Dirty Sexy Ministry

Birthing the Book

2012-01-30T12:32:00.001-05:00

All sorts of issues arise when you realize you are actually writing a book. Among them are the whole, "Cool, there will be a book with our names on the cover in stores in November." And, "Hey, maybe people might actually buy this book."

And, "Oh, people are actually going to buy a book and expect something."

Which just gives rise to the voice that says, "And what do you think you have to say that's so awesome it needs to be in print?"

Which leads to the blank computer screen of death staring back at you and several phone calls and emails between the two of us about how we managed to get ourselves into this place and how many other bloggers out there are so much better than we are with thousands of followers and we're just w-a-a-a-a-y out of our league and our hair is not cooperating and our clothes are frumpy and this book will be the downfall of Western Christendom.

Hyperbole has never been a real issue for either Mary or me.

On the other side, we both have tremendous friends who are very good at listening to us whine with a nice glass of merlot, then telling us what we need to hear, which is, write what you need to hear. Write what broke your heart, and what healed your heart with enough wisdom to leave some scars so you will remember.

So we write. We write about grief, revisiting the pain of broken relationships and broken hearts. It's like intense therapy, except without the $125 an hour fee and with the realization that lots of people who don't know you will be reading your tears transformed into words. More than once, I've gone through a box of tissues as I write. Even pain that has been redeemed is still delicate.

We write about what we've learned, that some people who say they are friends are only friends as long as you are who they want you to be; that losing relationships because you can no longer fit those expectations is painful, but being untrue to your soul is deadly; and that we are often the ones who get ourselves into all sorts of unattractive situations, but God will find us in the middle of our disasters and sit with us until we are ready to decide we might live.

We write about how our own expectations of who we are supposed to be are as helpful as a pig wearing stiletto heels. It ruins a good pair of heels and just annoys the pig. Too often, we women often try to mold ourselves to whom the world needs us to be instead of being who God is calling us to be. Getting from the world's personas into our most authentic selves is nasty hard work. Some people call these periods times of growth. As we grow in life, we begin to sort through those expectations, throwing out the ones that don't fit anymore, the ones that are toxic, and the ones that give us blisters.

And we tentatively trust the voice that is wholly without expectation and filled with faith. That voice isn't always nice. In fact, in my writing, I realize that voice is the one that drinks bourbon at places on the wrong side of the tracks and doesn't care too much what other people think or how this will look on the resume. That voice is all about truth, humility, and trust.

She does, however, prefer Four Roses Bourbon.

A colleague remembered that the hardest part of giving birth is the space between feeling the impulse to push and trusting the body's need to allow for muscles to loosen until the right time. The muscles are still loosening with writing. Some of what needs to be birthed in our writing is not yet ready to appear, but we feel it.

Not so far removed from life, either. That space between knowing what is coming, but also knowing it isn't yet fully ready to appear is difficult and annoying. We like fast food, instant movies, and instant life. God, however, was born into the world in God's own time. A deeper wisdom resides in our souls; sometimes we should just shut up and listen and trust.

So, it seems will be the words of our book, and the chapters of our life. We just thought we'd share our thoughts.

Speech

2012-01-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

I swear, a lot. I have a total potty mouth. When I am driving, I drop a few choice word bombs, somehow I hope they hit my targets. If I am in the house, looking at a bill, I might toss a few expletives here and there. As a potty mouth, I took great satisfaction from some scientific discovery that swearing can reduce pain. Well obviously that is true if you have ever jammed your toe on the way to the bathroom at 2 AM.

I love violent movies as well. One of my favorite scenes of all time is from "The Untouchables." The four "untouchables" gallop down a hillside toward a bridge that ends in a gun battle with gangsters. The music is so stirring. The action is intense. The scene brings me to tears when one character is shot.

I mention these two darling aspects of my personality and character because while I support the freedom of speech, I now shout out "fudge" when I stub my toe and change the television station when there is blood, shouting or shooting. This change in me started about 18 months ago, and is not complete. Thankfully, I have not yet become one of those people who gives the stink eye to anyone who lets loose a few word bombs in the presence of children, nor have I stopped watching television completely. However, I have started to notice these two aspects of violent speech and violent imagery a lot since I have limited my use and access to them.

My change towards violent language and imagery began with the entrance of a new life in my life. That new life has brought out every protective instinct I never knew I had. That new life propelled me out of bed at all hours of the night and early morning, ready to feed and comfort on demand. Many of my old habits have become old habits in the face of the new reality in which I live. I started to notice more and more how I spoke, how I lived, what I ate, what I thought. Little by little, my life adjusted to my new love, my new community.

I live in a new community now. I am not alone. I am responsible for and to someone else. I must feed and cloth another. What I say, how I act, what I permit into my presence affects not just me, but my community. Am I comfortable with those influences in my community? Was I really comfortable with those influences in myself?

Or to put it more bluntly: do I want my child swearing and watching violence? I say no, but I needed to understand why I feel that way, after all, I support people expressing themselves. As repugnant as I find some speech, writing, art, music, movie or television show, I still believe that individual is free to express him or herself (even if I believe he or she is wrong). Speech might be free, but speech is not without consequence, without power.

Speech can be powerful and dangerous. Speech can uplift and devastate. Whether we like it or not, we are influenced by what we watch and what we hear. So the question arises, what will I allow?

I am not comfortable anymore with violent speech and images, especially in front of my child. I understand someone might feel the need to express him or herself. I understand that an artist might be using the violence as a means to some end. I want my brothers and sisters to continue to express themselves, but for right now, I am not speaking violence, nor watching violence.

I am not kidding myself that I will never watch television again nor drop the f-bomb at some point, but I do want to be intentional in what I will allow to influence my family and myself. I am not naive that my child will not see violence or hear violent speech somewhere in her daily life, but I do not want her to believe that her mother condones violence because she does nothing to prevent it from entering her home through casual swearing and violent images on television.

Will limiting my viewing of violence and my speech make the world less violent? Maybe not, but it might change my family and community. I hope through my example that my child will see that there are a world of choices that do not have to include violence. I hope that when she is older, we can sit down and watch mom's Dirty Harry films, and wonder together if violence is necessary.

Hornets versus Mavericks

2012-01-22T11:28:00.000-05:00

I really know nothing about sports. I do not follow any sports either. Sure, I can watch a game, and I know sort of what is going on, but I do not really get it. Nor do I get particularly excited about sports. Instead I think that I should be more concerned with other things, more important things like foreign policy, the care and well being of my fellow person, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, and delicious, delicious Hubig Pies. So, I wondered why I said yes to saying the prayer before the Hornets game last night.

I have prayed for them before, about a year ago. The whole process to me was fascinating. First, I arrived about two and half hours before the game started. Next, I practiced my 15 second, non God mentioning, non other team bashing "prayer." Then I waited, sitting court side watching both teams practice until the game was ready to begin. Dozens of people scurried around the arena making preparations, all very serious. It was neat to watch how they put together a game, but I did not give a whit about the game. So before the singing of the National Anthem, I walked to center court, did my prayer for the crowd, and went home. What was the point of staying and watching a game I did not care about from the nosebleed section by myself?

The call came on Wednesday. They wanted me to come again and say the prayer. I thought about it. Would this be a waste of my time? I have so many other things to think about and worry about right now than some stupid basketball game. I said yes, prepared my "prayer," and I asked my 11 year old nephew to go with me.

Now I should tell you, that unlike his aunt, my nephew actually loves sports. Not that I am biased, but he is also really good at sports as well. It is a mystery to me, but somehow he got some really athletic genes (must be from the other side of his family). So, like I said, I asked him to go.

I picked him up about two and half hours before the game. I warned him that it might be really boring, and we could leave as soon as I was finished with the prayer. He shrugged, and said: "Okay." When we entered the arena, the players were practicing on the court. I watched my nephew's eyes light up. He asked if he could take a picture. I said yes.

We walked around the court and sat in the fancy front row seats, while he took pictures of the home team and the visiting team. He told me who the players were, groaning when I would say: "Who is Lamar Odom?" He said quietly to me: "This isn't as boring as I thought it would be. It isn't boring at all really."

It wasn't boring at all really. He was right. We went to the VIP cafeteria (which did nothing for him or me for that matter). He got to stand where the visiting team ran in right past him. I walked to center court and gave my prayer. Then we made our way to the highest section and watched the game.

As I sat there, smiling and clapping and watching that game with my nephew, it dawned on me that I had not thought at all about my worries. All I was concerned with was whether or not he was having fun, and soon enough his fun was infecting me. I thought I was doing something nice for him, and his joy did something wonderful for me.

It wasn't boring, it was cool even! I was so wrapped up in myself and my problems that I could have very easily missed this opportunity for joy. I still do not care about sports. I certainly have some theological/political questions why they feel the need to have a prayer before a game. I could have very easily said: "No way, too boring and not my theological cup of tea," but somehow being able to offer this to my nephew made the game amazing to me. Being able to share in his enthusiasm and joy, made me enthusiastic and joyful.

I got an opportunity to share something neat with someone I care about. How often does that happen? How often do we just push those opportunities aside because we are not all that interested or we have "more important" things to do? How often do we offer others a gift- maybe one we do not care about as much, but means the world to the other? Are we able to joy in another's joy, even if it is not our taste or style or interest? We do not often get to share in another's joy maybe because we are too caught up in trying to fulfill our own joy.

Well, I am not sure I will go to many more games, maybe if I get a free ticket or something, but I hope I get the opportunity again to offer joy to someone and get to share in it.

When we hurt each other

2012-01-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

A priest I know reflected on when she knew her relationship with her then-boyfriend was over. They had been going through one of those proverbial rough patches all relationships enter, "rough patch" also being a euphemism for a time of growth and learning, which is never particularly fun for us humans. Expectations are challenged, and that impacts the relationship. Individuals change, and that impacts the relationship. Life happens, and that impacts the relationship. Both people have usually engaged in some not so loving behavior that has impacted the other. All of those circumstances settled into the lives of these people, and they were now at this place.

"This place," was sitting across from one another, and he was telling her all the things she'd done to hurt him. Then, after he finished speaking his truth, he said, "Don't ever hurt me like that again."

She started looking for a new place to live the next day.

Perhaps your response is that she wasn't too nice or she reacted badly to hearing what he said. Perhaps, but her reaction was not at the things he'd experienced her do, which, by the way, were not of the caliber of having an affair. The hurts were the mundane, painful hurts we all do to each other. Her reaction was to the last line: Don't ever hurt me like that again.   She realized in that moment, that the person she thought loved and respected her and the person she did love and respect, had no understanding of relationship as she did.

Firstly, his words were a threat. When someone throws out that kind of ultimatum, beware, because the unspoken part is scary - or else. What, if during the course of life, she did hurt him again? Would her shave her head or assassinate her character?   Threats in relationships are nice little signs that there may be some creepy boundaries going on, like one person is supposed to be the puppet of another, and if you dare deviate from their almost-always impossible expectations, you will pay the price and perhaps be the subject of a Lifetime movie.  Good boundaries state clear and realistic expectations, like telling someone, "Don't ever run me over with the car again." Telling someone to never hurt you again is wishful thinking and a sign of some deeper, darker stuff.

Because we do hurt each other, even in the best of relationships. The prayers in our marriage liturgy and the vows in our Baptismal Covenant don't say, "If you are ever silly and foolish with another person's heart, you can repent, if you deem yourself responsible for said actions." Nope, the wise people who write our prayers figured us out - that we WILL hurt each other.  The prayers say, "When." When you hurt each other, when you fall into sin, when you act out in hurtful ways, you can repent and return to the Lord.

We will and do hurt each other in all of our relationships, from marriages to friendships to our pastoral relationships. What is Godly about these loving bonds between humans is not that they are without failure or shortcomings or misunderstandings or even the downright petty hurting of the other, but that they are capable of naming that hurt and moving onward. When we hurt each other, we are called to hear each other's pain and to respond to it, maybe with explanation, but mostly with compassion. When we hurt each other, we are called to recognize the powerful fragility of trust and love among humans. When we hurt each other, we get a stripped-bare view of the truth of our relationships.

Those that collapse under the weight of the impossible standard of never hurting one another are not relationships - they are thin, one-dimensional expressions of the interactions with others or the pithy line in a cheesy 70's movie. The relationships worth keeping around are the rich ones grounded by not only the joys and laughter between the people, but also the disappointments and sorrow caused by each other. In that mysterious and often annoying way God works, the darker parts of our relationships ground and give dimension to the lighter parts. We appreciate and value the joy, perhaps, because we have gone through the struggles.

A note here - there are some relationships where the darkness does overcome the light. Physical or emotional violence and/or constant boundary violations are not the hurt of which I'm speaking. When you see these signs, do what the people in Amityville didn't do soon enough - Get Out.

I understand the impulse to say to someone, "I'll never hurt you again," and sprinkle fairy dust on the situation and ride off into the sunset. I like the idea of perfection, too. I wish my friends wouldn't do things that hurt me, and I wish I didn't do things that hurt them.

I also wish I could eat all the cupcakes I wanted to eat and never gain a pound.

We, however, do not live in such a world. We live in a world God saw at the end of the initial burst of creation and proclaimed it good, not perfect. Goodness is not about never hurting one another. Goodness is having the courage to sit in the pain and disappointment with one another WHEN you have hurt each other and wait until God and love do their redeeming.  Goodness is trusting that rough patches to give way to new growth and new depth of relationship.

So when we hurt each other, we can learn to love each other more deeply and honestly. You know, more like Christ's love.

Bullies don't exist

2012-01-09T13:52:00.001-05:00

Bullies don't exist.

At least that's the viewpoint held by some who think that the intentional harm they cause to others is just what happens in the course of a day's work or in the course of human relationships. And yes, we who live in community together do things to each other through thought and word and deed that hurt others.

Bullying, however, is another matter. Bullying by adults covers a range of behaviors from teasing which gets out of control (i.e. the person being teased has said or indicated that it's troubling, but the person doing the teasing refuses to stop) to serious criminal activity like verbal threats and physical assault.

A troubling truth is that every organization, including the church, has those within it who are bullies.   This gets some air time at Dirty Sexy Ministry because of work we're doing in the Diocese of Lexington that looks at deeper issues as we strive for healthier congregations. The work we do in the church around sexual misconduct and safeguarding our children is good and worthwhile, yet many of us have wondered aloud how can we identify and intervene BEFORE horrible things happen, before relationships are damaged beyond repair, before the breakdown of community is so vast and deep, and before souls are broken and misconduct charges filed. How can we help people be aware of their behaviors that are damaging to another? How can we give voice to the emotional pain almost always drives bullying behavior? How can we help us all better respect the dignity of every human being?

One of the first observations is that many people either don't know what bullying is or refuse to admit it exists in the church. Bullying is, in short, repeated actions that cause harm to others through verbal manipulation, intimidation, gossip, psychological assualt, and even physical assault. Most bullying behavior is extremely covert and subtle. Studies of people who engage in bullying behavior show that they use verbal and/or physical intimidation, that they demean others to promote themselves, and use guilt as a way of manipulation and control, and they are obsessed with authority (their own and others).

A sickness of bullying to the system (and it is something that a system/community allows and even encourages) is how people who bully act out their need to promote themselves and their obsession with authority. To quote an article written by the newsletter of the Society of Mary and Martha: Bullies are often superficially charming people who boost their own poor self-image by dominating others. This domination is not loving to another, and it is almost always detrimental to all the people involved. When the person who is being bullied speaks of these uncomfortable feelings or simply begins to act out, another level of damaging behavior begins. When another is percieved as a threat to that dominance, the bully will systemically undermine that person's confidence, reputation, and self until that person complies or leaves.   Or, as a clergy therapist friend says, "When you don't bend to a bully, s/he spends time convincing everyone that you are incompetent, immoral, and insane until you actually believe you might be."

Eeek.

Bullies are a magnified example of how our own hurts and wounds can hurt and wound others.  Most bullies don't see their actions as bullying; they may not even be aware of just how damaging their personal actions are to others.  Perhaps a first step to healing may be admitting that there are bullies in both clergy and laity and, even more difficult, admitting that all of us are capable of bullying others. I've yet to meet a person that didn't have places in our self-image that were sensitive and lacking. I've yet to meet a person that didn't, on some level, have issues with authority and issues with misuing it at times. I've yet to meet a person who didn't crave acceptance and attention, and who didn't coerce someone to salve that craving.

So part of our job is recognizing the potential for bullying behaviour within ourselves, listening very carefully and prayerfully when someone describes being hurt by our words and actions, and working to heal our own pain instead of inflicing pain on others.

Yet there remain those people whose interior damage is so painful that they may not be capable of offering it for healing. What do we do then? I wish I had some sassy comment or observation to make, but I don't. I hope that as the Church gets braver, we will talk more openly about bullying and work more dilligently to address it. I hope that when those in authority hear someone say that s/he has been bullied, they hear it with utmost sensitivity and concern and do something other than blame the victim or dismiss bullying as "whining" or "something that happens to everybody." I hope that we who are leaders, both clergy and lay, will do more to educate ourselves on types of bullying and be commited to do our own spiritual work to acknowledge our wounds.

I hope that the day comes when I no longer hear stories how bullying in the church broke people's hearts.

Here's What I Would Do...

2011-12-30T12:15:00.001-05:00

We all have particular ways of running the world and other people's lives. Ghandi (yes, that one) said that the most common acts of violence are unsolicited advice.

Let that one sink in.

I suspect that what we don't read in the nativity accounts in either Matthew or Luke is all the unsolicited advice or comments that started, "Well, here's how I'd do it," or "I think..." that came like arrows to Mary and Joseph. I'm sure angelic message notwithstanding, Joseph had friends saying that he should put Mary away quietly. And Mary's little trip across the Holy Land while she was pregnant to see her cousin? Oh, that probably got lots of, "You shouldn't do that," or, "If it were me."

Except it's not me. It's someone else. Yes, I can offer perspective when asked, but I should always be aware that my perspective is simply that - mine.

I remember receiving an invitation from a parish to enter the discernment process in their rector search. When I shared it with an ordained colleague, he was quick to tell me it wasn't a "good" parish.  I nodded, but felt a bit uncomfortable with the comment. A later conversation with a retired bishop named the discomfort: What right does another person have to tell you where God might be calling you? Trust that if the door is one you should walk through, it will be opened.

I replied that I thought I'd read that somewhere. He laughed, then read my resume as I prepared to be considered for that position as rector.

I was nervous, though. What if it wasn't a "good" parish? How would I know? Why would I know more than this priest? All those tiny knives of doubt that cause courageous life to flow out of us by a thousand tiny cuts were opened with that comment. And therein is the danger, the sin even, with the proclamations we make about what others should or should not do. Therein is the violence to others' souls.

Indeed, what right to we have to tell others, or especially to tell God, what they should do? Don't most of us have enough to do keeping our own lives in a holy and daring place?

I can see now if God had a committee meeting about the incarnation which solicited opinions about what everyone thought. First, none of this lowly stuff. High-born is how people would expect to see the King of Kings. And Bethlehem isn't important enough. There isn't a church large enough there to accommodate the crowds that will come, because we'll be sending out invitations to all the important people. And there should be available parking. No one wants to search for a parking space when they come to worship and be drawn into the awe of holy mystery. And did God say, "Manger?" Oh, no that will never do. Some people are allergic to hay, you know, so we'll need a room. Is it possible to replace the metal folding chairs in the birthing suite with comfortable ones?

Fortunately for us, God can dismiss our little acts of violence to humans being humans and trust in God. But we humans have a bit harder time allowing the advice of our friends and colleagues its proper place. Insight and observations from friends, from spiritual directors, and from those who know us can be helpful. Reflections on our experience in a similar situation can be useful. We all have blind spots; we all feel overwhelmed with choices; we all need other points of view.

The violence occurs when the other's advice becomes a dictum, the thing that is absolutely right and if you choose another path, you are wrong. Well, maybe so. But my wrong choices, my mistakes, and my choices that turned out less than stellar were forays into the darkness that invited me to see more deeply into the Light of God's path for me. I am where I am today, in part, because I made painful choices that invited me to a deeper sense of trust in the mystery of God.

What if, instead, we allowed others the space to discern, to sit in the mystery of the unknown? What if we said to others who are struggling with certain decisions, "You'll know what to do, and I'll be here if and when you need me"? What if we offered our experience as simply that, our experience, that may or may not be useful or insightful for the other person, instead of making decrees?

My experience is that most people, when they hand out this decree-type of advice, are really exposing their deepest fears and darkness about themselves. Their need to control other's choices says volumes about their need to validate their own life decisions, from the spandex pants they wore that day to the church in which they serve to the person to whom they are committed.  It's that communal vote syndrome - when I'm unsure about a choice I've made, I like to hear other people give their thumbs-up to my decision.  A search for external validation when my internal voice is saying what I'd rather not hear. And I really like to tell everyone how wonderful, wonderful, wonderful the decision was that I made ad naseum, with little or no ability to see the fullness of imperfectly perfect (cue the Disney soundtrack and the chirping birds).

When someone opts for another path, it may pull at that holy thread in me that recognizes I'm not entirely comfortable with the decision I've made. And we have a choice: to pay attention to the discomfort within us or to demean the other person's choice (and, sometimes, the other person).  One is an invitation to a holy journey that can lead us on dangerous paths and a sidetrip to wander in the desert. The other is a cheap offering to ego and pride.

One of the loveliest aspects of the holy story of God and humanity that begins with, "In the beginning," and continues on to this very moment is that God can work with our successes and our mistakes. Certainty and doubt, joy and sadness, wisdom and stupidity - God paints with all of those colors. Perhaps as we begin 2012, we can recommit ourselves to our journeys, worrying less about what others do on their walk with God and focusing more about listening to the holy voice of God guiding us.

Oh, and that parish? It's where I just celebrated my second Feast of the Incarnation. And that priest was right. It wasn't good. It's simply a place where my soul sings. For me, that is imperfectly perfect.

The New EpiscopalChurch.Org

2011-12-28T17:20:00.000-05:00

Check out the new EpiscopalChurch.org. They've even gone high-tech, with clergy, bishops, parishes, and bishops who tweet and a panorama of blogs by Episcopal Clergy.

Guess who is featured!

Thanks to all who read us, share our posts, give us feedback, and especially support. We both love the deep mystical spirituality and daring leadership by many in the Episcopal Church and are glad to be representative of a theology that speaks particularly to the joys and pain of the institution and the hope of sitting in the unknown.

Blessed Christmastide to all.

The Innkeeper's Dilemma

2011-12-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Can you feel the tension? I feel the tension all around. Every day there are news stories about our dire economic situation. People are losing jobs left and right. People are also getting angry.

People are getting angry, and it is on all sides of every debate. We have tea partiers and occupiers sending out a cry of anger and frustration. One side thinks the other side is stacking the deck against them. Indeed they might be right. Everyone left in between keeps his or her head down for fear of the impending economic axe. The tension and stress weighs heavily upon all of us.

It is in the midst of this crisis, we hear that small cry for help. We feel stressed and fearful. We feel we have nothing left to give, and yet, it is at that moment we hear the cry for help. Will we help? Can we even help?

It is hard enough to be generous, but what about when you are stretched so thinly you feel you have nothing to spare? What do you possibly have to offer? Why would any one ask you? Is there someone else who could help?

Maybe. Or maybe not. You do not know the answer, but all you know is that you are being asked for help. You are being asked to be generous even while you struggle and need generosity yourself. I imagine that innkeeper looking into the eyes of Mary and Joseph. He has no more room in the inn.

He has no more room in the inn. He is out of space and resources it would seem. He could turn them away, but he knows that he cannot. Wait, there is room, but..

But it is not the room he would like to give them. He has room in the stable. You can almost imagine the sheepish look in his eyes as he suggests it. Will they even take this small help? They do.

They do take this help that he offers, small as it is. He did not have much to offer, but he offers what he has anyway. Little does that innkeeper know just what he offered.

And what about us? Our culture around us tells us that we have nothing left to give. We are fighting for scraps, it would seem. We are stressed, stretched and frightened. We are frightened.

We are frightened. If we share what we have, offer our help, what will happen to us? Will there be enough? We wonder if there will be enough for us, and yet God confronts our fear. God offers us opportunities to be generous even when we feel it would be foolish to do so. Do we still have something to offer?

Apparently we do because God is asking us to give. God asks us to give from our abundance and even in the face of fear. God dares us to give of ourselves, however small because it is not about the size of the gift or what was given or even to whom, but that we gave of ourselves. Maybe the solution to all this tension and fear is our generosity. Maybe when we give of ourselves, we help others feel brave enough to give of themselves. Maybe that generosity will also extend to how we treat those who stand on the other side of our agendas and debates.

I suppose this is a foolish thought. I guess it is quite naive, but then again, I am not sure God is so impressed with our sophistication. I think someone born in a stable is not that concerned with looking foolish. I think someone who gets nailed to a cross is not that concerned with sophistication. I think that maybe he might be concerned with how we love, and how we show that love, even when we think we are at the end of our supply. Maybe because he knows that there is always more love to go around.

I Hope They Remember

2011-12-23T20:45:00.001-05:00

We had the pageant rehearsal today. I hope they remember. So went the Tweet from a fellow priest who apparently spent the day not, as much of America did, doing last-minute shopping, but going through the annual ritual of reading the elegant, weighty words of the birth of Jesus according to Luke as interpreted by those under the legal drinking age.

I responded to her Tweet: I suspect God looks as us and says, "Gee, I hope they remember." After all, the majority of the written record of the Bible is repetitive. God tells us God loves us, offers some suggestions about how we might respond to that holy love (loving our neighbors, caring for the poor, worshipping, etc.). We nod and high-five each other in great excitement. Yippee! We are God's beloved, and all these ideas of what that love may motivate us to do - how great.

And then we realize that mercy and love mean we have to grow and change, so we begin giving God less and less, believing in God's love less and less. Some of us get imaginative and create all these other rules so that God will love us, as if our behavior could ever earn God's love. We fiddle and wander in deserts and get testy, even ugly to each other and to God. Life goes on, it crashes and burns, we find ourselves alone and wounded. God finds us, and says (stop me if you've heard this before), "I love you. You are my beloved."

I've never been sure exactly how Christmas Pageants deliver this message, but I know they do. As a priest, I've been involved in Christmas Pageants for a decade. At my first parish, the pageant went from a normal little event on Christmas Eve to quite the production. The Little Bitties, as I call them, the ones who are not quite ready for kindergarten, were birds and fish and flora and fauna. Their job was to wander the stage (or chancel or around the pews - after all stage directions for these things are mere suggestions) while one of the older youth read the Creation Story. After all, the birth of Jesus is intimately related to the birth of all creation, so why ignore that part of the story? A young girl read the part of God. I always think God's voice has been male and old for long enough.

Then the prophets took the stage and told us all what we needed but didn't want to hear from God. Some of the actors were gentle prophets. Isaiah is a mostly kind father-figure. Jeremiah and Baruch are yelling, being the prophets you'd certainly not invite to Christmas dinner. We had the requisite Mary and Gabriel scene where the angle looked more like Elvis in Vegas and Mary shrunk back with her usual meekness, then eventually says, "Sure," to God with all the drama of someone ordering a half latte with skim soy milk and a dusting of cinnamon. Actually, the coffee order has more drama. Maybe I'd be a bit stunned into flat affect if Gabriel had dropped the bomb of Theotokos (God-Bearer) on me, too, so perhaps the young Marys aren't so far off in their dramatic interpretation. We give Matthew his due, showing Joseph's dream. Joseph is a bit more dramatic; Las Vegas Gabriel still appears. Mary and Joseph tour around the church and walk to the stable. Adam played the star, in more ways than one. His cape was a Christmas tree skirt. Daring fashion has always been part of the holy. The Little Bitties dressed in fur and feathers and scales came to the manger, along with the sun, moon, and stars. All of creation was present in that moment. We sang and clapped. And Christ was praised.

Those Little Bitties are teenagers now, going through that not-so-cute stage, but they are still God's beloved. The older youth are in college or part of the world now, working, married, not married, finding out that life is joyful and hard. Some of the men and women who so wonderfully made costumes and made sure pageant participants had food are gone, living on the distant shore of eternal life. I remember the chaos and stress leading up to the pageant, leading up to all the events and liturgies of Christmas Eve. I remember feeling all that stress drop away with the first notes of "O Come All Ye Faithful," and looking over at Albert the rector as we wished each other Merry Christmas before we took the first steps in procession to the Eucharist.

I remember it all.

This year is our first Christmas pageant at St. Michael's in some time. It's got the Laurie flair, which is quite welcome at St. Michael's: The King James Version annotated with a cheeky modern commentary. The costumes are simple. What some parishioners can do with headbands and tinsel is amazing, bordering on miraculous. We had a rehearsal, which was more akin to practing walking down the aisle and coaxing Mary and Joseph to face each other as if they might actually know each other rather than act like strangers in line at Target. The angels will come in yelling. I've always wanted to do that in a pageant. I've never understood how, "Fear not," isn't precipitated by something that scares the bejeezus out of the shepherds. Yelling seems to make the point. I'm expecting the shepherds to show up at the manger before the angels appear instead of stopping at the baptismal font and wait for the angels to appear. There's a real chance the manger may be an empty liquor box draped with burlap. Odds are good that Joseph, in the middle of the pageant, will ask the same theological questions he asks every Sunday during the children's sermon. I didn't manage to get nativity lobsters in the pageant this year, but I've got time (if you haven't seen Love, Actually - go now).

We did practice bowing. Most of them got that part flawlessly. At the rehearsal.

They are the sermon, these children in pageants. Their responses to their roles, with excitement, fear, joy, or nonchalance, mirrors quite well our responses to God. They don't always get everything right; neither do we. Angel wings fall off, the shepherd's bathrobes lose their ties, and the sheep may get in a fight with their sibling sheep (oh yes, that was a fun Christmas Pageant). Creation is not perfect. Never has been. At the end of the story, God doesn't say it is perfect. God, in her voice, simply says it is good.

We forget that God's love for us is good; even, perhaps, that we are good. And on a most holy night, we remember. In the message of the angels, in the gathering of those who weren't powerful or important to the world, in the tiny infant being held against the warm skin of the Mother, God asks us to remember.

In the witness of those who are under the legal drinking age, dressed in tinsel and fuzzy sheep ears and bathrobes and whatever else seemed appropriate (or whatever didn't result in a temper tantrum), the children will ask us to remember. Remember feeling your life, freely. Remember crying when you needed to cry and laughing when you needed to laugh. Remember when make-believe was real. Remember when a snowflake or a crown of tinsel or box of new crayons could make your soul sing. Remember that you are loved, just as you are, no matter if you get the lines right or not. Remember that we are part of a bigger cast, that God isn't really that into solo artists.

