The Threats We Ignore

As a horror movie lover, it is a strange thing to be in the midst of a pandemic. It's pretty clear that while this novel coronavirus creates a serious disease, it's not a thing of science fiction. I stopped at Target today to get contact lens solution and was met with sections of empty shelves where there was once hand sanitizer and wipes and toilet paper.

I'm a data junkie, so we could talk for a long time about the impact of COVID-19. What is most concerning to me, though, is our panic at this and how readily we ignore other things that are far more threatening. Climate change, for example, will actually kill a large chunk of humanity in the not too distant future. The great migrations we are seeing are one significant effect of climate change.

COVID-19 will likely illuminate how broken our healthcare system already is. Plenty of people already know it. We already know paid time off is precious and rare. We already know many hourly workers can't afford to miss work. We already know our systems do not care for people well. I wonder if we realize how this is slowly killing us all.

In the Phoenix metro area, hospitals are already at capacity, having nothing to do with a new threat. Most of the hospitals are at or near capacity January through March. In a fiscal year that begins in July, these same hospitals do not enter the black until January or later. Winter visitors push our healthcare system over capacity, while it is so under capacity in the summer months that it doesn't expand sufficiently. I went to visit someone in the hospital less than a week ago and that hospital had patients waiting in hallways in the ER because they were at capacity. The patient was in observation, the current location of overflow for admitted patients. A volunteer helped me find the patient because the room was in such an obscure location.

When I moved to Arizona, I got a rash that no one could figure out. I went to urgent care, than a primary care office, then to a dermatologist. I made it to the dermatologist by April. They could get me in the same week, but told me that two months earlier, the first appointment would also have been in April. Often, I have had to wait weeks for a specialist appointment, with a nice relief from the wait during the summer months.

I could go on about the limits of health insurance, the fact that Marketplace insurance is functionally Medicaid when accessing care. The list is long. But when a new virus reveals our vulnerabilities, we have an opportunity to realize we were deeply vulnerable all along.

When this is over, what will we do to address those threats that we ignore day in and day out? Our answer to that question matters for the good of humanity.

And in the meantime, wash your hands.

The Stories We Tell

Last night, I watched Disney's Robin Hood. We're talking the 1973 animated bunnies and foxes version, out of the vault because of Disney's new streaming service, not an adultier version. It was one of my favorites as a child, and I was home alone, so no one could object. I was not prepared for Robin Hood to launch political angst. Again, I watched the animated version with bunnies and foxes.

Yet, the villain hit a little too close to home. He's Prince John, made ruler of the land by deceit. The rightful King Richard is off fighting in the Crusades. He exploits the people through high taxes that buy them nothing; failure to pay lands them in jail. Prince John fills his coffers ever fuller and so enter Robin Hood, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The scruffy lion version of Prince John is petulant most of the time. One of the movie's songs about him proclaims, "He throws an angry tantrum if he cannot have his way."

It reflected American politics a little too closely. Of course, it was easier in the cartoon version. There is a clear rightful ruler there, one who is good and benevolent. When he shows up, he returns wealth to the people, pardons Robin Hood for illegally doing the same, and imprisons the corrupt rulers. But here I set, knowing I'm in a country with a president elected because of Russian tampering with the election. I've read articles calling for a return to paper ballots in the last week because of this tampering.

The temper tantrums are frequent and public, thrown on Twitter and on camera. This same president passed a tax plan that literally takes money from the lowest earning populations and gives it to the wealthy. I just wish we had someone as effective as organizing a response as Robin Hood was.

And somehow, we've missed it. Or forgotten. Or something. Robin Hood is a deeply embedded story that has been around for centuries. Most people in the US would know something about the good guy who robs from the rich to give to the poor. The connection to our reality isn't even a big leap. It's a puddle jump at best. Yet, we've gotten ourselves into this mess and can't see a clear way out.

Maybe even more shocking is that my reaction was much the same when seeing a live production of A Christmas Carol a couple years ago. There was no subtlety in Dickens' story of a rich man exploiting a poor one, even cutting off access to healthcare. It's also one of the stories that is part of our culture. It's a Wonderful Life is surely another. How many stories of deadly dragons hoarding wealth do we have? Smaug isn't the only one by a long shot. I'm guessing someone better versed in pop culture could rattle off a dozen movies that remind us how bad it is to be a rich being who hoards wealth.

We don't even have to get to the Gospels, presumably also a deep part of our cultural story. There, Jesus said things like "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." The man goes away grieving, because he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:21-22)

Jesus follows it up with, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24) Plenty of commentary tries to work around this strange, impossible saying. It's pretty helpful at face value. Rich is bad; it means you are hoarding resources beyond what you and your family could ever use. That's not what money is for.

If you've made it to my blog, you probably already know this. If you're offended I likened President Trump to Prince John, go watch the movie and then let's talk. Here's the thing I really want though: tell these stories. There's a whole realm of political discourse that won't get us anywhere, or at least we can't start there. We've proven that time and time again. We can start with the stories we know. We can start we the stories we learned as children, and the stories we tell our children. We can tell these stories more. We can remind adults of them. We can sit and ask why on earth acceptable for Jeff Bezos to be allowed to hoard wealth when refusing to pay workers' a living wage or provide benefits when Prince John is the hated bad guy.

For those of us who have been shaped by the Gospel, it's easier to see. But we can take this one bit of Gospel to the world in so many ways--and starving for these stories.

That's Going to End Poorly

A couple of Sundays ago, one of our kids threw her brother's shoe up on the roof. If I had to guess, I think she learned a few weeks earlier about the ladder leading to the roof and curiosity got the better of her. She really wanted to go up on the roof. Obviously, throwing her brother's shoe up there meant a trip to roof for someone; she was working to tag along.

Well, it didn't go quite as she planned. By the time the shoe was on the room, all the people who know how to access the roof had gone home. (This is one of the bits of information that I choose not to know, in part because it is a straight ladder leading to a hatch that grants access. I learned in barn lofts long ago that I hate climbing straight ladders.) So her brother hopped to the car on his one shod foot. Not surprisingly, he had on his more functional pair of shoes, so getting the one from the roof was critical. I promised to work on getting the shoe down.

I texted one of the people who could easily climb up on the roof, asking his mercy in retrieving the shoe. He stopped by later that afternoon, and the shoe made its way back to its owner. I was very glad that I knew the person who retrieved it would at worst roll his eyes at the kid and likely laugh at the whole thing very soon.

When the following Sunday she came to apologize to me for the trouble she caused, I bent down and told her, "If you want to go on the roof, ask. It's much better than losing a shoe." She was sheepish, to say the least. And yet, I also have put out a request to see if a children's field trip to the roof could be a reality. It's a flat roof with a wall around it, about as safe a version of a roof as possible.

Some of that request is shaped the the profundity of the Lunar Baboon cartoon posted here. I generally find the comic pretty wonderful. But I am especially intrigued by this one. I can't help but think that we don't know what comes next, for the church or this child. We can make guesses though. A nine year old wanting to go to the roof now can lead to annoying circumstances for sure. But in the not too distant future, we could be really glad for a sixteen year old gladly venturing to the roof. Someone has to venture up there occasionally now; those someones could be really glad for someone younger to go up on the roof in another seven years.

Church is most always about playing the long game. It may be the only institution that welcomes people cradle to grave--and blesses both. We keep reminding people to practice Sabbath in a world driven by productivity. The Church doesn't ask you to go and serve at the food pantry in December because it's the holiday season; the Church asks you to go and serve at the food pantry in July when they're desperate for volunteers and December when they need someone there who knows the routine. And the Church asks you to do that this year, and next year, and the year after that. Asks is probably the wrong word. The Church echoes the voice of Jesus, reminding you to remember and care for the vulnerable. It's always there, calling back to something else.

