What I do not have the ovaries to publish on Manning's blog/yahoo list serve

Subject: Gender, Sex, & The Church, etc. We in this diocese and "we" the c/Church world-wide, wonder, argue, and research if, why, and when we'll ordain and REALLY accept the ordination of women; we argue, wonder, and research if we can even accept non-heterosexuals (gay, Lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, Queer, and questioning" folk in our parishes, in our clergy, and we also wonder, argue, and research if we and the C/church can EVER "marry" non-heteroseuxals--by that, I mean, as clergy and as lay folk, if we can create and honour some sort of "sacrament" for non-heterosexuals that looks like and carries the same weight in culture as marriage/matrimony. I think the questions MUST be less general and more specific. I was raised in a state in the US called Mississippi, a place and people known for slavery and great weatlh, for the most horrible atrocities against African-Americans EVER and ANYWHERE (that has not gone away; it remains and it is real. The racism is MS is scarier today than it was in 1968. I lived in MS from 1953 to 1979; last year when I returned for my mother's funeral, IN ONE DAY of driving less than five hours, I saw more C/confederate battle flags than I have ever seen in my entire life (and that includes an "Ole Miss"/University of MS football game where the symbols used to be that flag and "Colonel Reb." (But that is another story for another day.) MS and the Deep South of the US are not alone within the USA in their fearfulness of "other." Outsiders are viewed with fear; anyone different is viewed with fear. This is in direct opposition to every little town in MS in which I've lived or visited--every town has its resident "queer." It's known but never discussed. Some gossip, yes, but discussion NO! And NEVER within the presence of the person for "it would hurt his feelin's so." Sadly this beloved gay/Lesbian person (usually male and gay, interestingingly enough) is often a renegade member of an affluent, old, powerful and monied family; we can afford to "accept" (and by accept I do not mean that Mr Jimmy can EVER bring his lover to his home, that Miss Ethel Ann, can NEVER be a member of NOW or let it be known that she is pierced--so Miss Ethel Ann MUST go outside the community (usually another state) for health care and when she is cremated we all hope to hell and heaven that it is one particular funeral home/crematorium business who is in charge of her remains and cremains, for he is the ONLY person who will NEVER tell. If she has a heart attack, God forbid, in public and is rushed to the local hospital, before it is ever known if she will live or die, the medical and nursing staff will have notified EVERYONE they know within a 5 state radius about her piercing. (It's a wonder any of the Miss Ethels EVER survive with all the people on the telephone.) But WOE--Wo! I say-- to any African-American, Latino-a migrant farm worker new to the Deep South (fillin up the pews of very scary evangelical churches), poor (po white trash or PWT) or middle-class ordinary white person who is gay/Lesbian/bi-sexual (we can hardly begin to form the worlds "transgendered" for it all seems just too demonic to way too many.) There is something really "scape-goat" about this one "acceptable" person who gets to live out his charming, fabulous taste, gorgeous home, ancient family silver service for 50 within this community. He is the ONE who gets to be gay/queer/bi/Lesbian for everyone else. And since we, the local community of that town in MS, refuse to allow him any sex or sexuality, we ALL must be pure, too. It really fecks one up as the Irish say. But I digress. We of the C/church world-wide and the C/church in Panama cannot begin to speak out to the diocese, Republic, and world at large until we can speak to our own. Shall we begin? I say that