.let go.

when the time comes 

to love yourself well

it takes a good solid month

to stop crying

about everything

you have to let go

(andrea gibson)

.unpacking the God box.

[[Originally posted in my personal blog.]]

The (current) predominant perception of God suggests that God is:

• Omniscient (all-knowing)
• Omnipotent (all-powerful)
• Impassable
• Eternal
• Immutable (unchanging)

This theory (called "classical theism") originated in the theology of Augustine (~4th c.) and has been expounded on by theologians and pastors ever since.

Let's get something clear: 

This perception has really messed up people

[and people's understanding of who God is]

-----------

With that in mind, know this:

Just because it was espoused by a single person 

and then talked about like it was absolutely True, 

doesn’t mean it has to be the Truth. 

Think about it. 

Who is God to you? 

liberation through struggle

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains. 

---Rosa Luxemburg

embodying liberation

You want to excavate honesty? here it is. THIS is honest.

------------------------------
Sermon written for "Preaching LIberation" at Pacific School of Religion.

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There are thousands of people in this world that would willingly tell us that God does not advocate for this group or that group… for the Muslims or the gays... murderers or the politicians. The story that runs deep in our American society has told us for years that some people have the blessing of God and others do not. God approves of some kinds of people and others… well, not so much. How often have we heard God used as the ultimate seal of disapproval? Of dissatisfaction? How many times have we seen on TV or perhaps in person, someone yelling hurtful words from across the street at a particular person or group of people condemning them for who they are or what they do? We are told again and again that God is the one who moves. God is the one who looks away from the stranger, the imprisoned, the queer.

In our scripture for today, we read of a startling interaction between Jesus and Peter… between teacher and student… between Rabbi and disciple… Jesus had been telling his disciples what was to come of his life… of all the suffering and death and resurrection. When he heard this, Peter snagged Jesus and pulled him to the side, chastising him for the things he said to which Jesus shouted, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

You are setting your mind not on diving things but on human things.

Perhaps Peter thought he had better plans for Jesus. Perhaps Peter thought it would be better for Jesus not to endure so much suffering. Perhaps Peter thought he knew better than God. In the gospel of Mark, this is the first time we hear Jesus foretell his death and resurrection, but more importantly, for us today, this is the first time we hear Jesus proclaim who he is and what he understands his purpose to be on this earth. The first time. The first time we come to understand who someone really is, it can take us by surprise.

In this past year of my life through my own personal coming out process, I came to understand what Jesus was saying to Peter. Peter was worried. He was probably even worried about what would happen to himself should Jesus die. Would he lose his reputation as a disciple? Would his life, as he knew it, completely change? He had set his mind on what was good for him; what felt like the best option for the people that would be left behind. But that’s where he went wrong.

It took me nine months to realize that I too was focused on human things. My gut turned into knots whenever I thought about how my parents and other friends and family might react to my queer identity. For eleven months I ran the conversations over and over in my head… How was I going to tell my parents? What would they say? What if my dad throws me out of the house or takes away the financial support upon which I am entirely dependent? These various dialogues scrolled through my consciousness as I attempted to find the easiest way to break the news.

I wonder if that’s how Jesus felt before he spilled the news about his life and purpose. Perhaps he asked himself those similar questions about his disciples. Maybe he knew Peter was going to get defensive, or maybe it came as a surprise. While we can speculate about what was running through Jesus’ mind we know one thing: this news was a turning point. By verbally acknowledging who he was, Jesus came out. He stopped keeping it a secret and made it known to his disciples. It is in the turning points of life that we make a choice: we can choose to stand with God and embrace who we are as divinely inspired beings.. OR… we can deny ourselves this way of being in the world. By coming out, I drew closer to the divine by verbally, consciously and physically admitting who I am.

