Being In Many Places At Once

There was a piece on public radio this past week that's been bouncing around in my head I guess. It seems that the actual location of the Four Corners Monument is in reality about 1200 feet off the mark due to imperfect surveying techniques at the time the borders were determined. Four Corners Monument is the only place in the United States were you can be in four states at one time - Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Getting your photo taken being in all four states simulaneously is a popular tourist pic as demonstrated in the image above.

This concept has resonated with me as I have continued to post comments at the Stand Firm In Faith blog. For those of you unfamiliar with this blog, it is the home to very conservative - some are rabidly conservative - Anglicans and more often than not the running commentary runs to the extreme. Friends of mine from other blogs don't understand why I would do this. They see the folks at SFIF as the "enemy." I have been gently criticized for posting comments there and warned about their "evil ways." Sadly I believe that that is what many of the folks at SFIF would say to one of their regulars posting at OCICBW, for example.

However, when I choose to comment at SFIF I am aware of the overall bent of the place I am visiting. I don't believe there is anything to be gained by attempting to change minds with a head on approach. That seems to lead to furious typing and name calling and little is changed in the end. Instead I try to put forth my presence into the dialogue. There have been a few recent posts where the homophobia was running rather thickly. Yet at the heart of what was being discussed, I could still find common ground and very politely put forth my gay opinion while emphasizing where I was concurring.

What I am discovering is that I no longer want to be part of a cyber shouting match. I have never been comfortable arguing over abstract topics or politics with my friends and acquaintances face to face--why on Earth did I think I would end up enjoying it on line?

What is worse is that on line, it is so much easier to comparmentalize people--so much easier to just fall onto one side or the other and dig in your heels. At least when I fall into arguing over a movie with my friend Pam, we have this deep, multi-layered friendship to fall back on to get back to grace when we are exhausted from our battle of words. These cyber connections are much more tenuous. We are either spewing forth our wrath at nameless, faceless "trolls" or end up in a snit with a cyber friend for which we have the shallowest of connections. Recovering grace is much more challenging, therefore, in an on-line world.

Finally, it is so important to remember that we can be in many places at once. Much as we try to divide up the country into red and blue - the states are purple, the counties are purple, the towns are purple, the people are purple. I cannot tow any single party line. I am too complex for that and I must remind myself that that is also true of everyone I meet on line. That individual caught up in his/her rant about what they perceive is the "gay agenda," they are speaking from the heart out of fear or anger or both. If I reject them outright based on that one moment in their complex lives, then hate wins. It is not always easy, but I try to put forward a face of love. Jesus taught me that - it's easy to love your friends and doesn't win you much in the end - try loving your enemies, you just might find that there's room for friendship there. Peace.

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

The last few days have dealt me an emotional body blow, and I'm not talking about the $8000 I've had to put into the house and car over the past 10 days. I'm talking about the weather. I try to be very aware of myself - I'm not sure if that is in direct relation to my tendency towards anxiety and depression or because I often drift into obsessive/compulsive thinking.

For example, I've learned that if I let myself get dehydrated over the course of the day I feel much more tired in the afternoon than if I've been drinking water throughout. When I'm overly tired, I feel blue, more so than at other times. My physical self affects my emotional self - much more than I ever would have thought.

I've trained myself to do a quick check when I start to feel pissy, tired, sad, or downright angry. Have I eaten? Have I only been drinking coffee all morning? How much sleep did I get last night? Oftentimes I have my answer and can let go of the negativity and then go get a snack or a big glass of water or take a nap.

The flip side is the euphoria (at times almost mania) I get from coffee - that caffeine high is wonderful. However, that my overall mood can be so altered by these things leaves me wondering what really IS me. All this brings me to the weather.

Traditionally Spring is the worst season for me mentally. My stress and anxiety climb. This year I am particularly trying to observe myself and how I'm doing. Thus far I am watching my ability to sleep melt away. It's not just that the dogs are ready to go earlier and earlier each day as the sun rises ever earlier - I feel unable to sleep or nap. Thankfully it doesn't seem to bother me at night.