charity begins at home and if we the Church are EVER going to respond and react and behave as Jesus would (I will NOT say "....behave as Christians would behave" for we know far too well the evils and atrocities of Christianity!), we must FIRST accept and love and care for our own gay and Lesbian clergy. Has everyone's heart stopped beating yet? Did she just say "we have GAY clergy in Panama?" Yes, she did. OH NO and WOE! I go to diocesan meetings; I have great "gaydar." It's not my business to "out" anyone and I won't. But statistically, let's be real. If one out of every ten persons is some sort of "gay"--non-heterosexual, the chances are REALLY great that there is at least ONE non-heter within our own. Does anyone know this but me? Or does "everyone" know this and we don't talk about it? If, say, we have a homosexual who is married with children, does that person EVER tell his confessor, spiritual director, bishop, seminary professor somewhere during The Process towards ordination? And I'm "queer" because I'm a latex lovin sub and I have yet to find a space with enough a/c in Panama that would allow me to wear a latex dress with my opera length latex gloves and my latex boots! And if someone created a dungeon, it might really be cool, as in temperature cool and I might just have to go live there....Resident latex hermit? So then when my beloved spouse calls for clergy dialogue, I expect he really means we'll all talk about own our sexualities and our own joys and struggles. But he's a new Episcopalian and does not know that we don't do that. We are smart people, cut off at the necks, who would speak GENERALLY and NEVER specifically about sex and sexuality. If we're REALLY smart and/or academic, we'll cite other academics and smart people and MAYBE the bible; if we're smart and possibly academic, we MIGHT cite THE BIBLE (with SOME context, history, or possibility of eons of lost bits, eons of verbal culture, and mischance of translation)--for we ALL KNOW THAT THE BIBLE IS THE VERY WORD OF GOD, from God's brain to God's pen..how ridiculous...God with a pen..or better, God with a turkey feather and some home-made ink--no BICS for God!!!!!!! Tell me, does God, then, get handcramps from writing? And in what language does God write, pray tell? Ah, you say, the Good Queen's English? No, but NO, the good (and gay) KING'S English (that would be good and gay King James--and EVERY good Christian knows this is a true fact!!! And if we're ignorant and fearful and terrified of our own sexuality or something that MIGHT be something we like sexual that's not 2.5 minutes of man-on-top-of-woman with the woman having no pleasure and neither of them having a second's worth of a fantasy that the other might be Liam Neesom, Desmond Tutu (doesn't everyone fantasize about Desmond in our beds? Yum) Barry White, Oscar Romero, Louis Weil, Bill Countryman, the local firefighter, Madonna (either one), Ann Cromey, Eva Peron, Ana Murray (double yum), Jennifer Lopez (if she never speaks, just stands there with her darling great big butt), Francis of Assisi, La Morenita (the ONLY Mary, mother of Jesus I want to have sex with..and she's pregnant!), Mary Magdelene (triple yum), Alice Waters, or JESUS HELP ME JEEZUS!!!!??? (Did she just say she finds Jesus sexy or mi DIOS, that she fantasizes of Jesus in her bed??? Yes, she did, but you did not ask her if she fantasizes a male Jesus, a female Jeus, a gay Jesus, a Lesbian Jesus, or a BISEXUAL Jesus, my most favorite Jesus of all--having Jesus, Mary Magdalen, AND that male disciple that Jesus loved all in my bed doing sexual stuff--all at the same time....Yes Yes Yes and MORE, por favor.)....If we're that ignorant and fearful, we'll certainly use THE BIBLE as our ONLY resource, for it's the only resource we need, and certainly quote as the bible something that has NEVER been in the bible!!! Och, and there's a rant for ye now....

