Sabbatical Church Hopping X

Sunday, March 18, 2012.  11 a.m.  All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, New York, NY.

When our nephew was accepted to college in Easton Pennsylvania, my partner and I made the decision that if he was up for it, we would take him to New York City for March Break.  He had fallen in love with NYC as a young boy and is absolutely determined to find his way to Manhattan when he graduates.  We couldn’t think of a better place to take him.

I’d never been to Manhattan.  I somehow thought I didn’t need to because wasn’t Toronto Canada’s New York City?  Hadn’t I already had my big city experience living in downtown Toronto for 10 years?  Well, I was in for a shock.  Seven years in suburban St. Louis have apparently slowed me down a bit.  I was surprised at how assaulted I felt by the noise, the crowds, and the smells.  I’m used to larger spaces, parking lots whenever I need them, and wide aisles in the grocery store.    I’m used to being a little surprised when I see someone actually using a sidewalk!

We emerged from Penn Station, laden with suitcases, and couldn’t figure out which way was north or south.  It took us about 20 minutes to find the F line and go in the right direction to the apartment we’d rented in the Lower East Side.  I have never experienced such packed sidewalks and so much noise (well, maybe in Berlin, but that was 20 years ago).

We did everything that tourists normally do.  Times Square.  Rockefeller Center.  Staaten Island Ferry.  Wall Street.  Broadway.  We also went to the Stonewall Inn, Central Park, The Apple Store, The Dakota (where John Lennon was shot), the Brooklyn Museum to see Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, and of course the Met, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (which I HIGHLY recommend) AND a whole series of gluten free restaurants.  We walked everywhere.  I ate so much bread and cheese!  I’m glad I brought stretchy pants.

I seemed to adjust to the noise and the crowds on day 3.

I decided if I was in NYC, I couldn’t pass up the chance to go to All Souls UU NYC.  This church is legendary in our history.  Rev. Forrest Church, one of our most well respected theologians, was their minister for many years and remained their Minister Emeritus until his recent passing.  I had to go see the place for myself and experience its worship.

All Souls was founded in NYC in 1819.  Its current building is its second home.  It has a membership of 1500 and two services.   When you go their website, “Worship” is the first tab on the list, followed by “Ministers”, and then “Community”.  I don’t know if this order says anything about their missional priorities.  From the website and from my experience there, I gathered the sense that this congregation has a culture that supports a stronger level of ministerial authority than you might see in other UU churches.  This may have to do with the fact that it is a New England church.  Anti-clericalism seems to be more prevalent in our mid-western and western churches than in the east, where Unitarian Universalism is woven into New England culture and history.

Also, in this church in particular, the authority given its ministers is very necessary.  It’s simply what you need for a church of 1500 members to be healthy and dynamic.  The senior minister of a corporate size church is like a CEO.  They often call the shots.  Some people ask, isn’t this anti-UU?  What about congregational polity?  In response, some UUs would say it is more democratic to have a strong minister because the minister is elected by the congregation to lead them and committee chairs aren’t.  There is also greater accountability.  Greater power, greater accountability.

So on Sunday morning, we took the 6 line subway and got off at 77 and Lexington, in the Upper East Side, and walked up to the church.  Well, I should say we stopped at Starbucks first and then walked up to the church.  You could see it from a block away because they have large red flags hanging from the front of the building, saying “All Souls NYC.”   Pretty smart I thought.  Makes them visible from the sidewalk.

There is a very small courtyard off to the side.  I saw that I was not the only person to stop at Starbucks.  A whole bunch of people, mostly young adults, were hanging out sipping coffee, waiting for the second service to start.  There was a bike rack in the courtyard and it was filled.  I could hear the pipe organ playing what sounded like the postlude.

I walked into the building and stood in the front vestibule and was immediately told by a greeter that I couldn’t bring my coffee into the sanctuary.  Wow, did I feel welcome!  The postlude wasn’t finished yet, so I started looking at the various pictures on the walls.  I noticed a diagram of a sanctuary.  A woman came to me and introduced herself as the church historian.  She was very friendly and told me that was the diagram of their previous sanctuary, and that all the rectangles represented pews.  Each pew had a family name, which indicated which family rented the pew.  I remembered hearing about this in UU history classes.  Way back when, in many New England churches, families rented pews and the same pew would belong to your family for generations.  Of course, how far up your pew was reflected your status in the community. Seeing this diagram reminded me that although we in the midwest often experience our faith tradition as an outpost in hostile religious right territory, in New England, Unitarianism emerged from within the upper echelons of society.  The early Unitarians were people of political and economic might deeply connected to their communities, often the rock of their communities.

The Postlude finally ended and the people in the first service began filing out.  I saw two ministers, both women, greeting them.  I recognized them from UU Ministers Association national gatherings but figured I’d leave them alone.  I know how demanding Sunday mornings are.  Three hours on a Sunday morning take more energy than a regular 8 hour day.  And besides, it’s more important for their parishioners to have access to them than me.  I’m not who they’re here for on a Sunday morning.

I walked into the sanctuary and just about gasped.  It was a beautiful cathedral.  High high ceilings.  Lots of light.  Thick marble columns lining the central sanctuary.  A wing on each side of the main sanctuary.  A stunning chancel with two wooden pulpits on either side with a much larger pulpit on a higher level in the middle.  The artwork on the front chancel wall was modern, at least 10 feet high,  and looked like a shaft of light bursting through the canvass.  I turned and looked towards the back of the sanctuary.  The back wall opened up to a second floor choir balcony and a huge pipe organ.  The walls around the sanctuary were decorated with memorial marble slabs each with the name of a famous Unitarian and sometimes a quote from that person.  The pews were solid wood and painted.  I estimated seating at around 500.  Maybe more.

This place was drenched in history.

I took my place in a shorter pew near the middle of the main sanctuary.  I probably sat down about five minutes before the start of the service.

No one said hello, although it was apparent that many people were greeting each other.  I saw no children.  Apparently they immediately go to their RE classrooms. I saw a real mix of ages.  I wouldn’t say there was an over-representation of any particular age.  There was some racial diversity but it was definitely in the minority.  The sanctuary seemed about 75% full.

The pipe organ began the prelude precisely at 11 a.m.  It was something magnificent and classical.  After a brief welcome came the call to worship – a soloist accompanied by piano.  I was surprised that the soloist was not miked.  I couldn’t hear a word he sang although he obviously had a wonderful voice.  After opening words came their unison affirmation, which they call a Bond of Union:

“In the freedom of the truth and in the spirit of love, we unite for the worship of God and the service of all.”

I took note of the word “God.”  It was clear from the website and from their order of service that this congregation doesn’t seem to have the hangups about the word “God” that I’ve experienced in other UU congregations.  In fact, this seems to be more true of eastern UU congregations.  There doesn’t seem to be the same level of prejudice against those who believe in God or use the word God in their spirituality.   And yes, I use that word “prejudice” intentionally.  It has seemed to me that in many UU congregations I’ve experienced, every spirituality is welcomed, but when it comes to Christianity, or theism, there are often raised eyebrows, forced smiles, and uncomfortable silence.  In my time as a minister I’ve had the sad experience of seeing too many theist and/or Christian-leaning UUs come to my office and tell me they have to go somewhere else because they just don’t feel welcome.   There just isn’t room for them to openly be who they are.

I wonder if this is as true in the Eastern U.S.  I’m slowly starting to learn that there are real differences in the way UUism is experienced and lived across the United States.  I’ve been in the U.S. 7 years and I’m only starting to really get some sense of this.  As I sat at All Souls NYC and listened to their liturgy, I wondered if I was experiencing a regional variation first hand.  I wondered if UUs in the east, for whatever reason, understand intuitively that when we say the word “God” it uniquely reflects our theology.  I wonder if there are fewer battered people in eastern UU churches because of the weaker position of the religious right.   I wonder if the fact that UUism has a deep history in New England means people come with more trust to begin with.  No answers here.  Just wonderings.

I don’t really want to into great detail about every aspect of the service but I do want to offer some brief observations.

1) Aside from First Congregational UCC in St. Louis, this was the most traditional service I attended during my sabbatical.  Traditional sanctuary.  Classical music performed by professionals.  Traditional order of service.  Ministers fully robed.  Pipe organ.  Predominantly classical music.

2) The service was executed flawlessly.  No awkward gaps.  No amateur musicians.  There were testimonies by lay people but it was clear they had been well planned, timed, and possibly even rehearsed.

3) The sound system had a lot to be desired.  The vocalist was never miked.  Because of the stone sanctuary, all the miked sound echoed.  It made every word feel far away.  I did not experience intimacy.  Grandeur, yes.  Intimacy, no.  I sometimes had to strain to listen to the sermon because of the slight echo.  I don’t know if there is anything they could have done about that without carpeting the walls, and who wants to carpet the walls of a cathedral?

4) The sermon.  The focus of the service was racial diversity.  I learned that the church made a commitment several years ago to develop a culture that would support greater racial diversity.  This service was about holding up that commitment, celebrating the accomplishments, and reinforcing that there is more to be done.  The Associate Minister preached about Unitarian and Universalist history, holding up how the congregation’s commitment comes forth from that history.  This approach seemed to make a lot of sense given the context.  All Souls NYC’s facility lives, breathes, and bleeds history, so she was anchoring their commitment to racial diversity within their own story.

I thought she did a good job.  The sermon was definitely directed more to my mind than my heart.  I didn’t leave the service feeling that I had really experienced something amazing and meaningful.  I was not changed inside for the experience.  I did feel more knowledgeable.

I appreciated her hard work.  Even when I experience a sermon that doesn’t hit my core, I try to stay in a place of generosity because I know how hard this job is and how much work goes into a sermon.  We can’t always hit the mark every Sunday.  I also know that I may have heard the sermon differently than her parishioners.  I have no relationship with the congregation and no personal stake in how things are going.  It’s very likely there was stuff in that sermon, stuff that would resonate with its members, that I missed completely.

