I'm Not Gonna (An Anthem for Amanda)

A parody based on Love Song by Sara Bareilles

I once heard that Sara Bareilles' anti-Love Song was written not for a romantic partner but for the music industry.  Bareilles wanted to compose songs for the sake of what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it.  It got me thinking about the kinds of compromises people might make in their professions – especially moral and creative compromises – and the choice to draw the line somewhere.

So this parody goes out to my friend Amanda and candidates for ministry of all denominations, with a special shout-out to the United Methodist Church's District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM).

I haven't had the pleasure of going to DCOM yet, but I've heard a lot of stories about people considering ordination who have reservations about one issue or another that might prevent them from being ordained.  Often this means a conundrum for the candidate: How much can I disclose about what I believe, who I am, or what has happened in my past?  What language will I use in prayer and worship?  Will I speak to God differently while in the presence of my superiors and my parishioners?

I've heard about people who struggle with using patriarchal or lordship language for the divine; people who belong to the LGBT community or who would otherwise ordain or wed them in their pastoral role; and people who have different understandings of what it means to be welcoming, inclusive, or ecumenical and what it means for the United Methodist Church to brand itself with the slogan "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors."  I've heard about people who challenge the desperate need for quantity over quality: attracting members but falling short of fortifying them and nourishing their souls.  I've heard about people who have lost their ministerial jobs or new opportunities because of health concerns (usually mental health), including one man who was at the top of a committee's list to become their next pastor until they discovered that he'd previously been institutionalized.

The fact that this man and others in all of these situations wrestle with how much to "tell" those who make decisions about their ordination or employment begs a few questions:

Do our churches want clergy who fit a certain image, even if someone must lie or withhold information about themselves, their personal histories, their health, their beliefs, their ideas?  To what extent will they support the virtues of authenticity and honesty?  To what extent are they willing to have diversity among the clergy – not just of race and age and so forth, but also of perspectives and abilities and experiences?

Please substitute the theme "I'm not gonna pray to 'Lord Jesus'" with the ordination-threatening issue of your choice, i.e. "I'm not gonna say I'm a straight man," "I'm not gonna call God the 'Father,'" or even something as broad as "I'm not gonna keep out the outcasts."  It's really about being authentic while pursuing your vocation more than any one theological conflict.

Heading to D-COM
Where you tell me
To breathe easy for awhile
But breathing gets harder
Even I know that
My ministry?
It's too soon to see
And my future's in your hands
(After the part I say what I need to)

Blank stares on your faces
No easy way to say this
You mean well, but you make this hard on me

I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna lie just to stay
If you want an honest clergy
Then I pray you don't desert me
When I stand
Before you today

I've learned the hard way
That we all say things you wanna hear
God's called on us
But it's still your call
You can still say who's in
What counts as sin
Fill the church with your closest kin
Hello to high and dry

Convince me to please you
Make me think that God wants this, too
I'm trying to let you hear me as I am

I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna change just to stay
And after all, I think it's wise
That I refuse to compromise
My conscience and lie here today

Promise me you'll leave the light on
To help me be
Whom God has called on
'Cause I believe there's a way
To accept me because I say
I won't pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this

Is that why you want a "Lord Jesus"?
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna lie just to stay
If there's lordship language in it
I don't want it for a minute
And some silently agree but
I believe that our dear Jesus
Would want me to speak up today

Top 3 Myths About Immigration

A friend of mine recently found this video on myths about immigration. Prof. Ben Powell of Suffolk University speaks very articulately on some of the issues I addressed in an earlier post (Do I Look Illegal?). He offers helpful explanations and illustrations as to why a few of the most common myths of immigration are, indeed, myths.

Check out the video below:

This is How You Deal with Prejudice

Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, to which I last alluded in a post called 12 Angry Seminarians: On Diversity, is among my favorite works tackling prejudice. Brilliant play and film.

