in which I complain about a World Religions class

So, I'm auditing a World Religions class at Harvard Summer School (taught by a guy with a PhD from BU), the first session of which was Tuesday of this week.

A friend of mine had criticized one of the main texts we're using, saying, "she [the author] makes some cringingly simplistic statements, and her bias against traditional Christianity was so apparent (to me, anyway) that I didn't fully trust her appraisal of other religions I know less well. I wish I knew of a better comparative religion text to recommend."

Early in class, the prof spoke praisingly of the author (whom he has become friends with). I'm only about ten pages into the text, though, so I didn't have an opinion of my own to make me hesitant.

[Sidebar before I start complaining in earnest: I will give the prof credit for recommending to us that we get to know people from other faith traditions -- and other countries, other ethnicities -- and sit down and have a drink with that person, that you'll learn more from that than you will from a class. Though it came across a little uncomfortably tokenizing, with an implication of "tell me about your faith tradition" without an understanding that everyone's experience of a given faith tradition is going to be unique and often very different from someone else's ... though he did sort of touch on this at other moments ... and he's traveled to lots of places around the world getting to know different Buddhist practitioners, so I think he really is aware of the diversity that exists within a given faith tradition.]

Later, he told a story of saying to his parents, "Isn't it interesting that two out of your three kids became Buddhists" (his parents were Methodists, possibly ministers), and his sister turned to him and said, "You're not a Buddhist." He said he was -- he meditates some, the Buddhist philosophy is very important in his life. She insisted that he didn't actually practice it (she gets up every morning and chants, has an altar, etc.), sure he goes all over the world and writes books, but "it's a hobby for you." (As the class went on, I returned to this as an articulation of my problem with him -- that he's not a practitioner of religion but rather an outsider ... though admittedly my problem may simply be that he's an outsider talking about my faith tradition.)

A friend of his suggested he take the Belief-O-Matic quiz to settle the question. So he read us his results, mentioning an important belief of his (concern for social justice, the environment, church that doesn't have lots of talking) that explained why he had scored high for that faith tradition (until he finally got to a kind of Buddhism, which I think was #8).

Later in the class, he talked about how we're going to focus on elements common across many religions, but that he's not trying to say that all/most religions are at heart the same. For example, he said, suffering is a central theme of Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity, but if you actually dig down, the way that suffering is central to their faith traditions are very different. Buddhism: everyone suffers, this is the first Noble Truth, doesn't matter how much material wealth or anything you have you're still as susceptible to suffering as anyone else. Judaism: a people who have faced threats of extermination over and over again (the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Nazis), so suffering is understood in community. Christianity: Jesus on the cross is a central image, but that's an individual suffering, albeit suffering to atone for the sins of the whole world.

I couldn't point out to anything he said during class that was factually wrong [maybe "untrue" is more the word I want?], and I tried to remind myself that of course in an introductory overview you have to oversimplify and you can't necessarily be constantly caveating (e.g., "Substitutionary atonement is the traditional understanding of Jesus' death on the cross, but there are many different ways to understand Jesus' salvific work, and many progressive churches in particular reject the idea of substitutionary atonement") but much of what he said still really rankled.

Plus, of course, "suffering" is not something I would posit as a central theme of Judaism or Christianity (or Buddhism).

The next evening, I told my friend Cate that if I were asked to list major themes of Judaism I would say: enslavement, exile, liberation, being a people set apart, having a covenant with God, a legalistic understanding but along with that a tradition of arguing with God ("see the fine print here... oh you didn't specify that... what if there are only ten righteous people in the city? etc."), holidays of "They tried to kill us but they didn't succeed; let's eat!"

I then went to say, "If I were asked to list major themes of Christianity... actually I'm not sure what I would say. Maybe because it is my tradition and so I'm very aware of how much disagreement there is?"

Cate said she was never particularly observant even when she went to church with her family, but that her main takeaway from church was: "Jesus loves you, so go and love everyone else." She later said that she would also list "hope" as a major theme of Christianity.

***

Seven(!) years ago I took the the Belief-O-Matic quiz.

I took it again today and ugh, my beliefs do not fit into your options... I can pick an approximate, but your statement has resonances I don't intend and elides certain things that are important to me. Yes, multiple choice quizzes are inherently problematic. And this does help the prof's commentary on his results feel less offensive. "Concern for the enivironment" would not be the key phrase I would pull out were I asked to talk about Neo-paganism, for example, but given the questions and answers in this quiz I can see how someone like him could score high for Neo-paganism in large part because he has strong concern for the environment.

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

In 2002, my top 10 were:

1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (87%)
3. Orthodox Judaism (83%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (82%)
5. Unitarian Universalism (82%)
6. Sikhism (79%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (78%)
8. Islam (76%)
9. Neo-Pagan (69%)
10. Mahayana Buddhism (68%)

My 2009 results:

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
   
2. Liberal Quakers (83%)
   
3. Orthodox Quaker (80%)
   
4. Unitarian Universalism (72%)
   
5. Reform Judaism (70%)
   
6. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (62%)
   
7. Seventh Day Adventist (61%)
   
8. Eastern Orthodox (48%)
   
9. New Age (48%)
   
10. Roman Catholic (48%)

[Walkman] technology influencing culture

From "The Soundtrack to Your Life: Celebrating 30 years of the Sony Walkman" by Greg Beato | June 23, 2009:

Despite the high price, the Walkman was ultimately a leveling device. A few years earlier, portable stereo systems—boomboxes—had liberated those who wanted to take their music with them everywhere from the tyranny of Top 40 playlists. But boomboxes offered sonic freedom only to those who were strong enough to lug a battery-eating briefcase around and intimidating enough to impose their love of The Village People on others without censure. For anyone with $200, however, the Walkman delivered the same aural sovereignty.

In early Walkman marketing efforts and promotional materials, Sony emphasized how the device could enhance leisure activities like roller-skating and bicycling. Echoing R. Crumb's iconic Keep on Truckin' motif, the Walkman's original logo featured four feet emphatically propelling the word "Walkman" along. Despite its status as a "personal" stereo system, Sony also presented the Walkman as a social device: The original model featured two headphone jacks, along with an orange "hotline" button that allowed two users to talk to each other over whatever tape was currently playing. This feature, Sony executives believed, would keep the Walkman from being perceived as selfish.

They shouldn't have worried. Just a few years earlier, after all, Tom Wolfe had dubbed the 1970s the Me Decade. "Have it your way!" Burger King insisted to potential customers. Consumers were eager to turn listening to music into a solitary, immersive experience. And they didn't necessarily want to have to put on a pair of running shoes to enjoy their Walkmans either. Indeed, as much Sony positioned the device as an accessory for the sort of kinetic, upbeat fun that transpired in nominally social contexts, that was only one way to use it.

The Walkman also served as an extremely effective "Do Not Disturb" sign. Take a book on the subway to discourage interaction with fellow travelers, and you were likely to inspire inquiries about the book. Take a Walkman, and you were suddenly as inaccessible as a lone car commuter protected by the glass and steel of his GM sedan. As effective as the Walkman was in pushing us toward Rocky-like moments of transcendence on the treadmill, its most unique attribute was its ability to enhance life's lesser moments.

In grocery store lines, school cafeterias, airport lounge holding pens, boring college lectures, and every other public or semi-public place where blabbermouths with boundary issues once wielded absolute license to accost you, a new sense of privacy came into existence The Walkman was so good at enveloping its users in a no-fly zone of self-containment it even made private life more private. It didn't matter if you were at the dinner table, in the family room, in the marital bed—with a pair of Walkman headphones clamped to your head, you were clearly otherwise engaged.

[...]

As RiShawn Biddle suggested in Reason ten years ago on the Walkman's 20th anniversary, making mixtapes for our personal stereo systems (where limited battery life meant zero tolerance for throwaway songs) whetted our appetites for the coming age of interactivity. To further prep us for the way we live now, the Walkman also popularized the notion that downtime was no longer necessary, that we could assuage our restless dissatisfaction with something more nourishing than the thin gruel of "I'd rather be sailing" bumper stickers.

