Hills and Valleys

For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. ~Baruch 5:1-9

Building roads is hard work.  Building roads over valleys and hills and mountains is harder.    You have to blow up that mountain, level that hill, and make a raised highway through that valley.   It's hard work.  In the old days, it was dangerous work as well.  Before explosives, it was so hard that God had to do it because we couldn't.

Bringing the mountains low is not an easy thing to do.   Neither is crossing a mountain without it having been made low.   I'm a little strange in that I believe that when Jesus said the time is coming and is now here when the Kingdom of God shall appear on the earth, he didn't mean blow the whole thing up and start over.  I think he meant right here, right now, usher in the kingdom of God.   We have to get ready to be able to do it, that's what Church is for, and we have to do it in the world in which we live right now because that's the Gospel.

It's actually happening.

 Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"  

 And the harbinger's mother is old and barren when she becomes pregnant, and meets her young cousin, the Messiah's mother, who starts talking about her unborn child.   

He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

I'm pretty sure this is class warfare.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

Yep.

    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

In plain English (translated from Aramaic to Greek to plain English)

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

This is the Kingdom of God.  It works better if we all work together to fill the hungry with good things, so the rich don't necessarily have to go away empty, but that doesn't always work out.  Right here, right now, this is actually happening... so we should do what we're told and get to it.  God is going to make this happen... and he's doing it, right now, through us. 

Rock Paper Scissors

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income." 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.'

I found myself telling my coworker the other day that I was awesome.    I had a customer call the office about a house he was buying that day that he thought he'd already gotten insurance on.  He hadn't.  We didn't even know he was buying a house.   Fifteen minutes later, he had insurance, the bank had a binder, and, from what I heard, his closing went smoothly.    That morning, I was pretty awesome at my job.   Several days later, however, in a moment of complete and total idiocy, I did rock, paper, scissor (No lizard or Spock) to see who would take the phone customer and who would take the one in the lobby at (not with) a coworker.   Naturally, instead of seeing through this moment of total insanity to my good-natured awesomeness, our customer took offense and left.   Even revved the engine on his truck.   He came back, and told the personal lines manager (that person I had informed of my awesomeness not too long before) what had happened.  

I have a thousand excuses for that situation.   The only one that makes any sense at all being that it was the stupidest thing I've done in a long time.  Oh, I was overwhelmed and exasperated and trying to figure out how we were going to do everything all at once and I was at that point where you can either laugh or cry, but that guy did not deserve that.  

Would I have walked out in that situation?  Probably not, I probably would have laughed my butt off.   I'm a little different, though, as we have already established, and not at all normal.   I also found myself making excuses.  He was high strung.  The receptionist made it worse.  The customer had terrible timing.   Just about everything but I was having one of the most unprofessional moments of my adult life. 

I imagine the pharisee in the parable was having the same kind of day.   He found himself at the temple and instead of coming up with something meaningful to say to God he started declaring his own...awesomeness.   "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."  How precious!  If you never do anything wrong, why do you fast twice a week?  We're all suspicious of this guy having a body in his basement or the first century equivalent of a tax shelter in a Swiss bank account but he probably wasn't anything more evil than the rest of us.    Probably doing his best, coming along nicely even, and then he gets a little too confident.   Doesn't even realize that if it wasn't for the grace of God and even a little help from other people that he might have been a thief, a rogue or a tax collector. 

Then he prays to God about how grateful he is that he's not somebody else.  He plays rock paper scissors in the temple.  He does something really really stupid.   We need to slow down sometimes when we get good at our jobs, or start doing really well, or get comfortable in the way we approach worship and shake things up a bit.  Evaluate why we're doing well, why we're getting good at our jobs, and realize it's not because other people are losers and we're winners.   It's not even because God likes us and not someone else. Not at all.

I don't really have much of a point past that.   I don't know why some people win and some people lose.  I know the reason I'm good at my job---which I'm not doing incredibly stupid things---is because I've been fortunate enough to have good bosses who helped me learn to care about what I'm doing by making me realize that it does matter.  It mattered when I was clearing dishes from tables at the Sage Room at age 17 and it mattered when I was working at McDonald's in college.  What we does matter, whether it's big or small.   I didn't learn that on my own.  I had good people showing me how the smallest thing can turn someone's day around ---for good or ill--- and that anything from taking out the garbage to writing an insurance policy can done for the glory of God for the sake of the Kingdom.

Even if sometimes we talk to ourselves more than God in our prayers.

Prepare the way

I was not ready for Advent this year.   My stuff wasn't out of the attic, I didn't have any candles, and the worst part--I was just not in the mood.  I wasn't in the mood for blasting the word REJOICE across the church every Sunday, not in the mood for Rite I, and I didn't have a clue what to get everybody for Christmas.  

Prepare the way of the Lord indeed.  

For some reason, Advent happened anyway.   The wreath went up in the church, the candles were purchased, I even procured a new "Advent Bush" that could withstand the ravages of my puppy by living on a table top.  Rite I happened in church, and we belted those rejoices again like we do every year.   Voices are missing and they are being missed, but Advent is happening anyway.  

Life is hard sometimes.  Preparing for Christmas, and by way of that preparing to usher in the Kingdom of God, isn't all chocolates behind numbered windows in an advent calender and haunting ancient hymns.  It's getting up every morning in December, whether you want to or not, and saying "even so, come Lord Jesus" again. 

Mary knew this.  (We haven't even gotten to her in the readings yet.  I think this coming Sunday we get to hear about John the Baptist.)   Mary had her life disrupted by an archangel who appeared ill advised on mechanics of human biology.    I have my days when I think she must have been a little bit psychic because she was faced with an angel of the Lord telling her she's going to bear a son, the Messiah even, and she has the big brass lady balls to tell him that she can't be pregnant because she's a virgin.   It's the holy version of staring down your doctor when they ask suspiciously when your last period was and telling them you have to be exposed to be in that condition.   So either they'd chatted before, or the Lady was totally and utterly caught off guard to the point of reacting to this news with exasperated unbelief.

