What Church????

I've been reading a few blogs and their commenters regarding what's going on, or not going on, at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church which is meeting right now in Anaheim, California. What gets decided there will have profound effects on how the Episcopal Church interacts with its GLBT parishioners and the "Anglican Communion." [I feel I have to keep putting the AC in quotes because it's so difficult to believe that such a thing exists any more, except as some club that requires a strict application and acceptance process. For some reason, the Episcopal Church--or a significant part of it--seems to be obsessed with not being left out of the Old Boys' Club and are prepared to sacrifice themselves, and a lot of others who haven't agreed to being sacrificed, in order to be in it. I suppose membership has its privileges, but the dues are excessive, IMO.)

Anyway, the commenter on one blog I was reading was cautioning the blog author against leaving the Episcopal Church if the decisions of General Convention went in an unfavorable direction to what was hoped. He said that no matter what, he intended to remain inside and to continue to be a thorn in the side of the Church. Leaving simply allows the Church to exercise the "out of sight, out of mind" process. Staying says "this isn't going to go away."

I think that's where I come from, too, in my own way. The catch for me is that not only don't I know what the Anglican Communion is any more, I don't know what the Church is, either. And I'm not sure I ever have. I've had a recurring dream my whole adult life that I'm trying to find "the church," but I never quite do. In this dream, I often can see the church and it seems to be within reaching distance, but I never quite reach it.

I've found this dream to be very profound in its revealing of my conscious and unconscious conflicts with what the Church is, isn't, should be, will never be, but might be. And added to the dream's message that I want to be in it, but may always be just outside it, struggling and moving toward it, is the present day upheaval that has made the definition of what the Church is even harder to hold onto.

But what I'm growing more and more to feel about my relationship with this bizarre creature we call the Church is that I'm destined to remain at least close enough to it to continue to be as much of a thorn in its side as I can manage! I don't know what that means right now and I sure don't know where any of this is going. As one other commenter on another blog put it, "My crystal ball sucks!" But all the fertilizer (read: s##t) being tossed around out there is simply nourishing my thorns and I'm taking aim!