School is winding down and I am falling way behind partially due to the mountain of work I have and partially because of my own tendency towards procrastination. I’m not sure when I’ll be back from my blogging vacation but I do have some neat things lined up for my return. In the mean time here’s an update on a few things.
1. I love Mormons. I spent the weekend of March 25th with a wonderful group of Mormons of all stripes from Mormon Stories Podcast. We ate, prayed, sang, listened to talks and watched the Book of Mormon the Musical together. I was literally floating on cloud after meeting all those good people. One day I’ll post the outrageously long email I sent my friend about the weekend. Read about the play here. And hear a portion of our conference here.
2. I heard Elie Wiesel speak tonight and it was amazing even though I didn’t get to be in the same room as him because there were a ton of people there. He spoke about “respecting the other for their otherness,” and the importance of human love. I got all choked up when someone asked him about his faith. “Well, what am I to do? Say “God, I divorce you!”? I’m a Jewish man. I come from a long line of teachers and thinkers. I can’t stop being a Jew that would betray them. I have faith. It’s a wounded faith but I have it.”
3. I was pretty down after reading this letter about a priest who was excommunicated in 2008 for calling for the ordination of women and more recently resigned from his religious community over the same issue. It was such a beautiful letter filled with love and hurt and angst and appreciation for all sides of the argument. It was nice to see dissent minus vitriol and nice to see someone remind up about the Catholic teachings about conscience. I feel obliged to say, for a million reasons, I’m not saying women should be ordained I’m saying we should have a chat about it.
4. Then I read this lovely and refreshing piece in the Huffington Post and remembered oh, yeah, we’re a diverse group of people dragging our beloved Church into the 21st century!
5. When I watch RealCatholicTV my face still gets all contorted with confusion and revulsion and I whisper to myself “we were baptized into the same body.” Sometimes you just have to say no to RealCatholicTV even if they teach you words like jingoistic.
6. I love my Mormon missionary friend but if he writes me one more letter detailing how simple his religion is I might just scream via handwritten letter, in a well mannered, kind way of course.
