a welcome reprieve.

So mostly my weekends are spent at home: chilling, sleeping, doing housework or work-work. I had last weekend off and thought I was going to spend it in my usual fashion, lounging around the house. And then a couple in my church invited the twenty-somethings (all four of us) our to their lake house. And then my friend, who is a postulant to the priesthood invited me to go with her & her husband to church with them on Sunday because she was guest preaching at another church.

I hesitated, because my lounging around the house weekends are kinda nice. Plus, I’m not a giant fan of change. But I decided to go for it because it had been a really crappy week and I thought the diversion could be nice. Left alone, I’m much too vulnerable to wallowing. So I spent the weekend up to my neck in people and, aside from the fact that I’m incredibly self-conscious and way over analyze things I say, post occurrence, it was really nice.

We went out to the lake. I’ve been on float trips in the states and I went to Bahir Dar, which is on Lake Tana in Ethiopia, but I’ve never done a State-side lake trip. It was lovely, despite the way the invitations went out (sending emails to twenty-somethings’ parents? way to treat us like tweens!) and despite my allergies, which really weren’t that bad out there. Went out on the pontoon and the water sport thing. Harold made some comment about making sure my scarf wouldn’t fall off. I laughed and said I brought a spare. (Yeah, I can’t manage to bring clothes if I got wet in the lake, but I had a spare scarf. For the record, I almost always have a spare scarf) Had some nice conversations and a steak the size of my face, home grilled to perfection, along with amazing side dishes.

That night, I went to my friends because they were planning on leaving at 6 am to make it in time for the 8 am service. I never sleep well the first night I’m somewhere new. On top of that, they have five cats and the windows open, so my allergies were killing me. Zyrtec is great for the cats, but it doesn’t touch my ragweed allergies. So I got about four hours, on top of the five from the night before. (I’m an 8-10 hours of sleep per night type person. Sorry for all the parenthetical asides.) I am way sleep deprived. We ride up to the church and sit through Morning Prayer with Eucharist (which was a lovely service, btw) twice. Things were very different from my own parish, but it was a nice change and after the 10 am service, I got to talk with a stranger who graduated from my alma mater. It was nice. She seemed to be a people-person and kept the conversation going. We also knew a lot of the same people, professors, because (A. it’s a small campus but also because B.) we both went to the same (only) Episcopal church. Again, it was lovely.

I got home, took a 3 hour nap and still had no problems with my normal bed time. I could have used an alone weekend on top of that one, but if I had to choose, I’m happy with the decisions I made.

sunday musing

So, Sunday morning I woke up and decided to make some bacon. Didn’t think much of it at the time, but as I was eating, I thought

Hey, the sun is up.
It’s Ramadan.
And I’m eating bacon.
Oh well, fuck it.
You can’t fast on a feast day!

And I wonder if this may ever be an actual conundrum to someone like the Episcopal dual-faith priest in Oregon, or where ever she is. I also wonder if she wears hijab while officiating at mass. You know, before she got kicked.

nativity of st. john the baptist.

Last semester, towards the end of the semester, one of my psychology classmates and I were talking before class. He asked me, “From all your travels, what truth have you learned?” And I was floored. I don’t think of what truth I have learned. I think about those trips in finding, learning and experiencing beauty, not truth. And definitely not Truth, as I understood he meant it.

I’m not sure if that’s just the way my mind/body/soul work or what, but the thought of “Truth” in my travels never ever occured to me.

So, I was dumfounded last Wednesday, as I sat in church for the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and saw, once again, how amazingly beautiful our church is and my thoughts were on Truth. Yes, our church is beautiful, but what truth is there in here? What truth is there in our liturgy? What truth is there in our tradition? What truth is there in our Bible?

I just don’t know.

I am very frustrated, with a lot of things. Don’t get me wrong, I still intend to continue worshipping in my church. I think there is great truth there, along with its great beauty. It’s just that I can’t see it right now.

prayers

Why can’t I find a good Episcopalian/Anglican prayer for those with mental illness? Why is our BCP silent on this issue? I mean, there are some prayers that point themselves in that direction, but none outright about it, at least not that I can find. A quick google search leaves me pretty much empty handed as well. This is an oversight that needs to be remedied, and how. Either that or someone needs to point me to it.

catechism convo

dana: well, as it says in our catechism, prayer is our response to god
isaac: that’s pretty good
dana: that’s why it’s the catechism.

(nearly) Christmas

So, about four months ago I started covering and at that time I said that I’d reevaluate at Christmas and see if this was something that I wanted to continue to do or if it was not really for me.

And… now it’s  (nearly) Christmas and I’m really torn.  I really can’t say whether or not it’s been helpful in any religious way. In the beginning I probably prayed more, but now that enthusiasm has gone. In the beginning, I noticed that certain things started standing out more than they would have before. (especially when married couples showed up on the daytime talk shows and how over-lording the women were compared to their subservient husbands) But now, the newness has gone. I may still notice things but I don’t notice that I’m noticing them. How dumb does that sound?

