Advent 4: Angels

The neo-orthodox hermeneutic of the Bible requires that each person read the words for him or herself.  There can be no replacement for personal submersion into the scriptures.  It is only when an individual reads for him or herself that the scriptures become valid for that person.  So, too is the spiritual life and the experiences of the people of faith throughout time.  God is valid when we have experiences of God.

Karl Barth's humanism can easily be found in this week's Advent reading.  The transcendent God speaking in 2 Samuel 7:5 "But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord: Would you build a house for me to dwell in?"  God speaks from beyond everything to Nathan to become known in the world.   What is the house of the Lord, though?

Any definition of the house of the Lord is not necessarily going to be able to hold the entire concept of a deity.  Usually people think of a church or of a temple.  Because Jesus is incarnate, or at this point on the way, the Archangel Gabriel announces that Mary has been blessed to carry Jesus.  Furthermore, the Archangel announces that God has done so.  This is the humanistic workings of the Transcendent God found in neo-orthodoxy.  In time, neo-orthodox theology gave birth to liberation theology and postliberalism.  These social uses of the gospel find themselves to be an incomplete understanding and explanation of "housing" God.

While I was in graduate school the first time, my classmates as I would converse about what would be after the postmodern age.  We decided that what would be next would be another Renaissance that a lot of us were already experiencing in our lives.  As we tried to find a way to explain our thoughts, we turned to what we called "The Age of Love."  After our jokes about the hippies and the Age of Aquarius were done, we decided that what the world and humanity really needed was a return to agape love.  If we called it Christianity though, someone would control it.

What our minds and hearts decided, standing in front of Hudspeth Hall at UTEP, was that no tradition or explanation could really define God.  We had found our attempt to find a new explanation in which to house what we were going to call the next age was really the beginning.  What happened in the beginning?  God.

God created the world and so loved it to save it.  Some parts of Christianity argue that there is a messiah in every generation.  We are to be little Christs.  We are to rebuild and fulfill our mission.  We make attempts at explaining our experiences in the hopes that there will be a new way to house God for us.

We cannot house the transcendent God of neo-orthodoxy.  We cannot house the ideas that we have to explain what we believe.  However, was the 19th century can give to us for the transcendent God is a place where conversation can begin to bring a humanistic social gospel that requires human action to further the mission can be discussed a lived.  Yet, what is the message that houses a transcendent God?

The Archangel says it all, "You are blessed."

Advent 3: Rejoice! (in Crayola)

The third Sunday in Advent lightens the penitential season of waiting expectantly with Joy.  The reading challenge us to rejoice in all things.  Some things most people don't want to rejoice in.  There's a lot of things actually.  I've never seen or been told that a child rejoiced in being spanked; I've never been told that someone was checking into rehab for an addiction while rejoicing in the Lord.  I tend to think that both of those situations cause the person to think "This is some BS right here."  However, it is what we are called to look past this week and to rejoice that we have been given tasks because:
      "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to
      proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bring up the brokenhearted, to
      proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners"
      (Isaiah 1:1).
While the reading in Isaiah continues through to the 11th verse, the initial first verse gives the reason why Advent is joyous season.  It is a season of rebuilding and of renewal.  I am of the opinion that spanking a child has more to do with inflicting pain and causing shock.  I think finding other ways to discipline children might be better even though my siblings, their children, and I have all been raised with parental shock therapy to change our behavior.  It is actually the change, the transition, that God calls us to focus on that is to give us Joy.  It is Joy to turn back to God looking hopefully and forward to the future.  It is as verse 4 states, "They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations."  Children are given to generations of people and not just their parents.  Children are given to communities to watch as they grow and change into fruitful adults.  The life cycle rebuilds families as people wax and wane together with the tides of experience that life brings to them.

As my friends have gotten sober over time, I find that they change in ways that their families can't handle.  Mine couldn't handle that I would go to meetings with them, and eventually, I, too, quit smoking through another discipline.  Renewal is the way to return to God in Joy.  What I have witnessed the most is when people change that those around them don't or they try to control the change.  Change is fluidic.

One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, wrote "there comes a time when self-pity becomes malignant, seducing us to into self-destructive behavioral patterns of withdrawal, isolation, drinking, drugging, and so forth.  We simply give ourselves the grace to to set a time limit on our self-pity" (Ruthless Trust).  Brennan Manning, a Franciscan priest and recovering alcoholic, found himself a ragamuffin and a beloved of God.  I like his work because he focuses on joy in our identity as the chosen beloved of God and not as a we should be.  None of us are as we should be.  When God's Joy is the center of our lives, we find that we are not giving into peer pressure, or at least, I do.  When I live from whom I think God sees me as, I tend not to care about what other people think so much.

One of the things that I have come to know this Advent season more than before, as I am writing more poetry, is that I have lost the childlikeness that my faith once had.  I didn't lose it.  I gave it up.  I found it to be too difficult to continue to have around such serious adults in my life whom only understood me as a child.  My spiritual life used to be very playful; it isn't anymore.  It isn't because I became very tired of the judgment that I would get from people.  People who know me will know that I have very little trust for those whom have a need for age appropriateness when people are past a high school age.  Once we consider people to be adults, I think we should, as a society, accept their desire to choose their own paths.  What's sad is that I gave up the discipline of joy in my life for more adult disciplines which is similar to the gamer experience of people thinking that game playing is for children.

The discipline of blowing bubbles with God is a far better one than voraciously studying scripture  when someone is in a time of renewal.  It seems to me that a thriving spiritual life requires crayons, children, laughter, and love be to be joyous.  When we focus on the mud in our lives, in our suffering, we forget that closeness we all can have with God.  We have the ability to create.  Creation is good.  It brought about such joy to God that he set aside an entire day for us to renew our lives in Him.  I hope to remember throughout the year that the Sabbath, whether someone chooses Saturday or Sunday, needs to be a joyous experience with God.

May we all remember the Joy of being the renewed beloved of God.  




  

Thoughts about Power

I am entering my fifth year after surviving serious crime which has been proven; although, people seem not to even want accept the fact that my reality is reality.  I have worked with all kinds of advocates, doctors, pastors, and faith communities in order to raise myself back up from the issues in my life caused by other people.  The number one thing that has astounded me concerning the treatment that I have received because I actually tried to get help from the system is that they don't believe that their own work is worth asking questions to adequately complete.  The system is broken due to a lack of critical thinking.

From the Episcopal Church to advocacy centers to the legal system, I have encountered more problems than anything else.  The main two questions that people seem to really be asking is 1) How can I reduce my liability in this situation? and 2)  What do I get out of helping you?  It seems to me that people have spent more time covering themselves for their own liabilities and trying to fight their own causes that they have been unable to find my humanity beyond themselves.  At this point, I have been so processed by the system where I live that people can no longer hear my voice as they are so busy trying to place me into their understanding of what whatever box or label that they need me to be for them.

I am going to make myself blatantly clear.  What I have survived which is a religiously targeted hate crime whether the Episcopal Church or even the judicial system wants to accept it, it is not a women's issue due to one kind of crime involved in it.  It's a human issue.  It seems to me that more people than ever before in my life are concerned with making sure that I revert back into being the nice young woman that they want.

I am going to make probably a heretical statement by writing that I don't believe in Women's Studies.  I don't accept that there is one issue on the planet that is strictly a women's issue because women are a part of humanity.  Again, I don't believe in women's studies as a complete separation unto itself.  Women's Studies by itself is segregation.  It's as though women would need a play group or conversation group because their thoughts are not as valuable as ours.  I am not now nor will I ever be a part of any women's groups.  I also believe that groups that are segregated by the sexes fail to grasp the humanity of the people involved in them.  It has only been since I have been more vocal about one event in my life that people have even questioned my gender identity and life as a result of being assaulted.  The mere idea that someone would want me to choose to base my life on one event is ridiculous.

I have also never actively chosen to officially join another faith community other than an Episcopal Church.  The Diocese of the Rio Grande is living as backwards and as exclusionary as they possible can when it came to actually listening to me.  They were out to protect themselves.  Ultimately, they want to protect themselves instead of actually listening to me.  They are taught to get rid of people instead of helping them.

