Giving thanks for difficult people by Rebekah Simon-Peter
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Some years back, I had a particularly difficult parishioner. Let’s call him Jack. Jack was gruff, opinionated, and sometimes caustic. I was often afraid around him, and defensive. It didn’t take long to realize that he reminded me of another gruff, opinionated and sometimes caustic person in my life — my grandfather. Although small in stature — like this parishioner — my grandfather was a scary figure for me as a child. He was like the hard man in the parable of the talents who reaped where he did not sow. One of his famous sayings was, “You want something to cry about? I’ll give you something to cry about!” That threat was followed by the appearance of a belt. Not exactly comforting for a little kid. Needless to say, Jack never pulled out a belt, or threatened me, but I often felt small and young around him. Surprisingly, I found a way to be grateful for him.At some point, I realized that I perceived Jack through an emotional filter of fear and defensiveness. Once it occurred to me that I was projecting my grandfather on to him I was able to get some emotional distance from him and put him into proper perspective. I was able to see and feel that I was no longer a child, that he did not intend to hurt me, and the fear that I was feeling was left over from childhood. It didn’t belong to this time and place.
I began to thank God for the difficulties he presented to me. This wasn’t easy. Or natural. But it did help. As I began to pray for him, I also cut myself some slack. I found I could approach him with greater confidence and openness. As our relationship shifted onto healthier terrain, I saw that some of his comments to me were helpful, and some of his insights were right on.
Then another insight surfaced. Jack had been trying to communicate a whole slew of things to me that I missed entirely. I was so caught up in my own stuff that I didn’t realize he was putting out subtle cries for help. His marriage was on rocky ground, his health was deteriorating, and spiritually, he needed me to be available, not closed down.
Giving thanks for Jack allowed me to go from being defensive to present, from shut down to available.
When you come to a relationship with tainted attitudes — toward yourself or others — it’s hard to listen with an open heart or mind. This won’t empower you as a leader. And it won’t empower your people to trust or follow you.
Who are you not present and available for? Give thanks for the difficult people in your life. Then, identify what’s in the way of being fully present. Take the time to resolve it, so that you can bring your full humanity, and your full spiritual powers, to bear.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebekah Simon-Peter
Rebekah Simon-Peter is passionate about transforming church leaders and the congregations they serve. She’s read more…
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For U.S. clergywomen, numbers increase but sexism remains by Kira Schlesinger
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A recent report on the state of clergy shows that the number of clergywomen has doubled or tripled in many denominations over the past twenty years. The author of the report, Eileen Campbell-Reed, an associate professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, was herself surprised by the results and the progress that women clergy have made in just a few decades. The “State of Clergywomen in the U.S.” showed that the two denominations with the highest percentages of clergywomen are the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, but other denominations have made progress as well.In the United Methodist Church, the percentage of women clergy almost doubled from fifteen percent of clergy in 1994 to twenty-nine percent in 2017, while the percentages of clergywomen in the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America nearly tripled from twelve and eleven percent, respectively, to thirty-seven percent in each denomination. With at least one-third of clergy being women in most mainline denominations, it seems as if the presence of clergywomen has become more normative. In my experience, clergywomen who have been ordained for a couple of decades frequently express wonder and gratitude at how many more of “us” there are now. Even still, attendance at clergy gatherings still heavily skews male.
Clergywomen also lag behind men in leading churches. Women clergy are far more likely than men to serve in ministerial roles outside of the church — as chaplains, non-profit staff, and professors. While the percentage of women clergy in denominations as a whole has increased, people in the pews might not be seeing the full extent of the shift.
There is little doubt that the power and prestige of the institutional church is waning, and as it does, I suspect we will a continued rise in women clergy. Additionally, studies have shown that, as women enter traditionally male-dominated fields, the pay drops. So, even though the increased percentages of clergywomen in many denominations are something to celebrate, there are still broader issues of compensation and opportunity both culturally and within the church that need to be addressed.
Similarly, the “Stained Glass Ceiling” is still broadly in effect, even as denominations have worked to ensure women are elected and appointed to higher jurisdictional ministry. A recent article in The Living Church reported on the emergence of all-women slates of candidates for the episcopacy in The Episcopal Church with an undercurrent of concern. The Right Reverend Barbara Harris was elected as the first bishop in the Anglican Communion in 1989, and there certainly have not been articles written about the number of all-male episcopal slates since then. Hopefully, as the number of women clergy with the appropriate gifts and level of experience grows, we will see more women called and appointed to jurisdictional and episcopal ministry.
