When i was working on a paper on mental health and theology, i had some questions about how churches have dealt with suicides in the past. i asked around a little, and started to expect a fairly disappointing answer. I read stories about refusals to inter bodies or even conduct the most basic of services.

A true moment of light was when Fr. Pat Malone talked to me about the options that a priest has when facing that decision. As of now, the preference is to bury and to give rites. But even prior to those reforms, a priest always had a choice to declare the matter private, of the internal forum. What amazed me was the strength of belief in a system of resolution beyond that of hierarchy. Not exactly my pre-conceived notion of Catholicism.

Simply, as I understand it from his explanations, there are matters of faith and personal life that cannot be expected to be resolved by church courts or strict adherence to teaching. Like Christ, the church too must be merciful and responsive to the individual soul.* The most common use of internal forum today is to allow Catholics to return to the sacraments after getting divorced. As long as they come to understand through prayer a reconciliation of their actions and their faith to God. It might be repentance of sin or it might be the finding of a clear conscience, doing what was truly best.

This simple notion has come to underscore my entire theology of queerness and the church. Queer issues are primarily pastoral, not theological to me. There is nothing about the character of God or the scriptures that are at stake for me. I know God to be loving, and I understand the witness of the Bible as reflective of that love.

The question is not transcendent. It is entirely immediate. What are we doing, pastorally, to care for those who are in pain?

This is where Father Pat comes in. When a family is in pain because of suicide, a sudden and traumatic loss occurs, he tells me that the clear choice is to move matters out of dispute and into the care of the church. To address the human need to know that God is with them in their pain, the priest has a wide authority to do what they need. Most often, it came in the form of burying the deceased and offering blessings and prayers that gave the family hope. Despite a ostensibly clear teaching that suicides were damned, the reality of the church has been a steady move towards a more humane approach. Many times, this was done quietly. Other times, it came in the form of a public burial that served to reconcile the deceased, the family, and the community.**

So what do we do in the face of queer issues in the church today? Protect people, care for the hurt, and do what we can in a broken world.

The time to break with tradition is when the application thereof leads to more pain, not the grace of the Kingdom. And even if we cannot, as a whole Body come to an agreement, individual pastors still have an obligation to provide care in the interim.

If that means blessing a marriage so that couples have a greater chance of being able to see each other in the hospital….then that’s what we do.

If that means publicly fighting transphobia to try to stop the violence…then we have an obligation to do so.

If it means trying to address the concerns of those who are leaving the church because they are conservative…then, as church leaders, we do that too.

Grander theological concerns notwithstanding, a clear pattern emerges. The conduct of the church on the local level can have real effects of the quality of people’s lives. Do they feel as if God loves them? Can they be protected by the social privilege given to the church?

Even when Christendom as a whole fights over what to do, these remain pastoral issues. This is not revolutionary, this is a move to compassionately meet people where their lives are. That’s gospel, right there.

This post is dedicated to a wonderful ally in the Lutheran Church who has given me much to think about.

-sly

*Mark 2:27
**The teachings and law on internal forum are varied on this point. Many authorities point to the need for the resolution obtained in internal forum not to damage the rest of the faithful. This might outlaw any public recognition of variances, but that hinges on the definition of damage. I, for one, think there is plenty of theological room for seeing the pastoral needs of the harmed and the dishonored coming before the strong. 1 Corinthians offers an extended vision of what it means that God has sought out what has been despised, to show the full breadth of grace and reconciliation made known in Christ Jesus.

Well, probably more than one. But it’s hard to put these kinds of losses to numbers.

The PM of Canada, Stephen Harper, is scheduled to make a formal apology for the residential schools in which first nations children were taken away from families, subject to abuse and neglect, and robbed of their culture.

Lest you mistake this for worthy progress, the churches who ran these schools began closing schools and making formal apologies about 30 years ago.

-sly

Katie Cannon once wrote that one of the major problems with being radical is that moral values that do not center the status quo are not disputed, but simply not recognized as such.

There is no such thing, in the American imagination, as a leftist morality. By definition, we are amoral. We can talk all day long about the value of inclusion, for instance, but Ricky Santorum can still get cultural traction for discussing man on dog sex.

