PICTURES OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

Lookit.

My husband graduates tomorrow!

My husband Adam will be among the 54 new graduates of General Theological Seminary tomorrow. Thanks be to God!

Here's to three years of watching, waiting, praying, hoping, helping, and working with my beloved hubs. And of editing his damn papers, of course.

This is the first graduate school graduation I've ever attended. Hopefully it won't be the last. ;)

What my grandfather taught me.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21)

Last night, I went to bed thinking about Amendment 1 in North Carolina, and how it was expected to pass, and how sad that made me. I felt sad for gay people in North Carolina, whose daily lives would be darkened by other people's prejudice, and I felt sad for all the people who knew it was unfair and had voted against Amendment 1 and were embarrassed by how backwards it made their home state look, and I even felt sad for the people who voted FOR the amendment, for they knew not what they did, most of them. And then I thought about the passage of gay marriage in New York last year and how joyous that event was, how there was this palpable feeling in the air that things in the US could, and were about to, get better. And I thought about how, when my grandkids are in school, they'll learn about the gay rights movement just like I learned about the black civil rights movement when I was a kid, and about how, just like I did in third grade, they'll marvel at how strange and mean-spirited their grandparents' generation seemed to have been. There will come a time when the idea of treating gay marriages differently will seem just as petty and cruel as making black people and white people use different drinking fountains. My grandkids will live in that world.

I thought about these things as I drifted off to sleep in my husband's arms.

Adam and I have been married for almost four years now, and we still fall asleep every night holding one another. We often shift in our sleep (I'm a particularly wild sleeper), but we always fall asleep clasped together in bed. And when we wake up, we still greet one another with a kiss. Even when I wake up earlier than my husband so I can go to work, I always kiss him softly on the mouth before I walk out of the bedroom and pick up my lunch box and head off on my morning commute.

My husband and I are a happily married heterosexual couple.

It runs in the family, I guess. My parents are still happily married after 35 years together. Both sets of grandparents were happily married until my maternal grandfather's death in 1998 and my paternal grandmother's death late last year. My mom's parents, in particular, served as great models for a healthy, happy marriage. They were so in love, so completely into each other. And last night, as I fell asleep thinking about Amendment 1 and how sad it was, I remembered something my grandfather used to say.

My grandpa was a man's man--born into a poor Catholic immigrant family, one of eight kids, he dropped out of school during the Great Depression, lied about his age, and joined the CCC. The government shipped him to Idaho to dig ditches, and he successfully sent money to his folks for three whole months before someone at the dig site figured out that he was still a kid and sent him back to finish high school. As soon as he was done with school, my grandpa signed up for the Navy in World War II and saw several battles in the Pacific. He married my grandma when they were both only twenty, he went to college on the GI Bill, and then he taught high school science classes for awhile, although I suspect that was mostly an excuse to coach football. Then he went and got his Masters and built rockets for Martin Marietta (which later became Lockheed Martin), including the ones that took the Space Shuttles into orbit. He had a big tattoo of his Navy ship on his arm, and he played college football, and he loved yelling at umpires. He ate everything and was known as "Garbage Pail Kovalick" for the way he'd always finish off everyone else's leftovers. He smoked like a chimney until his first heart attack.

And he was the biggest feminist.

He was a member of NOW, he helped stand guard at Planned Parenthood clinics, he worked as a volunteer deputy sheriff on the domestic violence squad. And I remember, when I was little, he had an answer for the guys who used to ask him, "Mike, why do you care so much about that women's rights stuff?"  

"I'm not a woman," he would say. "But I have a wife. I have two daughters. I have a mom, and a grandma, and sisters, and aunts, and cousins. You go ahead and tell me they don't deserve the same rights as men. You go ahead and tell my wife and daughters that. Just try."