Of course, all of these trends only apply to denominations that ordain women, and there are many conservative churches that still do not. Particularly in mainline denominations, women of color are still a distinct minority. As Campbell-Reed notes, just because there more women being ordained does not automatically solve the problems of sexism, either in the church or in the world. There is no doubt that women clergy have come a long way, but we must still be ready and willing to address sexist bias.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kira Schlesinger
The Reverend Kira Schlesinger is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Tennessee with a Master of Divinity degree from read more…
Vocational discernment, community and the mystics' wisdom by Clifton Stringer
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It was a singular gift to be on my friend Eric’s ordination discernment committee. Eric and I had been seminary housemates, and he was looking to plant a United Methodist church in Austin, Texas — except for the minor logistical hang-up that Eric’s ecclesial background, which certainly included United Methodism, had been for a long time rooted in a particular quite artsy emergent Baptist congregation. But a plan was hatched with the aid of the UM district superintendent and Eric’s Baptist pastor Don: following an appropriate discernment process, he might be ordained as a Baptist minister such that he could receive United Methodist appointment to plant an artsy, servant-minded, locally-rooted UM church. So Eric’s pastor Don gathered a discernment committee — made up of Christian friends from many different eras and locales in Eric’s journey. We met. We prayed. We reflected together on Eric’s life and testimony, his gifts, his struggles. We prayed some more and met some more and asked Eric and each other lots of questions. In dialogue with Eric and God we sought to discern the shape of God’s call on Eric’s life. Did he have a vocation to ordained ministry? Yes he did, we discerned. He was ordained, and was the founding pastor of a uniquely motely, joyful, and indeed [servant-minded congregation]: a congregation at once expressive of the [musically-textured] and progressive character of its locale, filled with biblical and divine concern for the outsider and the immigrant, and bold in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in song, sermon and liturgy.***
I ended my last post on vocation around the Communion table in the Triune God’s love-conversation with the world, a conversation which includes all of us and converts us, at length, into the people we’ve been called to be from all eternity — wise, blessed beyond imagination and united to one another and all things in the unification of all things God is accomplishing in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10). The story of Eric’s ordination brings out some particular aspects of the task of vocational discernment, and points the way beyond some dead ends. In contrast, Eric's story is the story of a praying person who gives his vocational life's discernment into the hands of the Triune God and a handful of other praying people.
Lots of vocational discernment is subjectivist in an overwrought and spiritually unhelpful way. We know we’re beloved, chosen and called by God in Christ — indeed, that’s the deepest reason why we exist at all (Eph. 1:3-10). Yet that’s always a risk among the fallen (that’s us) for discernment of the shape of our vocation to devolve into self-centered, obsessive, tortured navel-gazing. “WHAT SHOULD IIIIIIIII DO?????!!!!!!”
Yet again, it’s time for a dose of theological tradition to the rescue. Indeed, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity (which we figured out was the biblical doctrine over several centuries), the role of the church in prayerfully and penetratingly questioning us and speaking into us, and the wisdom of the mystics shed wise and maturing light on the way of vocational discernment. In what remains of this post, I’ll weave these three threads together briefly, giving most attention to the mystical thread, if only because it is so seldom attended to in writing about vocational discernment. How might we become the sorts of people who can offer our lives in a healthily detached and non-grasping way to the glory of God (and for wise vocational discernment)?
The mystics, then. St. Paul wrote, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) — giving us a radically ecstatic and christological understanding of our identity. In a different letter it says, “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3) — shedding some luminous darkness on the way in which we are, in Christ, properly opaque to ourselves. In the long aftermath of those fascinating Pauline locutions, Christian mystics and spiritual masters have repeatedly investigated and sought insight into the way in which, in our union with God in Christ, our deepest “self” is, in and like God, hidden from us — and that’s a profoundly good and freeing thing.
Here’s how the 5th century Syrian writer and Paul-enthusiast who used the biblical name Dionysius the Areopagite (from Acts 17!) put it in one of his most exquisite pages. Dionysius is here expositing his doctrine by riffing on Moses’ ascent of Mt. Sinai. Here’s what happens at the very peak:
But then he [Moses] breaks free of them, away from what sees and is seen, and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united to the completely unknown by an inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.*
One knows or sees the hidden God in knowing nothing: God is the not one of the things that exist but the source of all things, and so to know God is to know no particular thing at all. And so, for Dionysius, the ascent to the Triune God which we make by Scripture and liturgy culminates in a silent communing in utter unknowing: a blessed mental “blank”, a luminous darkness. And — to our present purpose — notice the utter attenuation of subjective experience in the moment of divine union. One is, in those blessedly stretching moments, “neither oneself nor someone else.” The Unknown God (Acts 17 again) revealed in Jesus Christ is known in an unknowing that is also an unknowing of self. One is united to the transcendent God, we might say, ecstatically beyond one’s “self.”
So it turns out that we can be, and so in some sense “are”, beyond our “selves.”
Mystics since Dionysius have, of course, continued to explore and unfold these Pauline tropes in their teachings on prayer and contemplation. There’s a part or hidden center or source of the self which we cannot know. “I” (no longer I) am rooted and oriented beyond my “self”. That which sees, that which is aware, is itself not an object in our awareness. Here’s how Martin Laird puts it in one place:
your life, your “self,” who you truly are, is something that is “hidden with Christ in God.” Whatever there is about human identity that can be objectively known, measured, predicted, observed, whether by the Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, the tax man, or the omniscient squint of your most insightful aunt, there is a foundational core of what we might as well call identity that remains hidden from scrutiny’s grip and somehow utterly caught up in God, “in whom we live and move and have our being,” in whom our very self is immersed.**
Here’s what I want to say: grasping this way in which we are not our “self” — the way in which I — the I somehow hidden with God in Christ from before the foundation of the world — am “no longer I” — is profoundly freeing with respect to vocation. Vocational discernment isn’t an identity construction project. If we pray at the Pauline school of Dionysius or Laird, it isn’t even a discernment about what “I” should do: I blessedly don’t have to possess or understand my deepest “self” — such is the province of the hidden God alone. Ergo, the stakes are lowered in my own vocational discernment: I can give myself into the hands and conversation of the Triune God, into the hands and conversation of my friends, even into the awareness and freed-up discernment of my own disinterestedly loving gaze. (Jesus’ vocation even involved giving himself into the hands of his enemies.) I, with the help of others, might look at my "self" and ask, "What should that person do?" Vocational discernment hence isn’t an identity consolidation project. It's not a conservative and self-protective response to an existential crisis — even though such a crisis might well occasion the beginning of our mystical quest. Contemplative prayer gradually frees us from our reflexive "grabbing" after our identities, after our selves. Authentic Christianity is identity project-halting. In Christ’s humility we find the humility to just wear lightly identity projects, career identities, daily tasks etc. We don’t have to hold or grasp onto an idea of ourself. God has us. We’re held. We’re caught and no longer falling. God in Christ has taken responsibility for us. All that is left to us is, as we’re able, to respond into that freeing divine summons, to offer “our” heart and mind and soul and strength, our “self”, with its particular gifts and limitations, to the service of God in whatever way makes most sense. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.... For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30).