After the nativity story is told through their little incarnate selves, they will bow and the congregation will clap. I think applause after the story of God's incarnation is quite appropriate. If it takes children to get us that exuberant about God With Us, so be it. I hope in that moment they know the feeling of God's message of, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

And I hope we will all remember.

My Soul Doth Magnify...Most of the Time

2011-12-13T18:01:00.000-05:00

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Most of the time, except when my ideas of how life should be conflict with how they are. And I think I know better than God. And my pants don't fit. Then I whine. And this rejoicing bit is hard when you've had twenty-seven meetings in a week and the bank account is low and you've sat with a lovely parishioner who is dying and you have that feeling in your soul that says, "Say goodbye to her." But rejoicing isn't being happy endlessly. Rejoicing is simply being in the authentic space of feeling. I can grieve and rejoice that I had the privilege of having someone in my life whom I will miss. I can be angry and rejoice that I can feel anger and not turn it inward to depression. I can rejoice when I whine because Brad or Holli or Susan will bring the cheese to the party.

For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.
Oooh. That lowliness part. Yep, we aren't big on that in our culture. We like to be big and strong and rich and powerful. We like to have the biggest churches and the most Twitter followers. But time and time again, God shows how wholly unimpressed God is with power and popularity. We rationalize our power. We justify our authority. We go to great lengths to remind ourselves mostly how wonderful we are. And yet we know, God meets us in our most lowly, our most humble, our most un-awesomeness. God meets us when our hearts are broken, our hair is frizzy, and we're just big hot messes. And loves us in that place.

For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Just a note, she's speaking of the ever-blessed virgin Mary. Not anyone else. Take note, politicians and Donald Trump.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his Name.
And this is about God.  So strike two for all of us who think we are the second coming. She also notes that God magnifies. We probably need to revise our Facebook pages to reflect all the glory we like to cast on ourselves. It's also not talking about that group of us that invented air or oxygen. That self-magnification is easy to spot. But what about those of us who claim too much of our heartache as ours, too? Those of us who take all the blame instead of a fair portion? Yep, that's magnifying ourselves, too. As one close friend likes to say, "We aren't as great as we think we are, nor are we as lousy as we think we are, either." God calls us to self-examination, to allow God's light to shine on our good and our bad so we can discover more of our truest selves. God's magnifying our selves and souls invites us to deep discovery and work about who we are, to see ourselves more clearly - fully. That's holy and really challenging work.

And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations.
Back to that humility thing. Again. You know, as many times as God and Jesus talk about humility, you would think at least one politician who features a church in his/her campaign ad would bring it up.  Just once. Maybe? I wonder if anyone would bet $10,000 that humility will be mentioned as a key quality for leadership.

He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud with the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Prosperity gospel preachers seem to miss this, along with the rest of us. God clearly has an agenda for dealing with the rich, the powerful, and the proud - and we probably won't like it. I wonder how uncomfortable, how truly uncomfortable, those of us in positions of power, authority, and wealth would feel if we really, really believed Mary was singing the truth.  What if she is?

He remembering his mercy hath holpen is servant Israel, as he promised to our forefathers (and mothers) Abraham (and Sarah and Hagar) and his seed forever.
Apparently God's memory is longer than an elephants and all that stuff God said in the Hebrew scriptures about loving us forever and being our God no matter how petulant and annoying we are still counts.

Glory to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Part time Holiday Jobs for Lady Priests

2011-12-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

Buying Christmas presents is expensive, especially for the toddler who has everything and needs to keep up appearances. The kid needs to look good, so I have been thinking about picking up some side work during the holidays. Here are my ideas:

1. Be a store Santa, but insist on dressing like St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (you know, pointy hat and cope). When children undoubtedly give you strange looks, insist that they give their presents away. Tell the children the interesting and strange tales and various legends of Nicholas, and give out golden chocolate coins until the store manager fires you.

2. Become a store fragrance spritzer, but use incense instead. Pick out a lovely frankincence and fire up the thurible.

3. Be a greeter at a store, but before anyone can get very far into the store, direct them back outside to give money to the Salvation Army Bucket until the store manager fires you.

4. Give tours at historic homes and point out good spots to put an oratory.

5. You could do sales and ask the customers before they complete their purchases if they really need all that.

6. You could also be a store decorator, but insist on only using the color blue. It might be just trendy enough that the store manager does not fire you, but eventually someone will catch on.

I have many ideas, but as I read through my list, it becomes clear to me that my heart might not be in part time work. Maybe I am not as interested in filling up my shopping cart this Christmas. Perhaps my time would be better spent than my money.

The War on Christmas

2011-12-01T13:03:00.001-05:00

I am well-aware that we are still in the season of Advent, and clearly a time of preparation and waiting has not taken hold in the popular culture. Hard to imagine, I know.

You can expect Christmas trees and those puffy Santa and snowmen blow-up yard dolls to appear in the stores in August. Soon after, the Salvation Army kettles show up at storefronts (and drop a few dollars in - they do a great job of caring for the least of these). And then, like clockwork, the beleaguered voices shouting about the war on Christmas appear. They argue that store clerks wishing us, "Happy Holidays!" is tantamount to saying Jesus really did mean all that stuff about caring for the poor and forgiving our enemies and we should follow it to the letter. When Target and Wal-Mart put up signs for "Holiday Sales," those special interest groups have won, because in this country, we have "Christmas Sales." And don't even get them started about the lack of a nativity on the courthouse square. The next thing you know, women will want the vote.

We have, according to several newspaper articles and never-ending news shows, a war on Christmas by the liberal agenda that apparently runs this country.

I obviously missed the declaration. I miss many things, so the governmental decree that often follows declarations of war may still be in the pile of unopened mail and catalouges on my table. I'm sure it tells me that as a priest, I can no longer celebrate Advent or Christmas services. The quiet holiness of singing, "Silent Night" would certainly be illegal in a war on Christmas. Our Advent Lessons and Carols service this Sunday will likely result in a mass arrest in this war on Christmas.

My neighbors missed the war declaration, too. They have so many Christmas decorations, including a blow-up Santa kneeling at the manger, that no official authorities could miss the display (although the tasteful decor committee may have). I feel certain planes use the lights as a back-up landing guide. Maybe soon the authorities will show up and tell them to take it all down, because there is a war on Christmas. Until then, I'll wear my sunglasses at night and enjoy the scene.

And Target and Wal-Mart's signs for holiday sales instead of Christmas sales? I'm quite fine with that. The last I read in the Gospels, Jesus charged humans to go forth and proclaim the love of God to all people. I'm unclear about how roll-back prices may do this. The only Christmas sale I want to attend is God's grace given away freely to all at your local houses of worship.

I fear that there may be a war on Christmas, although not by any political groups. Maybe the war is one of complacency, that we Christians expect the world to proclaim the Incarnation through nativity displays and greetings as we pass in the street. That's so much easier, isn't it? We don't have to think to much about what Christmas really means to us as Christian communities. We can decorate and shop for gifts and send cards, but what about reflecting on why the Incarnation was such a big deal? Sure, it's not a light-weight topic, but why does God Incarnate matter?

At least on some level, God Incarnate reminds us that being human is a lovely, fabulous thing. That our abilities to touch and see and smell and simply be human is something holy. Theologians and mystics have reflected on the Incarnation for centuries. And this beauty of humanity is a gift to all people, not just the ones we'd invite to our tea parties.

As beautiful as some creches may be, they are no where near as lovely as that moment where a person intimately knows s/he is a beloved child of God and that s/he is enough. As lovely as, "Merry Christmas," sounds, unless it's followed by an act of seeing the other as a part of the Body of Christ, it remains a hollow greeting. As fun as all those groovy Rankin-Bass Christmas shows are, they simply cannot capture the story of God loving humanity so much that God became one of us to remind us that we are spectacular in our creatureliness.

The deep truth of Christmas is not found in displays or sales or cartoons or political agendas. Perhaps it is found in a greeting, the one of the angels, who, after scaring the shepherds into next week, said to the world, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Don't be scared, because God is still here, for all people.

So sing loudly and decorate obnoxiously and wish people, "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Holidays!" or "Joyful Festivus!" or that the force be with them. And let all of that joy spring forth from the deep, interior knowledge of God With Us. All of us. Forever.

And don't forget the Christmas Sale signs for your churches.

Being Present to the Moment

2011-11-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

When you are born in the long shadows of Bryant-Denny Stadium, at least one of your major choices in life has been summarily made for you. For those of you not in the know, Bryant-Denny Stadium is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the home field of the Alabama Crimson Tide, a college football team (because I'm aware not all of you reading this blog follow football - however shocking that is to many of us in the South). Alabama is one of the more storied college football teams in history. And when you are born in Alabama or live in the state for more than say, two minutes, you must choose between Alabama and Auburn (the other major college football team in the state). For some of us, the choice is in our DNA. As I said, I was born in the long shadows of the stadium named, in part, for the legendary college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. I think my family has been cheering for Alabama since the days they had to dodge dinosaurs to get to the games.

Alabama has lots of winning seasons, lots of national championships, and lots of reasons to cheer, which is a great bonus for fans. But, as writer Warren St. John says, growing up an Alabama fan significantly skews your perspective. Any year that doesn't end in a national championship is a disappointment. Every game is significant in a particular way because it is a stepping stone to something bigger. While there are certain games that are very important to win (Auburn), the Alabama football season is often one long drive to win yet another national title. Given that they are rather challenging to win, you can imagine that many seasons, while wildly successful in other aspects, are seen as less than stellar if they don't win the big "You're the best football team ever" prize, also known as the BCS Championship.

I moved to Lexington, Kentucky last year. They play basketball the way Alabama plays football. If the year doesn't end in a national title, it's an off year. We get each other that way, Alabama and Kentucky fans.

Kentucky football, however, is a different animal. It's like Alabama basketball, which is to say, they actually play each game to win, knowing that they won't win them all. National titles aren't in the mix. It's all about that one game, then the next, and then the next. Having a winning season is great, but even beyond that, it's often simply about the game at hand.

Last Saturday, I did what most Southerners did: Watched football. Of course, the main dish was the Alabama-Auburn game. Alabama spanked Auburn. Life is good. I cheered and clapped and texted my Alabama friends whose life and ministry has scattered them far from the state of our births. We are anxiously awaiting the BCS polls to see if Alabama will play for another national title. So far, this season may still be a great one. Roll Tide.

But the best game that day just might have been the Kentucky - Tennessee game. It's been a bit of a struggle for both teams this year. Fans have begun stupid speculation about the tenure of both head coaches, as if a couple of years is enough to make significant changes to a system. But I watched, because I like Kentucky and can cheer, "Go Big Blue!" with almost as much gusto as I can belt out, "Roll Tide!" It was a low-scoring game. Kentucky had lost to Tennessee for something like four thousand years. Both Kentucky quarterbacks were out, so the entire game plan had been designed in three days around a senior wide receiver in the quarterback position. For us church types, this is akin to pulling out a member of the congregation to preach and celebrate on Easter Sunday, giving her/him about two days' worth of heads-up. My relatives would say this is just plum crazy, like playing golf in a lightening storm or eating mashed potatoes without brown gravy.

But plum crazy resulted in the game clock winding down with a three-point Kentucky lead. Tennessee had the ball. Again, for those of you who don't watch football but are still reading, if Tennessee kicked a field goal, they would tie the game and send it into overtime. If they scored a touchdown, they would have won the game. Needless to say, Kentucky fans (including me) were on the edge of our seats. And then there was a glorious interception. Kentucky got the ball back. The clock ran down. They won the game.

Kentucky fans rushed the field, albeit hesitantly. I suspect hundreds just looked at the scoreboard, realizing they'd actually won the game. Kentucky beat Tennessee. And for that moment, the players who played their final game at Commonwealth Stadium walked off the field big winners. They had done something that a few decades' worth of Kentucky teams had not done. They sent the Tennessee Vols home losers. And the celebration was a sight to behold.

Remember now, neither team has a winning record. Kentucky will not go to a bowl. The national title was not resting on winning this game. It simply was one of those glorious moments where being fully present to that time, space, and emotion was what mattered. Playing against the odds mattered. Playing at all mattered, because how many of us don't even want to engage if we know we are pretty much going to lose and our egos will be bruised. And living into the joy of that win mattered (I hope they tore down the goalposts, by the way).

I need reminding of this truth - that life, while not exactly comparable to a football game, isn't about winning the best ever award every year, in and out, but about being fully present in the moments. Success is not based on having the nicest car ever, serving the best (often synonymous with richest/biggest) parish ever, or whatever external we need to validate ourselves. The biggest title ever has been won for us - we are God's beloved. Nothing we do or don't do will change that. Our life moments, including the people we meet, are not stepping stones to a national title. They are simply moments woven together by God and us as we live our life together.

A full measure of successful living a spiritual life is being fully present to the moments we encounter. We will have losing seasons where we will be sad and disappointed by ourselves and others. We will squeak out some close ones, amazed we are still fully within our selves and souls after such a beating. We will have moments where it is simply not all about us. We will also dance with joy, because the unexpected miracle of redemption does crash into our lives, too, with regularity.

Advent is a season of moments, where in the busy-ness of the holidays, from the parties to the shopping to the special events and even, perhaps, Church services, we may lose focus of being present and instead focus on whatever award or external validation we feel compelled to slather on ourselves. We think, perhaps, if we pull of the perfect Christmas party or have our church decorated the best or buy everyone the most amazing gifts ever, that we will win the best person ever award and silence that part of our souls that doesn't feel "enough."

Our deep validation is knowing that we are God's beloved, and we are enough. Period. We don't have to play every game as if that's the award on the line. The moments are the real treasures. Being present to the people, situations, formation, and opportunities that open to us. Being present to changing plans when what we've been doing doesn't work. Being present to quiet and candlelight as we just sit for a time. Being present to joy and grief, laughter and tears, and fully feeling them.

Being present, as if nothing else before or after would be more or less important. It's one of the core lessons of the Christian mystics.

And one of which I'm glad jubilant Kentucky players and fans could remind me as we begin Advent.

Thankful for small things

2011-11-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

A few days until Thanksgiving, which, by all accounts, has been stripped of its incarnation as a national holiday borne out of the violence of the Civil War as a time of thanks for simply not having a cannon ball explode in your parlor or carrying the heavy burden of dread for the names of those killed, injured, missing, or otherwise damaged physically or emotionally from the battles that result from petulant and prideful attitudes of those in power (ah, super committee on budgets, pay attention).

Now it has become a day of eating too much food and readying ourselves for rampant consumerism, at least on some level. Hopefully, before the fourth helping of deep-fried turkey and dressing (yes, I'm guilty as charged) and before the midnight rush to Wal-Mart for things that will not make your Christmas merrier or brighter, we all have time to reflect on things for which we are thankful.

My list? Well, if you insist...

1) Friends. Not the kind that say hello and ask how you are without really caring, but the kind that know you. Really know you, so that on the days you simply don't have the emotional energy to be nice or tactful, they aren't too surprised. Brad, Susan, Holli, Elise, and Amy get a big shout-out here. Being loved is good. Being known and loved is akin to miraculous.

2) Scars. Let's be honest. Being thankful for scars is a long journey and a oft-repeatable journey, made even more difficult because they are often the result of damaging behavior by others. I realize, however, that the perfect me isn't particularly helpful to God. The me with cracks, broken places, fragile spots, and downright ugly scars is the person that lets God shine through best. And they got me a book deal.

3) Tight pants. Pleased that the jeans require me to do the deep knee bend when I put them on to see if they will stretch out just a millimeter more? Not exactly. But tight pants mean I have plenty of food. In this world, I recognize that as a place for thankfulness. And a call to do more than complain about my weight.

4) St. Michael's. Challenging. Loving. Surprising. Prayerful. Joyful. Peaceful. Imperfect. Holy. Yep, just what Christian community should be. They show me God so frequently I lose count. They remind me that Resurrection isn't just a particular Sunday in spring.

5) DVR. Shallow, I know, but when your schedule is as busy as most clergy I know, the ability to catch up on Grey's Anatomy (yes, I'm still watching), American Horror Story (oh, it's so sick and twisted it makes Church life look like Sesame Street), and reruns of Wings on USA on a slow Saturday is just a dandy way to unwind.

6) The Book of Common Prayer. Gosh, I love that I can pray prayers that are the result of thousands of years of spiritual experience that are profoundly relevant. It also makes me realize our ideas of terminal originality are more sinful than helpful.

7) Cluelessness. My spiritual journey so far has shown the profound unhelpfulness of advising someone else how to run his/her life. In fact, doing so is more of an act of ego than anything else. When we all trek into the woods on a deep spiritual journey, the best thing we can do is simply be present. To do otherwise presumes we know better of another's inner journey than they. We don't.

8) BBC's Pride and Prejudice. Because sometimes, we just need to remember that life does have a way of working out, and to do so with petticoats and ringlets and proper British English makes it just that much more elegant.

Blessed Thanksgiving to all.

"Your arms are too short to box with God"

2011-11-14T15:54:00.000-05:00

As a little girl, my father would often quote the phrase: "Your arms are too short to box with God." Being a member of a particularly smart-elic family, the children would then change the phrase slightly to: "your legs are too short to kick-box with God." You can imagine how annoying the four children might have been on an extended car trip, but I digress.

Like I wrote before, my father would often say, "Your arms are too short to box with God," particularly when his children would come to him with some complaint or when we felt angry. I would often imagine a small child wildly swinging her arms while an adult held the child back with one hand on her head. The quotation meant to me that in this particular situation it was futile to continue fighting.

The quotation would make me angry. How come I could not get my ears pierced at 13 like every body else? Why is my teacher so mean to me? Why do I have to do this or that? I would protest, but my father would just repeat the phrase. I think that it was his short-hand for: "stop fighting it, you are going to do it (or not do it), and if you continue in your whining, you might even get a spanking."

The phrase made me angry, but it also made me realize that sometimes you have to know when to stop fighting. You have to know when to start letting go of your anger, and really understand where you are standing. I can stand all day long, shaking my fist at the sky, shouting: "It's not fair!" And, indeed I would be right.

So much in life is not fair. Why can't my life be easy like that other person's life? He or she gets all the perks because ...(fill in the blank). I am getting pushed around. Mean people stink! Yes, your arms are too short to box with God.

I remember when I went in for a d and c after I found out that I had miscarried. In the hospital, I stepped into the bathroom, and I began to wail. I shook my fists. I wanted to know why was this happening to me. I am a good person. Why was this happening? I did not want another surgery. The nurse knocked on the door, so I let her in. She saw my tears, and she just shook her head. She understood, but it was time.

My arms were too short to box with God. Bad things happen, even when I do not want to believe it. I can spend all day giving a litany of wrong doing or I can accept that I do not have control over anyone but myself. I can accept that indeed evil occurs, but I will not be the judge of it. People may have false motives and they may lie, but it is not my battle. My arms are tired.

I can look at these disappointments and become angry and bitter, but why? I would love at times to be righteously indignant, but what good would that do for me? Sometimes the fight is over before we even start. We never even had a fair shot, but the fight is still over, and like I said, my arms are tired.

Our arms are tired. Now when I picture this image, I see it in a different way. I see a child wildly swinging her arms, but the adult is not holding her at arms distance. The adult is holding her tightly as she rages. Soon, the little one tires and slumps into the adults arms, and she is cradled and safe.

Often, that is the situation. We encounter pain, adversity, those unfair moments of life, and we can rage. We can be angry as long as we can keep swinging, but maybe the fight is over. Maybe it is time to rest in those loving arms, and through those bleary, teary eyes see where we actually stand.

We stand on holy ground, in the arms of our father.

The Book is Going to be Published!

2011-11-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

O.M.G.

We can't quite believe it, but, "When the Church Broke My Heart," is a go.

Jackie Collins, watch out!

The Eyes of Others

2011-11-10T11:00:00.001-05:00

We need other eyes to help us see.

Any woman who has ever asked her friend, "Do these pants make my tushie look fat?" knows this truth.

Our perspective is only so helpful, whether it's the clothes we wear or the sermon we preach or the way we are simply being, we need others to give us perspective and feedback.

I suspect that's one reason why we human beings live in community, so we can help each other grow and form in our lives. That's one reason why I simply do not trust those who refuse to hear feedback from others about their actions and behaviors from those with whom they claim to be friends.

Which is why I'm constantly amazed by those organizations that decide, to see if the pants they are wearing are flattering or not, they can do their own observations. This particular practice is akin to, as my grandparents used to say, letting the fox watch the henhouse.

Don't waste the time. Just admit that we really aren't interested in changing instead of going to the trouble to self-appoint an internal committee to meet a few times and come up with technical fixes like wearing blue pants instead of red and switching to a poly-cotton blend instead of a wool blend to make the pants fit better. So we wear polyester blue pants for a few years and wonder why people are still rolling their eyes as we stroll down the promenade, and then we appoint another committee made up of ourselves and decide to go back to red. Yes, red pants were really the answer.

When all along there are some people who love us, who deeply want to see us in a better place, saying, "You know, losing ten pounds will make all the difference."

Because deep down, we know that losing ten pounds is the hard way. Elastic waist bands are just so much easier. Except that the more we ignore the ten pounds we need to lose, the more it becomes twenty and thirty.

You all get the idea.

We can all see the discord, even the tragic situations that occur, when we constantly ignore the hard work and when we systemically refuse to look outside ourselves for perspective and help. From congregations in turmoil to personal lives in ruins, the end results of our fear of having the hard conversations and opening ourselves and our systems to others for their loving help will almost always be worse than the holy healing God can offer, if we only trust.

Maybe that's the deep truth: that we don't want to trust others. Perhaps we have been hurt by others who assaulted us with so-called helpful advice that just cut us even more deeply. Perhaps we have decided our own egos are to be trusted...alone. Perhaps we are just afraid that the vulnerability to holy conversation is more than we can bear.

Opening ourselves and our systems for the vulnerable conversations is scary. We might be hurt. We might see that the changes that need to happen will cost us some of ourselves we've become quite attached to, like those pesky personas that we're just sure we need to exist. We might be called to trust that as Christians, the whole life-death-resurrection cycle isn't just about a long weekend in the spring.

We also might find that the new thing God is calling us toward through these conversations is simply awe-inspiring. Waking up to the beauty of resurrection is not a myth. My own life has shown this to be true.

Now, fair warning, I'm going to talk about the tribe here. The Episcopal Church has been presented an opportunity to wonder if its current mode of dress makes it tushie look fat. Several people have presented a way to have the conversation about how well our political structures are working, especially in the emergent church world of today. The key element here is to invite those who are in love with the church, but not intimately intertwined with the current way of doing things, to have some honest conversation. Basically, to give those with some differentiated distance permission to see if it is the pants that aren't working, or if there are some deeper lumps and bumps that need to be exposed and given a good work out to tone them up.

Dioceses are being asked to pass a resolution that encourages this holy conversation by a group other than the ones currently invested in the system. Several dioceses in our church have taken this trusting, loving, and courageous step. Others are in conversation. The resolution's shorthand title is the Sauls Resolution, and if you're interested in it, let us know. The Resolution does not delineate the changes; it simply provides a healthy method for beginning the conversation.

Hard work? Yes. Scary work? Of course. Will some people be invited to give up some trappings of power and authority? Absolutely. Will others be called to new ways of mission and ministry? I'm betting on it.

I pray the Church (and our society and individuals) will trust God enough to let the eyes of another let us see ourselves more clearly so we may follow God more nearly.

A little more info

2011-11-04T11:12:00.000-04:00

Great! Six more months of having to explain this blog! Thanks, Laurie, thanks. I kid, sort of. After reading what Laurie wrote, I realized that I wanted to expand a little more on the idea. I wanted to ask and answer why does something break your heart because that is at the core of this idea, and it is at the core of the church.

Only something or someone you love can break your heart. Only something or someone you love can truly disappoint you. Sure, we get frustrated that the pizza man is late because it is an inconvenience or annoying even, but we are not really brokenhearted about it.
I think that the church breaks hearts because we love it. I love it. I love the church.

What? How can it be that I can feel hurt and anger at the church and also love and intense joy and pride? How is this possible? Well, I ask: have you ever been in love?

I love the church, the true church. The true church is that community rooted in love, guided by love, and surrounded by love. We witness it every day in the work of feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, and welcoming the stranger. We witness it when we pray for and with each other, supporting each other so that we can face another day. We witness it when a person is inspired to do something for his or her community to share his or her love.

I witnessed it writ large after Katrina in New Orleans. Episcopal Relief and Development, hundreds of Episcopal Churches, the Salvation Army, and many other faith communities were the unsung heroes. They came week by week, month by month, and even year by year, offering their time, talent, and treasure to love their neighbors. Why did they do it? These people do this because of the true church, the community of love.

At the same time, we argue and struggle with each other in the church. Sometimes even, people make pronouncements “officially” from the church. Then we argue and fight more. Some walk away. Some grapple for what they think is power in the church. They think that if they just had a little more power, they would be okay, but that is the problem. The church is not about power. It is about love.

We can get caught up with politics and policy and personalities. Why? We get caught up because it is our human nature. The church struggles because we struggle. We want to organize, prioritize, categorize. We want to control our lives, the world around us because we think that maybe if everyone just did what we wanted we would be happy. So, we make our institutions and build our walls and then we start hurting each other.

Perhaps we should just chuck the whole kit and caboodle. Perhaps the church is just another exercise in egotism and control. For that matter, humans are pretty mean to each other. Maybe we should just move as far away from each other as possible too. I will do my thing and you can do your thing. Humph!

It is always right at this moment that we remember. It is at this moment, in our humility, that God works through us in this church. When we recognize that we are just humans, and all God really asks us to do is love, God can and God does use the institutional church. Frustrating and beautiful.

I love this church, and this church has broken my heart. I have been so disappointed when I have felt that the church dropped the ball on love in favor of power. I have been so disappointed when I have been hurt and needed that healing love of God that I sometimes did not feel that I could find it, but I also have some responsibility to this church as well.

I have hurt others, been neglectful of God’s call to love. I have wanted my own power. I have wanted prestige and popularity like a crazed beauty pageant contestant. I have pretended that I am somehow perfect, and have it all together, and looked down my nose at others because they were not in “my church.”

For better and for worse, I am part of this church. I have participated in breaking many hearts. It is only in my humility that I can also work to heal those hearts. It is my work as well to love in the Name of God. Sometimes, I will get it right, and often I will get it wrong, but if we can keep love as our core, we can do better.

The church can and does do better. When we love, when we remember that love for us, we get it right. When we share that love, we get it right. We witness those beautiful loving moments in the work of the saints. We witness those beautiful loving moments when we can accept and console others, and offer them our love. So, for better and for worse, here I am a priest of the church. I am here to help the church remember that call and heal those broken hearts.

Much love and sometimes stupidity,
Mary+

What We've Been Doing

2011-11-03T15:41:00.000-04:00

Just to let our wonderful community of readers know, we've officially submitted a book proposal. The powers that be are meeting this month to decide, so prayers are appreciated. We thought about keeping quiet. If it doesn't come to fruition, you'd never be any of the wiser, and we could feel the failure alone. We are excited and impressed that someone came knocking on our door because of what we post on this blog. We also believe that failure isn't permanent, and even being asked to submit a proposal is still impressive. To us, anyway.

A book proposal is something of a complete exercise in fantasy. You have to title a book that you haven't written, give chapter names for a book you haven't written, and offer sample chapters (all together now) for a book you haven't written. All pretty much with just your gut instinct to guide you, because the editor, while excited about the "possibility," is just another name at the end of the phone line at this point.

Add doing this all across the miles, as I'm in Lexington and Mary's in New Orleans. Email and phone lines are only so helpful. But we managed, and it's in. The book title took us the longest. We decided Dirty Sexy Ministry was probably a bit too much, since it seems to be too much for some of the authority powers that be in the church (which makes me all the more thankful for the Diocese and Parish where I serve, who seem rather non-plussed about it all). Plus, it's very similar to John McCain's daughter's book, Dirty Sexy Politics. We tossed around other ideas: Puppies and Kittens for Jesus (wouldn't offend as many people as Dirty Sexy Ministry); Steal this Book for JC da Man! (not so much); and Real Priests of the South (Bravo might not be happy) didn't make the cut. In a moment of sheer exhaustion, I filled in the blank one night after a too-long day and a glass of pinot noir.

When the Church Broke My Heart.

When I sent it to Mary the next day, she said, "Yep, that's it."

Everything fell into place after that. Or at least from our end. The publisher of such a title may not be to sure what to do with it. How do you market a book that speaks openly and honestly of the pain the Church and her members and leaders can cause? Is this topic taboo because no one really wants to admit the Church isn't perfect? Will the powers that be quash it, lest the proverbial cat get out of the bag that the Church wounds and heals? We, as they say, shall see.

One of the questions we had to answer asked, "Why are you qualified to write this book?" We answered, "Because the Church has broken our hearts."

On occasion, we can be brief.

As I've written in other posts, I'm still overwhelmed that I'm on the other side of that leg of the broken heart journey for a while. I happened upon people in the Church whose love and presence healed my heart, who didn't diminish the wounds others in the Church had inflicted, and who carefully and gently invited me into responsible awareness of my own soul's song. I realize every day that the gift of redemption is a priceless jewel.

Mary is in her own place, and she will write about that in her time.

I suspect we are not alone, that many out there have been wounded by the institutional Church and her clergy and laity. If the book deal gets signed, we'll be talking to you. Until then, know that if your heart has been broken by the Church, you have company in your pain.

And even more amazing, there are those in the Church that can sit with you in the grief until you are ready to heal.

Do you like scary movies?

2011-10-26T16:14:00.000-04:00

I love October. Finally the weather is cooler, and there are so many scary movies. It seems like every channel on television is showing some sequel to Friday the Thirteenth or Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween. On any given night of the week, I can flip the channels from one screaming teenager to another, and I love it.

I love scary movies. I love the suspense. I love the characters making stupid decisions to run barefoot in the woods or enter the dark basement because the lights went out. I love the more traditional films where there is always a heroine, and she escapes the psycho creep in the end. I am not really crazy about the gross out torture pictures. I prefer to use my imagination which is ten times scarier and not nearly as gory.

I love the element that the heroine must eventually confront the killer. There is an ultimate, usually bloody, showdown. After the movie, I sigh with relief that it is over and check under my bed and in the closet.

I think that might be what I like about the movies. Sure, you are taken on an emotional roller-coaster, but eventually the fear goes away. Either the dragon is slayed or the heroine is eaten, but the movie is over.

The fear ends with scary movies, and upon reflection, I start to feel kind of silly about being afraid. I mean really, if I hear a creepy noise coming from a basement and all the lights are out, am I going to check it out in my skimpy nightgown? For that matter, I do not even have a basement. If any doll I own comes alive, I am grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting off arms and legs. Also, I will never grab a butcher knife; I am grabbing my fully charged cellphone and an iron frying pan.

