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For some, the road to conversion is quick, immediate, unmediated. Angels appear in the sky; a voice is spoken; if lucky, we hear.

But for some of us, the road has been less direct.  There is also deconversion, a leaving behind and a reconsideration of the past; hesitations as we progress.  We stumble.  The signs along the road reveal themselves to have a multiplicity of meanings.  Although we engage in the sacraments and practice the pieties, the conviction moves between disinterest and passion.

My own conversion, a slow turning into the tradition, came less though an immediate experience of the transcendent (although I’ve had a few).  It was enhanced and guided through the steady reading of a rigorous literary tradition.  Cultural critics such as Christopher Lasch, Marshall McCluhan, and Neil Postman; poets like Robert Browning and WH Auden; novelists Marilynne Robinson and Annie Dillard -are just a few writers who have led me to this well spring that I now inhabit.  This, combined with the social gospel tradition, has kept my interest.  And throughout my working life as a priest I’ve sought writers who wrote beyond the easy caricatures or archetypes of cast before us in culture, as this atheist author describes the work of Marilynne Robinson in the New Yorker.

Certainly I was primed in my house by combination of progressive politics, literature and poetry; and I was not hindered or overwhelmed by any sort of institutional abuse that rendered me unable to hear what was said. This journey as someone who trusts the tradition, as “a person of faith,” has sometimes seemed solitary.  My family is content with the blessings of secularism, samsara and sensuality, and for them I am glad.  They remain wary, for good reason, of American Christianity’s provinciality, a small-mindedness I’m eager to break.

In this context I recently participated in the Glen Workshop at Mount Holyoke College.  It’s organized by Image Journal, a literary magazine that comes out of Seattle Pacific University.   It’s focus: arts and faith in the tradition of Religious Humanism – especially as framed by an incarnational theology as traditionally described in the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican traditions, but with a broad appeal across the ecumenical spectrum.

I took a class on memoir taught by Lauren Winner, who demonstrated generosity, depth and insight as a teacher.  She explained how the practice of writing is a way of discerning the truth; of uncovering our self-deception; of challenging and owning our fragility.  Seeming to address my own most immediate concern, she clarified how memoir is not autobiography.  It’s a task, a story, written from a first person perspective.   The narrator is a character; and not necessarily the protagonist.   These short nuggets of wisdom are not exhaustive.  Certainly each one deserves its own comment.

Of course, a good part of the course was listening to the wisdom and insight of the class.  The workshop provided some space for us to explore difficult transitions and conflicts with people who were magnanimous.  We took each other seriously – not that we didn’t share in laughter – but we knew that we were in a space of trust, where people could receive and speak criticism in order to sharpen our work.

Gregory Wolfe has gathered exceptional writers and teachers who are seriously engaged in the tradition of Christian Humanism.  I would suggest to anyone active in the church and the arts consider the Glen Workshop.  It’s one I will look forward to participating on a regular basis, even if not as a workshop, but as a retreat.

I also met a number of remarkable people.  Here are a few who blog: Katie Leigh, Rosie Perera, Kristen Writes, and Kari, to name some with whom I will be linking.

I mistakenly called it a “conference,” to an eight year old.  My friend Katy’s daughter, Olivia, then asked me if the conference was boring.  She then asked me if they had waterslides.  Which they did not. Such a lack did not severely disengage me from the workshop and most likely I would have been to shy  to try it out if they had them.

One of the poets mentioned in one of the lectures was Robert Browning.  As I participated, I kept remembering the following poem, which seemed to describe the heart of the workshop’s work and theology.  I was glad to be with people who were at home in this effervescent, magnanimous and joyous land of words and images within the broad swath of the tradition.  Beyond the miserliness in the current climate, here are words of redemption.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge |&| shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast |&| with ah! bright wings.

Episcopal Cafe links to Fr. Arnold’s speculation about the uses of infant baptism.  Fr Arnold notes that the current discussions of open communion have the unintended consequence of diminishing the necessity to baptize children.  They would be able, he muses, to take communion whether baptized or not, and thus could delay being sprinkled by the pastor until they wanted to make the decision.

