Running on Faith

Preached at Prescott American Baptist Church

August 18, 2013

Hebrews 11: 29-12:2

I have been thinking about and praying for Prescott this week. It is on my mind: this plan for you to engage in discernment and prayer, seeking God’s guidance for some decisions and possible future joint relationship with Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. 

Discernment involves honesty about your needs, challenges and fears. Congregational discernment includes feeling secure enough as a community to create safe space for all voices to be lifted and all concerns to be respectfully received. Discernment allows for silence, even God’s silent response. Discernment demands time and patience. 

I must say, from my point of view, this is a very exciting time for Prescott. I don’t think any one of you pretends to know where Prescott is going or what needs to be done. I suspect that each Prescott member has a heart for one direction or another, one decision over others. Yet you seem to be willing to come together, to pray, to open your hearts, to listen and accept that, in not really knowing the answer or the best way, you might discover a new way to be Prescott, a new way to live out your faith, a new way to be closer to the heart of God. 

In last week's sermon I focused on the reality of the Spirit alive and at work within and among us. I urged all of us to be less afraid and more courageous. This week I want to mention other realities like: paying a preacher, decreasing attendance at Sunday worship, constant struggle to meet the congregation’s budgetary requirements. Along with fear of being swallowed up by another (larger) congregation, fear of losing your identity as a people, fear of making a mistake and living with regret.

While we all acknowledge that the Spirit of God is within and among us--These  other realities also live in a very real way in the life of Prescott and it faith, its ministries, its history and its inheritance. 

One day this week I had reason to drive east on Walnut Grove, beyond the Germantown Parkway exit. I don’t remember ever doing that before, ever going that far east on Walnut Grove.  I was stunned by the number of huge churches I saw along the way. Covenant United Methodist Church is mammoth. Then there’s a gargantuan First Assembly of God that appears to include a school. Although I have heard about Hope Presbyterian for many years, my jaw dropped when I actually saw it for the first time! Life Church is huge and pristine. Then there’s a Christian school, Briarcrest Academy, which amazes me with its size. 

These big churches make smaller churches, like Prescott and so many others, wonder: Are we CHURCH in the same way that those huge faith communities are CHURCH? Have we failed the community in some way that we have not grown and grown over the years? Or have we somehow been so faithful to God’s call that we are small and surviving by divine design? 

Hebrews, the epistle where today’s lectionary text was found, is a challenge to interpret. Scholars cannot be sure who the author is. It is written to a community that the author saw as being in a perilous situation. He urges them to remain faithful, warning them against drifting away from regular worship and prayers or losing confidence in God’s promises. The letter of Hebrews is directed to a community of Christians who still identify with their Jewish heritage. They know the Old Testament or Torah. They are only becoming familiar with the Christian story.

There may be people here at Prescott who are only now becoming familiar with Prescott’s story of courage and faith:

In the 1950’s, Prescott’s membership peaked at 1700. Then in 1967, Prescott opened the doors of the church to people of all races, and although this was an example of Prescott’s pioneering faith in action, that act of inclusion diminished the size of the congregation substantially. When Dr. King came to Memphis in 1968 and was assassinated, Prescott was proud to be represented by its pastor, Rev. Bob Troutman, in the march through Memphis streets. In 1970, Prescott elected two women, Annette Bickers and Evelyn Stell, as deacons. This was newsworthy at the time.

In 1983, Prescott sponsored Tom Walsh and Jimmy Burkeen on a mission trip to the USSR and that became the foundation for the founding of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. That was the same year Prescott affiliated itself with the American Baptists. In 1984, Prescott ordained a woman to pastoral ministry, Dianne Housam-Abbott. In 1987, Prescott became the first Southern Baptist Church in Tennessee to call a female pastor, Nancy Sehested. Continuing its courageous and pioneering acts of good faith, Prescott voted in 1997, to give full membership rights and privileges to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. 

