Raising Feminist Kids? Me too.

 

Or trying to.

In raising my kids, I’ve been surprised that I turned out to be the kind of parent who wants to shield their children from the world. I thought I’d be open and honest about sin, about brokenness and pain and suffering, about how much is wrong in the world.  On this, I am also led by my children.  When first being told that such a thing as war existed and there were wars being fought at that moment, my then three year old declared we had better get over there and explain that it should stop. The idea that women used not not be able to vote or wear pants and men didn’t cook is deeply shocking to my children.  But I’m realizing that on sexual violence, I am irrationally hoping that the dots I have set out will somehow get connected by my children. It’s not enough.

I wrote a piece over on Grow Christians on the topic—click over there to read more.

Making feminist church

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus –Galatians 3:28

What does a feminist church look like?

This past week I was at a conference with young (ish) clergy in the church and was surprised to find myself asking that question.  I write about gender in this space all the time, it’s one of my own primary categories of thought. I spend my life in “the church” and have been at my parish for almost 11 years. Still, I don’t think I had ever phrased the question in quite that way.  A church is just a church. It can be inclusive or exclusive at any given time, receiving the ministries of all of God’s people with beauty and grace or not.  But what makes a feminist church?

My peers and I grew up in a church where women’s ordination was taken for granted. I’m 37. It’s been forty two years since the first women in Philadelphia and Washington DC were ordained “irregularly.” 40 years since the wider church voted officially to ordain women as priests. We’ve had a female presiding bishop—the head of the whole Episcopal Church.  We are reckoning with human sexuality, recognizing the gifts of the ministries of transgender people who help the church to understand how gender is neither binary nor biologically determined. We are making some progress! Still, from California to Cuba, women are still paid less, still occupy fewer senior roles, and still have difficulty advancing in their careers. (See my post about Leaning In/Falling Over in this space for all of my questions about what it means to “advance.”) For women of color and LGBTQ folks the journey is even more difficult.

At the conference I attended many of the women present met on our own.  We went around the room to share our stories. Woman after woman shared their own experiences: ministries dismissed, sexual harassment experiences swept under the rug, belittling by colleagues.  Everyone had a story.  It felt like a fault line of pain and trauma had cracked open. It settled over all of us and it had to go somewhere.  The wider group took up the conversation and the Holy Spirit whirled among us. Voices were heard.

One of our members has observed about how our official polity channels are where “change goes to die.” We have commissioned reports about parity in compensation, and there’s some data:  at the level of solo clergy, women make 90% of men. The problem? Only 34% of solo clergy are women.  The number goes way down for senior female clergy on multi staff parishes. There is something to think through, though, in how we actually create churches where change can happen.   Sexual harassment and discrimination are common to women in every institution. The church isn’t different there. I’m also curious about how parish clergy create cultures in our own places where that happens for our congregations.  I also think it’s important to recognize that feminism is not a female project. My heart belongs to Hillary, but I make no assumptions that having women in power will make things better for all women.  Having more women priests or more women bishops won’t immediately help.

The Rev. Gay Jennings , President of the House of Deputies, just shared her remarks in 40 Years On: Thoughts on Gender Equality in the Episcopal Church at Executive Council. She says it better than I:

Too often I hear us measuring gender equality in the church by counting how many educated,     privileged women sit in positions of hierarchical authority. I fear that we may believe that the best the church can do for women is to be sure that more of us are bishops, deans, and cardinal rectors.

Patriarchal authority deforms everyone—even those who can make it at the top, men or women.  We can do better than just being successful in the institution! From the ground, in our parishes and schools and chaplaincies, men and women are equally able to make church feminist.  And make feminist church. This Sunday we’ll hear a story of Jesus upholding the ministry of the “wrong” kind of woman.  She’s out of bounds and has a terrible reputation, and he loves her. That’s the Gospel we’re called to.

Otherwise, I don’t have any clear answers, but here are the questions I’m thinking about asking… My own parish is also on its own journey. I make no claims about being the success story!

1. Are there unspoken expectations about the “kind of person” who is drawn into different ministries? Are men asked to join altar guild? Do they teach Sunday School?

2. If and when single gender communities develop by chance, is that phenomenon named?

2. How are intentionally single gendered communities nurtured? Are there places where people can find refuge for themselves to heal? To talk honestly?  Can people affiliate with those spaces according to their own gender identification and wishes for community?

3. How is gender-expansive language used for God?  Are inclusive language resources like the ELLC Nicene Creed and prayer books of other communions or Enriching Our Worship and the St Helena Psalter used?

4. How are “safe church” policies implemented and discussed? Is preventing abuse of children and other vulnerable populations discussed and respected?

