General Convention 2018

7 July 2018 Austin TX Saturday night in the South and young women parade the streets dressed as though they could be Fox News anchors. There are things about this town that are obviously modern–a tech city "on the build" has erected structures in their skyline which say 21-st Century loudly, blatantly. Other symbols seem to hearken to the past, whether intentional or unintentional. There is no doubt, though, that this city has charm running through its veins, and, without realizing it fully, has managed, simply by being itself, to ooze originality from its pores. "Keep Austin weird" seems as much an unneeded aphorism as "first pants then shoes" would be. Could Austin be any other way than it is? I doubt it. And these days, the throngs walking to the Convention Center from the Marriott and back in their priestly collars, crosiers, purple bishop shirts...in their tie-dye, Navajo tribal colors, their blinged-out name badges, their rainbow flags...they are talking sections and subsections, resolution numbers and rules of order. They are name-dropping, summing each other up, eager to know our Episcopalianism as a whole, their eyes signaling that their souls are inquisitive and open. It is a truly special crowd that walks these short two blocks. Not special in that many are extraordinary, but special in the way that they are all unique and so very fervent about worshiping their God, in their own individual ways, while holding hands together and refusing to let go. These people are the church. They are my church. The Legislative Sessions would be long if it were not for the high drama on the cavernous convention center floor. As the President calls upon them with words that hearken back to an earlier time ("the floor recognizes delegate so-and.so"), the response also cutely precious in its response of "thank you Madame President, I rise in support of this or that amendment". Truth be told, the whole thing is quite a spectacle, but in a format that is more real than reality TV. This is so real that it is a happening which is actually LIVE, something so rarified in this 2018, this time of realities virtual, in all its digital forms. The digital world tries so very hard to be what it can never be: real life. And we get to be in its technicolor midst for 10 whole days this Summer in Texas! And, amongst the many tediums of the show, as people jockey and nit-pick their way through the resolutions, their intentions begin to, through the hive mind, become less and less intense, more and more less of meaning, the governance sucking the realness out of the Urtext. What was sometimes intended to be a powerful statement of a raw human battlecry becomes limp as it is whittled away at, leaving its progeny, the offspring of the original idea, a lifeless statement indeed. And the irony is not lost on you, I assume, that a show such as this which epitomizes something so real, can produce something that does not resemble the life that created it whatsoever. How does toothless amended resolution of the Genereal Convention of the Episcopal Church get born? Like this. And another one bites the dust. World without end. Considering it all, I wonder what it is exactly that is so awe-inspiring about the grand event. I tend to think that the heart-filled intentions of my compatriots, their immeasurable life-energies zooming around the goings on here, are keeping me alive. Here, I only need 5 hours of sleep a night in order to feel refreshed. Here, I feel enlivened to the point of bursting at times. Here, I seem more than myself, more than a mere human. How is this possible? Is it us? Are we perpetuating this life-force that seems to reverberate amongst us? That is indeed possible, methinks. Or! Or, dare I say it, is the Holy Spirit truly amongst us? Is the Spirit facilitating our efforts together? Can it be that the Holy Spirit is amongst a bunch of Episcopalians? I think it may very well be so. I believe it is so.