I did have some thoughts, though, as I listened and watched.  I found myself wondering how a church that is so clearly anchored in the history of upper middle class white people could begin to more successfully reflect the diversity of the city in which it exists.  I’m sure they’ve wondered this themselves.  I found myself wondering if this congregation would ever reconsider its style of music in order to reflect that diversity.  Is a pipe organ and classical music antithetical to the goal of racial diversity?  I don’t have answers for this.  I have wonderings.

I should also admit that I’ve never liked singing with a pipe organ.  I know lots of people love the feeling of hymn singing with an instrument of such grandeur.  I always feel like the people are lost.  I can’t hear the people around me, sometimes can’t hear my own voice.  I love  just listening to a pipe organ, but not singing with one.  I feel distanced from my own voice, from the people around me, and from the song itself.   I guess I feel like I don’t matter, that the addition of my voice makes no difference to how the song sounds or feels.  The organ controls it all.

Truth be told, I think I might feel that way about vast worship spaces too.  This is something I came to realize over my sabbatical. I visited so many different sanctuaries and some had that intimate feel to them and some didn’t.  Faith Church St. Louis with its cavernous auditorium, I felt lost.  Same thing at the Catholic parish.  I did not feel that way at St. John’s warehouse.  The theology alienated me but not the space.  There were probably 250 or more people there, but there was an intimacy to the space.  I’ve been in sanctuaries that hold 400 people and felt a sense of intimacy because the space was made to feel intimate and I’ve been in a sanctuary for 100 people that gave me no sense of connection at all.

I felt lost in the cathedral-like sanctuary at All Souls NYC.  Lost in the pipe organ.  Lost in the echoey sound system.  Lost in the painted pews and high ceilings.  Lost in having no one say hi to me except the church historian.  So then I started to wonder, well, obviously 1500 people don’t feel lost.  They get something very important from the context in which they worship.  Are they connected through family history, small group ministry, a social group, a social justice program?  Is their sense of sacred touched by the vastness of their worshiping space and the grandeur of the pipe organ, and the church’s 200 year history that is so clearly reflected around them?  Even the voice of a minister that slightly echoes?  I have to think that at some level, maybe many levels, the answer is yes.  1500 people have found their voice at All Souls NYC.  It’s doing something special.  Their lives have more meaning, purpose, and direction because of what they can give and receive in their religious home.

I really wish I had felt differently there.  I was quite excited to go.  I wanted to be blown away by the experience of worshiping in this church that has such a reputation.  It didn’t happen for me, but is that really important?  Is that the bottom line, that I didn’t get an “Oh my god” moment?

One of the weaknesses of our liberal religious tradition is that we have frequently misunderstood the emphasis on the self.  It has far too often become idolized.  We worship the self like fundamentalists worship the Bible.  Both practices can become abusive and narcissistic and blinding.

Maybe it’s good to feel lost sometimes.  Maybe it’s good to sing with a pipe organ and not be able to hear your own voice.  Maybe my own voice needs to be drowned out once in a while.  Maybe the truth needs to echo and I should struggle to hear it.

Because really, it’s not all about us.  Maybe in our hyper-individualized society where we are both nothing and little gods we need to experience what it is like to be small, a tiny head in a sea of worshippers, a little voice in a big choir, an unknown guest being asked to leave that cup of coffee behind before going into a sanctuary that has been 200 years in the developing and where the light spilling off a canvass wasn’t painted by anyone I knew.  Maybe we need to learn to be silent in the face of things we don’t yet understand.    Sometimes it is more powerful and more respectful to listen than to speak, more powerful and healing to be invisible than to be seen.

We didn’t set the sun on fire after all.

The postlude was a glorious fugue by J.S. Bach. Performed flawlessly.  The majestic chords of the pipe organ filled that sanctuary as the minister’s voice simply couldn’t, and when I emerged out of the space-saturated sanctuary and entered the people-flooded sidewalks on Lexington Avenue and melted into the crowds on the 6 line subway and found my way back to our little anthill-like apartment on the Lower East Side, I knew it was a good day.

Sabbatical Church Hopping IX

Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis, Sunday March 11, 2012.  10:30 a.m.

I arrived at MCC, located on Broadway St. in Soulard at precisely 10:25.  There were no parking spots left so I parked further down on the street and walked a couple of minutes to get there.  I wasn’t the only one doing that.

The Metropolitan Community Church was founded in 1968 by a minister in Los Angeles who believed there should be a Christian church that was accepting and affirming of homosexuality.  Affirmation of diversity and acceptance of diverse sexual orientations has been their mission ever since.  MCC churches accept everyone and the main focus of their ministry is to provide a place of healing, acceptance, and growth in the Christian spirit of unconditional love.

I walked into what felt like a big family reunion.  Not unlike at Emerson Chapel, people were hugging each other, saying hi, catching up on news, and just plain looking like they liked to be there.  Almost everyone seemed to be either a sexual or gender minority.  I saw a lot of trans folk.  I saw a lot of same sex couples.  I saw a lot of families.  I also saw a lot of people of color.  While it is still majority white, I would say that at least 15%-20% of the congregation was non-white.  I saw Southeast Asian, Black and Hispanic people in attendance.

I was warmly greeted as I walked in the door and given a copy of the announcements.  Once again, there was no printed order of service.

The MCC-GSTL building is very new.  They used to rent the large sanctuary at the now vacated United Methodist Church on the corner of Washington and Kingshighway.  When the UMC was closed by the diocese, MCC-GSTL had the opportunity to buy the building.  They decided no.  It is huge, old, expensive to heat, in need of repair, and even though gorgeous in a classical style, it didn’t match who they were.   They decided it did not support their mission.  It was finally time to take the plunge and get their own building.  They bought property in a warehousey kind of area on South Broadway, not too far from the Budweiser Brewery, and built new.

Their sanctuary is very simple.  A large rectangular sanctuary with stackable upholstered chairs, with the chancel on the long side of the rectangle, not unlike Emerson, although the sanctuary is probably twice the size.  Like many contemporary churches there were two media screens, one on both sides of the chancel.  There were moveable choir risers, a table holding the communion elements, and that was it.  Very very simple.

They began with a welcome and announcements and asked any visitors to raise their hands so they could be welcomed.  I felt pretty comfortable and the atmosphere felt very accepting.  And after all, I was with Family.  I raised my hand, along with several others, and we got applause and welcome packets.  From that time on I felt like the people around me were kind of watching out for me to make sure I knew what was happening and wasn’t ever left to have to figure things out on my own.  That was nice.  It was nice to be seen and cared for that way.

Then began the singing.  Up came the lyrics on the big screens.  Everyone stood.  The choir came up from the sanctuary and took their places on the risers.  The style of music was no different from what I’d experienced at St. John Lutheran , Meadowbrook Mennonite Brethren, or non-denominational Faith Church St. Louis –   contemporary  Christian.  The lyrics, however, were subtly different.  ”All are welcome.  You are welcome.  God loves you.  Jesus is with you.  I’m so happy.  Praise praise praise.  We’re on this journey together praise Jesus.”  That kind of stuff.  Having the congregational singing augmented with a large choir (at least 40 people I’d say) felt so good, and to be honest, so familiar.  This is the first service I’d attended all sabbatical that had a choir.  The singing was spirited and loud.  People clapped and shouted.   Honestly I could have sung all day, even with lyrics that I wouldn’t necessarily use on my own.  It felt that good.

When the hymns finished, the choir had the chance to strut its stuff and it was a great choir.  They had no music in their hands.  What a difference that makes.  They weren’t staring into their choir folders but right out at us, engaging us with their eyes and their voices.  Several members of the choir were showcased with solos.

I have to say quite honestly this is the best energy I had felt in any of the congregations I’d visited.  Kind, warm, loving, happy, energized, and purposeful.  This congregation knows exactly why it’s here.  You can feel it every second of every minute.  It is reflected in every aspect of worship – the opening words, the welcome, the music, the prayers.

There was a children’s story and the minister told it.  She was white.  She asked them what it takes to make a human being.  There were the standard answers.  Arms.  Legs.  Hair.  Lips.  A Brain.  Then she said, it also takes a drop of God.   There is a drop of God in every single human being and that means we should respect and honor everyone we meet, for we are meeting God.  I was reminded of the Hare Krishna Temple, where I was told that every visitor is treated as if God has knocked on the front door.

(in response to a comment below)  At this point the children were sent to their own classes.  The sanctuary became an adult space.

When the minister took her place for the sermon, she was warm and relaxed.  She preached extemporaneously.  I wouldn’t say she was emotional in a mushy smarmy way, but emotional in an authentic way. She exuded calm and poise, grace and approachability.  Her topic?  Sexuality and spirituality.  Let me paraphrase what I remember from the sermon:

So we’re talking about sexuality and spirituality.  I bet if we’d put that on our sign outside the house would be packed!  Why are we talking about this?  Because we need to.  We need to talk about the connection between our sexuality and spirituality because we live in a society that doesn’t really give us many places to do this in an authentic safe way.

Our community especially needs this.  You’d think we talk about sex all the time because our sexuality is such a part of how we define ourselves as LTBTQ people, but we don’t.  Those of us in the older generation, the only way we usually talk about sex is after a few too many drinks.  Those of us in the younger generation, so much is hypersexualized that it’s hard to talk about the truth of the matter the way we need to.

Now, we as a community know what it is like to be defined by our sexuality.  The society around us does it all the time.  Our community, the lgbtq community has been hypersexualized.  So has the black community.  Those of you who are black know all too well, whether you are women or men, that blacks have been hypersexualized.  This is a form of discrimination that has hurt all of us so much.  I pray for the day when this is no longer the case.

We have to talk about sex because to talk about sex is to talk about God.   That may sound strange in a church, but it’s the truth.  There is a drop of God in all of us, and that means there is God in our sexuality.  How we engage our bodies and how we share our bodies is about how we honor God and how we worship God.  Pure and simple.

God and sexuality were divorced in the Christian church many centuries ago.  The body was seen as depraved and earthly.  The spirit or soul as that which connects us to God.  This is how we find ourselves divided.  It’s time to break down the divide.

Now one of the things we don’t talk alot about in this church is the diversity within our community.  How many of you have heard about BDSM?

