Why I am voting against Amendment One in North Carolina
On May 8th, North Carolina voters will cast their ballots on a proposed amendment to the constitution that reads like this:
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.
The amendment is one in a long line of state constitutional amendments that is intended to limit the rights of those who fall outside the norms of a ‘traditional marriage.’ As many have, I could talk about the damaging effects of this amendment as a legal document. It reaches far beyond marriage, which is already defined in North Carolina law, and will have implications for domestic violence, child custody, and medical treatment. I could tell you how domestic legal union is a term yet to be defined in state law, or that I believe this will have a negative impact on business in the state, or how it could draw our state into a long, unnecessary legal battle.
I could – but I think this amendment strikes deeper than all these possibilities. It strikes right to our hearts, our perspective on the world, and who we really are as people. And so I want to share my thoughts on these aspects instead. I am an American citizen, a Baptist, and a Jesus follower. It is because of these realities, not in spite of them, that I am voting against Amendment One. I am voting against because it is something deeply personal for me.
Because I am an American citizen, I am voting against Amendment One. I’ve heard it said that this country is a place where certain truths are self-evident, and that among them are the inalienable rights that every man, woman, and child is created equal. I’ve heard it said that all are entitled to protection under the law, not just protection for the status quo, but protection for the ideals of freedom. I’ve seen the beacon of this freedom, towering over the eastern coast of our nation, holding a light for all and bearing the words of witness that read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” She is called the Mother of Exiles, and I have heard it said that this is the nature of democracy – that even the exiles are given a home.
I am voting against Amendment One because I believe the Equal Rights movement is the new boundary of these creeds and ideals. I believe that the rights of gay and lesbian citizen in this country are bound up in the integrity of these ideals, and the denial of rights is an insult to all declarations of America as the land of equality. I am voting against this amendment because, as Dr. King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. This amendment is surely a threat to justice.
Because I am a Baptist, I am voting against Amendment One. My Baptist forebears fought for religious liberty and freedom of conscience in the United States. Roger Williams, one of the first Baptists in America, was exiled from the Puritan Massachusetts colony, and went on to found a haven of religious liberty at Rhode Island. There, he chartered a colony where Catholics, atheists, and Muslims, as well as any stripe of Protestant, would be free to worship as they pleased. He believed that no government should coerce faith, and that God alone should be the judge of conscience. In the same breath that he was fighting for his own life, Williams was fighting for the lives and freedoms of others. This led others to call Rhode Island the ‘sewer’ of America.
I believe in this tradition of the Baptists, and that we are at our best when we stand with and for those on the boundaries. Baptists seem to forget their history as a persecuted people group, and many are standing with the status quo on this issue. We need to be on the side of freedom of conscience, and not allow one moral interpretation of Scripture to be enshrined as the law of the land. We need to fight for our own rights and the rights of others as it pertains to this and all issues. And if there is a ditch where some huddled mass is standing, being persecuted for the consciences of those in it, their beliefs, or their way of life, then we need to jump down into the ditch as well. This amendment challenges the rich history of the Baptists, and demands that we live up to the foundations of our movement.
Because I am a Jesus follower, I am voting against Amendment One. Jesus was often found with the crowds that fell outside of the religious and political norms of society. He was found with the tax collectors and drunks and sinners. He had a chance encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well, an outsider because of her multiple partners. The leaders confronted him another time with a woman who had been caught in adultery and asked what her punishment should be. All fell well outside the norms of sexual and personal morality. And in none of these instances did Jesus condemn them. “Where are they, has no one condemned you?” he asks. “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus pronounces. And why should we be fit to condemn more than Jesus Christ?
Jesus said his ministry was to the lost sheep of Israel – those pushed to the margins, those declared unclean, unfit, unworthy, those kept out of legal and religious good standing. He called them to love and reconciliation, not to be a part of a puritanical sect. And when Jesus was presented with a situation of need, the Bible says that Jesus was moved with compassion – from the Greek, splagchnizomai, meaning in his guts. Those who had been casted out moved Jesus in his guts. I am voting against Amendment One because it is something that I believe to be wrong in my very guts.
Most of all, I am voting against Amendment One because it is personal. I am voting against Amendment One for my high school teacher, for my classmates at Wake Forest School of Divinity, for my friends right here in Winston-Salem. I am voting for children who face bullying and discrimination because of laws such as these and will get no protection. I am voting for the people in my church and people in churches everywhere, who sit in the pews week in and week out and don’t feel like they are accepted just the way they are. I am voting for those who have been scarred and abused and neglected for laws such as these.
