Midnight Mass, thin places, and home

There are two services in the liturgical calendar that I look forward to the most: Easter Vigil and Midnight Christmas Mass. Each service celebrates the coming of light amidst darkness. Each service is a beautiful renewal: the resurrection and the birth. Each service features candlelight and incense. Each service becomes a thin place. Thin places, to me (admittedly stolen from a theologian) are moments and places where the divide between earthly and heavenly, between mortal and divine, are almost non-existent. There are a few places where I've felt the presence of the divine, and for those I am thankful.

Seeing the water and sitting on the rocks by the pier is my favorite thin place. Even in elementary school I would sit and just listen to the water hit the rocks. There was something so beautiful about those rocks that it deserved silence. It deserved reverence. I went back to those rocks this break. There is so much noise in life. These days the noise is deadlines and papers and the ups and downs of working with colleagues. These days the noise is so thick that I can't see the thin places. But then I come home. I see the sun shining on the water and the sand on the beach. I see the sunset over the bay, I drive over the marsh, and I'm greeted by my dogs. All of this reminds me where I'd like to see myself. At peace. Maybe not here on the coast, but somewhere where I can see enough beauty to remind me that I'm a part of a wild and beautiful world. 

I had a thin place in Sewanee. St. Mary's Convent had an amazing view of the plateau and at sunset, the colors would be so vivid, so warm, so perfect that I could almost see the brushstrokes of God. Whenever I felt overwhelmed I would go there. Knowing that generations of nuns and pilgrims and people seeking solace had viewed the sunset on that bluff was comforting. While I was at homecoming I regretfully did not make it to this thin place. But to be honest, all of Sewanee is a thin place for me. 

Christmas deserves to be a thin place. Amidst the hustle of last minute gift buying and grocery shopping, there are moments where things slow down. A fire in the fireplace, a family meal, decorating the Christmas tree… all of these moments remind me that one of the best gifts Christmas brings us is family. 

I hope you and yours have a holiday season of renewal and rebirth, of solace and laughter, and most of all, moments of peace. 

Easter, Resurrection, and Tuscaloosa

Last night I attended the Easter Vigil at Christ Episcopal, Tuscaloosa. The vigil is my favorite service in the liturgical year in the Episcopal Church. The service begins in candlelight as old testament readings bring us through God's saving help in the world, leading to the empty tomb and a ceremonial turning on of all the lights in the church. The smell of incense lingers in the air and finally we are able to say Alleluia! after a lent of penitence.

What strikes me the most about the vigil is the transition. To know and fully appreciate the light of the empty tomb, the service begins in darkness. I too know about the transition. Last year's Easter Vigil I was living at home and my prayers were to keep me strong to survive the last of the year of teaching 7th grade. Last year my prayers were for some sort of light, any sign of light, because the past two years prior were filled with dark and sadness. I was unsure of what my next step was going to be, I only knew it was not going to be teaching at Gulfport Central Middle School.

I was unsure about the long run. I have felt called to the ministry for so long, but it has always been a call in the distant future. "I'll fulfill my call after this..." became the mantra. I couldn't see the immediate, and the way things lined up for The University of Alabama to be my next home were too easy to look over. Do I still think about the ministry? Yes. The difference is, I've put those thoughts on the back burner for the first time since the call originated and have focused on the NOW. Sounds new-agey but that focus was/is what I need.

It might sound strange, especially given the amount of work and stress that I've had this year, but Tuscaloosa has been my resurrection. Yes, I struggle to keep up with reading and writing, but I no longer dread waking up every day and I no longer pray just for survival. Yes, there are still questions and concerns about what I am doing, but I feel I am making a difference whenever a student of mine finally 'gets it.' I feel joy when I finally break through on a paper. I'm happy in the space where I live and the people who have been brought into my life.

I can fully appreciate this opportunity and change because of the darkness I have faced. Is it perfect? Hell no. What is perfect? There are bumps and bruises and frustrations and hurdles. The difference is, I have the strength (notice I didn't say patience- working on that) to deal with it.

So this year at the Vigil, I prayed a thanksgiving, not a desperate plea.

The tomb is empty, come and see.

"Wait!"

 I was talking to a friend of mine tonight and the issue of LGBT rights came up in regards to the Episcopal Church and the approval of Same-Sex Blessings. There are dioceses such as Mississippi (where I grew up) and Alabama (where I live now) that will not allow for the liturgy approved by the national church to happen. This creates second-class Episcopalians. I am an Episcopalian who can participate in all but two sacraments in the Diocese of Mississippi: marriage and ordainment into holy orders. If I were heterosexual, these sacraments would be open to me to participate in.

