Published Writing
THE EYE OF GOD
“God, is it time we had a chat? You are the character lurking in the shadows, the giant eye peeking in the window, the puppeteer, thumbs on wooden slats, string dangling, tied to wrists, ankles, neck. You are the sun rising over treetops, mountain, sea, desert, ice, war. You are the ocean heaving itself, shattering itself upon the rocks. You are inside the mind. You are wispy in dreams, you float, you are the wizard of Oz, embarrassed behind the curtain. You are the great machine. You are heartless. You dash sailors against the cliffs, you send the hungry lion to the cave where humans huddle. You chart the course of stars. You energize the microcosmos, you infuse the seeds with life. You turn dung into earth into flowers.…” [Continue reading on Life in 10 Minutes]
EDEN ELSEWHERE
“I am running naked down the hall. I am so small, the door knob to the linen closet before me is above my head. I am headed to it, the towels are there, my child feet leave footprints on the wooden floor, droplets fall from my body and leave a trail of splatters, surrounding the mark of toes and heel of a child, naked, dripping, gleeful, emerging from the tub. Now to fetch the forgotten towel, forgotten yet again! Did I forget it in order to take once again this euphoric walk of no shame? My hairless, porcelain child body, my head of wet, wavy, dark brown hair, my eyes on the prize, the linen closet.…” [Continue reading on Life in 10 Minutes]
LITTLE BRENDA IN THE RED PLAID DRESS
“Dear little Brenda in the red plaid dress, little white socks and shoes, on the lawn. Bob gives a toy to you, toys with you, plays. Bobby, you will one day call Bob. Bobby will be your friend, you will hold him in your heart.
Little Brenda in the red plaid dress. Martin rides a bike around you. Nine years old, he may be, little Brenda, he has 20 more years to live, and you have more, much more. Little Brenda, you have a lovely little dress.
You will have more than you can imagine and your heart will be broken more than you can comprehend….” [Continue reading on Life in 10 Minutes]
Book in review
Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians
Austen Hartke’s passion for inviting others to find themselves reflected in Scripture shines throughout this book as he takes us on an exegetical journey. Along the way, he introduces us to transgender and gender-expansive people, creating space for their voices, insights and experiences in congregations.
He reveals gender variance among biblical characters as well as the scriptural basis for the inclusion of gender-expansive people in the church. Ultimately, he offers the joyful celebration of the gifts transgender people bring to the faith community.
WHO ARE PRESBYTERIANS, AND WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE?
Queer Grace: An Online Encyclopedia for LGBTQ and Christian Life
Today, there are ten Presbyterian denominations in the United States. New denominations were typically formed by disaffected factions that departed because they held conservative views on gender roles, sexual orientation, racial justice, and related issues.
The largest Presbyterian denomination, the PC(USA), reported 1,301,785 members in 2019. It is the most progressive denomination, although individual congregations will vary, as is typical among Protestant churches; because the stated doctrines and policies of a denomination do not always align with the beliefs and practices of particular churches. The PC(USA) is the only Presbyterian denomination which allows same-gender marriage and ordains openly LGBTQ+ members as pastors and elders.
Social listening as a ministry practice
How do we listen to one another in a fractured world? Our society is polarized by increasing partisanship. According to the Pew Research Center, the gulf between the aisles is widening and opinions of the “other side” are souring. We see it in conflicts on the streets, read it in the news, hear it online and feel it in congregations.
Some days, social media seems to only amplify the noise. Discourse can give way to grandstanding and scattershot broadcasting, but there is an alternative use for social media that allows us to connect more deeply, serve authentically and do so with less stress and doubt: social listening.
Photo by Ben Rosett on Unsplash
Pandemic Mother of the Bride
Pandemic M.O.B.
I am the pandemic Mother of the Bride.
What does this mean?
It means we are afraid,
We are in danger.
We must be careful.
It means we had to
Change our plan.
At what point did we change our plan?
At what point was the plan changed for us by others?
Transgender Day of Remembrance
During a pandemic of biblical proportions, a movement for social justice that has garnered the attention of every level of society, and an election propelled by historic voter turnout, comes another milestone: a record number of transgender public servants delivered into office in 2020.
Yet it also has been the deadliest year ever recorded for transgender people. We remember them today, Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance to honor those who have lost their lives to transphobic violence.
Despite the progress we have made through the inclusion of transgender individuals in office, transgender people continue to experience shocking amounts of bigotry and aggression.
How do we stop the assault on trans lives?
When a Caregiver Is No Longer Needed: Grieving and growing into a second career
Dad had a rare, incurable disease, Inclusion Body Myositis, that took decades to diagnose and slowly robbed his strength until he could not walk or stand, and at the end, had to be hoisted onto his huge electric wheelchair with a hoyer lift. Mom had Alzheimer’s.
Making our country a safer, more just place to live
Fear, mixed with bias and misinformation, is a toxic combination. In recent weeks, this dangerous mix has been weaponized in legislatures across the states with regard to the Equality Act, sometimes with religious fervor.
In my view as a pastor, a woman, a sister and the mother of daughters, the Equality Act is necessary in order to make our country a safer, more just place in which to live by making discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity, against the law.
