I spent most of this week writing to deadlines. It wasn’t so bad, except it meant I hardly got out of the house all week. When I did, it was because something was needed from the supermarket, and partially also because it was a chance to get away from my desk and breathe a little bit. Seriously, I didn’t shave for six days this week because I couldn’t spare the time it would have taken.
So, then, when I dashed out in the car, I just had to keep shaking my head. It’s a wonder I don’t have whiplash. People were driving all week like lunatics. But then, I had to remember, I had just been in Seattle where people are nice. So it was just a bit of culture shock fitting back into the pattern of aggression and rudeness that seems to rule Philadelphia.
Do you know the law about what to do when you stop at a stop sign in a four-way stop intersection? Well, first, you have to have your cell phone in your left hand and at your left ear, and your coffee cup in your right hand so you’re driving your SUV with your knees. That’s required, I saw it in the motor vehicle code the other day. Now, make sure whatever you do that you never bring your vehicle to a stop. If there are other vehicles you have a choice. You can put down either your phone or your coffee and wave at them like a lunatic. Or, you can push down full throttle on the accelerator and barge through the intersection at about 60 mph. That’s also in the vehicle code. Of course, to do this, you have to have one of those special license plates—I think it says “[other nearby state with two words in its name]” on it.
Sound bitter? Yes. Try living in my neighborhood for a little while. It was a ramp up to the full moon kind of week and the craziness got worse all week. So I’m glad that was over on Friday night. Maybe we can get back to some sort of human productivity now.
There’s no particularly interesting gay news this week. Egypt’s revolution goes on, tenuously, now in the aftermath of having succeeded at toppling the Mubarak government, but not having yet managed to create a democracy. Memo to Egypt: it takes more than a few days to make a democracy. Try to be patient. But Memo 2 to Egypt: stay there in that square until the army gets elections going on and a constitution written and don’t let them delay. You don’t need more than a few hours to write a constitution. And once you have a draft a congress can amend it and vote on it. So this shouldn’t be months or years, but rather weeks. It is 2011 after all.
The other uprisings frighten me. Except the one in Wisconsin, of course. Hurray for my colleagues who keep marching on the capitol.
The message of the scripture this week all boils down to Paul, of course—to “I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it.” What more can we do in life than build a foundation, and hope that, someone else will build on it? As our collect this week reminds us, without love what we do is worth nothing. So the answer is that there always is more we can do in life by bringing a little bit of love from our within, from our soul, to bear on the outward building of life’s foundations. Walk in love, as Paul said, or go in peace, as we say at the end of each mass, or as you go proclaim the good news, as Jesus says all through the gospels.
Gay people have a special gift to offer greater society, because what defines us is the way we love despite the obstacles. We learn to differentiate our love, to make it sharper and more focused and more specific. And so we can learn to walk in love, because it’s our job to lift the whole boat as it were, to show the whole community how to bring love to bear in everything we do.
Jesus has another sermon full of contradictions. Of course you aren’t supposed to give away your coat. But, you are supposed to offer grace as your challenge in the face of evil. Just another way of saying “Walk in love.”
*7th Sunday after the Epiphany (Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18; Psalm 119:33-40; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23; Matthew 5:38-48)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 