As a parent, I completely get the cosmic, apocalyptic images of Good Friday...if someone was executing my son, I would want the earth to quake - I would want graves ripped open and their occupants to come forth in protest - I would want darkness to cover the city to acknowledge the darkness in my own soul - how could God react any less. The ground shakes, the sun darkens, the line between death and life dims...God grieves and the entire physical world reacts. I get this...completely! If anything were ever to happen to Spencer - my world would have the same reaction. When Spencer entered our world - at this time in the liturgical calendar - my world was rocked. God's love and grief shook the very foundations and light of our known world. But, then, something amazing happened...God took in the blood stained cross, God took in the sepulcher sealed with a heavy granite stone, God took in the extreme, anguished grief of Jesus' Mother, Jesus' disciples Mary and Mary...and God added their grief to God's own - and shook the very foundations of earth and life. God declared that grief...death...anguish...are not the final answer. God said, I am...I am not done...I have more to say...I have more to do...and YOU...YOU...YOU...and YOU...and you...and you..and..you...and you...and you...you....are going to continue the story..."I am never done with any of you...and the story always continues..." declares God....
It is Good Friday...it is always Good Friday...but resurrection is coming...will come...is always coming...God is NEVER FINISHED...
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
help me to be with them God...
We learned this morning of an incredible tragedy struck in Japan of which we do not yet fully know the ultimate horrors.
And this Sunday, I have the sacred honor of being with a congregation whose pastor died this morning much too young, much too young. His death may not stand against the cataclysms of Japan - and yet it is still a cataclysm to many.
And my heart is already heavy in grief...for Marcus' wife, Laurie...and sons, Henry and Reuben...and for the people he journeyed with these past 15 years...the people of Burton Community Church. It is with these people that I will be this Sunday, God. Shine through me that I may allow You to grieve with them. Let me be a conduit of Your grace and love. Let me help them to express their grief and anger.
Help me to be with them God...as they most need me to be...
And this Sunday, I have the sacred honor of being with a congregation whose pastor died this morning much too young, much too young. His death may not stand against the cataclysms of Japan - and yet it is still a cataclysm to many.
And my heart is already heavy in grief...for Marcus' wife, Laurie...and sons, Henry and Reuben...and for the people he journeyed with these past 15 years...the people of Burton Community Church. It is with these people that I will be this Sunday, God. Shine through me that I may allow You to grieve with them. Let me be a conduit of Your grace and love. Let me help them to express their grief and anger.
Help me to be with them God...as they most need me to be...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
from ashes you have come...
Yesterday, many of us had a cross of ashes placed upon our foreheads - a reminder not only of our Christian identity, but also of our mortality. This launch into the Lenten season seems a dark and ominous start to a 40 day period of reflection leading to the events of Holy Week and culminating in the joyous celebrations of Easter morning.
Today, it is again gray and raining in Seattle. I have spent the better part of the day crafting a worship service for this upcoming first Sunday in Lent. This has been a particularly challenging task as the pastor of this church is in his last moments of life. The treatment for cancer has been halted - the cancer continues its life draining progress through the body. In addition, I have been informed that the husband of a colleague died very suddenly, with no warning this past Monday. Another friend has alerted his community of support that his mother, long in decline, is also in her last moments of life. Death seems to surround me. The dark clouds and wind driven rain seem appropriate to the mood of the day.
We Americans struggle with death. I personally do not think that we have a very healthy attitude about death. We clean up the language, we package the body neatly in an expensive coffin or small box for ashes and we expect those closest who remain to get over it in a "reasonable" amount of time. Lent is a journey to death - to Jesus' violent, ugly, bloody death on the cross. And Lent is a journey to life; for the story did not end at the cross. I find it appropriate that Lent happens as Winter tapers into Spring. That which has been dormant comes slowly back to life. That which has died gives nurture and nourishment to that which is coming to life.
And so, on this windy, rainy, gray afternoon, I contemplate life and death because from ashes I have come...
