Earth People

I wrote this reflection as a part of a weekly Lenten series that my field education supervisor and I are doing. I have been working as a pastoral intern at Broadway Presbyterian Church since September. One of my primary responsibilities is leading the college and young adult group, called Upper Room. Recently, this group has decided to begin an exciting project of creating a rooftop garden.

I spent most of Ash Wednesday in the sanctuary offering ashes to those who came in. About a hundred times I said the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” in English or Spanish. I felt an overwhelming sadness for first few people to whom I said this as I rubbed my ash-covered thumb on their forehead in the shape of a cross—aching as I reminded them of their own mortality and was also forced to remember my own. As the day went on, this feeling of sadness faded until it was just a dull ache, like sore muscles the day after carrying something too heavy, a constant-but-not-always-conscious reminder of the reality that we are limited—our bodies, our time, our energy.

As the day went on I also began to think more about the second half of the statement that we say on Ash Wednesday—“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This second part reminds us that even though we are limited and our time on this earth is finite, we are a part of the earth and will always be a part of creation, connected in life and in death to every other living thing.

We first see this idea in the creation story in Genesis 2-3. After the first humans have eaten from the tree of knowledge, the Creator says, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (3:19). We often think of this as a punishment for the humans’ disobedience, but the text itself does not suggest divine retribution, but simply a divine description of what it means to be human—that surviving is hard work, and when it is over we return to the place from which we came, back to the earth that God created and called “good” in the Genesis 1 version of the creation story.  We are of the earth, we return to the earth, and we depend on the earth and the other creatures here with us.

Just a few days ago, on Monday evening, the BPC Session voiced their support of a rooftop garden project initiated by the Upper Room group. Upper Room has been talking a lot this year about food, faith, and the justice issues that surround our food and where it comes from. We hope that this project, now in its seedling phase, will be a way for the whole BPC community to connect to the earth from which we are made and to which we will return. Our vision is that a rooftop garden at BPC would be a way of living more sustainably in our own community, justice-making in our own neighborhood, and connecting with creation and, thus, with the Creator who breathes life into us and who reminds us that we are beloved, we are finite, and we are inextricably linked to the earth—indeed, we were taken out of the ground, we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

Is it Sex???

I am in the second phase of the ordination process with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Like many of my peers at Union Theological Seminary, I meet with my ordination committee annually. Ideally, these meetings are a time for the candidate for ministry to talk with the committee about where they are in their process of discernment, education, etc. and for the committee to affirm and helpfully challenge the candidate as she continues on the path of ordination. Sometimes this process works beautifully, but sometimes these meetings can be anxiety-producing for people in the ordination process, especially for queer/LGBT folks for whom the ability to even enter into the ordination process and being out is a recent development in many denominations, including my own (and in many it has yet to happen).

Because of all the recent conversations and policy-changes around ordination of queer/LGBT folks in mainline denominations, there is a lot of buzz around the sexuality and sex lives of ministry candidates. I'm not sure if it was like this in the past, but several of my Presbyterian friends have been asked about their sex lives--whether they've been faithful in their marriage, whether they've ever had sex with someone of the same gender--and many of my peers in other denominations are asked or required to publicly state that they are celibate.

Some of my peers who are in denominations that require a vow of celibacy in singleness do not have sex because it's a personal choice and/or because it is important to them to follow the rules of the ordination process in this way. Many of them do have sex and lie about it. I also know several people who do have sex but believe they're being truthful when they tell their committees that they are not having sex.

Wait, what? Yes. It depends on the definition of sex, and I think many people--in the world, in the ordination process, and on ordination committees--have a very narrow definition of what sex is.

The long and short of it is that when we say "sex" we often think that means the act of a penis in a vagina that ends with the person with the penis achieving orgasm (and it's a bonus if the person with the vagina achieves orgasm, but it's not necessarily a requirement for it to be sex). I attribute a lot of this very boring understanding of sex to our ideas about the morality of sexuality that seems to go back to property and inheritance laws. If you were a man, you wanted to be sure any kid who stood to inherit your property was actually yours so the right person would inherit your money and land after you died. Therefore, regulating who was having sexual-intercourse-that-could-potentially-produce-offspring-who-would-then-stand-to-inherit-everything-after-you-died became really important, and those actions became the definition of sex so that those actions could then be regulated. Also, it’s the most androcentric, heteronormative definition of sex and we live in a very androcentric, heteronormative culture of which the Church is a part.

This definition (hopefully) sounds ridiculous, but I think it's still largely the definition out of which we operate. So under this definition, some friends and I have come up with a helpful list for people who are worried about going in front of their ordination committees that may (or definitely will) ask them if they have had sex or not. Especially if those committees are expecting you to say "no" in order to continue with the ordination process, we hope this is helpful. (*Note: I'm publishing this blog post, because my committee doesn't have any hard and fast rules about celibacy. Others who contributed do have committees who take a black-and-white view to sexual morality, so those friends prefer to remain anonymous).

IS IT SEX?????

Fingers touching or in vagina? IT'S NOT SEX!

Fingers touching penis? IT'S NOT SEX!

Anything involving the clitoris? DEFINITELY NOT SEX!

Penis (or anything else) in anus? IT'S NOT SEX!

Are you using toys? IT'S NOT SEX!

Is there licking, sucking, kissing, biting, etc of genitals? IT'S NOT SEX!

Clearly, we're being facetious. All of these actions are sex. Sex should be an experience that is mutual, life-giving, vulnerable, pleasurable, intimate, fun, funny, serious, playful, messy, physical. Sex does not always include all of these things all of the time, but sex should ideally have the potential for all of these things. And so should ministry. So why do so many denominations expect their candidates for ministry to be celibate? If the candidates choose to do so, they should be able to explain how being celibate contributes to their own well-being and experience of life, the health of their community, and their connection to the divine. And if they do choose to have sex, they should be able to explain why and how it contributes to their own well-being and experience of life, the health of their community, and their connection to the divine. That’s it.

May it be so.