An Easter Closet

All you see is darkness.  Your eyes are open and ... now your eyes are closed. Can you tell a difference? No. Because there is no light in here. I mean, there is a little bit of light.. maybe it forms a circle? or a rectangle? You wonder if that must be a way out because you can see something blocking it.  You can sort of see ...something. But it's so far away, or is it so close?

You can taste nothing, none of the richness you have only ever dreamed about.  You yearn to use your tongue, your teeth. In here, there is nothing for you to taste, to eat, to gulp.  In this dark place, you dare not even shout out ...

...because there's nothing to hear either.  The silence is so thin, yet so weighty.  There is so much of it.  What would happen if you break it? What would happen if you said your name aloud? How about if you whispered instead of shouted. In here, is there a difference? Who can hear your soft whimpers and your anguished cries?

And if anyone can hear you, does hear you, how do you find them? It's so dark, there are walls all around you, keeping you in one place, stuck.  There is no clear way forward. You stumble all around,  unsure of what steady stronghold exists for your feet. I wonder if you feel any at all, or if you just trip over and over,

face on the ground. Inhaling dusty and musty kickings-up of whatever may happen to line this space.  The scent of old-ness, clogged-ness, stuck-ness filling your nostrils, seeping into your lungs trying to give you life.. but can they?

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And then God rolled away the stone in front of the tomb. Jesus came out. Jesus came out into new life, into resurrection, into his fullest self.

Or, did God open the closet door? Did you come out? Did you come out into new life, into resurrection, into your fullest self?

~*bL0gging*~

There it is. The top of my tumblr dashboard.  This is my favorite social media platform and you'll never catch my denying it.  Although the first rule of tumblr is very similar to the first rule of fight club, tumblr is quickly becoming a safe haven for the marginalized and a platform for social justice bloggers. (It is also my #1 source on the internet for pictures of cute kittens.) I can post whatever I want of my own original content, and reblog the witty Iquips, photos, and musings of others.  Scrolling through tumblr is one of the ways I read real stories of real people.  Of course, I wondered what is being said about sex-positivism.

There were many photos.  Nude photos. People reclaiming their bodies. Bodies that had been told were not *whatever* enough: skinny enough, tan enough, fair enough, muscled enough, whatever.  There were personal stories about ways people experience sexuality in the world.  Sensuality and (deemed by some as) explicit content was revered, allowing those to be things to celebrate and share in safe spaces.  Some people responded to things like intimate violence and opened up about the ways sex has been very negative in their lives.

There were famous quotes, celebrities and authors speaking out about the ways bodies should be respected.  Some were critiqued for their behavior, designated as sex-negative or sex-positive.  The sex-positive movement was critiqued for being whitewashed, still shaming and excluding people of color, trans*folk, people who are asexual, and forgetting the sexual trauma experienced by too many people.

I scrolled through pages and pages and pages of tumblr and didn't see one mention of spirituality.  Not once was God mentioned in an affirmative way.  None of the work of my classmates and colleagues appeared.  Where is the mention of The Color Purple?  Where are the reflections on a sermon someone heard that conveyed a sex-positive message? Where is the Song of Songs?  Where are there photos of people in collars at protests and marches and rallies?  Where is the prophetic witness?

The work of the church needs to happen in a manner that is so bold, so transformative that people will talk about it.  We need to do work that will make social justice bloggers go nuts. Not just pastors-- if you are a parishioner who wants your children to have accurate and appropriate sexual education, approach your pastor about the Our Whole Lives curriculum.  Talk about these issues in adult education classes.  Let your values live in the organizations to which you decide to donate your mission dollars.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. [ephesians 4:1]

Jesus Christ Superstar?

Last week, I watched Jesus Christ Superstar with my pal Kelsey.  (for homework! #realMDivlife)  It was later in the day and I was a little sleepy, so I decided that the best way to make sure I stay awake was to make every exaggerated claim about the sexual messaging in the film.  For example the hats in this photo are obviously a phallic commentary on the male-dominant power of the Pharisees.

