For Dorothy, Ita, Jean and Maura: In light of the Catholic vote for Jesus' Antithesis

The theology school recently hosted an open mic night to celebrate the lives of four Church women who were killed while serving the Salvadoran people during the Civil War. It felt like the perfect time to put words to some of what I have been struggling with since the election. And really since I returned from my year in El Salvador. Sharing these words there was an important and powerful experience after a year of renegotiating that community. Below is the poem that I shared

I fell in love with this Church in that country

Breaking hot tortillas in communion

With people who barely knew me

But loved me and invited me in.

Stumbling through conversations

In clumsy Spanish

They shared their deep faith with me

They taught me about God’s tears

Knowing She cries for their pain

I listened in awe to their faith

and their commitment

To walk up the volcano

Day after day

To keep fighting

Honoring the memory of those who came before them

Of Dorothy, Ita, Jean, Maura

And so many others who committed their lives to justice

To open their doors, make space at their tables

To live their faith, day in and day out

Easter means something different there

Where life sometimes feels

Like a perpetual Holy Saturday

And the people keep getting crucified

By our greed, our apathy ,our walls

But somehow they still see resurrection

They bring each other down from their crosses

They follow Jesus

Feeding the hungry, advocating for the voiceless

Inviting people in who are tired, sick afraid and alone

I fell in love with this Church there

And it led me here

Where I came in search

Of a community, a voice

An education to build the foundation under my passion

To take it with me and make change

To bring the faith, commitment that I found there

Into the Church I so struggled with here

She told me it might be hard

To sit in these white walled classrooms

“Remember your time here” she said

Over beans and rice

Surrounded by

Walls painted with martyrs faces

Bright green hills, blue rivers, memories of war

“Remember the people you walked with”

“Remember what brought you there”

I came to find a way to make change

To continue being nourished by a Church committed to justice

To be an active player in the creation of God’s dream

Reminding our church that it is Jesus who we follow

Yet so often I am disappointed

Inside and outside of these walls

Because hierarchy, “tradition” and comfort

Seem to be more important

Than following Jesus

Again and again I leave mass feeling drained

Thirsting for messages of justice and action

A call out of comfort into global solidarity

Thirsting for a voice or even pronouns that sound like mine

Thirsting for community, challenge and nourishment

I keep going back, hoping maybe one day I’ll find it

But I keep crying

Leaving feeling isolated and hopeless

Questioning how I can I stay in this Church

That chooses comfort and hierarchy over following Jesus

Over justice, over the call to solidarity

my Salvadoran siblings first invited me into

More than half our Church

Just voted the antithesis of Jesus

Into the highest office in our country

They voted for exclusion

They voted for violence, walls, racism and homophobia

They voted for white supremacy

They voted for sexual assault

They voted for hate

Jesus didn’t preach hate

And we are failing

If we think following Jesus

and voting for Trump

Can fit in the same box

In my isolation, through my tears

You remind me

To hold onto the Church that I fell in love with

In the country that soon will be flooded

With people who fled to our country

In desperate search of safety and life

Half our Church just told them they are unwelcome

And soon they will be sent home

And the disconnect feels insurmountable

This is our call, this is our Church

Our God is sobbing at the state of our world

She is begging for us to stand up to hate

To take action, to follow Jesus

In creating the world She hopes for us

She is pleading for us

To challenge comfort, individualism and fear

Calling us to fight for justice

To be radically inclusive

To ask for more

From our Church and our world

This is our Church

The responsibility is in our hands

To look closely at what Jesus asks of us

To listen to the laments of the most marginalized

To use this education, our privilege

Our call to be our God’s hands on this earth

I came here to find companions on the journey

And somedays I feel so alone

Like my presence in this Church is irrelevant

Walk with me, stand with those who are not here to ask

Our God, She is Sobbing

This is our call to work for justice

This is our call to heal our broken world.

