KJS in pants

I hadn’t been planning to say anything about it, but I woke up from a wonderfully long nap with the vision of Katherine Jefferts Schori in what some have called a pair of badly cut trousers and ill fitting suit jacket with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Frank Griswold. I had seen the picture before but it seemed to be planted on the front of my mind in a new way. All kinds of things have been said, mostly on Telling Secrets, one of many blogs I never ever agree with, and also on Stand Firm. One person, for example, brilliantly remarked that KJS is from the West and people wear pants in the West (I’m from the West too but I don’t let that limit my wardrobe unreasonably). Most, besides Elizabeth Kaeton herself, felt it to be no problem. Of course, compared to the biggest problem, that she, KJS, was at this meeting in the first place in the role she now occupies, what she’s wearing is inconsequential. However her manner of dress does belie the material point. Namely that it is not the right of women to do every job. And very often, when someone (a women in this case) is doing a job she ought not, something will be off—the loudness of the voice, the cut of the suit, the content of the press release. The ill fitting clothes are like a neon sign of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which brings me to my second pillaging from Telling Secrets. There you can find this clip--so so wrong, and yet so so funny. TEC ought not have elected KJS (although why not, they’ve done everything else). She doesn’t have the theological depth to be in such a position, but most importantly, a woman ought not to be head of a church any more than she should be the head of her husband (she should not, or rather, cannot no matter how hard she tries). Fine, be ordained, do the good work, but don’t insist on being in charge of everything.

Fettucia

We've been working on the fettucia in Catechesis for the last month. We are being relaxed with it and taking as much time as we need, which just means that I don't have the next thing prepared yet. 'Fettucia', in Italian, means, I believe, 'ribbon', or, as I've been calling it, 'big long enormous ribbon representing the history of salvation/kingdom of God.' The ribbon is lovingly and laboriously unrolled and we walk along it, wondering and being amazed at God's patience and love and care. The ribbon is so long, how much longer did God prepare and plan for us, how many gifts have been spread over the whole history of the world.
So here is the beginning of the ribbon and you can see us working hard to unroll it in the distance. The ribbon begins in the Bible, which is the best place to find out about what God is doing and has done with and for his people. At the end of the ribbon is a small stretch of yellow and then white for the parousia, or time when God will be all in all.

Did the Airplane Flyer Give You Chocolate?

Home Again, Home Again, thanks be to God. Arrived late last night with baby in reasonably good humor only to spend the night covered in cats needing pats (see picture of youngest cat in repose). The whole four days was good and rejuvenating--the class turned out to be interesting in the end (when we finally got to some content) and the people were full of interesting information--like what kind of saw is the safest for the building of materials, and what brand of canned drywall produces the best puff that can be carved and painted into a tomb. Still vague about the Montessori Method but I now have a list of books to consult to find out. Overall a good week. And now, happily, I am home with a pile of laundry to get through and bread to make and disputes to settle. And chocolate to distribute. E is curious about the origin of this chocolate, "Did your teacher let you have chocolate and gived you chocolate? Did the airplane flyer give you chocolate?" And A is concerned about being sticky, "Is there chocolate in mine face?"

It is interesting to be going to a Catholic school and engaging with that particular 'world view' as the professor would say. Surprised by how much time we spend on the pope and the magisterium. It just doesn't occur to me, as a protestant, to look there for anything. As the days progressed I found these words by Amy Carmichael coming to mind over and over,

"His thoughts said, I have been reading a spiritual book and I am confused and tired with trying to understand.

His Father said, Leave that book and read the Book that thou lovest best; thou wilt find it much simpler."

oh for heaven's sake

It's already Saturday and I haven't posted, my email box is overflowing and I have stacks and stacks of reading I'm still supposed to have got through. For all that the depth of what we're doing is maybe, at best, skin deep, we're managing to keep very busy. Here's my take in the first morning the first session--amazingly, its been about the same since then.

"Its 10:00am and we still haven’t had any lecture or anything. We’ve drawn two drawings, without words, because words would be easy and bad. The first picture is our ‘common expectations in learning’ and the second our ‘distinctive learning’. Now we’re talking about the pictures. What continues to amaze me, should perhaps not be that surprising, is that, in this first class called ‘Bible Interpretation’ we have not read, yet, the Bible. We’ve read a book on feminism, one on the history of the formation of the Bible, one on how to read the Bible. But we have not read any of the Bible. Maybe we’ll get to in the hope that is to come, what, in Catechesis, we like to call ‘The Parousia’. I am pleased that the class is uniformly hostile to Dornisch."

