kiddos and call

Hey.

I'm still working my way through my list of "profound shit about zeke," the little list I made on my phone in the first week of Zeke's life.  I don't anticipate finishing anytime soon, but this blog has been many things and this seems like a reasonably good thing for it to keep being.

In those first few days of Zeke's life, I was struck, not only by the ridiculous, I don't know, volume and size and amplitude of my love, but by the familiarity of it.  It was new in its overwhelming waves, but I knew some things that are in the same key as this love.

(Sidebar: I'm not trying to say that this is everybody's experience of parenthood, and I want to work against that bullshit where people say you don't know what real love is like until you become a parent.  That is patently false and listing all the reasons why that's problematic would be a whole other (\[more boring and equally ranty] blog post.  I sure don't care at all whether people become parents.  But I sure do want people to experience a relationship with this kind of love, wherever it finds them.  Your mileage may vary. End sidebar.)

I kept telling people that I was glad to experience a call to ministry before I became a parent.  Because, for me anyway, the project of ministry is one where the Spirit is like: Hey David, come do this thing for which you are certainly not entirely qualified, and certainly not entirely prepared.  You will fail a bunch and that will be part of the point of it.  Most of what you will do is just show up, with the kind of stupid relentlessness that is kind of my jam.  It will be super hard and maybe also joyful in its own weird way.  You could also get an easier job if you would rather do that, but I don't think you would rather do that.  Are you in?"

And I was like, "Yeah."  Or at least most days, when She says that, I say yes.  And some of the moments in those days too.

But I felt out this scary-big love in the late nights in the hospital, in the joy and the exhaustion, and it felt a little familiar.  It felt like the way it felt one way to hate gun violence in Chicago, and it felt a whole other way when it was one of the kids at my church who got shot. It felt like the way my whole experience of weather changed when I was working with people experiencing homelessness: every rain shower was a worry, every freezing wind brought a new layer of prayer to my world.  And yeah, it feels a bit like the way I love this church: all the ridiculous lot of them, holy and broken and weird and wild and problematic and kind and beautiful.  And it felt like the way my church loved me when I was a kiddo: cause it wasn't about what I do, it wasn't anything like caring about my success.  It's another kind of love.

Today I am still in.

your confusion will give way to wonder

Pretty soon after Zeke was born, he was looking at some acoustic ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights.  I told him, "Zeke, those are somewhat dirty acoustic ceiling tiles.  If you like looking at those, just wait til you see LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD."

Maybe you are unfortunate enough to be reading this underneath some ugly acoustic ceiling tiles, or some soul-crushing fluorescent lights.  Maybe it will help you to take heart, a bit, to know that when Zeke was first born, he seemed really delighted and entranced to just stare at the mediocre hospital ceiling, while he digested his first meal.  

There's a line from the gospel of thomas that's been with us these days, that was with us during the last few months of Rachael's pregnancy: 

Something like:

"If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.
But when you find, you will become confused.
Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder you will reign over all things.
Your sovereignty will be your rest."

Especially that third line- Rachael put it to music: Your confusion will give way to wonder.  It is quite the promise.

I kept thinking about it during labor and right after Zeke was born.  It was true: my confusion was giving way to wonder.  But it turns out that both of those things are pretty overwhelming. 

Your confusion will give way to wonder- maybe the kind of wonder that makes us stare, entranced, at acoustic ceiling tiles.  Maybe the kind of wonder that Zeke invites whenever I go out walking with him, that took the barista at this coffee shop up short when she saw him, that makes me stay up later even than I need to so I can cuddle his warm body against my tired heart. 

These days, I am trying to breathe in the kind of wonder that makes two women in an elevator confront a republican senator to change his heart about an fbi investigation into an assault.  Your confusion will give way to wonder- in wonder you will reign over all things.  Whatever kind of sovereignty those two women in the elevator had, that's what I want.  The strength in my heart and in the midst of my fears to tell the powers to look me in the eyes when I have something true to say.

