The Past is Not Past

In this internet age, the past is never really past.

High school classmates we spent four years trying to escape, and haven't thought about since we tossed our graduation caps into the air, suddenly want to be our "friends."  Intentionally long-lost relatives reassert their dysfunction over our newsfeeds.  Old flames we thought had lost the power to unhinge us prove us wrong as sidebar spectres: People You Might Know.  Social media limits our ability to leave people behind, and somehow, the people who come back always seem to be the people you most wish would not.

Or maybe it just feels that way to me today, while I ponder the reappearance of a person from my past.  This wasn't the first time that he's dropped in on my web world, and in theory that's fine.  If I'm not open to comment from anyone, I shouldn't post things publicly on the internet.  In this particular case, I invited his return by writing about the phase of my life when he knew me.  This wasn't the first time he judged my theology to be not truly Christian.  It was, however, the first time he attacked me personally, telling his perspective of those years, observing that I was (and implied, still am) difficult, unteachable, divisive, dramatic, feisty, and ambitious.  And so it wasn't just this person who loomed out of my past, it was also my college self.

For the record, I was (and sometimes, still am) all of those things.  Because I am all of those things, I have about a million things to say about all the accusations he leveled at me.  I want to defend my faith, my doctrine, my interpretation of Scripture.  I want to defend difficult personalities; have you ever read the Bible??  I want to defend my twenty year-old self, new to faith and wrestling with God and with everyone around her to define her identity and calling.

All that defensiveness, all that desire to legitimize myself, all the emotion shaken to the surface by this person...I thought that was past.  Caring that much about what anyone else thinks is a trait that belongs to a much younger me.  Except, apparently it doesn't.

It turns out that it's not just the internet that bears our past back to us, although it generously gives our triggers another pathway to reach us.  In some sense I am still all the phases of myself that I have been.  The past is never really past.

So, today I write to gently push back the past and remember to be who I am now, past twenty.  Thirty-five year-old me can read criticism, has read quite a bit of it, has dealt with a lot of disapproval and lived to tell the tale.  Time hasn't done much to blunt my tendency toward sharp reactions, but it has given some perspective and the ability to step away, to accept what is true and discard what is untrue.  The authenticity and accuracy of my faith is between God and me, and the congregation I serve and the classis to which I am amenable.  My personality is, well, it's in progress.  My past may not be past, but it doesn't rule my present.

And when the past pops up to bid me its less pleasant greetings, at least it's clear that I'm not the only one for whom the past is not really past.  

Comments Closed

I wish that certain topics in life had an option, like blog posts, to close the comments section.  Unfortunately, that is not the case, and so I need to say this about comments about other people's relational and procreative statuses:

Please, just stop.

We, the single and/or childless of the world, have heard enough.  We have answered and refused to answer enough.  We are done.  On an internet forum, we would call you trolls and joke to each other about not feeding you.  In real life, we have to stand there and nod politely and think about your good intentions, and it's terrible.  Please, stop doing this.   

  

Do you really not realize that these sorts of comments cause nothing but pain for the person you allegedly care about?  This is not expressing love and concern, this is exerting the pressure of your own anxiety, and imposing your own assumptions upon people who likely are carrying around plenty of pressure, anxiety, and impositions of their own.

I keep hearing about rude and hurtful comments made to people I know.  Goodness knows I've received plenty myself, because God forbid you should make it to thirty-five as a single, childless person without having endured a constant barrage of prying, from the time you turn twenty until you fulfill the cultural expectations and grandparent dreams of your loved ones, or if you don't, until you die.  The reason I've heard so much about these comments is that the recipients were very much by them.  You're asking about very intimate and personal parts of their lives, parts that often are already tender.

That woman to whom you just said, "You better hurry up, you're not getting any younger," has been on thirty horrible dates this year trying to hurry up and silence the inexorable internal ticking.  The man you urged to settle down already splits his evenings between scanning online dating sites and trying to "get out there" and meet people in the local bar scene.  When you asked that couple when they were going to get around to starting a family, maybe it didn't occur to you that they've poured thousands of dollars into fertility treatments in an attempt to do just that, only to suffer a fourth miscarriage last week.  There is a very real possibility that the person you are talking to is actually in pain over this very topic at the moment that you choose to make your well-intentioned comment.  I have good friends who cry every day because the thing they want most in the world isn't happening, and you keep pestering them about it, as though they could just wave a wand and make it happen.  Stop.

And then there are those of us who are actually pretty happy with our life situations, who have chosen to be single or childless or both, or who would be happy with being partnered or having kids but are also okay with not.  I know, this is a crazy concept for some.  The good thing is, when you ask me about when I'm getting married or having kids, you're not going to throw me into an emotional tailspin.  You are, however, going to make me really irritated, because I know that there is no good way to answer your nosy inquiries.  If I tell you you're rude, then I'm defensive and overly sensitive.  If I try to explain to you that I'm not necessarily headed down the life path you assume, you either think I'm hiding my real feelings, or you just don't get it and keep pestering me with annoying questions.  If I happen to be having a bad day, then I start irrationally second-guessing my life decisions and wondering whether I'm going to wake up one day and be miserable and lonely, which is frankly not something anyone needs to spend time worrying about.  We don't need to feel bad about NOT having these particular unmet yearnings, just because you think we should have them.  Stop, please.

Occasionally, we aren't really single, or we're already expecting a child either through pregnancy or adoption, and we just don't want to tell you.  Possibly because you are nosey and thoughtless.  Believe me, if we were close enough that I wanted to tell you about these topics, I would have done so.

Unfortunately, I cannot keep people from trolling all over my friends' lives, but I am done dealing with it myself.  If you care about me, don't ask me about the things I lack; ask me about the things I have and do: my interests, ideas, friends, work, travel, etc.  There's plenty of material there for conversation.  As for my familial orientation, the comments section is now closed.   

  

Collect Call

"Collect call from (unintelligible).  Press 1 to accept."

I press 1, as I always do, although in this cell phone age, most of the collect calls I receive are from Ellis Hospital or the Schenectady Police Department.  Their subjects are pretty easy to predict.  Do pay phones still exist?

