The Life and Times of Sly Civilian

…dropping some of the other issues I write about, and really focusing on disabilities blogging. I don’t feel like I spend enough energy on those issues, or have as strong of connections with that community as I’d like.

So consider this a bit of amends.

I’ve spoken about this before, but I want to return to the idea of the subaltern as provisional. Ze exists on the permission, and ultimately the caprice of power. While the powerful would love nothing more than to be credited with being generous and to receive love for these remarkable acts of toleration, the subaltern is often ungrateful. Why wouldn’t they?

To exist by permission is to constantly know that status is revocable, temporary, and dangerous. The provisional identity always looks to the possibility of loss and disaster.

I was asked once i got to the ill-lit, poorly marked, and hard to find Disabilities Office at Yale, what previous arrangements had be made for me. And if I had documentation for that.

Once again, Sly enters the Kafkaesque world of the medical establishment, relying on doctors to prove to Yale that I’m actually sick. This of course, includes the inept who proscribed the wrong medications, the deceitful that violated my trust, and the plainly unperceptive who I manipulated into getting the medication I actually needed. Between a hospital a thousand miles away that hasn’t seen me in years, and a Doc here that’s seen me once…

Somehow that’s going to be the record by which I will pass into officially recognized disability and out of the “informal” provisions that have been made in the past.

So why is it, as I scramble for medical records that mean nothing to me, that it feels like I’m asking permission all over again? That I’m still a provisional person at Yale?

-sly

Gah. I keep telling myself, that someday when I have more traffic, I will keep a more regular writing schedule. Then I tell myself that more folks might read if there was consistent content.

And then I just get really freaking busy.

In lieu of a real post, some links.

Journey Woman writes here, about adjusting to her new cultural location, as a northern black lesbian in a southern black context. A lot of times we’ve seen arguments over intersection and how social status functions across multiple lines. Journey Woman just sets it out there, closing with a reminder of how we depend on our communities. So go and read…

My feeling like this began when I realized that despite my effort I had become THAT girl. I’m the lesbian, feminist, northern girl. I was initially fooled in to some false sense of comfort because I was surrounded by Black people, and White people who at least got the way race plays out in society. I felt comfortable, but it didn’t last, because I soon became aware of the fact that I didn’t fit the “Black” mold…

The 2nd Disability Carnival is up. Sad that I missed the deadline for entering, I encourage you all to go visit. The theme is on “cure” and how people relate to that idea. This is something I’ve wrestled with for some time, and I think this idea gets to the core of the normative ideas and judgments that preside over us, and how we might get to resistance.

Shannon takes over the term Radical Feminist. It now means a “feminist who is not buying what you are selling.”

And I’ll close by remarking that it is indeed a wonderful day. I’ve got way too much work to do, the sun in shining through the windows, a friend is catching a quick nap before class, I have my ticket for coming home for Thanksgiving, and I had a good weekend with an old friend.

Love,

-sly

Upon popular demand, I have edited my previous post. If my errors grieve you, await the release of Mozilla 2.0 with fervent hope, for rumor has it that there shall be a spellingcheckerthingy.

With love,

-sly

I should be working. I’m not.

I really should be working. But I’m going to keep thinking about this until I write it, so here goes.

I’m personally very frustrated with my exposure with the pro-choice movement right now.

This week, I attended a meeting where I disagreed strongly with much of what was being said, but (and this is most frustrating for me) was not able to respond coherently at the time. The problem seems to lie somewhere in the assumption that the most legitimate pro-choice position lies between radicalism and the pro-lifers. I could not disagree more. Simply, I think it is a logical impossibility. There are no abortion radicals. The straw-prochoicer that is being constructed simply isn’t present in the debate. Abortion as primary birth control is a non-starter, and we cannot construct our own rhetoric as if we need to guard against that possibility. You can talk about providing better education and access to birth control without vilifying the women who for whatever reasons, have had multiple abortions.

