Feeding the Spirit at the Crossroads of Race and Religion

This past Sunday morning, as I was heading to my church (late) I took a shortcut that let me avoid several traffic lights. This little detour takes me down quaint neighborhood streets lined with old trees and tidy brick town homes. On the corner of one these streets stands a large African-American Baptist church that was founded in the early 1800s and which boasts a lively, thriving congregation. As I was passing the church, I decided that maybe this was the perfect Sunday to take a little spiritual detour from my usual church routine. 

My church is a lovely, historic Episcopalian church. On paper, it is predominantly white and middle-class and its congregates are well-educated and well-connected, working in the halls of government and the corridors of power that make Washington, DC tick. In reality, though, my church's pews are filled with people living their lives while dealing with the struggles that test our faith. Worship in this space, while ordered according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer and the readings of the Lexicon, is also low on the pomp and the circumstance. It's a striking contrast to the very formal facade of the church building and grounds and most visitors are caught unawares by the warmth that resides just under the surface if you can get past the impressive brick and mortar. Crossing the threshold, I'm greeted by our smiling ushers, who press a service bulletin into my hand and ask how I'm doing. When I'm running late (which is often), and my husband drops me off so that he can circle the block to find parking, my church family greet me with outstretched hands from their pews as an usher leads me to an open pew, while still another usher directs my hubby, now finished with his valet duties, over to where I'm sitting. Our clergy team deliver thoughtful sermons that engage and challenge us, and the choir sends us marching out to greet the world at the end of the service.

So, what more could I need? 

Well, really, I should rephrase this question, because I don't need more, I need different. But, what do I mean by "different"? Growing up as an African-American Roman Catholic in a predominantly white church community, my family was constantly in search of a way to meld our love of the Church and its rituals with our identities as African Americans. Long before Whoopi Goldberg was leading fictional nuns in a Gospel-infused "Salve Regina" in the movie "Sister Act", my family was cobbling together a spiritual quilt of sorts. Sunday mornings, while we were getting ready for Mass, Grandma tuned the living room stereo to Patrick Ellis and his Sunday morning Gospel music show on WHUR. We listened as he read birthday requests to Sister So-and-So and Deacon So-and-So and gave contact information for church bus trips to the shopping outlets in Redding, PA. Ellis' playlist included that Shirley Caesar chestnut, "No Charge", the O'Neal Twins' "Jesus Dropped the Charges", and Rev.F.C.Barnes' "Rough Side of the Mountain." Once in a while Ellis would let his country show and there would be some Harmonizing Four or Sensational Nightingales. The show continued in the car on the way to Mass, and there were plenty of Sunday mornings when Mom or Grandma would hold us up in the church parking lot, because, as they would say it, "My song is on!" Once inside of the church, all of the joy of our morning was quickly sucked out by the bland music of our Roman Catholic hymnal. In a church packed with a couple of hundred folks on a typical Sunday the sound of our singing was never earth shattering. The preaching was perfunctory, except for a brief period when a law professor-turned priest came to our parish. His preaching style was so inviting. He wore a wireless microphone and strode down the center aisle  - that's right, without note cards! It was like the first TED Talk!   

It wasn't uncommon during this time for us to go and visit another church. Usually the draw was a charismatic preacher in town for a revival, or on the occasion of a family friend's church choir anniversary concert. On each of these occasions, the churches we visited were all African American. Mom and Grandma would put a little more care into dressing  - a lot more flair, more makeup, dresses instead of trousers and a nice blouse, and perfume, lots of perfume. My sister and I were on our best behavior and my unruly Afro was subjected to the pressing comb and pin-curling the day before. On these special Sundays, the first thing I noted was just how long the services were compared to our Catholic church. At our home church, Sunday Mass took one hour, with the only exceptions being Christmas Eve and the Easter vigil (and one additional exception when Father Downs, an avid football fan, sped through Mass on game day, getting us out in 38 minutes!). The second thing I noted was the music. It was as if I was sitting in a live-action version of WHUR's Sunday morning Gospel show.  Oceans of song just poured down on me - wave after wave. And there was a feeling of warm that just cracked open from a place so deep inside of me that it stunned me. Was this that Holy Spirit that all of the songs talked about? It was awesome and it was scary and I wanted more. It was like tasting the best thing you'd ever tasted in your life and wondering how you'd never tasted it before. 

