An now, a word from the Bishop.

John Shelby Spong is a voice of reason in the chaos of fundamentism.  His recent press release draws a line in the sand for this brilliant theologian who is not afraid to be on the right side of the debate - likely at great cost from some facets of his faith community.

Enjoy!

October 15, 2009
A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.


I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.


I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.


I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.


I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.
The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.


I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.


Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.


This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

– John Shelby Spong

Create an Eco-Masterpiece with me - Blog Action Day

hello, Campers...

and I call you all campers because almost everyone loves the great outdoors - even if its only for a weekend in the provincial park.  Some of us thrive on the wide open spaces and need time in nature to connect, renew our souls, breathe cleaner air, touch the earth, hug a tree - you get the idea.

There is so much discussion about how much we can do to reverse the damage of centuries of human behavior on the planet.

We need to keep the faith (calling all Gaiaists!) and we need to have and sustain and nurture hope.  We need to celebrate every small thing we do right - and call out every thing that we do wrong - to learn from it - to  learn to not do it again - so others can learn too.

I just wish that the World Scientific Brain Trust had never started the ball rolling by calling it Global Warming - mostly because I'm tired of the jokes about the weather - (bring on global warming as a solution to undesirable weather).  Sometimes it gets in the way of serious conversation.

This post is not meant to be overly deep or profound - but to acknowledge the day - that so many of us in the Blogosphere are focused on some aspect of climate change - and I believe that wherever we put our attention will flourish.

In so many ways - we "are the world" - we create it, we destroy it, it is the mirror that reflects everything we do.  It is the canvas that we paint with the brush strokes of our lives - each human is one filament in the paintbrush. Our diversity is the palette of colors that blend together - complimenting and contrasting to make the images of our daily living.

We can create a masterpiece - not by glossing over what we have done - but by restoring the image of Eden - the green and growing heaven we used to live in - one recycling bin and bucket of compost at a time.

Will you do your part?

To Boldly Go... where millions have gone before (I went to Walmart)

A Polemic on Crass Consumer Privilege. The last paragraph has two great links that provoked this to varying degrees - so hope you enjoy the journey down the page.

My Folk Festival Chair broke. It's one of those low-down to the ground camping chairs that meet the maximum height requirements for sitting in the crowd at the Winnipeg Folk Festival (seat no higher than 2 feet to allow for visibility of the people behind you). The arm broke - rendering it unfit for Festival use - though it will get duct taped and used around the fire pit at home.

So - 5 days before Folk Festival - I have to find a new chair. You would think it would be easy in the Grand Metropolis and Shopping Paradise that is the Heart of the Continent. Not so easy when some of us are at best "reluctant participants" in the shopping culture. So we made a list of where we had heard other friends had located similar chairs. For the record - we are not Costco members - which is likely where all the most popular chairs are these days.

Went to Zellers - a somewhat Canadian Company and located walking distance from my house. No lawn chairs. Went to SuperStore (also somewhat Canadian) for the first time since 2005 (when we were shopping for the last Retreat). No lawn chairs. Went to Canadian Tire (notice a theme?)- no lawn chairs. Went to Walmart (Born in the USA) for the first time in more years than I can remember - and bought two made in China (sorry!) Folk Fest Acceptable lawn chairs.

And then I took a look around. In the words of Bette Davis in "Beyond the Forest" - what a dump. Unhappy looking staff. Even unhappier looking customers. The stock was a mess - opened packages, disordered shelved, sizes/brands mixed up, stuff shoved anywhere someone felt like it when they realized that they didn't want it anymore. Took a cruise through the women's' clothing area out of curiosity (many of my friends say they get great deals at Walmart on their sartorial choices). Clothes falling off hangers. Merchandise everywhere - sizes mixed up, clothes on the floor. The clerk at the fitting room counter had a mountain of clothes to re-hanger and put away - and she was the only clerk I could see. The socks and underwear section was a disaster - open plastic bags with their contents half pulled out, walked on - but hey - you know what I'm talking about - you see this every time you go to Walmart. It isn't a surprise to you.

it made my Old School Retailer Heart frantic. Now - I know that the stores are understaffed, and the staff are not well compensated, and all of that - I did 25 years in retail - remember? I am not faulting the Good People of Walmart-land.

They are fighting the onslaught of crass consumer privilege. The staff didn't turn the store into a wasteland where shoppers are forced to become mix and match hunter gatherers, foragers for the best deal and the undamaged item, where shoppers act like decadent Roman Emperors, tossing the gnawed rib bones of discarded items over their shoulder to land where they may in the churn of "made in sweatshop" merchandise that migrates from department to department.

