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Posted on Jun 19, 2013 in church stuff, healing, incarnational, injustice, jesus is cool, relationships, spiritual formation | 0 comments

breaking down walls

blessed are those who work for peace

this week is “healing the divides” week here on the blog, and i’ve loved the feedback and responses to the first two posts:

today i thought i’d mix it up a little and be brave & share a little video blog instead of writing. i’d love to do more video conversations like i did a few years ago, but alas, this one is just me rambling a few thoughts on walls & divides & Jesus. 

i’d love to hear any thoughts it might stir up.

 

my challenge to myself & to us is:

who are “those people” in our lives?

what walls have we put up to separate ourselves from them?

what would breaking down some of the walls maybe look like? 

//

tomorrow:  deeper dignified dialogue

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Posted on Jun 5, 2013 in healing, incarnational, injustice | 39 comments

everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

be kinder than necessary

a few weeks ago a dear friend from high school posted this picture of me on facebook. i’m totally embarrassed to share it here, but i thought i’d be brave to make a point.

homecoming queen pic

yes, i was the basketball homecoming queen my senior year of high school. don’t hold it against me. and yes, homecoming queens and cheerleaders can be nice people, ha ha.

i hadn’t looked at this picture in years, but when i did, this thought crossed my mind:  if they only knew.

yeah, that was a terrible night for me. 4 months before that homecoming game i had an abortion and was still healing. i was a mess inside, like a big hot mess, and no one except for my very best friend knew what happened to me. i was so adept at hiding my pain that everyone around me never saw anything but my smiling face, my  kathy’s-got-it-all-together-ness.  they had no idea that i was filled  to the brim with shame and self-hatred, that i could barely breathe. my insides and my outside are completely opposite of each other in this picture, but no one knew. they didn’t have any idea of the battle i was fighting inside my soul.

it made me think of how easy it is to judge others, to look on the outside and be jealous, to be judgmental, to think of ourselves as better-than or less-than others because of what we see on the outside. we do it with homecoming queens, we do it with co-workers, we do it with people at church, we do it with people on the streets, we do it with people sitting next to us on buses, on trains, on airplanes, we do it just about everywhere we go.

we assume.

but the truth is, every human being–every human being–is fighting some kind of battle.

addictions to drugs, alcohol, porn, work, food, unhealthy relationships, gambling, spending.

mental illnesses

chronic pain

the fall out of painful divorces

cutting and self-harm

struggling children

caring for ailing parents

past abortions

cancer

legal troubles

longing for a child, a spouse 

shame, shame, and more shame

eating disorders

the trauma of sexual abuse

the deep wounding of physical and emotional abuse

confusing sexuality

hurting marriages

shattered dreams

broken relationships

death of a spouse of a kid of a friend of a family member

loss of jobs

debilitating fear

homelessness

near homelessness

being bullied

insecurity & unworthiness

church woundedness

financial distress

pressure to succeed

you  name it, someone’s struggling with it.

it’s probably the guy at the grocery store or your neighbor or the woman you are standing next to at a soccer game or your mom or your dad or your kid or the person on the pew next to you or the one with the microphone or the one opening the bible or the one with big letters behind their name on their business card or the one holding a sign on the street corner or the one writing you a ticket or the one annoying the hell out of you for some weird reason or the one teaching your kids or the one fixing your car or the one you are sitting next to on the bus or the one standing in line in front of you at social services or the one who just came out as gay or the blogger who just wrote something that pissed you off or the one who signs your paychecks or the one who leads your small group or the one who stumbles out of the bar drunk or the one who keeps posting irritating things on facebook or the one picking up the bag at the food bank or the one paying for their groceries or the one smiling as they walk across the basketball court in a gold dress and wave to the crowd.

yep, everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

God, give us eyes to see beyond what’s on the surface.

give us ears to listen beyond what we hear.

help us learn to live without assuming, without judging. give us hearts filled with compassion because of our shared humanity, our shared experience, our shared trying-to-make-it-through-the-day-as-best-we-can-despite-the-obstacles, our shared desire to be known and loved and accepted not for what’s on the outside but for what’s on the inside, too.

no less-than, no better-than.

no less-than, no better-than.

let’s be kinder than necessary.  everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

//

ps: june down we go column is up at sheloves magazine. the theme all month is “reclaim”–what’s under the rubble.  may we reclaim God’s image in us and help others reclaim theirs, too! 

