Orlando Vigil

As a clergywoman, I was honored to help with the Vigil for Orlando victims organized by Creede Rep which finished out Creede's Gay Pride Day (although word on the street is that they're at Tommyknocker's now finishing the evening). My brief words were accompanied a testimony by Chris (an Orlando native), a poem read by Mehry Eslaminia, songs by Ryan Prince, and impromptu words by others in attendance.

After much celebration (and inevitable libations), we gather as a community to honor the victims of Orlando’s hate crime two weeks ago, and also to celebrate those 49 lives.

As we begin the vigil, here is a poem that appeared in my inbox today titled "For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid" by William Stafford. 

There is a country to cross you will

find in the corner of your eye, in

the quick slip of your foot—air far

down, a snap that might have caught.

And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing

voice that finds its way by being

afraid. That country is there, for us,

carried as it is crossed. What you fear

will not go away: it will take you into

yourself and bless you and keep you.

That’s the world, and we all live there.

Please pray with me.

God, it’s a really scary world out there. I would like to use a lot of words to describe how I feel about the exclusivity and bigotry that seems to infiltrate every dark corner in America right now. But those words will have to be set aside, scribbled only in my journal, or cried only to my husband before brushing my teeth or while I’m slicing tomato. Those words are not for public consumption. But neither is the hatred that permeates our culture. And so tonight God, we gather in love. We gather in peace. We gather in hope. Tonight come to honor the souls who danced until their last moment. We gaze at the stars - at the great cloud of witnesses above us, and we call out the names of those who have gone before us. And we say thanks be to God.

While Listening to Hamilton: my questions for today's politicians

“Death does not discriminate between the sinners and the saints; it takes and it takes and it takes.” Hamilton, the musical.

Dear Politicians, 

I get it, your hideous hair makes for excellent meme and any media exposure is still exposure. Fighting over who speaks better Spanish to get the Latino vote makes for good sound bites. And no one’s going to hold you accountable for lying when the masses don’t do the hard work of fact checking. And for those of us who do, it’s a matter of discerning whose pants are up in flames and whose are just sort of smoldering.

But I’m tired of all that. Here’s what I want to hear from the presidential wanna-be’s. 

Parading the Party Line

There's a Parade at Ground Floor Theatre and you need to buy your ticket before it passes you by.

Sarah Danko is a gorgeous actor and paired well with Scott Ferguson who we found annoying as Frank the Jew, creepy as Frank THE JEW (emphasis Mrs. Phagan) and eventually lovable as Frank, Lucille's Jewish husband. Travis Gaudin's voice is like a glass of whiskey you hold in your hand swishing and sniffing over and over. We hung on his every word and saw every scene he sang. Vincent Hooper is an all around dream performer from his mannerisms to his vocal belt on the chain gang. Lovely, dedicated voices rang out from the ensemble - especially Chelsea Manasseri and Kristin Hall's solo performances. Kyle Coughlin was delightful (can one use that word when describing Parade?) to watch as Craig. And who are Matrex Kilgore and Dale Sandish?!... um welcome to Austin and bravo.

When Lisa Schepps wants to make a point. She does it with an exclamation. And  mazel tov to her. She directed a great show despite the apparent challenges with sound in the space. (Why couldn't we hear the voices in this brand new venue?)

Before Lisa's curtain speech, a video from the 100th anniversary of the anti-defamation league was played. It took our collective breath away and was a brilliant way to start the show and remind the audience that it was this real life event that brought the league into existance. 

Because this is important. I want to stand up and scream and say all the bad curse words and pull my hair out and even lay naked in the street for a year (the Jews and maybe a few Christians will get that reference), but my fiancee won't let me. 

If you think we live in a world or a county that isn't racist, sexist, and classist, you're wrong. And Parade is a beautiful, if sad, reminder of that truth. Let me put it in perspecive for you.

Look at the difference in the way this Euro-American (caucasian) mother is treated in the comments versus how the African-American mother is treated. 

SICK.

And if you're about to throw that "meme's are hard to fact check," crap at me, here's a strain that I personally responded to when a "Facebook Friend" of mine posted "Comply, don't die!" after Michael Brown's death.

Or how about this? 

Here's a gun store that won't allow Muslims to purchase their merchandise. Even though WHITE PEOPLE are the numbers one terrorists against Americans a poll released in June reported.

White, right wing Americans have killed way more people than Muslim radicals here in America since 9/11. But you know, white people have mental health issues and black people are thugs. It's true because our culture tells us its true.

And that's the party line Parade exposes. Vilifying a person because you hate a people group (in Parade it's the Jews) makes you a racist bigot. Not a hero. Not ever a hero. Not for hating a race or people group. 

Or hating women...

Or gay people...

Or anyone who isn't like you. Or who you don't understand.

AMERICA, wake up. The beautiful search for diversity which gave birth to you is dwindling away as we allow the right wing fundamentalists spew their white supremacy and male chauvinism on us. We're drowning in it. America has lost her melting pot and is drowning in witch's brew.

So to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Ground Floor, I say thanks. This little white girl says thanks. And hopes more people will go catch the Parade playing two more times on Nov 5 at Ground Floor Theatre in East Austin.   

My Favorite Line

Laying on a twin mattress covered in black theatre drapes behind the stage left risers after my death, I figured it out.

"What's your favorite line from the play?" my dad had asked me when he was here three weeks prior to see Into the Woods produced cooperatively with the Jewish Repertory Theatre and Trinity Street Players. I didn't have an answer. There's so many good ones:

• Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
• I'll see you soon again, I hope that when I do it won't be on a plate.
• That's another story, never mind.
• And whichever you pick, do it quick cause you're starting to stick to the steps of the palace.
• I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
• I'm in the wrong story.
• Princes wait there in the world, it's true. Princes, yes, but wolves and humans too.
• You can talk to birds?
• Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell.
• It was a full day of eating for both.
• No one cared when there was a dead giant in my back yard!

