Discrimination v Religious Freedom

braverymasksfragilelives:

buzzfeed:

How to side-eye, by Raven-Symoné. [x]

God, I love her.

Love this.  I went to the link to watch the video and see what it was about.

The video ends with the blonde lady saying she wishes folks could respect each other’s views.  NOW.  I do agree that we need civility and understanding.  People come from particular contexts that inform their views and when you’re surrounded by folks who think a particular way, it can be difficult to step outside of that situation and see things from another angle.  Part of making change in the world is understanding that we’re probably not going to win hearts and minds by shouting at each other, but the problem with this “we should just respect each other’s views” thing is that it’s basically claiming discrimination for discrimination.  Does that make sense?  Like, “you’re discriminating against me because I’m discriminating against LGBTQ people!”  Is there merit in that argument somewhere?  

Respect that I’m a cat person and that I love Buffy and that I believe in God and all that business, but when your “views” have actual consequences for people’s lives, then they need to remain your views and not your ACTIONS.  I am all for protecting people’s rights to religious freedom, but not at the expense of the way that people are treated in the world.  If my religion says I should murder someone every Tuesday afternoon, the law is not going to protect that.  There is a line.  We can’t have a country in which businesses get to decide whether they serve people of color, LGBTQ people, women, differently abled people— whatever it is.  If you want to refuse service to someone who is intoxicated or disrespectful, have at it.  But categorically denying services to a community of people IS DISCRIMINATION.  

Love

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

— Dorothy Day (via thisplacehasknownmagic)

Holy Places and Displacements

So: I just felt like sharing news that I am excited about. I got accepted to be part of the group that goes to the Holy Land in January. The course title is: “Holy Places and Displacements” and will bring me to Jordan and Israel/Palestine. There are still hoops and whatnot, but I expect everything to work out and for this to be the kind of experience that will last a lifetime. This picture has nothing to do with it, it’s just where I’m sitting right now. #blessed #seminary #mdiv

Tags: palestine

Character

Found this today and had to share for this wonderful caption, which fits in beautifully with our church series on “The Road to Character” by David Brooks. #Repost @jennifer_grey with @repostapp
・・・
“People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues…. character–the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life–is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem #joandideon #whoscooler?

You Are Your Brother's Keeper

"Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’

In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question."

— Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy  (via dadofthedead)

(Source: levoneh, via churchtake-out)

The Road to Character: The Hardest Exam of All

Sunday's scripture was Psalm 139:1-12 (you can find it here)

Penny's sermon:  The Hardest Exam of All.  Delivered October 25, 2015 at the Congregational Church of San Mateo by Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon, Senior Minister.

Here is my response:

Penny brought up the enneagram on Sunday as part of her sermon. While we may put different levels of authority in personality tests, I think they can be a useful tool for self examination. As Penny exemplified humorously in her reaction to her own type, sometimes such tests can help us examine ourselves by pointing out tendencies that we may not realize we have. Developing self-awareness can be difficult, especially when we find ourselves to be less than ideal.

I think that one of the great strengths of the Christian tradition is the way that it can emphasize forgiveness and brokenness. Jesus picks a band of broken misfits for his disciples and asks them to rise up and become their best selves, which they do with varying success and at varying paces. When I was younger and I would do well in school, my parents were proud of me, but they were less concerned about my grades than they were with the level of effort I put into them. My parents wanted me to be MY best and were generally more impressed with a B that I put significant effort into than an A I had received easily.

In our culture that tends to celebrate on-paper kinds of success, it can be easy to confuse some types of success with internal value. Sometimes we are harsh on ourselves because we have not achieved success by our skewed cultural standards (If I don’t own a home, does this make me lesser than my friends and family who do?), it can also lead to celebrating ourselves in light of the same skewed standards (Am I conflating my level of worldly success with my sense of goodness?). I think it is true that the most difficult examination is internal. When I hold a mirror up to my soul, am I honest with my reflection?

