Semetimes we're the ones left in the ditch.

Luke 10:25-37

We begin with an expert of the law asking Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus, who rarely answers a question directly asks what the law has to say. The expert in the law rightly recites Leviticus: Love your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says yup, that’s the textbook answer. Easy as pie. Then the law expert asks, well, who is my neighbor. And maybe the expert in the law is thinking, well, who isn’t my neighbor? It's not defined in the text. Is it just the people who live on my street? Who lives in my town? State? Country? Then Jesus launches into the parable we’ve all heard maybe a million times.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is probably one of the most common stories and concepts we run into inside and outside the church. There are Good Samaritan laws, protections for strangers who give reasonable assistance in life-threatening situations, or relief agencies that support people who are housing insecure. The story of the Good Samaritan is everywhere – I think in an ideal world we would all act like the Good Samaritan did in this parable. We teach this story to our kids in Sunday school. I remember as a kid in a church choir, we sang a song from Veggietales about loving our neighbor based on this parable. One lyric that has always stuck with me was: 

“My hair is curly, your hair is not

But when we look deeper, there's more that we've got

God made us special and now I can see

If you're special to God then you're special to me

Love your neighbor

When someone helps you, then you'll understand

When you love your neighbor

Loving means lending a hand”

This is one of my core formations as a Christian. And I think it is such an important message from Jesus, particularly to teach our young people and live out through our lives. Be good to our neighbor like the Samaritan was. The Samaritan was acting Christlike by helping someone in need, and so can we. Help where and when we can like the Samaritan. See that God made us special and God made our neighbor special too, just like the Samaritan did.

This is a parable as old as time at this point. Sometimes I hear this story and I say okay, yup, got it. I have heard this story a million times and I will hear it a million more times. I need to remember to love my neighbor extra hard this week just like I heard on Sunday. And my neighbor is anyone I can show mercy to, okay go it. I feel like I can check a box off my spiritual to-do list and move on.

But Jesus does not call us to move on and simply check an “I did good by loving my neighbor this week” box. If we are not careful, we can tell ourselves: we got this lesson as a kid and we love our neighbor enough already. We can become a little complacent. Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbor all the time. Just as Jesus loved us so much to die for us all, so are we called to love our neighbors. And if I’m being honest with myself, I am not always good at doing those two things all the time. We are human, after all. We can’t get it right all the time. That’s why we need to hear this parable from Jesus and sit with it from time to time, and maybe think about it in a new way. 

One thing a colleague once asked a group I was in to consider was: what if we weren’t the Samaritan in the story. Which character would we be then?

Some days, I am in a hurry and I pass by the man on the side of the road like the priest. Or like the Levite, I don’t think I have anything to offer the person in need who I walk by. I know I can come up with a million excuses why I did not pause to help someone in need. It’s really easy to do. I can get caught up in the busyness of my own life, of trying to live up to living a grand like I see on TV or in the news, and forget that I am following someone who offers eternal life. Not the life as seen on tv.

Some days, I might even feel like the person left for dead in the ditch. And while those situations might not actually be life threatening, they can be devastating. Some days it’s my mental health. Or being overwhelmed with responsibilities because I said yes to too much. It’s a flat tire on the side of a highway, damages from a storm, a devastating divorce, or holding a loved one’s hand as she dies after a long battle with breast cancer. Some days it's circumstances outside of our control, leaving us behind feeling wrecked.

And who comes ambling down the road? The Samaritan.

Now, a little historical context about the Samaritans and the Jews in first-century Palestine. There was an ancient and bitter rivalry between these two groups of people. The two groups disagreed about everything that mattered: how to honor God, how to interpret the Scriptures, and how and where to worship.  They practiced their faith in separate temples, read different versions of the Torah, and avoided social contact with each other whenever possible. They hated each other. So while we are inclined to like the Samaritan in our modern reading, the disciples listening to this story were scandalized.

“What do you mean, Jesus, that a Samaritan would stop to help this man? A Samaritan would never. His heart would be cold and closed off from compassion and kindness and mercy.”

There are all sorts of narratives we tell about a group that is apart from our own to separate us as “us versus them.” 

