confession

at best, i am not very organized.

at worse, i am a mess.

i have been made fun of for the state of my gmail inbox. at the beginning of the day i had about 2500 unread emails (ok... give me a little break. i don't read junk. but... i also don't trash it).

so today, i deleted all the emails from more than a year ago. i am left with around 4000 emails i have gotten in the last year.

cleaning up begins.

there are things to visit in cincinnati

so for a day while i was home, i played tourist with my mom. we went to three museums in one day--the Cincinnati Museum Center to see and exhibit called Freedom Sisters, to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and the Cincinati Art Museum.

Freedom Sisters is a traveling exhibit through the Smithsonian. if it comes to a city near you... SEE IT! it was truly incredible and moving. the energy and passion in these twenty women lives, from birth til death (@ age 87, Mary Church Terrell was organizing a picket line b/c she was refused service in 1953 at a restaurant b/c of her race... in DC, the same city where she was elected as the first African American woman to be elected to the school board almost fifty years earlier). they lit my fire.

the freedom center has been in cincinnati for years, and it is embarrassing that i had not been there yet. it transformed our riverbank into holy ground. it memorializes the past, contextualizes the present and inspires growth for the future. if you want to read more about my visit there... below is the contextual education reflection i wrote about it. as reflections for seminary can be, it is a little lengthy. here goes:

“I began to understand that unless you understand what happened in the past, it is hard to understand what is happening now… that’s why I started dealing with painful things. If you hear this from somebody who cares for you, you are more likely to take it in than to turn it off.” –Artist Tom Feelings

I was dwarfed by the structure within the structure. A slave pen had been brought across the river, from it’s original ground in Kentucky to make this ground holy. Standing inside the museum, it is monument to the pain and the suffering cause by centuries of selling people. On the farm of John Anderson, a domestic slave trader, the building housed people who were waiting to be sold. There was no room to move and little air to breathe. The more people who fit in the space, the more efficient the system. There was a second floor where the men would be chained to the ground. The proximity to the Ohio River, made the slave traders especially fearful of escape, because it would likely mean freedom. On the first floor, women and children who were less likely to run were held without chains, but in equal bondage. A monument stood with the names of the people on John Anderson’s inventory. A letter in his hand, describing the cost of the slaves and his order for more stood outside the pen. It made real the inhumanity of the system.

As I stood outside the pen, mourning my country’s history, but encouraged by Tom Feelings to engage in the ugliness, a classroom full of elementary schools students were inside the pen, listening to a docent. She asked them questions and they eagerly replied. History came alive for them. There were two things that amazed me by their exchange. First, the docent always referred to slaves as people, never as slaves. This was not the language that was used when I learned history as a small child. By calling people slaves, we lose sight of their humanity. It is too easy to think of them as property unconsciously. Naming them as people reveal the true tragedy of slavery. Second, the children so easily identified with people from another time and place who came before them. The children imagined themselves as the people imprisoned in the pen. One child answered a question about those people more than one hundred years ago in the first person: “So they could break in and get us out!” How easily children identify with the shared humanity of someone they can never meet. How can we encourage adults to regain that ability?

By making this ground holy, this museum stands as monument the to suffering and pain in our shared history. It brings the land alive. It reminds us of the blood and the tears that flowed into the ground, and down the river. It illustrates what the river meant to those walking to freedom. It gives me a new sense of place, a new grounding, a new understanding of a location that I feel so personally tied to.

It is not all about the ugliness or about history. There is just as much hope in this place as there is pain. There is just as much discussion of the legacy of slavery now—racism—as there is of historical slavery. Everywhere I looked, God was in the picture. This is a story that cannot be told without theology, and I am sure that it is a wound that cannot be healed without God.

the original hi-def

rembrandt.

ok. maybe not original, but certainly early hi-def.

the cincinnati art museum had a show of three self-portraits of rembrandt's, spanning his life. you can see some of his chin hair. wrinkles in his skin. every glimmer on his jewelry. every last detail.

but as i stood there, examining, getting as close as i could to the glass without touching it... and then moving to a bench in the corner, i noticed something odd about the small gallery. it was long and skinny, and on one side hung the paintings. on the other, opposite to each painting, was a long paragraph about each piece. there were more people studying the paragraphs than the paintings themselves. they would turn to the paintings, but only spend a fraction of the time with the painting that they did with the information.

i read that museums are experiencing higher attendance. blockbuster art exhibitions have made more and more people interested in going to museums. but for what? have do more people to love art? are more people challenged by art? moved by art? or do we just consume art?

james elkins addressed this some in pictures and tears. i may have to go back to that book... or something else he has written.

