Around this time last year I was not necessarily freaking out, but nonetheless concerned about what exactly I was going to do after completing my Master's in Southern Studies. At the time I did not particularly care for applying for my PhD and I didn't just want to do an office job and definitely did not consider working for a museum or as a public school teacher.
I knew, however, that I wanted to try and at least see if ministry in the Episcopal Church was something I could handle. I had heard about the Episcopal Service Corps and checked it out. I was also searching for youth ministry jobs within the Episcopal Church. I applied to some jobs and for whatever reasons, be it lack of experience or lack of schooling in ministry, I was denied the jobs. So I took a closer look at the Episcopal Service Corps, did some blanketed applications and tried my luck.
My luck landed me two offers. One in San Francisco and the other in Newark, New Jersey. I took some time to think on it and chose San Francisco. The Episcopal Service Corps, to me, is an opportunity to further explore the ways that lay and ordained or intentional ministry for twenty somethings who want more out of their lives than just a desk job. It is a way to see firsthand through working with non profits or local churches just what exactly ministry can look like.
What made the Episcopal Service Corps even better for me was the structure of it. The time taken to worship together and eat together, building a community of support and care was a big draw for me. As a 25 year old at the time, I found myself not entirely committed to a church, but longing to be a part of a community and the Episcopal Service Corps gave me that.
For those who are interested in a life of simplicity and service and ministry and worship, the Episcopal Service Corps is ideal. Through circumstances out of my control, I did not complete my year with the program and I miss that community, but that does not stop me from promoting that kind of dedication and intentional time.
There's something to be said in this consumer driven culture, for those who choose to buck against it. The young adults searching for something more to do with their lives, meaningful, not always financially profitable, but sustaining work for the soul. The closely linked monastic life coupled with work and continued participation in the world around us is something that few people get to experience.
I am better for the time I spent in San Francisco. I learned a lot from that experience and believe that the mission that is promoted through the Episcopal Service Corps is a good one, a necessary one, in this time of questioning and doubt.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
In defense of History
In President Obama's State of the Union, he said that we needed to emphasize education. I agree with that. Where Obama and I disagree is his focus on science and math. Don't get me wrong, science and math are integral to education, but when a lot of students in this country have serious problems writing and reading and also don't know anything about this country's history, something is going seriously wrong. When a lot of adults don't even know this country's history, there is something even more wrong.
Say what you want about math and science leading to innovation, but what can an innovator create and promote if they lack the skills to read and write and present? What accountant can effectively do his job if he can't communicate with clients? What would this country be if the leading historians on American History weren't American? What happened to the sense of pride in American literature?
I know a lot of people claim that history is boring, that it's not interesting memorizing dates. History doesn't have to be about that. Learning and studying history is more than just knowing what happened. Being trained and exposed to learning history is a way of thinking that is lacking in today's society. It involves reading books and critically evaluating them in a way that you can develop your own opinions. It's about being informed. It's about taking an issue and researching the story behind it. If you look at it, history is a collection of stories that have been passed down and deserve to keep living.
History is also about a sense of pride. Knowing the way this country was founded, knowing the milestones and celebrating the way we have come to be the society we are, is integral to the way we feel about being citizens. Even if you think critically about events in the past and don't agree with what happened, studying history gives you the tools to piece together your own thoughts about why things happen.
So yeah, let's get a better education initiative. But let's be fair to liberal arts as well as math and science. Why can't the two get along?
Say what you want about math and science leading to innovation, but what can an innovator create and promote if they lack the skills to read and write and present? What accountant can effectively do his job if he can't communicate with clients? What would this country be if the leading historians on American History weren't American? What happened to the sense of pride in American literature?
I know a lot of people claim that history is boring, that it's not interesting memorizing dates. History doesn't have to be about that. Learning and studying history is more than just knowing what happened. Being trained and exposed to learning history is a way of thinking that is lacking in today's society. It involves reading books and critically evaluating them in a way that you can develop your own opinions. It's about being informed. It's about taking an issue and researching the story behind it. If you look at it, history is a collection of stories that have been passed down and deserve to keep living.