(there was a twitter in the congregation..)

Can anyone tell me what BDSM stands for?

(more twittering and nervousness.  someone, a woman answers – Bondage, Dominance, and Sado-Masochism)

Thank you because I’m sure that if I tried to say it I’d get it wrong.  This is a part of our community and we don’t talk about it because we don’t know how to.  We’ve got leather men and daddies and bois, we’ve got bears and cubs and tops and bottoms and subs and doms and who knows what else.  And that’s just in the gay community.  Us lesbians, I think we’re a lot more boring.  (laughter all around)

Well, in the BDSM community there’s a rule of thumb.  Safe, sane, and consensual.   Is it safe?  Is it sane? And is everyone involved truly consenting.  Imagine if all of us lived by that rule of thumb.  Safe.  Sane. Consensual.

I tell you here today, that this rule of thumb – safe, sane, consensual – this is how we honor God in our sexuality.  This is how we honor the drop of God that is in us and in those we share our bodies and our hearts with.

I also know that there are all kinds of commitments that we make to each other in this community, and not all of them are monogamy.  I have couples come to me to get married – either in Iowa to make it legal, or in Illinois to have a civil union, or sometimes just to voice their promises to each other in this sanctuary – and I know many of us have different kinds of commitments that we make to each other.   It could be monogamy.  It could be something else.  I don’t think it’s my place to judge.  I have a hard enough time disagreeing with the one wife I do have!  But it’s not my place to judge.

What I say to everyone who comes to me, and what I say to you is this, whatever your agreement, are you faithful to it?  That is the meaning of commitment, being faithful to your agreements, your promises to each other.  Be intentional about your agreements, be sure that everyone has fully consented to your agreement, and then be faithful to it.  This is how you honor God.  This is how we live with and in Christ.  This is how we live our spirituality through our sexuality.

These are the kinds of things we need to talk about, and it doesn’t stop here in this worship service.  We will be talking about it in our classes, and we have places to talk about it online.  Let’s start the conversation within this religious community, in this place where we come to honor and love God.

Be faithful to your promises,  be loving to each other, be safe, sane, and consensual.  Honor the drop of God that is in you, the drop of God that wants to be fulfilled in you.

In Jesus name, Amen.

That was the sermon.  I was, to put it mildly, stunned.  This woman had, in the span of about 15 minutes, touched on so many taboo subjects in Bible Belt Missouri that my head was spinning.  Was I back in Toronto?  Could I have really heard all of this in a worship service in St. Louis Missouri on Broadway?

I have had the hardest time figuring out the gay community in Missouri.  I’ve lived in Springfield MO and St. Louis MO and to be honest, the community seems so very.. well… quiet and well-behaved and very self conscious.  I came out in Toronto.  The largest gay community in Canada, the third largest gay community in North America after San Francisco and New York City.  The community has tremendous cultural and economic power in Toronto and it is extremely diverse and out there.  Toronto Pride is the largest Pride in North America (an average of 1.5 to 2 million attend each year).  If you are an elected politician in Toronto and you want to have any cultural capital for your political agenda, you will be in the Pride Parade. (Take note Mayor Ford.)

Which is kind of funny because Toronto Pride is wild.  The nudists are out (with their little g-string oak leaves that blow in the wind so they adhere to the  minimum legal standard for being clothed).  The leather community is out. The drag queens and drag kings are out.  The Dykes on Bikes head every parade.  There are almost naked buff boys in sparklies all over the place.  Every major corporation hires them to dance on their floats, from banks to insurance companies to Coca Cola and Labatts Blue.  It is big business.

The first time I attended St. Louis Pride I almost fell asleep.  It was incredibly well behaved.  It was modest.  It was relatively quiet, and then everyone went to Tower Grove Park and it felt like a big family BBQ.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have come to deeply appreciate St. Louis Pride, but I have had to find a place of understanding for why it was so different from the community in which I first expressed and formed my identity as a sexual minority.  Why was it so contained in comparison?

Being LGBTQ in Toronto is no longer a minority experience.  The community is very well integrated into the city as a whole.  We have equal rights there.  You are not a second class citizen anymore.  You have cultural capital (and the law behind you).

That is not the case in St. Louis.  You can still be fired and denied housing for being gay.  If you are in a partnership and don’t have your paperwork in order and one of you kicks the bucket, you aren’t entitled to a thing.  Your partner’s family could swoop in and take everything in your partner’s name, including children who may consider you their parent.  Even if you do have your paperwork in order (which can cost $1000s), it’s not unheard of for families to contest this in court and win.    On top of this we’ve just been through more than a decade of being used as a wedge issue to get out the conservative vote.  Horrible things are said about us very publicly and very often and the people who say those things will and do actively use their political clout to keep us from having equal rights.

All of this has made this a much more cautious community.  The St. Louis LGBTQ community does not have the same cultural capital and thus is has to be very mindful of the community in which it is existing.  You just can’t take the same things for granted.  In this context, what does happen at Pride St. Louis is downright daring.

When the minister said in her intro that “We don’t talk about sex,” I did a double take.  What was she talking about?  Gay people talk about sex all the time!  It defines us.

But that’s in Toronto and New York and Chicago and San Francisco and Vancouver and Los Angeles where there are tens or hundreds of thousands of us.  In St. Louis, in a more hostile community which has hypersexualized us, we don’t.  We are much more circumspect about who we are and what it means to us to be a sexual minority.  We keep our mouths shut a lot more.

In rural and smaller urban settings, the LGBTQ community is much more likely to self-censor and self-silence as a way to protect itself.  But, there is a definite cost.  The cost is shame.  Eventually, you internalize the shame that has led to your silence.  So there is a trade off.  Your silence may buy you some safety, but often at a deep personal and collective cost.  In our individual and collective silences is shame, isolation and self-loathing.

We also separate from each other in fear of being judged.  We separate ourselves from those who can’t pass, who appear more marginalized than we.  These are some examples of the unexpressed things we will often think to ourselves:

“I’ll watch a  drag queen show in a bar where it feels more private but don’t expect me to acknowledge one in public.”

“If you look too butchy/faggy, I won’t acknowledge you in public because then people might associate me with you and then I won’t be able to pass anymore.  So don’t look at me in Lowes, or Schnucks or Starbucks.   Please, don’t.”

“And those polyamorous people.  Oh no, we don’t do that.  We are all upstanding monogamous couples.  Those of you who are polyamorous, can you just go away for a while?  We’ll get to you once we can get married.  Then it’s your turn, O.K.?  We have to look as respectable as possible to those straight people or we’ll never get anywhere.”

I think what this minister was carefully doing was expressing some of the things our community has silenced, and telling us that in silencing these things, we have denied the drop of God in ourselves and others.  She was asking us to truly honor the drop of God that is in every person.

To which I say, Amen Sister.

Let me tell you something.  Back in the late 1990s, when the political energy for same-sex marriage had just started to mobilize, I did not support it.  I was not in support of working for the recognition of our relationships as “marriages.”  There were many reasons for this.

1) I felt that the push for same sex marriage was about asking for heterosexual approval for who we were.  I didn’t want to put myself in the position of asking for that approval because I had no faith that we would ever get it.  Why make ourselves that vulnerable?  Why need heterosexual people in that way?

2) I and many others were deeply concerned that the push for the equal marriage would drive underground many of the subcultures in the LGBTQ community that would be harder for the heterosexual mainstream to understand.  The BDSM community.  The polyamorous community.  The bisexual community.  Transgendered and transexual people.  And indeed, it became clear over the years that the need for respectability did create implicit and explicit pressure for those who were on the margins within the LGBTQ community to  hide themselves, to be silent, to step aside, so that “we” could present to the larger heterosexual society a sanitized, more “normal” version of who we were.  This is where the phrase, “We’re just like you.  We just want the same rights you have,” came from.  Some subcultures in the LGBTQ community were very uncomfortable with this statement.  It made them invisible.  They felt as if they were seen as barriers to the goal of equality.  Unmentionables.

3) Especially within the women’s community, many expressed a deep discomfort  with the whole concept of marriage.  Some of us, and at that time it included me, saw marriage as a patriarchal institution.  There was no way a woman could find equality within it; the inculturation of power differentials and gender norms were just too strong.  Why would we ever want to fight for that institution?  Better just to stay under the radar and do things our own way.

So what happened?

1) I never in my wildest dreams would have expected such a rapid shift in public support for sexual diversity.  I can’t believe how much has changed in 15 years.  Clearly, I underestimated the ability of “the mainstream” to be as open minded as they have become.  My own wedding is a case in point.  We weren’t sure who would come.  People from the church I grew up in called my parents to make sure they received their invitation.  The minister of that same church came with her husband and her toddler to celebrate our marriage.  She also provided considerable pastoral care to me as I worked through my grief about who did not come to my wedding.

2) I have come to understand that this isn’t just about getting heterosexual approval.  It is also about fundamental civil rights.  I began to understand what that meant when I myself entered into a long-term committed relationship.  We’ve been together 10 years now.  My partner and I have a stake in each other.  We are completely financially glued together and we would benefit very much from being legally recognized as other couples are.  We are more vulnerable for not having that legal recognition.

3)  There is something very powerful about the institution of marriage.  It has deep emotional resonance, spiritual beauty, and strong cultural meaning.  There is no doubt that it can be a patriarchal institution.  Anti-gay-marriage folks have done a pretty good job of showing us why and how.  But, let’s not undermine the agency of millions of heterosexual and bisexual women and men who have entered into opposite sex unions with a strong commitment to egalitarianism and to doing the work to identify their own sexist assumptions.  Marriage has changed – a lot – and it is changing again for the better because of every person who makes it their own.

I am still concerned and aware that some of the sub-cultures have had to become more invisible, silenced, in order to make the gains that we have.  Polyamorous family units remain incredibly vulnerable – judged in both the gay and straight worlds for the form of their commitment, and very legally vulnerable.  So are their children who could be taken away by a well meaning Department of Family Services social worker were anyone to lodge a complaint.  The BDSM world – well it’s always been quiet and it just stayed quiet.  But, for people who make that system of power dynamics their life, they have to be very careful.  You could lose your children, your family, your friends, your job.  And, both these sub-cultures run the risk of facing the disapproval of other LGBTQ people if it looks like their need for acceptance could risk the acquisition of equal marriage.

