The Gnostics
As you can read over at BeautyTips, the Gnostics are trying to recruit me.
I read about them over at www.johannite.org and was so ticked off to discover that they have a community in MADRID, SPAIN. I was just in Madrid in January and I am kicking myself to have missed a visit to them. I could have had tapas with the Gnostics, and I didn't. Curses.
It says on their web site that according to the Vatican, they're "valid but illicit." And that's hot.
In general, though, it's all too esoteric and fancy for my Puritan little heart. If I get more Witchy and eccentric again in my old age (a definite possibility), I will certainly join their merry band. From what I can tell, they have a fun sense of humor and drama, and some of their priests are babes. Also, some of them have an actual communal plan for solvency in old age, and I think that's terrific. The way I feel now in the UU fold, it's every man or woman for himself and no one in my geographic area (where housing costs are statospheric and will certainly stay that way for the forseeable future) has a specific plan for how to maintain a decent standard of living beyond retirement. They're all too busy scrambling like I am to contribute to their 403Bs to assure that they themselves don't wind up in some rat hole.
Plus, if I affiliate with the Gnostics I can be Christian AND outlaw, which really appeals to me.
I read about them over at www.johannite.org and was so ticked off to discover that they have a community in MADRID, SPAIN. I was just in Madrid in January and I am kicking myself to have missed a visit to them. I could have had tapas with the Gnostics, and I didn't. Curses.
It says on their web site that according to the Vatican, they're "valid but illicit." And that's hot.
In general, though, it's all too esoteric and fancy for my Puritan little heart. If I get more Witchy and eccentric again in my old age (a definite possibility), I will certainly join their merry band. From what I can tell, they have a fun sense of humor and drama, and some of their priests are babes. Also, some of them have an actual communal plan for solvency in old age, and I think that's terrific. The way I feel now in the UU fold, it's every man or woman for himself and no one in my geographic area (where housing costs are statospheric and will certainly stay that way for the forseeable future) has a specific plan for how to maintain a decent standard of living beyond retirement. They're all too busy scrambling like I am to contribute to their 403Bs to assure that they themselves don't wind up in some rat hole.
Plus, if I affiliate with the Gnostics I can be Christian AND outlaw, which really appeals to me.
posted by PeaceBang at 12:04 PM
4 Comments:
Hey, PB; YES, take the leap. the water is just fine and the swimming is easy. Gnostics aren't just a trip--at times, they are the whole Journey. I love 'em. They are my people.
Cheerfully, RK
Help - we're having a love fest!!!! Roger STOP that... what kind of girl do you think I am???
But in all seriousness, it is good to welcome new blood - we're doing so daily. Roger and his wife are marvelous - very grounded and good for the new gnostic movement. After all, you can be a UU and a Gnostic - we're as inclusive, I hope, as the best of UUs. But very different, yes.
Our "style" if there is one, of liturgy and philosophy at least at AJC is very like the liberal American Orthodox, but with the focus always on "hearing" and identifying one's indwelling divine nature. Many a new Gnostic have been "vague" Buddhists. Quite a few "near Orthodox" (yours truly). And the Catholics are adding up now as well.
We do love our esoteric roots, but we also love our sisters and brothers in other faith traditions who can laugh at themselves and at us, then join us, firmly rooted in their own camps while exploring the beauty, the history, and the practice of esoteric Christianity.
PB - When you retrieve The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement (which should be sitting in your parish PO Box by now), you'll get the skinny on contemporary ecclesiastical gnosticism - historical background, theological and liturgical expression, and how it fits within the larger "independent movement" - which you encountered with the Gender Ambiguous Liturgy Dude episode at BeautyTips. Travel well and safely -
Bienvenidos, Hermana...
One doesn't become Gnostic, one remembers that one already is...
Post a Comment
<< Home