You know these things. Many of you here this morning have held Prescott at the center of your life and heart for most of your life. And if you did not personally live through these events, then you have chosen along the way to identify yourself with Prescott because you also long to be a courageous pioneer in the faith. 

You are a community of followers of Jesus Christ, openly welcoming and accepting all people. In all things you remain open to the Holy Spirit. You are a pioneering and risk taking congregation, a small congregation with a large mission. 

I am simply reminding you of what you already know. You are not alone. You are together in the challenges you face and in the celebration of what you have done in the past.

 With God at your side and in your hearts you have made a difference in this city and the world. Your good will spreads all over the globe. That will continue. You will always be pioneers of the faith because you are motivated by the inheritance that is yours: the love of Christ, the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds you and the passion you have for including all God’s children in the good news of life everlasting. 

The author of Hebrews lists heroes of the faith. One was a prostitute. And another was Jephthah who made a vow to God. Jephthah kept the vow and his daughter lost her life.   Some pioneers of the faith were tortured, stoned, mocked and some were sawn in two—a gruesome and grizzly image. 

You know very well that being faithful does not guarantee purity of heart, peace, prosperity and good health. What it does guarantee is that you are not alone and that your ministries are not without meaning, purpose, and hope. This guarantee holds fast whether your congregation numbers in the thousands or is small enough to fit easily into the life and space of another congregation. 

You may have heard the story of John Stephen Akhwari, the marathon runner from Tanzania who finished last at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. No last-place finisher in a marathon ever finished quite so last. Injured along the way, he hobbled into the stadium with his leg bloodied and bandaged. It was more than an hour after the rest of the runners had completed the race. Only a few spectators were left in the stands when Akhwari finally crossed the finish line. When asked why he continued to run despite the pain, Akhwari replied, "My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me here to finish."

Why race if we are not in it for the trophy? The applause and acclaim? Why be a church if we’re not going to be the biggest and the most amazing congregation in town? Aren’t we running to be the winner of this race? 

The author of Hebrews urges us to run with perseverance the race that is set before us. On Wednesday evening you will gather to pray, to be together and to listen once again for God’s call on this courageous and pioneering congregation. You run your race on faith.

You are people willing to take risks, to do a new thing, willing to discover a new way to be closer to the heart of God. 

Amen

Our Treasure

Preached at Prescott Baptist Church

August 11, 2013

Luke 12:32-40

Fear comes and goes. We’re all afraid of something; if not right now then later on today something will jump up and leave us feeling threatened. Fear comes with being alive and human. The embassies were shut down because of fear of terrorist attacks. More than sixty people were killed at the close of Ramadan in Iraq yesterday. I could go on but you can quickly come up with your own list of frightening events and facts. I feel afraid if I don’t hear from my daughter for more than a couple days.

“Do not be afraid, little flock…” I don’t think Jesus is asking us to be something other than human when he urges us not to be afraid. I think he is inviting us to be more of what it means to be human. 

In his book, The Powers That Be, Walter Wink begins by writing: “This book is unashamedly about things spiritual. It assumes that spiritual reality is at the heart of everything, from photons to supernovas, from a Little League baseball team to Boeing Aircraft. I see spirit—the capacity to be aware of and responsive to God—at the core of every institution, every city, every nation, every corporation, every place of worship.” Every human being—has the capacity to be aware of and responsive to God.

I believe that the Spirit of God directed my eye to see this book by Walter Wink on the shelf at the Memphis Theological library. I believe the Spirit knew it was the right time for me to have the opportunity to read this book. Does that kind of belief make me crazy? In some ways, yes, I am crazy. Crazy in the way the dominant world view sees reality.

On page 17 of Wink’s book he describes “The Materialistic Worldview” as a view of reality that recognizes matter as that which is ultimate. If we can see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it- then it is real. If reason can define and explain it- then it exists. This worldview excludes from reality The Kingdom of God, the very place where we live and find our faith and our courage.

