Saint Bridget

February 1, 2016 (February 2nd if you’re in the sunny orange fields of Portugal)

Listen up my fabulous feminists! This is one saint you’ll want to celebrate with me. Bridget was one badass bish*!

Here’s someone who dances between legend and history (with no twitter or facebook in the mid 400’s it’s beyond me how anyone knew and remembered anything).

Apparently St. Patty baptised her mother who was sold into slavery and a magic cow came and fed her. But here’s the facts I like (keep in mind her biography was written by a cousin once or twice removed):

  • Founded and led the largest institution of the time (also the community that grew up around it - even men!!).
  • She was a bishop! A motherfucking BISHOP! “Cogitosus also hinted in his biography that Brigid functioned as a bishop preaching, hearing confession, and ordaining priests”.** Apologies to The Rt. Rev’d.  Barbara Harris - you were actually not the first female bishop! Though you broke a significant 1566 year gap (fucking patriarchy).
  • She believed in radical inclusion NEVER turning people away from her convent
  • Got oodles of gold from rich fat cats and poured it into feeding the poor and hungry - healing them also
  • I also loved the she preserved the pre-Christian Irish Goddess. Thank Mother Jesus (Julian of Norwich) for that! A fire to the Goddess was kept burning in Kildaire is still tended to to this day by Saint Bridget’s nuns.
  • First female Saint of Ireland.

Nobody does it like nuns!

Saint Bridget, if I could be half the woman you were I’d be half the man I am right now, actually [confused face here].
*short for bitch, but used in a playful sort of way. Not intended to be hurtful and often used between friends.
“OMG bish, you took forever to call me back!” Urban Dictionary
**English translations of Cogitosus's Life of St Brigid: one by Connolly and Picard in 19

Canterburry Can't Even

Anglicans should fire up their thuribles and get INCENSED by what has happened in Canterburry these past few weeks.

I appreciate that our Primate made a comment about this issue. Unlike his American Counterpart Michael Currey, he took a very Canadian and very Anglican approach to see where the majority was going and then made a rather teped statement; he even apologized! This is a far cry from the past when private apologies (that really didn't do anything at all but hoped to keep tithe envelopes flowing).

While I love and respect our Primate,  behalf of the LGBTTQI community, your Grace, apology not accepted. 

It's rediculous to think I keep coming back to "church world" at times when this matter seems to escalate (St. Michael's report and now this). It's even more rediculous to think I have to interview Priests before attending their congregation to essentially ask if I'll find healing or be emotionally raped by church sanctioned bigotry. The fact that I have often felt I have to hid myself and avoid authenticity within the house of The One who has 'searched me and knows [every part] me' is pathetic, to say the least. 

Shouldn't church be the one place we are really REAL?

The Archbishop of Canterburry believes that the reason for decline in numbers in "church world" is because the culture is anti-church. The reality is our culture is not anti-church - it is anti-racism, sexism, and homophobia (which the Church, as a socializing agent, has been guilty of for too long [see also wage gaps between male and female clergy also]).

I believe if we upheld the gospel and were radically socially inclusive LIKE JESUS we'd see an incline we wouldn't believe possible. 

Why do I keep coming back?  Because I can do no other, I suppose. Called. My love for Word and Sacrament as expressed in the Anglican tradition is my heroin, perhaps. There is also light in knowing that there are more and more pockets each day that are on the right track (re: LGBTTQI inclusion). I'm feeling pretty blessed to have found a parish that seems to be inclusive with really good clergy - in time of personal crisis this has changed my life. Others, especially those not in major urban areas, don't get the luxury of this choice church shopping.

I know we're all autonomous and bound together by some mysterious juju but the statement this vote and sanction makes is undeniably offensive, hurtful, and dangerous. Let's call a spade a spade without waxing philosophic.

First, it offends the fact that there are so many of us within this communion that are still being made second class citzens or being asked to hide in some closet (closets are for our drag outfits, sweetie, it's not where abundant life is found). 

Second, it hurts because we can never fully believe in the grace and love of God because the majority of God's formal agents cannot extend what radical inclusion and love looks like. Many churches need to remove their "all welcome" signage because really what they mean is white, heterosexual, upper-middle class (preferably upper) people, sans any visages of personal brokenness are welcome - the rest of you can go to the United Church :-/

Third, this is dangerous. All around the world LGBTTQI people are being raped, killed, and imprisoned simply for who they love - especially in countries of the African Bishops preside. This could have been a power-house of ending these human rights issues. When the entire See of Canterburry takes a stand things could really transform.

Not moving in favour of human rights is propogating hate in and of itself.

We need REPARATION, not regret!