So many things begin poorly that don't end up that way. The story of our faith is one of things beginning not so great with that whole donkey/manger bit and ending even worse if you stop too soon. That Saturday spent sure that Jesus was really most sincerely dead is a terrible ending; you just have to stick with it for the something better.

May we hope in things that begin poorly, because the truth is, only God knows how they're actually going to end.

Some Early Christmas

On Christmas Eve this year, I will preach a sermon I have preached at least a couple other times. (If you'll be there, maybe stop reading now.) 

This year has been a dumpster fire for the world at large and a trash can fire for me personally. I think this presidency has turned into a straight up landfill fire at this point; I really can't stay engaged in the full news cycle for my own sanity and well-being. I took a deeper dive today and need a strong drink, an intense workout, a long hot shower, or something else I can't imagine. 

And because of all of that, here is the sermon I will preach in another week:

In the year that Jesus was born, there was a revolt in Germania, now southern Europe, that had to be quelled by Roman governors. The Kingdom of Aksum was founded in what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia, one of the greater trading nations. In modern day Georgia, Arkshak II, the king of Ibera died, as did Amanishakheto, the queen of Nubia which occupied Kush, Egypt and Sudan. 

In the year that Jesus was born, Rome executed several of its leaders for treason against the Empire, will completing a major aqueduct as well. One of the most accurate censuses in Chinese history was completed. While we hear of the terror of King Herod in the biblical story, Caligula was not the far away, the blood thirsty Roman emperor whose reign was far more terrifying than anything Herod imagined. 

In the world where Jesus was born, political boundaries were shifting daily. With those shifts came all the danger and uproar one would expect. 

In the Roman Empire into which Jesus was born, people moved to cities looking for work and often ended up homeless when work was not there. Slaves were often the people used for menial labor. Conquest mean that the skilled work of teachers, architects and doctors was also done by slaves. Ordinary citizens ended up with no work. 

Rome itself was home to some of the first tenements, poorly built apartments that could and did easily burn down. The poorest people rented the homes highest up with the least access to amenities. Many of those people paid rent daily because they were so poor they literally lived day to day. 

Into that world, Jesus was born. Into that chaos, a savior came. 

When God chose to be made flesh and dwell among us, it was in all that messiness. The absurdity of the incarnation remains: how could God make that choice in that chaos? How could God look at all the mess and say, "I need to be even more a part of that."

So we tell that story on this night--a story that is anything but perfect with a very pregnant woman making a long journey and finding no good place to rest. A story with her giving birth with no midwife to help. A story with only a feedbox for a bed for the baby, something worse for the parents. A story where smelly shepherds are the only other people celebrating the child's arrival. A story that turns quickly into them fleeing the country, becoming refugees in Egypt. 

And still we tell the story to remember the deepest truths of our faith: there is beauty in the midst of horror, truth in the midst of lies, love in the midst of hate, and light in the midst of darkness. 

God shows up, no matter what. 

Celebrate. Rejoice. The Christ Child is born. 

Here is to the hope of this season that transcends the raging dumpster fire. 

Some Pedicure Musings

I sit, soaking my feet in the warm water, grateful for this hour of feeling cared for. I read the New York Times for a few minutes, then opt for playing a ridiculous game featuring Simon's Cat. I lean into the massage chair, adding extra pressure to help with that one spot on my neck. It's the good sort of pain, the kind that means there is release. 

This is the other part of the ritual of a pedicure, removed from the work being done by the woman at my feet. She carefully removes old polish with a cotton ball and dead skin with what looks to be a cheese grater. She clips cuticles and trims nails and grates off some more dead skin. She does every step with a skill I don't understand, with hours of practice I'm sure I don't want to put in. A base coat, two color coats, and a top coat go on effortlessly and dry perfectly. I've never managed to do this for myself, but have a stash of nail polish just in case it changes. Her final act before I pay is slipping my flip-flops on my feet, carefully not smudging the polish. 

For a while, I play my game while cultivating gratitude for this woman, and her willingness and skill to give me a pedicure. It is a ritual I enjoy every few weeks, and she has given me the majority of the pedicures I've received here in Arizona. And as I look at her and talk with her some, I can't help but wonder: did she sign up for this?

Like most people who have given me a pedicure, she is an Asian immigrant. I realize after all these years, neither of us knows the other's name. I rarely make appointments and she doesn't check the sheet when I sign in. The conversation among staff is never in English. Now, I realize, I should ask. 

Mostly, though, I wonder if she came to this country with hopes and dreams unfulfilled by the hours sitting on the low stool. Or did she come here knowing that was what she would do so that her children would have a better life? Her son is beginning his second year at Arizona State University, majoring in Engineering. She is happy to talk some about him when asked. 

I also know she lives not far from the nail salon. I started coming to this salon because it was next door to my apartment, and I've stayed. I used to see her walking to work on my drive to work. She always walks, never drives, it seems. Given a choice, I can't imagine she wouldn't choose to drive on the days she carries an umbrella for shade. 

I wonder if this is what she signed up for, knowing so many immigrants are promised one thing and given another by those who help them immigrate. The owner of the shop rarely does pedicures, sticking instead to the more dignified work of manicures. It is unappealing work, work I feel a little guilty asking her to do. It also seems good, walking into a business I know is run by neighbors who value every customer who walks in. 

I also worry a little more about these neighbors today, wondering if they are safe. The current political climate is more difficult for brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking neighbors, but still, I wonder if they are nervous or have had loved ones deported. 

When I pay, I hand over cash at the shop's request, with a 20% tip for the services. I say thank you, hoping that can convey enough gratitude; her English remains limited enough that each request is asked and confirmed several times throughout the process. 

I believe and hope that this is holy, and respects this woman who is an immigrant living in a land I'm sure is still strange. I wish I knew how to be a better neighbor to her, and add that to the list of things I will work on before my next pedicure. For I remember not just Jesus' call to love my neighbor, but the oft-repeated command, "Don't mistreat or oppress an immigrant, because you were once an immigrant in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 22:21)  It is one of the commands that set Ancient Israel apart in their world, and one much of the Christian tradition shuns. 

A few days a week, I interact with immigrants. It is not always easy. The woman who cleans my home sends text messages that must be deciphered and the landscapers at church repeat the same phrase over and over again, even though I assure them I understand. They don't trust my Spanish and I don't trust their English. It is not the same sort of hilarity that came with my seminary friends studying in a new country, and the pitfalls of those relationships. 

But I wonder, if when we encounter an immigrant in our day to day life, we offer some gratitude for the work they are doing and consider how they may have ended up her, might our world be a better place for it? 

A Sheep's Story

Several years ago, I bought a sheep. A stuffed sheep, not a live sheep, though I can say that the idea of a live sheep sounds even more appealing than a stuffed sheep. I digress. 

I bought the sheep for camp, to be hidden around the camp as part of reading the parable of the lost sheep. In the years since that camp, the sheep has been a resident of my office. He's been used in other skits and conversations since there are a lot of sheep in the Bible. Kids love to come and take him from his shelf and play with him, always carefully putting him back in his place when asked. 

The sheep should probably have a name, but so far, he's just a sheep. 

In worship on Sunday mornings, we're reading through the stories of Elijah. It's a bit of a personal self-indulgence for these stories that I love. This past week, we read the story of Elijah being sent to a widow's home and providing miraculous oil and flour to keep her household alive through the drought. As I have other times, I came to worship with a bag of items to be sorted into stacks of wants and needs. This time, I gave the kids the task of sorting the items. 

