the cassandra pages

Proud to Still Vote in Vermont

This from VT Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which just opened hearings on a proposed overhaul of the country's immigration system:

“Last week, opponents of comprehensive immigration reform began to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing,” Mr. Leahy said. “I urge restraint in that regard. Refugees and asylum seekers have enriched the fabric of this country from our founding. In Vermont, we welcome as neighbors Bhutanese, Burmese, Somalis, just as other states have welcomed immigrants to America for refuge and opportunity, whether it’s the Hmong in Minnesota, Vietnamese-Americans in California, Virginia and Texas, Cuban-Americans in Florida and New Jersey, or Iraqis in Utah. Our history is full of these stories of salvation."

“Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hard-working people,” Mr. Leahy said. “The bill before us would serve to strengthen our national security by allowing us to focus our border security and enforcement efforts against those who do us harm, but a nation as strong as ours can welcome the oppressed and persecuted without making compromise in our security.”

Drawing, Friday

Spiked candlestick, cacti, and shells. Pen and ink on paper, 5 "x 7".

How I dealt with last Friday afternoon.

Update on Anxiety and the News

Thanks to everyone who commented on the previous post. I left another ocmment of my own at the bottom of the thread, saying I planned to send the whole thing, comments and all, to my clinic's director, and describing an innovative solution recently installed by my dentist.

Loren just sent me this link to an article in the Guardian, addressing the same topic (news and anxiety) in depth; you might be interested as I was. I made a less-dramatic but similar decision about ten years ago, to limit my own exposure to the news, and mainly to read (not watch) quite selectively, for a short time each day.

Meanwhile, Mary, another frequent commenter, said that "nature does it for her," and offered this link to the Cornell Ornithology Lab's live webcam of great blue herons incubating their eggs, which is absolutely wonderful.

A Plea Against Anxiety

Yesterday morning I sat in the waiting room of the clinic where I have my annual medical exams. Something had changed since my last visit: a huge black television monitor occupied one wall, with the channel tuned to CNN.

It was impossible to ignore; the small waiting room had been turned into a screening room, where even patients who didn't want to watch were forced to listen. In the space of just a few minutes, I heard commentators speculate that this might be the day that North Korea decided to launch a missle. I heard reports of a new, deadly strain of bird flu in China, and an outbreak of meningitis among gay men in Los Angeles.  There was discouraging discussion about the gun control bill, and a story that parents in Japan are starting to refuse to allow their children to come to the U.S. for university study, because of a perception that the country is becoming too dangerous.

A white-coated tecnician came into the room to get a cup of coffee just as the meningitis story was playing; the screen showed large electron-micrographs as the journalist's voice intoned the latest statistics. Oh dear, said the man, turning to me with a dismayed look on his face. He stood for a few minutes, riveted to the screen, and then walked out the door to begin his day.

My doctor came to the door and called my name; I was glad to escape. But during the morning I had to come back to the waiting room several times, between visits to the nurse for blood work, an EKG, and various other appointments. Each time, I watched the behavior of the other people in the room, all of whom would turn to face the TV, shaking their heads at each grim, frightening story. Last year, most of them were absorbed in their cell phones. I looked for a magazine or newspaper; unlike former visits, this time there was only one, an old issue of Vanity Fair; instead I pulled a book out of my pack, but it was very difficult to concentrate on the words.

Finally I turned to one of the other women and said, "I'm American, and really, this is part of what I came to Canada to escape."

As it turned out, she was originally American too, from North Carolina, but we had a pretty different take on things. She was conservative, I more liberal. While I objected to being force-fed anxiety by inflammatory stories in the media, she insisted it was "important to be informed." "I'm really worried when I go to the U.S. now," she said. "If I go to a shopping center across the border I really look around me at the people; it seems like anything could happen. Everyone has guns." Well, yes, I agreed, many people do, and I think that's a big problem. But you have to look at the statistics as well; your chance of being killed in a Wal-Mart in Burlington, Vermont, is not extremely high.

We both finished our appointments and went home, where in the afternoon we learned what had happened in Boston, and the cycle of horror, speculation, analysis, and fear began spinning all over again.

