Words that are no comfort

Some words that will not comfort
but the words that might sustain.
Rachel is weeping for her child
and cannot be comforted.
The loss may be transformed
but the loss will still remain
The slave may be redeemed
but the slavery is not erased
a life, our lives will still go on
but without the presence.
"They" may say you are grieving well
or may think you're doing badly.
But it is o. k. to grieve badly and well in your own way
it is o. k. to make others uncomfortable
You don't have to cry (or not) so that they can say
"How well you are doing."
You must grieve as you grieve
and move through the pain
You must cry - or not - as you will
for there is no comfort.
there is only hope

copyright Roger Victoria, 1998

Male or female

I was androgynous when I took this test on whether your brain responds in a more typically male or female question. And you are?

And the news is where?

I say a 'breaking news story' on Anna Nichole Smith as I was flipping through the channels today. I didn't stay to watch what it was. Rather I thought, how about the ex-ex-gays on Montel Williams talking about a breach of trust, how about the ex-aide to Ney - one of our elected officials - pleading guilty to bribery, Gore's response to accusations from the Drudge, some person (Randy Thompson) from an ex-gay ministry suggesting gays haven't suffered enough (see Box Turtle Bulletin for some history), Congressman Dan Young misquoting Lincoln, a principle censoring an article that called for tolerance because kids shouldn't be exposed to the idea that some kids are gay, that Republicans are keeping money from a supporter of terrorism, an editorial on why all kids should be enabled to attend prom with the partner of their choice, how people can disagree with respect for their differences, Andrew Sullivan's quote of the day, and while many of these may not interest everyone aren't they more important than one person's dirty laundry.

Daniel Burnham

"Make no little plans; they no magic to stir men's blood. Make big plans, remembering that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded will never die,but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."

Daniel Burnham as cited by Habitat for Humanity's Millard Fuller

When in the dark

When in the dark of night I fear
and what I fear draws near, draws near.
Nearer still, yes nearer still,
God's love is yet nearer still.

When in the heat of noon I quiver
and I am prey that shivers, shivers;
where shall I go or travel
save, flee to God, God's love will still

When in the frenzied tasks I lose
lose sight of what to do, to will
I will then, truly then I will,
turn to God, will do God's will

copyright Roger Victoria 1999

A Prayer

Oh Light that lights up all my life,
illumining the darkest shadows.
Oh Light that shines through all the years
and gives the years their meanings.
Come to my heart and all my life
illuminate in every part.
That I may see what I have been
and look to what I yet may be.

Oh Love that loves the loveless ones.
Love loving those who cannot love.
Oh Love that cares through all the years
and gives the years their meanings.
Come to my heart and all my life.
Come cast your love in every part.
That I may see what I have been
and look to what I yet may be.

Oh Life that lives in every day.
Come breathing through endless, lifeless days.
Oh Life that lives through all the years
and gives the years their meanings.
Come to my heart and give my life
Come to my heart that I may light
the breath of love in every part.
Till I may see what I have been
and become what I may yet be.

copyright Roger Victoria 2001

Marriage counts

From the Petrelis Files I heard about a Republican standing up for the rights of all to marry. Given the recent history of the Republican Party this is good news. And it comes from Wyoming which isn't really noted for being at the forefront of civil rights for GLBT folk. But Rep. Dan Zwonitzer stood up when it counted. Thanks.

Oh by the way, though it shouldn't be of interest, the guy is straight.

Alphonse Karr

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses."

Alphonse Karr

A war on terror or supporting terror?

I thought the war on terrorism was supposed to be a hallmark of the Republicans, but Afarensis points to a CBS article indicating that the Republican party is being supported (a major donor) by someone with actual ties and donations to support terrorist activity. I'm still waiting to hear that those donations are being returned.

Shame

The former president of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU has been arrested for possessing child pornography. This is a shame. It is not about two consenting adults. It is about abuse of someone who should be protected. Who will guard the guardians? In this case the wolf was caught and good riddance. I get on the fundamentalists and evangelicals for this sort of hypocrisy especially when it seems they are protecting their own, but it is equally despicable no matter from which area of the political spectrum it comes. While I don't believe in the death penalty - it's too irrevocable when mistakes are made - child abuse is the time I start thinking about making an exception.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars pointed me to ABC news on this.

Eleanor Roosevelt

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Inconsistencies

We Christians (or rather those who call ourselves Christian) are sometimes inconsistent. When we have power we talk of building a Christian realm and out of power we talk of being strangers in the land. But we should constantly be of both mindsets. We are building a Christian realm and a part of the birth pangs of the new creation. We are strangers in this land though we may rest here for a while. We are Christians and are never at home in this world and yet we follow the one who came to save this world.