I LOVE this about her, by the way.   Very young, vulnerable, about to be exposed to a series of life threatening social situations that probably shamed her to her very core despite none of it being what people thought, and she's making sure the archangel Gabriel understands how these things happen.

Life is hard sometimes.   Life is hard but God makes beauty from ashes. 

Even so, come... 

A heart of flesh

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.Ezekiel 36:26

I saw a post from a new friend of mine today on facebook that made me think about what my life was like before I was baptized.   I was a teenager.  (that sucked)  I had been a solitary practitioner of Christianity for about five years at the time and being baptized was the first step in learning how to be part of a community vs pretending to fit in just to blend in.   I should explain that I was there at the church in the first place because a friend of mine had threatened to pick me up in my pajamas if I didn't show up on my own.  I should also probably explain that I had started serving as an acolyte before I was baptized because the interim priest had no idea I came from an unchurched background and didn't think to ask.   I should also probably explain that by the time Jerry Rankin brought it to my attention that I needed to do this I'd been taking communion for months.  

And upon finding out I hadn't been baptized, that I wasn't actually Patty's kid (my friend's mother who is now my friend too), and that my parents were not members of the church, Fr. Jerry asked me to do something I found rather unpleasant.   He asked me to get their permission to be baptized, either there or somewhere else, and to abstain from serving at the alter and taking communion until I did so.   I didn't know it then, but that was the first thing in a long list of things that I would find unpleasant but see the value in during my life as a Christian.

I conned my parents into it rather easily.   They were, at first horrified I wasn't going to be immersed, and suggested I go to their church.  I countered that they didn't have one.  I told them I would go with them on Wednesday nights after they picked one out provided they came with me on Sunday morning.   I never set foot in "their" church.  They ended up liking Fr. Jerry and my mother got baptized with me.   It was about three months between the time I got found out and the time I was baptized.   I found the whole process rather strange.  I didn't feel like it was a big deal while it was actually happening.   It was anticlimactic   Church often is.  I was nervous the night before, I felt like someone who had waited too long to marry their boyfriend.  Snicker all you want---but I had been a believer for years and years--I had a healthy spiritual life.   I loved Christ and I knew that he loved me.    I didn't need that priest to tell me how to pray, or so I thought, because I already knew.  Jesus and I were tight.  We are tight.  I didn't know back then how much I needed the beloved community.

I was sixteen years old.   I had taken a class before the event.  I had been a believer for five years.   I also had no idea what I was getting into.  I don't think anyone does.   The Episcopal Church may not have introduced me to God, God did that on his own in a very real and tangible way years before, but the Episcopal Church taught me how to love him.   I learned, through liturgy, how to put prayer into my every day life.  Not just rambling on and on like a schizophrenic (who knows?) to the Almighty but how to actually pray.  To the point where those prayers and creeds and songs are probably going to be the last thing to leave if I lose my crackers.    I learned, from relationship with other people, just how wide a circle God's love draws around the human race.  How much God loves everything he has made and has pronounced it good because of the lovely horrible wonderful awful group of people called The Church.

I'm not the first person who experienced something like this.   It came up in the gospels today

.   Mark 10:35 (NRSV) James and John, the sons of Zeb'edee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36 And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37 And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39 They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

I don't think that conversation turned out exactly as they had planned.   I thought I was joining a church, I was joining the Body of Christ. I thought I was going to finished after I did this.   This is it, right?  You get doused with water, make a few vows, and it's over, done, you're good, you're perfect, you're fit for heaven and you've got a ticket to ride the train to glory, right?  Wrong.   This is the beginning, it's hard work, it'll cost you tears, and fears, and change your life in ways you don't care for at the time.  It will bring people into your life that you're afraid to associate it with.  It will bring people into your life you would have never have had the clout to associate with.  It will make you laugh, make you cry, make you tremble inside, make you do things you didn't know you could do and most of all, most of all, it make you more you.   Who would James and John have been if they hadn't met a certain wandering Rabbi and kept following him?  Who would we be if they hadn't had the big brass ones to ask the question they asked?    Who indeed?

It isn't something to be entered into lightly.   Think about it, long and hard, but know that you don't know what you're getting into.  You don't know.  Six months old or sixty, you don't know.   That's okay.   We'll be there for you.

Without dragging

It's that time of year again.   First choir practice of the 'year' tonight, which included the obligatory selections from the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal for our annual 1893 Heritage Sunday Church Service.  In my wayward youth, I called it Hokey Hymn and Cowboy Boot Sunday, but I've since learned that 1) Some people like Hokey Hymns , 2) I like saying the words "He will come again to judge the quick and the dead" aloud in an acoustically interesting room and 3) Singing in that church is fun because the sound bounces off the walls like crazy and I'm easily amused.  

Speaking of being easily amused, the paper version has something Oremus.org left out:  HILARIOUS instructions:

This one tells the congregation to be sure and sing it "Without dragging".    The category is a little bit un-ecclesiastical too: "Need".   It gets better as you flip through, I just don't have it in front of me.  My father (A backslidden baptist turned lapsed Episcopalian/Baptist whatchamacallit) says it's because they knew who they were dealing with.  Indeed.  Any "piskie" who sings loud enough to be heard without it being offensive gets drafted into the choir.  I don't read music and I'm currently 1/3 of our soprano section.    He went on to say that if we could sing we would be Lutherans.

Not to sure about that....

In fairness to our people we rather frequently put songs in our hymnal that one has to either learn by repetition over many years or be a musician to sing.   Also, some of them are just plain hideous.

Don't look at me like that.   You all have a hymn you hate.

