Between Voting and Veteran's Day

This coming Sunday is Veteran’s Day. For students in some schools it’s reason for military assemblies and recruitment. For many working folks, it’s a day off, intended to honor and recognized the lives of military veterans and courageous acts in wartime. But this is also the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, from which Veteran’s Day was born. The intention of the original Armistice Day was literally a laying down of arms; remembering the cost of war and violence and working toward a peaceful future.

I shake my head to think of where the world - and especially the United States - has come since that armistice treaty and its commitment to work peaceably with neighbors worldwide. That first world war was, of course, not the war to end all wars. The United States has become the dominant global military power and the proportion of military spending in this country equals half its discretionary budget.

Having just come through another election in the US, it seems to me that progressives - including Christians, including peace-loving and justice-seeking Mennonites who would favor a reclaiming of the non-violent message of armistice - lean heavily into the idea that a vote equals a voice. Through our votes, the idea goes, we can make change and begin to align our Christian ideals with the society we live in. I did not vote in this election. Most folks know after this many years of ministry that I can’t vote because I am not (yet) a citizen. Does that mean that I don’t have a voice?

I am glad that this election is over if for no other reason than I will no longer have to see in all my social media feeds and in advertising the urge to vote, Vote, VOTE!! While I wouldn’t say it’s painful, I would say it’s a little irritating. People are not voting for many reasons. A few by choice or religious conviction - as our Anabaptist ancestors had - that our allegiance is to Christ alone (more about this in Pastor Megan’s most recent sermon). A few from disgust or apathy. But many people who would like to vote are disenfranchised, because like me they are immigrants. Because they are in jail or have committed a felony. Because of unreasonable voting requirements that amount to voter suppression.

Folks, I’m glad that those of you who could vote did. Theologian and leader Drew Hart, who identifies as an ‘Anablacktivist’ tweeted this on election day, “Voting won't usher shalom into the world, but it can curb the injustice & limit the dominance of powerful people seeking to harm the least and last of society. That's why I vote, and then continue the hard work 365 days of the year.” So I am celebrating the strides forward in representation made by women, people of color, including indigenous folk, LGBTQ representatives and leaders. And I don’t assume that just because I didn’t vote I don’t have a voice to raise for the sake of peace, for the sake of shalom building this Veteran’s Day and beyond.

Bathsheba's #MeToo

We’ve had some hard stories from the Bible this fall. Some of them that have been re-packaged as children’s bible stories with cute animals or heroic escapes. Leaving out the death. There’s kind of no getting around that this story is most certainly not for children. It’s potentially triggering - if that’s the case for you, I’m sorry. The Bible is really hard.

But somehow this story has been cleansed and sanitized. David is forever the scrappy kid who defeated the giant. Or the heroic King, prominent in the family line from the patriarchs to Jesus. But I have never been able to read this story without feeling enraged. Frankly, it’s very difficult for me to write this sermon - this paragraph - without using foul language and calling David some very un-family-friendly names.

When I was 15, I sat in a crowded service taxi in Amman Jordan - like a taxi but with a route like a bus. Up to four people squished into the back seat. My mom was on my left and a probably thirty-something man was on my right. And while we drove, the man’s hand began to sneak up my leg under the coat I carried. From my knee slowly inching further up. I clenched my legs. I froze. When our stop came I bolted out after my mom. I didn’t ever tell her. Or anyone. For a really long time.

#MeToo.

Every woman has a story something like this. Or worse. Bathsheba’s story is much, much worse.

Stories of consent and the violation of consent have been front and center in these weeks, in this past year or more. Listening the Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony a couple weeks ago and seeing the man who took his privilege and power for granted from the time he was a teen, be essentially given a pass.

Consent can be broken down to three words: Ask, Listen, Respect. Dr Ford’s encounter and others would have gone quite differently had Brett followed through on those. But our interactions, consent is not only about bodies and touching and hugging and kissing, although autonomy over our own bodies is very basic - including hugs and kisses even from beloved family members. Children are beginning to learn this on flip charts in school. Ask for consent, listen to the answer and respect the answer you receive. When you want to borrow your friend’s ruler. When you want to sit by someone in the cafeteria When want to move your neighbor’s backpack because it’s in the way.

I am still learning this. I could put my finger on a couple of things I did this week where if I had followed these rules I would not have harmed a relationship or had to apologize for something later.

Maybe you’ve heard or seen the tea analogy. There’s a very cute YouTube video that elaborates on how consent works in an ‘amorous’ encounter:

Do you want some tea?

Yes, I love having tea with you.

Okay! I’ll make you some tea.

Hmm - I don’t think I want tea any more. Maybe just water.


What I don’t say: NO YOU HAVE TO DRINK TEA! YOU LOOK REALLY THIRSTY FOR TEA!

What I don’t do: Put the tea cup up against your mouth and pour the tea through your clenched lips. Even though I really wanted to have tea with you.

What I do say: Let me get you that water. I’ll put this tea away - or maybe I’ll drink it myself. I do not get annoyed or upset because you decided you’re just not into tea right now.

Just because you had tea last week, doesn’t mean you want tea now. And an unconscious person definitely cannot drink tea and you should make sure that person is safe, not pour tea in their mouth.

