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One in the Spirit

One of my favorite songs on the guitar (that I could play as a teenager) was “We are One in the Spirit, We are One in the Lord”. repeat twice then, “And we pray that all unity will someday be restored”, Closing with, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”

“We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand” twice, “And we’ll spread the news that God is in our land”, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”
“We will work with each other, we will work side by side” twice, “”And together we’ll spend the news that God is on our side” (?) “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”
“All praise to the Father from whom all things come, and all praise to Christ Jesus his only son and all praise to the Spirit that makes us one, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”

Not sure I remembered it all correctly, but you get the drift. I sang that with great fervor and I played it proudly (and it was only 3 chords C,F,G so I could play it with confidence.)
Oh, how I believed that. I was on the edge of a new beginning in the world, our country, our Church. We were even trying out various Book(s) of Common Prayer and some more contemporary translations of the Bible were being published. We had celebrated our country’s bicentennial. US citizens were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. It felt like the dawn of a new age.

I had a copy of “The Living Bible”, it was green and I think I even had my name on it in gold, but I discovered a verse in 1 Timothy (Chapter 1, verses 10-11) that in reading now (probably close to 40 years later) (OMG) it does not say what I thought it said, but the opposite. Of course, I was reading it in a paraphrase, as I came to understand it, it was not a translation. I also had taken the verse out of context, much like my fundamentalist friends. What I read was: “Yes, these laws are made to identify as sinners all who are immoral and impure: homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, and all others who do things that contradict the glorious Good News of our blessed God, whose messenger I am.”
I have to stop here and admit my immaturity at the time. First I understood word association. I saw these words: laws, identify sinners, immoral, homosexuals with kidnappers, liars and from the previous verse, hate God, attack their fathers and mothers and murder.
I was reading the Bible in a few verses, and on those verses in the Living Bible, I took a ball point pen and marked out the “sins” listed there and I swore that 1 Timothy was the worst book of the Bible and I slammed shut an inner door that has never been really walked through until now.
What I saw in those verses was, it turns out, the opposite of the truth. Paul was writing that the Good News was not for the holy and sinless, it was for those who thought they weren’t good enough or even those who OTHER people deemed were not good enough. A complete turnaround from what I thought I saw that day in my bedroom.
My grandparents had given each of us Bibles one year for Christmas with our names put on them and they were, of course, King James Version and they had some sort of sword and shield (although that could have been a harp) on the front cover. I understood very little of what was actually IN the Bible, but I knew it was “Holy” and I knew I’d better respect it. To have taken a ball point pen and scratched through those verses, even though I completely misunderstood, and even though it was in The Living Bible, not the “real” Bible, the King James, well, I knew I had done something that was bold; something that I could never have been able to answer for, if my grandparents, or the church, or God HIMself found out that I had rejected something in scripture. Rejected something I wouldn’t dare admit to, and ironically believed it said the very opposite of what I thought.
I am also unsure if I knew what it was to be homosexual. I damn sure didn’t understand sodomy. And fornication, I KNOW for damn sure that I didn’t understand that; because, as I understood my role as a female, the word “no” was not a word I was allowed to express when something serious was asked of me. That explains much more of my history and I will return to in a later blog. Not tonight.
Coming back around to this whole unity business… The United Methodist Church rolled out a great slogan, possible created by incredibly expensive marketing agents who had completed test groups: “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”. Well, la-dee-freaki-da; (I mean no referential harm to my drag queen sister by a similar name.)
The UMC rolled out their great new slogan, at the very least, at the time when ordinands were to have “celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage” and somewhat after to the other statement about “homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity”. These denominational decisions were not congruent with other traditional mainline Protestant Churches in the US.  Open (hearts, minds, doors) became a legal reality when the Supreme Court upheld gay marraige. I watched other mainline churches stop prosecuting (and persecuting?), defrocking or flogging, their own Christian clergy, who happened to be gay yet were also BAPTIZED, as well as ORDAINED.

The UMC elected and consecrated our first openly gay bishop whose downfall was begun before the sun rose the next day.  The divide deepened and the chasm imploded across the US with the recent decision of our Judicial Council.

Is it so wrong to draw parallels between the Department of Justice finding police officers not guilty of violating civil rights and our Judicial Council seeing with eyes that miss the point – focusing on the letter and tittle (as Jesus said) of the law and not the heart of it? How is the hatred and fear of young American Black men and the fear of a gay married member of the clergy all that different? Not to dismiss either case but in one the law fails to protect them and takes a physical life of young Black men and in the other, a religious Council takes the religious life from a openly gay woman. Both occur against the words and actions of Jesus Christ, who loved all the Black men with guns, or without, and all women at the altar, gay or straight?

