Easter Greetings

Easter Greetings

During Lent my husband underwent out-patient surgery after which he took two weeks off from his work as a Church of Scotland parish minister in order to begin his recovery. As he was back in the pulpit during Holy Week we received twice as many Get-Well cards as Easter greeting cards, all of which have been gracing our front window during this season of preparation (Lent) and resurrection (Easter).

Every year we get from local folks about as many Easter cards as Christmas cards. (From non-local folks we get no Easter cards and—see my first blog article—scads of Christmas cards.) In this part of the world where many an Easter Sunday is cloudy, if not rainy, and bone-chilling cold regardless of how “late” it falls on the calendar, the sunny, blue-skied, blooming scenes on card stock lead me to wonder if we’re not really paying homage to the Sun God. To be fair the writing includes verses of scripture, and the artwork features churches, sheep, and crosses—all good Christian imagery. But why aren’t there any cards that depict the true nature of things here, such as overcast skies and rain or hail? Even the blustery winds that can’t be adequately captured in a photograph or drawing could be symbolized by a bent-back umbrella blown into the gutter.

I’m not a literalist, but I do appreciate a message that speaks to reality, whether the message is in the form of a Bible story—dare I call it a myth?—or commercial advertisement –speaking of myths. Staring at the mixed messages about Easter, I wonder if the Get-Well cards do a better job? They certainly aren’t fair-weather worshippers or even monotheistic: there’s a seascape, a rural landscape, a collection of teddy bears, a cat,  flowers, and—from a church elder, no less—one card devoted to the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. The only crosses are medical red crosses. No scripture verses; only words of hope, well wishes, warm feelings, and thoughts of you. Plus these imperatives: Take care, get well, and get well soon.

I double-checked how the Easter message comes across in the gospel stories: Very early in the morning, while it is still dark or the day is just dawning, one or more women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ dead body, only to find the stone which was at the tomb entrance being rolled back by an angel or already rolled away. She or they learn from one or more angelic figures that Jesus who was crucified has been raised, is no longer here, and has gone on ahead where they will see him. One by one the other disciples get in on the act with varying degrees of disbelief. Matthew’s weather report on this particular morning includes an earthquake. The feelings of the female witnesses are described as alarm, terror and amazement, fear, fear coupled with great joy, or sorrow that the body has been taken and presumably stolen.

Imagine an honest-to-goodness Easter card: A gray background, with dusky clouds, barely showing some dark-skinned Middle Eastern women hovering near an even darker, empty cave. Like in a Rembrandt painting, the dim light closes in on their expressions, and it’s up to us to make out their emotions in the face of the great unknown. The earth underneath their feet is shattered, and their world will never be the same.

Open up the card and all it says is, Thank God.

Final Resting Place

Final Resting Place

It might’ve been just another death in this small, aging congregation that I once served. We were averaging one funeral a month which was more than I was used to, but as an interim minister I was already used to not knowing the person who had died.

In this case there was no family in the area to meet with to plan the service and learn about the deceased—a woman in her nineties who had been in a nursing home for some time. One of the church deacons explained that the only surviving relative was due to fly in just before the service and depart soon after. So I outlined a simple service and chose the hymns. Then I sat down with the deacon and we went through the church record books to collect some facts about the person.

We read when the person had been baptized and confirmed in the church and at what ages, which were in synch with the date-of-birth on the death certificate. We noted when this life-long member had been ordained a deacon—making her one of the first female deacons in the Presbyterian Church, the current deacon informed me—and added up her many years of service on the Board of Deacons. According to the deacon, she had also been active in the women’s circle meetings, taught Sunday School, and knitted infant clothes for newborn babies born to poor mothers in the local hospital. After moving to the nursing home she had been regularly visited by former ministers and faithful elders.

The service was short and sweet and attended by the rear guard of the congregation. The grand-niece, fresh from the West Coast, and I made up the youth group. Immediately after the service she and I went to the nearby mausoleum for a private committal while the deacons got the lunch ready in the church hall and the rest of the congregation awaited our return. The relative and I rode in a limousine behind the hearse carrying the encased body, and we chatted about the usual things people chat about on the occasion of an overly-timely death: the weather (here and there), her flight (long but uneventful), and what she did for a living (I forget).

At the mausoleum, funeral staff in dark tuxedos escorted the body—the coffin on rollers—and the two of us down one long cavernous row after another formed by high walls of marble slabs. Each slab measured about four square feet—just big enough for the end of a coffin to be inserted—and they all looked the same: cold, hard, sterile. They finally stopped us at some point, and I spotted the name of the person: her first name and her last name carved in capital letters along with her date of birth and her date of death. I also noticed the slab above hers and the slab next to that one; they were obviously her parents, given their surnames and dates

“That’s her companion,” the great-niece said. She was pointing to the next slab, the one underneath the other parent. “My great-aunt took her in when she was a teenager—her folks had kicked her out, and my great-aunt was her Sunday School teacher. They lived together until she passed away. They both had jobs, a house, a dog, and they would take the dog on their vacations.” Her companion was only a few years younger than her and had died in her eighties. I made a mental note of the companion’s name.