 

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Posted on Apr 25, 2013 in healing, incarnational, injustice, jesus is cool | 13 comments

advocate: standing up for those who can’t say it themselves (yet)

advocate

a few weeks ago i was asked a question on twitter by a lovely blogger friend about a scripture that pointed to “a voice for the voiceless”, which is so often used in a lot of justice-y language. i wrote recently how there is no such thing as voiceless, just people whose voices have been silenced by life experiences, systemic oppression, generational poverty, and a myriad of other things that quelch God’s image.

there’s no passage in the Bible about being a voice for the voiceless. that is terminology we’ve somehow adopted. but when considering our responsibility to help advocate for those whose voices are silenced, i love these passages in isaiah: “seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (vs. 1:17) &  ”is not this the kind of fasting i have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–when you see the naked to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (vs. 58:6-7).

and proverbs 31:8-9, “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

but my very favorite passage centered on advocating is an unlikely one, in  john 8, when Jessus stands between the adulterous woman and those about to stone her to death and advocates on her behalf.  he does it in his amazing-and-creative-Jesus-y-way, but the part i am always reminded of is this–had he not advocated for her in that moment, she would have died.

even if she would have been able to use her voice, it wouldn’t have mattered.  no one would have listened. no one would have changed a single thing.

everything in the system around her was completely stacked against her.  

she needed someone with power to stand and speak on her behalf.

the truth is that advocates aren’t “voice for the voiceless” because there is no such thing as voiceless.

what advocates do, though, is stand for those who for a wide variety of reasons can’t say yet (or sometimes ever) for themselves.

a virgin sold into a brothel in india can’t speak for herself. her only hope is an advocate who will fight for justice on her behalf.

a man with a mental disability can’t open certain doors in the system to get the resources he needs without an advocate’s help no matter how much we’d like to believe he could on his own.

a homeless person can’t cross certain practical bridges without someone moving some of the real-and-strong obstacles out of the way first.

an orphan in an orphanage can’t magically find their way into a family.

a kid being bullied can’t wake up one day and start defending themselves the way we hope.

a woman who deeply desires to break into leadership in a church that doesn’t actively honor her gift will never naturally be heard without someone with power actively advocating for her presence.

a person who has been sexually abused won’t magically have the confidence, strength, and security that they need to stand strong in tricky situations.

an illegal immigrant can’t show up in certain moments and defend themselves alone.  the risk is just too great.

advocates stand up for those who for whatever-reason-in-the-moment can’t say it themselves. they also stand alongside for the long haul and help uncover the voice that is buried in there so it can hopefully emerge.  

i would never be where i am today as a pastor had i not had a few men who actively and passionately advocated for me. i just couldn’t say it for myself in the systems i was in.  i was not voiceless then, but my voice and passion was buried under all kinds of personal & systemic rubble.  but just like the woman in john 8, even if i could have spoken up for myself, the churches i was part of wouldn’t have nodded in agreement and immediately flung the door wide open. the chasm was too wide.

but my advocates used their voice and built a bridge for me to eventually use mine.

it’s important to respect the realities of power & not-used-to-being-listened-to voices.

i know many awesome and brave people on the margins who show up all the time to try to get the help they need and are routinely dismissed, mistreated, and neglected.  their lack of power and privilege makes their voices mute to many. my role as an advocate is not to speak for them but to get the attention of those who have ignored them, to build bridges of dignity, and  break down barriers on their behalf.

the adulterous woman’s only hope was Jesus standing up for her, taking a hit from the powers-that-be, and saying what needed to be said to turn the tide.  

that’s what advocates do, in all kinds of wild and creative and often-unorthodox ways (some refuge advocates definitely know what i mean by wild-creative-unorthodox)

and it’s why this world desperately needs an army of advocates. because there are an awful lot of people in every family, school, neighborhood, city, and nook & cranny on this planet who can’t say it for themselves (yet).

my dream is that as the body of Christ, we’d be deeply dedicated to making advocates not buildings. that we’d be known in our communities for actively advocating for systemic change to heal the core roots of injustice. and most of all, that we’d use our power and privilege on behalf of the vulnerable, not to replace their voices but to pave the way for theirs to be heard.  to say what they cannot say (yet).