Dear Future Daughter(s)

I wrote this months ago and it has just been sitting on my computer getting rusty. After a conversation with a dear friend, who is so committed to making this Church better for women, and a small crisis about how I can keep fighting when I'm no longer in theology school- I thought it would be a good time to share. 

Dear Future Daughter(s),

Yesterday I sat in mass watching the Alter boys and I thought of you. I heard you so vividly asking me "why can the boys do it and we can't" and my heart broke. I spent the rest of the hour angry, wondering how I was going to bring you to a place that yet again denied you of your right to be all that you will be put on this Earth to be. I imagined how I would explain this to you, felt frustrated that you too will have to keep fighting and felt even more fearful of the unasked questions. I know what happens when you see the inequality playing out over and over again throughout your life. I know how this is digested, this idea that you are less- less capable, less worthy and less seen and known. Unfortunately, there are so many places that you will get this message. No matter how hard we try to protect you- advertisements, school, books, movies, everything around you will tell you that because you were born with a different biological makeup, you are not enough. We will fight that, every single day and I will tell you that all of those advertisements and messages are wrong, it will not be easy, but I think there are enough voices that are stronger than those to remind you that you are so very worthy.

Yet, sitting in the pew, watching the boys sit up on the alter, next to the priest in his King like chair, physically above and separate from us, holding the readings for him, supporting him in doing the sacraments, being groomed to someday take his place if they so please, I was so very angry that in this place too, I will have to try to find louder voices than those. I felt angry imagining that fight in this very institution that is supposed to connect you to a God that knows you are just as worthy, capable, and sees you for all that you have to offer this world.  My fear is not you asking the question, or even being able to answer- I will answer, I am so sure that this institution has it so very wrong and as I prayed I knew that God too thinks it is so very wrong. I am worried about the unspoken ways this will affect how you understand yourself.  The Church is failing us, failing women and men alike, and truly failing God. I sat with my head in my hands so very frustrated wondering how I will possibly be able to bring you, my future daughters, who I want nothing more than to know your goodness, to a place that denies this to you. In a place that is supposed to show us the way in bringing about the Reign of God, the place of God on this Earth, the messenger, the bridge, however we want to understand it, it's messages are so strong. They cut so deep, the gender of who is up there and who can become a priest, the actions of this Church they function in so many hurtful ways.

Overwhelmed with anger, questions and a fear of bringing you here, I realized this deep anger is of God. God wants me to be angry, because God too is so angry that there are only men on the altar. God is angry that the young girls who brought up the gifts found such joy in having the priest come down from the altar and take the gifts from them, because they so deeply want to be involved, invited to stand on the alter,  and so rarely are. God needs us sitting in those pews angry, aware, asking all the questions. It pains me to imagine you feeling the hurt of being told you are less, but we will talk about it. You will ask, we will answer, we will dig, we will cry and scream and express how not ok it is that you are not included. And eventually dear daughters, we will be heard. Eventually, sweet girls, you will stand on the alter if you so please. 

Sunday's Gospel was the annunciation, (reminder that I wrote this months ago) Mary finds out she is pregnant and hurries to tell her cousin Elizabeth who is also pregnant. We are told there is celebrating, Mary is highlighted for the ways she goes to share the good news and the two are lifted up for "helping one another". It is advent, the Church is waiting for baby Jesus to be born and the message we get about Mary is that she is a helper. In my anger about alter boys I found myself angry about Mary too. We speak so often about God coming to us in the flesh as Jesus, but we forget that the flesh that grew Jesus was Mary's. The flesh that stretched and tore and bled was Mary's. We hold Mary up as a Virgin, obedient to God's word, quietly taking on this surprise, yet she is so much more than that. Mary is strong and brave and courageous. And maybe even a little bit pissed, shocked and terrified that she has been given this burden, and expected to just take it as her own. I don't think she just smiled and nodded. I don't think Jesus coming in the flesh as male provides any reasoning for only men to be priest, only boys to be alter servers, and for you to feel the deep pain of being less than. Your very sex is the only way that we can know and follow Jesus in this life- a way of living that is so very good and worthy. Jesus brought such life, fought for justice, showed us the way we should all be living today, but Mary- Mary brought Jesus to life. And we must not forget that.

