burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

In the SANS program book, Iliff (where Laci went) had taken out a full-page ad. Their offering of online courses caught my eye.

2011-2012 course listings begin on page 78 of this PDF (or you can read the smaller PDF that is the Masters Course List here). They won my affection early on with

BT 3441 Disability & Difference: Theological & Ethical Perspectives
4 credits
This course will introduce disability studies as a lens for theology and ethics, and will consider options for theory and praxis that are authentic to the full diversity of human embodiment.

I keep saying that if I do div school, I'm doing EDS because I wanna take basically all their classes except I would do Methodist polity at BU STH, but Iliff is inspiring similar feelings and they have "Denominational History, Polity and Doctrine" UMC classes.

(I also learned that Deborah Creamer attends a United Methodist church.)

I still don't want to pursue ordination, though. (And yes, I know I could do div school/seminary without being ordination track.)

At least 3-5 people I know from the Internet are considering a path to ordination. I have mixed feelings about this.

I'm filling out a Smith College alum survey...

Jobs and Careers
13. What is your principal occupation right now? If you are not working for pay, what kind of work do you usually do or expect to do in the future? Mark the one best answer.

[...]

Other Occupation
* Clergy or other religious ministry worker
* Administrative support, clerical worker, secretary
* All other occupations

Years ago, I opted not to take EDS' Queer Christian Theologies class.  I pulled up the link today, thinking I would pull the syllabus onto my GoodReads to-read list, and reading the June Term course offerings I was interested in almost all of them and then I pulled up the 2009-2011 Course Descriptions (PDF) and I basically want to take all of the classes.  (I don't remember feeling that way about HDS' classes -- though part of that may have been that in looking at HDS' courses I was v. conscious of the fact that they all met during the day, so I couldn't actually take any of them.)  When I got to "Eucharist and Initiation" I said, "I might audit that one, so that when I want to throw things..."  Ari: "Your imaginary div school plan is taking concrete shape."  (FTR, in this imaginary div school plan, I would skip the Anglicanism classes and take BU STH classes on United Methodist history & polity via BTI, since my primary church involvement is with the UMC, so UMC classes would be a much better use of my time than Anglicanism classes.)

Dreams this morning included Jenny (my brother's fiancee) having a trans sibling.  She kept saying "he" and then she said something that made me think the sibling had been born "he" and so I said, "Oh, SHE's trans," and Jenny was v. confused, and I kept insistently asking, "What gender was your sibling assigned at birth?" (knowing that I could just reverse that to come up with the correct way to refer to the sibling now) and she refused to answer and as the dream went on I came to the conclusion that it was because she was referring to her sibling by the correct/chosen gender and wasn't gonna provide me with personal information -- which was interesting, for me to be the bad guy in an interaction like this.

( crankypants )

***

CWM tonight was a small turn out (though we had 4 newbies), but it was a good night.

Our guest preacher was Rev. Chuck Hartman from Melrose, who was good.  After service, Barbara was saying Sean did such a good job with his creative and powerful story of the Last Supper and we have such talented people here and oh, Elizabeth preached and that was great.  So Chuck asked me about that, and I sketched out how I became this girl who wrote sermons in her free time and Tiffany insisted I preach out loud before she left.  He asked if I was studying, and I said no -- told him where I work, said I have an undergraduate degree in English and people keep suggesting I go to divinity school and I keep saying no (he made some noise in agreement with all those people).  I said that church is basically what I do with my free time, and I sketched out my primary weekly church involvement -- so I said it's like I'm taking classes.  He invited me to preach at Melrose and I said sure.

Chuck: "How about next Sunday?"
me: "Maybe not so much."
Chuck: "How about the next few Sundays?  I could take a vacation."

I am REALLY enjoying this cooler weather.  I actually want to move around again.  I feel much more like I can THINK again.  And, yanno, function.  (I'm also recovering my emotional resources -- as evidenced by the fact that I'm beginning to actually fret about Terry a little.)

***

Laura Ruth and I had dinner (outside!) at the Burren.  She got a shandy and fish&chips.  I got a glass of Pinot Noir (I recently watched Sideways, so sue me -- and it's not like I asked for it right off the bat; the waitress listed the options, and that's what I decided on), a bowl of butternut squash, and vegetarian potato skins.  I was surprisingly full when I finished.

