Will this give you life? FTE and a journey to #decolonizeLutheranism

It would be an understatement to say that my Forum for Theological Exploration fellowship project from 2010 has shaped my current ministry and my current participation with #decolonizeLutheranism, the upcoming #decolonize16 gathering taking place on October 22nd at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, and my actions at the most recent Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Triennial Churchwide Assembly.

When I was an FTE Ministry Fellow in 2010, I was at a crossroads in my seminary education and in my faith journey. I was coming to realize there were very steep consequences as a woman of color being on the track to ordained ministry within the ELCA; I felt very much like an outsider. I was feeling discouraged and alone, and I was seriously questioning my call to the church. In my fellowship application essay, I wrestled with the question, “Ultimately, how can my incredibly different eastern Asian faith tradition of Hinduism come into communication with my current western European based faith?” To be entirely honest, I still wrestle with that question to this day. I also wrestled with the meaning of “life together” within a denomination that needed to reexamine and reevaluate the meaning of these words. I was seeking for a lived out and Incarnational form of “life together” where I could wholly and fully be the brown woman God created me to be in a theology that made my heart sing.

Discerning the course of my fellowship project had to be done within community; faith formation takes place within the resurrected Body of Christ with fellow siblings and sojourners. In that first fellowship gathering outside Greensboro, NC, I was introduced to five individuals who would walk an untrodden path with me as we all discerned where God was calling us into faith formation. We were such different individuals with a variety of interests, but we had a strong commonality: our passion to profess the Good News of the Gospel.

Over the course of a year, I was in constant conversation with Matthew, Michael, Callid, Nathaniel, and Rebecca. We wrestled with discernment, with where God was leading us in our formation to be followers of Jesus. I personally wrestled with my identity and racism within the church body. I remember telling the small group that I was thinking about participating in a variety of anti-racism trainings around the country and creating a lessons learned list. This was coming off a disastrous anti-racism training that had taken place at my seminary. I recall Callid’s question to me in this conversation: “Will this give you life?”

L to R: Michael, Nathaniel, me, Rebecca, and Callid

What would give me life? I knew I craved like-minded people and desired sharing stories of lived experiences. The premise of my fellowship project was fairly simple: find a community. Find people that had a shared lived experience of being people of color within a primarily white mainline Protestant denomination. Find Asians and Asian-Americans, have them share their stories with me, and find a vocabulary to describe and name my experience as a person of color exploring meaning and identity in a place where I was desperately searching for a place at the altar table as someone labeled as “the other.”

Presenting my fellowship study at the closing retreat, August 2011.

The fellowship project was a blessing and it is a place where I found a wellspring of life. I found that people were willing to share their words and stories. People were willing to share their lives and ministries. People were willing to share their truths of a broken system of powers and principalities, but continued their work and ministry when fed by the body and blood of Christ and the support of their communities. I finally found a home, a place where I could be myself, give myself, and embrace myself. I found a place where people were willing to tell the truth, even if that truth-telling came at a cost. The truth that came to the forefront in my fellowship project was talking about the demon of racism. I wrote in my report five long years ago:


“The ELCA will not name the demon of racism, yet still struggles with being a predominantly Caucasian church. Many within the ELCA do not want to talk about racism because it is an uncomfortable subject that reveals incredibly unfair power dynamics. While conversations about racism are incredibly uneasy and uncomfortable, avoiding such conversations is avoiding a root problem that prevents a church from becoming a welcoming and diverse representation of the body of Christ.” 

Six years after this journey began, I find myself reading and reflecting over my fellowship project. Racism within the greater church, and not just the ELCA, is a problem. But it is more than the demon of racism. It is the demon of so many –phobias and –isms that hold God’s church back from its full potential. There is much work to be done, and that work must be done in Christian community. That work must form our faith and our identities as Christians. I find that the work I did six years ago empowered me and gave me a voice. I believe that through the works of the Holy Spirit, I was led to a new community of co-conspirators within the #decolonizeLutheranism movement. It is within this movement and within this community I have felt God’s greatest pull on my heart and voice. It is within this movement and this community where I have felt Lutheran theology sing in my heart in a way that I have not previously experienced. It is within this movement and this community where I better understand just what I am willing to risk for the sake of the Gospel and for the liberation of all peoples.

Thank you, Forum for Theological Exploration, for planting those seeds through the course of my discernment and my fellowship study. Thank you, co-conspirators in #decolonizeLutheranism, for helping me live out God’s call on my life, for holding me accountable, and for inspiring me to do good and risky work to profess a crucified and resurrected Christ.

It has been an incredible journey since FTE came into my life. The journey has become even more exciting with #decolonizeLutheranism. Please join us at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago on October 22 to see where God continues to lead us in what it means to decolonize. 

Strangers, Aliens, and being "American"

The first sermon I ever preached was on citizenship.

The first sermon. On "citizenship."

The occasion was to recognize the 50th anniversary of the dedication of my home congregation’s sanctuary. The service that day was to look at the past, to see what the people of this part of the Body of Christ came together to build to worship God. It was also a chance to look at the present; I was asked to preach the sermon to represent the present day as a member of the congregation being sent off to attend seminary at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. The congregation prayed for where God would lead us in the future from the past 50 years onto the next 50.

The Scripture for that occasion came from the dedication service that took place 50 years before. I honed in on Ephesians 2:19-22, which reads:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

With my parents the day my mom became a U.S. Citizen.

I talked about strangers and aliens. I told two stories; I juxtaposed my parents’ story of being strangers and aliens in a new land with my story of Christian citizenship. With my parents’ story, I focused on my mother. While my father became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1975 (the soonest he could do so after moving from India in 1970), my mother waited decades. I don’t know if my mom was holding out hope to return to the place she considered to be home or if she maintained her Indian citizenship to hold on to bank accounts and property or if there was another unspoken reason, but she remained an Indian citizen from 1970 to 2007. She lived as a stranger and an alien in a foreign land for 37 years, yet that foreign land was more a home to her than the country of her birth as time marched on. When my mother became a U.S. citizen nine years ago, she joked that she didn’t grow up in India; she actually grew up in the U.S.

I recognize that my parents moved half a world away from everyone they loved and everything they knew; they were certainly strangers and aliens in a foreign land, and they did everything they could to make sure my brother and I could survive in this strange new land. Part of that survival was assimilation. Sometimes I think I assimilated too well. My parents raised my brother and me to be “Americans.” Part of being “American” was losing our ties to our family not just by distance, but also by language. My brother has a better handle on Hindi than I do; I can track a conversation, but sadly, I cannot respond in the language of my ancestors and for someone who cares passionately about words and language, I am illiterate. It’s also a tragedy that no one in my immediately family speaks Bengali; that died with my multilingual father who loved to talk to everyone.

My parents were naturalized citizens of the United States. They wanted my brother and me to be proud of being Americans, even if that identity came at the expense of the other identities we held internally and externally. My brother and I were told that we held two identities, our parents’ homeland of India and the home in which we now resided in the United States, but that we were Americans because that’s who my mother and father raised us to be. During the Gulf War, my dad made sure that the American flag held a place of honor in our home that could be seen by everyone. When my mother became a naturalized citizen, it was not hard to find red, white, and blue patriotic decorations in the month of August in rural upstate South Carolina when we celebrated with friends and family her new identity as a documented citizen of the United States. But being “American” comes with a history of complications.

