An open letter to Chris Hardwick, founder of The Nerdist and host of The Nerdist Podcast (and @midnight and The Talking Dead and who knows what else because he’s doing so much as he follows his bliss):
Dear Chris,
I want to thank you for the impact The Nerdist Podcast has made on me.
Like many GenXers, I have done several things professionally – retail, teaching, singing, acting and directing, arts management, editing and publishing – always feeling that there was something more I could do, and definitely feeling rather like Salieri in Amadeus, second best, never getting the breaks. Thus it was something of a surprise when I realized I was called to ministry and am now in the first few years of my career as a Unitarian Universalist minister. When I first discerned the call to ministry, I was very clear that I didn’t want to be a congregational minister – I was clear that my call had something to do with the arts. But Salieri syndrome kicked in again, because I am not a great actor, or an instrumentalist, or a composer or playwright – and because others in my denomination are more creative and out there doing amazing things.
I tell you this because about a year ago, having resigned myself to congregational ministry, I started listening to the podcast. Sure, some of them are simply hysterical, and I am so grateful for that – I listened to your first podcast with Wil Wheaton about a week after the election and it was the first time I had laughed since that horrible day, so much so I had to pull off on the side of the road because tears were streaming down my face.
But alongside the humor, especially in the podcasts from the last year or two, you have engaged in incredibly thoughtful conversations with incredibly bright and thoughtful people about creativity, inspiration, temperament, process, and the philosophy of art. Episode after episode, you are tapping into a deep truth about our impulse as humans to create and express ourselves, and the ways in which those impulses define our attitudes and character.
Those conversations have mattered – on a larger scale, of course, but also to me personally. Your call to us to find that thing and do it has helped me realize that I don’t have to be Mozart to be effective, and useful, and needed. Your call to us to find that thing and do it has helped me see that my call to ministry isn’t about being the best artist but rather to inspire others to create, to do, to use the arts to find truth, to understand the world, to connect with others, to let our spirits play. And goodness knows we need it – more than ever, when the political and social landscape seeks to crush us, we need to create art and be inspired by art in order to survive.
And so I thank you – for helping me discern my need to leave the congregation and work as a “freelance” minister working with communities to inspire and enrich their lives with art – for continuing this vital conversation about creativity – and for making us laugh so hard I can’t drive.
Thank you.
Enjoy your burrito…
Image by Jimiyo at Deviant Art – free for use under Creative Commons License
What started as a silly exclamation after drinking at the pub one night turned into two major projects that I undertook at seminary.
The exclamation – interjected as a group of us at Union Theological Seminary discovered a mutual love of musical theater – was “we should do a Broadway Revue!” A few months later, we were making that silly notion a reality, and we created and produced “In the Beginning: A Broadway Revue Inspired by Genesis.” A year later, we created and produced “The Other Side” which was inspired by Exodus – complete with a three-credit course led by one of the world’s top Biblical scholars.
It was really a silly idea. We had heavy work loads, field education, other interests. Yet it sparked a creativity that would not be relegated to ‘silly idea.’
Fast forward to now: a colleague’s son is in the hospital with a sudden illness; to cheer her up, another colleague suggested we post funny/made up memories of her on Facebook. The entries were funny, sweet, and sometimes fantastical. But one of them – suggesting that they were doing a service that was replaced by a Golden Girls script – was the silliest of them all. And sparked an incredible conversation that is now leading us to create a “Thank You For Being a Friend” Sunday – coordinated worship services across the country, focused on the wonderful lessons of friendship, generosity, acceptance, worth, family, storytelling, cheesecake, and shoulder pads.
A silly idea. A REALLY silly idea. But now we’re plotting and planning and, as I experienced in the Broadway revues, feeding and being fed off others’ creativity, spirit, and yes-and attitude.
—
Just yesterday, I was remarking to my internship supervisor that I felt a bit exiled – not just the geographic exile of being at the end of an archipelago where the Atlantic meets the Gulf of Mexico, but also exiled from my support systems, from connections, and most of all, from my own – and others’ – creativity. Somehow being physically separated from the people who stir my creativity led me to being separated from my own.
But a silly idea has brought me back from the brink.
A silly, creative, meaningful idea that can be accomplished and activates all that I love about the creative process – collaboration, expansive thinking, inspiration – has brought me back from the brink.
Saying YES-AND to this silly idea has reminded me to say YES-AND to myself, to that which I call God, to the universe, to others, and most of all, to my call.
But it’s not just personal; as career coach Bob Proctor points out, it’s the silly ideas that are “the most stunning, spectacular concept you could possibly imagine. Something there’s an enormous market for. Something that millions of people are absolutely crying for someone to provide them with.”
