Steppingstones of Life

Experience of childhood

3:00--graduated from college and entered the "deep waters of life" by volunteering with PCUSA

7:00--back in the U.S. and next steps

8:00--witnessed and heard a sermon of call from Jack McClendon @ New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C.

9:30--Mary heads to Union Seminary in NYC and grows-up

14:00--started professional ministry in the closet

17:15--left ordained ministry of PCUSA




the reason to leave PCUSA and the image of the Eucharist

4:15--self identity

8:50--cost of identity and subverting the traditional model of success in ministry

11:50--living in God's Way





The Eucharist is......

Ordained ministry is.....

5:45--Mary's radical nature

10:45--her image of life

I interviewed Mary on a Friday afternoon in May. It was almost 80 degrees in New York City, the ice cream truck was across the street, and you can hear the cars racing up Hudson street in our interview.

I hit play on my digital voice recorder, Mary started talking, and within minutes I felt so connected to her story. Mary wouldn't be on my list if I didn't feel connected to her, but as she shared the feelings came flooding back to me about why I love Mary.

It's taken me a long time to post this interview. I could come up with a list of reasons but I think it's because I've been running Mary's words through my head over and over again.

What did I take away from my time with Mary?

The cost of identity and resisting traditional models of ecclesiastical success.

I am a product of Denison University's Religion Department. I am a product of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and the Open Door Community. I am a product of Union Seminary which means I'm a product of Liberation and Feminist Theology. I am a product of the city. I am a product of stardust and a spiral galaxy, embodying the dust of a supernova millions of light years ago. I had to die to many things in my past in order to embrace this Life and be molded and shaped by a subversive and radical Spirit.

These communities have shaped my identity in how I express and make choices with my vocation. I've been at Pilgrims 10 years, about eight years longer then I expected. Associates usually leave after two to three years to move on to bigger and better things. You leave to climb the corporate church ladder.

But, like Mary, I've made a conscious choice to stay in my associate position. I. Don't. Want. To. Be. In. Charge. Period. Not only do I love the small, progressive, More Light, ritual-minded community of Pilgrims, but I love the power and energy I have in my position. One of my seminary professors, Larry Rasmussen, commented to me recently that he has a hard time getting clergy from large churches to take risks around eco-peace, eco-faith issues. Larry believes their position of power keeps them in a comfort zone, talking the theology but making a choice not to take risks.

The day I stop taking risks is the day I should probably give up my ordination standing.

Some people in charge, as Mary states in our interview, can attract a certain level of energy and adoration. They are vulnerable to characteristics of traditional models of leadership that can hinder connections based on mutuality and equality. I agree with Mary that there can be a cost to being a leader in a position of privilege, especially if one leads in an unconscious and unexamined way. There are certain expectations to being in charge and those expectations can be seductive--like the clergy Larry mentions who don't take risks for the sake of the planet.

So....I love my work at Pilgrims for many reasons. I have space to grow, be creative, and be playful with people. But after my conversation with Mary I realized my work feeds me in another way---in my choice to stay in my associate position so I can be authentic, have integrity yet still be powerful and take risks. In this way, I am resisting a dominant ecclesiastical (and cultural) understanding of success. Resistance is a source of Life for me. In our interview, Mary said this about herself, "Because of my choices, I'm not going far in this world." I could make a choice to go up the ladder of success and go far, or I could make the choice to live with a sense of expansiveness and resist the need to go on to bigger and better things.

Thankfully, I have people like Mary (and Larry!) to hold me accountable and remind me of the elements I need in my work for an authentic and faithful life.

______________________________________________

In the final minutes of the interview, I asked Mary to create an image that represents her life right now. I did the same.

Mary came up with this:

When I asked Mary to interpret the image, she looked up on her bookshelf and read this quote from Meister Eckart: "Whatever God does, the first outburst is compassion." This seems to fit with Mary's model of leadership. She had made a choice to be an associate in order to allow herself the freedom to first be compassionate.



