god is still speaking....

but not on network t.v.

here is a message from the united church of christ's accessible airwaves campaign about the latest ucc ads, which have been rejected as "too controvercial" by all of the major networks (they are controvercial in that they suggest that "no matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here"):

Last year ABC, CBS, and NBC refused to air a commercial created by the United Church of Christ. Recently, ALL THE NETWORKS rejected the UCC's newest commercial that names the rejection so many people say they experience from organized religion.

Rejection of paid advertising by the networks is just the beginning. For example - James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Richard Land and Gary Bauer have together racked up 36 appearances on the Sunday news talk shows, including Meet the Press and Face the Nation, during the past eight years.

Principle leaders of the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), American Baptist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, among others, haven't appeared once!

It is apparent that the Religious Right political leaders have joined forces to keep mainline religious leaders off the airwaves.

Please add your voice to the growing number of Americans who are calling on the networks to give equal access to progressive religious voices on television.

By going to this site and sending a message to the networks, you can help open our broadcast airwaves to mainline religious voices and find out more about this issue.

couple of things on my mind...

well, there are lots and lots of things on my mind these days, not that you'd have any idea, based on the activity here at the wide tent.... actually, silence here often means a particularly engaged period of my life off-line, and so it has been.

a couple of things to share:

go right now to this site about the genocide that is happening as we speak in darfur, sudan, and send a post-card to george bush. a member of my congregation spoke about his campaign recently, and it really is astonishing that we're letting this happen. it's very very easy to send a postcard. if you have a blog, please post about this campaign there so that more people will send post cards.

the pennsylvania legislature is considering a marriage amendment to the pennsylvania constitution, much like those that have passed in numerous states already. this one would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and would prevent the commonwealth and any of its subdivisions from confering on same-sex couples any legal status that is substantially similar to marriage. my church is doing a letter-writing campaign next sunday in opposition, and i am sharing half of the sermon time with our pastor (who rocks, by the way) to share some thoughts. this is what i'm planning to say (feedback would be appreciated before sunday, but it's already exactly 10 minutes, which is as long as i have, so it can't get any longer):

I was in the car recently listening to Radio Times and heard Kenji Yoshino, a gay professor at Yale Law School, discussing his new book about gay civil rights. Yoshino was telling the story of an encounter with his father who lovingly embraced his son with the words “You are my son,” during a difficult time in Yoshino’s life when he was beginning to question his sexuality. Knowing that his father loved him in that sort of unconditional way allowed him to come to terms with the fact that he was a gay man. Commenting on that encounter, Yoshino said that “love is a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told within its bounds which could not otherwise be told.” I was so struck by this thought that I kept repeating it over and over until I got home and wrote it down. “Love is a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told within its bounds which could not otherwise be told.” I think that the community we have created here at Old First is one in which the love at the heart of our Christian faith allows us to tell all sorts of stories we might not otherwise be able to tell.

I think that, like love, the law also is also a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told. Often those stories are very affirming, but unfortunately, they aren’t always. One of the stories for which the law creates a narrative framework is the story of marriage and family: the law tells us that certain sorts of marriages and families are “real” and “legitimate” and worthy of celebration, and others are ominously dangerous imposters. Of course, we at Old First know better, because God’s love is what guides our story-telling, but none of us at Old First is immune from the effects of this other story that is constantly being told by and through the law. I would like to share with you how that other story has affected me and my family.

As you all know by now, the Pennsylvania legislature is considering an amendment to the Pennsylvania that would only recognize marriage between a man and a woman, and that would prohibit the Commonwealth from conferring any legal status on unmarried couples. This proposed amendment has to be understood in a much wider context of similar legislation and amendments, beginning with DOMA, the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act, followed by mini-DOMA’s in many states, and then a proposed “Federal Marriage Amendment” to the federal constitution, and most recently a rash of state constitutional amendments like the one currently under consideration in Pennsylvania. To date, voters in 19 states have enacted such constitutional amendments, while 13 other states in addition to Pennsylvania are currently somewhere in the process of enacting one. Many of these amendments also contain vague language denying marriage-like benefits to unmarried couples, which may be interpreted as including domestic partnership health benefits. The state of Virginia recently enacted legislation which prohibits any contract, public or private, which would confer any of the benefits of marriage on a same-sex couple.