How are we acting as the “Christian nation”? This election cycle brought up, again, the belief of some that our country was founded in the Christian faith. While I can argue that at another time, for now I want to share that I believe neither of these issues are in any way Christian. A gunshot to the chest, or the unprecedented shot in the back and the dismissal of a life of faith and dedication are very similar symptoms of a failing civil and spiritual society.
One in the Spirit? Holy Spirit, yes because she sees no difference between the straight or gay folks, the married or single folks, the black or white or brown folks. But to dare to claim “open hearts, open mind, and open doors” is just load of crap, “United” Methodists.

Here I Stand.

Disciples. 12. That number worked on many levels, so to keep it simple, I will align with tradition and also say there were 12.

Were they “the little rag-tag army” that Martin Bell spoke of in The Way of the Wolf? He describes a silly group of people, so happy and dancing in a big circle holding hands. It makes us smile and feel good. However, if we look from another perspective, the closed circle means leaving the others out. Bell also described the bunny (Barrington Bunny) who could find no one else like himself and was excluded by all the other animals because they were having their own parties, you know, the squirrels and chipmunks and whoever else. The bunny makes and in the dark of night, delivers gifts to each home, describing it as “a gift, a free gift, with no strings attached”. He finishes delivering the gifts and comes across a lost mouse who will freeze to death. So the bunny invites the mouse to cuddle close. In the morning, when the snow has stopped and the sun has come out, all these little families find their gifts and the family of the mouse find him quite well, under the carcass of a dead bunny.

Hey, I’m not trying to blow the socks off of a pagan recognition of new life in the spring, the Easter bunny, I’m only musing on what Easter has become to so many Americans, most of whom, when asked their religious preference, now say “none”. Yet we still celebrate.

If, in ministry, we followed The Way, like the bunny, we are led to believe we have to give it all. All of it. As if we are strip searched upon ordination and have to relinquish the heirlooms, the treasured photos, the families we were born to. In leaving all this behind and giving all we have we end up dead. Dead as doorknobs. Cold, hardened, with nothing to say and incapable of working in this world as corpses.

That is not Christ-like. But the story was  told as a model of the faith at summer camp.

Count the number of times it is written in the Gospels, how frequently Jesus went away by himself to pray. He needed re-fueling too. Going our “all in all” does not excuse ourselves.

In the Church (and I mean traditional modern Christianity) we have sort of expected this kind of commitment to those in the pulpit. For those in the pews Easter is, well, from Facebook postings, mostly kids in new pastel clothes getting their pictures made for generations to come. It’s sweet.

A contemporary Christian tune that ironically has a child begin it is titled “You Are My All in All” and it praises the Lord for taking all of our “sin, our guilt, our shame”. For many, especially those of us with a penchant toward depression, we do not hear the “good news” because all of the long forgotten and forgiven sins, even past tense, get dragged out again and our own spirits get bruised in the process.

There were more than 12. Several times in the Gospel of Mark, the phrase “because of the crowds” is used. They didn’t arrest him when he cleared the temple, they didn’t arrest him when he came riding into town on a donkey (while at the same time, Pilate was on a stallion, prancing into the city himself). Even when Jesus is arrested, Judas had to tell them where and they went at night. At his arrest Jesus asks why they didn’t arrest him when they had seen him and their fear was “the crowds”. There were more than 12.

These followers were being taught about an entirely different perspective. They were taught to use their ears and mouth and eyes. They knew that The Way was not a “personal relationship” in order to receive the goodie basket when they die. The Way was and is, a direction to live your life, not as a bystander, but as a Christian.

The Way is not a mental exercise, not a psychosocial perspective nor is it a theological discourse.  It is not a doctrine, a credo, a series of answers to all of life’s questions. The Way is life transformed.

The Way is living as the risen dead

Now. Today

– December 11, 2016
I love my country. People want to flee because of this basket case that has been elected. Even though I’m a dual citizen and I can literally go live in Ireland, I am not giving up on the USA. I am an American. I have studied our government and our history. I have travelled to other countries and seen how they govern, I have watched the news.

I had to memorize “We the people…” in school. Just as I had to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and My Country Tis of Thee (and I know it’s also the tune to “God Save the Queen”). I was also taught “We Shall Overcome” as a national song. I get choked up listening to the national anthem, especially on Veterans Day. My dad WAS a veteran as was his dad and two of my dad’s sisters. My dad was a mainline Republican and with my mom as a diehard Democrat, they had many a discussion over politics but they loved each other and lived with each other in peace.

