Church | M. Suzanne Terry

Archive for the ‘Church’ Category

Advent Poem

Posted in Church, Poetry on December 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

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As is the way of Advent, I’ve done some slowing down.

I’ve finished the semester and have helped with room checks; today is actually my last day at work for two and a half weeks!

I’ve finished the introductory revision course with Joan Dempsey. If you have a manuscript that you need to revise, and you don’t know where to start, she is the person to help you. Her next course – Revise with Confidence – starts on January 26, 2016, and $99 is a steal of a price.

Now I’m soaking in Beth Morey’s Poetry Is course (which you can still sign up for!). I like it because you work at your own pace. That’s good, since I signed up three weeks ago and haven’t even finished Week 1. But Week 1 is found poetry, so I might be dragging my heels a little, because I love it.

The picture above was my first poem that I art-journaled for the course.

How could it be?

To know without kiss of spoil

To receive you whole among us.

That pretty much sums up Advent to me. Wonder, expecting, knowing, receiving.

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In Your Mercy

Posted in Church, Lament on December 8, 2015| 2 Comments »

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For our country – our current leaders and leaders-to-be – to seek justice and mercy and freedom and to lead us into being the country we once meant to be.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

For honorable discourse and the ability to discern when to listen in order to understand and not just argue, when to speak clearly and with informed conviction, and when to flip tables because racism and social depravity and oppression are not things to be polite about.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

For the voices of wisdom that are speaking to rise up and be heard above the noises of sound bites and bumper sticker theology and political identity. Let the chaff be blown away by the blustery wind of its own lungs.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

How long will it be until we learn the consequences of “inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me?” When will we have to answer for clinging to privileges and luxuries and discounts gleaned from the lashes on the backs of people created in your image? When we cheer for degradation, exclusion, and war crimes to be committed against ones you love, do those cheers ring “crucify” to your ears?

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Is it too late to do better? Do we even dare ask you to come? Do we have any right to expect you anymore?

Will you come anyway?

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Friday Five – ARGHvent

Posted in Books, Church, Friday Five, Lament on December 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I am still a toddler at following the liturgical calendar, and I’m not very good at it yet. This year, about mid-October, I thought to myself, “Self, Advent starts soon. You should start early – make your calendar, find your books, buy your candles. That way you won’t feel rushed.” And I did. I made this:

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And the finished product:

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It looks a little baby shower-ish, but we’re expecting the Christ child here, so I felt that was appropriate. I felt good about my progress.

Then time sped up.

So now it’s the first week of Advent, which is my favorite season because I know what longing is and usually have a lot to say about it. I’m reading the things and lighting the candles (which are the wrong color – because it’s actually pretty hard to find Advent candles here. War on Christmas, my ass. Christmas is fricking everywhere.), and going to the services (which has kept me sane this week). And I’m fighting not to settle for autopilot because it would be so easy to check out mentally and emotionally and barrel through, waiting until it is over to be human again. I’m just barely making it.

But I have had a little help from a few places this week.

Annie Leibovitz is the photographer for the 2016 Pirelli calendar. And it’s going to be amazing. I need to become royalty so I can get this calendar.
The #BodiesMatter hashtag and Suzannah Paul’s piece on Faith Feminisms.
Jamaal May’s poem The Gun Joke could have been written yesterday, but it wasn’t. Ponder.
Ten great books by women that were overlooked in 2015. My reading list just gets longer and longer.
And thank you Abby and Amy. I needed this so bad – ten ways to be unproductive and stay sane this season.

What’s helping you today?

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Maybe Belonging

Posted in Church on July 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I love my church, especially lately.

(My first offering – macaroons for Easter)

I have loved them from the beginning, but there have been difficulties. It has been hard to socialize with them. I shoulder most of the blame for this – I am often a difficult person to get to know. I am a pretty extreme introvert; I’m not a hermit, but I sometimes fantasize about being one. In most situations, I overcome this by adjusting socially with what a friend once called my “politician self” – the part of myself that is vital for working in customer service or teaching public speaking. While this more gregarious version of me is a real part of who I am, I want my church to know my deeper self, too, and that has been a challenge.

