There is a tattoo on the back of my right shoulder. Etched permanently into my skin, the already-fading ink reads "Don't let them tame you." I got it in late July 2015 at a time in my life when all felt completely wrong with the world. The year of voluntary service I had felt so profoundly called by God to do had ended poorly; sleeping on a friends house and lucking into an apartment had left me vulnerable and exposed on the precipice of homelessness; and for the first time in my then-nineteen years, I was without a church home. Mad at God, hurt by the church, and done with a personality of goodness from following the "right" church rules, I walked into a tattoo parlor, sticky with the day's construction, and booked an appointment for later that evening. The physical sensation of the needle felt refreshing amidst the emotional pain in which I resided. A week ago I was installed as a pastor in a Mennonite congregation. Accompanying it has come stability, belonging, and profound responsibility. Who I am as a young pastor has the power to shape the way people view themselves as Christians. This is heavy. While I am in the midst of figuring out who I am as a pastor, I am also still sorting through who I am as a person intent on honoring the baptismal commitment I made to God and remaining authentic to the spirited and fiery young woman who bowed to the wildness which chose her. Exacerbating these deliberate questions of faith, too, is the conviction that my "philosophy of life"--whatever that may be--remains a philosophy, That is, it is lived. Over the past two and a half years, as I have learned a theology that pulls my radical love of the world into the root of all radical love for the world--God--I have also dipped my toe into tangible ways in which to live out this radical love. Beginning with the Christmas story in Revelation 12, I have found within scripture a stark response to the Empire Beast Systems of our world. This response-coached by joy-wrestles with injustice, occasionally bows to sorrow, and comes back swinging with hope. Remembering the landscape of Galilee, it looks around, eyes resting on the local, to square its shoulders, entering God's restorative work one breath at a time. Questions I have asked along the way of entering this work have been as follows: What gifts do I have to offer to the world? What gives me energy and passion? What injustices are in need of these gifts? In asking, first, what gifts I have, I, perhaps, fall into the individualism trap of modernity. However, after years of Anselm's Theory of Atonement telling me I was created so sinful that God had to send His son to die for my sins, I have sufficiently flipped it off enough times to realize that I am a gift lovingly given to the world. (Take that theologies of shame *dab*). To give this giftedness back to the one from whom it came by offering it to Her Holy Presence which abides in those around me, is all I can ask to do with, as Mary Oliver so poignantly calls it, "[my] one wild and precious life." Additionally, in speaking of agency, I remain a tad astounded that I am a pastor. Certainly, it feels incredibly "right" yet the God of life has one wicked sense of humor. Yet as I began to ask these questions, and contemplate the answers as of now, I have realized they are entirely "unfeminist." So, nineteen-year-old self, I am rewriting the definition. In my coming to these answers, I have, conventionally, sought the rabid individualism of which third-wave feminism preaches. Yet I have also carried with me the stories of Biblical women, saints from the middle-ages, reformation era martyrs, and a few heretics along the way. These women--bold, brilliant, unapologetic in their radical love for the world (themselves included)--have inspired and allowed me to reclaim the sassy and fierce "Lizzie" within the "Elizabeth-consecrated to God." Working with a camper whose pain hovered over him like a cloud, I realized that my thick glasses are perfect for seeing the giftedness under deep-soul-pain and peering back into the education system which left me a marginalized elite at the expense of so much creativity (mostly of others). Waking up early to bake and incorporating food into every possible class project, has made me accept that I love to be in the kitchen, carrying culture and salvaging the economy of the home from capitalist tendrils. And as I look lovingly at the first block of what will one day be a quilt, I know that I am on my way to being damn good at loving people patiently, with great creativity, unending warmth, and the firm reminder that there are some lies of how to love that I can lay to rest. All of this--my growing love of youth and questioning of the ways in which we all learn, my unequivocal desire to partake in the radicalizing of the home economy, and my willingness to place that which is over to a power higher than I--rests within my ability to think and respond critically to the situations around me and collectively, is who I know myself to be right now as a gift to the world. And yes, they are the traits of a good Christian woman who wants to be a mother, homemaker, and caretaker. I have fought for twenty-two and a half years to avoid those labels. So why, that broken girl in the