You just don't want to admit it because it's a hymn.

Good Fruit

I'm a week or two late on this.   Please don't hate me.  Recently, I barely suppressed squealing in church.  Yes, the woman who doesn't like to clap in rhythm during 'gospel' pieces for choir nearly burst out with a YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS  when she found out her bishop voted to approve a resolution proposing tentative rites for a same gender blessing for the Episcopal Church.   I stifled myself and settled for grinning like my dog when he's just discovered how to open the lid on a trash can filled with things I would prefer he not chew on.

I am reminded of the last time something like this happened in my church.  I'm sure that was worse than this is going to be.  I say that because I figure there can't possibly be anyone who is more offended by a rite for sex couples than the people who were so freaked out by a gay bishop in New Hampshire that they created a splitter denomination.   I can't imagine it.  I hope I don't have to.  Just in case it turns out I do, can everyone who appreciates Bishop Ed doing this click on his name and send him an email telling him so?    The news lightened my load considerably and gave me hope that this good news wasn't going to turn into a diocese wide fiasco.

Good things are hard to do sometimes.  People don't like change.   Episcopalians in particular do not like change.  You should hear what people say when we use other-than-what-we-always-use service music.  I can't sing it, I don't know it, it sounds like a bunch of seagulls screeching in there and did we mention it's different and we actually have to pay attention??    We've always done it this way.   We've always handling homosexuals by winking, nodding, and pretending they aren't there.  We don't want to actually talk about it because then I'll have to confront my feelings on the subject.

I think that's the biggest problem we had when Gene Robinson was approved as the bishop of New Hampshire.   People were forced to confront how they felt about homosexuality because it made the news.  Fox News, in particular, made it sound like we had just approved the ordination of a dirty, overly handsy, parishioner molester priest to the bishopric.   I heard the inside story:  That was only inappropriate touching if the priest is gay.  If that were inappropriate touching the rest of the time, I've been molested by an army of filthy dirty priests and and didn't even realize it.   I suppose if I think back very carefully, a handful of them *might* be gay and I just wasn't paying attention.  People were responding to the words Episcopal Church with:  The gay church?  

Never mind that we had two token gay people in our congregation at the time and even though we were small, we didn't even have 10% of our congregation made up of homosexuals, we were the "gay church".  By this point in my life, I wasn't offended by this except by the inaccuracy of the statement.   My best friend isn't straight.   Many of my college friends were gay.   Gay, and faithful Christians.   I made a snide remark about only having two and answered the question with a yes.  

I heard from other people that it was embarrassing.  That they didn't know what to say when their business associates asked about it.  They didn't know what to say?   I suppose the words "Yes, that's my church and I didn't much like the decision but New Hampshire wanted him as their bishop and General Convention decided to give their consent." never popped into their minds.    They had to confront their own feelings about something that happened in their denomination, and they didn't like it.  We all had to think about what we believe.

I have been in their shoes more than once.   I grew up being taught (though no one much dwelt on the subject) that homosexuality was wrong.  I didn't know why, except that the Bible supposedly said so.   God, finding my intolerance obnoxious I suppose, decided to show me otherwise.   I was confronted, repeatedly, with good fruit from supposedly bad trees.   I saw the Holy Spirit working through gay men.   I saw it and I felt it.  I had spent enough time with the Pentecostal types to recognize it.  I wasn't stupid.  I knew what I was seeing.  I was being confronted almost daily with good fruit from people who were supposedly living in sin.   People who were supposed to be intrinsically disordered to borrow a phrase from the Roman Catholic Church, and doing God's good work here on earth.    It didn't make sense.  Especially since Jesus was the one who put that phrase into my vocabulary:

Luke 6:43“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. 44“For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 45“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.

The passage drives it home.  They wouldn't be doing these good things if they were bad guys.  I had to figure  this out.  These men weren't struggling with their sexuality.  They weren't fighting the evil inside to keep from being attracted to other men anymore than I was fighting my own attraction to men.  They weren't good trees fighting off a case of blight and producing fruit in spite of it.  They were good, spiritual fruit producing fruits.


It took me a while to get it but I did.  It wasn't easy.  I didn't like it much.  God won out.  I finally figured out that my feelings, about other woman hitting on me, were misplaced.  No, I didn't understand, but I'm not gay.  I'm not supposed to.  I don't have to.  A friend of mine once told me a fellow parishioner told him that what goes on in his bedroom makes her sick and my response that he should asked her who in the church she enjoyed fantasizing about.   I don't know about her, but I don't go to church to think about sex, and I laugh a little when it comes up because it makes me a little uncomfortable, but here's the thing:  Every single time someone gets married in church, we're bringing God into our sex lives.   Every single time.  Sex is part of who we are.  It's part of that nominally uncomfortable metaphor of the Church being the Bride of Christ.  It shows up in the nativity story when Luke points out that Mary and Joseph weren't living together when she became pregnant.   It's there.  The assumption that there was sex when there wasn't gets made an issue.  Your body is a temple, according to Paul, and a person should be careful what one does in a temple.  How one does it to be specific and with whom.  


So it makes sense that when homosexual people set out to create their own families with their partners they want the Church's blessing.  They want an outward and visible sign of what God has already down in their lives and this is a good thing.   It's a door opening.   It's a way for aunties (me) and mothers and fathers to have something to tell their kids to cool it and wait for something more special and permanent.   This is a good thing. 


A very good thing.  Yes, we're all going to have to confront our feelings about it.  It might be painful.  There will be hurt feelings, foot stomping, maybe even a little embarrassment.   I would suggest not attending one of these rites if that is the case.   I don't suggest leaving either.  We already had a gay bishop in New Hampshire and a woman as our primate.  If a liturgy you don't have an occasion to use being added to the list of things no one is asking you to use or attend or officiate over freaks you out, maybe you need to do some soul searching.   We'll still love you.  
    