The movies make me laugh because they are so good at making me afraid of the ridiculous. I end up fearing the most unlikely things. I get nervous in the woods because a crazed woodsman might chop me into pieces, but I am not fearful of the gunshots I can hear from Central City only a few blocks away? I think the movies help us escape what really frightens us.

Somehow, shooting zombies seems much simpler than figuring out how to stretch a budget when one is unemployed. Freddy Kruger is pretty scary until you think about your family member’s health. Frankly, vampires are much more welcome than dealing with sexism or racism or bigotry.

These fears are real, and just like what the heroine must do, so must we. We must confront those fears. We must look them straight in the eye. We must pick up our frying pans (because I know better than to grab a knife), and we attack that fear. We cannot cower in the corner anymore. Sure, we might not win, but we will not be afraid.

I am not sure how we actually conquer these fears, these realities, but at least we know that we are not alone in the dark. There are others who have walked and fought before us. There are those who will walk and fight after us. And there is one who walks and fights with us, giving us the strength we need for the moment. That one also gives us light to see the fear for what it really is.

We see in that light that whatever our fear is: unemployment, economic hardship, bigotry, violence can only control us because we believe that it is more powerful than us. In the light, we see that fear’s power is an illusion, and our weakness in the face of that fear is also an illusion. We are not really weak, and we are never alone.

Still, I think that I will curl up on my couch and turn on a few scary movies. Somehow, I would much rather deal with a vampire or Jason than with those real monsters.

Wisdom of Prostitutes and Addicts

2011-10-26T12:16:00.000-04:00

Another Tuesday night at St. Michael's. Just in case I forgot the day (which, however strange, does happen on occasion when I've over-extended myself), the growl of the motorcycles on Tuesday evening would remind me. From the Rectory, I can hear the parking lot noise of the Tuesday evening 12-Step group that gathers at St. Michael's. It's a well-attended group. The parking lot is filled with snazzy cars nicer than anything I'll ever drive, tripped out motorcycles that cost more than any car I'll ever drive, regular cars, and even some bicycles. Some don't have cars; they walk from the bus stop. In other words, that meeting draws a gathering that looks something like the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can probably imagine the people that drive these vehicles. I see them often as I walk from the church to the Rectory, or as I take Sophie out on her evening walk. Some professionals, some young men and women looking fearful, some men and women looking like they instill fear with the amount of leather and chains they wear. Many know each other. Like many 12-Step groups, some of these men and women have been coming for years. Some are new, hesitant to come into a room and be as vulnerable as perhaps many humans get, to stand in front of strangers and admit they are broken.

Then to hear that they are welcomed.

Like I said, something of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Whether it's substance abuse, emotional trauma, or the wounds that happen because we live life, we are all broken. One of the great sins of the church is the aspect of pride that invites us to fool ourselves that we are all okay, that nothing rattles us, drives us to our knees, and leaves us bleeding. That pride seduces us to look with disdain on those who admit their wounds, as if they are weak, humbled, and just can't "deal" with life. I wonder if those times when we cuddle up to pride are really times when we are so fearful of our own brokenness that we are left with nothing but the mantra that tries desperately to convince us we are okay. Sort of like thinking you need to look in the mirror, wondering if you do have something stuck between your teeth, but refusing to do so because you're afraid of what you'll see. So you simply tell anyone who will listen that you either don't have anything between your teeth or you meant to cram a huge piece of parsley between your incisors.

Sure.

Those communities of faith, whether they are officially religious or simply religious because they are a gathering of those who admit they need community and help, preach a needed message to us. Their roots are often in monastic spirituality, where men and women joined together in community to live fully, not just to promote their successes, but to live into their failures. A modern community, Thistle Farms from the Community of Magdalene, has 24 Spiritual Practices that engender the grace of living in community. The Community of Magdalene is comprised of women who have survived lives of violence, prostitution, and addiction. They live by some beautiful rules from which we all could learn. A few of the ones that resonate with me: Take the Longer Path, Stand on New Ground and Believe You Are Not Lost, Remember You Have Been in the Ditch, and Find Your Way Home.

Perhaps one reason Jesus spent time with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other outcasts had much to do with his recognizing their wisdom. The Ancient Near East, much like our own, had a love affair with perceived power and strength. All cultures probably do. We like titles, accolades, and the appearance of "Aren't I Awesome!" that we often have to repeat over and over and over to others, mostly trying to convince ourselves. Having an affair with pride, that sin that invites us to comparative judgments and measuring oneself by externals, often justifies our mocking and denigration of those who are courageous enough to admit their wounds.

I've often wondered the impact if, when Episcopal clergy were ordained or were renewing their ordination vows, they had to stand before the gathered community and say, "Hi, I'm (state your name) and I'm broken in these places (details here)." I have a feeling that idea would cause some clergy blood to run cold.

Yet isn't that a core of love? Admitting that we are as much the beaten person in the ditch as we are the priest and Levite who ignore him/her and the Good Samaritan who eventually helps? The wisdom of the prostitutes, the addicts, the victims of life, and those whose brutal honesty makes so many of us uncomfortable, is that they go into their darkest selves, their deepest souls that have done hurtful things to themselves and others, and know they are loved by a God who knows them fully and loves them enough to urge them on the longer path of self-awareness.

I watched last Tuesday night as a man who looked rather imposing by his size and the message on his t-shirt about getting thrown out of hell because the devil was afraid he'd take over walked over to a young woman sitting alone on a bench. She was young and trying to reduce her presence to nothing. Many of us who have been broken know that pose. He put his hand on her shoulder and said nothing, but somehow acknowledged her pain, even perhaps her shame. She smiled. He nodded, and said, "I expect to see you next week." And in a voice that shook because it spoke the truth, she said, "Yes."

Like I said, something like the Kingdom of Heaven.

Want to know more about the amazing ministry of Thistle Farms and the Community of Madgalene? Click here

Don't Comment on the Battles...

2011-10-19T10:54:00.001-04:00

Self-appointed experts are quite a joy, and by joy I mean they make me roll my eyes across the table at the wonderful friends who can read me like a book. Those people who spend their time offering advice (almost always unsolicited) about problems, issues, and concerns that are not their own. You might know some. Those people who, when you are discussing a concern you have with your ministry or life or challenge with family or how to work with unruly hair on Sunday mornings, quickly tell you how to fix the issue. Yet when you say, "Oh, you've encountered this?" they respond, "No, I simply enjoy offering random advice to people about matters in which I have no practical experience."

Well, they don't say that, but they should. That truth would be so helpful. But instead, we toss out advice or solutions to problems that may or may not be helpful. Perhaps we feel compelled to fix others so we can assure ourselves that whatever problems we personally face have a solution (and someone will give us the quick and easy fix). Perhaps we need to validate ourselves by showing how dandy and insightful we are. Perhaps we are simply fearful about saying, "Wow, that sounds really hard," because that might imply we aren't the best person ever.

Perhaps, perhaps, we simply forget that offering a quick (and almost always wrong) solution isn't helpful because we aren't in the midst of the problem.

Or, as Ice-T writes in his autobiography, "Don't be commenting on the battle if you ain't fighting the war."

Ice-T (who, I admit, is one of my favorite celebrities because he's just so real about his life) writes about his experience when the Republican party and eventually a portion of the entire country decided that his song, "Cop Killer," was the root of every problem ever in America. We all know how much power a song that doesn't even get radio play has on the country. But I digress. Ice eventually decided to pull the song from the album (because way back then, in between dodging dinosaurs to get to school, we bought actual CD's from the store). Obviously, he got flak for what some perceived as giving in to pressure. His quote is actually from a friend of his who reassured Ice that Ice himself was the one to make the best decision in the middle of the situation.

Don't be commenting on the battle if you ain't fighting the war.

We humans are quite adept at commenting on battles that we watch from a safe distance. We think that our academic insight can give us real experience. Maybe, but truthfully, that type of wisdom is pretty rare. Most of our insight comes not from academic discourse and reading books, but from the battles of life. And notice I said battles. We don't learn much about ourselves from our successes. The wounds and the scars disappointments, hurts, and mistakes leave can truly give us wisdom if we offer that pain to God to heal. Success does a better job of validating our egos. Not always a bad thing, but not exactly an invitation to delve into the deepest part of our souls where God has some impressive treasures to share with us.

When people comment on battles and wars and the ensuing scars they often leave while watching it all from their recliner? Not particularly helpful. Or loving. Don't. Just don't.

Don't assume, if you have never been a woman, that you empathize with the experience of gender discrimination. Don't assume, if you've never been a racial minority, that you "get" oppression. Don't assume, if you've never done the hard work of grief, that you can tell people what to feel and when to feel it. And even if you can share the experiences because you've been in similar situations that they path you walked is the one another should walk.

That isn't helpful. It's simply hubris.

This isn't to say that you cannot be present to another's challenges and pain. The wiser way is simply to listen to the story and experience and honor its originality. If you have never had that experience, saying, "Wow, I have never had that experience," is really okay. If you are invited, share yours if you have a similar one. We all have been through battles, and the ones among us that have done the hard work to do more than simply blame the other and have, in the process, gained some wisdom, can share what that experience was and is. Yet we simply must recognize the holiness of our experience and the holiness of the other's experience.

Usually, when people are going through the battles of life, they need to know they aren't alone in life, that they are loved, and that sorrow won't kill them. That, we are all able to do. That is what we can trust.

Trust that we almost never have all the facts. Trust that it's not our job to fix anyone else. Trust that commenting on another's troubles or problems is almost always more about us that them.

Trust that the gift of simply listening is more valuable that many of us realize.

And read Ice-T's bio if you want some good, fun reading about the battles and wars of a gang-banger from L.A. who is really, really grounded and would make a great next-door neighbor.

The Difference between Helpful and Useful Information

2011-10-10T11:32:00.002-04:00

I had a strange moment before church yesterday. A person decided he needed to tell me a few things about what I should be doing at the church. Next he shared what he thought of my sermons thus far. Finally he added that he did not know why I had not contacted him yet for help. He then looked at me and said, "don't cry."

Just then, the service began. I tried not to burst into tears and bolt from the building into the streets of the city of New Orleans. I tried to think about the situation logically. I have tried to put aside my ego and feelings and listen to what this person was sharing with me. Frankly, I am really ticked off.

I am ticked off because this was an attack. I realize that now. I am ticked off with myself because I did not call him on it right then and there. Instead, I let him offer his helpful two cents, and I barely made it through the service. I questioned every move I made throughout the service, and throughout the last month at the church, and I realized he was wrong. He was just attacking me.

I find it can be a very fine line between being willing to hear constructive criticism and being open to an attack. One might say you should not listen to people who do not care about you, but I think that we still need to be willing to listen to what someone has to say. The information might not be helpful, but it might be useful.

That might sound strange, but this is how I distinguish between the two. Helpful information is letting you know that you have spinach in your teeth and handing you a toothbrush. The person who shares the helpful information cares about you and wants you to succeed. He or she does not force their opinions or ideas on you, he or she asks first. You know that the information comes from a kind and loving place. Non helpful but useful information is letting you know that you look terrible. This type of information tells you more about the giver of information. He or she is coming from a place of hostility, but he or she is using a piece of useful data to express that hostility. It might not hurt to look in the mirror and check.

Still, I can be as logical and understanding about yesterday morning's attack, but I was attacked. My feelings are hurt. I have looked in the mirror, and I realize it was not helpful information. I believe that many of us open ourselves up, and allow others to offer their "helpful" advice. Perhaps because we believe that person really has something important to teach us or we want to be easy going or we feel unsure. We might even think that everyone wants to help us, so we need to listen, right? Well, we can listen, but we do not have to accept it. We do not have to accept being attacked.

We absolutely should seek help and advice, but that is point, isn't it? We need to seek the help and advice we need. That is up to us, and it is not someone else's responsibility to "set us straight" or "teach us the ropes."

So, my work is cut out for me. I have parishioners to visit and call. I have a sermon to write, translate and check. I also have a conversation that needs to happen- after church. Maybe the most important part is I need to stay open, willing to learn from others and listen, but remembering the difference between helpful and useful information.

Not in My Sandbox!

2011-09-29T10:32:00.002-04:00

So here's a point of order: Love your neighbor does not mean be a doormat. The full commandment is love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Life is about balancing that trifecta. We don't love our neighbor by constantly subjecting ourselves to our neighbor's hurtful behavior towards us. We are simply engaged in the emotional equivalent of constantly poking ourselves in the eye when we do that.

Love is about care and nurture. We too often limit love to being some kind of friendship, like loving our neighbor means we have to invite our neighbor, the one who repeatedly has knocked us down the stairs, to dinner, even if we're afraid during the entire meal that s/he's going to throw Brussel sprouts at us and call us names. That isn't loving ourselves, and it's not really loving our neighbor.

When did we forget that sometimes love is best done at a distance? That love can be drawing very sturdy boundaries with some particular people in our lives that are nice and clear? I can love a person who has hurt me AND love myself by saying, "You can't play in my sandbox anymore," or (in a close friend's parlance) "Go with God, but go." I don't have to wish his face turn purple or pray she has bad hair for the rest of her life (although admitting our anger is often part of the journey of reframing our love for someone who has hurt us). I can lovingly pray for those who have hurt me in a journey of forgiveness; I can love them as God commanded; I can love myself. It's not a choice of which one, but the wisdom and willingness to do all three in a healthy way.

So who are these people that might need an eviction from our sandboxes? Some of our thoughts (based on our experiences - your experiences may be different):

+People who constantly give you an inventory of your flaws and shortcomings, while never reflecting on their own. We are not saying that you should avoid people who tell you some hard truths about yourself. In fact, honor and nurture those relationships - as long as they are mutual. We're talking about those people who constantly assault you with unsolicited advice, like, "Wow, those pants look tight. Have you gained weight? And your sermon Sunday was boring, too." And those are the whole of the conversation. We have women's magazines and make-over shows to make us feel badly about ourselves. We don't need BFF's for that.

+People who pursue a romantic relationship with you while still dating someone else, while married to someone else, or while having weird, quasi-romantic relationships with others. Men and women who do this have deep, dark stuff going on that a professional therapist needs to address, not you. Stay away. When they start the grand explanation, after you've discovered the pictures on their Facebook page, the emails/phone calls to the other women/men, or whatever proof you've discovered that causes you concern, remember that honest people don't need to explain away things like this. Oh, and when you end things and they still want to be "friends," trust that they will be as dark and hurtful as a friend. So, stay away from that, too.

+People who disregard your boundaries. Our ears should prick when we tell someone, "(This act, comment, etc.) makes me feel uncomfortable," and the reply is, "Well, that's your problem." No, it isn't. Every balanced relationship has boundaries, and when someone ignores yours, there is a high probability for an emotionally damaging relationship. Balanced relationships, loving relationships - professional, romantic, and otherwise - honor various boundaries and various levels of comfort.

+Those whose behavior is abusive. Physical abuse is often (but not always) easier to spot, but emotional bullying and sexual harassment are also abuse. As a note, sexual harassment includes working in an environment where the comments and/or atmosphere is sexually hostile. Abuse is not loving. And being victimized by abuse is not loving ourselves. As an aside, if you see this kind of abuse and say nothing, that isn't loving, either. Silence only helps the abuser, and too often, the victim isn't in a position to defend herself/himself.

+Those who engage in character assassination. Constantly. And meanly. Our experience is that people who talk smack about others with you will talk smack about you with others. Particularly when the friendship is strained (as all friendships will be eventually). Those relationships worth energy are those that, when the strain and unrest comes, you talk to each other about the problems, not tear each other down with others.

So who did we not put on this not-inclusive list? Those who vote differently from us; those who disagree with us or have another viewpoint; those who are a different ethnicity, religion, race, or sexual orientation; even those who worship differently from us. None of the examples we listed can be seen in the first moments of a relationship. We might be lucky to hear someone else's experience with a person that gives us the heads-up about certain behaviors (and when someone has had one of these experiences with a person, pay attention). Usually, however, we just have to spend time with someone to discover how loving them and ourselves will look. Some people we meet with an initial negative first impressions become life-long friends. Some people that seem like wonderful additions to our life turn out to be segue ways to hard lessons we need to learn in hurt and disappointment.

Temptation may invite us to give proper names to these examples, as if we are always the ones who have been wronged. But loving ourselves also means seeing ourselves fully for who we are - shadow and light, goodness and evil. Perhaps another reading of the qualities of those who need to be loved with strict boundaries will engage us to see how we are also on the giving end of hurt and pain. We may have been the person who didn't hear someone's discomfort with our repeated behavior in a relationship. What was merely "joking" to one may be bullying to others. What was "processing" to a co-worker may really have been experienced as character assassination. What was an innocent flirtation to us may have been a violation of vows to the other party. Oh yes, we are also the wounder. But love gives us courage to see the darker parts of ourselves, our capabilities for damage to others, and, in the same act, damage to ourselves. That loving act of taking our own inventories, of hearing why another cannot be in relationship with us because of our acts, may stop future wrecks. Owning our mistakes allows love to transform them into lessons that needed to be learned.

This holy love is unsafe and reckless. It is not for the faint-hearted. Loving as God commands takes courage and honesty and willingness to grow, change, and learn from our successes and mistakes, but mostly from our mistakes.

So be of good courage, and love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. All three. In one.

Cool Priest Moments

2011-09-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

My nephew thinks I have a remarkably cool job. As in, after seeing the box of yet-interred ashes on a shelf in my office and the church playground that is easily accessible from my rectory, he exclaimed, "How do you GET a job like this!?!"

He is eight, but he's right. Far too often, clergy deal with the unseemly side of humanity: the acting out of fearful congregants; the bullying that is part of every system, even the church; people in the midst of dark and depressing events that pull at the part of us that so desperately wants to make it better, but our wiser side realizes all we can usually do is sit with them in that place. Oh yes, we are there in that place very often.

But we do get to do a hefty amount of amazingly cool stuff. Much of it, at least for me, is witnessed only by God and the people involved, and that's the way it should be in holy ministry. But there are some things that are banner-worthy. So, church playground in the backyard aside, here are a few of my cool priest moments that I hope resonate with many of you on this first day of fall.

1. Hearing the speaker for a Diocesan event wants to meet you because of the DirtySexyMinistry blog. And that our moms and the COO of the Episcopal church read the blog, too. Face it, we're still amazed anyone reads it for sustenance and not for ammunition.

2. Being part of a faith community that baptizes. And not dropping the baby. I don't baptize. We as a community baptize. However, someone is authorized by the liturgy to do the actual pouring of the holy water. It's an amazing privilege and moment of humility to be entrusted by the Church to be part of this sacred event. And even moreso that I've not dropped an infant into the font. There is still time, however.

3. That one of the active patriarchs of the parish who is retired and a wonderful part of the community knows who P!NK is and knows her music. Maybe he can even sing along, but that may be pushing things. Oh, and that I got one of her songs played at diocesan convention, which led to another priest's matriarch asking, "Did she say, 'panty snatcher' in that song?" Awe-some.

4. Sitting quietly in the church late one night after a particularly long day and feeling the joyful truth of naming St. Michael's as the parish I serve (as opposed to "my parish," another phrase I hear from priests that makes me bristle). I hope every clergy person regularly sits alone in the church with God simply to feel that reality of servant ministry in their bones. I get chills. And it tickles.

5. Ditching the closed-toe sensible black shoes at the altar. A pair of turquoise suede sling backs were my first act of rebellion several years ago. I'm quite sure God is more concerned about the humility and love in our hearts and souls than appropriate footwear. I'm also betting that God is all about fabulous. So, snakeskin pumps and jeweled sling backs it will be.

6. Hearing, "You're cool...for a priest." And realizing it's not that much of a compliment. I mean, by and large, we are not a cool and hip bunch of people in many ways. The bar for cool clergy is pretty low. But enjoying it, anyway.

7. Being an extra in a couple of television shows and movies, because I "played" a priest in the part.

8. Having John, who was a regular transient in Mobile, Alabama, know me by name. And meeting the guy who played the President on "24." Only certain vocations give you the occasion to meet that wide of a swath of humanity in a short period of time.

9. Flubbing the lines in the canon of the Mass or singing the Mass in a setting known only to God and me, getting a terrible case of the giggles during the service, breaking a chalice, knocking over the altar flowers, or any number of epic fails that remind me that I am far away from perfect. And realizing that God is praised, anyway.

10. Getting caught by the Altar Guild dancing to Beyonce one Saturday when I was working at the parish. "Cool moment" may be a stretch, particularly for the women who saw me dropping it like it's hot. As I stood there in my terrible embarrassed, one of the ladies said, "Well, it's nice to know you're just a regular person." Yes, indeed.

Growing (or groaning) Up

2011-09-22T11:00:00.001-04:00

I don't know about you, but growing up just snuck up on me. I was happily minding my own business, wearing my snakeskin mini skirt, eating Doritos like they were going out of style, and then BAM! I became a grown up. I would find myself talking about how important going to bed early was. I marvelled at how wonderful it was to get so much done before 10 AM. My beloved junk food gave me stomach aches, and leafy greens and fiber became really, really important to me.

Yep, somewhere between graduating from college and now, it began to happen. I have a muffin top and a permanent crease between my eyes. Paying my taxes and bills on time, with cash left over, makes me really proud of myself. A good meal no longer means that the restaurant has unlimited refills on Dr. Pepper.

Of course, this does not mean that I no longer have fun, but I think, as a grown up, I am discovering what true fun and enjoyment really is. I like walking, talking for hours with friends over dinner or coffee. I love reading those Iris Johannsen novels. I also love the self confidence that has come.

Not a self confidence built on blind ego, but experiences of success and failure. It is amazing how your confidence grows when you can achieve something. I remember moments when I realized I was actually capable of leading a group, speaking in front of people, and helping others. These moments generally came after realizing what I was not capable of (that list is confidential). Those failures and heartbreaks helped me along, teaching me what I needed to do to cope with those shortcomings, and when you call an accountant or plumber or doctor...

So, when did you know that you grew up?

Apology 101

2011-09-13T09:32:00.000-04:00

Here's a news flash: we all make mistakes. We all do and say things about others or to others that hurt and injure another person. Some of these are minor infractions, quickly resolved and sent into relational history. Other acts do significant damage to a relationship and heal at a glacial pace.

We as Christians are called to forgiveness, which includes both attributes of confession and reconciliation. Reconciliation is the sexy part of that ministry, where we revel in the moment where, "it's all okay, " even when it may only be okay on the very surface because we've rushed to paint a patina of good will and friendship over the deep wounds of hurt while paying very little attention to the hurtful acts.

Confession is the not-so-much-fun part, where we have to admit the wounds, ours and the ones we have inflicted upon others. Confession is the dirty part of forgiveness. Confession requires us to delve into the brokenness of our own souls and the impact that brokenness has upon others. We are astoundingly good at confessing other's imperfections, telling others how they have hurt us, telling others what they have done to injure us. Yet confession also requires that we listen to how we've hurt others. Confession holds within it the question, "How have I hurt you?". Obviously, not something most of us want to hear on a Friday evening, but God never calls us to the path of least resistance. Rats.

In our usual Dirty Sexy Ministry way, some thoughts on how we can walk that path of apology and confession.

1. Be courageous and willing to ask and hear how you've hurt someone. Even if your voice shakes as you ask the question, even if you're frightened about what you may hear (although most of us usually have some broad idea of what we've done when a relationship is damaged - we're usually not THAT surprised, unless the surprise is that the other person knows what we did), if you want fully to engage in confession and reconciliation, begin the conversation.

2. Listen to the pain of another to listen, not to craft your counter-arguments. In worthwhile relationships, both parties get to speak of their joy and pain. If you find yourself listening to all the bad you've done, and how it's all your fault, but never her/his, this may not be a person who needs your full energy. On the other hand, if you feel compelled to list the other's faults and shortcomings without giving equal time to them speaking of yours, you may need to spend less time with your own ego. Jesus gets to be perfect; the rest of us fall short of the glory of God.

3. Actually be sorry for what you've done. If you're not, or if you experience the person being angry for something that doesn't resonate with you, keep talking. Usually, when lots of hurt has gone unspoken, we fall into the scorekeeping mode of hurt, where simply breathing incorrectly becomes fertile ground for injurious action. Thus, listen and keep listening.

4. Never, ever say, "I'm sorry for whatever I've done," when you aren't willing to hear or talk about what you've done. This is the burka of apologies. It's a blanket covering for the wrong-doing, but it completely ignores the substance of what needs to be discussed. And it silences the other's pain.

5. And, "I'm sorry for what you think I did to hurt you," is #4's trashier cousin. It's not even an apology.

6. Confession and reconciliation needs to be on equal footing. Both parties (or all parties) need to be assured of the egalitarianism of the process of confession. This may not be such a factor in issues between friends or some spouses/partners, it does become an issue with work situations, congregational issues, and other systemic wounds. When there is a discrepancy in the relationship because one person (or group) is in a more powerful position that the other, the less-powerful person needs some sense of protection. Perhaps a neutral third-party, perhaps a covenant of courtesy to which all people agree, perhaps even simply sitting in a neutral space. While this may sound odd, my experience is the person in less power will often capitulate just to stay safe, which provides more breeding ground for resentment and her rowdy friends deep-seated anger and victimization when a person or group feels they had to apologize and while their pain, hurts, and disappointments were never addressed.

7. Give time her due. While, "I'm sorry I borrowed your blouse and got ink on it and ruined it," may be something that can be confessed and reconciled over coffee, "I'm sorry I borrowed your husband and had an affair, " is probably something that needs a great deal of time to be fully confessed and reconciled. For the big stuff, don't think that it's all said and done in the course of a few moments and a latte afterwards. While the healing time of reconciliation may be awkward and uncomfortable, allow it to be holy and liminal space where God is working.

8. Recognize that confession is not about making YOU feel better or getting YOUR way. Confessing our damage to the relationship is about honesty and transparency and vulnerability. We should be a bit nervous and awkward about the process. Confession is a mark of opening our selves and souls and wounds to God for healing which, for most of us, is a bit painful for our own souls.

9. Recognize reconciliation is not something either party does alone, but something we offer to God. The Presiding Bishop made a statement recently along the lines of not being able to forgive with hate in our hearts. Depending on the damage, some anger and hate takes time for God to unknot and salve. Deep wounds take time to heal, and sometimes healing is not, "Hey, it's all okay and we're friends again." Mystery has a big part of reconciliation. Don't make this an academic exercise.

10. Engage the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Book of Common Prayer. Maybe you're a bit too nervous actually to make confession to a priest, but even reading the liturgy alone and naming your sins aloud to God is a worthwhile act of apology.

Thoughts on September 11th

2011-09-08T17:07:00.000-04:00

Some of our readers may know. Others not. But one of us was impacted by Katrina is a particular way, and the other was in New York on the day of September 11, 2001 and worked at Ground Zero for several months after. I wondered and prayed and discussed with friends about what I should write, if I should write, and why I might write. Maybe I should just let the day slip silently away. That would be easier. But dirty ministry is rarely about ease. So why start now.

The coverage of the tenth anniversary has ranged from well-done to tawdry, sometimes during the same interview. I have not and will not watch or listen to most of it, which means I am currently suffering from NPR withdrawal this week. It is, I realize, a small inconvenience. I have been asked to walk with the representatives of the first responders and others who ministered through their vocation and presence at Ground Zero at our Service of Remembrance and Hope at the Cathedral. I'm still thinking about whether or not to agree. As one friend said, "You are not a shrinking violet, so I respect the sacredness of the moments when you want to be anonymous."

Commentators offer their opinions on what 9/11 meant to us. Certainly loss and grief. A loss of feeling safe and in control. A loss of imagined protection. And the grief that stalks us and claws at us as a result. For many, they will feel grief and cry over an image of the broken towers when they cannot bring themselves to cry over their personal losses and brokenness. I've wondered why.

Grief, I've come to understand, is something we mature into. Children and teenagers do not experience grief the way some adults do, nor should they. Some adults never move past their childhood understanding of grief, unfortunately to their own pain and injury, I fear.  Grief is troubling to us for obvious reasons, but I wonder if the most challenging aspect is its bipolar existence that never truly goes away.  Grief will sob at the loss of a close friend one moment and laugh through the snot and tears the next. She rests quietly for months, even years, and then is stirred from her slumber at the sight of a particular sunset or the sound of a musical refrain or the tenor of a pitch of laughter. Grief is that profound starkness of standing feet from the imprint of the towers, thinking this is certainly what the seventh circle of hell must look like, and laughing with firefighters over truly raunchy jokes an hour later. Grief hits all cylinders of our humanity.

Grief in my mind, is Wisdom, that She who sits on the throne in heaven, of whom we hear about in Holy Scripture and mystic writings. Wisdom grieves. Wisdom realizes the pain of loss, the hurt of wounds, and the absence of something that was once there. Wisdom does that in her messy, elegant way. Ignorance pretends, "It's all okay," and busies itself with moving on.   Ignorance never ever wants to be reminded of the wisdom of grief, and will often point to grief as if it is a sign of weakness, of illness, or of something bad. Lamentable, really, since ignorance is simply trying to hide from the wisdom of the depth of love and loss, something that has never seemed possible over the length of one's days.

For all the things I feel about September 11th, 2001, I think it is the day Wisdom, in her grief, sought me and held me tight.  I wanted to break free then, but knew that was not possible. I often think I didn't want to know the insight and gifts she gave me that day or on days and years since. Life might be easier without them. I wonder if I could have learned how to stand in the seventh circle of hell without her help, and I know I could not. Because of Wisdom in her grief, I laugh more deeply, and cry just as deeply. My courage in the midst of things unknown is greater. Dropping off into the great deep with God is still scary, but I have made the journey before and will again (much to my displeasure). She and I sit together in silence at times, remembering the losses, and then Wisdom suggests I've remembered enough, so now I should get the chocolate ice cream and watch Pride and Prejudice. Again.

Details of my grief, my memories, even my laughter over the raunchy jokes of all that was and is and shall be Ground Zero are not important to many. They are important to me and to the few I trust with them. They are simply details, tiny stitches of thread in a bigger tapestry. Somewhere in these days, I hope I find the voice to nod at Wisdom for appearing that day. Perhaps not a thank you. I'm not sure gratitude for particular wounds is wholly possible. We can appreciate the wisdom and insight from the journey and experience of grief and woundedness and still wish we could have taken the correspondance course instead.

The Service at Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington has the representatives of those who served at Ground Zero processing with candles and placing them in front of the altar. I've been guarded because I simply haven't been sure about how I will be feeling on that day at that time.   But Wisdom has taught me that where we are is often where we need to be, spiritually and otherwise.  Perhaps part of my remembrance will be placing that light at the altar as an acknowledgment of Wisdom's presence that day and days since, and a realization and guarded appreciation for the way her light shone through the cracks in this life as I offer my imperfect self in ministry.