I am voting against Amendment One because I believe if Jesus were anywhere today, he’d be standing right beside all of these people and he’d stay put until justice flowed like a mighty river. I am voting against because I have been convicted to my heart on these matters. I am an American citizen, a Baptist, a Jesus follower, and I am voting against Amendment One because for me, it is personal. “Here I stand,” Martin Luther said, “I can do no other, so help me God.” As we all search our consciences in the coming days, may we stand for these ideals and may God help us in North Carolina.
13.1
On Saturday, December 3rd 2011, after about 2 and a half hours of non-stop running, I finished my first half-marathon. 13.1 – and I felt every single tenth of a mile aching in my legs and arms and back when I crossed that line.
As I look back on the day – how I felt, what was happening, who was there – I can only describe it in one word: “Spiritual.” Not spiritual in the Philippians 4, “I can do all things through Christ,” kind of spiritual. But spiritual in the sense that it was a culmination of something that I had worked on for such a long time. It was spiritual in the sense that, even as I ran, I wasn’t sure I was going to finish. And so I grunted and sighed and talked myself into believing that I could finish. It was spiritual because as I ran, I was not only experiencing the very real physical demands on my body, but the run culled from the deep so many experiences from my training, and even from beyond the last two months. 13.1 miles is not only a physical experience, but an emotional one as well.
So as I reflect on my own experience, there are certain memories and images that seem to carry the day for me:
The Starting Line: I felt a part of one large community of individuals, each with their own pre-run rituals, each with their own nerves and excitements about the day. We all gathered to the starting line, huddled together en mass trying to stay warmed up before the race started. We shook legs and arms, and blew into our hands to fight off the early morning air. And I only had one thought on my mind: “What if I don’t finish?” I couldn’t shake it and I think the reality was and is that the answer is, “So what!?” So I worked my butt off at something and committed to a very difficult task and may have only made if most of the way. So much of my journey to that starting line was dogged by that question – What if I couldn’t do it? One thing I know for sure from my marathon experience is that we can’t be so afraid of failing. By putting fear aside, we open ourselves to accomplish things we never thought were possible.
Sure enough, the race started and I sprinted out for the first couple miles. I felt better running than I had in over a month. The crowd running around me and the people gathering on street corners gave me more energy than I had expected. After jumping out to a pace much faster than I could maintain for the race, I quickly found my own answer to the question. There was no more doubt. I could do this and there was no way I could stop.
The Familiar Territory: Miles 5-8 brought us into familiar territory – a small trail leading around and through Wake Forest University. It was a welcome sight, and familiar ground beneath my feet. I knew the turns, the slopes and what was coming with each quarter mile. And when I finally came to the hill that I had cursed for months in my training, I couldn’t help but feeling some small sense of accomplishment as my determination set in and I sprinted all the way up the hill. I made my way through Faculty Drive to find a small band of kids, decked out in Kentucky gear and leading CATS cheers as people turned through the cul-de-sac. My heart jumped up somewhere just below my throat and I called out to them to cheer with me, “C-A-T-S Cats Cats Cats!” Adding to the excitement and encouragement, two of my good friends had come to cheer us on in the middle of mile 7.
It was here that I began to think of St. Paul’s image from Hebrews, that “great cloud of witnesses.” Here I was surrounded by thousands of runners, from all different walks of life, all different stories, and all different challenges all converging in one race. There I was with my two friends that had trained with me all along the way, and then joined at mile 7 by two more. Add to that the countless other strangers, all gathered to cheer on their own one or two friends, but committing to stay even long after their friends had passed. Some stayed out for the entire race, sitting on street corners and cheering on strangers. It felt strange to be joined in this experience by so many people I did not know, and yet their presence and their energy lifted me throughout the race. It was one of those times when I knew what St. Paul meant about that great cloud of witnesses and yet I had no idea that it would be so full of friends and strangers.
The Last Three Miles: I’m sure if there’s any guide out there for half-marathon runners, it will tell you the last three miles are shear will power. I felt better than I had in a long time for the first 10 miles. For the longer runs in my training, the 8th or 9th miles were where my feet started aching and my knees became inflamed. For the first ten miles, I experienced none of this. But it all came rushing in the last three miles. The aching in my feet, the pain in my knees and shoulders, and the shame of being passed by walking senior citizens were all part of miles 11-13. But I kept going, with the one thought that I couldn’t stop. Even if my running looked more like walking, even as the walkers passed and the miles grew longer and longer, I held to the one commitment that I would run the entire race.
