Something Old, Nothing New, Something Borrowed...

For my New Year's Resolution this year I have resolved to buying nothing new.  I tried this a few years ago when I was in Guatemala and my volunteer group was reading Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity.  In the book, author Ronald Sider said something like "I bet no one reading this book needs to buy new clothes for a year" and I thought "wow. yeah. I guess I don't."  I resolved then (it was November 2009) not to buy any new clothes for the rest of that year and 2010.  I did not do this 100%.  I still bought a few used clothes while in Guatemala, especially a few more sweaters and some clothing that was unique to Guatemala.  I also bought a few new things when I moved to Nashville and started an office job--black dress pants and a few other clothes for work.  But I largely stuck to it, and when I didn't I thought really long about what to buy.

This year, I am resolving to buy nothing new, excluding basic toiletries (I'm defining basic as I go along...haven't quite decided yet if makeup is "basic").  I am also allowing myself to buy new books that I need for school if I can't find them used.  The point, really, besides being on a graduate school budget in New York City, is to be more conscious of what I buy and how I spend and think about money and posessions.  I know I also want to eat out less, drink less, etc. but one thing at a time. Not buying anything new for a year seems like a do-able but big enough undertaking for now.

So here are my "rules" (recognizing that for me, not being a perfectionist and not being bound by rules is a spiritual practice, so maybe I should call them "guidelines"):

• Don't buy anything new except for basic toiletries and medicine
• If you really need something find it used or, better yet, borrow it
• Be reasonable
• When buying gifts for other people, try to buy something made locally and by an individual or small-scale company

I realize that setting this goal for myself is a reflection of the immense wealth and privilege that I have.  I hope that this New Year's resolution will help me to be grateful for that wealth and privilege and also help me learn that it is not of ultimate importance, that this will help me relax my death grip on my wealth and privilege so that I may try to live from a place of generosity and gratitude and in a way that in some small way claims that the consumeristic, materialistic, capitalist way of life is not essential or ultimate.  The danger in these endeavors is always self-satisfaction and self-righteousness without real change.  I know that my small protest of a New Year's Resolution will change nothing large-scale and that it cannot be all I do.  But it is one thing I can do this year (among others) that I hope will help me adopt a posture that will better enable me to participate in larger protests and challenges to an unjust and unsustainable way of life.

Invisible Knapsacks

Some key words for conversations at Union (and I would guess many progressive seminaries and other similar circles):

• unpack ("Let's unpack that idea a little more")
• deconstruct ("we need to deconstruct the false binary of gender")
• Godself/God's (gender-neutral language please!)
• context ("What's your context?")
• privilege (white, male, hetero, US, etc)

My classmates and I sometimes laugh at ourselves and the way we throw around these terms, but language is important, and it often expresses ways of thinking and being that we often assume are universal.  We spent a lot of the first semester "deconstructing" some of those ways of thinking--recognizing the ways in which people of privilege (whether by race, gender, economic status, education level, sexual orientation, citizenship, etc.) assume that their experience or way of thinking is universal or "normal."  

One of the clearest analyses of this kind of examination of privilege (and the powers that accompany it) is an essay call the White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.  The author, Peggy McIntosh, is a white woman who uses her understanding and experience of sexism to begin to "unpack" her own white privilege.  Much of my first semester of seminary has been exposing me to different invisible knapsacks, which ones I wear, and the experiences of those knapsacks by people who do not wear them.  

I came into seminary with a decent understanding of the way sexism functions in our society and my own life.  I also, as a result of my years as a Young Adult Volunteer in Guatemala and Nashville, had some experience in understanding myself as a person of privilege by my US citizenship and how that plays some part in all of my relationships with people who are from different countries.  I even understood that non-US citizen women faced different challenges than non-US citizen men and than US-citizen women.  What I didn't understand was specifically how others may experience oppression and that their goals and ideas of what is liberative are often different than mine, even when the ultimate goal is to challenge oppression in various forms.  

I've listed below (in no particular order) some of the books I read this semester that best helped me understand others' experiences and perspectives and, thus, opened me to new ways of seeing God and of creating my own theology.  

• Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores Williams 
• A student of James Cone and former professor at Union, Williams talks about womanist theology, and her examination of Hagar changed the way I understand the Abraham story as well as giving me a glimpse into the experiences of African American women who are concerned not with liberation but with survival according to Williams.  She also gives a convincing critique of atonement theory, saying that anything that is forced suffering cannot be liberative or redemptive. (Womanism is a black women's movement that looks at power within the intersection of gender and race--it is often a direct response to feminism, which many women of color rightly accuse of being largely a white middle-class women's movement)
• Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology by Patrick Cheng  
• This is a very introductory-level book about queer theology but was possibly the book that most challenged my notions of God and Jesus.  It's a good starting point for queer theology.
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• Continuing on the queer theology vein, this book is a collection of essays by black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde that examines lots of the -isms in our society and how they are inter-related
• The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
• This is my theology professor's most recent book that is an easy-to-read (but not easy-to-stomach) that examines the ways in which the lynching tree where so many black (and a few white) Americans were killed is a modern-day cross.  Dr. Cone is the founder of black liberation theology in the US and describes his theology as being influenced by both Dr. King and Malcom X

If any of you do read some of these books I'd love to hear your thoughts about these books and/or what you might add to this list.  Happy Reading!

