Category Archives: everyday theology

I Forgot to Be Afraid

June 15, 2016everyday theology, memoir, musings, UncategorizedConnie Tuttle

In 1973 I fell in love with a woman. We walked down the street holding hands and swinging our arms, laughing and I, filled with some kind of holy joy, sang the Doxology. I was so happy I was sure the whole world would be happy with me. All the world loves a lover, so they say.

That’s the last time I felt safe. Before that I knew I was not safe as a woman. Keys in hand when I approach my car. Not going out at night alone. Heightened awareness of my surroundings. How I traverse the world are so internalized I usually am not conscious of why I make the choices I do. Usually not conscious of the underlying fear that has become a part of me.

Being LGBT invites a different kind of fear. Some of us use the privilege of our appearance to feel safe. Some can’t. Many don’t want to. I chose to be open about who I am, not trading in on my appearance, understanding the possible consequences.

Being gay, whether you are out or not, means being bombarded with hate speech, threats of violence, actual violence, rejection by loved ones, communities, and spiritual homes. It takes a strong person to move in the world as openly LGBT. When gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court we believed the tide was turning. And it is. It also became a call to arms for our haters. In my better moments I realize that what drives the haters is fear.

So then North Carolina happens, legislating base discrimination. And then Orlando happens and our worst fears are met. The denial we found comfort in when it doesn’t happen to us is the same denial women lean toward when another woman is raped or harmed. “It won’t happen to me because I make different choices.” We use it as a psychological shield because it is intolerable to live in constant fear. The truth is, one can only handle so much hatred, rejection and violence. That is why so many of our LGBT young people commit suicide. That is why the need for safe spaces, like Pulse, like affirming churches, like safe campuses, are so important to us.

Our brothers and sisters were killed and injured in what we thought was a safe space. They walked through the doors and let out the breath they were holding. No hate speech here. No rejection. No hatred. Only the freedom of one another’s company. It is a good thing to not be afraid.

Sometimes I forget to be afraid. I pray for the day when we can forget to be afraid: African-Americans, women, LGBT, immigrants, our haters… The task before us, our nation and our world, is to confront the ignorance that perpetrates fear and anger wherever it raises its hideous head. In the boardroom, the classroom, the chambers of government, the sanctuaries of churches.

We have a big job ahead of us. Let us proceed with courage in the memory of those who were murdered and in honor of all of us who survive.

Death and the need for mortality officers

May 25, 2016everyday theology, musings, spiritual practiceConnie Tuttle

When my father, a retired army sergeant, passed away at the age of 79, the army sent a mortality officer to our home. He attended the military funeral and then, over the next several weeks, came to the house and walked my mom through all the required paperwork: getting the death certificates, contacting the army and civil service regarding retirement benefits, dealing with bank accounts and insurance.

In the midst of my mother’s and our family’s grief a sympathetic outsider helped manage all the details of death.

Recently my brother-in-law, a retired Air Force officer, passed away and I called the base nearby. They put us in touch with a ‘casualty officer’ who performed the same services.

As a pastor I have been a ‘mortality officer’ for members of my community at times. I have had to self-educate to figure out paperwork, social security, insurance, retirement, bills owed- the whole gamut of issues that come with death. I am willing to perform those functions and try to see it as a way of being present.

But as pastor my call is to be available for spiritual and emotional support.
I say all of this to name a need in our culture. We have sanitized death to the point where it is an alien event to many, many people. Some are hesitant to write wills because of a superstitious fear that we are inviting death. Widows or widowers are confronted with the possibility of losing the family home. How to probate a will. How to deal with the issue of no will.

We sanitize death and shut it away. Out of sight out and out of mind. And then when death touches our lives, we are at a loss. Especially the unchurched, I would imagine. And everyone, whether they belong to a church or not, deserves support in the trying time of the death of a loved one.