This needs to be said, because I don't think we say it as baldly and honestly as we should: there is no decent biblical argument against letting gay people get married. Of course, in a country with a pretty solid wall between church and state, the civil argument should be sufficient. (If you'd like to argue something about the Founding Fathers' faith, go right ahead. They were mostly A) deists, or B) Anglicans like me, so I don't really think that's an argument you'd like to pursue, unless you'd like to start seeing Anglican values, like caring for the poor and letting people have control over their own bodies, enshrined in national law.) But apparently some people think the argument that everyone should be treated the same under the law is not good enough, so, being a theologian, I am well acquainted with "Christian" arguments against gay marriage, and I am here to tell you that they don't work, at all, on any level.

The Bible doesn't actually say anything about gay marriage. It says a heck of a lot about love, of course, so if you've missed that part, you might want to go back and read the whole thing over again. Or once, really. It's a pretty integral part, so if you missed it, you can't have been paying that much attention, anyway.

To enshrine discrimination under the guise of Christian values is to practice Christianity without Christ. To believe that the Bible condemns marriage between two consenting adults of the same sex who love one another and want to build a life together is to completely miss out on the message of the entire last third of Scripture.

And to claim that "biblical marriage" is something we want to emulate today is to be completely ignorant of the way marriage worked in biblical times. Marriage back then had nothing to do with love. It was an economic arrangement, one that served to bind clans together, not to bind two hearts into one. There's a reason Paul preached against marriage (yes, against HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE)-- because it bore little to no resemblance to our marriages today. Marriage has become something beautiful and sacred BECAUSE it has evolved--it has moved beyond a bartering system, a way to turn a herd of cows into a woman to breed your children, into something far holier and more dignified.

 I am a straight woman. I'm young and Christian and happily married to a man (and future priest) who is the love of my life. I was born in the South, raised in the Midwest, go to church many times a week. I'm not gay.

But my close friends are gay.

My husband's close friends are gay.

My colleagues are gay.

And my sister is gay.

You go ahead and tell me they don't deserve the same rights as I have. You go ahead and tell me that they don't deserve to nestle into their soulmate's arms every night, to fall asleep in that envelope of love and safety, to wake each day to a kiss and a smile and the promise of a long life together.  

Just try.

Optimism.

Here are some things I will enjoy about not living here anymore:

-Living in a place that is not a constant contruction zone
-Relative quiet
-Fewer crowds
-Not having to steel myself to fake-smile at people on the Close if I've just had a bad day and want to dissolve into tears
-More than 350 sq. ft. of living space
-Possibly having a bathroom that is not directly next to my kitchen (i.e., possibly having actual empty space between my toilet and my food preparation area)
-Paying a LOT less in rent
-Fewer cars
-Less dog crap
-Bodies of water without rotting trash everywhere
-Once again being in the religious minority (it's kinda fun to answer the age-old question: "Episco-WHAT?!")
-Not working a desk job
-BEING IN SCHOOL
-Actual winters
-Actual snow
-Having a landlord who actually acts like a damn landlord and doesn't pretend like the fact that my husband is going to be a priest is a reason why we should be treated like crap and be forced to act okay with it
-More room for my cats
-Spending less than six hours at the DMV
-Streets that don't smell like pee

The Unbearable Lightness of Katharine

Last night, for the first time ever, I was disappointed in the Presiding Bishop.

Let me just say first that I have always been the current Presiding Bishop's biggest fan--Katharine Jefferts Schori has been my hero since she was elected in 2005. I think she's been an excellent leader, a holy example of Christ's love and witness in the church, and an inspiration to millions of Episcopalians.

Which was why I was surprised to find myself in a room with about fifty other people, looking up at the Presiding Bishop and feeling a sinking sense of sadness.

She was visiting the seminary to give us the rare treat of a live Q&A session with her, which was a wonderful thing, and for the first few questions everything was going swimmingly. But then Keith, one of my husband's classmates, asked her about student debt, and her answer left me...hungry. Unsatisfied.

