Clang Clang

I love you. The whole of you. The skin, in its variations. The heart, in its generosity. The body, in its elastic variability. The spirit, in its multiplicity of faiths. The heritage, in its global possibilities. The you who gives love and receives love. The gendered you. The unhindered you. Whatever part of you others use to justify leaving you in the margins, or calling for your disappearance, well, I love that too.

If I have big(ly) ideas, or talk plenty, or create loud movements

-but don't have love-

I'm just causing more noise. Just disrupting the air and the peace. Just rending and tearing and adding violence.

I love even you - the one who can't love me back. With your fear, and disorientation, marching toward me and my rainbow of human siblings in anger - I'll love into any crack in that armor I can find. I'll stand beside and before my siblings, hating the ugliness and violence of your ideology, but loving the terribly frightened you encased in lies, myths, terror(ism).

(Originally written in response to the white supremacy marches in Aug 2017.)

Deconstructing Gates

Jason recorded my first sermon with our camera. It's shaky, fuzzy, and wobbly. Much like I felt! Although, to be truthful, I enjoyed getting to do this. I appreciate all those who contributed, knowingly or not, to the development of the sermon. The text for the day was John 10:1-10. It wasn't included in the video, so I'll post that passage below.

Our Parent, Who Art in Heaven...

Only photo from that year I could find.
Four generations of Valentine women.

It's 8th grade. With braces, shoulder length hair, and a budding sense of fashion, I exist in that invisible social strata, sandwiched between the kids who attract most of the ridicule, and the kids who attract none of it. What happens in the classroom, like Vegas, stays there. The real jungle is the cafeteria. That cute guy who talked to you in class won't see you in the lunch line, and certainly never offer you a seat at his table.

The group I sit with at lunch has slipped a multi-colored, tightly folded note into my locker. "I really like you, but one of us thinks you laugh too loud, and wants me to tell you not to sit with us anymore."

... (breathe) ...

Sorry, John: It's not exactly a rant.

Any time a privileged group claims a moral right to that privilege, it raises questions. I remember a mission trip to Peru. It turned out to be my last “mission trip” because of disillusionment surrounding the affair. At one point, the leader of the group said, “They’ll believe you, because you’re American.” This was to be used to evangelize, get out of scrapes, whatever (scrapes? I was raised reading Hardy Boys from the 60’s, folks). The worst of these, for me, was using a false prestige to “evangelize.” Every single one of us was white, in a country of brown. Why should our privileged position overrule their life experiences, free will, and freedom of choice? It perpetuated our agenda, our prerogative, and further devalued and demeaned the people we expected to value us based on our color and citizenship. Disgusting.