There are Two Kinds of People in the World …

... People Who Put People Into Neat Categories And People Who Do Not.

I say that, of course, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. And yet, at the same time, I dare put forth this theory: there are two kinds of people in the world – people who need answers and people who need questions.

Don’t hear that as a criticism; for me, it’s simply anecdotal truth. Over the years, I’ve observed it in others but mostly I recognize it in myself. I was shaped by a strong conservatism – social, political and theological – and I still see the value of conserving healthy values and productive practices. I freely confess that I am conservative: I tend to take the same route to the same grocery store where I know where things are. I like the brands that I like and resist changing what I’m used to unless there is some really good reason for it.

But then on the other hand, I’ve long seen this bold liberal streak in me. If something can be done a more efficient way then I say: “Go for it.” When introduced to new ideas, I’m curious; I want to know more and if I see value in new thoughts, I’m happy to adjust my beliefs or change my mind. So don’t hear my thesis as a criticism because I realize I am at the same time a person who yearns for answers and a person who thirsts for questions. 

In my own journey, as I have outgrown my childhood assumptions, it has been the questions that have saved my soul. Since I am a minister, the concept of “soul saving” may need some unpacking: when I talk about salvation, I’m using an ancient understanding that speaks of healing and wholeness. So for me, the salvation of doubting, questioning and challenging represent a kind of rescue from smallness, arrogance and mediocrity. Questions open up the world. Questions open up my internal space. Questions may not accomplish wholeness by themselves but I believe they lead us on a path toward a more complete, holistic way of being in the world. But even as I firmly believe all of us are multi-faceted, "both-and" humans, I also hold to my theory: some people do questions better than others. 

When I was a minister serving in local congregations, I used to train my youth workers: “Your job is not to give our young people answers; especially your answers. Your job is to help them ask good questions; to find their best questions.” A few years ago, when I saw another church in the neighborhood post a sign in its front yard: “Come here for the answers to your questions,” I wanted to rush back to my church and post a sign that said: “Come here to question your neat answers.” My theory stands; I’m pretty sure some people would be absolutely repelled by my message while others would be intrigued and relieved to find such a safe, wide place.

But then I think about my other statement: “There are two kinds of people in the world: people who put people into neat categories and people who don’t.” It seems to me that putting labels on one another often tempts us to think we have them all figured out; that in turn tempts us to judge them. All of which is fruitless and foolish. Not to mention a completely inadequate way to be in relationship with anyone else.

As I do my work these days with the Coffee Party USA (one cyberspace effort to foster civil conversation around social and political issues), what I am recognizing (yet again) is that there are many, many thoughtful, generous people in this country whose lives are sparked by curiosity. There are many who share my thirst for questions. But I'm also seeing (yet again) how very easy it is to ask questions with our answers already in view. And I'm seeing how very easy it is to judge other people for both their answers and their questions. Our national dialogue is often contentious, suspicious and cruel.

Instead of judging and categorizing, how about we figure out how to give people permission to be on whatever journey they are on? Whether we prefer questions or answers, whether we are male or female, whether we are gay or straight or black or brown or white or blue or red or old or young, how about we figure out how to let each other be? And how about we figure out how to be patient and kind toward those who haven’t figured this out yet?

            We all are on our own journey, proceeding at our own pace, and no two people are ever in the same place at the same time. We are toddling along and I know for me, it would have done no good for anyone to force the questions before I was ready; I believe the right questions come in their own time. But what has done a huge amount of good for me is to have people in my circle who live life large and love me/accept me even in my smallness; even with my baby steps. It has been a huge relief to find in other people a wide place where questions are safe.

As we all continue to figure out how to be in relationship with each other in this fractured and fragmented society of ours, how about we figure out how to love.
Love life, love the questions, love the answers, love the journey, love one another. In the passionate words of Maya Angelou:

We are weaned from our timidity


In the flush of love's light

           we dare be brave…

Charlotte Vaughan Coyle, 2014

Charlotte explores intersections of faith, culture and politics from her place as a Christian minister, a student of culture and a political observer with Coffee Party USA.

Maya Angelou poem: Touched by an Angel

Reflections on the Anniversary of my Ordination

Seventeen years ago, in a small white clapboard church building, I received my ordination into Christian ministry.

 It was ordination not into my particular denomination, even though the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had prepared me and affirmed me for this calling. Rather my ordination designated me as a minister representing the whole body of Christ in service to the world. Then again, my personal understanding of my call comes from Ephesians: pastors are gifted by the Spirit “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity…”

I sense a contradiction here. Is the pastor called to serve the world? Or is the pastor’s work to equip the church to serve the world? Are sermons always preaching to the choir? Or is there really a way to proclaim the good news of God made known in Jesus Christ to people who don’t know? Or all of the above?

Seventeen years ago, I was amazed and grateful to find myself a minister in a local congregation with my name on the door and a place in the pulpit. I never would have imagined. Now, seventeen years later, I am pondering what it means to find myself a minister without a church or a pulpit. These are days for self-reflection and evaluation. These are days for re-imagining and dreaming. What does it mean to be a minister outside the church box?

