Stuff I love about Anglicanism

Okay, I admit it, I've been a bit put out with the Anglican Church of late.  Our current tenancy to seek after the new things (church plants, praise bands, godly but on trend spiritual practices) at the expense of the old and sacred (turn around churches, liturgy, and dare I say, tradition!) wears really thin really fast for me.  I came here for the old and sacred, the Church Fathers, the smells and bells, the Gospel in liturgical movement, the sometimes silly acts of deep piety.  Anything else makes me feel cheated.

So I didn't want to go to Provincial Assembly.  And really, I came home from Assembly annoyed with a lot of the claptrap I witnessed there.  But in the end, I did go, and the reason I went swallowed up my annoyance while I was there.

I went because a sister deacon, whom I'd never met face to face offered me a place to stay (no hotel and rental car budget), which made my surface objection (just getting back from Israel and therefore too much travel... more on Israel in another post) kind of silly. 

And I went because I was woefully lacking in the fellowship of my tribe.  Anglo-Catholics and deacons, these are my people.  How could I resist a few days in the company of my own kind? 

So I went.  I got hugged by bishops, had meals with old friends in other dioceses, wore my Ask Me About Nashotah House pin everywhere but to bed (and added a Trinity sticker and RES logo for good measure).  I kvetched with my people.  I laughed with them.  Schemed a little, too.   We talked deacons, the diaconate, liturgy, Jesus, and how Nashotah is (in my opinion) the ACNA's Iona, holding on to the sacred relics until the whole church realizes they need them.

In the end, I went, and realized why I stayed an Anglican.  We have a mission, albeit an uncomfortable one.

But it wasn't until I got home that I reflected enough to realize why I don't just *stay* an Anglican, but why I love being an Anglican.

I love being an Anglican because ARDF (Anglican Relief and Development Fund) seeks partnership, not paternalistic dominance over the ones they serve.  Bishops from all over the world came to our doorstep as brothers, in part because ARDF goes to their doorstep as servants.  I made friends with the Bishop of Matana Diocese, Burundi because ARDF was there being a friend first.   (And because we could speak French together!)

I love being an Anglican because other Anglicans I know are being intentional about healthy diversity in the Church (nod to the Anglican Multi-Ethnic Network) acknowledging that diversity, true diversity, involves all races and ethnicities.  Their table is pretty broad, and I'm honored by their narratives, ideas, hard work and vision.   Moreover, I trust them enough to be vulnerable before them, which as a white person is a very big deal.

I love being an Anglican because when I see a mission I am called, eager to support, I am doing so in lock-step with other Anglicans, many of whom I know.  I trust where my money is going when I donate to ARDF or the churches on the border ministering to immigrants and connected to the Anglican Immigrant Initiative. (Heck, I love that there is an Anglican Immigrant Initiative!)

I love that we work with our hands.  We don't expect the government to solve our problems.  We're not lobbyists.  We donate, motivate, roll up our sleeves and serve.  On the border, in the margins, abroad or next door.  And I love that our polity lets us welcome and serve all our brother and sister Christians regardless of their denominational labels.

Of course I love that Anglicans love Jesus.  That's not negotiable.  But the rest is what keeps me here, instead of some other Jesus-loving body.  So Anglicanism, you're stuck with me.  You're stuck with this gadfly for ontological thinking, fancy-schmancy liturgics, deep community... I was going to add biblical authority, but Anglcianism doesn't mind that much.  In short, you're stuck with this pre-enlightenment relic.  Its okay.  I think I'm stuck with you, too.

Rejecting the In Persona Christi argument

Okay, I admit it, this set poorly with me when my kids were in sixth grade in Catholic school and the catechism questions on ordination came home for them to study.  Once in a while, their Anglican mom will rebel, help them to do so even, but it was particularly hard in the sixth grade when their religion teacher was the sweet Spanish guy who labeled all his exams "Nice Little Quiz."  I don't know if it was the English is his second language factor or the Nice Little Quizzes but I could never quite encourage rebellion.  Besides, he's a really sweet guy.

