Every Skinny Tree

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24 de Agosto 2009

location: location-location?

i wrote this for a selected readings course on local theology, which is a very interesting concept and quite post-modern if you will... but it is a nice little piece of which i am rather proud, even if it is a little stilted by the academic suppositions...

But why here?
I'm going to plant a tree here. I live here, I work here and though I know the soil in California better than I know the soil here, though I respect the California native Banana slugs, though I have delighted in Californian riparian woodlands encroaching or shading over Bouganveillias in my home town, though I was willing to fight back the blackberries and Vinca Minor there in ways I have been unwilling to do so here, I am beginning to trust the way the rain will come when Seattle grass begins to brown and cedars go to seed. This is where I am right now, and I know trees will grow here.
So I'm going to plant a tree. Here.
The theology that is just a branch, just the beginning of an idea, I clipped from another time and another place is ready to put down roots. My ideas about God and God's people are ready to be grounded in this location. My theology is daily changing and being changed by the people and problems of this time and place. It seems to me that my little branch of theology needs the nourishment offered by questions posed here and now.
I will have to dig a hole for my little tree, the way they dig for a building's foundation: find a spot and dig deeper than anyone expected. Maybe even put up a temporary barrier to protect the hole, and those who come around to look down in it. On the friendlier days we have talked to each other. They usually ask, "why are you doing this in Seattle? What was wrong with California--you know people there."
And I respond as transparently as I can, "I just fit in better here. I am more readily accepted here. They understand my love of children and are more community oriented. They are like a city but also like a small town. I think it is a good place to try new things. It is good for me to be rained on and greyed in and I am learning to appreciate sun, the water and the trees in new ways. I think I could be here a good long time. Besides, it wasn't until I got here that I decided to stop wandering around and put down roots and there is no way of knowing exactly when and where to start digging--sometimes you just have to start."
"How long do you think you will be in Seattle? Would you ever go back to California?"
"Sure, I would. But I want to put down roots so badly and this is where I am right now. I want to invest here, to reach down and grab up and give back in this place and the only way to do that is to be here now, fearlessly and graciously. I want to contribute, to say something meaningful and that won't happen unless I discover the local currency. I don't worry about getting out or back to Cali, this is good soil."
So I resume digging. I dig a deep hole and sort out the rocks of hardened hearts from the fertile soil, dark with nourishing elements like curiosity and mystery. I never had to do that in California; I wasn't ready to do the work of local theology there. Now I look down, bow down, to the differences, respect them enough to sort them, carefully and with love. I will have to or my theology will never put roots down deep enough. I decide which of the hard parts and hardened hearts to deal with now or leave in place knowing that the roots of my local theology will navigate around them.
I get down on my hands and knees, not with a shovel, but with my fingers and tenderly grapple with the hard parts of the people close to me. I know some of the fears and habits of the local people: the way they are afraid to tell their children "no", wonder what will happen if they don't recycle every can and bottle. I see the way their hearts and money are spent on their dogs and boats and second homes in Island County. These, the stony bits mixed in with the fertile soil, are not a loss, but neither are they to be ignored. They must be turned over and looked under. I will have to make judgments about those hard hearts and stony faces I am sorting through, I will have to take them into consideration as I plan to set a theology into this place. I will mourn, surely, if I can't find their beauty. Sometimes it seems there are more rocks than soil but those times are so far few and far between.

