I believe in God even when God is silent.

I am up late and can't sleep because tomorrow morning, I go into a pulpit to preach the gospel.

I've been in a pulpit before.  Not often, but a couple times.  One of those times was at this church, and while I will be preaching there often in this upcoming year, I don't know the community yet, and the worry isn't "will they like me?" or "will it be too much?", it's "how do I reach these specific people?  What words will communicate this to them?"

But I'm awake more, now, because... tomorrow I am one of the people preaching the good news.  In a week where there has been very little.

I remember a time in undergrad when I realized I was an optimist, that I had always seen and acknowledged how terrible the word is, but have this persistent hope that wouldn't go away that things would get better.

But I'd like to revise that.  It's more accurate for me to say, not that I'm an optimist, but that I'm a Christian.

I'm a Christian--it means I am called to work until the day when things get better.
It means I am to pray without ceasing.
It means I am to be the burr that sticks to God and won't go away.
It means I am to be the thorn in God's side.
It means I am to scream and shout at God until my throat is raw and then... keep shouting.
It means I am to fight and wrestle with God until it is on Earth as it is in Heaven.
It means I am to plot against evil by whispering of what might be and will be and how we can make it be by sewing the seeds of its undoing.

And the good news is not easy.  Sometimes, it does not comfort.  Often, it disturbs and confuses.  But it is good.  And it is important.  And I know of no better way for me to spend my life.

And Own that Love is Heaven: Why I Am Leaving the United Methodist Church

Today, I complete the process of joining the Presbyterian Church (USA), by transfer of membership from the United Methodist Church.

This process of denominational discernment has spanned several years, shadowed my seminary applications and hung over me with a weighty inevitability.  I am a fan of denominations, because of how they focus on different aspects of Christianity, the nature of God and Christ, and the role of Christians in the world.  I think it's a good idea to experience many different denominations to experience these different perspectives.  I sometimes joke that I am a Reformed Methobaptipiscoterian, having spent significant time with Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Reformed Church in America traditions.  But as seminary moved closer, I knew I would have to chose the denomination that I might be ordained in (if I choose to pursue ordination), and it came down to a choice between Methodist and Presbyterian.  I joined a Methodist church when my mother started working there when I was in 2nd grade, was confirmed Methodist, attended that church every week through high school, served on committees, and am still an active presence whenever I find myself in Virginia.  Even before attending a Presbyterian seminary (which Princeton is), I spent three summers working at Montreat Conference Center on the AV crew, and everything about constantly being around every conference at Montreat for three summers will give you a crash course in both the theology and the church life of Presbyterians.

I love both of these traditions.  (There are parts of every denomination I've been involved in that I love.)  I admit a favor towards the governmental structure of the Presbyterian church, but that's not a deal-breaker.  I am split on their theologies--I love both of them, and when they contradict each other, I love them both, so that's something I would have to deal with no matter which I chose.  The Methodist ordination process has slightly fewer hoops to jump through than the Presbyterian process, though that's not saying much.  There were two main issues that caused me to make the switch.  One was a practical one having to do with the vocational structure of each church and which one I felt my calling best fitting with.  Most people in the world don't particularly care about elder/deacon differences and sacramental restrictions so I will spare you the details and say that the Presbyterian Church's structure allows me the flexibility that I think is necessary for what God is calling me to do.  And frankly, that was the realization that made me say, "Ok, I'm choosing the Presbyterian Church," (and then immediately wonder if that had been predestined anyway, thanks, Calvin.)

The other issue was the issue of sexuality.  I most technically identify as "pansexual", which means I am attracted to people of all genders; cismale, cisfemale, trans women and men, people outside the gender binary, all of it.  My attraction to people includes but is not limited to or by their gender.  Most of my romantic relationships have been with other women.  My own gender presentation is more androgynous than most.  The United Methodist Church does not ordain "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals", which would mean that if I were ordained in the UMC, I would either have to abstain from relationships with other women, or return to the closet and hide a relationship from the church.  The latter does not sit well with me at all, but I did consider abstention and fighting that battle from within the church.  (This is not an uncommon struggle for queer Methodists--I had this exact conversation with someone on one of my seminary visits.)  Thanks to Amendment 10-A, approved by the PC(USA) in 2010, I could be ordained in the PC(USA) without denying or hiding my sexuality. And while the vocational structure made my decision for me so that I did not have to make that pretty awful decision about my sexuality, in the months between my decision to go to the PC(USA) and now, a lot of events have happened in the United Methodist Church regarding the church's stance on homosexuality (particularly same sex marriage), that have solidified this decision.  (Events such as: the trial and defrocking of Rev. Frank Schaefer for officiating the same-sex wedding of his son, the Council of Bishops requesting a complaint against Bishop Talbert for officiating a same-sex union, and the upcoming trial of  Rev. Ogletree for officiating the same sex-wedding of his son.)

I have spent a lot of time talking to my friends outside the church, many of whom are not heterosexual, about the people I have met in the church who are supportive and welcoming (and I know would happily marry me to another woman, despite anything the denomination says!), even when the official church structures are not.  I have talked about movements of change within the church and how we can help move them along.  I have worked to stay positive about all of this for so long, I think to both inspire hope and collaboration, but also stop myself from dealing with the pain I have felt as a queer Christian.  It has only been recently, as I've prepared for the transfer of membership, that I have acknowledged the depths of that hurt.  So now I would like to take a moment to speak from that place, explaining why I, as a queer Christian, am leaving the United Methodist Church.  (I am also joining the Presbyterian Church, it's not just "the other option", for me, but this particular blog is focusing on the UMC.)