I honestly started this post trying to talk about how it was funny that Zeke was entranced by ceiling tiles and I was so eager to show him literally any other thing, because to me they are all more interesting to look at than acoustic ceiling tiles.  But I am now asking myself: is there something about wonder that is an invitation for me these days?  It's kinda dumb that everybody I know is out in the streets and preaching and proclaiming and organizing and working these days, and I'm at home doing dishes and endlessly bouncing this kiddo.  And I'm super aware of the privilege that allows me to take all this time away from this sacred work, to attend to this differently sacred, differently intimate work.  And I'm praying, with Zeke on my heart, for all the survivors these days, for all the truth tellers and all the quietly-wounded and all those who are in the midst of trauma and in the midst of trauma re-inscribed.  And I'm tempted to make some high-handed point about how we could all do better with some more wonder in our lives, and let's all take a minute to walk in the woods or snuggle a baby or stare, astonished, at some acoustic ceiling tiles.  But today, after this week, I'd rather just share this:

Maybe it's not so much a promise as a hope:
your confusion will give way to wonder.

how i can tell it is good love

(another sappy parenting blog post.)

Okay, let's see if we can write one of these without Zeke in my lap- I'm not sure if that'll work, but I suppose it's worth a try.  (Zeke and Rachael are in a little workshop about stretches that are good for folks with new babies at the center of healthy motherhood, so I have a minute to sit and write.)

So, when Zeke was first born, it was a little overwhelming to love him so much.  I feel like it's still stunning, and still a really profound and big love, but maybe it's getting a bit less overwhelming?  It's a bit like how grief gets less overwhelming as you get farther out, as you live with it and sleep and eat and breathe with it- it's just a thing about my life these days, and I am learning how to be in the world with this much love.

Sometimes theologians and preacher types are into talking about different kinds of loves.  (I'm a little bit suspicious of this project, but that's another blog post.)  And so I remember in the first few days thinking about what to do with this Zeke-love, how to wrangle it and what I thought about it.

And what I was noticing is that it kept making me love everybody more.  I trust that. 

I think I already wrote about how, early on, I was spending some time each day on facebook.  And it turns out that part of that for me was wanting to see some people and love them (and doing it without leaving our hospital-room-cocoon!)  I wanted to heart all the posts.  I wanted to post stupid encouraging comments when people were having a bad day, I wanted to squee over people's first day of school photos.  It's like I had so much love for Zeke (and for Rachael too) that it just bubbled up over the top of the pot of my heart and spilled over.  And I needed to deploy it somewhere or else I wouldn't even be able to sleep.

What a curious condition.  May it continue. 

everybody used to be a baby

The first baby song that I wrote that I like I wrote a while back, back when Sophia Hammond was a baby and I was getting to visit with her and Mary and Steve.

Everybody used to be a baby
Nobody used to so tall
even you used to be a baby
back when you were really really small.

There are ridiculous verses, too. I guess sometime I should sing it and put it up on youtube so that everyone in the world can enjoy this stupid and catchy song.  But I feel the need to remind people about this all the time.

"Hey Rachael," I'll say, as I do dishes and she feeds the baby or vice versa.  "Did you know that everybody used to be a baby?"

We stare at Zeke for a while. "I don't know," she says, "That doesn't sound right.  What are you sources?"

Cause it's really absurd and ridiculous when you think about it.  Think about your least favorite person in your town: that person used to be a baby.  Your sweetest lover: used to be a baby.  The literal baby that you know: used to be a baby (and also still is a baby.) Rutabaga: used to be a baby cat. Reluctantly I will admit that most evident supports the claim that Donald Trump used to be a baby.

I don't know about you but these days when I see a baby (maybe especially one baby in particular) I am filled with an awe, a not-so-quiet reverence, an abiding respect and an urge to protect and a joy and a desire to care for...  I don't think it's groundbreaking for people to say that this is how the Divine sees us. 

But it's something to see it up close. 