We used the enneagram test in one of my classes recently and I also had difficulty with my results. I have trouble conceiving of myself as a security-seeking person because I want to be someone who lives bravely into the world, but as our class facilitator went through traits of my type and I thought about how I have a “back-up” of all of my cleaning supplies, toiletries, etc., it became clearer to me that really do try to build up “safety” around myself. Perhaps what I was calling pragmatism was rooted in a tendency toward feeling insecure.

Knowing that about myself helps me to see it when it starts influencing me in unhelpful ways. Having a backup bottle of Windex will likely serve me well, but other ways my insecurity touches my life may not be so helpful. Sometimes it takes something like a personality test or the words of a friend or loved one to help discern the ways I am not being my best self, but am letting myself feel content with the “easy A.” After a while, I might start to feel like I deserve that A, whether I do or not.

Since I am using the analogy of grades, I will confess that I received a C on a paper last year. I fell apart when I got that grade because it wasn’t how I saw myself. My initial reaction was, “I’m not a C student!” It felt unfair and harsh until I realized that I had been overconfident. I should have put more effort into that paper; I should have consulted the rubric instead of thinking, “I know how to write a paper.” It was an exercise in humility that I realize now that I needed at that time. While I was sad and angry at first, then underconfident in my academic abilities, the experience eventually led me to approach myself and my academics more honestly. Just because I “usually” got As didn’t mean I deserved one then. Similarly, just because I feel like I am generally a good person doesn’t mean I don’t have room for improvement or areas of my life in which I might deserve a C. While I might resist that kind of honesty with myself, I believe it will ultimately make me a better student of my own soul.

And I want an A.

Spirals

"We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic."

— Nikos Kazantzakis (via seekinguncertainty)

Oppression

"The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us."

— Audre Lorde (via thisplacehasknownmagic)

Prayer

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

— Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (via mouthwingss)

(via notalwaysluminous)

Dancing on the Cieling

"As hard as I have tried to be good all my life—as hard as I try to be good even now—my heart leans more and more toward that which gives life, whether it is conventionally good or not. There are times when dancing on tables grants more life than kneeling in prayer. More to the point, there are times when dancing on tables is the most authentic prayer in reach, even if it pocks the table and clears the room."

— The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor (via notalwaysluminous)

The Road to Character: Moses, the Reluctant Leader

Penny's sermon on Sunday was challenging.  I feel so blessed to be interning at a wonderful church led by gifted, deeply spiritual people.  Our current sermon series on The Road to Character by David Brooks is challenging and meaningful in a way that I can feel deeply.

Sunday's scripture used was Exodus 3:1-5.

Penny's sermon, "Moses, The Reluctant Leader," was preached at the Congregational Church of San Mateo on October 18, 2015.  An audio version of the sermon is available on the church website here.

Here is my response:

As I listened to Penny’s sermon, “Moses, the Reluctant Leader,” I thought about her metaphor of the mirage-- a distortion. “The Road to Character,” in many ways, is a response to the distorted individualism that seems to dominate many aspects of our culture. Bonnie’s children’s moment also spoke to this reality. As the “selfie” dominates many of our social media feeds, we see that sometimes self-acceptance and self-love can tip over a line into a kind of self-involvement that may be unhealthy. I scrolled through my own Instagram feed to compare the number of images that were of me with the number of images that were “worldies”-- pictures of other people or the world around me. I found it a healthy exercise. I had to ask myself if I was using my voice to celebrate myself (which is sometimes earned and deserved, certainly), or to celebrate others or share thoughts, joys, and/or concerns that weren’t so centered around ME. Was my Instagram feed beginning and ending with self(ies)?

