[TDOV 2021] book recs

My partner messaged me earlier this month: "I’m proofing a Transgender Day of Visibility doc for someone in [a Facebook group]. Do you have particular kid or adult books you’d recommend? (And how is it that I don’t actually have any?)"

I made some preliminary recommendations based on my memory and then started digging through assorted tags ("shelves") on my GoodReads (and yes, I know, I should move to StoryGraph) to come up with more thorough recommendations.

This is not a complete list of every acceptable (or even good) book about trans identity I've ever read. I definitely added more books to my TBR list in this process, and am of course always open to recommendations (and am also happy to field questions about books I have read that aren't on this recs list; I curbed my impulse to include a Not Recommended appendix 😂).

I included the publication year (and publisher), since I know queer lit can often feel dated as Discourse, language, etc. changes. I also tried to flag the identities of the authors as far as I knew, since I want to mainly center trans voices.

picturebooks

general

It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity (2019, Macmillan) written by Theresa Thorn & illustrated by Noah Grigni [Written by the mother of a transgender child and illustrated by a non-binary artist.]

God bless this book. It's a little teachy, but the illustrations are colorful, and the text is fairly simple. It introduces kids to concepts around gender identity, and it's really good.

I don't love Maya Gonzalez' work, but They, She, He: Easy as ABC (2019, Reflection Press) isn't too bad (the purple dancing one, as opposed to the green narrative-less one). [#OwnVoices note: I think the co-authors are cis?]

It's an alphabet book, and each letter is a rhyming couplet about a different child being active in some way -- so you get to practice various pronouns, because the kid gets named in the first line (the alphabet letter) and then is referred to in the third person in the second line.

One failing: as with They She He Me: Free to Be! (the 2017 green book, which is mostly just a series of illustrations of people with accompanying pronouns, and then a bunch of backmatter), there isn't really any modeling of how one declines these pronouns -- two people use "ze," but neither time does the couplet use it other than in the "ze" form.

non-binary

Stacey's Not a Girl (2017) written by Colt Keo-Meier & illustrated by Jesse Yang [re: #OwnVoices, the author is a trans man, and the back cover indicates: "Elements of this story come from each transgender man who contributed to this book, loved ones, and fellow community members."]

trans-masculine kid who may or may not be non-binary, and not-knowing is OKAY ♥

This book is very much About being non-binary, but I think it pulls it off pretty well. And it includes a lot of information in a way that feels really child-appropriate, in addition to not feeling Too Teachy.

The Great Space Adventure (2019, Flamingo Rampant) written by Ryka Aoki [a Japanese American trans woman] & illustrated by Cai Steele
-- an Asian kid who contains multitudes goes on a fantastic journey

Nande likes their long hair and their short hair. "Nande liked to twirl and be big. Nande liked to hide and be small."

People are constantly asking Nande "Why?" but the Moon never does -- and the Moon is changeable like Nande. "The Moon would be dark, then crescent, grow full, then back again. On some nights, the moon seemed almost still. On others, the moon would wander across the sky."

I already loved this book for that metaphor.

We then follow Nande and the Moon on a journey to visit various planets -- which are personified in various different racial/gender configurations (one even uses a wheelchair!), and each of whom has a personality element in common with Nande.

trans-masc (both written by the same trans man author, who I believe is white)

When Aidan Became a Brother (2019, Lee & Low) written by Kyle Lukoff & illustrated by Kaylani Juanita
-- Aidan is a (brown) trans boy, and he wants to make sure everything is perfect for his new sibling-to-be; MY HEART!

Call Me Max (Max and Friends #1) (2019, Reycraft Books) written by Kyle Lukoff & illustrated by Luciano Lozano

This book is such a delight! It starts off Educational, but quickly pivots to education-by-way-of-narrative in a way that I think works well. It hits all the major points in a way that feels organic to our protagonist child's school experience and doesn't feel like just checking off boxes. There's conflict, but just enough to move the story along, and honestly I appreciate stories about trans kids where everyone is basically supportive. It's such good modeling for trans kids of how things can be, and for everyone else about how to do the right thing.

Max is white, but his two closest friends are brown and also gender non-conforming. Max's trans-ness is much more incidental in the next two books, but his [Black, male] friend Steven's penchant for wearing fancy dresses etc. comes up a lot in the next book, Max and the Talent Show. Gender non-conformity does not equal trans, so I'm mostly not including the "princess boy/sparkle boy" vein of books in this list, but I did want to mention this book while I was glossing the other books in this series.

trans-fem

My Rainbow (2020, Penguin Random House) written by Trinity Neal and Deshanna Neal & illustrated by Art Twink -- autistic Black trans girl (co-authored by said girl and her mother)

Based on the authors' own experience, Trinity is an autistic Black trans girl who wants long hair but has sensory sensitivities. This book covers a lot, but also has a clear narrative throughline, and doesn't feel like too much.

The Adventures of Tulip, Birthday Wish Fairy (2012, Flamingo Rampant) written by S. Bear Bergman [a trans man] & illustrated by Suzy Malik

Tulip receives a Birthday Wish from a trans kid, and I didn't love that Tulip is initially confused, but it does allow for some gentle in-story teaching as The Wish Fairy Captain very matter-of-factly (and gently, at a kid-appropriate level but not dumbing down or oversimplifying) explains -- and provides excellent modeling like, "we're going to help her. We start by calling her by the name she chose, Daniela. It shows we like her and believe in her."

middle grade

Magical Princess Harriet (2018, Dag Gadol) by Rabbi Leiah Moser [who I think is an autistic trans woman]

A Jewish kid entering 7th grade learns she's a princess (which helps her figure out she's really a girl, not a boy) and nephilim are trying to take over her town. Her best friend is an autistic girl, and they make friends with a goth boy. #TagYourself
Not a joke, though, I really enjoyed this book.

[graphic novel] The Prince and the Dressmaker (2018, Macmillan) by Jen Wang (who I think is cis?)

One of my friends said, "It's sweet and gentle and a really wonderful look at one way to be gender non-conforming. It's also about being a good friend and chasing your dreams, supporting others, and finding the right balance between personal needs and friendship." Which is a great summation of this book.

(Yes, I know I said I wasn't gonna include gender non-conforming rep in this list -- but this book has such a place in my heart as my genderfluid/genderqueer/maybe-a-trans-girl femme fashion partner bought this in the gift shop after we went to a Gender Bending Fashion exhibit. Also, fwiw, according to Wikipedia:

Wang wrote the character of Sebastian/Crystallia as "someone who identifies with different modes of gender expression and is comfortable alternating between both masculine and feminine", noting that she might call the character genderqueer but that other interpretations of the character's relationship to their gender presented by readers were also valid. )

adult (mostly nonfiction)

Trans Allyship Workbook: Building Skills to Support Trans People in Our Lives (Revised, updated and expanded for 2017; Think Again Training) by Davey Shlasko [who is a trans person]
-- This has a lot more reading text than I was expecting from something billed as a "workbook," but it's solid. Chapter 4, on pronouns, is the most obvious reason to recommend/read this book.

Fucking Trans Women (Issue #0) (2010) by Mira Bellwether -- ebook/PDF of an 80-page zine by a trans woman
-- I'm bummed the future issues (with writings from other people) never got made, but this is still pretty great. The "soft bodies" essay is so relevant for everyone, not just trans women and the people who fuck them. Also, I learned a fun new way to fuck people who have inguinal canals.

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano (2007/2016, Seal Press)
-- Okay, I haven't read the second edition yet (and I read the first edition back in like 2008? 2013?), but I remember it being good.