I was moved to my core to see the minister of the most prominent gay christian church in St. Louis legitimize BDSM and polyamorous relationships structures as having intrinsic sacred worth and value, and in fact having something to teach the rest of us about how to be living manifestations of that drop of God.  I have friends in both communities and that’s the way I have always seen their way of loving, and will continue to.

Amen and blessed be.

Sabbatical Church Hopping VIII

Sunday, March 11, 2012.  Faith Church St. Louis, Sunset Hills Campus, 8:45 a.m.

Well, I decided I really should go to a megachurch, and the most prominent one, the one with more billboards than any other in the city, is Faith Church St. Louis.  These are the billboards with that guy with the funny beard standing next to Joel Osteen.  My partner and I have always joked that they look like lovers.  They’re just looking too happy, and Joel Osteen is just too pretty to be straight.

But there’s nothing to laugh about when you look at the success of this church.  Two large campuses in Sunset Hills and Earth City on prime real estate at the intersections of 4 of our 5 major interstates.  1000s of members.  Between the two congregations, 6 services a weekend (plus two extra on the fifth Sunday of the month).  Strong street, prison, and anti-hunger ministries in Missouri, as well as an outreach program to help prostitutes in the developing world find their way out of the profession and into jobs that can support their families.  They are half way through a $2.5 million capital campaign for building improvements to the Sunset Hills Campus.  Who knows what their annual operating expenses are.

I decided to go to the 8:45 a.m. service so that I could hightail it down to Soulard afterwards and catch the 10:30 service at the Metropolitan Community Church.

You know something is going down when you drive into the parking lot and you can hear the bass beat vibrating in your car while it’s still running and the windows are up.  This place was rocking.  I walked through a very old and in need of repair parking lot and through a side door and was greeted by someone with a huge smile and an order of service.  As with other contemporary services, there was no actual order of service.  These were announcements.

The first thing I noticed is that this is a multi-racial congregation.  I wasn’t expecting that and honestly I really liked seeing it.  St. Louis is a very racially segregated city so anytime I see a multi-racial setting it feels good to me, like there are places where the divide is breaking down.  There were African American families and some Hispanic families.  There were biracial families.  I’ll be honest and say that the majority of attendees were still white, probably in the range of 60-70%.  But in anti-racist UUA lingo, 20% racial minorities in a congregation is a major tipping point, and this congregation was way past our own standards.

I don’t think this just happened.  I don’t know of one organization that becomes interracial just by wanting to.  You make intentional choices about all levels of your organization’s life.  Music is often one of the best places to start.  You start at the level of culture.  The band, composed of four musicians (bass, lead guitar, drummer, keyboardist) plus five singers was half black half white.  The music had a strong r and b/gospel feel to it.

The attendance was sparse.  Granted this was 8:45 a.m. on the day that Daylight Savings Time started.  It certainly felt like it was 7:45 a.m. when I staggered in.

This church blew all the others I’ve visited out of the water when it came to multimedia.  One huge screen in the center which focused on the stage.  Two on each side with the lyrics to the music.  We sang for about 15 minutes.

This church is led by a co-pastor clergy couple.  David and Nicole.  They are white.  Nicole was the first to come forward and offer the prayer.   While she prayed there was a constantly changing series of images on the three screens.  She prayed for healing.   There is absolutely nothing God can’t heal.

Then they introduced the theme via video.  ”Catapult: The Big Finale.”  Like most congregations, they are working up to Easter.  It felt kind of like I was watching a Much Music video.  The music was loud, the images came quickly, the colors were bright and flashing.  Not unlike the visuals animating Fox News or MSNBC.

Then came four songs of non-religious popular music focused on the theme of love against all odds, including Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”  A little boy sang one, the band sang two, and a little girl sang Adele.  That girl can sing!

Then, finally, David walks on stage.  You haven’t seen him up until now.  I think what they’ve done is schedule their services so that he is able to do the sermon at one campus and rush to the next campus just in time to do the sermon there, and rush back to the other campus.  I think he preaches at every single service.  I cannot imagine preaching 6 times a weekend.  That guy must have a limo, a hairstylist and a fashion consultant.

I checked on mapquest.  On a Sunday morning it takes precisely 24 minutes (driving the speed limit) to get from one campus to the other.  Maybe he has a TV in the limo.  I’d get bored sitting in a car all that time.  Maybe he’s watching the video of the sermon he just delivered so he can make it even better the next round.

I have to tell you, this was the best sermon I had heard to that time.  I wasn’t prepared for that.

He started with a story of a father he met for coffee one day. This father has a son who is an addict.  The father has pretty much devoted his life to keeping his son from hitting bottom and all his friends were telling him that he was enabling his son.  But he just couldn’t let go.  The last week, he had lost track of his son.  Couldn’t find him for days.  He had the police track him down through his cell phone signal, and indeed his son had been on a days long bender.  He took his son for medical care and brought him home.  The father wanted to know if he should back away, let his son face the consequences.  He didn’t know if he could do that.

The minister said to him that if it was his own daughter or son, he would do the same thing.  He just wouldn’t let them go.

Then the minister told us that this is what God is like.  He’s always looking for the cell phone signal.  He never gives up on us.  Never ever ever.  There is nothing we can do that will make God give up on us.

Then he went on to do some of the best and clearest theology I’d heard yet.  No coded language.  No subtle moral judgments.

Pastor David told the congregation in no uncertain terms that none of the struggles they face are caused by God because God is love.  Pure and simple.  None of the illnesses, none of the tragedies, none of the depression and loneliness.  None of this is punishment by God, and don’t believe anyone who tells you so.  This is part of life.  So don’t be beating yourself up thinking you are a horrible person because your life is hard.  God doesn’t make it hard.  He is the one to hold onto, he is the one looking for your cell phone signal.   He is there actively wanting to help you up and out of your suffering.

Then he talked about his childhood.  He grew up Pentecostal with a father who did believe that God caused suffering and that you had to be good to get the love of God.  So Pastor Dave spent an inordinate amount of time in his youth being afraid of God, and trying to please God, so he could have the assurance of being saved.

He basically said (I’m using my words here) that this is bullshit.  We don’t have to earn the love of God.  It is just there.  So trust it.  Trust it with all your heart.  It will not let you down.

He used the story of Shadrack Mishac and Abednago in the furnace. This is an old testament/Hebrew Scriptures story about three men who are cast into a furnace because they refuse to bow to the king.  They say they will only bow before God.  No human has the right to ask for that.  The furnace is so hot that even the men throwing them in die from the heat.  The minister told us that it wasn’t God who threw them in.  It was men.  But, it was God who kept them from burning to death.  It was their faith which kept them safe from the flames.

Now I ask you, if this isn’t universalism, the theology that our Universalist ancestors began to profess in the late 1700s, that made them the laughing stock of Christendom, that was seen as so threatening that the first Universalists in Britain came to the U.S. because they were tired of getting thrown into prison, if this isn’t the universalism that is our heritage, what is?

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  His sermon was about pure love.  Unconditional unfailing love and he was saying it is all around us. That even when we do the worst things we can imagine, God is seeking our cell phone signal and in fact, he’s already found us.  Are we going to let ourselves be healed with that undying love?

Just to do a double check, when I got home I went back to the website and looked at their statement of beliefs.  Indeed, they profess a belief in the last judgment and the rapture.  They believe in hell and that at the end of time the unsaved are going there.  But it’s at the bottom of their statement of belief.   Are they just too scared to say out loud that they don’t believe in hell?   Are they themselves still in denial that the unconditional love of God is incompatible with the concept of hell?  I don’t have an answer for that.  I think some evangelicals are starting to get that people are done with self-flagellation.  A hell fire and brimstone theology is no comfort in our increasingly alienated post modern world, unless it’s the morbid self-righteous comfort of needing others to suffer to prove that you are one of the good guys.  We want comfort, love, and the security of knowing we are not alone and will never be abandoned.

What other impression was I left with?

This church has succeeded in using contemporary cultural mediums to profess their faith.  The music, the videos, the multimedia, everything.  It was almost as if I was sitting in front of a TV.  Very little was asked of me.  I could be a passive participant.  I was offered information as if I was sitting in my living room with the blinds drawn.  They have taken away every cultural barrier they can think of that could stand between their message and their congregation, made it as palatable as possible.  Seamless really.

I will say that I did feel lost in the large auditorium.  It’s been almost two and half months since being at Emerson and I have started to miss my people.  I’ve gotten tired of worshipping with strangers.  I miss the intimacy of our space and the relationships I have with the beloved members of our religious community. We are growing, there is no doubt about that, and we shouldn’t try to slow that down or stop it.  But the questions about how to keep the intimacy when you grow are real.

Maybe someday I’ll be doing six services a weekend.

Do I get my own hairstylist, limo, and fashion consultant?  This girl wants to know.

Well if I’d had a limo, I’d have told the driver to hightail it to Soulard.  I had another worship service to catch.

Sabbatical Church Hopping VII

Sunday March 4, 2012.  St. Clare of Assisi Parish, Ellisville MO

One of the things that was impressed upon me when I moved to St.Louis almost 7 years ago is that this was an incredibly Catholic area.  St. Louis was founded as an outpost of the French Empire so the Catholic church was here from day 1.  Later waves of Catholic immigration from Ireland, German, Italy et al. cemented this as a Catholic hotbed.  It remains so today.  Within a 10 mile radius of Emerson Chapel are several huge Catholic parishes.  The one just down the street is St. Clare of Assisi, known by locals as “the potato chip church” for its unique architecture.  It was built in the 1960s and is characteristic of the architectural experiments of its day.  The roof is shaped like a giant potato chip.

There is a school connected to the parish and this affects my life many times a week because I drive by the school on the way to my partner’s acupuncture clinic.  I know better than to try and get anywhere fast on Clayton Road when school lets out midafternoon.   It’s crazy.

