Tribal Church

As I finish up the book, I’m really looking forward to blogging on a regular basis. But, it won’t be for a little while now….

Until then, you can check out the God Complex Radio Show that I’m co-hosting with the Moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow and with the wonderful work of a very hard working staff: Landon Whitsitt (Producer), Mark Smith (Web Master), Brian Merritt (Marketing Coordinator), and Heather Scott (Technician). We air it every Monday at Noon EDT. If you can be there live, the chat room is very entertaining. Plus, we usually take callers and questions from the chat.

If it’s not a good time for you, no worries. You can listen later. In fact, I put a Blog Talk Radio widget right there on my sidebar, so it would be easy for you to hear. So far, the most popular shows (other than our first one) have been with Diana Butler Bass and Nadia Bolz-Weber. If you haven’t heard what they have to say, I invite you to allow them to impart their wisdom upon you via the Interwebs.

Today, we will be celebrating Juneteenth, and asking, “Have we moved into a Post-Racial society?” Our guest will be Pastor Sean McMillan of Giant Steps Church in Chicago.

Our upcoming guests are really wonderful as well. A fuller schedule will be available soon–we have some poets and politicians also to be scheduled–but just so you can mark your calendars:

June 29 - Nanette Sawyer, talking with us about Hospitality.
July 13 - Stephen Ray, talking with us about John Calvin turning 500.
July 20 - Paul Raushenbush, will be telling us about the Social Gospel in the 21st Century.
August 3 - Phyllis Tickle, will be discussing The Great Emergence.
August 10 - Frank Schaeffer, will be talking to us about helping to found the Religious Right, and then taking (almost) all of it back.
August 17 - Barbara Brown Taylor, will be talking about her new book An Altar in the World.
August 24 – Eric Elnes will discuss with us his adventures in finding a New Christian Faith.
August 31 – Michael Livingston will be speaking about Post-Denominationalism.

And, I have to say that we have many wonderful people who we are in the midst of scheduling right now. So, as we keep putting this calendar together, what great books have you read? Who is doing interesting work? Who would you like for us to talk to? Are there any up-and-coming musical guests that you would like to hear? Just let us know in the comments, and we’ll see what we can do.

photo by dotsync

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I have about a hundred things that I want to blog about… but… I am at the end of my book, and I don’t have to travel for another two weeks, so I want to spend this time to hunker down and edit, edit, footnote, and edit.

I did want to get your feedback on this question from the “About” page. Can any of you help with this?

Hi Carol:
Back in October, 2008, you posted an article on Slaying the Dragon. Our UCC Church has a good size endowment and we have been exploring the possibility of transferring our endowment assets into a trust or a foundation to support our entire operation including programs, administration and missions. The trustees, the majority of whom would be church members would be charged with protecting our assets agaginst liability, using a % of the assets to grow the church and providing funds for new church growth and redevelopment. Do you know of other churches who have done the same and could you give me their websites? We need to learn about how others have done since forming their trusts or foundations? Irene Hope

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That’s right. Diana Butler Bass will be joining Bruce Reyes-Chow and me on the God Complex Radio Show this Monday. Diana is a public thinker whose work is prolific, accessible, and vitally important to our faith. The music will be by The Church of the Beloved.

Instructions:

(1) Buy the book. (Amazon’s got it on a great sale right now.) Her latest release is A People’s History of Christianity. You know how people say, “I want to join your church, but I just can’t get over all of the terrible things that religion has done”? And you try to explain all of the really wonderful things that the church has done–how Christianity has often been on the forefront of so many movements of justice. Well… now you can add a book to your conversation. I’ll review it later, but Diana clearly points out the strong rivers of of vitality, life and justice that have been flowing through our faith since its inception.

(2) Listen to the program. If you can make it on Monday, at noon, that may be the best time to listen. It’s more interactive that way. Some churches/campuses set up listening parties. You can ask questions in the chat room, and we usually take a caller or two at the end of the show (646-595-4385). Here are the direction for listening (it’s not hard…).

(3) Download the program. If you can’t listen to it on Monday, you can download it later. Again, the directions are here.

(4) Get a magnet. If you have an active imagination, request a God Complex magnet at Brian (at) godcomplexradio (dot) com. The only thing that we ask is that you take a picture of the magnet somewhere and send it back to us. It’s always fun to see where that magnet has been.

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My apologies…

First, for going into denominationally specific topics. Those who are from other denominations, I would love to hear from you. And please let me know if there are studies in other denominations related to equal pay.