With a Walkman, every moment could be, if not ideal, then at least more ambient, more aligned with one's particular tastes, more fulfilling. It made us realize we didn't have to just sit on a bus, as dead to the world as a plastic plant—or even worse, reading. We could be listening to Billy Joel! And if we could be listening to Billy Joel, couldn't we also be playing videogames, or watching movies, or laboriously tapping out 140-character messages to strangers on keyboards the size of a business card? And if we could do such things while stuck on a bus, or waiting in line at a grocery store, then surely we could do them while stuck in our cubicles at work, or eating lunch with our less interesting friends. Indeed, as soon as the Walkman hit store shelves, the looming promise of our highly mobile, super-empowered, hyper-productive future grew clearer: Never again would we have to endure the tedium of doing one thing at once.

"I felt my heart strangely warmed."

Last October, I sent an email to a bunch of people, titled "not actually Jonah, I swear" and with body text:

I did an Internet meme with one of my friends today, and for the "Ask you something I've wanted to know about you" part, she said, "I think you would make a wonderful minister. Is that something you've considered?"

I cracked up, because people keep telling me I should go to div school/seminary (and I would totally love getting to geek out about religion full-time) but I think I'm highly unsuited for most of what's involved in actually being a minister.

-Elizabeth

Yesterday I Replied All (and tweaked the recipient list a bit):

Subject: Gee, where have I heard this before?

At lunch today, my coworker Cailin was asking if I was thinking about grad school, and I said no, I'm just taking classes for fun, enjoying my cushy job. She said I "LIGHT UP" when I'm taking about religion or when religion comes up, and so I should think seriously about pursuing that as a career. She also thinks I sell myself short in saying I'm not cut out for ordained ministry. I didn't get into the fact that if I did decide to pursue ordained ministry I would have to do it through the United Methodist Church since CWM is my home, and that means stuff like itinerancy system... nevermind of course the fact that I'm queer. She half-joked that I should set up The Church Of Elizabeth. Haha, yeah, no. (She also suggested theology professor as a career option, which I really don't feel a pull towards.)

-Elizabeth

One thing that's funny is that in sitting with the idea a bit after I sent the email, the idea of getting to do church as my LIFE was really thrilling me. Though as Tallessyn (CWM's Music Minister) pointed out in her reply, "Just because you love something doesn't make it a vocation. i love math, for example."

Trelawney suggested that I examine my skill set and what kinds of work I might enjoy. Which makes a lot of sense. (I realized after lunch that one problem in having this conversation with Cailin was that she doesn't seem to really grok what being a pastor entails -- she's not church people.)

I realized in talking to my best friend that evening that really there are 2 separate issues on the table here: (1) Should I go to div school/seminary? (2) Should I serve the church in ways beyond what I'm already doing?

People have frequently suggested that I go to div school/seminary, and I've been increasingly involved in liturgical planning. It's not like I haven't thought about these things.

But I'm also still not a fan of the "you're too smart (or whatever) to be doing this job." I appreciate Cailin's concern that I not wake up in 20 years and regret not having made different choices (and as long as I'm doing what I want to do, she will respect my choices ... she just knows how comfortable it is here and is wishing that someone had pushed her a little more a couple years ago and so she's trying to pass on the benefit of her experience to people she cares about), but I grew up with my mom doing about the same job I'm doing now, and she had and continues to have a fulfilling life, so I think in part the model I have is just different from the models Cailin's used to.

The work I do isn't less valuable for not having cache, and I'm not selling myself short by not having a more high-status job title, and the work I do not-for-pay is important work even if I don't have a specific title or paycheck associated with it.

I mean, pastoral care is what I do (see some of this, for example), just for select people rather than caring for an entire community.

But as my mom said, "You can make a differnece with no further education, no titles, no job description -- just showing up and speaking up, being there, etc. Just what you are doing."

Tiffany wants to have coffee with me when she gets back from maternity leave to talk about this, and I definitely support that. Continuing to discern my gifts and graces and where the Spirit might be trying to lead me are all things that I should definitely be attending to throughout my life, and I think actualfax churchfolk are gonna be much better soundingboards and guides for helping me in that discernment process than certain other classes of people.

Third Sunday After Pentecost

I love when both my Sunday churches preach on the same lectionary.

***

CHPC

Karl was at a conference, so Kelsey and Kristy led service.

Kelsey's Words of Assurance she invoked the story of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment. Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace." Kelsey said, "Hear the Good News: Your sins are forgiven."
I was SO STOKED to hear Words of Assurance that were succinct and straightforward (I can't focus on Karl's Words of Assurance to save my life) and clearly rooted in Scripture (I don't necessarily disagree with what Karl says is the Good News, but I would like a clear actual source; Rest and Bread's Words of Assurance are Jesus' "come to me all you who are weary..." and then ending with "We are a forgiven people. (Amen)," which seems to me a reasonable textual choice).

Scripture Readings:
Psalm 89:5-18
Mark 4:35-41

Sermon: "Stormy Weather"
"Let us go across to the other side." Jesus had been doing his ministry in his home turf of Galilee, but on the other side is the Decapolis, a Hellenistic area with few Jews.
Kelsey posited the storm as an example of the consequences of choosing to follow Jesus.
Jesus calls the disciples not just to watch him cross borders but to cross borders themselves.
She said that in the Old Testament, storms represent chaos and anarchy.
Perhaps Jesus is comfortable in the chaos.
In Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak, he talks about midlife depression, coming in part out of conforming to others' expectations, She quoted from a poem: "Whatever has been uprooted, let it be a seedbed for whatever is to come."
The storm on the sea makes possible the ministry to the Gentiles.
The disciples don't doubt Jesus' power [they wake him up so that he can save them], but they fail to recognize Christ's peace from the beginning.

***

CWM

"We make the road by walking."
-Myles Horton

Children's Time: Marla told a story of one of our children, with a takeaway message about the courage to do what we believe to be right, even when it isn't what anyone else around is doing, and also about how we always do have people/God with us, supporting us.]

Hebrew Bible Lesson: edited version of David and Goliath (from 1 Samuel 17)
Gospel Lesson: Mark 4:35-41

In her Reflection, Marla talked about how David couldn't move in the armor and weapons that Saul gave him (which was the piece that had most struck me upon hearing the reading), and how we are not called to fight Goliath on Goliath's terms. If we fight Goliath and win using Goliath's own tools, we become Goliath, and that's not really what we want. If we only use Goliath's paths, then we end up with only paths that Goliaths walk on. We want to make new paths.
She talked about the Mark passage. She asked: Who were Jesus' first disciples? They were fishers. It was probably one of their own boats they took out. She said that we often forget about that line that says there were other boats with them, and we don't hear that any of those other boats sank or anything. She said that she likes to think that the fishers in the other boats were doing what they needed to do to handle a storm. Jesus was asleep -- hey, he's a carpenter, not a fisher. They wake him up, and he calms the storm, and then he turns to them and says, "Have you still no faith?" Have you no faith in yourselves, in your own abilities?
She closed by reading from Wendell Berry's poem "Do Not Be Ashamed."
She talked about trying to get people in Cambridge (Massachusetts) on board around issues of climate change and how they insist that it's not possible. She said, "Of course it's not possible. If it were possible, we would have done it already. We have to make the road that gets us there." (I would quibble with that a bit -- there are plenty of things that are possible that we haven't done for any number of reasons -- but I understand what she's getting at.)

***

My best friend's pastor said that the disciples don't ask Jesus, "Fix this," but "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" that when people reach out to us in crisis, they are not necessarily looking for us to fix thing (though that may be our instinctual response) but rather to care that they are suffering.

For anyone braving the Job portion of the lectionary, may I recommend a Radio National "Encounter" program called "Ashes," looking at the Book of Job (see my post here). I still really like Robert Eisen's take on the "happy ending" of Job.

[UMC] New England Annual Conference 2009 [Saturday, June 20]

As I walked up the steps of the chapel, I saw Barbara at the rainbow stoles table. I'd been given one at Convo 2007, but it was a bit too fluorescent for my taste, plus I just felt weird, so I didn't wear it (yes, I'm the only person in the CWM photo not wearing one), but here there were a multitude of options on this table, and one pattern reminded me of a facebook quiz my best friend took, so I bought one for me and one for her. (If anyone wants one of their own, just let me know, since I know the folk storing the leftovers. There were beautiful ones reminiscent of stained glass windows, but since I am never going to wear one it seemed extra foolish to wear two. Though I found myself really appreciating seeing all these people wearing stoles and knowing they were Reconciling, and I was actually still wearing my stole when I was getting ready for bed around midnight that night.)

