Just Keep Swimming Seminary Category
The Promise of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 3
Posted on December 7, 2019 Leave a Comment
I call this last post The Promise Forgiveness & Reconciliation because I want to end on a hopeful note. The Mystery of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 1 The Limits of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 2 I believe it is justifiably hopeful given the theory, theology, and practical parts of the topics. If I were going to […]
The Limits of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 2
Posted on December 6, 2019 1 Comment
I have heard horror stories of people in abusive relationships who have sought spiritual advise from their church leaders, only to be told that they should forgive their partners–forgive the verbal, psychological, physical abuse and/or infidelity, for example. They are told to forgive as God forgives (remember the theological model I mentioned in my last […]
My White Privilege: An Unexpected But Unsurprising Glimpse
Posted on June 29, 2019 1 Comment
This week I had to check my whiteness two times, first at the ONA Coalition National Gathering and then at the UCC General Synod. The lesson was reinforced for me that, even though I have more than one historically marginalized marker with which I identify (gender and sexuality), that does not mean I am enlightened […]
Was St. Thomas Aquinas in My Head? A Very Fitting Study Prayer to Mary
Posted on April 30, 2019 Leave a Comment
Here is a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas, addressed to Mary, whom he called on for inspiration and strength in school. Thank you to my McAfee Classmate Benjamin Smith for sharing it: O Mary, Seat of Wisdom, so many persons of common intellect have made through your intercession admirable progress in their studies. I hereby […]
(Un)Holy Saturday: A Community Lament Psalm
Posted on April 20, 2019 1 Comment
It is Holy Saturday, God, the day good Christians celebrate Jesus’s body lying in the tomb while his soul descended into hell, the Harrowing of Hell, they call it. Holy Saturday is coming home from a funeral. Everybody is exhausted, and the loss is starting to get real. You have to eat~~people have brought food~~but […]
Louisiana Black Church Fires: A Psalm of Community Lament
Posted on April 17, 2019 4 Comments
Holy God, we must speak the names. St. Mary Baptist. Greater Union Baptist. Mount Pleasant Baptist. Louisiana smolders. In the names and the smoke our sin is manifest. We do not speak of their pain because the pain is their own—it belongs to their hearts. We do not get to cry those tears. Theirs is […]
Missionary Position: The UMC, Sexuality, and the Global Church
Posted on April 15, 2019 3 Comments
First, I need to acknowledge my white privilege and citizenship in a colonizer nation. Additionally, I am a U.S. Christian in a missionary culture, which has contributed to colonization. That said, I am also a gay female Christian from a rural Fundamentalist denomination, so I also can speak from intersecting places of marginalization. In late […]
Till Death?: The Curiously Ethical Question of Intentional Monogamy
Posted on April 8, 2019 2 Comments
This week’s post is an updating of a one that began as a paper I presented at the 2017 South Eastern Women’s Studies (SEWSA) Conference called Intentional Monogamy: Not Your Grandma’s Sexual Ethics. I’m thinking about monogamy as an act of queer intentionality. Even before I started my MDiv at Mercer, I had been playing with […]
I Heart Blogging, or, Thank You Dorothy Allison
Posted on April 4, 2019 Leave a Comment
Here’s what you’ll see on my About page now. When Sam Phillips’ secretary at Sun Records, Marion Keisker, asked Elvis who he sounded like, he replied, “I don’t sound like nobody, ma’am.” Writing can be such an isolating activity, that I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like I don’t write like anybody else does. […]
(An) Embodied Prayer
Posted on March 22, 2019 Leave a Comment
Two words concerning prayer life resonate with me this week: intention and attention. I sometimes fret about my prayer life, especially when I hear my fellow seminarians openly talking about theirs; I even have a professor outside of this class who returns our attention to prayer life. This week’s reading reminds us that naming our […]
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