I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me
as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
- Dawna Markova

What do I believe?

What do I trust and believe in? I believe that there was this guy named Jesus, that he preached and embodied God like no other being. I believe that the Bible tells a story of a history of people desperately reaching for God and trying to understand… and I believe that sometimes they misunderstood. I believe that the Bible speaks of a history of people following a certain God, but that certain texts are less historically valid and more corrupted than others. I understand textual criticism and how to apply it to my sacred texts.

Annie Dillard

Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness
olds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise
each day splintered down, and wrapped in time
like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at
dawn fast over the mountains split.
—Annie Dillard

Female Ordination

For centuries, women’s rights have been withheld because of religious patriarchy’s claim of women’s supposed moral inferiority. Women’s ordination has remained a controversial issue and is not available to Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant denominations, despite the compelling arguments for women’s equality and the progress that feminists have made in creating a voice for women around the world. Many, if not most, Christian institutions still reject the notion that women should have equal rights to ordination.

The consequences of the denial of ordination rights to women are far reaching—the conscious and subconscious mindsets created and supported by antifeminist religious positions are damaging to progressive movements and serve to keep people in an archaic mindset that presupposes the spiritual and moral superiority of men, which can be used to support abuse, oppression, and varying forms of mistreatment toward women.

My Milkshake

”My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and i’m like…”

Border Immersion Day 5

Theology of Bodies

Bodies that matter vs. Bodies that are disposable

Salvation vs. Justice

Brown bodies are disposable. Poor bodies are disposable. Sick, disabled, addicted, female, 4-legged, fat, out-group, dirty bodies are disposable.

Bodies that matter: Wealthy bodies, healthy bodies, straight bodies, powerful bodies, Christian bodies, male bodies, eloquent bodies, tall bodies, fit bodies, angry bodies…

“We are given these stories to learn from and unpack, not replicate.” –Penny

If the Bible is the word of God, then God is a schizophrenic.

We should approach the Bible with wonder and to wonder.

Border Immersion Day 4

Penny: “Where is the presence of God in my privilege?”

Genesis is a story of increasing diversity.

“For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever.”
–Jeremiah 7:5-7

I feel my spirit.

Border Immersion Day 3

Rick Perry… If people have no health insurance, should we just let them die?

Immigration… let them die?
The migrant experience is such that they always feel homesick at home.
We think about the presence and absence of God. My process theology views don’t work that way.
The women from Chilpancingo are like Mary, watching their children crucified by an unjust system. We re-crucify God when we ignore humanity’s pain.
Comfort in discomfort. Jesus’ ministry gives us comfort, but Jesus’ ministry was also to make us feel uncomfortable. The discomfort that we feel is God working within us. Jesus wanted us to give up our comforts, which I think extends to our spiritual comfort. Our spiritual discomfort is important and challenges us to strive for justice.
Perhaps we should feel comfortable with our discomfort.
Lee: “I know what is right and this is not right.”
Still small voice.
We had a meeting with Dan Romero, a retired minister who now works as an immigration lawyer, all pro-bono.
Immigrants pay money into federal taxes more so than local taxes.
John F. Kennedy: A Nation of Immigrants

Two or three times, Latinos have been swept up and deported in waves throughout history.

Code words: “Illegal alien.” Illegal connotes criminal. Fact: being here illegally is not criminal in U.S. law. It’s a federal civil matter.
Judges in immigration are appointed by the justice department.
More immigration judges are women.
Refugees are legally entered and received.
Asylum = already here/at border. There is a quota.
The waiver process takes about a year and a half (if you want to be excused for the time here illegally and the 10 year penalty). However, you may not be granted the waiver. Three visits to the office are required.
What is fair?
We don’t have the right to horde the resources of the globe. We should be working on bridging the economic divide.

Notes from Border Immersion Day 2

On one of the border walls (because there are so many), construction was stopped because the contractor was using undocumented workers. Seriously.

On one of the border walls, it says:
“The cross of the migrant Jesus
Abused by the police
Betrayed by the coyotes
Persecuted by Border Patrol”

The Bible tells us to, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” Is that what this is?

We met with some women from Chilpancingo.  The women are/were factory workers. They are made to take constant pregnancy tests and fired if they are found pregnant. They have clocks attached to a tie on their wrist, so if they leave their work station to go to the bathroom, they don’t get paid. Women wear diapers to work because of this.

10,000 families (families, not people) live in this shanty-town. It is being bull-dozed to make space for a canal.

The Passage of Time

Grandma and Grandpa

22 years ago today, my Grandfather died.

I woke up that morning to find my mother asleep on the couch.  She had not been there the night before; she’d gone to my grandparents’ house, as she had many nights, because Grandpa’s fever was high and it might be his last.  

My mom was asleep on the couch and my dad stood in front of the fireplace, watching her sleep.  He told us.  My mom is usually the one to do the “parenting,” especially the emotional stuff, but my dad took it that morning.  

We went to grandma and grandpa’s house.  Nothing felt real.  The absurdity of someone disappearing from your life– your mind and body resist it.  This isn’t real, our brain seems to tell us.  Almost every time this happens, it’s followed by waking up in my bed.  But death is the nightmare you don’t wake up from.

Everyone was there.  Wandering through the house like zombies, we looked at each other like broken dolls.  A strange smile– Hello, I am trying to comfort and I love you but the world isn’t real right now and are we really here?  

I went up to his bedroom, searching for the truth.  It’s as if I was daring the world to hit me.  Do it.  I dare you.  The hospital bed was gone.  It left a bright spot of plush carpet that was surrounded by a ring of worn carpet from visitors, family, and caretakers around his bed.