This is my image to the right. I created a bowl to symbolize this image of being held. As I continue with these interviews, I have this experience of my theology, my ethics, my ways of living in the world being held together by these threads of clergy women. I wrote "belonging" because Mary, as many others have, spoke about how experiencing this sense of belonging early on in life made a difference. Resistance is in the bowl because Mary embodies this concept and pushed me to see my work in the same way. Re-interpreting my work in light of resistance and alternative models of leadership and power has created this deeper sense of connection to Mary. I'm not in this alone.

Thanks be to the Holy.

Our family made a trip to NYC in May so we could see our good friends Scott Ramsey, Laura Cunningham, and their two kids, Will and Ginny. The NYC trip was also planned so I could interview Mary Foulke at her parish, St. Luke in the Fields in Greenwich Village.

Picture: Mattie Foulke-Hill, Mary, Renee Hill, Helena Foulke-Hill

I first met Mary during my first year at Union. Mary was in her final years of the dissertation process, getting her Ed.D from Columbia University, Teacher's College. I don't remember what circumstances led to my meeting of Mary but I was drawn to her liturgical creativity, institutional knowledge of Union, and the power she revealed when resisting social and ecclesiastical privilege.

Mary has this incredible gift of analyzing the social construction of power (race, gender, orientation, class.....) plus has the right-brain ability to create liturgical wonder and have an incredible pastoral presence. She's a triple threat.

My favorite worship service at Union was during the week of Halloween in my first year. Queer Caucus + All Saint's Day + Halloween Week in NYC = boundary-breaking imaginative worship. The Queer Caucus at Union was leading worship and I remember coming in during the first hymn, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Coming down the middle of James Chapel was nothing other then a catwalk.

Worship continued with a sermon by Andy Corbin, a Union student, wearing a t-shirt with Jesus in a robe and the words, "Jesus Loves Drag." (I've been looking for that t-shirt ever since). Andy focused on Jesus' use of the word "pervert" and Jesus' ability to subvert language and culture.

Next up: Gay Saints. The catwalk came alive when queer Union folk took turns reading words from Gay Saints. After each reading, the reader(s) would strut down the catwalk while Paul Rauschenbush, great-grandson of Walter Rauschenbush, wearing black leather pants and jacket chanted, "This is the House of Liberation." These words were said over and over while house music pumped through James Chapel.

Janet Walton, professor of worship at Union, uses the video of this worship service as a model for how to create and lead worship.

This service has set the standard for me in how to look at worship and what to expect from a liturgical experience. Worship is a laboratory, an experiment with the truth, a womb where we practice how we want to live and be together, a sacred endeavor to create a House of Liberation. In our everyday lives, we are a symbolic action of the Holy; indeed, revealing the energy and power in how we live, move, and have our being. This service took risk after risk. It could have been a complete bomb. Instead, it was an incredible experience of community, queer culture, risk-taking, prophetic voices and.....a catwalk.

Who was behind this liturgical masterpiece? Mary Foulke.

This painting was created by Jan Richardson, an ordained UMC minister/artist, and one of my favorite writers. Richardson's book, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas, is like a second-Bible for me. In Night Visions, Richardson uses poetry, artwork, and reflections to explore the images of Advent and Christmas. I used this book to heal from all three of my labor and deliveries as Richardson intimately weaves together themes like welcome, threshold, and bringing new life into the world.

June 6th was Trinity Sunday and Richardson created the image to the left to recognize this liturgical day. Her image is entitled, "Trinity Sunday: A Spiral Shaped God." Richardson has this to say about Trinity Sunday and her artwork:

Some years ago, at a retreat center in Ontario, I led a retreat in which we explored some of the riches that come to us from Celtic Christian traditions. When I saw that our meeting room had a smooth linoleum floor, an idea stirred. After tracking down several rolls of masking tape, I returned to the gathering space and got to work. When I finished a couple hours later, the center of our space held a circle with a triple spiral inside, large enough to use for walking prayer and meditation.

