Prayer, Forgiveness, and Pain

I am angry with one of my closest friends. He has hurt me, cut me to the bone and left me bleeding on the ground. All perhaps without knowing but that doesn't undo the pain, and doesn't negate the callousness with which I've been treated. It is times like these when I want to invoke the Russian. My dear, my close друг. Literally, my other.

This scenario came to head in the middle of last week, in the middle of Holy Week. Afternoon of Holy Thursday, I find myself trying to explain my hurt to my friend. And then speaking to him in dark hissed tones as he throws on his mask of the great pastoral one, casting me in the role of the supplicate seeking mercy and succor.

I don't want mercy. I don't an apprentice's attempt at pastoral care, dammit. I want you to recognize that you have hurt me.

Holy Thursday evening, the first of about twenty hours I will spend in services over the next week. I have ceased to shake with rage somehow. I don't know how. Should I be in church right now? Can I give the service the attention it deserves? And seriously, how petty does this betrayal appear in the one that is recalled here?

Oh, Judas, my friend, my other, will you really betray me with a kiss?

I made a resolution at New Years to learn how to pray, and have certainly not done as well with it as I may have liked. But sitting in that pew, I found myself praying. Give me the strength to cope. Please, guide me through what I must do to come out of this. (This was not the first time I have prayed in this crisis, but my ex-Protestant mind has a little trouble understanding curling up prostrate on the floor of the chapel before the icon of the Theotokos and literally sobbing as prayer.) I left the service still quite upset.

Wake the next morning for the marathon of Holy Friday. Three services. Eight hours or more worth. Bow before the icon of the Theotokos in the narthex, and light a slender votive candle for myself. Give me strength. Give me guidance. Give me some peace of mind.

And as the services progress, gradually I find that. I must forgive him. It is not an option. But forgiveness doesn't have to be immediate and forgiveness doesn't overlook or trivial the hurt he caused me. My pain is real, and forgiving him is going to require acknowledging and honoring it. And I will.

He who Loses Himself will Save Himself

It started out as basic work chatter. “How’s life?” My co-worker looks at me and nods in his uber-chill manner. “Life. Life is precious.”

Me being rambling me, I can’t leave it at that. “A precious human life. The most auspicious according to the Buddhists, because you see if you’re a god, it’s too easy, so you won’t work to escape samsara, and better than being born in one of the lower states of existence, because then you’re too miserable to be able to make your way out, but it’s auspicious to be human.”

He nods again. Buddha-like. “Hey, do you ever think religion is just egotism?”

“Um. Yeah.”

And then a rush hits.

Mourning.

I made it back to Memphis for a short 27 hour visit. (Apparently on a very bad night for the city. Wreck at Cooper and Union, saw about three fire trucks racing by as I was leaving Soul Fish, and tragically, the Memphis cops fatally shot a man while pursuing him.) And as I'm about to leave Tennessee to head back to Berkeley, I find myself in a mix of emotions about my city.

Memphis has a bad rep, deservedly, at the moment. I've been following the string of murdered and brutalized transwomen in my city with a heavy heart. Until this last summer, and possibly not even now, there hasn't been a great deal of awareness of this murders even within my college's GSA. (I can only speak as someone loosely associated with the Rhodes GSA, but I hadn't heard anything about Tiffany Berry's murder until I read Terrance's piece about her at the Republic of T.)

Part of this is due to the continuing racial divide in Memphis. Rhodes is still very white and privileged (and to a somewhat different effect -- straight). Students there, even one's who are trying to be aware of the outside world, live in our own little, fenced in bubble. Thus, it there were brutal murders and injustices within the greater community -- within a greater GLBT community -- and we remained unaware. And while there's a push to create stronger ties between Rhodes and the greater Memphis community, I'm not certain how effective the attempts will ultimately be. Tutoring at Snowden is great, but when you graduate without realizing that Snowden is one of the better schools in the city... (I'm also opposed to the noblesse oblige attitude that is extremely prevalent on the Rhodes campus, but that's another matter.) I suppose for the time being the best I can do is to combat my own ignorance and e-mail my remaining friends at Rhodes to try to prevent a similar state of group ignorance in the here and now.

But I still love Memphis. I still want to be living in Memphis. I drove out of the city with a part of my heart breaking because I don't know when I'll be driving back in. I want the best for Memphis.

Hello, Berkeley!

I am in Berkeley.

Getting here was harder than it should have been. The flight I was supposed to be on was delayed by more than four hours. Southwest rerouted the passengers, which caused nice full-to-the-brim flights, oh and everyone's baggage got nice and left-behind. By the time I got myself and my luggage together it was too late to get to the hostel in Berkeley, so I ended up at a hotel near the airport for the night, fuming and having vivid dreams of trying to catch my luggage. Murr... So instead of arriving in Berkeley at about 7 pm on Thursday, I arrived in Berkeley at about 11 am on Friday. Dropped my luggage in the hostel office, found lunch, bought a bus pass :), and made it to my first potential-roommate interview with next to no trouble.