Finding the Courage to Start – Again, Part 1
Over the past year, I have been among the many older adults considering or pursuing a new career trajectory in the midst of Covid-19. As the pandemic unfolded, I found myself in a state of hypervigilant doomscrolling, hunkered down at home. Yet, the crucible of sustained solitude and contemplation turned out to be fortuitous, prompting me to face my fear and uncertainty about starting over after a career of nearly four decades….
Even in the best of times, fear and uncertainty accompany any career transition. For my Finding the Courage to Start series, I consulted entrepreneurs, authors, and counselors who offered advice on how anyone can summon their courage and embark on a new journey, successfully.
Alma Katsu photo credit: Patrick Milliken
Finding the Courage to Start – Again, Part 2
When I hear “pursue your passion in retirement,” I imagine happy couples kayaking, relaxing on a cruise ship, sipping wine with friends. It’s not that easy. Even as we deal with what life might throw at us – health issues, financial challenges, loss of a parent, loss of a partner, children at a distance, children close by, no children – we have the hurdle of what’s happening inside our own heads. Uncertainty, self-doubt, and fear accompany every transition, and after almost four decades of experience in my field, along with the accompanying degrees, titles, and confidence, assuming the role of a novice amplified those reactions.
To help us overcome the mental and emotional hurdles that could block pursuit of an encore career, I spoke with experts in job transitions. In this second installment of my Finding the Courage to Start series, inventor Jeffrey Nash and award-winning novelist Alma Katsu share three techniques that launched their second-career success.
Finding the Courage to Start – Again, Part 3
In 2018, I retired from my role as pastor at Three Chopt Presbyterian in Richmond, Virginia, to care for my father. He passed away three weeks before my final sermon. I was devastated, adrift in my grief, having lost both parents within eight months of each other. I had also left the only professional role I had ever known. I was 59 and had served in ministry for 40 years, starting on weekends during my first year of college. I was overwhelmed by the transition ahead. I needed professional fulfillment from a new career; yet fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt raged inside me.
Knowing this experience is common among those of us with encore careers, I turn to career counselors for their advice. “It is normal to have these emotions when you are starting something new,” Bonnie Miller says. She is a licensed professional counselor at The BrownMiller Group, a career counseling firm. “The key is not to wait for them to go away but to understand that you can manage them so that you will feel less overwhelmed.”
Elaine Kiziah earned her Ph.D. in psychology, then turned her attention to counseling, career coaching, and consulting on ways to work effectively on projects that are fulfilling. “Fear is often a sign that what you’re doing matters to you – which is good! But these kinds of feelings can be overwhelming when they’re just swirling around in our heads.”
Finding the Courage to Start – Again, Part 4
I’m one of the 80% of Americans who want to write a book. When I retired in 2018, I resumed the writing career I had begun when I was 8 years old, alone in my bedroom, pencils in a row, a stack of paper on my toy box; I would stick a pencil in each of the three holes of my notebook paper, one by one, to line them up. A writing career felt simpler then, fewer doubts came between me and the lined pages.
For the fourth part of my series Finding the Courage to Start, I spoke with Stanley B. Trice, George Vercessi, and Paulette Whitehurst, all authors featured in the Spring 2021 edition of the Virginia Writers Club Journal, about their process from long-burning passion to words on a page.
book in review
Love Makes Room: And Other Things I Learned When My Daughter Came Out
When her 16-year-old daughter came out, Christian music artist Staci Frenes found her faltering. For Frenes, being gay was unacceptable within a “Jesus-loving, church-going, Bible-believing family.” Wasn’t it? In Love Makes Room, she reexamines all she had been taught in evangelical circles about the LGBTQ community, and reaches the conclusion that her daughter’s sexual orientation is neither a choice nor a sin.
[Continue reading in the September 13, 2021 issue]
How we got here, how we can move forward from targeting transgender youth
Misinformation, controversy and legal battles that target transgender young people are on the rise. It’s no accident.
Even as society is making strides in understanding the wonder and complexity of the gender spectrum, some interest groups, armed with massive funding, are targeting the transgender community — in particular transgender children and teens — in order to elect specific candidates. They are stoking fear by spreading misinformation, because fear and anger motivate action.
Bittersweet home alabama
Alabama. On Dad’s side, our roots go deep in the Deep South, deep as the roots of the mulberry tree I’d climb as a child to write in my journal, deep as the waters of Logan Martin Lake, by the Coosa River, where Granny and Pappy built their dream home, deep as the girlhood friendships I formed on our street of split-level suburbia.
Fifty years ago, on July 26, 1972, my oldest sibling packed a green duffel bag, placed an envelope on the kitchen counter in the semi-darkness of dawn and slipped out of our house at 606 Hillmont Street in Huntsville, Alabama.
Tangled Histories: Ramona Reeves’ “It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories”
In the opening pages of Ramona Reeves’ book of linked short stories, It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories, she pays tribute to two female writers from the American South, Mary Ward Brown and Ellen Glasgow. She includes a quote from each in her epigraph, just after the dedication page. For Brown, “class is everywhere in the South” and, for Glasgow, place is that “brooding spirit” beneath which “there is the whole movement of life.”