The great-niece never used the L-word that day, nor did it come up in conversation when, a short while after the funeral, I asked the current deacon about the companion. I was told she too had been a longtime member of the church, served as one of the first female deacons, and was involved in circle meetings. From what I gathered, everyone in the congregation accepted them as two maiden ladies who shared a home together and took care of one another. Did their relationship include sex? The church record books don’t indicate one way or another. But the church cookbook leads me to hope so, for this couple submitted “Overnight Cherry Cream Cake” and “Good Chocolate Hot Dish.”

Cape Maker for Superheroes

Cape Maker for Superheroes

Recently I received a commission to design and manufacture capes for a pair of superheroes: my two oldest grandsons. They were adopted from Ethiopia and Thailand, respectively, and my first grandson’s birth name translates as “his history” and my second grandson’s birth name means “good and clever.” Their mother—my stepdaughter—describes their Ethiopian-Thai-American family life, especially the delicious parts, in her blog: myextendedtable.blogspot.com, and it was she who asked me to make power-appropriate apparel for them.

I’m taking a break from sewing to report that, after giving it some thought, I have decided not to invest my grandsons’ capes with specific powers. It’s tempting to choose, say, the ability to Stay Innocent or the wisdom to Know Everything Is Going To Be Okay. But Naïve Man and his sidekick Unrealistic Boy won’t get them very far in this world. As they grow up, even in a relatively progressive community, they’re going to need the gift of Wariness and the strength to Overcome Racism. Yet hopefully they won’t turn into Mister Misanthrope or Sir Victim.

I trust each of my grandsons will develop the skills he needs not only to survive traumatic situations but to thrive as his own unique self: Knowing Where I Come From and Who I Am—including Whose I Am, a sense of belonging—are essential for every one of us. So other than making the boys’ collars with Velcro so they can’t choke one another, I’ll leave it to their incredible imaginations to create their own powers.

Back in the Middle Ages when Christians used to make regular pilgrimages to the Holy Land, a chaplain would accompany a group on their journey, kind of like a spiritual tour guide, tending to the pilgrims’ religious needs and carrying the sacred elements. The word “chaplain” comes from the Latin word cappella, meaning “cap” or “cape,” for a chaplain was someone who was willing to share their outer garment with a person who had none, thereby sheltering under the same cover. This undoubtedly stems from Jesus’ strategy that if someone sues you and takes your coat, you are to give them your cloak as well. In other words, subvert your oppressors’ tactics and disarm them with non-violence. Now that’s a powerful cape.

Parable of the Good [insert your worst enemy here]

Parable of the Good [insert your worst enemy here]

based on Luke 10:25-37 (New Revised Standard Version)

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said, “What does the law say?”

The lawyer answered, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus said, “Right answer! Do this, and you will live.”

But wanting further justification, the lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus responded, “A young person of color was walking along in a gated community, when he was shot dead by a light-skinned resident who was active in the neighborhood watch program. The local police were told the shooting was in self-defense and did not arrest the resident. A white Presbyterian read about the incident on the internet, turned it into a joke about white-hooded people caught with crosses of fire and black-hooded people caught in the cross fire, and forwarded the joke to a bunch of white friends. But [insert your worst enemy here], who saw the injustice of the situation, was moved with pity, spoke out against racism that persists in all fifty states of the USA, wrote letters to local and national officials demanding tougher gun laws and reformed property laws, joined the NAACP, and invited you and neighbors of all races to a potluck meal to get to know one another. It wasn’t a quick fix but it was a start. Which of these people would you like to have as your neighbor?”

The first time I heard Her name

The first time I heard Her name

I remember the first time I heard Her name. It was during the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Equal Rights and Liberation held in April 1993. Between 300,000 people (the typically-low National Park Service estimate) and a half million people (the organizers’ conservative estimate) had come to the U.S. capital city on the 30th anniversary of the Civil Rights March at which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had shared his dream with America. It was also, loosely, the 25th anniversary of the June 1969 Stonewall Riots which marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.

I was at the March for personal and professional reasons. Personally it was a welcome homecoming. I had attended seminary in Washington and lived in the D.C. area for six years—the longest I’d ever lived in one locale—and had only recently left to live in Minnesota, a state I could not pick out on the map before moving there and one whose Scandinavian culture did not warm to newcomers. If Washington, D.C. was known for its northern hospitality and Southern efficiency, Minnesota was efficiently inhospitable—but that’s another story. For three days I relished being back among Black people, hearing understandable accents, feeling warm spring air in actual springtime, and hugging folks who hug back.

