I worked a booth at Gay Pride yesterday. Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota has had a booth at Pride for years now, and I’m proud to volunteer. I’m proud that Saint Mary’s, a Catholic Lasallian University has a presence at Gay Pride. People are mostly happily surprised, some are skeptical, asking questions like, “Is Saint Mary’s accepting of me? Really?” Most of us know that Catholics, like a lot of other Bible believing folk, think that being Gay is wrong, a sin and at the very least something to be ashamed of, not proud of. But we are there, in our booth, standing up for tolerance at the very least.
I don’t want to be supportive in the least, I want to be supportive in the most. I want to stand up and out for people to love who they choose. I want to be OutFront, and I want to be for marriage for all. I want to be allowing and accepting in my life. As one t-shirt said, “I ‘heart’ consensual sex.” I heart people, and most people have sex. Some don’t, and that’s OK too. I mostly don’t want to be about equating sexuality with spirituality, something the Catholic church and lots of others do quite glibly. I just think that’s silly, and seriously, where has it gotten them?
So Pride is in the midst of it all, accepting of the folk quietly handing out free Bibles and welcoming of the young and old alike. Pride about being who we are, people unable to really be the pure beings that I was brought up to believe were the epitome of Godhood. Where being ‘called’ to be a nun or priest, who swears off sex was the highest calling.
What’s my take away? That tolerant for all means tolerant for those too afraid to live without the rules as well as those somewhat afraid, and those who are unafraid. Some pick some of the rules, some break some of their own rules. Bound by rules, boundless in the variety of living around, among and within the rules. Maybe there is no escaping the rules, maybe there are no rules, and maybe, just maybe we are all spiritual beings, by way of being born, of non virgin birth.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Marscapone Walls
I awoke this morning wanting a change. A big change. Like just having an adorable new baby granddaughter isn’t enough for me. Being able to live the amazing life I live isn’t enough. I just want more, sometimes, like this morning. I looked at my blue bedroom walls, and thought, just too blue. I need grey, or cream, or marscapone, the new pottery barn color, to paint my walls. So, I’m on the Pottery Barn site looking for inspiration and that just wasn’t enough either. I wanted to see something to engage my imagination and then I remembered the Roche-Bobois site, now there’s a site for dreaming, for imagining.
In one of my many past temp jobs (that I didn’t know at the time were just temp jobs) I sold furniture at an Ashley Home Store. This huge brand new furniture warehouse goes up in Medford Minnesota, minutes from Owatonna where I lived, and I needed a job and I liked furniture. I was always more inclined to buy old furniture rather than new because I liked the lines and I like a bit of solidness in my furniture. Call me old fashioned if you will, and if people wanted the convenience and allure of new furniture, who was I to judge? I will confess, I did judge them.
I just had to be nice, sell this stuff. That proved interesting. Seems that people want their new furniture to be both cheap and well made and they want it delivered tomorrow. The impossible dream some folks dreamt was they wanted the furniture to be also American made. Seems that people lose all reasonable when buying furniture.
At Ashley Home Store, there were also empty hours of no people whatsoever in the store. So, while waiting to sell furniture to unreasonable people, I’d browse the internet, and trying to stay in the furniture realm, I looked for the Roche-Bobois site. I had never forgotten this furniture store, as there had actually been a Roche-Bobois store for a limited time in the Galleria Mall in Edina. I’m thinking maybe back in the eighties, when I lived in Edina, near the Galleria Mall and I fell in love with that store. French furniture. And yes, although there was no longer an actual store in Minnesota, there was their wonderful site. My furniture co-worker who loved furniture and design was mind-boggled, he’d grown up in Albert Lea, Minnesota and had never imagined furniture like this. So, we’d pass the hours on the Roche-Bobois site, and then sell a lamp or two to a local.
So, here I was again, looping back to Roche-Bobois through the web. If virtual reality can mimic real reality, this site does it well. I could almost imagine myself in a condo in Prague, or in a country home in Spain and it’s sort of like a mini-vacation. No big changes are in store for my life again today, I’ll go to work, keep on keeping on. I have no vacation plans and have no clue what next year holds in store. No french sofas in my foreseeable future. Maybe I’ll have time to paint in the fall, today, as I leave for work, I can dream of Marscapone walls.