Second, for not making much sense. I have a cold, and I took some medicine that usually makes me feel better. At night. But, it’s daytime. I’ve slept a lot, and now I’m just kind of groggy and dizzy and awake and not making much sense….

But I did want to add a bit of an addendum to my last post, lifting up some of the pay equity facts in this report.

Full-time pastors, with 10 or less years of service, interesting facts:

•The wage gap is less with smaller churches (which makes sense, they are closer to the minimum), the gap gets larger with larger churches.

•There are more men at churches with 50 members or less (80% are men, 20% are women)

•Most women Solos and Heads of Staff serve congregations with 51 to 200 members.

•The worst gap is with women, who pastor churches with 501 to 1,000 members. Women make $50,038 and men make $71,128 (a whopping 21K difference).

Full-time pastors with 11 or more years of service, highlights:

•The most interesting thing is that there are not many women in this category. They make up 22% of the people serving churches of 50 or less, but that’s their strongest showing.

•Women make up less than 1% of pastors of churches of 1,500 members or more.

•Again, the pay gap is less with smaller churches, and it gets higher with larger ones. Men make about $7,000 more than women in churches from 201-1,000. Men make almost $14,000 more at churches from 1,001 to 1,500.

Full-time Associates:

•There are more male Associates than female Associates.

•Again, the worst gap is with the 1,500+ congregations. There is a $6,000 gap between the men and the women.

What can we learn? Well, I guess if you’re a woman who’s going to a larger church, then negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.

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I live in a beautiful house. I’m surrounded by beautiful art and furniture (most of it came from flea markets, charity shops, and thrift stores, but, seriously, I’m really blessed). I live comfortably and do not lack for anything. Except maybe a refrigerator. The freezer door opens every time we close the fridge door, and sometimes we find all of our ice cream full of crystals in the morning…. And an oven. All of the knobs are missing and it’s hard to tell what temperature we’re cooking at… but I digress. The point is that I’m satisfied.

And yet, I write about money.

I love my on-line buddies, many are deep in the wonderful world of free culture. The idea is that all information should be free and readily available for public use and modification. It runs parallel with a very Protestant idea that receiving the good news should not come at a cost, and should be creatively spread.

And yet, I write about money.

There’s a reaction against people who have spent years gouging the flock on a regular basis for prayer cloths and televised agape. And in the Emerging church discussion right now, there is a frustration that the leaders have “sold out.”

And yet, I write about money.

I know there must be a line somewhere, and I’m not sure how to point it out. Maybe… it’s right here… no. I can’t figure out exactly where it is….

But there is a line between getting paid for work–which is a very biblical concept–and fleecing the flock. And most of us, pastors and even the conference-leading writers, who publish with a company, are barely getting paid for our hours.

Do I write about money because I’m a greedy, materialistic jerk who could never be content? No. As I said in first paragraph above, I am very satisfied with what I have. But I just hate the judgment that can be dished out against people who are getting very meager payment for the hours and hours of work that we are doing.

I would claim, “I have a family that I need to provide for.” But, that would be hollow. I would fight for any single woman to be paid for her work as well. She deserves it too.

And that brings me to my point… I recently met Joseph Stewart-Sicking who is doing research on women clergy. He’s comparing his data to studies that were done ten years ago. I asked if women were doing any better with pay equity, and he said that we’re not. He explained that the only real difference is that women seem to be more resigned to their fate these days than in the studies of the first group of ordained women.

And that’s why I write about money.

Sisters, we’ve got to do it for ourselves, because no one is going to go out of their way to give us a raise, which means we could spend our entire careers at the minimum salary.

We, the generation who grew up with girl-power, we were told over and over again that we could become the President of the United States if we put our minds to it. Yet, we’re ending up on the bottom of the heap time and time again in our professions. We, women who graduated at the top of our seminary class, are finding it hard to compete against the men who only got through Greek because we spent so much time tutoring them.

Seminaries are still recommending less qualified men over experienced women for better paying jobs. Our denominational governing bodies are still giving shinier endorsements to men than to women.

Even though women far outnumber men in our pews, laywomen have not been fighting for equity; in fact, many women on church search committees would rather have a man in the pulpit. Many women on our personnel committees overlook the injustice between pay in our staffing models.

