hermionesviolin | this is not an epic prose poem

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this is not an epic prose poem

I want a radical, queer, church, which is rooted in the Bible (and tradition), and which is engaged -- with the text, with the tradition, with the world -- and which doesn't make assumptions.

I want a church that has a (radical, prophetic) vision of the Kindom of God and is working to bring it forth on Earth.

I want a church that beloves me and that challenges me.

I want a church that is radically welcoming.

I want a church that proclaims its affirmation of GLBT persons. I want a church that welcomes and affirms all sorts of marginalized people -- poly, kinky, furry, immigrants, homeless, addicts, those who have been in prison, those who don't speak English, those with illnesses and disabilities both visible and invisible, those who do not fit the gender binary, persons of color, fat people.

I want a church that doesn't make dismissive comments about people with differing beliefs.

I want an ASL interpreter on standby. I want the physical space to be accessible to persons with physical handicaps. I've grown into the idea of optional nametags. I want greeters at the door. I want newcomers to be greeted and welcomed -- and to feel safe sitting in the back if that's what they want.

In this church, people will feel free to sit in the back as long as they want. And at the same time, people will reach out to newcomers, will get to know them, will help them to feel at home. When people stop attending, members will reach out to them.

No one will be pressured to participate in anything, but people's gifts and graces will be recognized and nurtured, and people will be invited and encouraged to share those gifts and graces in the service of the church.

It will be clear, both printed in the bulletin (or projected onto a screen) and articulated by the worship leader, what we are doing next at each point in the service.

I want people to be named when they receive Communion. I want an option to cross your hands over your chest and receive a blessing instead of partaking of the Elements. I want people to wholly abstain from the ritual if they so desire and to not feel uncomfortable doing so. I want wine and grape juice. I want vegans and persons with gluten intolerance to be able to partake of the Bread of Life.

I want our Communion liturgy to reflect and articulate (and embody) what we believe.

I want the Passing of the Peace to be a time when we encounter each other face to face, when we share peace with each other with personal contact (including, as people are comfortable, physical touch -- a hug, a handshake, a high-five) because we are Christ's body in the world.

If there is a Receiving Line after service, it will not be rushed through.

During Prayers of the People, congregants will lift up aloud and in the silence of their hearts all the joys and concerns they bring with them. People will make themselves vulnerable in their openness, knowing that this is a Safe Space. Some people will cry, and some people will comfort them with touch or a word or simply their strong presence in the seat next to them.

When the Offering is received, people will be encouraged to give generously and joyfully -- and it will also be explicitly acknowledged that money is but one of the many gifts and graces we bring with us, and that all are equally welcome and valued regardless of the gifts we have to share. (I also like the explicit articulation that first-timers need not put anything in the basket as their presence is gift enough.)

I want hymnals so that those of us who can read music but aren't so good at just following a tune played on an instrument can join in comfortably.

We will not sing songs in foreign languages just because we want to be diverse. We will sing songs from the cultures and traditions of those in our congregation.

I want the Fellowship meal after church to contain more than just desserts. I want vegan and gluten-free options. I want the food to be purchased with awareness of environmental concerns. I do not want congregants to talk about how they are trying to lose weight.

In my dream church, no one will have to miss part of the worship service to help prepare the Fellowship meal or anything else.

I want Bible study/book study. I want the church's theology to suffuse the life of the church -- in word and deed -- and I also want opportunities to dig more deeply in a more formal setting.

I want congregants who bring their passions and share them with the church. I want a church that not only supports those congregants in their work but also works with them.

I want a church that takes the liturgical year seriously.

I want a church that is aware of the calendar outside of the church -- National Coming Out Day, local festivals, etc.

I want a church that follows the lectionary, except when it doesn't, and which takes seriously our inherited Scriptures.

I want a church that preaches Good News, that knows the Church is called to speak a word distinct from what one might hear in a secular group of similarly minded people -- is called to proclaim the message of Christ.

I want sermons that inspire me and challenge me -- that are rooted in Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. I want a pastor and a congregation I can argue with and who will listen to me and take me seriously -- who will push back when I am resisting something they know to be True and who will receive me with grace and love, who will tell me when they are hurting and cannot listen to me in that moment. I want a church that teaches and encourages me to speak with love and grace and generosity and also with passion and prophetic wisdom.

