A Dream

I had a bizarre dream last night. I asked the son of a pivotally influential conservative minister to marry me (Even though I am married and he is married.) I was in my childhood home---I have had several vivid dreams set there lately---and I asked this person to marry me. We were not close. Politely cordial.

He said yes. We didn't touch or kiss or hang out together. I might have asked him if he agreed it was a nice day. We went our ways.

Then we got married. There was a brief moment on the chancel of the big cathedral from my childhood. No feelings. Very businesslike. Then I am back at my parents house, and I am trying to find my running shoes. He is nowhere around, and that is fine. I don't expect him. I'm frustrated. I can't find them anywhere. I'm sifting through piles of stuff, looking in all the closets and near the doors. My (lesbian) sister shows up to visit my parents. I'm looking through her stuff. In the back of my mind, I'm hoping I don't have to change my last name because I'm dead set against it. I'm wanting to be with Phil (my actual husband) and not with husband number two. I'm wondering why he said yes and what his wife is going to think....

Very strange.

So I'm trying to leave my parents' house but I can't find my shoes.... They are buried in all the stuff.

This isn't symbolic or anything....

What the heck was the weird marriage part about? There was no attraction. It was very business like. But suddenly there's this permanent legal tie, that I pursued and chose, that will now just be really hindering, annoying, and hard to explain.

And that was the dream.

Where's Joseph when you need him?

Huh. Well, off to school. Soon I will know what my Christian Doctrine teacher thought of my third essay. Dare I hope for a 12?

haha! I'm so sick. What a perfectionist. It's creepy. Will I be happy with anything less than eleven, now that I've gotten one? Sigh.

Inclusive orthopraxy and doneness

It is heavily overcast today. The wind is raw and penetrating. I sit at my computer feeling mildly off. Chills, low appetite, headache, and very little interest in anything to do with going outside or thinking hard. ---not the best recipe for graduate level studying. Ah well.

Greek has shifted from fun to scary. I'm hoping it will shift back once I shake this bug. I can't digest new thoughts easily. It gives me sympathy for students that struggle with learning more than I seem to.

It's funny how often, when I am sick, I cannot imagine feeling better. I am sure that THIS time, I will stay sick forever. So I have no idea how I will finish this term, let alone the whole four years....

Last Thursday, professor Hegedus handed out a sheaf of information on how to do our term papers. As he was going through it, he paused and made a firm statement about gender inclusive language. The seminary has a policy of reflecting complete inclusivity, and he will take marks off of our papers for not using inclusive language---even if we simply forget or don't realize our style is not inclusive. My eyes went wide with wonder.

This is SO cool. It gives me shivers. A gentle hero. The whole school not only allows me here, but fights on my behalf for my inclusion.

Somewhere around Friday I went into an emotional tailspin. I haven't quite regained my usual equilibrium since Thanksgiving stirred up all the spiritual losses. Huge, painful memories, and issues with my denomination of origin that continue to be re-injured. Nearly every contact with official representatives brings with it revictimization. Big clumsy arrogant idiots. They have no idea.

Thanksgiving service was yet another death blow. I had asked myself, "How bad can it be? It's a festival service." I looked forward to time in the beloved Chapel, seeing the faces of my former fellow congregants, and singing the favourite holiday hymns.

Well, the opening prayer, read from the new liturgy, was in the vein of "we are nothing but evil and only You are good and please make us pure so we come be with you in heaven...."

Our former pastor used to pray from his heart, without reading. Right there, straight and honest and true.

The "we are nothing but evil" emphasis that the new pastor favours makes me feel like vomiting. It is re-victimizing. I believe that we are not evil, nor are we good. Everything good is from God, everything evil from hell; that's straight from Swedenborg. And God's love is NOT conditional. He is present right here, right now, despite my impurities; which, by the way, I can never quite be free of, not being God and all.....

So closeness to God is not conditional based on being made pure! "When you are pure, then you can be close to me."

That's a parent who won't hug a child because the child needs a bath, or worse, has scrapes and scratches with ground in dirt! "Ew. Go get cleaned up, then I'll hug you."

Maybe God draws us into His lap and holds us and tends the wounds Himself! Hello?
Overemphasis on God's Divinity keeps Him remote, and keeps us as groveling, fearful, shame-filled serfs. Is that the relationship of a Father with his children?

(As an aside, I freely acknowledge my heavy use of the male pronoun here for God. And this, after my rant about using gender inclusive language. Here is my position. I grew up with "He" and "Him" for God, and the picture in my mind gives him a gentle father/brother face. I know and believe that God is all, that male and female are made in (his) image. But I am incapable of picturing an androgynous divine being at this time and I find the constant use of He/She cumbersome. Until we have a pronoun for God that keeps God human yet excludes gender, "he" is going to have to suffice.)