The question of water and wind
This place and these people affect the growth of my theology. This place invites me to relinquish all that I know about God to the holy water and spirit wind here. I set it down and let weather, neighbors, dogs, babies and music come close to what I have hoarded so boldly. When it is time, I search out the right tree and get it in the soil. I know a lot about trees, and yet, it will never be enough because it is impossible for me to understand all the ways each branch interacts with the elements in this location. There is no formula to determine how the leaf buds shudder in the ruach of the local wind, or roots will soak in the waters from the local font.
I recently heard a story of a church that unearthed a giant baptismal font during renovation. The day of their first post-renovation worship service they baptized babies in that antique font but because it wouldn't fit in the newly renovated sanctuary, they lugged it out onto the sidewalk and did the liturgy there. I want to ask the pastor of this Capitol Hill congregation how this reveals his theology of baptism that allows for naked babies to be dipped in a giant font on a busy sidewalk.
As for the congregation I serve, we have a small bowl-like font, a smallish metal trough and a giant, coffin-sized trough. They are all three employed with equal fervor and regularity. We exchange stories of our interactions with the font on a pretty regular basis. I like to tell a story of the night I tripped and nearly fell face first into the small, waist-high bowl. I heard one recently about two sixth graders washing their faces in it. The font is central to our theology, but also to our daily lives.
We all have stories about it interrupting our routines and tempting our children, calling them to dip a finger in and then lick it off, just to see if baptism tastes like they remember. The taller kids walk by and put a whole hand in, just to check if it might be good for swimming in, and then wipe the water all over their best dresses, their hair, or their baby brother. Parents hold their four year olds over it so they can stare down into it, hoping to glimpse fish or pennies or God. I have never seen any of these behaviors in other churches. I have never before seen theology worked out like this, around a font so tempting and present because of its location, its place, its central role among us.
Recently, I asked my pastor if I could use the giant font for a Vacation Bible School game. We both considered how this would affect the adults and children in our care. The children are ever increasingly familiar with the font. They have played in it before--during baptismal liturgies younger siblings often spend so much time enjoying the water that the whole family ends up soaked. But do they see an affirmation of baptism in the precious asperges as a soaked big sister runs to embrace a grandfather who flew in from Florida to attend? What would happen to their idea of baptismal sacrament were the font carried carefully onto the front lawn and filled with fully dressed children soaking, wiggling and cheering for their friends to run to the waters, and jump in? What kind of water is in this trough, in this place, that calls theology to be informed or adapted by a scene like this?

A sort of arborist
If we understand that theology comes to us locked in a seed, only to peek out after a blazing wildfire, we understand what growth will cost, how much energy it takes to respond to a harsh environment in constructive ways, what we must do to harden the outer bark just enough to protect xylem and phloem, veins and structures. I have landed in this place, these fonts, these winds, which will beat against my theology and I must let it happen.
Theology grows stronger if I let the voices I know, both near and far ask questions about the varied fonts and Spirit they know personally. I become a sort of arborist, reading the details of the lives in my care, watching how the differing theologies grow near to each other or far apart and why. I look for signs of health, growth, disease or decay.
Theology grows, moves and gathers strength from the winds of change. It either shelters kindly or crashes down through the roof of the house if the roots are too shallow. Theology has branches and little bits at the tips that fall away at the end of the growing season. Theology bears sexy little blossoms, which wait patiently for the breeze and bees to disseminate its tiny totality.
If we learn to appreciate the variety of theologies like we appreciate the power of the seasons in a forest ecosystem, we will be better prepared to acknowledge substantial theological hardship as it comes and goes. We will see that certain trees suffocate in certain climates and dominate in others because of wind and water. Theology is the same way and happens according to the smallest components connecting, gathering fodder, and gaining strength by standing against indeterminate forces.
The problem with trees, is the same problem with theology: transplanting is difficult and not always in everyone's best interest. Of course seeds transport well, with or without a human to carry them, seeds are fragile and hopeful but they are not the whole. The whole tree, the whole theology will not do well if it is dug up and moved too far and left alone. So it is best to prepare realistically and imaginatively, or come humbly with the seeds of a local theology and hold them loosely knowing that they are to be scattered and may not survive.
One part tree hugger and one part theologian, I am predisposed to the task of planting in the best of conditions, and nourishing the seedlings of theology, all the while knowing that I don't have any say really in how well a thing will grow. Trinitarian theology grows best in conditions of heightened community. Rupture, and repair are to theology, as they are to the bark of a tree, evidence of growth. They are evidence that we are in the presence of salvific community, that we are gaining, changing, responding to outside forces like water and wind, that call us to be more ourselves, to put down deeper roots (reaching into the dark and unknown) and risk putting forth tender leaves and blossoms. There are choices to be made and freedoms to be exercised in order to grow a local theology. Doing local theology means extending roots and branches fully into the spaces we perceive between our location and God's. It is in this reaching that we find how close God is.