But we kept circling around the goodness of having abortion be legal, but that really, really it was so much better to avoid it. Which I’d agree to thus far. Abortion is more costly and difficult for women than other means of birth control and reproductive decision making. But the backgrounded metaphysical assumption that if you’re not killing a baby (at least if you do it early enough) you’re in enough of a ethical gray area that it’s really best if you left…

You can’t assume any of this without Sperm Magic. If we believe women have a right to make choices about unplanned pregnancy, then we have to carefully examine our rhetoric that talks about safe, legal, and rare.

Now…i understand the tactical choices we make, and how to win support gently and not with a hammer. But when the doors are closed, and we have space to dedicate to reproductive justice…I do not want to hear a single word that carries a hint of slut shaming, bad mother implying, selfishness judging, or any of the other crap we are forced to listen to in other parts of the public discourse. None.

There is exactly one consideration in play. Does a woman, informed by the relationships, communities, and values that she holds to be important, want this pregnancy? That’s it.

Back home, one of my friends works with Planned Parenthood…and more than any other person I know, has changed how I see this whole thing. For one simple fact. I trust her. And if i were ever in some situation where the world was screaming at me, I was scared, and didn’t know what the hell to do… I would pray that someone as kind, knowledgeable, respectful, and level headed was there to help me make sense of it all. Simply, I am in awe of her ability to be present to others in difficult and uncertainty, with unwavering dedication to providing not just advice and information, but also respect for the autonomy and choices of the women she encounters for whom facing abortion and unplanned pregnancy is traumatic. I’m tearing up as I write this simply because I’m so damn proud of her, so convinced that the work she does is a critical ministry of compassion and care to people who need it. I am not without my questions or my troubles, and I do not assign over my moral judgment to others. But I know that I haven’t been there, and that even if I had, mine would not be the only experience. So I choose to place my trust in people who are able to honor the self-determination of those who are in a situation of unplanned pregnancy, who supply information and not propaganda, understanding and not guilt.

We don’t just leave people in trouble. And we don’t leave them without choice. Whether this is a terrifying moment of difficulty or one of frustration because of an unexpected birth-control failure, a crisis of health or a moment of education…it cannot be part of the civil compact that we could abandon anyone to ideology alone.

-sly

This time, four years ago, I was crying.

I don’t have much to say, not because for lack of thoughts or emotions…but because at the heart of it, I miss him less as a public figure and more as a mentor and friend.

There’s more than a little pride that goes on in Minnesota politics in identifying oneself as close to the Wellstone legacy, and such, so I’ll explain for just briefly. At the time that I was first hospitalized on account of severe panic attacks, I was just closing my time working for Wellstone’s Senate Office in Minnesota.

My supervisor visited me in the hospital, an act of simple and even basic humanity that stunned me because of all the ways in which the mental health ward was presented as foreboding, scary, and alien.

The day I returned home, I got a call from Paul, wishing me well and hoping for my continued recovery.

I’ve scheduled such calls. I’ve written the letters that make it sound like Paul really cared about you. I’ve done all the grunt work that makes such moments of concern and connection possible. And I’m not jaded about it. He meant it all, and encouraged us to mean it too.

Shortly after I finished working with the campaign to go back to school, I was sent a copy of The Conscience of a Liberal. Paul had signed it with a subtle jab at my choice of a schools, a rival to Carlton where he’d taught and often spoke of returning to “retire.” With well wishes he reminded me to keep in touch.

I still do.

-Sly

The 6th Erase the Racism Carnival is up, including an entry from yours truely.

Go forth and read.

-sly

Send your previous memories away. We have never stayed the course.

Ever.

Love,

-sly

I’ve previously discussed Dear Theo submissions without using actual quote or identifying authors. Today, I’m excusing myself from said ad hoc ethics policy because a faculty member has written in, and her piece may shed some light on what I was discussing in the previous post. I think it’s fair to treat this material as an official publication of YDS, written by a faculty member in their capacity as Dean of Chapel. So, with student names removed…

Dear Theo,

I would like to respond to the two recent letters about the daily ecumenical worship program in Marquand Chapel, with gratitude to [names redacted] not just for their courageous remarks but also for their regular participation in chapel, their personal witness to its significance in their spiritual lives and their commitment to the project of ecumenical worship.

