I It Am

Today I forced myself to stop sending out resumes and leave the house.  Instead, I spent three glorious hours sunbathing, reading and exploring the irreplaceable Malcolm X Park.

I didn’t read any Julian of Norwich today, unfortunately, but somehow, I think this quote sums up the glory of the day, so I’ll post it, anyway:

Also, as truly as God is our Father, so as truly God is our Mother. And that he shows in all and namely in these sweet words, where he says, ‘I it am’. That is to say:

‘I it am,

the might and goodness of the Father;

I it am,

the wisdom and the kindness of the Mother;

I it am,

the light and the grace, that is all blessed love;

I it am, the Trinity;

I it am,

the Unity;

I it am,

the high sovereign goodness of all manner of things;

I it am,

that makes you to love;

I it am,

that makes you to long,

the endless fullness of all true desires’.

Love her.

Marriage Mayhem!

Once again, I’ve been slacking off on writing, and once again I have a host of very good reasons (travel, house guests, job searches, etc), but today I’ll let you in on one very special one.

Last month, my partner/best friend/comrade in arms/camp crush and I got engaged after 5 years of living together, 6 years of being a couple and 10 years of friendship (WOW!).

We move rather slowly, he and I.

Anyway, with all the excitement, calling up old friends, and starting in on wedding plans (sometimes, we move rather quickly!) writing 500-word musings on theology has been the absolute last thing on my mind.  I also feel that it’s only fair to warn you that with all these other things going on, the blog may stray from things theological to things wedding-related, at least until Alex and I break down and get a wedding blog (“are they really that cheesy?” you ask, the answer is “probably!”)

Here’s a brief rundown of the wedding-related thoughts that have been running through my (and our) heads lately:

• What does it mean to get married after 5 years living together?  How will our relationship change?  How do we want it to change and how do we want to make sure that it stays the same?
• What does it mean to get legally married when so many couples that we care about don’t have that right?  Is it right for us to even participate in that system, or should we be boycotting legal marriage until everyone can have it?  Or is there some way that we can use our wedding to promote marriage equality to our friends and family?
• If marriage is more than a legal contract, then what is it and how does it differ from what we’re already doing?  Or to put it a decidedly more Catholic way: what does it mean when we say marriage is a sacrament?
• Why is it so hard to find a bible quote for our wedding that doesn’t treat me like property?  How do I as a Christian reconcile with what that says about our cultural baggage around marriage?
• Why do I believe in marriage, anyway, in spite of that cultural baggage?
• How much do we really want to give in to the Wedding Industrial Complex?  Hell, how much can we afford to?!
• Oh my God, the guest list is already sooooooo long! (see above)
• How does marrying Alex affect my identities as a feminist?  As queer?  As a Catholic?  As someone who generally doesn’t have a clue about what she wants to do with her life but just has this certainty that she wants this person on the journey with her?
• West coast or east coast wedding?
• I want to wear a sign on my wedding dress that says “This white dress symbolizes my call to the priesthood through baptism and is worn to signify the sacramental nature of this occasion.  It has nothing to do with antiquated concepts of virginity and you should really gain a more advanced knowledge of religious and cultural traditions, jerk.”
• Does this mean we’re actually grown ups?!

In spite of the never-ending questions, I feel very, very lucky.

Professional Hearer of Stories

As some of you know, I recently moved on from FCNL, where I had worked for a year and a half.  I got a new job a month ago and decided that it’s finally time to write a little about it here.

One of the reasons that I have been avoiding writing about it is because I’m unsure about how to.  I’ve been working part-time at a transitional home for formerly homeless women and while I have lots (and lots!) of thoughts about my work, I’ve been unsure about how to express them in a way that honors the women I serve, keeps confidentiality and is generally respectful of the process as a whole.

In the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time comparing my new job to my old job.  There are so many differences: unconventional work hours, getting to wear t-shirts to work, hourly vs. salaried pay.  But lately, what I’ve been thinking about the most are the similarities.

At the heart of both jobs lies hearing other’s stories.  When I was doing grassroots organizing and field outreach, I was always amazed by how much listening was involved in that work.  “I got involved in environmental advocacy,” an old man would say “after my wife died of cancer.”  “I really want my church to do anti-war work,” a young woman would say, “but we have a lot of soldiers over in Iraq…”  People’s passions for social justice were so tied into their stories and identities and lives.  And I couldn’t adequately give them tools to express those passions without hearing those stories.

And at my new job, I find that it’s pretty much the same.  When I look at my job description, there are a lot of tangibles: “help volunteers,” “distribute supplies,” “keep order!” but more and more I’m finding those tangibles to be venues for reaching the intangibles: “sit with others,” “show concern,” “hear stories.”