Part of being “American” was buying into a system of white supremacy. That system is also a system of anti-blackness. It is a system that pits communities of color against one another to ensure that wealthy white male property owners are able to maintain power and privilege in the United States. I bought into a system that told me that some people were better than others. I was taught discrimination against others, and also against myself. I recall thinking at some point, “Life would be so much easier if I were white.” As an “American,” this is far from the American dream that made my parents move half a world away. When you’re raised in such a system and are trying to hold together so many identities, saying the situation is “complicated” is the understatement of the year. I feel like I have to relearn and deprogram myself every single day to fight from buying into a system that tells me that people of color have less worth in the land of the free.

This is where my Christian identity comes into play. That first sermon told the story of my mother’s journey from being an Indian citizen to becoming a citizen of the United States. That first sermon I shared my journey from being a Hindu who heard the still, small voice of God in an invitation to a meal. I was yearning to no longer be a stranger and an alien from God. I shared the story of how I moved from one world to another, and how this new world as a baptized Christian has radically altered and changed my life. That saying “Yes” to God has changed my life, and that means I will respond with a “No” to the things of this world.

Part of my no comes with the recent story of Colin Kaepernick. This is why I contribute my voice to “Christians for Kaepernick.” When the national anthem states, “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave,” I realize that freedom is selective. That freedom is not for everyone. We are seeing this play out before our very eyes with the disregard for the lives of so many people of color, and that the United States does not see that #Blacklivesmatter. We are seeing this play out with #NoDAPL, and we see that the United States does not think that #Nativelivesmatter. This is just a small sample of the numerous injustices that happen to people within the borders of the United States, many of them citizens of this country. And there are the numerous injustices that also happens to people within the borders of this country that are not U.S. citizens...

If we are to sing the national anthem, we must look at all of the verses. We must look at the context in which “The Star Spangled Banner” was written, during a time of war. We must look at the entirety of the anthem, especially the third verse that states:

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave 
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.” 

I am tired of buying into a system of empire and oppression. I am tired that “land of the free and home of the brave” is not for everyone.

I’m so tired, I’m going to sit down.

From Bad to Worse: A Point of Entry to Finally Talk About "We Too Sing America"

Sometime in the spring months of 1997 during my senior year of high school in rural South Carolina, I recall one day where a group of white students were yelling racial slurs. 
These words were vile. 
These words were horrendous. 
These words were threatening. 
And these words were not life-giving; if anything, the utterance of these words were dehumanizing. 

I looked around to see whom they were yelling at; when I saw that everyone in my vicinity was white, I realized those slurs were being directed at me. Thanks be to God that it was the end of the school day. I was able to go home, walk into my bedroom, shut the door, and weep. I never had the heart to tell my parents what happened that day; the school year was close to being finished, and I was ready to leave that place far behind me. Why make a bad situation even worse?

--

On September 11, 2001, I was working as a business analyst. That was a day I did not complete work on a project. The days before September 11th were spent preparing economic data on sites for a large scale manufacturing facility. When the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I remember the project lead telling the consultants and analysts to stop working. The project meeting with the clients was the furthest thing from our minds that morning. The office closed early; I recall sitting in my apartment by myself not knowing what to do, so I met with the person I was dating for dinner to talk about what happened that day. 

I will never forget my father calling my cell phone repeatedly that evening. When I was finally able to answer the phone, he told me to leave wherever I was, go back to my apartment, and lock the door. I remember my father’s words: “They will find someone to blame and they will blame you. You need to go home NOW.” While my father had a flair for the dramatic, I listened to his words. I paid my bill, my date walked me to my car, I drove straight to my apartment and locked the door once I was inside. While I didn’t always listen to my father, I thought, why make a bad situation even worse?

--

“Hey bitch, go back home to Osama!” 

These words were yelled at me in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001. I was walking with my date in downtown Greenville, SC when I heard these words from a Jeep driving by. I tensed up, scared that something would be thrown at me from the car. My date and I watched, incredulous, as the Jeep drove away. I felt like I was whisked back to that day of senior year of high school. I returned to my apartment, locked the door, and wept. Why tell my parents or share this awful situation with loved ones and make a bad situation even worse? 

 --

It is July 2016. A bad situation has become worse.

I began with these vignettes because in Deepa Iyer’s “We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future,” Iyer’s preface begins with her point of entry to writing this book. While some say write from your scars and not your wounds, it’s hard to be objective and removed when the wounds still seep and those wounds attack your very body and being. And yet, I write from my wounds and that makes me want to scream many an expletive into this post. These wounds are still open; with the current state of the 2016 presidential election, I fear that wounds within many communities will be inflicted on many populations that are not regarded as “worthy” and “valuable.”

Why talk about Iyer’s book now? This is a book review where I could not remove myself from the contents of the book. This was a book that I could not simply breeze right through and speak about objectively. This was a book that I had to carefully and meticulously read. This was a book that dealt with my very incarnational identity as a South Asian American woman; when I read so much of Iyer’s book, I saw my life reflected back at me. As a Christian, I believe in the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ; there was something eerie of seeing words in a book that wasn’t the Bible that were deeply entrenched within my own flesh. I cannot speak for all populations, but my life significantly shifted after September 11, 2001. That shift continues to the present day. I am increasingly aware of the brown skin I inhabit. But there comes a point where a bad situation has become worse, and action needs to be taken. Iyer’s writing talks about the struggles of black and brown communities; she also writes of collective actions that are being taken to fight for liberation for oppressed populations, because liberation for all is intertwined. In a lecture she gave at UC Berkeley in January 2016, she encouraged those in attendance to be disruptors of biased narratives. She also encouraged bridge building in a land that continues to promote and encourage segregation at insidious levels.

While I read Iyer's book in early 2016, I write about it now because my notes from completing the book state the following:

Iyer speaks to the “loss” of a “White Christian America,” and this loss terrifies people. Speaking about the loss of “White Christian America” in the racialized state that is the United States of America has those comfortable in the realm of “White Christian America” increasingly worried. The United States has always been racialized; enslavement and colonization are very much a part of the United States in which I live today, and “White Christian America” is an artifact of this history. This loss of “White Christian America” is now one of the mantles of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign of building walls between the United States and its non-white neighbors to the south (because there has never been mention of a northern border wall) and Muslims being detained in camps to prevent terrorist activity. Trump also promotes an isolationist attitude, where treaties and trade pacts will need to be renegotiated so the United States will be on the profit-earning side of a cost-benefit analysis. If a country has not paid up on a trade deficit, according to Trump, eff them, they are on their own. He is, in effect, trying to create the American version of the xenophobic-based Brexit (Brexit is another post for another time because I sure as hell have something to say here as well) and placing a large part of the blame and fear-mongering attitude onto the bodies of black, brown, and LGBTQ+ communities. Political civility has left the building.

We’ve lived in a country of continued systemic “othering.” That othering is now blatantly out in the open. Never mind that there are numerous South Asians, Muslims, and Sikhs who are American citizens; we are simply not American enough and will always be viewed as perpetual foreigners, but at the same time, have also wrought the benefits of whiteness. This is where a model minority mutiny needs to happen; if people of color buy into the system of whiteness and white supremacy, the system of whiteness and white supremacy perpetuates. Buying into the system of whiteness pits communities of color against one another, and the only winner in the oppression olympics is Satan. There is a need for disrupting the dominant and oppressive narrative and finding ways to participate in collective action that will disrupt this narrative without co-opting one another’s experiences and messages. This is a balance that I continue to learn about.

