uncertain spaces

introduction

Your colleague tells you that Human Resources wants to see you right away. If you have no idea as to why, there is uncertainty ahead - perhaps combined with some anxiety or fear -- until you find out whether they are going to fire you, promote you to a special project, or just need a form signed.

You are in an uncertain space, even if just for a few moments until you find out what they really want.

Now what if you're new in town, or perhaps what's new is that you've decided you want to be part of a church. You drive by a church in your neighbourhood, and the sign out in front says "Everyone Welcome".

what does that mean - “everyone welcome”?

Did you know that a study done in the U.S. found that three of the top words non-Christians ages 16 to 29 associate with Christians are judgmental, hypocritical and anti-homosexual? (source: unChristian and article)

Which means that there’s a good chance the person driving past your church and wondering about it, is already doubting the truthfulness and reality of the “Everyone Welcome” sign. Add to that any past negative experience they've had with the church or with Christians, and the uncertainty is even stronger.

The church you drive past is most likely an uncertain space. Will it be hostile or indifferent to you? Or will it be welcoming and embracing? Most times you just don't know.

confession, baptism, and the radical, far-reaching rethinking of everything

This quote from Brian McLaren seems very fitting for this time:

John (the Baptist) defines the essential meaning himself: he proclaims not a baptism of conformity but a baptism of repentance, which means a radical, far-reaching rethinking of everything. If one was previously formed by a conventional Temple establishment identity, one rethinks that way of life. If one was previously formed by an Essenic antiestablishment identity, one rethinks that way of life. What might have been acceptable before – hating Gentiles, hating priests, hating the poor, hating the rich—now seems like a sin to be confessed. What might have been considered unacceptable before—reconciling with enemies, showing kindness to outcasts, putting the needs of people above religious rules—now seems like a good thing. That kind of repenting would determine the kinds of sins people would confess as they descended into the Jordan for baptism.

So for John, baptism is hardly a second-rate tribal rite comparable to sitting on Santa’s knee. It is the radical reversal of identities of exclusion and hostility. It is a defection from all exclusive, hostile, and elitist identities—whether they be establishment or antiestablishment in nature. It is a sign that one is repenting of all hostile identities, knowing that those identities can only lead to violent cataclysm. By de-identifying with oppositional identities—by dying to them, one can identify with something new: the kingdom, reign, or commonwealth of God—which is a call not to separation and exclusion, but rather to solidarity and reconciliation, as we have seen again and again.

Brian D. McLaren, pp.183, 185, in Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World

What Brian says makes good sense to me. I want such a radical reversal, both in my own life and in the life of the church.

whose names do you not mention?

Whose names are not mentioned in your church? Of whom have you never heard it said, "they are our brothers and sisters?"


Consider this from Brian McLaren:

The vestiges of Imperial Christianity are not always as obvious as this inscription in stone. But they are no less present in most of our churches. Racism, colonialism, exclusivism, elitism, and other members of the hostility family often hide camouflaged in songs and hymns, devotionals and prayers, sermons and Sunday School lessons. And it’s not only what is said that aids and abets hostility: it’s what is left unsaid. For example, I remember preaching in a predominantly Tutsi church in Burundi. After I made an appeal for the Twa people, the nation’s oppressed minority, someone came up to me and said, “The word Twa has never been spoken before in this church. It is as if the Twa didn’t exist. Thank you for reminding us that the Twa are God’s children.” I thought of how many real-world hostilities around the world are similarly protected through avoidance and silence in churches today.

Brian D. McLaren, p.168, in Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World

I spoke up at a church meeting a few years ago, and talked about wanting the church to be a place that is welcoming of our gay brothers and sisters in Christ. Later I realized that I had never heard anyone use the expression "our gay brothers and sisters in Christ" at our church, ever. Perhaps that was the first time it was even said there....

Perhaps it reminded some that this isn't an issue to be debated and ideas to be objected to, but that there are real people involved....

 Hopefully, some who never thought about it might begin to consider the breadth and width and depth of God's love and of the body of Christ.

words you can't say in church

How do you understand Pastor Stickman's silence?