She asked if we had an agenda.  I said no -- said I've learned not to have an agenda when meeting with clergy because when I go in with an agenda, they end up having a different agenda and so we end up doing their agenda.  She made sadface.  I said that usually it's the first time I have coffee with clergy, that we've had some sort of "Oh let's talk more about this" conversation and then they do a "getting to know you" thing and I'm like, "Okay."  She said she's been ordained a year and a half and was a layperson for forty-eight and a half years, and she knows that experience, and she doesn't want to be that pastor, and she asked what my agenda would be if we had one and asked me to pull her back if we got away from that agenda, said I would be helping her to be the kind of pastor she wants to be.

She said she trusts me re: worship.  She said one reason for this is because language is so important to me.  She said that last night when I pronounced us forgiven, she really felt the relief of that grace, and she said she doesn't always.  I was really touched by that.

She said the other reason is that I am so concerned to make a space that is "anxiety free" for people, to allow them to "fall into worship."

She asked me why I do so much church, asked if I have words for that.
I said people frequently ask me that -- I said Meck had asked me that after her (Laura Ruth's) installation -- and I can stumble through an answer, but I have yet to come up with a good answer.
Laura Ruth said that often when she's talking about church, Meck will ask her, "Are you talking about Elizabeth?"  ♥

I talked about how I'm really attached to Christianity -- and that I think that's largely because it's what I grew up with, that I'm not deeply invested/interested in investigating the truth claims (that's the phrase I was looking for! -- I kept saying "faith claims" and saying I knew that wasn't the phrase I wanted) of other religions -- and I talked about how when I was in college I wanted good sold argumentations for things like the Resurrection.  (I said that my mother would sometimes say, "You know it's called faith for a reason," to which my response was: "I made the God leap; for everything else I want strong argumentation.")  She asked me a follow-up question about this later, and I said that I've made peace with it somehow, that I stopped fighting it and it became something that I believe, that some of it was reading the arguments of "people wouldn't have made these claims if it didn't happen" and being sufficiently satisfied with those apologetics, and some of it was being in places like CWM and finding meaningful the layers of metaphor and meaning of Resurrection and "practice resurrection" and the importance of the Incarnation and how it says that we are created bodies and bodies are good and important.  Laura Ruth said -- I think in connection with this part of the conversation -- that I haven't stopped engaging with these things, that that's one of the reasons I'm so good at liturgy etc.

Having Lorraine's post in my recent history, I was inspired to talk about how going to church stuff -- be it worship service or book study or prayer group or whatever -- shows me different ways of doing this thing called being Christian.  I had never thought of it that way before, but after I had said it I thought it made so much sense.

Laura Ruth talked about how I synthesize the intellectual and the emotional/experiential and my own experience and those of other people.  I was thinking later that this makes a lot of sense.  In college (and since) I talked a lot about interpreting liberals and conservatives to each other, living in that liminal border space, moving between two sides and trying to help both sides understand each other.  I'm also really big on organizing things, making things flow, making them comprehensible; and proofreading and editing things, making them more clear and easy to understand -- which I had never thought to connect to other issues of accessibility until tonight but which now seems an intuitive connection.

We talked a little about The Shack before she had to leave for a 7pm rehearsal.  I talked about how some of it -- like the idea that God can't just be one person, because God is love, and love can only exist in relationship, and so if there was a time at which God was not in relationship then God could not be Love -- is stuff that's good to be reminded of but which isn't new to me, so I didn't have the "earth-shattering" reaction I've heard a lot of people had.  I also said that I felt like a lot of the stuff in the book was good -- like the idea that just because God uses bad things toward good ends doesn't mean that God caused the bad things to begin with -- I found myself after I closed the book feeling like there were lots of big things that didn't get addressed -- like how do you balance the fact that God does intervene sometimes, why did Jesus Incarnate at that particular historical moment, what exactly does the salvific moment on the cross or at the resurrection mean, what about judgment day.  I said I was willing to believe that the answer is: "It doesn't matter.  What matters is loving and being in relationship."

Laura Ruth asked if I'd read A History of God, and I said no but it's on my list.
She said that the Old Testament talks about there being lots of gods, our God is just the greatest of them.  She said, "God was never alone."

Before we parted, I thanked her for all the "nice is not a big enough word for what I want to say" things she said.  She said, "As a pastor, I get to tell people true things.  Isn't that wonderful?"

***

I am also glad that Ari is not dead (just really, really tired).