tattoo parlor is asking, are you using them now? I am called, always have been and always will be, to love radically the world. There have been years when this love has felt impossible. With each passing day, it is becoming home. I have no idea if I am going to be a parent in the "conventional sense." I do know, however, that in my life--as a woman, as a pastor--I will make room in my home and my heart (if not my body) to accept the gift of life that children are and, in doing so, accept the narrative of God's abundance. By seeking, perhaps through "career" and certainly through back-aching work, to make radical the economy of that which is local, environmentally sustainable, and closing of the circle between lives, I am choosing to live the narrative of God's abundance. And in caring for those around me--ministering it really is--I am begging agency and grace for those to whom I care. None of this--from teaching my youth about gift economies through a pumpkin I walked to my instructor's house to pick up, to (perhaps, one day) thinning carrots with a baby strapped to my back--feels tame. Indeed, the joy, acceptance, and intentionally which has both shaped and resulted from this figuring-out (which, will never become a "figured"), feels like a downright radical, grinning with my middle finger up, response to the Empire Beast Systems from which the Jesus-philosophy has worked so hard to save us. And, once I throw in a few more tats and maybe some home-brew, I might even be able to call it downright wild.
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This is a guest post by my sister Mary Schrag. There is an old camp tune I grew up singing that begins: “It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing.” The beautiful thing about the spark of a fire is that when one flame creates another, the first is not extinguished. Instead, the amount of light is multiplied. In the same way, when we choose to spread love, power, joy, and goodness to one another, our own love, power, joy, and goodness are not diminished; they are increased. This weekend I marched with my sisters and brothers in protest and solidarity against the passing of the travel ban against several Muslim-majority countries. Over the past few weeks and months, I’ve largely been silent because I haven’t felt like I had the right words to say. I didn’t have the energy to deal with backlash and I didn’t think my voice was one people wanted to hear because I have an immense amount of privilege. But when one of the speakers at the protest asked “Why are you marching today?” and I didn’t have an immediate answer, I knew that if I did nothing else, I needed to say something, write something, do something other than hide in the comfort of my whiteness. Earlier in the day, we had been marching and chanting “no justice, no peace, know justice, know peace,” and despite the anger and frustration and sadness that our current state of affairs can bring, I couldn’t help but smile. I probably looked like a complete fool, walking in the middle of a serious protest with a giant grin on my face, but the more that I think about it, the more I realize that the cause of my smile is also my reason for marching. As we were marching, I was thinking about how beautiful it was to be surrounded by friends and strangers working toward the same goal. It was a small moment of appreciation for humanity among a whole heap of sorrows and frustrations, but it felt powerful and resistant because I chose to be energized and defiant and use my voice to shout truth. I’m not the first to recognize it (Toi Dericotte first used the following phrase in her 2008 poem of the same name) - “joy is an act of resistance.” To take a moment to smile is an act of resistance. To create spaces that are beautiful, safe, sustainable, and welcoming for all is an act of resistance. To practice self-care is an act of resistance. To build bridges instead of bans is an act of resistance. To love unconditionally and treat our neighbors like they’re humans is an act of resistance. To share food and time and kind words with one another is an act of resistance. To gather and walk with friends is an act of resistance. I believe that there is a spark in all of us that allows us each to recognize deep down that we all want the same things: love, safety, acceptance, space to be ourselves and for others to be themselves with us. And let me be explicit: what I’m saying here is that we have to stop calling people terrorists, illegals, and criminals and start calling them friends, neighbors, siblings. We have to design public spaces for the public and with the public, we have to hold accountable the actions of police officers who think shooting unarmed children is acceptable (Hint: It’s not. Ever.), we have to welcome refugees and travelers, we have to make it easier for immigrants to become legal citizens, we have to make friends with people who don’t look or act or eat or dress like us. We need to all stop being terrified of each other (white people, we are paranoid even though we have created a society which benefits us at the cost of people of color, so I’m looking at us first) because the world is a much nicer place when everyone’s not out to get you. The point here is that when we choose the spark over the fire extinguisher (hatred, anger, fear, Muslim ban, AK-47s, ICE, police brutality, etc.) we get more love, warmth, light, and joy, not less.
