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A Prayer for Women’s Equality

A Prayer for Women's Equality in the Celtic style

Below is a prayer for women’s equality, written in the Celtic style. Celtic prayers heavily utilize repetition and rhyme, and in both content and form these prayers emphasize the Trinity.

I wrote it at a time when I was attempting to understand my pastoral giftings and my womanhood. Too often, I have felt that USAmerican culture values a woman’s role as mother more highly than any other contribution she may make to society. Having come from a church with all male pastors and being a Divinity program, at the time, in which all the other students were men, I had very little imagination for being both female and pastoral. Those themes are heavy in this prayer; I hope it serves you well in whatever your struggles are today.

A Prayer for Women’s Equality

“By a woman and a tree the world first perished.”

I wish, O Son of the living God,
eternal, ancient King,
for reconciliation between the sexes,
that I might answer your calling.

I pray, O Son of the living God,
eternal, ancient King,
for –

I wish –
that –

Mother, Child,
Goose of the Wild,
Keep me from despair,
Hear my prayer.

I pray, O Child of the living God,
eternal, ancient Queen,
for compassion in men’s hearts
that they could view women as clean.

I strive, O Child of the living God,
eternal, ancient Queen,
for a new paradigm, not princess or bitch,
that views women as strong and not mean.

I hope, O Child of the living God,
eternal, ancient Queen,
for society to know women have worth
after their children are weaned,
or at least after the age of eighteen.

I long, O Child of the living God,
eternal, ancient Queen,
for rest within the body that is me,
that I may be serene.

Questions for You

What are your hopes and prayers for women in 2016? What are your concerns?

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The Prophetic Works of Lady Gaga

The Prophetic Works of Lady Gaga - [from Literate Theology]

Pop star Lady Gaga is more than an entertainer, she is a prophetic voice. Through fashion and performance art, she functions as prophet for secular USAmerica.

Israel had many prophets, but today the church isn’t adding anyone’s words to the Biblical canon. When did we begin to refuse to see the prophets in our midst?

Prophets Seek Justice

The primary role of a prophet is to work for justice. Prophets actively stand outside of society in order to critique the injustices within society, with the hope of bringing about change and reconciliation. The prophet simultaneously exposes the present reality while developing a vision for the future.

Prophets have traditionally used a variety of tools, including, as Dan Allender writes, “piercing narrative, powerful images, prescient poetry” and a willingness to “bear the consequence of being viewed as an enemy of the status quo.” The prophet employs such artistry and suffering to create a compelling vision of what reality could be if justice were enacted, if love and mercy were lived.

Reconciliation & the LGBTQ Community

Perhaps most notable is Lady Gaga’s prophetic work against injustice against the LGBTQ community. She came out as bisexual to both acceptance and criticism from the queer community: she was accused of not being “gay enough” to claim bisexuality nor to be a representative voice. Regardless of the level of her bisexuality, claiming it to a national audience was a prophetic move: Gaga chose to align herself with the marginalized in a hetero-normative culture. As many prophets before her, she actively stood outside of the cultural norm in order to engage and critique culture’s treatment of a marginalized people.

Lady Gaga worked for reconciliation between LGBTQ and heterosexual persons, who often have been viewed as oppositional. “Born This Way,” was became an anthem for the community. It was significant for its overt shout-out to the LGBTQ community; equally significant is that she included heterosexuals:

“No matter gay, straight, or bi,
lesbian, transgendered life,
I’m on the right track, baby,
I was born to survive.”

These lyrics were an effort to highlight LGBTQ rights, but they were also a way to unite LGBTQ and heterosexual communities. Live performances of the piece end with Gaga and her dance company bending towards one another in a circular, all-embracing hug (see title image). The performance offers an image that speaks to a vision of what our reality could be, one in which gay individuals are not only equal, but lovingly included. Her image calls us toward the possible reality in which we are one, united humanity that includes multiple sexualities and sexual orientations.

Prophets must bear the consequence of provoking controversy and disrupting the status quo. As a result of Lady Gaga’s involvement with the LGBTQ community, rumors circulated in an attempt to shame her. One of the most direct attacks on her sexual identity was the rumor that she has a penis. Rather than retaliating (and effectively proving that she would be ashamed to be part of the transgendered community), Gaga claims to love the rumor. She stated: “‘This has been the greatest accomplishment of my life: to get young people to throw away what society has taught them is wrong.’” If fans believe her to be transgendered and still come to her performances, listen to her music, and support her work, Gaga takes it as a hopeful sign for future inclusion of transgendered individuals in society. Rather than suffer, Gaga reframes the consequence into a cause for celebration.

Another consequence has been the protestors who gather outside of Monster Balls, Lady Gaga’s stadium concerts. One writer recalled a concert in Nashville in which picketers held signs “urging ‘homosexuals’ and other ‘sinners’ to ‘repent’.” During the show, Gaga shouted from stage, “Jesus loves every fucking one of you!” before launching into a raucous performance, “as if to say, the only proper theological response to bigotry and hatred is to dance in its face.” Prophet Gaga practices a living theology; rather than discussing abstractions, she moves into actions.