Here is my thanksgiving: that the military takes such good care of its own.
Here is the question I am left with: how can we, as a people, provide ‘mortality officers’ for everyone?

Confessions of a faithful patriot

April 20, 2016Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), everyday theology, musingsConnie Tuttle

Let me unpack that for you because I hear a million red flags flapping in a hurricane force wind.

In the U.S. every citizen can be involved in the political process. (though some rights in some places have been repressed: i.e. voter participation) For me being political means acting in such a way as to influence governance. I vote. I write letters. I make phone calls. I sign petitions. I protest. Like almost everyone else in the country I want to have a say in how we run this nation. Here’s the rub: what I want or believe is (or should be) checked and balanced by the constitution of the United State. That means if I want to legalize discrimination against any group it can be challenged in court. It would not be enough for me to believe that a group was sinful or demonic or non-Christian or…

I am a Christian. I try not to cringe when I say that – not because I am ashamed of my spiritual journey but because I know I will be lumped into a group that I find abhorrent: fundamentalist, literalist, fear-mongering people who have hijacked (very successfully) the public perceptions my faith.

As a Christian I speak and act politically. I support economic policies and social programs that feed the hungry, home the homeless, make prisons tolerable, help people get the mental and physical healthcare they need, create jobs, and liberate the oppressed. I expect my government to allow everyone the freedom to follow their spiritual path except when someone’s religion infringes on basic rights – say the right to marry or use the bathroom.

I am a patriot. I am not nationalistic. Not that I think our country is without significant and severe problems. But the ideas our nation is founded on inspire and enable the movement toward an ever-deepening understanding of justice.

In this frightening time when the politics of the right stokes fear, hatred and divisiveness I still believe that the essence of our national identity is something very different. We can find our way forward. Not to perfection, but to the ongoing process of understanding and implementing freedom and justice for all.

Rather than let the religious right abscond with Christianity or the Tea Party with the Constitution, we must take back the words and the meanings. Expand them with new and greater understandings as we arc slowly toward justice.

So today I plant my flag. I am a Christian (progressive, feminist, justice loving) and a patriot (grounded in the ongoing movement toward freedom and equality for all with a love of the diverse cultures of our nation). Today I take back the meaning of those things dear to me.

A short good-bye

May 19, 2015everyday theology, memoir, UncategorizedConnie Tuttle

My mother died December 20, 2014.

The picture above is from her 90th birthday party. A hundred and twenty of her closest friends – including many folks from out of state – joined in the celebration. At one point we had open mike for people to share stories. There was a repetition of themes: she loved life, she loved without borders, she served without acknowledgement, and she accepted unconditionally without theological contortions.

She woke up every morning attuned to Jesus’ command to love Godde and neighbor. And she did. Every day in a myriad of ways. After the party was over (an indoor picnic- it was February after all – BBQ, potato salad, slaw, deviled eggs, 12 homemade cakes and gallons of homemade ice cream) I asked her what she thought about what people stood up to share.

“I kept wondering who they were talking about.” she said.

This is how I will remember her: laughing, joyful, loving, quietly serving, humble, and deeply in love with Godde.

She always told me she wanted to die in her sleep. (Don’t we all?) And she came about as close to that as possible. December 17th she went to a Christmas luncheon, ate dinner with me of homemade tomato-basil soup and fresh bread, played bridge until 10 that night and shortly after our guests left, suffered a major hemorrhagic stroke. At the emergency room I refused to have her intubated and the next day we moved her to hospice.

For three days I served her. She passed quietly with myself and my daughter in the room and a crowd of loved ones keeping vigil outside. I opened the window so she could feel the fresh air on her skin. And I sang her over. I sang her favorite song, In the Garden and the song, unbidden, that came out of me as I stroked her hair, Jesus, We are Here.

When her spirit rose from her body I washed the vessel that had gestated me, held me, accepted me, honored me and loved me. I have thanks for each part of her as I blessed her hands, feet, womb, and heart. I brushed her hair, dressed her in red with matching red lipstick and a spritz of perfume as I loved her from life into death into life.