It’s also the first liturgical church I’ve attended with any regularity. Even though I’ve been in church my whole life, I feel like I’m brand new at it. I don’t know the creeds by heart, and I don’t recognize most of the hymns. The hymns I do recognize often have different verse than I grew up singing. Most of the time, the changes are sweet to my ears, but I really miss the verse of Oh, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing that ends “…and leap, ye lame, for joy.”

We are also predominantly white (I didn’t know I could belong to a whiter church than I have in the past, yet here I am.). I’m not sure why. But neither are they, and they aren’t afraid to talk about it or question it. I have never been a part of a group that has such civil discussions while at the same time refusing to shy away from hard subjects. I’ve never been in a church before where the prayers are always in touch with what is going on in the world. We pray, we lament, we mourn, and we discuss what our response will be. We don’t hide from uncomfortable truths.

These are not just words whispered in private conversations; they are mentioned from the pulpit. For most of my church life, I have had to practice the art of biting my tongue while clinging desperately to the commonality of Jesus in order not to be asked to leave. As you might imagine, I’m not great at it. When I would get too comfortable and forget to keep a thought to myself, the best I could hope for would be a bless-her-heart, pat-on-the-head tolerance or eyes filled with annoyance. I could expect accusations of stubbornness or assumptions of ignorance or looks of pity, for clearly, they thought, I was being deceived.

This church is the first place where the results of my prayers and my convictions are often the norm or are at least similar to those of other members, even the ones who have been to seminary. This is probably arrogant, but after decades of being told or having it implied that I am wrong or sinful for hearing from God the way that I do, it is IMMENSELY gratifying to say, “This is what I think…” and have someone who has studied the Bible with the intensity of preparing to teach it to others reply, “I agree.”

This is not to say that we always agree. And that’s really how they won me over. As satisfying as agreement on most things has been, it is even sweeter to hear, “I don’t agree, but tell me more. What brought you to that conclusion?” To not be dismissed or merely tolerated is heaven.

I love the observance of the seasons and their involvement with my Denton that I love. But it’s their sweetness and acceptance that have captured my heart.

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What I’m Into – June 2015

Posted in Books, Church, Dance, Food, Fun, What I'm Into on July 2, 2015| 4 Comments »

Every year, June tries to make me love summer. It doesn’t succeed, but it’s persistent in its effort. This summer it almost had me.

I mean – just look at it –

June, you gorgeous thing.

Of course, now the temperatures are climbing, and I’m in a constant state of being a snack for bugs, so any potential goodwill I had toward summer is now out the window. But June tried. Oh, it tried!

I started the month off at my parents’ farm. I originally planned the trip to help with their planters, but they had already finished the ones they are going to put out this year by the time I got there. So I helped them watch TV and eat a lot of food. I am very helpful in both those regards. It was such a relaxing week.

I saw two movies in the theater this month. Of course, I had to go see Pitch Perfect 2. It was pretty funny. Before I went to see it, my friend Kim said, “I just want to say two words – We Belong. Best part.” It really was. I laughed and laughed. I also went to see Spy. It was hilarious, but that’s not even the thing I liked most about it. When I read that Melissa McCarthy was cast as an agent, I expected the movie to make her out to be this bumbling, lovable character who succeeds despite her incompetence. But no. She kicked ass. They specifically cast someone who doesn’t fit the physical stereotype of the role and then make her awesome at it. Also, Jason Statham is adorable and funny. Favorite thing I’ve seen in a theater in a long time.

It has been a roller coaster of a news month. Between the police incident in McKinney and the shooting in Charleston and all consenting adults actually being able to marry the consenting adult of their choice in all 50 states and black churches burning…whew. I really have to get a computer at home again, because my poor little phone just can’t keep up. I’m going to write more about this tomorrow, but this month, I’m really into my church. The way they have brought these stories to the foreground of our discussions and have not shied away from the parts that make us uneasy and constantly ask what work we have to do – I just love it there.

Another wonderful thing that happened this month is a little cherub named Savvy turned three:

She started out pretty subdued at her party, but before long, she was a little burst of joy:

I just love that giggle.

I read so much this month. Most of the things I read has some sort of justice theme running through them, which seems fitting. My favorite novels were Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (AMAZING end to this trilogy) and Peaches for Father Francis by Joanne Harris. I also bathed in the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed – Salt was my favorite collection.

