DO YOU HAVE A FLAG? - Sermon on Mark 7

Following the scripture reading I read a parable called Finding Faith out of Peter Rollins' book The Orthodox Heretic. The central point for the congregation to consider dealt with what needed to happen in order for someone to receive the gospel.

After the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated in 1945, shortly after the arrival of the British Red Cross to the camp, a particular supply arrived that Lt Colonel Gonin in his diary said did more for the internees who were liberated than anything else they had received.

Does anyone know or have a guess as to what that supply might have been?
"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect."

Imitate Christ - Sermon Philippians 2:1-18

Typically when this passage from Philippians is read we stop at verse 11. For a congregation grieving the departure of a pastor I think it may appropriate to read through probably verse 13. However most pertinently, for members of the body of Christ needing to stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters in Christ who, for the second Sunday in a row met this morning also without a pastor, without many of their pastors, because of them I think we need to read through verse 18.

            This is what struck me very keenly last Sunday as the names of the 9 killed were read aloud. We were able to say goodbye to our pastor with thanksgiving and a celebration that we were able to share with him.  Mother Emanuel AME Church gathered last Sunday and this morning following incidents of murder and hate that stole their pastors and loved ones from them. We should, and must grieve. Change IS hard and much love has been shared in this place.  While we hold our own grief, let us not do so in isolation from those suffering immensely in our world. We are still needed to be the church in this place and Jesus Christ continues to call us into reconciliation with God and one another.

            In these verses we hear the apostle Paul pleading with the congregation at Philippi to imitate Christ. Paul is asking for Christ’s sake, that the gospel may be shared and God’s love may be known.  Paul is also asking for their sake, that they will care for, look after, and love one another. Finally He is asking this for his own sake as he, who has been a pastor to them, is apart from them and knows he may never see them again.

And so we, the portion of the people of God present here today, who call ourselves Maplewood Presbyterian Church hear now -from Philippians Chapter 2 verses 1-18-  the word of God for ALL the People of God:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus, 

Mesh

The following is a transcript of a story I gave aloud at a school friend's Storytelling party about this time of year last year (2013). I'm told it won that night, and may have been recorded. The theme was "Mesh": First you all need some definitions:
Initialism - Is an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately

Such as DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome), or WWJD (Walla Walla Juvenile Detention! Is that not right? I guess the D could be for Delinquent).

Hagiography - The lives of the saints, saints lives. This is not a hagiography. Neither of us are

saints.

[Pause, searching page]

Crap… there was a third one, but I guess I forgot to write it in. Huh… well, anyway…

It was October 25th... I had had a HUGE crush on this guy… in fourth grade but by our freshman year it was a different story. You see, more recently I was working at the wheel when a school was holding a homecoming dance at the Aquarium.  I was reminded of the only year I attended homecoming watching him walk into the gym with his drop dead gorgeous date on his arm. She was a fucking airhead without an ounce of common sense. But I only say she lacked "common sense" because it just happens that she was simultaneously a goddamn genius. She was our age but skipped to the grade ahead of us, was in the gifted programs and Advanced Placement. Ingrained in my memory is the image of them walking in, he and I made eye contact, he smiled and waved and I weakly smiled in response before turning back to talk to make an awkward Freshman attempt at flirting with a guy in my group.

To be sure, if you were to look at a photo of the 500 some odd members of the Freshman class of Walla Walla High School, a little more than say... 12 years ago you might suggest that that guy with matted, Cobain-esque hair and that girl without any hair were not really intending to fit at all. Though we were both well known as athletes we were definitely not of the “Jock” stereotype. During orientation, when they held that class meeting trying to discourage dropping out of school we were probably the two they were referring to when they said that someone next to us probably wouldn’t make it to graduation. Personally, I gave a commencement speech but based on my GPA I wasn’t exactly sure I was actually graduating. My speech, was called “It’s all in the way we see it”. Most importantly though, you need to know he and I, Mr. Cobain hair that is, were NOT friends.

I don’t know, I mean, like I said I met him in the 4th grade and I had a huge crush on him, it was just after my soccer days when my Jersey number was 22. Even so, by the end of 8th grade, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was better than him. Mostly cause my mom would tell me about conversations she’d had with his mom… the vice principal of my middle school… we’ll just gloss over the fact that my mom was semi-regularly meeting with my middle school vice principal and did not actually know her in any other context.

Anyway… He always seemed out of it, he was really popular but instead of actually hanging out with that crowd he hung out with a big group of really weird, kinda sketchy people.