Values which oppose the mainstream are not values, they are lawlessness.

Which is the only way i could possibly explain the following quote.

“Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence - unintentionally or not - they matter,” Ms Malkin has written.

Intention doesn’t matter. She’s right on that. But how else can one read that line from the author of In Defense of Interment?

Her words, intentionally or not, have helped mainstream violence against Arab Americans. And, for that matter, against Palestinians, Iraqis, Afganis, and may God forbid it from coming to pass…Iranians.

Values not supportive of the ancien regime are not simply rejected.

-sly

Vanessa points me to some fauxgressive posturing, and the question of “who pays for” the children of the poor.

Last time I checked, working poverty is an externality. The true cost of the labor and life of these workers is not reflected in their pay. We all pay the difference. The worker pays most directly, with loss of opportunities and recompense. Probably at the expense of their health as well.

The state, and the rest of us, pay in a variety of ways. Perhaps direct assistance, food stamps, etc. More likely we pay in lost payroll taxes, healthcare costs shifted to the state, and unrealized economic gains related to working class spending…a primary driver of local economies.

All so that the company who hires such a person can do so below the cost of what it really costs to have that work done. A profit, which isn’t even a zero-sum gain. For every dollar the company pockets, we don’t just lose that dollar. We lose all the productivity, labor, and gain that might have come if the worker had been paid fairly, been able to spend those wages, or invest them.

Who do we expect pays for this?

The worker. Us.

It’s that simple, really. Poverty wages are a neat way of saying “theft.”

-sly

The beeb reports today that researchers have found the problem for why oil is expensive and food is scarce.

No, it’s not global capitolism run amok. Or even bio-fuel schemes that reap huge profits for agri-business.

It’s fatties.

My shorter reaction.

Fuck you!

My longer reaction.

Health is not just a weight issue, or even primarily so. Health is a race issue, a class issue, and a deliberate choice about the way we decided to build cities. Let’s talk about these things…let’s talk about the way the greens and the fruits at the bodega are still expensive but hardly fresh, let’s talk about how superfund sites just happen to concentrate in poor areas, let’s talk about the highways that paved over livable neighborhoods, and how these places still don’t have green space, made dangerous by a lethal cocktail of poverty and neglect.

And then…

Only then…

Will such “researchers” learn that what they do is worthless self-promotion.

-sly

Zuzu opens her stay at Shakesville up with a nice takedown of the continuing calls that Hillary must step aside. Like her, i tend to think that Hillary has the right to stay in, and hell…the earned media isn’t exactly hurting. It would be well and good for both the Democrats to adopt a more positive tone, so that the winner isn’t quite so bloodied up, but they’re not exactly lightweights. As long as McSurgy can’t get a media cycle to save his life, we’re good.

She closes that post with a swipe against McGovern and Eagleton, the former being one of the voices trying to get Hillary out.

She writes this of Eagleton, who was revealed to have had shock therapy for depression. That news helped sink the McGovern ticket.

So not only did Eagleton smear McGovern anonymously during the primary, he then accepted his offer of a VP slot knowing full well he had an explosive and disqualifying secret. Nice, huh?

My emphasis added.

Zuzu?

Fuck you.

It was an explosive secret. But not a disqualifying one.

There is a difference between being unfit for public office and unelectable.

I suppose FDR never should have ran, eh?

as it was in the beginning…

-sly c

Sometimes, there’s a man….I won’t say hero, because what’s a hero anyways….but sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.

I keep thinking that maybe it’s time to get back to writing, and then i let another week go by. I abide.

The problem i keep having is that I have no idea where to start anymore. It’s all a jumble in my head, of semi-wordless ranting directed at some of the usual suspects. Which, to be honest, makes me feel tired.

So here’s the post that has shaken me from my slumber…

Giving credit for a job done is pretty much what makes academic careers. Whole theories are built around the work of a single scholar (see Frued, Marx, Foucoult, Spivak etc). There are literally thousands of theorists world-wide who would not have jobs if it weren’t for the fact that they became expert translators of a major theorist. Similarly, there are thousands of scholars who would not have jobs if it weren’t for the fact that the translators of major theorists hadn’t done their jobs. Scholars need and are dependent upon each other, even as they fight for their independence and name recognition. Careers literally wouldn’t exist if names and work aren’t cited. For example, if all queer theorists used Judith Butler’s ideas, but didn’t cite her work, she would have long since been shoved out of academia–at the best, she’d be teaching at a community college some where.