And so, I write about money, not just for me, but because I don’t want to read in ten years that men are still far out-pacing women with salaries and positions. I’m thinking about those girls in past youth groups who looked up to me and decided that they might go to seminary. I don’t want them to expect discrimination, because I didn’t fight for the wages of clergywomen.

There is serious injustice. And so we need to learn to balance our “I would do this even if they didn’t pay me” attitudes with a bit of fight.

(And now, if a certain woman on our personnel committee reads this, she will surely roll her eyes, since I turned down a raise last year…).

photo by owlsplace

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At a conference I was helping to lead recently, a really nice and interesting person asked me, “Why are you a part of presbymergent? I read your blog, and I just don’t get the connection.” He was confused, because I am a pastor at a traditional, progressive, mainline congregation, and he sees the emerging movement as neo-Evangelical.

There are a lot of ways that I answer this question (it’s a questions I get a lot). The main one is that Karen Sloan asked me to be a part of it, and it would be pretty ridiculous of me to write about encouraging young leaders in the church, and then say that I would not be a part of a group of (mostly) young leaders in the church. Plus, other people started calling me “emerging.” It wasn’t really a namebadge that I picked out for myself.

Since the initial ask, though, I have grown very fond of this creative, eclectic, quirky community. We argue and pray together. We dream of what the church could be. We have a lot of warts–gigantic egos (mine included), evangelical baggage, and too many collars. We’re extremely weak on social justice, ethnic diversity, and the number of men far exceeds the number of women.

Some people have joined the conversation through the Emergent Village, and others are like me, we don’t resonate a whole lot with EV, we disagree with many things that the EV leadership has to say, but we’re still excited about what the church might become. We have three main goals for this year: (1) set up cohorts where conversations can take place and connections can be made, (2) set up spaces for events to take place and creative energy to be stimulated, and (3) encourage and raise funds for new churches (or communities).

After explaining all of this, my new friend responded, “So… if you change the name, I’d love to be a part of it.”

I am following these emerging conversations, which are pretty interesting. In the comments of the initial blog post, one of the responders says …

it’s like a group of kids who just got finished playing kickball for 7-8 years straight. and now a new group of kids from another school just showed up and want to play again and act like kickball is their idea and their game. and a bunch of media conglomerates show up and slap logos on the kickballs. and they bring in announcers. set up all of their bleachers and stuff on our home turf. and try and start a game of kickball with us.

it just seems laughable.

I did laugh pretty hard at the comment, but after I stopped giggling, I had to admit that this is the most annoying part of the emerging church movement. Or…can you call something a movement when they look with disdain on people who join? What’s that called? A stopment?

There is the hope for revolution, but then there’s a pernicious elitism that questions people who join the conversation later, or who might be a part of a denomination, or those who fall under that most amorphous and damning category–the people who “just don’t get it.”

How long can the hyphen-mergent hang in there, while we’re being constantly criticized for our loyalty to our denominations and our ordinations? How can a movement be a part of a 500-year reformation, when they look with disdain at those who join the conversation after ten?

So, will presbymergents change their name? Maybe. But it probably won’t occur because of the “-mergent” part. It would be to change the “presby-” part, since a couple of our important leaders have had to defect to other denominations because of the pernicious ordination hazing that can occur in certain areas of our country. (But, then if we changed the name, then we would have to change the logo, and that would be a serious headache.)

Either way would be okay, since I’m not sure that it’s about the name. It’s more about the interesting people and conversations that have arisen, and the relationships that have formed. We might not cause a revolution, we may not overturn the whole course of Christianity, but we’ll keep working in our own small corners, and we’ll keep dreaming about what could be.

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Here’s one for the disturbing news file.

A friend, who’s on the verge of retirement, just came back from a denominationally-sponsored retirement planning meeting, with two interesting pieces of information.

(1) There are incentives for putting off retirement. Big incentives. For every year that a minister puts off retirement, he or she gets a 5% increase in pension.

(2) It was communicated by those leading this meeting that it’s good for the denomination to do this, because older ministers are so much better than the young ones who are coming up.

The latter was conveyed, not over coffee, but in a seminar.

Now… far be it for me to cause intergenerational tension. I mean it. I try to build bridges. I appreciate the wisdom that can come from experience. I know that retiring pastors have seen a huge decrease in their portfolios, and many of them who would like to retire, simply cannot do it. I understand this. I know people who have been counting down for retirement for years, and now they’re stuck resetting the clock.