5. How are staff hired and leadership selected? Is there an effort to seriously consider the gifts of those who are women, people of color, and LGBTQ persons? How do ministry teams reflect on and explore their own implicit bias?

6. How are families of leaders and staff respected? Is there an equal policy in place for men as well as women to take parental leave?   Are employees judged for taking advantage of these benefits or are their personal commitments honored?

That’s my list so far, friends…add your own!

The Anglicans And Us: Primates Meeting 2016

 There have been times when my kids have not gotten invited to their friends’ birthday parties.  Either I hear about it from another parent or they find out about the missed event from someone else, and there is sadness and pain.  As a parent I wonder if I should do more to smooth the way for them, initiate more play dates or encourage them more as they build friendships. Then the insult passes, and then they hit each other with foam swords or talk about their minecraft creations and the world is restored again, just a little less stable than it was, but restored nonetheless.

Since Bishop Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, there have been a lot of foam swords swung around in the global church (There were, to be sure, lots swung before that, mostly around women’s ordination). Last summer’s national church vote to amend the marriage canon to include same gender marriage was hope and joy and wonder.   We have plenty of distance to travel for ending discrimination, but we have decided, collectively, that we are finished arguing about equal marriage in the life of the Episcopal Church based in the US.  Finis.

So now, the international meeting of heads of Anglican Churches—primates—have voted to suspend us for three years for having done so.  Honestly, the thought occurred to me to be surprised at the fact that it hadn’t happened earlier.  We have had times of “fasting” and not making more publicly LGBTQ bishops, in attempting to please the self-appointed orthodox (whether those were conformed to because of accident or intention is another question).  Throughout the last 13 years, the global church has continually gone neither as far as the far right would prefer nor as far as the far left would prefer.  It’s been very Anglican. Via media, etc. Even this time, Bishop Ntagali of Uganda left the Primates meeting early because he was angry that the Episcopal Church wasn’t being kicked out completely.

Here’s the thing.

The Anglican Communion, as an institutional body, has more in common with the structure of parents mediating birthday parties than, for example, Congress and the President.  Many of the primates are not democratically elected by their whole church. The primates themselves represent their individual churches, but as “first among equals,” not as enforcers who can make anyone do anything. Obviously how that’s lived out in different places varies.  The word “Episcopal” means that our church is overseen by bishops. Who oversees the bishops? Well, they’re all sitting next to each other at a table. The Archbishop of Canterbury is at the head of the table, but he’s still just one person sitting at the table.   Unlike the President and Congress, he doesn’t have veto power over what the bishops might want to do individually.  Bishop Gates can tell me how I can function as a priest, but Bishop Curry, Presiding  Bishop/ Primate of the Episcopal Church can’t dictate how Bishop Gates functions as a bishop.  Bishop Gates sits at Presiding Bishop Curry’s table and he sits at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s table. 

 Still, it’s sad. Almost 8 years ago, St Peter’s Anglican Church of Uganda came to worship at my parish, Christ Church. While I have never felt like we are singlehandedly holding the Anglican Communion together, it has been important to me that we are sure that we are one Body of Christ, even if there are things we might disagree about.  Five years after they came, I traveled to Uganda and Tanzania with Bishop Shaw (that’s when I started this blog).  I was actually in Kampala, Uganda on the day the Archbishop of Uganda was consecrated, along with Tom Shaw, himself a gay bishop (however celibate, being a monk and all).  We were wrapping up our visit with the Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation, where we learned about their work in Kasese, with AIDS prevention, maternal health, and children’s education. There were more important things on the table than human sexuality. 

What binds us together?  The communion of saints. The Prayer Book. Shared history.  Kind of like minecraft and foam swords.   We are in relationship with each other because we are in relationship with each other. Neither the primates’ gatherings nor the Archbishop of Canterbury were ever constructed as dogmatic doctrine-creating bodies. That’s not what they’re for.  They’re built for relationship. That’s it. And there are a lot of ways to be in relationship. My time in Uganda was amazing and transcendent, I’m embarrassed that I haven’t kept the connections made on that trip more strongly.   I do think that on Sunday I might stay late at Church to pray with St Peter’s, for whom debates like this are closer to home.

