Thursday, September 22, 2011

I Am Lawrence Brewer

Last night, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis, a man widely believed to be innocent. A last-minute delay went to the Supreme Court, where a stay of execution was denied.

Meanwhile in Texas, another man was executed. There was no widespread outcry for the life of Lawrence Brewer. His horrific crime was one of which he boasted, one in which there was no doubt of his guilt. He "deserved" to die.

I blogged last night that I was troubled by the preoccupation with the "too much doubt" that characterized the Troy Davis case. Not because I disagree with the emphasis; the fact that our government would sentence an innocent man to death—and, by the way, "since 1973, 138 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence" (DPIC)—and then follow through on that sentence amid mounting doubt is appalling. I'm not even addressing the racial inequity inherent in the system, which is a huge part of this case. A crime was committed in Georgia last night. One friend commented that the only physical evidence or weapon connected to the Troy Davis case was that used in the execution. That should make you shudder.

However, I found myself forced to wonder why we were comfortable executing Lawrence Brewer on the same night. The answer is obvious: Brewer committed and reveled in an unimaginably cruel hate crime, the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. I didn't want to know about his crime, but last night when the phrase "I am Troy Davis" was splashed across various social media outlets, I felt like I had to add "I am Lawrence Brewer," and I needed to know what I was really saying. Reading more about Brewer, I found a part of myself glad that he is no longer on this earth. According to a Huffington Post article comparing the two death penalty cases, in court proceedings, Brewer wrote a letter with these chilling words: "Well, I did it... And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I'm still licking my lips for more."

No one in their right mind wants this man on the streets. But it seems to me that part of the desire to shut away and then kill someone like Brewer is not only that we want to maintain public safety—it's that we are afraid to acknowledge what we have in common with him. We do not want someone like Brewer to be human because we do not want to see ourselves in him. I do not want to identify myself with a white supremacist whose racism led him to torture and murder a black man. It is easy for me to say that I would never commit such a crime, but what really separates me from Brewer?

Mother Teresa once said, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." This quote gets used a lot of the time to highlight the nice things about human community and relationships, the ways in which we can and should build one another up and take care of one another. That is absolutely right, but it seems to me that in this broken world, if there is ever going to be healing and reconciliation, we must admit that we belong to each other not only in our goodness but also in our darkness. The reason that history continues to go through cycles of violence, even genocide, is that we continuously (and with good reason!) distance ourselves from the perpetrators of horror, so much so that we fail to recognize those same impulses in our own hearts. We condemn German citizens who did nothing while Jews were rounded up and murdered in their midst, and yet we allow men to be killed by the state, systemic injustice to deny basic healthcare to the poor, suspected terrorists to be held and tortured with no evidence but their ethnicity or nationality in the name of homeland security, and unjust wars to be waged abroad by soldiers with no resources to deal with the repercussions of taking a human life.

Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and anti-death penalty activist (and the character portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie Dead Man Walking) said, "The profound moral question is not, 'Do they deserve to die?' but 'Do we deserve to kill them?'" I am reminded of John 8:7, where Jesus challenges the men accusing a woman of adultery: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." I am not advocating lawlessness and disorder. Like I said, no one in their right mind wants Lawrence Brewer on the streets. But my point is that, innocent or guilty, no human being should have their life taken by the state. We need to acknowledge the inhumanity of the death penalty as being the very thing we are trying not to see in ourselves when we wash our hands of the humanity of someone like Lawrence Brewer.

I have to point out the reactions of each victim's family to these two executions. The family of James Byrd, Jr., whose body was mercilessly mutilated by Lawrence Brewer, who was unrepentant to the last, begged the courts not to kill him. But the family of Mark MacPhail, whom Troy Davis is accused of killing, welcomed his death, feeling that justice had been served. I am sensitive to and troubled by the racial dynamics not only of the crimes and trials, but of the family's reactions.

I was 14 years old on 9/11. I watched our country's sense of security crumble with those towers. I still cry almost anytime someone talks about 9/11. And yet, I have never feared terrorists. I do not worry about my safety when I travel. I have caught myself looking at middle eastern people with curiosity that borders on suspicion, but I have never really been concerned that he or she is a terrorist or would harm me in any way. What I do fear is that darkness that lies in the human soul, in my own soul, that darkness that leads people like the MacPhails to see death as a victory, that causes crowd members at a GOP rally to cheer when Rick Perry is asked about the record number of executions that have taken place in Texas during his term as governor. (By the way, read this: "An Open Letter of Pastoral Admonition to Governor Rick Perry," by Amy Laura Hall.) I do not fear people like Brewer. I fear the part of me that wants to cheer at Brewer's death.

There is only one death in all of history that constituted a victory. If we celebrate any other human death—even the death of Osama bin Laden—we have, indeed, forgotten that we belong to each other, and until our memory is restored, we will have no peace.

I am Troy Davis. I am Lawrence Brewer. May God have mercy on my soul.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Too Much Doubt

I am writing this blog post as reports of a delay (or perhaps a stay?) in Troy Davis' execution are circulating. Either way, he's been sedated for over an hour and has no idea what is going on. That image breaks my heart.

Leading up to the scheduled execution, I saw a lot of activity on Twitter and Facebook around the controversy, including this Twitter hashtag: #toomuchdoubt. In a case with no physical evidence and eyewitnesses recanting left and right, there absolutely is too much doubt. Troy Davis never should have been on death row.

However, my opposition to the death penalty extends beyond cases in which there is too much doubt. I don't think it is possible for there to be little enough doubt to justify capital punishment. I wrote an article in 2007 for the inaugural issue of the magazine Religio outlining my stance on the death penalty, and it still basically says all I want to say on the subject.

I could probably produce a more theologically complicated and flowery account today, but I don't much feel like it. I serve a God who was a victim of the death penalty and whose death and resurrection freed us from slavery to sin and death. Wherever we perpetuate a culture of death, we enslave each other and ourselves all over again.

So I wait to hear more about the Troy Davis case with tears in my eyes, knowing that I would oppose his execution even if he had been convicted beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Offensive or Prophetic?

"Not all offensive actions are prophetic, but some prophetic actions are offensive." — Sam Wells, in a sermon preached in Duke Chapel on 9/4/11 (via Faith & Leadership)

Monday, September 19, 2011

What I'm Reading #31: The Year of Living Biblically (A. J. Jacobs)

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by A. J. Jacobs

I saw The Year of Living Biblically (Simon & Schuster 2008) in a bookstore a few weeks ago and nearly bought it. Last week, I subscribed to audible.com, because I'm commuting 1.5 hours twice a week to teach this semester, and I need listening material. I didn't realize the version of Jacobs' book that I bought was abridged until I finished it, so I feel like I'm cheating a little by saying I read it, but I'm gonna choose to let that go.

My interest in the book was originally kindled because it looked like a pretty hilarious satire. There also seemed to be great potential for getting offended, which doesn't happen often to me and which I generally find more amusing than anything else. I was a little surprised by how non-aggressive Jacobs' approach to this strange project was. You would expect that anyone who commits to following the Bible literally for a year is being facetious and has an agenda that is at least cynical if not malicious, but Jacobs came at this with a healthy dose of humility (though not without preconceived notions).

Jacobs started out a secular Jew with little to no experience with religion. He described his family's Judaism using an image I thought was particularly salient: they put a star of David on top of their Christmas tree. So, Jacobs took 5 hours a day for 4 weeks to read through the entire Bible and write down every single command he found. Needless to say, the list was exhaustive, and he quickly found that obeying all the commands at the same time was impossible, not only because of the sheer number but also because some of them contradict. One of Jacobs' main conclusions after completing the project was that everyone, conservatives, liberals and moderates alike, picks and chooses what they want to adhere to from the Bible.

There were definitely scenes that aligned with my expectation for satire, especially those involving Jacobs' skeptical wife and his 2-year-old son. One was when Jacobs tried to obey a prescription for corporal punishment for children (which he hadn't done before), seeking out a "rod" that would not actually harm his son: a Nerf bat. When Jasper misbehaved, Jacobs whacked him gently with the bat. The toddler's response was to laugh hysterically, grab a whiffle bat, and return the favor. Discipline fail.

But there were also moments of surprising solemnity. Jacobs got into a daily routine of prayers, though he rarely felt like he was actually talking to anyone. He did, however, experience a few moments of connection, or joy, or something, and I felt like he did a marvelous job of receiving and reflecting on those moments without overly dramatizing them. In the final part of the book, Jacobs admits he still doesn't believe in God in the way that a practicing Jew or Christian does; though he did experience a change, he describes his transition as one from being an agnostic to being a reverent agnostic, someone with an appreciation for the sacred and for ritual.

