Hornblower and the Atropos

November 26, 2012

Bible

Nov. 17, 2012

Gerrymandering....

What if districts were somehow indexed to some calculation of recent voting patterns, to try and even out the parties some and keep one from running the table?

Anglischism

Anglischism http://chapelhillpoliticalreview.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/anglischism/ Somewhere I remember reading, or at least just totally making up, that one of the basic tenets of happiness through Buddhism is accepting the world and getting over it. Roughly translated, that means: “Eh….” I’ve tried applying this to various parts of life (the Bush years were very helpful in this department) and am using the attitude to deal with the current goings-on in the Anglican Communion. As an Episcopalian, a member of that big religious family that comprises the various denominational children begotten of Henry VIII and a stubborn Pope, I’m in the loop every time someone gets unhappy. That happens a lot. In brief, it’s 2009, there’s a black president, women are people too, we’ve stopped burning gays as fuel, and some folks are incensed. Pun intended. Specifically, the Roman Catholic church is making it easier for dissatisfied Anglicans to make a break for Rome: Am I worried that this is the end of my denomination? That massive flocks of Anglicans will suddenly start saying their Hail Marys even louder (I’m hoping I’m in good stead – I always use the blue candles around her icon)? That trumpets will sound and my home parish will come a-tumblin’ down? You mean that out of an Anglican Communion of 77 million people, someone’s not happy? Well, that’s to be expected. “Eh….” Really, I’ve come to the realization that it’s impossible to make everyone happy. Even if 999 people were soaked in juicy bliss with rainbows shining out their… that last 1 person would be ticked because everyone else was being so damn content. And that’s why being at Disney World too long pisses me off. So I’m sorry not everyone’s happy, and I try really hard maximize world jolliness, but when I understand that no matter what I do, no one’s going to be totally happy, I can only muster one word… “Eh…” It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I just really don’t care all that much. My apathy is my greatest strength. I mean, when MTV can’t find eight people that can peacefully cohabitate on “Real World,” it sets a pretty low standard for harmony in the third largest Christian community on earth. Accepting that there’s no way to ultimately make everybody happy, we have to figure out what to do. Interestingly, it doesn’t really matter, and I suddenly feel enlightened. “Ommm….” See, no matter what we do, we’re going to lose some people. We’ve always lost people. Every time we adopt a new prayer book we lose people. At some point somebody lost people when they dropped doing their whole service in Latin… (Yeah, I’m talking at you, Pope Benedict). We lost people when we let blacks in. Now we’re losing people because we let women play too. If we let more gays be clergy, we’re gonna lose even more people. But if we aren’t accepting of gays, we’re still gonna lose people – them and a bunch of other folks who’ve figured out it’s 2009, there’s a black president, women are people too….We’re always going to lose some people, and we’re always gonna gain others. As is, we’ve got some folks who’ve left. But we’ve also got some folks who’ve come into the church because we have a more accepting stance on their innate sexuality – i.e. we don’t spend every Sunday morning damning them. By my guessing, it’ll come out a wash and there’ll more harm, heartache, and heartburn come from navel-gazing and second-guessing ourselves on how many gay angels can’t dance on the head of a straight pin than from our denomination just deciding to walk the right path and not looking back. What the hell – when in doubt, try doing the right thing. And sub-Saharan Africa’s got a problem? Eh… what else is new. JOHN DERRICK