Saturday, May 19, 2018

Ten things: "Oh, it's happening, sweetheart."

Have you seen this commercial? I'm sure you have. I have seen it dozens of times. It makes me laugh. The part that cracks me up the most is when the car owner is looking at the remains of his car, which is up on cinder blocks. He says, "This can't be happening." The onlooker says, "Oh, it's happening, sweetheart."

Indeed. It's happening. I am about to start a new job. At a church. Serving a community of faith. Serving my city. In one of the early conversations with the senior minister of the church, Caldwell Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte, I asked him what the church needs in the person who would be called to work and serve there. He said, "The church needs someone who wakes up in the morning thinking about ways to love them." I smiled and thought, "I can do that."

Here are ten things that have come to mind as I ponder the start of this new and next stage of my life journey.

1. I remember being a child in Sunday school class at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and wishing I could go to church five days a week and go to school only two days. Well, it looks like that wish is about to come true; actually the reality will be better than that childhood wishful and wistful dream. I will be in church five days a week - or out in the community loving the church and its people, loving the city and its people - but I will be going to school only one day. Yes, I will continue my seminary studies, and I look forward to putting these studies and lessons to work on a daily basis. Before you write and warn me about the reality of work in the church, the brokenness of people, the division and difficulties, the hypocrisy and deceit, please know that I am fully aware of all of that. Because if I am going to be there, I am going to bring my own healthy dose of brokenness, woundedness, hypocrisy, and inconsistency. That's part of the human experience. Thanks be to God - part of the church experience, certainly what I know of the experience at Caldwell, is openly and honestly admitting our brokenness and walking together towards healing and wholeness.

2. Back when I was a kid, the youth group at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church was called "The Liberators." You had to be 13 years old to join, and unfortunately I wasn't ever able to join them because our family was asked to leave the church when I was 12. (Yes, I bring my own church hurt as well.) Anyway, my parents were youth leaders. And my three older brothers were all members of The Liberators. While they spent time down in the basement of the church, while they laughed and learned, played games, and listened to dire warnings about being left behind when the rapture happened, I would be upstairs in the main part of the church, wishing desperately I could be down there with them. Anyway (again), there was a young guy who was part of The Liberators who was a bit of a loner. He was one of the few kids in the group who wasn't African American. He was Puerto Rican. Looking back now as an adult, I think it might be reasonable to guess that he had some developmental delays; physically, socially, and intellectually, he was more like a twelve year old than a fifteen year old. That young man and I would would talk to one another often. We would go for walks in the neighborhood. Sometimes we even talked on the phone. We weren't romantically involved at all. We were just friends. I liked listening to his stories. I liked walking with him.

Those walks I took with Noel back then were preparing me for the walks I will take with the folks at Caldwell. They will talk. I will listen. They will share. I will pray. Together we will walk each other back and forth to the church. Back and forth out into the community. Where we are developmentally delayed, where we are physically, emotionally, intellectually, financially, relationally challenged, we will walk together. We will pray together. We will be both the liberators and the liberated - together.

3. A young woman named Hope was also a member of that youth group at Sixth Avenue. I remember that there were often whispers, nudges, nods, and shifted chairs when Hope was around. Why? Because "she likes girls." I remember realizing, not fully understanding but definitely sensing, that the folks who were talking about her and saying those things were saying something more than those words expressed. I remember her well. I remember, even at a young age, wishing I could do something or say something to let her know that I didn't care who she liked or didn't like; I liked her. I loved watching her play basketball and football and whatever other games the young group played. I liked that she didn't have to wear dresses to church like I did. I liked that she wore her hair short.

Watching Hope and admiring her strength and independence prepared me for the position I am stepping into, for the church God has called me to serve. This church welcomes everyone, no matter who they like, who they love, or who they marry. This church welcomes people from all walks of life, from all along the many spectrums that exist in our society and our culture. This church wrestles openly and actively with its checkered past, related to slavery, related to bigotry, related to the brokenness that plagues all of us.

