Category Archives: musings

An Invitation to Radical Bridge Buidling

A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), everyday theology, musings, Uncategorized

bridge buildingI am a radical bridge builder and I want you to be one, too.

Somewhere in my upbringing with the experience of many cultures, many races and many people, I came to the absolute conviction that human beings are more alike than different. It is really difficult for me to go to a place of ‘us’ and ‘them’ – though that thinking permeates our cultural and political landscape.

It is hard to be a bridge builder. As difficult as it is to be a vocal activist. Both require putting one’s self on the line. Both are the important work of change and justice.

Bridge building asks of us a different kind of courage. If your call is to put your body on the line as an activist, then do it. And, oh yeah, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Both types of work needs to be done.

What is the courage required to build bridges? First, is the courage of vulnerability. You have to be open about yourself to people who dislike, hate, or fear you. You have to be willing to expose parts of yourself that are real, and sometimes the parts of you that are tender, as an invitation to mutuality.

Then you must have the courage to listen. You have to listen to things that are repugnant, hateful, fearful and, often, ignorant. You have to listen without the immediate agenda of being heard. And you have to listen with a heart of compassion as well as with emotional intelligence. Believe it or not, this is change making. This is the slow process of mutual humanization that opens the door for new understandings and new relationship.

Here’s the thing: there will be many times when you speak and will not be heard. Helping someone to hear is an important task of bridge building. It requires patience and gentleness because when people can’t hear it is because they are afraid. It may present as anger, aggression, or hate but behind those leading feelings is profound fear. And when people are afraid the most radical thing we can do, the most loving thing we can do, is walk with them through their valley of shadows.

So… I invite you to join me and be a bridge builder, too. Know that it is difficult work that requires vulnerability with those who are hostile toward you, compassion for those who hate, and the strength to listen to those who disagree with you.

We who work for justice crave radical change. We work to change laws and systems because injustice saturates our culture. We must march. We must VOTE. We must speak and not be silenced. We must challenge ourselves to root out our own internalized racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, ableism and classism.

And we must do the hard work of building bridges. Because who we are when we get to the other side is important.

I Forgot to Be Afraid

everyday theology, memoir, musings, Uncategorized


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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I Support the Draft

musings

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In the 1970’s I was adamantly against the draft. We were in a war that I found morally abhorrent. My father, a retired army sergeant, was my counterpoint and I had all the arrogance of passionate idealism. I am still passionate and idealistic  but tempered by experience and information. I also remember the grief of my father as his ideals about who we were as a nation was shattered by that war.

Here is how and why I changed. Since the draft has been abolished our armed services no longer tap into the talents of the most educated – those with a grasp of political history or philosophy or anthropological understandings of differences in cultures. Second, and perhaps most important, is that those who make the decisions about going to war are no longer are forced to consider the fate and/or welfare of their own children. They have no pony in the race and their decisions don’t appear to be about people but about testosterone driven numbers and power.

We know that people of wealth and power are able and often do disassociate from the concerns of the middle and lower classes. Somehow those children are ready pawns any time the political ego calls for “boots on the ground”. I cannot help but believe that the conversations, debates and decisions would look much different if all children were required to register for the draft.

We really do need leaders with military service. Eisenhower stepped off the battlefield into the Presidency. His experience as the leader of our Armed Forces led him to be one of our strongest, most eloquent, advocates for peace:

“Every Gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothes.  This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”                 Dwight D. Eisenhower, from a speech before the American Society of                                                                                               Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

 

 

 

 

Death and the need for mortality officers

everyday theology, musings, spiritual practice

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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?

Paint and Change

memoir, musings, Uncategorized

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Color is a palate of emotions. Blue is calm, green energy, red strength, yellow openness.

My life changed significantly in the past three years. The colors around me kept me in places I no longer want or need to be.  So I changed colors. Not for me the soft gray, charcoal and dusty mauve. I no longer wake to periwinkle blues. Grief muddied all the colors around me any way and the dulled colors bound me to relationships that no longer exist and a life no longer lived.

So I paint. No white ceilings for me, I wrap entire rooms in color. Now I wake to apple green. I gather family and friends in a room of white blush, robin’s egg blue and teal.

Colors arise from my insides and move into the world like a life force, like dandelions pushing their way through a crack in the sidewalk. And color gifts me from the outside in, beckoning me to new life. Reminding me to live again. To embrace the world and be a part of it.

I reclaim my life with paint. Color me Connie.

Confessions of a faithful patriot

Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), everyday theology, musings

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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.

 

 

the theology of making pizza sauce

everyday theology, musings, spiritual practice

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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…

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

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? 

 

 

     

What makes me an American

A Gracious Heresy, memoir, musings, Uncategorized

 

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Writing memoir raises a slew of questions that clamor to be explored, always returning to the central question: who are you?

As an army brat, when people ask me where I am from I answer, “All over”. Growing up, I lived most of my formative years abroad.  As a child I was clear and sure that I was American even though most of my young life had been lived on ‘foreign’ soil. In places that are often more home to me than anywhere in the United States.

I do not identify as American because I was raised in a common culture with my fellow citizens,  not because I share common experiences and not because we speak a common language.  It means I don’t look like my fellow citizens who come from all over the world. It means we often disagree about faith and politics. And on our better days our differences are good and give us the richness of our ideas.

What makes me an American are the ideas and the ideals my family taught me about what it means to be an American. My Dad  instilled in me that  I am a part of a grand experiment in equality, freedom and justice. My duty as a citizen is to always stand on the side of equality, freedom and justice.

It also means that I have the freedom to explore, to try new things, to expand my understandings and experiences… and to fail.  As an American I was taught that failure, though painful, is not terminal. I can rise and try again. Try things that are born in my imagination. Fail spectacularly at reaching for the stars and make it to the moon.

Those are the things that make me an American. Freedom, equality and justice don’t stop at my borders. Having a responsibility to those ideals gives me a world vision. Knowing I can fail and not be defeated makes me ever hopeful.

And along the way I discovered that understanding myself as an American encourages me  to claim myself as a citizen of the world.

 

Anniversaries

 

imagesThis year has been a parade of losses. Each month, sometimes each week, often each day greets me with another loss to celebrate. Not celebrate as in happy-happy, but celebrate as in observe, release, let go… and as St. Benedict so wisely counsels: begin again.

I think I will get better at it. And maybe I have. Losses no longer feel like the twist of a surgeon’s knife without anesthetic. Now I approach the anniversaries of loss as friends. The passing of time helps, but the passing of a marked time becomes a guidepost.  Once I move beyond experiencing a particular loss for a first time… I am opened to a different kind of hopefulness. It seems to take the passing or marking of an anniversary of loss to actually begin again.

This Lenten season marks another succession of losses. Personal losses. And the losses we commemorate in our Sacred Story. The loss of time, of betrayal, of freedom, of life. The loss we feel when we experience the absence of Godde.

Only this year I anticipate the resurrection. This year I remember that Godde invites us into Holy Future even if it looks nothing like what we thought it would.  This year Easter comes with new promises of new life. This year as the anniversary of another loss looms, I will rise. Like the one in whose Way I seek to follow.  And I will begin again.