I talk about all of the difficulty of being non-heterosexual and Christian, but I also have to say: I had the best church upbringing that a queer Christian could possibly have.  I had parents who immediately accepted me when I came out. I came out to my pastor early on and she didn't bat an eye.  I was born into a church whose pastor preached a sermon on homosexuality in the early 90's that could have gotten him fired, and is still one of the best I've heard on the subject.  I grew up in a church that had frank conversations about homosexuality and didn't all agree but we wrestled with the issue together, a church that prayed for the partner of one of our members when he started facing serious medical issues.  I came out to my youth group when two girls heard me on the phone and asked if I'd been talking with my boyfriend.  When I told them I was talking to my girlfriend, they squealed and asked me for all the details of who she was, how we met, how long we'd been dating--all the questions they would have asked if I had said, "Yes, that was my boyfriend."  When I moved away I went to an Episcopal church where sexuality was a non-issue, and later to a politically active church with a very strong LGBT presence and mission of inclusion, with whom I marched in the NYC Pride Parade.  I have known so many incredible, supportive, loving and accepting people within the church and I am DEEPLY grateful for all of them, because without their witness to the love of Christ, I probably would no longer be a Christian. (And I will ALWAYS tell of these incredible Christians and thank God for them and the work they continue to do towards the Kingdom.)

And yet, even with all of this, I still feel like an outsider.  I still feel deeply hurt every time the United Methodist Church puts someone on trial for officiating a same sex marriage.  Even harder for me to stomach is this barring of ordination to all "self-avowed practicing homosexuals".  I could be top of my class at seminary, I could have glowing recommendations from all of my field education supervisors, and if I was allowed to, I might move through the ordination process with flying colors, and yet I could not be ordained, which says to me, "You will never be good enough."  Our journey toward perfection ended before it even began.  We are not a part of the hope that all other members of the United Methodist Church are joined in.  You cannot even say that homosexuality is equal to any other sin, because while expectations for clergy are outlined in the same section of the Book of Discipline, the only specific barring from ordained ministry in the UMC held within Chapter Two, Section One of the Book of Discipline is the injunction against homosexuality.

And it grates on me so much because, I think, yes, scripture is tricky on this subject.  Scripture is complicated and unclear and disputed in regards to this issue, as it is in regards to other modern social issues, such as the role of women in the leadership of the church.  And that is why our decision-making process in the United Methodist Church is not solely based on scripture.  It is based in scripture, reason, tradition, and experience, and there is little talk about experience in this debate.  There is little talk about the experience of same gender, loving relationships.  If we understand, as most of us do now (even the Catholic church has adopted this position), that sexual orientation is a genetic phenomenon, built into our bodies, why aren't we talking about how God is seen in healthy, same-sex relationships, that fulfill both physical and spiritual needs, like healthy heterosexual relationships do?  It is that experience that makes sexual orientation different than genetic predispositions for things such as addiction, or the chemical imbalances that are cause for depression.  Homosexuality is not an illness.  And while I agree that we are predisposed towards sin (I am joining the Reformed tradition, after all), I find it extremely hard to believe that God would so severely weaken this part of creation, condemning people to loneliness, either through a solitary life or through a relationship they cannot fully connect to.  And I had hoped that our Methodist tradition would give us the tools to understand this.

Instead, queer Methodists are left to face the most popular form of hatred: the "love the sinner, hate the sin" argument.  "Love the sinner, hate the sin" in the context of homosexuality is a cop-out, it is a way to disengage, keep your hands clean, and pretend like you have taken a loving position instead of what it actually is: a position of condescension and hatred.  Once again: sexuality is not a choice.  Therefore, when you say, "love the sinner, hate the sin," in this context, you are saying, "I love you, but I hate this major part of your natural identity."  By denying same-sex marriage rights, you're saying, "I love you, but I don't think you should have the same kind of fulfilling relationship that I, as a heterosexual person, get to have."  By supporting civil unions but not marriage, you're saying, "I love you, and I believe all things should be equal under the law, but not in the sight of God."  By denying queer persons ordination, you're saying, "I love you, but you are not worthy enough to lead us."  It creates a hierarchy in the body of Christ that was never intended to be there.  None of those statements feel like love to me, and if it is love, I want nothing to do with it.

It is OKAY to be confused.  It is OKAY to have mixed feelings.  It is OKAY not to know, and admit that and say, "Through all of this, I am going to love this person."  But love does not disengage, which is what "love the sinner, hate the sin" allows.  It allows someone to sit back in a comfortable, impossible position and insist that they are not perpetuating the hurt against the people they claim they love, when, in fact, they are.

So we leave.  Because it is clear that we are not wanted, and the overwhelming message is that God's grace does not extend to us.  There are a few queer churches, and LGBT groups in every denomination, but we don't have our own movement, because when we looked for the love of God we found hate.  We have been denied marriage, we have been denied ordination, and at times we have been denied church membership, and even communion.

We have been denied grace.

Growing up Methodist means learning all about God's grace.  The prevenient grace that surrounded us before we even had an inkling of Christ's life, death and resurrection; the justifying grace that bursts in and brings us new life as we accept God into our hearts, and the sanctifying grace that continues its work all the days of our lives, transforming us and moving us forward towards perfection in God.  It is the backbone of our identity as Methodists, and one of the things I love the most about Wesleyan theology.  But it is so hard to hear people talk about grace, plenteous grace, grace that covers all our sins, and then hear that the ONLY sin that keeps us from full participation and rights in the church is this "sin", that is built into our bodies.  We are the unforgivable sin.  We are the sin that grace doesn't cover.  We are incompatible with Christian teaching.