One tree or one branch
I know that in the process of doing local theology there will be erosion of the soil, bending of the trunk, pruning of branches and grief when an old growth theology falls hard. It is hard to determine if local theology is just one tree in a forest of theologies: biblical, covenantal, feminist, reformed, Muslim, etc. Perhaps these are just branches of one system. Either way, they work together, live together, move in the same wind and grow in the same sun, from the same soil.
There are certain things I do, as a budding theologian, that are part of formulating and living a theology that is self-aware, taking into consideration my locatedness, vocation, gifts and struggles. My coworkers help me to see how my style of relating informs the relationships that affect my theology most. Recently, a coworker's wife shared with me her husband reports back to her when our pastor/boss and I occasionally experience mismeeting. He tells her these stories because it is in my struggle to be understood by other theologians that he recognizes his own.
For example, I have both loved and hated our weekly staff meetings because I am often invited to share my perspective. My perspective on ministry is colored by my expectations that I will work against oppression; that others will work against oppression; to hear and to use inclusive language; to be hopeful rather than condemning of the mistakes coworkers make; to think creatively about the future of what happens in the church building, and in this particular neighborhood, with an eye for those who are not already a part of our community; to deepen relationships, in order to deepen faith; and to take risks in order to create a safe place for other risk-takers to land should they be in danger--that is what I think it is to lead. Though these are not so different from my coworkers' expectations, they have been formed by my very personal experiences of particular oppressors, my own mistakes, certain neighborhoods and specific relationships that my coworkers will never fully understand.
The Parish Administrator, our minister of outreach and lead Pastor are all highly sensitive to concerns like mine and I am learning from the way they voice their own concerns. They seem to have a relational style very different from my own, if not a theology that differs significantly. And yet, week after week, I am able to exegete, both the text and the congregation, in light of our locatedness, and explain myself in a way that builds bridges. The strategy here is to tell the truth as I see it, to listen humbly and be honest when I am too angry to do so.
When I offer the children's word I try to tell the truth as I see it. I offer a thorough exegesis in a non-threatening tone. In age-appropriate language I offer them a taste of prayer-infused preaching so that rather than sum up the week's lesson, which I am very much afraid to do, I simply choose to lead them in bowing heads and offering a question to a loving God. When I write Sunday school curriculum, I think first of the questions the students have already asked, problems they already face. Then, when we are together for the lesson, we begin the work of integrating their experience of God, what they have been taught about God, and what they hope to find out about God from me. As we work out our theologies, we ask a lot of questions and are intentional about leaving space for more.

