8 reasons I oppose Proposition 8

On our November ballot here in California, we will be asked whether we support a proposition that would remove the right of same-sex couples to enter into legal marriage.  As a heterosexual, married, Christian woman, I oppose this proposition for many reasons.  Whether you agree with me or not, I would be honored if you'd consider these 8 reasons why I'm voting against it.  In my mind, any one of them is enough reason to vote against this proposal.

1.  This is a matter of legal rights, not a referendum on how religious people should interpret marriage.  As a part of a nation built on ideals like justice and equality, I see no reason to restrict the legal rights of people to enter into the marriage contract with one another.   I would like to live in a California that affords rights, not one that adds clauses into its Constitution to deny them.

2.  This proposition has nothing to do with the rights of homosexual people to have children. Regardless of marital status, gay and lesbian people are already raising children.  I would contend that it does our society good to have children being raised by people who are married--that the commitments made in marriage tend to help create home environments that are more stable, especially because of the way the community beyond the couple understands what it means to be married.  Allowing same-sex couples to continue to marry in California will give greater stability to families, not less.

3.  Heterosexual marriage does not need protection from same-sex marriage.  I do believe that heterosexual marriage needs work in our culture--too many marriages end in divorce.   It is a challenge to succeed in marriage--I struggle with the difficulty of separation during deployment, with my own independence, and much more.  My marriage is not, however, threatened by the marriages of same-gender couples.  I wonder what we believe we're protecting marriage from?

4.  Our understanding of marriage, in the church and under the law, has been continuously evolving.  I celebrate that, as a woman, I enjoy rights to choose my own spouse (as well as the right to choose not to have a spouse and still own property) that have not always been available to women--certainly not always in our biblical tradition.  I also celebrate that marriage does not exist only for the purpose of having children.  I give thanks for the love shared between couples that have chosen not to have children, and between couples that have been unable to have children.  I delight in couples far beyond their child-bearing years who are able to marry.  There is not an unchanged understanding of marriage stretching back through the Bible, nor through our nation's history.  The Supreme Court's decision to extend the rights of marriage to same-sex couples is another change in this evolving history.  There is no one "original" understanding of marriage that we can preserve. 

5.  I have been blessed and enriched by same-gendered couples.  Both as domestic partners and as married couples, they have shown me what mutually-life-giving, committed relationships can look like.  Often persevering through immense challenges, they have demonstrated how married couples can care for each other and strengthen one another.  These couples have been a blessing to our communities, too.  I welcome ways that we can do more to honor committed relationships and let them be an asset to our communities.

6.  Opposing this proposition does not mean that clergy are required to perform same-sex marriages.  As a pastor, I always have the right to refuse to marry a couple.  Opposing the proposition does not compel churches to change their definitions of marriage.   Already, many churches have requirements for marriage in that church--such as requiring both spouses to be members of the church.  Churches can continue to define their own rules for marriage, even without this proposition.

7.  This restriction of rights does not belong in our Constitution.  In my mind, a Constitution exists to provide rights, not take them away.  

8.  I am bothered by the fear-inducing tactics used by supporters of Proposition 8.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we move past our fears to dare to include more of the world in God's love.  I refuse to be convinced to restrict legal rights to members of our community because I am afraid.    I do believe that there is real evil in the world, and that this campaign is distracting us from work is necessary for God's kingdom.  Over and over, Jesus commanded us to care for the poor.  Never once did Jesus speak about same-sex marriage.   Proponents of this initiative are asking us to be afraid of the wrong thing.  We have a lot of work to do if we want to follow Christ's example of love for our neighbors.  This Proposition will not help us in that work. 

in remembrance

Sharing communion last Sunday, with a congregation divided by our US border fence, reminded me just how much work remains to be done in remembrance of Christ.  Our border much more easily dismembers the human community.

The broken bread, handed through the fence in violation of the US Customs rules our Border Patrol says they're to enforce, became a vivid symbol of our own division.  In sharing it, we mark our belonging together.

It seems to me that whatever border policies we might choose for our national interests are irrelevant to our call to see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ across this fence.   In our Christian practice, if we are going to take Christ's salvation seriously,  we must be willing to share this sacrament across anything that might seek to divide us.

Of course, once you've shared in holy moments together, it's hard to imagine advocating for a policy that would treat others as anything less than people of infinite worth.