Yet, in light of the economic crisis, in light of the many people who have to keep working and do not have the luxury to retire and who are already filling the pulpits that our seminary grads would normally be moving into, do we really need to be giving incentives for people to hang on longer?

And, really. Are ministers who are past retirement age better than young pastors? We need to think long and hard about this one, because we are driving off our young pastors because we don’t have jobs for them. Conversely, we are hoping that our older ministers, who only have a few post-retirement years left, to hang on. How is that good for our denomination?

Let’s be clear. Post-retirement-age ministers are not better for our churches than young pastors. They are just much better for our pension funds. It’s much better for the board to have that big, fat, premium from the pastor who’s at the end of his or her career, and to cut down the pay-out by a couple of years, than to be collecting the measly percentage that young pastors can provide.

While the whole business world is dealing with job shortages by trying to give incentives for retirement-age employees to leave, we are giving incentives for them to stay.

Could we please stop with the ageism? Could we please begin to appreciate the innovation, energy, and vision that young clergy can bring to a congregation?

Research shows that the age of a congregation usually reflects the age of the pastor. It is the case in our denomination. So… is it the smartest thing to keep giving incentives to post-retirement ministers?

The photo is by burlap jacket

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Today on God Complex Radio, we’re very excited to talk to Nadia Bolz-Weber, blogger at Sarcatic Lutheran and author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television.

For those of you who may not know about this venture we kicked off, Bruce Reyes-Chow, the Moderator of the General Assembly, and I are hosting an Internet Radio Show. We’ve had an amazing response to all of this. The scheduled guests and the ones that are upcoming are great, including Diana Butler Bass, Nanette Sawyer, and Paul Raushenbush.

Ways to connect and find out what’s going on…

God complex blog
Facebook fan page
Follow us on Twitter

The show with Nadia will take place today, at noon (EDT). If you go on the Blog Talk Radio site, you can listen and a chat room will be open. Honestly, the chat’s as interesting as the show.

If you miss it, the shows are archived, so you can download them later.

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I usually don’t post my sermons because I found that they’re so long that people rarely read them on the blog. But, I had some requests, so here we go.

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Hagar was Sarah’s slave. Abraham and Sarah are characters from the Old Testament. Abraham knew that he was to be a father of a great people. Except something was going awry in the plan. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were getting older, and they still didn’t have any children, and so Abraham forced Hagar to have his child, Ishmael. Then when Abraham and his wife finally did have a child of their own, Sarah and Abraham forced Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert. Abraham sent his own son out into the wilderness to die. Hagar was given a small bit of water, and that was it.

So, Hagar was wandering in the desert, with no place to go. The sun was beating down upon her. And I imagine her, walking with that sheer determination that a mother has when her child is in danger. But then the water ran out, Ishmael’s cries were getting louder and as much as she tried, she could no longer soothe him and it became clear that her sweet boy was going to die.

Hagar had no idea what to do. So, she placed her child under a bush, and then she called out to God, and pleaded that God would not allow her to look upon the death of her child, and somehow, there in that desert, she received a glimpse of God’s dream, she got a taste of God’s imagination, and she realized that she would become a mother of a great nation.

How did that happen? How did Hagar, a slave, who was forced to conceive her master’s child, stand in that barren desert, with no water and her small child crying, how did she suddenly imagine that she would become the mother of a great nation? I think it was because she caught a bit of the dream of God.

After she realized this, she looked up, and she saw a well of water on the horizon, and she and Ishmael were saved.

The Scriptures are full of stories like this.

There was Moses, who led the people of Israel out of slavery, and into the desert. They were wandering out there for forty years. And yet, all of that time, during all of that nomadic traveling amongst the dry and dusty sand, when the people were looking longingly back to a period when their children were killed or enslaved, Moses was not willing to go back. And in that desert landscape, Moses kept telling them stories about a land flowing with milk and honey.

How could he imagine it? How did Moses have the vision to see milk in honey, when his mouth and nose were full dry dust? I think it is because he somehow caught a glimpse of the dream of God.

And think about Esther. Esther was Jewish, in a land where she was an oppressed minority. Her parent’s died when she was a child, and so a relative, Mordecai, took care of her. When she was a young woman, she became a member of a harem, for a particularly vile king.

The king had gotten rid of his wife because the queen wouldn’t display her beauty (whatever that means) before his drunk friends. The king was humiliated and decided that if he let his wife get away with not obeying him, then it would be license for women in his whole kingdom not to obey their husbands. So he dismissed her, in order that every man would know that he was the master of his house.