So, okay. It may be inappropriate for me to layer today’s cultural context and understandings onto the world of ancient Israel. The culture of David and Bathsheba is not the same as the culture we live in now, difficult as it is for me to remember this as I put myself in Bathsheba’s place. With Saul and then David becoming king, power has been centralized in Israel. Kingdoms and political power are established and maintained through marriage - through brokering with powerful fathers for marriageable daughters. David has at least 3 wives to this point in his king-ship.

The greater the hierarchy, the more likely it is to be centralized in men - here in one man - and the less power that women have, the further toward the bottom they fall. Unlike in the era of the judges in Israel's history (over which we’ve taken a giant leap in this year of the narrative lectionary), which was more chaotic, but in which charismatic leaders rose to the fore, allowing rulers like Deborah, or Jael to have status.

You can see this even in the evolution of the church - in the early church women led and were apostles but then the church began to be established. In the early days of Anabaptism, there were women who prophesied and preached but that fell away, even in a relatively flat hierarchy. We’ve only just kinda/sorta begun to change this in the church.

But let’s think about this story just in term of the ten commandments and the covenant relationship that we’ve been hearing from the beginning of September. Even by standards of his time, David is a [insert bad word here - I really couldn't think of something bad enough that was church-appropriate to say.] He completely misuses his power in summoning and assaulting Bathsheba. Then, without a second thought, continues to use his position to give his actions legitimacy including ensuring the death of a prominent leader in his ranks.

Even if, as was true in that context, that Bathsheba is described in her relationship to her father Eliam, and wife of Uriah. Essentially property. Even then, in his context of a covenant relationship dictated by the gift of a law to give guidance to God’s people - we heard it reiterated by Joshua last week - David believes himself above it. It is his belief that blessing equals him being able to do what he wants: shirk his duty, covet, take, adulterate, murder. How many commandments is that?

The way much of history has told and retold this story is twofold - both problematic and both evident Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’ You know the one...maybe most famously by Jeff Buckley. David is a hapless romantic; a baffled king composing hallelujah, overthrown by moonlight and beauty. In my opinion, those don’t equal consent or negate assault. In fact, I think the intense, “well-meaning,” bumblers are most often given a pass because dogged pursuit - even if rebuffed - is read as romantic when from a woman’s perspective it’s just short of stalking.

And second Bathsheba is a sultry, seductress. Bathing in the open as a lure and - the Cohen’s ballad - tying the overcome David to the kitchen chair. In fact the text is basically neutral about Bathsheba in both emotion and intent. It was David strolling on the roof after his nap - presumably giving him a view into somewhere private where Bathsheba was bathing. And with a power such as he has, she has no course to refuse him when she is summoned. Dave sees something he wants and takes it.

A colleague in ministry, Amy Yoder McLaughlin, a pastor in Pennsylvania shared a sermon she wrote about this story. She says:

The lack of humanity with which David treated Bathsheba, and the lack of humanity with which we have been told this story it is a symptom of a spiritual illness. It’s a narcissism that that insists on telling the story from the perspective of the powerful. It’s a narcissism that desires to be in David’s place, that wants to satisfy our own needs, rather that being present to the pain of others. This is the same narcissism that limits even the vision of the writers of the Hebrew scripture, who cannot manage–despite their gifted writing skills–to give this woman a voice.

There is so much of Bathsheba left out of story in verse 4 and 5 alone: So David sent messengers to fetch her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant.’ Even her name is left out of these verses - and much of the story: the women, Uriah’s wife or ‘she’.

Is there any good news? I see it Nathan. Prophets for the win. Nathan’s whole job is telling David, “You are trash and you are acting like a garbage human.” I mean, he doesn’t say it quite like that. But he does pass along God’s message: “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” (A pretty tame way of saying that God is not about cheating and killing and lying and abuse.) In fact everything David has done flies in the face of the covenant relationship God has established with Israel.

I don’t love the parable that Nathan comes up with: a poor man’s darling pet lamb taken by the rich man, who ‘was loathe to take one of his own flock or herd’ to be a meal for guest. This parable is still about the property of men. But it is a parable that David could understand. He was a shepherd after all.

And contextually, it is very convicting. “You are the man!” proclaims Nathan. And David finally understands - at least to a degree - what he has done. He understands that he has violated, if not Bathsheba’s consent, (i’m not convinced he ever would have believed that she has anything to say about it) certainly his relationship with Uriah. Because has he asked, listened, and respected with Uriah - an indecent proposal type of situation? - he knows he would have heard - What? Dude! No!

There is zero about this story that says ideal situation and the consequences for David’s misdeeds fall most harshly on Bathsheba who is in the bind of having to marry the person who took advantage of her. It is her only recourse, her husband is dead and she is pregnant with another man’s child. There is no option, as there might be today to strike out on her own.

The child she bears as a result dies shortly after his birth, and David’s idea of comforting her is to sleep with her again. Maybe being given the opportunity to bear another child is in fact comfort to Bathsheba. But this man is no saint - I’ve said how much I was to call him bad names - his house falling into shambles, his relationships crumbling around him.

So what? What’s the takeaway? What are we to do with the heaviness of yet another grim story of power gone wrong?

I’m going to start with you, men: Be Nathan. Actually be better than Nathan, because I’m pretty sure he still saw women as the property of men not as full humans. Be the one who calls out, who notices, who cuts off the manslainers and redirects conversation, who notices and amplifies the voices of women. Be the one who interrupts ‘locker room talk’ with “Stop degrading women. I don’t like it. No one likes it. Just stop it.” And do not do this expecting pats on the back. Do it because “The thing he did displeased the Lord.” Do it because is your job, because you are human and so are women.

