Father's Day

It's the day before Father's Day
and facebook has become the latest display case of the nuclear family
where everyone posts their father as their profile picture.
I have two fathers. How to choose? I refuse.
Besides neither one really counts.
It's this half life, half lie, half truth that's always haunting me, daddy.

On accident, I just saw a picture
of my biological father holding his (other) daughter.
It's the only picture I've ever seen of him where he doesn't have grey hair,
where he's a young man with black curls and bulging biceps and a smile
so devilishly gorgeous that someone as smart as my mom would fall for it. 
It's the only picture I've ever seen of my father, fathering.

And I feel like screaming at the picture and screaming at him.
FUCK YOU. HOW COULD YOU? 
I feel like making him the scapegoat for absolutely everything,
every struggle,
every love lost,
every staining abandonment episode,
every stinging inability to participate in healthy intimacy.

But I am in love too.
In love with this idea of him. This idea of my father, fathering.
Isn't it love that spikes the initial yearning for him? It is, yes.
And so I imagine it's me that he's holding.
Imagine it's me that gets to feel his hands on my 2-year old belly,
Imagine it's me smiling from ear to ear in between his sturdy black boots.
I imagine he is elated to be with little me
and that little me can't imagine a life without
this towering, tenderly holding him.

...and when I'm done imagining and done sobbing
because the contents of my imagination are always more generous than this life...

i pray for a world where dads can be dads to all their children,
where women don't fall for the bullshit,
where men don't believe their own hype,
where love can flourish in multiplicity without shame, guilt, fear or minimization of its power.

Praying/Dancing/Sexing/Collaging/Awakening

This is how it goes.

When it's time, you move once.
And then wait.
Sensing a response--
a counter movement--
you consider the power
and take a deep breath.

Then you listen to what's racing.
Is it momentum?
Invitation?
Fear?
A melody crowning?

And again, you move.
This time, there's little guessing
because if it happens twice
it's not a mistake or the silliness of spontaneity.
If it happens twice, it's intentional.
It's rhythmic. It's relationship.

It's dangerous.

Patterns get established at this juncture.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Just listen and feel. Then respond.
That's the sequence, little pilgrim.
Don't step out of line.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Deep breath. 

Yours? Maybe...

Just follow, but don't be misled
by listening too long to that which belongs inside
because the outside current
is what satisfies. It's paradoxical.
Just listen and feel and follow.

This is the best kept secret of the universe,
this secret locked in the bodied archives
of any wanderer hoping to come home
by belonging
(again and again)
(beat by beat)
(sound to sound)
(flesh for flesh)
to what's outside.

Here's the trick.

The trick is to close your eyes
when its most alluring
and to scream
when the silence signifies a great study
and to un/name the distance by becoming,
somehow all the more distinct

in total surrender.

Festering & Pestering

I'm learning more and more that what's toxic and festering must be spoken out loud. Audre Lorde has taught me this more than any/other author. She and Frida Kahlo pester (not fester) me often. Both were incredibly creative and transformative. They took bullshit pain/trauma oppression and transformed their experience of those things into works of art. Courage. Fearless. Both of them. And so on days like today, I recall their legacies...and then I write. I write so I don't internalize the negativity. I write so that my body is free. I write to exorcise the lies that I (sometimes unconsciously) inherit by living in this unconscious/traumatized culture. I write so that I don't perpetuate the lies and hurt people. This is active/intentional channeling of toxicity in an effort to transform it. My prayer in this is for people to feel less alone (in the act of receiving my words) and empowered to actively/intentionally channel toxicity so it doesn't kill them either.  