The only thing that is truly incompatible with Christ's teaching is making any person feel unworthy of love and grace.  Now that I am in seminary, it is more likely that I will work in an official capacity in whatever denomination I am a member of.  I recognize that the United Methodist Church is a global church, and that means it ends up becoming more socially conservative than national churches such as the PC(USA), and even that the tides might change if it was just North America voting on these issues.  But the fact is, there is a large part of the United Methodist Church that upholds the current official church positions, and the treatment of LGBT representatives at the last General Conference was discouraging at best, and devastating at worst, for queer Methodists across the globe.  I cannot in good conscience continue to align myself with that.  And it's NOT that the PC(USA) is perfect.  It still does not officially support same-sex marriage, though we hope to make major strides forward on that front at General Assembly this summer.  But the PC(USA) is willing and interested in having these conversations in way that the United Methodist Church is not.  The PC(USA) has, as an organization, showed me the love of Christ when I realized the UMC policy of "open hearts, open minds, open doors," did not apply to me.

Some could say, and some have said, that I am taking the coward's way out.  Fair enough.  It's impossible for me to overstate how much respect I have for all the LGBT persons who are staying within the United Methodist Church and fighting for change.  But that is not the battle I feel that God is calling me to fight.  To be sure, there are battles up ahead for me, and pretty much all of them have to do with inclusion; but I think it's inclusion for those even more on the outside of the church, those who are not like me, and that mission cannot wait for the years it would take for me to fight to even be allowed to speak.  It is not that one calling is more important than the other.  It is that there is a lot of work God has for us to do, so we are sent different places for different parts of that work.

And we are the testaments to the work of God's that needs to be done in the world.  Because, if there's anything the church's treatment of us has taught us, it's that we are the dogs who eat the crumbs from the master's table.  We are not the ones who were first on the guest list, but we came when the doors were thrown open to all.  We are the stones that were called upon to sing when the crowds fell silent, and we will continue to sing the song of God's radical love and grace until the the song is so loud that Christ is found on the earth again.

It's our heads on the block.

I don't normally do posts targeted to one specific group of people, but right now I feel the need to.  This is a blog post for my fellow first-semester seminarians here at Princeton, as we round the end of reading week and move into finals.

I am making a specific blog post because I have had the joy of getting to know some of you incredible people in the past three months, and I am so grateful you are in my life.  Seriously.  I think seminary is a particularly interesting grad school experience because we all come from such different walks of life, with completely different backgrounds and experiences and stories.  We are different ages, we are from all over the world, we come from all different undergraduate degrees and careers, with extremely varied religious history.  The stories of yours that I have had the privilege to listen to have been inspiring and beautiful.  And in all the differences of these stories, there seems to be one common thread:

We all sacrificed something to come here.

For some, it was money.  People who gave up thriving businesses and secure jobs to start a journey on the financial tightrope that is going into ministry.  For some, it was a sense of home and rootedness.  People who moved across the country or across the world to home here and still feel adrift without their friends and family by their side.  For some, it was their community.  People who were in communities that didn't supper their choice to go to Princeton, to go to seminary, or even to enter into ministry at all.  For some, it was lifelong dreams and plans.  People who had aspirations and ideas for how their life would go, before it took a jarring left turn that  dropped them off abruptly on a small campus in New Jersey.

Every story I've heard has a moment where I discover the courage it took for the person to come here and I am astounded at the bravery of this class.

And I do not think there can be anything more discouraging than making such a sacrifice in order to follow God's call, and then feeling the discouragement, displacement, and despair that many of us are facing right now.  The feeling that this isn't going anywhere.  The feeling that we are not supposed to be here.  The feeling that we have squandered the gifts we have been given.  The feeling that we were completely wrong about what those gifts were in the first place.  The feeling that after finals everyone will know that we're a fraud.  The feeling of calling out to God night after night after night and hearing nothing.  The feeling of frustration at vocab words that will not stick in our brains or outlines that seem pointless, and the panic that if we can't get it all done, our future at the school and maybe even in ministry is over.

It is awful and it is coming to many of us no matter what angle we come from.  Whether we have a religious studies background and feel like we should be doing far better than we are.  Whether we're second or third career students with degrees and experience in finances, computers, theater, business, and have never had to fit into an academic mold like this one and have been out of it for years.

And for those of us taking the more standard intro courses, it is frustrating because we are trying to cram so much sheer information into our brains.  We feel like we're just regurgitating, and we are trying to figure out what the teachers want us to do so we can get the magical "right" answer and live another day here, as opposed to truly figuring out how to apply this to our lives and ministry.  And we are told from those who have gone through this that "it gets better" and we hope that they're right, that once we're able to focus in on what is interesting to us that we will find that passion that we lost, but also we find it hard to trust in that hope when, for many of us, that flexibility doesn't come into our schedules until next fall.

So here's the thing I have to say for us, now:

This is not our teachers' education.  This is our education.

Ultimately, this is not about these finals.  This is not about our grades.

This is about our ministry.

I know, it's hard, when we are shaking with fear that we'll fail.  Our midterms this semester were the first time I ever deeply worried about failing a test and that fear sat in my stomach like the worst sickness I've ever had.  It was awful.  But more awful is having that fear combined with the feeling that there is no point beyond this test.

I know for those of us on the younger side of things, who grew up with standardized testing and a very strong focus on "get straight A's so you can get into the best school possible", it's EXTREMELY.  DIFFICULT.  to focus ourselves away from the grades and the expectations from others (but more from ourselves) on this letter or number.  We have been trained for almost all of our cognizant lives to fulfill assignments, and if we're here at Princeton, we're good at it.

But your grade is not an assessment of who you are as a person or as a minister.  Your grade is an assessment of your ability to complete a certain test or assignment as decided by one or maybe two people.