The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective (2018, Brandeis University Press) by Joy Ladin (a Jewish trans woman)
-- I think Ladin's perspective on reading texts from a trans perspective is really interesting even if you aren't interested in these particular texts. She's not asserting that these characters are trans, but that they share experiences in common with many trans folks. As examples, one reviewer lists: "How did Abraham’s rejection of his responsibilities as Terach’s firstborn son, or Jacob’s claiming of his brother’s birthright, impact how they related to those around them, and to their culture’s understanding of masculinity? Can we explore the tension of the Golden Calf incident as arising from the Israelites’ discomfort with a God who refused to be embodied in a way that made them comfortable?"

[memoir] Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More (2014, Simon & Schuster) by Janet Mock (a Black, mixed-race trans woman)

When I read this book in 2014, I felt familiar with trans narratives, but I hadn't thought a lot about how trans adolescents navigate their worlds, and that section of the book gave me a greater understanding of what social transition entails. The section about sex work also really helped me internalize more fully the fact that some women have penises.

I also wrote at the time:

As someone who spends a lot of time around people who are at the edge of contemporary language/thinking around gender, I appreciated how up-to-date her language feels. At the same time, it's mostly not super-obviously a teaching book -- except for the high school chapter (chapter 11), which is full of advice to adults, which feels appropriate. (At bookclub, someone raised the issue of how Grownup Janet is always explaining the story, and I think it's true that the adult voice -- the voice of someone who has done a lot of maturing and learning since many of the events of the book -- provides some distancing to the narrative.)

[poetry] A Place Called No Homeland (2017, Arsenal Pulp Press) by Kai Cheng Thom (a queer Asian-Canadian trans femme)
-- note that there are definitely dark themes in many of these poems (sexual assault and gendered and racialized violence)

picture book recs (round 7)

Happy 5 years of intentionally reading picture books, to me!

With a 2-year gap since my last rec post! (lol/sob)

***

So, picking up where we last left off (post #6)...

I did power through the remaining 9 of 19 categories in Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" before the end of 2018 -- and decided I would not be repeating this exercise in 2019, since the ratio of "books I really liked" to "books on this list" was low. There were some I really liked, though:

• The Blue Hour written & illustrated by Isabelle Simler [Honorable Mention for Best Nature/Environment] the illustrations are so beautiful
• Flowers for Sarajevo written by John McCutcheon & illustrated by Kristy Caldwell [Honorable Mention for Most Powerful] I WEPT
• Super Manny Stands Up! written by Kelly DiPucchio& illustrated by Stephanie Graegin [Honorable Mention for Best Friendship/Kindness]
• Accident written & illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi [Honorable Mention for Best Design]

In post #5 I mentioned Betsy Bird's Caldecott and Newbery predictions -- which while rarely accurate, contained almost entirely books I hadn't previously encountered. I now follow her on GoodReads and consistently get recs from her but got a lot from her "31 Days, 31 Books" lists in December 2018. ... Which I didn't get very far in, because life happened (see also, the fact that it's now been 2 years[!!!] between rec lists), but:

December 1 – Board Books & Pop-Ups (Who knew I would STILL be reading board books after 3 years? I didn't love any of these, but below are ones I would varying degrees of recommend.)

• My First Book of Feminism (for Boys) written by Julie Merberg & illustrated by Michéle Brummer Everett
• Super Pooper and Whizz Kid: Potty Power! written & illustrated by Eunice Moyle & Sabrina Moyle
• My Art Book of Love written by Shana Gozansky [though I liked 2019's My Art Book of Sleep better]
• Before & After [National Geographic Kids Look & Learn] written by Ruth A. Musgrave [counting, nature/science]
• Contrary Dogs written & illustrated by élo
• Will Bear Share? written & illustrated by Hilary Leung

And because I took forever to finish this blogpost (during which time another nibling was born), I have since read some of 2019's Great Board Books and quite liked:

• Pride Colors written by Robin Stevenson
• Lejos / Far written by Juan Felipe Herrera & illustrated by Blanca Gomez Stevenson [second tier]

**

I read a lot of picturebooks about consent -- most of which I was pretty meh on, but I did really like:

• C is for Consent written by Eleanor Morrison & illustrated by Faye Orlove [board book]

**

I read some great books on gender:

• It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity written by Theresa Thorn & illustrated by Noah Grigni
• When Aidan Became a Brother written by Kyle Lukoff & illustrated by Kaylani Juanita (Aidan is a trans boy, and he wants to make sure everything is perfect for his new sibling-to-be -- MY HEART!)
• Stacey's Not a Girl written by Colt Keo-Meier & illustrated by Jesse Yang (trans-masculine kid who may or may not be non-binary, and not-knowing is OKAY!)

Also on the subject of gender, I don't love Maya Gonzalez' work, but They, She, He: Easy as ABC isn't too bad (the purple dancing one, as opposed to the green narrative-less one).

I got the 2019: Discovery! set of Flamingo Rampant books and particularly liked:

• Bridge of Flowers written by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha & illustrated by Syrus Marcus Ware -- magic and science, and healing, and...
• It's a Wild World written by S. Bear Bergman & illustrated by kd diamond -- queer animals!
• The Great Space Adventure written by Ryka Aoki & illustrated by Cai Steele -- a kid who contains multitudes goes on a fantastic journey

Feeling very out of it this fall (I had heard of barely any of the GoodReads Best Picture Books Nominees this year), I did some digging for queer kidlit that came out this year and pulled a bunch of books from a Publishers Weekly "Reading with Pride: LGBTQ Books 2020." I didn't love any of the books I read off that list (and could we NOT include a picturebook biography of Ellen? on account of she treats her staff terribly, thinks "niceness" means palling around with politicians who actively worked against her community, etc.), but it did prompt me to read some other queer books that had been on my TBR list.

Which got me one solid Pride book:

• This Day in June written by Gayle E. Pittman & illustrated by Kristyna Litten [published in 2014]

**

Some excellent books for Black kids:

• Sulwe written by Lupita Nyong'o & illustrated by Vashti Harrison
• M Is for Melanin: A Celebration of the Black Child written & illustrated by Tiffany Rose

**

Deciding on picturebooks for M's 4th birthday amidst novel coronavirus and a resurgence of #BlackLivesMatter, I was aware how few picturebooks I had in my recs with East Asian representation. Like, I'd done an okay job of books with African-American protagonists (though it still didn't feel great), but amidst the anti-Chinese backlash, it felt really important to expose M to positive East Asian representation.

In my Internet searching, I learned that there's an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. 15 years of this award, and I had previously read 3 picture book titles on it, all somewhat recent (A Different Pond and The Nian Monster from 2017-2018, and Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music from 2015-2016). So once ILL was a thing again (albeit too late for this birthday), I ILLed the picture book winners/honorable mentions I could get a hold of and hadn't already read.

I'm not sure I loved any of them, but I really appreciated the experience of reading them all in a fairly brief period of time. It made such a variety of representation feel so normal -- contemporary as well as historic/folkloric representation of East Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islanders (Korean, Thai, Chinese, native Hawaiian, Japanese, Indian, Filipine, Bangladeshi, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Pakistani), in Asia and in the Americas.

While I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to recommend these particular books individually, if these 26 books were the only books you read to your [non-Asian] kid over the course of a few weeks, it could really help shift/expand their sense of what "normal" is.

I did really love this East Asian representation book, though:

• Magic Ramen: The Story of Momofuku Ando written by Andrea Wang & illustrated by Kana Urbanowicz [male Japanese inventor]

**

In trying to be more intersectional, I finally started intentionally looking for good disability-representation books and prioritized ones with Asian protagonists. I didn't love any of the ones I found, but I did read a few solid ones about white folks:

• We'll Paint the Octopus Red written by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen & illustrated by Pam Devito [child protagonist's baby sibling has Down Syndrome]
• All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything written by Annette Bay Pimentel & illustrated by Nabi H. Ali [a biography of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, a disability activist who has cerebral palsy, focusing on her participation in the Capitol Crawl at the age of 8]
• Why Johnny Doesn't Flap: NT is OK! written by Clay Morton and Gail Morton & illustrated by Alex Merry [autism -- parody, but also not]

**

Another picturebook I loved:

• Vote for Our Future! written by Margaret McNamara & illustrated by Micah Player -- such a good!