Just check out this short scene, which packs a lot of punch on its own merit:



Ed Begley, portraying the incredible (and yes, quite angry) Juror #10 in the above clip (1957) acts commendably here. His character's actions, on the other hand, are nothing short of detestable.

But I think it's worth discussing how easy it is to pin blame on certain people, to label some as bigots and assume that everyone else loves and supports diversity and says and does nothing to perpetuate stereotypes, intolerance, and double-standards. And this is by no means meant to condemn everyone or those who condemn bigotry, but rather to illuminate the complexity of the issue.

When we villify someone on the basis of that person's prejudice, is our judgment ever justified? If so, when, and if not, why not?

If you had been among the jurors in this scene, would you have responded to #10 in the same way? What would you have done or said differently?

---

If you haven't seen/read 12 Angry Men, click here to see the full film online or here to find the book on Amazon.

One Man's Trash

As I've mentioned, I've worked as a porter in New York City. Although it wasn't inherent to the job itself, I had frequent direct and indirect contact with the homeless in the area.



One day, the task of "cleaning up around the garden" included throwing out some personal effects - clothing, a couple of books, a binder. We were to treat everything as though it had been discarded, even if it may have still meant something to someone. The age-old issue of "trash" versus "treasure" comes to mind.

A couple of days later, I was removing cigarette butts from a planter when a businessman struck up a conversation with me.



Finally, he said, waving his own cigarette as he indicated the planter, "You're screwing over the homeless, you know. If you throw those out, they can't relight them and smoke them. Don't you feel guilty?"

I was somewhere between heartbroken and livid. I told him how I felt about having thrown out the personal items.

He said, "Why don't we just throw the homeless out, too?"

Since then I saw too many more faces and sleeping bodies and desperate placards and paper cups. Whenever I swept the sidewalks I had the urge to sit down beside the people leaning against the walls. It was only in my final weeks with the cleaning company that I brought food and water to a woman I'd had to pass with my dustpan and broom about every ten minutes during my shift that afternoon. I wish it hadn't taken me so long.

One of my earliest childhood memories is walking hand-in-hand with my mother in New York City and seeing someone asleep in a cardboard box on a door step. Only his blue denim jeans and brown boots were visible.



Like any loud, naive child, I asked, "Is that a person?"

The memory used to make me uncomfortable, because I wondered if I had embarrassed my family or if I'd disrespected the sleeping person. But sometimes I'd like to go back to my mindset of that day - the sheer shock of the sight, rather than this decreasingly naive adult response of sadness without surprise.

---

During my image search, I came across a post at Free Range Talk called "The Criminalization of Homelessness." There is a well written narrative of the destruction of a tent camp and some information about the unlawful camping law, which is punishable by a $1000 fine and up to 90 days in jail. Please do check it out when you have a moment.

If you're interested in more solid research material, here are resources specifically on homelessness, recommended by a fantastic professor at Sarah Lawrence College:

First, R. J., Roth, D., & Arewa, B. D. (1988). Homelessness: Understanding the dimensions of the problem for minorities. Social Work, 33(2), 120-124.

Hagen, J. L. (1987). The heterogeneity of homelessness. Social Casework, 68(8), 451-457.

Hall, J. A. (1990). Homelessness in the united states., 159-174.

Helping mentally ill people break the cycle of jail and homelessness.(2001). Psychiatric Services, 52(10), 1380-1382.

Khanna, M., Singh, N., Nemil, M., & Best, A. (1992). Homeless women and their families: Characteristics, life circumstances, and needs. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 1(2), 155-165.

Kim, M. M., & Ford, J. D. (2006). Trauma and post-traumatic stress among homeless men: A review of current research. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 13(2), 1-22.

Liu, W. M., Stinson, R., Hernandez, J., Shepard, S., & Haag, S. (2009). A qualitative examination of masculinity, homelessness, and social class among men in a transitional shelter. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 10(2), 131-148.

Mowbray, C. T. (1985). Homelessness in america: Myths and realities. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55(1), 4-8.

Newman, S. J. (2001). Housing attributes and serious mental illness: Implications for research and practice. Psychiatric Services, 52(10), 1309-1317.