St. Clare of Assisi has five weekend masses – one on Saturday and four on Sunday.  Plus mass every single day, sometimes twice a day.   I attended the 10 a.m. mass on Sunday.  I got there five minutes early and was part of the traffic jam getting into the parking lot.  There were no spots left so I followed the traffic around behind the school and parked there.

People were streaming into the sanctuary.  It was absolutely jam packed.  My guess is there is seating for at least 500.  I sat in the back 1/4 of the sanctuary which seems to have been the young family area.  I was surrounded by children.  However, as a whole, the gathered congregation was diverse in age.  I saw a lot of young people, also a lot of seniors.

The procession started precisely at 10 a.m.  The altar children were girls and boys.  The choir to the side chancel was composed of women and men.  The service progressed.  I’ll be honest and tell you I have no idea how everyone knows what to say when, but they all do.  They all know when to stand and when to kneel, when to cross themselves and when to say “And also with you.”  I’ve been to many masses by now and I continue to get lost.  Someone in front of me was thumbing through a mass guide.  I found one and I still couldn’t figure out where we were.  However, the order of service was pretty good for giving you a sense of where you were in the mass.

All the scripture readers were women.  I liked that.

I was expecting very professional music.  I was surprised.  There was only one piano.  The song leader, a woman, seemed pretty amateur to me.  This congregation isn’t 500 strong for a mass because of the quality of music.  I’ve been to other Catholic masses where the music is amazing.  So why was this particular mass so full?

Probably because it is connected to the school.  I’m getting the sense that one can be Catholic in St. Louis and that can be your whole world.  Many of your neighbors are Catholic, your kids can go to Catholic school, your friends will be other Catholic families, the ones you stand with at soccer practice.  Mass is just one more piece of a very complex and dynamic and huge community.

I have to say I felt almost as foreign in the Catholic mass as I did at the Jewish service.  I grew up in the Mennonite church which pretty much abstains from ritual and liturgy.  The highlight of a Protestant service is the sermon.  That is simply not the case in a Catholic mass.  The homily at the mass I attended was less than 7 minutes.  It focused on the story of Abraham listening to God and being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, and then on the story of Jesus where God says, “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.”  The priest’s homily focused on 1) why it was so short (so people paid attention) and 2) be ready to listen for God.  We didn’t get any examples of what that might look like, just be ready to hear the voice of God.  I was not inspired.

But maybe that’s not what the homily is supposed to do because that’s not where the power is.  The power is in the Eucharist, which is the high point of the Catholic mass.  If you’re Protestant, or have come from a Protestant background (with the exception of High Episcopal), just don’t expect to get at an intuitive level how important the Eucharist is.  We’re just not going to.  We can approach it intellectually, I don’t know if we can get it in our guts.  There is so much liturgical preparation for the Eucharist in the mass.  It is everything.  It is the presence and being of Christ among us.

The only hint of any commentary regarding the outside world happened in the prayers to the people.  We prayed for the government leaders to hear its people, for they were not being heard.  I suspect this had to do with the whole issue surrounding the health care mandate to give women access to birth control without co-pays.  As you will see later I was right on that one.  We also prayed for the protection of innocent life, which I strongly suspect correlates to the Catholic church’s strong anti-abortion stance.  As you will see later, I was right on that one too.

So, once all that is done, we move towards the Eucharist, the most sacred moment in the service, which is when, according to Catholic doctrine, the bread and wine literally transform into the body and blood of Christ.   The priest says the invocation that everyone knows by heart, everyone responds with words they know by heart, they all kneel at exactly the same time, file forward for the sacraments, kneel again, respond with words they all know, and the service is over.  It amazes me every time.

I did not take communion because the Catholic Eucharist is not open.  I have once, at a parish where the priest, who is friends with a friend of mine and very progressive, made sure to speak with me prior to the service and let me know I was welcome to participate.  He had to do this carefully because the doctrinal position of the Catholic church is that you have to be Catholic to receive the sacraments.  He could get in a lot of trouble for what he does.  Since I received no such invitation here, I declined to participate.  I think I was the only person in that huge sanctuary who did not go forward.

As we filed out, people stood at the doors and handed us that week’s newsletter.  This is a very active parish.  There are so many groups.  The newsletter also mentioned pastoral concerns, offered a stewardship update, announced several different retreats (men’s, women’s, etc.) the Lent Fish Fry schedule, educational pieces, offered a prayer line, support for the unemployed, and social justice activities including a food drive, a rally for religious liberty at the Department of Health and Services (remember this was the week that all hell broke loose regarding the new mandate that contraception be a basic health care need for women, hence no co-pays.), and two days of protesting outside St. Louis Planned Parenthood to support the 40 Days for Life.

I must admit I was somewhat relieved that I arrived at mass in my new car that has, as of yet, no bumper stickers.  My old car sported a HRC sticker and a prominent bumper sticker that read “Pro Faith, Pro Family, Pro Choice.”  It was nice to be invisible (besides being the only one in a gathering of hundreds not to take the sacraments of course).  I did feel myself start to get angry.  I have stood on the opposite side of those protests.  I have joined other clergy inside the gates of Planned Parenthood, in support of the women who arrive facing lines of protesters reciting the rosary and others screaming at them for murdering babies.  I must say that the Catholics seem to be the most respectful of the protesters.  They just stand there praying and reciting the rosary.   They don’t seem to be the ones hurling insults using religious language.  But their intent is clear – they are expressing the judgment of the Catholic church (and thus God) against those women.  I wonder what it feels like for a Catholic woman to arrive at Planned Parenthood and have to walk by a line of priests praying the Rosary.   I imagine it could be very difficult.  I can only imagine the guilt it could bring to the surface.

This is what I tried to keep in mind as I tried not to overreact:

There are many ways to be Catholic.  When I posted about my experience at St. John Lutheran, which will not ordain women or give lay women any authority over their ministers, I was reminded by a member of Emerson that she grew up in that church and that her mother strongly disagrees with that position.  We can’t assume that all Catholics tow the party line.  In fact, I know of some people who attend St. Clare of Assisi and have some pretty strong feelings about the current state of affairs of the Catholic Church. They continue to attend because they are not going to give up their church to the religious conservatives.  Someone had to be there holding on, first with John Paul II, now with Benedict.  God knows who will come next.

They maintain their voice by staying and continuing to work from within for change.   Also, I trained as a chaplain in a Catholic hospital.  I worked alongside nuns, priests, and a pretty amazing ex-priest who could do theological exegesis in a way that I didn’t know was possible.  I also attend Holy Week services at an off the beaten path former Catholic retreat center run by some very on the margins Catholic women who rock.  They are eco-theologians, liberation theologians and feminists and they are on it!  These experiences are a major part of what allowed me to approach Christianity with fresh eyes and see in it some pretty liberating powerful stuff.  I would have to say I found new life, spiritual new life, because of my work with liberal Catholics.

So we should not assume that just because someone is attending mass that they agree with everything they hear.  There are a lot of progressive Catholics who are hanging on, tired often, discouraged often, but they are not ceding their church.  They are waiting for the day when there is enough critical mass to once again, effect life affirming change.

Think Vatican II, the most progressive era of Catholicism.  It can happen again.

One other thing.  I have grown in my appreciation for how much of a cultural shift it must be for former Catholics to come into the Unitarian Universalist church.  Our service is incredibly Protestant in structure – in the way we sing, what many of us think liturgy is, in the prominence of the sermon, and how we pray, if we pray.  I will hear many Catholics now UU say, “I don’t miss the theology, but I sure miss the liturgy.”  I am getting a better sense of what they mean.   There must be, at some level, a sense of loss.

Sabbatical Temple Hopping VI

Last week I left behind the Abrahamic religious traditions.  On Wednesday, February 29th, I visited two temples: the Hare Krishna Temple in St. Louis’ Central West End, and the Hindu Temple of St. Louis on Weidman Road in Town and Country.  I was blessed to be the guest of Harry Shukla, a long time friend of Emerson Chapel, who agreed to take me to visit these temples.  Harry Shulka is a first generation immigrant from India.  I asked to be his guest as I felt uncomfortable simply going by myself.  I do not know the customs and I did not wish to intrude in any way.  I am so glad I made this choice because Harry could give me insights that I would have never been able to see on my own.

1)  Hare Krishna Temple of St. Louis.   When Harry told me he was taking me to the Hare Krishna Temple downtown, I was a bit skeptical.  Many Westerners became aware of Hare Krishna when it became very popular among North American white religious tourists, especially in the late 1960s and 1970s during the Hippie movement.   In fact, Harry’s reasoning for bringing me here was precisely because of that.  This is the form of Hinduism that most North Americans think about and there are a lot of stereotypes about it.

The temple itself looks worn.  It’s a white stucco building that needs repair.  The front door was locked, but when Harry knocked, the priest came to the door and invited us in.  The very modest entry way had a bench to sit down on and take off our shoes.   He invited us into the temple once we had done so.

The Temple was a large room filled with the strong scent of incense.  At the front was a beautiful collection of gods and goddesses.  Of course Krishna was the focus.  All the gods and goddesses were adorned with bright flowers.    The four primary gods were at the highest elevation.  The first, of course, was Krishna.  The other was his devotee, Bhajan.  To their left, Krishna and Bhajan have changed places – Bhajan is the god and Krishna is the devotee.  The meaning is abundantly clear.  There is no separation between the gods and humanity.  We are one.  The work of the devotee is to eliminate this separation in themselves so that they can unite with the highest.

I learned that the offering of food and the care of the gods is a central practice and they are intimately connected.  The priest and his wife awake very early, at least 1 1/2 hrs before the sun rises, and begin to pray and care for the gods.  When the food is made, nothing is tasted until it has been offered to the gods.  Why is this?  Because the food is from the gods so to take it for oneself before offering it to the gods is to take something that is not yours.  Once it has been offered to the gods, it is prasadah (mercy, or the divine grace of God), and then it can be eaten as a gift from god to you.

