Saturday, January 29, 2011

Adulthood: Live Courtside

Stocky build
unbraided, dirty blonde pony-tail
that in its sway makes explicit
the equestrian metaphor.
Purple uniform.
White shoes.
No make-up; just grit.
She makes her way
up and down the court
hustling like her life depends on it.
A constant look of worry upon her face
reflects the internal determination and
excellence she demands.

I watch from the bleachers,
and tears begin streaming down my face
in an arena full of strangers.

In her mistakes and
moments of athletic brilliance
a recognition of my own adolescence
begins to creep in and haunts this otherwise
ordinary recreational event on a Friday night
in a town where people have nothing better to do
than watch high school basketball games.

She misses a shot; I wince and say a
prayer that it won't matter next time
she has an open look.
She sprints the court full length and
makes a block so precise even fans for
the other team cannot help but
applaud her crafty defense;
I stand on my feet and scream her name so loud
you'd think she saved the earth from crashing.













This is the passion of self-referential projection.

From the first moment I saw her
an innocent, pure and protective spirit
began to whisper eternal truths
held in and seen through
the same stories and struggles in
different bodies of different generations.

So I cry in an arena full of strangers
for the adolescence I cannot repeat,
for the soccer player who is locked back there,
the daughter who felt trapped,
the budding sexuality that couldn't find itself reflected anywhere.
I cry in an arena full of strangers
and whisper truths to that stocky pony tail
working its ass off down there on the court
who cannot hear me but is drawn to me
for reasons I am just beginning to understand.

I cheer for the life that is starting to recognize itself
in a game that is rigged and ridiculously open-ended at the same time.
I cheer for the female body that is only allowed to have this
kind of loving and aggressive contact with other female bodies
when its contained by the "appropriateness" of competition.
I cheer for the soul inside that doesn't allow missed shots or
an eleven point deficit to censor its vitality.

And in the midst of it all, this (almost) thirty year old
gets a sense of what adulthood is about.

Adulthood is knowing even though it seems
like that's your body, heart and soul 
down there fighting for its life,
it's not. It's someone else who must 
be seen outside the confines of projection
which is why she fights and hustles so hard. 
Adulthood is recognizing patterns and 
affirming diversity,
simultaneously.

Adulthood is embracing
and re-writing one's own story and struggle
by loving it unconditionally as it unfolds
in those who are too young to know they are
uniquely and typically unfolding. 

Adulthood is wanting to win,
not for winning's sake but
so that look of worry
and the never-enough expectations of your parents
and the never-enough expectations of your coach
and the never- enough expectations of your own standards of excellence
might fade
just enough
for the love of the game to whisper its eternal truth.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Seeds of Liberation and Small Groups

I've begun doing quite a bit of small group facilitation as of late. It's taken a while to get to this place. One must establish relationships and build rapport in the faith community before leadership is granted. Authority doesn't accumulate over night and if it does, whatever it is that's accumulated isn't authority. In my line of work, any kind of instant access to people probably has to do with their projections about G-d or the (suspect) charisma of the leader. Neither strikes me as healthy. So here I am, (on Feb 8th, it'll officially be my 'first day in the office' anniversary) a year into this ministry gig and I'm finally getting some traction. By traction, I mean the following: access to people's true feelings (especially those they're afraid to admit, which are often the most important feelings of all), insight into the communal dynamics that so often mystified me when I first arrived, space to direct the flow of conversation, openness to my ideas/experience/opinions/etc. These forms of traction, these spacious places enable real ministry to happen, beyond the caddy bullshit of surface churchy-churchness. These forms of traction allow me to do the work I feel fashioned (by G-d Most High) to do. Naturally, I'm thrilled. Glory. Hallelujah. And, did I mention that it's been a long time coming?

So I'm doing small group facilitation, now. A lot. And as I suspected, it's the place where the most dynamism and transformation are taking place. One-on-one pastoral care is important, but there's nothing that can foster healing and massage resilience in the human soul like small groups. The spiritual "effectiveness" (blegh, capitalist language--what else could I use?) of small groups became most apparent to me during my time in recovery. Something unbelievable happens when people are free to talk about their experience surrounded by others who know their own salvation depends on 'hearing others into speech' (Nelle Morton). That unbelievability heightens when the people speaking and hearing are folks whose experience has been denied, negated or silenced by the dominant culture. Getting Vietnam veterans together taught me this. Getting women in the church together taught me this. Getting queer people together anywhere taught me this. Incredible wedges of freedom, affirmation and support get carved when persons-made-invisible have the opportunity to articulate their truth.

What's perhaps overlooked, but in this pastor's estimation the *most* valued part of small groups, is that people begin to make connections between their own oppression/suffering and the systems perpetuating that suffering. For instance, over time the courage of people's sharing--if the group has members willing to be authentic and vulnerable which is always a variable--will take on heights unthinkable in the first couple of sessions. As courage rises in the room, the bar is set high for people's sharing in general. People get real, stories begin to emerge and inevitably some of the same stories get heard again and again from different sources. Example: early on in my experience with women's meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous I realized that more than half of the women suffering from addiction had been subject to some kind of sexual assault. Women using a numbing agent in order to handle the scripted violence upon their bodies--is that addiction or coping? You tell me. Example: as I sat with the vets on the dialysis unit at the VA it began to emerge that all of them had at least one son or daughter that was estranged from them. Coincidence that all of them had a disorder of the blood? I think not. Example: almost every person who attends my grief group talks about feeling 'selfish' or 'wrong' when they grieve. These are people who have lost significantly close loved ones: spouses, mothers, sisters, daughters. Is the punishing self-consciousness about emoting grief about these individuals or is it about a society that aggressively and consistently requires people to deny their pain (in order to maintain the status quo)? Almost all of the white/middle-upper class adolescent and young adult women I do pastoral care with admit self-injurious behaviors, particularly cutting and eating disorders. Is that isolated incidents of life mismanagement or are we willing to confront the fascism/s in our society that force women to exert (the little) control (the do have) even if that control has to be exercised in ways that cause harm?

If a small group is facilitated well, these kinds of connections can be made. When these connections are made it can completely re-orient a person's world. Instead of blaming one's self or thinking there is something inherently wrong/mistaken/guilty/impure in the self and getting stuck in the stuff of numbing/avoidance, we can build relationships based on the truth and begin plotting together the destruction of all-things-oppressive. Here's the formula...

telling a truth that's often silenced (courage and freedom)
being heard (compassion and healing)
making connections between individual experience & systems (restoration and reorientation)
communing & plotting in those connections (fellowship and liberation)  

This strikes me as the *real* stuff of faith, the stuff that all faith communities should be about but often are not because they're too afraid of the implications that emerge when multiple voices are encouraged to unapologetically truth-tell. Institutions and ideologies are especially at risk when multiple voices erupt. Monolithic communities and half-assed explanations of why things are the way they are are especially at risk when multiple voices erupt. People and countries in (unbalanced positions of) power are totally at risk when multiple voices erupt. This is the promise of liberation for the oppressed/marginalized and the seed of doom for those who gain their access/privilege/power on the backs of others. Small groups are the soil for liberation movements.

As a service provider within one of the most patriarchal, simultaneously homophobic & homosocial, historically oppressive and dishonest institutions in the course of world developments, I employ small group facilitation as an act of resistance. I plant a seed of liberation from within, praying that with G-d's help and the willingness of marginalized and fiercely courageous people on the inside (there are more than you'd think!), we might confess, repent and liberate our tradition. In this lifetime? No. Enough to make all of Christianity a wholesome place for all? No. But for us and those we love and those we work with and those we encounter on the rugged road? Maybe.

 And in this employment of resistance, I am made humble. Let me be specific.

There is no denying that I am suspicious of all religion, all institutions and that the water of my devotional life is often troubled by the hypocrisy and hate espoused by people who claim Jesus' name. I wish I was one of the people who could find a modicum of peace despite knowing my religion is used for ill, but I cannot. I simply cannot. I don't say this out of pride. Trust me: it causes great great great disturbance in my life. Part of this restlessness comes from being a clergy kid. Part of it comes from being young, queer, tattooed and female in a position that's often occupied by old, straight, clean-cut dudes. Point being: I'm restless and suspicious. So...often I err on the side of being overly critical of Christianity, overly critical of other clergy, overly critical of theology that serves deathly culture/s. But in the work of small groups, I'm often challenged to move beyond this one (narrow and narrowing) way of seeing my religion. When people's experience gets shared, there is no denying that the Church has been used for both good and ill, nor do those uses somehow cancel each other out. Stories of survival often include the faith community mobilizing in the hour of need. Stories of resilience prove the pivotal role faith/spirituality have played in make-or-break moments for tons of people. Pastors and sermons have saved lives, families and communities on the brink of destruction. Privileged parishioners have challenged oppressive systems and made incredible gains for marginalized communities, often to their own detriment and exclusion. This is all true. As true as the stuff of death-dealing and corruption.

So "you shall know the truth and truth shall make you free," right? In the best of small groups, a plethora of truths erupt through courageous multiple voices willing to unflinchingly pursue the spirit of life. The facilitator, if she is wise enough to witness the truth/s emerging, will experience liberation too even if it means arriving at new conclusions that disturb and disassemble the truth of her life (thus far). There's incredible freedom in that. I am being made free in this work, in this place, in these times.

It's been a long time comin.       

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A Pastor Learns about Listening

I've had three experiences in the last 24 hours that have re-oriented my spiritual attention to the power of listening. I must write about these experiences because i don't want to forget them. I don't want to forget the dangers of not listening or the possibilities for transformation present when we offer ourselves an ear (or two). I mostly don't want to forget because of the work I do. Pastoral ministry affords me the unique opportunity to listen deeply and while I'd like to think I take up that opportunity whenever its presented, the truth is I'm often way too quick to speech. Part of that is because of the expectations placed on pastors, namely that we have some 'word' to comfort, calm, and/or challenge up our sleeve at all times. We don't. But the expectations are real and people defer to our power all the time, silencing themselves in favor of 'hearing' us. It can be a seductive dynamic, one where the deferred-to-person/pastor becomes enamored with her own voice and thereby forgets to listen first, or listen long enough, or listen deeply enough. God has given me 3 experiences to place into the archives of my heart today and I write to remember the lessons therein.

Experience #1
My friend David Judah Oliver is a spoken word poet from the Inland Empire of Southern California. We met  a long time ago and mostly keep up with one another through facebook. I am a fan of his language and ideas that mostly manifest in artistic form though Judah is prophetic in nature. We are Christians of a different kind, but agree through and through that Jesus' main message was/is about the stuff of social justice. Yesterday when the world was processing the still fresh Arizona atrocity, Judah updated his facebook with this: "They call this an act of terror, but I bet we aren't about to start our war on "White Domestic Terror." Excellent piece of social commentary. Pretty quickly thereafter a white man (who I've never met), a friend of Judah's, began asking questions about why Judah was shining a light on whiteness, in particular. I entered the conversation (if you can call status-update-debating a converation) and talked about the hypocrisy of white-on-white violence not being taken as emblematic of all white people and I lifted up the legacies of white violence in the united states. This guy, Mike, instantly starts being defensive and universalizing how all people suffer from power distortions and tendencies toward violence, accusing Judah and myself of targeting white people unfairly. When Judah answered him from the perspective of a black male living in America, Mike continued to discount Judah's word, even belittling the importance of the conversation by saying "it's been a while since I've had a healthy debate"--as if the stuff of white violence is something to get one's intellectual rocks off about. Talk about distancing and personal avoidance. Brilliantly, one of Judah's friends wrote in and said "this conversation is an example of white terror." Touche.

Now I understand that facebook is an amorphous matrix of soundbyte communication and what's possible, in terms of meaningful dialogue and exchange,  is limited on a social networking site. That aside, just encountering the inability of Mike to set his ideas about the world aside and trust someone else's perception of their OWN experience...well, it was the height of psychological violence to me. Even though I participated and tried to impart a different view of history (from a white perspective, thereby negating a monolithic, eurocentric perspective), I felt like I was witnessing something profoundly sick and twisted. I could barely fall asleep last night it was so disturbing to me. And then this morning I woke up and another white man (this guy also named Mike), had taken issue with Judah's comments by invoking Christ's name, doing the typical white protestant "we are all equal in God's kingdom" dance. Judah of course handled him brilliantly by confronting Mike #2 about the fairy-taleism of peace without justice. But I'm not able to put down my discomfort with white people invoking universal truisms (and even in my savior's name!), as a means of denying the reality of experiences different than their own. Not listening, example #1

Experience #2
I've been thinking about having a baby for a while. I've decided that I'd like to be actively pursuing pregnancy (through artificial insemination) by the time I turn 30. Naturally, I've tried to get prepared for this process by seeking ob/gyn consultation and care here in Michigan. Six months ago I was told (by the ob/gyn recommended by the Kalamazoo Gay and Lesbian Resource Center) that I couldn't be given a referral to a fertility clinic at my personal request because I wasn't married to a man. Explicit meaning: patriarchy, heterosexism and homophobia are alive and at work. Again, my own religion is being invoked in the business of inequality: evangelical theology is under-girding the medical philosophy employed by the Methodist health care system I belong to. But the irony is that the PA I see for my ob/gyn care is a lesbian! I want to give her the benefit of the doubt because she's one of my own and seems to understand the injustice, but honestly even she gives me less than competent care. She walks into the room ready to roll and doesn't listen to why I'm there or what I need. Today I blew up and told her to stop talking over me because I couldn't get a word in. Eventually I started crying and yelling because I wasn't being heard. It was embarrassing and I immediately felt ashamed, though i did eventually get her to put her medical chart down and to give me space to talk. We talked about what was necessary for me to proceed with my pregnancy plan, but before she left the room she had to get her digs in. "You can't come in here swinging." "Don't shit where you live." "I'm one of the good ones here on your side but the people in the hallway wouldn't know that because of how you're yelling." All of these statements were aimed at putting me in my place, enforcing the silent (yet oppressive and deadly) contract we white people seem to have about not upsetting the status quo, about respecting professionals in power no matter what, about not getting too emotional because it lacks self-control. Here she is shaming me about yelling and crying instead of examining her own bed-side manners. Had she done the latter, she might realize that adults generally don't scream and cry when they feel heard. Not listening, example #2

Experience #3
This morning I worked out at the YMCA with my dear friend Karen. Karen is someone I love deeply, a woman with brains, grit, wit and the wisdom of having lived as a woman in leadership for 30+ years. Our relationship contains many elements, but the stuff of mothering/mentoring is quite alive between us. I trust her and rely on her feedback to shape my professional development. But she also doesn't treat me like a child, which has enabled us to foster profound respect and mutuality. Most of the time. Today, I found myself dominating the conversation. I got on a roll about almost every topic she brought up. By the end of our time on the treadmill, I realized I'd taken up about 70% of the talk time. Whack. With ten minutes left and my tail between my legs, I asked her a probing question about something she'd brought up earlier. Of course that probing question led to the most meaningful exchange we'd had all morning. But right now I'm wondering what would have happened earlier if I had left my opinions at the door. I sit here wondering what would have happened if we could have explored that particular topic for 40 minutes instead of 10 minutes. How much connection did I miss because I wanted to pontificate? How much more of Karen could I have learned about if I probed her understandings instead of verbalizing my own? This isn't the first time I've had to pause around this issue. Just two weeks ago one of my good friends brought to attention that when working together she often experiences me as one who doesn't listen.

Just when I get self-righteous at "the world" about not listening, I go and blow my own intentions. No one is immune, I suppose. Yes, I too, am on the path. Not listening, example #3.        

Moral of the story...
Experience #'s 1 & 2 showed me the deep need we have in this culture for profound listening, and not just any listening, but listening by non-target group people that trust the self-articulated experiences of target populations. Experience #3 showed me that no matter how well I think I understand issues of justice and injustice, power and inequality, needs and solutions, I better approach the articulation and implementation of that understanding with humility.

Here's the implication of what I've learned: today I will try to give my whole ear to every person I encounter, including myself.. And hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow willing to do the same. If not, I have these words to remind me.