Why am I marching? Because marching is a beginning. It creates a space for solidarity and spark-sharing, and reminds me of the work yet to be done. It reminds me to increase love, justice, safety, and peace. It reminds me to cling to the joyful moments and relish in them when they come. It reminds me to choose love over fear and to help others do the same. It reminds me to work so that my Muslim, brown, black, undocumented, incarcerated, racist, queer, Christian, atheist, female, young, poor, rich, sexist, old, male, white, homophobic brothers and sisters know that they are loved and can be love for others. It reminds me to work for the day when joy isn’t an act of resistance, but rather a shared experience of all of us being human together. Before leaving Winnipeg in April, I was asked by several people “What does camp in Kansas look like?” My response at the time usually involved describing camp as hot, sandy, and filled with poison ivy and ticks. While I sit here—fighting the urge to scratch the bumpy red poison ivy blotches and sunburns covering my legs—I can confirm the accuracy of that response. However, after our first week of campers, I believe the answer requires a few more details. So, what does camp look like? For me, physically, camp looks like late morning sun beating down as the four-lane turns to two before the turn off onto a red dirt road. It looks like Bluestem—an overnight rental I have spent hours cleaning—greeting me before my face breaks into a smile at the old wooden sign proudly displaying “Camp Mennoscah.” It looks like a winding road between locust trees and tall grass, past the maintenance shed and the “alert zone one” that automatically plays in my head each time as I drive past. It looks like walking trails that move through catspaws, purple poppy mallows, and prickly pears; sandstone buildings with red trim; and sun-bleached cabins with built in bunks covered with the names of campers who have slept there. Camp looks like a sandy river with overgrown banks and a dam that slows time as its rushing water drowns out noises. Camp is a dining hall with a covered shelter attached, an A-frame for crafts, a swimming pool, ball fields, a retreat center, several staff buildings, and a large wooden whale. Yet that only begins to describe the mere physical appearance of camp. The description’s incomplete nature begs the question, “What does camp look like in a day?” For campers, camp looks like a wake-up bell followed by devotions and breakfast. Singing, input (bible study), and interest groups such as canoeing, soccer, hair braiding, and/or ultimate spoons fill the morning. Lunch looks wild with shenanigans such as singing, limericks, goofy skits, and snail mail. Campers then get time to sleep and/or rest before swimming/nature and/or crafts split by pop break and followed by more free time. After supper the whole camp joins for recreation such as river play, borrow the balls, or trio (a combination of sock dodgeball, tag, and kickball), before evening singing, snack, cool down, and campfire. Chores are also completed at some point during the day and there are occasionally late-night activities. As a staff member, camp looks like groggily shutting off my alarm, slipping into shorts and a cut-off, and watering the garden on my way to breakfast. It looks like mornings filled with compost and kitchen trash, dusting the outside of buildings, weed whacking and occasionally leading interest groups as I think of limericks for lunch. It looks like afternoons of tending the nature center critters, completing my chores and/or maintenance tasks, and leading groups on nature sessions before joining in on the staff meeting. After supper, camp looks like more compost, recreation, and checking in with the other summer staffers before campfire. Dishes are interspersed throughout the week as is spending as much time as I can with campers. Yet these descriptions, too—as realistic as they are of the fullness of a camp day—only serve to offer an answer based on time spent. They continue to limit camp to what can be visibly seen with the naked eye. Camp, however, looks like so much more. Camp takes seriously the idea of being a fool for God. Goofy skits and silly songs weave their ways throughout the camp week; some meals are accompanied by wild costumes and others by no silverware; and weird t-shirts featuring space cats, tropical patterns, and unicorns are not only accepted but praised. In this foolishness, we expose our weirdest selves to loving strangers that become friends. (Side) hugs, friendship bracelets, and sweet notes are all ways campers and staff share God’s love and acceptance with one another. At camp, agape love and acceptance of our sweatiest, goofiest selves becomes God-love and acceptance of our saddest, darkest, most vulnerable selves. In this state of hospitable welcoming of self, camp overwhelmingly looks like one thing: grace. To me, more than anything else, camp looks like grace. It looks like the grace that is accepting an apology when someone does me wrong. It also looks like the grace