burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approves change in ordination standard
‘submission to the lordship of jesus christ’ replaces ‘fidelity and chastity’

Yeah, I have lots of thoughts about that :D

Thanks to a conversation with a friend, I now want a website with the official polity, judicial precedent, etc. of all denominations on full inclusion of GLBT persons (ordination, membership, etc.).

Serendipitously, this morning's daily lectionary readings were: Isaiah 61:1-7 and Romans 7:1-6.

I saw FCS-Ian last night 'cause there was Council after Rest and Bread.  The copier's still broken, and he asked me if I still had the lectionary sheet* and I said yeah, not with me but at home, that I was planning to bring it to church and that I could also email him the Thursday daily lectionaries for the weeks until Lent.  I got home and couldn't find it, so I typed up the Thursdays until Lent from my RCL book.

*Two Thursdays ago, he hadn't printed up slips, so I used his sheet of the month's daily lectionaries, and took it with me, thinking he had another copy, and the next week he didn't have a copy but I still had mine in my bag.

He replied later this morning:

Thank you very much.  It is so nice to see you on Thursday mornings.

Bless,
Ian

***

Today was really busy at work.  I literally didn't get done all the things I had to get done.  I didn't feel like I was dropping balls, though, and I did take various breathers (including a comfortable lunch -- outside! -- with Cate).  Scott said he'd never seen me so busy.  I pointed out that the day Sonia came to visit was really busy.  He said that was the second busiest.

At one point, he complimented me on a phone call he had been present for, said I clearly work in the Negotiations unit.  I said that was funny because when Jim had approached me and said, "A project for your diplomacy skills," I had mentally recoiled, thinking, "Least favorite part of my job -- diplomacy, politic, negotiation."  Scott said be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that I'm good at it.  "In certain contexts," I insisted.  (I feel like what Scott was present for wasn't much of a negotiation.)

I am good at being mad at people, and I am good at taking care of people -- these are modes I operate really well (comfortably) in.  I debated going to Blue Shirt tonight, because I was feeling like I needed to recharge and being around people was going to drain me further.  But I went anyway.  I got a sandwich and a fruit&sorbet smoothie -- yay healthy food.  It was just Kathy and Gianna, and Gianna was leaving.  We talked about church and family and etc.  (Laura Ruth greeted me with, "Doctor [surname].")  Erica, and Jeff, came later.

Laura Ruth told the story of going to Scott Brown's office today -- she was at the State House to lobby for trans rights, and Scott Brown's office is right near her Senator's office (Sonia Chang-Díaz) -- and confessing that she had thought she didn't need to know anything about Scott Brown because she was so sure that Martha Coakley would be elected, and so she doesn't know anything about him, and she talked to his legislative liaison or somebody (I forget) and asked questions, including, "My congregation is really progressive, so what can we do to support you, given how different we are?" and the guy said, "Talk to us -- write to us, email us ... we have to represent the whole state, not just a part of it."

Around 7 (I got there around 6) Laura Ruth and Jeff had their meeting about re/New etc.  Well, it started with Laura Ruth saying that she and Jeff needed to have their meeting, and I got up, and Jeff said, "It's an open meeting," and I sat back down.

I wasn't sure how helpful I would be, but I had some potentially useful thoughts, and I was really useful in practical matters of reminding them of things they had said they would talk about, asking Laura Ruth if she should input into her phone calendar a change they had agreed on verbally, etc.  At point I said, "And people wonder why I'm never planning to quit my job -- this is what I do," and Laura Ruth said something about Calling (in a way which Affirmed that this is a gift of mine).

They talked about "Christian rockstar music," and she made a disgusted face.  She said, "My nephew's a Christian rockstar.  I love the boy, but it's nauseating," and she mimed preening flowing hair.  I said, "Would you feel the same way if he were gay?  I'm just thinking, with the [miming], that if he were gay, you would be like, 'Oh, that's so [mentally searches for a good word].' "  She was appropriately abashed and said, "Point taken, you don't even need to finish the sentence."

At one point, Laura Ruth mentioned a couple in the church and referred to them as a straight couple and then said, "Well, I don't know -- [male name] might be trans."  I said, "Trans people can be straight," and later, "If one person uses masculine pronouns and the other person uses female pronouns, they're an opposite-gender couple -- who may or may not identify as queer."  Jeff asked, "When are we [First Church] gonna do queer theory 101?" and I got all excited.  He said, "I probably sound like my grandma does on race," and Laura Ruth assured him that wasn't so, and she also said she wasn't sure she even knows what queer theory is.  I said that "queer theory" in the academic sense contains a lot including a lot of stuff I don't necessarily understand, but that what Jeff meant, like GLBT Issues 300, is something I'm really excited about -- about the nuances of language and the difference between sex and gender and all that.

