Religious illiteracy.

We've begun our academic journeying into Islam this week in my Religions and the City class, and today we had a prof from Harvard Divinity come speak with us. Dr. Ali Asani spoke with us about the insanity that comes from a nation of religiously illiterate people (like, um, Americans). We're so spooked about religion and schools that we refuse to teach people good methodologies around thinking about religions, and histories of religions (which are, actually, only histories of loci of interpretation). As a result, we get a nation of bumper stickers about hunting Osama, a nation of people who wrongly equate Islam with the "Middle East" ("middle" according to whom, exactly?), an entire city on Puget Sound that will not stop telling me, "But Christianity says that women are less than men and that abortion is wrong and gay people are going to hell." I mean, goodness. You would never tell me that "Art" or "Literature" says that "gay people are going to hell," right? I mean, some writers says that and they are wrong, but don't hold the whole damn field accountable for it, K? You don't stop reading books just because some books are bad. People who are religiously illiterate eventually resort to caricature and humiliation, and when in power, acts of dehumanization.

Another of the manifestations of religious illiteracy is the equation of religion with devotional practice. We are socialized to think about religion as churches, festivals, people praying, etc. We are taught to think of religions as individual practice, instead of a complex interweaving of economics, politics, culture, gender, text, art, literature, etc. Which, of course, they are. Yet another manifestation is the use of religion as the EXCLUSIVE lens used to explain the actions of an individual or a community. ("Well, s/he was a suicide bomber/was an abstinence "educator"/supports the State of Israel BECAUSE s/he is Muslim/Christian/Jewish." Not because they're poor or scared or living under colonial rule or entire family was killed in a genocide or their human rights are being compromised on a daily basis or or or...) This is reductionist, and it's wrong. It's particularly salient in light of the dangers faced by American Muslims in contemporary America. People are now talking about "the Muslim problem" in the same way they used to talk about "the Jewish problem."


In other news, next Thursday I am going to be in an ankle-length skirt and a headscarf at a mosque in the east 90's for the afternoon. I will then catch a cab back to school, throw on my red dress, and proceed to play a sex worker in the Union production of the Vagina Monologues. So multiculti!





And, for just a moment, I would like to formally thank you readers. This blog contains a lot of blather, and it's rather poorly written. I don't edit. I just go. I promise I do hand in real essays that are elegantly and concisely written. I just want to pour some of this out sometimes. Thanks, loves!

FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS.

This is what my books are costing this semester. Jiminy Crickets.


Can somebody call them and tell them I only make $150/week?


I have a feeling that I'm going to have to provide artifical respiration to my bank account this semester. Between doing my CPE in Seattle (paying rent in two places, here and there, and paying Swedish) and buying plane tickets, I'm going to be eating a lot of cereal and tuna fish. Well, I already eat a lot of cereal and tuna fish, but you get the point.

And, interestingly, the front page article in Episcopal Life this month was about how much debt seminarians accumulate in the process of attempting to follow a call to ordained ministry. Which I felt great about, right? Until the part about how the people trying to relieve that debt are only willing to do it if the seminarian is going to an Episcopal seminary. Apparently those of us who are trying to prepare for the ecumenical future of the church at truly excellent seminaries are not worthy of being supported financially. Puh-leeze. This is the 21st century. The studies tell us that no one is choosing a church family on the basis of denomination anymore. And, as a friend of mine at an Anglican seminary told me, "I feel like I'm being taught how to be a really good Anglican but not necessarily how to be a really good Christian." I am at Union because the academics are stellar, and because I need to learn how to make good church. I am learning how to be a good Christian and not isolate myself in an Anglican enclave. I need to learn how to speak God, not just Canterbury-ian.

And all of these things are making me more intensely Episcopalian than I've ever been: I defend and speak up for my beloved, beloved tradition all the time. So I'm not losing identity: I'm gaining it. But apparently that's not exactly worthy of support. Yeesh.

I forgot to tell you.

That last night I went with Andrew from work to St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square for the 6:00 Eucharist celebrating the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.


WOW.

There was so much incense choking the air that by the end of the 2-hour service I could barely see the altar. And it was sung! For those of you who remember my Christianities and the City course last semester, you'll recall I went one morning to a Methodist service where we sang 14 hymns in their entirety and I was about ready to bolt, screaming. Sung services are really alienating to people who don't sing. It actually felt strange to take the Eucharist because I didn't feel like I was part of the community's life and affirmation in the service! I couldn't sing it, and I felt awkward consuming something I didn't help make.

But it was quite an experience, and there was a schmancy wine-and-pate, WASP-centric recetion afterward where everyone was very nice. And it is certainly a show. I don't think I've ever - even when I was attending Catholic Mass - been to a service where the priest has his or her back to the congregation (I almost said audience). It was astonishing! But overall it was beautiful. I am going to bring my mom when she comes.


My friend Andrew was somewhat worried about me, I think, because he knows I am much less of an Anglican-ist, a traditionalist, than he is (even though I'm more of a traditionalist than most of the people I know at St. Mark's). I think he thought I would be in a tizzy about how traditional it was. And, I mean, I don't use the language they use, but they are preserving a cultural legacy, they are making something beautiful, they are preserving a part of my narrative, and for that I am truly thankful. It works for a lot of people, and I'm all about what works.

Seattle summery-ness.

I got in! To the Swedish CPE program! Whoot!

It was funny - I called Mark VERY despondent the evening of the day they told me they were going to inform me by, and was tremendously grumpy on the phone, wailing about how if they wanted me they would have calllllled already and obviously they didn't want me. He was so patient, and told me that hospitals tend to have bad administration practices, and they just didn't get around to informing me. He reminded me about all the other times I've been waiting to hear back from places (Union, the COM) and gravely sad, and how I always passed before. The very next day I e-mailed them and they e-mailed right back saying their staff person was out of town but I was in and would I accept? Yes!

So for all the Seattle readers: I will be back this summer to take the little bunnies on picnics, to eat good and proper fish, to run around Greenlake (Sarah, want to train for a 10K this summer?), to sit in the warm pretty sunshine. And I will be learning how to be broken open to God through pastoring to people in crisis. A little Holy Spirit tells me that that will be the defining part of this summer. Thanks be to God.