The mini(s)tree
It is my hope that we will do the work of local theology together for the duration of my ministry. I plan to be ordained so that as the lives of my parishioners intersect with sacrament and struggles, I will be allowed by the larger church to preside and participate. But I am also aware that the ordination journey is as important to the local theology as is the ordination itself.
The ordination process is a process that affects the theology of all participants. Committee, candidate, sponsoring church, the candidate's family and friends are all called to be honest and even angry at times but to always tell the truth in love, and ask difficult questions that will change the way we live theologically together. My call to be a ordained as a female minister of word and sacrament (whose particular interest is in the faith formation of children and families) is a call to action for those in my sphere of influence. Sometimes it elicits anger and highlights doctrinal differences. At other times it unites and validates those who have been othered over against hegemony.
I have chosen to move far from the Presbyterian congregation that is sponsoring my ordination. This geographical distance has called my home congregation to wonder how I will repay them for their support and how the distance between us will be bridged. How many and which trees will have to die in order that we may build a bridge of solid timbers? They have been curious about my motives and discernment processes. One woman in particular feels a heavy burden to be especially available by phone for me in ways she has never offered other candidates and admits that this very particular kind of connection to me has changed the way she is in relationship with me, with our church, and with God. The members of my sponsoring congregation are those who stand over the hole I am digging, the tree I am planting wondering what will come of all this digging, planting, questioning and hoping. They watch my theology change as a result of my surroundings and warn against certain influences and celebrate others.
Not only has my home congregation been called to the struggle but also those who write me a pay check every month. My position in the Lutheran Church has called into question the ecumenical motives of the church as it employs someone who maintains a theology very different from theirs. They love me deeply and each one of them has adopted a different way of working out the meaning of our theological differences.
Both churches have ecumenically informed theologies with deep roots. Though these roots may mean that transplanting is impossible, it also means that these old trees will bear new leaves, if not heirloom fruit, faithfully and in turn. These theologies, though locally informed and reformed by my very participation, are reaching deeply down into the fertile soil of tradition. Those roots reach down deeper than their most recent political agendas and even deeper through the habits that have yet to stand the test of time. As a result, we are learning to form a theology that works for us and against us in different seasons, like wind and water against a tree, according to what we need. And we see that even a local theology will speak of God: the God we experience, the God that is One in the here and now and forever.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

12 de Agosto 2009

its gone

i went looking today for the blog that got me mad enough to start the skinny tree project years ago and its gone. it was a sort of exposure and i answered back in kind.
i just thought you should know that matters to me. the story and it doesn't end just because it isn't showing itself the way it used to.

the reasons i write are many but now, one less.

and the last time i heard

your voice was all there was--no grammar, no diction, no shame, no way to edit--and i

remember it well because it was the most solid thing i have ever heard, it said

i don't know

and then it said my name.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

10 de Agosto 2009

the feeling schedule

a friend recently began to adhere to a strict running schedule and then asked me to make up a feeling schedule along those lines.

so here it is:

Today

Wake up
Stare at the ceiling
Refuse to get out of bed
Think of the things that make you feel
overwhelmed, angry, hateful, sad, depressive
count to ten, slowly
Roll over, yes you have to.
Think of all that you don't have and feel pretty shitty, count to ten, or maybe twenty
But you can't stay there
There are birds learning to fly just outside

Push away the mattress, slide out from between a blanket or sheet, stand up as tall as
you can
Lift your head, yes you have to.
Think of the people that make you feel
Loved, angry, loved, angry, loved...

Eat breakfast, watch television, pull on some clothes, socks, a hat maybe, yes you have to
Feel the soft clothes against you
Don't worry about what it smells like, looks like or
the way they mock the shape of you and the shape the day will take.

The day is hot and wet, give in to the sweat and feel the knot in your stomach, or throat
Think of all that grows here: trees, boys, and clouds that refuse to gather and
Tell yourself that is good

And when the anxiety comes
When the hatred and fear swell like a tsunami
When the nausea and sickness threaten to engulf you

Try them on,
think of wind and rainstorms inside your body,
thunder and lightening in your veins
Think of boys racing down the slight sloped hill on skateboards
girls hoping you will call and lots of lost love
Try to think of mothers screaming in the throes of birthing pains and
Little boys with fat tears falling on scraped knees
Think of bandaids generous enough to cover new wounds
And scars covering old wounds
&
when you are alone again,
Hiding in a public bathroom stall, against the wall holding you vertical
Or in the car, put on your seat belt and let it press into your chest
Like the hand of God pressing against your lungs
so all you can do is
Stay right there
Slump down, against a wall or window and
put your hand On your head,
cover your face and cry. Let the sadness and frustration and grief
shake your shoulders, shake itself out.