This past summer marked such a turning point in my life. It was the last summer I was able to spend at home before actually starting what feels like my grown-up life. I ventured home to Michigan to spend a long 9 weeks with my family as well as playing at the beach and spending time going to meetings at church, as that is really the reason for which I go home. However, that is not why it was a turning point. The “Summer of 2012” will forever be known to me as the summer I came out. It is the summer that I told my parents that I was dating a girl. Two weeks into the summer I hesitantly told my mom. I started the conversation and before I knew it, she was weeping… holding my hand with her left and wiping her tears away with her right. It was hard to hear, I knew it was. “My life will look different, I know, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” I reassured her.

Five weeks later, and when I say that, I’m talking about just three weeks ago, I sat down with my dad in his office, and as I shared my news, I stared into his eyes… his face was frozen… I knew he didn’t know how to react, so he did the best he could as tears welled up in his eyes… I told him the same thing I told my mom. “My life will look different, I know, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.” I sat with my mom for 20 minutes and my father for two minutes, and though they may have been the most difficult 22 minutes of my 24 year-old life, they were, nonetheless, the most freeing, the most liberative, the most emancipatory 22 minutes of my life thus far.

A year and two weeks ago, when I came to the realization and admitted to myself and my pastor that I was not straight, as I sat in a Starbucks in downtown Los Angeles, drinking an iced chai tea latte and writing a letter to my pastor... my arm was on the table and my head was on my arm… my hand was shaking as I wrote the words: I think I’m questioning my sexuality. Truth was, I had been questioning for four years and was realizing in that moment that what I actually meant was that I knew. I knew who I was. I knew I was queer. I knew I needed to embrace this part of myself. But it was hard. I was born into a family that never discussed the fact that my uncle is gay. I was born into a family for whom silence was the accepted norm. I was born into a family that belongs in the heteronormative, patriarchal, White, Protestant culturally dominant paradigm. I was born into a family that created a culture in which I was afraid to be all of who I am.

Much of the world says that God approves of some and is silent about others.

But God is not silent. God is not silent. It wasn’t until just a few months ago when I realized that my happiness, my life, my well-being was not dependent upon the approval I did or did not receive from my parents. I wanted... and still do want my parent’s approval but I recognize that I do not need it. I do not need it to live my life the way that feels right and true and honest to who I am and who God is. I recognize that God has been with me. God has validated, approved, and loved my existence as a queer person since before I was born. When I came out and began to live more fully and embrace who I am, I moved closer to the Divine. I care for my parents and seek their love, but God is the one in whom I live and move and have my being. My queer identity is ultimately wrapped up in the Divine. For me, queer is divine. When we support suppressive narratives, ones that keep individuals closeted for whatever purpose… when we deny people who they really are, we restrict their ability to come closer to God. And who are we as human beings to say who can experience God and who cannot?

So, Beloved, let us move to a place of recognition. Let us be liberated and liberate others to be who they are. Let us acknowledge each person’s divinity. Let us embrace our identities and allow them to bring us into our fullness, to flourish and grow and establish the kin-dom… not the king-dom but the kin-dom… of God on earth. This earth… the one on which Jesus walked and lived and died and resurrected. This earth… on which Peter rebuked and denied Jesus. This earth… on which people of varying opinions often become outraged and silence others. This earth…on which I am living as an out queer person. This is the place and the space in which we get to claim who we are and live into that identity. Imagine a place where we, as the body of Christ, accept everyone into the fold no matter their age, race, gender, height, sexual orientation, gender identity, weight, or intellect. That is where I want to be…  because that’s where God is. Let us co-create that place together so as to live into our divine identities and our collective fullness. Amen.

.liberation.

"My hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A [person] who takes away another [person's] freedom is a prisoner of hatred ... is locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity." (Nelson Mandela)

Liberation is liberation. All people have something from which they need to be liberated... whether they are a downright oppressor or the oppressed themselves.

We need to be liberating people, communities, -isms, churches, organizations... the list goes on and on.

