From Welcoming to Winning to Welcoming

Recently I participated in a discussion with a group of theologians who participated in an event hosted by an organization that works for full inclusion of all people in all churches. One person made a comment, meant to be encouraging at the time, that with changes in society and stories in the press, we had won. The idea, and language, of “winning church” stuck with me for the rest of the day as it bulldozed its way through my thinking and most of my individual conversations the rest of the day.

Wouldn’t we all be very happy if everyone else’s theology came into perfect alignment with our own? I have never met anyone who did not like the idea of winning, and “winning church” probably ranks as the biggest.

Deep inside, I think we all desire an end to conflict between the faiths so that the most contentious argument in Church is whether to serve regular, whole-wheat, or gluten-free communion wafers. Sadly, within major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam most of the divisions, denominations, or sects agree on the big concepts of the religion. The minutia and practice around those concepts, though create schisms large enough to dwarf the Grand Canyon. To cement the “rightness” of each point, they become so enshrined in ritual across generations that if the Torah/Bible/Koran did not say it, it should have.

Truthfully, though, I do not want another denomination or, for that matter, another individual to come into sync with my personal theology: it would diminish my personal, individual, relationship with God. I came to where I am in faith through my life experiences and my encounters with God. They are uniquely mine and have shaped nuances of faith no one else can have. The big ideas align to my faith tradition but have been buffed and polished by my experiences with God. The biggest idea in Christianity is having a personal relationship with God.

Similarly, congregational experience grows the same way through corporate worship and shared experiences. Each congregation develops its its history and tradition around those experiences. Some use the history as a guide for future work. Some get stuck in the history.

While it the idea of winning sounds nice, it does not support the value of welcoming all in the church. For someone to win, someone else loses - becoming disenfranchised and feeling unwelcome in the church. The welcoming and affirming movements within the different denominations have to recognize that we have not been successful until every child of God is welcome in every congregation. As more congregations and religious organizations adjust rules and statements of faith the more we will encounter individuals and groups who opposed those changes. They are as worthy or our love and gracious welcome as the previously excluded populations.

Welcoming is not a value extended only toward historically marginalized individuals and groups. Welcoming is a value extended to everyone. Christ left no ambiguity about who could be his follower. He traveled amongst the sinners and unclean while engaging the religious elite. He welcomed everyone.

Society may proclaim winners and losers on various issues, but we who seek justice for all cannot let ourselves adapt this kind of thinking. We have long worked to develop a kingdom view of people that welcomes everyone and affirms their value.

I admit that I am encouraged by the increase in congregations and organizations who are recognizing that Christ welcomed and affirmed all people and are seeking to become more Christlike by following his example. Meanwhile other congregations reinforce their theology that defines who can worship with them. As long as the dichotomy exists there are no winners. The best we can do is to practice grace and demonstrate the love of God.

Getting Ahead

Every day I have a goal of reading some and writing some just for me. Reading and writing for work do not count since I have to do it every single day. The vast majority of what I write goes no farther that the notepad or draft file in my documents folder. Writing going no farther is fine with me - it is for me and serves to help me clarify my thoughts.

However, each year during November, I make it a goal to publish one piece of writing to my blog every single day as a part of National Blog Posting Month (there will be an icon each day). The event began in November and upon becoming corporate, spread to every month with a given theme. I continue to do November because of the origins and because it has become habit for me. Because 95% (some would argue 100%) of my writing is so unrefined, I feel the need to get an advance start on composing 30 posts. I began this week to come up with a list of topics to which I feel I can dedicate a couple hundred words. It is just a blog after all, not the New Yorker.

If I were writing New Yorker articles, I would be paid and you could pay to read my rambling there.

I managed to get a solid list of subjects on which I feel passionately enough about that I can compose four or five posts for each one. After coming up with my working list, I reviewed the scheduled posts for the last three years - some topics returned for the third year (spirituality, food, sports) and some new ones emerged. I even came up with some working titles based on documents I have in my draft file or recipes I have been experimenting with. (It pays to keep even the most inane former thoughts in reach - they may mature into something not-so-inane).

When it comes to rules, I tend to be a literalist and want to follow them as intended. By preparing over five weeks before the 30 days of posting begins, I sometimes wonder if I am cheating. I have gone over the rules (well, what I can find that constitutes rules) and all they call for is a post each day. Nothing says the post has to be composed that day. As much as I feel guilty about preparing ahead, I do not feel so guilty I am putting any of my preparation aside.

I continue to have my goal of reading and writing some each day regardless of whether it leads to a product I am willing to share. November is the condensed time when I take all those loose ideas and edit them into daily content. That is what I celebrate over those 30 days - even if it takes my 70 days to accomplish it.

The Passion of the Kitchen

Recently I watched Julie and Julia, the movie adaptation of the book by the same name describing one woman’s goal of cooking all of Julia Childs’ recipes from her original cookbook in the span of a year. As much as I can empathize with Julie’s desire, if the scenes detailing Julia’s rise to kitchen stardom had not been included I would have turned the movie off in the first thirty minutes. Despite the unlikability of the focal character, her desire to do something daring in the kitchen struck a chord in me.

Each week,  I spend one quarter of my weekend making my food for the coming week as I rarely have time each evening to cook food from scratch. After gaining nearly 20 pounds from eating out multiple times a week during my last round of graduate school, I determined to never do that again, and cooking and pre-packing my meals for the coming week not only helped me lose those twenty pounds, but keep them off. Nevertheless, the idea of cooking, sometimes multiple, new recipes each evening seemed especially fascinating to me as someone who goes to the grocery store once (only by necessity twice) a month. I do not do a weekly menu; I do a monthly one.

Still, as a person who LOVES to cook and to teach others to cook in the way I learned from my grandmother and mother (smell is EVERYTHING), the idea of doing something challenging such as cooking a new recipe (the steps and ingredients of which I normally take as suggestions rather than directions) each night absolutely fascinated me. I have a wide variety of cookbooks ranging from the 75th Anniversary Edition Joy of Cooking to collections of recipes from various churches and high school classes. My favorites are those collections of recipes real people use on a regular basis. I know they are good because people shared them when they had the opportunity to give the one recipe they knew was good.

Discussing the value of taking on such a challenge, my roommate and I brought up a number of ways such a challenge could be taken and what ways we would do it differently. While the idea caused me to reflect on what kind of cooking challenge I would undertake. Living in Austin, Texas is vastly different than a borough of New York. I drive past a dozen grocery stores each day, but none of them are an easy access off and on the interstate routes I travel. That is why I only go to the store once or twice a month. If I lived in NYC, based on what I have seen in the apartments of the friends I have visited there, I would have to shop and cook each day; that is not my reality.

In the week that followed, the more I reflected on the idea of some kind of cooking challenge the more I realized I do not need a challenge to demonstrate my passion in the kitchen. My weekly meals and the other meals I prepare for friends from time to time all come from the passionate cook within. It exists in every dish I make and that is what I want to sustain.