Birthday Musings

So it's my birthday - one of those milestone birthdays. The birthday when I give up my student health insurance and begin to participate in Medicare. (I think it is a delightful irony that I go straight from student to senior. And don't get me started on how every American at any age ought to be able to buy in to something like Medicare.)

So I'm musing about celebrating birthdays. 

I can remember some years past when I didn't want to celebrate. I didn't feel like my life was meaningful enough, significant enough, not worthy of celebration. I didn't want the reminder that I wasn't successful, wealthy and well known. Celebrating seemed undeserved if I felt I hadn't done "enough" with my life.

Turns out I was mistakenly trying to celebrate myself as a human doing instead of as a human being. 

On this birthday, I'm very much aware that I'm living in an odd window between post-op and pre-op. Some days I still get grumpy about my inconvenient life. Some days I spend way too much energy dealing with body functions and wishing this wasn't my life. 

But it is my life. And most days I am able to live with gratitude at the simple grace of living.

This year, instead of fretting about whether I have done enough with my life, I want to settle into the being. Content to be. To be alive. 

To be as healthy as I am. 

To be married to such an amazing partner. 

To be parent and grandparent of such amazing children. 

To be surrounded by such amazing friends. To be enfolded in the Goodness of a Grace-Full God. 

To be Here. Alive. Today.

More than enough. 

I love the Beatles' reminder: Let it be. Let it be. Let it be. Let it be. 

Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be.

I didn't do anything to deserve all the grace that has poured into my life today.

So today I choose not to do anything to mar the beauty of it.

I'll just let it be. 

On this birthday I will celebrate my human being. 

Reflections on Ministry in Cyberspace

OMG. People.

My website registered over 8400 reads on the blog I published yesterday. Another 2100+ already today. (My previous best day was 5100.) The Coffee Party Facebook page shows over 4000 likes and 1400 shares. It's been tweeted and re-tweeted. It's been commented on, criticized, condemned and praised. It has found its way around the globe. And I have followers; 90 something people who actually signed up because (evidently) they care to hear what I have to say.

OMGoodnessGraciousSakesAlive.
My mind is boggled.

Since I'm not serving a local church these days, blogging is my ministry and cyberspace is my parish. It's an amazing world.

I've been thinking about my journey from Church of Christ fundamentalist Christianity to Disciples of Christ progressive Christianity. I'm ever so grateful for the grace that led me to this wider world. One of the things that attracted me to Disciples in the first place is the ecumenical and inter-faith commitments that keep nudging me to widen my boundaries, to keep my edges flexible, to work with whomever wants to be an ally, to remember that Truth is a rainbow that will never fit into anyone's pocket.

I've been thinking about the diversity of our congregations. One of the things I love about church is the range of opinions, beliefs and perspectives present in the people there; differences that are personal, theological, social and political. I love when folks live and work together in this mix and figure out how to keep on caring for one another in hands-on, practical ways.

I've been thinking about how - even with all this welcomed expansion - I still live in a bubble. My cyberspace "parish" is teaching me how small my world really is.

I first got into this work through my friendship with Egberto Willies - a popular blogger, political activist, passionate Humanist, thoughtful analyst. When he first heard that I am a minister and a Democrat, he stopped short. When he heard that this minister supports marriage equality, he pulled out his camera to document the anomaly. Egberto didn't know this kind of Christian even existed and he insisted that the people in his cyberspace circles would also be amazed to hear such a voice.

I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.

Every time I publish a blog pondering intersections of faith and politics, I hear comments like:

Wow, a real Christian...
Finally, a Christian who actually sounds like Christ...
I gave up on Christianity but you are restoring my faith...

Every single time it happens, it astounds me to realize how many people "out there" are not hearing any kind of authentic witness to the truly good news of God made known in Jesus Christ. All they ever hear in the name of Christ is judgment and condemnation. I guess we all live in some kind of bubble.

So I wonder - how do we progressive Christians keep enlarging our own worlds of experience, our own circles of friendships in order to intersect and inhabit these separated spheres? How do we keep speaking our truth and sharing our voices in this large, global conversation?

Church folks hear a lot these days about getting out of our buildings and out of our bubbles and into the wide spaces of the world. We hear about the importance of bold witness of love and welcome. We hear about risking our safety and security in order to invest ourselves in the wild life of the Spirit.

I'm here to agree how very much this needs to happen. I'm here to tell you that the precious Nones and Dones who are a part of my cyberspace parish are wondering where we are. They are wondering when the "other kind of Christian" is going to show up, speak up and stand up. There's a whole world of people out there who don't even know we exist.

But I don't know how to tell anyone else how to do that showing up, speaking up, standing up thing.