Walking into the vestibule of this African American church this past Sunday morning as the ushering team of ladies in their bright white suits and white gloves prayed together I felt both alien and at home. And then, as is this church's custom, a period of prayer and praise began and we, the congregation, were invited to stand up and sing. The organist and the band began to play, and the tune was a familiar one to me. Before I could open my mouth to sing, my eyes filled with tears and I knew in that moment that my spirit was filled to bursting. I don't know what that means for the future, but, for the first time, I'm not going to ignore what my spirit craves. 

Dear Childless Churchgoer...

This Sunday is Mother's Day - a day for crowded brunches, well-intended/poorly executed breakfasts in bed, and roses, lots of roses. And while many poo-poo Mother's Day as yet another Hallmark Card-created holiday, it still stirs a wide-range of emotions for most people. Some of us will honor the mothers we have, and some of us will shed tears for the mothers we have lost, while others will celebrate the mothers they've become. But, there's another group, of which I am a member, and we are those who are not and will never be parents. In my family populated by widowed and divorced women who are moms, I am the one who will pay the tab for that Mother's Day brunch, and will buy the presents and the cards to celebrate these women, and I will sit, uncomfortably, in my church pew when the priest pays tribute to moms, and throws out the token inclusive eye roll-inducing phrase, "and those aunts and others who act like moms." To my church's credit, though, at least they don't get carried away with Mother's Day. Some churches hand out corsages to the moms. Some make the coffee hour into a Mother's Day themed gathering complete with handmade crafts from the children at Sunday school. I've got it easy compared to some of my other childless churchgoing friends!

And I don't mean to pick on Mother's Day, especially when churches struggle throughout the year to balance the needs of families with children and the mix of pain/irritation/apathy of the childless churchgoers. Churches have long-established practices to welcome families, from Sunday school to youth group, dedicated children and family clergy, children's choirs and children's chapel, nurseries for fussy babies where the church service is piped in over loudspeaker or closed-circuit TV, Easter egg hunts, vacation Bible school, and church summer camps and family-oriented Sunday worship services. As a membership-driven organization, churches know that ignoring families' needs limits growth. One two-parent family with two children generates not just revenue from their tithing and stewardship, but also many years and thousands of hours of service. These parents are the future Sunday school teachers, future choir members, and future lay leadership of our churches. However, there must be a careful and considerate balance of their needs along with those of the childless congregates who also contribute our time, treasure and talent for the good of the church and the community beyond its doors.

So let's get real and talk about one of the most difficult church experiences for the childless churchgoer: baptisms, specifically infant baptisms/christenings. Growing up Roman Catholic, christenings were done as private affairs with an invited list of family and friends, thus, making them easily avoidable for those uncomfortable with fawning over the little one. Some churches, however, thrust the christening directly into the regular worship services, inviting the whole church community to offer their witness, support and prayers for the newly baptized baby. This can be difficult for some childless churchgoers. A friend of mine who suffered multiple miscarriages simply stopped going to church altogether when she accidentally found herself sitting among a throng of white-satin clad infants with their support staff of parents, Godparents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles one unfortunate Sunday morning. At my own church, I was left in tears as the clergy began a time-honored tradition at my church that I jokingly refer to as The Procession of Los Babies, where the newly-baptized infants are taken down the church aisles to meet their fellow congregates as we all sing, "Fairest Lord Jesus". I could barely choke out the words of the first verse before I lost it. One of my childless crew mentioned that she avoids the christenings completely. I'm not quite at that point, though. It's just that these feelings come in waves and you don't know when that wave will hit.

