Still Looking For Writers
Many of you have asked me about my book, Priesthood of ALL Believers. There were some delays with the contract due to fun legal stuff, but it is now in my hands and everything is moving forward!
Which means, I need you! I have received quite a few amazing stories, but am still seeking more — particularly from Baptist women of color.
A reminder of what I need:
2,000-3,000 words sharing your calling—how it was discerned, what the process of answering that call has looked like in your life. I would also appreciate a photo (digital is fine) and a brief bio. I prefer stories in Word format. I need the final version by Aug. 15 (and the earlier, the better!). Email all submissions to me at doveintheattic@gmail.com. (See this post for more details on the book.)
Please pass this on to all of the Baptist ministers and seminarians you know — and anyone you know who might know Baptist ministers and seminarians!
Read more from Jennifer Harris Dault at her blog.
Moving Theology: The “Old” New
In the 2003 film, Under the Tuscan Sun, a recently-divorced woman named Frances Mayes, played by Diane Lane, buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim. She soon begins renovations on the building, and the house fills with people, dust, and noise. Early in those changes, she goes into a room with a large desk and begins placing items on it, including pens, paper, a computer, and flowers. She narrates that in the middle of such chaos, it’s important “to find one room or space and make it your own.”*
This week, my Tuscan countryside has been the Mississippi delta, and her villa is my parsonage. Seventy-two hours ago, all of my material belongings were on a truck in Natchez. Forty-eight hours ago, they arrived in Cleveland. Twenty-four hours ago, lost in cardboard, I was convinced that more boxes arrived than I had packed! I found a box labeled “desk items” and took it to the room that will be my office. Remembering Frances Mayes’ advice, I focused on making a small space my own. One of the furnishings provided by the church is an old, beautiful roll-top desk on which I now type. I began unpacking the items. Of course, there were the necessary items in there: envelopes, paper, scissors, stamps, etc. Also in the box were the items I’ve dubbed “Nostalgic Natchez.” There’s a calendar featuring ducks that a friend gave me because of my last name of Duckworth. There’s a small ceramic pot that I made during my tenure in Natchez. I filled the pot with a guilty pleasure of Reese’s pieces. I propped up a stack of cards that people had given me upon departure. I took these pieces of my past and arranged them in a present space. My “old life” met with the church’s “old life” to create something new. (more…)
An Open Letter to Dan Cathy: From a Concerned Baptist Pastor
Dear Mr. Cathy,
I don’t expect you to remember me. You and your father spoke at chapel during my freshman year of college in 2000. You both spoke of how being a Christian business person involves loving your neighbor and serving God and your customers faithfully. Since I had recently received an award from the college I was invited to attend a small group discussion with you and some of the college trustees. At that time I was impressed by your compassion, faithfulness, and good humor. Even though I do not eat at your establishment because I am a vegetarian, I have always spoken highly of you, your father, and your restaurant based on those initial experiences.
Since that day in chapel I have served as a minister in local Baptist churches, attended seminary, became ordained, and earned a Ph.D. in religion. I am now the pastor of a Baptist church in North Carolina. I have committed my life and vocation to scholarship and ministry, faithfully translating and interpreting scripture and seeking to live as Jesus taught. (more…)
An Open Letter to Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy
NOTE: This was written a day prior Chick-fil-A made the public statement that their tradition “is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.” What a wonderful statement! However, I still believe this letter is appropriate and the invitation given at the end remains open…
Dear Mr. Cathy,
I love Chick-fil-A. I truly do. And, I have great respect for your values and your decision to be closed on Sundays and Christian holidays.
I also love my gay friends. I really do. And, I am convinced that loving Chick-fil-A and loving my gay friends do NOT have to be mutually exclusive.
I read recently that you have acknowledged your company’s financial support of “traditional family” organizations which actively oppose the protection of rights of our gay neighbors. Understandably, the LGBT community is very upset.
However, I will not be forced to choose between my favorite fast-food and my beloved life-long friends who happen to be gay. (more…)
Pinhas: A Reflection on Bamidbar 25 (Numbers 25)
It was so long ago.
Was that really me?
So full of passion
So sure
So angry
I knew she was a whore
I knew he was a dog
The picture was clear in my mind.
She set out to seduce the boy away from YHVH
And he willingly succumbed.
I took my spear of certainty
I drove the point through them both
Into the earth
In one swift stroke
I killed them in the midst of an act of life (more…)
The Courage to Speak, the Courage to Hear
Editors Note: This is the first in a series about the importance of story.
I have early childhood memories of my parents reading to me, but I’m not sure which story entered my ears first. I am enjoying reading to my daughter some of my favorite children’s books, (crossing my fingers that pages won’t be ripped and colors won’t be added), re-feeling the emotions that the pictures and words stirred in me as a child, and watching the provocation of emotion in my child as she sees the images and hears the combination of sounds for the first time. I also enjoy watching her brain work as she searches for prior knowledge of or stores away the new knowledge imparted by the unfamiliar. “Puppy” and “Choo-choo” are becoming more specialized figures because “Kitty-cat” and “Bus” are now added to the mix.