History is also about a sense of pride. Knowing the way this country was founded, knowing the milestones and celebrating the way we have come to be the society we are, is integral to the way we feel about being citizens. Even if you think critically about events in the past and don't agree with what happened, studying history gives you the tools to piece together your own thoughts about why things happen.
So yeah, let's get a better education initiative. But let's be fair to liberal arts as well as math and science. Why can't the two get along?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Power-Through
A phrase that I keep finding myself saying these days is "power-through." It's been a philosophy of mine that whenever I face an obstacle, if I just persist and fight my way through it, it'll work out for the best. Lately, though, powering through as a way of life isn't quite working how it usually does.
It makes me second guess that philosophy. And, as a trained historian, I wonder if that philosophy is just what our culture has trained us to do. Pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps and finding a way to make things work beyond all obstacles seems to be the way we earn respect in American society. Unemployed? You're not looking hard enough for a job. Depressed? Buck up and be happy with your situation because there are always people who have it off worse. Problems with your significant other? Just hang in there and make it work, like all the romantic comedies tell us to and it'll be ok.
The problem with powering through is that it leaves others and sometimes ourselves, in a painful wake. How many people, who are unsatisfied with their situations, just stick it out because they can't think of anything that could possibly be better for them? How many people keep saying to themselves, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Why don't you try returning the lemons and finding something that you really like? Is it fear that holds us back from returning and searching for what makes us happy? I don't know.
When I first got back to Mississippi from California, I thought that I had been a failure. I found myself back in the South, a place where I cannot pursue what I feel like I could have pursued in California. I kept seeing California as a place where all my dreams could come true. Now, that might seem silly, but that's the honest truth. At first being back in the Bible Belt, where homophobic statements are made more often than not and disparaging comments about our President because of his race happen rarely, but are intense, made me feel like I had taken a step backward. My first inclination was to do whatever I could to get back out of the South. I deserved better, I kept telling myself. All I had to do was power-through and I would get what I wanted.
However, powering through to get out of the South again would mean leaving the people I care about. It would mean not seeing the good that Mississippi can offer. As many statements I have heard in the South that have upset me, there are equally disturbing statements made all around this country and all around the world. Plus, I have friends here in the South who know and love me for who I am. I have people who understand that the New Orleans Saints are the best team in the country, no matter what their record that year might be. I say "Mardi Gras" and people know the religious significance of it, and don't only associate it with Bourbon Street in the Crescent City. And on that note, I know people who know why New Orleans is called the Crescent City. Yes, there are things I would love for the South to change. But that's true of everywhere.
I see these things because my thinking is different now. I can't tell you the switch that made everything clearer to me than it had been before. What I can tell you, is that powering through leaves a wake because you're moving too fast. Pushing through when you should be slowly making steps can cause scars on relationships and your own well being. Sometimes it's the slow transitions that are necessary. Sometimes, no matter how much we would like to pick up and move out, move away as fast as we can, the challenge and call is to stay put. The call is to be there for your friends and to allow them to be there for you. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. At least the way I see it, it is. And I'm here for the long haul of change and challenges and rising (maybe a little more slowly than before) to the occasion.
It makes me second guess that philosophy. And, as a trained historian, I wonder if that philosophy is just what our culture has trained us to do. Pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps and finding a way to make things work beyond all obstacles seems to be the way we earn respect in American society. Unemployed? You're not looking hard enough for a job. Depressed? Buck up and be happy with your situation because there are always people who have it off worse. Problems with your significant other? Just hang in there and make it work, like all the romantic comedies tell us to and it'll be ok.
The problem with powering through is that it leaves others and sometimes ourselves, in a painful wake. How many people, who are unsatisfied with their situations, just stick it out because they can't think of anything that could possibly be better for them? How many people keep saying to themselves, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Why don't you try returning the lemons and finding something that you really like? Is it fear that holds us back from returning and searching for what makes us happy? I don't know.
