A Silly Poor Gospel: Freedom Friends - the State of the Church

A Silly Poor Gospel: Freedom Friends - the State of the Church:

The State of the Church
Freedom Friends Church
For the Year 2009


To Friends Everywhere:...

The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage - Newsweek.com

This is a powerful article. h/t Dominus.

Blessed be, and my gratitude to Ted Olsen.

- sm

The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage - Newsweek.com

Marriage is a civil bond in this country as well as, in some (but hardly all) cases, a religious sacrament. It is a relationship recognized by governments as providing a privileged and respected status, entitled to the state's support and benefits... Where the state has accorded official sanction to a relationship and provided special benefits to those who enter into that relationship, our courts have insisted that withholding that status requires powerful justifications and may not be arbitrarily denied...

Conservatives and liberals alike need to come together on principles that surely unite us. Certainly, we can agree on the value of strong families, lasting domestic relationships, and communities populated by persons with recognized and sanctioned bonds to one another... Even those whose religious convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable "lifestyle" should recognize that disapproval should not warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment...

And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

If we are born heterosexual, it is not unusual for us to perceive those who are born homosexual as aberrational and threatening. Many religions and much of our social culture have reinforced those impulses. Too often, that has led to prejudice, hostility, and discrimination. The antidote is understanding, and reason. We once tolerated laws throughout this nation that prohibited marriage between persons of different races... It seems inconceivable today that only 40 years ago there were places in this country where a black woman could not legally marry a white man. And it was only 50 years ago that 17 states mandated segregated public education—until the Supreme Court unanimously struck down that practice in Brown v. Board of Education. Most Americans are proud of these decisions and the fact that the discriminatory state laws that spawned them have been discredited. I am convinced that Americans will be equally proud when we no longer discriminate against gays and lesbians and welcome them into our society...

Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.

Two obituaries for Mary Daly

Two good obituaries of pioneer Mary Daly. - sm

Mary Daly, pioneering feminist who tussled with BC, dies at 81:

Fiercely and playfully -- often at the same time -- Mary Daly used words to challenge the basic precepts of the Catholic Church and Boston College, where she was on the faculty for more than 30 years.

Dr. Daly emerged as a major voice in the burgeoning women's movement with her first book, "The Church and the Second Sex," published in 1968, and "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation," which appeared five years later. That accomplishment was viewed, then and now, as all the more significant because she wrote and taught at a Jesuit college.

"She was a great trained philosopher, theologian, and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy -- or any idea that domination is natural -- in its most defended place, which is religion," said Gloria Steinem.

Mary Daly, a Leader in Feminist Theology, Dies at 81 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com:

Mary Daly, a prominent feminist theologian who made worldwide headlines a decade ago after she retired from Boston College rather than admit men to some of her classes, died on Sunday in Gardner, Mass. She was 81 and had lived for many years in Newton Centre, Mass.

A friend, Linda Barufaldi, confirmed the death, saying Professor Daly had been in declining health recently.

A self-described “radical lesbian feminist,” Professor Daly maintained a long, often uneasy relationship with Boston College, the Jesuit institution where she had taught theology since the 1960s.

Feminazery: I’m wearing a silky leopard-print pushup number with apricot lace trim and peepholes

Feminazery: I’m wearing a silky leopard-print pushup number with apricot lace trim and peepholes

Call me a humourless Feminazi if you like, but this email is not about raising awareness of breast cancer. It's about using a disease that has a devasting impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people as a spurious justification for discussing saucy undies. It's about women trying to show that they're uninhibited and up for a laugh by inviting their friends to speculate about them in their underwear rather than to think about them as sentient, intelligent human beings. It's about women objectifying themselves. And for anyone who believes that the updates are really only for us gals I'd invite you to compare the number of updates saying "red satin w little bows" with the number saying "grey cotton (orig. white), straps frayed, bought Bhs 2001".

Challenging writing

I have a couple of pieces I've been working on writing. With one of them, I'm wrestling to find the right words to describe a particular experience. With another, I'm having a hard time because it means talking about something I know many Friends don't want to hear about, but where I feel I must share the truth of my experience, as well as my perspective on it.

This prompts me to check back in with myself: who am I writing for?