4. I spent my elementary school years attending PS 307 in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. I think I was in 4th grade when I began to serve as a buddy for a blind boy who was in my class. His name was Lodi. He was the only white kid in the class for a while, then another boy came, but, as I recall, that second boy didn't stay at our school for long. Lodi and I became good friends. He held onto my elbow sometimes when we moved from one room to another in the school. It wasn't long before he didn't need my elbow because he knew his way around, but we remained friends and spent a lot of time together. He taught me how to use his braille machine and also how to read braille. He taught me how he arranged his food and his belongings. He told me stories about his life. I told him stories about mine. Whenever I had the chance, I would go with him to the room that was set up in the school for the blind students to do whatever they needed to do that couldn't be done in their classrooms. I loved hanging out with him and his buddies there.

Three doors down the block from where I grew up on Bedford Avenue, there was another blind friend. He was older than me by several years. His family was from Panama. Tall black man who walked with the long, thin cane often used by the visually impaired. He and I became buddies too. When I saw him coming home from work, and I often spotted him while he was still a block away, I would run to where he was, greet him, and offer him my shoulder.

Plus there were the blind adults that my dad used to drive back and forth to the New York School for the Blind in Manhattan. During the summer months, I would ride with him in the van, hanging out with folks three and four times my age, marveling at their ability to navigate their world without one of the senses that I took so much for granted.

Once again, it was all preparation. To learn from folks that so many other people ignored or belittled or underestimated. One day when I was no more than ten or eleven years of age, one of the adults who held onto my elbow as I led her from my father's van to the front door of the School for the Blind, said, "You are going to be tall when you grow up." I asked her how she knew that, and she responded, "I can tell by your elbow, by your arm." She had wisdom in her hands, in her fingers, deep within her. Wisdom that had nothing to do with what she saw, because she couldn't see me.

It was all preparation to lead and be led. Preparation to see and be seen. Preparation to listen and learn. Preparation to welcome the stranger, the outcast, the neglected. Preparation to not discount anyone. Preparation to recognize my own blindness and my need to learn to live by more than what was apparent to the physical eye or the societal eye.

5. During my growing up time, we attended churches where women were not allowed to be pastors or elders or deacons. Women could be deaconesses and Sunday school teachers, but not pastors. I had female cousins and aunts who were ministers, but we didn't go to their churches. In fact, before I began to attend First Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte, the church I attend now, I had never been a member of a church where women were ordained ministers. That's all I'm going to say about that...

6. One evening when I was teaching a series on journaling as a spiritual discipline at a church where I had been reprimanded for the fact that a man attended one of the class sessions, at the end of the class, one of the attendees, a woman who wasn't a member of the church approached me and said, "You belong in the pulpit. You think you are teaching a class, but you are preaching in here." I nodded and smiled - and I thought, "Total heresy." Looking back now, I am enormously grateful for Bonnie's boldness in speaking the truth to me that night.

7. I am grateful for Katie Crowe, the pastor who initially mentored me at First Pres and encouraged me to pursue seminary study. She suggested that I visit Union Presbyterian Seminary here in Charlotte and speak to Dean Richard Boyce. I never went. But God wasn't letting me off the hook that easily. One evening, at a training session at First Pres, the dean of the seminary came to the church to teach. I don't remember a whole lot of what he said, but I do remember thinking, "Okay, Lord. I didn't go to see him at the seminary, so you brought him here." I approached him after the session that evening. He invited me to visit one Saturday. I am nearly finished with my third year of a five year program.

8. Back in October of last year, I was sitting in my car in a local park, eating lunch. My cell phone rang. I looked down at it - but didn't recognize the number. Normally, I don't answer calls from unknown callers, but that time I did. The caller asked me to consider applying for a job at Caldwell Presbyterian Church. I said no, that I wasn't yet done with seminary. I wasn't ready. I said no three times. He was gentle but firm, and he pointed out that my repeated declines meant that I was taking the job and the work of ministry seriously. I hadn't thought about it that way, but he was right. So I finally said yes; I would put my name in the hat.

Resume updated. Prayers prayed.
Forms filled in. Prayers prayed.
Facetime interview completed. Prayers prayed.
In person interview completed. More prayers prayed.
Trial sermon preached. Prayers prayed.
Questions asked and answered. Prayers prayed.
An offer made. Prayers prayed.
My profile and candidacy presented to the church (while I was in Guatemala!).
More prayers.
The church stepped out in faith and said yes.
I start two weeks from tomorrow.