But here is Jesus, answering the question of “who is my neighbor?” by telling a story that has many layers. The first is the one I said earlier. We are to be like the Good Samaritan – showing mercy to our neighbor. The second is to be like the person left for dead in the ditch, open to receiving help when in need. The person left for dead is not identified by their ethnicity, or job, or social class. This person is identified by their naked need in that moment. The person on the side of the road is in need of compassion, kindness, and mercy.

And when we are left broken on the side of the road, all those labels seem to fall away. Divisions between us and them are not as important anymore. Our need comes first and is the only thing that matters. And if you haven’t experienced this, maybe one day you will.

Somehow, someday, somewhere, we will. In a hospital room? At a graveside? After a marriage fails? After the storm, the family fight, a devastating injury, or diagnosis? Somehow, someday, somewhere. In every single one of our lives, it will happen.

And who comes beside us in those moments? Who is our neighbor in that time? It will be the one who scandalizes us with compassion, kindness, and mercy. 

At the end of the parable, the lawyer doesn’t identify the neighbor by ethnicity. The Lawyer identifies the neighbor by action. The one who shows compassion, kindness, and above all, mercy. Jesus charges us to go and do likewise.

I also charge us to go and receive likewise from someone who scandalizes us.

Amen.

The Trinity and Their Promise to Us.

Holy Trinity Sunday 2022 - my last worship service & sermon with Good Shepherd before I begin internship. It has been my holy pleasure to worship and do ministry alongside the wonderful people of Good Shepherd of Coatesville, PA, and Messiah Lutheran of Downingtown, PA. 

Facebook recording from Good Shepherd of the sermon: https://fb.watch/dC3dkt2yDB/

Youtube recording from Messiah Lutheran of the sermon: https://youtu.be/j7wJxOaptMk?t=1027

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen. 

Happy Holy Trinity Sunday y’all! This is notably every pastor’s favorite Sunday to preach because understanding the Holy Trinity is so easy. For centuries, we have understood exactly who the Holy Trinity is, who is in the Holy Trinity, and how to talk about the Holy Trinity without falling into any accidental church heresies that lead to ex-communications and whole new Christian Traditions from forming. Easy peasy. When I said yes to Pastor Susan to preach on my last Sunday at Good Shepherd and Messiah, I didn’t realize what Sunday it would be in the liturgical calendar. But I’m sure Pastor Tim isn’t complaining now, Right? 

Notably Pastor Susan liked to throw me easy tasks like preaching on the Sunday after we all sprung forward and lost an hour of sleep or figuring out how to set up online worship in the earliest days of COVID. But really, her last gift to me and my spouse other than her wonderful friendship over the years and confidence was to leave us Minnie and Clio, her beloved kitty girls.

Now, if you knew Pastor Susan, you probably heard about the cats. She loved these two so much and Alyssa and I are doing our best to welcome them into our home with our already pre-existing cat, Clem. At almost two weeks into our cohabitation, we are all pretty glad our townhouse allows for each of the girls to have a floor of their own. They’re slowly starting to warm up to each other, but the one thing that brings them together is this miracle toy called a cat dancer. Pastor Susan had given us one for our cat years ago, and Clem goes wild for it, leaping and twisting and batting at little pieces of rolled paper at the end of an arching wire. It’s pretty graceful to watch, actually.

Minnie

Clio

Clem

And Minnie and Clio love it too. It’s the one toy we can play with each of them around the other to try and coax them into family time. Three cats are all brought together by one cat dancer. It’s pretty trinitarian. And while they might not be as close as we had hoped they would be, it takes time. They’re cats after all. We have made a point to let each of them know that they are not alone in trying to figure out this new life together and that they are so loved. Which is - What Jesus is starting to get at in today’s gospel reading.

We are in the middle of the farewell discourse in the Gospel of John. This is the part where Jesus knows he is going to die soon, and he wants to make sure he gets all his last thoughts and teachings to the disciples before he goes. Jesus is letting the disciples know what is to come and how to keep teaching and making disciples after his death. Jesus is that friend that keeps coming back when he’s heading out the door with “And one more thing!” He’s been doing this for three chapters already! I promise I won’t go on that long in my own farewell discourse today.

Jesus has so much he wants to tell the disciples before his death. He is trusting that the Spirit will be with us and to trust that the Spirit will guide us in our relationship with God as Jesus did. We know the Trinity are three and they are all in one each other. There is a relationship going on within the Trinity that Jesus is inviting us into and sustaining us with through the Spirit.