It’s a useful point, one that should help frame the discussion of open communion.  Would one, for example, be able to take communion and make a deliberate decision not to be baptized?  What is being said about baptism in such a case?  Is the understanding of baptism, in such an example, accurate?

Because it seems to me that most parents who want their child to make an adult decision will do just that.  They won’t baptize them.  This was my own case:  I chose to be baptized when I was 13.  My parents believed that religion was choice someone had to make with some deliberation and thought.   So is the question about the church just not doing infant baptisms at all, in any circumstance?   I can’t imagine there being such a rule inhibiting the church from doing so and remaining in the Catholic tradition.  Of course, even in free protestant churches they have ceremonies that have some elements of a baptismal rite for babies.

It will certainly, however, become custom that we baptize more adults.  This will naturally happen as our culture becomes dechristianized.  It does not, however, require any change in church teaching.

Is there an instinctive preference of the church body?   I’m not sure why there should be one.  We should baptize children and adults. What makes us catholic, I argue, is that we have a universal sense – we can do both without shame.  It’s not a zero sum game.

There’s another question that infant baptism and open communion skirt around: is there anything peculiar or distinctive about being a Christian?  Does being a Christian mean anything different than being a buddhist, Jew or Unitarian?  Or are we all the same religion deep down?  The problem is that usually when we say such a thing, we imply that everyone’s a secret Christian.

In my own practice I do spend a fair amount of time asking parents about why they want their child baptized.   I seek to have parents who can be informed as their child ask questions about their faith, who can say the baptismal covenant with some integrity.   I think, also, people may decide to reject Christ, but they can do this even after being baptized.

And this is the work of a pastor – to help others in their discernment. My ambivalence is grounded in the unwillingness of priests to share what the church traditionally teaches while breaking reasonable rules the church has ordered.   We’ve found lots of excuses for not sharing what a critical faith looks like; opportunities for parishioners to deepen their spirituality, or invigorate their sense of commitment.  We’ve become scared of asking people to sacrifice anything.

Are there any parents who are testing bringing children to communion before baptism?  Or is it an invented problem arising from our frustration that, in spite of our outward progressivism, our churches are not growing?   As I see it, an inclusive liturgical practice does not make up for parishes that don’t know how to care effectively even for the Christians already in their communities.   My suspicion is that our “inclusive” practices divert us from the practices that will truly make our institutions welcoming.

Nobody is really asking the church to give up infant baptism.  Certainly, however, we’ll have to baptize more adults as families decide to forgo the ceremony.  What do we offer someone who has decided to become baptized?  Do we offer them new life?  Of if we do not, or if we don’t think such a thing exists, than yes, baptism is irrelevant, and we not need it to orient our common life.

Like most of my friends and colleagues, I am disappointed at the choice that North Carolina citizens made about amending their constitution.   I am not, however, surprised.  Although I’m fortunate to live in a state where marriages are legal, I still observe reticence and ambivalence even from people who intellectually support some sort of legal protection for gay couples.  I suspect that even in NY, if it had been put to a popular vote, gay marriage would have lost.

Yet, I’m not sure if the vote is a complete disaster.  Forty percent is far more than it would have been twenty years ago.  The publicity may have exposed the bigotry and fear at the root of the amendment.  I suspect the victorious side will find its satisfactions temporary.  The culture is simply changing so that it accepts the ordinariness of same-sex desire.   Laws will not stop it.  And people will be creative enough to live around it.  The law will be challenged. 

Gay marriage is one issue that is “low-cost” for those who oppose it.  “High cost” issues are those where people have some skin in the game – raising taxes for fire departments and schools.  The benefit of low cost issues is that the orienting party can find a easy target (in this case, gay people), without having to promise anything of great value to its constituents.  What, after all, do conservative churches get for opposing gay marriage?  Not much, except they feel better.  Their communities will not become richer (and they may become poorer); they will not become safer. It is one of the great misdirections, that politicians can offer the seductively sweet nectar of moral righteousness, while ensuring they don’t need to spend a penny on making their communities more livable. 

