40. Be a better friend

No one is going to do it for you. You are going to have to cultivate the habit of getting out of your own head and be a friend. You have to show up for others.

Real Love

For a nation that is in trauma and tension we need love that is not rose colored conceptions of affection flavored patriotism, we need a love that is rooted in liberation, humanity, and accountability. We are a union that is in need of Real Love     Real Love 9/25

I Don't know what healing looks like

I burned my hand a few days ago, honestly i was overdue for a misfortune. From time to time something odd happens; espresso machine blows up in my face, eat something that is a bit overripe, swallow a bug. it had been a solid year since a shenanigan found it's way into my life. i was overdue. So Saturday morning i had the grand idea to cook fish. And in the process of baking the fish i burned my hand.

It had been quite sometime since i had experienced pain like this sharp and persistent. The old folks would say you gotta get the heat out of the burn. I put all sorts of condiments on my hand to get relief; Mustard, lemon juice, cocoa butter, shea butter, regular butter ( i have no idea why). And no matter what i put on it, it still hurt. It was going to hurt, regardless of my actions i had already suffered the burn and there was nothing i could do to make the pain go away.

     So i stuck my hand in a bowl of water, said my prayers, and hoped for relief. from time to time i would look at my hand to see if there were any visible indications of the pain i had inflicted upon myself. No sooner than i removed my hand from the water than the shooting pain of my burns returned. After a few days and two agonizing trips to CVS my hand started to feel better. I could finally see the damage that was left behind, the damage that i did. I begin to pick, i am a picker, i pick. To pull at burnt skin, to touch my wounds to pick at them.

    I have never allowed any wounds to heal, i always find a reason to pick at them, to make them bleed, to make them hurt. i find a way to sabotage my healing to feel the security of pain again. I find ways to deny myself relief to steal my own recovery.  I have made scratches turn to scars and bumps to bruises because of my insatiable desire to pick at the parts of me that are in pain.  

    There are some injuries that should not have left scars, some cuts that should have healed over, i should not have to bear the witness of my wounds on my body. But I never learned how to accept the ugliness of the in between times. The time between my injury and healing. And because i never learned how to cope with the in between i don't know what it is to be healed. i don't know what healing looks like. I don't know if i walk away from this without a scar, i don't know if my skins stays this tender and smooth. i am not sure if i will continue to have what appears to be impact wounds lying just under my skin. I don't know what healing looks like.

    So I ask myself is heal still possible if i don't know what i am looking for? How do i know if i have arrived? What is the sign that i am past the ugly in between times of my healing? When do we make it to healing.

    

      For far too many all we know is the pain of our wounds. Healing is only a construction of imagination and aspiration. we have been dealt harsh blows and in some cases exacerbated our own injuries and now we pick at our pain because dysfunction and damage have replaced health and healing. We carry scars and scar others because pain has become home. It does not feel good, it just feels .. and when you don't know what healing feels like,  can't see the progress of your predicament, and can't hold hope in your hands so you surrender to pass the pain around.

 I look at my finger one more time, at the deep burn marks left there and this time instead of picking myself apart i begin to dream. I dream of a day when these burns will only be a distant memory. I dream of a time when the pain will be forgotten. i construct a reality where what i went through doesn't live on me. I may not know what healing looks like but i know how to dream. i can dream of a space where what injured me is not used to identify me. I can dream.  I don't have the requisite experience to tell you what healing looks like, but i can tell you what healing looks like in my dreams.

  Healing is when my flesh is not the context for my treatment. Healing is when i can see the potential of my community rather than just see the problem. healing is when i can love without fear , instead of fearing to be loved. Healing is when i can be brave and weak. Healing is when my heart doesn't break so much, or free to break as much as it needs. Healing is when my words give life and render no sorrow....

    So i will keep watching my wounds, bearing the ugly in between time, resisting the urge to pick myself apart. And maybe i will finally know what it means to be healed.

When your Research is trash God keeps the Receipts

I am sharing this for one reason and one reason only to illustrate a problem with how data is used. This is an explicit example that correlation is not causality. Out of all the other variables that make up a marriage this is not a variable that is quantifiable. Moreover, using data in this manner is hyper misogynistic, it places a standard, expectation, and responsibility for marital success at the feet of women. The data was analyzed by men then reported by a man; but somehow men where not taken into account by the analysis of data. The willful and blatant exemption of men in this analysis of data makes the study itself corrupt, the reporting lazy, and editorial integrity devoid. Be Better... this is rooted in patriarchy

Women Who Remain Virgins Before Marriage Least Likely to Divorce, Study Finds

The Problem of Owning “It”

Dr. Larry McSwain ethics professor at McAfee School of Theology would give a legendary lecture concerning ministerial ethics. And in this lecture he would talk about the third rails of ministry, things every minister needs to be mindful of.  He would open by giving us examples of sordid affairs and indiscretions by ministers as a warning to the young preachers in his class. And we listened in disbelief, not wanting to hear the things that took place while in the ministry. And we all swore that it would never be us, that we would never stoop so low, that we would never lose sight of who we were called to be.