During BTFO each year, Patrick and I meet the incoming class to talk through the balancing act that is ecumenical worship in Marquand. A large part of this time is spent emphasizing that we rely on individuals and groups in this community to come to us with ideas for services. Chapel does not provide a program of services; it is an ensemble of services created and led by many, many people, reliant on the good will of leaders and congregants alike.

We also emphasize that we need to hear from members of the community about their reactions to worship. We have a roundtable discussion twice a semester. We give everyone a copy of the Guidelines for Worship in Marquand it is also printed in the handbook for incoming students) and in this document we emphasize that we need to hear your reactions to chapel. We do the same in the weekly Marquand Reader, and if the number of emails and meetings we have each week is any barometer, then most people here feel able to approach us with both ideas and criticisms.

While we wish to cultivate such reflection on chapel and what we learn there, we cannot do this work via Dear Theo. If you were a member of a parish and you had a concern about worship, your first line of conversation wouldn’t be the parish newsletter. If you were in a class and wished the syllabus included additional subjects, you wouldn’t write to Yale Daily News before talking with the teacher. Chapel is like both a congregation and a class, and so Dear Theo is not the best venue for this conversation. However, I think it is important to write on this occasion because there are people who read Dear Theo who may not have realized the other existing points of access for remarking about chapel. Or who might mistakenly think that the “implicit assumption” behind what goes on in chapel is in fact as described in previous correspondence.

There is an explicit statement that chapel strives to be as safe and welcoming a place as possible for all members of campus who would wish to be part of this worshipping community. It has to be safe space in a context in which so much of church life and campus life is not safe space. It has to be safe for people whose history is not told here as a matter of course, who are always in a minority here (such as racial and ethnic minorities); it has to be safe for people who may have been told they don’t belong in church (such as openly LBGT people); it has to be safe for people who have been told their leadership is not valued in church (such as women in some denominations). It has to be safe for these people because YDS admits large numbers of them and affirms their theological education and their desire for ministerial work.

However, given that default, most of our time is spent making sure that the chapel is “safe” as Christian worship — theologically, ethically, pastorally, and most of all liturgically — for as many people as possible in this particular community. A good example is the 23rd psalm to which [Name redacted] refers. We chose this setting because it is the work of a contemporary African American man that contributes to the current theme in sung morning prayer, exploring how the theology of music informs our understanding of favourite old texts of the church. Bobby McFerrin chose to set this Psalm in an Anglican-chant style, with feminine nouns and pronouns for the shepherd supplementing the opening naming of “Lord”. In the context of a service in which we also name God many times as Lord, King, and Father, Bobby McFerrin’s setting offers his own naming of God – Marquand leaders made only one variant from McFerrin’s setting, and it is in the Gloria.

McFerrin’s original is “Mother, Daughter and to the holy of holies”, and after much conversation we changed “Daughter” to “Redeemer” because we knew it would just be too great a stretch for too many people in this community to sing of the second person of the Trinity as Daughter. Given that God was addressed or referred to as Father 11 times, and Lord 45 times, and King 3 times in that week, and only as Mother and “she” on this one occasion, I think the more conservative among us have at least equal access to the debate. I also do not think it is for us who are from traditions that claim apostolic authority to tell Bobby McFerrin and others that their words, based in their communities’ interpretation of tradition, are less faithful.

The most expanded-language version of The Lord’s Prayer that we sing in Marquand is the setting by Mark Miller, our Gospel Choir Director, and a widely published composer, church musician, and faculty member here and at the Drew Theological School. Contrary to popular myth, he did not use non-gendered language in this setting for Marquand, but because he knows there are many churches and faith communities seeking expanded-language versions of The Lord’s Prayer. It is one of the three main versions of The Lord’s Prayer we have sung this year (the other two have completely traditional language), and it is the version in which most students have hands raised, eyes closed, and fervent prayer engaged. It would seem in this circumstance that many evangelical students are praying very authentically using evolving language.

