culture

With two more weeks of seminary left, I find myself away from Princeton and in San Antonio for the PCUSA Multicultural Conference. I have to admit that the first day and a half, I wasn’t sure what I was going to take away from the conference itself. Along the way, I have learned some tools for use in the local church and some important things going on in other areas of the denomination. But what has been far more meaningful to me are the wonderful relationships I have made with a few awesome pastors and elders in the Presbytery of Charlotte. These are good people ya’ll. Yes, I said ya’ll. 

There’s something freeing about being among people from your home neck of the world. Humor, concern, care - we learn how to communicate our feelings, longings, even our silliness in the context of unique cultures. We use particular mannerisms, idioms, and props to express ourselves, and when someone immediately responds appropriately to what we’ve tried to communicate, we feel affirmed, understood, and free to express ourselves again. When we express ourselves and don’t receive congruent feedback, we have to try harder, communicating becomes a task, anxiety creeps in, and we refrain from expressing ourselves as readily as we might in other situations. 

I didn’t realize until I was with these people from Charlotte how hard I have had to work the past three years in seminary to communicate with other people, express myself, find understanding, and reflect all of these things for other people. Within 24 hours of being in San Antonio with the group from Charlotte, I began to feel understood - held even - by these people - and able to freely express myself in ways that it took me two - three years to do so with people in seminary or in church up north. 

Neris, one of the women from Charlotte, also had an interesting awakening while here at the conference. Yesterday, worship began with a mariachi band. The band began to play, people started clapping, and Neris’ face lit up. She turned to Warren and said, “This is so wonderful! I had forgotten what it was like to be Latina in Charlotte”. 

Neris told the group later that she thinks she just set aside a whole part of her culture in order to adapt to American culture in Charlotte. She hasn’t outrightly denied her culture, but neither has she found a place in which she can really express those aspects of her culture that give her life, make her face light up, make her feel comfortable, excited, and renewed. 

Our experiences reaffirm for me what has to remain central to whatever we do in the way of multicultural ministries. Neris and I are sisters in Christ. We have shared just a piece of our lives with one another. We have expressed our desire to support one another in our lives and ministries in Charlotte. We enjoy learning from one another about those things that are unique to our cultures which might enrich the life of the other in another culture. And yet, we both need the cultures, including the religious expressions, which have shaped our lives and which continue to give us life, make us feel understood, and enable us to express ourselves authentically, both with others and with God. 

People must be able to express themselves freely, with their own manners, idioms, and props, so that they can seek authentic spiritual experiences and serve others with joy and love. If the church can’t find a way to make room for that, for people of all different cultures, generations, sexualities, economic status, etc, the church might as well get out of the way.

Many people - in and out of the church - quickly dismiss the church as racist, irrelevant, ridiculous - whatever. But at the end of the day, and in honor of BGLASS week at PTS, “It’s about people”. (I can just hear someone criticizing me from one angle, “Of course it’s about people. It’s always been about people out for themselves and what they can gain at the expense of another person. Hell with it.” I can hear others saying, “No, no, no. It’s not about us, it’s about God”. I get it). 

Bottom line is, the people with whom I have been joined in love to hold up and lean on through all the trials and celebrations of life, they are church (whether they’ve ever set foot in a church). These people are valuable gifts of love for me, and I know they are powerful presences of hope for other people. And our relationships ought not depend on the rise and fall of particular ecclesial institutions. In fact, these relationships should be what critique, reform, and recreate church institutions in service to our witness to the love of God, which animates us in and through our particular cultures. 

And yet … people continue to seek to control one another and everything else under the sun. PCUSA polity continues to be at times a blessing, but on many occasions a curse. How well does the proposed new PCUSA polity address issues of decentralizing power? In the words of Dr. Rivera Pagan, “OK. Discuss”. 