But the first thing Jesus tells the disciples before he gets on with the rest of his teaching is this: “I have so much to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Wow. This is the farewell discourse after all, and as readers, we know that, and this is a tender reminder of care for people who are going to mourn their beloved teacher and faith leader soon. Doesn’t that feel familiar? Jesus gets us to hear the thing that is most important: the assurance that we will not be alone.

It’s hard to remember things in our grief, but Jesus is making sure we are left with this important message. When things feel too heavy to bear, we are not alone. For right now, we are not expected to get it all. This whole following Jesus thing takes a lot of time and Jesus knew that we would need companions along the way, and the comfort that we won’t have all the answers or do the right thing every time but remember these two things: we are loved by the Holy Trinity, and we are not alone. The Spirit is coming to be with us.

The Trinity is a mystery that is hard to put into words, and one of the great mysteries of faith that we as Christians have tried to make sense of for centuries. One of the best ways I have come to understand the Trinity is through Jesus’ teaching about relationship here between Jesus, God, and the Spirit. The Trinity is about the relationship based on love, and how wonderful is it that we find ourselves in the midst of them? Instead of trying to focus on the Oneness of the Trinity to understand the three: God, Jesus, and the Spirit as separate beings, Franciscan priest and theologian Richard Rohr writes that we “Start with the Three and see that this is the deepest nature of the One.”

Rohr describes the trinity as an invitation to a transformational dance. By focusing on the three to understand one thing about the Trinity, we can get sweep up in the dance together with the Trinity. The movement and flow. How dynamic and ever growing in our understanding we are when invited into the dance of transformational faith. I’m not an incredible dancer, but I think of those three cats of mine at home leaping through the air in this dance. Jesus tells us that the Spirit will declare things that are to come to us meaning, we don’t have all the answers yet, but we can keep engaging in the relationship with the Spirit who is with us and with the Trinity to hear ever more clearly the voice of our loving God.

When we focus on the three to understand one thing about the Trinity, we also understand diversity. Instead of pinning down exactly who and how God shows up in our lives, we can take a step back and listen to how the Trinity flows through creation around us, how they show up in the creative beauty of the world, and love and righteousness. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer captures neatly: “Wherever God is, God is wholly there.” How we in the room can each reflect the whole love of God to each other. The whole love of God that abides in us through the Spirit because we know the story of Jesus. That whole love abides in me and in you and we are stronger because we know that each of us reflects that whole diverse love from the Trinity to one another.

Now because it’s Pride month and I am who I am, I have to talk about how we talk about the Trinity. I am using the pronoun “they” for the Trinity on purpose today. When thinking about the diversity of the Trinity, I remember my siblings in Christ in gender and sexual minority communities. As an LGBTQ+ person with many beloved friends who use they/them for their pronouns, this can be a playful and helpful way to think of the Trinity for us. I invite you into holy imagination with me to think of the Trinity this way. They/them is most often used in English to refer to a group of people, and on occasion to refer to someone without revealing their gender identity. More often now though, people do not identify with genders like man or woman but as non-binary or genderfluid and use they/them to refer to themselves on a regular basis.

The Trinity, who is three in one, also goes beyond gender to me. God is so great, how can I say God is not doing a new thing in their own gender identity? ‘They’ in the singular and plural explores our very understanding of who God is, how Jesus loves us and how the Spirit shows up in our lives to remind us we are not alone. They, the Holy Trinity, is with us always, never leaving us alone even when we feel unloved and isolated.

Jesus is even referred to as Divine Wisdom or Sophia, in Early Christian tradition. This idea connects back to the book of Proverbs where wisdom is personified as Lady Wisdom. Jesus, child of God, was not always referred to in masculine pronouns. I was introduced to thinking about God as our Mother in Heaven when I was a teenager and read the popular Christian novel “The Shack” by William P. Young. The book introduced readers to the Trinity like this: a Black Mother God, Palestinian Carpenter Jesus, and an Asian woman as the Holy Spirit. We can find diversity in the Holy Trinity and how we see the Trinity showing up in our lives. Just as God made us in God’s diverse image, there are many ways we can imagine the Trinity.

