Married February 2, 1974
12/21/1974
9/23/2009
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Collections of Reflections/Sermons, mostly by others Collections of my own material:
'Queer Eye for the
Lectionary' Other:
My current
calendar |
--Photo by Ernest Clay
The Rubiyat of mm Lutibelle
The typing finger having hit
<return> moves on;
Nor all your groans nor careful wit
can <del> one bit.
Colleagues, it's gone.
-- Louie Crew
appeared in Hodge Podge Autumn 1996: 33.
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When I first became an Episcopalian, I was not sure that I assented to
absolutely everything, or even sure of what "absolutely everything" might mean. As a spiritual
discipline, I would say the creed soto voce so that people around me
would not be disconcerted when I left out the parts about which I was
unsure whether I assented. I was not trying to tell others what to
believe; I was working out my own salvation with diligence.
In time I found myself saying the creed voce piena and for decades now I have said all parts of the creed certain that I can pass a lie detector test. Yet, I have found it much harder to live faithfully than to assent. Now 72, forty-eight years after confirmation, I find new vexation with the creed, not doubting parts of it, but wanting to shout some parts under attack in the Anglican Communion. "I believe in the Holy Spirit!" I find myself saying louder by the Sunday. If I don't watch out, folks around me will think I have grown senile, or have forgotten that in Eucharist the Creed is corporate worship, not one individual before a jury in a witness stand. Nevertheless, I find it a struggle not to shout. "I believe in the Holy Spirit"! The Holy Spirit is (not 'was') the Lord and giver of life. The Holy Spirit "proceeds from the father..." "The verbs are in the present tense!" I want to shout' "God is alive!" Even the creed says we're not stuck with God only as understood by those who wrote the creed. God not only must be allowed to do new things; God won't be a living God if God does not do new things. For several weeks now, one of my closest friends, and one of the brightest persons on the planet, has been sending me messages already sent to me last year or two years ago or two weeks ago with no rime or reason for sending them again. I replied asking why, and he responded that his memory gets fuzzy. Mine does too. I called a colleague where he lives, and the colleague confirmed that our friend is slipping into dementia. Every Wednesday afternoon and all day on Saturday Dad would head to a lake with his small boat and electric motor to go fishing. While growing up, I spent every weekend of the summer with him camping in a national forest. Decades later, five years before his death, he had a series of horrendous physical failures -- a wicked, unrelenting case of shingles, return of ulcers which had attacked him in high school, surgery that removed three-quarters of his stomach... Even at his best, he was not able to walk more than a few yards, and that only with assistance. And he cut himself off from much that he could have still experienced. For example, he would not let me take him for a ride anywhere, not even to the national forest rich with so many shared memories. "He's not the same father any more," I wept as I reported to Ernest about my visits. "He does not want even to visit the things he has always liked!" "Louie," Ernest, not an only child like me, patiently explained, "he is the same father. It's you who are trying to keep him trapped in one time or one place. Your Dad deserves your love of him as he is, not just as he was." Later I tried to say the same thing to a student in Hong Kong who needed to hear it:
I believe in the Communion of Saints!" I have seen it happen! |
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Not That Kind of Christian!!, an 80-minute documentary film, premiered at the Breckenridge Film Festival in Colorado on June 9, 2007 and was featured in the Montreal Film Festival in August. "This documentary explores queer Christians' struggle for acceptance in the Episcopal Church, the schism\235 their activism threatens to bring to worldwide Anglicanism, and the ways in which activists such as these shape our personal liberties at the highest institutional levels. While the film celebrates the achievements made by queer Anglicans as they transform an oppressive Christian tradition into a modern force of liberation, it doesn't excuse the prejudices and abuses of organized religion. continued....." (Posted May 3, 2007) |
| Ubi caritas et amor, deus ibi est. |
Pervasive Misunderstandings of the Bible |
From Theme and VariationsII. Robert Evans searched the night for supernovas for sixteen years, finding a blink in the sky about every six months. \223There\222s something satisfying, I think,\224 he said, \223about the idea of light traveling for millions of years through space and just at the right moment as it reaches Earth, someone looks at the right bit of sky and sees it. It just seems right that an event of that magnitude should be witnessed.\224 Despite similar odds, we find our right husbands. Our children are born healthy. We make it home from work.> We create a world, but \226 knock wood -- get to keep it only if we love it.
--© 2007 by Tina Kelley |
Tectonics
and deep, deep, deep in the earth rocks flow like water in unimaginable heat that changes their very nature their molecular structure. Below our feet. Below our bended knees. One weakness in the crust, the thin veil of solidity, the illusion of soil and rock. There is heat, flow, currents of magnetism, pulses of energy, while we sleep and dream. One weakness in the crust, one fold, one slip, one fault, and all that is solid melts into itself, consumed by fire. What world is this? Made by what God, in what kind of heaven enthroned? The pulses stir, turn, twist on themselves; seek weakness, meet resistance, move on.
--© 2005 by Jan Nunley+
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"I asked Aaron Henry, long-time Mississippi civil rights activist,
whether the church had been a light during the struggle for
justice... `The church a light?' he said, and paused for a long
beat to fix me with a stare from his bulging, famously jaundiced
eyes and then answered: `Yeah, a tail light.'
--Kevin Jones |
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"Finally, though I have
had
to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly
can that the center of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that
Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins
of
the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins."
--C.S.Lewis "Isn't it ironic that sex should be the reason for a split. No group will yell: `We are not in communion with you because you were largely silent in the Enron scandal.' `You did not even decry the loss of retirement by widows and the poor.' `You did not object as people were defrauded by excessive, artificially created electric bills.' `We insist on alternate oversight by a bishop concerned with the issues Jesus was concerned about.'"
--John S. Morgan |
 Click to enlarge |
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There's a difference between (a) making Jesus the center of one's life, and (b) deluding
onself that Jesus endorsed living in the mushy center.
I don't recall Jesus passing the buck, rolling His eyes toward heaven and singing "Over the Rainbow." To avoid offending anyone or roiling the waters, He would have allowed the "adulteress" to be stoned, left the lame/halt/lepers/demon-possessed to their fate, and just puttered about Nazareth safely, for the sake of Jewish Unity. Perhaps his mother, being a Mom, would have been happier. But we wouldn't have a Faith to argue about.
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| I am grateful that God didn't wait for the world to come to theological consensus about incarnation prior to Mary's pregnancy. -- The Rev. Ed Bacon, All Saints, Pasadena, CA |
| Holy God, you promised Abraham and Sarah that you would bless them so that their descendants would be a blessing to all humankind. As Jacob wrestled with you throughout the night, refusing to let you go until you blessed him, grant each of us the courage to claim your blessing as our baptismal birthright. Open the ears of our bishops and General Convention deputies so that we can hear what your Holy Spirit is saying to the church. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen -- By John C. Bradley |
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God loves absolutely everybody!
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor Archbishops,
nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate lesbigays,
or anyone else,
from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Have the courage to be joyous!
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Ernest & Louie Clay-Crew, 2004 & 1974 |
Please sign
the guestbook and view it.
Enjoy! -- Louie Crew
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