Pickett-Schenk, S. A., Cook, J. A., Grey, D., Banghart, M., Rosenheck, R. A., & Randolph, F. (2002). Employment histories of homeless persons with mental illness. Community Mental Health Journal, 38(3), 199-211.

Sex Selection: No More Disappointments

Earlier in the semester in our Religion and the Social Process class, we discussed sexism, in the midst of which I came across this controversial article from The Guardian (UK), April 2010.

Although the procedure is limited to only certain countries, including the U.S., parents have the (expensive) ability to choose the sex of a future child. Interestingly, there is no remarkable sexist split, that one is preferred more frequently to another, as may be expected for any fathomable reason (for instance, because boys traditionally carry on a family name). Boys and girls are 'requested' at similar rates.



Reasons people choose such a procedure are varied: from preventing passing on an illness in the couple's genetics that is sex-specific, to already having had one or more children of one sex and wanting one of a different sex - guaranteed on the next try.




One mother with sons was "tired" of walking down a street and seeing pink dresses in windows and knowing that she didn't have a daughter to wear them. Would her maternal urges have been satiated were her sons to decide that they preferred to wear pink dresses as opposed to the presumably non-pink, non-dressy clothing that they had been given as growing boys?

If the twin girls she had due to this procedure eventually grew "tired" of tea parties and dress-up - perhaps beginnning to imitate their brothers or do other activities not widely considered "feminine," would Mom feel like it had been a wasted effort? Would she be simply content that she got to buy a few pink dresses while the girls were toddlers?

Would she learn to love her daughters as the individual beings they are, regardless of what they wear?

Regardless of the fact that they are female?




I realize it is perhaps unjust for me to raise even hypothetical questions in this accusatory light, and I intend these families no harm. But it hurts me as a daughter to think that my parents might love me because they already had a son, or because I allowed them to have one of each. It hurts to think not only that, if my parents had preferred one sex or the other, I could have disappointed them in my very birth, but also that we live in a world in which people aim to evade disappointment rather than overcome it. It hurts to imagine this as the foundation of any child's life.

Because I was born both a girl and seven years after my brother, neither of which I could control, my parents placed us in the two bedrooms of our old apartment while they slept on a pull-out couch. When I think of that time, I think most about the sacrifices that our parents made just for the sake of our privacy, a right that everyone does not even have, let alone as children. I'm sure it crossed their minds at some point that it would have been convenient in at least that circumstance to have had two children of the same sex and perhaps closer in age, but I also like to think that it did not make them regret having the son and daughter that they had.

I'm sure one of the aforementioned article's points of greatest impact is the stunning advances we're seeing in medicine, and not only the impact on personal health but the effect on autonomy.

But autonomy means you have a choice, and I think there's a far greater one implied than determining the sex of one's child. From my perspective, these are the questions that we face in light of sex-selection:

What are we communicating to children (and to others) about the relationship between parent and child?

What notion of the relationship between parent and child have we come to believe?

Are children accessories? Can we tailor them to our liking? Can we coordinate them with our lifestyles, our decor, our pets?




Are children singularly a parent's life decision?



Or do we acknowledge the impact that every child, every person has on countless people every day?

Do we acknowledge that each one of us is a part of a greater community, and not only an isolated being in a family?

Are children to be constructed to our liking, or do they serve some other purpose beyond satisfying parental instincts?

Of course, I understand the complexity of this entire issue extends far beyond all of this, so let me be clear:

I am not speaking to the classist privilege inherent to sex-selection.

I am not speaking to the selection made to spare a child a potential ailment.

I am not speaking to the debate as to whether this is all an example of humans "playing God."

I am not speaking to the extent that God might be involved in these parental longings and scientific procedures, or whether or not it is indeed God's will that Mr. and Mrs. Jonesing go out of their way to ensure the biological sex of their baby.

Each of these topics could fill a post in its own right.

