Book Review: "Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America" by Jennifer Harvey

You are a parent of white kids in these United States. And you are concerned about the racial injustice you see every day on the news, in social media... or maybe on your block, or on your city streets, or in the school your children attend.

In fact, it breaks your heart, and you want to do something about it. You want things to be better. You want to be a good ally for racial justice, and to raise children who are without prejudice, who treat all people kindly and fairly and who may have some black friends, some Latino/a friends... kids who are comfortable around all kinds of people, who give everybody a chance.

But how do you do that, exactly? You could try a couple of approaches that have gained traction across the years. For example, you could say to your kids (and try to model for them), "I just don't see race. I look at people, and say, 'You are a child  of God,' or 'You are my brother, you are my sister. I just don't see you as a different race.'"

Or, you could prioritize making diversity a part of your family's life. You could advocate for a strong diversity-shaped curriculum at your kids' school (or even choose a school with that requirement). You could seek out opportunities for your kids to be on teams or in clubs or in activities where there are kids of many different backgrounds, where they will have opportunities to learn, to play, to work, to grow alongside kids of color.

You could try either of these approaches, but you are likely to learn that they have only the most limited effectiveness. Despite your best efforts there still comes a time, even after everyone's played T-ball together, or taken dance together, or been in the classroom together, when the kids in the lunchroom self-segregate into tables along racial lines.

You would learn that it's not enough.

Writer, speaker, and Drake University professor Jennifer Harvey makes this case emphatically (backed by ample research) in her new book, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America (Abingdon Press). But she doesn't leave us there. Instead Harvey offers an approach she calls race-conscious parenting.

Race-Conscious Parenting

Harvey's articulation of her approach begins with a sobering reminder:

Parents of Black, Latino/a and other children of color have to teach their children about race as a basic matter of their children's well-being and survival, usually from very young ages... 

In countless day-to-day life moments, parents of children of color make difficult choices about when, what, and how much to say. They consider how to be effective in making their children aware of US racial realities and dangers, while simultaneously nurturing their children's emotional resilience and a healthy sense of racial identity... 

Such nuanced, complex, and challenging conversations are a fundamental necessity of parenting children of color. No obvious parallels exist for white families. As a result, racial conversations in white families tend to be one-dimensional. (pp. 7-8)

Race-conscious parenting offers a corrective to one-dimensional conversations by encouraging parents to acknowledge, name, discuss, and otherwise engage racial difference--and racial justice--with children. Race-conscious parenting goes beyond approaches that attempt to teach children *how not to be racist* (an approach that reduces racism to individual actions and intentions). Instead, this model encourages parents to recognize and name for kids the structures and systems which operate continuously to privilege our white racial group.

Here's the real beauty of this book: It breaks down this enormous and potentially overwhelming task for us in such a way that it feels doable. Not easy, but doable. In Harvey, the reader hears the wise and learned voice of a scholar and teacher with decades of experience on the front lines of racial justice activism. We also hear the sensible, gentle voice of a mom who has already begun this vulnerable and life-changing process with her own children. Harvey cheers the reader on. She encourages us. She wants us to know that we don't have to have all the answers in order to begin having the conversations.

Raising White Kids is organized thematically, and is filled with stories and anecdotes designed to help us to see how such conversations can begin and develop at different ages and in different contexts. Harvey doesn't hesitate to share her own hesitation, and the times when she has second-guessed herself. She outlines with clarity and sensitivity the process of racial identity development in children, and illuminates the interplay between a child's inner life and and external environment. Harvey confronts the challenge of sharing hard truths with white children about whiteness... its history, its legacy, and the ways in which, even when we don't want to be, we white people are part of the problem. She addresses questions such as: How do we have age-appropriate conversations with our kids about the incidents of racial violence we hear about in the news? Do we take them to protests on behalf of racial justice? How can we help our white kids to name, acknowledge, and look more deeply into their own experiences of racism? What does healthy white racial identity look like? Harvey even closes each chapter with a one- or two-page summary of main points-- "takeaways" from the topics addressed. These make the book extraordinarily user-friendly.

Near the end of the Raising White Kids, Harvey shares a personal story about asking her children whether they wanted to participate in a protest responding to two recent incidents of black men being killed by police. She had already been present with her kids when they heard a news story about the shootings; she had also engaged them in some conversations about that story. When she asked about the protest, her kids quickly responded that they wanted to take part, and they wanted to make signs to carry.

Harvey describes the experience of seeing the sign made by her daughter H. (she was seven at the time). It said:

"Black Lives Mater. They mater the same as white. Stop killing them."

Then, below all of this script she had written the names of people in her life that she loves. Her sign listed them out this way:

"People that are Blak are: t. [her cousin] a. [her cousin] tobi [her aunt]." 

Harvey continues,

I didn't only feel my breath catch when I took in this scene, I felt my heart break as well...

What I re-learned and re-membered from that gorgeous and devastating sign and from witnessing firsthand my daughter's ability to connect the dots for herself was that these are not times in which any of us can dare live without a broken heart. Given the days we live in, if our hearts are not broken we've already lost a core part of our humanity. (p. 254)

Harvey encourages us to let our hearts break, and to be moved to become part of the resistance that is a natural outgrowth of all real efforts to educate and engage in anti-racism. Her book offers no easy answers, but is a beautifully written and deeply human tool to aid and encourage us as we begin.

*     *     *

I have a copy of this marvelous book for one of my readers! If you would like a copy, please leave a comment here on the blog (not on Facebook). I'll have a drawing next Wednesday, March 7. Thanks for reading!

Lent 11: Ash Wednesday, 1987

For Lent, I'm writing here about memories of significant moments from my life in faith. 

There are no home pregnancy tests, this is not yet that era. Instead, a couple of days after I began think there was something up, I had to make an appointment with my doctor.