When I first got back to Mississippi from California, I thought that I had been a failure. I found myself back in the South, a place where I cannot pursue what I feel like I could have pursued in California. I kept seeing California as a place where all my dreams could come true. Now, that might seem silly, but that's the honest truth. At first being back in the Bible Belt, where homophobic statements are made more often than not and disparaging comments about our President because of his race happen rarely, but are intense, made me feel like I had taken a step backward. My first inclination was to do whatever I could to get back out of the South. I deserved better, I kept telling myself. All I had to do was power-through and I would get what I wanted.
However, powering through to get out of the South again would mean leaving the people I care about. It would mean not seeing the good that Mississippi can offer. As many statements I have heard in the South that have upset me, there are equally disturbing statements made all around this country and all around the world. Plus, I have friends here in the South who know and love me for who I am. I have people who understand that the New Orleans Saints are the best team in the country, no matter what their record that year might be. I say "Mardi Gras" and people know the religious significance of it, and don't only associate it with Bourbon Street in the Crescent City. And on that note, I know people who know why New Orleans is called the Crescent City. Yes, there are things I would love for the South to change. But that's true of everywhere.
I see these things because my thinking is different now. I can't tell you the switch that made everything clearer to me than it had been before. What I can tell you, is that powering through leaves a wake because you're moving too fast. Pushing through when you should be slowly making steps can cause scars on relationships and your own well being. Sometimes it's the slow transitions that are necessary. Sometimes, no matter how much we would like to pick up and move out, move away as fast as we can, the challenge and call is to stay put. The call is to be there for your friends and to allow them to be there for you. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. At least the way I see it, it is. And I'm here for the long haul of change and challenges and rising (maybe a little more slowly than before) to the occasion.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Not your ordinary preacher..
I find myself now-a-days talking more about religion than anything else. Out at bars, out at house parties, even outside of gas stations. I don't go to do this. It has lately just happen to be the conversations I get roped into. For example, walking into a gas station, I saw an employee talking about religion while smoking a cigarette. I didn't pry. I walked in and pre-paid some gas. Upon leaving, the employee asked me into the conversation, "what do you think?"
I'm not going to lie and say I jumped to the occasion. To be frank, I was quite tired and a little irritated at the moment since I had just paid an exorbitant amount for a tank of gas. But then here was the hook: the employee admitted that A. he was a Southern Baptist preacher, B. he cooked Bar-B-Que for the gas station for fun, and finally C. he gave out free food to those who were hungry.
Dancing toe-to-toe with a Southern Fundamentalist preacher has always been an interesting conversation in my experience. Also, the fact that he practiced giving food to those who needed it sparked a light with me. So, I entered the conversation. I should have known his talking abilities (especially how long he could talk) would be great and powerful, but I joined the conversation anyway. He was chatting with the clerk of the gas station outside the gas station in the freezing cold and arguing his point about giving free food to those who were hungry. When he started talking about being touched by the Holy Spirit, I spoke up about the trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I felt confident that he saw the trinity otherwise, but he surprised me in saying, "exactly." Never had I ever had a point about theology line up with a Fundamentalist Southern Baptist. Always the joke amongst other denominations was that they were the backward ones. We kept talking and kept on agreeing on other things. I felt sure that eventually we were going to argue.
I brought up a topic that I thought I knew he would disagree with: the validity of other religions. Once again, I was wrong. He brought up the Old Testament and the declaration that God says that he is the Great "I am" when asked who he was. He brought up that God can have many names. He even said that Judaism, Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism all call upon Gods, but that God himself has admitted that he has many names. I was quite honestly, impressed and blown away by this declaration. I've always thought of Southern Baptists as extremists of hate. But, I was wrong.
I complemented him on the way he expressed his theology and faith and he told me that he had long experience with "spreading the good news" on the street corners in Chicago. I thought of all the cold days he did this. I thought of all the people who snuffed at his futile attempts. I thought of all the bitterness and disgust he would see from even people who considered themselves Christians but disagreed on the way some practice evangelism.