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Reconciliation between the Sexes

In realm of sex, Gaga prophetically exposed the present reality by reflecting back to her audience what the present really looks like, and the reflection is startling. One of the most notable examples is the ‘meat dress’, which Gaga wore at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Feminist Kate Durbin notes that “masculinists see but a piece of meat, so Gaga gives them exactly what they ‘see’ – a piece of meat. In order, of course, that the Male Gaze might ‘see’ itself.” The powerful fashion image of a woman wearing raw beef exposed the hardness of the heart of USAmerican society.

Some of her other fashion pieces have been similarly tied to society’s treatment of women. Lady Gaga has worn many weapon-inspired bras — a flame-thrower bra in the “Bad Romance” video; a gun bra in the “Alejandro” video; a fire bra on the cover of GQ magazine. Durbin states that, like many women, Gaga’s “breasts were seen as a weapon, therefore she was going to literally turn them into that.” Gaga hears the narrative society tells women and exposes the flaws and pain in the narrative through constructing a powerful fashion image.

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Another statement on sex and gender was the introduction of Gaga’s alter-ego, Jo Calderone, at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. The opening monologue made it clear that this performer was not Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone: “Gaga? Yeah, her,” Jo says while pointing to some vague distance; Gaga is not here. To further emphasize the opposition between Gaga and Jo, he informs the audience, “She [Gaga] left me [Jo].” Gaga, according to Jo, groups him in with other men: “She said I’m just like the last one.” Jo, for his part, dances in a company comprised entirely of men; the audience does not see a single woman on stage during the performance.

Gaga here uses her one body to portray a woman and a man who are in opposition to one another. Similarly, the viewers are one humanity in opposition to one another as a result of the gender divide. The audience knows it to be absurd for Gaga to critique Jo, just as it is equally absurd for Jo to feel left out from Gaga’s life, since they are one and the same. The audience can then look back on themselves and see that they create divides within the one humanity, divides where there should be unity. Gaga-versus-Jo is a picture of humanity, a mirror for how we relate across the sexes.

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Prophets Expose Idolatry

An additional role of the prophet is to expose idolatry. James Danaher wrote that in USAmerican culture “what we recognize and revere about a person is their celebrity status.” Celebrity is the new idolatry. Most of us join the game, attempting to construct an identity using various social media to gain some amount of fame. At the same time, we hate celebrities for their status and for having the resources to continually re-create their identities, so eventually we demand their destruction.

Gaga undermined the system of celebrity to show that it leads to death and destruction. In her performance of “Paparazzi” at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga opens by naming the idol USAmericans have come to worship, and recognizes her potential position as sacrifice: “I pray the fame won’t take my life.” The fame is the god that this society has made, and it demands ritual sacrifice. By the end of the show, Gaga is covered in blood and hanging from a rope, enacting her own death.

By walking, willingly, to her own enacted death, she showed the audience what we do to celebrities: we demand violent destruction. The image does what prophetic images are meant to do: disrupt denial and expose idolatry of the heart.

Having shown the audience her destruction, Gaga is then free of the audience’s demands on identity because she has fulfilled that identity and shown that it leads to death. After that moment, all her work is free to be performed without inhibition because it is enacted in the shadow of her own death. The audience are no longer able to impose an identity on her; it is she who identifies herself with true identity/ies.

What The Church Can Learn

Lady Gaga’s work as a prophet within the secular community questions and critiques the church, inviting its members to recognize good news with fresh sight and to return to worship. Gaga, in acting as a secular prophet, aligns herself with the marginalized people of the LGBTQ community. The church should be convicted: we are called to stand with the oppressed and marginalized, and instead are the ones excluding and condemning. As Gaga reconciles and unifies queer and straight peoples, the church creates divides with hateful language on picket signs. Gaga’s work asks the church: what is a loving response to individuals, regardless of sexual orientation? Her scream of Jesus’s love followed by dance questions: what would action look like on your part? Can you ever stop the debates over scripture long enough to act?

Gaga’s use of fashion and performance art raise questions of communication. Gaga confronts the culture through symbols that it fluently understands: music, performance, and fashion. The church insists on using scripture and sermons as its primary forms of engagement, but for many people in USAmerica, the text does not carry authority over their lives. How could the church better engage culture on its own terms? What would happen if we ceased to articulate and defend every position, and made room for a conversation through image and action that made sense to today’s culture, within and outside of the church?

Finally, Gaga’s enacted death that exposed the idolatry of celebrity questions the way the church teaches the narrative of Jesus crucified. We often have sermons trying to explain what Jesus did, but her bloody performance and empty stare ask: how would the church enact the narrative? Pastors try to educate congregants by explaining the historical context of the cross, but what if they moved the narrative into the context of today’s culture? What would we critique? What idols would we expose?