Keith pointed out that, as a result of both his undergrad and seminary debt, he had about 100K in educational loans, and it was keeping him awake at night. He wondered how Episcopal seminary students, most of whom must finance their educations with loans, could possibly hope to pay off all their debt if the Episcopal priesthood is moving towards more part-time and bi-vocational jobs. How was the church going to keep itself out of what amounts to an impending student debt crisis among its clergypeople?

The response the PB gave pretty much amounted to this, when summed up:

1. Things shouldn't get to that point;
2. Bishops shouldn't let people who already have educational debt go to seminary; and
3. Well, there ARE still some full-time jobs with benefits. Not many, and not enough for everyone, but they exist. Somewhere.

While I'm sure the answer would have played out well in front of the House of Bishops, it was a distinctly UN-pastoral response to a person who was sharing his very real, very frightening pain in a very public setting and who was not even expecting easy or instant answers in return. It was also a response that seemed very un-Anglican in its disregard for the working class and the less fortunate. If you refuse to let people who already have undergrad debt go to seminary, know what you're gonna get? A priesthood entirely made up of older white people from upper-class backgrounds. Which, y'know, we already sort of have an overabundance of them, anyways, so maybe we shouldn’t make it worse, eh?

And how does "well, you shouldn't have gone to seminary" help the people who are already here?

And how can we limit people's callings to their financial situations? How can we say, well, if God really wanted you to be a priest, he would have given you more money?!

The reality is this: Episcopal seminary is expensive. Episcopal seminarians are coming out of seminary with massive amounts of debt. This is a problem that is systemic and institutional, not the result of poor financial planning on the part of two or three individuals. This is something that is going to impoverish the priesthood and further the breakdown of the institutional church and drain the coffers of smaller parishes and confuse and frustrate the heck out of the laity, and it's not going to bite us in the ass some fifty years from now or a hundred years from now, but ten or five or even two years from now. There’s a storm coming and we’re refusing to evacuate because we think the weatherman should have told us about it three days ago, but that doesn't change the fact that we are going to drown if we don't figure out a plan, rapidly.

This is also a problem that we just aren't seeing in many other denominations. My friends who have husbands in seminary programs in other denominations (most notably Lutherans) are always aghast when I explain that we are expected to go into debt for an MDiv here. That sort of thing is inconceivable to them because their churches take responsibility for the entire postulancy process. Their mission isn't just to guide seminary students spiritually-- it's a financial responsibility, too. Which, y'know, is how it should be.

There are very real, very concrete changes that we must make at the multi-national level-- and yes, at the NATIONAL LEVEL, TOO. This IS something that is mostly happening in the American Church, so it IS something that should be addressed, not just at the diocesan level or the worldwide level, but by the Protestant Episcopal Church USA, by American Bishops and American clergy and American laypeople and the American Presiding Bishop. I understand the impulse to say "we're not just a national church, we're a worldwide church," but really, THIS IS VERY MUCH AN AMERICAN PROBLEM. It's the American educational system that is feeding and abetting this oncoming freight train of a disaster, so we need to come to terms with that and work with it.

Last night, I was disappointed with what the Presiding Bishop had to say. I hope it’ll be the last time I have to say that. I don’t think it will be, but…I can hope.

I hate everyone. But mostly the DMV.

After four hours at the DMV and $65, I now have a temporary New York State Driver's License.

And it says Sex: M.

*headdesk*

Back to the DMV tomorrow, looks like.

Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 3

They go outside, and somehow Christian saves Ana from being hit by a bike or something, which is just a pretext for her to end up in his arms trying to use mind-control to get him to kiss her. He doesn't. He's clearly all "I want you but I'm daaaaaangerous!" which Ana interprets to mean he doesn't want her. She leaves, she cries, she catalogues her "faults" in true Bella fashion. (Oh, no, she's too pale! Too skinny! How horrible it must be to be so thin and white! And with such large Japanamation eyes! How awful!)

