I don't wear a cross. I find it a bit cheesy. I grew up in the south and wearing crosses was what girls from the mill hill did. It's a classist thing. Though I renounce much of my southern upbringing, there are some things that are so much of part of the marrow of my bones that it is hard to see the utter stupidity of them.
A group of clergywomen met yesterday to begin a group. We went off in a direction totally different from what I had expected, planned and hoped. But it was really good. We decided that only one of us likes our current city. And so we decided that we would witness (see, not proclaim) the holy in our city.
And I woke up with the idea that I am a bearer of the holy. I feel this when I serve the bread and tell someone as I look her in the eye: this is the bread of life. But, I can/should be a bearer of the holy in all that I do.
Then this afternoon, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I should wear a cross. Or perhaps I'll just start with my triquetra and ease in slowly.
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I have very mixed feelings about wearing a cross. It used to seem barbaric to me -- to take an instument of torture and turn it into jewelry. Now -- I am much more ambivalent. And I only have two, a Celtic cross which was a gift from my (living) son, and a Brigid cross which I asked for, because Brigid is one of my people. Some friends gave me a beautiful silver fish pendant before I went to seminary and I like that. (I got the fish symbolism but had no idea it was a Tiffany piece until a very young woman complimented me on it.)
I read on another blog about the idea that a clerical collar is in some ways a symbol of to whom you belong (is that grammatical?). Since I've read that, and given that I'm within a tradition that doesn't adopt clerical collars, I've worn my cross with a different thought in mind.... I don't wear a cross visibly or regularly. Now I often wear it into situations where I think I'll have trouble remembering to whom I belong and might need help keeping my temper or speaking with Grace. More for me than for others.
(I'm not clergy).
I'm often one of the cheesy ones, but you already knew that.
I struggle, too.
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