My doubts kept battling with my determination. My marathon playlist belted out some of my favorite songs, saved especially for when I knew I would need it most. “No more turns! You’re so close! Don’t give up!” Young children were yelling and pointing frantically at the mile marker signs now. At mile 11 I felt so proud of how far I had come. I couldn’t help some of the welling emotions at mile 12 – the determination, the exhaustion coming out sometimes in tears and sometimes in big smiles. And then finally coming around that last big turn, everything seemed to come together. People who had finished already were walking towards me, telling me I was so close. It was any moment now, I would see the balloons and see the crowds. And finally, there it was sticking out from the ground. 13 miles. I took off with ever bit of energy I had left. I ran my race and I finished. 2 hours and 39 minutes.
Like I said, a spiritual experience. And I can’t wait for the next one.
The Drawing Board
It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works,
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with a restart.
I have this friend who is crazy about white boards. In college, he’d have them all over his apartment hiding behind couches or hanging over his desk. He’d use them to outline papers or keep track of the NCAA tournament – or really any other number of tedious tasks that proved his white boards useful. We were on a ministry leadership team and – sure enough – right in the middle of the meeting he would bust out his white board with some phrase or task for us to consider.
For him, I think the white board possessed some powerful connection to the way he thought, processed and conveyed information. But, in some other sense, I think it yielded a power of possibilities that he understood more than any of us.
I know that it is just a white board. It is just a tool that yields whatever information we want to scribble on it. But in another sense, it yields an infinite amount of possibilities – a blank slate onto which we could imagine anything and then write it into being. And when we fill it up or want to write new ideas into being, we can erase it completely and cover it all over again.
I think this is what is at the heart of the phrase, “Time to go back to the drawing board.”
We have tried all the possibilities – something isn’t working or something is amiss. Something has changed – a relationship is over, or a job didn’t pan out the way you expected. A phase of life or ideas or relationships or plans or philosophies is over. And so it’s time to try something new – to go back to the drawing board and erase some things, write in some new colors, or just wipe the whole thing clean and start over.
There’s just one problem for me: I hate going back to that drawing board.
Don’t get me wrong – I love the first draft process. I love looking at that brilliant, untouched, pristine white board and imagining what could grace its surface. I’m an idea guy.
But I am not a revision guy. I will chase those initial scribbles to their furthest conclusion – even if it’s not practical, even if it’s harder than starting over. In my mind, nothing could be harder than starting over. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that there are, in fact, only two kinds of people in this world: the ideaists, and the revisionists. They compliment each other, and help keep the work going depending on which one is needed at the moment – ideas or revisions.
The problem is that we do not always have the revisionists among us – those people who help us see the life after the clean white board that we’ve filled up with all our doodles and drawings, the ones who show us that we can add new drawings.
Consider that some of our most life changing moments are the ones where we cannot see anything beyond what is right in front of us – the transitions from something familiar to something completely new.
The sudden loss of a friend,
the end of a long enduring relationship,
the major transition from a community we’ve always known and loved into a new and completely foreign one,
or the promising prospect of an opportunity that didn’t come together like we had planned.
We can name any number of significant transitions in our lives because we know that many of them began with us looking at a cluttered board filled with plans and visions and goals and bucket lists and hopes and dreams – and we knew that we might just have to wipe the whole damn thing clean. But I’m interested in the promise of what comes just after that. The part where we make room for new and unexpected things to happen, the part where our plans don’t matter because they are no longer relevant, the part where we had to rest in the awkward serendipity of unfamiliarity and all we could do was trust that something transformational was on the horizon.
As it is Holy Week, we remember the journey of two disciples down the road to Emmaus. In the shadow of the cross where their teacher and friend has died, their heads hang low and their hearts pour out for each other. “We had hoped that he was the Messiah, the redeemer of Israel,” they said to what seemed to be a stranger they meet along the way. We had thought that this would save us. We thought that everything would go according to plan. We thought that this idea would work. It is easy to dwell in that moment of death and say, “That’s it! There’s no way I’m coming up with another plan.”
But resurrection says that something new is happening. It says that everything you thought was going to happen has just been completely blown away and it’s time to make room for something new. It says that the new life is not just a chance to start the old life over again, but is a chance to completely rewrite the story. It’s filled with new colors and new additions, new scribbles and new lists. Resurrection is time to go back to the drawing board and work things out all over again. And we’ve been returning, renewing, reinterpreting and re-imaging this story ever since.
In a lot of ways, this Easter season is my own chance to renew and re-imagine my own story. This summer I will be interning for Metro Baptist Church in New York City. I’m very excited about the new possibilities this internship will bring, but I also worry about its unfamiliarity. It will look almost nothing like my summers of the past. It will be a trip back to the drawing board – to erase, to draw in new colors, and to make room for some new things. I’m learning to be okay with that.
A Correspondence with Senator Mitch McConnell
It was mid-December and the New START treaty was on the Senate floor. With the 2011 session of Congress coming to a close, and power shifting in the House I knew there was only a small window of opportunity to pass the treaty. And so I decided to step up my activity in the political process and call my Senator to tell him what I thought.
