Rogue Reverend

Writing, Blogging, Preaching, and Being Busy

I miss writing. Well, more specifically, I miss blogging.

I’m still writing sermons, although they feel more raw, more private, and even more confidential than before. So I’m not posting them anymore.

But I haven’t written here since I really got going on my new job. Maybe it’s because I’m learning so much new stuff. Maybe it’s because I’m spending 15-18 hours a week on the road. Maybe it’s because I thought my head would implode with all this new information.

Whatever it is, I’d like it to stop. I want to write.

I want to write about the interesting (read that batty) person who told me last week that the meaning of life is TIME.

I want to write about seeing the elderly woman who had been arrested for solicitation face 90 days in jail for a $10 sex act.

I want to write about the amazement of learning that you are HIV+ when you see that information as an empowering choice to get care.

But for now, I’m just going to say, “Hi.” I’ve missed you.

Things I Wish I Had Learned at 24 (instead of 42)

Loving what you do is really important. But so is a paycheck.

Real, abiding love takes commitment and compromise, and is much easier to find and do before you become a crotchety old woman.

Boundaries are important, and you should always take your time learning to trust people. Make sure they deserve it.

A life ruled by “shoulds” is no fun, but a life ruled by “because I want to” is not too rewarding. Balance.

Love and partnership is important.

Acceptance and gratitude are the greater part of love.

Cultivating Gratitude: Friendship

Friendship, friendship, how I love thee.

I truly have the best friends in the world. I have brilliant, funny, loving friends. There’s the friend I call when I really need counseling (T), the friend I  talk to for hours, never running out of things to talk about (A), the friend I drink coffee with and eat vegan food (even if she’s no longer a vegan!) (R), the friend who challenges me to broaden my vision (also an R), the new friend who I like to hang with (E), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s the friend who has known me longest (T), and who always knows the right thing to say and do in life. Don’t forget the friend who is my best girl, the mother of my godchildren (K). There’s (D) who gives me hell when I fall off the right path, and loves me enough to tell me I’m wrong. There’s my friend (A) who is very busy right now, with new challenges (school, moving, new business), who has always been a better friend to me, and inspires me.

There are so many more, but I can’t write about them all.

I am so grateful. I found this cheesy poem that really says what I’d like to, but much cheesier:

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to
new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints
on our hearts, and we are never ever the same.
~ Flavia Weedn

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. I love you.

I Pay More, Because I’m Poor

One of the most difficult things about poverty is that the poor pay more than the rich for services and merchandise. For example, groceries in a bad neighborhood are usually more expensive than groceries in a good neighborhood. Poor people pay more in bank fees, insurance, food, gas, deposits for utilities, and many other things.

Why is it this way?

First, because the poor have very little time. Picketing a grocery store for being more expensive is a great idea, but who of the poor can afford to take the time off of work to do it? Driving to the other side of town? Hard to do when you are counting pennies for gasoline.

Second, because poor folks don’t know that they can ask questions and that they have rights. I know it’s not always true now, but it used to be true that you could get your bank to waive overdraft fees. If you made a mistake on your checking account, and weren’t habitual, you could ask, and they’d waive them. Because that’s pure profit for the bank, and their managers had that option. Do poor people know that? Nope. Young people don’t either. So who pays overdraft fees? The poor and the young. In other words, those who don’t have the money.

Third, because they live in smaller spaces. It’s one thing to go to a big box store and stock up on tons of stuff, but most poor people live in smaller spaces and don’t have the room to put huge boxes of cereal. Then stuff goes to waste.

Fourth, saving money takes an investment. Back to the box stores: a stick of deodorant is about $2 in a drug store. It’s about $6.5 for 6 sticks at a big box store. Spending the money NOW becomes an issue of having more money NOW to save money in the long run. Most poor people don’t have the extra money now.

Fifth, life becomes about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Poor people figure, “I won’t pay my phone bill until next week so that I can pay for some food today.” Bam! Down the credit rating goes. Bam! Up the credit card rate goes. Bam! Up the insurance rate goes.

It’s a vicious cycle.

And until some people besides poor people start caring about the injustice in the system, it probably won’t change. Because, really, it’s possible that the rich think, “Well, I work hard, I should pay less money for things.” Like health care. Is it possible that people think, “They don’t deserve health care?”

The Bible makes it clear that God cares about the poor. Shall we keep oppressing them?

The Church and Women

It has been such a long time since I’ve faced discrimination by the church, that when it smacked me up-side the head, twice in one week, it sent me reeling a bit.

In the first instance, I was at a retreat for pastors about Missional church. I was the only woman in a group of pastors, most of whom were Southern Baptist. One was pastor of a UCC church, so I thought there was hope, until he explained that his church left the UCC when they voted, as a denomination, in favor of gay marriage. I knew, by the time the introductions were over, that I was in the wrong place.

But I stayed, thinking that perhaps I was jumping to conclusions. I was not wrong. I had signed up for a three day retreat, but left that evening, after enduring masculine visual aids (all the people in the slides were men), having the leader call the group, “Men,” constantly, and being ignored, and even worse, argued with during the discussion time. I found myself getting really upset.

And the thing is, all these pastors were expressing their concern over their churches dying. Duh! Of course they’re dying! You don’t even offer to women the freedom they enjoy in the rest of our culture.

The second time was upon looking at a conference about missional community called Verge being held in 2010 in Austin, Texas. A person I follow on twitter was excitedly tweeting about it. So I looked at the website. Not one single woman on the roster for this conference. The conference leaders seem to mostly be SBC, and we know that they won’t respond to my request to add at least one woman to their roster.

Those of you who knew me in seminary know how painful the experience was. Hardly a day passed when a male student didn’t say to me, “You can’t be a minister! You’re a girl!”

Even worse than all that, one of my friends tweeted me, “we’ve gotta love those who interpret scripture differently though.” Really? Really? Love them, sure, but accept where they are wrong in interpreting Scripture? If this was any other scripture verse (like perhaps the ones on slavery?) would we think we should respect their points of view?

No.

I have been insulated from the issues of exclusion of women in ministry. Living in the progressive/liberal world shelters me from the sexism so rampant in the evangelical church.

I am so sorry that the little girls sitting in those churches don’t have the opportunity to see women in leadership. I’m sad that they’ll grow up like me, doubting God’s call on their life, because there are no clear role models. It’s tragic that these little girls will grow up thinking they are not as valuable as boys, simply because their churches interpreted Scripture so wrong.

I’m torn about putting myself in more places where women are unwelcome in leadership. I’ve enjoyed my protected place. But I don’t think I can leave my sisters to suffer.

When was the last time a woman filled the pulpit at your church? Time to ask the pulpit supply team for some new faces.