Make a vote in favour MARRIAGE FOR ALL! Change the bloody Canons already!

Parishes need to create strong statemtents of obvious inclusion (visible everywhere) and then provide training for clergy and parishioners of what radical inclusion looks like.

Let's add Pride Sunday to feasts and holy days.

Let's make anti-oppression and diverse frameworks MANDATORY courses for our M.DIVers

I will not believe that God loves me if you don't SHOW me God loves me. People everywhere won't believe that God loves them if WE don't SHOW them God loves them. Christ crucified (ACTION) is what draws us to the love of God. Jesus didn't write a song and say "I would catch a granade for ya" and entire nations throughout history followed him. "Don't talk about words, show me" (It wouldn't be a gay rant without a musical reference [My Fair Lady, in case that wasn't obvious]).

I'm not saying let's water down the theologies that are important and make us who we are. I'm saying the time has long since passed that we need to take this issue of MINOR doctrine, dump it, and start getting about the business of the Gospel!

End rant.​

+

+

+

Article from the Edmonton Journal. September 26, 2015
Rev. Canon Travis Enright sees his ministry in Edmonton’s Alberta Avenue district as “a beautiful mosaic.”
That may be because the 48-year-old Anglican priest encompasses so many parts of the community’s mosaic in his own life and journey as a child of Cree-Irish-Canadian parents.
Diversity is a key to Enright’s leadership as rector of St. Faith’s parish, located just south of 118th Avenue on 93rd Street. About half of the worshipping community is aboriginal and the other half, according to Enright, “hipster, and a few traditional Anglicans in the mix.” To give voice to that diversity, Enright plans four different services — contemporary, aboriginal, folk and traditional — for each of four Sundays in a month.
There’s been pushback from his congregants concerned about identity, who argue “we need to be rooted into who we are.” Enright’s answer? “I say we need to be rooted in Jesus Christ. I think we get confused by what we are called to be rooted into. I think the thing I really bring to my leadership is that we are rooted in Jesus Christ, in all that we do.”
And there’s a lot to do in the Alberta Avenue community. When Enright moved from All Saints Cathedral to St. Faith’s about four years ago, his immediate goal was to give the vulnerable in the neighbourhood a safe place to express themselves and pray.
Enright spent four years of his childhood in the Alberta Avenue area, but grew up on the west side after the family finished moving around Canada for his father James’ work. He smiles and says his dad was “full Irish” and his mother, Donna, full Cree.
What spurred him on his journey to the priesthood was a growing realization of how poorly Canadian students are taught about the aboriginal experience. His mother went to a residential school, as did most of his relatives. Talking to elders to learn more about Cree history, he was drawn into “the story of the land.” Meanwhile, his Christian faith was nurtured by his mother and grandfather, both “hard-core Anglican.”
“That’s the work I’ve been doing, trying to reconcile those two things: the work of Jesus Christ, the history of Canada, the impact of both of those questions on Cree people. How can we as Cree people be fully engaged in our identity and be connected to the land, and still be connected to Jesus Christ?”
After graduating from university, he briefly worked for Revenue Canada until, wanting more human contact, he turned to hairdressing, eventually buying his own shop. It proved to be an inspiration for the next step in his life: seminary.
“Spirituality is about removing the mask and allowing yourself to be seen fully. And I think hairdressing is about putting a mask back on, because so many of these people were crushed, having no spiritual content at all. So then, I gave that all up and went to seminary. I loved it — because it was hard.”
Studying for the priesthood at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Enright was ordained in 2007, just when the tragedy of residential schools dominated headlines. His leadership within the Christian community on that issue led to him being co-chair of the Alberta committee for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Edmonton in 2014.
Enright’s mosaic ministry these days takes in three entities: St. Faith’s, St. Stephen’s and PrayerWorks. St. Stephen’s congregation, until five years ago a 96th Street church, shares space with St. Faith’s. Enright leads its services in the high Anglican tradition. PrayerWorks is a shared ministry with the diocese.
Enright describes PrayerWorks as “explicit outreach to the community” offering assistance to Alberta Avenue’s neediest. They are a third elderly poor; a third AISH recipients, or people with mental illnesses; and a third people with addictions and mental issues.
“We’ve come to realize we cannot look at people simply based on their ethnicity. Poverty is almost a new ethnicity. The difference between a poor aboriginal, a poor African and a poor white person is very, very small.”
Food ministry is a tradition for St. Faith’s and St. Stephen’s, so parishioners work well together through PrayerWorks, serving Thursday lunch, Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast. But the regulars now number 210, up from 150, and Enright blames downtown revitalization. The construction of the Quarters area and Ice District is forcing a migration of displaced people into neighbourhoods north of downtown.
He is passionate as he describes the face of poverty, the elderly poor who come to his church for meals because their pension covers shelter but not enough for a month’s worth of food. Or the desperate young people, whose mental illness or addictions prevent them from being hired for any job.
They work hard just to stay alive, he says. “I always recommend people try to pick cans for eight hours straight and see how lazy these people are.”
Enright calls on people of faith to step up in the battle to fight poverty. “Faith communities can play an important role in providing humanity to people. Social work is not the only answer. Agencies do a great job but I do call on the churches to go back to their traditional role that they had years ago before these agencies were even around. Somehow we stepped aside because we saw the government at work.”
jvlieg@edmontonjournal.com

