Smoke Filled Rooms

You will have to forgive me as my blog becomes "Diary of a Catechumen" for awhile. It is hard to talk about anything else right now. I have not felt this way about anything since I first met Brian. I am falling in love. I am falling in love with Liturgy, Scripture, God, and smoke-filled rooms. All things I thought I loved before, and yet have discovered in such a new and wonderful way.
I spent a lot of time in smoked filled rooms, back when you could smoke inside. Nothing was easy to see when the smoke got really thick. Faces were distorted and it changes the qualities of light. I can't explain it but it even seemed to make bass seem heavier.
I couldn't help but think of Nocturne, a goth club I use to go to, at Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday night. Not that there is all that much in common between the two, except the smoke. I was watching The Royal Doors and the icons began to be less and less clear and the embroidery of the veil less sharp. I don't want to claim that I had any deep revelations about God or the nature of prayer. I did have a revelation about myself. It was like I looked back and saw how far I have come in the last 7 years.
I think I prefer my life now, as dull as it can seem when I am working yet another Friday night. If my world is going to seem hazy and far away I would rather it be because I am lost in a haze of prayer instead of cigarette smoke. And if my hair is going to smell I'd rather it be incense than tobacco.

Self-Defense

Conservative :
–adjective
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.


I need to say this. I am literally being kept awake by this train of thought.

For those that don't know, I have a nose ring and red hair, like RED red. I am now closer to 30 than I am to 25. I have some ideas that would be classified as socialist after the 19th Century, though it is mostly about caring for the poor and less about Marxist philosophy. I went through a rebellious phase in my late teens and early twenties, but really in the scheme of things my rebellion was minor. I have been in 4 different formal education programs in 3 states and 2 continents, though I never graduated. I am incredibly well read. If you know my father there is a very good chance that he is the smartest person you know, and quite a lot of my informal education came from him. He did not so much teach me what to think, but how to think.

There are certain people who have known me since I was young who seem to believe because I never took my nose ring out and I like my hair to be funny colors, I must still be that crazy college kid. I am some crazy, liberal, punk rock nut. Well this is my least confrontational way to be confrontational.

I am more conservative than all of you.

No I don't vote exclusively Republican, but I'm not talking about American politics. I am talking about centuries of tradition and philosophy which you reject because it isn't trendy. I am talking about choosing your religious convictions based on 20th century pop-theology instead of what every branch of the Christian church taught for the previous 19 centuries.

I cover my head in church because the Bible says to do it for the sake of the angels. I believe in breastfeeding, and natural medicine because I believe that God is smarter than scientists. I attend a liturgical church because I believe that the church is not a building, or even all the Christians on earth, but every believer who has ever lived and so by using the same prayers, Psalms, and movements that have been used for 2000 years I am worshiping with everyone else who has used those prayers, Psalms, and movements. I am a Neoplatonist like St. Augustine, Origen, and C.S. Lewis. I believe that truth is truth. I believe in traditional gender roles because the point of Genesis is not to be a science book but to tell us about the character of God. It shows us that without understanding what makes men men and women women we will never understand what makes God God. I believe that God created everything on earth for our benefit and that moderation shows character and prohibition shows weakness. To quote St. Augustine, "Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." I keep my nose ring because God thinks it's beautiful. I dye my hair because I think its beautiful and God doesn't give me any direction against it.

I am not upset that people don't embrace my opinions or insights.  But never claim it's because I'm liberal. Never claim that it is because I am rebellious. Never claim that it is because my ideas are unsubstantiated. Never claim it is because my opinions are uneducated. Never claim it is because I am young. I am an adult. I am informed. I am traditional. I am a Christian. I am conservative. I am sorry if that makes you have to admit your opinions of me are based on shallow sensibilities or extra-biblical philosophies, but that's how it is.

Headcovering

So there are people who have some theories on why I have begun to wear head coverings in church.

1- I believe that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally and the culture of the writing is irrelevant.

2- I am trying to be more "Catholic".

3- I have a some kind of drive to rebel.

4- I have been brainwashed by my ultra-conservative upbringing into not thinking for myself and allowing myself and other women to be subjugated.

One through three have some amount of truth. The fourth is just ridiculous and obviously spoken by someone who has never met my mother.

I do believe that everything in the bible is true and that it was written when and how it was for a reason and that there is something to be gleaned from almost every verse in the Bible. There is the one exception of that greeting Paul has about his coat, but when I get to heaven I am asking what that was about! But my choice to cover my head comes from an understanding of the cultural context, not an ignorance of it.

A woman with her head uncovered speaking in an educated way in Corinth was a courtesan. So women were to cover their heads and not speak in public gatherings so that the upstanding citizens of Corinth did not assume that Christian women were women of ill repute. The respect for women comes in here, Paul never said stop educating Christian women.

So what does that have to do with me then? Nobody assumes I'm a call girl because I don't where a head covering. Well when you see me in a head covering you make some other assumptions. You assume my belief in traditional gender roles and I am set apart from other women. In a society that is working very hard to destroy the delineations between the genders this is my way of saying "Not me! I am a woman and I strive to play a woman's role."

I am trying to be more catholic. I am not trying to be more Catholic. I am trying to be in line with the church universal. Not just the modern church but the church that has existed for 2000 years. It isn't until the mid 19th Century that ANY creedal denomination condones a woman entering the sanctuary uncovered.

That leads to number three. I do have a need to rebel. I have a need to rebel against the modern church claiming an exclusive right to define a faith that is two millenia in the making. If this were truth, and God was in control, why would he allow his church to continue in darkness for 1875 years and then imbue American theologians with knowledge and understanding which he denied his children, and his bride, for that long? I rebel against the arrogance of modernity (and post-modernity) that says that somehow we are better equipped now than ever before to understand the nature of truth. Was God simply waiting for Americans to evolve from the lesser Christians in order that his will would truly be known?

I am not asking anyone to join me. I'm just asking you to consider what banners you chose to stand under.