The hot tears are sticky and ooze out and you have to let them out
Let them out, spit them off your lips, blow them out your nose,
Push them out, not in
Wipe them on your shirtsleeve like snail trails,
So you can see the tracks of slow moving sadness

Breathe in and out
Breathe in and out like a dog panting in the heat of your emotions
Open your mouth and lungs
and the ache will either get worse
or dissipate

If it gets worse, stay a little (one) longer, wipe away a few more tears

If it goes away, and trust me, that ache will go away eventually,
If you respect it,
Then you can go on.
&
At the end of the day when you crawl back into the bed
Just lie still
Scrunch up your nose at the stench of wrongdoing all around you
Clench your jaw and steel yourself against the nightmare you are living.
Think back on the day, the downward spiral you are riding
Jokes and drunks and all
And imagine what you would tell the one person you want to talk to most

That this is bad
this is not good
That you are so lonely and you don't know what you are doing here and
Why did your mother fail and your father get you into this mess?

Imagine the face of a friend, tearing up, eye lashes sticking together and nose running
For you
All for you, over you, all around you

Wrap the blankets around you tight and think of the warm bodies of close friends
Next to you
On a porch, on a bench, on a beach, on the hood of a car, on a diner booth bench,
on a bar stool, on a couch,
on a hopeful day
&
think of how hard it is
to loose your innocence over again, just when you thought
you didn't have any more innocence left to lose

think of a carpenters' roof beams raised high above your head and let your soul lay across

think of the ancient Egyptian pylons and let self and body stand tall between them

think of Grecian columns, slant 6 engines, old growth redwoods, and tug boats
because you are stronger now and you are taking your place among them
whenever you feel this way
whenever you feel
whenever
you feel
this way
everyday.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:46 PM | Comments (2)

her

I want to tell you so many things and it is so hard to find time.
And the words are all confused.

Lately there has been a rash of failures around here.
Best friends (like me) are really sucking it up. So I thought I would send you all a little message from the bottom of the friend pile where things with girlfriends, yours and mine, are really breaking down.

So here is what I really think about her, myself and you (really the pronouns are pretty exchangeable because this is as much a confession as it is a description) I have observed and participated and so this is what I tell myself about the women in my life, and yours:

When I say I wish I could just like her, it is easy to assume that I am saying
I don't like her because I have decided she is empirically
unlikable.
What I am actually thinking is a thought about my failure to
believe the reasons
and trust the logic
around your admiration or need (or love?) for her.

I want to understand how you choose your friends, how you commit in the ways you do; I want to know what works and what doesn't because I am tired of making the same old mistakes over and over again.
And I want you to see that you do commit, in unconventional ways, in your ways, which are wonderful ways that fail sometimes because relationships are wonky.
You do make promises and keep them.
You do love, and you love well.

Her accusations sound so true because she is seeing you clearly, from her perspective, which is just as valuable to you as any other.

You are not giving as much as you could:
if your father hadn't been so broken hearted, you would be a different person--last month, this month, every month, in your last relationship, in this relationship, in future relationships.
If your mother hadn't overworked your own breaking heart, well, you know how different things would be...

You have made promises you haven't been able to keep:
you are human and you failed.

You have not shown her the love you should have:
You intended to love her well, you started out really appreciating her and then things sort of fall apart on your end
You abandoned her, you stopped feeling the same desire for her, you just didn't have the energy to sustain the excitement you first felt for her.