I was living on the top floor of a four-story walk-up on Beacon Street in Boston. Sounds fabulous, doesn't it? It was a beautiful building, and we'd fallen in love with the apartment when we walked in and found a new kitchen, hardwood floors, a huge bedroom (and a smaller one), a living room with enormous windows and wonderful light, and not one, but two fireplaces. It was a dream.

On the other hand, our landlord was a pilot. And he was a little forgetful. As in, forgetting to have necessary repairs made in a timely fashion. Forgetting to let us know when he'd be out of town (which was often, and for extended periods). Forgetting to have heating oil delivered in the middle of the winter.

Obviously not Boston. 

So, my memories of in that apartment are mixed at best. We only lasted through one lease.

But I digress.

Here was something: I thought I might be pregnant. I was twenty-five years old, in the middle of some career complicatedness, but it seemed a good time to be pregnant for lots of reasons. My then-husband was gainfully employed at a Boston law firm, and without quite saying it explicitly, we'd given each other all kinds of signals. This was a good time.

And now I might be pregnant. So, I made an appointment with my doctor.

The appointment was on Ash Wednesday.

My doctor was in an HMO located downtown, not too far from the financial district. My first job had been working for the HMO for about three and a half years, first in a health care facility (which I loved), and then in the marketing department (which I hated, loathed, despised, and abominated). But I still believed in the concept, thought for sure it was the wave of the future. (It was; just for a shorter future than I'd anticipated).

I met with a doctor and she took a blood test, looking for the presence of hCG (human chorionic gonadatropin). It's there not too long after implantation, and is a pretty good indicator of pregnancy. The more of the hormone you have, the more (weeks) pregnant you are. She said they'd call me.

After the appointment I walked to the Paulist Center, in search of ashes. My worshiping community was still at Boston College in Newton, but the Paulist Center was locally beloved for its wonderful liturgy and progressive theology. I remember walking through the city at twilight, a freezing/ drizzling late afternoon. I'd not been to the center too many times, but I always found it warm and welcoming. There was a late afternoon service, and I settled in. I don't remember much about it now (except that the music was wonderful). I remained in my seat, forehead newly-ashed, as the other people filed out. I didn't make a move to leave.

A priest walked around, straightening up the space. He smiled at me.

"I am wondering if you could do me a favor," I said, not even aware of what was about to come out of my mouth.

The priest looked at me expectantly.

"I wonder... could you hear my confession?"

That word, "confession," is a signal as to my age. Catholics younger than I am would probably call the sacrament "reconciliation." I'd grown up with the dark confessional and the priest behind a grille. And he knew who I was, and I knew who he was, but the grille promised of a kind of anonymity and also strongly implied that this conversation would not come up when you saw him on the playground (or at the youth retreat). The newer model was supposed to be more conversational, seated together, face to face.

When I think about how I see it now, I think of the Lucinda Williams song, with its driving Cajun beat:

'Cause I want to get right with God.
Yes, you know you got to get right with God.

I started to cry, which probably indicated to the priest that something was wrong. "I think I'm pregnant," I said, which I am pretty sure convinced the priest that something was definitely wrong. I quickly moved to clarify.

"Everything's fine!" I said. "I'm happy about it! And I want to be ready. I mean, if I'm carrying a baby..." I trailed off. I truly had no words to articulate what I meant... or, if I had them, I was embarrassed to say them out loud.

What I think I meant was:

I want to do this right. I want to start with a clean slate. The cleanest.

If my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, then, well, I want to put my house in order.

I want to be worthy of carrying this baby. 

I want to get right with God.  Now more than ever.

The priest was utterly nonplussed. He smiled and nodded, and said, "Ok. Sure." And he heard my confession.

The church I pastor has a prayer each Sunday that we call a "Prayer for Wholeness." (We used to call it a "Prayer of Confession.") Presbyterians are more accustomed to "corporate" confession-- the entire body, confessing its sinfulness together (or, in our case, praying for spiritual healing and wholeness). This has been my primary experience of confession for nearly half my life, and there is something good and important about it. Whether we are aware of it or not, whenever we say "we" in corporate prayer, we are praying, not only for ourselves, but also on behalf of others... those present and those absent. Corporate confession reminds us that the primary experience of God that is described in scripture is in no way personal, or one-on-one. The idea of a "personal relationship with Jesus," for example, can't really be found in the New Testament. (Which is not to say that, as Christians, we shouldn't bother with prayer. I am firmly in the pro-prayer camp, on the basis that reminders of God's presence and caring are always good, reminders of our utter immersion in God are proper, and startlingly powerful.) What we find in scripture is a God who engages with communities, who calls people together, who puts people in one another's lives and brings them along as one. This is one pretty good explanation for why we have churches. The prayer of confession or wholeness, prayed as a community, can be a source of hope and consolation, as well as a reminder of our connection to one another, in our fallibility and struggle, as in all things.

But this memory came tearing back into my consciousness this week after a long forgetfulness. I'm not sure why. Maybe the experience of being home for a week, the space for reflection that offered? I'm not sure. But I cannot overstate how strongly I felt about it, how desperately I wanted that priest to hear my confession, because there was a good chance I was carrying a baby inside me.

I have absolutely no memory of what the priest and I talked about, but I know it did not take long. I was soon walking across the Boston Common and down Beacon Street to my apartment in the wintry drizzle, ash streaking down my face.

Now I felt ready.

Lent 10: Weekend at Beach Haven, 1976

For Lent, I'm writing here about memories of significant moments from my life in faith. 

Of course I went on the first high school retreat.

I was always and everywhere the first to sign up for the retreat.