From BFP…

What does it mean to be a translator…. What would it mean to break new ground?

I still go over and over again, in quasi-regret of a life that might have been. But I think most of my regret is simply nostalgia for a misconception, that somehow the study of religion was going to be a life of the mind.

The reality of the academic field is that it’s pretty damn difficult to get by, and certainly as an activist.

Really, what i do best…is I write summaries. I found this talent sometime in my senior year of college, and used it to wing my way through grad school with very few truly original thoughts. I write excellent book reviews, and i don’t mean the kind that just sum up everything that got said. I trace arguments, i offer cogent criticism, and analyze strengths. You know the kind…that show up as lit reviews in academic journals.

And it feels like that’s what I’ve been doing here. Parallel process, only with blogs. It’s more fun…i get to snark much more than I did, and people line up for snark. The highest hitting post I ever did was a merciless kneecapper on Hugo, who for the record deserved it and more. Tenured bloviators are about my favorite target.

Eh. I’m tired. I have so much to write, really…life has been really interesting, difficult and fun lately. The SO and I, working out the dynamics of the relationship, what I’ve learned about gender, depression, vocation, queerness…

I can’t write that stuff when all I’m stuck writing reviews. When i know…there are folks who are writing the truly original material on which I depend….

And people won’t even acknowledge that debt.

-sly

*twitch*

*twitch*

In the last 72 hours, we’ve had the following.

Mysogynist criticism of Shillary for “crying.”

Sexist response from Edwards.

Sexist followup from Obama’s camp.

Racist comebacks from the Clinton campaign.

And as icing, a race denying masterpiece from Gloria Steinem.

A pox on all houses, everywhere….for America has successfully made g!n*ack*m@rism it’s official public policy.

Excuse me all, while i go to my happy place.

-sly

Okay.

There’s a whole lot, lot, lot, going on. Go read it all.

And if you absolutly need to pick on the last detail, come back here.

Done?

Hugo doesn’t know Christian history. Or at least, he doesn’t so far as I can tell from reading his work.

they quarreled over whether the kosher purity laws were still in effect. Every time, the popularizers — those who wanted to make Christianity more accessible — won. Every time the “purists” grumbled. They are still grumbling now.

That just ain’t true. The popularizers have lost. Major battles. Universalists of every stripe went down, literally, in flames during the reformation. Synchretists have been shoved out, and many of us read aloud a political document every week…the Nicene Creed which memorializes political clout on Christianity and the exclusion of certain doctrinal viewpoints as legitimate. There is such a thing as a heretic, and for the vast majority of Christian history, being such a person has only been a good idea if you have a lot of men in tin suits with sharp pointy sticks, ready to defend your right to be theologically queer.

Back to his argument for the moment. Maybe he means in America, in the last 200 years. He cites the contrast between Warren and some calvinists, like that was the fight. No major contender in American Protestantism is Calvinist. A few say they are. But a real, honest to goodness double predestination damned for the glory of God Calvinist? They kind of went carrier pigeon some time back, at least as far as the prime time goes. Yes, they exist. But that this is the fight Hugo presents is indictative of bad faith. He doesn’t point to a live contraversy…he points to a very, very dead one. America went Arminian before the Civil War. We’re rehashing this now, why? To show just how out of it BFP and company are?

Uh, bullshit.

Secondly, it’s just not even true. The popularizers got set back many times. After years of social gospel preaching, the evangelical world retreated inwards with Darbyism and pre-millenial dispensationalism. (This is the kind of thinking you know today as the Left Behind series). From changing the world to awaiting the end…the momentum of the evangelical protestant world turned on a dime.

And remember Jesus people?

Was Jerry Falwell a popularizer? Just because he used mass media, and was folksy about wanting to enforce a very specific kind of racial/gender politic?

Or how about the women who preached in the First Great Awakening, only to be silenced by the time of the revolution?