Besides simply following the commands on his own, Jacobs also did a lot of research, assembling a group of spiritual leaders to act as guides, reading up on Biblical interpretation and Jewish and Christian practices, traveling to Israel, etc. One research trip I found interesting was two-part: to visit Liberty University, founded by the infamous Jerry Falwell, and to check out the Red Letter Christians, of which Tony Campolo is a part. I was confused at first as he described these groups, because he used the term "Christian literalist" for both. I've always associated literalism with conservative fundamentalism, and the RLCs are more on the moderate to liberal side. However, the RLCs are committed to interpreting the words of Jesus literally (hence the "red letter" reference), calling Christians to hear Jesus' admonitions around social and economic justice. I don't think the term "literalist" actually applies in truth to much of anyone who reads or follows the Bible, but it was interesting to see it applied in two radically different exegetical camps.

I would definitely recommend this book for an easy and interesting read, complete with plenty of laughs and some healthy doses of humility for any reader.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Church Hopping #4: World Overcomers Christian Church

This post is a little different because it does not represent a first impression of a church I visited, but that's OK. In the summer of 2008, one of my housemates worked at World Overcomers Christian Church, and I attended a few of their worship services, including one at which he was baptized. That housemate is now a housemate again (just around the corner!) and still attends WOCC. We had our house retreat this past weekend, and we went to WOCC's Saturday evening service last night, so I re-experienced World Overcomers for the first time in a few years.

If I could use one word (or phrase?) to describe WOCC's worship, it would be "high-energy." I remember the second time I went there back in undergrad, a very kind woman welcomed me and said with sweet caution, "Now just so you know, the music here is pretty loud!"

I need to back up. WOCC is a predominantly African-American, contemporary evangelical church that might qualify as a megachurch, though I'm not sure of the membership. I had my own (amusing) thoughts about why that woman felt the need to warn me about the volume, and race was definitely a component. WOCC is not an exclusively black church, and I have always found the people there more than hospitable, but its atmosphere does seem to cater to the younger black population.

Back to the high energy. The service started with several back-to-back praise songs led by a sizeable group of vocalists (including my housemate) and a stacked band that was rocking out. I didn't know any of the songs they sang, which was a little distressing in that I once was up on contemporary gospel music...but that's OK. Every song had the theme of (and often the exact words) "God is mighty." Having spent the past few weeks talking to my biblical lit class about how the Bible holds God's majesty and God's intimacy in tension, I naturally got to thinking about why certain songwriters or worship leaders or whomever might choose to emphasize God's might (as, say, the Genesis 1 creation account does, whereas the Genesis 2 creation story describes a much closer, more anthropomorphic God). Just a runaway train of thought.

Pastor Nate, whom I remember as having been my housemate's supervisor the summer he worked there, offered a greeting and announcements after the worship set, then the musicians came back on to lead another song before giving the stage to Pastor Andy, the tall, charismatic senior pastor of WOCC. As part of their current "Ready Set Grow" series, Pastor Andy preached from Romans 15 and Philippians 1, encouraging the congregation not to be self-satisfied in any blessing or strength they may experience but to use those gifts for others. "We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, 'The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me'" (Rom. 15:1-3). My housemate had mentioned that a major emphasis at WOCC lately has been encouraging people to mature in faith, as increasingly its membership includes many new believers, and this message seemed to fit that agenda.

If you want to get pumped up for Jesus and feel effusively welcome in a space that does not look like a church, go check out World Overcomers.

I'm headed back to Durham Resurrection Community tonight (we're meeting in a house again), but I figure by the third visit it's no longer "church hopping." :)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Soldiers of Conscience: To Kill or Not to Kill?

One of the (too many) things I'm doing this semester is helping to plan an event called After the Yellow Ribbon. (Registration is open. Join us November 11-12 at Duke.) The event, like the hosting student group (Milites Christi), is focused on cultivation conversation around pastoral responses to war and peace and to the church's care of veterans. Of particular interest is the concept of moral injury and the internal wounds of war sustained by those who wage it.

I went into this knowing little to nothing about the backdrop to the conversation, so this has been a learning experience for me. Last night, we held a screening of the documentary film Soldiers of Conscience, which was difficult but, I think, important for me to see. Check out the trailer at the bottom of this post. The film features the stories of several conscientious objectors who became such after entering the service, as well as representatives of the U.S. military, including Lt. Col. Pete Kilner, an ethicist at Westpoint who will be presenting at After the Yellow Ribbon. There are questions raised about just war, but the main concern is the conscience of the individual soldier, the infantryman who is trained to kill but has little recourse for processing the moral implications.

The part of the film that struck me as most chilling was the discussion of reflexive fire. Research shows that in World War II, only about 25% of servicemen actually fired their weapons with intent to kill the enemy. At the moment of decision, whether consciously or not, they became conscientious objectors. The military took notice and changed the way they approached training, working to cultivate a reflex to kill so that soldiers skip the moral decision making process in order to be quicker and more deadly. Lethality in battle has been steadily on the rise since then. The thing is, no healthy person wants to kill another human being. Killing does not come naturally; soldiers have to be trained, methodically and sometimes with what I see as pretty frightening and dehumanizing techniques, not to think about it.

The truth is that the church fails veterans regularly, and I am personally grateful for this opportunity to be challenged in how I approach questions of war and peace before I go into parish ministry. I grew up with a strongly anti-military mindset that, unfortunately, was often aimed as much at servicemen as at the military industrial complex. I have family members who are veterans but have never engaged them in conversation about their service; maybe this is an opportunity to do that. Talking about war and peace in abstract terms is tricky because it can so quickly become polarizing, but what I think we're trying to do here with Milites Christi and After the Yellow Ribbon is to engage in real conversation about the concrete implications of war for human beings with will and conscience. With veteran suicide rates at an all-time high, this is an issue on which the church cannot remain silent.


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Church Hopping #3: And Now for Something Completely Different, Part 1: Buddhist Meditation

OK, so this blog isn't about a church visit at all. Inspired by Abdullah Antepli's part in our Goodson Chapel service last Thursday and by watching the video of a recent interfaith panel on 9-11 at Duke Divinity, I decided that my exploration of various worship settings needed to expand beyond Christianity. So I looked up the website of the Buddhist Community at Duke and decided to attend one of their weekly meetings, which includes meditation and a talk from a Dharma teacher. I've decided to keep this and any other non-Christian explorations in my "Church Hopping" series, but with the dubious subtitle "And Now for Something Completely Different." Hope that's OK.

Just so we're clear, I know next to nothing about Buddhism. I raised my hand as someone who had never meditated before, because although I have done short mindfulness meditations in a Christian context, I had never done it like this before.

My first-time status was obvious, but I wasn't the only one. The Buddhist group at Duke shares a meditation room on campus with the Hindus, and the floor was populated with cushions and a few chairs along the walls. We left our shoes outside. I was greeted warmly by Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, the Buddhist chaplain, who was part of the interfaith panel I mentioned, and by a statue of the Buddha (not the laughing Buddha). As we gathered, I met a graduate student in the Environmental Management program who was surprised that, as a divinity student, I had never been there before. I was reminded that although Duke Divinity is an all-Christian institution, places like Harvard and Yale are not. I chose Duke in part for the sense of community and formation that comes with sharing a common faith and call, but there are definitely educational and formational aspects I've missed out on by limiting my theological education to within Christianity (and, in very limited ways in undergrad, Judaism and Islam).

We started with a 12-minute sitting. I have back issues, so I'll admit that a fair chunk of this time was consumed by a preoccupation with an intense pain and tightness in the center of my back. I am also very easily distracted, which is why I pray most often in the car, so my mind kept wandering away from my breath (we were led in a form of mindfulness meditation). However, as the leader gave gentle instruction for the newcomers, he anticipated such wanderings and encouraged us to acknowledge distractions without chastising ourselves, to take note of sounds and thoughts and images without letting them take control. It reminded me of similar teachings on prayer and self-compassion I heard from the monks at Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, where I spent my spring breaks in undergrad.

The guest teacher tonight was John Orr, who teaches here at Duke and is an ordained Buddhist monk. (Side note: as he talked about his experiences in India and Thailand, I was struck by how much crossover there is in language from Buddhist and Catholic monastic systems, though I suspect the terms don't always mean the same thing; but I heard "monastery," "monk," "nun" and even "prior.") He spoke about developing and/or deepening a practice of meditation. He used language of "doing" versus "being," in that meditation is not something you can necessarily control or accomplish; it requires a degree of passivity and release. Orr spoke of his own struggles with letting go and learning a meditation practice that worked for him, of having to realize that anytime he was seeking after a specific experience or feeling in meditation, he was grasping for control. He identified this with the solar plexus chakra (one of seven) and said that the way to free oneself from that grasping was to move to the heart chakra, the place of wisdom and compassion. Since I can't help but put what I was hearing in terms of my own experience, I was reminded of what Henri Nouwen called "the inner voice of love," a deep place of self-compassion and knowledge of God's love. Only by knowing one's own belovedness can one rightly love others.

