John 13:34-35 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Sermon
Since Pastor Debra has been incorporating the amazing work and creativity of Fred Rogers from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood into her sermons, she asked me to also think about Mr. Rogers as I prepared to speak. When I think of Mr. Rogers and pets, there are several things that come to mind:
Koko the gorilla – 800 pound gorilla who learned 2,000 words in ASL during her lifetime. When Mr. Rogers went to visit Koko, we learned that she also watched his show, because the first thing she did when he came into her compound was to take off his shoes!
Mr. Rogers was always encouraging kids to enjoy make believe – even to the silly extent of having a gorilla as a pet. But as a practicing vegetarian, he didn’t push his own lifestyle, but had a deep desire to empathize and care for the animal kingdom.
I watched an old Mr. Rogers show last weekend where he talked about responsibility related to having a pet. He described responsibility as the ability to answer to someone else’s needs – and he sang a song called “I’m taking care of you.” And, of course, he talked about how our relationship with animals is good practice for our relationships with humans – answering to others’ needs, taking care of those we love, and being gentle with others even when we feel sad or angry.
Pets are one of the fastest growing industries in America. In fact, being a pet in an American home is a really good gig! We love our dogs, cats, turtles, fish, rabbits, birds, ferrets . . .
In a recent poll, 95% of pet owners said their animal is a member of the family. We buy them birthday gifts and sweaters/ties/Halloween costumes and treats. But it’s a 2-way street because some solid research also says people with pets have lower blood pressure, heart rate and heart-disease risk than those who don’t.
Mental health is also a factor – Gilligan is wearing his special therapy dog vest today because he wants to show off and because I can use him as an example of a growing number of animals who go through extensive training to become therapy dogs who help others calm stress, fear and anxiety in different settings. Every major children’s hospital in America now has some type of therapy animal program.
There have been interesting studies - in one, a group of stressed out adults were asked to pet a rabbit, a turtle, or a stuffed animal. For those who pet the stuffed animal – no effect. But petting a living creature, whether hard shelled or furry, lessened their anxiety (even if they didn’t like animals).
In another study, a group of elderly people were each given 5 not so cuddly crickets to care for. Depression lessened in a month was attributed to the act of caring for another living creature (remember Mr. Rogers – answering to another’s needs?).
One of the most studied therapy animals is the horse. Horses have been used in equine therapy in Europe since 1860. Adults and children with physical and mental health issues have made amazing strides while helping to groom or feed or walk or ride a horse.
Here we are today having a pet blessing service – because we recognize the significance of these animals in our lives and our homes and our relationships. I believe with all my heart that at the center of these pets is a wonderful thing called LOVE. As a psychologist who has studied human beings for years, I know that at our core, we want to belong and we want to be loved!
Pets are one of the closest things we might ever get to true unconditional love – but like Mr. Rogers, I believe these pets of ours are intended as practice for our relationship with humans. John 13 says love one another. People will identify you as someone special when you love one another.
Over 50 years ago, a sociology professor at John’s Hopkins University assigned his class the project of interviewing 200 inner city youth in the slums of Baltimore. Through these interviews, he asked his students to predict the future of these youth. His class predicted 90% of the youth they interviewed would serve time in prison.
25 years later, the same professor assigned a new group of students to track down the original set of inner city youth. 180/200 of them were located, and only four had spent time in prison.
What could have gone so wrong with prediction and so right with their lives? The sociology students used data and sociological trends to make their prediction. What they didn’t factor in was the majority of the inner city youth mentioned the strong influence of a teacher they all had in common.
So the university students tracked down 80 year old Sheila O’Rourke in a nursing home. She was confused by their questions. She said, “All I ever did was love them.”
Imperfect human love blasted a bunch of statistics and sociological principles out the door. Because LOVE – whether from pets or people – LOVE is powerful.
May I encourage you today to allow yourself to love and be loved? That thought might make some of you uncomfortable, but I’d like to remind you that in the English language, we use the same word for romance (I love him!) as we do for food (I love ice cream!). So there’s a wide spectrum to work with when we talk about love.
We gather in this community and we read scripture that says God loves us. In fact, I believe in that God Pastor Debra described via Mr. Rogers last week – God the Appreciator. That God is absolutely crazy about you and loves you just the way you are! And what does God ask of us? LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Loving one another is a choice to journey with each other in our joys and our fears and our dreams. Loving one another is gathering together in community and in small groups and, through love, encouraging joys and dreams to grow beyond what we ever imagined.
Story of Larry Walters
Let me tell you the story of Larry Walters. He’s a truck driver. Thirty-three years old. He’s sitting in his lawn chair in his backyard, wishing he could fly. For as long as he could remember, he wanted to go UP. To be able to just rise right up in the air and see for a long way. The time, money, education and opportunity to be a pilot were not his. Hang gliding was too dangerous and expensive. So he spent a lot of summer afternoons sitting in his backyard in his ordinary old aluminum lawn chair – the kind with the webbing and rivets. Just like the one in your backyard.
The next chapter in the story is carried by the newspapers and television. There’s old Larry Walters up in the air over Los Angeles. Flying at last. Really getting up there! Still sitting in his aluminum lawn chair, but it’s hooked on to 44 helium-filled surplus weather balloons. Larry has a parachute on, a CB radio, a six-pack of beer, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a BB gun to pop some of the balloons when he’s ready to come down. And instead of being just a couple of hundred feet over his neighborhood, he shot up 11,000 feet, right through the approach corridor to the Los Angeles International Airport.
Walters is a taciturn man. When asked by the press why he did it, he said: “you can’t just sit there.” When asked if he was scared, he answered: “Wonderfully so.” When asked if he would do it again, he said: “Nope.” And when asked if he was glad he did it, he grinned from ear to ear and said: “Oh yes!”
