2015.09.06 Don't Pull The Wool Over My Eyes—Baaaaa!

Meet a very famous sheep—lost in the wild and woolly outback of Australia, or somewhere, suffering from toxic obesity, and answering to the name of Chris.  He’s lost in his face, a dyed in the wool introvert about to be totally blinded by all the wool over his eyes. Have to admit I laughed out loud!

Usually sheep follow and graze and aren’t very interesting, though some are irritating as hell, butting and shoving—not just the rams! But Chris is a celebrity. He was lost and now he’s found—like the biblical parable of the lost sheep, the one for whom Jesus leaves the whole herd, the one who matters to God no matter how fat, lonely, ugly and hermitic it is. 

Lore has it that Chris hid in a cave for years, avoiding the inevitable first haircut. Many kids screech like hell when they get their first haircuts. You’d think the barber was going to cut off their heads. But hair is so symbolic—of strength for the biblical Samson, of beauty for everywoman, of salvation for Rapunzel, of ethnic distinction in some cultures, and of solidarity for those who shave their heads to accompany someone who has lost their own hair to chemotherapy treatment for cancer. 

Chris, when finally found and shorn, offered a wool yield of 89 lbs. The Guiness Book of World Records reports that the largest yield of shorn sheep’s wool was 63lbs and 11 ozs. Chris tops the record. Will he stay humble? He probably will, but since his wool is the equivalent of 30 sweaters, I bet retailers won’t. Think of the many great Christmas gifts that will come out of this, and will be famous to boot. Retail stores will grapple for Chris sweaters, and they will become a brand—genuine or not. Chris mittens, caps, Chris miniskirts!

But now that Chris has been found, and the shears have saved him from the latest and greatest obesity clinic, he has come out of the anesthesia used for the massive shearing operation, he wants to see what he’s missed. Here he is shorn, nearly unrecognizable, curious, awakened, and out from under his load—shy but lighter.  Welcome to the world of sheep, Chris! No more wool will be pulled over your eyes.

I bet if Jesus had found Chris he would have introduced himself and then, with the sheep’s permission, taken a nap on the luscious woolly pile—all before he asked: You wanna go home?

In another woolly story, the Episcopal Church's 2015 General Convention passed a resolution calling for a renewed effort to end racism in the name of the Gospel of Christ. Sunday, September 9, was set aside to focus on this theme: "Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism."

The resolution mentions white privilege. White privilege, I think, is similar to male privilege. Neither is a sin, although sinful behaviors can come out of either. But these privileges do pull the wool over our eyes. They blind us to what we have wrongfully taken for granted.  Two recent examples:
       -I preached in an all-black church in Boston the end of August. My husband and I had been at this church two years ago and he had preached. Some of the women had said: "Next time they come, we want to hear from the woman!"  I, "the woman", was nervous. They were friendly and caring enough to provide me a sturdy stool to stand on as I went into the pulpit. (Most pulpits were designed for tall men!) I looked out at the congregation and my first thought was irrational: "Where are all the white people?" Yet suddenly.......... I knew what white privilege meant.
       -At Boston College in July I heard a fine scholarly lecture on the falsely maligned biblical woman, Mary Magdalene. At the Q and A time, a woman stood up to witness. She said something like this: "I'm a woman! I'm black! I'm tired of hearing people say: first we'll work on racism and then we'll tackle sexism. I'm black and I'm a woman. I'm BOTH! We need to work on both. NOW!" She sat down to applause.

We, in church and society, have pulled the wool over our own eyes and ears—also minds, hearts and souls. If we pay attention, and count on lots of grit and grace, we can get shorn. Oh, it will hurt, as much as it hurt Chris. Our "anesthesia" will be working together in a context of prayer and honest conversations—blacks with whites, men with women, mansioned with homeless, able with disabled. As we listen deeply, the wool will fall from our eyes and ears. We will see and hear the truth, and from there wonderful things can happen.

 

2013.05.08 Shameless At Home, a Rant

My upstairs home-newscaster and spouse, just sent me a piece from the Huffington Post of May 7, 2013, written by Seema Jilani, a physician reporting from Afhanistan, “My Racist Encounter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”  She reported from Afghanistan.

Jilani  was not invited to attend the D.C.dinner, just the cocktail hour. I gasped, having myself  been shut out of an inner circle church search committee interview where my husband was being interviewed and I (newly ordained priest), was invited to come, but only to the social time.  “You can sit in the library,” I was told. Jilani’s dinner was for correspondents only. OK —sort of.

But she had forgotten to get the car keys from her husband who was already in the ballroom for what she calls the “hideous schmooz fest” of “wannabe-famous.” 

Jilani tried to explain her case several times to the security police and was not admitted  because she “had no ticket”. She tried to reach her husband but couldn’t.  Then to her horror she observed that several women—all Caucasian— were let through and no tickets were checked. When confronted she was told that “Well now we are checking tickets.” 

The story reels on and it made me nauseous. Attempts by Jilani to confront lying and request respect for her own credentials, as native English speaker who was born in New Orleans and a physician trained at a prestigious facility, only met with more lies and ridicule, like:  “You were here last year weren’t you? We had trouble with you last year.”

The horror set in: “White privilege was on display, palpable to passersby who consoled me. I’ve come to expect this repulsive racism in many aspects of my life, but when I find it entrenched in these smaller encounters is when salt is sprinkled into the wounds. In these crystallizing moments it is clear that while I might see myself as just another all-American gal who has great affection for this country, others see me as something less than human, more now than ever before.”

I could go on, but it’s enough to say that Seema Jilani’s rage and pain were quite justified. There was racism blunt and bold; ugly paranoia led the way; and prejudice based in revenge and hate, posing as Security, was the order of the day in the wake of bombings and acts of terrorism against our country.  Such attitude is toxic to our own souls.  I’m afraid it will spread.

Dr Jilani is an American. So was Dzhoknar Tsarnaev. I admit I was disturbed by all the local negativity about the burial the older Tsarnaev borther's body in Massachusetts. And I admire the funeral home in Worcester for its graciousness. The man’s body should go back to Russia. Not because we are mean-spirited and ethnically puristic but because it would disgrace our country if there was desecration of a grave.

When we Americans behave this way we only shame ourselves and we are not Americans. I know it is too soon for many to feel anything else but pain and the need to close in and exclude, but I pray that will begin to happen soon, or we ourselves will be un-American.

And we won’t be Christians either— because what Dr. Jilani experienced was racism, sexism AND religious bigotry.

More now than ever Christians, and other religions who have like covenants, need to renew and remember our covenants. In the Book of Common Prayer baptismal rite, Anglicans promise to: “Strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being and the whole created order [italics mine].

Thank God, we promise to strive for this “with God’s help” because we sure can’t do it otherwise.

2012.08.01 Chick-fil-A??

 Hey, hey it’s Chick fil A day.  Not on liturgical calendars anywhere btw. All I can think of is the “dance” we do at weddings flapping our elbows wildly. This flap is about as funny.

Is it me or is anyone else thinking that Chick fil A is a sexist slur not very well disguised?

Chickens don’t immediately come to mind with the name, even though I know this is a, reportedly delicious, fast food operation, their top draw a buttered BUN with a pressed and breaded chicken BREAST.   Think mammogram.

My associations go like this:
    Chick=woman but maybe with unsophisticated tastes. Think chick lit or chick flix.
    Fil= just short of a filly, also a female object of devotion or ogle—with great haunches.  
    A=a top academic grade, or, as I remember some of us teen chicks would say to flirt with the boy who drove a Model A Ford in high school, “Hows’ your A?” —and then roll over with laughter.

This all could be my own perverse sense of humor, my feminist ardor, northeast liberal prejudice, or displaced anger because the CEO of Chick-fil-A has openly “come out” against same-sex marriage. In a gutsy statement, Boston’s Mayor Menino blasted Chick-fil-A for its bias and said the Chick would not be welcome in Boston where plans to open a new restaurant are afoot.

Of course Menino has admitted he can’t prevent the permits issued for a new Boston business, but the chick, or the filly, is out of the barn. Who would eat there now?  Kinda leaves a rotten chicken taste in your mouth—or mine at least. 

Here’s a tweet from a buddy pilgrim (to Israel) and seminarian at the Virginia Theological School (in the south last time I looked): “I hope nobody asks the CEO of Chipotle his view on same-sex marriage, I’d be devastated to have to stop eating there.”

I should fit Godde in here somewhere. Some day I’m sure it takes all of God’s energy just to hold back divine laughter so the world won’t explode—prematurely.

2011.12.07 Anita Hill, Still Brave

It's Pearl Harbor Day, a time to remember tragedy, grieve our warlike ways, and up our efforts to prevent war!!

Also a fitting time for me to commemorate one of my heros who in her own way made a contribution to the effort to end violence and its ideologies.

In early October I heard Anita Hill speak on her new book Reimagining Equality. Stories of Gender and Race and Finding Home.

Hill as I expected her to be was eloquent speaking of how our ideas about HOME shape our experience and form our ideas of justice and equality in America.

I remember being riveted to the TV in 1991 when Hill confronted the issues of sexual harassment at the Senate hearing to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice.

I’d never heard of sexual harassment but I sure had experienced it in church and society AND never thought a thing about it. I figured it was about my being an attractive women. Imagine!

Not until I read and became a feminist did I understand inequities, power dynamics and patriarchy, aptly defined by theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza as any system of social organization that depends for its stability, its very existence, on -isms, strongly held beliefs and norms whereby one group has,and is supposed to have, more power and more access to resources than all others.

The inequity is structured right into the system,politically, economically, and theologically. It’s a short attitudinal hop from God HE the Almighty power to HE the man who has power over the woman. HE with all the power and right is sexISM.

Ism to me means that whatever precedes the -ism has all the power in the mind of a culture, an individual, or a group. I’m glad Christianity isn’t called Christian-ism.

Anita Hill told us that her grandmother’s name never appeared on the documentation or deed for a large farm her grandparents homesteaded in 1869. Her grandFATHER went from being property to owning property, the American dream. What happened to HER? The grandparents farmed the land together, both giving sweat and tears to the project of landed freedom. It wasn’t that her grandfather treated her grandmother with personal disrespect; the context ignored her very existence.

That’s old stuff you say. Maybe and maybe not. We’ve come a long way for sure and we’re not there yet. Hill cited the current housing crisis and foreclosure as no accident. The crisis is gendered. Women, singles in fact, have been unable to get loans and gain greater economic independence.

The two-parent single home solution isn’t working as the dream. It is failing to provide true HOME.

This is not the space to go deeper into this but Hill said the American dream of everyone being able to own property has ballooned. It has become distorted to mean that every American MUST HAVE bigger and bigger homes. "Trophy" mansions represent a failure of equity. They are symbols of a failed vision.

I’ve never like the idea of equality anyway. Human beings are not equal. They are equivalent, of equal value in our nations and in our churches.

Hill suggested that HOME means belonging, safety, community, not just house.

Many churches bear the name Heavenly Rest. Rest is a biblical metaphor for God. It doesn’t just mean peace after you die. You have a home in God as you are right now.

If we could begin to see each other this way we might rework the American dream and work to enlarge the concept of HOME as belonging in a community of equivalent souls where anything that devalues things black, female, disabled, poor, etc. undermines the whole.

According to Hill we need a movement from tolerance to belonging—very spiritual, very political, very economic, very American.