In a weird way it reminds me of that Buddhist joke: “don’t just do something!  sit there!”  I wonder how many of the actions we perform to serve others (teaching, serving dinner, writing legislative outreach materials) are actually just venues for hearing their stories, hoping that they will hear our own and acknowledging our shared humanity.

the impoverished power that sets the soul free

Workin’ instead of churchin’ today.  But still loving the readings this week.

The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

And just incase that wasn’t clear enough…

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.

And to think of how often I go around living life like nothing has changed.  As if everything hasn’t been turned on it’s head.

8 years and an ocean away

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Alex asked if he could look through my India pictures.  “I like learning about who you were before we were together,” he said.  That was the first time I could remember him asking to see them and easily the first time either of us had looked at them in three years.  We sat on the futon and I showed him the Taj Mahal and my apartment in Delhi and the mighty Ganges.

“This is Jaipur,” I said, “I went here my second weekend in India.  I can remember that because it was the weekend after September 11th.”

“So,” he said, “you were here exactly eight years ago.”

September, and those dual milestones, snuck up on me this year.  But for some reason, being reminded of it in that way last night made the significance of the anniversary stick with me more today than usual.

Most times, I’m so focused on trying to remember September 11th the way that most of my friends and family seem to that I forget my own, personal memories of fear, grief and anger.  Looking through my India pictures made my personal memories much more real.

The India memory that has stuck with me the most today was something that one of my housemates in Delhi said as we were watching the planes fly into the towers.  She had immigrated to the US from Northern Ireland and at one point that night said to us “This is so awful.  I moved from Northern Ireland to get away from this.  Now we’re going to have this fear with us everywhere we go.”

I didn’t realize what she meant at the time, but in the coming months and years, I would think of her words when I rode an airplane or had to get my bag checked to enter an ammusement park.  I thought of her words again when I went to Northern Ireland five years later and saw how the people there are so defiantly trying to overcome that same lingering fear.  I hope that they (and we) will find that while perhaps nothing can give us back our innocence that doesn’t have to mean that we’re doomed to an eternity of fearfulness.

The Cure At Troy

By: Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.

Liberation.

My housemate asked me to define Liberation Theology.

I stumbled and muttered over my words for a long time.  How could I give a definition that encompassed Latin American Liberation Theology, Black Liberation Theology, Queer, Feminist, Islamic…

I started giving a rather incoherant (and probably inaccurate) historical background starting with 1970’s Jesuits & Maryknolls.  Then, I got caught up in what a problematic place to start that was, and gave up on the historical view.

I finally settled with this definition: “Liberation Theology is this idea that God’s on the side of the oppressed, and not on the side of those structures which aid in our oppression.”

Which, really, includes any theology that’s worth it’s salt.

Who, me?!

Here’s a little gem from today’s readings:

Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
who comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
who comes to save you.

Reassuring, I think.  Also, today that seems surprisingly… true.

Role Models

It’s important to have role models.  One thing that I’m realizing as I discern entrance into more formal ministry is that as a Catholic woman I don’t always have access to role models that reflect me, and that can make it hard to envision my future and life calling.  One of my hopes for this year is that I will spend time more actively seeking out role models, as well as getting to know better the ones that are already there.  Here are a few ways that I am seeking out role models and plans that I have for continuing that important work:

• Get to know more nuns! I adore nuns and can already count a few who have been instrumental in forming the person that I have become.  Granted, the nun life isn’t for me, but it’s a life that I highly respect.  I also feel that I can learn a lot from strong Catholic women who have made a commitment to serving God, but whose individual ministries are all so diverse.  I know nuns that are psychologists, lobbyists, professors, chaplains and spiritual directors and I love how open sisters are to diverse forms of vocation.  I feel like that kind of openness can be very helpful for me as I reflect on what shape my future ministry could take.
• Get to know more (male) priests! Similarly to nuns, I have already had some wonderful male priests in my life that have been hugely responsible for getting me to think about ministry.  While their level of access to the institutional church is greater than mine due to their maleness, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a whole lot that I can learn from them about living out God’s call.  Of course, as I contemplate the possibility of ordination, getting to know women priests has been an important part of laying out my options, but I wholeheartedly believe that I can’t fully contemplate the priesthood without getting to know the rich history of male priests’ role in the institutional church.
• Talk to laypeople about their roles as ministers. Of course, through baptism we’ve all been made priests, and too often the ministry of layfolk is seen as secondary to the ministry of priests and nuns.  In that sense, I’m already a lay minister and I will continue to be unless I decide to go the woman priest route (that’s a whole other post right there!).  It’s important for me to spend time with strong, female lay leaders as I make decisions about my future.  In particular, I want to continue getting to know more strong laywomen in the Catholic Worker and New Monastic movements, who continue to be inspirations to me as they live the gospel.
• Continue my work with Women’s Ordination Conference. One of the most exciting things about getting to work with WOC, has been getting to meet so many powerful, likeminded, female Catholic leaders.  My work with WOC gives me a wonderful opportunity to know laywomen ministers, nuns and women priests, which is particularly useful as I discern different options for my journey.
• Seek out ordained women ministers from other religious traditions. Thanks to my partner, Alex, I have access to some wonderful UU women ministers.  I can’t overstate how important it has been for me to see women leading congregations as a normal, every day occurance.  It is important for me to form relationships with ordained women ministers (from diverse religious backgrounds) here in DC to serve as role models.
• Read the blogs of different female ministers. I’ve been getting into reading blogs of different female ministers.  This is an easy way for me to get to see what women ministers are doing and hear about the blessings/challenges of their work.  Some of my favorite blogs of women ministers so far are Sarcastic Lutheran, Talk with the Preacher and (the unfortunately now defunct) Star Light Ministries.  I’m also a big fan of nun blogs, including the wonderful A Nun’s Life.
• Get into RevGalBlogPals! As you may have noticed from the comments on my last post, I recently joined a blog circle for women pursuing/discerning ministry.  Hopefully, this will be a way to introduce me to new women ministers, reflect on diverse styles of ministry and get much needed feedback on my journey.  This will also hopefully make my blog posting more regular!