*The Mystical Theology 1, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Paul Rorem (New York: Paulist, 1987) p. 137.
**Martin Laird O.S.A., Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 13-14.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clifton Stringer
Clifton Stringer is based in Austin, Texas and holds a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Boston College. He previously read more…
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Thanksgiving week is here! Many American families will enjoy a big meal together, watch football, nap off their food coma and perhaps participate in a time of sharing what everyone is thankful for as they sit around the table. During Thanksgiving, we pause to offer thanks, yet we often forget about the “giving” part! While we practice gratitude during this season of thanks, it’s important to keep in mind ways we can also give generously to bless others.The generosity paradox
Jesus says in Matthew 16:25: “All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them.” At first glance, this statement sounds absurd, but social science confirms Jesus’ statement when it comes to the topic of generosity. In the book The Paradox of Generosity by sociologists Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson, they state that generosity is a paradox — because when we give we also receive. What do we receive? The University of Notre Dame conducted a five-year research project on the topic of generosity: It involved surveying two thousand Americans along with in-depth interviews. The research proved that the more generous Americans are, the more happiness, health and purpose in life they enjoy.
Half full or half empty?
Researchers realized two-thirds of Americans believe it’s important to be generous, but almost half of the U.S. population give no money to charity at all. They also learned that those who were not very generous viewed the world through a lens of scarcity, discontent and insecurity. Those who practice generosity regularly viewed the world through a lens of abundance, blessings, gratitude, enjoyment and security. Davidson and Smith believe Americans aren’t as generous as they think because our culture pushes messages of scarcity and fear. Instead, God invites us to view the world through the lens of abundance and gratitude, trusting Jesus, the greatest giver of all time. This week let’s focus on ways we can be more generous with our money, time, resources, service, care, or whatever we have to give.
Question of the day: What have you given away to bless someone else in need?
Focal scriptures: 2 Corinthians 9:6-8; 2 Corinthians 9:10-15; Mark 10:17-312 Corinthians 9:6 Here’s the point: he who plants sparingly also harvests sparingly. 7 Each should give according to what he has decided in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.[2 Corinthians 9:7 Proverbs 22:8 (Septuagint)] 8 Moreover, God has the power to provide you with every gracious gift in abundance, so that always in every way you will have all you need yourselves and be able to provide abundantly for every good cause —; 2 Corinthians 9:10 He who provides both seed for the planter and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your tzedakah. 11 You will be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous in everything. And through us your generosity will cause people to thank God, 12 because rendering this holy service not only provides for the needs of God’s people, but it also overflows in the many thanks people will be giving to God. 13 In offering this service you prove to these people that you glorify God by actually doing what your acknowledgement of the Good News of the Messiah requires, namely, sharing generously with them and with everyone. 14 And in their prayers for you they will feel a strong affection for you because of how gracious God has been to you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!; Mark 10:17 As he was starting on his way, a man ran up, kneeled down in front of him and asked, “Good rabbi, what should I do to obtain eternal life?” 18 Yeshua said to him, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good except God! 19 You know the mitzvot — ‘Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, don’t defraud, honor your father and mother, . . .’”[Mark 10:19 Exodus 20:12–13(16); Deuteronomy 5:16–17(20)]20 “Rabbi,” he said, “I have kept all these since I was a boy.” 21 Yeshua, looking at him, felt love for him and said to him, “You’re missing one thing. Go, sell whatever you own, give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me!” 22 Shocked by this word, he went away sad; because he was a wealthy man.
23 Yeshua looked around and said to his talmidim, “How hard it is going to be for people with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” 24 The talmidim were astounded at these words; but Yeshua said to them again, “My friends, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! 25 It’s easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” 26 They were utterly amazed and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Yeshua looked at them and said, “Humanly, it is impossible, but not with God; with God, everything is possible.” 28 Kefa began saying to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Yeshua said, “Yes! I tell you that there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, 30 who will not receive a hundred times over, now, in the ‘olam hazeh, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and lands — with persecutions! — and in the ‘olam haba, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first!” (Complete Jewish Bible).
For a complete lesson on this topic visit LinC.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samantha Tidball
Samantha Tidball is a youth minister from Grand Rapids, Mi currently living in Nashville, TN. She says she is read more…
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Border Crossing is a series of stories and essays from people who are serving in ministry at the US-Mexico line. We hope these reflections help church people discuss boundaries, borders, and border crossings. This essay appears in Spanish below the English version. / Este ensayo aparece en español debajo de la versión en inglés.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” (Psalm 24:1)This was the Bible passage written on a little white card that my sister put in the middle of my passport as we walked through the Border Patrol station of El Paso Texas airport, having tried to obtain a permit to travel within the United States. I had tried three times at different international bridges asking for that permit unsuccessfully, but I needed to take the risk to board a plane that would fly me to the city of Dallas. My sister put the white card in the middle of the passport and said, “Let God’s power guide you.”