Kelly Latimore Icon of the Trinity

We also see how the Trinity values community. Everything about the Trinity reminds us that they are based in relationship. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and is God. Jesus was the Word with God in the beginning, and so was the Holy Spirit, calling creation into being which culminated in God walking beside the first humans. The Trinity was with humanity in the beginning, and they will be with us through Jesus’ own death and into life after resurrection. Jesus continues to remind us of the promise of the Trinity’s presence with us through the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is an invitation to the transformational dance of faith, to diversity, and to community. The Holy Trinity’s presence in our lives is a reminder that we are not alone. And we are so very loved by our creator. May we bear that promise forward. Amen.

What does Faithful Queer Family Planning Look Like?

When I came out as queer to my family, I wrote a letter about how important it was to my faith to be out. That it was important for my identity as a child of God, as someone made in imago dei, God’s image, that I reflected the queer aspect of God into my life and among my family, friends, and church.

When I make big life decisions, usually I find that it comes from a series of discerning moments, time where I think about what I know about something, like LGBTQ+ people and Christianity, or what it means to be called to be a pastor or serve as a missionary for a year. Along with these discerning moments are a lot of questions: what should I do next? Where can I be useful? What will grow me into loving God’s community even more? Where is there suffering in the world that I want to be part in mitigating? I find that it is not really me making the decision to go do something on my own volition but listening to the Spirit calling me toward a certain path. There were others I could have gone down, but mission work was the answer, not going into field biology research which was my undergrad degree. Coming out was a faithful decision, and so has going to seminary to be a pastor.

I have been doing a lot of personal discernment recently, thinking about my family. As a queer woman of faith, I have been sitting with questions like: What does it mean to be a wife to a woman who is also a wife? Is that something we want? Should we get married? Can we get married? Who does what around the house? Who is the ‘head of the house’ and their word is the rule? How can we have kids? Do we want kids? Which of us would actually get pregnant, or is that even something we want? What are all the many ways women can get pregnant without a cisgender man present (unless it’s the doctor)? What are other ways to become parents? Is adoption something we would want, and is it possible near us? How much does adoption cost or fertility treatment cost? Will we be discriminated against for being queer?

There are so many questions that I am constantly asking myself or have asked myself in the past. I do not have answers, and I cannot answer these alone, but I think there is still something in here I can answer for myself that might be helpful to other queer women of faith, or who have been influenced by cultural Christian upbringings.

Fertility is an incredibly difficult issue for many people. Women who have been steeped in American Christian culture who are told that maybe being a mother is her sole purpose. This is a difficult reality to unpack, and in particular for queer women of faith. As a queer woman of faith myself, it has been a nightmare to think about.

I am still discerning what it might mean to be a mother one day and thinking about that with my spouse who is my number one partner and teammate in the conversation and life choice. When we know more, I am sure we will tell the world. For now, this is more about me, and what I have learned about these topics and want to make sure I rethink to make the best, faithful choice going forward. Having these thoughts and answers might be helpful in my future ministry one day when people who face similar issues bare the hurts of trying to grow their families.

I am writing this blog post to unpack some of the harmful, learned ideas of what it means to be a wife and hopeful-mom in America today. These are not things that I have necessarily learned directly from church or any specific person, but the swirling of ideas that are out in our general culture or steeped in nearly every book in the Christian section at Barnes & Noble or easily referenced on television shows.

My relationship with God is ongoing and ever evolving, and that relationship influences my relationships with my family. I have known God as a father figure, as the Spirit being my constant companion through some hard mental health years and the one urging me on into young adult mission work and now seminary. I have known Jesus in my suffering, and the suffering in the world and have prayed for it to end even if I have been thankful for the company in the meantime. I have also known God as a loving mother. As the mothering hen who gathers her chicks up and keeps them safe with her. I have known God as Love in the world, and the Word made flesh, living among us and reminding us that as God turned to us with grace after Jesus’ death on the cross, so we can turn to a suffering world with grace. And I have known God through my neighbor. We are all made in God’s image. That includes you, reading this, and that annoying person we all work with or the stranger we pass by on our way. I have known God most as I came out as queer, and I met God in my queerness more authentically myself than I ever had before. 

So, for all the people out there, particularly women and queer folk, here’s some of my thoughts on what it means to be a spouse and building a family with your partner through a queer faith lens.