What is real? What reality do we value? We, the resurrection people? Our faith tells us that even death has been conquered by love. Is that real for us, real in a way that sets us apart and helps us have courage when we are threatened?

My next door neighbor, Jeannie, had her laptop stolen a couple weeks ago. The laptop, one she uses for her work as a PR person, was in its place in her upstairs office at home. Before going to bed on a Monday night, Jeannie went out the front door to walk her dog to the corner and back. In the five minutes she was outside, someone came into her house, walked up the creaky stairs, picked up her laptop and its cord and exited through the back yard. The laptop alone was worth about $1200 and when you add the value of all the professional information, documents and pictures included in what Jeannie lost - the value is priceless. Her peace of mind was jeopardized as was ours. 

Frightened. Of course she was frightened. The back door was wide open. Her partner, Phil, was upstairs! Was he hurt? Was someone hiding in the basement? We all tremble with Jeannie—hearing this story. We value our security, our peace of mind and the safety of our home. This is real for all of us. 

And yet, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms.” 

It’s hard for us to seriously entertain the notion of any of us selling our possessions: house, furniture, clothing and cars. Only then to turn around and hand out offerings to the poor, maybe even handing a ten to the man who holds Jeannie’s laptop. That notion doesn’t fit into our worldview because we have been educated and raised in a culture that trains us to see our possessions, our monthly income and all of its purchasing power, as having ultimate value, our treasure. We have come to believe that we have earned what we own. Earning and owning give us the illusion of security, being set apart from the threats of the world.

There was an interesting story in the news yesterday. Candy Stallings, the executive director for a Sexual Assault Service Center in San Bernardino, California was awakened in the night by a call from the police. The service center had been robbed and the thieves had come in through the roof. All of the computer towers and laptops were stolen. Ms Stallings got out of bed and went down to the center and did what needed to be done. Then she went back home to get an hour of sleep before another work day began. She was interrupted by another call from the police. There was something suspicious happening at the center. She got up and went out to meet the police again. This time she was stunned to see all of the laptops and towers returned with a note from the thieves: “We had no idea what we were taking. Here your stuff back. We hope that you guys can continue to make a difference in peoples live. God bless.”

We had no idea what we were taking. No idea. What a confession. What a universal confession of our limitations as finite creatures. We come out of the womb and our lungs fill with oxygen for the first time. We have no idea what oxygen is or how valuable it will be to us from that moment until the last moment we live in these human bodies. We had no idea and yet it was ours and remains freely available to us whether we acknowledge its value—or not. Free to people who live in mansions and free to people who live under the by-pass.

The San Bernardino thieves thought they valued the laptops and computers but they were surprised to learn that they valued the work done at the sexual assault center more than they valued the stolen goods and what those goods might bring to them in terms of cash on the street. There was a conversion experience that night. 

And that’s what Jesus was attempting to inspire on his way to Jerusalem as he talked with his disciples. A conversion experience that would transform the disciples’ world view, set them apart as people whose values and response to fear are different than that of the dominant culture.

Jesus says that God takes pleasure in giving the Kingdom to us. Then, to fully illustrate the reality he sees, he tells them about a master who comes home late at night and puts on an apron and serves the seated slaves.  

The Kingdom of God with all of its ultimate treasure doesn’t belong to us because we work hard and stay out of trouble. The Kingdom of God belongs to us because God takes pleasure in giving it to us. And that is where the disciples were headed as they walked along the road to Jerusalem. They were walking into a new way of understanding life, their possessions, their humanity and their God.

Phyllis Tickle, long time religion editor at Publishers Weekly and a prolific writer about all things churchy and Christian, says: “To be a people set apart we must have a deep understanding of what has set us apart and a daily practice that reminds us of who we are in this place apart. Our children must know the stories of our faith community and they must learn to value the daily practice and the stories.”