It is a land of betwixt-and-between. Iyer writes that to continue talking about racism and racial justice in the United States, “We must deepen the Black and White racial binary that has guided our understanding of racial justice in decades past... Lastly we must develop, organize, and support regional multi-issue, multiracial coalitions that center, organize, and mobilize communities of color, working-class and poor people, women, LGBTQ communities, and immigrants to aggressively push back against far-right efforts that seek to strip away hard-won rights and benefits” (159).

A bad situation has become worse. The time is now.

TW: Brief Thoughts on Anatomical Metaphors

When the spouse and I talk first thing in the morning without caffeine, I think our conversations are a bit more off-kilter, somewhat entertaining, and a bit more unfiltered than normal since our brains are not working at full capacity without the sweet, sweet nectar of God (otherwise known as coffee). This morning, we ended up talking about anatomical metaphors that describe a person’s actions or characteristics. I brought up an example from a few months ago with a colleague:

Colleague: You have some cojones. 

Me: No, I don’t. 

Colleague: Yes, that took some cojones. 

Me: I literally do not have cojones. Why can’t a different word be used? 

Colleague: ... 

I myself have bought into this culture of language as well, telling a friend that he had major balls when facing a difficult situation. Which, anatomically speaking, he has them. And my friend is a brave individual. But why does this part of male anatomy parallel with courage and bravery? Why have I bought into this narrative?

In the morning conversation with my spouse, we were wondering about other anatomical words that would relate to courage and bravery. The only other one I could think of was that someone had heart. I don’t know if the coffee still hasn’t kicked in or that with recent personal and world events my mind is still operating in an interesting fog... but as of late, I’ve been struggling with a loss of words (which is awful for someone who likes to write). And I’m struggling to find another part of the human anatomy that communicates bravery.

Like... damn, you went all cochlea-out.

Or... that was all about the humerus.

It's all about the humerus.
Or in this case, the humeri.

When the coffee started to kick in, the conversation between my spouse and I became increasingly serious. I’m prone to asking out loud very obvious questions to which I already know the answer, but part of me has to ask the question out loud so it’s a part of the spoken conversation:

“Why do people use balls to talk about brashness and bravery?” 

To which I answered my own question out loud to my spouse and myself:

“Because patriarchy rules and has the power and that power isn’t for all. 
Because male genitalia is a part of anatomy that you can force upon and into another person. 
Because we live in a rape culture where it’s okay to treat people as less than and as mere objects. 
Because we live in a world where the words ‘power’ and ‘brave’ don’t mean what they should. 
Because sin is damn insidious.” 

I think about how rape culture communicates the most horrific of power dynamics, and that patriarchal language buys into this oppressive system. Maybe those with a penis, getting to whip out their genitals is what I would call brash, yes, but this is not what I consider to be brave. This is not what I consider to be courageous. But yet a dominant narrative, a dominant culture tells us otherwise. That if you have the powerful anatomy, you're awesome, and if you don't, then too bad.
Very either/ or.
Very ends of the spectrum and no life in between.
A dominant narrative tells us all sorts of awful things, that if you do not conform or buy into this dominant narrative, your body and your life do not matter.

As someone who loves how words are used and someone who believes that the Word made flesh came to dwell among us in the person of Christ, I also realize that there are consequences to the words we use (and do not use). I am also at fault for words used and words omitted; I continue to struggle and to learn and re-learn. I realize that words have power, and sometimes that power is oppressive and does not liberate. Words can give power to a segment of the population and victimize other parts of humanity, and there are times where we don’t even realize how entrenched we are.

Crucifixion and Synod Assembly (it's not what you think...)

This may look like any non-descript Synod Assembly.

People from all over the synod gathered around round tables ready to discuss and act on the business of the church.

For me, this was far from a non-descript Synod Assembly. This gathering of people represented the Body of the risen Christ when I desperately needed to hear the words of resurrection hope and promise.

What led to this revelation? On June 2nd, I was on my way to Reno, NV with one of my pastoral colleagues (who also happens to be one of my good friends from seminary). We decided to drive from the Bay Area to Reno to have the freedom of mobility in case we wanted to explore Reno in our free time (and honestly, to have a car to have absolute control to leave Reno as soon as we were able... no offense to Reno, we just really like being at our homes). We also had to depart a day early from the Bay Area since we were both attending the Synod Council meeting that preceded Assembly.

We were joking in the car that we had a bag of grapes, a pack of Mentos, and a bottle of water between us, and that hopefully we wouldn’t be stuck in the infamous Donner Pass and have to resort to the cannibalism of days past. We were listening to satellite radio and I was singing my heart out to many a 1980s hair ballad. The trip was off to an uneventful start, but that changed in the high Sierras. It was in that infamous Donner Pass that I received the phone call that I had been dreading; my spouse, who was keeping vigil at his father’s deathbed, called to let me know that the hour had finally come. His dad slipped from this side of the eschaton to the other.

My spouse is a calm and collected man, and at the same time, quite loving and caring. He is also very close to his parents and his older sister. When I heard his voice on the phone, it was a voice from him I never heard; if there was ever a time that I could audibly describe what ashes and sackcloth sounded like, it was deeply entrenched in my spouse’s sobs and lamentations that day.

Because we were in Donner Pass, I lost reception on my cell phone. I looked at my friend driving the car, and about a million thoughts filled my mind to the brim. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to feel; honestly, I was emotionally and psychologically preparing myself for the anniversary of my own father’s death which was going to happen the next day, the first day of Assembly. I wasn’t prepared to hear of my father-in-law’s death. Even though I had left St. Louis days before saying what was my final farewell to my father-in-law, I had tricked myself. I had somehow entered into the land of denial. I had convinced myself that there should have been more time.

I burst into tears and started yelling obscenities, especially the one that starts with the letter “f” and ends with the letter “k”. I yelled that word repeatedly as my friend drove down the Sierras and closer to Reno. I then started to laugh and cry simultaneously, convinced that I was going insane and that the circumstances of the timing of deaths in my life as of late have been eerily tied to regional and national church functions. My father went into a coma when I was in Sacramento at Synod Assembly the previous year; I left Assembly early to fly cross-country and made it to his deathbed in time. While working at the National Youth Gathering in Detroit a month and a half after my father’s death, my spouse’s aunt died. Upon my return from the Youth Gathering, my spouse and I were on a plane days later to attend the funeral in Illinois. And now this year’s Synod Assembly was marked with the death of my father-in-law.

I texted the Assistant to my bishop since cell phone reception was still spotty. When my friend and I arrived in Reno, I was half out of my mind and in a daze. I somehow functioned enough to get everything out of my car and check into the hotel. I was met at the hotel’s reception desk by my synodical bishop, who heard the news of my father-in-law’s death from the Assistant to the Bishop. They were both aware that the anniversary of my own father’s death would be the next day. He asked if there was anything he or the synod could help with; I told him that I had no idea, that I knew I needed to leave for St. Louis but I just didn’t know when. I somehow sat through the Synod Council meeting later that afternoon; honestly, I was still in denial. I thought I could lead a totally normal existence for an afternoon in a Council meeting, but as the afternoon crossed into evening, I knew where my heart was and where I physically needed to be. I booked my flight to leave Reno Friday afternoon with hopes of reaching St. Louis in the unholy early morning hours of Saturday.

