Walking With Pride

June 25, 2009 at 7:20 pm | In Catherine Foote, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This Sunday folks from our congregation will be walking in the Pride Parade.  When I take a moment to reflect on it, that sentence is stunning to me.  Folks from my church.  Walking in a Pride Parade.   Well, of course, in the last decade and a half I have taken that for granted.  But when I remember my own struggles growing up, and what I once believed about God, and where the church I belonged to as a young adult still stands on GLBT issues (they would be protesting the parade, not walking in it), I stand in awe of the grace of God.  This Sunday, folks from my congregation will be walking in the Pride Parade.  And they will be walking with other University District churches, who together have assembled an ecumenical float!

I can’t go.  I wish I could, but the parade is Sunday morning, and I will be in church preaching.  Now, dear readers, note that I did not say I can’t go because if anyone saw me there I would lose my job.  I did not say I can’t go because my own internalized fears and poor theology leave me too conflicted to walk.  I did not say I can’t go because I don’t care.  I can’t go because I will be preaching, preaching at an Open and Affirming church, which had a pastor who spoke up for gays and lesbians even before Stonewall, in a denomination that was the first to ordain an openly gay man, and to a congregation that was the first that we know of anywhere to hire an openly gay couple.

As I was listening to NPR this morning, two features stories caught my attention.  The first was a local one.  A Seattle employee wants the names of people who’ve joined a city–sponsored group for gay and lesbian staffers. He says he needs those names, email addresses and other contact information so he can be sure that laws are being obeyed, that city money is not being used in a discriminatory way.  He adds that he thinks the city “needs a big kick in the head” in order to “stop what they’re doing.”  Folks in the GLBT group do not want their names released.  They say that they fear harassment.  Still.  In Seattle.  And I understand.  The man who wants the names says he doesn’t intend harassment, or “outing,” just fairness.  Forgive my skeptical reluctance to trust someone who says that in the name of Jesus he wants to give the city a big kick in the head.

The second story was a national one, related to promises Barack Obama the candidate made regarding GLBT rights, and his disappointing follow-through on those promises as president.  By the way, let me add this editorial comment.  These were not promises to “the gay community,” but promises to the whole community. Dan Savage, a national gay rights activist, and editorial director of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, was speaking of his own frustration regarding presidential follow through.  He told of a woman in Florida who had to wait outside the hospital room, with no right to be by her partner’s side, while inside her partner died alone.  This in spite of the fact that the couple had registered as domestic partners and had filed power-of-attorney rights.

I am grateful that twenty years ago I was surrounded by compassionate health care professionals and at Eileen’s bedside when she died.  I am grateful that I found my way to a compassionate church that walked with me into a deeper understanding of God, of love, of justice and of grace.  And I am deeply grateful for those of you who are walking with Pride on Sunday, because I know we still have a ways to go.  In today’s post, I just wanted to say thank you.

God is Still Speaking

June 21, 2009 at 10:32 pm | In Peter Ilgenfritz | Leave a Comment

I say it to our kids all the time:  your understanding of God and your relationship with God has to “die” again and again in your life in order for you to make room for a new relationship with God and new understanding of who God is. 

 

The problem is most of us get stuck.  We get stuck often somewhere in our early adolescence when something bad happens, something hard and unfair happens.  And it doesn’t fit with our “childhood” understanding of who God is and how God works. 

 

For those of us who I’d say are fortunate, we had a relationship with God that was a lot like a relationship with a loving parent.  We were in need and our needs were met.  We were hurting and we were comforted.  We were lost and we were found. 

 

And what happens when something bad happens and the hurt isn’t taken away?  What happens when we first experience the death of a loved one or favorite pet?   It isn’t fair.  It isn’t right.  And where was that God as Perfect Parent to come and save us – to keep us from this hurt?   At times like this – and they happen again and again in our lives as we mature – we need to “die” to understandings of God so that the new that is always God can be born in us. 

 

I can only speak of my own experience.  I have and have had a central, vital, deep, long and CHANGING relationship with God.  A CHANGING understanding of who God is and how I am to be in relationship with God.  There are constants for me – like love –  a presence, knowing of love.  Like forgiveness.  Like relationship.  But HOW I have been in relationship to that which is God and HOW I experience God working in my life and life as I know it has changed and I know will continue to change.  For it is what happens in any of the good, grounding relationships in our lives.  They change.  They grow.  As we change and we grow.  What we need changes.  What the other needs changes.  How we are in relationship change.  And that is a good thing.  But it first is often a hard thing.  It is hard for relationships to change for it feels like they have died.  Something about what was has died.  And something new is waiting to be born. 