Of course, shortly after he did get rid of her, he missed her and started looking for her replacement, so he gathered all of the most beautiful women in the land, of which Esther was one. After a year of intense beauty treatments, Esther was chosen to be the new queen. Yet, from what I can tell of the story, I’m not sure that it was much of a promotion. Esther was the victim of terrible violent threats. She could not reveal that she was Jewish, and she was not even allowed to enter the same room with her husband without the fear of being killed.

And yet, Esther, in spite of the years of racial discrimination, sexual victimization, and physical peril, somehow Esther realized that she was placed in her position at a particular time for a particular reason. She began to understand that she would be the savior of her people.

I wonder how, with her background, with her history, and with the terrible threats that she was under, how did Esther begin to see herself as the savior of her people? How did she have the courage to overcome the years of being violated and threatened? I believe that Esther, somehow, caught a glimpse of the dream of God.

And what about Mary? Imagine her, this young unmarried teenager, looking down at her bloated tummy, trying to swallow back her morning sickness she realized that if anyone found out that she was pregnant, then an angry mob of people would surround her, they would pick up stones and throw them at her, and they would keep pelting those rocks at her until her body was so bruised and broken that she would finally die.

And yet, somehow, as her ankles began to swell and her skin began to stretch, she reminded herself that she was the most blest among all women.

How did it happen? How did these people, in the most disturbing, violent and oppressive circumstances, how did they begin to see living water in the desert, milk and honey in a dry land? How did they begin to see themselves as mothers of great nations, saviors of a people, and the most blessed among all women? How did they leave their lives of bondage, slavery and abuse behind? How did they have the imagination to begin to see themselves as something different? How did they begin to envision a life without gender discrimination, sexual slavery, and racial oppression?

I think it was because each one of them became open to the dream of God. They began to see visions that were far removed from their actual settings, from their present environments, and they began to imagine the most extraordinary things.

When our family wakes up in the morning, often times we ask each other, “Did you have any interesting dreams last night?” And the most fascinating conversations follow. We can usually remember our dreams, and after we explain the long detailed story, we try to figure out what they mean. I don’t know how to interpret dreams. I don’t know the particular symbolism that people have developed around dream archetypes, but it is interesting to wonder what our subconscious has been working hard on during those dark hours. I often realized certain emotions that I was feeling, that I didn’t know existed. Or I realize that my concern about a particular situation, something that I was trying to blow off, looms large in my mind. Sometimes, I allow myself to dislike a person or a job in my dreams that I would never admit to disliking while I was awake.

Dreams are so common. Experts, who have studied brain activity and eye motion, say that we all dream, whether we recall the images or not, we all dream. We all have that ability. I wonder if we have all have the ability to wake up and dream.

Pentecost is such an extraordinary event, full of wonder and miracles, and yet, it is also filled with such ordinary things. The disciples were together in one room, praying, trying to figure out what to do next. They felt quite abandoned and confused. It had not been long since Jesus, who was killed in a brutal public display, began appearing to different people in very random places: on the beach, on a road, in a locked room.

Then, after getting his followers’ hopes up, Jesus gathers some disciples onto a mountainside, and ascends into heaven, leaving the disciples in physical danger, scared and bewildered. Until Pentecost.

On the Sunday of Pentecost, they were all in a room together, praying, and trying to figure out what to do, when suddenly they heard the sound of rushing wind, and tongues of fire appeared on each person’s head. People began to speak in different languages, when they never had that ability before. The old and the young began to dream dreams, and see visions.

And, as God so often does, the Holy Spirit moved in those common, ordinary things—fire, wind, words, dreams, and visions to make something miraculous happen.

When I was in Sunday school, I was confused by the idea of a vision, and so I asked my teacher what visions were. And she told me something interesting. She said that they were dreams that happened when we were awake. I like this idea. Visions are dreams that we have when we are awake.

And perhaps that is the promise of the Holy Spirit which has been poured out upon all of us. The Spirit allows us to wake up and dream. The Spirit gives birth to us, so that we can begin to see ourselves as new creations. We can begin imagining a world where men and women are no longer enslaved, where peace reigns.

Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom of God. But the metaphor doesn’t make that much sense in our current context. It was a powerful image in the Jewish context that Jesus moved and taught in, but it is a bit foreign to most of us. Most of us are seeped in democracy. We’re more used to the idea of a president, and we chafe a bit when we think of being subjects of a king.