But none satisfied the question.

Additionally, at a bar one evening after the show, several actors and I were talking about, well, crap actors talk about: favorite musicals, upcoming auditions, the genius of Sondheim, our top fives, etc.

And one colleague made the comment that he isn't a huge fan of Into the Woods. I was aghast, shocked, defensive, and would have fired him on the spot, but we still had a week of performances left. Not to mention that in the wake of our Cinderella losing her voice voice (which gave rise to #Cinderunzel as Rapunzel has taken over singing the Cinderella role as the real Cinderella plays it physicality)... well, in the words of Cinderella, I couldn't fire the actor in my  beer-buzzed state because "I could not bear to lose another."

We bantered half-heartedly: he prefers slapstick and bawdy, and I prefer genius and genuine (my words, not his). But when he asked me why I liked Into the Woods so much... again, I didn't have an answer.

Fast forward to about 9:35pm in the middle of Act Two on Thursday night, and I begin my final ascent up the stairs to the stage left platform to finish The Last Midnight. "All right, mother, when? Lost the beans again! Punish me the way you did then - give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch and the gloom and the doom and the boom..." And then I project "Crunch!" as a high G, sustained, until the lights go to blackout and I can jump from the platform onto the mattress offstage and "die."

Photo by Rod Machen

I laid there calming my breathing and listening as the next scene began. I always stay there through the next song, and once the audience has forgotten about me over there, I exit.

That evening had been particularly powerful for me. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was tired from a week of broken computers, ailing actors, funerals, job changes, horrible terrorist attacks, racism cloaked in religion, or the bullshit Republican political agenda... so it felt normal to confess (admonish?) "the world is dark and wild."
But as I lay there, breathing quietly, and listening to the next scene, I heard it.

Our Town Letters

“I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America. Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God...that's what it said on the envelope. And the postman brought it just the same.”

Our Town, produced by Trinity Street Players running May 13-24 upstairs in First Austin’s Black Box Theatre is an American classic written by Thornton Wilder. But it’s more than that. 

It’s a story about people in Grover’s Corners. And it’s a story that could easily be about people in Austin, Texas. But it’s more than that too.

Our Town is a a prayer.

Grasshoppers, Gravity, and a Really Great Story

Listen here!

Isaiah 40:21-31 (NRSV)
Mark 1:29-39  (NRSV)

Welcome to the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, the second to last Sunday before Lent. In the tradition of epiphany, we have read yet another story from Mark about the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

It’s a whopper of a text. Chock full of demon possession and deadly diseases and even a Christ who goes AWOL. The Old Testament text from Isaiah is a little easier to swallow except that the God who once called us the cream of the crop, humanity: the pinnacle of creation (in Genesis 1) is now reminding us that it is God who takes down the rulers of the earth and we, God’s creation, are like little grasshoppers in comparison. :)

Literature is the best. So many ways of communicating how we feel or how we feel God feels, or whatever.

I wonder if it was this passage from Isaiah that inspired Mary Oliver to pen “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Hard to make much of your life when you’re lying in bed dying from a fever though. This, of course, was the predicament of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in the Mark passage.

Aside from the dying part, this is a great story. We learn that Simon Peter has a family - he’s one of the few disciples who was married. And he brings his new friends and new messiah to his house, to stay with his family. As such, it is in Simon Peter’s home that Jesus performs his first healing miracle. It’s the second miracle and the first healing the disciples witness after having left everything - jobs, girls, family, their favorite spot to watch the sun set - to follow Jesus on this crazy vagabond adventure.

Big Burn

One of the interesting tidbits about the tiny town of Creede, CO is the plethora of artists who reside here. Whether its a TV throwing Cannon Ball Man or the distinct paintings of Mr. Quiller, or Mandy Patinkin himself, there are a lot of creative folks in these mountains.

One such person is Bev Chapman. Some of you Missouri and Kansas folk may remember her from KMBC. Now, however, she's specializing in film, and I saw Bev's work earlier this summer at the premier for her short film, Big Burn.

This documentary tells the story of what I have come to know as "the fire." Frequently referenced around town, whether discussing finances or tourism or residual injuries, the topic at hand often turns to "the fire."

What is "the fire?" Well, that's what I wanted to know. So I went to the completely packed movie premier where I met the sunny and lovely Bev Chapman, who shared the San Luis Valley's Fire story with me.

Check out the trailer.



From boy scouts to business owners, few went untouched. And the ones who did, tell the story here. If you'd like to check out the full movie, it will be available after it's premiered in a few film festivals. Until then, stay tuned, and maybe drop a few coins in the Creede Community Relief Fund which was started to help those who lost so much in "the fire."

And kudos to Bev and all the other artists who continue to tell the story of this amazing little town.

P.S. Quiller has an amazing Beauty in the Burn painting series. Check it out too!

The Story of the Three Thousand Dollar Pendant

At Creede Repertory Theatre's Illuminated Gala on Sunday, July 27, Manuel and I entered the South Fork Country Club in anticipation of a great evening. I was wearing an amazing dress, and would be singing. 

In addition, trapeze, dancing, testimonials, and an auction were scheduled to be scattered throughout the night. Dinner would be served, and there was to be an open bar which Manuel would typically not take advantage of. 

Manuel and I began the evening at the Gala having earlier made an agreement. With so many fun things to do this summer, and with big plans for the fall, I had made a pitch for fiscal conservatism (please don’t tell my fellow democrats), and asked him to limit his generosity to the $250 admission price. He complied, and agreed not to bid on any of the auction items. 

Truth be told, I didn’t trust him. The man grew up poor, and now that he has money, he loves to give it away. Frequently, I peered over the balcony of the club and observed the tables below. Had his been one of the hands that raised during the live auction? 