This kind of self-examination and honest look at how we move in the world is what David Brooks calls us back to again and again throughout his book. I think that Penny’s use of Moses to illustrate this offers a very interesting counterpoint. As I move back to the metaphor of mirage and how our sense of reality might be distorted, I have to unpack it some. Our senses of reality can sometimes, admittedly, be distorted in ways that perhaps celebrate ourselves more than is healthy or deserved. Is my Instagram account full of pictures of my face, or does it display my world in a way that is more balanced? What does it say about my priorities, how I spend my time, or what my values are? When I think about how to divide my time, are all of the ways I spend it essentially self-serving? Is my sense of reality distorted in a way that allows me to think of myself as more value-centered than I am? These are such hard questions to ask myself, but I think they are very important.

On the other side of that coin, as I think about Moses and his reluctance, I also have to ask: is my sense of reality distorted in a way that DEvalues myself? Am I reluctant to post a selfie, because I never feel worthy? Am I reluctant to post or say things about “hard” topics like political issues, critiques of consumerism, racism (or any other issue of justice) because I feel unequal to the task or unqualified? Do I shy away from participation in activism, like a letter-writing campaign, canvassing, or protests? Am I reluctant to speak up when someone uses an ugly word or bring up “serious” topics because I don’t feel powerful enough to take them on?

As is evidenced by the number of question marks above, Penny’s sermon was challenging and asked me to try to be objective and honest about my ways of being in the world. When I think about my values, I have to ask myself if I am bravely living them into the world or keeping them swirling around in my head, where they cannot create change. I have to ask myself what my actions, words, and Facebook feed say about my values.

I am reminded of words of two great figures in history, who call us to value ourselves without distortion and plant ourselves deeply in the world so that we can respond to its needs:

“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” -- John F. Kennedy. We can insert “God” or “the world” or “the people of God” for country, too.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” -- Marianne Williamson

Like Moses, many of us are reluctant to rise to the world’s challenges and meet them with the best of our strengths. Our senses of distortion can inflate or deflate our senses of self. Meeting ourselves with honesty allows us to improve, to love ourselves in ways that bring that love into the world, and to rise to God’s call and find where we are needed in the world.

How am I summoned in the world?  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Speak Your Prophecy

"

One priest in the diocese, James Parker Dees, then the rector of Trinity Church in Statesville, played overtly to the conservative strain of racism. His rhetoric would be deeply embarrassing to the cause of Christ as he told of all the horrors that would ensue if “nigra children and white children were allowed to commingle.” The positive side of the argument was carried by Thom Blair, the rector of Christ Church in Charlotte… Thom argued for justice, for doing what was right. I shall never forget Jim Dees gesturing to Thom with a finger across his throat suggesting that Thom was damaging the church and killing his own career.

It’s funny, but predictions like that never really come true. When issues are being fought over in a changing world, those who risk rejection by embracing the future and moving beyond the barriers of past prejudices are never finally hurt. Those who cling to the insights of a dying world of a passing prejudice are the ones who will ultimately lose both credibility and integrity.

"

—

John Shelby Spong, Here I Stand

Speak your prophecy.

American History Revisited

In the time after Columbus Day, I've been thinking about how American history is approached in our schools and how we are often dishonest with ourselves about our histories in order to preserve narratives that celebrate the dominant cultural groups in society.  Our tellings are often Eurocentric and shy away from honest tellings of the often violent and immoral stories that exist in favor of privileging the (biased) white perspective.  Alternative narratives are often ignored.

Ethnic and racial minorities are often presupposed by white Americans to be "Other."  "Americanness" is conflated with "whiteness" largely because of the biased tellings of our history which focus only on the (positive) contributions of Americans with white, European, Christian (most often Protestant) heritage.  Sometimes it is helpful to reconsider what we "know" about the formation of the United States.

As a member of the United Church of Christ (and, in particular, a Congregationalist church), I am challenged to understand and confront my traditions involvement in genocide and human rights abuses in order to further its own agendas, which favored white, Protestant bodies and values.