We are not expected to live without any fear. That would make us something other than human.  The challenge of our faith is to live as people who are alert for the presence and power of God in every breath we take. It’s a spiritual discipline. The stories of our faith teach us that we are not alone and that fear, even feeling our fear and honestly reflecting on its power in our lives, can be an opportunity to engage in a conversion experience--moving us closer to the God who takes pleasure in giving us The Kingdom. Moving us closer to that which we truly value.

We come together as church to recognize and claim the ultimate treasure of our faith, the steadfast love of God.  Here we realize that we are accepted, valued and loved. Here we are reminded that to exist is to be loved. We are not required to crawl through briars on our knees. We are not asked to give laptops away every Monday evening. We do not have to spend years in a monastery before God notices us. The love of God is our liberation, the open door that can transform our fear to faith.

Nobody can steal the pleasure God takes in giving you the Kingdom. You are safe. This is our treasure.

What is Your Name?

Preached at St Johns United Methodist Church (Memphis)
Summer Preaching Series
(Assignment: Select a children's story and use it along with a scripture text for the sermon. I chose Rumpelstiltskin and Exodus 3:1-15)
July 14, 2013

My name is Elaine. I’m told that my mother chose the name. She liked it because it was not too common and not too unusual. I wouldn’t meet my name coming and going and I wouldn’t be thought odd. At least not because of my name. It wasn’t until I was an adult, pregnant with my own baby and looking in the Dell Book of Baby Names (something I got at the grocery store check-out line,) that I learned what the name “Elaine” means. Light. Bright. Ahh. That fits. I was amazed that my mother, only minutes after meeting me, could have known me so well. 

Through the years there have been those who have given me other names. I have been known by some as the one who gets invited and included. I have been known by others as the one to shun and leave out.  I am recognized as wealthy by some while others would wonder how I get by on what I have in this world. In some situations I might seem the victim and in other situations I appear to have power. You have probably had the same experience. The world around us will do its best to define and categorize us, to name us and identify us according to the needs and pleasures of the world. Home, work, play and out on the sidewalk in the anonymity of the crowd.  If we let them, the people around us, will end our deeply personal and spiritual search for our name, our true identity. 

We come to this earth as we are, perfectly ourselves. And from the moment when we first breathe air into our lungs until the moment we breathe our last, we are living with the forces of sexism, racism, economic injustice, jealousy, resentment, self-doubt and fear. In the midst of this sea of sinful forces, how do we know our own name? How do we learn to recognize and claim the power of our own identity?

Rumpelstiltskin saves the girl (She’s never given a name.) whose father, a poor miller, wanted to impress the king. So he has made an outrageous claim to the king: My daughter can spin straw into gold. Wow! This pleases the king and he demands that the girl get to work. He puts her in a room with straw and a spinning wheel. If the straw has not been spun into gold by morning, she is doomed to die. Notice that it is not the father’s life on the line here. He is apparently off safely doing whatever millers do. We never hear another thing about him. Instead the story leaves us with this girl who has been identified as one capable of doing the impossible. We feel helpless sitting beside her as she stares at all that straw, stifling and trapped.

All of a sudden a little man walks in the room and he spins the straw into gold for her. She gives him her necklace in return. The next night he spins again when the king greedily demands more gold be spun by the girl. She gives her ring for his service. But on the third night when the little man spins straw into gold, the girl has nothing more to give in return and so the little man demands her first born should she and the king marry and have a child. “Of course!” she says. All of this seems unlikely to her.  After all-she was three days ago only a poor miller’s daughter, an ordinary piece of straw herself. 

The king is no dummy. He wants to keep for himself this spinner of gold. So he marries her and she has a child. Sure enough, the little man shows up again and insists that the baby belongs to him. Again the girl is challenged. Is she helpless? Is she only a victim? Her  strategy involves broken hearted sobs  which soften the heart of the little man. “Well, if in three days you can call me by my name—then I will relent and you can keep your child.”