This is one of those things that sounds so simple. It sounds like something somewhat funny and likely meaningful and definitely not heartbreaking. That's what it sounds like, until the kids started sorting. 

I always throw a roll of toilet paper into the mix. Adults nervously sort it into a need and are grateful when I assure them that's where I intended it to go. On Sunday, the kids stuck it firmly into a want. Some of the decisions were absolutely developmentally driven. A skillet and the adult-level book were quickly placed into wants while the children's book made it into needs. An angel that I chose as a decorative item made it into needs as symbolic of faith. 

And the four-year-old helping with this endeavor put every single soft, snuggly item on the needs table without hesitation. I had intended for the blanket to go on the table of needs. The emoji throw pillow was intended for the wants table. The stuffed sheep was definitely intended for the wants table. But for the four-year-old, bedtime quickly emerged: a blanket, a pillow, a stuffed animal to snuggle. He was right. A four-year-old needs those things. 

A few adults understandably chuckled at the stuffed animal added to the need table. I reminded them that when we collected items for asylum seekers, stuffed animals for comfort objects were included on the list of needs. Because four-year-olds need stuffed animals. So do three-year-olds and five-year-olds and six-year-olds and seven-year-olds and a lot of eight-year-olds. Nine-year-olds and ten-year-olds-and eleven-year-olds and twelve-year-olds and maybe even teenagers who have been through a lot also need stuffed animals. Those kids might even rank that need above things adults worry about kids having. 

There are so many things to say about children locked in detention right now. They are being traumatized, day in and day out. Ninety percent of brain development happens by age 5, so we are talking deep trauma that will affect them for their entire lives. Our society will literally pay the cost for years to come. We could talk about our call to love neighbor. We could talk about basic human rights. We could say so very many things. 

But at very least, I say this: let us never become so hard-hearted that we forget that a four-year-old needs a stuffed animal. 

"This is my body": Some Mother's Day Thoughts

"This is my body, which is for you."

Every week, without fail, we remember Jesus' words, "This is my body, which is for you."

Today, I also note the privilege of those words. This is my body. It is a distinct privilege of a male savior who can utter those words and have no one question them. The self-emptying that follows is also a privilege, to give willingly rather than out of fear or expectation. This is the self-emptying of sacrifice, not one born of abuse and power.

These, these are my Mother's Day thoughts.

The older I get, the more I bristle at Mother's Day. I've failed to be able to name why for the most part. Some of it is the awkward of young adulthood, when holidays that are meant for families become exclusive once you're living away. That same discomfort continues into single adulthood, if that's your journey. In the Church that has mostly learned what to do with families, it's a moment of being a square peg in a round hole.

But it's not that. Not really.

It's about consent.

At the shallow end of things, stop trying to force people to buy gifts for someone. I love giving gifts, but do it out of love and joy. Capitalism aside, it's a little bit gross to not giving people the right to say yes to something.

Mother's Day and being a woman are nicely conflated at this point, and if you can undertake that deconstruction, God bless you. I can't. In the name of not excluding those of us who are mothers, plenty of people conflate the two even more. This week, my dentist's office gave me a carnation in celebration of all women, for example. In truth, me being a woman exists apart from whether or not I'll be a mother. I may end up being a mother or not, but reading that into the gender that I occupy is presuming a great deal. That has been true for many women, plenty of whom have opted out of motherhood for various reasons. I get to exist as a person who is a woman of full worth without being a mother. That should not be a radical statement. Imposing other identities upon me is violating.

Most of all, we are still at a place where we impose motherhood on women. We do not offer comprehensive sex education in our schools, neither in the United States as a whole and most definitely not in the state of Arizona. Contraception costs money, unless it's abstinence, and contrary to plenty of opinions, abstinence is the most ineffective form of sex education. We demonize Planned Parenthood, which offers both of those things for free. Abortion becomes less accessible and more criminalized most every week, because it is not her body.

Let me remind you again of the conflation of mothers and women, because plenty of people think the two should be synonymous.

Even Julia Ward Howe's call for the first Mother's Day was issued in a world where women did not get to choose to be mothers. In a world without contraception, being married meant being a mother more often than not--which also meant dying in childbirth fairly often. The connotations of being a spinster clearly give us an idea about how opting out of marriage and motherhood was received.

And so, in 2019, I am still longing for the right to exist as a woman who is not a mother.

I want to exist without flowers and pink things thrust in to my hands.
I want to live without a question about if I'll be using my uterus.
I want to have the right to make decisions about my body.
I want the right to say yes.
I want the right to say no.
I want to skip celebrating Mother's Day without anyone looking like I kicked a puppy.

I want the privilege of saying, "This is my body," and the choice of if I give it for anyone.

Church, what will we say about women?

In Hope of Resurrection

I grew up in a tradition where Easter was more about crucifixion than resurrection. For several years now, my church has read the Passion narrative--the story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion--along with the Palm Sunday story. We tend to do a Maundy Thursday service project, but not much else when it comes to Holy Week. We still need the full story, to know the sadness before the joy. It's a rough Sunday, I'm not going to lie. The story is hard for kids and adults. But what is most striking to me is that, as I'm reading, I realize these are the stories from childhood churches. I know them from there, not from my life as a pastor. Then, the resurrection was more of an afterthought than a focus, for Jesus died for our sins.

Fast forward, and my understanding of Gospel has shifted. I no longer believe Jesus' death was a point of salvation, but the result of a corrupt system. It's a pretty staunchly Protestant sort of thing, with our empty crosses and such, but the fundagelicals seem to have skipped over the empty cross part. I need the story of resurrection. Because I have no doubt in the story of crucifixion. Over and over, innocent people die. Over and over, terrible things happen. Over and over, we destroy what is good. Over and over, we are frightened by something different. I know that story. I could learn that story just by existing with little intentionality.

I know there is crucifixion. I need the story of resurrection. I need the remotest glimmer of hope, the possibility that the worst thing is not the last thing.

Right now, children are held where I live. Not the next town, not the next state, not if I get in my car and drive for a bit. Where I live.

I need resurrection.

Right now, asylum seekers are being released in the streets of Phoenix, with nothing more than the clothes on their back. It's not an expression. Everything else they had with them has been taken and will not be returned. They are fleeing unimaginable poverty and violence. Being released means they have passed a credible fear interview and are trying to make it to some family member who will care for them during the years long asylum-seeking process. They have traveled through incredible danger. This is the way for them to seek legal status and by virtue of being released, they are in the country legally.

I need resurrection.

I wrote about a 35 year old who stepped in front of a dump truck and was killed. I did not write about the man who died from cancer related to exposure to Agent Orange. He is the one I know of. I shudder to think how many more there will be this year, not to mention the many others unable to shake wars in other ways.

I need resurrection.

Every day, I wonder who will be a victim of this administration. When Trump was elected, someone said, "Well, we survived two Bushes, we'll get through this." I'm white, cisgender, middle class, married to a man. I will survive. I have only one strike against me--being a woman. Then there's the whole healthcare issue, but maybe that's too much to go into. I will survive; I do not know if my friends of different demographics will.

I need resurrection.

I'm still writing, still working, still thinking about Easter. I'm still thinking about the tears shed last Sunday as we read the story of Jesus' final hour. I am not the only one who needs resurrection. I will sit with the sadness and the brutality for a few more days. It is not yet Easter, but I am aware of how dark the tomb feels right now.

