We made it!

Just a quick update that my partner and I met yesterday at the airport in Miami and we made it today to our final destination. We are meeting with some more church folks this afternoon to talk about our time here but it looks like we'll be traveling most of he month I will try to do updates whenever possible.

It is really hot here but I've liked the food (so far), we have been well taken care of, and there is all kinds of delicious fruit to try. This region is especially known for its banana industry. As we were flying in there were just acres of banana trees as far as we could see with the bananas themselves all covered in plastic bags to protect them from insects and make them prettier for exporting, which is what most of these bananas are for according to our hosts.

Thank you all for the prayers and thoughts and support. Will keep you as updated as possible! The picture is of a part of our apartment here but we'll be traveling so much it doesn't sound like we'll spend much time here.

¡Vamos a Colombia!

I'm going to Colombia in May.  Here's why and how:

Here's the link for more information about the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship's Colombia Accompaniment Program.

If you're interested in making a donation on-line click here (just be sure to specify whether you want it to help my fund-raising specifically if possible).  Or e-mail me if you want instructions on how to donate by check.  ¡Gracias!

A Good Friday kind of Easter

I don't feel like Easter came this year.  It still feels like Good Friday for my family.

We lost my Uncle Don, my dad's brother, in February of this year the week before Lent began.  Even though Lent is often a time of disciplines or renewed commitments, it also feels like a season of slowing down, of self-reflection and contemplation.  It has been a good time in the liturgical year to grieve.  The Ash Wednesday service that came just 4 days after Uncle Don's funeral was especially poignant--"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  And throughout the 40 days of Lent I felt permission to grieve and to contemplate the significance of those words--ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

The number 40 is significant in other parts of the Christian story as well--the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness and the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness.  This year the 40 days of Lent definitely felt like a wilderness.  I have never lost anyone close to me until now.  Many people my age have already experienced the death of a grandparent, but I am lucky to have four living and healthy grandparents who are very much a part of my life.  I also know too many friends who have lost siblings or parents or significant others, and while my heart broke, I was hurting for them--it wasn't really my pain.  And even in the loss of my uncle, I miss and am grieving for him, but my heart breaks even more for my grandparents, my aunt, my cousins, and my dad and his other brother.  Don was a part of their daily lives at different points, in so many of their memories and experiences and plans for the future, and his absence is profound.

I know that the Easter story tells us that death is not the end, and although I don't know what happens after death, it certainly feels final from this side of things, like the last words of the Good Friday service-- "It is finished."  I love Good Friday services, because even though we know what happens a few days later, in this service we don't say "oh this is so sad, but at least we know it'll all be over in a couple of days."  Jesus dies and it is finished.  There are no radiant beams of light, no Easter bunnies, no resurrection.  The grief just hangs there.  We are given permission to grieve without looking forward, without trying to "move on," because you never get over the death of a loved one.  You keep on, but I don't think you ever move on.

So when we gathered two days ago for Easter dinner at my aunt's house it still felt like Good Friday.  I felt like Easter was trying to rush through the grief, and we're not done grieving yet. How could we be joyful and celebrate the hope and new life that Easter represents when it was our first family holiday without Don?

But even in the tangible absence of Uncle Don on Sunday, two of my cousin's children who were there--Uncle Don's grandchildren--reminded me of the joy of new life.  The sadness of death and the joy of new life exist together, in the same moment even, without canceling each other out.  The joy of new life does not make the grief of death less, but neither does the grief of death make the joy of new life any less.  So while we grieved during this first Easter without Don, we celebrated Hayden's first Easter with our family and gave thanks for the life of the youngest members of our family as well as Don's life.

Don't Follow Your Head, Follow Your Heart

The title of this blog is lyrics from a song called "Heaven Go Easy on Me" by the Head and the Heart.  I went to their concert last Monday with some friends hoping to escape for a while the decision that felt like it was pressing down on me--which seminary to attend in the fall?  I didn't have an epiphany moment when I heard these lyrics (actually, I think the song isn't really about making a decision, but about growing up and how life is constantly changing and we can't really hold on to or control any of it) or any others, but it did make me realize how much I love being in Nashville and what a wonderful community I have here... and how much I would miss it when I move at the end of the summer.

This process of discernment about which seminary to go to actually started several years ago.  In college I visited lots of seminaries and thought about what I would like--Presbyterian or not, seminary or divinity school, East or West coast.  But all those years of discernment have come to a head as I have spent the last four months applying to, interviewing with, visiting, and thinking about seminaries.  In the end I applied to Vanderbilt, Yale, Union in NYC (not the Presbyterian school in VA), and McCormick, a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago.

It's funny sometimes when I try to remember what my life was like before YAV.  I considered myself smart, an academic.  I still do consider myself those things, but I have also discovered a lot more about myself and my gifts and what is important to me.  Three and a half years ago, when I was a senior in college thinking about going to graduate school immediately after college (before I had decided to do the YAV program) I wanted to go to University of Chicago or Harvard Divinity School.  And they are great schools, don't get me wrong, but with a few years of a little more real world experience, I know that it is important to me to go to a school that will not only be academically challenging, but that is also engaged with the world and has a strong community within the school.

