So last night I had dinner with my friend, in a room filled with hundreds of liturgists. The conference website, the people they give awards to, the academic identifications, the demographics, the language...all of it told me I was in Boomer Central, Religious Division.
I was very uncomfortable.
People were very nice, but I was uncomfortable.
The women who has sussed out the homosexuality in the upcoming translation of the Mass was a couple of chairs to the left of me. Mostly Canadians at the table, a nice Australian woman.
The elaborate Grace Before Meals was led by a female speaker with a painfully annoying voice. Other faces registered the same surprise that she was leading this event. There was a little booklet on the table (a "worship aid") that helped with the vigorously sung responses. We raised up glasses of water, loaves of bread, bottles of wine --labels from Christ our Light Cathedral, Oakland, CA-- and sang theistic non-Christian praises to a non denominational ungendered God. We also expressed regret that while we were eating, others were hungry.
After dinner, a litany of prayers revealed the concerns and values of the group. Very eco, used the prayer to give a news update on the shootings in Arizona, and the furrowed-brow concern over "greed and warmaking" revealed that they were differentiating themselves from Republicans and the right. I was waiting for the prayer against idolatry, covetousness and tyranny, but I guess that would not have occurred to them.
A rabbi gave a shockingly unrestrained encomium for the annual award winner, a priest who specializes in renovating churches (and synagogues!) according to his missionary populist and egalitarian vision of what ritual should be. (Conservative Catholic critics call his work "wreckovation" ). His book tells the story: God's House is Our House. Three standing ovations.
And as I said, all night, not a single mention of Christ.
Did I project my issues with religion and politics on this group? Or was I reading them accurately?
In any case, I was very uncomfortable.
2 comments:
My guess is your friend is a bodhisattva who took you to the liturgists' dinner because you have a lot of karma yet to burn. ... You say you don't understand liberal self-erasure. I don't understand how this sort of religion can be done without laughing. You mention present at the event an ancient O.P. He must well remember "the" Church as superintended by Pius 12. How is this event in continuity? ... I would have ask'd for a Methodist screwdriver (orange juice, straight).
Ah. Now All Things Are Illuminated! Thanx!
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