Home to roost

It is Advent time. Time to anticipate the celebration of the incarnation. And yet, other forces are alive and moving in the church.

Last weekend, the convention of the diocese of San Joaquin voted to "leave" the episcopal church. In a sense this is sort of like Dade County voting to leave Florida -- utterly impossible. As counties are creations of their States, diocese are creations of the national church. But we now face a dreary time of canon and civil litigation to reclaim the church's property from the schismatics who controlled the convention. Eventually the church will "win" but retaining our property wont heal the wounds.

Today comes the news that on 18 December the bishop of Pittsburgh and his cronies will formally seek to be considered a new Provence of the Anglican Communion for North America effectively replacing both ACCanda and TEC. It wont happen. There are not enough votes among the various bodies that have to accept new provinces, but that does not heal. They will be inhibited and eventually deposed. Litigation will certainly follow. Here too, TEC will eventually prevail but not heal.

So what do we make of this? The secular culture has a saying "What does not kill you makes you stronger." Maybe, sometimes. But what tries to kill you harms. Even after the failure, the pain will be there.

Our presiding bishop recently said that the decision to not confirm candidates for bishop if they are lesbian or gay was a 'fast.' I was outraged, calling other people to a fast one does not keep is sin. The decision itself, B033 was an amazing refusal to affirm good and decent priests and laity who foolishly (it appears) thought their humanity was more important than invitations to the Lambeth Conference. Then the presiding bishop in an interview was asked where she and the convention had placed lesbian and gay clergy. She replied it was a 'crucified place.' Again I was outraged, the church has no business sending its members wherever that place is. Our vocation is to go there with people.

I am so sorry for our Canadian friends who do not deserve this. We have unleashed the whirlwind and it will blow for a little while North as well as across us. Eventually, the schismatics will fall apart. Already they are a profusion of organizations defining their vision of holiness slightly differently. But, the wind blows, and we must, finally, stand against it.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has consistently ducked every opportunity to lead as all of this has unfolded. It is likely that the prestige and power of his office will be deeply wounded. And the whirlwind may yet blow across England. The Church of England's hold on its people is weak enough without these strains. By not leading, Dr. Williams has emboldened the schismatics. He too, has unleashed the whirlwind. It will blow as it will.

And what of those of us progressives, myself among them, who so completely failed to make a space the conservatives could call safe? Oh we tried, in a rather condescending way, but clearly we did not do enough. And we utterly failed to offer some sense that we thought the "other side" was our equal in any way. One of our priests led most of his congregation out of the diocese of Chicago not long ago. He said in an interview that one can only accept being belittled and called bigots so long. He has a point. We too, have unleashed the whirlwind.

As the universe moves to God's rhythms, justice does sometimes fall on us all. Now the entire TEC is in its crucified place. Now we will learn the reality famously enunciated by Ben Franklin "Those who sacrifice freedom for security shall have neither." This is, it appears where we now stand, and deserve to stand. Now we all are in the crucified place, now we all are called to fast. So now we must both fast from our sense of ourselves and celebrate the incarnation that finally redeems us from our stupid self centered pursuit of the chimera of unity without conflict.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have Mercy.