Your Podcasts Are As Icky As Aspic

Aaaaaggghhhhhhhhhh. In the ongoing theme song of the AJC, When Will They Every Learn, the online "thing" they're attempting is now offering hideous, voice recognition, robotic-sounding podcasts alongside their op/eds.

This one is mauled almost beyond recognition, which is a shame, because the editorial (in text only) is a good one. Click-2-listen only at your own peril.

As for the content of that editorial... my comments, duped over from Peachtree Screed's comments, since of course there is no commenting available (aaaggghhhhhhagain) on that op/ed, go something like this:

Episcopalianism is rampant in my family, for the ones who aren't agnostic at least, and that would be most of 'em. And while I am deeply fond of and grateful for the the liturgical and historical comforts of the Episcopal Church, I've been drawn to more, uh, down to earth modes of worship too, particularly the Baptist Church, being mostly a southerner when it comes down to it.

However, I've never been able to ever seriously consider making a break and worshipping at a Baptist Church because of, well, a lot of things, particularly their inability to separate church from partisan politics. If they could begin to do that, I'd begin to think of Southern Baptist as a viable option to (too Church of England-y) Anglicanism, which is undergoing its own severe identity crisis... but that's another topic altogether.

Besides, I've always preferred the more Baptist-like Jello congealed salads with marshmallows to those hideous tomato aspics Episcopalian church ladies are so fond of.

Buddhist In The House

Let's mix our politics with a different religion this go-round. Hank Johnson, who took over our 4th from Cynthia McKinney, is a Buddhist.

Yoweee... Georgians elected a black Buddhist! Johnson will be sworn in tomorrow. Now this is one for the record books. From a NYT blog:

Representative-elect Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat who ousted Representative Cynthia McKinney in the Democratic primary, became a Buddhist decades ago, though his family does not share that faith. A spokesperson said that Mr. Johnson plans to use a Bible, citing tradition.

Besides, there is no book in Buddhism that’s equivalent to the Bible or the Koran, said Representative-elect Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat. She said she probably would not use any book, but that in the past, when she was sworn in as lieutenant governor, she used a friend’s family Bible.

Full entry, with comments, here.

Johnson's campaign website has no mention of his Buddhism, so it's hard to say if he's a practicing one or not, but Congresspedia does. Maybe he'll give a few tips on meditation and karma to us in the Anglican community.

Don't Expect Much In The Collection Plate This Christmas

So my church is offering an Adult Education session, a Sunday school class essentially, where you sit around and talk about finding God "in the news." What made me snort out loud in the pew today while reading a description of the class in the weekly bulletin is that they are using the New York Times for the discussion, not the AJC, as they've given the class the absurd-surrealistic title of "Praying The New York Times."

What a smack to the hometown paper fer sure, considering there are assorted Cox offspring present in these particular pews on any given Sunday. Wonder for how long after that little item! Hilarious. Maybe they should try incorporating blogs instead.

Could I Be A (Closeted) Southern Baptist?

A WASPy Episcopalian nightmare I must admit. But let's not forget the pretty, sparkly Magic Dust that gets sprinkled on our heads when anyone seriously thinks about running cultists (Mormons) for positions of the highest global proportions.

In all Spacey fairness, one of my favorite families in my 'hood is Mormon. They sure don't seem cult-y, just cool and smart and sensible. Their kids are the brightest of the lot, too. I'm not going about looking at undergarments though, that's fer sure. Just don't need to go there. No one does, come to think about it.

The boys over at Political Insider have some bizarre reminders about all that Mitt stuff here.

Other news... what a priceless line from that cranky-hilarious Peachtree Screed:

The government calls it the War on Drugs because it knows Americans are attracted to the word "War" the way primitive people are drawn to shiny trinkets.

To think I have an entire closet devoted to accessories alone! Are you ready for your dose of Jesus Dust?! Can I get it in a pale dove-grey pashmina?

