You're having a son...

Today, this blog named for me what I could not or refused to name for myself.

When the nurse told me that the child in my womb is a boy, I was genuinely excited.  But there was dread too.  It's hard growing up a boy in this world, even if it's also hard growing up as a girl.  A girl I know what to do with, though.  I can teach her the strength my parents taught me.  But a boy?  How do I teach a boy to be strong?  How do I teach him how to empower the people around him, including women?

"What happened in Steubenville makes me sick, but we are kidding ourselves if we think that it is not representative of what is happening in basement parties after the homecoming game all across America. Our kids want to talk about it. They need to talk about it. We need to have conversations about consent that are not centered around what should have been done, but are instead centered on what will be done in the future. Our teens can handle it, I promise they can."

I'm not so afraid to talk to my one-day teenage son.  But it won't start just then, either.

Communication Online

First a bit of background: I am not a specialist in this area.  I have a Master of Divinity degree and I am employed by a Presbyterian congregation to communicate church worship, activities, and missions to the congregation.  While my skills in graphic design are a couple steps above a 3rd grader's refrigerator art, I am a theologian and a preacher.  I have pastored a church and I care deeply about how a congregation's theology is communicated through presence, through written communication, and through online communication.  I have not been groomed and prepared for the role I am in- I was thrown in by God a year and a half ago and I can't claim to be any sort of authority on the subject.  I mean only to ask questions.  Your input would be appreciated.  Please don't confuse my questions for any sense of smug authority.  I really have no idea what I am doing.

The question arises over and over in different parts of the church: "How do we communicate the life and activities of this institutional body in a timely and efficient manner that doesn't offend donors and safely gets information to the right people?"  I've sat in meetings or talked with folks about this at undergraduate institutions (of religious and non-religious affiliation), seminary-level, and congregational-level.  The scenarios which prompt these questions:

-"I didn't get those 12 emails over the last month reminding me that the mandatory meeting was today!"

-"What do you mean we've been donating thousands of dollars to this very worthy mission?  It was only published a bazillion times in every platform known to this congregation?  Well, I didn't see it."

-"Wait, this school has a club for [enter controversial topic here]?  Why was it never communicated over email or posted to the online announcement board?"

-Or on the flip side: "Our club might ruffle feathers on the board, so we were told by [enter central authority figure here] that we can't let anyone know about our presence or when we have meetings, making recruitment difficult.  Why are we being discriminated against because we are [enter controversy here]?"

-"When the scholarship deadline was moved up to tomorrow, I called everyone on campus who deals with online communication to try and get an email alert that the deadline has been moved.  They are all on vacation.  The weekly email went out Monday- and they said I should have sent them notice before then, but I didn't know before then!!  Now, anyone trying to apply to this very essential scholarship will be turned down because of our inability to communicate simple things to the entire campus."

-"Who is the secret moderator behind the emails?  Why doesn't she forward my partisan propaganda?"

-"Someone created a facebook account with the school's name on it and no indication of who is behind it.  S/he has started posting very controversial postings that I do not want associated with my school.  We must stop this now, even if it means alienating a class, staff member, faculty member, board of trustees member, etc."

-"Why does the pastor have to spend hours every week just moderating online content?  He already works 60 hours a week."

The situations are common, especially since so many people spend so much time online now.  For an institution or a church, there have to be these moderating decisions made, and in my opinion, there is often not a reasonable infrastructure or theology for deciding WHO makes those decisions, WHAT sort of responsibility that person or group of people have, and WHY decisions are made the way they are.  Often the pastor/president/board must either make all the decisions (which is problematic in many situations) or moderate arguments that rise constantly over what someone else has said online somewhere that offended someone with clout.

I am aware that the very basic nature of the internet makes every person a potential authority to speak on behalf of the institution.  On some level, these institutions absolutely MUST let go of their tightly controlled image.  You cannot commit huge funds to the moderation of google searches or threaten lawsuits over every negative comment made about you online.  There's also a basic maturity aspect about this too- yes, students/congregants have probably taken out their frustrations about your professors/pastor/staff online somewhere.  At the end of the day, you can't make everyone say only nice things about you.  It cannot by done.  If you have a huge PR problem- it probably goes deeper than "that group of students who always wanted to cause a little trouble."

