Now announcing....

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently. Life has been chaotic. Possibly more on that later, but for now....
I'd like to announce my official Candidacy for the Priesthood in 2008/2009! It's official! I will, of course, be running on a solidly Democratic/Socialist/verging-into-Communist-without-the-strident-atheism-since-I'm-pretty-sold-on-the-whole-God-thing platform, and I would, as always appreciate your full support in the continuing campaign, since your help has been so important to me thus far. Financial contributions, especially, can be sent to my NYC address and are tax-deductible! :)
Yes, dear friends, the COM has decided that I can continue on to the next phase in this delightful Process of Ordination and become a Candidate. So now, I no longer can introduce myself like Maria von Trapp; I have a Hilary/Obama thing happening: "I'm Megan, Candidate for Holy Orders, and how are you?"
The interview actually was fun. And I can hardly believe I'm saying that. Considering that I can hardly remember the postulancy interview because I was so terrified, and everyone was so panicked because there was a rather large episcopal coup d'etat in the works, this was fabulous. The committee, many of whom are new to me in the last 2 years, were great, and really supportive, and had read my file, and LAUGHED AT MY JOKES. Even the bishop.
Note please that this last part is huge. Hence the caps. The LAUGHING AT MY JOKES. In case you haven't noticed, I tend to lean on sarcasm a great deal, possibly as a coping mechanism, but also just to give my mind something to do so it doesn't fall asleep. (other people enjoy sodoku? I've heard this.) The more I panic, the more coffee I consume, the worse it tends to get, and occasionally innocent people are frightened. (Ahem. Ethics Prof. Ahem.) I used to censor it out, but CPE did a number on my brain filter, and it hasn't been the same. The end result is that I said many many things in the Candidacy hearing that I NEVER would have said at Postulancy. I compared CPE to a heinous Bat Mitzvah but without the Hebrew. I said that I strongly suspected Jesus might live 24/7 at the soup kitchen where I worked. As I kept talking, I kept thinking that it was entirely possible that I was getting myself into really deep trouble. (You aren't supposed to say that a surprising number of well-educated people are insane, are you?) But I have to say that it was fun. And my moment of vindication came when one member of the committee asked me if I thought I was witty. I was completely confused, but he was laughing, and he said that he thought I was hilarious, and that this was the most enjoyable interview he'd had all day. I pointed out that I wasn't doing it on purpose, and he was perhaps confusing wit with a defense mechanism? But he thought that was funny too. Clearly, his PT training was lacking. (poor man.)
Anyway, I'm a candidate now. And apparently, a humorous one. Though my family didn't believe me when I told them that story. They do not believe me to be a funny person, or skilled in joke-telling at all. Sigh. Ah well, we shall write this up as another triumph of the Bow-Tie Club. Rock on, Sheep!

Jerry Falwell...he dead.

I found out in the library this afternoon. I felt a surge of triumphalism, then a surge of guilt...probably just as Falwell himself would have wanted.
Truthfully, though, there's not a whole lot to say. This was a man who built his life (and a whole lot of other things) on an absolute, unwavering sense of who was right and who was wrong. Who was loved, and who wasn't. Who was safe and who was damned. Now, he gets to roll for all the marbles, and find out how much bigger everything actually was.
There's an old story about a man who dies and goes to heaven. He meets St. Peter who gives him the tour.
First, they come to a group of people dancing in the streets, having a great time, making a ton of noise. "Who are these crazy fools?" asks the man. St. Peter replies, "These are the Hindus. They like their festivals."
Then they come to a group of people around a huge table, in the middle of a huge feast, laughing up a storm. "And these people?" asks the man. "Ah, these are the Episcopalians. They get really into their group meals."
Then, after seeing every group under the sun, all having a blast, they come to a huge brick wall, soaring up into the sky, stretching as far as the eye can see into the distance. "What in the world is this?" asks the man, bewildered.
"SHHHHHH!" said St. Peter. "These are the fundamentalists! Poor things. They don't realize anyone else is here. They haven't come outside yet.
Don't spoil it for them."

Megan Make Fire!