Gettin' Holy, Hon

A woman is now head of the Episcopal Church. 'Bout time. Now get to work, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. God is smiling on you. She told me She was very happy, excited and "keeping it real" about this latest Anglican development. And no, She didn't tell the Fundies. (They're on Her shit list fer sure.) She told me. So there. And maybe you can do something about the headgear in your 9 years as Chief? Great! Love it. Don't ever change! No, wrong message. DO change! Change everything!

The Altar of Simplicity

How will the angels hear us now? Seems Southerners are making a less joyful noise unto the Lord. With some interesting gnashing of teeth and observations, Gainesville Times columnist, Rhonda Rich, laments how we are fast losing the lyrical beauty of our unique, southern speech. And Ms. Rich places the blame right on the bland, dumbed-down heads of our megachurch-going populace.

From today's Gainesville Times.com:

What has happened here is that the Bible Belt is no longer reading the King James version of the Bible. It, with its difficulty in language, has been traded in by the majority of Southerners for simpler translations that tell stories straight out by using today's contemporary language.

These versions are bland, uninteresting but completely understandable. By moving en mass to plainer versions of the Bible, we have sacrificed our gorgeous language, laying it, without thought or concern, at the altar of simplicity.

Ms. Rich's excellent column in full here.

I'd say language erosion is not just a southern phenomenon, and that cultural homogenization via mass media has been a more significant contributing factor than the loss of the very confounding King James Bible. Social media technologies will no doubt finish-off the victim too, given that most folks under 30 don't even bother to create complex language structure at all; rather, they furiously scratch-out acronyms, symbolic grunts and grins, and rude hand gestures via text messaging. Maybe we're de-evolving back to sign language?

Then again, when I blog, even though I try to keep it as "real" as possible, I often experiment in placing interesting words in just the appropriate places, words I'd never have a chance of utilizing in everyday interaction. Blogging offers a linguistically intriguing medium, should one care to use it that way. It's a shame so many of the most popular blogs are written by technology-motivated non-writers who lack the slightest flicker of poetic sensibility, let alone basic social skills. But that's another topic altogether.

Working with words is one of the reasons I bother to blog at all. And notice the use of language on The Colbert Report, how he plays with interesting words and unusual, chiefly snarky, interpretations in The Word segment. Perhaps mass media shouldn't be written off entirely. Just rethought. After we have, of course, stormed the Media Bastille.

Still, blaming Southern Baptists and the mega-church suburbanista crowd for all our cultural woes is always a ton of fun. Let's not give it up just yet! But if you're missing religious grandiosity in your life, as well as the King James version, I suggest you get to know the Episcopal Church service and its gorgeous, ceremonious, liturgical comforts - timelessly reassuring with a full display of the traditional grandeur of the high church, uh, performance.

I know that after a really hard, hideous week in the often pointless and culturally barren urban minefields of a relentless ATL, when I walk into an All Saints' service, where majestic voices from that stunning choir and the pipes of the blaring organ literally crash into me at first note, a power-ridden divine beauty radiates from the red and gold vaults and instantly drives doubt and despair away, renewing my psyche, my actual body, with something far more substantial.

Simplicity has its place, but should never be given a cultural credit it has not earned and does not deserve.

Bubbles, Adopt Me A (Chinese) Baby Now

What does the changing face of the Episcopal church look like? Other than way-gay?

(One frumpy-grumpy old bird got up and moved to another pew the other day at my church when a group of fuming, with perfume, gay men sat down in front of her. I doubt she was a homophobe as she wouldn't be at this church if she was; rather, the stench of the Calvin Klein cologne was utterly overpowering. I had to move, too.)

Anyway, getting back to the point here, Asian girls from about 7-years old on down keep popping-up, quite literally, in every pew of the Episcopal Church. What's with the olde, reliable WASP gene? Unable to reproduce itself? Mon Dior.

Or have WASPy southern women been so busy on the partner track at Troutman and Flounders that they forgot to have children at a riper childbearing age?

I wonder how Chinese culture will blend with old money Southern WASP? Should be an interesting cultural soup. I know my twenty-something, male cousins are dating only gorgeous, razor-sharp Asian women nowadays. As the old joke goes:

Q: How are Southerners like Asians?
A: They both eat a lot of rice and worship their ancestors.