I finally found a good description of the rainbow stoles project in the the Winter 2009 Kindred Connection (pages 3-4). Excerpt:

"A Brief History of PRN's Reconciling Stoles"
By Helen Andrews, PRN Steering Committee & RMN

Prior to General Conference 2004, the Parents' Reconciling Network Steering Committee selected a short, symbolic stole of rainbow colors to be the identifier for reconciling persons at GC in Pittsburgh. Those wearing the stole would identify themselves to be committed to the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in the life and policy of the United Methodist Church. The stole motif was chosen to signify that we are all ordained in God's kin-dom. The rainbow colors represent the wondrous diversity of God's creation.

(Also in Googling I learned that apparently the Lutherans do it, too?)

I had lunch with the Reconciling folks (apparently you couldn't buy a lunch ticket, had to have pre-registered, so I was glad I brought second breakfast and trail mix). Someone said that 12 or 13 retired Reconciling clergy (I wasn't clear if this was just in the New England Annual Conference or nationally) have presided over same-sex marriages and holy unions -- because the Church can't do much to punish retired clergy, whereas it can punish those who are not yet retired. Hi, I think this is awesome. He also said they're gonna be making a public declaration of this fact, signing their names, as a show of support.

***

I had come primarily because Tiffany had raved about Violet Fisher's preaching. And really, coming for lunch + church service was probably a good plan (though next year maybe I will go for some of the discussion/voting). The service lasted literally from ~2:00-4:50pm. I knew almost all of the hymns, and I found myself really conscious of the language of submission and Lordship and blood atonement and so forth.

Scripture Readings:
Amos 8:10-12
Psalm 119:97-105
II Timothy 2:8-16

Bishop Violet Fisher preached on "Being the Word." Her sermon was very much slanted toward the confirmands etc., which made sense [the booklet we got said on its cover, "Order of Worship for: Recognition of Local Pastors, Commissioning of Provisional Deacons & Elders, Ordination of Deacons and Elders, Reception Into Full Connection"] but which still felt a little weird to me.
I wasn't a fan of the sermon for a while [At CWM the next evening, Tiffany said to me, "Every time I tell Elizabeth a worship experience is going to be amazing, it disappoints."] but it got better maybe a third to halfway through.
* She said that there is a famine of the Word and we are called to be the Internet. (Near the end of the sermon, she repeated that with lots of specific examples and after listing Facebook and MySpace, she had a slip of the tongue and said SpaceBook :) )
* She quoted Gandhi as saying the Bible "has enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace to this war-torn world. But you read it as if it were just good literature, and nothing else."
* She exhorted us: "Don't get so wrapped up in church-work [e.g., what color a room should be painted] that you lose sight of the work of the church [saving people, healing people, loving people, blessing people]."
* Don't lose your joy -- "Dragging to the pulpit -- just as I am, without one plea," she deadpanned.
* She said, "Don't let the folk in the church wipe you out," and in part because I was sitting with CWM folk, I automatically heard that as a word of encouragement to queer folk (and anyone else the institutionalized church would be happy to not have to deal with ... though I know that in the context, what she had meant was in the sense of "worn out and worn down" rather than "eliminated").
* She exhorted us to be excited, said "our excitement is contagious ... that others will hunger and thirst for righteousness."
* She reminded us to "stay in the Word, find yourself in the Word."
* She said that people outside of the church ask, "What is the lifeline of that church? Where is the transforming hope?"

It was really unclear when we were supposed to go up to get communed (P.S. It still irritates me that the official UMC Communion liturgy says "wine" when one of the defining characteristics of Methodists is that WE DON'T CONSUME ALCOHOL.) so eventually when we saw Will really near us, we just went and got communed. Will said, "The Cup of the Holy Spirit, poured out for you." Yes, I am glad the CWM balcony contingent were able to get non-traditionally communed. [At LizL's ordination, the people communing me just said "The Body of Christ" and "The Blood of Christ," and I almost said "The Bread of Life" and "The Cup of Blessing" or something as a response instead of "Amen" because I was so thrown. I am used to there being metaphors, both because straight-up blood atonement is uncomfortable and problematic and also to make it more meaningful and relevant and resonant.]

Tallessyn and Michele went down at the not-an-altar-call and the congregation was singing "Here I Am, Lord," and I didn't go down to pray with them because I didn't really understand this unfamiliar-to-me process and didn't feel like I was in the right [soul/head/heart/something]space to pray with them, but I actually cried as I watched their family [for various definitions] gather around them, which surprised me.

[policing the body] "uncontrollable appetites" (sex, race)

In response to cereta's post "On rape and men" (which I previously posted about here), shewhohashope posted [on LJ and DW] "On rape culture and civilisation"

delux_vivens commented:

Is it just me, or is it really ironic that so many trappings of POC cultures are sought after by appropriators because they are 'raw', 'primal', 'authentic' or whatever, while at the same time, actual POC can be so roundly criticized for 'hypersensitivity', lack of detachment, over emotionalism, 'conservativism' etc?

I'm thinking of bossymarmalade's post here, where she talks about being contacted by a white woman with dreadlocks and a cat named Kali who spoke up on behalf of those that "hope that they share in a culture that they feel is richer and more raw and valid then their own".

There's also a lot of good discussion in the comments of this delux_vivens post. yeloson talks about "acceptable rape," pointing out:

Basically why the news is right there when someone plays "blame a black guy" and yet goes to cover the offenders when it's a white rugby team.

Who's doing the raping and who's being raped, etc. and what's projected as ZOMG vs. "boys will be boys"

ithliana posted Racism and Rape: Part 1 (Black women). From the comments:

cos: BTW, I remember one case of race coming up on cereta's post that you didn't mention. In response to one of those cases where, as you described, someone was countering the stereotype about black men, someone else wrote:

"I'm actually much LESS likely to feel unsafe around black guys than I am white guys (I'm a short white girl), because on the whole, the black guys I've met have been the most polite and gentlemanly men I've ever met."

I responded to that comment and suggested that may be because she was actually in a position of privilege when she's white and they're black. I think you responded to say you had the same thought.

We never went further than that, though.

paradox_dragon: Yes! I had forgotten that. I did reply saying that a lot of black guys I know are deliberately careful and extra-mannerly around white girls/women because they're afraid for their own safety to end up as the Threatening Black Man.

ithiliana: By white washed history, I mean the kind of things James Loewen talks about in his work, where it's all passive and past tense: "Slavery was horrible, and then it ended," with all agency removed, with the idea that groups with social power, and individuals of those groups who had specific power, could and did attempt genocide. American history likes to leave out all the imperialism, colonialism, genocide, and other atrocities committed by the white American government--if that history was taught (age appropriate, and also, as Loewen says, the resistance to all of those movements which also occurred), I tend to think most people in the dominant group, white in this case, might not be so horrified.

* Racism and Rape: Part 2 (Native American/American Indian women)

Comments include discussion of "emotional pornography," which ithiliana points out is tied in with privilege--the "tell me every little detail you've suffered so I can decide if you have suffered enough to be worth MY attention."

Excerpts from another comment thread:

delux_vivens: I'm going to start asking some of the people I see commenting about how 'eye opening' this information is, b/c they 'havent thought about it' before: what exactly do you think about?

rosefox: I suspect all honest answers will be along the lines of "mostly I think about myself", probably with at least a side helping of "that's all in the past, so I don't think about it because I'm focused on the present". Even those of us who have encountered a lot of this information have seen it presented solely as historical rather than as anything relevant to anyone alive now, and it's certainly never linked to things like white girls still being raised to fear and mistrust men of color and see them all as likely rapists. (I was raised that way, by my civil rights activist mother; her Nice White Lady training won out when it came to her worries about keeping her daughter safe.)

The exotic pain pornography thing is a lot of why I haven't watched or re-linked the video going around of a girl being killed in Iran. The amount of attention it's getting feels somehow indecent and fetishizing in a way that I find really troubling.

delux_vivens: but from so many people who can rattle off detailed chapter and verse about How Those Women Over There (where over there = the entire muslim world, anywhere in Africa, etc) Are So Oppressed And Must Be Saved Right Now, it seems blatant.

rosefox: I don't at all disagree. I just think people can put a whole lot of effort into worrying about Over There precisely so they don't have to think too hard (or so they can feel they have somehow assuaged their consciences) about what's going on Right Here. It's much easier to claim to care about a whole lot of faceless people than to really care about the ones we see every day, and by focusing on how awful things are in e.g. Darfur, problems here can then be brushed off with "Well, at least it's better than Darfur!".