I am in shock and appalled by Trump’s election to begin with. It still doesn’t seem real but I’m mourning as I watch 240 years of democracy morph into this egomaniacal horror story. CEO’s have fought mightily – not for this country, no – but against our numerous agencies as in Secretary of State, Chief of Staff, EPA (OMG) and others preparing to “serve” this country. Serve? These billionaires serve no one except themselves and the bottom line of their profits. They don’t even do their own taxes and have paid less than I have, no doubt.

Make America Great Again? How about stealing “We the People”. We are a democracy and something has gone very very wrong when the loser of an election has over 2.5 million votes than the one who won the electoral college. But as I study our government a little more, I am beginning to see a glimmer of light that maybe the Electoral Collage can do what they are commissioned TO DO and that is reject any candidate who does not, and will not, adhere to the US Constitution.

I did advanced Clinical Pastoral Education at the Dallas VA Hospital. Orientation was two days. On the first day, we had to pledge to defend our country against enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. I was choked up when we were called on to do so and even though I am not employed by the government, I never rescinded my pledge that day. I promised to defend this country against any person, organization, or powerful billionaire who is a threat to our country. Donald Trump and his inexperienced billionaire cronies are not looking out for our country. They will not defend it. They will take all they can, hide behind lawyers to save their profits and CPAs to ensure they pay no taxes.

This is no longer about Donald Trump – the person and his wild personality. This has entered an arena of trickle down democracy, a take-over of the land I love. I will “stand beside her, and guide her” and question (because I am an American and I CAN) whenever “that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the FREE and the home of the brave” is disrespected.

How about the last verse of “My Country Tis of Thee”: “Our father’s God to Thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light. Protect us by thy might, great God our King”. Is it at this point in the history of our country that our Freedom of Religion kicks into high gear and we the people have no other choice but to plea for God to save us from this destruction of our Constitution?

I will bold each part of the Opening of the US Constitution that I feel is on the verge of destruction.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure DOMESTIC TRANQUILLITY, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Add to this “Liberty and JUSTICE for ALL’ and we’ve got a stew of annihilation of the founders hopes for our country.

Bill Maher printed up his own baseball cap in response to Trump’s campaign one “Make America Great Again”. Bill’s is blue and has the words “We;re Still Here”.

With Bill Maher I will not give up the land that I love to a narcissistic demagogue whose only agenda is for himself, his family, his rich friends, and those who bow at his feet (figuratively). I will not roll over and play dead to a tax evading sexual predator who chastises the press for printing whatever the press chooses to print, and blocks freedom of speech unless the speech about him is favorable. I will not passively sit back and watch the FDA and EPA destroyed in order that industrial manufacturers are no longer regulated and can potentially poison our food and medicine. I won’t ignore actions to repeal a woman’s right to do with her body as she chooses. I won’t keep my mouth shut if Trump et al decides to destroy our land and wildlife, and poison the water we drink.

I will not sit back quietly as Americans of any religion, creed, color, culture, age, gender or sexual orientation are singled out and no longer protected by our law.

I didn’t raise enough hell about this sexual predator because there were so many issues in addition to that, I couldn’t keep up. “Bleed from ‘whatever’, “grab her by the p*ssy”, “I know more than the generals” and I’m not going to begin to list the number of atrocities that were used about Hillary or Obama.

This land is my land, this land is your land. God created all the things that live in a magnificent ecosystem and beautiful terrain of all types and God created humans in God’s image and patted us on the head and said, “It is good”. These living and breathing things that grow and thrive and eventually die are vastly important. The borders of our countries are not sketched out in a permanent marker seen from outer space, they are drawn in the sand. We are all people who bleed when we’re cut; we are humans – awesome creations – who live in a land where we are given inalienable rights. Anytime one person has power over another, be it one woman disrespected in public, one race not protected but threatened by those sworn to uphold the law; anytime someone is overlooked or had their dignity taken away, I will stand. I will protect all living things: people, animals, wildlife and all cultures, sexual orientations, races, ages, religion or disabilities not only because of my faith but because we are to be protected by law. I will not match hatred with more hatred nor will I allow myself or others to be disrespected.

I pledge allegiance to all humans. A piece of paper that might be required to live in this country or the threat of dividing groups of people and giving rights to some but not to all is not America.

Here I Stand.Why I Fear for My Country

Monday, November 28, 2016
Advent 2016
What Are We Waiting For?

And so Advent begins for 2016. It is the advent, the dawn, of a new era. This era is completely unprecedented.

In the visual world, Donald Trump won enough electoral votes to elect him as the new president of our country. I am not alone in feelings of nausea, fear, anxiety, unrest, insomnia and the need to step away, for my own safety, from national news programs.