The prophet known as Lady Gaga is doing God’s work in USAmerica. Rather than fight her, the church would be wise to allow itself to be critiqued by her exposures and educated by her forms of communication. After all, God has often provided prophets who have worked outside the church to invite the church itself to repentance; we should not be surprised that the Living God is still speaking, should not be startled to see a prophet in our midst. The proper response might be gratitude and worship: perhaps a dance would be appropriate.

This piece was one of my first that developed theology from culture. Who do you see as currently working as a prophet in the world? How would you like to see the church perform the Christian narrative?

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Drinking from the Font

Sermon: Holy Hospitality, on the Miracle of Water into Wine at the Wedding at Cana - follow blog Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

Reflections on John 2:1-11, delivered at St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle.

“You give your people drink from the river of your delights.”

Imagine you’re on your way into church and feeling just a little parched — would you pause for a sip of water … from the baptismal font?

Let’s make it a little more appealing. Let’s say, one day, that the font was emptied of its usual water and filled with — whatever brings you joy: apple juice, Diet Coke with Lime, pinot noir, whatever — then would you drink from it?

This may seem like a strange hypothetical with which to begin a sermon, but today’s gospel is a strange miracle that begins Christ’s ministry. At a wedding, Jesus takes water, the sustaining elixir of life, and transforms that water into wine, a substance associated with rare celebrations of joy; the psalmist notes that wine makes glad the heart. Weddings were one of the rare times that people would have the opportunity to drink wine, where it is offered as a display of the new couple’s hospitality, and this must have been some wedding, because they ran out early. Jesus, being made aware of the problem, tells the servants to fill the nearby jars with water, which becomes wine —  that the steward, not knowing where the wine had come from, says is good, and the celebration continues on.

What a strange miracle. Strange, certainly, because the creator of all that is, the creator of oceans and rain and grapes, the divine force behind growth and fermentation and metabolization, makes his first ever in-human-form display of power … in the corner of a wedding … where the only people who notice are the disciples who were already following him, and a small number of servants … and all for the seemingly insignificant cause of a party’s continuation.

Not only is this miracle strange, but there’s something strange in the narration of the miracle, because John makes sure the audience knows this detail: that nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used for Jewish purification rites, the kind used for ceremonial washing.

Now, when the text says “ceremonial washing” here — this is not simply a matter of washing one’s hands before getting in line for the buffet. Purification, for the Jewish people, for the guests at this wedding, was a highly spiritual matter, tied to holiness and sanctity. So while the stone jars are acceptable vessels for holy water and wine is acceptable at a celebration, you just wouldn’t put wine in the jars meant for ceremonial washing. It would be impure, unholy. Sacrilegious.

So when Jesus tells the servants to draw from the jars and bring it to the steward — I have to imagine that in their minds, it’s still water. Because you just wouldn’t give a man wine from a stone jar. I imagine their shock … when the steward puts it in his mouth, “not knowing where it had come from” and names it the best wine of the celebration.

It is shocking that Jesus seems to prank the steward into drinking unclean wine — worse, pranks him into enjoying unclean wine. Equally unnerving is the realization that he seems to violate his community’s ritual norms and customs on purpose. At a celebration of this size, wine would be stored in long clay jars with handles for easy pouring. Presumably, since there had been wine, there would have been some empty containers around, ready to be refilled.

But Jesus chooses the container for ceremonial washing, large jars with thick stone walls — actually, picture a slightly taller version of our baptismal font, remove the polish, and you’re pretty much there. Jesus chooses these vessels, these jars for ceremonial washing, knowing that the steward wouldn’t drink it if he knew where it came from.

We don’t hear about the rest of the party, but because the jars were basically immovable, the servants wouldn’t be able to circle with them to fill people’s cups. I imagine the guests, dressed in their best, faithful observers their religious customs, their cups running low, coming in pairs and small groups in search of more wine only to find themselves standing before the ceremonial washing jars … debating … would they accept this hospitality, would they imbibe of the wine that makes glad the heart, would they continue their joyful celebration —- or would they maintain their sanctity and purity?

Would you drink wine from a font in order to participate in celebration?

Because there is always freedom. It’s a choice. Jesus provides the wine in the ceremonial vessel, but we are always free to not drink it, we are free to prioritize our sanctity above it. But, at least as seems to be implied by the symbols of this miracle — ceremonial jar as sanctity and holiness, the wine inside as hospitality that leads to joy– to prioritize sanctity requires the rejection of the hospitality and subsequent joy that are being offered.

On the other hand, to drink the wine from the ceremonial container does not abolish sanctity. Jesus does not smash the ceremonial jars, does not condemn their use. Rather, he combines their symbolism with the symbol of wine in an unexpected way. You might say: Jesus does not abolish the law by breaking the jars, but rather fulfills the law — by filing the sacred with the joyful, by connecting holiness and hospitality.

