notes on the first 9 pages of the document

!) the whole we have to be nice to be fags, dont be mean to fags, introduction is nice, and gives me hope, and then it kicks me in the balls, all this natural law bullshit, the qouting of paul and romans--this v. protestant desire for sola scriptura (i know that natural law isnt really ss)...i keep wondering, what happened to the searching, heart renching, prayerful moving thru the tradition, that has occured over the last few decades

2) fundamentally, i dont think that g-d, in her infinite mercy, blessed be her name, creates us in categories, says you are man, you are woman, you are homosexual, you are heterosexual, i think that she creates people, you are beloved in my creation, so that this idea, that tab a only fits into slot b, denies the majesty and diversion of creation...and also, the sense that there are no immoral people, only immoral acts.

3) and then, of course, they kind of argue this same way, i am not sure they have fully decided the people vs acts controversy, so the language is really unstable, homosexual could mean same gendered sexual act, acts, patterns, behavioural molds, desires, or idenity...and they conflate it---so the man who has sex with men is the same as the woman who has sex with woman is the same as the man who has sex with a woman in a socially prescribed way but uses controception is the same as the 90 per c ent of the world that masterbates.

4) i believe in the holy potential of orgasms, i believe that the orgasms you have by yourself and the orgasms you share with people can be acts that connect to pleasure, to yr lover, to yr body, and yr self, and this is what makes me most sad about the document, is that it isnt really different from the history, but denies that the body can be a way of transcendence, that the xtc of the body works in counterpoint with the xtc of the soul

5) homosexual inclinations are not sinful, but acting on it is...the conference tells us to be chaste, but they dont mean chaste. i believe that sometimes we give the gifts back to god, for safekeeping, as a sacrifice, and i believe that celibacy is like fasting, or alms--and i also belive that we should be chaste, but chasitity isnt not fucking, it is constructing your sexuality with an ethically rigous standard, it is being loving, open, true, honest, genorous, free of anger, all of the things that are spoken about in corinthians, thats being chaste...(ie 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.) its the one that is mentioned all over weddings, its a cliche now, but the verses before and after it, about how all of the power of god is castrated, silenced, made null and void w/o love is teh impt bit---this is nto a loving document

6) they say that those who claim homosexual inclination are not good, that the only good the penis, the vagina can do, is to create more children. i dont have an opinon on that, but i know that the penis, the vagina, the mouth, the hand, the anus, fused and merged can be good, the act of sexuality is the most powerful gift we have, it moves us like the temple in jersulum, like samson, it destroys us and rebuilds us--when it is used for abuse, people are never the same, and when it is used for lvoe, it restores, the tenderness, of flesh into flesh, on flesh, is an act that comforts, that prevents grief, stops tears...i think of all the sex that happened after 9/11 and i think of rape that occurs in war, and i think that our bodies use the gifts of gods creation to do acts of mercy as well as the do acts of evil...they are stuck on this gay straight wrong right and do not think of the love and mercy of two bodies, i keep coming back to cohen here, beautiful losers of course, but also a song called true love leaves no traces--as the mist leaves no scar upon the hill/my body leaves no scar upon you and never will...true love leaves no traces as you and i are on. it continues, but i keep thinking that he obv means true love in all capabilites, agape and eros and everything else, and how at that point the ego disappears, adn the self is sublimated, and thats the point of christendom for me, not the destruction of the body but the absorbotion of all bodies into a mystical wholeness

7) maybe the problem, is that they assume that "the divine gifts of creation" can only mean babies, that "the divine gifts of creation" arent art, or music, or memory or bad teenage poetry, or hank williams singing lost highway, or that andy warhol print with the bodybuilding ad being a metaphor for transubstation or that painting of carvarggio i keep going back to, the one with him and thomas--or any of the other great mystical texts, or personal favourites that we keep coming back to, the scripture and tradtion that sustains it--we want to talk about the gospel itself:
is the miracle of the loaves of fishes not a divine act of creation, or the story of christ with the clay bird turning into a real bird that the koran and the gospel of thomas shares, we come from a whole tradtion, from john 1:1 onwards, to jerome, to the scholastics, to all the nuns and fathers who did not have children, and found in them the need to create, that the divine gifts of creation came to them, via the holy spirit, and led us to where we needed to go...the thing is that it doesnt have to be limited, bach's music is as much a testament to "the divine gifts of creation" as were his 20 children. Luther speaking so lovingly of his wife,
"There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage." says as much as his sermons--that there is one way to receive those gifts limits the infinite glory of the divine

8) it keeps telling us that its the acts, italics adn everything, and reading it, i am supposed to be heartened that they dont hate what i do, just what my dick does, who i am is okay, but what my dick does isnt...the church, even after the radical theology of the body, that the last pope instituted, cannot get over the fact that what my dick does, what i fantasise about, who i love, and who i fuck is as vital to who i am as what my soul does, what i pray about, and who i pray for...my goal as a being with a soul and a realtionship to christ, however tennous that realtionship is, is to intergrate, to make myself whole, adn then offer myself up to him, the church wants a tattered remanant, christ wants my whole body, he would prefer it ethical, and together, but he wants my wholeness...