***

Reminder to please purchase your books from independent bookstores -- see, e.g., this list of Black Owned Bookstores in the United States. Most will ship to you. And if there are books you can't find at your preferred indie bookstore (though most will special-order for you), you can also shop on BookShop.org -- which has an affiliate program supporting independent bookstores (I first learned about it when my local indie was closed due to pandemic).

***

I've maybe read 946 picturebooks in 5 years?

I exported my library; sorted by Exclusive Shelf to cut down to just "read"; then sorted by Date Read to cut everything before December 23, 2015 (though this barely changed the count, since I rarely read picturebooks an adult before Project Radical Aunt; it's also still weirdly blanking the Date Read on a lot of books, so I left those cells in, since I know a lot of them are picturebooks I've read since I started this project); and then ran a COUNTIF on the Bookshelves column:

=COUNTIF(Q2:Q1494,"*picturebooks*")

Transformative Justice [Super Saturday, October 2020]

Today's Super Saturday "Creating Beloved Community" session with Unity Circles and Families for Justice as Healing was So Good.

The first 3 minutes of this "What Is Transformative Justice?" video are amazing (though it's worth watching the full ~10 minutes).

adrienne maree brown:

• talks about how we've been socialized into "punitive justice"...
• names "restorative justice" as a first step in the right direction: "Harm has happened. How do we restore ourselves back to that relationship that existed before the harm happened?"
• but points out that it doesn't necessarily go far enough, "because if the original conditions were unjust, then returning to those original conditions is not actually justice"...
• says transformative justice goes down to the root system and asks what do we need to do so that this harm is no longer possible?
• notes that the state is so committed to punitive justice that it's not going to be able to help with transformative justice, so the state is not where we should turn for this...

Mia Mingus' bare bones definition of transformative justice is: "a way of responding to violence and harm without causing more violence and harm."

Also, around minute 7, I really appreciate Ann Russo naming cultivating a culture of accountability, how starting that around small things is really preventative of large harms.

Mia Mingus then builds on that, emphasizing skill-building around:

• good communication,
• apologizing well,
• having generative conflict with the people in our everyday lives,
• teaching children about consent and accountability,
• etc.

Mingus notes that with transformative justice, people often rush to the biggest crises and biggest forms of violence -- but that building foundational everyday things is the sustainable work that ripples out and has a larger impact.

Martina Kartman defines transformative justice as: how we prevent violence, how we intervene in violence, and then how we support each other in the aftermath of violence.

Prya Rai lifts up that so much of this work has been done by generations of people who could never rely on people outside of their communities, could never rely on the state (immigrants, queer people of color, disabled people, sex workers, etc.).

***

Also on the subject of transformative justice:

“People think of transformative justice as a lighter and easier way of accountability,” she [Camila Pelsinger, Brown University ’20] adds. “But it’s hard work. It takes months, and lots of vulnerable meetings. It’s seeing the worst things you’ve ever done and looking at them. And you have to reflect without denying it.” She has seen real change in people she works with: “A lot of people didn’t even realize how much harm they had caused, and also how deeply embedded harmful ideas about sex and consent were.”

-"Justice, in Community: A non-punitive approach", Brown Alumni Magazine

***

The Brown article above mentions "pods." More info about that idea (which originated with the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective [BATJC] in 2014) here.

In this afternoon's Super Saturday workshop, 2 people roleplayed inviting someone into your immediate circle of support pods, and one of them suggested using a specific emoji to indicate "I need this to be a support conversation right now" and/or having specific hours that you both agree you can call on this person.

I loved this emphasis on being thoughtful strategizing in advance about how you would call on this support, and also in being really thoughtful and honest about what your capacity is to offer support.

As someone noted in chat:

Pod mapping is strategic
and thoughtful
and a process

picture book recs (round 6)

Happy 3 years of intentionally reading picture books, to me!

Wanna guess how many kids' books I've read during that time?

(Answer is at the bottom of this post.)

***

I noted last blogpost that people keep sharing with me links to lists of multicultural picture books and similar, which I appreciate the thought behind (it is Known that I am reading lots of picture books to select ones to buy for the nibling), but at this point I have heard of (if not read) most all the books that show up on those lists, so I was so pleased to come across Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" where I had heard of almost none of the books AND at-a-glance it appeared to be a diverse author pool. I had gotten through 7 of the 19 categories in the last roundup. I have now gotten through an additional 3. [My intention is to power through the remainder by the end of 2018. Yes, I know that's a lot of books for this Winter Break; the floor of my bedroom is very aware.] A couple I really liked:

• The Book of Mistakes written & illustrated by Corinna Luyken [one of the Best on Creativity]
• Claymates written by Dev Petty & illustrated by Lauren Eldridge [one of the Best on Creativity]

I also came across Taylor Pittman's "17 LGBTQ-Friendly Books To Read To Your Kid In Honor Of Pride" -- which actually had a lot of books I hadn't read, including books I hadn't even heard of. New-to-me books I particularly appreciated:

• From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea written by Kai Cheng Thom & illustrated by Kai Yun Ching and Wai-Yant Li
• Prince & Knight written by Daniel Hack & illustrated by Stevie Lewis
• Princess Princess Ever After written & illustrated by Katie O'Neill

I also finally read Juneteenth picturebooks -- none of which I loved, but I would recommend reading some to your kids since especially amongst us non-Black Americans, this piece of our history is often unknown.

• Juneteenth written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Drew Nelson & illustrated by Mark Schroder is a solid, child-appropriate, overview of Juneteenth.

In the lesser-known-African-American-history vein, I also liked

• Ruth and the Green Book written by Calvin Alexander Ramsey & illustrated by Floyd Cooper

The nibling is growing up in Florida, so I also read a lot of picturebooks about life in the water (drawing heavily on a "sea the oceans" GoodReads shelf I'd come across, though most of the ones I liked best came from Horn Book recs), including mermaids. Apparently I only liked 1 enough to actively rec it?

• Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist written by Jess Keating & illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns [second tier]

I had been feeling like I'd read basically all the cool progressive board books and was gonna have to transition out of board books into gifting M other stuff -- and then Betsy Bird did a Top 100 Board Books Poll. My favorites (of the ones I didn't nominate myself):

• Baby 123 written & illustrated by Deborah Donenfield [N.B. this one is unfortunately out of print -- though I got some good copies from thriftbooks on eBay]
• Edible Colors written & illustrated by Jennifer Vogel Bass
• I'm a Librarian (A Tinyville Town Book) written & illustrated by Brian Biggs -- it's a gay male librarian, okay; I am fond
• My Friends written & illustrated by Taro Gomi

I was also already interested in checking out more of the Lil' Libros series (a Spanish-English board book series drawing on Mexican culture for its contents in both subject matter and illustration style). I didn't actually love them as much as I was hoping to, but I did like:

• Guadalupe: First Words/Primeras Palabras: A Bilingual Picture Book
• Los Tres Reyes Magos: Colors - Colores: A Bilingual Book of Colors

After someone I follow RTed a thread about a culturally clueless Kirkus review of Where's the Potty on This Ark?, I checked out Kar-Ben's catalog. My favorites of the ones I read:

• Talia and the Rude Vegetables written by Linda Elovitz Marshall & illustrated by Francesca Assirelli
• One Good Deed written by Terri Fields & illustrated by Deborah Melmon
• Rosie Saves the World written by Debbie Herman & illustrated by Tammie Lyons
• And There Was Evening, and There Was Morning written by Harriet Cohen Helfand and Ellen Kahan Zager & illustrated by Ellen Kahan Zager -- okay, I'm really meh on the text of this book, but I've shown off the illustrations so much that I have to include it

Not really on purpose, I ended up reading a bunch of books on emotions/difficult issues:

• I'm Sad written by Michael Ian Black & illustrated by Debbie Ridpath Ohi [second tier?] [With the caveat that I'm uncomfortable with the author's "redemption is hard to find" stance on the occasion of Louis CK's "comeback," and I'm not convinced how much he's learned from the pushback he got.]
• Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice written by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard & illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin [second tier?]
• Allie All Along written & illustrated by Sarah Lynne Reul -- on anger

Other recs:

• The Christmas Miracle Of Jonathan Toomey written by Susan Wojciechowski & illustrated by P.J. Lynch
• Little Skeletons / Esqueletitos (Countdown to Midnight / Un Libro Para Contar en el Día de los Muertos) written & illustrated by Susie Jaramillo [accordion style board book]
• You Are Stardust written by Elin Kelsey & illustrated by Soyeon Kim [second tier]
• Octopus Opposites written & illustrated by Stella Blackstone and Stephanie Bauer [board book] [second tier?]
• A Big Mooncake for Little Star written & illustrated by Grace Lin [loosely the Mid Autumn Moon Festival]

***

The answer to how many kids' books I've read in 3 years?

730 -- I think.

I discovered the GoodReads export library function, but it left a LOT of the Date Read cells blank (I have no idea what that glitch is), which made cutting the data to just the date range I wanted more challenging. It puts all your shelves for a given book in a single cell, but that was easily solved by running a COUNTIF.

=COUNTIF(Q2:Q985,"*picturebooks*")

picture books (round 5) mostly Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal

Nibling turned 2 today!

***

People keep sharing with me links to lists of multicultural picture books and similar, which I appreciate the thought behind (it is Known that I am reading lots of picture books to select ones to buy for the nibling), but at this point I have heard of (if not read) most all the books that show up on those lists.

So I was so pleased to come across Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" where I had heard of almost none of the books AND at-a-glance it appeared to be a diverse author pool. I also liked that its categories were ones I wouldn't necessarily have thought of -- most touching, most charming, best surprise, best family, best adventure, best history, funniest, most clever, best on creativity, best concept, best (auto)biography, most beautiful, best nature/outdoors, best read aloud, most exuberant/fun, most powerful, best friendship/kindness, best design, best bedtime.

So I kicked off my 2018 picture book reading with that (as if I didn't already have ~150 picture books on my to-read list...). And then got sidetracked by other things and slowly made my way through 7 of Lê‏'s 19(!) categories. I didn't actually love a lot of them, but here are some I did:

• Little Iffy Learns to Fly written & illustrated by Aaron Zenz [one of the Most Charming]
• Not Quite Narwhal written & illustrated by Jessie Sima [one of the Most Charming] largely for the illustrations, second-tier
• Through With the Zoo written & illustrated by Jacob Grant [one of the Most Charming] second-tier
• After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back up Again written & illustrated by Dan Santat [Best Surprise]
• The One Day House written by Julia Durango & illustrated by Bianca Diaz [one of the Best Surprise]
• The Only Fish in the Sea written by Philip C. Stead & illustrated by Matthew Cordell [one of the Best Adventure]

I also learned about Inhabit Media -- an Inuit-owned publishing company -- and proceeded to interlibrary loan most every picturebook I could get my hands on. [Note: I am shifting from using the term "folklore" to "traditional stories" after reading this post on American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL).]

• The Raven and the Loon written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Kim Smith [traditional story]
• Ava and the Little Folk retold by Neil Christopher and Alan Neal & illustrated by Jonathan Wright [traditional story]
• Lesson for the Wolf written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Alan Cook [traditional story]
• The Walrus Who Escaped written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Anthony Brennan [traditional story]
• Ukaliq and Kalla Go Fishing written by Nadia Mike & illustrated by Amanda Sandland [anthropomorphic animal story]
• Hurry Up, Ilua! written & illustrated by Nora Helen Hicks [anthropomorphic animal story] mostly for the illustrations
• Leah's Mustache Party written by Nadia Mike & illustrated by Charlene Chua

And I went through the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book winners and honorees.

• I am Dreaming of... Animals of the Native Northwest written by Melaney Gleeson-Lyall & illustrated by Mervin Windsor, Maynard Johnny Jr., Eric Parnell, Ernest Swanson, Ben Houstie, Paul Windsor, Allan Weir, Terry Starr, Nicole LaRock, Simone Diamond, and Francis Horne Sr. [2018 Honor Book] [board book] I love these illustrations!
• Little You written by Richard Van Camp & illustrated by Julie Flett [2016 Best Picture Book] [author is Tłı̨chǫ, illustrator is Cree-Metis] [board book] brb, buying copies of this for every baby
• Caribou Song written by Tomson Highway & illustrated by John Rombough [2014 Best Picture Book] [Cree; author is full-blooded Cree and illustrator is Chipewayan Dene] for the illustrations

And I ended up checking out more recommendations of books by and about Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal peoples. (Some sidebar reading on terminology: "Natives of the Hawaiian Islands are not Indigenous People, They’re Aboriginal" & "A Note on Terminology: Inuit, Métis, First Nations, and Aboriginal" -- the latter is Canadian and is adapted from the Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.)

• The Apple Tree: A Cherokee Story written by Sandy Tharp-Thee & illustrated by Marlena Campbell Hodson

I started doing some searching for Aboriginal Australian picturebooks, and I found a 2013 blogpost "Top Ten Indigenous-authored Children’s Books," but plugging the titles into WorldCat I found that most of them were only in Australian library systems :( (Though it was interesting seeing which non-AUS/NZ libaries had some of them -- Singapore, Japan, Canada, a few places in the US.) I wonder what other quality kidlit I'm missing out on due to its not being published much outside its country of origin (not to mention, of course, the stuff that isn't translated into English #MonolingualProblems), which I'm again reminded of when I come across stuff like Betsy Bird's "Board Books 2018: What We’ve Got Here Is an Oddly Strong Year."

In doing searches to purchase copies of books that weren't in my regional library networks, I learned that there are more Native publishing companies/bookstores than I had realized/expected -- the ones I have come across in my specific searches are below, but I know this isn't even a complete list:

• Inhabit Media (Inuit)
• Kamehameha Publishing (Hawaii)
• Sealaska Heritage Institute (Southeast Alaska)
• Native Northwest [Native Explore is their children's merchandise]
• Birchbark Books [physical store is in Minneapolis]
• Four Winds Indian Books [bought by Indian Country Books/Native Media Network, also affiliated with Clear Light Publishing]
• Oyate
• Magabala Books (Indigenous/Aboriginal Australia)
• Pemmican Publications (Metis) [and because of the Indigenous Canada Coursera course I'm taking, I got the reference!]
• HighWater Press -- okay, I'm not actually sure if they're Indigenous owned

When my copy of Shanyaak'utlaax: Salmon Boy (the 2018 American Indian Library Association's Youth Literature Award Best Picture Book) arrived in the mail (I ordered a copy because none of my regional library networks had a copy), I showed it to my housemate and she said, "Are you still going through books for your [nibling]?" I said, "Yes. The kid isn't even 2 years old yet, there are many years to go!" I have such a backlog of books I've "shelved," and I keep coming across more (like Betsy Bird's Caldecott and Newbery predictions, which while rarely accurate, contained almost entirely books I hadn't previously encountered).