Yet I find the fact that this article could declare as its subheading (facetiously or not) "No more disappointments" to be a far more potent and detrimental point. This is the stuff of our conscience and our consciousness, folks. This is not just ("just"?) a debate about elite privilege or universal free will. This is immensely internal.

Supporting sex selection (or any fetal-specifier, for that matter) as a means of parental satisfaction has serious implications for distorting the expression and experience of parental love.

It reshapes the image of humanity that we pass along to the generations for whom such science - and more - will be a reality for the entirety of their lives.

Instead of embracing the individuals entering the world, it tells them, "We constructed you. Don't disappoint us."

How to Fail in an Emergency

This is one of the most embarrassing and humbling of my life experiences that I also believe to be worth sharing. Embarrassing because of my thoughts and actions at the time. Worth sharing, I hope, in spite of them.

One day, while I was working as a porter for a cleaning company in New York City and canvasing the sidewalk for trash, a drunkard called out to me.

"Hey, wanna go out with me?"

He was sprawled out on the steps leading up to 2 Penn Plaza. Positioned between Madison Square Garden, the taxi stop, and the entrance to Penn Station, he was in just about everyone's path. Six empty beer bottles accompanied him in disarray.



His lips bulged around crooked teeth. His short hair was tousled; his clothing smeared with the grime of the City That Never Sleeps. Travelers, entertainment seekers, and business employees bustled around us.

When I realized he'd addressed me, I mumbled, "Uh. No, thanks," and went back to sweeping up cigarette butts and ticket stubs.

"C'mon, go to dinner with me. Just once or twice."

I imagined my acquaintance picking out something tasty from a dumpster around the corner. I imagined him falling over himself here on the steps. But I didn't imagine what he did next.

He raised his arm and sort of chuckled. "My hand is bleeding."

"Oh, my gosh!" I cried, surely seeming hysterical compared to his far-too-casual demeanor. His hand was absolutely covered in blood, a painful sight no matter what the size of the actual wound. "Are you okay? How did that happen?" I was genuinely startled and sympathetic. But I closed none of the distance between us.

"I got beat up."

I must have subconsciously decided that what he needed first and foremost was to get cleaned up. I looked around at the nearby buildings, trying to remember the way to the nearest public restroom. I imagined myself sneaking him into our employee bathroom in the industrial depths of Penn Plaza. Then I imagined my supervisor's response to that bright idea, and the proverbial light bulb flickered and died.

I chased after a co-worker just a bit down the block. As the two of us tried, as usual, to work through our slight language barrier, I told him about the bleeding man on the steps and asked what we should do. He said something dismissive, perhaps frustrated with either the problem I'd posed to him or trying to communicate with such a frantic and monolingual mess.

By the time I spotted another co-worker, the premises' security staff were walking across the plaza toward the man, who by this point had slumped over a bit more onto the sidewalk. I was utterly relieved that someone had alerted security, and even more so when the police and an ambulance arrived, but also utterly ashamed - ashamed that I hadn't thought to call an official of any kind. Ashamed that I saw a bleeding man and my instinct said, "Clean him," rather than, "Heal him." Ashamed that I saw him as dirty before I'd even seen the wound.

After that event, I promised myself that I'd do whatever the conscious part of me could to react better in any sort of medical predicament. I've tried to remember that it's only in these experiences that we can learn how to respond to them.

And I've been listening for that voice of utmost wisdom beyond my humble understanding - the one that knows what it is to smear mud and spit on a blind man's eyes to restore his vision (John 9:6-34). The one that commends "clean," sure, but most actively seeks to "heal." The one that would have embraced the opportunity to share a meal with the man on the steps.

Do I Look Illegal?

Before taking Religion and the Social Process (i.e. fantastic mandatory course about diversity and social justice, and how the church both helps and hinders in different contexts), I confess I knew little about immigration.



Thanks to J. for sharing this video with our class!

As one who never knew before quite what to say in discussions about immigration, I particularly appreciated a document from the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service debunking common myths. View a copy of it here.

