Falling in Love with Roger Williams

Falling in Love with Roger Williams
(A mid-February essay for AWAB.org)

I really resist any attempt to link Valentine's Day with the Christian
tradition. I mean, sure, by some accounts, it comes from a Christian
saint, or at least it's named after one of them. But I think too
often Valentine's in our society privileges a certain kind of love to
the exclusion of other loves. Sometimes, it's romantic love
celebrated as holier than neighbor love. Sometimes it's straight love
celebrated as holier than queer love. Sometimes it's love manifest in
consumerism celebrated as holier than love manifest in... you know,
actual love.

But this year, there's a thing I want to say about it.

When people talk to me about why I'm Baptist, I don't usually talk
about particular hymns, or even particular denominations. More often,
I talk about what are, in my beginner's mind, the foundational
commitments of the Baptist movement. Things we call “soul freedom”,
and “congregational polity.” I try to explain these to people, and
sometimes they get it. More of them get it when I talk to them about
the 'Roger Williams' school of Baptists, like the believers who will
faithfully vote to accept a congregation like mine into their
fellowship, not because they agree with us about sexuality, but
because they so emphatically proclaim our own right to make these
decisions as a local congregation. People who will fight for your
right to be wrong, for your right to proclaim the Gospel as it has
been revealed to you, as wonky or as incorrect as it seems to them.
Baptists who start with a certain kind of humility about God, a
certain commitment to a diversity of tactics and theologies and
congregations and, well, Baptists.

This is a movement that I think, starts at what I believe. And how I
live out my faith. The unique way in which I engage with the matrix
of scripture, and my congregation, and my experience, and hopefully
and faithfully the Holy Spirit. The unique way that I come to Jesus.
It's not like anybody else's way, sometimes. Often, it has
similarities. But sometimes its way off.

Maybe you see where I'm going with this, and please forgive the sappy
language, but I must proclaim: this foundational moment, when I choose
to love Jesus, and make my commitments and get dunked in the water:
it's not like a lot of other things, but it is like falling in love.

Those of you who are lovers: remember, if you can, falling in love.
Maybe it was with your lifetime partner, maybe it was with your
current favorite date, maybe it was the ridiculous crush that hit you
out of the blue last week. I don't know about you, but here are some
things that I name when I remember falling in love: it is wild. It
has so much to do with all of my thinking, but maybe it doesn't
finally turn on making sense. It is about my body. It is about my
heart. It made me want to talk to everyone I know, both to celebrate
and to have some other voice of wisdom to curb or encourage my
hard-to-understand passion. Other people could understand it, but
only kind of. They could support me, but they couldn't take the
plunge for me. Nobody else could say yes to that first date, to that
marriage proposal, to that every day choice to stay in it. It was
(and is) finally my choice.

Why do I stand in this tradition? Because it's not like joining a
committee. It's not like getting my desk in order. It's not like
stillness or incense. (Though these are all things that I actually
like to do!) For me, this tradition celebrates, first, that mad
impulse to commit wholeheartedly to the Lord of Love, in a way that is
different from everyone else who does it. It is a celebration of a
unique and ridiculous and often-stupid kind of love. It makes us
fight, and it makes us crazy. It makes it so that many of us have to
qualify our religious commitments by saying, “Not that kind of...”
But I'm a Baptist, I think, because it is like falling in love.

I wonder, what else, in this season of stupid cards and worse
advertising, I can learn from the romance of the Spirit? Where will
my crazy body lead me next? Where will my intimate relationship with
that heartbreaker Jesus take me, on this lifelong improvised date?

May I let this love, the love of Jesus- foolish, dangerous, powerful,
courageous, unstoppable love- lead me in all things.

Come all you furious

I've had the tune from the old hymn 'Come Ye Disconsolate' in my head for the last while. I'm working on some other words, and here's what I have so far:

come all you furious
rampant and wanton
bring all your terrified
bring all your lust

come to the mercy seat
come wielding hammers
Jesus has plans for you
come, come and see


where are the wanderers?
where are the lovelorn?
come to the walls of hate
come to tear down

fling wide your arms and songs
your pain and your fabulous
earth has no fury
that heaven cannot beat

we are his hands and feet
his knees and elbows
we are his aching heart
we are his fists

watch out you slaveholders
watch out you haters
Jesus lives in us
and he is pissed.