By serving good wine from the stone jars for ceremonial washing, Jesus mixes symbols in a way that shows how the separation of the holy vessel from the liquid of celebration tempts us to privilege the spiritual, the clean, the holy — over and against the worldly, the bodily, the everyday joys that make glad the heart. By choosing to serve good wine from ceremonial jars, Jesus seems to suggest that it is not separation that is sacred, but what is sacred is participation in hospitality. What is holy is accepting hospitality. It seems to be right where our sensibilities and values want us to maintain separation that Jesus’s values invite us to hospitality as part of a larger celebration. We might even interpret the mixing of these symbols to mean that hospitality is holy.

 

Some decades ago, this parish chose to extend holy hospitality when others chose sanctity. The city was in the midst of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and many churches refused to bury those who had died from the disease, choosing the safety of sanctity above such potentially risky hospitality. By offering services to those in need, this parish participated in Christ’s holy hospitality.

We continue to participate in hospitality when we share food and drink each Sunday at coffee hour and each month at the Fatted Calf Cafe, carrying food and conversations across social and economic lines, across generational and political barriers, across football team loyalties.

And momentarily, we will be invited to share bread and wine with one another. While there is no one way to understand the Eucharist, today we might contemplate what it means to participate in sharing the cup, to participate in the holy hospitality to which Christ invites us.

Here, we are all guests at the celebration. Jesus has provided the bread as well as the wine. And it is good. Will you drink?

Sermon: Holy Hospitality, on the Miracle of Water into Wine - Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis
The Baptismal Font at St Paul’s, by Julie Speidel: http://juliespeidel.com/public-installations/st-pauls-episcopal-church/

Questions: What hospitality is Christ offering that the Church not participating in? Where have we placed sanctity above hospitality — as a community or individually?

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My Loosened Rule of Life

Loosened Rule of Life - {Literate Theology}

I was first asked to write a Personal Rule of Life in seminary. I researched various instructions on how to write a Personal Rule, I looked up examples. I struggled with the assignment. None of the formats I had seen seemed to fit what I needed, and I was determined that my Rule wouldn’t be a spiritual to-do list.

The Temptation of Achievement

I’m achievement-oriented as a symptom of my deepest brokenness. Some brokenness is manifested in substance abuse, in anger, or in sloth; mine is manifested in achievement. This has the added difficulty in that it’s seen as virtuous; achievement is heavily rewarded in our culture. But I can tell it’s feeding something poisonous living inside me.

Running parallel to my understanding that my achievement is unhealthy in some ways is the knowledge that the achievement doesn’t have a destination; it’s a road without end and no rest stops. No amount of achievement will ever satisfy the emptiness that is at the core of me that keeps trying to be filled. David Foster Wallace put it this way:

“The face I’d put on the terror is the dawning realization that nothing’s enough, you know? That no pleasure is enough, that no achievement is enough. That there’s a kind of queer dissatisfaction or emptiness at the core of the self that is unassuageable by outside stuff.”

Achievement a temptation particularly heightened in our time in which there is so much we’re told we must achieve. Any single issue of any magazine may contain workouts for a perfect body, 9 foods to eat daily for a variety of vitamins (but beware they don’t push you over a strict calorie limit), advice on being the most attentive friend and lover, 5 steps to the perfect smoky eye, a list of activity suggestions to be the best parent ever, and  3 ways to get ahead at work. The cultural pressure to achieve in the realms of health, beauty, relationships, and career is staggering, if not crushing.

Too often, church is a place that piles on one more area of achievement: the spiritual. It’s yet another list of to-do’s in a world that is burdening us with perfection. We’re told to pray constantly, read scripture and devotions daily, attend church weekly, volunteer monthly, fill out the pledge card annually. Too often, the Church fails to be a sanctuary from the world and becomes another perpetuator of our world’s deepest brokenness.

Grace Frees from Achievement

My struggle with developing a Rule of Life finally came to this: I can’t imagine God wanting me to achieve even more as a way to draw closer to God.

So I threw out the formats of daily prayers and weekly rhythms. What I needed was a way to keep me from sacrificing myself on the Altar of High Achievement. I kept format is loose. Rather than prayers and habits to be done daily or weekly, it’s a way to go through life, a way to be shaped into a person of agency unto goodness, a way to learn to speak to myself as I would a loved child. I read it regularly so that its wisdom gathered from many mentors can become a voice in my self in daily interactions.

I share it with hope that it aids and frees others to have a loosened rule of life, to abandon legalism in favor of grace, to shift a body’s orientation away from achievement and towards communion.