There were many things I was supposed to do at this Synod Assembly. I was supposed to introduce a video made at the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to the greater assembly. I was supposed to present a workshop about intersectionality through the lens of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. I was supposed to toast my dad and smoke a cigar with a company of good friends. I was supposed to vote on synod business. I wanted to encourage discussions on #decolonizeLutheranism.

Schedules were rearranged and I was given the opportunity to give my report to the greater assembly on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. As I approached the dais to give my report, one of the assembly chaplains (a pastor I respect and enjoyed working with in my previous call) was called up as well. After I gave my report, after the video was shown, the bishop told the assembly that I stayed to give the report but was headed to the airport to be with my spouse and his family to grieve together. The assembly sent me off in prayer, the prayer that I experience resurrection hope in the midst of grieving. Prayers for traveling mercies. Prayers for peace and love. To be sent off with the assembly’s prayers was both humbling and powerful.

To profess the resurrection of Christ crucified... this is the business of the church, and I experienced that fully during my short time at Synod Assembly.

#decolonizelutheranism and Gender Identity: a guest post by Iren Raye

*A guest post by Iren Raye, #decolonizeLutheranism*

 

Hi friends, I’d like to tell you about myself. My name is Iren Raye, and I go by “Raye.” But this wasn’t always my name – I completely changed it last year. I was named Holly Nicole Wilson at birth, and assigned the gender “girl.”  I identify now as transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, non-conforming, agender. There’s not just one word that describes it for me. I don’t fit the gender I was assigned at birth, that I was raised as. I don’t fit the gender binary at all. I never have. And believe me, I have tried.

This story is not just about me. I am telling this story about me in order to tell a story about the church. My church. The ELCA. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara, CA. Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in St. Paul, MN. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Livonia, MI. Lord of Life Student Congregation at California Lutheran University. El Camino Pines. St. Mark’s. Christ. Grace. Luther Glen. University. PLTS. Davis. Incarnation. LSTC. Wicker Park. Augustana. So many different names, one ELCA. This doesn’t even cover the number of congregations I’ve worshipped and communed with, worked for, visited, or eaten with.

I am part of the #decolonizelutheranism movement. And why? I am a cradle Norwegian Lutheran. I fit into the Lutheran culture, right? Why challenge it? Because I’m also Mexican. And British Isles. And west coast. And trans. And 90’s alternative. And I’m tired of needing to only embody the ¼ of my heritage that is Norwegian Lutheran in order to fit in. I’m tired of the hegemonic white church culture.

I want to come at this from the perspective of gender and sexuality, because that is the part of my experience with the ELCA that is sorely disconnected from the gospel. Gender roles, gender norms, genderpresentation, sexual expression, relational norms. It is very difficult for me to tease these things apart in my journey, my pain, my confusion, my faith life, my ministry career, my need to fit in, my need for success. I could (and plan to) write many many pages on all of these things and how I have experienced them in the ELCA. For today, I want to focus on one:

Gender presentation.

I have always had panic attacks getting ready for church. From when I was a kid, to a youth minister, to a camp director, to a seminary student. It has been shamed into me that I must look nice for church, which explicitly means that the way I dress day to day does not look nice. I have been told in more than one church that jeans are not appropriate attire. I have been told I should wear skirts more often. That the skirt I was wearing is inappropriate. When I decided I did not want to wear bras anymore because of beauty standard issues in our society, I knew I would not be able to go braless at church. Inappropriate. Another panic attack. I have been told in more than one ministry setting that I cannot have an eyebrow piercing because I am a role model to youth and other young peers. I have been told that what we wear to church is a uniform. And no, this pastor was not talking about albs and other worship garments. He was referring to the way we must dress to present ourselves appropriately to God and each other.

Panic attack. My heart is racing and my stomach is churning by typing and reliving these moments.

I have realized in the past few years that part of what I have always experienced in this clothing anxiety is gender dysphoria. I have been experiencing major distress in having to present myself a certain way. Having to “dress up” in our society is a very gendered experience. You can shop from the women’s section or the men’s section. I could dress up feminine or butch. Those were always my only two options. To look like a woman, or to look like a lesbian. Neither of which were labels that made me comfortable at all, because they do not fit who I am. Add to that the anxiety that I was being misogynistic by not wanting to look like a woman, or be perceived as a woman who loves other women. I receive my biggest support from women and from lesbian-identifying women in particular. However, the limited gender categories and limited gender presentations that fuel perceptions in society put me into a dizzying spiral on a daily basis.

More distress. More panic attacks.

But what does this have to do with the church? You may be thinking, “Raye, it sounds like your brain is just giving you anxiety, not the ELCA.” And that’s partly true – I have an anxiety disorder, but I believe it has been impressed into me through repeated encounters of shame. Shame that even though I am freed from dysphoric distress by wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I am not worthy to sit in a pew, read from the lectern, or lead singing in that outfit. Regardless of how clean, modest, attractive, and comfortable an outfit I put together, it could still be deemed unacceptable by laity and clergy at any given moment.

So instead, I put my energy toward fitting in. Toward dressing like a respectable white woman ministry leader, by the collective ELCA’s standards. These are not standards written down in any place, but rules enforced through shame. A hegemonic cultural standard, in which the ruling ethnic group determines cultural norms through unspoken means. In our country and church, this is white Western, upper-middle class, mid-20^th century Americana kinds of standards.

The big issue here is: when I dressed and acted according to these standards, I was successful as a professional ministry leader in the ELCA. I received jobs, was promoted, was invited onto planning committees, was introduced to synod and Churchwide leaders, received access to higher education. If I could look the part, speak the part, and live the part, I got the role. The problem is so much of it was an act. A forced act of survival. On one hand, financial survival. It was an act I needed to play in order to receive a salary, afford rent and food. On the other hand, it was spiritual survival. I did what I had to do in order to be allowed not only to worship in a pew, but to live out my calling to serve and lead the church. Every moment that I have the courage to drop the act and be myself, I risk both my livelihood and my belonging in my faith home.

This is why I am part of #decolonizelutheranism. Because, as much anxiety and distress and depression and suicidal thoughts it gives me, I have the white privilege to play the part and be a successful leader in the ELCA. But not everyone has my light skin, my neurotic need to fit in, my ability to “pass” as a respectable Lutheran. Others, by virtue of appearance, family heritage, language, sexuality, gender expression, vibrant personality, or cultural expressions of worship, do not “pass” as Lutherans and are always “othered.”

I refuse to be a part of the hegemony anymore. It is not worth my mental and emotional health. I should not have to hide who I am in order to be a member or leader in the ELCA. There are so many of us that have heard the gospel through the Lutheran lens: that the grace of God has overcome all barriers of sin and evil and has saved us from oppression. We are no longer slaves, but free. We no longer hate and restrict, but love and welcome. I love the ELCA, our joy-filled worship, our full reliance on the grace of God in Jesus Christ, our trust in the Holy Spirit to make us one through the sacraments of baptism and communion. These gifts are for all the people of God. This is what the #decolonizelutheranism movement is all about.

