Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s readings are about basic human rights and how in many cultures, the human rights of women are exploited or nonexistent.

Reflection Questions:

1. Do you feel that any of your rights as a human being are being ignored or blatantly disregarded? If so, what does it feel like? If not, can you imagine what it might feel like to others?

Personally, no, not really. Not compared to what is happening around the world. I don’t think we have much room to complain in America. I was following some Facebook threads last night on one of my student’s pages. She was sparring a little on her “Facebook wall” with her classmates who are more of the conservative or libertarian bend. This young lady is from Nigeria, she joined the U.S. Army when she came here to get on a fast track for citizenship. Her father makes $1500 a YEAR in Nigeria. This young woman, half my age, young enough to be my child, already has had a lifetime of knowing what “the denial of basic human rights” is, and what “extreme poverty” is. I cannot believe the insensitivity of her classmates in dissing “welfare people” and clinging to the stereotypes we all sort of want to embrace about the poor. Even the best of us wants to think we are smarter than “those people” and we at times have a strange need to dehumanize them in order to make ourself feel better.

I think about the fact I sort of grew up “working poor” by U.S. standards and that “U.S. working poor” is not even a piss in the ocean compared to “world poor”. I may have had some fairly shabby sparse meals growing up, but we always had some sort of meat, and I never missed a meal b/c it wasn’t there, that’s for sure.

I think about another friend who grew up in a lot of places in the world where everyone around him had nothing, and people literally were dying of disease in the streets of India and Pakistan. I can tell that this experience, in a quiet way, shaped his own life in that he does not surround himself with creature comforts and extravagance.

2. Would you consider the freedom to lead a full spiritual life to be a human right? Do men and women have equal freedom in this area? Do you have this freedom? Why or why not?

Freedom to worship the way we please, to reach for the promise of a full spiritual life, is as American as America and the Constitution. To me, that is part of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Again, in America, I have so much freedom compared to other places in the world. I can get aggravated that many churches do not fully include women in leadership roles—very aggravated—not just because it’s a basic right to me, it’s not “the American way”--a double whammy! It makes me incredibly angry that people use their own interpretations of Scripture to justify it, just as they used it to justify slavery prior to 1863. Well, if you get right down to it, you could use the Bible to justify having a concubine, or stoning your children to death, or a whole host of things we would find reprehensible.

I get angry that people in Africa who call themselves “Anglicans” use God and Scripture to persecute homosexuals and women. I get angry that some so-called Anglicans here in the US are using Scripture to hijack the Episcopal Church all because they got their nose out of joint about Gene Robinson’s ordination as a bishop. I have to be careful about all this anger, because it has the risk of alienating my OWN feelings with God. I remember the line that has been floating around a lot of the “Episcoblogs”--we have to remember we are on the welcoming committee, not the selection committee. When we start acting like we are on the selection committee against the bigots, we are behaving in EXACTLY the same way as the bigots, and we are behaving in a way, turned around, we would find reprehensible in others. Oh, man, this bit of “respecting the dignity and worth of every human being” as defined in our Baptismal Covenant can be soooooooo incredibly complex at times!

3. Whether you are a woman or a man, have you witnessed (or participated in) the denial of basic human rights to women and girls? If so, what did you do (or what might you do in the future)?

Yes, I see it in some of the silly conclusions some churches make with regard to women and leadership roles in the church. I silently accepted it when I was a member in another denomination (cough,grunt, LCMS). That denomination’s attitude that the altar was a “boy’s club” actually scarred me in a way that did not hit me until I became an acolyte in the Episcopal Church and learned the Eucharist works just the same no matter what combination of gender made up the “people on the altar.”

I always am a little hedgy about the “what might you do?” questions. I never know what I’m going to do till I’ve done it, half the time! I only know how to live. All I can “do” is continue to try to live in a way that is “inclusive” and to work upon the parts of my soul where my heart can become dull or hardened. I don’t take stands or engage much in “out front do-gooder stuff.” The introvert in me is not good at that. But the extrovert in me can “be.” So I see myself as simply trying to “be” in these situations!