So there I am in the chapel, deep in. Six people would have to stand and twist to let me out. And I'm right up near the front. So I stay. So then I see that the brand new liturgy has gone back to Thee and Thy in the order of service! What is going on in our church head office? What ARE they thinking? How on earth is this new? Are we really back to thinking that King James peasant English contains some mysterious holiness in and of itself? In its original intent, that translation was meant to bring the Word down into intimate personal language for the common people. Thee and Thy were not formal, but intimate! The use is now utterly opposite its original intent. What is the deal about keeping God at arms length?

I am so done with that organization.

It may have been part of why I had such an emotional week. More loss. More reminders of loss.

New word: "orthopraxy"
It means, how you live your religion.

A Good Day

I had a good day today, which I needed. I've just finished "reading week," and didn't get anywhere near the amount of work done which I'd hoped. On top of that, I've felt very cranky toward my husband for several days. Perhaps PMS is the reason women shouldn't be ministers!
So, today I got a quiz back, (100%) and my second essay, which received an 11 out of 12, and I felt much better. My Christian Doctrine teacher, Bob Kelly, was in rare form. He has a marvelous, dry sense of humour and does a lovely job of keeping the material interesting.

In the afternoon we had Old Testament which continues to be the most frustrating course for me. So much of the discussion seems to be around what the literal sense could be talking about. "So, why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? How do you think Sarah felt about it? Why does it call Isaac Abraham's only son over and over again? He isn't his only son."

Because of my bias, these questions currently annoy me. Are they relevant when one is looking for the internal meaning? Maybe they are! I don't want to be closed minded. But I currently feel like they're a waste of time.

A nice development is that the OT teacher knows me well enough to see my tentatively raised hand and decide whether to call on me or not. She knows now that I rarely have a question. I usually have some Swedenborgian observation to make, "Well, I was taught that Abraham is our inner self and Jacob is our outer self, and Isaac is the rational ability that lets us look up and down and make decisions...."
Today she saw my nervous hand wavings and laughed. "How about you get to make three Swedenborgian statements per class?" she said to me.
I brightened right up. That was when I actually said that stuff about Isaac being our rational ability, and it is neat when I hear murmurs of interest in the class. I'm not there to convert people or get into theological arguments. It's just cool when something resonates for someone.

Overall, I continue to get friendly, affirmative responses to my odd beliefs. It makes a big difference to my days. My Christian Doctrine teacher isn't out to make us Lutherans, he's out to make us decent theologians. He wants us to present our thoughts well, that's his job. He's not there to tell us what to think.

I am very lucky.

Wanna hear my new big words?
Eponymous. Noetic. Epistemological. Docetic.

I think I know what eponymous means....

Today I raised my hand in Christian Doctrine and said, "I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but what is Post-Modernism? I assume there was a Modernism that it was Post to. I don't know what that is either...."
In his dry way, with that hint of a twinkle, he said, "Nobody really knows. It's just one of those big phrases us academics learn to say to impress everybody...."

He never did explain it! It has something to do with, well, Modernism had something to do with everything being able to be explained scientifically, and Post Modernism is when we realized that there will always be stuff we can't explain.... Well, that's what I've figured out so far. I think that's it. Anyway, how the world is viewing how life works at a given time affects the theologians of the day, so that's why he was talking about it.

I alternate between fascination, excitement and consequent loneliness; and frustration, boredom, and impatience.
But overall, this is still really fun.
It helps that my professors seem to like me and respect me.
It helps a LOT.
It is mutual.

Well, Greek tomorrow, bright and early.

"The disciples see the land." "The prophets give gifts to the children."
I haven't leaned the Greek for Dick or Jane or Spot.
All the vocabulary is about sin and truth and salvation and synagogues so far.
G'night!

Road Kill

My eyes are a little swollen today.
I feel like a raccoon on the interstate after rush hour.
I had a good hard cry last night. It is approaching Canadian Thanksgiving, and holidays seem to stir up all the losses of friends and loved ones. First, I was crying for our lost pastor, who was an anchor and heart-healer; and for his precious family. It has been over three years since that family's departure, and nothing will ever be the same.

I suppose we all believe we have built our house upon a rock, until it is washed away.
We lost everything that year---the most painful of all was faith in our denomination.
But my faith in my denomination had to reach a huge a level of brokenness before I could ever conceive of entering ministry myself. For years and years it taught me that I was not capable---due to my gender---of serving in this capacity.
Personally that belief has long since been eroded by time, and evidence, and reading scriptures for myself, and the cry of my heart.
It took an enormous, final death-blow (personal betrayal, coldness and judgment from a high leader) to realize that there was nothing left for me. The cage door was open.
All that lacked was the courage to face the disapproval, contempt, and further loss of community that would inevitably occur once I took this step.

I am grateful to have been pushed this far, as painful as it has been.

