So Great a Cloud of Witnesses
There is another article in the paper today about the growing rift in the Episcopal Church here in America. At issue is - I think, as I am the new kid on the block - a changing definition of acceptable sexuality, and a wrestling with what this means. Can a spiritual leader, a priest, be female? Gay? Married? Same-sex married? Where is Scripture literal? Where is it not?
I have read the Bible several times over the past few decades, in several different translations. This reading informs my thinking, but it also tends to raise more questions rather than to answer them once and for always. That's OK. I can keep reading and reflecting, and I am not afraid of big long books. I read Gone With the Wind about 10 times in a row when I was 12, all 1037 pages, and devoured Atlas Shrugged a couple of times, too (before my mother wrested the book out of my hands saying, "I don't want you reading that. You are selfish enough already."). I can quote scripture to support every side of just about any argument. For me, this particular issue comes back, though, to tangible personal experience.
Since my spiritual path started to take form within Christianity, I have been welcomed into various congregations to rest a while before continuing on my journey. These resting places have been, in no particular order, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Roman Catholic. Though I have crossed paths with several clerics ill-suited to the ministry, I have been blessed to meet their opposites more often than not. I have been comforted, admonished, inspired and guided by priests and ministers who have each in their turn been profoundly important to my seeking and growth. They have been, in particular order of appearance: Married. Gay. Gay in a committed relationship. Married. Female. Female.
I have no idea, nor is it any of my business, who has or has not been celibate. What is my business is that these people, whom some would say are not worthy, not qualified to be priests at all, have borne witness to me of the unchanging love of God. The passionate, wild, tender, mothering, fathering, sustaining love of the Creator for all creation. They have comforted me through losses that I could not bear. They have celebrated joy with me. They have shown me, over and over, that God's kingdom is right here, right now, and now, and now, and that we are to pay attention to this dazzling, be part of this "ring of endless light". I can only hope to sometimes get out of my own way enough to continue and pass along what they have nurtured in me. I would not be here without them.