Tag Archives: All Saints Pasadena

George considers the Army: some thoughts on the similarity between pre-marital sex and joining the military

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I don’t have much time for a post, but this has been on my mind.

About two weeks ago, I had a very polite argument with a fellow All Saints youth leader. One of our boys, a splendid young man nearing graduation from high school, is considering enlisting in the Army. “George” is attracted to the idea of service, he doesn’t feel ready for college, and he likes the financial benefits.

My fellow youth leader came to me and said “Hugo, you’ve got to talk George out of this.” (I have a great relationship with George, probably closer than the other youth pastors do.) I told my colleague that I would talk with George and explore his reasons for considering the military, but I had no intention of automatically discouraging him from Army service.

My classes at Pasadena City College are filled with young men and women who are veterans. I have several students this semester who’ve done time in Iraq. In conversations with a few of them, I know that they hold a widely divergent set of views about American policy over there. But virtually all — Army or Marines, as I rarely get Navy or Air Force vets — view their service as a positive. And while I have no hard evidence to support this theory, I note that my ex-service members (including many who are still in the reserves) have far better work and study habits than their peers of the same age. They aren’t necessarily any brighter, but my goodness, they have considerably more focus and initiative.

I still remain committed to the essential tenets of Christian pacifism. I am not a naturally peaceful person, mind you; my instinctive response to many of the worlds’ grossest injustices is to suggest a swift and violent solution. My heart and my soul are convinced that we are called as individuals and as citizens to “turn the other cheek”; I believe theologically that Jesus’ call to nonviolence is binding on Christians in both their private lives and in their public service. But my head tells me that sometimes violence, while never redemptive, can protect the vulnerable. As someone who teaches the young, and who longs to be a father, that protectiveness butts up against my pacifism more and more these days.

Despite my pacifism, I don’t have a knee-jerk disposition against military service. I’ve only had the chance to have one conversation with George, and I look forward to more. But I am eager to find out more about his reasons for wanting to join the Army, just as I am eager to know why one of his good friends considers UC Riverside a better fit than, say, UC Davis. I am committed to the basic notion that “my kids” are unique individuals with different paths to follow. And though I worship and volunteer in a community that is often reflexiviely anti-military, I am convinced that for some young men and women, the Army may well be the best possible option.

In April 2005, I posted this brief piece about teaching sex ed at All Saints. I took a lot of heat in the comments section, especially from many of my fellow evangelicals, for my reply to one question that the kids asked. One child asked “What do you think about us having sex at our age?” And I answered:

You guys, when I look at you, it isn’t possible for me to see you as a group of generic teenagers. When I look at this room, I don’t just see fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year-olds. I see people whose individual stories I know. Some of you I’ve known just a little while. Some of you I’ve known since you were bratty little sixth-graders five or six years ago. When I look at you (pointing around the room), I see (names changed) Michael, not a sophomore boy. I see Marie, not a senior girl; I see Janae and Brent and Alexa and Rick, not just four random kids sitting on a couch. And though you are all alike in so many countless ways, you’re also fundamentally different people with different needs and different histories. Honestly, the more I work with you, the less I feel comfortable handing out a one-size-fits-all moral agenda with any confidence. In truth, while I think in general it is better to wait before taking on the enormous responsibilities and consequences of sex, I know full well that some of you are simply “readier” than others. I’m not going to name names, of course! But I can’t help but see you as individuals with different desires and different levels of maturity, faith, and emotional preparedness.

Many of my more liberal commenters applauded that sentiment; the conservatives considered it hopelessly wishy-washy.

But my feelings about college versus military service are more or less exactly the same! Just as I am convinced that some kids in high school are more emotionally and spiritually prepared for healthy sexual activity than others, I am equally convinced that not all are called to go directly to a four-year college. For any number of reasons, I think that a stint in the Army might be the absolute best thing for a young man or woman hungry for a very particular kind of public service, hungry to have the fast-forward button pushed on their transition into full adulthood. I’ve seen too many disaffected, directionless young men (and one or two young women) sign up for military service and come back transformed — deeper, more confident, more capable, and to my own very great surprise, more compassionate and committed to others. It’s not for everyone, but it may well be the right choice for a few. And my desire to see my kids grow and transform as individuals is greater than my own pacifist politics; my longing to see them “find themselves” trumps my own very grave misgivings about American military policy.

George hasn’t signed up yet. I hope we’ll have a chance to talk again before he does. But when we do, my thoughts will be first and foremost on what is truly good for George. Yes, I worry about him being sent to Iraq; I worry about his safety. But he’s leaving childhood behind. His parents and youth leaders must accept that part of his growth narrative will be the acceptance of great, even lethal risk. I can pray that God watches over him, as I pray for all the All Saints kids. But I won’t pray that God redirects his heart towards, say, the community college after high school. I don’t get to write the scripts my kids follow. I just get to love them through whatever they choose, and I get to give a little advice and a lot of encouragement.