          

       And one year later another brother or sister finds themselves in an unethical situation we all hang our heads low. A part of it is the messiness of life, that as much as we try and for all of our good intentions, people are still going to well… “people”. We are going to muck situations up by the sheer virtue of showing up. We are going to break something by the mere persistence of our presence. People are good at “people’ing”.  Give us the simplest task and we will find a way to complicate it.  We fall in love and in lust. We are swayed by our emotions they lead to places we had no intent upon going. We see brass rings and shiny things and we reach for them because they look so good but mean us no good. People are good at “people’ing”

          

       But I want to draw a distinction between bringing our flaws and personality defects to the dinner table and using our positions, power, and privilege to prey on others.  Because what I am seeing is not the traditional tropes of “we all fall short of the glory of God”; I am seeing predatory behaviors being sugarcoated with flowery rhetoric.  There is a difference between falling short and conceding to be a crap person. There is a difference between an indiscretion and manipulation. There is a difference between and accident and intent.  We are not falling short, in order to fall you would have to stand first. We are wearing masks of virtue when in reality we are vipers on the hunt.

  We are not vipers for having desires. We are not vipers for enjoying sex. We are not vipers for being sensual creatures. We are not vipers for having aspirations. We are vipers for being inauthentic concerning our intents. We are vipers for preying upon people’s insecurities.  We are vipers for playing emotional shell games. Our passions, our desires do not make us viperous people; failing to be responsible for them does. Failing to check ourselves when we know our capacity for destruction makes us viperous.

Practicing theology that does not accommodate for healthy articulations of our sensuous selves meanwhile taking part in irresponsible behaviors makes us vipers.  Portraying abstinence for single people as the pathway to righteousness, while having no intent or desire to follow that path… is viperous.   Structuring our ministries to serve single people when in reality they prey on the insecurities of single black women … is viperous.

The problem is not in our pants. The problem is not in our sensuality. The problem is not in our sexuality. The problems are not found in our orientation. The aforementioned may be scandalous but that is not where the problem lies; the problem is in our lack of integrity.  We have become so invested in the persona that we send into the world that we have no idea what healthy relationships look like. We lie to ourselves concerning what we need, and why we need it and expect others to be okay with our manipulations. We create relationships that are rooted in hypocrisy and deception. We refuse to tell the truth about ourselves and because of our hypocrisy people in our lives learn to love the strangers who wear our skin. Such duplicity causes us to live without integrity. Living without integrity we become vampires with bloodlust consuming everything and everyone around us. We bleed them dry for their love, affirmation, and care, happy to consume but too selfish to give.

When people who lead congregations refuse to live healthy and whole lives we spread a disease of apathy and exceptionalism to those most vulnerable in our congregations. We are modeling behaviors that suggest that accountability is good for you but when you lead you are accountable to no one.

 Instead of modeling behaviors that are healthy for our communities at whole we pass the pain around like the offering tray at midday. We are the same ministers that use the pulpit as a place to police sexuality but lack the authenticity to police our own behaviors.  We are the same ministers who preach respectability but will not walk with authenticity. We are the same ministers who point fingers at others but prey on those whom we are pointing. This act is the height of hypocrisy

We create a church culture that is unable to speak maturely about desire. A culture sees no value in desire beyond a catalyst that leads to procreation. Church culture remains infantile in its ability to navigate our sensual and spiritual selves. We are working from models of human sexuality that are centuries old. Approaching our sensual selves in this light is tantamount to using carrier pigeons to relay messages when a phone is in your hand. We know better and we have been called to do better.

 We know that desire in itself is not bad. It should be celebrated to be celebrated. They are given to us by a wonderful and caring God. Our desires are meant to be explored, understood and managed responsibly. They are not meant to be ignored, suppressed or prayed away. Desires should be welcomed and affirmed .When managed effectively they bring us closer to ourselves and to our partners. When we are able to communicate desires, our sensuous needs, we are able to fully participate in the abundance of life withholding nothing.

However, communicating such need requires that we do the deep and often painful work of honesty and integrity. Locating what the soul needs to flourish requires that we commit to an integrous walk of interpersonal ownership, in other words we have to own it, claim it, hone it. We can’t place the responsibility for our brokenness at anyone’s feet but ours. . The devil didn’t make us do it. We were not tempted or seduced; we wanted to take advantage of the situation before us. And we own the fact that we abused our power and abused people. That language is painful but it is necessary.