For all those who need resurrection, hang on. Sunday is coming. And this worst thing will never, ever be the last.

A Eulogy and a Hope

On the days when I need Church--the deep, visceral need for something Holy, something present, something transformative--I long for beloved community. Today is a day I need Church.

My friend died yesterday. He stepped in front of a dump truck and is gone. I hadn't seen or talked with him since college graduation now thirteen years ago, but I still call him friend. And I say that because a thought of him still brings a smile, as rare as thoughts of him might be. When gathered with friends, his name would come up as we laughed together. He was good and kind and beloved. Pictures of him show up any time I look back on college days. Friend is most certainly the right word.  

I've been on the internet more than usual today--well, on social media. I've texted more with friends today than I usually do. I've talked on the phone with people I normally don't call. This is the outpouring of grief for our friend. We want to tell stories, to talk about him, to laugh together. For even if we haven't seen each other in years, we are bound by those years in college. We are bound by that version of beloved community. 

If I had what I wanted, what would provide rest for my soul, we would gather somewhere together tonight. There would be drinks and food and hours spent laughing and talking and crying and praying. We would share the most holy communion, maybe as sacrament, maybe not. Some of the people missing our friend today might get to do that. I will not. The people I would choose to gather with are in Tennessee and Virginia and Ohio and Indiana, while I am in Arizona. This version of beloved community is in diaspora right now. Who knows if we will get to gather again. 

Maybe it doesn't sound that different from what people who love each other do--but this thing for which my wound aches seems far more holy than what I have seen at a bar. This is Church, the Church I am constantly in amazement of--that tells stories of death and life week in and week out. We tell a story of a God who was born, of a God who died, and all the grief wrapped up in those events and the in between. God bless the Church, who knows what to do when someone dies. There's no other institution that manages it quite so well or so readily. It's wrapped up in our own stories of our salvation. Let us sit with death and all that brings, for it is not quite so scary here, together, alongside resurrection people. 

As a pastor, I hope I can give people a beloved, wonderful community. I hope I can give them a Church that is more life-giving than a career that might take them elsewhere, and a place to call home in a deep, good way. I hope the church gives roots that reach down more deeply than anything else. It sounds impossible, until the moment we are all longing for that beloved community we once knew. It sounds as countercultural as the Gospel actually is. It sounds dangerous enough to execute a person over. It sounds like salvation. 

Even today, I do not grieve as those who have no hope. I'm mostly agnostic about the afterlife. I still believe my friend will receive whatever good may come. God knows, if not him, then who? 

And here is the story that I most remember, which is not particularly hilarious or amazing, but is dear. One day, we were standing talking underneath the trees on campus by the parking lot in front of the men's dorms, early in our freshman year. His name was Adam Bisesi, and he often went by his last name. Somehow, in conversation, he spilled his high school nickname, "Bisexy." (Bih-sexy) Immediately after he did, he blushed and began stumbling, "Oh, no. I didn't mean to say that. Please, don't use it." And I laughed. As another friend put it, he was mortified and I found it hilarious. That was so often the case. 

For this gift from God I give thanks. 

May the peace of Christ carry us all. 

Being Dust

Every year around Ash Wednesday, my colleagues start asking, "What are alternative words for the imposition of ashes?" Apparently, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," is a little too much for some people. They especially shudder at offering those words to children.

For many reasons, I never have. This somber reminder remains beautiful to me, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." For the record, the only reaction of the first child I offered ashes to was a question to his dad, "Do I look cool with this on my forehead?"

Even on its not so great days, the church is pretty decent at telling truth. We may not see some of what we out to see about ourselves, but we have this story of deep, last Truth that we've been telling for centuries. We cease to exist without it.

And so, on this day, we say softly to one another this deep truth: "You are dust and to dust you shall return." It is not threat nor promise; it is reality. Even apart from the stories of Genesis, we are sustained by the earth on which we walk. Without dirt, we do not eat. The presence of chemicals may delay our return to the earth. It does not prevent it. 

This truth we share mocks so many lies that we are told. I live in the land of active and vibrant 55+ communities, because heaven forbid we grow old. One is named Leisure World, and only the teenagers laugh at our mortality, calling it Seizure World instead. It fits well in a world where gym membership and diet advertisements are now year round instead of for the first few weeks of the year. I often see inspiration of people who started running in their fifties or weight training in their sixties. I affirm that this improves the quality of their lives and likely extends their life. It will not, beyond a shadow of a doubt, make them immortal. 

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. 

If I were to add anything to that claim, I would add, "And that's a good thing." 

It is good to be just like everyone else in at least one deep, unending way. 

It is good for our lives to be forever linked to the matter all around us. 

It is good for us to know the world neither begins nor ends with us. 

It is good, this promise that we are not all-powerful. 

It is so very good that we are dust from beginning to end. 

Let us take a few minutes to remember this good. 

About Church

I wrote this a few days ago for the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ. In the midst of the last few days, it seems like it matters to share here, too.

http://www.southwestconferenceblog.org/2019/02/22/when-the-church-gets-it-right/

A Prayer

It's been one of those seasons of life where one emerges later, a little dazed and confused, eventually settling in to normal, again. Or something like that. As the government shutdown continues, I've been thinking a lot about the pastoral prayer my congregation shared together on Christmas Eve. It seemed worth sharing even a few days after the Epiphany, because God knows these prayers have not been answered yet. 

One:    Holy God,

who chose to be among us rather than beyond us—

We pray differently this night, 

this night when we remember you came for each of us and all of us—

            We pray for those with a prophet’s voice, who remind us of your justice

Many: For William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign

One:    For the voices of Black Lives Matter and Me Too 

Many: For Millard and Linda Fuller and Habitat for Humanity

One:    For those like Margaret Sanger, who fight for equal rights for women

Many: For churches everywhere who provide more than seven billion dollars in aid in the United States alone

One:    We pray for the people whose story is like the story of the Holy Family 

Many: For the people who fled the violence of their homelands and wait at the border

One:    For the parents and children who wait apart from each other

Many: For the many who live with violence

            in Sudan, in Yemen, in Detroit, in St. Louis, in so many places near and far.

One:    For those who wonder if they could care for a child, those for whom hope and fear are intermingled

Many: For those who cannot find someone willing to make room for them

One:    We pray for our neighbors like the shepherds

Many: for those who work difficult, smelly jobs for too little pay

One:    for those who sleep in the cold, on the dirt, in the street

Many: for those who labor so others may eat

One:    for those who live close enough to the edge that angels find them

Many: for the people whose words we are never privileged enough to hear

One:    We pray for those who rule, as the Magi did 

Many: for those who make laws and decisions about healthcare

One:    for those who regulate and legislate our food

Many: for those who decide wages

One:    for those who determine the futures of the our LGBT friends and family

Many: for those who have people entrusted to their care.

One:    We pray in the hope of the Christ child

Who transformed the world by coming in vulnerability rather than power

            There is a light that shines in the darkness

Many: and the darkness could not overcome it.

            Let us walk in the Light. Amen. 

A Story from a Good Witch

We were tabling on behalf of the church at some community Halloween event. I don't remember which event, really, but remember that I was in a witch costume. It's still my go-to, making use of an old graduation gown. All I had to do was add a hat and some other accessories.

That night, a witch and a tourist sat together at the church's table, handing out candy and information. I also have a photo of the witch me with Jesus, just for fun, but I digress. As we were sitting there, I saw a little girl about seven talking with a woman I assume was her mom. Her mom was clearly encouraging the little girl to come over, presumably for candy.