I know you know all of that but I also know that sometimes you like for someone else (me) to confess that I know it too
When I say it, in my voice
the voice that usually tells you lovely things, hopeful things, funny things, even painful things you hear the sad parts in a way that remembers the love I feel for you, the hope I have for you, the fun I have with you, and the pain that we have borne together. When you hear my voice you are conditioned to think of soft places to land when
everything falls apart,
future and longevity and trust and light.
And that is why I think sometimes you like to hear me tell you things you already know

Not that we are blaming your father's failing heart and your mother's unhealthy habits;
you are a grown up who can take responsibility for your choices
but I just want us to be clear about what you are taking responsibility for
we are not excusing your failing or boredom with her
instead I think I just want to point to your faults in a way that
makes room for them to stand,
for them to be real and holy ground.
I want to connect them to the best of you, so that you can be integrated, so you can see that your greatest failures are the fertile soil for your greatest triumphs.

Your commitment to your father took you away from the promises you made to her
And your fervent avoidance of your mother exhausted your ability to be present with her.
But relationship with your parents will always come to bear in a big way on your most intimate relationships. Those intimate relationships need to account for the father factor, to absorb the shock of it and allow graciously for you to experiment, risk and be angry about it. Also, those relationships need to respond with love to the degree that you share your life, as your mother's child, the degree to which you are willing to reveal or submit your story to query at any given time. Those relationships will also, if they are open to it, reap the benefits of the love lessons you learn from being the person you are.

Your old patterns of behavior around making promises and loving well in--fits and starts, the rhythm of your desires, are not yet elongated enough to carry you through the exhaustion and rejection you have experienced recently.
so your wise and burning desire for deeper companionship,
the fundamental desire that kept things going as long as they have,
is abandoned in the heat of the moment because
the one who cares so much for you
suddenly comes up short, and bold with a machine gun mouth spitting out
truthful accusations in rapid succession
and the rejection at hand (coupled as it was with an accurate description of your greatest faults) displaces your tiny hope that this care was
the deep and lasting care you longed for.

Of course you are guilty, but what good are the feelings of guilt if you don't learn from them, if you don't separate out what you are guilty of and what she is guilty of?

The guilty feelings should not lead you to punish yourself, but to discipline yourself and the first thing you should disallow yourself is to fall into the masturbatory nature of narcissistic guilt that says
This is ALL your fault. Because really, you are not that powerful around here, you are probably not the biggest thread in the tapestry of your community, and you are most definitely not the biggest snag in it--let's leave that descriptor for really awful stuff like sin, depravity, mental illness, rather than one single person, its easier to work with if its bigger like that.

I know you know about that.
Whether you believe it or not, you will be careful when you point to her faults and failures, because you have trained yourself all along to be compassionate toward her.
But I'm not convinced you know yourself or care enough about yourself to recognize what she did that triggered your boredom, anger, frustration and ended in your behaving in ways you regret.
Nor am I convinced that you know enough about yourself to know admit that
You must have shown her a lot of care.
You
encouraged her
to search for healing,
to tell the truth,
to see clearly,
to love passionately,
to ask for more of you
or else she wouldn't have done any of that and you wouldn't be so ambivalent about the brokenness of the relationship right now.
Something about you was so strong, maybe even stronger than ever before because you made the best of this opportunity to be so:
you made space for her,
whether she used that space lovingly or not, she moved into it, toward you. For that movement and all that encouraged it, we should be grateful to both of you, but not naïve. We should mourn the loss of a relationship that fostered that kind of behavior, but not in a way that wishes idly to change the past.
Things have been said that have hurt so much,
there has been a brisk trade in shame and
sloughing off of responsibility.
There are profound weaknesses and
wounds that need time to heal, to shrink, to forgive.

Talking about it may not be the answer, just yet. Exposing a wound to the light will not necessarily slow the healing process but it often makes the scarring worse. Maybe a few protective measures will help, a certain retreating to safer territory,
humility and a season for mourning are in order.
The truth is, these wounds may never heal because no one knows what will heal them or what will reopen them. The trick is to live boldly, honestly, hopefully, knowing that when they do reopen the pain will send its message that it is time to find a safe place to cry over how badly this hurts. And to remember that pain is pain: it always leaves a mark, and healing,
well, as for healing
that is the greatest miracle.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)