I feel like this post is fantastically choppy and ill-educated, but this is just my raw take on my first experience of Buddhist meditation. I'm hoping to learn a little more about Buddhism; years ago, I bought the installments of Oxford University Press' Very Short Introduction series on Buddhism and Hinduism when I realized that my undergraduate religion degree had introduced me almost solely to the Abrahamic faiths (though I have read the Bhagavad Gita). As minimal of an exposure as tonight was, I can say that I needed to hear a lot of what Orr had to say about love, wisdom and compassion, and I'm glad that I went.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Church Hopping #2: Duke Chapel (ish), Emmaus Way, and Durham Resurrection Community (again)

I have now gone two Sundays in a row without setting foot in an actual church building, yet between those two Sundays, I have participated in 4.5 worship services (I'll explain the fraction in a moment). Actually, make that three Sundays and 5.5 services, because New Creation UMC meets in Healthy Start Academy (I'm counting buildings that look like churches but are no longer owned by churches as non-churches).

I have decided that Sunday evening worship services are the best thing ever. I spent all summer getting up at 7:00 a.m. on Sundays, and last school year it was 6:00. Today, I woke up a little before 9:00 and spent the morning getting work done. I felt a little transgressive, so, partly due to that feeling and partly because I was curious to see what they were doing for 9-11, I turned on Duke Chapel's live video stream on their website.

That's where I got the half a worship service in my total. Now, I'm sure I could devote an entire blog post to whether online worship is possible, and anyone who knows me at all could probably guess what my answer would be, but I'm going to save that, because one of my classes is actually going to spend some time looking at religion and technology this semester, so I'll have something more intelligent to say in a few months. Even if you think you can worship online, I definitely wasn't engaged enough for it to count. If you want to give it a shot, the video of today's service can be found here.

However, it was moving to see and hear what they had going on this morning. Mad props to worship director Meghan Feldmeyer, who is the woman and now owes me hangout time since 9-11 has passed. :) They incorporated a memorial act into the service where people brought white roses to lay before the altar as the choir sang "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem (which they performed entire this afternoon). The opening hymn, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," an adaptation of Psalm 23 that I thought was fitting. The choir, as usual, was glorious, and one anthem choice in particular was striking: the Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which includes these words penned by Wilfred Owen:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.


They also used a litany for September 11 that incorporated lines from "O God Our Help in Ages Past." And also as usual, Dean Sam Wells' sermon was wonderful. He focused on the idea of Ground Zero and the images of ashes, recalling not only the dust that choked the air of Manhattan on 9-11 but also the dust from which we are made and to which we will return. Just go check out the sermon, I could listen to that man talk all day.

I did actually go to and participate in two other worship services today. The first was at Emmaus Way, which describes itself as an "emergent activist" church. Having spent a lot of time this summer getting to know and love the way Lockerbie Central UMC in Indy does church, this sounded really appealing. Plus, I've known the pastor there for a while, as one of his kids participated in the youth group I used to lead.

Emmaus Way meets at The Reality Center, another one of those former church buildings that now houses what I will happily call an incredible ministry even though it's not, strictly speaking, a church. I knew I would love this church from the moment I walked in. They meet in what used to be the sanctuary and is now more of a gym, but they set it up in a round. In the center were the musicians and a chair for the pastor, which conveniently swiveled. Flanking all sides were rows of chairs and a few couches. Art was set up all around the room, candles on end tables and in window sills, a gorgeous painting by Carole Baker representing the liturgical calendar gracing one corner. A low table holding communion elements was at one end of the oval made by the seats. The space was inviting and comfortable, with an air of anticipation.

If I had had any doubts from my first visual impression, a glance at the bulletin drove those away. The first song they did was by the Indigo Girls ("Hammer and a Nail"). The Emmaus Way website states that they are committed to supporting local, professional musicians, and they even have an Arts Pastor. The music was folksy but fresh, and the songs seemed to be from random sources, including one traditional hymn, two songs by the basics and one by Over the Rhine, but each song had a specific liturgical function, including a song of confession and a song of absolution.

The sermon was really more of a conversation, which reminded me of the Lyceum series Lockerbie Central did this summer (and apparently is a characteristic of much emergent worship out there). Emmaus Way is doing a series on Ordinary Time, and today the subject was vocation. The pastor, Tim Conder, offered some reflection and then opened the floor to let people share how they see their vocation tying into what they do for a living. He then went into an exploration of the book of Jonah as it relates to vocation, which I really enjoyed because for some reason Jonah has been coming up a lot lately in my readings for different things. Jonah's problem, Tim said, was not that he was afraid; it was that he knew that if he went to Ninevah and delivered God's message, God would show forgiveness to his enemies—and Jonah didn't want that.

I loved Emmaus Way's blend of ancient church tradition (which today included a reading from the Book of Common Prayer, a rite for the dead as a nod to 9-11) and contemporary/"secular" elements. Having spent the summer around people talking a lot about the emergent church movement and figuring out how to participate in it in context, here I was seeing it actually happening. I will definitely be back.

I left straight from Emmaus Way to go worship with Durham Resurrection Community for a second time. I had already met with two of their musicians earlier in the day because, being me, it took less than a week for me to get on the worship team. Last week, we met at a rock quarry; this week, we met in a member's home. We gathered in the living room, read Scripture, shared joys and concerns, broke bread and sang praises. I even played the cajon on one song. I've enjoyed the laid back, familial feel of that group, and it's nice that it is an odd conglomeration of friends of mine and people I don't know (or am now getting to know).

I'm really enjoying this church hopping thing. I want to maintain some sort of stability as I visit around (hence getting plugged in with Resurrection already and hopefully going back to Emmaus Way as much as I can), but visiting around is already proving pretty educational and I've only been at it for two weeks. I've already had a Quaker I know invite me to a Friends meeting, and another friend of mine attends an African American Catholic parish I'd love to visit.

But I'm also hoping to expand beyond the walls of Christianity. Especially after last week's service in Goodson Chapel that included reflections from Imam Abdullah Antepli, and after watching the video of an interfaith panel held this past week at Duke Divinity, I'm planning to check out Friday Jummah prayers with Muslim Life at Duke and weeknight meditation and discussion with the campus Buddhist group. I've also been meaning to actually attend a service at Judea Reform, the Jewish Reform congregation in Durham (where I've sung in a concert before and whose sanctuary I adore). Worship adventure is out there!

What I'm Reading #30: Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Since I'm driving to Fayetteville and back (and hour and a half each way) twice a week this semester, I've turned to audiobooks. Middlesex is a novel I've been meaning to read for a while, and this seemed like as good a time as any. And so, after 3 weeks of driving for class, plus listening to it in the car pretty much every time I drove in between, I finished the book.

Middlesex is the story of Cal, a male hermaphrodite who was raised as Callie, a girl, until adolescence. But it is much more than that. Eugenides, drawing on his own Greek heritage, traces the history of the gene that caused Cal's 5-alpha-reductase deficiency back to a mountain village in early 20th-century Greece. Eugenides tells of how the recessive gene traveled through the generations, coming closer to the service when cousins or siblings intermarried, manifesting itself occasionally in the small village until eventually it crossed the Atlantic with Cal's grandparents (who were really brother and sister) to Detroit in 1922.

With the morbidity typical of an American today, I just wanted details about Cal's "disorder." But Eugenides refused to objectify or commodify his "condition." And so, at first I grew a little impatient with the long back story about the two generations prior to Cal—but Eugenides quickly drew me in with his language and storytelling, making me care about people and things I hadn't originally come to see.

This book is really a family saga, the section devoted to Cal a coming-of-age story fraught with all the usual struggles of adolescence, but with a slightly different tone in Cal's case. Part of why I wanted to read this book is that I'm finding myself a little more interested in gender constructs and lacking language to deal with them, particularly in a church setting. As much as the church struggles with homosexuality, it blanches even more obviously on questions of transsexuality; but a hermaphrodite is someone whose gender ambiguity is very literally something with which they are born, and we can't draw the same lines as easily. I don't know that I was necessarily enlightened about gender theory at all, because that wasn't really the purpose of this book; but reading (or listening to) Middlesex did allow me to enter into the heart and mind of a young person for whom gender and sexuality were, at best, ambiguous and confusing.

Cal struggles in the book with being labelled a "freak" or even a "monster." Society doesn't deal well with things it doesn't understand. But it seems to me that the solution is at once simple and extremely difficult: when faced with a person whose circumstance or "condition" we do not understand, we must prioritize his or her personhood over whatever baffles us. We must be willing to hear his or her story as a fellow human being, not so that we might diagnose or explain, but so that we might make relationship more important that categorization. This requires the hard work of getting to know someone, but there is no substitute if we would seek an alternative to fear and alienation.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem // Insha'Allah

Today, worship in Goodson Chapel at Duke Divinity School was a time for us to commemorate 9/11. We didn't do anything flashy; it was a sober but hopeful reflection. Helping to design the service was an honor, and we ended up with not only English and Latin but also Hebrew and Arabic being spoken and/or sung in the service.

