actually ecumenically polyamorous?
Yesterday I went to Super Saturday [a regional UCC event], and Ian H. (support pastor while Molly was on medical leave) asked if this meant I was officially UCC and I said no, though when I saw him I suspected he would think that. [ He used to nudge me about officially joining FCS.]
Introducing me to the person he had been chatting with, he referred to me as "ecumenically promiscuous."
I said these days I was actually mostly only at FCS -- "situationally monogamous, what's that about?"
Early on the drive home, FCS-Ian (still more pastoral than the entire UMC!) asked me about CWM and my feels thereon, and doing my ~usual spiel, I said that FCS isn't the radical queer church of my heart and doesn't want to be, but that in recent years I've come to feel like I've been around long enough and involved sufficiently that I know ways I can push that are in keeping with the gist of the community, that isn't me just imposing my agenda -- and I mentioned the recent walk'n'talk I had with Molly, wherein she said that when I first came to FCS I was attending multiple churches and that was great but it meant I was kind of an outsider, and now I have a stake in the community (including having taken on leadership roles in the community) and so it's a lot easier for her to receive criticism from me now ... and how I'd told her that that definitely made sense once I heard her say it, but that I never experienced myself as having a particular moment when I shifted to having a stake in the community, because I organically grew into leadership in Rest and Bread (and I had a stake in *that* from early on) and my involvement shifted and changed but I didn't feel like there was switch when I went from not having a stake to having a stake.
FCS-Ian said that he knows me and he knows that "[I] can go to 3 churches and commit fully" -- but that he had to learn that about me, that he knows for himself he can't commit fully to multiple churches.
Jamie and I both thought (and she vocalized) that it's like being polyamorous (or monogamous).
It's a long-standing thing that I and others use the romantic/sexual relationship metaphor for my engagement with churches, and I sometimes miss being involved with multiple communities, but it hadn't occurred to me to potentially frame it as being actually ecumenically polyamorous (as opposed to being ecumenically slutty, which I think would not be an inaccurate representation at times).
Edit: I was writing an update email to someone and mentioned going to jazz service at Old South (one of whose ministers I know from Pride Interfaith), followed by Bible study facilitated by the same person who facilitates Wednesday night meditation at First Church Cambridge, and how I felt a certain sense of right-ness (or at least comfort/familiarity/at-home-ness) about the intersecting of various different spaces I inhabit. /edit
cadenzamuse: I couldn't decide if I should use the "you're not polly; you're elizabeth" tag for this, and I totally thought of you in that decision-making :)
Molly's creating an Ecclesiastes Bible study curriculum, and the second session was this afternoon (I missed the first one due to a pre-existing commitment and then it lapsed for a bit), on Ecclesiastes 3-4:8, but we were going around in a circle reading in turns and someone accidentally read the next bit, so Molly ended up mentioning it at one point, including that it doesn't "privilege 2s over 3s."
Ally said, "my poly friends will love that."
Molly said she knew I'd gone there and I said yeah, that's why I didn't bother saying anything, but that I'm always pleased when I'm not the only person in the room to go there (other than people just knowing that *I'm* going there).
Molly said, "Prooftexting -- but maybe God put it in there [thinking] 'one day they'll be ready for it'."
Introducing me to the person he had been chatting with, he referred to me as "ecumenically promiscuous."
I said these days I was actually mostly only at FCS -- "situationally monogamous, what's that about?"
Early on the drive home, FCS-Ian (still more pastoral than the entire UMC!) asked me about CWM and my feels thereon, and doing my ~usual spiel, I said that FCS isn't the radical queer church of my heart and doesn't want to be, but that in recent years I've come to feel like I've been around long enough and involved sufficiently that I know ways I can push that are in keeping with the gist of the community, that isn't me just imposing my agenda -- and I mentioned the recent walk'n'talk I had with Molly, wherein she said that when I first came to FCS I was attending multiple churches and that was great but it meant I was kind of an outsider, and now I have a stake in the community (including having taken on leadership roles in the community) and so it's a lot easier for her to receive criticism from me now ... and how I'd told her that that definitely made sense once I heard her say it, but that I never experienced myself as having a particular moment when I shifted to having a stake in the community, because I organically grew into leadership in Rest and Bread (and I had a stake in *that* from early on) and my involvement shifted and changed but I didn't feel like there was switch when I went from not having a stake to having a stake.
FCS-Ian said that he knows me and he knows that "[I] can go to 3 churches and commit fully" -- but that he had to learn that about me, that he knows for himself he can't commit fully to multiple churches.
Jamie and I both thought (and she vocalized) that it's like being polyamorous (or monogamous).
It's a long-standing thing that I and others use the romantic/sexual relationship metaphor for my engagement with churches, and I sometimes miss being involved with multiple communities, but it hadn't occurred to me to potentially frame it as being actually ecumenically polyamorous (as opposed to being ecumenically slutty, which I think would not be an inaccurate representation at times).
Edit: I was writing an update email to someone and mentioned going to jazz service at Old South (one of whose ministers I know from Pride Interfaith), followed by Bible study facilitated by the same person who facilitates Wednesday night meditation at First Church Cambridge, and how I felt a certain sense of right-ness (or at least comfort/familiarity/at-home-ness) about the intersecting of various different spaces I inhabit. /edit
cadenzamuse: I couldn't decide if I should use the "you're not polly; you're elizabeth" tag for this, and I totally thought of you in that decision-making :)
Molly's creating an Ecclesiastes Bible study curriculum, and the second session was this afternoon (I missed the first one due to a pre-existing commitment and then it lapsed for a bit), on Ecclesiastes 3-4:8, but we were going around in a circle reading in turns and someone accidentally read the next bit, so Molly ended up mentioning it at one point, including that it doesn't "privilege 2s over 3s."
Ally said, "my poly friends will love that."
Molly said she knew I'd gone there and I said yeah, that's why I didn't bother saying anything, but that I'm always pleased when I'm not the only person in the room to go there (other than people just knowing that *I'm* going there).
Molly said, "Prooftexting -- but maybe God put it in there [thinking] 'one day they'll be ready for it'."