Fourteen Marthas, not one Mary: a retreat report and a long meditation on girls, pressure, parents, and people-pleasing

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I’m in my office, just before 8:00 on a Monday morning. Daylight Savings Time has arrived early, as almost everyone knows, and I am happy. (Even if getting up this morning at five for my boxing session felt particularly challenging.)

I had a wonderful time once again with the All Saints confirmation class this weekend on our retreat in the San Bernardino mountains. (I’ve written about past retreats on this blog: here are the 2005 and 2006 reports.). I was a bit disappointed by the abnormally warm weather and the nearly complete absence of snow, despite the fact that we were up in the mountains three weeks earlier than usual.

Though in 2005 we had more boys than girls in our confirmation class, this year our gender ratio was wildly skewed. After a couple of cancellations, we ended up taking fourteen girls and one boy up to Big Bear for the weekend retreat. (The boy, a very outgoing and relaxed kid, was more than delighted at his unique status.) In our intimate and emotional discussions Friday night and Saturday, one clear pattern emerged in the stories these young women were telling about their lives.

After years and years of teaching confirmation classes, I’ve noticed that each class has a slightly different “feel.” The 2007 “Seekers” confirmation class is not merely notable for being overwhelmingly female; this year’s crop is also marked by an often frantic desire to live up to the expectations of the outside world. Never have I gone on retreat with so many young women who were so completely exhausted! I’m not talking about temporarily underslept; I’m talking about girls who are 14-16 years old whose daily schedules are as demanding as that of a young Japanese businessman trying to climb the ladder at Sony.

Never have the youth leaders had to work so hard to convince so many kids to take a weekend away! These girls weren’t worried about missing dances or parties. They were worried about missing speech tournaments, SAT prep classes, and biology homework. They were worried about not being able to exercise and stay fit for their various team sport commitments. Many begged to be allowed to bring some books to study from “in our free time.” (We have a fairly strict “no homework” policy; the kids know about this weekend six months in advance.) And the thought of spending forty-eight hours away from their elaborately programmed schedules and responsibilities was terrifying for many of them.

Before a retreat, I always joke with the other youth leaders about “packing plenty of Kleenex”. We expect a lot of tears as we go through our emotional, spirit-filled weekend. But rarely have we had as many sniffles and wet eyes as we did these past few days. On Friday night, as we “checked in” with our fourteen girls and one boy about their lives and their faith journey, it was as if a massive dam had suddenly broken. One after another, they broke down. Some were angry at themselves, others angry at God, many confessed feeling utterly overwhelmed by pressure and expectations. The most common phrase I heard all night was one I don’t always anticipate to be the most common: “I feel so guilty.” These girls had guilt and shame weighing them down. I could see it in the slump of their shoulders, in the puffiness of their eyes.

The specific pressures vary. We have one girl who’s a dancer, a very good one; she’s trying to get ready to audition for professional companies at the same time that she’s carrying a full load of advanced placement classes as a sophomore. Another girl is captain of her debate team and active in student government at her school. Her days begin at five and end at midnight. She does three to four hours of homework a night, tutors underprivileged kids, prepares for speech tournaments and is gearing up to run for class president for next year. She’s a tenth-grader, but her anxiety about not “getting into a good school” and “letting everyone down” is so palpable that when she tries to relax she ends up sitting and shaking rather like a wet chihuahua.

As a feminist and a Christian, the desperate “people-pleasing” of so many of these young women troubles me. Many of them acknowledge carrying the double burden familiar to so many modern women: these girls know that they are expected to live up to traditional feminine standards of behavior and looks, at least much of the time. (Three girls talked quietly about their struggles with disordered eating and body self-loathing.) But in addition to the cultural expectation to be bright-eyed, cheerful, virginal and pleasing, they also feel pressured to be intellectually, athletically, and professionally successful. They all volunteer (often as part of school-mandated community service). Their parents have told them all their lives that they can “be anything they want to be”, which sounds great — until the girls are forced to excel at virtually everything they do in every facet of their lives so as “not to miss out” on any opportunity to succeed. The superwomen complex is alive and well in girls so young that some were born after Bill Clinton became president! That breaks my heart.

As we wrapped up our first session Friday night, I pulled out the Bible. I read two sections. From Matthew, I read my beloved 10:37:

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Honestly, it’s often twice as hard to get young women, raised since birth to please and to perform, to grasp this than young men. We are so much more tolerant of male rebellion; we are more tolerant of young men who “take time to find themselves” or who “are going through a slacker phase.” And to put it more simply, more young men seem to have an easier time daring to disappoint their parents. (Of course, there are plenty of boys near collapse from trying to meet other’s expectations. But their numbers are fewer.)