Today, it is again gray and raining in Seattle. I have spent the better part of the day crafting a worship service for this upcoming first Sunday in Lent. This has been a particularly challenging task as the pastor of this church is in his last moments of life. The treatment for cancer has been halted - the cancer continues its life draining progress through the body. In addition, I have been informed that the husband of a colleague died very suddenly, with no warning this past Monday. Another friend has alerted his community of support that his mother, long in decline, is also in her last moments of life. Death seems to surround me. The dark clouds and wind driven rain seem appropriate to the mood of the day.
We Americans struggle with death. I personally do not think that we have a very healthy attitude about death. We clean up the language, we package the body neatly in an expensive coffin or small box for ashes and we expect those closest who remain to get over it in a "reasonable" amount of time. Lent is a journey to death - to Jesus' violent, ugly, bloody death on the cross. And Lent is a journey to life; for the story did not end at the cross. I find it appropriate that Lent happens as Winter tapers into Spring. That which has been dormant comes slowly back to life. That which has died gives nurture and nourishment to that which is coming to life.
And so, on this windy, rainy, gray afternoon, I contemplate life and death because from ashes I have come...
Thursday, February 17, 2011
justice?
Let me start by saying that I feel for former police officer Ian Birk, I really do. He is now persona non grata #1in Seattle (with the possible exceptions of the prosecutor, the sheriff and the mayor) and likely will never work as a police officer in Washington State again - and possibly not in the rest of the country. And it has been a hideous couple of years for police officers in the Pacific Northwest. At least 5 have been killed execution style when not in an active incident, and several others killed in the line of duty. I am sure that there is a very heightened sense of danger. I would never want to be a police office and I commend those who are. The literally place their lives at risk every day.
Ian Birk is the officer who shot a Native American wood carver (I have heard that it is disrespectful to use the name of a person after he is deceased in this person's culture, so I am not using his name). The wood carver had a knife - as a wood carver it is rather an essential tool - and Birk stopped when he thought the wood carver's behavior was somewhat suspicious. Within 4 seconds (that is right - seconds) of warning the wood carver to drop the knife, Birk shot the man 4 times, killing him. Later it was discovered that the wood carver was very hard of hearing. Why were the shots to kill instead of disable?
Yesterday the King County prosecutors office announced, after a lengthy inquest, that charges would not be filed against Birk. In announcing the decision, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg cited the portion of the Washington State law that states that the officer is justified if he is acting without malice and in good faith and believing that his life - or others lives - are in danger. Since malice is very difficult to prove, the prosecutor's office will not be making charges against Birk. The Seattle Police Department issued a scathing report declaring that Birk did not follow procedure and that the shooting was not justified. Birk resigned before being fired.
Was there malice? I would contend that there was not intentional malice, but that there is an underlying insidious malice that pervades the entire event. In the past year, there have been three highly publicized events in which police officers used what appeared to be excessive force - the incident described above, one in which an officer punched a girl after stopping several people for jay walking, and one in which a police officer kicked and stomped on a person, later determined to be completely innocent of anything other that being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In all three of these instances, the police officers were white males and the others were people of color - an African-American woman, a Hispanic man and the Native American wood carver. In all 3 cases the police officers have been cleared - the first 2 by the police department and the 3rd by the prosecutor's office.
The malice comes from the underlying racism inherent in the system. I have to question if any of those events would have happened to me - a white male. I highly doubt it. The Seattle Police Department claims to have good diversity training and that they are not racist. Sorry. We are all racist. It is important to recognize our racism and the resulting behaviors. This is especially difficult for the dominant culture by which everyone else and their behaviors are judged. We have a very limited perception of of our privilege. (My friend Diane has done a great deal of study on this and her blog whitematters.wordpress.com is an essential read.) We have become so used to seeing inebriated Native Americans on our city's streets, that we fail to even notice any more. And we do not even begin to examine the long history of oppression that has robbed the Native peoples of their land, language and culture and has created the reservation system that is rife with poverty and lack of opportunity.