 The good news of ownership is; whatever you own you have the capacity to influence.  When we own our brokenness we have the capacity to seek repair. If we own our frailty we have the capacity to secure integrity.  If we own our carelessness we have the capacity to become mindful. And if we own our desires we turn shame into celebration.

            

That was not very nice…

       

       From kindergarten to the fifth grade I was the undisputed champion and recipient of an award called “citizenship”.  Five consecutive years I was given awards for my capacity to comply with classroom rules. There were no quantitative metrics for this award, no guidelines that one had to follow ; Citizenship was awarded by a purely subjective evaluation of the teacher. The Citizenship award did not take into account a student’s intelligence or ingenuity; the award was given to students just for showing up and not causing a disturbance.

               

       For five years I socialized to believe that being compliant, nice, and docile were measures by which I would be acknowledged and rewarded. From school to church the ideas of what it meant to be a good citizen/ person were reduced to simply “be nice”. We were told that if you could only “be nice” than you have meet your quotient and contribution toward the collective good of society.  In church our Sunday school lessons were less interested in developing people who were faithful the Gospel of Jesus Christ but rather interested in producing people that were compliant to the rules in place. Our lessons revolved around what it meant to be obedient even if that obedience makes one complicit in oppressive systems and to oppressive ideas.

               

       With such a pedagogy in place it becomes okay to use religious rhetoric to espouse bigotry because we were nice. It becomes acceptable to pervert the gospel of liberation in order to suit our prejudices; because we were nice. It becomes permissible to demonize people for who they are because we were nice.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ in this framework is reduced to “if you want to please God just be nice”.

            

        But I am of the mind that being nice is simply not enough. I am of the mind that following Christ in a way that is faithful cannot simply be conflated to “be nice”.  That being a good Christian is not rooted in simple asceticism or compliance. I am of the mind that our twisted sense of goodness is evil in better clothes. The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to the sanctification of liberation. And that liberation is not just for people who share our orientation, affiliation or station in life but to all of God’s creation.

              

   We are not good Christians just because we can follow the rules of oppressive systems and ideologies. We are not good Christians when God’s love and compassion is legislated in bathrooms. We are not good Christians when bandy about “love the sinner, hate the sin” theologies. We are not good Christians for calling those who God has created sinners to begin with. We may be nice in our delivery but we are not good. We may look like portraits for functional normality but we are not good. We may uplift ourselves as the models of respectability and the panacea of personal behavior but we are not good. Yes it might look good and may sound good but it is not good.

 The gospel calls us to a greater goodness; one that is well past the compliance necessary to get awards for citizenship. It may be that we have become so invested in compliance to systemic evil that we have lost our capacity to be prophetic.  The goal of the Christian is not to be sweet, it’s not to be nice, it’s not to docile but we have been called to be prophetic witness to God’s revolutionary love. And that prophetic voice must be resolute in declaring that God has called us to tear down walls of hate. That prophetic voice must be resounding to love those who have been “othered”. That prophetic voice must reverberate even in the walls of our own churches to declare that God has not called us to a gospel of hate and harm but rather a gospel of liberation and love.

Such an articulation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not nice, but it is good. This pronouncement is not compliant but it is salvific. Such a declaration is not docile but it is life giving. This announcement maybe uncomfortable but we have not been called to comfort we have been called to do that which is good.  It may be that in the pursuit of awards for being “Good Christian Citizens” we have lost sight of the reward for being the prophetic people of God.  

We should have Torn our Clothes ... a reflection of a brother gone too soon

^{We should have torn our clothes}

                ^{My childhood reflections of a brother gone too soon}

Then David took hold on his clothes, and rent them; and likewise all the men that were with him:

      The first time I saw him he had on a gray suit, rimless glasses, and a smile that could light up a room. As a child I was always mystified by ministers, their demeanor, language, and aura. And he was no different he gingerly climbed the stairs to enter my father’s study in our little country church as he prepared to preach our annual revival.  We had watched him climb through the ranks and become a beloved minister in our conference. He was trusted by leading elders, pastors and lay leader; the stars were all aligned for him to become a skyrocket of pastoral success.

      I remember coming to one of the conference meetings and not seeing him there and upon closing the meeting the bishop informed us that he was sick, and we were not to visit him in the hospital. This instruction struck me as quite odd, visiting the sick was one of the things that we did as Christians. What was it that made this sickness so different? What were the symptoms that merited such a response from our episcopal leader? How sick could he possibly be that we could not go and extend the sacrament to him?  In the late eighties there were commercials that talked about HIV and AIDS and we discussed it in school because of Magic Johnson, but I'm from West Alabama and surely nobody has AIDS here. There was no possible way that I thought someone who we knew could possibly have AIDS. We were taught that it was a “gay disease” but we didn’t have any gay people in Tuscaloosa county?

