The Policy of Honesty

I am really cranky lately. I feel stymied and shut down and unsafe about sharing my opinion. I feel as though I've gone to the ends of the earth to a place filled with closed minded bigots who are not able to see not just the importance of the Supreme Court's upholding of marriage equality, but the joy inherent in the decision. I feel the need to be clear: this is how I feel, not necessarily the reality of my situation.

I moved to a new location almost exactly six months ago. I began serving in my new call about 5 1/2 months ago and have been, for the most part, received with enthusiasm and grace. Then, a month ago, I pushed the envelop in a Festival Worship. I was assured that these services, which only occur on the fifth Sunday of the month, were a forum for me to try new styles, to change things up, to be as creative as I want to be. So I did something a little different: instead of a traditional sermon, I performed a one-woman play about a woman with breast cancer and her struggles with the ramifications thereof. It was received resoundingly well. I got emails, cards, and texts of grateful support. I had people press their hands into mine and gravely thank me for telling their story. I had others share health struggles that they had up to that point withheld. AND I had one couple leave the church. To be fair, this wasn't the first thing I had done that they didn't like. The first thing was simply being female, and our relationship went downhill from there. 

The Festival service during which I play a cancer survivor wrestling with despair. (Photo courtesy of Walt Campbell.)

In addition to that, the week after they ostentatiously walked out of the Festival Service, the church held its 275th Anniversary celebration, during which many former pastors and/or their spouses, children, and grandchildren were invited to participate. Several came, and the day was glorious, with worship and feasting and fellowship and stories. However, the previous much-beloved pastor remains very connected with many of the congregants and received a standing ovation after singing a solo during the service. It felt to me like "too much, too soon" as though I had not had time enough to develop, much less solidify, my own relationships with people before they were undermined, however unintentionally, by my predecessor. 

Finally, to put the cherry on top, this blog, a blog in which I've been pretty transparent, was linked to the church's new website without my permission. I knew it was there and was slightly uncomfortable with it, but also believe in what I've written, so I was wrestling with that as well. Then I began to get feedback about it in the midst of my distress over the other two issues. Once again, most of the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, but there were a few who were not happy, and very outspokenly so.

It made me sad, angry, depressed. It made me realize that I'm grateful I'm not a celebrity or someone whose life is parsed regularly by people who don't know me. It made me understand how very thin-skinned I can be, for while I have some emotional baggage, I have been very privileged in many ways and really shouldn't get so upset about what other people think of me. It made me see how cowardly I am. I took the blog down from the church page and linked another much less controversial one to it. Even writing this one, I wonder if I'll have the courage to share it in any way that will assure it's read.

Last summer for my birthday, my daughter Grace and I went into NYC for the day. We parked in Times Square, walked to the Metropolitan Museum, then to a fancy French restaurant on the East Side for dinner, and then back to midtown to see a Broadway show. It was a wonderful day, but I had worn brand-new sandals for the outing. They had seemed incredibly comfortable in the shoe store, but by the end of the day, the bottoms of my feet were covered with blisters. I could barely walk. I went home, lanced them, squeezed out all the juice, slathered them with Neosporin, covered them with bandaids and socks and went to bed. 

Grace and I about to enjoy dessert on my birthday last year. You can thank me for choosing this one to share instead of one of the bottom of my feet. (Photo courtesy of me.)

The next day Grace asked me, "Do your feet still hurt?"

I replied, "Not when I'm standing still. Only when I walk."

"That's like Life!" she said. Yes, I think, yes it is. Everything is fine when I'm standing still. But when I move, when I'm forced to step out of my comfort zone, it's hard. 

So here I sit. Feeling afraid to be who I am, to share what I feel, to preach what I know to be true, especially concerning the momentous decisions handed down by SCOTUS this week, the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, and right that all people have, no matter their race, color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation, to be safe and to love and be loved. God, help me. Please.

On Standing Down Instead of Up

Last week I participated in the National Day of Prayer service at Town Hall in Phillipsburg. It was the second worship gathering that I have been a part of since I moved, the first being the CrossWalk in Shappell Park, which was a Christian liturgy that walked the stations of the cross on Good Friday in a local community square. This was interesting as I never participated in such an overtly Christian service in a public forum; it gave me much food for thought as I considered what it was to be a Christian over the centuries and what it means today in 21st century America.