We must examine our privilege, our racism and the myriad of ways they play out in our country. Two lives were ruined that day. Ian Birk still has the chance to change his. The talented and troubled wood carver does not - and maybe never did.
Ian Birk is the officer who shot a Native American wood carver (I have heard that it is disrespectful to use the name of a person after he is deceased in this person's culture, so I am not using his name). The wood carver had a knife - as a wood carver it is rather an essential tool - and Birk stopped when he thought the wood carver's behavior was somewhat suspicious. Within 4 seconds (that is right - seconds) of warning the wood carver to drop the knife, Birk shot the man 4 times, killing him. Later it was discovered that the wood carver was very hard of hearing. Why were the shots to kill instead of disable?
Yesterday the King County prosecutors office announced, after a lengthy inquest, that charges would not be filed against Birk. In announcing the decision, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg cited the portion of the Washington State law that states that the officer is justified if he is acting without malice and in good faith and believing that his life - or others lives - are in danger. Since malice is very difficult to prove, the prosecutor's office will not be making charges against Birk. The Seattle Police Department issued a scathing report declaring that Birk did not follow procedure and that the shooting was not justified. Birk resigned before being fired.
Was there malice? I would contend that there was not intentional malice, but that there is an underlying insidious malice that pervades the entire event. In the past year, there have been three highly publicized events in which police officers used what appeared to be excessive force - the incident described above, one in which an officer punched a girl after stopping several people for jay walking, and one in which a police officer kicked and stomped on a person, later determined to be completely innocent of anything other that being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In all three of these instances, the police officers were white males and the others were people of color - an African-American woman, a Hispanic man and the Native American wood carver. In all 3 cases the police officers have been cleared - the first 2 by the police department and the 3rd by the prosecutor's office.
The malice comes from the underlying racism inherent in the system. I have to question if any of those events would have happened to me - a white male. I highly doubt it. The Seattle Police Department claims to have good diversity training and that they are not racist. Sorry. We are all racist. It is important to recognize our racism and the resulting behaviors. This is especially difficult for the dominant culture by which everyone else and their behaviors are judged. We have a very limited perception of of our privilege. (My friend Diane has done a great deal of study on this and her blog whitematters.wordpress.com is an essential read.) We have become so used to seeing inebriated Native Americans on our city's streets, that we fail to even notice any more. And we do not even begin to examine the long history of oppression that has robbed the Native peoples of their land, language and culture and has created the reservation system that is rife with poverty and lack of opportunity.
We must examine our privilege, our racism and the myriad of ways they play out in our country. Two lives were ruined that day. Ian Birk still has the chance to change his. The talented and troubled wood carver does not - and maybe never did.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Unstructured time...not idle time...
I have been unemployed since my interim position at Seattle First Baptist ended last September. I have to admit that for the rest of 2010, I was rather at a loss with how to fill my time other that to look for jobs that I really did not want. I was involved in a few things that were important to me, but on the whole, felt lost in the vast pool of time that surrounded me.
All that changed with the New Year. I did make some deliberate choices of change. I decided that I was going to get up early to read the scriptures from the daily lectionary, journal and write "morning pages". Morning pages is an exercise advocated by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way and, in a slightly different format, by Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones.The concept is that you basically sit and write for a set amount of time or for a set number of pages - the major rule being that the pen never leaves the paper for the set time or pages. For Cameron, this is a clearing of clutter that keeps the artists from true expression; for Goldberg, this is an exercise from which ideas for other works are born. Another major reason for this time early in the morning is to have a few hours of quiet solitude before the almost 4 year old breaks loose on the world.
Another deliberate choice was to give up drinking. It started with the concept of dry January that I came across on Facebook. I decided to extend it all the way through the season of Lent. As Easter is April 24 this year, that will be nearly 4 months. Drinking with a great deal of time weighing heavy is not a good practice. It is too easy for the glass of wine to become the bottle of wine...
