Inscription

It Is Finished!

2012-01-31T04:31:00.001+07:00

My sabbatical that is. No doubt my return to the classroom, meetings with colleagues and my regular parish will equip me with fodder for a regular return to this blog.

New Year, New Life

2012-01-20T09:30:00.000+07:00

This is the first year in many years that I've done anything like resolutions. I find myself having returned to my city, my job, my home, my church, my spaces and places for a new beginning. My sabbatical year was a year of Jubilee. And now the clock has reset. In many ways, I am beginning again - yet not quite starting over. My resolution, intention, kavanah, is to renew my vocation and relationships in and to this place and these people and, cultivate new ones along the way.

Epiphany Shadows

2012-01-12T06:50:00.004+07:00

The light of Epiphany

penetrates the world

illuminating salvation

and casting its own shadows.

The shadows of Epiphany

show us as we are

in need of deliverance

from our very selves.

Light and shadow

pour over our planet

finding cracks and crevices

revealing

concealing

brokenness

hope

despair

faith

anguish

love

sorrow

salvation.

A New Year

2012-01-01T11:24:00.000+07:00

I look back with gratitude over the year that has passed. It has been one of the best of my life. I look to the new year with anticipation. I don't know how it/I will top the past one. But I do not believe that the best God and life have for me is in my past. So there is something wonderful waiting for me. I will need to remind myself of this when the wonder of the coming year is not particularly obvious.

Painting with Words

2011-12-30T01:27:00.005+07:00

I'm not the poet that I want to be
not even the poet that I can be
I want to paint with words
so that the poetry and prose
dance.

Heartbreaking Loneliness

2011-12-27T21:48:00.000+07:00

Loneliness is the terror that haunts her days.
And nights.
She had never been alone before.
Born into a family with older and younger siblings.
Aunts and uncles and cousins.
From home to college.
From college to marriage.
More than thirty years of family and companionship.
And then a wasting illness.
Death.
Widowhood.
The family came and stayed.
And stayed.
Then the night came.
She was alone.
For the first time in her life.
At the age of 67.
Loneliness is a living thing.
Chasing her from dark to dawn.
Her lonely heart found another.
The gift and grace of love again.
Years of love and companionship.
But the terror has returned.
Another wasting illness.
Another dying husband.
The loneliness waits in the corner.
Her widowhood is immanent.
Again.
And she is afraid.
And hurting.
Our words are dust.
The promise of Emmanu-el rings hollow.
She will be alone again.
It is not the love of God for which she longs.
She is confident in that.
She aches for the companion of her heart.
And she prays that when it is her time to die,
she won't have to die alone.

The Womb of God

2011-12-20T23:06:00.003+07:00

Human
Divine
Ripe
Birthing eternity

No Place Like Home

2011-12-12T05:02:00.001+07:00

But where is my home?
One of the joys of this sabbatical has been visiting other churches. There is one preacher in particular who really speaks to me, although she regularly challenges me - we share neither theology (in some cases) nor denomination. And that is good. For me. I don't want to belong to or even visit a church of me.
Yet I find I'm reluctant to return to my home church. I have been back once every couple of months or so. And the people are so wonderful. I miss them and they miss me. I love them and know they love me. And I still love our liturgy and traditions. But there are some things about our hierarchy and preaching (preacher) that I do not miss. At all.
I'm clear that I cannot stay in any of my host congregations. Nor would I want to. I don't belong there. Or there. Or even there.
Do I belong in my congregation? I am committed to them. It feels like a job even though I volunteer and regularly serve in other congregations. I long to return to my teaching vocation, even with the administrative work and meetings that I loathe. It's more than worth it.
But I don't want to return to my church.
I really don't want to.
But I will.
There's no place else for me here.
I guess it is home.
For now.

I Don't Want to Wait in Vain

2011-12-05T06:02:00.001+07:00

Advent
A ritual reenactment
waiting, hoping, longing
for a change
cosmic
cellular
dynamic
static
change
changing
changeling
child.
Christmas,
Twelve Days,
Epiphany.
Family and friends,
celebration and song,
gifts and (of) grace,
light and love,
promise of (and) peace.
A girl-child and her boy-child,
an ambivalent surrogate father,
whispers and conspiracies,
journeys and visitations.
Waiting for that day.
But I don't want to wait in vain.
What will the next days bring?
I want the world to be different.
I want to be different.
It's been a long time coming,
but I know my change is going to come.
Come soon Lord Jesus.

The sea is wider than my eyes

2011-12-01T01:00:00.000+07:00

The sea is wider than my eyes

I love to see the sea reach far beyond my vision

Circling the world that rises from the depths

To see the sea as far as I can see

Curving into space

The edge of earth

A bowl of water

In the hand of god

The sea is alive

Breathing pulsing contracting expanding

Creating life

Giving birth

Taking life

Power

Glory

Majesty

White Lies

2011-11-29T11:39:00.001+07:00

No. It's not nice to see you. I know you.
But I can't say that. I can't even smile and nod. The smile is a lie too.

Advent's Advent

2011-11-28T02:45:00.001+07:00

It's coming! It's here! So soon! Already!
I don't think I'm ready for Advent. But I don't get a vote. Ironically, I envy my Jewish kin for the calendrical nature of their observances. Of course we have a liturgical calendar in Christianity. But it is far from universal. Yet even in our great diversity there seems to be more unity around Advent (Good Friday and Easter) than any other time. And now it's here and I'm not ready. I don't even have the Christmas music on my iPod yet!
Many of the sacred stories are about being ready and the consequences for being unprepared - belong left out, left behind, missing the celebration. Yet that is not my concern. I want to leisurely roll out my decorations to accompany my prayers week by week and luxuriate in the season. And I will. Starting today. Tonight. It has come so quickly.
Should this Advent season coincide with the Advent of the Messianic Age, I like to think I'd be better prepared than my home suggests.
The two to-do lists seem to be completely unrelated:
Decorate my home.
Repair the world.
Poinsettias and candles, the creche and nativity-themed art.
Cultivate peace, advocate for justice, mend broken relationships, provide for the poor and disenfranchised.
I'm not ready for the Messiah's return either.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T20:55:00.000+07:00

Simply grateful.

Cityscape

2011-11-24T04:39:00.001+07:00

They have buried the earth under an ocean of concrete.

I cannot see her face.

I cannot hear her voice. I cannot touch her.

These mammoth constructions of steel, glass and concrete crowd and overwhelm me.

None of these buildings is made of the stone of earth.

They cast their shadows over me and chill me to the bone.

I cannot see the sun.

I am lost in this place.

And I want to go home.

Re-Entry

2011-11-22T07:48:00.001+07:00

I'm trying to find my place in this new-old world. I have been away for a while. I am not entirely sure I fit here in this way-station between where I have been and where I am going. It is good that this place is not my home. But how shall I experience my home? I have commitments there. I need to be there. I want to be there, I think. Sometimes. How will I find it? How will it find me? Will it still be home?

Songs of the Sea

2011-11-17T15:10:00.001+07:00

God gathers the waters of the sea as in a bottle and puts the deeps in storehouses.

Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.

You rule the raging sea; when its waves rise, you still them.

There is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there; living things, both great and small.

I Wanted To Be Rescued

2011-11-11T03:00:00.001+07:00

When I was raped as a child, held down and forcibly penetrated from the rear, I wanted to be rescued. For years I had difficult relationships with my parents because they didn't save me. Of course they didn't know.
So when I read the reports of the allegations of child rape and other offenses against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky one image tormented and haunted me: This image of the little boy, 10, whose rape was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mike McQueary a six-foot-four 213 pound graduate assistant who could have overpowered that old man but did not even try. He did nothing. He left that brutalized child to be further brutalized.
I can hear his rapist saying, I told you no one cares about you. I can do anything I want to you. See? He's letting me do this. Even if you tell, no one will believe you.
I don't know what if anything Sandusky said to that child but I can hear those words non-the-less. And McQeary spoke to that child with his actions as well: You're not worth saving. No one will help you. You deserve this.
Ronnie Polaneczky poignantly gave voice to my horror and fury on behalf of that child in her editorial, touching specifically on his opportunity for rescue that walked out of the door. Now we know that McQueary did not even call the police. He called his father, and at 28 years of age allowed his father to talk him into waiting until the next morning to tell his boss, Penn State's legendary coach, Joe Paterno - leaving that child to endure no one knows how many more assaults that night and successive nights. Apparently that fulfilled his legal obligation, but certainly not his moral one.
JoPa, as his fans call him, reported a milder version of events to his bosses - he didn't say rape, or intercourse or sexual penetration. And that was enough to fulfill his legal obligation - although questions are being asked about that as well they should, but he certainly did not fulfill his moral obligation. His bosses have been fired and charged with failure to report and perjury among other things. He planned on retiring at the end of the season and was instead summarily fired.
And Mike McQueary, he is still employed by Penn State and scheduled to coach this Saturday.
Football has been long lionized in our culture for building the character of young men and teaching them leadership and other skills our society values. Penn State has upheld those values by firing the University President, Coach Paterno, and the other officials. Jerry Sandusky was allowed to retire long before these allegations became public, and some are wondering about that...
The failure to intervene is unimaginable. Yet comprehensible for McQueary and his defenders. The failure to report is widespread, particularly among some churches and clergy, sadly that is more imaginable.
We do a pretty good job in our society demonizing child predators. It is way past time to deal with those who permit and enable their crimes. Like the mother of the seventeen year old boy who raped me when I was six or seven. She was in that apartment...

A Christian's Longing for Hajj

2011-11-07T12:08:00.000+07:00

It is the season of Hajj. It is the solemn responsibility of every Muslim to go on Hajj if they are able ~ but without accruing debt to do so. I have always been envious of the Hajj. Islam is not unique in maintaining a pilgrim tradition, but its pilgrimage is unique.
There are many shrines in Islam, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Rumi's Tomb in Turkey and myriad local sites in countries all over the world, unknown by far-flung Muslims. There are two holy cities in Saudi Arabia, Makkah (Mecca) and Medina, but only one Hajj.
There is no singular call or requirement for pilgrimage in Christianity or Judaism. The Kotel (Western Wall), remaining from Herod's expansion of Solomon's temple is arguably the holiest site in Judaism. But there is no requirement to journey there. Many Christians want to see where Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead, walk where he walked and where he taught. There are so many Christian holy sites: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, Jerusalem. So many sites with questionable historicity ~ there are at least two options for the site of Jesus' resurrection. Even dispensing with the one disdained by scholars and locals, there is no single site in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for veneration. There are many shrines and altars, and I have my favorite.

I would almost prefer it if the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were veiled and visited as a whole like the Kaaba. (Although I would still want to enter, unlike most pilgrims who are barred from the Kaaba.)
I love the unity that Hajj evokes. There is great diversity in Islam, but Hajj and the other pillars seem to be uniformly embraced without the doctrinal divisions evident in Christianity. There are certainly differences in practice and level (fervor?) of practice in all religions.
I appreciate and respect that part of the sanctity of Hajj is its restriction to Muslims. (In order get a visa one must prove one's Muslim identity, which can be challenging for people who were not born in Muslim countries.) But I would like to experience Hajj, as a Christian.
I have had the privilege of being welcomed into sacred spaces which were not my own in which I was able to experience the richness of another tradition and sometimes find a space where my tradition unexpectedly intersected another. But Hajj is closed to me.
I know that there are many thoughtful critiques of the culture and particularly the economy of Hajj, including gender and other issues. And even if I am romanticizing Hajj, it is a compelling practice, inviting me to think back on my own tradition.
Walking the Way of Suffering, the Via Delorosa in Jerusalem is perhaps the closest I have or will ever come to Hajj in my own faith. Yet the differences are stark: There are not nearly so many pilgrims gathered at one time, even on Good Friday. Pilgrims can come any day in any month. There are no pilgrim clothes. And all around us, life in the shops, restaurants and hostels of the Old City went on. (Which I also appreciate, because I could see Jesus being paraded through the market, full of people.)
I am grateful to sister, scholar and imam Amina Wadud for opening up her Hajj journey in a series of blogs. They have been grouped together here. (At the bottom of the page on that site there are links for the rest.)

Morning Meditation: Smile

2011-11-07T00:39:00.000+07:00

It's really just that simple. Intentionally radiate joy. Smile.

Feeling Betrayed

2011-11-02T10:38:00.002+07:00

It's always a shock. I'm always surprised when someone hurts me.
I think that's a good thing. It means that I don't expect to be hurt. I still trust people. I'm stunned when someone does something that they know will hurt me, when they figure into to their calculus and decide it's worth it anyway.
Exhaling. Inhaling. Exhaling again.
I'm surprised by the pain, buried deep beneath waves of rage. I know my anger well. It coats, soothes, protects my vulnerable insides from the hurt like the layers of a pearl.
This is an old pain, a familiar pain, a healing pain, a lingering pain.
I realized that the same event inflamed two pains, a pair of pains, a conjoined pain.

I was furious. I was angry with my friend - she's still my friend - and angrier with the situation, her decision.
Don't tell me you prayed about it knowing it would hurt and did it anyway. I do not know that god, nor do I wish to. I have enough trouble with my own...
I knew, even as I raged at her that the heat of my rage was not directed towards her.
I think she knows that.
Even in my fury I was not blind to the hurt that fueled my rage. And I knew that it was less about her than her decision, and less about her decision than the old, healing, lingering conjoined wounds it reopened.
Clarity and self-awareness are gifts and evidence of healing.
It still hurts.
I still feel betrayed.

