“I think my most important job is to make space for people to be who they are and tell their own stories…My role is to cultivate relationship, cultivate curiosity, [and] create a sense of sacred space.”     -Kelly Bean,  Soultribe Cultivator

How do I love Kelly Bean? Let me count the ways! First, she’s a redhead (big points.) Second he has the totally adorable name. (more brownie points.) But most importantly, Kelly Bean is as gentle as she is wise, with more patience than anyone I know, and has a habit of waiting and listening until the solution arrives. (Unlike some redheads we know. Hi. Me.)

There’s nothing like learning from a pro, and at 20-plus years of nurturing the same Soultribe (it’s a record!) Kelly can really give us insight into how to keep something going through the ups, downs and seasons of life.

This is a long, but excellent interview and features a unique shared-leadership model called Leadership by Triad which I’ve never heard of anyone else using. Plus there’s loads of stuff in here for those of you who are in the process of a church break-up, or who are Leaving Church. And don’t miss the bit where she lays out some of the common pitfalls Soultribes trip into, and how to avoid them. I recommend you print this out and pop it in your bag. You’ll want to underline and highlight this winsome goodness, I promise.

Kelly generously gave us her time to write up this interview, so she could encourage and guide you. In the spirit of our on-going Sacred Commerce experiment, please let me know if you’d like to send Kelly a thank-you gift from your Etsy or other shop. (My email is moi at magpie-girl dot com.)

And now without further ado my Soulsister, Kelly Bean, and the Soultribe at Third Saturdays.

Background: Could you tell us what kind of Soultribe you belong to: What do you call it? How often do you meet? How long have you been together as a group? 

My soultribe is called Third Saturday.We are a community of people following in the way of Jesus. Our gatherings vary in size from 15-30 -which includes 6 kids ranging in ages 1 to 13. We meet twice a month for sure and sometimes more frequently.

I began to host this group over 22 years ago. I remember my daughter (who is now 23 years old) was just beginning to crawl when we first started. I can still see her playing in the center of the circle of friends, although now she is a mother herself. Over time I have become the ‘official’ cultivator of this community (thanks Rachelle for the great title, “cultivator.”) I’d venture to say that most of the current participants have been attending for seven to ten years.
Group Content: What does your typical evening together look like? Read the rest of this entry »

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Right around Easter I wrote a post that was a little bit pissy. I did this intentionally because I was feeling pissy—and I was pretty sure other people were as well. (And indeed, they were.) But I got a little bit of push-back for being “too negative.” So let me say this about that, there are spiritual benefits to being pissy. Read the rest of this entry »

NB: Hi everyone. I’ve made a fast and dirty podcast of this post with my silly little microrecorder. It might convey my inention a little better than words on a page alone. Cheers, Rachelle

Listen to the podcast here:

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So, I wrote this article about my Easter discomfort, and it threw me into two worlds. The first world is the one I adore, where recovering evangelicals and other misfit truth-seekers cling to each other and celebrate discovering a (rek)new(ed) way to be. The second world is the world of religious debate, in which people–people who I like and respect and admire–spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that ”we” are wrong and “they” are right.

I get why this is. I get that in the evangelical/fundamentalist world view, there is a Right and a Wrong and never the twain shall meet. Furthermore, for these folks getting things Right is highly valued. In part, this is because not getting it right results in not being right with God, and ultimately in a really long stay in Hell. So it stands to reason that people who hold this worldview want to debate with you about the places where your ideologies and their ideologies do not match up. Of course they want you to come to The Right. They like you. Maybe they even love you. They want you to fix your thinking because they care. They really care.

The problem with this is that we are experiencing cross-cultural dissonance here. Because in the post-modern world, there is not a Right and a Wrong in the same black-and-white sense that there is in modernist country. In the post-modern world truth is not seen as a concrete, attainable goal, but as an intriguing, slippery beast. To post-moderns there is more than one true way of answering the same question–and so the questions, and not the answers are tantamount. In the post-modern zeitgeist, this is fine, because you can hold two different truths in one open palm. But in the modernist milieu, that is not an option.