As the weather warmed up and the snow began to melt, I felt something akin to the euphoria I normally only feel with coffee. I finally found the motivation to get cleaning and organizing. Thankfully it was in the midst of this "happiness" that all the bills piled up with needed repairs and I was able to blithely commit to debt. I was actually laughing and joking with the gal at the plumbing and heating company when the furnace had died.

Then the snow came back.

We had heavy wet cold snow this week. The skies went gray. The air got cold and damp. The ground is covered again in white. I found myself mourning the crocuses. I found myself wanting to do nothing but sleep and eat lots of carbs. Ultimately I thought - I really am not all that removed from the animals of the forest am I?

Should I Really Be Doing This...

It's Friday evening and I am rather tired. I'm not certain I should be blogging at this very moment, but the Spirit has never steered me wrong yet. It is 70 degrees for the first time this year and the goldfinches are swarming at the feeders. I spent a little while in the hammock chair on the porch just being.

The saga of the selection of the next Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Northern Michigan continues. A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from the bishop elect in his continuing role as Missioner/Ministry Developer at the congregation that I left last Fall. You may remember from other posts, I gave him a memo in which I stated that I was "going on a leave of absence, perhaps indefinitely." I did this because I didn't want to make a dramatic exit from the congregation.

I no longer had faith in him as a leader in the church and if the chance existed that he would be chosen as the next bishop, which has since come to pass, I did not want to leave following that announcement. Once the discernment group made their announcement in February, I knew I would not return to St. Paul's and perhaps would be forced to leave the Episcopal Church.

In response to my statement of going on leave, I was informed that my leave would last for six months at which time we, the missioner and members of the Ministry Support Team and myself, would meet to discuss where I was and work to reintegrate me into the team. This six month time frame was his idea, not mine. At the time I received the e-mail last month, I was waiting until about now in order to formally inform the Vestry that I would not be returning to St. Paul's and submit my resignation from the Ministry Support Team.

The e-mail was essentially polite. However, he felt the need to include the following, "If you would be prepared to bring us up to date on how you are. Also, it would be helpful for you to talk with us about your role as a blogger and how that relates to your ministry as a deacon on the MST." My response was simple and to the point. I informed him that I had no intention of returning to St. Paul's and felt, therefore, that no meeting was necessary.

You know, I came out my senior year of high school. I started dating this guy who had previously dated my good friend Margaret. She was acting strangely and we figured she had figured us out. We sat down to have a talk to get it all out in the open. We were mistaken. She hadn't known or suspected and now she was pissed. Soon thereafter she would walk the halls of school with a hangdog expression and folks would ask her: "Margaret, what's wrong?" She would reply, "How would you feel if you just found out your boyfriend was sleeping with your best friend?" They would be shocked and say, "Oh, no! Anita?" She would hook them then with, "No, Larry!"

My point in sharing this non sequitor is that in the end - no one knew for certain what to believe. Some folks believed that we were gay for the right reasons; some folks believed we were gay for the wrong reasons; some folks disbelieved Margaret's tale for the right reasons; and, some folks disbelieved it for the wrong reasons.

A similar situation has developed over this selection of bishop. There are those that oppose it for the right reasons and those that oppose it for the wrong reasons. Similarly, there are those that support it for the right reasons and those that support it for the wrong reasons.

IMHO the folks that are supporting or opposing for the wrong reasons tend to be arguing on a much higher plane. They are arguing about the purpose of the consenting process and what the bishops and standing committees should consider in determining their "vote." They are arguing about what Buddhist lay ordination means in conjunction with priestly vows within the Episcopal Church. They are arguing about Christology. Accusations are flying from both sides of the aisle.