I don't want to add yet another voice to that sad and mostly-well-meant cacophony. I've spent many days of my life in Boston, and my heart goes out to the people of that city. If there is something concrete I can do to help, I will do it.

What I've been thinking about is the television in the waiting room, a Canadian waiting room, that once was a quiet place where people read, or talked to a companion, or even simply sat and looked out the window. Its presence seems to me an ominous symbol of something that has gone very wrong in most western societies: our inability to be with ourselves, to cope with the essential human condition of solitude, especially in situations that cause our anxiety to rise. It concerns me that, in our secular, post-liberal-arts, technological, perpetually-connected society, so little effort goes into teaching children how to be alone, showing them the richness and solace of time spent with nature, with the arts and handcrafts, with books and music, with oneself walking in a city or sitting on a bench: eyes open, ears open, mind and heart awake to the dance of life flowing around us.

When I return to the United States, as I did just last week, I'm always struck by the palpable level of general anxiety, so much greater than it is here in Quebec. But is that anxiety, and the corresponding reactiveness -- even in the wake of tragedies such as have been experienced in the past decade -- justified? In today's New York Times, University of Maryland criminologist Gary LaFree states, “I think people are actually surprised when they learn that there’s been a steady decline in terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 1970.” Speaking of both domestic and foreign plots, he noted that there were approximately 40 percent fewer attacks in America during the ten years after 9/11 than there had been in the previous decade. (LaFree is director of the highly-regarded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which studies terrorism and keep a Global Terrorism Database. He adds a note that nearly half the worldwide attacks, and 1/3 of those in the U.S., have never been solved.)

However, I think the media bears a large responsibility for fanning the flames of American anxiety.  Supposed neutral channels like CNN feed viewers an endless diet of anxiety-producing stories, while the left and right square off in loud, combative talk shows and news hours, each side trying to out-shout the other. Television is a very powerful medium. Is it any wonder that so many people feel under attack, vulnerable, and constantly anxious, worrying about what is going to happen to them or to their loved ones? It it any wonder that they feel like the entire world is taking sides, at war, that it's us-against-them, myself against the potential unknown assalilant, intruder, terrorist, crazy person lurking in every community? Furthermore, we know that violence begets violence, that copycat crimes proliferate, and that what a lot of perpetrators want the most is publicity.

If the U.S. wants to worry about drugs and terrorism slipping across its porous northern border, then I am concerned about the insidious infiltration of this kind of secular preaching, these incessant sermons of anxiety and fear originating from the south. And much more than that, I wonder if those of us who have chosen to live our lives differently can perhaps be more vocal and intentional about why, and how. The world has always been dangerous for a vast majority of its citizens, but we in the west have been able to ignore that too long. Living positively, with awareness and joy in each day -- in spite of the possibility of death, which can and does happen anywhere, anytime -- is actually possible, as our brothers and sisters in war-torn, poverty-ravaged societies can teach us. And to look closer to home on this sad day: who knows better the fullness of solitude, or the potential triumph of the human spirit, than the long-distance runner?

A Shallow Victory, Followed by Tragedy

Pauline Marois' Parti Quebecois won a narrow victory in yesterday's election, but not enough to form a majority government. At the victory celebration at Montreal's Metropolis theater, a gunman came in through the back after setting a fire and fired a rifle, killing one man and critically wounding another. The gunman was subdued by police and taken away, during which he shouted in French at the TV cameras: "The anglophones are waking up!"

Those are the facts as we know them right now. Quebec and Canada being what they are - i.e., not America -- few in the media are speculating or laying blame; the police and the media have acted with responsibility, restraint, and professionalism. No one knows exactly what the gunman meant, because we don't yet know who he was. However, it seems most likely that he was an anglophone extremist who didn't like what Pauline Marois stands for and has been saying.

