7 takes on a Crumbling Civilization

Trains and Olympics, Kamala's Drag Queens, Episcopal Polyamory, Male Loneliness, Girls Without Dads, A Fun Map, and a Nice Piece of Music

Photo by Charles Loyer on Unsplash

I am joined this morning by the old and crotchety cat, Lucy, who wants to sit right where it would be most ergonomically advantageous to perch my computer. Lucy is the sort of frail beastie who walks up and down up and down, never at rest, her pacing punctuated by small, petulant cries. It takes a lot of coaxing for her to agree to finally sit, and not stand precariously on my shoulder or chest. So, that seems like some sort of metaphor for something. Perhaps someone cleverer than I could put it together and make it into a snappy TikTok.

Which is to say, it’s been a long week and I’ve got a heap of bits of things that I don’t want to forget in the promised craziness of the weekend to come.

One

Woke up to see that there was a coordinated “attack” on France’s rail system, intended to “maximize” travel difficulties ahead of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. Here’s just one of the tweets:

Hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Paris: A combined attack was carried out on the high-speed train system in France. According to an train operator, several installations along the lines connecting Paris to western and northern France have caught fire and caused significant damage. French Prime Minister: The coordinated sabotage operation was carried out early in the morning. Its results are huge and serious.

Here’s a tweet with a map:

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Olympic news because Matt and I are expecting to be in Paris the few days between the regular and para-Olympic games. This particular timing wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t even know this was an Olympics moment. My parents are celebrating their fiftieth year of being married to each other and want to do something super fun. They want to go to Besançon, where I was supposed to have been born, had not God rearranged everything to take them to High Wycombe in the hottest part of that decade so I could come forth into the world there. We have a wonderful short journey planned, which, of course, includes landing in Paris and then getting out of there without losing our luggage, our tiny minds, and hopefully anything else, like mortal life itself.

I’ve been diligently working on my Babel App for months—it’s been so, so long since I’ve spoken any French to anyone—with a side of low-grade logistical freakout. I have, on occasion, considered praying, but that is also stressful.

Before that, we’re all going to Texas via both car travel and airplane—the girls and I are driving down while Matt and the boys fly from different places, and then Matt and I and two girls are driving back up while the boys and two girls fly back on different airlines at different times. It’s like one of those horrible flight pattern maps that make me long to be a peasant slopping muck out of a ditch and never seeing beyond the end of my own nose.

In order to keep my peace of mind, I will be blogging whenever I’m not actually driving—especially since it is now possible to post from the Substack App, a most propitious occurrence arranged for such a time as this.

Two

On the other side of providence, we have this hellscape:

Seriously, you have to watch it, if only to see the defiant stares of the Drag Queens as Mamala talks about everyone being able to “love” whoever they want. Not to be pedantic, but this isn’t “love.” It’s something else, like a grotesque combination of lust, pride, exploitation, and hubris. Also, the sentiment that “we’re all in this together” sounds vaguely menacing.

Three

Back around to the Episcopal Church—that person I blogged about a few weeks ago is back in the news. It just wasn’t fair, see, that she couldn’t have more than one True Love which has precipitated a “struggle” over “consensual nonmonogamy”. The Living Church has the scoop:

Some Episcopal priests with nontraditional views on sexuality and human relationships are beginning to assert what they see as their right to put those views into practice.

Their candor has been costly in some cases. One priest was abruptly fired by her bishop and forbidden to have any contact with her vestry or congregation. Another suddenly left one of the largest parishes in the country without explanation, after proposing a book study on the topic. At least two other priests have renounced their ordination vows to escape ecclesiastical discipline.

This is not a previous era’s war over homosexuality, but rather a present-day struggle over polyamory — “many loves.” A broader term is “consensual nonmonogamy” — relationships where everyone involved knows about and consents to a lack of exclusivity in sexual or romantic expression.

Of course, any discussion of polyamory in a Christian context immediately bumps up against the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Episcopal priests vow at their ordination to “do your best to pattern your life … in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people.” Marital fidelity is also prominent in New Testament texts about the qualifications for ministry (1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:6).