Problem is, my Senator is Mitch McConnell – the most powerful Republican in the Senate. And probably one of the least likely Senators to support the bill because it wouldn’t gain him much favor in his pro-national defense Republican supporters.
But I gave it a try anyway. I signed the petition and after a few days I worked up enough courage to call his office in Washington, DC.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t there to pick up. So I left him a message. I simply said that I was interested in his thoughts on the treaty and how he was going to vote on it. I asked if he could send me some information to let me know what he thought about it. And finally, I said that as one of his constituents, and as a Christian with a firm commitment to peacemaking, that it was important to me that he vote in favor of the treaty. The person taking my call said he would surely respond to my concerns in a mailing.
And surprisingly, about a week ago I received Senator’s McConnell’s response. But I was very confused at the contents of the Senator’s response:
January 25, 2011
Mr. Chris Hughes
1817 Grand Ridge Road
Louisville, KY 40214-5921Dear Mrs. Harper:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the re-nomination of Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Hearing your views helps me better represent Kentucky in the United States Senate.
The letter then detailed the Senator’s very generic views of what is important to him when voting on Court nominations like that of Mr. Liu – something along the lines of upholding the Constitution and being impartial – but no real specifics about his thoughts on Mr. Liu.
I’m willing to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know how his response got addressed to a completely different person, and I’m not entirely sure how he could completely miss the issue that I called him about. So I’m writing the Senator back, hoping to correct this mistake. Here is my response:
February 12, 2011
Dear Senator McConnell,
Thank you for responding to my phone call to your office. But I am concerned – either your staff is underpaid or overworked, so much so that they didn’t catch a few minor errors in your response. The letter was addressed to my correct address, but was given the salutation, “Dear Mrs. Harper.” I have no aliases that I go by, especially something as bland as ‘Harper,’ and I have never been a married woman. In another minor error, there seems to be no mention of the New START treaty, the issue that I called your office about. While I am certainly glad to know of Mr. Liu’s re-nomination to the Court of Appeals (good for him!), I doubt very strongly that it will have any major impact on the reduction of nuclear arms in Russia or the United States.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me, but maybe in the future, don’t take so much time. I was interested in your views on the New START treaty while it was on the Senate floor and how you were going to vote on it before it’s passage – not over a month after the fact.
Also, just a little advice: when responding to your constituents, don’t be so dodgy. I don’t know who Mrs. Harper is or why she cares about Mr. Liu’s re-nomination, but making a bunch of broad statements about valuing someone who upholds the Constitution, and is impartial does not really tell her anything about your thoughts on him. I am studying to be a minister. I know if someone in my congregation asked me about the authority of the Bible or to explain what the Trinity means, and I responded with something about valuing the foundational text of our faith, or some affirmation of the perichoretic nature of God then I would probably be able to keep my job because I didn’t offend anyone. But I also didn’t add any depth or knowledge to that person’s faith. Being vague may get you re-elected for another twenty-five years, but it won’t help inform the constituents who care enough to contact you about issues.
Than you, Senator, for reassuring me of my reasons for never voting for you. Not only do you not represent my views in the Senate, but you cannot take the time to make sure you correctly address a response to your own concerned, engaged constituents.
Sincerely,
Chris Hughes
I’m hoping the Senator will get back to me soon!
The Human Story of God
I have friends that often say they turn to Scripture for encouragement. And I believe them because there are many passages of the Bible, and even entire books of the Bible that are offered as encouragement to people – people who have had bad days, or even bad years, people who are suffering, people who hate their lot in society. But as I’ve spent more and more time with the text of the Bible, I am more careful to say that the Bible is entirely a book of encouragement. Or that it is what we turn to every time we need encouragement.
Because some parts of the Bible are downright haunting. And I’m not entirely sure what to do with them.
In the Bible, I read the stories of incest, polygamy, and betrayal. I read of a man and a wife who go out on no clearer instructions from God than, “Go to the land that I will show you.” And I read further of how that same man passed his wife around to some of the foreigners he encounters in order to make money off the trip. I read of a man who gets nothing but a mysterious name so that he can disrupt the entire enterprise of political power in Egypt. He leads a bunch of rag tag, whiny slaves to freedom, and follows God’s instructions completely, save for one. And because he struck the rock wrong once, he doesn’t get to enjoy the land of freedom with the rest. I read of how that land of freedom that God promised was not only filled with milk and honey, but many other indigenous tribes that God not only helps to conquer, but orders complete genocide upon. I read stories like the one where a man’s wife is gang raped nearly to death, and without even checking to see if she can be saved, the man cuts her body into pieces to serve as a call to war.