My Loosened Rule of Life

Ways of Being & Relating

  • Have a voice.
    • Use your voice for others and yourself; the strength that is in you can be for you.
    • It is not sufficient to be a self that only exists in relation to others.
    • Know yourself, and know that the self you know is not the entirety of your self. Know that the self others narrate to you is not the entirety of your self.
    • Follow your joy. Follow your own calling, not others’ callings for you.
    • Commit to living out the image of God that is within you, to allowing identity to overflow into agency.
    • You are valuable. Don’t stay where you are not valued. Go to where you are valued.
    • Note: This piece stems from a time in seminary when my words had become primarily for the good of others and I took a year of silence in class in order to learn that the power of my voice can be for myself.
  • Have courage.
    • The courage to say no, the courage to say yes. Remember that saying yes “to will the one thing” means saying no to lots of other things.
    • Remember that we all suffer. Keep going.
    • Lean into the pain, find what it has to teach you.
    • When you despair, lament until you find hope.
    • Believe in and seek out the holy contour of life.
    • Think and speak in categories other than good/bad, or find ways to define those terms.
    • Note: As someone who knows narrative and is intuitive, I often suspect where a trajectory will take me before I get there. I must remind myself that all good stories require conflict and that the work that must be accomplished requires leaning into the pain of my story. It’s in the moments that I want to stop that I must find courage to keep going into the discomfort and hurt.
  • Be vulnerable.
    • Risk emotionally.
    • Laugh, loudly.
    • Cry, openly and without shame.
    • Allow events and moments to impact and change you.
    • Pursue relationships and form communities that might not work out.
    • Show hospitality that will likely never be returned.
    • Be interested in growth, knowing that stretching muscles can be tender.
    • Ask basic, stupid questions, and find unexpected answers.
    • Ask complex, interesting questions, and delve into research for the most satisfying answers.
    • Note: Relationships are vital. My life is not only about my work but about being with others. Intimacy requires some level of risk. I know I can be dismissive when I feel hurt, especially with my family. This reminds me to stay engaged.
  • Live with simplicity.
    • Look for more livable ways to define and live the good life.
    • Know kinship with creation. Garden. What you do to the earth, you do to yourself.
    • Don’t be cool.
    • You don’t need more clothes, items, social media presence, or anything else trying to sell a false version of the good life. Consume less.
    • Live into rhythms of work and rest, each day, week, year.
    • Keep a daily routine… but don’t be rigid. Stay up late when ideas are happening. Get out of bed when they wake you up. And keep human! See people, go places.
    • Spend less. Or spend more for items of good quality, ethically sold, at rare intervals.
    • Note: I’m concerned about the consumer-driven narrative of today’s culture; there are other ways to live that have been livable and well lived for centuries and centuries.

Prayer

  • Be grounded in physicality; know your embodiment.
    • Sweat often. Sweat is your prayer.
    • Walk. Run. Practice yoga. Practice krav maga.
    • Breathe deeply and mindfully. Breath is your prayer, too.
    • Drink lots of water and tea. Eat colorful plants that died just recently.
    • Do the things that call you to mindful embodiment: hike, sail, garden, play violin, craft, sing.
    • Note: I tell people with complete sincerity that I became a Christian through a secular yoga practice. Yet as an pretty typical ENTJ, I know that I tend to neglect the physical, even knowing that engaging my body is the very thing that can restore me in times of stress.

Creation / Re-Creation / Recreation

  • Value the increments and explosions of re/creation.
    • Practice writing daily pages. Remember. Carry a notebook and pen. Write things down. Revisit journals.
    • Listen attentively and carefully.
    • Take field trips and artist dates.
    • Practice the gentle art of domesticity so long as it feels gentle. Cultivate home.
    • Say yes to preaching, teaching, speaking, and writing opportunities, even (especially) if they feel slightly beyond my qualifications.
    • Fail. Fail again. Fail better. Fail faster.
    • Collaborate. Everyone has something to offer.
    • There is nothing new under the sun; keep a swipe file.
    • You are powerful enough to create: apply words in a new way and make symbols relevant to a new day.
    • Note: I (hesitatingly) believe that writing is a task I am meant to be working at. At the same time, there is something rewarding and necessary about creating tangible items, whether a knit washcloth or a watercolor daffodil.

Loosened Rule of Life - {Literate Theology}

 

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Conjuring the Spirit of the Season

The absence of Christmas spirit is a presence in my home. I skipped out on the normal mantel decorations. I didn’t even take the stockings out of storage. My gift wrapping is minimal and sloppy. I just haven’t been able to tap into the spirit of the season. In a world celebrating a season of merriment, music, and memory-making, my internal experience has not been able to align.

My first response was to “fake it til I make it” — to go through the motions of Christmas cheer and observe the rituals in order to make the warm fuzzy feelings follow. That did not work.

A few voices in my life have suggested prayer practices. I’ve sat in my office and settled into the quietness of prayer, only to find that my prayers are laments. My prayers are calling God to do better, to intervene more strongly. A wonderful woman gifted me a gratitude journal, nudging me to acknowledge the goodnesses, no matter how small, that my daily life holds. And while it does keep away full blown depression and does orient me toward gratitude, the practice also highlights that there are many who do not have what I do: a loving spouse, stable housing, warm meals.