It was the spring of my sophomore year and I arrived at the school on Friday morning with my overnight bag and my guitar, which I had to keep in the attendance secretary's office because they wouldn't fit into my locker. (Good thing my mom volunteered there Mondays, and Sister Marguerite knew me by name.) After school about 20 students climbed into two large vans, each driven by a diocesan priest who also happened to teach at the regional Catholic high school. They drove us north on the Garden State Parkway. It felt like more than an hour's drive... though looking now at Google Maps, I can see that Beach Haven is just 49 minutes away.

When we arrived at the old Victorian house (just steps from the beach!) there was the inevitable stumbling around trying to claim a bed or a bunk-- girls with girls, boys with boys, of course. And people choosing roommates (or choosing sides for kickball, or choosing from their peers for any reason whatsoever) was always an excruciating moment for me. In the end I was with T. and J.1, girls I'd known since second grade.

The night we arrived there was.... what? My memory is dim. Did we begin our retreat-proper? I chiefly remember a girl named J. 2 also had a guitar. She asked me to play something, and I played "Someday Soon" by Judy Collins (which I can still sing for you, even though it begins, "There's a young man that I know/ his age is twenty-one./ Comes from down in southern/ Colorado"). She in turn played me "Diamonds and Rust." Now, I knew Joan Baez, which is to say, I knew Joan who sang, "The answer my friend/ is blowin' in the wind" Joan Baez. I did not know, however, this song, about the end of the affair with the boy who'd written that one.

Well, I'll be damned. 
Here comes your ghost again.
Well, that's not unusual.
It's just that the moon is full, and you happened to call.

Saturday morning we were handed those tiny New Testaments with Psalms and Proverbs the Gideons had managed to disperse so widely. This one was green. We were told to open to the letter to the Ephesians, and we were broken into groups of five. We were to read the whole thing, and then discuss it chapter by chapter.

At some point during this exercise I must have thought about my decidedly pre-Vatican II mom back at home, with whom I'd already gone a couple of rounds about the issue of having a bible. One of the priests on this retreat, Father H., had encouraged us to pick up a copy of the Living Bible, which had a very handy chart in the front where you could check off chapters of the books as you read the entire thing through. (I would not accomplish this particular task for... let's say, quite a few years.)

"Why?" she'd asked me, again and again, exasperated. "Why does he want you to read the bible? When I was your age, the priest read the bible, and told us what it said." She shook her head, she rolled her eyes, she stormed around at this complete mistrust of what felt very Protestant. But ultimately she caved. Upstairs in my bedroom in Beach Haven was my Living Bible. But now I was reading this little Gideon number, King James version.

I remember the conversation with my peers chiefly because a couple of boys in our group were, to my mind, amazingly interested in what we were doing. I had seen them here and there at school (it was a large school, about 1800 students). Never once had either of them ever appeared to me to have the slightest interest in things religious or spiritual. But here they were, wrestling with the text of Ephesians along with the rest of us.

The thing that caught my eye in the first chapter was the word: adoption. I was adopted. I'd always known I was adopted; can't remember a time when I didn't know. And it seemed an odd word to put between God and us, whom God had clearly made, maybe even more profoundly than our birth-parents had made us, because God started with nothing, whereas the humans... How did it make sense that God had adopted us? (Have you noticed that as an almost 15-year-old I was completely conflating Jesus and God? I notice it still, and I resist it still, and I do it still.)

Jesus Christ had adopted us unto himself, because God from all eternity had predestined it. (This was ALL VERY PROTESTANT. I knew that even then.) And it was this adoption-- through no merit of our own-- that made possible our salvation. It was something to be very, very happy about.

Later that day we had time to walk on the beach, and I noticed immediately that T., that friend I'd known for so long, was hanging around with one of those boys who'd shown so much interest in the bible now. I was a little envious, not of either of them particularly, but of being on the beach on a breezy and sunny spring day with a romantic interest kindling. That was very appealing.

Every free moment I had, I sat down with J. 2 so that she could teach me the guitar part to "Diamonds and Rust."

We returned to Ephesians and we talked about Christ as the head of the church, and we the body. This is the my very first memory of that image. My experience of the masses of my childhood was that the homilies were exclusively on the gospel passages. I do not recall a single homily of my childhood or youth about any other book in the bible except one of those four.

There was something unsettling about the image, the body of Christ. The intimacy of it. The connection was so visceral... I can feel it now, in my memory, the freshness of its implications. Even then I knew that intimacy was frightening and beautiful and hard.

Saturday night I remember games... card games and board games, but also games that had us running around the old house... After pounding up the stairs in pursuit of (I forget who and for what purpose),  I learned that those who had been quicker than I had snagged round bedrooms, because the house had a tower with a turret. I seem to recall the guitars coming out, and lots and lots of snacks, and only flopping into bed because the friendly, beleaguered priests were begging.

On Sunday afternoon we had, not mass, but an agape meal. An entirely new experience. One of the priests read a passage from Ephesians about love.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. ~Ephesians 3:14-19 (KJV)

Then we took time to focus, in turn, on each person there. Each one around the circle would say something they appreciated about the person who was the focus. After we'd all spoken, we took a sip of juice. (We had been given little cups of juice to drink.) There were at least twenty of us, so this all took some time. And it was uncomfortable, in that way that intimacy can uncomfortable if it is new. I both anticipated and dreaded my turn to be the focus of the group. The thing that surprised me was that, in the end, I felt seen by just about everyone there. They were referring to things that I'd said, or done... on the beach, or bent over the little Gideon bibles, or playing the guitar with J.2.  I felt seen. It was nice. It was uncomfortable.

After dinner we all piled back into the vans for the drive home.

When I walked into my bedroom, I found that the walls were freshly painted, a pale blue (my mother's favorite color). I'd left a record on the stereo, and there was one tiny drip of blue paint that always skipped, but never stopped the song from playing.

Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things will always be much better if you only will.