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

2011-09-02T16:07:00.000-04:00

A priest friend of mine, when reflecting on the ministry of Bishop Stacy Sauls, talked about a piece she heard on NPR. Many good sermons come from NPR, by the way, and a gift to their pledge drive is less expensive than a sermon-help book. A baseball player spoke of his love for poetry and his essay in a poetry magazine, reflecting that he loved baseball, but it had broken his heart. She immediately knew his pain.

Many of us do, actually. We love the church, madly, deeply, recklessly, even sacrificially, but the church has also broken our hearts. Sometimes the church has told us we are not enough, that our voices didn't matter, and that while every other part of creation was good as deemed in Genesis, we, because of any number of unfounded reasons, were not good. Sometimes we have been abused by the church and her leaders, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Those ordained have misused their empowerment to demean and bully others. Some laity have reacted to uncomfortable and challenging situations in hurtful ways to those in community with them. So we just looked around us, our hearts bleeding and broken, and sat down to cry. Yet even then, we might have been broken even more. The church has a history of mauling her wounded.

Then, in our brokenness, we see something that intrigues us. Like Moses who approaches the burning bush for what seems to be nothing more than sheer nosiness, we see something bright that catches our attention. Maybe our heart sees another part of itself and goes to investigate. Maybe we just get our attention yanked by a scurrying furry squirrel that pulls us forward to the chase. But we move.

In the movement forward, our hearts begin to heal. I don't know specifics, but I do know when my heart was broken by the church, I sat in Bishop Sauls' office and said so. We even talked specifics, honestly and openly. And then he said those magical words of love and healing.

"I'm sorry."

Magical because they recognized the injury. Loving because they weren't a flippant or thin blanket apology that isn't really sorry for anything. He, as a bishop who gets to wear that interesting shade of amethyst, spoke for the church, the church saying, "I'm sorry for what we have done to break your heart. What do we now?"

What now for me was becoming one of his priests, believing that broken hearts are useful in ministry, and falling back in love with the church. What now is remembering why I do love the church, my ministry, and the people I serve. What now is sitting with fellow clergy who all know something about crucified hearts and souls and selves and even more about resurrection, celebration and laughter.

Bishop Sauls would never have the hubris or arrogance to say he saved anyone from anything. He is wise enough to know salvation of any manner is God's job, not ours. From saving wounded clergy to saving parishioners in hard places, God is the top of that pay grade. Our job is witness. Our job is to witness love, mercy, forgiveness, and even resurrection. Witness by living what we say, not telling others what to do. Witness by simply being present, not worrying about end results. Witness is, for me, another word for mission. That, Bishop Sauls would likely say, is exactly what our business is.

Many of the clergy in the Diocese of Lexington nodded at this particular revelation, that an aspect of Bishop Sauls was his witness and mission of love to the broken and shaky hearts who wanted still to love the church, but who were unsure they could follow God. The church has broken many hearts. And Bishop Stacy Sauls was and is a witness to the sacrament of confession and reconciliation to many. He was and is a witness to the courage to see broken hearts not as players out of the game, but often the hearts that are courageous enough to let the light of God shine through the breaks, cracks, and wounds instead of wrapping those wounds in barbed wire and acting as if nothing happened. Those broken and resurrected hearts are the ones you want on your first string.

So thank you, Bishop Stacy Sauls, for inviting many of us to fall back in love with the church, her flaws and all, through your ministry and love for the church. Thank you for witnessing to God's saving love in our parishes, our communities, our ministries, and, most importantly, in ourselves. Well done, good and faithful servant. And to the National Church (Episcopal) where he is now the Chief Operating Officer, be careful with his heart, please.

Click here for the NPR piece referenced.

6 years ago

2011-08-29T12:11:00.000-04:00

The city smells like it is burning. It acts like an unwanted reminder to this date in New Orleans. There is haze and fog today, not unlike the weeks and months after Hurricane Katrina. There was this sort of (for lack of a better term) stank in the air for almost two years after Katrina in New Orleans. Everyone had a cough from it.

It was strange coming back to the city after the storm. I had actually moved just a few weeks before the storm. My husband stayed behind to sell the house. I remember not paying much attention to the storm growing in the Gulf.

I asked my congregation to pray for New Orleans, but I thought it would be fine. I really did not know or understand the scale of the impending hurricane blowing toward New Orleans. The news I heard after made it seem okay. Sure, things were a mess, but often after a big storm in New Orleans, things were a mess and you started to clean up until the lights came back on. Then I heard the former Mayor speak about the levees breaking and that the city was filling with water.

Now, frankly, I thought that was just crazy talk. I looked on the internet at pictures from my former neighborhood, but I still did not want to accept what I saw. I thought that my little house off Claiborne Avenue was fine. Sure, the picture I was looking at was from my front lawn looking out, and there was water filling the whole picture, but it surely was not in my house.

It would not be until I watched Harry Connick, Jr. riding in a boat around my old neighborhood, checking on his parents’ house, that the truth started to sink in. My house was flooded. Financially, my husband and I could be ruined. Still, I would not believe until I looked at a video shot by some friends who sneaked into the city. Indeed our house had had four feet of water in it (the house was about three feet off the ground).

I felt so powerless. What would we do? In November, I flew back to New Orleans to see for myself. My mother drove me to my old house. By this time, my husband and I were able to sell it, but I could still walk in to see for myself. The floorboard had buckled, mold covered the walls, and the items that we left behind were covered in filth. The one piece of unbroken back fence was covered with graffiti that stated “Dog Food back here” with an arrow to our backyard (to the idiot who wrote that, we did not have a dog, and thanks for damaging the one unbroken piece of back fence). When I saw that, I broke down in tears.

“I want to show you something else,” my mother said. She drove me to Christ Church Cathedral on St. Charles Avenue. The church’s front lawn looked like a garage sale. People milled about, picking the items they needed or leaving items for others. All was free. I cried again.

Looking back on the storm, I am amazed at how far the city has come, and how far I have come. I often wonder “what if,” but I realize that you cannot live in the hypothetical. I think about the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, lessons, not for the city or the nation or the world, but for me.

Certainly there were lessons. I can tell you what type of insurance to buy and which to avoid. I can tell you what type of bleach to use to remediate mold (outside bleach- there is a difference). I can also tell you that someone else is going through something much worse than you. And I can also tell you that in the very midst of a disaster, hope still shines through.

Hope does shine through. Help is on its way. Bit by bit, the wreckage is cleared, and you start rebuilding. Slowly, painfully, something new emerges- not what it was, not better, not worse. Eventually, healing happens. You find yourself looking back, remembering what was, and you look forward to what is new.

Bad Haircuts and Better

2011-08-22T08:46:00.000-04:00

A bad haircut can ruin a day and a week and, depending upon how fast your hair grows, a couple of months. In our souls, we know that hair grows, but not instantaneously. So, we (mostly women) work with barrettes and ponytails and even a few hairbands and hats to survive the growing out period. We probably vow never to cut our hair again and bewail our manifold sins of bad haircuts with friends over chocolate and wine. We wait. We even cry.

Life goes on, and little by little, hair grows and we aren't so horrified by the prospect of the morning hairstyle routine. We start to work with the change of hair. Maybe we even like it.

Okay, so maybe you men out there can't really relate, but I suspect that most women can. We've all had the questionable hairstyle. Maybe we thought we'd really like the short pixie cut. Maybe we listened to the ill-given advice from the stylist or a friend. Maybe we thought we were ready for a change and be a redhead, and we really weren't.

Or maybe we were ready and we just needed time to get used to the cut.

Change, transition, upheaval - call it what you will, but they all feel like cuts. And they are. They are cuts to our comfort, our routine, our souls as we've come to know them. They are cuts that often remove what we don't need anymore, that open our selves up to something more, or loose us from some bondage. Those cuts, painful though they are, often provide the spaces for the light of God to shine through.

I've got several close friends in transition and change. A few in the search process for a new call, one dealing with the impact when a husband takes a new call and all that will and will not involve for her and the family and herself, one with a soon-to-be-former spouse, one with a potential new spouse.

Oh, I remember that space. I'm mildly fallow right now and savoring it, as I know fallow doesn't last for long, especially when one's bishop follows God's call to somewhere else. Fallow is the holy rest stop for a few moments where we can breath deeply and see where we were and how far we've come and smile. Fallow lets us look at the places where we were cut and see the scar that has healed, test the movement and ability of the wounded soul, and maybe even leap in joy. I was in the thick of the search process, among other things, this time last year. A close friend told me, "Your present is not your future," a mantra that seems to be rooted in the words of those who were enslaved by owners in the deep south and yearning for liberation. It became my prayer, my reassurance that God was working and wanting good things for me, even when the mountain I was climbing was too steep and rocky for me to see anything but the terrain around me, but I could pray.

Climb rocks, bleed, pray: My present is not my future. Stumble, slide down, pray: My present is not my future. Stand up again, breathe, pray.

In the midst of anxiety, worry, change, even devastation and loss of hope, our present is not our future.

Last night I gathered with other clergy and laity at the Celebration of New Ministry of a new friend and saw many of the new people who were not in my life last year - my current parishioners, parishioners in other churches whom I've met and worked with in the diocese, new clergy colleagues and friends. And I simply marveled for a few moments, overwhelmed by the love of where I am now. Overwhelmed, really, by my experience that God walked with me through the growing-out and cutting, and did indeed want good things for me.

The temptation is for me, or any of us who have gone through the cutting and growing, to blithely tell those currently in that place, "Oh, it will get better." That, in general, is not for me or any of us to say to anyone else. "Better" always feels like a relative word. What is better for some is not better for others. How we would fix something or someone's life is often not on God's to-do list. As I get older and acquire more scars, I find that grasping for the sunny side in dark times usually meets our need rather than the need of the person in the great deep with God. I don't even know how helpful reminding people that God is in the change, transition, cutting, and upheaval with us is for many people.

Maybe, when it all feels out of control and we are bleeding from the cuts and changes of life, we just need someone who can look through the bad haircut or messy life and smile at the good soul underneath it all. Maybe we just need a friend who can let us borrow the fabulous hat she acquired from her latest bad haircut until we feel safe enough on our own. Maybe we just need to hold each other's hands in silent solidarity until the hurting soul finally takes a deep breath and says, "You know, I feel better."

In the interest of full self-disclosure

2011-08-16T10:50:00.004-04:00

Any good relationship is based on honesty, but it takes a little bit to get there. We often must be enticed into relationship. There can be an expectation to be coy. We should not reveal too much, or we should gloss over our flaws until we can build trust. Of course, building trust means being honest. Oh dear! Well, in the interest of full self-disclosure, here are a few hints about that lovely lady sitting across from you.

You see my hair? Looks great, right? No, I did not wake up with my hair like this. Usually, I am lucky to get a brush through it once a day. A totally awesome woman, at a salon, washed and put super gunk in my hair and blew it dry with a big curl brush, and then she sprayed it with something totally neat (I do not know what it was). It was not cheap, but I think the effect is pretty cool. It should be this way all of 12 hours. Tomorrow morning, my hair will be plastered to the side of my head, as usual. Sure, I will try to blow dry, curl brush, hot iron my hair like this and it will be a disaster. I am convinced the woman who did my hair might be a voodoo queen with magical powers.

Yes I do look lovely tonight. This top I am wearing was found on a large load of laundry still sitting in my bedroom awaiting folding and putting away. Same goes for the bottom. I yanked this skirt from the bottom of the basket without causing an avalanche of cotton and polyblends. I am a little impressed with myself the pile did not fall, but I will not celebrate yet because I think I lost a bracelet somewhere in that pile. Oh yes, by the way, I did iron my clothing. You are lucky to see this because I never iron anything, ever.

Music, sure, I like music! I do like music, but I have bad news for you. Sure, I know the music you are talking about because I was a dj in college. Before you think that is cool, I should mention that I sometimes picked music so I would have enough time to run down the hallway to the bathroom. Currently I am listening to Dolly Parton on cd in my car. It is her album Straight Talk from the movie Straight Talk. I totally love it, but if you should ever ride in the car with me, I will hide that cd and put in U2.

Favorite movies and television, oh dear! Yes I really do love foreign films. Okay, okay, I like movies filmed in foreign places. I love James Bond movies. That being said, I think that Roger Moore is my favorite James Bond. I know, I know, but I will not force you to watch “A View to a Kill” with me. I watch these alone for the sake of others. Also, what I said about not really watching television is not true. I will watch the Simpsons, South Park, Law and Order and Modern Family, but if I get desperate, I secretly like that show Hoarders because it makes my house look clean. I can also tell you a lot about Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Books, okay, here is the truth. Yes, I read poetry in college. I read Iris Johansen and Janet Evanovich. I want to know if Eve Duncan will ever find the body of her daughter Bonnie. I want to know if Stephanie Plum will settle down with Joe. All right, all right, I admit it. I also have a few (huge stack) of Harlequin Romances that I am picking through.

You think my eyes look beautiful? You are too kind because I am indeed wearing make-up. I had a college buddy who called make-up war paint. I used to laugh, but she might have been right. It is war out there to get your attention. Hopefully, I will conquer you, and I can wipe this stuff off. The truth is that I might moisturize my face or wear gloss, if I am being fancy. I should mention that I am not really fancy. So, if I am being even more truthful, I sometimes do not even look at myself in the mirror some mornings. I just splash water on my face, run the brush through this rats’ nest and go.

Nope, I am not fancy. For that matter, I am not really put together, despite my current appearance, but I am a good and kind person. You might not realize that, if not for my outward appearance. You might not have ever looked otherwise. I am funny, and I would love to listen to you. I guess I just need a chance.

So, you see all this? If this relationship moves forward, this might be the last time you see me this elegantly put together, but you will know that beneath the façade beats the heart of a woman of passion, love, and faith, and that woman feels that for you! So, tell me about yourself?

Baptized in Dirty Water

2011-08-13T13:06:00.001-04:00

Dirty Sexy Ministry accepted the invite to be part of the Sanctuary Collective Empowerment Project's Queer Theology Synchroblog, writing about our solidarity with gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and queer children of God.

Baptismal water should be dirty. Drawn right out of the local river water and poured into the font and over our heads. Maybe that will help the holier than thou complex so many Christians have. That and a good persecution.

One of my professors in seminary said the church needs a good persecution every few hundred years to force it to find its center again. I think the church needs to quit being complicit in persecutions and recognize the persecutions its currently involved in. For about the first 300 years of Christianity, being a Christian was risky business. Sure, you had fellowship and Eucharist, but on any given day or night, Roman soldiers could grab you and force you to be part of the weekend show at the Coliseum. Which usually ended up as you also being the weekend dinner for the carnivores in the Coliseum.

Then Constantine usurped Christianity for his own political gain (no, I don't believe he really had a conversion moment where Jesus said, "Slaughter the enemy in my name." Kind of out of character for Mr. Turn The Other Cheek, don't you think?") and Christianity began its own persecutions. In fact, many historians note that more Christians killed each other in the 300 years after Constantine than Rome killed Christians in the first 300 years post-Resurrection.

Dandy little figure, isn't it?

If the Church just needs a good persecution to find its center again, then simply listen to the stories. Listen to the stories of those Christians of Color who were and are marginalized, brutalized, and murdered by their brothers and sisters of a different race or ethnicity. Listen to the stories of women who were and are marginalized, brutalized, and murdered by men. Listen to the stories of children who were and are marginalized, brutalized, and abused by clergy. Listen to the stories of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and queer who have been and continue to be marginalized, brutalized, abused, and murdered by those who fly the banner of Christianity as moral gestapo.

That is indeed our job. To stop talking and listen. To let those who are not in the center of power help us discover our center that is and always will be merciful, accepting love.

Jesus does that in the gospels. In Sunday's lesson, Jesus and his male cadre of presumably straight disciples are doing whatever men do when a Canaanite woman starts shouting at them. And they get annoyed and urge Jesus to tell her to go away. Or they are embarrassed. That's what people in power generally do when someone "beneath" them makes a commotion.

But she keeps shouting. When marginalized people shout, they shout because those in power aren't listening. The holy thing is to shut up and let them shout.

And she does. She gets into conversation with Jesus. He refers to her, some say, as a dog. She comes right back.

"But even the dogs get the crumbs." She refuses to be marginalized. Her daughter is sick, and she knows this man Jesus can heal her.

God bless those who refuse to be marginalized, those who won't give up their seat on the bus, those who marched in Stonewall, those who knelt for ordination in the midst of shouts and jeers. God bless those who seek and serve Christ in the person or group and say to the Christ who calls them, "dogs,"

"MAYBE, BUT I AM A CHILD OF GOD, TOO. TREAT ME LIKE ONE."

That is great faith, to believe enough in one's own dignity when no other person around you is affirming that dignity. That is great faith, to look at one who has dismissed you and say, "You will not dismiss me." That is great faith, to remember that the wounds, illnesses, and demons we implant in each other because of years and centuries of hate and abuse, can and are healed when those of us who are oppressors are stared down by the oppressed when they say, "I am loved by God, too. Just like you."

Holy scripture may not say anything implicit about our treatment of GLBTQ brothers and sisters. Our tradition has certainly given us plenty of examples of how not to love our neighbor. But the dirty water of baptism reminds us that we all rush through the waters of creation at our births, both physical and spiritual. We are all called by God to seek and serve the loving Christ in all people. The water is generally the same. Because we are the same to God. We are God's beloved. All of us.

To those in power, those of us who are rich, straight, male, or whatever power and authority may look like in your circle, stop talking. Stop persecuting because the shouting is disturbing your conversation, night out, church convention, or worship. Start realizing that you are persecuting, even if you aren't doing anything active, you are persecuting. Doing nothing in the face of persecution is still persecution of the outcast. Start facing your own prejudices. Start listening. And listen more.

To those who have been and are marginalized, keep talking. Keep shouting. Keep disrupting the comfortable and afflict them with the promises they made to love their neighbors as themselves.

And thank you for staying in the Church, despite the persecution. Thank you for believing that we are called to love and, even more, that we are capable still of that love.

Thank you for muddying the waters of our delusional perfection.

For more synchroblog posts, click here.

Ghosts in a Church

2011-08-10T15:36:00.000-04:00

Kathryn Tucker Windham died a while back (Southern for sometime in the last year, but I don't remember the exact date). First, she was an Alabamian, one of the many voices from that state (my home state) that took the common Southern past-time of story telling (or tale tellin') and lifted it to a true art form. Her best-known stories involved ghosts. Jeffery was her own personal ghost. She also kept the coffin in which she was buried in a shed in her back yard. What seems eccentric in other parts of the country are simply charming quirks in the deep South. An impact of the heat and humidity and fried chicken, perhaps.

Or perhaps what seems quirky to some is simply unabashed honesty. After all, ghost stories aren't original to the South. Or to the North or any direction in the United States. They appear in all countries in folklore and campfire tales and even the Bible. Ghosts, their stories or even the idea that they might exist, scare us, especially when it's after midnight and the dog suddenly stands up from a dead sleep and growls at nothing. My grandmother spoke of ghosts as annoying family members with a penchant for flipping lights on and off. Sure, the thought that I could suddenly see a shimmery figure of a person who is there one second and gone the next is disconcerting (okay, terrifying).

But maybe something else that unnerves us about ghosts is the idea that the spaces we live in or work in had a life before us. Within the walls where we live and work, life went forward in its mundane elegance. There are names on memorials of stained glass of stories of loss in wars that we did not experience first-hand. There are carvings on the backs of pews from a young boy who used his grandfather's pen knife during boring sermons that just look like nicks and scratches to our eyes. There are stories, many stories, that we don't know when we arrive about a space, its windows and floors and furniture and its very life, that we can hear. Or fearfully ignore.

I speak mainly here of churches, because clergy have a particularly bad habit of thinking that between Jesus and themselves, nothing memorable happened in the history of the church. That wherever we are wasn't really as wonderful or as amazing as it is with the advent of our presence. What a downer to realize it's not. That whatever ideas we bring, whatever sermons we preach or decorating ideas we have, we are simply another part of the story.

One of the key gifts the Bible gives us is that of story - that long before King Solomon, Deborah the judge had good sense in Israel. Long before Mary sang the Magnificat, Hannah sang her song magnifying the Lord. Long before we had the newest idea about church growth, God stood over us, hands on hips, and uttered the line from Job: "Where were YOU when I created the heavens and the earth?"

Yes, we in the church can let the ghosts of our parishes haunt us. We can let the ghosts of the past be the thing we talk about ("remember when...") or the whispy veil that limits our vision of the future and what part of the story we can write. We can let the walls and furniture stand as the only story of our faith community, letting the stories of our past be the only thing that matters. Not much of a life-giving experience to go to church in a museum.

But not very life-giving, either, to go to church in a place without ghosts, where the stories and spirits of the life before has been eradicated by ignoring their voices. Ghosts, as Ms. Windham might opine, give land and buildings and homes a life beyond just the wood and windows and doors. Whether they are factual or not doesn't matter; their stories matter. Southern ghost stories are often meandering tales of men, women, and children looking out from their present and reaching into our world to remind us that the world existed before we arrived. People dreamed and loved and cried in spaces that had life. Our presence doesn't do anything but simply add another chapter to an unending story.

And what a wonderful, rich gift that is - to be important enough to add our chapters to the story.

Forgiving Ourselves for Not Being Perfect

2011-08-01T09:47:00.000-04:00

For Jacob

The ancient church mothers and fathers name pride as the root sin; the sin, the feeling, the response, the emotion from which all other sins get their energy. The sin of pride, that hubris that likes to feel superior to others, often at the expense of others' sense of self. I'm not referring to self-esteem, that sense of self that doesn't need external measures, that sense that rests in God. I'm referring to hubris, the pride that often reaches for externals to value self. That pride tears other people, organizations, even countries down to build itself up. That pride cannot sit with self-examination. That pride can certainly keep us in a stilted relationship with ourselves and the Holy One.

That pride can also significantly inhibit our journey of forgiveness. Several of our Dirty Sexy Ministry community have written about our posts on forgiveness, asking particularly about the work of forgiving ourselves. After a time of reflecting and talking about our own journeys of forgiveness, some still ongoing, we keep coming back to pride.

Pride, we think, stops us from forgiving ourselves because pride refuses to allow us to recognize our own imperfection and our own complicity in the damage that led to the need for forgiveness.

Forgiveness exists, at least most commonly, because we have been hurt, disappointed, betrayed, or wounded by someone with whom we had some expectation of honorable relationship. And our first reaction is usually anger: I can't believe s/he said that about me; he seemed so nice when we talked on the phone, but what a complete dud he turned out to be; why did s/he act that way? So we get angry, which is a fairly reasonable response to pain. Anger (not of the seven deadly sin kind) will often get us out of bad situations or tell us we are in danger, so pay attention.

Then we blame and process, we wonder why, we hypothesize, we talk about the other person, dissecting her or his actions. She must have father issues. He's just a jerk and not good enough for you. They aren't particularly helpful reasons, because we are essentially probing around in someone's soul instead of focusing on our own selves. Sadly, this is where many people get stuck. The blame-pride arena. In this place, the entire hurtful episode is the fault completely of the the other. We were innocent victims. Caveat here: sometimes, this may very well be true, but a quick test is to see if the injury in question has happened before. If you've been betrayed, abandoned, or hurt in similar circumstances, God may be inviting you to more spiritual exploration about your place in the cycle.

And pride begins to root its ugly tentacles. Because pride refuses to engage in self-reflection. Pride tells us we could never have had any part in this wrongdoing. Pride invites us to gather external support as we share our story of hurt with as many people who will listen. We may call it processing. Others call it gossip. Pride justifies our injury and invites us to bring it out again and again, while we exonerate ourselves. Pride lets us feel self-assured in whatever overtures of forgiveness we have made that look pretty and tidy on the surface, but never really allow for the deep work of reconciliation. Quite simply, pride is not interested in hearing about our personal responsibility; pride likes to blame our failures on the other.

Yet forgiveness is about responsibility. It is about responsibility of being hurt, of hurting another, and of seeing what impact the hurt may have on the future. The deep work of forgiveness is hard, and if we're courageous, we begin to explore how we contributed to the situation. We begin to take responsibility for our actions. Why did I go out with a guy when my gut screamed "no" from the get-go and who created a relationship Eminen could have sung about? Why did I trust a person who spent most of the time together talking about others in a derogatory way? Why did I think that my experience with that person/place/job/school/organization, would be different than others who told me of their hurtful time?

I don't advise doing this work alone. God created us in community, so a trusted friend, spiritual director, or therapist will often be able to hold the mirror up in a gentle way, keeping us on the path of exploring our responsibility and off the path of hurtful blame.

Then, after some work, we get to the point of, "If I'd known then what I know now." Of course! But to learn what we know now about our own tendencies to fall into hurtful relationships, to "save" a troubled soul, to miss the signs of certain damaging people in our lives, or whatever the lesson in loving ourselves may be, we had to learn from experience. We had to go through the experience, hurtful though it is. We have to get the wounds, to let the scars heal, and to learn.

We all make mistakes. I've couched them (in my most aware moments) that for whatever reason, I needed to make that hurtful mistake, engage in that hurtful relationship, or act in that hurtful way at that time. I hope I don't do it again.

When I've done this work, when I've found that wisdom that - unfortunately - only scars seem to bring, and when I've sent pride packing on the forgiveness journey, I realize that I'm not above mistakes or bad calls with people or situations. Pride will tell us we are above errors in judgment, that we would never engage in hurtful relationships unless we'd be duped, that we are just that perfect. Love reminds us that we make mistakes, that we often find ourselves wandering in the desert because we need to learn something about our very selves and souls, and that we are gloriously flawed. And loved anyway.

Somewhere in this journey, we realize that the people we usually need to forgive the most are ourselves, if for no other reason than to forgive ourselves for not being perfect, for making mistakes, and for messing things up.

An we remember, for whatever reason, that is where we needed to be at that time. We hope we're wiser, and we go forward with our newly found wisdom of self. We hope we don't repeat that error. Maybe we won't. Maybe we will.

And the journey of forgiveness continues.

Mercy and Roller Skates

2011-07-27T12:29:00.001-04:00

In my second year at Seminary I got a pair of rollerblades for my birthday. I was thrilled to get the skates. I had big plans for them. I was going to exercise with them every day in the park. I was going to elegantly cruise down the sidewalk.

The first day, I put on my safety pads and headed out. I was wobbly and frightened, but I was exhilarated! I had a need for speed. The next day, after class, I headed out again, without my pads. As I cruised around the Seminary, over and over again I would run into classmates who would murmur: “you should be wearing pads, you are going to break something.” Wouldn’t you know it; I rolled down the sidewalk and bam! I fell down and broke my wrist.

It hurt so much! As I staggered back to my room, dragging my killer skates behind me with my one good hand, I saw my classmates. Some laughed. Some sighed. All said: “I told you so.” They offered neither help, nor sympathy.

Indeed, my classmates were right. I knew that they were right. I should have worn pads, but I took the risk. They were right, but right then I did not need them to be right. I needed someone to take me to the emergency room.

Thank God for Kate! Kate drove me to the emergency room when I was not sure how I would even get there. She sat with me until I saw the doctor and drove me home. The whole time she did not wag her finger or remind me at my stupidity. She just asked how she could help me.

At that time, I did not really know Kate that well. I saw her in class. I knew her from the church I attended there. We would talk every now and then. I asked her why she helped me as she drove me home. She told me: “I know what it feels like to do something stupid, but you need help, and no one will help you.” I knew then that I had a good friend.

From this experience I have learned three things. Number one, wear safety pads, even if you think you do not need them, just wear them anyway. Number two, being human means that we do really stupid things sometimes. Number three, sometimes we need mercy more than we need to know that we are wrong.

As humans, most of the time we know when we screw up and make mistakes. I am not sure we really need an “I told you so” or “I thought that would happen.” Maybe someone makes the same mistakes again and again, but shaming that person with "I told you so" does not make that person change. It might not be a matter of knowing that something is a bad idea, as much as one must accept that something is a bad idea for them.

Sure, we do not want others to suffer down the same road we have walked. We might be a fountain of valuable knowledge and know how. We may want to offer advice, and we hope that people will take our advice. We hope others will take our valuable gems to heart, but it is their right not to take our advice, nor have our advice forced upon them. We cannot force people to change.

I think change really happens when we receive mercy even when we should have known better. Maybe we have been told a thousand times to wear pads, but we still do not. We even know the consequences. We fall, and we know that we are broken and hurt. The question is not: did we know better? The question is: will you help me? Will we pass judgment or will we give mercy?

For those who have asked - the cheese straw recipe

2011-07-25T12:50:00.000-04:00

First, the visit from Bishop Robinson was wonderful. We're still waiting on pictures. Check the DSM Facebook page - we'll post some there.

I called Albert after the event and simply said, "The Church got that call for Bishop right."

And, for those of you who sent lovely emails and asked in the comments, here is the recipe for Christine's Cheese Straws (because in the South, all recipes are named for a person. Don't ask. It's part of our Deep South Crazy.

2 cups of grated sharp cheese
1 stick of Parkay margarine or 1/2 cup of butter
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 level teaspoon of baking powder
Dash (or much more) of red pepper to taste
Salt to taste

+++

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grind or grate the cheese (personal advice - don't use pre-shredded; doesn't work as well for some unknown reason). Add butter and cream together in a bowl. Add flour, pepper, baking powder, and salt.

Make straws by pressing dough through a cookie press onto a greased baking sheet (personal aside - if you don't have a cookie press, but the end off of a zip-lock bag and pipe through. You want straws that are about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch wide and about 2-3 inches long).

Bake about 20 minutes. Remove to cool.

Eat and enjoy.

The Peace of Cheese Straws

2011-07-11T22:36:00.000-04:00

Mention the General Convention of 2003 to most Episcopal clergy and laity, and they will know exactly where they were. I was a fairly new priest in an old historic congregation in Mobile, Alabama that leaned a bit more right than I. But they were a fine community, a place in which I learned (again) that loving one's neighbor has very little to do with whole-hearted agreement on all issues. They were a community in which I took those first tentative steps into my official holy orders, even if some in the congregation were convinced I was a communist infiltrator or feminist. I loved and love them, and I loved working with Albert, the rector, who also leaned a bit more to the right than I. We were colleagues and are friends. And the latter part of 2003 was traumatic for both of us. Needless to say, when the 2003 General Convention confirmed the election of Gene Robinson to be the new bishop of New Hampshire, the number of us celebrating that decision at the parish and in my diocese could be counted on one hand.