As the evening went on and the sleepier I got, everything became a metaphor for sexual interaction.  The claims I was making got more and more ridiculous.  We laughed and had an awesome time. For homework!

As I've been thinking about it since our movie night, I have been feeling exceptional gratitude for the ability to have studied feminist and queer theory both in college and in seminary.  Whenever I encounter a piece of media, I can read it for its implications and messages that are laced with varying degrees of subtly.  While the vast majority of the comments I was making about Jesus Christ Superstar were very exaggerated, the same knowledge base I had to make those observances is the one I use when I analyze a Cosmo and see them claim that the best (read: only) way to be a woman is to be a heterosexual fair skinned woman whose goals are weight loss and increased male sexual pleasure.

And then I began to wonder about the women, the people, who don't have access to the kinds of formalized education to which I had access. I found myself praying for the lay leaders, the community centers, the after-school programs, the teachers, the pastors, the anyone who can take some of the responsibility for the sexual education of young people.

Sex and (hetero)sexuality wouldn't govern the majority of social exchanges if individuals were equipped and prepared to recognize the way sexuality moves in their own lives and how to appropriately express that in the public sphere.  A first step is talking about it, developing a common language around sexualization and making that accessible.  As an emerging leader in the church, I am eager to be part of this conversation.

Why Rape Culture Is The Worst

Last night, I was walking from a meeting to the bart station.  I walked past two men who were standing outside a fast food restaurant.  One of them said, “hello.” I looked up, gave a half smile (because I value looking at people who address me, affirming their humanity,) and kept walking.  He said, “what? you can’t even say hi?”  I said, “hello” and kept walking.  He said, “you lookin’ cute today.” I said “thank you” without looking and kept walking.  A handful of minutes later, a block from the train station, we met at the same street corner.  The same man said, “ohhh you again!” and kept walking with his friend toward the train station. I crossed the road, went a block, did a lap around a convenience store, and then went out and back toward the train.

The strongest sense of fear overcame me in those moments.  Every terrifying ‘what if’ scenario played through my head and was enclosed within my body.  I felt like I did not have a choice to but to say hi back to a man who made me uncomfortable and I feared what would happen if I did not respond to his “compliment.”

The feminist in me is so angry, so awake.  It knows that no man, no person, is entitled to my body, to talk to me that way without my consent as I pass by.  I do not owe him, or anyone, a response about my appearance.

And yet I feel myself wanting to say, “I was just wearing jeans and a sweater.” To defend myself. To prove that I wasn’t ‘asking for it.’  I do not believe that the victims of the male gaze need to defend themselves this way.  It doesn’t matter what a person is wearing; no person, no woman, deserves to be regarded this way.

The fear I felt was so overwhelming. My eyes filled with tears the entire train ride home, not escaping my eyes until my bestfriend recognized and said, “you have cry eyes.” I was back in my own city and still crossed the street when I saw other people coming down the block- for fear that they were like the man who commented to me.. who recognized me at a busy intersection.

Rape culture is real. This will happen to me again. This, and so much worse happens to women every.single.day. It has got to stop.

My Cup Overflows

In 4th grade, I picked up an oboe for the first time and didn't put it down for 9 years.  The echo of the last chord ringing through an auditorium fills my heart with extreme gladness.  I joined various choirs and to this day you will hear me trying so hard to nail every harmony in an Ingrid Michaelson song.  Over the course of 3 years in highschool, I made a dozen mix tapes for the boy I had a crush on saturated with secret messages of teen angst and unrequited romance.  

When I hear a choir singing a beautiful hymn, I am carried to a place of such deep spirituality.  When that same hymn is contemporized, the comfort swells inside me and I am reminded of expansive ways God is manifest in the world.  A Taizé chant softens my heart to God, to transformation, to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Because of the solace I take in music, I am able to move through the world authentically without fear because a solid chord progression or key change can bring me right back to center instantly.

I get music. Music gets me.

