Well, here's a change...

A real post!

Actually, it's only a real post to those of you who aren't my friends on livejournal. I post there to keep my entries private (well, mostly private, since no one from LJ really reads my blog unless I tell them to and no one from my blog reads my LJ because they aren't my LJ friend. So there.)

I'm going to edit and then copy and paste the post in. It's pretty much the lowdown on Brookie, and if you've been a longtime reader you'll notice how much I've changed since going to college.

THE POST

LIBERALS
Evidently my church is one of the most liberal out there. Woo? I mean, liberalism has been a long time coming for me. I'm very fundamental on some things but really liberal on other stances. I guess that I'm okay being PC USA because, in all honesty, it's something to stand behind. I can disagree with things that I have reason to disagree on but when something comes up and I don't really know what to think about it, I trust my denomination enough to just fall back on them. See next section:

GAYS
My church is fine with gays. Individual churches may have their own opinions, but my denomination doesn't see homosexuality as a sinful sexual identity. I mean, there's scads of theological research on both sides of the story. I've read it all. I've believed it all at one point or another. At this point, I'm kind of wobbly on where I stand but I'm essentially of the mindset that God doesn't care who you love. I go back to the "well heterosexual relationships biologically produce offspring so wasn't that God's design?" a lot, but when I think about how overpopulated we are... I am beginning to think that homosexuality could even be a blessing from God. Stop reproducing kids that you'll just screw up anyway, and if you're well-balanced enough to want a child and care for one and biologically don't make one with your partner and don't want to do artificial insemination, then adopt a child who needs a home! Care for the orphans, I seem to remember that being something that Jesus lauded. Anyway, at this point in time I can't say what I think on the gays... but it's not like they're hurting anybody. Live and let live, and if you want to get a gay partnership blessed, when I'm ordained I can do so. Woot?

V-DAY
And I don't mean Valentine's day. I'm talking about the Eve Ensler Vagina Day- empowering women, ending the silence, trying to end the violence toward women. My campus just had our own offshoot of the V-Day movement and it was empowering, liberating, and rewarding. For girls who have been victimized it was like a week of "Yes, this happens. It happened to me. Let's end it now" mixed with "I am FREE". I was so pumped that we have a V-Day movement here on campus and can't wait to get involved with it next year.

GOD
Has no gender. I wish that people could wrap their minds around this. God doesn't have a gender, doesn't have a sex, IS NOT A MAN. OKAY? Using "He".... whatever. Don't make a habit of it. It perturbs me slightly and if I'm cranky it can totally set me off (blame it on the Presbyterianism). But then I see this downright patriarchal theology and I want to scream. God doesn't care if I'm a man or a woman. God loves me for me. Nothing I can do will change that in any way. This is also why I'm pretty okay with the gays- there is no male or female in Christ... why do I care if sexless individual A marries sexless individual B? I don't. But this whole God thing goes so much further. Women repress themselves when they think that God's MASTER PLAN for them is to raise good Christians and keep a clean home and make their husband's life easier et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. Child-rearing is a SHARED job. Whether the wife stays at home to care for them or the father, it doesn't matter. It's not just one person's job. Neither is better than the other based on pure genetics. Maybe the wife IS the better full-time caregiver and that's fine with me. But the husband might be, too. Or heck, the other wife might be too. Or the other husband. Or whatever. God hasn't generalized an entire sex because God doesn't care what sex you are. God can't set gender roles when God doesn't care what gender you are. God is portrayed as a father. God is also characterized as a mother. Deal with it and move on. And stop putting my God, the creator of the universe, into a box. How offensive that must be!

BYE BYE PATRIARCHAL THEOLOGY
See GOD

FRIENDS
I am making them. I am also starting to puzzle them out, which is incredibly exciting. (insert rambling that I'm not including for the sake of anonymity).
Have you ever noticed that people can say a lot of honest things without ever actually saying anything?

Lenten grace and peace,

Winter Conference

I went to Montreat this past weekend with my college for our annual winter conference. Several professors attend with a large portion of the student body and we spend the weekend together in the beautiful mountains of Montreat, enjoying a Sabbath together. This conference was such a renewal for me. I'm really grateful for everyone who worked on the retreat, those who prepared for it for weeks before the event. I'm also thankful for everyone who went and made it such a great experience for me. I felt so loved and accepted, and I got to interact with members of the community that I normally don't see or get to be with. It was so refreshing to see my peers ignoring the social order or status quo and just existing as a single group, with a common purpose and love for one another.
You might say that I'm being too much of a hippie about this, but I think that I'm just genuinely surprised to see my peers be so... nice.

Thank you for that.

While I was on the retreat I felt a tug to "come back home"; to come back to the Presbyterian faith that I grew up with. For years I ran around to difference churches, looking at difference theologies, researching this and that until this weekend I realized that what I already believe is accomplished in the faith that my church family instilled in my so many years ago. I'm proud to be a member of my church and I know it. I know how Presbyterians do things. I know our rules, our laws, how to get a job with a Presbyterian church, what we believe and what we practice. 15 years of solid Presbyterianism has bred in my a fierce love of bagpipes, tartan, and Scotland. I love worship services that make less of the performer and celebrate the God who gave us the talent with which to worship. I love that we're held accountable to an association but not hierarchical enough with our rules and confessions that we allow heresies to sneak in and become cornerstone dogmas.
I'm so happy that my denomination, and I know some people hate denominations, accepts the fact that God made me a woman and equal to a man. I'm overjoyed that I'm not a second-class citizen. I feel accepted as a member of the body of Christ, regardless of my gender, and it's beautiful to me that I can serve in the full pastoral capacity to which I have been called.
More than this, it's home. Home isn't perfect, but nothing is perfect but Christ. Sure, there are controversies. Who hasn't had them? And the confessions of the Presbyterian church fully admit that human doctrine in this area can be subject to any number of errors (especially outside of historical context). But I won't waste my time addressing every criticism of my home church. Because it's just that; it's home. It's home, and that's enough for me.