I arrived in front of the officer and handed him my passport, and the little card of Psalm 24 came out of one of the pages. The officer asked questions and checked my plane ticket, and without opening the passport he put it in my hand and said, “Run, because you might miss the flight.” The door opened, and I crossed to where the boarding doors were.
That was on August 1, 1997. Five years passed before I was able to return to Mexico. I went through an immigration process, paid $1000 as a fine for having entered without permission, and finally on December 30, 2003, I returned to Mexico to hug again my parents and brothers.
During all these years that I have lived in the United States, there is not a day that passes without sighing for my land, for my family, for the life I left behind when I went through that door. When I think of those years, I remember Christmas without my family, my birthday without hugs and the New Years without the sounds of joy resounding through the streets of my city. I remember those years when I lived in fear of listening to a language I did not understand and could not speak, the fear of driving without a driver's license, feeling your heart stop every time you hear a police siren, and feeling a deep hole in your stomach when you see the Border Patrol vehicles. I tried to put on a poker face as if nothing was wrong; you want no one to notice that internally you are terrified. Those feelings almost paralyze you when you bring your children in your arms, you hear stories, you think of possibilities and every night you think yourself to sleep saying, "Tomorrow we will return to Mexico, tomorrow we will return, tomorrow we will return..."
Reflecting on my migration process brings out feelings of death, separation, fear, loneliness, and new birth. You are confronted with a new reality, a new life and a new language. It is as painful as death or as painful as a birth. You are no longer in your land, you are no longer in your home. You are someone new, you must start one more time, you have to rebuild your life, you have to recreate yourself. Being an immigrant is not a tourist trip, like journeying through a beautiful city. To be an immigrant is to leave behind everything you were, what you loved, and to start with nothing.
Before I came to the USA, I had been a pastor in The Methodist Church of Mexico for seven years. I was comfortable serving with my bishop, who had baptized me when I was a baby. Those pastors and their families were my family, and the congregations recognized my work. I had a name, a face, a story.
Arriving in the United States, I felt like I was nobody, without a history, without a name. It didn’t matter who I was. Here, I had to start from scratch. My clergy orders were not recognized, my education had no value for anyone, and who would know my work, or speak in my favor?
My initial jobs included cleaning houses, cooking in a food truck, and flipping burgers at McDonald’s. I didn’t mind the position as long I was working, having money to survive one day at a time. That's as far as my dreams could take me back then. I remember the days and nights crying in depression. I remember a thousand times wondering, “Why am I here? Why couldn’t I have stayed in my country?”
I remember one of my English teachers, who asked me at the end of every class, “What do you like most about the US?” That question helped me keep perspective and reminded me why I stayed here. I remembered that it was worth the sacrifice, that I had to be thankful to God for the opportunities that He offered me in this country—opportunities for a woman whose call to be a pastor went beyond everything and who lost almost everything in order to accomplish the call that burned day and night in her heart.
What this country gave me when it opened its door was the power to preach in front of a pulpit, where it didn’t matter if I was a woman, if I was married, pregnant, with children in my arms, or even divorced and remarried. The United Methodist Church embraced my call, received me, educated me, and gave me the power to raise my voice and help others to fulfill their dreams as well.
Today the United Methodist Church continues to open its doors to immigrant women like me, who, although they carry a void in their hearts, continue to dream of fulfilling their call. What I love about the United States is the United Methodist Church, which not only educated my grandmother in Mexico during the revolution through its missionaries, but also educated me and gave me opportunity to minister and to find my voice. The church continues to empower all those who have arrived after me. The United Methodist Church embraces diversity and the call of everyone who wants to serve God and their neighbor. The church gives the resources, opens the spaces, and reveals the mission of the church to every human being who wishes to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. Most importantly, God can take you to places you’d have thought impossible, moving from a kitchen to a pulpit in a grand church—places an immigrant can’t imagine going, yet places where God shows you that you can make an impact and change that world.
“De Jehová es la tierra y su plenitud, el mundo y los que en el habitan.” (Salmo 24:1)
Así decía una pequeña tarjetita blanca que mi hermana puso en medio de mi pasaporte mientras caminábamos por la puerta de la aduana del aeropuerto de El Paso Texas, habiendo intentado sacar un permiso para viajar dentro de los Estados Unidos. Había intentado en 3 ocasiones en diferentes puentes de entrada pidiendo ese permiso, pero me lo habían negado, y necesitaba arriesgarme para poder tomar el vuelo que me llevara a la ciudad de Dallas. Mi hermana tomó mi mano y puso en medio del pasaporte esa tarjetita con el salmo 24 y dijo que sea lo que Dios quiera.
Llegué frente al oficial y le entregué mi pasaporte, y salía por una de las orillas la pequeña tarjeta del salmo 24. El oficial hizo preguntas, revisó mi boleto de avión y sin abrir el pasaporte lo puso en mi mano y me dijo: Corre, porque puedes perder el vuelo. La puerta se abrió, y crucé hacia donde estaban las puertas de abordar.
Eso fue en el 1 de agosto de 1997, y pasaron 5 años sin poder regresar a México. Pasé por un proceso migratorio, pagué $1000 dólares de penalidad por haber entrado sin permiso, y por fin el 30 de diciembre del 2003 regresé a México a abrazar a mis padres y hermanos.
