Ashes to Ashes, Spoons to Spoons

Smash the patriarchy

 

How my Ash Wednesday went.

On Wednesday afternoon a kind person explained Spoon Theory to me.  The spoon is a metaphor for the mental - physical - spiritual energy each of us has in a day to devote to our daily tasks.  Imagine each of us is allotted a certain number of spoons for the day.  Some days, it can take a person, say, 5 spoons to just get out of bed; other days it takes that person zero spoons.  For some people, calling their Senator uses hardly any spoons; for me it’s a high spoon cost.  It always makes me nervous.

And then the kind person showed me what it says on her wall: “It is okay to run out of spoons.”  Given the frenetic pace I have been on, for political activity, I needed to hear this.  And it was refreshing to have Kind Person listen to me.

 

That blessed conversation ended.  I began to feel some nasty heartburn, something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.  I realized that I had forgotten to take my heartburn medicine for three straight days, because I was distracted by the decline and fall of Western civilization.  Heartburn uses up some spoons, for sure.

That evening we set out for dinner and Ash Wednesday worship – my Jewish husband and I.  I wore the button (pin) that I have decided to wear everywhere.  It says, “No Kings” (see photo above).

We sat at a round table at a gathering of three local churches, eating delicious homemade soup.  Small talk with strangers is not my strong suit, but it is something society needs to help us get along.  At first we discussed the various soups - a safe and pleasant topic.  Then one person at our table – from a different church than mine – told us about his real estate endeavors - houses he has refurbished and rents out.  Excellent.  He has contributed to the common good through his business.  

Landlord Guy then went on to complain about how the county executive raised the real estate tax by 36%.  “But no, she wouldn’t cut jobs or cut county spending.  Instead my renters have to pay 36% more.”  I said nothing.  I don’t know this man at all, so I felt it was pointless to start an argument about taxes.  Someone else at the table said, Did you hear that the USAID money has been restored?  Landlord Guy responded, “I bet Chelsea Clinton is real glad about that!  All that money from USAID goes straight to the Clintons!”  I could not listen any more.  I got up quickly and left the table without saying a word. 

I suddenly had no spoons left. I went to the sanctuary.

Shortly after I left the table, the worship service started.  As I was in line to receive the imposition of ashes, the woman behind me tapped my shoulder and whispered to me, “I like your pin.”  My “No Kings” pin.  I was grateful and thanked her.  This woman restored to me a spiritual spoon. 

No kings but Jesus.

A review of the book “Trouble I’ve Seen” by Drew G.I. Hart

A Common Household book review

Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, by Drew G.I. Hart.  © 2016.

I recommend this book to white American Christians. 

Dr. Hart points out the inability (or unwillingness) of white Christians in this country to be able to see life from the perspective of people of color. This inability supports prolonged systemic racism, both in the church and in the country.  In white American churches, racism is often only addressed every now and then, in a sermon here or there, based on some national event.   Hey, we mentioned racism on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so now we can move on.

This book has tough words for white Christians to hear.  Will we have the heart and energy to persevere in looking at our role in the continuation of racism, in the face of such condemning words? I found it worthwhile to continue reading, and hope that you do, too.

This book makes the point, also seen in other recent books on racism, that racism goes much deeper than individual acts, such as “saying the ‘n-word’.  The perspective of white Americans, when it comes to racism, is shallow and short-termed, whereas the perspective of black Americans is more comprehensive and takes a long view of history.  Are we white Christians willing to try to change our perspective?

Dr. Hart shows how a “whitened” Jesus supports American empire and racism.  At the time of Jesus’ birth, “Rome was the ruling empire over the Jews, and consequently all of Israel understood what it meant to be oppressed – what it meant to live life with someone’s foot against your neck.”  (p. 59)  Throughout American history, white Christians have used a false understanding of Jesus to support oppression, rather than to free the oppressed.

But Jesus is a subversive. “In his life and ministry, Jesus found solidarity with the poor, with the oppressed, with vulnerable women, with the socially rejected and marginalized, with ethnic Samaritan outcasts, with the demon-possessed, and with the blind or physically sick.”  (p. 61)  Jesus stands against Caesar and against the existing social order.  We should consider that Jesus wants us to take a stand against the oppressive aspects of our existing social order, which includes systemic racism.

When trying to start a conversation with white Americans about racism, the author usually gets these kinds of reactions:  defensiveness, antagonism, color-blindness (“I don’t see color” is essentially an inability to recognize racism).  White people discount his experiences.  Sometimes he experiences someone who has good intentions, but who questions the author’s perspective on what racism is.   I think this intense emotional discomfort renders white Americans unlikely to persevere in addressing racism. 