I suppose that's part of why I love communion so much: it makes Jesus real.  Sharing the broken bread helps me know and taste that Jesus really meant those wild and crazy things he said.

transformation (worth more than a hill of beans?)

I have a whole bunch of blog posts swimming around in my head.  Mostly, I haven't committed them to actual words yet.  So, in that spirit, I start this post with a picture.  I don't have any deep thoughts to accompany it; I just thought these beans had wonderful colors.  They came out of the garden as I was tearing out the last of the summer garden.

After the help of many friends and a load of compost, the winter garden is now doing its underground magic.  There's something daring about starting with seeds.  It feels much more dangerous and beautiful than seedlings from the nursery.  And it reminds me that garden life starts with dried up, dead things: seeds from old plants and a pile of decaying compost.
Speaking of dying things, or at least, things dying to their previous selves, I've been taking note of the gulf fritillary that love my passionflowers, and enjoying their transformation.  I caught this one in the act of making its cocoon.

Thanks to recent conversations with Colleen, my dad and others, I've been pondering the transformations that may be life-giving for the church.  As I read the communion liturgy, proclaiming that Jesus Christ saves us from "slavery to sin and death," I mourn the way our own, institutional fear of dying seems to occupy much of our attention.  As people of resurrection, I pray that we might trust more (and more fearlessly) in new birth.  

And, as Colleen helped me consider just this morning over coffee, birth is not simple, clean or solitary.  I wonder what it would look like for the church to put more energy into the life-giving, painful, uncontrolled process of helping prepare for new life and new birth?  (Perhaps we should put energy into dying well?)  I suspect our priorities would need to shift a bit, and that we'd need to be open to a considerable bit more uncertainty.

I wonder what our caterpillar is thinking as it forms this cocoon.  Does it have any idea what life might be like on the other side?

jazz worship

I've been playing with ideas for how to name and promote jazz worship this November, and I came across this gem.  I couldn't resist posting.  It comes from here.

Several years ago, in my Bible study at the Rescue Mission, the women there talked me into going through Revelation with them.  One day, as we were beginning conversation about end-times, I asked how they thought we'd know if Jesus were coming.   I was imagining we'd have rich conversation about how to discern what's "real."

"There's gonna be trumpets," one woman said, without missing a beat.

I guess she didn't grow up in the church with the sign.

thankful for creation

I'm just back from my week at the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, and am very happy for a chance to give time and space to creating beautiful things.

Few things embody joyous possibility like fresh, quality art supplies.  So this has been a good week.  And, since I like to think that one of the coolest things about God is the endlessness of beautiful possibility toward which s/he draws us...well, I guess that makes it even better.

It also helped that I got to hang out in the midst of natural beauty and the wide open spaces of the Santa Fe area.  With lovely flowers and a whole lot of beautiful people.

I was a part of a seminar led by Tim Rollins, whose artistic work embodies social transformation and beauty, together.  It felt pretty rad to create things together with him.  

Nearly as rad as it is to remember my own call to be a co-creator of God's kingdom, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the beloved community around us all.

the state of marriage

I've been pondering the meaning of marriage more intently than usual in the last few months.   At General Conference for our United Methodist Church, my sub-committee looked at revisions to our definition of marriage.  Here in California, our Supreme Court's decision has broadened marriage to include same-sex couples.  And, most recently, I've been pondering the implications of the marriage proposal on last week's Bachelorette finale.

I don't know if it's wise to attempt deep interpretation of the Bachelorette, but the absence of the words "marry" or "marriage" in the proposals of the winning suitor struck me as strange, on a day when I'd gathered earlier with other clergy to talk about how we might respond to the legalization of same-sex marriage in our state, even as our church prohibits clergy from conducting such services or hosting them in our churches.

As many same-sex couples make the move to claim legal marriage, a TV show aimed at arranging marriages features people who avoid the term.  Jesse, the winning suitor, chose other words for describing the commitment he wished to enter into, both as he asked the Bachelorette's father's blessing and as offered her a diamond ring from bended knee.

I can imagine many plausible reasons for his avoidance of the words of "marriage," fear of the conventional commitment it involves certainly being among them (for an unconventional, snowboarding suitor, especially).  I wonder if "spending forever with" sounds more genuine in a culture where marriages don't last a lifetime as often as they do.  