 

I hope for this new generation what I hope for all of us – that we will not get stuck.  That we will risk being part of a growing, deepening, changing relationship with God.   That when we run right up against an understanding that doesn’t work any more, a way of relating that doesn’t fit us anymore, we won’t throw away the relationship with God – with church – with faith – with spirituality – with Jesus – but use this as an opportunity to “die”.  To let go.  To make room.  Listening, hoping room for a new way of relationship and understanding to be made.  To share these times of ending and new beginning with each other.  To seek accompaniment and support from others who know this way – at church, spiritual directors, loved ones.  To walk through the unknowing into the new knowing.  To dare to believe that God is still speaking, still calling, still seeking us out in the always forever NEW that is God.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

June 21, 2009 at 10:08 pm | In Peter Ilgenfritz | Leave a Comment

Last week I got to hear Alain de Botton at the Central Library speak about his new book,  The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.  What most of us do between say, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. is a great mystery.  What are people doing in all those offices?  What is it like at home with moms and dads at home caring for their children?   What is any day for any one of us really like?  For all of us, whether we are paid for it or not, there is “work” that we do.  We type at keyboards.  We drive.  We attend meetings.  We negotiate.  We figure things out.  We do all sorts of things.  Through our work, Alain de Botton believes, we become more fully human. 

 

Through work we gain an identity – or lack of identity.  Through our work we have the opportunity to do something of meaning.   To do what most of us say we want to do – to make a difference, to alleviate suffering or to increase pleasure for others.  To make life a little better.  To create things that are better than we are.  Work is essential for the “good life” we all long for.  Indeed, I have witnessed that those who have done “retirement” best are those who have not “retired” – but used this new stage of life to share what they have learned, to continue to do what they love, to make a difference in the world. 

 

But for something so important as our work, there is a curious silence about it.  If you looked at the top fiction best sellers, you’d think most human beings sit around thinking about love, falling in and out of love, in and out of relationship with their families and contemplating murder.  Rarely do the stories we read talk about what we all DO during this time of day called “work”.  We have job titles that few understand.   Desks or workspaces that few closest to us have even seen.   Hours we spend during the day which are a mystery to those we love.  When we go on vacation, we visit museums and restaurants and parks but we don’t go visit the places where people spend most of their days – those places we work.   

 

After he completed his university degree, Alain couldn’t find work.  And someone told him, “Do what you love”.  So he did.  He wrote a book.  And he’s been wondering about big questions and talking to interesting people and writing books ever since.   For him, doing what he loved was the way he found as well to make a living and live his life.  I told him that he is one of the creative thinkers our world really needs and asked him, “Where did you learn to be a creative thinker?  What keeps you at it?   What keeps you growing in your creativity?”  He said that he isn’t creative all the time.  Sometimes he too hides behind his own fears.  But then he remembers.  “Do what you love.”  Then he remembers, “Life is short.  Live it now.”

I Tri

June 19, 2009 at 11:09 pm | In Catherine Foote | 2 Comments

Last weekend my nephew graduated from the University of Oregon.  As a part of our family celebration, my sister invited me to enter a triathlon near Portland, along with her, my nephew the graduate, and his girlfriend.  She invited me about five weeks ago.  And although I did start to think about getting in shape for such an adventure, even on short notice, eventually I declined.  

Then my sister hurt her knee.  And so, since the entry fee was already paid, and since I would “compete” (I use that term ironically) in the same group she would have, last Saturday I found myself standing waist deep in Blue Lake, with about forty other 55+ year-olds.  We were all wearing the white swim caps of our group and waiting for the start of the one-half mile swim that would mark the beginning of our sprint distance triathlon.  The fact that this was a sprint distance, the shortest triathlon out there, is what tempted me to even think about going ahead with this.  I had been swimming a couple of times a week for the last month.  I can still easily ride twelve miles on my bike.  And after all, I do chores every day on my farm.  I can walk three miles if I have to.  

The crowd on the shore counted down the last ten seconds and then we were off.  I quickly moved to the back of the pack and began gasping for air.  Turns out swimming in a pool where I can grab the side every 25 yards and get out when I get tired is very different from swimming in a lake where the water is choppy and there is no place to rest.  Anticipating that, the race coordinators had arranged for boats to follow us around to provide support, or rescue if necessary.   So as I approached the first turn, one of the boats came over to me and began circling, kind of like a shark, but a friendly one who would let me grab its dorsal fin when I needed to.  A boy scout of about fifteen was in the boat.  

“You’re doing great” he squeaked to me.  Hmmm.  