We finally departed around 8:30.

Other good things about today: The job candidate didn't mind my taking him outside, the glitches that there were seemed to be fine, my W-2 came in the mail so I can now file my taxes, the FCS prayer retreat is 5pm-5pm so I don't have to miss the teaching part of that workday.

Edit: Tiffany and I made a date for coffee before she leaves, and I asked if she wanted to meet at Mr. Crepe or somewhere else, and she said, "Why break with tradition? Mr. Crepe works for me."  ♥

I got an email a few minutes ago with the link [PDF] to the draft report in preparation for Saturday's "Deep Listening and Honest Sharing on Social Principles Statement on Human Sexuality," and was I was reading the first statement, I realized that it said things like "members of our community who happen to be homosexual" and I had barely even noticed -- unlike when I was reading the "Barack Obama, Rick Warren & Marriage" piece Pastor Vic at SCBC sent me earlier this week (we're meeting this Sunday to talk about same-sex marriage, so he sent me the piece he had written for the church newsletter) and really didn't like the frequent use of the term "homosexual." I think it was because I felt so at home in the statement, was so wrapped in affirmation, whereas Vic's piece felt so much like an outsider trying to articulate tolerance and civility. (Er, that sounds more negative on Vic than I intend it to.)

What I really wanted to say, though, was that I was reading the second statement, and it's much more hesitant, but I was so struck by "We reject the witness of those who ridicule, denigrate, and abuse those who are perceived as homosexuals, lesbians, and gender transformed." gender transformed. Okay, I as a bisexual am elided, and "homosexuals and lesbians" is weirdly redundant, but, gender transformed.

Also (I opted to keep reading before hitting Post), the second statement goes on to say, "The emergence of bi-sexuality as accepted in culture suggests there is considerable diversity in our sexuality, not just one or the other." *dances* Extraneous hyphen notwithstanding, I am not invisible!!! *\o/*

I am not so much interested in critiquing artaxastra's specific post.

But I do think that getting to know the Other is really important.  I think a lot of people are scared of the people on the other side because they don't understand them.  And I think this is true of/on both sides.  I think it's harder to demonize people when you actually know them as people.  And I'm not trying to make the "we're just like you" argument -- I think that can be powerful and useful on an individual level, but of course it's often not true that "we're just like you/them," and I don't think that difference necessarily has to be scary.

At Bible Study after evening church tonight, Tyler asked Tiffany to talk about the Narrative work she does (Marshall Ganz) and she talked about probing for the "why" and talked about how our decisions show our values and how usually we can find shared values.

I feel like I should have much more to say on this, but this is about all I have at the moment.

I am basically only reading my flist on this issue, because I think that will keep my frustration to a minimum, but anyone who wanders here off of friendsfriends or wherever is welcome to comment -- and if there are posts you've seen elsewhere that you think are interesting, feel free to point me to them.

As part of ibarw (whose optional theme this year is "intersectionality"), wisdomeagle posted a number of links, with commentary.

One really smart thing she said (re: appropriate ways to refer to trans folk):

"not born a woman"? Really? I wasn't born a woman either -- I was born a person, assigned a female gender and became a girl, and only now am I becoming an (adult) woman.

One thing she commented on was a quote I have in my LJ profile:

Why is the possibility of "passing" so insistently viewed as a great privilege ... and not understood as a terrible degradation and denial?
-Evelyn Torton Beck, Nice Jewish Girls

She noted that,

"passing" is a problematic term for, e.g., a transwoman successfully presenting herself as a woman, because she's not "passing" as a something she isn't [the way a biracial person might "pass" as white]; she is a woman succeeding in presenting herself correctly

kyuuketsukirui responded:

As for the term passing, I know some people have a problem with it for the reasons you gave, but everyone I know uses it. To my mind it does not refer to passing as simply male or female, but specifically passing as cisgendered (and thus "normal" and "acceptable" and deserving of basic human rights).

Talk about "passing" made me wanna reread Passing (by Nella Larson), which reminded me that I never got around to reading Quicksand (in the same volume); and the whole discussion reminded me how little knowledge I have.  By the time we got to international issues in Issues in Queer Studies (a Thursday evening class I took my second semester at college) I was dozing off in class 'cause I wasn't getting enough sleep, and I remember woefully little from my Harlem Renaissance class.  I've read Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, but could I tell you anything about it?  Have I read any James Baldwin?