         

   Thinking back to my childhood I have been nurtured by gay people all my life. From the faithful ladies who shared a home together, holding their head above the snickers on Sunday morning (they made me a quilt when I left for college), to the brothers who taught me about pitch and rhythm in the choir.  Growing up in the South you may have known that people were different but no one called that difference homosexuality, no one said “that’s a gay person” . Maybe it was our southern gentility or passive aggressive fence making but we acted as if homosexuality didn’t exist. It was an ignorance of convenience, to be nurtured by such wonderful people while at the same time acting as if they did not exist. These beautiful people who enriched our communities could not benefactors of the beauty and grace that they gave. Silence and shame became essential for survival in the highly churched Deep South.

  

          But this time we could not avert our eyes, this time we could not look away, this time we could not ignore because this time if affected someone who shined so brightly before us. I remember the whispers, the somber faces and the looks that were exchanged as people attempted to navigate around talking about him. Every now and then we would receive updates concerning his well being, leaders still admonishing us not to visit him. They would whisper about T cells and viral loads and as a child I didn’t know what they meant but I knew it was bad, I knew he was sick and I knew that Christians visit the sick. For the life of me I could not rationale what sickness could have been so bad that we could not be light and salt to him. Why couldn’t we talk about what was wrong with him? Why would someone tell us what was the matter?   

         

   Meeting after meeting his name would be brought up and we would pray for him but those same prayers would be accompanied by whispers and innuendo. Gossip about his “mysterious illness” would slip and slither around as over time his condition continued to diminish.  I thought about him; I thought about what our silence was doing to him. I thought about all the miracles of the gospel and how Jesus was never afraid to touch the afflicted but somehow we were afraid to touch this issue.

  Even as a child I knew that this was wrong, I knew that what we were doing to him was wrong. I knew that God had not called us to shun him; we had been called to love him. I knew that love didn’t look like this. I knew what love looked like; I was there when church ladies would come and care for each other after a death. I was there when a special offering would be taken for someone who had lost a job. I was there when we held each other through tears and pain. I know what our love looks like. This was not our love, this was not our care, this was not our grace … this was an articulation of our fears, our ignorance and our cruelty wrapped with scripture and laced with pseudo theological jargon.  In effect this was what Christianity looked like without Christ.

       

     A few months later I saw him for a final time at a state meeting. I remembered how thin he had gotten, how his face had become rough and almost gray. He was accompanied by his sisters to his seat they held his hand the entire service. I remember his smile, how even through his suffering he still had the audacity to smile. He smiled with that big, bright, brilliant smile that lit up the whole room.

That smile publicly shamed us all, it shamed every person who lacked the courage to love him and care for him. That smile shamed every person who lacked the compassion to educate themselves concerning his condition. That smile shamed every person who clung so ardently to a flawed reading of scripture that they could not live the intent of the gospel. Six months later he passed… we cried, we mourned, we rent our clothes, we gave the show, we performed marvelously. And we told one final lie.

      

      In his death we acted as if we truly cared for his life. We acted as if we held him through his pain. As if we extended compassion and grace. We acted as if we had not been silent at all.  When in reality we sat idly by and watched a man die and made his suffering into a scandal.  During the late eighties to the mid-nineties I attended funerals for musicians, ministers, and sons who died from a mysterious illness. And being the good southerners that we were, we shed the tears and sealed our lips.

There are two commandments for living in the south thou shalt love Jesus, and thou shalt not be gay. And no southern son or daughter dared bring shame upon their family and come out of anything much less a closet.  And as a child I remember feeling the shame after every funeral, hearing the same whispers, seeing the looks, there were always the looks.

        

    He was a gay minister who preached the Gospel, rightly administered the sacraments, and exercised the discipline of the church faithfully ... deserved the love, compassion and care of his community. There was nothing for him to be ashamed of, he was beloved of God. He was a gay man that was taught by the church that the only way that he could be able to survive was to hide so he hid. He was born a gay man who died because we were too ashamed to have a conversation about sex, sensuality, and orientation. He was a gay man. And it breaks my heart that I don’t if he died knowing that God loved him.

          

       Church can be a place of liberation. It can be a place where those who have been afflicted can be healed. But it can also be a place where silence can kill. We have been come experts at saving face rather than saving souls. The memory of this man haunts me, the silence of the church scares me, and our collective inaction pisses me off.   

     A few tapes are always playing in my mind 1^st “shame is a deadly thing” there is no gospel in shame. 2^nd "I will not use scripture to justify homophobia, misogyny or xenophobia." these tapes are always reminding me to fight for those who are silenced, broken and battered by systems that tell them that they are not worthy to be loved. I choose to fight forward not fueled  by the shame that we tried to heap upon him but by that brilliant smile that lit up an entire room.