I do not claim to use “inclusive language” in Marquand. Not in the Guidelines, not in the Reader, not in conversation. The phrase connotes such different things to different people. The subject of naming God in worship is extremely complex, we treat it in numerous varied ways, and if the community would like it, we can lead a community conversation, as we have in three of the last four years, about it. The basic guide we use is described in the Guidelines (see Marquand on the ISM website) and our goal is to generate a palette of ways of naming God and referring to God that is both faithful to tradition and responsive to the evolving needs and experiences of the churches.

Five principles direct our worship planning and are implicit in all the above: hospitality, diversity, inclusivity, participation and ecumenism. Each is too complex in both its theological and practical characteristics too go into in a Dear Theo, but I would be happy to talk more about them, make them less implicit and more explicit. We could, for example, print more explanations of why we made the choices we did at the end of the bulletin to help with this.

What happens in Marquand is Christian worship. There is a big debate as to what constitutes Christian worship in an ever-evolving church. We draw the line in what for others would be a fairly conservative way — we make sure that every day we pray in the name of Christ, that every day God is worshipped with Trinitarian words and images, that scripture is used every day (and only exceptionally and with good reason is it not the NRSV) and that only ordained/authorized people celebrate communion. So far so good, if you’re anywhere on the spectrum from moderate to conservative; but if you are Unitarian (the Trinitarian rule) or feminist (the NRSV rule) or alienated from ordination by virtue of your sexuality or gender (the presiding rule), then you have to make a lot of compromises to even come through the door. To characterize worship as “liberal” without acknowledging those many, many liberal people on campus who cannot attend, or who attend at great personal cost, is to miss a big part of the work of Marquand.

It is important to note that, unlike many worshipping communities, in Marquand, we have no expectation that everyone will assent to or be willing to participate in everything that happens on any given day. I’m there on the front row: nearly every single day there is something I cannot sing or say or assent to. You will see me with my mouth closed if I can’t own the theology in a line of a hymn; you might see me sit when others stand if I can’t assent to what’s going on; and several times I have decided not to receive communion. None of this is “protest”. Many other folks negotiate what they can and can’t bring themselves to: I see a student praying with her eyes tight closed, feeling every word as she sings; another student reach out her whole arm to wave her hands as the prayer or the song lets her give praise, even if she’s the only one doing so; someone standing for the Eucharistic Prayer when all around are sitting; someone else making the sign of the cross during a Trinitarian greeting when everyone else is stock-still from the neck-down; yet another bows to the cross as she comes in and finds her seat when few other people even noticed the cross, etc., etc. And occasionally I see folks walk out, the service just having asked too much of them or having offended them too deeply. This is the main thing we emphasize during our orientation session each year: we are in the space together, and when there are things we cannot assent to, we sit in prayer knowing that words that one cannot say or sing are deeply moving and prayerful to another whom we want to be able to pray authentically. This is the only way we can be both an ecumenical community and faithful to our own individual traditions.

There is concern that worship in Marquand doesn’t suit the needs of every member of the YDS community. Unfortunately, there’s no possible way it could, but many more people are worshipping daily in Marquand than at any other point in living memory. And Evangelicals and African Americans and Catholics and LGBT folks and Unitarians and all denominational backgrounds are there in ways they haven’t been before. We want to have as many people able to worship in Marquand as possible, but the tension in which we hold our unity in Christ and our individual traditions is fragile. It is important to have feedback, but is very important that daily worship not become a political football – if people feel they’re walking into a worship space that is charged with community conflict, they will simply stop coming – so please research your criticisms before making them and think hard about the forum you choose for offering comment.

