Funny because it is true

Though legally a member of the clergy since 12/31/2003, my real ordination stems from a line of clandestine priests in the Martinist tradition.  That ordination and simultaneous commissioning as a Knight (which is why I use Rev. Kt. if I stoop to titles), Defender and Protector of the Holy Sepulcher, took place on my 21st birthday weekend (so eight years earlier) in Vancouver B.C.

For years I've gotten professional rates on church related publications and many many publishing houses mistake me for an ultra-conservative catholic.  The only real record in a church of my status is with the Order of Preachers, i.e. the Dominicans (of inquisitorial fame).  I am a member of their Confraternity of the Holy Rosary.  My certificate refers to Rev. Kevin Day.

Take that, Quasimodo.

Current religious and political stance

For a year now this is how my Facebook deals with religious affiliation and political views:

Religious affiliation:  Diplomatic Immunity. As both a career druid and as a person of the fourth book (the Sabians ran out of the hills with a copy of the Corpus Hermeticum which was subsequently judged to be acceptable to Allah), I enjoy diplomatic immunity among all faiths in order to promote peace and the common good.

Political views:  Synarchy.  "Rule Together"  We are truly all in the same boat.  It's called Planet Earth.  "This fragile earth our Island Home" - Episcopal Book of Common Prayer 1979

That's my story and I am sticking to it. 

Invoking Ch1 P2 of RSB

This is what I have literally and deliberately done within the last year after an additional year dealing with pastoral concerns in areas outside the church in my capacity as a Druid (I was elected to the Druidic College of Caer Lud on St. Valentine's Day in 2002).

In the counsel of our Holy Father Benedict:

"The second kind are the anchorites or hermits:  those who, no longer in the first fervor of their reformation, but after long probation in the monastery, having learned by the help of many brethren how to fight against the devil, go out well armed from the ranks of the community to the solitary combat of the desert. They are able now, with no help safe from God, to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh and their own evil thoughts."

As a Martinist, I was trained in preparation for and on vigilant watch for "the tests of the four elements and single combat with the dragon."  This is a different way of saying the same thing. 

It is to this point that my walk with God has brought me.  In full confidence of The Lord, I continue my journey. 

Spiritual Direction

So... finally crossing from informal to formal; pro bono to professional. More to come, certainly.

"Everything belongs" - Father Richard Rohr OFM

I still wonder what the second half of life has in store for my religious and mystical training. There is a very telling pile of small books currently on my nightstand, all pocket-sized: A gospel/psalms, a Rule of St. Benedict, and three slim moleskine journals in my own hand: daily prayers (written when I was preparing for entering benedictine community), the journal from when I was taking my post-Temple degree initiations within the Rosicrucian Order (OSB=OSB after all), and the journal of my struggles to maintain the Rule while making my way in the world. God always uses everything and these experiences remain close to my core. [cross-posted from a facebook status update]

St. Andrews Crossroads

Over the course of this year a series of shifts occurred for me wherein I stopped navigating life by the Christian map. It was not a question of not believing or even being in conflict on a values level. To use Marcus' phrasing: I stopped speaking Christian and found myself in territory where I needed to revive religious language and practice that I learned outside the church. Trinity has been a place where I could share a more complete version of myself than in any other Christian community that I have encountered. For that I am very grateful.

However this fall in particular I encountered situations and opportunities that I could not address adequately as a Christian. I did find that I could be of service by taking up roles of which I had systematically divested myself in the year that I returned to Trinity. I again find myself at a crossroads just as I did at that time. Both of them feel a bit like a betrayal to the community in which I was centered at the time. The one thing I do know about the whole arc of my journey is that God has been with me and that for all my mistakes and stumblings, I have drawn closer to the mysteries and have continually found sincere people doing what they are called to do in order to seek that closeness as well.

I knew I had hit a bit of a critical point last weekend when I had no desire to participate in any part of the Christmas liturgies. I thought a weekend in the hermitage, so to speak, would give me a fresh start. A fresh start, perhaps, but I know my place is elsewhere. I have been in similar positions with the church twice before in my life. Both of those times I took a stance where I was essentially voting against the church. This time I'm just letting go. The church has its role and its community. My associates and I have ours. I trust that God is using both of us to reach out to somewhat different folks but all for connection to the larger whole that is the divine-human family.

*****

And the conditionality of the subjunctive closes, leaving a very active but wholly different indicative.

St. Martin's Lent

This morning I put my medals (Timothy and Benedict) back on after a period of weeks wearing a different sort of cross, now safely gifted to someone else. As an aside I love networking by giving gifts. Jewelry is particularly good in that it allows a part of you connected with the receiver to continue wearing that token while you recenter perhaps under a different signature. So I return to my monastic path having accomplished the tasks outside the monastery that were mine to do.

This past friday was Martinmas, i.e. the Feast of St. Martin of Tours, who was a very early convert to Christianity having been a Roman soldier. He settled at Tours and eventually became bishop of that place. One of his primary legends is that of slicing his cloak in two in order to share with someone who had none.

Centuries ago Advent developed in the period before Christmas and was seen as a preparatory or even penitential period before the feast of the incarnation. Forty days placed a convenient starting point at the Feast of St. Martin, longer than our current advent of four Sundays. It is this advent that feels active for me this year.

On Friday I attended a wedding at the cathedral that chose to use the readings for the feast of the day as the couple felt they espoused the stress fo charity and justice that was key to their understanding of Christianity and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. This prepared the way for the realization that I came to at Sunday Eucharist this morning.

Having just past through this period of indulgence and activity in order to do work to which I felt called, I now need a period of cleansing in order to properly enter into the darkest of the Winter months, the anniversary of my father's death, and the finding again of light with the Solstice and the celebration of Our Lord's birth.

Project 119 as discussed in my last post was an incredible experience of grounding which helped to get me out of a very difficult and disorganized period in order to have the strength to live and work as needed to be done. I will return to some elements of this project as a way of entering into this purifying Advent.

Though more recently I had been looking at other translations of this psalm, I believe I need to return and dive deeply again into the Book of Common Prayer as the source for my personal liturgy. It's phrases were able to stick with me and echo through the walk of my days in a way that holds the sanctity of the law which is celebrated in the psalm.

Many blessings on your Advent whether taken up now or in a short few weeks time.