Making it so

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” ~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

I hear a lot about what things really are, and what they really mean lately.  I've heard this all my life.  Easter is really a pagan holiday because it's English name is similar to a pagan goddess's name and the eggs have nothing to do with Jesus and the chocolate has even less and what's the deal with the rabbits? It all ends with "and if you celebrate it, you're basically worshiping Satan".   I have three words to say about that, and one of them would embarrass my mother, HINT: initials are WTF.  One of the things I've learned over the years from being in church more often than any normal human being is that a lot of things have multiple layers of meaning.   Easter is a great example.   To the untrained, unread eye that tends to swallow things as long as they're laced with a spoonful of God-talk sugar to make the *cough* medicine go down, the Easter legend seems sensible.

Here's the problem, it's not.   The date of Easter, far from being determined by proximity to Beltane, is determined every year by the date of Passover, a Jewish festival being celebrated to this day in the same fashion (and therefore the date being determined in the same manner) just like it was that week when Jesus, Yeshua to his friends, was crucified around the same time.   It happens to occur in the spring.  The eggs?  A symbol of new life and fertility.  The bunnies?  That one is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and I think it's kind of stupid.   Why do we call it Easter when everyone else calls it Pascha?   English is weird.  You want proof?  Go to an Episcopal church for the last five days of Holy Week.  If you still think it's all of a bunch of hidden worship to devil gods I don't think I can help you.

There are a lot of unhappy people in this world who want to take whatever joy other people have away from them.   Unfortunately, someone gave them internet access.  So we are bombarded constantly with messages that the things we love are really things we hate in disguise and that we shouldn't trust them.  I think a lot of them write for Chick Tracts.  (Scroll down a little bit on this one and check out the fine print on "Wassup" It's "Hi there" 'adapted for black audiences'.)  The thing is, even the symbols that have been co-opted for evil in varying ways really  mean something else, so you can take it all with a grain of salt.
Example:

The inverted cross was co-opted by devil worshipers for their "Black Mass", probably somewhere in the 16th and 17th centuries (I can't find a date on it, this is my suspicion only, it may only stretch back as far as Anton LaVey and his cohorts.)  but it was originally, and when I say originally I mean the thing dates back to 200 A.D., the Cross of St. Peter.  Legend has it that when Peter was martyred he asked to be crucified upside down because he didn't feel worthy to die in the same way that Jesus did.    I guess someone should rethink the nursery theme for Rosemary's baby, right?

Anybody want me to do more of these?

Happy Circumcision Sunday

I think I was seventeen when this happened. I don't remember why I was there at the apartment complex but it was the first time I ever met my best friend's father.

In fairness, she wasn't my best friend yet. Her dad, a covert to Judaism, a messianic one at the time, chased me down the sidewalk (I wasn't actually running) asking me if I knew Jesus was a Jew? I found myself, staring at this man, this balding man with a beard (I wasn't used to beards), and wondered why on Earth he would have ever thought I didn't know?

Years later, I found out two things:

1) There actually are Christians who are so incredibly thick headed and ignorant that they don't know this this already.

2) If I had been more versed in the history of the liturgy of the Feast of the Holy Name I could have told him Circumcision Sunday is a dead give away.

Oh how I lament not 'getting' him with that zinger to this day. Instead, I think I told him I'd known the guy for years, and it had come up once or twice when I offered him bacon as part of a lovely breakfast.

Oh wait, that's another zinger I didn't get to use. Instead, I looked at him, dumb founded and told him I knew that.

I think what blew my mind then, as it does now, is that Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua to his friends, doesn't make sense outside the context of Judaism. He worshiped at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, he quoted and claimed to fulfill Jewish scripture. His family waited 8 days to name him and they circumcised him. He went to Jerusalem for Passover. He worshiped at the synagogue.

If he wasn't Jewish, he was one terribly naughty gentile.

So why do people say it does't matter? Because he was so much more than that? Well, I am a lot more than a Terrell, but that's where who I am begins. Israel is where God began hammering into the heads of men what sort of God he is. It matters. It matters because the prophets foretold his coming to the Jews. It matters because this is how he learned to pray, repeating his mother's words at meals and bedtime. It shaped who he was as a man completely and who he is as God shaped Israel completely.

I think people like to overlook this because there were and are a lot of Jews who just couldn't accept this guy as the messiah they'd been promised. I see their point. I disagree. I still see their point. It's okay. I am at peace with being seen as a practitioner of a rather dangerous red headed step child's cult. I know a lot of people aren't. That's okay too. Ignoring this part of his spiritual heritage though is dangerous because it is also our own. It puts God's people solidly in an "other" category of this ancient game of us vs. "other" and that's how people start justifying hurting other people.

Not okay.

Someone has to stop throwing rocks. It might as well be you. It might as well be me. He was one of them and we are connected to Him through them and they are connected to us through him. Play nice. It looks good on your grade card. (And you might make a fried or two and discover a dimension to your religion you didn't even know you were missing.)

Disclaimer: While all of this was born out of a conversation with my older brother he is not the only person I've ever had this conversation with and I'm positive he won't be the last.

Don't pile it on

² He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
³ a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.

God is not going to kick you when you’re down. He’s not going to lay one more burden on a man about to fall under the weight of his load. If the fire in your heart is about to go out, he’s not going to dump a pail of water on it.

We can learn from this. Don’t add burdens to someone who is already weighed down. Resist smiling at someone’s misfortune, even if you can’t stand them. Do something you don’t have to at work, and don’t mention it to anyone.

Glory, Laud and Honor

All glory laud and honor, to thee Redeemer King! to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.