We are a mass of inconsistency. We live in the both/and rather than the either/or. We are saved and yet in the middle of being transformed. We walk with faith in the midst of our doubts. We say that we believe and can offer no proof. We talk of one who died over 2,000 years ago as living forever. We read scriptures that say God became human to save us. And this is stuff that isn’t rational. It is stuff that just doesn’t fit. And so we Christians are a mass of inconsistency.

We have made attempts to become more consistent. When we formed the Greek part of our scriptures (commonly called the New Testament) we could have taken one gospel. There were arguments for that. We could have combined the gospels into one version. There are extant versions of such attempts. But we left ourselves open to contradiction and chose four gospels out of the gospels used by different congregations and different locales to form the beginning of our testament in Greek.

Still we are a mass of inconsistencies. Our scriptures are in two or three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Our scriptures have places that contradict each other – a Sermon on the Mount and a Sermon on the Plain that are almost, but not, identical. Our scriptures have holy people arguing with each other – Paul condemning Peter. Certainly if God had wanted consistency the scriptures could have been more clear, but it seems God wants us to use our minds and hearts rather than respond unthinkingly.

In scripture itself we have passages about a lying spirit being put in the mouths of prophets and warnings to test the spirit. God doesn’t want to make things easy for us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.” And that is in the same vein, though not the same thing, as what I’m discussing. A God that did not leave us to act by faith would be a tyrant.

We are a mass of inconsistencies for God has set us free.

Watch out for the spirit I timothy 4

It’s strange how this passage from I Timothy 4 is often used to condemn others, without the one who condemns really explaining why. It is used to say others have followed a false spirit while imposing the same sort of burdens that the passage condemns.

This is, in my understanding, one of the gay friendly passages. Why? Because it says the ones who are in the wrong are those who forbid marriage. Now Timothy was probably not thinking of gay men and lesbians or any other variation of human sexuality, yet… and yet it is clear. Everything created by God is good and as long as we receive it in thankfulness we are using it correctly.

I’ve heard the arguments that homosexuality is unnatural. I’ve read the psychiatry books that claim it is a diversion of the sexual drive or lack of good parenting or a number of other things. And all of the above fail because they don’t look at what actually happens in nature. In the natural world sex is not just about procreation and homosexuality occurs just as does heterosexuality. While the majority of gendered animals, along with the majority of humans, may not have an interest in same-sex sexualities, the lack of a majority preference doesn’t make something abnormal.

Certainly the writer of this epistle to Timothy had in mind heterosexual marriage. But there is fairly clear evidence that marriages between men happened in the Roman Empire. In fact one of the emperors married another man and that man was taken into the households of several other emperors after the death of his husband. (Caligula and the three emperors in one year) The satires were about the emperor dressing as a subordinate rather than the same-sex marriage. So there was certainly information about same gendered marriages for Timothy to confront if necessary.

While this letter may not clearly give evidence in support of marriage for all people irrespective of the genders of the couple, it still is a warning to those who want to set up barriers between the Christian and celebrating the way they are created.

1 Timothy 4:1-5
[1] Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, [2] through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. [3] They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. [4] For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; [5] for it is sanctified by God's word and by prayer.

Shakespeare

"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed-
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
Shakespeare

Myth Directions / Hit or Myth

I recently returned to a series that I thoroughly enjoyed by Robert Asprin. It's the adventures of Skeeve and Aahz in a fantasy world where demons are dimension travellers and magic exists. If you don't like puns and wordplay avoid this series like a plague, but otherwise come in for a good time with sly allusions and the assurance that through many problems all well end well.

Tear drops fall

The tears drip down
There is no cause
They come as drops
Drop down as mist
Theree is no cause
The tear drops fall

I say it's nothing
It's just pollen
It is, the pain
It is depression
It isn't pollen
I say it's naught

But it is something
I wake before the morning sun
with dreams of pain and ruin
and as I go through daily tasks
my laughter is a mask


The tears drip down
with hurt and aches
They come like drops
of torrents poured
There is a cause
The tear drops fall.

copyright Roger Victoria 2007

Frederick Buechner

A sacrament is when something holy happens. It is transparent time, time which you can see through to something deep inside.

Frederick Buechner

Even the dogs - Mark 7:24ff

The story of Mark 7:24-37 is one of my favorites. Jesus learns more of his mission from a Syro-phoenican woman. And that willingness to be corrected by one that Jesus first denies is one of the reasons, I believe, that he is called, among other things, one who always walked in righteousness.

Jesus, the one who is the Christ, was fully human and fully divine. Too many times we want to make the Savior of the world only one or only the other. Yet to be fully human means to learn and grow in knowledge and in strength. Yet to be fully human means that we need to correct ourselves on occasion. And the fully divine is linked with the emptying of self so that the 2nd person of the Trinity would be as the ones whom the 2nd person saves.

When we are talking about Jesus we are talking about the divine immanence and we are talking about humanity and that is a concept that no one, save God alone, can completely grasp. And that is a concept that allows us to recognize that God would want to save us as we are and has the power to actually save us.