It's so tempting -- for many writers and bloggers, not just me -- to want to write something brilliant and witty that will convince someone who disagrees passionately and in a knee-jerk way to think honestly and critically and then change their mind. It's also tempting to want to write rants that one thinks people who agree with one will support whole-heartedly and that will shame other people into the aforementioned critical-thinking-and-mind-change.

Ahem. Back to reality.

Do I really want to write for/to either of those groups?

I found myself thinking about a controversial issue I was part of last year in my Meeting, and how my Meeting handled it. Who was I talking with, and how, and why? People whose positions were dramatically different than mine (or the position they thought I had)? People whose positions supported mine (or the position they thought I had)?

Actually, neither. The deepest conversations I had were with people who weren't sure what they thought or how they, and we, were led. Who had some ideas, some knee-jerk reactions, some real questions, and some honest curiosity, but who were in the middle of those two extremes. Which, honestly, is where I think most of us hang out most of the time; we just don't shout the loudest.

And I realized, the people I most enjoy interacting with in the comments on this blog are people whose perspectives are just enough different from mine that I learn something new from our interactions. Either from what they (you?) share directly, or from what I learn about myself in articulating responses.

So who am I writing for?

In terms of "why am I writing," I am writing for myself and for the Goddess -- out of a sense of leading and a sense of integrity.

In terms of "who do I want to read what I write," I guess I am writing for people who will get something out of what I write, whether I ever know about it or not. Some new thought, understanding, insight, question, perspective, laugh, doubt, validation...

Thinking about it in terms of worship, and ministry, I am reminded (again!) that what matters is not whether I can tell if I'm successful, but that I have been faithful. We might have no clue at all why we're prompted to stand and deliver a particular message in Meeting for Worship, or who on Earth needed to hear it, but that doesn't matter: what matters is that we were faithful and stood and delivered it. With ministry, what matters is that I show up, with an open heart, and am present.

So, going back to the pieces I am writing... If what matters is that I am faithful, how does that shape what I write in that second piece, in particular? I think it comes back to speaking my truth, plainly.

It will be interesting to find out.

Months to Live - Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death - Sedation - Series - NYTimes.com

Very good article on some of the hard issues in end-of-life care.

Months to Live - Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death - Sedation - Series - NYTimes.com:

While there are universally accepted protocols for treating conditions like flu and diabetes, this is not as true for the management of people’s last weeks, days and hours. Indeed, a review of a decade of medical literature on terminal sedation and interviews with palliative care doctors suggest that there is less than unanimity on which drugs are appropriate to use or even on the precise definition of terminal sedation.

Blessed Winter Solstice!

I hope everyone had a good Winter Solstice, filled with the blessings of the Dark Time of the Year.

Last year brought a very snowy Solstice to Seattle: Winter Solstice itself was the second of three snowstorms in a week. Record snowfall brought the city to a grinding halt for days. Winter Solstice was on a Saturday last year; it started snowing again that afternoon, and finally stopped snowing that Sunday night. (When we flew out to visit relatives on Thursday, the buses still weren't running in our neighborhood, and we hiked, using backpacks for luggage, half a mile to the freeway to catch a bus downtown to transfer to the bus to the airport.)

On Winter Solstice last year, a small group of folks still made it to our apartment for a Roses, Too! potluck and a Winter Solstice Celebration based on A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual. This was the second or third time I'd done it with a small group, using the cd for the music. We had five adults -- just enough for readers and the narrator -- and a four-year-old, and had a warm, cozy time in the candlelight with the woodstove. Everyone made it home safely, eventually, though the two miles uphill to the U District was a haul for some.

It was a beautiful Solstice.

(c) 2008

So, now here we are in central NJ, and there's record snow here already now, too! (I think it's just following me around the country right now...)

Friday evening, dear F/friends who are part of the extended Roses, Too! community graciously hosted the Roses, Too! Tradition Winter Solstice/Yule potluck at their home in Philadelphia. They've hosted a number of potlucks in the past, and it was a treat, for me, for us to have a potluck there again.