In one of my many past temp jobs (that I didn’t know at the time were just temp jobs) I sold furniture at an Ashley Home Store. This huge brand new furniture warehouse goes up in Medford Minnesota, minutes from Owatonna where I lived, and I needed a job and I liked furniture. I was always more inclined to buy old furniture rather than new because I liked the lines and I like a bit of solidness in my furniture. Call me old fashioned if you will, and if people wanted the convenience and allure of new furniture, who was I to judge? I will confess, I did judge them.
I just had to be nice, sell this stuff. That proved interesting. Seems that people want their new furniture to be both cheap and well made and they want it delivered tomorrow. The impossible dream some folks dreamt was they wanted the furniture to be also American made. Seems that people lose all reasonable when buying furniture.
At Ashley Home Store, there were also empty hours of no people whatsoever in the store. So, while waiting to sell furniture to unreasonable people, I’d browse the internet, and trying to stay in the furniture realm, I looked for the Roche-Bobois site. I had never forgotten this furniture store, as there had actually been a Roche-Bobois store for a limited time in the Galleria Mall in Edina. I’m thinking maybe back in the eighties, when I lived in Edina, near the Galleria Mall and I fell in love with that store. French furniture. And yes, although there was no longer an actual store in Minnesota, there was their wonderful site. My furniture co-worker who loved furniture and design was mind-boggled, he’d grown up in Albert Lea, Minnesota and had never imagined furniture like this. So, we’d pass the hours on the Roche-Bobois site, and then sell a lamp or two to a local.
So, here I was again, looping back to Roche-Bobois through the web. If virtual reality can mimic real reality, this site does it well. I could almost imagine myself in a condo in Prague, or in a country home in Spain and it’s sort of like a mini-vacation. No big changes are in store for my life again today, I’ll go to work, keep on keeping on. I have no vacation plans and have no clue what next year holds in store. No french sofas in my foreseeable future. Maybe I’ll have time to paint in the fall, today, as I leave for work, I can dream of Marscapone walls.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
What Gets Taken
I am mourning my childbirth experiences. A strange aftermath of celebrating the birth of my baby granddaughter born two weeks ago. My baby granddaughter born at home in a birthing tub, caught by her daddy and given right away to her mama, my daughter, Erin. Andy, her father, then took a picture of this infant, minutes old, gazing wide eyed at her mama. I wasn’t at this powerful birth, but the story of it makes me feel like a thousand stars are shining inside of me, like the universe unfolded exactly how it should have in the birth of Audrey.
During the process of my daughter preparing to have her baby at home, we talked about at home childbirth and hospital, doctor oriented childbirth. We talked about the stories they (the birthing doctors and books, hospitals, birthing class teachers) tell, and told me, and the stories my daughter was hearing from her midwife. Synchronicity being at work in the universe during this time, at the University where I work, a graduate student was getting ready to present her paper on midwife assisted childbirth. So it seemed, everywhere I turned there was some history for me to learn about how doctors (mostly, if not exclusively male) replaced midwives (females) and how births for women became more dangerous, and how infant mortality rates climbed. The United States still has an incredibly high infant mortality rate.
Sometimes I don’t want to be the feminist shouting persecution. I don’t want to have to be a prophet, especially of doom, and believe me sister, I want to be done mourning my losses. But I can’t not notice what gets taken.
When I was pregnant the first time in 1981 (my first daughter was born in January of 1982), I was all of 22 years old and thought I was living in modern times. My best friend Mary, (the one I got expelled from school with in the 7th grade) had moved to Seattle, and had already had two at home births by then. She sent me pictures of herself, the babies, and the midwives after the births and I was amazed at how good, how glowing they all looked. I could see the magic. I know now, what I was seeing was the amazing chemicals our bodies produce to help us give birth, I was seeing the power of childbirth reflected in the eyes of the midwives. I was seeing what it looks like when women do not let what belongs to them get stolen.
I didn’t even imagine having my baby at home, well, OK, I imagined it. I was told however, that here in modern Minneapolis, the births were not at all like they used to be and that it would be like having a ‘natural’ childbirth, under my control, but in the safety of a hospital, should anything go wrong. In my childbirth class I was told about all the horrible things that used to happen to women during childbirth. I was given a litany of all the drugs I could take or decide not to take. I was never, ever told that my own body could produce all the chemicals I would need to safely deliver my baby.