Instead, when she was finally convinced to come over, she did so cautiously, and in her very polite seven year old voice asked, "Excuse me. Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

It was not the question I was expecting, so I smiled warmly and answered, "Oh, I'm definitely a good witch!" I may have offered her some candy, but I don't remember. I have long remembered her question, though. Had I thought about it very much, of course I was going as an evil witch. My black hat and gown, my green skin, my green gloves that lengthened my fingers, and my pointy shoes all said evil witch. I was pretty much channeling Witch Hazel from Bugs Bunny or the Wicked Witch of the West. No pink-clad Glinda was in sight.

Of course, confronted with a curious seven year old, I responded that I was a good witch. More than that, though, I think about her mom, encouraging her daughter to be so brave. The little girl came up to me on her own. She asked her question all on her own. She overcame her fears of the witch to do all of those things. And when she happily ran back to her mom, she had learned that things weren't quite so scary as she imagined.

This week, neighbors have been attacked in so many ways. They have been killed for being black, for being Jewish, for being trans, for being Latinx, for just being. In light of this, I am even more mystified by this little girl who bothered to ask. She walked into her fear instead of away from it. When she did, she found something far different than she imagined.

I am reminded of Jesus' teaching that the Reign of God belongs to children just like these (Matthew 19:14). When preaching that passage, I most recently talked about the inherent vulnerability of children. Now, I'm thinking I should have talked about the bravery and curiosity of children. They learn something new every single day. They go into the world expecting something amazing. They ask questions because they're used to not understanding. When they are scared, we expect them to engage their fears rather than run away from them. We expect them to learn the world is not so scary a place after all.

How much better we'd be if we had the same expectations of adults.

Behind Closed Doors

I love the story of the hemorrhaging woman. It appears in all three synoptic Gospels, juxtaposed with the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter. In the story, Jesus is on his way in a crowded street, following Jairus, and the woman--we never know her name--comes up and touches his cloak. He feels the power go out of him, healing her of twelve years of nonstop menstrual bleeding. At least we think it's menstrual bleeding; of course, no biblical author would be quite so descriptive.

When I was a child, I heard the KJV: an "issue of blood." The language is antiquated now, except women's blood is still an issue that only gets talked about among women. The hearing going on right now, the reality of what happens when women speak out about sexual harassment and assault, has me thinking so much of the women's issues we talk about behind closed doors. "Mixed company" my mother would say. There are things we don't talk about in "mixed company."

The list is long, so very long, and crosses a wide stretch of biology: menstruation, childbearing, nursing, menopause, breast health, and of course, anything to do with sex. Yet, when the doors are closed, when it's women with other women, we talk. Women my age talk about contraception--all the time. It's one of the more universal subjects, actually, because it matters so deeply to us. What works? What doesn't? What tools do you use? I know the contraception choices of at least four other women who go to my hair salon; I don't know their names.

We keep each other company while nursing babies. Like many women, I choose seats close to women nursing in public, smile to show I'm safe, and help them hold a safe space for feeding their child.

Older women make mammogram and lunch plans together, keeping each other company through this odious task. It hasn't been that long ago that my friends and I conquered first pelvic exams the same way.

I am so aware of the world of women that happens behind closed doors.

Behind closed doors, we search out tampons for each other.
Behind closed doors, we help teenagers figure out all the ins and outs of menstruation.
Behind closed doors, we tell our stories of assault and harassment to one another--at least some of us do.
Behind closed doors, we devise plans to keep each other safe: public places for dates, escape plans for long-term relationships, well-timed phone calls with safe words.

There is so much that goes on behind closed doors.

And what I'm guessing many men don't know is that on the other side of those closed doors, there are often posters taped. They have help numbers for issues that disproportionately affect women: domestic abuse, human trafficking, and sexual assault. Bars have started posting lists of drinks you can order to ask for help. One drink means call me a cab; another means call the police. Things like that.

Great hope and great pain meet there, behind closed doors.

Here is a truth of the Gospel spoken through the hemorrhaging woman: women's issues are not to be locked behind closed doors. Her issues belong in the public square. And when they finally make it there, she is believed, healed, and the world is transformed.

May it one day be true.

Jealous of Resurrection

Some days, I am jealous of resurrection.

I'm the pastor who hates preaching on Easter. Mostly, I hate it because there's not much else to say about Easter. Some colleagues have said that we talk around it all year, so it's strange and difficult on the Sunday when we tell resurrection and resurrection only.

The story of resurrection is both terrible and beautiful. The most horrible lasts a few days, even an agonizing death only a few hours. Death's hopelessness lasts only a few hours more--three days is kind of pushing it actually. It's more like a day and a half, at least the way I count time. Friday night to Sunday morning bears little resemblance to Thursday night to Sunday night.

Either way, resurrection chases away hopelessness unexpectedly, wonderfully--and quickly.

I have never seen a resurrection so quick in real life. More painfully, I have rarely seen suffering so brief, so fleeting, so quickly reversed. Sure, the resurrected Christ bears the scars of suffering, but they are not the oozing raw of wounds that are hours old.

I am jealous of resurrection.

I know I'm dancing around the question of suffering--why and how and lack of God's intervention. More than that, I'm wondering about redemption. That's the part of resurrection that is most appealing to me: how God takes the terrible and transforms it into something beautiful, something beyond any expectation. I'm pretty good with evil existing, with our complicity in evil systems, with our creation of them to start with. Well, good is the wrong word--at least this is how I narrate evil. I'm far more worried about the evil we do together than the evil we do alone.

It's the timeline for resurrection that troubles me.

I just finished the most recent season of Orange Is the New Black. This season, unlike last season, ends with redemption--at least for some. The show is difficult, for sure, but hopeful. In the midst of violence, addiction, hopelessness, lost causes, broken relationships and every other heartache of prisoners, somehow, this is not the end. OITNB would scandalize many good Christians, in part because it does not attempt to hide brokenness. It amplifies the complexity of brokenness, in fact.

That's not clear until the final episode of this season. For twelve shows, I was wondering if this was just going to keep getting worse. The thirteenth episode is downloaded to watch again at the gym. Somehow, in the midst of so much that is terrible, there is overwhelming redemption. It is not that everything is right; it is the promise that it can be. Maybe you just have to make it through the twelve episodes before you see it.

I know the can be is Gospel. I know that's resurrection, redemption.

Still, I wonder how long. How long? How long?

How long before redemption?

I wish I knew. I do not, but I do trust that God does. As some rough political years roll on, I am jealous of resurrection. And I hold on to the hope that it is coming.

July 24, 2018

July 24, 2018

I woke up early, sick to my stomach because I ate things I shouldn't of the night before. I stayed up and wrote a sermon.

I ate a late breakfast, watched some TV, took a shower, and headed to Costco. 

On Sunday, I'd received an email asking for goods to be donated to help families being reunified following separation under Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy. On Sunday afternoon, I sent out an email to the congregation asking for water, pads, stuffed animals, snacks, backpacks and a few other things. We needed them all by Tuesday night. With the limited time frame, several people sent money instead of dropping off goods. I was headed to Costco to spend that money on what was needed. 

I put giants boxes of Always brand pads in my cart, along with boxes of trail mix and boxes of granola bars. I went to the back of the store to get water, but settled on Gatorade instead. I don't get stomach bugs often, so it was not too long ago that I found out that Gatorade can be a magical elixir. It seemed that people recently released from detention might need that magical elixir, even if it was much more expensive. 