The Tribe

Have you ever asked a shy toddler what her name is only to find that, surprised by the interaction, she scurries back to her mother's leg, hiding her face for a moment, then, when she has musters the courage, looks at you from the safety of her mother's protection? There seems to be something within us that instinctively forces us to return to what we know when we feel spooked, in danger. In the uncertainty of the world, that is, when it gets to be too much, we retreat to what is familiar, to be amongst those like us, those who will "have our backs". One of the aspects of the current environment in which we find ourselves is the growing distrust of public institutions. Those large entities, first devised in order to protect us and to enable us to speak with a collective voice, have now been proven to be incapable of shielding us from the dangers of life in 2017. And why should we rely on them if they don't work? In 2005, when GW Bush appointed John R Bolton to the United Nations, effectively installing one of its greatest skeptics, I remember having been gobsmacked. Why would he have assigned someone to work within an institution that he didn't believe in, or may even actively work to further degrade? At the same time, Bush's criticism of the UN, that it was a gargantuan organization, encumbered by its own red tape and procedure, incapable of stopping genocide, war or any number of other calamities was on point. For all of the good the institution had done in the world, not the least of which its promoting of wider human understanding, it had also been a failure in my eyes, albeit the eyes of a wide-eyed and admittedly too-hopeful youth of the 90s. The hippie in me was unwilling to let go of the possibility of a world at peace, both literally and with itself. The UN, NATO, our own governments-federal, state or local, have all failed us by now. They have been unable to protect us from 9/11, from mass shootings, from economic collapse, from income disparity. Can you really blame people for giving up their childish ideals of a world free of hunger and war, retreating to mother's familiar leg, to those who are "our own"? If human consciousness experiences expansion and contraction, I think we can safely say we are in an era of contraction, as our circles become smaller and smaller and come to include only the very small core of people who we see as family. And as people regroup, aligning with those with whom they most identify, we start to isolate ourselves from uncomfortable, pesky, opposing opinions as well. There is enough dissonance in the world; I need not add more to the simmering pot, thinks the individual. The move to digesting only information presented to you from sources with whom you agree is just the beginning, though. As Man regresses to his feudal state, only engaging within his own community, what do you suppose will happen? I mean, that is the great question. The French, after having experienced democracy, actually chose to re-instate the monarchy. The Germans, after having experienced freedoms previously unknown to them in the Weimar Republic, turned on their proverbial Nazi heels to reject said freedom. We have, over the last several decades, profited both culturally and economically from globalism. But now, because of cultural, political, and financial circumstances, we are reverting to a kind of chosen isolation. Unlike the isolation of old, though, we will have, all the while, full access to worldwide information. This will mean that, more and more, we will be able to observe the happenings of people outside of our tribe. Will we view them with more and more disdain, because we can no longer relate, and, because of our separation, we are able to objectify, and, therefore, de-humanize them? Or will we view them as distant cousins, seen with empathy, yet all the while being unable to really relate them? If current norms are any indication, we will see of their plight, donate to their causes, and mourn with them at a comfortable arms length, right where our computers sit. It is impossible to predict where things will be going at this point. Steve Bannon, in his 60 Minutes interview, closed with a very interesting idea: the election in 2020 WILL be about populism. It is just unknown whether it will be a populism from the Left or Right. One thing is for sure, the re-grouping of humanity is underway. I just don't know what will happen when the many different arcs have received all of their prodigal sons and they begin to close the gates.

The Beginnings

Almost as much a given as the fact that about 50% of second graders' grins in school pictures would be strangely toothless, tiny little prize fighters sans fights or other battle wounds. Almost as inevitable as our little Jack-o-Lantern grills were the trips that many of us made to the hospital to have our tonsils out. This was the 1970s, and every kid who had a cold a little too often soon found himself under the bright lights and careful hands of a small staff of angels in white. And, as is always the case, kids had their own take on the events. Most of us were not quite sure what exactly this visit would entail, to tell you the truth. Our parents were clever in holding back details of such things. We couldn't even say "tonsillectomy", after all-not just because our little brains couldn't fathom such a word, but, well, without those front teeth... Because we could not fully comprehend the meaning, that we were going to be put under, and cut open (gruesome, even as an adult thinking of it) our little brains tried to piece together the little bits of tangble information we and our friends had to offer. Because of this ramshackle way of cobbling a story into existence, "getting your tonsils out" was something that, in our child speak, ballooned quickly into an amorphous myth. This myth's Holy Grail, one which during any childhood discussion was always raised at some point, immediately trumping all other points was: "when it's over, you get to eat as much ice cream as you want." This fact, beamed triumphantly over all of us like that final scene in The Fifth Element, light poured out from this statement, ungulfing us, enlightenment itself washing away any childhood uncertainty, bringing smiles to all faces able to behold it. And the sticky facts about an "operation" were soon forgotten. I mean, that was the point, right? The deal was an adult ruse to draw our attention away from reality...to make palpable what would have had us running kicking and screaming from our mother's arms on operation day. In the childhood lexicon, "all the ice cream you want" took on an air as other-wordly as the Tooth Fairy or Santa himself. I, too, had to go under the knife. But I was never a real fan of ice cream. A foreshadowing to my present food issues, at that time in my life I loved to eat raw, cold pats of butter. Yes, raw. Just butter, straight up, nothing to lighten its load, nothing to cut its perfection. Just 100% real butter. Are you thinking ahead? Yes, your deduction skills are good. When the nurse asked me what flavor of ice cream I wanted when awakening from my, at that time, heavy anesthesia, I insisted on a bowl of butter rather than ice cream. And, yes, she brought me a big bowl of butter pats. I peeled off the cardboard bottoms and the wax paper tops and I ate every last one of them. I savored them, in fact. I guess the trend with kids these days is popsicles? That treat would have never have met the muster of a child who was to grow up starry-eyedly watching Julia Childs every Sunday afternoon. I would grow up to love butter and all that it stands for. But that is a story for another day. Yep, I ate a bowl of pure up, unadulterated butter when I was 6, after my my tonsils had been taken out. And truth is stranger than fiction.