So, to use a phrase of my father’s “Let me say this about that.“….My target audience is this post-modern group of malcontented seekers. Malcontented Seekers. I know it’s an awkward phrase, but both of these words are important here.

Malcontented: by which I mean “requiring change, discontent.”
Seekers:  by which I mean “not willing to stay in the discontent, but being eager to create/discover something proactive and positive, something (re)new(ed).” 

I have readers who are modernists, and I thank you for being here. But I’m asking you to please remember that you already have a place to belong. A place to live out your beliefs. A place where others share your convictions. It’s a super well established place with lots of support for your way of being. You can live there in comfort. But the others–the malcontented seekers–not so much. They are out there on their own:  beat up and disoriented; hungry and eager; excited to find something new, and more than a little bit sad that they had to leave the former behind. It’s a difficult place to be. And these folks, they need a safe place, and they need to find each other. That’s what I do here. It’s what I strive to achieve. That is mycurrent calling.

So, if you are one of those lucky folks who live happily in a safe and content place;  one of those folks who know the Truth and the Truth works for you; if  you  feel  confident in your understanding of things like Jesus, and Easter, and Sin and Redemption–I’m happy for you. Believe me, we all sometimes wish we were there with you. But we aren’t, and we literally cannot be there again. So please try to understand. We aren’t rejecting you. We aren’t trying to pull you out of what you know, or convince you that you are wrong and we are right. But your language is no longer our language, your culture is no longer our own, and the basis for how you form your understanding of the world — the idea that the Bible holds all the answers, or that faith is cut-and-dry, or that all our holy stories are literally true–these things  are no longer bedrock for us. So we may miss each other a bit, we may not always connect. And that’s okay. We can still be significant one to another. But we need you to let us explore.

What this means for me, personally, is that I won’t always respond to all the comments from modernist Christians. I just can’t. I’m a chronic pain survior, I’m the mother of several, and I’m an ExPat trying to live in a foreign and difficult (for me) culture. That doesn’t leave a lot of energy for me to play with.  The energy I’m left with I am JOYOUSLY compelled to give to my malcontent friends and soulsibilings who’s questions lead them to seek truth in the margins. These are the edge-dwellers and my passion leads me to them — leads us to each other. So their thoughts and concerns will get the bulk of my time. I hope you understand.

That being said, thank you for all who have commented here, and on BlogHer, and on Twitter, and especially on Facebook, where the discussion is the most active. I appreciate your passion, your concern, and your gorgeous hearts and minds.

And to those of you who have come to those same places to be pissy, or sad, or curious, or hopeful, or all of the above–I am so, SO glad you are here. I know that together we can form a giant pool of wisdom that will allow us to create a way of living that doesn’t do damage to our souls.  Come join me on the picnic blanket, and bring your most favorite passions–especially the one’s you’ve had to keep under that mattress until now. We’re going to have fun!

Karin and Lindord my friends, play us out, will ya please? …..

Next up at Magpie Girl:  On authenticity, niceness, and the benefits of being pissy . :-)

Welcome to 2009, The Year of the Soultribe! Follow all the related posts by clicking “soultribe” in my tag cloud, or following me on Twitter, where I’ll announce new posts.

A few weeks ago Kazari sent in a question for Advice Girl. Kazari likes the idea of a Dreamboarding Circle, and she dug reading up on our soulcare community, Monkfish Abbey, back in the States. In the end her question boiled down to this:

So I guess the question that I have is, where can I find people like you in real life? Or, how do I go about helping such a community to grow in my own house?

Or, more basically, what do I do with this spiritual crisis I grew all by myself? I feel like I need a community to help sort it all out.

This is not the first time I’ve been asked this. It happens quite often. Even more often people write to me about how badly their church fits them, or how worn down they are from trying to find their spiritual “place.” Most of the time those folks resign themselves to one of two things: leaving, or staying somewhere that is a very poor fit – somewhere that pinches their toes, leaves blisters on their heels and keep them from reaching the mountain top because, damn it, their feet hurt too bad to climb on up there!