We invited Imam Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim Chaplain to Duke University, as well as Divinity School professor Ellen Davis, to offer reflections on 9/11. Antepli and Davis taught a class together last semester about Muslims and Christians in dialogue, and both our lector and our liturgist for the service had taken the course.

With an imam present and other Muslim students invited to the service, we wanted to be sensitive to that in how we crafted the service. We opened with a call to worship from Psalm 133 ("How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!") and the hymn "The God of Abraham Praise." The Divinity School chaplain, Sally Bates, thought that confession would be important to this service, so we incorporated this prayer adapted from the General Board of Discipleship's website:

God our hope and refuge, we confess that anger and hatred have held on to us. Healing has begun, but loss is still real. We are not in control. We do not like being vulnerable. We still want security or the illusion of it. We still want our enemies to be annihilated and for our lives to return to safety and shalom. Forgive us and heal us. Raise us to new life. Strengthen us in the way of compassion and justice. Fix our faith on you so we know that nothing can separate us from you. Amen.

For the words of assurance, we used Psalm 103: "as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us." The Scripture passages, on which Joy Moore preached, were Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:21-35. Between the Bible readings, the choir sang Allan Friedman's setting of Psalm 133, which included Hebrew, Latin and Arabic language. Dr. Moore preached about forgiveness, citing the 2006 Amish school shooting and the Amish community's instant, astonishing forgiveness. She reminded us that these people did not respond so readily with grace because they were convinced of it at that moment, but because they had over lifetimes and generations formed habits of forgiveness.

For Chaplain Bates' reflection on 9/11, she looked back to that day, when she was the associate pastor of a church in Raleigh. When asked by a reporter what they were going to do, she replied that they were going to do what the church always does: gather for prayer and worship. The reporter was disappointed she didn't have anything more newsworthy to say, but she insisted that in times of crisis, the church does what it has always done, and in this way we hold each other up.

Dr. Davis reflected on Psalm 122:6, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." She pointed out that this is the only time in the Psalms that there is direction to pray for something specific, so it must be important. She spoke of the sometimes shared, sometimes contested space that is the city of Jerusalem, of the one God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims for centuries in that city. One quote I took away was this: she said that peace, or shalom, is not something that descends from on high; "Shalom is more like grass than like rain. ...It grows where we cultivate it." Peace is possible only when we work to make conditions on the ground conducive to its flourishing.

Imam Antepli referred to the story of Joseph, asking whether we too might be able one day to reconcile with brothers who had wronged us. He asked if we were better today than before 9/11, if we were stronger, more loving, more forgiving, and so on. His answer? Not yet; but he had hope. Over and over throughout his reflection, he repeated the Arabic invocation Insha'Allah, God willing, cementing his hope and belief that one day we would overcome the brokenness our nation has experienced since 9/11.

We closed by singing "For the Healing of the Nations." I don't know that today's service would qualify as interfaith worship, but it was still a unique and stirring testimony to hope within the walls of the Divinity School at least. I was honored to be a part of it.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Church Hopping #1: The Gathering Church and Durham Resurrection Community

This past summer, my friend and classmate Tom Lewis went on a whirlwind tour of the U.S., visiting churches along the way to experience their worship services and learn about how they are connecting with the local community. He documented the entire experience (exhaustively) at 8000milestoordination.blogspot.com. Tom came back enthusiastic about encouraging other seminarians to do the same—as he said, besides what he learned about church, he learned even more about himself that he thinks will be vital to his self-awareness in his future ministry.

I have decided to do something similar my last year of seminary. I am generally opposed to church-hopping, but this is my last chance to experience first-hand how a variety of churches worship and engage the community. Plus, as I looked toward hopefully doing more with worship design and faith community development, I want to know what others are doing. Ministry is all about stealing (er, borrowing) good ideas for the sake of the kingdom.

I started yesterday. I went to church twice and did not set foot in a church building. In the morning, I went to the Gathering Church, where one of my classmates is an associate pastor. They meet at Creekside Elementary School, which leaves much to be desired in terms of acoustics, but they managed well. I had heard a lot about the Gathering Church (and actually helped with music there one Sunday a few years ago on a fluke) and had been intending to visit for a while. They have a great community of musicians within the church and put out a Christmas album last year; they are also working on a hymns record now.

The music did not disappoint. I knew I'd like it from the moment I walked in: the band, which consisted of 3 guitars, bass and drums, including one female guitarist/vocalist, was warming up as people found their seats. The congregational songs included two hymns, two more contemporary selections, and a song by Thad Cockrell, an artist who came out of that church (and whose music I love). The service opened with a Psalm reading and closed with a rousing rendition of the Doxology. The music was punctuated by prayers and Scripture readings, and pastor Mark Acuff offered a sermon on Mark 7:31-37. I liked it.

My second church visit of the day was in an even less traditional setting: outside. Then again, this could be considered more traditional, depending on how far back you go...anyway, a few of my friends are part of a new church called Durham Resurrection Community. It's a Nazarene congregation, and the pastor is a 2011 Duke Divinity graduate and friend. Yesterday, they went to the Eno River State Park for swimming in the rock quarry (a favorite, if somewhat dangerous, destination of Duke students and Durhamites alike) followed by a picnic and outdoor worship, complete with a water cooler standing in as a communion table. It was a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed seeing the people I knew and meeting those I didn't. It's a small community, and they've been meeting in various places since they began worshipping together. Next week, we're meeting at a member's home. I've already been recruited to help with music. It's a laid-back but intentional community, and I liked it too.

What I think I'm going to do is to continue going to Durham Resurrection Community in the evenings while I church-hop in the mornings. I realize (and Tom warned me) that hitting lots of different churches might make me feel without a center, so having a consistent community might help me with that. Who knows, maybe one of the churches I visit will turn out to be a good place for me to make my church home for the duration of my time in Durham; but until I get a better idea of what I'm doing, I'm going to try to give myself a little grounding.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Those Who Can't Do, Teach

That's such a dumb saying, even though it appeared to be sadly true in some of my experiences growing up in the long-suffering Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. Teaching well is challenging; I'm experiencing that this semester because I am teaching Biblical Literature at Methodist University in Fayetteville.

Everyone asks, "How did you get that job?!", and it's a fair question, though I won't go into the details now. Suffice to say, a lot of life is made up of coincidence and meeting the right people.

I wasn't (and still am not entirely) sure that I was qualified to teach; not only am I still completing my master's program, I also have imposter syndrome and therefore struggle to accept that people are not completely crazy when they entrust me with important tasks. But aside from the technicality that I have not actually been awarded my master's degree yet, I do, in fact, have more than enough coursework under my belt to meet Methodist's accreditation standards. Weird.

Anyway, the class has been in session for 2 weeks now and therefore has met 4 times, so I decided it was time for a preliminary reflection on how things are going so far. The whole week leading up to the start of classes, I was deeply, deeply anxious. Seriously, the last time I was that anxious, I was medicated for it. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, I was worried that the students wouldn't take me seriously as an authority figure, I was stressed about the time commitment...it was rough.

The first class went OK. It was short; we just did some preliminary discussion and went over the syllabus. The second class at least filled the allotted time, and I made it through the necessary points about story and narrative. The third class, I tried to add in some group discussion, which seemed to help the students engage the material more. And yesterday's class left me feeling the best about it that I have so far. I don't anticipate that things will continue to improve on to infinity, but at the very least I do feel like I'm gradually getting a grip on things and gaining confidence, and that's pretty cool.

I've already picked up on the fact that it's important to remain flexible in teaching. I've had to gauge where the students are not only in their background knowledge but also in their learning styles. Having grown up in hyper-competitive, high-pressure academic settings, the feel of Methodist is very different (which also probably has to do with the fact that this is a required course, so no one is really in there because they're excited about the Bible). Plus the class is from 3:30-4:45, which is a time of day that I know my body is begging for a nap.

The professor who usually teaches the class has given me his syllabus and lecture notes, so I'm not creating this from scratch. I've been using his lectures as a guide, but as I get my footing and gain confidence, I'm starting to branch out a little more and bring in some of my own material from courses I've taken and readings I've done. Next Tuesday, we're talking about the first sin (Genesis 3), and I'm planning to throw them a curveball by introducing Elaine Heath's version of "the Fall" as presented in The Mystic Way of Evangelism. It's...a slightly different take on the story, and I'm interested to see how the class will respond. I'm also hoping to figure out how to draw on C. S. Lewis' Perelandra. Shoot, I could teach a whole class on Genesis 3 and understandings of the first sin.

So, I'm enjoying teaching so far and am grateful for the opportunity. This will be great experience and, if nothing else, driving to and from Fayetteville twice a week is giving me time to listen to audiobooks. Right now, it's Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. We'll see what I dig up next.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

I Am Lawrence Brewer

Last night, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis, a man widely believed to be innocent. A last-minute delay went to the Supreme Court, where a stay of execution was denied.