Arguably, marital “fidelity” in the scriptures isn’t just in a couple of texts but is the superstructure by which we may even begin to understand the gospel. Gosh, I love the idea of a “Christian context” “bumping up” against something like a Commandment of God. Back in the olden days, Christians inside of their contexts loved the laws of God. They didn’t try to get around them because they had time and bandwidth to meditate on them day and night and all that kind of thing. They believed all of them were true, were a strong tower, and the way to become a rooted and rested tree beside a spring of water. All that is so arcane now, so we get to have the Episcopal Case for Just Sleeping With Everyone. I kid you not, it came up at their General Convention this year:

A resolution that might have provided some protection to priests in polyamorous relationships failed to advance at General Convention.

Resolution A145 called on “disciplinary authorities to exercise pastoral compassion and discretion during the 2024-2027 triennium with those clergy and laity who disclose the diverse ways in which they are forming family and household structures that seek to be holy, faithful and lifegiving.” Some saw this as a reference to polyamory, although that term does not appear in the resolution. A member of the committee that proposed the resolution said polyamory came up in committee discussions, but that the primary focus was on cohabitation without marriage. The committee member spoke on condition of anonymity.

Back to the Seventh Commandment. Richter pointed out that acceptable patterns of behavior have evolved in many ways since Biblical times. “Once upon a time, monogamy meant two virgins getting married, and then when one of them died, the other one would never remarry,” she said. “Monogamy now includes things like divorce and remarriage, which historically was absolutely out of bounds.”

Richter also raised the question of whether nonmonogamy is a lifestyle choice or an orientation — another consideration that hearkens back to earlier debates about homosexuality.

“We’re all still figuring out, how are we using these terms, and we’re not all using them the same way, and they don’t mean the same thing for everybody,” Goff said.

Richter is the person I blogged about before. I know I should go find it but I’m in such a rush, as usual, because I have a fun luncheon appointment. Gosh, wouldn’t it be funny if they decided “ethical nonmonogamy” is an orientation and not just a lifestyle choice, as if that makes any difference to God whatsoever.

Four

I’m almost done listening to a book called BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in an Age of Impossible Masculinity. There’s an excerpt of it in the New York Times, for just a taste:

For many progressives, weary from a pileup of male misconduct, the refusal to engage with men’s feelings has now become almost a point of principle. For every right-wing tough guy urging his crying son to “man up,” there’s a voice from the left telling him that to express his concerns is to take airtime away from a woman or someone more marginalized. The two are not morally equivalent, but to boys, the impact can often feel similar. In many cases, the same people who are urging boys and men to become more emotionally expressive are also taking a moral stand against hearing how they actually feel. For many boys, it can seem as though their emotions get dismissed by both sides. This political isolation has combined with existing masculine norms to push a worrying number of boys into a kind of resentful, semi-politicized reclusion.

This book is a little bit driving me crazy. Like so many books and pieces of writing, it’s easy to describe the problem, but when it comes down to finding a solution, it’s like all the trains just fall off their tracks and their wheels. I am darkly amused that the author, Ruth Whippman, is so abundantly sure about what “masculinity” is and that it is something that is “impossible.” I’ve gone around the last couple of days asking my sons, husband, and father if they think “masculinity is a social construct” and also what it even is. On the whole, they stare at me blankly and continue with whatever they’re doing. For, the mark of a true man is if the voice of a woman sounds like the waves of an ocean in his ears. Just kidding. Given that Mamala thinks the best place to announce what an awesome president she’s going to be is with a bunch of Drag Queens, I’m pretty it doesn’t even matter what I think.

Five

This little person knows something about it, though (click the pic to go through to Twitter):

Is it just me, or is this so heartbreaking? Honestly, it feels like child abuse.

Six

On the funny end of the spectrum, I found this over and Facebook and laughed for a good long time:

Gosh, what’s wrong with Turkey over there in the corner?

Seven

And finally, a little palate cleanser:

Have a lovely day!