And please be considerate of the chapel ministers. They are not “staff” but interns, just as other students intern in a church or a community organization. It is hard enough learning about the great range of worship traditions here and in the world; talking to faculty, students and staff about worship-planning for several hours a week; then learning how to host all the many and various people who lead in chapel as well as the congregation, without also having to field concerns about and advocate for the program with their peers. Please direct your concerns and ideas to Siobhán and Patrick, who are responsible for the directing the program.

I end with my most heartfelt point: people say that what happens in Marquand is “creative” and indeed it is. But it is also absolutely faithful, both in its meta (liturgical year) and micro (ordo of each service) ways. It is never free of a tradition, because no authentic Christian worship can be. If you can’t discern what traditional form we are drawing on on any particular day, just find me in coffee hour and I’ll tell you. You see the point is not to create new worship; the point is to learn how to do the old stuff in relevant ways, in ways that honor the contexts and diversity of peoples of faith. The point is to learn to do the old stuff with people who are not like you, with people who don’t understand you, who don’t necessarily like your ways of worshipping. With people who are on this journey with you for this time in this place.

We welcome the participation and leadership of all members of the YDS-ISM-BDS community. The doors to the chapel are open and you have a standing invitation to email us, phone us or talk to us in coffee hour. If you have specific ideas for a service, a hymn, a way of praying, of doing Eucharist, of liturgical action, of procession, or concerns or critiques of something that happened in Marquand,, please let us know. For those of you who read Dear Theo but rarely have a chance to make it to Marquand, I reiterate what we say at BTFO. You are very welcome here.

With all good wishes,
Siobhán Garrigan

There’s a lot to unpack there, so I’ll come back around and write about Siobhán’s implicit assumptions about community conversation and the role of Dear Theo, as well as some more remarks on cultural negotiation.

-sly

But, but, why can’t you liberals be tolerant of my intolerance? Guess you’re not really tolerant at all!

These remarks, and any variation thereof tend to be among the most asinine that a liberal will ever hear in their socio-political career. Frustrated to be hearing this once again, I offer thus; an explanation of positive and negative tolerance, with a goal towards never hearing this crap again. Sly is nothing, if not optimistic.

I obviously owe a conceptual debt here to Berlin’s discussion of freedom. But I’m taking this to a slightly different place, mostly because I’m not treating the individual here as an ultimate agent, assuming a power structure that exists over them that mediates their interactions. Namely, Yale Divinity. What I mean here, briefly…

Negative tolerance can best be described as the outer bounds of any particular expression. For instance, Marquand Chapel regulations stipulate that there is no tolerance of images that conflate sin and blackness. There’s no singing about being washed whiter than snow at Yale Div.

Positive tolerance is both the cumulative effect of negative tolerance and the theological-political leanings of authority. It is comprised of the statements, messages, and ethos that are supported, affirmed, and valorized by an agent. It might be best described as the distribution curve, the weight of the instances of communication that lie within the bounds of negative tolerance. Where prohibitions leave off, positive tolerance shapes the space as the primary content. In Marquand, the positive tolerance is constructed as intentionally broad, trying to supply messages, forms, and concepts that are desired by various students and traditions.

Which leaves student reactions. Thus far, I haven’t pictured the students as having power. We either attend, or not. Day to day editorial control of the chapel occurs at a level not available to most students, and even… If you plan a single service, you have some theological expression in that space for a single day. If you’re a chapel minister, you might have choices on a certain percentage of days. But because the narrative is formed by the distribution of varied and individual theological messages, it’s almost impossible to swing the balance.

Which is where student reactions get very interesting. Some conservative students have made great hay about being “censored” or “dismissed” in Marquand. Gender inclusive language for God is requested out of all services, and some conservatives decry that such requirements leave them unable to participate.

The claim usually relies on an idea of positive tolerance. “We only want to be able to use the language that feels most comfortable,” they say. They ask why their viewpoint can’t be included. But it is. Every single service this year so far, there has been at least one address to God as “Lord.” What the request is really about is their negative tolerance. Even a single feminine address seems to be too many. The cultural and theological authorities under which these folks operate (I don’t mean literal subservience, but rather formation and identification) have negative tolerance for feminine language, and a strong positive requirement for exclusively masculine language. One student at the discussion this Friday wisely noted that she probably didn’t even hear the familiar language, and only really noted the exceptions. If only others could be so reflective.