That's all it is.  We just think it's more because it is given power.

Here's the deal, my totally depraved friends: NONE of us are perfect.  No one can deserve to be here, no one can claim righteousness.  But I do believe that all of us are supposed to be here, because we are here. That is grace. The grace of God is all we have to lean on.  Even if we do leave, even if we do decide that this isn't the best place or way for us to respond to God's call, God is at work in us now.  God is using this experience to mold us, the potter always responding to the clay and shaping it.

The fact that none of us are or ever will be worthy or prepared and are here only by the grace of God frees us from worrying about being something we're not.  But if you're in church history with me you'll know that I'm not THAT Augustinian, and I think we are faced with a task: to get what we need for ministry out of this education.

Those needs will be different for each of us, and I think that we'll be fine at picking out classes that suit our needs, but the hardest part of that is what we're facing right now: how to we get what we need out of classes that we didn't pick and often require us to learn in ways that aren't natural for us?

We are called to wrestle with these classes, and yes, these finals, like Jacob wrestled with the angel, screaming in their ear, "I will not let you go until you bless me."  We are called to find the relevance, so that the memorization, while still rigorous and hard, isn't an isolated experience that will quickly be forgotten, but something that enters in us and informs our further study and work.

How memorizing outlines can be about knowing approximately where to go in the Bible to find the verse to use when faced with a person in need.

How struggling though Anselm and Aquinas can help us show the critically thinking person who is on the brink of leaving the church because they think there is no room for them in the church that there is a place for them and their mind.

How Hadewjich can offer solace to someone who has just had an experience of God they have no words to understand or communicate.

How knowing the movement of tribes and geography in the Ancient Middle East can shed light on the political issues still plaguing that area.

I'm not saying to ignore the test.  I'm saying USE the test.  I'm saying that if they tell us we have to know this information, our job is to figure out why we need to know this information.  Why it is relevant to our lives.  Because in doing that, we are not passively having education happening to us, but rather, we are self-educating.  We are not ruled by the school - we are using it as a resource.  And we might feel a little less lost, or less like we're wasting our time, and it might even be a little bit easier to remember, because it is OURS.

"Let a student enter the school with this advice: No matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands.  All education must be self-education.  … A school should be an offering of opportunity, not a direction, and the student should know that the school will be good for him only to the degree that he makes it good.  It is a field for activity where he will see much, hear much and where he must be a judge, selecting for his special need, and daily discovering his need. … The man who goes into a school to educate himself and not to be educated will get somewhere." - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit (sorry about masculine pronouns, seminarians.)

And of course, we will fall short of this. I know I fall short of it every day.  We will fall short of everything we ever do, which makes the miracle of God's grace shine that much brighter.  We are, as Mandela said, "sinners who keep trying".  Let's be honest… I'm not going to remember all of these outlines even a few weeks from now.  (Except Genesis.  I've totally got Genesis.)  But the work I put into them will continue to inform me.  Nyame adom, it will.

We are all going to get through this.  Whether it works out the way we want it to or not.  God is bigger than all of it.  God uses whatever happens--that is the glory of Divine Sovereignty.  And as I look through my Facebook feed and see such extraordinarily honest statuses and reflections of our various states of frustration, depression, hopelessness, and fear (which also warms my heart from the sheer honesty that brings us closer), I wish the universe was a Proverbs claims it to be, with wisdom that WANTS me to succeed and a clear path.  But it so often is closer to Ecclesiastes or Job.  There will be a flash of understanding where everything seems clear and then darkness, and that moment of light only seems to serve to make the darkness darker.  God will seem like the absent God of the psalms of lament, or the abusive God of Jeremiah.  But even in the depths of Job's anger and frustration and confusion, the other side of the truth is told:

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
   and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
   then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
   My heart faints within me!

Thanks be to God.

Countless gifts of love.

There are many things I have to be thankful for, and one post and one day is not enough.  But today, the day after the day after Thanksgiving, this list of things I am particularly thankful for at this moment will have to suffice.

For being here at Princeton Theological Seminary.
When applied for undergrad, it was a straight-shot.  I knew I wanted a program that offered a four-year directing track/the option to apply as a director (as opposed to the popular model of “go for acting or arts management for two years and then apply to maybe be in the directing program”).  This narrowed down my options to about three schools.  From there I obsessively looked over their programs, and by the beginning of my junior year of high school had decided that NYU/PHTS was the program for me.  I applied early decision, I got in, I went.

The seminary decision was not as straightforward.  I started with a pretty clear first choice, but tried to stay open with my options.  I visited almost all the schools I applied to.  I worked very hard not to make decisions before I had all the information.  Which allowed something really funny to happen:

1. Princeton snuck its way onto my application list.  It was not a place I was particularly interested in before the application process started.  I think it ended up on the list because I thought I should apply to at least one Presbyterian seminary, and I KNEW I didn’t want to apply to Union in Richmond or to Columbia, and it was nearby so I could go out and see it.  I had mic’ed one Princeton professor the summer before my application process started who invited me out to see the school.  Partially, I think Princeton ended up on my list because I felt like I should be applying to more schools.
2. I visited Princeton by way one of their seminars where they invite prospective students to stay on campus for a few days, and by the end of the first day, I hated it. I could not see myself at the school at all, it seemed way too rigid and traditional and conservative.  I was ready to move to Atlanta before going to Princeton.
3. As I stuck it out with Princeton on that visit, the change was 180 degrees.  I began to see that the reason I was uncomfortable at Princeton was because it was challenging me in ways that I hadn’t been, and needed to be.  I saw that my gifts would be particularly valued there because I bring a unique voice (some of my other schools had a lot more students with arts backgrounds).