I also decided that I was going to get some exercise. I have discovered the joy of multitasking on the treadmill. I take my kindle with me and read while on the treadmill, which is much better than watching the inane TV that perpetually plays at 24 hour Fitness.
I also serve as the vice chair of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, preach occasionally and plan to work with other faith leaders toward marriage equality in Washington State.
I am still job hunting - and there seem to be a few good prospects right now. Part of me wonders how I am going to fit all the activities that have become important to me into a schedule that will include a full time job. I have done it before - and I will likely do it again. In the meantime, I am glad that I have relearned to feed my soul, mind and body and feel prepared for the next phase of my journey
All that changed with the New Year. I did make some deliberate choices of change. I decided that I was going to get up early to read the scriptures from the daily lectionary, journal and write "morning pages". Morning pages is an exercise advocated by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way and, in a slightly different format, by Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones.The concept is that you basically sit and write for a set amount of time or for a set number of pages - the major rule being that the pen never leaves the paper for the set time or pages. For Cameron, this is a clearing of clutter that keeps the artists from true expression; for Goldberg, this is an exercise from which ideas for other works are born. Another major reason for this time early in the morning is to have a few hours of quiet solitude before the almost 4 year old breaks loose on the world.
Another deliberate choice was to give up drinking. It started with the concept of dry January that I came across on Facebook. I decided to extend it all the way through the season of Lent. As Easter is April 24 this year, that will be nearly 4 months. Drinking with a great deal of time weighing heavy is not a good practice. It is too easy for the glass of wine to become the bottle of wine...
I also decided that I was going to get some exercise. I have discovered the joy of multitasking on the treadmill. I take my kindle with me and read while on the treadmill, which is much better than watching the inane TV that perpetually plays at 24 hour Fitness.
I also serve as the vice chair of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, preach occasionally and plan to work with other faith leaders toward marriage equality in Washington State.
I am still job hunting - and there seem to be a few good prospects right now. Part of me wonders how I am going to fit all the activities that have become important to me into a schedule that will include a full time job. I have done it before - and I will likely do it again. In the meantime, I am glad that I have relearned to feed my soul, mind and body and feel prepared for the next phase of my journey
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
hence the title...
The title of the blog, as I indicated yesterday, comes from the personal ad I placed that eventually brought Russ and I together. It was the beginning of 2000 and I was new to email and computer etiquette - I wrote the entire ad in capital letters. Russ' then roommate thought that the ad was intriguing but wondered why I was shouting. I placed the ad in the personals of the now defunct gayseattle.com.
The journey to embracing myself as both gay and Christian was long and complicated. I grew up in an environment (northern Michigan) in which being gay automatically excluded one from being a Christian. I then moved to South Dakota to attend seminary, which only reinforced the idea that a gay Christian was indeed an oxymoron. The best decision I ever made was to leave South Dakota - and that seminary - and move to Seattle. I want to clarify at this juncture that I made many wonderful friends in South Dakota who were and are an important part of who I am today. Some have come to accept me fully; others still care deeply about me but have a hard time concluding that gay and Christian are not oxymorons. All are carried within me as precious parts of who I have become.
Even when I came to Seattle, it took me some time to find Christians with a different message. I thought that I had to give up the church to embrace my unchanging sexual orientation. (Believe me people - I prayed and prayed and prayed - and then I prayed some more.) I had come to the realization that God still loved me and embraced me through an amazing encounter one stunningly beautiful fall day when I was driving along US 2 as it wanders along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I literally heard God say - all else is grace - you are loved. However, I thought I lost the sense of community of that I had always found in belonging to a particular gathered worshiping body. Imagine my delight when I found a welcoming community - and my astonishment that the community was Baptist!
