community

This viral conversation about "community" is spreading from blog to blog in the, well, community. Jeff (who I'm pretty sure I don't know) wrote a piece about how "independent scholar" is kind of an oxymoron, which is part of a bigger conversation about academia. AKMA and Trevor are kicking around pieces of it, which shouldn't surprise me because I'm taking Trevor's class which is more or less about ethics and community. Tripp and Jeff R. are each struggling with issues (maybe two sides of the same issue, I'm not sure) about faith, grace, and religious institutions, and those struggles are getting grafted on to the community conversation (like a wild olive branch??). It's set me off on my own reactions to the topic of "community," which I've been trying to articulate all day without much success yet.

Here's a piece: Trevor and AKMA seem to be coming at this from the perspective of the community. That is, How is it that WE (any community) can simultaneously have an identity, and have the possibility of growth and change? If I'm misunderstanding the talk about how re-formation happens, someone please set me straight. But if not: my intuitive approach to this issue is from the perspective of the individual. How can WE (a collection of individuals, each of whose experience is in some way not represented very well by the narrative of the community) ... stay in conversation with the community? What can I, as an American, do in a historical moment that I'm afraid is later going to be chronicled in a book like Hitler's Willing Executioners, when my government is representing-- well, apparently some people, but not me? I voted, but that doesn't seem to have been very effective. How shall I, as an Episcopalian, live in a parish, diocese, seminary, national denomination and global communion that go on about their business and don't necessarily offer me a clear role other than accepting consumer? I'm not discussing the validity of their agendas, here; just their mechanisms for ongoing input. When I was received into the Worldwide Anglican Communion at the Cathedral of the Diocese of Chicago by our own Bp. Persell-- what did I get into? What did I agree to do and who else agreed to something about me? And, for Rich, Cliff, and Tripp: what's different about that than the promises that were made on my behalf and about me at my baptism as an infant?

Most of the time I find my relation to institutions, per se, frustrating and alienating. Most frustrating because I hold out so much hope, for some reason, that institutions will somehow prove to be spaces for change, places where individuals gather together for some common cause and find enough leverage to act visibly and effectively in the world at a level that individuals just can't do alone. Maybe that's the same as Trevor saying I can't understand my life outside the context of community.

Meanwhile, the reason I don't just go around alienated and frustrated is that if I don't have a Community, I have small-c community, friends and colleagues, correspondents and brainstormers. I live on the edge of a lot of worlds these days, but with close ties to a handful of people in each. Their support, challenge, and conversation is life-giving to me. But I would have a hard time saying that any of those environments defines my identity. In some ways I am envious of that claim (from Mennonites, Baptists, and Anglo-Catholics alike), and in other ways I recognize that I'm always constructing this borderland identity, choosing the role of observer. That's part of what led me to chaplaincy, I know: it's one place where you get points for watching while interacting. But I think even an observer has to have some place that is home base. As Richard and Linda Thompson used to sing, "The heart needs a home." I'm trying to understand whether some of you have found one in the/a church, and why others who haven't seem to expect to. I would love that. Do you think it's possible? Do you think it should be? Parish? Denomination? Seminary? Anglo-Catholicism? "lowchurch" identity? What is the size of the group that can have a narrative that doesn't roll right over the experience of the individual and erase or silence it? Or, what sort of individual can stay in groups and resist that erasure?

Coming soon: more about self-censorship, Havel, vulnerability, risk, & Christian discipleship (whew!)

saturday

Scheming how I can write two more papers without doing much more research. Sometimes that trick works; it's a lovely side effect of going around interested in things all the time anyway. I need it to work this time.

Got so mad about things Episcopal I called my Episcopalian great-aunt for advice. She says, "I always thought my parish was that way because it's in Magnolia, Mississippi. Nice to know Chicago is just as peculiar." I find that strangely comforting.

All quiet on the South Side. Bookstore later maybe.