The human race sits in its chair. On the one hand is the message that says there’s nothing left to do. And the Larry Walters of the earth are busy tying balloons to their chairs, directed by dreams and imagination to do their thing.
The human race sits in its chair. On the one hand is the message that the human situation is hopeless. And the Larry Walters of the earth soar upward knowing anything is possible, sending back the message from 11,000 feet: “I did it. I really did it. I’m FLYING!”
It’s the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible. (Fulghum, 1986)
Love one another – and together we fly . . .
© Dr. Carole Patrick, 2018
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
God the Great Appreciator
The lost coin and the lost sheep were among the favorite scriptures of Fred Rogers’ faith. These intimate expressions of a searching and seeking God; and a searching and seeking faith, were woven into his work and life. This scripture is part of several lost things...lost coin, lost sheep, and culminating in the Gospel of Luke with a lost son, but for today we will focus on the first two. This allegory of a lost sheep is also found in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel ofThomas. In the Gospel of Matthew, rather than the sheep being lost...perhaps wandering off at the sight of a good looking bush, the sheep is deceived; it is tricked away. So rather than a story told to explore repentance, or turning around or the Greek word metanoia or coming back to thefold...it becomes and exploration of being deceived or trying not to deceive by bad theology and cruel people. In the Gospel of Thomas...which did not make it into our canon, the story has the sheep owner searching after the sheep because he notices it is gone...not out of deception or getting lost, but because the owner notices the biggest sheep is gone, finds it, and then names how it was the most important sheep because it was the biggest. I’m going to say that interpretation is a little complicated to unpack, as there is really no moral to the story or value of community (and perhaps why Thomas didn’t make it in the canon). But I include it because you can see that this sheep illustration must have been commonly used by our wandering Rabbi Jesus and a diversity of voices share it with us yet today.
There have been a diversity of ways that folks write about and interpret this Jesus saying, which brings us to a friendly Anti-Anti-Semitism PSA for the day...Jesus is in conversation with the religious leaders of his day. The Pharisees are often in conflict with Jesus, and that conflict is between people who love their tradition and their people. We forget they are discussing their own identity politics, the meaning of their own faith tradition in community, and they are doing this under the oppression of the Roman Empire. According to Amy Jill-Levine, there are commentators who suggest Jesus is making the Pharisees mad just by bringing up shepherds and women...despised classes of people. I don’t know if there was a song, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be shepherds.” There are likely some writings that perhaps give some basis for this; they work with animals that are not very smart and need a bath and they are likely guilty by association. But it is certainly more nuanced than modern Christians like to give credit.
The Pharisees, like Jesus, are rooted in a tradition where every great leader passes through the vocation of Shepard. It’s Leadership Development 101 in the Hebrew Bible. It is an honorable profession, caring for dependent animals, enduring hardship and weather, knowing their needs. Every great leader was a shepherd: Moses spent time tending flocks; Jacob, on his way to being re-named Israel, tends to animals; and David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, was a shepherd. So we can’t get too excited about this passage, at Jesus offending the Pharisees by the mere mention of shepherds, nor can we get to self-righteous about Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors as through they are wholesale excluded from Jewish life. We like to tell it that way, but these “sinners” are welcome in the temple (Amy Jill-Levine, Short Stories by Jesus). Sinner is not used here, exactly as we might today...like someone yelling it at you from across the campus or holding up a sign at Pride Parade saying “Sinner Repent.” It’s an actual group of people who are outside the law and that law is about love. So often we read these narratives and think how Jesus is about love and not laws...like Jesus is the Great De-regulator (I’m sure that is the title of a White House Bible Study) and we Christians never created any rules. Being outside of the law meant not caring for the widow and the orphan, vulnerable people, foreigners, immigrants and people outside of the law were allowed in the temple. Contrary to some of our modern imaginings, they were included in the life of the community even if the relationship was strained and complicated. But Jesus is taking a step closer...perhaps seeking them out, longing to sway, organize with them, include and love them...or at the very least enjoy their dinner company.
The lost coin and the lost sheep were among the favorite scriptures of Fred Rogers’ faith. These intimate expressions of a searching and seeking God; and a searching and seeking faith, were woven into his work and life. This scripture is part of several lost things...lost coin, lost sheep, and culminating in the Gospel of Luke with a lost son, but for today we will focus on the first two. This allegory of a lost sheep is also found in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel ofThomas. In the Gospel of Matthew, rather than the sheep being lost...perhaps wandering off at the sight of a good looking bush, the sheep is deceived; it is tricked away. So rather than a story told to explore repentance, or turning around or the Greek word metanoia or coming back to thefold...it becomes and exploration of being deceived or trying not to deceive by bad theology and cruel people. In the Gospel of Thomas...which did not make it into our canon, the story has the sheep owner searching after the sheep because he notices it is gone...not out of deception or getting lost, but because the owner notices the biggest sheep is gone, finds it, and then names how it was the most important sheep because it was the biggest. I’m going to say that interpretation is a little complicated to unpack, as there is really no moral to the story or value of community (and perhaps why Thomas didn’t make it in the canon). But I include it because you can see that this sheep illustration must have been commonly used by our wandering Rabbi Jesus and a diversity of voices share it with us yet today.
There have been a diversity of ways that folks write about and interpret this Jesus saying, which brings us to a friendly Anti-Anti-Semitism PSA for the day...Jesus is in conversation with the religious leaders of his day. The Pharisees are often in conflict with Jesus, and that conflict is between people who love their tradition and their people. We forget they are discussing their own identity politics, the meaning of their own faith tradition in community, and they are doing this under the oppression of the Roman Empire. According to Amy Jill-Levine, there are commentators who suggest Jesus is making the Pharisees mad just by bringing up shepherds and women...despised classes of people. I don’t know if there was a song, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be shepherds.” There are likely some writings that perhaps give some basis for this; they work with animals that are not very smart and need a bath and they are likely guilty by association. But it is certainly more nuanced than modern Christians like to give credit.