Next time you need to throw up your hands in anger and despair, remember the hilarious truth.  Everybody used to be a baby. 

tell everybody

The thing about it, when Zeke was born, is that I didn't want to leave the room with him ever.  And I also I wanted to tell everybody.

And I think that's part of what took me to facebook and texting and whatnot, in the early days, but I am interested in the deep part of that inclination: what about the energy of having a newborn makes me want to tell everybody?

Maybe it's just that he's so great.  People say he's cute, and they're right, and I sit around thinking about how cute he is some of the time, but more often I think about how having him sleep on my belly is like lying with the heart of a star, about how looking at him is like staring into the most hopeful of futures, about how loving him is making me grow and change in a startlingly relentless and gentle way.  It's great, yeah, and he's cute, yeah, but there's more going on there, at least for me.

And so I like to wear him around, to strap him onto my heart chakra while he naps or stares into space, and walk on the lovely trails and shitty strip malls around my apartment.  And we run into people, and some of them ignore us, which is fine, but a lot of folks want to see him, want to say hello. Because if someone is wearing the heart of a star on their chest, well, that seems at least notable.  And maybe remarkable.  And maybe marvelous and inviting and wonderful in the literal sense.

People of a bunch of different cultures and languages have gotten to marvel at him in this way.  And I love to post the dorky pictures on facebook and have people all over join me in the practice of delighting in Zeke. 

But it's just there's something there for me in this practice.  Maybe I understand evangelism for the first time, or at least new and clear.  Cause I want everyone to try playing dungeons and dragons, and I want everybody to have a meaningful spiritual community, but not quite in the same way that I want people to get a good look or a visit from Zeke.

I have to wonder if there isn't something evolutionary about it- so many cultures have the "here is the baby let us visit the kin" practice.  And I can imagine the ice age nomadic bands having that: here is this kid who is new, but let's take them around so that they can belong to the whole band of us, cause lord knows one or two parents alone are not gonna be sufficient for this task.

So probably there's something old and visceral in me that is wired to show this kid off, to make sure that as many people as possible see him when he is obviously beautiful, when he is cute and lovable in this most simple and stupid way, so that he will have those people to draw on if we get attacked by a mammoth.  Or what have you.

And.

And I think that as I grow as a person, I'm moving towards more honesty and more vulnerability in general.  And every time I post a dorky picture, there is a way in which I am saying: here is a person who has utterly claimed my heart, who has made my heart grow six more sizes and I feel like it was pretty big already so how am I even to live in this world, this person who is so perfect and all he does is sleep and eat and poop and that is completely sufficient to make him my favorite person in the history of ever.  And if that's true, that must mean something fierce and stupid and big about the lovability of all of us. 

So, yeah, I am still wanting to tell everybody.  And when people at the checkout counter or on the trail or wherever just look at him and grin in passing, I want to say, "that's right."  But it's not just him, friends.  It's all of us.

umm maybe this is becoming a sappy parenting blog part 1 of 17,000: the songs in my head

Okay, so I'm almost a month into this parenting gig, and so far I like it. 

When Zeke was first born, I made a big list of "things that seem important that i want to think more about later."  A buddy of mine is in recovery and we talked a bit later about how those early days in the hospital were a bit like his experience of his first week sober: suddenly everything is intense and real, and there's big major life change stuff to think about, but also there's a bunch of logistical and survival stuff to do, and so some stuff you stay awake thinking about, and other stuff you nod at, and make a mental (or literal) note to reflect on it more later.

So right now, Zeke is half asleep kind of across my lap and my computer is under him, and if I keep typing fast enough it kind of bounces/ jostles him in a way he likes, so while he slowly falls asleep or works on pooping or whatever he's up to, I thought I might go back to my list and see whether I still have something to say about this whole baby project.

I feel like this project needs a bunch of caveats, among them that I'm doing parenting on easy mode as a white cis guy who's from a middle class background and firmly operating in a middle class space these days, with a partner who's a woman and all of that, and this is still the hardest (and best) thing I've ever done, so who knows if this will be lovely or annoying for other folks to read.  But I'm still pretty sleep-deprived, and I guess I'll just launch in.