I watched people do this - drop stuff, shove stuff onto shelves, leave hangers full of blouses on a rack of pants, knock things off hangers and let them fall - and treat the clerk at the Fitting Room area like she was their own personal slave - shoving an armload of clothes and a tangle of hangers into her face and walking away without a word. And I'm shocked that I'm shocked. I guess I've just been out of the jungle too long. Cue Guns & Roses.

Are people so powerless in their personal lives or places of employment that, at the first opportunity, they treat others with such disrespect? Do we really need to "lord" our power over others in order to improve our self-esteem? or are we treating people the way we are ourselves treated - not the way we want to be treated by others? Why do we act like we are the stars of our own celebrity reality show? Lights! Camera! Action! Someone needs to yell CUT!

I enjoyed my time in retail except for the customers that treated me/my staff members like we were somehow "less than" - that because we were in the service industry that we were "servants" - and there's a whole other soapbox diatribe possible about the concepts of customer service / public service / service industry.

I've had the opportunity in my extraordinarily privileged life to "see how the other half lives" - to have visited and shopped in stores where the rich shop and let me reassure you, faithful reader, that the true mark of classy behavior (as in upper class) is based on how WELL someone treats those who are providing a personal service. While the sample sale frenzy at Bloomingdales is legendary, there is a culture of respect that is part of the exchange in commerce among many in the carriage trade. (what a quaintly antiquated expression - it should be the Manolo trade these days). But I digress.

There is also respect for the merchandise. Every item in every store started as a thought - a creative idea designed to meet a potential need (or a manufactured need in some cases.) "It" is approved, prototyped, manufactured, packaged, crated, and transported (sometimes at great carbon-creating distance) to its intended marketplace. But what is today's mass produced merchandise really worth?

When I know how much a meter of fabric costs at Mitchell Fabrics (Winnipeg's finest family owned fabric store) - plus design, labor, and shipping - how can this pair of shorts be only $5? How much of that is profit for the retailer with their overhead and staffing costs, plus the shipping company, the distributor and the manufacturer? How much did someone get paid to make my $5 pair of shorts? Would I work for that wage? And where can they afford to shop based on what they make?

I'm not a saint - just a conflicted consumer. I try to vote with my dollars - AND I also need what I need to live my life, and sometimes there are limitations on where I can find the thing I'm looking for because of the Consumer Over-culture. I tend to shop in small, independent stores - and rarely make the trip into the big box world of retail because I can't stand it. The stores smell of chemicals - all those cheaply made goods off-gassing their poly-whatever into a contained space. People are rude. The staff are overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. I make the foray into that world only when I need something I can't find anywhere else. And then I feel awful for days. Body Mind and Spirit.

I hate malls (and I've worked in them). I hate the big box malls especially, because I have to walk outside in the winter to get from store to store to store schlepping my stuff in a winter coat & boots - or drive/be driven across a football field length parking lot to get from one store to the next. Interior malls replaced the town square/central market of our cities by enclosing stores under one roof.

At least in an enclosed mall, you can meet friends, stop for tea, sit and watch the people go by and have a social experience - replacing that central civic meeting place which is now a thing of distant cultural memory and is almost considered an urban legend to current generations. With the big box malls, we've lost even that artificial semblance of "market day" being a socially interactive experience - now its every SUV for itself as people jet from store to store across an acreage that used to be farmland in my lifetime.

So what's to be done? Treat everyone and everything with respect. Say please and thank you. Shop with your dollars supporting your beliefs. Write letters of commendation when deserved - and not just for the "above and beyond" stuff - but for the smaller moments that matter. Own your contribution to the "mess" and do better (such as hanging things up on their hangers when after you have tried them on). Change the economy one necessary purchase at a time, to the best of your ability.

And if you see me at Folk Festival - I'll be the lady in the big black beaten up old straw hat in the brand new chair. trying not to feel guilty about it. But that's my baggage to deal with.

Oh yeah - check out the article in Sundays Free Press on how "free parking" really isn't free and imposes a surtax on people who take public transit, walk, cycle, or carpool to the store. And for a moment to ponder - check out this great post by No Impact Man - that's what prompted me to write this post. Its' a great blog about living responsibly.

Enjoy the day,
Susan
(sorry - no time to drop in attractive images today)