She goes home, where Kate notices she's been crying. Ana chalks up the tears to the fact that she was "nearly knocked over by a cyclist," which everyone in this book seems to find appalling but which pretty much happens to me on a regular basis in Manhattan. They bicker about whether or not Christian likes her or whatever. Yawn. I feel like, by the time I'd reached college, I'd already gotten past the whole agonizing-over-whether-a-guy-likes-me-for-hours thing. Maybe it's just me.

We cut to Ana finishing her final exam, about which she's understandably very happy. She muses that she might get drunk in celebration, since apparently she's never been drunk before. Really? You're a senior in college and you've never been just a little drunk before? I'm just...highly skeptical, I guess. I was a goody-two-shoes English major, too, but I'd totally been drunk before my senior year ended.

She and Kate head back to their apartment to get a little crazy, but there's a package for Ana. It's three volumes of the first edition of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, from Christian Grey, duh. Ana figures out that he's trying to warn her away from him. She resolves to send them back with a cryptic, sarcastic note. Bet that doesn't happen, Ana, you drip.

They go to a bar and, lo and behold, actually do get drunk. Ana drunk-dials Christian, who is all, "Where are you? I NEED TO PROTECT YOU!" Okay, dad. She hangs up without telling him where she is. He calls back and claims he's coming to get her, even though she hasn't told him what bar she's visiting. She goes outside and José-- ahhhhh, José totally tries to date rape her, but Christian saves her! Just like when Edward saves Bella from the menacing gang-rape scenario in Port Angeles! THINGS ARE THE SAAAAAAME!

Christian holds her hair while she vomits, which is nice. Then he lectures her:

“We’ve all been here, perhaps not quite as dramatically as you,” he says dryly. “It’s
about knowing your limits, Anastasia. I mean, I’m all for pushing limits, but really this is
beyond the pale. Do you make a habit of this kind of behavior?”

Dude, aren't you only, like, six years older than her? Seriously, this whole father act is creeping me out. Also, apparently he tracked her phone to find out where she was. If it turns out he's been sneaking into her house and watching her sleep, he will officially be Edward Cullen.

He takes her inside and makes her drink some water. Then apparently he decides to dance with her? Because that's just what a girl wants to do after she's been vomiting for twenty minutes. But oh, wait, it's just so they can find Kate, who is pretty much openly salivating after Christian's brother, Elliot. Then Ana passes out.

She wakes up in a hotel room, in her tee shirt and underwear. Holy crap, how is she not freaking out about this? Christian comes in and asks her how she's feeling, and she answers "Better than I deserve," which makes me feel icky for reasons I don't quite understand. Apparently they didn't have sex, but he thought it was acceptable to take her pants off while she was unconscious. Again, I dunno exactly why this makes me so squirmy, but it totally does.

She's sort of like, "Dude, I didn't ask you to come and get me," and he's basically like, "Yeah, but you should be THANKING ME, because if I hadn't come along you'd have been totally RAPED, BITCH." Ugh. And then he refers to himself as a "Dark Knight." Sounds like someone's been reading a little too much Byron, if you ask me.

And then we have, so far, the most disturbing sentence in the book so far:

"Well, if you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday."

*shudder*

Followed almost immediately by this:

"He’s the only man who has ever set my blood racing around my body. Yet, he’s so antagonizing too; he’s difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute he rebuffs me, the next he sends me fourteen-thousand-dollar books, then he tracks me like a stalker. And for all that, I have spent the night in his hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. He cares enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. He’s not a dark knight at all, but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor – a classic romantic hero – Sir Gawain or Lancelot."

*eyeroll*

I think I must have been the only girl in the world who has never fantasized about a white knight coming to rescue me. Sure, I've been drawn to the dark and moody guys in my day, but I don't think I ever dreamed of someone coming to save me like in a fairy tale. Because, y'know, I like to save others, instead. I guess I'm the one with the savior complex.