Is he silent because not even he is allowed to say these words?

Or is it because he believes that all words, all topics are open for discussion, and thus there is nothing for him to list?

an apology from Manitoba Child and Family Services

For the babies and children seized by Manitoba Child and Family Services, predominantly from Indigenous families.

This is not about Indian Residential Schools or the "60's Scoop"; this is about what is happening in Canada today.

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we just want to say

You give birth to babies
again and again
and take them back to huts
without running water

it would be unkind to leave them with you
so we take them away
we give them away
cuz we know what's best

Forgive us
we hoped to have solved
the Indian problem
years ago

poem by rob g

---

Read making a difference, one baby at a time.

Read #StopStealingOurKids - Christi Belcourt's indictment of Manitoba's child welfare system.


This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Read an explanation of false apology poems.

[hotel 22]

I first saw this video on Richard Beck's blog (one of the few I follow regularly). It is the eloquently told story of the early hours of the morning for some of our neighbours.

Watch it and then read on.


Hotel 22 by Elizabeth Lo from Short of the Week on Vimeo.

[rachel held evans on lgbt christians]

Speaking at the GCN conference in 2014, Rachel Held Evans had this to say:

[walking in the shoes of another - Timothy Kurek]

Timothy Kurek talks about intentional empathy and the year he spent walking in the shoes of another:




Timothy has also written a book called The Cross in the Closet.

making a difference, one baby at a time

Our white friends to the south managed to do it. Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation in the southern states were in place until the 1960's. As the Civil Rights movement brought about legal changes, the state and local laws regarding segregation were overturned. In some ways, however, not that much changed and the U.S. situation evolved to what is known as the new Jim Crow, which is seeing (among other injustices and inequities) high percentages of black people (black men in particular) end up in for-profit prisons and many other barriers in place to prevent equal participation in society.

Here in Canada, one of our historical evils was the Indian residential schools: Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and put into residential schools, forbidden to use their own languages and not allowed to practice their culture. Abuse was wide-spread. This took place roughly from 1876 to the late 1960's. The recent Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls it cultural genocide.

Understandably, Indian residential schools are done with. However, that doesn't mean that those in power suddenly believe that Aboriginal lives matter.

Around the end of the Indian residential school system, the Manitoba government began "systematically apprehending aboriginal children starting in the 1960s and placing them with non-aboriginal families — a practice known as the ’60s Scoop." (source). Read more here and here. Thousands of children were taken and placed in foster and adoptive homes. Just this past June 2015, the Premier of Manitoba apologized on behalf of the province for the 60's scoop. Yes, this is Canada - the Canada we don't here much about.

But is it over?  And now what's happening in Manitoba?

Child and Family Services workers are seizing an average of one newborn a day, without assessing the parents or their ability to care for their baby, according to Cora Morgan, First Nations Children's Advocate. She says,

“In this system, you are guilty until you can prove you’re innocent. They’re not going in and investigating to see if there is another side of the story. They’re not going in there to say, ‘How can we help you?’ … They just take the kids.” (source)

You can imagine the effects on a baby of being removed from its mother, put in care for the key months of attachment, and then handed back. And the cycle continues...

---

Read more about the seizures of babies.

Read Christi Belcourt's indictment of Manitoba's child welfare system.

Estimated numbers:

The numbers of children in the system are staggering – it is estimated that there are today anywhere from 60, 000 – 70, 0000 Native children in foster care in Canada , a much higher proportion than the 20, 000 children taken in the horrific Sixties Scoop, where 20, 000 children were taken and placed into adoption or in residential schools, those institutions meant to “kill the Indian in the child”.

[practice resurrection]

Would love to be there! Am hoping that the talk is posted online and if so, will put the link here.

false apology poems - an explanation

I was introduced to false apology poems through a wonderfully funny children's book, Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It by Gail Carson Levine. You can read an excerpt of her book here.

Her poems follow the format used by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), who wrote the following:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

 —William Carlos Williams

The above poem by Williams is fairly innocent and rather humorous, and presents the standard format that I use. Note that the first stanza describes what happened, the second typically the consequences, and the third gives the apology that is not sincere.