He licked lizards in Costa Rica, there were pictures, that happened. He also licked my friend Sarah’s arms during PE, semi-frequently. Sarah would refer to him as her girlfriend, the word “boyfriend” was only used to emphasize what he was not. At one point, when he didn’t feel like living at home he also camped out in Sarah’s back yard. How much his or Sarah’s parents knew about that I am not actually sure.

One day at lunch during 7th grade WASL testing Sarah and I were in the courtyard during 8th grade lunch. He and I were 7th graders, Sarah was in 8th, but I was in a 'gifted' class with Sarah called Explorers that meant I spent lunch, and most of my time, with the year ahead of me.  On this particular day Sarah insisted that we hang out at a particular spot outside this one science classroom and apparently right on que guess who came flying out, having answered “C” to every question on the test before leaping through a classroom window?

The following summer I visited Ireland for the first time, the whole trip I did a really good job of continuing to be one of the kids that was just outside the norm. My roommate one night tattled on me for sneaking into a friend’s room. I found a payphone and called my mom back in the states before our leaders could and told her the situation. Mom told me she wouldn’t want to share a room with that girl either. On this trip they collected our passports for safe keeping and numbered them, we used the same numbers to do a count off when they wanted to make sure they had everyone, I was number 22. That was the same summer he had his first trip abroad, you know… licking lizards.

Now, I talked a pretty big game about not caring what others thought of me, but he seemed to genuinely not give a shit.

By fall of our Freshman year of high school I was awash in what I now consider to be a jealousy firmly entrenched behind a real ugly mask of self-righteous indignation.

I mean, I made a fair effort: That year I had completely shaved my head, and though it was for a good reason I had no real interest in telling anyone why, I was a little more interested in the social experiment of it.  At Freshman orientation my 2nd period science teacher had everyone going around the room saying their names and when it was my turn he nodded to me and said “Sir?” naturally I didn’t realize he was speaking to me and so the girl behind me had to speak up and say “That’s Maggie!” Considering he was a perverted bastard it was actually more comfortable in his class to be thought to be male, although definitely detrimental to one’s GPA. In the spring, after my hair had grown and I even went to the school Morp (prom backwards) as Marilyn Monroe, Mr Douche was explaining to the class how he would grade a particular assignment and then, attempting to make a joke, announced “Except Parker over here! Cause I don’t like her!” without even thinking I immediately shot back “It’s all right! The feeling is mutual!” The class roared, and I wondered if anyone else noticed the momentary anger that flashed across his face.  Looking back at my grades, we’re still not actually sure how, but I failed Pre-AP Freshman Science that semester, nearly impossible for a girl.

Of course, that was Spring term, and I’m trying to tell you about fall. You see this guy, the one I was so much better than, he would hang out with his friends before and after 2nd period at the corner of the science building and I had to walk by him before and after Mr. Douche’s class. Nearly every single morning he would say hi to me as I passed by. Most mornings I, in my weird judgemental attitude, would ignore him, at least pretend I didn’t hear him, and I would definitely not make eye contact. This spot, overlooked the courtyard of our school, so it's where the podium is placed at graduation.

On October 25th 2001 five days after his 15th birthday he was standing on that corner wearing a football jersey and he said “hi” to me. I probably ignored him.  That night there was a Freshman football game, hence he was in his jersey. I was on the varsity Cross Country team and I was probably carbo-loading for regionals at a spaghetti dinner, we had all been in uniform all day too. We left really early the next morning for Spokane.

Friday or Saturday night we had dinner at Dominoes and someone mentioned they heard he got injured at the game. The guy who licks strange lizards, jumps out windows and sleeps in Sarah’s backyard. He's spent plenty of time in a cast, it's not really news. The subject was changed because Chad was absolutely incensed our coaches wouldn’t take him and Brandon to Hooters.

Monday morning rolled around and as I walked by myself from PE to Science, my daily lizard licking, window jumping greeter wasn’t there, he wasn’t there after class either. I hadn’t given him any thought over the weekend, but I noticed his absence. And no one said “hi” to me that day. I remember someone mentioning he was in the hospital, see he actually passed out at the game, a helmet to helmet could have been bad but this was a helmet to thigh-pad hit. He went in for another play and was pulled from the game when he told the coach he felt dizzy. All this being the case it was rough so we shouldn’t expect him back too soon anyway. After coming out of that you gotta have recovery time. In the mean time the gear was inspected and there was no equipment failure, it did its job.