I think tonight I would like to talk a bit about the folks who are opposing or supporting for the right reasons. For example, if you believe that the unusual and new selection process adequately met the canonical requirements of the church, and you haven't seen adequate evidence to suggest that the process was flawed, and you believe that the Episcopal church should embrace a widening view of theology, then you are likely to support this selection, and I would state that you are supporting it for the right reasons.

In a similar fashion, if you don't believe the new and unusual selection process adequately met the canonical requirements of the church, and/or you believe that irregularities in the enactment of said process raise a cloud of doubt over the legitimacy, and/or you believe that there are some key theological points that cannot be fudged, then you are likely to not support this selection - unofficially 20 of the 110 bishops thus far have publicly stated that they intend to vote "no" -- and, I would argue that you are opposing this selection for the right reasons.

I myself have some very personal reasons for not supporting this choice. I fully admit, though, that had a traditional selection process occurred in which he was the chosen candidate from a slate of potential bishops, I would be in a position to accept that the diocese had made our choice.

What has happened though is that an untested, theoretical process, drafted essentially by the man ultimately selected as the final candidate, kept it's deliberations in closely guarded secrecy, enacted significant changes from the traditional selection process (namely, forbidding open application and eliminating a true election), and then kept essential information from the special convention delegates.

The rationale for having the discernment team put forward a single name was this: in true discernment the team will identify the one correct individual who will be the best fit for the diocese. Unfortunately, the one correct individual unexpectedly rescinded leaving the discernment team uncertain on how to proceed.

Apparently according to participants on the team, they were told that, despite previous information disseminated to the diocese, they could not afford to start again from scratch, so the team was forced into a candidate by default, the present nominee. None of this was shared with the delegates at the Special Convention who were there to affirm (not elect) the slate of members of the Episcopal Minsitry Support Team. The delegates were allowed to believe that everything proceeded as planned and that the choice for bishop was THE one correct individual who would be the best fit for the diocese. This was misleading at best.

I raised the very issues that may be undermining the selection with members of the discernment team months ago before the selection was made. I have been told by those individuals that when they tried to introduce these concerns, they were shut down. Yes, I have been commenting on blogs, initially in a very anonymous way, and then more and more openly. I have been called names by individuals completely removed from the process. It is possible that others have brought my comments back to the nominee. There is nothing that I have shared that I regret or is false.

This past week two very prolific bloggers have been duking it out in cyber space over this issue and my name was dragged into some of their comments. I had settled in and was quietly moving on. I had accepted that what would be, would be. I had found some new places to feed my spirituality in real time and real space and in cyber time and cyber space. However, here I am blogging tonight about this very issue.

I look forward to a time when this is all behind us. Perhaps he will be bishop, perhaps we will no longer be a stand alone diocese. I will be glad when it is settled.

Thoughts On Resurrection

We are such a literal culture. A few hundred years into the enlightenment and literalism permeates how we see the world, how we think, how we value...we attempt to see in black and white; in order to understand we demand facts, answers, absolute proofs; and we value by strict measurement--usually in dollars.

Spiritually this has drained off so much of the mystical, the ambiguous, the holy. We seem to be faced with the daunting choice of disbelief (religion is the opiate of the masses, it's nothing more than mass delusion), fanatical belief (every word in the Bible is the literal truth of God to the denial of scientific knowledge) or crossed fingers belief (I believe in God, but...).

Have you seen the movie Big Fish by Timothy Burton? Essentially it is the story of a young man who's relationship with his father is strained because he cannot accept the stories his father tells him about his life. They are too fantastic to be true and so he rejects them outright and rejects his father. The movie is a wonderful display of these stories as relayed to the audience from this young man's frustrated viewpoint.

It's been awhile so my memory of the specifics of the plot is a bit shaky, but by movie's end he has reconciled with his father because he begins to understand Truth in his father's stories. The movie ends with a gathering of individuals that represent the various tales at his father's funeral.