Meanwhile in Texas, another man was executed. There was no widespread outcry for the life of Lawrence Brewer. His horrific crime was one of which he boasted, one in which there was no doubt of his guilt. He "deserved" to die.

I blogged last night that I was troubled by the preoccupation with the "too much doubt" that characterized the Troy Davis case. Not because I disagree with the emphasis; the fact that our government would sentence an innocent man to death—and, by the way, "since 1973, 138 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence" (DPIC)—and then follow through on that sentence amid mounting doubt is appalling. I'm not even addressing the racial inequity inherent in the system, which is a huge part of this case. A crime was committed in Georgia last night. One friend commented that the only physical evidence or weapon connected to the Troy Davis case was that used in the execution. That should make you shudder.

However, I found myself forced to wonder why we were comfortable executing Lawrence Brewer on the same night. The answer is obvious: Brewer committed and reveled in an unimaginably cruel hate crime, the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. I didn't want to know about his crime, but last night when the phrase "I am Troy Davis" was splashed across various social media outlets, I felt like I had to add "I am Lawrence Brewer," and I needed to know what I was really saying. Reading more about Brewer, I found a part of myself glad that he is no longer on this earth. According to a Huffington Post article comparing the two death penalty cases, in court proceedings, Brewer wrote a letter with these chilling words: "Well, I did it... And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I'm still licking my lips for more."

No one in their right mind wants this man on the streets. But it seems to me that part of the desire to shut away and then kill someone like Brewer is not only that we want to maintain public safety—it's that we are afraid to acknowledge what we have in common with him. We do not want someone like Brewer to be human because we do not want to see ourselves in him. I do not want to identify myself with a white supremacist whose racism led him to torture and murder a black man. It is easy for me to say that I would never commit such a crime, but what really separates me from Brewer?

Mother Teresa once said, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." This quote gets used a lot of the time to highlight the nice things about human community and relationships, the ways in which we can and should build one another up and take care of one another. That is absolutely right, but it seems to me that in this broken world, if there is ever going to be healing and reconciliation, we must admit that we belong to each other not only in our goodness but also in our darkness. The reason that history continues to go through cycles of violence, even genocide, is that we continuously (and with good reason!) distance ourselves from the perpetrators of horror, so much so that we fail to recognize those same impulses in our own hearts. We condemn German citizens who did nothing while Jews were rounded up and murdered in their midst, and yet we allow men to be killed by the state, systemic injustice to deny basic healthcare to the poor, suspected terrorists to be held and tortured with no evidence but their ethnicity or nationality in the name of homeland security, and unjust wars to be waged abroad by soldiers with no resources to deal with the repercussions of taking a human life.

Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and anti-death penalty activist (and the character portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie Dead Man Walking) said, "The profound moral question is not, 'Do they deserve to die?' but 'Do we deserve to kill them?'" I am reminded of John 8:7, where Jesus challenges the men accusing a woman of adultery: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." I am not advocating lawlessness and disorder. Like I said, no one in their right mind wants Lawrence Brewer on the streets. But my point is that, innocent or guilty, no human being should have their life taken by the state. We need to acknowledge the inhumanity of the death penalty as being the very thing we are trying not to see in ourselves when we wash our hands of the humanity of someone like Lawrence Brewer.

I have to point out the reactions of each victim's family to these two executions. The family of James Byrd, Jr., whose body was mercilessly mutilated by Lawrence Brewer, who was unrepentant to the last, begged the courts not to kill him. But the family of Mark MacPhail, whom Troy Davis is accused of killing, welcomed his death, feeling that justice had been served. I am sensitive to and troubled by the racial dynamics not only of the crimes and trials, but of the family's reactions.

I was 14 years old on 9/11. I watched our country's sense of security crumble with those towers. I still cry almost anytime someone talks about 9/11. And yet, I have never feared terrorists. I do not worry about my safety when I travel. I have caught myself looking at middle eastern people with curiosity that borders on suspicion, but I have never really been concerned that he or she is a terrorist or would harm me in any way. What I do fear is that darkness that lies in the human soul, in my own soul, that darkness that leads people like the MacPhails to see death as a victory, that causes crowd members at a GOP rally to cheer when Rick Perry is asked about the record number of executions that have taken place in Texas during his term as governor. (By the way, read this: "An Open Letter of Pastoral Admonition to Governor Rick Perry," by Amy Laura Hall.) I do not fear people like Brewer. I fear the part of me that wants to cheer at Brewer's death.

There is only one death in all of history that constituted a victory. If we celebrate any other human death—even the death of Osama bin Laden—we have, indeed, forgotten that we belong to each other, and until our memory is restored, we will have no peace.

I am Troy Davis. I am Lawrence Brewer. May God have mercy on my soul.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Too Much Doubt

I am writing this blog post as reports of a delay (or perhaps a stay?) in Troy Davis' execution are circulating. Either way, he's been sedated for over an hour and has no idea what is going on. That image breaks my heart.

Leading up to the scheduled execution, I saw a lot of activity on Twitter and Facebook around the controversy, including this Twitter hashtag: #toomuchdoubt. In a case with no physical evidence and eyewitnesses recanting left and right, there absolutely is too much doubt. Troy Davis never should have been on death row.

However, my opposition to the death penalty extends beyond cases in which there is too much doubt. I don't think it is possible for there to be little enough doubt to justify capital punishment. I wrote an article in 2007 for the inaugural issue of the magazine Religio outlining my stance on the death penalty, and it still basically says all I want to say on the subject.

I could probably produce a more theologically complicated and flowery account today, but I don't much feel like it. I serve a God who was a victim of the death penalty and whose death and resurrection freed us from slavery to sin and death. Wherever we perpetuate a culture of death, we enslave each other and ourselves all over again.

So I wait to hear more about the Troy Davis case with tears in my eyes, knowing that I would oppose his execution even if he had been convicted beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Offensive or Prophetic?

"Not all offensive actions are prophetic, but some prophetic actions are offensive." — Sam Wells, in a sermon preached in Duke Chapel on 9/4/11 (via Faith & Leadership)

Monday, September 19, 2011

What I'm Reading #31: The Year of Living Biblically (A. J. Jacobs)

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by A. J. Jacobs

I saw The Year of Living Biblically (Simon & Schuster 2008) in a bookstore a few weeks ago and nearly bought it. Last week, I subscribed to audible.com, because I'm commuting 1.5 hours twice a week to teach this semester, and I need listening material. I didn't realize the version of Jacobs' book that I bought was abridged until I finished it, so I feel like I'm cheating a little by saying I read it, but I'm gonna choose to let that go.

My interest in the book was originally kindled because it looked like a pretty hilarious satire. There also seemed to be great potential for getting offended, which doesn't happen often to me and which I generally find more amusing than anything else. I was a little surprised by how non-aggressive Jacobs' approach to this strange project was. You would expect that anyone who commits to following the Bible literally for a year is being facetious and has an agenda that is at least cynical if not malicious, but Jacobs came at this with a healthy dose of humility (though not without preconceived notions).

Jacobs started out a secular Jew with little to no experience with religion. He described his family's Judaism using an image I thought was particularly salient: they put a star of David on top of their Christmas tree. So, Jacobs took 5 hours a day for 4 weeks to read through the entire Bible and write down every single command he found. Needless to say, the list was exhaustive, and he quickly found that obeying all the commands at the same time was impossible, not only because of the sheer number but also because some of them contradict. One of Jacobs' main conclusions after completing the project was that everyone, conservatives, liberals and moderates alike, picks and chooses what they want to adhere to from the Bible.

There were definitely scenes that aligned with my expectation for satire, especially those involving Jacobs' skeptical wife and his 2-year-old son. One was when Jacobs tried to obey a prescription for corporal punishment for children (which he hadn't done before), seeking out a "rod" that would not actually harm his son: a Nerf bat. When Jasper misbehaved, Jacobs whacked him gently with the bat. The toddler's response was to laugh hysterically, grab a whiffle bat, and return the favor. Discipline fail.

But there were also moments of surprising solemnity. Jacobs got into a daily routine of prayers, though he rarely felt like he was actually talking to anyone. He did, however, experience a few moments of connection, or joy, or something, and I felt like he did a marvelous job of receiving and reflecting on those moments without overly dramatizing them. In the final part of the book, Jacobs admits he still doesn't believe in God in the way that a practicing Jew or Christian does; though he did experience a change, he describes his transition as one from being an agnostic to being a reverent agnostic, someone with an appreciation for the sacred and for ritual.