9. I have spent a lot of time in the past several months shaking my head, pinching myself, journaling, and praying. A lot of praying. I pray out loud while I'm out walking. I pray silently while lying awake in bed. I pray in the car. And yesterday, for the first time, I stood in the pulpit at Caldwell, and looked out onto the empty pews. I imagined the congregation, the beloved and beautiful, the broken and lonely, the fearful and joyful people of God, sitting out there, looking at me, looking at my colleagues, looking towards us for a word of encouragement, hope, challenge, and exhortation. I stood there and cried - and prayed.

10. I stepped out from behind that sacred desk, walked down those steps, approached the friend who was giving me the detailed tour of the church, and asked her if she had seen the commercial I mentioned and linked at the beginning of this post. With tears in my eyes, I said to her - and much more to myself - "This is really happening. (deep breath) Oh, it's happening, sweetheart."

Friday, May 18, 2018

Remembering El Salvador

(Trigger Warning: there is a photo in this post that shows someone who was shot)

Four weeks ago today, we arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador.
The layers of clothing I needed to stay warm on the airplane were 
excruciatingly unnecessary once we deplaned.
As we stood waiting for our luggage,
as we waited for our passports to be stamped, 
as we watched dozens of American military personnel drag their enormous bags
out of the terminal,
as we drove from the airport to our guest house,
every step along that journey,
I was reminded that we weren't in Charlotte anymore.
This was a whole different world.
A world of barbed wire and locked gates.
A world where coconut water straight out of the coconut was available at every turn.
A world of street food and hustlers sold at every traffic light.
A world with a bloody past and a resilient people.

Actually, that sounds a lot like Charlotte after all...

On our very first day there, we went to a place called CRISPAZ.
Christians for Peace.
After decades of bloody and brutal repression by the government,
after the ongoing horrors of political and economic corruption,
there has been yet another assault on the people through gang violence.
The poorest people are always the most vulnerable.
That's true in El Salvador and Guatemala - and also these United States of America.
So people like the man on the left have made it their goal 
to advocate, to work, to speak up, to march, to live for peace.
I was honored to be there and also challenged by what I heard and learned there.

Hope and joy regained a foothold when he told the story of his own father - 
who went from a life of military service against the people
to a life of guerrilla warfare and life service on the side of the people.
Later as we reflected on his account, I said, 
"Sometimes we use the word 'conversion' when we talk about stories like that."

One of the things I loved most about El Salvador and Guatemala
was their practice of incorporating green spaces in the middle of their homes and work places.
This photo was taken from an office at CRISPAZ -
looking across their green space into the room where we had listened 
to that gentleman tell his story. 
Notice the gorgeous greenery in between. 
The sunlight you see on the right is streaming into open space.
How lovely is that?
Imagine having a space like that just feet from your desk?
Especially a desk that is so often covered with accounts of brutality and suffering...

I wrote about Monsenor Oscar Romero in my last blog post.
I wrote about how he was assassinated while serving communion.
That act of horror took place in this chapel, behind this table.
His body lay on that floor, bleeding out,
while nuns and nurses, parishioners and visitors,
cried and screamed for help,
cradling his body, loving him
to the end. 



I had his book with me as I sat in that chapel.
I read portions of his homilies and speeches in the very place
where his life was taken from him - 
and I pondered the sorrow that must have gripped those present on that fateful day.

Oscar Romero's love for the poor exposed the violence in those who hated the poor.
His love forced others to recognize their violent tendencies.
His love pushed those who don't believe in the love or justice
so far into their hatred, injustice, and fear that they thought
they had no choice but to act violently against his love.

Once again, that sounds a lot like Charlotte, 
a lot like these United States.
More than that, it sounds a whole lot like the One I Love Most of All -
it sounds a whole like like Jesus.

Although much attention has been paid to Archbishop Romero and other who were brutally murdered because they loved and cared for the poor among them there in El Salvador,
although I spent thirteen days exploring the themes of martyrdom and oppression 
in two Central American countries,
the truth is that the poor and vulnerable have been martyred and oppressed 
dispossessed and discarded everywhere
throughout all of history.
they still are being martyred, oppressed, neglected, hated -
and also blamed for creating their own circumstances.


Grandmothers, mothers, daughters, 
farmers, coal miners, store clerks,
community organizers, small business owners,
preachers, priests, nuns, lawyers,
teachers, doctors, nurses,
people from every walk of life,
from every level of education and privilege,
have seen and heard the cries of the needy and the desperate.
They have stood alongside, spoken up for,
protested and sought justice on behalf of,
and given their lives for others. 