All the schools I applied to are great schools and the admissions staff and others were wonderful to me throughout this process, but I have ultimately settled on Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.  It is the place that I feel has all of the qualities I am looking for, and because it is so diverse and has a history and a culture of being leaders in theological movements (i.e. Black liberation theology, womanist and feminist theology, Queer theology) I feel it can challenge me in ways that I have not yet been challenged in my theological education and faith formation thus far.  And, for me, perhaps what was most important in choosing it over the other schools I applied to was that something just "clicked" when I visited.

These last four plus months have felt stressful at times, but I do realize it is a huge privilege to be able to go to graduate school and to be able to go where I feel most strongly pulled.  I am very excited now to know where I will be for the next three years of my life and to begin at Union in the fall. I am so grateful to everyone who helped me in this process of discernment, and who helped all along the way to get me to this point in my life.  Gracias!

A Dairy Fast for Lent

I don't always, or even usually, do anything to recognize the season of Lent.  However, since returning from a YAV year in Guatemala in August of 2010 I have tried to use the season of Lent to re-focus and center myself and my spiritual life.  I sometimes felt almost like my whole year as a YAV in Guatemala was a fast--a fast from technology, familiar food, a comfortable bed, temperature-controlled living space, indoor plumbing, control over my own schedule, easy access to medical care.  But overall I loved it.  Before sounding too idealistic, though, I must admit I didn't always love having sore hips or unpredictable gastro-intestinal happenings or sleeping in 50 degrees.  But during my year of "fasting" I also felt more connected to other people around me and to God and to the natural world than ever before or since.

In Guatemala, many times I would have liked to go watch TV or get on the internet (especially when my brain was "Spanish-ed out," but since I didn't have a computer I stayed in the kitchen and talked to my host mom or helped my siblings with their homework.  Even though it was tiring at times, these moments are ones that I cherish and ones that might not have happened as frequently if I had a computer to use as an escape.  So last year, as a YAV in Nashville, I gave up using technology after 8 p.m. during Lent so that I could focus more on the people actually physically around me--my fellow YAVs in Nashville.  Many evenings we did end up talking or hanging out, but usually what this looked like was all four of us who lived together sitting in the living room, everyone on their computers but me.  I would sit there and try to talk to my roommates, but really just end up annoying them as they were trying to work or unwind from a day full of interacting with people. Often I did use that time that I would have been on the computer or watching TV to interact with and talk to my roommates, but I also learned how to be quiet when others need quiet (and not feel like they are just rejecting me or my company).

Another part of my "fast" in Guatemala was from familiar food.  It wasn't all unfamiliar, but I almost never got to choose what I ate, and I never ever got to cook even familiar food in the way that I would normally prepare it at home.  My host family almost never ate out at a restaurant (only once that I can remember), and cooking took forever.  There were no shredded carrots or already cooked and cut chicken breasts, no minute-rice or canned black beans.  We shopped at the market, bargaining with the people who had brought their crops in for a pound of carrots from the mountains or a dozen bananas from the coast.  Almost everything that was there was from within a two-hour drive of where we lived.  The corn we ate every day as tortillas was sown, grown, and harvested by my host family (with a little help from some hired workers during the harvest).

While I missed some familiar foods--especially desserts and sandwiches--I loved how "real" my food was; no processed foods or frozen veggies, fresh milk every morning, fava beans from behind the house.  When I came back to the US as a YAV in Nashville I tried really hard to shop at farmer's markets, cook my food, not eat out of cans, and I stopped buying lettuce or other veggies in a bag to cut down on extra plastic waste.

I felt good about my choices for a while, and even though it took extra work (and occasionally a little extra money), I enjoyed it.  Shopping for, preparing, and eating my food with more intentionality became almost a spiritual discipline.  As the months have gone on, I have become less intentional about my food.  Part of it is a time constraint, but mostly I'm just lazy.  So for Lent this year, I decided to become vegan, partly to try it out (I've been reading and watching documentaries on Net-Flix that convinced me it's good for my health) but also just to get back to where I think more about what I'm eating.

It has done that for me, and it's also made me try new foods, which is fun.  I hadn't realized how much cheese I eat.  I've tried to stay away from imitation dairy products, although I do use soy milk for cereal and in my coffee.  I'll post some of my favorite recipes later, but some of the new foods I've been eating a lot more of are kale, chick peas, and lentils.  I had eaten all these foods before, but trying to cook without cheese has made me have to turn to other foods to get satisfying flavors.  My roommates are also really great, and for my birthday last weekend they made a vegan chocolate cake, which was delicious.  I've cheated a few times since Ash Wednesday, but all-in-all it's been a fun adventure and has made me think more about what I eat and where it comes from and what's in it.