Women and non-binary folk, if you are Bathsheba, I am sorry. If you have had an experience like Bathsheba’s I hope that you are able to speak it into an ear that will listen and believe. For those of us who identify female or non-binary, it’s complicated. Because we too have power and privilege that we can misuse because we haven’t realized. I said it before: I’m still figuring out the ways I misuse my power - as a pastor, as a parent, as a white person in a neighborhood where there are many people of color

Ijeoma Oluo, who is a woman of color who speaks and writes on race and privilege talks in her book So You Want to Talk about Race about the complications of her own privilege - as a black women she says, she still has the privileges of being able-bodied, light-skinned, educated and informed and now, having a public platform.

The good news is in hearing Bathsheba’s #MeToo, in hearing all the awful stories of the Bible, is in also hearing - and being - the prophet’s voice. It is understanding that God’s desire is not for destruction but for care. A Nathan to my 15-year-old self might have noticed and said, “Get your hands off of her. Don’t ever touch a woman in that way again.” These narratives from the Hebrew Bible are hard. May we both be and hear the prophet in the stories we experience. Amen.

Raising Boys to be Believers

“They didn’t believe Mary either.” This is what’s currently on the reader board outside Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, where a friend of mine is a pastor. After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to Mary and (in Luke’s version) several other women, who returned to the apostles with the story of the encounter. “But these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them.” Peter and the rest of the bros had to see it for themselves. The word of their friends and fellow disciples was just not good enough or credible enough.

Looking at poll related to the Kavanaugh confirmation there is a sharp difference between the responses of men, who are more likely to believe Brett Kavanaugh’s story and support his confirmation to the Supreme Court and, and women, who are more likely to believe Christine Blasey Ford that he assaulted her when both were high school students. As a parent to a little (cisgender, white) boy, who will become a man in a culture permeated with the idea that (straight, cis, white) men’s experience is the default, I am very concerned. I want him to be a believer.

There are four essential responses to someone who discloses an assault or even coercion. The very first one is, “I believe you.” And the expression of belief should be backed up immediately by, “It’s not your fault. I will support you. Let’s get help.” We’ve all heard by now how under-reported coercion and assault are for all the reasons from fear of repercussions to shame and guilt that the survivor could have prevented it somehow. Men and boys need to be a part of changing the culture that keeps women from telling and be the first to say, “I believe you. I will help.”

We know how much Jesus valued his relationships with women.  He believed in their autonomy in relationship and believed in them as agents of the Gospel. To use a manner of speech, when Jesus first exposed himself to the women, the men who were their friends should have said, "We believe you!"

The Day You Begin

There will be times when you walk into a room and no one is quite like you.
Maybe it will be your skin, your clothes or the curl of your hair.
There will be times when no one will understand the way words curl from your mouth,
The beautiful language of the country you left behind...
And because they don't understand the room will fill with laughter until the teachers quiets everyone...
There will be time when the words don't come.
Your own voice, once huge, now smaller.

I love every, single thing I've ever read from Jacqueline Woodson.  (In fact I wrote about some of her middle grade fiction here.) This beautiful book about the fear of new beginnings is no different.  I got teary just from reading the preview pages online. Beginnings are hard! We who have had so many first days of school can easily forget that our children are staring into the unknown and possibly scary when they walk into a new classroom or a new school for the first time.

Beginnings can be full of anxiety, especially if you have a kid that leans that way anyway.  What will my teacher be like? Will the work be too hard? Who will be my friend?  Am I wearing the right thing? I don't want to leave my mom! Woodson's book layers in the additional complexity of language and race and offers an opportunity to ask, "Why do you think 'the curl of her hair' might make her fell out of place?" and "What make you feel unsure or alone?" Young or old we all know what it's like to want to be understood and feel welcomed in a new place.

We may not be able to completely remove our kids' anxiety about beginning something new, but we can assure them of two things: our love for them and God's constant care.

Small comfort? Maybe.  But if you have the space for it and can carve out the time, try a night-before or morning-of blessing and litany of beginning.  You can make up your own words that make sense for your context and the age of your child, but the scripts that we repeat in our heads are powerful, no matter our age, so give your kid the script.  It might go something like this:

Tomorrow you are beginning a new thing. I'm proud of you and I want to bless you and send you on your way with words to help you when you feel nervous or uncertain. When you need to remind yourself of your own strength.  I want to to say these words each time:  God is with me. My family loves me. I can do hard things!

When you step into your new classroom for the first time...
When you're discovering all your new routines and schedules...
When you're wondering who will be your partner, who will sit with you at lunch, who to be your friend...
When you feel challenged by the school work...
When you feel overwhelmed or anxious...
When you miss the ones you love...
God is with you.  Your family loves you. You are strong and you can do hard things!

An optional addition to such a blessing which has been helpful in my experience is a meaningful tangible reminder of the care, love and safety for your child to carry with them.  A piece of jewelry or small item that fits in a pocket quietly says, "God is with me, my people love me, I am not alone."

If you have a child for whom newness is exciting, an adventure to be embraced, rejoice! Or even if this new beginning is just another day, I think it's still worthwhile to bless these new steps with courage and joy and determination.  To thank God for the the Spirit within them, delighting in the opportunities that await.  A litany for such a child can be a celebration, in the spirit of the end of Woodson's book:

This is the day you begin
to find the places inside
your laughter and your lunches,
your books, your travel and your stories,

where every new friend has something
a little like you - and something else
so fabulously not quite like you
at all.