And Then I Moved to Colorado

I spent my birthday with strangers this year and it was one of the most exciting days of my life.

Not because anyone knew it was my birthday (or because anyone even knew me). Not because I moved into the triangle shaped upstairs of a house chock full of Harry Potter holes (small doors that monsters and bad guys could easily crawl out of - terrifying!). Not because I ate a delicious, gluten-filled brownie my roommate made because she likes to bake. Not because my other roommate had a long haired chiguagua with whom I knew I would become best friends. Not because I watched my first full Game of Thrones (which I hate) episode in an attempt to make human friends. 

Not even because of all those reasons.

Rather, it was one of the more momentous days of my life because I moved to Creede, Colorado to take a new job with a repertory theatre.   

Transition: Something Just Broke

The movement into Holy Week starts off strong and exciting - like any good religious festival. From Sunday's palm branch waving and animal joyriding to tomorrow night's dinner with friends, things seem to be going well for Jesus and the Disciples.

But today, Holy Wednesday is traditionally the day that Judas is said to have gone to the High Priests... "What will you give me if I betray him?" Thirty pieces of silver later, and our story takes a swift turn for the worse. Way beyond foreshadowing, the climax builds as things fall apart.

At the passover dinner, Jesus hints that one will deny him, another betray him, and a party guest leaves in a huff.

Bread is broken and eaten, wine is poured and drunk, but the symbolism isn't traditional, and the disciples wonder what these mixed up metaphors might mean.

After dinner, Jesus excuses himself up to the garden to pray, taking with him his three closest friends. He asks them to wait and keep watch, while he begs God: let there be another way.

But God says no, and when Jesus returns, more disappointment awaits him. He finds his comrades snoozing, the passover hangover already upon them.

Heading back down the hill, things go from bad to worse as the one who ran away comes running back with guards in tow, a kiss of death upon his lips.

Peter draws his sword and the fight escalates when he cuts off a slave's ear. But Jesus, usually the peacemaker, knows that violence must wait a day and it certainly won't come from an army of angry revolutionaries.

But as Jesus returns the ear to the poor servant's head, his friends begin to panic. Everyone takes flight now, one fleeing so fast that when a guard grabs his cloak the disciple wriggles free and runs naked all the way home.

Jesus, on the other hand, is restrained, imprisoned, and left to await trial and potential capital punishment.

And we move from Holy Wednesday to Maundy Thursday.

Sleepy stewards, double-crossing kisses, and then... something just broke.

2013 What A Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2013 proved most eventful. After a fun-filled 2012, 2013 started off... on the couch. New Year's Eve last year, I had dinner with Person and the Joneses and then promptly fell asleep on the couch missing all ringing in and other celebretory festivities. But perhaps I needed the sleep to prepare for the year ahead...

From a trip to Portland to visit my sister... to a Reverse Oregon Trail (Let's-Move-Amy-Back-To-Chicago-Trip)... to a brief nanny job in New York... to a relaxing fall leaves Colorado tour... to an Adriatric Cruise in the Adriatric (I realize this is redundant, but you guys - seriously!!)... this year I travelled much, and felt extremely grateful. I saw some gorgeous sites (mostly in the US!) and some amazing artifacts (mostly in Italy).  If I had to choose 2013's world's best sights, I really, really loved Crater Lake in southern Oregon,

The David in Florence, Italy, and the ancient Greek theatre (complete with coastal views) in Sicily, Italy.

Other totes awesome and random loveliness includes... experiencing Moltnoma Falls, 

hearing Pope Francis speak, 

Memorializing My Other Mother

"Beware the Ides of March," my mother wrote in a text message. Every year, I receive these words from my Mother in some form or another... a text, an email, a phone call. My mother was a Latin teacher for 33 years. Old habits die hard.

Turns out people die too.

"Jane's gone," I wrote back.

It's almost fitting that March 15th was the day of her departing. Also a Latin teacher for many years, and the wife of a Classics professor, Jane, "My Other Mother," would have appreciated the irony.

"If I had to go, that's as good a day as any!" I can hear her saying to God.

Truth be told, it is us, those she left behind, who feel the stab of the knife, the pang of death. We remove our hands from the bleeding wound of our broken hearts and gasp, Et tu, Jane? You die too?

I've lost a lot of people in my 34 years. I once dated a man who, at 38 years old, had never been to a funeral. I, on the other hand, have been to so many funerals in my brief time here on earth that I'm not sure I could count them all. But even in that truth - living as a minister of the cloth always with the reminder that from dust we have come and to dust we shall return - I still feel the shock of death.

And Jane Nethercut? She was mortal too?

It seems wrong.

"We love you and all our other Pittmans so much!!" was the last text I received from Jane five days prior to her passing.

We love you too, Jane.

"This is my daughter by choice," Jane told the social worker in the hospital room several weeks ago. The woman misunderstood and began a lecture on how detrimental favoritism of children is among family members. "No, no, I explained to the nurse, it's not that Jane has only so much love to give her children that she has to play favorites. Rather, her and Bill's love is so abundant that it spills over from their own children and onto the rest of us. Thus Jane & Bill take on extra "kids"... She chooses to add me into her family."

The first time I saw Jane, she was giving the devotion at a deacon's meeting as the Deacon Chair Elect. She told a beautiful story of how geese fly taking turns in the lead and then moving to the back of the line. She spoke of their fluidity and wisdom.  And then she prayer, "Dear God, help us be smarter than a goose," and sat down. :) I knew then that Jane Nethercut was a woman I would look up to.  I found out later that to fulfill an obligation for my pastoral residency with CBF, Roger had chosen Jane and Bill to be my adopted parents. But that title and our relationship lasted much longer than that two year program. And now I stand before you mourning the loss of my Other Mother.