The purpose of this is to nurture our humility.  Nothing in this life is ours.  It is all from the gods.  Every bit of food you eat is from the gods.  When a stranger comes to you, welcome them, because it is god visiting you.  Feed them, for then you are serving god.

They spend a lot of time cooking at the Hare Krishna Temple because they give away all the food, the prasadah, to those who come to worship.  We were no exception.  We were unexpected guests but they took us in, welcomed us into the temple, and even though all they had were cold leftovers from breakfast, they offered to feed us and we returned the gesture by accepting the offer.

I learned that the priest and his wife had recently arrived from India.  There is no permanent priest at the Temple.   Instead, a new priest arrives from India about every six months.  He brings his wife, if he has one.  In fact, one must be married because to not be married means to have not experience a crucial aspect of life.  There is no prohibition against sexual activity or marriage in this faith.  It is considered a key aspect to experiencing this world.

I asked him how he had come to be a priest.  He told me that he had felt called as a young man, newly married, with his wife expecting their first child.  He was a small businessman.   One day, a devotee of Hare Krishna had come through the market speaking of Krishna and selling copies of the Bhagavad Gita.  He was hesitant to spend the money, but his wife told him that it was good for them to purchase a Bhagavad Gita when she was pregnant.  It would be a good omen.  So he bought it and began to read it. He felt deeply called and moved by what he read.  He attended a gathering at the temple, then another, and another, and gradually became more and more involved in temple life until he made the decision to enter the priesthood.   That was more than 20 years ago.  Today, their son is studying in Belgium and will join them in the United States before they return to India.

He offered to give me a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and I felt it an honor to accept the gift.  When we left, I was invited to their prayers, which take place on Wednesdays and Sundays.  I also learned that their day ends at the last prayer, when the put the gods to bed.   Most of their day involves carrying for the gods by cleaning them, dressing them, praying to them, and offering them gifts, including food.

As I listened, I found myself thinking of that Lutheran minister who said that Hindus worship dead stone gods.  I can certainly understand how it might appear that way to an outsider.  I did not get that impression at all.  Yes, they spend much time and energy in the phsyical caring of these statues and they invest the statues with considerable power and meaning.  But I also felt that all this energy was not simply about worshipping the statues themselves, but they were seen as vehicles towards enlightenment.   As you loved them, cared for them, fed them, prayed to them – your actions, your humility, your intentions brought you into closer harmony with god.  This didn’t seem very “dead” to me.  It seemed very alive.

This was nothing like what I expected.  I was expecting an Americanized form of Hinduism, maybe a bit sensationalized.   I experienced a quiet visit in very modest surroundings, and humble and generous hosts.

2) The Hindu Temple of St. Louis.  This is the temple where the Hindu Indian community of St. Louis comes to worship.  It is an impressive structure, with glistening white walls and much intricate detail.  As we turned off Weidman and into the drive, it felt like the whole building was glistening.  Breathtaking.

We entered through a side door and walked down the stairs where we took off our shoes. The entry area had several bulletin boards.  I saw brochures for English as a Second Language, Immigration lawyers, social functions, houses for sale, job listings, and community events.  Then we walked through a fellowship hall with a kitchen where women were preparing flowers, then up the stairs and through a door into the temple.

It was very warm and bright.  The temple is filled with worship stations to various gods and goddesses, each with their own story, much of which is symbolically told in the stations themselves.  Every one is a stunning work of art.  Almost every one had gifts before it (mostly food), left by someone who had come to pray.  When you arrive, you can ring a bell, which signals to the priest that there is someone wishing to pray/offer homage to a god.  People will bring gifts for the god they are honoring.  The priest will take those gifts, walk with the person and or people to the god they wish to see, and pray the proper prayers and offer the gifts.

I wish I could remember some of the particular stories Harry shared with me about this god or that.   I am not so good with these kinds of details.  What I remember is that each god has a story that applies to certain situations in life and devotees will call on that god when they are challenged in their lives.   Perhaps they are concerned about finances, health, or a loved one, or are having to make a difficult decision.  Perhaps they wish health for a daughter that is expecting.  Perhaps they are celebrating something.  Each of these situations will bring them to a particular god.  Also possible is that a family will have a tradition of honoring certain gods and will go to those gods with all their hopes and fears and desires and joys.  Regardless, when they come to the temple, they ring the bell, which alerts the priest, who joins them, takes them to the gods home, and begins the prayers.

In one of the rituals I saw, the prayer involved reciting every name of a certain god, and there were more than 100 names for this particular god, and with each name, the priest anointed the god with flower petals.  The person who came to honor this god brought with them nuts and dried fruit.   This fruit was given to the gods, then became prasadah, which was offered back to the person and others who had gathered near.  They were also given a small spoonful of milk and sugar.  The priest would pour the spoonful in the palm and each person drank the milk out their palm and wiped the rest in their hair.  I do not know the significance of this.  Perhaps it is another sign of welcoming the blessing of god.

This is what I take with me from this visit.

1) I absolutely felt like a foreigner.  I understood little and wanted to respect what I did not understand.  I felt blessed to have this small glimpse.

2) I felt like I was able to see a world that is largely invisible to non-Indian St. Louisans.   Aside from marveling once in a while at the glimpse of glistening white as we drive by on Weidman Road, what do most of us really know about this community?  Hindus from India are now the largest minority in West St. Louis County, and most of us have no idea about this growing community.  And yet here it is, with a beautiful thriving temple that receives devotees through every day. The temple is open seven days a week.  At the time I was there, mid-day on a Wednesday, there were no less than 7 people coming for prayers, and more were arriving.  There is a constant flow of people in and out of the temple.  It is a place that is alive.

3) I learned that the priests serving the temple are all from India.  Just like the priest at the Hare Krishna Temple, the Hindu Temple of St. Louis brings in priests who are from India and trained in India.  When I asked Harry why, he simply said because there is not the means and critical mass in North America to train priests here.  It is a lengthy and demanding process.  You have to learn so many prayers and they must be executed perfectly.  It is a life’s work.

4) I thought about how much this temple felt like a creation by and for first generation immigrants.  It was not unlike a combination of religious instituion/community center.

“First generation” means those who come from the homeland.  ”Second generation” means those whose parents come from the homeland, and “third generation” means those whose grandparents come from the homeland.  Most sociologists will say that it takes at least three generations for full assimilation to happen because the memory and experience of the homeland grows more and more distant, and the experience of the new world grows more powerful.  By the fourth generation, there will be no one in that family with living memory of the homeland.  All that is known is life in America and the stories told by those who knew the first generation.

For many immigrant communities, religion and ethnicity are merged in a very powerful way, especially by first generation immigrants establishing the anchors they need for spiritual and psychological survival in the new world.   Think about Italian Catholics, or Greek Orthodox, German Lutherans, or Palestinian Muslims.   Practicing your faith will gain a different dimension in the new world than it had in the old world, where more than likely you were surrounded by those like you.  Your identity and way of being was reflected in the society around you.  In North America, you are now a minority.  The practice of your religion now becomes a way to maintain your identity as a minority and your connection to your roots.

Most immigrant religious institutions are very strong when run by the first generation immigrants who establish them.   They have a clear purpose – cultural and spiritual survival.   Those institutions have to change when the first generation is replaced by the second generation, or they don’t survive.  At this time, the Indian community in St. Louis is dominated by first generation immigrants, so it’s understandable that their priority was that this temple be as exact a replica as those they knew from India.  I wonder if this may be why it is so important that the priests come from India.  It is the source, after all.

I found myself wondering what will happen to this temple when the second generation, third generation, and then fourth generation Indians take their place.  Will they find their Hindu faith as relevant to their everyday lives as their parents or grandparents?  What will it mean to be Hindu when you are born in the U.S., or your parents are born in the US., or if you intermarry?

I suspect that if the U.S. continues to underfund its public schools, universities and colleges, the demands of the private sector for highly skilled professionals will keep the doors open to immigration from countries like India.  The U.S. just isn’t filling that need from within.  Perhaps immigration from India will continue and there will always be a new set of first generation immigrants for whom their temple is an important center in their lives.

I left the temple deeply impressed with the experience.  I wondered what it would mean for us as Unitarian Universalists to reach out to this community, the largest immigrant community in West County.  What would it mean to be allies?  What are the issues in this community?  What do they care about?  What are the differences within the community?

So many questions.

Many thanks to Harry Shukla for his generosity of time and spirit.

Sabbatical Church Hopping V

This will be my last blog post for a while because when it’s done, I will have written about all the congregations I’ve attended so far.  There are more visits to come, so don’t worry, I’ll be back.

7) Sunday, February 19th.  First Unitarian Universalist Church of Alton IL.   Founded in 1836, First UU Alton has been around for a long time.  It’s been through two buildings and who knows how many ministers.   I made the acquaintance of this church when I was in search 7 years ago.   Alton was advertising for a half time minister.  It didn’t end up working out for us, but their search committee chair (bless her heart), knowing I was trying to find a way to live in Missouri so I could be with my life partner,  directed me on to Emerson, which I had not applied to because Emerson made the decision not to use the UUA’s settlement process.  Lucky for me I got the referral from Alton or I would never have known it was accepting applications.   Alton was where I preached my pre-candidating sermon for the Emerson Search Committee.  Alton is also the congregation of one of my dear colleagues, Rev. Khleber Van Zandt, the minister the Alton Search Team decided to call as their minister.  So I have a tender place in my heart for this church.  It was the right place to go the day after attending St. John Lutheran.  I needed to be around kindred spirits.

Khleber and I started at our respective congregations at the same time and both of us have experienced working with a congregation as they grew our positions to full time.  Both of our churches have grown considerably, to the point that each is making huge choices about the future.

Alton UU made the difficult decision to go to two services last year because to not do so would have meant saying no to new people.   They had reached capacity.  It wasn’t an easy decision and many feared they would lose their sense of connectedness.  But faced with the decision of protecting what they had for themselves or ensuring there was always room for guests, they chose the latter, and as with any big institutional changes, I think they’re still working  through it.