But what about official communications coming from an institution?  Church email?  Facebook group administration?  Twitter postings?  Content availability or hierarchy on an official website?

My question today, arising out of all these questions and issues previously mentioned: Why doesn't the church (in particular) see this sort of role as a spiritual gift?  We see the role of coffee preparation or snow removal as modern gifts of the church, fitting within the larger role of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12).  We are quick to point out that while some are called to preach and others to teach and others to serve as Elder or Deacon, others are called to maintaining the classrooms or cooking meals for the hungry.

So why don't we talk more about those who are called to moderate internet communication?

What sort of signs would we see in a person called to this sort of work?  Does this person have patience, temperance, availability?  Does this person need to work on staff or receive a salary?  Who does this person answer to?  Is this better fitted to a committee format?  Should a group moderate together and thus disperse some of the responsibility and antipathy that is generated when moderation requires difficult decisions?  How can the whole community support and empower this person or these people?  What sort of preparation or theological education is necessary for an online designer/communicator in a church setting?

Not only is this a relatively new question for relatively old institutions- and thus has created a number of hiccups so far.  There aren't a lot of models for dealing with these questions.  Such radically equal access and dispersion of authority has never happened like this before.  It could mean that the institutions themselves, if too rigid, could become antiquated quickly.  But if flexible enough, they can survive this just fine.  It may not be enough to use the old lines of authority though.  It might mean a new calling is forming, and a new sort of gift of the Spirit is emerging.

What does your institution do to address these issues?  Do you have someone or a group who you feel is called to this ministry?  Knowing that not all will be pleased, how does moderation of content occur?  Who responds quickly when new information must be communicated (even when it's something as simple as cancelling a scheduled event due to snow)?  Does the responsibility and blame always get pushed onto the pastor?  Or the secretary?  Or the expendable staff member?  Through whatever system is currently in place where you are, is discrimination perpetuated through social communication?  Do the voiceless have further barriers placed in front of them, even with such open communication as is available now?  How do you create an environment in which communication is effectively reaching those people it needs to reach?

Ashes to Easter- Reflection 1

In two days, we in the church will be marked with ashes and remember our deaths.  We do this every year.  It begins our Lenten time of fasting and prayer, penitence and study.  It's about discipline, but it's also about perspective.  I find over and over that the time of Lent becomes a re-setting of life, a re-establishment of this covenant we have with God.  Thinking about your own death does that to you.  It makes you really want to trust that you'll be okay, that your loved ones will be okay.  I find that I really need God to be God in this time, and for me to be dust, because I'm in control over life and death about as much as you could expect from dust.

But now I am carrying life inside me- a life that is one with me but also differentiated.  I am acutely aware of the dangers of eating food that makes me sick, coming down with the flu (which can become pneumonia), getting into a car accident, sliding off the road in all these ice storms, pre-term labor and other pregnancy complications- and that these dangers no longer just pose a threat to me and my health, but that of my child.  The protective instinct has already kicked in.  Whether I can accept it or not, the death of my child terrifies me.  I don't want my child marked with ashes and told that he is dust.  He is not dust- he is my child, my young one- with so much life left to be lived.  The imposition of ashes this year marks me for death, but also marks my child for death.

But isn't this the point of the marking of ashes?  I'm not God.  I am dust.  I am from the adamah.  I cannot control life and death for myself or anyone else more than we might expect from dust.  My child is dust too.  My husband is dust.  My whole family and friends and community- dust.  "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."  And yet as children of God, how much does God delight in telling us we are dust?  Does God have the protective instinct of a mother?

We are mortal- we will die.  My child one day, whether I like it or not, will die.  We will rejoin the adamah.  We will wait for our resurrecting God.