The Pharisees, like Jesus, are rooted in a tradition where every great leader passes through the vocation of Shepard. It’s Leadership Development 101 in the Hebrew Bible. It is an honorable profession, caring for dependent animals, enduring hardship and weather, knowing their needs. Every great leader was a shepherd: Moses spent time tending flocks; Jacob, on his way to being re-named Israel, tends to animals; and David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, was a shepherd. So we can’t get too excited about this passage, at Jesus offending the Pharisees by the mere mention of shepherds, nor can we get to self-righteous about Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors as through they are wholesale excluded from Jewish life. We like to tell it that way, but these “sinners” are welcome in the temple (Amy Jill-Levine, Short Stories by Jesus). Sinner is not used here, exactly as we might today...like someone yelling it at you from across the campus or holding up a sign at Pride Parade saying “Sinner Repent.” It’s an actual group of people who are outside the law and that law is about love. So often we read these narratives and think how Jesus is about love and not laws...like Jesus is the Great De-regulator (I’m sure that is the title of a White House Bible Study) and we Christians never created any rules. Being outside of the law meant not caring for the widow and the orphan, vulnerable people, foreigners, immigrants and people outside of the law were allowed in the temple. Contrary to some of our modern imaginings, they were included in the life of the community even if the relationship was strained and complicated. But Jesus is taking a step closer...perhaps seeking them out, longing to sway, organize with them, include and love them...or at the very least enjoy their dinner company.
We are invited to be part of this story - just like Jesus invited the Pharisees when he said, “Who among you having a hundred sheep?” We as modern people don’t often deal in sheep every day. And so it’s important to remember that Jesus is presenting a person of means, the woman with her 10 coins has a lot of resources...probably like the women who funded Jesus’ ministry. Owning 100 sheep means owning a large flock. Jesus is talking about one with enough seeking out what is lost or missing; not out of desperation but out of abundance. The owner of the sheep realizes one is missing, sets out to search, recovers the sheep, and brings the flock back to completion (or makes it whole again). The woman with the coin lights the lamp, gets a broom, and goes to work searching. And both of them at the end invite friends to rejoice. Which is code for party...and hopefully they killed the fatted calf rather than serving lamb chops. Regardless ofthe menu the point of “rejoice with me” is extravagant celebration in honor of finding what was lost.
Fred Rogers loved this text and imagined God as the searcher, looking for us, no matter the cost or duration of the search, no matter the place or state in which we might be found. He said,“God continues to try and find us.” And like the woman and the sheep owner, “God never gives up. God looks for what is best in us, not for what is worst” (Michael Long, Peaceful Neighbor, p. 29). Some people throw this parable around to talk about sin, and sinners needing to repent. But a sheep needing to repent for just being a sheep is sort of where the allegory breaks down. And maybe that was part of what Rogers liked about it. Rogers disagreed with the self-righteous religious leaders who built up walls between any person and God, set limits on God’s love, or suggested that people needed to anything to be worthy of God’s love. Once he was walking from his morning swim to the studio when a person, trying to convert his co-workers and get them to repent, recognized Fred. He pulled him in saying, “Tell these people there is only one way to God.” Fred Rogers’ responded, “God loves you just the way you are” (Alen Borsuke,“Everyone’s Neighbor,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 20, 2001.).
God loves you just the way you are. To Fred, God was not judge and jury, not a sentencer of damnation. God was the Great Appreciator. His radical notion of love and grace opposed a popular Christianity that built barriers, questioned worthiness and utilized fear. In contrast to Fred Rogers, Billy Graham was preaching a message with a lot of ifs and buts about God’s love. God loves you, but God would love you more if you confess your sins. God loves you, but would love you more if you seek forgiveness and would really, really love you if you would accept Jesus as your savior and then God would love you enough to let you out of a tortuous pit of eternal damnation. Rogers was wary of this theology, the fences it made, and the limits it placed on God’s love. “God the Great Appreciator cannot help but find us good, valuable and lovable...When we hear a word that we are not lovable, we are not hearing the word of God” (Long, 31).
Rogers believed in a radical, loving God. The Great Appreciator, loving us as we are. He preached that we should all come and be loved and we will grow from there. This growth might be like metanoia...the Greek word for repentance. But this is not repentance or transformation or a turning towards God born out of fear of God’s punishment and wrath. This is born out of God’s great love. We are so loved that we can grow. We are so valuable that we can heal our broken spaces and honor the wounds in the world. Can you imagine the world if our faith began from a place of love, singing songs celebrating God the Great Appreciator rather than “A mighty fortress is our God”? This theology makes people nervous and it should. It might seem oh so sweet and kind on the surface but if you really think about it, it requires a lot of us. We get God as judge, and we are pretty judgmental. We get having to earn our worth, we get scary Santa Claus god that needs us to check off the right boxes...that is the currency of the world. God the Great Appreciator - we don’t get that so easily. We have a hard time with our own worth and value. We have a hard time loving ourselves, let alone loving anyone else...at least very well. God the Great Appreciator asks us to love radically. To be like that woman searching out what was lost and celebrating. To be like the shepherd setting out on an adventure to find what was missing. To love ourselves and to love others just the way they are changes everything about the way we live and work and care for one another.
May we have the courage.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
"Halfway to Silence"
by May Sarton
I was halfway to silence
Halfway to land’s end
When I heard your voice.
Shall I take you with me?
Shall we go together?