This is the immediate task of our day.

incarnate fear

"It is Christianity which invests women anew with frightening prestige: fear of the other sex is one of the forms assumed by the anguish of man's uneasy conscience. The Christian is divided within himself; the separation of body and soul, of life and spirit, is complete; original sin makes of the body the enemy of the soul; all the ties of the flesh seem evil... since woman remains always the Other, it is not held that reciprocally male and female are both flesh: the flesh that is for the Christian the hostile Other is precisely the woman. In her the Christian finds incarnated the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil."
(Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex)

unexplored places

"Through the same opening that is her danger, she comes out of herself to go to the other, a traveller in unexplored places; she does not refuse, she approaches, not do away with the space between but to see it, to experience what she is not, what she is, what she can be." (helene cixous)

Helene Cixous is a French feminist, writer, poet, and rhetorician heavily influenced by writers such as Freud, Lacan, and Derrida. She never fails to blow my mind. I came across this quote as I was doing research on medieval female mystics as the author tried to explain how visions were a source of power for women living in a 'man's world.'

What does this say to us about the opportunities that lay behind closed doors, doors that seek to keep us out rather than let us in? Doors that pose threat instead of welcome? What unexplored places have yet to transform us?

This brings to mind the wasness, isness and oughtness of God and of humanity, reminding us that in every situation, we are being called to asses what we are not, who we are, and to see our potential. This requires learning in all instances.

Refuse not, press on, seek knowledge.

Liberation.

"What do Passover and Easter have in common? What do freedom from slavery and an empty tomb have in common? LIBERATION. That's the heart of the God I serve. That's the heart of the life I yearn to live and the life I hope to see possible for all people. Let this high holy day be the ultimate indictment of all lingering slavery/death systems on Earth in our time. And may we whisper/chant/sing Alleluia for the Spirit of liberation that never gives up on anyone/anything." (rev. emily joye mcgaughy)


thoughts of transformation and hope for you this Easter morning (and day three of passover)!!

"Womanifesto" (jill scott)

"I welcome the wise to teach...I am gifted. I am all of this."

intentions

In case anyone is yet unaware (which would be surprising since I’ve shared this in every way short of hiring a plane to write it in the sky), for the past few weeks I’ve been reading Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem by a favorite woman/human/being of mine, Gloria Steinem.  In her preface, she describes writing the first draft of her book, then having to face the realization that due to her own lack of self-esteem she had left her self, her voice, out of her writing. “I began to understand with a terrible sureness that we teach what we need to learn and write what we need to know." She goes on to mention coming across a book from her college years in which she had scribbled: “Most writers write to say something about other people-- and it doesn’t last.  Good writers write to find out about themselves-- and it lasts forever.”

I underlined these passages a few weeks ago when this blog was still in the womb.  Fundamentally, for me, this blog is about writing what we need to know and finding out about our selves along the way.  It’s about excavating our honesty, our selves, our voices, our power, our truth, our energy... which have all been systematically and intentionally buried. (This applies to all of us, but us women especially, and women marginalized by racism, heterosexism, capitalism, ageism, and ableism even more so.)

I pray that what we (all) bring to this blog/to this life will bring us closer to our selves and to the people, the communities, the worlds, the divine that nourish and sustain us.

divinity//humanity

"Beloved of God and of your truest deepest self, the self that is revealed when tears wash off the makeup and grime. The self that is revealed when dealing with your anger blows through all the calcification in your soul's pipes. The self that is reflected in the love of your very best friends' eyes. The self that is revealed in divine feminine energy, your own, Bette Midler's, Hillary Clinton's, Tina Fey's, Michelle Obama's, Mary Oliver's. I mean, you can see that they are divine, right? Well, you are, too. 

I absolutely promise." (anne lamott)

ears to hear?

Angela of Foligno, a thirteenth/fourteenth century Italian and Franciscan mystic, is known for her embodied theology. She is know for her visions and mystical experiences, theology of incarnation and acts of solidarity. For my History of Christianity class I wrote a paper on one of her pieces and found this gem in an introduction to her work. 