As I remember my time in El Salvador,
as I am reminded of their history,
may I not forget my own,
the history of my own oppressed people
here in my own broken country.
May I never abandon the work of peace and justice
here in my home city
and in my home country. 

Friday, May 11, 2018

I'm Back!!!

Actually, I've been back for more than a week. But I have needed every one of these days to readjust. To reconnect. To rediscover my land legs. To rebound from the nasty virus I brought home with me. And to recover my heart. Truthfully, I hope I never recover my heart. I remember feeling the same way after the trip my daughter and I took to Nicaragua in 2008 and my trip to Haiti in 2012. Heartbreak, poverty, hunger, mixed unrelentingly with hope, resilience, and strength in the stories, the homes, the meals, the hugs, and the faces of everyone we met. Stories of deportation from the United States. Gang violence. Military massacres. Loss of life. But never a loss of hope. Never a loss of joy.

In the face of the worst that people do to people, colors shine bright 
in San Salvador, El Salvador. 
Art emerges. 

 Monsenor Oscar Romero was called an indefatigable defender of 
human rights until his martyrdom.

Oscar Romero said, "A church that doesn't suffer persecution,
but enjoys the privileges and support of the bourgeoisie
is not the true church of Jesus Christ." 
For such statements and convictions, he was assassinated
 on March 24, 1980 - while serving communion.
At the table. Body broken. Blood poured out.



On December 2, 1980, four American nuns were raped and murdered
because they dared to involve themselves in the work of justice
and peace in El Salvador.
The priests and catechists and nuns who famously lost their lives
during those years are far outnumbered by the hundreds of thousands of adults and children
who were burned alive, shot, thrown into wells while still alive,
forcibly "disappeared," and massacred -
during a period of decades.
The stories are horrific.
The suffering continues - there are signs, posters, photos on walls
all over both countries - asking for answers,
seeking for those who are still missing.
But hope remains.

Doors were opened to us.
We were welcomed.
We were fed.

We were honored to stand on sacred, blood soaked ground.
Where shots were fired.
Where lives were taken.
Where blood was shed.
Where power was misused.
Where powerless were mistreated. 

I'm back. 
But my mind wanders back to El Salvador and Guatemala daily.
I wonder about how Esvin and Ana Silvia and Daniel are doing.
I wonder where Emerson and Roberto are.
I wonder what Father Cirilo is talking to his students and church members about.
I remember the women who cooked and cleaned and the men who drove.
I remember the women who walked with impossible loads on their heads and shoulders.
I remember the children in their pristine school uniforms, walking to and from school.
I pray that they are safe, that they are filled with hope, that they are surrounded by love.


On one of the early nights of our trip, as we sat together reviewing the day, talking about what we had seen and experienced, I felt something shift. Literally. My chair shifted and shook. I looked over my left shoulder, at the man who served as our group facilitation, making sure that we arrived safely at all our destinations, called ahead and made hotel and restaurant arrangements, Esvin. He looked at me and said, "That was a tremor." What? A tremor? As in earthquake tremor?

I confess that I spent a significant amount of time every day after that praying, pleading with God that there not be an earthquake while we were there. Then I expanded my prayer requests to pleas that there never be another earthquake there. Or anywhere. Here's how I see it - if I'm gonna pray, I may as well pray big. Ask for big things - never another earthquake anywhere ever.

What I didn't yet realize was that the tremor I noticed that evening was a physical manifestation of what was beginning to happen inside me - the shaking of the foundation of what I used to know and used to understand about migration, the indigenous peoples of Central America, social and legal policies in our own country, and what all of that has to do with the faith I claim to practice. How will what I learned and saw and experienced there affect the ministry I have been called to join at Caldwell Presbyterian Church? (More about that yet to come...) Will those lessons affect my understanding of justice and state-sanctioned violence here in my own country?  May the spiritual and emotional shifting never end - and may I never have to live through a true earthquake.

I'm back.
Barely.
And profoundly grateful.

PS. Here is a reflection I wrote toward the end of our trip. Each member of our class and travel team was given the opportunity to write a blog post for the Union Presbyterian Seminary website.