For All the Saints, I Call Your Name

2011-11-02T03:05:00.002+07:00

"Ancestors never die until there is no one to call their names." ~ An African Proverb

"Some people are your relatives, others are your ancestors and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors." ~ Ralph Ellison

Dr. Yolanda Pierce posted these two quotes in her wonderful blog on Día de los Muertos ~ All Saints Day. I have been singing "For All the Saints" and "I Sing A Song of the Saints of God" since Sunday when I began this year's celebration in the company of an All Saints Church. Dr. Pierce's post of Ellison's quote affirms my practice of calling on a wide circle of names as my ancestors. I call the name of my ancestors who are the saints of God today and whenever I remember them.
I call the names of my grandmothers, Louvenia and Virlee.
I call the names of biblical foremothers, Hagar and Miryam and D'vorah and Miryam of Nazareth and Miryam of Migdala and Junia and Priscilla.

I call the names of the ancestors I have chosen, I start with the artist Robert Moore whose art gave me a vision of all the saints, past and present. (His "Sanctuaries of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas" is above.)
I call the names of Harriet Tubman, Susanna Wesley, Mary McCloud Bethune, Billie Holliday, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Coretta Scott King, Lesbia Scott.
Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malik El-Hajj El-Shabazz, Howard Thurman, Uncle Melvin, I call your names.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, 
 who thee by faith before the world confessed, 
 thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. 
 Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, 
 through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, 
 singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: 
 Alleluia, Alleluia!

I sing a song of the saints of God, 
 patient and brave and true, 
 who toiled and fought and lived and died 
 for the Lord they loved and knew. 
 And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, 
 and one was a shepherdess on the green; 
 they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, 
 God helping, to be one too.

They lived not only in ages past; 
 there are hundreds of thousands still. 
 The world is bright with the joyous saints 
 who love to do Jesus' will. 
 You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, 
 in church, by the sea, in the house next door; 
 they are saints of God, whether rich or poor, 
 and I mean to be one too.

Desiderata

2011-11-01T16:02:00.001+07:00

Max Ehrmann's (1952) poem:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

This Is My Prayer

2011-10-28T08:44:00.000+07:00

This is my prayer...

to look with wonder at the ocean filling the horizon

to see the waves crashing on the rocks

to watch the foam scrub the sand.

This is my prayer...

to hear the song of the sea

to see the windblown palms

to smell the rain on the wind

to feel the wind and sun on my skin.

This is my prayer...

watching the scented smoke curl up to heaven

breathing in the ancient sacred fragrances, frankincense and myrrh

blowing on the coals

watching the sparks fly

feeling the heat from the glowing coals.

This is my prayer...

tasting the sea

touching the sand

smelling the flowers

savoring the fruit.

This is my prayer...

speaking the ancient words of scripture

praying the words

hearing the words

sharing the words

wrestling and being wrestled by the words

and the Word in the words.

This is my prayer...

walking

swimming

sitting

seeing

touching

tasting

listening

reading

writing

preaching

praying

being.

Here.

Free to Feel

2011-10-26T14:36:00.001+07:00

I am so grateful

for the freedom

to feel

what I feel

anxiety

hope

fear

peace

Presence

comfort

Accompaniment.

I am not alone.

Amen.

The Other side of Anxiety

2011-10-22T07:30:00.000+07:00

The word of the Lord through the poet-prophet Rumi to me:

You've been fearful

of being absorbed in the ground,

or drawn up by the air.

Now, your waterbead lets go

and drops into the ocean,

where it came from.

It no longer has the form it had,

but it's still water

The essence is the same.

This giving up is not a repenting.

It's a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,

marry at once, quickly,

for God's sake!

Only Breath

2011-10-20T13:37:00.000+07:00

Rumi

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.

I am only breath

breath in skin

yet when the storm comes

my skin breaks open

and my heart-breath blows

twists

scatters

coalesces

finds my skin

and breathes again

Anxiety

2011-10-18T08:10:00.001+07:00

Hydra-headed cartoon monster
with more tentacles than an octopus
Kraken-spawn
dwarfing Leviathan
whisper thin and sharp
passing through walls and windows
heart, mind and soul
on tendrils of smoke.

Grasping, seizing, choking, strangling
with manacles of iron
resisting resistance
overwhelming courage and determination
overshadowing and overpowering.

Beaten down but not back.
Beaten back but not down.
Ever present.
Omnipresent?

Dissipating waves of peace and light.
Dissipated by waves of peace and light?
Not today.

Where are my guardian angels
advocates and surrogates?
Who does battle for me?

Why We Can't Just Do It Like the Bible Says

2011-10-13T03:43:00.000+07:00

I have been swimming in a sea of words, words in the bible, words about the bible, my words, words I wish I'd written, spoken or thought of. I have been so overwhelmed with all of the words that I haven't been blogging, although I've been writing, preaching, teaching, thinking and talking.

In the ocean of words that is the internet, I found some words that say what I've been trying to find the words to say - words which I'm sure others have spoken - explaining to the fervent faithful that biblical literalism is not a faithful response to God or the scriptures; the issue is broader than slavery and stoning people or abducting girls in war and killing baby boys and yes, same gender-sexual contact.

The words I found were a blog post from God explaining to some orthodox Jews why they couldn't observe the festival of Sukkot exactly as the bible or the tradition says. Along the way God explains how every noun, word and concept, in the biblical and exegetical tradition has changed so much that they all mean completely different things (sometimes along with some of the old things) that they are for all intents and purposes new and different words. [Christian readers may think of old wine in new wineskins here.]

Everyone wants to imagine that Moses himself couldamble into their Shteeble or sit down and their Shabbos table, and blend inwithout missing a beat. There’s something romantic about that, I guess.

But what you fail to appreciate is just how much theHalachic ground shifts irrespective of your efforts to preserve it. The bottomline is that the experience of observing Shabbos 3,000 years ago isdramatically different than that of observing Shabbos 300 years ago, or even30. This is not due to changes in any Halacha per se, but rather due torevolutions in technology, society, and culture. Someone adhering to aparticular set of rules a long, long time ago is simply not doing the samething as someone adhering to the same set of rules today. Trying to latch ontoa particular ancient interpretation of a particular rule is like holding yourcoffee mug in place on your desk during a major earthquake (which are not thegays’ fault, by the way), and trying to pretend that your office looks justlike it used to.

For example, while I leave it to you to sort this particular issue out, I hope you understand that forbidding a woman from serving on a Shul board in 2011 is not the same thing as doing so in the year 1011. Sure, the prohibition is technically the same, but so much has changed with respect to women (and Shul boards) that every relevant noun in the prohibition no longer means what it used to, and the sense that you are clinging to the past is illusory.

This is also what bothers me about all of those "year of living biblically" projects. It's simply not possible without rickets and malnutrition and blood infections and unacceptably high infant and maternal mortality and illiteracy and...and...and...

We have also relinquished the God-given responsibility and authority to wrestle with the scriptures and tradition. We have settled on and for one set of interpretations, whether New Testament or Halacha, and instead of learning from how and why our ancestors interpreted the text in the ways they did we have settled for trying to mimic them out of context. Both Christian and Jewish traditions have amazingly complex systems of biblical interpretation that their adherents are forcefully ossifying, burying alive.

Yet God's word is alive, calling us to the torah-tussling, word-wrestling, God-grappling dance.

(Jewish) New Year's Resolutions

2011-10-01T13:49:00.000+07:00

I've been living into 5772 for a couple of days. Before RoshHaShanah, I was feeling rather pessimistic about the state of the world.

But in the past couple days, perhaps beginning with services, I have found myself becoming more hopeful.

This is the gift of prayer. The old adages: Prayer changes things. Prayer changes people. Prayer changes me.

This year, I resolve to believe the best about the world, no matter what I see, hear or read.
This year, I resolve to breathe more. And if that is not physiologically possible, I resolve to breathe more consciously and purposefully.
This year, I resolve to love, especially when it's hard and when I don't want to.
This year, I resolve to live in the love of God for me and for the world.

The Golden Rule (A-Z)

2011-09-27T11:03:00.000+07:00

Food for thought as I sermonize:

Aboriginal Spirituality

We are as much alive

as we keep the Earth alive.

- Chief Dan George

Baha'i Faith

Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you,

and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.

- Baha'u'llah, Gleanings

Buddhism

Treat not others in ways

that you yourself would find hurtful.

- The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18

Christianity

In everything, do to others

as you would have them do to you;

for this is the law and the prophets.

- Jesus, Matthew 7:12

Confucianism

One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct

. . .loving kindness.

Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.

- Confucius, Analects 15.23

Hinduism

This is the sum of duty:

do not do to others what wouldcause pain if done to you.

- Mahabharata 5:1517

Islam

Not one of you truly believes

until you wish for others whatyou wish for yourself.

- The Prophet Muhammad, Hadith

Jainism

One should treat all creatures in the world as

one would like to be treated.

- Mahavira, Sutrakritanga

Judaism

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.

This is the whole Torah;

all the rest is commentary.

- Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a

Sikhism

I am a stranger to no one;

and no one is a stranger to me.

Indeed, I am a friend to all.

- Guru Granth Sahib, pg. 1299

Taoism

Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain

and yourneighbor's loss as your own loss.

- T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, 213-218

Unitarianism

We affirm and promote respect

for the interdependent web of all existence,

of which we are a part.

- Unitarian principle

Zoroastrianism

Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself.

- Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29

Holy Smoke

2011-09-23T00:01:00.002+07:00

When Words Are Not Enough
I kindle my fire
ignite my coals
and watch the sparks fly heavenwards

I pile the pebbles of frankincense
overlaid with grains of myrrh

The first puff
spirals up and out
I inhale
exhale

My prayer sits before me
praying with me
praying for me
praying through me

The smoke has its own vocabulary
the scent its own grammar

Together we pray

Powerless and Prayerful

2011-09-22T04:18:00.000+07:00

The world is spinning maddeningly, dizzyingly off-kilter. Georgia is preparing to execute Troy Davis, a man widely believed to be innocent. Georgia has the legal right to do so because all of the legal formalities have been observed so far and the Supreme Court has never ruled that it is a violation of human or civil rights to execute an innocent person - as long as they have had due process that meets the legal definition. The gulf between legal and moral has never been wider or seemingly more impassable. The state has the legal right, power and authority to kill and seems hell bent on doing so. People are protesting and preying, writing letters, faxes and emails and making phone calls. It remains to be seen whether this will make a difference in Troy's life or in our own.

And frustrated by decades of occupation and failed and floundering peace talks, the Palestinians are ready to appeal to the United Nations to recognize them as a sovereign state. If the UN does so, Israel will immediately be (more) guilty of occupying a sovereign state as opposed to a (merely) disputed territory - as they now justify their presence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza under international law. Israel has been exerting pressure on nations to oppose the bid for statehood, most of all the United States which has veto power. President Obama has said that he will veto the Palestinian appeal because the statehood issue needs to be worked out between Israel and Palestine in the peace process. This is the most disingenuous thing I have ever heard him say. The peace process is broken. Israel continues to flout it by building and protecting settlements inside of the Palestinian Territories. Israel has unilaterally rejected the internationally approved boundaries by building a wall on Palestinian land shaping new boundaries in their favor. What peace process? What other options do the Palestinians have? Politically, supporting Israel is more beneficial than sporting the Palestinians. But is is not the right thing to do. The US needs to use its influence with Israel - our money, the billions of dollars we send them every year while we are in a depression (if you're black, brown and poor) - and pressure Israel back to the table for meaningful negotiations and real compromise.

Both of these situations leave me feeling absolutely powerless. And so I pray. I hope. I believe.
I pray that even if my prayers are not answered I will still believe in the power of prayer.

This Fragile Earth, Our Island Home

2011-09-20T05:44:00.003+07:00

A Hindu-Christian

2011-09-16T04:26:00.000+07:00

I don't exactly believe in the Trinity. I believe that God is One-and-Many. Three is a good number. So is seven. And twelve. And 1001. Perhaps there is no number. ("There is no spoon" for my sister/fellow Matrix fans.) God is:

God is infinite. And infinity itself.
I can't tell you how many times my sister and brother Hindu sojourners on this island in space have said that they believe in one God with many aspects and manifestations. Yet others, mostly Christians (but also Muslims and Jews) call them polytheists. I've also heard Christians reject the idea that the Trinity is three gods.
How can the Three be One for Christians and the Many not be One for Hindus?

One of the mindsets that has stayed with me after my trips to India is how many Hindus worship Christ. There are more Hindus for whom Jesus is their God than there are baptized, communing or confessing Christians in India.

I love the idea of God as Many and Pluriform. I love a God who is so much more than I am, than I can imagine or name. I also love icons and images. Perhaps the most enduring for me are smoke - incense wafting and curling, fire - candlelight and roaring fires, and water - waterfalls and crashing waves.
In the name of the Womb-waters of Earth, Unquenchable Fire and and the Most Fragrant Many-Named God, Amen.