The symbol of the triple spiral is particularly prevalent in Celtic lands, where, in Christian times, it came to signify the Trinity. Evoking the energy, interconnection, and mystery of the triune God, the triple spiral graces such works as the remarkable insular Gospel books of the early medieval period, including the Book of Durrow and the Book of Kells.

On Trinity Sunday, we both celebrate God’s triune nature and also acknowledge the great mystery that it holds. Throughout the centuries, theologians have sought to define just how it is that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwell together and with all of creation. Symbols of the Trinity abound, evidence of our desire to describe a being that comprises a community within itself.

Historically, Celtic Christians offered no systematic theology by which they sought to define the nature and work of Trinity, but evidence of their experience of the triune God abounds. In their poems and prayers, Celtic Christians moved from the abstract to the actual; for them, the triune deity was not a theological concept but rather was deeply embedded in daily life. In the Celtic imagination, God, Christ, and Spirit are intertwined with one another and with all of creation.

In the Celtic triple spiral, there is a space where the three spirals connect. It is both a place of meeting and of sheer mystery. Its vast, vibrant emptiness reminds me that, in this life, we will never know all the names of God. Even as the Trinity evokes, it conceals. We will never exhaust the images we use to describe the One who holds us and sends us, who enfolds us and impels us in our eternal turning.

This week, as we travel toward Trinity Sunday, I’ll be holding that image of the triple spiral and the community in whose company I walked its path: inward, outward, journeying ever around the mystery at its center. Those walking companions remind me of how we are to be a living sign of the Trinity who dwells in eternal, intertwined relationship within itself and with all creation. As individuals and as communities, we are beckoned to times of spiraling inward, to attend to our own souls. We are propelled, in turn, into times of spiraling outward, to attend to the world beyond us. In all our turnings, the presence of God persists. With you always, Jesus said.

How do you experience the God who exists as a community and invites us to intertwined lives? How does this God become incarnate in the rhythm of your days?

__________________________________________________________

June 6th, Trinity Sunday, was the one year anniversary of participating in an online creativity circle created by my yoga teacher, Kimberly Wilson, from Tranquil Space Yoga. The online creativity circle had the participants doing various creative endeavors, including morning pages, three longhand written pages done first thing in the morning (as in don't brush teeth, just roll over and start writing).

It was in this online creativity circle, writing my morning pages, that the epiphany came to me about honoring my 10 year at Pilgrims. In my morning pages, I came up with the concept of interviewing 10 clergy women who have been vital to my life throughout the years. I wrote my list in the morning pages, created some draft questions, built up my confidence to write a proposal to receive funds from Pilgrims to cover travel costs for some interviews.

This July, I will facilitate an online creativity circle for Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims. We will do morning pages, read The Artist Way, The Creative Call and The Creative Habit. We will create meditation sanctuaries from the Earth, reflect on the readings, and have old-school "study buddies." I do this to honor a path that has named a creative spirit within me with hopes others will tap into their creative, sacred energy.

Because we are bound together;

Because we belong to each other;

Because we are of the Holy;

I love the Spiral-Shaped image of God and remember and respond to the inward, outward ways of our Center.

_________________________________________________

Spiral-Shaped God, copyright Jan Richardson and downloaded with permission.

Last Saturday morning, I took our five year old daughter, Maddie, to her art class. As others were arriving,Maddie was sitting at the table and coloring with crayons. I was sitting next to Maddie while she colored, feeling all "om-shanti" after my morning yoga class. I joined the gym down the street so I can take these outrageously hard boot-camp classes along with yoga. I went to a yoga class before Maddie's art class and it left me feeling what you hope for after a yoga class--acutely aware of my surroundings, feeling peaceful, and centered.