What we can say for certain is that the past six months in the province have been the most tense in many years. As I wrote yesterday, I was upset by Pauline Marois' rhetoric and platform calling for strengthening the language laws and imposing restrictions on religious dress. I'm not upset that she, or other people, have strong feelings about their own culture; that is her right and furthermore, I understand historically why she feels that way. But I am opposed to rhetoric that can be perceived as racist in any form, and particularly to public officials inflaming tensions along any societal divides: cultural, sexual, ethnic, religious. When political leaders, or celebrities, or talk show hosts -- anyone with a public voice -- does this, it runs the risk of inciting people to violence and hate crimes, as well as lesser but very damaging incidents where self-control would normally prevail.

Yesterday a YouTube video went viral on the social networks. It showed a drunken couple on a late-night Montreal street verbally attacking some Asian men for speaking English instead of French in public. Of course, there is no law in Quebec saying that anyone has to speak French in public! But like the video of a London woman berating an immigrant on a bus earlier this year, this couple were out of control, repeatedly demanding of the men if they had been born in Quebec, calling them "fucking British," and screaming at them to speak French.

Today, anyone can turn into a public figure, with an audience. 80,000 people have watched that video so far.

The election concerns all of Quebec, but we also have our own city to consider. The most unique and precious thing about Montreal is not merely its French ambience and European flavor, but its vibrant and peaceful multiculturalism. That is what we all should be trying to recognize and protect.

A society can be full of people who have reasonable, rational, balanced attitudes about difficult issues -- frankly, this election demonstrated that, and in general our daily culture does too. A shooting incident like this is very unusual for Montreal, and shocks us -- it is only the 22nd homicide of the entire year, in a city of over 3 million people, but every senseless human death is a tragedy. It should wake us all up to the fact that there is no room for inflammatory rhetoric in our society. I've lived with so much of this in the United States, and seen where it leads. Surely we can do better here, and demand better from our leaders as well as ourselves.

Election

Political posters in my neighborhood. The man in the photo is our current representative in the National Assembly in Quebec, his name is Amir Khadir. The fact that he could be elected here speaks volumes about why I want to live here - read the link to see why.

Today, a provincial election, and I cannot vote. I'm not pleased about this; it makes me feel helpless. But, as permanent residents but not-yet-citizens, that's the rule. I hope I can vote in the next one.

Many people, myself included, are not entirely pleased with the choices. Yesterday I did an online "how do you stand" survey on the CBC website, which asks for your (completely anonymous) views on the major issues, and then not only shows whcih party you are closest to, but you how you stand on each issue in relation to all of them, and gives you tools for understanding and studying the results. It was the most sophsiticated tool like that I've ever seen; I was impressed and fascinated. The problem is that while my views are closest to the Greens; to Quebec Solidaire, a new party trying to get established; and even to the Parti Quebeçois in some areas, the latter two are separatist, and I don't want that. (I agree with Quebec Solidaire's basic platform; what I'm not sure about is its economic viability. But I remain open to hearing more. Most people agree that Françoise David, Quebec Solidaire's spokesperson along with Amir Khadir, won the recent debate.)

The Liberals, under Jean Charest, have held power for the past nine years. There have been a number of corruption scandals, and I think Charest's recent handling of the student strikes was arrogant, conservative, and wrong-headed. It's time for him to go. But the Liberals are a national party; they want Quebec to stay part of Canada, and on the surface they seem more sympathetic to the anglophone and immigrant minorities. But are they really?

In the end, I am here because I like what Quebec stands for. I like it different drummer, its refusal to go the way of Stephen Harper. I like its pacifism, its socialism, its sense of restorative justice, its stubbornness about putting the welfare of the whole society first and individualism a little bit further down. And I want it to stay that way.

All the polls indicate that a referendum on sovereignty wouldn't pass; it has failed twice already, but the issue doesn't die. The Parti Quebecois seems likely to win, and what distresses me about their rhetoric is that it continues to be informed by the past, and to look inward, from a point of view of insecurity, cultual protectionism, and even paranoia, when Quebec can and should be looking outward, toward the future. Provinicialism serves no one, and it absorbs a huge amount of energy that could be placed elsewhere. French society and language are well protected here, and loved and appreciated even by many - like me - who are not part that culture by birth. It's time for fear of the outside, of the other, to be relegated to the past, and a new attitude of openness and outward-looking to begin to shine. Quebec is unique in North America, not just for its language and its culture, but for its determination to hold to decent and honorable social and democratic values while other so-called democracies are really run by the rich and powerful for their own interests. We can all be proud of that, and champion it strongly.