Soulsiblings, this is the year to build our tribes. No more wandering about on our own, or cramming ourselves into institution and ideologies that no longer fit. This, my friends, is not for us. It’s time to move on – or perhaps more precisely it’s time to move in: to move in to the territory that is truly our own, to put some holes in the wall and hang up our oil paintings, to stick pictures on the fridge. It’s time to make our souls at home.

In the upcoming weeks and months, I will be writing posts that in one way or another have to deal with forming your Soultribe. Grant it, they might be only tangentially related, and of course there will be rabbit trails along the way. But over all, this will be the theme.

So here’s your first assignment: make space for your tribe. Rites and rituals are powerful because they take an abstract idea and make it physical. When you can see, touch, smell, hear or taste your dream, it becomes solid, it becomes real. So make a physical space in your home for your Soultribe. How? Here are two suggestsions

Vest your space. Do something once each week, every week, for at least one month that communicates welcome and gathering to you. Maybe you stack the magazines and fluff the pillows every Monday. Maybe you bake a loaf of bread on Friday night. Perhaps you replace all the candles and light up the room on Sunday.

In liturgical traditions, before a priestess officiates at a service, she dons the robes and stoles of her office. This is called putting on her vestments. When you prepare a space for a holy purpose you vest your space – you prepare the space so that something sacred can get born. What very simple thing could you do as a one-month experiment in vesting your space?

Send an Invitation. Nothing anchors me into a new reality like building a shrine. I’ve made them to quiet my demons, to honor my anger, and to let go of my burdens. Most recently I made one as an invitation to my Soultribe. It consists of a dollhouse chair, a tea light, and my December dreamboard. It took about ten minutes. Well, a couple days of musing about it, then ten minutes to set it up. It’s on the window sill behind my desk and every time I sit down at my computer, I light the candle and as I blow out the match I see that breath as a whisper of welcome. I’m making space for whoever The Muse or The Universe wants to bring my way. (I’m so curious to see what happens!) What object symbolize tribe to you? What things communicate welcome and belonging? Where can you gather them to indicate your openness to the in-gathering that is to come?

What will you do to make space for your Soultribe? Let us know in the comments and put a picture up at our Soulshrine Flickr group.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fear, and how it can hold us in really terrible places. I’ve lived most of my life in some level of fear – not usually severe, but enough to keep me from adventures until I was well into my 30s. I’m sure part of it is innate personality, and part of it is being raised in America, which is largely founded on fear, but a big part of it stems from the Conservative/Evangelical American Christian Church which raised me in a climate of fear and shame.

Now before you go getting all up in arms, be assured that at the time, I loved growing up in church. In my traditional Christian years there were many things that were beneficial and good for me. Somehow, in spite of the overemphasis on personal holiness, I did learn to look out for others. I was captured by the concept of transformation – the idea that healing, change, and forgiveness were always available and can change the world. Also, I was nurtured by the rhythms of the liturgical year and holy celebrations. I felt grounded in a long history of faith and forbearers. I had a good sense of call and a passion that lent energy to my work and to my living. At times I even had euphoric experiences of the presence of the Divine, which I will never forget. And sometimes I felt so happy to be celebrating with a community, so sure that I had a place to belong, that I thought my heart would be split from the joy of it.

But even in the midst of all those things, the emotional memory I carry with me most –at least at this stage of my life—is the pervasive feeling of shame I carried throughout my religious life, and the accompanying fear of doing something shame-full that came with it. Right now, when I think back on my life in the church, this feeling of shame and fear is a filmy substance stretched tight across my heart –an emotional thumbprint of angst and self-disappointment. My chest tightens and my throat constricts with anxiety. It is very visceral, very real, and it does not good to just close my eyes and hope it goes away.

I’ve been thinking about this personal reality for years now–literally for years—trying to assess how it came about; trying to imagine if there was or is any way of being in church without this experience. I don’t know the answer to that yet, but what continues to astonish me is that I lived in it for so long. I’m not a young woman. It’s not like I’m 20 years old and leaving my parent’s church for the first time to find out there are other things out there. I’m nearly 40 years old, and I’ve spent a good twenty of those years studying theology, working in various religious institutions, and writing about spirituality. But it’s only in the past—what—year? 18 months?—that I have really said goodbye to the institution that has caused so much damage. (It’s only recently I’ve been able to walk back in there from time to time without feeling like they were “pulling me back in”.) I’m a pretty strong person. I don’t naturally tend to tow the line. So what kept me in there so long?