I want a church that takes seriously Jesus' call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit and care for the sick and imprisoned. (Food drives? Prison ministry? Visiting the shut-in?) I want a church that takes seriously the call to give up everything we have and Follow.

I want a church that trains and strengthens its members to be Allies -- Allies to GLBT persons, Allies to people of color, Allies to people with mental health issues and physical disabilities, Allies to all who are suffering.

I want a church that takes language seriously.

I want a church that address the Triune God with a variety of names, pronouns, and metaphors. I do not want a church that tries to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.

I want a church where we don't say things are "lame" or "crazy," where we don't say "you guys," where we don't assume people's preferred pronouns.

I want a church that is attentive to the world outside its doors -- to its local community and to the global community.

I want a church that knows the other houses of worship in its neighborhood and which works together with them.

If this church has a denominational background, I want it to draw on the strengths of that tradition -- not at the expense of denigrating other traditions. I want ritual and liturgy that is thoughtful and organic to the congregation -- that acknowledges the pain and joys of human life and the True Fact that God is with us always.

I want a church that starts on time. And where people are welcome to come in late, even to come in at the very end and join us for Fellowship meal, and where people feel safe to leave early. Where children and pets and strangers and "enemies" are ALL welcome. No matter their dress, their history with church, their politics, their ease with social interaction, their education, their income, or anything else which sometimes makes people feel Other.

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I'm not Christian, but I would so go to a church (or any other place of worship, of my or any other denomination) that did this.

True statement, not condescending: I envy your ability to write in bullet points.

I do not want a church that tries to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.

:)

Can I come to your church?

Maybe it's being sick, maybe it's just me being argumentative, etc.

A lot of this sounds fabulous. (A lot of this makes me think that, for me, Mark the Evangelist was my version of your perfect church.)

Some of it, though, strikes me as needing huge amounts of resources. Money and time and person power. There are things that simply can't be done when there's only a single minister. Having an ASL interpreter on standby? Even at CAN, where half the congregation had learnt Auslan, there was no one who could have interpreted above whatever level Miranda was at. So that would cut out the volunteer option.

And there are things in this that I think require the congregation to be made up entirely of people as dedicated to this vision as you, AND to not have any other demands on their time.

And: We will not sing songs in foreign languages just because we want to be diverse. We will sing songs from the cultures and traditions of those in our congregation.
Sorry, but that makes huge assumptions about why we might be singing *anything*. Does this mean that in your dream church no one will sing in Latin? We might be singing something because it's *good*, because it fills us with joy, even though no one in the congrgation comes from that background - (I'm thinking "Masithi" and "Siyahamba" for two African-originating hymns/songs.)

It's a lovely statement, and it's making me miss MtE something chronic (They could have used a round of "Siyahamba" once in a while). But.

Hey, I was just telling Ari that I kept expecting someone to push back about my vision :)

Having an ASL interpreter on standby comes from my experience at CWM -- that we had found an agency that supplies interpreters and found an interpreter who would feel comfortable in our queer church, so we knew that if someone approached us needing an interpreter we could hire one.

Sorry for the assumptions about foreign-language singing. I admit that it comes out of my feeling really uncomfortable when we sing African songs because I feel like we're just doing it because it seems like a good liberal idea, and it feels weirdly culturally appropriative because we're just going in and picking out this thing from another culture with no context and no other connection to that culture. Singing something I can't pronounce, that I barely know what it means, fills me with frustration and some small amount of discomfort, so that's my prejudice(?) speaking.

Latin I think could arguably be "from the cultures and traditions of those in our congregation" if some of the congregants have grown up with that kind of music -- either in other churches they've been in or in performance settings. It would still make me uncomfortable unless it had the English translation right under it (I like some Taize music, and I like singing in the non-English -- when I can pronounce it, which I can't always with French for example -- but only when I know what it means).

And there are things in this that I think require the congregation to be made up entirely of people as dedicated to this vision as you, AND to not have any other demands on their time.

Say more about this?

In my head, the church of my vision has more resources (people, money, etc.) than CWM does, and CWM is definitely struggling to do parts of this vision which I have seen it do in the past, but rereading my vision I'm struck that I phrased most of it as ideas, not dictating specifics that would require specific amounts of resources but allowing the congregation to discern how it can live into that particular vision.