All of which is a stunning reminder to me that we heterosexuals don't need to worry about same-sex couples destroying marriage.  We've done a pretty fine job on our own, I think.  (And, for the record, I'm not thinking that shows like the Bachelorette do us any favors.)

All this came on the heels of scripture lessons in our Sunday worship that tell of Rebekah and Isaac's engagement, in Genesis 24.  A biblical model for arranging marriage that's far from what I count as desirable.  Not wanting his son to marry a Canaanite, Abraham's servant prays that he might meet a woman at a well who, by drawing water for him and his camels, would prove her worthiness as a bride for his master's son.

  

If we were really interested in protecting marriage, I suggest we spend some time honestly talking about what we know as good (and, even, holy) about marriage. I think too many things are too easily confused.

Separated from Matt by his deployment, I'm aware of how grateful I am for the support we get from so many others in our marriage.  Clearly, I don't know what our relationships would be like if we were not married, but I know that I am thankful for the ways our being married helps sustain us and our relationship.  Marriage helps name and define our relationship to the wider community.  It means that the Army communicates with me, and that I receive opportunities for benefits.  More importantly, it has meant that a whole community of people, many of whom were present as we made covenant with one another, do things to help us sustain our relationship in the midst of many challenges.  And, that the two of us see God as having a role in sustaining us in this covenant.

My hope is that our relationship is also a blessing to the community.  I sense ways that we strengthen and improve one another.  The challenge of sharing in lifelong covenant with another person demands I work at cultivating skills and grace that make me a better person.  I believe that marriages, like other commitments made (formally and informally) among humans can be of tremendous benefit to us all.

I do believe that God created humans in such a way that we're enriched and improved by our belonging together in relationships of commitment.  As our church's Social Principles already state, I do not believe that marriage is essential.  Or that marriage exists for the purposes of procreation.  I celebrate marriages with or without children.

And, certainly, I celebrate that marriage is no longer a transaction of property, transferring ownership of a young woman from her father to her new husband (though lingering insistence on including a "giving away" of the bride suggest we've not totally abandoned this...).

I look forward to a day when our states and our church will both recognize marriage between people of the same gender.  And, when we'll let these relationships of commitment strengthen us all as we struggle for justice, peace and other such good things that serve God.

I also look forward to a clearer cultural understanding of what marriage is.  Something beyond diamond rings and elaborate parties.  Something that gives us an idea of how we're called to shape our lives around commitment beyond our immediate selves, and to be a part of relationships that serve the broader community.

lovely days

I spent a lovely day yesterday with my good friend, Erika.  (And, happily, a good bit of it with Joel, too; besides being exquisitely fun to hang out with, he taught me useful skills like how to play lego video games and wii bowling...)

Er and I build our friendship over shared ice cream cones (with occasional enchilada parties thrown in, but, really, that came later).  She walked with me through my own sense of call to ministry and through a variety of other college adventures; I like to think that I was a decent companion to her, too, as she journeyed through seminary and ministry internships and associated challenges.  And, almost always, there was ice cream.  I anchor our friendship into JP Licks, on Newbury Street in Boston, sitting in the teacup.

Now, in Southern California for the last 10 years, the ice cream more often comes with a walk on the beach or a pier.  (Not that the ice cream sharing is as frequent as I'd like, but you work with what you can get...)  I count it as sacrament.

Martin Luther, I'm told, did theology with a beer in hand.  I'll do it with a cone.  

I have no illusions of unraveling the mysteries of why it is so wonderful.  I only testify to my experience: that, when contemplated with the cool, smooth, usually-chocolate, creamy sweetness of ice cream, theological challenges always seem more approachable. 

Yesterday, contemplating how it might ever be possible to cultivate leadership in a system as diverse and wacky as our church, contemplating how we're called to teach people the openness of our theological tradition and how that can work when we're set in the midst of a culture that makes a whole lot of unhelpful assumptions about what "right" Christian theology is, I felt hope.  Talking about our own lives and hopes for the future, I felt assurance. 

I also suspect that friendships make ice cream better, and ice cream deepens friendships.

I think I need to take my problems for a walk in the sun, ice cream in hand and good companion at my side, more often.

I also felt new enthusiasm for this work of opening an ice cream shop in my neighborhood.  Perhaps its sacred possibilities will be accessible to many who gather there.