In short, I read a Bible that tells stories about bad things that happen to good people, people who do everything God tells them to and still are left out of the best parts of life’s journey, and people who are constantly doing some pretty violent things in the name of God.
To be honest, the Bible doesn’t always give me encouragement. Sometimes it keeps me up very late at night – wondering. Maybe it’s a bad hermeneutic for Scripture. But maybe it’s something else.
Maybe it’s a reminder that the Bible isn’t always supposed to fit into the box we’re trying to put it in. It tells us that we can’t fit it into any of the traditional values Christianity has been wrapped up in for awhile. It calls us to be braver than pulling out a three-point sermon about being a good person, not lying, and coming to church more often. It says outright that we can’t tame the Bible, so maybe we should stop trying. Maybe the best thing for us to do is just set it free.
People have been trying for awhile, but we constantly get hung up on the historical facts, or truth, or ideas that it’s about God and so it must be perfect. We start a juggling act, where we place some things in the context of ancient history, but we pull some things out as eternal truth. And the problem is when we don’t always agree on what stays and what goes. When we encounter the parts about slaves obeying their masters we say that doesn’t count anymore, but when we encounter the stuff about women in church, or homosexuality we think that must still be true. When we encounter the really ugly, wrathful parts of God, we remind ourselves of the Jesus who helped us end the story happily ever after
But the truth is that there are deeply committed, devout people who wrote the story of God long before Jesus came to be. The things that are said about God in the Bible meant something to someone at sometime. It doesn’t necessarily tell us exactly who God is, but it tells us what God meant to someone in history.
For example one of my favorite images in the Hebrew Bible is from Leviticus 25. It’s about Jubilee and God tells Israel when they go into the Promised Land, every 50 years they are going to celebrate. But it’s not just a party. They’re not supposed to farm, they’ll just live off the land. And if they have taken any property from one another they are going to give it back. And if they have servants, they are to set them free, and everyone is to return to their family. And if anyone has debts, they are to be forgiven. It’s an image so powerful that Isaiah used it in prophecy. And Jesus also repeated it as his mission statements according to Luke’s Gospel.
As radical as it sounds, I don’t think it’s telling me that God is a Communist, but that maybe someone saw the lavish gifts of God as a gift of equality. We’re not supposed to enjoy them at the expense of others, but every now and then we’re supposed to celebrate the gifts – equally.
Because it’s so messy, and imperfect, because it’s filled with haunting stories as well as hopeful and encouraging ones, and because God looks different almost chapter to chapter – I’ve given up on the Bible as a story about God from God’s perspective. Or even a story about God written by human hands that God kept nudging in the right direction.
Instead, I’m looking at it for what it is – a human story. Because when it’s a human story, that makes the messy parts okay. It means that it is the constant retelling of the human experience that has been happening throughout history. When we look at Scripture, we shouldn’t be looking at how the people in the Bible responded to situations according to their contexts and take their answers as our own. Rather we should be looking at a mirror – a mirror that we don’t repeat but that we can learn from.
How many times have we cursed God because things weren’t going the way we thought they would, or because we weren’t getting the answers we wanted? How many times have we held up the tortured bodies of folks and co-opted them for political symbols? How many times have we claimed the name of God for our wars?
With this in mind, the Bible becomes the human story about God. We give the Bible the same amount of credibility as it had when the Scriptures were being composed – an attempt to understand the Divine in light of human experience. Scripture is honest with us and doesn’t hold anything back. It is time we start being honest with Scripture and not hide anything about it. It is time that we live into that story of human experience, learn from the skewed images of God, and the messy human events so that we can tell a better story of God. It is time for us to stop trying to tame Scripture and let it run wild.
Sabbath Living
There’s a new conversation gesture that is taking over us 20-30 somethings, and it’s probably even worse in younger people. It’s the ‘mid-conversation-half-glance-at-my-cellphone’ move. You’ve probably noticed it, and if you haven’t noticed it, that probably means this move has become entirely second nature to you.
It’s pretty harmless. You find yourself mid-conversation and it’s not that the conversation is boring or uninteresting. But maybe you want to check the time, or see if there are any messages for you to look forward to when the conversation is over. Or maybe you are really waiting on an urgent text that requires an immediate response. Or maybe you’re on the other extreme, and you find that interesting (but not urgent) text that you want to respond to right away. Next thing you know, you have disengaged almost entirely from the real conversation, and are more invested in the phone conversation.
Either way, it has become entirely normal for us in conversation. And I am guilty of pretty much every single one of these offenses.
