Last week I wrote to a man who is a conservative (for lack of a better term) whose position I wanted to understand better. One of the things I told him was that I think of conservatives as wanting to turn back time. Some just want to go back a little bit to a time before there were any 'mos, others would like to go back to the 1662 maybe earlier! I don't know. And although my new friend denies this I still kind of believe it. I am trying to be aware of the times I think of conservative people in terms of how far back they want to go and I am really quite bad about having a lot of them pegged somewhere along a time line. So, as a first step on my own part, I'd like to just stop doing that. And, really, it is dehumanizing to define children of God by something that I think they think which they deny thinking. I mean, it's pretty ridiculous so I'm going to stop doing it.
But, and this is the thing I've been thinking about, he turned the question around on me and asked me if I don't wish I could take the church forward to some future time. And what I've realized as I've been going madly around these last two days is that in my own mind -- such as it is -- it already is the future. I believe that The Church has already been perfected (You know, the way
I want it to be, complete with homos and everything) and that all this mucking around about it is just so much mucking. I don't think that it really amounts to much all the reports and even all the talking (clearly nobody is listening anyway) and what a sad waste of resources and time with the infernal meetings! I really don't take the process quite as seriously as I've said. For me, the process is about enduring until the rest of Christendom catches up to where I am. And, silly as all that sounds, it's really kind of where I am.
I wonder if my friend, and I'm not trying to speak for him because I really don't know, I am just wondering. I wonder if he, and I, and probably lots of others aren't just living in different times. And, by that I guess what I mean is realities. My reality, the world I actually live in, has lots of homos and (except for church where we are still not welcome) we all pretty much live as if our lives were a good part of creation and as if we were as worthy as anyone else to pursue our faith and live out our values. But I can imagine that in another reality the thought of a lesbian (or, in another reality I might be called a "homosexual person." I'm not kidding, that's what they call us.) In another reality a lesbian like me doesn't even exist. In those realities lesbians are sick, they are unhappy, they are lawbreakers, they are all butch, they smoke, and drink Port wine... It's the stereotype but it does reflect a certain reality, a certain time. It is impossible for there to be lesbians who study the Bible seriously and pray for understanding and for their enemies and consider carefully how they are expressing the Gospel of Christ in the world. They can't exist in certain realities, certain times.
Imagine getting Fred Flinstone and George Jetson in the same room. Both were pretty swell fellows in their own time but neither of them are in touch with the present time. And there's the rub... We speak of "these present troubles," not the troubles of the past or the troubles of the future. It's THESE troubles we can't quite get past. These PRESENT troubles.
Could it be that we have reduced ourselves, and one another, to cartoon characters living in a fantasy land/time? I mean, is that where we are? And if that's true, what does it take for me to leave my own fantasy land and find reality? I don't even know if I am willing to do that if I knew how.
It is possible that when I think about this in a more deliberate way I will come up with something different but this is where I am after a long day of walking dogs and scooping litter boxes. Now if I can just get Rosie The Robot to draw me a nice hot bath...
