 Tribe. That’s the word my husband has been using a lot lately as we discuss the world. We are all divided into our own ethnic, socio-economic, political, and religious tribes. Others use the word silo, but I think this refers more to the limited interaction individuals have with others outside of their social media “tribe.” Truth be told, in our global world, different tribes bump up against each other constantly in the marketplace, voting booth, school, and even home.
Tribes are, for a lack of a better word, “tribal.” Tribes tend to be fiercely protective of their identity, celebrating themselves as the best. If you aren’t following, think white parents shouting at black children during school integration in the 1960s. Think, junior high bullies in the lunchroom enforcing a code of cool and uncool. This is tribal behavior. Jesus was anti-tribal. He included everyone the cool kids make sure don’t sit at their lunch table: Samaritans, divorced women, tax collectors, lepers, migrants, the poor, and more. Jesus’ central message-- love your neighbor-- is a direct challenge to the tribalism of his particular time and place. American politics are incredibly tribal these days, leaving our country divided in ways that leave us afraid. But this isn’t particularly new. Our democracy is rooted in a two-party tribal system. Sadly, American Christianity is more tribal than American politics. Drive down the main street of any American town. There will be multiple churches, often of different ethnicities, that rarely interact with each other, even in small towns. They follow Jesus of Nazareth who commands us to love our neighbors, but when can we love our neighbors, if we never meet them? American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists believe their brand of Christianity is the only way. I have been accused of not being Christian (most often ironically by evangelical women), which is in itself a little funny, since I have spent my life serving the Gospel as an ordained Christian minister. What they are really trying to say is that I am not the right kind of Christian. Tribal. My favorite secret pastime is throwing stones. My internal dialogue goes something like this: Those folks are tribal, accusing me of not following Jesus just because I am an ordained woman. They clearly haven’t read the parts in the Bible where Jesus includes women in his ministry. Why do they think they are so Christian? Hmmm…. Sounds perhaps like I'm being just as tribal. Or…I proudly wear a t-shirt that reads, “God loves the people you hate.” Maybe I should remember that t-shirt is speaking directly to me since I have a long, secret list of people I hate. Again, tribal. This fall I have decided to resist this Christian tribalism in a concrete way. I am the pastor of two progressive Christian churches that work tirelessly to include everyone who walks through their doors. In one church an adult with developmental disabilities yells joyfully during service; her cries are met with smiles and later conversations during coffee hour. At another church, we are so concerned a member who uses a wheelchair feels included, nothing happens anywhere that is inaccessible. Both communities make a concerted effort to welcome LGBTQ+ folks and non-christians (yes, don’t tell anyone but both communities are filled with agnostics and people of other religious traditions and even married same gendered couples! Say it isn’t so! Once again, I’m being tribal.) Yet I wonder: would an evangelical, spouting born-again theology, walking into either church, be welcomed? I’m honestly not sure. In the progressive Christian church Evangelicals are akin to Samaritans in Jesus’ ancient Jewish tradition. There are lots of things that the Evangelical church has gotten wrong and many more things they have professed that have hurt others, such as the exclusion of LGBTQ+ persons and female pastors. I believe it is wrong that the Evangelical church weaponizes the Bible and does not recognize other religious traditions as being equally important paths to living meaningful lives connected to the divine. AND… There are things that the Evangelical church does really well! Have you ever been to an evangelical youth group or prayer gathering? There are lots of things we can learn from these fellow Christian’s without engaging in tribal culture wars. That is where I am. A pastor on the verge of preaching about what we can learn from the Evangelical Church. Currently my list includes church attendance, evangelism, giving, prayer, conviction, and assurance. I am sure more topics will emerge. I am also certain by the end of the fall I will be exhausted by my inter-religious foray and return to my tribal silo. But I also hope maybe, just maybe, more bridges will be built, some of us will be less afraid of the Evangelical Church, and we will learn a little more about what is at the very heart of Jesus’ gospel.