Gandhi

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

— Mahatma Gandhi  (via s-tarry-s-eren-dipity)

(Source: feellng, via notalwaysluminous)

History

"

No Christian community, regardless of its claim, is shaped solely by the Bible; it is also shaped by the endless line of those who sought to understand and to live the faith that they had received as a heritage. Preaching that has a memory does not forget Goshen, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Antioch, but neither does it forget Chalcedon, Wittenberg, London, and Plymouth; it does not forget Abraham, Sarah, Mary, and Simon, but neither does it forget Aquinas, Luther, Wesley, and Theresa. To use the imagery of Paul, such preaching grafts the listeners into the olive tree, the roots of which are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be a Christian is to be enrolled in a story that gives to each person and to the community a sense of identity and purpose which transcends the remembered experiences of those who worship at any given time and place. Faith that can only witness to events within the parentheses of one’s own birth and death is undernourished and poorly resourced.

The quality in preaching that we are here considering does not call for a sentimental or uncritical embrace of tradition. Certainly not. Memory listens, reflects, sifts, and learns; otherwise we deny the present, cut off the future, and halt the growth toward maturity which should characterize the people of God. But preaching that has a memory is not guilty of that monumental conceit which reads the Bible as though it had never been read before, and enters the pulpit as though none had ever stood in that place. Neither does preaching that has a memory mean filling our sermons with stories from the old days and forcing the congregation to carry the bones of Joseph every step of the way to the Promised Land.

"

—

• Fred Craddock, “Qualities to be Sought in the Sermon” in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon) 1985, 
  158.

Catherine Keller

"[Alfred North Whitehead] had in mind a cosmic appetite for becoming, for beauty intensity of experience. The divine Eros is felt in each creature as the “initial aim”– or the ‘lure.“ It is a lure to our own becoming, a call to actualize the possibilities for greater beauty and intensity in our own lives. The responsive love, by contrast, can be called the divine Agape. The Eros attracts, it calls: is is the invitation. The Agape responds to whatever we have become; in com/passion it feels our feelings: it is the reception. They are different gestures of divine relationality– yet their motions are in spirit inseparable, in constant oscillation."

—

Catherine Keller, from On the Mystery

I love Process Theology.  God that is math and physics and inter-being and Love?  Yes please.

Wayne Meeks

"Christian communities are healthy not when they are worrying about their health, but when they are trying to do what they are here for. Some of the central things may only be accomplished, as it were, indirectly: “Lord,” say the sheep, “when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you?”"

— Wayne A. Meeks, from The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries

Exile

"…The first distinctive women’s movement in America evolved out of abolitionism. This nineteenth-century movement found women fighting for the right to vote. The contemporary women’s movement likewise emerged out of the 1960s Black freedom struggle. This movement found women demanding freedom from their exile in the domestic realm and equal access to the male-dominated social-political realm. Undergirding both movements was a struggle against patriarchalism. Patriarchalism was based on Victorian ideology, which considered women– that is, White women– fragile dolls who had to be placed upon protective pedestals. They were consequently relegated to the home and prevented entrance into the public arena."

—

p. 94 in The Black Christ by Kelly Brown Douglas.  

“women demanding freedom from their exile in the domestic realm and equal access to the male-dominated social-political realm.”

Exile.  Love it.

Preaching

"Contradiction emerges. As women silence themselves to avoid separation from others, they create separation of another kind by becoming divorced from their own desires and feelings. The separation is from the truest self, and the connection in relationship becomes a kind of false intimacy. One after another, the girls moving into adolescence struggled to hold onto their own experience, to know what they knew, to speak in their own voices, to bring their own knowledge into the world in which they lived. There was the fear that one’s experience, if ever spoken, would endanger relationships and threaten survival. The tragedy came upon them quietly and subtly. Like a thief in the night, someone or something came in and robbed them of a positive sense of self. They developed, unbeknownst to themselves, a ‘no-voice voice.’"

— Turner and Hudson, “To be Saved From Silence” in Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (St. Louis: Chalice Press) 1999, 85.

You Cannot Fight Fire With Fire

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

— Martin Luther King Jr. (via thisplacehasknownmagic)

Storytelling

"The truth about stories is that that’s all we are."