I want to talk about the songs in my head while Rachael was in labor.  There's a lot to be said about that experience and that story, and most of that feels like Rachael's to tell more than me. 

But one of the songs that was in my head on that longest of days was "A Golden Thread," which I know as a Pete Seeger song.  "Oh, had I a golden thread, and a needle so fine, I'd bind up this sorry world, with hand and heart and mind...  in it I'd weave the bravery of women giving birth..."

Look, I feel like it's not breaking news to say that women giving birth, are, you know, impressive.  But after being in the midst of this up close I have to wonder how much of patriarchy is a startle response, a deep fear of the kind of power that is present in labor, in all the kinds of life-making that mothers and other women do for children and babies and a bunch of humans. 

Another song that was with me was "Bread and Roses," which has some of the same energy.  It feels problematic to equate this energy with what will save us- I don't thing that laboring women need to also save the world, lord knows they've got their hands and bodies full.  But something about the strength and ferocity of that, something about the way that kind community gathered around and made space for that, our doulas and our midwives and hospital folk: there's something about the space that is made for that, and it's not unlike all the other times I've seen bodywisdom fiercely proclaimed.  But still, there was a certain kind of fierceness and clarity to it, that I've rarely seen so clearly in this life. 

And honestly, I thought of a song that I am secretly writing for one of my colleagues, someone who loves people relentlessly with the fierce love of the divine.  Because there is something about that love, that literally embodying the presence of jesus in ways that are sometimes overwhelming and weird for others, that obviousness and almost-brutal passion for whoever walks in the doors- ther's something about that in labor, too. 

Oh, and Dar's The One Who Knows.  Cause, you know, love and stuff.

The Wind

The Wind is a song I wrote a couple years ago, but it's Pentecost and also the US is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords.  Recording on my soundcloud page. (The recording has the verses in a different order, but whatever; I actually think I like the order here better)

Chords:
Dmin - - -
Gm Dm
Gm Dm Gm
Gm Am Dm

there's a certain kind of morning
when the sun comes blaring down
and the people in the city
hate the people in the town
you could walk around forever
and never touch the ground-
but I've been hearing something from the wind

cause the wind blows like crazy and we don't know where she goes
and she troubles all the billionaires and scatters us like crows
and the people who don't give a damn will sit out in the breeze
but the fuckers better watch out for the wind

there's a certain kind of anger
that settles in your bones
and it can wear you through
it can turn your bread to stone
but the people who won't hear it
have been holding court too long-
and those fuckers better watch out for the wind

cause the wind blows like crazy
and we don't know where she goes
ain't it something how she rattles
ain't it something what she knows
and the ones who want us silent
will be waking in a gale-
all those fuckers better watch out for the wind


there's a certain kind of hopefulness
that cannot stand to rest
and it rhymes a song for freedom
and it throbs within your chest
and if the ones who've built so proudly
have just built the gates of hell
then those fuckers better watch out for the wind

Cause the wind blows like crazy and we don't know where she goes
ain't it lovely what she scatters, ain't it stunning how she grows
and the ones who want us empty will be shattered by the storm
all the fuckers better watch out for the wind

Villanelle for these days, November 2016

When the story turns to tragic
tearing truth and rending bone,
the horde of hearts resorts to magic.

The morning news makes me sarcastic
my neighborhood is made of stone
and the story turns to tragic.

I cannot even stay socratic
I cannot raise my voice alone
the horde of hearts resorts to magic

All our dreams fall back to static
Shining flares are left alone
when the story turns to tragic

The beggar smiles enigmatic
The crows bow west and head for home-
the horde of hearts resorts to magic

The circuit breaker trips fantastic
the weary singer picks a tone
when the story turns to tragic
the horde of hearts resorts to magic.

Lover of our Hearts: An AWAB Valentine's Litany

Valentine's Day is on a Sunday this year.  So I wrote a little something to share with our AWAB (The Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists) churches. It's designed as a responsive reading, but feel free to use it however you like.  