First, it is important for me to think about what a family looks like at church. There are so many healthy models of what a family can look like, and not all of them are with a mother, father, and two point five kids. Families come in all shapes, sizes, and iterations. The Holy family included Joseph’s adoption of Jesus, and the other children Mary and he had. There are examples of queer family like Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz or David and Jonathan. There are important family relationships like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And the importance of people who are a family of one person whether they are widowed, divorced or have remained single throughout their life. As a church, we need to continue to be open to the many expressions of family, and not essentialize our image of family to a cookie cutter mold. For my purposes, I am exploring what it means to be in a lesbian couple when approaching spouse roles and considering growing a family with children.

There are a lot of restrictive ideas of a woman’s place in her family, particularly cisgender women in heterosexual relationships. One of the biggest unhelpful role setting pieces of scripture is Genesis 2:18: woman being created out of Adam’s rib to be his ‘helper’ – and many translations lack the partner language that the NRSV includes. Often, in church teachings, women’s roles in life are essentialized down to how she interacts with her husband, father, and sons. But I know I am much more than that, and so is any woman who I know. We can be the head of household (someone has to be in our household, and often we joke that it is the cat), and we can choose not to have a hierarchy idea of our household and rather think of it as partnerships with different domains. We share tasks equally, we split our finances equitably, and honor one another in our work and rest.

As a queer person, marriage is sometimes difficult to think about. Marriage equality was denied to us for so long, and it made us question what the purpose of marriage was. Gay marriage is still restricted around the world, and there are whole swaths of countries that I can never visit because my very presence as a queer woman is illegal and punishable. But where marriage equality has been secured, there are a lot of legal benefits that come with being married, along with tax cuts. Yay government reasons! But what does it mean personally? For me, marriage was about finding someone who I wanted to be in lifelong partnership with. Who I could see building a life with. Who would support me in my faith and vocation (call to be a pastor) as much as I would support them in their life and goals. When my spouse and I announced our engagement, some people asked us if it was because we had a timeline for wanting children. The automatic assumption was that marriage and moving inn together preceded getting pregnant and having children.

Is the purpose of marriage for having children? I do not think so. I know there are some theologies that support that idea based on Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” There are heterosexual people out in the world who cannot create children at all due to their medical history; does that mean that they should be denied lifelong partnership? Sometimes, getting pregnant takes more intervention than just one man and one woman deciding they want a family. Is it okay to get medical assistance for family growth? For same-sex couples, getting pregnant takes more than just two willing partners who can do it on their own.

Queer couples have a lot to consider when they desire to have children. First, they should involve medical professionals and figure out what’s realistic if someone in the relationship wants to get pregnant to have a child. This is not an option for all queer couples, and I will talk about things like adoption and fostering later down. 

One way to get pregnant would-be intrauterine insemination using a donor, and if it works then the pregnancy proceeds as (complicatedly) usual (is a pregnancy ever ‘usual’?). On top of multiple doctors appointments and fertility treatment to figure out when in someone’s cycle it would be best to try, there is also a huge cost to each attempt at creating an embryo. According to WebMD, each intrauterine insemination treatment can “cost between $300 and $1,000 per try, and the chances of getting pregnant each cycle are just 15% to 20%, even when there are no fertility issues involved.”  That is a lot of effort and money for very low odds without fertility issues. If a woman is like me and 1 in 10 other women in the US of child baring age , or lives with any other number of issues, the effort to get pregnant gets that much more expensive. Suddenly the physical treatment to try and get pregnant compounds with the mental, emotional, and spiritual insecurities that come along with not feeling like our bodies are ‘good’ or ‘working right’ to do this thing that humans have been doing for four hundred generations. 

The other option is in vitro fertilization (IVF). An embryo is created outside of the body, and then transferred into the uterus using a series of complicated procedures (more on the Mayo Clinic website). IVF is used when there are genetic issues, or the added assist is needed for conceptions, or the couple desires to use an egg not from the person who plans on being pregnant. IVF treatment can cost anywhere between $12,000 and $15,000, not including medicine that might cost up to $3,000 , all of which is usually considered elective by health insurance agencies and not always covered by the agencies. In a lesbian couple, this might mean that one woman donates genetic material to their child, and the other person carries the pregnancy. There are even complicated and not widely used procedures that can turn any type of cell from a donor into a potential sperm or egg cell, and maybe one day a same-sex couple can both be the genetic parents of their child if they wished. Scientists can even pinpoint certain markers on chromosomes to eliminate genetic disorders, or even make ‘designer genes’ to influence certain physical traits. 