I’m remembering my first life. I was a starched, hopeful RN in my polished white shoes. I remember well the instructions from my first Director of Nursing as I prepared for my first ever nursing job: “White hose, white uniform, white hat. You know – just look like a nurse.” I remember the sometimes intimidating awareness that, as I walked those long hallways in my white shoes, behind every door there was a real person with a real story and some real need. I’m sure I made a difference for some: kind words and gentle smiles and encouragements always make some kind of a difference. But I became exhausted jumping through the hoops of the patriarchal doctors and the profiteering administrators so that finally I walked down that long hallway and out the door. That’s when I discovered community nursing, wearing blue jeans to the volunteer pre-natal clinic we created, working on the front line with passionate collaborators to do something fresh and creative; to put even a small patch on those endless gaping holes that are so prevalent in our society.

Is this where I am again?

Much has been written about clergy burnout in recent days; about the number of people who leave the ministry; about the suicide rates, heart attacks and depression of those who invest their lives in service to the church and then find themselves and their work disrespected and dismissed. I know a lot about that - as did my father before me.

Of course there is burnout in plenty of other professions as well. Of course the work is hard, challenging, even intimidating in healthcare fields, social services vocations, criminal justice systems. There seems to be something about the personalities of people who go into these areas of work: we are the helpers, the fixers, the martyrs and we flock to the jobs where we feel like we can make a difference in the lives of people.

But as difficult as it is for me to carry the pain and suffering of people given into my care, that’s not really the part that drags me down and chokes the life out of me. Rather it’s the startling disconnect between sharing in one person’s pathos while at the same time enduring another person’s apathy. I remember a church Board meeting: I sat in the room with a heart burdened over the disintegrating marriage of a couple who desperately needed faith and community and hope. But the discussion of the church leaders that evening centered around the dirty coffee cups that had been left in the kitchen sink. I remember the criticism of a woman who said my cross dangle ring distracted her whenever I broke the bread at the Lord’s Table.

“What the heck am I doing here?!” I asked myself.

And then - I sit with women at the local homeless shelter, exploring how the Bible connects (or maybe doesn’t connect) with the challenges of their lives. I serve communion to a gay couple who had no idea church could be a safe and welcoming community. I figure out how to schedule marriage counseling sessions around a couple’s jail time.  I blog my thoughts about intersections between faith, culture and politics into a secular cyberspace community and I hear people comment that they had no idea Christian ministers could be inclusive and open-minded.

“Where is your passion?” I have asked my own children. “What is it that feeds your soul and gives you energy? Go there. Follow that.” This mother voice is now encouraging me to believe in my passion even in the midst of discouragement and lethargy. I’m trying to listen.

And I’m learning to trust – yet again. When I stopped trying to “look like a nurse,” when I walked away from the hospital box, I had no idea what a large world awaited me. When I took the fork in the road to ordination and walked away from the fundamentalist box of my youth, I had no idea how large the whole church of Jesus Christ would be. 

Now ordained ministry takes another turn and I can’t see beyond the bend ahead of me. The box that once seemed so large now feels too small.

I have loved ministry. I just don't know what a minister out of the box looks like right now. 

                                             And where will this go?

     God only knows.

Charlotte Vaughan Coyle, 2014

Ordained at First Christian Church Allen 

October 12, 1997

Faith, Culture and Politics

In October, I was honored to join Coffee Party radio for a discussion about Faith, Culture and Politics. This is tricky. 

Whereas just a few years ago Evangelical Christians resisted political involvement now, in less than fifty years, “Christian” = “Republican” = “Religious Right” in the conventional wisdom. These days there are so many conservative political figures and outspoken lobbying groups that wear the name “Christian” that we progressive Christians have been thrown into that same bathwater and nearly thrown out of the public conversation. But there is an appropriate place for the minority voice in our national discourse and for the advocacy of a different kind of Christian other than those who have grabbed center stage.

In our radio conversation, we began by discussing the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I take this very seriously because the protection of religious freedom is a huge gift our founding fathers gave to us. As a person of faith and a Christian minister, I come at the First Amendment from two different angles.

First, for this country that I love, I want all our citizens to realize the freedom to practice faith the way they best understand it and I’m proud that America’s insistence on this principle has been unusual in the history of the world; freedom of religion is one of our great strengths.

Of course, as a people, we have not lived up to our principles very well. The spirituality of the Native Americans was disrespected from our very beginnings. The enslaved Africans were forced to give up their religions in order to convert to a perverted version of Christianity that justified slavery. Asian immigrants were suspect because of the way they practiced their faith; Catholics were mistreated by the WASP culture of the day; Jews have been vilified and demonized; Muslims are still struggling to find their place in the midst of today’s paranoia.

I realize that what I’m describing here are not legal issues that hearken back to the government’s role as described in the Bill of Rights but rather some of the cultural realities of our society. I’m describing divisions that happen within the human family just because we are human. But the genius of the First Amendment is that our various governments are charged with protecting all religious freedom; not only should our laws not favor one religion over another but they also must not “prohibit the free exercise” of religion. In a multi-cultural society such as ours, that has to refer to people who hold a wide range of spiritual beliefs and participate in a variety of religious practices.