So in this season I will remember you, I will dream of you, and I will remember Mary. I will hold tight to the fact that the institution is wrong, and there is so much good in this tradition to reinterpret to you. Questions that I hope you always ask, pain you always express, so that together we can look at the ways this Church, like the rest of the world, is failing you. And failing your brothers alike. We will make sure you know a God that knows you and your worthiness, we will look closely at the ways you digest this, and when we cant do it all, we will trust that in your life you will find the space to know that you are being failed, and together we will stoke in you the flames to fight back, to stand up, to claim your worthiness, and look for the places where you are treated, seen and celebrated for who God knows you are. 

Backlogging posts. Because I want to be writing again. I want to use my voice again. This from a few months back...

News flash: The world is broken.

Its crazy these days how the only place you need to go for most news is Facebook. And in the past week my feed has been full. Full of people I admire who are on this Earth fighting the brokneess with everything they have posting about tragedy, hurt, brokenness, ugliness... and also about courage, love, community, strength and action. I've been quiet. No post about the amazing woman who shared her incredibly courageous statment with the world, or about her perpetrators ignorant dad who screams rape culture. No post about the lives lost in Orlando. I have a lot of feelings. And thoughts. But I have no words.

I cant wrap my mind around the fact that the amazing letter this woman wrote encaptualtes so very well the experience of countless women across the country and even more across the globe. She said it all so perfectly. And in her perfect explanation of the bull shit that is our world I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with how big and strong and invasive rape culture is. How much it has affected me and all the people I know in my life. How much work it will take to teach my sweet nephews something different, and eventually my own kids and even how much work it takes for me to shift the ways its gotten in my bones. How much body shaming, slut shaming, patriarchy, talking down to, relationship expectations, innocent parenting, etc, etc, etc, that we sometimes don't even notice feeds the disgusting culture that leads to Brock Turner only getting three months in prison, his father saying he cant eat steak and the life of pain and triggers and healing that courageous, brave, strong, wonderful, amazing woman whose name I do not know has ahead of her. I love her. I love her so much for writing those things. I want to hug her. And then I want to scream with all the other women in the world about how screwed up of a world this is. How mad I am that we have to have conversations about a friends option of staying at someones house she didn't know that well or getting in an uber alone and being afraid because shes had a couple drinks. Its every where. And I am so mad about it.

Saturday we went to the Pride parade in Boston. Felt joy and pride and celebration of all the love in the world. Because love is so so freaking good. Then we woke up to the worst news. And I looked into my sweet roomate's eyes and saw how deeply this thing hurt. It took me a while to wrap my mind around it. I couldn't read everything, I couldn't watch videos, I felt the same sort of resistance that I did to reading Brock Turner's dads statement. And I know that actually I could have I just didn't want to and avoiding the real is something that I hate. But I was afraid it would knock me down. So many people read it all, watched it all and kept standing, though shakey. And I wiped tears and hugged people tight who were just barely standing still, but I couldn't read it myself. I'm overwhelmed by the conversations I've had, the "it was amazing to not worry about who was homophobic there", the gross responses Bob is reading as he summarizes the Catholic response, the fear in people's eyes, the way this hits so close to home and just imagining these families who lost their loved ones- so young, in the most horrible way. I'm mad. I'm mad that these shootings keep happening. That while this one shakes us in hard, new and the same ways it's not alone, it's not rare, and while none of us can even comprehend how someone could kill so many people- we also should be able to. When there is hate everywhere. And there are guns so easily accesible. And violence and power struggles and toxic masculinity. Something has got to change. And we keep saying that, over and over and over again.