But that's all neither here nor there... the question was something along the lines of why women can't be priests.  Y'all, gentle readers, know that I wrestle with this and have spent parts of my life and ministry on both sides of this fence, sometimes at the same time.  Nothing new there.  But the answer was one, which I'd heard before but still, which I find unsettling.  The answer was that women can't be priests because the priest stands in persona Christi at the altar.  Women, apparently, don't look enough like Jesus for ordination. 

Never mind that most of the priests I know are not Near Eastern Jews. 

Many are ordained at an age Jesus never saw in his earthly sojourn. 

Some are in need of glasses and other medical devices which would make them less than perfect for Temple worship, and therefore not "without blemish" either. 

And not a one of them is willing to die for my sins. 

Go on, ask every priest you know.  

But that is not even why I find that question really unsettling...  the part I couldn't put my finger on that day, but today I can is this:

The priest simply does not stand in persona Christi at the altar.

Jesus himself does that. 

Jesus. is. in persona Christi. at. every. Eucharist.  Full stop. 

As a deacon, it is counter to my identity to take the place of the priest.  Even when he is not physically present (the so-called Deacon's Mass) he is still the priest and his presence is known and honored there.  How much more is this true with Christ?  

If Christ is really present at the Eucharist, what business is it of the priest to stand in his place?

The ordination of the priest, however, is quite clear.  He is authorized to absolve and bless on behalf of the Church.  He has the voice of the Church.  At the altar, it is the prayers of the Church he brings to God.  When the Eucharist is celebrating with the priest facing the altar, as is traditional, he is present as the first among the people, being the voice not of Christ but of Christ's Church.  He is, in the words of the Eastern Church, in persona Ecclesia.  

The Priest, further, is not a part of Christ but a part of the Church and particularly authorized to be her voice.  

And here I do say "her."  

If the priest stands in persona ecclesiae, and ecclesia is traditionally not only a feminine noun but also traditionally feminized in imagery (Bride of Christ) even in the letters of the supposedly misogynistic Church Fathers, then there should be no barrier to a woman's priesthood in persona ecclesiae.

I am not nutty enough to demand an exclusively feminine priesthood on this basis.... it would be a fallacy of another sort.... but it does seem that the argument opens an intriguing door.  

Am I coming out of the closet in favor of women's ordination to the priesthood?  No, I'm not.  Instead, I'm asking us to re-examine our arguments instead of just reasserting them. I am reluctant to stand in the generation that thought so highly of itself that it altered 2000 years of Christian practice.  I am hesitant to affect the entire sacramental relationship which binds the Church together.  I am unsure of the support from Scripture or Tradition for such radical changes.  And above all I am passionately in love with the whole of Christ's Church, much of which would consider women priests a stumbling block.  

But I am asking us to begin to think carefully about the images we use and what they are really saying, so that when the Church does settle these questions, she can do so with integrity.  

Global Politics and a Petty Pet Peeve

Granted I've been known to say that if all my peeves were truly pets I'd have a menagerie.  But this one gets under my skin in a special way.  Its the kind of peeve that quietly (I promise the objective observer will not notice) brings out the Southern in me, the woman who smiles softly and gives you the answer you're looking for, all the while thinking (maybe saying) "Bless your heart" in that way northern-folk think we mean it. 

For what it's worth, "bless your heart" means a lot of things and most of it is nice. But most people outside of the South think we use it exclusively as a nice way to say "you're an idiot."  To be clear, there are plenty of words in the Southern lexicon for that, and when we mean to call you an idiot, we will use those words.  But there is a tone of pity in some uses of the phrase, an "I feel sorry for you" that can sometimes be gently offered when one is, in fact, being an idiot but the Southerner is  too well-raised to even begin to think beyond pity.

Misuse of "bless your heart" is another pet peeve, though and we were talking about a different one.

The peeve is this: when people learn that my youngest son is from Korea and the first thing they can think to say in response is: "Oh, is he from North or South Korea."

Bless your heart.

