Listen (Part 2)

I'd like God to leave me alone, but he doesn't. He's placed inside me a wanderer's heart, a heart that simply can't and won't find rest until it's resting in God, to paraphrase St. Augustine. Most of the time, though, I'm too worried about what exactly I'm doing with my life or how in the world I can provide for my family, I'm too preoccupied with chasing self-fulfillment, to just rest in God. To just be at peace with the world and my current place in it.

I wander too much; through the past, the future, even other worlds. That's what wanderers do, isn't it? And I'm certainly not ashamed of my wanderings (for the most part, at least), because I feel strongly that it's a big part of my interaction with God and his world. But it does create tension; within myself, with my loved ones, it even comes between me and Christ, when it becomes an excuse for absent-mindedness.

My life story is actually pretty well summed up by my wandering, but that'll have to wait. Right now I'm going to go read to my son...

Listen (Part 1)

It's hard to talk about this in mixed company, by which, I mean there are people who read this who know me very well and others who barely know me at all. But there's something all of you need to know. It's nothing terribly earth-shattering, and I hope it's at least relatable to some, or maybe most, of you.

I have a great deal of respect for those whose belief is not completely centered in Christ. More than that, I actually envy them a great deal. Not because it takes so much more faith to not believe than to believe, or any similar evangelical platitude. And definitely not because I secretly wish to live a life of rampant, unrepentent sin without consequence. I just want to be left alone, for God's sake. But apparently, exactly for God's sake, that's not an option for me.

Sometimes I desperately want the ridiculously obvious Meaning I find my world enveloped in to have another source. Sometimes I want to love my life, my family, my friends on their own merits. I want an absolute morality based in something other than the Absolute, to be perfectly candid. I'm so concerned for people to have a healthy, reasonable view of scripture; so I want to be able to deny its own significance in my life. I don't want Life and Light and Truth and Beauty to be God; I want them to be arbitrary, glorious anomalies in an otherwise absurd and meaningless universe. Honest, that's what I actually want sometimes.

I want God to leave me alone.

But, that doesn't separate me much from everybody else, does it?

At Random...

1. Please go read my dear friend Doug's latest post.

It's called "Calvin and Associates", and it is heartbreaking. Doug lives an incredible ministry to men on the streets of Chicago, and I envy his opportunity, though I hardly envy the pain such a life can bring unexpectedly. I love you, Doug...

2. The Diocese of Quincy meets in Special Synod tomorrow.

I expect we'll seek "alternative primatial oversight", whatever that means. It's so frustrating that there seem to be so few chances for reconciliation now. I'd really like to be part of this diocese as long as we're here, but I still am having a hard time feeling out how we'll be received if our opinion on the whole matter becomes clear. Please pray for the Church, no matter if you're Episcopalian or not, and especially whether or not you see eye-to-eye with me.

3. Heinz, the Baron Kraus-Von Espy is the greatest name for a movie character ever. Too bad it's not a particularly good movie...

Housekeeping: An Explanation and a One-Time Response

I've deliberately taken my time getting to this post, because I want to be sure I express myself with the utmost clarity and humility. First, I want to set some parameters regarding comments on my blog here...

1. I will never edit or delete comments unless they attack me or my family directly. I don't at all expect that, but I just want to make that clear from the beginning. Dissenting or negative responses to my opinions as expressed here are always welcome, as long as they stay on that level. Again, I expect nothing but such behavior from those I expect will be commenting here most often.

2. I'd really rather that no one post anonymously. You don't have to be a Blogger to comment, but at least leave some kind of handle. Real names, obviously, are unnecessary, but give me some kind of name to respond to, if I so choose.

3. More often than not, I won't enter into any in-depth discussions via the comment thread. I just don't have the time or energy to do so, and even if I did, I find that online debate tends to bring out the worst in people (especially myself). If I feel some kind of response is in order, I'll do that with a post, like I'm about to do here. Finally, if you and I know each other "in the real world", let's talk there. Please.

Okay, that's done. Now, to the matter at hand.

Apparently, my view of monogamous homosexuality is disconcerting to some people. I expected that, and recently (maybe even as recently as a year ago), I'd completely understand and probably even agree. It's just not a position I can cling to anymore. There isn't some drawn out logical proof to support my change in heart, because it's just that, a change in heart. I guess it can be dangerous to follow your heart, but I definitely feel that my head's along for the ride on this one. If that diminishes my "Christian" witness somehow, then so be it. I've always found the call to follow Christ to be more about selfless love than "tough love", anyway. Jesus said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," and I'm more curious about what that means than I am about just about anything else in scripture.

So, if my view offends you, I'm sorry about that. It is just what I think, as I said a couple posts back. Anyway, I hope this post doesn't sound too defensive or apologetic or anything. I certainly don't feel there's anything worth fighting about in my little opinion here, and I will move on to other things and find more ways to convince people my head's screwed on backwards, so that should be fun. Stick around (even you, Anonymous)...

Seal the Deal

Well, here's my official blog seal. Like it?

In Brief: Where I Sit...

So, that brilliantly reasoned, sparklingly articulate, manifesto on the future of The Episcopal Church that I've been trying to get up here just isn't going to happen. The issues are too large and complex to be settled in any way by even a lengthy treatise. So, I'll just briefly sketch my position in this war over human sexuality.

I find the extremes on both sides of the debate over including LGBT people in the clerical orders of the church to be unpleasant, narrow-minded, and at the worst, willfully ignorant of Jesus' mission. It sounds harsh, but I'm absolutely bewildered at the way both the arch-conservatives and the more liberal element throw theological justification back and forth at each other, but seem to be hardly concerned about unity in Christ. The genius of Anglicanism (and in the past, TEC) is the focus on common prayer and life together in Christ (recently strengthened by the reclamation of the centrality of Eucharist in the liturgical renewal of the 60's and 70's) as the grounds for Christian unity, rather than agreement on the finer points of doctrine (I have trouble classifying the current debates over sexuality as doctrinal matters anyway, but that's beyond the point). The liberals who want to let the conservatives go, even if it means completely estranging TEC from the worldwide Communion, are just as blind to this as any conservative leader.

Do I believe LGBT people should be allowed complete access to the full life of the church, including ordination and positions of spiritual leadership? Absolutely. But I also firmly believe that any person who's not comfortable with that should remain in full fellowship as well. Such is the difficult position that the broad center of TEC (and I'd say Christianity in general) has to take. We only take such a difficult position, though, because we find it consistent with the example of Jesus. I understand the problem. Those on the right believe that homosexuality is a sin, and maybe even an especially bad one, while those on the far left have trouble classifying anything as sin. That's a gross overstatement of a caricature for both parties, but it still casts some light on the tension. I find myself of the opinion (and it's one I take in prayerful humility, I hope) that there's a lot of sin in the world, but it's hard for me to say that someone who is faithful to their partner, whatever gender, is an unrepentant sinner. At the same time, infidelity and promiscuity are always sinful, again regardless of the gender(s) of those involved. That's what I think, at least...

Well, that's enough for now. There's probably no way to stop my beloved church from splitting, even though I see it as a highly unnecessary outcome. My concern is where my family's spiritual home will be after the seemingly inevitable schism. I pray that the Spirit intervenes, but he's probably doing something much more important than attending to Christ's selfish, spoiled bride one more time.