Besides simply following the commands on his own, Jacobs also did a lot of research, assembling a group of spiritual leaders to act as guides, reading up on Biblical interpretation and Jewish and Christian practices, traveling to Israel, etc. One research trip I found interesting was two-part: to visit Liberty University, founded by the infamous Jerry Falwell, and to check out the Red Letter Christians, of which Tony Campolo is a part. I was confused at first as he described these groups, because he used the term "Christian literalist" for both. I've always associated literalism with conservative fundamentalism, and the RLCs are more on the moderate to liberal side. However, the RLCs are committed to interpreting the words of Jesus literally (hence the "red letter" reference), calling Christians to hear Jesus' admonitions around social and economic justice. I don't think the term "literalist" actually applies in truth to much of anyone who reads or follows the Bible, but it was interesting to see it applied in two radically different exegetical camps.

I would definitely recommend this book for an easy and interesting read, complete with plenty of laughs and some healthy doses of humility for any reader.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Church Hopping #4: World Overcomers Christian Church

This post is a little different because it does not represent a first impression of a church I visited, but that's OK. In the summer of 2008, one of my housemates worked at World Overcomers Christian Church, and I attended a few of their worship services, including one at which he was baptized. That housemate is now a housemate again (just around the corner!) and still attends WOCC. We had our house retreat this past weekend, and we went to WOCC's Saturday evening service last night, so I re-experienced World Overcomers for the first time in a few years.

If I could use one word (or phrase?) to describe WOCC's worship, it would be "high-energy." I remember the second time I went there back in undergrad, a very kind woman welcomed me and said with sweet caution, "Now just so you know, the music here is pretty loud!"

I need to back up. WOCC is a predominantly African-American, contemporary evangelical church that might qualify as a megachurch, though I'm not sure of the membership. I had my own (amusing) thoughts about why that woman felt the need to warn me about the volume, and race was definitely a component. WOCC is not an exclusively black church, and I have always found the people there more than hospitable, but its atmosphere does seem to cater to the younger black population.

Back to the high energy. The service started with several back-to-back praise songs led by a sizeable group of vocalists (including my housemate) and a stacked band that was rocking out. I didn't know any of the songs they sang, which was a little distressing in that I once was up on contemporary gospel music...but that's OK. Every song had the theme of (and often the exact words) "God is mighty." Having spent the past few weeks talking to my biblical lit class about how the Bible holds God's majesty and God's intimacy in tension, I naturally got to thinking about why certain songwriters or worship leaders or whomever might choose to emphasize God's might (as, say, the Genesis 1 creation account does, whereas the Genesis 2 creation story describes a much closer, more anthropomorphic God). Just a runaway train of thought.

Pastor Nate, whom I remember as having been my housemate's supervisor the summer he worked there, offered a greeting and announcements after the worship set, then the musicians came back on to lead another song before giving the stage to Pastor Andy, the tall, charismatic senior pastor of WOCC. As part of their current "Ready Set Grow" series, Pastor Andy preached from Romans 15 and Philippians 1, encouraging the congregation not to be self-satisfied in any blessing or strength they may experience but to use those gifts for others. "We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, 'The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me'" (Rom. 15:1-3). My housemate had mentioned that a major emphasis at WOCC lately has been encouraging people to mature in faith, as increasingly its membership includes many new believers, and this message seemed to fit that agenda.

If you want to get pumped up for Jesus and feel effusively welcome in a space that does not look like a church, go check out World Overcomers.

I'm headed back to Durham Resurrection Community tonight (we're meeting in a house again), but I figure by the third visit it's no longer "church hopping." :)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Soldiers of Conscience: To Kill or Not to Kill?

One of the (too many) things I'm doing this semester is helping to plan an event called After the Yellow Ribbon. (Registration is open. Join us November 11-12 at Duke.) The event, like the hosting student group (Milites Christi), is focused on cultivation conversation around pastoral responses to war and peace and to the church's care of veterans. Of particular interest is the concept of moral injury and the internal wounds of war sustained by those who wage it.

I went into this knowing little to nothing about the backdrop to the conversation, so this has been a learning experience for me. Last night, we held a screening of the documentary film Soldiers of Conscience, which was difficult but, I think, important for me to see. Check out the trailer at the bottom of this post. The film features the stories of several conscientious objectors who became such after entering the service, as well as representatives of the U.S. military, including Lt. Col. Pete Kilner, an ethicist at Westpoint who will be presenting at After the Yellow Ribbon. There are questions raised about just war, but the main concern is the conscience of the individual soldier, the infantryman who is trained to kill but has little recourse for processing the moral implications.

The part of the film that struck me as most chilling was the discussion of reflexive fire. Research shows that in World War II, only about 25% of servicemen actually fired their weapons with intent to kill the enemy. At the moment of decision, whether consciously or not, they became conscientious objectors. The military took notice and changed the way they approached training, working to cultivate a reflex to kill so that soldiers skip the moral decision making process in order to be quicker and more deadly. Lethality in battle has been steadily on the rise since then. The thing is, no healthy person wants to kill another human being. Killing does not come naturally; soldiers have to be trained, methodically and sometimes with what I see as pretty frightening and dehumanizing techniques, not to think about it.

The truth is that the church fails veterans regularly, and I am personally grateful for this opportunity to be challenged in how I approach questions of war and peace before I go into parish ministry. I grew up with a strongly anti-military mindset that, unfortunately, was often aimed as much at servicemen as at the military industrial complex. I have family members who are veterans but have never engaged them in conversation about their service; maybe this is an opportunity to do that. Talking about war and peace in abstract terms is tricky because it can so quickly become polarizing, but what I think we're trying to do here with Milites Christi and After the Yellow Ribbon is to engage in real conversation about the concrete implications of war for human beings with will and conscience. With veteran suicide rates at an all-time high, this is an issue on which the church cannot remain silent.


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Church Hopping #3: And Now for Something Completely Different, Part 1: Buddhist Meditation

OK, so this blog isn't about a church visit at all. Inspired by Abdullah Antepli's part in our Goodson Chapel service last Thursday and by watching the video of a recent interfaith panel on 9-11 at Duke Divinity, I decided that my exploration of various worship settings needed to expand beyond Christianity. So I looked up the website of the Buddhist Community at Duke and decided to attend one of their weekly meetings, which includes meditation and a talk from a Dharma teacher. I've decided to keep this and any other non-Christian explorations in my "Church Hopping" series, but with the dubious subtitle "And Now for Something Completely Different." Hope that's OK.

Just so we're clear, I know next to nothing about Buddhism. I raised my hand as someone who had never meditated before, because although I have done short mindfulness meditations in a Christian context, I had never done it like this before.

My first-time status was obvious, but I wasn't the only one. The Buddhist group at Duke shares a meditation room on campus with the Hindus, and the floor was populated with cushions and a few chairs along the walls. We left our shoes outside. I was greeted warmly by Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, the Buddhist chaplain, who was part of the interfaith panel I mentioned, and by a statue of the Buddha (not the laughing Buddha). As we gathered, I met a graduate student in the Environmental Management program who was surprised that, as a divinity student, I had never been there before. I was reminded that although Duke Divinity is an all-Christian institution, places like Harvard and Yale are not. I chose Duke in part for the sense of community and formation that comes with sharing a common faith and call, but there are definitely educational and formational aspects I've missed out on by limiting my theological education to within Christianity (and, in very limited ways in undergrad, Judaism and Islam).

We started with a 12-minute sitting. I have back issues, so I'll admit that a fair chunk of this time was consumed by a preoccupation with an intense pain and tightness in the center of my back. I am also very easily distracted, which is why I pray most often in the car, so my mind kept wandering away from my breath (we were led in a form of mindfulness meditation). However, as the leader gave gentle instruction for the newcomers, he anticipated such wanderings and encouraged us to acknowledge distractions without chastising ourselves, to take note of sounds and thoughts and images without letting them take control. It reminded me of similar teachings on prayer and self-compassion I heard from the monks at Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, where I spent my spring breaks in undergrad.

The guest teacher tonight was John Orr, who teaches here at Duke and is an ordained Buddhist monk. (Side note: as he talked about his experiences in India and Thailand, I was struck by how much crossover there is in language from Buddhist and Catholic monastic systems, though I suspect the terms don't always mean the same thing; but I heard "monastery," "monk," "nun" and even "prior.") He spoke about developing and/or deepening a practice of meditation. He used language of "doing" versus "being," in that meditation is not something you can necessarily control or accomplish; it requires a degree of passivity and release. Orr spoke of his own struggles with letting go and learning a meditation practice that worked for him, of having to realize that anytime he was seeking after a specific experience or feeling in meditation, he was grasping for control. He identified this with the solar plexus chakra (one of seven) and said that the way to free oneself from that grasping was to move to the heart chakra, the place of wisdom and compassion. Since I can't help but put what I was hearing in terms of my own experience, I was reminded of what Henri Nouwen called "the inner voice of love," a deep place of self-compassion and knowledge of God's love. Only by knowing one's own belovedness can one rightly love others.