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 Yep, that’s right, PRIDE is a Christian Holiday!
What authority do I have to make that pronouncement? About the same authority the early Christian church did when they proclaimed Jesus was born on December 25th, which also happened to be the rival Sun-God’s birthday. I also claim the same authority the early Protestant church did when they regularly celebrated Reformation Sunday at the end of October. The question isn’t really if I can decide PRIDE is a Christian holiday. The question is: Why don’t all Christian churches celebrate people as their authentic selves? Why do some Christian churches still force some members, whom God knows and loves perfectly, to hide their authentic and beloved selves? In progressive churches, people can be their authentic selves. And at Grace Community Boston, PRIDE Sunday is a big celebration every year. This is why we celebrate PRIDE! #1 WELCOME! Jesus offered radical hospitality to everyone. For Jesus, there were no insiders and outsiders, included and excluded, pure and impure. There were only people, and he loved them all, including: tax collectors, lepers, sex workers, and samaritans. At Grace we want to extend a LOUD & CLEAR welcome to folks in the LGBTQ+ community as they are. Pride Sunday is one way of communicating Jesus’ radical hospitality to everyone, especially those who have often been excluded. #2 LGBTQ+ are God’s BELOVED! The vast majority of Christian churches in America condemn people in the LGBTQ+ community. @GCBoston we make a bold stand as progressive Christians on PRIDE Sunday that LGBTQ+ individuals are beautifully and wonderfully made. We are all God's beloved and we are each an integral part of God’s beloved community. Every year on PRIDE we serve rainbow communion (usually cookies decorated in all the colors) to express clearly that there is room for everyone at the table: gay and straight, non-binary and cis-genered, tall and short, rich and poor, documented and undocumented. This is the splendid, various, diverse body of Christ that Paul described in Romans 12 and Corinthians 12. #3 PRIDE is about MORE than LGBTQ+ issues. PRIDE is about extending God's radical love to all people. Just as the 1960s civil rights movement was about more than racial integration, PRIDE is about accepting everyone for who they are instead of placing everyone in the same narrow social box. You are who you are, and that is who God made you to be. PRIDE reminds us that God doesn’t want us to be anyone else, so we don’t have to fit into any preconceived identity. @GCBoston, PRIDE expands our hearts to celebrate all the variations of God’s creation in our community. And that is healing to all of us. #4 We are queer. Grace Community Boston isn’t a bunch of straights trying to be hospitable to a bunch of queers. We’re already diverse, a mixture of sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities and colors and complexions. We’re a diverse community that loves the diversity of God’s creation. At Grace, we follow Jesus and we are confident Jesus would be decked out in rainbow colors if he lived amongst us now, embracing all those who have been shunned simply for being who they are. God made us who we are. Jesus loves who we are. And Grace welcomes who you are.  Two friends sat next to each other in church. They were both weepy, filled with all the complicated emotions that each were sorting through. One friend had just lost her father to insidious cancer that snatched him too early. The other friend is moving; it is a wonderful new beginning for her family, but also filled with the complications of saying goodbye to a community they have loved.