February is Black History Month, and March is Women's History Month, so there were some kids' books that came up on recommendation lists relevant to that (plus books I saw at the Peabody Essex Museum gift shop). I didn't love any of them, but some fairly good ones are:

• This Little Trailblazer: A Girl Power Primer written by Joan Holub & illustrated by Daniel Roode [board book]
• Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History written & illustrated by Vashti Harrison
• Dear Girl, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Paris Rosenthal & illustrated by Holly Hatam
• Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World written by Susan Hood & illustrated by Selina Alko, Sophie Blackall, Lisa Brown, Hadley Hooper, Emily Winfield Martin, Oge Mora, Julie Morstad, Sara Palacios, LeUyen Pham, Erin Robinson, Isabel Roxas, Shadra Strickland, and Melissa Sweet

There was also The Conscious Kid Library's "13 Recommended #OwnVoices Reads for Ramadan." I read most of the ones I hadn't read already, and of those new-to-me ones, these were my favorites:

• Mommy's Khimar written by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow & illustrated by Ebony Glenn [Black Muslim girl]
• Lailah’s Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story by Reem Faruqi, illustrated by Lea Lyon [Emirati immigrant to Atlanta, Georgia]
• Moon Watchers: Shirin’s Ramadan Miracle by Reza Jalali, illustrated by Anne Sibley O’Brien [9-year-old Arab girl]

Plus, of course, picturebooks I just happened to come across:

• Bob Is a Unicorn written by & illustrated by Michelle Nelson-Schmidt
• Islandborn written by Junot Díaz & illustrated by Leo Espinosa (Afro-Latina Dominican protagonist) [N.B. You can make your own choices as to whether you still want to consume and/or purchase Díaz's work given the allegations about his bullying, misogynistic, and sexually assaultative behavior.]
• Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas written by Gwendolyn Hooks & illustrated by Colin Bootman [for older readers, Black male biography]
• Take a Picture of Me, James VanDerZee! written by Andrea J. Loney & illustrated by Keith Mallett [Black male biography]
• I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark written by Debbie Levy & illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley [biography]
• Mother Jones: Labor Leader written by Connie Colwell Miller & illustrated by Steve Erwin and Charles Barnett III [biography]
• The Rabbit Listened written & illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld

***

In total I've read ~176 kids' books this six-month period.

[7 Last Words] "I thirst"

I was invited to participate in my church's Good Friday service this year and was assigned the Fifth Word -- "I thirst" (John 19:28). I don't know how I would have gone about picking one if it had been up to me, but I was pleased to get to reflect on the most human-embodied-experience word of the seven.

Below is the reflection I shared.

***

Fifth Word – "I Thirst" – John 19:28

Jesus thirsts.

Because Jesus is a human being in a human body.

A creature of flesh and bone, skin and muscles and fat and nerves, blood pumping, lungs breathing.

Human bodies come in a lot of variations -- some of us talk with our hands, some of us move through the world on wheels. Some of us can't process gluten or lactose. Each of our embodiments is unique, and few experiences are universal. But thirst is one of the few that probably is.

+

John is the one Gospel writer who includes this line, "I thirst."

John also opens Jesus' public ministry with the wedding at Cana -- another story unique to John's Gospel.

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the story of the lectionary assigning the wedding at Cana story the Sunday after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. As you may recall, in this story Jesus is initially resistant to doing anything about the wine shortage at this party, telling Mother Mary, "my hour has not yet come."

Mary pushes ahead, and Bolz-Weber imagines her saying to Jesus, "I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty."

And she imagines that near the end of John's Gospel, Jesus says, "I am thirsty. I am not watching this from a distant heaven. I too am thirsty."

+

Jesus thirsts with the people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who still don't have clean water six months after Hurricanes Maria and Irma.

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Jesus thirsts with farm workers in California working 9-hour days in scorching heat, sometimes literally dying of dehydration.

42-year-old Audon Felix Garcia died in the summer of 2008 while working in Kern County, California, on a 112-degree day. His core body temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit when he died.

+

Have you ever cried so much that you felt thirsty, like you'd dehydrated yourself?

We don't know if Jesus wept while dying by state-sanctioned torture, but it seems likely.

Certainly the Jesus of John's Gospel wept a few chapters earlier, on the long walk toward Jerusalem, confronted with the weeping of another Mary and so many others after the death of Lazarus at Bethany.

+

Jesus thirsts with so many other prisoners of the state.

21-year-old Madison Jenson died of dehydration on December 1, 2016, four days after being put in jail in Duchesne County, Utah, her dehydration probably related to opiate withdrawal.

38-year-old Terrill Thomas died on April 24, 2016, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after the water had been shut off to his cell for 7 days after he had flooded the toilet in a previous cell. #BlackLivesMatter

50-year-old Joyce Curnell was found dead in her Charleston County, South Carolina, jail cell on July 22, 2016, dead from dehydration the day after she was jailed. #BlackWomensLivesMatter

+

Jesus is given a sponge full of sour wine on a stick. Which may have been intended as an anaesthetic -- to dull the pain of the multiple nail wounds and the slow asphyxiation. But as mercies go, it was a small one amidst this public execution after a sham of a trial. Jesus thirsts with those who do not have access to quality water.

Jesus thirsts with the people of Flint, Michigan, and the 6 million other people across the 50 United States whose water has excessive levels of lead.

Jesus thirsts with the prisoners at MCI Norfolk here in Massachusetts and so many other prisons and jails who do not have uncontaminated water.

+

There are a lot of things we could do to alleviate the thirsts across our nation and around the world, and maybe we will after we leave this space.

But for now, we sit with the thirst.

The God who created us from the very stardust of the Big Bang, the God whose life breath sustains us. That same God shaped some of that same stardust, and with the Yes of a young woman named Mary, breathed Godself into embodiment, into a screaming crying baby who would grow into adulthood and be executed by some of those same stardust creatures. And that embodied God, who walked so many dusty, dirty roads; who ate so many meals with so many different people; that embodied God, that person Jesus, was human right up through the end.

And Jesus thirsts.

***

Works Consulted/Cited

News of the world links to the primary article I drew from, though I often Googled for additional details like exact date of death.

Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the wedding at Cana story in her 2013 book Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint.

The story of Lazarus is found in John 11, and the specific verse "Jesus wept" is John 11:35.

***

Full service audio recording is here (there are a few minutes of extra silence at the beginning and the end -- this is what happens when you ask someone who's also participating in the service to record it ;) ) My part begins around 32:42.

[Mary] feel the fear and do it anyway

At the Christmas Eve service I attended in Florida this year, the pastor opened the sermon with talking about how we've created a beautiful, clean, calm story out of something that in Luke's telling is really messy etc.

I generally agree with this, but when he said that Mary was surely terrified, I thought "no she wasn't!" maybe she was, but I think that if she was, she was very much a "feel the fear and do it anyway" kind of person.

Yes, at the Annunciation Gabriel says "Do not be afraid" -- because angels always say "Do not be afraid" -- but Mary ultimately agrees to God's wacky plan. [Luke 1:26-38]

And then, while pregnant, Mary travels some 90 miles [cite] (unclear whether she traveled with anyone else) to visit her elderly sister Elizabeth (who is also miraculously pregnant, and has been for six months). And when Elizabeth recognizes not only that Mary is pregnant but that she is pregnant with Divinity -- which we don't have any indication Mary had told Elizabeth about before arriving (she seems to have gone pretty immediately) -- Mary's response is a hymn of praise about how God is going to turn the world upside down. [Luke 1:39-55]

Black gay Episcopalian Broderick Greer suggests that the Magnificat is a protest hymn that Mary goes on to sing to her child (that Jesus learned a lot of what formed his life and ministry from his radical mom).