What I wanted the girls to grasp from this passage is that a real relationship with Christ is one that comes unmediated by parents or peers. To live in Christ means to follow Him with the very likely expectation that His plan for your life is not the same as your parent’s hopes. That doesn’t mean that Jesus is an excuse for narcissistic rebellion. But it does mean that if you put pleasing others, especially your parents, ahead of discerning God’s unique plan for your life, then you have missed the point. I made it clear to “my kids”: Christ comes to set captives free, and sometimes the jailers are the very people who love you most.

After praying silently for quick inspiration, I felt called to read Luke 10:38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Earlier, as our fourteen girls shared, I had realized that I was sitting in a room filled to the rafters with Marthas, with nary a Mary to be found! Like Martha, they are “worried and upset about many things”. They don’t know how to rest; they are “distracted by all the preparations that (have) to be made.” These Marthas — my dear, beautiful, brave, overachieving, anxious, exhausted girls — live lives that are governed by an endless series of “to do lists”. They wake up with “have to’s” and go to bed with “ought to have’s” and spend their days thinking about their “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts.” But only one thing is needed, and that is to sit at the foot of God.

It says in Kings, “after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” The earthquakes and fires in these girls’ lives are all that they hear; they hear only noise, only storm and fury. As I said to them, that “gentle whisper” (what the KJV famously calls the “still small voice”) can’t be heard until you learn to press the mute button at your peers, at your coaches, at your teachers, at Facebook, at Youtube, at Jane Magazine, and yes, at your parents. Martha is too busy to hear the gentle whisper. She worries too much, fearing what will happen if she stops to rest, fearing who she’ll be if she stops her endless motion, her endless people-pleasing. Choosing “what is better” is about placing one’s own spiritual growth ahead of everything else. Choosing Mary’s part over Martha’s is to risk the wrath of some who love and care for you; it is to risk disappointing those who raised you and nurtured you. It is to risk having to confront your own fear of not doing enough. And if you want joy, if you want fulfillment, if you want rest, it’s what you absolutely gotta do.

Thanks to the remarkable success of several waves of American feminism, the girls I work with today have more opportunities than virtually any generation before them. Though they have to confront a misogynistic backlash that has taken root in many aspects of our dominant culture, they have the chance to achieve more and do more and enjoy more than their mothers and grandmothers. But we’ve made the terrible mistake of turning opportunity into obligation. We’ve sucked the joy right out of their over-programmed, over-monitored, over-achieving little lives. True feminism and true Christian faith are absolutely congruent in their mutual opposition to the idea that young women ought to live up to an ever-more demanding set of duties and commitments.

As a feminist and a Christian, I want to see “my girls” becoming more like Mary, less like Martha. And if that means that some of the boys need to go and spend a few minutes taking over Martha’s duties so she can take a break, then they damned well can step up and do it.

UPDATE: My dear mother, long a defender of Martha, writes me today to remind me that many traditions say that Martha ended up in Tarascon, France, where she may well have slain a dragon. It’s a happy thought.

All Saints stands strong: a note on prayer shawls and worship music

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In addition to watching the Oscars this weekend, I spent time both Saturday and Sunday at church.

We’re at a watershed moment in the history of the Episcopal Church and of its flagship liberal congregation, All Saints Pasadena. It is in our parish that the very first Anglican blessing of a same-sex union in the entire Communion took place back in 1991; almost sixteen years later, the global church is on the threshold of schism over this very issue of homosexuality, Scriptural interpretation, and inclusiveness. (I wrote a bit about this last week.)

Here’s a summary of the current debate from the Los Angeles Times.

After a meeting ten days ago in Tanzania, the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion have directed the Episcopal Church USA to stop ordaining gays and lesbians and to stop blessing same-sex unions. The deadline to comply is September 30, 2007.

Though the ECUSA has not yet issued a formal response, at All Saints Pasadena, we’ve done so. Last week, our rector, Ed Bacon, issued this (PDF file) release.

“We have been blessing the unions of our gay and lesbian parishioners for 15 years and we have no intention of denying them blessings in the future”, Ed Bacon said.

On Saturday afternoon, I helped organize our “youth and families” 5:00PM worship service. This week Susan Russell preached; Susan is an internationally recognized spokeswoman for progressive Episcopalians (see her here on the Newshour, for example). Susan also blogs at An Inch at a Time.

Susan was preaching to a congregation of little kids and teenagers; she avoided bringing up the heavy theological issues that are at hand. But she didn’t make the mistake of assuming that children are incapable of understanding the core issue, which is the issue of who is welcome in the church. She unveiled a beautiful indigo prayer shawl, knitted by a group of parishoners who knit as a spiritual disciplne; each stitch and knot is carefully prayed over. The shawl has just been finished, and it will be sent this week to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori. It is Jefferts Schori who must answer to the primates for all of us, it is Jefferts Schori who must choose whether to give in to heavy pressure from traditionalists abroad (and at home) or to, like Luther at the Diet of Worms, stand in courageous defiance.