So far, Berkeley is quite pleasant. The streets and buses are crowded with people. This has produced a small degree of cognitive dissonance, as my brain associates crowded streets and buses with hearing Russian. So I've been walking around expecting to hear Russian. This wasn't helped by the three Russian-language conversations I overheard today within ten minutes. (There was also a lady speaking some Slavic language on the bus on day one, but I think the language was Polish.)

So far, I'm quite happy with the bus system. I'm sure that eventually, I'll even absorb that bus schedules actually mean something here. I'm also happy that street-harassment is nothing like Memphis. As of yet, nothing, and that includes my trip today to a not-so-nice (but still not really bad) area of town.

The only "fun" thing I've done was wandering down to the Marina, which is quite pretty and pleasant and nice and SUNNY, so I'm nicely burnt.

The goal is to find a room, so if anyone knows someone looking for a roommate is Berkeley, holler, sing out, do whatever it is that you do!

And no, I haven't yet had the guts to even try anything purporting to be BBQ.

Memphis...

I fall in love easily. Or at least, that was the case with Memphis, when I was sixteen and declared to my mother while visiting that I thought Memphis was great and I wanted to live there.

I "left" Memphis a couple of weeks ago, but it hadn't really sunk in. Tomorrow, I'm leaving Tennessee for Berkeley, CA. The vast majority of Tennessee I'm kind of happy to be escaping, but glorious, midtown Memphis . . . Memphis, I will miss. I'm going to miss the bungalows. I'm going to miss driving down North Parkway with a canopy of trees. I'm going to miss not being able to figure out for certain if it's the monkeys at the zoo or the fratboys making noise. I'm going to miss Al Rayan's amazing food, the BBQ Tofu at Tracks, Central BBQ, the freaking Sputnik outside of Joe's Wines and Liquors, getting lost and exploring a new part of the city, Cooper-Young, the Campus Safety office, the churches, Elmwood cemetery, the random funky signs that are everywhere, hitting all the thrift stores on Summer Ave., Summer Ave., the pretty that is Peabody, driving back from West Memphis at night, the Mississippi, the flat terrain . . .

I'm going to miss that Memphis won't allow her lovers to become trapped in a white tower and forget reality, both the ways it's beautiful and flaws that need to be fixed.

Memphis, I will miss you.

Well, look what the cat dragged in...

Today, my sister's cat merited his oh-so-cliched name. Rascal brought us a baby rabbit.

Mind you, we're quite used to finding small dead animals on the doorstep, courtesy of Rascal or the other cats multiple suitors. So if he had brought us a dead baby rabbit, we would have sighed, and buried it, and gone on with life. However, Rascal decided not to kill the baby rabbit. In fact, other than piercing the baby's ear, he didn't harm the rabbit at all. He just brought the baby in the house and dropped it at the sister's feet

So, now we have a baby bunny, eyes not open, in apparently perfect health. (He's as active as a comparably aged kitten, so we don't think there are any internal injuries.) We've got him in a box with an old dishtowel and a heating pad of microwaved rice. The plan is to wait until it's close to dusk (when momma rabbits return to the nest according to a couple wildlife rehab sites), put him outside where we think the mother might find him, and hope for the best. (The mother's won't take them back was they've been touched by a human tale is apparently false.)

The baby is cute. Especially when he's dreaming. Or having nightmares about being picked up by a huge tomcat and dragged away from his nest. He "pops" every now and then. And there are pictures and video when I get them from the sister's camera.

Stupid cat.

ETA: We believe that the baby rabbit (dubbed George Michael by my sister, for reasons unknown but presumed to be sufficient) has been reclaimed by his mother. We left him in the area where we suspected the nest might be and were checking on him every now and then. Around 11, I shown a flashlight down to the were he was from the deck and saw a full-grown rabbit hopping away. Cut the lights, waited thirty minutes, and then walked down to check. No George Michael in his box, no signs of raccoon or possum dining, we suspect momma rabbit has her baby back.

Good thing too, as the closest wildlife rehab center is a 140 mile round trip. Saving this bunny could have gotten quite expensive. And, although, my mother was well on her way to trying to domesticate him . . . well, we really don't need an illegal pet rabbit -- cute though he might have been. (Little white stripe on his forehead. Very adorable. I mean, if a great-aunt had domesticated a skunk...)

Again. Stupid cat. But all's well that end's well.