Okay hold on now, all of this sounds scientifically really cool, but we have all seen the 1997 film Gattaca and know how morally corrupt genetic manipulation can start to get when we start selecting for the ‘most athletic’ traits, or ‘intelligence’ or ‘creativity’. So when thinking about these scientific breakthroughs, how do we approach the moral issues of genetic manipulation from a place of faith? As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I go to some of our social statements and messages to see if we have any writing on those topics. Here is an exert from their Social Statement on Genetics:

“The ELCA’s concern for benefit or harm, however, is not focused perse on any particular scientific or technological development. The concern, rather, focuses on the just and wise use of genetic knowledge and technology. For instance, the ELCA does not reject the use of genetic technology such as genetically modified organisms, prenatal diagnosis or pharmacogenetics. Like other gifts of technology, there are reasons for both encouraging their use and for cautioning against certain means of applying them. This church believes the use of any technology should be subject to moral assessment.” 

If I understand that we are all made in God’s images, including the things that people might consider as flaws, then I feel like I can start, in good faith, to consider the extent that genetic manipulation is permissible when looking into IVF and other fertility treatments. Scientific breakthroughs such as IVF treatments and prenatal genetic treatments might make us seem like we are ‘playing God’ with human life. I try to keep in mind that God is the ultimate creator, and we are participating in God’s great loving creation. So I ask myself, how is interacting with treatments like that helping to be part of God’s loving creation? I think when it comes to fertility treatment, as little changes as possible are preferable, and only as much that would help with conception, minimize suffering, and allow life to flourish naturally.

For couples where neither person wants to or is able to get pregnant, surrogacy is an option. The cost of surrogacy can be prohibitive, somewhere around $150,000, and then there are the fertility treatments. 

Unfortunately, another hurdle amongst all the strains of fertility and family growing is discrimination against queer people in the medical field. Doctors are legally allowed to discriminate against patients  in some states still, and when someone is willing to see us they are not always on the up and up on how to take care of queer patients. And any children I might have could potentially face discrimination because of their parents.

Another avenue toward parenthood is adoption. There are many types of adoptions. Adoption of a child from foster care, private agency adoption, independent adoption, and intercountry adoption. If going through the federal government, couples might only face up to $2,000 dollars in adoption fees. Going through an independent adoption procedure could cost up to $45,000 . Again, could be cost-prohibitive for families who are looking to expand. And for queer families, we face a lot of discrimination from widely used faith-based adoption agencies.

Another aspect of adoption that has to be considered is that even within couples where they go the route of IVF or intrauterine insemination is that the other partner has to legally adopt the child still. And matters get more complicated if the egg used for the embryo in IVF is donated, and not from the person who intends on carrying the pregnancy, then the carrier has to adopt the child. There is very little in way of protecting queer families in these types of cases, and consultation with a family attorney would be helpful when moving forward with family expansion.

There are other ways for families to form and grow. Families can be based on blood ties, and very commonly in the queer community, close knit bonds that form over common lived experiences. These were a few of the considerations that I have, and have been thinking about for my family, and continue to be in conversation with my own spouse, plan for if necessary, and always pray about. No answers yet, but helpful considerations abound, and I hope some insight for you too.

Bibliography

Ball, Philip. “Reproduction Revolution: How Our Skin Cells Might Be Turned into Sperm and Eggs.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, October 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/14/scientists-create-sperm-eggs-using-skin-cells-fertility-ethical-questions. 

Burns, Katelyn. “The Trump Administration Will Now Allow Doctors to Discriminate against LGBTQ People.” Vox. Vox, April 24, 2020. https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/4/24/21234532/trump-administration-health-care-discriminate-lgbtq. 

Gattaca. DVD. United States: Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, 1997.

“In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).” Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, September 10, 2021. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/in-vitro-fertilization/about/pac-20384716. 

“LGBTQ+ Family Building.” Shady Grove Fertility, October 8, 2021. https://www.shadygrovefertility.com/lgbtq-family-building/. 

“Planning for Adoption - Child Welfare.” Child Welfare, November 2016. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/s_costs.pdf. 

“Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.” Polycystic ovary syndrome | Office on Women's Health, April 1, 2019. https://www.womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/polycystic-ovary-syndrome. 