Susan Russell invited us to pray over the shawl, that it might act as a covering for our presiding bishop, that it might give her strength to make difficult decisions, that it might help her to choose to stand up for the marginalized. I ran my hands over the shawl, remembering my brief sojourn among the Pentecostals, remembering the power of the Holy Spirit ought never be doubted or underestimated.

Susan assured us that whatever the cost, we at All Saints Pasadena will not change our stance on including women, gays, and lesbians in every facet of church life. We’re not going to sell out the most vulnerable among us in an effort to appease. Living in Communion means we have an obligation to listen to each other and pray together, but it doesn’t bind us to submit to what our conscience, our reason, and the Spirit itself tells us is grave injustice.

One reason I like our Saturday service: we often use contemporary praise music in worship, singing songs more often sung in far more conservative congregations. During communion, as the kids raced around the room, we sang that Jesus Camp classic “Every Move I Make”:

Every move I make I make in
You
You make me move, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Every step I take I take in
You
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Waves of mercy
Waves of grace
Everywhere I look I see Your face
Your love has
captured me
Oh my God, this love
How can it be?

Whatever one thinks of the language of contemporary worship music (Jenell Paris, one of my favorite bloggers, has great article on this very subject in the latest issue of Mutuality, alas not online), there’s no question that it puts a personal relationship with Jesus front and center. And what I love about All Saints is that under the leadership of an exciting and dynamic team of professional and volunteer youth ministers, an ever more explicitly evangelical message is being lived out with our children and teenagers. Our commitment to full inclusion for gays and lesbians, our sense that God’s view of sexuality is richer than we had once imagined, in no way vitiates the intensity of our faith in Christ. We can have Jesus and justice.

So we prayed over the shawl, and we danced around during communion, and I left a bit teary-eyed, thankful that God put me in this place, in this church.

Same shepherd, different paths: a note on the current state of the Anglican Communion

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One thing I tried to follow while on vacation was news from the Anglican Primates meeting in Tanzania. In a world at war, with the Darfur crisis spilling into Chad, the glaciers melting at a faster rate than previously imagined, tensions ratcheting up with Iran, a depressing and ongoing stalement over the Palestine question — with all of that on the table, the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion spent most of their meeting in Africa (a continent with a host of pressing human and environmental problems) focused on how best to rebuke the Episcopal Church USA for its consecration of an openly gay bishop and its support for same-sex unions. Priorities are clearly straight (pun intended) in my global church.

Here’s the BBC story. And read more coverage at Kendall’s.

This is not to say that sexual morality isn’t an important topic, and one that the church ought to discuss. But it ought to make all of us in the Anglican church sad, regardless of where we find ourselves on the issue of sexuality, that yet another argument over “pelvic morality” is distracting us from so many other vital concerns. We must ask ourselves the question: in spending so much time and energy discerning God’s will on the question of homosexuality, what other vital issues are we ignoring? How many lambs are going unfed because we’re too busy trying to disqualify some of the very shepherds who want to feed them?

I’m convinced that for most straight people, the issue of same-sex marriage is an attractive one over which to argue and debate. It’s why we like to argue about it so much in the church. Most other issues call us to personal repentance and transformation. Christ calls us to think differently about how we eat, about how we spend our money, about how we interact with our neighbors, about how we live so many aspects of our lives. But if we’re straight, taking a position on homosexuality (whether or not it’s an affirming one) is ultimately pretty damned cheap.

No straight person gives up anything when he or she comes out for or against same-sex marriage. So we progressive heterosexuals get to feel virtuous and brave for standing in solidarity with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; conservative straights get to feel as if they are “defending the Gospel” by trying to bar the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of non-heterosexual unions. And whatever side we’re on, it doesn’t cost us much. The focus is off our own flaws, away from the logs in our own eyes. And so both right and left collude to make homosexuality the defining issue in the modern church.

But of course, for our GLBTQ friends and neighbors, this debate isn’t cheap. It goes to the very heart of their identity. And it is for the love of these friends and neighbors, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that I am willing to see a schism in the church I love. Unity is a good, but it isn’t anywhere near the highest good. To progressives, justice is a higher good than unity. To conservatives, fidelity to tradition and Scripture is a higher good than unity. If both sides can at least agree on that, then perhaps we can gently break apart the wider Anglican communion.

As my rabbi friend often says, “Sometimes divorce is a mitzvah.” I’ve often written that there are redemptive aspects to the end of a marriage, particularly when both parties become stronger and better people as a result. I believe that just as there can be both amicable and hostile divorces, there can also be amicable and hostile church schisms. While there’s still a chance to separate gently, with a mixture of regret, sadness, respect and relief, we should take that chance.

Our shepherd has told us he leads sheep from many folds; let’s let those who cannot be in our fold any longer follow our same shepherd on a different path.