Bishop Eaton herself has raised up again and again the need for us to acknowledge the limitations of our church, especially in terms of race and racism.  When asked about the #decolonizelutheranism movement at the Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly this weekend, Bishop Eaton acknowledged that our movement is addressing importantissues of cultural exclusion (minutes 23:00-27:00 among others). I appreciate her words and her support on these issues.

However, Bishop Eaton couched us as a group of younger, newer pastors and seminarians. I suppose that in the ELCA, these words sort of apply, given the age demographics of many of our congregations. But on the other hand, I have had 32 years of experience in this church as an active member and ministry leader. While some of us may be “newer” pastors, we are not new to this church.

Bishop Eaton also characterized us as being impatient, which is true. But, Bishop, impatience is NOT a charism of the young. It is a charism of the oppressed, the pained, the bleeding, the dying. There are some of us that need change NOW. Not because we are young and idealistic. But because we and others are being cut off from ourselves in our faith home. Our churches – where we hear the good news that God loves us unconditionally, passionately, overwhelmingly, just the way we are – simultaneously are the places where we are silenced, reduced, and controlled by one group’s cultural standards. This affects us painfully. This is not a surface issue. This is a heart and soul and salvation issue. Can we fully be ourselves, our gender non-conforming, culturally non-conforming, sexually non-conforming, clapping and dancing in church, eating-disordered, neuro-diverse, wearing non-Western-elite clothing, messy, loving, broken, whole selves? We want the ELCA to celebrate that our full selves are saved by the grace of God – not to be changed through conformity but to be transformed through acceptance and belonging.

Decolonize the hegemony. #decolonizelutheranism.

Raye @irenraye 
queerly Lutheran theologian - PhD @LSTChicago - queering your visions and expectations with holy indecency - derby grrrl aka Death Raye

Churches should update their websites for summer time changes unless...

... you're a doofus like me who seems to delight in committing many a social faux-pas. I would normally recommend that a church change their website to reflect a change in worship time. It's usually how visitors find out when worship starts. Only once did a church not updating their website for summer hours work in my favor.

----

One of my preferred modes of transportation is using my own two feet. I usually have no qualms about walking unless I'm in certain areas of San Francisco or parts of the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles (situations that usually require a form of jet-pack transport). I was visiting my childhood friend in Denver for a week in August and decided to visit a nearby church for Sunday worship. I did what any visitor with the Internets would do; I Googled the nearest ELCA church and found that it was within a walking distance of my friend's house. I then went to that church's website to check on worship times. The website listed two services: I cannot recall the exact times, but it was something like 8:30AM and 10AM. I decided on the latter service so I could sleep in a bit. The church was only a little over a half mile away, so I didn't feel compelled to ask to borrow my friend's car. It would be an easy stroll on a flat and level surface.

Because I was in Colorado in August, the weather was dry and warm. I decided to wear a cute skirt and matching top. I looked at the Google Maps app on my phone and saw that the church was only a short walk, five blocks north on Emerson Street. I left my friend's house early, just in case I got lost in my wanderings. As I was walking north on Emerson, a couple of cars honked as I walked by on a quiet Sunday morning. I thought the honking was odd, but I didn't really stop to think about why they were honking. Maybe they were cut off by another car behind me? Maybe something fell in the road? It really didn't matter to me because I was enjoying the stroll and the start to a gorgeous summer's day.

The church on Emerson Street.

I arrived at the church to discover that worship was already taking place... which left me, the complete Type-A perfectionist planner, completely confused. I stood in the narthex checking my watch and checking my iPhone, desperately wanting to affirm that I had everything right. I must have looked incredibly distressed, because someone came to the back of the church and handed me a bulletin. With an urgent and hushed whisper, I asked, "When did service start? I thought it started at 10?" They responded, "Because it's summer, we're only doing one worship service. It actually started at 9."

My poor Type-A brain went into overdrive with its internal monologue: WHAT.DO.YOU.MEAN.WORSHIP.STARTED.AT.NINE.AM?!!??
WHY.DIDNT.ANYONE.UPDATE.THE.FREAKING.WEBSITE!?!?!?!?

Because this was all an internal monologue, I politely smiled as I took my bulletin from the nice person and then entered the sanctuary. Maybe I heard the nice person gasp; maybe I didn't. Because the rhythms of worship were similar to my home church, I realized that the service was nearing the meal. The Offertory was taking place as I saw the offering plates moving down the pews.

I eased myself into the back pew up against the wall. I put down my purse and bulletin. As I smoothed my skirt when I was getting ready to sit down, I noticed something odd. Very odd. Very, very odd.

As I attempted to smooth my skirt as I prepared to sit down, I realized that my skirt wasn't actually there. This made me very, very, very confused. I looked down to see that yes, my skirt was actually there in the front, I did put it on in the morning before heading out the door. My mind went into a panic... I see the skirt, but WHAT IS GOING ON? Did the back part of my skirt disappear? Was it raptured? Because it if was raptured, I was going to be seriously upset. I felt pretty sure that all of the folks sitting in the sanctuary that morning would be pretty upset as well if the rapture did indeed take place. But they weren't freaking out; no one seemed to have suddenly disappeared from their midst; no one was in a panic madly searching for their loved one (or any item of clothing, for that matter). As the panic within me grew, my heart raced incessantly as I tried to figure out in my confused brain, ''WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE BACK OF MY SKIRT???"

If I had taken the time to calmly investigate, I would have found the solution much sooner. After what seemed to be an eternity of panic half-standing, half-squatting in the back pew trying desperately to figure out this complete mystery of what happened to the back part of my skirt, I discovered that I had caused my own wardrobe malfunction. This wardrobe malfunction traveled with me as I strolled north on Emerson Street, entered the church, walked through the narthex and into the sanctuary.

It all seemed to compute at that very moment.
The couple of cars that honked their horns as I walked north on Emerson Street.
That gasp that I may (or may not) have heard as I entered the sanctuary.

The discovery? The hem of my skirt was caught in the waistband of my underwear. It seems that I flashed a good bit to drivers heading north on Emerson Street. Not to mention the nice person who greeted me in the church's narthex. I tried not to flash even more people as I tried stealthily to find where exactly the hem was caught in the waistband of my underwear. Thank God I decided to sit in the pew at the back of the church. Thank God there were no other people in the very back pew that morning.

Thank God I discovered this before walking up the center aisle to the altar for communion.

So yes, normally, I am a proponent of keeping your church website up-do-date, especially if there is a change in worship times during the summer months. But in this one time, thank goodness it worked out in my favor. Sort of.

The hour is a mystery

As I was bounding down the stairs in my in-laws' house thinking that I was late to meet with their pastor, their grandfather clock chimed five times. Those five chimes indicated that it was the hour of five; I checked my watch, which told me that local time in St. Louis was actually 8:45AM. I still had 15 minutes to make it to the church to meet with the pastor. The grandfather clock could tell me the quarter hour, but not the actual time itself.

The concept of time hadn't really registered over the past few days. Much of the days have been more task-oriented as opposed to time-oriented. The concept of time has focused on arrivals and completions. Time has been doled out in increments to orient ourselves to and for particular actions.

Making sure my father-in-law is comfortable.