There are some practical steps, though, that churches can take to minimize from these emotional waves. The first step is communication - use your church social media and weekly emails to inform the congregation at which Sunday service christenings will occur. This provides a childless churchgoer with some options. And, speaking of options, provide enough options for Sunday services so that the couple who's latest IVF treatment has failed doesn't have to deal with the holy "Romper Room" of a service geared towards families.

Next, use the creativity and imagination reserved for the children and youth activities to design fun, lively and engaging opportunities for your childless church family members. For example, my church has an annual retreat that is heavily family focused, with fishing and softball and hiking and swimming. It's like summer camp with worship. Why not offer an adults-only version of that instead of the usual adults-only retreats that are often quiet, monastic-lite affairs which are dull and unappealing at their best or, at their worst, become breeding grounds for over-sharing? Heck, you might even get some of the parents who want a sippy cup-free weekend!   

The final step is, hopefully, the easiest step for those in a faith community - don't judge and don't assume. Don't assume that the childless person sitting next to you on Sunday hates children and doesn't want to participate in creating a faith-filled upbringing for the children in your congregation. I've taught Sunday school and was at turns delighted and horrified about all of the things I learned about the toddler brain. I treasure those experiences. But, don't judge me if I decline to come back to the Sunday school classroom because I'm in the middle of one of those painful emotional waves. Don't assume that the woman balancing a 4-year old and a Ziploc bag of Cheerios is insensitive to the irksome squirmings of her child - she was once one of the childless, too, and she hasn't lost that ability to put herself in your shoes. So when that one lone slimy Cheerio ventures from her child's open mouth into my purse, her look of alarm will be greeted by my smiling face and we will feel a moment of recognition that bridges the distance of our different circumstances and unites us in faith. At least that's my hope.

Encountering God at 33,000 Feet

As we head toward the end of Lent, I always like to cast my eyes around the church, watching the pews fill up on the Sundays leading up to Easter Sunday. It's my theory that no one wants to be one of those C & E Christians who show up for Christmas and Easter and are A.W.O.L. for the rest of the year. But, there are some people who are part of the Sunday morning No-Show Club for reasons that extend beyond their inability to rise early and they're called Frequent Business Travelers, also known as traversus maximus. We all know the common Frequent Business Traveler (FBT), and, sadly, it's not the world's most handsome newlywed, George Clooney, in the film "Up in the Air". In fact, according to the National Household Travel Survey (2002), the typical business traveler is a white male, aged 30-49 years old, who works in a professional, managerial, or professional position. And, while those airline commercials might fool you into thinking that all business travel is a Shangri-La of on-board first-class cabins with lay-flat beds and 5-star hotels with Michelin-starred restaurants, the majority of business travel is under 1,000 miles from the business traveler's home. In 2013, the United States took the overwhelming lead in countries spending on business travel with $274 billion spent. In 2014, that amount was projected to be $290 billion (according to the Global Business Travel Association). And as the U.S. climbs out of recession, according to a U.S. Travel Association report conducted by Oxford Economics in 2013, every dollar invested in business travel generated $9.50 in increased revenue and $2.90 in profits.

That's a lot of numbers and statistics and while the economic implications are vast, the effects on the spiritual lives of these frequent business travelers and the churches they're not attending is immeasurable. Church communities live or die not only by the ability of their clergy to provide consistent engagement of their congregates, but by the ability of their congregates to consistently engage with their church communities. Engagement isn't just attending church service on the main day of weekly observance. It's going to the potluck supper on Wednesday night, or the Thursday evening choir rehearsal. While churches have been making excellent use of digital tools to engage the religious business traveler from afar, including uploading videos of the Sunday sermon, digitally distributing weekly bulletins, and issuing PDAs to clergy so that pastoral care is an email or text message away, these critical strides still pale in comparison to sitting in the physical presence of other parishioners. The same know-how and ingenuity that make these business travelers highly valued by their companies is the same know-how and ingenuity coveted by churches seeking to build their lay leadership. 