Happy Easter 2008

These are my interpretations of the Easter story, as told in Matthew. What do you think?



Is it possible for artwork like this to serve as proclamation in the church? Does art in church only draw attention to itself and not to God?

These are some of the issues that I am struggling with as I try to integrate my understanding of what it means to be an artist with what it means to be a pastor...

mii, mii, mii...

I am still going to claim to be fairly new to the way that blogs work.

So this is MBCC's Easter postcard. I do not even know that much about Wii and thought it was HILARIOUS! and I have much admiration for our graphic designer.

Within the congregation, there seemed to be some differences in who understood it how...

But some websites (gamers blogs?) have picked it and up and it has created quite the conversation.

If we do nothing else, MBCC is really good at creating conversation.


I am somewhat fascinated by the whole thing. First, I don't understand in a practical way how anyone on these websites got a hold of this? How did they find our postcard? Second, I am surprised by the passion behind some of the comments. Perhaps surprised is not the best word, maybe impressed is. These comments, even having read not even half of them, made a big impression on me. It is no surprise that in conversation that comments often reveal more about the speaker (or blogger) than they do the topic at hand. Clearly, most of these folks no nothing about us. But, they have all kinds of stuff to say about the church. They have big opinions and deep, deep feelings. So if nothing else, if not one more person comes on Easter than usual, I think MBCC has done it's job as a church... stirring the pot, making people consider God in a different way, and engaging.

Read the discussion for yourself. See what you think. My first reaction to some of the ranters, the negativity, was to want to rant back. The pastoral part of me pulled back and said that wasn't constructive...

come one, come all

Altared Bodies

Friday April 4 • 7-9 pm
Begins April 4

Four Interplay artists: Reena Burton, Kelly Williams, Abby King-Kaiser and Amy Shoemaker, celebrate the beauty of the body as they create altars out of real, live, breathing, dancing bodies as a part of the Oakland Art Murmur. For one night Interplayce will become a temple for worshiping the sacredness of all bodies. Join us as we play with themes of honor and homage, sacred and secular, redefining the purpose of the body and the image of the altar.

Venue:
InterPlayce
2273 Telegraph Avenue (at 23rd St.)
Oakland, CA 94612

www.interplay.org

InterPlayce is the center of the InterPlay universe. The offices for Body Wisdom, Inc. are also located here. The building is at the corner of 23rd and Telegraph, one block north of West Grand. It is just a few blocks from the 19th Street Downtown Oakland BART station, and on several convenient bus lines. On-street parking is always available at night and metered during the day. It is also easily accessible by several of the major freeways.

doodles

memory is fleeting.

i used to doodle during sermons as a child. i started doing it on the bulletin until my mom bought me a special sketchbook for church. each week got a new page.

these drawings came from the words that i was hearing. it was the way that i interpreted the messages that i was hearing in church.

i grew out of this habit. in fact, i had even forgotten that i ever did it. this makes me sad. my natural inclination as a child was perhaps my most true attempt at understanding God. it came from the heart, it came from the spirit, and i moved into my head in my adolescence.

i have spent a lot of time trying to move back into my spirit since.

silent house

i am a dixie chicks fan. a huge dixie chicks fan. do i like country music.... no... but i think these women ar true artists and much of the music touches me deeply.

lately, a fabulous ballad that transforms my grief for the loss of my grandfather (and the anticipated grief for the loss of my other grandparents...): silent house

i will try to connect the pieces he left, and the pieces left by all my ancestors that have gone before me. they left me a legacy that i grow out of, that make me who i am in ways i understand and ways that i do not.

so i might be a hipster...

let's take a vote:

are you a hipster IF you and a friend go to mcdonald's (which is on the corner of our "urban" neighborhood) and get french fries and cheeseburgers with no meat. then you go home, where you husband is making gluten free veggie burgers on your george forman grill, and then proceeed to put your veggie burger on the bun with the cheese, onions, ketchup, and a pickle (from mcdonald's) and happily eat it with your mcd's fries.

hispter meal? or no? would a hipster not even go to mcdonald's at all? or does that make me a hipster from the midwest?

let's play american idol and let the audience decide.

notes from a theological novice...