So Tuesday morning October 30th, as expected, he still wasn’t there. You should know that I’m a very optimistic person. I generally cloud that in a whole lot of sarcasm, cynicism, and general curmudgeonliness but I really do, almost always, genuinely believe everything is going to be okay, it might not be exactly what I think “okay” is supposed to look like, but everything is going to be fine. It just happens that that day, realizing he wasn’t there even though I knew he wouldn’t be, I just knew.  When we arrived in our third period class our teachers had an official statement waiting to be read.

Everybody said he’s in the hospital, did anyone mention the ICU? I guess that was a given, I did hear he was in a coma.

“Essentially,” our local paper reported later, “he had a stroke.”

Oh! That was the definition I forgot!

Subdural Hematoma - Bleeding of the brain usually brought about by high velocity impact fatal in

60-80% of cases. That’s not what a helmet to thighpad hit is supposed to be but that’s what caused it. THAT is how a barely 15 year old boy dies of a stroke.

Now, I might have noticed him being more of an asshole if I hadn’t been such a big one myself. I did say this was not a hagiography but on the other hand, I'm a liturgical protestant, and when we celebrate All Saints Day as we recently did, it would ONLY be appropriate to call us both saints. So maybe this isn't a hagiography, but then I always think of this story when I light a candle this time of year.

Because a month and a half after that homecoming dance I was in the small gym again standing where he had been, looking at his homecoming photo hanging on the wall at his memorial service. A gorgeous homecoming date simultaneously airhead and genius, maybe theres the answer to hagiography. He and I were a couple of weird and wonderful teenagers, simultaneously sinners and saints. About three and a half years later I stood at a podium to give my speech in the same spot he always greeted me, I stepped up just after our friend ASB President held a moment of silence to remind us that we in fact did not all make it and this one guy was “friend to all, enemy to none.” Well, we really weren’t enemies, but I’m still not sure we were friends. I guess it’s “All in the way we see it”.

WWJD stands for Walla Walla Juvenile Delinquent, but JQ22 are the four digits I need to be reminded of when I’m being an asshole. So naturally they can probably be used interchangeably.

The last time I saw him, the last time he said ‘hi’ to me I wore my cross country jersey and John Q wore a football jersey, number 22, they were both made of mesh.

Tumblr Post December 10th 2013

http://maggietalksbacktotheologybooks.tumblr.com/post/69632460622/god-senses-poem-from-theology-1-at-the-seattle

Apocalyptic Irish Train Children

Why I am Kermit Gosnell and So Are You

To begin with you may need to inform yourself on who Kermit Gosnell is if you are not already aware.  You can do that now by clicking here. Be warned there is nothing pretty in what you will read about
him.  So why am *I* him, and why on Earth might I suggest that you're him too?

Haha! You've bought into my clever plan, keep reading.

Gosnell is a product of our broken society.  To be clear, in suggesting that we are him I am in no way trying to downplay the vast amount of evil coursing through the whole scenario. People like Gosnell put to test my belief that we are all capable of equal amounts of good and evil.  I can't sit and read that article and actually think I would be capable of those actions, but I do think we as a society create a need for facilities like the one he operated. In that sense, I don't have to commit those acts to be guilty of them. I do believe his racist views were a representation of current realities, he knew he could behave that way with minority clients because, as it turns out, he could. Yeah, he got caught eventually, but "eventually" wasn't soon enough. The fact that he was able to operate like this for so long shows how reluctant we are to act. Why didn't people act sooner? Is a good question, though I need to point that finger back on myself and ask why don't I treat everyone equally? Why didn't I do something to prevent these women from feeling so desperate in the first place?

It is probably also relevant for the reader to know what pays my bills right now.  I work at a home for teen girls who are, for lack of a better term, in crisis.  They are usually homeless and with the current statistics for homeless youth we know that if they've been out of their home for 48 hours they have almost certainly been propositioned for sex.  Most of our clients have been sexually exploited or are at risk of it.  If a girl has a boyfriend we are always on alert that he is most likely a pimp. It should not be a surprise then that we do from time to time have a pregnant client. No staff is permitted to give an opinion on what a girl should do with her child.  There are two realities that have surfaced from my experience with the pregnant clients we see here

1.  They all want to keep their baby, some even pick out names early on and so long as this is their choice we whole heartedly support them and work to find them resources.
2.  All of them have eventually gotten abortions. 