This I only learned in the past nine months. And, what I’ve told myself, is, that after three violent and difficult births I am supposed to feel like I am lucky, my births were vaginal, and my babies were fine. It took me months and months of healing after each delivery; and only now- thirty years later- to understand the trauma my body and psyche endured during all three of my childbirth experiences. All with stirrups, all with male doctors, all with cutting and the doctors telling me that my babies were in ‘distress.’ During labor with my first baby, the nurse yelled at me when I started to cry, and then my doctor took her out into the hall and yelled at her for yelling at me. Mostly, they were not self-assured professionals and I did not feel safe and cared for. I felt scared.
My babies are fine, grown up beautiful women now. I am a bit sad lately, mourning, as I said, for the power of my birthing experiences that was taken from me. It was only after I got home from the hospital, each time, safely with my babies, learning how to nurse them on my own, that the stars appeared inside for me. When the chemicals that bond and soothe were released through my tattered body, exquisite baby at my breast.
The past sometimes needs to be undone, and we need to recognize what’s been taken, forgive somehow, and let it go. I also though, want to take back and pass on, I want to take back sacred childbirth, I want to pass on to women that our bodies are strong, and powerful, and able to give birth. I want to pass on that sometimes life is imperfect, and we might need medical help, but mostly still, our bodies know what to do, and they know what we need. Our bodies are ourselves, full of chemicals, and mystery and power, and host to a galaxy of stars.
During the process of my daughter preparing to have her baby at home, we talked about at home childbirth and hospital, doctor oriented childbirth. We talked about the stories they (the birthing doctors and books, hospitals, birthing class teachers) tell, and told me, and the stories my daughter was hearing from her midwife. Synchronicity being at work in the universe during this time, at the University where I work, a graduate student was getting ready to present her paper on midwife assisted childbirth. So it seemed, everywhere I turned there was some history for me to learn about how doctors (mostly, if not exclusively male) replaced midwives (females) and how births for women became more dangerous, and how infant mortality rates climbed. The United States still has an incredibly high infant mortality rate.
Sometimes I don’t want to be the feminist shouting persecution. I don’t want to have to be a prophet, especially of doom, and believe me sister, I want to be done mourning my losses. But I can’t not notice what gets taken.
When I was pregnant the first time in 1981 (my first daughter was born in January of 1982), I was all of 22 years old and thought I was living in modern times. My best friend Mary, (the one I got expelled from school with in the 7th grade) had moved to Seattle, and had already had two at home births by then. She sent me pictures of herself, the babies, and the midwives after the births and I was amazed at how good, how glowing they all looked. I could see the magic. I know now, what I was seeing was the amazing chemicals our bodies produce to help us give birth, I was seeing the power of childbirth reflected in the eyes of the midwives. I was seeing what it looks like when women do not let what belongs to them get stolen.
I didn’t even imagine having my baby at home, well, OK, I imagined it. I was told however, that here in modern Minneapolis, the births were not at all like they used to be and that it would be like having a ‘natural’ childbirth, under my control, but in the safety of a hospital, should anything go wrong. In my childbirth class I was told about all the horrible things that used to happen to women during childbirth. I was given a litany of all the drugs I could take or decide not to take. I was never, ever told that my own body could produce all the chemicals I would need to safely deliver my baby.
This I only learned in the past nine months. And, what I’ve told myself, is, that after three violent and difficult births I am supposed to feel like I am lucky, my births were vaginal, and my babies were fine. It took me months and months of healing after each delivery; and only now- thirty years later- to understand the trauma my body and psyche endured during all three of my childbirth experiences. All with stirrups, all with male doctors, all with cutting and the doctors telling me that my babies were in ‘distress.’ During labor with my first baby, the nurse yelled at me when I started to cry, and then my doctor took her out into the hall and yelled at her for yelling at me. Mostly, they were not self-assured professionals and I did not feel safe and cared for. I felt scared.
My babies are fine, grown up beautiful women now. I am a bit sad lately, mourning, as I said, for the power of my birthing experiences that was taken from me. It was only after I got home from the hospital, each time, safely with my babies, learning how to nurse them on my own, that the stars appeared inside for me. When the chemicals that bond and soothe were released through my tattered body, exquisite baby at my breast.