Every single part of my life has been questioned by people whom I am, apparently, supposed to understand as having good intentions.  It seems to me that when people have good intentions for me that they actually listen to what I have to say instead of being exclusionary of me based on their own need to protect themselves.  Essentially, when people don't ask others questions, then they can say "you didn't tell me" which really means "not my fault," or "I saw when...," or "But I thought," or "But friend said."

I have tried to keep my faith in God and humanity throughout the past five years.  I can't help but notice that the advocacy centers in the north would help me without trying to revert me back into being the cisgendered woman that they wanted everyone to be.  The ones in the south were afraid of men and decided that I was just identifying with the assailant.  It is astounding to me that people in recovery systems for those whom have survived crimes would be more focused on people's clothes than the rest of society.

It's ridiculous to me that people have tried to do everything to include deciding a new religion for me based on their own understanding of an outfit.  I find the fact that when people are taught that they are sheep that they don't ever understand that they are being taught to be mindless.  It is those same people who, when they found out that I already had a graduate degree, decided that there was no way to really help me.  The answer for a lot of people is don't talk about it and if you have an education that you are then supposed to have some kind of magic wall that protects you from crime.  The very people working the systems to help others recover from crime don't understand that it is about how people use power.  

Advent 2: The Way of the Prophets and "Cups"

Advent is a time of preparation.  Advent 2 is about finding a path in order to come closer to God in openness, expectancy, and longing.  Anna Kendrick's song, Cups, illustrates this week's Advent theme very well.  Waiting for the Messiah brings with it active waiting and preparing to unite with Him.  As Kendrick's chorus repetitively states, "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," I am reminded of the incredible amount of work that people are doing this time of year to be able to prepare for various holidays.

Decorating takes a lot of work as does the culinary arts that thrive during holiday seasons.  Still, we are brought back to scripture to ground us into why we are celebrating.  Interestingly, the ground and grounding oneself in the ways of God are the main themes in this week's reading from Isaiah 2: 1-5.  In this selection of the text, in a vision people are called out in the last days to the mountains to raise the temple of God, to learn God of Jacob's ways, to beat their swords into plowshares, to attain and maintain peace.  The descendants of Jacob are called to walk in the light of the Lord.  Because I live in America, I am always reminded of children's shoes with lights in them when the readings say to walk in the light of the Lord.  While it is a very literal image, it works really well along with "Cups."

I miss the light of the people I love when they are gone.  From time to time, I have been told that they miss me when I am gone.  At any point in time when that happens, Advent waiting appears.  Busy active waiting is not one that does nothing.  Advent waiting is one of preparation for one another.  Preparing work for the future or sowing seeds in the ground.  Studying scripture so that it is known to your heart and not left in a text is active waiting to know the Lord in order to walk in the light.

In Mishkan T'Filah: A Reform Siddur, there is a prayer of praise which states in part:

Praise God in market and workplace,

with computer, with hammer and nails.

Praise God in bedroom and kitchen;

praise God with pots and pans.

Praise God in the temple of the present;

let every breath be God's praise.  

In everything, we are to praise God.  The Way of the Prophets is one of truth and patience.  Both truth and patience are praised.  This Advent season, people can praise God for a lot.  As Americans, we have more material things than most other nations.  We have first-world issues like iPads being too heavy and not having enough battery life.  We have seasonal concerns like not confusing airplane pilots with our holiday light displays and making sure that scarves match the choir's robes in our churches for the big show in a couple weeks.  Our first-world concerns are often prioritized higher than the third world among us in the poor who are always present.  To walk in the light means to know them and to care for those with less.  

Less can mean a lot.  Is there a member of the faith community who really can't buy the holiday cookies in the fundraiser?  Someone could buy them and make them appear for that person without acknowledgment.  Less could mean that the parents in a family are giving everything they can this season to their kids and are not receiving for themselves.  Then, they are experiencing less.  Sometimes, less is better.  Does someone need help in their homes for the holiday season?  In all of these things, we can praise God.  We can praise God that as we are waiting we have been entrusted to help people experience the lesser moments.  God is the judge of the lesser moments that cause people to settle disputes by beating spears into pruning hooks.  Hanging the greens unites families in our community through the chill of winter.  Pruning the rough edges of pastries and creating activities to unite people is a holy time to God.  Discipling to accept one another in peace keeps the light of God guiding all of our journeys.  We will miss one another when we are gone.    

Walk in the light this week as we all prepare for the miraculous this season.

    

          

Waiting in Humanity: Who is Jesus?

Yesterday on the way home from teaching, I had several different kinds of experiences on the bus.  In fact, there have been several kinds of experiences that usually don't happen on Sun Metro that have happened.  The question that has come to my mind throughout the past month is: Who is Jesus?  Grace and the law works differently based on who Jesus is to everyone in America whether or not

First, rarely is the bus ever empty.  Usually I am not on it by myself with a couple other people or one other person.  This one particular day, I was on the bus with someone I recognized from the Temple where I pray.  It seemed unusual to me when I heard him on Yom Kippur standing behind me as his voice was very strong, but it he was obviously new to the group.  Next, he was at a Torah Study where I was and introduced himself as wanted to learn about God's culture, but had a KJV Bible with him at Temple.  While choosing to skip over the obvious archaic transliteration of the scriptures that really should be left to Renaissance scholars, I had a short conversation with him through which he chose about five words from a verse in Ephesians to understand my entire theological understanding. It is impossible to do so.  This day on the bus, there was the driver, this guy, a woman in front of me, and myself.  He introduced himself as John at the Torah Study, so I'll just continue with that name to refer to him.  The woman in from of me was a blonde and tall.  She seemed to be slumming it as she rode the bus.  People whom ride Sun Metro get used to the others whom are there.  I have a medical issue that involves something called verbalization.  As I get more stressed, the symptom appears more and can be controlled somewhat with changing my breathing.  I don't always know that I am doing it, but when I do I change my breathing.

The woman was sitting in the seat in front of me and John was sitting across from us in the other row.  As I started to relax and the verbalization became more apparent, I said something that caused her to gasp.  She was offended at something I said.  I don't even remember what it was, but she literally gasped because she heard something she didn't like.  So, I apologized and explained that it was a symptom and not to take it personally.  Ultimately for me, she's on Sun Metro.  It's not a limo.  Other kinds of people are there.  People who are different.  If I need to change my breathing for the person in from of me on the bus, then her ego needs to be placed into check.  Essentially, mature adults don't take everything personally.  Since she obviously did, to me, that means that she can't handle human beings in public.  As soon as I apologized for the verbalization, her whole body relaxed.  Seriously, if your whole biochemistry and muscle tension changes because you hear someone behind you say something, you probably have a narcissistic issue.  It also means that you aren't actually able to work to me or don't ever work.  I don't accept that women are so fragile that they can't overhear something and not take it personally.  That's the reason people think that women can't function as well as others in American society and throughout the world.  If I have to worry about you being so fragile that you might swoon, then "Scarlett" go home.

Later that night riding home, there were people talking about a court case.  They were mad at a judge.  The judge ruled in favor of a soldier whom had come back from Afghanistan instead of a woman in an apparent divorce so that he didn't have to pay child support or alimony.  The woman telling the story was furious because he was "acting crazy."  I immediately knew -- PTSD of some type.  Leave the man alone.  He's not acting.  Hurray for the judge, except for child support.  Those kids should have received something and was it possible to give him the kids with some added assistance.  He's not acting crazy.  That's real.  If you marry a soldier, he ready for the realities of war.  