If you've read any of the false apology poems that I've written, they are neither innocent nor humorous. They are dark and satirical, and are intended to bring the attitudes of white supremacy out into the open. Forgive me.

I welcome any comments and thoughts you might have about them.

See the whole list of false apology poems.

[mc1r photo project challenges how we see race]

Thom Dunn, in a recent Upworthy article, asks:

Despite making up such a small percentage of the population, most of us have the same stereotypical image in our heads when we think of redheads: light-skinned, freckled white people with curls of flaming hair and a fiery temper to match.

Aside from the obvious issue of assigning a temperament to someone based on hair color, there's one other weird conclusion here: Why do we think that all redheads are white?

(source, emphasis added)

Michelle Marshall, a photographer based in London, has been taking portraits of redheaded people who are black or biracial. Dunn's article features some of her portraits interspersed with some of Marshall's thoughts.

Read the whole article -- easy (and beautiful) to read and thought-provoking at the same time.

Visit Michelle Marshall's website for more photos.

an apology from the Portsmouth Police and the Hampton Roads Jail

In memory of Jamycheal Mitchell, age 24, found dead in his jail cell at Hampton Roads Regional Jail on August 19, 2015, four months after being arrested for allegedly stealing $5 of food.

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we just want to say

Hungry?

bad choice that

taking a mountain dew snickers

and zebra cake

jailed in april

you wasted away

taking up space

waiting for a hospital bed

Forgive us

for wasting tax dollars

we should have executed you

at the scene of the crime

poem by rob g

---

Read the story here.

This poem seems more harsh than some of the others. I think I'm feeling particularly  angry today. Don't know how our black brothers and sisters cope with it, and especially as they know that  any given day might be their last, just because they're black.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[voice of witness]

"Voice of Witness (VOW) is a non-profit dedicated to fostering a more nuanced, empathy-based understanding of contemporary human rights crises. We do this by amplifying the voices of individuals most closely affected by injustice, and by providing curricular and training support to educators and invested communities."

To date, they have published thirteen books of oral histories, with stories from Palestine, Chicago Public Housing, Columbia, and more.

Check them out!






Read this excerpt from Refugee Hotel online:

Or check out your local library -- the Edmonton Public Library, where I live, has three titles from Voice of Witness.

[re-imagining disability]

Portraits of L'Arche Daybreak members by Warren Pot. See more of them here.

Related to this, Professor Pamela Cushing discusses how photographs tell a story, and can also accomplish ethical work and confer the dignity of full personhood on their subjects.

Here's an excerpt:

However, photos can also accomplish ethical work. They can influence how we think about people who are different from us. Formal photos like portraits can be particularly transformative since they disrupt public expectations. The subject of a portrait is recognized as worthy of being photographed. The format implies that you are worthy of contemplation and commemoration. So the very acts of staging and taking the photos symbolize their membership in a valued group – those who ought to be gazed at.

(source, emphasis added)

Read her succinct and interesting post here.

[... space that protected and cared for the most fragile bodies]

Richard Beck, in his series discussing "The Gospel According to Ta-Nehisi Coates" (particularly in reference to Coates' book Between the World and Me), says this about what Jesus' kingdom looked like:

Jesus, by contrast, created communities centered around giving care to the most vulnerable in his society. Jesus carved out of Empire space that protected and cared for the most fragile bodies. That's what Jesus did as he moved from town to town, he created a community where the most oppressed and marginalized were welcomed and cared for. Communities of care that were open to agents of Empire, tax collectors and Roman soldiers, who were willing to work to buffer fragile bodies.

And this is what the early church did as well. The church carved out of Empire communities of care. Imperial Rome knew Christianity to be religion popular with women and slaves because of how these communities buffered their fragile bodies from the ravages of Empire.

To my eye, these communities of care carved out of Empire are what Jesus meant when he said "the kingdom of God is in your midst."

(source, emphasis added)

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Read the rest of the article (the really good stuff is in the latter half of the post).