The smell of fresh paint still pulls me back in an instant to that retreat: to the quick but not simple intimacy, so unsettling and lovely; to people surprising me; to people really seeing me; to that perfect James Taylor song.

Lent 9: Gratitude Edition

This morning as I searched through my Instagram feed to see how long I'd been sharing #morningverses (it's been since late November), I found a post I'd shared from my friend @yogirev (she's a pastor! and a yogini!).  It was the following image:

As it happens, I was still in bed at that time. These days I may stay in bed while saying morning prayer (which I've been doing using Celtic Daily Prayer, which is lovely, though the Celts seem not to have gotten the memo on gender inclusive language At All). I also often send those morning verses from bed. I like reading the lessons of the daily lectionary first thing... scanning them, really, for what feels like the word of scripture which both speaks to me and which I want to share.

But here I was in bed, and I thought, well, I will do these five things.

To my delight, the gratitude portion went on for some time.

I notice on Sundays when we share concerns and joys (and we do them in that order, on purpose, so that joy has the last word), some days the joys feel less robust than the concerns. And I do get that. In my own prayers, I usually start with that tight circle of people around me--my partner, my children, my family, my friends, and so forth. By the time I get to that widest circle-- my nation, the world, I sort of mentally and spiritually throw up my hands, saying something like, "Help. Just help. I don't need to spell it out to you. Help. Please." And we don't even have to get to the Big Picture to be overwhelmed. The people we love who are sick or dying, the people we care about who are stressed or suffering, we ourselves, our own concerns... By the time the pastor says, "Do you have joys to share?" I think we can be sitting there feeling swamped. "All your waves and your billows have passed over me." Life preserver, please!

But this morning, starting with joys, I realized that I have them in abundance. Abundance.

• A night in which I actually slept lying down and not propped up-- for a few hours, anyway!

• A sweet partner who responded to my declaring I was having a honey emergency-- all out!!!-- by dropping by with not one, not two, but three jars of delicious, local honey.

• Two grown up kids who I really love and really like, and who both really love and really like me.

• Work I find absolutely life-giving and joy-filled, with people I love.

• Those same people I love encouraging me, praying for me, and insisting that I have the time I need to get well from #flu2018, and who send me funny, encouraging, and loving texts.

• The best friends and colleagues, near and far.

• Faith, hope, and love.

• "Scandal" and "How to Get Away With Murder" streaming online. (Just keeping it real.)

• The best tea. And honey.

I could go on. And I plan to.

I will add to my list:

• The list of "5 Things to Do...", which helped me to begin my day wrapped in gratitude and joy.

Lent 8: Day of Rest- Flu Edition

I know. In theory, I've been resting all week. But today, the exhaustion is worse. So I'm listening to my body, and trying to truly have a day of rest.

Blessings, friends. God is with us.

Lent 7: Statements of Faith, 2003, 2018

For Lent, I'm writing here about memories of significant moments from my life in faith. 

Every January we gather the deacons and ruling elders of the congregation for a little-more-than-a-half-day retreat, for the purposes of education, training, and allowing those who are more experienced to mentor those who are new in these roles. I always do a piece about the scriptural foundations of our church officers (it is a point of pride in the PCUSA that all our offices are biblically based).

Also, we eat. We gather around tables to enjoy breakfast treats and coffee, and then soups and salads and desserts provided by volunteers. There is nothing wrong with a time of fellowship and bonding over delicious food.

I've always enjoyed this event, and each year I've tried to add something new or different to spark interest, to help folks go deeper. Last year we watched a couple of videos. This year I shared a couple of articles, including one called "Ten Lessons the Church Can Learn from Harry Potter" (you can find it here... I really love it.)

A couple of years ago, for the first time, I asked all attendees to come with a Statement of Faith they had prepared. I stressed that there was no one right answer, that there were many ways to express their faith, and they could be as long or short as they liked (but I encouraged them to keep it to a page or less). Sure, there are undoubtedly some wrong answers possible for Presbyterians serving their church-- my mind goes to someone waxing lyrical about flying spaghetti monsters, or casting a circle using jeweled daggers-- but my confidence in my people was high.

I did this because I wanted to try something new, yes. And also because I remembered that the process of writing my own statement of faith prior to being ordained was a surprisingly tender and powerful experience (as opposed to being a dreadful hoop I resented having to jump through).

But I did it for another reason: I think mainline Christians struggle to articulate their faith, and we need more practice. Our evangelical sisters and brothers seem to have a far greater level of comfort with what some might call their "elevator talk"-- as in, two minutes in an elevator with someone (or at the water cooler, or in line at the grocery store)-- and you have what amounts to a few sentences to say something designed to persuade them to visit your church. That wasn't really my goal for this exercise, though if any of our folks ended up with such a product, I wouldn't mind. Quite honestly, my goal was intimacy. We were gathering together as the spiritual leaders of this little corner of Christ's body, the church. Our commitment to that work meant we had to be able to talk with one another frankly, we had to know a little about each other, and we had to develop trust in one another. I thought this might help with all those.

When I was writing my own statement of faith sixteen years ago, I had to share it with a committee of folks representing different churches across the presbytery, in preparation for sharing it at a meeting of the entire presbytery. I had to figure out how to articulate my left-of-center belief system in a way that could be both understood and affirmed by people who were on other points along the theological spectrum. I ended up having intense conversations by email with one particular pastor who was fairly conservative theologically. He challenged me on several passages in my statement. In one or two instances, his challenges caused me to re-evaluate what I believed. In another few, it solidified my already-expressed beliefs. It was such a gift, and such a help. I grew as a result of that process.

We weren't going to do that with our statements at Deacon-Elder training, of course. We would simply listen to one another. Everyone was a little nervous at first (including me: would this process have its desired effect, or the opposite?). But finally someone plunged in. "I'll go first."