Magdalen

Cliff asked, somewhere else, about me and the Magdalen. I wrote this back, and then thought it really belonged here:

I am grateful for the scholarly recovery of the "historical" Magdalen, first apostle of the Resurrection and not necessarily identified with stories of other Gospel women. I also love the medieval tradition of devotion to her, which understood that apostle to be the same woman who poured out perfume and tears over Christ's feet, "she who loves much because she has been forgiven much." (They also understood that she had travelled to France and preached there, converting the Breton coast, where there is strong devotion to her still.) In both images I find amazing witness to the possibility of resurrection, the transformation of suffering, the miracle of love that is stronger than death.

outside world

Magdalen Institute is brought to you today by Hal Crowther's beautiful rant about the war, thanks to owlmother, who reminded me he's still holding up the conservative liberal cause in central NC. When I think I don't fit anywhere, Hal reminds me I'm just homesick.

Special note on my spirituality workshop at the healthcare conference later this month: No, Ken, I couldn't get you invited along to "Nurses' Expo," but that's OK-- it's not what you think. I will, however, be explaining how the Desert Fathers' techniques for fighting demons convert nicely to dealing with HMO managers. Watch this space for more.

Go see Tripp's gorgeous Lenten icon.

OK that's it. Waiting for the nice man from Peapod to come and bring me breakfast. If you don't know about Peapod, write to me for a code and try it at a discount. I know it's changed my life.

Feeling very blessed tonight. Some really good conversations today (thanks.) and some clarity tonight on the drive home. And tonight, Evensong at my parish-- during Lent we actually chant Evening Prayer, it's one of the things I first loved about this church and then Easter came and we stopped-- it's a beautiful service. It's true, as someone pointed out, that the older liturgy doesn't have the most inclusive language. But the singing of the prayers makes me really happy. And then bread and soup supper with church and friends, and then Micah is teaching a Lenten class on spiritual practices of various people-- tonight was Benedict and making a personal Rule. I actually have had a Rule for a couple of years, but it's probably time to look it over again and see if it's stuff that I actually do and if not, was it unrealistic or should I get back on it.

"That there may be peace to your church and to the WHOLE world..."

"We entreat you, O Lord."

And the best night prayer ever:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

irony

Just wrote a long rant about spending all morning trying to get institutions to admit I exist, & how frustrating it is to feel invisible and ineffectual. Then all my text got erased. See what I mean?

Don't know which is sadder and funnier, my attempt to get grades posted for 4 years of seminary classes, or this game of Who's On First with my denomination about chaplaincy endorsement. Trying to follow my own advice and remember the wisdom & compassion of the desert monks. So far today mostly whining & shouting at my computer.

Off to meet with Trevor, I hope.

RADIO SILENCE

Lent sounds like a good idea right now. Time for me, and many of us, to spend six weeks or so listening more than talking, letting some more layers of what's in the way between me & God burn off. Today, silent retreat at Seabury. More tomorrow.

Here's the site I've been looking for. Now everybody can be mad at me at once. And I didn't even have to write my paper because it's all here.

Had a good meeting with P., who did finally arrive. Two hour conversation about why we train chaplains the way we do and how to explain the process to people who haven't done it. The more I talk about clinical education the more I know it's what I want to do when I grow up.

Not sure I have the energy now to go to Ethics (usually my favorite class) and have a rousing discussion about this week's book, which is Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. I think this is my week to feel the way some folks felt for the past few weeks. I have a sinking feeling that the class consensus is going to be that this book is too conservative and therefore evil and stupid. I recognize that if I have a different opinion it's my job to say so, and say why. I don't think I am up to it today. Let me just say with AKMA: "It's more complicated than that."

Off to class. Will try not to blog three times a day most days.

Stood around for half an hour waiting for tall, dark, business-suited guy to show up and take me away from all this, finally left message that I'd be right back if he showed up. Never did. I suppose P. will have a good explanation, probably that I got the plan wrong. Front desk thinks I've finally cracked under finals week and am living in fantasy world.