Palm Sunday comes every year. Every year, millions of Christians buy millions of palms and make them into tiny crosses, or let the children (even the grown children) have full sized ones to cross 'palm swords' with and 'celebrate' what we call the Passion of Christ. Every year it comes. In the Episcopal Church, some of you are probably humming it now, after we bless the Palms, there's the long processional into the church singing All Glory, Laud and Honor. By the time everyone gets into the nave, we're all on different verses, singing too high, and ready for the choir to let everyone know where we're supposed to be. But we do know it. We knew it, some of us, before we were even born.

All glory, laud and honor,
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s Name comest,
The King and Blessèd One.

We sing it. We're happy. Playing silly games before we go into church. The priest comes along with a handful of scripts. The one who draws the short straw gets the lead. We read the gospel in parts, like a play. When Jesus comes before Pilot we all stand up. Even though we don't want, we know we must, we read the words on the page and say "crucify him!" The governor protests weakly, as he always does, and washes the blood off his hands, and onto ours.

We all say. I think most of us mean it. His blood be on us and on our children. So it is. We sit in stunned silence for a few minutes when it's all over and listen to the priest try and tell us what it means.

Try and tell us what it means.

We try and shake it off. We say the Creeds and exchange the Peace. Then the choir will get after it with a dirge if all goes well.

"Cross of God, I would to turn away, yet Love it bids me stay, O my soul. Can it be the very death I fear is that which draws me near, Lord, to thee?"

I want to say I take communion a little more mindfully on those Sundays. I think I do, but next year I'm back to having a 'sword fight' with a teenager before church. I think that's okay. We know how the story ends now, but they didn't. They didn't.

Thomas wasn't kidding last week when he said "Let us go also, that we may die with Him."

The company of angels
Are praising Thee on high;
And mortal men, and all things
Created, make reply.

To Thee before Thy passion
They sang their hymns of praise:
To Thee, now high exalted,
Our melody we raise.

Worthless

“Thus says the LORD: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from
me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?”

I’m thinking this is a rhetorical question. Most of the time when I wander away from
God, it’s because I’m doing something I don’t want to think about. I’ll get caught up
in something I find interesting or alluring and neglect my spirituality. It seems to be
different for other people. Something bad happens to them and they get angry and after a
while their anger turns to indifference.

I’ve heard some folks’ wanderings described as being like kittens chasing after a sequin
ball, which is, after all, pretty worthless. What worthless things do you go after? What
wrong did you find in God that you ran in the other direction? (Even if you’ve found your
way back home.)

Dangerous pastimes.

Annual meeting got me thinking again. This time I'm going to tell you all the reasons why cool people need to be Episcopalians, especially in Enid.

Seriously. All you folks my age? The ones who are spiritual but not religious because some idiot in a wide tie tried to tell you that good girls don't wear all black clothes? Yeah. I'm talking to you.
I don't know what flipped guys my age out about church but people telling me how to dress seemed like a good reason to stay away from certain places when I was 16.

That's been a while, so consider:

1. We have interesting music. It's never just seven words eleven times. Unless we're singing Taize music and we typically don't do that all the time.

2. We will NEVER make you wear a name tag or stand up because you're new. Once you're a member, we may at some point make you one, but wearing it can be avoided by donning a choir robe. (just kidding, wearing it can be avoided by leaving it in your car in the sun though.)

3. We won't actually try to convert you. I think this is probably because we're going to assume you're either already converted or that you'll come around in your own time. Especially if you're showing up at a church without a gun to your head.

4. You can ask questions. Thinking is encouraged.

5. You don't have to dress up. You can if you want to, but it's optional. Did I mention you can if you want to? One thing I've noticed about St. Matt's is that we have no norm when it comes to that sort of thing, at least when it's cold outside.

6. We have a dearth of stupidity in our parish. Yes, I'm telling you that we are running low on stupid people. There will be no argument about whether we'll be raptured with or without clothes.

7. Worship in our church is actually different from anything you'll encounter outside. No projector screens, no stage, no stage lighting, no neon signs, and no trap set. There was a djembe in the old youth room this morning. We have candles, incense, and wine.

8. We have really cool old people. We've been hoarding them all for ourselves. Sometimes, I don't even realize they're old until someone points out their actual age.

9. God trusts us with alcohol.

10. We have actual theology. It goes beyond saying the magic words to get into heaven, getting rich, and being happy clappy. There is light and life.

Disassociation

I try to spend as little time as humanly possible thinking about politics. I try, but then I remember that I want to be a good citizen, poke my head out of the sand and immediately regret it. The mid term elections this year seemed to have a theme and the theme was disassociation.

I was driving away from the polls after having voted for our current Insurance Commissioner to be re-elected (I've heard nice things about her from customers.) when I heard an ad that "hadn't been approved by any candidate" telling me all about how Kim Holland "stood up to Obamacare even though she's a Democrat" among other things. My heart sank. My head almost got laid on my steering wheel before I realized I was driving.

I knew she did that. I did. I knew there were people in Oklahoma involved in trying to pass an unconstitutional law allowing people to "opt out" of the health care bill. I knew Governor Henry vetoed it. I also know stupidity prevailed on the issue as the thing passed a State Question. I just didn't expect to hear it on the radio. I was hoping that someone would have enough integrity not to try and run away from their party that night.

Heck, she didn't even have the guts to put her name on the ad. It was disappointing. I see it all the time though. It's not just the Democratic party. McCain was doing everything he could to distance himself from Bush during the 2008 election. I know Episcopalians who do everything they can to distance themselves from the national church. "Oh yeah, they have that gay bishop in New Hampshire, but we don't have anything like that here. We didn't send a gay man to seminary out of this parish or anything like that. No that wasn't us. "

Sure! Of course it wasn't you. You had nothing to do with it.