Abstand

There is something about the German word that has cemented its way into my brain far more than "distance" ever would. Maybe it's that "ab" prefix. You are standing "off" from something, "away" from it. By standing away from it, this thing, whatever it may be, cannot touch you...physically, emotionally. If the thing were a beast, it could not bite you; if it were glowing embers, it could not burn you; if it were an horrific event, it could not make your heart bleed in desperate agony. My heart's been bleeding a lot of late. There is something about the world that makes me cry for it these days. Humanity is off its mooring. The word itself, I mean, for humanity itself seems to have become so terrible inhumane. Las Vegas was a tipping point for me, somehow. I honestly cannot tell you why. Something about it pushed me over the edge. The unrelenting, seemingly bottomless source of tears inside of myself suddenly hurt too very much and then promptly dried up. And "Abstand" started just flashing over and over in my head. You see, when you care a little too much, when you hope for people a little too sincerely, you run the risk of losing yourself. You run the risk of losing your sense of humor. Your lightness of being gets pinned down. The skip in your step only lumbers. But "Abstand" has been forming in my brain for some time, I think. It has been months since I first remember it having shown itself. Actually, I know right when it started; it was while watching a rerun. A Vulcan mentioned (in a Star Trek episode) that "the problem with humans is that they are not able to objectify other cultures, thus rendering them unable to logically analyze them without emotion." What?, I remember thinking. We had been taught while growing up to not say "oriental", for, to do so would be "objectifying" another race. It is when we objectify others, after all, that we are able to lose our connection to them. Objectification in the basis by which racism can exist. That is how we can begin to think of "us" and "them", when, in reality, it is only "we". But here, Commander Tuvok, a member of an advance alien species, was openly encouraging it. He was encouraging Abstand when analyzing other people's behaviors. I think Las Vegas was my limit. The hurt that I have accumulated from watching the unravelling of society, of the world at large really, had reached its limit and I could empathize no more. The hermit instinct in me, a protective one that I had learned early in life, came back and ushered me away. I will now simply be a spectator to humanity's descent. I will not get emotionally caught up in it. I cannot. I will live my life as though it exists outside of reality, for reality today is far too grim. I will create. I will write. I will compose. Perhaps, if I can muster it in spite of my disappointment, I will sing. But I am not of here. I am not of now. I am crossing my arms and refuse to play along. Don't worry, I won't revel in it. There won't be any buying of popcorn or enjoyment involved. But I will observe it from afar and not feel a part of it. Abstand will help me distance myself from humanity's horrible realities. With its help, perhaps I will survive the coming maelstrom which seeks to swallow all afloat.

Murderous Waiter

I'm pretty sure it's haunted. It has literally been following me for days now, and, in spite of it looking so innocent, I am pretty sure it has it in for me and will find a way to get me. Obviously it being at a distinct disadvantage in size, weight, etc., etc., it may take time for it to accomplish its task. But, believe me, it will not stop until it has eliminated me entirely and can take over my life. It first appeared to me next to the couch. It was just sitting there staring at me the entire time, looking innocent as ever. Not feeling especially neat, I brushed it aside instead of picking it up. Was that the slight? Was it that initial brusqueness on my part that turned it against me? The secret to its wiliness is that it is completely clear. It is there when you're looking straight at it, but can easily disappear into obfuscation when your focus is pulled elsewhere. That's when it lies in wait. That's when it plots against you. Soon, you will notice it somewhere completely different. I'm pretty sure I didn't put it there, so this, using pure deduction, means that it does indeed have the capacity to levitate itself–a chess peace, fully aware, moving itself on the board, being where it needs to be so as to anticipate my next move. Like a clear plastic wolf waiting in the shadows. Don't let its dainty innocence fool you. It is after me. First it gets under my skin by showing up everywhere I expect will be soft and pillowy. It would love to scratch me as I inadvertently lay my arm on it. It would love to hurt me but it can't. Like a death of a thousand cuts, it will start by just annoying me. I literally throw it on the floor the first time it attempts this psychological warfare on me. I am determined to not let it have the better of me from the very beginning. The second time, unsatisfied with my arm, it goes for my leg, seeing ahead to the moment where I will put my leg on the settee. It knows just where to be to strike. How it got there I have no idea. And that's just how it likes it, the surprise attack being its favorite kind of attack. It was when it laid its smooth, sleek body on the ground that its first attempt on my actual life was almost successful. I thought it was gone forever, pushed under the rug or the couch. I did not feel sad when I considered I may never see it again. It was then, when I was not on guard, that I stepped on it. My whole being slipped forward. I lost my balance, and careened toward the floor. I avoided a fall only by luck alone. Somehow I remained standing after having flailed about. Determined to not die like this, I picked it up and marched it to the trash. I tried to throw it away three times before actually making it into the bin. It flew away from the opening always at just the last moment. I eventually got it in, though. If it could avoid entrapment, it thought, then it could try to get me some other way on some other occasion. It is probably still thinking that now. Don't worry, it is locked away in the bin. Unless it can transform itself from round and flat to liquid, I'm pretty sure it can't escape. So, I am safe. I mean, I hope I am. I suppose if I hear some rattling in the kitchen before I go to bed, I might get scared, but, for the moment, I am fine. It does seem weird that a yoghurt that is completely encapsulated needs an extra top in addition to the foil that protects the nourishment inside. But, maybe that is its modus operandi. Maybe it manipulated some designer somewhere into making it exist. And now that it does, it wants to kill us. Yeah, I'm pretty sure its not just out to get me. It has little brothers and sisters that lie in wait for you, too. And they'll cleverly try to bring about your demise, too. Beware the yoghurt-top-assasins lying in wait in your refrigerator, my dears, for they are out to get you, whether you acknowledge them or not.