The past sometimes needs to be undone, and we need to recognize what’s been taken, forgive somehow, and let it go. I also though, want to take back and pass on, I want to take back sacred childbirth, I want to pass on to women that our bodies are strong, and powerful, and able to give birth. I want to pass on that sometimes life is imperfect, and we might need medical help, but mostly still, our bodies know what to do, and they know what we need. Our bodies are ourselves, full of chemicals, and mystery and power, and host to a galaxy of stars.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Art, the Artist and Billy the Kid
I took down my Facebook page last weekend. I could see it coming from the day I started it. Just last night my daughter noted, “You're still kind of a loner, you have friends, but you like to be alone.” True enough. I do like to make and have friends, I love a coffee or glass of wine, or a lovely meal with friends. Good conversation, or kayaking, or taking walks, concerts, but I like my alone time, too. Facebook wasn’t like any of those things for me. Facebook was like eavesdropping, like only being partly present and it always felt strange to me, made me feel more alone, not more connected.
As I’ve been practicing mindfulness, one of the things I’ve been paying more attention to is my sense of smell. Tree smells, flower smells, and well, even people smells. In our culture the fact that people smell isn’t a great topic, I know. But it’s one of the things I like about people. I also like the warmth that most people’s energy gives off. I like to see the glow of light on skin. These are just a few of the things you don’t get on Facebook.
What I was starting to get though, were strands of people’s lives while I was there. Stories of where they went, what they ate, sometimes more information than I cared to know in the context of a page on a computer. Then there was the whole thing about how was I presenting myself? If I added a pitch for organic food, or for or against something political, what would people surmise about me without context? What good I might ask, does it do to put what amounts to a bumper sticker on my page?
I've heard, that at one time, in some cultures, photos were thought by some, maybe some still believe, to take a piece of your soul. What if all this internet marketing, when it starts to beg of you to advertise, quietly starts to steal a piece of your soul? Anyway, that’s how it started feeling to me. I’ve heard all the stories about how wonderful Facebook is, and I did reconnect with a grade school friend, so that was cool, but all in all, not for me. It was even a conundrum when I quit my page. What would people think? Would they be offended? Take it personally? I just had to let it all go, they'd make other Facebook friends.
So, where’s the Billy the Kid part? Well, I heard another story, about a blogger who pretended to be someone he wasn’t. It turned out his blog was fiction, not fact. It was about the art, not the artist. It seemed that this was very disconcerting for people who wanted his story to be true. People who felt duped because they’d had feelings for this blogger whom they thought they knew through his blog. When talking about this story with a co-worker, he was surprised that I felt more concerned about the people who felt duped, than for the blogger. I wondered how people could get so invested in a person’s story who they didn’t know, to a point where the imagined relationship with the blogger became more important than the story, the art?
So which is it? The art, the artist, or all the stories we tell about the artist or in Billy the Kid’s case, the person. Billy the Kid was an outlaw, but many other things, too. In life and now in death. Billy the Kid has stories, songs and poems written about him, a ballet by Aaron Copland which is anything but illegal and numerous other art forms inspired by his short life. The lines between the art and the artist, and more art he inspired and inspires becomes blurred. He now ‘lives’ in my blog.
We weave in and out of our lives and stories. We get to be the author, our lives become the stories we tell and then we lose some control. On Facebook, it always seemed too out of control, for me.
As I’ve been practicing mindfulness, one of the things I’ve been paying more attention to is my sense of smell. Tree smells, flower smells, and well, even people smells. In our culture the fact that people smell isn’t a great topic, I know. But it’s one of the things I like about people. I also like the warmth that most people’s energy gives off. I like to see the glow of light on skin. These are just a few of the things you don’t get on Facebook.
What I was starting to get though, were strands of people’s lives while I was there. Stories of where they went, what they ate, sometimes more information than I cared to know in the context of a page on a computer. Then there was the whole thing about how was I presenting myself? If I added a pitch for organic food, or for or against something political, what would people surmise about me without context? What good I might ask, does it do to put what amounts to a bumper sticker on my page?
I've heard, that at one time, in some cultures, photos were thought by some, maybe some still believe, to take a piece of your soul. What if all this internet marketing, when it starts to beg of you to advertise, quietly starts to steal a piece of your soul? Anyway, that’s how it started feeling to me. I’ve heard all the stories about how wonderful Facebook is, and I did reconnect with a grade school friend, so that was cool, but all in all, not for me. It was even a conundrum when I quit my page. What would people think? Would they be offended? Take it personally? I just had to let it all go, they'd make other Facebook friends.