We had delightful company and conversation, and we shared all sorts of yummy, festive, and comforting food and drink -- hot mulled cider, homemade fettuccine alfredo, cider donuts, chocolate (of course), apple cobbler with local Philly Vanilly ice cream, cranberry-jalapeno salsa (which I bought from a local farm store, but which is not as good as my friend Jennifer F's from CA), a cheese-pepper-onion torte with a sweet potato crust, all sorts of good things.

And then we shared a hilarious, intergenerational game of Apples to Apples. At one point, I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt and I couldn't quite catch my breath.

We knew a big winter storm was brewing, and sure enough, record snow came to much of the East Coast with a blizzard over this weekend.

Our community-wide Winter Solstice Celebration / performance of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual (with SpiralSong, PAI/DVPN, and Pebble Hill Interfaith Church) was snowed out Saturday night, as was Sunday night's dress rehearsal for the second WSC.

Last night, however, lots of people made it to our Winter Solstice Celebration (with SpiralSong, PAI/DVPN, and the Inner Path), and it was just delightful.

I loved singing with SpiralSong again; our readers, narrator, and stage manager were wonderful; the "audience" (in quotes, because it's actually very participatory) were wonderfully present with us, and enthusiastic during the high-energy parts; our musicians were excellent (and I had lots of fun drumming with our drummer); and the management and collection of lit candles went more smoothly than I think I've ever seen it.

Our hosts, the Inner Path, are members of the Delaware County Peace Center, so our Celebration was at the Springfield Friends Meetinghouse. This is a great space for this Celebration -- conducive to the ritual, warm and intimate without feeling cramped, and quite nice acoustically (something that is definitely not true of all old East Coast Meetinghouses!).

Plus, there was this moment at the beginning, when the singers first saw the "audience" after we'd processed in, and were facing them, singing with them... I saw so many familiar faces, and so many I didn't know. Among the familiar ones were friends who were there for the first time; folks who were there for the first time in a long time; folks who have been to these Winter Solstice Celebrations every year since the first one in 1997; folks who drove long ways; women I've sung with in the past and haven't seen in too long; folks from different parts of my life who had no reason yet to know each other... It was a magical moment in the web of connection and community.

How has your Winter Solstice been? What gifts of the Spirit has it brought?

(c) 2006

Why two black D.C. pastors support gay marriage - washingtonpost.com

This is an amazing article by two African-American pastors in Washington, DC, who support same-gender marriage. h/t Qira.

Why two black D.C. pastors support gay marriage - washingtonpost.com:

We are sometimes asked what accounts for the homophobia within the African American community. This question seems to assume that the community is disproportionately homophobic compared with other racial and ethnic groups. We are not aware of any credible study that has conclusively proved this assumption. However, our first-hand experience has convinced us that homophobia within the black church and the wider community is real. And the factors that have nurtured these beliefs over the years are complex.

...A final piece that shapes black attitudes toward same-sex marriage is the preoccupation with racism in the black community. This obsession, although justifiable, has led to a failure to appreciate how racism is inextricably connected to all other forms of oppression. Those who fail to see this connection may resent the comparison of gay rights with civil rights. But as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

...We will continue to stand at the altar in our community, telling all the couples who come before us: "Let it be known that you are joined together not only by your love for each other, and by our collective love for each of you, but by the love of God."

Twin Cities Friends Meeting stops signing civil marriage certificates for 3 years

Twin Cities Friends Meeting has approved a new minute on marriage equality. The minute is presented in full over at Liz Opp's blog. There's also an interview on Minnesota Public Radio with the Clerk of the Meeting.

The minute is powerful; doubly so, with the bits and pieces I know about the process behind it and the path by which the Meeting came to unity.

Blessed be.

From the interview:

St. Paul, Minn. — A group of Twin Cities Quakers has decided to stop signing marriage certificates for opposite-sex couples until the state legalizes gay marriage.

"We're simply trying to be consistent with the will of God as we perceive it," said Paul Landskroener, clerk of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, in an interview with MPR's All Things Considered on Monday.

IRAQ: Former CPT hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden returns to Iraq | Christian Peacemaker Teams

Wow. Blessed be.

Much love to my Friends, friends, and CPT colleagues who have been affected by the kidnapping of the team and the death of one of their members.