This is not to say these movements didn’t have lasting impact. But the story of American Christianities is one of push and pull. The clear line of progress Hugo wants to paint simply isn’t there.

they quarreled over whether the kosher purity laws were still in effect. Every time, the popularizers — those who wanted to make Christianity more accessible — won. Every time the “purists” grumbled. They are still grumbling now.

But you know what else is lurking around in here?

You guessed.

Antisemitism.

I owe it to everyone to be really careful about that charge, so listen carefully to what i do and don’t mean. Hugo isn’t making overtly hateful statements about Jews.

He is trading on a really old idea about Christianity and Judiasm that has contributed greatly to historical antisemitism.

And that’s a problem. He’s making BFP, BA, M, and the folks who are raising objections into rhetorical Jews here, just to point out how wrong they are. Against a bold progressive universal spirit Liberal Feminist/Christian, stands the particular, clannish, nit-picking, WoC/Jew.

Gawd.

This is one of those object lessons where you quickly realize the problem of living in the house…the rhetorical frames, the backgrounded ideas, the assumptions of your worldview…

Are motherfucking toxic.

It’s historically wrong. It’s rhetorically irresponsible.

It’s Hugo, out for a day at the park.

Kyrie eleison.

-sly

BA wrote a really cool post, and by cool, I mean hot.

Hawt, even.

I’ve been kicking myself to start writing again, and with a subject like this…how could I resist.

BA is right.

my thought is that sexual care fits into self care because it is an admission of yourself and the right to live as that self…

There’s a world beyond the sunset…where the playing out of what we need in private doesn’t always have to refer back to the troubled world outside. But the correct answer is not to stop fucking the mean time. “Ain’t this what you revolutionaries are supposed to be dying for?”

A good fuck has rarely cured the world, but since when did we ask that of everything we do? Recently, i think in commentary on Sudy’s awesome video, some folks talked about how the phrase complicity is usually a good sign that we’re doing some good old fashioned self-examination that has the big raging problem of assuming that collective individual action is what’s required. As you know, opposed to just plain collective, break the damn mold action.

Which is why so much of the continual sex wars bullshit is just that. Power intersects with the sex I have. But as R Mildred aptly points out…

Yes, and?

The world and we are dying every day. And practices of self-denial feel like something we can do about it…a tangible, feels good in a feel bad sort of way.

We are a nation on converts and backsliders, dependent on rituals of lapse and redemption.

What BA points to, is the richness of sexual imagination and what it means to actually take it to heart. There is nothing wrong with being the

oral fixated hand on her chocha, big titted bitch in me.

And there’s nothing contradictory about that statement and still being a virgin.

I had a sexual identity long before I had sexual partners. Some parts of that identity have come to expression, others found compromises, some have evolved, some I have hopes for, others I treasure memories of.

The SO and I were at brunch in her hometown, catching up with a friend. Apparently, he asked while i was away from the table…”Does he miss the cock?”

She replied, and incorrectly.

It means nothing. I had and have no plans of leaving her, going outside the relationship, or even directing my imagination in ways that detract from the relationship.

But it means everything. I do miss it. That desire and urge, even if never acted upon, remains with me, helping me to understand who I am in the summation of things.

I desire.

I desire things, people, feelings, comfort, pain, experience, growth, shelter, and new horizons. I desire, and the naming of my desires is important, not a list to be abridged at the whim of others.

I am a person who desires, for desire is that which a person does. A pawn, a stand in, a cardboard cutout…a stereotype….could not do so.

They might have a fixation, or a fetish, the animating purpose of such a caricature, But it is in fact, they that are the fetish, the toy of a lazy imagination.

I am, one who desires, who names what I desire in all the contradiction and complexity that I can muster, knowing that it comes down to this.

Who I am is not what I name myself as. There is no end result, only the striving.

Who am I?

The one who names myself.

This is what i need and i wont accept anything else nor

WILL I LET ANYTHING or anyone try and sell me ANY OTHER VERSION OF IT

PEtit imagine what movement full of people thinking like that loosk

-sly

PS: Links go where they came from, all block quotes are from Black Amazon. Video embed from Ms. Sylvia/M.