As is usually the case when you add a second service to expand capacity, the first and second services at Alton are identical.  Generally, the only reason you add a completely different kind of service is if you are focused on drawing a new demographic.  And, if you’re going to do that, one full time minister and part time administrative and programmatic staff (religious education and music) isn’t going to cut it.  St. John Lutheran (see church hopping IV) has six full time ministers, two of whose main responsibility is worship (one does the traditional service and the other the contemporary) and they are supported by a huge paid staff.  For smaller churches like Alton, they don’t have the staff to support a brand new service.  Duplicating a service  still means extra time spent in worship preparation for the minister because the volunteer load becomes much heavier, so we do a lot more coordinating and training than with one service.  But if you can shift some of your other responsibilities onto well trained volunteers, a sole minister can definitely do two services a Sunday.  As Emerson moves towards the decision about adding a second service, I will likely do a lot of consulting with Khleber and perhaps even suggest to our program council that we meet with lay leaders at First Alton who implemented the second service.  There is no sense reinventing the wheel.

I attended the service at 9:30 a.m.  Attendance was small, about 25 I guess.  Khleber had shared with me that attendance at the 9:30 service is small, but it has opened up about 25-35 spaces at the second service which continues to be full.  So hopefully over time attendance at both services will even out.  It was Heritage Sunday and the focus was the Anna D’s, the women’s society that was established at Alton in 1896.  This church has history and the service was steeped in it.  I was impressed with the experience of being in a UU church that is so old.  Emerson is very young and we still feel young, like we have a very brief history.

Basically, the purpose of the service was to hold up and honor the contributions of women to Alton UU.  The women’s society was not only for UU women, it became one of the most successful and influential women’s groups in the town of Alton.  It was well known for its social events, which were fundraisers for the community.  There is hardly a part of the Alton community that has not benefitted from the work of the Anna D’s.

I found myself thinking about Emerson and how we are connected to our surrounding community.  Alton is built in the center of town.  It was an anchor of the community in its day and you can still see that now.  Alton UU is a warming center one day a week for the homeless.  It partners with other churches who’ve been there just as long.  Alton UU, for instance, takes part in the city wide Lenten evening worship services and suppers, which rotate between the different mainline churches in Alton.  This week Alton was the location and the Presbyterian minister offered the service.  The Anna D’s, who still exist, prepared the meal.  Emerson is in the sprawling suburbs of West County and it’s relatively hidden away on a residential street.   There is no center to West County, there are only thoroughfares, and we’re not on one.  If we are to be present in our community, it will and does take place in a different way – in specific outreach to non-profits that work in the community like Faith Aloud, Circle of Concern, Growing American Youth, Planned Parenthood.  But our building is hardly located in an area where homeless people can come warm themselves.  We do our work in a different way.

One challenge that both Alton UU and Emerson UU share is that both have experienced a growing sense of religious diversity within the congregation.  This religious diversity has always existed in these congregations.   But in recent decades, both had identified themselves as primarily non-theistic.  When Khleber and I came to our respective churches, both of us found congregations that were widely diverse but where only one way of expressing and being Unitarian Universalist was socially supported.  Many people in both congregations were afraid that if they shared what they really believed and felt, they would no longer feel welcome.   Both our congregations have focused on finding ways to open the doors for the full expression of the theological diversity already there and for the full welcome of the theological diversity that comes to us every week in the guests that we receive.  Both of us have faced losses from those who felt uncomfortable with this opening.  Both Khleber and I were blessed with strong lay leaders who supported the changes.  It couldn’t have happened any other way.  It can’t only be the minister.  We can promote all kinds of changes, but if key leaders aren’t beside us, we’re blowing in the wind.

I enjoyed my time at Alton UU.  After my experience in the male-dominated worship at St. John, to hear my colleague say, “Today we’re talking about the Anna D’s.  And I know I’m a white heterosexual male so there’s only so much I’m going to know, but I can tell you, these women were the rocks of this congregation.  We wouldn’t be here without them,” was just what I needed.

I did appreciate that Khleber is using a projector in his services and used a powerpoint presentation for his sermon.  It was so simple.   The picture was broadcast on the front wall of the sanctuary, which is white.  I’m already thinking of how I might be able to do something similar at Emerson.  Multimedia is as important as accessible music to create strong multigenerational communities.

I also was so glad to sing from our own hymnal.

(8) Ash Wednesday, February 22. St. Philip’s United Church of Christ, St. Louis MO

Randy Whitman and her husband the Rev. Jeffrey Whitman invited me to an Ash Wednesday Service. I happily accepted the invitation.  The Interim Pastor of St. Philip’s is Rev. Richard Brandon.  He is a seasoned minister.  He served St. John’s UCC on Sulphur Springs in Manchester for several decades.  Been in the profession for almost 40 years and he is not one of those ministers who is waiting too long to retire!  He’s so good.  You can tell that he loves what he does and it breathes through him.  He was polished and authentic, and in just the right proportions.   The service was very traditional.  He robed, there was a choir, the hymns were traditional and played on the organ.

I was probably the youngest person in the room, and I’m in my early 40s.  I’m not sure if this is because it was an Ash Wednesday service or because this is how the church always is.

The traditional theology of Lent and Ash Wednesday is that substitionary atonement thing.   This is the doctrine that states that Jesus paid the price for our sins.  He offered himself as the substitute, and thus we are already forgiven.  I have a hard time with this theology and it was front and center in this service.  I can’t tell you how many times I heard the word “unworthy.”  But I tell you what.   Who you sit with in a service makes all the difference in the world.  One of the reasons I think the service at St. John was so hard for me is that I was alone, a stranger.   When you sit with people you trust and care about, even if the theology isn’t quite right, it can sit a little easier with you because you know how the people around you live it.  I don’t know if Randy and Jeff subscribe to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, but if they do, I see how they live it.  They are loving, generous, kind, open-minded and open-hearted people.  Randy is the best church administrator I have ever had the privilege of working with, and not just because of her competence, but because of her spirit.   Jeff and I have stood side by side at political protests.  Jeff’s daughter Kelly, also an ordained UCC minister, stood on behalf of Faith Aloud outside the Hope Clinic for Women at least once a month so that the anti-choice protesters would taunt her rather than the women arriving for treatment.  (In fact, this is how Randy came to us.  When we were looking for an office admin Randy was visiting the Faith Aloud office with Kelly.   I happened to call Rev. Becky Turner asking if she knew anyone looking for a job, and she passed the phone to Randy.)

When you trust the people, the theology has a way of working out.  If you take the theology of substitutionary atonement, and it becomes a process of living with intentional humility, kindness and gratitude, which is what I see in both Randy and Jeff, then I think it’s got to have something going for it.

We sang hymns out of a hymnal and they were all those old hymns that I’ve heard my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents sing.  ”What a Friend we have in Jesus.”  ”Love Divine, all loves excelling.”  ”Beneath the Cross of Jesus.”  ”When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”  Randy sung soprano.  I sang alto.  Jeff switched between bass and tenor.

The sermon was based on one of my favorite stories.  John 8:1-11.  It’s where they’re going to stone the woman and Jesus says, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”  And the minister didn’t let us take this and apply it to those we disagree with, the ones who we feel are throwing stones at us.  He made us apply it to ourselves.  Who are we stoning with our thoughts and our words and our choices?  An apt question in an election year that is already getting nasty.  When we stone, we are really stoning ourselves, stoning ourselves with unacknowledged shame and judgment.  So put the stones away, and find new life.

I know a sermon is good when my mind doesn’t wander once.  Perhaps the sermon was only 8 minutes long.  Perhaps it was just very good.  I suspect the latter.  His mannerism was so relaxed and professional and I felt drawn to his words.  They spoke to my life.

So this time, even if the words to the communion weren’t exactly comfortable, I felt like it was o.k. to translate them.  I took communion.  And I even went forward and received the ashes on my forehead.  I felt reassured and renewed and held.

One of the most moving moments in the service for me?  We are lined up moving to the front to receive the ashes.  Jeff reaches the front of the line.  The minister steps down off the chancel, gives Jeff the ashes and receives the ashes himself.  His face and body language changed in that moment.  He was no longer the minister.  For that sacred time, he relinquished his authority and gave it to someone else, someone he trusted and respected.  I could see the deep affection between the men as they served each other in humility and graciousness.

I will remember that for a long time.

Amen and blessed be.

Sabbatical Church Hopping Part IV

7) Saturday, February 18.  St. John Lutheran (Missouri Synod), Ellisville MO, Warehouse Service, 5 pm.  

St. John Lutheran has more than 2000 members and is located about a five-minute drive from Emerson Chapel.  It has five services a weekend, two of them at 5 p.m. on Saturday.  There is a traditional service in the sanctuary and a contemporary service in what they call the Warehouse.  I decide  I will go to the Warehouse Service because I want to see what their contemporary service looks like.  As I arrive I notice that everyone walking into the sanctuary is older.   All the families, teens, and tweens are going to the Warehouse service.  Pretty much the only older people I see in the Warehouse Service seem to be coming with their younger family members.  The people I sit beside seem to be three generations attending worship together.

The Warehouse Service is in something like a black box theater.  There is a simple stage filled with instruments.   I was given the bulletin which did not have an order of service, but rather announcements about the coming week’s activities.  The windows were heavily shuttered and at the front were two large flat screens that offered a countdown to when worship began, kind of like what you see on TV New Year’s Eve.  It was four minutes and 15 seconds to worship when I sat down.   When the stopwatch hit “0:00″ the band began to play.  They were good and played Christian contemporary worship music.  We all stood and sang two songs over the course of 20 minutes, with the lyrics projected overhead.  I don’t think anyone in the band was older than 35.  As I looked around the sanctuary, it was hard to find many people over the age of 50.    Sometimes people would raise their arms as they sang.     The first song was all about comfort.  ”Jesus is here for me.  He holds me and loves me.   There is nothing he can’t do and therefore nothing I have to fear.”  The later songs were about glorifying God.  This time I wrote down the song.  Here is a link so you can listen to it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AQ0Dv7kzoA

That kind of stuff.

If you read the last post, are you getting the drift here?  It was EXACTLY THE SAME as the service I attended at the MB church in Leamington.