Making sure that medications are given in a timely manner.

Making sure that the appropriate number of hours have passed with the arrival of the home health care aids, who have been absolute gifts from God.

Making sure that my mother-in-law makes it to her health appointments.

But in the day-to-day, many in my in-laws' house found themselves restless. My sister-in-law and her husband would find themselves awake at ridiculously early hours. I would find that I couldn't go to sleep even though my body was trying to tell my brain that it was exhausted, but yet there was time and energy enough to write. My mother-in-law would awake with the arrival of the home health care aid who would arrive in the extremely early morning hours.

The five chimes of the grandfather clock that morning told me that time was a relative concept. It was able to chime on every quarter hour; anyone in the house could tell time in fifteen minute increments if they heard the clock. Only the hour remained a mystery.

Time has made less and less sense. I feel like I have been catapulted into the previous year, being told that my father's cancer has invaded that tender space of the abdomen, the space where the body takes in and processes nourishment. But I thought, my father already died from this, why are you telling me again? I had to look at my watch and realize that it is indeed 2016 and not 2015. I had to realize that the diagnosis was not just tied to my father, but now also my father-in-law. I have to look in the hospital bed and realize that it's not my father, but my spouse's father.

Time doesn't really make sense; not only the hour, but even the year seem a mystery to me. It's as if someone hit a "rewind" button on the tape player of my life, and somehow, it has rewound itself to the previous year but in an alternate universe. Getting ready for a synod assembly not immediately close to home. Anxious with anticipation about the news contained in the next phone call. Not knowing if there is enough time to make arrangements for a last-minute flight to a destination that is not just a couple of thousand miles away, but that seems to be of another space, another point in history.

The concept of time contained and ordered... Not like real life.

There was usually one amazing marker of time, an achievement to be unlocked: the arrival of the next day. No one in my in-laws' house may have been aware of the actual date or the day of the week, but everyone was aware when a new day arrived. Everyone was somehow aware of that new day when we would wake up, tentatively look down and delicately tip-toe down the stairs into the living room, and to see my father-in-law looking back at us, breathing, comfortable, and alive.

The hour continues to remain a mystery.

Tweeting Dichotomy and Risk

Last night, I participated in the Twitter conversation (#ELCAWebcast) tied to the third ELCA webcast concerning racism within the denomination. I noticed something interesting concerning a couple of tweets.

I sent out a thought in two tweets.

The first tweet was: “What I wonder is what are we really willing to risk being a "welcoming" church?”

1/2 What I wonder is what are we really willing to risk being a "welcoming" church? #ELCAwebcast #decolonizeLutheranism

— Tuhina Verma Rasche (@tvrasche) May 26, 2016

The second tweet was: “because [sp] Christians all over the world are risking life & limb to praise Christ.”

2/2 becuase Christians all over the world are risking life & limb to praise Christ #ELCAwebcast #decolonizeLutheranism

— Tuhina Verma Rasche (@tvrasche) May 26, 2016

I noticed an interesting dichotomy taking place between these two tweets. The first shows that I can spell; the second shows that I cannot. But there were other things to notice... Maybe because with an electronic conversation in two parts, some are more apt to remember and see the first part of the conversation? Maybe I am making something out of nothing? Maybe I’m asking this particular series of questions because I myself cannot speak truth?

About the dichotomy between the tweets... The first tweet is a question. I’ve discovered that when tweeting a question to the Internet ether, it doesn’t necessitate a response. Maybe it’s a question that is merely “food for thought” on which to gnaw? Maybe it’s a question that no one wants to answer. It’s also a question, that at least in a general group discussion in the Internet, no one has to answer.

The second tweet is a statement. People around the world are not only risking their lives and limbs to raise their hands in worship to praise Christ, but they are dying.  They are risking the ultimate risk, putting their lives on the line, nailing their lives to the cross.

After a webcast, I find it frustrating that this is the level of risk offered. Some can tweet, "Great conversation!" I really have a hard time accepting that some felt that they had a difficult discussion on racism, good job, bravo! now back to our regularly scheduled programming is risk enough. When it comes to conversations about racism and identity, I don't get to change the channel. I don't get to turn off the television. If we are going to have honest conversations and take action about the racial makeup of our denomination (however awesome or flawed that may be), much more risk-taking needs to take place. 

I’ve been thinking about “welcoming,” intersectionality, and risk for awhile and in conversation with trusted friends and conversation partners. One of those beloved sisters is Alisha Gordon, who asked me, “What are you willing to give up for the liberty of all people?”

Damn. Damndamndamndamndamn. Nothing quite like a question that gets me to think... as a follower of the crucified and resurrected Christ, what would I myself be willing to risk?

Let me be entirely honest and transparent with you: I am struggling to answer that question. I am willing to risk things that personally, I deem to be big... but globally, people are risking far, far, far more.

But as a follower of Christ in the United States, do I really and truly understand the concept of risk? Do I really and truly understand what our forebearers of the faith in those early days risked to profess a crucified and risen God? In thinking about last night’s Twitter conversation and accompanying webcast, I think what I really want to ask is: what are members of the ELCA willing to risk to truly be a welcoming church? Maybe a greater yearning is to search for an answer...

What are you willing to risk as a follower of the crucified and risen Christ to truly be welcoming of Christ’s church? If the ELCA is to truly take heed, much risk-taking must take place. But what risks? What must we do, risk, and give up to #decolonizeLutheranism?

Feeling uncomfortable in an awkward conversation?

Having someone being mad at you and having a fractured relationship?

Your status? Your title? Your identity?

Your life?

Time seems to fold in upon itself

Time seems to fold in upon itself.

It felt like it took the work of a small army to get my father-in-law out of the hospital and back home under home hospice care. There was a very orderly and regimented schedule that occurred yesterday. Members of the family divided and conquered the list of tasks that needed to be completed.

Like getting my mother-in-law to her designated appointments.

Or receiving the hospital equipment at the house.

And coordinating with the doctors and nurses at the hospital to make sure that my father-in-law’s transport would take place in a timely manner.

Then being at the house to receive the initial delivery of prescriptions.

And timing the arrivals and departures of the nurses and home health aides.

Time has now shifted. Instead of shuttling back and forth to the hospital, we’re all now gathered at the home of my in-laws. We’re trying to find new rhythms of medication schedules, nurse and health aide rotations, prescription deliveries, visits from friends and family, generous food deliveries so we don’t have to take time to prepare meals, and waiting. We’re gathered at the house finding things to do in the meantime, because we’re simply sitting and waiting for what will come to pass. We’ve set the table well before mealtime. We’re outside trimming the hedges. I spend my time writing obsessively. We’re finding ways to fill the time, because watching and waiting is twisting and wrenching our hearts. If we stop to watch and wait, I fear our hearts may be obliterated.

--

Time seems to fold in upon itself.

I feel as if I’ve been here before. Holding vigil. Watching. Waiting. Knowing that the inevitable will arrive. I have been here before. It hasn’t even been a year since I saw my own father slip from this side of the eschaton to the next. And between those moments of moving from one side of the line to the other, I remember finding ways to fill the time. Reading books. Singing hymns. Praying fiercely.

--

Time seems to fold in upon itself.

