hope

After I posted on Thursday I clicked through to listen to the Voices of Faith event, which gathered a selection of women religious from around the world to talk about their varied experiences of misogyny in the Catholic Church. The goal of this event was to put some political pressure on the Pope to give female superiors a vote at the upcoming Synod on the Amazon. This would be a laughably small step in the right direction, and the fact that it almost certainly won't happen just reinforces how hopeless the situation is. But it made me feel less crazy to hear from articulate women who have not given up the fight, particularly Doris Reisinger (Wagner), who for example writes:

Es gibt allerdings auch durchaus legitime Gründe, sich nicht aus der Kirche als Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts zu verabschieden. Wenn Sie in der Kirche etwas werden wollen, um die verfasste Kirche nicht denen zu überlassen, die mit dem moralischen Versagen ihrer Leitung kein Problem haben...

There are in fact completely legitimate reasons not to leave the church legally [as is possible in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the church is integrated into the tax system]. [For example if] you want to become something in the Church, in order not to leave the Church in the hands of those who have no problem with the the moral failure of their leadership...

On Thursday she talked about the need to push for a new Church constitution, one that would not only institute gender equality but also do away with the top-down power structures that keep the Church paralyzed on this and so many other issues. Which seems like tilting at windmills. But the quote that keeps coming up is from Vaclav Havel, "hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

On which note, the Friday night kids' service was (very) sparsely attended but I did my part and I'm kind of proud of how my creation story turned out, so here is a translation...or rather a loose translation of my script, which was itself an amalgamation of the Godly Play script for the creation story, the creation story from a kids' Bible we had in the office, and the actual Bible.

Imagine that you get an elephant for your birthday. Packed in a magic box, maybe. You open the ribbon and, poof!, there he is, looming large right in front of you. How do you even get a good look at him? You'd probably have to stand up and take a few steps backwards...

A long time ago the Jewish people wanted to look at the gifts God had given them, and they had a similar experience. To even get a good look at the gifts, they had to step back a long way - actually think back a long way, all the way to the beginning of time! That's how this story came about, and people have been telling it for thousands of years:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth was empty. It was dark and water was everywhere.

And God spoke: "Let there be light."

And there was light.

And God saw that the light was good.

Then God spoke: "Water, gather yourself in one place. Let the land be visible."

And so it happened. 

Then God spoke: "Earth, be green! Grass and trees and flowers, grow and bloom! Produce seeds and fruit!"

And grass grew out of the earth, and tall trees, and colorful flowers bloomed.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Shine out, lights in the sky! Separate day and night, and divide the time into days and seasons and years!"

And so it happened. The sun shone in the day and the moon at night, with all the many stars.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Fish, swim in the water! Birds, fly through the sky!"

And God made all the creatures that swim in the water and live in the sky. Fish and seahorses, ducks and doves.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Crawl and jump and hop, you animals on the land!"

And God made all the animals in the forest and in the desert, in the jungle and on the plains, in the mountains and on the coasts. Lions and sheep, hedgehogs and snakes, horses and rabbits.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Now I want to make a creature who is like me. I want to make humans."

And God made humans. And God said to them, "I give you power over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals of the earth. Watch over them and take care of them!"

And God looked at everything God had created: It was all very good.

Now there was day and night, heaven and earth, land and sea, fish, animals, humans. God had made everything wonderfully. Now God's work was finished and God took a rest. God said, "you humans, do the same: six days in the week you should work, but on the seventh day you should rest and think about me, your creator."

The humans did just that. And that's what we are doing today. Let us thank God for all the amazing things that God has made: not least each one of us, unique and beautiful.