Last night, there was a homeless man which also rarely happens on the bus.  He was a younger man, looked like he had been on the street for about three months by the conditions of his hair and hygiene needs, and was politely talking with other people.  What was fascinating to me is that, again, the people couldn't manage having a basic conversation with him.  Talking doesn't cause anyone to catch a disease or become infected by anyone.  He even tried to give someone a transfer pass, so the homeless man is even attempting to serve and help another person.  Instead, of accepting his help, he was actually shunned more.  He got off the bus before the main Eastside station, and I immediately thought that it would have been because of the guard or the amount of people who were there.  It was as if he knew to get off the bus early.  My responsibility in this is that I wanted to talk with him to find out if he had a place to stay.  I'm currently exhausted by what I call food outreach and am looking into other avenues to be of service to other people.  I'm exhausted by soup kitchens, food pantries, and community kitchens, but I digress.  He seemed to carry everything he needed; at the same time, he had a little bit of newness to him.  He hasn't been homeless long.  He's getting fed somewhere.  When I looked at him, I noticed his ability to serve others and his physique and thought veteran or migrant worker in some way.  The people on the bus were relieved when he left because he  desperately needed a shower.  I wanted to give him one but had no where to take him.  The only places I really know of accept women and children far more than men.  It seems to be okay to leave men on the street more often than women and children when a man's life is just as valuable.

After I switched buses at the station, I was on another bus that seemed very different.  It was quiet.  There were a few people.  The guard, whom is awesome, checked under the seats and the bus for people which is a constant check on the Eastside, but I've never seen anyone else do.  We had a short conversation about not having seen one another for awhile.  I had a break from teaching.  It was good to see each other again.  She was really friendly.  I look forward to seeing her sometimes because she does her job.

If we all have a divine spark in us, then we wouldn't see one another based on clothing or what we do.  We would not be so offended by other human beings that we gasp or think that others should live on the street for acting crazy.  Essentially, some people were openly claiming Christianity by what they were saying to each other while not accepting science, medicine, and, well, reality.  I am fascinated by the ways that people talk with one another one the bus.  I have met every kind of person there is.  It still seems to me that the less money a person has, the less that person is offended.  It shames me to a point that Americans thrive in a society of shallowness.  Shallowness is unethical.  Bus culture includes everyone with a fare-ness even if traveling means that you are handed a transfer for being human.  It is this humanness that gives the Spirit of God hands and feet to serve one another.  It is fairness that allows every soul to unite in community with others without pretense.  People who serve other people are embracing humanness which honors every understanding of a Supreme Being.

 

Advent 1: Hope

Today is Advent Sunday 1.  I love Advent.  It is a season of active waiting for God's return.  It's interesting that Christianity places Advent just before Christmas.  We await for the second coming right before and while reenacting the initial birth of the Christ child.

What I love about advent is that it is the only season we have throughout the year in Christianity that has intentional weekly themes.  I like nicely organized themes.  They are:

Advent 1: Hope
Advent 2: The Way of the Prophets
Advent 3: Gaudete Sunday/Joy
Advent 4: Angels

Of course, I always know people have a good time with my name at this point of the year due to the song O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  It is one of my favorite songs.  It has a lot more verses than people think it does.  To me, it follows the Way of the Prophets more than any of the other hymns that we have at any other point of the year.  I also love Advent because people of multiple faiths are all in a waiting period for the Messiah at the same time.

My favorite week is Sunday 2.  Interestingly enough, it is about patience and suffering.  It is all about abiding in Christ regardless of what happens.  It is the message within Christianity that I think is more confused than any other message that the church places in the world.  Abiding and knowing that God is God does not mean that people need to cause more suffering in order to train others to persevere through long-suffering.  There is enough suffering in the world that human beings create and live through that no one really needs to cause more.  We do and the second week in advent shows us that we don't need to do so.

The first week that we are in right now is about hope.  We hope for the future.  The entire season of Advent is placed in hope that the Messiah is coming for all people.  My advent discipline this year is founded in hope.  I am using this season to send in a poem or group of poems to total the amount of days in the season in for review and hopeful publication.  This will sow seeds of hope for the future, pave a way for my writing, bring joy to those whom know me and myself, and may even need some divine intervention and aid.  Publication, like the Messiah, is a discipline of watching and waiting.

Stay Awake!

Remnant: The Global Future of Faith

Remnant theology, which is accepted in the Anglican Communion, is one of the ways that Christianity interacts, or rather, unifies with Judaism.  Instead of replacing Judaism, which is an atrocious thought, or separating completely from Judaism, which leave Christianity a rootless, dead plant, remnant theology grafts its shoot into the olive tree of Judaism and is supported by its root system.  It seems so foreign to me as someone of The Middle Way that people would try to choose one way or the other in this sense.  Thankfully, I don't have to.  It's actually possible for Anglicans to do both without leaving the denomination.  I live in a diocese that is known for it's conservatism and close-mindedness when it comes to matters of difference, so I have been accused of apostasy constantly.

It used to be that people weren't allowed to be liberal in this diocese and now conservatives face things the other way.  The Middle Way includes both and doesn't segregate difference.  Most people can't live it; it's really difficult.  As someone who believes in remnant theology, it would be impossible for me to live my faith fully without formation time in a Jewish community.  I am blessed and grateful that I have one in El Paso which doesn't exclude me since I was told to leave the church for my own safety because the people couldn't control themselves from retaliating.

It feels weird sometimes to be praying at a Jewish Temple.  However, in the last eight years, I have come closer to God the more I understand and embrace the Jewish roots that supports and infuses the Christian faith.  Without Judaism, Christianity would not exist.  I believe that it can't be fully lived functionally without having a practical understanding of living Judaism in some form.  I also know that some people think that I have converted which I haven't.

Remnant theology allows for a faith that is inherently formed by understanding the traditions and experiences found within Jewish civilization and culture.  It would be impossible to fully embrace remnant theology without it.  I started this specific part of my religious quest about eight years ago and am very blessed to have done so.  I know people think that I started this as a result of people fighting over property in the church which was scapegoated as being about the Bible and GLBT people.  It's larceny and extortion in the name of God which also isn't new.  Nonetheless, I am happy that I kept finding that my life worked better the more I embraced structure, liturgy, and ritualism with the church, and in this case, within the community that has so graciously given me a space to explore and seek God.

The global world is changing.  We are not meant to replace or even tolerate one another.  We are to accept one another as we are.  We are all evolving and growing while hopefully learning throughout our lives to embrace our own humanity.  It's difficult to embrace human beings for being human.  Globally, faith is being renewed and re-explored which makes this an awesome time to be alive.  

I Remember "Tubthumping"

The song "Tubthumping" came out when I was an undergraduate.  The Sodexo cafeteria ENMU came with a free jukebox and my classmates and I consistently requested this so much that during lunch almost every day I heard it about five or six times.  The Greyhounds did not win a lot of football games; we needed a pick-me-up and lived on a dry campus.  We were required to live in the dormitories for at least the first year of our educational careers and thought that our fraternity brothers at San Angelo State were oppressed by having to live in them until they were seniors.

Looking back now, Hurray for San Angelo State!  Now that I teach, I see my students who live in the dorms and have meal plans awake and working while the others are becoming vicious hungry zombies.  I am happy that I experienced living in a dorm.  It was a great experience.  I also liked my on-campus apartment as I grew older.  I am thankful that I have students living in dormitories.  

"Tubthumping" while seemingly unimportant and focused on partying is really about living your life with haters.  There are always going to be haters.  I have published poetry since I was in high school.  I was the English department senior award winner and worked two jobs during my last semester in high school.  I was in the band, and people hated that I was as out and proud as we could be in '96.  I wore a tie to school; it was metallic magenta and black checkered.  It was gaudy, but it was 90s.  I played chess and wore driving caps.  We had just left neon which is back but never left as I still have some of my original neon.

When I went to the university, I continued writing poetry and focused on the trumpet for a long time.  I was continuously teased by haters as my hair was every color, and I dyed it green to match things for Homecoming and purple to match fraternity robes.  I did everything I could to make sure that my hair color told a story.  That narrative was rainbow because the campus was dry!  No alcohol allowed!  It just made people creative.  It was then that I knew that the point for most people was getting away with whatever they could instead of actually following what we had agreed to.

Anyone who majors in music, religion, philosophy, theater, or poetry is going to have haters who question their sanity.  I knew that "Tubthumping" was going to be a theme song for me for my lifetime.