This is the first election here that I've really cared about, and I thnk that means I really feel this is my home. So even though I won't be casting a vote, I'll wait for the results tonight with interest, and hope that whatever happens, we can raise a new generation of leaders who represent all of Quebec, who are committed to protecting our shared values, and to looking outward, and forward.

Creativity as a Radical Act

This is the second part of a 2-part essay. Read Part 1 here.

What I have realized in the past few years is that, while socio-political issues matter tremendously to me, and I think that political activism is terribly important, for me, at this point, too much immersion in politics kills my creativity. It's pretty much either/or. The energy that it takes for me to be committed and active in politics makes it almost impossible for me to do art or music or write at the level I want to.

It's impossible to keep one's involvement on the level of the issues alone. The negativity, polarization, and rhetoric surrounding political action in the U.S., especially since 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, made me feel helpless after a while. It was possible to help break down barriers about homosexuality and religion,and I'm very glad I was involved in that struggle. It was possible to help dismantle some stereotypes about the Middle East, about Islam, about an inevitable "clash of civilizations" -- but only very slowly, and on a local level, almost person-to-person. The struggle against the power of money and corporations and the military, the choice to locate and exhaust the planet's fossil fuels while destroying the entire ecosystem -- I'm not sure fighting these battles is possible anymore through the system itself; maybe only a collapse will cause wholesale change. When it comes to matters of war, peace, and the power of the strong over the weak, we have learned very little over the millenia.

I was involved very intentionally for a long while; it changed me for the better, and I know my efforts did some good.  But I knew that eventually I'd have to make some decisions about what I wanted to do with my remaining time -- time that seems to feel ever shorter and more precious.

My mother wanted me to go into politics. It wouldn't have been a bad fit, in some ways, and I was invited once to run for the Vermont legislature -- but I said no. We each have to look at our own gifts and what we're passionate about, as well as where our lives have led us, and what possibilities are open to us at a particular time - and make the most of them. If we don't do that, we may have to live with big regrets. And we also have to ask: where can I make the most difference? For me, the greatest passion has always been for the arts. I've been fortunate to be able to spend most of my professional career as a graphic designer, a field closely related to the fine arts, and now to have some additional time to devote to work other than the kind that pays the bills.

But the decision to focus on art and on writing -- both my own and other people's -- and to try to minimize the many distracting, conflicting, enticing calls for involvement in other pursuits and other projects -- comes at a time when it's particularly hard to be an artist or a writer, let alone a publisher. There's a lot of discouragement around, and many obstacles which have never been quite so daunting: economic, governmental, social and cultural changes are all contributing, and these combine with and magnify the personal challenges that have always existed for people who live creative lives.

The fact is that we are living in a time when the decision to be an artist, to continue to create in spite of everything that's happening around us, IS a radical political act. This is, I feel, quite a dark time, potentially destructive to the best and most noble aspects of the human spirit. And that's precisely why it is terribly important for artists in all disciplines to continue to create, even when it feels like there's little market and little appreciation for our work. Just doing it, and making the difficult decision to continue to do it -- to live creative lives that celebrate what life is and can be - is both defiant and affirming, and it's crucially important. People need to know that someone they know -- a neighbor, a friend, a cousin -- is committed to the arts. Young people particularly need to know this.

The arts don't exist against anything except apathy, destructiveness, despair. They stand for what's good, and true, and beautiful even when they express sadness, grief, outrage, or pain -- which they can often do better than any other method. And if the traditional structures that supported artists are crumbling, then we have to form our own, and help each other - without cynicism, without anger, without unreasonable expectations for "success" -- because success is not really what it's about.

Toward Transformation

 

From a day or two ago:

Up early. The light is just breaking over the trees, and the street is glistening with recent rain. In my email is the daily message from Fr. Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation, which seems worth sharing:

I think that the great disappointment with so much political activism, even many of the non-violent movements of the 60s and 70s, and why many people were not long-lasting in these movements, is because these movements did not proceed from transformed people. They were coming from righteous ideology of either Left or Right, from mere intellect and will, and not from people who had put head, heart, body, and soul together.