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Posted on Mar 4, 2013 in dreams, equality, injustice | 11 comments

there’s no such thing as voiceless

theres no such thing as voiceless

“there’s really no such thing as ‘voiceless.’ there are only the deliberately silenced, or preferably unheard”.  i saw this quote on facebook the other day and it really made me take notice. “there is no such thing as voiceless…” i will always remember my lovely blog friend suzannah paul’s wise words about there not being such a thing as the voiceless because every human being has a voice. it is part of being made in the glorious image of God.

the problem is that for all kinds of reasons those voices have been silenced or ignored.

our response as bearers of hope and justice is to play our part in calling forth the beautiful voice that God put in every human being in any way we can.

sometimes that starts with ours.

for all kinds of reasons some of our voices lay buried underneath layer upon layer of shame, fear, doubt, jacked-up theology, and generational patterns of silence and un-empowerment.

in this context I am definitely not talking only about women, but rather anyone who has been marginalized or oppressed or tossed to the side by power. this can be because of race, gender,  socioeconomics, theological doubts, sexual orientation or somehow “on the fringes” of whatever that group may be.

the typical mainstream system response (whether in the world or the church) to voices from the margins is deeply broken.

many in comfortable systems would rather not hear from them.

those who speak from the margins make people feel uncomfortable. rattle cages. mess with the status quo. speak painful truths. call us to change.

and most systems hate change.  we are habitually addicted to the familiar, the comfortable.

certain rules, behaviors, beliefs, perspectives guide every group. when it’s used to doing something one way and hears an opposing voice, the group has a way of shutting down that dissension (no matter how big or small) in two primary ways:  1. through deliberate measures of silence (not ever opening the door in the first place; this is especially storing in very closed systems) or 2. tolerating them but basically ignoring them at the same time (this is often even more insidious because people actually are led to believe they are  being listened to when, really,  the current of the powerful was not ever going to change course).

although I have had my share of being deliberately silenced, i connect a lot more strongly with being in the group of the “preferably unheard.” when I look back on the crazy things i advocated for in the church systems I was part of  (as in “let’s care about the poor and marginalized as a first priority instead of the powerful and comfortable” or “let’s create ways for people to share what’s really going inside their heads and hearts and lives instead of pretending that things are more okay than they are” or “let’s create a team of people who share instead of elevating one talking head”–i know, really heretical for Jesus-followers!) I realize now how they listened, nodded their heads, and then carried on with the way things were, the way they wanted. all my words honestly never made a lick of long term difference in any of those systems. in little pockets of people, sure, but that’s about it.

its okay, though, because had it been a piece of cake it probably would have meant I was missing the pont somehow.

there will always be resistance to the voices on the margins. 

power tends to hold on to power tightly. it’s what Jesus was always railing against.

but i also want to acknowledge that there are so many good people out there who aren’t trying to deliberately silence others and really are open to other voices but are just so caught up in “the way things are” that they don’t even notice who’s not there.

the only way to shift this tilt against the marginalized voices is for brave men and women to to use their power to make spaces and places for the marginalized voices to be heard.

this means:

putting in the forefront of all kinds of decisions “who do we need to invite to this table not to just to give input (that’s easy) but to share this work together in new ways.

advocating to hear from new people who normally don’t get heard.

listening to critique that may sting.

getting out of our little bubbles and making friends with people who believe different than us, look different than us, live different than us.

shutting mouths that are used to talking and handing the microphone to people who usually never get it.

asking ourselves “hmmmm, i wonder who Jesus would invite to share”  instead of “who do we want to hear from because they say what we’re used to hearing?” our deference to the strong and confident is in complete contrast to who Jesus continually made time and space for.

and one of the hardest ones to sometimes stand against–being willing to take a hit from powerful people who begin to feel uncomfortable.

goodness gracious, as i write these things i realize how tough it is to really live into this when the pull against it is so strong. it’s so easy to be cynical about real change being possible, but i am going to lean toward hopeful realism & that every effort to open a space (no matter how big or small) for a voice to emerge makes a significant difference in this world.  all these little openings are beautiful reflections of the kingdom of God. combined, they can open more doors, restore more dignity, and light more fires that will change future generations.

God, give us courage to use our voices in ways-that-are-good-but-feel-scary & play whatever part we can to call out those who have been deliberately silenced or preferably unheard for far too long.