And somehow this school that snuck its way onto my list, that I didn’t care about for most of my time looking at seminary, is the school I’m now enrolled in.  Through all of the wild, tumultuous journey that is seminary (please see last post), one thing that has been made extraordinarily clear is that this is where I am meant to be.  If I wasn’t meant to be here, it wouldn’t be as hard.

For my theater education.
Let me make one thing clear: it is incredibly intimidating starting an academic grad school program with very little experience in higher-education academia.  While an MDiv, the degree I am getting at seminary, is designed for people going into the ministry and therefore has some practical aspects as well, it is a very academically rigorous degree.  On the opposite end, while my BFA in Drama did include some academic elements, most of my time was geared towards practical application.  Our papers were not rigorous.  Princeton, on the other hand, is a popular seminary for people to go to if they are planning on continuing into PhD work, and there is a completely different set of expectations.  While I knew that the theater training would be essential to my further education, I wasn’t entirely sure how it would play in outside of the obvious: speech class.

Answer: the theater training has been vital in every. Single. Aspect. Of my being at seminary.  From social interactions to class discussions to memorizing for tests to helping me deal with the emotional rollercoaster that is seminary to, yes, even papers.  There will be more about how it has helped in upcoming blogs, but I am starting to make connections to how the basics of my theater directing/design/collaboration background are vital to whatever path I travel in ministry in the future.  The undergraduate program I was in has changed to the point where I can no longer endorse it, which makes me even more grateful I was in that program when I was.

For Montreat.
OK, so I knew that going to a Presbyterian seminary meant that my Montreat time would serve me well.  And indeed—as someone who was not raised in the Reformed tradition, the jumpstart into Reformed thought and theology that pervaded my time there has been very helpful.  And indeed—there is starting to be a running joke on campus about the fact that I have mic’ed … everyone, because people I’ve mic’ed often come by Princeton as guest lecturers, or even work here.  (Next year I get to deal with the fact that I’ve mic’ed my preaching professor.)  But beyond that, I am grateful at the relationships that Montreat has placed in my life, for the people I’ve met, and for my continuing relationship with that place.  Last summer I got to be down there as a small group leader, this summer I’m doing something else down there, and I’m realizing that Montreat has truly become a place where I get to grow up—it is a place where I am always welcome, a place that allows me to grow and experiment and apply what I’m thinking and learning, and always to serve it in new and exciting ways, and I am truly blessed to have such a place in my life.

For my really fabulously supportive friends.
I went back into NYC for Thanksgiving, with my theater friends from the past six years of my life, in our joyous celebration where somehow we gather together comfortably in apartments that are totally too small and laughable kitchens but somehow we all make really amazing food and take a bedroom door off its hinges to make a dining room table and drink and laugh and feast and celebrate.  Coming back to this group has been delightful, and while there might have been a secret drinking game going on with the rule “whenever Colleen starts talking about religion, take a drink,” my rants about the importance of the Old Testament and the misinterpretation of Hebrew were listened to and loved and accepted.  I have groups of people who have my back 100%.  Not just my friends in New York, but the outpouring of love on Facebook from people in Virginia, people in North Carolina, people now across the country.  It is truly humbling, and I know many people at seminary who do not have that kind of support, who have people in their life who constantly doubt and challenge their decision to go to seminary, often with the fear the seminary will ruin their faith.  I watch them handle these people with grace and poise and am amazed and how they do so.  It reminds me that this cannot be taken for granted.  If you are reading this, you are one of those people and I’m so lucky to have you in my life.

Then you realize you didn't know anything

Seminary is… a lot.

Don’t get me wrong—I love it.  I love school.  No one is surprised by this.  I adore being in an educational environment, I love my classes, I love the people, it is just… a LOT.

Here’s a recipe for you: Take your brain, your heart, and your soul.  Put them into a blender on the “crush” setting.  Crush for longer than you think you can stand it.  Empty the blender into a hot cast iron skillet.  Season with curiosity and doubt.  Remove from skillet, and try to reassemble the individual ingredients on three separate plates.

My friend Karen described it by saying, “It’s like there’s an avalanche coming at you and you only have a snow shovel.”  This semester alone I am covering a few millennia of church history, the Old Testament (perspective: that’s 3/4ths of the Bible), and attempting to learn Biblical Hebrew, which, as a semitic language, has pretty much nothing in common with English or any other Indo-European language.  It is a lot.  Some days it is too much.

One week, we were talking about conquest narratives in the Old Testament (the Israelites, after the Exodus/Ten Commandments/Prince of Egypt business, going into Canaan and conquering and slaughtering the people living there because “God gave us this land”), how people used scriptural and theological arguments to support slavery in America, and the background and effect of Stop And Frisk and Stand Your Ground laws.  And I got home one day and just started sobbing because of how it seems that nothing has changed over thousands of years and what hope is there for us now?

And about halfway through my Hebrew midterm I looked at all of these strange letters and none of them made any sense to me anymore except the definite noun marker and I almost started crying and thought, “What am I doing here?  How did I ever think this was a good idea when I am clearly going to fail this midterm?  I’m not used to tests and academia.”

One day, during reading week, I sang at the inauguration of our new President, and it was incredible.  We were in the Princeton University Chapel which is almost unfairly beautiful, it was full of people who cared about theological education and had some of the best congregational singing I’ve heard and we sang a commissioned anthem and the new President spoke of the deep importance of recognition of the arts and beauty in religious practice and I could not have been happier or prouder to be a part of this community.  And then I went into the city to see the screening of the West End production of Merrily We Roll Along, a musical by Stephen Sondheim, and I remembered all the things I loved about theater.  And I felt these two strong loves and still had no idea how they came together, even though I knew they must somehow.  Every time I get an inkling of how I might combine the two, I want to build my life on that idea instead of letting these things exist and learning to live in the tension and confusion.

