Coincidence ... or not?

I'm a big believer in fate. Not so much in looking ahead, but when I look back at my past, sometimes it's just the only way to explain why things happened the way they did, or why I was at a certain place at a certain time. For example: once, many years ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning only to find that my coffee maker was dead. Completely and utterly dead, even though I had just used it the day before. So I decided to get dressed and walk the 2 blocks to the 7-11 to get a cup of coffee. It was early in the morning and this was a residential neighborhood, so there wasn't any traffic and no one was out and about yet. So it took a moment for my mind to register that someone was saying very softly, "Help. Please help!"

Across the road I saw a man standing behind his station wagon. And as I walked over I saw that his hand was caught between the jack and the bumper. And his face was as white as a sheet. He had been changing his tire when the jack began to slip on the gravel, and he had reached in to stop it. Yeah, bad idea. I think he was aware of this at that point.

Despite those stories of super human strength at times such as this, I couldn't move the car. So I told him I would run back to my apartment and call 911 (this was pre-cell phone days). As soon as I did that, I ran back again. And when a white panel van came up the street, I flagged down the driver, who happened to be a big burly guy. Between the two of us, we got the car up enough to get the guy's hand out, just as the ambulance came screaming up the street.

Turns out I didn't really need any caffeine to wake me up that morning!

In the years that have passed, I still think about that day a lot. Why did my coffee maker die on that morning and not the next? I read somewhere recently the description that "coincidence is God's way of keeping a low profile." Feel free to fill in the word "power of the universe" or however you see this. When you look back at your life, are there times where you wonder how you ended up where you are today? My life has been full of "one thing leading to another."

And today I feel like I'm at a crossroads again. Or at least at another "guy with his hand in the jack" moment.

We went to church this morning because it was the very last service of the Rector who has helped us through this terrible time of losing Unnamed Partner's brother John, to cancer. The Rector came to John, who in turn asked us to go to a Sunday service with him. We did, although we knew next to nothing about the Episcopal Church. But we've met some wonderful people in the congregation there, and participated in baking food for Movable Feast. We started to feel welcomed there. Losing the Rector has felt like losing John all over again, because she has been so important in our journey through the grieving process.

However, the congregation at this church is a little bi-polar. On the one hand, the inside of the bulletin proclaims that "We welcome all ages and abilities, classes and cultures, races, genders, and sexual orientations." Yet, in the monthly newsletter it's reported that a group of 20 met to discuss questions of division and exclusion. The article says "All answers and/or experiences were positive. However, we did not commit to being included on the list of friendly churches for persons of other orientations."

So, you're welcome here, we just don't want to advertise it.

Unnamed Partner and I discussed this last night and went through a range of emotions. We tossed around the idea of getting a busload of queers for next Sunday. We talked about feeling like we're being treated like second class citizens, and that maybe we should stop attending once the Rector is gone. But today after service when I had a moment with the Rector, I (a) thanked her for standing by the ordination of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson, and (b) told her that we would be watching to see what happens with the Episcopal Church and this congregation on this issue. And here is my moment of "fate": she said, "have you met X? Because he is very interested in this also. He feels that he has been called here for this."

So. I can stop going to this church. Or, I can continue to go, and work with X to engage members of the congregation in this issue of acceptance and inclusion. I can be there. Just be there. Because as every gay and lesbian knows, the majority of the people in our lives who still say they're "not comfortable" with homosexuality will be the first ones to say "oh, but you're different -- you're normal." It's the best way to battle discrimination -- to be present in people's lives so that they have to face the reality of what they're saying when they say they don't believe in equal rights. I am the reality. In all my boring ordinary life -iness.

So. To be continued, no doubt.

Is God laughing at me? 'Cause I know she has a sense of humor ... but this is has got me perplexed

In the past few weeks, I have found a wonderful church where I feel welcome, only to find out that the Reverend is leaving at the end of this month. I'll continue to attend this church as it transitions, but I must tell you that a major reason for attending was this wonderful Rector. Case in point was today.

In this, her next to last (fancier people would say "penultimate") sermon, she spoke of reconciliation. Because you see, the senior Anglicans from around the world are meeting right now in England, but a number of them are in a tizzy because in 2003 the Episcopal church got all crazy and ordained an openly gay bishop. And the world ended. And they're upset. In fact, many senior Anglicans are boycotting the meeting. Some even want to split off from the church.

And in 2003, which was before I started attending this church, my Rector stood before her congregation and said "The Episcopal Church did the right thing." And a third of the congregation left for good. She's been slowly rebuilding the congregation ever since, and I guess it's often been a struggle. But as she's moving on, she left us this morning with this parable:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while he slept, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. When the weeds appeared, the laborers asked the farmer "Do you want us to go and gather the weeds?" but the farmer says no, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest."

Okay, so what you say. Unless that is, you happened to read the post on Friday over at FranIAm's place, which included this paragraph:

But the scripture is there and won't go away. In the face of all that, Jesus tells us a parable: "Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?" the laborers in the story ask the farmer about the bad seed "an enemy had sown." The answer, at a time of great change and deep reflection, ought perhaps to give us great pause: "No," the scripture answers, "because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them." We pulled up a lot of wheat with the excommunication of Martin Luther and the reformers, for instance, and have been trying to repair those exclusions ever since. Surely this is no time to start doing the same kind of thing again. Surely we have learned better by this time. Surely we don't want to do it to one nun whose only crime is a question and in whom the people see a minister of uncommon quality. Maybe we ought to "leave some chaff and grain to grow up together" for a while longer until we can see clearly which is which.

I often read Fran's blog, though I rarely comment. It's the kind of blog that makes me want to go think about what I want to say, and by that time, I've gotten distracted by something else. But the point is, she's made me think long and hard about issues of spirituality.

Yeah, she's good.

So anyway, I'm trying to let go of one of the few "truly" Christian people I've met in an awfully long time, and I'm trying to understand why other "Christians" feel threatened by a gay bishop in their church.

And, I'm trying to understand the parable of the weeds and the wheat in my life. So there's some food for thought on a Sunday night!