The statements we heard were astonishing in their variety. Some people had statements that began, "I believe..... " and credal points they expressed. Others talked about their memories of being baptized, what it had meant to them, and how their faith had grown since. (We have a significant population of former Baptists). A few people talked about their favorite hymns, reading lyrics aloud and telling us what they meant to them. One woman said, simply, "Jesus is Lord." We heard stories of life-changing illnesses and inspiring Sunday School teachers. And I swear to you, the more people spoke, the more the entire group hungered to hear what they had to say.

I'm not the same person I was the day I stood up in the pulpit (of the church I serve now, as a matter of fact) and read my faith statement to a full gathering of the Susquehanna Valley Presbytery (and was questioned on it afterward). And I certainly wasn't the same person that day as I was when I was confirmed at age 12, or received my first communion at age 7. But like everyone on the board of deacons and the session at Union Presbyterian Church, my statement of faith is more or less my life story-- my life in faith, the God of my longing and my salvation.

My own statement is longer than I recommended to my deacons and elders. Here, I'll share just two passages. Like all the other parts, it is a prayer.

Disrupting Spirit, you were breathed on the frightened disciples by Jesus, and you were unleashed upon the whole world at Pentecost, giving birth to a little pilgrim church which, despite its flaws and waywardness, nevertheless cannot be stopped, and which depends upon you for its very life. It is by your power that we pray, that we have faith, that we are stirred to answer God’s call to service; it is by your insistence that prophets rise up to speak your Word, which always calls us from our places of comfort and out into your world, where the powers of fear still seek to overwhelm your voice; it is by your inbreaking presence that we can even begin to conceive of the possibility of forgiveness...

Commissioning Spirit, you send us, and send us, and send us again. You send us out of our offices and our sanctuaries and our living rooms and our cars. You send us into streets that frighten us and landscapes too familiar to interest us. You send us where your people are—to listen, to learn, to pause, to pray, and to say, “What does God want us to do here? And here? And here?” And then to set our shoulders to that blessed wheel of your work.

Detail, Tree of Life/ Burning Bush Quilt
An Ordination Gift from friend and artist Janet Rutkowski

Lent 6: There's Something About Mary, 1968, 1987

For Lent, I'm writing here about memories of significant moments from my life in faith. 

One of the persistent memories of my childhood is an image of my mother saying the rosary. I remember walking into her room to find her, the beads slipping through her fingers as she would finish each prayer. One memory is particularly vivid. She had arrived home from a trip to New York City, during which she had extensive dental surgery. It was clear she was in pain. She took her meds, lay down on her bed, and placed the cross from her beads on her mouth as she prayed silently.

I'd learned the rosary from my mother, and had gone through periods when I too said it regularly. But once in Catholic elementary school, my attention turned to Jesus. I learned that Jesus was at the heart of our faith, not Mary... Though Mary was important! There was no doubt about that. The early years of school included instruction about the mass, as well as attendance at mass each Friday. I learned that the mass enabled us to participate in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and that taking communion was a very, very big deal, because communion was Jesus.

Mom's rosary beads; felted purse by Saint Casserole

And, as I often do with things I learn about, I took my newfound knowledge and proceeded to judge the world accordingly. And what was the deal, I wondered, with the women who said the rosary during mass? There were a number of older women who stayed at the back of the church, in the last couple of pews. No matter what was happening in the service, these women were fingering their rosary beads, and murmuring the Hail Mary. They did not appear to be taking part in the mass at all.

I got right up on my high horse and took it for a ride.

I complained to my mother. I was indignant. Now, she was not one of those women, saying the rosary in mass. But she defended them with zeal. "Who are they hurting?" she said. That, I came to learn, formed a lot of my mom's outlook on life. Who is being hurt? No one? Then leave it/ them/ him/ her alone.

But my developing religious sensibilities were being hurt! "It just seems wrong," I grumbled. And took my complaints no further.

I turned to my rosary now and then as the years went on. Eventually, I put it away, it seemed, for good. I could not imagine myself praying to Mary, as an intercessor with Jesus. My theological outlook was changing.

Then, I had a baby.

Ned was perfect. But Ned was also a normal baby who needed to be fed during the night. I was nursing, and at first, tried turning on a little TV for distraction. But I quickly noticed that the light had the effect of waking Ned up, so that was a short-lived experiment.

For some reason, I decided to say the rosary.

[For those of you who are not familiar with the rosary, a nice introduction can be found here. The rosary is a set of prayers repeated, using beads to mark decades (sets of ten) Hail Marys, interspersed with the Lord's Prayer, the Gloria Patri, and several other prayers.  The full rosary (when I was growing up) consisted of fifteen decades, and with each decade, you meditated on a particular mystery: the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of the lives of Jesus and Mary. In recent years another set of mysteries has been added: the Luminous mysteries. These added more scenes from the life of Jesus, which I think was a great idea.]

You don't actually need a set of rosary beads to pray it, of course. I marked the decades on my fingers. The darkness and the sweet coziness of rocking Ned gave me time to actually savor the prayers, and try to imagine the various mysteries in detail. Over the months I nursed Ned I came to realize that I wasn't really meditating on Mary, so much as I was having an encounter with the feminine face of God.

For those of us who grow up in Christian households, there are few feminine images for God we are offered or exposed to. I was in my twenties before I realized there are actually several feminine images for God in scripture, including God as mother (Hosea 11) and 'God with breasts' (the typical translation of El Shaddai is 'God Almighty,' but it is sometimes rendered 'God Who Suffices;' this is because the literal translation is 'God of Mountains,' something like Grand Tetons). If we're lucky, we may hear sermons on these texts once in a while. But as a pastor who is very interested in feminine images for God, I have to admit-- this often takes a back seat to other concerns when I'm in the pulpit.