'Tis A Gift To Be Simple

2011-09-13T09:18:00.000+07:00

'Tis a gift to be simple. But I'm not sure I have that gift. I do like my stuff.
This year I'm something of a happy vagabond as I travel the world for months at a time, mostly out of one suitcase. (A three month-trip from the tropics to a snow zone necessitates a second case.) I don't miss my stuff from home as much as I thought I would, although I'm aware of the ways in which my day-to-day life has changed.
Staying in furnished rooms, apartments, studios and suites is ok because I know I have a home with all of my stuff to go back to. I have found myself frustrated while trying to assemble a minimal collection of functional stuff wherever I am. When I get my living-and-working accommodations just right I'm surprised by how much less stuff there is. Then I think what stuff could I do away with at home.
I'm nearly overwhelmed by the box of unfiled files and and others of unsorted stuff from a move 8 years ago. I couple probable throw it all away but there are two letters I'd like to find...
And I love not wearing shoes in a house which has always seemed easier when it was someone else's house - and in the tropics where shoes are often simple slip ons.
What of this simplicity will I take back with me?

Rejection is the Worst Pain

2011-09-10T04:30:00.001+07:00

Rejection is the worst pain I can imagine and my fear of rejection is paralyzing. I have been frozen these last few months, unable to blog, unable to write. Even though I have survived other rejections, this one has been nearly disabling. But I am still here, blogging and soon, writing again.

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Frank Herbert, Dune

Born to Make Music

2011-09-05T05:44:00.000+07:00

I've been spending time with a new friend. [The photo is one I found on the 'net; it's not my friend, but he'd like it.] I'll call him Miles - I think he'd like that because he is in his own way as consummate a musician as is the eternal Miles Davis. Miles, the earthbound, was also born to make music. It is in his soul, it is his vocation. Whatever other jobs he has held, alongside his vocations as husband and father, he is a musician. His preferred medium is the guitar. I didn't know him in his guitar playing days. But I have heard of his renown.
I met Miles after he suffered a brain injury. He spends most of his days in a wheelchair, but he is not bound to it. He stands hourly to do his exercises and can take a few dozen steps at a time. His right hand, however, is curled and immobile. His guitar playing days are over.
But Miles was born to make music. It is in his soul, it is his vocation. He has had to find another medium. He has chosen the harmonica because he can play it with his mouth and left hand. On my last visit he was adjusting an old camera tripod to be a stand for his harmonica. He strapped a pillow on it, leans over and rests the harmonica and his hand on the pillow.
Last night I went over while some of his friends from his old band one some other musicians came over to play. And I heard the music in his soul.
Miles' injury did not exempt him from his vocation. He has all this music welling up in him and he had to find a way to get it out. And he did. He reminds me how hard vocations can be, even when they are joy-filled. Just because God has called you and equipped you to do something, doesn't mean it will be easy. But it will be the most fulfilling thing you have ever done. And if it seems like God has called you to an impossible vocation, don't give up because God has enabled you to do what God has called you to do, no matter how difficult the task.

The Storm is Passing Over

2011-08-28T22:09:00.000+07:00

Calming the Storm

2011-08-27T22:52:00.000+07:00

The miracle stories in the life of Jesus are so well known and so beloved to me and many readers that I think that it is easy to take them for granted. Whether one reads them literally or literarily, those stories come from an entirely different world. It is a world that I have trouble recognizing when hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes devastate peoples around the world. And while there are would-be interpreters who leap to blame people for experiencing or succumbing to natural disasters, I've noticed that they don't claim to be able to calm those storms. Perhaps their blame-placing should be understood as a tacit admission that they cannot do what Jesus did.
I believe in miracles and in the power of prayer. And I believe that sometimes people inexplicably survive natural disasters and violent encounters because of the grace of God and perhaps, because of the prayers of the faithful.
It strikes me that those who claim to be able to reproduce all of the miracles of Jesus don't try to walk on the water or calm the storm. (I have heard of people praying to redirect storms, and for that matter to heal the sick and raise the dead.)
But there is something about the take-no-prisoners, suffer-no-fools oceans that cover the earth on which our land-islands seem to be perched so precariously that illustrate the void between the biblical world and our own.
Yet these stories are scriptural and canonical for me. They live and breathe and I hear God in and through them. Some of their most powerful incarnations are in the sacred music of the black church.
I love James Cleveland's Peace Be Still:

It is a sermon which needs no preacher. I love the line that "no water can swallow the ship where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies." And when the disciples in the song are in trouble, they call out "Get up Jesus!' I love it.
And while I know that I cannot walk on the water - I'm clear - when Donald Lawrence sings in the voice of Jesus "Oh Peter, don't be afraid...I am Mary's baby...walk out on the water..." I want to walk with him. (You may want to ff through the first minute of the video which is a conversation.")

I can't explain how these sacred stories and their musical interpretation inspire me when they fly in the face of everything I know about nature, physics and even miracles. They speak to me of a reality that transcends our own.
Lastly, there is Douglas Miller's "My Soul Has Been Anchored" which proclaims that "if the storms don't cease, and if the winds keep on blowing in my life, my soul has been anchored in the Lord."

Though the storms keep on raging in my life

And sometimes it's hard to tell the night from day

Still that hope that lies within is reassured as I keep my eyes upon the distant shore

I know He'll lead me safely to that blessed place He has prepared

But if the storm don't cease and if the winds keep on blowing in my life

My soul has been anchored in the Lord.

I realize that sometimes, in this life, we're gonna be tossed be the waves and the currents that seem so fierce

But in the Word of God -- I've got an anchor,
oh yes I have, and keeps me steadfast, unmoveable, despite the tide

But if the storm don't cease and if the winds keep on blowing in my life

My soul has been anchored in the Lord

My soul's been anchored

The billows may roll, the breakers may dash

I will not stray because He holds me fast

Some darkless day that lies in the sky

I know it's all right 'cause Jesus is nigh

My soul's been anchored

You crush me down but Jesus picks me up

He sticks right by me when the going gets tough

My soul's been anchored

My soul has been anchored in the Lord.

When an Estranged Parent Becomes Ill

2011-08-26T09:01:00.000+07:00

~~When an Estranged Parent Becomes Ill~~
My Mother's Recent Illness

I can't use the detached voice or presume to make general statements.
This is how I feel/felt.
I did my duty and was aware that I was doing my duty.
There were awkward moments.
I care and cared for her. I prayed and pray for her.
But the truth is that it was easier when she was unresponsive.
When she recovered, she was the same woman and we were in the same relationship.
I'm glad she's better.
I don't wish her ill.
I wish her well.
I wish her healing of body, mind and spirit.
But I'm not holding my breath.

Will the Revolution be Feminized?

2011-08-24T00:56:00.000+07:00

I'm watching events unfold in Libya and wondering how the emerging nation will shape itself. We are not long past the Arab spring and liberation movements in Tunisia and Egypt, and in the redevelopment of their governments basic human and civil rights for women have not been a priority.
Egypt is a case in point. Women in Egypt have been subjected to horrific harassment and assault attributed to male frustration at the lack of economic opportunity under the regime of Hosni Mubarak. In the uprisings in Tahir Square, women and men stood and rallied side by side. Yet in the aftermath of the transition, there were forceful attempts to literally and figuratively remove women from the public square. And there were sexual assaults used strategically my Mubarak supporters in addition to the rapacious violence of thugs without an articulated political purpose.
I also am looking at Afghanistan and Iraq where women and girls risk their lives for literacy. It's not just the remnants of the Taliban or Al-Qaida who decree that women should be illiterate baby machines with no access to medical care, but members of their own families who are susceptible to the dominant ideology with none to counter it.
There can be no liberation in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else if half the population does not have access to literacy, higher education, employment opportunities and basic health care.

Blessing God

2011-08-21T07:14:00.000+07:00

One of my rabbinic colleagues mentioned the tradition that a (Jewish) person should make a hundred b'rakoth a day. A b'rukah is a blessing. In the basic form the person praying blesses God for all manner of things. The blessing is formulaic:
Blessed are you Holy One our God, sovereign of the universe who...
and here is where the hundred-fold blessings come in.
For what does one bless God? For everything.
Today I bless God -

who has given us the gift of Sabbath

who has called me to holy work

who has given me the opportunity to experience leisure

who has created plants with leaves in 1001 shades of green

who opens doors for me

who has surrounded me with friends and family and colleagues and students

who has taught me gratitude

who hears my prayers

who hears my laments

who wrestles with me in the words in the Word.

Ninety more to go...

I Am Not A Slut

2011-08-18T03:00:00.000+07:00

It's taken me a while to think through my response to Slut Walk, the anti-rape and anti-harrassment marches in which some/many women dress as sluts to make the point that nothing a woman or girl wears (or doesn't wear) makes it acceptable for her to be raped. (While not denying the experience of male rape, the Slut Walk phenomena is a woman/girl movement in response to the comments of a Toronto police officer who said that women who didn't want to be raped should stop dressing like sluts.)
Obviously his comments are reprehensible, violent, disgusting and more.
I share the outrage of the Slut Walk organizers. But I was immediately put off by the phenomenon and it took me some time to figure out why.
Finally it came to me: slut is not a word I chose to claim for myself or other women. I am not a slut. I am not a bitch. I am not a c*nt. I realized my response to the Slut Walk phenomenon was the same as my response to one of the Vagina Monologues monologues. Some words cannot be redeemed for me. I am not a n!gger. I am not a whore. I am not a 'ho. I am not a slut.
I am a woman created in the image of God. I am beautiful and brilliant in every sense of each word. And no one has the right to touch me without my permission. Not my hair. Not my skin. Not my body. And there is nothing I could ever do - or have ever done that would justify anyone breaking into my body.
Nothing I wear (or don't wear) makes me a slut, whether or not someone else finds me attractive, desirable, or sees me as in need of domination, subjugation or feels entitled to have access to me, to violate, injure, degrade or rape me. None of that is about me. Whatever names they might call me, whatever narrative they may create for themselves to justify their conduct; I am not a slut. I won't own that label at the hands of rapists, sexists or anti-sexist anti-rape activists.
One aspect of the marches that I did appreciate was the range of attire worn by the participants. That is where I would have looked to name the response: What Raped Women Wear - not nearly as ~~sexy~~ catchy as Slut Walk.
I know that some speeches addressed this issue, but I would have needed this to be the headline and organizing principle in order to participate.

What Raped Women Wear...
Grandmothers in housecoats and slippers
Critically ill women in adult diapers in hospital beds
Mentally ill and developmentally disabled women and girls in jumpers and jeans
Infant girls in onesies
Little girls in their Sunday best
Muslim women in hijab
Nuns in their habits
Businesswomen in business suits
Students in jeans and skirts
Girls and women in their pajamas, nightgowns and skin in their own homes, in their own showers, in their own beds
Prostitutes and strippers in their uniforms
Police women and soldiers in their uniforms
Any woman or girl anywhere, wearing anything
this is what raped women wear.

A Response to "The Help"

2011-08-10T19:21:00.000+07:00

Beah Richards (1951)

A Black Woman Speaks…
Of White Womanhood
Of White Supremacy
Of Peace
It is right that I a woman
black,
should speak of white womanhood.
My fathers
my brothers
my husbands
my sons
die for it; because of it.
And their blood chilled in electric chairs,
stopped by hangman’s noose,
cooked by lynch mobs’ fire,
spilled by white supremacist mad desire to kill for profit,
gives me that right.

I would that I could speak of white womanhood
as it will and should be
when it stands tall in full equality.
But then, womanhood will be womanhood
void of color and of class,
and all necessity for my speaking thus will be past.
Gladly past.

But now, since ‘tis deemed a thing apart
supreme,
I must in searching honesty report
how it seems to me.
White womanhood stands in bloodied skirt
and willing slavery
reaching out adulterous hand
killing mine and crushing me.
What then is this superior thing
that in order to be sustained must needs feed upon my flesh?
How came this horror to be?
Let’s look to history.

They said, the white supremacist said
that you were better than me,
that your fair brow should never know the sweat of slavery.
They lied.
White womanhood too is enslaved,
the difference is degree.

They brought me here in chains.
They brought you here willing slaves to man.
You, shiploads of women each filled with hope
that she might win with ruby lip and saucy curl
and bright and flashing eye
him to wife who had the largest tender.
Remember?
And they sold you here even as they sold me.
My sisters, there is no room for mockery.
If they counted my teeth
they did appraise your thigh
and sold you to the highest bidder
the same as I.

And you did not fight for your right to choose
whom you would wed
but for whatever bartered price
that was the legal tender
you were sold to a stranger’s bed
in a stranger land
remember?
And you did not fight.
Mind you, I speak not mockingly
but I fought for freedom,
I’m fighting now for our unity.
We are women all,
and what wrongs you murders me
and eventually marks your grave
so we share a mutual death at the hand of tyranny.

They trapped me with the chain and gun.
They trapped you with lying tongue.
For, ‘less you see that fault-
that male villainy
that robbed you of name, voice and authority,
that murderous greed that wasted you and me,
he, the white supremacist, fixed your minds with poisonous thought:
“white skin is supreme.”
and therewith bought that monstrous change
exiling you to things.
Changed all that nature had ill you wrought of gentle usefulness,
abolishing your spring.
Tore out your heart,
set your good apart from all that you could say,
think,
feel,
know to be right.
And you did not fight,
but set your minds fast on my slavery
the better to endure your own.

‘Tis true
my pearls were beads of sweat
wrung from weary bodies’ pain,
instead of rings upon my hands
I wore swollen, bursting veins.
My ornaments were the wip-lash’s scar
my diamond, perhaps, a tear.
Instead of paint and powder on my face
I wore a solid mask of fear to see my blood so spilled.
And you, women seeing
spoke no protest
but cuddled down in your pink slavery
and thought somehow my wasted blood
confirmed your superiority.