— Thomas King (via spinachandmushrooms)

St. Jerome

"He who works faithfully prays twice."

— St. Jerome

A Lament for the Earth

Creator God,

Shepherd God,

Guide your people to be stewards of the Earth.

Creator God,

You promised to nourish us with the fruit of the garden.

We till the Earth, drawing blood from her veins.

She cries out from the scientists among us

And we drill into her for oil.

We trample her with cattle.

We poison her with pesticides.

We experiment on her, altering her DNA.

God of creation, grow your Tree of Life among us.

Shepherd God,

We have stolen your flocks and massacred them.

We have enslaved your creation and tortured their bodies.

We have sacrificed them to the gods of gluttony and greed.

God of light, come into the garden.

Find us and illuminate our sin.

You have expelled us from the garden and we have forgotten your commands.

God of light, please find us.

Call us into the flock,

Call us back to the Earth.

Help us to water the Tree of Life.

Help us to plant and grow.

And lead us not into temptation,

But away from destruction.

Yours is the kingdom and the garden.

Guide us in our citizenship and stewardship

So that we may continue to enjoy the abundance of your earth.

Reading Origen

I like Origen for some reasons, but reading some of his stuff (and most stuff that comprises Systematic Theology) is exhausting.  It’s the most contortionist crap, asking us to bend our minds to follow logic from scripture in ways that violate our understandings of the world.  "Imagine a round square.“  SERIOUSLY?  What that frak does that even mean?  Well, but God is the First Square and is pre-existent and before all corners and thusly round and…

I can "get” Trinity as ways to imagine manifestations of Divinity, but the ways that it is dogmatically described are weird and nonsensical.  Formless and formed, everywhere and all-powerful yet somehow seemingly powerless against some bitter ex-follower (Devil) except NOPE not powerless because FREE WILL and it’s really about the long game (God is raining down acid on you because you’re going to LEARN SOMETHING, you just can’t understand it now and that Devil guy will get it eventually). And even though God is formless, we can all agree that God is masculine even though God isn’t masculine because, well, it is apparent in the universe obviously (because I’m a dude and I’m into my penis and wtf women are useless unless they are virgins inseminated by the incorporeal God who apparently CAN manifest corporeally via SEMEN).  And God was somehow ministered to by his Only Begotten Son who is part of the Father and pre-existent and ROUND SQUARES.

Seriously, if God is beyond conception and is Eternal Mystery and whatever, then what is all this crap?  Stop trying to draw some weird diagram of it.  The Church just spouts all this contradictory, nonsensical crap and then tells you that you have to believe this weird, nonsensical crap because otherwise your substantive soul, which is somehow eternal despite not being able to exist without substance (wtf happens when we rot?) because only God can do that substance-less existence thing… Your eternal, substantive soul will go to Hell and burn for eternity.

(YOU GUYS, SOULS ARE ETERNAL AND SUBSTANTIVE AND CAN BURN FOREVER, I HAVE SOLVED OUR ENERGY CRISIS)  

Seriously, can we just go back to the Bible and read about Jesus?  Or can we start imaging God in ways that don’t require drugs or something to understand?  What is the point of Systematic Theology?  Whether God is 3-in-1 or 1-in-3 or whatever the frak, how does that matter to my life?  Constructive theology offers theological positions which have consequence for my life.  Systematic Theology seems to be about Orthodoxy.  I can believe the sky is purple, but it probably won’t effect how I go about my life.  Whether I believe in the Trinity or not is of zero consequence because I don’t believe that Catholic Church’s dogma determines my salvation any more than I believe the Constitution does.  

When do we get to Process Philosophy?  That stuff makes so much more sense than this.

The Road to Character: Mary's Path to Purpose

In the following video, David Brooks speaks about his book (which my church's current sermon series is inspired by) The Road to Character.  He talks about confronting and overcoming our brokenness, as well as resisting our own forms of oppression.  Watching this video first may help my sermon make more sense.