It's disingenuous and blatant and thoroughly rewarded and supported by the white mainstream. I don't at all mean to excuse individuals by blaming culture, though; I think there's plenty of blame to go around.

ithiliana: Excellent comment--I totally agree. It's hard because the history is important, and yet it does play into the progressivist myth (students literally tell me "slavery was a problem 100 years ago), plus the white-washed nature of the history that's usually taught--and yet the racism also is omnipresent in the present (that sounds weird, but I blame the lack of Coke Zero...).

And yes, completely yes, to the video of the girl being shot in Iran. (I thought similar things of a lot of the media coverage of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.)

* Racism and Rape: Part 3 (Asian/Indian/South Asian Women)
* Racism and Rape Part 4 (Latina/Chicana/Hispanic Women)

While I've highlighted comments discussion from ithiliana's posts, her posts also contain lots of reading lists.

Also: Anti-Oppression Linkspam Community

And as always, sparkymonster's links for clueless white people.

[policing the body] "uncontrollable appetites" (fat, food)

Last Wednesday (June 17) GMA had MeMe Roth on (whom I had read about the other day via the Notes from the Fatosphere feed). (BigLibertyBlog also blogged about the GMA piece.)

I think even if I hadn't been prepped at all, I still would have been a bit "huh?" at the ridiculously softball nature of the interview. Yes, you don't want junk food to even be an option at "in loco parentis" places, I understand the logic behind that. But what sort of twisted logic is, "So that the kids aren't doing nothing while everyone else is chowing down on junk food, they can pull out a plastic container and put the junk food in that and bring it home and we'll discuss whether they're allowed to have it maybe after their piano lesson or something"? One commenter said, "if MeMe doesn’t want her children to have cupcakes, donuts, and juice pops, she could always just instruct them to politely refuse the treats. There were kids at my elementary school who were taught to do that because of allergies, religious dietary requirements, and parents who had strong beliefs about what foods were good and bad for them, and aside from a question here and a pitying look there, it wasn’t a big deal."

And wtf "Show me an American who understands moderation?" Seriously? We should ban junk food from everyone's presence because no one is capable of consuming in moderation? (And how the eff did obesity rob her mother and grandmother of "their health, and their hope, and their aspirations"?)

And, um, you told the YMCA that if they didn't get some food out in addition to the ice cream buffet in the next hour you were going to start throwing food out? No wonder the cops got called.

A friend of mine sent me this article on MeMe Roth. From the end:

When I ask her if she's ever been anorexic, she gasps: "No! I've never even been on a diet!" So I ask her what she eats in an average day. On this, Roth is reticent. She now runs a private nutrition counselling business, she says, and because of that, "I don't spend a ton of time telling people what I do personally. What works for me may not work for other people."

That's fine, I say, but just as an example?

"I eat beans like nobody's business," she says hurriedly. "I eat more black beans than anyone else I know."

I try to pin her down to something more specific. Let's just do a sample day, I say. What about breakfast? Roth grimaces. "I hate to say this, because I think it's counter to what most people should do, but I never in my whole life have enjoyed breakfast. For me, it doesn't work as well as other things."

Right, I say. So how about lunch?

She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."

Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."

OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?

"I might."

I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?

Roth is a little quiet.

"No," she says.

There is a pause.

"But I feel great!"

***

That same day, Sweet Machine complained about the obsessive attention to what President Obama eats. She wrote:

Maybe the very reason that Obama can sometimes just pick at his fries instead of shoving them into the presidential gullet is that he knows he can have fries another day if he likes. The man is the president of the United States, after all. Do we really want him to obsess over whether he should order his salad dressing on the side?

I know that this isn’t the first time that a President’s gustatory preferences have been drummed up into a national incident, but this idea that people will eat themselves fat because the Obamas ate fish and chips—while in London!—is only possible in a culture where we are so deeply alienated from our own bodies that we cannot be trusted to use food. Are you insulted? I sure as hell am.

[policing the body] sex work

Sacred Eros - Thursday, May 28, 7:00pm in the Perkins Room

Our theme for this month is "Word, Image, Flesh, Spirit." Sexually explicit writing and images have been around for centuries, made more widely available with the printing press and camera, and even more so with the Internet. Some say such words and images are inherently bad and harmful -- or are they? Can erotica be good for you, even spiritually inspiring? Bring your opinions, your questions, your favorite examples, and some munchies or beverages to share.

Sacred Eros is a monthly discussion group at Arlington Street Church, providing a safe and supportive space to explore questions about sexuality from a spiritual and ethical perspective. All people over 18 are welcome, and participants are expected to respect one another and keep personal matters discussed confidential.

It turned out to just be me and the facilitator, which bummed me out a bit as I was really excited about the topic but hadn't actually done any advance prep myself.

We talked about a whole slew of topics, some not even really connected to the stated topic.

The facilitator talked about sex work a lot from a workers' rights angle. If workers are entitled to safe working conditions, etc., then why aren't sex workers (prostitutes, those working in pornography, etc.) entitled to the same? I was thinking later, "But what about drug dealers -- we don't agitate for them to have health care." Will Wilkinson had recently posted on Cultural Externalities and Harm.

---

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:30pm
CineMental Presents: Happy Endings?
at Brattle Theater
40 Brattle Street Harvard Sq. Cambridge
9:30pm $10
http://www.truthserum.org for info and links.
followed by discussion and drinks.

With the Rhode Island legislature getting ready to vote on changing the "indoor prostitution" loophole, CineMental is thrilled to bring this insightful documentary to the Boston area. Filmmaker Tara Hurely will join us for Q+A following the screening. This should be a rousing discussion of sex worker's rights and privacy as well as informative about her filmmaking process.

Happy Endings? is an intriguing exploration of the Asian massage parlor industry in Providence, RI, where a 25 year-old loophole has made the exchange of sex for money legal - as long as it happens behind closed doors.

As the documentary follows a recent Korean immigrant, "Heather", working to operate her spa, the city's mayor fights to change the law that allows her business a legal existence.

The film includes interviews with Korean women who work in spas, clients who frequent the spas, politicians from 1980 and today, police, local news footage, radio call-in shows and "voiced" reviews from internet escort review boards.

Official Website: http://www.happyendingsdoc.com/
Official Blog: http://happyendingsdoc.wordpress.com/
Film Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/happyendingsdoc
Facebook Group for film: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=40775235587

Someone early on in the film commented that a "loophole" indicates a way to get around obeying a law, but the law did what it was supposed to -- it got sex workers off the streets. Having sex workers not out on the street benefits the other residents as well as helping the sex workers be safer.

One thing I hadn't expected but shouldn't have been surprised by was the element of racism. Yes it's problematic that it's disproportionately the sex workers who get arrested and thrown in jail [see this blogpost, for example] even though it's also illegal to pay a woman for sex. (And seriously, so many of the anti-spa folks in the film were invoking the specter of human trafficking, but if these women aren't meaningfully consenting to be sex workers, how is punishing them a good idea in any way?)

But there's also the fact that all these women are South Korean (these women immigrating from South Korea brought a business model they had seen in their home country). "Jen" (one of the prostitutes) said of one of the raids, that the police acted "like Asian people are nothing to them."

Connected to the racism issue is the immigration issue. "Heather" and "Chris" got married on 9-11-01, and in a clip from maybe 2005, "Chris" quipped, "They still haven't found Bin Laden, and she still doesn't have her green card." Hurley writes:

“Heather” married her husband “Chris” on 9-11. (It seemed odd to me that someone would be married on a Tuesday, but they were.) The entire time I was filming I was mostly concerned with “Heather’s” reaction with the prostitution laws. In reality she was mostly interested with her immigration case. In every interview all she wanted to talk about is how she wanted to go home to Korea to see her mom. She needed to relax, replenish and then come back to the US to finish her immigration hearings.

I was talking to my college roommate about “Heather’s” immigration case. She thought it was odd that “Heather” was in hearings for seven years, when she works with a a woman who was unmarried and only had one hearing and became a citizen. I asked her where that woman was from and she said England. It makes me think that if you are from a “white” country and go try to immigrate they welcome you with open arms.

"Heather" said, "I'm okay with them saying things are wrong because that's their job." She said, "whether it's moral or immoral, they get our taxes, they give us a permit."