I believe the point is not in determining whether or not the stories told by the father were factually true or not. It's about learning to hear the stories from a different frame of reference. One that sets aside the enlightenment paradigm of establishing fact from fiction first and moving forward from there.

Here's another cinematic example - Fargo. If you remember, at the very beginning the Coen brothers included the tag that the movie was based on actual events, which was patently false. There were folks who were angry to learn that this was an artistic twist - to play with that frame of reference - that knee jerk need to initially determine authenticity from story before proceeding. I think it was brilliant.

I think the whole point of religion (not the politics and organization structure) is dependent on shifting away from that paradigm. I don't want to get caught up in an argument between Richard Dawkins and Pope Benedict - two extremes. I don't even want to put myself on that continuum.

My faith, my belief, my love, my God is not part of that discussion. Once again I will use my Monet example. Monet's series of painting of haystacks were not about the haystacks - they were about the light, the changing light. The haystacks were mere objects to reflect the light.

Jesus of Nazareth preached a new way of living, he shook up the ordered structure, he smashed the old paradigm, he challenged the authority, he insisted on seeing in a new light...and he was executed for it. The miracle of the resurrection is that today this new life, this light continues to resonate. Amen.

"Celebrity-du-Jour" Enters Jerusalem

. . . . .

I truly believe that given the opportunity humans will choose to behave like sheep. On a small scale, I remember an evening at Union Station in Chicago. Our commuter train was late, hadn't even arrived yet. A few individuals would look down the track and decide to go out on the platform and a mass migration would begin. People started to follow without even thinking. I could almost hear the bleating.

I started to think about Jerusalem on this Sunday two thousand years ago. How many in the throngs of people understood who this man was and were there to greet him tearfully, eager to catch a glimpse of something they understood to be profoundly holy; and how many were there to see the latest "celebrity," along the lines of the latest American Idol winner, no real understanding, any excuse for a party.

The palm waving crowds, the masses, the great unwashed hordes... A corrupt and frightened leadership... An oppressed people yearning for something better... A Messiah figure...

How rapidly they turned on him. How like sheep...

Report Of Our Service On Episcopal Cafe

Ann Fontaine has written a lovely post on our service at Episcopal Cafe. Thanks again to everyone who contributed and participated. We truly created something holy and mystical last night - we gathered together spiritually - a very dramatic display of what we do everyday by holding each other in our prayers. We are all connected...God is with us. Amen.

We Are All Connected...God Is With Us

Do you ever feel the Holy Spirit?

I awoke Monday and logged on to learn that something horrible had happened. An individual known by many in my ever widening cyber circle had died tragically (see below). By the time I got home from work and was able to log into Face Book, the blogs I follow, e-mail, etc. it was clear to me that many, many of my Internet friends and acquaintances were in pain, grieving the unexpected loss of a friend.

I went to bed that night with their thoughts and comments whirling in my brain. That's when I felt the Holy Spirit. You see, I couldn't sleep because this idea took hold of my tired brain and it wouldn't go away. The idea was that I must organize a cyber funeral for these folks. It was all right there, I could use Face Book to coordinate and gather the folks, I could create a virtual chapel by creating a blog dedicated to the service, I could use Hipcast to record and post the readings, the music, the homily. I could use the status updates on FB to lead folks through the service. It kept spinning faster and faster and in the end I was forced to get out of bed past midnight and turn on my computer.

Within minutes I had created Emmanuel Cyber Chapel. I picked a "theme" for the blog and only later realized that the series of connecting squares were a symbol of our lives in cyberspace. I typed in the description - "we are all connected...God is with us." That idea is a foundation of my personal beliefs and also a wonderful descriptor of how I am connecting with folks via the web.

I then went to Face Book and created a Face Book Group Page, which also served as virtual chapel space and here I was able to create an event - the memorial service. I then invited some of the individuals who I knew were hurting and finally went to bed around 1AM.