The sacraments show me that time folds in upon itself. I was struck by this thought the day before my spouse’s father returned home from the hospital. The pastor who came to visit communed the family around the hospital bed. He then anointed my father-in-law’s forehead and proclaimed, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” Those words took me back to the previous week, a week of tongues of fire and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, words I proclaimed in a sermon to the congregation I serve over two thousand miles away. Those words took me back to numerous times at a font, proclaimed at the baptism of babies and adults. Words proclaimed at death and resurrection. Words, water, and God’s promise proclaimed that tie us to Christ’s death and resurrection.

Sacraments are a way to recognize that time folds in upon itself, that they are a way of showing us God’s kairos time in the midst of the linear chaos of chronos time. The sacraments are a glimpse into God’s concept of time within our own concept of time. The sacraments give us a chance to see that God “is, was, and is to come.”  

--

Time seems to fold in upon itself.

The sacraments connect us to what is, what was, and what is to come. Baptism and communion tie us to those who have died and to those communities who are to come. The most stark example of this is the half circle communion rail; as we commune on one side of the circle, the communion of the saints commune on the other side, literally and figuratively. At one point, we too will join in this holy communion of the saints. The sacraments show us that God’s grace abounds. The sacraments are always for us, ways for us to see that God’s kairos time breaks into our chronos time. The past, present, and future collide and intertwine in a trinitarian dance.

--

Time seems to fold in upon itself.

Communion and the stirring of memory

What do your communion practices say about your community?

My father-in-law is dying of cancer, and we’ve been taking rotations in the hospital to keep vigil. As I type, I’m sitting across from my spouse as my father-in-law sleeps. This afternoon has been quiet.

But the question on what communion shows us and tells us has been resonating deeply with me today. I was struck by this question today as my spouse’s family gathered together in the hospital room. We entered into the afternoon hours when a family friend, who is also a phenomenal pastor, came to commune the family. We stood in a circle around my father-in-law’s bed and heard the words of death and resurrection, and that the risen Christ comes to meet us in this simple meal. We partook of the risen Christ’s body and blood on this Trinity Sunday, this Sunday that can go beyond the confines of doctrine and proclaim a God of deep and abiding relationship. We wept as we communed together, that we weren’t united just as a family, but as the body of a resurrected Christ and partaking in this meal with the communion of saints. We were met by the risen Christ who meets us in death and life.

Thoughts on life and death can stir one’s memory. The question of communion practices also made my mind wander... back to the practices of my internship parish and first call. The people of my internship and first call concluded the meal by pouring all of the wine back into the chalice and having the pastor and assisting minister finish the wine out of the chalice. When I first arrived to the congregation in 2011, I simply thought that this was a good practice of treating the elements with reverence and respect. It was later in my internship that the drinking of the wine at the end of the meal communicated something else along with the reverence of treating the elements.

In the 1980s, the people of the congregation created an HIV/ AIDS Task Force. So many in the Bay area were dying in this epidemic. The church held services of healing that were picketed. They flung open their doors as a place of welcome for people who were being turned away by their families and institutions, who were stigmatized, and who were dying. The Task Force also visited patients at the AIDS ward at one of the Easy Bay hospitals (and that ministry continues to this day). Members of the community that had nursing and medical experience became caretakers for their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

This ministry was also brought into the sanctuary into weekly worship. The senior pastor I served with was a solo pastor at that time. He wanted to communicate that this welcome was a serious welcome that did not come with any conditions, and this was communicated at the Eucharist. 

The consecrated wine imbibed by congregants on every end of a multitude of binaries was poured into a chalice at the conclusion of communion. The pastor then drank the wine, communicating to the congregation that HIV/ AIDS could not be transmitted in the sharing of the meal. The gathering of the body of Christ also communicated that death does not have the final say over our lives.

Communion is a powerful sacrament that can communicate so many things. What we do at communion can also communicate something powerful to the body of Christ.

The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace.

Amen. 

Adventures in "exotic" pastoring and #decolonizeLutheranism

Said to me when I was in my first call in Oakland: “The people of your congregation must love having an exotic pastor at the pulpit.”

The external reply? “Why yes. The congregation loves having Pastor Ross at the pulpit.” (FYI: Ross was the senior pastor at my previous congregation, a delightfully wise, snarky, older, white, gay man)

At that moment, the external reply was nowhere near the internal reply. I’m not going to lie; there are times that I wish my internal response could be an external one. Kind of like this:

My internal reply involved a lot of yelling, wild and flailing arm movements, obscenities, and in general, freaking out in front of this individual at a delightful Easter dinner celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. What pains me even more was that the individual who made the comment was an ELCA seminarian. He was studying to be a leader in a church. 

--
Exotic (adj.): very different, strange, or unusual; of a plant or animal: not living or growing naturally in a particular area: from another part of the world  
(definition from Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
--

Exotic, in this context, was nowhere near a compliment. This was a microaggression bordering on a macroaggression. Calling a person “exotic” is othering; this is a result of having whiteness be the norm in the United States (and within mainline Protestant churches). Anything that is not white is therefore “other” and can be deemed an object and not quite human.

I never really thought of myself as exotic; I mean, I’m from Denver, Colorado. A beautiful place to live, but not what I would deem as “exotic”. I am, however, a second-generation Indian-American who was born and raised in the United States. What leads to a person calling me “exotic” is when a person sees is my skin color, which is obviously not white. That automatically deems me as other, as not American.

But an exotic pastor? This is a realm that I never thought I would write about. I am quite aware of the leadership statistics within the ELCA (I previously wrote about it here). I well know that I am far outside of the “norms” of church leadership. But those “norms” should not be what defines church leadership. Our church leadership should look like the Pentecost event: we should be from the ends of the earth proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We should do this in the fullness of who God created us to be, comfortable in our skins, our orientations, our personalities, our languages, our cultures. Our churches should be the Pentecost event, welcoming the diversity of languages, cultures, personalities, and orientations. It is a place where in the fullness of what Home with God can be, no one is objectified. No one is othered.

This is why I am passionate about #decolonizeLutheranism; it is a community that wrestles together, that loves the church, that loves the depth and breadth of Lutheran theology, and that believes that the Pentecost event is leading God’s church be that place where the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit is with us all.

Also, Christ was never about the norms.

What my Hindu father taught me about the resurrected Christ

Sola Gratia.

God’s grace is a gift, and that grace is ridiculous. We don’t get to choose who receives that grace because it is God’s to give. I experience that grace weekly in the sacraments. I really get to experience that grace daily in the face of my neighbor, created in God’s image. Even when that neighbor may not be a follower of Jesus. As the first year anniversary of my father’s death approaches, I have often thought of resurrection as the earth has journeyed around the sun in these days. I needed resurrection in those days when I saw my father, who I knew as a force of nature, wither down to skin and bones as cancer ate him alive. I needed resurrection because a part of myself died when my father departed this earth. I needed (and continue to need) resurrection to get to the next, new day. Little did I know I would actually experience resurrection in the face of death. I saw the resurrected Christ in my Hindu father and I found God’s grace in his death. My dad died in the middle of a vicious rainstorm. The power went out, and my mom, brother, my spouse and I had to yell at each other because it was raining just that hard. We were in a panic because the breath of life was no longer in my father’s body. We were in a panic because in one minute, my father went from alive to dead. We were in a panic because we had to now live in a new reality where my father’s incredible and overwhelming presence was no longer. I remember screaming and crying into the phone, trying to get the on-call hospice nurse to return to the house to do the impossible; restore the breath of life into my father’s body. Logically, I knew my father died. But emotionally, I had this insane hope that resurrection could happen at that very moment, that my father would rise from his deathbed, be cured from his cancer, and continue to overwhelm our lives in the best way possible.