16 girls, 3 boys: a note on the sex ratio in a confirmation class

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As I mentioned yesterday, we had a terrific time with the All Saints kids during our fasting fund-raiser on Friday and Saturday. Another night for Hugo in his sleeping bag on the floor, surrounded by snoring and wheezing boys. (Here’s my dilemma: I find it much easier to sleep on retreats when I have both ear plugs and one of those little night shades to cover my eyes; I have a nice pair from a British Airways amenity kit. But is it safe, given what teens get up to, for the youth leaders to be unable to hear a darned thing? Should I always sleep with one ear open, as it were? I go back and forth on the matter.)

Our confirmation class this year has a very skewed sex ratio. We have 16 girls and 3 boys, which is the most lopsided it has been in my seven years of serving as an instructor and mentor for the confirmation program. On Saturday, I was chatting with a parent as we were finishing things up, and this parent (whose child was in a previous confirmation class) lamented “We really need more boys. I’m so worried that all the young men are missing.”

I’ve heard a lot of this public anxiety about “missing boys” this year. I’ve heard it nationally, as the mainstream media frets that bright and talented young women are somehow driving young men off of college campuses. And I’ve heard it at All Saints, where for any number of reasons, we have a very small number of boys in our 2007 “Seekers” confirmation class. (I am happy to say that in terms of overall numbers, the trend in the raw number of confirmands is going up in our parish.) In the past, we’ve always had a few more girls than boys, say with a 10-8 split in favor of the females. But never as stark as the 16-3 ratio we’ve got at the moment, a ratio that is particularly obvious when we divide the teens for overnight sleeping arrangements.

Let me be clear that I’d like to see more boys involved in our youth program. But I’m growing a bit frustrated with the hand-wringing over their absence. The three boys we do have this year are bright, sweet, fun lads; the girls we’ve got are equally wonderful. As always, once I get to know them well, I find myself starting to fall in love with the whole danged pack of them. (In this paranoid age, let me be clear that this is a pure and uncomplicated passion!) And I’m worried that it is all too easy to become so concerned about the “missing boys” that we ignore the equally important needs of the girls who are seeking out confirmation and committing to our eight-month program. We are in danger of focusing too much on who isn’t with us, and why they aren’t, and too little on the precious, magnificent young people who are right in front of us.

As a male professor and youth leader, I take my job as a role model very seriously. I know that I have a role to play in the lives of both young men and young women. The fact that I am male doesn’t mean that the boys are any more or less important to me than are their sisters. But to some extent, adult males are particularly important for boys because they can model an alternative vision of what it means to be masculine. Teenage boys want very much to know how to live as adult men, and it is considerably easier for a grown man to show that in his actions as well as his words. This doesn’t mean that adult women can’t mentor boys, and adult men can’t mentor girls; it just means that we often learn differently from same and other-sexed role models. So I get that I have a special task when it comes to the boys.

The reasons why our confirmation classes have such a skewed gender ratio are hardly unique to All Saints. Like many liberal churches, relatively few of our prospective confirmands have been forced by their parents to be in the program; if it were compulsory, we would expect a more even number of boys and girls. And all things being equal, more girls than boys seem interested in exploring their faith and spending time in service. I’ve heard a variety of suggestions floated to make the program more attractive to boys (less talking, more outdoor activities), but most of those ideas, if implemented, would gut the program as it exists. It would also mean ignoring the generally positive responses of the few boys whom we do have in the program. And it would mean we were showing more concern for men than for women, more concern for those absent than for those present.

The current obsession in education is a hyper-anxiety about the well-being of boys, and an almost misogynistic fear that our current pedagogical structures favor girls. After all, if more girls than boys are showing up and being successful, this must be attributed to an anti-male bias rather than to a greater interest and effort on the part of the girls themselves! Too many girls and well-behaved boys have been ignored for too long by teachers and youth leaders who devote too much attention to coping with the few “problem boys” (chronic troublemakers, overly medicated hyperactives, etcetera).

Am I upset that we’ve got 16 girls and 3 boys? Heck no. Would I be upset if we had 16 boys and 3 girls? Nope. Jesus calls us to feed His lambs, and we feed the lambs who come for food. What point is there in searching endlessly after those who aren’t showing up, if the end result is that those who have come to be fed are ignored?

A happy weekend

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More thoughtful post later, but I want to begin by reporting that it was a happy and successful weekend.

At All Saints Pasadena, our thirty-hour fast to raise funds for Episcopal Relief and Development went very, very well. We had 24 kids participate; we made sandwiches for shelters; walked the labyrinth (an eleven-twist labyrinth, made of cloth, that we keep around the church); Saturday morning, we drove down to the African-American Museum near USC to see a photo exhibit on Rwandan orphans — organized and curated by two of our parishioners. The kids were very moved, and so was at least one of their youth leaders. We finished the fast with a Saturday evening church service and some delicious communion bread; the body of Christ is never more savory than after 30 hours of no other food!