“A Social Statement on Genetics, Faith and Responsibility.” Chicago, IL: ELCA, 2011. 

Watson, Stephanie. “The Fertility Issues Same-Sex Couples Face When Trying to Conceive.” WebMD. WebMD, December 16, 2020. https://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/features/same-sex-couples-pregnancy. 

Preparing for Winter

As each new season of life comes to a transition

I feel like I learn anew

how to come back to myself.

Summer saw an outpouring.

Of my heart

my soul

my whole spirit

lost

to listening to the suffering of others.

In a sterile hospital full of ghosts.

September alone -

swept me away with floods

of water and time,

expectations too heavy to hold

until they drifted away like

leaves transitioning from a verdant hue

to the telltale rainbow of autumn.

And now I am learning again,

how to fill out my own skin.

Find the spark in my own reflection.

Who I was before I was empty,

only letting the best parts of me back in

and shine forth into a comforting winter.

Transportation is a Privilege

When I moved to the community where my new church is located, I was lucky enough to find a home close enough for me to walk to and from my place of worship & work. This is both a good motivator for me to walk when the weather is nice, and a source of privilege that I can drive that half mile when the weather is less than nice.

Several weeks ago, I checked the weather as I usually do in the morning and decided it would be a good day to wear sandals into work, and only a lightweight sweater over my shirt.  It was going to be mostly sunny all day and I would spend most of my time inside besides.

The weather report was wrong, and later as I was working remotely from church in a local coffee shop, it started to rain heavily.  I tried to wait it out to no avail. By the time I made it home that evening, I had damp shoulders and soaking toes.

It was uncomfortable for me, but by the time I got home, only an inconvenience.  I could take my shoes off, dry my feet, and have warm socks on within minutes. I am reminded, however, that this is a privilege, just as it was a privilege a few hours later to retrace my steps back to church for worship in my car rather than walk in the continual rain.

While living in Manchester 2015/2016, someone giving me a ride on a rainy day was an absolute blessing; most of the time, I would arrive slightly damp wherever it was I was headed. It was an expense and a treat if I decided to take the bus (and I would make sure to use my pass as much as possible to get my 4 pounds worth of a ticket).  I have fond memories of peddling through a far deeper than expected puddle near a park, and the funny look I got from a priest when caught drying my socks on the radiator in our office.

I give thanks for my ability to walk, ride, or drive wherever I need to go whenever I need to go. And I appreciate every opportunity I am afforded to pay forward giving a kind ride to someone else.
 

Raging against Advent

The simplicity of Advent is sometimes hard to capture.  It is not a sad, quiet time quite like Lent as we prepare ourselves for the Great Three Days of liturgy leading up to Easter.

It is similar like what winter does in nature, which may be why I struggle every year skipping straight over winter/Advent in my mind, and look forward to the joyous springtime that is Jesus' birth.  I really don't like how grey winter can be in Virginia.  The trees have lost their leaves, the sky takes on a bleak grey-like quality, and very rarely is there a sunny day that is not also too blinding without the shade of a good tree to contrast the brightness.  I waited at least a week after Thanksgiving here in America before I decorated for Christmas in my new home.  Festive music is still strictly forbidden from my car radio, and occasionally I will abide a holiday tune played in a store to make its jolly way into my heart.

I still rage against Advent in the way that I rage against winter in the northern hemisphere.

The Lord is with us (he is with us indeed) already!  Why should we have patience to sit through four weeks of Advent waiting for this Messiah when we've already been saved by grace?  Why does it matter that we have Advent specific music to sing during worship on a Sunday and we ignore the good Christmas tunes we all know by heart until after December 25?

My Advent wreath this year,
a sign of hope and light in winter

Taking a look into scripture history, the journey of Advent begins to make more sense.  The Jews of the Old Testament waited for hundreds of years for the One to come to earth.  There were many prophets who paved the way, many pains in communities who lived through diasporas and exodus' from their homelands, and many long winters to endure for this wonderful sign of Hope to feel even within our sights on the horizon.

So we wait today, thousands of years later, in the softness of our Advent.  Our four weeks of considering what waiting for Hope is like.  To sit in these long nights, pull our communities in close, and strengthen relationships to get us through the many pains we have today.