Because your necklace was of gold
you did not notice that it throttled speech.
Because diamond rings bedecked your hands
you did not regret their dictated idleness.
Nor could you see that the platinum bracelets
which graced your wrists were chains
binding you fast to economic slavery.
And though you claimed your husband’s name
still could not command his fidelity.

You bore him sons.
I bore him sons.
No, not willingly.
He purchased you.
He raped me,
I fought!
But you fought neither for yourselves nor me.
Sat trapped in your superiority
and spoke no reproach.
Consoled your outrage with an added diamond brooch.
Oh, God, how great is a woman’s fear
who for a stone, a cold, cold stone
would not defend honor, love or dignity!

You bore the damning mockery of your marriage
and heaped your hate on me,
a woman too,
a slave more so.
And when your husband disowned his seed
that was my son
and sold him apart from me
you felt avenged.
Understand:
I was not your enemy in this,
I was not the source of your distress.
I was your friend, I fought.
But you would not help me fight
thinking you helped only me.
Your deceived eyes seeing only my slavery
aided your own decay.
Yes, they condemned me to death
and they condemned you to decay.
Your heart whisked away,
consumed in hate,
used up in idleness
playing yet the lady’s part
estranged to vanity.
It is justice to you to say your fear equalled your tyranny.

You were afraid to nurse your young
lest fallen breast offend your master’s sight
and he should flee to firmer loveliness.
And so you passed them, your children, on to me.
Flesh that was your flesh and blood that was your blood
drank the sustenance of life from me.
And as I gave suckle I knew I nursed my own child’s enemy.
I could have lied,
told you your child was fed till it was dead of hunger.
But I could not find the heart to kill orphaned innocence.
For as it fed, it smiled and burped and gurgled with content
and as for color knew no difference.
Yes, in that first while
I kept your sons and daughters alive.

But when they grew strong in blood and bone
that was of my milk
you
taught them to hate me.
Put your decay in their hearts and upon their lips
so that strength that was of myself
turned and spat upon me,
despoiled my daughters, and killed my sons.
You know I speak true.
Though this is not true for all of you.

When I bestirred myself for freedom
and brave Harriet led the way
some of you found heart and played a part
in aiding my escape.
And when I made my big push for freedom
your sons fought at my sons’ side,
Your husbands and brothers too fell in that battle
when Crispus Attucks died.
It’s unfortunate that you acted not in the way of justice
but to preserve the Union
and for dear sweet pity’s sake;
Else how came it to be with me as it is today?
You abhorred slavery
yet loathed equality.

I would that the poor among you could have seen
through the scheme
and joined hands with me.
Then, we being the majority, could long ago have rescued
our wasted lives.
But no.
The rich, becoming richer, could be content
while yet the poor had only the pretense of superiority
and sought through murderous brutality
to convince themselves that what was false was true.

So with KKK and fiery cross
and bloodied appetites
set about to prove that “white is right”
forgetting their poverty.
Thus the white supremacist used your skins
to perpetuate slavery.
And woe to me.
Woe to Willie McGee.
Woe to the seven men of Martinsville.
And woe to you.
It was no mistake that your naked body on an Esquire calendar
announced the date, May Eighth.
This is your fate if you do not wake to fight.
They will use your naked bodies to sell their wares
though it be hate, Coca Cola or rape.

When a white mother disdained to teach her children
this doctrine of hate,
but taught them instead of peace
and respect for all men’s dignity
the courts of law did legislate
that they be taken from her
and sent to another state.
To make a Troy Hawkins of the little girl
and a killer of the little boy!

No, it was not for the womanhood of this mother
that Willie McGee died
but for a depraved, enslaved, adulterous woman
whose lustful demands denied,
lied and killed what she could not possess.
Only three months before another such woman lied
and seven black men shuddered and gave up their lives.
These women were upheld in these bloody deeds
by the president of this nation,
thus putting the official seal on the fate
of white womanhood within these United States.
This is what they plan for you.
This is the depravity they would reduce you to.
Death for me
and worse than death for you.

What will you do?
Will you fight with me?
White supremacy is your enemy and mine.
So be careful when you talk with me.
Remind me not of my slavery, I know it well
but rather tell me of your own.
Remember, you have never known me.
You’ve been busy seeing me
as white supremacist would have me be,
and I will be myself.
Free!
My aim is full equality.
I would usurp their plan!
Justice
peace
and plenty
for every man, woman and child
who walks the earth.
This is my fight!

If you will fight with me then take my hand
and the hand of Rosa Ingram, and Rosalee McGee,
and as we set about our plan
let our wholehearted fight be:
PEACE IN A WORLD WHERE THERE IS EQUALITY.

[Offered as a response by AfroLez to the the white woman's fantasy that is the novel and film on the experience of black women working for white families in the 1950's and '60's, called "The Help." For another response see Martha Southgate's commentary.]

The Church Would Be Great if it Weren't for the People

2011-07-27T15:18:00.000+07:00

I love the Church - the body of Christ.
I love the Episcopal Church.
I love my congregation.
But sometimes the folk in the Church and her congregations are really, really hard to love.
I am having a week of reflection in an Anglican community as I prepare to leave Israel. And in the past 24 hours I have seen some of the worst of American Christianity. And then I have seen and experienced that which gives me hope.
First a relatively young woman told me that I could not sit at the dinner table with her even though there were four empty seats around her. They were for the group with whom she was traveling and there was no room for anyone else. (She did not say anything to the white man who sat at the other table from her group who was also a solo traveler, like me who registered for the meal.) The waitstaff set me a place at another table by myself. I sat facing her and began to eat. One of the women with her got up and moved her plate to sit with me. Two of her friends who came later also joined us. We had a lovely time.
At some point the young woman came over to me and apologized to me for being rude. She was so concerned with the number of plates she could see, she couldn't see that there was room for anyone else. But she went to the front desk to make sure that there would be room for all of us from now on. I recognize my own control issues in her, even though they do not manifest in the same way. I was also struck by the theology of scarcity out of which she was operating: this is all I can see, there may not be more than I can see, there isn't enough for you, neither will I share nor check to see if there are more resources and the people who are responsible for this can't be trusted to provide for us and you or to think that they might need extra. There seemed to be no operative theology of grace, abundance or hospitality, and that made me sad for her.
I told her how much I appreciated her coming back to me to apologize as I accepted her apology. I have not always been woman enough to apologize when I need to. All is well.
Then a woman came to our table to get the key to her room from her roommate. As she was introduced to me she asked to touch my hair. I smiled and said as warmly as possible, absolutely not. She asked if it was all mine; I said yes. She went on her way.
Later we were in the lounge together and she came over to apologize. She said she realized how inappropriate her questions were and how she would feel and she just felt terrible. I thanked her for giving the issue such though and accepted her apology. Then I saw that she was crying. And I felt bad. Two things happened here - one I felt the ancestral, social pressure of comforting the weeping white woman and some resentment for that feeling and the guilt it produces. And two, I felt very moved personally and pastorally. I acted out of the second, and modeling appropriate boundaries asked if I could take her hand. I did and said that everything was alright. I forgave her. She kept crying and I asked to hug her. She gave me permission and I did. She realized that she was touching my hair at the point and apologized all over again. I told her it was alright in that circumstance but later wished I had not hugged her. I wanted to keep my hair to myself.
I was glad that my pastoral impulse surfaced, given that I am here as a priest and a pilgrim, but am aware of how even my pastoral response is affected by our racialized histories.
And today, I had a wonderful tour of the College on this facility with a sister-priest who knows some of the same folk that I do. I knew that women did not celebrate in the Cathedral and that she did not wear clerics here. I asked her about that. And oy vey, oy li!
The focus on Palestinian Liberation is so all consuming that there isn't "room" for women's liberation, equality or vocations. It reminds me very much of the Black Liberation Movement. I can only hope that a united womanist/feminist movement will emerge for all Anglican women here, and all Arab Muslim and Christian women throughout the area. This place is regularly run by retiring US priests who are disaffected with the inclusive policies of the Episcopal Church - while they take our money. They do things like deny course participants the option of sharing in the liturgy so that the nearly all male staff can control it and forbid the woman priest from making the men uncomfortable by wearing clerical garb. Her position here is administrative and not ecclesiastical so her priesthood is disdained by some and despised by others. She will be allowed to say one mass in the college chapel at great price, but not in the cathedral. The college books its tours with Roman Catholic churches so that the pilgrims only experience males leading worship, even when there are female clergy in the group. There is one woman who runs her own groups and has women celebrate in the fields. And the reading material they assign the pilgrims is all male, noting about women and Jesus or women in the scriptures. Horrible!
Yet she takes all of this as the price of being here to give this place her gifts of administration for the next year. She is willing to be treated in this way to model a kind of servanthood and leadership. She does not lay down for anyone, but accepts their policies. (And looks forward to her next place.) I don't know that I could do what she does as she does it. She is such a welcoming presence in worship, and she reads the texts like a lay reader and I never knew she was a priest.
This is such a beautiful place and does so much good ministry in educating Palestinian Muslim and Christian children and providing medical care here in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza. I want to come back. Part of me wants to wear my clerics to church next Sunday. Part of me wants to model a prophetic priesthood. And part of my wants to take my marbles (my financial offerings) and go home.
Oh my people, you are exhausting! (And I imagine you say the same thing about me.)

Stones and Bones (Updated)

2011-07-22T15:32:00.001+07:00

For me, the enduring image of Jerusalem is the stones that are its bones. The very ground here is stone. There is more stone than soil. And nearly everything is built out of this creamy earth-stone.
Here is the image source for the rock on which the Church is built.
Here is proof that stone foundations are lasting foundations.
Here are altars of sacrifice, stones of resurrection and ascension.

A Jewish State

2011-07-17T15:24:00.000+07:00

I have so many questions about the future of Israel and Palestine and hopes for a just and lasting peace. I have these hopes in spite of the questions. Yet the questions are urgent, pressing and unrelenting.
What does it mean to be a Jewish State?

What does it mean for non-Jews to be citizens of a Jewish state?

How are the citizenship and contributions

of non-Jewish citizens acknowledged and honored in a Jewish state?

Which Judaism is the official Judaism of the Jewish state?

Who decides which Judaism is the official Judaism of the Jewish state?

How is the diversity of Jewishness of citizens acknowledged and honored

in a Jewish state with a particular designation

of one type (or sub-set) of Judaism as legitimate and normative?

Can a state be Jewish (religiously or culturally) and democratic?

What happens if (when) a fully enfranchised minority outnumbers the dwindling majority?

Sacred Spaces

2011-07-15T18:25:00.000+07:00

What makes a place holy? It's association with a holy person or event? The belief that it is holy? The sanctifying rituals and prayers of believers?
I have found on this third trip to Israel that I'm not particularly attached to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and its anointing stone on which Jesus' body may have been laid after his death

or its Calvary Chapel in which he would have been crucified.

I'm not entirely sure those spaces are in the right places, but on the other hand they can't be but so far off (unlike the multiple tombs - I have even less faith in the so-called Garden Tomb).
But I do have a particular attachment to the Wall. The Western Wall is all that remains of the Israelite temple from the time of Solomon. The remaining stones go back in time through the period of the Maccabees and even further, built on the foundation that Solomon laid. (The stones with the frames around them are from the time of Jesus.)

The holiness of that place is palpable to me. I can feel the residue of God. I don't know how to explain it, but I believe that God resided there in a particular way even as God exists across space and time too vast to be contained in any one place.
As surely as I believe that God became incarnate in Yeshua, Jesus, I believe that God became inhabitant in that temple. And it for me is the holiest place I have ever been.

The Sin of the World

2011-07-13T15:59:00.000+07:00

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world...

So why is the world so awful, so often?

Have mercy on us.

God knows, we need it.

The Reign of God is in you and within you and among you.

I can see and feel it, breaking out all over.

In trickles and in great flowing streams.

The Reign of God is come and not yet come.

There is still sin in the world.

There is still sin in me.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.

Grant us your peace.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Into the Fire

2011-07-11T15:34:00.001+07:00

Welcome to the fire, the space between the black fire and white fire that is the words of Torah, the words of scripture on their pages.

Between the black and white fires are flames that can be felt and not seen, at least not with the eyes I have.

Perhaps you can see their colors and textures.

Here in this space between the fires, between the words, between the letters there is plenty good room; room to get down and dirty, room to tussle with the text, wrestle with the word, grapple with God. It may be bruising, but I pray it will also be a blessing.

It's A Conspiracy!

2011-07-09T03:33:00.000+07:00

Inhale.
Exhale.
Breathe.
Be breathed.
Come, let us conspire together.
Con spiro.
Breathing together.
From breath we have come and to breath we shall return.
Open your mouths and say ah!

Jesus save me from your people

2011-07-04T21:22:00.002+07:00

Dear Jesus,
Please save me (and other people) from your people.
Amen.

Captive Daughter Zion

2011-07-02T17:45:00.000+07:00

The icon that I've brought with me embodies the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some of it's historical underpinning and my own angst:

A One State Solution

2011-06-28T17:35:00.000+07:00

Recently I heard a proposal for a one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This Palestinian pastor and scholar called for a whole new paradigm: A single nation-state for all Palestinians, Israeli Jews, Christian and Arabs. A new state with a new name to reflect all its people. A new state with a new song (national anthem) and a new flag.

