Ally Yourself

I've been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be an ally. As a white person, a person with economic privilege, a straight person, I've often seen myself as an ally to people who experience less privilege in our culture's system. But recently an anti-racist educator challenged that idea of being an ally, suggesting that the whole concept is embedded in a system of oppression...where some have privilege and some don't, and those with privilege can be an ally. She encouraged me to think about the idea of being an anti-racist white person instead, of choosing to put forth an identity that actively works against the system of oppression. If this is all getting a little heady, let me suggest a more tangible example--a time recently when I might have been an ally, but when I felt like I was just part of a new culture. The recent election included the passage of marriage equality in Maryland, something I had worked a little on and hoped a lot for. In the days that followed, I had an interesting experience. As I spoke with friends who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual--the people who would be potentially affected by the new law because they were now able to marry their partners, at least in one more state--I struggled with what to say. Part of me wanted to say "congratulations!" as though this was their victory. And I recognize that on some level, as a woman married to a man whose marriage has never been called into question, my friends and colleagues who are LGB or queer have a personal relationship with this law that I will never experience. But at the same time, I felt as though I wanted to say congratulations to myself, to all of Maryland, to everyone else who had worked on and hoped for this. I felt not like an ally to a group that had finally won its rights, but like a part of a new thing, a full participant in a society that was doing something right, something loving and inclusive. I think that this was a taste of what it's like to move beyond ally-dom and into anti-ism-dom, whether it's racism or heterosexism or any other kind of ism. Or maybe it's not even anti-ism-dom but inclusion-dom, or equality-dom, or whatever kind of world isn't just about fighting systems of oppression but actually imagining itself without systems of oppression. We have a long way to go, on all those isms. But I'm beginning to think that on that journey, I don't want to be just an ally...I want to be a full traveler. I would love to hear thoughts and responses to all of this, from those who resonate with the word ally, who don't think it's quite right, and everything in between!

Thank Everyone for Everything

I've been thinking about gratitude recently, about how--to paraphrase my colleague Mary Herman on Stone Soup Sunday--Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that commercialism hasn't been able to ruin. There's something just essentially human about the impulse to be thankful, to thank each other and thank the universe and thank the spirit of love or life or God, or whatever works for us. Anne Lamott, the writer, has a new book out about prayer called "Help, Thanks, Wow" because she thinks a prayer is always one of those things, and the 13th century German theologian Meister Eckhart said, "If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice." In a humanist community, we can be a little itchy about prayer, but we're rarely itchy about saying thank you--or anyway, we certainly shouldn't be. But sometimes it's hard to think whom we are thanking, if it's not another person. There are things out there that no person gave us, but that we love and marvel at and appreciate all the same. Are we thankful to the world? To science? To evolution? Actually, I feel thankful to all of those things, or at least about them. I'm also thankful for what I call grace: for the sort of accidental, or at least serendipitous, beauty in the world. For the care and love that people show each other, and the wonder of the world, and just the way life is so nice sometimes. There was a poem by Marilyn Nelson that I came across a while back which says this better than I can. It seems a little morbid at first, and it's titled "Psalm," which you might think is another of those itchy words. But please do click on this link and read it (I don't want to paste it here for copyright reasons). And then tell me if you see the connection, too, the connection to...I'm not sure, just the luck sometimes of being alive in this world. Happy Thanksgiving.

New York: Everyone's City

My family and immediate area was lucky to escape most of Hurricane Sandy's wrath, but I've been reading about and looking at pictures from New York and New Jersey with a sense of such pain and loss. And that has me thinking about why I feel this heartache so deeply--why the images in the paper and on TV feel like the images of my town, not some place hundreds of miles away. Of course there are people I love in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, and I've visited the city enough in childhood and adulthood to know many of the streets I now see flooded and overrun with debris. But there's something more there--something that I think the country experience on 9/11, too. New York feels like our city, all of our city...or anyway it feels like my city in some way that I can't quite define but surely experience. I spoke last Sunday at our Remembrance Day platform service about places, and how they can remind us of the people we've lost. Now I'm thinking about places we've lost, and the way that we can lose places we've never even been: places that we meant to visit, or that hold a place in our own or in our culture's imagination. How many songs are about New York City, how many plays or movies are set there? Somehow we've all been to New York, whether our feet have ever touched ground or not. And then there's a piece too, I think, about the humanity there...the sheer numbers of people in New York City and its environs, the humanness in all its messy, diverse glory. We can all find ourselves in the faces of New York, if only because there are so many faces to look at. And that, too, tugs on our heartstrings. I don't have any questions today, just the musings of someone who is thinking of my human family north of here. And I bet that, whoever you are and wherever you live, you are too.