Finding Grace and Humanity in Total Depravity

I wrote this post in December of 2012, toward the end of my first semester at seminary, but never posted it. I might not write it the same way again, but it feels like most of the thoughts still hold true for me after a year and a half more of seminary, deeper friendships here, and an experience as a field education intern at Broadway Presbyterian church where I was shown more grace than I could have imagined. 

I have a confession to make.  I am a progressive who loves a lot of parts of liberal theology (that's not the confession; I think most of you all know that about me already).  My confession is that I kinda like Calvin's doctrine of total depravity.

This idea of total depravity comes from Augustine's doctrine of original sin, which I actually really really don't like, because it says that human beings are born sinful because our very existence is brought about by the "fall of humanity."  Many Christian thinkers through the centuries have also said original sin has a lot to do with sex--we're born sinful because we're the product of a less-than-holy act of sex.  I especially don't like the implications of this doctrine of original sin because Augustine and later thinkers have interpreted the Eden story in a way that sees women especially as lustful, sinful temptresses who are concerned mostly with the flesh and men with the spiritual (another wonderful view of humanity and the world we've inherited from our theological ancestors of the subordination of the body to the spirit as if the two could be separated).

But to get back to my original point, Calvin talks about humans as being totally depraved, an idea he bases on earlier doctrines of original sin.  While I think it's often harmful to see humans as basically sinful (and, more generally, to see humans in a way that ignores the complexity of each person and our relationships to each other and to our world), I like the way that understanding each person as imperfect makes us treat each other.

When we recognize that each person is limited and will "fall short" from time to time, it calls us to have grace with one another.  This was perhaps my biggest take-away from living in intentional community.  When I feel offended by what someone has said or even annoyed at someone for leaving their dishes in the sink, I have to stop and think a) about what their intent was (which is usually not to offend or annoy) and b) all the times that I have said something that came out differently than I intended or left hair in the shower drain or not wiped down the microwave after heating up lasagne.  I learned to have more grace with myself because others showed me how by having grace with me, which also helps me to have more grace with others.  It's not forgiveness, because forgiveness implies someone was wronged.  Having grace with one another, however, implies no wrong was intended and I don't expect others to be perfect, but I presume the best about them until I have a real reason not to.

I have been thinking about this a lot this week as many of my peers and I are feeling the pressure from all the work and studying still to do before finals week.  We have been perhaps a little more self-absorbed than normal, yet we still find time to spend together even if it's by quizzing each other on Hebrew vocabulary.  Although there is an air of tension around, so far people seem to manage to remember that we basically are grateful to be here in this place with these people at this moment, which helps us to have grace with one another when we might otherwise be annoyed.  Although I know this was not Calvin's intent when he wrote about total depravity, there is something freeing to me in its potential implications for how we are to treat one another as im-perfect beings who are yet still somehow made in the image of the Divine.

Singing the Resistance

I was struck this year during the School of the Americas protest at the power of music in a movement that calls for justice and peace like the one to close down the School of the Americas (SOA).  In the commissioning chapel service at Union on the Thursday before we left for the SOA, we shared stories and we broke bread together and we sang.  We sang "This is My Song" we walked into the space together calling for "peace for lands afar and mine," and to close the service and send all of us out into the world we clapped and danced and sang "I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside; ain't gonna study war no more."

With these songs in my heart and still on my lips we gathered with 2,000 others at the gates Ft. Benning, where we sang more songs together--songs of resistance and of sadness and of hope.  In minor and major keys we cried out for justice, we remembered those who have died, and we envisioned peace.

¡No más! No more! We must stop the dirty war
Compañeros, compañeras we cry out 'No más, no more'

Almost two weeks after the School of the Americas demonstration, I am still humming some of the songs we sang outside the gates of Ft. Benning, and the echoes of the chanted names of hundreds of victims still ring in my ears.  Neither the words nor the tunes are happy or light ones that I especially want to go around singing as I walk to class and go to the grocery store and share meals in my community.  But the somber tones of the songs and chants stay with me and remind me to remember the feeling of hope I felt at the protest and to resist violence and imperialism in small and big ways, and to hold in my heart those who are victims of the violence of the SOA and those who are jailed for standing against it.

Backseat MDiv

As I'm finishing my first month of my first year of seminary, I find myself sleeping a LOT.  I'm normally an 8-hours-and-wake-up kind of person, but lately I find myself sleeping until 10:00 or later on the weekends if I let myself.  This happened to me in Guatemala as well, and someone helped me realize that it was because the combination of new place, new language, new everything was wearing my brain out which actually made me sleepy.  I was like a kindergartener who needs to sleep extra so her brain can have time to process all the new information.  It's hard to sleep now, though, because I have that feeling of "there's always something else I should be doing."

