burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Apparently our current Rest and re/New series topic is "ways to/of faith," and this Wednesday (April 11) we began with our bodies/senses.

This upcoming Sunday (Easter 2), the lectionary Gospel is the story of Thomas who refuses to believe without touching the wounds of the Risen Christ.

Jeff said he thinks Thomas gets a bad rep. (I was reminded that at EDS' Second Sunday ~service on Easter Sunday, Eda said she wishes we would call "Doubting Thomas" e.g. "different epistemology Thomas" -- he just has a different learning style :) )

First he pointed out that no one else in John's post-Resurrection story had believed without evidence. Mary finds the empty tomb, runs and tells Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, who come to the empty tomb and also do not believe.

(I pointed out that John tells us the beloved disciple believed, he just didn't understand -- at H!PS on Monday, Becky had preached on Ecclesiastes 3 and John 20:1-16, and in reading the John I was struck, as I always am, by John telling us that the beloved disciple believed and then in the very next sentence telling us that they did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead [which makes me ask: so what did the beloved disciple believe?!].)

Jesus appears to Mary in the garden, who goes and tells the disciples: "I have seen the Risen One!" John doesn't explicitly tell us that the disciples don't believe Mary, but the next story we read is of Jesus appearing to the disciples locked up in the room, who THEN go on to proclaim, "We have seen the Risen One!" And Thomas just has the misfortune of not being in that room.

Jeff M. went on to say that Thomas wants more than to just see -- Thomas also wants to touch; Thomas wants a Close Encounter not just of the First kind but of the Third kind (though looking at that scale, I think it maybe doesn't mean exactly what Jeff M. was presenting it as meaning).

He said there's lots of art of the scene -- with Thomas sort of poking at Jesus' wounds, and that seems almost pornographic to him... that he imagines it as more of an embrace.

He talked about Jesus' willingness to let Thomas touch Jesus' "most intimate, most vulnerable, most wounded places," which I found a really powerful framing.

I was reminded of the "Jesus and Kink" series we'd talked about last week*, and the thoughts/conversations I'd had since then about how to do such a series. I'm less interested in proof-texting that Jesus condones/endorses kink than I am in the really queer ways people have engaged with Scripture/Divinity -- like the polyvalences of Christ's wounds ... interaction with bodily orifices as sexual, interactions with wounds as kink, the ways in which Jesus' blood on the Cross can be coded as generative/reproductive, the ways in which fluid-producing orifices can be coded as feminine, etc., etc.

I'm making my way through my best friend's copy of Queer Theology: Rethinking Western Body (ed. Gerard Loughlin), and in Chapter 7, Gerard Loughlin says, "for all these elements [Averil Cameron's 'central elements in orthodox Christianity -- the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the Eucharist'], the body is not just a symbol of their truth, but the site where it is realized."

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*Before Rest and re/New last Wednesday (April 4), Keith and Jeff M. were talking about doing a Mindfulness series next (in a way which suggested it was continuing a conversation they'd had previously). Keith talked about maybe using the upstairs Sanctuary space. And then I don't know how we got there exactly, but Keith was joking about Jesus on the cross and hitting people with reeds.

me: "I don't think that would exactly draw the kind of crowd you're looking for."
Jeff M.: "Oh, it would definitely draw a crowd. (This is Davis Square, after all.)"
me: "Oh, I know -- that's what I was getting at. I just don't think it would be quite the crowd you're looking for."
Keith and Jeff M.: [make noises about being an inclusive and welcoming, big tent kind of church]
Jeff M.: (deadpan) "Jesus and Kink is our next series after Mindfulness."
me: "If I thought you were being serious, I would be so excited -- but you're not."
Jeff M.: "How do you know I'm not?"

Today's Lenten Labyrinth talks about the story of the Samaritan woman and how Jesus was breaking all sorts of social boundaries . . . the usual stuff from that story . . . and then it goes on to say:

     As you ponder the out-of-character behavior of Jesus, at least out-of-character for a Jewish man of his time, remember that he was tired. I propose to you that, at the well, Jesus was not so much meek and humble of heart as sick and tried of heart. He was sick and tired, fed up with the silly laws that separate people, laws that brand women as inferior. He was sick and tired of those religious debates about which religion is superior to all others, the "Mine is best" attitude.
     Was Jesus also sick and tired of the fact that any group of people thought they could capture God and put God inside some little building on this or that mountain? His words to the woman at Jacob';s well seemed edged in impatience. Jesus said that God is Spirit, and so you cannot put God in any box or house.

The first few days in the book talked about death and stuff and I assumed it was a more conservative bent, but this is all blah blah inclusive. (And it's talked recently about wishing wells -- about gifting the goddess of the well, which made me all like, "Really? In a Lenten devotional book?")

