If your criterion for being included is that someone ELSE is excluded ...

... well, then, it sucks to be you!

I'm sure I could find kinder, gentler, more pastorally theological language to make that point this morning but there is it.

A point that has been made over and over and OVER -- on this blog and elsewhere -- is that there is a critical, ontological difference between FEELING excluded because you're disagreed with and BEING excluded.

It's a point I don't think we can overstate if we're going to follow the One who called all us to walk in love as he loved us and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Even the neighbors we don't like. The ones who don't vote like us, pray like us or make choices like us. The ones who annoy us to the core of our deeply held convinctions. Even the ones who think we aren't entitled to be included because we don't vote like them, pray like them or make choices like them.

So why this particular rant this particular morning?

Partly because my 10:30 appointment got postponed til 11:15 and I have a few unexpected minutes. But mostly because a colleague forwarded a copy of this article from The Living Church with the subject line: "See -- it IS all about us!"

The piece is about Mouneer Anis's resignation from the AC Standing Committee ... and this is the part that got me going:

Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.

“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this.”

And so it all came down to "If I can't keep Katharine from coming then I quit."

So let me repeat: If your criterion for being included is that someone else is excluded well, then ... it sucks to be you.

And this morning I'm being given just a tiny shred of hope that the era of being blackmailed-into-bigotry is coming to an end for our Big Fat Anglican Family. The Episcopal Church took a giant step forward in Anaheim ... and maybe -- just maybe -- the SCAC & ACC are going to go and do likewise.

Or not.

But it'll be their choice. Meanwhile, we're making ours. Choosing to include everyone who chooses to be included. And refusing to buy into the "spin" that those who remove themselves from the table because they don't like who else in on the guest list are somehow now the "marginalized."

Choosing not to come because you don't like the guest list and then looking for sympathy because you've been "excluded" is like killing your parents and then looking for sympathy because you're an orphan.

And that dog just won't hunt. Even if you ARE an Archbishop.
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Because ... If your criterion for being included is that someone else is excluded well, then ... it sucks to be you.