Peace to you in the days of preparation and beginnings.

Reading for Hope and Justice

I wasn't planning on doing too many of these over the summer months. But it's been a very discouraging last few weeks, no? Stories and images of children separated from their parents after the trauma of the homes they left behind is almost too much too bear. And yet, people are somehow bearing it in their hearts and bodies every day - even here in Washington there are over 200 adults in the immigration detention center whose children are being kept elsewhere.

How on earth can we explain this crisis to our own children? Should we? As I often do, I turn to literature to help me have these conversations. I turned to a resource I've looked to for awhile and I discovered a cool new resource for parenting for justice.

Here Wee Read is an old favorite. Charnaie, the creator of this resource has several virtual stores through Amazon, including one on immigration. I found it to be a helpful bibliography of books at a variety of levels from preschool to young adult. I was unfamiliar with many, but can personally recommend Inside Out and Back Again, a story told in verse from the perspective of a Vietnamese refugee girl in the south. And The Sun is Also A Star, which is a YA novel about two teenagers: Korean American boy and a Jamaican girl on the eve of her deportation. It's a real tear-jerker/page-turner (Kindle-tapper?) love story, which I just found out is going to be made into a movie starring the star of Blackish and Grownish and a guy I didn't recognize from Riverdale. I'll be first in line.

Barefoot Mommy is my new discovery. A seminary educated social justice advocate who as a parent is putting her energy into how to raise socially conscious kids. She herself is parent to a five-year-old and a teen. This list of books has some overlap with the Here Wee Read list, but also includes discussion questions, audio of Story Corps interviews with immigrants and video of a young woman talking about being separated from her father by ICE. From there she links to other resources as well, including tools (like this one) for writing letters to legislators with kids.

Finally, our local libraries also have lists of books related to immigration. I've already put a bunch of them on hold. Don't be surprised if some of them make it into children's time over the summer.

Blessing the Transitions

For those of us who have children in school, the end of school is a significant transition, whether it's into a new grade, a new school or graduating and going off to college. We mark these transitions with chalk board "end of x grade" photos on Instagram (or is that just in my feed - can't say I'm that organized myself). In our congregation we have a tradition of marking the transition out of high school with a quilt and an invitation to grads to bring some show-and-tell mementos of their life as students. But how, for all our children, do we honor and bless the work and accomplishments, the joy and anticipation, and mark these transitions as significant life moments that are held in the hands of God?

Traci Smith, whose work I've recommended before, makes the suggestion to present to a graduate the gift of new shoes. Along with the new shoes, a picture of or the actual shoes they wore as they began school and a blessing. Something like this: "We remember the feet that wore these little shoes and we are so proud of all the places your feet have take you and taken us together - the classrooms, and sports fields and stages and trails. We have seen your feet, and every part of you, grow so much! May God bless your feet. As you as you continue to grow in knowledge and in spirit, may God walk with you wherever your future takes you."

Maybe the gift is shoes decorated by a family member or maybe there are additional mementos and gifts inside the new shoes, or a special letter. Maybe it's just a gift certificate to pick shoes that the graduate will like. I love this idea for a transition or graduation. We usually think of giving new items of clothing at the beginning of a school year, but this really honors the path that has been trod. And not to get all "Footprints," but Jesus has been walking with our children every step of the way.

This end-of-school time is a time for a benediction, a blessing to send us into something new - even if the something new is just summer break. So I offer you this benediction and a blessing on the transition:

May your feet come alive
in the unknown geography that waits for them.
May you step from this threshold into an adventure
in which the One who created you,
in whose image you are beautifully formed,
calls you into love,
compels you toward joy
and promises to be always present when your feet stumble.

Amen.

Breaking Our Kids' Hearts

"We need to break our kids hearts," said Jennifer Harvey in her talk at The Well last Thursday evening. "There's nothing innocent about white innocence." In her follow up to her book Dear White Christians, called Raising White Kids: Bringing up Children in a Racially Unjust America Harvey is inspired by the questions and issues arising from her own parenting, and her desire to again address her own community: white folks. Most of the folks in our congregation who are parent are raising or have raised white kids. And all of us - parents of white kids or not - have ample opportunities to grow in the ways that we engage our families and communities around issues of awareness, bias, privilege and racial justice.

What Dr. Harvey means when she says we must break our children's hearts is that it is only our privilege that allows us to protect our kids from knowing personally the bias and racism experienced daily by people of color. We want our children to be people who are advocates for justice and equality and teaching them that everyone is the same - teaching 'colorblindness' - ignores the fact that people are in fact different. And those differences mean that those who are people of color have been and continue to be treated differently. The only way that our children can fight for their fellow humans, the only way they can be brave together through the awkward and the uncertain is to know the pain and tragedy of what happens because of implicit and explicit racism and then rebuild their understanding that we and they have agency to respond in just ways.

Harvey's book speaks from her own experience as a parent of white children and aunt to two black children. She starts from the beginning (there's literally a chapter called "Where do I start?") for folks who are at a loss for how to initiate conversations in their families. And she acknowledges that it can be fraught and confusing and awkward but presses us to dive in anyway. When we don't find ways of addressing race, children will notice and make their own conclusions about our opinions.