of admitting that I am not perfect and I sometimes owe apologies. Camp looks like the grace of loving another person despite their brokenness and despite my own brokenness. Camp looks like allowing the grace that is the beauty of the natural world to wash over all my anxieties and for long moments grant me peace. It is the grace of nourishing my body with salad, fruit, and homemade sourdough and nourishing my soul with no-bakes and scotcheroos. It is the grace of cleansing sweat, long hours, and completion of jobs well done alongside the grace of pausing during a chore to watch a deer cross camp at sunset. It is the grace of resting for a moment, taking a deep breathe, and just being. Above all, it is the grace of accepting others fully and without limitations and it is the grace of knowing that I too am loved and accepted the same. First and foremost, an apology: I am sorry to all who check up on me via blog and I am sorry to myself and to the writer I hope to some day be for having not blogged since November. I was able to do a weighty amount of creative work this past Winter semester which satiated my need to wax poetic. I have also had some of the most difficult, challenging, and inspiring past six weeks of my life with little room to write more than letters. Today is my last Sunday as Project Director in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Like last year, I am serving eight weeks with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) as a part of a bursary program. Unlike last year, however, I am in a location where despair is imminent and in a position where responsibility never ceases. Since arriving on April 15th, I have learned to navigate (and navigated) a world and role for which I could have never prepared. As Project Director I have introduced weekly volunteers to the pain of Pine Ridge; ordered house packages; transported tubs, sheet rock, and loads of lumber 100 miles from Rapid City; learned to recognize each plumbing and electrical part that fits into a house; helped stake out foundations; driven roads so muddy I prayed I would not slide off; worked alongside some of the most gracious and loving people and dealt with others whose racism, bullying, and stubborness made me want to "drink gin straight outta the cat dish;" lived alongside angrily precocious neighbors; scheduled sub contractors; corralled a group into the emergency shelter; and worked to make sure my long-term volunteers are staying happy and healthy. As 21-22 year old Lizzie, I have gone home twice to sit with my mother in the hospital and help around the house; called home almost daily when not there to check on how she is doing; grounded myself out of multiple anxiety attacks; absorbed the pain and desperation of generational poverty; broken the dress code habitually after realizing the church's unhealthy view of sexuality contributed to sexual abuse in residential schools (and my role as a woman is not to make boys more comfortable); watched everyone else eat dessert while I munched on frozen berries because most of the cooks have considered saving me some salad to be "accommodating food intolerances;" hated myself for not giving homeless people money at the store; picked up a lot of hitchhikers; became good friends with a German whom I may never see again; told myself I will never do this again only to fall in love with the role; let the wild winds and open prairies breathe through the sadness in my soul; and allowed myself to voice that the prairies are HOME. I have been so filled with the love of God it almost hurts. I have been so overwhelmed by learning to do this role I have seriously considered packing my suitcase and fleeing in the dead of night. I have walked the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre barefoot and offered a prayer with each step. I have marched up a hill in pouring rain, face lifted to the sky, and the Hail Mary ringing from my lips. I have fiercely protected a dietetic intern, kind older woman, and bursary participant from a manipulative cook and recognized what a 21 year old theology student can bring to this role that 70 year old white men often don't have. I have once again found the steel strand of courage and tenacity to face challenges that lies within me. And I have slowly and surely continued to rediscover the fiercely independent, capable of great vulnerability and adaptability, resilient, sassy, smart, unapologetic for my own femaleness woman I am. It is the first Saturday in November. Back home the evening will be falling on family--grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, and my brother--as they rest after Plowing Day. This annual occurrence was a yearly fixture each fall and consisted of my grandpa's friends, relatives, and neighbors bringing their draft animals and plowing the field next to his farm. It was a way to keep alive traditional farming practices, spend time as a community, and feast together. As I write this, sitting at my desk in Winnipeg, the snowflakes continue to gently fall, gathering in soft mounds, covering the earth. I am afraid, honestly, of this settled indication that winter is here. Last winter was brutal: a level of physical coldness and emotional despair I had yet to experience.
