Way Ahead Threads: Our True State

January 27, 2009

Our True State

The only problem with books is that you have to actually write them before they can be published. Which is what Deb Engle in Iowa and I in Kentucky have been doing, with calm resolve, for over a month now. With the deadline nearly upon us, we're sifting through notes we've made over the last few years, gleaning treasures here and there. I want to share this one with you:

You don’t have to move or change jobs or leave your husband or unnaturally alter your state of consciousness. We’re not after an altered state; we’re after our True State – unbridled joy. Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love, p. 209-210

Brain/Soul Teaser: I'm totally in agreement with Jill, but you may feel differently. This week, write out what you believe our True State is. How close are you to enacting it in your life?

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Artist Statement

In 2005, a ruling of the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church upheld a local pastor in his decision to refuse church membership to a person because that person was/is gay. Learning of the Council's decision, I, as a matter of conscience, cut all ties* with the United Methodist Church, including the bonds of ordination.

In 2008, I started deconstructing (literally) a copy of my 2003 memoir Grace and making it into mail art. I've recently realized that tearing my book to shreds was in part an act of frustration brought on by the Judicial Council ruling, which made the book historical nonfiction rather than contemporary reality.

Everything I said in the book about love remains true. However, the things I said about the United Methodist Church's theology and polity -- how, for instance, we believe in prevenient grace and that God, rather than any individual pastor, leads and allows people into membership -- are now false.

This blog and my art are a call to the UMC to remember its heritage, mission, and ministry; to renounce its apostasy from its theological heritage; and to return to being a church rather than a country club for the supposed elite.

This blog and my art are also a shout of welcome to friends and a space of comfort and joy for the dechurched, the nonchurched, and the churched of all shapes and sizes and sexes and textures.

*except the ties of friendship with people who as a matter of conscience remain within the UMC and there work toward reformation

Way Ahead Threads

January 27, 2009

Our True State

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Resources

Fabulous Feminist Links, some of which are explicit