I just wonder how these women will find the relationships with their imperious, blue-blood, high-WASP grandmothers-in-law to be once they grow-up and get to the Inheriting Age? I feel I must warn any woman who might marry into a Southern WASP family not to get too upset if Tara, or the silver, doesn't pass into your hands. It rarely goes to us white women even. The silver maybe, if you learn to kiss Grand-Mere's ass real good over the course of a few decades or so.

Good luck to you all. You'll need it. In the meantime, be sure to watch the freakin' hilarious "Romanian Baby" AbFab episode. Hell, watch 'em all. We women folk sure need the laughs.

tags: AbFab, Absolutely Fabulous, Episcopal Church, Anglican Communion, Religion, Adoption, Are You More Patsy Or More Edina?

It Ain't Easy Being Southern - Part 2

Nope, it just isn't. Although being Southern can be about being easy. I love that classic joke:

Question: What's the Southern girl's mating call?
Answer: "I'm sooooo DRUNK!!!!"

See the movie Junebug and you'll know what I'm talking about. The movie is brilliant, even if you loath Outsider Art, which I happen to, but that's another blog for ya.

Come on, Grrll, I hear you say. Urbanista Southern gals don't really ponder Old South all that much? Given that we're so immersed in New South, right? Well, I wish it was that easy. I don't really like sitting around thinking about The War or Gone With The Wind or Episcopalians paying reparations for slavery.

But as I am a southerner, a movie lover and an Episcopalian, there is simply a point of inevitability, although I've yet to hang with Brad Pitt and Bono and The Archbishop. Actually, one of Ava's friends was baptized by The Archbishop Hizseff on his whirlwind drive-by of (hopefully not insignificant) southern parishes a few years back. (I wore a lovely brown velvet hat and cream colored suit, if I recall correctly.)

Bono was not with him at the time, as that was before Archbishoping duties included hanging out with rock stars to end World Suffering. And if you believe Episcopalians are going to do much of anything that involves leaving the club or the bar (see Bunny's World) then I personally have already ended World Suffering -- singlehandedly!

But then most of you don't drive along Peachtree Street, right over the very spot where Peggy Mitchell died, virtually every day. That alone is weird. Then another time, I was watching Gone With The Wind, yet again, on one of Ted's Gone With The Wind Channels, where it plays in a loop, and Ava came running in just as the Battle of Atlanta was raging on our 18" TV set.

Being fascinated by warfare, and what inquiring child wouldn't be, Ava asked, "Where did that war happen, Mommy?" I tried to be tactful, as children have little sense of "the past," and if you talk about events in history they more or less believe them to be unfolding right here and now, often lurking in a closet in their own bedroom, or under the proverbial mattress.

Still, I found myself blurting out, "Oh that? It happened right out the window, dear."

Actually, the real Battle of Atlanta site is now covered by Tattoo Target over on Moreland Avenue in Reynoldstown, near Little Five Points. Talk about a weird shopping vibe.

Harry Potter And The Pointless Driven Life

It seems English schoolchildren are being overly "excited" by former Anglican priests who are quickly asked to leave school presentations when they make statements about TV being "crap"and Harry Potter being possibly queer. That boy Harry P. was always a little odd, now wasn't he? But that's the whole point. Odd is not always the "bad news" one might be so terribly afraid of. But don't go telling any priviledged little WASPy school kids such nonsense. They might get all agitated, and thereby forced to consume an extra dose of ritalin from their pusher parents.

And whatever you do, do NOT try to engage priviledged, self-satisfied, smug lawyer-types in a conversation about the very issue that's tearing apart the Episcopal Church while you're at, of all weird things, an Episcopal retreat!

WASP lifestyle-driven yuppies just hate to be mentally agitated, guess that explains their love of drugging-up their small children. And they certainly don't like to think about much beyond the ALTA/country club box about gay rights and certain priests (their own at All Saints', for instance) who might be compelled to take a moral stand one way or the other on the issue of acceptance of homosexuality, or not, in the Anglican church and community.

