Inside this issue:

Labyrinth 1 Anonymous Satan-ism1 &2

What’s Up with Book

Chat3 &4

I also plan tokeep on pray-ing. As a mat-

ter of fact, I’m

a professionalpray-er. Thedivine oneshear my prayers just like

always. They haven’t

checked

The BaptistFaith and Message

either.But according to my wit-nesser my prayers arebeing spoofed.God does not hear my

prayers. That’s the word

from a particular South-ern Baptist believer whoinformed me that it wasimportant that I sit downand listen to his witness.When I checked

The Bap-tist Faith and Message

after the fact I discovereda few discrepancies from

my witness’ testimony

but who am I to disputean expert.

Anonymous SatanismClamour Underbridgefor September from

The Letter

Join us on Sunday 21September 2008 as weexplore the Laby-rinth at Louis-ville Presbyte-rian Seminary.Weather permit-ting. Pleasecheck the PPFwebsite for bulle-tins. We willbegin at 5:30p.m. There willbe no service atMellwood Artsand Entertain-ment Center thatday. According toWikipedia:Labyrinths canbe thought of assymbolic forms of pilgrimage; peo-ple can walk thepath, ascendingtoward salvationor enlightenment. Manypeople could not afford totravel to holy sites andlands, so labyrinths andprayer substituted forsuch travel. Later, thereligious significance of labyrinths faded, andthey served primarily forentertainment, thoughrecently their spiritualaspect has seen a resur-gence.Path, travel, pilgrimageand the search for thecenter are all key imagesin Progressive Pathways

Fellowship’s mission to

study the various routesinto the presence of theDivine. In our work tobring accord to our per-sonal spiritualities, thelife of our church and thelarger denominations andfaith traditions aroundus, we hope to continuelearning new ways to bechurch and community.

Clamour & News from Underbridge

Labyrinth Walk September 21, 2008

Please note that:While Father Jim is co-pastor of ProgressivePathways Fellowship inLouisville his opinionsand any opinions andinformation found inClamour Underbridge or Clamour & News fromUnderbridge are thoseof Father Jim or other writers as they appear.They do not usually rep-resent the official policyof the church.

September 5, 2008

LabyrinthLouisville Presbyterian Seminary

Spoofing is something that happens to

email. It’s part of the junk mail and

spam phenomena. An email arrives inyour mailbox that seems to be from afriend or perhaps your church. Sur-prise! The email is actually from some-one who knows all the secrets of in-creasing your breast size, penis length,disposable income or stock portfolio.Face to face this is referred to as baitand switch. In the world of computers,

emails and prayers, it’s called spoofing.

It was explained to me like this. SinceI am not a Christian there is no chancethat god listens to me unless I am re-penting. A few observations from myperspective--the god being discussed is,of course, the jealous god and theChristianity of my witnesser is prac-ticed by the scrupulous and self-electedset. To me it seems this particularclique of Christians worships the Bibleand has very little use for Jesus exceptas a human sacrifice and the agent of their get-out-of-hell-free insurance pol-

icy. I also wondered how the “this is aprayer of repentance” determination

gets made. Maybe somebeing is read-ing prayer subject lines as well as re-routing their destination addresses.Then it gets even better. I was toldthat not only am I not a Christian but

I’m actually a Satanist, an anonymous

Satanist. Believe it or not, this is oneof those times when being gay hasnothing to do with it. My prayers arebeing diverted to the in-basket of thedevil. As a matter of fact, all the god-desses and gods are just the devil indisguise. Color me incredulous.Even though the jealous god is suppos-edly all powerful, all knowing and pre-sent everywhere at all times he hasgiven his cast-out chief of staff, Satan,the power to hear and answer all the

prayers of those of us who don’t grovel

properly, read the Bible the proscribed

way and follow the “Jesus is a humansacrifice” line. That devil really has the

inside line on the world and billions of people.The flip side of anonymous Satanism isanonymous Christianity. Father KarlRahner, SJ proposed the theory of anonymous Christianity way back in

1966. Father Karl said “I hold if every-

one depends upon Jesus Christ for sal-vation, and if at the same time I holdthat many live in the world who havenot expressly recognized Jesus Christ,then there remains in my opinion noth-ing else but to take up this postulate of

an anonymous Christianity.” I would

prefer to be neither an anonymousChristian nor an anonymous Satanistbut it seems my feelings on the issue

just don’t matter.