This is the last Christmas with the Obamas in the White House. During his administration so many who have been hiding from society have been able to step out of the darkness. We can be gay, transgender, lesbian, queer, bi. We are protected somewhat differently because violence will be prosecuted as a hate crime. People of the same gender can legally marry. The prevalence of cellphone cameras has caught white police officers acting badly in traffic stops of African American (mostly) men. This has happened so frequently (horribly) that people gathered together in numbers (safety in numbers?) to protest that something has to be done about the persecution, the incarceration rates of Black men, the prisons built by private agencies where states pay for their use, and thus, the more in prison, the more money the jail attenders make.

Anyway …
The point – the reason – I’m writing is because yesterday Advent began in a country I am afraid of, and cannot recognize – and a church, the UMC, which also hangs on by a thread swaying between inclusion and exclusion. It seems to be the anthem of all large bodies of people – human people – who make mistakes.

So into this new church order, new national order, I light my first candle on the wreath. Hope.

I do actually pray for world peace. I pray for a day when we will literally bend our swords into shovels and care for one another all across this world. I do believe that all humans are capable of love and to be loved. I believe we are all able to listen. I believe we have the capacity to tell the truth. I believe we can see evidence of peace during times of disaster but I believe it won’t have to be a disaster to get us there.

It seems we always have to fail in order to grow. I am coming to realize that more as I grow older. We don’t grow just because our DNA tells us to. We mature as people, Christians, citizens of our country and our world when we pitch the “shitty first draft” (Anne Lamott) and get serious about what we need to do next.

I believe the table of Jesus Christ is a sacrament, as long as you define as Sacrament as something that is a concentrated focal point of God’s love for us. I believe that also applies in baptism.

I believe the “Last Supper” is all about Jesus serving the disciples and doing so with the knowledge of the one who betrayed him and the one who would deny him, and he served them anyway. He withheld nothing. If Jesus let them sit at the table AND washed their feet, than we have no right to decide who can be at that table, because all of us are there by invitation only. We couldn’t buy a ticket of bribe an insider. We were invited.

And in the Eucharist, we tell this story and we also that Jesus was crucified under Roman law because he and his followers went against the status quo. He died that way, like many criminals before him, in a painful death. He was killed because of the things he said and did.

I do not believe in any guilt-ridden explanation of “The Great Thanksgiving” if it tells the story of his crucifixion and death that maintaining that Jesus “paid the price for sin” or was sacrificed for us (by us?) to pay some debt we owe to God. I think those are human constructs that made sense to a few and then became the creed – a delusional creed of good and bad and angry blood-thirsty God. I just don’t buy that.

That notion of “atonement” is not law. It is not “good news” by any stretch.

I do believe Jesus really was a person, a teacher, rabbi and prophet. I do believe he “got it” in terms of understanding God, and he understood God and the love of God better than any human ever had. He had a relationship with God that was also unprecedented. And he taught us to do the same.

I believe Jesus was resurrected, bodily. On Easter. And that resurrection was what Jesus was talking about when he said he would “come again”. He did.

There may be a day that we all “get it”, there more than likely will not. We as people don’t have to “get it” in any uniform way; we “get it” when we want it. Most of the time, it’s right before our eyes.

I believe that Advent is a time for the Church, and for me personally, to stop and be still. It is time to remember that out of nothing and no inheritance did Jesus enter this world in a humble way.

It is time to remember God coming into the world to show us the way to live in peace with one another, with our planet, and how to thrive, be well and enjoy the world we live in … this beautiful awesome world of mountains and streams and puppies and babies, oceans and valleys – people of all different colors, sizes, languages, laughs.

It is time to remember the Sermon on the Mount; the teachings about caring for each other, about humility, about simplicity, and not being a show off spiritually or financially.

It is Advent 2016. It’s time for something new. And if God could create this world/universe/cosmos, then God can lead us to new and incredible things.

Maybe the direction of the country designed by and for the people with the most money in the world will discover that money has no value. None. It doesn’t buy love or happiness. It doesn’t make the world a better place.

Money makes us steal and lie to keep it or get it or protect it. “The root of all evil”. Yep.

Maybe the “value” of currency worldwide will disappear altogether. The thought of buying and selling will vanish.

Even in Star Trek; the future of space travel, etc, they wrote into their scripts that currency is outdated; something of the historical past.
It is time for change. It is time to throw out all of our old ideas and just ask a prayer – we will lose nothing by dong so. Just pray. Pray for our world. Pray for each other. Pray for hope and joy and faith and peace. Pray like it’s Advent 2016!