I understand that it's hard being an Episcopalian conservative these days. I know it's hard to have your clergy afraid to hurt your feelings because you donate lots of money to the church. I know it's hard to have entire groups of liberals and moderates get all teary eyed at the thought of you maybe leaving because they gave in to their conscience and decided to stop pretending it was okay to make certain folks feel unwelcome. I know it's hard when people leave because they feel like they're embarrassing "the pastor" because of YOU. I know. It's hard to hear that socialist tripe (Also called the Sermon on the Mount) spouted from the pulpit. I know it's hard to have your friends call your church the 'gay church'.

You know what you need to do about it? You need to stop being embarrassed. You need to say, well, no, there's just the one really. As far as I know the rest of our congregation is straight. You need to tell the clergy that you're an adult and you realize that there are people who disagree with you and that's okay. You need to let everyone know you're going to stick around even if you are going to be a pain in the ass and speak up when you don't like how things are being run. The Sermon on the Mount? I recommend good old fashioned evasion if you don't want to tackle that one head on.

In exchange, I promise to speak to you when I see you in the liquor store. I promise to say, why YES, I go to church with SEVERAL of the people you're talking about and I wouldn't be surprised if they ARE tea baggers. I don't like that they're doing that, but I like them! I promise to sing in the choir every week. I promise to smile at you. I promise to claim you in public. I promise not to invite people I wouldn't take to a restaurant because of their inappropriate behavior to church solely to make you uncomfortable. I PROMISE.

Because here's the deal: We all need to quit pretending we don't have anything to do with each other. That's crap. I'm an Episcopalian. It's more important to me what I do believe in than what I don't believe in. What about you? Do you waste too much time defining yourself by what you're not?

Here's an exercise for everybody. I want you to answer the following questions in a comment or just think about them for a while.

What do you do because you are a Christian?

On a daily basis?

On a weekly basis?

A monthly basis?

Yearly?

What do you believe?

I'm hoping those answers are more important to you than things you don't do because you're a Christian. I'm assuming that's an easier list to compile for most Americans. Why? Because we are OBSESSED with defining ourselves by what we are NOT.

The Democrats spent the entire mid term election running on "standing up to Obama" and not having anything to do with that health care bill. What would have happened if they'd run on the fact that now children can't be denied health care because of a pre-existing condition? What if they'd run on the face that the combat troops have left Iraq? What if they'd run on the fact that people can keep their kids on their insurance until they get off their butts and get a real job---or at least until they turn 26. What if they'd run on that? What if they'd run on what they did do instead of LOUDLY telling everyone what they DIDN'T do?

They might not have gotten their butts whipped quite so soundly, that's what.

How refreshing would it be to have someone tell you what they believe in instead of what they don't?

I think we'd all find out we have more in common than we think that way.

I can be none other than what I am and seek ye not to alter me.

"I can be none other than what I am and seek ye not to alter me." ~ William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

You wouldn't think that the words spoken by John the (literally) Bastard in Much Ado Nothing would have had as much impact on my life as they have. There are some things about a person they can't change. I mean technically. You can cover it up. You can bleach or tan your skin. You can wear colored contacts. You can have someone surgically alter your face or your body. Underneath all that? I'd still be pale green eyed brown-haired western European mutt sporting thick lips and a prominent nose. I can't be anything other than what I am. The other thing I've figured out is that no matter how angry I get at the Church, I can't stay mad at Jesus and even if I could, I'd still be a Christian. I could renounce my faith and not attend church for fifteen years, I'd be watching Star Wars with somebody and they'd say "The Force be with you!" and I'd still internally respond "And also with you". I am Pavlov's dog, people. I've come too far to turn back on this road now. It's internalized. It's part of me. There is no "reprogramming" for Leslie. I guess it's better to fight through it than to try and pretend I don't belong with "those people". I am one of those people. Christianity has changed the fundamental nature of what I am. Not who---What.

Yup, if they do something to piss me off it's better to stay and fight. Why? Because I honestly believe that Christianity is bigger, more open, wider, and better than so many people think it is. I have friends who actually applauded Anne Rice for leaving the church. I think she's being quite silly. For one thing, I saw her reconversion coming years before she did (publicly anyway). She always came back to the subject in her vampire books. I could smell lapsed Catholic on her even back then. (The scent lingers like old-lady perfume.) The thing of it is though, she knew all those things about the Roman Catholic Church before she yoked herself to them again. She knew those things when she used them for absolution and guidance on her road back. Now she's cutting herself off from them again, but keeping Jesus, when she knew all those things about them to begin with. I don't mean to be rude to my Roman brothers and sisters, but you'd have to live under a rock not to know those things about the Roman Catholic Church. She's grown. Hell, she knew better. It's like expecting a pit bull (that's been biting people for years) not to bite. When the Church starts acting un-christlike we have three choices, get with their program (not good), fight back, or leave. I prefer the second option. I'm not stupid enough to think I can single handedly make the Church behave itself, but I am stupid enough to think I can start or continue ripples in the water that will eventually make it to the shoreline. I'm fortunate that the Episcopal Church is moving forward toward letting go of some of the evil the Church has picked up over the years. The word has become tainted? It was ours first. Somebody called us that years ago as an insult. Let the reclaiming come full circle. Let's make it to where they're afraid to use it. Let's make it associated with self-sacrifice, social justice, and liberalism again. Anybody up for that?

Hello, my name is Leslie and I am a Christian? I've never pretended to be anything else. No anonymity for me. I'm just a simple fool on this ship of fools hoping we'll find the shoreline some day.

(Apologies to Roger for quoting his blog.)

Running un-opposed.

Thursday at the office I ran into a problem. I had a house that needed insurance. It was over 100 years old, in good shape, but no central heat and air, and it had been uninsured. Which, if you're wondering, is actually a pretty big problem where house insurance is concerned. Add to that the last "purchase price" on the house was meaningless because it was last purchased 35 years ago. The cost guide I did said the place was worth $93,000 but I didn't think I could get that past the company I was probably going to end up placing the house with.