My own cyberspace ministry just fell into my lap and I've wondered many times: Why? Why me? I know other people who could do this so much better than I. But for some reason, this work of blogging and musing and intersecting has been given to me, and I will do what I can as long as it is mine to do.

Since I'm not serving a local church these days, I have freedom to speak truth as I see it. I'm done talking the fine line. I'm finished protecting the status quo. I'm tired of worrying about offending. I'm ready to rock some boats.

I figure if Spirit is behind this WhoWouldHaveThunkIt ministry of mine, there just may be a NeverWouldHaveImagined ministry for some of you as well.

My Living in The Story blogs keep discovering that Holy Surprises have always been the Way of the Divine. Damascus Roads and Parted Seas; Impossible Pregnancies and Improbable Heroes; Unexpected Sustenance and Unlikely Saviors.

I wonder if we keep being surprised about this because we keep forgetting that God always does whatever God will do with whomever God wants in whichever ways God chooses. We keep forgetting God is still speaking light into every darkness, Spirit is still hovering over every chaos, Christ is still redeeming every hopelessness - with or without us.

There is no place where God is not. And wherever God is, is holy ground.
Across cyberspace, under bridges, over backyard fences, even in churches.
It's an amazing world shot through with amazing grace.
And I'm glad to be one tiny part of it.




http://egbertowillies.com/
Egberto's Charlotte interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB74rb3EemU

Coffee Party USA Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty?fref=nf

Charlotte blogs about Intersections of Faith, Culture and Politics at www.charlottevaughancoyle.com
Charlotte blogs about progressive understandings of Scripture at www.livinginthestory.com

Wedding of Scott Bell and Valentin Fleitas

We are gathered here today to witness the promises that Scott Wayne Bell and Valentin Javier Fleitas will make to each another. We are gathered here to affirm your love, to applaud your faithfulness and to acknowledge your commitment to one another

Prayer

Holy Source of all that is Good and Beautiful,
Today we celebrate your Love and Grace so obviously present in the lives of Scott and Valentin.
Thank you that we are able to gather here in this time and place to fully affirm their love as good and beautiful.
Bless us. Bless them so that we all may live lives of love and grace.
May each of our lives also be a source of that which is good and beautiful.
Amen.

Charge

This is pretty amazing, isn’t it? We are all pleasantly surprised to find ourselves standing here in Lamar County Texas witnessing these particular marriage vows. Valentin and Scott, I will sign your marriage license and you will file it with the County Clerk and you will be legally married. That’s pretty wonderful. But we’ve talked about - even as grand as that legal reality is - it is still only a contract; you can break it or even make it null and void.

So this ceremony that you have chosen does more than witness a legal contract. You have asked me, a minister of the gospel and a spiritual counselor, to stand here with you in order to remind you that your promises to each other are more binding than any contractual agreement. The vows you will make today are covenant promises of love made in the Presence and by the Grace of the Source of All Love.

There are some wonderful words in the Christian Scriptures about love. They come from First Corinthians 13.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not
envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

Note that this description does not talk about how love feels. Some days you will not feel warm and fuzzy toward each other as you do today. Some days you may even be tempted to walk away from this relationship. Because marriage is hard. It may be the hardest thing we ever do.

So these words remind us that, no matter how we feel on any given day, in a relationship of love we choose to act with loving acts, we choose to live with loving attitudes. We develop habits of patience and kindness and humility. We make commitments to bear with one another and to believe in one another and to constantly live in the assurance of hope that we are better together than we ever could be apart. 

This kind of love only comes from the Holy Source of All Love and when you live in love like this, when your marriage is based on love like this, no one can ever justly say your relationship is not holy and sacred.

Yes, marriage is hard work, but it’s some of the most mysteriously beautiful work we ever do.

The Promises

I take you to be my husband.
I promise before God and these witnesses to be
your loving and faithful husband,
in plenty and in want;
        in joy and in sorrow;
        in sickness and in health;
        as long as we both shall live.

The Rings

I give you this ring
as a symbol of the covenant between us
and as a reminder of my great love for you.

The Pronouncement of Marriage

It is with great joy that I pronounce – as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and by the authority of the State of Texas and because of the wisdom of the United States Constitution - that you are now married.

Congratulations Scott and Valentin Bell-Fleitas

http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/Same-sex-couple-ties-the-knot-in-Paris-park-311888801.html#.VZsoFhmwXtI.facebook

Confessions of a Reluctant Patriot

My husband put up our flag for the Fourth of July and came back into the house singing the Star Spangled Banner. His song irritated me and I was surprised to realize how ambivalent I feel about the national anthem and about this flag waving to me from my front yard. 

Maybe it’s our checkered past.