This short good-bye is what she would have wanted. For me, the good-bye will last until I greet her at the hour of my own death.

retro- Wednesday- How Can It Be Different?

August 21, 2014Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, retro-Wednesday, spiritual practice, UncategorizedConnie Tuttle

originally posted August 16, 2010

How different can you ‘do church’ from traditional models? So far the answer is a resounding ‘somewhat’.

Here’s the thing: we want to share power. We don’t want to replicate any kind of hierarchy. We named ourselves Circle of Grace because all the points on the circle are on an even playing field. In theory that translates to equal or shared power. In practice, people are often uncomfortable with the thought of exercising power. Maybe they are afraid of being ‘wrong’ or maybe they are afraid they will have to ‘bring it’.

In our model everyone has a voice. That’s a good thing. What’s difficult (I’ll refrain from saying ‘bad’) is that not everybody is willing to exercise his or her power. As feminists, we redefined power. For us, power isn’t ‘power over’ anything. Power is what we share. For some of us it is uncomfortable – but we agree it is important.

This breaks down pretty significantly when commitment and responsibility are iffy. It is a pretty big trade off. For some reason, in hierarchical power structures those with power are able to require a certain amount of responsibility. Not so much in a non-hierarchical situation. In my bad moments, I hate that. I hate that we don’t have a structure I can wrangle to get something done quickly, without discussion or dissension. Sometimes I hate it that everyone has a voice but not everyone has the inclination to do the work that needs to be dome.

So how different are we from more traditional churches? Sometimes not at all. Sometimes power lands in the lap of a few because of lack of interest. Kind of like state and federal elections. We have the power to vote, but too many people don’t give enough of a damn to exercise their power. As pastor, I am sometimes left with too much power by default. (Default: no one else wants to do it) Fortunately, I don’t want the power even when I have to exercise it.

Sometimes we are very, very different from traditional churches. There is no power of ‘right thought’ or ‘right belief’. One of the most challenging aspects of being in our community is that we are not bound by shared belief. There may be someone who believes in substitutionary atonement and another who vehemently does not (in fact most of us don’t). We have had times of members who opposed abortion and those who worked for choice organizations. We have learned to make room for one another.

That’s the wonderful part. It is wonderful enough to balance out the trials of a lumpy sharing of power. How different can it be? Different enough that we keep on trying to figure out how we’ve been socialized and work against what is easy or comfortable. We know we are on a huge learning curve. I guess that’s how different it is.

retro- Wednesday: What makes a spiritual community Christian?

April 25, 2014A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, retro-WednesdayConnie Tuttle

(originally posted in 2010)

Here’s a good follow-up from my last post: what makes a spiritual community Christian? What seems obvious to some has been completely un-obvious to me. Let me meander through this question a moment.

Years ago the National Council of Churches, an ecumenical group comprised of nearly all current Christian denominations said that be be a member of the Council a church was only required to affirm the statement “Jesus is Lord.”

That was until the MCC, a predominantly gay and lesbian church, tried to join. The MCC was perfectly willing to affirm and declare that “Jesus is Lord”. Suddenly, our good friends at NCC had a problem. The net-net is, at that time, MCC was denied membership into the National Council of Churches. I don’t know if that has changed but either way, my point is taken. There is more than one idea floating around about what it means to be Christian.

To me, the affirmation “Jesus is Lord” is difficult to make sense of in a democratic society where none of us has lived under a feudal system or functioning monarchy. We don’t swear fealty to an overlord who protects us. We really don’t have any experiential idea of what lordship looks and feels like. I know some folks say that “Jesus is Lord” means that Jesus is in charge or that Jesus is the thing we most value in our lives or that we follow the way of Jesus above all other ways if there is a conflict of interests. But the phrase doesn’t emerge out of our life experiences as it did in the time of Paul up to the Industrial Age. However, it remains one understanding of what it means to be Christian and what it means to be in a Christian community.