Confusion on the other end.  "Is this Patty's Place?"  Right, the number forwards to my phone during the week, with no way of identifying that it isn't a call directly to me.  The woman on the other end needs a place to stay, for her and her fiance.  She's also not sure her gas tank will get her anywhere she needs to go.  She's not sure exactly where she is, so taking care of that problem is a challenge.  She got the number from the hospital.  I'm immediately annoyed, that she didn't stay there where she would be easy to find, that someone at the hospital gave out our number while clearly not understanding what we do.

I try to clarify gently that we are a drop-in center for women who engage in sex work, not a shelter or a general case management service.  She's flabbergasted that this is the kind of place she has called, that such a place exists at all, that someone thought it would be useful for her.  She's embarrassed to ask for anything now, but obviously desperate as well.  She starts crying because she can't find a pen to write down the numbers for places that would be more helpful.  And I'm frustrated, because I know that it won't do me any good to call for her.  Every service in town needs to speak with her directly.  Even if they didn't, I couldn't call her back to tell her if I found her a placement.  She can't describe to me where I can find her.  I'm pretty much useless, except to give her a phone number when she finally finds a pen, advise her to walk to one of the nearby businesses to identify her location, and tell her to call me back if my reference doesn't work out.

I hate feeling useless, but I also realize that it's not really about me and how I feel.  It's about this desperate person who doesn't even know where she is, let alone where she should go.  There are services here to help her, but without the knowledge or ability to access them, she's going nowhere.  I can only hope that the next stop down the line can find a way to help, that this isn't an endless chain of useless collect calls.      

Disoriented

"Left, left, left," I repeat to myself as I turn through the roads of Oban.  The highways were fairly easy, but in the city I always want to turn into the wrong lane, and get frustrated when there is a car there, until I realize that car is exactly where it should be; it's me who is trying to go the wrong way.  I'm forever a little disoriented.  "Left, left, left," has become my mantra in the UK, much as I get my bearings in a new place by finding north and then staying constantly aware of it.  North, north, north, trying to orient myself.

You'd think that keeping a part of my brain attuned to a direction would distract me from noticing other things, but it's not true.  I am actually more attentive to everything when there is a part of me that is on high alert.  Being disoriented has the odd effect of making me more aware of the things around me, and also of my own internal state of being.  I know, in an existential way, that I am disoriented, and so I feel more deeply all of the other things that are going on within me.

This trip has been an experiment in disorientation in many ways.  I didn't realize how rooted in my own community I have become until I was somewhere else for a prolonged period of time.  It's good to be rooted, but it has also made me a little automated and numb, expecting all the same sights, within and without.  During most of this trip, I have had no idea what I would see at any given moment, and no idea what I would feel, either.  I have seen mountains rise out of what I thought was only mist, raging rivers where I expected trickling brooks, whole islands that weren't on my map.  I have felt deep joy, anger, peace, frustration, anxiety, heartbreak, vulnerability, and intimacy...usually at the "wrong" moments, the moments when I predicted that I would feel something entirely different.

I have spent this journey being challenged, by people, ideas, landscapes, weather, roadways, accents, emotions.  I have been disoriented by just about everything.  But in disorientation, something of my haze has been blown away.  I am aware.  I am alive.  Would that I would always be so disoriented.    

Barriers and Inhibitions

One of the things I'm supposed to be doing while I'm on Iona (this would be a self-imposed "supposed to," but it needs to get done) is answering a question for a grant application, about the barriers and inhibitions that keep me from being fully alive to and for my vocation of ministry.  Now doesn't that just sound fun.  My initial thoughts on this are a bit much for a grant application, so for now they're going here.

I can identify two major personal inhibitions.  The first is simple fear of failure, that I will try something big and it will be a disaster, and I will no longer feel a sense of my own competence.  That self-definition takes up a pretty big part of the "who I am" pie chart, and the loss of it would do something truly devastating to me.  Of course, living in fear of falling off that precipice, such that I never really try anything big, isn't so great either, or terribly competent.  Which is why I make myself do at least one small thing that makes me feel a little stupid or afraid every day, but that's another post for another day.

Second, I fear that someone might actually take me for a minister.  That is, I fear that ministry will so subsume me that I will become all the things that really annoy me in other clergy and in the church (some of which I have already become....grrr).  I fear that I will stop pushing buttons, or only push the ones that don't matter.  That I will stop playing music because it's just too hard to have a gig on Saturday night and preach on Sunday morning.  That I won't have time to spend with street kids and sex workers and my friends, because committee meetings start being more important.  That I won't be fun or interesting, and I'll stop having anything to say to anyone outside of the church (which seriously, THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING).

But enough about me.

I also struggle with the persistent sense that the church as we know it is not long for this world, and that maybe the way we know it needs to die, because that's the only way resurrection happens.  Learning new forms to express the same old things seems futile and self-serving.  New liturgies and new programs are not going to transform the world.  New life, new ways of being and believing, maybe.  I love the church, but I don't want to be about administering life support to a comatose institution.  But I don't know how to lead toward really radical change, change that may mean death of what we know and hold dear.

Okay, that was still about me.  But the fact is, I'm experiencing some disorientation at the moment, so I'm kind of in my own head to an excessive extent, and also, this is my blog, so I get to write about myself.

Mulling in Mull

"The task of the minister is to guard the great questions."  Barry Taylor

I instantly liked this quote, and saw several others responding with an "oh, yeah!" sort of look.  But it keeps bouncing around in my head, and I'm not so sure I agree with it.  I've persistently tried not to be a guardian in ministry, except perhaps a guardian of those who cannot guard themselves; certainly not a guardian of ideas, or questions.  Information, ideas, questions...these are things to be shared, not guarded.  But somehow, something about the quote still catches in me.

Those of you who resonated with this comment: what do you think it means?  What is it to guard great questions?  What are great questions?

Sorting out some of my muddled thoughts about IOG13

As I've thought about the event last week, and started reading of some of the thinkers whose names came up who I had not read, it seems to me that there are two related but different phenomena happening in the worlds of theology and philosophy.  I probably would have realized this sooner, but I've been a bit outside of the philosophy world since I graduated from seminary, and didn't know much about most of the contemporary philosophers who were discussed.  It seems there has been a movement amongst these thinkers toward a conversation that is neither theistic nor atheistic, and certainly is not dealing with either category in an apologetic way, but rather is moving beyond those categories into this new a/theism territory.