All this new information that's filling up my brain and making me sleepy, though, is so interesting and makes me want to keep reading (well, sometimes).  In sharing some pieces of what I've been learning thus far, my mom suggested that I share some of the things that are especially exciting or make me look at the world in a new way so that others who aren't in seminary but are still interested can come along for the ride, hence the name "backseat MDiv" (although really it's a side seat or something because I'm certainly not the driver here, but you get the idea).

I decided to fold some of this into my existing blog because it is all a part of the journey that I (and we all are) on to find home.  We find new homes and we re-define existing homes, and much of what I am learning is helping me to look at my home--at where I come from--with new eyes and envision what I want home to look like.  So I will label blog posts that are specifically "seminary-related" as Backseat MDiv so that if you want to you can just click on that label (over on the right) and see blogs I've written specifically to share some of what I'm learning in seminary--in the classroom, in worship, in conversations with others, and in New York City.

If you're on twitter, I've also just created a twitter account, @backseatmdiv, where I'll post quotes and other short thoughts throughout the week about what we're learning.

Finally, just so we're on the same page to start, you'll find below a list of the courses I'm taking this semester and a link to the Union course catalogue in case you're interested in reading a blurb about any of the classes

• Introduction to the Old Testament (taught by David Carr)
• Biblical Hebrew 1 (taught by Dan Pioske)
• Systematic Theology (taught by James Cone)
• Christianities in the City (taught by Samuel Cruz)
• Early Church History (taught by John McGuckin)

Finding and creating a new home in New York

When I chose the title for and began this blog over three years ago, I had just graduated from Maryville College and was preparing to go to Guatemala with the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I was excited and nervous and had no idea how much that year and the subsequent two years I spent in Nashville would change the course of my life.  I also had no idea how much the concept and practice of "finding home" would consume me. 

Home for me has appeared in many forms and with many different people over the past several years.  I have found home in Guatemala, Nashville, in various churches and organizations, with new authors, roommates, with other YAV alums, and am now beginning to find home in New York City at Union Theological Seminary.  

I arrived at Union eleven days ago, excited to begin my new life and studies here, but also sad to leave behind the home in Nashville that I both found and helped create for myself there.  I have been reminded often during this week and a half of orientation of a line from a song by The Head and the Heart (who I've mentioned in an earlier post) that says "Mama once told me you're already home where you feel loved."  I have met many interesting and dynamic people here so far who I am sure will become life-long friends and colleagues, but I have realized how much I crave and need those intimate friendships with people who know me well (and like me anyway) and with whom I can simply be without need for explaining or introducing myself and how much that is the feeling of being "home" to me.

I think that one of the greatest benefits of the YAV program for me has been learning how to create, nurture, and sustain those friendships that help create community and home.  I have learned that creating home for myself and others takes work, conflict, and grace.  Work to put in the time and energy of creating meaningful relationships, conflict when we have different needs or ideas about how to be in community with each other, and grace with ourselves and each other when we mess up.

So I am sure that even though this new place does not yet feel like home to me that it will come and that it will shape me and I it in ways I cannot yet imagine.  

Notes on Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Before leaving for Colombia, we heard and read a lot about the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CFTA).  As you may know, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church of Colombia both publicly and actively oppose the Colombia FTA.  President Obama signed the CFTA into law this past October, and it went into effect on May 15, about half-way through Craig’s and my time as accompaniers in Colombia.  

Not many people in the US talked about or even knew about the CFTA, so I was somewhat surprised at how many people knew and talked about it in Colombia.  We went to eat lunch at the house of one hermano who works at a banana finca and also harvests rice on the side who was very excited about the CFTA because he said it would make kitchen appliances much more affordable.  Others we talked to were excited about it because they said it will be easier to get a visa to go to the United States (which is somewhat true in that Colombian business investors and traders will be eligible for a special type of visa available to citizens of countries with trade agreements with the US, but most of the people we talked to would not be eligible for that type of visa).

The Presbyterian Churches of the USA and Colombia oppose it for several reasons, one being that small-scale farmers will no longer be able to earn a living from their crops because prices of crops, especially staple crops like rice and corn, will be driven down by the FTA.  I saw this while I lived in Guatemala (part of the Central America Free Trade Agreement)--US corn sold in Guatemala was cheaper than local corn grown in Guatemala because subsidies in the US make corn grown in the US so cheap.  Basically, as has happened in other countries, the Presbyterian Churches of the USA and Colombia predict and fear that the CFTA will serve to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  Several individual pastors, church members, and community leaders we spoke with also expressed the same concerns.

We will have to wait and see exactly what the effects will be in Colombia, but I might predict that if we visited that same hermano in a year or two that, while he will probably still have his job at the banana finca (since it is a larger operation and already exporting almost all of its product to the US) that it will no longer be profitable for him to harvest, dry, and sell the rice that helps supplement his income and support his family of six.  For others who do not have jobs at the larger banana or pineapple fincas and depend almost entirely on their earnings from the crops they are able to harvest from a few acres of land the situation will probably be even more difficult so that even if some products are cheaper, they will not be able to afford them.