And Sunday, my wife and I spent the whole day together. No getting up early for church; no getting up early to run. We slept late, read the paper together, and went to an early matinee of the wickedly fun Notes on a Scandal. (Dench and Nighy were marvelous, but the relationship between Cate Blanchett and her pubescent student was, well, unconvincing.) After that, it was off to the Huntington Library for lunch and a visit to the new John Constable exhibit; lots of his big “six-foot” landscapes from the Tate and the National Gallery. (I thought of my father, who was fond of Constable and Turner.)

We finished the day by dropping in on a youth group Super Bowl Party, before heading home to a quiet dinner, snuggling on the couch, and two episodes off one of our old Sopranos DVDs.

I can’t remember the last time when we’ve actually had a fun day like this — usually, we have to leave the country in order to get quality time together, away from our various obligations and avocational duties. Yesterday, we made such a day happen, and I am very happy.

Off to teach.

More on youth group, boundaries, and accountability

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Lauren not only designed this blog, she’s inspiring two posts from me today. Yesterday, our Indiana friend posted about her own church camp experience. She talks at length about one particularly creepy counselor, a man who was regularly and stunningly sexually inappropriate. Lauren shares some anecdotes, and notes that he acted out in full view of

other adults, all of whom were, as mentioned, too nice to say anything about how grossly inappropriate all of this was.

That strikes a nerve with me. I’m a veteran church youth volunteer; I help lead Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon teen groups. I’ve gone on many, many weekend retreats. And I’ve written at length about the importance of good, loving boundaries with teenagers. (See here, here, here.)

But I’m also prone to bouts of niceness. Yes, I watch my own behavior around teenagers very carefully; I make sure that I get regular feedback from other adult volunteers who see me hug and pat and “love on” the boys and girls with whom I interact. But reading Lauren’s post, I am struck by how trusting I am of my fellow volunteers! Let me be clear that I have absolutely no reason to doubt the integrity of any of them. I’ve never witnessed any inappropriate behavior — yet on the other hand, I’m not as zealous about checking up on my colleagues as I am in monitoring my own interactions with the teens. And like many people, I don’t like confrontation one bit. Challenging a peer — or a church leader — would not be easy. But I’d like to think that if I saw an adult behave inappropriately with one of our teens, I would intervene quickly. I’m hoping my desire to protect the vulnerable would trump my eagerness to maintain a “nice and pleasant” atmosphere.

In a comment below Lauren’s post, Thomas writes:

I’m very concerned at accounts I have read over the years about people knowing of and ignoring adults with a history of sexually charged behavior with and access to children. It is my experience that people can turn their heads more easily when nobody requires them to take responsibility. I recommend the following question:

“Will my child have contact with anyone here that you have reason to believe may be sexually attracted to children?”

Anyone with a brain knows that if they have been ignoring the rumors about Mr. Davis, and they say no, then their ass is now on the hook in both a moral and likely a legal sense.

It’s a tough question for a parent to ask, but I’d be pleased if a parent asked it of me or any other youth leader at All Saints. Thinking of my fellow volunteers and youth pastors, I’m completely confident I could give a hearty “no”. I wouldn’t be offended by the question at all, even if was directed at me personally. Asking direct questions like this set a clear tone: it makes it evident that the protection of children and teens is more important than avoiding putting adults on the spot. It makes it clear that parents expect that the adults to whom they entrust their young people will do more than simply refrain from harming their kids. A parent who asks the question Thomas suggests makes it clear that he or she is holding those of us who work with youth accountable. And I welcome that accountability, and am committed to living it out.

We had our final youth group meeting of 2006 on Wednesday night. We had a Christian rock band, Transistor Radio do a gig for the teens. We had tacos and Christmas cookies and a gift exchange. And we had lots of laughter, lots of hugs, and a bit of gentle “moshing” as the band performed. And when it came time to say goodbye until 2007, there was a lot of hugging. As I’ve written before, I don’t foist my embraces on anyone — but when hugged, I hug back with warmth and exuberance and enthusiasm. The kids I work with know that if they need to be held, I will hold them. They know that if they need me to keep my space while they talk, I can do that too. And I know that whatever I’m doing is seen by the wider community, and I welcome their queries or concerns. Lauren’s post reminds me that I can’t forget I also have a job to lovingly watch how my colleagues interact with our kids, and be fearless about challenging anything that seems out of place.

“He said I wasn’t a Christian”: teaching confirmation class at a liberal Episcopal parish

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Yesterday afternoon (after the long run, before going off to Borat), I spent a few hours with our 2006-2007 Seekers Confirmation Class at All Saints Pasadena.  We’ve got about 19 kids this year, and it looks like another wonderful group.  The dear Susan Russell came to talk to us, and she was, as always, a hit with her candor, her humor, and her knack for turning the perfect phrase to appeal to adults and youth alike.