Before moving to western New Jersey, I had been very active in the Clergy Association in Huntington, NY, even acting as President for a couple of years, where the group was not only ecumenical but interfaith, and where services would include leaders from many denominations and faith traditions. It was not unusual to hear the Islamic azan or the Jewish shofar or both opening a community worship service. So I was very surprised and a bit disconcerted when the liturgy on the steps of Town Hall began with a proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord of all. This is obviously not a statement I personally have a problem with, but contextually it seemed inappropriate, given my historical experience of diversity. Religious diversity in P'burg, however, is negligible.

Then in the midst of wrestling with the primacy of Christianity to the exclusion of all else in a governmental setting among perhaps 70 people who were all white and apparently all Christian, a few men standing nearby began to talk about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and that led to conversation about Floyd Mayweather and his horrible history of perpetrating domestic abuse.

"Well, he's got to practice on somebody," one of the men joked. The others laughed and the conversation continued while I stood stunned, complicit in Mayweather's violence and the men's acceptance or even approval of it by my silence in the face of their discussion.

Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church (USA) 221st General Assembly has begun a peacemaking discernment process in which Five Affirmations have been sent to each presbytery with the request to discuss and take an advisory vote on each affirmation individually. Numbers 2 and 4 were the most discussed, but number 2 was the one with which I had the biggest struggle:

"We confess our complicity in the world's violence even as we pray for the Spirit's courage to "unmask idolatries," to speak truth about war and oppression, and to stand with those who suffer, and to respond to acts and threats of violence with ministries of justice, healing, and reconciliation."

I had the struggle not because I am sure that am not complicit, but because of my action (or rather inaction) at events like the National Day of Prayer that assure me that I am. It is clear to me that the reason I said nothing was because I was afraid. The question is: Afraid of what?

It's a question I'm not sure I can answer. As the only female clergyperson at the gathering, perhaps I was afraid of being mocked or belittled. As a person who has suffered family violence, perhaps I was afraid being attacked, if only verbally. I was in an unfamiliar situation that already felt awkward and uncomfortable and now my searching for a reason feels like searching for an excuse.

All I know for sure is that I will do my best to speak up when (and I wish I could say if) something like this happens again. For "all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent," a statement that has been credited to Thomas Jefferson and various others. No matter who said it, it remains true, and I hope not to be a party to the silence again, in this or any other issue where violence is occurring.

Seeing Is Disagreeing - The Dress

A few weeks ago, my friend and colleague Christine Hong was visiting. She was here to lead a dialogue with Haroop Kaur on Sikh - PC(USA) relations, which was amazing. But in some of our downtime, she shared with me "The Dress." The original photo image was of a dress that a Scottish woman planned to wear to her daughter's wedding. When she sent a photo of it to her daughter, the bride and groom disagreed about the color; one saw it as white with gold lace, the other blue with black lace. They posted the image on Facebook and their friends also disagreed about the color. Quickly the image went viral and people around the globe disagreed as well.

What do you see? (courtesy of tumblr user swiked)

The thing is: so did Chris and I. I see white with gold, she sees blue with black. It seemed unbelievable to each of us that the other did not see what we did. We kept going back and forth with each other, "Really? But it's white!" "No, it's blue!" This felt especially surprising to me because we agree on just about everything. We've had so many theological discussions in which we are on the same page. We've talked about race, and gender, and sexuality. We've talked about the thorny issues of the day and even if there are nuances that we need to parse and ponder, in broad strokes we "see" the same thing.

As unreal as it was to me that a difference as distinct as this one was viable, I could not deny her vehemence that the dress was a completely different color in her eyes than it was in mine. Finally, I said to her that I thought there must be a scientific reason for it. Perhaps, I wondered, it had something to do with the cones in our eyes. Several years ago, I had seen a program on aging given on DVD by Professor Francis B. Colavita of the University of Pittsburgh. There was a portion that stuck with me because he talked about people with blue eyes having their eyes get lighter over time because the color literally dropped out of them. I wondered with Christine if my light blue eyes and her deep brown ones had something to do with the differential in our vision.

This got me thinking about those other issues and people with whom I passionately disagree about things that are not visual but still perception-oriented. Could it be that we both are "right" and the disagreement, whatever it may be, is about fundamental biology rather than ethics? Could it be that my interpretation of the Bible and someone else's have equal validity, and that our disagreement is more about biology than anything else?

Perhaps most importantly, if we are not able to come to see things the same way, is there a way that we can "agree to disagree" with respect and even Christian Unity? Can we remain the Church while also remaining true to ourselves and to the gospel as we each understand it?