People came from all over the country that weekend:

Some, notably women and men in the military, used the event to come out about their sexual orientation.

Many came to mourn friends and lovers who had died from AIDS-related illnesses and walk among the 1,900 panels of the AIDS quilt, one of the last times it was able to be displayed in its entirety.

Lots of organizations and businesses set up booths to highlight every conceivable angle of gay culture as well as those you wouldn’t think existed, like Gay Mormons.

There was a handful of naysayers holding up floppy-back Bibles and damning people to hell, which only made the rest of us want to avoid ending up in their heaven.

Some rights advocates carried signs that read Silence=Death; while friends of mine from Virginia, one of whom was a church educator and the other a university counselor, wore t-shirts that said, respectively, “No one knows I’m a lesbian” and “No one knows my partner is a lesbian.”

There were speeches full of righteous anger broadcast over loudspeakers all along the National Mall, and there was music and dancing and vendors selling food and drinks.

I attended a comedy show that featured the song, “Don’t use your p*nis for a brain,” an apt message for heterosexual men too, I still think.

A mass wedding took place on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where hundreds of same-gender couples symbolically, if not legally, tied the knot and then threw their bouquets and garter belts to the cheering onlookers and kissed.

Some individuals came to find they weren’t the only gay person from their small hometown, while others came to lose themselves in the crowd.

A few bodies wore outrageous clothes, make-up, or hairdos, while most of us looked like your typical tourists complete with cameras, water bottles, and day packs.

Saturday was a work day for me. My professional reason for being at this March was to teach my “Biblical Self-Defense Course on Lesbian and Gay Concerns” at the church where I had done my student training while in seminary, Westminster Presbyterian Church. Conveniently located a few blocks from the Mall, Westminster was one of the first “More Light” congregations in the Presbyterian Church (USA), that is, they had officially taken a stand to welcome into their fellowship and include in their leadership people of all sexual orientations. Westminster was also intentional about including people of different races, government workers and those who were on welfare, folks with a lot of education and those who could barely read. I had chosen to train there simply because they had a female minister; this unique congregation was a huge bonus, and over the course of my three years at Westminster they baptized me into the gay rights movement and then, when it was time for me to leave, they sent me out like the dove from Noah’s ark to search for dry land. The United States was severely flooded with homophobia and heterosexism, but I able to come back on this august occasion with a freshly researched sign of hope that the Hebrew and Greek scriptures do not address “homosexuality” much less condemn it.

Then came Sunday, the day of the actual march, which was due to begin right after noon. Gay marches never start on time, and this one, comprised of about a thousand different groups, each trying to locate their assigned place in line beforehand, would be no exception. Thus we Presbyterians took the opportunity that morning to worship at Westminster. Here hundreds of us More Light folks gathered—Protestant, proud, and pumped up with caffeine. It was a mountaintop experience: a gay minister from Indiana who was open about being HIV-positive led us in a wildly inclusive prayer; a lesbian evangelist from California who’d been forbidden by the religious authorities from pastoring a church in New York preached like there was no tomorrow; the swelled ranks of the congregation easily drowned out the piano accompaniment with every hymn. If worship was like sex—which it is—we were experiencing multiple orgasms that would not quit.

Finally the sermon climaxed and everyone exhaled a deep breath. The point at which some lovers roll over and smoke a cigarette is when we worship lovers pass the offering plates and listen to filler music. Westminster’s small membership had a relatively good choir led by an enthusiastic director who needless to say was gay. I used to be in the choir and rejoined it for this special service so I knew that four regular choir members—all gay men—were going to sing a cappella a very familiar, if traditional, anthem during this final intermission. Which meant the rest of us could cool our heels and dig around in our pockets for loose change.

That’s when I heard Her name, delivered in four-part male harmony:

   “Praise God!

      Praise God in Her sanctuary,

      praise Her in the firmament of Her power!

   Praise Her for Her mighty acts,

      praise Her according to Her excellent greatness!

   Praise Her with the sound of the trumpet,

      praise Her with lute and harp!

   Praise Her with timbrel and dance,

      praise Her with strings and organs!

   Praise Her upon loud cymbals,

      Praise Her upon high sounding cymbals!

   Let everything that has breath praise God!

      Praise Her!”

The entire sanctuary stilled. I was transfixed. All of us protesters and preachers and prayers expressed silent awe.

After the service the quartet was mobbed with accolades. We who knew the original anthem, Psalm 150, asked them how they had come up with the idea of changing the pronouns for God. They explained that during rehearsal they had tried making the pronouns gender-neutral, a common practice at Westminster, but it just didn’t go with the music. So they decided to let God’s feminine side come out.

I’ve been embracing Her ever since, and She embraces me back.