He acknowledged that was virtually impossible in the current climate, but he was dreaming what could be. A true democracy where all enjoyed full citizenship, respect, dignity, the right to assemble, live, work and play. An end to Palestinian reservations and Israeli-only neighborhoods, and roads that by-pass some communities and only connect others with no on or off ramps. He dreamed a state where the rights up the minorities would be vigorously upheld and enshrined. he suggested moving the capital, perhaps to Tev-Aviv, perhaps Ramullah, perhaps both. (I say why not Hebron.) He imagined Jerusalem as a federally protected unified enclave, with only one nation, there would be no need to divide it any further.
There is that could be critiqued in his dream. But I don't want to critique him or his dream. I want to join him in dreaming. I want others to join us in dreaming. I want us to dream, envision and imagine the world that might be and work together with each other and God to make it happen.
Keep dreaming sir...

A Night Out

2011-06-26T23:52:00.000+07:00

It was a night out... (but not at the Frankenstein place).
I had the kind of night out last night that my clergy and academic vocations rarely let me pursue, and one that my sense of self-protectionism as a woman who travels the world alone had not yet permitted.
I met a guy, went out with his friends and stayed out until the sun came up.
I had a grand time. But in all honesty, it was possible in large measure because my new friend is gay. I am super careful about meeting and spending time with men at home and abroad. I have survived some things that I don't ever want to revisit. My adventure and my decision-making process leading up to it make an interesting study in my Black American woman's healthy paranoia.
My new friend is an employee and resident of the facility in which I am staying whom I have gotten to know over the past couple of weeks. People here know him and that would have made it possible for me to go out with him, straight or gay. And when he said he had some mates (all Irish) here and that I was most welcome for some beers with them and maybe a barbecue, I said sure even though he told me I might be the only girl there.
One of my inner voices was telling me that this is how all of the girls get kidnapped and sold into sex-trafficking in the movies and in reality. And I had to go there.
But since I had gotten to know him, his coworkers and employers in the past couple of weeks and our plans were public plans, and I - who am suspicious by nature - did not hear alarms, I went.
We started with a friend from his masters program coming over, they had a few beers and we all had a good chat. Then we went to another guest residence for academics and researchers with which I was familiar and about ten of us sat outside, listening to music, eating popcorn and talking while the Irishmen put away 4-5 forty ounce beers on top of what had previously been consumed. I don't drink beer and they didn't have any wine, but I was fine.
Then seven of us went out to the center of the city were there were outdoor cafes and bars around plazas filled with people. We joined a table with a couple of girls who left quickly and had a ball. Hookah was smoked - I took a couple of puffs - that may have made me ill later. And I had a horrible shot of tequila and a rum and coke - that may have had fountain water which also may have made me sick. Needless to say the lads kept pounding back the beers.
Round about two am we went to a dance club and shut it down. That was a lot of fun. I was finished drinking but the boys were still going hard at it.
We picked up two Italian girls and went to another bar and sat outside and talked while the boys drank some more. Round about four am I got cold and I was tired. I was ready to go. My friend had to replace a beer he knocked out of someone's hand and for some reason he came back with two. At four thirty he still wasn't ready - he who had said he'd look after me and make sure I got back home safely. At five I'd had enough. By 5:15 I walked to a cab. Two of the boys ran to me and made sure the cabbie would take good care of me (not my friend); I wasn't worried, but I appreciated their efforts. By 5:50 I was home, stripping and collapsing.
By nine I was awake with a sour stomach. Since my hair smelled like cigarettes and that was also turning my stomach, I got up, took a shower, washed it and went back to bed and took a couple of pepto tabs.
At 12:30 I went to lunch. My friend was nowhere to be seen and didn't answer his room phone. No one knew if he made it home. I took one bite of my sandwich and ran for the loo. I didn't make it. I lost it on the floor outside the bathroom. When I made it into the bathroom I didn't have time to close the door. After a few minutes, I closed the door, finished up and cleaned up. The staff to whom I apologized profusely was already cleaning up.
I went back to bed and got up for dinner at 6. I'm fine now, had a small meal and some tea. Still no sight or sound of my friend. I'm not too worried about him, seems like this is a pattern.
So that was the priest-professor's big night out. Pretty tame by some undergrad standards. Pretty epic by mine. And also a reminder that I and only I am responsible for my safety. I have real legitimate concerns, but I can still have fun when the opportunity presents itself. And it helps me not to feel any potential for sexual pressure when hanging out casually. Thank god for lesbian and gay friends. Now if it had been a dating scenario, I would have gone to meet him - not nine of them - at a restaurant or club and gotten myself there and back by taxi and maybe only had one drink. It's a shame that my life has to be so choreographed, but even so, I had fun.
Now hear's hoping the dear, daft, drunken Irishman finds his way home before he has to report for work tomorrow.

Words Heal

2011-06-23T18:04:00.000+07:00

I know that words hurt. But sometimes I forget that words heal. A young man staying at the same guesthouse as I am came to me today to tell me how important it was for him as a gay man to hear me as a priest talk about my friends and colleagues some of whom are lesbian and gay and married and partnered. He has left the church and his partner is leaving the church because they have not found it welcoming or hospitable. That is so sad and so tragic. Simply acknowledging that I have all sorts of friends and that is not incapable with my faith in or service to Christ was empowering and affirming for him. I think I am embarrassed (and ashamed on behalf of the church) that it took so little.
God loves everyone dammit! What part of all do you not @#$%ing get?

Race in Israel

2011-06-21T14:34:00.000+07:00

Haunted by two people I encountered:

The first one was a young woman serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. She and another female soldier were at the Western Wall in their uniforms with their rifles in their hands, trigger-ready. I'm actually used to seeing armed soldiers everywhere in Israel, even and particularly at the holy places. And the truth is I've seen fewer on this trip than before. Armed soldiers inside the Kotel plaza, where people pray and not just outside at the entrances bolstering security have always bothered me. Some of the female soldiers pray at the wall with their guns. Others take photos with their guns at the wall. It's always hard to see. But this woman was a black woman. And when I saw her I felt both kinship and dissonance. She could a have been Mizrahi, an indigenous black Jew; she could have been Beta Yisrael, an Ethiopian Jew. She could have been the adopted child of American Jews who made aliyah (moved to Israel). I don't know her story. I just know that she is black like me and not black like me. Both of us passed through the womb of Mother Africa and we each found ourselves in different contexts. I though about her military service (so different from mine as a chaplain - I was never armed) and how much of it might be protecting settlements and clashing with Palestinians. I wondered what it was like to be a black Israeli with a brown face on that side of the line. I wondered how the Arabs saw her. And I wondered if it was like some inner city folk's experience black police officers, "black and blue, more blue than black." I didn't speak to her because I didn't know what to say. But I have not forgotten her.

Last night we were in the mother of all traffic jams. A big SUV came at us in what was left of the now single lane we were in going the other way as a result of all the cars parked on both sides of the road. It had Mad Max styled grills all over the windows. Our driver told us that Israeli settlers in Silwan, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem were in so many violent clashes with the Arab Israeli citizens into whose neighborhood they had encroached that they had to armor their cars. As the man got out of his car to try to make us back up the street so that he could get through, our diver rolled up the windows and locked the doors, saying he's probably armed. He was. He was also black, and quite handsome with cornrows. And he was furious with us. Our driver refused to move. He got his car around us only because his mirrors were higher than ours, passing with inches to spare. I have never imagined the face of the Israeli occupation was a black face like mine and I was deeply troubled. I still am.

The folk who I've met here are all sympathetic to the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. And all socially and politically moderate to some degree. They are from the US, UK, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand. They all have colonial histories. And they're all white, with the exception of myself, a Korean graduate student and an African American graduate student. I'd love to talk to someone who knows this place inside and out about race here, but it troubles me that so many of the experts to whom I have access are white, American or European or even progressive Jews and Israelis.

I am haunted by images of the occupation as black on black crime, to borrow a phrase from my own context, and it disturbs me deeply.

The Trinity, The Shema and the Seven

2011-06-19T20:59:00.000+07:00

I'm not a trinitarian. At most I'm a bi-nitarian. There is God-Sovereign-Saving-Spirit without form or shape who reflects and transcends gender and there is God-Incarnate-from-the-Virgin's-womb: Yeshua, Jesus. That's it. Just two.
For me, the descriptions of God in the scriptures are not mathematical equations. They each reveal God in part, yet God is more than the sum of them all.

God is:
a warrior,
a king,
my shepherd,
a righteous judge,
my banner,
peace,
my rock,
my fortress and my deliverer,
a stronghold,
my light and my salvation,
my strength and my shield,
a devouring fire.

God is not a man or the son of man who lies.

God is the rock who birthed me... and the God who writhed-in-labor with me.

And God is more than Three.

There are the Seven Spirits of God in the Revelation:

These are the words of the One who has the Seven Spirits of God and the seven stars...Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the Seven Spirits of God...

Perhaps based on Isaiah 11:

The Spirit of the One God shall rest on him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Holy One of Old.

I have recently discovered the Game of Thrones series of books. In one of the realms of the books there is a religion based on the Seven: Mother, Father, Maid, Warrior, Crone, Smith and Stranger.
The Seven speak to me as a more complete metaphor for God than do the Three.
The Many-Named God, is beloved as Three-in-One and One-in-Three. Whether embraced as the 1001 of the Hindu pantheon, the Trinity of post-biblical Christian tradition, the Seven Spirits of Isaiah and John, or a new vision, I can not say. The mystery of God is more than I can know or understand. But there is a verse that I chant on shabbat that promises resolution:

Zechariah 14:9 One day the Holy One of Old will become sovereign over all the earth;

on that day the Holy One will be One and God's Name One.

Hear O Israel - all you who call yourselves Israel or Israel's spiritual descendants -

the Holy One our God

The Holy One - whose Name may not be uttered

is One - singular, undivided, without peer, unique.

‎‏שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

2011-06-16T13:17:00.000+07:00

Plains Milky Way from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.
This first video was shot in South Dakota.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
This Video was shot in Spain.

The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.
And this video was shot in Hawaii.

Living in a Holy (Wholly Sinful) City

2011-06-14T16:07:00.000+07:00

I said I wanted to experience what it was like to live in Jerusalem, to be more than a tourist or pilgrim passing through. I don't know that I'll accomplish that even in two months but I am having more contacts with regular folk in neighborhoods away from shrines and monuments. I am heartened that so many of the Christians who are here for more than a pilgrimage are peace workers or actively engaged in interfaith and ecumenical work. I'm also struck by how loud (and rude) is the conservative minority that wields nearly majority power. There are some truly awful people here crafting heinous dehumanizing policies in the name of God, scripture and religion. There is also a huge mass of people who are embarrassed by them but are not politically involved enough to reign them in. I see them as complicit. Israel's treatment of its own citizens differs depending on whether they are Arab or (ostensibly) Jewish. Where they can live, move, build, get permits, travel.
And the truth is the Arab Israelis live far better than the Palestinians who are largely kept in squalor. Israel collects tax money "for them" and then does not release it to pay teachers or police or even to pick up trash. Israel refuses to let the Palestinian police enter Palestine to investigate crimes or protect the people but won't go in themselves because it's "foreign soil."
There ought not be any role for systematic governmental discrimination in the modern world. And our tax dollars ought not support it. Right now the US is building roads for Palestinians which the Israelis are designating as reservation roads, to keep the Palestinians off their Israeli roads.
I've never understood how a traumatize people could traumatize others: Whether it was the newly liberated Israelites enslaving each other and the Canaanites, or the AMerican revolutionaries throwing off the yoke of England but keeping the yoke on their African slaves, or black folk denying the civil rights of gay folk or any oppressed community making sure the women and girls are more oppressed than the boys and men.
Jerusalem is a holy city and a wholly sinful city. It is filled with people after all. But as long as it is an Israeli city - including the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and 1/4 to 1/3 of all Israelis live within it, its suburbs and illegal occupying settlements on seized Palestinian land, Jerusalem will remain the crucible of jihad - righteous struggle against evil.
The struggle for the soul of Jerusalem is the struggle for sole control of Jerusalem. Israel deems itself as custodian of the holy places of all faiths - even as it shuts them down, digs under them and declares them state treasures.
Without justice there can be no peace. Without basic respect for human dignity, religious and cultural diversity, there can be no justice.
I still can't believe that we live in the world where those who so narrowly escaped the fires of hatred seek to destroy someone else's children. How did the children of Israel come to this? And who willed them through the wilderness of sin to the promised land where each shall sit under their own olive trees and none shall make them afraid.
Micah puts it this way:

Micah 4:1 In days to come the mountain of the house of the Holy One of Old

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it, 2 and many nations shall come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Holy One of Old,

to the house of the God of Jacob; that God may teach us God's ways

and that we may walk in God's paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Holy One from Jerusalem.

3 God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;

4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,

and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Holy One of Heaven's Armies has spoken.

Selling Hot Pussy

2011-06-10T17:51:00.000+07:00

This was the title of an essay by bell hooks that my theology professor assigned in seminary. A number of my too-holy-for-their-own-damn-good classmates ran to the Dean's office to object: "Do you know what's being taught in your school? I knew she wasn't saved!" The Dean asked, "Did you read it?" They replied "Of course not! I'm not going to pollute my spirit with this filth. Hallelujah!" The Dean said, come back when you read it.
The article was about the commodification of black women's bodies. I am reminded virtually every time I travel that the selling of my body and its cavities is not limited to my own country. American media is most profitable globally so Hollywierd exports its constructions of my people and my body and me around the world. That is why virtually ever place I have traveled (Turkey is the only exception so far) I have been called a nigger like it's a compliment: "Hey brown nigger baby" - in Kenya and "What up my nigga" - in Jerusalem. While the Jamaicans called me "Empress" their offers were sewage-worthy.
I am not for sale. You can not "be my boyfriend or husband for the night." I do not want your number. I will not give you mine. You cannot visit me at my hotel. I don't care what Beyonce, Nikki Minaj or Rhianna, say, sing or wear. I am not for sale. Hollywood and the recording industry have sold you a bill of goods. I am not included.