As a parent of a tween, I have my radar attuned to middle grade fiction that addresses issues of race, since I always like books to do a little of the work for me and give me a reference point in conversation. I have two suggestions that I think will also be meaningful reading for adults:

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (and any book by her - she writes picture books for younger children as well) deals with race, faith, disability and belonging through the eyes of a sixth grade girl. Franny is a black girl living in an all-black neighborhood but begins to ask questions about how black and white folks should interact when a white kid who looks a lot like Jesus shows up in her classroom. We read this book together and then we used the questions at the back of the book as a starting place for conversation about our own experience and attitudes.

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (and anything by her too). I haven't read this one yet but heard the author on The Longest Shortest Time podcast and then went to see her the next day when I discovered that she was speaking and reading at the Seward Park Third Place Books. Her book starts with the shooting of Jerome, a 12-year-old black boy, by a white police officer. It tells the rest of the story through his eyes as a ghost - encountering both the grief of his family and community, a host of other ghosts, including Emmett Till, and the one child who can still see and hear him: Sarah, the daughter of the officer who shot him.

Both of these books are heartbreaking in just the way that Harvey suggests. They will break open our own and our kids' hearts in ways that we can put them back together again full of hope. Much of the hope in the books is lodged in the young protagonists and their peers. I was so impressed by Jewell Parker Rhodes in how full of joy she was in spite of the heavy content of her work. She sparkled with delight in the young people in her audience and urged all of us, young and old alike to tell stories like Jerome's and to talk to each other about how to build hope and justice in our communities. We can start in our own families.

One God Who Mothers Us All

One of my preferred ways of speaking the trinitarian formula is this:
     In the name of the Father
     and of the Son
     and of the Holy Spirit
     One God who is Mother of us all.

This is a favorite now but but when I first began to imagine God as Mother it felt really weird.  It made me feel squirmy and wrong when, in my prayers I began to experiment with female images.  I think this may be the case of many of us who grew up in traditional churches.  It's likely true even in non-church culture, where 'the man upstairs' is universally understood to mean God and with a couple of notable exceptions (Alanis Morrisette or Octavia Spencer for example) God has been portrayed in most art and media as an old white, bearded dude in the clouds.

Yet mothering imagery for God - even for Christ - has ancient roots.  These are words from Julian of Norwich in the 14th century (and from our Hymnal #482):
     Mothering Christ, you took my form,
     offering me your food of light,
     grain of life, and grape of love
     your very body for my peace.
Who else but a mother feeds and nourishes and sustains her children from her very body?  This Christ-like action that we all experience when we share at Christ's table and that I understood in a new way as a nursing mother.

And way, waaay before Julian, the Biblical writers understood the mother-ness of God, although we haven't always read it that way.  Hosea writes in the voice God: 
     I taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;
     yet they did not know that I healed them.
     I pulled them along with humane restraint, with ties of love.
     And I was to them like those who lift babies to their cheeks,
     I reached to them and fed them.
Sure, dads can do that stuff too (thanks be to God).  But for the prophet and the culture and context in which he wrote, he was imagining the Mother.

When I was in college and spent a summer as a camp counselor in Alberta, I butted heads often over theological issues with a particular counselor who was much more conservative than I.  But I found on the matter of gendered God language he was completely on board with Mother God.  For him it was a matter of having had a father who was emotionally and sometimes physically abusive, who was anything but the nurturing and tender parent that we long for in the God.  To imagine God as Loving Father was painful and difficult and difficult for him, when for me it was comforting and tender because I have a dad who was comforting and tender.  Hosea's image could easily have been Father in my eyes, just as it has so often been understood by so many.

The naming and understanding of God is going to be as nuanced as the ones who name and call on Her.  For those of us who parent, we can understanding a parenting God through the lens of our experience of parenting. Calling on Mothering God can be meaningful both in our experience of mothering and in our longing for one who provides the comfort and tenderness of a mother's arms in our time of need when nothing will do but Mama.

Finally, if you have not heard it before (or even if you have!) I recommend Bobby McFerrin's adaptation of the 23rd Psalm.  His hymn of praise to God our Mother is transporting.  You should put it in your ears RIGHT NOW.  Happy Mother's Day all you who mother, who have mothers or who need our Heavenly Mother to give you rest.
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Image of Julian of Norwich by Br. Robert Lenz.  Click on it to learn more about Julian (and her cat).
Image of hands by Jon Warren, taken about 10 years ago of my hands with my daughter.

For the Love of Camp

Camp Shekinah, approx 1989

When I was a child, my Mennonite camp was called Camp Shekinah. It’s in the valley cut out of the prairie by North Saskatchewan river, which in some summers a trickle and some summers floods the banks as far as the lodge, but most summers is somewhere in between. Which always provides ample breeding ground for mosquitoes. It's the camp where I learned to canoe, tie knots, use a compass and build an excellent log-cabin or a-frame fire. It's also where I re-enacted the Exodus, learned the definition of the word 'statutes' (it's not the same as statues), had a counselor talk to me about why he got baptized and where I began to understand that following Jesus would be my choice too.

I loved camp. I could not wait to say goodbye to my parents and find the friends that I'd made the year before. I felt like I belonged there in a way that I didn't experience in other parts of my life and it fed my soul. That is the experience I long for every child to have when they go to camp. I see it now at Camp Camrec when I go as a staff person. The space might be different, but the essence is remarkably similar: the beauty of creation all around, children and youth invited into the work of God in the world, the joy of connecting with caring community, songs and stories and worship around the campfire.

