Photo Credit: chrisinplymouth via Compfight cc
Twice a week, I co-host a political podcast with a Republican. I’m a Democrat. This means that twice a week I sit down and engage in political debate with someone who feels very differently than I do on a great many issues.
We start each show the same.
“No shouting. No insults. Plenty of nuance.”
Willingly volunteering for political confrontation is most people’s worst nightmares. It’s certainly my mother’s worst nightmare but I do it willingly because I believe we desperately need more civil discourse in the world. I believe that if we can’t discuss – even debate – the things we feel most passionately about then we are destined to fall for the siren song of rightness ringing in our own ears.
It is a not so subtle act of faith to sit down across from someone who feels differently than you and say, “Tell me why you feel that way.”
As with almost any act of faith, this one has made me a better person.
To engage with someone who disagrees with you is to accept that maybe – just maybe – you could be wrong. To engage with someone who disagrees with you is to take the scraps of thought in your own mind and attempt to quilt them into something that someone else could possibly recognize. To engage with someone who disagrees with you is to recognize that you can’t see it all, understand it all, or solve it all alone. To engage with someone who disagrees with you is to open yourself up to rejection, misunderstanding, and hurt… sometimes at your own hands.
To engage on any level is to be vulnerable. To engage about politics is to be vulnerable far beyond the personal–it is vulnerability on an almost global level. What if what I think about violence is wrong? What if I what I think about the other party, the other president, another country is wrong?
Last weekend, our church - Grace Episcopal Church of Paducah, KY - hosted a Harry Potter themed Vacation Bible School. I had A LOT of people ask me what a church was doing teaching Harry Potter. Most were in awe. Some were confused. A very few were skeptical. We began the weekend with a family night and screening of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Then, Saturday the kids spent all morning crafting wands, eating wizarding treats, and generally having a blast. On Sunday, our seriously awesome interim rector Meghan Holland taught a special Harry Potter children's sermon for the whole congregation, which I think wonderfully illustrates why the witches and wizards of J.K. Rowling's magical world are perfectly suited to church.
This is the sermon delivered by The Rev. Richard Paxton on April 26, 2015, the date of Felix's baptism at Grace Episcopal Church.
Whenever I begin to formulate a sermon, I often start by consulting Bible commentaries. I like to see what biblical scholars are saying as I ponder their meaning myself.
In the case of today’s readings on this Good Shepherd Sunday, I consulted a few commentaries, and a recurrent theme kept cropping up—in fact, a recurrent adjective: “superfluous.”
"You're going to have a v-steam...I'm not telling you what that is," says The Other Sarah upon my arrival in L.A.
It's a good thing I like surprises.
My response to the viral post "My Husband Doesn't Need To See Your Boobs" and why it's not REALLY about the boobs at all.
Last week, my cousin Taylor texted me a link to a blog post. Written by Lauren from Apples & Band-Aids blog, the post was entitled “My husband doesn’t need to see your boobs.”
In the post, Lauren goes out of her way to say she is not judging any woman who posts her bikini-clad self on social media but does ask if any and all bikini-clad women could just NOT. The photos were a “stumbling block” in her marriage and everything would be so much better if the photos weren’t there.
Taylor’s commentary was simple. “This bothers me.”
It bothers me, too.
It bothers a lot of you if this Facebook conversation is any indication. It also CLEARLY bothered a lot of other people too because Lauren shut down the comments section because it had come a place of attack and “hatred.”
Recently, my stepfather and I were having a discussion about Phil Robertson and the Duck Dynasty controversy. He expressed disgust with some of Robertson’s remarks but also told me he felt that Christians were often called intolerant for upholding the tenants of their religion.
I understood his point. Many of you know that I was raised Southern Baptist and for most of my adolescence was a devoted evangelical Christian. I remember feeling persecuted for my beliefs during that time in my life. I always felt like I was on the losing end of the culture wars and that no matter what I did or what I said I would always be the outcast who wasn’t having sex before marriage or who would prefer reading her Bible to late night partying.
Of course, in reality, it doesn’t take much to make a teenager feel persecuted and I realize now that often people took real issue with my beliefs but never singled me out merely because of my identification as a Christian.
Over two years ago, my husband and I started taking Griffin to church. At the time, I wrote an honest and heartfelt explanation of why I was taking my child to church despite my long and complicated personal history with the institution.
I was doing what was best for him. I was giving him a chance at the spirituality and faith I had long ago abandoned. I was being a good mom.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the altar. Week by week. Month by month. I began to fall in love with church.
Me and church have been on a break...a ten year long break.
I thought it was a permanent split. Apparently it isn’t because for the last two weeks the Holland family has been going to church.