Wrestling With God and Scripture

2011-06-07T20:55:00.000+07:00

I had one of those experiences in the scriptures this week that happens about once a year. I'm reading large amounts of text closely and I see something I've never seen before. And this time it was awful:
Exodus 21:7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves go out.

I know there's slavery in the bible. I know the Israelites seek to subjugate the Canaanites (or dream about it retrospectively) as they were subjugated by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. I get it.
But could they not even wait until they got out of Egypt, off the Sinai Peninsula before they started enslaving each other? And not just randomly; they were selling their own daughters for sex. The passage in Exodus tries to put some limited ethical reforms on the practice:
8 If she is unacceptable in the sight of her lord, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be ransomed; he shall not sell her to a foreign people – he does not have the authority to do so because of his treachery against her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall treat her justly as a daughter. 10 If he takes another woman to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or intercourse of the first woman. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing – no money.

Really? This is an improvement? They were just screwing these girls, literally and figuratively and selling them off away from their people? Really! Just despicable. Ugh. I had had it.

Then I read again a passage that I knew was there, yet it still took my breath away:
Exodus 22:21 Not one resident alien, female or male, shall you wrong or oppress, for you all were aliens in the land of Egypt. 22 Not one widow or fatherless child will you oppress. 23 If you do abuse them, as sure as they will cry out me, will I hear their cry. 24 My fury will burn, and I will kill you all with the sword, and your women shall become widows and your children fatherless.
How can both of these verses be in the same book? Does the Torah wrestle with herself? With God? Who ~~walks~~ limps away with the blessing?

The One Who Transcends

2011-06-05T23:25:00.000+07:00

"When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at. We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which unites us, that which we share in common."

~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu (God Is Not A Christian)

Partial, Unfair and Imbalanced

2011-06-04T01:34:00.001+07:00

Impartial, fair and balanced. Objective. Trustworthy. The claims of professional opinion-makers. None of them live up to them. None of the rest of us do either.
Today I proclaim that I am partial, unfair and imbalanced. I have my own perspective. Mine. It may not be yours. But it and I am trustworthy. I am speaking for myself.
I had a particularly hard time claiming my voice today. I am in Israel and found myself struggling to name the Israeli occupation, even when I could see the wall from my roof, cutting farmers off from their olive trees, strategically isolated on the Israeli side, along with the settlement road, designed to bypass Arab villages - there are no on or off ramps.
I was afraid of being called an anti-Semite, a Nazi, a supporter of holocaust ideology. That is the level of rhetoric some - and only some, but with loud voices and media access - American Jews and Israelis use to assault critics of the state of Israel. I'm writing a public blog with my name and face and my employer's name and I am oh-so-careful that I not draw heated and hated scrutiny.
And I have been anxious. Anxious about my encounters with religious Israelis here and Jewish friends at home for whom the welfare of the state of Israel and it policies are tender issues.
I have also felt pressure - internally - to couch each critique in a narrative that at least places equal blame on the Palestinians for the necessity of the wall and/or recounts the sufferings of the Israelis through and as a result of the many bombing campaigns and Intifadas.
But I don't want to make a carefully nuanced hopefully politically acceptable statement. I just want to say how I feel. I saw the wall today and it took my breath away - all those olive trees on one side and only one side and the Arab village on the other. It hurt. I hurt. I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn't come. They are coming now.
I am here in part because of something the Canon of the St. George Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem told me the last time I was here, that Christian presence and prayers in Israel were active peace-making. Holy One let me be an instrument of your peace.
May it be so, even in our days that Jesus is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us all. Amen.

Learning to Pray All Over Again

2011-06-02T19:29:00.000+07:00

I am living in community in arguably the holiest city on earth and I am thinking about prayer. Every time the adhan, the call to prayer, at one of the neighboring mosques rings out, I think, I should pray the Offices every time salat is prayed. Yet I somehow lack the discipline or something. Those of you who know me in my everyday identity may well be scratching your heads. I didn't get all of these degrees or publish all this work without discipline. There must be something else at work here.
I have been journeying in prayer with a wonderful spiritual director this year. Unfortunately she doesn't travel with me. She has blessed me to see my own practice of prayer as longstanding. To name it and nurture it. I'm an all-day, in everything, praying person. I meditate and contemplate while I walk. I like to pray in my own words, thoughts, and images when I'm alone. I love the liturgies of the church when I'm in communion. I have a scripture-mantra that I breathe when I formally meditate.
Yet part of me thinks I should be doing something special - more special.
I have asked Jesus to teach me how to pray.
Now I just have to accept that my prayer practices are his answer and God's good gift to me, and know that there's a reason God did not call me to a monastic community.

A New Adventure

2011-06-01T01:38:00.000+07:00

And I'm off...
I'm on my way to Jerusalem, a city that is larger than life, overburdened with hopes and dreams, fears and schemes. I'm going to live in Christian community, first a community of scholars, later an Anglican community. I'm going to write and read and reflect. (And hopefully eat well and exercise.)
I have some anxiety.
I am not afraid of terrorists or of falling prey to an act of violence. Although there is some risk. The risk is there, here, everywhere.
The anxiety I feel stems from my love for Israel as a theological space, my love for Judaism, my love for our shared scriptures and my real disappointment, frustration and sometimes anger with the Israeli government.
I am keenly aware of the calling to be a peacemaker. And I confess I do not know how to bring peace to even a small morsel of this deeply divided soil. I feel such outrage at the dignities heaped on the Palestinian people and such horror at the atrocities perpetuated by and against them.
I'm frustrated with the posture of those who reject any criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitic, yet I find myself choosing my words oh so carefully, trying to avoid the mines. In this regard it feels like a battering relationship. Israel has more power now that David could have ever dreamed of, and it is not enough.
The revenge-fantasies of desperately oppressed and abused people have become scripture and that is the heart of my anxiety. My beloved Hebrew Scriptures call for the establishment of ancient Israel in an inhabited land. And some texts call for the annihilation of its inhabitants. And we live in a world in which the tools of genocide have kept pace with those who have the will to wield them.
In some ways it doesn't matter what the archaeological record says, or what other portions of the scripture say, there is Exodus - Joshua calling for the dispossession and annihilation of non-Israelite peoples in God's name and voice. Today, the biblical scholar in me has been beaten, wrestled down and pinned by the text.
So I'm packing my bruises and anxieties and flying across to water. I do not seek an overly promised land. I seek peace, within and without. Wholeness and restoration. Wellbeing and security. שלם

Traveling Shoes

2011-05-28T15:35:00.002+07:00

I love shoes!
No excuses. I just love them.
I'm packing for a new adventure, two months in Israel on an extended writing retreat.
What shoes shall I pack?
Walking shoes: hiking sandals and closed shoes in case it rains.
Shower shoes: just because.
Swim shoes: the Sea of Galilee is really rocky and shower shoes won't cut it.
Sandals: for everyday.
Flats: for dressy occasions.
Am I taking enough pairs of shoes?
I love shoes!

You Shall Not Oppress A Resident Alien

2011-05-25T00:34:00.000+07:00

Exodus 23:9 You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

The current ~~discussion~~ series of monologues between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have re-centered the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for the American people. (And have stirred me up as well.) There are three pernicious issues that perpetually plague ~~negotiations~~ discussions about the formation of a Palestinian state. There are others but these seem to be the most thorny:

1) potential borders,
2) settlement of Palestinian refugees
3) who gets Jerusalem.

Each of these is its own morass. That morass is made even more difficult to navigate by selective memory and the construction of alternate, novel and/or incomplete histories. In response to some of what I have heard, some of which gives me hope, some of which discourages me, some of which disappoints me, some of which makes me really angry, I am reflecting on these three questions:

Where will the Palestinian state be and how large will it be?

Right now the Palestinians are in two disconnected pieces of real estate, the Gaza Strip on the western side of Israel and the West Bank on the eastern side, (albeit west of Jordan). A Palestinian state will have to be contiguous. I believe that the Palestinians will have to relinquish the Gaza Strip. Connecting the two is unfeasible, costing Israel nearly a third of its land. The Palestinian State will be based around the West Bank territories where the majority of Palestinian peoples live. The boundaries that mark that territory were established and accepted by the international community in 1967 after the Six Day War in which Israel took and then relinquished the Sinai Peninsula. However since then, Israelis have with the support and sanction of their government, moved into the West Bank building settlements that now house some 650,000 Israelis. Some of those settlements will be incorporated into Israel and some into Palestine, in any arrangement reducing the size of Palestine, which will have had to previously surrender the Gaza Strip in theory. Israelis are still building those settlements in what many see as an all out land grab, seizing the most fertile land and olive groves to preempt their inclusion in a future Palestinian state. Israel has to prevent the establishment of any more settlements or the expansion of those that exist and, has to prepare to relinquish the great bullet of them.

What will happen to the Palestinian refugees?

When Israel was founded in 1947 on the heels of World War 2 after the Holocaust, it was primarily settled by European Jews. There were Jews in the land whose ancestors had not been dispersed to Babylon, Persian, Egypt or Europe. But the modern state of Israel was built by immigrants. And they did not immigrant to an empty land. They immigrated to a land that was inhabited by Arabs, Jews, Druze and Christians. As the state of Israel took shape Arab inhabitants were dislocated, in spite of having ancestral land claims for centuries and modern titles to their homes, lands and businesses under the British Mandate. Those displaced persons became refugees; some of them were taken in by Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, others stayed in the region, called Palestinians using the British terminology (based in part on the Hebrew word for Philistine - don't ask!). Israel says it will not permit the return of the decedents of these people because they will outnumber the Jews - without regard for the legitimacy of their land claims and property titles. I think that Israel has to let some of those families who held clear titles to their land return. Israel will find itself adopting the policies of fascism and apartheid if it tries to guarantee a perpetual racial, cultural or religious supremacy.

What will happen to Jerusalem?

Will Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel? It was not always so. Sometimes the four quarters: Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian have been governed independently. Israel claims that it has preserved access to the holy places of all three faiths, but access to the Dome and other mosques is severely limited from time to time. Will the Palestinians get Jerusalem, the home of the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall of the Temple built by Solomon (renovated by Herod)? That is less likely. Giving the Palestinians the Muslim (and Christian?) Quarter is complicated by the proximity of the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall to each other. And made even more complicated by the archaeological digs and tunnels underneath, when not prohibited entirely. Some have talked of making Jerusalem and independent city-state like Vatican City, but there is no single organizing body that can manage it. There are many Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican churches, religious orders and communities in Jerusalem, some in the same building, like the Holy Sepulcher, and their fights - literally fist fights - are legendary. I actually favor a divided Jerusalem, if such a thing were possible.

Matthew 23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

The Browning of the World

2011-05-23T12:59:00.000+07:00

This post is not about global warming - or global scorching as it might more accurately be called. The browning of the world is a perception in nations that have ~~enjoyed~~ had a majority white population (in numbers and/or power) and now are experiencing cultural and racial shifts in light of global migration patterns.
Early in the history of the United States black peoples made up a numerical majority even as they were commodified as a social and political minority. In modernity and exploding Latin@ population means that several individual states have lost and more are losing their white majority. And it is talked about as a "loss."
In Europe, there are significant tensions based on the immigration of peoples of color - especially Muslims, many of whom are among the large numbers of Asian workers who provide essential services throughout Europe - in recent years. Some nations are desperately trying to stem the tide of immigration, while encouraging their own citizens to have more children. All to maintain a cultural identity that is in part based on (the construction of) whiteness.
This past week I was reminded of this ~~new~~ reality listening to the serial speeches of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu rejects out of hand the possibility of allowing Palestinian refugees who have been dispossessed from their ancestral land - land to which Israel also has some legitimate claim - because they would dilute the ethnic majority of the Israelis. PM Netanyahu did not deny the legitimacy of their claim. In order for Israel to exist as a Jewish state, Jews must be a numerical and enfranchised majority for him.
There are many sad and tragic ironies in this position. The slaughter of the Jews in the Holocaust was based in part on their exclusion from the category "white." Jews and Arabs are both Semitic peoples - linguistically as speakers of Northwest Semitic languages in the Afro-Asiatic language family and religiously as Abrahamic/Ibrahimic peoples. And the "Jewishness" of Israel is very much in dispute with in its borders. Those who see "Jewishness" in terms of religiosity are a minority in Israel, albeit one with growing political power and influence. And even among Jews, Israel has differing immigration policies, permitting non-Jewish descendants of European Jews to immigrate for two generations while limiting the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to their Jewish family menders and still requiring them to go through conversion rituals. As a result Israel has seen a rise in anti-Semitic skinhead activity from the neo-Nazi grandchildren of European Jews who immigrated for the great social programs and standard of living in Israel.
I am preparing to go to Israel for the third time. I will live in Jerusalem for two months. East Jerusalem. That is code for Arab Jerusalem. I will be near the Palestinian checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
Two walls - the remains of the external wall of the destroyed temple and the security fence on seized Palestinian land - frame Jerusalem. And I feel them closing in on me. Already.