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend told me that she had made a playlist of songs to listen to while making out.  Having never kissed anyone, I made a face kind of like this:

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

I couldn't understand why that was even a thing. Do you stop kissing someone and say, "oh. hold on. I have a playlist for this"?  What happens when the playlist is done? Do people even kiss that long?  I just didn't get it.. at all.. why did she need to have both of these things at once?

And then I kissed someone.  It felt remarkable, not just physically, but in my spirit.  Because of kissing, I began to understand the world around me so much better because, at last.. finally, I could understand this body in which my spirit dwells.  It tapped into my belief that I can only exist because others exist. I finally knew, tangibly, that someone else existed.

Kissing and music are two elements of what makes my spirit come alive, what makes my heart rejoice and glorify God.  They are part of a myriad of experiences that add up to the way I bear witness to the revealed God in the world.  I can see, now, why my best friend made that playlist.  When you find things that make your spirit come alive, imagine the good it may do to experience both of those things at the same time.

And She Kissed Me Like She Meant It

On Ash Wednesday, many folk in the Christian tradition walk around with an ashen crosses on our foreheads.  We are reminded that humankind, in the narrative form, comes from dusty earth and it is there we will return.  One of the stories goes that God saw that the earth needed a lover, ones who will care for it and cultivate it, so God scooped up some dust and breathed into it.

God kissed us into existence. God's breath mixed with that which would be our own. God recognized that our breath was caught in our throats because we could feel God so close to us and we longed for it.  God released us from that tangled and mangled state into fullness.  A kiss is what brought humankind into its most authentic and original state.  God had breath to share and had to teach us how to gasp it in.  Dust cannot just be formed into the shape of persons and expected to live.  God had to teach us, God had to show us.

On Ash Wednesday, Christians acknowledge that moment of intimacy as part of our narrative.  We remember that God kissed our bodies into being, God shared His breath with us and our spirits grew from that longing.  If it is to dust we shall return when our days on this earth have finished, I pray that God will kiss me again.  I pray that the life I am leading as I walk this ground, the breath that I share so closely with lovers, will help me recognize God when She kisses me again, welcoming my body into the safety of dust.

Fluent in Love

I used to think that in order to love someone, I had to do everything. Take them out to dinner. Buy them flowers. Do their laundry. Tell them all the time how beautiful, kind, and smart they are. I would hug them and say, "I love you."  Spend every free moment with them. If sex was a part of our relationship, I would have sex whenever she wanted, however she wanted. If I loved someone, I would dream them. Adore them. Give everything of myself for them.

Let me say that for a long time, I tried to sustain this lifestyle-- not just with my girlfriends, but with my family and friends as well.  I wanted to say the kindest things.  Buy them the best gifts, even if I couldn't afford them. Stay up too late hanging out because how would they know I loved them if I didn't spend all my time with them?  You may be able to see how unmanageable and, frankly, irresponsible these behaviors are.

So when a friend sent me a quiz online that would tell me what my love language was, I felt kind of curious. I thought I had this love thing on lock. I nailed it. I was doing it right.  I felt this way especially because I come from the Christian tradition.  A tradition that, culturally, upholds the belief that sacrificial love is the ultimate kind of love.  According to any ol' Christian, Christianity will tell you that unless you give absolutely everything of yourself to someone else, like Jesus did, you aren't actually emulating the way Jesus loved.

What does this mean for someone whose love language is physical touch?  I am most meaningfully fulfilled through consensual and appropriate touch.  A kiss on the cheek from a parent. A hug from a dear friend. Sex with a lover. What happens if those things consume my life?  How unsafe is it for me to only know how to express romantic love through sex? What risks do I face?  How can I respect a friend who may have different physical boundaries around hugs or cuddles?  What if I cannot tell my parents and family that I love them without kissing them on the cheek?

It means that the Christian church needs to have a new conversation about what love looks like. Can look like. We need to look at the ways Jesus expressed love, and invited us into love.  Remember that Jesus asked us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus calls us to love ourselves.  Offer balance... forgiveness... compassion to our_selves. Jesus asks us to be fluent in our own love language.  To know how to use it to sustain us and give us life and also how to help us communicate the intricate parts of our hearts and spirits to others.