May 26, 2005
Gender
I got up this morning and looked out the window and it hadn’t snowed overnight. But then I hadn’t expected it to. It’s near the end of May, and besides, we’re in the wrong planting zone.
I’ve always thought that “it” is not a very poetic word for things like weather and seasons and precipitation, but we Americans have somehow got stuck with it. Other languages seem to enjoy the irony of being sexier because they have gender. The Italians or the French maybe would look out the window in the morning and say, “She didn’t snow last night because she’s only May.” Or maye they wouldn’t. It’s pretty certain that we wouldn’t. Not known to lay much by grammar, we frequently use gender for sex, either ignorant of or not especially being impressed by the fact that gender is mostly for words, and sex, for people.
Sex is only for some people, of course. Increasingly, we Episcopalians have to look to our bishops to find out exactly whom. It’s too bad. I’d like to presume that most of those who become bishops never anticipated that sex might one day be included in the “faith, unity, and discipline of the church” when they signed on to guard it and all.
Somehow, though, they seem to have come to relish the idea. Considering the way they talk it about all the time, it’ll more than likely be included in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral one of these days.