These two have become friends in church. At the beginning of service they were not sitting next to one another, but their children. Each announced in church their prayers: finding a new community, a mom who is alone after forty years and their joys: a new home with an incredible backyard, a month of dying that was a master-class in love. Each request was met with tears of acknowledgement and sighs. (I sometimes wonder if the very act of releasing breath for someone else is a direct prayer to God. We tend to sigh a great deal in church when we share our prayer requests.) By the end of service the two friends were sitting beside one another in the pew, as if huddled together to capture all the love that was present in the room to take home with them. They were not comparing their joy or their sorrow. The daughter who had just lost her beloved father was not telling her friend that her apprehension about leaving was minor in comparison to the grief she was processing. They were not comparing their joy or their sorrow. There was no meter to measure what emotions mattered more. I am positive God does not measure our hurt nor our joy. We don’t have to hurt a certain amount for God to pay attention. And our joy doesn’t have to be so loud, so exuberant, for God to notice. These two friends, tucked together in a solitary pew, knew that. Both were receiving what they came for: reminders that this beautiful and scary world is infused with God’s loving presence. They reminded each other of that love, they reminded the community gathered around them of that love, and we, as the church, reminded them of that love. It is an ever continuing circle that I enter every week as I step into the holy space of God’s gathered people.  The Reasons I do not want to remain a Christian
AND The Reasons I remain a Christian
 Rebellion Against Efficiency in a 1931 Model A Ford. Last week, my husband and I drove from my hometown, Eden, NY (an hour west of Buffalo) to Boston, MA in a 1931 Model A Ford Roadster. We celebrated this trip as a joyful rebellion against efficiency. But before I tell you about it, there are a few colliding stories and realities you must first understand. Story One: Ellie The Story of Ellie begins on a cold spring morning when my overly enthusiastic father told us he had just bought a new car-- a 1931 Model A Ford. It was going to be a “Driver” he repeated over and over again to anyone who would listen. I finally had the good sense to ask him just what he meant by driver. “This is not a fussy car,” he explained. “You can all drive her.” No one ever called Ellie “it,” and this was too long ago for her to be “they”. She was always a she.  My paternal grandfather loved old cars. He owned a fleet of them. And they were fussy. You would not dream of eating in them or going out for ice cream in them. They were not fun. They were museum pieces. In general, I thought my grandfather’s old cars were boring; I preferred my maternal grandmother’s new Buick. Like my grandfather, my father loves old cars. In fact he loves all moving vehicles, sentimentally attached to each one. Our barn sheltered more motorcycles and antique cars than farm equipment. When my grandfather died, my father kept his car collection, unable to part with it. Yet on that spring morning, when my father handed over a check to Bill Magavern for a Model A Ford, somehow things were different. She was a driver. And she had a horn that squawked, “A-woooo-gaah!” Not long after my father ordered vanity plates for Ellie that made clear her purpose: 31DRIVER. Soon Ellie became the car we packed into (three kids could easily fit in the rumble seat) for ice cream, the car we drove to the swimming hole, and the car that by the age of 13 I was driving on back roads. Ellie was the first car I drove. I even taught my cousin how to drive a stick on Ellie. We would cruise up our driveway, cut over to the barn, drive down the gas well road, go off-road over a small grassy field, ride along an old dirt road that led to a railroad bridge, then back again, repeat, and repeat, enamoured with our newfound freedom, oblivious to the fact that we were going nowhere. I even drove Ellie to a summer job when I was finally 16 and legal, let off the dirt road. But why the name Ellie? I couldn’t tell you. I vividly remember choosing her name and declaring it to my father so he would stop calling her DRIVER which seemed much too clunky for such a great girl. I knew immediately that she identified as a woman. She told me. Does this sound ridiculous? Perhaps. Yet I have always named my cars. They take on a personality of their own. And since I named her, she has never been referred to as the other cars in John Henrich’s fleet as “The 35 Cabriolet”, or “The Packard,” “The 6.9,” or “The Jeep.” Instead, Ellie has always been Ellie. She carries her name proudly.  Story Two: That Thing Called Covid and General Work-Life Exhaustion Not sure if you have heard, but we’ve been living through a pandemic for a long long long ass time. Remember when we thought it was only going to be a few weeks? I have been a pastor for 20 years, and with any career, 20 years is a long time. For some reason, the weight of the pastorate has settled unevenly on me this summer and I have been unable to find a balance. I have felt too tired, too overwhelmed. Maybe it is the combination of the pandemic and 20 years in ministry. Most folks I talk to are feeling the same. Jon Paul has been chair of the faculty senate at his college during the pandemic. During this time all classes moved online, professors were retrained, pay was cut, sabbaticals were cancelled, students became troubled, and professors moved close to the edge.Jon Paul loves his students. He loves teaching. He hates teaching online. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Who loves sitting in front of a Zoom screen? To top it off, Jon Paul’s father died this year. You get the picture. Like most of the world, we have been feeling unbalanced in an unbalanced world. We were exhausted and burnt out, we craved a break, but how and where? Jon Paul hatched a plan: we would drive Ellie from my parents to our home outside of Boston. “A Date” he kept calling it with an enthusiasm reminiscent of my Dad’s mantra, “She’s a Driver!”  The Trip: A Rebellion Against Efficiency Besides a horse drawn carriage, traveling across New York State and Massachusetts in Ellie is about as slow as can be. We could not travel on the ever efficient New York State Thruway or Mass Pike; Ellie’s best cruising speed is 45mph. Both state highways are the result of the Interstate Highway System constructed under Dwight Eisenhower to increase the efficiency of travel and transportation. The Interstate Highway System also transformed the way we traveled. When my mother drove from Buffalo to NYC to visit her grandparents, her family (mom, her three siblings, dog, paternal grandmother, and of course her parents, all in one car) drove along Rt 20 from town to town to town. As a result of the Interstate Highway System, we now bypass all of these towns and the different scenery and cultures that accompany them. The highway system, although highly efficient, disconnects the traveler from the very communities that make up a state. On our Ellie trip, Jon Paul and I traveled mostly along Rt 20. , And since we moved from town to town, we discovered and observed things we would not have otherwise. For example, do you know what Riggie is? We had to look it up after we saw it advertised as Thursday’s special on a restaurant sign. Riggie is a “Utica Thing”-- a pasta dish consisting of a tomato-sherry sauce with chicken. We bought a jar of the sauce to try. And did you know that German Lutherans traveled up from the Hudson Valley into the Mohawk Valley long before the Revolutionary War? Neither did we, until we discovered a German Lutheran Church built in the 1700s. We also discovered that the Mohawk Valley, once a thriving industrial center nicknamed the “gateway to the west”, has been gutted by economic collapse and ravaged by poverty. We discovered something else we did not expect: people of color love old cars! Without question, more people of color waved, honked, shouted, and even stopped beside us in their cars to tell us how much they loved Ellie, to ask us to honk her horn, to inquire about her specifics. Is white culture more reserved? When you are bumping along in Ellie, the wind rushing around you, the engine rattling, the gears occasionally grinding, you can’t do much else but be present. Yes, I was knitting the entire time, but mostly I was just watching the road and the scenery pass by. My mind wandered. My thoughts slowed down. The knots radiating from my neck into my shoulders untangled. Jon Paul and I didn’t necessarily have endlessly deep conversation, but we were present to one another, not trying to tackle the latest task or make the most pressing decision. Our biggest decisions consisted of where next to purchase coffee, ice cream, or gas. I didn’t figure out how to create more balance in my life as a pastor of two churches and a mom of three. I didn’t solve the social inequity that I encounter weekly as a pastor who volunteers at a food pantry. I didn’t even finish my knitting project! Yet for three days I was utterly present to the world around me and the man beside me. There was no clear purpose to our trip. We didn’t accomplish anything. We drove super slow. We ate too much ice cream and enjoyed other delights like the best pear tart I’ve ever had. In a world that is ever pressing, suggesting we do just one more thing to our squeezed life, we rebelled, driving slowly, presently, inefficiently, in Ellie. And this was the best antidote I can imagine.  Jesus didn’t have Balance or Boundaries, yet he Embraced Inefficiency I can’t help but tell you a little bit about Jesus. I am certain he didn’t drive a 1931 Ford. Yet the one mode of transportation besides his feet he did take-- a colt or donkey depending on which Gospel you read--was pretty inefficient. It might have been faster to walk into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday instead of ride. Just like today, Jesus lived in an utterly out of balance, topsy-turvy world. There wasn’t a worldwide pandemic, but there was massive social unrest and upheaval. Jesus’ community was living under Roman occupation and the Jewish social order was thrown into chaos. Prophets, like Jesus, were to be found everywhere in ancient Palestine, calling for reform. To complicate matters, Jesus not only was calling for reform and a new social order, like many of the prophets of his day, he was also