 

 

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013 in church stuff, incarnational, injustice | 16 comments

our exceptional unexceptionalness.

plato quote

“you shall love your neighbor as yourself” – mark 12:31

according to wikipedia (the source i always tell students in my online college class never to use for their papers so i feel a little bad using it here), exceptionalism is: “the perception that a country, society, institution, movement, or time period is exceptional (i.e., unusual or extraordinary) in some way and thus does not need to conform to normal rules or general principles.

maybe many of you have heard this term before but it’s not a word i was very familiar with until now. during my trip, it came up several times related to issues between israel & palestine. i heard it from both sides, in the context of  israel, as God’s chosen people, being able to play by different rules because of their specialness.

exceptionalism has deep & wide ramifications for what’s happening in the holy land and in many other places where there is war and strife.

but i think it’s rampant here, too, in much more subtle ways. it is reflected in the attitude of “we’re the ones who are somehow-better or more-special or have-the-market-cornered-on-this-or-that or are-closer-to-God or know-what-God-wants-or-thinks.”  and it’s especially strong in church-y circles.

i wonder if some of it goes back to wanting to be on the winning team. to consider ourselves set apart from the average. to have something to make us feel better about ourselves.

regardless of how we get there, it tends to lead to us tromping on others.

it’s why so many people have big gaping church wounds or are just worn out by church elitism.

the more i reflect on this, i wonder if almost every church hurt somehow stems back to exceptionalism and a feeling of superiority or specialness that someone or some group of people felt over others that caused them to mistreat, malign, neglect, harshly discipline, control, and-a-whole-host-of-not-so-good-things.

when i was on a big rocking church staff, i remember the high of feeling so much better than everyone else.  that we were so amazing, special, smart, cool, progressive, so…. and it meant we could get away with things that really weren’t okay or right because we were doing it for “the sake of the kingdom.”  we could hide behind our “exceptionalness”, our “on-top-ness” and it did make me feel invincible.

until i was on the under side of it.

the one who was less than, the one on the outs, the one who was no longer in the club or special anymore.  i remember one of my coworkers yelling at me that i’d never find anywhere outside of that church that would value me more as a woman, that i’d never be able to influence more women (not people, ha ha) than that place, that the grass was not greener anywhere else, that their specialness could never be surpassed.

once i was out i saw how truly dangerous this select kind of exceptionalism is.  it clouds judgment, it distorts reality. it oppresses. it allows people to do terrible things in the name of God & their specialness.

that’s just one small example and i’m guessing you have many others, not just in church but in life, too.

when it’s all said and done, exceptionalism points to our tendency to stay divided from others, to have a “right” group and a “wrong” group, an “us” and a “them”, a “saved” and an “unsaved”, a “righteous” and an “unrighteous”, a “better than” and a “less than”, an “over” and an “under.”

Jesus made clear that in the kingdom of God that we are all equal, no less or no more than another. 

and maybe the harsh truth is that is the hardest thing of all to embrace in this world. to accept our unexceptionalness no matter what skin color or sexual orientation or gender or socioeconomics or belief system or life experience.

that we are just as sick and normal and broken and human and healthy and whole and free and ugly and beautiful as the person next to us.

that we are all equal & wonderfully special in the sight of God despite our all our differences.

that we are no better nor worse than others.

that when all of our spiritual & physical protections are stripped away, we really are all the same.

maybe part of our group-craziness is that we don’t want to be the same as “those people”, whoever those people might be. in some weird part of our hearts, we want to be better than them, more loved than them, more right than them, more special than them.

but we’re not. we are equally created & loved by God.  none better nor worse than another.  none more worthy than another. none with more specialness-in-the-eyes-of-God-than another.

oh, how i dream of this being our starting point in how we live, how we breathe, how we treat one another, how we see ourselves in the world, how we live out our faith.

and the truth is, we will never ever be able to get there without first bending our knee, confessing the prejudices in our hearts, acknowledging our fears of being equal, laying down our power, and being willing to be perceived as crazy and irresponsible and gone-off-the-deep-end for actually truly, deeply, madly loving our neighbor as ourselves.

God, show us the way.

