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.