At the same time that philosophers were working through the inadequacy of strictly defined theism/atheism, parts of Christianity were beginning to realize that the faith and practice we inherited are lacking in their ability to address our present world.  Some Christians reacted to that lack by moving in directions we now think of as the emerging church, embracing variations on traditional doctrines and worship styles that enabled them to engage more fully with both their faith and the realities of the world around them.

A side note: I can hear the protests now, that Christian doctrine is and must be timeless and changeless.  Sorry, I don't buy it.  Few of my more "orthodox" brothers and sisters would argue that the church should have remained the same during the Reformation.  Contrary to the typical line that it was just the corruption that changed, a number of doctrines that had before that point been thought of as crucial to the true faith were changed, first by the reformers, and later by the Roman Catholics themselves.  Corruption in the church may have lit the match, but the tinder was already laid on that funeral pyre.  Medieval doctrine and practice were no longer sufficient for the church at that time.  Similarly, I believe that we face a time in which many of the traditional doctrines and practices we have been taught will no longer be sufficient.

The more I thought about what was said last week, and especially what Pete was saying, the more a nagging sense grew in me that I was somehow not quite getting it.  I was missing something significant.  Today I think it might have hit me (although something else may well come to me later; I'm sure I'm missing many things about what most of the people there were saying).  I wasn't getting it because I was framing everything he said from my perspective, which is a particularly church-centric perspective.  An emerging church perspective, but still church, which I've noticed that he and ikon resolutely do not call themselves.  They use some Christian imagery and language, and so the emerging church has sort of adopted them as one of their own in their search for new and creative forms of Christian community.

But this is not the church.

Or maybe it is, in some paradoxical way, but they're not claiming that.

So I've been trying to wrap my head around the great collection of things that other people said and I thought last week, and there was a LOT said and thought.  But one thing I realized today is that I have been approaching radical theology all wrong by expecting it to play nicely with church, at least with the emerging church.  Not that they can't be in conversation, of course.  But part of me wanted to be able to use radical theology to insert some more honesty and more experiential practices into the existing structures, and not actually confront how different it might be.  I wanted these ideas to fit neatly into the existing church.

Because I am deeply invested in the existing church.

I'm a theist, a Christian, a questioning Christian, but a Christian nonetheless, and a minister besides, whose education and livelihood and identity are tied up in the church, whose years have been spent learning the church and caring about things like the Book of Church Order, who poured a ridiculous amount of energy into getting my denomination to FINALLY officially say that ordained women are equal to men.  And I think these things matter.  Some days I think they matter a lot.  But I feel the lack in what the church has become, and failed to become while the world changed around us.  I'm intrigued by how closely intertwined faith and doubt really are.  I long for (and fear) greater honesty, vulnerability, and responsibility for our own beliefs and practices.

I guess what I'm really asking is, how much will I let myself be challenged?  And if I do open myself up to that, will there come a time when a major part of my life doesn't make sense anymore?  What then?

Gender, Marginalization, and Emerging Church Movements

So, I'm just going to go ahead and spit it out without much lead-in: the emerging church movement is pretty much a middle-to-upper class, educated, heterosexual, white male-driven thing.  Here is a list of leading voices in the movement.  Notice anything?  Look up "emerging church figures" on Wikipedia and see if you can find a woman's name.  I couldn't, until I got to the references section, where I learned that women are talking about the emerging church, or rather, about what men are saying in and about the emerging church.  I can't tell from their names whether they are white or socio-economically privileged, but I have yet to see anyone who's not both of those things featured in the emerging church conversations.  And I just attended an event where everyone was white, well off enough to come to a conference in Belfast, well educated, etc., and where we listened almost exclusively to men, except once when we listened to a woman talk...about what men had written.

(I realize that the emergent movement isn't very well defined, and that many of the people considered to be part of it, Peter Rollins included, would not label themselves that way.  Oh well.  I have to group them as something.  Please understand that I mean a variety of alternative theological and ecclesiological ideas that can be broadly classified as "emerging.")

Of course, every theological trend has a particular source and primary audience, and this one came from, and seems to be answering mostly the questions of, educated, white people who are middle class or above.  However, the emerging movement tends to be critical of the traditional church's exclusivity, homophobia, lack of racial and cultural diversity, and failure to show justice and mercy to the "least of these."  The leading voices in the emerging movement are also egalitarians, that is, they believe in the equality of women in their churches/gatherings.  And yet, when you look around the table of Big Names in New Church these days, it looks pretty much like the table of Big Names in Same Old Church has looked for ages.  Economically advantaged.  Educated.  Straight.  White.  Male.  Those who have always been in power are still leading.  Those who have been marginalized are still at the margins.  

It gets tricky, because it's not like you can go grab someone who fits a target demographic and tell them to write a book about their take on alternative theology.  But I cannot believe that there are no women or non-white people who have something important to say about emerging or radical theology.  What I suspect is that they don't have access to the circles where their voices would be heard, and that there is a cycle in which being privileged makes it easier to do things like be published, and so it is the books of privileged people that get printed, marketed, and read, and thus there just is nothing really available to be read by marginalized people, so they'll never be invited to speak at a conference or contribute to a conversation.

Eventually (or sooner), it will be helpful if those major figures in the movement start being intentional about finding marginalized voices and encouraging them to come forward.  Sometimes that will mean that the star will have to step back.  Otherwise, all of this stuff about critiquing the power structures in the traditional church will have to stop, because you look just like the thing you're criticizing.

Eventually (or sooner, or now), it will also be helpful for some people in the unrepresented groups to decide that they care enough about their voice being heard that they really push for it, and keep speaking - loudly - until they are heard.

Which brings up the related fact that I am feeling some internal pressure to write something substantial.  I'm not sure whether this pressure is because I'm just so annoyed that there are no women in this conversation and know that my voice is, well, loud.  Or because I actually have something to say.  Or because I want to be recognized somehow, and feel like I've achieved something on a larger scale.  Probably some of all of the above.

I think the emerging church movement could use a healthy dose of conversation with liberation theologies, which come from the bottom and intend not to appeal to those in power, but to challenge them.  If they're serious about including those the traditional church has marginalized, they're going to have to be intentional about inviting their voices into the conversation, or perhaps just sitting back and listening to the conversations that go on among them.  As for me, I'm contemplating what a melding of these theological strands of classical Reformed, emerging, radical, and liberation theologies - which is pretty much where I am - might look like in written form, and whether I might write such a thing.