I was enjoying the presence of Maddie when I looked down to see what she was coloring. My little gem was finishing up a picture full of spirals (see picture of Sam and Maddie). I watched intently (thanks to yoga) as Maddie finished and I asked about her drawing. Maddie's response was "it's the Milky Way with stars." I was taken by her image of the spiral, the same image named by Louise and Kathleen when asked about the image that reflects their life right now. Both Louise and Kathleen used a spiral image with the spiral created counter-clockwise. To the right is the spiral Kathleen drew during our interview and below is the spiral on Louise's bracelet.

As I watched Maddie finish her spirals, she, too, was drawing her spirals with a counter-clockwise movement. I smiled a heartfelt, OM filled smile and heard the door to the classroom open. I looked up and my yoga teacher from my class that morning walked through the door, bringing in her four year old son.

As one of my former co-workers, Jen McClurg, used to proclaim, "there are no coincidences, there are God-incidences."

Barbara Gerlach used the phrase "connective tissue" as an image of God during our interview. That image came to me as I reflected on Maddie's picture. This sacred, holy, connective tissue weaves together my daughter, Louise, and Kathleen in their creation of spirals and how it connects them to the world around them.

And my yoga teacher walking through the door? We now know each others names, kids names, and a little bit of each others yoga stories.

In a conversation before our interview, Ruth asked me point blank, "so why are lbgt issues important to you?" I kind of fumbled around with my words, not really pleased with my answer. Then I blurted out, "it's about relationships!" I went on to say that relationships are crucial to my existence, primary to my own evolving and healing. Included in those relationships are my friends and companions who are glbt. If a dimension of say, Ruth's life, is fragmented because of the oppressive reality of sexual orientation, then a part of my life is also diminished. My own healing is bound up in the well being of others, especially those who are close to me.

After I finished my response to Ruth's poignant question, she said, "so this is part of your wholeness, too." Yes. It is. And while I have believed that, sitting with Ruth at that moment along with our interview really internalized that reality. Ruth commented in our interview, "we are all queer on some level."

This brings me to the word "ally." Ruth mentioned that a hetero friend questioned the use of the word ally as identifying straight folks role or identity in the queer movement for equality. If I say I'm an ally for marriage equality then it sounds as if I am advocating on behalf of the marriage equality movement. I an advocating "for them." Oh, by the way, I also started using marriage equality almost exclusively after my conversation with Ruth. "Same sex" marriage means two genders are the same; that phrase doesn't take into account a fluid interpretation of gender or not identifying with a gender at all. Listen to Banish the Binary! in the audio.

So I wonder what word or identity would symbolize that all of "this" is part of my wholeness, too? That when I believe in marriage equality, when I get ordained into a denomination that believes in the fullness of ordination, that when I work in a More Light church, when our family marches in Gay Pride in D.C.......I'm not doing those things not just for others, I'm doing those things for myself, too. These experiences and public "outings" build up my healing and sense of self. "Ally" seems like I'm doing the work at an arms length rather then embedded in the work and reality of the queer movement.

I don't want to get too hung up on the word "ally." But Ruth likes to play with words and their integrity of meaning so it's been fun and rewarding to think of who I am in the midst of the wholeness and healing.

This leads me to.....banish the binary and the social construction of gender. By social construction of gender I mean something like this:

The ideology of gender determines:

- What is expected of us

- What is allowed of us

- What is valued in us.

The ideology of gender also determines the nature and extent of:

- Disadvantage

- Disparity

- Discrimination

The manifestation of gender difference can be found in the construction of:

- Roles - what women and men do

- Relations - how women and men relate to each other

- Identity - how women and men perceive themselves

If God wants our wholeness which Ruth proclaims (and I believe in her testimony) then being limited to how we express ourselves impacts how we experience wholeness and well-being. Growing up I heard, "Ashley is like a tom-boy" or my mom's relentless quest to have me in dresses. As I look back, I wasn't trying to look like a boy, I was trying to be myself and being in shorts, t-shirts and sneakers was my choice in how I wanted to be. When I was in NYC interviewing Mary Foulke, I was also able to visit with Renee, her partner, and Helena and Mattie, their two kids. Helena could pass as a "boy" but I've seen pictures of Helena looking more like a "girl." What a gift Mary and Renee give Helena for letting her make the choice about how she wants to appear, be, and know herself.