All the way to silence,
All the way to land’s end?
Is there a choice?
✣
Halfway to land’s end
When I heard your voice.
Shall I take you with me?
Shall we go together?
All the way to silence,
All the way to land’s end?
Is there a choice?
✣
Perhaps you remember Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood? Perhaps you longed for a closet of sweaters and imagined changing your shoes at the door? Maybe you watched the show growing up, maybe your kids watched it- or maybe you are like me and watched “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” thinking this tamed Tiger, X the Owl, and King Friday seemed oh-so familiar-- only to realize that they were. Mr. Rogers created a landmark program with a singular focus of caring for children, understanding their development, honoring their feelings and inspiring the best in all of us. He began every program the same way: a yellow flashing street light, changing into a comfy sweater, singing the same song... letting us know that we were worth the time to slow down and be together. He started every broadcast with this same ritual, and it launched him into hard topics. His very first national broadcast involved King Friday building a wall to keep the changers out. He cared so much about children that he wanted them to know how to make peace. He explained the hard words like assassination and spent a week on programing about death and divorce. He broached every topic we hesitate to talk about with grown-ups, let alone children. He wrote scripts, produced the show, acted, wrote the songs and learned and studied with the best in child development along the way. He relentlessly pursued the creation of sacred space where the best in humanity could be honored and developed - and I believe he did this grounded in his faith.
Rogers-arguably a busy man-made time for silence and space for God. He may have been busy, but he never hurried. He fiercely guarded his quiet space and honored the spiritual disciplines that gave him life. Before he changed a single sweater or tied one shoe, he awoke every day at 5:00am, slowing down to appreciate silence. Into the silence he prayed the names of friends and family out loud. He prepared to swim, every day moving his body through the water- and just before diving in he sang a song from Taize. One of his spiritual mentors and friends, Henri Nouwen, shared the wisdom of Taize, a protestant monastic community in France that centers worship on singing simple songs and honoring silence. Every morning his ritual invoked the wisdom of his spiritual neighborhood, even as he alone dove into the water, singing “Rejoice in the Lord.” After his swim he changed for the day and weighed himself at 143 pounds...every day of his life (now that is discipline!). Leaving the pool, he walked into the studio and at the door he prayed, “Dear God, let some word that is heard be yours.”
He was intentional and driven, but not frenzied and hurried, “Being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift.” Even the pace of his cadence was slow. One late night talk show host was surprised to find Fred Rogers to be true to life, and Mr. Rogers ever gently named the feelings and gave permission for Johnny Carson to laugh (Tonight Show, 1980). Being slow was his gift. You- the partner in conversation- you were worth the time. He made space for time on his show, not only in the ritual of each broadcast but exploring fast and slow, he countered the world’s bias toward action. His half hour (on the same set for decades) was simple and slow, even making space in one broadcast for everyone to see what a minute feels like by setting an egg timer for one minute (in what would have been considered a crisis in a newsroom and dead air for any other producer). Silence was sacred space, not dead air. In one broadcast, a scientist was helping the neighborhood and all of us hear some fish...apparently noisy fish and even though they had everything set up and all the people and equipment in place and the food to help invite the fish...well, it just didn’t work out. The scientist got nervous...like any of us would...filling the ‘dead air' time... "Well I’m sure they will be ready in just a moment” or “I guess these fish are not very hungry.” But Fred Rogers saw this as a chance to be patient. He believed “development comes from within. Nature does not hurry but advances slowly.” He slowed things down, and it was his gift. Researchers found its impact; children watching Mr. Rogers had a higher “tolerance of delay”; they could wait and were more patient...perhaps less tugging to get Mom or Dad’s attention (Friedich and Stein, 1973).
Rogers-arguably a busy man-made time for silence and space for God. He may have been busy, but he never hurried. He fiercely guarded his quiet space and honored the spiritual disciplines that gave him life. Before he changed a single sweater or tied one shoe, he awoke every day at 5:00am, slowing down to appreciate silence. Into the silence he prayed the names of friends and family out loud. He prepared to swim, every day moving his body through the water- and just before diving in he sang a song from Taize. One of his spiritual mentors and friends, Henri Nouwen, shared the wisdom of Taize, a protestant monastic community in France that centers worship on singing simple songs and honoring silence. Every morning his ritual invoked the wisdom of his spiritual neighborhood, even as he alone dove into the water, singing “Rejoice in the Lord.” After his swim he changed for the day and weighed himself at 143 pounds...every day of his life (now that is discipline!). Leaving the pool, he walked into the studio and at the door he prayed, “Dear God, let some word that is heard be yours.”
He was intentional and driven, but not frenzied and hurried, “Being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift.” Even the pace of his cadence was slow. One late night talk show host was surprised to find Fred Rogers to be true to life, and Mr. Rogers ever gently named the feelings and gave permission for Johnny Carson to laugh (Tonight Show, 1980). Being slow was his gift. You- the partner in conversation- you were worth the time. He made space for time on his show, not only in the ritual of each broadcast but exploring fast and slow, he countered the world’s bias toward action. His half hour (on the same set for decades) was simple and slow, even making space in one broadcast for everyone to see what a minute feels like by setting an egg timer for one minute (in what would have been considered a crisis in a newsroom and dead air for any other producer). Silence was sacred space, not dead air. In one broadcast, a scientist was helping the neighborhood and all of us hear some fish...apparently noisy fish and even though they had everything set up and all the people and equipment in place and the food to help invite the fish...well, it just didn’t work out. The scientist got nervous...like any of us would...filling the ‘dead air' time... "Well I’m sure they will be ready in just a moment” or “I guess these fish are not very hungry.” But Fred Rogers saw this as a chance to be patient. He believed “development comes from within. Nature does not hurry but advances slowly.” He slowed things down, and it was his gift. Researchers found its impact; children watching Mr. Rogers had a higher “tolerance of delay”; they could wait and were more patient...perhaps less tugging to get Mom or Dad’s attention (Friedich and Stein, 1973).