Another understanding of what it means to be Christian is the affirmation of the phrase: “Jesus Christ is my lord and savior.” “Isn’t this the same?” you might ask. Well, yes and no.

Having chatted with many a ‘missionary’ on my doorstep I have discerned a distinct, rather than nuanced, difference between the two statements. This statement infers that one believes Jesus is saving one from eternal damnation, otherwise known as ‘hell’. If you believe in Jesus as the son of God, if you believe he came to atone for the sins of all humanity throughout all time (including yours) then you are saved. This understanding often encourages blind faith, the accepting of things that don’t make sense or that appear, in and of themselves, unbelievable.

For some, it is a matter of believing the tenets of the ‘true faith’. The ‘true faith’ is always the faith purported by the makers of the statement, which have been varied and many.

Finally, there are those who call themselves Christian who consider themselves ‘followers in the Way of Jesus’. They follow the teachings of Jesus and seek to live in the manner that Christ lived and taught. Now, I’m not saying that those with different understandings of what it means to be Christian don’t do that, I’m just saying that this is how some Christians define their Christianity.

So, the question: what makes a spiritual community Christian? I guess the answer is: All of the above. At Circle of Grace we try to make room for multiple understandings of what it means to be a Christian. For some, atonement is essential. For some, the lordship of Christ is pivotal. For most of us, being Christian is following in the Way of Christ (Jesus). For all of us, it is essential that we remain respectful of one another’s understandings. I guess the one understanding that wouldn’t make it here is the idea of a ‘true faith’. It excludes the respectful possibility of differences.

So are we Christian? I am sure some would say not. And some might think, “Well some of you are and some of you aren’t.” Some of us hesitate to be called Christian because they hesitate to be identified with the dominant cultural understanding of Christian as intolerant and judgmental. But Christian we are, in most of its permutations. What makes us a spiritual community that is Christian?

Okay, the bottom line is that I don’t have an answer to what seems to be a profoundly easy question.

A modest proposal as to why and how it is okay for Christians to celebrate a Passover Seder

April 16, 2014

My dear friend and celebrated scholar, Dr. Monica A. Coleman sent me a link to a blog by the Rev. J. Mary Luti who is pondering the question of Christians celebrating Seders.

http://sicutlocutusest.com/2014/04/11/no-christian-seders-please/

This is a thoughtful and well argued piece and I actually agree with most of her assertions but I think the topic requires further imagination.

First, the Seder as we have come to know it is not the precise meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples on Good Friday. Seders did not begin to develop until after the destruction of the Temple, 70 C.E. But it is likely that Jesus was remembering the Exodus event in some fashion as the festival is prescribed in Exodus 12:14, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”

At that meal Jesus invited us to another act of remembering in what we now celebrate as our communion meal. The Eucharist, for Christians, is an act of remembering spiritual liberation. That being said, I am not sure if it would be appropriate to insert Communion into a Seder celebration. But if we did make that addition it would be adding our story to the story of our ancestors- which every haggadah (telling) I have ever had the privilege to read or share in encourages the practitioners to do.

Rev. Luti also argues that ritual originates and arises from a community’s shared experience. As Christians, she asserts, we cannot celebrate a Seder out of anything like the lived experience of Jews. I would respond with both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, we cannot, nor should we attempt to claim that our lived experience ‘remotely resembles’ the lived experience of Jews. But if scripture is our shared story, and indeed a universal story, then it is also our story to tell. (I would note here that not all Christians are white and privileged. And those who are white and/or privileged, confront the pharaoh within when telling the Exodus story.)

As pastor of a progressive, feminist church (note the orange on the Seder plate) with a community of women and men, many races, gender identifications and sexual orientations, the Seder is a time of remembering Godde’s promises, given and fulfilled, and Godde’s call for us to live into freedom. In the remembering and telling the story each year we are encouraged, renewed, challenged and sent forth with hope.

