Over my Head

Every once in awhile, I feel the need to comment on a situation whose depth is far beyond my understanding. I have no idea if anyone will ever read this, nor does it particularly matter to me at the moment, since I am working this out for myself more than anyone else - but, over at RevGals, a storm has been brewing, and I've been thinking about what my response might be.

I don't really understand the facts of the whole situation, so this rumination is not as much a comment directly to that event as it has caused me to think about the larger issues at stake. (For a wonderful commentary from someone who is more knowledgeable, even though I don't completely agree with her, read this from More Cows.) To summarize how I understand it: a blogger was removed from the ring because content on her blog could cause problems, by association, for others on the ring. The primary issue at stake is the question of her polyamory - a committed relationship with more than one person. Bluntly, that is a way of life that I do not understand, and with which I have some problems (again, admitting that I don't really understand it). The presumption was that her inclusion in the blog could be problematic for those whose congregations know they are connected to RevGals. And it's that last part which seems to have caused the most controversy.

A few preliminary things: first, I found out about this the way you find out about things in high school, which is to hear rumors (in this case, through comments on a completely different post) and then to try and track down the truth. I find that irritating. I'm sure the ring and the blogger in question did not particularly want this issue publicized in the manner it was, though once you're in a public blog ring, it's pretty hard to keep the lid on. But I disliked the feeling I got from the whole thing: that the people who were really important knew about the controversy, and I was just standing on the sidelines trying to understand what the hell was going on. That's never pleasant. And my initial irritation was not the best entry into the discussion.

Second: as I have read a bit here and there, I do believe that the decision-makers in question did their best in a difficult situation. And the blogger in question has been tremendously gracious under impossible circumstances. But here's the question for me: where are the boundaries? This raises tremendously complicated problems. It seems to me no accident that even the earliest church struggled with questions of inclusion and exclusion, and certainly we haven't come all that far since, when you think about it.

I serve in a denomination - and a congregation, come to think of it - where ordination of gay and lesbian persons in committed relationships has not yet been approved. I pray that one day it will be - in fact, I trust and believe that one day, that will come to be. I believe my denomination and my congregation are wrong not to move forward. I have, honestly, not been particularly vocal about my opinion in my congregation (denominationally is a bit different). Am I protecting my job? Yes. Do I believe that I am doing some folks a disservice by not being more vocal? Yes. Do I know exactly how to deal with that? No. I do believe that I can preach and live the gospel without commenting directly on this question and still do my level best to help others live out the radical gospel - which, I pray, may lead them one day to the same conviction I have on this matter. I am sure that is not enough for some people, and I can understand why. But it is the uneasy truce with which I live.

So I have very little interest in exclusion from the church, or any organization representing the church, and RevGals could be called such an organization. On the other hand, there is some value in a community of people whose struggles and joys are quite unique - the value of finding one another, even in cyberspace, and knowing you are not alone. The shape of clergy life, and of life as a clergy woman, is not inherently more difficult than other ways of life. It is not better than, or more important than, any other calling. I detest the clergy attitude I hear too often: that this life is so much harder than anything else, that no one understands, that the congregation just doesn't get it. Maybe they don't - but, then again, I don't get what it is like to be a teacher, or a parent, or a real estate agent, or unemployed, or retired. So it's a basic human failure of empathy, not the triumph of clergy-dom as the career of martyrs. We ought to get over ourselves.

But one of the things I appreciate so much about RevGals, frankly, is its exclusionary nature - not that it seeks to exclude, but that it is, by definition, a blog ring for people connected to a certain sort of vocation. And that means that, by definition, we are excluding some people from participation. Again - not exclusion for its own sake, and not as a general practice, but so that it might be a safe and unique community for those who need support from one another.

I don't think, insofar as my fairly meager understanding of it would lead, that I can support polyamory as a way of life. But frankly, that's not the question for me. I have intentionally chosen to remain anonymous on this blog - and you can call me chicken for that, or you can appreciate that there are some things better left unsaid in congregations, and that my releasing of those things here makes me a better pastor in my context. So I have no risk here. No one will tar me with the brush of association - and that slippery slope is highly problematic to me. We are not going to agree on everything. Some of us in this ring would not be eligible for ordination in another blogger's denomination, and sadly, that's the truth.

But what we do have in common is a way of life that is hard to explain, and a need for collegial support. I appreciate that support. And I think it might (oh, fear and trembling here) require a bit of exclusion to be genuine. The problem, of course, is where that exclusion starts and ends. I have not yet figured that out for myself. So I will pray for those affected, including all those at RevGals, those who have left by choice or otherwise, and those who remain. May we learn to live together in honesty and in love - a balance nearly impossible to maintain.

For nothing will be impossible with God.