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.

Are You Going to be a Missionary?

I was just chatting last night about how a lot of people from the church I was raised in assumed that since I'm (was? -- oh god, just finished the last undergrad class!) double majoring in Russian Studies and Religious Studies that I'm going to go out and convert the heathen masses of Russia.

Yeah, I don't want to make Putin that mad. (And there's that whole opinion I have that Orthodoxy, while not perfect, is far superior to the Evangelical groups who tend to be running missions in Russia.)

There are huge problems with the way that the Orthodox Church in Russia has been caught up in a nationalist movement. There are issues of freedom of religion. (However, we Americans should be careful to not read our experiences with certain religion dominating government policy into the situation with Russia.) Obviously, Orthodox bishops dubbing Protestants "Christ-killers" is a problem. But the article would have you believe that the Russian Orthodox are all hateful barbarians and that the Protestants are squeaky-clean.

I really feel like this article didn't do justice to the colonizing element of Protestant missions in Russia. Many people involved with these missions seem to not even recognize Orthodoxy as Christianity. I have heard comments that dehumanize and defame Russians. (Most famously: "They just don't know how to love each other.") It's difficult to sort these colonial attitudes out from some genuinely good impulses that are also present in mission work, but the colonial attitude can't be ignored. That is -- the poor, persecuted Protestants aren't necessarily as innocent as this article would have you believe.

Scary, but charismatic...

So, I'm a bit behind times, but have you seen this video of Putin's latest take down of Bush?



Not that I'm interested in having Russian style democracy in the U.S. (Although, with the Real ID, that lovely document carrying at all times portion of the Russian experience might be coming to a state near you!), but stuff like this is why I just can't bring myself to completely dislike Putin. He's got guts. He's intelligent. Witty. And he calls Bush for what he is to his face.

Oh, and yes -- if push comes to shove, I'd rather be living under a Russian style democracy than the mess that's passing under that name in Iraq right now. I think the survival rates in Russia are a bit better for the average person on the street.

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.

Du-buh?

Questions that have run through my mind recently:

Just what is Bill O'Reilly referring to when the words "the far left" leave his mouth? Does he realize that the "far" left actually isn't that excited about Barack Obama? I suspect the far left is too terrifying for the BOR to even imagine.

Disregarding other things Rev. Wright may have said (my gut feeling is that, for the most part, he's being unfairly taken out of context), how on earth is the statement, "America is run by rich, white people," incendiary? It just seems to be factual. Angry, yes. Offensive, no.

Why is this book in existence? Seriously, I kinda want to get my hands on it for laughs. I love the scrambling to shore up the hegemony of representation. And my two cents on the matter: Eastern Orthodoxy is very much Christian.

Why does much of Christianity purport to conform to Chalcedon and yet completely ignore the FULL HUMANITY of Jesus Christ?

How did I manage to miss the word theosis until today? How sad for me. Much easier to say than bogochelovechstvo.

How can it be so difficult to find a picture of two broken pots on the interwebs?

Now leaving my brainspace...

On another note -- to anyone and everyone celebrating the Resurrection today -- Happy Easter!

Pipe dreams of the Kingdom of the God

Check out this article from Alternet on the New Atheists.

I've only read a few pages of Sam Harris, but something struck me -- just within those few pages as he denigrated the idea of nonviolence and the work of Gandhi -- that something was very wrong with his argument. The more I heard arguments borrowed from Harris and company, the more it appeared that something was very wrong. Something was very wrong in the way the authors were defining religion, and something else was wrong there, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I think this article gets at a lot of what I was feeling to be wrong with Harris's arguments. And has some good points on its own. My one caveat is that I'm not certain the degree to which I want to endorse the rejection of the idea of progressing towards a better future. There's plenty of reason to be skeptical about the idea (as any Russian Studies major can tell you). I'm more inclined to caution against thinking that progress as a society is inevitable -- it must be worked for and carefully guarded through vigilance -- and to firmly reject any utopian ideas that deny the value (and the rights) of the individual. Further, it is an imperative to understand that movement (forwards, backwards, or sideways) creates a shift in perspective, which changes the very vision of the end, the utopia, the kingdom of God. One can have a sense of what utopia should be -- a construction, if you will -- which allows one to analyze and critique the present, but one must not confuse that construction with reality.