Today we sometimes have preachers who concentrate on the healing power of Jesus, on the miracles of grace and similar wishes. And they shouldn’t be forgotten, but they are not the whole of the story. One of my Christology professors made that very clear when he said that the reason the church lost in Northern Africa with the rise of Islam was that with a God that wasn’t fully human the people had no way to relate to God. The gift of Jesus as fully human and fully divine is what was needed to reconcile us to God.

We humans can relate to one who learns and makes mistakes – even while remaining completely righteous – as we can not relate to one who is perfect in every way or only God. The reconciling work is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. When we, as did the church in North Africa, leave out the fully human dimension of what God has done in Jesus Christ, then we ignore the reconciliation. We are reconciled in God’s own self.

The divine is not less important, but it is not of sole importance. The work of reconciliation is in the life and death of the one who saves us. The work and reconciliation is in knowing that God emptied self, as the 2nd person, to come to us as fully human. The work of reconciliation puts together the power of God with one who is one of us.

Now this isn’t all there is to God and Jesus Christ. It is only a small portion of what I could spend my days in praise. But it is a part that seems to me to be forgotten today in our talk of how God is all-powerful. And that part is the person who heard a woman debate him, listened, responded, changed and taught us all how we are to be as humans.

Mark 7:24-37 [24] From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, [25] but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. [26] Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syro-phoenican origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. [27] He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." [28] But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs." [29] Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter." [30] So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. [31] Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. [32] They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. [33] He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. [34] Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." [35] And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. [36] Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. [37] They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

Sexual Conversion Therapy

Sexual Conversion Therapy edited by Shidlo, Schroeder and Drescher is a collection of articles on Reparative and similar therapies. It gives a scientific perspective on both the religious and psychological programs. One of the major problems with all reparative therapies is the lack of clinical studies. While there are many anecdotal accounts of cures and clear evidence that for some those attempts to change were harmful, there are no clear evidences of change that happens as part of clinical or religious therapies. There is evidence that some people change in sexual orientation through their life-time, but this is not the same thing is clear evidence that any of these programs can bring about such change.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is worthy of careful reading and thought.

P.S.
A final note from one of the articles...

"I don't for a moment doubt that Irving Bieber regarded me with affection and
wanted only the best for me. Unfortunately, and tragically, that does not
alter the dominant reality that his intended good did me in fact literally
irreparable harm"

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I don't doubt for a moment the sincerity of many in the change movements, but it's not just whether someone wants to change their sexual orientation that is important. More important is will they be harmed by the attempt to change especially when the success rate - even with the most positive of reports - is so low and with that possibility of harm should something with a low success rate be attempted?

What defiles a person - Mark 7

When reading the gospels it is clear that Jesus ignored many of the commands, the laws, of the Hebrew Testament. One is defiled if they don’t wash their hands and, yet, for Jesus that isn’t important. The old categories of ritual purity and impurity, of abomination and purification, of offerings to become cleansed are thrown away. The one sacrifice is being made in the birth, life and death of the one who tells the Pharisees that it is more important to note what comes from within the heart than which ritual is performed.

The question to ask ourselves today is who are the Christians who are like the Pharisees and some of the scribes? Are we those people who concentrate on the defiled hands rather than the heart? I hear more and more TV shows where the pastor(s) seem to concentrate on how others ought to live rather than how the he and the people for whom he is pastor ought to live. If we Christians are not correcting our own problems, we cannot and should not speak to the world.

We are as Christians to be a light to the world, but that light shines more brightly when we speak to our own problems as well as to the problems of the world. We are the mantle and the light is from Christ. We need to polish that glass mantle so that the light of Christ can shine through us.

Saying the right things, e.g. I have a personal relationship with Christ, the Scriptures are inerrant, and more from all sides, is about honoring with our lips. But if our actions are a rejection of other people then we are not honoring with our hearts. If our actions are forcing others to believe (or mouth the words) even if what we believe is correct, then are dishonoring the one we claim to serve.

The harshest words in scripture are not for prostitutes and adulterers – those sexual sins, for tax collectors – betrayers of their country, or those ritually unclean. No, the harshest words are for the religious leaders of the day. And we who are religious leaders in our day should be careful that we are not like those Pharisees and scribes who knew the letter of the law but could not find the heart.

Mark 7:1-23

[1] Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, [2] they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. [3] (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; [4] and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) [5] So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" [6] He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; [7] in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.

“[8] You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

[9] Then he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! [10] For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.' [11] But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, 'Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban' (that is, an offering to God)--[12] then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, [13] thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this."

[14] Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: [15] there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

[17] When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. [18] He said to them, "Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, [19] since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.) [20] And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles. [21] For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, [22] adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.

[23] All these evil things come from within, and
they defile a person."