carolyn is going back to seminary: a song

My friend Carolyn is going back to seminary for her phd. We've been talking and thinking about it, and it was her birthday recently, so I wrote a song about it. The chorus is inspired by a capoeira event that my friend BJ was in. May there be more theology like that.

Here it is, and maybe I'll post a singing version should I record it. It has a lot of Carolyn-specific stuff in it, but a lot of it is true for all of us. So there.

"Carolyn R. is going back to seminary"

C Am C G/
Am F C G

It's kind of like fighting
It's kind of like dancing
and when the Spirit starts to move you
you'll find it so entrancing

we don't need more dead white guys
or more bad ideas
we need all our bodies
and better shmideas*
This path won't be easy
and not always fun
but Jesus fights with you
until you are done

It's kind of like fighting
it's kind of like dancing
and when the Spirit starts to move you
you'll find it so entrancing

if you're not enough mighty
or not enough bold
then just be enough clever
just be enough bold
This work is for trouble
this work is for joy
this work is for playing
with a new set of toys

It's kind of like fighting
it's kind of like dancing
And when the Spirit starts to move you
She'll find it so entrancing

The women are hungry
the children need fed
so return to the tower-
and come back with bread
In writing and teaching
you'll nurture deep roots
show up with eyes open
and teach us some truths

It's kind of like fighting
It's kind of like dancing
And when the Spirit starts to move you
They'll find it so entrancing

And when you are ninety
and backwards you look
you won't just have children
you won't just have books
These are your blessings-
these are your glories-
so go make some room for
some yet-unheard stories


For Laurel and Leanne
for Mike and for me
for yourself and for Hazel
for mountains and trees

It's kind of like fighting
it's kind of like dancing
And when the Spirit moves you
we'll find it so entrancing

it's kind of like fighting
it's kind of like dancing
And when the Spirit moves you
you'll find it so entrancing

-dw





*long story

Summer: What they didn't teach me in first aid merit badges, polity without a polis, etc.

I've been planning to post for something like six weeks. So, here's something:

I went to street medic training this past weekend. It was pretty awesome. It was only a twenty hour course, but it was a good first-aid review, and I learned some stuff that they didn't cover in first aid merit badge. Street Medic training is designed for folks who want to be medical resource people at large-scale and small-scale non-violent political actions: protests, demonstrations, etc. Turns out that the major difference between first aid merit badge and this particular training is that it covers a lot more herbal medicine, and a lot more about how to respond to injuries from police violence: flushing pepper spray out of folks' eyes, etc.

There were ten or twelve of us, and we sat in a circle on the ground in Humboldt Park, and listened to the trainers. One of them worked for an ambulance company, and the other was an herbalist. It was a pretty good mix. I think this training will be really good for the next time I attend a large-scale protest, particularly if I'm, say, bringing along a church youth group. If you ever have the chance to do such a training, I'd certainly recommend it.

In other, perhaps related news, I'd been planning to write here about some of the stuff I'm reading this summer. The one that comes to mind right now is Here Comes Everybody, which is allegedly about "organizing without organizations." It's primarily focused on crowd-sourcing, and websites like flickr and wikipedia that enlist volunteers on a massive scale, without worrying too much about bureaucracy, hierarchy, or structure. It offers a pretty starry-eyed view of the situation, without much attention to the way such power can be mis-used (eg, the opening chapter includes the story of a wealthy woman losing her blackberry, and then using crowdsourcing to harass the young, lower-class woman of color who found it in a cab into giving it back.) However, there's definitely some interesting stuff going on. As new media, new communications, new networks develop and mature, it will be interesting to see how things go. It comes to mind in relation to the street medic training because of how little infrastructure there seems to be in this particular movement. Apparently, if I want to help out with medical stuff at, say, the big G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in September (Sept. 20-25, for those playing along at home), I just show up, find the clinic, and find somebody else who will help me out. There's no certification, there's no single organization; there's just a listhost and a bunch of people who kind of know each other. It's inefficient, sure, but that kind of cellular organizing might make it really hard to disrupt.

So: what does a church without organizations look like? And what does this movement ('here comes everybody') mean for, say, the American Baptist Churches, which recently voted against a big structural overhaul on the denominational level?

Vamos a ver, right?