May it be so.

my current musical infatuation

is with the Flobots.  Every since I heard that sickeningly catchy song, "Handlebars," on KROQ as I was driving to Erika and Joel's house last month, it's stuck in my head.  Now our radio stations seem to be playing it all the time.  So I downloaded the whole album, and I'm quite taken with it.    They're gonna change the world.

I like the verbal rhythms of it.  Like spoken word poetry (another hobby I mean to get into).  Maybe that hip-hop stuff deserves more of my time.

I mean, really:

Stand up

We shall not be moved

except by a child with no socks or shoes

It sings with a confidence that preaches the uncompromising love of God.  And there's a viola in the group.  Not a violin.  A viola.  And violas play in their own darn clef.

I think violas are gonna be my new metaphor for being "in the world but not of the world."  

food security

I've been reading Deep Economy, which my brother sent us recently. Challenging us to think about economies in different ways--and clarifying that, since the 1950's, increased wealth has not meant increased happiness--it picks up discussions many of my favorite writers have contributed to. Folks like Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollen, and more. It's also given me more enthusiasm for my garden.

I've also been paging through Jesus for President, which calls us to similar attentiveness to a different way of living in the world. Here, Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw challenge us to claim allegiance in the kingdom of God rather than any nation or community. Doing so demands that we make choices about how we'll live that express a love for neighbor that demands we do things differently--less as consumers and more as community members and those who want their actions to have positive effects on all others and on creation. Again, here, gardening seems important.

So, I thought I'd share today's update of how the garden looks. I've had some problems with a mischievous garden visitor. I suspect my cute, adorable, adventurous little neighbor, D. There are two small footprints on the top of most of my hills of squash. And all my clever popsicle stick labels at the end of rows have disappeared. Alas, who can really be mad at a 3-year old with a special gift for finding tomatoes in late-summer vine jungles?

Gardening is very satisfying for me--it feels hopeful and constructive in all the right ways. A good kind of economic choice.

We installed a gate, thinking it would make us feel a bit safer in a neighborhood where there's a bit more drug and gang activity than any of us wants. Turns out it may also help my relationships with a little neighbor--I can enjoy gardening with him when we're together, and not be mad about his little footprints or his habit of pulling up tags and tomato seedlings while I'm away.
Our fence is now complete, all the way 'round. It's gotten good reviews from passers-by, which makes me hopeful that it's not TOO unfriendly of a sort of fence. The avocado tree Marian shared is busting out new leaves, and I'm hopeful about the asparagus I planted in a trench. Now, I need to arrange the water system, and plant that last big section. What fun...
When I was planting on Friday, a man stopped by to chat. "I'm your neighbor!" he said very enthusiastically. He then offered me some mint out of his garden, bringing it over in a plastic saucer. Now, it's happily nestled next to some heirloom petunias, watched over by the lovely flamingo my mother sent. I feel a little bad about putting Mom's flamingo near mint, as she hates it so much, but I figure grace is big, and it's all a pretty long ways from her nose. (The other flamingo is watching over a pineapple, which I know is more agreeable...)
And, these bachelor buttons (at the top) are blooming nicely. There a favorite of Mom's too, so that should make everything okay.
Our little redbud tree is looking great these days--the blossoms are beautiful, and I can see the leaves beginning to grow!

like cream without its cookies...

My sister-in-law came to hang out the other day.  We joined some other friends in a rousing game of Cranium, and then a little RockBand action.  And ate ice cream.  Thing is, someone forgot to put the cookies in the Cookies and Cream container we bought.  For real.

All of which tempts me to muse about how, now that Matt's deployed, I feel like cream that's missing its cookies.   

I hope that sweet metaphor doesn't make you want to toss your cookies.

In other news, I'm grateful for the lenten group I've been meeting with at church.  It's an odd mix of people, but we've gotten to a place that's beautiful and tender.  It's a little bit like I hope church community will always be--a place to take this stuff seriously, and to really struggle with that means.  All the while knowing that somebody's got your back.  It's not like any other class I've led here before--a bit more like retreat community, but not even exactly like that.  Refreshing.

Almost as energizing as laughter over a birthdays cake (not a typo--it was for 2 people) in the office today, as momentum began to gather for an idea I shelved a while ago: worship using ikea-style pictograms as liturgy.  My dear coworkers thought it would be fun to illustrate the 10 commandments with pictograms.  (I thought it all sounded a little naughty.  I mean: the international sign for "do not commit adultery"!?!?)  Sacraments might be easier.