This morning during a brain-storming session at a council retreat I had to sit and listen to leaders of my church talk about "Open and Affirming" conversations as if they were that: conversations. As if gay bodies weren't in the room. Like: you want the luxury of a conversation about my person-hood and then want to congratulate yourself about it in my presence? Um, no. Reminds me of what I felt earlier in the week when the PCUSA decided to ordain openly gay ministers. It's never too late to do the right thing. I am glad about that decision. And there's a part of me that's like, ummmm just because you decided/figured-out that gay people aren't second class citizens doesn't mean you're righteous. You're repenting. That's different. Don't self-congratulate so quickly. Similarly: there's nothing to be sung about when white people actually acknowledge racism. That doesn't somehow erase the lie we've been telling ourselves for thousands of years. Realizing a lie doesn't absolve any of the pain caused by that lie, nor does it mean you're no longer enacting the lie. It just means you can stop being an unconscious asshole now and start working towards honest relations in life. That's it. What's radical and worth celebrating is flipping power and privilege over for good, which requires consistent acts over one's life time (that often get socially punished) of great risk and sacrifice by those who have power and privilege.

Oh: and if I had the capacity, which I of course do not, I would eternally ban the word "mission" from Christian discourse. (My next blog will probably be about this: just fyi.)

Rant done. Peace out.
EJ

Bloody Lightning: A Prayer of Confession and Petition

Menstruation is privilege.
It is the possibilities of bleeding out
what is on the threshold of life/death,
thereby re-membering one's placement in the cycle
of birth/collapse.

It is privilege to participate in this
recycling system that is psychically and sexually rooted
in the body
in the body
in the body.

Last night I woke up twice. There was lightning in the sky,
thunder clapped, ripping through silence, awakening sleepy-heads
to the shameless power of nature that can do whatever It wills/wants.
Both times, my legs and sheets were covered in black blood.
I wasn't ill-prepared. She does what she wills. Shamelessly.

This morning I read that my current place of employment
hosted and organized minstrel shows, a legacy of
essentializing brown bodies
exploiting brown bodies
...for "entertainment"...
profiteering off of brown bodies
doing violence/rape/murder to brown bodies--
that legacy runs in the halls of my office and
runs through the blood in my veins.

This morning I recall my father's pastoral legacy of
using women,
dismissing women,
silencing women,
impregnating and abandoning women and then
lying about women to women--
that legacy flows through the blood in my veins.

And so this morning i thank
my body
my body
my body
for bleeding out and expressing death/collapse honestly
in ways that my job and my culture will not.

I am a student of this black blood
this luminous darkness
   (to use Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman's theological language)
that incarnates honestly the need to purge and express
no matter how painful
    (and yes, this belly cramps and collapses on itself every month, painfully)
what has not brought life,
what is painful and bleeding,
what needs to die.

Legacies of white supremacy and racial hatred
patriarchy and woman-hatred,
take your cue.
In the speaking of your legacy in this/my body,
in the honest confession that you
do not bring life and
that you need to die--
be transformed,
be recycled into truth that is life-giving, life affirming, and life-sustaining,
be gone from your current dis/embodiments,
be incarnated life and begin
with
this/my body
this/my body
this/my body.

Internalized Oppression

When you love what you are

and come into contact with others

who are what you are

but don’t love what you/they are (together)

it can be maddening.

…particularly if you’ve had to

rip that self love from the sharp teeth of

all-consuming, triple headed monsters that

seek the exploitation & annihilation of your self

for the perpetuation of violent fiction,

the myth of a bottomless belly,

the myth of never ending hunger that must be satiated

by someone who is willing to be treated like something.

…particularly if you’ve had to

tenderly and patiently patchwork quilt that

self love back into/onto your body

with creative threading skills

that don’t always appear coherent to the external eye,

with nurturing touch

 that feels foreign and clumsy at first,

and with compassionate placement

 that takes incredible discipline of the always-suspect intuition.

It can be down-right infuriating

to encounter those who do not love those things you share,

who do not love those things you are together,

and thereby do not reflect back nor deepen

your endurance, victory and worth-fighting-for-ness;

who instead recycle the myths—with their bodies—

solidify some fiction—with their incongruities—

that keep your kind hunted, chewed up, swallowed and spat back up

because after all, it turns out

that monster’s hunger is always bigger than its stomach.