If there is one thing I have learned since last winter, however, it is the power of hope. More specifically, the ability to place trust in the power of hope. In the case of winter, this means trusting that spring will come and trusting in my own ability to find moments of unadulterated happiness among assignments and snow plows. In the case of despair, it means seeking out the Plowing Days of the world: traditions of heritage that are movements of hope. I am taking an Introduction to International Development Studies (IDS) course this semester. As one of the older students in the class, I sit and watch the worlds of first year's topple. I worry. I remember all too vividly my own first semester in post-secondary education. The simultaneous stumbling as the rug of religion had been pulled from beneath me and grasping as I realized the grave danger our planet and world is in. In recapping these months to my sister earlier today, I described my way of coping as "drinking a lot and running away." After my year in Alaska, I did not know how to handle the hasty cultural transition and the accompanying worldview shift. So I became itinerant. I went to Detroit for three weeks and stayed for three months. I lived out of my backpack for a few weeks. I moved back to Alaska. I almost stayed. I spent the weirdest day of my life in Seattle. I road-tripped through Colorado. I came to Winnipeg. I traded CMU for MDS: a terrible idea with the state my mental health was in. I went back to Kansas. I glimpsed the home I could have embraced. I meandered. I returned to Winnipeg. Somewhere in there I fell in love and fell away and learned to live without meat, gluten, dairy, or stability. In the shifting, in the constant pattern of "hellos" and "goodbyes," in the falling in love with places and people only to leave again, in the finding lost I failed to stay found in the hope of home and community. I critiqued the small little town in Kansas from which I hail. Blaming it for the terrible theology I left with, the status it gave me that no one really has, the backwards and backwoods car-driving, cattle-eating, Republican mindset it ubiquitously has and is not. I forgot about the thriving farmer's market. I overlooked neighbor's cutting neighbor's wheat to hate on corporate agriculture (which is helping me through University I might add), and I sighed at having to leave forgetting the ones who have returned. It's not a place where people bike to school with jars of homemade borscht in their backpacks. Yet Kansas, with its cars and combines, is as guilty of hope as it is of carbon emissions. It is not the world of urban, Winnipeg Mennonites. It does not have to be. It is the place where I walked barefoot, dry soil between my toes as I learned to garden. It is the place where I was a speaker, storyteller, student, and sass before I was aware that my femaleness made me unsafe and a sex-object. It is the place where I learned to share what I had with neighbors and strangers in need. It is the place where I fell in love with the land and my space in creation. Where I learned the importance of family and locality by butchering hogs, baking bread, canning pickles and jam, and schlepping a feast to the barn for my grandma on Plowing Day. That small little town in Kansas is far from perfect. But it's rolling wheatfields and Sunday services, it's potlucks and dusty dirt roads are home in a way that Superstore and Wellington Crescent, downtown coffee shops and traffic lights never will be. It was a place where what is considered "radical homemaking" in the urban world was a way of life. It was not until I came to CMU and attached theological significance to subsistence practices that I realized the hope that exists within my hometown. It's the first Saturday in November. The calendar is a reminder of assignments upcoming. The snow is a reminder that there are seasons of stillness that will eventually lead to new growth. And Plowing Say is a reminder that the hope-providing work to be done in the world is already under way. s It's my last morning at camp this summer. I can't sleep so I sit here and write instead. In twenty-four hours I will be packing up my car, hugging my parents goodbye, and setting off with my younger brother for a week of MDS work in South Dakota, a short backpacking trip, and a week of meandering before student council orientation at the end of August. I know these are realities and I know that on some level I am incredibly excited that they will lead me back to the world of CMU: coffee shops and textbooks, libraries and lectures, acquaintances that will become close friends, Yet leaving camp is incredibly, unimaginably difficult. When I came to camp two months ago, life still felt rough. My confidence had been shattered, I was hesitant and unwilling to allow people into the quiet place of vulnerability where friendship resides, and, after two years, still did not feel at peace with God. Camp changed me. I haven't shaved my legs all summer, I want a hug, I woke up with "When Peace like a River" in my head. Camp gave me the opportunity to prove my worth to myself. Somewhere between dishes, compost, tree removal, and nature sessions I realized that I am strong and capable and have a lot to offer