The jealous god is not the only divineone. He is one of many goddesses andgods that love and care for the worldand its peoples. I pray to exactly whomI intend to pray and whether or not myprayer is heard depends on me andthose numbered among the divine. The jealous god gets one vote and I tend notto talk to him much anyway. Inciden-tally, it takes a lot more faith than I

have to believe in Satan’s power and

might in the same way as my wit-nesser. Nevertheless, Lucifer is not inthe prayer spoofing business nor doeshe creep hither, thither and yon imper-sonating other deities and gleefullyleading the faithful of other religions

down the road of perdition. He’s quite

busy enough pestering the jealous godabout Job and other faithful believers.

Anonymous Satanism

continued

Clamour & News from UnderbridgePage 2

We finished

The Llangollen Ladies

Mary Gordon. Gordon’s book is a1930’s take on the extraordinary lives

of Lady Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) TheHonourable Sarah Ponsonby (1755

–

1831)Susan S. Lanser, Professor of Compara-tive Literature and English at the Uni-versity of Maryland at College Park hasthis to say about the ladies. See heroriginal essay at http://www.glbtq.com/literature/butler_ponsonby.html. An enduring emblem of female roman-tic friendship, Lady Eleanor Butler andSarah Ponsonby eloped to Wales wherethey lived together for over fifty yearsand entertained several importantwriters.Best known as the Ladies of Llangollen,after the Welsh village where they livedin "delicious Retirement," Butler andPonsonby were daughters of the Anglo-Irish Ascendency who eloped togetherin 1778. Ponsonby, sixteen years But-ler's junior, lost both parents in earlychildhood and her stepmother when shewas thirteen. Given into the care of herfather's cousin Lady Betty Fownes,she was sent to Miss Parke's board-ing school in Kilkenny.There, in 1768, she met Butler,youngest daughter in a Catholicbranch of an ancient and noblefamily of Kilkenny. Educated in anEnglish Benedictine convent inFrance, Butler became Ponsonby'sintellectual mentor and intimatefriend. After Ponsonby left MissParke's in 1773, the two womenentered upon a secret correspon-dence and determined to live to-gether.Butler and Ponsonby's first elope-ment failed; they were discovered,returned, and separated by theirtwo families. Eleanor was urged toa convent, whereas Sarah, it washoped, would be married. Whenboth women resisted these pres-sures and Sarah threatened tomake public the attentions of herguardian's husband, the families re-lented and the women fled to Wales.They took a cottage, which they namedPlas Newydd, and there settled for therest of their long lives.The Ladies' pastoral retreat drew manyprominent visitors, including EdmundBurke, William Wordsworth, AnnaSeward, and Stéphanie de Genlis.Their mutual attachment, and their lifeof shared reading, writing, walking,and gardening, were celebrated andmythologized in such contemporarywritings as Seward's "Llangollen Vale"and Wordsworth's "Sonnet Composedat Plas Newydd."The women shared bed, board, books,income, and daily walks; dressed simi-larly in men's waistcoats and women'sskirts; signed their correspondence jointly; named one of their dogs Sap-pho; and refused to spend even onenight away from home. Butler's jour-nals refer to Ponsonby as "my Beloved"and "my sweet love," describe physicalattentions bestowed for headaches andillnesses, and express the couple's long-ings, when visitors were too plentiful,to be alone again.There has been considerable debate

What’s on the shelf for Book Chat?

Page 3Volume 1, Issue 2

about whether Butler and Ponsonby'sunion should be labeled "lesbian." Dur-ing their lifetime, implications of homo-sexuality circulated occasionally in thepress and among visitors, although theirupperclass status and connections un-doubtedly protected them.Their homophobic neighbor HesterThrale Piozzi suspected them of Sap-phism; Genlis considered them impru-dent victims of an excessive sensibility. Anne Lister, the Yorkshire woman whorecorded her own homosexual activitiesin coded diaries, wrote after visitingLlangollen in 1822, "I cannot help think-ing that surely it was not Platonic.Heaven forgive me, but I look withinmyself & doubt."Whether the Ladies of Llangollen havebeen regarded as celibate or sexual,their relationship has emblematized"romantic friendship" for over two centu-ries. Deeply immersed in the literaryculture of their day as readers, conversa-Queen Eleanor by Polly BrooksSeptember 2, 16, 23 and 30The Mists of Avaolon by MarionZimmer BradleyBeginning October 7 throughNovember 25