ministering individually to people. He walked the countryside, stopping in small villages to care for the many who sought his healing. Slow. Inefficient. Healing. He could barely move from one place to the next without crowds surrounding him. In one village a paraplegic was lowered through the roof since there was no other way to reach Jesus (Mark 2). In another town, a hemorrhaging woman had to reach through the crowd pressed in around her just to touch Jesus’ cloak in hopes of being healed (Luke 8). Jesus was utterly present to those around him. He encountered them as they were, in their communities, in the very space of their suffering and beauty, and he spoke hope and offered healing. He delivered his message on the slow and inefficient road to Jerusalem where his message must be spoken if he hoped to change any larger social order. This fully present meandering left Jesus exhausted. He hadn’t heard yet of our 21st century therapeutic buzz word: boundaries. He only knew that in each moment he was to care for those he met. And he didn’t have a 1931 Ford in which to flee, so he often found a boat and sailed out to the middle of the Galilee to escape the crowds (Matthew 8, 14,15). Jesus could not transcend the pressing needs of the time in which he lived nor the real demands of the people he met. If he had been efficient and boundaried, his ministry would have never changed the lives of so many. But due to his reckless, inefficient love, his stories were told long after his death, passed from generation to generation, until they transformed our world. And just like us, he could grow tired. He escaped, if only for a few hours, in a boat. Somehow, we must rebel against efficiency and carve out time for ourselves. On most days, I have no idea how to do this. Nor do I know how to sustain this effort. But I know, even if for moments, we must. Perhaps instead of emptying the dishwasher in the last few minutes before I leave for work, I can sit down and drink coffee and breathe. Perhaps we can escape, even if only for an hour, in our own equivalent of a boat. God designed the universe for a sabbath, and took one herself. We should too. For now, Jon Paul and I plan on taking another trip in Ellie. Our current plan: the Hudson River Valley. Stay tuned. 
 Full Bellies in Boston
I am deeply proud of my city, Boston, for an unusual reason. It has nothing to do with one of our famous sports teams. Instead it’s about school lunch: If you attend a Boston public school, regardless of your income, you will receive a free breakfast, snack, lunch, and then final snack if you are in an afternoon program. That is enough calories for a single day, even if you do not have dinner. Many cities provide free meal programs for school children, but there is often a complicated documentation system that places the burden of proof on families. More often than not, school social workers need to track down documents that are never received. Children inevitably slip through the cracks. More complex than documentation: food insecurity cannot be easily calculated on paper. Some children do not qualify who are food insecure. Boston decided in 2013 that full bellies were as important as curriculum. Boston ditched the red tape. All children can eat their fill in the Boston public school system. Then Mayor Thomas Menino said it simply: “Every child has a right to healthy, nutritious meals in school.” He then noted the complications of the application system: “This takes the burden of proof off our low-income families and allows all children, regardless of income, to know healthy meals are waiting for them at school every day.” (BostonPublicSchools.org, BPS Offers Universal Free Meals for Every Child). The church where I serve has partnered with a local school in Boston. The school social worker noticed that children were stuffing their pockets with food on Friday afternoon. And on Monday morning, they couldn’t get enough food into their empty bellies fast enough. Through our food pantry, Rose’s Bounty, we send children home with bags of kid friendly food each Friday to see them through the weekend. Ever since Covid left our city locked down and our school system closed, I have worried and worried about this particular group of children. I have prayed for them, wondering if their bellies ache at night. The city of Boston has done an excellent job, as have many cities, providing food assistance through local community organizations and at central localities. Our church has offered a weekly pop up food pantry in the school recess yard to try and reach families in need. And still we know that there are children who are malnourished because they do not have the consistency of school breakfast and lunch each day. Visible Disparity & Free Lunches When my mom was a child growing up in Buffalo, New York, she walked home everyday for lunch. School lunches were not provided in her neighborhood school, or in most schools in the early 1940s. And without official school lunches, kids could see how hungry each other were. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, we see how this wealth disparity plays out during the school lunch. The main character, Scout, comes face to face with poverty for the first time when her older brother, Jem, invites a classmate named Walter home for lunch. At the Finch home, Walter greedily pours molasses all over his meat and vegetables to Scout’s horror. Scout, of course, does not remain quiet. Calpurnia, the Finch’s house keeper and mother of sorts, calls Scout into the kitchen and scolds her for her rude behavior. She explains to Scout that not everyone has as much to eat as Scout. Scout's behavior is not uncommon. I remember vividly bragging about the pot of change my dad left in our kitchen for our school lunches and how my brother and I took however much we wanted (my parents didn’t know this, but they also didn’t monitor). With the extra money we bought ice cream bars and chocolate milk. A classmate was awestruck at this unrestricted access and told me her mother carefully counted out her lunch money each day. My family wanted for nothing; I learned this for the first time at school lunch. Two things happened in America that created the school lunch programs that were the norm when I entered school in 1980. First, women began organizing. It started small, a mother noticing a child with no lunch. These mothers brought children into their homes at the noon hour and made sure they received a filling lunch. This was more common than you can imagine. Soon women were showing up at schools with pots of soup and slices of bread to make sure all the children were fed lunch. Boston led this movement and was the first school district in the country to offer lunches to all students in the late 1890s. The Boston free lunch program was led by the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. In 1908 in Manhattan, students paid 3 cents or less for pea soup and two slices of bread offered by the Women’s Missionary Society. Second, school lunches became federally supported immediately after World War II. Many young men drafted into World War II couldn’t fight due to malnourishment. Present Truman’s legislative response was simple: the 1946 National School Lunch Act provided affordable meals so kids could grow up to be strong soldiers and strong citizens. The Importance of School Lunches in the Era of Pandemics There are things we simply take for granted. They have been such a part of the common fabric of our communities that we stop noticing. During this pandemic, I have become aware of just how impactful the 1946 National School Lunch Act was on our country. In fact, I have come to realize school lunches are central to our democracy. Let me explain. My rationale is simple. I will confess that although my experience is limited, my work at the Chittick School has given me a bird’s eye view into the terrible domino effects of food insecurity on education. Children can’t learn on empty stomachs. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone disagreeing with this statement. And an educated populace is essential to democracy. As democracy took root in America, public education became not just an ideal, but an imperative. An enlightened public, the founders believed, was essential to self-government. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Education is the anvil against upon democracy is forged.” If education is essential to self-government, and school lunches are key to children’s ability to learn, then school lunches are central to our democracy. I am not a public health official, and I am not challenging in any way the closure of schools. I do want, however, to offer the following observation: sitting down every day in a cafeteria with classmates, at the same table, in the same room, eating from the same lunch trays, is one of the greatest achievements of our democracy. At that cafeteria moment, we are saying to each child in America, “You matter. Your very physical well being matters. Your education matters. Your voice matters. Your experience matters. Your future matters. You are a citizen of this country and one day we will depend on you to uphold our democracy.” So why does any of this matter to a Christian Disciple? As followers of Jesus, seeking, fighting for, and securing justice is our job description. Sister Simone Campbell said it most clearly when she asserted that salvation is communal. Therefore, justice is how we measure salvation. The measure of justice is how well we do together, as a nation. My salvation is completely tied up with a child sitting down to eat lunch. If that child is hungry, so am I. If I do not fight for justice for that child, I am not closer to salvation. Our destinies are entwined. Jesus called all of his disciples, those who were constantly clueless, those who would deny him, those who would betray him, to eat of bread and drink of cup with him. In that upper room, Jesus made it clear there was only one table and at that table there was room for us all and there was enough for us all. Just as Simone Campbell asserts, Jesus saw salvation as a fully communal endeavor. I like to think of the Boston Public School system’s lunch rooms like Jesus’ table. Everyone is welcome. There is enough for every child. The salvation of each child at each rickety cafeteria table is forever bound up with those who sit across from them, and with me, and with you. Those women who sought free lunches for all children worked not only for our justice, but for my salvation.Thank you.  My grandmother would have been 100 years old this month. It doesn’t seem possible.
