"Human love, which gives existence its viability and purpose -- both our love of God and our love of neighbor -- is spontaneous, fragile and fleeting." -R. Goetz
WelcomeThe service was designed by Linda, and she and the girls made the Communion bread during service.
( Read more... )Communion We had the Bread and the Cup, but on the altar were containers of heavy cream (and soy cream) and honey. Yes, "milk and honey." Warm bread with honey (and milk) is DELICIOUS. I still need an "abundance" icon. Any sweet soul want to make me an icon of bread with honey dripping?
( and the rest of the service )***
After dinner, we watched
For the Bible Tells Me So.
I didn't feel like viewers not already sympathetic to GLBT issues would have felt enough of a personal connection with any of the families in the film to be swayed like Gee maybe it's not really a sinful choice after all. But the violence and hatred directed at GLBT persons and their allies is really depressing. It sort of reminded me that like this is part of why GLBTA persons often have such difficulty sitting down with or listening to people who are all "love the sinner, hate the sin" -- because so often what they have encountered is "hate the sinner." (Some of the hate mail Gene Robinson got when he was first up for bishop... Apparently he wore a bullet-proof vest at his consecration. That's frightening.)
The film also mentioned various times some of the various "rules" Biblical literalists don't seem to feel compelled to abide by -- the usual list of the
other Levitical abominations (which they pointed out are ritual transgressions, not things inherently wrong -- and they said that when Paul says "un/natural" he means "not/customary") as well as the rules against usury ... gee, all those wealthy Christian fundamentalist leaders, should you really have any of your money invested?
They talked about how Sodom was a wealthy city and was worried that if travelers came through and saw all that they had, maybe they would want to take some of it, so they canceled the law about welcoming the stranger -- and then were upset that Lot had broken that custom and welcomed the stranger anyway (and anal rape was a common humiliation tactic in the ancient world -- cf. the treatment of defeated military opponents, for example -- so the Sodomites' intentions toward the strangers really wasn't about sex per se). One African-American lesbian said that there are many cities today where she is not welcome because she is an African-American, a woman, a lesbian ... and that those are the places where she thinks of Sodom.