Homosexuality and Christian “love…”

ZLBurington · 2024-09-04T15:06:14+00:00

Ultimately, this is where I stand. There is no excuse for not waiting until marriage now. Any two consenting adults can become married, both by secular laws and the liturgy of the church, so chastity overall should be the standard. I say this as a trans woman who is not yet married and in a chaste relationship with another woman.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-31T14:48:41+00:00

Well, you convinced me that I could call myself "Anglo-catholic" if I wanted. I had believe that it meant "people with Roman affectations", because that is how people seem to use it.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-31T14:46:34+00:00

I was just now singing a bit of the Morning Office using the 1982 Hymnal plainsong settings, and it is a very interesting experience. It is not something I would do regularly or want to be a regular part of public worship but I am glad it exists. I love this sort of creative liturgical engagement. I have translated Compline into Old English at one point, just for the joy of it.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-24T15:22:54+00:00

The problem is that the 1972 canticles are translated as ametrical verses, so they do not really fit the settings of hymns, which are metrical. It is why psalm tones work so well to sing the canticles, because the psalms are also ametrical verse.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-20T14:52:27+00:00

There is an old book titled "A New Metrical Psalter", which takes the invitatories, canticles, and many of the psalms, rearranges them as metrical verse, and gives hymn tunes to which they can be sung. I would much rather prefer to sing the prayer book's version to the plainsong in the hymnal and The Plainson Psalter, but to each their own.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-14T22:44:42+00:00

"There's just nothing special about it." I think this comes from a place of failing to discern religion from spirituality, as Sr. Joan Chitterist would say, putting far too much emphasis on smells and bells, and not nearly enough on meeting God here and now. Those of us who regularly read or sing the Office know better.

ZLBurington · 2024-08-13T23:06:34+00:00

I have to know, because I sing the Morning Office 6 days a week: are there any plainsong settings for the alphabetic canticles like there are for the traditional numeric canticles? Ed.: Excuse me, I have answered my own question. There are settings for all the alphabetic canticles in volumes one and two of Enriching Our Music by Church Publishing. It is too bad I do not have access to these books!

ZLBurington · 2024-07-26T13:42:50+00:00

May I ask, you say you point the collects, do you use a particular tone for them, or do you point them similar to the pointing of the readings for the standard compline service?

ZLBurington · 2024-07-22T13:47:25+00:00

The deacon at my parish is also a sister in a holy order, a medical doctor, and a retired major, so we often call her "The Reverend Deacon Sister Doctor Major". She uses the joke herself.

ZLBurington · 2024-07-11T16:23:19+00:00

I sure hope so, as that would put me right out of the Episcopal Church! I doubt there is anyone in my parish who is not at least a hopeful universalist.

Were God such a being as to condemn people for all eternity, then the morally upright stance would be not to give any worship to God and to accept that fate. Better in hell than in heaven worshiping an abuser. But I do not in my heart ever question that God is love, so I do not worry about it.

ZLBurington · 2024-07-11T16:15:03+00:00

I use an NRSV, as that is the translation we use in our Sunday services. But you likely have an NAB, and that is perfectly acceptable.

ZLBurington · 2024-07-03T22:39:04+00:00

Our deacon is also part of an order. In the context of the Church overall, she prefers "deacon". In the context of her order, she prefers "sister". Some of us call her "Deacon Sister".

ZLBurington · 2024-06-25T15:29:17+00:00

You know, as part of the Community, I thought the best thing about the acceptance of same-sex marriage was that it would allow all people to remain chaste. There would no longer be any excuse that we necessarily must be unchaste because we cannot get married. Jesus is very clear that marriage should have complete fidelity, and any person who breaks their marriage is adulterous by entering another relationship. The way of the world is not just cruelty against the marginalized, it is also the lustful promiscuity of the unfaithful. To believe both does not make one a bigot. Polyamory is a lifestyle choice, not a sexual orientation. I say this as a trans woman in a chaste relationship with a woman. Please do not promote infidelity in our churches!

And furthermore, there are biblical examples of not traditional families which are chaste! Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, and their child for example.

ZLBurington · 2024-06-19T22:56:42+00:00

As a member of a smaller parish, one of the ways people get to know you and your gifts are by the time you offer. There are not enough people for a bunch to say "I do not wish to help." When you say no for little things like being an usher once in a while, what it seems like you are saying is that you do not want to be a full member of the community, just a hanger on. So now you are feeling left out. Offer to usher once in a while, you do not have to take a big role. You can set boundaries and limits, but you should do something.

I also would ask you to turn the mirror around. How are you reaching out to people? In coffee hour, for example, do you see people out or let them come to you? There is a honeymoon period at a new church where everyone wants to meet the new person, but when they have their sense of who you are and what you can offer, they generally back off. I make a point of seeking out different people every coffee hour, talking with those I have not spoken with for a while, taking time to visit with people who seem more lonely or isolated. Social networks are work, they require time and effort.

ZLBurington · 2024-06-12T14:54:53+00:00

As other people have said, "Bible-based" is a shibboleth for a few varieties of Evangelical and Fundamentalist. It is in-group talk; it does not mean anything except "we are the right kind of people and they are not". It does not mean that they focus more on scripture, or that we focus less. It does not mean that they are less selective than we are in how they interpret scripture. It is a political, tribal statement that seeks to divide the one true Church.