Her name was Edna. We called her grandma Ednut. She was tall and attractive and looked good in jeans and sweaters. She had gorgeous long legs and wore heels anytime she could. She also had the ugliest feet I’ve ever seen. She never had a short old lady hair cut, but instead kept her hair in a swinging bob that framed her striking jaw. After mowing her lawn in the summer, she liked to sit in a lawn chair, overlooking her work, and crack open a cold beer. She cooked for all of us non-stop. Gravy was a beverage. Homemade cookies, as large as saucers, were in the corner of her kitchen at all times. When we visited for a sleepover, we always hit the grocery store (where we were allowed to get anything we wanted) and the butcher (where she made sure we were given “ham off the bone” to nibble on while we waited). But before procuring sustenance, we went to the bank where she withdrew and then counted crisp bills. I was sure she was the richest woman alive. There would also be time spent in her sewing room where she would quickly whip up the prettiest new dresses for our dolls, lace lining the cuffs and hems. I even had a lined pink velvet cape for my favorite figurine. My daughter has this cherished hooded piece in her doll wardrobe today. And if all of this loving attention wasn’t enough my grandmother did more. She showed up at every sports event with chairs, blankets when it was freezing, and juice boxes (before anyone I knew bought them!). She came to Grandparents Day and gave me the correct answers to my spelling test under her breath. She lavished all her grandchildren with love and attention and money! She financed our expensive Victoria’s Secret bras (not my brothers, they didn’t wear bras), interview suits, and much more. She would slip twenties into our pockets for “gas money” before we headed back to college. My grandmother wasn’t perfect. Surprise. She was human. My relationship with her was more fraught the older I got as my views diverged from hers. When she discovered that I had no intention of ever taking my husband’s name she responded, “Who would want to marry you then?!?” Thankfully I had a quick response, “They’re lining up, grandma!” I’m glad Fox news didn’t exist while she was still alive. With time, I have forgotten most of these more difficult things about my Grandma Ednut. Instead, I can still hear her cackle. I delight in telling my children about her. I make things in the kitchen just like she would have, especially her world famous crepes. I received her dining room table, and sit at it every night with my family, feeling her presence. This is how saints are born in our hearts. No life is perfect, but a life lived well graces the imperfections so that the broken bits get left behind. What remains is love. My grandmother loved me wildly, just like she did all her grandchildren. Her love remains a wellspring in my heart to this day. I imagine how she would enjoy my children and, as I imagine this, a silent voice urges me to enjoy, to feed, to care, to laugh, to tend, to love. What greater legacy could we strive for? Happy 100th Grandma Ednut. Your love still blossoms all around us. So may all the saints. "Woman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers — and before it can be his, it is hers alone. She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it. ― Margaret Sanger, "Woman and the New Race"  Over 100 years ago Margaret Sanger opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States. An advocate for women’s reproductive rights who was also a vocal eugenics supporter, Margaret Sanger has left a complicated legacy — and one that conservative christians have leveraged into sweeping attacks on the organization she helped found: Planned Parenthood. So why would I want to include Margaret Sanger in my blog series about saints?
