Adjusting

I sit here and look at the nice leather couch my parents bought me when I moved into this apartment. I look at the cool Ikea bookcase I bought. At the various pieces of furniture, other bookcases, bed, nightstand etc I have pieced together to make an existence over these last few months.

I love my apartment. It is small and has some drawbacks, a tiny, tiny kitchen area. A heating/air conditioning situation I can't even get into. A few other quirks due to it being an old building. But it has character and despite any drawbacks I could see myself staying here for a bit.

But I'm not. I am leaving in August and all of the niceties and quirks I have grown to love are going away. I'm ok with that, but I also know I don't like change. I don't like uprooting my life situation. I don't like new situations.

This is a huge step, one I am extremely excited about. Looking forward to. Necessary. A good thing.

But knowing my living situation is going to change is just another process for me to deal with.

I know my day to day life is going to change, but having been unemployed since November and been going crazy ever since, a change in my daily schedule is welcomed and embraced. I want that!

I believe I am focusing on the emotional aspects now. Leaving behind the ability to call up my ex-partner so I can see the dogs and/or hang with him. Listening to music with a glass of wine like the old days.

That part of my life is behind me. For the next couple of months that will be my life, and gladly so. I want to have fun before my life changes. But I know.

Much is to be left behind.

Open Eucharist?

There is a debate beginning over 'open communion', or having communion open to everyone not just those who are baptized Christians.

Eucharistic Spirituality

Part of me is torn on the issue. After all, didn't Jesus reach out to everyone? Surely the idea of radical hospitality and a radical Gospel preaching peace and hope to be extended to all, includes the Eucharist? If we are to close off the table from one group doesn't it leave the door open to continue to further close it off? The Roman Catholic church, indeed, even local churches as well as other independent churches across the nation and world, deem only their members able to worthily receive communion.

But I know that my being torn is the assumption that anyone who sets foot inside an Episcopal church is at least Christian, if not entirely in practice at least in thought, even if just a little.

But that isn't always the truth. Non-believers, atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus etc may at one time or another set foot inside the walls of our church. They are more than welcome. And what is more welcoming than inviting them to the table for Holy Eucharist?

But, some of those aforementioned groups won't be believers in what the Eucharist represents. On some level they may respect the symbolism and what it means to everyone else and may be glad to be able to partake in a holy moment with the rest of the church.

I know not everyone who comes forward for communion is to believe in a lock step fashion. That will never happen. But what of people who don't even see Christ as divine? Who don't see Eucharist at the least as a holy moment?

I forgive many things in my thinking regarding the church, that is the liberal side of me. I welcome all. But for me this is the holiest moment of all in our life as a church and as the body of Christ. It starts to become devalued when it is treated without the utmost respect.

I don't believe in the stringent rules the Roman Catholic church or Orthodox churches put in place. But there is a limit.

To be baptized is to make a public confession that you believe Christ to be your savior. Some take it more seriously than others. But there it is. That is the minimum for me to come forward for communion.

I remember sitting in the pews when I wasn't baptized, or sometimes going forward for a blessing. I didn't feel left out. Some may, I know. But I felt empowered. I was on a path to develop my faith, strengthen my love of God and to be sure I was making the right commitment. It was a wonderful time as I look back on it. Others may not have the same experience I know.

Communion should be treated with a certain amount of respect and excluding the non-baptized does not mean they are not children of God and are not saved and are not part of the community, it simply means they need to be make the same commitment as others have.

The body and blood of Christ deserves at least that.

Chapel at Virginia Theological Seminary

I visited VTS recently. Well, this past week.

Details of the visit aside, the most striking thing physically speaking, is the site of the ruined chapel.

Before going there I knew this was a traumatic event for people attached to VTS. I know of one graduate who seemed particularly hurt and traumatized by it.

This is after all the space in which people gather every day for prayer, either Morning or Evening prayer, and/or Eucharist.

It is also the site for other events and ceremonies and things associated with the life of the seminary.

Seeing a religious place in ruin is hard. It goes up exponentially if you are attached to that place.
I can only imagine what it was like seeing that place burn in person.

I don't have anything really inspirational to offer other than that we all know it will be rebuilt. That is a given.

I would also add that it might be a lesson in not becoming overly attached to physical things.

I cannot fathom having to witness the church I was baptized and confirmed in (and hopefully ordained in) burn to the ground. It would devastate me.

But I also know God doesn't exist solely within the walls of a church. God is everywhere.

God is within you, within me. In fact, God is everywhere.

What I say isn't meant to distract from the hurt of losing things such as the chapel at VTS. If I had been a graduate at the time, well, I know I would have been distraught and shed some tears.

But we carry on as do the students, staff and faculty at VTS.

God is everywhere. Within us and around us.

COE debating gay bishops.

So now, the you know what is starting to hit the fan, the Church of England apparently not only recognizes they have gay priests, but are in open (and very heated and angry) discussions about the possibility of gay bishops. But the thing is, they already have gay bishops!

Church of England fighting over gay bishops?

I wonder where this sits with the hatemongers, homophobes and otherwise malcontents here in the US?

To be Anglican means to be in communion with the See of Canterbury. No ifs ands or buts. You can call yourself whatever you want. Doesn't make it true.

So the splinter groups who hate gay people (and have a good chance at being misogynistic as well) need to know, they aren't as close to being the "true Anglican presence in North America" as they had hoped.

I don't mean to gloat, well, maybe a little. But really, the point is, there are realities on the ground and the homophobes want to either disregard, ignore or just plain play pretend.

There are gay priests a plenty in the mother church. As well as other churches in the Anglican Communion.

The only churches that truly oppose gay priests and bishops are from areas that are either third world (and support imprisonment and sometimes execution of gay people, misogyny, multiple marriages, voodoo, stoning etc) like you see in most of Africa (South Africa being somewhat of an oasis), or are in socially and at times government oppressed environments (southeast Asia, India, etc).

There is a reason western thought has produced the embracing of human freedom and democracy. We love freedom but most especially the freedom to live our life as we feel God has made us and called us.

I pray for the church and for all its people.