I have gotten knocked down several times since my undergraduate years.  I thought leaving the ministry was the worst thing that I could have ever done just after graduation.  Actually, I learned that ministry was everyone's life.  Thank God!  I quit!  I can minister to others effectively now.  Church planting was crazy, but getting the bishop to let me come home as a part of the laity was easy.  We all fall short when we pastor out of the institution, apparently.  Rogue pastoring is against the rules unless they join the church, then it's fine.  I had only been part of the Episcopal Church for about four years anyway.  You know --- new guy?   It was the most stressful part of my life.  I thought I was entering graduate school in shame at UTEP as I never wanted to go there, and it turned out that it was where God wanted me to be.

About five years ago, I lived through something that caused me to believe that I was going to live without reading and writing functionally ever again.  Although it hasn't been accepted, yesterday I submitted a collection of poetry for publication.  I was "Tubthumping" and remembered the song when I was sending the information off to Bright Hill Press.

"Tubthumping" is one of the hymns that no one recognizes as one.  If the point of religion and a relationship with God is to persevere through ridiculous things, and from time to time it is, then "Tub Thumping" illustrates exactly what Acts 2:15 is about.  The Spirit-filled people raised us up for finals as spirits brought some down.  "Tubthumping" is about Pentecost.

Now, Pentecost is a completely different season from the one that most Christian churches are entering into.  Advent is almost near.  Advent is my favorite season.  It is a season of preparation. We prepare and wait for the Messiah.  It is about active waiting to be filled by the Spirit as well.  Advent and Pentecost are related through the filling of the Spirit in different ways.  I am already waiting in anticipation for Advent.  In my life, it will lead to --- Chanukah for the first time!

This year, I am celebrating Chanukah and several other things for the first time.  I am finding a path that is causing me to live and breathe God again.  Why is that?  I'm "Tubthumping."  I am getting up again to live in God, with God, and in community with God's people --- humanity.  Thank God for "Tubthumping."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc

Shaped by Texts

Bishop John Spong, thank God for him asked, "Which book/s helped shape who you are?"  In this post, I am going to answer the good Bishop and hopefully he will accept text/s instead of book/s.  

John Milton's Aeropagetica shaped my life more than others.  When I first read about censorship, I had been so censored in my life that I never spoke my own thoughts about anything.  Although, I'm an American by the time I was in Graduate School the ability to have my own thoughts and words expressed had already been suppressed and removed from my life by public schools and higher education.  Mind you, I currently teach in higher education and value public schools in America.  Standardized testing and regurgitation of someone else's thoughts were more of a goal thank thinking myself.  It wasn't until I really read Aeropagitica that I really thought about my own textual freedom and began to care about how our tradition was formed in a time of tumultuous incivility and frequent beheadings of those with their own points of view.  http://www.bartleby.com/3/3/

George Herbert's collection The Temple was the next text that changed my life and became the primary text for my research.  I was fascinated by the way that he used imagery, structured his poetry, and created verse through his own life experiences.  I was also fascinated that somehow a priest was not so disillusioned in his own life that he actually thought about those around him in his parish and and yearned for them to know God as individuals.  http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/HQ.html

While it may seem childish, Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20mMbEB0OhA  I've always gone places.  I love different places.  Dr. Seuss always makes my inner child happy.  There's just something very freeing about this book.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the next one.  I found Walden when I wanted to live deliberately and was finding that I experienced God through creation around me.  I was at one with the universe in nature and not in a church while I still needed the liturgical rituals that were necessary to structure my very unstructured life.  I read Walden for the first time at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, NM.  They have an awesome little stream there where ducks frequent, and I yearned for God more than anything else sitting with Thoreau in my hands by the stream.  I found a kindred person in Throeau's penning of Walden.  I spent part of my life on my grandfather's farm and Walden returned me to that part of my life when I had found spirituality by a pond in Chandler's Valley, PA for the first time.  http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html  and http://pecosmonastery.org

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is the final book.  It was in Whitman's collection that I found humanity deeper than other places.  His relationship with the world around him and his ability to place his own story into verse captivates me.  "The Song of Myself" guided me to consider Self as reality.  Walt Whitman gave me rhythm and song just as my music education did, but found a place in humanity for himself without losing his own thoughts in those around him.  Whitman gave me the variation of Self I needed in Academia.  I read Whitman when I find that I have found too much time in the institution and need to find me again.   http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/books/other/rhys.html

Interestingly, I found these texts in Graduate School.  My late twenties were the point in time when I refound mystery, my Self, and explored monasteries in the woods.

I would love to tell you that the Bible was in the top five.  Maybe next year, Bishop Spong; the Apostle Paul is not going to hold up to Dr. Seuss this year.

Writing

I have spent the last few weeks writing a new story.  I love writing. I've written in another post that I am childless by choice.  I also don't have an expectation of having children either.  I knew in high school that I didn't want to have children.  My sisters wanted to have children and have families; I wanted publication. Since I have a hereditary condition that cause procreation in my life to be nearly impossible, I just decided that  I wasn't going to give myself grief over it.  I am okay with it.

I became okay with life through writing.  I have always done this as far back as I can remember.   Words are pretty to me.  They are pretty to me in a way that sunsets and flowers are pretty to painters.  They are pretty to me in the same way that muscle cars, lightning strikes, and roaring fires are pretty.  Words draw me in like life on fire.  I love words.

Words have always been my friends.  I never had an imaginary friend whom I didn't want to publish and immortalize.  In a sense, my imagination is my favorite playground.  I have been spending some time creating in the past few weeks and have been really happy doing so.  I have been so happy about it that I have now blogged through my phone.

I think words are prettier than some colors.  I just love words.

Evangelistic Duo

Sometimes, when I am waiting on the bus, evangelists show up.  Most of them just give me the tracts that they are carrying, but some take the time, because I use public transportation, to try to proselytize me into their social paradigm.  I find most religious tracts to be useless.  Every single one that is given to me winds up in the trash.  I don't believe in trying to force my belief or my social construct on anyone else. 

It usually happens that someone shows up and this time it was ridiculous.  I am standing there waiting for the bus, and the man in the due says "Are you waiting for the bus to go to work?"  It is probably the most obvious statement someone could make at that point in time.  The young woman who was there then says that she would like to leave a tract with me.  I said what I usually say.  I understand that some people have a belief in doing what they are doing.  So, I said ok to receiving the tract.  Then, the man looked into the covered bus stop where I had my belongings for my daily travels, and he said, " I see you have a Bible."  Then, she says "Then there's just three questions left..."  She said it in the most rehearse obviously staged robotic manner.  My mind immediately thought, "Wait a minute....  I agreed to receive the tract not your quiz." 

So while a lot of people wouldn't agree, I took her tract and threw it away into the trash can where we were standing.  It is exactly where the tract was going anyway.  This man claimed that I was rude. 

I would like to address this accusation.  You interrupted my life.  I didn't go to you; you came to me.  The longer you stayed standing near me, the more you began to intrude into my life.  Just because I am using public transportation doesn't mean that you have permission to start going eyeballing everything I own that I have with me.  I agreed to let you leave a tract not search my heart with your "come to Jesus" questions.  I don't appreciate your quiz.  It is probably one the main problems with Christianity.  It is not for you to intrude into my introverted life with your extroverted activity.  I am merely waiting on the bus. 

This couple was the third or fourth set of evangelists at this bus stop.  They seem to show up for me. 

So, while I realize that you think that killing trees for no reason, using non-biodegradable ink, sucking away my life in the morning with your obviously overly coached statement, and converting me to your stepford ideology of rude is evil; I think waiving my fee for your impermance lesson was important.  Waiving my fee to even talk with you about evangelism when you show up is enough.  I was waiting to go to work. 

Surely, they must realize that their tract was headed for the trash.  They are offended by seeing it.  Don't give it to me then.  I didn't choose for you to show up in my life.  It was courtesy to these people to have a conversation with them.  One yes, and they started intruding far beyond their need to.  If it is about giving me the tract, then keep your eyes out of my stuff.      

The Power of Choice

In a previous post, I stated that I don’t believe in choosing for other people.  I would like to clarify what I think about believe about the power of choice.  Choice is freedom. 