The words of the Heidelberg Catechism take on new meaning this year:

Q.1 What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

A. That I belong- body and soul, in life and in death- not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ...

Battle of the Generations

Apparently, we're locked in a generational battle again in this country.  I didn't know this, but I'm usually the last to find out about these things.

The question of who suffered greatest in the recession, and who's getting the most help from the government, communities, families, and others, is being debated with two major positions materializing: Baby-boomers vs. Millennials.

This is ironic to me because I am a Millennial in my late-20s, and my parents are Baby-boomers who are getting awfully close to retirement age.  We've never really felt any sort of tension in our family, I think in part because we are unusually dedicated to taking care of each other and willing to make significant sacrifices to do so.

I went through 8 years of college and grad school, mostly on the assistance of merit-based scholarships and need-based loans (though my family was a constant support in many ways during that time), and I have a Master of Divinity degree that doesn't turn over a lot of income.  I wait for a first call because I am in a perfect storm of "this isn't quite working out like we hoped it would," between living in a rural area- bound geographically by my husband's job and my commitment to my family, and seeking a call in a denomination that is not dominant in my area.  Many congregations here cannot pay the minimum salary to have a pastor at all.  I work a small job, and I am paid now.  I am blessed that I work in a field where I can work an unpaid internship for a year and a half until the church has a chance to put a small salary together for me.  How many companies would start paying you if you had worked that long for them for free, with no expectation of compensation in the future?

Regardless, that final step of ordination hangs in front of me, so easily falling into the laps of my colleagues but not for me.  It took so much time, money, energy, emotion, spiritual development, education, patience, ambition, a counseling for me to get here.  And yet it's also not yet here.  Like the eschaton.  It feels like the story of my life sometimes.

On the other hand, my parents have their own issues, among them serious health problems and a real estate market, local economy, etc. that threatens to take away financial stability, retirement, etc.  I may not own a house, and I may never be able to own a house, but theirs might do serious damage to their quality and quantity of years ahead of them.  They have far more assets than I do, but they could easily take a hard fall off their modest precipice.

We are each other's softer landing.  It might take us all under financial duress, but we're pretty committed to each other's well being.

So it surprises me to see the conflicting stories arising over "who has it worst."  The Boomers say it's them.  The Millenials say it's them.  If you've been following the controversy with the PCUSA's Board of Pensions, you'll hear similar statements, from young pastors with families saying that there will be fewer churches able to afford to call them (especially pastors who are just getting started in smaller, poorer, rural and inner city congregations) to older pastors who feel this is ageism and pressure to make them retire early.

These are not small issues.  They worry me.  My family is growing, and if we need to be dependent on my salary and health insurance one day, I may not have the job I need to take care of my family (my generation, my children's generation, OR my parents' generation).  I know so many people who are in vulnerable situations.

But despite the hostility and fear and finger-pointing, I wonder if the best way to uphold the communitarian nature of our systems will involve mutual self-sacrifice and mutual giving, beginning with mutual forbearance in our dialogues and decisions in these matters.

Like many recent national discussions (47% of this country being "takers"?), I think the same thing is being said over and over: "I cannot sustain my current financial situation the way it is, and a combination of responsible planning and mutual accountability/assistance is needed."  Just what is that balance though?  We will have to figure that out as we go.

Love Regardless

I'm starting to realize that my love for other people cannot be contingent on my hope that they will one day "convert" to my way of thinking, my lifestyle, or my religion.  That doesn't mean that I can't encourage people to become the healthiest they can possibly be.  In truth, I want people to thrive.  I just wish my friends would stop hating on each other.  I wish the church would always be a place where my LGBT friends are welcome.    I wish the college would always be a place where my conservative friends aren't made to feel inferior.

Regardless, I love them all.  Even the ones that exclude me.  I'll just love them from over here.

Eugene Patterson

As we remember the life of Eugene Patterson today, I feel obliged to recall his column from 1963, after the bombing of a Birmingham church and the death of four little children:

"A Flower for the Graves"

A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.