This headcovering thing  has become part of me. Even now, as I am seriously considering stopping covering, I’m looking for hijab underscarves. (I’ve been pining for a lacy one, instead of these uncomfortably tight headbands)

While headcovering has become part of me, I mostly just want to stop looking like a freak. This stems mostly from work, where I wear white triangle bandana things for the most part and look like I’m a KrAzEe protestant. Okay, so I might be some kind of crazy and I am  protestant, but the combination is generally not how I think of myself. I am not a Bible literalist. I don’t believe in a seven day creation and I’m not a giant fan of Paul. I find myself in direct opposition to most headcovering protestants. I’m not sure where that puts me.

I was talking about this to a friend, and he suggested that I move somewhere like San Francisco, where people just don’t care. I really don’t agree with that. Sometimes liberals are just as closeminded as conservatives. And anyway, I’ve been pretty surprised at how people here just ignore it. I can’t remember any comments from  strangers in my local small town areas, neither in my work kerchief  or my church shawl. and I’ve only had a couple comments when wearing either the church shawl or hijab in the ‘big city’ an hour away. People generally ignore it. His reaction was “So there! Nobody cares! Do as you please.” Sure, I can see that. No one comments, so what’s stopping me. Heck, I’m oblivious to strange stares for the most part.

The problem is that I want to be normal! Sure, I’m not getting comments or anything, but they know I’m different. I want to fit in! But yet, I know that even if I take this off, I won’t fit in. I will still be my strange bundle of contradictions that other people just don’t get. And I realize that because of that, I should keep doing what feels just damn right to me.

But I’m still torn.

church beret

Earlier, Isaac asked in the comments “Who wears a beret to church?” Let me answer: I do, apparently.

Let me tell you something. I HATE the way WordPress deals with pic tures. It is THE MOST ridiculous setup EVER. If I had any brains or willpower, I would not post any more pictures here. But I don’t. Well, I don’t have the willpower for sure. See my future post : “I Took Top 40 Back” It’s been ‘on the way’ for several weeks now.

emergent.

So, some stuff has happened recently and I’ve become re/interested in the Emerging/Emergent Church (at least on an academic level) Do you have any resources that I should check out?

Also, your opinions, positive and negative are welcome.

convention is ova.

a post wherein I name people who don’t know they are being named and post a picture as well.

random conventioner: Mother Mimi wants to speak to you.
dana: uh. I don’t know who Mother Mimi is.
RC: She’s in the convention room over there.
dana: But I still don’t know who that is. Why does she want to talk to me?”
RC: I don’t know, but she said she wanted to talk to the ‘young lady in a green jacket and a red turban’.
Nancy: Come on, I’ll take you to her.
dana: uh… okay.

(we all know there’s only one reason someone wants to speak to the “young lady in the green jacket and red turban”)

In the end, it was a very nice priest who inquired if I was Muslim. Again I say, no. We actually talked for a little while, asked how I came to the Episcopal Church. Wherein I talked WAY too much and kept glancing at my priest who was standing there as well. As in “I think I told you all this before. Maybe…” and “I’m not real sure what I’m doing, what the hell am I doing?”

In the end, it was all good because she let me take her picture to document the Episcopal Women in Sport Coat phenomenon. And in the end it wasn’t all good because I couldn’t flip the picture the right direction when I tried to post it.

ECW

ECW is “Episcopal Church Women” and it is simply that. Women in the Episcopal Church. Every Episcopal Church (that I know of) has this organization. Some might be more active than others. But, when speaking of our diocesan convention, I believe there was something my ECW failed to tell me before coming. ECW (the ladies, not the organization) have a specific dress code that I was not informed of. A dress code that I cannot endorse and want very little part of. The ECW dress code is SPORT COAT. Yes, that’s right. WAY over half of the ladies on Friday morning/afternoon sported the “Lady Blazer” look. It was uncanny. Female priests and lay women alike were snuggled up in their sport coats (and honestly, the building temperature warranted them) I was overwhelmed. I believe confirmation must include a secret confirming of a sport coat.

Our priest told us that in ancient times, in the beginning of the church new initiates were not allowed to know everything about Christianity. Some things were kept secret until baptism because it was too sensitive of information for just anyone to know. She was publically using this as a statement that people were drawn to the early church because of the ways in which the early Christians acted to each other and the world. Now, I see it was also a secret message to those ‘initiated’ (aka ‘confirmed’) in the Episcopal Church, prospective members of The Episcopal Church might be allowed at the Lord’s Table, but they are not allowed to know everything about the Church. The Lady’s Sport Coat is most definitely esoteric information.

And Now I’m in the Know. What’s the logical next step?

Posting my sneak ninja’d photographs for you?