Joy and Sorrow

2011-05-23T00:49:00.001+07:00

How does one move from sorrow to joy?
Step one, admit and grieve your sorrow.
Step two, give thanks for ~~all that is joyful and joy-filled~~ everything else.
Step three, repeat step two.
Step four (optional), repeat step one when necessary.
Step five, repeat steps two and three.
Step six, open your eyes.

I am so very grateful for all of the good, very good gifts of God in this life.
I see my earlier sorrow and see it diminished.

Dear God

2011-05-22T20:53:00.001+07:00

Dear God,
Help me to rejoice with those who rejoice.
Even when I am weeping on the inside.
Amen.

Two Nations are In Your Womb

2011-05-21T07:30:00.003+07:00

Genesis 25:23 The Holy One of Old said to Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”

While this text is about Jacob (Israel) and Esau in its initial context, today it speaks to me of Israel and Palestine. Another text that speaks to me is:

Exodus 23:9 You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

In both of these texts the moral agency is placed on Israel in my reading. Israel should know better. This is why I am so aggrieved with Prime Minister Netanyahu's response to President Obama's recent speech on the Middle East, rejecting the 1967 boundaries of Israel out of hand as "indefensible." They who have been hunted to the brink of extinction have been commanded not to turn around and do the same thing to anyone else. Particularly if they see themselves as a Jewish state for whom the bible is scripture.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the on-the-ground reality has changed since 1967; there are as many as 400,000 Israelis living in what is Palestine according to the 1967 map. He is saying that the fact that they are there, means the land can't be Palestine (there will be no Palestinian state within the borders he claims for Israel) - however the fact that there are Palestinians there does not mean to him that the land can't be Israel. And of course those settlements were (and are) constructed illegally inside of what was Palestine's internationally recognized borders. And at the same time Israel is demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, claiming they were illegally constructed, while refusing to grant permits for new construction and preventing Arab citizens from living with their spouses in Jerusalem if the new spouse does not have a residency permit - there is no way for them to get one.
Now, what President Obama said - what every American president since Clinton has said - is that the borders of the two nations should be based on - not even identical with - the internationally accepted borders, allowing for negotiation, give-and-take, land swaps.
A deeper issue for me is what Netanyahu and others seem to mean by a "Jewish state." They don't mean religion, they mean race. They mean to create and keep an ethnic majority by any means necessary. They imagine a future in which all of the Jews in the region are Israelis and all of the Arabs are in a greatly-reduced Palestine or are refugees absorbed by the other Arab nations.
The last time in recent memory that a modern state was founded along ethnic and religious lines was the partition of Pakistan from India. The partition was accompanied by monstrous violence and the ongoing and continuing hostility between the two nations has led to the increase of terror in the world (the Mumbai bombings, the escape of OBL and other Al Qaeda leaders at Tora Bora and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border).
I said that Israel should know better. Even if Israel is not a religious state, it was founded on the principles of equity for all peoples in the bible. The founding declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel says in part:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

It is time for Israel to live up to and into the words of its founding mothers and fathers and the prophets whom they venerated. Hear them now:

Micah 4:1 In days to come the mountain of the house of the Holy One of Old shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills; peoples shall stream to it. 2 And many nations shall come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Holy One, to the house of the God of Jacob; that God may teach us God's ways and that we may walk in God's paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Fire of Sinai from Jerusalem. 3 God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; 4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Commander of Heaven's Armies has spoken. 5 For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy, our God forever and ever.

A Preaching Sabbatical

2011-05-18T13:00:00.012+07:00

I am not scheduled to preach until the Fall.
I have been on sabbatical from the congregation in which I volunteer to support the paid staff for five months. I have been (and will be again) a scholar-in-residence at another congregation. I preached twice there.
I have been back to my own congregation to visit and even said one special Mass. I also preached one pre-negotiated sermon for a special commemoration. And I have preached a sermon on the road. All of this marks a great difference from my usual practice of preaching every month, sometimes as many as three times a month. And now an even greater change, a true sabbatical from preaching - more than three months.
And I have to admit I am finding it hard to contemplate. I am already grieving it. What shall I do? Shall I blog the sermons I would have preached? That doesn't feel the same. How will my sabbatical from preaching enrich my ministry of preaching? I have no idea. With all of my sabbatical plans, this is one thing for which I did not plan.

Unanswered Prayer

2011-05-16T12:59:00.000+07:00

I wrestle groan and seek.
I do not understand that I do not hear.
I see no evidence of having been heard.
I persist in what well may be a one-sided conversation.
Am I to deduce an answer from silence?
Is it no, never or not now?
I continue to ask, seek, hope...

I Confess

2011-05-15T02:18:00.000+07:00

I confess that sometimes my first thought is not a worthy thought. Sometimes I think less than well about others and even myself. Sometimes, more often than not, I catch myself before I say what I am thinking. That is progress. I long for the day when I will not have to keep myself from saying what I am really thinking.

Would Jesus Recognize This Church?

2011-05-11T20:00:00.002+07:00

Would Jesus recognize this Church?
And if not, is that a bad thing?
How has the church changed since the first century of this era?
~ Rome has fallen and has reconstituted itself as a Christian empire.
~ Christianity is now an imperial religion.
~ The Church is now even more multi-national than it was at its inception.
~ Slavery has been outlawed virtually everywhere.
~ Monarchy has been delegitimized, overthrown, truncated.
~ Monarchs are no longer the symbols of unlimited power short of the power of God, even when they are anointed, they are less than the anointed of God.
~ There is a sovereign if nominal Jewish state in which the Church has a presence.
~ Gender bias hasn't changed much.
~ There are powerful women leaders in the Church and beyond now as there were then.
~ And there are gender bigots now as there were then.
~ Women have more reproductive options now, live longer and generally have fewer children.
~ With the practice of contraception sex outside of marriage has become commonplace.
~ All of us have a much longer life expectancy.
~ Literacy is the norm for most members of the Church in most contexts.
~ Same gender love is no longer claimed the sole (contested) privilege of wealthy Greek men who exercise it in a rigid hierarchy.
~ Same gender couples and families are welcome and affirmed in many churches.

Would Jesus recognize this Church? Does it matter? Would Jesus want the Church to stay trapped in the first century? Was Jesus's approach to his disciples anything like Osama bin Laden's approach to Islam? Did Jesus want us to imitate and replicate his first century life and only his first century life in perpetuity? Or does Jesus want the Church to become something that we cannot imagine, something that transcends our expectations? Perhaps Jesus is exclaiming with awe and wonder, I wonder what they will think of next?

Gratitude Journal Volume 2

2011-05-11T07:23:00.000+07:00

I had a good day today.
I am grateful.
I wasn't particularly grateful in the morning.
I had to work at it.
But I was determined.
I gave thanks.
And in giving thanks I became truly grateful.
The hours passed and the day turned.
It was a good day.

Finding My Way

2011-05-10T00:59:00.000+07:00

I have returned home from wonderful ministry travels and I am not happy. I don't want to be here. And I am surprised. It seems like all of the spiritual and emotional work I did while I was away and before I left was of no avail.
I'm not even sure where I want to be. I'd love to revisit my former ministry site. And I have other equally wonderful travel opportunities on the horizon. But I will always have to come home. I have commitments here! Commitments I want to honor.
Maybe it's just that I miss teaching. Maybe I just had a bad day. Maybe I'm still adjusting to the weather and the time zone.
Why else would I be sleeping twelve hours a day? What am I hiding from? What is it about my life that I don't want to wake up to? And how long will this last?

My Baptismal Covenant

2011-05-09T12:59:00.002+07:00

It's Easter and baptisms and baptismal language and theology are in full bloom.
Today, two of the baptismal vows made themselves known in my hearing and are accompanying me through this Easter and beyond:

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
	Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I am thinking seriously about what it means to seek and serve Christ in all persons. This is much stronger language than image of God language. It is also much more particular. On the one hand, Christ is the singular emblem of one particular religion, and in that way not a universally accepted symbol. On the other hand, the common humanity of Christ is the one attribute that (nearly) everyone can agree on, including those who do not revere Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, Christ, of God.
What does it mean for me seek - actively search for - Christ in all persons, especially non-Christian persons? It is one thing for me to say that because of Christ in me, I treat others in an ethical way. It is quite another to say that because of the Christ in you - Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, atheist, pantheist, animist - I am bound to ethical treatment of you.
And how deeply must I search and for how long? If there is no evidence of Christ in a person, must I continue to search? Is there a Christ in each person? Or am I merely to search and never rule out the possibility as a discipline?
Linking the search for Christ with the love of neighbor is striking. It makes the love of neighbor conditional on seeking and serving Christ in each person. At least for the baptized who have so sworn themselves. Ourselves. Myself. Me.
The vow to strive for justice and peace among all people seems to big to be possible. How can I bring peace to the world when I cannot bring peace to my family, to myself. Is it really enough for me to strive for peace and justice where I am, among the people to whom I have access? Are my pitiful efforts sufficient? Can they be multiplied by the work of others? Are we changing the world, one heart at a time?
Do we have to wait for the end of the world, the unmaking and remaking of the world in order to see the fulfillment of the reign of God among us?
How close can we get to justice and peace among all people and dignity of every human being without divine intervention? How many of the baptized are even trying?

Mother's Milk

2011-05-08T05:59:00.000+07:00

1 Peter 2:1 So rid yourselves of all wickedness, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all the ways there are to speak ill of another. 2 Be like new-born babies, crave the unadulterated, reasonable, word-milk in order that by it you may be grown into salvation – 3 if indeed you have tasted that God who is a mother to the motherless and a father to the fatherless is good, merciful. [The New Feminist, Should-Be-Standard Translation]

Taste and see!
What is it that we taste? The milk of the Torah, the milk of the Word, the milk of the Gospel, Mother's milk.

Happy Mother's Day.

I Hate Your Depression

2011-05-05T05:06:00.000+07:00

I hate your depression.

It took you away from me.

We are friends in name only.

You don't have time to see me.

Depression steals all of your time.

If you're not in bed,

you're trying to catch up on all the things

you let go of while you were in bed.

Or you're at the doctor

or pharmacist

or therapist.

Getting your meds adjusted

again and again.

Trying to find balance.

And when you can, you work.

Your depression makes room

for some of your family and friends,

those in your inner circle.

But not me,

I'm in another circle.

I hate your depression.

I hate that it took you away from me.

I miss you

and wish you were still in my life.

Baby-Killers, Bin Laden and Babylon

2011-05-03T06:22:00.000+07:00

Blessed shall they be who

snatch your little-ones and smash them against the rock!

~ Psalm 137:9

Scripture is replete with images of violent vengeance even as it proclaims that vengeance belongs to God (Dt 32:35) and the love of enemies (Lu 6:27). When I heard the news of bin Laden's death and the rejoicing that accompanied it, I heard through the filter of Psalm 137.
I teach my students to ask how the scripture is true. I can be too easy to pass judgement on the text and declare it is or is not true. But how is a difficult text, a text of terror, scripture - is a much harder question. The truth of Psalm 137 is that people do such terrible things to each other that we seek some visible recompense. Hurt people hurt people.
The psalmist has lived through the devastation of Judah and Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Imagine if the assault on Pearl Harbor or 9/11 had resulted in the fall of the United States, if our citizens had been deported to Central or South America and resettled in internment camps. Now hear the Psalm again:

Remember, Holy-One-of-Sinai,

hold it against the children of Edom

– the Day of Jerusalem –

their saying, “Strip her! Strip her!

Down to the foundation!”

Daughter Babylon, the predator!

Blessed be those who return to you the “peace”

that you have returned to us.

Blessed shall they be

who snatch and smash your children against the rock!

I understand the cries for violence and vengeance. Vengeance is downright biblical; it is human nature. I do not judge those who cry for vengeance or rejoice in the death of one who has afflicted so much pain in the world. I understand. And I know that God understands too.
The people who produced the Psalms offer another vision: their violent rhetoric as catharsis. The remnant of Judah did not go on a baby-killing spree. Giving voice to that horrible desire may well have exorcised it from their midst. They went on to rebuild their world from the rubble, and while their society continued through tortuous changes, their religion transcended their context, culture and ethnicity and through one of their own rabbis changed the world.
I have not forgotten those Palestinians and Israelis who call for the deaths of each other's children and do all they can to bring that holocaust to pass. I see the same brokenness, the same grief at work.
Let us pray for the sons and daughters of Babylon, and even the family and friends of Osama bin Laden.

April Showers

2011-05-03T03:54:00.006+07:00

None of these are from my garden, but perhaps one day...

Living in the Moment

2011-05-01T00:01:00.002+07:00

I have always struggled with living in the moment. I have just finished an amazing ministry journey. And another lies ahead. I have good reason to live in the future or in the past. But something extraordinary happened today, while I was waiting for my luggage and my ride in the rain at the airport. It was a glorious day, at the slightly dingy, big city airport. Between ports of call in the Pacific Rim and the Mediterranean, I found contentment on the East Coast. This moment, this day, this gift. Thank you God, I am truly grateful.