Trimming a candle before service with her Swiss Army Knife, Laura Ruth said, "all good sacristy rats carry a knife."
I said, "They should carry a lighter, too, so we don't have to use up a whole box of matches." (The good big portable lighter we had had gone missing, and the remaining one had given up the ghost, so we were lighting candles with matches, and lighting tea candles you turn the match almost vertical to light it, so then the flame goes up the match and you wanna blow it out before you have time to light the next one. Very inefficient.)
She said, "When you get ordained we'll give you a knife and a box of matches. When Keith gets ordained we'll get him something different."

0.0

There's some positive psychology term for that, I'm sure -- about not talking about "if" something's going to happen but just planning for "when" it happens. I'm used to people asking me if I'm going to div school/seminary since church is like What I Do, and more recently people asking me if I've considered going into ministry (since in certain contexts/with certain people I'm really caring and nurturing, a sympathetic/supportive/patient listener, etc.), but to just say "when you get ordained." Yeah. I didn't interpret it in any sort of pressure-ful way (And it occurs to me on reflection that Keith's in an econ Ph.D. program, so he's about as far from ordination track as I am.) but it still took me a moment to react.

( the actual service )

( gym )

Today at work was like, "Do this right now, and do this other thing right now, and we should meet right now, and do this third thing right now, and I'm gonna go meet with someone else right now."  But not in a way that actually felt stressful.  \o/  Nothing exciting or fulfilling, but I think it helped kick me out of my general malaise [salutes]  And I got outside a bunch, which was nice.  (The walk to work felt far less cold than I was expecting, even though I don't think it was actually objectively any warmer.)

I did a meme over in undeny's LJ, and for "Ask you something I've wanted to know about you," she said: "I think you would make a wonderful minister. Is that something you've considered?"  I cracked up, because people keep telling me I should go to div school/seminary (and I would totally love getting to geek out about religion full-time) but I think I'm highly unsuited for most of what's involved in actually being a minister.

Edit: I forgot to mention: I think I may need to attend Somerville Community Baptist this coming Sunday (10:45am) 'cause the sermon title (per their front yard board -- what are those things called?) is "Christianity & Political Responsbility." /edit

( joy sadhana )

Grr.  My mom emailed to keep us looped, and my granddad's having mental/cognitive issues.  I am not happy about this.

On the upside, CAUMC-Michelle texted me: "I got my certificate of course completion! AND I KEPT MY STRAIGHT A AVERAGE!"  And we made HIMYM jokes.

I am really overdue for bed.  I've had a headache since I dunno, after dinner, and now my stomach is unhappy.

Via Amy's flist, I discovered worth_the_trip  ("queer books for kids and teens").  From the intro post:

I started this blog to keep track of current LGBTQ books for kids and teens and to provide a forum for all those interested in the subject. The forum is named in honor of the first gay-themed book for teens, I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip by John Donovan, published by Harper in 1969.

The most recent entry is about Annie on My Mind, which was first published 25 years ago; that's only one year older than I am.

***

Ranjan was telling me that the new union agreement it's after three months' service rather than two years' that you get . . . what did he say it was called, "release"? . . . anyway, that thing where you can take up to three hours/week off work to take classes and you don't have to make it up in overtime (provided you get your faculty's okay for the scheduling).  This of course tempted me to look at the div school course catalog again, though I don't even know how I'd register for those courses or how open they are to auditors.

***

When I left work today, I considered going down to Katie's desk as I used to do, to see if the temp was heading to the Square as well.  I didn't, but then I saw her heading down the stairs, and indeed she was walking to the T.  We've barely talked, but we had a nice chat, so I ended up taking the Red Line with her to Park Street (where she switched to the Green Line to North Station; she's currently living with her mom in Salem, just came back from a long stay in Japan in November iirc).  I do this a lot -- walking with people to their destination when we're engaged in conversation and I know it'll be no hardship for me to backtrack to my own destination.  Her last day with us is Friday, but she's gonna be next door next week, so she said tomorrow or Friday we should make plans to get a drink after work or something to chat about HBS and suchlike.  I also find it interesting the different way people who have some jobs under their belts approach this job versus those of us who came to it fresh out of college.

***

Um, someone on friendsfriends (roseganymede) linked to this multi-disciplinary call-for-papers site.  Reading about all these conferences is like crack.  There is a Whedon conference in Turkey!  (Obviously I wanna attend them all, have no ideas for actually generating a paper of my own.)