God of every lover.  God of first kisses and last kisses, God of every caught eye, every shortened breath, every longing sigh. 

God, you know our love and you know our lovers. 

Teach us to love like you love. Profligate and unrepentant.

Teach us to love with discernment and grace, with justice and truth.

Teach us to love with unstoppable hearts and a love for our own limits.

Teach us to love better the people we love okay, and teach us to love a tiny bit the people we don’t love at all.

Entice us, entrance us.

Invite us, romance us.

Catch our eye across the crowded bar, swipe right on the tinder profiles of our broken, beautiful lives.  Leave us some secret-admiring notes by that song coming up again in our heads, by that cat crossing our path again, by that wild troublemaker making noise at us again. 

Cause our hearts get tired sometimes.

Our hearts get tired when our friends can’t love each other openly.

Our hearts get tired when people can’t live in the bodies to which you have called them.

Our hearts get tired when hearts break under the weight of illness or hate or greed.

Our hearts get tired sometimes just from living in the world.

Call our name again, Divine Lover, you who know just what turns our heads.

God of every lover, give us fresh and loving hearts again.

(*Feel free to adapt that part about Tinder if that’ll confuse folks in your ministry setting.)

King of Who?

Christ the King Sunday

It's Christ the King Sunday, which I've had an aversion to ever since my earliest political awakenings.  Monarchy is an archaic idea for a lot of us, but hierarchy is not- power structures where the strong rule over the weak, the rich rule over the poor, and the folks in charge seem like they're going to keep being in charge for a long, long, time.  My understanding of who Jesus is seems to have little to do with these structures, unless it's in a relationship of profound tension and opposition to the "powers that be."

And.  It's still Christ the King Sunday, and we still have scriptural traditions confessing the Risen Jesus as Lord, and King and Ruler.  In recent years, I've taken some consolation in the question, "king of what?", reflecting on what confessing Christ's kingship means in our lives and the like.  But this year seems like more of a "king of who" kind of year.

I haven't had much to add to the recent conversations about refugees- I've been busy moving across the country, and I'm trying to get settled here. But moving from one community where I have a safe place to stay, enough to eat, and people who love me TO a community where I have a safe place to stay, enough to eat, and people who love me has been so disruptive, so challenging, such a stretch for my body and family and soul, that it makes me wonder about whether a refugee experience would utterly crush me.  And so I am grateful for the King of Refugees.

Because Christ is King of Refugees, not in the way that Henry the VIII was King of England, but in the way that Michael Jackson is the King of Pop.  King of refugees because he is the foremost among them, the refugee of refugees.  Born amidst the slaughter of innocents, fleeing to Egypt and taking safety there, among strangers, among foreigners, among neighbors who must have welcomed them, must have helped the holy family to find food and work and a warm place to stay.  The King of Refugees who spent his ministry wandering, often without a certain place to rest, or a sense of where his next meal was coming.  Genderqueer and occupied and outcast, the divine seeking some breath of sanctuary among us hateful and sometimes graceful mortals.

Christ is the King of Refugees, Christ is the King of Queers.  Christ is the King of the Homeless Wanderers, Christ is the King of the Broken.  He hates violence and has commanded us to put aside the sword, but his army is a scattered crazy-quilt of lovers and seekers and trouble-makers.  He has no treasury but our tattered hope and he has no castle but our broken hearts.

But he's not just King of Refugees, he's also Lover of us all.  Lover of the refugee-haters, lover of the racist politicians, lover of my all-too-often-hateful heart.  Lover of disaffected terrorists, lover of martyrs and thieves and rapists and all the rest of us sorry beautiful lot.  He is King to the exclusion of all other masters, and lover to the fulfillment of every other lover.

So, it's Christ the King Sunday.  And I'm still in.

A Villanelle for Haymarket

(I left this in the kudos box before I left town.)

Bread and sweat and heart and stone
Flaking paint cannot conceal
Love that warms me to the bone.

All the tender hearts will groan:
what will this old house reveal?
Bread and sweat and heart and stone.