So theologians try to think of other words to use. Often they talk about the reign of God, to at least get past the Patriarchy of it. Or it’s the reign of God. Recently, I heard a theologian use the term the Dream of God.

The dream of God! What a beautiful concept. The dream of God is that the hungry will be full and there will be peace. And here, at this Pentecost moment we have a group of people get a glimpse of the dream of God.

When this miraculous moment occurred, it became clear to so many that the grace of God was no longer just for the Jews, but it was poured out upon men and women, young and old, of every language, of every ethnicity, of every socioeconomic background. That is the dream of God. And the church was formed, by God sharing the dream with a handful of people.

It is the dream that allowed men and women to imagine an underground railroad, so that slaves in the United States could escape to freedom. It is that vision that wakes women up from years of abuse, and allows them to create a way out of the violence. It is the hope that stirs within men and women who suffered from abuse or discrimination as children, and allows them to look into the mirror and see the image of God staring back at them.

Pentecost marks the fact that the dream of God runs through us. It flows through this sanctuary. It is that imagination that so captures a dying church to become a place of feeding and hospitality for homeless guests. It is the Spirit that stirs so boldly within us, until we can begin to imagine living water in the desert, milk and honey in the wilderness. And it is what encourages us to go out from this place, and to live boldly, into this Pentecost Spirit.

To the glory of God our Creator,

            God our Liberator, 

                      and God our Sustainer. Amen.

photo by PhotoSock-Israel

14 Comments »

I was sitting in Starbucks, waiting for an early morning flight, getting ready to go to Austin, Texas. It was pretty quiet in the airport, there was just the Starbucks soundtrack playing, so I thought I’d check up on my email. As I look at my inbox, I realize that I’ve been getting a lot of questions about writing lately.

About a month ago, I taught a workshop with Jason Byassee about writing and the pastoral life. We did the same workshop three times, which was a good thing, because so much of what we had to say was the same. So, by the third time around, we had figured what we were each going talk about, and we had it divvied up pretty well.

Jason talked about how the importance of writing newsletter articles well. He explained that it’s easier than ever to get published, especially if you’re willing to do the work of reviewing books. But, it’s harder than ever to make money from writing.

Most significantly, Jason emphasized the importance of pastors building a relationship with the editor of the local paper. Take them out to lunch. Ask what you can do for them. Because when something important happens and we need to speak out, then it will be crucial to have that relationship in place. He talked about being a pastor during the aftermath of September 11, and not being able to challenge the Anti-Muslim sentiment that arose in his local paper, because he didn’t have a relationship with the editor.

There was one place where we differed in opinion. Jason said that as an editor, he often encouraged people to rewrite everything so that there is no “I.” Kill every cliché and the first person pronoun, and your writing will be much stronger.

Of course, Jason and I write different sort of material. He’s an editor for the Christian Century and he writes theological books. “I” is not appropriate in the sort of material that he edits and writes.

I, on the other hand, write sermons, church newsletters, and blog posts. And even with my books, journal articles, and textbook material, I often use “I.”

There are many reasons for this. One is that people are interested in other people, and “I” has a way of embodying facts, stats, and arguments in a way that makes them a little more compelling, entertaining, and fun to read.

It’s also because I don’t really believe that writers have a fair and balanced view of anything. Good journalists and writers are passionate, and they usually have a point to make. As pastors, we come to a text carrying a heavy load of history and tradition. We open our text and ourselves, allowing the Sprit to completely transform us through the reading. But we’re still there.

Using “I” allows me to fully acknowledge that I am in the room. This is my perspective. I hope that there is something in the particularities of my story that has wide resonance, and perhaps even some truth in it, but nevertheless it is mine. For most of our writing that’s understood, since we are the ones standing in the pulpit or we have our names on the article. But I don’t mind if I go that extra step of including the first person pronoun.

Right now, the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, acknowledges that her background helps her to form decisions. She even when so far as to say that it allows her to make better decisions, and since her background is not one of white privilege, there is great controversy about this. Limbaugh calls it “reverse racism.”

I call it justice. The fact that she has a particular background that she is willing to bring to the court, her ability to acknowledge how our experience shapes our reality, is a powerful and important claim. It’s true of every justice, including the white males.

We cannot divorce ourselves from our decisions, text, or writing. We bring ourselves to it.

So where do stand on this? Do you use “I” in your writing? Why or why not? Do you think it’s more interesting or less to hear a personal perspective? Or would you rather edit it out?

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