We need to find inside ourselves the positive place of communion, of holiness, where there’s nothing to react against. Pure action is when you are acting from a place which is good, true, and beautiful. The energy at that point is entirely positive.

Fr. Richard Rohr

 

If we think of the difference between leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hahn, the Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King, and most of the elected politicians we've known over the years, even if they were saying all the "correct" things, it's pretty obvious. Part of the difficulty is that people with genuine moral authority are seen as a threat to power and order; often they don't last long when they enter the public sphere. Some (wisely, perhaps) refuse to involve themselves in politics, though it is very difficult for truly spiritual people not to speak out about the moral issues of their time, as Thomas Merton discovered.

Personally, after many decades of political involvement and activism, I became very disenchanted and disappointed with the American "left". I worked hard for change, and became exhausted; my exhaustion told me something was wrong. After moving to Quebec, I stepped back and have been gradually finding a new place, which proceeds both from an understanding of my new home, and a deeper integration of my own "head, heart, body and soul," leading toward greater internal groundedness -- an ongoing process of growth, rather than arrival.

While I'll always vote and express how I feel -- a more effective process in Quebec than in the U.S., I'm afraid -- I'm no longer convinced that working within the existing political structures is the best way to encourage and effect lasting change; in fact I've always been an advocate of small-scale change that comes from the grass-roots, led by individuals who live not from their egos but from deeply internalized values. I agree with Rohr: first we need to be transformed people, living lives based on what is good, true, and beautiful, rather than constantly reacting "against" seemingly immovable forces and trends: whether those are big, obvious forces like violent militarized societies, conservative mass media, and political parties that repeatedly fail to address economic, social, and environmental issues -- or vaguer, de-humanizing or unsettling trends like the impersonality and ephemerality of social networks, the atomization of individual existence in our mobile societies, the difficulty of holding together our families and communities, or the erosion and loss of former affirmative structures such as arts grants, traditional publishing, physical communities, our once-claimed identities as "young", "mother", "employee", or our membership in beleaguered organizations of all kinds.

I've learned one thing, for sure: you have to start with yourself and your own attitude. No matter how terrible our challenges are, when we react from a place of anger, we haven't done all the work we need to do, and ultimately we will only add to the amount of anger, violence, and frustration that already exist in the world. Positive energy attracts other positive energy, and a great deal can be built from there. One place to begin is by looking for and truly understanding what we already do have, the precious things that can never be taken away from us.

Let me just end with this quote from Terry Tempest Williams, via Sigrun at sub rosa:

Once upon a time, when women were birds,
there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn
and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy.
The birds still remember what we have forgotten,
that the world is meant to be celebrated. 

-----This is part one of a two-part essay. It continues here.

 

 

The Noisy Protests, and a Silent Vigil

Tonight, our cathedral is holding a silent candlelight vigil as our first response to the impasse between the protesters and government here in Quebec. Negotiations broke down recently when the goverment walked out. This past weekend, Montreal hosted its annual Grand Prix Formula 1 race, and as a symbol of wealth, excess, and sexual exploitation, it became a focus of the latest protests; demonstrators against sexual exploitation of women joined the students.

Some of it was humorous -- I can't stand the Grand Prix, and appreciated the symbolism of naked andnear-naked students marching along streets thronged with the "beautiful people" who follow Grand Prix events -- but the riot police were right there too. Obviously the city and merchants don't like this economic disruption, especially as we head into the season of summer festivals. There were many arrests and a number of clashes with police, who continue to overreact, using tear gas and pepper spray and beating some protesters, and residents were kept awake into the early hours by the police helicopter; several of my choir frends said they'd been unable to sleep, which happened to us earlier when the helicopters were in our neighborhood.