Shah Afshar at Shawshanked Redemption has some thoughts on the matter. In his post Whatever Happened To Honor: Part II, Shah writes about Martin Seligman’s theory of “Learned Helplessness”, a phenomenon that occurs when one is in a situation which continually causes them pain. In Shah’s words, what Seligman found was

Subjected to repeated punishment, animals and humans come to believe they have no control over what happens to them, whether they actually do or not. In Seligman’s original experiment, dogs given repeated electrical shocks would prostrate themselves and whine, even when escaping the abuse lay within their power. [Emphasis mine]

Shah goes on to detail what kinds of behaviors cause Learned Helplessness, and why they allow the institution to continue to function in its status quo. The thing that most captured me about the Seligman’s experiment was this:

It was noted that the only way to get the helpless dog out of its cage was to send in another dog that had never been shocked. With the gate left open, upon receiving the first jolt of electricity, the new dog would bolt out of the cage and by doing so, it would teach the helpless dog to get out as well.

Now, as a writer I’m aware that in the literary tradition, using any metaphor relating ‘human’ to ‘dog’ is not an especially good one. But if we can get around our metaphorical habit for a minute and not associate being dog-like to being something negative, then I’d like to say this:

I’d like to start being a new dog—specifically the one that comes to the scared dog in the cage. Now, I’ve been shocked. Plenty of times I’ve been shocked. And sadly, because I was a church leader and a pastor, I’m pretty sure I’ve shocked others. (This is one of my deepest regrets.) But lately, I’ve been feeling a little bit healed up from the shocks, and I think, maybe, I have enough energy to run in and out of the cage.

That’s what I hope my blog (and maybe someday my book) can do. This is what I hope my writing can be: the redemptive action of dashing in and out of the cage, of demonstrating with energy and eagerness that there is a way out. Maybe even a way out that doesn’t require us to give up our spirituality, or our faith—maybe we can even hold on to Jesus, if we want to. Who knows? It’s possible.

When I wrote about this in my latest manuscript proposal (especially request by a publisher, who, sadly was never heard from again), I put it this way:

My main intent is to provide a map for the journey towards a new expression of faith. When we move into previously unexplored territory we sail into places where the sea charts read, “Here there be monsters.” But the monsters we fear do not exist. A bit of illumination along the unknown edges can reveal that there are no vicious creatures lying in wait, but only new, wide open places to explore.

I have been sailing these seas for a while now, and have begun to discern a pattern in these currents. There is a process to this faith re-formation, and it is possible to retain and rebuild one’s faith in the midst of this sea change. People should know the experience they are having is not a random and isolated event. There are stages in this journey that can help them find their way. Furthermore, there are traveling companions, and tools to help readers reconnect with the God in a way that is true to their spiritual core.

Unlike the early adaptors who traveled before them, the current generation of postmodern seekers does not need to feel alone and lost in foreign seas. Those of us who have already sailed these waters can be good with-mates. Help is at hand.

I think that’s true. I think it can happen, you and I holding hands and moving out and forward and into a newly imagined future. I believe we can do it. Don’t you?

Play us out boys…

my faithful prayer beads from Church of the Apostles in Seattle, WA.

This morning we went to church. I know, I know. I never thought I’d be there again either. But there’s a nice International Church here where every week we get to sit in a historic sanctuary and take Communion in a circle while everyone prays the Lord’s Prayer in their mother tongue. (I want to say it in French, just to show off, but I resist and stick with the formal version I learned in catechism.)

I have a dear friend who’s a long term ex pat in Thailand and he says, “Look, if it hasn’t sunk in over the past 20 years of church, I doubt we’ll ever learn it. So at this point in our lives, I think we should just go to a church because we like the community.” I think maybe he’s right. So after the service we go eat cheese with caraway seeds in the kaffe hall, and have conversations with people from all over the world. Last week we met our first Danish acquaintance, Anne-Mette, who wrote down the address of a museum where we could see her grandmother’s doll houses. Today I had tea with Alex, from Armenia, whose uncle happens to live in Seattle. Alex plays the piano, and the organ. When I bemoaned the fact that our children are so much louder than Danish kids, he says, directly to Eden, “This is good, that you have passion! This will make you a marvelous musician when you master the piano.” That’s pretty good stuff, right, to have someone affirm your nine year old like that? I think this one might be worth it.

