OuttaSiteOuttaMind

Mar 14 2012

Fallen…

The fall from grace wasn’t far… nor did it seem to hurt.
All it took was a cracked door…
temptation opened the rest of the way.
Limitations were imposed and what came naturally was forbidden…
but came oh so naturally.

The fall into grace wasn’t far… nor did it hurt.
All it took was being open to the possiblity…
he swung the doors open wide.
The limitations those labels and categories imposed were stifling…
and he burst them at the seams…
and I came round so very naturally.

I’ve fallen…

Feb 29 2012

2 Comments

Grace, Lent, Poetry

Lent…

season of temptation
tantalized with the forbidden
(though self-imposed)
limitations force the hidden
into view

at worst little more than a mind-fuck
creating obsession where thoughtlessness prevailed
frustration out of abundance
desire replacing the carefree

foibles exposed by preoccupation
freighted with shame
this is good?

give up…

season of seduction
enchanted by abundance
toy around the edges of the holy
enticed to consider others

at best faults are a reminder:
tempting me towards forgiveness
to fool around with fidelity
to eat at the table unworthily

to be allured by the divine temptress
to laugh and levitate relations
to lace with love; garnish with grace
this is good.

give in…

you know you wanna…

Feb 24 2012

5 Comments

Missionary Kids, Papua New Guinea

MK mischief…

My family furloughed from the mission field in 1985. “Furlough” consisted of returning to your ‘homeland’ for one out of every five years, and raising funds for the next four years’ ministry expenses. During this furlough my family was invited to be the ‘missionaries in residence’ at the denominational college in the midwest. We were provided a home to live in, fully furnished. And in return, my folks made appearances in chapel services, taught some occasional classes, and just generally were available for students to talk to. On top of these obligations to the local college, my folks traveled and spoke around the country, fundraising. Mom indicates she and dad were gone 47 of the 52 weeks that year. Meanwhile, my brother and I enrolled in classes in the local high school (he was a junior, I a freshman) and went about our business. We were quite independent by this point–largely because we’d already been at boarding school for several years.

My folks met all sorts of people as they traveled and spoke, and often they would drop by the house to meet my brother and me if they happened to be visiting campus. Neither of us kids found these little encounters much fun, as we didn’t know the visitors (we’d not previously met them) and often they were intrusive–assuming unwarranted familiarity. They would tour the house, ask us kids to speak ‘that language’ or to sing or ‘tell missionary stories’. We were much like a petting zoo–interactive yet none-the-less on display.

Mom phoned us and let us know one day that a couple they’d recently met would be coming up to the campus that weekend. All we knew about this couple were their names. Mom said she and dad had offered to let them stay at the house, instead of having to pay for hotel during their visit to campus. She told us she’d describe us kids to this couple, and they were nice and would enjoy meeting us.

My brother and I put our heads together, irritated that once again we were stuck entertaining the masses. Then it hit us: it wasn’t just that we didn’t know this couple–THIS COUPLE DID NOT KNOW US. We schemed with two of our highschool friends (a guy and a girl) to come spend the weekend at our house pretending to be us. They could tell “New Guinea missionary stories” and no-one would know the difference. They assumed our identities, and my brother and I headed out on the train for a weekend in Chicago–sleeping in the bus terminal one night, and O’Hare airport the second. We never said a word to anyone about the switch.

Then one day, months later, dad announced that we would not be returning to the mission field: instead, he was going to be taking a pastorate in the States. To our surprise (and subsequent horror) the church he was now going to pastor was this couple’s home church. My brother and I were now their pastor’s kids. We had a lot of explaining to do.

Indeed, “your sins will find you out”.

Feb 15 2012

6 Comments

Colonialism, Commute

Global litter…

I had an enlightening conversation this morning with a Nigerian cab driver who talked about Nigeria prior to discovering its oil, and how oil corrupted his people and his homeland. He spoke of the hopelessness of his generation and how “Nigerians now litter the world because we have no future in our homeland.” He described how he’d promised himself that he’d only come to the U.S. for four years, then he would return home–but how much had changed at home in those four years, and how he realized that as much as he missed it, he could never make a life there for a family. Many of his college mates have been assassinated for trying to evoke positive, moral change on behalf of their country’s poor. And he expressed disgust at his own betrayal: earning a living dependant upon the very industry which ruined his nation. He has now been in the U.S. (legitimately) for 34 years. It was a gut wrenching, heart breaking conversation and tears rolled down his cheeks while he talked. When I asked how things could change, he sucked air in through his teeth (in that Northern African way…) and said “I believe there is no hope for that land. To go back and fight the system is certain death. Better to be littered across the globe than to go back.”