Being the wife of the king, she utilizes her resources and sends royal messengers out into the kingdom in search of the little man’s name. One of the messenger’s overhears a little man singing as he danced around a fire in the woods: “Oh soon I’ll make my royal claim; the queen will never guess my name! Rumpelstiltskin in the wood; she would guess it if she could!” The queen’s messenger left the light of the burning camp-fire and returned to the palace with enough information to redeem the queen. The ordinary straw of her own life and identity became gold when she speaks the name: Could it be, then, Rumpelstiltskin? Ahhh. We are so satisfied by this ending! The nameless girl becomes the smart girl, the queen, and she leaves helplessness behind.

In the scripture story from the book of Exodus, we find Moses standing beside a fire while keeping sheep for his father-in-law. A bush is burning. A bush that oddly enough is not burning away. In the light of this strange fire, Moses hears the sound of his name. And he is called to do the impossible. “Go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” Who am I? Moses wants to know. He reminds God, the one who is calling from the burning bush, about his speech problem, his manslaughter charge back in Egypt and his deep longing to live in peace with his family. An ordinary life in Midian is not so bad. 

But the light of the fire burns on and Moses is feeling challenged. Is he not the victim any longer, the baby in the basket at the mercy of pharaoh’s fears and jealousy? Is he no longer the outcast running from Egypt and pharaoh’s palace where he was a foster child never really belonging in the first place? The bush burns and pressure mounts for Moses to respond. He is being challenged to accept a new identity, to become somebody he is not—not yet.

“Well,” and we feel Moses’ frustration as he asks, “Who are you and what is your name? If I were to return to Egypt, who shall I say has sent me?” 

And God responds from the light of the fire: I am who I am. Tell them you have been sent by I am. 

It seems to be enough information. Moses begins his journey, living into his true identity; becoming the person he was created to be before the sins of this world caused him to see himself as something less than who he was. Moses moved into a deep relationship with God and he moved God’s people out of captivity and into freedom. The ordinary straw of his life was spun into gold. 

Our God is a liberating God. The story that brings us together for worship today (and every Sunday throughout the year) is a story of a redeeming and liberating God. We have placed our faith in a God who names us, claims us and sets us free to be co-creators with God—to take the ordinary straw of our lives and spin it into gold with God’s love as our inspiration. We identify ourselves as people who are moving toward the Promised Land with the God of love and life who created us and created the Promises that keep us moving forward with hope. 

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to go to Tijuana on a mission trip with the feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and nine other women. We saw first-hand the United States Border Patrol. We saw the walls, multiple walls that our tax money has built, each one with gaps and each one costing millions of dollars. We went into Tijuana, the television making capital of the world. The television in your home was most likely made by workers, probably women, in Tijuana.  Many of the men leave their wives and children in Tijuana and they go north with hope that they might find the Promised Land. 

So the women work in factories owned by citizens of the United States. These factories are called miguiladoras.  Women work long hours for very little pay in these maguiladoras. You and I own televisions, toasters, radios and cell phones made by our neighbors to the south. These women faithfully go to work, leaving their children in huts and shanties, breathing air, drinking water and playing in sand made dangerous and toxic by the pollution created by the waste from the maquiladoras where they work. The women work with a Velcro band around their wrist. When they need to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water the band is removed and the time- clock stops. They are not paid while taking care of their human needs. 

Nameless women, put in positions where they are asked to do the impossible. Provide for your family and keep them safe while the very factory where you work is spewing pollution in to the air, water and soil. 

On our mission trip we had the privilege of meeting the twelve women of the Tijuana Colectivo. They are mothers who want a safe environment for their children. They are women who have devoted themselves to the struggle for justice. They are committed to exposing the illegal practices of the maquiladoras. Globalization gives corporations the freedom to move around the world seeking cheaper labor and more lax environmental regulations. There are environmental regulations in Tijuana but those regulations often have no teeth, no one to see that they are enforced. Because after all—these neighbors to the south of us are simply straw, ordinary poor people. We don’t even know their names.