9) it compares hthe disorder of homosexuality to other sins, to the sins of "envy, malice and greed". when i asked for forgiveness for those sins, i was sent back to sex...the thing for me, what is black in my heart is pride, casual cruelty, dishonesty, being unintegorus, and refusing the comminturain ethic required of us by christ. i work on those things, backslide, and work again, one of these days sisphyus is going to get that rock up that fucking hill, and even if he doesnt, the work is the thing, its the process and not the resualt, the conversation and not the documetn at the end of it, and what makes me upset, is not only that i fail so often, but that i get distracted. do you think that the pope refusing a humble, broken approach to islam is a sin of envy, do you think that watching kids die of AiDS in China, Malawai, Brazil is a sin of malice, do you think that the increasing gap of poverty in the united states where this document was written, is a sin of greed...what do you think that Christ, may his holiness be proclaimed, would want us to spend time on--the occasional act of cock sucking, or that a qauter of americans dont have health care? Desmond Tutu, said about this:"sn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems – poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict – that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation?""

10) this is a benedict document, because he makes a swipe at ethical realtivism, claiming that catholics have a solid base of morality, and that anyone who claims that morality is cultural guidelines, does nto udnerstand the full position of the church. its a valid point, its the thing i have the hardest time with, i think that the natural order of the divine centers around a seeking of justice and mercy. the parable of the widows mite comes to mind or the moneychangers, where what is assumed to be the natural order of god, is found to be a seekin of security in corrupt and moribund instatutions. christ loved his traditions that he learnt from mary and joesph, we celebrate his circumsion, and the night before he died, he celebrated passover...but when the tradition stifled justice or mercy or love or devotion to a higher ideal, he healed the sick or pulle the ox from the mire. i know that this is not quite the same, like how a lirtugy repeats the same ideas, in subtle varrations, the committee repeats, builds, reconnects, and slowly moves forward, but this idea of natural order, the idea that there is a platonic ideal, should be moulded and moved when mercy is required of us

11) they approach thearpy to cure fags...i dont think it works, i havent seen any examples of it working, but i have seen same gender attracted men, who have had children, i think that the assumption that one can move, is difficult, if not impossible, but i think the idea that one is open for the gifts that are offered to us, thats one of the things about being queer, and that this essay does not approach, sexuality is a living water, that flows, creates, finds holes and hollows, makes eddies and pools. one can create damns, and canals and culverts for the water to flow thru and in, but it has to go somewhere, and sometimes that somewhere is a place of rage, exhaustion, and destruction of families...children should be wanted, and not an obligation, and marriage should be entered into with the severity of sacramental acts...marrying and having kids out of shame is a sin of cruelty, and a refusal of that sacrament, (and well really here, i am a sinner, with my lack of mass, and my lack of praying (though this is a prayer) (and they say that the causes of homosexuality cannot be determined, but all sexuality cannot be determiend, like hope, faith, grace, love, beauty, like all gifts from teh divine, it is msterious and we do not deserve it)

12) after the talk of therapy, they go thru xian therapy, the raising of virtues, and they mention four being temperate, brave, just, or prudent--these are good virtues, underplayed in a culture of excess, irony, and pastiche--they require a balance, a desire towards clarity... i am not temeprate, i am scared, i fail to be just, and i lack prudence. all sins can be vices if carried to excess, being temperate can mean a refusal to take a stand, being brave can mean being a bully, being just can mean being cold to human suffering, and being prudent means being unaware when genuine radical change is needed. these are safe virtues, about maintaing power, a lot of the time, where is meekness, humilty, tenderness, and mercy...why are we not preaching on doubt, temper the postions, that you have here, make them complex, make them live

13) there is the assumption that "pervesive human suffering" comes from the lack of morality. i see more morality, more restrictions, more tendencies towards repressive authrotian action, lately, i think we are unhappy because we are not trusted, treated like adults, treated with suspicion and anger instead of openness. the idea that if you just learn to behave, and be a good boy and you will be happy frightens me. i think that it is not a lsit of spec. sin that causes unhappiness, but suffering, and we will suffer, because we are born sinners, and i think that it our duties as christians to alleivate that sin, to find the best ways to clean wounds, and shit, and wipe tears away, set bones, sew up wounds, feed and visit and make it better...more prescriptions, more seeking of power isnt going to do it, as uncle michel says:Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an origincal affinity with freedom...