A few random IOG thoughts

One of the themes that keeps arising is that "people don't want to change," by which I think Pete  means that people fear change, and in particular that the institutional church anesthetizes people against the pain that would generate real change, and regulates belief in such a way that people are punished for change.

I would probably amend that slightly and say that people exist in a constant tension between the deep desire for change - freedom from the anxieties and desires that rule them - and a paralyzing fear of the uncertainty of change.  So I wonder, how do we go about fostering (and sometimes creating) communities where people can see change in others and believe it to be more possible in themselves?

One of the things that is fun about being here is a shared sense of awareness.  On the other hand, that wanders sometimes into a sort of "We are the ones who know the cosmic trick" attitude.  So I also wonder, how do we know that we aren't creating a different idol of our own "enlightenment?"

There are a whole lot of people here whose churches and/or families are really uncomfortable with them being here, or who don't even know where they are.  I hadn't even thought about that possibility.  The idea of being in a place where the people closest to you a) know who Peter Rollins is, and b) feel threatened by his ideas, is kind of foreign to me.  I guess I know some people who might not like this stuff, but most of them already think I'm a theological whack job and are kind of past worrying about what weird events I go to.

On a completely non-IOG-related note, I skipped out of the film session last night and instead had a pint at the Royal, which is apparently a paramilitary bar and is full of crazy characters who told me all kinds of stories (true? not true? who knows?) about horse racing, their mental health histories, and their days during the Troubles.  Then I went to the Crown, which is about as different a world from the Royal as one can get.  It's a swanky Victorian bar with gas lights and an imprint of the crown on the floor (which you're supposed to step on if you're Catholic).  There I met some post workers, who also told me stories about the Troubles.  One of them described growing up during that time as "fun," which was kind of interesting, but he mostly remembers the parts where he got out of school early.  

Conflict, Decay, Death, and Jay Bakker: Day One at the Idolatry of God

Belfast is not the world's cheeriest place.  Which I suppose makes it an ideal place for a conference about decay and death.  Death is everywhere here, on the murals, in memorial gardens scattered through neighborhoods, in the peace walls that represent everything but peace.

So what am I doing at a conference revolving around death?

First of all, I don't think I'm entirely on board with everything Pete Rollins writes and says.  Specifically, his critique of the church seems based on a couple of common themes in the contemporary church that I agree are problematic, but which I don't think can be imposed upon the entire institutional church.  Not every Christian community or "orthodox" (whatever that means) Christian person lives in denial of doubt, or fears disagreement, or is addicted to its own certainty.  My sense is that his generalization of the institutional church causes a discarding of the 2,000 years of Christian experience that came before us.  While there are certainly faults there, I believe that Christian tradition has something to teach us, and that sometimes those liturgies, creeds, confessions, and doctrines that feel so limiting, feel limiting because they challenge us and urge us not to create a god that is simply a reflection of our own selves.  I still have hope for the existing Christian community, and I sort of get the idea that he doesn't.

(What?  You don't know what Pete Rollins writes?  Go read some.  I don't think I'm going to get around to explaining.)

Anyway.

I'm here, listening to a lot of talk about pain, uncertainty, decay, and death, for a lot of reasons.  I'm here because I'm frustrated with denominations' and congregations' terror about their own decline, and frantic obsession with self-preservation.  We follow a Christ who died.  What do we expect for our own lives, as individuals and institutions?  So, I am struggling to find a way to help my community and denomination embrace our own impermanence, and truly live the life we have...and not fear our own demise.

I'm here because I believe in the power of shared brokenness and vulnerability, and so rarely see it in Christian communities.

I'm here because I long to integrate art, music, dialogue, and mystery into faith expression, and have never quite managed to do it.

I'm here because I needed to meet some fun and interesting people who can talk about all the theological stuff that is usually so separate from all things fun and interesting.

So, yesterday, with this strange and fascinating group, I toured the conflict and decay of Belfast, and then attended an ikon event that focused on facing our own imminent death.  Then we heard Jay Bakker talk for a while about his unimaginable childhood and how he has been grasped by grace.  He described his own vocation and his inability to escape grace, or Jesus, or church, and wow, could I relate to that.  And so I guess that I'm also here just to be reminded that I am not alone in all of this.  

  

Seizures and other fun things

A week ago I had a seizure.  It was my first in six years, which is just long enough to forget what it's like.  I was in the back seat of a car, which is an unusually safe situation in which to have a seizure.  When I rode the same route today, I realized that I don't remember seeing anything for about fifteen miles before the site where the driver pulled over.  When I was more accustomed to seizing, I would have had about fifteen minutes to warn them about what was going to happen, but I didn't see it coming this time.  So, I lost a big block of time, between when I started the whole pre-seizure process, and when I mentally "came to," which was when I was talking to the paramedics.  It's kind of disorienting to regain consciousness while you're standing up, talking to people, trying to remember your address.  My overriding mechanism is competence, so of course I was trying to convince them that I didn't need to get into the ambulance.  It's funny what core part of your being comes out when you are operating subconsciously.  "I'm fine" is clearly situated pretty centrally in my being.

Unfortunately, there are few things quite like a seizure to remind you that you're not really fine.

I scared the crap out of the people who were with me, which is not really in keeping with my general mode of never having people worry about me.

I had no control whatsoever of my body or brain for a while, which doesn't really lend itself to independence.  Even afterward, I had a full day of near immobility, and a week of feeling like I was recovering from electrocution.

I can't drive for a while, and frankly I'm nervous about even being alone until we're sure that the meds are stabilized.  Now this is the kicker: not being able to go or be anywhere on my own.  I am always everywhere on my own.  This seriously sucks.  But I am way too anxious to even try to get behind the wheel of a car right now.  My anxiety about getting into the pulpit this week was very nearly crippling, and the likelihood that I'll kill anyone if I have a seizure there is pretty slim.

I have lost, for now anyway, the ability to trust my own body, my own brain.  I am constantly aware of whether there are any signs that I might seize again, whether my focus is flagging or my vision warped.

Incidentally, I am still getting on a plane in five days and going to Northern Ireland and Scotland, by myself, because I am not missing this trip, and because I believe in doing things that are scary.  And this time, this is scary, even for me, who has traveled alone many times to many places.