IRAQ: Former CPT hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden returns to Iraq | Christian Peacemaker Teams:

CPTnet
19 November 2009
IRAQ: Former CPT hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden returns to Iraq

Harmeet Singh Sooden has joined the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan 7-23 November 2009. This delegation marks the first time he has returned to Iraq since he was freed from captivity four years ago.

While participating in a 2005 CPT delegation he, along with fellow delegate Norman Kember and CPTers Jim Loney and Tom Fox were kidnapped in Baghdad by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. Tom Fox was murdered on 9 March 2006. British forces freed Sooden, Kember and Loney two weeks later on 23 March 2006.

Veterans Day, Armistice Day

Thinking about my own attitudes towards and beliefs about war, the Peace Testimony, and how people have reacted to the support I've expressed today for Armed Forces service members... I thought I might re-post this piece about how I found an expression of the Peace Testimony through service to military families.

The Peace Testimony and Armed Forces Emergency Services

It’s 3:45 am when my pager wakes me. I speak to a man who is quite upset: his sister has just died – at the end of a long illness, but unexpectedly soon – and his sister’s son is on active duty in the military, stationed overseas. The caller needs to get a message to... (more)

Not writing much for a bit

Hello, dear readers!

A family member is having routine but major surgery next week, and I am their primary support person. So right now, I'm spending lots of time getting ready, and I have no idea how much time (or brain) I'll have to write over the next eight weeks.

I would really appreciate folks holding both of us in your thoughts or hearts, in the Light, in the comforting Darkness, in the Goddess, in your prayers, lighting candles... whatever you do when you hold someone in your spiritual care.

Thank you!

An advantage to praying in a language you don't understand?

I posted this to my Facebook Wall, where it produced a really interesting comment thread. So, I thought I'd post it here, and see what folks think.

"The other advantage of praying in Hebrew without understanding it is that it spares you the temptation to argue with the prayer book." Harold Kushner, in To Life!: A Celebration of Jewish Thinking and Being, pp. 201-202.

(I said, "Yeah, right!!")

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Weds. Oct. 28, 2009 | Christian Peacemaker Teams

I get CPT's Prayers for Peacemakers every Wednesday. Because of some conversations I'm having, I felt like sharing this one.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Weds. Oct. 28, 2009 | Christian Peacemaker Teams:

Pray for the Palestinian children who walk to school from Tuba to At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. Earlier this week they were threatened by Israeli settlers when the Israeli government-mandated military escort failed to appear to accompany them.

How do we talk about, get support around, death?

Samhain is fast approaching, so of course I am thinking about death. About those dear ones who've died and whom I miss fiercely, and those whom I've been able to let go a little more. About those whom I don't miss at all. About those I love whose death was a release; those who died in old age after a long life; those who died young; those who died suddenly; those to whom I was able to say goodbye; those who died without any final contact.

About a dear F/friend who is actively dying.

Anastasia Ashman, a sister Mawrter, posted this recently, which I recommend to you. She asks questions like, How do we find support around grief? How do we talk about grief and death? Do we mourn silently and privately, or in community? What determines this?, as well as shares some of her own experience.

Is that a pain cry?

October 28, 2009 by Anastasia M. Ashman

Nearly-equal rights. Still second-class citizenship.

This is the story (so far) of our civil union in New Jersey, and why I am not, in fact, excited about it.

My wife and I recently moved to New Jersey for her work. After we arrived, I started researching NJ's domestic partnership and civil union laws.

Respecting LGBTQ families

Wow. Thank you, Joanna Grover. (H/t Vonn.)

If you don't believe this shit doesn't happen, or that it's just not that bad when it does, read this amazing and heart-touching article.

Imagine having only five minutes to say goodbye to your dying husband or wife of nearly two decades. Imagine being a 10-year-old girl and being physically blocked from saying a last, ``I love you,'' to your mother, who is just down the hall at the hospital. This may sound unconscionable, but it happened, just as described, to the Langbehn-Pond family at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

Reflections on Marriage

This is an excellent article. My thanks to Nif for pointing it out. - sm

Reflections on Marriage:

Today, many same-sex couples in the United States live in a fraught, contingent space of loving attachment, unprotected by state recognition. My fierce commitment to marriage equality derives, in part, from my personal biography as an interracial child, descended from American slaves, and raised in Virginia, beginning less than a decade after the Loving decision. Even though I am heterosexual, marriage equality is personal. I learn from the history of racial and interracial marriage exclusion that the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples is wrong.