I checked out and went on my way. As I was walking out of the doors, my phone rang. A colleague in Tucson was calling. Were we doing anything? They money donated for immediate needs. Could we get stuff there? I told her I would gladly turn around and buy more supplies if she told me how much. I hadn't been able to find my Costco card before leaving home, so I went back for a temporary one a second time. I grabbed a cart a second time. I bought nuts instead of trail mix this time, but still pads, Gatorade, and granola bars. I loaded these items into my car.

I called my partner as I left the parking lot to tell him it was a good thing I'd gotten his car instead of my much smaller one. When I got to the church, I unloaded so that everything could be better reloaded later. I added to the stash of what was already waiting in the classroom.  

Then, I called my contact at the social service agency to confirm a drop-off time and see if any needs had changed. The needs had, in fact, changed some. The families had requested Bibles in Spanish, men's deodorant, a broader assortment of hygiene items, and shoelaces for kids and adults. Detention, after all, is a form of jail. Of course, the officers took everyone's shoelaces, even the kids'. 

I sat at my desk and cried. The horror settled in. My government, my neighbors see these kids and their parents as dangerous enough to lock them up, even taking away their shoelaces. I'd always assumed that when someone was released, whatever items were taken were returned to them. Apparently, this is not true. These kids and their parents need shoelaces. 

Sometimes, we count atrocities in both humanizing and terrifying ways. I've never been able to shake the sight of the piles of shoes in the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Now, I'm wondering, where are there piles of shoelaces? Can they be counted? What is done with them? Who keeps them? Who notices the workboot laces and purple sparkles of children's laces in the same bins? Where are all of those shoelaces now? Somewhere, there are thousands of shoelaces. Somewhere, there is this tangible record of this horror unfolding on our borders. I wonder who is bearing witness to these piles of shoelaces.

Time ran slowly for a while. I sat, shocked by the weight of the terrible. I know my horror pales in comparison to what my neighbors are going through. I cannot imagine what it is like to have your life fall apart so completely that you must ask neighbors for shoelaces. 

I cannot forget those shoelaces. I imagine that from now on, every time I touch shoelaces, I will remember this day. 

More friends and colleagues donated money that afternoon. I stopped to get food for myself at the grocery store because my packed lunch was insufficient. Deodorant was on sale, as were school supplies, so I gathered up backpacks and deodorant, $90 worth. When I got to the register, I stumbled into a sale, so it was only $65. I was in a hurry, needing to be back at work, so I didn't go back for more. 

Back at church, I unlocked the doors. Friends I had not seen in quite some time brought supplies. Another friend and I sorted through donations, getting them ready to go. At 7, I loaded my car. For some unknown reason, I reserved this task for myself, wanting to somehow count, know what was loaded. 

Having money left from donations and some more thrown in over the course of the afternoon, I stopped at Target and bought every single pair of shoelaces I could find that might possibly be of use. They only had laces for men's shoes, but I bought them. Workboot laces and sneaker laces and dress shoe laces. Seventeen pairs. The total was within 20¢ of the money I had left. I added the shoelaces to everything else and went home, so very tired. 

Once upon a time, I would have said exhausted. That is not true. I was very tired. I was not exhausted. People who need shoelaces are exhausted, not me, who curled up in bed and watched a movie before drifting off to sleep, safe and secure in my own home.  

May God have mercy on our neighbors who need shoelaces. I don't know how to ask for God's mercy for the rest of us.

Hope of a Teddy Bear

This week, I have wept. Before this, I'd held back tears about the children in cages in detention centers. Maybe that's why it's been so long since I've written, actually, unwilling to open the flood gates. The dumpster fire is raging after all. 

But many times over the last two days, I have wept. 

On Saturday, an agency reuniting families sent a request for donations of items. While families have been held, there was little to collect in the way that churches do. The list was not long and many of the things you would expect: water and Gatorade, backpacks, pads, and snacks. I cried over one item, though: small stuffed animals. It wasn't the stuffed animals, but the descriptor given: "comfort items for the children." 

My heart broke, the flood gates opened, and they haven't stopped. 

It's a clinical descriptor, one I've heard before in education about child development. However, the deep place that I know it from is The Giver. If you haven't read the children's book, go get it and read it. I guarantee your local library has it. Like many of my favorite books, it's set in a dystopian time--future or past, I don't know. It is a world of sameness, though, and familial bonds have intentionally been destroyed. Children are born in one place, birthed by women of sturdy stock, but placed with families deemed more functional. Among many things, love is not a concept or a practice. Read the book; I promise that it's really good. 

In that world, children are given specific clothes to mark transitions. Items come and go at specific times in development, as they do for all children in the community. One of those items is a comfort object. The main character's sister, Lily, is near to losing hers because of her age. It is, indeed, called a comfort object. She doesn't realize in other places, it would be called an elephant. She has had it since infancy and sleeps with it at night. After all, that's what comfort objects are for. 

There's some horrible reality when this phrase from dystopian fiction comes barreling into requests from churches. Last night, I went to Target and bought ten small teddy bears as my family's contribution to the drive. Comfort objects. 

My own childhood comfort object is stashed away at home. I've had it for more than thirty years now, a gift from family friends for my third birthday. At least that's what my family tells me. I don't remember getting Flop, but I do remember him always being with me. He's a pink rabbit, now faded to nearly gray. His eye and head were reattached by my grandmother, her stitches still visible. Like Flop's origins, my family remembers nighttime searches for him so that I could sleep. There were trips back to grandparents' houses to retrieve him and flashlights taken to the playhouse. He was necessary and loved. My mom still rolls her eyes when I mention him, remembering the many times she moved hell and high water to find him; she'd do it, again. He's still in my home for a reason. 

Maybe I would not cry so much for these children if I didn't have such an attachment for Flop. He represents a stability that every child deserves, from the bunny himself to the people who searched for him throughout my childhood. My parents still attend church with the people who bought him for me. There is so much stability wrapped up in that raggedy stuffed animal. 

I am glad for these tears because we should mourn for these children who will never have that sort of stability in their lives. We should mourn for our complicity in their reality. 

Strikingly, the best secular descriptor I have for the Reign of God also comes from The Giver. When the main character, Jonas, is realizing the gift he possesses, he catches a glimpse of red as he and his best friend are tossing an apple back and forth. In this world of sameness, most people do not see color. He only sees it occasionally and is never quite certain it was there and no one else sees it. When he does catch a glimpse, he wants to know more; it piques his curiosity. "Red" he learns later. "Red" describes this amazing thing. 

I often think of that image. It's Matthew's "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" and all of the already and not yet of the Gospels. It's the upside down of Luke that God would choose the poor over the rich, the child over the leader, and the simple over the complex. It's beautiful and hopeful, even in the midst of threat.

As I write, people are dropping off the items needed. I have prayed over them many times today and will pray over them some more before handing them off. I hope they are at least a glimpse of something else. I don't care at all if the people receiving would call it the reign of God. I hope they see a glimpse of a world where hungry people are fed, thirsty people are handed water, and children are comforted. I hope they see a glimpse of the fact that many of us would not choose their reality for any one. I hope it is a beautiful, wonderful glimpse of something, anything else. 

Here's hoping this little teddy bear does exceeds expectations in the Reign of God.  

The Scars of Billy Graham

"America's pastor" died yesterday, and I had to pull myself out of a nightmare this morning. In that nightmare, I was yelling at an old white male minister who had no interest in God's call of women and God's welcome of LGBT people. I think by the time I woke myself from that nightmare, the dream version of me had the old minister on the ground kicking him, while he laughed at me. The nightmare was unnerving and visceral; I curled into a tight ball for more than half an hour upon waking until the terror subsided.