So now I am flying, exhilarated by the delight and fascination and joy I am experiencing in seminary, and I am terribly lonely. There is no one to turn to to talk about it all with. My fellow students have a different paradigm. And while many are patient listeners and good-hearted, I have yet to find someone who will listen to and discuss with me my peculiar Swedenborgian spin at any length.
And I am lonely because my church of origin and family of origin are in judgment of my choice, and, I assume, threatened not only by my actions, but by my very existence.

It was inevitable that this day would come. I am not the first woman to seek ordination elsewhere, and I suspect I am the beginning of a wave of us.

One by one we will be cut off, and the validity of our cry of pain and ultimate heart-choice will be dismissed. It is the way of it.

But I am flying!

Yesterday I served in a small way on the chancel during the Eucharist. It was my first time to wear "albs" (white robe). I processed with the others and sat on the left side with the fellow who would be delivering the talk. I was teary and so deeply grateful to be wanted and welcome and allowed to serve. It was my job to read the scriptures. I did fine.

During Eucharist, the congregation sang this amazing meditative song. It was profound to be kneeling at the rail while the voices rose around me. I got goose bumps.

I am slowly attaching to these people and their worship culture. As a recent convert said to me yesterday, "Who would have thought I would find a home in such high ritual?"
But it is the gentleness and humour to which I am attaching. Pomp without pompousness, I guess. The professors and students are very respectful of my different perspective. There is no aggressive or acquisitive energy from them. It is peaceful and comfortable. I feel the welcome and good will, and I am deeply grateful that SOMEBODY has given me a home that welcomes my pursuit of ministry.
I still feel such pain at the polite coolness and withdrawal of my parents' affection, and the dead silence from my former fellow congregants.

Each of the two main families that left the church when we did, (there were more than three) are experiencing deep family crises. They need prayers---BIG prayers. The moms, my two dearest friends here, are not available to me. Their families come first.
I find myself so angry and resentful, and I don't even know who with! It's nobody's fault. It is as it should be. But I feel more alone today than I have ever felt before.
My husband is a wonderful listener, bless his heart.
But he works very hard. His commute takes over an hour, and with me in school, we are both so tired when we see each other that we rarely have the energy to talk.
I feel like Gideon in the Bible, who had resource after resource taken from him, until all that was left him was a tiny group. God stripped him of everything that represented Gideon's own strength, so that the victory clearly belonged to God.

Lately, that's how it feels. If I survive this and complete this, it will have been from some strength that is beyond me.

And, let's see, three people now have questioned my motherly love, wifely duty, and parental responsibility, implying that I am being selfish to be going to school.

Ahhhhh. We can be so amazingly horrible to each other.

Pick a Pericope

"To pick a pericope."

Ha-ha! I said that to my husband the other night, "I still have to pick a pericope."
And I started laughing at the tongue-twister. "To pick a pericope."

Now you must understand, pericope does NOT rhyme with periscope. It is from Greek, and, much like "Hermione" and "Socrates," it keeps its long ee sound at the end.
puh-RICK-oh-pee.
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pericopes...."

I am learning so many strange and fancy words. I guess every area of study has them, but good grief. My Doctrine professor says that we have them just so we can trot them out from time to time and impress people.

Hermeneutics. Homiletics. Ontology. "Semi-Palagianism," which I tried to make a pun out of last week, but it was too early in the morning. It was something about how Palagianism is a big problem in universities these days.... The prof mmm-hmm-ed and blended it into his lecture.

Oh well.

Oh yeah, In Greek last week, I started humming "Hagios" (a hymn with Greek lyrics) toward the end of class. I couldn't help it. It was running through my mind. So I mentioned how my church had had Greek and Hebrew hymns when I was a kid.
The professor looked tickled, "No kidding?"
So I mumbled out a bar or two.
Professor Hegedus grinned and said something like, "That's kinda neat," and looked thoughtful. Then he said, "It shows a certain reverence for the ancient texts."

Suddenly I was rather proud of my strange heritage. How many other kids did I know who had learned the ten commandments by heart in Hebrew? I held my head up a little higher.

The next thing I know, I'm humming old Hebrew hymns I haven't thought of for years.
The last time one was hauled out and dusted off in church I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Now, I'm actually feeling grateful some of my weird chilhood.
So, once I was home, I dug out our old litugies. Sure enough, there was the super purist edition that printed the music backwards so that it ran the same way as the Hebrew writing. No English pronunciation offered to help anyone either. I guess that's when they suddenly stopped using the Greek and Hebrew hymns. The Greek hymns went left to right at least, but was still written only in Greek script.

So much for purism.
I showed the music to the Hebrew professor just to see what she thought. She was curious about maybe showing one or two to her class.
Too bad I couldn't come sing some to them, she said.
Hah! Right.
"Sorry, Greek teacher, I won't be in class today. I'll be down the hall, assisting the Hebrew teacher...."

Still, it was nice to feel special.