Christians who want to claim that America is a “Christian nation” founded on “Christian principles” and therefore justified in continuing Christian privilege skew American history. While it is true that the Founding Fathers were all a part of some kind of Christian denomination or another that was because Christianity was simply the culture of the day. I don’t believe America was founded on Christianity, because it is clear that the Founders were very intentional about moving away from the model they were used to, the model so common in England. They yearned for a new way and so they debated and comprised and came up with this brilliant plan that the government should not use its power to establish one religion over another, one denomination over another, one ideology over another.

That said - it is also true that Christianity has been the dominant religion in America since our beginnings and it is hard, hard, hard for humans to give up their privileges and advantages. I guess all in all it’s been an easier thing for the courts to gradually chip away at Christian privilege instead of trying to change the culture in one dramatic sweep. But then - on the other hand - the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act did force sweeping cultural changes – and I see that as a good thing. In my mind, protecting the rights of the minority in spite of the wishes of the dominant culture is a proper role of government.

I know that some Christians feel like they are being persecuted because the culture is shifting and they are losing their privilege and influence. I’m sorry people feel that way; just because a group is losing power doesn’t mean they are being persecuted.  I like to use the metaphor of a family dinner table. The people who have had the most access to the table need to be gracious enough to move over and make room for everyone to have a place. In Christian lingo, we would say: “the first shall be the last and the greatest shall be the least.”

In a society like ours that values the freedom of speech as much as it values the freedom of religion that has to mean that all citizens are invited into the national conversation. Religious and non-religious, progressive and conservative, rich and poor, Black and White and Brown: citizens can and must speak and vote and write letters, sometimes even protest. These are just a few of the ways all of us can continue to grow and learn how to live well together.

It helps me to think of it like this: we express our opinions, we listen to someone who has different opinions, we respect them and their beliefs, we re-think our own beliefs and often fine tune them, then we come back to the conversation with integrity and humility. (Humility – a big one! And a really difficult one!)

The government cannot prohibit the participation of anyone in this large cultural conversation and we the people should not shut down each other’s voices either.

But then there is second angle on the First Amendment that is important to me: as strongly as I feel about Americans being able to practice religion as they see fit, as a pastor, I am even more concerned that Christians should actually live out the faith of Jesus Christ with more faithfulness, and I am very concerned about the ways Christian faith is compromised whenever it is wed inappropriately to civic faith. For example, when Christians are so enamored of capitalism that we can’t critique the inequitable distribution of wealth within our nation - then the teachings of Christ are ignored and Christian faith is compromised. When Christians join in the mindless drumbeat for war - then the example of Christ is lost and Christian faith is compromised.

The people who raised me and influenced me when I was growing up were all very conservative - theologically, socially and politically. It wasn’t until I was able to think for myself and ask hard questions that I began to shift my beliefs. But change is hard work - even though it is very important work.

I know a lot of good, kind conservative people who don’t necessarily believe that change is good; their definition of faithfulness is to avoid change. Or maybe they just can’t allow themselves to question what they have always believed to be true; I know from experience questions can be very scary.

But it was only when I gave myself permission to question the narrow dogma of my childhood that I was able to grow into a broader, more inclusive understanding of Christianity. And interestingly, that shift directly affected my social values: how I believe we should treat each other as people living together in a society. For example, when - as a woman - I followed my call into ordained ministry, (something my fundamentalist upbringing would never have allowed) there was no way I could deny the same opportunity for ordination and full inclusion in the church to my gay brothers and sisters. Now that I’m not serving in any particular congregation, I am freer to advocate openly for political approaches to the social issues I care about; for example, full inclusion of our gay neighbors into our society including marriage equality. For me, such radical welcome IS the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And if it is good news to Christians, then it ought to be good news for everyone.

Some of my Christian friends may wonder if I’m really Christian at all. Some of my Coffee Party friends wonder why I even still bother with Christianity given its very poor reputation these days. But this is who I am, deep in my core, and I cannot betray it; I can only hope to live my faith in such a way that its circle of goodness and grace might touch the people and the situations of my wider world.

Feed the hungry.

Welcome the stranger.

Free the oppressed.

Speak out for the least of these.

Give without expecting return.

Trust. Persevere. Love.

These actions flow from my faith but also from values that I share with the Coffee Party USA - Civility, Continuous Learning, Authenticity & Transparency, Integrity & Clarity, Inclusiveness, Trans-partisan social and political bridge building.

I hope I will always be alert to ways I may be inappropriately wedding Christian faith to patriotism or nationalism; that’s always a deadly marriage. But I also hope I will ever be alert to the ways that faith and hope and love can help nudge my culture and my nation to greater wisdom and wholeness.

Charlotte Vaughan Coyle, 2014.

This essay is excerpted from Press 1 for Democracy, Coffee Party Blogtalk Radio, October 6, 2014: Faith, Culture and Politics.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/coffeepartyusa/2014/10/07/faith-culture-and-politics--p1fd-10614