…and yet…

no matter how maddening & infuriating

it might be—this lack of love—

if you love what you are

there is no sense in resenting those

who don’t love what you are in common

because, if it’s really common, even if—no,

especially if

its still in the teeth of hungry monsters,

it’s still what you are, still what you love and

only by lovingly beckoning it out of the mouth of devouring lies

and into the truth of its inherent & unconditional rightness

can you truly claim an authentic self-love, the one

you’ve been living & dying to enact all the days of your breathing,

the one you’re willing to sacrifice for and wait for

and not give up on just because you’re tired.

This is why forgiveness is

still the most generous act

in the recognition of one’s love not loving what’s loveable in common/together,

because if love is love, even deferred love-in-return—

even bad behavior that mocks and spits at the loving-self

because of internalized oppression—

cannot dissuade it. 

Traveling

I don't know why
traveling always seems like such a vague notion
when it offers such concrete freedom.

like
perspective
connection
healing
awakening

I feel like writing myself a note for the future:
break away more
reconnect to the places you used to be more
discover new spots more
move more.

Next time that stuckness creeps in
and I'm spinning and nauseous
from my own chasing-tail game--
someone tell me to book a flight,
or a train, or to get in my car and just go.

Freedom knows...

I'm going to tell you something.
This is confessional.
And someone, somewhere may use this
to soapbox about all things heterosexual
to soapbox about all things nuclear family
to soapbox about all things trappings of organized religion
to soapbox about all things not-me.
I don't give a damn. I'm telling you anyways.

The loneliest I ever feel,
is right after worship.

Right after worship,
particularly after telling the deepest truth i've got.
And the loneliness is magnified on holidays
when I go home alone
and i'm not at home, but i'm certainly alone--
even if i'm surrounded by people.

There is no home for a prophet--Jesus was right about that.

But here's what he didn't say:
you go looking for home all the days of your life
and you never find it--not if you're honest--
because home is a fleeting moment that will not be owned
or married or institutionalized.

There is only the freedom in truth, that localizes in a body
that's willing to be a channel, that's willing to be
so fucking alone afterward that it almost makes
the freedom of truth worth forsaking.

Almost.

But I will never forsake freedom or truth. Never.
And that's how I know my soul is in tact
in this fucking monstrosity of a culture that
desires people to run from loneliness
straight into the chains that will enslave them.

Constant Ache

Someday my pain, someday my pain
Will mark you
Harness your blame, harness your blame
And walk through

With the wild wolves around you
In the morning, I'll call you
Send it farther on

Solace my game, solace my game
It stars you
Swing wide your crane, swing wide your crane
And run me through

And the story's all over you
In the morning i'll call you
Can't you find a clue when your eyes are all painted Sinatra blue

What might have been lost -
Don't bother me

Rest in Peace Sue Creed

Every Wednesday she came over and soul collaged with me. One day she was flipping through magazines and pulled out this poem. She loved it. When I was looking over the funeral file she left for us, I found the poem tucked into one of her collages. It reminds me of a Spring day, last year, when she still had zest and vitality in her body, when she could talk shit and laugh out loud. It reminds me of her Spirit that is now free...

So to her, I launch this poem, in the love of freedom and life.

Of Yield and Abandon

A muscular, thick-pelted woodchuck,

created in yield, in abandon, lifts onto his haunches. 

Behind him, abundance of ferns, a rocks wall's 

coldness, never in sun, a few noisy grackles.

Our eyes find shining beautiful

because it reminds us of water. To say this

does not make fewer the rooms of the house

or lessen its zinc-ceilinged hallways.

There is something that waits inside us,

a nearness that fissures, that fishes. Leaf shine

and stone shine edging the tail of the woodchuck silver,

splashing the legs of chickens and clouds. 