“Can you swim?” I asked between wheezes.

 “Sure” he said, “I’ve done this distance before.  A couple of times.  You can do it too!” 

 So how helpful is it for a young healthy child sitting in a boat to call out encouragement to a fifty-seven year old trying not to sink?  Pretty helpful, as it turns out.  Because while a part of me wanted to flip his boat over and see how well he actually did swimming out there in the lake, another part of me was very grateful for his presence, child-optimism and all.  He stayed with me as I kept swimming, at times calling out encouragement, at times looking obviously bored.  I held on to the side of his boat when I needed to, and even though every time I looked up, the buoy marking the turn seemed no closer that before, eventually I looked up and it was right there.  And then I was heading toward the shore.  I was the second to the last one out of the water.  And as I stumbled up on to the beach, there was my sister, waiting patiently to hand me a towel and cheer me on. 

 Into the transition area I went, putting on my cycling gear and jumping on my bike.  As I headed out of the transition area, my brother-in-law showed up, and when I rode by him he encouraged me too.  “At least you didn’t drown,” he said, which might not sound that inspiring, but if you knew my brother-in-law, you would know that it was.  The bike ride was, as I anticipated, a place to recover.  I even passed five other riders, which really surprised me, since I was so far behind when I came out of the water.  They smiled and waved as I rode past.  Turns out, by the way, that those riders were all over seventy and all in their first triathlons.  Never mind.  My competitive heart was cheered.

I came back into the transition area and changed into my running shoes.  As I headed out again, this time onto the run route, wave after wave of folks were coming back in.  My nephew and his girlfriend, who were long finished with their races, stood by the path as I came jogging slowly by, and called out to encourage me.  “Yeah, Aunt Catherine!”  I kept “running” until I was out of their sight, and then started walking.  I was back to gasping for breath, but now I was on my feet instead of treading water, so I knew I would be ok.  The run (and walk and run and walk- whatever I could do to keep moving) was an “out and back” route, so I kept passing folks who had turned around and were headed home.  Every one of them called out their own encouragement to me, whether I was walking or running, and I answered back.  “Way to go!” 

The last half mile went back out by the lake and as I looked across, there were boats out there hauling in the buoys that had marked our swim route.  Standing on the shore, it did look like a long way to swim.  Then I heard the crowd at the finish line, and they were starting to cheer.  For just an instant I imagined they were cheering for me.  I came around the bend and realized that the little kids’ splash, peddle, and dash race had started and the cheering, of course, was for them.  Little kids were on the running path now, and coming up behind me.  In the last one hundred yards a little seven-year-old darted past me, and then another, even smaller child was coming up on my right.  I slowed up (ha!) to let her cross the finish line ahead of me.  I knew someone would be taking pictures at the line, and I wanted to be alone in the picture.  Then, just as I crossed, another child came up on my left, and we crossed together as the camera flashed.  I started laughing.  They handed every child coming across the line a finisher’s medal.  They handed me a bottle of water. 

In the end, I placed 406th out of 412 participants.   I was surprised to discover how different “farm fit” is from “triathlon fit.”  Riding a motorcycle, even riding it fifty miles a day, does not really prepare one for riding a bicycle twelve miles in a race.  And of course, there’s the swimming pool, and then there’s the lake.  But also, in the end, I felt good about my tri.   As I stood around with my family after it was all over, my nephew asked me, “Is this one of those stories that you’re going to put in a sermon?” 

“Well, not a sermon,” I said, “but for sure I will blog about it.”   Because this is our “comma” blog, where we think about how God is still speaking.  And without even looking too deeply I can see at least five different ways my experience in those few short hours mirrors my experience as a person of faith, in a community of faith.  Like those “find the hidden pictures in this picture” pages in the Highlights magazine I  used to enjoy as a child, I invite you to find those parallels, in my story or in your own.  And I will cheer you on.

Interfaith Elders and Youngsters

June 12, 2009 at 8:02 pm | In Catherine Foote | 1 Comment

After my post last week about a “real live rabbi,” I decided I really wanted to attend Olivier BenHaim’s ordination as a rabbi of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue.  That meant getting up early last Saturday to do my farm chores so I could hop on my motorcycle and ride over to Bellevue where the ordination began at 10:30.  We were told to arrive well before the scheduled start time as there would be a full house, and also I had never been to the Unity of Bellevue church facility, so I caught the 8:30 ferry to make sure I would be there in plenty of time.  It was a beautiful morning for a motorcycle ride and a beautiful morning for a ferry ride, and I did get lost a few times along the way, but as we say around our church “the journey is as important as the destination” so it was all good. 