As I reclaimed my identity as Christian, I began to reclaim the other dreams that I thought were forsaken - marriage, children, seminary, ordination and ministry. God is faithful - all have come true. A gay Christian may still seem oxymoronic to many - but God is bigger than all of our labels and can embrace that which we might not understand given our limited vision. And God can take these unlikely juxtapositions and create something unexpected and beautiful.
Examine the seeming oxymorons in your lives and perhaps you will see God doing a new and unexpected thing - as God is very want to do.
The journey to embracing myself as both gay and Christian was long and complicated. I grew up in an environment (northern Michigan) in which being gay automatically excluded one from being a Christian. I then moved to South Dakota to attend seminary, which only reinforced the idea that a gay Christian was indeed an oxymoron. The best decision I ever made was to leave South Dakota - and that seminary - and move to Seattle. I want to clarify at this juncture that I made many wonderful friends in South Dakota who were and are an important part of who I am today. Some have come to accept me fully; others still care deeply about me but have a hard time concluding that gay and Christian are not oxymorons. All are carried within me as precious parts of who I have become.
Even when I came to Seattle, it took me some time to find Christians with a different message. I thought that I had to give up the church to embrace my unchanging sexual orientation. (Believe me people - I prayed and prayed and prayed - and then I prayed some more.) I had come to the realization that God still loved me and embraced me through an amazing encounter one stunningly beautiful fall day when I was driving along US 2 as it wanders along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I literally heard God say - all else is grace - you are loved. However, I thought I lost the sense of community of that I had always found in belonging to a particular gathered worshiping body. Imagine my delight when I found a welcoming community - and my astonishment that the community was Baptist!
As I reclaimed my identity as Christian, I began to reclaim the other dreams that I thought were forsaken - marriage, children, seminary, ordination and ministry. God is faithful - all have come true. A gay Christian may still seem oxymoronic to many - but God is bigger than all of our labels and can embrace that which we might not understand given our limited vision. And God can take these unlikely juxtapositions and create something unexpected and beautiful.
Examine the seeming oxymorons in your lives and perhaps you will see God doing a new and unexpected thing - as God is very want to do.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Finally!
I have been thinking and talking about starting a blog for years. To be perfectly honest, there is no good excuse for not having started it before. One issue that has waylaid me for much of the time was the question of focus. What exactly would my blog be about? I have several interests - any of which might capture my creative interest at the time of writing. What would I call it? I wanted to have something catchy. And why would anyone read it? Well - that always remains the question, doesn't it?
So - here it is. I will not narrow the focus to one - instead I will speak to many - theology, politics, scripture, current events, parenting, the daily lectionary, life in Seattle, marriage (or the lack of ability to), white privilege, books, writing, church, movies, food, the British Royal Family....
The title comes from the tag line of a personal ad that I placed 11 or so years ago that caught the attention of my now husband - A Gay Christian is not an Oxymoron. As I reflected on it, I realized that there are many seemingly oxymorons in my life - and likely in all of our lives. Those, too, will be shared herein.
I will attempt to write daily and will attempt to make it fairly interesting. There will be no guarantees of grammar. I will guarantee to be authentic to the moment and topic.
So welcome to the start of a new journey. Sojourn with me awhile or just for today - that is for you to decide.
So - here it is. I will not narrow the focus to one - instead I will speak to many - theology, politics, scripture, current events, parenting, the daily lectionary, life in Seattle, marriage (or the lack of ability to), white privilege, books, writing, church, movies, food, the British Royal Family....
The title comes from the tag line of a personal ad that I placed 11 or so years ago that caught the attention of my now husband - A Gay Christian is not an Oxymoron. As I reflected on it, I realized that there are many seemingly oxymorons in my life - and likely in all of our lives. Those, too, will be shared herein.
I will attempt to write daily and will attempt to make it fairly interesting. There will be no guarantees of grammar. I will guarantee to be authentic to the moment and topic.
So welcome to the start of a new journey. Sojourn with me awhile or just for today - that is for you to decide.
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