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( gym )

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Leap Year Google Doodle

in_parentheses says:

I love the idea of Leap Day as a day out of time -- it's like the extra hour for Daylight Savings, only we get twenty-four extra hours! Why isn't it a carnival day? Why are we all going to work like normal?

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Hey, Cat. The Economist came today, and one of the articles listed on the front cover is "In praise of the potato." I flipped to page 18 to find "The potato: Spud we like: In praise of the humble but world-changing tuber," which informed me that "The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato." There is also a book review:

History of the potato
Wonder-food

On the face of it, John Reader's new biography of the potato seems to have a silly title—"propitious esculent" is just a fancy way to say "helpful food"—and an even sillier subtitle. But that is because the virtues of the world's fourth biggest food crop (after maize, wheat and rice) and its influence on world history are easily overlooked. "I used to take potatoes for granted," the author writes. His aim is to discourage readers from doing likewise.

And lastly there's an article about the potato in Peru, where it was first domesticated. (I feel like only a British rag would come up with the punny "Llamas and mash" as a title for such an article.)

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I got everything squared away at work (well, I delegated one thing because I was still waiting on a response from her prof) and got to the TransLaw conference early and everything.

Between panels, a woman sitting next to me (Talia) made some superficial small talk comment, and we got chatting, and it actually would have been lovely for it to have gone on longer. This was extra nice 'cause I was feeling very much like most people there already knew clumps of people and I was just sitting there reading my book. (Not that I mind sitting and reading my book.)

I took brief notes on the panels, so there's actually a prayer of writeups happening sometime this decade.

Both panels ran late, and at 5:30 (when the second panel was originally supposed to end) I opted to stay for the half hour Q&A rather than extricating myself from my row to go make my preferred train back to Norwood.

I got dinner at the Harvard Square Qdoba (I had a Qdoba coupon that was only good for January/February) and then went to South Station and read. We're reading pieces of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions in adult ed at CHPC, and last week we did chapters 3-4 and this week we're doing chapters 9-10 but of course I feel the need to read all the chapters, and I actually finished chapter 8 right as my commuter rail pulled into my station, so yay for good use of my time.

I walked in to the sanctuary and saw MikeF. and JohnP. and I hugged Mike and he said he'd asked my mom to help with the offertory if I didn't get there in time so I should tell her I was here. I went and found her and we hugged and it was . . . not quite the feeling of hanging on for dear life, but . . . as my mom said later, "These are wounded people." I went back, and I hugged JohnP. and it was the same kind of hugging. Less prolonged, but the exact same feeling. I did a lot of shoulder/back rubbing and side-hugging and stuff with both of them throughout the evening.

I had thought I would go to Singspiration in part to get more information about the UCN drama, but most people just did the superficial "How are you?" / "Fine" exchanges -- and there are a variety of legitimate reasons to not talk about that stuff, especially with me (even though I feel like I'm a member of the church by proxy) and in this particular context. I am really glad that I went and was able to be a blessing to people. (And of course after we got home, my mom and I talked.)

People kept asking if I was staying at my parents', and I said I was staying overnight but then getting an early train back to Boston to attend a conference, and GinnyH actually asked me what the conference was, and I said, "transgender legal issues," and she didn't give me shockface or anything, in fact started asking me about it like had I learned interesting/useful stuff or something like that and I just went with it and did my best to answer -- since lots of different things had been brought up in the two panels I'd been to thus far. Other stuff came up and we didn't get far in the conversation, but still, I thought, "I'm so confused; aren't you supposed to be telling me how bad and deviant trans folk are and questioning why I'm going to this conference?"

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"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]
"Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well."
-Julian of Norwich, Showings

Five good things about today:
1. I saw Allie waiting for the T this morning.
2. I had baby samosas (and eggplant with potato curry) for lunch.
3. [TransLaw] I spent nearly four hours listening to radical folk and did not feel profoundly uncomfortable.
4. [Singspiration] I told a member of UCN that I was going to a conference on transgender legal issues and she acted like that wasn't anything to remark on.
5. When my mom brought the car around when we finally left Singspiration (we stayed through all the cleanup) it was just beginning to snow lightly.

Three things I did well today:
1. At work, I wrapped up the stuff I didn't get to yesterday.
2. I looked into gay clubs in the Boston area as advance research for a friend's potential visit.
3. I helped with the post-Singspiration cleanup a bit.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
1. More TransLaw conference -- which hopefully I will stay awake for (god I fail at going to bed).
2. Saturday night I will actually get to sleep for real. (I hope.)