It has been my experience, except in three different people’s cases, that when someone has decided to give a gift to me, or when I needed it, gave a form of charity to me that it has always come at a price.  That price is usually rooted in the statement “beggars can’t be choosers.”  We have social programs in place in the United States because people need help.  I don’t believe that everyone who gives a gift is out to control another person.  I can honestly say that I have met three people in my life who gave to give and never once made me feel like I was a charity case or less than they were.  It saddens me to say that only one of those people is a Christian.  I am now 36. 

I have been given gifts by a lot of people.  I am an American; we thrive on consumerism.  Because we do, it has been my experience that even a gift which isn’t requested requires some form of payment.  Usually the emotional cost comes in something along these lines.  “Do you still have ____________ that _________ gave you?  Cuz I’m just checking that you still have it.”  I find this kind of behavior to be one of the most annoying things people can do in my home.  Essentially, to me, that is shopping in my house.  I don’t live in the mall. 

When I give things away, it doesn’t cross my mind to ask what happened to it.  I gave it away, and with it, the ownership of the object.  Everyone I know likes gifts.  There is a difference between gift giving and choosing for another person. 

Someone gave me ride the other day and the gift came with the oddest conversation.  She was driving a Hyundai Accent that she said she just got in Arizona.  I asked about her family, and she said she didn’t have one.  We shared a moment of unity over not having our own nuclear families right now.  She had been out shopping for a house, and I thought to myself “she must have won the lottery.”  I couldn’t buy a car and go house shopping.  I don’t know many who can.  She then said to me, “that man already had a family.  The right one will come along for you.”  Huh?  Where did that come from?  I didn’t say anything about trying to find one.  I’m not on the hunt.  It was an enormous communicative disconnect.  She jumped from her car and shopping to the right man for me and that other one wasn't.  What other one?  It was a fun ride and a fun car though.  I would have picked something just like it.  Because I accepted a ride, I was thought of as lonely for a spouse and wrong for a nameless family man. 

Thanks for the ride.  It was interesting.

At least no one said “hang in there.”  That phrase to me means “I realize that you have been hung out to dry on a cross but you can make it!  The Lord died and God brought him back.  Just keep thinking about suffering better.”  The reason people say that is that they understand and recognize that you are being crucified for some reason by something or someone else.  Instead, I wish others would do as the Apostle Paul has taught us and say, “Keep the faith!”  I have a few friends who do.  We help where we can.  God bless them. 

Blessing another with the ability to choose is one of the best freedoms that can be bestowed on that person. 

I have a rule of thumb that I follow.  If I don’t think that I can give it and walk away, then I don’t give it.  If I think that I will tell the receiver how to use my gift, then I don’t give it.  The power of choice is ownership of a person’s own life.  It is more important to choose to keep something than to try to enslave another with it.  If you can’t give it and leave it, then don’t give it. 

Anonymous presents are the best ones! 

Forgive and For Get

I was asked the other day by someone if I believed in forgiving someone for their emotional sin again me.  After further conversation, it was shown that by that the person meant: forgive and forget. 

A quick answer to that is "no," and I didn't come to this conclusion on my own. The example that the person used was is someone shot my dog for no reason.  My explanation is this.  Forgiveness is a conscious decision not to allow someone else's circumstance or behavior to control or impact your own decision-making anymore.  From my point of view, forgiving another person isn't about the other person.

Forgiving is For Getting Freedom from the situation.  When I forgive someone else, I benefit from it.  I don't believe in Forgive and Forget because it gives the person the opportunity to do the same thing again.  Now, this is not a demand for perfection in another person's life.  I apply this when enough emotional harm has been caused to me or another person that the culprit cannot ever fix. 

Following the example, I would not be able to go to enough therapy to cause my dog to become reanimate after someone murdered it.  Forgive and Forget undoes our ethical, legal, and justice system.  If a murderer just apologizes, should society let him or walk off of death row?  Probably not.  If Charles Manson just says sorry, does he get out of prison?  No.  Does it mean that the people whom have been harmed in domestic violence, sexual assault, and hate crime just need to get over it if the abuser apologizes?  No.  Damage still exists.

Forgive and Forget causes the cycle to continue.  Forgiveness doesn't mean that the person isn't held accountable.  At the same time, there are levels to what people do to other people.  If someone shoots my dog, I will press every charge I can against that person as a citizen of this country.  If someone sends me "too many" emails that I start having to consider whether or not there's a much bigger problem, then I just put a check mark by them and delete them.  I don't delete the person.  I certainly don't think that sexual touching as a form of discipline for it is ethical or Godly.  Some people think it is okay to punish people legally in order to publicly completely emasculate and  sexually humiliate others and make a show out of it for the rest of the people in a group.  Essentially, if I am a leader and I can humiliate someone in order to flex my leadership power then I am really doing it to 1) intimidate others, 2) feel powerful, and 3) set the example for others to follow.  The fastest way to do that is to demean that person through a humiliating situation in front of something like a church congregation.

People get into battles of power and control when they have to have it for themselves.  I don't believe in forced public confession because some people are out to humiliate others through it.  Some people would argue that when someone is in a community that the whole community is privy to that person's whole life.  I don't.  I spent about 15 years of my life in therapy for 1) learning how to live in an extroverted world, 2) repairing my life from the damage that had been caused in it, 3) sorting out boundaries with my birth family, and 4) learning to compartmentalize parts of my life.  I am pro-therapy for everyone.  Finding the right one is the difficult part.   

For about 8-10 years of that, I was retrained through Gestalt Therapy and spiritual direction.  This is what causes me to have this boundary that my family doesn't understand.  Forgive and Forget doesn't work in Gestalt Therapy or in actual repentance.  More people, I am convinced, commit sin against themselves more than other people.  Every person has the responsibility to forgive other people, but every person needs to learn how to forgive themselves first for the harm they have done to themselves.  It's impossible to learn to forgive others without self-forgiveness.  That means things like: If I am an alcoholic, then I forgive myself for my higher risk of cirrhosis of the liver AND stop placing myself at risk.  Another example: getting divorced from someone whom refuses to stop having unprotected sex with other people. 

If I don't have a boundary, then that person won't.  It usually means that the person demanding his or her own way in my life says "Forgive and Forget because you are just holding a grudge."  Then, someone usually says that I have to learn how to respect my parents, colleagues, students, or church leader whom needs everything to revolve around that person.  Boundaries are not disrespectful.  Our society thinks that they are. 

I believe in Forgive and For Get, but I don't believe in Forgive and Forget by any stretch of the imagination.  When I forgive, I also create a new place for a new boundary.  If I want to choose to live life, then I have to choose to live my life and not someone else's life.  I have to choose to be me and be content with me first.  So, when I find that I need freedom someone or something, I forgive and choose whether to stay or walk away.

This is yet another place where grace and the law have to find equilibrium in a person's life.   

The Barna Group's Churched and Unchurched Study: A Response

Dividing people into the Churched and Unchurched is an inherent problem with Christianity.  Here is a link to the most recent Barna Groups article:

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/685-five-trends-among-the-unchurched#.VD7J1BF0zmL

Christianity is a living organism.  The church happens most outside of the walls of a building. People are not churchless.  People are building-less, and its okay.  The world is not ending.  Each of the five points in the Barna Groups' Study needs to be addressed. 

1.  Secularization is on the rise.
We went outside to play.  Post-Christian means that we are not in Churchianity.  Churchianity is state with the church which makes people have a dependent reliance of the proscribed party platform of a denomination.  Lots of people still believe in Jesus.  We also have higher educations, don't need patriarchal micro-management, and are able to pray with one another.  Power structures in organizations that thrive on a top down struggle for dominance cause most people in America to think about inequality.  We want equality, so patriarchy needs to turn into shared power structures where all voices can be heard.

2.  People are less open to the idea of church.
Most outreach programs have hidden agendas that require the person involved to give up their own identities for a group collective.  While resistance may be futile for some, most other people just stop going there.  If I have to question what I am getting out of church, then it's because I am being indoctrinated into group think. 