We are tuned in to action. We never tell stories about sitting in silence. We tell the stories and they start with “You won’t believe what happened...” or “we were doing this or going here when....” Our stories are actions. We have, as Mr. Roger’s suggests, “a bias toward action.” Even if the silence and the stillness makes all of the action possible...we tend not to talk about it. We never talk about gas stations (unless there is some wild and irregular event ) but they are essential to getting us and our cars where we want to be. We talk about the destination and the journey, but not about the fuel. Our scripture tells a similar story and may have a similar bias toward action. But there are quiet moments if we tune in. Jesus learns from those who went before, sensing God in the still, small voice or burning in a bush. If you take a moment to look at Matthew Chapter 14, and if your study Bible happens to be like some of mine it will give you big headlines. In this chapter, you find Jesus feeding the 5,000 people, walking on water, and offering healing. Verses 22 and 23, these verses about Jesus dismissing the crowd and going up to pray alone are almost lost in the dramatic, big, loud lines. Jesus has gathered thousands of people, teaches them to break bread, and suddenly a small offering turns into bread for everyone, and everyone becomes a neighbor and shares the food they have, and in the end there is more than enough to go around. Jesus sends the disciples off in a boat and dismisses the crowds and goes off to pray, alone in the silence and to connect deeply with God. I sometimes wonder if we would even have this line if it wasn’t so essential for what happens next- Jesus approaching the weary disciples as they sense him coming to them from across the water. But these two little verses deserve a big highlight. They remind us of Jesus pausing, being still and appreciating silent places. I would argue that it fuels his work; the big headlines and the wow moments are impossible without this sacred pause.
Perhaps you, like me, struggle with taking a pause. And maybe....just maybe, the idea of not pushing snooze on your alarm clock at 5:00am is unfathomable right now. But perhaps you could carve out a minute. One minute. Just like Mr. Rogers taught us. Maybe there is space for a little intention. Perhaps as you enter the door of your house you could say a prayer of blessing and gratitude. Perhaps as you exit your car you could pray for the person you are about to encounter. Maybe you could try praying for your neighborhood as you walk your block. What a difference a pause might make. Consider it; that sacred silence, that pause pregnant with possibilities- it is yours to fuel the next big headline of the day. Fred Rogers offered this reminder to the broadcasting community as he accepted an award: “It seems to me, though, that our world needs more time to wonder and to reflect about what is inside, and if we take time we can often go much deeper as far as our spiritual life is concerned than we can if there’s constant distraction.” And he leaves us with this: “that place of quiet rest where the real you can be ultimately found.”
May we have the courage to seek out our quiet places, our deepest being and value silence.
May it be so.
Amen.
Perhaps you, like me, struggle with taking a pause. And maybe....just maybe, the idea of not pushing snooze on your alarm clock at 5:00am is unfathomable right now. But perhaps you could carve out a minute. One minute. Just like Mr. Rogers taught us. Maybe there is space for a little intention. Perhaps as you enter the door of your house you could say a prayer of blessing and gratitude. Perhaps as you exit your car you could pray for the person you are about to encounter. Maybe you could try praying for your neighborhood as you walk your block. What a difference a pause might make. Consider it; that sacred silence, that pause pregnant with possibilities- it is yours to fuel the next big headline of the day. Fred Rogers offered this reminder to the broadcasting community as he accepted an award: “It seems to me, though, that our world needs more time to wonder and to reflect about what is inside, and if we take time we can often go much deeper as far as our spiritual life is concerned than we can if there’s constant distraction.” And he leaves us with this: “that place of quiet rest where the real you can be ultimately found.”
May we have the courage to seek out our quiet places, our deepest being and value silence.
May it be so.
Amen.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Coming Out: Moving From Shame to Pride
Guest Sermon by Dr. Barrett Scroggs
I knew I was gay when I was 12. The way the story goes is that I went to my first overnight church retreat and found more than just Jesus. I found someone else too. It was the epitome of an adolescent sexual experience: awkward yet developmentally important. After that experience it still took me 5 more years to come out. Everyone else was okay with it but I wasn’t. I remember my grandmother lovingly telling me that I could talk to my openly gay uncle if I had questions. 14-year-old Barrett was not happy about that recommendation because in my own mind I was straight. I remember yelling at her rather dramatically saying, “I’m not gay.” Who knew… I finally came out of the closet at 17 with little fanfare (the way I wanted). I moved around for college and work and then ended up here in Omaha where I became a part of my first real LGBTQ community. And I lived happily ever after…
Except that’s not where the story ends. The narrative of being a member of the LGBTQ community is not a short story but one that continues across our entire life. It is a journey with ups and downs. We are always growing and deepening in our understanding of who we are. Now I’m biased, my Ph.D. is in life-span human development so I literally geek out about how we develop. One of the tenants of developmental theory is that development occurs across the entire life-span; that we continue to develop from cradle to grave. We cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as one instantaneous moment. We also cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as a trajectory that levels off and becomes stagnant once we are out of the closet. LGBTQ development is a continual process.