Absent the weekly rituals of church community life, the spiritual lives of those on the road, or up in the air, have their own challenges. If your job keeps you on the road and away from your family and home for more than 8 weeks a year, opportunities for spiritual formation are difficult to find and hard to maintain, especially when you're battling jet lag and the wait list of other home-life  activities that you've put on-hold because of travel. And never mind trying to schedule dinner or even a coffee with friends you see infrequently because you're on the road so much. A lot of road warriors I know use physio-spiritual practices like yoga, something that they are able to practice irrespective of their business travel schedules and locations. Runners are another group who make that morning jog in Singapore into their own spiritual practice. And some do a quiet meditation in business class while the plane climbs to cruising altitude. But, one thing is for sure, in the journey towards work-life balance, the frequent business traveler still has a long way to go, and hopefully our churches will keep working, prayerfully, to get on board.

Pew for Two: Why Worshiping Together as a Couple Might Not Be a Good Thing

When I was growing up, Sunday mornings were filled with the sounds of black gospel music on local radio station WHUR being played on the car stereo, the smell of Estee Lauder's White Linen, Mom yelling at my sister and I to hurry and dress, and Grandma gently chiding my mom for making us four leave so late for Mass. After Mass, there was stop off at the local bakery for cheese danish, cinnamon buns, and an eclair or two. Then Mom and Grandma would start cooking Sunday dinner and by the time that dinner was served, Dad would make it home. Dad went to a different church - a small, charismatic Christian church of 50-60 members that was different than our sprawling, Roman Catholic church which could have 300 people attending just one of our three Sunday services. 

Having a dad who didn't attend Mass with us made us unique at our church. Sunday was the day when the dads, many of whom came from very modest financial means, would put on their one good suit and parade their families down the red carpeted aisle to sit together as a family unit. As a child I always wished that our dad would put on his best suit and join us, too, but I also knew that even though Dad didn't go to our church, he was faithful. Dad would rise at 5:00am every Sunday to drive the church van, providing a ride to church for members who needed it. Dad also headed up the tape ministry, providing audio and, eventually, video tapes of the Sunday services for those unable to attend. He served as his church treasurer and believed in the practice of the biblical tithe. He visited parishioners who were in the hospital and he read from his Bible every day. Mom's devotion to her religion was no less strong, though it was more suited to her introverted personality. Mom sang in the choir and she attended Mass almost every day during her lunch hour thanks to the Catholic Church across the street from her office. My parents found a way to honor their commitment to each other, and to honor their commitment to their faith. 

When I got engaged, I promised myself that my Sunday mornings would be spent with my husband and I side-by-side in a pew built for two. Now, 14 years later I can say that this has produced some fairly mixed results. Before I met my husband, I had been a member of a United Methodist church located in Washington, DC. The congregation was a great mix of races, classes, sexual orientations, and households. I sang in the church's amazing choir which meant spending every Sunday in the musical playground that is the Methodist hymnal. I was in my early twenties, a recent arrival in the city after completing my masters degree, and I was hungry for the sense of community that I'd had in my university setting.  I met my husband a few years later and made the tough decision to move to the suburbs and to a church home nearer to us geographically and nearer to his faith tradition. That this church was less diverse than my Methodist church was evident from our first Sunday, but I figured it was best for our marriage to be in a place that was comfortable for my spouse. And my gamble paid off for my husband who has been an active and engaged volunteer from the beginning. Having grown up in this faith tradition, he had a rich personal and family history of service to draw on and he has had a stellar track record as a volunteer. For me, though, the introverted singer, it's been a struggle. In an extrovert-heavy church full of Type-A's who have a high tolerance for church committee meetings and a knack for getting things done, it's been hard to find my spiritual groove, and I think, at some point, I stopped looking for it. 