I needed an educated opinion. To complicate that, I needed an opinion from someone who wouldn't defer to me on this, so my coworkers were out. (I'm not saying they don't know what they're doing. They do. The problem is that I sell more house insurance than they do and guess who trained them? Me. Yeah. Me.) I put in a call to the underwriting team at said company. We come up with $93,000 being too much and do it for $63,000. This makes me happy because I am no longer afraid I'm over-insuring this house and getting the old guy (who I actually like) to pay more premium than he needs to on his home. I also knew the customer would defer to me on this. I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong. (Industry secret: Your insurance person doesn't really want you to just buy whatever they tell you too. They want your input. For reals. Not joking. )

Sometimes you need someone who's going to doubt your opinion. You need to know that if they think you're an idiot (or just being stupid at the time) they're going to tell you. You need someone who's going to stand up to you if they think you're wrong. Being someone's friend doesn't mean nodding in agreement to every hair-brained thing they think of doing. It has occurred to me lately that going to a church where your every political and theological opinion runs unopposed is just as dangerous as well. Where spirituality is concerned, especially the will of God, letting someone just run around thinking that clouds are marshmallows in the sky if it makes them happy is dangerous. Why? Some day the issue might be more serious than marshmallows in the sky.

The one thing I've learned about the Holy Spirit is that he generally doesn't send out memos to just one person. If no one else has the same idea as you about something you think God wants you have a problem. You also have a problem if everybody in your faith community assumes that you have a direct line to God that rings on your desk and that if you think it about a topic it must be so. So here's the thing guys: If you are a leader in your community and you don't have anyone around who tells you when you're acting like an idiot---get one. Seriously. There's nothing wrong with having a lot of people trust you but if you're not careful you could end up with a dolphin fountain in the middle of the narthex surrounded by Pepto-Bismol pink tile with a troupe of dancing girls playing in it every third Sunday of the month. Why? No one wanted to tell Father no...

So don't pick a church because no one won't like you. Actually, don't pick a church at all. Listen to what your heart is telling you and find the place you're supposed to be. If you sense that God is pointing you in that direction, listen. Even if it's been infiltrated by Republicans/liberals/Democrats/conservatives. So what if there's not a rock band. So what if they don't/do pray off the cuff. So what if someone there isn't going to like you. I have people in my family who won't even friend me on Facebook but I'm not going to go out and find a new one because of it. Give it a shot. Visiting doesn't make you a member.

Sometimes the thing you're afraid of is the thing you need the most. Someone to tell you when there's a booger on your face. I didn't get to go to church for the first five years after my conversion. Guess what I hadn't picked up on? Baptism. Yup. Baptism. Didn't know I needed it. Someone told me and it changed my life. Sometimes you miss the really obvious stuff.

My mother told someone the other day that I'm rabidly Episcopalian. Why yes, I am. I am rabidly Episcopalian because they taught me that even in one church there are many ways to see God. Many ways to love him. Many ways to love her. That even if I think someone's missing what seems obvious to me they're still my family. They know it too. Yes, we drive each other nuts. If we didn't have each other there might be a dolphin fountain in the narthex. Or shiny choir robes. Or no choir at all.

Yeah. It takes all the people to make a church. All the people to make sure someone doesn't defer to one person's opinion all the time and end up on one extreme of a stereotype.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

Well do ya, punk?

Put on your big girl panties and deal with it

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

The buck stops here. The leader takes the blame. If the economy's in the toilet, it's the president's fault. If a big oil company spews millions of gallons into the ocean and it doesn't get resolved instantly, it's the president's fault. If my boss makes a mistake...no wait, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, as they say, "it rolls downhill" but not always. It was bad intelligence. It was bad information. "My girl is new and didn't know what she was doing." If the preacher was better, the church would be full. If it weren't for the National Church, that couple would still be here. It's the gays fault. If those people wouldn't cruise Van Buren, we wouldn't have an oil addiction (but I can still own a car). If someone other than me...

If someone other than me would just do something we wouldn't have this problem. I half understand the urge to crucify the leader when things go wrong. After all, it fulfills their professed role of being a servant of all, doesn't it? They take the blame, we put someone new in, and begin the cycle all over again. Membership swells for a bit (curiosity killed the cat), international relations get better when it becomes apparent we've replaced the dumb country bumpkin model, the oil seems to slow down, and Tony gets his yacht back. Then the economy doesn't instantly rebound and everybody starts remembering that the president's black and a democrat, the old guard tightens their grip on the church again (you're not really old enough to be in alter guild, are you?) and the international community gets their feelings hurt that we're slamming their big oil company they've heavily invested in and calls our criticism something it's not.

The problem remains the same until something changes. The problem will remain the same until the leaders underneath the leaders realize what they're doing to make the situation unattractive. The problem will remain the same until we stop looking for someone to pin this situation on. While I do agree that the president needs to figure out 'whose ass to kick' in the gulf, I don't think that's always the situation. Especially when it's everybody's and nobody's ass that needs kicking.

The 'leader' is just one person. They can't do everything. There's a reason that not everyone runs around with a crown on their head. A wheel isn't good for much without spokes inside it, is it? If something needs done, someone needs to do it but not necessarily the priest or the president. President Obama has no military experience---so he should get smart people who do have military experience (and don't mouth off to the media) to advise him on how best to handle that situation. Every Sunday school class does not have to have clergy teaching it. The fact that people aren't having babies fast enough to fill those classes isn't the fault of the clergy either. (It's my fault, actually, for being single and not having popped out 2.5 kids by now.) People can't stay 15 forever---and everything goes in cycles. Even totally awesome people go off their nut once in a while and decide there's just one thing they can't handle---even if the alternative they choose seems far worse to most of us.