But, who are we kidding.  I have no time for pictograms.  I have 1500 pages of petitions to General Conference to be reading.  Like, I suppose, most things that are worth doing, I had no idea what I was getting into when I registered myself as someone willing to be elected to our delegation.  

My new hope: we'll be so buried in paperwork and worn out from days upon days of plenary gathering (with no day off in the middle--hey: isn't Sabbath one of those 10 commandments?) that we won't know how to block the Holy Spirit when she blows through the Fort Worth Convention Center.  Who knows what might be in store for the United Methodist Church?!

And, who knows where those cookies ended up...

dust

I love Ash Wednesday.  It seems so gloriously simple and honest--confession and grace.  Humility, and a reminder that we're all made of dust, and we'll go back to the dust.  

And this Lent, Matt and I have agreed to take on a practice we hope will help shape us in good ways: we're giving up eating in restaurants and taking up cooking for ourselves (and, hopefully, others!)  We even make our first several-day meal plan.  

I don't think I've ever gone more than about 4 days in San Diego without having at least one bean and cheese burrito from a drive-thru.  I also can't remember the last time we cooked more than 2 meals at home in a week.  This could be big.

If we also live into our hope of eating more locally, it'll also mean we can make use of all that deer meat in our fridge...and the chard in our yard.

Here's hoping...

making it

We finally got news of my dear husbands upcoming deployment, like for real.  And, his departure will come at the end of this month.  For the last few days, we've both been moving much slower than usual.  Funny how depression makes you feel so, well, like someone's pressing down on you all the time.  But we're making it.  This weekend, he's off in NorCal, meeting with the group of folks he'll deploy with.  Filling out paperwork and getting shots and all that.  

So, to rally my spirits, I finally got myself to work on some of the crafty project that have been swirling around in my mind for the last many weeks.   Making things has been good for my spirit.  I took pictures, but can't find the cord to download them--I have this hunch that it's in the computer bag Matt took up north.

So, you get to use your imagination.  I make two squares that hope to be part of a quilt of some kind--a free-styling log cabin block, made out of repurposed wool.  Perhaps, if I like the quilt pattern, it might also make itself into a baby quilt for a baby-to-be that I'm ecstatic about.  Also, I had my first mostly-success in remaking a big t-shirt to a fun, fitted style.  It still needs something, but I'm not quite sure what tonight.  Maybe inspiration will come tomorrow.

Really, all the quilt-making inspiration was spurred on by a beautiful gift I received this week.

On Thursday morning, I felt my usual mix of tiredness and uncertainty (amplified by the above-mentioned depression) about whether I really wanted to get myself down to the Rescue Mission for my weekly Bible study with the women there.  And, as usual, when I finally got myself there, it was beautiful and full of grace.  This week, in addition to Bible study grace, there was a kind woman I've enjoyed for a long while now, who gifted me a lap quilt she made.  "For you and your house," she said.  "It's earth tones.  I know you have an old house--I thought it might match."  And, she's right: it's perfect in our house.  It's such a gift to have my hesitance met with overflowing grace, embodied in a homemade gift.

not afraid to die

I've been musing on this for a while.  I meant this to be more elegant, but decided inelegant and existent is better than elegant but only imagined...  

Tonight in Vespers, as we read of Simeon and his gracious blessing and willingness to die (having seen salvation in the form of an infant Jesus), it came to me again:

How come we're good at preaching that people should be unafraid to die when we're afraid of the death of our denomination?

After the scripture, it came back in the communion liturgy.  How Jesus "freed us from slavery to fear and death."

My wondering is about how the denomination--in my case the United Methodist Church--is like a person.  I have this sense that we are.  And, that our preoccupation with our own decline (we don't actually say "death") is preventing us from living faithfully, fearlessly, freely.  Which, it seems to me, is what we ought to be about.

Not, of course, that we shouldn't always be concerned with how to change ourselves up to be relevant--I'm just supposing that, if we were primarily concerned with vital ministry in the lives of individuals and communities, we couldn't help but do that.  If we were always doing those things Jesus said to do--caring for the poor, the widows, the orphans.  Doing justice and building peace.  

Sometimes, we get caught up in argument about semantics.  Like how we describe the ways we need to change.  I think we fall short when we're talking about ways we need to change "so that the denomination doesn't die."  When we keep caught on how to change so we're building the kin-dom of God, we should be much better off.