Imagine what happens when we use the power of silly in our spiritual settings… we might get a raised eyebrow or two, and hear the seven deadly words “but we’ve never done it this way.” But we may often have found the most spectacular concept we could possibly imagine, something millions are absolutely crying for someone to provide them with – healing, comfort, joy, awakening, enlightenment. It happened for me, and it keeps happening.
For several years, I have known that my master’s thesis would be a launching pad for my eventual book on theatricality in Unitarian Universalist worship – my general idea is that we can learn something from our performative cousin, theatre, in terms of how we approach everyday worship.
Every time I mention the project to someone, they say “you have to write this book” and I smile at the confirmation. But instead of writing, I think about it, glad I have my thesis to point to as a “good start.” And of course I have a lot of other things going on – my ministerial internship, some work on my next worship-performance piece, and Reading. All. The. MFC. Books.
In October, I attended the Florida UU Ministers retreat, where Mark Morrison-Reed was our inspiring and compelling presenter. I had the opportunity to ride from our meeting place in Mount Dora down to Orlando, where I caught a bus and Mark caught a plane. I told him about my vision of ministry and this book, and he said – like everyone else has – “you have to write this book.”
Now there are a lot of influential people in my life, and I value their input. But when Mark Morrison-Reed said “you have to write this book” – I finally, actually HEARD the call.
But how was I going to write this when I have all these other things happening? That’s when my friend Katy said she was thinking about doing the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) – a program for writing about 50,000 words of a novel over the course of the month. Of course, I don’t have a novel in me, but I do have this book. That my advisor, my mentor, my supervisor, my friends, and Mark Morrison-Reed all implore me to write. So I decided to get in on the game, and use the structure of NaNoWriMo to get 50K words of a first draft completed.
It’s been seven days now, and I’ve written about 8,500 words – some of them I like, some of them are utter crap, some of them making me wonder why I think I can put actual English sentences together – but what I am discovering is that I really care about this.
As I start writing various sections about things like setting, story arc, object, or character, I find that I don’t just have things to say, but I care deeply about them. I want our worship to be better – more inspirational, more transformative, more compelling, more meaningful. I want the people conducting and helping in worship to care how it is presented. I want our services to inspire deep thinking and radical compassion. And the more I write, the more I realize how deeply important this aspect of our religious expression is and how much I have to contribute to the conversation.
You could say “of course you care – this is your passion” and you’d be right, of course. I am passionate about the arts as an integral part of how we live our days, express our selves, and connect to the Divine. But it was the depth of my passion that surprised me. It was the tears in my eyes as I wrote about the effects of good transition and the speed of my fingers on the keyboard as I wrote about presence that caught me off guard.
Of course, I did have the ‘why is this, and not some grand justice issue the thing that drives you to write passionate prose of questionable quality” thought – knowing that I am passionate about feminism, LGBTQ issues, and income justice too. But what I know is that if we are only passionate about what happens outside our walls, we will forget that we need the beloved community inside our walls to be fed, inspired, and compelled too. And one way we do it is to create nourishing, inspiring, and compelling worship.
I really care about this. So I’m going to keep writing.
This past Sunday, Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the country celebrated Ingathering/Homecoming. It’s a old tradition from when our elite Boston forebears closed their doors for the summer in favor of cottages on the Cape. But while almost all of our congregations are year round now, we still take the time to welcome everyone back from their summer adventures and officially begin the church year.
The rituals vary (although water is an extremely common element), but there is a sense that on this first Sunday after Labor Day, we start a cycle. It’s akin to the cycle of the school year – whether classes start in August or September, there is something about that cycle – even for adults without school-aged children. And I don’t think it’s just a calendar thing either; I think that when we live our lives according to certain yearly cycles, it affects our thinking, or emotions, and our spiritual practices.
This is on my mind not because I headed to an Ingathering on Sunday, but because I did not. In Key West, many of our congregants are still away: September is generally the slowest month here despite school being in session because many of our congregants are snowbirds or simply have cooler places to go in these dog days of summer. It’s not until later in the fall that things pick up, and it’s not until January that all our snowbirds have arrived.
This is odd for me. Not only am I not starting a school year for the first time in several years, I am not attending any Ingatherings right now. My body says it’s time to start and is looking for a ritual – any ritual. My head is full of songs like Jason Shelton’s “Holy Waters” and Dvořák’s “Going Home” and I can’t help but pause at watery songs as I peruse the hymnals for next week’s singing. My heart is a little sad watching ministerial friends prepare for their Ingatherings and describe the beautiful celebrations they witnessed. And my spirit is feeling out of phase.