Anyway, those are my ‘role model’ goals for right now.  Is there anything else that I should put on this list?

(PS: In light of a few more people reading this blog than used to, I decided to take this opportunity to flesh out my ‘About‘ page.  Now, I fear that it’s too long, but feel free to check it out if you are curious about any other background info on me.)

Jesus: 1; Hygiene: 0!

(Or: cleanliness doesn’t mean what you think it means!)

Here’s little gem from today’s readings:

“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.”

Don’t tell your five year old, but it turns out that goodness is rather gritty.

Church of the Urban Garden

Yesterday, Alex and I both played hookie from church.  Now that neither of us have a regular 9-5 job anymore, it turns out that 8:15 is awfully early to wake up on a Sunday.  After we finally got out of bed, we decided that this was as good of a time as any to attend what I lovingly call Church of the Urban Garden in our front yard.

Like most of our urban homesteading projects (cooking, cheese making, beer making) my partner Alex is the real mastermind and I am the very enthusiastic worker bee.  After being disappointed by our “learning garden” last year, Alex spent all winter pouring over books and farmers almanacs and organic gardening websites to discover how we could improve upon our garden.  I, on the other hand, get painfully bored even thinking about gardening books.  For me, gardening is a welcome escape from the world of computers, books and how-to manuals.  So while he meticulously lays out where each vegetable will get it’s optimal amount of sun and worries about the PH balance of our compost, I am usually quite happy to weed where he tells me to weed and plant where he tells me to plant.

In fact, yesterday, there was a lot of weeding to do, as we cleared out old rows of summer plants and got ready to plant things for the fall.  That was fine with me, as I find weeding to be second only to chopping vegetables as a supremely meditative activity.  I first discovered the meditative quality of food preparation while interning at the LA Catholic Worker, and I find pulling weeds to be equally quieting.  Yesterday morning was the best “me” time I’d had in ages, in spite of my unfortunate choice of an ant hill as a place to temporarily sit down (for hours afterward, my entire lower half felt like it was on fire!)  Maybe that’s why I’ve been reluctant to become more of an ‘expert’ gardener or cook.  I don’t want to have to waste my food prep time actually thinking about anything.

Who knew homemade compost could be so beautiful?!

When I volunteered at the LA and DC Catholic Workers, I was always in awe of their ability to take food that had been thrown out by restaurants and grocery stores and turn it into balanced, delicious meals for dozens (sometimes hundreds!) of people.  Likewise, I am bursting with pride over our little garden and how we have taken what was a neglected, sandy, trash-filled plot of land and turned it into a real, food producing vegetable garden, using food scraps turned into compost, careful tending and a belief in small miracles.  It never ceases to amaze me how Jesus’ loaves and fishes miracle is still at work in so many little corners of communities.

Nothing makes me happier than being able to show our four year old neighbor how tomatoes grow, or letting him help us weed.  It’s great to have the elderly couple next door compliment our okra as they go on their evening walk, or have our neighbor (who was originally a bit skeptical about a vegetable garden) ask for our advice on fertilizers

In the end, we had cleared three rows, planted a row of cauliflower and brought in a huge collection of kale, carrots, beets, okra, cucumbers and one absolutely monstrous zucchini!  It looked pretty satisfying (and intimidating!) seeing all of the food that we grew ourselves laid out in our kitchen like that.  We ended up pickling the beets, cucumbers and half of the carrots, and the okra always get used somehow.  But if you know of any good giant zucchini recipes, or know someone who wants a half dozen carrots, let us know.  We can only convince the neighborhood kids to carry home so many of them!

Now, to go find more aloe for my poor legs…