And now for something completely different (read: practical)

Hi everybody, Dan here:

I don't like to bug people about things like this unless I think it's really important, but this I think is: a petition to increase funding for elementary second-language eduacation. The text of the petition explains it all: learning languages at a young age improves learning across the board, to say nothing of the invaluable tool that is speaking a second language.

http://wh.gov/TvS

I'm sure you'll all take one look at this and think, like I initially did, "yeah, an online petition; who's going to read it?" Hell if I know, but if any online petition has a shot, I figure it ought to be one offered directly through the White House, and what's the worst that can happen if you take about 45 seconds of your time to try it out? If we don't even attempt to participate in the affairs of our government, who else can we blame when it doesn't represent us?

Please read it, sign it if you agree, respectfully abstain if you don't, and check out other initiatives on the site!

Thanks everyone!

Brick by Brick

A new song, posted on national coming out day. I guess I'm coming out angry. And strategically hopeful.

This one's for haymarket, and occupy chicago, and all the people who represent the intimate connections between the two. Which is to say, the people who are building a better and transformed world, bit by bit. You know who you are.



brick by brick
intro: (chords in rise up singing style)
D G DD /G D A A / D D G D/ G D A A

i feel too tired, and i feel overwhelmed
can we make a plan here, or a vision for an end?
those of us who care for justice, those of us whose longing burns
what vision can we muster, can we make the future turn?

Chorus:
D D A A / G G D A/ G D A/ Em GAD

brick by brick, bone by bone
til the people have their justice and their bodies are their own
stick by stick, stone by stone
we are building all together, we are dreaming up a home

verses:
D D A D/ G D A / D D DAD/ G A Em/ Bm A D

if i want it tomorrow, then i might as well quit
but if i want it for my children i'll stay in
so together let us promise, and together let us build
brick by brick, bone by bone
stick by stick, stone by stone

CHORUS

the stones i lay today are rage and peace and hope
and tomorrow's might be songs or plans or tears
but if put down enough, with faithfulness and verve
then my people will have walls enough for home
then my people will have walls enough for home

so you'll build a bit tomorrow, and i'll pick it from there
and we'll have a new place to rest next week
and we'll break it down a lot, to move it or to fix it
but hey: if not now maybe next year
if not now maybe next year

chorus


oh, give us bricks that last, and give us bones that mend
and give us living wood to grow and bend
and when they try to stop us, we will break them down
brick by brick, bone by bone
stick by stick, stone by stone

our bricks will break their windows
and our bones will block their streets
and our sticks will pound on office doors and drums
and we'll take on every mountain of injustice and of greed
and wear it down to a stone
and wear it down to a stone

chorus

they will not believe our families
they will put our kids in jail
they will shut us up and crush us if they can
and you'll find our shelters simple, but you'll find them everywhere
and we'll see who really owns the land
and we'll see who really owns the land

we will build together in defiance and in hope
we will all pile on and show up
and slower than we'd like
but fast enough for us
we will build a new world stone by stone
we will build a new world stone by stone

chorus

we are not about to give up
and we're not about to break
but we'll bend and we'll ripple and we'll flow
and when the people ask us how we made the mountains move
(we'll say): brick by brick, bone by bone
stick by stick, stone by stone

chorus

Come to Me

Here's a little song I wrote to accompany my sermon at Peace Community Church a couple weeks ago. As you might figure out via googling/sword drills, it's "on" Matthew 11:25-30. I'll post the chords here, mostly for my own future reference, and if you'd like a recording let me know and I'll link you to the appropriate google doc.

"Come to Me"
D A
G DA

They say, 'it's not worth all the effort'
they say, 'what are you gonna do?'
they say, 'what are you thinking?'
'It cannot be changed, at least not by you.'