The twelve women of the Colectivo are at work every day, focused on cleaning up the environment by forcing the maquiladoras to change their practices. These women are poor; they live in an area they call shantytown with ten thousand other families. Their homes are made of discarded garage doors; three garage doors leaned against each other with a piece of tin for a roof.

Yet the women of the Colectivo are wealthy in their understanding of each person's right and responsibility to find purpose. They are wealthy in their capacity to connect with other people. They are rich in their respect for hard work and its rewards. The women of the Colectivo see themselves as stewards of the earth. They are training their children and their neighbors to respect the earth and to recognize responsible care of the earth as everyone’s sacred duty. The women have adopted as their slogan: “Tijuana is no trash can!”  Supported by the San Diego Environmental Health Coalition, a cross-border group advocating for a safer environment, the Colectivo has an office building in Tijuana and a plan for the future. And they have been empowered to spin straw into gold, to convince even Pharaoh to do what is right.  Their faith has been rewarded with some big victories in Tijuana.

The women of the Colectivo took us to their office where we were served lunch. They were so poor. (If you had seen the huts where they live and raise their children. Pictures of Jesus on the wall. The dirt floor swept clean. Colorful rugs.) So poor in my eyes. Yet they prepared a wonderful lunch for us and they were so happy to be hosting us at their work site, so delighted to be serving us good food. We ate tostados until we were full.

And then we asked questions. I wanted to know, since the living conditions are so dreadful and dangerous in Tijuana, why the women stay. “Why don’t you go further south where the land is greener and safer?”

Maria responded to my question and Carlos translated. “I do not stay in Tijuana for myself. I do not stay here for my children although they are a big part of my inspiration and motivation. I stay in Tijuana and I work for justice because the earth depends on me. She is my mother. She gives me life and because of her goodness and generosity I was able to give life to my children. We work together: me, the air, the water, the soil. Together we make life. The earth is being spoiled by those who have forgotten to love their mother. The earth is being abused by those who care more for personal profit than life itself. I am here and I will stay here in Tijuana not because I want to but because I heard my name called from the burning furnaces of the maguiladoras.”

This is how we know our name. This is how we learn to recognize and claim the power of our own identity. As people of The Story-we turn, turn, turn and trust the one who brought us here in the first place. We hear the great I Am calling our name and inviting us to spin the ordinary straw of our lives into gold.

Amen

Called to The Promised Land

Suffering cannot be avoided in life but it does not necessarily have the power to destroy us. In my experience I have found injury and pain to be markers along the path toward the Promised Land. 

My father died when I was eleven years old. About a year after that my mother told me, “You were a disappointment to your father.” I recall that I was not surprised to hear it but I was stung by the pain. I asked my mother what it was about me that disappointed my father and she explained, “You are too loud, too boisterous. You just wanted too much attention. You were never the kind of girl your father had hoped for in a daughter.” He was gone. There was no opportunity to ask for confirmation from my father nor was there opportunity for me to change and earn my father’s approval. The label stuck: Disappointment. 

My father was a Nazarene minister and the Nazarene Church was all I knew until I went to college and saw more of the world. Because I started smoking and drinking beer, the Nazarene people rejected me. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” Dorothy Pickens told me. And so I was. I took my shame and left the Nazarenes.

Several years later, when my daughter was born, I took her to the United Methodist Church. We made a home there. I experienced my call to leadership while a member of the United Methodist Church. I could tell a good story and people noticed the power and effectiveness of that gift. I was appointed to serve my first church.  I grew in my faith and in my understanding of my own needs. When I found the courage to come out as a lesbian, the United Methodist Church invited me to leave.  The rejection left me feeling like an orphan.