It’s the feeling of being hopelessly lost.  Nothing about this is comfortable.  It is being confronted daily with how you have failed to live as you are called to live.

Here’s the thing though: in stories of faith, people spend a lot of time feeling lost.

The primary example is, of course, the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.  After the whole exodus from Egypt shenanigans happened, after the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, the Israelites wandered, never knowing where they were going, led by God in the form of a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night.  They were fed each day by a food that appeared each morning called "manna", which is a word we all accept as an actual name nowadays, but in Hebrew the word "manna" is devised from the question: "what is it?"  They had no idea what they were even eating, and if they tried to store up more than would last them a day (or two, before the Sabbath), it would go bad.  They had no idea what they were going, what they were eating, and they could not even plan ahead.  No wonder they kept complaining and misbehaving (see: the Golden Calf incident).

This same theme continues throughout the New Testament.  In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus says:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Throughout scripture, the followers of God are lost, and even encouraged to be.  God often does not say where you are being led, and the journey often takes longer, is more frustrating and more terrifying than you signed up for.  There are so many reasons that I do not recommend the Christian life for anyone seeking comfort--this is one.  It is living with all the tensions constantly battling within you, because it is a calling not to resolve the tensions but to embrace them and let them overtake you.

It is lonely.  It is confusing.  It is terrifying.  It is constantly feeling inadequate, because in that totally depraved sense, you are.  It is frantic searching for connection.  It is hopeless.  It is anger.  It is night.

But then sometimes, you’re rehearsing in the chapel and you’re not watching the choir director as much as you should be because you are struck by the beauty of the sound bouncing off in ribbons of red, green, yellow, and wonder if there can be anything more breathtaking than voices lifted in praise.

Sometimes you spend hours outside of class in lectures about worship, liturgy and the psalms and feel the coursing of obsession through your veins like you haven't felt in years, but used to keep you awake late into the night as you analyzed musicals, and you feel alive again.

Sometimes you say "YES!" a bit too loudly when someone called out the number of your favorite hymn, "The Canticle of the Turning", at a hymn sing, and are approached at dinner by someone who felt the same way in that moment.

Sometimes you write on yourself in Latin, like you did throughout undergrad, and someone else can read it.

Sometimes you come to choir rehearsal and see the new Presbyterian hymnals for the first time and gasp, grab a copy and begin to stroke it, and then the next three people who come into the room have the exact same reaction.

Sometimes someone who is not in seminary hears something about a Hebrew word that might help validate their sexuality due to the contexts it is used in, and asks if anyone knows anything about it, and you are able to look at the texts (with some help), and give them more information about the word, the meaning, and the context.

Sometimes you find out you completely misjudged someone else and their theology and you have your eyes opened to something you would never have accepted before.

Sometimes you listen to someone else's story and are amazed by the strength of the human spirit.  Sometimes you hear what people want to do and your faith in humanity starts to show its face again, listening to the many ways people work for justice.

I would be lying if I said it was not overwhelming.  I would be lying if I said it was easy.  I would be lying if I said I had any idea of where I was going beyond the small bit that is illuminated by the pillar of light.

But mercy of mercies: the light is there.

One bread, one body, one Lord of all.

"I am a Christian, but…"

Most of my non-seminary friends are not Christian.  The circles I inhabit when I'm not flirting with different denominations of the church are often filled with atheists, people who are spiritual but not religious, former Catholics, and people who are rightly very suspicious of the church and its motives.  So often when I admit my religious leanings to folks, I immediately find myself doing damage control.

"I'm a Christian, but in the most open way."
"I'm a Christian, but not the kind that thinks you're going to hell if you're not."
"I'm a Christian, but I clearly don't hate anyone who's not heterosexual."
"I'm a Christian, but I'm not one of THOSE Christians."

One of my classes this semester is about looking at Christianity in America and how it has influenced and been influenced by historical and social movements, combined with the complicated relationship between church and state in this country.  This has been the main class that has been constantly challenging my deeply held beliefs about church and politics and whether true exegesis is even possible (hint: I think it's not).  It is also one of my most uncomfortable classes, in that it makes us deal with ways that Christian scriptures, thought, and teaching have been used to justify hate, exclusion, murder, indifference, slavery… the list goes on and on, into today.

The gutwrenching thing about studying these theologies is that we can see how they reached their conclusions.  We can track their Biblical arguments.  We can understand how people within their context would think that this was the proper interpretation of God's Word.  And the terrifying thing is, while it's easy to look back and see how wrong they were, we realize that we could be just as misguided.  The first thing I learned in undergrad was that you cannot escape your own originality.  You cannot approach a text as a blank state.  You ALWAYS carry your own set of assumptions and opinions and interpretations, and there is no such thing as neutrality.  (see earlier hint that I don't think true exegesis is possible)  So how do we acknowledge that when we are called upon to deal with this text?  Are we always twisting it for our own purposes?

Like many of us, I am angry about the current state of our government.  Primarily, I am angry about the people that have been furloughed.  I am angry about services that the shutdown has suddenly halted.  I am angry about the fact that my friend's brother can't get epilepsy medication that he depends on for survival because of the government shutdown.  I am angry because of how this may affect WIC and therefore people's ability to eat.  I am angry because of the effect that this can have on the economy which will likely further the gap between the rich and the poor, making it more and more impossible for people to rise out of poverty.

Mostly, I am furious because almost 400 members of the House of Representatives identify as Christians, and while I agree with the separation of church and state in legislature, it is inconceivable to me that anyone who calls themselves a Christian would even consider the reckless toying with human lives for political gain that Congress is currently engaged in.