Alone

You know that scene in the Matrix, when Morpheus explains how the world came to be ruled by machines? "We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky." Great, ominous clouds cover the heavens as he says that. Yesterday, as I felt emotionally desperate, groping for a hand to steady my own, I found no one in the darkness. The clouds had covered the sky; all was dark around me; and no one else was there; no one would help. These moments of desperation, where I come to understand reality: that we are all really alone, that no one will come to rescue us in our darkest hour, that the world is full of billions of people, all clamoring to carve out their own way, selfish, disloyal...wanting to do the right thing, but bound by their own terrible humanity to survive and think of 'me' before 'you'. That is my world. That is the world. No, no, you say. Man is also the dreamer of dreams, the writer of great prose, poetry and music. Look at all we have achieved. This cannot all have sprung from selfishness. Many selfless acts were committed here. Man is capable of such greatness, enough even to wipe out his wrongs. Maybe. But all that Art and all those beautiful sentiments are of very little solace when I gasp, treading water, as my heart, inundated with feelings, begins to overflow, filling my whole being. I am drowning and there is no lifesaver to be found. Surely one of those great emblems of Man's selflessness would help about now. But, alas, the Mona Lisa does not float. But people love you, you say. Yes. This is true. But it's a fucked up kind of love isn't it? It is so very comfortable, so very distant. "I love you", they say. And then think, unable to help themselves, "When I want. When it is convenient for me. If you are diagnosed with some terrible disease, I will write you a nice card or visit you, vulnerable, half naked in your hospital room. And I will think well of you, may even say a prayer for you...in your absence." He didn't know what he had till it was taken from him. Yes, I understand. That's how we are, we humans. It is the horrible, finite nature of our minds. Our creativity, the creator of those masterworks, now unable to enlighten us with perspective. Our mind are our weakness in the end. So no one is there who will lead me to the light. As I sit there, so very disappointed in humanity and everyone who ever purported to care about me, I am so alone. I wish I could tell you what this feels like. Bu then I realize that I don't need to. We have all felt it. Some of us only in our bad dreams. Others, awake, like me. Sometimes, when asked to give money to some cause, I give much more than I should, knowing full well that I must compensate for those who, for whatever reason, will give nothing. I have been blessed; I should give back, and I do. And, in the end, I don't really ask much in return, I think. I don't reach out often in need of bolstering. I don't call friends daily to complain about my problems. For the most part, I deal with these things myself. It's those moments, though, as the clouds roll in, it is in those moments that I wish I could cash in on the good I have done. My kingdom for some comfort. Again, no one is there to unconfuse the confused. Awwwww, you say. I wish I had known. I would have given you a hug. That would have been nice, I think. Perhaps I, after being able to tell you how desperate I feel, could also have instructed you to pat me on the back gently. Now say "it will be ok" softly, please. Now give me a hug. I suppose if I had known I needed all those things, and could have articulated them all, I might have been helped. Of course, I couldn't tell you those things because I just felt confused and alone. More I didn't know. You are sick? Tell me how to care for you. Tell me how to make chicken soup. Tell me how to make a cold compress and where to put it. Tell me to cover you up in blankets and pull the shades. Tell me how to care for you. I know it's hard to speak, but you must tell me how to treat you or I won't know how. But you DO know how, don't you? Do it like your mother did it for you. Well I would, you say, but my empathy has run dry. You are not my child. Why should I love you? And now we come to the point. It is not that people don't know how to comfort me in my darkest hour. No. It is that they don't want to, unless the timing is right, unless they feel that they should and find the courage to do so. They can help me if it is convenient. The love I have to give is the kind where you don't have to get your hands dirty, they think. Easier to write a card. Cleaner, more disinfected. If I stay away from this man's sorrow, perhaps I can remain uninfected...today. I really AM alone. Dammit. Adrift in a sea of selfish assholes. And the story gets worse: I am one, too. And there we have it–the reason to believe in more than just people. The truth is: you will die alone even if someone is there holding your hand, even if your bedside is lined with people who do, in their own way, love you. You will still make the journey alone. I take great comfort knowing that there is Someone who will reach out and grab my hand in the darkness. I believe in the One who can comfort even the most un-comfortable piece of you. Only He/She/It will be there when no other on this Earth can or will. By the way, I love you. In my own way.