I agree that the celebration of the Seder meal should never supplant the Exodus story with the Christian story as the ‘conclusion’ of Godde’s activity in history. The point of the Seder is to remember who we are, to remember Godde’s intention, desire and liberating acts for humanity, to own the places where we participate in our own oppression and the oppression of others, and to depart with the hope of Godde’s continued redemption of humankind.

It is not a Christo-centric story. Neither is a story exclusive to Jews. It is our story, wherever we find ourselves in it. It is a story that brings both judgment and hope. It speaks to Godde’s movement in history and to the journey of the community of faith and of individual souls. It frames for us an understanding of who Godde is and how Godde acts. In the telling of our story each year, we learn as we hear and speak the words, listen with our bodies when we eat the lessons, and sing with our hearts as we insert our personal journeys and lives into the story. This ritual returns us to spiritual center.

If Christians can celebrate a Seder meal in those ways then so we should for it opens us to greater understandings and deeper experiences. If we hear echoes of Jesus’ words for us to remember him in the story, then let our hearts be open to ways the Exodus journey might illuminate those words.

the theology of making pizza sauce

April 4, 2014everyday theology, musings, spiritual practiceConnie Tuttle

Today I made pizza sauce.

I put two cups of organic grape tomatoes, two tablespoons tomato paste, two garlic cloves, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar and italian seasoning into the blender and listened to the excited whir of ruby red flavor burst into a new thing.

I poured it into a saucepan and simmered it, uncovered until it thickened and intensified. The thickness of the sauce pushed back against the wooden bowl of the spoon as I stirred. And when I licked the spoon I caught traces of caramelization that that is both sweet and tart.

Tonight I will slather it on the homemade yeasted dough my mother has made and mound it with veggies and cheese. With a lovely romaine salad, it’s what’s for dinner.

I could have began this post with “I played with Godde today” or “today I tasted Godde” or “today Godde fed me”. Because using organic ingredients feels like and act of worship, honoring both creation and the Creator. Because cooking and feeding people is one of my spiritual practices. Because I find joy in creative acts. Because to taste food fresh from the earth, when I am mindful, is a sacrament.

Christian, feminist and church…

April 1, 2014A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, musings, retro-WednesdayConnie Tuttle

originally posted in 2010

My friend and our non-resident theologian, Dr. Monica A. Coleman, recently visited a feminist church at a conference at which she presented. She then posted an idea on facebook inviting all feminist churches to hook up. I snickered and posted back, “What, all two of us?”

There may be more but we are so far apart and disconnected that it is hard to find one another. On some level we may not believe that the other exists. And then there is the question of what makes a spiritual community feminist.

First of all, there are a lot of understandings about what it means to be feminist (among feminists as well as outside the feminist community). After lengthy discussion Circle of Grace distilled our understanding down to a short paragraph:

Circle of Grace is a feminist Christian worshipping community. We are non-doctrinal and seek to re- imagine understandings of language and stories, symbols and metaphors. Our commitment is to inclusivity. We honor each one’s truth and each one’s journey and feel called into community as a way of faithful response. We understand feminism to be a critique of power.

Spelled out it means:

1-we don’t all have to (nor do we) believe the same things. Nothing is written in stone. For us the journey of the spirit requires a certain fluidity (uncomfortable at times). Theologically, members of our community range the gamut of understandings. Biblical authority, atonement, – you name it. This hooks up with the last sentence in our statement: we honor each one’s truth and each one’s journey. As in, I can’t tell you what your experience of the Sacred is, nor will I try to dissuade you of it. Need I say that making room for many truths is a challenge? But we are committed to this endeavor because It is central to feminist thought.