Sing out in crowd or all alone,
heat the oven, prepare the meal:
love that warms me to the bone.

Pots to wash and knives to hone;
there's nothing here that you could steal-
bread and sweat and heart and stone.

Sure as the flock of crows has flown
I carry it like coals that heal:
bread and sweat and heart and stone,
love that warms me to the bone.

Farewell Tour

This isn't what I usually use this blog for, but something about event pages on facebook and invitation websites annoy me, so I'm posting here some events I want to invite y'all to:

Ok, I'm winding down my time in Chicago, which is to say winding down my time in this part of the country. If you want to celebrate my time here and my new call out west, there's some upcoming opportunities! Chicago, Oberlin, and Chautauqua County folks: read below!

Chicago folks:
Friday, October 2nd, I'm having a Farewell on Farwell! (See what I did there?) This is a Farewell Party for me, but also a fundraiser for The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists. (You can come even if you don't like either me or AWAB.) 7 pm, message me to RSVP and for details! Campfire, delicious First Slice food, elaborate toasts, and a punching bag!

Also on Friday, October 2nd, in fulfillment of a fundraising promise I made last year, I'm going to be doing some STREET PREACHING! 4:30 pm, State and Van Buren. Bring your best heckling voice.

Oberlin folks:
I'm going to be in town the weekend of October 9-11. October 9th, I'm speaking at the Friday evening Peace Potluck at Peace Community Church. Potluck is 5:30, Program is 6:45-7:45. I'll be talking and then leading a conversation called "Sustainability in Activism: On Not Burning Out." Come share your wisdom!

I'm also preaching on October 11th at Peace Community Church, at their Sunday morning service. (I want to say 10am?) I'm preaching in celebration of the 10th Anniversary of PCC joining AWAB: The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists! (See a theme here?)

Chautauqua County folks:
I'm going to be stopping by the evening of Sunday, October 11th, through the morning of Tuesday, October 13th. (Not much time, I know!) Message me if you'd like to see me and I'll see what we can arrange! I'm also having a little 'sending prayer' shindig at Hurlbut Church on Monday, October 12th at 7 pm- you can come even if you're not the praying type, if you just want to hang out and eat some cookies. The 'service' part will be pretty short!

Yay seeing folks I love!

A Villanelle for Christmas

A Villanelle for Christmas

Angels call and wait, proclaiming
Crooked wings and holy fire
Can this word be still sustaining?

All our foolish wisdom claiming
A silver star on copper wire
Angels call and wait, proclaiming.

Broken hearts forget their training
broken bones and hands conspire
can this word be still sustaining?

Every neck is upward craning
hoping still to hear the crier-
angels call, and wait, proclaiming.

Will the tired coals turn flaming?
Will the child again inspire?
Can this Word be still sustaining?

Holy, wailing, child inspire
Grace unswaddled, still reclaiming.
Angels call and wait, proclaiming-
can this word be still sustaining?

a villanelle for these days

The fire kindles, starts to burn-
the wood is wet and smoky sputters
the things that I have yet to learn

My heart is broken but still it yearns
my tongue is clay and barely stutters-
the fire kindles, starts to burn

Every table overturned
turning towers into clutter
the things that I have yet to learn

Nobody's pain is lost or spurned
the broken dove begins to flutter
the fire kindles, starts to burn

A wild fire, grace unearned
the silent breathe and start to mutter
the things that I have yet to learn

I cannot teach or even warn
sourest milk to sweetest butter
the fire kindles, starts to burn
the things that I have yet to learn

The Man Carrying Water

A friend of mine asked me to submit an article for a devotional booklet he's putting together for our region.  He had heard me talk about a sermon of mine, and thought it might be worth adapting/writing up.  Here it is.
---

I think of him every Holy Week.  The guy they follow.  Jesus and his apostles are heading into Jerusalem to share in their Maundy Thursday meal, and Jesus gives them directions: “Follow the man carrying water.” For years, I read this as a mundane act of prophecy or as a folkloric twist in the tale.  Perhaps Jesus could’ve just as easily said “follow the man in the red hat,” or “follow the woman carrying grapes.”  But then I learned that for a man to carry water, in the culture of Jesus’ first apostles, was a radically gender-transgressive act: men simply did not carry water.  It was women’s work, and rigidly assigned to women in that culture.  For Jesus to say “follow the man carrying water” in those days would be like Jesus saying, “follow the man in the dress” in my context. 