In our discussion, one topic came up that always comes up, and one that I haven’t blogged on before: the common experience All Saints youth have of being told "you’re not a real Christian."  Especially in recent years, as All Saints Pasadena has gained national prominence for its fight with the IRS and our bold stance in favor of gay marriage, I’ve heard from many, many of the teens I work with that they have been subjected to some fairly hurtful remarks from school friends and classmates. 

"You’re not a real Christian"; "That’s not a real church"; "You’re the gay church"; "You don’t follow the Bible"; "People at All Saints are going to hell" –every one of those comments was uttered to one or another of the kids in my confirmation class in recent months after telling people they attend All Saints Pasadena.  Some of our teens met the scorn and derision with pride and defiance; others responded with a shrug; others were genuinely hurt; still others were frankly bewildered. 

Few things make me angrier  than to have the youth I call "my kids" told that they aren’t real Christians.   Kids may not be particularly interested in theology, but they are intensely sensitive to judgment — and to be on the receiving end of so many unkind, cruel remarks is hard for many of them.  The church in which they’ve been baptized, the church in which they are preparing to be confirmed, is under attack — and for most of them, that means that their parents and many of the grown-ups they know and trust are also under attack.  As a thirty-nine year-old, I’m quite happy to cross swords with a fellow believer who questions my salvation or my theology because I endorse same-sex unions; I’m less happy when my fourteen year-olds are told they are going to hell because they worship where they do.

Still, like most of my fellow adult youth leaders, I have no intention of instilling a "martyr complex" in our teens.  I’m not going to give them the pathetic "the world hates us for our commitment to Christ" song and dance.  One of the least attractive strategies employed  by Christian conservatives is to insist to their youth that by adhering to antiquated social mores they are somehow being boldly counter-cultural; I’ll be darned if I’m going to foist the left-wing version of that nonsense on to my teens.  In a world where real suffering is omnipresent, being told "you’re not a Christian" because you worship at an inclusive church is hardly a major form of oppression.

On the other hand, we don’t simply encourage a "stiff upper lip".  We reminded our kids yesterday that no one issues "Christian credentials."  There is no agreed-upon litmus test.  While some evangelicals insist that Catholics aren’t Christians, and others refuse to acknowledge Mormons as our brothers and sisters in Christ, most sensible believers choose to see all who follow Jesus as authentic Christians.  While part of being Christian is certainly holding the person of Jesus Christ as central in one’s faith, it is absurd to suggest that only those who believe in biblical inerrancy, for example, are actual Christians.   "Being a Christian is about being willing to be on a journey with Jesus", I said, "even if you aren’t quite sure who exactly Jesus is and even if you are very unsure of where it is you are going."

Mind you, I think there are limits to who gets to call themselves a "Christian."  My mother regularly told my grandmother she wasn’t a Christian.  My grandmother had been an atheist since she was a student at Berkeley in the 1920s; she read Lucretius (De Rerum Natura), and that did it for her.  She rejected the whole idea of a loving God who took an interest in human affairs.  Yet she insisted on calling herself a Christian because in her childhood, to be "Christian" was simply to be kind and good.  It wasn’t a theological statement to her — it was a statement about how one behaved towards one’s fellow citizens.  "Doing the Christian thing" referred to taking an active interest in the well-being of others, and had damn all to do with a belief in Jesus.  To the end of her life, she was both "atheist and Christian". 

While I adored my grandmother, I think she was outside the realm of what a Christian is.   A specific belief about the inerrancy of Scripture or sexual morality is not a prerequisite for calling oneself a Christian, a recognition that the person of Jesus of Nazareth is central to one’s faith does seem to be essential to using the term accurately.  As a youth leader and confirmation teacher, I want to bring my kids closer to Jesus.   I want them to love Him not merely as a great role model for righteous praxis but as the greatest of friends, the best of brothers, the most intimate of lovers.  That is how I know Him, and that sweet, intimate, spiritually erotic relationship is the most exciting and enriching of my life. 

But whatever relationship this year’s confirmation crop chooses to develop with Christ, I want them to know that their right to call themselves Christians, their "claiming of the name", is not contingent on any one particular worldview; any one particular political allegiance; any one understanding of how, when, where, and with whom it is good and right to be sexual.   And this year, our confirmands will learn that no narrow-minded classmate or friend can rob them of the right to embrace the Holy Name.

Fat Suits at the Saturday Celebration

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I ought to have blogged this earlier in the week, but got distracted.

On October 28, I was one of the leaders at the All Saints "Saturday Celebration", which offers a folky, relaxed, distinctly casual alternative to the more formal Sunday liturgies.  It’s the sort of service in which children are invited to run around and shake tambourines; this past Saturday, many of the little ones came in costumes.  We had princesses and witches and football players — and one boy of about eight dressed in the most extraordinary fat suit.