2- Our images, stories, symbols and metaphors are not limited to the images, stories, symbols and metaphors available in the biblical text, though we do ‘re-imagine’ those in ways that, we hope, opens us to new understandings of Godde. As feminists, we find any symbol that becomes rigid and/or absolute to be unhelpful and sometimes harmful to the journey of the spirit. It is one thing to say Godde is like a father (or mother or eagle or bridegroom, etc.) and quite another to say Godde is father,etc.

3- We feel called to community as a way of faithful response. All of us at Circle of Grace come together because we believe or intuit that sharing spiritual community both grounds and grows us. It is the challenge of being (or trying to be) who Godde calls us to be in the world and with one another that draws us together in worship, prayer, meals, time, relationship… It is faithful (and feminist) to build community that is radically inclusive. It is faithful (and feminist) to live our one’s journey of spirit informed by those who are not like us but offer new wisdom, insight, challenge and hope. For me, at least, and others I believe, the call to community is the call to kin-dom living, the call to embody the kin-dom in real time as a beacon of hope for the world. Each week at Eucharist we say something like this to one another as we pass the wine, “Drink in and become the promises of Godde.”

4- We understand feminism to be a critique of power. We also understand the Way of Jesus to be a critique of power. They go hand in hand. As feminist Christians we speak a critique of the power of the institutional church.

So for Circle of Grace being spiritual feminist community is about opening understandings of the Divine to include many images, it’s about making room for all kinds of differences and it’s about living out our understandings (and our struggles to understand and our inability to make sense) together. It means that we get comfortable with not having all the answers. It means that we make room for one another. It means we critique power used and misused in both the culture (patriarchy) and the institutional church (with love…).

So here’s a shout out to all the other feminist spiritual communities/churches out there (they are there, right, Monica?) – “what does it mean to you?”

And isn’t it great that it can mean so many different things?

Retro-Wednesday: Circle of Grace as Elephant Orphanage

This was first posted in 2010.

I received a thoughtful email from someone who used to attend Circle of Grace about my last post. She had some insightful responses and agreed with my assessment of Circle of Grace as a place of spiritual healing.

She went on to remind me that many folks who ‘came through’ Circle of Grace often returned to traditional churches as she, herself, had. She returned to the church in which she had grown up and with whom she had a deep connection but she continued, she would never had been able to do that without her time at Circle of Grace. She said that she, too, pondered why we hadn’t grown and concluded that we needed to remain small to do the healing work we do.

It reminds me of what my spiritual director shared with me some time ago. She had seen a 60 Minutes special about an elephant orphanage in Africa. A woman began a refuge for baby elephants whose mothers had been killed by poachers or who had physical defects (e.g. blindness) that had caused their ‘tribe’ to abandon them. She and her workers take in these baby elephants and provide medical care and nourishment. When a baby recovers sufficiently they go about the business of teaching the baby how to be an elephant- including pounding the ground with small logs to teach her/him how to read sound through the ground.

Some of the babies are so damaged or ill they don’t make it. Some are able to be reunited with their ‘aunties’ and assimilate back into the wild. Some recover but are never able to return to the wild and a new ‘tribe’ has evolved at the orphanage.

“That’s what Circle of Grace is like!” she exclaimed. “Some people heal and return to the church of their childhoods. And some people find themselves to be more at home at Circle of Grace and become a part of its ongoing healing ministry, forming a new and different kind of ‘tribe’.”

I remembered that comment after I got the email this week: two very different people seeing the same thing from different perspectives. A final thought my emailing friend shared was that she now takes stands and provides a much needed witness in her more traditional church.

I’ll keep pondering all these things and we’ll keep talking about these things. For too many years I assumed we were supposed to follow a certain pattern and achieve specific things: membership, space, programs…

Now, I just want us to walk as faithfully as we are able and do the work to which we are called. I want us to keep on living into who we are and not into any superimposed idea of who we think we should be. It’s an ongoing learning experience. It is always challenging. We’re always going to have to question our assumptions and let some of them go.

But I don’t guess we would do it any other way.