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Posted on Feb 5, 2013 in incarnational, injustice, jesus is cool | 11 comments

the holy land, walls, exceptionalism & Jesus.

wailing wall

* ps: my blog is a little wonky right now. none of the menus work after an update so hopefully i can get it fixed soon.

what a wild and amazing adventure to israel & palestine last week. i can honestly say it was a trip of a lifetime.  my mom took me as one of her dreams and i am so grateful that through a really amazing connection at the denver faith & justice conference in november, we hooked up with a learning group that was perfect for what we wanted.  we did not want a typical holy land tour but rather a more raw & real experience, and that is what we got.  the society for biblical studies does a fantastic job of integrating archeology-history-scripture-sociology together.  the other part i loved about them is that they are very concerned with justice and we stayed on the palestinian side in the west bank and brought our resources & presence there instead of where most tourists go.

there is so much to share, and i will do my best over the upcoming month to download pieces of our experience. some of you have seen a few of the pictures on facebook & i’m planning to pull together a complete album; maybe i can figure out how to link here to flicker.

this trip was always a learning trip, not a vacation. and whoa, did we learn a lot!

here are a few initial thoughts that are on the tip of my tongue.

the holy land is holy…and complicated…and somehow represents a microcosm of the wider system in a way that i can’t quite explain. the rich and deep history here and the realities of the conflict between the palestinians and israel run deep.  the mix of jew-muslim-christian all tangled up together. the harshness yet beauty of the land.  the “no wonder Jesus was rejected” because what he embodied was so strong. over our week i spoke with a mix of people from all three faiths and it it did feel clear that the on-the-ground relationships between the groups are often good & kind but it is the political & religious agendas & the bigger system issues that keep perpetuating the divide.

that wall represents far more than just the barrier between the palestine & israel.  when we first went through the wall into the west bank, we had come directly from the sea of galilee & capernaum & the mount of beatitudes, where Jesus did a lot of his ministry.  standing at the synagogue where he unrolled the isaiah 61 scroll in luke 4 proclaiming freedom for the captives, reflecting on the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount and then driving into the reality of what war & separation & power can do was honestly one of the most powerful experiences of my trip.  i can’t quite explain what happened to me but it was a crazy whoosh of the holy spirit that was completely unprompted, unexpected, and a little freaky. for me, the wall represents all of the ways we are prone toward hate & division & power & privilege & us vs. them. i was reminded that we might not have a huge physical walls in other contexts but we do have many invisible but strong ones that keep us divided and comfortable. the wall represents a life opposite of the beatitudes.

exceptionalism strips dignity & ruins love.  oh i will write much more on this soon but this was a term i hadn’t heard before so specifically but it aligns with much of what i have seen in the church and known in my own life.  exceptionalism is when we think we are better than other people, as a group or as individuals.  it’s being above others because the Bible says so, or we say so, or however we want to justify it.  it is the opposite of humility.  this isn’t just the root of the problem in the israel-palestinian crisis, it is the root of many christian & societal problems as well.  it is us-better-than-them in it’s finest form.  it is centered on pride & comfort & homogeneity & power & privilege. i get how easy it is to get sucked into it, but i was convicted of its danger in even the smallest of forms. it is damaging to unity and peace.

Jesus is more real to me than ever. i did not have one of those holy land experiences where i was weeping at every turn. but i was reminded, in a strange & important way, why i believe what i believe and why i am a nutcase for change. Jesus was (and is) just so wild! the incarnation & the way God chose to reveal himself. the radicalness of the message.  how so much of what we were taught about Jesus was corrupted by systems dedicated to exceptionalism instead of humility & love. how deep & mind-and-heart-bending his teaching was then and is today.  how dedicated he was to the oppressed & breaking down religiosity.  how alive he still is, calling us to bravely live out our faith.

out of everything that was shared over our time there, the one phrase that struck me the most was from a palestinian leader in a refugee camp.  he said “we just want to be equal.”

we just want to be equal. not over or under another others–but learning what it means to be side by side as friends & neighbors & human beings who may believe different things but are all made in the image of God and worthy of dignity, hope, and freedom.

oh, we have a lot of work to do–here and abroad–to practice what that means.  God help us all.

* * * * *

ps: today i also have a post up at sheloves magazine for the monthly column on down we go.  this month’s theme is “free” so i wrote a post from my hotel room called we must fight for our freedom.  i hope you’ll go over there and read it!

that’s me in the pink at the wailing wall (one of my favorite things we did) & here’s my mom & i in jerusalem at the mount of olives overlooking the city on our last day (she rocks):

mount of olives with grandma karen

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