And then when Elizabeth gives birth, Mary (having just finished her first trimester) goes back home [Luke 1:56-57] -- only to have to travel another 80 miles or so for some plot device census probably six months later when she's about to give birth any day now [Luke 2:1-6]. Now, if I were going to pick some item from Luke's "Christmas" narrative to suggest that Mary was afraid, this would be it. Because the idea of government wanting to know exactly who all lived under its control and where they lived feels very present.

And Mary ends up placing her baby in a manger (an animal feed trough) because there was no room for them at the inn [Luke 2:7], and in case that wasn't enough dirt and animal, a bunch of shepherds show up, having been sent by angels [Luke 2:8-20]. And we read that, "When they [the shepherds] saw this [Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger], they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them." [Luke 2:17-18] -- so maybe Mary and Joseph weren't as alone as the story indicates (for example, last year's "Jesus was not born in a stable" -- which I thought surely I had read longer ago than last Advent) 'cause who is this "all" that the shepherds report out to? 'cause they haven't even returned to where they come from yet -- "But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." [Luke 2:19] So whatever weirdness was happening, Mary rolled with it all.

In "O Little Town of Bethlehem," we sing "be born in us today" to the Christ child, but I wonder if there's value in seeking to have something of Mary born in us.

picture book recs (round 4)

Niblig turns 18 months in 2 days, and we leave tomorrow to visit, so I'm posting today.

Due to a GoodReads glitch, I'm not sure exactly how many picturebooks I've read this 6-month period, but I think ~98 (which is significantly more than I would have guessed before I tallied it up).

My big focus this time was on books set in Africa, not written by white folks. Prompted by this FB post about how not everyone who lives in Africa lives in a hut -- though I didn't actually find many picture books set in Africa that depict human people living in not-huts (I got a lot of village life and a lot of folktales).

• Kitoto the Mighty written by Tololwa M. Mollel & illustrated by Kristi Frost -- a mouse seeks the most powerful being to protect him from the hawk [African folktale retold]
• Subira, Subira written by Tololwa M. Mollel & illustrated by Linda Saport -- a girl struggles to get her younger brother to behave [contemporary Tanzania, folklore elements]
• Big Boy written by Tololwa M. Mollel & illustrated by E.B. Lewis -- a Tanzanian boy wishes he were bigger ... but what if his wish were granted? [contemporary Tanzania]
• Song Bird written by Tololwa M. Mollel & illustrated by Rosanne Litzinger -- girl saves the day! (okay, magical song bird saves the day, but the girl keeps the grownups from messing it up) [African folktale retold]
• To Dinner, For Dinner written by Tololwa M. Mollel & illustrated by Synthia Saint James -- mostly I just love the mole wearing glasses [in the style of African folktales]
• A Is for Africa written & photographed by Ifeoma Onyefulu [Nigeria]
• The Magic Gourd written by & illustrated by Baba Wagué Diakité [African folklore]

I also read a bunch on labor:

• Old Tracks, New Tricks written by & illustrated by Jessica Petersen -- not explicitly about labor, but it very much has that feel as it's about toy trains being bossy and insisting that the toy tracks' only purpose is to do what the trains want ("You tracks exist so trains can go.")
• ¡Sí, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A. written by Diana Cohn & illustrated by Francisco Delgado, with an essay by Luis J. Rodríguez -- about the janitorial strike in L.A. in 2000
• Side by Side/Lado a lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/La historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez written by Monica Brown & illustrated by Joe Cepeda (watching the Dolores documentary, I developed strong feelings about the importance of including Dolores Huerta in the Cesar Chavez narrative)
• Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909 written by Michelle Markel & illustrated by Melissa Sweet [Clara is a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant, though her demographic specifics are mostly elided by the narrative]
• That's Not Fair! / ¡No Es Justo!: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice/La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia written by Carmen Tafolla and Sharyll Teneyuca & illustrated by Terry Ybáñez

And some miscellaneous books:

• An Australian 1, 2, 3 of Animals by Bronwyn Bancroft -- probably my favorite of the Bronwyn Bancroft books I read, though all of her books I wanted to like more than I did. [Aboriginal Australia]
• Who Counts?: 100 Sheep, 10 Coins, and 2 Sons written by Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso & illustrated by Margaux Meganck
• The Adventures of Tulip, Birthday Wish Fairy written by S. Bear Bergman & illustrated by Suzy Malik -- supporting trans kids!

[The Book] I'm a nerd.

So, I've been sporadically doing tiny amounts of work on The Book.

I was working on the Psalms of lament section, and I ended up re-requesting 2 books I read back in 2015 but hadn't taken notes on -- Living Through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness by Kristin M. Swenson, 2005 (for the Psalms) and The Mystery We Celebrate, the Song We Sing: A Theology of Liturgical Music by Kathleen Harmon, 2008 (for the use of music in worship).

My chapter on psalms of lament also discusses African-American spirituals (Monica Coleman has commented that when Jesus on the cross cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" from Psalm 22, he was singing a lament song of his people -- the Psalms were the songbook of his people, just like the spirituals were the songbook of African-American slaves) and I realized that I don't have much to work with about the usage of Psalms of lament as part of the songbook of a people like spirituals, so I ended up going through the library catalog tag on the Psalms, and I'm bummed that it's all white dudes (I've been on a pretty intent break from books by white dudes for about 2 years now), but I'm so excited to dive into these books:

• Finding lost words : the church's right to lament edited by G. Geoffrey Harper and Kit Barker (2017)
• The Psalms as Christian lament : a historical commentary by Bruce K. Waltke, James M. Houston, and Erica Moore (2014)
• In the house of the Lord : inhabiting the psalms of lament by Michael Jinkins (1998)
• The spirituality of the Psalms -- Carroll Stuhlmueller (2002)
• Spirituality of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann (2001)

picture book recs (round 3)

Nibling turns 1 year old this Friday, and I know I'm not going to get any more picturebooks read between now and then, so am posting now. (Yes, I am on a 6-month posting schedule.)

I read ~150 picturebooks the first 6 months, ~50 the next 6 months, and ~83 this past 6 months (38 of which were over the winter holiday break week -- my most prime time for reading). Books are, as usual, listed in the order in which I read them.

Tier 1:

• Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People written by Monica Brown & illustrated by Julie Paschkis [Chilean]
• Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer written by Carole Boston Weatherford & illustrated by Ekua Holmes [African-American]
• My Night in the Planetarium: A true story about a child, a play, and the art of resistance by Innosanto Nagara [Indonesian]
• There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me written by Alice Walker & illustrated by Stefano Vitale [protagonist is a brown girl with what I suspect is African hair]
• Girl of Mine written by Jabari Asim & illustrated by LeUyen Pham [Black father and baby girl] (board book)

Tier 2:

• Doña Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart written by Pat Mora & illustrated by Raúl Colón [Hispanic]
• The Invisible Princess by Faith Ringgold [slavery folktale]
• Little Night by Yuyi Morales [depicts a brown mother and black daughter]
• Max and the Tag-Along Moon by Floyd Cooper [depicts male characters of African ancestry]
• If You Were My Baby written by Fran Hodgkins & illustrated by Laura J. Bryant [NB: parent-child pair depicted on final page are white]
• Melena's Jubilee by Zetta Elliott [African-American protagonist]
• My First Book of Girl Power by Julie Merberg [DC comics; white, skinny, able-bodied superheroines] (board book)
• The Big Book of Girl Power by Julie Merberg [DC comics; various superheroines]

I didn't love any of the Chinese/Lunar New Year books I read, but probably my favorite that's About the holiday is The Next New Year written by Janet S. Wong & illustrated by Yangsook Choi. I also enjoyed:

• The Nian Monster written by Andrea Wang & illustrated by Alina Chau
• The Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale written by Ying Chang Compestine & illustrated by Sebastia Serra

And speaking of Chinese holidays, I also enjoyed (though again, not in love with) Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival by Grace Lin.