And then, while she's in the shower, Ana has to go through the whole litany of "OMG, does he like me or not??" all over again. Gah. Really? Apparently the fact that he didn't violate her unconscious body means he couldn't really want her. What?

I kind of get the appeal of the "reluctant romantic" archetype, now that I really think about it. I think the reason this "gentlemanly" type-- the Edward, the Christian, the guy who wants you but doesn't make a move because he wants to protect you from himself-- is appealing to women precisely because we are so very used to being objectified. When I walk to work in the morning, I always wear headphones, even if I'm not even listening to anything on my iPod. Why? Because if I don't, I get cat-called, whistled at, propositioned. Women are constantly expected to be fending off advances from guys they don't want. So I totally understand the appeal of a guy who is sexy and who likes you and finds you attractive-- but who doesn't come on to you all the damn time, who hangs back, who isn't constantly coming forward. I can see the appeal there, actually.

Christian's dogsbody has brought Ana some new clothes, including, of course, ridiculous sexy underwear. Oh, geez. She goes out and has breakfast with him. He scolds her for having damp hair (???) and then admits that he totally wants to sex her up, but not romantically, just sexually. She's confused, and he says he'll "acquaint [her] with the facts" and obtain her "written consent" to sex her up tonight. She's like, "Yeah, totes, let's do it." He's all, "Hey, did you know I like to fly helicopters? Since I'm rich and all."

She brushes her teeth with his toothbrush in secret. And thinks it's hot. Okay, now Ana's the weirdo.

They get into the elevator and have a quick make-out sesh, and then Christian drives her home. Ana doesn't know who Thomas Tallis is, which means she obviously hasn't seen The Tudors yet. Talk about hot, debauched sex! They return to Ana's place to find Kate in a good mood, since she shagged Christian's seemingly nicer adopted brother the night before. The boys leave, the girls gossip. Ana goes to work and wonders--YET AGAIN--what he could possibly see in her, what with all that horrid thinness and paleness and all.

Y'know that friend you had in high school or college--the one who all the boys liked, who was skinny and lovely and flirtatious and shapely and totally cool, and knew it, but constantly complained about how her pores were huge or her eyes were too blue or some shit, because she loved to fish for compliments? That's who Ana reminds me of.

After work, Christian is waiting for her in an Audi. WTF is it with this book (and Twilight, for that matter) being so weirdly specific about car makes and models? Like, a car is never just a car-- it's a Mercedes, a BMW, an Audi, a Rolls Royce. Seriously? Who the hell cares? I don't know the difference. I feel like I get more complete descriptions of the cars than I do of the people. It's like, hey, Christian Grey drives a 2012 Audi A5 with leather interior and moon roof and heated massage seats, and oh, also, he has hair of some color or whatever. (By the way, I had to Google "Audi" just now to find out what the model names were. Because us priests' wives are not exactly experts on luxury anything vehicles.)

Christian has had a long day of hiking with his brother. How does someone who had built a multi-billion dollar corporation by the age of 27 have time for all this hiking and dancing and coffee and meeting with random college student newspaper journalists for interviews and photo shoots? I dunno, it's a mystery. They take off in his fancy helicopter, because of course he's a helicopter pilot, too, which I'm sure he learned to do in his inexplicably vast amounts of spare time. Ana compliments him by calling him "competent," which seems like a pretty tepid compliment to me. She keeps thinking about how she's in over her head, out of her depth, blah blah blah. They go to his gleaming white palatial apartment and have some wine. Ana asks him why he gave her Tess of the D'Urbervilles as a gift. He replies: "It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec D’Urberville." I don't really think Tess is a literary heroine whose relationships I'd like to echo in my own life. Talk about a Madonna/whore dichotomy here. Yuck.

Then he makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement before they have sex, which she doesn't even read before she signs it.

And with that, this book crosses way beyond creepy into outright alarming.