....

We must do more than simply integrate new groups into an old system. Let's use this moment to re-imagine marriage and marriage-free options for building families, rearing children, crafting communities, and distributing public goods.

More on marriage equality

I found myself writing recently, a little unexpectedly, about some of my experiences with marriage inequality, and why marriage equality matters when it comes to real-life, practical details.

Well, I'm finding myself even deeper, more face-to-face, with marriage inequality right now, and it's very, very frustrating.

I'm a reluctant marriage equality advocate, let me admit that.

Not the National Coming Out Day conversation I expected

If you're on Facebook, you may have noticed a number of folks over the last few weeks with standardized status updates that read:

[Name] is (a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender). There are X days until National Coming Out Day and I pledge to have heartfelt conversations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. Donate your status and join me by clicking here: http://apps.facebook.com/equalityconversation/.

I didn't donate my status -- for one, I rarely do apps, since I like my privacy -- but I did post one or two status updates to this effect.

I'm always surprised when people who know me at all well are surprised to find out I'm a lesbian. It's less startling, but still frustrating, when people are surprised I'm bi, because there's still an assumption of monosexuality in this culture: either you're homosexual or you're heterosexual. Folks who are startled to learn I'm bi either know I've had successful romantic relationships with men and assume those are invalid now (because I must be monosexual), or assume that because I have been involved only with women since they've known me and am not that interested in men, I must be monosexual.

But those are still the conversations I more or less expect to have. The kind where I refer to my partner or spouse in conversation at an event, the other person asks what my husband does, and I say, "My wife is a mathematician," and they blink. The kind where someone I've known for a long time says in shock, "You had a husband!?," and I say, "Yes, my first partner was male, and yes, I was out before we got together. He took me to my first Pride event."

But these conversations have progressed and changed over time. For example, more and more over the last few years, the conversations I've been having around the fact that I'm a lesbian center around civil rights, and especially marriage equality.

And while there's one little thread on my Facebook Wall about National Coming Out Day and how people identify and what labels mean (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), there's another, completely different, conversation I've ended up having about the reality of my life as a lesbian in today's society.

And it really does feel like a coming-out conversation: Here is my reality. Here is the truth of my experience.

And as with many other such conversations over the years, I'm finding someone I'm talking with disbelieves the uncomfortable truth.

This person isn't a bigot. They seem to be a well-meaning straight person, but someone who just doesn't want to believe the discrimination I live with every day is as bad as I say -- that their legally-sanctioned heterosexual privilege is, in fact, just that.

(All names changed but mine; all quotes paraphrased except where indicated.)

The conversation has gone something like this:

• Friend A posts to their Facebook status that they're grateful to the marriage equality movement for helping them understand how many rights and privileges go with legal marriage [which this person has].

Conversation ensues in the comment thread, and then it gets interesting:

• Person B: I thought it was just the death tax that can't be addressed in a contract; what other rights can't they have?; of course anyone should marry whomever they want!; isn't Toys R Us great, they give domestic partners full health insurance.

• Person C: Oh, no, there's the whole hospital visitation thing; do you want to wrangle with a resistant family member in order to say goodbye to a dying partner?

• Person B: Wrong! If you have a living will and a signed and notorized agreement, the family can't keep you away!

• Person C: Uh-huh. So, my husband's in the hospital, and I have to dig out my legal paperwork before I go to the hospital?; in my case, take the bus home from work, find the paperwork, and drive back into town, when on top of it I'm probably not safe to drive?; assuming we've gone to the expense and trouble of getting such paperwork?; oh, and by the way, because we're an opposite-gender couple, they're not going to ask us for a copy of our marriage license, and we're in less need of powers of attorney and living wills, because we're legally married.

• Person B: Gosh, it's really awful when family members are jerks, and I'm really sorry for anyone who has to deal with that; but you do kind of know what you're getting into; spending $100 on a contract is nothing at all for the peace of mind it gives you, and of course if I had to do that, I'd know exactly where my paperwork is; so what else are the issues?, I know there aren't a lot of people who have to worry about taxes on huge estates.

• Me (direct quote):