Friday, October 29, 2010Revgalblogpal Friday Five: Comfort Media Edition

Friday, October 29, 2010Revgalblogpal Friday Five: Comfort Media Edition

Katherine posted today's Friday Five:  It is about movies that comfort, but I have gone beyond the movies....Muthah

I don't get to watch that much tv anymore, but I actually wrote today's Oprah show down on my calendar. Why? Because she is hosting a Sound of Music cast reunion!!! Those of you who know me may be surprised that I would care so much about such a stereotypically girly flick, but I love it (although admittedly fast forward through the Reverend Mother's rendition of Climb Every Mountain). I can watch this movie over and over and over again.



It seems no matter how many new movies, tv shows or books come down the pike I still have my ol' stand by favorites that I can watch/read over and over and when I do they actually bring me comfort - like an old sweatshirt or a favorite food.



Today's Friday Five is an opportunity for you to list five of your favorite 'go-to' movies/tv shows/books. You can use images, links, explanations or netflix.



If you play the Friday Five at your blog and would like visitors, be sure to share a link in the comments. For a complete how-to on how to post your link, click here.





Thank you for playing

I didn’t catch Oprah and I am not a DVD fan. We have one but I don’t know how to make it work. So I don’t watch movies over and over unless they are being shown on the TV channels. It takes me a long time to read novels because I am a bit dyslexic so I don’t reread novels too often either. But there are a few movies that I rewatch and a few books I reread that just feel comfortable.


1. For some reason, I enjoy True Lies. I am not a Schwartzeneger fan, but I do enjoy Jamie Lee Curtis and the whole incredible story is just catches me and I laugh at the same jokes over and over. The scene with the Harrier Jet just cracks me up!


2. Any Harry Potter film I will watch again. I have seen them all. I love to go back and see Harry when he was a little kid and then think of him as a grow person as he is now. But I just have always loved the British school scene of Hogwarts.


3. A couple of British mysteries I read over and over: Dorothy Parker’s Gaudy Night and Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time. And now I turn to Laurie R. King’s Folly which I think is the best mystery of the 21st century that I have read. Laurie’s husband attended my church in CA back in the ‘90’s. And I feel privileged to have met her. But that novel touches me in a way that few have. Deeply feminist, deeply attentive to the creative work of women, deeply imbedded in the family systems that often create us.


4. I think that comfort has taken a different turn since I have retired. I find great comfort in writing and thinking about where my life has been and where it is going now. Perhaps it is because I am no longer preaching and this “voice” of mine will out, no matter what, but I am finding comfort in writing about church, faith, lgbtq presence in the Church and where I think that we are headed or where I would like to go. It isn’t memoires, per se. But it is the same kind of energy that I would find in bringing the Gospel to life in the parish. Cf. www.stoneofwitness.blogspot.com


5. I have found comfort in cooking in times past. But for some reason I don’t find it as much now that we have moved. I think part of the reason is that I don’t have Wegmans, the supermarket that I loved in NY. My local markets here in FTW are not as foodie-friendly as Wegmans was. The supermarkets here in FTW are so far away that it makes it hard to get excited about coming home from the store and fixing something special. Also, I find that food does not store well here. We can’t buy a gallon of milk and have it last. It sours much faster than it did in NY. Also during the summer, it was hard to bring home delicate items such as chicken livers, or freshly baked bread without it ruining before it could be fixed. My menus have gotten rather prosaic here. Sigh. I guess I will have to find something else that gives comfort.

Bullies

I have been going to a number of conferences lately. Some have to do with LGBT issues and some have to do with the Emerging Church. All of it has to do with CHANGE. And change is what I try to facilitate as a pastor/priest—the change that comes as a result of being loved by a God who calls us to be better each moment.


While I was still functioning as the pastor of a parish, someone accused me of being a “gay activist”. I was startled by that. I felt that I had been fairly low-key about being lesbian in a congregation. I didn’t demand that the church fly the rainbow banner. I didn’t call for registry with the ‘affirming’ parishes. While a parish priest or a pastor, one cannot, in my mind, be a one-issue person. The demands of serving a parish require what used to be called a “Renaissance Man” or a person who could address a multiplicity of issues. But LGBT issues have been in the view of the Church of late and what I included in sermons was appropriate, I thought, to address the zeitgeist.

But the events of the past couple of months, with the coming to light of numerous deaths by suicide by young gay teens calls for something more than a passing comment in a sermon, or prayers “for those who are alone.” It requires speaking out like the Ft. Worth Councilman Joel Burns and Bishop Gene Robinson have done to preserve our young people who find that they are different.

LGBTQ teens are 4 times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers. Mostly this is due to just not being able to ‘fit in’. The demand for the young to be acceptable to their peers and/ or their families is often so overwhelming that young people do not know what to do if they find that they are attracted to those of the same sex. Add to that the bullying that is so prevalent in our society (not just in our schools) and the demand by schools and parents that the “gay agenda” be kept from our young, means that LGBTQ kids never get to see good and wholesome LGBT folk to emulate.

Kids know that it isn’t just getting through school. Being gay or lesbian is a life-long recognition that you will always be a minority, that you will never ‘fit in’ and that is crushing to adolescents whose only goal at that point in life is to be just like one’s peers. I have not checked the statistics but I would imagine that the level of depression among LGBT kids is much higher than the average population. I know that my own bouts of depression were often rooted in my identity and my inability to embrace my own sexuality. They began in 7th grade and did not stop until I came out.