I agree on that last statement--the issue is more that to live into said vision in America today and to provide and create access for all, any mental picture I find in my head requires a good deal of not only financial resources and personhours, but also emotional and psychological resources to provide for such a diverse community in so many ways without being excessively general.

And I think that you'll also run into trouble finding a balance between liturgy and open-minded practice, but you probably knew that already. Not to be a buzzkill. There may be a way to do it simply. But I can't think of one at 1 AM.

Oh, Elizabeth. This is the church I want so desperately. This is church utopia, Ideal Church.

The one thing I see in you rlist that seems impractical to me is the one about everyone being named at Communion. Most of what you've got here are Doable things, even if some of them are Hard and Difficult things, and like

rhipowered and

sweet_adelheid, I think they would require a high degree of committment and resources. But the naming thing, while powerful and awesome, doesn't seem practical to me in most church settings. We sometimes have one thousand people at a Mass and like 20 or so people serving Communion. How are they supposed to know everybody's names? And say they do the name of the person in front of you, but not yours? Wouldn't that feel weird?

How are they supposed to know everybody's names? And say they do the name of the person in front of you, but not yours? Wouldn't that feel weird?

This is one of the reasons why I could never be part of a church that large. But Rev. S. communes everyone by name, and she usually gets any visitors' names before service or during Passing of the Peace, but if she doesn't, she'll ask right before she communes them. But I agree this would be impractical if you're communing thousands of people... but then like I said, I could never be part of a church anywhere near that size.

*nods*

When you are Catholic, there's often not a lot of choice. There might be one church near you that serves a huge area. We have to drive 40 minutes to get to our church, for example. So that means the congregations are often really, really big.

Part of me likes that--a lot of diversity, lot of people bringing different gifts and possibilities, etc. But I do think it's harder to form relationships as a result, etc.

This is in some ways bizarre to me, growing up as I did in a heavily Catholic town. Admittedly I think St. Tim's also worships a large congregation (I've only been to St. Catherine's, which is the larger of the two), so there's still the "Nobody knows everyone's name" issue, but driving 40 minutes to get to the nearest Catholic church... Yeah, first hearing about Kennedy's election and how it was this big deal because he was Catholic I was like, "Huh? But isn't everyone Catholic?" There were a number of Protestant churches in my town, but they were all small churches, so being Protestant definitely felt like a minority position.

I think it's partly a Southern thing. Catholic people are not nonexistant by any means, but Baptists and Methodists of many flavors predominate. In highschool, from 9-12 grade, less than ten people at my entire school were Catholic. Actually, I only knew of 2, but I'd prefer to err on the side of caution. There were a little more than 400 people at my school. If we take that as a microcosm of the larger community, not that many Catholic people.

In Oxford, there was one Catholic church; if you didn't want to go there you could drive 45 minutes to Tupelo. There were, however, around 7 Protestant Churches in the same town.

Here in Cochran, a town of a population less than 5000, we have 4 Protestant Churches within the town proper and no Catholic Churches at all.

In some cities in the South, there is literally a Baptist Church every two blocks.

Even in a city like Jackson, MS that has more than one Catholic church, St. Richard's where my husband's family go, they can have easily a thousand people at Mass.

I think it's much easier to have a smaller church community as a Protestant because there is so much choice.

Part of my response is: This is why nametags.

But also, yeah, churches of more than a couple hundred attendees are so far outside my experience. I mean, I have been to such churches on occasion (St. Catherine's RC in my hometown, Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, Glide UMC in SF, Reunion in Boston...) but the church of my vision is like the churches I have regularly attended -- which worship probably about 20-100 people.

Nametags is an interesting idea. I've never seen that done before, but it's a good idea.

The church I grew up in didn't do it, but a number of Protestant churches I've worshiped in have done it (including CWM). It definitely helps with getting to know people.

You could always start your own church. Tons of people do it, sometimes based on what appears to be nothing more than the need to feel important and the desire to have in excess of a dozen virginal teenage brides.
So, in my book, you're already ahead of the game, what with all the welcoming and acceptance.

*has no words for how awesome that sounds, even to a therian.*

I would go.