Jane, me and Gloria (the Nethercut kids' Other Mother), Mother's Day 2012

I read excerpts of what is written above at Jane's funeral celebration on Tuesday.  I also sang "Heavenly Day" by Patty Griffin which was truly a spiritual experience as I tried to memorialize my friend with peace and thanksgiving, rather than anger and sadness in my heart.  In addition, I chose the following scripture to be read at Jane's ceremony.  Roger spoke and Grant and the choir sang, and Jane would have loved the service, I believe.  And so, from Ecclesiastes Three…

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time
to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to
everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a
sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the
beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy
themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take
pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added
to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.
That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has
gone by.

Thanks be to God for the life of Jane Nethercut.

Wake Up Missouri

Okay Missouri, I love ya.  You're my home state.  You have the most caves out of any state in the U.S.  You even elected a dead man as your Governor because you knew John Ashcroft would be a horrible choice (unfortunately, George W. promptly appointed him Attorney General - you win some, you lose some).

But you are kinda embarrassing me on the political front.

First off, one of your candidates running for the United States Senate "isn't sure" what the Violence Against Women Act is.  And the candidate is a WOMAN.  Sigh.  You guys, seriously?  Don't elect this person.  Granted, I no longer live there, but if you want my two cents, you should keep Claire McCaskill representing your state.  She's conservative (in my opinion) but at least she probably knows what the Violence Against Women Act is... Sheesh.

And speaking of violence against women what is this I'm reading about legislation you passed nicknamed the "don't say gay" bill?

Ugh.

This is seriously awful, you guys.  How can kids learn about sexuality, their own or their peers, if you make it illegal to talk about it?

Here's the bill if you want to read it yourself, but here's a nice excerpt... 170.370. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no instruction, material, or extracurricular activity sponsored by a public school that discusses sexual orientation other than in scientific instruction concerning human reproduction shall be provided in any public school.

This is bad, y'all.  How can kids learn about sexuality, their own or their peers', if you make it illegal to talk about it?  

TEACH them about reproduction, TEACH them about menstruation, TEACH them about childbirth, TEACH them about sexually transmitted diseases, TEACH them about birth control, TEACH them about masturbation, TEACH them about homosexuality and gender issues, TEACH them about hygene, TEACH them about their bodies!  

You don't have impregnate them so they understand giving birth, you don't have to turn them gay to bring awareness to sexual orientation, you don't have to infect them with the human papillomavirus to make them understand STDs.  But you do need to teach these kids what these words mean, what happens to their bodies and how to make healthy choices now that they have this information!

Make school a safe place to talk about sexuality.  The teenage years are confusing enough without y'all making it illegal to talk about it.

Locate your district.  Find your senator.  And then write him or her.  

Then, to find your representative in the house, look him or her up here.

Or just send the senate a general email: sweb@senate.mo.gov.

Okay, that was easy.  Speak up.  It's your state.  It's your kids.  Speak out against violence and speak on behalf of education.  Go Missouri.  Show me what you're made of.

Palm Sunday Reflections

I don't go to church anymore.

This is not a lifetime commitment... to no longer attend church... I intend to attend church again someday. It's just that I currently am not attending church.

"So what?" some of you say, "Sinner!" others may chide. And still some, "Seriously, Ann?" which are the comments that sting the most.

I'm not attending church in part because I exhausted myself attending church, creating church, doing church and being church for the five years I spent at my last job, and the 27 years before that (four days a week in college, three days a week in high school...). The way I figure it, I've gone to more church services than your average church-going sixty-five year old man. And I'm only 32.

So I'm taking a break.

But fatigue from church-going (you'll note I didn't say from church-being, which I try to still do every day to my friends and family and the people whose paths I cross) isn't the only reason I'm not currently attending church.

The other reason is Palm Sunday.

I used to love Palm Sunday. It's the sixth Sunday in Lent, kicking off Holy week. It remembers the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey when the people lined up in the streets waving palms (because it was the Jewish Passover), heralding in who they believed to be the Messiah.

At FBC, the kids always start off this Sunday morning service by running down the center aisle waving Palm branches above their heads. I love that... the joy, the simple faith, the praise symbol, the welcoming of the Messiah.

But the other part about Palm Sunday is that, as I said before, it leads us into Holy Week, a week of betrayal, abandonment and death. A week of missing the point. The irony is that all those waving the palms in exaltation on Sunday turn to waving their fists on Friday demanding the release of Barabbas, and the crucifixion of the innocent man.

And that's the other reason I'm not attending church right now.

It's ironic in more ways than one. Whenever people would argue that they'd be happy to attend church if it weren't for all the Christians, I used to argue that that was the very reason I loved church. It is not for the healthy, Christ says, but the wounded. I loved that church was messy, filled with hypocritical, trying-to-find-their-way-and-missing-it-half-the-time people on a journey to be church and follow Christ.

I don't feel like that any more.

Palm Sunday is painful because right now I want to escape somewhere and feel loved, not beaten up. And the house I want to go to is God's. But God's house isn't always welcoming.

My boyfriend is a music director at a church and tonight he's at a parishioners home building crosses: three of them, for the "Last Words" musical they'll be doing at his church this upcoming Holy Week and Easter Weekend.

Nailing together crosses that will symbolize (for some) God's ultimate sacrifice of himself for the people, an act of the incarnation that says, "Yes, I will even take this so far as to die to help you understand"... Nailing together crosses that serve as a constant reminder of the death of a Messiah at the hands of the empire, the death of a Savior at the hands of evil, the death of a man at the hands of those who loved him...

I called my boyfriend after I got out of rehearsal tonight and heard the crosses being nailed together on the other end of the line. "I have tomorrow off," I said. "I don't have to go to work. I could come up there now if you want. And if you're not done with the crosses, I could come to the house and help out."