I feel like this post is fantastically choppy and ill-educated, but this is just my raw take on my first experience of Buddhist meditation. I'm hoping to learn a little more about Buddhism; years ago, I bought the installments of Oxford University Press' Very Short Introduction series on Buddhism and Hinduism when I realized that my undergraduate religion degree had introduced me almost solely to the Abrahamic faiths (though I have read the Bhagavad Gita). As minimal of an exposure as tonight was, I can say that I needed to hear a lot of what Orr had to say about love, wisdom and compassion, and I'm glad that I went.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Church Hopping #2: Duke Chapel (ish), Emmaus Way, and Durham Resurrection Community (again)

I have now gone two Sundays in a row without setting foot in an actual church building, yet between those two Sundays, I have participated in 4.5 worship services (I'll explain the fraction in a moment). Actually, make that three Sundays and 5.5 services, because New Creation UMC meets in Healthy Start Academy (I'm counting buildings that look like churches but are no longer owned by churches as non-churches).

I have decided that Sunday evening worship services are the best thing ever. I spent all summer getting up at 7:00 a.m. on Sundays, and last school year it was 6:00. Today, I woke up a little before 9:00 and spent the morning getting work done. I felt a little transgressive, so, partly due to that feeling and partly because I was curious to see what they were doing for 9-11, I turned on Duke Chapel's live video stream on their website.

That's where I got the half a worship service in my total. Now, I'm sure I could devote an entire blog post to whether online worship is possible, and anyone who knows me at all could probably guess what my answer would be, but I'm going to save that, because one of my classes is actually going to spend some time looking at religion and technology this semester, so I'll have something more intelligent to say in a few months. Even if you think you can worship online, I definitely wasn't engaged enough for it to count. If you want to give it a shot, the video of today's service can be found here.

However, it was moving to see and hear what they had going on this morning. Mad props to worship director Meghan Feldmeyer, who is the woman and now owes me hangout time since 9-11 has passed. :) They incorporated a memorial act into the service where people brought white roses to lay before the altar as the choir sang "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem (which they performed entire this afternoon). The opening hymn, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," an adaptation of Psalm 23 that I thought was fitting. The choir, as usual, was glorious, and one anthem choice in particular was striking: the Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which includes these words penned by Wilfred Owen:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.


They also used a litany for September 11 that incorporated lines from "O God Our Help in Ages Past." And also as usual, Dean Sam Wells' sermon was wonderful. He focused on the idea of Ground Zero and the images of ashes, recalling not only the dust that choked the air of Manhattan on 9-11 but also the dust from which we are made and to which we will return. Just go check out the sermon, I could listen to that man talk all day.

I did actually go to and participate in two other worship services today. The first was at Emmaus Way, which describes itself as an "emergent activist" church. Having spent a lot of time this summer getting to know and love the way Lockerbie Central UMC in Indy does church, this sounded really appealing. Plus, I've known the pastor there for a while, as one of his kids participated in the youth group I used to lead.

Emmaus Way meets at The Reality Center, another one of those former church buildings that now houses what I will happily call an incredible ministry even though it's not, strictly speaking, a church. I knew I would love this church from the moment I walked in. They meet in what used to be the sanctuary and is now more of a gym, but they set it up in a round. In the center were the musicians and a chair for the pastor, which conveniently swiveled. Flanking all sides were rows of chairs and a few couches. Art was set up all around the room, candles on end tables and in window sills, a gorgeous painting by Carole Baker representing the liturgical calendar gracing one corner. A low table holding communion elements was at one end of the oval made by the seats. The space was inviting and comfortable, with an air of anticipation.

If I had had any doubts from my first visual impression, a glance at the bulletin drove those away. The first song they did was by the Indigo Girls ("Hammer and a Nail"). The Emmaus Way website states that they are committed to supporting local, professional musicians, and they even have an Arts Pastor. The music was folksy but fresh, and the songs seemed to be from random sources, including one traditional hymn, two songs by the basics and one by Over the Rhine, but each song had a specific liturgical function, including a song of confession and a song of absolution.

The sermon was really more of a conversation, which reminded me of the Lyceum series Lockerbie Central did this summer (and apparently is a characteristic of much emergent worship out there). Emmaus Way is doing a series on Ordinary Time, and today the subject was vocation. The pastor, Tim Conder, offered some reflection and then opened the floor to let people share how they see their vocation tying into what they do for a living. He then went into an exploration of the book of Jonah as it relates to vocation, which I really enjoyed because for some reason Jonah has been coming up a lot lately in my readings for different things. Jonah's problem, Tim said, was not that he was afraid; it was that he knew that if he went to Ninevah and delivered God's message, God would show forgiveness to his enemies—and Jonah didn't want that.

I loved Emmaus Way's blend of ancient church tradition (which today included a reading from the Book of Common Prayer, a rite for the dead as a nod to 9-11) and contemporary/"secular" elements. Having spent the summer around people talking a lot about the emergent church movement and figuring out how to participate in it in context, here I was seeing it actually happening. I will definitely be back.

I left straight from Emmaus Way to go worship with Durham Resurrection Community for a second time. I had already met with two of their musicians earlier in the day because, being me, it took less than a week for me to get on the worship team. Last week, we met at a rock quarry; this week, we met in a member's home. We gathered in the living room, read Scripture, shared joys and concerns, broke bread and sang praises. I even played the cajon on one song. I've enjoyed the laid back, familial feel of that group, and it's nice that it is an odd conglomeration of friends of mine and people I don't know (or am now getting to know).

I'm really enjoying this church hopping thing. I want to maintain some sort of stability as I visit around (hence getting plugged in with Resurrection already and hopefully going back to Emmaus Way as much as I can), but visiting around is already proving pretty educational and I've only been at it for two weeks. I've already had a Quaker I know invite me to a Friends meeting, and another friend of mine attends an African American Catholic parish I'd love to visit.

But I'm also hoping to expand beyond the walls of Christianity. Especially after last week's service in Goodson Chapel that included reflections from Imam Abdullah Antepli, and after watching the video of an interfaith panel held this past week at Duke Divinity, I'm planning to check out Friday Jummah prayers with Muslim Life at Duke and weeknight meditation and discussion with the campus Buddhist group. I've also been meaning to actually attend a service at Judea Reform, the Jewish Reform congregation in Durham (where I've sung in a concert before and whose sanctuary I adore). Worship adventure is out there!

What I'm Reading #30: Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Since I'm driving to Fayetteville and back (and hour and a half each way) twice a week this semester, I've turned to audiobooks. Middlesex is a novel I've been meaning to read for a while, and this seemed like as good a time as any. And so, after 3 weeks of driving for class, plus listening to it in the car pretty much every time I drove in between, I finished the book.

Middlesex is the story of Cal, a male hermaphrodite who was raised as Callie, a girl, until adolescence. But it is much more than that. Eugenides, drawing on his own Greek heritage, traces the history of the gene that caused Cal's 5-alpha-reductase deficiency back to a mountain village in early 20th-century Greece. Eugenides tells of how the recessive gene traveled through the generations, coming closer to the service when cousins or siblings intermarried, manifesting itself occasionally in the small village until eventually it crossed the Atlantic with Cal's grandparents (who were really brother and sister) to Detroit in 1922.

With the morbidity typical of an American today, I just wanted details about Cal's "disorder." But Eugenides refused to objectify or commodify his "condition." And so, at first I grew a little impatient with the long back story about the two generations prior to Cal—but Eugenides quickly drew me in with his language and storytelling, making me care about people and things I hadn't originally come to see.

This book is really a family saga, the section devoted to Cal a coming-of-age story fraught with all the usual struggles of adolescence, but with a slightly different tone in Cal's case. Part of why I wanted to read this book is that I'm finding myself a little more interested in gender constructs and lacking language to deal with them, particularly in a church setting. As much as the church struggles with homosexuality, it blanches even more obviously on questions of transsexuality; but a hermaphrodite is someone whose gender ambiguity is very literally something with which they are born, and we can't draw the same lines as easily. I don't know that I was necessarily enlightened about gender theory at all, because that wasn't really the purpose of this book; but reading (or listening to) Middlesex did allow me to enter into the heart and mind of a young person for whom gender and sexuality were, at best, ambiguous and confusing.

Cal struggles in the book with being labelled a "freak" or even a "monster." Society doesn't deal well with things it doesn't understand. But it seems to me that the solution is at once simple and extremely difficult: when faced with a person whose circumstance or "condition" we do not understand, we must prioritize his or her personhood over whatever baffles us. We must be willing to hear his or her story as a fellow human being, not so that we might diagnose or explain, but so that we might make relationship more important that categorization. This requires the hard work of getting to know someone, but there is no substitute if we would seek an alternative to fear and alienation.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem // Insha'Allah

Today, worship in Goodson Chapel at Duke Divinity School was a time for us to commemorate 9/11. We didn't do anything flashy; it was a sober but hopeful reflection. Helping to design the service was an honor, and we ended up with not only English and Latin but also Hebrew and Arabic being spoken and/or sung in the service.