Furthermore, I feel that if there are truly people in our modern world (and if they're anywhere, they're in a progressive place like Boston) who want to engender acceptance and communion, not just spiritual communion, but social communion, and to truly reach out to their fellow man in complete acceptance, then this would totally work out.

Why do I think that, you ask?

Because I feel that there are some people out there who want this, some who would need this. The world is changing, people are changing. Views, creeds, people, ideologies are becoming more diverse and yet, still, they are not being accepted. People are being lead down more and more misguided paths because they lack acceptance, communion, and guidance. Fandoms are all fine and good but, even then, they are made of so many lost souls...who can offer each other acceptance and communion, but can the lost guide the lost?

Surely there would be great challenges involved, but I think that something like this would be immensely helpful to a lot of people...people who want help, but can't find it. All it would take is people who believed in it, even if it started out slow.

I wish this vision for *any* gathering of people who look to the universe around them for comfort and connection, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, Wiccan, Buddhist, Asatru, not matter what. For when we all can join together in the worship of life, in what ever form we seek it, than will the walls come down and the differences finally become no differences at all.

You and I have had this conversation before, but you have yet again managed to hit a button I didn't know I had w/r/t language choices. Because just when I think I've gotten on board with your argument about "lame," then you have to go and take on "you guys" and I just don't know.

And actually I think this is tied to a larger issue, because what it comes down to is feeling like what we (well, you and I, and the thinky-type people we know) are trying to do is find a balance between being treating other people with respect on the one hand, and maintaining culture on the other hand. On the respect side, I get that "you guys" is not a gender-neutral means of addressing a group, and I get that it, combined with other things, helps to perpetuate masculinity as the norm, etc. On the other hand, I feel like "you guys" is my culture. It's my idiom, it's part of me. Because how I speak is part of me, and it's rooted in the place I grew up and the books I've read and the communities I've been a part of.

And obviously there are plenty of people who would make the same case about "that's so gay" or whatever, so obviously saying "it's my culture" isn't a blanket pass to get past any other arguments. But I think it is a matter of degree, surely, and somehow "you guys" is feeling like it's way down at one end of the continuum, with "that's gay" at the other end, and "lame" somewhere in the middle.

I guess the other thing I feel is that it seems like there is an impression I get in situations like this (not from you, and I know you know what I mean here), an impression that there is a list of words that the community has deemed to be "not okay" and that there is no point at which one person's culture can be as important as the concerns of respect. And I guess I disagree with that because I feel like maybe we each of us have to find where the balance stands for ourselves. Not just, obviously, that we have to decide whether or not we agree with the community assessment, but maybe more like we have a moral imperative to decide for ourselves instead of agreeing with the community assessment.

Maybe what I'm saying is that I think there can be value in exclusivity, and in a culture that makes some people uncomfortable. Which, not that this necessarily applies to your statement, because it's about what you value in a church, so if you value community and welcoming and inclusiveness, then that's what you value.

Anyway, still turning this over in my head. Maybe we can talk about this next week?

I totally say "YOU GUYS!" when I'm all inarticulate flappy-hands. Ari and I have talked about this some, about how it is often really hard to come up with alternative language, even when we think the language we're using is problematic.

I'm not sure I'd ever thought about "you guys" being problematic until one night after church one of our lay leaders said to one of our seminary interns: "I noticed that in your Children's Time you used the phrase 'you guys' multiple times in talking to the children" [who consisted of two little girls].

I think one thing liberals (incl. liberal churches) sometimes elide is that everything is going to make SOMEONE uncomfortable -- and we have to be okay with that; we have to acknowledge and recognize that, and make a real decision about whether we think specific people's discomfort trumps whatever it is that we're trying to do with that thing that makes these people uncomfortable.

At the Just Worship workshop at Convo, a woman mentioned that while she understands the reasons for changing the language of some of the old hymns, when you change the words they're not longer the same hymns and that makes her sad/uncomfortable/I forget what term she used exactly. Later in the workshop, one of the facilitators said (speaking broadly, but clearly having the woman's earlier comment particularly in mind), that sometimes we have to give up our privilege when other people are being hurt. (The facilitator worried privately that she had been too harsh and actually talked to the woman afterward -- who said no, she really needed to hear that.) That really stuck with me -- though I would personally be really hesitant to phrase it so boldly to anyone.