I have to admit, I snuffed at the word evangelism for a long while because I equated it with "Bible Beating." But lately, since I have found myself talking about religion more than anything else, I have even come to think of myself as an evangelist, albeit a reluctant one. My friends frequently say, "you're the most religious person I know." Even an atheist friend of mine, one of my dearest friends in Oxford, said to me one night when I was particularly bitter about the Church, "don't you dare give up your faith." Is that an omen, a God thump that keeps coming back to haunt me? Another friend drunkenly admitted to me that I might be the only person in the world who could talk to her about religion and convert her, because I didn't pity her ideas about Christianity. I didn't see her ideas about faith as a hindrance, a blind soul who needs the light of Christianity. And I don't. I see her, and other friends, as confused and hurt and doubting as I am.
A priest in my tradition is one who stays stationary, serving a particular church and a particular community. Maybe, for right now, I'm meant to be nomadic in preaching when people provoke me into religion. Maybe it's these conversations that are happening more and more the only way I've been able to keep my faith and not be entirely and completely cynical about the church. I don't need a collar to be priestly, I don't need an ordination to serve communities. I don't need vestments to show a symbol of what the church could mean. I just need conversations. I just need to be honest with my friends who, for some reason, seek me out when they feel that organized religion is old and flawed. Is this my calling? I don't know, but I think it's my calling for right now. And that is what matters.
I'm not going to lie and say I jumped to the occasion. To be frank, I was quite tired and a little irritated at the moment since I had just paid an exorbitant amount for a tank of gas. But then here was the hook: the employee admitted that A. he was a Southern Baptist preacher, B. he cooked Bar-B-Que for the gas station for fun, and finally C. he gave out free food to those who were hungry.
Dancing toe-to-toe with a Southern Fundamentalist preacher has always been an interesting conversation in my experience. Also, the fact that he practiced giving food to those who needed it sparked a light with me. So, I entered the conversation. I should have known his talking abilities (especially how long he could talk) would be great and powerful, but I joined the conversation anyway. He was chatting with the clerk of the gas station outside the gas station in the freezing cold and arguing his point about giving free food to those who were hungry. When he started talking about being touched by the Holy Spirit, I spoke up about the trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I felt confident that he saw the trinity otherwise, but he surprised me in saying, "exactly." Never had I ever had a point about theology line up with a Fundamentalist Southern Baptist. Always the joke amongst other denominations was that they were the backward ones. We kept talking and kept on agreeing on other things. I felt sure that eventually we were going to argue.
I brought up a topic that I thought I knew he would disagree with: the validity of other religions. Once again, I was wrong. He brought up the Old Testament and the declaration that God says that he is the Great "I am" when asked who he was. He brought up that God can have many names. He even said that Judaism, Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism all call upon Gods, but that God himself has admitted that he has many names. I was quite honestly, impressed and blown away by this declaration. I've always thought of Southern Baptists as extremists of hate. But, I was wrong.
I complemented him on the way he expressed his theology and faith and he told me that he had long experience with "spreading the good news" on the street corners in Chicago. I thought of all the cold days he did this. I thought of all the people who snuffed at his futile attempts. I thought of all the bitterness and disgust he would see from even people who considered themselves Christians but disagreed on the way some practice evangelism.
I have to admit, I snuffed at the word evangelism for a long while because I equated it with "Bible Beating." But lately, since I have found myself talking about religion more than anything else, I have even come to think of myself as an evangelist, albeit a reluctant one. My friends frequently say, "you're the most religious person I know." Even an atheist friend of mine, one of my dearest friends in Oxford, said to me one night when I was particularly bitter about the Church, "don't you dare give up your faith." Is that an omen, a God thump that keeps coming back to haunt me? Another friend drunkenly admitted to me that I might be the only person in the world who could talk to her about religion and convert her, because I didn't pity her ideas about Christianity. I didn't see her ideas about faith as a hindrance, a blind soul who needs the light of Christianity. And I don't. I see her, and other friends, as confused and hurt and doubting as I am.