This post is not going to be one where I talk about the injustice of the oppression of these rights. Yes, they are unjust. This post is to ask the question of those LGBT allies and progressives who say things will come in time, that we just have to wait for the waters to warm up to this inclusion.

The question I have to those who say 'wait' is: what makes 'wait' different than 'no'?

My academic career has been centered around race and civil rights. Studying that progression and movement definitely has some lessons for the fight for LGBT rights in this country and around the world. What came to mind specifically tonight is an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham City Jail....

 We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."


At the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the payoff of 'waiting' was that you could politically keep votes. States and citizens can support a politician who is either deliberately not taking a stance or saying the time isn't right. Stop waiting? You would lose votes. So what many politicians did was to tell King and other leaders "slow down," "wait," "these things take time." As long as they said that, they didn't have to act and thus lose votes.


This issue in the church isn't that much different. Bishops and dioceses and priests are saying "wait" and "these things take time" and "it's complicated." Are votes at stake here? No. What's at stake for dioceses and churches is very clear: people and money. Take a stance? Lose congregations and their donations. Stay on the fence and insist that you're "working things out"? People and their checks will stick around.


Now don't get me confused. When I say the dioceses and churches will lose money, I'm not talking about it the same as when Wal-Mart or Patagonia loses money. When a church or a diocese loses money and congregants, they lose the abilities to support outreach and offer support to their own churches. This, I will admit, is a good thing to fight for.


This, however, does not change the message sent to the LGBT community. "Wait" = "No."

The Civil Rights Movement, had it 'waited' would STILL not see progress today. EVEN with the measures and laws to protect African-Americans, there isn't full support. Bigotry still exists out there, racism still exists.

I've heard it said that in order to address the rights of the LGBT community, we first have to be all on board about racial rights. That "wait" is a resounding and loud "never." If we wait for everyone to 'be ok' with social change and justice, then we will wait until the world ends.


So forgive me if you tell me that you're boycotting Chick-fil-a and then in the next sentence tell me it's just not the right time for LGBT rights and I take it as an insult.

We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

A fresh new start

Anyone who has been following me for the past two years through facebook or here on my blog knows that the years 2010- beginning 2012 were not my favorite years of life.. by a long shot. Going from the disappointment of coming back from California, almost a year of unemployment and then being faced with the most challenging/horrendous job I've ever had (I don't see how ANYone can voluntarily decide to be around 7th graders)... it's been a rough ride. That's not to say that nothing good happened during that time. I was able to regroup with the people who love me giving me support, I had a great time leading the Gulf Coast EYC, I loved my home parish of St. Peter's By the Sea.... there definitely were bright spots. I did for a long time feel that I had no direction, though... that I was just merely passing time before something big came along. That something DID come along.

So here I am, in Tuscaloosa, in my very own apartment, waiting on the rest of my 36 books for two classes to come in so I can begin a doctorate program in history at The University of Alabama. I'm excited and for a good bit since I accepted the offer, I had no worries or nervousness. That's changed. The gravity of what I'm starting has hit. Whatever I write, whatever I manage to get published, in these five or six years (the longest I'll have lived in one place since my sophomore year in high school), will directly determine where I'll find a job. That's not to say I'm going to be "no-fun-pants Montgomery.." but I'm not going to repeat the approach of Sewanee.

BUT, the whole point of this blog post, besides airing my nervousness, is to simply put into words the awe that I have for this next phase of life. I'm going back to school and when I emerge, I will be Dr. Blount Montgomery and that still amazes me. I have the opportunity to really take the changes I need in my life to live better.... I can take my health more seriously, I will HAVE to take my finances more seriously. I can strive to be a better person and make great friends and put my name out there in a positive manner. I can move beyond the reruns of feeling inadequate (this feeling brought to you by teaching 7th graders for a year) and really step up my game. I've been given a fresh start and I will take full advantage of it.

I'd also like to take this time to thank y'all. If you're reading this, it's likely that you've encouraged me, let me vent to you, took me out for drinks, let me cry or just remind me that you're there for me for the past few years and I thank every single one of you. Some of you reading this might be people I met on the West Coast. Despite the circumstances of my leaving, I value my time there and all I learned in those months.


It's not too often that we're faced with an opportunity to start over in a dramatic way, but when we are faced with that opportunity, it should not be a time to shrug through, or coast on auto-pilot. It is time to step up, to speak out, and to make sure it all counts to someone, if only yourself....

