Unapologetically Episcopalian

Kelly. 23. Episcopalian. Acolyte. In love with my church. So my main blog followers don't have to suffer through my religious posts... Unless they want to. (✝11-8-15✝)

[baileywilson013]

Maybe misusing the name of God isn’t so much about saying the shallow words, “Oh my God,” as it is about using the name of God to justify discrimination, oppression, injustice, racism, slavery, xenophobia, poverty, sexism, islamophobia, ableism, homophobia, war, & the list can go on. 

[questions-within-questions]

Amen

[gaslightgallows]

When I was a wee little Gaslight attending Catholic Sunday schools, and then later in college when I was taking a Bible as Literature class, both my stolid neighborhood deacon and my dapper Protestant professor said almost the exact same thing:

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain isn’t when someone says ‘God damn it.’ It’s when a mortal, fallible human being presumes to put words in God’s mouth and say ‘This is what God wants you to do.’“

[thoughyourheartisaching]

“all generations shall call me blessed.” [Lk. 1:48]

(“me proclamarão bem-aventurada todas as gerações” [Lc. 1:48])

[thoughyourheartisaching]

Japan (Japão)

Africa

Korea (Coréia)

India

Switzerland (Suíça)

England (Inglaterra)

Philippines (Filipinas)

China 

Amazon Rainforest (Amazônia)

I’ll just leave it here. <3 

[rhosyn-o-magdalene]

Heavenly Mother

[00807x]

forgive me father for I have sinned in all the coolest and most glamorous ways possible

[wineandhargreeves]

The Christian theatre kid’s mood for Holy Week is blasting Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell on repeat.

[anxious-episcopalian]

I was at church today and I sit close to the rail, and this itty bitty kiddo flipped a kneeler cushion up so they could reach. It was a cute moment.

[thetentpeg]

Shelly, you were once an atheist, and now you're an Episcopal priest. You chose to go to seminary at a relatively young age and carved out a space in TEC for yourself. There are a number of other welcoming denominations with liturgy and deep theological roots. Why TEC over United Church of Christ, Metropolitan Community Church, Presbyterian (PCA), or Lutheran (ELCA) etc?

This may sound cheap, but it isn’t: one of the big answers is “stuff.”I care about the material world.  I think matter matters.  While there’s a very long story about how I sort of randomly landed in TEC before testing out other welcoming denominations, I have definitely chosen TEC over and over again along the way.  I went to a multidenominational seminary.  I had choices.  A lot of choices.  From Orthodox to RC to Pentecostal to every mainline.  I had choices, and I kept picking TEC.  Not unlike a marriage.  I need stuff, and I think stuff matters.  I think real bread and wine matter.  I think beautiful linens that hundreds of years of saints have faithfully washed and mended matter.  I think beauty matters.  Perhaps it makes me weak, but I need all those things, for worship.  Maybe someone more saintly than me can be in a white room with a wood podium and folding chairs and be in ecstasy with God.  (I’ve found mostly that that scenario helps people enshrine their own feelings as idols, or think that their feelings are God, but maybe I’ve just been in the wrong rooms.)  I need old stuff.  I need to know buildings and fabrics and icons were here before me and will be here after me.  I need structure.  I need liturgy.  I need a place in this chaotic world where I don’t have to predict what’s coming next, or brace for it.  I need a worship container that isn’t predicated on the personality of the priest, that resists emotional manipulation, that is difficult for a charismatic white dude to co-opt for his own need for adulation.  I react very violently to feeling like I’m being played, after some abuse, and I hate someone assuming I’m stupid enough to have One Specific Submissive And Teary Feeling after a certain guitar chord sequence.  TEC is also full of weirdos.  There’s a looooooooooot of theological room for pastors - I’m not going to get disciplined for having expansive theology.  I’m allowed to think and to fight.  I couldn’t survive somewhere where that wasn’t true.  It’s a place where the life of the mind is allowed to thrive and where there is (barely) enough room to include me.  I need Communion every week.  I think more people need Communion every week.  The meal matters.  Consuming Christ matters.  Having a service where the words/Word is in surrender to the meal, the bread and the wine, the feast, the real presence of God among us, the physical act of consumption - that matters.  A hipster dude weep-shouting at me for 40 minutes is not my game.   Pretending the Eucharist is a play meal with pretend things is not my game.  I believe in the stuff.  God matters, literally, in the Eucharist.  God becomes matter.  I need a place where God matters.  

[jamesthibodeaux]

I delight in this post. :-) 

[just-shower-thoughts]

If a priest was ever singing along to Africa by Toto, they really would be blessing the rains down in Africa

[kellyisanepiscopalian]

In the absence of a priest at my church, I’ve been attending the one I was raised in.

Its Catholic, and I haven’t been a regular attender for like 10 years.

I’m meeting with the priest today to tell him my “since I’ve been gone” story, and seeing what it will take to fully participate in mass again.

I pray to God it’s not confession to a priest. I’m grade-A awful at that.

[kevinolett]

My Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!!

[lightamidstthestorm]

hello dudes! i’m looking for some lgbt+ or allies christian blogs to follow.

long story short, regardless of my own sexuality (which is probably ace but who knows), i feel the most comfortable around affirming christians, and i really wanna connect with people that share my faith.

i’d highly appreciate it if you could reblog this post so i can follow you - and also spread the word. i’ll be following from my main, @cvptainbucky ❤

[anxious-episcopalian]

Howdy howdy

[courtingcatholicism]

This is your biannual reminder not to be a jerk to people who only attend Mass on Christmas and Easter even if they’re in your favourite pew, bc maybe this year they’ll be inspired to come more often but it sure isn’t gonna happen if you’re glaring at them.

[coldafternoon-deactivated202102]

mutuals: getting into drama with other users

me: getting into drama with God

[courtingcatholicism]

Me: hmm, I don’t have to wake up at 5:45 for morning Mass because there’s a Thanksgiving vigil I can go to after work, nice

God: actually, sweetie, you’re gonna wake up at 5:30 and not be able to go back to sleep so you can be bright and early for me and go to both 😏

Me: yep you’re absolutely right

[kellyisanepiscopalian]

Sometimes I forget some churches have enough parishioners to have more than one service a week. What a world that must be to live in.

[kellyisanepiscopalian]

My Sunday

[kellyisanepiscopalian]

For some reason, the verger has a problem with me acolyting "too often"... or often at all. With the only other senior acolyte away at boot camp, I was hoping for more shifts. Instead, he added himself as an acolyte and pulled a random man from the congregation to be one too. Today, I helped train a junior acolyte to be a senior. The girl in boot camp is coming back soon. I'm more than happy for the junior. She's one of my favorite kids in the building. And I love the other senior. She's an inspiration. I just can't help but feel pushed out. Acolyting gives me purpose and joy. Once a month is just not enough. I think it's time to start looking for a new church...?

[kellyisanepiscopalian]

"He'd rather see you serve God than burn." Alright, boi. That was awfully fundamentalist of you to say...

[joshbarrett]

*gets some of the first books for seminary classez*

Me: Screams internally and externally