But, then there's Mary. And as a young nursing mother, I was drawn to pray using her as a kind of mental/spiritual icon for a God who has a feminine face.

I think there's a good case to be made that this was the point of Marian devotion all along. The story goes, there was a temple to Diana/ Artemis in Ephesus, one of the great wonders of the ancient world. Diana is known to most of us as the Roman goddess of the hunt and wild creatures, but she was also the goddess of mothers and childbirth (virgin though she was). And after tradition placed the death of Jesus' mother at Ephesus, the church saw fit to re-dedicate the shrine of the Virgin Goddess Diana to the Virgin Mother Mary. The shrine to the goddess known as Divine Mother became the shrine to the Mother of God. Diana was known as Queen of Heaven. Mary, too.

I'm Presbyterian now, and Protestants don't think much of Marian devotion, as a rule. But I think there was real wisdom in giving a nod to the feminine aspect of God, for which there isn't too much room in traditional formulations of the Trinity. (A very wise nun once noted, "There is more to God than two men and a bird.")  Elevation of the woman Mary to near-divine status was an understandable (if flawed) attempt at acknowledging that truth to converts to whom Christianity appealed mightily, but who missed the goddesses who gave representation to their bodies, and lives, and spirits.

I think of those women at the back of the church, murmuring their prayers throughout the mass as they moved the beads through their fingers. Are they still there? I wonder what they thought during that time? Maybe the rosary was the deepest and best way they knew to get to God... through the woman who gave (at least a little) representation to their bodies, and lives, and spirits.

Lent 5, Greenfire, Winter 1996, Part 3

For Lent, I'm writing here about significant memories from my life in faith.

When I'd left home to go to Greenfire that winter, I was in the midst of something I couldn't at the time articulate. On the surface, everything probably looked fine to the outside world. We were pretty much a "typical" family, though, I have come to believe, there really is no such thing. Every family, even the mom-dad-brother-sister-dog-in-a-big-old-house, has layers of mystery to it that even its members haven't fully unwrapped and examined.

I'd begun the process of unwrapping my own mystery a couple of years earlier, when the issue of my identity-- who I am, and who I love-- finally stopped being some vague rumbling in my subconscious and forced me to pay attention.

Actually, it had already done that a good ten years earlier, when I was in my early twenties.

Scratch that. There was that girl on the softball team when I was 12.

How does this sort of thing come to the surface? Pretty much as you'd expect. I was minding my own business when my experience of a good friend started changing. Now she was not merely a friend, but the most compelling person in my life. And without ever saying a word to anyone about it, I was thrown into the first real crisis of my adulthood. I couldn't stop thinking about her.

By the time I got to Greenfire, she was long gone. She'd moved 3000 miles away, and one frank conversation before she left had confirmed what we both knew to be the essentials of the situation: I was married, and that was a non-negotiable and unalterable fact. Neither of us wanted to cause pain to anyone I loved (all three, people she happened to love, too).  At any rate, I'm pretty sure the feelings were all on my side, though I've never asked her point-blank. Crisis averted.

Now it was two years later, and here I was at Greenfire to talk about my hopes and dreams for answering my call to ministry.

But.

And.

There was something about Greenfire-- several things. It was a community of only women, an idea that had appealed to me as early as age 6 when I became acquainted with the Dominican nuns who taught at my elementary school. The community was all about women, too-- our lives, our dreams, our faith, our spirits, our souls. I'd quickly noticed that two of the women were a couple. I'm pretty sure the woman who'd greeted me the first day was a lesbian, the one with the braids. (She'd told me I had beautiful blue eyes. Though, maybe you don't have to be a lesbian to mention that you like another woman's eyes? I hadn't a clue.)

At Greenfire, I talked to the women about ministry. I talked to God about sexuality.

I was terrified of my own feelings. I was angry that they threatened to undo a life I'd chosen, and vows I'd made, and a family I cherished. I believed that all that was entirely within my control, if only I could quiet this small but growing voice inside that kept threatening to overwhelm me.

I begged God to remove those feelings from me... feelings that, perhaps, I had missed out on the life I was meant to lead (but which the fact of my children completely contradicted. How could I have been "meant" to not have them? I still say, impossible). Feelings that drew me to connections with women that threatened my own internal sense of what it meant to remain faithful in my marriage. I begged God, not only that week, but for years afterward: make this go away.

God did not choose to make it go away. I want to emphasize this, just in case there's any question as to whether I simply did not pray hard enough, crying in my room, or driving around in my car, or first thing in the morning, or after I climbed into bed at night, or every Sunday in  my pew at church. I prayed with everything that was in me that I would no longer feel those connections and stirrings. Those prayers were answered with a firm-- and loving-- "No."

Lying on the mattress in my little room at Greenfire, watching the stars wind their way across the winter sky, I began to understand that I might never get the answer I wanted from God. I began the years-long process of reckoning with the truth of who I was.

I wish I could say something inspiring, like, "... and I did it fully trusting that God would guide me." But that wasn't my experience. My experience was more like this: being alone, in a dark room, with a single light bulb flickering, as if its filament was trying to decide: light? or dark?

Lent 4: Flu

I'm going to say today is the worst day of the flu, in hopes that my determination will make it so. Yesterday I knew I was sick enough to get myself to the walk-in, and to recognize the need to excuse myself from my work responsibilities. 

Today has been worse.

This means my attention span, while long enough to finish some things for work before really stepping away, is not long enough to write the next post about my Greenfire experience. I'll hope for that to be possible tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I am grateful for the following:

• health insurance that leaves only a small copay for the flu meds;
• over-the-counter pain and fever-reducers;
• great colleagues and friends at church who step into the breach and encourage me to take the time I need to feel better;
• people in my life who love me enough to brave the Flu Zone in order to bring me groceries or to share a meal while watching "How to Get Away With Murder" with me;
• the daily lectionary, which always offers perspective when I'm feeling sorry for myself.