It strikes me that my concern has been my inability to tap into the spirit of the season, but perhaps I’ve been overwhelmed by advent: a season in which we hope for light while surrounded by darkness.

The darkness is literal in a solstice sense, in a lack of daylight hours, but darkness  is also metaphorical and spiritual.

In advent, Christ — the light of the world — has not yet begun to shine. All we have to guide our steps is faint, distant starlight, traveling lightyears to get to us.

In advent, we remember that Mary carried in her self something divine that was growing and waiting to enter the world. We remember that carrying and birthing the divine is a marathon labor: it can feel like walking miles on swollen ankles only to find there is no rest to be had at the end of the journey.

This is Mary’s story, and the Christmas story, and it’s also our story, it’s a creation story. The work of allowing a message to cultivate inside one’s self, the labor of bringing it forth, the frail hope that it will be received by others. We each have a gift that is waiting to be birthed.

So perhaps my sorrow and failure of Christmas spirit are right where I am meant to be this advent season in which darkness has many manifestations.

And tomorrow is Christmas, and I have the starting place of hope: not that tomorrow the world will be different, but that tomorrow I may feel differently, which could alter the world.

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Christian (Anti-)Materialism

Christian (Anti)Materialism - [Literate Theology]

‘Tis the season for decking the halls, listening to carols, and trying to manage the expectations and social norms of gift-giving.

In recent years, I’ve noticed increasing discussion on wanting Christmas to be less materialistic and more focused on Jesus, most often applied to gift-giving. One trend is this gifting rhyme: “One thing they want, One thing they need, One thing to Wear, One thing to read.” Another method is that each person receives 3 gifts, representing the ones given by the wise men. Others write of themselves as anti-materialistic and advocate for a “gift-free Christmas,” spending time and money on those in most desperate need.

In a society where citizens are viewed primarily as consumers, the choice to consume less is a laudable defiance of cultural norms. And yet the language of becoming less materialistic or anti-materialism somehow chafes.

I think it chafes because Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Christmas is about God becoming incarnate. God valued the material world so highly that God became fleshy, substantial, material. Throughout his life, Jesus seems to deeply understand the importance of the material. He understands the necessity of the material category we call food, and he fed people. He understands that a host’s social standing is deeply effected by the material stuff of drink, and he turned water into wine. God in Jesus understood that the material stuff of a having a body matters in one’s ability to be in relationship with humans, and Jesus was resurrected.

One way to orient the birthing moment of Christianity is the moment in which spirit became flesh. The good news of Christianity is that the God of love and blessing and peace came to earth to show us that the values of love and blessing and peace are most visibly manifested when they are embodied. Our values are niceties until we live them. Our values are most powerful when they show up in our material life.

Everything in the gospel texts points me to the conviction that we Christians are called to be more materialistic, called to be better materialists — even as we are called to resist consumerism. So while I’m an advocate for consuming less, in order to do so I think we need take materialism more seriously. We need to become a better materialists.

I’m certain that many who state the desire for less materialistic Christmases are actually aiming for less consumeristic Christmases, but it’s important to accurately name our concern, especially when representing our religion to children or outsiders. If we position Christianity as being against the material world, it can convey that the very worldly concerns of hunger and shelter and wound-tending don’t matter to Christians, when nothing could be further from the truth. If we teach anti-materialism we are too easily teaching contempt for the material world. When such contempt is taught, we should not be surprised by those who profess Christ while lacking compassion or urgency in caring for the poor: the body and its needs are themselves material, and so in that system of thinking, the body and its needs are worthy of contempt.

Perhaps the greatest response to the Christmas story in which God becomes material is to listen deeply to the call to be more materialistic, wildly materialistic, sincerely and passionately and deeply materialistic.

And by deepening our materialism, we must become more seriously anti-consumerism, for the material world becomes far too precious and valuable to simply use and dispose.

In following Jesus, may we follow in his embodied awareness that matter matters. May not only our Christmases but also our lives be distinct in that we passionately and sincerely value the material. May we hear the word “materialistic” not as a curse or insult, but as a blessing, a compliment, and as a call.

May your Christmas season be filled with love, joy, and peace, outpoured in beautiful, delicious, comforting material goodness for you and your loved ones.

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On Prayer & Policy-Making

Prayer & Policy-Making - Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

The divide is growing. In the wake of another mass shooting, the US has entered a now familiar liturgy: people demand changed policies; politicians offer prayers; nothing changes.

This time, rather than placating constituents, the prayers of politicians has been met with backlash. The New York Daily News released a bold cover: “God Isn’t Fixing This.” On twitter, #thoughtsandprayers was trending, with use ranging from a recognition of congress’s inactivity to blatant mockery of prayer practices in general.