in making camp happen. Camp brought incredible people into my life. People who are hilarious and who appreciate my own dry sense of humor. People who make everyone around them feel important and accepted. People who sass and play pranks...and never fail to check in and offer a hug. People who make mistakes and fail at realizing they are enough. People who offer grace and forgiveness, mercy and understanding, and love. People who love. Amidst these wonderful, incredible people and within this oh most sacred space, I have come to a better understanding that I, too, am loved. When I left Service Adventure a little over two years ago, my world was turned upside down. All of the confidence and peace I had felt growing up in the church community in which I had was gone. I was angry and frustrated at God. I could no longer believe in some supposedly loving old dude up in the sky. But as I've begun my life-long study of theology, I've come to realize that I do not have to. I am not alone in viewing God as a reality. As an element of holiness beyond human understanding that we are lucky enough to sometimes brush up against in our awareness. God as being in and through everything. Not in some creepy "always watching" Santa Clause/cosmic cop way but rather as an aspect of ourselves and the world around us. When we view God as a part of reality, the Bible can then be viewed as it was written: an example of communities living out their lives: creating habits, rituals, and lifestyles that committed them to faithfully seeking God. It records that within their humanness, their mistakes and brokenness, God continued to work. Camp, too, works this way. Living together--breaking bread (bierocks) together; working, playing, and resting together; existing in close proximity to nature; practicing forgiveness; praying; singing; defying gender stereotypes; living as healthy role models for one another and the next generation--has allowed camp life to become a communal life of worship. It is filled with all of the beautiful mistakes and beautiful healing that life offers. In these elements and many more, camp seeks out God: the reality (not limited to) seeking goodness, love, and acceptance for all (and in particular the underdog), that is within us and around us. I wanted to work at camp because it is something in which I believe. Here, however, I once again realized that life is not limited to theories and textbooks. In living out community, in offering forgiveness, grace, mercy, and understanding, I bumped up against God, others, and myself in a way I had only hoped I could again. Watching junior high boys grab hands and dance together, catching my breath during a game of tag in the river, grilling hamburgers for senior high, closing my eyes and letting a hymn carry me--these were my moments of holiness. Moments where I met a reality bigger than myself and my understanding, moments where everything felt right with the world, moments of peace, moments of God. I don't know what this next school year will hold. I know it will be difficult at times. I know academically I will be pushed. I will question why I thought bike commuting in winter in Winnipeg was a good idea. I will not do well on some assignments, I will probably forget my lunch once or twice, and I will almost certainly show up late at some point. But I will make deep, lasting friendships, I will receive comments back on papers that leave me feeling like I could soar with confidence. I will become a better writer, a better thinker, a better scholar, a better person. And when I need to, I will look back at pictures and letters from camp. I will remember that I am capable of giving and receiving abundant love and grace. I will remember how desperately I hoped last spring that life would feel better and I will remember that right now, on this cloudy late-summer morning, that my heart, aching at leaving because of the love it has experienced, is proof that it does. wherein Lizzie writes about the Bible and balances along the line of being gracious and a pushover5/28/2017 I knew it would happen. I knew since that first inexplicable tugging to sign up for the ministry lunch last fall that it was inevitable. Before I even knew that my resisted interest in Biblical and Theological Studies courses might be a calling to ministry (I'm still not entirely certain), I knew that as a woman I could and should expect backlash. It has begun. Perhaps it hurts so much because it has only happened once or twice-the initial cracking of an invisible hope that I could claim a place in the church without flaw. It pains me too, I'm sure, because it has thus occurred in an unexpected context. I assumed that it would come from people thirty to forty years my senior and that I could roll my eyes and move on. Rather, the notifications that the Bible says women cannot be pastors have thus far come from guys my own age; peers and friends with whom I've worked and run and laughed alongside; people with whom I will accept the role as the next generation of the church alongside. I think, however, it is so brutally penetratingly painful--the kind of deep-soul, makes my bones weary agony--because it is collectible data, empirical proof on how incredibly achingly far the church has