Discernment is a Big Word

When one is the resident of a Religious Studies department, one sees a lot of flyers advertising meetings for the pre-ministry kids on how to discern the call to the ministry. With the combination of my background in CofC land and my cynicism of organized religion – I typically ignored them. Other than stopping to think: only RS people can come up with such a impressive sounding way to phrase that classic post-adolescent problem: what the heck am I doing with my life?

Now, the Metra is finding that she wishing she had better heuristic devices for dealing with said question. Discernment might have to be a foreign word to adopt into the vocabulary – like theois, or Eucharist, or sanctuary.

So why isn’t discernment a strong part of the Southern Restoration Movement heritage? Part of it probably the anti-intellectualism you get in CofC land. Discernment is just a fancy word with too many syllables. The Christian Chronicle has a rather nifty and informative little article up on the history of the Harding Graduate School of Religion. It touches several times of this anti-intellectualism. Even someone from my generation has probably heard the crack that Harding is where you go to graduate from religion. This attitude goes hand in hand with the notion that the Bible is sufficient for its own interpretation, and the sneaky notion that there is only one correct interpretation of the meaning of scripture which will be blatantly obvious to all people irregardless of gender, socio-economic status, race, sexual orientation, etc.

(At the point in time, a quip repeated by Deryn Guest in When Deborah Met Jael comes to mind. If the audience of the verse: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman” is a lesbian woman, the answer is a hearty “well, of course!” At this point in time, I ask – how are we defining man and woman in this context? The social location of the person reading the text – it’s quite important.)

You can guess where I fall on the question. Firmly on the side of being an overly intellectual smart-ass.

But I think the absence of an idea of a process of discernment is also an effect of the CofC’s take on the priesthood of all [male] believers. For a long time, the idea of having a minister paid by the congregation was heresy. A preacher should have a job on the side to support himself (and his family). This is less en vogue today, but there’s still this assumption that every boy in the congregation should aspire to hold a church office. More likely the pressure is to aspire to be a deacon or an elder – the notion that God might call certain people to these positions and not others appears to be non-existent. (The notion that God might not be calling all persons in possession of an uterus to marriage and children is even more non-existent.) There is, however, a lot of effort put into training all the little boys for their roles in public worship. The attitude might be well described as: of course, God is calling you to lead the church, why would you need to discern that?

Of course, I’m not at all convinced that the Divine works like that. Nor am I convinced that view of the Church is Biblical, if we’re placing a great deal of emphasis on that element.

And, now, I’m off to continue looking for a good heuristic device to make off with. Lock up the techniques of discernment, my friends, Metra is breaking out the hunter's camo!

So I'm a bit late...

but can we get a AMEN!

California Supreme Court Affirms Equal Marriage Rights for Gays and Lesbians!

Good news -- I like it!

I is bored

so I steal meme from enGender

A couple of recent memes:

1. What is your favorite word? koneshno
   
2. What is your least favorite word? hush
   
3. What turns you on? hmm...
   
4. What turns you off? theological fellatio
   
5. What is your favorite curse word? currently, k cherty, which is a fairly mild russian curse
   
6. What sound or noise do you love? rain on a tin roof
   
7. What sound or noise do you hate? crickets
   
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? film director
   
9. What profession would you not like to attempt? business
   
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? rock on
    

and

• If you get something out of a vending machine, it’s most likely the: highly caffeinated citrus soda
  
• A word you sometimes catch yourself misspelling: secede -- yes, I'm a sorry excuse for a southerner
  
• You least want people to see you as: normal
  
• You’re a little scared of: walking alone
  
• The least attractive thing you do in your sleep: drool
  
• The number of contacts in your cell phone: i haven't the foggiest
  
• How many of them are relatives: relatively few
  
• You lose your cool when someone: paraphrases Bill O'Reilly
  
• When you go to the drugstore, you often can’t leave without buying: chocolate
  
• Your dance moves can best be described as: sugar high or drunk
  
• The majority of your underwear is: hipster cut
  
• Something you eat even though you hate how bad it is for you: soda pop, soda pop
  
• You think you’re really not a great: artist
  
• How much cash is in your wallet right now: eighty something
  
• The majority of your shoes are this color: hmm...black
  
• You don’t think you’ll ever be able to get rid of your: book-collecting habit
  
• If your breath is bad, it’s most likely because you had the: soda pop
  
• You feel embarrassed when you: completely mispronounce words
  
• The last public place where you used the restroom: EV Lodge
  
• Something you don’t like to debate in mixed company: you know, I'll pretty much debate anything anywhere
  
• You don’t think you can pull off wearing: short skirts
  
• Something you own entirely too much of: books? no, there can not be too many books
  
• Someone you would love to see in concert who might bring down your street cred: umm...Depeche Mode
  
• The last thing that you spilled on yourself: soy sauce
  
• If you were on a reality show, the producers would likely portray/characterize you as the: I'd say holy fool, but that might be a delusion of grandeur -- um, the screwball intelligent
  

When I Get to the Bottom, I Go Back to the Top...