We invited Imam Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim Chaplain to Duke University, as well as Divinity School professor Ellen Davis, to offer reflections on 9/11. Antepli and Davis taught a class together last semester about Muslims and Christians in dialogue, and both our lector and our liturgist for the service had taken the course.

With an imam present and other Muslim students invited to the service, we wanted to be sensitive to that in how we crafted the service. We opened with a call to worship from Psalm 133 ("How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!") and the hymn "The God of Abraham Praise." The Divinity School chaplain, Sally Bates, thought that confession would be important to this service, so we incorporated this prayer adapted from the General Board of Discipleship's website:

God our hope and refuge, we confess that anger and hatred have held on to us. Healing has begun, but loss is still real. We are not in control. We do not like being vulnerable. We still want security or the illusion of it. We still want our enemies to be annihilated and for our lives to return to safety and shalom. Forgive us and heal us. Raise us to new life. Strengthen us in the way of compassion and justice. Fix our faith on you so we know that nothing can separate us from you. Amen.

For the words of assurance, we used Psalm 103: "as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us." The Scripture passages, on which Joy Moore preached, were Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:21-35. Between the Bible readings, the choir sang Allan Friedman's setting of Psalm 133, which included Hebrew, Latin and Arabic language. Dr. Moore preached about forgiveness, citing the 2006 Amish school shooting and the Amish community's instant, astonishing forgiveness. She reminded us that these people did not respond so readily with grace because they were convinced of it at that moment, but because they had over lifetimes and generations formed habits of forgiveness.

For Chaplain Bates' reflection on 9/11, she looked back to that day, when she was the associate pastor of a church in Raleigh. When asked by a reporter what they were going to do, she replied that they were going to do what the church always does: gather for prayer and worship. The reporter was disappointed she didn't have anything more newsworthy to say, but she insisted that in times of crisis, the church does what it has always done, and in this way we hold each other up.

Dr. Davis reflected on Psalm 122:6, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." She pointed out that this is the only time in the Psalms that there is direction to pray for something specific, so it must be important. She spoke of the sometimes shared, sometimes contested space that is the city of Jerusalem, of the one God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims for centuries in that city. One quote I took away was this: she said that peace, or shalom, is not something that descends from on high; "Shalom is more like grass than like rain. ...It grows where we cultivate it." Peace is possible only when we work to make conditions on the ground conducive to its flourishing.

Imam Antepli referred to the story of Joseph, asking whether we too might be able one day to reconcile with brothers who had wronged us. He asked if we were better today than before 9/11, if we were stronger, more loving, more forgiving, and so on. His answer? Not yet; but he had hope. Over and over throughout his reflection, he repeated the Arabic invocation Insha'Allah, God willing, cementing his hope and belief that one day we would overcome the brokenness our nation has experienced since 9/11.

We closed by singing "For the Healing of the Nations." I don't know that today's service would qualify as interfaith worship, but it was still a unique and stirring testimony to hope within the walls of the Divinity School at least. I was honored to be a part of it.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Church Hopping #1: The Gathering Church and Durham Resurrection Community

This past summer, my friend and classmate Tom Lewis went on a whirlwind tour of the U.S., visiting churches along the way to experience their worship services and learn about how they are connecting with the local community. He documented the entire experience (exhaustively) at 8000milestoordination.blogspot.com. Tom came back enthusiastic about encouraging other seminarians to do the same—as he said, besides what he learned about church, he learned even more about himself that he thinks will be vital to his self-awareness in his future ministry.

I have decided to do something similar my last year of seminary. I am generally opposed to church-hopping, but this is my last chance to experience first-hand how a variety of churches worship and engage the community. Plus, as I looked toward hopefully doing more with worship design and faith community development, I want to know what others are doing. Ministry is all about stealing (er, borrowing) good ideas for the sake of the kingdom.

I started yesterday. I went to church twice and did not set foot in a church building. In the morning, I went to the Gathering Church, where one of my classmates is an associate pastor. They meet at Creekside Elementary School, which leaves much to be desired in terms of acoustics, but they managed well. I had heard a lot about the Gathering Church (and actually helped with music there one Sunday a few years ago on a fluke) and had been intending to visit for a while. They have a great community of musicians within the church and put out a Christmas album last year; they are also working on a hymns record now.

The music did not disappoint. I knew I'd like it from the moment I walked in: the band, which consisted of 3 guitars, bass and drums, including one female guitarist/vocalist, was warming up as people found their seats. The congregational songs included two hymns, two more contemporary selections, and a song by Thad Cockrell, an artist who came out of that church (and whose music I love). The service opened with a Psalm reading and closed with a rousing rendition of the Doxology. The music was punctuated by prayers and Scripture readings, and pastor Mark Acuff offered a sermon on Mark 7:31-37. I liked it.

My second church visit of the day was in an even less traditional setting: outside. Then again, this could be considered more traditional, depending on how far back you go...anyway, a few of my friends are part of a new church called Durham Resurrection Community. It's a Nazarene congregation, and the pastor is a 2011 Duke Divinity graduate and friend. Yesterday, they went to the Eno River State Park for swimming in the rock quarry (a favorite, if somewhat dangerous, destination of Duke students and Durhamites alike) followed by a picnic and outdoor worship, complete with a water cooler standing in as a communion table. It was a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed seeing the people I knew and meeting those I didn't. It's a small community, and they've been meeting in various places since they began worshipping together. Next week, we're meeting at a member's home. I've already been recruited to help with music. It's a laid-back but intentional community, and I liked it too.

What I think I'm going to do is to continue going to Durham Resurrection Community in the evenings while I church-hop in the mornings. I realize (and Tom warned me) that hitting lots of different churches might make me feel without a center, so having a consistent community might help me with that. Who knows, maybe one of the churches I visit will turn out to be a good place for me to make my church home for the duration of my time in Durham; but until I get a better idea of what I'm doing, I'm going to try to give myself a little grounding.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Those Who Can't Do, Teach

That's such a dumb saying, even though it appeared to be sadly true in some of my experiences growing up in the long-suffering Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. Teaching well is challenging; I'm experiencing that this semester because I am teaching Biblical Literature at Methodist University in Fayetteville.

Everyone asks, "How did you get that job?!", and it's a fair question, though I won't go into the details now. Suffice to say, a lot of life is made up of coincidence and meeting the right people.

I wasn't (and still am not entirely) sure that I was qualified to teach; not only am I still completing my master's program, I also have imposter syndrome and therefore struggle to accept that people are not completely crazy when they entrust me with important tasks. But aside from the technicality that I have not actually been awarded my master's degree yet, I do, in fact, have more than enough coursework under my belt to meet Methodist's accreditation standards. Weird.

Anyway, the class has been in session for 2 weeks now and therefore has met 4 times, so I decided it was time for a preliminary reflection on how things are going so far. The whole week leading up to the start of classes, I was deeply, deeply anxious. Seriously, the last time I was that anxious, I was medicated for it. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, I was worried that the students wouldn't take me seriously as an authority figure, I was stressed about the time commitment...it was rough.

The first class went OK. It was short; we just did some preliminary discussion and went over the syllabus. The second class at least filled the allotted time, and I made it through the necessary points about story and narrative. The third class, I tried to add in some group discussion, which seemed to help the students engage the material more. And yesterday's class left me feeling the best about it that I have so far. I don't anticipate that things will continue to improve on to infinity, but at the very least I do feel like I'm gradually getting a grip on things and gaining confidence, and that's pretty cool.

I've already picked up on the fact that it's important to remain flexible in teaching. I've had to gauge where the students are not only in their background knowledge but also in their learning styles. Having grown up in hyper-competitive, high-pressure academic settings, the feel of Methodist is very different (which also probably has to do with the fact that this is a required course, so no one is really in there because they're excited about the Bible). Plus the class is from 3:30-4:45, which is a time of day that I know my body is begging for a nap.

The professor who usually teaches the class has given me his syllabus and lecture notes, so I'm not creating this from scratch. I've been using his lectures as a guide, but as I get my footing and gain confidence, I'm starting to branch out a little more and bring in some of my own material from courses I've taken and readings I've done. Next Tuesday, we're talking about the first sin (Genesis 3), and I'm planning to throw them a curveball by introducing Elaine Heath's version of "the Fall" as presented in The Mystic Way of Evangelism. It's...a slightly different take on the story, and I'm interested to see how the class will respond. I'm also hoping to figure out how to draw on C. S. Lewis' Perelandra. Shoot, I could teach a whole class on Genesis 3 and understandings of the first sin.

So, I'm enjoying teaching so far and am grateful for the opportunity. This will be great experience and, if nothing else, driving to and from Fayetteville twice a week is giving me time to listen to audiobooks. Right now, it's Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. We'll see what I dig up next.

 

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