This evening's psalm is 121: 

I lift up my eyes to the hills--

     from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord

     who made heaven and earth.

God will not let your foot be moved;

     the One who keeps you will not slumber.

The One who keeps Israel

     will neither slumber nor sleep.

~Psalm 121:1-4

A peaceful evening to you all.

Lent 3: Greenfire, Winter 1996, Part 2

I almost canceled this. Or rather, I almost decided to delay it, because I find myself home with the flu.

But I find want to write about Greenfire again today because I feel a little extra vulnerable, and not run away from it.

Important things happened to me at Greenfire, things that affected me going forward professionally and personally. A lot of the professional "aha's" and holy moments have become things I talk about comfortably (chatterbox, see last entry). But the personal ones I have mostly-- though not exclusively--written about anonymously.

So, I'm delving into tender territory, and I'm doing it while I'm sick, and that may not be the best plan, but it's my plan today.

Since I decided to write about Greenfire I've had a hard time stopping thinking about it. I've Googled it to see what virtual memories remain of it, and I've been startled to see some of those familiar faces—though, don't misunderstand, even though important things happened for me personally there, I would not be surprised to learn that I did not leave much of a mark there. I doubt any of the Greenfire women would remember me.

One of the features that distinguished Greenfire was that a guest could choose as much or as little silence as she wanted. She could seek a consultation with the women there in the form of what they called a "circle conversation." It was really very simple in concept: they used a form of communication, support, consultation, and discovery that is already pretty much built into most women's lives. We gather for breakfast. We meet for coffee. We have people over, and together, in circles of friends, we work things out. We dream aloud. We wonder what's next. We commiserate over what's hard. Sometimes we rescue each other, but we rarely call it "rescue." We don't think of ourselves as heroes. We are there for each other.

I decided to have a circle conversation around my desire to be ordained. At the time I was working in an Episcopal congregation, and I was a member there as well. There were things about the work I truly loved and there were things that were very, very hard. But I had come out of the Roman Catholic tradition, and I had been very convinced that I wanted to seek ordination in the Episcopal church. I wanted to be a priest.

But I had done some searching and interviewing-- informational interviews-- with ordained women in my area, women of different denominations. And in one of those conversations, a woman (who remains a really good friend to this day) said, "You're not Episcopalian. You're Presbyterian."

Now, she had based this on our conversation. On things I said about my understanding of ministry. On my unsettled questions about Catholic ecclesiology, the shape of the church, the nature of the connections between congregation and pastor, between bishop and congregation. On how I envisioned myself in ministry.

"You're Presbyterian."

"No, I'm not. I'm really comfortable in the Episcopal church," I had protested.

She shrugged. "You heard it here first. Someday you'll remind me of that. You're Presbyterian."

At Greenfire I was still wrestling with this question. "What," I asked the two women in my circle conversation, "is priesthood?"

I'm sure this conversation went on for quite some time, but I remember only one thing that was said, and it was a single sentence in answer to that question.

"A priest creates or holds open a space for the holy, and resists the temptation of filling it herself."

I have probably not spent enough time in the past 20 or so years wrestling with that statement, though I think I am mostly aware of those moments when I succumb to that temptation (I call it "The Patty Show”). I believe it is probably the call of the Presbyterian minister as much as it is of the priest. (Had I mentioned.... I am Presbyterian?) It remains a stark and tantalizing suggestion, one I'm sure I fall short of more than I live into. In this year in which I'll celebrate the 15th anniversary of my ordination, I feel more drawn to it than ever.

More tomorrow.

Lent 2: Greenfire, Winter 1996, Part 1

I spent five years as a director of Christian Education for two wonderful and very different congregations. In the first of those positions, I was given the benefit, in addition to vacation, of a week each year for a retreat. I hadn't been on a real, honest-to-God, go-away-and-do-nothing-but-tend-my-soul retreat since I was in my very early twenties (and now I was almost 35). A friend told me about a remarkable place she'd gone in Maine. I contacted them and made my reservation.

Greenfire Farm was a women's retreat center in Tenant's Harbor Maine-- an almost 8-hour drive from my home in the Southern Tier of New York. It was conceived as a place for the spiritual nurture of women, and was staffed by a number of women who were Episcopal priests (including two from the earliest days of "irregular ordinations"). Greenfire was located in a farmhouse on many acres of wooded land, and a short drive from the ocean.

The first time I went, I didn't know what to expect. I only knew my soul was hungry. My chief worry centered around the daily half hour silent meditation. Chatterbox that I am-- inside and out--would I be able to stand it?

I arrived on a frigid winter afternoon in which the sun was shining so brightly, it was a shock to get out of the car and feel the ice crystals in my lungs. I carried my bags into the farmhouse and was met by a woman in overalls and braids (a friend of the house), who showed me to my room. We climbed stairs to a floor shaped by the deep V of the roof, and I had to crouch through the doorway to my little cell. It was a small, warm space, which held a good mattress on a carpeted floor, and boasted a skylight through which, I later learned, I could see the stars. There was a lamp and a small table with books on it. It was simple and wonderful. By now I was beginning to understand what an adventure I'd begun.

We gathered in a great room warmed by a wood stove for our half-hour meditation before supper. There were about a dozen women, ranging in ages from late twenties to, maybe, seventy. Connie, one of the Episcopal priests, gave a brief introduction to the meditation time. She told us, after we made ourselves comfortable (some of us used prayer benches on the floor, some sat in chairs, others in lotus pose) she would begin by playing a note on a singing bowl. She asked us to listen to the note, as it grew and as it faded, and to let it carry us into the silence. She explained that in meditation, we would simply continually return to focusing on our breath, letting go distracting thoughts without judgment. At the end, she would ring the bowl to signal our time was over.