Some of us are not very pleased with the state of US and UK politics (among many many other issues of justice in many many communities around the world).  Some of us are very comforted by the current leadership lineup.  For some of us, these next four years are looking like the forty years the Hebrews had to wander the dessert before being allowed into the Promised Land.  We gather in our communities to seek comfort, this Advent.  To take a deep breath and gather our wits about us for the journey ahead.  Whichever path you're on, there are others walking beside you, praying beside you, and struggling beside you.

Advent is a time for acknowledging our brokenness, and acknowledging how powerful it is that our Hope came among us in our brokenness just as damaged, and said 'Peace be with you.'

And all I can say to that is Amen.

 

The Metaphorical AAA

After my YAGM year serving with St Chrysostom's Church Manchester, I took the time to travel to a few countries in Europe, say goodbye to the friends I made in the UK, and then traveled home to settle into the United States life once again.

First and Last group photo of the YAGM UK group. This is the amazing group of young adults who all acted as a support to one another throughout our year on that amazing little island.

There was so much that I learned, grew, and flourished in this past year, and now that I have closed the chapter on the last year of mission work, I find myself asking the Great Unknown before me what I should do next?

A group shot of a Mad Hatter Tea we had at St C's before I left.  My year in Manchester was made so special because of these people and so many more.

There was already a plan, apparently.  Before I left Manchester I had an un-looked for email from a pastor I had known at the end of my university days.  She asked if I would be interested in taking a new position at her church as a Communications and Ministry Specialist.  I took the calling, and now two months after I ended my service with St C's, I am beginning a new ministry with Muhlenberg Lutheran Church in the VA synod of the ELCA.  A short two hour drive away from home compared to the vast ocean I lived across the past year.

Getting here, though, has been a wild ride.

The day before I began work I intended to move down to stay with friends temporarily who live in town while looking for an apartment.  Other than some patience in the process of discernment and hiring with the church, everything about the last two months has been enjoyable.  Everyday has been a new kind of joy except possibly yesterday.

Yesterday was a bit of a growing moment for me.

We begin with the flat tire as soon as I woke up - unfortunate but not too big an obstacle.  A flat tire is a normal part of being a car owner, and getting it fixed is relatively easy thanks to my supportive Step-Dad.  Great, that was dealt with in barely over an hour, bags packed, and I'm on the road to meet Mom for lunch before I head out on the two hour drive.

I carefully drove out Interstate 66 for fifty miles, watching my speed and what I drove over to make sure no extra stress was put on my tires when all seemed for naught as I passed mile marker 10 and suddenly my car started jerking.  Great, flat tire again.  I throw my caution lights on and pull over on the side of a majorly busy highway to put the spare on for the second time that day, turn around, and drive back into Northern Virginia where I could meet my Mom after work and get a new set of tires.  Not really what I intended to do today, but it should be manageable and then I can be back on the road in no time.  An incredibly kind stranger who had been following me pulled over and helped me change the tire (Which we found had completely blown the inner wall), and even suggested somewhere to get a new set.

We now find ourselves at Costco, getting the back two tires replaced.  It took twice as long to travel the distance back East as it had taken to go West.  Along the way, though, I saw a dead black bear along the side of the road, various beautiful small towns full of civil war history, landscapes that were utterly gorgeous, and I had a good cathartic cry.

It takes the guys in the tire center forty minutes to get the job done, bless them, and my Mom is there with me to sooth my nerves and help me make sure all the paperwork is dealt with properly.  My carefully cultivated cool has been a bit tested by all of this, but thanks to some frozen yogurt recovered well.  

Getting ready to hit the road again, we find that this very troublesome day has not quite taken the last punch out of me yet.  This is a long story, and believe you me, it was much longer to live through yesterday than it is to type it up and have you read it.

My front brakes are making a horrible noise as I leave the parking lot, despite being changed the previous summer they are worn through, and as Mom and I discuss our options, I completely lose it.  She has selflessly offered to switch cars with me to deal with changing the brakes out and allow me to start my new job today without worry of transportation.

And all this could have been a nightmare that made starting work today seem like a bit of a bad omen.

Honestly?  I think it was the best reminder of the Metaphorical AAA I have watching my back through family and friends and complete strangers who all care so deeply for me and their community.

Who is your Metaphorical AAA?  Do you act as as the Metaphorical AAA for someone else?