I'm just saying that if death (or "decline," as we prefer) has us caught in fear, we've got no chance.  I believe in resurrection.

Thoughts?

in the cracks

This summer, when we were working on making our backyard more delightful, Matt hacked away at this giant plant that was growing in the little space between the back of our shed and the fence.  We wanted to be able to keep some tools and things there.

I noticed that it was a poinsettia.  I was a little bummed that it had been hacked away (though glad for more storage space.)

Last weekend, while looking for a shovel, I went behind the shed again.  The poinsettia has returned, this time in Christmas bloomin' splendor.

It's not easy to get around to see it, but there it is, flourishing away in a narrow canyon of metal and concrete.  It must be 10 feet tall.

Lots of little blooms are growing, too.
I take this as a good sign.

It's been a week of grand discouragement, frustration and outrage.  My dear husband was told he's on a list to re-deploy to Iraq, as an Army Reservist.  In January.  Next month.

His local commander is trying to get him off that list.  But only so he can go with that commander in September.

Now, I know that it's not unreasonable to imagine that anyone anywhere near the reach of the military would be called up to deploy.  It just really, really sucks when it's your beloved life partner.  And a war that you hate so much.

I had harbored hope that he could make it through 'til he's able to get out of the active Reserves next November, without another deployment.

So, we're waiting anxiously, to hear if he's really on the January list.  And then imagining how we're going to live in this little space between now and his departure.

I hope it looks even a smidgen as lovely as that poinsettia.

magical speaking

I think my dear husband has magical speaking abilities.

See, last weekend, when we were up working on our house-building project, he started us talking about this pile of leftoever concrete blocks we've been trying to get rid of.  Months ago, we posted on Craigslist, and a nice man agreed to take them.  He started the process of picking them up, but stopped maybe 2/3 of the way through, and about 5 weeks ago.  Also, he hadn't made it by to pay us yet.  So, we were left with this annoying obstacle we've dodged for, like, ever.  

The next day, the guy calls. He wants to come by to pay us, and he promises to take care of getting the rest of the blocks.  The cash is in our hands, and the promises to retrieve blocks seem hopeful.

Then, this Thursday night (while playing Rock Band, the most fabulous video game, EVER), my dear husband complains to our Rock Band-owning friend that the city has never followed through with our request for repair or replacement of our trash container.  As you can see, it has NO LID.  It used to have a lid, but it cracked one day, between the time we set it out and the time when we retrieved it after it was dumped.  Later, the crack became a split, and before long, the lid was all the way loose.  It persevered for a couple of weeks, but then one Friday, when the trash truck dumped our dumpster, it dumped the lid right into the trash truck.  Since then, our driveway has been smellier than usual.  It rained this weekend, too.
But, thanks to his magical speaking abilities, and my dear husband's complaints to friends, the nice folks from the city called Friday morning (the next day, you'll note), saying they'd be by Monday to repair or replace our container.

Now, if we could just get him to complain about bigger things.  Like this war in Iraq.  Or loss of civil liberties...

buying less, doing more good

I'm feeling called to use this year's Advent season as a time to challenge consumerism.

Not just to be a grinch, but because we need to remember that things are and are not good for: when they add beauty to the world, sustain life and build what I'd call God's kin-dom, things can be very good. More often, though, they distract me.

So, this year, I'm gonna try to give better gifts. I love to make things, so that's going up at the top of my list: things I can enjoy creating that others will find useful. (Using recycled materials would be even better, though I also have no problem with simply using up the containers of materials I've been accumulating and storing away...) I'm also keen on thinking of gifts that might help build relationships with other people--finding ways to give the gift of time together, and good things to do in that time. And, of course, giving "alternative Christmas" gifts--donations to worthy causes--in honor of people.

I think it's gonna be fun.

Wanna join me?

I was delighted by the Advent Conspiracy website (thanks for the tip-off, Er). I can jump on that bandwagon. Or, better, find my own solar- or human-energy powered vehicle to ride along that route. ;)

Buy less. Worship more. Give more. All that.

everything is connected

Somehow, everything is connected. My thoughts haven't all connected yet, today. See if you can follow a trail through this.