Does this sound familiar to you? Churches often take couples and families as a package, assuming that they can find an activity or practice that will involve each member of a family to their satisfaction and that they have a community who can, and are willing to absorb the new members into the community's fold. There are a lot of cases where this works. But, when it doesn't, it's a slow march into a spiritually lonely place. A church might have all of the "right" things for one half of a couple, but still not feel like home to the other half of that same couple. There's an old blues song that has the refrain, "if it don't fit, don't force it," and that's what a lot of people, myself included, have done or are doing when that pew for two feels more like a cage for one. Some have just disappeared - opting out of Sunday service altogether. A few have migrated to other churches. And others, who are now in the midst of raising their families in the church, will drop out after their children start attending or graduate from college. But, what are we waiting for? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that the couple who can't pray together won't stay together? But, shouldn't the fear of falling apart spiritually override the fear of drifting apart as a couple? I can tell you from unfortunate first hand experience that feeling nothing is the worst feeling you can have, especially when you've had the experience of deep spiritual connection. So now my hard work has begun. I've made good friends in our church and so I work on those relationships, developing them into friendships and enjoying the company of those good people. I take a Sunday or two and head to the local Baptist church when I'm in need of gospel music. The next step is to find a place to sing on a few Sunday mornings, maybe a place with a Methodist hymnal that used to be my spiritual home once upon a time and where I can find a place to meet up with my husband for a Sunday brunch where we can share with each other what we did at church today:)

Homecoming: How one Sunday in the pulpit may have changed everything

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, I was a brilliant seminarian, dashing off student sermons at the speed of light, and stunning my listeners with my wit and whimsy! Actually, that's not true - I stunned myself, as well, by my wit and whimsy! The student sermon is a pretty daunting task. You're there, using the Big Bag of Preacher Tricks, the same bag that each of the other seminarians gathering to hear you preach have stowed beneath their pews. It's like a gathering of jazz musicians all listening to a performance by another jazz musician and they've got your number at the jump. In seminary, I preached to earn my colleague's esteem and my professors' approval. And maybe that's why my first instinct was to say "no" when the priest at my current church asked me to do her a large and sub in for a Sunday. But, I said "yes", and grabbed my pen and pad and started writing. 

When I write a sermon, I like to have the "hook" - that jumping off place from which the rest of the sermon can flow. I was scheduled to preach on the Sunday before the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the readings for that Sunday included the 1 Samuel text where Samuel answers God's call, and Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians where he blows up the Platonic separation of the body from the soul, and exhorts the church at Corinth to see themselves as part of the body of Christ and to maybe cool it on the sins of the flesh. Let me say this now - it's hard to preach about Martin Luther King, Jr. There is so much complexity to the man and his message that it's easy to write a sermon that sounds more like a history class. And so I wrote the first draft of the opening of my sermon. And then I wrote the first draft of the opening to a SECOND sermon. And then I did this two more times. 

And then I stopped writing and went walking. In the horror movies, when people are being haunted, they tend to stay, but I wasn't trying to sell movie tickets, I was trying to figure out what was wrong, and it was the ghosts of student sermons past. I was still concerned with what people would think and I needed to be concerned with what the scripture was saying to me and how the Holy Spirit was moving me and moving in the lives of the people around me. I had to face how afraid I was to preach from a deeply personal place - how afraid I was to preach about race to a church filled with people who were not my race, but who had become my spiritual family. For the first time, almost 20 years after my first day at seminary, I felt as if I had something to say, something true.

Here is a link to the sermon.

Seeking a Friend in the Church Pew

This week marked the end of a unique 12-week program at my church that focused on rediscovering our creative selves. And while it was a wonderful, engaging and challenging course, full of lively weekly small-group based discussions about rekindling our inner artists, it became clear to me, week after week, as discussions moved from the parish house to friendly run-ins in the churchyard after Sunday service, to emails and invitations to non-program events and impromptu ride-sharing, that this mostly female group was looking for something beyond this 12-week course - we were looking for friendships. 