Ginny Hall, Account Executive of the Providence Phoenix, says she goes there the same time every week, so if any of the women there wanted to give her some sort of message, they could certainly plan to do so. Hurley commented in the Q&A that one of the spas shares a parking lot with a taxi company. The host of the event pointed out that the counter-argument would be that these girls don't have anyone to call, don't have anywhere to go. Though the girls each have a cell phone and a laptop, some of them even have MySpace pages.

"Heather" died partway through the making of the documentary, and Hurley attended her funeral. She got chatted up by a lot of the people there since she stood out as the only white woman there. During the Q&A, Hurley said, "If someone forced me into sexual slavery, I wouldn't fly all the way across the country to go to their funeral to honor them. I might fly all the way across the country to their funeral to make sure they were in the ground."

Near the end, Rep. Gianinni says we need to "teach our children careers ... doctors, lawyers ... even secretaries or administrative assistants -- anything but prostitutes." I knew the point she was trying to make, but I was still really offended.

In the Q&A, Hurley said Rhode Island is the most economically depressed state after Michigan, and at least they [Michigan] can blame the auto industry. When she started this documentary, there were 12 or 13 "spas," and now there are reportedly 30. It's a growth industry. [See also this blogpost.]

What do you do with the Sermon on the Mount?

Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus said to his disciples 'You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Commentary: These words of Jesus can make us feel that we never measure up. To forgive an enemy is one of the most difficult things to do in life. Bitterness is understandable when we have been badly and unjustly treated. Christian preaching can force forgiveness too readily. All we know is that the more we can forgive, the freer we become. The example of Jesus' love and forgiveness on the cross can help us make small steps on the way of forgiveness in our lives. Sometimes the realisation that God loves each of us can help us look on others with love or tolerance or compassion.

-from Sacred Space, prayer for 16th June

One of my friends really struggles with the "Be perfect" injunction. And looking at it in the context of the three chapters that make up the Sermon on the Mount doesn't really help (she refers to it as "three chapters of impossible things before breakfast").

I told her that I read it as Jesus saying, "The Pharisees tell you to keep all the laws and commandments, and they act like they're so great because they keep all of those themselves, but I'll let you in on a secret -- I AM's supreme commandment of Love goes way beyond their narrow scope, and no one, not even the Pharisees, has mastered living that fully, but the Divine Parent loves each and every one of you so much that She wants you to love yourselves and each other just as much as She loves you, and her grace is sufficient to make up the difference every time you try and fall short, just keep trying."

Though I also recognize that I'm importing a lot from elsewhere in the Scriptures to that reading.

I later commented: "Jesus hung around a lot of supremely imperfect people, and he didn't usually seem very concerned with telling them to be perfect. I think God desires us all to live into the fullness of the persons we were created to be, but I also think God has a limitless supply of grace and mercy which She freely pours out on us over and over again."

***

I reread Mathew 5-7, and it is HARD. Lots of, "You thought these were the rules, but actually the rules are even more demanding than you thought. And you can't enter heaven unless you keep them all perfectly." There is no "you are saved by grace" in these three chapters. There is a lot of heaven and hell. I do kind of snerk at the, "Just because you call me Lord, if you don't do good things then I don't know you," but saved-by-works is really problematic (not to mention untenable -- who manages to never insult anyone or lust after anyone or etc.?).

I mean, here Jesus makes Paul look like the grace-filled non-rule-bound guy -- "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:23-24).

policing the body

Monday morning at the gym, I saw GMA's segment on Marianne Kirby and Gabrielle Gregg.

***

Seen today via Dave Chen: Abercrombie and Fitch banishes girl with prosthetic arm to storeroom because she doesn't fit the "look policy"

***

Yesterday, I was reading a rant about the way Zoe Saldana's skin gets described in fanfic, and in reading something about Zoe Saldana getting described as "light-skinned," I read something (though I can't find it now) that commented that up until recently, being a light-skinned black person meant being the product of a white man raping/coercing a black woman.

***

Marianne Kirby takes issue with Purex's “As things get simpler, they get thinner. They get better.” ad campaign.

***

I read Marianne Kirby's complaint about Bravo's Fashion Show (and an even better blogpost from mo pie on Big Fat Deal) and I remembered something I had seen from Virgina Postrel.

As it turns out, Shapely Prose had already seen Postrel's article.

Sarah: My most charitable read is that she’s distinguishing the average weight from the mean weight. Her argument, as I see it, is that it’s in the economic interests of the clothing companies to make clothes near the mean (rather than the average simply because that’s how they can maximize the number of people who can wear their clothes while minimizing what they spend on developing different sizes.

IOW, even though the “average” size may be a 14, that doesn’t mean that’s the single size (or range of a few sizes) that the greatest number of women can wear. There’s a big range of sizes above a 14, obviously — and those all affect the average size, but that doesn’t mean that any *one* (or two or three) of those plus sizes is common enough to pull in lots and lots of customers, at least to a brick-and-mortar store. So the sizes promising the greatest numbers of customers wouldn’t be the *average* size (or range of sizes), but the *mean* size, which (she claims) brick-and-mortar stores already do try and cater to.

Yes, Sarah, that was my read of it as well (and I wasn't actually going out of my way to be charitable). Shapely Prose links to Jezebel's response to the article, which makes some really good points.

Speaking of fashions for fat ladies, Gabrielle Gregg's YoungFatAndFabulous has lots of pretty pictures (interestingly, I read "Beth Ditto, fashion's Magical Fatty" and then saw Gabi's "Beth for Evans" and "Ditto" posts). Also, I love that the cover model for "Full-Figured Fashion Week" is a hott woman of color.

***

Medical-related readings from today:

Problematizing the obesity=>diabetes stats.

A depressing story from "First, Do No Harm: Real Stories of Fat Prejudice in Health Care."

WLS may increase bone fractures

A small study by the Mayo clinic as reported on Forbes.com showed that one in five people they reviewed after weight loss surgery suffered a bone fracture within 7 years, on average, after having the surgery. The group showed nearly double the fracture rate in post-WLS patients as in other patients.

"We knew there was a dramatic and extensive bone turnover and loss of bone density after bariatric surgery," study senior author Dr. Jackie Clowes, a Mayo rheumatologist, said in a Mayo news release. "But we didn't know what that meant in terms of fractures."

You mean they really didn't realize that an extensive loss of bone density would lead to more fractures? Isn't that, you know, why osteoperosis is a concern in the first place, because the loss of bone density leads to increased fractures? They didn't realize that by putting people through radical surgery that reduced their ability to get proper nutrition might, you know, also prevent them from getting proper nutrition? Like Calcium and vitamin D? That makes for the strong bones? really? Never occured to them?

on rape, domestic violence, etc.

(1) Elizabeth Mendez Berry's "Beyond Gossip, Good and Evil" on domestic violence (and undercutting macho posturing in gangs)

(2) cereta's post "On rape and men (Oh yes, I'm going there)".

There's lots of good stuff in the comments -- including how insulting it is to men is the cultural idea that they "can't control themselves" (e.g., if a woman is "acting slutty" or whatever), and how problematic it is that girls grow up knowing that they're going to need to be a "credible victim" (i.e., if they accuse someone of something, they're going to need to not be vulnerable to counters that they were "asking for it" or whatever), and also the importance of teaching children that "stop" means "stop" and that there's no shame in saying "stop."

Responding to a commenter, cereta said:

Thank you for telling this story. I really believe we should tell them, not because such acts are so worthy of praise, but because boys need to hear such stories, to hear how good men act.

And yes, GOD, if there has been one thing I have learned in my brief time as a mother, it's how much men are sometimes praised for NOT acting like raving dickheads, and how said it is that we do that. Men should be angry about that, not at the women who point it out, but at the men who create that impression.

hubbit and ataniell93 both talked about how problematic it is for people to invoke Orthodox Judaism or political liberalism to insist that women should or should not dress modestly.

In linking to the post, inlovewithnight said:

Her point isn't that men are evil; far from it. It's that a societal problem like rape can't be changed as long as only half the population is working on it. Actually, less than that, because women as a group internalize our oppression amazingly well; I can't find it now, but somewhere in the comments of Cereta's post someone talks about how much of her personality and behavior has been shaped by *wanting to be a credible victim, should it ever come to it*, and yes, hi, that's me. The idea of all the things I haven't done, the experiences I passed on, because nobody wanted to go with me and it just wasn't the smart/good/safe thing to do by myself, hurts so much if I let myself think about it.