"The perspective of cultural studies has more recently argued that women's oppressed social situation made them more likely to be drawn to radical forms of religious experience such as mysticism. In particular, a bodily expression of spirituality was in a sense to be expected given women's different relation to and closer association with their body and to the very concept of embodiment-- including, then, not only the negative, evil flesh [[which is where my mind went]], but also the redemptive body of Christ. For in the doctrine of the Incarnation, Christ's physical humanity, his flesh, was gendered as female: by dying, Christ's flesh metaphorically gave birth to new life, it provided spiritual food in the form of the eucharist, and it was thought to come entirely from his mother-- the only human parent of Jesus... The Incarnation informed the spirituality of medieval holy women as well as our own notion of what constitutes mysticism. The body was for medieval holy women, in the eloquent words of Andre Vauchez, 'a privileged instrument of communication.' Through exceptional phenomena such as stigmata, levitation, ecstasy, and visions, the body, and particularly the female body, could spell out what was otherwise ineffable and could not be grasped by words." (Cristina Mazzoni, Angela of Foligno: Memorial, 7.)

Thoughts that come to mind:

First: Jesus as gendered as female... positively!! 

Second: The fact that women's bodies were seen as possible sources of power for ineffable experiences of the Incarnation.

Third: That out of their oppression came these powerful experiences that men listened to and recognize as valid. 

......Where'd that all go? 

......What does that mean for us (women) today? 

......How do we speak the Truths of our bodies so loudly that they are heard? 

......I think story-telling is the answer. (More about this to come.)

On that note, I'm currently writing a poem about story-telling based on the quote by Muriel Rukeyser: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The whole world would split open." Story telling is, more often than not, an act of privilege. Most women around the world are silenced by their misogynistic society/ies and are therefore oppressed in ways that we cannot even imagine. (We even see that in some denominations today, don't we?) There have been brave women that have taken a risk and told their story, either by writing a book or by speaking out. For those of us living in functional (and I used that term lightly) misogynistic societies where women *sometimes* have a voice, I think women tell the truths of their lives all the time.  Are you willing to be a truth-teller about your life? Are you willing to tell your story so that you and others may be liberated by it? 

Please note, however, that this is not me putting the onus on women. What we need now are ears to hear. Heterosexual, affluent, white, male-identifying men (and then some) to hear our stories. Who were the ears to hear Angela of Foligno's story and where are they today?


I believe in the power of a story to fiercely transform lives. Be a part of this transformation, will you?

I'm so glad that you finally made it here

Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The road signs point us adrift and make us afraid?
Saying: "You never can win," "Watch your back," "Where's your husband?"
Oh I don't like the signs that the signmakers made.

So I'm gonna steal out with my paint and my brushes
I'll change the directions, I'll hit every street
It's the Tinseltown scandal, the Robin Hood vandal
She goes out and steals the King's English
And in the morning you wake up and the signs point to you

They say:
"I'm so glad that you finally made it here,"
"You thought nobody cared, but I did, I could tell,"
And "This is your year," and "It always starts here,"
And oh-oh oh-oh-oh oh-oh, "You're aging well."

In Revolution from Within Gloria Steinem writes that during adolescence most girls become women who are less true to themselves, less confident in themselves, and love themselves less than in childhood.  (The opposite is true for most boys becoming men.)  That message resonates with me in a powerful and unsettling way.  When I think back to who I was as a child I certainly had more confidence and self-esteem than during most of the past... oh... ten years of my life.  Wow.  Ten.  Years.  My point is, the signs that the signmakers make are fucking lame.  Which I've known for the past ten years, but damn it is hard not to see the fucking lame signs everywhere, isn't it?  And when you see them everywhere, it's kind of hard not to follow them, isn't it?  I love what Dar says in this song and I love it especially because I feel I am just beginning to find my ability to actually re-write the signs.  God, I'm so glad I finally made it here, despite following many lame signs along the way, despite knowing I'll follow more lame signs in the future.  It feels good and comforting and hopeful to know I can write my own signs.  And find my own way.  And my own self.