So, I now have, hanging in my closet, graduation regalia. (Including the snap in white collar for the girls that I will not be wearing, as I shall graduate in dress pants and a button-down.)

Holy crap...I'm actually graduating.

I'm graduating. I'm moving across the country to Berkeley, CA -- a place I have never been. But I hear it's warm. I'm moving to California without a car -- not that I could afford it. I'm playing the monastic game and getting rid of things -- or trying to do so. I seem to be bad at the monastic game.

Yeah, it's just now sinking in. Meep. And that I will be on a very long sojourn from Memphis, if indeed I ever return. And I like Memphis, or at least "the forbidden zone."

Making friends with Craigslist. Need a room in an apartment and then a job. Maybe clerical at a nonprofit office -- that could be a good job, if I could snag it.

Theologizing in Exile

Deryn Guest discusses the concept of being in exile from one's spiritual home in When Deborah Met Jael. It's a good concept, and one that I think fits my experience with Christianity better than some of the metaphors I've thrown around.

I'm an exile from CofCdom. I could not remain a part of the CofC out of fear for my soul, yet I find if difficult act like the rest of America and ignore the CofC's existence, find some other spiritual home, and get on with life.

I feel pressured at times to simply be silent about the degree of hurt I feel from the CofC. I feel as though I am supposed to just get out and stay out, and never speak to the damage done by their exclusionary practices -- of being shown each Sunday that I was unworthy of distributing the Eucharist (okay, they didn't use the word Eucharist), unworthy of speaking to God publicly, unworthy of sharing my thoughts with the congregation. I have been sexualized in unwelcome ways by being told that if, as a girl, I was allowed to formally debate the boys, then I "might dress provocatively in order to distract them." (Ha!) My right to existence has been constructed as entirely contingent on entering into a patriarchal marriage, and my sanity and the existence of a heart have been questioned because I had no interest in doing so. I have mocked by peers and teachers for being nothing more than young, immature, and anger -- all of which might be true, but none of which should result in open disregard and mockery. CofCdom -- at least, the Tennessee version -- is hostile to my sense of myself and not above using spiritual violence to try to break down and reform my sense of self. I have felt abandoned by God, created only to be an anathema and scapegoat. And yet, I'm supposed to not take it personally, get over it, and move on. Forget, forget, forget -- and definitely don't talk about.

I do not mean to suggest that my injuries are cases of extreme spiritual violence. They is far worse done on a daily basis. I acknowledge that the majority of the people who have hurt me and attacked my person never intended to do so, and yet, this doesn't change the fact that violence was done. Violence of a more systematic than individual nature, but violence did happen. If I repress that, how am I supposed to move past it in any real way? And if I remain silent, how many more of my siblings will be injured by the unjust structures that govern CofCdom?

Despite all this, I have a sense of loyalty to CofCdom. I have been shaped by indelible ways by Restoration Movement thought. I'm an exile, an expat. I left my home behind, and I despair of ever being able to return, but still something in me continues to hope. To hope that the regimes and structures of CofCdom will change, and it will be a space that doesn't do violence to my person.

Wherein Metra's Butt is Kicked by the Last Semester of Undergrad

Yes . . . as in, I think this has been my most difficult semester despite having the lightest course load to date.

That and the whole questioning of what I want to do with my future thing. (Granted, if I don't receive any financial aid that decision could become easier in the short term as I try to weld my way into the camo boys' club.) I've been admitted an M.A. program with a specialization in Orthodox Christian Studies and I've had an awkward conversation with the director about how I'm not o/Orthodox. (His response: "But your name is Demetria.") Unfortunately, my mind has spun into overdrive and is now convinced that I can't possibly survive moving across the country, and then throwing in doubts that I'll be able to fit in with the program -- what with that whole extremely heterodox thing. I then remind it that I would be in Berkeley, CA -- I will be able to find many places in which I can be heterodox to my heart's content -- but it doesn't listen. The option is a general MTS program in Atlanta, which will have very few opportunities to work on Orthodoxy but lots of opportunities for queer theology, general iconography/metaphor/imagery, and Buddhism of the Tibetan variety. Atlanta also has the drawback of not really getting me out of the South. Somewhat soothed by the possibility of working summers with an absolutely amazing youth program. And neither program has gotten back to me with scholarship/financial info.

I have discovered that schools favor M.Div. students and show little love to the M.A./M.T.S. students. 'Tis frustrating.