In her post, giandujakiss mentioned:

there was a comment about how people - boys in particular - need to be taught that no and stop mean no and stop, even outside the context of a situation specifically identified as "dating." Because the invasion of women's physical space and right to control their bodies occurs in all kinds of situations, not just on "dates."

She talked about an experience at a summer camp pool and how "the only way a girl could effectively signal a lack of consent to be grabbed and lifted and dunked was to not go swimming at all."

coffeeandink posted about a variety of stories of people whose experience of abuse/harrassement is marginalized (because they are not-white, because they are male, because they are disabled, etc.). One thing that really struck me was the problems that come from reading the stories she linked to was, as elle put it, "the fetishization of virginity."  How once you've crossed a certain boundary, your decision about whether to cross it again is given less weight.  (I keep starting to write about formulating a personal sexual ethics and how church and culture don't give us good models and tools for that, but everything I have to say feels just a little too me-centric off-topic for this moment.)

RaceFail (boosting the signal)

oyceter posted: 2nd Asian Women Carnival: Intra/inter/transnationalities

***

The Willow posted about the impending The Princess & The Frog movie and etc.

***

gloss linked to something The Willow had said complaining about white people posting with RaceFail or Racism in the Subject Line but then going on to merely navel-gaze and self-congratulate.

mona commented:

Uh-huh. I've come to realize, after following and participating in many an internet or IRL argument, that the ego is hands down the most exhausting, obstructive entity in existence. How curious that it's so very preponderant among privileged POVs, but so rarely the reverse! It's almost as if some people are taught their voices are more important than others'! :O

I just wish, when playing at allyship, people's FIRST act was to sit and listen (and think! and deconstruct themselves! BASICALLY: What bell hooks said), before they tried to yell and scream and maintain their socially enforced positions as Most Important and Listened to Speaker at all costs. Trying to maintain privilege in this area truly obstructs even approaching unpacking it everywhere else, and yet somehow there's this privileged assumption that talking and posting and dripping privilege and ignorance all over the world is a great form of allyship, something that's going to help you, and the people around you, learn and grow and change! It all comes back to ego, I guess: I'll get more out of basically talking to myself, of talking over you and convincing myself that I'm saying something new and changing slowly but surely, than I will out of listening to you.

***

coffeeandink pointed out that "science fiction fandom is not a special snowflake and media fandom is not the greatest place ever for racial discourse."

***

delux_vivens wrote:

something i've seen repeatedly brought up on lj over the years are objections to the concept of 'safe space'.

and particuarly, the objections that somehow if there is a 'safe space' the people in it are somehow depriving themselves; of a commitment to intellectual rigor, of any opportunity for mental growth and development, of any sort of opportunity to learn from people that are different from them because, of course, safe space means that you squelch any and all dissenting opinions, about, well, everything.

I was under the impression people within a particular community can be a part of that community and have extreme disagreement, but also agree to disagree. Case in point: sex_and_race and interracial dating. I'm just sayin'. There's folks there who are married to white people, and those who refuse to ever even consider the possibility of ever letting a white person see them nekkid and most likely cut someone for suggesting it. Yet and still they manage to understand each other's position, no matter how much extremity people may feel about it.*

This is fascinating to me. because, really, participation in an online (or offline) community somehow means that I and others am devoting my life to the pursuit of avoidance of aaaaaaaaany exposure to anything else *but* that community? Somehow by doing that I can insulate myself from the larger world that as Hanifa Walidah** put it 'dont wish me right' and make it all just go away.

Uh huh.

This sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me, so i'm starting to wonder if this means something else.

So when brownfemipower asks this question: But isn’t that interesting how when women of color control the space, racist ignorance is not rewarded? I'm starting to think its about safe space as a challenge to power imbalance. I'm just saying.

***

I was on sparkymonster's LJ the other day, and in a WisCon writeup, she wrote, "I discovered Shapely Prose thinks rolling around in straight white cis privilege is AWESOME and was not amused."

isilya commented:

I would not have felt this fear if Kate had not set herself up as a platform, if she had simply admitted that Shapely Prose is a bunch of white girl friends with white girl voices, and that is how she likes it.

But it terrifies me that someone can be "committed to diversity" and yet choose someone who "feels like part of the family" or "someone who feels like they just fit in" or "someone they click with" instead.

A) I am going to make a hell of a lot of potential employers feel uncomfortable. I challenge the status quo, I am not what they are expecting. I am everything a white male doctor is not. It scares the fuck out of me that even white people who are educated about white privilege can still decide to rely on their "gut feeling" that they "click" with other white people and not even look any further.

B) What the fuck does diversity even mean if your primary criterion is "someone who feels like they are already part of the family". Does that mean someone who feels white?

"seeds of mercy and seeds of justice"

Watching tv at the gym this morning, I learned that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt got baptized into Christianity by Stephen Baldwin while on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Spencer said that he saw that Stephen was surrounded by love and he was like, "Whatever you've got, I want that," and Stephen said "Jesus."

My second thought upon hearing that was, "And are you going to do the 'Give up everything and follow me' that Jesus asked of the rich young man?" But my first thought upon hearing it was, "Yes, that is supposed to be how we bring people to Christianity -- by living our lives in such a way that they say, 'Hey, what's up with that? Tell me more about that.'"

Later today, I was poking around the MethoBlog some, and I read one blogger say: "Jesus is a person. Not a product. Introduce me. Don’t sell me."

This same blogger quotes Seth Godin (from his book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us):

Senator Billy Bradley defines a movement as having three elements:

1. A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build.
2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe.
3. Something to do–the fewer limits, the better.

Too often, organizations fail to do anything but the third.

People often ask me why I do so much church (I attend worship or discussion at at least 4-5 different places each week), and I haven't come up with a better answer than, "It makes me happy" (for which articulation I have my friend Meredith D. R. to thank).

My best friend's pastor has said two things about church that have stuck with me.
1) This is not the place we pretend to be well.
2) We go to church every week because we touch the face of God.

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries is my "home" church.

Last night, Prayers of the People took twenty minutes (that doesn't include the Pastoral Prayer or the Unison Prayer, though it does include the pastor repeating each articulated prayer back to the parishioner). CWM is not a large congregation. There were probably two to three dozen people present last night. But this is the place where I offer up all the joys and concerns that are on my heart. Sometimes I forget some. Sometimes I just lift up names because the "why" is too complicated and/or too incriminating. But this is the place where I can offer up all the prayers that are on my heart. And I could do that at my morning church, too (I was recently touched when a parishioner told me that she can't remember all my friends' names, but she prays for "Elizabeth's friends"), but CWM is the place that models for me that I can list a half a dozen names, complete with explanations, and can ask for prayers for the same people week after week.

I get cranky about "Passing of the Peace" turning into socializing time (that is what Coffee Hour is for!), but the times at CWM when a hug with someone has turned into an extended catch-up session such that I don't actually get to peace the entire congregation before we are reconvened for Communion feel right.

Last night, our Closing Hymn was "Bring Forth the Kin(g)dom of God" [see here for full text]. The last line of the last verse is: "Love our journey and love our homeland: love is the kin(g)dom of God!"

True story.

And in closing, CWM's unison Closing Prayer: "All this we ask in the name of Jesus. Feed us daily; hold us fast; calm our fears; and send us forth boldly, joyfully, and ever faithful in your spirit. Amen."

Pentecost 2009

The Reflections at Rest and Bread (the meditative mid-week service I attend at the local UCC church) have been a series of biographies of Biblical figures, and the week before Pentecost was Ezekial.

The Sacred Text was Ezekiel 2:1-3:3.

In her Reflection, Laura Ruth talked some about the prophecy Ezekiel is given about the dry bones, and I remembered that at Holy Saturday vigil, one of the readings had been Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Life in the Midst of Death) and when I listened to it being read, I was hearing it literally and was very weirded out, but in her reflection, Pastor Tiffany talked about it as speaking to a people who felt that they were dried up, cut off, without hope.