Every one of us in the white South holds that small shoe in his hand.

It is too late to blame the sick criminals who handled the dynamite. The FBI and the police can deal with that kind. The charge against them is simple. They killed four children.

Only we can trace the truth, Southerner — you and I. We broke those children’s bodies.

We watched the stage set without staying it. We listened to the prologue unbestirred. We saw the curtain opening with disinterest. We have heard the play.

We — who go on electing politicians who heat the kettles of hate.

We — who raise no hand to silence the mean and little men who have their nigger jokes.

We — who stand aside in imagined rectitude and let the mad dogs that run in every society slide their leashes from our hand, and spring.

We — the heirs of a proud South, who protest its worth and demand it recognition — we are the ones who have ducked the difficult, skirted the uncomfortable, caviled at the challenge, resented the necessary, rationalized the unacceptable, and created the day surely when these children would die.

This is no time to load our anguish onto the murderous scapegoat who set the cap in dynamite of our own manufacture.

He didn’t know any better.

Somewhere in the dim and fevered recess of an evil mind he feels right now that he has been a hero. He is only guilty of murder. He thinks he has pleased us.

We of the white South who know better are the ones who must take a harsher judgment.

We, who know better, created a climate for child-killing by those who don’t.

We hold that shoe in our hand, Southerner. Let us see it straight, and look at the blood on it. Let us compare it with the unworthy speeches of Southern public men who have traduced the Negro; match it with the spectacle of shrilling children whose parents and teachers turned them free to spit epithets at small huddles of Negro school children for a week before this Sunday in Birmingham; hold up the shoe and look beyond it to the state house in Montgomery where the official attitudes of Alabama have been spoken in heat and anger.

Let us not lay the blame on some brutal fool who didn’t know any better.

We know better. We created the day. We bear the judgment. May God have mercy on the poor South that has so been led. May what has happened hasten the day when the good South, which does live and has great being, will rise to this challenge of racial understanding and common humanity, and in the full power of its unasserted courage, assert itself.

The Sunday school play at Birmingham is ended. With a weeping Negro mother, we stand in the bitter smoke and hold a shoe. If our South is ever to be what we wish it to be, we will plant a flower of nobler resolve for the South now upon these four small graves that we dug.

Eugene Patterson’s most famous column was written on Sept. 15, 1963, the day he learned that four young girls had been murdered in Birmingham, Ala., in a church bombing. When he told the story, Patterson would describe how he wrote from his home with tears streaming down his face and his own young daughter nearby. The column bore the title: “A Flower for the Graves.”

More guns?

This captures nicely the "gun debate" going on in many churches right now:

(CNN) – One of the most intense battlefields in today's gun control debate is happening inside Christianity.

Christians of every stripe; conservative, moderate and liberal tend to agree with the Gospel's message of love and peace. However, they don’t agree on what that Gospel message means.

[:43] “Christian Ethics begins with love of neighbor; love and care of neighbor...We live in a country in which we have 10 or 20 times more gun murders than other comparable countries. It seems guns are a huge factor.”  – David Heim, executive editor of Christian Century Magazine.

[1:28] “When the next monster walks into a theater, mall, restaurant, college campus or grade school and begins to shoot and kill innocent men, women and children…who’s going to shoot back?” – Mark Rogers, founder of Christiangunowner.com.

(http://cnnradio.cnn.com/2013/01/08/christians-dont-agree-on-gun-control/?hpt=us_t3)


This is one of the many reasons I do not own or carry a gun, even though I have done so before and have experience with guns.  When someone starts shooting into the crowd, and you pull out your gun to take down the shooter, I will have a gun in my hand too, but I will have no idea if you are the shooter, or a collaborative shooter who means to keep firing on the crowd.  I will shoot you, because I won't have time to think, and I could very well kill you.  Then, I will have to explain to the police and your mother why I murdered you, the person who was trying to protect the crowd from the real shooter.

I don't want to have that conversation with your mother.  Or any mother.  Period.  It would kill me.