So, where’s the Billy the Kid part? Well, I heard another story, about a blogger who pretended to be someone he wasn’t. It turned out his blog was fiction, not fact. It was about the art, not the artist. It seemed that this was very disconcerting for people who wanted his story to be true. People who felt duped because they’d had feelings for this blogger whom they thought they knew through his blog. When talking about this story with a co-worker, he was surprised that I felt more concerned about the people who felt duped, than for the blogger. I wondered how people could get so invested in a person’s story who they didn’t know, to a point where the imagined relationship with the blogger became more important than the story, the art?
So which is it? The art, the artist, or all the stories we tell about the artist or in Billy the Kid’s case, the person. Billy the Kid was an outlaw, but many other things, too. In life and now in death. Billy the Kid has stories, songs and poems written about him, a ballet by Aaron Copland which is anything but illegal and numerous other art forms inspired by his short life. The lines between the art and the artist, and more art he inspired and inspires becomes blurred. He now ‘lives’ in my blog.
We weave in and out of our lives and stories. We get to be the author, our lives become the stories we tell and then we lose some control. On Facebook, it always seemed too out of control, for me.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Lake Woe is Me
The alarm goes off at 6:00 am and at 6:15 Garrison Keillor comes on the radio. Most days I’m awake by then and happy to hear him. He’ll read a poem that speaks to me, and I wake up un alone. Somedays he talks of books, books, books, and I feel so un read, and I realize how little time I have in the next half of my life to read all the great novels; I will never read them all. Somedays I'm discouraged by the thought of all these writers, famous, published and I wonder if I’ll ever get out of the gate? This discouraging thought becomes overwhelming, so early in the morning; layered on top of having to hussle to get ready to go to a job that is un creative and low paying.
Today I was crabby when I heard him, I was sleeping deep, and when I awoke and heard his voice, it was “Oh, bother, not him again.” Here is a man who was actually able to make an English degree, (an English degree for God’s sake) work for him. Not just a copywriter, but a BIG name, a creative who makes tons of money. Today I just say, “Errrrr.”
Last week I heard back from both a job and an internship that did not pick me. Of course they put it more professionally than that, but it was just enough rejection for me to go whine to a co-worker, “What’s wrong with me?” Because that’s how job interviews make me feel. They are so contrived, so awful, so judging and un creative with their stock questions that make me squirm. So I go in with a bad attitude, no matter how much I prepare. No matter how much I spent on the new suit, no matter how much I’ve read up on their organization.
I feel like a failure, even, or subversive, or that I will jinx myself, admitting I hate job interviews. Maybe it goes back to grade school phy ed, where you waited in line to get picked for teams. Where the athletic popular girls grinned as they picked their friends for their team first, then the stronger girls who whether they liked them or not, who would at least help the team. Then there was me, and the other, smaller, un athletic, unpopular girls, who could prove to be liabilities to the team, who were picked last and reluctantly.
So, today I will admit it, I am a bit resentful that I don’t have the life of Garrison Keillor, who gets to read about authors and their stories, and read poetry, and be on the radio.
Today I was crabby when I heard him, I was sleeping deep, and when I awoke and heard his voice, it was “Oh, bother, not him again.” Here is a man who was actually able to make an English degree, (an English degree for God’s sake) work for him. Not just a copywriter, but a BIG name, a creative who makes tons of money. Today I just say, “Errrrr.”
Last week I heard back from both a job and an internship that did not pick me. Of course they put it more professionally than that, but it was just enough rejection for me to go whine to a co-worker, “What’s wrong with me?” Because that’s how job interviews make me feel. They are so contrived, so awful, so judging and un creative with their stock questions that make me squirm. So I go in with a bad attitude, no matter how much I prepare. No matter how much I spent on the new suit, no matter how much I’ve read up on their organization.
I feel like a failure, even, or subversive, or that I will jinx myself, admitting I hate job interviews. Maybe it goes back to grade school phy ed, where you waited in line to get picked for teams. Where the athletic popular girls grinned as they picked their friends for their team first, then the stronger girls who whether they liked them or not, who would at least help the team. Then there was me, and the other, smaller, un athletic, unpopular girls, who could prove to be liabilities to the team, who were picked last and reluctantly.
So, today I will admit it, I am a bit resentful that I don’t have the life of Garrison Keillor, who gets to read about authors and their stories, and read poetry, and be on the radio.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
More Blue
A Disclaimer of Sorts
I'm still trying to untangle and understand church. Part of this for me is understanding what church means, and still holding that meanings are fluid and undetermined and yet people hold solid and determined ideas about meanings in their head. Are you still with me? So, when I write about my experiences in the church or churches that I’ve been a part of, it's about my journey and not about judging churches or beliefs. I’m trying to examine how the beliefs that I held and the emotions that accompanied them either moved me forward into wholeness, or held me back.