to go in its relationship with the Bible. . Confession: I have a love-hate (right now it feels mostly like hate) relationship with the Bible. This is probably why I landed on a major where I can whittle away the next three years hiding in the library seeking similar voices and developing a sense of inadequacy from writing about problems instead of facing them (that and fashion tips from Irma). This is also probably why I sometimes want to flop down face first on the ground and not move for a very long time. I love the poetry in the Bible. I love the stories and the characters. I love how messed up and broken humans are from the very beginning. I love that God uses them anyway. I love that it gives us a beginning and roots our existence in the likeness and delight of God. I love that it gives us the purpose of working towards gluing together what has shattered--broken relationships with one another, the earth, and God--and leaves us with the hope that the universe will pour over our patchwork jobs to make things whole again. I love the earthiness: the value assigned to creation just for being; the recognition that we were made to live along and amidst the natural world. I love that it calls for a life of simplicity, enoughness, celebration, community, survival work, and love. I love that our hope for redemption and restoration came as a baby, flipped the entire social system on its head, hung out with the sinners, and sat around a campfire eating fish with his ragtag disciples. I love that there is room for me--as a woman, a lover of the wild, and a broken, messed up human--to join in the dance as part of the narrative. But as much as I love the Bible, I also hate it. I hate that it has verses and chapters that can be used to justify hateful actions. I hate that it opens Christianity to becoming abusive. I hate that it was needed to prove to Jews at the beginning of Christianity why they should convert (thus sending a message of exclusivity and unquestioning authority). I hate that it depicts God as violent and wrathful and male. I hate that it doesn't come with a warning label. I question sometimes why an all-powerful God allowed such a book that is readily available to spiritually abuse others to become the supreme authority for Christians. And then I remind myself, God never did. As a child, I had this image of God (old man with a long beard and stern eyes) just dropping the Bible out of the sky so we could have a guide for life. I think a lot of adults still have this image-they just make it sound less crazy by claiming that God wrote it through human agents. Let me be clear, I very much so think God was present and reflected in the formation of each manuscript as well as the entire canon but I think humans have always had a little more credit than we give ourselves. The Bible is a gift. It is comfort and hope, life-giving and reassuring, confusing and creative. It is a gift to know how people perceived God 3,000 years ago and how that narrative of God as love and restoration is so powerful we shape our lives around it today. The Bible, as a library that describes and shapes our lives, is not a self-help section. Nor is it policy manual. Or a textbook. It is a storybook. A rich mosaic contributing to the tapestry of life. An offering of steps to take and an invitation to join in the dance. Perhaps it is part of the human condition, or growing up, or a symptom of the world in which we live for us to seek truth. Christians, especially, have a long and strong tradition of claiming truth. Yet by claiming, we stop seeking. We forget that truth is never absolute. It moves and changes and flows and if we don't allow the Bible to dance alongside our journey with a living God we devalue its giftedness. When we look at the Bible, at words written in a vastly different context and time than the one in which we live, and hold what we read against and over the living breathing humans next to us, we miss the point. When we lob scripture verses at one another--when we pull out Sodom and Gomorrah in discussions of homosexuality, or 2 Timothy 2:12 to our peer who says she feels pulled towards ministry--we use a God we claim as loving to justify hurting others. A healthy relationship with the Bible and healthy interactions with our fellow humans are not mutually exclusive. You can read the Bible, adopt it as a narrative for your life, and resist aspects that disagree with the broader canonical message of peace, joy, and restoration. If God is gracious, loving, and good and if Christianity aspires to share that goodness with the world, then it is time to stop justifying the infliction of emotional, spiritual, and sometimes physical pain with the phrase "but the Bible says so." Maybe instead try "Love one another... the Bible says so." Lizzie I love wearing rubber boots and tying wire. Bundled up under five jackets, right foot wrapped in three socks so as not to slip from its boot, and a back pocket stuffed with wire, I spent the last few days rearranging rocks in gabion baskets and tying them together.