Read the series from Part 1.

an apology from NJ State Troopers and the Mercer County Sheriff's Office

For Radazz Hearn, age 14.  Shot seven times on Friday, August 7, 2015, by New Jersey state troopers and Mercer County Sheriff's officer for running away. In stable condition in hospital.

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we just want to say

You went off at a run
in your sweatpants
red as blood
and reached for a ?

our instinct said gun
we shot seven times
to protect the neighbourhood
from thugs like you

Forgive us
for not liking you black and red fashion
it clashes with white folks'
sense of decorum

poem by rob g

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Read an apology from the Waller County Sheriff's Office.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Read an explanation of false apology poems.

august field trip to a church in London

I arrived about ten minutes late to find the door locked, not a great surprise considering the east-end-of-downtown location of the church and that it was evening, and rang the bell. A moment later, a friendly black woman wearing a colourful tie-dye shirt opened the door, introduced herself as Veronica, and welcomed me in.

She led me into the sanctuary - the rented space seats at least 400 just on the main floor, and there were only about fifty people present. I took a seat and discovered I had arrived just in time for the start of the sermon. Bruce, the pastor, was articulate, friendly and engaging. The service went on from there, not that different from what I experienced growing up Baptist and then attending Anglican churches as an adult. Prayer, Bible readings, hymns and contemporary songs (all familiar to me), sermon, communion, announcements. Across the board, the content was as evangelical as it gets.

In fact, if someone showed you a videotape of the service, leaving out announcements and a few identifying details, you might reasonably think this was any one of the many evangelical churches across our country. In reality, it's the London congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church,  a denomination that had its "origins serving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people" and which has now "become an inclusive and affirming congregation that actively welcomes all people".

Dare I suggest that this church is more evangelical - more full of good news - than evangelical usually gets?

In many churches, there are limits as to who is embraced, barriers keeping some out, conditions one has to meet, beliefs people have to agree with to take part. Here, everyone is welcome, all are embraced, the doors are flung wide open. That's good news! And here, in line with Jesus' model of going to those at the margins of his society, this church is about those at the margin of society - and everyone else - being welcomed and embraced.

The service itself was anti-climactic. It didn't have the showiness of seeker churches, the cool of hipster services, or the fervor of an old-fashioned tent revival. Sorry to break it to you, but it wasn't fabulously gay either. Embrace of all of God's creation with a focus on Jesus doesn't make for an exciting church; it makes for a local body of Christ where "come as you are" is real rather than a trite saying, where "just as I am" applies to everyone, where our common need for Jesus' love and God's mercy levels the ground beneath us, where we meet together to praise God and together learn what it means to be apprentices of Jesus.

One thing did stand out about the service, something that in my years of church life I've not seen before. During communion, after the priest or helper gave the bread and wine to the parishioner, they also gave a blessing. Not a simple "Lord bless you and keep you" or similar phrase and then on to the next person. Instead, they put their arms around each and every parishioner and said a prayer of blessing, different for each person.

Seeing this, and as it came closer to my turn to receive communion, I wondered if I as an outsider would also be given a blessing. I was, and part of it included these words: "May the love you experience here travel with you wherever you go."

Amen.

an apology from St. Louis Police Department Officer Darren Wilson

In memory of Michael Brown, killed August 9, 2014 by SLPD Officer Darren Wilson.

(Photo by AP)

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i just want to say

Newly graduated from high school
you stole from a convenience store
walked down the street
with your friend

I shot you twelve times in the front
now you are dead and I am hated
how inconvenient for me
that I came by and did my duty

Forgive me
those cigarillos
would have killed you in the end
anyway

poem by rob g

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Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[asexuality]

Eliel Cruz, a speaker and columnist, has started a series with The Advocate called, #21AceStories. It's intended to amplify the voices of asexual individuals and increase understanding and acceptance about a little known sexual orientation. 21 asexual people around the world were asked, "What's the biggest misconception about asexuality?" Their answers fell into different categories, for which visual graphics were created and are being released in a series of four installments (1) (2) (3). Cruz also previously curated #27Bistories, which similarly addressed misconceptions about bisexuality.

(source)