My First Episcopal Funeral

I attended my first Episcopal funeral yesterday. It was for a woman who attended the service at church I attend. She was 70 though she looked younger. I didn't know her well but still found the time very sad. We recently installed a columbarium so her ashes were inurned (I think that's the term) right in front of me. To see a little gold box, it looked almost like a gift box, six by eight inches perhaps, and know that all that used to be an entire, smartly dressed every Sunday, red-headed woman with a lovely british accent is now inside that tiny container...it was chilling, frankly.

The service was so beautiful though. At the end, after the priest put that little gold box into the columbarium and tightened the screws on the face plate with a screwdriver we read the final piece of the liturgy, something like 'even at the graveside, we shout alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.' So many times I think of Christianity, church, my faith, as something which helps me now, in this life, to be a more loving person or receive desperately needed help in my relationships and my healing. Attending a liturgical funeral reminds me what my faith is finally about: 'I am resurrection and I am life.'

My EFM class is still waddling through Genesis so I haven't had a chance to read the gospels from a scholarly perspective, at least without much needed outside guidance. I can't say if the doctrine of eternal life in Christ is soundly rooted in the gospel history, but I believe it to be. It was in Paul in the 50's. It's heavy in John and I'm sure in other places in the gospel record. When looking at a little gold box too small for a single shoe, it becomes the only important tenet of my faith.

And on that faith, or my questions regarding what is surely the greatest promise which can be made to the fragile frame of mankind--you will live forever if you trust Me--EFM is helping. I'm being exposed to what most Christians would call higher criticism only from a Christian perspective. Simply put, I can read how Genesis has roots in ancient middle-eastern and Babylonian mythos, how it probably derived from multiple sources and was written by committee and these ideas make sense at least in light of what we know about history and literature. The text still retains, so far at least, its religious force; in fact that is growing for me. I simply understand it the way it is meant to be read. Initially this has been very liberating. Such a perspective leaves some very big questions unanswered, true, but it helps me more than it hurts.

Might these scholars be proved wrong, was written language actually advanced enough during Moses' lifetime that he may have written these books? On that last question, it seems unlikely, but on the larger question, yes, the textual scholars my curriculum derives from could be wrong. However, the fundamentalist method for reading scripture is surely incorrect. It is impossible not to be a cafeteria reader. These verses fit my world view, these don't, I'll stick to the former. Sure we can quote Paul in Romans about homosexuality, or in Ephesians on marriage, but what about his comments regarding head coverings for women? Women not being able to teach men because of Eve's sin? These become rabbinic, cultural, local precepts. This is only a beginning. The mental energy spent trying to support inerrancy in the face of the evidence would be better spend on acts of love; I could certainly say the same about many of my own intellectual pursuits, I know. The NT is not a new law! Unless it is read as the Great Law: isn't it in Matthew that Jesus says the law and prophets, all of scripture at his time in history, hang on two points: love of others and love of God.

I know many who read this blog, most, will disagree with my view of scripture even though my own view is still developing (and I didn't state it very clearly here). I also know I intended to write about the resurrection in this post and have drifted in my usual didactic way. Worse, I know I don't have time to go back and change it! But, for me at least, uncovering what I feel to be a rational approach to the Torah makes true religious sense. I need it. I can't spend my life defending an imperfect book and believing my faith rests on my ability to do so; plenty of inerrantists wouldn't feel that need; I would. Jesus lives outside any text. It's him I must continue to find, may God help me, find me, over and over.

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Things are feeling better at home the last couple days, thank God. If there is one thing I must learn it's relaxation. This may sound silly, but for someone with OCD relaxation is a critical key and even when I'm not actively obsessing or am obsessing only a little it's still critical. With so much on my plate this semester between work, home, and church, relaxation is more important than ever. Without it I cannot feel my life. This is a great loss. Oddly, and sadly, I notice I get as wiggly nervous in the face of strong positive feeling as strong negative feeling; both emotio sets get shut down, masked by ritual or some other bullshit rapidity.

Well friends, I have to go. Be well and Happy Halloween to all. S and I are going to a friend's party tonight and dressing up. How fun, or I hope for fun. I'm getting older. Give me a good fire, a great book, and family all home and I'm happy.