I've been wanting to binge on queer (including trans) ya lit (plus reread various queer lit classics), and I still want to do that, but there's other stuff I should do in addition -- like reading Judith Halberstam and Judith Butler and maybe attempting Michel Foucault again and rereading Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and reading Ralph Waldo Ellison's Invisible Man and so on.

oyceter posted about her experience with 50books_poc.  She commented:

Now that over half the books I'm reading are by POC, there's a real difference. White isn't the default any more. While I theoretically knew that "I don't want to think about racism" is a privileged excuse, since something that's all white is already racialized, it was much harder internalizing this until I had changed over to read more POC. Now, when I do fall back and read white authors writing all-white worlds, it doesn't feel like the norm anymore. It feels like it's missing quite a few someones. And while I love emo white girl YA, it now feels like a genre, not the face of YA.

I'm feeling better, having spent much of Saturday processing, but to spare me the trouble of retelling the story umpteen times, ( the story of how my weekend wasn't what I had expected )

So yeah, if anyone wants to call some other evening just to say hi (I have extension school class on Mondays until 7:30, and Thursday is CAUMC small group from 7-10, but otherwise...), that would probably be lovely.  (Prayers are also appreciated, if you are so inclined.)

-----

Happy things:

* Stephen Colbert wants a sign he should run for President. [via kita0610]

* After a Grade 9 male student at a Canadian high school is bullied (including being called a homosexual) for wearing a pink tank shirt, two Grade 12 students (also male) distribute pink tank tops and other pink items for students to wear. [via kita0610]

* "The youngest 'Hero' suits up" -- Noah Gray-Cabey goes shopping for the Emmys (though I checked IMDb, and the girl who plays Molly Walker is a year younger than him) [via maechi]

P.S. fox1013 wrote Micah and Molly fic for heroes_bigboom.

Also, Ari came to CWM with me tonight (observing churches being a requirement for one of her classes), and due to train schedules we also got about an hour and a half to hang out beforehand.  (And we bumped into Layna on the way to church.)

Oh, and Jessie, I think I am lame and never thanked you for the collage you made for me, but it is lovely.

And worth_the_trip informs me that "YA author Lee Wind has recently launched his own blog about LGBTQ teen lit called I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?"

The If you truly believe in gay rights, then repost this and title the post as "Gay Rights". If you don't believe in gay rights, then just ignore this. meme has been showing up more and more on my flist. (I'd mostly been seeing it, and the backlash thereto, on friendsfriends.) The first time I saw it on my flist I didn't have a strong reaction against it, but I'm disinclined to participate in copy-and-paste memes and was very uncomfortable with the idea that my non-participation in this would trump my personal history (queer libertarian -- thus with both a personal and an ideological investment in consenting adults getting to do whatever they want provided those rights don't infringe on anyone else's rights to freedom and pursuit of happiness). I don't think anyone familiar with me/my LJ at all would interpret it as such, but that is what the meme is saying.

There are other problematics and discussions I could get into (and happily will in comments if anyone wants/brings them up) but that's the primary point I wanted to make.

Yeah, getting the results+commentary from Teh Internet the next day.

Of the 5 Best Picture nominations (listed below) I've only seen 2 (asterisked) and wasn't taken with either of them.

BEST PICTURE
* BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
* CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
MUNICH

Highlights from the flist:

[Reminder: See the Subject of this post?  Read linked pieces at your own risk.]

the_red_shoes is smart.

hedy reiterates her problems with lauding Brokeback Mountain as a gay movie.  (In the comments, lilithchilde counters: "I think it was a movie about the tragedy of the closet, personally. And while I understand the reservation about showing the negative side of gay life and history . . . it's real, and it's poignant")

I agree with sineala on Documentary.

sexonastick is snarky about Brokeback Mountain etcetera.


And hopping over to InstaPundit gets me a couple links -- the first of which reminds me that marauderthesn has complaints about Clooney's speech (scroll past a lot of other complaints for that one) and the second of which reminds me that whedonesque is having a Who Got Snubbed? A Shout-outathon thread which was helpful to me in reminding me which other movies came out last year.


I'm still working on coming up with an articulate response to the "out of touch" speech.

This song feels appropriate.


I am tired and hungry and have a headache. My sleep schedule is back to normal, though, and i've actually been productive. I was intelligent in my Milton class this morning and i'm developing something of a plan for getting all my work done.

I heard back from Women Express. They weren't much clearer than the CDO announcement, but they did say, "We have many positions, so if you are flexible and really want to be here, we'll find something for you." It seems that i just pick what area i want to work in and although i may not get an internship position i'll at least get to do some sort of volunteer work. Now i just have to learn how to do an official resume and cover letter.


Posts like this (and this and this) remind me why i support actions like the Day of Silence.


Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet