Writing Isaiah Entry #8

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #8

May 27th 2013

Jonah Douglas-Siegel

Do you experience any tension between needing to protect your child and fostering freedom/independence? How do you expect to experience and reconcile this over time? 

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

Sliding into dialogue with you feels like sliding under my favorite blanket on a cold winter day. Thank you for this question and for the challenge it poses (me/us). For some reason, knowing that I'm answering you, in specific, unlocks a certain level of creativity and demands a high level of intellectual integrity. Like, I'm bringing you color and vibration. But no bullshit. Does that make sense? I want to give you the best I have in the way of beauty and truth. I think that says a lot about who you are, Jonah, and about what you make possible for others. 

There's an article/essay by Audre Lorde entitled "Man Child: Lesbian Feminist's Response" that I read right when I found out I was pregnant with Isaiah that helped me think/feel deeply into these issues you've raised, the issues of parental protection and fostering freedom. Because it opened so much for me, I want to share two lengthy quotes from that essay as a way into this conversation with you. 

"Raising Black children--female and male--in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. And in order to survive they must let go. THis is what mothers teach--love, survival--that is, self-definition and letting go. For each of these, the ability to feel strongly and to recognize those feelings is central: how to feel love, how to neither discount fear nor be overwhelmed by it, how to enjoy feeling deeply."  

(pg 74 of Sister Outsider)

"It is as hard for our children to believe that we are not omnipotent as it is for us to know it, as parents. But that knowledge is necessary as the first step in the reassessment of power as something other than might, age, privilege, or the lack of fear. It is an important step for a boy, whose societal destruction begins when he is forced to believe that he can only be strong if he doesn't feel, or if he wins." 

(pg 76 Sister Outsider) 

What's most compelling, and therefore informative, for me in these passages is the way Lorde deals with fear. In both quotes she acknowledges how important it is to be aware of but not ruled by fear. This is what it comes down to in the work of protection in parenting. One can get utterly fucking stuck, immobilized, terrified when thinking about all the things that are painfully possible in this power-imbalanced, injustice-soaked, naturally-chaotic (in a threatening as opposed to generative way) cosmos we inhabit. When one brings a child into this realm, the dangers become all the more discernible, partly because you've never loved this much which fosters a kind of protectiveness, but also because there is no way to avoid encountering day to day dangers due to one's physical responsibilities as a parent. For instance: there are corners of tables and long sharp knives and potentially suffocating blankets that baby-bodies make apparent by their very wobbly, vulnerable existence. I never thought about those things before Aurora came. Now I think about them every 10 seconds when she's moving about the house with a tongue that wants to taste everything, legs that barely support the rest of her body, and hands that haven't learned the degrees of things like heat, sharp, etc. And here's the kicker: this is just stuff that freaks me out based on proximity. This isn't even touching stuff that acts of its own volition, like bullies on the school yard, people who blow up public buildings, rapists, bad teachers or coaches. You feel me? There's the stuff you can protect against by being vigilant and pre-emptive, but then there's stuff you can't do anything about. I find the most zealous fear to be of the latter kind.

Which takes me to your question about fostering independence. I think that fostering is directly proportionate to the level of dependence my children have on me. For instance, Isaiah is entirely dependent on my biological system right now. Therefore I am not invested, at all, in fostering his independence, other than through keeping myself healthy which enables his independence to proliferate in utero. With Aurora it's different. She is acting independently all over the dang place! Speaking when she wants. Touching what she wants. Running where she wants. To the degree that she is not in harm's way, physically or emotionally, I try to cut her loose. But it doesn't come naturally to me, as J.R. can most certainly attest. In fact, I think my natural tendency is to worry, to be over protective, to hold on too tight. It's not good, so I'm practicing something else. 

About two weeks ago I went to a local play group at the Burma Center. I was the only non-Burmese parent there. And I went there on purpose. Here's why. For years our church used to host a Baptist Burmese worshipping community on Sunday mornings. I noticed that in general Burmese parents were much less hovering than European-American parents. They let their kids run, play, and rough-house in huge packs, often unsupervised by adults. At first it troubled me because I thought it was unsafe. But the more I witnessed their cultural style of parenting, the more respect I began to develop for them. You see, their kids were always engaged, with other children, with diverse kinds of play, and with adults (other than their own parents) who would come in and out of activities with them. It seems really healthy to me now. The parents appear less flustered and anxious and the kids are caught up in present-moment joy. I want to be in play groups where that ethic is embodied. It's not a lack of presence or concern. It's a more trust-filled way of being and it really speaks to me. When we were at the Burma Center play group two fridays ago, I couldn't speak to anyone nor could they speak to me, but Aurora had the time of her life. Point is: I'm trying to learn from the Burmese. How to be more trusting of my child, of my parenting peers, of the world. 

Yesterday there was a picnic for my church community at the Ryberg's house. There were all kinds of families, many with young children. Aurora was the youngest (born) child there. I noticed that most of the other parents stayed pretty close to their kids. I, on the other hand, let my girl go wild with different adults. She was often out of sight. Sometimes she was too close to flying balls that the other kids were throwing around. She had grass in her diaper when I brought her home. And her feet were totally caked with dirt because I let her roam around barefoot. Some might accuse me of being careless. I just want her to know the diverse dimensions of this life. And and and. I never want to be so laze-faire that my child unnecessarily comes to harm nor do I want other people feeling like I am passing my supervisory role over to them without consent. So it's a dance. Which takes me to Lorde. 

In that second quote she talks about the importance of children discovering that their parents aren't omnipotent. And how hard it is for children and parents alike to coming into this knowing. I wonder if this process isn't similar to theological deconstruction. For many years I've watched people confuse God's love with God's power. As if God's greatest attribute is God's capacity to keep us entirely safe. To protect us from all harm. I gotta say it seems to me like this kind of belief system is most rampant in two groups: 1) those who are economically privileged enough to privatize their lives to such a degree that they never meet 'threat' & 2) those who are so threatened every single day because they are most vulnerable/targeted that nothing other than safety could possibly feel 'divine' or 'sacred' or like 'salvation.' But that's another essay for another day. Point being: is the highest degree of care, the pinnacle of love, merely about safety, about being entirely protected? This particular theology or parenting world-view neglects love's capacity to endure risk in the promise of one's (unique) becoming. There's no development, no novelty, no complexity without risk. I'm willing, as a parent, to lay down the illusion of omnipotence, in order to create space for my children's development. And, I think without enough security and safety (materially, emotionally, etc) they cannot develop. So there's a balance to be had, no? 

How does one achieve that balance? "How do I expect to experience and reconcile this over time?"

Trial and error. Every day. Talking it all through with one's partner, mother, mentors, friends, etc. Emulating the style of other parents who seem to 'get it' (at least some of the time). Reading articles and books about it. Eventually watching and listening to the feedback loops that play out through Aurora and Isaiah's lives. Like if they're too hesitant, back up. If they're too daring, squeeze a little harder. I don't know, shit. Just being open to life? Maybe that's the answer to everything...

(((Jonah)))

Love,

EJ

Naked Spirituality: Here

For the next 12 weeks my church is doing a worship series that's focused on Brian McClaren's book "Naked Spirituality." Each week has a different central theme encapsulated in a single word. This week the word is "here." We've been encouraging our community to find pictures, images, quotes, videos, etc to go with the theme and to  share those things on Facebook. I wrote a poem on "here" this morning that I shared with Koinonia. I want to share it on this blog too. In fact, whatever I come up with on these themes, I plan to share in this space. 


Here--

baby kicks announce an arrival to come

we make love in the morning dark

coffee percolates with a soft click click click

she wakes up, more beautiful than the day before

i sneak out to Horrocks as the light christens the day

Gaia sniffs the new marks in her backyard/territory, bodacious spring green

the griddle produces smoke prior to pancakes splashing down

mango, banana and blackberry make the perfect side dish

buddha bar pandora echoes from the speaker, ambient and dub working it 

dishes accumulate in the sink for the unlucky sucker later 

stacks of bills, cards, gift certificates and books half-read mark a table too full

a mom, dad, daughter, son-to-come, dog and their stuff--

i am 

we are

this is--

love 

perfect

sabbath

home.  

Here.  

Writing Isaiah Entry #7

Writing Isaiah

Entry #7

May 25th 2013

Megan Marie Vannelli 

Thank you for including me in this.  I, of course, want you to write to me about connection. I'm finding it super difficult to put words to my actual question, because it's all so unfathomable to me.  But, there are humans (one out in the world and one in your womb) that are/were made of/in in you and have your blood running through them.  And, before that you were made of your mom's parts and blood.  And, sometimes all of those shared parts and blood are all in a room together. Can you, like, compare and contrast what that's like vs.being in a room with other people you love that you're not related to? I don't know how helpful this question is to your writing, because it's giant and desperate and fails a little at being specific to *this* pregnancy. But, fuck, man, it's all I wanna know. If this were on paper it would be tear soaked and writing it made me need a nap.

Love.

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds

Yesterday when we were hiking, as I was listening to you talk (about catholicism and family, I think), I kept questioning myself: is there anyone on this Earth who gets the absurdity and beauty of life like Megan? You asking this question/these questions is the ultimate response to that question. Nope. There's just no one like you. No one who gets it all like you do. Not for/with me anyways. There's a place where I connect with you that feels, well, I don't know, singular. A field of its own frequency. Or something. 

I want to start (again) with a rather lengthy quote from Helene Cixous because it's true and right and relevant (here). 

"That is what living is: the search for love. And its substitutes. Because we also discover how few possibilities there are to exercise love. The scarceness, incidentally, is related to the scaredness: the fear everyone has of losing. Of losing oneself. I also ought to say, counseled by human prudence: we cannot not be tempted to love. Most people flee the temptation. Some do not flee, knowing, as does everyone, that love is dreadful. As dreadful and desirable as God. But no one chooses: the two possibilities--to flee, to succumb--carry us off. It is stronger than we are. We are all subjects of a fortune called grace." 

This quote feels like it ties together all the things I feel emanating from you in the form of this question. So many things emanating: fear, loss, fleeing--your own mother (and father?). Dreadful. And desirable (still, I imagine?). Also: being tempted, succumbing to love, and the exercise of desire in it all--your own existence, particularly how you show up for others, taking the side of grace, making it a subject, lived, among the subjects fortunate enough to receive your care. I wonder about the tears soaking the virtual paper of this thread: what they are in the form of grief poured out in the mere contemplation of these co-existing realities. How we are a part of each other, yet how we can abandon each other (including the parts of each other in ourselves), how we continue to exist and love (even) in the face of all that loss, what connects us despite the absence and/or presence of our bodies in time and space, and the ways pregnancy holds that in a completely unique way. 

There is something unique about being in the presence of the bloodline. No doubt. There's power and recognition in a class of its own. But I believe that power and recognition are pretty dependent on a certain level of togetherness and ritual exposure to each other over time. For instance: when I'm in the room with my mother and daughter, 3 generations in one place, I cannot help but feel a continuum of shared stuff. Them in me and me in them. Them in each other. Something Big in and through all of us. And having said that: the one time I've been in the room with my brother and sister (we share the same father, not mother) who I had never seen or interacted with in 30 years, there was very little sense of that power and recognition for me. It felt like being reattached to something that had been missing for a long long time, something I didn't even know I'd been missing until I got in its presence, but it wasn't the kind of gut-zinging resonance or radical kind of shit that I feel with my mom and daughter who I communicate with, and look at, and touch/feel (almost) every day. What I'm saying is that sustained shared experience appears to either hone or diminish the power between blood-related family members. That's my sense anyways. 

That's not to say, however, that a relative lost doesn't impact the level of connectivity one experiences in one's body, family, world, etc. I think about the fact that I have the DNA of a man/father in my body that I barely got to know. That he chose to flee. That I never got to experience being in the room with him and my children at the same time, in order to explore the intergenerational bonds that can illuminate the truth of who we are and what we pass on. Actually, I think all the time about what it means to bring a child into the world and to never experience them. Like, to never watch them take a step, or take a bite, or to have them fall asleep on your chest, or call for you in the middle of the night. I wonder, way too much, how anyone chooses that ever. I remember bringing Aurora home from the hospital, staring at her little body, resting peacefully in my arms, and thinking to myself "how could my father have chosen not to do this?" I sobbed for a long time in that particular contemplation. And now, now that I'm having a boy child (who knows if Isaiah will identify as a boy or be a boy long term), I keep feeling a sense of panic about the fact that men have been so absent in my life. It's not a chosen ignorance on my part. I didn't chose to have my father abandon me or my step-father die on me. Those are the cards I was dealt so to speak. But how, how not, to fuck up vis-a-vis the masculine in my marriage and in my son/daughter--sometimes the ignorance scares me. That loss and grief and fear are constantly with me. I don't think they'll ever not be with me. 

And having said all that, let me be clear that parenting, bringing Aurora and Isaiah to life (consciously) has healed some of those dimensions in ways I never thought possible. When you can fill up with love (now) the empty spaces created in you by (previous) loss, there are miracles. More than anything, I've just been relishing that all the loss I experienced earlier in life didn't stop me. That the pain didn't deaden me into believing I wasn't worthy of family. Because there was a long long time that I believed that. I believed I was beyond repair. That I couldn't raise a child or children well because my father/loss fucked me up too much. That I was doomed to be alone and hard and hollow forever, incapable of commitment and long-term intimacy. Scripts like that aren't easily undone. I think so much of that, that self-doubt, self-inhibited shit is conditioned. And, fortunately, conditional. 

The conditions of creating life, creating family, creating bonds of love (whether biological or adoptive or foster or whatever) give rise to new incarnations. One discovers new dimensions of the self. A new story unravels. I'm not sure this is true for everyone, but I imagine it's mostly true for folks who take a chance on their capacity to love beyond the limits of their past. The rewards have been ten-fold for me. But I didn't get there alone. Which is what I want to scribe about next. 

When you've lost a lot and don't really trust yourself all that much (because those around you and those you love tend to abandon you or die, which inevitably leads you to conclude that there's something very very wrong with you), it's hard to break out and follow your inner-teacher. Or to consider yourself worthy of the thing calling you to new life. I always knew I wanted to be a mom more than anything. More than pastoring. More than romantic partnership. Being a mother always has and still does feel like calling number one for me. But I didn't have the 'lifestyle' or the confidence to just do it. This was a conundrum. I felt the desire/call so loudly and yet couldn't envision it. 

There were four people in my life who essentially coached me into pregnancy. Each of them went about it in a different way. My mom and friend Mandy Mitchell cautioned me about internalized single-mother phobia that's so rampant in our culture, citing all the evidence there was/is that mother's with husbands/spouses often feel burdened by having to take care of another adult and children. They both reminded me that being a single mother has its perks and that I was raised by a single mom (for the most part) and didn't I turn out okay? And then two of my mentors, who I won't name for confidentiality purposes, also chimed in. Neither of them had had children during the times in their lives when that would have been a possibility. And both of them live with a tremendous amount of regret about it. They both cautioned me about waiting too long, letting other things takes precedent. They didn't want me to look back and say "I shoulda..." Because of those four people I decided to trust my maternal vocation, to trust that G-d would meet me in the process of creating family, and I took the plunge. 

You asked the question about what it's like being in the room with biological relations versus being in the room with people I love who I'm not related to. The people I'm not related to that I love, people I very honestly refer to as "family," are the very people who have enabled me to find the biological relations that work for me. I think there's synchronicity and redemption in that. Our culture tends to prioritize biological family over everything. I find that bizarre given how fucked up many of our families have been or are. And yet, having lost a biological parent, I don't want to down-play the significance of blood relations either. We need supportive friends/lovers/companions to help us discover the families that works for us. Sometimes that's biological. Sometimes not. Regardless, I think it all matters. 

I want to close (again) with Cixous (again).

"I have always known that my foresight was born of my blindness; that my passionate desire to think further came from the desperate effort of my eyes to pierce the darkness. And also: my myopia is like my writing: these are fertile congenital disabilities." 

What can I say my friend who swims in loss and love everyday of her absurd and beautiful life? I hope all things missing, all things broken and despairing, lead you, lead me, lead us to fertilities of grace, whether congenital or chosen. That's the subject you're always leading me back to. You. 

I love you Megan.   

For my Name's Sake

June Congregationalist
First Congregational Church of Battle Creek
Rev. Emily Joye McGaughy
May 24, 2013
       
For my Name's Sake

There’s a prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible called “Isaiah.” It’s between Song of Solomon and Jeremiah. Many of us are familiar with Isaiah because it’s one of the most popular and most often read texts during the liturgical season of Lent. Christians have been (mis)appropriating texts from Isaiah for a long long time, using it as prophetic proof that Jesus was/is the Messiah. One of the first things we learned in my bible class in seminary was the term “anachronism” which refers to chronological inconsistency. Here’s what that means in plain terms: an anachronistic reading is when we read something out of its original context. For instance, does this sound familiar?: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” You might be thinking, yes, that sounds totally familiar. That’s because we hear it read during our Christmas Eve service and we sing it at the end of our Easter service each year (it’s the Hallelujah Chorus from “The Messiah” by Handel). That passage from Isaiah 9:6 makes its way into two of the biggest Christian holidays which is a tad bit ironic because that passage is either about Hezekiah or Josiah--Israelite Kings who lived about 700 years before Jesus--depending on what biblical scholar you’re reading. 

There are several ethical issues with wiping Jewish history out of our biblical readings. And someday I’d like to devote an entire Congregationalist article to just those. But there’s something else I want to focus on today. And that’s what we miss in scripture when we read out of scripture--again, that is, outside of scripture’s historical context.

I’d never heard anything about the book of Isaiah or heard anything read from Isaiah except those Christianized verses until I got to seminary. But when I took my Intro to Hebrew Bible class with Dr. Kah Jin Jeffrey Kuan (who some of you met when he came to baptize Aurora Lynn last summer), I was invited into think about all the prophetic books, including Isaiah, differently. Not as precursors to Christ, but as books that reveal the God of history in/through history. (Calling biblical history “history” is always kind of tricky because much of it isn’t historically factual, but again, that’s another article for another time) We were asked, as soon-to-be preachers and pastors, to put down the stuff of prediction and prophecy that we’d been conditioned to interpret scripture with and to read the stories as revelations themselves. Revelations about people, families, societies, power structures, politics, religion, etc. I cannot tell you in words how much this different way of approaching scripture impacted me and still impacts me. 


About a year into my time here at FCCBC I began reading Isaiah (chapters 40-55) during my devotional time and began making significant connections between the text and my own life. The core themes of Isaiah have to do with generational struggle and perseverance through exile, captivity, deliverance and return. At that time in my life I was learning more and more about my family of origin, particularly stories about Mid-Western ancestors, dynamics between parents and children, spouses and lovers, the migration to California and the ensuing fall-out between family members. As someone who had just moved (back) to the place of my family of origin, after having been in California all my life, the themes of geographic and cultural familiarity and estrangement in Isaiah rang loud and true in my heart. I felt a kinship with the people of the text. I felt a sense of God’s presence with me as I got deeper and deeper into this biblical history that in some ways mirrored and in other ways challenged my own. But more than anything, I felt like something inside of me fundamentally shifted when it came to my relationship with the Bible.

In putting down the anachronistic way of reading scripture and picking up devotional (seeking the holy, meaningful, instructive parallels between the context of the text and context of my life) reading of scripture, I discovered comfort, presence, correction and healing. "Isaiah" reconciled me to truth about history, truth in the Bible, truth in my own family system and truth in my life. This is as good as it gets when reading the Bible as a progressive Christian. 

I tell you this for several reasons: 1) to let you know that there are mutliple ways of reading the Bible even for us pastors & 2) to share a piece of my own spiritual journey with you & 3) to let you know the "context" for my son's name. Many of you already know that J.R. and I are expecting a child in late Fall. I am thrilled to share this with those of you who haven't heard. We ask for your prayers of love, strength, faith and support to be with our family. What better scriptural theology than this when it comes to welcoming a new life onto this Earth?: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the water, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am The Lord your God, the Holy One..." (Isaiah 43:1b-3a) Amen. 
Sent from my iPad

Writing Isaiah Entry #6

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #6

May 21st 2013

Jess Kast-Keat

These questions are coming up in me when I think of pregnancy and being an (enneagram) 8. Knowing that power is important to an enneagram 8, how do you experience power while being pregnant? Do you feel power differently? Another way of asking this is how has your understanding of strength changed (if at all)?

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

You know, Jess, it's funny. This question is, for quite obvious reasons, taking me back to the first time I ever heard of the Enneagram. I was in the second unit of a year long CPE residency and a friend of mine--a baptist minister named LeAnn who I grew to love with my whole heart and is now a dear and geographically too-far-away friend--gave us an Enneagram didactic. I'd heard people talk about the Enneagram in seminary and I'd seen the Enneagram symbol on the cover of books and on facebook profiles, but this was the first time I was actually hearing something about it in depth. My response? This is utter fucking non-sense. Pure unadulterated bullshit. Just another personality test meant to put us in boxes for the sake of minimizing who we truly are. I was less than taken. And then, about 3 months later, we had a CPE retreat with other regional programs in Northern California at a spirituality center--a day long affair with nearly 100 other residents/students--devoted entirely to study of the Enneagram.  I was kicking and screaming the whole way there. At one point they put us in small groups according to our type. I noticed that everyone in my group was equally suspicious of this thing. (Which should have told me something right there!) No one wanted to talk first. We all postured hard-ass and made wise (and i do mean wise, cuz that's how we are, ya know) cracks about the process. But when it came time for us to describe the other types, there was no shortage of in-depth analysis, opinions or judgments. Huh. When we went back to the large group, the facilitator called us out: "I bet you rarely spoke to each other at the start, but when it came time to name the dynamics of others you were pressed for time." We all laughed, but something inside of me recognized a personal dynamic within that small group dynamic. And that, that was the day I began to open my little hard ass heart to the truth of the Enneagram. I still think some of it is dangerous and overly simplistic, and one must be weary of too much categorization. But. And. There's too much truth in it for me to deny its relevance. I've learned a lot a lot a lot in reading, contemplating, and discussing the Enneagram over the last 4 years: a lot about myself, a lot about others and a lot about the dynamics that pass between us. 

Before I get into the Enneagram/Mothering connection, I want to throw an observation your way and see what you make of it. I've noticed that my relationships with other 8s are all kinds of complex. I tend to get into fiery, passionate, boundless connections with 8s that WAY too quickly get messy, angry and full of betrayal. There's instant attraction (not always romantic, but that's certainly there sometimes) and almost equally instant repulsion. Have you had similar experiences? I'm wondering because it seems to me a part of that dynamic might be instructive in terms of how others experience us. I've also noticed that if I can get through those initial phases of attraction/repulsion, there's deep, abiding love on the other side that's worth the "fight." Does that make sense? Talk to me.

"How do you experience power while being pregnant?" 

I experience the power of pregnancy itself. As opposed to my 'own' power. This feels like an important distinction. It's a lot like writing or dancing. In that I feel like a third space exists between me and the thing. In writing, there's the self and there's the text: but there's a spirit that enlivens one to produce the other. It's a time and space invoked and occupied, but only temporarily and its mystery/identity cannot be articulated by one in the other or vice versa. Because you are a writer, Jess, I know you can comprehend this. There's you and what you write. But the real juice is in the process where you become the text and the text comes forth from you. That's a separate all together holy thing in itself. With dancing, same thing. There's the music and there's the responsive movement, but there's the interstice, the in-between creative coming to when body and beat become one with each other. The power of pregnancy is like that. Like there's me. And there's Isaiah. But this 9 month time, when we are entire mysteries to one another, there's something else. A third thing, between us, enveloping us, making through us. I feel the power of that thing more than anything else. It's not my own power, though my own body and Isaiah's growing body are the hosts for this power. 

And in this sense, it's an incredibly GOOD and humbling thing for an Enneagram 8 to experience pregnancy this way. Because as you know, when we mistake our own power as The power, we are royally screwed and so is anyone who steps in our path. That is our greatest temptation/sin, I think: to confuse our power with the power of Life/God/Love itself. You know? We are at our best when we are gracious host, willing vessels making space from our vulnerability. Pregnancy can be that. It absolutely can. 

My understanding of strength has changed, actually. And there is nothing on Earth that has changed my concept of strength more than giving birth. Like, actually, pushing Aurora out of me into the hands of the womyn doctor waiting for her/us to arrive--that was a kind of strength I'd never tapped. And that strength was made manifest in the (second) worst pain I'd ever felt.

Against the urgings of many folks in my life, I went into the delivery room determined NOT to use pain meds. I wanted to be present. For sure. But I think there was the desire to 'prove strength' in that decision too, to show that I could do "it."  Such typical Enneagram 8ness in that posturing. Anyways...for the first four hours I did well with the contractions. It just felt like enduring harsher-than-usual menstrual cramps. But then the baby wasn't "coming fast enough" (ugh, beware of Western medicine and forced timelines) so the attending nurse kicked up my pitocin level. For the next 5 hours, my contractions were less than a minute apart, they came in rounds of three, and by the very last one, I thought I was going to die. But something interesting happened: when I finally hit the wall with pain, I felt Aurora's head. They tell you that "you'll know" when it's time to push because you'll feel the babies head. I don't think it's any coincidence that I became physically ready to push at the very moment my body could no longer take the pain of contractions. And the very exact same dynamic happened with the pushing. I gave it everything I had, for about 30 minutes. But when her head was right at the opening of my vagina, I had nothing left in me. I looked at the doctor and said "I can't do this." She looked me in the eye and said "I need one more big push." When it was time, I took a big deep breath, and tried to push, but I couldn't. I literally had no strength. But you know what? That little girl pushed her way out anyways, without me having to do anything. 

The lesson in all of this? 

There is strength beyond my strength. There is power beyond my power. And it is only at the limits of my strength and power that I can learn about or interact with the stuff that transcends me. We, you and I and many like us, call this transcendent thing God. But in the birth room, I didn't feel God in the ways I usually feel God. I felt Life. Like capital L. Life. It was a zone I entered and came back out of. But I touched something transcendent, yet more immanent in the Earth/Nature than anything else. It was/is the place where life is in charge. Sometimes humans think they're in charge. But I knew, in that birth-room, that Life was in charge. This rhythmic, cosmic, power that exists to do nothing else but create Itself came into the room, took a hold of me and took a hold of my daughter, and let it be known that something bigger than the two of us was having its Way. I beheld it as a power that's been around since the Beginning and will be around until the End. 

Yeah, Alpha and Omega. 

That experience forever fucked me up as a pastor. Honestly. Because the power we claim sovereign in church, that mytho-phallo-logo-centric God we claim, has nothing on that Power of Life I felt on March 20th 2012. Even the best feminist, post-colonial, liberation theology can't touch it. Catherine Keller's Tehom is the only thing that comes close, but even then. Even then. It's some wild ass animal stuff, Jess. For real. Our frameworks are too decent, too tea-time. I don't know. Is this making sense? When you've had the Power of Life have Her way with you, it's really hard to digest and/or produce theologies of mediocrity. Which unfortunately find their way into my vocation (almost) weekly. I know that stuff about God being a man is a lie. It's a fucking lie. Always has been, but now I know, from my belly bloated, to the blood on the floor, to the naked child emerging, now I know. Now my body knows as much as my mind has always known. 

Back to the Enneagram. Pregnancy, birth and child-rearing thus far have taught me to go to the limits of my strength and power and to expect something on the other side. Something that is not of my own making. Something that is beyond me. And you know what? Every time I do, there's a miracle waiting. Just waiting. 

Much love to you, soul-sister. You rock my world--always have, always will.  

Respectfully,

EJ

Writing Isaiah: Entry #5

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #5

May 20th 2013

Corbin Tobey-Davis

Music incorporates so much meaning into my own life journey.  From break-up mix tapes back in the day, to creating playlists for every year of my daughters life the power of music as narrative is palpable. I would love to hear your thoughts on the role of music and your postion as one of the primary "sharer" of music with your children. How does music move you while growing the child inside?  How do you share music with child in Utero, during birth, post birth, and what about their journey throughout their life? 

Boom!

And here is a new song I am really feeling.  I love the image of the Divine feminine in the video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iTRRkOXIoI

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

Gah, Corbin!--this is so you. This prompt. That video. The topic you've invoked. Your way of writing, introducing, giving it. Part of what I love about this pregnancy writing project is connecting to the spirits of my peeps in the process. You have brought your spirit here, to me, in this exchange. I revel in it, Corbin, I really do. You have a joy in your step, a power of ambitious engagement that I have grown to crave over the years. It was in the stuff we passed back and forth on Holy Hill when we threw parties or deconstructed classes or watched ball games. I miss it--that thirst of life in you, that zesty awake and aliveness. Perhaps I'm just getting older or maybe the miles between me and my friends are accruing with ever increasing rapidity, I don't know. But I do know that I yearn to be with my far away people more and more and that this writing is providing an entry, albeit an incomplete one. Some day our daughters will bounce together on the grass to Blue Scholars and Tribe Called Quest. But until then, the Logos carries us, huh? Thanks for giving me the chance to meet you in that carrying. 

To your questions. 

"The power of music is palpable." Yes. Yes it is. And how that power manifests, I've discovered over the years, throughout the threads of experience in my life, changes wildly given context, given relationships, given struggle, given what is here and now. I made a playlist for Aurora's birth. I never pressed play in the birthing room because I was too busy working my ass off to get that baby born. :-) But I listened to that mix for the weeks leading up to her birth and it prepared me spiritually for the work ahead, particularly a song that my friend Dominique shared with me called "Run til I Finish" by Smokie Norful. That song saved me in the last weeks of pregnancy when I was wondering if I could make it with a body so full, limbs too tired, mind overly excited and anxious. These lines "I'm going to run this race. I'm going to take my proper place in the winning circle" became the chorus of my life and it enable me to preserve. And then, for some reason, as soon as she was born, I began to crave the song "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne. The title might seem strange, but there are some lines in the song that I needed to hear: "But I've been saved by a woman. I've been saved by a woman. I've been saved by a woman. She won't let me go. She won't let me go. She won't let me go." In some ways I think those lines had double meaning: I'd been saved by the arrival of this girl child, but I'd also been saved by the womyn I had to become in order to be her mother. The meaning just reverberated all over the place in that hospital room as the speakers echoed in our earliest moments of getting acquainted. Once I finally returned home and began nesting full time I went back to some oldies but goodies: Elton John's "You'll be blessed," and Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely." I danced with Aurora, especially to Stevie, again and again, sometimes full of joy and levity, other times sobbing because the hormones and happiness were too much to contain. These days I try to have all kinds of music playing. I want to share the diversity of brilliance of musicians near and far with Aurora. In fact, I think it's as important as sharing good books with her. I also try to show her videos--every morning if possible--of people playing instruments because there's a spirit-life connection in 'making music' that I want her to witness/vibe. And when church music is good, which it often is because I work with one of the most talented music ministers in the world (Tom Ryberg), I bring Aurora into my arms and sing as loud as I can, hoping that she can feel the momentousness of singing in community. 

One thing that I've been lamenting lately, in a big way, is how little I am dancing. I live in a body phobic culture. There isn't a single radio station that plays decent music where I live. Not one. I'm serious. The gay clubs here are so racist that they won't play hip hop music because of the "kind of people" it attracts. Wtf. And I don't do straight clubs for reasons I hope you understand without me having to explain. The parties I go to never include dancing. It's my living room floor or nothing. As you know, I am most alive on the dance floor. It is where I connect with the parts of me that will not be contained. It's always been a place/space where I can explore/express my physical, sexual and spiritual power in safe and wild ways. I crave that kind of movement. I need it to feel whole and connected to the pulse of the Earth. And yet, it's not here. I don't think I've had a serious dance fest yet with my new pregnancy. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling a sense of desperation. How can I not connect Isaiah (in utero) to this sacred part of me/life? There are huge things that I gave up when I left the Bay Area. People here don't understand because they've never experienced a plethora of options when it comes to queer embodiment, movement in culture/community, celebratory bodies joined in rhythm, etc. Those plethora of options were on the streets, in the parks, in dorm rooms, between us and all around us. Corbin, I miss it so much. I'm in tears as the memories echo...

One last thing about music and parenting. Or maybe it's just about music and being human.

I think we each have an instrument that mirrors us. An instrument that belongs to the "family of things" (to use Mary Oliver's language) in the same way we do. I think there's an instrument that is us, that we share its properties, capacities, and outcomes. Like for me, that instrument is the cello, though the oboe comes in a close second. For some people it's the drum, still others the saxophone. These instruments are composed differently, are played differently, make different sounds and evoke different emotions/response/power. Just like humans. And I think humans each have their correspondent instrument that most resonates because in its music they discover truth/recognition of who they are. Anyways, one of my great hopes for Aurora and Isaiah is that they find their instrument earlier than later in life. And that they either play it throughout their lives or find ways to incorporate the music of that instrument in their day to day. Is there any salvation, any divine power like the power of a musician set to her/his craft? I think of watching Yo Yo Ma playing the cello. Some days it makes me weep. Other days it arouses and pleases me in the waxing and waning of Eros. One time, one of my friends was dying, and in listening to the cello, I found a poem, gave birth to a poem, that needed to be written for her. This witnessing, this connecting, this morphic resonance (to use Rupert Sheldrake's language--do you know him, Corbin--he's amazing) of the musician with her instrument--it strikes me the highest kind of incarnation. Liberation. It is the kind of subjectivity one can cultivate in the generous space of music that I am alluding to here. How it can tip-toe you to the zenith of what you already know, cradle you there, and leave you breathless. How it can hype you out of your own skin. Or coax that skin with a magic potion capable of making you love yourself (if only for a second). I don't know. Words always fall short of the grace of anything real. God. Life. 

And music, music, for sure. 

Much love to you, from the stormy Mitten to the Rocky Mountains.

Emily Joye 

Writing Isaiah Entry #4

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #4

May 18th 2013

Logan Casey 

I mentioned to you my difficulty in settling on a question for this project, and you asked me to use that as my response, that you could work with aporia. That was a new word for me, and I found this on Wikipedia: "denotes in philosophy a philosophical puzzle or state of puzzlement and in rhetoric a rhetorically useful expression of doubt."

Maybe my puzzlement is about my own relationship to biological parenting... that I won't ever be able to do that, and so I am in wonder (amazement, awe) about how even to imagine the bodily experience(s), let alone ask a question about them. (This part seems particularly puzzling to me since my body used to be such that I could have had children the way you are.)

But I think there's an even more personal element for me than just the bodily process... Barring some kind of miraculous scientific advancement, I simply can't ever have biological children. This makes me even more invested in chosen family than I already was as a queer person. So maybe here's a question, then, separate from the aporia: as a fellow queer person ---and as one of the most vivid embodiments I've ever met of creating and sustaining chosen family --- how do you find yourself relating to and experiencing this process of creating biological family?

:)

Love you. 

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds

How can I even begin, Logan? Part of the experience of aporia is anti-beginning. A stalling. A coming to space only to encounter non-space. And yes, this can be puzzlement and wonder. It can also be frustration and lack. I experience none of those at this moment. Rather, a kind of built-in respect that necessitates a form of pause. These reflections, the two paragraphs you have gifted my way--how does one begin to respond? A hesitation feels like the only form of holiness worthy t/here.

So I sat/lingered with your reflections/question all night. Too much came up. It was overwhelming. Resonance. Rejoicing in the recognition. Feeling unbelievably seen and honored by your naming my embodiment/s of chosen family. I have worked so hard to incarnate family differently--that is outside of normative nuclear notions of family which in all honesty don't even exist for the most part, because as you know and I know, there is no norm when we boil it all down--and so to have that work called out/forth as good is humbling, beautifying, a congratulations from the universe (that speaks in the form of you today). I also must admit that I felt some fear and dread because you articulated impossibilities (albeit with qualifiers :) and instead of facing those self-named places of "not here" "not in this body" with openness and loving kindness, I felt myself balking and grieving. Which, of course, tells me that I have work to do. (Hence, the fear and dread) There's this incredible quote I stumbled on years ago that feels vibrational here: "If only I could throw away the urge, to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you." It seems as though I stand at the precipice of your articulated truth about not being able to biologically parent with a kind of traced pattern. And while there may be balking and grief for you in all of this, I wonder if it isn't my own grief, or a kind of collective grief I feel. 

You see, for years I sat in shadows of shame about my queer body, particularly its inability to be feminine enough to do all kinds of stuff. I was actually told by a physician that I had too much testosterone in my system to have an easy time getting pregnant and I might not conceive at all. Before that I had years of shame around the fact that I got left for girly girls and cheerleader types, that lovers would scoff at my body when I took off my clothes, that I was teased as a kid for "looking like a drag queen." My mother's husband even said that my kickboxing injury (which left me practically paralyzed for almost six months) happened because I try to act (in sports and life in general) "like a man." As a result of this harassment, taunting and projection I have often walked around in the world with an internalized sense of being too masculine to achieve certain results--pregnancy being one of them. Our world, and yes, even our sciences, are incredibly limited by what we think is possible/impossible through a gendered hermeneutic. Part of getting pregnant and forming family, for me, has been about prophetically pushing through those narrow definitions of the possible. I want every gender queer person on this planet to know "the limits of discourse" don't always match the limits of their bodies. They do sometimes but not all the time. I'm also aware that part of my reaction to your reflection is that many queer bodies feel branded, both externally and internally, by some kind of "not enough or too much" narrative around gender/hormones/etc. Essentially, that I am not the only one: many of us feel this way. And it gets in the way. In the way of creating the lives we desire, the babies we yearn to meet, the families we hope to form, etc. And while I don't want to make the aporia you've offered some kind of totalizing segwey into my own story, or some social systems analysis about body shame & dysphoria, I am aware that we all--you and me and anyone else brave enough to admit these realities--exist at some intersection of bewilderment and bravery as we behold our queer flesh. 

The more I write about this the more aware I am of a need I possess to personally and communally, private and publicly grieve these places of pain. This is clearly clearly clearly not about you. AND here's where I need to practice a certain ethic. I want You. I don't want to trace my patterns. I want to admit my patterns and in the admission process make space (cleared by the recognition of my stuff) for your stuff. Hence, I'd like to ask you, if it feels like something you want to engage, for a response to this writing, specifically focused on this question: how do you experience the reality of not being able to biologically parent? You have named puzzlement. In taking that term literally and artistically I envision pieces, many pieces, coexisting together-yet-apart on a common surface. Is there an accuracy to this vision? Tell me more. 

Now...to your question...

My process around processing :) this move to biologically parent started about two years ago when I found myself falling deeply, quite unexpectedly (with varying levels of disturbance), in love with J.R. I was on a plane to Biloxi MI where I'd be doing a week long Katrina Recovery home renovation. We were both in other primary romantic relationships at the time and nothing physical had happened between us but there was an acknowledgment of something totally powerful going on that couldn't be stopped. It's an utterly terrifying feeling. Anyways, six months pregnant, dyke-identified with a sperm-donor baby and I was madly in love with a self-identified biological male. It made no sense. Still doesn't some days. But on that plane, high in the sky, (never underestimate the power of fucking with gravity/routine/placement when it comes to receiving revelation) I had this distinct premonition that we were going to have children with each other. It scared me. And enticed me. Like only something totally outside the box can. At that point I didn't even think J.R. and I had a future as a couple; I certainly couldn't see biological children. But however perplexing that's the message I got. Looking back, I'm more sure than ever that the 'power that couldn't be stopped' was (multiplicitous for sure and) partly Isaiah's need to be in the world. He was part of that pulsing, gripping, completely compelling mystery we call love. Sometimes things need to make their way into the world through already existing things in the world. I think the desire we feel is often this currency, a kind of invitational communication, of the unborn. And I mean unborn in a large sense: books to be written, sculptures to be formed, music to be composed and sung, places to be traveled, you feel me, right? What I'm trying to say is that future incarnations can often preview themselves in the form of yearning that makes no sense in the present. Hence, after a long detour to set context, let me say that my first response to biological parenting (and of course, I (am) biologically parented/parenting Aurora too but conception came about differently; more of this later) was outright disbelief. Like, how on Earth is that going to work? Yeah, fucking, right. 

And then something crazy happened. I listened to my mother. Lol! 

Two weeks after that initial vision/premonition I was with my mom in Cape Cod (again, outside of my normal geography) and I was lamenting this love that didn't make any sense, refusing to give into "normativity" and "heterosexuality" and wishing it would all go away. Do you know what she said to me? I'll never forget it. "Em, you've been fighting for everyone else's right to love each other however they want, whoever they are, ever since you were a kid. Why not give yourself that same right and freedom?" My mother standing at the altar of my life, calling me, pushing me, propelling me forward. In some ways I know that her own failed love affair with my father is what enabled her to utter that prophetic question. Again, sometimes things need to make their way into the world through already existing things in the world. In my bloodline that means one thing for sure: the capacity for love and desire to be honest about themselves, to not quit, to persist when everything in the world (except the heart) says turn around/away. My parents couldn't do it. No, let me be real: my father couldn't do it. She suffered as a result. I could feel her hoping that my life wouldn't be thrust into a similar love-not-chosen kind of spiral. 

Let's face it. We are undone by each other. And if we are not, we're missing something. --Judith Butler. 

You sent this to me and Anna the other day, Logan. Do you remember? One wonders why a certain passage/text/pericope echoes with such force throughout the years with such force throughout certain communities. Here's a guess on this one. We queers fight for freedom in the world that we too easily deny ourselves. Because we've so often been rejected (because our bodies, love, sex, relations are taboo, non-normative, too big, not enough, etc) we are a self protective people. Yet the balm we most need is the very love we understandably, yet tragically protect ourselves against. We need Judith to remind us: the only way to wholeness is through the process of being undone. 

I had ideas about the kind of love and the kind of family I could have. It was a kind of militant framework looking back. I had so thoroughly rejected notions of nuclear/biological family and so whole-heartedly embraced queer/family by choice lifestyle that when the love I most wanted/needed came my way, I had to struggle to undo what was protecting/blocking me. The point here, is of course NOT that I have now seen the light and embraced the "true" paradigm by settling into marriage and having a kid through vaginal intercourse. Not at all. In fact I feel more queer than before. Because I've realized sky is the limit. When it comes to love, relationships, family, sex, parenting, etc, the options are endless. It's all possible. I can choose any of it. There is incredible freedom in this. The freedom to accept what comes my way in the form of gift, no matter how it comes. (ha!) I think my way of conceiving and parenting Aurora is equal (in the sight of God and my community of accountability) to how I've conceived of and will parent Isaiah. I absolutely love the combination of stuff my family is. Gay straight queer. Black brown white. Young middle and old(er-ish). It's (the diversity) a huge source of pride for me. No one I know has this story. How awesome is that? 

The choice was before me: was I willing to be undone by J.R., by this love, by this potential family--or not? I chose love. I chose J.R. I chose the potential for Aurora and Isaiah to have a father/co-parent. I am not sorry. I am happier than I've ever been. More free in the commitment. More secure in the ties that bind and inevitably cause grief/loss. So, to answer your direct question: "how do you find yourself relating to and experiencing this process of creating biological family?"--Logan, I feel grateful. Grateful that I know it isn't the only way and that knowledge isn't conceptual but experiential. Grateful that I could have repeated the pattern of my parents by walking away because it didn't make sense but I didn't. Grateful that I chose to love and be free and be Isaiah's mom. On my knees, in a sacred hush, most days, because the gratitude is so deep that I cannot help but kneel in adoration. 

Thank you for your reflections and question. Thank you for being a presence that evokes the best. The fucking best. You are a friend, a brother, a companion of delight and depth. 

In my experience an aporia is often an opening. Never seems that way at first. At first it's often disorientation, a kind of disturbance for those of us who like to Know. You began with/at an aporetic door. I hope I walked through this one with the respect, honor and bad-assness that this relationship, and all aporias, deserve. 

All my love, 

Emily Joye