In the course of doing some quick searching for the current paper, I have also learned -- according to Harding University -- ponytails on men are an "extreme" hairstyle. Yes. Special, no? That and gays and lesbians seem to be completely invisible at CofC schools -- although, to give credit where it might be due, Harding's sexual harassment policy seems to be phrased in a way would protect GLBT students from being harassed because of their identity. I can't be certain thats the purpose, but if it is -- it's an admirable action on the part of a University, regardless of any other policies they have.

Notes on the Wacky Weather

Yesterday, my toes experienced a brief and beautiful liberation as I broke out my Jesus sandals.

Today, it's snowing. And not just spitting. Snowing. No acclumulation on the streets yet, but the yard areas on campus are covered nicely.

I got up this morning, kicked around for an hour, and next thing I know the kids in the high school across the street are leaving, and I'm thinking -- oh, crap, did I oversleep? No, nope. Memphis is just getting some snow tonight.

Fun times.

This is what a Post-Feminist looks like

I think I'm disillusioned with feminism.

No, not in that way. Patriarchy is bad. Sledge hammers should be taken to it with gusto, preferably on a frequent basis. Castrate the idols, already!

Here's the sit.

I'm currently in a redux of Feminist Theology. Which means I'm reading roughly the same texts as I was two years ago when the class had a different number and was taught by a different professor. In some cases, the texts are just as delightful the second time around as they were the first. (Ada Maria Isasai-Diaz's Mujerista Theology remains highly recommended.) But coming back to intro-level Feminist discussions after having read Judith Butler is somewhat painful. (We're talking very intro-level here. Rhodents can apparently make it to their junior or senior year, not know the first thing about feminism, and be "concerned" about taking a feminist theology class.)

For instance, during a class discussion of creating feminist religious rituals to embrace womanhood and womanliness, I was sitting in the back corner of the room (in a gray vest and a matching gray fedora of gloriousness!) twitching a bit, and wanting to throw out the question -- does it really do any good to create feminist rituals, if the only thing you are accomplishing is reinforcing the boundaries between the constructed categories of gender? Couldn't this just be adding to the problem and continuing to force individuals into categories that are not based in their experience and so not adequately describe them? Does this lead to liberation?

I did not do this. I felt it would be rude (this was a student led discussion). Also, it would have been completely unproductive. I might have managed to engage three people out of the class of 25 or so. The rest would have been staring at me, thinking, "constructed categories of gender, buh?"

See, I wouldn't mind reading texts that I find to be outdated and essentialize the idea of some essential (non-biological) difference between the sexes, if I felt I could actually pull off getting a discussion going about possible critiques and so on and so forth. But I'm in a class that may very well suggest that Womanist and Mujerista theologies are excluding (silencing might even make an appearance, who knows?) white women. I mean, the class did decide that a feminist rereading of Genesis 2-3 was too anti-male in tone. (The exegete, Phyllis Trible, was using narrative theory and analyzing the characterization of Adam and Eve. She argued that the narrative presents Eve as far more curious than Adam, who's far more passive in the text. At no point did she suggest that this was a reflection on the male portion of the population -- her point was that traditional readings have not paid attention to the actual narrative, because they were too busy reading in the patriarchy.)

Murr.

So, I have both an example of why feminism remains a necessary movement, and an example of why I may well be post feminist at this point.

Or not.

Darned categories. If I had a hammer, I'd smash the categories. And then the patriarchy would fall into the abyss.

How do I get out of this one?

I know! I'll use a plot device!

This Dominic Deegan strip makes me smile. I should probably print it out and hang it over my desk.

If, that is, it looks as though I will ever have time to write another word of fiction again.

I wonder if the Religious Studies department has ever had a major turn their senior paper into performance art before. But there are so many possibilities for a project on Holy Fools, and such a frustrating lack of blindingly obvious scholarly resources on the Internet.

Who knows -- should the insomnia keep up, performance art of a follyful persuasive might cease to be optional.

Navigating Clothing Racks

Inspired mostly by many posts of the fantastic Dw3t-Hthr, but specifically by this one.

I’ll confess to having somewhat more than adequate navigational skills. I’m quite good at finding my way from point A to point B. I get lost, but I usually don’t stay lost for very long. (I’ve gotten lost twice in Memphis, once on the North side and once on the South side. Neither time for very long – well, if I turn south and keep going straight, eventually I’ll hit Sam Cooper or, oh hey, there’s Jackson Avenue, groovy, home we go! Midtown is a beautiful grid that navigates with great clarity.) And apparently, this is impressive enough that one friend went on a 15 minute ramble to another friend about what a good sense of direction I possess – mostly because after we had wandered through the Gostinii Dvor mall in search of mythical non-pay toilets, I knew in which direction Nevsky Prospect lay as soon as we walked out.