While I'm smiling and giving the answer the ones asking think they are seeking, here is what I'm thinking:

1.  My first thought is how ignorant of global politics, culture and history this question is showing the person asking to be.  Korea has been divided, partitioned by global political leaders acting in their own self-interest for only 70 years.  Genetically they are one people.  Historically they share one history, only one tenth of a percent of which is marred by this modern division.  They share the same heroes and legends, traditional dress, preference for their own regional kimchi recipes.  Their language, though each has developed a little bit of its own dialect as the world has changed in 70 years, is the same.  They both look to King Sejong as "the great" for giving them an alphabet of their own.  (And for what its worth, the alphabet is phonetic, not pictograms.)  Most South Koreans have relatives in the North.  There was a lot of movement before that border closed, and the whole peninsula is only about the size of Pennsylvania.

2.  Followed so quickly behind #1 as to be simultaneous: "Will my response to you change how you treat my child?"  Does it matter to you whether his historical geography is rocky and good for mining, or farmland turned ultramodern city-scape?  Does his city of birth change who he is as a boy, a student, an athlete, a neighbor, a US citizen?  Who he is as my son, his brothers' brother, your child's friend?

So why do I post this now?  Because this week 2500 reporters are watching as the US President, a man who has no love for his own allies, greets a North Korean chairman who has no problem dehumanizing his own people for his gain.  As they shake hands, mug before the cameras, and studiously ignore 70 years of policy and suspicions and human rights abuses that makes that most heavily armed border in the world more than a chance of geography.  As they studiously ignore the needs of both Koreans and Americans, to seek their own glory for an hour's strut and fret on global stage. 

I am not, you probably guessed, optimistic.  But when the cameras are turned off, the reporters go home, and each nation retreats back to its own isolation, I hope North Korean people, in America's eyes will again be humanized.  That Koreans, with their glorious history, can just be Koreans to us, especially when we encounter them in America.  And maybe, someday, that change in our hearts can be the true foundation of a unified Korea. 

Exercising your salvation....

Recently in a Greek reading group, we wrangled a little with the idea of "working out your salvation with fear and trembling" in a way that reflects that the work is God's but we have a part in it, too.  We tossed around "live out" and "work out" as ideas needing to come together.  I came up with "exercise" which seemed trite and possibly weird, but the group liked it and the more we wrestled with it, the more I like my own idea, too.

Exercise it.  Like a workout in the gym.  Use what you've got, it didn't come from you.  Work out what God is working in.

All of those could be really lame church signs, but I'll take that for now.

In the background hum here is the bishops' statement, that came out at about the same time, on women's ordination (to the priesthood).  These weren't tied together at first but I've tossed them concurrently in my mind enough that they are now.

First a comment on the WO-P statement itself.  It is deeply disappointing.  On the one hand, it announces that there is not scriptural warrant for the practice to be held as a standard but, hey, we're going to do it anyway.  Way to throw ordained women under the bus (and since the statement makes little to no distinction about whether we are talking about women priests or deacons, though everyone kind of knows they mean priests, the mess is double.)

In fairness, here's the quote: "However, we also acknowledge that this practice is a recent innovation to Apostolic Tradition and Catholic Order. We agree that there is insufficient scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as standard practice throughout the Province. However, we continue to acknowledge that individual dioceses have constitutional authority to ordain women to the priesthood."

I have long been an advocate for a risky all-in study of women's ordination, first to the diaconate (which we can settle more easily but also remains an open question among various parts of the ACNA) and then to the priesthood. I am convinced enough of the foundation of my call to risk it, both for the good of the Church and for the good of the Order.  I believe there is sufficient scriptural evidence for the practice and to say there is not without really reconciling the question is as damaging as to say there is and must be for all.  While the desire to protect the consciences of those who disagree is essential to our Christian formation, so must be the desire to protect the dignity of the order and to those ordained to it.

Furthermore, just saying, "Well we carried it over from TEC, so we're stuck with it" is disingenuous.  Our ordained women deserve to live and serve without the shadow of rebellion in their ordination vows.  That can only be done in honest theological evaluation, risk taking, mutual submission, and seriously radical Christian discernment.

To date, few involved on either side seem willing to be wrong.

Which brings me back to Philippians.  Treat one another as more important than yourselves.

My experience is that we do this, at least as far as we are able to discern the need.  I have several friends who are vocally anti-women's ordination sometimes including to the diaconate.  I have never been treated disrespectfully.  I am usually welcomed in conversations, fellowship, even real Christian friendship, though I walk around as a woman in a collar.  I will not label those who are against women's ordination as misogynists.  Let the true misogynists have their title and don't dilute it by applying it to those who simply disagree, whose consciences may be more delicate.