Still, today as I sat in front of the huge gold crucifix with its weighty, anguished Christ, I had second thoughts about bringing my children to this place. You see, I believe you have to use art to preach. I believe that for a post-modern generation image is often, maybe always, more powerful than words. And this art, this occupied cross, is screaming “YOU stuck me up here and I’m never EVER coming down.”

I don’t want to indoctrinate my children with that kind of passive aggressive Jesus. I don’t want them to bear the incessant guilt, to always see an image of pain crowning their holy space. I don’t think the good news of Christ is that we get to soak in scenes from a Mel Gibson movie for the rest of our lives. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said the good news was, “I’m going to die on the cross and you get to look at that for the rest of your lives.” I’m pretty sure what he said was, “Woo Hoo! The kingdom of God is at hand!”

Somehow we didn’t keep up with that reality. We got stuck in the pain, in the bleeding. Here, my children will never see the cross bare. They will never get a visual celebration of new life, of new chances–of resurrection. Not even for a season, not even for one Easter day. He’s always up there, suffering. And while the potato the children are growing in the pot on the church steps is a lovely illustration of emerging life, somehow it doesn’t have the same impact of a life-size statue ripped full of wounds and shining in the winter sunlight.

Can you combat this golden year-round image with a few well-timed words? Can you redirect your children’s malleable minds to the potato? Can you help them focus on the shared loaf; the ring of candles ignited from one common light; the cup that never runs out? Or will they primarily remember the bleeding cross and the man who will never climb down?

Oh how I wish this congregation of nations could gather in the chancel, not just to pass around bread and wine, but also to share the task of taking Christ down from the cross. If only our many hands could lower him with ropes and pulleys; carry his weight away from that place of torture. If only we could leave the beams bare, clean-scrubbed and oiled. If only it could shine there on Easter day, and empty, carry us into the forgiven reality of Eastertide.

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Way back in January, I began a list of Wednesday Reviews focusing on books that have changed my life–and which just might change yours. I started with the Artist’s List, moved on to the Feel Better List, then got waylaid just after the Budding Feminist List. Now I’m back to offer you the last two installments: Religious Awakening and Survival Parenting (next Wednesday). Thanks for hanging in there with me…and remember, any purchases made by clicking on the embeded links help support this website. Here’s to brave new worlds!
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Shortly after being ordained as an evangelical minister, I became almost entirely disenchanted with the world of church. The church wanted me to debate people into conversion; I want to dialogue with people about life. The church wanted me to de-bunk all other religions; I wanted to learn from their holy stories. The church wanted me to entertain people on Sunday morning; I wanted to host a banqueting table heavy on the bread, wine, and storytelling. The church wanted a water-tight system of belief; I wanted a way of living that recognized everyday moments as holy.

I spent a lot of time at staff meetings blathering on about these things while my co-workers looked at me with concern. Then I read these books, held the hand of their authors, and gleefully jumped off the diving board and into the deep end of generous faith.

A New Kind of Christian

The Story We Find Ourselves In

The Last Word (and the Word after That)

Brian McLaren

If you are a traditional church-goer who has felt kind of squirmy at Sunday morning services lately, I strongly suggest dipping into this trilogy. McLaren presents emerging/post-modern theology in the form of a fictional conversation between two friends—a pastor and a science teacher/philosopher. McLaren doesn’t claim to be an accomplished fiction writer, but his technique here makes these books easier to read than most religious texts.

were the unofficial required reading for the spiritual growth community I used to host. They’ve been a life line to the many ‘recovering evangelicals’ who have walked through our door. A New Kind of Christian breaks things open. The Story We Find Ourselves In ourselves In re-defines the Bible as a descriptive family story (as opposed to a prescriptive rule book). The Last Word (and the Word after That) tackles the concept of hell.