Sifting, you might say, trying to save what was good, and let fall what was hurtful. Maybe it is more about forgiving others than forgiving myself. I struggle with the word forgiveness, as it implies religiosity, which of course carries within it years of patriarchy and hierarchy. That being said, a part of me feels a bit of (to borrow from Kierkegaard) fear and trembling. I have no fear and trembling of God, but of not wanting to be judging of someone else’s faith. Not wanting to tear apart a fabric that works in some way. Yet, if the Bible says, Rend your hearts, not your garments; this requires some introspection, perhaps then judging is part of the process.
We hold faith in our culture with special handling. We learn early not to talk about ‘religion or politics,’ yet our publications and radio talk shows scream out at us on the topics of religion and politics. So, where are the boundaries? I don’t think that religion should be left in the hands of the religious or the pious, this seems dangerous at worst, and disingenuous at best. At one point when I was a Christian, people imbued me with spirituality, that is, they often told me that I was ‘spiritual.’ I thought I knew what that meant then, because I was reading the Bible, and praying and well, talking to God quite often.
I no longer read the Bible, I pray in my own way, and when I’m talking to God lately, it’s to swear. So, am I no longer spiritual? Am I the heathen I tell people I am in order to put an end to their wondering about what I’m up to? What does spiritual mean, anyway? For me spirituality is about what Martin Buber called the “I-Thou” relationship. What this means to me is that every human I encounter, is holy. A priest is no more holy than a man on the street. This holiness is not earned nor learned, but inherent in the aliveness of the person. This idea of holiness is separate from the concept of whole and healthy.
I believe our wholeness comes from having our holiness acknowledged. Our wholeness is ongoing and hopefully on our journeys we find ways to become more whole, more able to love ourselves and others, in or out of churches or temples. Sometimes churches acknowledge each person’s holiness, and honor this, sometimes they don’t. Figuring this out isn’t always easy.
Finding a church like Anne Lamott’s seems like a crapshoot. Or a human endeavor, flawed, but none the less, enlightening, if we let it be. So, I wanted to be like Anne Lamott for a while, the liberal, hip Christian, but that’s her gig, not mine. I'm thinking I've wanted it to be easy, that I'm supposed to be like someone. I was raised, after all, to be like Jesus. I'm now trying to figure out how to be like me.
I'm still trying to untangle and understand church. Part of this for me is understanding what church means, and still holding that meanings are fluid and undetermined and yet people hold solid and determined ideas about meanings in their head. Are you still with me? So, when I write about my experiences in the church or churches that I’ve been a part of, it's about my journey and not about judging churches or beliefs. I’m trying to examine how the beliefs that I held and the emotions that accompanied them either moved me forward into wholeness, or held me back.
Sifting, you might say, trying to save what was good, and let fall what was hurtful. Maybe it is more about forgiving others than forgiving myself. I struggle with the word forgiveness, as it implies religiosity, which of course carries within it years of patriarchy and hierarchy. That being said, a part of me feels a bit of (to borrow from Kierkegaard) fear and trembling. I have no fear and trembling of God, but of not wanting to be judging of someone else’s faith. Not wanting to tear apart a fabric that works in some way. Yet, if the Bible says, Rend your hearts, not your garments; this requires some introspection, perhaps then judging is part of the process.
We hold faith in our culture with special handling. We learn early not to talk about ‘religion or politics,’ yet our publications and radio talk shows scream out at us on the topics of religion and politics. So, where are the boundaries? I don’t think that religion should be left in the hands of the religious or the pious, this seems dangerous at worst, and disingenuous at best. At one point when I was a Christian, people imbued me with spirituality, that is, they often told me that I was ‘spiritual.’ I thought I knew what that meant then, because I was reading the Bible, and praying and well, talking to God quite often.
I no longer read the Bible, I pray in my own way, and when I’m talking to God lately, it’s to swear. So, am I no longer spiritual? Am I the heathen I tell people I am in order to put an end to their wondering about what I’m up to? What does spiritual mean, anyway? For me spirituality is about what Martin Buber called the “I-Thou” relationship. What this means to me is that every human I encounter, is holy. A priest is no more holy than a man on the street. This holiness is not earned nor learned, but inherent in the aliveness of the person. This idea of holiness is separate from the concept of whole and healthy.