Let's recap my post-work to-do list:

* go to the gym
I ended up talking to people for some time after work, so I didn't get to the gym until 5:30.  Both rowing machines and all the ellipticals save one were in use.  The one I got sounded like there was a piece out of whack, but it didn't break under me, so that's good.  As I said, I did the interval program, switching pedaling direction each mile.  (mile markers: 11:05, 22:44, just after 35; 2.62mi at 30-minute mark)
By the time I finished, the rowing machines were free, so I did a half hour on there.
I have a weird relationship with the gym.  I don't feel that endorphin high after/during a workout, but after only a week or two of going I found myself wanting to go to the gym when I was in a bad mood.  I would really like to be able to do an hour at the gym every day, but I'm not sure I can make that work with my schedule.  It would probably be best if I went in the morning before work, but even leaving aside the difficulty of hauling myself out of bed, I don't like functioning before I've had my shower (I feel gross) but I think the headband pulling my hair out of my face would mess up my hair for the rest of the day (especially if it were still wet when I started, which is highly likely).  Grr, I feel so shallow.  Yes, I could take another quick shower at the gym after, but that feels inefficient -- plus, is it gonna make my hair hate me?

* go to B&J for Free Cone Day
Wait-time: ~15min.
Flavor: Bananas on the Rum
I approve.  I wasn't even particularly craving ice cream, but who turns down free yummy food?  Especially since I walk by the Garage on my way home.  There were people in line getting their second free cone, which I disapproved of, but so it goes.

* buy groceries
Mission accomplished.
Bonus: Saw Will on the way back.

* call my fake boyfriend
The comments on my last entry?  Yeah, I don't even know.  I'm surrounded by crazy people.

You know I’m thinking of you
In the bookstore, in the laundromat
Guess how much I love you
Much more, more than that
More than that
-The Lucksmiths

***

I was telling Ari last night that I wasn't sure how one did an ALM in Religion at Harvard Extension.  The ALM requires 10 courses, and there are only 12 listed in the whole department for 2006-2007.  Additionally, the course offerings seem to fall into two major categories: religion&politics, Buddhism -- neither of which are exactly my areas of interest (though I wouldn't mind taking a class or two in each).  There are also cross-listed classes that look interesting (though browsing the cross-listings also sucks me back in to interest in English classes).  [Okay, reading the details, it looks more like you're effectively required to take six courses in your field, one of which must be a seminar.]

The biggest problem is that really I wanna learn about Christian theology, and that's not what this program does.  So now of course I'm browsing HDS and ANTS and BU.  I'm undecided as to how I feel about these programs, in large part because apparently I can't decide what it is that I'm actually interested in engaging with in depth.

I'm not taking any classes this summer, so I think I'm gonna try to make a conscious effort to do a lot of reading, 'cause it frustrates me that my knowledge is so piecemeal.

***

I have umpteen social/event possibilities this weekend, including Safe Colleges.  Which I was so underwhelmed by, but which is so tempting since it's right down the street.  Do I wanna go to the "Understanding Bisexuality" session?  Is "Accepting God: Finding an Inclusive Religious Community" gonna make me wanna kill myself?  Do I wanna go to "In a Box to the Left: Queer Cultures and Identity Politics" to point out that being queer doesn't require being a lefty?  Do I wanna go to "Family Values: Envisioning Alternative Queer Families"?  Decisions, decisions.

I've also started browsing theatre stuff again.
     from BostonTheatreScene.com:
* Confessions of a Mormon Boy (4/25/2007 – 5/19/2007) Boston Theatre Works, BCA Plaza Theatre
* La Boheme (4/19/2007 – 4/22/2007) Boston University College of Fine Arts, BU Theatre - Mainstage
     from ArtsBoston.org (which does not lend itself to permalinks):
* The Wild Party (04/24/07 To 05/20/07) New Repertory Theatre, Arsenal Center for the Arts
* Children of Eden (05/11/07 To 05/20/07) Riverside Theatre Works
* Giselle (05/10/07 To 05/13/07) Citi Wang Theatre

Amanda and I were on the same Red Line home -- and then both stopping at the library to pick up ILL items.  We chatted for a while and she had made a crockpot of vegetarian soup yesterday and started to invite me over for dinner, but I had CAUMC, so I declined (I would have postponed, but I have to do laundry tomorrow night, and I expect the weekend to be booked up -- I suppose I could have asked about Monday, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead; maybe I'll e-mail her).

We took the escalators up at Davis, and near the top a guy came up all growly "Stay to the right if you're gonna stand."  I had completely zoned and not even registered that we were standing on the left (Stay Right, Pass on the Left is one of my big things, so this is ironic).  I was a little miffed 'cause dude, you're coming home after work, the only connection you would be making from here is the frequent busses, so why the hurry?  But given that inability to grasp Stay Right, Pass on the Left (either on sidewalks or escalators/stairs) is one of my Peeves, I really liked that somebody actually called somebody on it ('cause I always just growl silently, and I suspect I am not alone in that).