Yesterday, I got to do something new and exciting in my life.
What was it, you anxiously inquire?
I GOT TO MAKE FIRE!!!!
Yes indeedy, one of the added bonuses of Episcopal worship is flaming things! [insert poor joke here.] These include thuribles!
See? It is, as I called it in my youth, a Swinging, Smoking Smelling thing. They are used most frequently in the more Orthodox churches (i.e. liturgically-inclined) to symbolize prayers rising to God, as in Psalm 134, and to sacralize certain spaces and things. It's an idea seen in other religious traditions as well; like Native American sage-burning or smudging, Chinese practices around ancestors, various Hindu traditions, etc. Old idea, different twist. Burn smoke, and set whatever it is apart, because intentionally lighting something on fire, and inhaling smoke is not something humans generally are inclined to do. Normally we avoid it like the plague.
As I have a horrid phobia of fire, this was actually not a pain-free experience for me. The closest I had ever gotten to one of these things was as an 8-year old boat bearer. Back then, my job was to trail obediently behind the thurifer, inhale large amounts of the incense, and pray that he or she would not get careless and whack me with it, or set me alight.
On Sunday, I showed up early, so I could be trained. My teacher was excellent, possibly the best teacher anyone could ever EVER have--he's a former RC monk, and extremely patient, and he's been smoke-slinging for years. The great secret is to use the wrist. It's all in the wrist. If you are waving your arm all around, you look like you're having a seizure, the Lamb is slain anew, and you're more likely to set a congregant on fire during the gospel procession. (my inference from his teaching.) In this way, the thurible is much like a giant yo-yo. Only super hot. And on fire. So don't fear the fire-pot, with its smelling, its smoking, the gunpowder-laced charcoal, and the incense gluing the whole damn thing together so as to make it nearly impossible to open--rather, give it the respect it deserves. But enjoy it. How many other traditions get to light crap on fire at every worship gathering and send the local fire chief into a panic?

I didn't want to have to do this....

Ok. All together now. Line up. Be quiet. Listen up!
For the last time.
I didn't want to have to do this. I put it off for as long as I thought I could, hoping it would go away. But alas, no. Yesterday, we hit double-digits of people asking me about this, and so I've decided to address it.
Yes. Jim McGreevy is coming to my seminary in the fall as a M.Div student. Yes, he has started the process to be ordained. Meaning that: in the Episcopal Church, you have to go through a process. It is long, arduous and much like Army boot camp, only minus all the physical weapons. (We use mental, emotional and spiritual ones.) My process, to be approved to start on the road to possibly, maybe, be one day a priest was 3 years long. That was before seminary. It involved a semester-long internship, 8 weeks of psychological evaluation, background checks, sex-abuse prevention training, anti-racism training, and lots and LOTS of meetings. Discernment committees of various kinds, Commission on Ministry meetings, vestry interviews, discernment with your rector, discernment to the point where you hate the word and your eyes glaze over. It is long. It is thorough. The Episcopal Church has the longest process by canon of any Protestant Church in existence (though I'm pretty sure the Methodists are right up there as well.)
For most people, this happens before seminary, and is a pre-requisite. What it seems like is happening with this guy (and I don't know for sure, so DON'T QUOTE ME) is that he is doing the process while in seminary. This is not unusual. Your bishop can request this for you, and many people do this. If you go to a non-Episcopal seminary, it's not weird at all. For example, all the sweet, slightly wacky and non-decisive people at Union tend to do this a lot. So if it turns out, during the discernment process that you actually are called to something else, you still have a theology degree to show for it. Bonus! Extra masters degree to show for the insane amount of time you just invested!
And what do I think?
My immediate thought is that I don't have one. I wish I had found out another way, other than discovering news trucks outside my front building and watching a live broadcast, then having to answer questions, and read the front page of the NY Post with a photo-shopped image. But that's pretty minor, all things considered. Crazy-ass things happen on the Close all the time. Today, we have an Aeropostale photoshoot here, so I'm stepping over bored models all day. That trumps news vans as an annoyance.
My second thought is that really? We all have stuff. Granted, not all of us have hugely public cover-of-NY-Post level stuff, but we do, in fact, all have stuff. If you listed the damage that everyone else that I go to seminary with in a newspaper has done, including myself, I guarantee you it would sell. If you listed the damage anyone of us does from day to day, all the small stuff, it'd be amazing. But the point is, we try to do better, and at least we cop to it. We sit around, we hash it out, and we stick together until we've gotten it fixed.
So points in the favor of this guy for copping to everything. If he continues in this way, he should do okay around here.

The positive stuff

So I'm almost done with classes for this year, which is a good thing, considering that this year has pretty much sapped my Will to Live. Whoot.
I'm almost done with this 12 page Church history paper, chronicling the creation of my diocese, in which I discover that Nothing Ever Changes. Bruton Parish requested for 2 years straight to leave Southern Virginia -by themselves!- and return to the Diocese of Virginia, on the basis of the facts that "all our associations, as well as the ties of blood, connect us with the residents of the old Diocese, as the Episcopal population moving from this section emigrated nearly always to that portion of our state north of the James River, and they have left to our care the graves of their ancestors, and we do not think that any artificial lines should interfere with these old associations and memories."
Wow. so all those times someone at Bruton started to talk to me about the sanctity about the graveyard, and the possibility of the bones of someone from the 18th century rising up to smite me, I suppose they weren't kidding. Behold! There is a venerable tradition of fearing those damn graves!
Also, I have pictures of my glorious finished socks!!!! Check it out:

Aren't they gorgeous? You can't really see the lace pattern from the flash, but trust me. The beauty is there. and I made them with my own hands, which is the best part.
Now I'm making my mother a pair from this cool blue and white yarn that apparently contains crab shells? Tofutsies--yet it is kinda stretchy, and soft, and smooth, and fun. only it smells a little odd. Hopefully they'll be done before her birthday/Mother's day. Luck to me!!!!