My childhood camp isn't the 'Camp Shekinah' of the canvas tents and mud trails anymore. It's Shekinah Retreat Centre whose facilities have grown (past the flood line) and whose program is year-round. I've visited a few times in recent years and because my cousin was the program manager I even got to experience the new zip line. But the kids that I observed who were there as campers were still having essentially the same experience that I had, that kids at Mennonite camps all over the continent are having - a fun, meaningful, holy time of learning and connection.

I'm looking forward to being at camp again this summer with the older youth. I hope your families too will take advantage of the opportunities it offers. Registration is open.  :)

Palms and Marches

Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang. These are kinds of images and songs we like on Palm Sunday. Cute kids waving palm leaves while adults look on from their seats. A party or parade atmosphere. But Palm Sunday is not and has never been cute. And what I've been dwelling on this week is concurrence of Palm Sunday with the March for our Lives the day before. A march to protest the use of guns in this country and specifically they way they've been used to kill children.

When you look at images from palm processions from parts of the world where it's kind of a big deal, they look a lot like protest marches. People en mass holding up palm leaves like protest signs. That is likely closer to the original procession than having children traipse around the sanctuary half-heartedly singing a hymn they don't know. The first procession, in which Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey was an act of prophesy and a political send-up of the Caesar-worship of the time. With boldness and courage, Jesus and his followers took to the street to perform some radical street theater. To protest the domination powers that occupied them and would later kill Jesus.

Our marches to protest violence against black lives, to protest the violence wrought by guns against our children, to protest the power of the state - I believe that is very much in line with the protest that Jesus had in mind when he mounted a donkey and invited his followers to name their allegiance not to Caesar and the Roman Empire but to the Prince of Peace,

You may or may not be participating in the March 24 March for Our Lives. But I pray that we all may be invited - along with our children - not to cute-ify the procession. That we may be bold and courageous in our prophesy. That we may walk in the way of Jesus.

*fabric palms above created by the Seattle Mennonite Church junior youth

When God Made You

It's hard to find children's picture books about God that don't make me cringe a little or change the language to re-interpret the theology while I'm reading or have pictures that reflect a diversity of people and culture. But recently I found Here Wee Read (@hereweeread) on Instagram. 

The reason I started following Here Wee Read, (which is also a website) is that Charnaie, the creator of the site and all its social media is an 'expert in diversity' and makes excellent suggestions of books that feature people of color or tell stories of black and brown leaders and innovators, and that help to introduce conversations about race even with very young children. I was delighted to learn that her suggestions sometimes also include books about God and/or the Bible.

When God Made You and When God Made Light are now regular reading at bedtime in our household. The illustrations are absolutely delightful and engaging; we pause at almost every page to talk about what's in the pictures because there are new things to notice, or we notice the same beautiful thing again and again. (It can take a long time to read these books because of this.) The lyrical, silly-serious lilt of the writing is fun to read and, as the kids say, gives me all the feels. Plus - and these are actually big ones for me - I never have to edit-as-I-go because the pronouns for God are Capital H He's, language for humanity is exclusive, or there's questionable theology, which I have to do even with the wonderful Children of God Storybook Bible by Desmond Tutu.

The illustrations are such a celebration of the beauty, creativity and personhood of little black girls that I was surprised to learn in an interview with the author, Mathew Paul Turner, that both the author and the illustrator are white dudes. (Read the interview here with Traci Smith, author of Faithful Families). In the interview Turner talks about his own frustration with reading to his kids. wanting to acknowledge the light of God's creativity and love within his own children and not finding anything that quite fit what he was looking for. So he wrote it himself.

There are some lines I can barely read without busting out crying with the beauty of imagining my child and all our children and each of us in all our belovedness.

"You, you, when God dreams about you,
God dreams aout all that in you will be true.
That you - God's you - will be hopeful and kind,
a giver who live with all heart, soul and mind...
A mover, a shaker, a lover of nature.
A builder of bridges, you the peacemaker...
'Cause when God made you, all of heaven was beaming.
Over YOU, God was smiling and already dreaming."

Hearts and Ashes

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." These are the words we hear or sing or recite each Ash Wednesday when we come before God in petition.  When we invite God to make our hearts new, having failed to love God or God's people as fully and wholly as we should.  We are marked with ashes as a reminder of our humanness - that very thing that identifies us as created in Gods image and that causes us to mess up.

Still God is faithful.  God's heart is for us.  As we progress through Lent this year we will hear in worship (or you can follow along yourself here) the story of God's covenant love for all creation and for us in particular.  One of my favorite texts of this season comes near the end. "I will put my law within them," God says, "and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is written in Jeremiah to a people longing to feel connected to God again.

This is an intimate kind of law.  It is a law of love that will be known to us because God is within us, loving us from the inside out.  A love so known to us that we cannot help but show it and live it.  A love so strong and so much a part of us that when we don't show it and live it, it will endure because God endures.