Durante todos estos años que he vivido en los Estados Unidos, no hay un día sin que suspire por mi tierra, por mi familia, por la vida que dejé cuando atravesé esa puerta. Cuando pienso en esos años, recuerdo las navidades sin mi familia, mis cumpleaños sin abrazos, y los años nuevos sin gritos de alegría por las calles de mi ciudad. Recuerdo esos años, en que vivía el temor de que te hablen en inglés, sin poder entender nada; el miedo de manejar sin permiso de conducir; sentir que tu corazón se detiene cada vez que oyes una sirena de la policía; y sientes un profundo hueco en el estómago cuando ves los vehículos de border patrol. Como tratas de disimular que nada pasa, deseas que nadie vea que estás temblando por dentro. Y el terror se agiganta cuando traes a tus hijos en tus brazos, oyes historias, piensas en posibilidades, y cada noche duermes diciendo “mañana regresaremos a México, mañana regresaremos, mañana regresaremos…”
Una reflexión sobre mi proceso de migración es como una muerte, la separación, el temor, la soledad, y el nuevo nacimiento, a una nueva realidad, a una nueva vida y a una nueva lengua. Tan doloroso como la muerta y tan doloroso como un nacimiento. Ya no estás en tu tierra, ya no estás en tu hogar, eres alguien nuevo, hay que empezar una vez más, hay que reconstruir tu vida, hay que recrearte. Ser migrante no es un paseo turístico por una hermosa ciudad; ser migrante es dejar atrás todo lo que eras, lo que amabas, y empezar sin nada.
Yo había sido pastora en La Iglesia Metodista de México por siete años, era la consentida de mi obispo (él me había bautizado cuando bebe), los pastores y sus familias eran mi familia, las congregaciones reconocían mi trabajo, tenía un nombre, un rostro, una historia. Llegar a Estados Unidos era no ser nadie, no tener historia, no tener nombre; no importaba quien había sido, aquí había que empezar de cero. Mis órdenes no serían reconocidas, mi educación no tenía ningún valor para nadie, y mi trabajo— ¿quién lo conocería?
Llegué trabajando, limpiando casas, de cocinera en un camión repartidor de comida, y de cocinera en McDonald’s. Lo que importaba era trabajar, tener dinero para pagar la renta y vivir un día a la vez. Hasta ahí llega tu impulso, y recuerdo los días y noches llorando en depresión, recuerdo mil veces preguntándome porqué estoy aquí, porqué no me pude quedar en mi país.
Recuerdo a una de mis maestras de inglés, quien cada vez que terminaba un periodo de sesiones me preguntaba: ¿Qué es lo que te gusta más de los EU? Esa pregunta me hacía recordar la razón por la que permanecía aquí. Recordaba que valía la pena el sacrificio, que había que agradecer a Dios por las oportunidades que este país ofrecía a una mujer quien su llamado a ser pastora iba más allá de todo lo que podía perder en el camino, con el fin de alcanzar a cumplir con el llamado que arde día y noche en mi corazón.
Lo que este país me dio al abrir esa puerta fue el poder de predicar frente a un púlpito, donde no importa que fuera mujer, que estuviera casada, embarazada, con pequeños en brazos y aún divorciada y vuelta a casar. La Iglesia Metodista Unida abrazó mi llamado, me recibió, me educó, y me dio el poder de levantar mi voz y de ayudar a otros a cumplir también sus sueños.
Hoy la iglesia continúa abriendo sus puertas a mujeres migrantes como yo, que, aunque cargan con un vacío en sus corazones, siguen soñando en alcanzar sus sueños. Amo de los Estados Unidos su Iglesia Metodista Unida, que no solo educó a mi abuela en México en tiempos de la revolución atraves de sus misioneras, sino que hoy me sigue educando y creyendo en mí, y continúa empoderando a todas las que han llegado después de mí. Que abraza la diversidad y el llamado de todo aquel que desea servir a Dios y a su prójimo. Que nos da los recursos, abre los espacios y revela la misión de la iglesia a cada ser humano que desea convertirse en un discípulo de Jesucristo, que desea cambiar el mundo desde la cocina de una mujer hispana, hasta el púlpito de una inmensa congregación. Y en esos lugares Dios te lleva mostrando que ahí puedes influir para cambiar el mundo de ellos también.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liliana Padilla
Rev. Liliana Padilla is an ordained elder in the Rio Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is read more…
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Below is my annual holiday advice column as the craziness of shopping, decorating, cooking, overeating and way too much family togetherness hit.One: Keep in mind that most holiday foods are very, very bad for you. They are either loaded with sugar or alcohol or, more than likely, both. You don’t have to eat them. If it hurts someone’s feelings that you don’t, that is their problem, not yours. The gift of good health is fleeting and deserves reasonable diligence.
In January, your body will be relieved that you took this advice.
Two: Spend money freely on gifts and indulgences during this time to the extent that you can afford them. Merchants, the backbone of our consumer economy, depend on these seasonal purchases to make their yearly profits plus it is a marvelous way to support local artistic communities. But never spend money you cannot repay by the end of January.
In February, your bank account will pay you back for taking this advice.Three: Be wise with your financial generosity. Research charities and make sure you know the percentage of funds received that may be going to high administrative expenses and bloated salaries. Pick the organizations that do the work close to your heart. Aim to donate 10% of your gift-giving budget to worthy causes.
Your community will be grateful you took this advice.
Four: If you get ill at the thought of going to or hosting mandatory family gatherings, reconsider your plans. Decline if your attendance means you have to face that funny uncle, protected by the family, who sexually violated you as a child or sit in a room while someone physically or verbally abuses you or denigrates your life choices. You owe no explanations for declining.
When you realize you are worth more than that, you will be thrilled you took this advice.