The self-evident reasons are simple: the incredible freedom Sanger offered so many women by teaching us that we do have a choice and that reproductive rights belong to us, not the state or the church. If you want to know about my views on abortion please read my blog, Abortion is Normal, posted on 4/18/2020. Or view the list I created about the ten things you don’t have to believe to be a Christian. There is also a less straightforward reason why I have decided to celebrate Margaret Sanger’s story in this blog series: she had the courage to speak a very uncomfortable truth from her own story. Although her views on eugenics are much more complicated than often presented, I still do not agree with them. Does this disagreement or even dislike mean there is nothing to learn from the radical work of one individual who, against all odds, shifted our world view? Like all the Saints I admire, Margaret Sanger’s very human story shaped her. She grew up as the 6th of 11 children. Her mother conceived 18 times and died at the young age of 49. Sanger was also a nurse who threw herself into difficult and complicated work, tending to the poorest of the poor in New York City. These two factors alone deeply shaped her world view. It is easy to have a distaste for abortion if you have never cared for a mother tending too many children with too little food. It is easy to think God should plan our families when you have access to fresh air and green space and enough work. It is also easy to think that all children are planned by God, even those born with horrid birth defects, when you are not the one listening to them wail in pain with yet another medical procedure. Margaret Sanger witnessed all of this and more. In America, too many of our leaders refuse to speak the truth of their experience. But we have this to learn from Margaret Sanger: speak the unpopular truth of your story. Margaret Sanger knew that if women had access to birth control, then their lives and the lives of their children would radically improve. Today, that truth remains difficult to hear. It is not easy to be faced with the reality that some women lack the material resources to care for their children. It is not easy to face the reality that not all women, maybe even women you know, do not have the emotional bandwidth to be a mother or care for multiple children. Yet this is the truth of many women’s lives and we cannot silence it just because it makes us uncomfortable. Margaret Sanger taught us that speaking our own story’s unpopular truth might free others. She gave women the freedom to choose--to choose their own destiny, to choose their own identity, to choose their own path. Her loving work of liberation makes her a saint, not just for women, but for men as well, and for God.  As those who call ourselves Christian, our new year has actually already begun. It did not begin with the first vaccine injections, and will not begin when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. Instead, the Christian liturgical year begins the first Sunday we light the advent wreath.
This year the beginning of advent was more poignant than ever. During Advent we wait. We wait for the coming of the light as the days grow darker and darker. And the days have grown darker and darker as we are faced with rising infections and covid fatigue and winter closures after a summer and fall of outdoor gatherings. We wait for the end of pain, poverty, and injustice. And this year as we waited death tolls rose, food pantry numbers increased, and racial & social injustice continued to plague our society. We wait for the birth of the Christ Child on Christmas Eve, when busyness will cease, and the familiar carol, O Come All Ye Faithful, fills the church. But this year, there hasn’t been much busyness with holiday parties cancelled and family gatherings postponed. And we will not all be together on Christmas Eve singing in one voice the familiar words: joyful and triumphant! And so we have waited earnestly, impatiently, and sometimes with a well spring of hope, for the child to arrive and transform the darkness. The truth is, we have been waiting since March. We have been waiting for the world to return to normal. We have been waiting to hug those we love and for children to return to school. We have been waiting for familiar routines to envelope us with their predictability. And we have been waiting for a vaccine. Yesterday as I scrolled through my social media feed I was flooded with pictures of friends receiving vaccines: medical professionals and leaders of all kinds. There was electric joy radiating from their faces, sleeves rolled up and ready. Gratitude permeated their written words. The ill timing of Mary’s labor, the swaddling clothes and manger, the chorus of heavenly hosts, the shepherd’s hasty arrival, the wise men’s late arrival -- this story is old to us. It does not hold the same wonder as the new covid vaccine. But perhaps this year, after a year of honing our waiting skills, we will come to understand that a crying infant, born to homeless peasants, is our yearly vaccine. Perhaps this Christmas Eve as we listen at our computer screens or hum O come all ye faithful under our masks, we will awake to the news we have been waiting for all year, and every year. This child born to us, this light, is like an injection of long awaited virus proteins. The antidote the Christ Child offers after all our waiting is this: Hope in the face of fear, Peace in the face of injustice, Joy in the face of heartbreak, and Love, always Love in the face of hate. Thank God for the vaccine and a vulnerable child who reminds us that there is light in the darkness, joyful and triumphant. Amen. |
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