But here's the thing about having a seizure, about suddenly not being able to trust your body, about not being able to get yourself anywhere on your own: it's reality.  I don't want this reminder, but I acknowledge that it is a reminder, that I am never really in control of everything my body does, that I am never really independent, that I am never really on my own, and can't be any of those things.  Independence, that thing that is so much at the core of my being that I cling to it even when I'm not fully conscious, is an illusion.  The reality is weakness, uncertainty, and need.  This is onerous, and annoying, and inconvenient, but it is also true.

As much as I hate it, and feel confined by it, the loss of my independence is an interesting lesson.  And so I walk away and leave my car to sit in the church parking lot indefinitely, and call one more person to get a ride to tomorrow's meetings, and I think, none of us can do this alone.  None of us can do this alone.

Appearances are Distracting

A couple of nights ago, I saw New Jersey governor Chris Christie on David Letterman.  I've heard Dave make...oh, maybe a hundred jokes about Christie, usually about his weight.  Okay, always about his weight.  Governor Christie came on the show and made jokes about his weight as well.  He took it all with grace and good humor, like someone who's spent over forty years listening to fat jokes, which he probably has, and like someone who's spent over forty years making them in return, which I'm sure he has as well, because as any fat person knows, the best defense is a good offense.  Personally, I had hoped to hear about the ongoing response to Superstorm Sandy, which Christie managed to wrangle into the discussion for about two minutes, and his attempts at bipartisan political work, which wasn't mentioned at all.  Apparently it was more interesting to discuss his weight: was he trying to lose weight, had he gained weight, how did his family feel about his weight, how was his blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, etc.

Because, you know, people don't actually know when we're fat, unless some thin person mentions it.

Fat people also don't realize on our own that being fat might affect our general health.

Mostly that's because fat people are completely unaware of our health.  We're probably fat because we don't monitor our blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.  If we did, we'd realize that we need to change, and we would, and then we'd turn thin, like the whole world is supposed to be.

As it is, all fat people have terribly high blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar, and all thin people are perfectly healthy.  Obviously.

Anyway, Christie reported on the state of his health, which is apparently pretty good, to clear disbelief on Letterman's part.  All the while I was thinking, "I just had this conversation, only not on national TV."  Someone took me aside to talk to me.  She was concerned.  I've put on weight.  Do I know that I've gained weight?  Do I maybe have a health problem?  Have I been to a doctor?  What does my doctor say about this?  Do I know that gaining weight can be hard on my heart, can put me at risk for diabetes?

Yes, I know that I've gained weight.  I have a scale.  And pants.  I suffer from a health problem called genetics and another called seizure medication, both of which make it really difficult for me to keep off weight.  I have another health problem called "the between-meeting diet," otherwise known as "complications related to being a workaholic." Yes, I see my doctor.  My doctor says I should remember to exercise, and that I should try to eat vegetables instead of french fries.  My doctor says that my blood pressure is great, my cholesterol is shockingly good, and my blood sugar is a-ok.  My doctor also says that none of this is any of your business.

The assumed acceptability of saying whatever you want about people's weight drives me fairly nuts.  In case you are one of those people, here's a news flash: we already know, we're already doing or not doing whatever it is that we feel the need to do or not do, we're facing the consequences of our own choices and genetics, and whatever you have to say about it is hurtful and unnecessary.  We already have a voice that tells us that we are unhealthy, undisciplined, ugly, that we are worth less than thin people, that we are less likely to be loved, more likely to be cheated on, that we don't fit (sometimes literally).  It's our own.  We don't need yours.  But thanks for your so-called concern.

In case you're a friend of mine and worried about that last paragraph, don't be.  That is not my predominant voice.  I'm just completely pissed off at the general sense that nothing I do, and perhaps nothing most people do, will matter as much as what they look like.  No matter how much work I do in mission and community engagement, no matter how great my sermon is or how wonderful our youth program is, I will always get more comments about my hair and what I'm wearing and, yes, my weight, than on any of the substance of my job.  No matter how ridiculously intelligent and effective Hillary Clinton is, we will never read an article about her that doesn't mention her pant suits or hairstyle.  No matter how elegant, smart, and compassionate Michelle Obama is, I still have to see articles about how big her butt is.  And lest we think it's only women who face this kind of scrutiny, just try Googling Christ Christie.  The second most searched term after his name alone is not "chris christie governor" or "chris christie sandy relief," but "chris christie weight."  Really?

  

 

 

Confessions of a Former Complementarian

"You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."  ~ Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride


I've come across a lot of anti-woman sentiment lately.  Some of the more conservative members of my denomination have a Facebook group that I occasionally look at when I'm in the mood to get good and mad; this week some of them took a (startlingly brief) break from blasting the evil homosexual agenda to share some of the grief with the evil feminist agenda.  Then I met a random guy at my hangout of choice who, out of nowhere, with no idea that I am a minister, announced that he was against women in church leadership.  He made a valiant attempt to out-Bible me, which is always fun.  And then there have been a slew of articles like this interview of Mark Driscoll, in which he reveals himself to be arrogant, pushy, and fairly unconcerned with facts, and this article from The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, in which femininity and females are characterized as all manner of negative things, including imbeciles.  Different but equal, eh?

So, I was a complementarian once.  At least, I tried to be, back in the day when the only people I knew who seemed to take Christian faith seriously were the tribe of campus fundamentalists.  I tried very hard for two years.  Really.  I had had one of those wacky, dramatic conversion experiences, and I thought their path was the one I needed to follow, too.  They told me a lot of things about what the Bible said.  They told me it said that I should stop hanging out with my gay friends unless I was evangelizing them.  They told me it said that people who didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus were going to hell.  And they told me it said that women were supposed to be submissive to men, that husbands were supposed to rule their households, that women were not allowed to teach men or hold any position in the church that might be considered higher than a man.

Then they taught me to read the Bible, intensely, closely, carefully.  They taught me to use the tools available to me to explore the language and context.  They encouraged me to study it alone and in community with others, to honor the text and hold it close.  They might have come to regret all that rather quickly.

