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Reclaimed Waters

a baptismal journey along the Salish sea

Category: Bible study

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017

When the Message Doesn’t Matter

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we've been talking this week in my writing group about 'training' -- what it looks like, how we go about it, where we practice it, and what areas in our life could benefit from more training. and at times we've run up against the tension between no longer being a student, per se, yet also not being seen as an 'expert' in the field. we're adrift in a liminal zone of _becoming_ an expert / _becoming_ a PhD. we're almost never not training. and that often doesn't feel great. sometimes, when the wind kicks up, I just need to hang out in the galley for a bit. or sling a hammock on a half-constructed mast.

Sometimes writing looks like a game of operation, where the partially formed body of work gets dissected and laid out on a table for examination. That’s how you find toes coming off a shoulder, for example, or a massive growth hanging off the side.

Today is a day worth noting and worth celebrating. I clicked “submit” on the second of two co-written articles, closing the saga of a grant project begun in 2019, conducted during a global pandemic and in the shadow of a highly contentious election. As part of the journey we visited Flint, MI, where the impact of the water crisis is still felt, still coursing through the pipes and veins of city and residents alike. Sharing the story of those who resist and work for justice is the least my colleague and I can do.

from yesterday’s low tide an expanse of shoreline zones was exposed to our human gaze: bare feet pounding over rocks and through watery channels, dog paws kicking up wet sand, geoduck siphons exposed to the air. there were so many crabs—mostly small, mostly turned upside down. with the eel grass beds lying flat it was like seeing a two-dimensional silhouette of what is normally a watery bay. it was wondrous, cosmic, salty and, if I’m honest, a bit unnerving to see so many of us humans converging in spaces normally sheltered by cold Salish waters.

I once heard a theology professor say that it was impossible to avoid the work of Karl Barth, that to do theology after the twentieth century was to go _through_ his work (not around it). I believe the same ought to be true for Rosemary Redford Reuther. Even if you never read Gaia and God, Faith and Fratricide, Sexism and God-talk, or any of her work (with or without an ampersand), the ideas she put down on the page require sustained attention. In seminary I remember hearing her described as a ‘radical’ (read: suspicious) feminist: Read with caution. Now I have come to recognize her work as a substrate for my own—regardless of whether I’m engaging with her directly. Turns out she once held the position my own doctoral advisor currently holds, the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied (Practical) Theology and taught in rooms where I have sat. And now she is among the great cloud of witnesses. May her life continue to be a light to those who seek to unearth harmful binaries and pursue the deep wisdom of Divine Presence in and through the rest of creation.

Writing has me missing out on one of my favorite Seattle events: Syttende Mai in Ballard, or, Norwegian Constitution Day. You know, that day in 1814 when Norge bucked the rule of Sverige oppression…. sort of. It took a few more years for Norge to be fully independent (1905), because non-violence is a long game. By then my great-greats had sailed an ocean and traversed a continent. Why? A push-pull of precarious subsistence agricultural realities and a robust propaganda rumor mill. So we benefited from Lincoln’s Homestead act (1862), a name change, and forgetting the languages of home. A strange kind of baptism, in many ways.

Happy Easter 🌷 Christ is risen 🌅

IT’S REALLY REAL!!

This is a seasonal tree blossom photo. Please enjoy. 🌸

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