One of the major moments of the LGBTQ experience is coming out, when we openly tell others about our sexual orientation or gender identity. I recently watched a video interview with one of the hosts from the new Queer Eye who spoke about how he preferred the term “letting people in” instead of “coming out.” No matter what the language, the coming out moment is a pivotal one. But it is also a deeper experience than I think we sometimes consider. As a researcher I talk about how LGBTQ individuals must first come out to themselves. I mentioned that to one of my best friends who, a few months after, came out to me as bisexual. He spoke about how what I had said stuck with him. He understood what that meant because it had been something he had been avoiding for so long. But now he had the words to really understand what he needed to do. Before we acknowledge our identity to anyone else we must first acknowledge it ourselves. Also, coming out is not a one-and-done experience; but a choice to come out continually; every day. I came out publicly when I was 17 but even in the age of social media there was no way for me to reach EVERYONE with that announcement. And so, every day I have to make the choice to come out again and again. Sometimes it is a big choice like whether or not to tell my new employer about my identity or whether to come out to a new friend. But sometimes these choices are small like whether or not to tell the woman cutting my hair that the reason I’m getting a haircut is that I’m going on a date with another guy. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t ever see her again. But I still have to decide whether I am going to come out in that moment.
Why don’t we come out so easily? Why is it something that we have to consciously think about? Brene Brown would say that it is due to shame. She reminds us that, “we all have shame. We all have good and bad, dark and light, inside of us. But if we don’t come to terms with our shame, our struggles, we start believing that there’s something wrong with us—that we’re bad, flawed, not good enough—and even worse, we start acting on those beliefs. If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable. In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame” (p. 61). Easier said than done, right?
A few years back I was having a difficult time processing some things related to the death of my mother. She had passed years before when I was 12 but as I say she was “hanging out” and I couldn’t really figure out why. I set up an appointment with my therapist and went to my appointment. Towards the end of our meeting my therapist brought up the possibility that I was dealing with issues related to internal homophobia. I brushed it off and encouraged her to move on…. After all, I was very proud of my sexual orientation and was open with everyone about that. To say nothing of the fact that I was the one paying for this hour. No reason to waste our time with issues I clearly wasn’t dealing with. Months later I realized she was right. My mom was hanging out because of the shame I still felt. I never got to come out to her and somewhere deep inside of me the shame and internal homophobia were brewing. Brene Brown speaks of the negative implications of shame like this saying that, “shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it” (p. 67). In order to deal with the shame I was feeling I had to speak it: first to myself, then to my therapist, then to my friends, and now to you. I also think that this story about my mom illustrates that shame sits deep. Shame sits deeper than guilt. Whereas guilt may be in response to a behavior, shame is more about feeling like we are unworthy, that we are somehow less than. My shame sat so deep that I was unable to notice it. I didn’t even realize that it was there inside of me for years.
So if shame is what is making things difficult to come out, where does that shame come from? For me, part of it related to my mom. For so many members of the LGBTQ community, myself included, feelings of shame are connected to our history of homophobia and transphobia from our faith communities and our inability to integrate our LGBTQ and religious identities. My own experiences of this led me to research this topic. 10 years ago I had just moved here to Omaha to work at the Rose Theatre and I found myself at Pride. It was there that I first met the folks from First United Methodist Church. Having grown up Methodist, I was a bit shocked when I saw the First Church booth at Pride. I assumed they were there to protest and I was pissed. I walked up to the booth ready to debate with them. What scripture were they going to throw at me? Leviticus? Romans? I built up my courage and approached the booth. I was not met with a debate and instead was met with a bright green t-shirt that said “compassion.” They invited me to come visit church and the following week I did just that. Many of you heard me and my colleague Nate Faflick speak here at the Abbey in April about the concept of identity integration; how LGBTQ folks can integrate and reconcile their LGBTQ and religious identities; and it was thanks to First Church and the Urban Abbey, that I was able to integrate and reconcile my own sexual orientation and religious identity.
With my research, I am interested in what experiences or characteristics make it so that LGBTQ folks can reconcile these identities. I am also interested in what this reconciliation does for the individual. Through our research, my colleagues and I found that people who were able to integrate these two seemingly conflicting identities were more likely to attend church but that people who felt like their LGBTQ identity was really important to them were less likely to attend church. We also found that integrating their two identities made LGBTQ folks feel better about their lives and that the positive implications of identity integration was due to spending time with people in a supportive church community.
So what does this all have to do with shame? LGBTQ folks are so often ostracized by religious communities which pushes them away from that community and that identity. But my research finds that being connected to a faith community is good for one’s well-being. One of the things that Nate and I spoke about when we were here in April was how faith communities could better welcome and protect members of the LGBTQ community. It is our jobs in these safe spaces to make our faith communities welcoming in order to support the well-being off LGBTQ folks.
I have spoken a lot about shame. I have spoken a lot about how shame can manifest in LGBTQ folks and how that is connected to LGBTQ folks coming out to themselves and to the people around them. But coming out isn’t just about moving away from shame. It’s also about moving more towards a place of pride. After all, pride is the opposite of shame. Whereas shame has detrimental implications for our well-being, my research has found that being open and proud about one’s LGBTQ identity has positive implications for our well-being. The more we are open, out, and proud about our identity, the better we feel.
One of my best friends recently sent me the song “Reborn” by Kid Cudi and Kanye West to listen to on Spotify and the lyrics have stuck with me. They say:
Somethin's wrong; I don't know why
Been lookin' for my way out from the storm
Which way do I go?
I'm so reborn
I'm movin' forward
Keep movin' forward
I think these words have stuck with me because they illustrate that movement from shame to pride. The lyrics move from the shame of “somethin’s wrong” and sitting in the storm to a place of pride and moving forward. It also illustrates the journey of finding pride. Just like coming out is not a one and done experience, having pride is not as well. Having pride is a journey. I am reminded that through coming out we are moving forward away from shame to a space of pride. In their book titled A positive view of LGBTQ, Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky (2012) tell us that “the personal growth that comes from cultivating self-awareness and insight is important in the personal journeys of LGBTQ individuals. A sense of growth, of changing in positive ways, and of moving forward in our lives enhances our well-being” (p. 35). Growth. Change. These words remind us of the movement and the development that is constantly occurring. Pride is not a destination, but a journey.