This week I had the pleasure and privilege of joining the West Virginia MDS Bridge Project as they began construction on an 88 foot bridge half an hour from our base. Under the leadership of a Canadian, I joined two Amish boys and a few construction workers from Ohio to build rebar abutment cages, pour concrete, and avoid the sexist and slightly creepy neighbor man whose opinions were about as good as his hygiene (okay, I know that he is a lonely, broken old man and needs people in his life to care about him but he tried to call me babydoll and I am still bitter). It was a week spent beside a sometimes clear, occasionally raging stream tucked next to a Dan Haggerty worthy meadow. It was a week where my heart swelled with sorrow at the chasm of loss the flood left and with joy as strangers and neighbors became friends. Laughter beat back the cold wind as I expanded my repertoire of West Virginia dialect working alongside the local excavator. Unsurprisingly, the week ended with the ever present and unsolvable questioning of identity that rests on my shoulders. How can I be an academic and a farm girl? I love writing poetry in coffee shops and sketching outlines of garden plans. I love browsing the books on library shelves and scanning the magazine section in Orschelns. I love waking up at 5 am to run before a day of class and at the same hour to bottle feed calves. I love that tying gabion baskets as I fund my undergrad reminds me of building fence with my father. I love sneaking philosophy into pre-breakfast conversations with Amish youth about my fear of birds. I love pausing during the midst of a work day to soak in the realization that serving along those whose beliefs differ from mine is living out challenges I have theorized in class. I need academia. I need a safe place where my worldview meets validation and my mind--in all her femaleness--still receives praise. Yet, as difficult as it sometimes is, MDS never fails to remind me that life cannot be lived in the cocoon of an ivory tower. I'm learning, however, through essays and abutments, that I can have my rebar and bend it too. I can force my way through the second verse of How Great Thou Art and offset it by reading Wendell Berry to apply the first verse's implications for creation care. I can smile about the theological implications as I silently observe men who transition from strangers one hour to friends the next. I can be called babydoll--be infantilized and reduced to a pedestal--and, though I struggle to feel self worth, remind myself of the gratitude I have towards the church for creating an environment where I was praised as a speaker and storyteller before I was ever objectified. Ultimately, I can perform manual labor and think of the paragraphs I have written that might turn into papers about working alongside one another. It is burdensome to look at locally grown rhubarb and have a sermon come to mind. It is exhausting to be caught in a conversation with books of evidence supporting your view that can't be mentioned because they are too much to explain. It is frightening to be alone in your awareness of ecological devastation while the project director ambitiously links Trump to Anheuser-Busch packaged water and is met with cheers of "drink up." Yet this is the world I live in. This is the world I want to live in. We went on a tour one of the West Virginian donors set up. It began in the Greenbrier Hotel and Resort and I attended directly after a morning at the job site. I felt uncomfortable, to say in the least, as I strolled through the polished lobby in overall shorts, a flannel shirt, and work boots. It wasn't just that I didn't fit in that day, it was that I did not want to fit in. I had no desire or longing to ever be comfortable rubbing elbows at cocktail hour. I enjoy the company of Amish boys whose country accents are so thick I have to ask them to repeat every third word. I was delighted working with the excavator who hollered across the river "Go kiss a fat hog!" and made me "happier than a donkey* eating briers" when he called me the Gabion Queen. I feel my place in the church and in the world schlurping borscht and munching on verenika (I made a gluten and dairy free version!!!!!) with strangers who are now another extended family. Small towns, rolling pastures, and muddy boots are as important to me as blank notebook paper asking for ideas, the sunniest corner in Fools and Horses, and meetings about sustainable food. They are of equal importance because they are the same. The ivory tower begins and ends under the patchwork quilt of survival work. Likewise, lives of manual labor and their dependence on the planet are enhanced with places of learning. I can't be one without the other. Indeed, I shouldn't be. And that makes me "happier than a coon in a grapevine" or perhaps "cornfield" since I am, after all, a Kansas country girl. *Donkey is the "share with people who you had to cover your knees for at the dinner table" version A year ago today I walked down a cracked sidewalk in East Detroit, blushing knowingly as I waited (rather impatiently) for one of my favorite people to acknowledge his feelings for me. Little did I know at that time that a year later I would be on an airplane, flying out of Canada after my first year at a University there, headed to a new MDS assignment: alone.
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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