Five: The next few weeks bring celebrations for multiple holidays and many different faith traditions. Start the cycle of gracious generosity by using the terms, “Happy holidays” freely.
When others are generous and gracious in return, you will be pleased you took this advice.
Six: Stop the silliness of trying to “put Christ back in Christmas.” In the first place, Christmas, particularly the way we celebrate it in the U.S., has far more to do with the all-knowing Santa Claus than it does with a Holy Savior. In the second place, no one has the power to “take Christ out of Christmas” anyway: “Christmas” is a shortening of the Christ Mass worship service. In the third place, if you want to make sure that people grow in their distaste toward Christianity, shove Jesus down their throats and brook no disagreements.
Your soul will be at peace when you take this advice.
Seven: More about Santa: recognize that it is a great story and lots of fun but, for heaven’s sake, do not insist your children “believe in Santa Claus” and his magical journey around the world. It’s a lie and children don’t like being lied to. Once they figure it out, they may not believe anything you tell them.
When your children are teenagers, you will thank me for taking this advice.
Eight: The Christmas celebration in the northern hemisphere and the date of the winter solstice, i.e., the shortest day of the year, are tied together. On December 22nd, the days start to lengthen after six months of getting shorter. However, keep in mind the opposite weather and daylight factors in the Southern Hemisphere. There it is hot, the days are at the longest, and the idea of “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” is worse than ridiculous. If you really want to “put Christ back in Christmas,” separate Christmas from Frosty the Snowman and Silver Bells.
Your Southern Hemisphere neighbors will be relieved you took this advice.
Nine: More about the holiday celebrations: IF you are the person doing all the work and IF you are getting increasingly resentful about it and IF you have asked for help and not received any . . . then it is time to make some changes. Order in pizza, use disposable dishes, stock up on store-bought desserts and sit back and relax. The family will survive — and either you will make new traditions, or others will start helping.
You will be glad you took this advice for the next 10 to 20 years.
Ten: Find time to enjoy the various types of traditions that appear at this time of the year. Revel in the delights of gifts and good smells and twinkling lights. Put on some fuzzy slippers and a cozy robe and get something warm to drink and spend an evening listening to your favorite holiday music. Sing along, tunefully or tunelessly. Reach out and hold someone’s hand.
You will rejoice you took this advice for the rest of your life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christy Thomas
Christy Thomas is a retired Elder in the United Methodist Church. She writes weekly for the Denton Record-Chronicle and read more…My as VeA
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In 2017, pollsters asked Americans what we feared most. Apparently, spiders did not make the list. In my book, that proves that Americans lie.Dying barely made the top 50, trailing fear of reptiles (ranked 44) and sharks (41). Pollution of the air, of drinking water, and of natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers, and oceans occupy three separate spots in the top 10.
Concern about health care costs and worry that we won’t have enough money to get by in the future ranked sixth and fifth, respectively. By far most people reported a fear of corrupt government officials.
This is telling. I don’t mean that the ranking of our fears is telling. I mean that fear is so pervasive that researchers routinely study it. In detail.
Tons of us are afraid — not episodically or in the face of an imminent threat, but habitually. A persistent nausea churns in the deep recesses of our gut warning us that things are about to get much worse.
We’ve come by some of our heightened vigilance honestly. So far this year we’ve had over three hundred mass shootings. Just this past week, a man in Baltimore raised his arm in the Nazi salute and shouted, “Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!” at the intermission of “Fiddler on the Roof," a play about persecution of Jews.
Man, it’s crazy out there!
"A Resurrection Shaped Life: Dying and Rising on Planet Earth" (Abingdon Press, 2018). Order here: http://bit.ly/2K2M3wB
But you know, the world has been crazy before. And in all likelihood, the world will get crazy again. And again. Each time the world tumbles toward chaos some of us lose our minds and reach for the hyper-control button. We look for scapegoats. We get suspicious about people who aren’t like us. We tribe up with those who agree with us and get violent with what we take to be rival tribes.
Jesus never promised to exempt his followers from the changes and the chances, the sorrows and the heartaches, of life on planet earth. Deeply faithful people get cancer. Their children overdose. People go broke, land in concentration camps, die in wars.
As beautiful and joy-filled and glorious as life can be, that same life can be filled with terror and can deliver blows that leave us bloodied and flat on our backs.
Some Christians believe that none of this matters, really. After we die we’ll be in heaven. No tears there. But as for me, eternal pleasures cannot compensate for even one moment of a child’s misery or a parent’s devastation.
Besides, Jesus never suggested any such thing. All of this matters. All of it. Every second. What is shattered will be mended. What is cast down will be raised up. What has withered will be made vital again.
Jesus teaches us by word and by example that God raises the dead; the challenge for us is to act like we believe this, right down to our toes. Especially while we’re wading through a field of thistles on this side of the tomb.
Jesus put it this way: “When you hear of wars or the rumor of wars, do not be alarmed… This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8)
Paradoxically, the existentialist Albert Camus—not one given to belief in God—provides an illustration for Jesus’s point in his novel The Plague. Bubonic plague descends on the city of Oran in northwest Algeria. The government quarantines the population, so the citizens are left to deal with the ravages of the disease without contact from the outside world.
Many people grow ill and die. The main characters devote themselves to doing what they can for their fellow citizens. There is no guarantee that they will save anyone. They, too, can succumb to the disease. And even after the epidemic has passed, the narrator makes clear that there will be plagues again.
Camus writes, “On this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.”
We who follow Jesus join Camus in this commitment. We are on the side of the victims, never the pestilences. But we do not agree with Camus’s motivation, and that is crucial.