I spent most of my break from school meditating on Sabbath and to be honest, Sabbath can be stressful. I mean a lot of the gospel stories tell of Jesus being tracked all over by Jewish religious leaders calling him out for breaking Sabbath: for healing people, for not giving offerings, for walking through a field of grain. It is stressful when you have to keep laws about how far you can walk and how much work you can do.
Over the break, a friend of mine shared with me the realities of the Jewish tradition of Sabbath. He was in the Holy Land and was trying to catch a bus out of the country as part of a trip with his brother. But they were racing against the Sabbath, hoping to catch the last bus before all businesses in the city shut down. He arrived at the bus station, only to realize he had lost his passport. They missed the bus, but to make matters worse, he had to wait until Sunday to go to the U.S. embassy to replace is passport. He arrived at the embassy to find that they not only kept the Jewish Sabbath, but also the Christian Sabbath, so they were closed on Sunday as well. I call that double-Sabbath.
The legalism of this tradition is prevalent in our thinking. But I’m wondering about the liberation that comes from the restrictions. If there’s one day a week where you can’t shop, you can’t even ride a bus if you wanted to – what do you do? Well, I imagine in a tradition that takes this idea so seriously, it’s not very hard…maybe even second nature to them. You re-establish sacred time. You’ve limited yourself so that the only real thing you CAN do is to share a nice meal and spend time with your family. Only to them it’s probably not really a bunch of restrictions. It’s probably a blessing in a lot of ways.
And so I came back from the break with one resolution weighing on my mind: Make life more reflective of Sabbath living. Create more sacred spaces. After reading how one of my favorite authors orients his writing life (here), I’ve found my first step: personal conversations.
I’m going to work on breaking the ‘phone-glance’ habit by taking phone free hours. Each day for one month, I will turn my phone completely off from the hours of 8 am to 11 am and also from 6 pm to 10 pm. I pick those times because those are some of the more hectic times in my day (trying to get to and from school, meetings, work, etc.) and also the times when I am trying to get school work done. I will also try to minimize compulsive Facebook and e-mail checking, though I’m unwilling at this point to place restrictions on those.
I’m not trying to condemn the use of these technologies – they are very good at connecting us to friends all across the country, and giving access to instant information. But I am interested in seeing what happens when I have to re-orient my life around those phone-free times. Maybe the sacredness of personal conversations will be restored. Maybe I can devote more attention to studying and reading. And maybe the conversations through phone or social technologies will become more substantive as well. So here’s to the month-long experiment in Sabbath living!
A Soul to Thank
The street lights dance across the black waters of the Ohio as I trek through the mountains of West Virginia and slide into the gently rolling Piedmont hills of North Carolina. The autumn days are waning here and the air is a crisp sheet of ice that cuts my face. I am surrounded by the beauty of slumbering trees and dying leaves. It’s a wonder that we find so much beauty in the death of coming winter – the spectacle of leaves as they lose their color, the dimming hue of the grass, and the fresh mist of the first frost.
I’m sure it has a lot to do with the sheer sight of it – the warm, earthy tones that make us think of nothing else than a warm blanket and a cup of sweet coffee. Maybe it has something to do with the anticipation of new life, the reminder that life is a cycle of the shedding of old things and the birth of new possibilities. But for me, I think this cycle serves as reminder that as far I have come, maybe I have not come so far as I’d like to think.
In August, I packed everything I owned into a Jeep and made the 400 mile trip to North Carolina. Wake Forest University was an entirely new place, an entirely new program of study for me, and an entirely new family of friends. I thought for a moment that I had made it, that the distance was good, and that my story was about to change in large ways. And it has. But still something lingers…something that says I may have been a little naive, and that even across the distance, some of the things from Kentucky may still be clinging on to me as I go forward. And, I suppose, I have my soul to thank for that. After all, we are embodied spirits, and while I may be able to pick up and move my body as far across the country as I want to, my spirit is not so easily uprooted. It’s because the people and places of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and so many others are a part of me – they are a part of my spirit, too. I come to find out that no matter how far I take my body, these will never be too far from my spirit.
It must be the death of one more season, or maybe the end of a semester and thus the closing of one major chapter of my life, that has given me pause to reflect. And these days I think on so many questions – Why do I pray, when I don’t know what the response will be? Why are we doing what we are doing in ministry? Wounded healers we call ourselves, but I wonder what craziness would possess us that we should choose this vocation? How do I change this embodied spirit, when so much pulls me backward as well as forward? What is it that calls me forward and why must I continue on?
I know that I must answer that call forward. And, I suppose, it is my soul that is to thank for that as well – a soul that constantly renews, that vivifies, that shakes down to my bones when I am stagnant, that rests in the wonder of dying leaves and crisp air, that welcomes new communities and calls out to old ones, that changes with each new season, new person and new place, and that finds home, someway and somehow, when home is not always the easiest to find.
