Rogue Reverend

What’s So Wrong About Suffering?

A lot of my Lenten thinking has been about suffering. A little of that is because I am looking at my friends, my colleagues, and my congregants who are suffering. It’s never easy. We want to push through it quickly, and get to the other side.

Thomas Merton wrote, in the Seven Storey Mountain:

Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.

We try to avoid suffering in so many ways: through pretending, through stuffing, through avoiding, through ducking. Why does it have to be so hard?

Our theology pushes us to think that suffering is unnatural, and unwanted, too. Can a Christian theology accept suffering?

Stay tuned…

Members of Richmond Mennonite Fellowship (My Church)

I am so proud.

But I removed the video because I really am no good at putting videos in.

Finally, Reconciling Choices

1 Corinthians 13:8-12

“For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, Yes.” ~Dag Hammarskjöld

Carol Flinders writes in At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst that there are certain precepts that seem to be constants in religious practice: 1) Be silent. 2) Put yourself last. 3) Resist and re-channel your desires, especially your sexual desires, and 4) Enclose yourself. Cut yourself off from the external world.

Flinders maintains that feminism, and I would add that post-modernity, tells us the opposite: 1) Find your voice, tell your story, 2) Know who you are, establish your identity, 3) Reclaim your body and your desires, and 4) Move about freely and fearlessly. Take back the streets.

We have to reconcile the two stances.

I’ve been considering two definitions of reconciliation. The first, most used in an accounting or auditing context, is what we talk about when we reconcile our checkbooks. We compare two numbers to demonstrate the basis for the difference between them, or we balance debits, credits, and totals between two systems. The second definition, used mostly in a theological or relational sense is the reestablishing of friendly relations, either between two individuals or between God and humanity.

We mostly understand reconciliation to mean, “reestablishing friendly relations.”

What if, instead, we think about reconciliation the way that is more like reconciling our checkbooks, looking at two very different totals, demonstrating the basis for the difference between them, and being okay with it?

If we consider Flinders’ options, whether we will be silent or tell our story, whether we will put ourselves last or establish our identity, whether we will re-channel or reclaim our desires and sexuality, or whether we will enclose ourselves or move about freely, we see the hinge here, right? We must reconcile between the two of them, and it hinges on choice.

We cannot and should not be made to be silent or forced to be loud.
We cannot and should not be made to serve or forced to be served.
We cannot and should not be made to be chaste or forced to be sexual.
We cannot and should not be made to cloister or forced to roam. More »

The Good Part of That Sermon

Carol Flinders writes in At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst that there are certain precepts that seem to be constants in religious practice: 1) Be silent. 2) Put yourself last. 3) Resist and rechannel your desires, especially your sexual desires, and 4) Enclose yourself. Cut yourself off from the external world.

Flinders maintains that feminism, and I would add that post-modernity, tells us the opposite: 1) Find your voice, tell your story, 2) Know who you are, establish your identity, 3) Reclaim your body and your desires, and 4) Move about freely and fearlessly. Take back the streets.

We have to reconcile the two stances.

I’ve been considering two definitions of reconciliation during this time of Lent. The first, most used in an accounting or auditing context, is what we talk about when we reconcile our checkbooks. We compare two numbers to demonstrate the basis for the difference between them, or we balance debits, credits, and totals between two systems. The second definition, used mostly in a theological or relational sense is the reestablishing of friendly relations, either between two individuals or between God and humanity.

We mostly understand reconciliation to mean, “reestablishing friendly relations.”

What if, instead, we think about reconciliation the way that is more like reconciling our checkbooks, looking at two very different totals, demonstrating the basis for the difference between them, and being okay with it?

If we consider Flinders’ options, whether we will be silent or tell our story, whether we will put ourselves last or establish our identity, whether we will rechannel or reclaim our desires and sexuality, or whether we will enclose ourselves or move about freely, we see the hinge here, right? We must reconcile between the two of them, and it hinges on choice.

We cannot and should not be made to be silent or forced to be loud.
We cannot and should not be made to serve or forced to be served.
We cannot and should not be made to be chaste or forced to be sexual.
We cannot and should not be made to cloister or forced to roam.

You see, agency, or the ability to exert personal power in our lives, is a continuum. This continuum is dynamic, changing every hour, every day, every week. It is influenced by many factors: race, age, gender, education level, class, privilege, beauty or lack of it, addictions. Wow. There are so many that I can’t name them all, and each one of these factors has layers to it. And there’s one more, that sometimes I think is the most important one of all: how much agency do you believe that you have?

Each of us live in this continuum of agency. And the most important factor is how much we believe we have agency. Shall I say that again? We must know that we have the power to make our own decisions, to lead our own lives, to control our futures.

More about Draupadi (from That Sermon!)

In a modern novel about Draupadi, The Palace of Illusions, Draupadi describes her childhood like this:

Through the long, lonely years of my childhood, when my father’s palace seemed to tighten its grip around me until I couldn’t breathe, I would go to my nurse and ask for a story. And though she knew many wondrous and edifying tales, the one I made her tell me over and over was the story of my birth. I think I liked it so much because it made me feel special, and in those days there was little else in my life that did. Perhaps [my nurse] realized this. Perhaps that was why she agreed to my demands even though we both knew I should be using my time more gainfully, in ways more befitting the daughter of Kind Drupad, ruler of Panchaal, one of the richest kingdoms in the continent of Bharat.

The story inspired me to make up fancy names for myself: Offspring of Vengeance, or the Unexpected One. But [my nurse] puffed out her cheeks at my tendency to drama, calling me the Girl Who Wasn’t Invited. Who knows, perhaps she was more accurate than I.

Draupadi is eventually married to five brothers, the oldest of which has a gambling problem. He loses everything, including his brothers, and himself in a dice game. Then he loses Draupadi. Draupadi is dragged before the court, all of the evil men who have been cheating at dice all day, attempt to humiliate, shame and degrade her. It is there that we see her true power. Again, from the Palace of Illusions:

The worst shame a woman could imagine was about to befall me—I who had thought myself above all harm, the proud and cherished wife of the greatest kings of our time! Now they sat frozen as I struggled… The sorceress had said, When in great trouble, rest your mind on someone who loves you…

Then—maybe because there was no one else who could help—I thought of Krishna. He owed me nothing; we were not related. Perhaps that was why I could fix my mind on him without being swept away by the anger that arises from expectation. I thought of his smile, the way it would appear on his face for no reason. The sounds of the courtroom faded…Suddenly I was in a garden. There were swans in a lake, a tree that arched above, dropping blue flowers, the sound of water falling as though the world had no end. The wind smelled of sandalwood. Krishna sat beside me on a cool stone bench. His glance was bright and tender. No one can shame you, he said, if you don’t allow it.

No one can shame you if you don’t allow it.