Camus believes that we can make meaning for ourselves by the love we give in this moment. What we humans do on this planet makes our lives meaningful. However, in Camus’s view, when death eventually overtakes us, meaninglessness has the final say.
Jesus teaches us to act, to do what we can in the name of love. But Jesus also teaches us that God is the definitive agent. What we do to nurture and to heal, to bring peace and to establish justice, is a response to what God is already doing.
More to the point for the followers of Jesus, Jesus himself is the definitive act by which God makes the whole creation new. We see this most clearly in Jesus’ resurrection.
When Jesus says that we are in the midst of the birth pangs, he means that his resurrection is already at work within us — even and especially when fear begins to narrow our vision to the cross and the tomb.
When we act justly in an unjust world, when we nurture and heal in the face of ruthlessness, when we forgive and offer peace in response to violence, we are cooperating with a divine initiative and offering holy resistance.
We work through and move beyond our fear. We participate in the birthing of the new creation.
"Moving Beyond Fear" originally appeared at Looking for God in Messy Places. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jake Owensby
Jake Owensby is the fourth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. Jake is the author of several books read more…
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Saudi Arabia and the United States: The current crisisIn early October, the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia was thrown into turmoil after the suspicious death of a Saudi journalist. According to an October 22 article on CBC News, it appears that Jamal Khashoggi, a resident of the United States and a Washington Post columnist, was murdered after he entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage. Khashoggi was known internationally for his criticism of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman regarding issues of extremism, women’s rights and freedom of expression. Khashoggi’s criticism provided a sharp contrast to the more moderate image that bin Salman has attempted to hone abroad.
While contrasting narratives have been put forward, an October 17 New York Times article says that the Turkish government claims to have audio recordings of the incident, proving several Saudi agents attacked Khashoggi shortly after his arrival at the consulate, with his gruesome death coming only a few minutes later. Turkish officials also assert that the killing of Khashoggi was ordered by senior officials in the Saudi royal court. For their part, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have shifted from initially expressing skepticism about the Turkish account to more recently condemning Saudi Arabia’s response as “the worst coverup” in history and placing sanctions on those implicated in Khashoggi’s murder.
This particular incident has triggered international backlash due to the sheer brutality of the killing, which seems designed to send a message to similar critics and dissidents, along with Khashoggi’s connection to the United States. It also highlights the tensions that exist within the alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States, an alliance based more on economic and strategic interests than shared values.
Saudi Arabia and the United States: A tentative alliance
In a recent Vox article, Paul Salem, president of the Middle East Institute, speaks about the history of U.S.–Saudi relations. In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdel Aziz ibn Saud met onboard a U.S. naval ship in the Suez Canal to cement a relationship between the two countries based primarily on the oil resources possessed by Saudi Arabia. Following this agreement, Saudi Arabian wealth began to flow into the U.S. economy in the form of investments and arms purchases. With the start of the Cold War, the religious conservatism of Saudi Arabia prompted them to side with the United States against the atheism and communism of the Soviet Union, a rare instance where the United States and Saudi Arabia aligned on values, not just economics.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States and Saudi Arabia worked together to arm the Islamic and jihadist opposition. Though this opposition succeeded in driving out the Soviet army, it created other terrorism-related issues in the long term with which we’re still coping. After the United States lost Iran as an ally in the Islamic Revolution that same year, Saudi Arabia began to side with the United States in its ensuing confrontations with Iran.
The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia faced its first major crisis following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which were perpetrated predominantly by Saudi citizens. Even though one of the expressed goals of the terrorists was to take down the Saudi government as well, the citizenship of the terrorists created a mistrust of Saudi Arabia in the hearts of many Americans. Saudi Arabia is much more conservative socially than the United States, and the economic benefits of a relationship with Saudi Arabia have often required politicians and business leaders to turn a blind eye to the ways in which our beliefs about gender equality and the role of religion diverge.
The relationship took another turn in June 2017 when Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, was named crown prince and heir apparent to the throne. MBS has been widely lauded in the international community for his attempts to move toward economic and social liberalization in Saudi Arabia. While MBS has made strides by removing the prohibition against women driving and working to diversify the economy beyond its reliance on oil, commentators like Khashoggi and others have been critical of other aspects of bin Salman’s leadership, particularly his aggressive behavior in Yemen and throughout the Middle East. These critics have given him the title “prince of chaos.” Though it remains to be seen what, if any, fallout will come from Khashoggi’s death, the tenuous alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia has been thrust once again into the headlines, prompting questions about how sustainable an alliance is between the two countries.
You can pick your friends . . . or can you?
As we reflect on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States, it may bring to mind difficult or complicated relationships in our own lives. The most comfortable relationships are built on shared values and shared interests, but often, whether in personal or professional contexts, we’re required to interact and be friendly with people who bother us. The popularity of the word frenemy, a portmanteau of friend and enemy that describes someone we’re friendly with despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry, speaks to the prevalence of these kinds of relationships.
There are absolutely circumstances in which protecting our physical and emotional safety justifies cutting off a relationship with someone; but other times, situations can be more complex. Power dynamics and mutual benefits might keep us in a relationship with someone whose actions or professed values go against our own. Alternatively, we might stay in a relationship with the hope of exercising a positive influence on our counterpart.
Whether it’s the global community or our local faith community, we’re called into relationship with one another, and this isn’t always easy. When others take actions that we don’t approve or when our values come into conflict, it can be tempting to cut off our connection; but we can also learn from others, even in disagreement.