Hart writes, “Dominant cultures have a way of disguising their own oppressive practices from themselves with strong proclamations of innocence and benevolence and universal principles of equality.”  This is amply described in another book I read this year - Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts , by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson , © 2007, 2015.  Humans have a basic psychological need to justify their own actions and to view themselves as worthy and innocent.  It is partly this basic human need and partly the socialization of the dominant white culture that prevents us white people from seeing racism.  It’s very hard for the dominant portion of society to see oppression.

The last chapter, “Where Do We Go From Here?” proposes seven “Jesus-shaped practices for the anti-racist church”.  I urge you to read all the way through to the end.

There is one criticism I have of this book.  There are a few pages in Chapter 3, “Leaving Behind the Whitened Jesus”, where I see anti-Judaism on display.  Hart espouses the theology that basically sets up all Jews in the earthly time of Jesus as idiotic bad guys because they failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah. 

Jesus [says] “You will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Luke 13:35).  Most of his listeners would have been anticipating a visitation from God as Jeremiah prophesied, and many would have also expected a messiah who would come and deliver them from their unrighteous oppressors.  This would happen in Jerusalem.  Yet when the time came, they did not recognize God in the flesh.

            Isn’t that something?  They could not recognize that it was God manifested in Jesus. They attended synagogue and served the torah their whole lives.  Yet when God took on human flesh, somehow Jesus looked nothing like many people’s projections of the divine one.  (p. 70)

I don’t like this theology, nor its mocking tone.  I think it is a dangerous and wrong theology (a view I probably got from reading Jewish New Testament scholar Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, and from being married to a Jew).  I believe that Hart is trying to make the point that the Jews (“God’s people”) in that time could not recognize their own complicity in living counter to God, just as today’s white American Christians cannot recognize their complicity in racism.  But I think that Hart’s condemnation of all Jews in first century Palestine is condescending and wrong.   Is it even true that “all Jews” in that time did not recognize their role in society’s ills?  Is it even true that “all Jews” were living “counter to what God was doing on earth as manifested in Jesus Christ.”?  The gospels tell us that many Jews did believe that Jesus was the messiah.  Most of the first Christians were Jews. 

And the Jews who didn’t believe that – who can fault them?  The Christian claim that a man is God is completely anathema to Jewish theology.  In many ways, Jesus did not fulfill the traditional qualities of messiah.  Can we give first-century Jews some credit for actually sticking to their principles?  Also, let’s recognize that the gospels are polemic documents which portray the enemies of early Christians in the worst possible light.  Given the anti-Semitic history of the Christian church, I really wish Hart had not put this damaging theology in his otherwise excellent book.

Maybe Hart’s theology here just shows that the gospel of Luke is anti-Jewish, but these pages left a bad taste in my mouth, and I thought that making first-century Jews the bad guys is not necessary for Hart to make his larger point that we white Americans need to recognize how we contribute to racism – either intentionally or unintentionally.

Again, I recommend that white Christians read this book – it’s time for us to do this incredibly hard work (just don’t adopt the theology on pages 69-70).

New Life for Dry Bones

I sat down at the table.  The man next to me muttered, “Might as well hang me now.”  The woman to the right of me picked up the block of clay in front of her and started kneading it enthusiastically.  I looked at my block of clay and waited for instructions, like a proper Presbyterian.  Yep, that’s the gamut of likely responses in an “Arts in Worship” workshop at the Next Church national gathering.

I was eager to attend this workshop, thinking it would give us ideas on how to incorporate various kinds of art into our worship service.  It turns out we were going to make art ourselves!  How fun!  Or how threatening!  Or both!

Despite the fear, I immensely enjoyed responding to scripture through painting, even though I have zero artistic skill.  I feel a great longing to be creative in connection with worship. I think that I am the only one who feels this way.  To paraphrase the prophet Ezekiel, ‘my bones are dried up, my hope is lost, I am cut off completely.’  God’s creative breath of life is in our worship, mostly through music, but perhaps we are missing out in not exploring other forms of creativity.

A longer description of the workshop is below, for those who are interested.

How do you like to express your creativity?  If you are part of a worshiping community, would you be willing to participate in an art project as part of worship?  Or would you make sure you had to be out of town that day?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Details

As the workshop started, we were encouraged to fiddle around with the block of clay in front of us.  We had no instructions regarding the clay.  We continued to work with it if we wished, as we started the discussion.  There were two tables, with about 8 people at each table.