What direction does our thought move in… from God to us, or from us to God? Is all theology a human attempt at understanding God? Or do we have access to special revelation in a way that gives us access to God without our humanness, without reading ourselves into the nature of God? Does the particular contextual stance of particular theologies, like gender based theologies, admit that we can only approach God as ourselves? We had this same question in Biblical interpretation… is there true exegesis or is there only eisegesis? Is it possible to read the text as it is, bringing meaning out, or are we always reading meaning into the text?

my brain hurts. what do you think?

is art the privilege of the powerful?

this was the topic of conversation in my liberation art class last night. do you have to be exposed to art to make art? do you have to be able to afford the supplies, the energy, the time and the mental space to make art?

i said no. i am not sure i was understood. i do not think that art is the domain of the powerful, the privileged. the art world IS the domain of the powerful and the privileged, but that is a very different conversation. yes, art schools are full of people who can afford to be there and can afford to risk being educated in a field where they may not make any money. yes, art supplies are expensive. yes, studio space is expensive. yes, it helps to have been formally exposed to art making.

BUT...

examples of the poor, the disenfranchised finding ways to make art abound. even many of the canonized great white men of art were on the margins when they were making art. van gogh heard voices, gave up a career as a successful lawyer to paint, and cut off his ear. we all know what his neighbors were probably saying about him behind his back. yes, his painting was made possible by the financial support of his brother, but his mental illness still marginalized him. jacob lawrence painted with tempera because that is what he could afford. he painted the stories of his people because he needed to tell the stories. now we look at those paintings in museums, reminiscing about the greatness of the harlem renaissance, forgetting the reality of the struggle of that time. we buy fair trade products, made by artists, and forget about the creative energy poured into them buy people trying to make a living. lonnie holly, a artist i met in college, makes art from what he finds because he cannot afford anything else, but he still makes art. the women of gee's bend made quilts to keep warm from the only fabric scraps that were available, and these quilts became a national museum phenomenon, drawing huge crowds in all of the cities where they were displayed--while these women are still alive.

yes, art comes from the top. yes, paintings are being sold for millions of dollars. yes, the culture of the art world is restricted to the upper class (even most of us in the middle class have little real access to impacting the art world). but that does not mean that art does not happen on the margins, outside the centers of power. and in fact, all the art worlds that do exist in these places are perhaps more real, more creative, and more essential to survival.

vocation, vocation, vocation

What makes art transformative? Is it a process? Art can approach democracy, but as I learned in my Middler review, perhaps it cannot ever be completely democratic. So, is transformative art about its content? Do paintings of Christ being pulled down from the cross have the same transformative power that the text on the same story did/does? Is that enough? It is style? It is commentary? It is spirit? Is it context?

These are questions that I ask on a theoretical level, and that I hope to approach, and do sometimes, on a practical level.

This week, I am reading writing from the peasants of Solentiname for my art and liberation class. This community was transformed by the gospel story. They teach me that faith is about life, not about belief, and I am challenged by Olivia to remember that as holy week approaches:

“I believe that if the Gospel were preached and discussed everywhere as it is in Solentiname, there’d be an end to that ridiculous Holy Week they have. Instead of those traditional ceremonies and prayers that they commemorate the death of Jesus with, everybody would go into action to see what we can do for each other…”

Can art be a tool in that discussion, that interpretation that makes the Gospel transformative?

jesus is just alright

remember that doobie brothers song? it is not complex...

jesus is just alright
i don't care what they say,
i don't care what they do,
i don't care what they may say,
jesus is just alright, oh yeah

that is the gist.

well, i remember when i was about eight, riding with my dad. this song came on the radio (we always listened to classic rock) and my dad asked what i thought of it, that they were singing about jesus. i said i wasn't sure, maybe jesus shouldn't be on the radio (i think i thought you could only talk about jesus at church). my dad asked if i knew what the words were... so i listened. jesus is just alright. what a minute... there is nothing wrong with a song that says jesus is my friend, right?

my dad pushed me to think for myself to never just give an answer that i hadn't thought through. he also showed me that it is okay to change my mind, to be wrong. and in that moment, he also showed me that faith and culture should and can be fluid. faith is not restricted to church.

the joy of being a daughter.

heal the world... time for some cheese

ok, so i am blogging on prayer. and it may get cheesy. bear with me, or bail now.

my dad is getting ready for another major surgery this week. it is his second in six months. i live thousands of miles away, and can feel very isolated at times like this.