'Oreos', 'Dear White People', Stereotypes, and much, much more

A friend posted this article about a film trying to get funding based on the concept of Black identity by tweets under the title 'Dear White People.' Again and again the author makes the designation that the film is under 'satire.' Because I don't want to comment on whether or not this 'satire' is truly up to snuff, I checked the world's most reliable source (Wikipedia) to refresh my definition of satire:

In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.^[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.

The trailer, found here, sums up the overall arch of the argument: Black culture in America is stereotyped and white people are the culprits and they deserve to be the victim of satire (see definition mentioning the intent to shame individuals) to prove a point.

Ok.

The article overall has some good key points, namely that mass culture responds to people based on 'personalities in a box' given to people because of race. I can only assume the author excluded gender, sexual orientation, religion, and citizen status because that would take much much longer to address. The problem of singular-minded representation in the media is not just a Black problem, it's gay, hispanic, those with mental illnesses, women, and other minorities as well. I hope the author does not assume that these other minorities and designations do not face as much abuse as the Black community does.

This quote from the article, in my opinion, does not mesh with the trailer:

The truth is, my film really isn't about "white racism" or racism at all. As I see it racism is systemic and is inherently reflected in any honest story about life as a minority in this country. What my film is about however is identity. It's about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves to truly be.


The trailer, I'm going to admit, was hard to watch. Being lumped in the group targeted for this 'satire' was offensive to me. What I fear this film (and others like it) does to our society is polarize it further along the issues of race. As a white person, I view this trailer and see how it promotes white people as stupid, racist, inconsiderate, and forever wishing to stifle and put down the advancements and developments of Black culture. I am immediately offended and, if I weren't as sensitive and educated about the issues of race and consider myself NOT a racist, I could have a knee-jerk reaction that this is just reverse-racism. One only has to look at the comments on the YouTube page to see the reverse-racism comments (and oh, they abound). I am afraid that the majority of the white community might have that knee-jerk reaction. I can only assume (and forgive me for assuming), that someone in the Black community might watch this and say, "yeah, I hate it when white people do that." Fair enough. The truth is, in this satire (at least from what I could tell in the trailer), white people are made into a singular mindset. Is this not the very thing that the film wants to speak out against?

 The film's trailer has one quote that I feel responds with the above quote. It's in minute 2:00 when a character says that there isn't just one way to being black. This quote, however, comes a minute after (see 0:57) when a younger Black student is essentially told he knows nothing about Black culture. One can only assume that this means the student is regarded as acting 'white.' I've seen this kind of comment in the classroom this past year. When a student has correct grammar and does not seek to disrupt the classroom and asks questions, (and this has happened right before my eyes) he or she is called out for 'acting white.' More specifically the student is called an 'oreo' (black on the outside, white on the inside). One day in class I took nearly half of the time to address this, standing on my soapbox and asserting that one does not 'act' a race, one acts like themselves and the traits given by societal stereotypes only limit an individual. Furthermore, by assuming that good grammar, participation in class and good behavior is 'white,' sells short the abilities and expectations for success for Black students and other racial minorities.

I can only hope that the moment in 0:57 was intended to draw light to the 'oreo' commentary to make it false. I fear it is not.

To look into matters further, I subscribed to the @DearWhitePeople twitter account. Did I find comments that said things white people did to stereotype Black people? No. I found tweets that essentially made fun of white people via stereotypes lumping all white people together. And it seemed the comments should have been further specified as Dear Economically Privileged White People.

All this being said, if the intentions of the trailer (and later on, movie) were to make people think critically, this might be obtained in a small minority of viewers. If the intentions were to paint white society as unilateral simple, racist, insensitive, and oppressive people, it has succeeded. Whether or not this specific commentary will produce the results of promoting Black culture is to be determined, but it does a really good job of turning the tables to lump all white culture into one group to be hated.

Is that the price of promoting a wide range of culture? Putting down another?

Hopefully, when this film is made, I will be proven wrong.

Poetry

In my procrastination of cleaning/packing up my room in Pass Christian, I have, of course, been reading. I'm waist-deep in a biography of William Alexander Percy that my Dad gave me a couple of weeks ago. It's the kind of writing and the kind of book that I am committing my life too- an academic contextual biography. It's both about the ways Percy had to navigate the Southern world and the entire world as a lover of beauty, poetry, and other men when the South had no room for men to love any of those things. It's wonderful. I plan on re-reading Lanterns on the Levee as soon as possible now that I know some of the context for Percy's autobiography. I had no idea, however, about his sexuality and his relationships until this biography. Another thing I did not realize was that Percy was a pretty renowned poet. A lot of his poetry is quoted in the book and it is beautiful.