So images aside, can we let our leaders be our servants instead of our scape goats for a while? Can we work with them instead of deciding if they don't put up they need to get shut up? Can we quit singing "November is coming" long enough to roll up our sleeves and get this country moving again

Can we?

Opening wide the door a little at a time

8 And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; 9 and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. 10 Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." excerpt from Acts 15: 1- 12

I don't normally cite my scripture quotes in these entries. I figure anyone who actually reads this is pretty biblically literate and doesn't actually need for me to do that. I did it today because this entry in Acts is taken from the church's very first "inclusion" incident. You see, we've been arguing about who to include and how and to include them from the beginning. Jesus is barely 'off the scene' and we were already fighting about who could be in our club and what they have to do to be in it.

The Pharisee believers wanted the gentiles to keep the law. After Peter got the smackdown on this from God he was ready to take up their side on this. It wasn't easy for him. He had to be shown. I understand. It isn't easy sometimes. It's hard to let people in without asking them to act just like the rest of us. God has never stopped asking the church to let people in though. We've also never stopped rebelling against it. It started with the gentiles ( most of us), then came the Europeans (let's take all your holy days and "Christianize" them), then came the Native peoples of all the lands the Europeans conquered (you must act as white as humanly possible without bleaching your skin), then female priests (many of whom still have people who refuse communion if they're celebrating) and now it's gay folks. We're just now getting to the point where most of us have stopped asking them to pretend they're celibate to let them into the church.

Sometimes I wonder how God gets through the day without taking a Valium.

Relationships.

I was reading my email this morning when I came across this article that the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided that he's had enough of the silly American church and their refusal to play the game the way he decided they should. To be fair, what the article actually says is:

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is proposing that representatives currently serving on some of the Anglican Communion's ecumenical dialogues should resign their membership if they are from a province that has not complied with moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.

Really? I didn't know you had any real authority over here, Rowen. I'm also starting to think the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion has become abusive. Let me explain what I mean: The moratoria on same gender blessing etc was not decided on by our church. That was their idea. What were we supposed to do? Tell the Holy Spirit to wait just a little while longer on this because these folks haven't grown up yet? We don't run around telling other provinces in the church what to do. We haven't tried to strong arm anyone else into respecting women, ordaining women, or giving equal consideration to gay and lesbian folks who are called to ordained ministry.

He wants us to leave the playground because we didn't play his little game and quite frankly, I'm so far past giving a crap what the Worldwide Anglican Communion thinks it's not even funny. I don't care if my church has a relationship with a diocese in Africa anymore. I stopped giving a rip about that when they started sending missionaries to us a few years ago. As for Canterbury, it's not like this position is getting them record numbers of people in the pews every week--they have a lower attendance rate than the US church--even with all our bad habits like being nice to queers.

I'm so sorry that these people are too stupid to figure out that Jesus of Nazareth was a liberal. (I would say is a liberal, but the Lord hasn't sent out any political memos lately.) It's not my fault they're too stupid to realize what they're reading when they crack open the gospels. Of course, there are Christians out there who are too stupid to realize Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, so I suppose I should cut them some slack for figuring this out. At least, I think they've figured this out. I have been wrong before.

I think telling them to have it their way (without resigning of course, that makes it look like we think we did something wrong) is the best course of action at this point. I'm just one woman but I think we've gotten to a point in this relationship where we've all stopped hearing each other. Some distance might be a good thing.

Is it a sign that I'm jaded that I'm at the point where when someone wants to walk out of my life I just let them? I'm so over begging people to love me. It's never done me a bit of good. I just hope the Church figures that out before she ceases being The Church. You can't please everybody. Impressing people has never been our business.

Speaking of that, can somebody please talk about the Gospel sometime instead of who's sleeping with who and whether or not that person is wearing a clerical collar?

Reasons not to hate Barbie dolls

I think I was 14 when I turned on my Barbie dolls. By then none of them had any clothes. They had all been lost. Ken had a regular harem. (I only had ONE Ken doll.) I made them do 'unspeakable' things out of pure boredom. They ended up where they still reside to this day---naked in the attic at Mom & Dad's house. Abandoned. Dusty. Covered with blown in insulation.

An article I read on Episcopal priest Barbie made me rethink this today. No, not because I admire them because somebody made a "Rev. Barbie". People have done similar things with old Barb before. Personally, I want a Trailer Trash Barbie. It will go nicely with my 'big girl toys'. (Dashboard Jesus & Indiana Jones will have friends!) I even want Ken with a mullet. It would be awesome... but I digress and it's already way past my birthday. I'm NOT hinting guys.

There are reasons to love Barbie. One that I discovered today is that Ken is her accessory and not the other way around. Ken is afterthought. He's even neutered. Have you ever noticed that Barbie is always in the driver's seat? Yeah. She is. She's in the driver's seat because Ken is an accessory. He's about as important as the little plastic purse you lose five minutes after opening a box with a new Barbie in it.

Barbie's boobs are also a subject of controversy. So much so that she is the only fashion model in history to have had them shrunk. People say they aren't realistic. Well, here's the deal ladies and gents, they are. Lots of girls have big boobs and no surgical scars to show for it. I don't know why people feel sorry for the girls with the small ones---they can buy bras places other than the internet. Barbie doesn't zap my self esteem because she has to buy extended size bras---she enhances it! She's made just as good of friends with the catalogs as I have. Considering I've had this problem since high school I don't see why this is a problem. I was getting this problem in grade school---and being mocked for it too. I bet Barbie got mooed at too. It goes both ways.

So she's disproportionate! So she's got plastic feet permanently altered to wear heels! So what! Barbie is a jack of all trades. She's had wings, she's had running shoes, she's had fins, she's been a doctor, a lawyer, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and even the vicar! Lots of women wear lots of crazy hats. Cut her some slack. I bet she even does plumbing when Ken (who doesn't seem to have a job?) isn't around.