It also behooves the progressive left to remember:  rational arguments rarely trump relationships.  The amendment passed because, in part, the church understands organizing.  They had at their disposal relationships built over years in their congregations.   The solution is not, in my view, trying to claim churches should not be involved in politics, but rather – to get organized.

“Movement” politics is different than organizing.  Movements arise and fall.  They can change culture; but they do not change who has power.  Organizing to challenge power, however, requires enormous patience.   And for this reason, progressives who seek immediate change are constantly disappointed.  Building institutions, building relationships and training leaders takes years.  It takes familiarity with people.  This familiarity is crucial because most people do not trust arguments.  They trust other people. 

Corporations and churches know this.  Corporations hire people who know Washington and have built years of relationships.  Lobbyists don’t simply commute from their homestate to WDC, they live there and get to know who makes the machine move.  Churches, as organizations, train people do get work done in groups – from having pot-lucks, to mission trips, to political organization.  The internet is a poor substitute for face to face relationships.  It can enhance, but not replace them.  A left that rejects the practice of lobbying; that does not build counter institutions or enable the ones that already exist; will continue to find itself sidelined and unprepared. 

So on the day after the election, do not despair.  The loss is, instead, an invitation to examine and study the opposition to happen next.  It is an opportunity to reorganize.  

Last December, Bishop George Packard, along with a handful of clergy and protesters, sought to occupy X park, owned by Trinity Church, an Episcopal church of great wealth and prosperity.

Of course, clergy in the interwebs are divided.  A few consider this a missed opportunity, and more militant ones paint Trinity Church with the Iron Heel’s colors.   The non-retired episcopacy wrings their hands and frets.  It’s a pretty good representation how the liberal elite think of occupy wall street.

I admit, I’m perplexed as to why the occupiers want the space owned by Trinity.  It’s hard for any institution to negotiate with a non-institution.  Might OWS consist of double agents (not necessarily Lutherans), republicans in liberal clothing, or Trotskyists?  Who is held accountable for the mistakes of individual saboteurs?

If only Dr Cooper could have asked for an insurance certificate.

But it does raise some questions.  Who is representing the occupiers?  Were there other opportunities to build relationships?  Who has authority?  Who pays the consequences?

The occupiers, to their credit, choose places that were not illegal to occupy.  Zuccotti Park was a safer choice than Goldman Sachs.  University campuses are probably easier to occupy than Bank of America.  Public spaces allow for the persons to participate, without actually threatening the private enterprises that control most commerce.

Over the last forty years, we’ve constrained and confined our public, democratic places.  The result:  environments where we have echo chambers, where extreme views are forbidden, especially those that critique commerce.   Each media institution has a modest particular “slant” so people don’t accidentally become informed about a variety of issues or perspectives.  All a businessman knows, thus, is business; but not much about anything else.  We are made into ideologues and consumers, rather than citizens of mutual concern.  We become limited: we examine how any change affects us personally, but have little consideration for its consequences upon other people.

The commons, our public spaces, the non-commercial locations where people of different walks of life can become safely acquainted, require public subsidy.  The institutions that protect liberty require commitment, from each according to their ability.   It is the cost for living in a country free from violence, where the different classes can engage each other without fear of theft or exploitation.

Surely, protests are where our parishes may step in.  When the government prohibits persons to organize freely, the church, whose primary role in the culture is precisely organizing voluntary work, can offers its space, in hospitality, toward the stranger.

This may be just one step along the movement’s maturity.   OWS will build  with already effective institutions and consider their next step.  But its hard work that requires patience, tenacity, resilience and courage.    If they could pay rent and buy the porta-potties themselves, perhaps they’d find more sympathetic relationships.

OWS, however, may want to analyze a bit who Trinity is.  It ‘s not simply the one percent.  It’s congregants are actually not all from the surrounding area.   They are engaged in multiple ministries world wide.  It’s not an enemy, nor should it be made one.

Building the movement to change the awful system of arrangements that has impoverished many Americans will take more than the deeds of the impatient.  It will take years of building relationships, of listening to the many individuals who can effectively contribute to revealing and changing the system.  Trinity is one of those organizations.  They are not the enemy, and need not be made to feel as if they are.