My dad and I bond over The Chew, so I took a couple of Carla Hall’s cookbooks with me when I visited. I liked Cooking with Love, but I liked Carla’s Comfort Foods better. I blame her for my newfound obsession with tarragon (particularly in a lemon cream sauce). And if I ever meet her, I’m going to thank her for teaching me what no one else in my life has before – how to get perfect rice by baking it. Did any of you know how to do this and just not tell me? It’s so simple, and it makes so much sense (basically, bring water and rice to a boil and then cover it and put it in a 350-degree oven to steam). How have I lived this long and not known this?!

You can see more of what I’ve read this month (and this year, for that matter) at my Goodreads page.

My favorite thing about this June is that it has been infused with dance.

I read Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit, and seventeen pages of notes later, all these stories of dance have kicked my writing life back into gear. I am going to be processing it for a long time.

As always, I am loving So You Think You Can Dance. I haven’t made it through all the auditions yet, because I keep rewatching the ones I like. I get so excited for them when they get that ticket to Vegas!

And I don’t know if you heard me squealing with delight all the way from where you are, but Misty Copeland, one of my favorite dancers of all time, became the first black female principal dancer of the American Ballet Theater.

This June made a beautiful case for summer.

I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer – come join us and tell us what your June was like!

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December

Posted in awake the bones, Beauty, Church on December 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We are in the final two weeks of the semester. I had grand plans for grading, decorating, writing, and art journaling last week that just didn’t happen. I had plans this year to get it together, to focus on beauty, and to read 100 books, and I feel like all of those have fallen short of expectation as well. It would be easy to be discouraged. It would be really easy to power through and forget about Advent for the next two weeks, but I am pretty sure that doing so would have the exact opposite of the intended effect.

So I am engaging in intentional reflections. I am reading, journaling, and poetry-ing my way through Isaiah. I am joining Susannah Conway’s community project called December Reflections, and I am finishing up my year of beauty by looking for beauty in the ordinary through Awake the Bones. They will mostly be found on Instagram, but I’m sure they will make an occasional appearance here.

Right now, I’m just going to mind the mug and drink my coffee in peace.

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Reattachment

Posted in Church, Poetry, Roots on August 28, 2014| 2 Comments »

I am from Barbies and toy tractors.

From cute shoes and impossible standards,

From hard work and making things grow.

I am from a writing desk with lion pulls on its drawers,

From roaring before I knew what roaring was for.

I am from a name that means lily but is not Lily,

From surprises just under the surface.

I am from macrame owls and cross-stitched ornaments,

From a people who create.

I am little black dresses and big black boots,

From pretty with pearls

And not taking any mess.

I am seasons and liturgy and praying the hours.

I am also feet washing and laying on hands and re-dedication.

I am all the places I’ve ever been

But also none of them.

(I took wild liberties with this template to piece this poem together)

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Week of Rest

Posted in Church, Getting It Together, Simplify, Story Sessions on July 7, 2014| 1 Comment »

My original schedule for Getting It Together had this week being Adorn – the week I clean out the closet. I decided, however, to switch it with Rest because:

It’s our week of silence in Story 101. We are to have a daily practice of silence – whatever that looks like for us. Traditionally, I would use the week to be off Facebook and Twitter, but that’s not feasible for my work week (both at the workplaces I get paid a salary and my writing/other pursuits). My week of silence will be spent devoting at least 15 minutes every day to each of these restful practices – being quiet and still, reading (this one’s so going longer than 15 minutes), stretching or doing Pilates, writing poetry, and dancing. I’ve put aside specific times every day for these practices. If we’re being totally honest here – this is my favorite week in Story 101.
Life has been stressful lately, and freakishly so, given how easy my summer was meant to have been. Life is really barreling over me. I need relief now.
My bedroom is so full that I can’t really clear out a space around the closet to clean it anyway. It will all be easier and will require less cursing if I just do the bedroom first.
I’ve stopped going to church. Well, not officially. I still mean to go. I really do mean to go, sometime right up to the moment that it’s time to walk out the door. Then I stop. This doesn’t have anything to do with them. They’re wonderful. But my hiatus from church has taught me Sabbath. It has taught me what a day of rest really looks like, and now I require it. I need a day of rest. Before summer started and I began to move things around (read: into the bedroom), I could go to church in the morning and still come home and rejuvenate. My room is in chaos, though, so being home isn’t so restful. I end up stacking or moving or feverishly cleaning. Or I avoid stacking and moving and cleaning but spend the day with the knowledge – that all those things I need to do are lurking right behind that closed bedroom door – hovering over me like a cloud. This, too, is exhausting. I don’t have time for my weekly rest to require more time than it already does. I need to nest.