Anyway, it turned out almost all that happened at the ordination felt familiar.  I wasn’t surprised.  We sang, we heard Scripture read, we laughed at jokes that the participants in the service told- we worshipped together.  Of course, Ted Falcon is always funny and I think he could have been a wonderful comedian if he had not become a rabbi.  But my favorite joke was from Rabbi Stephen Vale, who also became a rabbi in part as a result of the work of Ted and Ruth Falcon.  He said, in commenting about the variety of Jewish traditions represented there that morning, “It doesn’t really matter what tradition you come from, as long as you are appropriately embarrassed by it.”  If that doesn’t seem funny to you, I guess you just had to be there.  I wrote that one down and might use it some day, because it is just as appropriate when applied to us Protestants.  That same rabbi also spoke on “the moment I most felt like a rabbi,” which got me thinking about moments I have most felt like a pastor.  But that is something for another time. 

This ceremony of ordination was also interfaith, and included Sheikh Jamal Rahman, another favorite spiritual leader among folks in my congregation.  Jamal himself has just recently received the title “sheikh,” but has already been serving as a Sufi minister, and I know even less (translate “less” as “next to nothing”) about all that than I do about becoming a rabbi, so I can’t say much about it.  I was not at the service where he received the title, but of course Don Mackenzie was.  Jamal himself says that ” in Arabic the word sheikh means elder. . .  Consider me an interfaith sheikh.”  Thank you Jamal.  We are in deep need of interfaith elders like you and Ted and Don Mackenzie and now Olivier, an interfaith youngster, too. 

One of the most moving moments the service for me was when newly ordained Rabbi Olivier carried the Torah through the congregation.  Ted told us the history of this particular Torah.  It is what is called a “holocaust” Torah, one of more than 1,500 scrolls, discovered in Prague at the end of World War II.  The scrolls had been looted from synagogues throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, and were being saved by Nazi officials for display as relics of a “vanished culture.”  And now, these Torahs have been distributed to synagogues around the world and are being used instead in living communities of worship.  The story of the “Torah Project,” which has cared for and distributed these Torahs, is profoundly moving.  And there I was, at Bet Alef, as a Christian minister, celebrating the ordination of a rabbi, having heard the words of a sheikh, and invited to place my hand in reverence on the Torah as it passed.  What a morning! 

The service was very long (even longer than the expected two hours- which I imagine is familiar no matter what one’s faith tradition) and was followed by a luncheon reception.  Even though I heard there would be belly dancers as part of the luncheon celebration, I left to get back to my farm in time to feed my hungry bummer lamb and get on with my weekend farm work.  But I intend to ask others from my congregation how the rest of the celebration went.  And I intend to ask Olivier when in the last few days he has felt most like a rabbi.

Angels and Demons

June 6, 2009 at 9:24 pm | In Peter Ilgenfritz | Leave a Comment

Angels and Demons

 

In times of transition, great spiritual forces are present.  They come in many guises and particularly, what I term, “Angels of Faith” and “Demons of Anxiety”.  Their presence is real and they tussle for room in our hearts, lives and institutions in times of change.  In our church we know both of these angels and demons well. 

 

The Demon of Anxiety shows up among us in an old familiar story we tell ourselves over and over again.  I still don’t fully understand WHY we tell this story to ourselves, but we do.  It’s a very old story present long before I began my ministry with you 15 years ago.  My sense now, in fact, is that it has been around since the founding of this church and shaped our ministry ever since.  It’s a story that we repeat to ourselves about our “lack”, our “deficiency”. 

 

It’s an anxious story we tell each other about how we are not doing enough.  Not doing enough for our children and youth, college students and young adults, parents with young children, middle age adults and the elderly in our congregation…the list goes on.  It’s an old story we tell ourselves about anxieties about our leadership and anxiety about where we are going.  It shows up in anxious behaviors among us.  It’s an old story that has at its root often unnamed anxious questions, “Are we okay?”  Are we loving, doing, being enough?   Am I okay with God? 

 

It is not that the anxious issues we tell each other about again and again are not issues and will not always be.  In fact, this is our “work” of the church, is it not, to care for and pray for each other as God’s people and creation.  We seek to do that with God’s help the best we can. 

 

And yet, we hold these issues within an old anxious story that does not serve us well.  An old story that cannot lead us forward.  An anxious story that lacks a wider vision and call and keeps us trapped in the past.  An old story that can and has trapped our ministry and its leadership in wearying, deadening work of fixing and pleasing instead of claiming our faith and risking wider dreams. 