How can I not be a stumbling block to those brothers (and sisters)?

So I am writing to ask one not-so-simple thing of each "side" in the discussion, based off Paul's command for mutual submission.  Each is something one side is uniquely poised to give the other.  Hang with me.  Not all of it is fun....

1. Ordained women... speak up for those who do not accept you. Guard their consciences as you would your own.  These are your brothers. Give them voice.

2.  Anti- WO advocates... don't just give lip service to needing to support women in ministry.  Recognize that the College of Bishops' statement in that regard felt to many of us condescending, like a pat on the head.  (Women hate that feeling!)  Do not assume that supporting women's ministry means women's groups (most of them are awful and many of us do not care two licks about being "Keepers of the home") , convents and religious orders (we don't want to be cloistered either... not at home, not at all), and coffee hour.  Recognize that when the COB is all male, there needs to be a way for women's voices to be heard among them.  Right now, most task forces and leadership bodies are mostly male run and led.  Send women to seminary.  Carve out places for women leaders.  Hire us.  Give us voice.

3.  Both sides... be willing to be wrong.  Even at great personal risk.  Ordination is not a right.  This is not about social justice.  Nobody has a right to be ordained.  This is about being faithful, putting the Church first, the whole Church... not just the part you like.  You're talking about the Bride of Christ here, and in this argument you must recognize that she has been abused, battered, and bruised in recent history by both sides.

There is a way forward.  It just isn't the obvious and well worn path.

When near becomes a noun.

The French have a word for it, "proche."  Its an adjective and it translates pretty directly to the English adjective near.  If something or someone is close by, it is proche.  But unlike in English, proche also becomes a noun.  Best I read it, its a word for those people who are near us, too near to simply be friends, but not relatives by any temporal accounting.  The closest we might come in the Church is being brothers and sisters in Christ, but then, that still doesn't grasp the idea.  Jesus had twelve disciples, but only Peter, James and John seemed to be his proches. These are the people close to the heart, the only ones a true introvert can call "friends" without wincing at the weight of that word, the family beyond the familial.

Beth was my proche.   I don't have many.  Despite blogging and teaching and jumping headlong into more ministry that I can sometimes handle, I am a very private person.  So was Beth.  We were seminarians together, but not really friends then.  We knew and liked one another but Beth was the sort of person you had to cultivate before you could use the word friend, she opened up only slowly. 

We were adjunct instructors together.  By that time we were indeed friends, and when I needed someone to vent a frustration to, ask advice of, celebrate a minor publication with, or complain about the lack of a steady gig to, she was there.   She got me.  I didn't have to explain in order for us to share the humor in our situation.  We thought and taught in some ways quite alike.  I remember one term teaching New Testament and she had a bunch for Church History, when I mentioned I was assigning my students a large timeline project.  So was she.  The poor students- we shared a significant overlap in course list- had two big timelines in the works.  We both wanted them to have tools for ministry when they were done.  They, on the other hand, were probably anticipating due dates rather than ministry.

We were moms together, homeschooling two fifteen year olds born a week apart.  Sometimes they got along, my son and her daughter, in their shared geeky interests.  Sometimes they profoundly did not.  It didn't matter, we shared curricula, ideas, and frustrations equally whether our kids appreciated the relationship we had built for them or not.

Beth passed away yesterday.   It took twenty years of cultivating a friendship with Beth-  she even measured her time in PA by how old (and tall, and eventually bearded) the infant I was holding when she met me grew-  but she let me walk a rough road with her the last couple of years.  She hugged me when I lost my dad (2000) and I hugged her when she lost her mom (2015).  She shared her struggles and I shared mine.  We laughed together when she lost her hair to chemo and it came back with the curls both of us wanted from childhood.  We prayed together in her last days. 

We blogged together too. She's over at Endless Books (on my blogroll) and she was far more the verbal craftswoman than I. 

Bon voyage ma proche et à Dieu.

Coal.