And as if these assaults on same-sex couples aren’t enough, now our opponents are going after our families. Currently one state, Florida, does not allow openly gay and lesbian people to adopt children, neither individually nor as a couple. Now 16 other states are considering legislation which would prohibit adoption by lesbians and gay men.

Obviously, there are concrete ways that all of this legal activity affects me and my family. If the Pennsylvania constitution is amended as proposed, Julie and I essentially lose all hope of ever legally marrying in Pennsylvania and enjoying the legal benefits of marriage. We also quite possibly could lose the domestic partnership benefits we receive through the publicly funded Philadelphia School District – the benefits that allow me to be home with our children and to do the unpaid work I have come to love.

That alone is certainly reason enough to go downstairs after worship and write a letter opposing the HB2381. But I want to try to share with you on an even deeper level what all of this means to us. I want you to imagine that every day when you open the paper, or log onto MSNBC, or turn on the radio, a drama is being played out in which you are the enemy, the villain. You, your most intimate relationships, the family you cherish, you all are dangerous. Unfit to raise children. The flashpoint rallying people of faith across the country in a way no other cause has managed to for decades. You, and your family, are a threat to the institution of marriage and to the very fabric of society. You hear this day after day after day, as the drama gets played out in an ever escalating series of legal enactments, each one more severe and punative than the last, until you have to ask yourself, when is it going to stop?

As for me, I go through a pretty constantly cycling series of emotions. Much of the time I get caught up in the minutia of my life, which is pretty wonderful, and I feel safe in the little bubble of progressive folks I have chosen to surround myself with. But there are other times when I lie awake at night and wonder when they will start trying to take our kids away from us, and whether Canada or Sweden or Holland will take us in. Now, I am the first to admit that in the light of day, these fears seem pretty extreme, and probably unfounded, and usually I just shake them off and tell myself I’m letting my overactive imagination get the best of me. But there are other moments when I remember that many of the Jews of Europe continued to tell themselves that it wasn’t really that bad, even as they were being sent away to their deaths in the camps. So, how do you know when that line gets crossed? How do you know when the fears you have for yourself and your family are no longer just overblown stories you are spinning for yourself in the dead of night, but something to be taken seriously? I don’t know, and not knowing makes me anxious.

I especially hate that I can’t protect my children from that anxiety. Recently, Trixie overheard a conversation I had after church about the many states considering banning gay men and lesbians from adopting, and in the car on the way home she asked me about it. We talked, as we have many times before, about how some people think it’s wrong for two women or two men to love each other and to be married and to raise a family. I explained that, for reasons I really don’t understand, some of these people feel so strongly that they want to prevent gay and lesbian people from adopting children. Trixie and I agreed that this view is absurd, and that especially silly is the notion that God agrees with this view, since after all, God is love, and that’s what our family is all about too. This is a conversation we have had many times before about marriage, but never about adoption. I waited while Trixie mulled it all over, and then came the obvious, inevitable question from a bright and thoughtful girl: “Mom, if they do that in Pennsylvania, do you think they will also undo adoptions that have already happened?”

“You mean like my adoption of you, or our adoptoin of Micah?” I asked.

“Yeah. They can’t say we’re not your kids, can they?”

And there you have it. That’s the story the law is currently telling my children: their family may not be secure because they have two moms who love each other. Of course, I assured Trixie that we will always keep our family safe, and that she needn’t worry. But the competing drama being played out in the law right now tells her and us a very different story.

Despite all the gloom and doom I’ve been sharing with you for the past several minutes, I’d like to end on a note of hope. Because I actually do feel startlingly hopeful these days. There is, of course, a much larger story than any of those I’ve been talking about, and that is the story of God’s love for us. Just recently, when I was feeling quite some despair about all of this, it came to me: I believe in God, and I believe that our God is a God of love. Those of you whose faith is deep and firm will find this a simple enough truth, one that I’m sure has sustained you through many difficult times. But those of you who know me well know that my own faith has mostly been plagued by doubt, so you may understand what a startling and powerful revelation that was when it gripped me recently. Yes, I believe in God, and our God is a God of love. God’s love is with me, God’s love is in my marriage, God’s love is in my family. And as Jeff reminded us last week, God’s love is with our opponents too. And God’s love will prevail. It will. And that is profoundly hopeful.