The suit, made of some synthetic material, covered him from throat to wrist to ankle.  It had a little remote control motor; when the boy pressed a button, the motor would cause the suit to inflate, simulating mounds and mounds of fat.  The exterior of the costume was painted to resemble the physique of an obese man, complete with a "butt crack" on the backside.   Of all the costumes worn by the kids, his got the most attention, particularly during that key part of the Anglican Liturgy known as the "parading of the costumes."  (This is, for the record, just after the prayers of the people and before the offertory.)  When it came time to receive the Eucharist, the boy inflated his fat suit to maximum size, and carefully guided by his parents, went up to receive the bread and the wine made holy.  Lots of indulgent smiles and chuckles all around.

I’ll admit it: one of the indulgent chuckles was mine.  I just wasn’t in the mood on Saturday afternoon to pull the parents of the boy aside for a quick chat.  In my head, I had the whole lecture ready: the cruelty of the stereotypes about fat people, the importance of sending a message of tolerance and inclusion rather than one of ridicule.  At All Saints, we preach the radical message that we are all children of God, equally precious, equally deserving of protection from derision.  Would a white child in black face have been okay?  If the little boy had dressed up as, say, a "dyke on a bike", would that have been okay?  I suspect not. But as a morbidly obese person, this rail-thin eight-year old delighted his parents and his peers.  And it made me very uncomfortable.

As the boy paraded around, I noticed one of the younger mothers staring the other way, out the window.  She’s a fairly regular parishioner, and she is very, very heavy.   I think her very little son was dressed as a badger or a wolf — something far less offensive.  I wondered if I ought to try and "check in" with this woman as well, and discover if she had been offended or hurt by the tyke in the fat suit.  But I second-guessed myself, got distracted with supervising the offertory, and before  I knew it, the service was over and the heavy-set mother had taken her son and left.

Bottom line: fat suits aren’t funny.  They aren’t appropriate Halloween costumes.  I may be on the slender side, but I am acutely weight-conscious; perhaps that’s why I found this outfit to be so hurtful and in such poor taste.   Is putting a skinny kid in a fat suit the moral equivalent of putting a white child in blackface?  Perhaps not, but it’s not far off.  And I missed a big opportunity on Saturday, and so I offer a tardy mea culpa this morning

Singin’ at All Saints

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The cameras have been coming around All Saints Pasadena a lot in recent weeks.  Our famously progressive church has, as many know, been under IRS scrutiny for some months thanks to a 2004 sermon that may or may not have violated our non-profit status.

But the cameras and the reporters don’t come to Wednesday night youth group.   And while it’s true that our inclusive, welcoming theology is hardly what is normally described as "evangelical", I am happy to say that our worship culture is being transformed.  A few years ago, I felt like the token "Jesus freak" at All Saints; the theology of most of my fellow youth workers was more Unitarian than anything.  Many of the older teens were openly hostile to any frank expressions of Christian faith; they preferred a youth group that was equal parts games, intellectual discussion, and group therapy.  (Those are parts of a good youth experience, of course, but ought not be the sum total.)

In the last two years, the church has brought in some full-time youth ministers who manage to combine a respect for All Saints progressive political culture with an evangelical commitment to Christ.  This year, our junior-high minister started a praise band, made up of himself and five kids from both the senior and junior highs.  They’ve been learning basic worship songs, and last night, we had our first praise and worship time at All Saints in my eight years of working with the youth group.

My friends from the more charismatically inclined churches would have felt right at home last night.  The band was good (we have a number of teens who attend arts "magnet" high schools and are nearly professional in their abilities), and the combined junior high/senior high group responded remarkably well.  And the songs we sang!    Most of the kids and the other adult youth leaders didn’t know them beforehand, but as someone who listens to Christian radio and has spent plenty of time in more evangelical settings, they were quite familiar to me.  This one’s a favorite of mine, and it was a delicious bit of cognitive dissonance to hear it sung by 60 young voices at All Saints, many swaying and dancing as they did so.

At what may be the flagship parish of the American Anglican left, at a church where we regularly preach about the inherent goodness of humankind and where we deny the excesses of Calvinist doctrine, our 13-17 year-olds sang to Jesus:

I am full of earth
You are Heaven’s worth
I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity
You are everything that is bright and clean, the antonym of me
You are divinity
But a certain sign of grace is this
From the broken earth flowers
Come up pushing through the dirt

It’s lousy poetry, but it ends up opening a splendid praise song.  Who says you can’t combine liberal politics, an open-minded understanding of human sexuality, and enthusiastic praise worship?  Who says you can’t preach the theology of John Spong and sing lyrics that recall the theology of John Calvin?  Isn’t adolescence partly about the triumphant recognition and embracing of contradictions?  (Okay, I’m half-joking with that one…)

All Saints is gettin’ groovy.