And I definitely agree with you that there's a continuum, that not all hurts are equal. I think there's a certain problem with relativizing -- of placating ourselves that it's okay that we do xyz because at least we don't do abc -- but I also think it would be a problem to tell people that the fact that they don't do abc doesn't count just because they still do xyz.

And I definitely want people to think about and understand WHY it is that people find certain language hurtful (or whatever the situation is), to not just say/do or not say/do certain things because that's what Good Liberals do.

One of my things recently (re: church, but it's broadly applicable) has been: "What do we believe -- and why? And how do we live that out?" I think all three components of that are important.

And yes, we can definitely talk about this over dinner next week.

Thank you for being honest and thoughtful. I love that you're doing that thing that I do where you pushback against what it is that you're saying as you're saying it, and I'm glad that you know that you can push back against what I'm saying.

Maybe what I'm saying is that I think there can be value in exclusivity, and in a culture that makes some people uncomfortable.

This is resonating with me. I think you have articulated one of the things that I still struggle with regarding religion. Because no matter how ecumenical, how open-minded, how committed to noble acts of social justice a religious body is, at some point, it draws a line around itself and says, "We love you, but you are not us." Does that make sense? This is what we believe and it makes us different from you.

I struggle with that.

Part of it is my training in humanities and part of it is my inability to "prove" that any one religious system is "correct," leading me to sadly, be pretty equally skeptical about them all.

I think you've raised a really valuable question, though. What is the value in exclusivity and is it necessary to a certain extent?

I agree with

marginaliana that there can be value in exclusivity. As I said to her in my reply, I think this is something that liberals tend to elide because we don't like to talk about excluding anyone. But no place can be all things to all people, and in attempting to make it so, we water down the things that make it distinctive and thus we make it into something that has no value for anyone.

I think there are ways that we can make truth claims that don't demean people who disagree with us. And I think it's really important (in religion, in politics, in life) that we continue to work hard on doing that.

I've talked before about how I've let go of a lot of my insistence on "proving" the truth claims of Christianity, and I am definitely not arguing that one should necessarily let go of interrogating those truth claims. But I think that "picking a religion" is largely about where you (generic) encounter the Divine. Rev.S. says we go to church because that's where we touch the face of God.

The book I'm reading for class this week talks about the Hebrew Scriptures as being Revealed and about how that means a relationship between God and people -- how it's not some book dropped off from Heaven.

I've heard in a couple different contexts in recent months the point that "credo" -- which gets translated "believe" -- means to give one's heart to [see Borg, for example (http://books.google.com/books?id=pcBmAzQdg20C&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=credo+give+one%27s+heart+to&source=bl&ots=JUxBdgzBqc&sig=D1YA5BaxhCHDB7zqAjxDdfF9eZA&hl=en&ei=dKLgSoyFB4m1lAen_tSEDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=credo%20give%20one%27s%20heart%20to&f=false)].

I do not have a coherent structure for these thoughts, but they're what are coming to mind in reading your comment.

Yes! That's something that's come up in my reading of Borg as well and in convo with

prehistoric_sea but it's such a hard hard thing for me to let go of or wrap my head around differently.

Ze said something along the lines of, "Belief in the way you mean is really this recent Protestant construct anyway."

and I was all

"True. But apparently it's one that I've internalized. I guess part of me feels like since I can behave ethically independently of any religious structure, if I'm going to church, it has to *mean* something."

I don't know.

I will think more later. :)

But it *does* mean something.

It being about relationship rather than about a code of ethics makes it mean *more,* I would argue.

I mean, I've largely internalized this "recent Protestant construct" of belief as well -- and I don't think it's without value -- but...

I have trouble with the relationship construct too.

I have a relationship with you, Elizabeth, beecause you talk to me. I've met you and we mailed books back and forth and I know what you sound like in my mind when I'm reading what you say and I can picture your adorable smile and I know what makes you tick (at least a little). How do you relate to the divine? You know?

I don't actually have much more to say, but you're giving me thinky thoughts. Thanks for that. :)

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this is not an epic prose poem

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I found words, sorry...was taken aback. :D

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