I've Been Bad...

... probably about many things! But, although less titillating that perhaps you were hoping, my meaning is that I've been really bad about keeping up with my blog. I wanted originally to challenge myself to write once a week, to see how serious I am about trying to be a writer. But apparently I am not that serious; or else I'm too easily distracted; or I'm just plain too busy. However, sometimes a subject comes along that is so important to me that I feel compelled to try to write. And, today it is the idea of...

Unity in Diversity. It is a concept that means a very great deal to me as an Episcopalian, as a Christian, and, most importantly, as a person. The concept has become something I think of as one of those essential aspects of a life well lived, a life necessarily lived in community with others.

A friend asked me today to ask if I'd been offended a few days before when her husband and I disagreed about the merits of the Harry Potter series (I'm a big fan; he less so). Actually, far from being offended, I'd really enjoyed our animated exchange of ideas. I love to find out what people like and why. And as a scientist I'm trained to be skeptical, to play "devil's advocate," to always look for the alternative point of view. I ordinarily much prefer discussing things with people who have different viewpoints, rather than just with people who see things the same way I do. EXCEPT, of course, for those opinions I hold very dear, like we all do, and can't see HOW someone could disagree. But then I know (from hard experience), that disagreeing can be even more important. Some of those conversations -- the ones where we share what we believe or feel and why, and why it means so much to us, and what paths have brought us to the various viewpoints -- are the most valuable I have ever had. Not to convince another to my viewpoint, or to be argued out of it, but just to understand how we come to be so diverse and to learn to value the other's experience. To me, that is essential in becoming fully human--in "growing up." Somehow or other, we all have to learn that we don't have a lock on truth, that our perspective is not the only one, that what "works" for me may not "work" for someone else.

I went today to a meeting of the the Albany Via Media in our diocese. One of the questions we asked ourselves was, "What message would you like to send to the Bishop?" My answer didn't fit easily into 2 or 3 sentences, but it is fundamentally about this point. I, like so many other Episcopalians, came to this branch of the faith from another. My former church insisted on a litmus test; "You have to hold THESE opinions, or you CAN'T be a Christian." I chose Anglicanism because we are a community based upon a common worship and a mutual commitment to a community of believers, NOT one that insists on doctrinal conformity in all matters, especially relatively minor ones not "essential to salvation." Hooker believed that authority should be based on piety and reason, not conveyed by automatic investiture. Or, as my friend Louie Crew says, "The Episcopal Church is where you don't have to check your brain at the door." We can think for ourselves, question, and disagree -- what holds us together is the communion table. It is this meal that we share that cements our membership in one another, not some robotic conformity.

One of the advantages(?) of being a close friend of Louie Crew (for those who know who he is, or have had the experience), is ending up, almost by default, active in church polity (and often politics) on the national level. He is so passionate about this branch of the faith and so devoted to the Anglican Communion in all its diverse glory that you just have to get involved, and I did extensively for more than a decade. I especially loved General Convention; attending once as a volunteer for Integrity, once as part of the Consultation, and once as an Alternate Deputy for my Diocese. One year (1997? 2000?), I was assigned to monitor the activities of one of the committees who were looking into the subject of human sexuality and society. I went faithfully every day, and ended up habitually sitting just across the aisle from Martyn Minns (who was one of the prominent Episcopalians to leave the church in 2007 and join the Church of Nigeria). I remember at first the expected discomfort at being so close to someone there to argue against my inclusion in the church (I was also there to testify to my experience as the same-sex partner of a transsexual woman, and the discrimination--as well as threats--we had both experienced in society as well as within the Church). But, as the days went on, I not only calmed down about his proximity but I remember noticing the little things each day, like whether he looked tired or happy or sad, and the habits and ways of speaking that made him a real person to me rather than just an icon of the "conservative side." By the end of the week, I felt a genuine affection for him and, even though we presented starkly different viewpoints to the Committee, I truly wanted to be and remain part of the same Church with him. I found I couldn't know him, even at this relatively superficial level, and not feel connected. We both loved the same Church, the same Lord. It really hurt--actually I cried--when I read that he had left the Episcopal Church. I felt like he was a family member who had chosen to disown us. I wanted him, that person with the face I had learned to read so well, to be there around that communion table that is so central to me. We disagree about just about everything, but I still think we need each other. I guess he does not.

I feel like, in this Diocese of Albany, we are almost at the door marked "Exit" in the traditional Big House of Anglicanism. There are only two "approved seminaries" where our priest and deacons can be trained, there are doctrinal conformity opinions that must be held before a candidate can be accepted into an ordination process or a priest can be called to a parish, the teachings that come from the Bishop reflect opinions that are presented as "true" while other commonly held opinions within the diversity of mainstream Episcopalian theology are presented as "wrong." Most disturbingly to me, those of us who hold differing opinions are treated as though we don't exist. The Bishop pretends to speak for "overwhelming majority of the people and clergy of the Diocese" without listening to us or ever asking our opinion. Yet, meetings such as today's prove that there are many even in some of the "traditionally conservative" parishes who do not hold these narrow views of Anglicanism.

I don't know of any successful way of living together except to learn to agree to disagree. Right now in the Church the controversy seems to be largely about sexual orientation and gender. Some say "love the sinner but hate the sin," but I can not accept that what some call sin is what I believe is one of the God given qualities that makes me the unique individual I am; not a choice or action or lifestyle, but a unique individual created in the image of God (however you interpret that). But, this is only one issue. If we all eventually learn to agree on this (as we have over time on issues like slavery, for example), we will still disagree about other things. I do not believe any two people in the world could agree on everything that they hold dear, certainly not an entire diocese in this geographically diverse, economically diverse, culturally diverse, and every-other-which-way diverse North Country. But, I want to be able to live together anyway. I want to hear people who agree with me and I want to hear people who disagree with me, and everything in between. I want all voices to be welcome, and--at least within what is held to be acceptable Episcopalian thought on the National Church level--I want leeway for diverse perspectives to be represented, taught, and respected as legitimate in this Diocese. I want to be a Big House Church, I want to walk the Via Media with the WHOLE communion.