So this week is Rest. The plan for the bedroom is twofold, because honestly – if I can just get the room clean and organized this week, it will be a miracle. So some of the fancier things I want to do will have to wait their turn.

Short-term goals:

Clear out. Go through all the boxes (some still packed from the last time I moved…two years ago) and get rid of everything that I don’t need or can’t realistically expect to use within the next year.
Organize. Put whatever is left after I have cleared everything out to place. If it doesn’t seem to have a place, reconsider if it’s really something I need to keep.
Clean. Dust and vacuum. Control the allergens that make me wake up stuffy every morning.

Long-term goals:

Make curtains out of the blue sheet set.
Make a headboard, covered with the material from the fitted sheet of that set. I thought about making it to fit in the holes that my dad left in the platform frame, but after searching for DIY instructions on the subject, I ran across this gem. I like the way it looks, and it seems to be a lot simpler to make than one that actually fits the bed frame. So for my first foray into headboard-making, this is the one I’m going to go with. I also like that it includes instructions on how to make your own piping, because I’m totally doing that with an old, holey blanket that I was just going to throw out.
Rearrange so that there is room for my little blue chair somewhere in the room.
Possibly get a chest (more drawers?) to hold linens to put at the end of the bed.
Put up coat rack behind door.

Whew. I could have spent the whole summer just on my room, it seems. We’ll see how this goes.

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Doubt and Disagreeement

Posted in Church on June 9, 2014| 17 Comments »

[Some content is possibly triggery, particularly concerning LGBT issues and rape. Also, there might be an unpleasant metaphor/word or two. This is not a charming post.]

[It is also not a very organized post. Given the topic, maybe that’s appropriate. Maybe it’s best to think of it as a post in progress.]

It’s hard to find a church where doubt is welcome. By doubt, I mean anything from “I’m not sure what to make of that verse” to “I’m not sure I believe in God anymore.” And by welcome, I don’t mean “Let us know your doubt so that we can squash it with scripture and a super intense prayer meeting and all be really disappointed in you when that doesn’t immediately work.” Don’t get me wrong – I’m not opposed to scripture or super intense prayer meetings. I just don’t think that’s always (read: hardly ever) the best way to approach doubt.

Doubt must be voiced. Voicing doubt is not necessarily stirring up contention or starting an argument; it might just be an invitation to explore more deeply. Voicing doubt is not necessarily the absence of faith; in fact, it might be an expression of faith. Voicing doubt might be the child that asks the repeating “Why?” – might be curiosity and wonder instead of rebellion and angst. Voicing doubt also might be rebellion and angst, but as anyone who has raised (or been) a teenager can attest, that, too, is a natural part of development.

And some things really deserve our rebellion.

Doubt is normal.

Disagreement is the not the same thing as doubt, but sometimes the church treats it like it is. The main difference I have had with the (Protestant, evangelical, Bible Belt) churches I’ve attended is the way we read the Bible. Most of the churches of which I’ve been a part take a pretty linear, literal reading of the Bible. And that would be fine as long as this viewpoint didn’t come with a side helping of “my opinion is the truth, and you are in rebellion, deceived, or insert your phrase of choice for ‘not as real a Christian as the rest of us’ here.”

I don’t have a lot of problems with Jesus. Oh, I have words with Jesus. We wrestle and fight over things. Sometimes, he’s not so talkative. I think he likes to vacation a lot. But I am lucky in that I seldom ever come away from hashing things out with Jesus feeling like an outsider.

I wish I could say the same of his church.

What inspires doubt in me? Other Christians who require me to believe that what God speaks to them is truer and more important than what God speaks to me. On a good day, I just doubt the requirement. I doubt the hell out of that. On a good day, I call bullshit on the tyranny of needing to agree, and I go on with my day. But on a bad day – on a day when maybe Jesus hasn’t seemed to be around a lot lately – I need to be able to trust the people around me not to treat me like a project or a pariah. When my Advocate is silent, I need his church to rally around me, even if we don’t agree.

