Christ on a Bike

academic hat

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite papers I've written through my first year of seminary. They're obviously a little more formal than things I might normally put on a blog, but I think they're pretty accessible, and they're great examples of some of the directions I'm exploring with this whole theology thing.

First: from Old Testament 101, an ecofeminist reading of the book of Job. I was frustrated at traditional interpretations that read God as ignoring Job's concerns, and Job as just giving up. Job is the only character in the Bible who really stands up for himself—his friends tell him he must have sinned, but he knows that doesn't fit with his experience, and he says so. In my opinion, it's a great book that gets ignored too often. For your reference, the text of Job (RSV).

Next up: from Intro to Systematic Theology (with James Cone, father of Black theology), a meditation on queer theory being (racially) segregated, and ways we can move past that, called "What Does a White Mestiza Look Like?" (borrowing from Gloria Anzaldúa's writings on mestizaje).

On to the spring semester: from New Testament 101, my interpretational theory. We were asked to first socially locate ourselves and then evaluate various methods of Biblical interpretation in light of our personal perspective, all leading to a (future) articulation of our interpretational method. This is (I think) a pretty interesting look at my personal politics/theology, as well.

Last, for now: from Christian History (part 1), my examination of the Byzantine iconoclastic crisis in 726–843 and the gendered nature of the scholarship around it, called Divine Flesh. I started looking at this period around the 7th ecumenical council because I was interested in the use of art and visual imagery in the church, but was really struck by the way most scholars supported the assumption that the iconophiles (those in favor of icons) were overwhelmingly female. I was suspicious, and found enough evidence that this might not necessarily be the case; so this paper is first a historical overview, and second an admonition that critical thinking skills are always necessary, especially where gender is concerned.

Having coffee with God

I got to the church a few minutes early for the evening jazz service, so I grabbed an iced tea on my way in, since I was sweaty from the ride. I hadn't been there before, so I asked how to get to the sanctuary, and was told I'd have to finish my drink in the lobby.

A few weeks ago, I was home visiting and managed to make it to a Sunday service at the church I went to for about a year before I moved. I had some tea with me, like I usually do, and my friend had brought coffee. After the service, the pastor and I ran off to talk about ordination things, then when we got back to the sanctuary, my friend stopped us and said, "I got yelled at for having coffee in church!" The pastor's immediate reaction was to sprint up into the giant pulpit she never uses, and put on her best Official Pastor Voice to say "I hereby permit you to have drinks in church!"

We asked, "Wait, any drinks?" And she thought for a second, and said "Sure!"

When I was a kid, I drank an absurd amount of coffee. I had this really nice stainless-steel mug that came pretty much everywhere with me. So of course, it came to church as well. Most of the time I finished it during Sunday school, so it didn't make it into the service, but during the summer (no Sunday school!), it came right on in. Apparently it caused a little bit of a murmur among some parts of the congregation, but then, so did my blue hair. No one actually ever said anything, though once my dad said he had talked to the pastor about it, and she had said it was fine with her.

I'm really fascinated by the different ways we treat our churches and meeting houses. Is it God's house? Does God not like liquids in God's house? (What about Communion wine?) If God had a problem with me drinking coffee, wouldn't God object to, say, coffee hour? At least the stuff I brought was decent coffee!

I should mention that I grew up with a strong dose of Quakerism along with my Protestantism. Quakers are very explicit that the meeting house is just that, a gathering space, and nothing more. It is not God's house, Meeting is not God's time, Sunday is not God's day — because every space and time belongs to God. You are no more or less in God's presence during Meeting than at any other time of the week, so special clothes and special behavior is unnecessary. (Well, special clothes are always unnecessary to the Quakers, but that's another story.) In my view, this meant that if it was okay to bring coffee to school with me 5 days out of the week, it was okay to bring coffee on the 6th day, too.

I think it says a lot about the place God has in our lives. If the church itself becomes sacred — "You can't do that here, God is here!" "You can't dress like that here, God is watching!" — God becomes localized, contained. If I have to be on my best behavior in the sanctuary because of God's presence, what does that say about other places, other times? If it's okay to wear jeans and drink coffee in our homes on Sunday afternoon, does that mean God isn't there? Does that mean God has stopped watching?

Why is it that so much of organized religion seems designed to contain God as much as possible?

Step out of the Box

This is a short meditation I preached in a chapel service led by the Arts Caucus on the first day back after spring break. Our theme was "Step out of the Box," and we incorporated a ton of different media, including song, photo, dance, and poetry, and we read a synopsis of the book of Esther.

Hello, and welcome back. I hope some of you have had a chance to relax over this break. It is so important, now and then, to take the time to relax and be a more whole person. I know that for some of us, though, this was a time to get things done that we don’t have time for during regular classes. We work more to make some extra money, we spend time in the library doing research, and I know that many of us in the Arts Caucus took some time for the art we love so much. But now, we come back to school, to classes, and it’s time to shift gears. Time to pick up the fabric and yarn that’s already scattered across my floor. I’ll clean the paintbrushes off my desk to make room for a stack of books.

That’s a really sad thing to think about. As much as I love my work here (and I do), and even enjoy most of my countless hours of reading, I am also an artist. Gluing bits of paper together into a collage fills me with a kind of energy that few other things do. The color and the texture, and the figuring out the best glue for the surface I’m working on, that speaks to a whole different side of my heart than does Biblical study. Putting that side of me away again may seem necessary, if I want to get all my work done, but I am putting myself into another box that’s just not big enough. The “student” box is all well and good, but it’s got way too many corners to fit my flowing, rounded artist self in there too.