Monday, April 29, 2013

Note: this blog comes in response to a LOT of things. But mostly it comes out of my frustration in not being talked to directly about...ugh...most things. I am a private person, there is no doubt about that. I'm an introvert. I don't do hype. Traditional shit makes me squirm. I don't like making announcements about my life, and yet, if I don't, it's interpreted as silence rooted in shame. It's true that people need "to give an account" of themselves, as Judith Butler so definitively argues in her book. In general I think the choices we make go far in giving an account of who we are. But this is complicated when it comes to leadership. As a public figure, I find it almost impossible to give an account of myself. Why? Because people would rather talk with each other about me than talk to me. That means people are making meaning about my choices without my consent. This blog is my way of responding to conversations that I hear are happening about my writing, about my pastoring, about my sexual orientation, and about my decision to get married. Please know I would always rather respond to people's concerns and questions face to face. But lacking that opportunity, respond I must, with what little I have. This is the only way I know how. Here's to writing itself: the place where what needs to be said, can in fact, be said. Regardless of the reception, I thank God for this place/space/occasion of delivery. If nothing else, this takes the torture out of my head and places it into the world where healing seems like a potential, if not real, possibility. 

***This is a shortened version of a much longer rant written about 2 months ago*** 


1) Public outrage about...well...anything...made known ONLY through facebook, sucks. It's devoid of relationship. It's one-sided. It lacks accountability. It's bad communication. Period. Maybe people need to rant in order to feel better or to get stuff off their chest, but that comes at a huge cost to the very institutions folks claim to have "loved and lost." Does that cost matter to them? I'm sure there are people who think "when you go into leadership, people will misinterpret your words and intentions all the time. That's what you signed up for. Get thicker skin." But you know what? Hurt is hurt. Period. Why do I have to get thicker skin? Why shouldn't other people do some work around how much damage their actions and words do?  

2) Because I am getting married, to a man, this month, I feel this incessant need to explain myself because I've gotten a reputation in the church of being anti-marriage and anti-heterosexual marriage (because of a narrow interpretation of a blog I wrote almost two years ago). If you read the actual blog post, you'll see that I said "I am skeptical," not "I am hostile." I also wrote that I think healthy heterosexual marriage is unlikely, not impossible. And just in case anyone needs me to be explicit about what I think makes for a healthy heterosexual marriage, here it is. Ready? The man and the womyn must both be aware and reflective of, and faithfully responsive to issues of gender privilege and oppression both within the relationship and within themselves. If I thought J.R. was incapable of this level of introspection and responsible behavior when it comes to gender, I wouldn't be getting married. The same goes for race within our interracial marriage. If he thought I was incapable of monitoring and laying down my white privilege, I really doubt he'd be marrying me. The point is: power and difference are real. Where there's been historical and institutional privilege and oppression, relationships between people carrying implicated identities must work with vigilance to love each other respectfully and responsibly in light of those power differences. 

3) ...which is a continuation of #2... I live in the mess of suspicion and participation in a LOT of areas of my life. I hold suspicions about Christianity and the institutional church and yet I've devoted my life to serving as a pastor. I hold suspicions about the culture of the Mid-West and yet I've plopped down and started a family and career in Battle Creek, MI. I am suspicious about the nature of white people to do collective work of spiritual and social justice and yet I serve a predominantly white church.  I hold suspicion about the authenticity of certain biblical texts and yet I preach from the scriptures every single week. I hold suspicion about the capacity of elected officials to actually carry through on their promises stated during election season and yet, every four years, I vote. I held suspicion about my ability to be a single mother to Aurora (before I had a co-parent) and yet I chose to inseminate and get pregnant as a single mother. So you see, this idea of suspicion being something other than suspicion (like, I don't know, attacking or dismissing or disrespecting) is assumed and certainly not implied. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can love something and be suspicious of it at the same time. In fact, that suspicion might, in and of itself, point to love's capacity to be honest with itself about the true nature of the object/subject of love. Can love exist without honesty? I doubt it. 

4) ...which is also a continuation of #2... I am queer. Here's what that means to me: I don't have a gender criteria when it comes to love. Who I choose to partner with has everything to do with values, ethics, integrity, interests, and yes, attraction. None of that is rooted in genitalia. For me. My queerness is also NOT limited to issues of attraction. I am gender queer: as in, I do not feel like I am a womyn or a man, specifically, but beyond and between both of those signifiers. Queerness is not just about who you love, it's also about how you understand yourself. Having said that, let me get back to love. I am responsive to the spirit of love whenever and wherever it crops up in and around me. I don't have a type. I have a posture: of being open to partnership that feels right regardless of color, gender, age, religion, etc. In the last year and a half I have been in relationship with someone who fits next to and with me. We are creating and securing a family together. It's not a fate. It's a choice we are making. I am choosing this in light of who he is, who I am, who we are together as parents for our daughter, and who we want to be as a family in the future. This is not about an identity switch or the abandonment of the LGBTQ community. I am as queer today as I ever was. This is about choosing, consciously, the love and family that feels right to me. It may be choosing a traditional relationship formation that I've been and still am suspicious of in the present. But if that doesn't make sense to you, go back to the final sentences of #3. And having said ALL this, let me say one last thing. 

5) I've been luke warm about marriage equality as a political movement and some of that has been rooted in my long held belief that there are MUCH bigger issues for the LGBTQ community to tackle when it comes to sexual justice than marriage. Other spaces of resistance in me have come about because of the racist and transphobic undertones of the HRC's movement for marriage equality. But that's not about marriage. That's about a political organization; and even they have done great work in spite of their (big time) short comings. Soooo, now that I am exercising the privilege of marriage, in response to the contexts of love and family in my life (and in a lot of ways we are opting into legal and financial securities that feel non-negotiable for all of us), I've had a big shift in perspective. You don't know what you don't know, right? Well, now that I know, how important the freedom to get married is, for the well being of partners and families of all kinds, I am 100% committed to the marriage equality movement. And I will be stepping up my game as an activist and pastor when it comes to equal marriage rights. And and and. I still want to stand by the fact that marriage is just one way to formalize love. It's not the best way. It's one way. As long as life partners, sex partners, and life choices are concretized with integrity, consent and no harm: it's ALL good. Not one holier than the others. ALL good according to the CONTEXT they're/their/there in.