People often give something up for Lent.  I have, myself, opted for the classic giving up coffee or chocolate.  I've also fasted from Facebook or other media.  If that's a practice that works for you as a posture of prayer, a way to connect your heart to God's heart, great!  If that's not your gig, or if you're looking for something to practice with others, or with your family, what about some of these:

• send a handwritten card or note to someone each day (or let's be real: each week)
• deciding on an amount per ounce of water everyone consumes to donate to a water charity
• collecting and donating a bag of toys, clothes or clutter, one item each day
• doing a random act of kindness each day
• reading through one of the Gospels, (this year it's Mark - the shortest)
• print out a 'Praying in Color' lent calendar and fill in each day with a doodle or a color that illustrates a prayer (scroll down a little to see the pdf links) or make your own.
• Create and decorate a donation box and put something in it each day to bring to a local foodbank
• Create a thanksgiving wall or poster and add a note to it each day. Or go the extra step and make it a tree - by the end, as spring arrives, the tree will be full of leaves

Most of the suggestions above are from the Practicing Families site or my own head, but for more and more detail try Traci Smith's website.  Her book Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Spaces at Home has wonderful ways of making room for God in the everyday life of family. 

May your hearts be pliable to God's to the writing of God. 
May God's heart be the heart in which you find home.

Black Lives Matter At School

"NOW THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Seattle School Board declares that the lives of our black students matter, as well as the lives of all of our students of color; and therefore be it further
RESOLVED, that the School Board encourages participation district-wide in the Black Lives Matter At School Week from February 5-9, 2018 through discussions in classrooms and in homes."

I feel grateful to live in a city whose school board encourages its educators to embrace an active role in naming injustice and promoting equality.  One of the reasons I love my neighborhood school in Beacon Hill is that I know that in addition to being majority minority, it's intentional about having a global agenda, identifying inequity, teaching students to think critically and celebrating black lives and the people of color who have been shaped history and culture.

That said, having a child in a school like mine let's me off the hook a little.  Or rather, I let myself off the hook by leaning on the great stuff the school is already doing and not getting too involved in the day to day.  I pay the PTA membership and I show up to the occasional event, but I've never gone to a meeting.  I'm busy with all the things and its hard to think about adding one more.  I know I'm not alone.

Then I read this article on the SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) website: "Act In" Where You Already Are.  The author talks about finding allies in the activities and organizations in which we're already a part and advocating and agitating for racial justice there.  "Racism is everywhere," she says, "We don't have to go to a special meeting to take action for racial justice. As families, we engage with a lot of people outside of “activist world” and can bring them into racial justice work through the mutual interest of raising kids in a world without racism."

So I don't go to PTA meetings.  But I do have several other involvements (including this church gig with all of you) where I can think about putting anti-racism energy.  Maybe you do go to the PTA meetings (I know some of you definitely do) and you can find allies in inviting a guest speaker or panel to talk about raising race-conscious kids.  Maybe you go to a library storytime that would entertain the question of using more people of color in books (and drawing attention to it).  Maybe you're in a book club that would choose to read books by people of color.  Maybe you work in a workplace that would be willing to support systemic anti-racism training like this one. I don't know...but you might!  And there are some concrete suggestions in the article and all over the SURJ website.

Last week a flyer got sent home in the backpacks of the kids in our school saying a little bit about what was going to be happening in school this week and suggestions for follow up.  But I know that using the curriculum is voluntary.  So I hope you're able to find way to advocate for justice in your communities and with your kids.

And a couple more resources to end on:
If you are interested in a workshop on how to be a better ally, check on the White Ally Toolkit this Saturday hosted by Valley and Mountain, The Well, and Kids4Peace Seattle.
Second, I've always got you with the book suggestions.  I just discovered a new Instagramer to follow: @hereweeread is a 'diversity and inclusion expert' and her Instagram features books (mostly for kids but some for adults as well) that celebrate black lives and accomplishments. Below are a couple of screen caps from her feed...so good!

 

My Patronus is a Snow Leopard

This weekend in our congregation we are going to host an event in which we hear the story of the relationship between Lakota folks and white descendants of settlers in Minnesota.  A part of that will include the story of land return and will challenge us in the Northwest consider what our responsibility is to the First Nations of Washington.  For us in Seattle, that means the Duwamish.  The elementary children will have the opportunity to learn from a Duwamish teacher, experiencing songs, stories and even learning to dance. It's going to be pretty great. 

Even after living in Seattle for more than a decade, I've had few opportunities (largely because I haven't gone out of my way to find them) to learn about or expose myself to local indigenous culture.  I want to change that. I'm noticing that, like the cultural shift in awareness of the way white folks are blind to our privilege with respect to black folks, there's an increased understanding that we can easily commit micro-aggressions even in some common english expressions.

For example, consider, "So and so is the low man on the totem pole," or "let's pow-pow" or "such and such is my spirit animal." These take cultural, possibly sacred, images, appropriate them and trivialize them.  A totem poll has no hierarchy; there is no 'bottom'.  A pow-wow is a social and ceremonial gathering not a quick meeting in the break-room. And isn't it just so much cooler to say "My patronus is a snow leopard"? (Actually my patronus is probably a house cat.  Anyway, you can read more here, here and here).

It's exciting to me that our congregation want to be challenged to examine our whiteness - including the kind of language we use about and originating in indigenous culture - and I've go a few more resources for adults and children to help us learn and become more culturally sensitive.

The Seattle Public Library has great recommendations for books from toddler through Young Adult.  Also, at the Central Library location there is currently an exhibit of photography highlighting local First Nations.  I always find going to the downtown library a fun outing.  Another local resource with permanent exhibits highlighting indigenous culture is the Burke Museum.  Go for the dinosaurs stay for the basketry, beading and kayaks.  And finally, a built-in opportunity to be hosted in a Duwamish space is the Sunday afternoon portion of our event at their longhouse.
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Photo: Haida bentwood chest. Burke Museum cat. no. #2291.

