Another Journal Entry on the Interrupted Lives of Gay Catholic Theologians

Another journal entry in which I struggle with the recognition that my career as a Catholic theologian was effectively ended when a Catholic college chose to give me an unexplained terminal contract in the early 1990s:

29 August 1995: Bibles and banquet tables.  Marcus Borg says (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time [NY: Harper, 1994]):

The meals of Jesus embodied his alternative vision of an inclusive community. . . . Ultimately, the meals of Jesus are the ancestor of the Christian eucharist (p. 56).

And the psalmist says,

"Is it likely," they said, "that God could give a banquet in the wilderness?" (Ps. 78:19).

So bibles and banquet tables.  Borg also notes that Sophia invites her followers to a banquet of bread and wine, so the eucharistic banquet is not simply messanic--it's a wisdom banquet, too.  Psalm 78 refers back to Psalm 23, the table spread for the believer in the presence of his/her enemies.

I don't know what to make of this jumble of images and information at an emotional (and a faith) level.  I suppose the obvious point is that I must believe God sets a table in the wilderness--and believe this not with Puritan teeth-gritting faith, but because I struggle to see with the vision that defines things differently, with divine vision.

In which case, the problem is quite precisely a seeing problem: how to see the table in the wilderness?  But I can't gloss over my reality, as I say this.  The reality is that, three years ago, I was employed, and doing work I was consistently told by supervisors was outstanding work.  Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I was disemployed without explanation, and lies were used to cover this act.

Since then, no divine intervention has exposed my tormentors, or reversed the situation, or vindicated me.  Quite the contrary: all I've sought to do has failed, while my adversaries thrive.

Now, we face bankruptcy.  We have no prospects of another job.  We are clearly now shut forever out of the network of Catholic academic life.  Our careers and reputations have been deliberately ruined, begrimed with ugly rumors--and we've never been told why we deserved this.  We have had it definitively proven to us that we're pitiable nobodies, who can work for years at a pittance wage and then be fired and shut forever out of our vocations, with no explanation for this is being done.  No security, despite those years of work.

And I'm supposed to find a banquet table in this wilderness!?