And as I fumed about how "those other Christians who certainly aren't like most of the Christians I know and love" get it all wrong and how tired I am of constantly having to combat the reputation that Christians are all homophobic, materialistic and exclusionary, if not downright violent… it hit me like a ton of bricks.

We are one body.

In Christianity, when we speak of the Church (which I'm capitalizing to mean the Church as an institution, as opposed to the uncapitalized church building that you pass on your way to work), we speak of it as "the Church universal" or "the catholic Church" (where catholic means not Roman Catholicism, but the whole Church, universal, again).  We also speak of the Church as a body (specifically, the Church is the body of Christ in the world), with many parts that serve many different purposes in different ways.  While we have different denominations (Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc), we don't consider those different religions, but different branches of the same religion.  We are all members of the same family, and yes, we have plenty arguments, but even then, we create a wide and diverse religion.  We often use the sacrament of communion (where we eat bread and drink wine/grape juice, depending on where you are, in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice) as a reminder of our unity in Christ.  The Methodist communion liturgy says, "Because there is one loaf, we, though we be many, are one body."  Or, as said in the communion hymn: "one bread, one body, one Lord of all, one cup of blessing which we bless, and we, though many throughout the Earth, we are one body in this one Lord."

And I realized that I cannot separate myself from the Christians who I (and many many others) disagree with, who have done reprehensible things in the name of God.  I can't separate myself from the Crusaders, from the Inquisition, from the southern theologians who argued that slavery was a divine mandate or the northern theologians who skirted the issue, from fundamentalists who think that closing Planned Parenthoods is working to scourge the devil from this land.  I cannot draw a line between myself and the pastor whose fire-and-brimstone sermon about the dangers of homosexuality lead a young gay teen to run away from church and home, or the Christian congressperson who thinks that the hurt the shutdown will do to the poor is necessary collateral damage.  We don't get to do that, not when our religion, for thousands of years, has been based in community and diversity, in unity without uniformity.  We are called to live as members together in the body of Christ, and that means that one of us does, we all do.

Why is this important?  What purpose does this serve other than making us feel terrible about ourselves?  It is important because we are really good at skirting around and blaming the uncomfortable parts of Christianity on other people.  It wasn't us, it was those people calling themselves Christian over there.  It was those folks who got it wrong.  It was the people from that other seminary.  Not here.  Not us.  We didn't do anything wrong.  It is not our responsibility.

Friends, it is our responsibility.  If anyone in the Church has done it, we have done it.  If one member of a physical body is broken, the other parts have to compensate until it is healed… and let's be honest, the problem with the body of the Church is less that individual parts are broken and more that there are sicknesses invading the entire system, and while the symptoms might show up more in some parts of the body than in others, the sickness is a problem for the whole.  And if we are to have any hope of survival, we have some serious repenting to do. In Hebrew, there are two words that are used for repentance: נָחַם (nacham), which is usually translated as "to be sorry" and שׁוּב (shuv), which means "to return".  We as a Church have to own up to the crimes we have committed.  We believe in confessions, in the self-awareness and recognition that comes from the discipline of saying what we have done wrong and we believe in the grace that follows.  And then we must return to the path we were called to walk, the path that leads to life--not death, not hate, not exclusion, not division.

It is time to stop shifting the blame, and to start taking responsibility for what we the church have done.  And my suspicion is that, if we do this, we will become better at recognizing when it is our own individual direct actions that are the problems in the Church.  (that wording is important: not if… when.  We all fall short of the glory of God, especially when we think we are the ones doing it "right", like I so often think.)



These thoughts did not immediately form themselves into a blog post.  I plunged into a good bout of despair and tears.  To be fair, the past couple weeks have been a mess in the current event realm, with the shutdown and debt ceiling, and in seminary we've been talking about conquest narratives ("God wants us to kill all of you and take your land"), pro-slavery theology, massive early church arguments about very fine points of doctrine that usually ended up with someone excommunicated, the Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow laws and other systemic injustices in response to the freedom of the slaves, how the country has always depended on a system of servitude for its workforce and economy (and still does), Christian dominionism, and the traumatic effect of "Stop and Frisk" laws.  It has been a lot of awful, important things that have left me wondering why God bothers with us at all.  My first thoughts came in the form of prayer and song, which I've now refined into a confession, and I'm working on a hymn with this kind of tone.  So, here it is.  I understand that some of these words are too strong to use in many churches.  I also know that strong language is in the Bible.

We, your Church, come before you this day, confessing that we have turned from the path you have intended for us.

We have barricaded ourselves in our churches so we can ignore your people as they cry out in the street.
We have stolen food from the hungry by denying them the opportunity to earn a living wage and the aid to make up the difference.
We have slaughtered the sick by condemning them to live without the hope of care.
We have persecuted victims instead of offering compassion and support.
We have locked the doors of opportunity against our neighbors through our systemic suspicion and fear of different skin tones, cultures, genders, and sexualities.
We have taught our children to treat others as objects instead of people.
We have worn our privilege like armor, and have fashioned our power into swords to be wielded against those who we have labeled "undeserving".

Because of us, many associate your name with violence, hatred, discrimination and exclusion, instead of loving-kindness, gentleness, mercy and peace.

If you are the way and the truth and the life, then we are on the path to death, for we denied you in the least of these.  Yet despite our best efforts to castrate your grace, you still live and work in the world.  We rejoice that your love is greater than our failure to live as you have called us to live.  Heal the hurt that we have inflicted in your name, and turn us back to your way of abundant life for all--even your undeserving Church.

We are marching in the light of God.