So, what do we make of this?  For one, I think it’s a reminder that then as now, people on the edges tend to look out for one another.  Look at Jesus band of outcasts, rebels, and weirdos- where could they be safe to eat together, to share wine together, to tell stories and hear loving words and wash feet?  Where could they be safe enough to do all of this given that the powers of the Roman Empire were even then gathering to arrest and execute Jesus?  Well, maybe they could be safe wherever the man carrying water could be safe.  Then as now, people who are outcast for sexuality or gender identity are at least more likely to shelter, to spend time with, to be welcoming towards those who are outcast for other reasons, political radicals not the least among them.  The Stonewall Riots, which many point to as the beginning of the contemporary LGBTQ rights movement were started not by affluent white gay men, but by homeless youth, by drag queens of color, and by other contemporary mirrors of the man carrying water.  Jesus sends his friends looking for the man carrying water, because wherever he goes, even they will be safe; wherever he goes, even they will be welcome.

So, this is a nice little textual moment, but what does it mean for us?  As the current board chair for the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, I’m tempted to read this as just another scriptural reminder of God’s call to a variety of sexual orientations and gender identities, another place where God’s word bears room and honor for those who would find new ways to be gendered in the world.  But I think it’s more than that, and I think it hits closer to home than that. 

In Jesus command to his first followers is (as usual) an invitation for us. “Follow the man carrying water.”  What does it mean to follow the man carrying water in our towns and churches?  Perhaps it means looking for whoever is left out, whoever is living on the margins of the community, whoever is not quite fitting in, whoever is outside the bounds of “normal folks”- and going to them.  Wherever they go, the church should show up.  Wherever they wander, we are called to come alongside them, to learn from them, to see what maybe only they can thus far see.

But (again as usual) the call is not only to social commitments in our churches and communities.  I think the invitation is also to our hearts.  Because the man carrying water is not just outside of me, is not just the stranger at my gate.  Somewhere in my heart, there is a part of me that is weird.  There’s a part of me that’s “outside the bounds”, there’s a part of me that I don’t want to acknowledge, or even look at, let alone listen to.  I don’t know about you, but I reckon you maybe have that part of your heart to, especially if you sit for a moment or three and listen for it. 

“Follow the man carrying water,” Jesus tells his friends.  “Learn from whoever is strangest among you,” Jesus tells my community.  “Listen to the part of yourself that you are so desperately trying to ignore,” Jesus tells my heart. 

And in the mist of it, wherever we follow that man carrying water- the Risen Lord has already walked ahead of us.  He is waiting to meet us there, at the welcome table. 

-

Rev. David Weasley is an American Baptist pastor.  He currently serves an ELCA congregation in Tinley Park as their Director of Youth and Outreach.  He also serves on the Board of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (www.awab.org.)  He lives with his partner Rachael and a dozen other housemates in a co-op in Hyde Park.

look, it takes some of us a while to type up our ash wednesday poems

there at the gym, we have ashes on our foreheads.
not all of us. or most of us. but some of us.
and some of us have just a grey smudge on our foreheads,
forgotten, maybe, and certainly faint enough that i have to look twice,
secretly, to see who's wearing ashes.

how could there be so many?
maybe a dozen in my fluorescent suburban gym.
people wearing ashes, people claimed by God.
People who were willing to stare down their mortality
by 4pm in the afternoon on a wednesday,
when snow is falling yet again,
and we all still have too much work to do.
but we all took a moment: on purpose or by accident,
or out of mis-guided obligation-
to remember that in death and life, we are beloved of God.