This isn’t about liberal intolerance. This is about control of the message. Seeking greater definitional authority over the content of chapel than any other group here has, some of these students have conflated tolerance with total agreement. Liberal tolerance might call us to allow, even promote, some uses of masculine language around God. But when that language is present, and the shrill call is that YDS is censoring “Lord,” the picture is changed.

If the range of options presented by the Chapel includes material that you can’t stand even a bit of, then you probably won’t go. But don’t make the mistake of saying that it’s intolerant. The breadth of expression that is allowed in Marquand is stunning, even disturbing to a flaming liberal such as myself. I’ve griped about it many times. But it is a pretty remarkable representation of the varied theological opinions here. The secret to going isn’t to be without convictions, but to know your own well enough. I don’t much go anymore, a fight that I’m having with Christendom in general at the moment, but when I did…one of the things I knew how to do was to stop talking, to listen to what was going on, and to withdraw my participation when I needed to. If you haven’t practiced being angry, upset, or alienated in church, I suggest that you give it a try.

Thus far, it hasn’t been fatal.

So when the conservatives say that they’re “under someone’s theological thumb” and being “manipulated,” I have to laugh a bit. I feel badly for them, it’s a difficult thing to feel that way. But it’s how the game is played. If your negative tolerance is such that you can only stand to be around a message over which you have near total control…I believe the term is “Does Not Play Well With Others.”

Talk about what you need in this space, and talk about positive tolerance, the level of reinforcement, comfort, and validation that you require. Talk about what you need to see as part of the message. Then we can get somewhere.

In Christa,

-Sly Civilian

Continuing…

There’s more, as Zuzu officially goes on hiatus, and Bartow responds.

Bartow now publicly claims that she never intended to sue, or to threaten the same. Personally, I don’t buy it. As Piny and Belledame have commented, these “reminders” that she knows people’s real names happen: despite requests to leave it alone, and in the middle of fights. It’s creepy. It’s a power play. And it has no place in free discourse. We can be rightly relieved that it appears that Zuzu is not under legal threat. But she’s still on leave. As I discussed yesterday, few of us blog truely anonymously. We blog under psuedonymity, or conceit. Such protections are fragile, but the idea of never blogging personal information isn’t possible for most of us. Our jobs, our academic work, our social location is critical to what we write and how we think.

We are not anonymous dots of intellectual activity, but real human beings. This is exactly what keeps us from simply being astroturfed, made up creatues of the intarwebs. We blog about real stuff because that connection between our lives keeps them authentic. So when Bartow makes her “reccomendations” to us, I reject the idea. The level of abstraction required to make one’s self truely anonymous is intolerable to the idea of meaningful writing. If our voices are to be true, we will depend on others to be of goodwill and not use that authenticity to harm or silence us.

We have always relied on the kindness of strangers. I don’t mind if you know who I am. I absolutely welcome in person discussion of what I write about, even if I have to wink when I tell you that I’m “just a fellow reader.” I do mind when that knowledge gets used in this kind of manner. I don’t know what Ann intended. I don’t much care. There is a pattern of behavior where the people she “reminds” about the transparency of their idenity find her communication to be threatening, invasive, and unwelcome. The decision of how to respond does not lie in determining the “true” intent behind her actions, if a legal suit was ever in the works, or exactly what went down. It is in recognizing and affirming that several times people have asked her to stop. And that she hasn’t. And that she promises to continue.

I’ll close with a quote from Sally that sums up this whole mess.

But even posting under her real name, AB is pretty much immune from consequences. She can behave like a batshit loon and not worry about losing her job. The bothersome effect of pseudynimity is that it gives the rest of us the privilege that AB takes for granted. And that’s the real problem: not that it gives others impunity, but that it creates a situation where impunity ceases to be her special privilege.

-sly