Resurrection happened on that day, but not the way I expected. My father was not Lazarus, who was unbound by the cloths and stench of death. My father was bound by a dhoti; he told me that he entered this world as a Hindu, and he would die as a Hindu. He wanted to be clothed in a simple dhoti upon his death. The on-call hospice nurses arrived. They bathed my father and bound him in his version of his shroud. As my family was entering into the complex and confusing emotions of a new reality, the pounding rain slowed. It cleared to a drizzle to reveal a magnificent double rainbow.

If the double rainbow wasn’t striking enough, a bright red-orange fox was running through the clearing in front of my parents’ house, headed straight for the rainbows. All I could think at that moment that the Spirit was ready for a new adventure.

My dad’s final wish was also an act of God’s grace. It also involved a bunch of Lutherans. It was quite the cast of characters. It was the assistant to Bishop in the Sierra Pacific Synod, Pastor Katy Grinberg, who contacted the assistant to the Bishop in South Carolina who contacted a member of the Christian Action Council in Columbia, South Carolina who contacted my campus pastor, Pastor Chris Heavner, from my college days at Clemson University to help my family in a profound way. That chain of brothers and sisters in Christ working together found the Hindu priest my dad desperately wanted before he left the house for the last time. That Hindu priest lives in Columbia, South Carolina. But because the Spirit does what She does, somehow this priest, who rarely traveled away from his home, was at the Vedic Center (the Hindu house of worship) near Greenville, South Carolina the day of my father’s death. Another miracle that occurred that night was that my mother, who kept vigil at my father’s bedside in his last months and rarely left his side, somehow had ALL of the materials needed to perform the puja. The flowers to offer to the Deities and my father came from an African violet, a Mother’s Day present of years past. Dried flowers from a tulsi plant that somehow survived months of neglect. Long forgotten whole betel nuts, miraculously found at the back of my parents’ puja space. Atta flour to create mounds of offering. All of these people, all of these things needed for ritual, came together at that time and that place.  I am led to believe that it was because of the Holy Spirit at work through all these people that, by the grace of God, my dad received the biggest gift, his greatest desire on his last day on this earth; to have his body blessed, to have the Hindu ceremony that released his soul from his body before leaving his house and his family for the final time.

I was re-formed by my dad’s death. It was a visceral re-forming, but God was there. It took his death to solidify my belief in the Holy Spirit at work in the world today and to solidify my belief in Christ’s resurrection. The last article of the Apostles’ Creed screamed out to me on that day and every day after:
    I believe in the Holy Spirit,
    the holy catholic Church,
    the communion of saints,
    the forgiveness of sins,
    the resurrection of the body,
    and the life everlasting.
Amen.

The Reformation is more than Martin Luther nailing something to a church door. It’s definitely a part of it, but really, the reformation is still happening. We’re living that, experiencing that, in so many ways. The Holy Spirit is still at work in the church, in all of us. We’re the body of Christ to proclaim Christ into the world. Psalm 139 says, “We have been fearfully and wonderfully made...” formed by a God who is still at work in the world. How then does God continue to re-form us...?

And Papa, I miss you. Every damn day. 

#DecolonizeLutheranism and a question on leadership

As the Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly is fast approaching there is an opportunity to send questions to Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton. My friend and colleague, Jeremy Serrano, wondered... if we had an audience with Presiding Bishop Eaton, what would we ask?

I wrestled with the prompt because it is a good prompt to get me thinking about synod assembly and what we can do and the conversations we can start (and continue to wrestle with embodied words) as being church together. I actually have a lot of questions with topics ranging from the current status of theological education to administering the sacraments (what can I say, I’m curious and have a broad array of interests in the world of the church). As synod assemblies are taking place, I am noticing information that is not at all new: white males are the majority of synodical bishops within the ELCA. But what has piqued my interest are synods currently holding elections for the office of bishop. In the three elections that have recently taken place (Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Pacifica, and Northwestern Ohio Synods), white males are now the position of bishop-elect. I will pray for the bishops-elect, their synods, and how they will live out being “Church Together” (the thread of the Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly this year, I mean no jest or discrediting with the quotation marks).

I truly believe that the Holy Spirit moves as she will, but what happens when the moves of the Spirit crash into and against cultural norms? I’m led to wonder, are there scales on our eyes? Could we have hearts of stone? Are we comfortable... and complacent? Or are those currently in power uncomfortable when that power is handed over to under-represented, oppressed, and marginalized populations? 

Council of Bishops at Presiding Bishop Eaton's Installation, October 5, 2013

The current statistics are as follows: out of a total of 65 synodical bishops, three bishops can identify as race other than white. Nine of the synodical bishops are women. Looking at these numbers as a woman of color whose family has a history on the not-so-nice-side of colonialism, these numbers are disheartening.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that good order needs to happen for good ministry to take place. But sometimes, good order is not enough to bring about prophetic leadership. Strong and effective leaders are needed... but I am NOT convinced that all strong leaders are white men. I wonder what has led to our demographics within the population of synodical bishops? Is it that our church leadership also reflects the statistics within the most recent Pew Research Center report naming the ELCA as the whitest mainline protestant denomination? (A rhetorical question, because yes, the math says so).

My question for Presiding Bishop Eaton is a personal one, especially with the recent dialogue taking place around #DecolonizeLutheranism. It’s weird to think that the first woman of color within the ELCA I witnessed preaching a sermon... was myself. On a video cassette. To review my sermon for my homiletics class in seminary.  

This is not okay. Within our denomination, we continually say that we strive for diversity, yet it seems that our actions do not reflect our words. Also, speaking about the desire for diversity within the ELCA is a whole other blog post (I encourage you to read Elle Dowd’s blog post, “The problem with‘diversity’ as #ChurchGoals” ).  As a denomination, wrestling has recently taken place on how to talk about racial issues in the church. LSTC has been having intentional conversations. My alma mater, PLTS, has wrestled with such conversations after painful events on campus. Yes, these conversations are uneasy and awkward. They are wrought with tension. They deal with identity, a very personal, embodied, and incarnational issue. But these conversations must continue if we are to profess what we preach. These conversations must continue if we are to respond to our neighbor in need. These conversations must continue if we profess that all are created in God’s image.

There have been two webcasts from Churchwide, “Confronting Racism” with Twitter conversations (#ELCAConfrontRacism). A third webcast is going to take place later this week. My question for Bishop Eaton came from the Twitter conversation that took place in January. While the tweet was liked and retweeted fifteen times, it is a question that has entered into the Internet ether. My question, “How can the church lift up leaders of color and not tokenize them?” is a question that does not come with a simple answer.

How can the church lift up leaders of color and not tokenize them? #ELCAConfrontRacism

— Tuhina Verma Rasche (@tvrasche) January 15, 2016

But as a leader in the church, I believe it is a question worth asking again and again. I believe it is worth wrestling as the body of Christ to seek out the moves of the Spirit in exploring the answer(s).