A priest in my tradition is one who stays stationary, serving a particular church and a particular community. Maybe, for right now, I'm meant to be nomadic in preaching when people provoke me into religion. Maybe it's these conversations that are happening more and more the only way I've been able to keep my faith and not be entirely and completely cynical about the church. I don't need a collar to be priestly, I don't need an ordination to serve communities. I don't need vestments to show a symbol of what the church could mean. I just need conversations. I just need to be honest with my friends who, for some reason, seek me out when they feel that organized religion is old and flawed. Is this my calling? I don't know, but I think it's my calling for right now. And that is what matters.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
It's been a long December...
...and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last...
I keep thinking that this month is December, although it is February. It's the coldest Winter I've ever experienced and usually the coldest month of the year is December, so I'm calling this Winter December Extended. Oxford, MS got ten inches of snow and it's colder here now than it has been for the past three years I've lived here. Yes, the title of this post is a Counting Crows song and it's been one stuck in my head since the beginning of December.
2010 was a rough/great year for me. I finished my Master's and I experienced life on the West Coast. I saw Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Mountains. I got a taste of the feeling of being thrown into a professional atmosphere, and promptly failed at rising to that occasion. I had to move back home to Mississippi and file for unemployment. Finally found a job at a bookstore and am now waiting to hear back from PhD programs that would start in the Fall.
There's a feeling I have that as rough as a start that January 2011 was for me, that it will get better. Yes, I still live with my Dad and that so far has been quite a challenge (I would say more on the subject, but he will probably read this, so I won't). Yes, it's been a hard thing to reconcile that I failed at doing something that I was enjoying so much. It's a hard experience to fail at anything, really. Being turned down from jobs and told I can't do things I love are two things I hate the most. My self-confidence in 2010 and early 2011 definitely took a hard hit.
Good thing I've always bounced back, and stronger when I do. Being resilient and stubborn is actually serving me quite well at the moment. I've got the gumption to go out, when all things seem like they're failing and say to myself, "I can make this happen." I follow up on leads for opportunities to serve and opportunities to get paid to do things I enjoy (for example, teaching guitar and writing). I find what I can do well and see how I can manage to get paid for it. That's what I do and how I roll...
...and hopefully the funk from 2010 and January 2011 will roll right off my back..
I keep thinking that this month is December, although it is February. It's the coldest Winter I've ever experienced and usually the coldest month of the year is December, so I'm calling this Winter December Extended. Oxford, MS got ten inches of snow and it's colder here now than it has been for the past three years I've lived here. Yes, the title of this post is a Counting Crows song and it's been one stuck in my head since the beginning of December.
2010 was a rough/great year for me. I finished my Master's and I experienced life on the West Coast. I saw Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Mountains. I got a taste of the feeling of being thrown into a professional atmosphere, and promptly failed at rising to that occasion. I had to move back home to Mississippi and file for unemployment. Finally found a job at a bookstore and am now waiting to hear back from PhD programs that would start in the Fall.
There's a feeling I have that as rough as a start that January 2011 was for me, that it will get better. Yes, I still live with my Dad and that so far has been quite a challenge (I would say more on the subject, but he will probably read this, so I won't). Yes, it's been a hard thing to reconcile that I failed at doing something that I was enjoying so much. It's a hard experience to fail at anything, really. Being turned down from jobs and told I can't do things I love are two things I hate the most. My self-confidence in 2010 and early 2011 definitely took a hard hit.
Good thing I've always bounced back, and stronger when I do. Being resilient and stubborn is actually serving me quite well at the moment. I've got the gumption to go out, when all things seem like they're failing and say to myself, "I can make this happen." I follow up on leads for opportunities to serve and opportunities to get paid to do things I enjoy (for example, teaching guitar and writing). I find what I can do well and see how I can manage to get paid for it. That's what I do and how I roll...
...and hopefully the funk from 2010 and January 2011 will roll right off my back..
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