The Last Mono

For the past several days when I've been outside digging in the wee bit of dirt--mostly rocks and muck--planting papaya, mango, citrus tree-lings and rearranging the "water plants," I've not seen the Big Mono, remaining sibling (?twin?) of the "Littlest Mono" who died in February. I've been out late and it's been raining and I had hoped (and prayed to Francis and Clare who don't seem to be paying attention to monos these days. I'll take this up with my Franciscan friends) he was inside...I found out today that the last and grande mono died of a respiratory infection. I cannot imagine how devastated Gladys must be; if I am this devastated. I've cried and railed and hurled the St Francis candle across the room several times in my rage and pain. These precious lives of these precious darlings, so loved by us all, just wiped out, gone, dead. Another thing to mourn; God, when does it stop? Does the mourning ever end after 40? I do not know what to do; I'd get them kittens later if I thought it would help. Gladys LOVED those babies soo much. And they were too darling and soo connected to us humans. Is there a patron saint of monkeys? Well, then I suggest she or he dust off their godstuff and get to crankin' on comforting Roberto y Gladys. I'lll write a note and send messages to folks in Canada. I think, though, that the one-o mono died from a broken heart; I think he missed his brother soo much; life was too sad without company and a companion. I can understand that. As much as I am on a bitch of a tear about Kenny, the Church, the priesthood, etc, my greatest fear is that something will happen to him--like death--and not death for a "CAUSE" either, but just death. I'm not sure the kitties could keep me connected to this earth. I might have to join him wherever he would be. And THEN I think what would it be like to have Beckett and/or Paid die and I cry all over again. That would be as awful as losing Kenny...reallly. These are my family..la familia...Kenny and these 2 precious gatos. They are the light and joy of my life. Once I could say that about the Church; when the Church was the ONE place that kept me half-way sane and gave me comfort and work to do almost 30 years ago (God, I'll be a basket case on 4 August and the bishop will be here as I'm glooming about and carrying on. Lordamercy Jesus! Too much loss. Yes, it's true, I had a magical existance for sooo soo long, particularly when Kenny came into my life. But for the last 20 to 24 months, it's been one huge loss after another. And of course here I keep remembering those folks and experiences I no longer have no access to. Will this ever end? Can't I get a break from all this? Yet, who am I to ask for a break when I have EVERYTHING including the greatest luxury of a graduate school education and papayas every day and books and stuff and the love of one really good man whom I truly adore? How do I deserve another spell of magic when people around me have so little or nothing? And I can't seem to find God or The Divine anymore? Who am I to be so fucking arrogant? Well, a spoiled only child for one, who HUNGERS to do the ONE THING on this earth that has ever brought me joy--and that's doing the liturgical and the church stuff as full-time. I also miss seminary and school. I want to learn the "new" forever! But our gatos are safe and Gladys' monos are dead and I can feel her pain across the yard and across the fence and my woman heart to her woman heart. Gay Pride IS VERY IMPORTANT, yet I cannot write about my experiences for the sadness. And I never even took a picture of either mono. What an ejit! Dear Frances and Clare, if you're still the saints of non-human creatures, somehow intervene in the pain and suffering of Gladys for her beloved monos. And Jesus, whoever and however you are, bring some kind of comfort to R&G as a couple. And Mary, the One I now talk to--La Morenita and all the Black Madonnas--I'm not sure about God these days. I KNOW God (however symbolic we use the word) was part of the life and joy of our creature neighbors who now only live in our memories. MUST write letter to Gladys and share my feelings. This is just too fucking much. And superstitious me says I MUST not say that for I'll be SHOWN too fucking much!!!

Well, My O My!

Gosh (how profound) I awoke this morning feeling better than I have in MONTHS! I am convinced it was airing all my shit so publicly I had this understanding AGAIN that if I am called to be ordained then I must get out there and DO the stuff I am called to do regardless. Well by tonight after waiting five hours in the dentist's office I don't have as much hope as I did this morning but I'm not the tragic mess I was last night. And it's not raining. And there are two yummy pineapples in the kitchen. Plus the website is up and going. That's good news, too! An accomplishment!!!