To be fair, others who have worked at my agency may have had other experiences, this is what I've seen and I don't know if I've seen enough for it to be prescriptive.  On more than one occasion a girl has been told by her parent that she can come home if she gets an abortion.  What has happened is that these girls have been given an order masqueraded as a choice, keep the baby and have no help, no support, your family will disown you OR mom and/or dad will pay for your abortion and you'll be able to come home. If abortion were illegal I don't think these girls' parents would be making better decisions, they're already choosing against the life of their grandchild not to mention the emotional health of their own child, how much could her physical health be worth to them? In such cases better services and better education will save lives of both infants and mothers, though clearly not families.The thing is, If situations like this were the exception to the rule I wouldn't have a full-time job. I read stories like those of Gosnell or of the Newtown shooting (see my last post A Question I Did Not Answer) and I can't help but wonder What if those were my kids? the demographics of sexually exploited girls and the demographics of the women exploited and abused by Gosnell are likely quite similar.

The summer after my freshman year at Eastern Washington University a friend got pregnant after multiple forms of birth control and the morning after pill failed. Her family wanted her to abort it but she chose to give it up for adoption. I know a number of stories of my friends and family that look similar and everyone chooses a different ending. That same summer I read Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution and I still whole heartedly affirm his words "I must say that I am still passionately pro-life, I just have a much more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers." Over the years I have come to feel the real weight of these words, I am not able to take in mothers and their children, or maybe I'm just not willing. This being the case, I am just as responsible for aborted children.  


The sad reality is that most "pro-life" candidates are only pro-life until the birth of that child and "pro-choice" candidates tend to support services that will nurture that life after birth. Whichever way I vote I won't be absolved of the responsibility to care for women and children but I do think I'll be able to sleep better at night knowing I try to do something to help, whether that involves my vote or not.  I know what choices I want others to make and what choices I'd like to say I'd make but I can't imagine myself in such a position now. We can't rightly know until it happens to us. It's all well and good for me to discuss what I think should happen but as a thoroughly confused product of conservative youth group culture I'm a commitment-phobic virgin on birth control (you know just in case, or maybe just for acne) I'm not exactly at risk of making this decision right now.

And just for fun I'll throw another controversial topic into the mix, I watch some of this guy's videos on YouTube. He's gay and he's into theology, his video "Why I'm A Sodomite" I think touches on similar themes of responsibility, it'll be at the end of this post (the reason might surprise you, and whatever you may think of Homosexuality as a sin or not his message ultimately has nothing to do with being gay, and hey you're a sinner too, right?). For the record though, in case anyone thinks I'm in anyway trying to appear pious... I am human and do cognitively consider myself morally superior and I think Kermit Gosnell is a disgusting excuse for a living being, I only wish he were younger so he could spend longer waisting away in jail getting the **** beat out of him. We all have our flaws.

A Question I Didn't Answer

This is a poem of a sort, I just finished it tonight. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a poet and I have made no conscious decisions with regard to rhyme and meter. Suggestions and critique are welcome. I wasn't intending to use the name at the end, but it seemed to fit rhythmically to have one more beat and I couldn't find a different word to use.

 This poem is in response to a question I was asked during a one-on-one meeting with a facilitator for a counseling class I'm taking. The answer I actually gave was something like "I just tutored in the after school program."

A Question I Didn't Answer

I don't like them because they don't scare me
They're not hard to use and I'm damn good.
You asked what I did there, I told you the truth
But it was a question I did not answer

Not like the question on her face that day
Ms. Brown's was a question I could not answer
The thought that popped in may have been like Kayla's retort to teasing queries
"Miss Maggie, you're weird!"
But it was a question I did not answer

I did answer Mark's question
As he shoved chicken nuggets in his mouth
"Yep!" I told him, in the same nonchalance I was asked.
The answer I did not give you, feels the same

I told the truth but I did not answer
I could have said the thought that popped in
But the nonchalance I feel and even a little pride, would not be heard
So I did not answer


I don't like them because they don't scare me
They're not hard to use and I'm damn good.
So what did I do?

I waited for men attempting to intimidate me to get out of the road
I regularly had nails removed from my tires
And I ushered screaming children inside as if it were only raining water.
You asked what I did when I worked there.

It was a red truck, on a Monday, St. Patrick's day 2008
Ms Brown's face was in a panic
40 Children, Kayla among them
"Hey Miss Walla Walla! Your first drive by, huh?" was Mark's question

I'm a damn good shot. The thing is,
I don't like   guns,   because   guns   don't scare me.
You asked what I did when I worked there.

I got shot at, Dave.




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