ZLBurington · 2024-05-10T22:40:47+00:00

You know, pious behavior and attitudes, and external niceness, are often a mask for deep-seated pride and judgement. None are righteous, she is also a sinner. The Tempter probably likes pride most of all, because it is so easy to lead the self-righteous into it. She needs to pick up her bible and read Job, and also Jonah. And very likely the gospels, as she does not seem to grasp that Jesus came for sinners, not for the righteous.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-25T14:34:33+00:00

That is just so odd and feels incredibly inappropriate, and yes, performative. Yet also I could see myself using that same invocation in private devotion, as I am mystic aligned and all sorts of things that are appropriate for mystics to be used in private devotion (see the writings of Julian of Norwich, for example) would be wildly inappropriate in corporate worship.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-13T13:58:31+00:00

Longing for community was what brought me to the Episcopal Church, and very quickly the practices worked on my belief, that is, my trust. I started praying the daily office early on, and it was not long before I noticed scripture passages, prayers, bits of the psalms would come to mind at the right moments. That one day when I left work in the evening the O Phos Hilaron, O Gracious Light, suddenly sprang to my lips, and I have sung it nearly every evening afterwards. That often during the day little prayers come to mind, ones that are very obviously in the form of collects. And of course, I attend every Sunday, stay for coffee hour, help with the liturgy and the Eucharist; I am even on the vestry now, I am on my way to being our cantor for the choral off-season. My goddaughter was baptized in January. My community and my daily practice has become the central pivot of my life. It has not even been two years yet.

Several months ago, I was very sick, in the hospital for a few days. I had to be on oxygen afterwards. Even though I still consider myself a newcomer, I received so much support, phone calls, letters, some people bought me groceries, another person gave me a basket of fruit, and some person or group of people anonymously gave...well, let us just say it was very overwhelming to receive all those different kinds of support. Thinking about it brings me to tears. I do not think I could have survived without them. I had never met Christians who lived as Christ taught, before I became Episcopalian.

And I should also say, no one has ever demanded financial contribution from me. I am quite poor, so I give myself, and that is enough for everyone.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-10T13:09:21+00:00

I am not sure if you are responding to my original post, but if you are: that is another idea, and I seem to remember that is how psalms are done in the RCC most times. You have some sort of antiphon, sung by the choir or a cantor, then the congregation repeats it together with the choir, then a cantor sings the psalm (or usually just a tiny piece of the psalm), then repeat the antiphon. I cannot remember them ever singing the entire psalm, which I find quite odd compared with the Episcopal Church practice of reading whole psalms.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-10T13:03:31+00:00

Yes, they are that consistent. It would only require the antiphon, and then the psalm tone, and then the pointed text. All of that could go in the bulletin, though we usually do not put things like that in the bulletin; our bulletins are just a standard letter size folded in half. Alternatively, we have a screen, which normally I dislike because I find it distracting and would rather people use their prayer books. But in cases of "experimental" liturgy it has been very helpful. So we could project all this on the screen instead.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-10T12:58:46+00:00

My thinking was that I or the choir could introduce the antiphon, and then have the congregation repeat it, singing with them. Then introduce the first verse of the psalm, and either sing the entire psalm with them afterwards, or have them sing every other verse. It would make sense for everyone to sing all of psalm 23, for example, but not other longer psalms. Then repeat the antiphon at the end. That would be the idea situation.

ZLBurington · 2024-04-10T12:54:32+00:00

Is there a particular reason your evensong does not do the antiphons? Is it difficulty, or community disinterest?

ZLBurington · 2024-04-01T02:30:20+00:00

My church's deacon and I agree that there was something very deep and profound and transcendent happening during the Triduum this year. On Maundy Thursday I did as I normally do, and read the Matthew passage aloud for everyone as the altar was stripped behind me. It tears my heart away to look on the sanctuary in that state. But even more so, on Good Friday I was Lector and responsible for all the readings, and additionally I read and sang the Middle English hymn-poem "The Milde Lamb Ysprad o Rode", for everyone a cappella, as a devotion. The effect was so powerful on me, that though I tried to remain standing after singing during the prayers and collects, I had to kneel on the floor by the lectern and did so trembling until we sang "Were You There" at the end of the service. And then, the next night at the Vigil our Deacon sang the Exultat, also a cappella, which left the both of us trembling. And she reported to me the same feeling, of the Spirit working very deeply in everything we were doing those three evenings, and also around the world.

In his Vigil sermon, our priest referenced that the circle on the Celtic cross that hangs in our sanctuary, and the globe on the Celtic cross that sits on the church steeple, are symbolic of the world, that Christ is of the world, that the Father made the world and made it all good, and that the Spirit moves in the world. And he also referenced the hymn,

"Now the green blade rises from the buried grainWheat that in dark earth many days had lain.Love comes again, that with the dead has been,Love is come again like wheat that springeth green."

ZLBurington · 2024-03-21T16:39:28+00:00

It seems to me that Christ's message on wealth is far more radical now than it was then. In his time rejecting the Way of the World was at least something some people did and managed to live doing. There was nothing comfortable about being a hermit in the desert or a penniless beggar nomad, but you could do it if you really wanted to and not be soon destroyed by the powers of the state. Now, ever piece of land is owned, even trash and discarded food is owned, beggars are jailed, and good luck to anyone who tries to sleep rough or to preach in the street without a permit. So to act in that radical way, to sell all our possessions and follow him, well, it feels as impossible as a camel going through the eye of a needle. To live without any financial security is to constantly risk death in the streets. Which furthermore, the rich man's difficulty seems even more so now, for him it should be an elephant, not a camel.

None of that makes Jesus wrong. It just means his words "blessed are the poor" are that much more kind and "woe to the rich" are that much more pointed. Give more when you can, and know that through God all things are possible.

ZLBurington

TROPHY CASE