In Russian, the translator told me,

there is no word for "thirsty"--a sentence,

as always, impossible to translate.

But what is the point of preserving the bell

if to do so it must be filled with concrete or wax? 

A body prepared for travel but not for singing? 

--Jane Hirshfield

Separation of Church and State

The Congregationalist

First Congregational Church, Battle Creek

Rev. Emily Joye McGaughy

People always try to make sense of God based on their encounters with the world and make sense of the world based on their encounters with God. In the late nineteenth century a protestant movement known as “the social gospel” took root in America in response to the Industrial Revolution’s impact on the world. Josiah Strong, Horace Bushnell and Walter Rauschenbusch were some of the pioneer theologians of the social gospel and they were all pastors firmly rooted in communities of faith. Members of the United Church of Christ today can trace denominational ties to all three of these men and their churches.

Economics (production, consumption, working conditions, immigration labor, and wage standards) and diversity (abolitionist, suffragist and child labor movements) were the worldly issues provoking new ideas about God at the time of the social gospel movement. As unbound freedoms and sufferings began impacting various sectors of society simultaneously, social gospel theologians took note and took to the pen. Some of their writings are the most brilliant theological texts of all time. The main thrust of social gospel theology—what separated it from the dominant theology of its day—is that life is not primarily individual, but rather social. From this claim, social gospel theologians constructed theology about God that focused on the social nature of sin and salvation with Jesus’ teachings about “the kingdom of God” as their moral compass. Their theology, if taken seriously, had direct political implications.   

Much of what began with New York Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch (the father of social gospel theology in America) at the turn of the century was carried forth by 20^th century figures known as liberation theologians who were responding to The Great Depression, WW I&II, and the Civil Rights Movement/s. Again, social conditions of freedom and oppression were the worldly phenomena that provoked American liberation theologians such as James Cone, Mary Daly, Kelly Brown Douglas and Kwok Pui Lan (just to name a select few!) to envision God in creative ways that led to political momentum. In Latin America, Africa and especially Nazi-occupied Germany very similar content emerged from 20^th century theologians trying to take God and the world seriously without minimizing one’s impact upon the other.  

I quit believing in God as a teenager. It wasn’t until college, when I stumbled upon the writings of social gospel and liberation theologians that I even began to consider returning to religion. What inspired me so much about these movements within Christianity is how unabashedly thorough and relentless they were in addressing the question of power: both God’s power and the power/principalities on Earth. The church of my childhood was hesitant to address that question and it drove me nuts…eventually drove me out the door. I don’t think my experience is unique for many young people. My sense is that most young people are spiritually hungry, but their search for spiritual truth is woven into everyday realities of freedom and liberation, realities that are tied up in power dynamics and are therefore political in nature. Therefore if we want to be a faith community that is attractive to the post-boomer generation, we must grapple with issues of power in our society. That means we cannot shy away from the political realities of our day.  

Rev. Thomas Ryberg recently spoke at a political rally in town and some folk questioned his pastoral authority, wondering if he was doing an ethical job of observing the separation of church and state. Some questioned if he was speaking on behalf of the church or if he was speaking on behalf of himself. These are totally important questions for folk both in and outside of our congregation to be wrestling with on a regular basis. Communities must keep clergy accountable to oaths of ordination. And clergy must keep communities accountable to the truths of God. If any pastor allows political movements that are oppressive to wash over her community unchallenged, she is not doing her job of truth-telling. The separation of church and state does not bind politicians to silence on religious issues, nor religious clerics to silence on political issues. In fact, the separation of church and state provides the necessary space between political and religious entities for healthy accountability to be reached on both sides. We inherit this necessary space from the constitutional framers of our country and social gospel/liberation theologians of our tradition.

May we always occupy that inherited space with respect and courage for we are all citizens of this country and seekers of the truth of God simultaneously. Let us continue taking both our God and this world seriously, without minimizing the impact of one upon the other. Amen.