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups. FaithLink motivates Christians to consider their personal views on important contemporary issues, and it also encourages them to act on their beliefs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kira Schlesinger
The Reverend Kira Schlesinger is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Tennessee with a Master of Divinity degree from read more…
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"Old King Coal"Coal has been rumbling out of the West Virginia hills for years. Each spring, when I return to the state for my family reunion, I survey the evidence. First, in Newport News in coastal Virginia are great mountains of the black mineral waiting to be loaded onto barges after being transported by train along a line that stretches down the James River. As I continue into the heart of coal country, I encounter the small, struggling towns of West Virginia that once depended almost exclusively on the coal economy. In the gift shops along the way, I find the work of artisans who have crafted small figurines out of coal — coal mining chic, you might call it. These are tough times in the coal patch. An industry and a way of life are changing, and residents of Appalachia and other coal-producing regions are assessing both the legacy and cost of extracting coal from the earth and its potential for the future. In the meantime, coal lingers in our cultural consciousness. For some, coal mining is the epitome of virtuous work — hardy people wresting a living by busting rocks in the darkened mountain depths.
For others, coal mining means environmental degradation, a history of exploited workers, and communities challenged by the effects of coal’s extraction. What’s the word that coal communities need to hear in this time of transition marked by the decline of coal? How can people of faith provide a witness of hope to those affected by the changes? And what’s the ongoing symbolic significance of “Old King Coal”?
Industry decline
In the summer of 1985, coal was still booming. Federal Reserve economic data shows that over 177,000 workers made their living from the coal mining industry. Despite then-growing concerns over the use of fossil fuels because of their effects on the climate, new coal-powered plants were still being constructed to meet increasing demands for electricity. However, by the summer of 2017, less than 53,000 people were employed in coal mining and Scientific American was openly wondering, “Will the U.S. Ever Build Another Big Coal Plant?” Efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change have obviously played a role in the decline of the coal industry. Coal is a notoriously “dirty” fuel, and its extensive use through the Industrial Revolution and beyond has been associated with dense, miasmic fogs, poor air quality and the buildup of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. As governments around the world seek agreements to cap the use of carbon-based fuels, new regulations and the increasing availability of cleaner alternative fuels have made coal-powered plants less economically viable. The result? Last year Scientific American reported a 16-percent decline in coal-fired capacity since 2012. Meanwhile, also last year, utility companies were planning to add 11 gigawatts (GW) of natural gas and 8.5 GW of wind power. Even new subsidies for coal plants that incentivize the use of new carbon-capture technology don’t appear to be reversing this trend. Regulatory uncertainty compounds the issue, resulting in only one new coal plant (a relatively small one in Fairbanks, Alaska) moving forward with construction last year.
The “Resource Curse” and the promise of a new day
Beyond climate change, there are other costs to coal extraction. Labor relations in the industry have always been volatile. As miners organized into unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were violent conflicts and many deaths. Additionally, newer methods of extraction, like mountaintop removal, depend on what Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer calls “a kind of landscape vampirism,” exposing communities to risks such as “mudslides, dislodged boulders and flash floods.” Meyer writes that estimates show “in Kentucky alone, almost 4,000 miles of streams have been polluted, damaged or destroyed by mountaintop mining.”
Journalist Eliza Griswold, in her new book Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, examined some western Pennsylvania counties that have moved from coal to natural gas extraction marked by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Noting similarities with African communities she had visited, Griswold talks about the “Resource Curse” in which “some of the poorest people in the world live on some of the most resource-rich land.”
The book goes on to document the potentially deadly effects of the industry, but it also highlights the complex relationships these Appalachian communities have to coal and other resource extraction industries. “In Amity and Prosperity [Pennsylvania], as elsewhere,” Griswold writes, “resource extraction has long fed a sense of marginalization and disgust, both with companies that undermine the land and with the urbanites who flick on lights without considering the miners who risk their lives to power them.”
Others see a new opening for economic opportunity in recent efforts by the Trump administration to promote coal. “Coal mining was our lifeblood,” Tim Ellis told The Atlantic earlier this year. Ellis, who manages GCR Tires near Bessemer, Alabama, said, “The positivity, the optimism that things would get better — it’s just grown, and it’s really helped us financially. It greatly impacts our autonomy.”
Fatalism and hope
While covering the problems related to resource extraction in western Pennsylvania, Eliza Griswold ran into some residents who seemed fatalistic. One woman, upset about how fracking had poisoned her well, said, “God permitted this to happen because [our country] has gotten so far from him. . . . I just hope we’re raptured out of here.”
Other Christians have taken action to combat the worst effects of coal production. In 2007, the West Virginia Council of Churches, which involves more than a dozen denominations, including The United Methodist Church, produced a statement condemning mountaintop removal. Citing Genesis 2:15, the churches said, “Humans have been made stewards of all that God has made.” They affirmed that they were “also called upon to support others in the coalfield communities whose health is being harmed, and whose ancestral homes are being destroyed, disrupted and devalued.”
The United Methodist-related Red Bird Mission works to bring a message of hope to the coal region. Red Bird has been serving the Southern Highlands region of Kentucky since 1921 and has welcomed numerous partners from around the country in an effort to provide home repair, bring economic development, offer health services, and build a sustainable community. Such efforts bring something new into places that are often identified only by what has been lost when the coal industry leaves.
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups. FaithLink motivates Christians to consider their personal views on important contemporary issues, and it also encourages them to act on their beliefs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Joyner
Alex Joyner is Superintendent of the Eastern Shore District of The United Methodist church in the Virginia Conference read more…
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