Laura Ruth said that from a Christian perspective, Ezekiel's story prefigures Pentecost (which she did say we celebrate as the birth of the Church) -- God breathing into people and giving them voice, though she then said that of course God doing that long predates Ezekiel (I later thought, "Yeah, like Adam"), he's just a very good example of it (and apparently it's one of the readings you have the option of doing for Pentecost ... and in fact we read it at my Sunday morning church at Pentecost this year). I thought, "But Pentecost is the birth of the church because it happens in community." As I was articulating to my best friend that night what about the Acts story of Pentecost makes it the story of the birth of the church (like the fact that everyone gathered heard it in their native language, symbolic of reaching out and being so much more than just a Jewish revival/reform movement), I realized that I was so stuck on community being the important part of our Pentecost story in reaction to Laura Ruth's analogy, but if you had asked me previously to tell you what Pentecost is about, I probably would have said: fire, speaking in tongues, birth of the church (in that order).

She also talked about (and this was one of the pieces I was most struck by listening to the reading) God telling Ezekiel to eat the scroll and his finding it to taste as sweet as honey. She talked about embodying the Word by physically ingesting it and pointed out that we ingest the Word every time we take Communion, which I hadn't thought of (hi, I have a low theology of Communion) but which immediately made me think of the time we had milk and honey with Communion at my Sunday evening church once.

***

A few days later, I came across an entry on the "When love comes to town" blog -- "Pentecost, peace and grace..." Excerpt [apologies for the masculine gendering of the Holy Spirit]:

How does John’s gospel for today put it?

“I still have many things to tell you,” Jesus said, “but you can't handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is going on… indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. That is why I've said, 'He takes from me and delivers to you.

And then he concludes with these words: Fix this firmly in your minds: You're going to be in deep mourning while the godless world throws a party. You'll be sad – very sad – but your pain will turn into joy.

Did you hear that? God will be sending Christ’s friend to us – the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Truth – and the Spirit will come to us and comfort us so that our pain might be turned into joy. And that is what an adult Pentecost is all about, it seems to me: learning how to live and nourish the Spirit within and among us so that we might experience Christ’s joy.

Pentecost, writes Jim Callahan, is not the birthday of the church; that probably happened on Good Friday when Jesus was hanging on the Cross and pleading with God that we might be forgiven for sins we couldn’t even name or imagine. No Pentecost is God’s reply to Good Friday – a day of great joy, power, fire and spirit – that isn’t reserved just for Jesus alone but is poured out upon all of the faithful disciples. How does the book of Acts put it?

When the Feast of Pentecost came, the faithful were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. There were many others staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. And when they heard the sound, they came on the run… because one after another heard their own mother tongues being spoken. They couldn't for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, "Aren't these all Galileans? How come we're hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? Are they drunk?”

Strangers became kin folk on Pentecost. Frightened disciples became fearless evangelists on Pentecost. Women and men became equals on Pentecost. And everyone who experienced this revival could only talk about it like a banquet – or a beer fest – because the sadness was gone and joy filled the air. “In the midst of a numbingly sober and sour world, these women and men looked like a bunch of happy drunks,” Callahan writes, “because at last they knew that they were God’s beloved.”

Every last one of them experienced from the inside out that they were beloved by God just as Jesus had promised. What’s more they knew deep within that the heart of God was love – “not just in poetic theory, but in palpable fact.” They experienced, too, that in belonging to God they were not alone – they belonged to one another – in community. And the joy this gave them not only filled their hearts, “but gave them the inspiration to go out into the streets to heal and redeem.”

· This is what the spirit of the Lord had promised to Ezekiel when he prophesied to that valley of dry bones.

· This is what the prophet Joel had “predicted when he said that there will come a time when the Lord will pour out the Spirit upon all people” so that our sons and daughters might speak truth to power, our old men might live as visionaries again and our young people clear their heads in compassionate ways.

It is what Isaiah shared once and what Jesus took up again: the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach and bring good news to the poor and all who are wounded and broken. And Pentecost is the proof – the encounter – the experience that God really will turn our sorrow into joy.

And here is where I have to come down out of this wonderful and elevated pulpit… and talk with you as one broken and wounded soul to another. Pentecost, beloved, is not magic. It is not merely the stuff of hope filled myth nor sacred and spiritual fantasy. Pentecost is real. The joy of Christ is real.

+ Release from addiction is real. The end of our sorrow is real. The turning of our pain into joy is real, too.

+ Not that we still won’t have pain – not that all our tears will end in this life or the next – or that our experience of the living kingdom of God in the 21st century won’t also know anxiety, wounds, confusion and all the rest.

Jesus didn’t say that – and neither do I. As John’s gospel continues this morning, Jesus talks about the gift of the Holy Spirit coming to us like a woman giving birth. Listen carefully:

When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain. The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you. You'll no longer be so full of questions. This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I've revealed to you. Ask in my name, according to my will, and he'll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!

This, you see, is a call for training – an invitation to prepare our hearts and minds for the Spirit – just like Jesus said to his first disciples. Here is what the resurrection/Easter story says without ambiguity: once the shock of encountering the Risen Christ was over, Jesus spent the next 40 days teaching his bewildered disciples new and essential spiritual practices. He had done this in the flesh for three years, but the apparently needed a refresher course.

And at the end of these 40 days – 10 days before the Feast of Pentecost – he told them, “Now I want you to stay together and study and pray. Wait for power from on high. And when it comes… then you will be ready to act.” Now listen to what the book of Acts tells us happened next because it is instructive for us:

· First the disciples went back to Jerusalem as Jesus instructed and spent time in prayer. (Acts 1: 12-14)

· Second, they decided they needed to replace Judas who had fled and taken his life – that is they needed to restore the number of disciples to 12 again – why? To symbolically fulfill their calling as the 12 tribes of Israel.

· And third they studied and shared life together: do you see what is taking place here?

They weren’t looking for a miracle. They weren’t pretending that their grief and confusion wasn’t real. And they weren’t just going through the motions or playing church. They were studying, they were learning new ways of prayer and… they were practicing the unforced rhythms of God’s grace.

Remember those words of Jesus? Back in Matthew 11 he was explicit: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

It is my deepest conviction that what the disciples were doing was practicing the lessons Jesus gave them – they were learning the unforced rhythms of grace – getting ready to both see and experience the Holy Spirit when it was given. And they didn’t have to go anyplace special to receive this gift, did you notice that? They didn’t need to go to a university or a seminar, they just had to be together, open their heads and hearts and practice the unforced rhythms of grace.

Then, in the fullness of time, they were ready to receive, experience and claim the blessings of joy born of the Holy Spirit. Beloved in Christ, what was true then is no less true now… but we have some work to do: some study, some practice, some time spent learning the unforced rhythms of grace.

+ That is the promise of Pentecost: right here – right now – in our lives and in our time we, too, might come to know Christ’s joy.

· We will still weep – Jesus wept. We will still hurt – Jesus grieved for those who wounded him and ached when his body was attacked. We will still die even as the Lord died before us.

But we will also be grounded in a peace that passes all understanding – a joy that will change us from children to adults – a love that will not let us go. For we will know from the inside out that we are truly the beloved of the Lord - and this is where joy is born - when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is going on…so that your joy may be full.

***

In looking at the Archives of that blog, I saw a post titled "What if God was one of us..." and wondered if it was like this post (responding to an Onion piece), but actually...

Well, my friends, in case you haven’t guessed, today we’re going to be talking about Jesus: specifically I want to consider what the Cross of Jesus Christ has to tell us about God’s love and our humanity in these early hours of the 21st century. Theologian Douglas John Hall writes that: The cross of Jesus Christ represents simultaneously a high estimate of the human creature, a grave realism concerning human alienation, and the compassionate determination of God to bring humankind to the realization of our potential for authenticity.

Did you get all that? In the tongue of popular culture, we’re going to think about three essential insights in the Cross:

+ God’s deep love for us as beings created in the Lord’s image

+ The profound pain we cause through our alienation

+ And the relentless compassion of God’s grace

Are you with me? Love, pain and grace – or as Hall writes – our experience of being created, fallen and lifted: a new/old encounter with the Cross of Jesus Christ for our generation. So let’s see where this conversation might take us, ok?

Western Christians – conservative or progressive – often forget a spiritual insight that our cousins in Judaism regularly celebrate: namely, that as women, men and children created in the image of God we are just “a little lower than the angels” as the Psalmist tells us. We are NOT sinners first – sin is involved in our human experience – but we were never created in God’s image as sinners broken and wounded.

[...]

