I certainly am not going to blame the church for all my problems. Of course I came into each parish with unrealistic expectations and from a very needy position. This already has had me at a huge disadvantage. My understanding of Anglicans is that they are generally already well established burghers of the community. They generally work at well-paying professions, have families, social status and education. They are generally well-read, well travelled and well-fed. They enjoy the upper middle class life style and accept as entitlements things such as I and other poor people would consider to be unobtainable luxuries, sometimes obscene luxuries. My advice to anyone considering joining the Anglican Church is quite simple: if you are not already well-established, well-employed and well positioned, if you do not have a close family and a great circle of friends for support and social and emotional ballast then I would recommend that you go away and stay away. No one is going to lift a finger to include you in their tight and secure family and social circles. For professing Christians Anglicans tend to be incredibly selfish people. You will find among them perhaps friendly and sympathetic individuals, but if you are not their social equal then please take care to not deceive yourselves. These people are not and will never be your friends. At best you are going to be a novelty to them, or an object of pity. And you're more than likely to be alone for Christmas (outside of attending services) and no one is going to remember your birthday.
During the Eucharist you will observe a tradition known as sharing or passing the peace. It's original intent is as a symbol of our oneness in Christ. Anglicans particularly abuse this sacred rite. You will find everyone wandering everywhere in the nave shaking hands, giving hugs, slapping backs and kissing cheeks, especially with their best friends. It looks like a love in. It feels like a love in. It isn't. This is rather one great collective self-deception where everyone for less than five minutes has themselves and everyone else present convinced that they are loving, altruistic and adorable human beings. Rest assured that come the coffee hour after the final blessing is invoked and the last hymn sung that none of these people whom during the service were your long-lost best friends forever are going to so much as give you the time of day. Not unless you approach them first and even that isn't going to be a guarantee.
The Peace for me has always been problematic. It always sets us up for hypocrisy. I used to, and still do, take it actually very seriously but no one else appears to. I have always been or tried to be a Seamless Garment kind of Christian. Any gesture I make during a worship service I do feel obligated to carry out in real life. I am sure there are some Anglicans who feel the same way. Unfortunately I don't think the majority ever let their thinking go so deep. Given my relative solitude and social isolation this kind of framework is for me a particularly lethal and damaging formula. I am left feeling lost and unwanted by the end of the service, after once again being subjected to these demonstrations of artificial agape. It is like Charlie Brown going up in the air and falling on his back every time Lucy pulls away the football.
Yet, try to avoid shaking hands with these smiley face strangers and no one is going to respect your space. It is a violation. No one cares. They are doing their Christian thing, they are buying themselves off. See, we are nice, kind loving and lovely people. I don't know what your problem is.
The Anglican Church is distinctly hierarchal. I am a constitutional anarchist. It isn't that I don't respect clergy priests and ministers. Rather I subscribe to the Reformist "priesthood of every believer." I really believe in this and for this reason never feel inclined to give special treatment to clergy. No wonder we don't often get along.
It would appear to me that each Anglican parish has at its core a very tight and insular parish council. They are often best friends with one another and sometimes with the priest. They run the church and they appear to be the priests' employer which makes him both their puppet and loathe to say or do anything to offend them for fear of being hung out to dry. Knowing this has helped me appreciate why COW (Churlish Obnoxious Woman) a very influential and powerful member of the parish council at St. Anselm's not only got away with mistreating me but actually had everyone on her side against me. It is a no-win scenario if ever there was one. They are all friends and they cover one another's backside. If the priest is openly gay and loves to haunt bath-houses, cruising trails and public washrooms they will likely look on him with wry affection, say it's part of his charm, and get all warm and damp congratulating themselves for being progressive and open minded. If the rector is an open heterosexual, married with children, sleeps with the parish secretary and has a drinking problem, well it's not going to be much different, is it now?
What I find particularly galling is what a bunch of lying cowards many of these Anglicans seem to be. I am not going to tar them all with this brush since I have met a few, but not very many, who have what I would call admirable integrity. They usually keep their mouths shut and stay out of other people's way. Still, given my own unfortunate experience of being dealt with in an underhanded and conspiratorial manner by some of the most loathsome passive-aggressive cowards I have ever experienced in not one but in all five of the Anglican parishes I have been part of really gives me pause. I have encountered real Christianity in a lot of different places and persons. Precious few have been Anglicans.
Time to shake the dust off my feet.
And, surprise, I'm not perfect either. Just wounded and in many ways wounded all the more from all these years I have wasted among people who don't want me.
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