I loved the Bible, and I kept reading, and reading, and reading it.  I found it somewhat puzzling that there were so many women doing important things in it, being used by God, proclaiming the Gospel, supporting the people of God, even doing things that might be considered teaching and having authority.  A woman a year or two older than me offered to do a study with me on godly womanhood, and I happily accepted.  We read from Proverbs 31, the passage about the wife of noble character, a verse a week, poring over what these words, the Word, might mean for us.  Who was this godly woman?  As it turns out, she wasn't such a great advertisement for the submissive, stay-at-home wife and mother who was the ideal for most of our campus fellowship - this woman who runs her own business, conducts her own affairs, who gives instruction, who is a partner in whom her husband can have full confidence.

They taught me to treat the words of the Bible, the Word, with great care and attention.  And so I noticed the profound truths, the beauty of the language and the narratives, the compelling teachings, and I grew closer to the text.  As I did so, I also started to notice the inconsistencies in the stories, the multiple but slightly different accounts of the same events, the alarming and troubling passages, the teachings that seemed universal and those that appeared to be directed to a specific community.  My view of what it meant for the Bible to be the Word of God shifted.

These fervent and dedicated people taught me to identify and develop my spiritual gifts, insisting that every Christian had them.  They might have come to regret that, too.  No spiritual gifts inventory ever told me that I had gifts in "womanly" areas like prayer, mercy, and service.  Maybe I was meant to teach in a women's ministry, they told me, or maybe children.  Maybe missions, although it would be better if I could find a husband to lead the ministry.  Beyond that, they weren't sure what to do with me.  So I was left to fight it out with God over these gifts in teaching, prophecy, and leadership that distanced me from the community I had become part of.

A lot of time has passed between then and now, and a lot of other formative things have happened, but that was the beginning of me becoming the minister I am now.  I'm thankful to that group of people for starting that process, for helping me love the Bible and take it seriously.  But if I could go back, there are some things I'd like to say to them.  They are the things I want to say when I hear Mark Driscoll, or read the more vitriolic comments of my complementarian brothers, or meet people who define masculinity, femininity, manhood, and womanhood very narrowly and attribute limited roles and characteristics to those terms.

I would like to tell them that I am who I am, do what I do, and believe what I believe, not despite what the Bible says, but because of it.  Not because I decided that I didn't like it and could therefore ignore it, but because I love it and take it as a whole, and use the overarching themes and consistent threads within it to interpret the individual verses.

I would like to tell them: you keep using that word, Bible.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  The Bible exists to teach us about God, guide us in how we live in the world, and give us hope in God's future.  It is not a science textbook, an etiquette manual, corporate bylaws, or a weapon with which to beat other people into submission.

You keep using that word, feminine.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  Femininity is not by nature soft, feeble, compassionate, cowardly, imbecilic, nurturing, polite, or inferior.  A woman might exhibit any of these characteristics (with the exception of inferiority) and many more - and so might a man.  Masculinity is not tough, courageous, unemotional, intelligent, protective, rough-mannered, or superior.  A man might be these things, and so might a woman.  And if you define God as masculine because, as Driscoll claims, God protects and disciplines (like a father) in addition to nurturing (like a mother), well, I'm guessing you don't know any mothers very well.

You keep using that word, equal.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  If one group of people is limited to a particular set of roles while another group has access to all roles, they are not equal.  If one group is subordinate to another group, they are not equal.  If the abilities and assumed characteristics of one group are considered to be less valuable and versatile than those of the other group, they are not equal.

You keep using that word, Gospel.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  "Believe exactly what I believe and adhere to my ideas about who you should be because it's the only way God will love you and not throw you into hell" is not good news.

Most of all, you keep using that Word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  The Word is not a rigid text that prescribes our every move.  It is not a set of verses that can be plucked from the whole at will without consideration of context.  It is not a document that explains everything clearly for all people in all times and all places apart from the counsel of the Church and the inspiration of the Spirit.  The Word is the living, breathing, moving embodiment of God that has been there since the beginning of all things.    


   

Proving Myself Right

A while ago I wrote this post about the inevitability of running into parishioners when I am at my grossest, sloppiest, and most exhausted.  Yesterday, after returning from a week of travel at 7:30am, collapsing into bed, waking up and realizing I had no food in the house, I decided that just this once it would be okay to go to the grocery store looking like an unwashed degenerate, because no one I know even goes to that particular grocery store.  Yeah...not okay.  I'm not sure whether I was relieved or embarrassed that the child of the person I ran into did not even recognize me in that state.

Into the New

Well, I've come out the other side of my annual Christmas depression.  It's an odd thing, which I've realized gets both a little worse and a little more manageable every year.  Which is to say that I feel the pain and isolation more profoundly each year, but also become better at expecting it, planning for it, and living in it when it comes.

During that time, work is the thing I feel increasingly peaceful about.  I have been in this church long enough that I know how it's going to go, as much as you know how things are ever going to go.  This year one of the youth fainted during the first Christmas Eve service.  In the second one, the candles were lit three songs too early.  Everything was still okay.  So it goes.

Everything else during Christmas is pretty much crappy.  But it's become a predictable crappiness.  I will feel lonely.  I will start to wonder if I should be more intentional about seeking out a partner.  I will remember the year's failed attempts on that front and feel hopeless, hurt, and angry.  I will decide to resign myself to being alone, and feel both desolate and powerful at the prospect.  I do not have to accept consequence; I can decide.  Then I will remember that my self-definition as single is probably the greatest contributor to the Christmas loneliness, and become annoyed at it, and wonder what to do about it, and feel stuck because when I try to change that self-definition, I end up surrounded by emotional black holes and grass-is-greener types who are already attached to someone else.  I will miss my family, even while realizing that I don't particularly enjoy them at holidays, and that I'm so busy and exhausted with work that they wouldn't enjoy me, either.  I will feel self-pity at the scarcity of gifts I receive, and guilt for my selfishness and materialism - because the joy of a Calvinist Christmas is at least a small dose of self-flagellation.  Which is fine, as I don't really do guilt the rest of the year.            

Anyway, I emerged from The Annual Funk just in time for a friend's wedding, thankfully, which involved a lot of hanging out with my favorite snarky, boozy clergy women, and feeling the messy happiness of seeing one of our formerly single-girl flock get paired up.  Then I did my standard New Year's thing: got all fancied up, went to see some friends' band play at a big masquerade ball thing, remembered that my life is actually pretty fabulous, and greeted 2012 with sparkly hats, noisemakers, champagne, friends, and joy.