3.  Church going is no longer mainstream.
It never was in my family.  I didn't come to America on the Mayflower.  Everything I can do at a church for a rite of passage in life I can also generally do at city hall.  I don't need the church to approve of my marriage and the funeral home will bury me if I elect to have my body disposed of that way.  I don't need to be bothered with going to church because I don't need a specific place to try to control God.  I can be at one with God everywhere.  Anyone can lead prayer.  You taught us that what's important is a personal relationship with God.  You taught us that each one of us can pray.  You taught us that anyone can lead prayer and to lives Godly lives outside of the church services.  So, we are.  You got what you wanted...

4.  There are different expectations of church involvement. 
I am most interested in the pastor showing up when we need him to facilitate corporate worship as we would like it.  Notice, I utilized the word "facilitate."  Let the people choose and some of us might want to be involved.  Deciding that I am unable to reach God through anything but your ideology is ridiculous.  I like how my denomination uses the phrase "reimagining the church."  Imagining is correct.  The church's policies are all made up.  WE can change them.  WE are the church.  Since the church exists to help us serve God and each other, they need to come to us and not the other way around.  Pray with us on the bus, in coffee shops, or at a park.  Stop demanding your "fair share" of our lives when we promised it to God already.  The church needs to think of churches more as hub stations instead of local parishes which is a sign of the era we live in.  I want to be a full member in Paris, Los Angeles, and in London if I show up in any of those places.     

5.  There is skepticism about churches' contributions to society.
I think churches contribute a lot of good things to society.  Churches help a lot of people.  Churches are good places to take you kids just like the ballpark or the zoo.  We can pray at the ballpark and the zoo.  I've never heard of a church that didn't want to know how much money a person made to be able to be there.  Eventually, church is just going to be an account into which people give money and a place they never go.  The church will be pacified by it.  Church is more of a bill for people than a place for community.  That's why we have community centers. 

I am more in favor of church where I am not being forced to be stationary in one place.  I live in a global community and have more global concerns.  The problem with this in the church is that when someone says "global" it means Third World. 

I am more at one with my community, especially my faith in community, by going to or watching Ted Talks, live chats and workshops with clergy and faith teachers, and communities that are focused on Oneness of God and humanity than other places.  Since I am more of a humanist everyday, I find the idea that ecclesiastical titles means righteous is ridiculous.  I want the human being to embrace humanness over correctness.

The creedal "one true church" is now and has always been.  It is the spark within all of us.  It is the soul we are given and the humanness that we all called to embrace about ourselves. 

Christianity has always been a missionary faith.  Technology has made us far more a missionary people.  I am happier learning and believing with those in Europe, South Africa, Washington National Cathedral, and other faiths than I will probably ever be in the local church.  Why?

The local church can't compete with the freedom that I have in considering the ideas of a human being thousands of miles away without the fear of retaliation if I don't agree.  They cannot compete with the freedom I have of experiencing God in my own way within another faith structure while maintaining my own faith.  My tradition embraces diversity.  Being bound by the pastor's understanding is the opposite of it. 

We didn't leave the church.  We aren't churchless.  We just went outside. 

Ownership

Contrary to popular belief, my calendar is my graphic organizer not a chore chart for others to fill in.  If people want to fill in personal planners and calendars, then they need to get their own and fill those in for themselves.    I am convinced that this happens because some people have the need to continue to create chore charts for other people at the last minute.  Why?  Don Williams was correct "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0vmnxM3ao&list=RDQOZSiqsMlow&index=3 

Some people have the need to wallow in what never was.  My schedule never was yours to fill in.  You never owned me.  It seems that some people think that they own everything.  In higher education, this is most prevalent when it comes to adult tattle tales which appears in ugly ways when people work in groups.  The tattle tale owns everything in group work and will use the childhood "drink of water at bedtime" trick to try to manipulate everything.

Group work causes people to actually work together which means that accepting flaws in a another person is actually necessary.  The perfectionist student will almost automatically become the tattle tale.  Essentially, the perfectionist will show up to say that someone else isn't pulling that person's weight in the group.  Said student is almost always their to make sure that his or her grade is going to be pristine.  This is usually my response which causes that person to think that things are being taken care of and doesn't crush that person's world. That person shows up to make sure that she or he is getting the right thing because she or he is out to do the "greater good." 

The conversation goes like this:
"I talked with XXXXX about what's going on in our group because I'm concerned."
"Why is that?  Is it because you think the other student needs Ritalin?"
"Yes."

At this point in the conversation, I realize it is really about getting the tattle tales' way.  they don't own each other or me.  It usually continues with that person running other students into the ground so that he or she can manipulate the leader.  All genders of students do this, so don't think it is just women.  Men do it similarly, but in a different kind of conversation.  Why?  Some college students decide that human nature is always wrong.  That person is usually standing in front of me to make sure that I am now going to change my schedule in order for that person to have his or her way at fixing another person.  I am also usually looking at another person who needs perfection in appearance and everything else.  I also tend to think that he or she needs a  Xanax or a therapist.  Evil manipulates, has a silver tongue, and is saccharin sweet. 

The job for me at this point is to test the situation.  Why?  1 Thess. 5:21 states, "Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil."  I usually give a simple task for that person to do like giving a message to someone else.  Almost 95% of the time, the tattle-tale won't do it and will say that he or she will.  Why?  It doesn't benefit that person's grade, and he or she will be holding a passive aggressive grudge over something I did like using my left eye to see a tree instead of my right eye.

Usually, the accused party will have already shown up to accept responsibility for whatever the perfectionist ahs a problem with and is learning to change things in that person's life.  Tattle tales usually say things like "we made amends already, but I just wanted you to know."  It's really self-righteous to show up boasting about your goodness.  It's really self-centered to run down another person to make yourself look better in the eyes of the perceived authority figure.

It's a game to look good.  Don Williams and 1 Thessalonians 5:21 usually provide wisdom for every situation.  Seeking perfection through medicating another illustrates incredibly low self-esteem and extreme vanity. 

My schedule is mine.  My students schedules are theirs.  I have never filled in my calendar with a block of self-righteousness training.  I've never needed to.  I have filled in large blocks of time with confession and training to help my life.  When I am my Self, I don't need to fix the world around me.  Centering prayer and deep breathing keep my schedule mine. 

What Teaching Does

Teaching causes me to spend my time in a community of growing scholars.  Whenever I am in a community of scholars, I realize that they are the people that I have spent the majority of my life around.  My life revolves around knowledge which, for me, is a good thing.

As my scholarly life has included teaching now for awhile, I have become more reflective upon the word and what teaching really is.  For me, being a professor means that I approach the classroom as a fellow scholar and not an expert.  This seems to be shocking the longer I teach to my students.  I don't want to be their expert.  I want them to learn and grow.  By default, I do the same.

I can journey with my students, but they choose the destination.  I can't chose how they will live their lives or how they will use the information that I give to them.  My class is difficult for students until they realize that I really do want them to learn and be able to apply the information from the course in the world.  It is difficult because they choose the majority of what they write about based on their own interests and their own response to what the course is giving to them.  It is difficult because they are responsible for all of it.   

The longer I teach, the more I am a guide and learning companion along with my students instead of trying to impart information.  I spend more time wanting and trying to get them to show me how they do whatever it is that they do.   

From time to time, I have a student who needs me to calculate life for him or her for whatever reason.  Life is really easy: choose.  Choose life.  It is only through consistently choosing life that anyone can really grow, learn, and become whom he or she is called to be in the world. 

Teaching is learning at a very different level than I was.  It gives me a lot of practice at asking questions.  I will never have all of the answers which is what I love about it, and my students dislike about it.  They need to find their own answers. 

Essentially, in case there is a question I am able to answer or guide students to, then I am there.  I learn about a tremendous amount of things this way.  Teaching is far more an art of questioning than anything else.        

Wag More, Bark Less

In addition to teaching, prayer, writing, music, reading, and my schnauzer, I volunteer serving people at a food pantry where I live.  I've done this off and on for over twenty years now.  I have been there for a little over a year and am happy that I have been doing so.  I would like to be able to say that there was some kind of philanthropic, humanitarian, or slightly spiritual reason that I began to do so.  There really isn't one.  I started serving there because the community college where I was teaching and making a livable wage cut back on our allotted credit hours to teach while claiming that it was the new Obamacare that we were being required to buy that we couldn't already pay for.  All of a sudden, I had too much time on my hands and was winding up with cabin fever in my apartment.