Criminal

I think ethics have to be worked out situationally, so I’m just going to say this: buying or selling a $3300 cocktail party dress at a commercial department store for big business profit should be a crime. I was in New York this weekend with my parents, and right about the time we were heading toward the cathedral, somebody had to take a pit stop. So, we dove into Sax Fifth Avenue, because growing up, we always took pit stops in the department stores. Go figure. Anyway, while waiting on the third floor near the restrooms, my mom and I wondered around the merchandise. $3300 for a party dress? I’m not going to say that paying $3300 for a party dress is a crime, because if you have that kind of money and want to reinvest that money into the economy, perhaps at a benefit or as compensation for a worker’s labor, brilliant. BUT, paying $3300 for a party dress at Sax Fifth Avenue so that you can go to a $200 / person benefit? Please. Sax Fifth Avenue has such benefits, where people show up in their Sax fashions “for charity”. Here’s an article about one. In 1987, the function brought in 700 people and raised $100,000 for charities. Cool. But, if the event would have been held somewhere else, so that everyone could have purchased their outfits from people who need an income, or so that people could donate the equivalent of their $3300 dress to charity, that amount going to a good cause could have been in the millions. I am not blind to the fact that businesses like Sax Fifth Avenue are what make people the money to reinvest in other sectors of the economy. Nor am I advocating that only people who shop at Sax Fifth Avenue and other such places have their ethics out of line or their priorities disordered. However, I am saying that there is something wrong with a culture in which people of all strata of society are willing to invest exorbitant amounts of time and resources in the production, promotion, and acquisition of clothing, home goods, and other Stuff, while not investing equal if not more in the cultivation, transportation, and fair distribution of food and housing supplies to those living in hunger, homelessness, or inhumane conditions. It’s criminal. We’re all culpable. And that may be why I’m a Calvinist. 

wordpress / my browser

I’m not sure what is going on with my wordpress and/or my browser right now, but the last two times I’ve tried to post things to my blog, I’ve clicked “save” only to be presented with a blank post upon its re-opening. So, I’m not going to go on and on in detailed posting until I figure out what’s going on. Anyone else having issues? It might be just me. Hmmm…

PresbyMeme

What the heck is a Meme you ask? I had no idea either when the great and powerful blogger Adam Walker Cleaveland tagged me to participate in one. So, I checked out the PresbyMeme post that Bruce Reyes-Chow started. He says that a Meme is essentially a chain letter for bloggers, without the threat of terrible things happening if you don’t continue it. So here’s to my first Meme. The rules for this one are:

1. In about 25 words each, answer the following five questions;
2. Tag five Presbyterian bloggers and send them a note to let them know they were tagged;
3. Be sure to link or send a trackback to this post

1. What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?

Energizers, baby. When I was in late middle school, my family moved from a Methodist church to a Presbyterian one, and I can remember people at church being very proud of their energizers. A couple of friends would come back from the Montreat youth conference or maybe Camp Grier and tell me all about them. Eventually, I did get to experience them for myself, and all I can say is that they do kind of capture the essence of many nerdy Presbyterians, who want to try to get their bodies moving, but who will only do so in a very calculated, choreographed way. When you think about it, energizers are dances done decently and in order.

2. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time?

I have no idea. Issues are issues because they’re important to someone. I think the national church has to prioritize which issues are truly national church issues and which issues may be local to regional church issues. In today’s society, what does it mean to be a denomination? I think the PCUSA should spend less time being the national rule-maker and more time galvanizing all its people for their unique vocations in the world. George Hunsinger quoting Barth says, “In large things and in small, one and the same God speaks and acts “differently yesterday, differently today, and differently tomorrow…. He is always infinitely diverse in his communion with each individual angel, thing, human being, or believer, as compared with all the rest.” The church should spend less time figuring out how to make everybody fit into its categories and more time celebrating the fact that God, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, speaks and acts differently in all times and places, so that we might all be brought into community.

3. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time?

Public witness. Presbyterians have a long history of stepping out and making public confessions of faith and comments into political and social life. I understand that the denomination will continue to be stuck in muck if it tries to come up with a denominational “stance” on every issue in American and global public life. But, the church should spend more time teaching one another about the denomination’s rich history in public life, and equipping one another to make public statements of faith about both the “sacred and the profane”. Ongoing war, increasing class disparity, and a housing crisis, among many other things, are too pressing for us to live in ignorance or in fear of what might happen if we do say something.

4. If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for an entire year, what would it be?

I don’t think focusing on a passage of scripture for an entire year is a useful exercise. I think there is a widespread biblical illiteracy among people in churches, which deprives people of both the joy of scripture and the insights it has for our living out our faith. Engaging the whole canon (and things outside the canon) is the only way to really get at some of the hard issues our church seems to be stuck in. If I could press the question further, I think it would be awfully helpful for the church to focus on hearing the contemporary stories of faith of our brothers and sisters in the church - and the stories of people’s joys and struggles outside the church. 

5. If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?

Probably a peacock, because it likes to show off its tail feathers. (I have no idea what that means - I just know I’ve gone over the word limit on every other question so I’m going to pass the baton now).  