Act Locally, Think Globally: Prostitution and Sexism

There has been so much in the media these last few years about prostitution and human trafficking. In Nashville next month begins a trial of almost 25 people charged with running a prostitution ring in Nashville and nearby cities with some girls as young as 12 (Tennessean article).  But Nashville news has also been focused recently on prostitution and the legal ramifications of participating in prostitution after a local private school coach and administrator and a local city council member were arrested this month for trying to solicit a prostitute who was actually an undercover cop.  These cases have lent more publicity to a program here in Nashville for men who are arrested for soliciting a prostitute for the first time (at least in Davidson County). Through this program, the johns take a course, pay a fine, and get the arrest erased from their criminal records.

While I do believe that our criminal justice system should be more rehabilitative and less retributive than it is in many cases, the fact that this program exists I have had a strong aversion to it and I couldn't quite articulate why.  I am still thinking on it, but I think it is because the existence of this program seems to be based on the assumption that prostitution is a victim-less crime, a position which Becca Stevens, founder of Magdalene House and Thistle Farms in Nashville movingly disputes in an opinion article in the Tennessean.

I think less-stringent punishments for those who are first-time offenders with the intention of rehabilitation is a good thing.  However, in Tennessee soliciting prostitution is a class B misdemeanor, meaning jail time on a conviction cannot exceed 6 months.  And actually, in Tennessee, there is no jail time requirement for soliciting prostitution unless it is within 1.5 miles of a school (in which case there is a minimum requirement of 7 days in jail and a $1000 fine).  The charge of promoting prostitution, however, is a class E felony (vs the class B misdemeanor for soliciting).  In Tennessee, the punishment for a conviction in a class E felony is "Not less than one (1) year nor more than six (6) years in prison. In addition, the jury may assess a fine not to exceed three thousand dollars ($3,000), unless otherwise provided by statute" (citation).

There is already an inherent sexism in the differing consequences of convictions for those involved in prostitution (which usually fall along gender lines), and to my knowledge there is no equivalent program for those promoting prostitution like the one for the first-time offenders of soliciting prostitution.   It seems to me that letting these men off with a minuscule fine and a clean record and no equivalent for those (usually women) convicted of promoting prostitution could only seem reasonable in a culture that devalues women, a culture in which the system is meant to benefit those already in power--in this case, men.

Sometimes the stories of human trafficking of young women and girls in places like Indonesia, India, and Mexico seem far away--horrible and moving, but far away.  Recent local events in Nashville, though, have reminded of how close the stories and statistics in articles and books like Half the Sky really are to me.  Not only were Somali girls as young as 12 being trafficked through the city where I live, but this same attitude of women as less-than-human that permits and approves of the atrocities of human trafficking is alive and well in our own local legal system.  When we talk about prostitution as a victim-less crime and punish those promoting prostitution much more harshly than those soliciting--those who keep this dirty and exploitative business going--we promote the same ideas and values as those who participate in the human trafficking business--valuing money over people, pleasure over human rights, brokenness over wholeness.  We don't have to publish books or visit brothels in Asia or start non-profits to make a difference in the lives of women and girls.  We are certainly grateful to those who do and recognize the immeasurable value of their work, but acting locally in our own families and communities to combat sexism is also noble and a key piece to eradicating the sexism that continues to plague our world.

Blest Be the Bind that Ties

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love:
The Fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

These were the words that the congregation sang yesterday as I joined Trinity Presbyterian Church as an affiliate member with two others joining in full membership.  I am keeping my membership at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Maryville, but I also feel a strong affection and affinity for Trinity Presbyterian where I have been attending since I moved to Nashville eighteen months ago, and I wanted to more formally acknowledge that tie that binds.

I began thinking about joining Trinity in the fall when I began filling out and writing essays for seminary applications.  I also decided to begin the ordination process.  The first step to ordination in the PC(USA) is becoming an inquirer, which is done through your church of membership and presbytery.  I grew up in New Providence--I was baptized and confirmed there, and there are people there who have changed my diapers, rocked me in the nursery, taught me VBS, loved me when I was an awkward middle-schooler with braces, took me on youth trips, sent me care packages in college, and supported me prayerfully and financially during both of my YAV years.  It is at New Providence that I learned how to love and how to ask questions and where I was first encouraged to think about ministry as a vocation.  Belst be these ties that bind.  When I go to New Providence I feel as if I am going home.

But I also feel as if I am at home on Sunday mornings at Trinity.  My faith changed in dramatic and subtle ways while I was in Guatemala, and when I came to Trinity just a month after returning to the US from Guatemala I was welcomed with enthusiasm and invited to participate in the life of the church  but never felt obligated to do so.  Trinity is openly and unapologetically progressive on issues that are important to me, but does so with love and joyful hospitality.  And while New Providence has continued to support in many ways since I returned from Guatemala, Trinity is where I have been living out and processing some of these changes in my faith and values since returning from Guatemala, and they have helped carry me through a time of major transition and change in my life.  It is strange sometimes to be in a church where no one knew me before I was 23, but they have loved me for who I am now, and it is at Trinity that I am learning how to live a faith that is not only intellectual but joyful.  Blest also be these ties that bind.

So this is why I joined Trinity as an affiliate member at the same time as I begin the ordination process through New Providence.  I have found a home in both places and am grateful for the ties that bind me to the churches and the individuals in them.