I am reminded of the story of Peter’s denial after Jesus was arrested. The story is told in all four of the gospels and is a story filled with shame. Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him, a revelation which hits Peter hard. How could Jesus think that he would shy away from his pride and hide in shame? And yet, it happens. Just as Jesus said it would. Peter could not have predicted how he would respond in that moment when he was confronted. And in the same way, we cannot predict how we are going to respond each day. As open and out as I am there are still moments when I shrink down and hide. I try and “pass” or at least try and not call attention to myself. I cannot judge myself for those choices. I cannot beat myself up over brief moments when I tip toe to the safety of the closet. Instead, I can learn from them.
So being out has implications for LGBTQ individuals’ well-being. But what else? Why is it important for me personally to be out and proud? My outness begins conversations and I am okay with that. Think of it as my own transfiguration moment. In Mark’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration, we hear that, “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them…. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” Jesus had a coming out moment right before their eyes. It was an intentional act that he wanted to share that with his closest friends. He came out, or better “let them in,” on this moment. But what is interesting is that it doesn’t end there. After that, Peter, James, and John continue to ponder what they had just witnessed. “What could this rising from the dead thing mean?” When we come out and express our pride, others are left with questions; with things to ponder.
And so, in the same way, when I come out and stand with pride I do it for me but also for those around me. I come out and stand with pride for my friend who learned more about what it meant to be open about his own sexual orientation through watching me. I come out and stand with pride for the middle school student I teach who has never met a queer person before and for the first time is able to empathize with this community. I still battle shame. I still have days when I feel as though I would rather hide in the closet and mind my own business. However, my outness is not just for me. In June of 1990 when Pride meant something different than it does today, a group of individuals passed out leaflets at pride events which said, “how can I convince you…. That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.” And so, I come out and stand with pride as an act of rebellion. May it be so. Amen.
© Dr. Barrett Scroggs, 2018
I knew I was gay when I was 12. The way the story goes is that I went to my first overnight church retreat and found more than just Jesus. I found someone else too. It was the epitome of an adolescent sexual experience: awkward yet developmentally important. After that experience it still took me 5 more years to come out. Everyone else was okay with it but I wasn’t. I remember my grandmother lovingly telling me that I could talk to my openly gay uncle if I had questions. 14-year-old Barrett was not happy about that recommendation because in my own mind I was straight. I remember yelling at her rather dramatically saying, “I’m not gay.” Who knew… I finally came out of the closet at 17 with little fanfare (the way I wanted). I moved around for college and work and then ended up here in Omaha where I became a part of my first real LGBTQ community. And I lived happily ever after…
Except that’s not where the story ends. The narrative of being a member of the LGBTQ community is not a short story but one that continues across our entire life. It is a journey with ups and downs. We are always growing and deepening in our understanding of who we are. Now I’m biased, my Ph.D. is in life-span human development so I literally geek out about how we develop. One of the tenants of developmental theory is that development occurs across the entire life-span; that we continue to develop from cradle to grave. We cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as one instantaneous moment. We also cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as a trajectory that levels off and becomes stagnant once we are out of the closet. LGBTQ development is a continual process.
One of the major moments of the LGBTQ experience is coming out, when we openly tell others about our sexual orientation or gender identity. I recently watched a video interview with one of the hosts from the new Queer Eye who spoke about how he preferred the term “letting people in” instead of “coming out.” No matter what the language, the coming out moment is a pivotal one. But it is also a deeper experience than I think we sometimes consider. As a researcher I talk about how LGBTQ individuals must first come out to themselves. I mentioned that to one of my best friends who, a few months after, came out to me as bisexual. He spoke about how what I had said stuck with him. He understood what that meant because it had been something he had been avoiding for so long. But now he had the words to really understand what he needed to do. Before we acknowledge our identity to anyone else we must first acknowledge it ourselves. Also, coming out is not a one-and-done experience; but a choice to come out continually; every day. I came out publicly when I was 17 but even in the age of social media there was no way for me to reach EVERYONE with that announcement. And so, every day I have to make the choice to come out again and again. Sometimes it is a big choice like whether or not to tell my new employer about my identity or whether to come out to a new friend. But sometimes these choices are small like whether or not to tell the woman cutting my hair that the reason I’m getting a haircut is that I’m going on a date with another guy. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t ever see her again. But I still have to decide whether I am going to come out in that moment.
Why don’t we come out so easily? Why is it something that we have to consciously think about? Brene Brown would say that it is due to shame. She reminds us that, “we all have shame. We all have good and bad, dark and light, inside of us. But if we don’t come to terms with our shame, our struggles, we start believing that there’s something wrong with us—that we’re bad, flawed, not good enough—and even worse, we start acting on those beliefs. If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable. In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame” (p. 61). Easier said than done, right?
A few years back I was having a difficult time processing some things related to the death of my mother. She had passed years before when I was 12 but as I say she was “hanging out” and I couldn’t really figure out why. I set up an appointment with my therapist and went to my appointment. Towards the end of our meeting my therapist brought up the possibility that I was dealing with issues related to internal homophobia. I brushed it off and encouraged her to move on…. After all, I was very proud of my sexual orientation and was open with everyone about that. To say nothing of the fact that I was the one paying for this hour. No reason to waste our time with issues I clearly wasn’t dealing with. Months later I realized she was right. My mom was hanging out because of the shame I still felt. I never got to come out to her and somewhere deep inside of me the shame and internal homophobia were brewing. Brene Brown speaks of the negative implications of shame like this saying that, “shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it” (p. 67). In order to deal with the shame I was feeling I had to speak it: first to myself, then to my therapist, then to my friends, and now to you. I also think that this story about my mom illustrates that shame sits deep. Shame sits deeper than guilt. Whereas guilt may be in response to a behavior, shame is more about feeling like we are unworthy, that we are somehow less than. My shame sat so deep that I was unable to notice it. I didn’t even realize that it was there inside of me for years.