It has drastically changed since I began there through changes in leadership almost completely.  Some of those changes have been really good and some of those changes are perpetual. 

Just like my ongoing quest for balance in law and grace, I find that from time to time I meet someone stuck in the "Us and Them" false dichotomy.  I am not the only person, by any means, seeking for and learning about this balance of grace and the law, and I don't think that I ever will be finished with it.  "Us and Them" mentality is at the core of grace and the law.  The problem that continues this false dichotomy is "the end."  Where do I end and the next person begin? 

This year we began serving with a new graduate brought to the area through an awesome organization called the Border Servant Corps.  I am native of El Paso, Texas and was born on the Fort Bliss Military Reservation.  Army brats are a little different from a lot of other El Pasoans, and the same, in the sense that we have usually lived in several other places.  Our new intern and floor manager is a brand new university graduate or so he claimed.  I don't know him much.  He went to school just outside of Philadelphia and he's Hispanic.  He has a minor in Latino Studies, or so he claimed.

The first thing that I noticed that he said to me was that he decided to serve in El Paso to experience Latin culture and not just study it.  My inner thought was that I realized the need for experiential education; however, most of El Paso is Chicano.  He didn't know the difference and moved across the country to immerse himself in a culture that isn't primarily there.  Since then, I have just kept reminding myself that he is new. 

Yesterday, he talked with me about wanting to get a ristra for the reason it was intended which is drying them for future use and a sign for open hospitality which I found to be interesting.  As the day went on, he had the need to question whether or not I was there to volunteer.  I'm always there to volunteer as that's why I go there, and when I brought it up, he immediately said that he didn't think that I was a client.  There are people who volunteer and are clients there. 

The more I am there, the more a "beggars can't be choosers" philosophy is instituted into our lives.  I used to be there without someone having a control issue.  There is always a control issue there now.  What it really was yesterday was the fashionable way to get that person's way.  We were leaving and people have always had the choice as to leave through the front or back door based on where that person was parked.  Now, the hours have changed from closing at 4 to 3, which I don't agree with as people work and have to pick up kids from school, we were asked which way we were leaving the building and then newbie decided that people going through the front door were wrong when they chose it.  Why?

A man had shown up outside of the building, and the pantry had just closed.  Therefore, having a man standing outside of the pantry whom he had decided was a late client was now too dangerous to go through the front door over.  My thought was "Newbie, it's time to go."  Trying to instill fear as a leader in the volunteers is not the way to fight hunger in America.  Instilling fear when you would like to create hospitality is disgusting.  When one of the volunteers tried to leave through the front door due to disability and how close she parked, he claimed that he was concerned all of a sudden about her "well-being."  He then thanked me for leaving through the back door.  He cared that he got his way with me which is why I was thanked and completed the othered the man outside while trying to instill fear in the volunteer inside of the pantry.  He doesn't want to open to door, so I was treated well because he got his way and she was belittled for choosing what was actually better for her.

I usually leave through the other one because it causes me to walk a little further to the bus stop.  I also walk three or four bus stops away just for the walk and the time it gives me to reflect upon the experience is invaluable.  I really can't stand this person.  He's still in a stage of internal childhood that really only understands the world in very strict lines of black and white unless it suits him. 

I find it to be completely pathetic for people to claim that when they don't get what they want or something isn't convenient that another person's well-being is in danger.  Instilling fear through othering whom you understand to be clientele is bad for all of us.

Wag more, bark less new graduate.  You're leaving in a year.  Namaste.

Millennials

Age is not an excuse for extreme selfishness.  It seems to me that whenever someone doesn't like or needs to excuse whatever is happening in society that the excuse is "it's the millennial generation."  Technically, I am in Generation X by three years and most of my life is lived the "millennial way."  I'm not stuck locked up in a specific church, I use public transportation, and spend more time simplifying and streamlining what seems puzzling.  My life is more technological than anything else, and I know what a typewriter is.  Not everyone shirks technology.

It seems to be that the way Millennials are looked at is as babies still.  Maybe it is because I don't have children that I think they are able to succeed.  I think that Millennials are just as capable of working and succeeding in the world.  Sometimes, I think the generations' use of technology makes them more capable in the global society we really have.  While at the same time, dear Millennial, I don't need to bribe you with a toy to get you to eat your lunch or show up to class.  I want you to be functional throughout your life and not completely dependent upon another person to do everything for you.

I am going to be spending more time directly writing about this generation.  It seems to be that it is okay to be a shallow Millennial and the whole world needs to bow down to a superficial need to like everything.  Millennials have been stereotyped in ways that are socially self-defeating for a functional global economy.  While consumerism is on a rise, Millennials didn't cause the issues that they are being stereotyped by.

I've taught face to face, hybrid, and fully online courses in higher education.  The vast majority of Millennials are used to school.  They are able to highly function inside and outside of the classroom.  Some, from time to time, can't handle the classroom environment.  Those students need to accomplish everything at their own pace when they want to do the work and changes are that they want everything up front so nothing changes.  Some people have an incredible need to control change.  These Millennials need online classes. 

Distance education requires a lot of personal responsibility and discipline to be able to really thrive in it.  Most Millennials are able to run their lives online.  Some can't do it any other way.  The more that I am told that the problems in the world are due to Millennials, the more that I am convinced that it is the way that an entire generation is being told that they are that is causing the problem. 

People are people.  Ultimately, deciding that someone has to learn a certain way due to age is self-defeating within scholarly communities.  All of us use technology.  Some of us like it and thrive with it.  Some need it.  Some people want to click what they don't like away regardless of generation. 

I like the Millennials I work and learn with.  Most of them are not shallow and can handle things like books, pens, and tablets.  To most of them, thinking outside of the box is an old concept as global society wasn't ever packaged for them in one.  Global citizenry and education has brought more people together than split them apart.  Millennials are thriving in it.  

Social Media Discussion Final Thoughts (for now)

I actually spent a little time on Facebook today.  I had a fairly good combination of thoughts and conversations about different topics to include one where we started defining hell. 

Hell, like heaven, from my point of view is fairly undefinable.  It is almost impossible to define something that isn't really tangible.  I consistently return to the idea of hell and not a place but a state of existence.  We use the word hell in a lot of contexts.

While I agree with my friend as far as choosing help for ourselves as a behavioral issue at some point, I think that there are further circumstances that are usually just understood as the "illness" or "personality traits" of other people. 

I love several alcoholics in my life, and this is my example.  I understand alcoholism as a medical illness.  I am weary of a lot of the ways and programs that people use to treat alcoholism just like any other illness.  I am not directly anti our current medical community in the United States; while at the same time, I think books and data can't tell someone's whole story and a one size fits all medical practice doesn't work.  For example, some people will say that they cannot live without Alcoholics Anonymous.  I believe that they believe that, but I think you can't live without air.  What would some of them do without AA?  They would find another way.

I am a person who also believes that those programs work really well and can be used for brainwashing like everything else.  Alcoholism is not about alcohol.  It is far more about decisions and how people make them when they are sober that helps them to have fully functional lives.  The 12 Steps are a critical thinking and decision-making program which includes a Higher Power.  Essentially, something outside of the Self.  Alcoholics who don't find help are in hell on earth.  So are their families and their adult children.  The systematic influence on people of that disease is devastating. 

It is possible to go from one hell to another.  For example, if an alcoholic allows himself or herself to be controlled by alcohol is it much different to trade the drink for the program.  Some people become as addicted to the program as they are the drink and don't change any of the behaviors.  This is hell as well.  Trading one hell for another is still hell. 

What is the opposite of hell?  Is it necessarily heaven?  Perhaps, it is life.  Some people are happy to have survived the drink.  Other want to learn to live.  The question is what is a life worth living.  I don't think that a simple "the examined one" will really suffice at this point.  A life is worth living, from my point of view, is the life we are called to live.  One person may be called to be a mom and another person a dog lover.  It's what God calls each one of us to be that defines living for us and heaven on earth for us. 