Resurrection Season

2011-04-27T03:49:00.000+07:00

The North American spring makes it easy to believe in resurrection. Death has given birth to life. The readings from the Easter vigil romp across the bible declaring that the God of creation in Genesis is the God who delivers in Exodus, guides (whether anyone follows or not) in the monarchy, calls for justice and righteousness in the Prophets, accompanies in the exile and promises hope and restoration at the end of the (first) canon. The Gospels proclaim that the same God is the God of Jesus of Nazareth who raised him from the dead, bringing new life to all who follow his life and teachings. Though it may lead to our death, it will lead to our resurrection.
Even without the vigil readings, the Easter message proclaims the power of God in and through Jesus, his life, his teaching, his example, his execution, his resurrection. The alleluias are still ringing, the lilies are still blooming.
Many priests, pastors and preachers will follow their resurrection sermons with sermons on doubt. The story of Thomas forever known as the doubter because he wanted to be sure, to see for himself that the impossible was possible, is the next story in the designated lessons for churches that follow the lectionary.
While I am not preaching Thomas this year, I find myself reflecting on him. More, what he represents. The world in which Christ is risen looks a lot like the world in which Christ was executed. With very few exceptions. A few women saw conflicting and perhaps unconvincing evidence (on its own). God sent beings of power and light to proclaim the resurrection, interpret and exegete the evidence of the empty tomb, because there was room for doubt. We who believe, must believe them who we have never seen.
And we have learned to look for signs of resurrection in the world, like signs of spring in the midst of winter. And for too many, it is still winter. Those who were hungry before Easter are hungry still. Those who were lonely before Easter are lonely still. Those who were homeless before Easter are homeless still. Those who were broken before Easter are broken still. Some, perhaps not all.
We who say we have seen the signs of resurrection and believe live in a crucified and crucifying world. I don't blame Thomas for asking for proof. I want more than proof. I want to see the resurrection of the whole world. I want to see the power of Pentecost transform church and society. I want to see the reign of God in our midst, with liberty and justice for all. I'm waiting for the world to change. Call me Thomasina.

A Lenten Journey on the Road

2011-04-25T11:55:00.013+07:00

This year I walked the way of the cross a long way from home. I found it easier to keep my Lenten commitments so far from my ordinary life. It's not that there were not temptations in my journeying-place. Perhaps it was that they were different temptations, ones that did not call me from my practices in the same ways as did the old familiar temptations.
I did struggle with the austerity of Lent in a place bursting with life and color and sun for which winter was only a brief series of passing rainstorms. I did not know how much I associated my North American winter with Lent.
On Palm Sunday I found myself in a place that could have supplied its own palms for that first Palm Sunday. I imagined the children and young men skinnying up those palm trees and pulling down branches, throwing them to the rest of us. In fact we walked on them on our way into the church. That moved me in a way none of my winter-turned-spring Palm Sundays at home ever have.
Then came the dark days of Triduum. Yet the days were not dark. The sun shone and the flowers bloomed and the birds sang. And the skies were blue. And the ocean lapped softly (and not so softly as the waves crashed on the rocks). I burned bundles of frankincense to remind myself of the sacrifice I was commemorating. I dressed in black. I entered the most austere phase of my Lenten fast. And still felt the joy of this beautiful place and I felt guilt for feeling that joy.
I remember walking the Way of Sorrows last year in Jerusalem. We walked through a busy market place, buying and selling, people everywhere, children running, men drinking coffee, women shopping - it was an outdoor mall. Stopping to touch the stones pray and remember while all around us life went on - very much as I imagine it had on that Friday two thousand years ago - was dizzying and somber. I felt like a spectacle and a tourist and a pilgrim. (I took the photo of the cross on top of the Golgotha church from the place where it is said Jesus would have first seen the place of his execution with the cross-stake implanted in the ground.) I draw on that experience for these days.
Here we walked around the church and on the holy ground of the burying place, finishing our prayers in the columbarium chapel among the cremains of the faithful. The walls were draped with living-and-dying flowers, witnesses to and promises of the Resurrection that will be located partially in that holy space, the footstep of heaven. There was something so powerful about proclaiming the death of Jesus while surrounded by the holy dead.
The life and death of Jesus took place in the midst of a world of living and dying, rejoicing and suffering. The world went on after his death and still it goes on...

Sitting Shiva for Yeshua (Jesus)

2011-04-23T00:23:00.006+07:00

We came home, to an empty home

to sit shiva for my son

my daughters and I, my sons and

the ghost of the man who promised to raise him as his own son.

The rabbis say that shiva does not begin until after the burial

but we could not even bury him.

Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Shabbat of Pesach

means that I am anointing a lamb shank with spices

when I were that it was the body of my son.

I think back on the seder plate my daughters set last night

and all I taste is the marror, the bitterness.

The haroset, the sweetness has turned to dust in my mouth.

I can no longer remember its taste.

Sitting on this earthen floor

looking at my bare feet in the light of the shiva candle

I remember his tiny feet and curled toes

and I remember the hammering, hammering, hammering -

his beautiful feet!

People come and go, bringing food, covering the mirrors

sitting with us.

I see them and then they are gone

a sea of faces

a blur of words

I know they mean well.

Was there a second seder tonight?

I can't remember.

There are eggs. The Pesach eggs have become shiva eggs.

No one has to remind us not to bathe or dress
or comb our hair or change our clothes.

I will sit in this place until havdalah

when the sun sets on Shabbat.

Then I will go to him, my child, and bathe him again.

They tell me that I can not, that I should not,

that it will be too hard for me to see him, smell him.

I cannot bear to never see him again.

I cannot bear seven days of this...

Leavetaking

2011-04-22T14:50:00.000+07:00

I am preparing to leave a place that I love. And it is sad. Even though I plan to return. I am so grateful for this time of rest, reflection, lenten observance and sabbatical. And I am looking forward to what lies ahead. Yet there is sorrow.
My mind races ahead to all that lies before me. I am looking forward to returning home and then going on the next leg of my journey. Sometimes I get so caught up in what lies ahead that I neglect the present diminishing joy. It is so hard to live in the present. The future looms so large.

After the Execution

2011-04-22T12:59:00.001+07:00

The world has changed. And it has not. So many executions murders and martyrdoms. How long after Jesus died was the next poor soul executed on that hill?

Reflections on an Uneven (Unleavened?) Lenten Practice

2011-04-19T13:39:00.001+07:00

The best way to ensure that I will not do something everyday is apparently for me to vow or even plan that I will do it every day. This is especially true for Lenten disciplines, even with Sundays off. This Lenten season was as those before, a fully incarnational experience. While it was not an intentional part of my practice (to fail or be unable to fully complete or preform the observances I had set), I did benefit from an increased awareness of my frailties and failings, my shared humanity. And, I did not beat myself up this year, (or at least not as much as in other years).
There were other benefits as well, even though I go to the gym several days a week, I had (and am having) a wonderful time walking almost every day, twice some days. I am seeing some slight but welcome changes in my body. I hope to keep walking when I return home, even though the scenery isn't as compelling. And at some point the weather back home will call that commitment into question. There is always the gym.
I even ate a little bit better. And that is so hard for a woman who doesn't cook much or well. I shall try to extend my commitment to eating at least one fresh, preferably raw, fruit, vegetable or serving of nuts a day. Sounds pitifully inadequate, doesn't it? Yet some days I couldn't even manage that. I'll also continue to give myself a day off. That helped with the guilt cycle.
On the other hand, I found a new way of praying that blesses my soul. And for that I am truly grateful.

Maya Angelou's Letter to Me

2011-04-18T00:32:00.002+07:00

Today I sat down and read Maya Angelou's Letter to My Daughter.

She wrote it to me. And you.
Here are the pieces I know she wrote for me:

I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish-speaking, Native American and Aleut. You are fat and thin and pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you all. Here is my offering to you.

We must call the ravening act of rape, the bloody, heart-stopping, breath-snatching, bone-crushing act of violence, which it is.

Each time my search for true love

leads me to the gates of hell

where Satan waits with open arms

I imagine...

I am a builder

Sometimes I have built well, but often

I have built without researching the ground

upon which I put my building

I raised a beautiful house

and I lived in it for a year

Then it slowly drifted away with the tides

for I had laid the foundation

upon shifting sand

Another time I erected a

mansion, the windows shining

like mirrors

and the walls were hung

with rich tapestry, but the earth shook with a

slight tremor, and the walls gave way, the floors opened

and my castle fell into pieces around my feet...

I have found that the platonic affection

in friendships and the familial

love for children can be relied upon

with certainty to lift the bruised soul

and repair the wounded spirit

and I am finished with

erotic romance.

Until...

Fragrant Prayer

2011-04-17T00:02:00.000+07:00

Rivers of smoke wafting heavenwards

more than bear my prayer in visible form;

are prayer, my prayer, prayer for me.

When I cannot, know not, what or how to pray

holy scents cross from earth to heaven.

Clearing, calming, soothing,

fragrant prayer.

Unanswered Prayers

2011-04-15T15:33:00.000+07:00

There are so many unanswered prayers in the world.
I hesitate to add mine to them.
Do I have the right to ask for what I want
when so many do not have what they need?

I'm Also Having an Affair

2011-04-12T16:44:00.002+07:00

I didn't mean to, but I fell in love with my sabbatical parish. It's the same old story - the one I have at home doesn't treat me like the new one. The one at home takes me for granted; the passion is gone. And this new one is so good to me and makes me so very happy.
Here, I am reveling in my vocation: the teaching and preaching is a gift and a calling. It's working; I'm appreciated. My colleague and I work well together. I feel valued, wanted, welcome. All of which throws into sharp relief how used and taken for granted I feel at home sometimes.
Why can't it always be like this? Why can't it be like this with one to whom I'm committed? Why can't I stay here? Is this just the hormonal flush of new love? If it is, I don't care!
I know this love won't last forever. I know I'll have to go home eventually. I know I'll have to go back to that other relationship. I'm not looking forward to that.
So what happens after an affair? Do you go back to your old situation with your new knowledge of how it can be? Do you leave your old love for a (another) new love in hopes of having the kind of love you had in your affair?
I'm having an affair and I intend to savor every sweet moment until we have to say goodbye.

I'm Having Twins! [Update to "Writing Through"]

2011-04-12T03:49:00.000+07:00

In Writing Through I wrote about the anxiety I was experiencing writing this next book. It felt like it was too much, too big, much more than the publisher and I had agreed upon and I was concerned. I called my midwife/editor and he (midhusband?) diagnosed: twins! I am now writing a two-volume production. I feel much better. And I promise, no triplets!

An Unhealed Hurt

2011-04-09T18:13:00.000+07:00

A ghost from my past found me today.

I was in the sun and did not think I could be shadow-cast.

I can neither drive you out nor lay you to rest.

Why do you haunt me?
Or am I haunting myself?

Writing Through...

2011-04-07T03:56:00.001+07:00

I'm writing my next book. It's the one that I feel I was born to write. All of my teaching and preaching have come out of this unwritten book - or perhaps I write another page each time I teach or preach. Sometimes it feels to big. How can I get it all down in the time I have allotted? My sabbatical is ticking away!
As of today I have 26 pages of introduction, 99 pages of text, 9 pages of topics/subjects - I just got an idea, I'll list each subject as a cloud to shorten the table of contents, and a couple of pages of glossary. I am clearly no slacker. I have been at this full time since January plus three weeks last summer.
But it still feels like it is too big and much too much! I have never missed a publishing deadline, but this feels different. My last book was rather savagely edited by my dissertation editor so it was already vetted when I submitted it. I've written countless essays, articles and chapters - yet this feels different. I keep telling myself that this book is a collection of essays, articles and chapters. But I still feel overwhelmed at times.
The project is becoming something that I did not envision and I fear losing control. I like - I love - the project that I first envisioned. It has already gone through one major change which I received as refiner's fire. Is it - am I - flexible enough to endure more change? What if the book now writing itself is not the one I thought I was writing? (And not exactly the one I promised my publisher?)

This is my generative gift. I don't have children and will never give birth. This is the thing I bring forth from myself and see taking on a life of its own and it is frightening and exhilarating. This is no mere writer's block!

Rose Sunday

2011-04-03T00:33:00.007+07:00

In honor of the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary on this Rose Sunday:

More on the Jihad of Lent

2011-04-01T18:50:00.001+07:00

I have previously blogged on the Jihad of Lent.
Today's struggle was occasioned by leaving the cocoon of my retreat space. As soon as I hit the city streets I thought of all the things I could eat! I didn't. Nor did I buy the piece of jewelry. I did pick up a few extra provisions that were permissible if I eat them appropriately - not all at once and having eaten what I was supposed to beforehand.
I am puzzled why being indoors here doesn't push me to mindless eating as it does at home. I am still surrounded by easy and less healthy choices. (And the last time I was here I certainly availed myself of them.)
Something is different now. Perhaps my intentionality, prayer and study are having a cumulative effect on my ability to practice self-denial. That would be nice.

OK, So I'm Not A Complete (Lenten) Failure

2011-04-01T00:34:00.000+07:00

I am doing ever so much better with my Lenten resolutions. It seem that my recent change of scenery helped. I have fewer excuses for not exercising. (But if it were about making excuses, it shouldn't matter where I am.) I stocked up on fresh fruit and other healthy goodies (I did at home too, but here I'm eating them). I wonder if it's because I don't have a routine here and everything is new. I know exactly where to go for burgers and BBQ (which aren't off limits but greatly reduced and to be preceded by healthy "-ier" food). I wonder how much of it is simply being in a new place. As before, my prayer practices are rich and nurturing. And I am grateful. I am extra grateful that I no longer feel like a failure with regard to my sacrificial discipline. (And how sad is it that eating healthier is "sacrificial"!)