Some of our clay creations.
Mine is that thing in the forefront that is supposed to
 be "spilt milk".  It is not spiritually significant, but just
sort of ended up that way.

First we discussed how non-artistic adults generally feel about doing art.  Art (and any creativity, really) is viewed as fine for kids, but adults just don’t go there.  This workshop was about why adults should go there.

The workshop leader must have had a time machine on my life.  She described exactly what happened to me in second grade art class, when we painted a scene on a tile.  I was quite pleased with my scene of ducks and grass.  The art teacher denigrated it; the words are long forgotten, but the feeling is not.  Almost all of us encounter something similar on the way to adulthood.  Our human capacity for judgment and comparison takes over, and those of us who don’t have artistic talent stop making art at all.  It’s just too scary and painful to endure the judgment from others and ourselves.

 

At the crossroads of fear and creativity

Then we talked about confronting that fear and leaping into creativity. Making art unleashes freedom, joy, and wholeness, and that’s just for starters.  If you believe that you are created in the image of God (the original creativity maven) then exercising your creativity is an excellent way of showing it.  Why should only kids be able to do this?!  Why should only those with innate artistic talent be able to do this?!

In our workshop it turned out that the clay was just a warm-up to our main activity – painting a large banner.  Like most art, our painting was to be based on other art, and was to follow rules.  We were instructed to base our painting on our response to the Bible passage about Ezekiel’s vision of God breathing life into dry bones (Ezekiel 37). 

The blank canvas for the banner

We had a few minutes to discuss what images the passage evoked in us.  I think this discussion helped a lot, when it came time to start painting.  But before starting to paint, the rules: 

- First, paint on the space in front of you.  Paint your own response to the passage.

- After a few minutes, everyone is to move two spaces to the left and continue painting.  You may not erase, obliterate, or cover up what the person before painted in their spot.  You may embellish and extend their painting, or start painting in a new spot.  After a few minutes, go two more spaces to the left and extend that person’s painting.  Finally, return to your original spot and fill in spaces as you see fit.

- No talking!  This meant we could not collaborate. We could not form a committee to plan what to paint, or where.  (That is extremely unPresbyterian.)  It also meant we could not offer any evaluation of each others’ art.  We could not issue comments on our own efforts.  This was crucial – no compliments, no criticisms.  A compliment of one person’s art could be construed by someone else as an implicit criticism of their own art.  (“You liked her art, but didn’t say anything about mine.”)

- The workshop leader told us where the top of the banner would be.  She also said that there were pieces of tape running across the canvas, and she had prepared our canvas by painting blue over the whole canvas. After our art expressions had dried she would be pulling off the tape, creating bold lines across our art work.

We started painting.  At first I felt that familiar sense of self-criticism.   I started by drawing a kindergartenish slab of grass, thinking of "the fruitful land" from the passage.  Being more of a “words” person than a “drawing” person, I wondered if I could dare to write a word instead of just painting shapes and colors. I dared.  But which word?  I chose "fruitful".  I felt I should paint it upside down (my area was at the top of the canvas) so that the word would be displayed right side up. This was challenging.

Someone else enhanced my painting by outlining the words in gold
and adding other colors to the green part.

After a bit it was time to switch spots. I was perplexed after switching. It felt wrong to mess with what someone else had painted. It almost felt as if that spot was now sacred.  Instead of painting within that person’s area, I tried to extend from that area, reaching more into the middle of the canvas. 

By the time we switched again, I was feeling more bold, and reached into the middle to start a new shape. I painted the words "new life" in the middle of the canvas. Then I decided to paint a cell to represent a form of life and honor my sweet Younger Daughter and her interest in cells.

That greenish blob above the word "spirit" is my cell

When we were finished we had a great sense of ownership and accomplishment at having created a work of art together.  I do not know or care if it is beautiful in the eyes of the world, but it is ours, our expression of the scripture.  When our canvas was displayed in the worship space the next day, I again felt like a kindergartner, proud to have my work up on the refrigerator.

 

Our banner hanging in the sanctuary

Another group's banner

I just have to add that I believe that it is good and right to have beautiful art, created by truly talented professional artists, in our worship spaces.  It can be appropriate to evaluate sacred art and display what is inspiring.  In fact, if we non-artists are to do art, we need the professional artists, who figure out things like how big the canvas should be, what kind of paint is best, how long to let it dry, how to display it.

Professional art: Abraham
Tiffany stained glass window

Professional art (close up).
We amateurs just can't do this.