Below are links to the scripture and poetry used for my sermon:

Scripture readings:  Matthew 1:18-19 and Acts 1:12-14

Poetry reading:  Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

My sermon:  Mary's Path to Purpose
(Delivered by Joliene Wade Gatlin at the Congregational Church of San Mateo on October 11, 2015)

Each of these videos speaks to the themes in my sermon.  I believe they elevate the message and recommend giving them a listen/watch.









Following is a live version of the same song ("Cold War") performed by Janelle Monae.  It is equally powerful.  I couldn't choose which version to share, so I'm sharing both.  In her live version, she explains why she wrote the song.





Brooks, David. The Road to Character. 1St ed. New York: Random House, 2015.

Ya Know

Every dang day I am so impressed with my peers.  I am impressed by their ability to critically examine their texts, their traditions, their ways of being in the world.  I’m impressed by the ways that they expand my thinking.  I am impressed by their efforts toward a better world.  I am impressed by their intellect, their passion, their compassion, and their radiance.

I am impressed with the folks in my church.  I am impressed by their striving for justice, by the ways they seek community and seek to create a space that is safe, loving, and full of wonder.  I am impressed with the ways they challenge each other, love each other, and care for each other.

I am impressed with our youth.  Their spirit and the passion they bring to the world is invigorating-- their grasp for meaning, for trajectory, for kindness.  

Maybe some ways of doing church are dying, but the church is not dying.  I see these things and I see a hopeful future. 

"Accurate Depiction of My Relationship With God"

notalwaysluminous:

awgusteen:

This is the most accurate thing in history

This was me last week.  "I don't wanna!  I can't do it!"  Then God dragged me out of the rain (kicking and screaming internally) and was my strength when I lacked it.  

Keller

"While this free-will theodicy makes sympathetic moves, I think it is still too anthropomorhpic a notion of God’s own freedom; as though God considers a choice between mircomanaging the world and designing a more autonomous universe. And then chooses occasionally to intervene even if s/he chooses the latter."

— Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 89.

God of Process

“You this moment come forth, a wave freshly breaking on the face of the deep. In an ocean of overlapping waves, all new, all different.

"Perhaps every creature in a creature’s own way is called. Persons personally, animals bestially, plants vegetably… Among persons, a tinge of consciousness of this lure lets us choose– to grasp a fresh possibility, or not…

"Here is the question, perhaps finally the only question that matters: In this moment, will you somehow materialize the possibility?  Will you in traditional language heed God’s will?  Like a way cresting, turning, might you sense the wisdom for this moment?  Do you begin, however minutely, to embody the love that is possible– in this moment, this time, this place?”

Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 100.

Jesus

Jesus was a person more aware of his divinity and wholeness than any other being and whose ministry influences my life and resonates with me in a way that is uniquely powerful and meaningful.

Crime

"Black people kill Black people….and white people kill white people. 83% of white murder victims in the US are killed by white people. White cops kill Black people. Black people get upset. Then white people say “but y’all kill each other so what’s the big deal?” THE BIG DEAL IS, when we kill each other, we’re punished. When white people kill each other, they are punished. When white people kill Black people they are not punished. Sometimes they are even rewarded (to the tune of half a million dollars funneled toward Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown). Please show me one Black man in this country who got $500,000 in prize money for killing a white person."

— Since arguments about Black on Black crime still seem to be circulating, here’s one of the best responses I have read from slta_.

(via karigane)

(Source: theblackregime, via 2ndhalfoflife)

Well

spinachandmushrooms:

#ccsm #church

At Church Early

spinachandmushrooms:

At church early with no book. #problemsthatarentproblems

Memorial garden at my church.

Negative Theology

"For when I feel joy or sadness, love or hatred, force or weakness, there is in all this something that infinitely exceeds what I am, my person, my personality, my means, my location, my way of being someone in a particular place in the world. In all this there is some kind of opening."

— Jean-Luc Nancy, God, Justice, Love, Beauty: Four Little Dialogues (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 13.

