on costumes and courage

Our worries are manifold lately. Our fears are not play things even on Halloween.
I will spare you the long list that begins with war mongering politicians and ends with diseases contagious only in impoverished places.

All this has me questioning the value of protection. How is it we place such a high value on something so elusive? It's an illusion really and yet we're nearly addicted to it.
We think of buildings as something stable and strong. But children of domestic abuse and adults facing foreclosure know this is often wrong.
We think of clothing as a descriptor, a message that we ought to be respected or at least we have covered our private parts. Also an illusion.

Today we don costumes (my daughter's preschool class looked like a little zoo (with one puppy dog and one garden gnome)) and tomorrow we will celebrate saints who took vows to wear burlap, cover their heads and live simply. Today we play a part, wear a mask and pretend our fears are only a gesture toward death; tomorrow we celebrate those who revealed truths that were not hidden by God-but hidden from us by our denial.

Around this time in 2009 I ordered my first clerical collar (not for Halloween, mind you). It was a size 8 (I wear a size 2). I took it to my mother-the woman responsible for a large bit of my spiritual (inner) tailoring as well as my diminished physical stature. She reverently hacked away at it so I'd look less like a toddler wearing one of dad's dress shirts.

I am still not always sure what it is for, what it does or when to wear it. I know there are obvious answers. But I like to say I am open to the mystery (mystory?) of it... if only because I am hoping to stay open to it's impact on me and my context.
The nose ring, the tattoos, the facial expressions I wear are not quite so mysterious. It's a little easier to predict who they may offend. Honestly, if I count the number of people offended by my tattoos it is equal to the number of people offended by my collar... only those offended by my collar often feel oppressed, rather than justified(!) in complaining about my garb.

The collar is not a costume, nor are the nose ring or the tattoos. They are more like monuments to who I have been and how I got here. They stand out against the landscape of my past and my future as well as all my relationships, they remind me that life requires bravery more often than it requires adequate protection.
They remind me that while protection is a rare privilege and often a mirage, bravery is not an illusion; Bravery is facing the reality and risking to change it.

I wrote the following poem after I opened the box that contained my mail order, 100% cotton monument
to the courage required by my position as a pastor
but more importantly to my position as a child of God.


This Cotton

I am caught on is from
A Fortress: just a phone call away.
I give the orders.
And it arrives and its small brown box, too light,
Belies the misgivings.

Oh carrier of this holy calling,
You are more than a covering;
You tighten around my neck—
A collar: like the rising at the bell
This tintinnabulation tab -
let rangle me—
I choke on each word.

And I am to become
A Friar: fire tucked
below the belt.
Sustained by alms, the scratching of the sack
Cloth, sloth, wrath, pride, lust, envy, gluttony finally wrapped in a showy snowy shroud.
And I am drunk with power
on the spirits that burned my nose and throat, and finally fell into my gut.

You knit this while I was yet in my mother’s womb, weaving past and present,
Bring me back to!
A woman will convert you and I: in an upstairs room with a machine
Darting back and forth this way and that–
my mother tightened the white, in her affinity, her cotton for my skin,
(She is using the same machine to fix it in place
That once quilted scraps of my youth)
Bolting from the bolt:
Lightening—no, not weighing any less—
Rather, striking again and again,
Leaving crass like glass (see how my skin shows through!) where once was
One tiny stone, one Word among words,
atop a million others battered
against the water and roiling in the foam of hope.
And this cotton testifies that I too started from beneath your feet
But you never would have guessed—
I rose too high too fast—it was the busiest of illusions.

And you will know me, if you see me
A Vicar: vicarious curio, proudly displayed
Lined up behind a man, among men
Who fit better into this weave.

But mostly I am still…

A Woman: of the cloth
This (clo(th)ing) that bears buttons
Like batting and battens down, hatches all around me—
The flames of Pentecost
Or Jeremiah’s fire
Burning from the inside
Burying me in the white heat
And all that remains is to speak over you
And I: ashes to ashes,
dust to dust, and cotton enough to catch them.

On the occasion of my daughter's first birthday

For You

Time does not make a single sad line;
each tick of the clock
a pebble and we toss them coyly together

watch the puddle where
they shine
ring joy,
they gather and leave no choice-
only growth.

Movement is a miracle you discovered slowly,
raise your arms in praise of the world coming toward you.
Laughter weaves a warmth around your world-
branches holding tight
the moon.

Speak the language of your soul soft and wild,
know we understand,
a song that can
sweep the desires out of their hiding places,
bite the traces of sweetness arriving,
all this only ever
an offering.
It rises to the surface,
naturally.

Pull the fabric of our faith,
trust it's twisting in your fist,
a prayer occurs with teeth bared-
an honest smile- your eyes search the heaven of you reflecting
mine own.

on parenting

On (Pa)Renting Children

as an extreme
full contact sport played
prayed
to St. Anthony, the one who finds
the lost
as an exercise in ambivalence
as in hope.
We bow but seem
only to be staring
at our shoes
in humility.

bodies and blood: for the feint of heart

Please read this post with caution: It may be somewhat upsetting.

The first week of our work there was an RV set ablaze in the parking lot.
The first week of our second month there was a pool of blood in the entrance used by our foodbank volunteers.
Yes, shocking.

Querido and I have been in ministry together and to one another for nearly five years. We have experienced profound loss, the birth of our first girl child, the realization of dreams and we have set a course into the storm. We have been appointed by our Bishop to serve South Tacoma and are willing to admit that this particular ministry is quite a squall.

