Hatian Disaster Response

I’m just one woman, a good portion of the globe away. I can only send my money to Episcopal Relief and Development and my prayers to the people of Haiti.

And I can check and make sure my can opener is with my earthquake kit.

I grew up in California, so what I have ingrained in my soul as an earthquake kit is now more fashionably known as the 72 hour kit. Food, spare clothes, medications, first-aid kit, sturdy shoes, and most importantly water, all in a pack I can throw over my shoulder if I’m evacuated.

But things tend to migrate out of the earthquake kit, and it’s when news like this hits that I start rounding up the stray items and putting them back in their proper place.

Continuing Christian Education

The influx of red and pink candy into the office has already begun, and is engendering some grumbling from certain quarters. I was sitting in my friend’s cubicle and listening to him explain what was wrong with Valentine’s Day, from naked flying babies to Cupid’s arrows to heart-shaped candy boxes (which are my personal favorite treat on February 15th).

“We don’t get a day off,” he said. “There’s no religious reason…”

“Yes there is!” I interjected. “Saint Valentine, much?”

“I don’t believe it.” he turned to his computer and then, in an afterthought, said, “Was he real?”

“Probably,” I frantically searched my memory banks, this was After Candy but Before Coffee, so they were moving sluggishly. “I want to say say fourth century, a bishop, helped people get married and stuff…”

But my friend interrupted me. “Did he fight Cupid?”

That derailed the Train of Thought. “That would be awesome,” I started miming shooting arrows and throwing punches “Cupid starts slinging flaming arrows, and the bishop uses his staff to knock them to the ground! Woah, and also? PAH!”

“I’d see that movie.” My friend said, picking up his phone.

—-

“You know this is going on the Internet,” I said to him a little later.

He leaned back in his chair. “Won’t be the first time I’ve made it on YouTube.”

“Hell, it won’t be the first time you’ve made it on my blogs!”

A Prayer for Today

We thank you, O Lord, for the surprising gift of snow
you have bestowed upon us.
Look with favor upon your people today
and ensure they get to and from
their destinations safely.
And send a legion of angels to bang some sense
into the brains of people who are about
to drive like idiots on snowy,
slushy, icy streets.
In the name of Jesus we pray, AMEN.

Open Letter to Abp. Rowan Williams

Dear ++Rowan,

Cowboy up, brother-man. You can’t have it both ways. If you think you have the right to put out passive-aggressive press releases hoping that duly elected suffragens half a globe away won’t get all the consents needed, you also have the right to put out a passive-aggressive press release hoping that the Ugandans would, you know, not enact a law that would murder thousands of people.

Seriously. You’re making me wonder why kicking you and the rest of the Communion to the curb is a bad thing.

In Christian Love,
Mary Sue
Laywoman

What use is the Archbishop of Cantebury?

Ruth Gledhill, whose column usually has me wanting to fling shoes at her head* has managed to squeeze a quote on the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality legislation out of Lambeth Palace.

Said quote:

Today, Lambeth Palace told me: ‘It has been made clear to us, as indeed to others, that attempts to publicly influence either the local church or political opinion in Uganda would be divisive and counter productive. Our contacts, at both national and diocesan level, with the local church will therefore remain intensive but private.’

Ruth goes on to add,

In fact, we can take for granted that Dr Williams is against the draconian new law. But speaking out publicly to this effect could indeed, as he says, have the opposite effect to that intended. It would almost certainly be seen as white-led colonialism of the worst possible kind, as a misguided attempt to impose western liberal values upon traditional African culture.

And I? Am calling bullshit on the ABC.

Brother-man thinks it’s okay to meddle in The Episcopal Church and try and impose his Old World Old School values on this former colony and our increasingly brown church**, but he’s afraid boo hoo scaredy-pants of being called a colonial for saying “Don’t be a dick and murder people” to Ugandans? Especially when there’s oodles and oodles of evidence this legislation is being backed by white men in suits handing out money and grabbing for power, ecclesiastical and political?