I would consider McLaren’s approach to be gently progressive; fundamentalists will hate it, but it’s great for the Jesus-y person who is deconstructing their faith in the hope of finding something at the center that’s worth holding on to. Read bravely. Today’s Flavor: Scratches where it itches.

The Spiral Staircase
Karen Armstrong

From her life as a young nun to her current role as an interfaith expert, academic Karen Armstrong The Spiral Staircase tells her story of journeying through faith and reason. Her tale spirals through faith, disillusionment, enlightenment, and back again, with each turn bringing her new understanding and depth. Most known for the popular texts A History of God and The Battle for God, in Spiral Staircase Armstrong uses a different voice to tell her own complex and very personal story. I’ve already marked up one copy, given it away, and started re-reading another. A well written memoir from one of today’s top scholars. Today’s Flavor: Find yourself on every tread.

The Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell

Okay, so it’s not a book, but he has written plenty of them. The Power of Myth DVD series, Joseph Campbell’s theories on comparative religious studies are broken into bite sized bits for those of us who aren’t pursuing an advanced degree. I’ve only begun watching this amazing collection of lectures, quotes, and images – but already I know it will be a pivotal item in my transformational tool kit. The late Joseph Campbell was one of the most respected scholars in his field, and his work is amplifying this voice in my head that’s telling me “All truth is God’s Truth”—no matter what package it comes wrapped in. Today’s Flavor: Expand you mind without over straining your brain.

Find more great reads and other stuff I like at Magpie Reviews.

Eden’s acorn found floating in Lake Washington.

The mystic in me and the artist in me are good withmates. Neither one of them requires a reasonable explanation for what they want to do. Both of them are willing to follow intuition over traditional logic. I’m pretty sure both of them would have posters of the Muse up in their dorm rooms.

Since I left the traditional church, my mystic tendencies have been on hiatus. I haven’t had any mysterious flashes of insight, and my dreams are of the most mundane variety. But the other night I had a comforting and lovely dream.

I dreamt that I was lying alone in a spring field, just looking up at the sky. Then my real life worries started slipping into the dream. Would the kids be lonely at Danish school? How could we get everything packed up in time? What will happen if I can’t find a neurologist who’s willing to continue my stateside treatments?

As these worries and more threatened to overwhelm me, I became aware of the gentle presence of Jesus at my side. He too was lying in the field, enjoying the sky. I felt a warmth in my hand and realized that Jesus had wordlessly taken a hold of it. When he removed his hand a few moments later, a tree nut rested in my palm.

This image – of a small nut in an open palm – has long been one of comfort for me. Julian of Norwich, anchoress and mystic, once had a vision of a tiny nut in the center of an expansive palm. From this image came her most recognized saying:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

This phrase has often been a comfort to me, and I have often extended it as a comfort to others. Yet somehow I had forgotten it in the midst of this big life change, in the left-brained nature of to do lists and moving plans. (This is spite of the fact that Rebecca gave me a silver acorn to carry about in my pocket!)

How grateful I am, that this message came to me again, in the passing of a small nut, from one dreamer to another.

I grew up in the church. I was nurtured by the anchoring habits of rhythm and the ritual; the security of absolute unquestionable truths; and the support of a like minded community. It was comforting to me – until it wasn’t. Then, like a switch flipped on the wall I saw the light, and the light exposed all these ugly and untrue accoutrements that came along with it all. Ironically this switch flipping phenomenon was roughly congruent with my ordination as a minister. Yep, I realized what I was standing in right when I was stepping hip-deep into it all.

It confuses me – as I’m sure it does you – how I can so deeply love Jesus and be so genuinely grateful for my Christian roots, and at the same time be so clearly scarred by the experience of religious indoctrination. I suppose this is because cult and faith cannot easily be balanced. Because Christianity is a social movement and all social movements eventually metastasize and bulge away from their original intent. Because, in my opinion, “Jesus got ‘jacked.”