The number sharpening their words like pitchforks and knives was considerably larger. Because I thought the full inclusion of openly gay and lesbian people to the ministry was a quite fine idea, the next few months were about as much fun as a colonoscopy. Without anesthesia. To be fair, the rector, who did not think the consent was a fine idea, also had about as much fun as a colonoscopy, too. Angry people don't care who they crucify, as long as they see blood flow.

Life went forward. Bishop Robinson was consecrated. Much like the ordination of women, the dire predictions of the bell towers of every Episcopal church imploding did not come to pass. Some of our family could not eat at the table with us any more, so they left. Time shared her gift of healing. Some people who had acted hurtfully apologized. Others did not. Some relationships were mended. Others were not. Albert retired across the Bay. I am now a rector, and I will be welcoming to the parish where I serve Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

I'm pretty darn excited about the whole event. I even get to host Bishop Robinson and his partner at a small dinner party beforehand. I'm making paella. And cheese straws will be served.

Cheese straws, for those of you not in the know, are basically cheese cookies with a dash of Southern. One cannot go to a cocktail party, luncheon, or dinner party in the Deep South and not find them in small crystal or china antique serving dishes. I don't know that they particularly go with paella, but that's not why they will be served.

Albert is making them and mailing them from Alabama. He is sending them as a gift, and one that will be on the table that evening.

I can make cheese straws. Every Southern woman I know has a family recipe. But these will be sent from a man who felt the lashes from those he'd called friends because, while he did not think openly gay men and lesbian women should be ordained, he also recognized they were beloved children of God and said so. His brother-in-law Sammy, a gay man, had died of AIDS many years earlier. He knew that "gays and lesbians" were not adjectives, but people - beloved people with beloved families. When Albert retired from parish ministry, he took a part-time position at a parish that is inclusive and welcoming. I believe he may still be of a generation that isn't as non-chalant about full inclusion as mine, but he is certainly not where he was.

I've always been impressed with those who could admit their journeys of faith, those who share their stories of, "I used to think this, but now I think this." Admitting that where we were is not where we are takes courage. Many people act like where they are is where they've always been, as if they have always been on the "right" side of things and never had to think, reflect, change, grow, or repent.

The fashion of the 70's and 80's alone prove otherwise.

Short of Jesus Christ, we've all been wrong. We've all let our prejudices take over, allowed our desire for comfort overwhelm our hope for justice, and ignored the pleas of the least of these because they interrupted our own agendas. One could argue that the whole episode with Jesus and the Syro-Phoenecian woman shows Jesus confronting his own assumptions and having them change. Jesus himself models the holy practice of hearing the story of another and allowing their story to change us.

Change is not a sign of weakness, but of immense strength of character. A willingness to be enticed on the journey by awareness and insight is an offering of the faithful. As my friend Albert has said to me many times, our present is often not our future. Even moreso, he lives it, even in retirement.

Albert and his family cannot be in Lexington at St. Michael's on Saturday, but they wanted to be a part of this evening and share it with Bishop Robinson, Bishop Sauls, and me. Not because it's a big deal, but because coming to the table with Bishop Robinson is a lovely moment of communion in its broadest sense for all of us. Sharing food together is sharing our story, laughing at the past (even if the laughter still covers a few tears), and coming together in joy and thanksgiving.

"Hey, pull up a chair. Have a Coke. Isn't the weather unusually hot for this time of year? Have a cheese straw. Tell me your story. Would you like to hear mine? Sit with me in friendship."

I will serve cheese straws from his mother-in-law's recipe in my great-grandmother's china bowls. I serve them and share the message that was enclosed with them: "These are from Sammy's family who send thanks and respect to all who work to make the world less of the hell that he lived in."

We will sit that night in prayer and friendship, in community that has hurt and healed into something changed, different, and still faithful. We will be together over the miles, my beloved friend in Alabama and my beloved community here, the past and the present, even with the whisperings of created faith yet to come.

And we will remember that God has an enchanting way of reminding us we are, indeed, all in this together. Especially when we are sharing cheese straws and words of thanksgiving for how far we have come to make the world more welcoming to all.

Mission Projects

2011-07-07T08:46:00.000-04:00

I spent last week in the mountains of Appalachia with a group of young people. Not exactly a big trip, since Appalachia is pretty much my back yard. We built porches for families whose back yards are rugged mountain rocks, so the porches give children a place to play and grown ups a place to relax. We hiked through the Red River Gorge, one of the places of primal beauty inviting we humans to do nothing more than wander and walk and realize no matter how cool we are, most of us wouldn't last too long alone in the wilderness. There is no toilet paper, among other things.

We spent part of the time at St. Timothy's Barnes Mountain (Kentucky). It looks more like a storage building than a church, actually. No historic stained glass or tall spire. The Episcopal Shield sign is hand-painted (and peeling). The sacristy is also the kitchen. It's budget isn't the largest, and it's average Sunday attendance is probably about fifty, if that.

I wish more churches in our faith were like St. Timothy's. Computers are along the same wall as the altar so children and adults can use them for entertainment and education in a region where most don't have access to computers or the internet. Families from the region, among the poorest in the United States, gather for meals, for time together, and for worship. The holy space is used almost seven days a week. A chalice and paten sits among tool batteries recharging.

Groups from outside Kentucky come in to serve and learn. While they do construction projects for people in need, they also learn the story of Appalachia. No one gets to come in and think the project is the only building happening that week; they are also the project, learning about the richness of a culture that is deep and lovely, learning that while their income level may be different from ours, they may not live in homes that look like ours, or whatever differences may be tangible, they have a story and something to share and teach us. We all need constant reminding that dignity is an important part of relationship.

Mission is not something that is done well when we bring a sense of hierarchy, that we are going in to "save" someone, to help a person we see as beneath us in some way. Mission is never assaultive, something done to another person or group. Mission and ministry are acts of equality that respect the dignity of all involved. Jesus, being the Son of God and all, could have easily held that I'm-Better-Than-You flag above the people he helped and healed.

He didn't.

He lived and ate and laughed with the people he helped. Probably a clue for us, too, as we are serving our neighbors in need. Remember that they are our neighbors, our equals in the eyes of God. Remember that we have something to learn from them, perhaps about their lives and culture, perhaps about ourselves and our prejudices.

For the many things I love about St. Timothy's, one of my favorite is that they are a constant presence in the community on the mountain. There are no glossy brochures extolling "an awesome mission experience." Just a place where love abides and there is work to do. When the summer mission season is over, St. Timothy's will still be a part of the mountain community. When the snows come, the priest will still be checking on the people in the community. When groups come in for spring break trips, they will hang siding and fix meals and eat with members - as equals. They are a church, ever present in mission and ministry.

They are the church. Period.

If you are interested in learning more about St. Timothy's or becoming part of that community in support and/or mission service, click here.

"Shake Your Bottle"

2011-06-29T11:10:00.000-04:00

I really love KC and the Sunshine Band. The tunes are catchy, and you can sing along with total gusto. Lately, I have been singing one tune in particular, "Shake Your Booty," but I sing it with different words. My version is "Shake Your Bottle." As you might imagine, a song like this deserves excellent dance moves, and I have them!

So, if you are at my house in the morning around 6:30 AM and almost 12 months old, I am rocking your world. I am belting out my version of the KC and the Sunshine Band classic. I am shake, shake, shaking my bottle, and a little girl is cracking up with laughter. Sometimes I even change up my lyrics with "shake, shake, shake your rattle." I really should have been a songwriter, but I digress.

You do funny things for love, and love does funny things for you. I always thought I was a little funny, but now I am finally hilarious. I am finally interesting. Who knew what love could do for you?

My horizons are expanding. My talents are growing- particularly when it comes to my fabulous lyrics and amazing dance moves. But most importantly, I believe that my heart is growing. Loving makes room for love.

So this is obvious. I know, I know. Perhaps this is my "Duh" moment, but I am discovering that love expands and makes room. It does not make anything easier. In fact, love makes things harder. Loving is harder because it makes you vulnerable. It opens you up.

Being open is dangerous. When you are open, people can and do hurt you. When you are open, circumstances can and do hurt you. Loving is dangerous and often unpredictable. Just because you love it does not mean that you can change or control outcomes or people. Love seems to be more about giving up that desire for control. Love is just love.

Love is just love, and yet, look at what we do for love. We fight battles. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. We risk rejection and humiliation. We follow. We run into burning buildings, even when we are afraid. We die. And sometimes we sing: "Shake, shake, shake! Shake, shake, shake! Shake your bottle! Shake your bottle!"

Common Knowledge?

2011-06-20T17:31:00.000-04:00

You know what the problem with common knowledge is? Apparently nobody knows what that means. Along with common knowledge, there is also a lack of common sense. Just in case you do not know, common knowledge and common sense are the gathered wisdom of the community that keeps us from making complete and utter idiots of ourselves. Sadly, though, that community is slipping away, as is the collected wisdom of the ages, but here is one gem that endures:

Stop sending nudie pictures of yourself to others. This is such a bad idea. In fact, do not take any picture of yourself that is only suitable for the dermatologist to see when he or she is looking for moles. Nobody wants to see that, even if they have asked to see that.

Frankly, I am not sure why you would be communicating with anyone who wants you to send them nude pictures. Does that person really respect you? Of course not! If you have to ask if someone respects you, they do not. If someone asks to have pictures of this nature, this is not leading to a mutual and life giving experience. It is leading to YouTube and a segment on Tosh.o.

Nothing good will ever come from this, and yet people persist in filming themselves, photographing themselves and sending these Kodak moments. Why? I guess because they think others would like to look at them. Somehow they believe that the masses will be overcome with awe after viewing the offending shots. In reality, we are making fun of your bits and pieces.

I guess actually, the people who send these pictures are not thinking at all. They are not wondering why anyone would want to see them. They are not thinking about how their wives or husbands might feel. I wonder if they think that they look good, that they are alluring.

Well, let me answer that for you: there is nothing alluring about you putting it all out there for everybody and his uncle to see. No mystery there at all. Might I suggest instead, meet that person for coffee and see if you would even be willing to talk to him or her with their clothing on. If not, walk away, put the camera away! Believe that you are worthy of respect. Believe that your body is not just a tool for someone else, but a beautiful and glorious part of the whole of you!

Oh how I wish this was common knowledge. I wish people saw their bodies as temples, not idols. I wish people saw their bodies as something to share with another, not a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. I wish we saw our bodies as part of that glorious body of Christ- broken in parts, strong in other parts, but all part of the purpose and love of God. I guess this is not common knowledge.

Well, here it is folks, a new (or very old) piece of common knowledge. Let us make this a piece of common knowledge that our bodies demand respect and care from ourselves and each other.

Celebrity Diet Secrets

2011-06-15T20:21:00.000-04:00

"Up next, celebrity diet and fitness secrets."

That greeted me as I turned on my television to see a perfectly coiffed early morning host smiling as if the diet and fitness secrets of celebrities would be very best thing ever and watching it this morning would make my entire day. Pretty much before coffee, I'm game for anything. My brain has yet to be turned to the full "on" position, so I plopped down on my couch and drank my coffee. And watched.

Surely their secrets are something amazing that no mere mortal could ever know, like they eat scorpions for dinner or belong to some secret cult that has the one and only ancient diet book that allows for chocolate and wine and no exercise and a skinny little tush.

But no. You know their secrets? They have personal trainers who work them out for an hour or more each day. They have cooks who fix their meals. They have complexes that manifest in eating disorders. Or perhaps all three. And most of them are the size of Thumbelina. One of the perks of living in New York was that I got to see celebrities up close and personal. One, they look a whole lot like the rest of us when their cadre of hair and makeup people haven't spent hours on them. Two, they could fit in a teacup. Most celebrities are about four feet tall. Or at least Sarah Jessica Parker is.

I want the stories of the single mom who works full time with two children and still manages to be fit and healthy. That's who morning hosts should be interviewing. I don't want to hear about celebrities who have made bad relationship decisions that caused them to move from their manor home with fourteen hundred acres and fifteen hundred servants and who "found" themselves while making a new album, all fortuitously filmed on a faux-documentary. I want to hear the true stories of people who own their own scars, who didn't need to be saved by a new record album or a new book, but who dropped into the great deep of their own shadow and found their light. And for the last time, I'm not that interested in how anyone should decorate anyone else's home. Everyone listen up - it's your living space. Decorate it how you like. If I don't like it or your kids don't like it or your neighbor doesn't like it, that falls into the category of our problems, not yours. As long as you aren't hoarding cats or creepy dolls, enjoy your surroundings.

That's the real secret, isn't it? That there are no secrets or short cuts to health and fitness, physical, emotional, or spiritual. We cannot lose twenty pounds in ten days or find ourselves on a single retreat experience, especially since the real work of God begins when we are open to losing ourselves within God. We cannot shore up our fragile interiors by sprucing up the exterior. Paint a rotten wall, and it may look pretty for a while, but the wood is still falling to bits underneath. There are no secrets for becoming comfortable in one's own skin. There are no secrets for learning to trust God's voice within ourselves. There are, however, ample opportunities for denial and avoidance.

Except they don't necessarily look like denial or avoidance. They look like rational, justifiable things to do. And in our first few decades of life, they are completely necessary. During these years, we spend energy piling on the lines of our resumes, working to get into the right clubs, climbing the right ladders, measuring up to the right people's opinions, and getting the right jobs. Everything looks good from the outside. Perhaps our spouse looks lovely from the outside. Perhaps the job seems fine.

And then, one day, we have the opportunity to look around at our lives, our very carefully constructed around expectations and appearance selves, and realize we have a choice. This opportunity almost always looks and feels like our world crumbling down around us. The marriage isn't working anymore. We are burned out in our job. We look in the mirror and wonder where the ten or twenty or forty pounds came from. So we are tempted to search harder for the secrets to make it all better.

Oh yes, we can search for the secrets. We can continue to build the tower, we can strive for the external things that will make us whole (or so we think), and we can continue to blame all of our disappointments on others. For some reason, when we really do get to the hard work, we start here.

Until we realize that path is well-worn and leading nowhere. After the fourth or fifth or hundredth trip on the long walk to the dry well, we can decide to stop. We can die to that whole veneer of exterior appearance and get to work on the inside. We can stop blaming others and take some responsibility for our own decisions, our needs and wants, and our frailties. Note to all: This process isn't fun or pleasant. As my parish hears me say frequently, there is only one way to Resurrection, and that's through crucifixion and rotting in the tomb for a day or month or year. I suspect that's why so many people stay on this side of life, polishing resumes and listening for the next great secret to being the perfect person or the perfect Christian or the perfect minister or the perfect whatever.

We can search for the secrets, but there are none. It's all pretty much out there, that getting our selves and souls in shape takes work. Hard work. Muscles ache. Souls wail. Hearts break. Expectations shatter. Even some relationships come to an end.

And then slowly, tummies tighten. The excess fat that we don't need falls away. The soul smiles, and life is renewed. We look in the mirror and like, even love, who and what we see - all of what we see, imperfections and fabulosity. Perhaps for the first time, we can truly see as much of our selves as we ever can on this side of the Kingdom, faults, flaws, and all. We engage in self-reflection and end the monologue of ego. Because when we strip away the externals, when we give up searching for the shortcuts and lose (or at least lessen) the worship of Self, we find that person God has been calling us to meet all along. The one who is enough and whole, and who recognizes that the secret to health and wholeness is a willingness to surrender what we want and follow where God leads, even when the journey is challenging and hard. We realize grace and God's love are free, but the rest of it takes some hard work. We drink our coffee and sing our songs, the one that sit deep within our souls. Whether we are in tune or not isn't relevant.

It just matters that we have the courage to sing, to be our truest self, completely open to God's siren song. No shortcuts. No quick fixes. No diet secrets. Just the willingness to engage in the soul work of life.

Television Viewing at the Beach

2011-06-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

Vacation invites your friendly neighborhood bloggers to watch television shows that we would normally ignore or skip over for Masterpiece Theatre, The Vicar of Dibley or various documentaries that enlighten and engage us. But, we're on vacation, turning into slugs, and seeing what's on while the rest of the world is working.

Oh, the horror. The horror. But we're sharing anyway because that's one of the many services we offer. We've done the viewing work so you don't have to.

1. Basketball Wives. We are withholding our normal sassy viewpoints for fear that a few of these women will hunt us down or become members of our parishes. We'll say this: they scare us, which may explain why almost all of them are really ex-wives. They do wear amazing earrings, though.

2. The Dirty Harry Movie Marathon. We at Dirty Sexy Ministry love Dirty Harry. The 70's clothing and hairstyles and cars (anyone else have memories of a parent or grandparent's car that had a back seat big enough to fit seventeen kids with nary a seat belt?). We love the sass and attitude. And face it, haven't most of us secretly wanted to say, "Well do ya feel lucky punk? Well do ya?" to the person who cut in front of us in the cashier's line and who seems surprised that they have to pay for their merchandise, thus spending forty minutes fumbling through their purse or rucksack for what apparently is the smallest wallet ever, all while talking loudly on the cell phone about the new nail polish and flip flops they just found in the store.

3. Law and Order and their various incarnations. If you've read this blog, this show comes as no surprise. We love you, Sam Waterston.

4. Ghost Hunters. Why hunt for a ghost at 2:00 am with shaky cameras and a tape recorder? Why not high noon? Do ghosts work union hours? And, as a practical matter, don't watch this before going to bed. Even big girls might leave the bathroom light on. And by the way, it's a stupid shadow, not a ghost. And EVP's sound suspiciously like static. We're just saying.

5. Home Shopping Network. Are we the only people who didn't know you could buy hair extensions off the television that would add luscious layers and length overnight with a few clips and snaps? And some magic make-up that gives you perfect skin with a twirl and buff? And clothing with applique unicorns? How have we missed this?

6. EWTN, which has a show that seems to be an evangelical Christian version of The View. Okay, The View is annoying enough. Imagine a particle-board table and some plastic plants in a studio with Christian women taking questions about what advice the Bible gives about relationships. Scintillating is not the word. Did you all know that the Bible says women should wear make-up? Neither did we. We're writing a letter of complaint to our scripture professors in seminary when we get back.

7. This horrible game show with a repo man asking questions of people. We missed the title, but the essence of this gem of charity and kindness has the host asking questions which aren't gimmes of people standing around in various degrees of dress and spandex who didn't seem to be smarter than a fifth grader. If they got a wrong answer, the tow truck ratcheted up the car (several were Trans-Ams). Too many wrong answers, and the Repo Man got the car. Enough right answers, and they could keep the Trans-Am. We didn't see anyone keep the car.

8. Taken. Two words: Liam Neeson. We can be reached through this blog should he want to meet either of us.

9. The Narcissist Network, also known as the Oprah Winfrey Network. While we both think the documentary about Chaz Bono was profoundly interesting and insightful about the physical and emotional journey trans-sexuals make, the shows about Sarah Ferguson, Shania Twain, and several others just seemed a bit too self-serving. Put on a show about a single mother who works three jobs to make sure her children have a safe place to live and food to eat. Women who have Swiss chalets don't really pull our heartstrings. Yes, we're mean. But we're still scared of the basketball wives. And we want NO grief about not loving all things Oprah.

10. Bring It On. Sometimes a girl just wants to be a cheerleader.

Signs You've Just Given Up*

2011-06-05T23:33:00.000-04:00

About a year ago, one of us went to her then-boss to discuss her eminent adoption of the Cutest Baby Ever. His response, flowing with compassion and empathy for a single woman who had suffered several miscarriages and one failed adoption attempt was as follows: So, you've just given up.

Yes. Really. We couldn't make this up.

Giving up doesn't mean throwing in the towel on life. It does mean releasing expectations of what we think life should be and instead offering ourselves to what life can be. It means stopping ourselves in our tracks when we compare ourselves and our lives to others. Our life is a gift from God, and when we denigrate ourselves or others to build ourselves up or tear ourselves down (pick the poison), we refuse the gift of discovering our particularly snazzy selves. As some sage said, "We must be willing to release the life we've planned to accept the life waiting for us." Or something like that.

With that in mind, however, we were wondering about what would constitute warning signs that one had just given up on our fabulous selves, regaling our selves to less than. Here are our thoughts after a few days of vacation. After all, we love our Dirty Sexy Ministry Community, and we figured you'd want to partake in our vacation thoughts, however disturbed.

1. Pajama jeans.

2. Home shopping channels become regular viewing on Friday nights, and every night, for that matter, as if it were Law and Order. And you think the stuff is really classy. Because it would match your clergy shirts and pajama jeans.

3. Aerosol cheese, dark chocolate, and two bottles of red wine (because they were two for the price of one) seem like a reasonable dinner option. Fabulous always gets the good wine to bring out the full taste of aerosol cheese and dark chocolate, and good wine is never two for one.

4. Why go out when I can stay in and watch "Dirty Dancing: The Assisted Living and Artificial Hip Years"?

5. Kathy Griffin is an appropriate person to quote in sermons and in delicate pastoral situations.

6. You'd turn down a date with Liam Neeson because you have your knitting club that night.

7. Too many cats? Pshaw!

8. A mime ministry is just what the parish is lacking.

9. Klingon is a worthwhile second language to learn and will impress search committees when they see it on your resume.

10. Wearing a full bunny rabbit costume for the bishop's visit will be just the surprise that will make her/his day so memorable! What could go wrong?

11. Your sabbatical plans include hunting for Bigfoot, touring the country with a kazoo and bagpipe orchestra that plays traditional church hymns of the 18th Century, and competing in a high stakes Boggle tournament in Iowa.

*Warning: Written over wine and tapas on the beach. This is not high theology.

Endings, Beginnings, and Life at the Beach

2011-05-30T21:12:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I leave on vacation. First stopping by my parent's home, then on to the beach, where Mary and I convene each summer to do a whole lotta nothing. We get up late. We drink coffee and eat bacon. We meander onto the beach for a while, first slathering our pale skin in sunscreen. After all of thirty minutes or so, we're hot, so we venture into the water, which usually stings our legs because even after years of shaving, we still missed the memo that says sea water is painful to freshly shorn legs. Then we bake some more, then get too hot, so it's time for lunch.

Maybe we eat something reasonably nutritious. Maybe we eat ice cream. When you're paying your own bills and owning your own scars in life, you can eat ice cream for lunch. Law and Order is on somewhere - one of those truths in life. You will pay taxes. You will die. And Law and Order is always on one cable channel. We nap. We go back onto the beach. We read People magazine and talk about how attractive Ice - T is or what we think really happens at Lambeth or how we both can't believe how much has changed since last year. We dress for dinner somewhere, asking each other if our back fat is too noticeable in the tank tops and really not caring if it is or not.

We mark our years by the beach. Clergy are usually too wiped out from Christmas and Holy Days to do any real reflection at New Year's. So for us, it's the beach. Between the sand and the waves and the meandering days of bliss, we reflect on the past year.

Last year, on the porch overlooking the ocean, I crafted the answers to the initial questions for the parish search process at the parish that I now call home. Last year, I was tired, absent the whole-heartedness I embrace in my ministry and life, unsure of next steps and my own self, but Mary kept reminding me of who I was and how much I could love and that my present was not my future. So did others. I couldn't imagine last year that I could love a parish as much as I am in love with the one I serve. But God is always full of surprises when we offer ourselves to be broken and resurrected by God.

And Mary fell in love, too, with a little surprise from heaven who showed up around the Fourth of July and will now join us on our yearly beach excursions. Emma is crawling now. Last year, she was questioning and unsure of what her life would look like, after the disappointments and failures. But God reminded her that her heart was big enough to share with a little girl who needed a mom. And we will take her to the Flora-Bama for her very first visit. Yes, it's a bar, but they make you wear shoes now and serve excellent Royal Red shrimp during the day. No, we won't let her order a beer.

We both said goodbye to people, some we will miss. Others were presences that reminded us not every person is our life is meet and right. Smearing radioactive sludge on your soul is a bad idea, no matter how pretty the container or how enticing the sludge may convince us it is.

And we've said hello to others that remind us that God is always plentiful. One benefit of age is the hopeful ability to recognize fabulous when it comes along and weave it into your life. This year has been a plethora of fabulous new friends. One joy is laughing with people who tell you all-new stories of their own human frailty, who invite you to be imperfect with them, and who do it all over good wine. Oh yes, God is good.

One of us will be sitting on the porch, listening to the breath of God in the waves as she answers interview questions. Knowing where you cannot be anymore, but dropping into the great deep with God is truly one of the bravest acts on earth. So she will be brave and follow God.

One of us will be helping as needed and asked when the other writes her heart on paper to a search committee and grumbling ever so slightly about the extra pounds that migrated onto hips since last year. But given that last year I was too thin, I won't grumble that much. Anyway, I like the curves.

Emma will be chewing on something that she's not supposed to be chewing on. Law and Order will be in the background. We will leave shoes and clothes on the floor and a mess in the kitchen and talk until 2:00 am because we can. We will simply be for an entire week.

And we will sit in the moment, knowing the holy adventure continues as God continues to disturb us when we get too comfortable because our dreams were too small, our horizons were too near the shore, and our trust was too much within ourselves.

Clean Frumpy Ministry

2011-05-23T10:44:00.001-04:00

We've done a few cursory searches with our blog title, just to see where we get reposted and tweeted (lots of places - thank you all for believing what we write should be shared) and what pops up. There's Dirty Sexy Money, the television show that flopped; Dirty Sexy Administration, about, well, the zaniness of administration; and even a Dirty Sexy Vegetarian. No pornography sites. No lascivious images. No weird cookies that infiltrate your browser, just waiting for the FBI or the secret church morality police to discover.

Yet time and time again, in our respective former parishes, in former and possible dioceses, and search processes (of which one of us is going through now), we get asked why we named the blog Dirty Sexy Ministry.

First, it gets your attention. And it seemed like a great idea at a New Year's Eve party when a local New Orleans celebrity suggested it.

Second, we like it. Yes, it's a bit jarring and edgy, but not nearly as edgy as the whole killing God on the cross and God telling us we are still loved anyway.

Third, we believe it. We believe ministry is dirty and messy. We also believe it's sexy, often done more for appearance's sake than an outpouring of the heart. But if you're following us, you've read that post.

So why is the combination of the words dirty sexy and ministry so troubling for so many? Because, we suspect, the church really, really doesn't want to talk about sex. We avoid that conversation at all levels. Throughout history, the church has demonized sex, banned it on certain days (read what one is supposed to abstain from on certain days on the Medieval Church calendar and you'll wonder how the human race ever propagated), demonized those who dared talk openly about sex, and ignored the issue all together. The Church's official stance on sex seems to be, "Don't ask, don't tell." While the current discussion of the place of gays, lesbians, transgendered, and bisexuals in the institutional church is moving us in a good direction, many church types (including your friendly neighborhood bloggers here) think it's still a distraction to the real issue, which is how does the church finally enter in a positive way, a discussion about nurturing, healthy sexuality in all people (because we feel certain that it's not just the gays and lesbians having sex) and how harmful unhealthy sexuality can be (including abuse, harassment, and all their nastier cousins). For people who say this better than we, we recommend investing about 25 minutes of your time to watch this video discussion between Brian Ammons and Richard Rohr.

What we named the blog isn't nearly as important as what we say in the blog. When I was in the search process, I was hurt when some parishes couldn't get past the blog title or were concerned that it was a bit "racy"for their parish or diocese. But what I was really hurt by was the truth that there were parishes and dioceses that would want me only if I edited myself as a person to be nice and proper. I've tried that editing myself to fit in; it didn't work well for me (again, we've posted that journey here, too). I was also hurt that the vulnerability we both strive to share in the posts was completely overlooked seemingly because two women had the audacity to put sexy and ministry together in a title. Mary has had similar experiences, although many more parishes have been positive about the blog during her interviews.

Just when I actually contemplated disbanding this blog and selling out to get a position, I got to the deep interview stage at a parish in another diocese. There were questions about the blog (all valid), but they were honest questions, not ones posed to see if I gave the "right" answer. They had actually read the posts. Guess which parish and diocese I now serve?

We hope that we as a faith community can ask honest questions about sex and ministry and all the subjects that frighten us. Honest questions are the ones for which we don't know the answers, but are willing to ask because we are willing to surrender to the holy search. This is the root of faith - being willing to surrender to the truth that God is in charge of all this, and we are not. And honest faith comes at a cost, mostly a cost of our own egos.

Yes, this blog has cost both of us (you'll have to wait for the book to read the juicy details). But it has also been a way for us to discern what is valuable in our lives. We are both proud of what we offer in our writings: dirty, clean, sexy, frumpy, silly, and serious; we are also humbled we can share it. We are glad our followers and readers are with us (tentative conference time is fall of 2012, by the way). And we are planning to write until the Holy Spirit herself says, "Enough."

So, here's to the fearlessness of those who read our blog without wondering what cookies may be in your browser. Here's to the churches and dioceses that like the blog, and to those of you part of this Dirty Sexy Community (maybe we'll make up membership cards), and we ask your prayers that Mary (in the search process) will find a parish that will let her write her posts and love their community as only she can.

Mundane tasks

2011-05-20T14:34:00.000-04:00

Soon, so soon, I am starting my vacation. This is a strange time for me. I will actually take off the month of June. I am not sure what to do with myself, but I have a few ideas.

With this free time, I will set myself to some mundane tasks. The biggest task I have is sewing buttons on my clergy shirts, both literally and figuratively. Lately, buttons have been disappearing from my clergy shirts, even the brand new shirts! It could be because I have put on some weight. It could be because the shirts are (super expensive) poorly made. It could be because the thread that holds the buttons on is getting worn. All that being said, I have a lot of mending to do.

I have some mending to do. I need to repair my shirts or even discard a few that do not fit me anymore. I must look at my ministry, and see where I have let my ministry grow worn and tired and close to breaking. I need to address those hurts or laziness in prayer and study or outdated ideas that can get in the way of ministry.

For that matter, I have a ton of laundry to do, not just the “toss it in the washer and go” laundry either. I need to do the hand washing, soaking in soapy water before putting in the washer, kind of laundry. Then I need to put that laundry on the line to dry. I must wash away and soak out residual stinky smells in my laundry; smells that I have let linger in my clothing that have no reason to be there. That means that I will have to wait for them to dry, but after they dry the laundry will be starched and clean.

Finally, I have some shopping to do. I hate shopping with a holy hatred, but I need to buy some new clothing. I have put this off long enough. I keep thinking I will magically return to a size 8 (okay size 10), so I wait. I keep looking for excuses to keep from looking at new clothing, but I need to actually go out, try on clothing, and purchase some new items. I need to go see what is available, and what is good that I have never seen before, and try it on.

So, I should be pretty busy this vacation, but afterwards I know that my shirts will fit, smell fresh, and my new skirts will look fabulous, and I will be too!

This Should Be Interesting

2011-05-14T13:47:00.001-04:00

We like to stand out and shine, except when we don't want to stand out. Or, at least I do.