It's a tense situation, and not getting better. A lot of older people have joined the protests because they're appalled and anger about the hastily-passed Law 78, which prohibits demonstrations or gatherings by more than 50 people without prior permission, ; the issue is no longer tuition hikes but mroe of a generalized, Occupy-Movement-related outrage about systemic problems and not being heard. Other people are getting really fed up with the protests and disruption. Everyone is tired and the groups seem increasingly polarized rather than moving toward a solution.

So here we are, holding a silent vigil. A friend of mine who's been very upset about police violence and Law 78, wrote to say that he doesn't think the vigil will do much good and that the church, as usual, lacks courage. The fact is that our cathedral community is divided, just like the rest of society, but we've issued a statement that came out of our group discussions, written by a small group I was part of, and now formally adopted:

We at Christ Church Cathedral [Montreal] are greatly concerned with the current social crisis. While this crisis began with the question of university fees, we are now faced with a larger question. What kind of society do we want and how can we build a future together based on equity and respect for all?

As a faith community and as citizens of Québec, we at Christ Church Cathedral call for a society:

· Where the dignity and equality of each person is respected,
· Where the voice of every human being is heard, and
· Where the principle of non-violence prevails and where power is not abused.

Therefore, we urge for negotiations to take place in a spirit of genuine cooperation and compromise, with the aim of finding a just and equitable solution to the present crisis that articulates a shared vision for the future.

Our Dean was on the CBC yesterday morning, talking to a respectful but questioning interviewer. I liked what he said.

And this is what I wrote back to my friend; not just a letter but a chance for me to try to conslidate my own thoughts:

Dear ___:

I hear you. At the beginning of this conversation within our community, I had hoped we could make a stronger statement, such as, "Violence in any form is unacceptable, and this law is unacceptable and is leading to greater polarization of our society." When I saw how much division there was in our community, I realized we couldn't do that, certainly not right now. In fact, the statement we're making is closer to it than I had expected. We are saying that violence is unacceptable, we're saying that we must listen, hear and talk to one another, we're saying that we have a different vision of how society can and should be.

No, one candlelight vigil isn't going to change things very much, but as a witness in our city it is actually something people haven't seen. It's a space of silence in the midst of a great deal of noise and confusion, and that is powerful. I think it will actually get some attention and make some people think. And it also moves us forward as a community -- without doing violence to one another in the process. We have to see it as a first step for us, too.

I don't agree that we're living in a military society now. Syria is a militarized society, as are many totalitarian regimes around the world. We're far from that here, and even the U.S. -- which I've criticized for decades -- is far from being truly militarized. I do strongly agree that laws like Loi 78 are the first step toward the erosion of freedom and liberty, and they must be opposed right at the beginning, and removed like dangerous weeds. If the church isn't ready to say that, then people like you and I need to look for other places where we can express our opinion -- and there are plenty of those -- and still work within our church community with love and patience.

The church's initial position has been very frustrating to me at different times in my life -- it has often seemed timid and "behind" on important issues. But as I get older I realize that God's time is not like ours. During my lifetime the North American church has moved from opposition to strong support for civil rights, for women, and for gay people, finally embracing the role of blacks, women, and openly gay people in every sacrament and in every role within the church. That is huge, and it gives me hope.

The issues that young people are pointing out in the Occupy Movement -- economic disparity and lack of equal opportunity, environmental degradation, the role of extreme wealth and greed, and lack of true democracy, militarism and erosion of personal freedom and civil rights, and incessant global warfare over ideologies, religions, and resources, to name just a few -- are not new (as the Gospels tell us!) but are presenting themselves today with greater and greater urgency because now we can see that the whole planet is an interlocking web of systems in danger of collapse. The church is really only just beginning to grapple with how it can respond, and first it has to see and disentangle itself from its own complicity in the systems of power, oppression, and fearful maintenance of the status quo.

That's a long, difficult process. I think Jesus understood that very well. He had the fire of an angry young man, but his sadness tells me that he also understood human nature: how slow we are to "get it," how fearful we are of losing what we have, how quickly we judge and persecute. That's why, I think, in his most famous teachings he didn't leave us with a revolutionary message about fighting and overthrowing the powers, but with the words, "Love one another" and "Blessed are the peacemakers." He realized that the only way toward lasting change starts with love and must always be animated by love. It starts with God in the heart of one person and spreads outward. Non-violence is one expression of that love. Standing together tonight, in spite of our differences, is another.