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First, I've been pondering a video I watched from leaders at Willow Creek Church. I often resent Willow Creek things, as I grow tired of hearing how we United Methodists can beat ourselves up because we're not like them. (As in, not drawing huge crowds. Not growing.) On bad days, I feel like we're about 15 years behind them--just now telling ourselves what we should do now that they tried back then.

So, I'm intrigued by these new questions they're raising today--about rethinking how we do church. They define the mission of their church much like the UMC's official mission: making disciples of Christ. They further definite that as helping people grow in love of God and in love of other people. (A pretty darn decent definition.) Their new realization is that all the programs of the church (worship, small groups, classes, caring programs, service opportunities) don't really help people grow in love of God and love of other people. In fact, the people who define their love of God and others as most central to their lives are least satisfied with church programs.

They're challenging us to definite discipleship as more than showing up at church. And our "job" as churches as more that putting splendid programs together.

Diana Butler Bass, whose work on the practices of our faith I've admired for quite a while, commented on this in a blog entry at Sojourners.

On good days, I'm aware that many of our old, tired "mainline" churches are still doing some of these things that really matter: allowing people to participate in growing a deep faith that will sustain and nourish them as their faith deepens. I hope we can hang on to that. Or find it anew. Maybe we can use it in partnership (even) with the Willow Creeks of the world.

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As a pastor, I feel really lucky to get to share moments of stirring honesty, reflection and hopefulness as I talk with folks willing to share their spiritual journeys with me. This week, I got to spend time with someone whose life and work I admire a whole lot--someone who really gets the "love God and love neighbor" thing. She's especially good at loving neighbors who are poor, and at choosing to offer herself to those who have suffered injustice.

She does this, though, separate from church. She's seen how churches can be. Her love of God, though, will not let her go, nor will her ever-growing love of neighbors.

And then I see people in my church--people who come regularly, and even have leadership. My heart breaks when I see them fall far short of the vision of divine love that's possible, and not even seem aware that they're missing out on anything.

I know, it's dangerous to judge. But this week, set next to these ideas from Willow Creek, I'm wondering how we fall so short in really giving the people who come to church a vision for the Kin-dom of God.

(I hear the words of one of our faculty members at the Youth Theology Institute back when I WAS a youth: "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger." And I want to figure out how to help.)

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Though I've never bought hamburger at the carniceria on the corner, I love their cow logo. It's detailed enough to feel elegant, and yet SO SIMPLE. It gives me pleasure as I turn onto my street.
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Just below it, though, is a "Water Center." Nowhere do I see as many "water centers" and water stores as in my poor neighborhood. It feels vaguely dirty to me that people are capitalizing on insecurities of water safety, in a neighborhood where so many immigrants come from places where there really is not safe drinking water in the tap or the well.
I want to live in a country where we know there is and will always be safe drinking water, readily available in taps in our homes and in drinking fountains on our streets and in our parks. I'm tired of the bottled water market telling us we need to buy plastic bottles of water. Too much plastic (and too much oil). To much transportation waste.

So I make a point of drinking from glasses filled straight from my tap, in my big kitchen window on the street. A witness for our water supply. And a prayer that we will invest in our increasingly dilapidated water system. Everyone should have access to safe drinking water.

promise and hope

Whew...what a week it has been. Watching from the sidelines as fires ravage your region is not something I'd wish on anyone. Such frustration--to see powerful destruction, and now that there is very little to be done to lessen its horror.

I kept experiencing the same frustration in others: a desire to do something to help, and an inability to find something that would feel sufficient. I went to the evacuation center at Qualcomm stadium--they were inundated with people wanting to help. And I marvel at how half a million people evacuated their homes, and found places to be. If Qualcomm held 10,000 of them, and felt like a massive operation, my mind reels at what 500,000 people seeking shelter there would look like. It seems incredible that so many people could find places to be--at evacuation centers, in their rv's in parking lots around the county, in hotels, and staying with friends and family. I like to imagine that the biggest number of people were imply absorbed (given shelter?) by extended family and friends. A vast informal network of people willing to provide hospitality and care to one another. A grassroots relief project that provided shelter on a massive scale, relying on people's basic decency toward one another...


In between my feelings of amazement and gratitude for how good people can be, though, I found myself braced for the possibility of loss. Our friend Mark lost his house--everything he owns, except for a duffel bag of clothes, his car, and the laptop he forgot at a friends' house. My thoughts are with him and so many others who've lost so much. Life, even.