I like to be original, except when my originality feels more like I'm part of a side show. And, unfortunately, that side show is often part of the priest who is female genre. Like at a recent funeral, when I overheard a male congregant whisper (a bit too loudly), "Look, it's a lady priest. This should be interesting"

No, actually, it's a priest who just happens, on her best days, to be a lady. Most of the time I'm just a common woman who isn't all that interesting. Although I did wonder what he would have considered interesting at a funeral...

I suspect I speak for many of my clergy sisters when we say we get tired of being the girl/female/lady/woman/have you ever seen the "Vicar of Dibley" priests. We get tired of being introduced as the token first female clergy on a staff. We get tired of hearing during parish search committee interviews that, "We're just not sure we're ready for a woman pastor." We are exhausted from listening to comments ranging from mildly inappropriate to say around professional women (well, don't you look cute in that clergy shirt today) to completely inappropriate to say to anyone (those are fine looking legs for a priest), and when we complain, we are told that, "He's just that kind of guy." We are really, really over the fellow clergy who never seem to miss an opportunity to share with us their personal hesitations about the ordination of women. And we are done with the institutional church that pays most women less than their male counterparts for no reason that seems logical and that ignores sexual harassment.

But we are here, and the church is changing because of us. Women hold up half the sky, so the saying goes, and they hold up at least half the church. We are not side shows. No child of God, female or male, is a side show. We are all part of the main event. An emergent church theologian opines that the future of the church will be in the imaginations of women and those who have been marginalized by the institution, because the future of the church will be found in those who have lived in the edges and margins, those for whom "the rules" and the institution weren't so wonderful.

The institution of the church as it has been for centuries is changing. Changing because the old ways are dying. Changing because God is pushing. Changing because people who have been tired and annoyed eventually say, "Enough," and act. The world where the only real opinion mattered was that of the straight white male property holder has passed away, and the coming of the kingdom where the voices of those who were once relegated to side show is here. Those children of God who are gay, female, and of color; those children of God who are poor, powerless, and broken; those children of God whose faith communities are smaller, whose expressions of faith are imaginative and daring, and who ask hard questions - they are speaking.

And more importantly, they are being heard.

Watch what happens in the smaller places, the dioceses and parishes where power and prestige aren't that important because they don't have either in the traditional sense, but embrace the holy truth that there are no menial churches or gatherings of God's people because there are no menial people in the Kingdom. Listen to the daring worship springing forth from the souls of those who have been marginalized and disaffected, worship that truly reflects the gifts of the community which offers this holy work instead of simply being the Church of What's Happening Now. Hear the sermons to the priests and pastors and bishops and ministers who are willing to preach a gospel about dying to self instead of hoarding one's ego and riches and power over the heads of others.

Look, it's a priest, a minister, a bishop, a pastor, a person who loves God and follows Christ and is inspired by the Spirit. Look, it's a lady priest, a gay man, a transgendered person, an Asian, a lesbian, a poor teenager from Appalachia, an African-American professional woman from Middle America, a Hispanic man from Alabama, a single parent. Look, it's a child of God demanding to be heard and yearning to respond to God's call.

This should be interesting.

Clergy Hijinx

2011-05-09T15:09:00.002-04:00

Summer is on its way, and something about this warm weather brings out the tomfoolery in me. Here are a few pranks I recommend (wink) this summer:

Splash pea soup all over your clergy shirt. Make sure you get a little in your hair as well. Rush into a bar, order a shot, slam the shot, and then look at the bartender (or anyone else around who might listen). Say to them: “It has been a hell, and I mean hell, of a day!” For added emphasis, raise an eyebrow when you say “hell.”

This next prank will enlist the help of the choir. First of all, make sure the choir wears their robes. Next, give each member of the choir a pitchfork or baseball bat or some other weapon. Finally, watch at the front door of the church for a passing motorist. When you see the motorist, run as fast as you can out the front door of the church. The choir should chase after you with their pitchforks and weapons. If the choir is unavailable, see if you can get a group of older ladies in big hats to stand in. Let the hilarity ensue.

Call the Bishop’s office. When the secretary picks up ask for the Bishop. When she asks who is calling or if you would like to leave a message you should growl: “This is Jesus! You tell the Bishop that he needs to call me. He better not act like he does not have my number or I am telling my dad, so help me, me!” Now, if the secretary has not already hung up on you, add with a laugh: “I am just messing with you, it’s the Holy Spirit! I am just calling y’all back.”

Switch out the bread and wine with Oreos and Hot Chocolate. No one will look at the Body and Blood of Christ in exactly the same way after that. I would also imagine that no one would just dip or refuse the “wine.”

What pranks do you recommend?

Pearls before swine

2011-05-02T15:59:00.002-04:00

I was talking to a good friend a few days ago about how hurt she was by her brother. She and a few others threw a party for her brother on his birthday. It was a lovely event at a local restaurant. Everyone enjoyed the great meal. Everyone congratulated her brother on his birthday. The event was a great success, but…

But her brother never said thank you. After all my friend’s planning and effort, her brother seemed to only muster up a world weary attitude and a smug: “That’s nice,” that translated to: “I am not sure I can be bothered.” She was hurt and angry that her gift to this individual was dismissed in a moment. She did something kind and hospitable, and he could not even say thank you. He could not even recognize that someone did something for him in love and kindness.

Now you might say maybe he did not want a party, but that was not the case. He did. He knew about the party. He was asked where he wanted to go for his party. He was even asked who he wanted at his party. My friend and his friends heeded his requests. So it was not as if he did not get what he wanted, he did, but still there was no thanks.

I talked to my friend about her hurt. I wondered why his response to her gift was so important to her. The party was a gift after all. Or was it? Was she throwing this party to express happiness and joy for her brother’s special day? Or was she throwing this party for another reason?

She looked down at her hands and then quietly said: “I guess that I wanted him to affirm me.” A “thanks” certainly would have gone a long way to that affirmation, but her brother was never, ever going to give that affirmation. As we scratched the surface, she revealed that so much she had done in her life for this man had been an attempt to receive affirmation from him, but knowing this man I am not sure he was really capable of affirming her.

Over and over again, she was casting her pearls before swine. The question was: could she stop trying to receive affirmation from someone who was incapable of giving affirmation to anyone? The other question was: why does she need it from him?

I guess for that matter, why does anyone need affirmation from anyone? I do not know why, but we need it! We need affirmation that we are beautiful and loved. We need affirmation that we are wanted and worthy. The affirmation is out there, but why do we insist on wringing it from the cold dead grip of swine?

My friend’s brother acted terribly. He acted like an entitled jerk, but my sweet friend also needed to examine this need within her. Heck, we all need to examine this need within ourselves.

Are we chasing after swine, begging for their recognition? Are we trying to please others until the point of bleeding? How do we find the affirmation we truly need, that will fulfill us? What is the point that we come to when we stop casting our pearls before swine and start sharing those precious pearls with those who truly appreciate them and us?

I think it starts with recognizing the pearls being tossed before us. Do we even see the pearls in the mud being shared with us? Only when we can recognize them, only when we can say: “Thank you,” can we even begin to receive that life giving affirmation. Of course, this is a slow process in the mud and muck. It is a slow process to realize that everything is a gift.

We are not entitled to anything, except a swift kick in the rear sometimes, and yet, we are given everything. We act like pigs, and yet we are treated like royalty. God’s Kingdom is given to us, a beautiful, precious gift. Will we receive it with thanks or just keep rolling in the mud?

Easter Monday Agenda...Dirty Sexy Ministry Style

2011-04-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

Wake up.

Go back to sleep.

Realize your dog/cat/child is staring at you and even if you pretend to be asleep, they won't go away.

Get out of bed. Walk the dog. Feed the child. Trip over the cat, who is most certainly involved in a plot to kill you in what will look like a random household accident.

Stare at the coffee maker. After several moments, an Easter miracle where the coffee prepares itself won't happen. Make coffee.

Sift through the pile of dirty dishes left undone through Holy Week that have not put themselves in the dishwasher - again! Resolve to have a chat with the dishes about their slacking behaviour. Where are singing teapots and plates when you need them? Find a mostly clean coffee cup. Rinse out. Fill with the nectar of life. Sit down and drink morning coffee. Realize you have absolutely nothing liturgical to do today.

Note that the house looks as if a small hurricane has hit it. Put in call to magical cleaning fairies to do the three hundred piles of laundry, scrub the floors, and sort through the unopened mail, sermons, and Holy Week service bulletins on the dining room floor that you swept off to have Easter dinner on the table.

Watch television mindlessly. Lindsey Lohan is in jail? When did this happen? Call BFF to catch up on latest celebrity gossip. Realize she's a priest, too, and is as clueless as you are because Holy Week happens everywhere.

Take a cue from the cat and have a mid-morning nap.

Wake up. Notice the magical cleaning fairies haven't replied to your request. Send follow-up email.

Decide to eat lunch. Stand in front of the refrigerator for several minutes, silently praying Martha Stewart has left a plate of lamb, braised asparagus, cold pasta salad and seventeen layer chocolate cake for dessert, along with a perfectly paired white wine. She didn't. Wonder if the remaining body of the chocolate Easter bunny is an appropriate lunch.

Eat the Easter bunny for lunch. If you have children, hope they don't miss the chocolate bunny. Decide to blame missing Easter bunny on spouse/dog/cat if the small inquisitors get testy.

Order pizza. Eat two slices, realizing that bikini season is around the corner.

Take another nap.

Magical cleaning fairies are apparently on strike. Didn't get the memo, but didn't know about Lindsey Lohan, either. Decide to log a complaint and clean yourself.

Vacuum the living room, but get sidetracked by The Real Housewives of Crazy-town marathon. Dust will wait. Catfights and botox like this will not.

Check email. Read Perez Hilton's blog. Ignore email that involves thought or reflection. Brain still sleeping.

Remember that pizza eaten on Easter Monday doesn't have calories. Eat the rest of the pizza.

Flip through a few magazines. Note that clergy collars still have not made the spring "must-have" fashion list. When, oh when, will Milan and Paris catch up to this nifty fashion trend of shapeless black blouses of polyester and plastic collars wrapped stylishly around one's neck?

Rummage through children's Easter baskets for more candy.

Use sugar high to load the dishwasher and clean one bathroom.

Crash from sugar high on the sofa.

Take nap.

Wake up.

Smile and realize that even on completely slacker days like this, you are loved by God.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Sermon for Holy Week

2011-04-21T15:00:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday, during my children's sermon, this occurred:

Me:     "So what happens this week?"

Kids:   "Easter!"

Me:     "What happens before Easter"

Kids: (After some prodding and suggestions). "Jesus dies."

There were several starts and stops here, as we talked about people being mad a Jesus because of what he said, that we killed Jesus, with one boy quickly saying, "Not me." We've all done or seen children's sermons. It's the homelic equivalant to riding a wild horse. You just hang on...

But we eventually got here:

Me:     "So what did Jesus say?"

Kids:    "To love each other."

Me:     "And people killed Jesus because of what he said."

Kids:   "That's stupid."

Out of the mouths of the little one. Here's to our journey of stupidity over the next three holy days. And to a God who loves us anyway.

A Mediocre Litany (as opposed to the Great One in the Book of Common Prayer)

2011-04-18T12:07:00.002-04:00

God the Father and Mother of Heaven, who looks with mercy upon your children and somehow manages not to smite us with brimstone and pestilence, we pray to you this day.

God, hear our prayer.

From all dangers and snares of the devil, and from our own stupidity in thinking we can save anyone else while ignoring the potholes in our own lives, and particularly for ignoring that our need to "save" others is a screaming notice that we might need to do some work on our own wounds.

Good God, deliver us.

From heresy and schism, particularly our fabulous ability to entrench ourselves in our own righteousness while denigrating others with slurs, gossip, and exclusion from the "cool kids" table at clergy gatherings,

Good God, deliver us.

From pride and vainglory, particularly blaming all of our leadership problems on other people not respecting our gifts or opinions, on our bishops and other clergy, and because the day of the week ended in a "y,"

Good God, deliver us.

From impertinence and ego, for offering excuses for our massive screw-ups instead of simply admitting our mistakes, and for taking more credit than we should for our successes,

Good God, deliver us.

From the presumption of awesomeness when we think we are indeed all that and forget that we, too, use the potty just like everyone else.

Good God, deliver us.

From projection and triangulation and our failings to own our own baggage, especially when we talk about another person with someone else and pretend we are processing for "their own good" when we are actually just gossiping,

Good God, deliver us.

From resentment and feeding grudges, that we may own when someone has injured us so terribly that the earth may be salted, the crops burned, and the livestock destroyed, so no hope of reconciliation in the "you're my buddy" sense exists because of the lies and betrayal, but that is still no excuse to slit tires or hope they get warts,

Good God, deliver us.

From envy and jealousy and diminishing others' talents or gifts because they are not our own (or claiming their gifts or work as our own) and ignoring what treasures we have to offer in the process,

Good God, deliver us.

From stupidity and perfection, that we even pretend we have any idea what we are doing most of the time,

Good God, deliver us.

From diminishment, when others would have us believe we are less than we are, that they have "saved" us, and that we owe them for "making" or "helping" us; and for the times we have bought into such hooey,

Good God, deliver us.

From those people and things in our lives that are crack, who seduce us into thinking they bring good and fun into our lives, but really just cause us to sleep on a ratty, dirty mattress in a back alley with smeared eyeliner,

Good God, deliver us.

For causing Jesus to drink gin straight from the bottle for our thoughts, words, and deeds,

Lord, hear our prayer.

Amen.

Inappropriate answers to interview questions

2011-04-12T15:46:00.001-04:00

As I launch into the search process, I have been thinking a lot about interview questions and answers in the church. I hope you all enjoy!

Question: Tell us a little more about yourself.

Answer: Well, I am a big believer in gun control. Like, I really cannot have a gun. On the way over here, I would have shot out the tires of about forty cars.

Answer: I keep a taser in my purse and in my desk at the church. Want to see it?

Question: What is the most meaningful part of ministry for you?

Answer: Uh, let me see, that would be the relationships. I love the relationships, you know, with the hot guys, the repair guy for the copier. You know, you are kind of cute too. Has anyone ever told you that? What can I say; I am a lover of souls.

Answer: Really I am in this gig until I get that part on the Spanish version of The Young and the Restless. They call me “La Rubia.”

Answer: I like the part with the thingy. You know, with that cardboard tasting thing and the wine. Especially, the wine.

Question: What are your greatest strengths in ministry?

Answer: (Flex) These guns right here (kiss both biceps)! You don’t think that chalice holds itself up there on Sunday, do you?

Answer: That would be this moneymaker right here (point to your face). I moisturize every night. I get facials twice a month. I exfoliate every other day. Why aren’t you writing this down?

Answer: It has to be my humility. I mean I am constantly getting humiliated. People say terrible, cruel things to me, and I just take it. You know why? Because they are all true (burst into tears now).

Question: What are your greatest weaknesses in ministry?

Answer: I just do so darn much. I strive for perfection. I also work too hard. Why are you rolling your eyes?

Answer: I have no weaknesses! How dare you ask me such an insolent question! Kneel before me before I destroy you!

Question: Why do you feel called to this place?

Answer: Your church is the closest one to the Dairy Queen. Did I tell you that I love the Dairy Queen?

Answer: I am going to lay this on the line. I am not getting any younger, and neither is this congregation. We are both in a desperate situation. You are not getting any better than me. Did I also mention that I like the drapes in the rector’s office?
Answer: You guys seem pretty cool, so I am, like, cool. Okay?

Why We Won't Be Asked To Do Book Reviews Again...

2011-04-08T11:50:00.000-04:00

Over the last couple of months, DSM was, along with other blogs written by women, asked to review some books. Because, like almost every other woman we know, we do about a million other things besides full-time Christian service and writing a blog and keeping our homes clean and taking care of children, we're doing two reviews in one, with the usual DSM irony, humor, and tongue-in-cheek. They were both published by Zondervan, which kind of surprised us. We got the books for free, just for full and fair disclosure. We'd have been mad if we paid for one of them. The other is priceless.

Reading books with discussion questions at the end of each chapter reminds us of our sixth grade social studies books: just in case you missed the points in the text because your Captain Obvious cape was at the cleaners, the author has included questions, which are rarely provocative. We wanted, really wanted, Half the Church to be provocative, to delve into the subtitle: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women. And perhaps it does, for a different audience.

The text itself shifts back and forth, rather disjointedly, between a glowing review of Half the Sky (a book worth reading, by the way), real-world examples from Half the Sky of women in extreme poverty and violent life situations, and Biblical examples of God's vision for women (mostly from the Hebrew scriptures, which we found interesting).

The book read as a, "You Go Girl!" cheer, which is certainly needed for women. Several textual criticisms from Genesis and Ruth particularly lifted out the value and role of women in those narratives. James works to prove her point through Biblical criticism, and mostly well-done Biblical criticism, although she makes no mention of Biblical accounts where women are victims of violent life situations.

James' failure to fully explore the controversy and plight of women in faith traditions almost overtakes the entire text. She does give one chapter to the issue of women's ordination, but settles back into the seeming safety of her previous Biblical commentary that women are part of God's creation. One line gave a hint at the provocative discussion questions which weren't asked. James says, "Everywhere we go, a line has been drawn establishing parameters for how much or how little we are permitted to do within the church."

One question: why is this statement in passive voice? Who drew the line? Who captured God's vision from women in the first place? Did aliens come down and snatch our dignity, our place in the church and the world? Did Klingons decide to interpret the Bible to denigrate the role of women?

James lightly touches the far edges of these questions when she notes that women are understood in roles of wife and mother. She frequently mentions that God envisions a world where women "do life" because there is "much kingdom work to do," but fails to address deeper issues of why are women prevented or limited in their work for the kingdom.

Perhaps this book review is a fine example of expectations: anticipatory disappointment. We hoped this book would explore the many facets of reclaiming God's vision for women, including recognizing that women, too, are created in the image of God and that women, too, were important children of God. James does this with a simple and basic approach. We hoped this book would fearlessly, like Jesus, name the evil that exists in prejudice and oppression. We were disappointed that James stops with the idea that all will be right with the world when women claim these truths, seemingly ignoring that there is a L-O-N-G history of oppression of women in the church...(okay, we'll say it) by men.

However, Becky Garrison in Jesus Died For This? blew us out of the water. Her satirical approach to the entire swath of faith and spirituality was spot-on. She fearlessly asks the questions, makes observations, and names the good and evil and all shades in-between in her self-named search for the risen Christ. She actually sums up the issue of thousands of years of faith: "Many of us see life through a faith fog; we're not so interested in having our vision corrected."

We want to be able to wrap our arms around cuddly, fuzzy Jesus, not the one who stared evil in the guise of self-righteouness, honey-butting religious types and said, "Not so cool." We want to ignore the Church's history of prejudice, of exclusion, of killing others because they didn't fall in line with religion de rigeur. We want, as Becky (we like to think she's a friend, even though we've never met) says, our Easter served on a silver platter, like peeps - soft and fluffy, without all the reminders that WE shouted crucify him.

What Becky does so flawlessly is exactly what Carolyn James failed to do: look at all sides of faith issues. Becky is a satirist, but she doesn't need to ignore the breathtaking part of Christianity to write about the flawed aspects of faith. She writes about them all. In the moments where even she is surprised by the truth that Christ meets us in our fragile, flawed, forgotten, and forsaken selves, we are surprised with her, holding our breath at such a remarkable and stunning truth. And when she nails hypocrisy and stupidity to the wall, she does it with the humorous elegance of a person who loves her faith (mostly), not as a mean-spirited writer.

Martin Luther's Theses would have been so much more fun if Becky had edited them. Or the discussion questions at the end of any book.

So there you go, all of our first-place pageant winners in DirtySexyMinistry Land. Our first book reviews.

Dirty Sexy Vocabulary

2011-04-06T09:52:00.003-04:00

A wonderful new friend of mine in my wonderful new hometown keeps ripping off pieces of those paper tablecloths, writing down what she terms, "Dirty Sexy Vocabulary." So Allison, for you, and those who would like to eat dinner off of a paper tablecloth that doesn't look like a rat did the tango on it.

And of course, in no particular order.

Booger Joe - to take something of good or of unknown value and focus only upon its possible negative aspects or consequences. I know I just won a million dollars, but I'll have to pay most of it in taxes, and my new-found wealth will bring me nothing but doom and despair and free-loading cousins.

Honey Butt - to take something of bad or of unknown value and focus only upon its possible positive aspects or consequences. But remember, that honey may be a lovely amber color and have an enticingly sweet aroma, but it's still on the rear of a grizzly bear. Yes, it's a cobra, and I know it's bitten everyone else, but it's been misunderstood and once it likes me, it won't hurt me.

Magical Thinking - the concept that you are perfect, incapable of mistakes, and control the destiny of a person, parish, community, or of all creation with your very existence or with your wise observations. Those engaging in magical thinking hear Jesus preaching the Beatitudes and say, "You know, Jesus got these ideas from me. I preached that sermon two months ago." Cf. the idea that we are perfect. We aren't. We all make mistakes. Admit them and go on. Trust us, no one is fooled. God and almost everyone else sees the strip of toilet paper clinging to your shoe.

The Seduction of Usefulness - (okay, we didn't originate this one. Bp. Sauls did. But we are stealing it). Magical Thinking's trashier cousin that seduces us into thinking we are so profound that our very presence, words, and ideas will save those in our care from themselves or whatever situation we deem them needing to be saved from. Or at least we will be highly useful as we fix their problematic situation. Also, the absence of the humility of failure. See people who hog the floor at meetings, diocesan conventions, or casual meals giving unsolicited advice or u.p.r.'s. Often the fodder for answers to the question: tell us of a ministerial success that you created, planned, and implemented of which even Jesus would be envious.

Terminal Originality - the idea that no one anywhere throughout any part of history has gone through or been faced with the circumstances that face you or that no organization or person in all of creation has just this particular talent or need. God reminds us to get over ourselves.

Eviction Notice - a spiritual practice of preparing a document to be signed by God that removes those who have hurt you, bullied you, or otherwise caused wounds from your interior castle. People do not get to live in your soul rent-free. See also forgiveness.

U.P.R. - unnecessary personal reflection. Sharing tales of your first-hand experiences with personal usefulness and/or magical thinking as moral high marks instead of encounters with the humility of failure.

Ju-ju - atmosphere surrounding a place or person. Good ju-ju gives light and joy. Bad ju-ju makes you want to eat cheap cat food and drink bourbon straight from the bottle.

Expectation - anticipatory disappointment.

Boundaries - holy awareness that we are not other people and that we do not live vicariously through other people. Protects from bad ju-ju and expectation.

Crazy Makers - people who have no boundaries but loads of expectations. And all of that rests on you. And it's all your fault when their expectations are not met. And they are hurt and disappointed and angry. And they will tell everyone else that. But not really tell you. Because you're supposed to fix it. But you aren't sure what it is. And they don't elaborate. Because you should just know. Feel crazy, yet?

Irony - the usual tone of Jesus's parables.

Imperfection - where God hides holiness (again, stealing from Richard Rohr). Here's the whole quote:
If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.

Humility of Failure - where God calls us to growth and awareness. The series of events where we are called to remember we are quite imperfect, we make mistakes, we make situations worse, and we fall short of our own expectations. And when God says, "You are still my beloved. Let's see how you messed this up. And let's see what's next." Syn. A big dose of Castor oil.

Disguised Blessings

2011-03-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

I have a question: why do blessings wear disguises? I would really like to know why a blessing feels the need to wear a trench coat in its approach, causing fear and anxiety. Lately, I have been wondering about these new disguised blessings: my position ending on June 1^st, my crush getting married (Darn you, Jason Stratham) and not having a new position yet. I keep hoping these “blessings” would toss off there Groucho Marx glasses and reveal their exquisite beauty and grace.

I am reminded of Jacob wrestling with the angel. He demands that the angel bless him. Well, he blessed him all right! Jacob got a limp and a name change. I guess that is the strange nature of blessing, like a beautiful untamed beast. It might bite you, but it will be worth it for the ride. This makes me wonder what exactly the nature of these current disguised blessings is.

I try to think about similar situations in my past, times of terrible uncertainty. There was always a lesson and a gift that demanded my faith. Can I have faith that God is doing something miraculous and impossible in my life? Certainly God has done it before. I can look around my life and see those points of grace and blessing that wore unusual or even threatening disguises. One is staring at me right now with big brown eyes from her exersaucer.

So I guess the question really is: am I ready to wrestle? Can I trust that the blessing will be revealed in all its beauty and terror? I certainly hope so because the match has all ready begun.

Big Girls Need Big Diamonds

2011-03-28T10:59:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth Taylor died this past week. As you can imagine, we at Dirty Sexy Ministry hold Liz as one of the best examples of Dirty Sexy Ministry. She was quite imperfect, like all of us, but stepped forward with a prophetic voice for support of HIV/AIDS when most of the world, including our very own governments, dared not utter the word. Her marriages weren't exactly models of how to do commitment, but she kept trying. She was far from a saint, but never needed perfection as a reason to respond to others. And her scene in Cleopatra alone where she tells Mark Antony to kneel before her, saying, "I asked it of Caesar; I require it of you," is a moment that all who have ever been treated as an underling simply love. And she did it all with soignee.

Liz was many things, but shrinking violet was not one of them. People criticized her and tried to diminish her, but she lived her life anyway. In her own words, "Big girls need big diamonds."

I'm sure Liz said this quote with a hefty dose of literalness. After all, she was known for her diamonds. And sapphires. And pearls. And rubies and emeralds. We may not have a stash of precious jewels from the earth to wear around our necks and on our wrists, but we all do have a stash of precious gems from the heart of God. All of us have our big diamonds, our jewels within our souls that can gleam and glitter in the world - our gifts, our passions, our vocations. We all have jewels within our souls, those treasures that God has mined and entrusted to us. We are born with them, and our life experiences, our delving into the abyss where we stumble and recover the treasures of our life, give us access to them to share with the world.

We all have them, but many of us hide them, lock them in a safe, or pretend they aren't our jewels. Sometimes we do this because we are afraid of using them and losing them - our stuff to outgrow. But in recent conversations with clergy and laity who are women, I've become more and more aware of a distressing pattern - that we allow our diamonds to be usurped or diminished by others because we are fearful of repercussions. We have a splendid idea for a program or share our treasure to create holy space, and then allow it to be claimed by a superior or trivialized because, "anyone could have done it." We share our time and treasure within the community, and hear another clergy dismiss it as something that isn't as important as what he or she is doing in the community. Or we are not allowed to share our treasure at all, instead required continually to keep it locked in a safe because if we did break out the big diamonds, we fear attack.

From shared experiences, the fear of attack is genuine. Again, it's a distressing truth in the church and the world that a hefty number of superiors and peers are insecure about their own treasure, so they devalue the treasure of others. We all have that shadow within us, that our treasure isn't good enough. Some of us act out by devaluing others; some of us live it out by allowing our big diamonds to be buried.

Either way, nothing good comes out of this experience.

Those of us who haven't run the world for the past few thousand years, those of us who are women, minorities, gay, lesbian, bisexual, struggling with poverty, overcoming a disability, or whatever makes us less-than in the eyes of some, are inherently told by society that we don't need big diamonds. And through the years in my ministry, I've watched many of my fellow clergy who fall into the aforementioned categories diminish themselves so some else's fragile ego would not be deflated. I've seen them have their passions for ministry belittled, their program ideas usurped, and their accomplishments devalued. I've allowed it to be done to me. We learn from others that playing small to maneuver around other's insecurities is a right and good thing to do.

It's not. To quote from Marianne Williamson, "There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you."

Because a truth is that shrinking won't help someone who is insecure be more secure. It just makes us slowly fade away to feed their insatiable hunger of insecurity. God isn't into people fading away. God would rather we give ourselves room to shine with love. Another truth - there are a generous plenty of people who love to invite everyone to share their gems so that the shine and shimmer becomes greater for all of us. There are a generous number of places where we are required to wear our fabulous gems, and our stunning jewels are complimented, not envied, by these communities. There are, in fact, many places where big diamonds are de rigeur.

Because big girls have big diamonds, and God wants us to wear them, to let the sparkle of our deep gifts illumine the world. Liz managed to wear her big diamonds. When those would try to diminish her big diamonds because of their own insecurities, she wore them anyway. And so did a goodly number of women in the faith: Mary, Mary Magdelene, Rahab, Ruth, and Tamar, to name some of the real big diamonds in the crown.

So ladies, wear the big diamonds. And if people around you complain that the sparkle is too much, wear them anyway. And smile, because we were born to radiate God's love with our treasure.

The Bare Essentials for Ministry

2011-03-21T19:23:00.002-04:00

On more than one occasion, I've noticed that couples who announce their weddings in the New York Times have been legally wed by ordained ministers of the Universal Life Church. Yes, I read wedding announcements without a care as to what the bride wore or who the groom's parents are; I am interested in who married them. Often, I know the priest. It's a weird clergy thing. But I finally had to investigate this Universal Life Church phenomenon for myself.

For those not in the know, the Universal Life Church (ULC) is a legitimate church (and by that I mean the IRS says they are legal) that offers free and easy online ordination, complete with credentials and degree options. Everything you need to get started as a real minister: deluxe wallet credentials, a certificate (suitable for framing - and what, exactly, is unsuitable for framing?), your choice of official honorary degree (including, but not limited to, a Doctorate in Metaphysics or a Doctorate in Motivation), your choice of title (Mystic Warrior and Jedi Knight are my personal favorites, but you can invent your own), and a press pass. Ordinations are conducted several times a week, after your name and information are reviewed by pastoral staff. Computers do not ordain, according to the site, which must mean there is someone in Modesto, California, praying over the names submitted via email. You won't be rejected for faith beliefs, but submitting your pet for ordination or your spiritual name are frowned upon.

Oh, were ministry this easy. We imagine it is, that ministry, ordained and lay, is about getting some validation for ourselves - a role we can claim, a collar we can wear, or a program that is "ours." That part about ministry the ULC gets exactly right. The Mini Clergy Package, which gives the bare essentials for new ministers, gets you a certificate suitable for framing, a card to carry around to prove you are ordained, and an instruction book. More elaborate and expensive packages, called Complete Ministry Packages, get you titles and doctorate degrees, even a sticker for your car so EVERYONE will know you're ordained.

We might laugh at this whole online ordination (and believe me, I've laughed), but it reminds us of the shadow side of ministry - that we are more interested in being ordained than we are interested in truly serving as ministers. A shadow side is that we grasp at the essentials for ministry because we need certificates of external validation: how big and/or rich our churches are, what successful programs we can take full credit for, or how many weddings or baptisms or ordinations we've done. We recount our successes with joy and add titles to our names or talk about how l-o-n-g we've been involved in some particular ministry, making sure everyone knows our presence in said ministry is essential to its success. Oh yes, we human beings embrace these certificates of validation of our ministry.