Today we're going to talk about Maria Montessori and take inventory of our personal spiritual lives. Wish I could say more but I'm already late for class!

at school

I've arrived in St. Louis for my four day intensive time (the course is Bible Interpretation). Baby is teething so its going to be a super fun week I can tell. I'm cramming all the reading down my throat, metaphorically speaking, and complaining with my classmates about the impossibility of having to 'draw my world view'. However, the silver lining of the day was reading Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World. Of course, as a protestant, I'm not particularly concerned with what the Vatican has to say about so many things, but I found this letter to contain some very nice lines.

Formed by God and placed in the garden which he was to cultivate, the man, who is still referred to with the generic expression Adam, experienced a loneliness which the presence of the animals is not able to overcome. He needs a helpmate who will be his partner. The term here does not refer to an inferior, but to a vital helper. This is so that Adam's life does not sink into a sterile and, in the end, baneful encounter with himself. It is necessary that he enter into relationship with another being on his own level. Only the woman, created from the same 'flesh' and cloaked in the same mystery, can give a future to the life of the man.

The document doesn't quite arrive at the love/respect level, but it goes a good distance away from feminism. I'm just irritated overall by the 'church's', and everyone else's for that matter, need to affirm the role/position/wisdom/etc. of women. Its tiresome. Anyway, the great fight begins in the morning, I will update as it rages.

sunday's sermon

Having wrenched this sermon from my inner being, there's no way I'm going to write anything else today. And if you're bored by the sermon, you can go check out the church website. Also, note some new blogs on the side bar.

http://binghamtongoodshepherd.com/sermon10.15.06.shtml

This is a picture of my world view

In an effort to be properly submissive AND proverbs 31, I am obediently going to school even though it makes no sense, to me, to do so at this time. My husband told me to get this degree, and so I'm getting this degree. Maybe God will let me know why as I go along. So my first class is Bible Interpretation and the syllabus is impossible to understand. We're supposed to go through first and second 'naivete', by which I assume the professor means 'iteration' or 'first try, second try' or something. Then a week ago, the week's homework popped up before my eyes, the first task of which was to 'draw a picture of your world view'. Isn't that nice. Problem one being that I don't know how to draw. I'm learning, but I havne't got very far yet. And second, 'world view'? So this is what my husband suggested as a good option. I think it should go over well. After all, we're only spending one whole day of the four day intensive time covering 'fundamentalism', because that's the gravest threat to the church today. That should be fun for me, holding the Scritpures authoritative in all my antiquated primitivism.

sausage, oregano and thyme

Of course, having started a blog and been convinced in my own mind that I have plenty to say on every subject, I’m sitting here in the wreck of eaten lunch and school books and projects, with a whining baby swinging gently at my side with nothing interesting to say. Because frankly, wrestling with my oldest over what sound the letter ‘M’ makes is mind numbing. She insists that ‘M’ says ‘Ssss’ or ‘Q’, but nothing like ‘Mmmm’. Her poor eye is swollen up from some weird bug bite and she is sniffling, but undaunted. Amazingly she loves school, even when we don’t know what we’re doing from one minute to the next. And she boldly proclaims to the neighbors that she is doing it at home, which makes them look at me skeptically and me wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Well, I haven’t lost it, but its numb, blank, void. And so, instead of staring blankly at this page or even tackling the overwhelming pile of laundry or homework, I am going to leave this aside and go make meat balls—gound beef, sausage, thyme, oregano and maybe some garlic and onion.

Links not working

Just noticed that my blog roll thing isn't working. Will have to fiddle around trying to make it work. Sorry about the delay

Update
Problem Fixed!

So, I'm having, for school, to read a book called Feminism and Beyond: A Theological Reflection for the Next Aeon, by one Loretta Dornisch. I believe she is a Dominican Sister for which she is to be congradulated and admired. However, this book is a rediculous waste of my time. Let me just lift a few precious lines from this inspiring work. "Some Protestants are in the liberal tradition. They believe Christianity must accomodate itself to a scientific world view and to insights from the modern sciences. Christianty must be able to correlate with experience and reason"(82). No really? So liberal protestants believe in science (as opposed to conservative protestants who only believe in God) which helped them "gradually develope readiness for the approval of women's ordination" (83). Because that's the highest good. The Church is supposed to 'develope readiness' for important liberal values--women's ordination, same sex blessings, abortion, the stupification of the next generation. Sister Dornisch probably doesn't know any conservative protestants personally.

Welcome to my new blog, like the world needs another blog. However, I have much to say, so here goes.