I think heaven and hell have a lot to do with what controls your life.  It has a lot to do with perception and, for me, identity as a child of God first.  If I am not living from my child of God identity, then I am not living a life that is worth it to me.  It is from that position first that I care about heaven and hell and then from the other parts of a holistic or "wellness" identity.  If I am a child of God before I am a student in my list of priorities, then for me, I am living heaven on earth first and can succeed in school.  If I am a student before I am a child of God, I am in hell.  I won't know how to succeed to the best of my abilities. 

So, thanks to my friend for the Facebook prompt about defining heaven and hell.  It was a fruitful experience.    

The Middle Way

We live in a point in time in history that thrives on labels, especially in the United States.  Your label defines you and then, people will decide how to treat you based on what they think about your label.  This isn't actually new.  It's why human rights legislation was enacted internationally and why civil rights legislation was enacted in the United States.  Words only really have the power that we give to them. 

I don't anyone to mistake this posting, so I will state it bluntly: I love the Episcopal Church.  What I don't like about it and what demands change inside of it is that most people have forgotten that we are "The Middle Way."  More importantly, as churches have fought over buildings, property, and everything else including loved ones buried in columbariums, what they were really fighting about was who could be more selfish than the other group and could enforce their own xenophobia more.  I remember when people would not call themselves Anglicans or Episcopalians because that was the other side.  Worldwide, we are The Middle Way. 

The actual middle way doesn't choose a side; rather, the middle way is one of full evaluation and intentional decision-making.  The Middle Way is one of radical inclusion.  People are not supposed to be forced to go to one church or another.  It is not one of choosing what everyone around you needs to believe.  We are people of the book.  Our Book of Common Prayer is what holds us together not money and labels. 

Now that I have actually attempted to see if the church would follow the middle way and not just fight over what they thought was important to them the most, I know that, ultimately, the institution is out for itself in a lot of places where the people feel betrayed if someone doesn't root for the right side.  I remember sitting in church, the same building anyway, while priests from what we were told were opposing sides used the exact same words of persuasion.  "God is on our side!" they would say.  "We are doing the right thing by following God;" regardless of what they said, I kept thinking "Thank God for Medieval Literature class where we were taught that might does not make right."  Essentially, God is not with you if you own something even though the prosperity gospel is alluring from time to time. 

I used to think that the problem within the church was that people were more intent on their own point of view rather than wanting to reconcile what they were having problems with.  I don't think this anymore.  Now, I am more convinced than ever that the main problem that we have is presumption. It is presumption that allows us to choose for one another.  It is presumption that allows people to continue to say "You're Welcome Here" while refusing to release memberships or even count them while using others to do the work for you.  If people are welcome, then you will let them go.  It is presumption that allows people to say that the poor have no place in the church or that "beggars can't be choosers."  Presumption allows that saying to even exist. 

The mere understanding that another person is a beggar and that you are not is presumptive.  Everyone on the planet is poor in one way or another.  It is only presumption that says that poor equals bad or criminal -- God forbid!  Even better, an under-investigated understanding that someone is poor; therefore, that person is not giving the church money to be a member.  Who is a member is based on money?  Jesus was homeless.  Paul was constantly taken in by the churches throughout his missionary travels.  None of them carried money and most were told to not even take a cloak with them when they left the community to go to another.  Scripturally, the poor and the sick are more cared for than others by Jesus.  They are neither turned away nor are they forced to be there.  Both are wrong.

If all of a sudden someone was never a member of your church, but only after that person leaves and tries to go somewhere else, then the church really wants a slave.  If a person has to return to a church in order to make sure that people give the correct information to others in order to continue on in a denomination, then it is obvious that the group only wanted a slave.  If money goes missing so that the perceptually poor can't be full members, then the group only wants a slave.  If you are told that you are free to leave, but they won't give you the letters of introduction to the next place, then you are free to leave, not the parish but the denomination.  Come back to our church or get out completely! 

The Middle Way doesn't choose an extreme. Orthodoxy in the middle way doesn't choose Episcopal or Anglican.  The Middle Way chooses liberation and freedom.  The Middle Way doesn't choose to exclude; rather, it includes. 

It is the ultimate name game.  If I think you are an Episcopalian, then you can't be an Anglican.  If I choose that you are an Anglican, then you can't be an Episcopalian because the computer, essentially, is automated.  Wait a minute!  People keep those records.  It isn't an automated computer that has caused the problem; it's a person who knows but won't share information.  Why?  The human ego wants to demean as many people as possible because that is the way that the individual feels about him or her Self. 

Excuses are found in presumption more than anything else.  It is the viewpoint that if I sit here, then I will automatically be taken care of without having to do anything.  Presumption breeds entitlement.  If I think that I am entitled to exclude then I will; however, I will also have left the middle way.  It is one of the most difficult things and the most beautiful thing about the Anglican Communion Worldwide.  We exist for diversity.  We are supposed to be able to include separationists and remnants.  We include...

So, if I meet you and you don't have a job, is it okay to assume that you never got one or are stealing from me?  No!  In fact, data would probably show otherwise.  Cooking the books is wrong though and turning collection plates into slush funds is equally wrong.  Why do people do these things?  Entitlement.  Where does entitlement come from?  Presumption; it really doesn't have any place in The Middle Way.     

What is the Edge of Ink?

Every writer contends with a blank page before that person begins to write.  Just before a spot of ink is placed on the page, that moment right before creation is the Edge of Ink.

I am creating this blog to begin to share my thoughts with readers as far as I can place them into context.  In essence, I wonder if you wonder what I wonder.  Do you think what I think or can we create something new at the Edge of Ink? 

I currently hold a Master of Arts in English and American Literature.  I earned additional hours in Rhetoric and Composition.  I am currently working my way through seminary in order to add to my life and not to replace my English career. 

I am consistently asked, "Why did you go to seminary?"  "Umm...God" is what I always want to answer.  I went to seminary for a lot of reasons after "Umm...God."  I entered seminary to seriously study scripture, to learn more about different kinds of faith, to learn to train myself, to become more disciplined, to build confidence as a scholar again, and right next to "Umm...God," I entered seminary to fall in love with faith again. 

It was at the edge of life before I entered seminary when I realized that, for about the third time, I was quitting Churchianity.  I had become so immersed in trying to fit into the church and serving other people that I no longer had a real relationship with God.  "Real" in the sense that I was no longer in love with my faith.  I was in church, trying to pray, fighting off the effects of PTSD in my life to contend with the imagery around me, and I realized that the relationship I once had with God was no longer worth it.  I loved God and was trying to be an active person in my religious and spiritual life, but I was no longer in love with faith or living it.  The demands and costs of Churchianity are much too high.

I entered seminary because I am a beloved child of God and needed to know it again.

"What are you going to do with your degree from seminary?" is usually the next question.  I want to have a private practice helping to heal people who are no longer in love with their faith -- spiritual direction.  I want people to love God and their faith.  It seems to be frivolous to many people to do such a thing or even crazy.  Well, the only answer I have to that is -- I feel called to do so. 

Although I am considered by many to have fallen away from my faith because I pray with Jews and can be seen from a distance due to my skullcap as a Jew, I think those who really wanted to know about my faith journey would ask instead of judge.  By the way, my faith cannot be canceled out by acknowledging my maternal grandmother's heritage.  It's called DNA; it's scientific.

The balance is in the Bible.  Grace and the law both have their places in my life and in my lived theology.  What I cling to more often now are simple verses and thoughts.  I have been wrestling with that very balance and the love of God lately.  The song "Jesus Loves Me" keeps coming back into my heart when I question it the most or contend with those who have decided that, while I have been in seminary and immersing myself in scripture, I also became an apostate. 

The Edge of Ink is where I want to work out those issues and others that may arise.  I like a lot of things.  I question the world we live in and, more importantly, how are we to live faith in a world that God created to be good.  More and more, I want my faith to lead my life.  Why is any of this important?    

"Umm...God."