Here’s the funny thing. I can’t follow directions. At the beginning of the program our baby-sitter (program manager) kept trying to give me directions, and I just wanted him to point out the location on the map, and don’t worry, I’ll be there on time. I have to be able to visualize things. If I can look at a map, directions are useful – of course – but directions alone don’t help me much. I think in terms of geometry, not go until you see the two silos, and turn right.

According to a Discover article I once read, years and years in the past, this is the way male brains navigate. At the time, I thought it was pretty groovy that my brain did directions like a boy. Guess what, I still think it’s groovy. And – I can navigate without the Boy Scouts teaching me – hah!

I, of course, take this as personal proof that the male/female categories of gender are hardly as discrete, coherent, and eternal as the majority of people would like to think.

All in all, I’m not good at the whole “girl” thing. There’s a photo of me when I was two or three in a flouncy, pink ballet inspired dress. This is probably the last time I was doing good at being a girl. I’ve fought off the term “young lady” for as long as I can remember. It always felt confining and box-like. Role like, if you will.
– Sit up straight, you’re a young lady!
– But, I’m not a young lady!

I’ll ‘fess up to having gone through a couple of periods during my rapidly coming to close undergraduate career of trying to conform to being a “young lady.” I would try to up the standards of wardrobe a bit. Nice blouses. You know, one’s with pretty gathers, and made of lightweight fabric. Tighter fitting jeans. A pair of capri pants. No fashions that were offensive to my aesthetic eye. Every article of clothing I bought, I liked the look of on my friends, on my little sister, etc. Very pretty, very aesthetically pleasing clothing.

What happened? I felt ridiculously self-conscious in the flipping things. I would feel naked in the loose, flowing fabric. I would be acutely aware of every little crack in the facade. *ack! there’s a bit of my leg I forgot to shave! Wait! My posture doesn’t fit this outfit. They’re going to find me out!* So, inevitably, these pretty, feminine clothes would end up unworn in the back of my closet, whilst I run around in tie dyed T-shirts (or plaid shirts, of course), men’s jeans, and rope sandals.

In one such phase, I told my roommate that I wasn’t allowed to buy clothes from the men’s section and she was to enforce this. (She’s my normal shopping partner, or rather I’m her shopping partner and occasionally buy things for myself.) While following C. through various stores in the mall, I kept finding myself drawn to the men’s section. That’s such a pretty plaid! Look at those pearl buttons! Ah, those pants have so many pockets!

And, it isn’t that I absolutely detest dressing up. I normally don’t do so for classes, because I don’t see the point (I’ve only been to class in pajamas once, I promise), but yes, I recognize that there are situations which require looking neat, put together, and formal. I have one outfit that I tend to use when giving presentations or doing interviews. Black dress pants and a nicely detailed, striped, pearl-buttoned shirt (women’s even). Sometimes, I’ll even break out my high heels to go with it, because I want the extra inches. And, I feel perfectly comfortable in this outfit (provided I don’t need to walk far, but those cases I go for flats). It’s formal. It’s not masculine enough to make other people uncomfortable, and it’s not feminine enough to make me uncomfortable. Structure. Details. (Lace can be a good thing.) But not frills. All is well. I’m confident and ready to take on the world.

So here’s the ironic thing. When I’m “cross-dressing” that is wearing clothes which were manufactured with boys or men in mind or in the case of my business-formal wear inspired by traditionally male fashions, I feel perfectly nature and at home. It’s not a skirt versus pants things. A plain black skirt, mid calf or longer, doesn’t make me feel self-conscious. An awesome, funky skirt (such as the brown, black, orange, and red, huge print on polyester number I refuse to throw out) won’t make me self-conscious – it’s in a category all of its own. Put me in "feminine" clothes and I am going to be a nervous wreck, feeling like a house of cards about to fall down – doing drag and failing miserably at it.

And this has very little to do with wanting to look like a boy, or not look like a girl. It’s just that the things that I like on a garment for my own wear – patterns, straight lines, subtle but present detailing, and a certain level of practicality – show up more frequently in men’s clothing than in women’s. And since I can get away with wearing men’s clothes since I have no hips and am not well endowed in the bust area – why bother with making the distinction?

