"Humanity's capacity to disguise its own darkness seems endless. Patriarchal logic is only logic in favor of the system and the status quo-which is proudly called the 'real world.' Believe me, because I always hear it quoted to me after my sermons, usually by polite men in three-piece suits: 'That was an interesting talk there 'Father,' but you know in the real world....' the fathers of the system hate nothing more than another father who refuses the rules of the game. That is precisely our role in proclaiming the new system that Jesus called the Reign of God."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 278)
Sometimes I feel like a walking contradiction. I sometimes even enjoy it. When I get told that's not at all what I pictured etc. I remember one teenager at my first parish helping us move in and seeing me carrying in my Bible and my Metallica Box set, it blew up his stereotype of what a priest was. Recently someone while flipping through my facebook pictures, said I didn't look at all like what he pictured. He knew I was a priest and a "liberal" instead he saw some "rugged outdoor type." Love blowing up people's stereotypes.
Of course it also goes deeper than that, as a white straight male I'm supposed to enjoy all that privilege, yet I don't. I'm not supposed to challenge that power structure, yet I do. I get a chuckle out of the machismo that feels so threatened by the changes going on. Yet I feel ready to enjoy my part in a world where I'm rewarded for things I can control not for things I can't and participate with others in changing it for the better. I like reality even if it means I may have to work a little harder.
Blessings,
Ed
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