The Risen Lord has claimed our lives, and our bodies, and our foreheads:
smudged or scarred or clean or ugly.
My God, the Crucified, loves every forehead
at the florescent suburban gym.

a little prayer for tonight

she is making
shame into popsicles

she is tearing up fear
and making it into blankets

she is taking your
pain and forging it
into an iron cup
for the carrying of
cool water for
the thirsty

blessed be god forever.

Fourth Corners: A Villanelle from the Middle School Confirmation Retreat about the Sacraments

the bread, the font, the moon, the tree
fully hidden, fully known.
the son of love has come to free.

death dismayed and terror flees
breaking chains and mending bones-
the bread, the font, the moon, the tree

queer enough for you and me,
wild folly drunken thrown-
the son of love has come to free.

she's been over-stepping me
arms of grace a whirlwind blown
the bread, the font, the moon, the tree

wild again and wild indeed:
creation wails a birthing groan
the son of love has come to free

to drink, to dance, perchance to be
the green bends back and comes around:
the bread, the font, the moon, the tree
the son of love has come to free.

Get your ass in a clergy group

So, I've got my clergy group meeting tomorrow morning, and as usual, I feel great about it. It almost makes me break out in poetry, and I reserve the right to do so by the end of this post. But here's the deal: there's a crew of progressive-ish white guy clergy in my denomination in this region, and once a month we hang out together for a few hours. Maybe we should have more of an agenda, maybe we should have clear guidelines about what's going to happen and who's going to do what, but we don't. What we do have (and what makes up for what we don't have) is an abundance of love for each other. And it's pretty awesome. Basically it's me, a guy who's maybe ten years older than me, and so on, with a colleague representing every decade or so on through retirement. It's a collective wisdom, a collective grumpiness, and a collective faith of a hundred years of ministry around the table. They love some of the same things I do, they hate some of the same things I do, and they have my back in a really profound way.

So, this post is a post about gratitude, I guess, but it's also an encouragement. It doesn't really matter who they are, I think. Don't choose somebody who's supposed to be supervising you. Don't pick somebody you don't trust. Don't somebody who can't listen to you well. But other than that, I suggest you find some crew of colleagues, some random smattering of ministry-types, and get them in a room once a month. Have some silence, maybe, have some prayer, maybe, but listen to each other. And go out to lunch afterwards, I think. I was going to preface this by saying that this is advice for my fellow young-ish and/or new-ish clergy types, but I think that I actually believe this is true for everybody. Get some people who love you unabashedly, and go and talk to them about your job and vocation once a month, or at least listen to what they're saying about their jobs and vocations. I think it'll serve you well.

So, a story, to tell you what it's like: this year, we agreed to go on a retreat together. I was late coming to the retreat, like, really late, because of a pastoral crisis that came up in my church. It was a long day of ministry, and I was getting to the camp where we were staying long after dark. The others in the clergy group had been there for a few hours, and knew I was on my way. I texted them a couple of times with my progress. They were worried that I would have trouble finding the retreat house once I got to the camp, so a couple of them drove out to the main gate, and led me to the house. It was a dark and beautiful night, and I didn't know where I was going. But they had already been there, and they were driving on ahead of me. They weren't driving ahead of me, they weren't telling me what to do, but I got to watch them, and witness the headlights of the battered old minivan through the trees. They kept me from driving into the lake, at the least.

And that's what it's always like.

Villanelle for All Saints' Day

Villanelle for All Saints' Day

we drink the wine and eat the bread
gathered like a tired cloud
and we remember all the dead

with broken hearts and stumbling tread
grief bleeds slow, or roars out loud
we drink the wine and eat the bread

martyrs white and green and red
broken, bending, wrapped in shroud
we remember all the dead

because the Lord has never fled-
the one who makes the wounded proud-
we drink the wine and eat the bread

the world remembers some instead
forgetting quiet, keeping loud.
we remember all the dead

they are not gone but sleep instead
God's troubling promise rings aloud
we drink the wine and eat the bread
we remember all the dead