This is a fantastic read. I devoured it in 24 hours. Whether you're in ministry looking for a new M.O. or an "Absolved Asshole" like myself looking for a little grace I highly recommend this book.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She is the au­thor of the New York Times best-selling memoir Pastrix. Nadia has been featured on CNN and in the Washing­ton Post, BitchMagazine, NPR’s
Morning Edition, More Magazine, and the Daily Beast.

In Accidental Saints, New York Times best-selling au­thor Nadia Bolz-Weber invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely of people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious Bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA. 

As she lives and worships alongside these “ac­cidental saints,” Nadia is swept into first-hand en­counters with grace—a gift that feels to her less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit with a blunt instrument. But by this grace, people are trans­formed in ways they couldn’t have been on their own. 

In a time when many have rightly become dis­illusioned with Christianity, Accidental Saints dem­onstrates what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with scripture together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives. This unforgettable account of their faltering steps toward wholeness will ring true for believer and skeptic alike. 

Told in Nadia’s trademark confessional style, Accidental Saints is the stunning next work from one of today’s most important religious voices.


From the Hardcover edition.

+

à la anglican


Aries (March 21-April 19)Great time to hang out after coffee hour and schmooze. Someone, probably a Mason, will have a link to something you've been looking for. It's a good idea to hold your temper this week (you're an Anglican, for God's sake - we don't get angry we form committees). Be a good WASP and push your feelings down to your toes.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)Look at you, the spotlight of the ACW. You're probably going to impress the members of some committee that you're leading because everyone else assumes somoene else will do the work and that someone is probably you. Don't complain. It's beneath your station. Be extra patient with the vestry this week or things may get blown out of proportion.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Look at you queen church bee! You've got the stamina of a humming bird this week. Committees, teas, fundraisers! You may want to consider doing the unthinkable and take a spontaneous adventure (maybe to Barnes and Noble or the library on "the other side of town").

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Why are you being so needy? Your parish priest is rolling their eyes at you. Stiff upper lip! Yes, you have lots of feelings but we're WASP's darling; feelings belong at the bottom of a stiff glass of gin at the end of the day. 

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
You're not sleeping. You've said something you shouldn't have and didn't say something you should have. You can't help it, you love the spotlight. It plagues you because any amount of redicule this week will send you spinning. Don't bite people's (peoples'?) heads of. Be the cool "king fo the jungle."

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Everything has to be just so and all matters perfectly organized or you'll question why you're on the Altar guild. This colour for that day, that altar cloth not this! And oh brother, the donated flowers are all wrong. Relax. No one will notice either way. Except the priest (possibly) and a few church geeks. Don't be so up tight. 


Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Even Stephen! That's you! But this week you'll probably have to make a decision one way or another that will affect two opposing points of view. Egad! You'll have to rock the boat (boot if in Canada). Chances are good you'll take the passive aggressive route and make a confusing statement that won't lead either side to know what the hell the decision is. Just make a declarative statement. Fuck'em if they can't take a joke (think this part - never say it out loud. That's how we roll). 

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Everything and everyone is pissing you off right now. Cancel your spot at the ladies luncheon. Move your tennis lessons to Friday. Pop a clonazapam and wash it down with some gin, dear. It'll all blow over soon.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) "Shut up, please! I'm very busy and important." This is your mantra this week. Busy busy little bee - so many errands to run in so little time. Don't let yourself be bullied - instead complain about to your friends so no actual change happens. 

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You're probably going to be nominated for the Treasurer position at this year's AGM at the church. RUN!

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Little do gooder that you are! A perfect social justice initiative has just come your way. You saw something on Oprah that has inspired you to have a fundraiser for African babies with AIDS! You go gurl!

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) Time to get up and move darling. All that day dreaming won't get you anywhere. God helps those who help themselves. "If it's going to be it's up to me." (R. Schuler) If you get up and DO something then SOMETHING will happen. (Sometimes this psychic shit writes itself).