This life has been getting you down
and you're at the end of your rope
when all your plans add up to nothing
the Spirit will give you a little more hope
(she'll say:)

Chorus:
Come to me, all who are weary
and I will give you rest, rest
Come to me, all who are weary
and I will give you rest, rest


This life has been getting you down
this life feels like more and more pain
but the walk gets deeper and stronger
and you find rest out in the reign

You've been doubting the Lord
You've been wrestling with the word
It's not bad to trust and obey
but is it better to argue, is it better to say:

Chorus

How can the struggle feel like the dancing?
How can the mustard tree feel like a nest?
I don't know how, but this is what I'm preaching
when I trust her the yoke feels like the rest

They say: there's qualifications
to keep out the sinner and the liars
but what he says about the peace of the beloved:
you don't have to be anything but tired

Chorus

This is what you say to the terrors
this is what you say from the pit:
just one battle is not what we're here for
and the only struggle that we lose is the one that we quit

they are trying to break you
they would love it if you would just burn out
it would be better for the haters if you gave up,
so please listen to my Jesus longing shout:

Chorus

The Spirit tells us that there's justice bubbling up now
She tells us that we can and we should
such promises that carried on our forebears
she reminds us that they are all still good

So what are you doing in your church or your vigil?
what are you saying in your preaching or your play?
Please remember, whatever else you're doing-
may you make a safe place, and to the people say:

Chorus

okay to be gay/ thunder

Today at the AWAB member's meeting, we had a couple of young women join us, high-school-age participants in the youth programming at the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America summer conference. At one point, we broke into small groups by denomination: Alliance of Baptists, American Baptists, and so forth. The youth didn't have any particular denominational affiliation, so my friend Francis and I sat and talked with them. They talked about how many young lgbtq youth in their schools and neighborhoods face bullying and violence, about how some of their lgbtq friends were afraid to even leave the house because of threats of violence. And the church is seen, in their world, as complicit in all of this, if not supportive of it. On the one hand, it was pretty heart-breaking to hear all of this, and on the other hand it was so exciting to hear these two young people talk about their energy and passion to change things. We began to talk about what they wanted to do, about ways we could work together, about a vision of sharing a map, proclaiming a web of places that would welcome queer youth. They told us that they didn't know their were groups like AWAB before this week, didn't know there were churches that would welcome all young people. The two young women told the gathered group that, where they're from “Everybody knows that God hates gays.”
Well, they kept strategizing. By the end of the meeting, they asked if they could tell their friends, their fellow students, that people of God loved them no matter their sexuality. The gathered AWAB membership immediately voted to authorize the students to speak with our blessing, and to instruct the board to create a way to officially support their efforts.
At the end of the meeting, I left excited to hear more about their efforts. I expected to hear from them sometime in the next few days or weeks.
An hour later, their new facebook group “It's okay to be gay” had over a hundred members. They and some other peace camp youth posted this message and messages about the love of God to all their friends. One of their friends in Atlanta printed out a bunch of posters with the name of the group, and posted them in her neighborhood. She was afraid that this might provoke violence, so she got her father to go with her as a “dad bodyguard.”
I don't know what will happen next. There's a boatload of Baptists excited about supporting these efforts. But it it is so amazing to have this chance to facilitate a small connection between a group of adult welcoming church leaders and a new generation of young people, facing a new wave of homophobia and violence.
Here's what it makes me think of: on the first night of peace camp, I gathered with some of the other young adults here. At the end of our little shindig, we went around and said something we were hoping for out of this week. People said, “rest.” People said “friendship” and “empowerment” and “hope.”
I said, “thunder.”

Batman saves the day

I was excited to attend the Annual Conference of the Northern IL Conference of the United Methodist Church, on behalf of The Night Ministry. Often, at such conferences, I set up our little display, and then chat with pastors and lay leaders about our work, having me come visit, ways to get involved, etc.

This time, my assigned table happened to be in a back corner of the conference center. On the first day of the four day conference, I decided I needed to kick my standard display up a notch, in an effort to be noticed by conference attendees.

I drove away from the conference center, looking for stores that might sell helpful materials. Sure enough, within a block, I saw one of those big party stores. I had an awesome moment of deciding which foil balloons to appropriate for my purposes (inspired by the excellent article about balloon banner drops in Recipes for Disaster. Clearly, the appropriate choice for The Night Ministry was Batman. Photos follow.