I have an irritated, streaming eye, so I played hookey from church today. In addition, it was raining, so altogether too much to overcome, though I was sorry to miss on the feast of the Epiphany. Never fear. I shall say my prayers here at home. All that has changed is a grudging recognition of civil partnerships for celibates. The headlines have, however, stimulated vigorous kicking and screaming by people. Lynette Burrows on yesterdays PM programme (18 minutes in) shared with the nation her “instinct that people like me have which is revulsion” about gay people. The role of the Church, she implies, is to validate her instinctive disgust, which she imagines is shared by everybody.Giles Fraser's response on BBC Saturday PM was very good. You can hear the shock and outrage in his voice. Lynette Burrows commentary was truly ugly. If you wish to listen, the program is available for six days only.
"So, bishop, are you having sex with your partner?" I can't imagine anyone asking that question with a straight face. And what constitutes sex anyway? Snogging? Toe-sucking? (Is there a Church of England position on this?) Yet the new line from the C of E – ludicrously, that gay men in civil partnerships can be bishops as long as they refrain from sex (or to put it another way, we'll have gay bishops as long as they are not really gay) raises the question: how on earth will the authorities ever find out? A CCTV in every bedroom? Chastity belts in fetching liturgical colours? No, the only way the bedroom police could ever really know is if they ask and play a moral guilt trip about honesty on those being interrogated. So do sexually active gay priests or bishops have a moral responsibility to tell the truth? Actually, I think not. I'd go further: in this situation, they have a moral responsibility to lie.Well, the lying is certainly being done now, and I understand that clergy and bishops lie for their own self-protection. Still I'd hope for something like a plan for a grand coming-out party where all, or at least a majority, of gay and lesbian clergy and bishops come out of the closet, while, at the same time, a large majority of straight clergy stand in public support of their brothers and sisters. What would be the response of the leadership in the church?
The costumed and masked krewe assembled on Twelfth Night, January 6, 2012 (Sunday) at the Willow Street Car Barn (map) at 6:30pm. At 7pm sharp, the Phunny Phorty Phellows boarded the streetcar and began their ride to "Herarld the Arrival of Carnival" down the St. Charles Ave. Streetcar Line.The people in New Orleans don't get a break between Christmas season and Carnival season. The party goes on until Lent. Where I live, we don't rush into Carnival partying as quickly, but the custom of sharing king cakes starts tomorrow.
All were invited to come see the PPP off beginning at 6:30, when the group started to gather. Of course Storyville Stompers were there with us.
The Phellows are an historic Mardi Gras organization that first took to the streets 1878 through 1898. They were known for their satirical parades and today¹s krewe members’ costumes often reflect topical themes. The group was revived in 1981.
Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow, writes a moving tribute to Bishop Gene. He says what is in my heart much better than I ever could. Kelvin invited the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire to celebrate at St Mary's during Lambeth 2008, when Gene was locked out of the conference. Kelvin says:I’m grateful to him for his ministry here, one of the most electric Sunday mornings since I came here. I’m also grateful to him for keeping the faith, preaching the gospel and standing up to injustice. And yes, I’m proud of having known the first out gay man in a partnership (marriage now…) who became a bishop. So, here’s to you, Bishop Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you can know. And I’m thankful for what you shared about that love whilst Bishop of New Hampshire.Read Kelvin's lovely post in its entirety.
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It is abundantly clear today that it is not all about Gene Robinson any more. The compromise that has been announced in England in the last 24 hours only turns the clock back by about 18 months and I’m genuinely surprised by all the excitement in the media about it. Nothing has changed since yesterday. The key facts remain the same:
•The Church of England behaves badly to gay people in leadership
•The public discourse of the Church of England at major festivals is dominated by a prurient interest in Jeffrey John’s private life.
•The media don’t understand it but like the fuss and use any excuse to put nutters on the television
The offer to be hosted at the Marketplace is a non-offer. That is already available to me. One workshop on one afternoon and being interviewed by the secular press was not anything I was seeking. I wasn't going to Lambeth to have another interview with the secular press. If interviewed at all, I want to talk with a theologian. I want to talk about the love of Christ. I want to talk about the God who saved me and redeemed me and continues to live in my life. I want to talk about the Jesus I know in my life.Of all the voices that needed to be heard at Lambeth, Gene's was one of the most vital, but Archbishop Rowan Williams chose rather to exclude him. The church, for so long, persisted in talking about LGTB persons, rather than engaging with them and listening to them. Change is taking place in churches and in secular society. Sadly, the Church of England has not yet caught up.
But my mind boggles at the misperception that this is just about gay rights. It might be in another context, but in this context it is about God's love of all of God's children. It's a theological discussion, it's not a media show. I have been most disappointed in that my desire was to participate in Bible study and small groups, and that is not being offered. It makes me wonder: if we can't sit around a table and study the Bible together, what kind of communion do we have and what are we trying to save?
I am dismayed and sickhearted that we can't sit around a table, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and study scripture together.
May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire,
so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.
And may light shine out of the two eyes of you,
like a candle set in the window of a house,
bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you,
may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth be on you,
soft under your feet as you pass along the roads,
soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day;
and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.
May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen
Yesterday, I completely forgot to note the eleventh day of Christmas, and today is the twelfth day of Christmas. Tonight, which is Twelfth Night, the revelry begins in New Orleans.
"Grace dances. I would pipe. Dance ye all."The post turns rather serious, thanks to Marthe, who reminded me of Auden.
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Down a gothic nave
comes our Pfarrer now, blessing the West with water:
we may go. There is no Queen's English
in any context for Geist or Esprit; about
catastrophe or how to behave in one
I know nothing, except what everyone knows—
if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
(W H Auden "Whitsunday in Kirchstetten")
In Baton Rouge, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s latest round of state budget cuts are forcing shelter director Audrey Wascome to contemplate cutting the number of beds for battered women and children by a third.Jindal wants to put the women and children in hotel rooms, but Wascome says there is no money to pay for hotel rooms. Right now she turns away women and children every day, because the shelters are full, and she may have to reduce the number of beds in the because of budget cuts. Why is it so often the most vulnerable who must suffer?
The reductions will hit shelters for domestic violence victims across the state, including the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children in the New Orleans area. The Metropolitan Center’s executive director, Dale Standifer, said Thursday the cuts will erode funding for an emergency shelter that gives women a place to sleep when they have nowhere else to go.
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Funding for family violence prevention and intervention programs was cut by $998,413, a 16 percent reduction in total dollars through the contracts the state holds with shelters and other domestic violence prevention providers.
Other reductions impacted hospice services, health care providers, dental benefits for pregnant women and contract services for the poor, the mentally ill and the drug-addicted.
For 2010, the Violence Policy Center ranked Louisiana fourth in the nation in the number of women murdered by men in single victim-single offender homicides. Between Jan. 1, 2010, and Oct. 31, 2012, domestic violence was blamed for the deaths of nearly 200 people across Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.Bobby Jindal is the very soul of "compassionate conservatism", and he wishes to share his concept of "compassion" with the entire country. He wants to be in charge of the country so much that he travels frequently to promote his own cause and phones in his orders to his staff in Louisiana.
Ten elder lords on Christmas tenthDid you know there are two ways of counting the days of Christmas? Some start the count on Christmas day, and others on the day after Christmas. I thought you'd like to know. And that's all I have for you, my peeps. As I've already said, I'm running out of steam with days of Christmas.
Leapt upward with a bound.
Though bodies jumped and stretched full length
Feet barely cleared the ground.
