Rogue Reverend

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.