At a church outing last weekend, I tried to find out about how fellow parishioners were thinking and feeling about our own priest at All Saints', Geoffrey Hoare. His deep reflections and prayer and meditations on the issue of homosexuality, in the Anglican body and in our church, are present in a blog he is keeping while on on his corporately-funded sabbatical to Africa and elsewhere.

Careful what you go looking for, Dear Readers; you might find it. Here's a sampling of the responses I was met with upon bringing up the subject:

"No, I haven't read it." (Translates to: I haven't read anything in the last ten years other than the WSJ at best.)

"What's a blog?"

"Marriage is a man marrying a woman, and that's it."

"He's vulgar (Geoffrey). He uses the "F" word all the time."

"The parish is doing just fine without him."

"He's too intellectual for me. He doesn't get through to me at all."

At that point, I (silently) suggested they all drop the "F" outta All Saints' and opt for the utmost in simplistic drivel by reading The Purpose Driven Life instead of having to deal with Sir Geoffrey's complexities and utter lack of relentlessly cutesy-cute babblings about fantastical "good news."

What a bunch of boring yuppies they were. I was appalled at the extreme lack of intellectual curiosity in just about anything, except for the small matter of me being divorced and a single mom and would thus upset the couples-only seating plan of the dining hall, as one shrieking Muggle of a soccer mom just couldn't wait to point out when I tried to sit down at her married couples-only table.

And yes, that was hurtful, and what a bellowing hag she was, that Yet Another Atlanta Lawyer's Spouse Thing I made the gross mistake of trying to engage in something resembling a conversation. The numbers just don't add up so cutesy-cute and paired-off when you're alone with your kid at a FAMILY retreat.

But let's take a moment and back away from the bitterness and see what Sir Geoffrey has to say lately about what the issue of homosexuality may or may not do for his continuing leadership (I have hope) of this one Atlanta church.

"In the meditation period I re-read Romans 1 and 2. While I have come to accept that the overriding issue of my entire life in ministry will be shaped by discussions about homosexuality, it is not the only or the most important thing to me and I'd like to be able to put it aside. This morning I allowed the faces of many of the people of All Saints' to come before me in prayer.

And here is where I am: I see nothing especially wrong and much that is more than right in the way many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters conduct their lives in the faith. I see no reason to bar any of them from the Lord's Table or from offering their gifts in ministry. I pray that our Communion does not ask me to abandon them or ask them to be less than who they find themselves to be.

The phrase that kept coming to my mind as I prayed was "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Without grandiosity or any hint of a savior complex, and with a good measure of fear and trembling, I know that I will stand with those I am called to serve and lead." I hope, --maybe in vain, but I hope that those with power in our church will find a way forward together.

I fear that there is too much hurt and anger free floating around to allow that to happen and once more our sin (the sin of all of us) will lead to an even more broken body of Christ and an even less effective mission. I have heard the argument that we should go our separate ways so that we may all focus more clearly on proclaiming the gospel.

This is dreadful theology for anyone who reads the Gospel of John in which the unity of Jesus' followers is required for the sake of the right proclamation of the good news. Arguments about who fired the first shot, started the war or chose to split the church are not helpful, nor are proposed ways forward that ask us to give up on the people we are given to love and serve. I also, in no way, ask others to stop those ministries of reaching out to people concerned about their obsessions or who experience their lives as disordered.

I hope that in time those who proclaim homosexual people to be "objectively disordered" (a la Benedict XVI) will temper their certitude and maybe do what Archbishop Williams asks, taking another look and perhaps finding things of which they may repent."

Full blog here.

And BTW, least you think me too snarly today, I met and talked and danced with some wonderfully delightful, engaging people while at the All Saints' Kanuga weekend: Keith the Mad Scientist, who likes to banter almost as much as I do; Jan The Doctor and her cheerfully shopping husband; MaryJo, a widowed mom and her sweet angel of a son. That other single mom with that amazing dancer of a three-year old who's name I can't recall right now. And always in my life, my dear kind friends and former neighbors, The Jacobs family.