Which of course created a backlash against that backlash: Christians defending prayer and speaking against such “prayer shaming.”

Part of what causes my heart to break so deeply in the midst of this conversation is that, across the illusion of the chasm between them, both sides have something beautiful to offer the other side. The Christians are correct in saying we should be praying; the secularists are correct in saying that there should be action.

What made Christianity radical is its anti-theist understanding of prayer, that prayer is never complete until it is followed by action. There are lots of articles and Bible-verse lists about how Jesus prayed: usually alone, often on a mountain or in a desert. But often the sentence about Jesus’s prayer is followed by a sentence about his action. Jesus prays and immediately after, he gathers and teaches. Jesus prays and immediately after walks onto the water to the disciples in a boat. Jesus prays and then raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus prays and then is arrested and goes to the cross.

For Jesus, prayer seems to be the inhale he takes before exhaling into action. He is filled through the inhale prayer so that he may exhale into action through preaching and miracles. For Jesus, prayer and action are so interwoven as to be inseparable; the prayer is not complete until exhaled into action.

We Christians often end our prayers with the words “in the name of Jesus Christ” or “through Jesus Christ.” We pray in and through Jesus. We receive eucharist that metabolizes us in and through the Christ. We receive baptism that has brought us in and through the church, which we also call the body of Christ.

In these ways, we are living members of the Christ to whom we pray in and through; we pray ourselves into being part of Christ, and pray ourselves into becoming part of the answer to the very prayers we speak. Christian theologian Ronald Rolheiser reminds us that “to pray as a Christian demands concrete involvement in trying to bring about what is pleaded for in the prayer.”

For an everyday example: consider someone who prays for healing for a sick neighbor, but never brings a meal or offers to drive to the doctor. She does the inhale of the prayer, but never completes it in the exhale; she prays as a theist and not as a Christian.

The dynamics might be similar in our nation-wide conversation about gun violence and prayer. Non-Christian people are calling Christians to action; they are calling us to exhale our prayers into action. It is not always done tactfully, kindly, or lovingly, but if we are open to their criticism in the way that Christ received death, perhaps we can develop ears to hear how deeply, prophetically Christ-like their call to action is.

Likewise, Christians are calling the country to prayer. We are right to say that it is impossible to exhale indefinitely; we must inhale in order to receive the Spirit that Jesus breathed upon us. In our inhale, we begin to grow in the ability to discern God’s will for humanity. In our inhale, we begin to let go of what our own desire may be for the future of our country. In order to act lovingly, our actions must originate in prayer.

Secular society is calling the church to action; the church is calling secular society to prayer.

Both sides have something beautiful to offer. We should be praying. Prayer is not complete until followed by action.

Each could be a blessing to the other, if we all soften our hearts enough to hear it. It’s risky. A soft heart is a much more easily broken heart. But perhaps broken heartedness is not an inappropriate response to such circumstances.

prayer corner
Where I pray — and then write.
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Gratitude for Hidden Things

Gratitude for Hidden Things - Advent post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

As we transition into the advent season, I find myself full of gratitude and grief for the hidden things — the emotions, experiences, remembrances, and hopes that are invisibly working and growing inside myself.

I am grateful for the rhythms and rituals of the season. Many of my rituals are familiar across the country: a Thanksgiving meal with gathered friends, a trip outside the city to fuss over finding the perfect Christmas tree, crafting perfectly chosen (though less-than-perfectly made) gifts.

These weeks in anticipation of Christmas remind me of how embodied my life is, remind me that my most meaningful experiences are my most physical ones. The texture of a certain sweater; the scent of pine in the living room; the taste of white peppermint mochas in vibrant red cups. The concepts of the holiday season are hidden things — joy, charity, patience, faith. And these virtues only become invisibly manifest in my inner experience through their cultivation expressed in the tangible.

I forget that too quickly.

It’s been strung-together months of having forgotten to remember that my body needs to be inhabited in order for my heart to be warmed. Which underlies a lot of the grief I mentioned earlier; I have been in a season of depression. Depression is another hidden thing, an experience that is real and powerful despite being invisible.

It seems to me that, whereas the warming hidden things are cultivated by embodiment, my depression is cultivated by disembodiment. By overly-indwelling the intellect, by seeking an orienting goal for my vocational pursuits, by getting lost in explorations through possible futures.

I’ve been thinking a lot, this week, about Mary. I find it comforting that Mary must have also felt this tension between gratitude and grief. Even as she felt her fiancee withdraw from the promise of marriage, even as she wondered how she would provide for herself and her child if abandoned, even as she encountered the stigma of a pregnancy out of wedlock, even as her family (I imagine) shamed or shunned her — in the midst of these griefs, God was becoming flesh in her womb, God was becoming flesh from her own flesh.

My body follows the rituals and rhythms. My body is faithful to the actions I associate with advent, in hope that such faithfulness might cultivate some of the hidden virtues and lessen my hidden sorrow.

