Confused...

I was scolded today for a "hasty assumption" in my last post about Queer Readings of the bible being BS. I look back and read the portion of my post where I mention Creationism and see how that could be misinterpreted as I did not provide a full accounting. Tonight I want to address these two events in turn.

Maybe I did come to too hasty an assumption about Queer Reading criticism. The fact was that it was not discussed in class much, really just mentioned, and I genuinely wanted to know more. Mostly, admittedly, because I doubted the validity of it. That was why I asked for insight into it. So, admitting that I was too hasty, I went tonight and did some quick internet research on the subject. I came across this website detailing a book entitled "Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible". It still left me with many questions, but at least it fleshed out the idea behind it. I think one of the contributing authors (Ken Stone) is the partner of Seabury faculty member Horace Griffin, but am not completely sure. I'll ask. When I responded to the person who confronted me about this, I reiterated that I was asking for help in understanding this text and was told that people probably don't have time to write such a long response. Probably true, but that was a frustrating response in an academic community.

One thing I think people need to understand about me. I come from a culture and several places where to refer to God as "she" is terribly taboo. Go from there for your ideas on where I'm coming from. Call me backward, conservative, what you will, but dems da facts Jack. For me to move to a place like this is a big switch. I knew it was going to be. It was part of the reason I chose to come here - for a different life experience and for different points of view on things. I highly value this opportunity. But I feel like I get hardly any compassion, or, from some people, any respect for my point of view. I could go on all night, but I'm sick and out of sorts, so at the risk of offending any more people I respect, I'll just quit now.

Onto my remarks about Creationism. I full recognize and appreciate the facts of the fossil record and the extreme plausibility of the theory of evolution. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I believe it. I do believe it; science is hard to argue with. But when I used the term creationsim, what I meant was the idea that God created the world and maybe the way in which God (note: I caught myself here and changed the pronoun back to "God" - thanks to Seabury) created the world was through the process we understand to be evolution. The world unfolded and is unfolding according to God's divine will. I don't mean, by use of the word Creationism, to suggest creation at the exclusion of science. I realize thats the connotation of the word and so it was poor diction on my part. Hopefully that cleared up that mess. And now, to close in prayer with a prayer I wrote in Liturgy class yesterdy as part of an exercise:

Blessed art Thou, Lord God of our forebears.
We seek Thee in the morning;
We praise Thee at the noonday;
We take our rest in Thee by night.
Be with us in the quiet.

-R