It rages. Sometimes we join it. We rail against the God of muscle and bone, life and death even though we know these things are part of creation and they are good.
They are good.
God says they are good.

We preach body and blood. We know therein lies hope: blood is the fluid that nourished my baby daughter in my womb, carries oxygen to my brain as it conjures hopes and prayers. We avoid the more traumatic elements but we offer the cup of hope when we serve the Wesleyan Love feast of bread and juice. We know that God has provided food and thereby has blessed our bodies acknowledging that we are not just spiritual beings. We interact with all of creation: wheat, fruit and so are nourished by the very soil we will become someday when our bodies return to their former state.

Perhaps this is why the blood at my feet caused me to lose sleep last night.
My feminine imagination went first to the pain of childbirth. My male colleagues were generous enough to join me in this. A real man will be affected by his female pastor's concern and seek out the lost even if it means bravely facing the unknown contents of a dumpster. God spared him finding anything but melon rinds and used plasticware... This time.

Many of you have careers that call you into relational struggle, test your creative endurance, require that you remain the un-anxious presence. My career choice compels me to invite you to lean on me when these challenges upend your spiritual practices and knock you off center. When you need a hand to hold as you approach the end of the day, the season, the life you have been given I will be with you.

My career, my calling is to remember blood as a ballast, rage as redeemed, Christ in the storm calling us deeper in so the salty brine will cleanse our wounds. My vocation is to witness the dumpster contents and know they are all capable of holiness especially when they have been discarded on holy ground where they may be found by someone with eyes to see them as such.

This is what I've been called to tell you. They say there is a section of the book we claim called "gospel"; if it doesn't sound like good news it probably isn't what we ought to be preaching. The good news here is that whether we know the source or not the evidence of human suffering on our church doorstep is a holy and beautiful reminder that God is calling the broken to come home when we are battered, broken, abused, afraid.

My mother worries these fires and blood are evidence that I may be in danger. I say there is no doubt I am in danger... We are all in danger but God is in it with us, calling to us from within it. The earth cries out as it receives our blood, redeems it, knows what to do with it and so will we.

It doesn't get safer, I get braver. It doesn't get easier, I get stronger. Join me on the journey; we will borrow bravery from our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. We will redefine beauty and feast on love. We will know the earth and return to it daily as the fearful parts of us die and we are reborn with every breath, every heartbeat feeling the source pumping through our veins and pouring out of our hearts.

holy mother, for chrissakes...

They need a baby Jesus

My mother is a special mother and this is why: she is respectful of my many boundaries. Early in November she called and said, “I don’t want to overstep any boundaries but… They need a baby Jesus.”

“Of course they do,” I said. “It’s the way we humans work. A tangible reminder of the holy is always nice this time of year.”

In our house we over think this fact. Who are we if we say YES? What are we really saying about the infallibility or historic value of the birth of Jesus if we say we will wrap our little girl in a piece of cloth and pretend she is the Christ child? If we say NO, we shy away from the invitation to take a place of honor among the children and families trying earnestly to remember Immanuel in the midst of December’s consumer chaos. Citing theological differences rarely brings us closer to becoming the Beloved Community. I needed to at least collect some data and it’s much easier to put on a costume than do research (especially for a family with a newborn).

The day of the pageant there was no Joseph in sight. We noticed the irony in this but finally gave in to the romance of a traditional tableau. Turns out we were going to need all hands on deck. Nathan reluctantly donned a scratchy poncho and joined Pazita and I in our blue and white cotton yardage. As we entered the hall I heard a little voice rise up: “Is it a real baby?!”

“Yes. We got a real baby!” I heard. They began to sing Silent Night and Pazita, who had been cooing quietly for the last 30 minutes began to scream as if she’d been poked by a piece of straw-just like a real baby- maybe just like the real Jesus. Our Pazita, Joy of Man’s Desiring, pitched a fit and there was nothing the reluctant father figure nor the inexperienced new mother could do about it, try as we might.

The angels and Centurians forgot the words to Silent Night and the melody faded into the sounds of cacophonous midday. Shepherds and cardboard sheep looked on in a mixture of empathy and surprise.

As I look back on that day, almost four years ago, I find it easier to believe that Mary pondered all these things in her heart; not because I need her story to have happened exactly as written but because I need to know that pondering is not any less important than knowing. I’ve studied the dangers of idolatry and often questioned traditions like Christmas pageants that make us believe that the most important question about Jesus’ story was whether or not it all really happened exactly as it is written. But in my heart I hear the Latin phrase Imago Dei: Image of God. It’s simply the idea that we all bear the image of God. Perhaps this means that each of us is invited to take a place of honor-not because we are perfect but because we are real.

The pageant coordinators at my mom’s church wanted Pazita with them because she was real, not because she was perfect. She delivered: her humanity interrupted their silent night. Empathy and surprise broke down the facade and what was pageantry became an unexpected show of real humanity. Nathan and I were no longer able to pretend this was a perfectly happy child of a perfectly happy couple.

I guess my mother failed. She hadn’t meant to overstep boundaries but all kinds of walls fell down that day. Pazita's floodgates opened and alligator tears tumbled down the face of God.

And here is what I learned: If somebody invites me to be the Christ among them, I’d better say yes. The challenge is to remember that the holidays may mean a breach of decorum or a change of boundaries. We may disturb the peace, because we are human, because we bear the Image of God and it need not be a stumbling block. It may, rather, be an invitation for us to see Life, Spirit, Immanuel, God with us.

© Abigail Vizcarra Perez 2017