A new year is inevitably a time of evaluating life, remembering the things that have gone well and not so well, contemplating the things that need change, and planning for the future.  I've been somewhat resistant in the last few years to planning for my future in any specific way, but it's beginning to feel like time for that sort of thinking.  It's time for me to apply for that D.Min program that I've been bouncing around for a couple of years, so I started that process today.  It's also time for me to let go of some things I've kept on the table as options.  It's time to say to my seminary self that academic study is not currently enough of a priority for me to consider a Ph.D or a faculty position as likely possibilities in the foreseeable future (although notice how I'm not ruling it out absolutely...).  That was the dream of someone who was in denial about being a minister, and I'm not that person anymore.  It's time for me to realize that I am probably not ever going to be (or want to be) neutral enough for denominational staff.  All that means that I need to do some serious planning and preparation in moving toward being a senior minister someday, which also involves some personal life caution that isn't exactly a hallmark of my existence.  Time to grow up, or something.

So, with these goals and the usual assortment of semi-resolutions - exercise more, get healthier in general, stop being a sucker for dimples - I enter 2012.  What an interesting year this promises to be!          

Tradition, Tradition!

People are always talking about traditions at Christmas time.  I had dinner tonight with a family whose tradition is fondue on Christmas Eve.  They asked me if I had any family traditions for Christmas.

We always had pickled herring on Christmas.

Pickled herring is pretty much the only seafood product that I don't like.  At all.  I will eat almost anything that comes out of water.  I cannot stand pickled herring.  Seriously, pickled fish?

We had a lot of transition in my family, and thus, not much tradition.  It equipped me well for ministry, which is change, change, change.  Not so much for the congregation (if you want to keep your job), but for the minister.  We move.  We adapt to the traditions of our congregations.  If we don't, we cause trouble.  I've actually come to appreciate tradition, although I don't really get it.  The stabilizing force in a community is tradition.  The things we share, over and over.  I'm very good with change, but not so good with continuity.  It's taken me eight years to realize that most people's faith journeys are built around the things they do every season, every year, every week.  I don't have that.  I have change, and pickled herring.

My family is 1,500 miles away, and this is the tradition they have gotten used to: I won't be there.  They will work out their plans with my brother and sister who are married and now have other traditions to be part of, and they will all know that I am not part of those negotiations.  If I'm good, as I finally was this year, I'll manage to send boxes of gifts that contain the hope that my nieces and nephews will remember who I am, that I can somehow be a part of their lives even though they see me once or twice a year.  I don't think it's working.

I don't want to move back there, and I can't - I've made a name for myself as a troublemaker, a liberal.  I've made myself an east-coaster through and through.  Where I grew up, I would be abrupt, aloof, rude. I'm the outsider, now.  And I've started to put down roots where I am.  When one of my kids fainted in the Christmas Eve service tonight, I thought, "This will be the thing I remind her of when she's a senior and moving on."  I'm having a hard time imagining leaving, and that is the hardest thing of all, seeing myself as someone who might stay.  I have a life here in a way that I haven't before, anywhere, and that in itself is scary, because what do I do when I have to leave?  And even scarier, what do I do if I stay?

One of the many things that is hard about it is realizing that I might never be at another Christmas gathering where there is pickled herring, where it is the people who have known me my whole life, where they will put out crazy fish products because we're Scandinavian but know that I won't have anything to do with it.  I haven't been there for twelve years.  Chances are, I'll never be there again.  I am, through and through, a minister.  Even if I could be away for Christmas, I wouldn't.  I've spent the last three years with a friend's family; this year I wasn't invited.  It reminded me that I am still a guest.  That's not my family.  If I flew home tomorrow I could still show up, unannounced, for my own family's pickled herring day.  Here, in the life that I could very well have for the rest of my life, I will have to be invited.  There is always that chance that I may have nowhere to go.

It's Christmas, and more than any other day of the year, I don't know who I am or where I belong.  Home is my apartment, my dog, my roommate, the life I've created for myself.  But I come home on Christmas Eve and I wonder, why is there no pickled herring here?  Or something else I come back to on a holiday, something I can call my own, something I don't have to be invited to?  Where is the thing that will hold me together?  What is my tradition?  

  

Annual Celebration of Exhaustion and Inadequacy

Sometimes I wonder why we continually subject ourselves to modes of celebration that seem specially engineered to make us feel bad.  Christmas is the prime example of this.

We spend hours/days/weeks shopping for the perfect gifts, so that we can worry about whether they're good enough (probably), whether they capture exactly what we're trying to express (no, it's just an object, you might have to actually say what you feel), whether we've spent equally on everyone so that no one feels bad (yes, but someone will still feel bad), whether it will arrive on time (probably not, as the postal service seems surprised every year by the amount of stuff that people want shipped), and whether we will ever be able to pay off our credit card bills (no, that's the whole point of credit card companies).

We create "traditions," which I have come to know alternately as "excuses to get mad when people don't do what I want."  So instead of being happy about the celebrations we do get to have, we get to be angry because so-and-so has to work instead of coming to the family dinner, or Rev. Changeverything has picked the wrong carols for the Christmas Eve service, or the new sister-in-law is making roast beef!  When everyone knows you're supposed to have ham!

Or, if we are me, "we" get to be a little depressed because somewhere, many miles away, there are family traditions happening without us, and all around us there are other people's happy gatherings happening, and every five minutes we are reminded of the fabulous gift someone else is getting, while we know that what we will be getting is a pound of Caribou coffee (which we love and look forward to for months, don't get us wrong) and some sort of decorative item from the parents, and that's about it.  (Okay, I'll stop speaking in the royal we now.)  And it's not really about the gift-getting.  The fact is that no matter how much I hate all those diamond commercials, because diamonds are socially irresponsible and absurdly expensive and have no actual bearing on the quality of love between two people, they still remind me that there is no one in the world who loves me enough to even consider such a gift.  That I will come home after working a bazillion hours on Christmas Eve to just my dog, and spend Christmas Day semi-awkwardly attending someone else's family festivities.  For about a month, several times a day, I get the supreme joy of remembering that, despite the fact that I do have a lot of friends and a pretty active social life, there just aren't that many people who care all that much about me.  

