Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

My former Rector has been letting loose on his blog again, complaining about a former church member who continues negative blogging about Rick Warren "even though they left our church four months ago!" One of his responses to this is to quote again from Uncle Rick: “If you wrestle with a pig you’ll both get dirty.” A couple of months ago, this would have elicited a blistering response from yours truly. Now? A giggle and a yawn. I have said what I had to say. I am so out of there! To paraphrase Dorothy Parker: "Loving my new church is the best revenge."

I've been reading and thinking lately about eco -theology, a topic I've just become aware of, though it may have been around for years. J. and I consider ourselves environmentalists-in-the-making. We recycle everything. Last month I recycled the gas/electric bill before I paid it (this was the source of much hilarity when I had to call them up and ask for the amount due). Last year, when the plight of the honeybee was in the news, J. called our lawn-care company and had them eliminate anything non-organic from their applications to our lawn (so now we have weeds; oh well; I'm the one who wants to turn the front lawn into a meadow anyway!). But we have miles to go before we make any impact, if we ever do! So I've been reading Thomas Berry, who echoes my feeling that everything belongs, and that we and the earth and all its inhabitants are all interconnected. I could quote from every page of Evening Thoughts (but I won't, so I'll still have some friends left!). I

Sigh. After almost 4 months on this diet, I have managed to lose ..... (Drum roll, please) .... 12 pounds. OK, it's 12 pounds I didn't need. And if I stopped having a couple of glasses of wine in the evening, it would be more. Maybe. What I really want is a HUGE BOWL OF PASTA! and a WHOLE BAG OF POTATO CHIPS! But that's not happening. I shall continue with Lean Cuisine frozen dinners. My husband is enormously proud of me. Because he doesn't see me sneaking peanut butter!

Cheering for anything a typical Supreme Court does is not a normal reaction of mine, but there you go! California rocks !

I will freely admit that taking the long view is not something I'm good at. When I see an injustice, I want it fixed --- right now . And since we know God's time is not necessarily our time, I am often left waiting, with empty hands. But after finishing Bishop Gene Robinson's new book, In the Eye of the Storm , I feel a deep sense of calm and peace about the turmoil we Anglicans find ourselves in, even if I think I know what to do to fix it -- right now . The exclusion of GLBT folks may not end right now, but it will surely end. After all, we have been through this before: Our Anglican difficulties today aren't really new. They're just a new chapter in a very old conflict that started a couple of thousand years ago, and the Holy spirit has been there in the midst of every battle, large and small. People often ask me when this infighting will end. My response is always a rather pessimistic "never." Because just as soon as we make some serious progress on