I’m going to tag Erin, Carmen, Jessie, Rebecca, and Wes.

 

New Job

So, I’ve been away from the blog for a few days … a few full days. Yesterday, I accepted a position at First Presbyterian, Charlotte as a Children and Family Outreach Coordinator. (http://www.firstpres-charlotte.org/). Very exciting! More on that later.Right now I’m freaking out over the Tar Heels, as they’re tied with Louisville with 10.21 left in the game. GET IT TOGETHER, CAROLINA. I have you going all the way! AND A TRAVEL. WHAT? Back to the game…

EEEW!

This is me at one of the first birthday parties I attended after my family moved to Concord. What’s the story behind the face? I have no idea. It comes from a video in which I am screaming EEEEEW! (probably because some boy said something gross or passed the cooties). My sister took the photo from a home video she saw today. Apparently, she was at her boyfriend’s house, and his family dug out some old home movies. One of them was of his brother’s second grade birthday party … and this is me at that party.

Christos Anesti

This February when I found out that Ash Wednesday followed right on the heels of Epiphany, I was somewhat irked. I like the whole concept of “ordinary time” … and after a long Advent, I was tired of being in penitent mode. I mean, Fat Tuesday came and went and I never got to throw down before the long haul to Easter. I can’t say that I was terribly disciplined this Lent, in fact Lent sort of coincided with a time in my personal life that I would like to call a holy hell. Ironically, as much as I tried to push back against this unusually early Lenten season, I have spent the past several weeks mulling over my vocation, struggling through how I might retain integrity, freedom, and faithfulness in a church/society that will have its own expectations for who I should be and how I should live. One of my mentors mentioned that I might be journeying through a 40 days in the wilderness experience and to expect great things on the other side. So much for refusing to partake in the Lenten experience this year. I don’t know exactly what wilderness I’m in right now, but I thank God for the people who have met me in it and who have been tremendous sources of hope for me.Christos Anesti.

Relocating

This morning, I helped a friend put the last of her things into a truck, so that she could make the big move away from seminary. Packing the truck is always a slightly stressful event, but even so, I could tell that she was excited to get down south and start new things in her life there. Meanwhile, Tommy was riding around looking at houses in the Charlotte area for our big move in May. Whew. Relocating is stressful, ya’ll. We’re moving back to the same region we’ve come from, and honestly, I’m not sure whether that makes things easier or harder. It’s hard to sit in Princeton while Tommy drives around and looks at all these things … especially since I have just enough knowledge of Charlotte to be dangerous, but not enough specifics to sound convincing. Gar. So, considering our combined criteria, if anyone knows of the perfect house for us - any kind of house really - located close enough to downtown for me to work, but near enough to Cabarrus County so that Tommy doesn’t have to drive all day long, in a decent neighborhood, priced that we can afford it, settled in a yard big enough for a fenced-in roaming area for Niles,  … Let me know.  

Good Friday

Last night I was finishing up my Good Friday sermon, when Tommy called. So I asked Tommy if he would listen to it. It’s short, I promised. Just a brief meditation. In fact, probably far too brief, I assured. Tommy said, sure he would listen, but no promises on staying awake.

 8 minutes later, I finished talking, and Tommy said,  Is that the end? That’s it? And I said, Well, yeah, on Good Friday, Jesus dies, sweetheart.

 But he said, No, I know, but, that’s it? Well, I allowed that I was preaching one of six sermons, meditations really, about the Good Friday texts in John, and that each was supposed to be kind of narrow. Every thirty minutes for three hours, there would be a hymn, a prayer, a musical offering, a sermon, a prayer, and then time for silent meditation. 

He said, Oh, well in that case, I think it’s fine! It sounds like you’re focusing on Jesus dying on the cross.

Exactly, I said, that’s my 30 minute section.

Tommy says, Well, then, It sounds like you’ve hit the nail on the head. 

You can’t make this stuff up. 

Home alone …

In January, Tommy went back to work for his dad’s company. Since then, he’s been gone seven of the past nine weeks. It’s kind of interesting being a kind of bachelorette. I don’t cook a whole lot. I really don’t clean. I do laundry only when it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t watch any TV. (As an aside, I kind of miss Family Guy). Coo whip. Anyway, as soon as I get my Good Friday sermon done and preached, I think I’ll turn on March Madness, get some Sam Adams, and kick it like a single girl do.