I'm sure it was only a brief introduction, intended to set us at ease by clarifying procedure, but it had the effect of making me increasingly nervous. Worried as I was over whether I could "succeed" at the silence, it was a relief to start, because it was the beginning of getting it over with.

I can't remember whether Connie gave suggestions as to the content of our meditation, but I believe I chose to use a word like "Spirit" or "Lord" to help me to focus on my breath. At the outset, sitting in this new, slightly unusual posture, I was anxious, uncomfortable, and acutely aware of every sound in the room... the crackling of the logs in the stove, a cough, someone shifting in their seat. But soon something happened I had never experienced before. I began to find the silence. In fact, the silence was electric. I felt carried along on the silence borne by each person in the room. If you could have seen my heart during that time, I believe it would have resembled in some way a flower opening. Or, maybe, a flame flickering.

To my astonishment, the bell sound of the bowl rang out, and our meditation time was over. Dinner was served.

I don't particularly remember that dinner, except for the fact that it was vegetarian and served with warmth and hospitality. I do remember my awkwardness as I tried to strike the balance between listening and speaking. I also remember bedding down in my little room with a book--my bible?-- the moon making its way across my skylight, a trail of stars in its wake. In a way I couldn't understand, despite the distance from my family and everyone I loved best, I felt strangely at home.

I had come to Greenfire dreading the silence. After one experience of meditation as a part of that group, I began to crave it.

Lent 1: Ash Wednesday 1995

When my children were little we had an Ash Wednesday ritual we observed with them. Gathered around our dining table after dinner, we wrote on small pieces of paper something we wanted to think about or do during Lent. It might be some aspect of our character we wanted to work on (a friend has told me she tries to soften her heart to certain people during Lent). It might be some small pleasure we would forego (the hardest thing I ever gave up for Lent was wearing earrings). It might be some spiritual discipline we would take on (daily prayer with scripture, or maybe blogging). After we'd finished writing we would fold the papers, put them in a small metal bowl, and strike a match. The flame always shot up disconcertingly high, which means the kids adored it. After the ashes had cooled (which took almost no time at all), we would place ashes on one another's heads, saying the appropriate words.


The year my daughter was three, we said, "Repent and believe the gospel." First, Ned placed the ashes on my forehead, saying those words, and then, I placed them on Joan's, doing the same. And Joan, very solemnly, placed the ashes on her father's head. And she said: "To the hospital."

Joan was absolutely on target. Among other things, Lent can be a time to reckon with what one hymn calls our "sin-sick souls." We Presbyterians have the reputation of being big on sin. When I was in seminary, you could always tell when the Presbyterian students were leading chapel, because, without fail, we included a prayer of confession. I've heard from people over the years that this is varying degrees of useful. I think it's important for the church to understand how skewed interpretations of scripture and toxic forms of Christianity have turned what is a useful concept (missing the mark, turning in on ourselves instead of outward to God and one another) into a spiritual bludgeon. When someone I care about told me the prayers of confession were causing pain, I took a hard look at the ones I had been writing and using and made some changes.

At the church I serve we now say "Prayers for Wholeness." When I pray with folks one on one or in small groups, I usually offer them in the name of Jesus, "who is our healer and our hope." The shift from sin-full to sin-sick is one that resonates with me personally. At their best, the images we use lead us to acknowledging our need for God, drawing us closer, rather than pushing us away.

Lent can be a good time to get ourselves to the spiritual hospital.

Ash Wednesday 1970

I was in the fifth grade (I think). And one night I awakened in the wee hours with a dreadful stomach bug that emptied me out and made me weak. I had a fever. Clearly, I was going to stay home.

My mother was really good at keeping us home from school. She made up the couch in the living room with sheets and soft blankets and the pillows from our beds, and tucked us in with the TV close by and all our current books and magazines. Whatever this bug was, the fever lingered (though the gastrointestinal part was, blessedly and truly, over). So a day turned into a week. And that turned into another week. And I believe I really was poorly, because I had no desire to do much other than watch the brand new soap opera I'd happened to catch the premier of ("All My Children"), and reruns of "That Girl," and to read my books.

In the middle of my third week at home it was Ash Wednesday, and suddenly I really wanted out of that couch-bed. I became very distressed when I understood that I wouldn't be able to receive my ashes. (I was a nerdily religious kid. In high school a friend who'd known me in those years asked, "Weren't you the one who wore a rosary on your uniform?" Yeah. That would be me.)

And... it's not as if a ton of people would see me, with or without my ashes. I had nothing to prove to anyone. I just really wanted them. It was important. Lent was important. And I knew, without exactly spelling it out to myself, that the message the priest always said as he smeared the ashes on my head. "Remember, man [sic], that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return," was kind of extra relevant for me, being sick. It's not that I thought I was in danger of dying. But for the first time in my childhood I felt just the teeniest bit fragile.

My mother said no. Her "no" was absolute, then and always. I cried as she went off to church to get ashes for herself. "We'll rub our foreheads together when I get back," she said. I didn't want that. I wanted them placed on me, in a cross, with those words, that made a tingle of fear run along my spine.

She returned with a big smile on her face and a small envelope in her hand. 

"Monsignor sent these for you," she said. Monsignor O'Connor and I had already had some interesting interactions, including the time my mother took me to his office at my request, so that I could ask to become an altar girl. (Spoiler alert: There were no altar girls in 1970. But Monsignor said, "But I think there will be, some day." And that was enough for me. For a while.)

And I rose from my couch and my mother solemnly dipped her right thumb into the #10 envelope, and then smeared a cross on my forehead.

"Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return."

Then she tucked me back into my couch, and went into the kitchen to make me tea and toast.