"But -----'s here." he replied. That's his ex-girlfriend's mother. And despite the waving of the palms and the confession that Christ is the Messiah, despite the ashes on our heads reminding us that we are not, despite the resurrection of Jesus that will come on Sunday and represent the resurrection we practice every day in our life, my phone conversation with my boyfriend ended with, "Fine, I won't come up there."

Because I'm not welcome at his church.

And that's the second reason I'm not attending church right now.

Not only am I not welcome in the church building, at the church services, but I can't even help build the crosses for the Sunday morning play because his ex-girlfriend's mother will be building crosses too.

And that is the embodiment of the irony of Palm Sunday: that the church often does a really shitty job of being church. And while I used to love that about church - I loved that the genealogy of Jesus included Tamar who slept with her father-in-law and Rahab the prostitute - I don't anymore.

I just don't.

At this point in my journey I can't handle any more paradox. No more irony. No more grotesque beauty. I just want God, and I just want peace. And like the Israelites when they were carted off to Babylon, I too am now learning that God doesn't reside in a Temple (or a church) but in my heart. So I'm finding God there.

And sometimes in a dressing room. And sometimes in a hotub. And sometimes on Facebook. And sometimes on my yoga mat. And sometimes on my couch snuggled up under some blankets with my best friend.

You may judge me for not going to church, or you may applaud me, or you may not give a damn either way (and if so you probably didn't make it this far in the blog), but what I really want is a little compassion. Keep your condemnation, applause or indifference. I want compassion.

And eventually...

I want to be welcomed back to church.

At Home in Nashville

You might find this a strange title to be associated with Nashville, but it's not the city so much that makes me feel at home (the city makes me feel rather oppressed... LifeWay bearing down over it and Billy Graham standing in stone at the foot of the cross, holding out his Bible to the cars that drive by, and Christian stations on every other scan of the radio.)

Rather it's the home on 7th street, north of downtown where I feel at home. Where I know where the pillows are kept and the pillowcases too, so i make my own bed as my hosts are busy making a bed for their baby. And i know where all Disney coffee mugs are kept and which one i will choose to use all week because it's my favorite (Tinkerbell). And I love stopping at least once a trip to this house in the long hallway to look at the large, framed, collage of pictures from Lynnette and Sam's wedding day. While I wasn't officially a bridesmaid, I was one of three who did the bridesmaid duties for Lynnette, and I was asked to speak about marriage at her wedding. While I relented to give up my best single friend to the man she would marry, I did so knowing that I was gaining another best friend. And now there is never just "Lynnette my friend from Seminary and her husband Sam." It's my friends, Sam and Lynnette, and together the three of us have become best friends in a new way. Or at least on my end, I know Sam has been added to my group of besties alongside his wife. They are people who don't just know me and love and tolerate me, but rather know and love and encourage me to live to my full potential.

And so I feel at home in their home. I feel safe.

It doesn't have to be clean, I'm not really a guest. Towels don't have to be laid out on my guest bed, folded and ready, I can get my own towel from the bathroom closet. And if the baby's clothes have been tossed in a laundry basket, I can fold them and put them away. The litter box can be full and stinky; I don't begrudge Missy (though I will be irritated if she begrudges me by my spraying my suitcase like she did last time). And if dirt and mud gets tracked in from the rain, I can sweep it up cause it's my home too... in a way. This is one of the places I call home.

I can always tell I'm happy if I'm snuggled in a bed with the computer on my lap and I'm typing, no, writing, telling a story. Then I'm happy, then I'm home.

Yesterday at the ordination service of Pastoral Resident, Joe Bumbulis I watched my own story be retold again. Dr. Stroope came down to offer the charge to the candidate as he comes pretty damn close to being Joe's father. Dr. Stroope kept me in seminary. When I'd had enough of crazy Christians, he walked around and around and around an airport terminal with me in China or Thailand or I don't know where the hell we were, and somehow, though I don't remember him saying any words, he convinced me to stay in school. In addition, there were people at Joe's ordination who were at mine. Tommy and Dana Chiodo, Suzy McLaughlin and her dad, Arleigh DeLeon, Stephen Reeves, Peyton Henderson, Suzii Paynter. Some of it I remember what they said, or what the rock that they slipped into my palm said. I still have it. Other words I have forgotten. But not the faces, not the lines, the solomness with which people laid hands on my head and ordained me into a ministry that Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie tonight at the Festival of Homiletics described as "more than a choice...a call... because if we had our choice, we wouldn't go." A Preacher's job is to speak the truth to the powers. Moses was asked to be offensive, not defensive. There is no syllabus for this practicum on liberation. So speak the truth no matter if you know if you have enough money or if you'll be heard or if you don't know how to do civil disobedience, or if you have someone to run the PowerPoint or not. Do it. Speak the truth.

In Roger's homily yesterday for the ordination he described ministers as sometimes laying plastic flowers at a grave, a trite gesture, not without meaning, but an adequate metaphor for how we have reduced our ministry. Plastic flowers. And I thought there for a minute, do I give my students plastic flowers? And tonight I wondered, or do I speak truth to the power they are already inheriting?

In my neighborhood do I give the already oppressed black people the right to keep on oppressing others who are different from them (homosexuals, "browns" and women) when I hear what they say in casual conversation and just ignore it, or do I speak boldly to what I believe is gospel truth about power verses liberation and risk having my voice shake and my faith shook as I may be called heretical and white and liberal and just a woman?

Cause that's my home too. And everybody wants to be loved in their home. At 4:45am I called my next door neighbor Clarence.
"Clarence, my ride didn't show up, can you take me to the airport?"
"When?"
"Um...Now?"

Of course he did. And he warned me not to find some man while I'm at this conference cause I've got a family (him) to come home to in Austin. But he also encouraged me to relax and have a good time learning and resting. Because he loves me and I love him. And his house is home too. I help myself to his cans of Pepsi and to his bug-killing powder and he helps himself to my extra long orange extension cord. And we bicker with each other over who isn't watering their plants adequately and we watch late nite TV and cry sometimes because we're sad about our losses. And Clarence always does the preaching, admonishing us to carry on, because Clarence has lived through a lot and found the faith to be his solid rock... and because Clarence likes to talk. I can hardly get an admonition in edgewise.