Dear church, I will be the first to say that if linear is the way your mind works, and that’s what moves you and guides you through your course in life, and if you find God that way – great. Even if I disagree with your interpretation, I will try to understand where you are coming from. I will probably voice my disagreement, especially if you seem a little too gleeful for my comfort about the whole Bible-as-sword metaphor, but I can admit my bias – that it comes from being run through with the Good Book more times than I care to recall and so my skittishness is about that, not you. I will neither state nor imply that you are less of a Christian just because you disagree with me or do things differently than the way I do them, because I affirm that the Word of God – that is, Jesus Christ – is alive and well and can use his scriptures as he sees fit even when it makes me uncomfortable. I am happy to affirm you finding God in whatever way possible.

But if we’re going to be in fellowship, I’m gonna need you to reciprocate.

I’ve noticed that the Bible reads differently to me than it does to many of the people around me. When I was younger and I heard someone say, “The Bible clearly says…” I would wonder if we had different Bibles. Did I have an outdated version? Did I need to upgrade? Because the Bible I was reading didn’t seem to be clear about many things.

River Tam understands me.

As I got older, I realized that I just wasn’t reading it the same way. My mind doesn’t seem to be able to fit God into anything linear and clear-cut. It’s not that I don’t believe the Bible or that I don’t think the Bible is true.

It’s just that I believe that fact and truth are different words.

What if for me the Bible isn’t an instruction manual but rather a great work of literature – a story and a song – an allegory for God’s complicated love affair with humanity?

What if for me the Bible isn’t a book of answers but rather a book that inspires questions?

What if the hard stories in the Bible aren’t God telling us what he did – a divine tweet ending with #sorrynotsorry or #idowhatiwant – but rather God poking the bear, awakening our outrage at injustice?

– What if the tragic story of Lot’s daughter is not a story about how it’s so wrong to be gay that it would be better for your virgin daughter to be raped and murdered than to let your guests engage in gay sex(yes, a pastor actually said this from the pulpit…I could not run out of there fast enough) but rather God – a God who sees her and mourns her – telling and re-telling her story for as long as there is a Bible in print to be read?

– What if the story of Bathsheba is not about how God can use someone like David even though he was a murderer and an adulterer (as long as he repents and feels really, really bad about it, of course), or at least, not just about that – but rather God saying, “Hey, this woman was treated like property, and by someone who was called a man after my own heart – what do you think about that? Does that make you angry? And if not, well…shouldn’t it?”

– What if Job isn’t about a God who is so glory-hungry that he destroys everything in the life of his most faithful follower just to prove his dick is bigger than Satan’s but rather about how (not) to respond to a friend in pain and grief?

What if I read the Bible in a way that doesn’t make God out to be the villain instead of the savior?

What if sitting under a big, blue sky, not saying a word, is holy prayer? What if I’m far less worried than you think I should be about falling into worshipping the creation rather than the Creator? What if one thing I do see clearly is the difference between praying to and praying through? Are you willing to believe that I see it even if you don’t? Are you willing to acknowledge God’s right to speak to me as God sees fit, even if it’s not the same way (or even the same thing) God speaks to you?

Do you assume if my path is made of unevenly placed stepping stones masked by the fog of mystery instead of a neatly kept suburban sidewalk that it will all fall apart?

What if it does?

Will you still be around?

Can I trust you, church? Will I ever be able to trust you? Or are you just here to validate my doubt?

I’m linking up with other bloggers on the subject of doubt. Join us by clicking the button below.

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How The Bangles Saved Me From Purity Culture – guest post for Jane Halton

Posted in Church, Music, Roots on April 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I love it in your room at night
You’re the only one who gets through to me.

My sister and I grew up with a family friend (we’ll call her G). She was a few years older than I, and we both looked up to her. She taught us how to put on makeup the cool way (glitter shadow, shiny lip gloss – basically everything sparkly). She kept us informed on who the hottest heartthrobs were.

She introduced us to The Bangles.

Jump over to Jane Halton’s blog to read the rest.