Much to think about

Bitching and Bitchin' There's been entirely too much going on lately and yet, on the other hand, it seems nothing gets done--at least nothing that is bringing me peace and/or contentment. I have my old restlessness that has not cycled since Holy Week of 1996 when I visited CDSP and interviewed for seminary. I'd run away if I could I think; but there's no place to run. There is no more "home" in the sense of family with my parents being dead and being the only child. I am not salaried and have no savings so I just can't "up and leave." And if I did, what would happen to a PROCESS!!! And I'm not sure where I'd want to go either. And yet I'm dangerously restless. Not a good thing; not a good place for me to be emotionaly. And what would happen to Kenny and the cats? It's worse, too, because peacebang (a blogger) is on holiday; the Sopranos and Big Love are over for the season and it's too hard to translate TV. I've consumed too many books and have been playing too much mahjong. But I've reallly been bitching and moaning and svetching WAY TOO MUCH--so much that even I am almost tired of me. And I am NEVER bored!! I'm not very happy with my husband these days. Most days I hate him and still love him but when I'm really into self-pity, I make myself forget the loving him part. Actually what I am is jealous--so RWC+ I guess that's mad/sad/fearful=jealousy, an emotion I'm not prone to feel. For the first time since I've been an Episcopalian there is no solace, comfort, inspiration, joy, love in the liturgy and experience. I was spoiled, too, having the churches of everybody and her/his cat. There are no Quakers, no Swedenborgians, no MCC's, no Church of St John Coltrane, no Orthodox to sit in clouds of incense; no Buddhists chanting anyplace. I'm back to yoga and contemplative prayer with earplugs so I'll have quiet (with ear pressure sores from jamming the ear plugs so deep in my ears to drown out the constant sounds of life all around). I am pea-green, eaten up with jealousy because my husband has children AND is ordained--and both were soo easy for him and I just hate him for that! Now the only other thing WORSE than Kenny NOT being ordained is if I'd been ordained and he'd been turned down; that would have been totally insufferable and I'd be more miserable than I am now. But I don't understand. I just do not understand why stuff isn't happening. And frankly my dear I do not like the rainy season. Ick. I'm pea green with envy with/toward Kenny because he has the two things/experiences/states of being in this world that I've hungered for my entire life: being a parent and being ordained. And for him both were like falling off a log--I often wonder if he appreciates any of these gifts that sends his wife sobbing to the shower at least once a day. 53 is a good age to be in a month; but being post-menopausal has hit me like a freight train--now there is NO chance of EVER having a baby. And it is devastating. It wasn't devastating at 35 or even 40 strangely; it was devastating at 22 just as at 52, now. Infertile women tell me this never goes away and I believed them before; their words resound so deeply within my heart and soul and gut and uterus in particular. I'm seriously pondering a kitten but I think that's displacement and not fair to our two gatos and not fair to a new gato. Being a priest was the ONLY consolation (not as in consolation prize but in a deeper redemptive sense of the greater world.)PS 113 was the verse that I'd hungered to hear for years and one day, in Lyn Bauman's church way back in the late 80's, we read this Psalm and I heard and saw it for the first time (cause we all know: how "bad" it was to be barren women in those days) 5 Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, 6 who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? 7 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; 8 he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. 9 He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the LORD. Sometimes (often times and even in the US when Nedi would do something really ohno liturgically or even when she didn't, it was all I could do not to run to the Table or ambo and just shove her aside and continue the liturgy--or better yet, start all over! aarrrrgghh) it is all I can stand to sit through one of Kenny's masses, my beloved husband, who criticised EVERYBODY"S liturgical style (except for Fr Dazzling--Louis Weil's) and now is just awful. I can't undertand it. I can't understand priests who do not practice in front of a mirror; I can't understand priests who don't rearrange the furniture; I can't understand priests who don't teach and have Bible study; I can't understand priests who don't go to the church and hang out in case anyone comes by; I can't understand priests who don't read the Daily Offices; I REALLY can't understand priests who don't have