But it's all home, you know. And tonight I'm home in Nashville with people I love; with a baby who will someday call me Auntie Ann. And I'm nuzzled in their house and borrowing a room and a bed and a Tinkerbell coffee mug for a few days, and so i will call it my own home too.

They say home is where your heart is. I say it's where you love and feel loved, fully alive and fully safe to be yourself.

So, welcome Home to Nashville, Ann. Welcome Home.

Emerging Synchroblog

In response to a request for an Emerging Synchroblog that all bloggers involved in church life (whether conversants in the Emergant Village or not) write about the question, "What is Emerging in the Church?" here I go...

I think what is emerging in the church is inclusivity. I say that not because it is what I hope for (though I do), but I say that because finally the church and believers as a whole are generally moving towards a more inclusive theology of God.

Like Jonah before them, many Christians are digging in their heels and even swimming out to sea to avoid sharing a pew with a black man, a pulpit with a woman or communion bread with a homosexual, but it's happening.

While women were leaders and preachers in the early church, somewhere along we way, we as Christians lost our bearing. Even early abbesses were ordained in the 2nd century whereas now they're only blessed. But, in 1974, the church I'm in began ordaining women as deacons. In 2006, I became the 6th or 7th female they'd ordained to the ministry (with three more coming after me). A few months ago I was the "token woman's resume" in a Dallas church's search for a senior pastor. And while that royally pissed me off (I found out later they'd already chosen their candidate but needed to say they'd "looked at" a woman's resume), my current pastor and mentor reminded me that I could be the "token female" for future generations of women. He's right. And one day we'll see women priests in the Catholic church and we won't think twice about whether or not to hire a woman pastor for our church...

In 1948 Carlyle Marney began the difficult task of integrating the church i currently attend and also fighting 13 racist bills in the Texas Legislature. In 1963 my church passed a resolution about membership not being exclusive or determined by race. In 1967 they ordained their first "black" deacon. Now, color isn't a consideration when we invite people to be deacons or preach from our pulpit. (And maybe one day we'll have a black senior pastor in addition to a female senior pastor).

In 1976, the Episcopal church affirmed that gay men and women were children of God deserving acceptance and pastoral care. In 1992 an American Baptist church in Minnesota called a gay pastor to be their minister and a Southern Baptist church in North Carolina ordained a gay seminary student. Someday it will be okay to be a Christian who is gay and be a member of a congregation. Someday it will be okay to be a deacon who is gay, and someday it will be okay to be a pastor who is gay.

Each of these "issues" I've named (being a woman, being a minority, being gay) began by being labeled as a "sin" or "sub-human" or "not holy enough to matter" by a people group in the majority and in control. And each of these types of people, through the grace of God, has been seen for what they really are - a unique expression of the diversity of God - and their oppressors exposed in their own judgmental sin.

And Jonah went to Nineveh. And Nineveh was invited into covenant with God.

Inclusivism: God's all inclusive love. God's reckless adoration for all of humanity regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or you fill in the blank. This is where God is leading us and this is how I think the church is slowing emerging. The church is emerging from a worldview of exclusive "God only loves people who look and act and think like me" to God loves everyone and maybe even has planned for me to learn and grow from these people that I once considered "other."

Thanks be to God...

(P.S. If you want to read what other people think is emerging in the Church, a full list of participants in this write-off can be found at One Hand Clapping.)

Reflections on Luke 14:7-24

Yesterday as I sat in church, a giant of a man, mentally handicapped, sat behind me breathing so loudly, if I closed my eyes, it was easy to picture myself in a hospial with a respitory machine at my left shoulder... or maybe Darth Vader.

As Roger began preaching from the lectionary text, I heard a small voice coming from within the congregation. I looked at the woman sitting next to me and we smiled at each other, both recognizing and confirming the sound. It was a little girl, situated among the adults, so content with her placement that she was humming. Though I couldn't find her, I pictured her looking down at whatever picture she was drawing, or puzzle she was working, humming. Happily humming to herself.

The text was on the banqueting table, and never taking your place of honor, but remaining humble to be put in your place only by the host. Similarly, it was on who we invite to the feast, leaving the door open enough to not offer the easy invitations to our friends, the prestigious, the ones who make us look good, or the ones who are easy to be around. It is about being humble enough, comfortable enough with who we are, to acknowledge the least of these, those who really need to be at the banqueting table.

Roger said, if this doesn't make your stomach turn, you're either made it to true humility or you aren't processing what I've said. Invite the least.

I was sitting by Darth Vader and the humming child and I understood what he meant. And as I pictured in my mind the most difficult people it would be for me to invite to honor in my house, to shower a great feast upon, to spend time with, and as I lamented the thought, I was also struck by the beauty of where I was in that moment. I was a actually sitting by some people's least of these, and it was a beautiful picture of community.

I could tell that some people around the giant man whose breathing could be heard for pews and pews looked around with irritation. But others shook his hand and asked how his week had been. Some rolled their eyes at the little girl who never stopped humming, while others giggled and shrugged their shoulders. This was community. One another infringing on each other, overlapping the circles of our lives to join together before God.

The least of these and the greatest of these, all humbled before the cross, before communion, before the confirmation we receive as children of God. All ready to partake of the feast.

This is what I "preached" at Beresheth last Thursday (the Sloth sermon was from a couple weeks before that)...

This past weekend, I went to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. I know, that sounds a little sketchy, like I might be “crazed” as the saying goes or obsessive or wanting a death wish, but hear me out on this. First of all, I was invited. And it wasn’t just a courtesy invite. It was a small wedding. So I went. I went to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding and he was glad I was there. I think his new wife was comfortable with me being there and even I was comfortable, happy to watch their union.