i feel anything but isolated now.

this time around, i opened myself up more to my communities in california. i had to to survive this (and not just want to move home). i have been overwhelmed by the response and the prayers i have received. people all over PSR have given me their thoughts, prayers, or blessings in many different ways. i have gotten unexpected emails. someone has a candle lit for my dad through the day of the surgery. people have asked for his name over and over again.

i do not have a solid theology of prayer. i understand God as accessible and always hear, and prayer as a way to reach for God, but i have always struggled with how i should reach toward God, mostly because of that troubling question, what happens when prayers are not fulfilled? what does it mean when our prayers are not answered?

this is one of the first times in my life where i have felt a part of a large network of prayer, and if nothing else, it has changed me. the presence of prayer has shown me that i am not alone. that though i am far, though there is nothing i can do to change what happens in his surgery, and though i cannot be with m family until two weeks after the surgery, i am not alone. i will be able to deal with what comes as it may because of this ever-expanding network i am learning to understand as the kingdom of God.

i know that a company of angels all across the country will be with my dad, my family and i on monday.

great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto to me.

and... i'm a dork.

i heart theology. i heart trinitarian theology.

i am a dork.

spent almost a century in dialogue with the what is the divine essence of God and the relationship of the trinity? the cappadociansarians about this whole mess. and it is a mess. is God the same substance as Jesus? as the Spirit? does Jesus have an origin? is God substance or person? is relationship inherent to the divine essence?

if your head wants to explode, it is ok. fun though, right?

reading Catherine Mowry LaCugna's discussion on the Trinity ("God in Communion with Us" in Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective) got my ministerial juices flowing. she lays out the history of the doctrine of the trinity--because of course, all our doctrines have a history remember. the exciting part... as the cappadocians explain the trinity--and they won--the trinity is egalitarian and relational. sounds like there were feminists in the early church. if indeed the three in one are in equal relationship, the hierarchical understanding of the self, of society and of our relationship with God that so much of our social lives are based on is invalid. relationality is in the nature of God, relationality is in the nature of ourselves. if we understand God as equally in relationship to Jesus and the Spirit, then there is no subject/object dichotomy. all are subjects and objects. if we believe in that God, women are equal to men. there should be no social hierarchy based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, etc. this is a freeing theology, because the three persons of the trinity dance in relationship to the others.

"Trinitarian monotheism preserved the principle of shared rule and banished once and for all--at least theoretically--the idea that any person can be subordinate to another."

building ministry on the basis of Trinitarian monotheism would radically change the way we do church. i want to give it a shot.

Amen.

the power of color

Most days my heart beats purple. A deep rich purple with a little more magenta tint than blue. In the last week it has beat blue, a deep soulful navy, with tears running through my veins instead of blood. Today, it beats olive green with a river of yellow muck, calcium and cholesterol, running through my veins.

A couple of weeks ago, an artist named Jose, from St. Mary's Center in Oakland, visited my liberation art class. He was never formally trained, but his artwork of dug into my psyche. What I learned from him struck a deeper chord with me than most of what I learned in my "formal" art training. He showed me what it is like to live the spiritual life of an artist. To absorb life and let it run out of your fingertips onto the page. His life had been transformed by his work because he was open to the process.

I have been involved in a life long love affair with color, but Jose showed me how to deepened my commitment to color, to take our relationship to the next level. Lately, I intellectualize color too much, the sin of the way I use my education. Jose reminded me that color is soul. Color is spirit. Color is communication when there are no words, no pictures, no symbols for what we have to say.

So today, my heart beats olive green, the color of my anxiety, my feelings about my dad's illness and the implications for my own health. My heart beats olive green, the color of the grass in my home in winter. My heart beats olive green.

home sweet home

Cincinnati is a mess in the winter. Simply a mess. It snows and then rains and sleets and then rains and then snows and then ices and unfreezes and refreezes, over and over and over. Ick.

My parents backyard is a great place to watch this phenomena from the comfort of the house. Yesterday, parts of the yard showed through the snow in a brilliant green, but with a huge puddle filling in the rest. The mix of dirt, water, snow and slush, combined with bare grey trees, made the world look miserable.

And yet, in the middle of the puddle, the most brilliant, clear reflection of the sunset and the treeson the smooth surface of the water, reminded me of the clarity in the mess.

For me, this week, Jesus is that clarity.