MP and EP and Noon Prayer every day! I thought that was what being a priest was all about. As I said about Nedi, there is just no excuse for bad liturgy. Speaking of which, has anyone else in their ordination process been wired? Yes, I wore a wire to every meeting of my committee except for the first one-when I realised I'd been thrown into a pit of vipers. (no offense to vipers, please). I had one committee member who NEVER came to church. This was the year the Sr Warden was (and still is) a Wiccan--no offense ot Wiccans, because I believe in the great power of Earth Centered religions and if there was a bunch of women here doing these rituals, I'd be out there at every full and dark moon and whatever happens on a solstice in this part of the world that sits practically on top of the eaquator) but it seems a bit much to have a Wiccan as the Sr Warden of an Episcopal Church. She made the BEST Kahlua cake in the entire world though. I mean I can barely make myself get thru the Nicene Creeed; how can a Wiccan say all that ONE GOD HE stuff?? I recorded EVERY meeting to keep myself from choking the committee leader who SCREAMED at me about Kibbie Ruth's teachings of safe clergy boundaries: I mean she got out of her chair and got in my face and screamed at me!! I also wore a wire to be sure I DID NOT tell her I would take her to Nordstrom's to be fitted for a bra siince "the girls" (who probably could have been quite lovely) were hangin to her knees and she was just too old and too big breasted to be going without lots of support. I know I come from po white trash but puh-leeze, I AM an Episcopalian and I always thought that the one thing one could be excommunicated for (besides this atrocious grammar) was using the wrong fork at dinner--but sister gal kept her mouth open as she chewed and food just spit everywhere and it was totally gross. I also did not want to ask why her husband (the OTHER big hoo hah of ordination process) didn't wash his hair! (Now I KNOW trhis is catty and petty but doesn't hygiene count for something? EEW GROSS!.....And the night I HAD to meet with these folks who were just mean and my process was one of the sickest examples of an empowered laity and my process was so much more about "what's wrong with St Aidan's and what's wrong with Nedi?" Now no one in her/his right mind is going to walk into THAT brier patch, Br'er Rabbit!!! No sirree bob! But the Inquisition that did it was: name your friends here at St Aidan's and tell us 3 stories about them; name three people you LIKE here and tell us 3 stories abot them; name the three people who DON"T like and tell us 3 stories about them. Tell us about the conflicts and disagreements you've had with Nedi, what they were about, what you said, what she said, and how they were resolved--if they were. I replied calmly No, No, No, No and No. But the night I resigned from the parish and the Episcopal Church I saw behind the curtain into the deep dark angry faces that were truly frightening...these suburban posing at urban parishioners who all speak quietly and softly and are so PC took off their masks and I saw rage and scary anger. It was wild. I take it back--there was one couple, both long time AA's who were not vicious and scary. But sadly on the nights when things got really bad, they were not there. I couuld go on and on with this because it's one of those unreal processes where people think you're just being an hysterical, lingering on women turned down by the process who never gets over it and has no other place to go because she is an Anglican/Episcopalian. I wish to God I could be something else. Because I tried; I REALLY tried--in a truly fabulous growing young new parish of mostly gay men and talk about heaven and it was! Good liturgy, good music, gorgeous men, great vestments, good food, fascinating members and visitors, social action, liberation theology and on and on. These good people ordained me a deacon and were going to priest me and my mama died and there I was, alone in MS, needing to connect and I realised I was a US Episcopalian and that is what I truly know I am--a US liberal Episcopalian. Here I am not sure I'm a Panamanian Episcopalian for the stuff I need is not here. And I have no power to change that because people want their padre not the padre's wife. I'd love to be teaching Godly Play but I can't get the padre to make it okay. I'd love to be teaching a Bible class or a class on Anglicanism and I can't get the padre to open the door for me to make it happen and without his okay and his presence at times, it will NOT happen. And I feel betrayed and useless and wonder where I can find just one more Quaker or when the RC"s pray the Rosary--cause I'd be there! God bless the good bishop for moving me to the Church of Saint Glenda so I don't have to attempt an ordination process in "my husband's church." And maybe Kenny and I can