It’s a little different, I know. My first major boyfriend promptly got another woman pregnant after he and I broke up and we never spoke again. My last boyfriend kind of wigs me out. But with my ex-boyfriend who invited me to his wedding and gave me a huge hug afterwards, things were different, and I think it all has to do with community.

When I moved to Waco, Texas in January of 2001, I was in complete culture shock. I knew no one in Waco, let alone in Texas, had no family, no friends, just a scholarship to go to school. I moved in with three people I didn’t know and I began a new phase in my life. Does this sound similar to yours? Have you ever started school unsure about your classes, moved into an apartment or dorm unsure about your roommates, moved to a new town unsure about its culture?

Needless to say, I love Waco. Now. I repeat, now. Not then. Then it was full of obnoxious republicans and sexist classmates. Then everyone was a Texas lover and I had to cut through the pride just to get into the doors of the classrooms. Everyone who heard I was from out of state promptly informed me of Texas’ right to succeed from the Union (as if that were an intelligent decision). Doormats and potato chips were carefully crafted in the shape of the state of Texas. But there were other oddities too. Someone invited me to go eat dinner at the place where all the branch dividians died. A basketball player shot and killed his roommate. The water tasted horrible and you weren’t supposed to swim in the river. There were horrible fire ants in Texas that made blisters on my feet and legs. Baylor in all its wealth and glory sat smack dab in the middle of a poverty-stricken ghetto. Then Waco was scary, foreign, peculiar. But now it is beautiful, stable, and I miss it.

And the change in attitude is all because of community.

Because in Waco I found community and it changed my whole perspective on life.

In Waco, I made friends who I know I will remain close to until it’s all I can do to pull myself out of a rocking chair to go to the bathroom let alone get out of a pew to preach. They will be forever with me because of the community we created living together.

Together in community, my friends and I learned what it meant to truly love one another. We saw each other fully, with our faults and our unique blessings. My friends recognized my gifts and quirky personality, but also my downfalls and weaknesses and they loved me anyway. There was no pretension, no judgment. Everyone was always welcome, the door always open and the beer always in the fridge. When I found a cockroach in my bed at 12 am one night, I called my friend Big Phil and announced that I was in the car and on my way over to sleep on his couch. When he was devastated with a broken heart one night, he called me to come take care of him cause he’d had too much to drink. When I was hungry and didn’t know how to cook anything but cereal, my friend Lance would come over and cook me mac ‘n cheese and together we’d eat dinner and talk theology. When I was depressed over men, my roommate Cat and I would go get a pizza and watch Bridget Jones’ Diary, because laughter and grease always help heartache. When I obsessed unnecessarily over an issue, Josie would sit me down and tell me to stop. To stop right there because I was over-reacting. When sorrow was necessary, Julie would let me cry for hours in her bed. When I was in a play, Chris was always there on the front row.

We all provided this for each other. I had a list a mile long of people I could call, even people I didn’t know very well, who I knew would drop everything to help me out if I was ever in danger or in need. They understood community.

Community means sharing meals, talking long hours, goofing off, wrestling with hard issues, supporting each other, sharing jokes, taking each other lightly and taking each other seriously. It means you let your guard down and let someone else in. It means you get new members to your family, even if they aren’t blood related.

Communities are everywhere. We have communities at school, at work, at church, from High School, in our neighborhood. But the important thing to remember is that whoever we choose to embrace into our community deserves our very best. They deserve us: ourselves, our full selves – not the image we want to portray, not what we think they might like in another person, not another acquaintance full of quaint hi’s and how are you’s who don’t listen for an answer.

And we begin to live in union. In America we live in a Union, in a union where the majority is supposed to rule and the minority agrees to continue to live in community regardless. That’s not how we always behave though. And we live going to church, learning about God, talking to our friends and going home to eat with our family. But there’s so much more to church than that. We live 40 hours a week at work or in school interacting with the same people every day, some of whom we don’t even know their name, some of whom we’d just as soon not know at all.

Who is your community? How do you define it? And are you allowing yourself to live fully by choosing to invest in the lives of people around you and choosing to let them into yours?

It’s a risk. I don’t want people to know about my eating disorder, we may say. I don’t want people to know I love Star Wars. I don’t want people to know I like to read classic literature. I don’t want people to know I drink. I don’t want people to know I don’t drink. I don’t want to be back-stabbed again. I don’t want to be lied to again. I don’t want to be overlooked again. I don’t want to hurt again.

It’s a risk.

But it’s a rainbow too, a promise, of a true communion available only through our triune God. True community: three in one.

“May they live in unity,” Jesus prayed. “Just like you and I are one, let them be one.”

Don’t just go in and out of the doors of the church. Don’t just go in and out of the classrooms, the cubicles. Open your eyes and open your heart. Let people love you and love others. Create family out of friends and work hard at healthy relationships and trust and vulnerability. Learn to know when to shut your friends down in love and learn to listen to them too. Encourage one another. Laugh with one another. Challenge one another. Support one another. Take care of one another. Cook organic mac ‘n cheese for one another.

And you may find yourself celebrating the wedding of your life to the lives of those around you.

And that will be a beautiful marriage indeed.

So I’m laying on my bed yesterday afternoon traumatized because I can’t get a straight answer from my phone company about whether or not they sent a technician out to my house on Monday who may or may not have intentionally unplugged my security system, and my computer says it can’t find the modem for my wireless internet even though everything is hooked up properly and flashing their “on” lights, and of course, I’m completely unable to do anything to fix any of these issues myself. I had a male friend stay the night at my house Tuesday night to ensure that the potentially sketchy SBC guy didn’t come back to rape and pillage me in the middle of the night (not that there’s much to pillage since I have no furniture - i digress), and on Wednesday I had another male friend come over who works with internet companies on a regular basis to figure out why my modem and wifi wouldn’t configure. And I had this sort of “Sex in the City” moment.