*

I went grocery shopping this evening and only saw boxes of individual packets of hot chocolate, no canisters like we get at my parents' house.  What up :(


***

Trelawney's father is still in the hospital, so Megan stepped up and led tonight.  She's taking a Wesley theology class, so she used Wesley & Christian Perfection as her topic.  Since I know next to nothing about Methodism, this was largely new and interesting to me.  Once I sat down after arriving (before dinner) it started to hit me how tired I was -- and I think most all of us were a bit overtired, but it was a really good session, which pleased me especially in the contrast to last week.

We opened with "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", which Megan said encapsulates Wesley's theology, and then read a series of Bible passages (NRSV) -- the ones Wesley drew on heavily in his creation of this theology.

• Matthew 5:43-48
• 1 John 1:5-10
• 1 John 3:1-14

The obvious paradox is "No one who abides in him sins" (1 John 3:6) and " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10).  We even get "Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil;; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning" (1 John 3:7b-8a).

We talked about this some -- about how the forgiveness after sin removes the sin.  Then she brought up "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).  I said I'd always understood it as something you're aiming for even though you can't achieve it.  I mean, saying "Try to be a moderately good person" does.  She said that in philosophy, obligation presupposes ability, which makes sense when you point it out.  Wesley really believed that people could become perfect.

I said, "So he definitely doesn't believe in the Calvinist Absolute Depravity, huh?  Total Depravity, rather."  (TULIP had come up in conversation over the weekend)  She said that actually he does, which is fascinating.  She said that his reasoning was: God is always present, and it is because God is always present that we can choose to do right or do wrong -- without God's presence, we would have no choice but to do wrong.  I'm uncomfortable with the idea of Total Depravity, but I do find that a really interesting theology (the It is only by the grace of God that we are able to choose to do right, though it does not mean that we will always do so).

She said Wesley's favorite metaphor for God was a physician or therapist.

I forget how it came up, but she also mentioned Wesley's idea of the faith of the servant (Jews, Muslims) versus the faith of the son (who obeys the laws because they love God) -- which is obviously problematic, though definitely interesting.

She said that his idea of Christian perfection was like walking up a down escalator -- that stopping is equivalent to backsliding (you can't stop moving forward).

In my Affirmation, I told Megan that this is the kind of thing that makes me want to be a div student ('cause I had literally been thinking that during the discussion).  She had talked about Augustine and the church fathers, both of which reminded me of sk8eeyore and her (course) readings etc., and thinking of her and the classes she takes I added, "Though I could probably do without the pastoral care classes."  Megan stage-whispered in response, "M.T.S."  Recalling the conversation I had with Nicole over the summer, I feel like I should create a tag for this imaginary div school plan :)

After dishes, Sue and Mike both complimented me on my blouse.  I was wearing my blue flowered blouse 'cause it was gonna be high near 69F and also 'cause I'm running out of options what with overdue laundry (though I really have better options than I had expected).  The last time I wore this I think Alyssa complimented me on it.  I don't wear it often because I feel like it's not a great shirt, but apparently I may be in the minority on this.  When Eric saw me this morning, he commented on how it's unusual for me, that I'm usually wearing "black... or solid colors."  Yeah, solid colors; I almost never wear black shirts 'cause I'm almost always wearing black pants.

***

Oh, Grey's Anatomy.  I don't actually watch the show but have watched enough to know what people are talking about and keep somewhat abreast of current storyline events because I have jennyo and fox1013 on Track, which ignores cut-tags (and polls -- like when you get responses to your entries e-mailed to you).

From musesfool: "This one is less with the funny and more with the disappointment: more on the Isaiah Washington-Patrick Dempsey choke-a-thon, which makes me respect Isaiah Washington a lot less. This is why I generally wish to know nothing about actors. "

via fox1013: one of the cast officially Comes Out [which link won't display in Firefox for me, weirdly; I pasted it into IE and it worked fine]

***

P.S. If you're gonna comment and don't have an LJ account, could you please sign your name?  Thanks.  I usually assume it's my dad (whom it usually is, and who usually signs his initials) but it isn't always, and then I get confused.

***

Wow.  All my housemates are home and awake.  This hasn't happened in possibly over a week.  OriginalRoomie came home and my door was open and she said, "You do exist!" and I replied, "As do you."