This world of never-ending images seems to me to be a daunting task to take on and recognize; she takes it all in stride, categorizing one bug at a time.
We humans start from day one, matching pictures with sounds or other connecting senses, absorbing them, the sights and sounds, the smells and tastes, into our brains. Somehow, our brains make it all work together. They even provide us with an imagination to add in missing variables when all the senses are not supplied. If we hear a “Choo-choo” in the distance, we picture the train itself, perhaps even adding in the smell of creosote and burning coal. If we see a photograph of a beautiful shoreline, we start to hear the waves rolling, as though a conch shell were suddenly at our ear. If I let myself sink into that beach scene deeply enough, I can start to believe that my face is suddenly collecting freckles, their appearance brought out by the warmness on my cheeks. (more…)
Above the Ceiling
During dark nights of the soul, people often mention that their prayers feel like they are bouncing off the ceiling, unable to slip through the fibers of paint and dry wall — or in my case, concrete. I am not experiencing a dark night of the soul, but I am finding myself pondering my ceiling, wondering if any of my prayers drift up into the apartment above mine.
I did not know the name of my upstairs neighbor until today, many hours after she was found dead on the street below after falling from her 7th story window. The police have called it an apparent suicide, although news reports indicate an autopsy will be conducted.
The woman was young — in her mid 30s. Her next door neighbor says that she was quiet and kept to herself, although she was friendly and liked dogs. Another building resident commented that no one seemed to know her. (more…)
Hope Over Fear
Tonight we read the story of the spies. These twelve notable men are sent to spy out the land of Canaan in preparation for our invasion. They find a land rich with agricultural wealth, though also inhabited by several different peoples and many walled cities. Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, remembering the might of G-D in wrenching us out of slavery and the recent experience of the theophany at Sinai and its aftermath, are certain that the people, led by Moses and blessed by G-D can conquer the land. The other ten spies, still mired in the mentality of slavery, say it will be impossible. The people side with the ten naysayers and begin the now familiar whine of wanting to go back to Egypt and the known terrors of slavery and comfortable suffering of slavery where they do not have to stand up for themselves. Better we should die in the wilderness they cry, oh, our poor children. Indeed, they threaten to stone Caleb and Joshua.
G-D is understandably unhappy. There is the usual plague and the ten pessimistic spies die. Furthermore, it is decreed that all those from the age of twenty up except for Caleb and Joshua will die during a sentence of forty years of wandering in the wilderness. And so it comes to pass. (more…)
Germaine Cousin, Shepherdess, Abandoned, Victim of Abuse
At the sound of the church bell Germaine knew that she should hurry. It was a long way from the field where she was tending sheep to the church where she would receive the Eucharist and worship the God who had been born, murdered, and raised from the dead. With her deformed hand and the sores and marks upon her neck from her scrofula Germaine knew she would attract attention from the crowds–as she usually did–but Germaine was undeterred from their confused and disgusted looks because she knew that Jesus welcomed her into his presence and waited patiently for all his sheep to return home. What mostly amazed the crowds, though, was that such a woman as Germain–who had clearly suffered and had reason to doubt the existence of grace and goodness–seemed so eager to extol the abounding love of God. So, Germaine took her staff in hand and planted it firmly into the soft soil of the pasture. Looking around at the many sheep in her care Germaine offered a prayer to God confidently asking for God’s protection over those placed in hers.Though there were wolves in the nearby forest who would gladly consume the sheep she had no fear of them because God had always protected the animals under her care at her request. Having handed their lives over to God Germaine made haste to get to the church before the service started. (more…)
Mustard Seed Kingdom
Summer is one of my favorite times of year. Farmer’s markets are filled with berries, tomatoes, and peppers fresh from the garden. When I worked as a journalist in southwest Missouri, local farmers would routinely bring their extra zucchini and tomatoes to the newspaper office. There would be boxes of produce every week, and I found myself learning new recipes for zucchini casseroles and zucchini bread. I appreciated the hard work of the local farmers, tending to the plants, watering and fertilizing and plucking pests from the leaves. I regularly heard discussions on what to do to prevent moles and rabbits from infiltrating the garden, or the best way to get rid plants of slugs that seemed to come from miles to snack on the young plants. Reaping produce from a garden is hard work. It requires dedication.
Our parables today are not pleasant tales for gardeners. The first of these garden tales talks about someone scattering seed, then going about his regular business. He seems surprised when the seed grows into a plant — and he should! He had very little to do with it. The text tells us that the earth produces of itself. Janet Hunt, a Lutheran minister in Northern Illinois, compares these surprise plants to what she describes as volunteer tomatoes in her father’s garden. These volunteer tomatoes are those fruits that he did not plant, but that grow miraculously in strange places from seeds left behind from the previous year’s harvest. They are the plants that come up from the edges of the compost pile or smack dab in the middle of the yard, beautiful in their rebellion. All the while you are pleading with this year’s perfectly cared for tomato plants to produce something, anything edible.
The Kingdom of God is like volunteer tomatoes. (more…)
Follow Us!