Not all of these certificates are bad or wrong. Like everything in human existence, it has a good side and a shadow side. Ministry, lay and ordained, isn't instantaneous - even ULC recognizes this. The deep, grounded ministries take time and effort and blood, sweat, and tears and laughter. In a word - work. So yes, validation keeps us working through the desert times. Hearing we've done a good job or getting a diploma when we complete a course affirms us and gives us something suitable for framing. Seeing the fruits of labor are a cool drinks of water that give us sustenance. And in many traditions, having the external sign such as laying on of hands, reflects the internal grace of a call to ordained ministry. Having the externals, in the best way, reflect our internal selves or give others a sure way to identify your ministry, at least in a surface way. I display my seminary diploma (which takes up half a wall). I wear a clergy collar at times. I have my parish's bumper sticker on my car. So yes, I have a few certificates of validation. We all do.

But those certificates, mine or anyone's, are not the essentials of ministry, and when we make them the essentials, we get ourselves stuck (and we all get stuck, too). Essentials have nothing to do with externals. The best ministry often occurs in ways that can't be added to our resumes or discussed in an nominating committee's interviews. The deepest, holiest ministry, the essentials, are not certificates, credentials, or honorifics. They go directly to the teachings and ministry of Jesus, who does not seem to be an alumni of any institution of higher education, but he did eventually get an honorific. I suppose, however, if you are betrayed, crucified, and rise again, you get to add Christ to your name.

What would Jesus say the essentials of ministry are? What are the most important parts of our ministries? Are they the number of things we've done? Or are do we instead value the quality of things God has invited us to do? Do we find validation in the size of things, meticulously measuring how big or how many? Or do we see the essentials in small gatherings with people who have very little, but who are willing to share their stories and experiences with you. Perhaps an essential for ministry is the ability to sit quietly in the storms of human lives and just not know, resisting the seduction of usefulness (not my line - from my Bishop) and the violence of unsolicited advice. Perhaps an essential for ministry is recognizing that none of us have any real idea what God is calling us to do as we fumble and stumble into the abyss of love and service with God anyway. Perhaps an essential is being willing to fail and admitting our failures, as much as we're willing to claim and announce our success.

Maybe, just maybe, the essential of ministry is to spend our lives, however we may serve the people of God, by allowing God's grace to shine through us, letting those we meet on this pilgrimage of life know that they matter and are loved. No. Matter. What.

That seems to be the essential of Jesus's ministry.

But I'm still pretty envious of that press pass, and I think the Rev. Laurie Brock, Jedi Knight, has a particular ring to it.

What No Priest wants to hear on his or her sabbatical.

2011-03-15T17:26:00.001-04:00

1. Hey, I know this is your sabbatical and all, but …

2. I am not sure I can fit into this spandex number for church, why am I suppose to wear this every Sunday?

3. You know the term “bat in the belfry”? It’s not just figure of speech anymore.

4. Nothing to worry about, it was a small fight, but I did tell the police that my name is Father Your Name.

5. I think I can get those stains out of your rugs, but you know what? You have lovely wood floors.

6. Has your dog always chewed furniture like that?

7. How much do you think a green, left side panel for a Porsche costs?

8. Oh hi, I just thought I would call to chat.

9. I love this new work schedule, but shouldn’t someone be here during the week?

10. God can really take something bad and make it good. Worshipping outside is really great! I think you will grow to love it when you return.

11. Some might look at this as a disaster, others might see opportunity. I am seeing a capital campaign worth of opportunity.

12. Do you know what might be flammable in your office?

13. This hand puppet ministry is really taking off!

14. I am really enjoying these Sundays without a sermon, but it’s a little odd not having any priests at church.

15. Are acolytes supposed to be wearing cut offs, tank tops, and flip flops instead of albs? This is the Episcopal Church, for heavens sake!

16. When did we phase out the organ? For that matter, when did we phase out the building?

17. The Bishop has been coming around, and he is piping mad!

18. Angelina and Brad came by about a wedding. They wanted you to do it, but I told them you were on your sabbatical and to beat it!

19. Which of the copes is your favorite? Please not the white ones, please not the white ones.

20. God bless homeowners insurance! Where might your policy be?

Shedding Shells

2011-03-10T22:39:00.000-05:00

I don't actually care for the taste of lobster. I know, I know, it's a high-priced crustacean and a carrier for butter, and the latter usually means I think it's a fine food. And don't get me wrong: I'll eat lobster drenched in butter. I just prefer a nice rare filet sizzling in butter. About the only thing I won't eat with butter are brussel sprouts, but that's another post.

What I do like about lobsters: they remind us about lenten growth. Actually, almost all of nature has some truth about God or the cycle of faith in some way. But we're in lent, and lent is an old English word for spring, and spring is about growth (just so you follow the logic). And lobsters, like most living things, grow. They are hatched into the sea world looking a great deal more like mosquitoes than lobsters, and live as floating little bugs until time passes and they begin to resemble the lobsters most of us see in the restaurant tank. Lobsters are crustaceans, meaning they have a shell. A nice, hard, protective shell that discourages all of the other neighbors under the sea from eating them. Underneath that shell, the living tissue that is the body of the lobster grows. Lobster shells lack spandex, so when the living body of the lobster grows to a certain size, something has to give.

That something is the shell. Thus, our lobster friends molt. They shed their shells in a process that, after reading, pretty much ensured I won't eat lobster for a while. Now we have Mr. Lobster who has outgrown his shell and molted said shell. Because the option is shed or die, and the natural process is to to live a bit longer and molt. Except there's a catch (isn't there always). To grow and live, our lobster friend must be exposed to all manner of danger until the new shell hardens.

Yep, Mr. Lobster is now Mr. Naked Lobster who wishes he could live in a pineapple under the sea until the new shell becomes hard enough to discourage others from dining on lobster lunch. Eventually the newly exposed shell hardens and the lobster continues to grow until the whole process begins again.

Growth, apparently, involves risk for many levels of the created order. Lobsters and humans are no exception.

While we like growth in theory, it always comes with risk. Always. As our souls grow, the shells we've developed from previous experiences and older understandings must be shed. Of course, we can resist growth. We can decide that life and faith as we've lived them are completely perfect, so any need of growth is always someone else's problem and never ours. Many do, and I direct them to look at ancient pictures of Chinese foot binding, because when growth is stifled, deformity will be the consequence.

But when the growth cycle is allowed, we will find circumstances where God is calling us to shed our shells. That itself is a fairly unpleasant experience, as we've blogged before. But even more frightening seems to be the time afterward, after we've shed the shells of previous expectations and assumptions, after we've released old ideas and older prejudices, and we are naked in the universe on our journey with God. We might not be where we were, but we aren't safe (or at least our version of safe). We are exposed and vulnerable to the forces that would discourage us from growth; that would convince us that the old ways are just fine and we should go back to our old selves; and that would whisper words of anxiety and doubt. We should go back and find our shells and squeeze ourselves back into them.

Can't breathe? That's okay. You're safe.

Can't move? That's fine. You're safe.

Can't live? That's fine. Better to die safe than to live vulnerable.

Because that's the price of straining to live in our old shells and refusing to grow.

Living without a shell is frightening, for good reason. But the Lenten journey of Jesus and his friends reminds us that living in constant fear of anything is tantamount to ceasing growth. Growth happens when we realize we were wrong because the cock has finally crowed three times; when we recognize we can't stay where we were, even if we aren't sure where, exactly, we are going. Growth happens when we choose to walk away from hurtful relationships lived on another's terms and feeling akin to settling (because it is), even when living on our own terms may mean we seem to be alone, for a while. Growth happens when we are disappointed in a situation, and decide to take responsibility to change. Growth happens when we recognize a hurtful, distressing pattern, and we're done with responding in the same old way. Growth happens when living under rocks because we're afraid we'll be eaten just doesn't work anymore, and we venture forth. Growth happens when we lose sight of the shore and dare to sail on the open sea, trusting that the ruach of God will guide us to new adventures.

So this Lent, I pray that skins and shells are shed (take Advil when the pain gets bad), and that we are vulnerable and brave enough to grow.

The other option won't allow you to wear cute shoes.

Giving Up for Lent

2011-02-27T19:07:00.000-05:00

Okay, one of the amazing things about moving to a new place is realizing people actually read this blog who aren't related to either of the authors. Who knew? A priest I recently met said about the blog, "You are one of the fun, fabulous voices of the church." That compliment is the equivalent of this dessert at a local restaurant called "Little Black Dress" - it's chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup and about twelve other layers of chocolate. But I digress.

These voices of the church is offering a few things we'd like the church and her people to fast from during Lent. Even, perhaps, for longer. For your perusal.

1. Using the word Nazi to mean anyone other than those who actually did partake in the tragic events of World War II. I last heard this when a priest was calling another priest a liturgy Nazi. I mean, seriously? Simply because someone does liturgy differently than others does not mean that in the back of his/her mind, between the Sanctus and the Lord's Prayer, s/he is planning to embark on ethnic cleansing. As a whole, the people of God would be far better off if we discarded calling each other names.

2. Using "should" as a personal directive. Arun Gandhi recalls that his grandfather (yes, that Gandhi) observed that the most prolific forms of violence were unsolicited advice. I'll let that sink in a bit, because it's a form of violence in which most, if not all of us, are complicit. Telling people what they should do, from a book they should read to how someone should respond to God - yep, all forms of violence. Perhaps we might simply encourage a person read a book you really enjoyed or simply listen to someone without offering any advice.

3. Letting go of dualism. That nasty either-or thinking that, by itself, isn't particularly evil, but we humans have a spectacular way of taking lots of things and tarting them up, don't we? Dualism is that nature that says for me to be right, you have to be wrong. We've likely all had the experience of negating someone else to prove our own point (or perhaps our self-worth), and we've also been on the other end of that experience - being negated by someone. Spiritual maturity does not need to tear down another to support one's understandings (i.e. call someone a Nazi because s/he likes Gregorian chant). A truth of Love: that there are many, many ways to be right. The most courageous sense of right is knowing that God is constantly revealing to us, so something we embraced as "right" at one time may indeed not be "right" as we delve deeper into God. Letting go of dualism means living into the love of a God who is unafraid of mistakes, including our own.

4. Making friends with Fear. We all know her/him (mine's a her). That voice that convinces you that you are going to mess things up so badly that you decide to cocoon into some life of stasis or (even worse) let someone else's unsolicited advice be your gospel. From one of the DioLex Goddesses: take Fear out for coffee (or wine or bourbon, depending on the day). Let her have her voice. Hear his big concerns. Don't offer unsolicited advice. Instead, listen. Cry, even, because if you aren't emotional when you're connecting with Fear, you've met her cute cousin Ego, and getting to know her won't help you. Share your darkest thoughts, and watch what happens. When I've made peace with Fear, I've been honored to meet her soul mate, Courage. I wonder if the Church regularly sat for coffee with the Church's fears, would the same happen.

5. Thinking bigger is better. That only works for chocolate. And even then, if it's a giant bar of sub-par chocolate, I'll pass. Roughly quoting from a sermon I heard: how many people do we think Jesus needs to make ministry matter? Big has a place. So does small. This is the church. Egalitarianism should reign. Love is most important. Save bigger is better for the offensive linemen in SEC football.

6. Pretending monologues are dialogues. If, when one has finished talking, that one does not really care what the other person has to say and has no real intent on listening, much less responding, to the other's truth, we have engaged in a monologue. A dialogue creates space for all voices, dissenting ones included. And for the advanced class: dialogue may mean you realize you are wrong. A monologue generally means you are completely unconvinced you could ever be wrong.

7. Ill-fitting clergy shirts. This is Dirty Sexy Ministry, after all. For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE someone make a female clergy shirt that doesn't fit like a box with buttons. Well-tailored pleats and darts that recognize women have curves. And if it didn't cost some absurd amount of money, that would be even better. Almy, WomenSpirit, and Wipple - this is not rocket science.

Anyone Interested in a Dirty Sexy Ministry Conference?

2011-02-23T12:12:00.000-05:00

Hey gang!

We were wondering if anyone would be interested in actually coming to a Dirty Sexy Ministry Conference/ Retreat. Are you interested? Curious? We promise crazy sessions. You will return home with a hernia from laughter, promise!

Let us know. Comment below.

Much love,
Mary and Laurie

The Ballad of Booger Joe and Honey Butt

2011-02-23T12:08:00.001-05:00

When I was a little girl, my father told me the story of Booger Joe. His friend’s son wanted a G.I Joe action figure for Christmas. The child was excited about the toy, and he shared his excitement with his older brother. His older brother’s reply was: “Why would you want a Booger Joe doll?” The boy would cry back “No, no, I want a G.I. Joe,” but the teasing began.

From that time forward, any time the boy spoke about the G.I. Joe, his brother would cry: “Booger Joe!” The little boy would object, but after a while, he gave up defending his choice and himself. When Christmas rolled around, and the G.I Joe unwrapped, the little boy no longer wanted his G.I. Joe action figure. Disappointment was all around. The little boy’s brother successfully ruined his little brother’s Christmas.

Now certainly the older brother might not have meant to ruin the little boy’s Christmas, but then again, maybe the older brother did mean to. Did the brother think that he was being funny? Did the older brother really have an objection to G.I. Joe? I seriously doubt it. My theory is that the older brother was being like older siblings are apt to be. He was teasing just to tease. He did not really care either way, but the little boy did care what his brother’s opinion was.

The little boy wanted his brother to join in his joy. He wanted him to say: “Cool” or maybe if the older brother had a useful opinion: “No, you don’t want a G.I. Joe, you want Cobra Commander. He has more weapons and a disguise.” I think the little boy would have even been fine with just a shrug or “beat it!” Instead the older brother ruins the toy for the little boy, neither because the toy was dangerous, nor because there might be something more awesome, but just because. Aah siblings!

As you might imagine growing up with three siblings, my father shouted the warning many times. “Don’t Booger Joe it!” Or perhaps even he would say: “Don’t be a Booger Joe” which meant that you were pretty much acting like a jerk to your sibling, trying to ruin his or her innocent fun. After the warning, and if the “booger joeing” continued, bottoms met a sore fate. That generally got the point across.

Even now, I use the term. I am surprised by how many people seem to understand it without the explanation. I guess they too learned the legend of Booger Joe. I imagine many of them have experienced “Booger Joeing.” Perhaps they were excited about a new job or relationship only to hear from a friend or family member: “Why would you want to do that?” Maybe they wanted to try something new, make a change in their life, and they heard: “Ugh, that sounds stupid or dangerous or…”

It is amazing the power of Booger Joe in others and ourselves. Frankly, it takes a strong person to withstand Booger Joe and pursue his or her desires or dreams, despite how silly they may seem to everyone else. And to those Booger Joes out there, it takes very little energy to gossip and be critical about something you do not care about, but it takes even less energy just to be supportive and smile. Perhaps if a Booger Joe could recognize his or her jealousy of another person being happy, he or she could join in that happiness.

Now, with all this said about Booger Joe, one might think that all critique and criticism is Booger Joeing. One might conclude that instead of having any contrary opinion, one must always be supportive and positive. That has a name. It is called “Honey Butting.”

To “Honey Butt” is to always see the bright side even when there is not a bright side. A “honey butt” is in fact a description of a Grizzly Bear’s honey covered bottom. Sure, it has honey on it, but you do not want to eat that honey. Think about it. For that matter, you might want to start running from the bear before it turns around and catches you trying to lick honey off its rear end.

“Honey Butting” often accompanies internal phrases like: “Who am I to judge” or “If it makes you happy” or “I guess this could work” or “Sure, I am okay with that” or “Yeah, y'all make a great couple.” To “Honey Butt” does not mean that the situation is necessarily dire, but that you are trying to make the best of it, being a good sport, but actually you should just get out of the situation. You are trying to convince yourself that you are happy, when a change is in order to get you to true happiness.

We all walk a fine line between Booger Joe and Honey Butt, but we can walk that line. We can be supportive and use good judgment. We can pursue our dreams, but we can also ask for help and advice from those who really love us. I think that might be the key in dealing with Booger Joe and Honey Butt. We have to really love each other enough to tell the truth in love, with love and to encourage in love, with love.

Upstairs, Downstairs, and Maniples

2011-02-17T12:41:00.001-05:00

In a moment of, "I need to take a mindless break" a few days ago, I did what many Episcopal priests (and perhaps a few other liturgically-based clergy) do: I looked at vestments online. I just happened to be called to serve in a church that blends high fashion and prayer in one nifty place: church vestments. Vestments, like all fashion, has its highs (copes and maniples) and lows (cassock, surplice, stole); its ordinary (polyester blend) and fabulous (hand-embroidered silk); its absolutely stunning (Holy Rood) and its you should have let someone else with fashion sense select vesture. I, of course, found this glittering gold silk embroidered number complete with maniple. I decided it would look great with my snakeskin heels, but also figured there were better ways to spend money right now, as well. I did post it on my Facebook page to share, and wondered how long my other liturgically-oriented friends would take to notice the maniple.

Maniples, for those of you not so inclined to high church, are now ornamental vestments, worn only during the actual Mass by subdeacons, deacons, priests, and bishops on their left forearms. There are all sorts of rules about when it is and isn't worn that are neither here nor there for most of us, because most clergy I know have never worn one, nor would care to wear one. They are often strips of beautifully embroidered fabric with loops and bands to keep it on one's arm during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. It's almost fallen out of use, actually, probably with the advent of air conditioning, as it seems to have originally been a holy handkerchief, used to wipe sweat away or any wine that got spilled by clergy. Apparently, even ancient Christians frowned upon drops of sweat falling on the bread and wine. All of the clergy assisting at the holy meal wore it, like a really well-heeled maitre'd, to clean up any messes.

A friend of mine had a seminary professor who bewailed that the servant ministry of the ordained began dying when they quit wearing maniples. I'm not sure that the demise of clergy who remember and actively live their vows of service and obedience can be traced to the lack of a strip of fabric among vesture, but the prof recognized something - that we clergy types are indeed servants, holy waiters who prepare and serve the holy meal, who clean up messes when we can, even make a few every now and then. When we forget that, we lose part of our selves.

Being a servant isn't something most of us like. We might like the idea. If I had a dollar for every priest I've heard talk about "servant ministry," I could buy that chasuble I saw with money left over for two pair of new shoes. Watching the classic British miniseries, "Upstairs Downstairs" and its newer cousin, "Downtown Abbey," I see servant ministry in a more tangible way. The servants are the foundation of those homes with their cooking, cleaning, listening to the conversations, responding to what needs to be done - all while having their own lives. If you haven't seen either, they are worth a look. Our modern sensibilities are not so attune to the reality of servant hood because most of us have never seen servants. We've had the creative freedom to make servant hood as painless and fun as we'd like, rejecting the parts that don't work for us because we'd be more servant like and less boss. I wonder how many clergy would do as good of a job as the servants in, "Upstairs Downstairs." I wonder how many would see that work as beneath us, instead opting to be the bosses who live upstairs who quite unaware of the servants' work.

Servant ministry, like loving our enemies, sounds wonderful in theory, but in practice, it's God calling us to stretch and be uncomfortable. Servant ministry is about finding that place between making it not all about me, and not becoming a doormat to everyone. Servant ministry is about finding your own gifts and strengths in ministry while making space for others' gifts and strengths instead of bullying them into silence and exclusion. Servant ministry is about offering ourselves to God for guidance instead of offering ourselves to our own egos for validation. Servant ministry is hard and even awkward (like celebrating with a maniple). Having our work often go unseen isn't fun, but good servants and their works are unseen in many ways.

As are maniples. When worn with a chasuble, they blend in. Celebrating with one requires a bit more attention, lest you whack the chalice with the band of silk and really have a mess to clean up. But even if we do, that's okay, because good servants know how to clean up elegantly, as well.

What Do You Do with a Lie?

2011-02-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

What do you do with a lie?

What do we do when we are confronted with the harsh, sharp reality that the friendship and relationship we thought we had with a person isn't what we thought? What do we do when we realize that the trust and words, laughter and love, even, we had with someone feel like a fraud. What do we do when we are confronted with a truth we had been willing to ignore, explain, or excuse, until a particular moment?

A painful moment, actually, for most of us, when this truth appears. Perhaps it's the email or text from the other man or woman that cannot be understood as anything but what it is. Perhaps it's the final straw, the argument where truths are spoken that hit us like cold water. Perhaps it's the moment when, after a struggle within a friendship, one has the chance to claim responsibility for a hurtful action (usually something done to the other, but not to the other's face), but passes the blame or denies the event or words.

And in that moment, we know. We know that what had been will likely never be again. We know that the love and trust have been damaged. We know that the moment when the lie appears, it cannot be undone or untold.

What do we do with that moment?

That moment is rarely just a moment. That moment is usually the apex of several moments over time where we heard that voice within us, or we heard that voice from friends, who wondered aloud about things that didn't feel honorable and right to our very souls. We might have explained away the other moments. We might have ignored them. We might have taken on the blame for the dissension and problems.

"This is just me. I need to try harder."

"I'm being difficult. After all, s/he would never betray the friendship like this."

"All relationships go through rough times. It's a phase."

Maybe it is. We hope that, don't we, that all rough patches are just a phase, that our trust in another was well-placed and our love for the other, friend or otherwise, was worth giving. So we believe.

Until circumstances don't allow us to believe anymore. Until the moment when the lie shows us the truth, that our trust was not well-placed and that our agape or philio was not returned in a healthy, differentiated way.

So what do we do?

We listen to the truth, and in some circumstances, speak our truth, even if that truth is only safely spoken to God and our very own souls. A reality is often the lies from the other tell us s/he will not respect our truths. Our truth may be we second-guessed our instincts and our truth to capitulate to someone else, to hope the relationship would work somehow, someway. Sometimes we denied our truth for the lie because we simply couldn't work with the truth. Women stay in bad marriages for the insurance. People stay in oppressive jobs because they can't afford the loss of income. People stay in bad friendships or relationships because they are fearful of loneliness.

An interesting truth about God - it takes darkness to expose the light. Light a candle in the middle of bright sunlight, and it's difficult to see. Light that same candle in the pitch dark, and there it is, shining brightly and mightily. Perhaps for us to see our truths about how we relate to someone and why we are still engaged with another person whose actions are undifferentiated, perhaps smothering, and even hurtful, we need the darkness of the lie.

And in that moment, when we are overwhelmed by the darkness that is hurtful and sorrowful and even at times dangerous, we feel the truth. Sorrow will not kill us. Resurrection always comes, albeit only after we've laid in the tomb for a while. Some relationships are not good for us, and the Godly thing is that they end.

In the darkness, we wail and cry. We doubt ourselves and wonder how we could have believed the lie, why we didn't see the signs (or pay attention to them). In the darkness, we sit. Until we feel strong enough to discard the lie and admit our truth.

Until we feel strong enough to go forward with a new question: What do you do with the truth?

Outerwear

2011-02-03T10:18:00.000-05:00

Finally, the Parochial Report is done. For those of you not engaged in full-time Episcopal clerical ministry, the Parochial Report is the yearly statistics and figures conglomeration for the National Church (lovingly called the Vatican among certain circles) and Dioceses. It asks questions about annual budget; average Sunday attendance (insert comment here about the number of rectors who pad that number); the number of Holy Eucharists, Baptisms, Confirmations, and other sacraments celebrated, among other things. Useful data, all in all. And required, because if we don't get them in on time, we get pointed emails reminding us if we don't get the reports in, our hair will turn an unattractive shade of liturgical green.

Parochial reports and their denominational cousins give us a picture of the outerwear of our churches. They show us the outside numbers of our churches. Were our pledges up or down? Are fewer people coming to church on a Sunday or more people? Hey, look, we prayed the Daily Office 127 times last year - aren't we spiritual!

And therein is the danger, that we allow these outerwear numbers to be the whole picture of our faith communities. We wave the numbers on these reports around in the air as merit badges of faith. We draw conclusions from those numbers that might or might not be correct, like seeing a lovely Burberry trench coat on a man and assuming he's a well-heeled British royal who shops at the finest stores, when in fact, upon closer inspection, the Burberry is really an illegal knock-off he bought in Brooklyn, and the guy can barely speak American slang, much less the Queen's English.

Outerwear is, of course, just the shell, the most visible part of ourselves. Outerwear is the easiest part to see. We don't have to do much work to get that information - it's right in front of us. We and our communities are composed of deeper layers.

The whole value of a faith community is never limited to outerwear, the mere surface view that can be quickly attained from a few graphs and reports. Numbers are information. Faith is about imagination, love, and hope - all massively unquantifiable elements. Information salves our anxieties. The more we gather, the better we feel about our decisions and truthfully, ourselves. Imagination is about risk, about embracing uncertainty. Information is having the answers, then asking the questions. Imagination is daring enough not to even know the questions, but to surrender to the movement of God. Abraham and Sarah, Mary and Joseph, even Simeon and Anna, did not engage in task forces and review ten-year graphs about God's trajectory before falling into God.

Holy imagination invites us, if not demands, that we look deeper within and challenge the world view that bigger is always better. Information allows us to assume that because our average Sunday attendance is increasing and we have scads of money in our coffers that we are most certainly a 5-star parish, but what does imagination say about Jesus' comments about the least of these? Information gives us the easy way to say that because we had 789 services this year, we are a very spiritual church. Imagination coerces us to accept that spirituality is not quantifiable, but certainly observable in our day-to-day lives in a faith community.

This is not to say that all churches should strive to be broke and have diminishing attendance. Not at all. But the outerwear data of our faith is just that - outerwear information that will never, ever give us the complete picture of who a faith community is. Use information carefully as data, not as a replacement for imagination. We can collect all the data we like, but it will never give us the sure and certain faith that we humans want, which is that we are wholly in control of everything. We are not. We are mostly in control of ourselves and our willingness to fall into God's loving imagination. That confidence of living in love comes from actually living, actually recognizing that the big tells of who a community truly is cannot be entered in a box on line 4a.

The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

2011-01-29T22:38:00.001-05:00

For our Dirty Sexy Ministry family, we thought you'd like to read the sermon preached by one-half (Mary) at the other half's (Laurie) installation as rector and the Celebration of the Ministry of St. Michael's. We hope you can feel the love, because it was a joyful, amazing night. And yes, we had cupcakes. And champagne.

“The hopes and fears of all these years are met in thee tonight...” Indeed. This evening St. Michael’s installs her new rector. The journey has been long: you have examined your parish, looking at your strengths and weaknesses. You have worked toward developing a profile and putting out what you wanted in a rector. You did your search. You consulted with your bishop and canon to the ordinary. At last, the rector arrived. Now the journey begins again... The relationship begins for real.

With hopes and fears: What is Laurie like? Does she get us? Will she love us? Will she hate us? Do we get her? Will we love Laurie? Will we hate Laurie? How is this all going to turn out?

Aaah the fears of all the years...

You are just beginning your ministry together. But what is ministry? What is it that Laurie is supposed to do? What is expected of you, St. Michael’s Church? The answer is so simple: love one another. A simple command, so obvious, and yet...

You are to love one another. You are no longer servant and master. You are friends. Or at least you are to treat each other as friends. Can you do it?

How do you love someone you just met? How do you keep loving someone year after year? Will love mean that somehow St. Michael’s will never encounter another problem, issue, disaster?

Logically we answer no. Love does not mean never having to say you are sorry. Love means always having to say you are sorry. Love means deciding day in and day out that you will treat the other with respect and care whether or not you feel it. Like I said, love is simple but...

Love is simple but not easy. Loving can be simple but never easy, fraught with good intentions and lousy follow through. Life is a complicated and difficult thing. Helping St. Michael’s Church grow and express its ministry to the world will be complicated and difficult.

There are vestry meetings and shortfalls in budgets. There are arguments about liturgical styles and customs. There are classes to teach, people to visit, and gospels to preach. There will be arguments.

Lord have mercy, there will be arguments. If only church membership and budgets would grow on arguments, but alas... The church does not grow on arguments. The church grows despite arguments and disagreements. The church grows because no matter what we love.

No matter what, we love. No matter what, God loves us. God loved us first, giving us that first taste. That first taste of love that will not be recreated in gimmicks or programs or meetings or good intentions but only when we love.

The church grows in our ministry, a ministry centered on the very foundation of the world, expressed one night on the night before he died for us, when he took bread, blessed it and brake it and gave it to his brothers and sisters and said: “Take and eat this, this is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me.”

“Do this in remembrance of me...” God says: Love in remembrance of me because that is how I live in you. Come together and share your bread, your heart, and I am in the very midst of you, transforming your hopes and fears into a glorious banquet of love.

St. Michael’s, Laurie, this is your night to begin. This is your night to begin that ministry started at the foundation of the world when our God first loved, loving us into life. The ministry of St. Michael’s, the ministry of Laurie Brock are wrapped together in the simple package of love, remember that in remembrance of him.

Outgrowing Closure

2011-01-21T11:50:00.001-05:00

All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insolvable. . . . They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

-Carl Jung

We like resolution, or at least I do, and I'm learning in each moment in this life that I'm not as terminally unique as I like to believe I am. So, we humans yearn for resolution, for a tidy ending, for closure, for no threads left hanging. All our questions about a situation are answered, with no moments where we simply have to understand that we will never know what the heck happened.

Oh yes, we like closure, that imaginary event that gives us a feeling of control, that there is no more left to say or do, and the production has come to a glorious and suitable end. Oh, and did I mention that we feel as if we are in control?

I wonder how much of our desire for resolution is really a desire for control, a desire to fly in the face of that whole, "I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before me," commandment that we violate regularly with the gods of our own egos. I pull out the altar to the Ego God when I start crawling around in someone else's head to find resolution - assigning psychological issues and insane behaviour to the person whose actions I find distasteful. In short, when I blame the other as I polish my halo.

S/He treated me this way because s/he has (and fill in the blank with whatever is issue du jour keeps you in the best light - come on, you all know how to do this.)

But like Jung says, the most important problems in our lives are fundamentally unsolvable. The most important problems. The big ones. The situations we find ourselves in with others that keep repeating themselves. Systems experts and non-experts alike call these patterns. We all have them, these patterns, these important problems in our lives, that recur and recur and recur.

The Ego God whispers seductively to us, "It's that person's problem, not yours. YOU are just perfect." And we can believe and go forward. Until we meet another person with the exact same "problem" and we find ourselves in the exact same situation, just with a brand new cast of characters. We as individuals, as families, and as groups all experience this. And we can begin the exercise of data-collecting, assigning blame, and solving the unsolvable issues.

Or we can grow.

Sounds easy, right?