I stumbled upon the United Church of Christ in 1994. I began to tell stories in a new place with a new set of people. More important, I began to recognize the light in myself and my storytelling. It occurred to me that my father might have been wrong about me. Maybe I was not a disappointment. My interest and energy were focused on homeless people. My vision then was to establish a laundry in Memphis, The River, where women without homes could wash their clothes while getting support for themselves and their children. Had I known myself better then, had I a more keen sense of God’s call on my life and passion, I would have stayed in Memphis and allowed God to build the laundry, allowed God to wash clothes and to increase my faith and focus on justice then and there. But I chose to put my profile out and enter the search as a local pastor for an established congregation. I was ordained on September 10, 2000 and left home to serve strangers in a faraway place.

Things went badly for me in the established congregation. I was painfully lonely without my partner and loneliness brought out the worst in me as I made huge leadership mistakes. I was not prepared to deal with the series of conflicts that ultimately sent me back home. Then I got in cross-hairs with a conference minister who became obsessed with his need to remove me from ministry in the UCC.  He saw to it that my standing as a UCC minister was terminated.  

Fortunately I have a loving partner, Anna Neal, who stands by me at all times.  She maintained the center for me while I wandered in grief, confusion, rage and resentment. I accidentally found my way out of the wilderness when I connected with theater people. Voices of the South, a local theater company, engaged me in a series of solo performance workshops, in 2009. Jerre Dye and David Prete saw me as a woman with an excellent story to tell and they helped me tell it well. I was loud and boisterous while I wrote my life story and it was staged as a one-woman show, “For Goodness Sake.”  I discovered the joy of loving myself.  I love letting go of shame. I delight in getting attention. It is, for me, an experience of liberation.

My greatest fear is being trapped, being forced to stay in a place, a situation or relationship that no longer feels healthy, that no longer nurtures my creativity and spontaneity. So it is ironic that I have found the satisfaction for my deepest longing inside the county jail. I transferred my standing as a minister to the Progressive Christian Alliance, a group of justice seeking ministers who have moved their ministries outside the walls of the established church. In January of 2010, I went to the jail and said, “I have a theory. I believe that people, once given a chance to be creative, will find a way to set themselves free from whatever is holding them back.” I started the Prison Stories program, a creative writing and performance program for women. The success of that program can be measured by the number of women who say, “I have been set free from my secrets and shame.”

My journey from childhood to the Promised Land has been long and circular. Looking back I see places where I might have been stuck with bitterness and depression. My spirit could have died while my body continued to breathe. But I have always believed that God intends for each one of us to truly engage in the life we’ve been given. I don’t know why my father felt disappointed in me. I don’t know why my mother felt the need to tell me about his disappointment. I do know that the pain of that struggle has propelled me into a place where I can help set captives free. And that means the world to me. I am free to be powerful, useful and good at what I do. I am called to use this one loud and boisterous life I’ve been given to call attention to the love of God for all of us. Nobody needs to feel ashamed, rejected, unfit or like a disappointment to God. That is the story I am called to tell in this, the Promised Land.

Testing the Soil

(for David Hancock)

I just want to tell you
I did love you very much that day.
Lying in the pasture,
two cows across the ravine.
We put our faces to the ground,
buried our chins in the dirt,
not really to plant them
but more, to test the soil, it seemed.
Our eyes met
across waving grass blades--
two fireflies rising.

You spoke to me of Christmas
though spring had just begun.
You wished me glad, most glad, tidings
for the seasons of my life.

Part of us still lives in that field
behind your mother's house. Our chins
long planted elsewhere now.
The light of the fireflies
has never burned out.

Elaine Blanchard
(1973)

One of My Oldest Poems

Daughter

Sitting in our neighbor's rusted swing-
daughter in my lap-
Said, "The day will come
when I can no longer hold you like this."
Three year old reply, "I can sit beside you; you can always hold my legs."
Sunlight bathed us both and
warmed tender violets under the weeping willow,
urged life from the great magnolia
with velvet brown petals surrounding her trunk.
Why on earth,
I wondered, would I want to hold your legs?
Rusted swing squeaked us gently
back and forth.

Elaine Blanchard/1979