Tired of prelates? Invent your own!

Goddess knows I have long since burned out on church politics. When important but tedious issues are discussed... AGAIN... and anxiety rises like a hot air balloon (and it is the season of the Ballon Fiesta in Albuquerque right now) and tempers flare, I roll my eyes and walk away (literally or figuratively).

This is why I have not posted in a long time on a local list serve. Just when folks had gotten used to my rambling disquisitions on matters theological, pastoral, or practical, my voice went silent. I began posting more here where I could pursue such topics as catch my fancy without the fevered hysteria, the pain, the anger that seem to swirl about everything Anglican these days.

If you follow this blog (or have spent time at Bearfeathers, where I haven't posted in donkey's years), you know that I have been writing fantasy fiction. It springs from tales I wrote in the years from 1972 to 1974, then set aside. Now they spring forth anew with a vengeance. Friends are reading the completed draft of the first novel. It is the starting point for a series of stories about a family on earth with several members over the generations who, unexpectedly, cross over into a parallel world. Some return; some do not. They have adventures, needless to say.

It has been fun and very satisfying and I am deep into it these days. While early drafts of some of the sequels have been around for over three decades and I have done some revising and expanding in the past two years, there is much yet to do.

The first tale is set in a pagan world and I enjoyed developing its mythology. The imagery of that pre-Christian faith has become part of my own thought world now. The latter tales are in a "Christian" environment for this parallel world has a parallel Christ event. Right now I am exploring the background of the arrival of "Christianity" to the portion of that world where my tales take place. This is all backstory, stuff that wouldn't be published as narrative (or, God help us, fictive history) but serves to make the world real to me, understandable, interconnected, full of texture and detail. Then I can tell a story within that rich texture.

So this weekend I am ignoring that Genovese slaver working for the Jew- and Moor-hating monarchs of Spain (if you want Italian pride, let's think of Francis and Galileo, maybe) and focusing instead on the early church history in a backwater region of a world that only exists in my mind. So I am composing the Acts of the First Council, a prologue reciting who was there and the Canons that come out of it.

Yes, I have escaped from Primates' Meetings, ACC, Lambeth, the ABC, the HoB, and all the other alphabet soup in which TEC is drowning, to create my own Church Council, with my own clergy and laity. There are no arguments over faggotry or heresiarchs. They affirm their orthodox faith, referencing earlier councils in the Empire; they canonize two new saints (their recent martyrs); they discuss inculturation, the old faith, and the use of the vernacular and customs of the old faith; and they elect and certify their first archbishop. There are mass baptisms; one deacon and four priests are ordained; they have communion; they rejoice.

At the point in the canons where one would expect anathemas they proclaim peace and the hope that all who stray will turn and even the evil one will at the last turn to the Light.

I am clearly a bleeding-heart liberal and a Trinitarian Universalist.* So sue me. Here I stand, I can do no other.

Just think--a church meeting where you emerge with joy. Sometimes it happens on earth. I would love to see it happen with greater frequency.

Peace be to all who confess this Faith and honor to those who practice it. May the hearts of those who do not share it be turned, may all enemies of the Gospel become its friends, may Light shine where there is now darkness, may all things be brought to unity in the One God, and at the last may Atkriva [the Denier] behold, acknowledge, and adore the Radiant Song of the One. Amen. **

--the BB

* By "universalist" I do not mean that I have any certain belief that all will be saved, only that all MAY be saved. I do not believe that God coerces but I place great stock in the image of gates to the New Jerusalem that are NEVER shut. I know imagery of a shut door occurs elsewhere in the Scriptures, but for some reason this image is placed at the end of our canon as though it were the final word. Maybe that is chance or historical vagary but I still give it weight. I do not propose a debate over this in the comments; in fact, I am clearly not in the mood for more arguments. This is where I come out and y'all may come out wherever you choose.
** Even if this is not intended for publication, the non-anathema conclusion to the First Canon is (c) by me.