So if shame is what is making things difficult to come out, where does that shame come from? For me, part of it related to my mom. For so many members of the LGBTQ community, myself included, feelings of shame are connected to our history of homophobia and transphobia from our faith communities and our inability to integrate our LGBTQ and religious identities. My own experiences of this led me to research this topic. 10 years ago I had just moved here to Omaha to work at the Rose Theatre and I found myself at Pride. It was there that I first met the folks from First United Methodist Church. Having grown up Methodist, I was a bit shocked when I saw the First Church booth at Pride. I assumed they were there to protest and I was pissed. I walked up to the booth ready to debate with them. What scripture were they going to throw at me? Leviticus? Romans? I built up my courage and approached the booth. I was not met with a debate and instead was met with a bright green t-shirt that said “compassion.” They invited me to come visit church and the following week I did just that. Many of you heard me and my colleague Nate Faflick speak here at the Abbey in April about the concept of identity integration; how LGBTQ folks can integrate and reconcile their LGBTQ and religious identities; and it was thanks to First Church and the Urban Abbey, that I was able to integrate and reconcile my own sexual orientation and religious identity.
With my research, I am interested in what experiences or characteristics make it so that LGBTQ folks can reconcile these identities. I am also interested in what this reconciliation does for the individual. Through our research, my colleagues and I found that people who were able to integrate these two seemingly conflicting identities were more likely to attend church but that people who felt like their LGBTQ identity was really important to them were less likely to attend church. We also found that integrating their two identities made LGBTQ folks feel better about their lives and that the positive implications of identity integration was due to spending time with people in a supportive church community.
So what does this all have to do with shame? LGBTQ folks are so often ostracized by religious communities which pushes them away from that community and that identity. But my research finds that being connected to a faith community is good for one’s well-being. One of the things that Nate and I spoke about when we were here in April was how faith communities could better welcome and protect members of the LGBTQ community. It is our jobs in these safe spaces to make our faith communities welcoming in order to support the well-being off LGBTQ folks.
I have spoken a lot about shame. I have spoken a lot about how shame can manifest in LGBTQ folks and how that is connected to LGBTQ folks coming out to themselves and to the people around them. But coming out isn’t just about moving away from shame. It’s also about moving more towards a place of pride. After all, pride is the opposite of shame. Whereas shame has detrimental implications for our well-being, my research has found that being open and proud about one’s LGBTQ identity has positive implications for our well-being. The more we are open, out, and proud about our identity, the better we feel.
One of my best friends recently sent me the song “Reborn” by Kid Cudi and Kanye West to listen to on Spotify and the lyrics have stuck with me. They say:
Somethin's wrong; I don't know why
Been lookin' for my way out from the storm
Which way do I go?
I'm so reborn
I'm movin' forward
Keep movin' forward
I think these words have stuck with me because they illustrate that movement from shame to pride. The lyrics move from the shame of “somethin’s wrong” and sitting in the storm to a place of pride and moving forward. It also illustrates the journey of finding pride. Just like coming out is not a one and done experience, having pride is not as well. Having pride is a journey. I am reminded that through coming out we are moving forward away from shame to a space of pride. In their book titled A positive view of LGBTQ, Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky (2012) tell us that “the personal growth that comes from cultivating self-awareness and insight is important in the personal journeys of LGBTQ individuals. A sense of growth, of changing in positive ways, and of moving forward in our lives enhances our well-being” (p. 35). Growth. Change. These words remind us of the movement and the development that is constantly occurring. Pride is not a destination, but a journey.
I am reminded of the story of Peter’s denial after Jesus was arrested. The story is told in all four of the gospels and is a story filled with shame. Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him, a revelation which hits Peter hard. How could Jesus think that he would shy away from his pride and hide in shame? And yet, it happens. Just as Jesus said it would. Peter could not have predicted how he would respond in that moment when he was confronted. And in the same way, we cannot predict how we are going to respond each day. As open and out as I am there are still moments when I shrink down and hide. I try and “pass” or at least try and not call attention to myself. I cannot judge myself for those choices. I cannot beat myself up over brief moments when I tip toe to the safety of the closet. Instead, I can learn from them.
So being out has implications for LGBTQ individuals’ well-being. But what else? Why is it important for me personally to be out and proud? My outness begins conversations and I am okay with that. Think of it as my own transfiguration moment. In Mark’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration, we hear that, “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them…. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” Jesus had a coming out moment right before their eyes. It was an intentional act that he wanted to share that with his closest friends. He came out, or better “let them in,” on this moment. But what is interesting is that it doesn’t end there. After that, Peter, James, and John continue to ponder what they had just witnessed. “What could this rising from the dead thing mean?” When we come out and express our pride, others are left with questions; with things to ponder.
And so, in the same way, when I come out and stand with pride I do it for me but also for those around me. I come out and stand with pride for my friend who learned more about what it meant to be open about his own sexual orientation through watching me. I come out and stand with pride for the middle school student I teach who has never met a queer person before and for the first time is able to empathize with this community. I still battle shame. I still have days when I feel as though I would rather hide in the closet and mind my own business. However, my outness is not just for me. In June of 1990 when Pride meant something different than it does today, a group of individuals passed out leaflets at pride events which said, “how can I convince you…. That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.” And so, I come out and stand with pride as an act of rebellion. May it be so. Amen.
© Dr. Barrett Scroggs, 2018
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