But that's not entirely the inspiration for this post.

Reading about Percy's poetry has roused my memory of how I used to write poetry. As far back as the 5th grade I can recall keeping a little notebook where I would write. I kept writing quite a bit on up until my senior year of high school. I was the editor of the literary magazine for my high school and the poetry there is pretty much all that survives of my creative writing thanks to Katrina wiping out documentation of my childhood. I suppose some red snapper has snacked on my journals out there in the gulf. Once I got to college, the only poetry I would write would be for my girlfriend and even at that point I had started slacking off. By the time that relationship and my degree were over, I hadn't written anything creative (besides that poetry class I took Senior year and I apologize profusely to the fellow classmates and the professor- I didn't take it seriously and wrote some pretty awful things).

I want to write again though. Poetry is something to me that is both beautiful and frustrating. With poetry I can read the same poem 100 times and feel 100 different things. Each and every word is so calculated and inspires. Reading silently can induce one feeling, but then you read it out loud to yourself (I find myself doing this and feeling silly about it, but it's very soothing) and it seems to be an entirely different poem. I've always heard that if you want to be a writer, you must first and always be a reader. Well, I read plenty, but I can count on one hand the books of poetry I own. I think I don't own more because reading a book of poetry has no closure. You might finish the poems in the book, but that doesn't mean you have absorbed even the slightest of what that book was set out to accomplish. There will never be closure with poetry. I admire that.

I think I might try writing poetry again. It's bound to be awful and it will be hard to get back into that way of thinking and feeling on a page, but I think it'll be good. Especially with grad school coming up, life can't always be about researching history and writing for conferences and classes. There has to be a creative outlet somewhere.

I promise you this though. I will not subject you to my poetry unless I have absolutely been convinced that it is good. Or at least decent. Or that it won't induce vomiting (some of the poems I vaguely remember reading would definitely do so).

Mississippi and the lateral moves for civil rights

In case some of you don't know, I am an Episcopalian in the Mississippi Diocese. There are things that are wonderful and beautiful about this diocese. For one, it is a tight knit community. No matter where I am in the state, there is a likelihood that I know someone there who is Episcopalian and would be more than willing to help me out. We look out for one another. 


There are some things, however, that concern me. Mississippi as a whole has a reputation for being reluctant and resistant to change. While Episcopalians in this state consider themselves to be exceptions to that rule, we still succumb to that stereotype. We still confuse holding onto tradition with living out the mission to step outside of our comfort zones to fulfill the mission of Christ.

The biggest example as of late is the response made by the head of the Mississippi diocese. I am reluctant to mention this, because I consider him a friend of mine. That does not, however, excuse him.

This year at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, there will be a revolutionary bill voted on. This bill would approve of and support Same-Sex Couple Blessings of Unions. While I take issue with blessings of unions (See post New York: Civil Unions V. Marriage) I applaud and look forward to how this will all play out. 

At the annual gathering of Mississippi Episcopalians, the bishop had an opening address that mentioned this vote. This is an excerpt from that address:

 "Having said all that, it probably will surprise some of you, when I say, I have not been willing to authorize liturgical rites of blessing as part of that support. I recognize to many that this refusal appears to give lie to my professed pastoral care and concern. That perception is a burden I have chosen to bear since I became your bishop. In lighter moments, I prefer to think of myself as a walking paradox."

Full address here: Bishop's Address 

The concerning thing is that I've always thought (and maybe I am wrong and maybe I made this up) that the thing that the Bishop was waiting on to act towards full religious rights for Lesbians and Gays was official approval from the national church. So, here, with the possibility for approval, is a statement saying that not only will he not vote for it, but will not act on it if passed. The approval will be there, no doubt. 

I imagine there were diocese taking similar stances when it came to women's ordination and the ordination of African-Americans. We're not even talking ordination here. We're talking about recognizing, blessing, and celebrating loving, committed relationships. We will be found to be on the wrong side of history, again. 

This grieves me and I continue to pray for the hearts to turn towards the movement of the Holy Spirit. 

Please do not interpret this post to undermine and lash out at our diocese or the Bishop. I respect and love this diocese and our Bishop. I think that makes this hurt even more. 

I hope and pray for the best. I guess it just might take longer than I expected.