Remember that episode when Charlotte tells the other girls that the problem with all of them was that all they really wanted out of men was “to be rescued”?

That’s how I felt laying in bed in the middle of the afternoon.

Two days in a row I had to be rescued by men.

And that makes me cranky.

And it makes me feel incompetent.

But then I started thinking.

This past weekend I went “home” to Waco to stay with my Texas family and Holly, the mom of the family, made me dinner and put clean sheets on my bed and sat and drank with me outside, talking about men and life. And in that way, she rescued me.

And then there’s Julie, an old friend whom I met up with for dinner, who listened to me verbally assault her with all that’s been on my mind and heart because she gets me and knows me, and I can share those things that I keep bottled up inside with her. Julie rescued me.

So I’m not just being rescued by men. I’m being rescued by women too.

Young and old, male and female, rich and poor, people rescue me every day.

And I realized that perhaps, just perhaps, I rescue them too.

I can’t beat up or even scare an intruder in my home, but I can sing a song that soothes the soul.
I can’t find a number to configure my internet, but I can preach a sermon that may inspire hope.
I can’t be family to myself by myself, but I can open my home to anyone who needs to come play Nintendo to get away.
I can’t solve my own issues by talking to myself about them, but I can listen to others tell me their stories.

I can do a lot of things that other people can’t do.

And other people can do a lot of things that I can’t do. And so we do these things for each other.

But more importantly, we BE these things for each other.

Where I offer compassion, I receive grace. Where he gives affirmation, I show faithfulness. Where she bestows hope, I display honesty. And we are Christ to one another.

And the pendulum swings as we need and receive, and are called upon and give.

And that is community.

None of us is whole or self-sufficient or completely autonomous. Thank God. Or we’d be a cold world without a need for each other or God.

Rather God has made us dependant on each other and on God.

And so I guess Charlotte was right... we all do need to be rescued.

Chris Johnson says "Missouri loves company," and company has arrived. After a CRAZY weekend and a resulting illness, a friend (affectionately titled "the wee one") drove me to a town just north of dallas last night. I slept there in his parent's guest bedroom and awaking rested and excited, I headed for St. Jo Mo.

But I wasn't entirely sure I would make it.

Some of you who know me well may remember a little episode with my car in September of 2002. In an attempt to make it "all the way," i.e. a one day drive from St. Jo, Mo to Waco, TX, I awoke early, felt totally un-rested and as a result, fell asleep at the wheel in Marietta Oklahoma and wrecked Blackbell, my cute little toyota carolla. I remember promising Jeremy on the phone that I would be careful and not fall asleep, I remember my eyes groggy and heavy, and I remember thinking "I need to stop and get coffee..." and the rest is, well history. And a good story, but one for another time. Consequently, I haven't driven more than eight hours in one block since that year. But as I was saying, I felt good this morning and hit the road with high spirits.

The spirits faded, I admit, but my energy didn't. I missed Radley snuggling in my lap and I cried. I wondered whether my ex-boyfriend would propose to his new girlfriend this Christmas and I cried. I marveled not at the unpredicatibility of the world (whose cruelty is ceasing to startle me) but rather at my own unpredictibility and cried again.

Truth be told, I have very little control of my emotions right now.

But maybe that's a story for another time too.

Once at home, I realized that though we've put up another tree (number 4), and have now added decoration to the three daughters bedrooms, not much has changed. And everything has changed. Someone always cries (usually low-self-esteem-Ann, or I-can't-get-registered-for-classes-Emily, or that-movie-was-sad-Amy). I'd already had my cry for the day though and was passed the phone with Amy called. Amy has experienced change.

And Amy cries a lot. But not because anyone died, rather because tonight a child is born. Tamara birthed Quintin at 7pm. Doyle, Amy's soon to be former father-in-law called with the news. Where to one the child brings joy to another he brings pain.

I suppose the same could be said of Christ.

For me the Christ-child brings hope: imagine a God who would call both kings and shepherds to his birth. Roger preached a great sermon Sunday, calling the shepherds the "smarmy used car salesmen" of 2000 years ago. I'd never thought of them as such. Usually they fill the sweet little poor, stinky people role, not the untrustworthy, manipulative gypsy role. But God calls both. Does God really love everyone? Even the really shitty, manipulative, selfish fools?

And here, Christ brings pain too: the confrontation of my nihlism by my faith, my agony by a child, another human-yet-God who felt damaged and beaten as I do now.

Where the hell did all this pain come from?

I went to see Harry Potter, but when Cedrick died, something in my head clicked and I thought of Kyle, and in tears, my brain shut down and in self-defense, blacked out the remainder of the movie. I went to Petsmart as I entered, I smiled at the baby kittens displayed before me, until I reach the last cage filled with a fat tabby, colored just like my precious Radley. I burst into tears and hurried to the kitty litter section. Just when you think enough time has past, something triggers a memory and all is lost.

And so, misery loves company, but company I will not give.

"Watch a movie you haven't seen yet Amy, you have to create new memories."
"We'll go see the baby this weekend, you and me."
"Tell me about the Christmas cookies you made with Watts and Brooke."

That pepped her up. If pain isn't a testimony for community, I don't know what is. The key to surviving it is asking for help.

So help me.

Mom, dad, Amy, Emily, Grandma, Grandpa, I am fragile right now. I can't control myself like I usually can. My body and brain react to visions, sights, sayings I could never know to avoid. Help me get through the grief that is neverending.

And you are hurting too. There will only be five for Christmas this year. The first in five years. Odd. Wrong. But real. So I will help you too and together we will make it through this difficult yet beautiful season.

Missouri loves company.