Each of us has a different role in these processes. Part of what we need to pray about and work on now is discerning those roles, I think. I'm grateful to you for your honesty about how the protests have affected you and I know it's helped us get to this point. I'm absolutely confident that over time we will see movement and greater courage within the church on these issues, just as we have on others. Right now, this small step may feel like it's too little in the face of big problems, but I think if we remember, "Where love is, God is there also" a way will open.

love,
Beth

An Ordination, and Some Memories

The clerical procession

Last Sunday, three of my friends were ordained at our cathedral: one to the diaconate, and two to the priesthood. I was in the loft, singing with the choir, and had a bird's-eye view of the processions and the proceedings (but unfortunately, only my camera phone in my pocket.)

An ordination is a momentous occasion, representing and celebrating many years of discernment, struggle, study, training and preparation. In liturgical traditions such as ours, the ordinand is taking solemn vows and receiving permission to do particular tasks. Deacons (the Greek word means "servant", "minister", or "messanger") are the church's eyes and ears and hands in the world; they also preach and assist at the mass. In most cases being ordained a deacon is the first step toward becoming a priest, which happens after another year, though some people feel called to the diaconate itself as a profession. In the case of priests, ordination means being able to perform all the sacraments such as baptism and marriage, and particularly, to "say mass" or celebrate the Eucharist.

I've known a lot of priests as good friends, and had a number of friends who have become priests during the time I've known them. Following and writing about Gene Robinson's journey from priest to his ordination as bishop gave me an additional window into the deeply personal journey this unusual and difficult path entails. Nobody takes it lightly, and an ordination always feels moving to me.

The candidate for deacon kneels alone at the altar.

The friends who were ordained on Sunday included a woman who is our present assistant at the cathedral, and two men, both of whom are openly gay and in committed relationships. Although such ordinations have been going on for some time in the U.S., this was the first ordination of an openly gay, non-celibate candidate to the priesthood in our diocese. Last year, when he was ordained a deacon, people rose and objected at the point in the service where the bishop asks if anyone feels there is "an impediment." This year, the bishop read a letter of objection he had received, but no one stood up in person , and the bishop calmly proceeded. When the ordinations were finished and the new deacon and priests presented, the congregation warmly applauded for many minutes; most of us have been involved in this struggle for years, and we recognized the moment for what it was.

The clergy gather to lay hands on the candidates for priesthood at the moment of ordination.

As I watched and listened and sang, I thought back to the time when there were no women priests -- in my childhood, women were not even allowed to read the lessons or to serve on the vestry. I thought of Gene Robinson's ordination, and his appearance at this cathedral for our first "OutMass" a year later -- of how packed it was, of the tears in the eyes of people who had never dared hope they would be accepted by a church because of their sexual orientation; men and women who had been shamed and rejected by the Roman Catholic church and denied communion, and community; people who had not taken communion for decades but did so that day as they listened, some weeping, to an openly gay bishop tell them they were loved by God just as they were, for that is how they had been created. That may have been the day, I think, that our bishop made the courageous decision to stand behind the ordination of gay men and women in our diocese, and soon formally accepted the candidacy of one of the men who was ordained last Sunday.

Bishop Gene Robinson preaches at the first OutMass, Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, in the summer of 2006

For the most part, I feel the church and most congregations in North America, at least, are moving on. In England, there's still a huge and ridiculous debate over whether women are qualified to be bishops, and in other parts of the world the church still upholds laws that demonize and persecute homosexuals. Gene Robinson was utterly alone in the Anglican Communion for a number of years but now is no longer the only openly gay bishop to be elected. (He's also retiring this year.) The Catholic church is still embroiled in scandals over predatory, pedophile priests who did incalculable damage to children, and yet refuses to budge on the issues of ordaining women, or allowing priests to marry. I'm glad my denomination is less stuck, and tries to act with integrity, even as the church's relevance wanes, and glad I've been able to play a small part in the ongoing struggle for equality for all people.