Bullshit. You’re useless, ++Rowan. Get us a primate with a pair in here, yo.

Oh, why hello there, ++Katharine!

The Episcopal Church joins many other Christians and people of faith in urging the safeguarding of human rights everywhere. We do so in the understanding that “efforts to criminalize homosexual behavior are incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (General Convention 2006, Resolution D005). [...]The Episcopal Church represents multiple and varied cultural contexts (the United States and 15 other nations), and as a Church we affirm that the public scapegoating of any category of persons, in any context, is anathema. We are deeply concerned about the potential impingement on basic human rights represented by the private member’s bill in the Ugandan Parliament.

Many thanks to Fr. Jake for the heads-up.

—–
*What? That’s pretty much the definition of Anglicanism, isn’t it? “Where two or more argue passionately and angrily in the parish hall but line up for the Eucharist next to each other in the Sanctuary”

**As the cat macros would say, I’m in your church, reducing the average age in the pew and ethnic-ing y’all on up in here.

Fidelia’s Sisters: Where the Wild Things Are

I have words, but I’m not as good nor practiced at putting them together as other people.

So this article by Rev. Lara Blackwood Pickrel at Fidelia’s Sisters rings in my soul, with the beloved story of my childhood and the painful story of my parish.

Max’s world is broken, just like his home and his heart. As ruler of a broken world, there isn’t much left for a kid to do besides scream, kick and bite – and Max does just that. A heated battle with his mother ends with Max on the run. Sneakers slapping pavement, gasping breath and steam, ragged wolf hood flapping behind him – Max runs and runs until he finds a boat, and then he sails away to…the Church.
[...]
[T]o escape being eaten, he does what anyone would do when pressed into a corner: he tells them he’s a King. And not just any king – he’s got the power, the knowledge and the experience they need to make their home better.

My feelings currently are that I did not go to that parish in search of power or glory. I walked in, and they declared me King, and demanded I make things better. I’d been in a parish that did a Search, of course then I knew everything about how to conduct a Search. I was a young woman in a church, therefore I knew everything about drawing young people to church. I knew how to collect history, therefore I knew everything about collecting a detailed and intricate history of the parish with no assistance, no background, no introduction to the elders who had been baptized in the parish as infants.

I don’t want the crown.
I don’t want to be in charge.
I don’t want to be the parish’s savior.

These are just my feelings. And I’m sure if I told them to the churchmembers, they’d all deny that they wanted me to do all these things. I’m sure at least one of the church leaders would tell me that they never saw this happening, never said anything like that, in a tone that resembled the one that they would use to tell me that I was lying.

It’s not the first time they’ve used that tone on me.

Open letter to all people everywhere (but especially Christians)

Dear People of the World (and especially you, Christians)

Quit your bitching and enjoy life.

Love,
Mary Sue

Dear Jesus: Love you, but your people… oy.

I got another email last night from someone at church, pretty much flat-out demanding I deliver some mythical project to them next Sunday. This is a project I said I was kind of working on, but is suffering from two things:

1) A significant amount of the research is in my head, and it’s the kind of thing where, well, I’m a trained historian so it would take me longer to explain how to put all the information together in a cohesive form than to do the project myself, and

2) To do the project I would need to carve out about 50 hours of my own time. Thanks to work and my home purchase shenanigans, I’m dangerously short on spoons as it is. If you’re not familiar with The Spoon Theory, you really need to click that link and read it. I’ll still be here waiting when you get back.

I was straight up o-u-t of spoons last night (Saturday was a party for a friend who’s moving on, and I danced like I was a healthy person. I’m still paying for it today, and the only thing that kept me from using my cane is that no one at my office has seen me use my cane and I will take pain and limited mobility over nosy-ass questions most days of the week, but especially Monday). When I’m out of spoons, I am not the happiest person, so I shot back a short and snappy email, to the tune of, “I don’t have additional materials, and I will not be at church for the forseeable future.”