My grandfather was a coal miner.
With all that comes with it.
Black lung, mine rebellions, violent endings
both to the rebellions and to human lives.
Family photos of young men in caskets,
when there was no war abroad.
Poverty, feuds, wizened grandmothers,
mountain men.
My grandfather was a union organizer.
A migrant worker
after he left the mines.
He went where the money was.
Cincinnati, New York, Radford, Oak Ridge.
An air raid warden,
leaving my grandmother frightened in the darkness
with two small boys,
while he roamed the town,
attending to the compliance of other homes.
An old man, stooped over, chewing tobacco,
he wanted more for his sons.

A quick mind, sparkling eyes, he wanted more for our world.
My grandfather was a backyard inventor--
a water engine, clean technology.
Safety and efficiency.
He would have been fascinated by your smart phone.
He would have marveled at your hybrid vehicle.
Solar roofing tiles would have delighted him.
He would have reveled in an Ohio River safe work and play.
He would have been shocked by your loyalty to the coal that slowly kills. 

My grandfather used to say,
"We can never destroy the earth,
We will only destroy ourselves first."
My grandfather was a coal miner.
But my father was an engineer. 

Advice for Students

Coming up on final exams in so many school contexts has me thinking about what advice I would give to today's college and seminary students.  A word from the other side of the desk or computer screen, perhaps, is in order.  So if the reader would allow me to be so bold:

A word of advice for students (especially online students, especially my online students):

1.  Do not be afraid to ask questions.  Ask me to clarify an assignment or an idea.  Your success is my success, quite literally in this field.   Your questions enable me to succeed and my answers should do the same for you.  An instructor who doesn't understand the difference between being an active question-asker and being a nuisance has no business teaching human beings.

2.  Do not be afraid to disagree and read critically.  Your grade may be lowered by knee-jerk responses, but a well thought out and crafted disagreement should be respected by any instructor who hopes some day to welcome some of his students as peers and colleagues.  You do not have to love the textbook I assigned.  In fact, I may not have loved it either to have considered it important for you to read. 

3.  Show your enthusiasm.  Students who are excited about the material and want to discuss it with their professors and classmates are not pests, they're why we are excited to start work every day.  Be one!

4.  Turn in papers early and often.  If your instructor has time to give you feedback before the due date (we don't always, but many of us will try) take it!  Papers where the instructor has invested his time and expertise will always be better papers and be more kindly graded.

5.  Engage your senses.  When material is hard to understand, read it out loud.  It slows you down and engages both the eyes and the ears in reading so that your brain can marinate more in the material.  Best advice I ever got from the meanest professor I ever endured.

6.  Seek relationship.  Even (perhaps especially) in online classes.  Don't just come to class, do your thing and leave.  Connect with your classmates.  Kvetch with them if you like.  It lets you know you weren't the only one who found that last quiz to be a challenge, that last paper a bear.  Stay after class to ask the prof a question if you have one.  Find a study buddy, even if that person is in another state or country.  Read your instructor's and fellow students' biographies in their online profiles; learn what you have in common outside of class.  Connections like that will keep you at the table when the going gets rough.

7.  If at first you don't succeed, swallow your pride and ask what you did wrong.  Teachers who "bleed" all over your papers do so because they care enough to see you do a better job next time.  If you don't get timely feedback from your instructor, it is your right and responsibility to request it.

8.  Not all red ink is criticism.  I love to talk to my students in the margins of their papers.  Some of it is a serious show of enthusiasm.  And I do grade in red.  I'm old school, and I like my words to stand out.  Don't just look at the final grade and the length of comments and toss the paper aside.  I cared enough to read your paper, you can care enough to read my comments.

9.  Despite the old saying, it is better to ask permission than forgiveness.  If you need an extension on a paper ask for one, don't just turn it in late.  If you have a serious cause, many instructors are gracious and will work with you so that you can keep the standard of the course and your sanity, both.  Do not expect a free ride, but in serious cases you can expect us to facilitate your best work.  If you ask, the worst that can happen is a "no."  If you don't ask, the best that can happen is a late penalty.

10.  Google with caution.  The internet is a vast clearinghouse for material that could not be legitimately published anywhere else.  There are some amazing resources out there, but also a lot of junk.  Online students often suffer from a lack of access to a good scholarly library and good internet resources can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  Ask your instructor for trustworthy direction and for goodness sake stay off of Wikipedia.