Among the debunked myths are the alleged "illegality" of the majority of immigrants (63% of 31 million foreign-born residents are documented), correlations between immigration and crime rates (U.S. born are incarcerated four times more than the foreign-born), and the supposed drain on the economy (most immigrants arrive after age 18, at which point the U.S. receives "the benefit of their labor without the cost of their education"). Other facts focus upon education, employment, taxes, difficulties in obtaining citizenship, and the struggles particular to families.

It's accessibly written and very much to the point, but it's easy to get lost in the statistics. If just for that, I found one of the other sources we read to be particularly compelling. The American Friends Service Committee provides personal testimonies from an affected population with relatively little self-sovereignty: youth and children.

From the mouths of babes, we hear difficult truths.

To thirteen-year-old Kadiatou, one's worth depends on "having papers," and she believes that her older brother "does not have a chance to be something good in life like the other kids who have papers."

In caring for five younger siblings, including an infant, Jocelyn learns that being a "mother" is much more difficult than she imagined.

In one testimony, a family's lack of new clothing is only exacerbated when the clothing that the children do have is the cause for much of their victimization at school; what could be an insignificant opinion about fashion becomes a vehicle for bullying and aggravated trauma.

Vineta longs not only to fulfill her parents' wishes for her to "have a better future than they had," but also to pass such aid along to others in need, having dreamed of education and career not only for the sake of having them but also to help those without homes or parents. She acknowledges the difficulties that her family faces as well as those that challenge families who may lack even what little she herself has.

Voicing a similar understanding of the prevalence of these problems, Bassidi likewise hopes that his own story has an impact and that Congress will take action.

I have since found audio for many of these testimonies. Hear them and read more about the kids at this link.

I knew little before I read the words of Kadi, Jocelyn, Vineta, and Bassidi; before I saw their photographs and their drawings; before I read the statistics from the LIRS and thought of these families' faces. And I may still never know just what it is to be an immigrant, perhaps to be not only "undocumented" but also labeled "illegal," as though my very being were a crime.

But here is what I do know.

I recently worked full-time as a porter for a cleaning company.

I worked with many immigrants and first-generation Americans. My first supervisor was a competent, respectable man from Egypt. My usual cohorts were the Latina ladies who helped me practice Spanish, lent me hair-ties when we swept 31 hot staircases or weeded the sun-exposed rooftop, and taught me how to function in a uniform intended for a man's body - apparently one without pores that require air.



There, I was in the minority in almost every sense: one of the few females, the youngest, one of few Caucasians, a fourth-generation American, and decidedly not bilingual despite having studied four other languages. And, whereas most either were regular employees or hoped for longer-term work, I knew at the time that it was a temporary position; I was already preparing to attend graduate school this fall. Yet the limited time that I was there and the differences between us did not hinder our ability to forge friendships and work cooperatively and efficiently.

In another building placement, I generally had to work independently and did not get to know many of the other employees, who often arrived en masse for an evening shift. Of those whom I did meet, many had emigrated from Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Before they heard me speak, however, they had little way of knowing where I had been raised, and one evening as they arrived and I packed up to go home, they speculated to one another: "Maybe she's German. Maybe she's Irish. Look at her hair," until one person finally approached me directly.

It was bizarre to be in a position of "defying expectation" – to be a U.S.-born student working toward graduate school in an entry-level job involving restrooms and dumpsters.

However, most intriguing to me in retrospect is that overhearing the group's conversation influenced how I then identified myself. I automatically responded with my ancestral heritages when I really should have just replied, "I'm American. I'm from New York."

Good Text, Bad Text

To prooftext is to quote or cite parts of a document (such as the Bible) out of context and present them as basis for a proposition, often one that the document taken as a whole would not support. Even suggestions that seem reasonable may be no less a fallacy than the mathematical proof-spoof in the image above.

Read. Think. Ask. Don't enable proof-texters!


Read more about proof-texting from Wendy ("Bookgirl") here. And check out her blog while you're at it!