Banish the Binary. Banish the two-gendered way of expecting everyone to be. Banish how we have such a limited way of experiencing and knowing ourselves. Ruth identifies as transgender, particularly in political moments and when someone calls her a lesbian (this is similar to Louise Green's understanding of herself as bisexual). Ruth's partner, Adrienne, identifies as androgynous. Amen to stepping outside the gendered box of living!

To the left is Ruth working on her collage to describe our time together. To the right are the collages. This is how Ruth described her image, the one on the far right. Ruth loves her dogs and this dog is alert, ready. But the dog doesn't fit into a typical "dog pattern." This isn't what a dog normally looks like. If you click on the picture, you can see Ruth cut out words like "opening from an explosion." For Ruth, she had her opening and it was an awakening, a transcendence, a door that opened and let her closer to herself and the Holy. The dog picture is off the index card because the picture cannot be contained. Banish the binary! Gender should not be contained.

I picked out pictures that related to the Phoenix Rising, an opening, and "look your way" and banish the binary. Banish it. Heal. Be Whole. It's part of the call from the Holy.

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I took this great yoga class this past Monday and the yoga teacher asked at the beginning of class to set an intention for our practice. I knew I'd be working on Ruth's interview this week so I dedicated my practice of opening and explosive sun salutations to Ruth. During the practice, the teacher played this song, "One Step Closer to You" by Michael Franti & Spearhead. During the song, I couldn't get this image of Ruth out of my head, sitting in her studio apartment at Union, pondering, wishing, dreaming, excavating.....all at the same time taking one step closer to herself and the Holy.

Take a listen.

I've been down for far too long
'Til my faith was nearly gone
I never knew somebody just like you

Could be a friend I could call my own

'Til I let go of a broken heart
I let go to an open heart
I let go of my broken dreams
I let go to the mystery
And I believe in the miracles
I believe in the spiritual
I believe in the one above
I believe in the one I love

And take one step closer to you
I just take one step closer to you
Even when I've fallen down
My heart says follow through
I take one step closer to you

I never meant to hurt you, no
And you never meant to hurt me too
But it seems like you always do
And even though I'm scared sometimes
If ever see you fallen down
I will be the one that's there for you

So I let go of a broken heart
I let go to an open heart
I let go of my broken dreams
I let go to the mystery
And I believe in the miracles
I believe in the spiritual
I believe in the one above
I believe in the one I love

And take one step closer to you
I just take one step closer to you
Even when I've fallen down
My heart says follow through
I take one step closer to you

I just take one step closer to you
I just take one step closer to you

I keep on walking to you, I'm walking
I keep on walking to you, I'm walking
I keep on walking to you, I'm walking
And I'm never going to stop

Even when I've fallen down
My heart says follow through
I'll take one step closer
I'll take two steps closer

Just take one step closer to you
I just take one step closer to you

Steppingstones

Ruth finds her personal power (this has a 39 second gap in the beginning. not sure why but just drag the cursor to 39 seconds to skip the silence)
9:00-Life after a vocational low
11:00--Shedding identities
13:30--Spiritual practice of watching movies
16:00--The bravest thing Ruth has ever done....
16:30---Laying down her ego





Prayer and Headaches (1:25 second gap in the beginnning. ugh. drag cursor....)
7:30--Prayer + gospel action/political work
13:20--Bedrock belief: God wants our wholeness
16:20--Work as spiritual practice
17:20--Vocation as an organizer




Ordained ministry (same mobius strip image, different audio. 30 second gap in the beginning)







Banish the binary!
5:00--Marriage equality
9:00--Back to banishing the binary
10:15--Image that speaks to Ruth's life