[unpreached sermon] What We Bring With Us Into Lent [Transfiguration 2017]

What We Bring With Us Into Lent

Six days later, Jesus took Peter and the siblings James and John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.

And Jesus was transfigured before them -- face shining like the sun, and clothes becoming dazzling white.

Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

While Peter was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Child, the Beloved; with whom I am well pleased; listen this one!”

When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Child of Humanity has been raised from the dead.”

Matthew 17:1-9 (NRSV, alt)

Some of you may have seen on Facebook (or elsewhere on the Internet) that Parity, a faith-based LGBTQ-focused organization based in NYC, is offering glitter ashes for Ash Wednesday this year.

On their website, they write:

At this moment in history, glitter ashes will be a powerful reminder of St. Augustine’s teaching that we cannot despair because despair paralyzes, thwarting repentance and impeding the change that we are called to make.

Glitter+Ash exquisitely captures the relationship between death and new life. We do not live in fear of ash -- of death -- we place it on our foreheads for the world to see. We know that fear will rise, cramping our hearts. We also know that God specifically calls us not to project that fear onto the Other, the alien, the stranger in our midst. God insists that we look for the spark of life, of hope, in ourselves and one another. This Ash Wednesday, we will make that spark easier to see. We will stand witness to the gritty, glittery, scandalous hope that exists in the very marrow of our tradition.

At the Transfiguration, a few of the disciples see the spark in Jesus made externally manifest for a brief moment.

And it doesn’t come at a random place in the story.

The Season following Epiphany this year hasn’t been a narrative journey through Jesus’ life so much as it’s been a dwelling in the teachings of Jesus -- primarily the Sermon on the Mount. So the liturgical year doesn’t offer us a lot of context for the story today and our jump into Lent a few days from now. We’ve skipped over Jesus asking the disciples “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter confessing Jesus as Messiah (Matthew 16:13-20), which is almost immediately followed by, “From that time on, Jesus began to tell the disciples: I must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21, NRSV, alt.).

So we get this glittering moment, not early in Jesus’ ministry when one might be advertising for new recruits, but near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, when things are starting to get difficult -- well, more difficult than they already are when your life’s work is on the margins and you have no home or even steady source of income. A couple chapters earlier, we learned of the death of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:1-12). These are difficult times. The Empire is, if not winning, certainly encroaching.

So Jesus takes a few of the disciples up to a mountaintop.

And is transfigured.

And Moses and Elijah show up and Peter, bless, says, “This is great! Jesus, if you’re okay with it, let’s stay here forever.”

And while Peter is still speaking, a cloud appears and the voice of God reiterates the statement from Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:17) that Jesus is God's beloved child, with whom God is well pleased.

And the disciples are terrified, and Jesus comforts them, and Moses and Elijah disappear -- and one imagines that Jesus stops glowing -- and the 4 of them go back down the mountain.

They continue their journey toward Jerusalem -- on which journey Jesus will twice more reiterate the “I will be betrayed, killed, and resurrected” prediction (Matthew 17:22-23 and 20:17-19).

One of the lessons of the Transfiguration story is that transcendent experiences are fleeting and are not a place we can stay forever; instead, we have to go back -- not just to return to regular life but, at this point in the biblical story, to continue on toward a confrontation with the powers of Empire that may ultimately kill us.

Lent invites us in to the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness after being baptized and before beginning public ministry.

Lent has traditionally been a catechumenary period -- with adults often getting baptized during the Easter Vigil service, having died to their old lives and been reborn in Christ.

This year in particular, I think there’s a lot of value in focusing on Lent as valuable in and of itself, not just as a means to an end. Especially if we think of it as mirroring Jesus’ time in the desert, when Jesus faces the temptations of comfort and security, the temptation to give our allegiance to that which is not God.

Lent feels to me like a good metaphor for our lives under this current political regime, and we’re going to spend a lot more than 40 days here.

Using the Transfiguration as a guide, I’d like to propose 3 things we bring with us into Lenten times and places -- into deserts and wildernesses -- to sustain us:

1. Our belovedness
2. Our tradition
3. Our community

The most obvious piece of the Transfiguration story -- in fact the piece which we use to name the story -- is Jesus glowing like the sun.

Because God breaks up the party, it’s easy -- at least for me -- to forget what God actually says: “This is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Echoing what God said at Jesus’ baptism -- which we celebrated just a couple months ago.

Yes, when God says it at the Transfiguration, Jesus has done a fair amount of teaching and healing -- but the baptism was one of the very first stories Matthew told about Jesus, before Jesus had done anything at all. We are beloved to God, who is well pleased with us, because we are God’s children, not because of any of our accomplishments.

In a sermon on the Baptism of Jesus¹, reflecting on the temptation in the wilderness that immediately follows the baptism, Lutheran pastor and problematic fave Nadia Bolz-Weber² said, “Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God’s own. But almost immediately, other things try to tell us who we are and to whom we should belong.” She suggests that “if God’s first move is to give us our identity, then the devil’s first move is to throw that identity into question.”

As Parity states, “God insists that we look for the spark of life, of hope, in ourselves and one another.” This can be hard. Sometimes we feel worn out, like we’re failing at everything, like all the systems we’re working against are just too big and too powerful… Jesus probably feels you on this. The text doesn’t tell us why Jesus took a few of the disciples up to this mountain, but we read elsewhere in the Gospels about Jesus retreating away from the crowds, up to a mountain alone to pray (e.g., Matthew 14.23), so it’s very possible that Jesus was tired and needed a break. God’s declaration of belovedness doesn’t come in the midst of an impressive crowd scene, but instead in a quiet moment apart, perhaps a moment of weariness.

Prof. Alyce M. McKenzie suggests:

If you know what it is like to be tired, to have people seeking you out for what you can do for them, and other people criticizing you and working against you, if you have ever been filled with dread at what lies ahead, you have a little something in common with Jesus. If you know what it's like to feel those things as a direct result of serving God, then you have even more in common with Jesus.

Admittedly, most of us don’t get a personal Transfiguration glow or a declaration from the heavens, but I do want to argue that God is still with us.

I’m not sure exactly where Parity is getting their Augustinian teaching that “we cannot despair because despair paralyzes,” but in Sermon 142 (preaching on John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”) Augustine exhorts against despair, reminding us of St. Paul’s statement that “Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) and asserting that we were so loved before there was anything in us to merit that love.

We are deeply, unfathomably loved. And nothing we can do or fail to do, nothing that can be done to us, can change that.

As we have often heard quoted from Paul’s letter to the Romans:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:38-39, NRSV, alt.)

I would add to Paul’s list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God: executive orders, deportations, angry white men with guns, despair, fatigue, numbness, an inability to make phonecalls, an inability to attend protests … none of the threats to our safety or the voices that say we’re not doing enough, can separate us from the love of God.

Black gay Episcopalian Broderick Greer, preparing to preach this Sunday, noted:

when studying for my homily, I found out that the original word for "transfigured" can mean "Appearance matching one's inner reality".

A Transfiguration moment is one in which we are truly and deeply known. It is at this moment and at Jesus’ baptism that God’s voice breaks through the clouds to say, “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well-pleased.” That identity, beloved of God, is always at the core of who we are.

Now, the second most memorable part of the story is the appearance of Moses and Elijah -- representatives of the Law and the Prophets. We’re told that they talk with Jesus, though Matthew doesn’t tell us what they talk about. But their very appearance, in addition to suggesting a sort of blessing from the elders, reminds us of the tradition that Jesus inherited.