When the singing was finished there were  a few short announcements, all directed at newcomers.  There was a prayer and the offertory, followed by another song, and then the sermon by the associate minister, which lasted about half an hour.

The sermon was based on 1 Peter 5:6-11 and was the concluding sermon of their February series: “Raving Fans of Jesus Christ.”  The sermon title was “Rivals.”  I will try to paraphrase.

“As Christians, we are called not to be anxious.  Why be anxious?  The victory is already won.  Jesus was crucified, died, and born again.  The devil has already been beat.  But when we allow anxiety into our life, we allow the devil back in. Then we’re not being Raving Fans of Jesus Christ.  So what do you do?  Always look for your Rival.  Kind of like in football.  (grab a football and begin throwing it out into the audience.)  When you play football, what do they tell you ?  Never take your eye off the ball.  Take your eye off the ball (turn your head and let the football go past you and almost smash into the drums) and you drop the ball, don’t you?  Never take your eye off your rival.  And who is our rival?  It’s the devil.  But how do we know where the devil is?   The devil is within and without.  Kind of like the Trojan Horse.   You’re so busy watching the Trojan Horse that you don’t realize the enemy is within.  The devil is the enemy within us, that tempts us away from the Victory that has already been won by Jesus Christ.  This is what we call original sin, the devil that is within us.  So how can you tell when you’ve taken your eye off the ball?  When you’ve let the Trojan horse into your life?  It’s when you’ve become addicted to the following things:

1) success – you think all our success is yours – your money, your job, your accomplishments, your home, your car.  You think you created your own success.  You forgot that God gave you your success.

2) suffering –  You are so focused on the hardships of your life.  This is really a form of self-centeredness.  You’ve put yourself at the center of your life rather than be a Raving Fan of Jesus Christ.

3) busyness – When we become addicted to busyness we no longer put Jesus in the center of our life.

4) pleasure. We’re so focused on pleasure and we become addicted to it.  We become addicted to things like pornography or think that our marriage is too hard and we need to get a divorce.  These are addictions to pleasure.  The only true pleasure is our salvation in Jesus Christ.

When you take your eye off the ball, you let in your rival, which is the devil, who will tempt you and work within you to turn you away from the Victory that is already ours.  You know why Christianity is different from every other religion in the world?  Because our God is alive.  I once went to India and I went to their Hindu temples. And you know what they worship and pray to?  Dead stone.  We worship the living stone of the risen God.

So I leave you with these four questions to help you recognize your rival:

1) Where are my weak spots?

2) When am I most vulnerable?

3) What am I allowing in to my life?

4) How am I praying for strength?”

That was the gist of the sermon.

Then,  they served communion.   It must be because we’re heading into Lent.  And, the minister did the same thing in this service as what the minister did in the MB service, explicitly stated who could and could not take communion.   So once again, I did not take communion.

So, what do I take from this experience.

1) The model of contemporary worship as developed within American Evangelical movement is by now largely standardized.  You can go to a contemporary MB service in Leamington Ontario or a contemporary Missouri Synod Lutheran service in Ellisville Missouri and experience virtually the same service.  Stop watch count down to service start.  No natural light.  Praise band.  Informal attire (both ministers wore a button down shirt and khaki pants).  Large flat screens at the front, same music, no written order of service, half an hour of singing, half an hour of preaching, followed by communion if it’s to be offered, followed by more music and it’s done.  And it’s working.  Attendance is strong.  The age diversity is also strong.

Here are some things I like about this format

1) I like the big screens at the front.  With hymnals, everyone has their nose buried in the book.  You’re not looking around you, engaged with the people around you.  When you sing from a big screen, you’re looking up (which automatically frees up your vocal chords) and the singing is so much easier.  We’re present to the room around us.  The minister at St. John also used a powerpoint presentation during his sermon. That really kept me engaged.   Like many  Gen Xers I have about a 6- 8 minute attention span.  (It’s down to about 4 minutes for Millenials.)  Blame it on Much Music and watching too many sit coms.  Having a power point presentation  kept me engaged because the multimedia allowed me to experience the sermon on multiple levels.

2) Announcements are very very short.  They are directed to newcomers only.

3) I liked the informal approach of the minister.  Both the MB and the Missouri Synod preachers preached extemporaneously and without a pulpit.   I am a manuscript preacher and  sometimes wish I was not confined to either a manuscript or a pulpit.    A pulpit puts a barrier between me and the people I’m speaking with.

Here’s the things I feel so so about.

1) The music.  I like contemporary music.  We use a lot of it at Emerson and I’m SO thankful for our Singing the Journey supplement.  It expanded what is possible in our worship services.  But, I must admit that sometimes I got bored with the music at the Warehouse and MB services.  Very simple lyrics that went on and on and on.   I wanted something more.  The theology felt very simple to me.   At the same time, I also know that simple isn’t always simple.  The simple words are a code to a deeper meaning.  I guess I didn’t like the deeper meaning.  Also, I know that music is key to being relevant to your people.  Contemporary Christian music takes a theology and puts it in a musical genre that everyone knows.  Watch American Idol or The Voice.  Same contemporary style of music.

2) The sermon message.  This is what I like about the sermon – personal responsibility.  the minister, to his credit, did not locate “evil” outside.  Did not make it an other and did not engage in scapegoating.  At the same time, I am of the opinion that the doctrine of original sin is a damaging theology.  You can talk about personal responsibility without having to revert to original sin, which in my opinion is institutionalized shaming.  The minister created an image of life that is a cosmic battle.  A football game with a clear rival.  This is an either/or black and white world and there is a battle for souls going on and you better not take your eye off the ball or you’ll be on the wrong side.

I don’t think the minister understands Hinduism.  To say that Hinduism is about worshipping dead stone gods is really a mis-representation of Hinduism.  There is a strong iconography in Hinduism but it would be a mistake to assume that Hindus worship dead gods because they will physically bow before and offer gifts to statues and carvings of their gods.  The icons are both sacred and pathways to the sacred.   Hinduism is about being in ongoing relationship with the gods and goddesses which are manifestations of the one god, the living god.  But clearly, the minister was putting up his form of Christianity as the only true faith, better than all the others.  Kind of like the song they sang just before the sermon “Our god is higher than any other.”  I just will never agree with that.  I think it’s arrogant and divisive and makes the non-Christian world into an enemy.

Alright, what was really getting to me?  I realized, as I sat there, that I have really been affected by living in Bible Belt Missouri.  It was much easier for me to be tolerant before I moved here, when I lived in cosmopolitan Toronto.   But now I’ve lived here for 8 years.  It is hard to live in a society that is so divisive, where the lines are so hard.  It is hard to live in a country where I am a second class citizen.  It wears on you.

Before I went to St. John, I read their website and many of their position statements, and I already had my back up.    At St. John, women cannot be ministers, and  they can’t be in any position that gives them authority over the minister (such as the Board of Trustees).  Then, if  you recall, last week was the week that the whole issue of birth control health insurance coverage in religious institutions exploded and there was that famous all male clergy panel talking about women’s contraception.  This enraged me.  So I guess you could see my sensitivities were pretty raw by the end of the week.  I was tender.

I came to realize as I sat in the service that I was feeling very hostile to those around me – the minister, the band, the people in the congregation.  I wondered how they voted in the last presidential election.  I wondered what they would do if they realized I was a dyke.  I found myself thinking, how can these women be sitting here?  How can you be part of an institution where you can never be an equal?  How can you bring your daughter here?   What are you teaching her?

And I looked at all the men.  The all male band.  The male minister.  The men serving communion.  And all the men in the congregation.  There were a lot of men.

This is my question.  Will the majority of men be more likely to join religious organizations with male leadership and powerful male god(s) because deep down, it is still difficult to accept female leadership and authority?  And is this also true of many women?  Is it still the case that the majority of men and more women than I would have expected prefer male leadership?  Do they invest it with more authority, power, and legitimacy?

When I think of the men who join UU congregations, I would say that the majority of them have a much more flexible and expansive understanding of gender than the general public.  They don’t want to be the household leader or ruler of their family.  They pursue egalitarian models of parenting.  They are more likely to question the dominant understandings of masculinity.

Now I don’t want to say we’re perfect.    In our denomination, women make less than men in ministry.  In multi-staff ministries, the senior minister is usually a man.  In terms of gender and age, young women ministers have the most difficulty finding full time permanent settled ministries and they have the most difficulty with establishing their authority as ministers.   Our UUA president has never been a woman.  Even in our liberal movement, when male ministers take a stand, they are often credited with being assertive.  Women ministers are much more likely to be called out as authoritarian, and this criticism comes more often from other women than from men.   I think we are also, more than we would like to admit, ambivalent about strong female leadership.

If all it took to address the gender imbalance in our association was to pepper our sermons with references to football, nascar, cars, and the stock market, do you think it would change things?

I want to end this blogpost by reflecting on my comment that I am realizing I have become less tolerant since moving to Bible Belt Missouri.  How did this happen?  Before I moved here, I lived in a tolerant cosmopolitan multi-racial economically diverse city.  Living in the U.S has changed me.  This is a much less tolerant country and the social tension here is ongoing.  It never stops. The only way to get a break from this social tension is to turn off the TV, the radio, and the iphone, get off email, and stop talking to people.  When I joined the board of Faith Aloud, I did not expect that it would result in hate mail directed at me.   I have become less trusting of the society I live in, and I know the tension is only going to get worse as we move towards the next presidential election.  As I sat in the Warehouse, I found myself looking around at the people and thinking, “Did you vote for the constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage from people like me?”

And YET, Unitarian Universalism is about trusting our world, trusting people, seeing the commonalities and the ways we are united, valuing diversity, affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  There is no doubt that living in a polarized society is spiritually wearing and it can bring out the worst in us.  But we called not to give in to our distrust, not to stop believing in the beauty of every person.  I want our message to be so compelling, so beautiful, so strong, so welcoming, and so desirable and so freeing that it is irresistible.

So, anybody want to be a Raving Fan of Love, Compassion, Hope and Justice?