I stared at the bright spot of carpet and sat on my grandmother’s bed.  I looked in the mirror; my face was contorted and red and swollen and wet.  I could hear people looking for me, but I stayed there.  I stared at my reflection; it was the most real and artificial moment I have ever experienced.

Someone peeked through the doorway and found me.  They didn’t say anything and went back to the kitchen.  

Everyone tells you that death is hard. That love is hard.  That grief is hard.  

But they don’t tell you that it changes your life.  It breaks you in a way that makes you forever stronger and weaker, a spiritual wound like Jacob.  It’s make and break.  

After the funeral, when people silently stand around, committing themselves to carrying on the beautiful lights of those lost, we all quietly agree to become better people.

Twenty years later, I’ve found a way to make sweet honey out of pain.  Knowing how important John Kiely was to the world, I knew there were parts of him that I needed to carry forward.  20 years later, my life is changed.  

But I still wish that all of my begging with God had worked.  I still wish he were here.  I would still hold the secret and never tell a soul about the miracle, if only God would work it.  I can try to look on the bright side and see how a candle, held above, lights all below.  

But I just want to get closer and feel its warmth.

We Will Rise Again

"When [the Right Reverend Graham Leonard] was not able to prevent the celebration of this Eucharist [by a female deacon], his rhetoric became so excessive and his prejudice so obvious that he actually helped our cause. He attacked his dean, Elizabeth Canham, and me. He demanded that I “discipline Miss Canham.” I do not quite know what he expected me to do, but I was amused by his archaic language. When Bishop Leonard announced in the mid-1980s that “women could not be priests in the Anglican Communion because God had created them just to be wives and mothers,” I howled with delight. “These words,” I said in a prepared statement, “are spoken by the bishop of London in a land where Elizabeth II sits on the throne and where Margaret Thatcher runs the government. Perhaps the bishop of London does know know either what country he is living in or what century.”"

—

John Shelby Spong, in Here I Stand

If you’re sassy and you know it raise your hand

Vegetarianism and

NOTHING WILL BENEFIT HUMAN HEALTH AND INCREASE CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL OF LIFE ON EARTH AS MUCH AS THE EVOLUTION TO A VEGETARIAN DIET.
Albert Einstein

I worry that my enthusiasm for vegetarianism is perceived as judgmental. I think that any time someone says that something they do is RIGHT, it is perceived as though anything anyone else does to the contrary is WRONG. Seriously, almost everyone in my life eats meat and pretty much all of you I love and admire for various reasons. I never meant to imply that any of you are not good, moral people.

I do believe that veganism is the right thing to do. That said, I still eat eggs and dairy sometimes. It is a source of spiritual unrest for me and I hope that someday soon I will make the full switch.

There is a documentary called “Earthlings” that, even as a devout vegetarian, I have yet to watch. It’s called the “vegan-maker” and that’s exactly why I don’t want to watch it. I enjoy eating eggs. I enjoy community and family that surround meals. I enjoy normalcy and not having to defend my choices because they become painfully obvious about 3 times a day. I know that people think vegetarians and vegans are aggressive, but perhaps until you give up animal products (I have been pescatarian since about 2004, vegetarian since 2008, and I have been vegan every Lent since 2008) you understand little of what it takes. I get criticized a lot. I get defensive diatribes frequently, despite the fact that “in real life,” I almost never bring up my vegetarianism. Almost all of the time that I go into why I don’t eat meat is when I am being defensive because someone is trying to tell me how stupid I am or how I am fighting genetics or classist or something. Yes, cravings. I craved meat for a while and every so often something will make me think “wouldn’t that be nice?” When my dad makes his signature spaghetti sauce for our family gathering with out-of-state relatives who I see every few years, wouldn’t it be nice if I could enjoy that Eucharist-like meal with them? Wouldn’t it?

But as anyone who is remotely religious knows, once you know something in the core of your being, it stays there. I know Jesus existed and I know that his life changed the world. His unprecedented connection with God and the universe is unparalleled and beautiful in a way that still has ripple effects of spirit on my life today. His acts of radical inclusivity changed the paradigm of “love” and challenged each of us to widen our circles of compassion and consider our lives in a grander scheme, to understand how our own ripples effect the future in very real ways.

Proactive justice is real. I know so many people who are proactively orienting their lives on a trajectory of justice.

I know so many people who do few things in their day-to-day lives that constitute any kind of moral decision-making.

Both of these “categories” contain their passive elements. PASSIVE INJUSTICE is real, too. In the ways we forget to make room for our LGTBQ friends, for our friends of color, for our friends of differing abilities, for our friends of different genders and languages and cultures and ages and etc etc etc etc etc.

I truly believe that most of us commit most of the injustices of our lives in the ways that we spend our money. The classist, racist, sexist, genderist, homophobic, hateful people we give our money to by virtue of our spending habits, the industries we support and the things those industries do to strip us of our dignity and moral compass.

Follow the money.

Please please please, if you have any agency in the ways you spend money… I know not all of us have the luxury of choice. But if you DO. If you have enough money to buy coffee or eat out or buy clothing out of anything but need or eat out of anything but hunger….

Consider what your money supports.

If you eat animals, it likely supports inhumane treatment, genetic interference with species, torture, mistreatment of workers, environmental degradation, carbon emissions, and the decline of healthful bodies. If you have the ability to consider your spending habits and make choices about when and where from you buy things in a way that can improve the nature of your contribution, I pray that you will. I pray that I will.

I want my life to better this world, not hurt it.

Here ends my blasphemy of works over faith.

I am a form of awareness

So are you.