Sadly, and I believe incorrectly, most of Christian tradition has focused on our fallen and sinful relationship with God. And God knows that sin is real – any newscast or newspaper is documentation – but we have forgotten that alienation and separation from the Lord is not our primary condition. Rather, “the Hebraic/Jewish origins of our faith teach us to respect the goodness of creation and the promise of human life.” (Hall, p. 94)

Blaise Paschal, the 17th century French physicist and religious philosopher, suggested that loving Christians adopt a dialectic of grandeur and misery to keep us from acting too proud or too stupid. We like to make life seem either black or white he said – we tend to emphasize either optimism or pessimism – when in reality it is always both. At the same time, however, we must remember that the balance between these:

…two polarities is an asymmetrical one. The two sides of the dialectic – the yes and the no – are not equal. The weightier of the two is the first – the grandeur, not because humankind in itself and as such is so grand, but because we are God’s creation, created for a purpose that entails and affects all creation.”

The first insight the Cross of Jesus offers us is that we are the beloved of the Lord – created in God’s image just a little lower than the angels.

[...]

To be the church of Jesus Christ – the body of our Lord alive in the world today – demands that we start with an affirmation of our original blessing because God don’t make junk. “It is imperative for Christians to counter defeatism… in a sane and nuanced way” for we were created by the Source of ALL creativity.

That is the first insight from the Cross – we have been created by the Creator as a little less than the angels – the second is this: sometimes we despise this truth. If the story of the scriptures tells us anything it is that many times we don’t want to be LESS than the Lord: we want to BE the LORD. Douglas John Hall says it best:

The Scriptures of both Testaments demonstrate that humankind from the mythic Adam of the first Garden to the historic Adam of the second Garden, Gethsemane, “cannot stand God.” Even Jesus pleads with God to “remove the cup,” to take away the destiny of his vocation. And in between the two gardens every one of the prophets tries valiantly to resist his or her calling. Israel itself, as the name suggests, “struggles with God,” contends with the Unnamable... because our election is not a privilege but a responsibility. Even in the New Testament, where the central image of the kingdom of God is depicted poetically as a great banquet feast… everyone wants to flee from it. Even St. Paul himself, the most articulate and fervent of all the apostles of the early church, could only be brought into the sphere of Christ’s lordship kicking and screaming! (Hall, p. 101)

Isn’t that right? That the whole testimony of the Bible points to the fact that while God loves us we spend most of our lives running away – not towards – the Lord? If nothing else, the Cross of Christ shows us what it looks like when we keep on running: we wound and destroy the very heart of love itself. The Cross, you see, is not about God’s will, it is about what happens when we choose to flee from the responsibility of love.

To put forward the events of Holy Week and the Cross as a kind of divinely predetermined Oberammergau play whose author and director is none other than Almighty God is to have substituted fatalism for Biblical faith. Because the crucifixion is no more the direct will and plan of God than the fact that a million innocent children were slain in the Holocaust. (Hall, p. 103)

The Cross exposes the consequences of broken relationships – it makes clear for all with eyes to see what life looks like when we run away from our deepest commitments – and it is a sad and ugly picture. No wonder Jesus speaks to us of a vine and its branches: we are all connected. The disciple, John, amplified this when he told us:

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. So we are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first." (I John 4)

First we are created a little less than the angels. Second we have fallen and run away from the responsibilities of love. And third we are lifted – raised beyond the filth by God’s compassionate grace – that like the old American hymn tells us, “is a love that wilt not let me go.” We may get tired – we may feel lazy or beaten down – but God’s grace endures for ever.

· Let me say that again: God’s grace endures – and searches – and lifts us up over and over again because God’s love endures for… what?

· Forever! Remember what St. Paul told us? Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (I Corinthians 13)

There is a brokenness in the world, an incomplete aching in our hearts, and the third insight from the Cross is clear: the only way through it is with the grace of God that gives us a strength from the inside out. It cleanses. It heals. It renews us over and over again so that we can be fully human.

+ We’re not called to be God – we were created to be human – fully human – by grace we are humanized.

+ By grace the word becomes flesh and dwells within and among us.

+ By grace, we are made whole.

Not the same as God – that would be arrogant and stupid – but only a little less than the angels, too. One of the best expressions of this truth in popular culture came from the soul singer, Joan Osborne, who put it like this in a song called, “One of Us.”

Martin Luther, the father of our Protestant tradition, told those who had ears to hear in the 16th century: “Christian living does not mean to be good, but to become good; not to be well, but to get well; not being but becoming; not rest, but training. We are not there yet, but we shall be. It has not yet happened, but it is on the way.”

… and that way is love - a love exposed paradoxically and honstely on the Cross. So let those who have ears to hear, hear.

I think it's somewhat sloppy exegesis to extrapolate all this from the Cross -- though I do agree with the basic ideas about humanity being "created, fallen and lifted," and certainly the ideas that we are each a Bright Brilliant Beloved Beautiful Child of God and that God never stops seeking us in love [though I don't actually know if the blogger would say "never;" I don't know his salvation theology] and that we are called to love everyone and that Christian living is constantly a process.

I'm also uncomfortable not only with the blogger's constant use of masculine language for all the persons of the Trinity, but also with the "quoting" of Scripture which not only sounds somewhat The Message-like in its contemporary sound, but also feels a bit to me like it's rewriting a bit beyond what's in the original text.

I love the editorial comment in Walter Wink's "translation" of Jesus' final prayer on behalf of his disciples (which we read on Ascension Sunday this year), but I also had a squick moment because that's not actually in the original text -- that's commentary. And commentary is awesome and important, but... I dunno, it's a difficult line. Because yes, every single translation makes choices -- you can't retain all the resonances of imagery and wordplay and sociohistorical relevance (though I think footnotes are AWESOME), and you want to make it understandable and accessible and relevant and relatable to your audience in this particular moment. But... I dunno.

Velveteen Rabbi wrote (in a post worth reading in full):

This kind of interaction with the text -- turning it in different directions like a prism to see how it refracts the light of holiness -- is a, maybe the, quintessential Jewish act. One of my favorite teachings on that subject comes from the former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Ismar Schorsch, who writes:

[I]n Judaism precisely because the Torah is revered as divine, it becomes susceptible to unending interpretation. It would be a denigration of God's word to saddle it with just a single meaning. In contrast to human speech, which carries a finite range of meanings, the language of God was deemed to be endowed with an infinity of meanings.

Within the infinity of meanings compressed into this one line of Torah, there are many which celebrate the full personhood of all, regardless of gender or orientation. We owe it to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to God to wrestle with the text until it yields these blessings.

After a dialogue session on human sexuality (by which we mostly mean queers) and the United Methodist Church, one of the women I'd gone with was expressing frustration at the universalizing -- couldn't God have said something to Adam and Eve and be saying something else to different people at a different time who are reading those same words?  She mentioned that someone recently was telling her about someone in like the 2nd century (Clement?) who was saying, "Okay, we've fulfilled the 'be fruitful and multiply' commandment -- we're starting to have too many people, in fact -- so we can stop doing that."

***

I wasn't that taken with most of the Pentecost stuff from actual Pentecost Sunday this year, but one of the things I liked best was from the Children's Time our seminary intern at my Sunday morning church did. She said she had been trying to program her husband's radio alarm clock but it wasn't working, and she asked the kids what they might try if they were having that problem. One kid said, "I would check if it's turned on or plugged in." And indeed that was exactly the problem. She said, "It's very important to plug in electrical appliances before you try to program them."

It actually reminds me somewhat of the Pentecost blogpost I quoted above.

***

From a Pentecost sermon ("See My People Through") at a church I didn't attend on Pentecost Sunday:

When we are done, when we can’t go on any longer, when we are all dried up, when we’re toast, when we have put down the bags, spent our last dime, when we have woken up in someone’s bed and we don’t remember whose, when we have alienated our last friend and relative, when we have drunk everything in the house including the mouthwash, when we have stolen from those we love and been caught, when we are too ashamed to live anymore, when we have sold our birth rite, when we can’t remember our essential sweet goodness, when we have sold out our friends and family, when we have been conquered, when someone not interested in our welfare is occupying our heart, our homeland and our minds, God will blow life back into us.

Even though we are a heap of desiccated bones, if we watch and notice, God will bring us back to life. God will help us to reassemble ourselves, to grow into the people God made us to be, humans whose essence is the same essence of God.

And more than that, and it is the story of that day of Pentecost, if we remember to ask for the presence of God, she will come and not only save us, but give us the gifts we need to heal and to become like Jesus, bring justice, she will set us free to be fully human, fully free.