first, and we might actually go crazy for a little while while it is happening.

Friends, that is what is happening to me. I know deeply that there is a lot of crap that must be burned away. This is the only way that I can truly be of service to God.

Once I look into the mirror, I will see who I truly am. And then I will be able to make my confession. A true confession. A needed confession. An empowering confession.

Friends, I bring a lot of baggage, as Priest Bill Greeley would say, but I thank youand God for your deep, deep gifts in ways you may not realize or understand that help me to unload it.