With all the people celebrating Billy Graham's life and ministry, let us not forget the damage he inflicted. To be fair, I have no personal memories of Billy Graham. He was getting old by the time I was born and his son has been far more likely to make headlines in my lifetime. I did grow up in churches that sang "Just As I Am" as their closing hymn every week; later I would learn that was a direct influence of the Billy Graham crusades. My nightmare was likely invoked by the NBC news coverage was airing in the doctor's office waiting room yesterday morning. I tried to ignore it, but saw the blonde woman wearing make-up rivaling Tammy Faye Bakker out of the corner of my eye. She kept talking about her love for Jesus and how he would cure the malignancy of the soul. I could not ignore her claim that she talked someone off a ledge on Twitter that morning. I wish they had just kept talking about the Olympics. It was all somehow related to Billy Graham.

So back to him. One of his legacies is continued rejection of LGBT people. The language itself even seems old to me. It shouldn't, really. It's some more "Love the sinner, hate the sin" bullshit. I shouldn't be surprised. Unfortunately, there's not much else to say about this particular topic. LGBT have been beaten up by the Church plenty, and this prominent preacher added to those beatings.

Not too long ago, Vice President Mike Pence quoted the Billy Graham rule that he would never be alone with a woman he isn't married to. Dinner, some say, while older versions definitely say alone. I grew up with those sorts of rules. Hell, I grew up in a place where men were served first at church potlucks and family dinners. No matter the reasons or interpretation of the rule, it's a clear sign that women are and should be second class citizens. Or maybe it just means that they can't be trusted, and are tempting, and all of the problematic sorts of traditional beliefs about women. I can't help but think of the hindrances to ministry for both genders.

More than that, I think of the man at my church with whom I've spent countless hours alone. I was single and twenty-eight years old when I was called to be the pastor here. He's fifteen years older than me and married. We've kept the Thursday night coffee shop open and carpooled to meetings in other cities. His wife is also an active member of the church. There are about a hundred points in there where all I can think is, "Yes, we should be able to trust each other." I made a promise to be the pastor of this church, which includes not having romantic relationships with members. He and his wife have made many promises to each other, one of which is monogamy. Because I am their pastor, they should be able to trust me. While I was raised with the "abstain from all appearance of evil" version of Christianity, I can't help but think that if carpooling with someone of the opposite sex is an appearance of evil, your worldview is distorted.

As terrible as those things are, I also have this sneaking suspicion that Billy Graham's version of Christianity is inextricable from our current societal ills. His emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus is widely accepted in more conservative versions of Christianity. Faith becomes both private and personal in the come just as you are Christianity. As I consider conversations about guns, food security, education, healthcare, and just about everything else in the public sphere, I consider how little interest there is in the common good. In Arizona, we opt for 55+ housing developments that pay no taxes to support schools; we also rank 50th in teacher pay. Over and over again, we choose what is good for the individual instead what is good for all of us. That's a long list all on its own. It doesn't help anything when faith is about personal salvation instead of faith lived within and supported by a faith community.

I believe Billy Graham tried his best to be a faithful servant of God. I believe his ministry was transformative for many more people than mine ever will be. But that good doesn't erase all of the bad. Some say it's not Christian to speak ill of the dead. Maybe they're right. But whether we choose to talk about the good and the evil of Billy Graham, we will still be haunted by his ghost.  

You are dust...

Home is an elusive thing for me. Bits of home are in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, and Arizona. There are people in all of those places who feel like home. There's the scent of a tobacco barn, of a summer night, of magnolia trees and palo verde trees in bloom. Home, I've been told, is a feeling rather than a place. Maybe that's true, too.

And it's because of that placelessness that I love these ashes. I packed some ashes into little bags last week to send home with parishioners. I have a Ziploc pack of them stashed in my office. The grit and dirt of them is a familiar feeling on my hands. The imposition of them on my forehead remains one of the most grounding acts of the year. The echo of the ancient promise from Genesis sounds, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I know the story of humans made out of the clay from the earth has no scientific merit; I am still amazed by its theological merit. Being formed by the hands of God is less intriguing to me than being formed from the dirt--no, the dust. This is the very stuff that we wipe off our shoes and wash off our cars. More importantly, this dust is the stuff that creates life for us. We do not eat without that dirt. The breads, the vegetables, the fruits, the animals we eat all depend on the dirt.

Most days, I only walk on pavement and concrete. I tried and failed to grow herbs on my patio because Phoenix heat is brutal. The rich smell of freshly turned earth is a memory more than reality now. In childhood, I watched the tractor's blades reaching deep down into our garden dirt, pulling up the rich dirt from below. It would be tilled into something ready to receive the seeds and plants that would grow into food of all sorts. I remember the feel of this dirt under my feet during those first warm days of spring, as I walked along enjoying the clumps of earth breaking apart under my bare feet. A few days later, I would walk behind my father, dropping seeds for corn and beans into the earth. The task got harder as I grew older and farther from the ground, but it remained mine.

Wonderfully, Ash Wednesday calls out the ancient promise, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Perhaps the mortality reminder would be more difficult had I grown up in a different place and time. Appalachia is a little friendlier with death than most places. I grew up trotting through cemeteries, hearing stories of people who died before I was born. They were dear, treasured, and loved even in death. I remember the sketch of her tombstone my grandmother kept folded in her Bible after those plans had been made. I now visit her grave in the cemetery I once walked with her.

There, children were always present at funerals and funeral homes. My cousin and I curiously touched our dead great grandmother when no one was looking. Once the curiosity was gone, we camped out in the women's bathroom on the wicker love seat, sinking our toes deep into the purple shag carpet on the floor.

Older phrases creep into my vocabulary sometimes, courtesy of my grandparents. "Laid a corpse" doesn't sugarcoat much of anything. Having a distant cousin who owned a funeral home made things a little different, too. "He didn't want to be embalmed so George has him in the freezer," doesn't sugarcoat much of anything either.

The fact that you will one day die shouldn't be news to anyone.

But I digress, dust-creatures.

Remember that you are tied to this earth. You are made from it and will return to it. This earth sustains you. Life cannot be sustained without this dirt. Remember that this remains true in the cities and on the farms, and for all people who have ever lived. And you, dust-creature, belong to God through it all.

Fall in Love

Well, it's been a while. I've been off celebrating Christmas, and continuing my education, and having the flu, and whole bunch of other things. One of those things included preaching at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I'll leave most of my reflections for some other time. Y'all might appreciate my sermon from that day, though. It's a little break from Jesus and not at all a break from Jesus at the same time. They were in the midst of a series, "Called to Justice, Equity, and Compassion."

Here you go:

Since their daddy owned the sawmill, all the boys ended up nicknamed after saws. They had real names, of course, but no one knew them anymore. Instead, they knew Hacksaw, Chainsaw, and Buzzsaw. There was a year or two in between each son, but by adulthood, they all sort of blended together. Each of them was crazy in his own way—long before crazy had anything to do with diagnosed mental illness. In a different place or if they were wealthy, they all would have likely been dubbed eccentric instead.

It was Buzzsaw who took the cake, though. For two weeks out of the year, he rented a tent. It was one of those big white ones like people use for wedding receptions. His remained mostly empty, wedged as it was between two hills up a holler, with little parking and no clear driveway. Still, for those two weeks, he fervently preached a revival every single night, calling people to repentance. The first year, people thought it might take off. By the third year, word got out that he’d spent the month before dressed as a caricature of a Native American, living in a teepee on a hill back of his daddy’s sawmill, so no one showed up.

Truth is always stranger than fiction.