The response was phenomenal. In the end local and cyber friends of Lee contributed recordings of the readings, people shared music files or made suggestions, I began to type up a Word document of the service so I could cut and paste. The best and final piece - the Homily -one of the individuals I connected with said he could do the homily and I thought "great." What I didn't realize at the time was that this man was Lee's pastor and friend and what he proposed doing was recording the actual homily he delivered earlier today at the real life funeral service.

By this afternoon I was so excited and so nervous. After all, I had no idea if this would even work, if I was able to communicate to the attendees my assumptions about the computer software so that they were having the experience I was hoping for. In the end I believe it was an awesome event. Picture 40 or so people scattered over the continent - California, Canada, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Florida, New York, Virginia, Tennessee - even one person in France - all praying together. We even had a symbolic Eucharist. Individuals were encouraged to have "bread" and "wine" ready. Fr. Mark assured me that he would say the words and do the appropriate hand movements as I sent the bits of Eucharist prayer out through the web.

Now I am relieved and content. People who couldn't possibly have flown across the country to attend the funeral of someone they never met in person were able to celebrate his life in the venue in which they knew him. The Spirit worked through me this week and I am glad for it. Peace to all my brothers and sisters who supported this wonderful service, and rest in peace, Lee.

Peace, At Last, For Lee

Lee McKinley Davenport was a complicated individual. I only knew him from his presence on the Internet--on FaceBook and our blogging community. He carried a bigger load of challenges than many of us, but all of his challenges are those faced in one way or another by most of my friends and family: divorce, depression, pain, even terminal illness. I believe there was more to Lee's emotional problems than just depression. In the end, whatever triggered his last tragic decision - to end his life- ultimately it was his own decision. He decided to leave.

I think there's a selfishness to suicide. That may sound odd and it may sound painful to those who are feeling particularly raw over the loss of this unique man. Depression is a form of blindness - the dark curtains are drawn and our perceptions are skewed. We cannot see the love that is there or the love we do see we devalue because it is not the love we desire. Just as we pull our bodies in with physical pain, emotionally we wrap ourselves in those stifling dark curtains and cling to our misery.

This is the selfishness I am attempting to describe - it is a self-absorption that may be too painful to crack open - and, tragically, it sometimes ends with death. Those left behind, those who's love was not recognized or was devalued - they are left to mend the void - and too often they lay blame at their own doorsteps. However, there is very little more that one can do once the curtains are that tightly bound - it is like trying to coax a turtle out of it's shell.

Anger is such a powerful emotion - and we have so few ways to adequately express it -- and often it gets stuffed into ourselves and denied. Some say depression is anger turned inward. Others eat their anger through food or drink it through alcohol. I think that much of the emotional firestorm that follows a tragedy like this is misplaced anger. Our anger with Lee for leaving gets displaced onto others who we feel aren't grieving the way we want them to be grieving, it gets turned into guilt, it gets turned into depression (anger turned inward).

Anger is healthy and we should allow it to breathe. Anger is not the denial or debasement of our love. Anger is not the antithesis of love. Anger is not hatred. Be angry with Lee while you mourn him. If God is the Love that joins us together - then Lee deliberately rejected that love from his profound level of pain. We can be angry with that rejection, we can be angry that he chose to leave his two small children behind. We can be angry that he lashed out at individuals as a parting gesture. We can be angry with him and we can still love him and mourn him. It is ok to feel that anger. Release that anger to the heaven's - do not dump it onto each other, do not dump it onto Lee's parents. Nothing is as simple as we would desire it to be.

In closing I would direct you to my good friend, Maria's blog where she had posted some additional thoughts about Lee.

Finally, we are planning a FaceBook memorial service for Friday evening at 8:00 PM EDT. If you have friended me on FB than simply log on and also bookmark Emmanuel Cyber Chapel where the service music and readings will be posted. Peace to you, my brothers and sisters.