I believe our wholeness comes from having our holiness acknowledged. Our wholeness is ongoing and hopefully on our journeys we find ways to become more whole, more able to love ourselves and others, in or out of churches or temples. Sometimes churches acknowledge each person’s holiness, and honor this, sometimes they don’t. Figuring this out isn’t always easy.
Finding a church like Anne Lamott’s seems like a crapshoot. Or a human endeavor, flawed, but none the less, enlightening, if we let it be. So, I wanted to be like Anne Lamott for a while, the liberal, hip Christian, but that’s her gig, not mine. I'm thinking I've wanted it to be easy, that I'm supposed to be like someone. I was raised, after all, to be like Jesus. I'm now trying to figure out how to be like me.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Blue in a Red Church
Ok, so let’s just say I got lost and followed the wrong people home one day. Ok, let’s not, it’s not that easy. But now, I'm a bit embarrassed to tell that I attended a Baptist church for twenty years. My good feminist friend would say to me, “I don’t know how you go to that church you go to.” It wasn’t a question, it was a slow, side to side shake of the head comment.
At this church, women couldn’t be ministers, unless it was children’s ministry; and women couldn’t be deacons, nor vote on anything in the church. It was a born-again, Bible believing (literally), more or less health and wealth believing congregation, and yep, I was a part of it. I followed my sister to this church when I moved from Minneapolis to Owatonna. I left the Catholic church, and became born-again, against all the things I had hoped to hold on to, including the idea that I would never go too far down just one road. My dad thought my sister had way too much sway over me. Perhaps he was right.
I think I was lonely and wanted a place to belong. I was a young mom, new to town, with a husband who was rarely around and a sister who just loved her church and her church friends. I was her little sister, and I started attending with her. I wonder where my head was, going to this church.
When my sister told me about the minister sneaking off to nearby towns, to go to a movie, so as not to offend anyone who was still thinking movies were sinful, I should have known. He had explained to my sister, that while he and his wife didn’t think it was a sin to go to movies, some people in the church did, and so that’s why they drove out of town to go to movies.
I remember going out to one of the only nice restaurants in town with my husband, excited to be out, but then when our waitress was someone from church, I was nervous to order the glass of wine I couldn’t wait to have. I wondered, “Was it OK to drink, if it wasn’t OK to watch movies in town? Is this how this small town life worked? Was this the price I was paying for a nice house and a big yard?” I ordered the glass of wine. Perhaps that’s what saved me.
Maybe I was looking for a way to believe in God that was based on something easier to understand than hundreds of years of Catholic church doctrine. I think I was looking for a place to feel safe in a big world. The longer I stayed, the wronger it turned out to be. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t safe at all.
At this church, women couldn’t be ministers, unless it was children’s ministry; and women couldn’t be deacons, nor vote on anything in the church. It was a born-again, Bible believing (literally), more or less health and wealth believing congregation, and yep, I was a part of it. I followed my sister to this church when I moved from Minneapolis to Owatonna. I left the Catholic church, and became born-again, against all the things I had hoped to hold on to, including the idea that I would never go too far down just one road. My dad thought my sister had way too much sway over me. Perhaps he was right.
I think I was lonely and wanted a place to belong. I was a young mom, new to town, with a husband who was rarely around and a sister who just loved her church and her church friends. I was her little sister, and I started attending with her. I wonder where my head was, going to this church.
When my sister told me about the minister sneaking off to nearby towns, to go to a movie, so as not to offend anyone who was still thinking movies were sinful, I should have known. He had explained to my sister, that while he and his wife didn’t think it was a sin to go to movies, some people in the church did, and so that’s why they drove out of town to go to movies.
I remember going out to one of the only nice restaurants in town with my husband, excited to be out, but then when our waitress was someone from church, I was nervous to order the glass of wine I couldn’t wait to have. I wondered, “Was it OK to drink, if it wasn’t OK to watch movies in town? Is this how this small town life worked? Was this the price I was paying for a nice house and a big yard?” I ordered the glass of wine. Perhaps that’s what saved me.
Maybe I was looking for a way to believe in God that was based on something easier to understand than hundreds of years of Catholic church doctrine. I think I was looking for a place to feel safe in a big world. The longer I stayed, the wronger it turned out to be. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t safe at all.
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