Music, Mystery, and Magic

Twice in the last couple of months I've had the experience of hearing a musician create a sound that seems...impossible. Once was at a platform service at WES, when the percussionist Tom Teasley created the most amazing melodies by--as far as I could tell--banging in random places on an overturned bowl. The other time was this past weekend at a colleague's installation ceremony, where an electric violinist used what turned out to be a looper to layer his own sounds on themselves, creating a virtual symphony all by himself. Those experiences, which at the time I just enjoyed for their beauty, got me thinking about mystery and magic more broadly. I liked learning about the looper and how the electric violinist produced those layered sounds, but in some ways it was even cooler when I didn't know how he was doing it. I feel the same way about magicians...I don't really want to learn how the trick works. I enjoy the suspension of disbelief. And how about in the world at large? Rooted in a humanistic faith, many of us value the scientific method, our ability to explore and experiment and learn about our world. Is there a place in all of that for mystery and magic? Are there some things that we don't need to, or don't want to, learn about--things that we just want to wonder at? I imagine the answer is different for each of us. I know plenty of scientists who would say understanding exactly how the universe works makes them find it even more awe-inspiring. And others who say we'll never answer every question anyway, so we can be assured that some things will be mysteries, at least during our lifetimes. For me, a little mystery and magic is a good thing. How about you?

Being...Quiet.

This past Tuesday, I finally did something I've been meaning to do for about seven years. Something I thought would really add to my spiritual journey. Something I've just got to tell you about (obviously, since it's now become a blog post). Something I might talk to you about, too, if I see you...because I really do like to talk. I went on silent retreat. Before you feel impressed with me, I should say it was only four hours of silence. Less, if you count the centering circle in the beginning and the sharing circle at the end. But it was still the longest period of time I have been intentionally, thoughtfully silent. And guess what? It was great! Part of that was the beautiful scenery, a retreat center near Gaithersburg, MD. And part of it was being intentionally quiet along with 20 or so other people, all of us with our own books or journals, our own walks or front-porch sitting, our own thoughts. Similar to meditating with a group of people, I found the energy around me palpable, and so interesting to experience. I was aware of other things, too. I'm someone who's usually on the lookout for metaphorical meaning in the world (a hazard of both my profession and my personality), but that became even more true when I was silent. Suddenly everything I saw or did took on a meaning, reminded me of whatever I was thinking about or wondering about, every question I came to ask. It's not that I thought those were messages sent from on high, but that I found a way to create meaning, to see meaning, in the everyday occurrences that life provided. Of course I was also more aware of my other senses and abilities when my mouth wasn't busy talking. I appreciated the wind more, the flowers. I was able to notice more deeply than usual. Have you tried being intentionally silent for a while? Perhaps much, much longer than I have! What was your experience like? Or--what else brings you that kind of experience in life?

Whose City Is This? Wait...Which City Is This?

I've been thinking even more than usual about DC recently, since the last week has had a lot of Washington Interfaith Network events for me. I've been to a meeting with the chancellor of DC schools, a clergy breakfast to talk about education in Ward 4, a strategy team meeting for city-wide action, and this morning a neighborhood canvassing walk to sign up "WIN voters"--basically, people who agree with WIN's platform of affordable housing, jobs, and education and who are willing to learn more. Anyway, all those conversations with clergy in the city and neighbors and lay members of congregations, combined with all the driving around DC for these various meetings (which were in NE, SE, and NW) has me wondering which city DC really is. Is it the seat of national power, the marble and guards and power deals? Is it the Petworth row houses where I was this morning, the mix of longtime residents and new folks? Is it Ward 2, where they want more trash clean-up on the streets, or Ward 8, where they just want jobs, jobs, jobs? DC is even more complicated than most cities, I think, because it's the nation's capital as well as being a city made up of pretty distinct neighborhoods, even villages. What I've been struck with is how much I've learned just from the conversations I've had in the last few days, through a cracked-open door or across a boardroom table. And how these seemingly different cities can come together around some core issues. DC politics can be disheartening and frustrating--maybe because it's all tied up in national politics (and that dependence is a whole other post about autonomy and voting representation). But today, after two hours walking the neighborhoods and asking people what they care about, I'm feeling more hopeful than usual about our ability to create a new political will, a will of the people. If you want to sign up as a WIN voter, go to their website. And let me know if you did, so WES can get credit! We've committed to signing up 500 voters, and my great experience this morning has me thinking we might just be able to do it.

Let Us Text Together

Here's another article from that same alert reader who sent me the generations piece--about what one synagogue did to reach out to a younger generation. Basically, this "experience" (specifically not called a service) invited participants to live text throughout the time, and those texts were shared anonymously on a big screen at the front of the sanctuary. People shared prayers, hopes, regrets, wishes, and the occasional joke. Is this what the future holds? Do we want it to? Reading this article, I felt pulled in two directions--directions that often pull at me, actually. One is to be a religious community that engages with people in whatever way they want to and are equipped to engage. In this case, that means social media and texting and the culture of immediate and constant public disclosure. For the people in this experience, the chance to engage that way seems to have been meaningful. They were able to connect, and they hadn't been able to connect in more traditional ways. On the other hand, I'm drawn to the idea that this immediate media culture isn't necessarily the healthiest way to live a life--and that part of the role of a religious community is to offer an alternative. Can texting really be meditative? Isn't part of why you come to a platform service, or a church service, or a synagogue service that you get to take a break from all of that? I don't have answers here. Most religious congregations, I think, choose a middle ground: they have a Facebook page but they tell you to turn off your cell phone when service starts. What do you think? Is the most important thing to reach people wherever they are? Or do we need to invite people in and offer them a different way to be?