I’m not a pollyanna, though. I know that while my faith and God’s love are powerful and full of hope, they are unfortunately no talisman against bad things happening. This is a mystery I am still struggling to understand, but which I nevertheless know to be true. So, I hope you will take a stand against this gathering madness and lend your voice to the story love is telling. You can begin during the coffee hour today by writing a letter to your representative, asking him or her to oppose HB2381. If enough of us take a stand, and let our voices be heard, perhaps the law might begin to tell a different sort of story as well, the love story we here at Old First already know.

I thank you all for doing your part to make that happen.

how you know when micah is sick

first, his nose was too stuffy to nurse this morning. then he asked for a sippy of milk, which he clutched in his hand, while he lay on his belly on the kitchen floor, cheek to the cool linoleum, and drifted in and out of sleep while i made coffee, breakfast, packed trixie's lunch. then he sat almost completely still and watched babar for two hours while i cleaned the play room/study, including sorting through and filing every scrap of paper on my desk. then he fell asleep nursing, and slept for an hour and a half, and when he woke, despite my offer to take him to the pizza shop for pizza and root beer, he's now snoozing in my arms again while i type.

this all may not seem like shocking behavior to most of you, but as any of you who know micah can attest, this boy is sick! poor thing.

am i just a terrible mother for actually enjoying how docile he is when he's not feeling well? if so, well, there you have it! because let me tell you, i've gotten so much done this morning, i feel like skipping.

fat tuesday, ash wednesday

one of the things i love most about my life as a christian is the way that the rhythms of the liturgical year shape time for me. until i began my conversion to christianity (which i would actually say is an on-going project, i'm realizing of late) at about the age of 32, all but about five years of my life had been tied to the academic calendar. there was the year between college and graduate school, the two years between my high school teaching career and law school, and the two years i clerked for a judge after law school. but even four of those five were really still tied to the academic calendar, because julie was a teacher even when i wasn't.

now, julie is still a teacher, and my daughter goes to school too, so my life is still very much shaped by the academic calendar. but that version of the year -- summer vacation, back-to-school, first semester, winter break, second semester, the long midwinter doledrums, spring break, the endless weeks to summer, end-of-school-year insanity, and finally summer vacation again -- that year is only one of the ways that my family and i mark time. the liturgical year -- the pregnant waiting of advent, the candle-lit festival of the incarnation that is christmas, the quiet insights of epiphany, the introspection and discipline of lent, the joyous festival of the resurection that is easter, the celebration of the birth of the church in all its diversity at pentecost, and the weeks and weeks and weeks of "ordinary time" (i love that phrase) -- it is this year, more and more, that gives time shape and meaning, especially my interior time, that on-going becoming that is my spiritual work.

i've always loved cusps; friends who are into astrology would probably say that's because i'm a virgo on the cusp of libra. while other folks dread the begining of the school year, or the disruption to their daily schedule of a school vacation, i've always loved these times. it's partly the "clean slate" aspect of it -- the school clothes all clean and new, the empty note books, the newly sharpened pencils, all laid out in hopeful expectation. but there's something else about those times too, which is hard to describe, but which somehow draws me deeper into the sacred, illuminates for me god-in-the-world. my absolute favorite time of parenting, hands down, is the first few weeks with a newborn, a time frought for most with anxiety and sleep deprivation, but which for me, twice, were the most luminous times of my life, full of mystery and wonder.

so here we are on the cusp of one of my favorite family traditions and one of my favorite liturgical seasons. yesterday was "donut day" in the tradition of julie's family (a tradition i have whole-heartedly embraced!). lots of home-made, deep-fat-fried, sugar glazed goodness shared with good friends going on at the wide tent last night.... mmmmm. and then this morning, the left-over dunuts bagged up and stashed in the freezer, we begin our 40 days in the wilderness. i just love this day, my senses all heightend, my whole life feeling like a prayer. it will inevitably wear off, and by the time holy week rolls around, the discipline of lent will no doubt be wearing thin.

and then there's easter. it's a good life.