The Inner Struggle

In a search to understand racism and its effects upon the individual, academia has, in many ways rightly, come up with explanations as to how we are where we are in the year 2015. I have always found the idea of institutional racism, for instance, very relatable, as it helps to explain the structure that limits the possibility of advancement for some, without placing blame of individuals of our generation. We did not invent racism, after all, and did not choose to be taught the psychological constructs that are a part of us, nor have most of us ever deliberately harmed any individual in any way because of their race.

The current stream of consciousness amongst those who study racism seems to be pointing in a wholly new direction–that a series of very small slights, even sometimes themselves mere innuendos, can have a cumulative effect upon one's individual consciousness, and that, given enough time, these slights, called micro-aggressions, can bring one to a psychological breaking point. This break can be manifested in several different ways: as despair, counter-agression, apathy, etc. This theory helps to explain what has been happening on the campuses of the University of Missouri (Columbia) and Yale.

Some see the reactions of black students there as being "overly sensitive". Prof. Derald Wing Sue (Columbia University) in a recent interview on the PBS Newshour, posited, however, that the students' reactions were understandable when one takes into account that the vast majority of Blacks have experienced micro-aggressions over the span of many years.

Such a supposition, though, does make me wonder whether micro-aggressions can explain similar dilemmas seen in other communities. Is it possible that micro-aggressions have had a cumulative effect on me personally? Is it possible that a long series of slights over many years about my being gay have somehow attributed to my own feelings of apprehension? Perhaps my mistrust, too, of my fellow man can stem from an unknown cache of negative memories, a vault of every wound given me over the years by homophobic barbs willfully or unknowingly lobbed in my direction?

What I am wondering is: how far can one take the theory of micro-aggressions... Is there not a cumulative effect of micro-aggressions for my being fat? smart? strange? American? If the reactions of protesting students at Mizzou are "understandable" because of the cumulative effect of micro-aggressions, then am I also to assume that someday I may react unexpectedly when one fat joke becomes the proverbial feather that breaks the camel's back, and that my reaction, no matter how extreme is also "understandable"?

The funny thing is, I know from my own experience that it is silly to expect society to change when it comes to how people secretly feel: their prejudices, phobias, insecurities, and what have you. People have issues, to put it bluntly. I know that becoming comfortable with myself, being really grounded, and working to accept myself as I am, that all of these things were the one true antidote to the little slights of life. I can only assume, too, that the students at Mizzou, because of a very permissive society, because of feeling empowered by Black Lives Matter, because of who knows what, are seeking to change the society around them in order to no longer have to feel these micro-aggressions. Well, that is indeed idealistic. All of that effort, all of that public blood-letting, emotions boiling over...so many young people with so much rage on their faces, determined to eliminate racism at its core. I am sorry to say that their efforts are for naught.

It is only when we accept ourselves and are compassionate with other people because of their own insecurities that real progress is made. Harvey Milk was right when he said (paraphrasing), that the Gay Rights Movement can march all it wants, but the tide will truly change when people begin to come out to their families. By the same token, the subtleties of prejudice will not be eradicated by bringing about awareness of the theories of White Supremacy and Micro-aggressions.

The road to happiness is an inner one, a struggle which can only be fought by yourself, within you. My advice to them is to work on themselves as individuals, to love themselves completely no matter what their society thinks. I don't need society to tell me I'm ok even if I'm gay, fat, strange, whatever. I don't need that because I know it myself. #mizzou #blacklivesmatter