be nice to one another on Sundays when I'm not viperishly sniping at his liturgy, sermon, religious ed, and on and on--the endless litany of "what I would do if I were priest." The first thing I'd do is have ALL said services until we can sing and learn some hyms that MIGHT have something to do with the liturgy instead of the seven horrible hymns that we DO know. I have nightmares that Fr Dazzling will show up and somehow I'll feel responsible for horrid liturgy and dreadful music. Ugh. Liberal Quakers really appeal to me on Sundays after trying to sing through bad hymnody and no musician. There are no on-line sand trays either for therapy long-distance. No acupuncturists, no Rolfers, no Long's Drugs, no organic anything, no Michelle, no film, and this weird new learning experience of the Divine and what I am about and how I am to get my spiritual needs met here. And hoping and praying that some day our relationship--the Kenny and oonagh one--will be good again and we'll have hot sex again. Sigh. My godstuff is changing but my images of who and how God is are changing rapidly and I read about emerging churches and all this new stuff and here I am, with all my creativity, stuck in the 1940 fucking hymnal (that does not even have Jerusalem, for Christ's sake!) Tell me again, why did I want to come here again???? Oh, because I am so impetulous and impulsvie and impossible and impatient! Being connected with a woman friend, a gay friend, a church community, someplace truly private would be absolute heaven. Maybe learning Spanish will help SOMETHING. And this vulnerability of an ordiination process is terrifying. And Rusty and George are soo far away. I guess it's community I miss. We/I have no community. The expats here live a very affluent life; I've not met one with a compatible social justice connection or ANY connection. And we N Americans need to analyse and bitch just soo much that it seems ridiculous to enter into a conversation with a Panamanian about any of this; it does not translate. It would be great to be in school again and/or to have the structure of work. And to have a salary would be over the top! I miss Robert and Ann and I worry so about Robert. I miss school and learning and being a part of the new stuff happening and all the great classes. I'd stay in school forever if I could get it funded! Maybe Michelle will play the big CA lotteries for me. I miss joining Eddie at the Jeb house for lunch and wine. I miss Eddie. I miss gay men, especially OUT gay men and Lord, I miss drag queens!!! and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I miss Rainbeau because of Rainbeau and because I'd love a great haircut again! Shit. Shaun would be blasting me really good about being a victim and not fitting in to be ordained--or not fittin to be ordained! And perhaps I really canNOT be ordained because I am not wealthy, do not come from an old family or old money or new money, for that matter. I have no Episcopal connections who will speak up and speak out for me. I am smart but not academically brilliant nor liturgically brilliant and academia forced me to write in such a way that my passion for the Church and liturgy were never expressed--so I guess no one ever knew--because I'm so shy and was so terrified and was always trying to be soo good and quiet and invisible--never knowing how to act or smooze or what good questions to ask--that I was just an ordinary student with flaming red hair who was sick so much. Sigh. And then all the deaths and all the falling in love. The falling in love part was wonderful but the deaths of both parents was too much. Couldn't finish my thesis because of it either. So there goes academic whatever. Shit. Did I ever telll anyone but Jude that the liturgy is my life, my love, my place, my home, my peace, my challenge, my place for consolation and strength? No. Did I have the adequate seminarian vocabulary in which to say it? No. And of course everyday speak is not seminary acceptable. Fuck. How can one get Seasonal Affective Disorder in a place where the sun shines everyday? Maybe it's my Irish genes that need gloom and cold and fog and mizzly rain and a reason to wear a sweater AND a coat! Okay, Shaun, I hear you: whininig is unacceptable, unbecoming, unappreciated, unfit, unappealing, unproductive, unjustifiable, unbearable, insophisticated, unwarranted, unbelievable, un-called-for, uncivilised, unpleasant, uncouth, undesirable, unnecessisary, unsociable, undiscriminating, uninterestiing, unmannerly, and so forth. O and a sushi bar and Martuni's and Thai food and Fong's for breakfast. There MUST be some neo-pagans here to join for moon howling. And no decent lube and certainly no GV, no Stormy Leather (the idea of leather and latex makes me too hot to even think about). How does one fetish leather and latex in the tropics? inquiring minds want to know..... O, meow and hiss