Professional art: wood carving

Our workshop group did not create our banner in order for it to be evaluated or compared to professional art.  It is valuable in that we ourselves made it as an expression of our connection to holiness.  For me personally, it felt like new life for my dry bones which are longing, aching, yearning to be creative in worship.

The third and fourth groups' banners

Favorite Books of 2015

This year I finished reading 41 books. That doesn’t include the ones I started but, for whatever reason, didn’t finish.

The library and the church and the synagogue provided incentives this year. The library now has a winter and a summer reading challenge for adults! I had to read a lot of books for church. My husband started a book club at the synagogue.

Here are my favorites from this year. 

FICTION

Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo (bilingual version on Kindle).  Also The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo, trans Walter Cobb.

My ponderous review is here. 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce

It is rather inexplicable that at this point in my life I would love a book about an elderly person walking, but I really liked this book.  I found it to be a compelling story, with plenty of grief and loneliness, but also love and beauty.  There’s lots of tea drinking and letter writing, which in my view puts it in the ranks of a great English novel.  Harold seemed to me to end up being very like Jesus – caring for people in spite of them,  always listening, giving away the very last thing he has, sacrificing himself in order to give life to Queenie.

No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

This is the opening line:

There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

As is usual in a Barbara Pym novel, there is much acerbic wit, romantic confusion, and tea drinking here.  I love it!

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd

Which I wrote about briefly here.

1984 by George Orwell

I am not sure whether to include this as a favorite book, but I list it here because I think it is an important book.  Our book club will discuss it in January.  This is my third or fourth time reading this book, and every time I have been appalled at the hopeless world the book creates.  With this reading I saw a number of parallels, if a bit imperfect ones, with current-day politics and with the internet.  Big Internet Brother is watching you, and don’t you forget it.  Hate Week is coming up soon, leading up to the parties’ conventions in July 2016.   Preparations for hate have already begun.  And remember, we have always been at war.

NONFICTION

The two I list here are religiousy.  I did read some non-religious nonfiction this year, most notably Devil in the White City, which I wrote about briefly here and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander which I wrote about ponderously here.

Discovering the Other (Kindle version) by Cameron Harder – about church renewal.

Pastrix: The cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner and saint, by Nadia Bolz-Weber

One of my favorite quotes:

I find liturgical dance to be neither liturgical nor dance and is often performed by liberal, middle-aged women with lots of scarfy things going on.

But there is plenty of serious stuff: addiction, sobriety, theodicy, Wiccan worship, grace, forgiveness.  I’ll leave you with one last quote.

My former bishop Allan Bjornberg once said that the greatest spiritual practice isn’t yoga or praying the hours or living in intentional poverty, although these are all beautiful in their own way.  The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up.

Thanks for showing up here and reading my blog.  It is a great comfort and encouragement to me. 

Now it is your turn. Do you have a favorite book that you read during 2015?  Feel free to link to your own blog, if you wrote about books there.

(If for some bizarre reason you want to see the entire list of books I finished this year, here's the list.)

Church Ladies' Joy Ride

It started innocently enough – a carpool to tour the men’s shelter that our church supports.  We divvied up the eleven participants, with Jan, Sue, and Linda making the fateful choice to ride with me in my aging van.

We had our tour of the place, which is so much more than just a men’s shelter – food pantry, job center, financial counseling, spiritual help, medical appointments and more.  One last stop outside to see the container gardens they hoped to be planting soon, and then we were on our way back north.  Since I organized the tour, I stuck around to thank the director.  By the time we were getting in my car, everybody else had left the scene.

Outside the shelter, beautiful art work, worn
by the extreme winter.  Faith, hope, and love
will get us through a lot of things, including
some car rides.

Linda, Sue, and Jan got back into the van.  Jan went to close the sliding side door.  It slid just so far, and then stopped, half-way open.  Unholy words entered my head, but I thought if I just pushed it with my hip (strengthened in recent months by extra Jazzercise classes) that it would close.

Well, no.  I did everything I could think of – felt around for foreign objects, cursed, pushed the door, pulled the door.  It would open all the way, but refused to close all the way.  I even pushed the door button on my key fob, but that had no effect.  Non-church-lady words exited my mouth – also no effect.

Jan, who was sitting in that seat next to the partially open door, bravely volunteered to ride home with it like that.  Not knowing what else to do, I acquiesced, and got into the driver’s seat. 

We drove a few blocks, and then stopped at a red light.  Linda said, “Look, we’re right next to the police station.  I hope they don’t notice us.”  My anxiety rose a notch.