I started writing this two weeks ago. And today there is more violence. More pain. More loss. And still so few words. My privelege screams in my ear. White. Heterosexual. Cisgender. Middle Class. Educated. Etc. Etc. Etc. How many times have I been stopped and how many times have I not even gotten a ticket? How many times has it even crossed my mind that I could lose my life in a moment like this. NEVER. My privelege stops me in my tracks and I feel scared to speak- afraid of messing up, knowing that I dont get it. I will never get it. But I also know that silence is lethal. And I and we cannot be silent. Because I and we ARE THE OPRESSORS. We are the ones that keep these horrible systems in place. We are the ones who can continue to be stopped by cops without fear. Continue to be naive of the fear and trauma and pain and loss and extreme injustice that our siblings our experiencing everyday. Today I want to hug everyone I pass. I want to tell them I love them. I want ot tell them we are family and we must stand together and protect each other and we must protect our black siblings, our LGBTQ siblings, all of our siblings who are marginalized and opressed every single day. I dont know what to do. And I am humbled by my not knowing. I am looking to people around me for wisdom and feel so grateful for all the wisdom there is in the community of people who make up my facebook feed. So many people finding words for things that I cannot, so many people searching for answers, so many people trying to hold their privelege at the very forefront of their view and do something about how incredibly screwed up this country is.

I will keep trying. I will keep listening. I will keep looking to people who know more. I will look at myself. I will educate myself. I will share words and knowledge and hopefully I will create spaces for these conversations. Hopefully I will embody what I believe. Hopefully I will be surrounded by people who can tell me when I mess up. Hopefully I will find more answers, more action steps, more words.

Because They Took the Old One

A few weeks ago I accompanied a group of students on an immersion trip to Chiapas, Mexico. It was an incredibly trip full of learning and heart moving and reflecting together about our place in this world. So many things moved through me- but this poem I wrote after driving away from one of the most impactful parts of the trip.

Today we sat in a circle on the floor of Casa del Migrante
Five Salvadorans sat with us
They left home four days ago
And will walk for at least a month more

"The risk to stay in our country
 is greater than the risk of this journey"
They tell stories of robberies, kidnapping and sexual assault
"But in my home I can't work, I can't go to school"
"They told me January wouldn't come for me,
that they would kill me over Christmas"

Tears streamed down my face
That country I love so deeply
Is no longer a place fit for living.
Their home can no longer be home.
Yet those words don't do justice
To the depth of pain in their eyes.

"It's hard to decide to leave your family
But I think you're country will be different
It will be different there"

More tears fall as I imagine sweet Arely in the U.S.
Yes she will be safer.
She will not receive gang threats
Or be afraid to step out her door.

Yet so many things will threaten her.
ICE. Discrimination. Isolation
A continued struggle to find work and survive.
But- she will be safer.

"We are trying to make a new life
because they took our old one from us"

"We'll stay a couple days until her feel heal"
"We met on the camino, we didn't want her to walk alone,
Donde vas mija?"
"Somos una familia"

They will protect her and each other
But who knows what the road holds ahead
Someone could die
She may be raped
They could get caught or sent back.

The road ahead is so unknown, so dangerous,
so full of risk.
Yet they reminded us the risk is worth it
because the risk to stay home is greater.

How did we get here?
How are we in such pain that gangs control our homes?
And then migration police control our choices, dreams and desires for a better life?
Our attempts to take care of our children and families
Our attempts to stay alive?

God. We are failing
We are failing so miserably

And listening to their stories
I am so overwhelmed,
Lost in a world of questions
About what we can possibly do
How will it get better?

My heart breaks so many times entering this reality
But I never want to stop letting it break.
My tears feel meaningless compared to hers
But I will keep crying them

Help me find a way to fight and walk and be with the people of our world
Who are forgotten, who are hurting, who keep fighting for their lives.

Give me the strength to engage with the hurt.
The courage to imagine something different.
And help me find the path to live into some answers.
Or even just one