Why I Am Wearing Purple Today
On October 3, we forced Jesus into an abandoned basement in the Bronx. He was humiliated and tortured along with two of his friends. We stripped him naked and burned him with cigarettes, simply because we thought he was gay.
On September 22, we pushed Jesus Christ to the brink. So Jesus left his dormitory at Rutgers University, took a familiar path down to the George Washington Bridge and stepped out onto a very unfamiliar ledge. He took out his cellphone to update his Facebook status one last time and then took his last fatal steps off the ledge of the bridge.
Eleven days before that, in five different sites around the country we gathered around fire pits and torched Jesus’ Quran. We claimed that his religion was of the devil and we hid behind the First Amendment.
While it may seem strange in this climate and culture to liken Jesus to a gay college student, or to the religion of Islam, I believe he might be a lot closer to these identities than we might be comfortable admitting. Hear the familiar words of Jesus from Matthew 25:
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.
When his disciples asked him when they saw him in these situations, Jesus replies, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Verse 4o)
The question stirs deep within me as I read story after story after story. Who are the hungry and thirsty? Who are the stranger and the naked? Who are the sick and imprisoned? Who are the least among us?
In a political climate where we are viciously fighting for differing government ideologies, different laws to affect our social order, and making our side the victims that are being left out, we are forgetting those voices who are never heard – the true victims…the least of these. While we may proclaim, “Don’t tread on me!” it seems that we are unknowingly treading on the one we claim to be fighting to bring this country back to – Jesus. Gays and Lesbians who are treated as subordinate citizens by law, who are antagonized for their struggle and whom no one will speak out for. The religion of Islam who cannot build houses of worship, who are discriminated against and killed for what they believe. It will not be politically profitable to support these groups anytime in the near future – and that’s exactly why they’re the type of folk Jesus would be around.
I realize that this is a very divisive issue in our religious and political landscape. But this is no longer about right doctrine or political gain, it is about humanity. And with each person that is persecuted and each life that is ended shortly the humanity of Jesus suffers.
And so today, I wear purple. It is a very small gesture but it is a sign that I stand in solidarity with those affected by the recent suicides as a result of anti-gay harassment. I wear purple because I believe it is what Jesus would do. And I wear purple because I believe that when I reach heaven, the first thing Jesus will ask me about is how I refused equal rights, dignity, and love to my gay, lesbian and Muslim brothers and sisters (and countless others). I will ask for mercy and remember the day that Jesus and I wore purple together as our sign of solidarity.
May God Bless You With Foolishness
Three years ago, standing in an empty auditorium at Wingate University, my hand timidly rose above my shoulder. Five or six other hands joined mine, though theirs confidently rose straight above their heads.
“How many of you are considering going to seminary?” The question posed met with many confident hands, folks absolutely certain of their divine calling and then – my one, timid, wavering hand joined them. It was the first time, in fact, that I said with any certainty at all that I would go to seminary. Before then it was a passing thought, a cool idea but not a grounded reality or remote possibility.
To be honest, not much happened after that - a timid hand raise, teaching a few Bible studies and working with campus ministries, sure…but none of the really gritty work of getting on a path towards seminary. I suppose I was hoping that God would swoop down somehow and strike me with thunderbolts, or at least something dramatic so that I could know what my calling was.
It took three years for the gears to finally start grinding and while I’m not going to dive into all the circumstances that prompted that, I am going to say I’m here. I’m sitting right on the edge of campus, I’ve sat through the orientation and registered for classes and the only thing left for me is to step into the classes to begin my seminary education. On the tail end of a year that has forever changed my life, I am set to embark on the next three that will change the course of the rest of my life. I am on the verge.
And I’ve never felt closer to God’s calling.
In John’s Gospel, after Jesus dies, not much is happening with the disciples either. Jesus has brought them out of where misguided vocation has taken them – careers as fisherman, medicine, law and even political rebels. Jesus has changed their lives in radical ways, given them a new vision for the Kingdom and a new vocation – bringing about that Kingdom. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies and spoke truth with such authority that the disciples couldn’t help but think – We are on the verge of that Kingdom! And yet as Jesus last breath escapes his body on the cross, it seems that their hope dies with him. They walk away confused and sad.
It doesn’t take much for me to image their faces or feel the pangs of their heart as they walked away from that cross. I’ve seen it in the faces of those who have lost someone close to them, someone they didn’t expect to lose. And I’ve felt it when I have been let down or betrayed by those nearest to me.
When we experience suffering the way the disciples did after their rabbi was crucified, we often do what the disciples did next. They turned back to something familiar. In chapter 21, we find the disciples going back to what they know best – fishing. They return to the career they had in the first place, as if nothing happened at all.