Being suspended is sad, but not tragic.   Gay teenagers getting kicked out of their homes by their parents? That’s tragic.  The murder of transpeople because of their gender expression? That’s tragic. Respecting the dignity of every human being, as we say in the baptismal covenant, to me means honoring LGBTQ persons at every level of the church. The humanity of all God’s people is not up for debate. It’s just not, and clearly, it’s “worth” whatever institutional penalty could be imposed.  Can we actually be kicked out of the Anglican Communion? Maybe, maybe not. If the bishops who voted the suspension think that we’re going to amend our gay-loving lifestyles in three years, they are clearly wrong. And if that means that we can’t go to the meetings, okay. But I am still part of a global family of churches that draw our lineage to the English Reformation, and I will still have a strange loyalty to the Book of Common Prayer, even though we print everything in a single leaflet at my church and almost never open the book itself.

This Sunday, I’ll preach the wedding at Cana: abundance and transformation and celebration and miracle.  I may even preach about weddings: the joining of two persons (of any gender) in love and faithfulness.  I’ll preach, too, about hope, that Jesus Christ who brought us into his body is strong enough to manage when we are struggling, and always gives us more than we dared ask for. 

Inky Love

Baby Isaiah and my old tattoo

Two ½  years ago, I had a rather large tattoo on my right arm done by Holly Azzara at Always and Forever in Watertown, Massachusetts.  It’s a mommy tattoo—my kids’ names, flowers, happy swallows.  Like children, it took up more room than I expected—neither population has any sense of moderation.  I had initially planned for it to incorporate the female symbol I had tattooed on my arm when I was 19, but Holly was unimpressed, and advised me to start over on the other arm or cover it up.

But I didn’t want to cover it up.

I wrote in this space then about why—the sentimental value of seeing the same image on my arm at my wedding, nursing my newborn children, graduating from college —that tattoo is in all of those pictures. It’s become lopsided and faded, but it’s me. It’s possible that I am also becoming a little lopsided. 

Until, until. I started to plan my next tattoo.  My first plan was to get a great blue heron. They symbolize a connection to place and wilderness that’s hard to come by so close to the city.  I’ve written tons of poems about the heron in the pond by the cemetery across the street from my house, and in the summer they fly over from daytime feeding grounds at the tiny lake to the west.  They’re beautiful and shadowy, motion and stillness at the same time. Grey, black, muted blue.   

At the end of the day, though, a bird is a bird. And while I may still get the heron done,  there was another image I couldn’t get out of my mind.

There is a woman (at least I see her as a woman) looking out with clear eyes and calm gaze. The green beneath her feet suggests the round earth under her. She is love. Just love. She has kind of a square face and looks like she’s seen a lot. But the way she looks out is just clear compassion. Total and complete love.

I sat opposite her window when I was on sabbatical in 2012 at Grace Medford, where my husband is t  So just over two weeks ago (10 months after the original decision was made), after 6 ½ hours of needle time, here she is.

he rector, which was when I was planning the mommy tattoo. And she just wouldn’t let me go.

And you can still see my old tattoo, shadowy in the background.  I have an appointment for January to go over and fill in any spots that didn’t heal properly, and maybe hide that a bit more. But I kind of love it.

The line in the original window from 1 Corinthians—“The greatest of these is charity”— you’ve heard at every wedding—is in the background, but I went for the Latin “Caritas” just on the top instead of all the words.  I have mixed feelings about Latin—you know, there’s that whole central tenant of Anglicanism that talks about worship in your own language—but I am setting those aside in favor of the wider Christian history of it. 

Getting ready to preach recently, I found another place in Scripture where this image resonates.

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

It’s an astonishing and tragic moment: he comes up to Jesus and bows down, offering deference and respect. “We can imagine that maybe he’s expecting to be told he’s doing well; he says he has kept all the commandments. But something unanticipated happens—Jesus looks at him, and loves him.  In that loving glance, Jesus sees him and knows him, and tells him what he’s missing. The man was looking for approval, not grace. Certainly not this kind of love that will change his life.  So he leaves.  For his security, and a deeper grief than he’s ever known.

This, it seems to me, is as clear a picture of hell as we ever see in the New Testament. Never mind all that stuff about the eternal fire where the worm never dies. This is the real thing.  All of the promises of God’s eternity so close he could touch it, and instead he turns his back.  Giving in to his fear, he can’t listen to his sorrow.  He walks away.  Even Job knew he was talking to God in the depths of despair, but the rich man has nothing.  Just his money. And he will find out that that’s not enough.

Jesus looks at him and loves him.  That’s what this woman is doing— this look in her eyes is so astonishingly clear, so generous, you can see her looking at you and loving you for who you are. And all of your anxiety, all of your perceived need to prove yourself or justify your status—it just melts. And you imagine that this is what love is.  With all the transcendent hope in the world, I want to say yes to it.

What about all the other stuff? the lilies and stems are Christ Church Waltham. The anchor is just cool, but we have one of those, too)