My last post here was about the importance of engaging with and having conversations with people who do not share the same views.  Of course, it's easy while doing that to move to the place where we agree with everyone, become wishy-washy, and refuse to take a stand.  What other people have to say is important--what YOU have to say is equally important, and the game of life in community is constantly striking balances.  So this post is about what I believe, and experiences I had this summer that showed me the Kingdom of God.

Come we that love the Lord,

And let our joys be known!

Join in a song with sweet accord,

Join in a song with sweet accord,

And thus surround the throne,

And thus surround the throne.

It's often said that Sunday morning worship is only a part of what church is.  That church, that is, the coming together of the community of believers, should happen everywhere.  It should happen in schools and in workplaces.  It should happen in times and areas of disaster, and it should happen on the streets.

On Sunday, June 30th, our church service at Middle Collegiate Church had two "sections" to it.  There was the portion of the service that happened inside the church, where we gathered and sang and read scripture and prayed.  And when that bit was done, we grabbed bagged lunches, got on the subway, heading up to 39th street, where we connected with members of the other Collegiate Churches, and continued our worship on the streets.

By marching in the NYC Pride March.

We're marching to Zion!

Beautiful, beautiful Zion!

We're marching upward to Zion,

The beautiful city of God!

For those of you unaware of the history of the LGBT Rights movement in America, there was one event that really kicked off the movement, that became a rallying point and help bring together the various activists and organizations throughout the country.  That event was the Stonewall Riots on June 28th, 1969.  There was a police raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village, and the patrons essentially said, "We're not gonna take it," starting riots that lasted for three days and involved kicklines.

Each year since then, there has been a march on or around that day, commemorating the Stonewall Riots.  Eventually that spread throughout the world, and that's why it's in late June that all these Pride parades and celebrations happen.

As for me, despite 6 years in NYC, this was my first Pride.  I tend to leave the city during the summer, like any sane person, so I've just never been around for it.  And honestly, large gatherings of people in NYC isn't really my thing (I've never been to the Macy's Parade, or watched the ball drop in Times Square)… but when the opportunity came to march in Pride with my church, that just seemed so right.

One of my friends marching in our group turned to me and, with a twinkle in her eye, challenged me to a contest of "who can spot the first protester?"  Neither of us won.  We didn't see a single protester as we walked in the parade.  She was so surprised--in her many years of marching, there had always been protesters, some harmless, some scary.  Instead, we saw people celebrating life--dare I say, celebrating the lives that God has given all of us.

Let those refuse to sing 

who never knew our God; 

but children of the heavenly King, 

but children of the heavenly King 

may speak their joys abroad,

may speak their joys abroad.

On Saturday, August 24th, very early in the morning, I arrived in Washington DC's Union Station, and slowly began to find my way the National Mall, to see what I could see of the monuments before the crowds joined as part of the March on Washington.  (For those confused, there were TWO March on Washington 50th Anniversary events, one on the 24th and one on the 28th.)  Later in the morning, I joined in the march.

The most miraculous thing about that day, in my experience, was that, for that day, in that place, it was assumed that we were all there because we believed in equal rights.  For that day, in that place, we all knew we were fighting together.  Having lived for two years in a place where race tensions run high, being white in a primarily black neighborhood that is slowly being overrun by white starving artists, daily having to confront my own role in gentrification but not being able to afford to live in other neighborhoods, I'm in an environment where I encounter racial tension on a daily basis.  And at the march, there was no second-guessing of motives.  We have not achieved King's dream yet--there is far too much social, economic, and political inequality out there for us to pretend we're living in a world where people of all skin colors are treated the same, but for that day, I saw that world come alive.  On that lawn, on that day, we saw a glimpse of King's dream coming true.

I would say, a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

The hill of Zion yields 

a thousand sacred sweets 

before we reach the heavenly fields, 

before we reach the heavenly fields, 

or walk the golden streets, 

or walk the golden streets.

You know who else was there at the March on Washington?  My church.  Yep, Middle Collegiate, marching for justice, as we do.

When people ask me why I'm going to seminary, there's usually a different question they're actually asking.  It might be "What are you going to do afterwards?" or "Are you leaving theater?" or "Are you going to become a crazy Christian who I'll hate?"  And I'll give a different answer based on what question I think they're really asking.  I might talk about the possibility of chaplaincy or nonprofit work, I might talk about merging the arts and religion in interesting ways or their shared backgrounds, I might talk about pushing the church towards inclusion.

But when it comes down to it, why am I going to seminary?  Because I believe in the vision of the Kingdom of God that isn't about condemnation, or judgement, or getting to heaven.  It's a vision of a world we celebrate and take care each other and the world.  It's a vision of a world where our differences are valued, not feared.  It's a vision of the world where we encounter each other in a spirit of collaboration rather than with walls of self-interest.  And perhaps the most important thing my religion teaches me is that it is my responsibility to help this idea of what the world could be come to fruition.  It is also my joy.  In these marches, this moments where the Kingdom can almost be seen, I see God.  Not a God that comes down out of heaven but a God that is created among us when we treat others with curiosity and compassion.  Let those refuse to sing who never knew that God, but children of the heavenly king--Christian, atheist, gay, straight, black, white, all denominations in between and beyond--we will speak our joys abroad, as we cry out for freedom, as we sing for equality, as we shout for justice.

I am blessed and privileged to be a part of religious communities that take this seriously and are on the front lines for equality, which I believe to be God's work in the world.  Before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets, before death and whatever comes after it, the thousand sacred sweets of Zion, the Kingdom, are here, on this earth.  We march for them.  We march to that Kingdom.  It is a march through time, through laws that are just and unjust, through economic crises, through violence and blame.  It is a long march, but it is worth it.