Liberation Theology

"[Liberation Theology] is a theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the world is transformed. It is a theology which is open– in the protest against trampled human dignity, in the struggle against the plunder of the vast majority of humankind, in liberating love, and in the building of a new, just, and comradely society– to the gift of the Kingdom of God."

— Gustavo Gutierrez, from “Theology: A Critical Reflection”

God is the Poet of the World

"“God is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it,” wrote [Alfred North] Whitehead, in a “vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.” These values are pure possibilities, only actualized in the particular becomings of the creation. The content of the divine aim for the particular creature is that moment’s best possibility. Thus the divine is within each of us, as an influence, an influx of desire– whether or not we share that desire as our own. In this sense the aim is like the ancient concept of prevenient grace. Amidst the mess of our past stuff and present inclinations, God calls. Love lures and lets be. Our mess becomes our potential. And we creatures be-come, come forth. You this moment come forth, a wave freshly breaking on the face of the deep. In an ocean of overlapping waves, all new, all different."

— Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 100.

Prayer and Doubt

"It’s even more difficult to admit to the times when praying feels like a hollow ritual and the closest you can bring yourself to praying is to read about prayer."

— Renita J. Weems, Listening for God: a Ministers Journey through Silence and Doubt, Reprint ed. (New York: Touchstone, 2000), 26 - 27.

Preaching

"Exercising the right to speak says something about the power and value of authorizing one’s own perspective. To be author of our own reality is to claim the value of our experience, to trust our ability to reason and reflect, and to accept ourselves as we really are. This is central to the meaning of “voice” as authoritative expression."

— Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson, Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (Lucas Park Books, 2014), 12.

Forgiveness

"To believe we are forgiven is probably one of the most challenging spiritual battles we have to face. Somehow we cannot let go of our self-rejection, somehow we cling to our guilt, somehow we seem to find a strange kind of security in low self-esteem, as if accepting forgiveness fully would call us to a new and ominous task we are afraid to accept. Resistance is an essential element of peacemaking, and the no of the resisters must go all the way to the inner reaches of their own hearts to confront the deadly powers of self-hate. I often think that I am such a hesitant peacemaker because I still have not accepted myself as a forgiven person, a person who has nothing to fear and is truly free to speak the truth and proclaim the kingdom of peace. It sometimes seems to me that the demonic forces of evil and death want to seduce me into believing that I do not deserve the peace I am working for."

—

Henri Nouwen, “Saying No to Death.” In Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

(via locusimperium)

(via sacredsecularity)

Jesus and Maleness

I’m about 3 paragraphs into a feminist critique of praying in the name of Jesus and this is what I want to say:

Many churches have historically derived qualitative meaning from the maleness of Jesus and used their patriarchal interpretation to oppress women.  I can respect and appreciate the reality and memory of religion’s historical use of males and the priority of value given to stereotypes of maleness, but I have trouble seeing Jesus’ maleness as remotely relevant.  

In invoking Jesus’ name, do we invoke “masculine values” (whatever that means)?  I think not.  I think we invoke his ministry… a ministry about loving God and neighbor, purity but never legalism above good, concern for the poor and marginalized… nothing about gender.  In viewing Jesus’ maleness qualitatively, even in giving it thought, do we label gender norms?  Do we say: “this is maleness!” and therefore define gender and give it subjective meaning that may offend people of that gender (or not of it)?

 Should we do that?  

I think mention or valuing of Jesus as male is inherently projection of our own cultural values and norms onto a person and place different than our own and onto a ministry which had little to say about gender other than instances wherein he displays a counter-cultural perception of gender norms.  Therefore to project gender stereotypes onto Christ is a disservice to the spirit of his ministry.

So that’s what I think about that.

Women in Preaching

"…The highest form of development for women is when the self is brought fully into relationship with others, resulting in honest dialogue. Such dialogue arises from an emerging sense of self-value and self-esteem. It provides space for the self to be affirmed as a worthy partner in conversation."

— Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson, Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (Lucas Park Books, 2014), 16.