I exited the cab sobered, vowing to decrease my dependence upon oil. But it sobered me in other ways: I was reminded of my own exodus from my native ecclesial land–and how very painful the denominational divorce was for me. Much like my driver spoke, I’d begun to realize that there was no future for me there–but it never dulled the pain of separation from my ecclesial birth-family. The nostalgia I’ve felt doesn’t outweigh the gravity of the spiritual danger it imposed–I’m better off having immigrated. It was a death-dealing situation, and my newly adopted homeland (I immigrated 6 years ago) has been life-giving.

My story isn’t unique and is hardly singular. Many of the colleagues with whom I went to seminary now minister in other denominations. And many have cast aside all forms of religiosity in favor of a more benign ‘spirituality’. We are ecclesial litter, to put it in my driver’s vernacular. And while we have managed to thrive in other environs, there remains that twinge of homesickness.

Feb 08 2012

2 Comments

Peace, Theology

Devastating theology…

At the conservative holiness seminary I first attended, I was trained to be cut-throat in my evaluations and assessments of my peers (well, of their work, but it never really stops there, does it?). When I first came to a liberal seminary to study feminist theology, I took on Dr. Dwight Vogel (a professor) and dismantled his argument in front of a class. I was ruthless. He initially got flustered and turned red. But then he very calmly collected himself and asked me to step outside the room. He politely said that a blood bath wasn’t the kind of theological discourse anyone at this seminary was interested in, and that I needed to step back and tone it down.

I was embarassed–almost wounded by his remarks–and fearful of what the latter half of class might bring. But when we returned to class, he said to the group “You know, Donna is right… I hadn’t thought that through. Donna, will you come up here and let’s talk it all the way through so we understand the significance of the argument you made, and where mine falls short.”

I vowed to never destroy someone theologically again. He modeled for me nonviolence and respect. And put me on a path towards peaceableness.

Feb 06 2012

3 Comments

Abandonment, Grief, Missionary Kids, Papua New Guinea

Missing wantoks…

I’ve been in a funk this past week and I know it is related to news from New Guinea. There was a landslide which took out two villages near Mendi (about 40 missing–buried) and then the ferry capsized off the coast of Lae–there were 250 students on board, and 104 are still missing (days later). Several of those on the boat were from the Melanesian Nazarene Bible college. It is heart breaking… and especially frustrating how little press it received. (Given how much press the cruise liner off the shore of Italy received… where only 24 are still missing. I guess it once again pays to be European).

There is a system in PNG called “wantoks”–which literally means “one talk”–that is, you speak the same native language. What is implied therein, is that you are from the same village, and are related, and your concerns belong to all your wantoks. There is an obligation to tend to one another’s needs. Sometimes this is good–no one is left out and no one goes without help. But at times it is also a pain: relatives can just show up and demand things. It is heavily intertwined with the lack of a notion of ‘personal property’ and the fact that language groups are so very small, isolated, and tight. Anyway… I’m missing wantoks these days…

And the grief I’ve experienced over the news from PNG kinda exacerbates that feeling: to whom can I turn when I feel like this? There isn’t anyone around who speaks my language… who has shared these experiences… who shares my grief. It makes it very difficult to even talk about New Guinea at times. I remember once when dad and I were riding his motorcycle, we came upon a bus accident. I was about 10 years old. Dad worked to triage folk, and we noticed one man who was bleeding out. Dad said there was nothing to be done, so we tried to make him comfortable, and then went to help the other injured. We heard a gurgling noise and saw someone pouring water down the man’s throat–literally drowning him. The rationale: he’d lost a lot of fluid so this good Samaritan was filling him back up. When we told this story in the US, it was met with disbelief that the ‘natives’ were so ignorant. Sigh.

And I recall a time when a missionary family was driving the highlands highway (the only highway)–which was treacherous in and of itself with 20 some rivers to ford–to visit us on the north shore for vacation. They never arrived at the appointed time, and we traveled to find them, only to discover a large landslide had covered part of the highway for several kilometers. We spent 4 days digging people out, removing bodies and vehicles and debris, only to find out that the landslide had occurred before the missionaries got to that part of the road. Because it was impassable, they merely turned around and went home, never thinking to notify us where they were, or that they were safe. And their spin on the situation was that God had somehow intervened and saved them from being buried.