 

Like all stories, we tell it to ourselves over and over because something in it brings us some comfort.  I wonder if maybe it is comfort from the fear of being changed. 

 

But there is something else.  Alive among us is also an Angel of Faith.  It is an angel that spurs us on to take bold action in the way of Jesus and to share abundantly to support a common call.  The Angel is wild and live and among us as well.

 

The issue before us as church is this:  Will we be the church of the 21st Century?  Will we be the new, reformed and reforming church that is always being called out by the Spirit of the Living God?  The Spirit that calls us to wider imagination, deeper loving, firmer faith.  Nothing thwarts the Angel of Faith, like the Demon of Anxiety which calls us circling back upon ourselves in an old anxiety that makes no room for us to dream anew.  To meet the Demon of Anxiety we need to know its name and call it forth.  To thank it for how it has served us and now to set it free.  To make room for the new, that soaring, Pentecost Dove, that Angel of Faith, flying like light, like fire, among us.

Real Live Rabbi

June 6, 2009 at 5:12 am | In Catherine Foote | Leave a Comment

This Saturday, Olivier BenHaim is going to be ordained as a rabbi. I know Olivier most especially through the Bet Alef Interfaith Seder in which our congregation has participated now for five years. Especially when we were first beginning, Olivier was one of the main planners, and we spent hours together talking about details of a feast that I knew almost nothing about. And now Olivier is going to be ordained. What a joy!

A while back I read The New Rabbi, a book by Stephen Fried which documents a large synagogue’s search for someone to replace their beloved, long-serving rabbi, who was retiring. I loved the book, mostly because what that congregation went through sounded so much like what congregations I know go through. Of course that would be true, but still I wondered. Is being a rabbi different from being a pastor?

And that reminds me of how mysterious religious employment can seem. When I was a kid, we used to play at the playground of the Catholic school down the street. I loved our “Hide and Seek” games where I would race through the garden area of the convent. Stashing myself in one of the great hiding places among the bushes there. And as I crouched there, hidden from the “seeker,” I would wonder about the nuns who lived there. What kind of beings were they? (because in my young mind they clearly were not human beings- they seemed so far removed from me.)

Of course, then I grew up and became a “religious professional” myself. Now I get to watch while others puuzzle over what kind of a being I am. Sometimes that is really fun, looking at it from this side. About twenty years ago my income taxes were audited and I’m not sure the IRS guy ever really understood my employment. Women ministers were still rare back then, and he kept calling me “Sister” all the way through. By the way, the audit went just fine. Maybe it was the halo effect.

One of the first blogs I ever heard about (at least one that really caught my attention) was “Real Live Preacher.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to visit the site. This tag on his home page says it all: “I had this funny picture in my head of a freak-show barker shouting, ‘Come see a Real Live Preacher.’” Back when I first learned of the site, it was pretty basic. Just an anonymous, progressive minister answering as honestly as he could questions people might want to ask a preacher but were afraid to (because face-to-face you never know how a preacher might react!)  He got alot of questions from folks who didn’t know much about church, but were curious. He let people in on the mysterious day-to-day life of a real live preacher. Now he has dropped the anonymity (his name is Gordon Atkinson and he is a Baptist preacher in Texas), written some books and has quite a developed web presence. Back when I first looked at his stuff, though, he was just making good use of that general mystery about “real live preachers.”

All of this brings me back to Olivier’s ordination. As much as I now know about being a pastor, I do look forward to comparing notes with a new rabbi. And I also want to refer you all to his story, which he has been telling at the Bet Alef website. One of the funniest parts to me was when he and his wife moved to Seattle from Israel, and began to climb the corporate ladder. He described himself as a “culinary Jew” who had found a spiritual path in the practice of Yoga and Tai Chi. Here is what he said about the next step of his journey:

It was during that time that Amy came upon a flyer advertising a series of Jewish-Buddhist dialogues between a Buddhist nun and a local rabbi . . . I was resolute to attend one of these dialogues to watch the Buddhist nun teach a lesson in spirituality to the poor rabbi. That “poor rabbi” was Rabbi Ted Falcon who, that night, rekindled for me the quasi-extinguished flame of my Jewish spiritual path and changed my life forever. . . . I switched my Sanskrit meditation mantra to a Hebrew one, delved into Jewish mysticism and rediscovered Torah as a healing spiritual path of awakening.

Any of us who know Ted Falcon just have to smile at that story. Olivier, my prayers are with you on Saturday, and beyond. I can hardly wait to hear more of the mysterious day-to-day life of a real live rabbi.

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