And the reply came back, and I had to forward it to my Best Friend in the Whole Wide World to get a second opinion, because as I read it, it was a “Don’t let the doorknob hit you on the ass on the way out” email.

BFitWWW concurred that it did sound like this specific church member was washing their hands of me. BFitWWW then pushed forward the same thing he’s pushed forward every time I’ve complained about my church lately, which is “Maybe it’s time to find another parish.”

I’m starting to think that maybe he’s right.

We can has bishop nao?

From here:

By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, the diocese of Oregon, meeting in Convention in Eugene, Oregon, on the 20th day of November in the year of our Lord 2009, has elected The Rev. Michael Hanley as the tenth Bishop of Oregon.

Father Hanley has been serving as rector of St. Christopher Episcopal Church, Roseville, Minnesota since 1998. He was one of three nominees selected by the Search Committee to stand for election. Provided a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and a majority of diocesan Standing Committees give their consent, he will be consecrated on April 10, 2010 by The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts-Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

12 People

Name: Roberta Gavou
Age: 35
Date of Death: November 24th 2008
Location of Death: Rome (Italy), in the street
Cause of Death: Stabbed to death
Source: www.sylviarivera.org

Name: N.N.
Age: 50
Date of Death: December 25th 2008
Location of Death: Rosate (MI), (Italy), in the street
Cause of Death: Beaten to death
Source: www.gaynews.it

Name: Aline da Silva Ribeira
Age: 24
Date of Death: January 16th 2009
Location of Death: Naples (Italy), in the street
Cause of Death: Strangled
Sources: www.sylviarivera.org & corrierealpi.gelocal.it

Name: Puttalakshmi’s (Hijra)
Age: 30
Date of Death: (shortly before) February 19th 2009
Location of Death: Bangalore (India)
Cause of Death: Thrown out of a moving vehicle
Source: Bangalore News, 19.02.2009

Name: Smail L.
Age: 36
Date of Death: March 24th 2009
Location of Death: Valencia (Spain)
Cause of Death: Beaten to death
Sources: ABC.es 25.03.2009 & Las Provincias 26.03.2009

Name: Image Devereux
Age: 34
Date of Death: April 14th 2009
Location of Death: Fayetteville (USA), in the street
Cause of Death: Not reported
Source: www.transgenderdor.org

Name: Ketlin
Age: 19
Date of Death: May 2009
Location of Death: Uruaçu (Brazil)
Cause of Death: Dismembered and beaten to death
Source: LGBTT-Blogspot, 03.07.2009

Name: Camilla
Age: 30
Date of Death: Before June 22nd 2009
Location of Death: Volgograd (Russia)
Cause of Death: Shot
Source: Spiegel Online 23.06.2009

Name: “Cesar” Torres
Age: 39
Date of Death: July 8th 2009
Location of Death: El Paso (USA), own apartment
Cause of Death: Beatings and severe injuries
Sources: El Paso Times, 11.07.2009, KDBC 4 News, Portugal.Gay 13.07.09

Name: Paulina Ibarra
Age: 24
Date of Death: August 28th 2009
Location of Death: Hollywood (USA), own apartment
Cause of Death: Stabbed to death
Source: ABC 7, 07.09.2009

Name: “Rusbel Antonio” Torres Jesús
Age: 30
Date of Death: September 21th 2009
Location of Death: Chimbote (Peru), in own liquor shop
Cause of death: Shot
Source: El Comercio 22.09.2009

Name: Monserrat (”Elder Noe”) Maradiaga
Age: Not reported
Date of Death: October 10th 2009
Location of Death: San Pedro Sula (Honduras)
Cause of Death: Run over by a car
Source: ElsentidoG.com 24.10.2009

Names taken from the international list of 169 transpersons reported as murdered in the last 12 months. The actual number is likely to be much, much higher.

November 20th is the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

May the angels lead them into Paradise, may the holy martyrs receive them as they arrive and take them into the Holy City.