With whom can I share such tales? Who can hear them without sensationalizing them, or using them for their own agenda? In my grief, I am missing my wantoks. And my wantoks are missing…

Jan 11 2012

2 Comments

Surveilance

A modern panopticon

In the late eighteenth century, English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham designed a model prison wherein there was minimal need for staff–and prisoners largely policed themselves. An observation tower was placed in a darkened center of the building, and cells were distributed round the observation tower in a circle. Each cell extended the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells were thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. (See this image of a prison built on this model in the Presidio Modelo in Cuba.) The effect of being subject to this sort of surveillance policed the inmates into constant adherence to the rules–never sure if they were being watched. This ‘panopticon’–all-seeing–was touted as an ideal prison, and its method of surveillance is the stuff of psychotic nightmares.

I experienced a modern-day panopticon yesterday, when I found myself stuck on a 2 hour video conference call wherein I could neither make out the individuals on the other side of the call, nor could I hear but about every third word. Despite my repeated attempts to tell the senior management on the other end of the call that they could neither be seen nor heard, they insisted on ploughing ahead with the meeting. Those in the conference room where I was sitting were stuck–trying not to fidget and trying to appear engaged–even though we had no idea what was being said. Later, when I suggested we just meet via phone (where the connections are better) and forego trying to see each other via the video conference equipment, I was answered with “I would prefer to both see and hear you” without acknowledgement of what I was actually saying. Apparently it is enough that they can see us.

Jan 10 2012

Hiatus

I’ve been on hiatus the last 3 months from writing, largely because of a significant abdominal surgery. I’d thought maybe I’d take the convalescence time to write, but alas t’was spent actually convalescing. However, my intention is to resume writing on a regular basis. Just a word of explanation for the silence…

Sep 11 2011

1 Comment

Grace, Poetry

Observations of the divine…

new every morning is Love
and all day long it works for good in the world
it stirs up in us a desire to serve
and to live peaceably
and to devote our days to walking in ways which are life-giving

Aug 31 2011

1 Comment

Depression

Choosing life…

Sethe’s chokeberry tree was in full bloom-winding and twisting its way across her back. The first time I read Morrison’s Beloved my body ached–it was as though a vibration of identification with the violence and abuse welled up from the pit of my stomach and shook me to the foundation. In contrast, Paul D’s gentle touch was unbearably kind, and I sobbed aloud when I read the lines “finally the weight of her breasts were in someone else’s hands”. Never before had I encountered writing which embodied so graphically the numbing scars of abuse and the burden of my own sexuality.

I spent years bearing the ‘weight’ of my own desire, and the abuse inflicted upon me behind my back by oppressive systems which claimed divine authority over my heart, my body, and my mind.

I found myself in a state of significant depression while in seminary. I was a young woman with conflicting emotions and desire, angry that my reproductive organs placed my keen mind within the realm of novelty; my sexuality within the realm of the deviant. I began reading Nietzsche. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche describes a teacher who desired that his teachings be like a tree: where wind and wave and pestilence constantly tested its strength. To have teachings which could bend without breaking showed the strength of the theory. And if the tree indeed broke, then so be it! It was better to find out the theory had a weakness than for it to stand untested. When the teacher’s student hears of the teacher’s desire to be like a tree, the student cries out impetuously, “I believe in what you have to say so strongly, that I will say everything I can against it.” And the teacher laughed and said, “You are the best kind of disciple. Also the most dangerous.”

I found a way to bring back to life the deadened scarred tree limbs which ran across my own psyche: my theology could twist and bend and as long as it didn’t break–it showed strength. I began to nurture that Nietzschean tree. My theology stood test after test–I could please the most left winged feminists, as well as the most radical of the orthodox. I lived in extremes, embracing polar opposites. But after about 10 years of performing these mental gymnastics, I found that much like the North and South poles, these extremes were fun to visit–a feat to visit even–but no one lives there for good reasons as they aren’t habitable. Humans are a temperate bunch, preferring more moderate and livable climates–we need places that are habitable. And I needed a habitable theology.

I began to take seriously the mantra taught to me both by a professor and by my therapist: “Surround yourself with life-giving people in life-giving places.” If the person or circumstance in which I was engaged did not meet the criteria of ‘life-giving’–I removed it from my proximity. I decided to make this a permanent life-style choice: and tattooed the image of a tree of life on my back–so that I’d remember the various trees in my life–all of them framed by life. Intertwined within the roots of this tree are the initials of the therapist and the professor–two women who helped free me up to embrace life.

Surround yourself with life-giving people in life-giving places…

Nogut mi lusim tingting…