Many generations back, the Hebrews had left Canaan because there was a famine, and they settled in Egypt, where they ended up enslaved. Born to Hebrews, Moses escapes death due to the kindness and cunning of a variety of women, living first as an Egyptian royal and then marrying into the family of a desert priest, before finally returning to Egypt to lead the Hebrews out of bondage, aided by Moses’ siblings Aaron and Miriam. Moses leads the people for forty years, bringing them the Law which will help them live in closer covenant with God and sometimes intervening on the people’s behalf when God gets really upset at their breaking that covenant.

Generations later, in their new home, the kingdom that the Hebrews build will fracture, and Elijah will arise as one of the great prophets, zealous for God, calling down a drought and being fed by ravens in the desert, threatened with death by an angry ruler and spoken to by God in a mountain cave.

Jesus comes from a tradition not just of Law and Prophets but of border people, people who are rarely at home in the comfortable center but are called into places of newness and conflict, called to do a new thing with and for God’s people.

This discomfort, this marginality, feels really resonant to me in this socio-political moment.

This is the tradition that we, too, inhabit. We do not inherit a promise that it will be easy, but we do inherit a promise that God will be with us. As God was with Moses, and Elijah, and Jesus, and the communities around them.

Which brings us to the third item, that this mountaintop experience -- unlike many mountaintop experiences -- happened in community, with witnesses.

Only 3 witnesses, admittedly, but still, this was not a private meeting between Jesus and the ancestors or Jesus and God, this was something that Jesus and Peter and James and John could all carry with them.

We don’t know how the disciples reflected on this experience, or what they said amongst themselves about it -- only that the story made it into the written record, showing up in 3 out of 4 of our canonical Gospels. But we can imagine them whispering among themselves while walking a long and dusty road, or under cover of darkness as they drift toward sleep -- reminding themselves that it really happened, and wondering what exactly it means.

When things get harder -- and they will -- we have a community who can remind us of the Transfiguration moments.

We have a community who can remind us of our tradition -- of those who came before us, and why we continue to do this work.

We have a community who can remind us that we are beloved.

We have people who can go on retreat with us, who can dance in defiant joy with us, who can renew our baptisms with us after we’ve changed our name, who can march and rally with us, who can provide childcare and pots of soup.

Blogger D. Mark Davis noted that the Greek word translated “transfigured” (or “transformed”) only shows up 2 other times in the New Testament outside of the Transfiguration story: Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of God as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from God, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18, NRSV, alt.)

Transfiguration is, for most of us, a process. Those moments when we reflect our best selves, when we are most in tune with God, we can carry with us into Lent to sustain us.

Nurtured and fed by our community, our tradition, and our core identity as God's beloved, we can make our way through even the most threatening and bewildering times.

Amen.

---

¹ Bolz-Weber, Nadia. Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint. New York: Jericho Books, 2013, pp. 138-9.

² Insert long footnote here about how she (and Rachel Held Evans) responded (or failed to) when it became known that their friend Tony Jones had abused his now ex-wife.

Christmas morning 2016

Probably surprising no one who read last night's blogpost, this morning's sermon also seemed banal to me. The presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Luke 2:22ff) -- which is more appropriately next Sunday 'cause circumcision is 8 days after birth (it's right there in verse 21) but okay, I can roll with it (and the preacher pointed out that this scene actually happens 40 days after the Nativity -- which I can believe is the purification period law, but I would have appreciated an explicit nod to that*).

When we imagine the baby Jesus, do we see Jesus the way that Simeon (and Anna) did? One could actually do things with that, but I felt like the sermon was so blah blah blah. Like, even if I agreed with the preacher's theology (which I don't entirely) I don't think I would have felt nourished by the sermon.

A couple times he quoted Simeon's line to Mary "and a sword will pierce your own soul too," but he didn't talk at all about how it can be difficult to follow in the Way of Jesus, to have one's life transformed by accepting the promise of salvation/redemption/restoration that God offers us in Jesus. He talked a little about how Simeon and Anna were the only people to recognize Jesus out of all the adults and all the babies in the Temple that day, but he didn't talk at all about what it might have been like, for example, for Simeon to spend his whole life waiting for this promise to be fulfilled -- did he ever doubt? So many opportunities to make this story relevant to contemporary U.S. Christians, even without getting into national/global politics, and none taken!

I didn't feel like I came out of the sermon with any real idea about who/what Jesus "really" is, other than some vague nods to the Crucifixion and Jesus as savior of the world. But "seeing who Jesus really is" was the whole point of the sermon, so that feels like a total preaching fail to me.

I just, I don't have the ability to talk for 5-10 minutes (I didn't time the sermon) and basically say nothing, and I don't understand how someone can draft a sermon like that and think it's acceptable.

* My HarperCollins study Bible on verse 22 referred me to Leviticus 12, and the purification period for the bearer of a child assigned male at birth is 33 days (verse 4). But it also asserts that the periods are consecutive ("For seven days following the birth of a male child and fourteen following that of a female child, no conjugal relations are allowed. For an additional period of thirty-three and sixty-six days respectively, contact with sacred spaces and objects is proscribed.") so 7+33=40.

Christmas Eve 2016

Every year, I go back to my parents' for Christmas and go to Christmas Eve service at the church I grew up in -- which has a different pastor now but a similar centrist non-political vibe. So it's not like I was actively expecting critique of our nation's slide into a fascist dumpster fire, I just -- the service is roughly Lessons & Carols, with the pastor offering a brief "meditation" after each reading, and each reading/meditation I found myself hungering for something substantive, something connecting the ancient story to the present day ... and it was just so banal, like why are you even bothering? Christmas Eve and Easter are the two most attended church services in the year, so those are your big chances to really speak to people, and if you want to let the texts speak for themselves I can understand that choice (who wants to have to come up with something new to say about the Christmas story?), but if you're gonna offer commentary, then actually say something!

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
-Luke 1:26-37 (NRSV)

It's really difficult for me to hear this story afresh, so I zoned out, and in the meditation the pastor talked about Jesus is the savior of all but came first to the Jews, fulfilling a promise God made to Abraham centuries before, and I worried there was gonna be some awkward supersessionism or something, but there wasn't, and I was hopeful that this would segue to opposing the rise of anti-Semitism ... but it didn't.

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
-Luke 2:1-7 (NRSV)

So, the census made me think of the idea that's been floated of a Muslim registry. And hey, Syria! Or you could talk about how this positions Jesus in a specific political and historical context, that we don't exist separate from the political structures of our world.

Instead, the pastor talked about how each Gospel has a different author and is written to a different audience, and Luke is writing to Gentiles, to Greeks, and so he's situating the story with references they would recognize, but these men who were the most powerful political figures of their time are dust now (while Jesus is not). Which, okay, true, but systems (racism, capitalism, etc.) persist -- and this comes uncomfortably close to implying that it doesn't really matter who the earthly political leaders are because ultimately Jesus is Lord.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.
-Luke 2:8-16 (NRSV)

The pastor wondered what that experience must have been like for the shepherds -- and said that's nothing compared to what the experience of the Second Coming will be like. Really, that's where you're going with this? The message of salvation comes first to some of the lowest people in society, and the message is PEACE -- days after the President Elect Tweets about a nuclear arms race, and all you have to say is to close out the service bringing us full circle from God's promise to Abraham to the eventual Second Coming? You have made glancing mention of the Crucifixion and the salvation you believe was enacted in that, but beyond some vague cosmic ideas you have given me nothing about why I should still care about this ancient story or what God has to say to the present moment. I get that most people show up to Christmas Eve service because (a) they already care, or (b) it's just What You Do, or (c) their family dragged them, so probably no one else was unhappy with this service, but I just don't understand how you can be a theologically engaged person (which this preacher is; my mom really appreciates how much Scripturally engaged his Sunday morning preaching is), and honestly just a person living in the world today, and ~preach such an empty service.