We continue to spend much of our outside-of-work time up in Julian, building Matt's family's house that burned four years ago in the Cedar Fire. All that effort--the thought of losing it to fire again was, well, pretty crappy.

Thankfully, it did not burn again. And we got up there yesterday to do some more work--the power's back on, the water works, and the sky was blue. The autumn leaves are gorgeous. The neighbors even came by to say congratulations for making it through this one.

And, best of all, on the way home, we saw a rainbow. A big one, all across the sky to the east, over the desert. A double rainbow. And, it came with a gently sprinkling of rain. Promise and hope for my eyes and my tired, dry skin--how good it felt and looked! As if God was saying, "I know it's been hard. Just remember that you can never lose it all. And I will not destroy you completely. My promise is still here. You'll make it to a beautiful new possibilities, just ahead."

fires

San Diego is surrounded by wildfires today. The smoke and ash in the air, and the still quality in the street oddly and immediately evoke memories of four years ago this week, when the Cedar Fire raged through the county.

It feels strange to have been up in Julian all weekend, working at rebuilding our family house there, only to come down the mountain to relive the crisis of an overwhelming wildfire.

Not again.

This time, though, the fire spread into the city during the daytime--and having been through this as a city four years ago, everyone is less surprised by the power of the fire. So, we watch, riveted to the news as this fire causes evacuations of more and more communities. And burns more and more houses.

We're not close to the fire's imagined path (and neither is the half-built house in Julian), so the danger feels less personal, but the heaviness of fears seems to match the heaviness of the smoky air.

So, we pray, and share food, and take walkers from the church closet to the evacuation site and the stadium.

what the Bible tells us to love

It's been an exciting couple of days: an unexpected chance to see some of country radio's big names in concert, and a film about the Bible and homosexuality.

Sunday night, we went to see Brooks & Dunn AND Alan Jackson in concert. Every song was a top hit with lots of radio play--it was hours of sing-along fun. I love sentimental songs whose choruses include finding Jesus, drinking beer and wrecking cars. All in 2 lines. Really, it was fun--Boot Scootin' Boogie-ing, Chattahoochie-ing good times.

It helps that these 2 acts have the post-9/11 patriotic anthems I can most go along with. (And, we all know that a good country music concert has to feature 'em. Sometimes they make my stomach hurt bad.) Unfortunately, their staging and order reinforced what my good friend, Christian Left, was saying just the other day. In an encore that started with a gospel invitation to believe in something more than what we can see (and with a shout-out to red letter Christians), they followed this moving gospel number with (you guessed it) patriotism. And they used a song about USAmerica as a land of opportunity (a swell idea) as stage for a visual tribute to the Marines. As if the only thing better than believing in Jesus is America. And the real America is military America.

My Dear Husband, though he shared much of my complaints about the staging, said they had to do it so they could end on a rockin' number. Maybe Jesus could be last if his songs rocked more.

ANYHOW...

Tonight, my adventures in Jesus and America continued. Differently. I went to see "For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary about the Bible and how it's used to form our beliefs about homosexuality in USAmerica. It is playing here in SD this week. I went with some courageous and beautiful people who are trying to build a community of support for LGBT folks at a conservative Christian college in town.

It's always hard to watch reminders of the spiritual and physical violence done to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in the name of the Bible. It's been far too much, and far too destructive.

What made me cry, though, is the bold witness of families and parents who are being "church" much more daringly then most of our churches are. And the folks in the film certainly aren't the only ones: so many others are putting themselves out into the world as witnesses to a Gospel call to love.

I'm just worried, tonight, about how horrible the whole things looks from the outside.

We've gotten so easily deceived into believing that homophobia is a holy obligation--that it's the Christian expectation. Which makes we wonder how we're going to get beyond this. For a culture that finds religion more and more optional, and that may never have the kind of rich and formative experiences of being raised in a nurturing church community, I wonder what reason for joining a church community one would see.

I want to be a part of church communities that proclaim by demonstration a love that comes to everyone and changes the world.

The choice isn't whether or not there are going to be gay and lesbian people in the world. (There are.) We need to choose whether the church is going to be open to all children of God. And, eventually, we need to choose if we're going to be relevant to a world that loves its gay and lesbian sons/daughters/mothers/parents/brothers/neighbors/co-workers/teachers.

Or just look afraid, ignorant and hypocritical.

At least, that's what I'm thinking tonight.