And what’s more, Jesus encounters his friends on the beach next to the Sea of Tiberias only to learn that they no longer can even recognize the face of their rabbi. They have, in fact, forgotten everything about Jesus.
How many of us have had a radical encounter with the Christ with not much happening afterward? How many times have we felt we were so close to God’s calling, so close to changing the world but then got so lost that we could barely recognize the face of Jesus among all the clutter? What about the times when we opted out of God’s calling – returned to something more familiar – because we encountered our first obstacle and gave up?
I envy the feeling of urgency in the disciples when they followed Jesus but I also know too well their feeling of hopelessness when they lost their bearings after his death. Following Jesus can lead us down a path that is at once hope-filled and joyous as it is filled with despair and failure. We can be lost even when we have found Jesus in our own lives.
I realize through their story and through my own that when we cling to this sense of urgency – things happen. People follow, lives and vocations are changed, and even summer camp staffers can enter the halls of academic pursuits in theology. After Jesus’ wake up call at the Sea of Tiberias, the disciples got to work and the church grew to by thousands in one day. After my own wake up call, I no longer waited for God to take responsibility for my life, I took my own responsibility for God’s call on my life.
When we cling to a sense of urgency, we can ask the question, “What if the Kingdom of God is truly at hand?” What if the little I can give to someone else can actually radically change their life? What if my work with the One Campaign actually brought an end to world poverty? What if the work of Water is Life actually watered an entire country? Ask these questions not in some hopeful, or idyllic sense, but in the grounding that these things might actually happen in your lifetime and see what difference that has on your perspective.
My hope is that we could cling to this hope found in Christ, and use the work of our hands not only to contribute to our part to a solution, but to hope that our work may actually be that solution. What if our vocation was all it took to transform the world?
May God bless you with discomfort
at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships
so that you may live deep within your heart.May God bless you with anger
at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people
so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.May God bless you with tears
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
and turn their pain to joy.And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
-A Franciscan Prayer
All that’s left for me to do is to step in to my first seminary class. Amen.
Strapping Back On My Sandals
After having a holy encounter with the living God, with I Am, Moses strapped on his sandals once more. He grabbed his brother, along with everything he could carry and trod all the way back to Egypt. Right to where all the problems he left behind were still waiting for him, and right back to the throne that he once sat under. He went back to where his life started, following his footsteps all the way through the desert.
It is now your time to put your shoes back on. You have changed, but the problems and circumstances you left behind are still there waiting for you when you go home. The same family situations, the same relationships, the same job and the same obstacles are still there. I hope that you have had a holy encounter with God and that you can now face these situations with a new perspective. I hope that you can cover the world in your new footsteps.
As Romans 10 says:
11 The Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
So go – preach the good news.
And with this, another week of camp comes to close. Another youth group returns to its church and the community from which they came.
I’ve come to a realization throughout this summer: there is something about departure that makes our message more persistent. Sometimes, my weeks don’t go so well. I get tired, my voice fails me, or the message doesn’t click with the youth I’m teaching. But no matter how that week has gone, when that last day arrives I make the most of my last chance to impart some gospel.There is something that compels me, more than any other time, to hope that I say something that gets through, to ensure that they actually take something home with them, and to change something about their lives.
I think Jesus faced the same problem. He made the disciples breakfast and then he sat right across from Peter. He looked Peter in the eye and asks, “Do you love me?” It’s almost as if Jesus was asking, “Are you really going to do everything you said you would do for me?” He asked again and again and again. Finally Jesus said, “Then go do it. Take care of my followers.”
Or the time right before he was going to die, Christ didn’t think his words would be enough. So he got down on his knees and tried to show the disciples what love meant through one simple act. Jesus loved them so much, and Luke’s Gospel says that he loved them to end. So he knelt down and began washing their feet.
Something about departure makes our message more urgent.
I realize through this experience that the best part of our lives is the crossing of our paths. The best thing we do for each other is come into each others’ lives. We share our experiences. We share our differences and our commonalities. But the worst thing we do is leave each other. As James said our lives are but a vapor. And I realize that in camp. We are a vapor in the lives of youth and adults for five days out of the entire year. We are a vapor in the lives of fellow staffers for seven weeks out of the year. We are vapors in the lives of friends and family for an uncertain amount of time and we hope that our vapor is something good and genuine.
Jesus was on earth for around 33 years and he ministered for a short three years of his life. And his vapor is still something good and genuine.
May we realize that our lives are but a vapor. But may we realize that our vapor is good and genuine. May we realize that our vapor is the best part of life. May we flow in and out of each others’ lives, and impact one another through our coming and through our going. And may we use our vapor to create something lasting, something of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of.