I stood on the portico of our County Courthouse this weekend and took my turn reading aloud the Declaration of Independence. It fell to me to read the paragraph complaining about the ways King George “excited domestic insurrections amoungst us, and endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontier, the merciless Indian Savages...” Never mind the fact that Europeans mercilessly slaughtered and displaced the Native Peoples as we took over the New World. Never mind the merciless savagery inherent in every war – even our war for independence.

It was timely that I had read Mark Charles’ blog just that morning, Reflections from the Hogan: The Dilemma of the Fourth of July. A wise, bold Native American blogger, Charles calls us to remember our shared history with all its complexity. Even as we proclaim that “all men are created equal,” we must also acknowledge how many years it has taken this nation to grow toward the understanding that “all” means all.

Maybe it’s our blind practice of national religion.

Although I go to church most Sundays, I doubt I will ever again be in church on July 4 weekend. As a minister, I am deeply troubled by the way American Christianity has been co-opted by a civil religion. In sanctuaries across the nation, sacred symbols stand side by side with the American flag - an honorable political symbol, but completely out of place among worshipers whose allegiance to community is called to transcend all national boundaries.

As a minster who served local congregations for almost twenty years, I got into all sorts of trouble for expressing my opinion that appropriate worship should never include veneration of a flag or a nation. An evangelical pastor colleague tells of finding a threatening note tucked into his hymnal after voicing his views within his church. David Henson blogged about this issue just last week: Is Patriotism a Christian Value? he pondered. Henson suggests that appropriate patriotic celebrations within a Christian context should “honor all those dissenting voices (often inspired by Christian faith) over the centuries that have dragged the nation closer to embodying its stated values of equality and justice…”

I will be happy to recite the pledge and sing our anthem at the fireworks show this Fourth of July; that’s an excellent and appropriate venue. But I will “preach” to anyone who will listen how crucial it is for religious people to keep church and state separate. And now that I’m not serving a local congregation, I doubt I will ever again be in church on a July 4 weekend.

Maybe it’s our checkered present.

Yes, America (finally) abandoned our original sin of slavery, but I grieve the ways we allow the underlying sin of racism to skew our society. White supremacy is still very much a thing all across America. Some people live out that value with brazen, dangerous animosity: a horrific massacre in a sanctuary, Black churches torched, people of color targeted by undisciplined police and then incarcerated disproportionately by an often unjust justice system. Other people live out their belief in white privilege more politely. “Benevolent racism” I call it – feeling (and often expressing) discomfort and distain whenever some people speak different languages, practice different religions or celebrate different holidays.

So I understand why I am ambivalent about my patriotism. Much of America is a mixed bag and many Americans are blind to that truth. But my good husband reminded me that the ideal is indeed beautiful. Our national anthem sings of the spirit of resilience within our people. Our national flag signals the unity inherent within the diversity of our people. America is a dream, a hope, an aspiration. Maybe not a dream come true - not yet. Maybe not ever. But it’s still worth believing in. And it’s absolutely worth working for.

So I guess my challenge to myself is to get over my funky ambivalence and get to work. I will march with my NAACP friends in our local parade and then keep partnering together for our community. I will write letters to my local newspaper and to my elected officials. I will do what I can to help my little piece of America live up to its ideals and to grow into its dream. I will do what I can to “drag this nation closer to embodying its stated values of equality and justice…” I will do what I can; that’s all any of us can do. 

Letter to The Paris News

Of the many things for which I am grateful about this great nation of ours, the continued wisdom to keep separate church and state is close to the top. As a Christian minister, I am troubled by the way some Christians speak as if this secular nation should be governed by the Bible instead of the Constitution.

Of course the recent Supreme Court ruling that affirms the right to marriage for gay and lesbian Americans is troubling to some Christians who have a different understanding of marriage based on their particular interpretation of the Bible. But faithful Christians have always had a wide range of opinions about numerous issues and the United States Constitution is not captive to any of our opinions. 

The job of the Supreme Court is not to interpret Scripture but rather to interpret the Constitution and to ensure that our laws reflect the ideals of fairness and justice for all citizens. I understand these ideals of equity and justice to be profoundly humane as well as deeply biblical; that is why, as a Christian minister, I applaud the SCOTUS decision.

If some ministers choose not to perform same sex weddings, that is their right. But many others of us are grateful that our religious rights now include the legal right to sign the marriage license for couples who are committing themselves to a faithful relationship because of their self-giving love. 

Equity. Justice. Love. How much more “biblical” can it get?

July 2, 2015

Rev. Charlotte Coyle is an ordained minister within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She lives in Paris and blogs about the Intersections of Faith and Culture at charlottevaughancoyle.com.