Since We Were Babies

The picture above was taken just over a decade ago.  It's still one of my favorites.  In part because it very much captures the personalities of the kids in the picture, even to this day.  And also because I love being reminded of a very unique thing about bringing children into church community: these children are not related to each other, they aren't  close - although they are friends - but they have been know and loved and cared for by this family of faith since the days they crawled around on the floor.  Like cousins or siblings in a for-real family they have this experience of church community - their family of faith - that only they and their peers share.

In the high school youth Sunday school class exploring baptism and belonging we are heading in a couple weeks into a session on the story of The Church and specifically of Our Church.  We will talk about the stories and values and culture that we have in our congregation.  We'll talk about  what it means to follow Jesus as a community in this time and place, and what it has meant for the last 50 years. Many of these same young people were at camp this past weekend.  I saw them being community to each other, laughing and enjoying being each other around a card table, and I saw them being embraced into the community of our church of all ages as they - yes - played games and also cared for smaller children and made meals together and played ping-pong and skied and sledded.

Some of those teens also crawled around with each other on the floor and some have only been here a little while.  But being in this family of faith is unique thing that only they share in the world.  I pray that the little ones in the picture will in a few years be the teens competing at Rook, that the children who have recently joined our community, and babies yet to be born will be folded into this cloud of witnesses.  It is precious to me to observe that that even long after the children of this faith family are grown, the love that they have known here continues to be a connection to each other and to the love of God.

In a recent conversation with my child in the picture, she confirmed that I still had it on my bulletin board.  I nodded and she went on a little incredulous, "So we've know each other since we were babies?"  Yup.  They have been known to each other and known to their church and known and loved by their Creator.  Thanks be to God!

Darkness in Light of MLK

After my rambling thoughts on how darkness isn't all bad last week, there's this quote by Dr. King:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness.
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate.
Only love can do that."
       -Dr. Martin Luther King Junior

One of my very favorite stories about a child learning about Martin Luther King is in an old episode of this American Life called 'Kid Logic'.  It's one of those mouths-of-babes stories where a child somehow cuts to the center of the message of love and justice that King preached as a follower of Jesus.  And the devastating consequences of that message of love.  I found the episode here. The story starts at  minute 13:10 in Act One of the show but the whole episode is a really great piece of radio storytelling.  Be warned though, if you're anything like me you will cry your eyes out EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you listen to it.

I don't have any other deep thoughts to offer on the subject of kids and race this year.  I have often suggested books to read to kids on racial justice and building equality.  This time around I'll let the experts make the suggestions.  The Seattle Public Library has a couple of excellent lists for children across the age spectrum: "Race and Social Justice Books for kids K-5" I think is has a few books that look suitable for younger ones as well. "Reading and Talking to Kids about Race" also has both picture books and chapter books, as does "Reading Race: Fiction for Kids."  There's in the content of their lists but it seems like a great place to start to me and to test out books that you might want to have on your own shelves.
It's a good quote for a chaotic time. 

On our bookshelves at home I try to be intentional with the picture books we purchase that the illustrations feature a diversity of characters, whether or not the stories are explicitly about race.  One of the picture books favorites for the toddler right now (one of the few that's not about animals) is Up Up Down by Canadian author Robert Munsch (maybe most famous for The Paperbag Princess  and Love you Forever) about a little girl obsessed with climbing.  Because Munsch uses real kids in almost every one of his books (including his own kids, who are black) a lot of his books feature kids of color.  We also like Something Good, which is about Munsch and his daughter.

Whatever you do this weekend, may you find rest and connection in family and community (recognizing that sometimes 'rest' and 'connection' are mutually exclusive).

Darkness is as Light to You

Psalm 139 is a beloved text for me, as for many. It names the intimacy and thoroughness with which God knows and loves us. "For it was you who formed my inmost parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." The author continues, naming the distant places they could go. There would be nowhere where God was not, including the grave, including the dark cover of night. In these dark places, still God is there.

It is Epiphany Sunday this week, the Sunday when we are called to "Rise! Shine! For your light has come!" Beautiful words from Isaiah 60 but am often troubled with the way we use lightness as a stand in for good and darkness for bad. The Psalmist knows that God is in the darkness.

There is a richness of language that we are missing when we forget about the goodness of the dark. The words of the hymn "Joyful is the dark" capture the magisterial grandeur or darkness: "Joyful is the dark, holy, hidden God, rolling cloud of night beyond all naming...Joyful is the dark depth of love divine, roaring, looming thundercloud of glory."

In these words is a vast and beautifully energetic darkness. But the dark is also intimate and close and fertile. In dark, warm soil grow buried seeds. In the dark bedchamber lovers caress. In the dark nursery we hold our little ones and sing them to sleep. In the dark we feel our way, are gentle.

There are indeed times when it feels like we are flailing in dark nothingness. That feeling of being alone and un-seeing can certainly feel like all dark is. But nothing is darkness to God. There is nowhere we can go that God does not hold us firmly and gently in hand.


May your darkness be blessed.
May it be the soil in which love is rooted and grows.
May it be the ocean over which the Spirit hovers.
May it be the holy place where you are met by God.