Blah, Blah, Blah

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes, all the talking, all the reading, all the thinking, all the theories are just so much chaff.

I want to feel at home again.

I'm reading a book about Paul for one of my courses. It is interesting to see what people who read Paul argue about, but it's feeling tiresome today. It's extraneous. I don't read Paul. Paul is not canon for Swedenborgians.

(Hey, is it called "canon" because we often use it to blast people?)

Blah, blah, blah.

Weird Winter

It has been a weird winter. Usually by now I'm pretty sick of the bitter cold and dryness, and the grey-white chalky film all over the cars and roads.
But it has been ridiculously mild. We've had several days when I didn't need to do up my coat, and even a few when I didn't need a coat at all. I've barely needed my boots. It keeps raining and washing things clean and melting the snow.

It seems like all the seasons are skewed.
I've heard it said that global warming will not simply warm things up, but cause wild swings in temperature and more frequent storms. More floods, more extremes.

Well, if this really is our fault, eventually we're going to have to look at it....

I'm often encouraged by the return of the light this time of year. I try to take heart from it. It is still (supposedly) getting colder, yet the darkest time is well past and it is brighter every day. Of course, we can't tell that when it is relentlessly overcast. But I certainly noticed this morning how light it was when I got up. Bright sun this morning. I felt almost perky.

Many folks love the seasons. They come and go and come and go.... It is so strange that the hottest days are well after the longest day---when the earth is already turning away---and the coldest days are well after the shortest day---when the earth is already turning back.
The heat and light are out of synch.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Accepted

Well, I heard from the head of the ministerial candidates selection committee that my "vision" has been accepted! That means, they liked my introductory letter, so I am now an official applicant. Ha-ha. I still have a ways to go before I am "endorsed," which means they tell the Lutheran seminary that they like me. The seminary requires that we have the verbal backing of a denomination by the end of the first year.

Meanwhile, winter is having its usual effect on my spirit. I want to curl up and sleep. I have very little excitement or motivation. I tend to want to stay home and wait for another day. I just don't feel like pursuing dreams. I've forgotton why I was excited and hopeful. I'm not technically depressed. I'm not down. I just have zero creativity or ambition or initiative.

It's a lucky thing I am only taking three classes.

Even More Boxes. . . .

Old testament laws! At the end of last term, my old Testament Professor said something that I can't stop thinking about.

I found it highly metaphoric.

When you look at all the laws about leprosy and what animals are clean and when people are and aren't clean....
It is about keeping things in their boxes. "Unclean" doesn't necessarily mean "bad," it has more of a connotation of the "secular," that is, not appropriate to be near holy things. Holy HAD to be kept separate from secular. "Appropriate" had to be kept clearly separate from "inappropriate."
There were also elaborate rituals to recognize and sanctify moving from one box to the other, such as the ritual cleansing of a woman after her period, and the ritual dedication of a house after it has been cured of leprosy.

Leprosy? How can a house have leprosy?
She said that "leprosy" was what they called any compromise of a boundary. Scaly skin, and a flaking and peeling plaster or daub wall surface---all was lumped under "leprosy." There is a huge body of laws all around the detection and diagnosis of "leprosy," and elaborate rituals around either the restoring of "integrity" or the cutting off of the leprous person or thing.

Judgments about skin conditions on holy terms.

She says, all the animals that don't "fit" their stereotype---all the animals that are different, are considered unclean. Fish are supposed to have scales, so what the heck is an eel? Ew! Unclean.
Animals that chew the cud should also have cloven hoofs, etc. Weird things, different things---stay away from them!
It reminds me of schoolyard socialization rules. Goodness and badness is decided based on looking right and acting right. Kids are excluded for being chubby or having glasses, or being ethnically different.....
Sure, Swedenborgian exegetical theory says that these laws are there because they correspond to internal laws, and really have little to do with animals and houses. But I bet they are also written the way they are written because THAT IS WHAT WE DO. Our first ideas of sacred vs. dangerous are this primitive. Some of us never move past this type of categorization that is skin-deep.

I had never, ever looked at the laws this way. It seems remarkably descriptive of the human condition and primitive spirituality.

"Never Quite at Home Again"

Another thing the professor counseled me on is in dealing with the pain of the loss of my childhood affiliation. He, too, was raised in a very conservative church. He, too, found himself realizing his "bottom line" and needing to seek a new affiliation that suited his inner church better.

He said, "The thing is, when you are raised in a church, especially the way you were raised, it takes a long time to find a new place to belong. There are lots of good people and good institutions, and eventually you will find some place that is a really good fit. But the truth is, you will never quite feel completely at home again. Every once in a while something will happen, and you will remember, and you will miss what you used to know. There are some things I really miss."
He shrugged. "It's just the way it is."

It was strangely comforting. It helps to know that he knows what it is like.

My Bottom Line

I went to the Christian Doctrine Professor here at the seminary for some help and advice.
He was terrific---a good listener, and just enough questions to guide me to find my way.
One thing he asked me was, "What is your bottom line?"
I asked, "What? In relation to my marriage? my career? my church? my family?"
He nodded gently and said, "Yes."

I really need to think about that. What are my non-negotiables? And what does it mean if I smack into one? Life in relationship always involves compromise, but there are some things that we cannot compromise on. Every organization and every person has good and bad things about them (it? ... him? her?...) Some things we are willing to overlook; some we are not.

It would take A WHOLE LOT to bring me to a state of complete inability to continue in my marriage. There is so very much that is good about it. How does one decide when to amputate?
Sometimes that decision has to be made.
I'm not there yet. Professor Kelly helped me see, through his questions, that I'm not there yet.

But I sure am aware of how possible it is for someone to continue along for years in an ailing marriage, because "amputation" is so unthinkable. And there's always that hope that it will get better.... Like a carrot....

In relationship to my church of origin, I think I have hit my non-negotiables.
I can not trust or respect a church that doesn't trust and respect me. My church home MUST value women equally with men to be trustworthy and balanced in my eyes. It mustn't use revelation to justify repression and call it, "God's plan." It must have a view of people as human---in God's image---FIRST and as gendered second, if at all.

I believe that committed monogamy is pschologically and socially beneficial, and that promiscuity is a symptom of inner unhappiness and the inability to be truly intimate, and that it is spiritually and psychologically hurtful. So I have no problem with homosexual committed long-term relationships. I believe churches need to welcome PEOPLE, and it is none of our business what their orientation is. A church that does not welcome (identified) homosexuals unless they "look" normal and profess that they are innately wrong and need to be cured, is not a church where I belong.

My bottom line.

Sarx

Marriage.
It's amazing how much the state of my marriage affects my morale on every level. I figured out awhile ago that I am mostly powerless over how my marriage is. I can be doing "everything right" (in my mind) and still have everything go wrong. It takes two, and it takes two with a relatively common vision. And one or two moments of idiocy can devastate trust for years.
Our marriage took another hit two weeks ago that really staggered my faith in it's viability.
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

So it's tough to know if my current malaise is winter blah's or denying myself sugar and white bread, or school-fatigue, or marriage-despair. Probably it is all of the above.
Last week, my psychiatrist listed for me all the things I have been through lately and all the things I am still dealing with....
It made me wonder why I am still coherent and wearing matching socks.

(Oh yeah! Latest greek word: "sarx." My definition: "The things you keep in the same drawer as your underwear.")

So, the blog has been quiet. I didn't feel like typing "WAAAAAAHHH!!!" *sniff* every day.

But I got all "A"s for Fall semester.....
SOMEBODY loves me.