Though, if my past is any indication of my future, I will likely always have at least some measure of that sorrow with me. But if Mary felt this grief-gratitude tension as I do, then Mary is already with me, even as her womb works in the early stages of the process to bring God with us.

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Thanksgiving Presence

Thanksgiving Presence - post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

My friend Jen was recently lamenting that she had accepted an invitation to Thanksgiving before having received Nancy’s invitation. “Maybe if you keep the party going until 8 or 9, I could join you then!” she half-exclaimed an implied question.

“No.” The inquiry had actually been directed at Nancy, but it was my voice that responded with firm immediacy. I took in Jen’s raised eyebrows and was about to sheepishly backpedal when Nancy burst out laughing, saving my shame by declaring how glad she was to have friends who think just like her, but out loud.

Fortunately, my stance on party hopping wasn’t a secret to either of my friends. A few years ago, I wrote a post on the practice of Thanksgiving hopping. Ok, it was more of a rant than a post, but I still stand by what I wrote (even though it has resulted in a couple of under-attended Thanksgivings).

Our culture seems to believe that everything is a consumable commodity. The logic seems to be that the more we consume of something, the more we will have of what it offers, which seems to be true at first glance. More skin product use means more youthful appearance. More guns means more safety and security. More books means more knowledge.

By this logic, more Thanksgivings (more servings of more dishes, more people, more places, more events) could mean more of the promise of Thanksgiving – joy and gratitude. And party hopping may fulfill that promise, I suppose; my experience and observation is that it often doesn’t.

I wonder if the striving for more joy is the very thing that prevents joy from deepening. I wonder if the attempt to gain a deeper feeling of gratitude keeps gratitude from wholly forming. I wonder if rushing to achieve the next thing is what keeps us from noticing God’s activity right where we are. I wonder if celebrating Thanksgivings-in-the-plural blocks the experience of truly feeling thankful.

An achievement-orientation demands that we always strive for more, but joy and gratitude and love seem to have no concern for achievement. They seem more willing to flourish when we let go of needing anything beyond what’s immediately available to us, more present when events and busyness slow down, more deeply experienced when we deeply notice what is already presently in our midst.

So if slowness isn’t part of your regular practice, I’d encourage you to consider trying it. Even for just one day – and Thanksgiving seems like a pretty appropriate day for a slowness experiment. Many of us spend most days of the year rushing from event to event, meeting to meeting, party to party. Perhaps we could dedicate one day to slowing down, to noticing where we are, to being with our loved ones, to considering the goodness that is already happening in our midst.

May you trust that you need not go anywhere for goodness to manifest. May you seek the goodness that is present right where you already are.

 

*All names changed.

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The Anti-Apocalypse

Sermon: The Anti-Apocalypse - Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

Reflections on Mark 13:1-8, delivered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Episcopal Church.

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There seems to be something hard-wired into humans that makes us want to know what the future holds. We wonder about the future in ways that are small and individual, and in ways that are large, global, and cosmic . Perhaps this morning you wondered if you should bring a raincoat; perhaps you worried if the mountains will regain their snow pack. Perhaps you wonder if you’ll be healed of physical ailment, even if it’s just wondering when you’ll get over a cold. Perhaps you wonder if you’ll get a callback for a job you applied for. Perhaps you worry how the presidential race will end.

In our gospel passage this morning, Jesus addresses the most major of our concerns about the future: Will the world end? What meaning are we to derive from the abundance of wars and violence, such as this week’s attacks in Beirut and Paris? Do hurricanes and climate changes and earthquakes like the recent one in Japan point to the end of the world?

Jesus seems to understand that we’ll take these complex problems and painful catastrophes to be signs of the worst thing possible, signs of the literal end of the world. And Jesus is firm in his answer to our wonderings if these happenings are the end. Jesus says: No. No, wars are not the end; they are the result of earthly rulers, not the will of the Divine Creator of the Universe. No, natural disasters are not a sign of God’s punishment. No, famines are never God’s desire. No, this is not the end of the story.

Rather, Jesus tells us that these problems are early birth pains — the sign of new life; the sign that something new to that is struggling to be born; the sign of the Nation of God struggling to become reality. And perhaps we are to respond to these early birth pains in the same way we would respond to a woman entering labor: by offering comfort and assistance, to the best of our abilities, while anticipating the new life that is to come.

Our presence may not end wars, but we will faithfully witness the suffering as we actively work for peace. Our faith may not end natural disasters, but it will prompt us to respond in tangible ways for those in need. Our hope may not eradicate all famines, but it could feed the empty stomach of the hungry in our midst.

Jesus lists some of the worst possible things that could happen — and is certain that they are not the end of the story. Jesus is certain they are the beginning of a new reality. So keep going. Keep engaging. Keep advocating and interfering and helping and anticipating and responding. When it feels like the end of the world, remember: there is hope.