And if the self-pity gets to be too much, I remember the clergy who have spouses/kids/closer families and how their holiday is so often spent juggling church and family gatherings, feeling guilty about sacrificing family time for work or vice versa, and not really getting that reprieve that I get when all the services are done and I can just sleep and not worry about being "on" for anyone else.  And the other people in the world who don't just feel a sense of aloneness, as I do, but genuinely are without family, friends, or a faith community (all of which I have and am grateful for, when I can get over myself).

Its all just a lot of pressure for a holiday that got its start in a stable.

I wish I could be a like more Jesusy about the whole thing, a little less self-absorbed, a lot less sad.  I'll get there around Christmas Eve.  And there's something very Advent about feeling the darker side of the holidays, something very "in sin and error pining" about experiencing some sense of loss and lacking before the celebration of hope and joy.  At least that is what I'm telling myself.       

Advent Schmadvent

Like a lot of clergy I know, I'm quite attached to Advent - as in, observing Advent before we celebrate Christmas.  Like a lot of churches I know, my congregation is not so much into Advent.  They want to sing Christmas carols in, like, July or something.  I've been fighting the good fight on this one for quite some time, through a college chaplaincy and three congregations, and I've gotta say, I'm about ready to throw up my hands and just let them sing "Jingle Bells" every Sunday from November on.  I'm tired.  It's exhausting trying to convince people that delayed gratification is a good thing, that a time of contemplative waiting is in order before we pull out all the bells and whistles, that we really are still a people in waiting for God, that the assumed happiness of the holidays is difficult for many people, that sometimes we need a little quiet in the midst of all the cultural pressure to be jolly.

I don't want to explain these things anymore.  I don't want to spend Advent fighting over every little thing.  And it seems that in order to do that, I may just have to step back and say, "Fine, rush right into presents and parties and jumping for joy, and forget all about the reason it all happened in the first place."

Yes, I am feeling cynical and annoyed today, why do you ask?  I have something more constructive brewing in my mind about Christmas traditions, but it'll have to wait until I can stop rolling my eyes.

War on Christmas

So apparently there is a War On Christmas happening.  Have you heard?  The poor, beleaguered Christians are being subjected to such violent acts as - drumroll, please - having store clerks wish them "Happy Holidays."  Children in school may be forced to endure generalized seasonal festivities instead of being taught about the birth of Jesus by public school teachers who may or may not know or believe anything about that event.  How very appalling.

'Tis the season to be cranky and demanding, it seems.  I can't turn around or log onto Facebook without someone complaining about "taking the Christ out of Christmas."  Since I'm a minister, a professional Christian if you will, I wonder to myself, "Is this something I should be upset about?"

So, I go to the Rite-Aid, where the woman at the register cheerfully wishes me happy holidays, and this feels to me like a pleasantry, not an attack on my faith.  At the same Rite-Aid, I can buy a button that says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season," a nativity scene, and ornaments with angels, Jesus, and Mary on them.  "Joy to the World" and "O Come, All Ye Faithful" are piped over the speakers.  If I were a celebrator of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, I'd be out of luck in the music and product departments.  My visit to the store doesn't make me feel persecuted for my faith; if anything, it makes me feel unnecessarily privileged.

The kids in my youth group have holiday parties instead of Christmas parties at school, it's true.  They also have their major school breaks structured around their religious holidays, so they never have to worry about how to manipulate their schedules to allow for both school and religious observances.  And they learn about their faith from their parents and the church people who have taken baptismal vows to them, people who know and care about Christian faith, not from teachers whose training and jobs are to instruct kids in academic subject matter.  In return, I don't have to teach them about math, for which everyone is grateful.

This country that is supposedly waging a war on Christmas is also a country where a presidential campaign is peppered with discussion of whether a Mormon is Christian enough to be electable.  The last election involved accusations that Obama was a secret Muslim.  We've had some Unitarian, deist, and non-affiliated presidents, but it's been quite some time (80 years or so, if my brief Google search is correct).  Now the assumption is that only a Christian would be electable as president, even though the we have no law regulating the religious beliefs of any elected official.

All of this is to say, we're not exactly being persecuted.  Despite separation of church and state, despite declining church attendance, Christianity is still the cultural norm.

Which leads me to the thing that really bugs me about all this "war on Christmas" business.  Christians complaining about being persecuted.  Not because they're being imprisoned or killed for their beliefs, but because a store dares to ask its employees to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone passing through their lines will be Christian.  Because the government protects kids from having religion - any religion - forced upon them in what is supposed to be an environment where all kids are welcome.  Methinks the definition of persecution may be a bit skewed here.  And really, you're going to whine about corporations and government agencies persecuting you because of your Christian faith?  Have you ever read the gospels?  Remember that Jesus guy?  It seems to me that we shouldn't be surprised not to have everyone go merrily along with our beliefs, since we follow someone who was killed for his.  Just a thought.      



 

Ministers and Movie Stars

Yesterday at the salon I saw an article about Leonardo DiCaprio being mistaken for a thief in a jewelry store because he was bundled up in a sweatshirt and hat, trying not to be recognized.  Apparently it worked, until the police showed up.

Sometimes I roll my eyes at famous people going all crazy to avoid notice.  Those millions of dollars you make: they come because you are recognizable.  Being unrecognizable is ostensibly not a good thing if you're an actor or a musician.

Yesterday, however, I did not roll my eyes.  Instead, I nodded in sympathy at this poor guy who was just trying to buy a gift for his mom and had to dress like a potential robber to avoid being chased down by fans and paparazzi.

I don't have fans, and no one is trying to take my picture.  However, I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon of being recognized when you don't want to be.  For example, last week I got off of a plane after a few days of intense meetings.  I was starving, so I went to my home base bar to grab something to eat.  It was 10pm on a Saturday night.  I looked like absolute hell, hunched over my food after hours of travel.  So, of course this seemed like a good time for someone to talk to me about church business.

From her perspective, it makes complete sense: she needs to talk to me, I'm there, what else is there to it? Meanwhile, I am scrambling to find my work brain and not say something completely idiotic.

Fun clergy fact: The likelihood that you will run into a parishioner is directly proportional to how exhausted, frustrated, sloppily dressed, occupied with things other than church, or otherwise unclergylike you are at a given moment.  Ministers cannot just run to the grocery store or stop into the pharmacy or go out to dinner like normal people.  Perhaps we need to pile on hats and hooded sweatshirts and go incognito.  Then again, it didn't work so well for Leo.