I rode past the tent that third year, which I think was his last to hold his ill-attended revivals. My best friend lived up that long, narrow, winding road, and I went to her house at least a couple days a week after school. Her family lived in an old, white two-story house, more than a hundred years old. The wood stove had been replaced with a heat pump. A narrow kitchen had been added, along with a single bathroom. Her parents no longer wanted to be married, but a kid still at home meant they had to be. The steel mill where her dad worked had layoffs every year. Once tobacco season was over, a cash crop grown to supplement the income not earned at the mill, her father would spend his days drinking until he was called back to work. He cussed like a sailor, starting most sentences with, “Well, hell…” and smoked Camel cigarettes, no filter. After school, we’d watch Oprah or The Cosby Show, switching the channel when he walked in, always ready with a racist rant. Occasionally, he’d run through the house, then back out with a rifle in his hand. “Starling!” he’d shout on his way out the door, and then we’d hear shots fired at the birds that were pests on the farm.

Those were the good days—the ones where he was fun and amicable and not drinking. He was a mean drunk. Once and only once, he raised his fist to punch his wife. She told him to wait right there, and went to the kitchen, returning with her large iron skillet. “Go ahead,” she said, “but it’ll be the last punch you ever throw.”

They divorced the year after we graduated from high school. The house burned a few years later, and Charlie ended up living in a trailer in the same place. Long before, they’d given up on home insurance. Other bills were more pressing.

To outsiders, they sound like white trash. That phrase isn’t used in Appalachia, though, at least not to the best of my memory. I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, in northeastern Kentucky. Coalmines were hours away.  The town there had boomed when coal was loaded onto trains and hauled up to the shores of the Ohio River, where it was loaded on to barges and floated farther down the river. Economic decline began in the 1960s, as railroads began to disappear, and industry with them.

In that place, people were and are judged by their cleanliness, paying their bills, and being decent neighbors. Being a mess was just that, and looked down on. That family I mentioned was, for the most part, considered decent people. You could eat off the floor in the kitchen any day of the week and they’d gladly show up to help a neighbor in need. No one was mixed up with illegal drugs of any sort.

The signs of white trash to outsiders aren’t the same as they are to insiders. Moving a trailer on the family land was every bit as respectable as building a house, and far more so than living in the handful of section 8 apartments in town. People like me, who left, who earned bachelors degrees and masters degrees, learned to narrate things differently. We’ve learned of the coal mined, timber cut, and people left behind, exploited by the empire that no longer needs their resources. “Appalachia,” the empire calls that place, proving they can never be trusted by Appalachians. “Appalachia” implies everything of the ruder “white trash.” (Note: in the outsider version, it is pronounced "lay" not "latch" as is correct.)

The stories we tell among ourselves never get told outside, the stories that have nothing to do with white trash.

My grandfather, Pappaw Ted, was born in 1917 or 1918. We never knew for sure, since the courthouse with the birth records burned down. He enlisted in the army when he was 18, though he may have been 16 or 17 instead. By then, he had been grown a long time. He was the oldest of 9 kids. He dropped out of school after 5^th grade, able to read, write, and do math that would be more than sufficient for him to raise a family, help manage a household, and work building bridges. His first job was for a Swedish immigrant, doing odd jobs around the farm. There, he learned to drive on the red truck the Swede had, a rarity in eastern Kentucky.

Not long after, his mother died of a heart attack. She’d gotten up that morning, cooked sausage, eggs, biscuits, and gravy for breakfast, sent the kids off to school, then started laundry. She keeled over the washboard that morning, where she was found later, dead at not much more than 50 years old. Pappaw always said it was partly a broken heart; her husband cheated on her at every chance he got.

Every now and then, we’d drive by the house they lived in then. It was a small white house, set back on a hill, with steps up from the road. Even then, a fence cut across the walk. Soon after his mom’s death, his dad showed up at the house with his girlfriend, ready to move her in to take care of the kids. Pappaw met him at the fence with his rifle, and offered to shoot her, instead. He began caring for his 8 younger siblings.

That summer, he planted a garden. They ate  from it and canned vegetables for the winter. They bought chickens and kept them for eggs and occasional meat. Their family was together, but it was hard, and short-lived.

Their dad came and took the two girls to town one day. He bought them new shoes while they were there, and other treats. When he took them back home, as they started to get out of the wagon, he said, “Oh no, leave your shoes here. Those stay with me.” They ended up going home with him, instead, to keep their new shoes.

One by one, all of the young kids ended up back with their dad, the youngest of them, Tommy, wanting to stay with his brother most of all.

By that time, Pappaw was working at a sawmill. His dad was living in a house in the next town over. The back yard of the house backed up to the railroad tracks and eventually, they let the little boy out to play. When Pappaw figured out he was there, he jumped the train and kidnapped his little brother out of the backyard. For the next months, Tommy went to work with him at the sawmill every single day. He hid out of danger in a toolshed, until the work was done.

Eventually, the whole matter ended up in court. At 16, my papaw was given custody of his little brother, now 6 years old. When he got married a couple of years later, the little boy moved in with him and his new wife. By the time I was a child, little Tommy was Big Tom, and lived at the mouth of the holler where my grandparents’ home was. On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, he always came to them with a card, the only parents he really remembered. The day Tom died is the only time in my life I remember my Pappaw crying.

Maybe you hear all that and you think, “Yeah, white trash.” Maybe you’re right. But the stories Appalachians tell are told to convey strength, self-reliance, community, and trust. They are stories of people forgotten about by the outside world—or never cared about to begin with. Like so many places where money has dried up, drugs have become one of the primary industries. Painkillers are dubbed “hillbilly heroin.” Pharmacies appear and disappear in a month’s time or less, just ahead of any law enforcement agency catching up with them. Young men without other jobs make drugs runs, to Miami, most often.

My own cousin is disabled following a massive stroke caused by drug use. He used dirty needles, which led to an infection, which led to a stroke. The right side of his body is mostly paralyzed. Like me, he’s 33. His mother died late last year. Her cancer was dubbed a “lifestyle cancer.” In this case, it was code for prostitution, the profession by which she supported her drug habit. She was 56 years old.

Those hard stories are not as rare as they should be. Communities of all sorts outside the privileged groups can tell them. White trash communities would be surprised, I imagine, by how much they have in common with the brown and black communities they look down upon. These are the people who heard the promise of jobs like they remember and voted for Trump, hopeful, and certain that nothing in Washington would make its way to the hills of Appalachia any way.

I could tell you stories all day. I could tell you beautiful stories from the cemeteries where I played as a child, and my churches, and my schools. We could sing the songs of Appalachia, “Down in the Valley,” and “What Wondrous Love Is This,” and “Pretty Polly.” I could bring out my grandmother’s quilts, made lovingly and with great skill. I could teach y’all how to make cream candy and to churn butter. We could eat biscuits and fried chicken and talk all afternoon.

But what I want you to remember is this: you have to let yourself fall in love.

If you want to do justice, if you want to fight for equity, if you want to show compassion, first you have to fall in love. You have to fall in love with this neighbor who voted for Trump, against all their best interests. You have to fall in love with the person ripping their life apart. You have to fall in love with the people clinging to the old ways of doing things. You have to fall in love with the people who spend commodities like time and money in different ways than you do.

You have to fall in love, because otherwise, you’ll never see like they do. You have to fall in love to see beauty where your neighbor does. You have to fall in love to see strength where your neighbor does. You have to fall in love to see life where your neighbor does. You have to fall in love.

And if, if you let yourself fall in love, you might just find yourself a partner in justice, equity, and compassion in ways you never imagined possible.