But growth is never easy or particularly fun. To grow, we must be willing to shed the skin of blame, to have that level of ego ripped from us by the Holy One, and to step into a new place. Our egos, or personas, are these protective layers to our souls that we develop quite well over years. They are often very helpful, allowing us to step into roles as needed or handle painful situations of our past with a minimal amount of danger. They also have a darker side, when we become so invested in our personas that we lose who we truly are, both out good and our bad. We are buried under so much ego that the core of our Child of God can't move or grow. The holy child of our souls is bound and tied, and any growth is stifled or malformed while we work very diligently toward closure for all our problems and toward keeping our ego personas in place at the cost of our core selves.

We keep running into the same problems and patterns because, maybe, God keeps offering us a chance to grow. God keeps hoping maybe, this time, the blame won't work anymore or we'll just finally clue into the pattern and decide the illusions are working anymore and enough is enough.

We might pray, "God's will be done," and mostly mean it, until God says, "Yes!" and gets to work and we realize we forgot to read the fine print. Now that we have stopped looking outside for blame, stopped forcing the illusion of resolution, and given God a minuscule space in which to work, God starts flaying. I understand why all of us avoid growth. We do, initially, because our deep souls know the pain of ego being ripped away so growth can begin. I saw an image of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed alive before being crucified, his skin sawed away from his body. Trust me, it's worse in the picture.

That's what holy growth, the deep kind, feels like. If we can easily release our ego persona to growth, it's not really our ego. It's the shirt from the 80's that we never wore, anyway, so we'll give that away painlessly. The Ego God (and we all have more than one, unfortunately) does not release so easily. She will cling to the soul, and he will wrap around bones and muscles while God is flaying. There will be tears and pain, and we might not think we will live. And, oh, others will mock us and tell us we are wrong for enduring this and we should just cheer up or engage in whatever quick fix would make them feel better, like those who watched Bartholomew be flayed.

But, miraculously, we live and grow. We look at the new skin that appears and see ourselves and the world in a new way. The Child of God within us stretches and takes up more space within us than we have previously allowed. We probably even feel out of control and recognize its holy freedom.

In this new place, we celebrate rebirth, recreation, and renewal.

And eat cupcakes.

To Bertha

2011-01-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

The day before Christmas Eve the adoption worker came to the house for a visit with my soon to be daughter. She brought with her papers for me to sign. She explained that by signing these papers I was saying that I wanted to adopt my little girl. She continued to explain what else had to be done as part of the adoption process.

Before the adoption worker left she presented me with a beautifully wrapped gift. She told me that the gift was from a woman at her church. At her church, parishioners bought presents for all the children in foster care. This gift was for my daughter.

I thanked her. She left. I looked more carefully at the present. There was a card that read: “To my angel (my daughter’s name), from Bertha.” Now, I know the present was for my daughter, but it is really hard for a baby to unwrap presents, so I ripped the package open. Inside the package was expensive baby clothing.

It was the kind of baby clothing that you give to someone at a baby shower- extravagant and adorable. It was the kind of baby clothing that you give your good friend or your sister for a child that you will know and love. Bertha took time, and went to great expense to buy and wrap these outfits for my daughter. I filled with wonder.

I wondered: who is this woman buying expensive gifts for a child she may never meet and does not know? I felt strange receiving such a wonderful and expensive gift from someone I did not know. I felt strange receiving such a wonderful and expensive gift when I certainly could well afford to purchase these items for my child. I wondered: how do I receive this gift? I also wondered: am I this generous?

In the past, I have gotten presents for children from an angel tree, but were the gifts as lavish? Sheepishly, I must answer no. Certainly, I gave nice things, but frankly, I did not put as much thought nor expense in the items I bought. It brings to mind the question: do I give thoughtfully and lavishly?

Sometimes I do give thoughtfully and lavishly when I buy a present for a friend. I also try to give generously to charities and the church. I try to give, but I sometimes find myself wanting to know who is getting this and what are they using it for. Does that person, charity, church deserve my gift? Will my gift be used wisely? I want to control the receiving of the gift, so I guess that is not really a gift anymore.

I think about Bertha, whoever she is. She has given lavishly and thoughtfully with no expectation of return. Can I be generous? Can I give lavishly and thoughtfully with no expectation of return? Will I be willing to give my very best even to a stranger? I certainly hope so.

So Bertha, whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you! Thank you for the beautiful baby clothing. My daughter is all ready wearing them. She looks adorable in them because of you. Thank you.

Thank you, Bertha, for reminding me to give generously, thoughtfully, and lavishly. Thank you for reminding me that what you give to the least of these, you give to Jesus. Thank you for reminding me that what you give to the stranger, you give to Jesus. Thank you, Bertha, whoever you are, wherever you are.

Sincerely,

Mary Koppel

Eviction notice

2010-12-28T10:13:00.002-05:00

Part of my regular Christmas season celebration is having dinner with an old college friend (which is so much more literal now, since it's been almost 20 years since we graduated). The conversation and dinner go like this: wine and bread, accompanying the "Do you remember" chat. On to appetizers, with the catch me up on what you're doing. And the main course, where it takes about 15 minutes for us to get to the good stuff: the I'm not perfect, what was I thinking, and while I share this, I'll need another glass of wine conversation.

Then we linger over dessert, laughing over the people and events who made us doubt or cry or furious since the last time we had dinner.

"So my ex-husband is moving out-of-state," she offered (and yes, she read this and I have total permission to share the conversation).

She took another bite of some thirty-layer chocolate cake.  I waited for her to say she was sad, that she realized feelings or something else.

"Is it bad that I'm so happy I can't stand it? That I'm delighted that he's LEAVING? That, while I don't hate him, I don't want him in my life and soul anymore, that his moving feels like an answer to my prayers?"

Their relationship had been troublesome and difficult for both of them, and running into him unexpectedly (or having him pop into her life, as he had done when she'd asked him to leave her alone) was bad. In fact, it sounded like his leaving was a good thing, giving her holy space. She smiled and let out a breath. "Good. I wondered if being a good Christian meant that I shouldn't feel like that."

I enjoy these moments of priesthood, where, because a bishop and other priests laid hands on me, I have the canonical authority and the Holy Spirit's authority to absolve. I love the moments even more when I get to remind people that forgiveness is not amnesia, nor is it allowing someone to live in your soul rent-free.

Oh, yes, we all have these spiritual squatters in our lives, the people - ex's, acquaintances, coworkers, family members, random people with whom we've gotten entangled - who live rent-free in our souls. Spiritual squatters often manifest as people who turn on that holy voice that says, "End this."  Generally, when I am talking with friends or parishioners or random people, I don't feel that vibration in my soul that says, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" We humans, though, will feel that danger instinct kick in, ignore it and walk right into the emotional trap.   We may want to end the relationship, but as soon as we do, some voice, either the other person's or that annoying "good girl" who is part of our souls, keeps saying, "But you can't just evict someone from your life."

Yes, you can.

As one good friend puts it, relationships, friendships and otherwise, should be like plowing through reasonably good soil. Yes, you'll hit a rock every now and then, but when it feels like you're plowing through concrete all the time, drop the reins, leave the plow, and walk away from the field.

In other words, evict those who are living in your soul rent-free.

We usually engage these spiritual squatters out of fear: fear that evicting them from our lives will hurt too much, will be a mistake, or will signal that we aren't good because we couldn't be friends with such a soul-sucking person. Or we labor under the magical thinking that if we just work hard enough, the relationship will be okay.

The holy truth is that there are people in the world who we encounter, perhaps even build some relationship with, but find that talking to them or being in relationship with them is hurtful and unsafe to us. From the ones who are predators and unsafe emotionally and physically to us on one end to the people who will just constantly deplete our energies and time when we engage them on the other end, these soul-suckers are boundary-less wonders who need some holy eviction papers from our lives.

I've found that when we admit our souls have an unwanted occupant and we've been allowing them that sacred space, God does Her own miraculous work.  The place in ourselves that we were so fearful would be a big hole when the soul squatters left turns out to heal rather quickly, if it even existed at all. We discover that our boundaries are in tact, our soul is complete, and that we have many, many people in our lives who will affirm our decision to evict.    Then we can do our own spiritual work on why we engaged this situation, but that's holy work done later, not with the soul-squatter around.

Our selves and souls are too valuable to allow people to live rent-free, to engage constantly those who are simply not good for us, and our instincts (and great friends) will let you know who these people are in your life. Forgive them, yes. Forgive yourself, too. Wish them no ill will,  and send them on their way, either simply out of your life.

Or out of state.

Either way, the eviction notice has gone out.

The Holy No

2010-12-22T14:21:00.001-05:00

It is only the ability to say no that makes yes a thing worth saying. It is only the ability to say no that makes saying yes mean anything. It is only someone with the ability to say no, even to God, that God could possibly work with in the redemption of the entire creation.
The Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, in the ordination sermon of 20 December 2010
We don't usually think of, "No" as a holy word, a word of God. But it is. It is, in fact, perhaps one of the most important holy words. It is a word of choice, of boundary, of safety, and of, in fact, love. It is a word that reminds us the great responsibility of choice we humans have as we interact with each other and with God. We have options. We can discern. We can say, "Yes," and we can say, "No."

As children, we hear, "No," to protect us. No, don't touch that light socket. No, don't put your hand on that hot stove. No, don't play under the house (seriously, I've said this). We also learn to say no as children to protect ourselves and to begin to learn that we are not simply automatons, but little human beings with the ability to choose, although too many no's result in a time-out and a slightly aggravated parent.

Somewhere in our development, emotionally and spiritually, we learn to hear no as only rejection. And it is, at times. But even those rejections have kept me personally out of trouble and several unfortunate relationships with guys whose p.r. was better than the product. Even as grown-ups, we still need to hear, "No, don't touch that. It's bad for you."

No is a valuable guide in our journey. It serves as a rudder, a word that can direct us in our lives and in our ministries, as well as protect us. The nativity story in Matthew has Joseph rationally deciding quietly to put Mary away, to tell her, "No, I will not marry you." Then he has a dream in which an angel of God says to Joseph, "No, don't do that. Wrong decision, my friend."

Or something along those lines, but we get the picture. No is the word that guides Joseph back on track, that aligns himself with Mary's, "Yes," and with God's plan of salvation. Joseph makes a decision, and God says, "No." Joseph doesn't spend time wringing his hands over how he was wrong or, even better, telling four or five friends how he is actually right and no one will affirm him, not even God, so he will do it his way, anyway. Nope, he just hears God's, "No," regroups, and changes course.

We do, of course, get the edited version. I suspect there was a bit of hemming and hawing about the dream, if not a dash of, "OMG, an angel visited me!" But we do get the point.

Joseph, too, could have said no to God, and God would have resorted to Plan B (or whatever version of the plan God was on at the time). Which makes Joseph going back to Mary and doing as God asked that much more powerful.

We all hear no's in our life. We do. And we say no, as well. Some are unfair. Some are wrong (yes, we make mistakes). And some are exactly what we need to hear or say at that time. Those no's are the hidden jewels in our lives, the ones that give us a prism to view decisions and choices. Truth is, in faith, our yes's to God are intertwined with no's. To say yes to one ministry inevitably means saying no to other ministries. For me to serve as rector of one parish meant saying no to others. And therein is the great value of no, that it means we have to chose and we have to let God and others choose, as well.

What do we do with the no's we hear in our lives? Do we get angry and badger the other until s/he is beaten down and enslaved by our need to hear yes, until the other simply says what we want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not? Do we dismantle and attack the one who said no because we feel rejected, never allowing ourselves to hear their no as a guidepost in our lives, suggesting another direction or opportunity for growth? Or do we find a way to feel whatever hurt we may feel at "no" while offering ourselves to God to change direction, to reconsider, and to rethink?

Hey, I never said hearing "no" was easy. The holiest things in our lives aren't.

No is a holy word. When we hear it with our selves and souls, it can keep us from heading too far afield in our lives or give us time to develop so when we do hear yes, we are ready and willing. When we encounter those who refuse to hear our no's, we encounter a person who doesn't want us to exercise our power of choice in relationship, but instead wants us to be as s/he defines us, not who we truly are. When we learn and mature enough spiritually and emotionally to sink into the holiness of no, we more fully become the someones with the abilities that God can work with in the redemption of the entire creation.

To read Bp. Sauls' complete sermon, click here

Bullies

2010-12-20T14:35:00.001-05:00

There is a lot on the news lately about bullies. Bullying is the problem du jour. Attractive celebrities make cool videos about bullying. We can hear our mothers’ voices in the back of our heads saying: “when you grow up, this will all get better.” Well, we are grown up.

We have grown up, and amazingly enough, the bully has grown up as well. Maybe the hair pulling has stopped, but the ability to inflict pain remains. The name calling has changed and taken on a new level of sophistication.

We are not being pushed off swings, but we are being pushed around. Bullies do not use their fists as much, but they still manipulate, control, and threaten. And we still feel frightened, belittled, and even demoralized.

All the experts say that bullies are cowards really, but a coward with power over another person is still dangerous. All the experts say that bullies have low self-esteem, but when someone is so low, they aim low blows. The question is still the same: what do we do when confronted by a bully?

My impulse is the same as third grade: run! Apparently, everyone else has the same impulse because those bullies still exist. My other impulse is to find a brick, wait for the bully to look away, and then brain the bully. Unfortunately, while that may be satisfying, it would probably lead to meeting more bullies in prison. So what do we do?

What do we do when we are confronted by a bully? What do we do when that bully is our coworker, a clergy person, a neighbor, a sibling, or a spouse? What do we do when our self-esteem is systematically being stripped away?

It is when we are being bullied that we feel the most alone. We feel powerless. Will anyone help us escape? Will anyone be able to stand up against the foe?

But that is what we have to do, isn’t it? We have to stand up against the bully. We have to stand up against the bully alone because no one else is willing or able. We, alone, may even have to withstand the bully’s blows. We must stand toe to toe.

We must stand toe to toe with bullies, wherever they are. We do not have to swing back, but we have to stand up. We must stand up even when we are vulnerable and weak and frightened of the blow to come. We must stand up even when no one else will stand up with us.

Will standing up vanquish the bully? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the bully will stop. Sometimes the bully will pound in your skull. Most importantly though is that standing up will vanquish our inner bully who works overtime to tear down our confidence. And as those experts say, bullies like to prey on those who have low self esteem. As your confidence grows, so does your strength (and safety from bullies).

It is a wonder if bullies will ever eventually disappear. Can we train children out of bullying? Can we confront ever instance of bullying? Will bullying ever really go away? Or will the aggressor and victim just change positions? Will it get better?

I believe it will get better. We have an image of that time and place, where the lamb and wolf lie down together. The playing field is leveled and no one is left out of the game. It will get better when the victim and aggressor will sit together at the table in God’s peaceable kingdom. Until then…

People Look East!

2010-12-16T16:41:00.000-05:00

     From the beginning of the written human experience, the east has been symbolic of birth and rebirth, of creation and recreation. The sun rises in the east to begin each new day. Genesis tells us that God created the Garden of Eden in the east. The powerful east wind of the breath of God drove back the waters of the Red Sea and created a path of liberation for the Hebrews. Even the star of the Magi showed itself in the east. St. John of Damascus instructed early Christians to adore the risen Christ facing east, the place where Jesus ascended to heaven and where he will come again. Early churches were built with their altars facing east so that priests and laity together could celebrate the Eucharist facing the symbolic direction of new life in Christ. Christian burials spoke of hope from the east. Graveyards abound with the feet of the deceased pointed east so they can stand to face the returning Christ. Slaves probably started this custom of burying the dead facing east, because east was not only the direction of the return of the liberating Christ, it was also the direction of home - Africa.

     For Christians and Jews, East is more that a simple map direction. It is our reminder that we are a people of hope in our home with God, no matter how distant that hope or home may seem at times. And there are times when our hopes and homes seem far away.

     Before the Common Era, in the late 6th century, King Nebuchadnezzar decreed that the Jews must leave Israel and Judah. Thus began the Babylonian Exile, a period of about forty years where God’s chosen were forced to leave their homes and families and live in a foreign land. They were forced to leave the temple, which would eventually be destroyed. For our modern faith, we understand the presence of God as with us always, but for the ancient Jews, the temple was it. No other place to worship. No other place to gather for formal prayer. So to be sent out of the land and away from the temple really was, to many, being sent away from God.

     That feeling of exile is a very human experience. Being forced from our homes and lives as they were or as we think they should be. Forced to leave everything and everyone behind, not knowing if we’ll ever see anything familiar again or feel joy again. Even, maybe feeling exiled from our faith and our hope, that all our joy is behind us. We may never experience the tragedy of the Babylonian Exile, but in our world and lives, people are still exiled. We are exiled. Violence tears apart communities and families, flinging them from their land and their lives. Poverty and financial anxiety crush hope in all parts of the globe and in our communities. Human failing exiles those who want to be included. Death exiles us from loved ones, at least for now. And darkness finds all of us in our lives. Tragedy, unfortunate circumstance, sadness, and grief enclose us in the valley of shadows. In short, we all have times in our lives where hope and home seem far away. We all experience exile into sorrow and darkness, to places where we are mired in unhappiness, tragedy, and life gone awry.

     While the holy season of Advent is one of anticipation and waiting, it is also a season where we can admit the difficulty of human life. During this time of year, we are all vulnerable to moments of grief and sadness for loved ones who have died, for disappointments of the past year, for anxiety about the coming year, or for those places where life seems to have jumped completely off the track and hope is too far away to see. Advent is a season where we remember the stories of our ancestors and their exiles into sadness and darkness. In readings and hymns, we hear their laments and their cries, which don’t sound that differently from the laments of our world today. Grief and sorrow are not competitive events; everyone’s wounds hurt. God never asks us to pretend bad things don’t happen in life or that we don’t feel lost and alone, and I worry for those who skip over the grief, who ignore their pain. In our confession of pain and sadness, God finds space to remind us that hope and home are never far away.

     The Scribe Baruch tells Jerusalem, banished from their land, their families, and feeling exiled from their God, to take off the garment of sorrow, and put on the robe of God’s love. Look east, and see hope, see the future, see the glory of a new day. Baruch’s words almost sound pithy. “Hey, I know the past few decades have been really, really bad, but chin up, God’s still God and Israel will walk safely with her Lord,” he writes.

     Pithy, maybe. But Baruch’s words are true, no matter how difficult they may be to hear. And honestly, words of hope and comfort are some of the hardest words for us to hear when we are exiled in the grief of our own worries and troubles. Too often because others are trying to minimize our experience of exile or to redeem darkness. Redemption is God's purview.   And redemption is what the prophets tell us -that our hope in God is never lost. We have to trust that God is God, that God is comforting those in distress, and that God never leaves us alone.

     We are humans living life that is not fair or even fun at times. Tragedy, sorrow, disappointment, and grief are simply facets of the human experience. Advent acknowledges that, despite the happy gloss our culture puts on the season. The wisdom of Advent also reminds us that we are God’s, and that hope and love are always with us. God is with us, loving us and comforting us when we are glorious and loving us when we stumble and fall and make a huge mess of things.

     As Christians, we do not live our new life in Christ so that bad things won’t happen, but to support and sustain us when bad things do happen. We do not pretend that life is filled always and only with joy, but that life is a complex blend of light and darkness, and that somehow, someway, God needs the darkness so we can see the comforting light. Comfort may be God’s work alone, some act of love , mercy, and understanding in the sole purview of the Almighty, and our job is simply to trust in the Holy Comforter.

     So may we indeed have the grace to hear the message of the prophets: not only the message of our call to prepare the way of the Lord, but also by remembering that our hope is in God. May we know deep within our valleys of sadness and despair that our comfort is with God, even when we’re not sure how that comfort will happen or even if it can happen. And may we lift up our heads and hearts, heavy with whatever sorrow, grief, or desperation we may have, and look to the place of new birth, of new life and resurrection, and of new hope.

     So people, look East, and sing today. Love the lord is on the way.

From the sermon preached at St. Michael the Archangel Episcopal Church's Service of Solace.

Joy before us

2010-12-07T14:57:00.002-05:00

Christians are people of hope. It may be hard to believe but true. We are people of hope, like Annie singing about the sun coming out tomorrow we are looking for that sun. We look forward- the tomb is empty, the Lord is on the move. Joy is ahead of us.

Joy is ahead of us, and yet, sometimes it feels like joy is behind us. If you have suffered a trauma (a death, relationship implosion, personal or professional failure) you know what I am talking about. Sure, you are working through the hurt with healing on the horizon, but is joy still out there?

We feel like joy is in the realm of childhood. Once you have been dragged kicking and screaming from that childhood by trauma, it seems that the Garden of Eden is closed with an angel with flaming sword at the gate. Joy was easy before, laughter was easy before. Now, well, you are grown up and you know better.

We are people of hope, but do we have joy? Will we have joy again? It seems impossible. It is impossible…for us. It is impossible for us because joy is a miracle, and we cannot make miracles.

Joy is a miraculous gift, striking at an unknown time in an unknown place, like a thief or bridegroom. When joy strikes, we are offered the opportunity to take that gift. We can say yes, or we can say no. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, healing travels with joy, and so does great risk.

Joy travels with healing and risk. Joy urges us forward. Joy encourages us to say yes even with the possibility of personal danger and loss looming. Joy is before us, glorious with scars in its hands and feet waiting for the Christian to follow with hope.

Does this look like love?

2010-12-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

This is the season of love incarnate. Well, actually, every season in the Christian church is about love incarnate in some form, but Christmas is where we are right now. Stay tuned for other theological musings about incarnate love for other seasons.

Can you imagine the surprise, when the prophets and sages and faithful men and women pondered and hypothesized and prayed about how the incarnate God of love would appear, to discover a baby. A little baby, born in a barn. We may get all cute about a barn at Christmas, but if you've ever spent time in one, it stinks. Cow poo stinks. Sheep wool stinks. Dirty hay, piles of stuff that doesn't lend itself to being scraped off the bottom of your shoe easily, and animals chewing cud and regurgitating. And having been around babies, they don't always smell like a rose, either.

The p.r. people were thinking, "Why not a palace throne room? Even the portico of a nice house? But a barn?"

Oh yes, a barn. Among the least of these. We perhaps should have taken the hint at God's incarnation that love almost always looks a bit unusual and unexpected. Holy love, the pure, honest kind that lifts us up and salves our wounds, is rarely decorated with lace and trimmings. In fact, in my experience, when someone wraps up their proclamations of love with lace and sayings that fell out of a Hallmark card, it's more about appearances than love.

Love incarnate in our lives is also a bit unusual and unexpected. Love's incarnate acts are subtle and imperceptible, even. The funny card in the mail. The moment in the crazy day or week or month where you hear, "Oh, let me take care of this." The quiet morning before an insanely busy day. The memory of a loved one that flashes across our hearts and causes us to smile or laugh. The acts that respond to needs in a good and helpful and healthy way. I have a great pair of Italian leather shoes with the downside of having some coated shoestrings that always, always come untied when I wear them. While walking with one of my friends who loves me, I had to stop for the hundredth time to tie my shoes. Until he knelt beside me and double-knotted my shoes. They are still tied, those knots of love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It looks out for the needs of others without thinking about how others will be beholden to them, without keeping others on some proverbial string. Love blooms where it's planted - barn, homeless shelter, or on the front porch rocking chairs with a glass of bourbon and silly stories. Love doesn't tell you constantly how life without that type of love will be bad, but stands fearlessly and courageously with you (and will also tell you it's okay to be scared). Love laughs at inappropriate moments, cries the ugly cry, and ties uncomplicated knots that rarely come undone.

Love came down at Christmas, just to remind us what it really looks like.

Are you afraid of the dark?

2010-11-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

Who's afraid of the dark? I'd like to pretend I'm Little Miss Brave, but when I walk into my really dark house because I've been gone longer than I thought and failed to leave any lights on, I'm quite certain that shadowy shape in the corner is some snot-nosed monster waiting to jump out and give me a bad haircut. Or something worse. And for us clergy types that have walked into a totally darkened church and the light switches are at the opposite end from where we're standing, most of us feel our pulse quicken just a bit as we wonder what lurks in the dark. Holy space or not, in the total dark, most churches are creepy. Face it, we humans are hard-wired to be afraid of the dark. We can't see what's there.

But flip on the lights, and suddenly the monster in the corner is nothing more than the treadmill with my clergy shirts that are clean but haven't migrated to the closet. Light one candle in a darkened church, and that formerly creepy space becomes holy and prayerful. The shapes and shadows that we can't see in the darkness become less scary, maybe even not scary at all, in the light. The darkness, with a bit of light, becomes something that can helps us be quiet and focus, perhaps even surrender ourselves to God.

One of God's more annoying habits is constantly offering us the opportunity to face our fears, those mistakes we make and make and make, those parts of our souls that are darkness. The big fears that we rarely admit to others, if we even fully admit them to ourselves. Fear of loss of love, fear of not being enough, fear of being alone and abandoned, and fear of failure, to name a few. The big fears that we all have, in some form or another. The darkness and shadow of ourselves that we'd rather ignore, but we will always find ourselves stumbling into these fears and the mistakes and messes they cause again and again.

Sometimes we pretend we don't have any fears. Me? I'm not scared of anything. I'm so self-aware that I know ALL of my fears and have dealt with them accordingly. Or, we pick some fears, like, Hugh Jackman and Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream and hope that God will make us face those fears accordingly. Another clue of our fears? The things we hate, really hate, in others. Or when we blame others for their actions that trigger our fears, although usually that trigger manifests as anger and we lash out, adding even more darkness to the situation. Interestingly enough, our fears are almost always triggered by other people, who have their own fears. It's a lovely mess, isn't it?

Ahh, what fun.

But we have a choice. We can continue to wrap ourselves in our darkness, ignoring our fears and blaming others for upsetting our lives. We can dismiss those whose presences throw light on our fears. Lots of people take that path, because it's really the easy way. Or we can stand still and see what's in the darkness of those deep fears, trusting that the light of God will give us enough sight to see, enough light to ease the terror we may feel.

God doesn't confront us with our fears and darkness because God enjoys seeing us miserable (although a few times I've wondered). God recognizes that we aren't perfect and never will be on this side of the Kingdom. Something fascinating about God's balance, that for us to see light, we must have darkness. Fears never go away, but we can lessen them so they don't cause paralyzing terror and mayhem in our lives. Perhaps we can even use them to let God's light shine a bit brighter.

So when we are sitting in our darkness and God lights that candle, resist the urge to snuff it so we can stay in the darkness. Perhaps the holy thing is to shiver and shake if need be as God continues to shed light on our deepest fears, until we find the holy strength to own them as part of our divine selves. After all, God does carve the rotten wood and needs darkness to allow light to shine.

Crutches: Free to Good Home or Whoever May Need Them

2010-11-21T14:51:00.001-05:00

I've moved. However diligent I may pretend to be about culling through my belongings and only moving things I use, really use, that lofty goal makes it through the first five boxes I pack on my own. Then, I surrender to the movers, who just pack it all. I'll sort it out when I get to my new home, I offer to no one in particular other than my own conscious.

Now I'm in my new home and unpacking. A friend who's moved a few times in her military career explained the three box theory to me. Put three boxes in a room. One is garbage, things I have that need to end their lives of use because they are broken or just worn out and have no hope of being recycled. And be harsh, she said, because no one needs your broken answering machine or the cracked glassware that didn't make the move, no matter if it is Lenox. Box two: the things that I definitely don't need anymore, but someone might. Various charitable stores will be happy to take the mismatched dishes I've never really used, books I've read that I don't want to keep, and that tragic printed towel set I received as a gift from a long-deceased great aunt. The last box is the tough one: things that had a place in my last life and home, but just don't seem to fit anywhere in my new life and home. Or, let's be honest, stuff for which I never really had a place, but like keeping, because somehow I decided keeping those twelve dessert cups will ensure my place in heaven. I was advised to live in my new space for a while, but when it's time, be willing to let go of the shower curtain that doesn't match the new bathroom or the picture frames that don't seem to fit anywhere. Let them go to a new, good home or whoever may need them.

As you can imagine, the last box is the tough one. Eventually, almost everything in this box will end up being given away if you engage the process, according to my friend. Getting to that admission, however, takes a bit of detachment. As I looked at a stack of picture frames and a few thousand plastic hangars which seemed to appear out of nowhere, I started that internal dialogue about how I might use these one day, and maybe I'd better save them, just in case.

"Just in case...what?" My sassy pirate-side of my soul asked. Plastic hangars suddenly become a valuable currency? You just happen to need twelve picture frames that are chipped or just ugly? They are taking up space, just like those crutches in the corner.

Oh, yes, the crutches. I broke a bone in my foot a few years ago and somehow ended up owning the crutches. So I kept them. While my bone was healing, they were quite handy. They did their pretty limited task of helping me walk very well. When I couldn't stand or walk on my own, those crutches were quite the amazing presence in my life. Then my bone healed, and I stuck the crutches in a hall closet. I might break another bone, so better to keep them, I reasoned. No matter that the odds of that happening were slim. Or that if I did break a bone or do something that hampered my mobility, I might receive a new pair of crutches that didn't have the rubber grips dry rotting.

Nope. I just kept this old pair for several years, dragging them around as I moved, letting them take up space wherever I lived.

We all have the crutches in the corner, the crutches of our lives we once needed to help us stand or walk because we were injured, physically, emotionally, or spiritually (and if you don't think you have any because you've never been injured, well...). My crutches, at least the ones leaning in the corner, were tangible, but I've got a few of those symbolic crutches, too. We all do - those thoughts, excuses, people, or behaviors that we needed at some point to help us when we were injured, battered, tired, and bruised. Then one day, we realized the bones had mended, the fabric of the soul is rewoven, and our bruises have faded. We can walk, run, sing, dance, or do whatever God is inviting us to do. So we drop the crutches and leave them, right? Like the people Jesus healed who trusted Christ's healing and went on, crutch-free?

Sometimes. But many times, I think we have to drag them around for a while, letting them take up space in our lives, in our homes, and in our selves. We know we are healed, but we keep wondering if the healing took, if we are really living this new creation. Maybe we even try to recycle the crutches. Maybe I can use these in the garden, we think. Yes, a trellis. That will work. And sometimes, crutches do get recycled, but God does that and said recycling feels good and right, not something to drag around that lives in our soul rent free.

Jesus, through the voices of our own soul and the voices of friends, keeps saying, "Really, you're okay. Why are you keeping what you don't need anymore?"

But we do keep what we don't need anymore, just in case. Eventually we come to believe, to know that God will provide new ones, when we need them. Ones that aren't dry rotted. Ones particularly suited to our new injury. But dragging around the old ones takes energy and space in our lives. Oh yes, we remember them and give thanks as we release them, but they don't need to take up space anymore, not even a small corner in a tiny closet.

My foot is healed and has been for some time. So they go, those well-used and appreciated crutches. Now I pass them on to whoever may need them.