It started me thinking about how many of us have wandered into a church on a Sunday morning looking for God but really wanting a friend? And how many of us have avoided going to church because, in a sea of friendly faces, none of those people were our friend? 

I know way too many people who have stopped attending church because they're going through a divorce and are uncomfortable sitting alone in the pew. I know single people who have avoided church altogether because they feel hostility and judgement from those in the pews, but, I'm betting that if they had one solid friend in that church, they would be there every Sunday. And while churches are not responsible for playing friendship yenta, they are getting better at creating experiences wherein organic friendships may form and where personal boundaries are respected - a place beyond the coffee hour. We parishioners must also do our part by recognizing our own friendship needs and being sensitive to those uninterested in or unable to expand their circle to include us, and those on the outside just waiting for a friendly face to appear and hold out their hand in friendship.

Our Lady of Starbucks: Coffee Cups and Building Community

A few years ago, the Panera Bread in my neighborhood went through a controversial remodel. Out went the nest of individual four-top tables in the middle of the restaurant, and, in their place, came one long community table in Last Supper dimensions. Apparently, large Bible study groups who frequently used the Panera for their meetings were also cobbling together one long table from the old individual four-top tables, causing a lot of disruption for the other restaurant patrons who were, perhaps,  more interested in their Asian Chicken Salad and not so much in the book of Kings.  

It's not unusual for church meetings to spill out into the parking lots and cafes that are nearby. I can't count the number of times that a post-Sunday service chat in the churchyard turned into a longer coffee conversation at Le Pan Quotidien. But, just this week, while I was standing in line for my double espresso at the neighborhood Starbucks, I witnessed something amazing. It started with the woman in line in front of me. I've seen her there often, and as I got into line, she was mid-conversation with two gentlemen who were sitting at a table opposite the cash register. One of the gentlemen, an Ethiopian man in his 60s, was reading a newspaper, and the other was a younger white man who looked to be in his 30s. They were asking how this woman's husband was doing. It sounded as if he'd been plagued by some health problems of late. She asked after the older man's children, to which he responded with a nod and a quick, "they're OK". Soon, it was the woman's turn at the register and Mary, the barista who's been there for years, also asked after the woman's husband.  By the time I'd gotten my order and was on the way to the milk station, the woman had joined the two gentlemen at their table. There was a crisis, involving another of their coffee club who hadn't been seen for a few weeks, and soon the talk turned to putting together money to send to him and his family. These people had all met at that Starbucks and had forged their own community where they come together, take care of each other, discuss their joys and concerns and cares, and do good works. That sounds an awful lot like a church to me! 

So what does this mean for church life? Is the Starbucks my church's new competition? Does my church have to up its coffee game for the coffee hour? Should Sunday service abandon the church pew and opt, instead, for tables and chairs set to the sonic backdrop of the latest Beck CD? Maybe.

Yes, I said maybe, but it's not as absurd as it seems. We all just want to be more connected to each other. We hunger for that connection. Facebook and Instagram, with their infinite tagging, are the electronic equivalent of me grabbing you by the shoulder and saying, "look, we share something, we are connected!" But walk into a traditional church on a Sunday and you see the architecture of disconnection and separation. Rows of pews and an aisle cut right down the middle separate us from each other. And so we go to a Starbucks, or Mischa's or Cosi, grab a coffee, pull up a chair and create community. We talk to each other and we listen to each other, and the barriers of race, class, age, and education recede into the background as we break bread together (or a slice of Starbucks iced lemon pound cake). Maybe we can take these lessons of caffeinated community and bring them back into our sanctuaries. Until then, may Our Lady of Starbucks fill the cup of life with a double shot of love and joy and community:)