When I think back over my religious upbringing there are a string of damaging thoughts that got grafted into my being which came purely from attending church, Sunday school, and youth group. Among the long list are these 7 most-damaging messages:

Any impulse you have towards physical intimacy is naughty. (Result: A lifetime of distrusting one’s body and seeing one’s physical self as the great betrayer.)
You should only date someone to get married. (The worst possible message you can give a fifteen year old)
You are not good enough, but God puts up with you anyway. (Result: A life-long feeling of inadequacy and a lack of self-love.)
Everything you love must be given as a “sacrifice” to God. (Thereby making you feel guilty for anything you feel passionately about that cannot be turned into “church work.”)
There is no wisdom/love/spiritual truth/devotion/generosity outside of Christianity. (Result: A really unattractive and utterly false sense of spiritual/moral/political superiority.)
The devil lurks around every corner waiting to attack. (Instilling a constant sense of anxiety and fear.)
God is only male, therefore women are bad because they are not like God and because they brought sin into the world. (Results: such a plethora of damaging crap I cannot even BEGIN to list it all here.)

These messages, these draining repetitive tapes that I still struggle to rid myself of, prevent me from taking my children to church. As much as I want them to have the beauty of growing up in church – community, religious ritual, music – there is too much ….crap…that comes with the package. I can’t allow my girls to be damaged by this as I was. As much as I’d like to think I can counter these messages with parental chats and at- home lessons, I don’t think I can. After all, my parents never taught me any of these deadly messages. I got those all on my own. From church.

Ideally, I could move out of the evangelical branch of Christianity and avoid these things. But really, it’s not true. No matter where I go—and I’ve gone to a LOT of churches—there are still things that keep me from resting easy: exclusively male pronouns for God; one person holding all of the wisdom in the pulpit; patriarchal models of hierarchy and decision making; and the ongoing staggeringly depressing truth that Sunday morning is still the most racially segregated hour of the week. Being a part of these things from a young age shapes you, moulds you, into a certain kind of be-ing. In spite of the changes many of my ministerial friends are chipping out in this old institution, I still have to take a time out. I still have to protect my children in all their malleable young glory. And I guess, above all, I still need time to be …sad.

May it not always be so. May those with the passion and drive to make changes have the strength to continue the work. May healing come, may truth return. Next year, Jerusalem!

This morning there are cherries for worship. They are reddening slowly in my front yard, awaiting sour cherry pie, somehow defying the birds which lurk so near. There is this, and the sound of the sprinklers from behind a neighbors’ fence, one tone as the water brushes the fence, another as it patters on the leaves of whatever bulb is in bloom – first shy daffodils, then a pride of tulips, followed by dominate giant irises and now brash, jubilant lilies. I have brought canned music with me, encased in a white electronic box, fed to me through metal earplugs, but I do not want it. I want only to feel my stride, to let my skin soak in life giving rays, the “taste the colour of peach” (an old line from a friends’ poem lodged in my memory these many years.)

As I walk up the slow slope from my house I pass our local school, a middle school—old and worn, empty of it’s usual wards, all of whom are trying to grow up too soon. Now there is a sandwich board out front, advertising a church. The usual handful of people wander in and out too soon for the service – the mothers setting up the Sunday school room, the worship leader doing sound checks on his guitar, the kids who wander lost and bored at having to come so early so their parents can help. This past week, my children have fallen in love with the singing of church songs. They caught this fever, as they do every Summer at church camp, where the enthusiasm of college-aged music leaders is infinitely contagious. Now, they bellow them all day long to one another, singing at full voice while they leap through the sprinkler or toss one another a ball. This has struck a small cord of guilt in my heart – a heart which is well tuned, over tuned, to vibrate with guilt. Perhaps my children should have these songs more than once a year? Perhaps they need them as a regular part of their diet? So I pause in my worship with cherries, and clad in my walking clothes, venture into the school building to see the church.

The minute I see the man with the guitar I know I cannot stay. My body revolts, my throat grows tight, and I have that feeling again – that metaphysical distress that repels me away from this format, this podium, this song. As much as it leaves me with an aftertaste of sadness on my tongue, I cannot stay in this place I once called home. I cannot raise my children here. Not here, or here, or over there. None of these buildings will breathe for me; will grant me soil to propagate. This is not the fast desired of me.

I am to feast on cherries.