Am I a Christian? Part 4

Freelance Theologian, Will Annoy and Offend People For Food

“I would do it all again. Lose my way and fall again.
Just so I could call again. On the mercy in you.”
Depeche Mode, ‘Mercy in You’

“Yet, I wanted to live in clean air and say Yes, or No, mean what I said and have it understood and no nonsense. I hate half-things, half-heartedness, stupid false situations, inverted feelings, pumped-up loves and hand-decorated hates. I hate people who stare at themselves in mirrors and smile. I want things straight and clear or at least I want to be able to see when they’re crooked and confused. Anything else is just nasty and so my life is nasty and I am ashamed of it. And I have an albatross around my neck that I didn’t even shoot. I simply don’t know how he got there.”
Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools

I think my view of the Divine could best be described as a Cubist painting. I manage to simultaneously hold in my mind that God is at best indifferent. Is a patient father. A wise teacher. Is a demanding lover/master/mistress. A helpful older sibling. A comforting friend. Unknowable and transcendent. Immanent and revealed. And a few other things, depending on recent events. And I don’t have even a fraction of possible angles.
But here’s the important thing.
I’m not scared.
I don’t lose sleep at night worrying about going to hell. A God who would send me to hell for asking a question isn’t a God who deserves my belief or my devotion.
And this is not because I believe I’m right the majority of the time, or because I think I am somehow privy to the mind of God. I don’t know the mind of God. The mind of God is currently unknowable. The ultimate truth is currently unknowable. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t an ultimate truth, it just means that any human who claims to know what is, is most likely lying to you. I don’t actually know what God thinks about anything.
I’m only working with what I got. Which is 21 years of lived experience. That and having read way, way too much. Ain’t much – I know. But you’ve got to act on something.
The chorus of voices just said to act on the Bible.
But in my experience, the Bible is not the infallible word of God. A word of God – sure. The word of God – no.
The chorus of voices just sung something about the faith of our fathers.
But, I’m not my father.
The chorus just erected a billboard reading “Give it up to God.”
No, actually, I think I’m pretty much on my own. Just because God could pull off a miracle doesn’t mean that God will, not matter how earnestly you pray. Maybe we need a metaphor of God as Heartbreaker. Not the God who “pricks” hearts with feelings of guilt, or whatever word the King James uses. God the Heartbreaker, as in the being who crushes you for no discernable reason, and with no explanation. None of this dualism where tragedy, personal or public, is the work of the devil. None of this crap about the end times and an angry, vengeful God. Just God the Heartbreaker.
Maybe God wants us to develop a bit of independence. Grow up.
I’m going to dive into some Biblical exegesis here. Ever noticed how in the Gospels, J.C. typically isn’t wandering around in sandals upbraiding people for believing incorrectly. No, the majority of the time when Jesus is pissed off, it’s because he’s come head to head with a group of hypocrites. People who didn’t live honestly. And, I don’t limit hypocrite to people who say one thing and then do another. I think people who deny the individual experience they’ve been given for the sake of conformity to a creed as just a hypocritical as anyone else.
Here’s the main article of my faith. God isn’t going to send me to hell for being wrong. No matter what, I’m going to be wrong about something. But if I live earnestly. If I attempt to treat others fairly and justly. If I honestly do my very best to sort out the right from the wrong. If I learn from my mistakes. And pay attention. And listen to wisdom, and pain, and experiences that others offer to share with me. To discern the real in the maze of constructions. To defend what I believe to be the good and the just as best I can possibly determine it, given the limits of what I have to work with.
I don’t need or want an eldership or hierarchy responsible for my soul. I wouldn’t mind a community of fellow travelers, so we could gather at the end of the day, discuss the sights we saw and our impressions thereof, filling in the gaps in our individual knowledge with the experience of our comrades. Maybe take photos for each other when batteries die in cameras. But I have no interest in a safe guided tour, where we all see the same sights and are told what to think of them.
And yeah. I’m going to screw up. But, for the sake of getting a little closer to knowing what is fully unknowable – I’m willing to do it.

Am I a Christian? Part 3

“Let righteous anger ripen in you,

Prepare your hands for the work to come . . .

or if you cannot – then let boredom

and grief gather and burn in you . . .

but, without more ado, wipe off

the greasepaint mask of this sham life,

and like the timid mole dig down

from light into the earth – lie prone

and still, hating life fiercely,

despising all the world and – though

you cannot see the future clearly –

saying to the present: NO.”

Aleksandr Blok, from “Yes. This is the Call of Inspiration.” trans. Stallworthy and France

(Also. Happy Birthday, Aleksandr Blok. I would go drink at your grave -- but its in the middle of an industrial area, and I don't quite feel like dying.)

I’ve come to a recognition while wandering through various places in Russia. I want to be a monk. Not a nun. Not a bride of Christ. A monk. A holy fool. On the edge of society and the edge of reason. A Lover of God.

Ever since I was little, I’ve wanted to serve communion, to lead singing, and to preach. The CofC pays lip service to the protestant idea of a priesthood of all believers. In theory, any Christian can bless the Eucharist. In theory, any Christian can serve communion. In theory, any Christian can fulfill the functions of a priest. In general practice, this means a priesthood of all male-bodied believers.