But it is the culture of bulling that most disturbs me. Trash talk is considered de rigure these days. Sit coms are full of it. Even when there are gay-friendly shows, the humor is still about being different, being on the fringe. We use bullying in sports so that we can win. We use bullying just to get the basic needs from institutions in order to get what we want or need. The police bully the ‘bad guys’. Our political candidates resort to smear campaigns and bullying rhetoric. We resort to lawyers who bully to maintain our rights from other bully lawyers and we bully nations as a normal foreign policy.

An adult gay couple of my friends had to move just this week because their neighbors threatened them and the police would not do anything even when there were witnesses to the harassment. I am leery about putting a rainbow ribbon on my car here in TX or fly a rainbow flag or wear rainbow earrings in this environment where macho still reigns.

The problem with bullying is that the only way that bullies will stop is to ‘bully back’. “Might makes right” is learned early on the school ground and is carried on throughout our lives. Personally I am not easily bullied, whether due to size or sharp tongue, I am not always clear. But I do not like when I must “bully back” just to be heard, or just to get what is just or safe. I do not like what I must become to live peacefully in this world.

Christ was not a bully. Even in the anger he displayed in the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus was not a bully. He called people to hear a radical message in which manipulation and force were greeted with humility and generosity—difficult tools in this post-modern age.

Yes, I am an activist in my retirement. I am an activist that says that LGBTQ kids do not have to abort their lives in their teens because there are those who interpret some scriptural passages wrongly and heap it on youngsters grappling with their own image. As a person of faith I must be willing stand against those whose religion says that they can demonize people who are different because they manipulate some 7 passages of Scripture to ostracize those who march to a different drummer.

I live now on the ‘Buckle of the Biblebelt’ and I must be willing to say to the bullies of the religious right that the time has come to say NO to religious exclusivism for the sake of the Gospel.

Friday Five: Connecting

I have somehow lost a day. I have had a mean cold for 2 weeks now. I have done the antibiotics, the stay in bed, the sleep the clock around and still I have no voice. I feel really disconnected and this Friday Five seems to highlight this. In addition I am often stopped dead by the questions that my friends on Revgals (usually Boomers) ask. Some of these question are asked in ways that someone of my generation (Silent? Never! War Babies, always!) would ask them.




So here are some questions to ponder for this Friday Five about connecting with:



1. Self: Who was your hero/heroine when you were about ten years old?

Let’s see, I think my heros at that time were cowboys: Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry. I had only lived in TX for about 6 years at that time and cowboys and Indians was the game we played endlessly. It may have nurtured the Crusader Rabbit syndrome I have.




2. Family: Who are you most like? Who is most like you?

Visually I think I look like my dad. My brother says I look like my paternal grandfather. He knew him; I did not. I have a temper like Dad had to my great shame and burden but in some ways I am like my mom. The nose which so many of us in the family have was my maternal grandmother’s. A noble Crowder nose. But my concern for others I think comes from Mom. But in many other ways, I am not like anyone else in the family. I have always felt that I was the black sheep or the odd duck. But that may have just been from being lesbian. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the family who is like me either.



3. Friends: How do you stay in touch?

Email! and telephone:  I don’t text yet. When I get a new phone (which will be fairly soon) I will get texting capabilities but that will be AFTER I have had the second cataract surgery next month. I just can’t see the keyboard of my Blackberry. The problem about getting older is that Social Media leaves those of us who were not teethed on the computer in the dust. I find it increasingly more difficult to keep up with technology. I miss much of what the young people are saying and doing simply because I do not understand the jargon of the technoworld. I want to shout, “slow down, you’re going to fast” but it doesn’t seem to do any good. When I ask the young people at the Verizon shop, they smile at me like I am some doddering old biddy; they can’t explain to me how things work because they speak a totally different language.


4. Neighborhood, community: What are ways you like to be involved?

We have just moved to my hometown in June but are still trying to figure out how to get home at times. We have registered to vote but we still don’t know our polling place. We have met our neighbors on either side and across the street. Many on our street are Spanish-speaking only which is a problem for J as she has no Spanish. But at least I can wave hi and comment on ‘la clima’. We are taking our time getting into neighborhood things. I have made contact with my high school reunion group and will assist with our 50th reunion coming up in 2012. Maybe the world will end before that????


5. Job/church: Do you see a need that will help in developing connections?

The bishop asked us to visit the parishes in the diocese. We have been doing that but we want to settle down in one parish or another. J and I usually go to different churches—we find it works out better that way but it doesn’t witness to what we want to say in our relationship. I haven’t really settled down. I can’t figure out where I want to go—where the worship is good so that I can worship OR where I can be a part of a community that I find fulfilling and can assist. They don’t seem to be the same here. But until the Diocese gets it property back from the schismatic group, we both have to be ready to step into parishes if needed. Most of the retired clergy have churches at present.

Bonus: A link or anything else about connecting.

Being a blogger is a connection to a much wider community than I would have thought. Last week I attended the national gathering of Believe Out Loud. I met so many people who knew me from my blogs even though I have not been writing as much lately. Going on B3 was helpful and have made a few connections. I am so aware that the Gospel is preached in so many more ways than standing in a pulpit. I preach so much more effectively from my laptop than I do to 60 people on Sunday mornings. And I am finding that the connections I make with others are important to my sense of well-being. The isolation of the pastorate seems to wither in the face of them.