Jane says it all today. Ora pro nobis. On the other hand I am delighted to see that Jeff has stuff to say about my blog! More of that conversation soon, I hope; clearly I touched a sore spot, but he and I may have more concerns in common than he thinks. And Cliff has added me to his links. I feel welcomed into this online community, and humbled that apparently people are actually reading what I'm writing.

lwj

Meeting in a few minutes to work on my old CPE site's application for independent certification. I was very pleased when my former supervisor asked me to be on the committee, and it's been a learning experience already. We're just starting to get down to the real action: comparing the program, as it stands, with the rules about what it should be like in order to be certified at the next level. Today I'm reviewing the handbook, which is to the program as the Constitution is to the U.S.: it's the operating system, the program code that generates and structures the day-to-day experience of people trying to do a thing together. It's kind of like legal writing, or a magic spell, but I think computer programming is the most accurate analogy. In any of those cases, linguistic precision and... elegance... are moral virtues. You really want to say all the things you mean, and nothing you don't mean, and you want to make it hard to misinterpret.

Trying to get my mind into the mode of precision and elegance, while compensating for the fact that I forgot to bring with me either the standards or the manual we're reviewing. I found the standards on line and printed them; hope P. is bringing the manual. The older I get, the more philosophical I get about mistakes like this. Not that I don't try to show up where I'm supposed to be with the tools I need. But when I don't exactly, somehow it always turns out to be all right.

I guess this means I am handing in ethics paper as is. Maybe Trev will let me revise again before he publishes it online (!!)

Finished the baptism paper. May not have time to rewrite the ethics one again. Accidentally watched most of a game show in which viewers vote on which contestant a person should MARRY. I suppose it can't turn out with a much worse average result than when we let people choose for themselves. At least in this one their friends and families get to eliminate the people who are obviously unsuitable. A tradition I think the rest of America probably ought to revive. Still, the whole "might as well" tone of this show is so counter to my whole theology of marriage... as you ethics classmates will remember, I was so tickled by Gene Rogers' sacramental description of marriage as a parallel discipline to monastic vocation, that I barely paid any attention to his question of whether same-sex couples could profitably take on the same project. Mostly I was just delighted to hear someone describing marriage as work, not in that snide Married With Children way, but the way learning to do anything you love is difficult and rewarding.

Which reminds me: it's gotten awfully quiet in the other room. I think it must be my bedtime as well. And an early day tomorrow.

Cutting it close on the baptism front. This can't be harder than an ethics paper on abortion. The truth is that one's still taking up all my brain space. But the baptism one must be drafted today. Finished, really.

Coming up this week: a class discussion of St. John Chrysostom's writings on marriage, which are nicer than you'd think; a short essay about liturgical time and daily prayer, which if it's any good I will post; and a report on a church that's ethnically different (from me, I guess).

Also putting together a short workshop on the Desert Monastics and desert hospitality as a paradigm for healthcare workers, to present at something called Nurses Expo later this month. It pays, though not much. Hoping not to sound like an idiot, and perhaps to submit the same work as my final "talk" in theology class next week.

Mood: Fretful and procrastinating.

Sunday night. Two more weeks of classes until spring break. Woke up this morning to discover the famed Chicago phenomenon of Snowing Sideways was in effect again. Four blocks from the lake and eight floors up, the wind actually howls; I always thought that was an expression. My fourth winter north of Carolina, and while this winter has been mild compared to a couple of years ago, I also think my standard of what's cold has gotten a lot tougher. And I've learned how to dress. Mary Schmich wrote a set of columns about how to survive Chicago winters, which I would link here if I were more technologically up to speed, or less lazy. "Hat" is a big part of the secret.

Responses to my ethics paper are coming in from friends & advisors, all supportive and challenging. Thanks to all who have taken the time to read and comment. I'm sure we'll see this material again.

I've been enjoying keeping up with friends: owlmother, issabird, tripp, and janellen. How's that for a technology experiment.