I read once that Saint Therese, the Little Flower, commented once that it was a blessing that she died young, that God allowed her to die in the year she would have been ordained as a priest if she were a man, so that she wouldn’t suffer. If I were a man, I would be a priest.

But I’m not a man. And I’m so bitter now that I’m the person laughing madly in corner, sneering to hide the fact that I’m waiting for the next blow to fall. I’m much too young for this.

Sure, yes, I see the verses stating that the man is the head of the woman. But I’m not a very good woman, and perhaps not even a woman, depending upon how you want to construct the term. And, what about Mary Magdalene? What about Galatians? Why would the Bible tell me in one place that it’s best to remain unmarried, and then later say that if I want to know anything, I have to ask my husband at home?

But we don’t have ordination. And they start training the boys for the ministry as soon as they can hold a Bible in their hands and read. And maybe it shouldn’t have felt like this, but every service where my male peers or even boys hardly old enough to read served the Eucharist, or led the singing, or read from the Bible, or stammered his way through a short sermon, it was another punch, another hit. It didn’t matter that I was as smart as, as talented as, worked as hard as any of those boys. It didn’t matter that when it came done to it, I was a better speaker than the majority of the guys. I was barred for the pulpit. I was exiled to the girls, who giggled together, and thought I was very odd because I didn’t have a crush on any of the boys. A stranger in a strange land. Caught in between two worlds, and in both I’m considered to be a bit “queer.”

Can I be a Christian when the majority of my experience has taught me that there is no place for me in the Body of Christ? No place for the tomboy.

And no, it doesn’t matter than there are many denominations where I would be welcome. I’ve been attacked by too many people bearing the name Christian. Can the goat driven out to the desert ever easily trust another human?

Am I a Christian? Part 2

Your Own Personal Jesus

“The vision of Christ that thou dost see,

is mine vision’s greatest enemy.”

William Blake

What was it that one of my professors said in class the other day: When you try to look at reality closely, you lose the ability to describe it.

I’m fond of Jesus. And I’m most certainly culturally a Christian – it’s the symbol set I’m best acquainted with. I can proof-text with all but the best (and give me a crack at the best, and I’ll take up the challenge). Christianity is the main force that shaped the lense through which I view the world. Not feminism, not libertarianism, not even my beloved Dostoevsky – Christianity. I’ll even admit that I’m very strongly marked by the Restoration Movement. Everything went downhill from Constantine on. Augustine – please, must we? Are you really certain you need an ecclesiastic hierarchy? But I’m a bad Church of Christ girl, because I don’t believe the Bible is the full, complete, and inerrant Word of God.

A chorus of voices in my head are asking right now just how I’m going to know Jesus, if not through the Bible. Welcome to my skull.

Is it enough to think that J.C. ain’t a bad example of the Divine incarnated in humanity? (Russian has a word for this: bogochelovechestvo -- Godmanhood/Divine Humanity/the translators are still playing to get the nuances into English.) Can you be a Christian if you happen to believe that even if J.C. is an extremely good example of bogochelovechestvo, he isn’t sufficient on his own? That we need other images the Divine within the human.

I’m also someone who has a tendency to be fond of various Hindu deities and the Buddha. And I’m developing a strong belief that all churches should have icons and lots of them, because one image of divine humanity just isn’t enough. Not even Jesus. My first remembered instance of religious-themed sarcasm was when I giggled to myself at the preacher talking about how J.C. had experienced all possible forms of human suffering. Jesus PMSing and cramping? Yeah. Right. Sure, he got much more acute physical suffering – but was he ever really trapped in his body the way I am? Trapped in a body dubbed the weaker vessel that revolts on a regular basis?

(I’d be a bad Hindu too, by the way. Karma, reincarnation – yes. Dharma – not so much.)

Can I be a Christian and take offerings of fruit to Sarasvatti? Can I be a Christian if I prefer other images of the Divine? If I light candles for Mary of Egypt and ask her to guide me? If I burn incense before an image of Sophia? If my soul has never wanted to dance more than before an image of Vishnu called by the drums and bells? Not to the exclusion of Jesus, but . . . you get the picture. If Christ is in the name, does Christ have to be the main image?

Maybe the reverse is more important. Can I be anything but a Christian when ultimately Christianity is the dominant force that has shaped my thinking?

Perhaps, I’ll start telling people that I’m an Origenist and see how that goes over.

Foriegn Country or High School

So, I keep having this strange feeling that I'm back in high school, and all the pretty girls are laughing at jokes in a language I don't understand.

That, and the library keeps running out of printing paper.