My three friends counseled me to not take the highway home, as we didn’t want Jan rolling out the open door at 65 mph.  “Take Federal Street!” they said.  “Turn left!”  So I did, heading up the hill.

Federal Street, like most streets in Pittsburgh, is curvy, narrow, and steep.  I tried to drive more slowly than usual.  If the road curved to the left, my passengers yelled, “Take it easy on those curves!” to remind me that centrifugal force could fling Jan out of the car.  Otherwise they kept up a cheerfulness I did not quite feel. They pointed out Northside landmarks, while I tried not to be nervous.

We headed up and around bends.  Then we heard it.  “Woop woop!”  Police siren.  My first thought was, “Who, me?” I figured the police thought I was driving too slowly and wanted to get past me.  So I started to drive up a side street to the right.  My friends all yelled, “Not that way!”  So I swerved back to the left, just like a drunk driver might do, and pulled to the curb on the main road. 

The police car pulled up next to me.   You should know that at that moment, the neighborhood we were in might have had someone driving around with the car door open, for the purpose of quickly delivering illicit substances to paying customers.  Perhaps that is what the police officer was expecting before he actually saw that we were, in fact, four renegade church ladies.

The conversation went something like this (tones of voice are:  Policeman, stern.  Me: quaking).

Police: Do you realize your door is open?

Me:  Yes, sir.

Police: You can’t drive around like that with the door open! 

Me:  No, sir.

Police:  That’s a severe violation. Do you have any children in the car?

Me: Oh, no sir!

[From the back seat someone muttered, “Do we look like kids?!”] 

Police: I should write you up and have the car towed.

Me:  The door got stuck.  I didn’t know what else to do. Sir.

Police: I’m going to let you go with a verbal warning, but you need to get that fixed right away.

Me:  Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

The only time I have used the word “Sir” more often was when I was 22 years old and was stopped for speeding in Shrewsbury, PA, while I was driving a carpool of college friends back to college.  That was a very expensive carpool trip.

The police car drove off ahead of us.  I gathered my wits and gingerly pulled away from the curb.  There was little traffic, so we were actually right behind the cop car for several more blocks.  I was very nervous that the police officer would change his mind and cart me off to jail.

Sue said, “What did he mean, ‘Are there any children?’  Did he even look at us?!  Our combined age must be over 200 years!”

Soon, Linda remarked, “Okay, this is the city line here.  That officer has no jurisdiction beyond this point.”  This did not make me very relaxed. I exclaimed, “You know, my brother drives around all the time with the car door open, and the police never stopped him!”  I do not think this improved my friends’ opinion of my extended family’s driving and car maintenance habits.

Jan was still hanging on and remaining remarkably joyful.  Perhaps she felt lucky just to be alive.

Someone said, “Do you think you should avoid driving right past the police station in this township?”  Um, yes!  All three said, “Okay. Go that way!”  I pulled ahead to get through the intersection and found myself at the top of a precipitous hill, makred “10 MPH”.  “Slow down!” my passengers cried in unison.

The road you take to avoid the police station in this township was curvy, narrow, and cliff-like, just the thing for a person with acrophobia (me).  But all I could say was, “What does it mean that all of you know how to avoid the local police station?”

Another mile and we were in more familiar territory.  I realized that getting to church really would feel like salvation.  I pulled up to the next red light, emotionally ready to turn onto our church’s street.  We were almost there!  The chorus:  “STOP!  Don’t turn right on red here!”

The light stayed red for an eternity, during which I expected another police car to appear.  Finally, the light changed.  I turned, and within a minute we were back in the church parking lot.  Sue got out, probably wishing she had gone to visit her husband in the hospital instead.  Linda said, “Carolyn, just try that door button on your dashboard.” 

I had not thought of the dashboard button until we were on the road, and then I was afraid to press it, lest it open the door all the way.  Now that we were safe in the church parking lot, I tried it.

The door closed.

The shouts of irony from all us church ladies could be heard a long way off, probably even as far as the township police station.

I believe that all three church ladies are still friends with me, but I will not be surprised if they prefer to ride with someone else for the next church field trip. 

I made an appointment to get the door fixed, vowing not to use the right-side door until I was parked at the car dealer for my appointment.  When I got there, I tried the door. It closed successfully about 20 times.  It was mocking me.

The dealer determined that the “rollers” on both doors were worn.  But they only had parts for the left door.  In a last bout of irony, I paid $250 to fix the door that wasn’t truly broken.  The right-side door remains unfixed.

Wait, more irony!  I am driving a carpool to our next church board meeting.  To the people in my car pool:  you have been warned.