Sunday was still a wonderful day at One Island Family – don’t get me wrong. Randy preached a terrific sermon on personal worship and individual altars, and one of our colleagues visiting from the mainland joined us in the pews. I was engaged and enriched.
And when we sang our final hymn, “Blue Boat Home,” all of the things my body, mind, and soul were missing – which I had pushed down in order to be present to our day’s worship – came bubbling to the surface in the form of tears. I had my own private water communion as I felt a deep longing for this deeply-embedded ritual.
I first wrote these ideas down in the form of a Year of Jubilee post on Facebook, but the idea kept haunting me through the afternoon, evening, and into this morning. Why was missing this one yearly ritual so important to me? Why can’t I get it out of my mind?
And then I thought about my mother.
My mother did not want a fuss at her death. She didn’t want a memorial service, a graveside service, nothing. She wanted us to go to dinner and enjoy each other’s company. And she wanted her wedding ring looped into my father’s and buried in the spot waiting for her next to Dad. That was it. And so, when she died in the fall of 2007, that is all the marking we did. Dinner at a nice restaurant a few days after she died, then the general busyness of paperwork, clearing her things, moving on with our lives.
It wasn’t until the next spring, when the ground was soft again, that we went up to the cemetery where Dad is buried, to bury the rings. I don’t know what anyone else was thinking that day; we all trudged up the mountain and up the hill to the spot – my brother and nephew pulled out some tools to dig a hole, which proved difficult, as the soil is very rocky. There was general chatter and conversation. But I was overwhelmed with grief, realizing that Mom’s request had actually robbed us of an important moment in the cycle of life: an organized container for mourning and remembrance, a marker for our grief. I sobbed a bit, and my step-nephew held me. In the silence of my quiet tears I thought a prayer of remembrance, and I think I internally quoted the Christina Rossetti poem. The rest of my family may – or may not – have understood that moment, but it was the moment I needed in the cycle.
We live our lives in cycles – the cycle a lifetime, the cycle of a year. When we don’t mark the moments of our cycles with rituals, celebrations, and memorials, we lose track. We need these markers to help us make sense of our lives.
Now I don’t know if Randy instinctively knew at least one of us would need some connection to Ingathering yesterday, but ending with “Blue Boat Home” helped me, at least for a moment, connect to the cycle of the year that means so much to me. May we always find ways to mark our lives and feel connected to ourselves and each other and we move through our days.
On Sunday morning, someone in one of my Facebook groups exclaimed the awesomeness of “so many pics of red shoes” in her newsfeed. I then looked through mine; no red shoes and no other mention of them. So I went back to the group and asked what it was about, and I got a one-word response: “PENTECOST!!!”
And I was still baffled.
The respondent had to show me the liturgical colors explanation from the United Church of Christ for me to even come close to understanding that not only is red the color of this Christian holy day, but that women (and maybe men too?) wear red shoes. I’m still not sure I get the shoe thing…but what I do know is that I felt out of the loop.
It feels strange to not understand Christian practices, as someone who grew up in late 20th century America. It’s one thing to not understand Muslim practices, or Hindu practices, for example, as I didn’t grow up in communities where those religions surrounded me. But I know – or thought I knew – at least the basics of Christianity. In order to get a good religious education in a town too far from a Unitarian Universalist congregation, our folks sent us to the local Methodist church. Studies of English and American history and literature requires a knowledge of Christianity. And heck, our own denomination springs from two Christian denominations.
So why don’t I understand red shoes on Pentecost? Or why Protestants get all into the Lent/Holy week thing, when they didn’t when I was a kid? Or any number of other things that everyone else seems to know and considers basic, but I don’t?
I feel out of the loop – but also that I’m missing something. Other people are off singing and dancing in their new red shoes, and I’m sitting here surrounded by flower communions and final services and just random everyday UU services, filled with people who have no clue this is a special day in the religion from whence we sprang.
And honestly, it makes me sad. Not because I think we should be like other Christians – one look at Channing’s Baltimore Sermon scratches that off the list. And not because we should adopt the Christian liturgical calendar and do all the things they do. We have too many other sources whose wisdom and traditions we also want to celebrate.
But are we missing something by only celebrating our Christian sources on Easter and Christmas? Or are we honoring what we have become? Is it really okay that we have our own liturgical calendar, with special holy days that are just ours (flower communion, ingathering, etc.) with just hints of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, and other holy days? Is it okay to feel out of the loop?
I admit to feeling a bit heartsick that I don’t have a tradition of wearing red shoes on Pentecost or feeling the agony and ecstasy of Holy Week, or observing the fullness of Passover, or marking all the sabbats with glorious circles and spiral dances.
And so I sit, longing for a kind of belonging I will never have as long as Unitarian Universalism is what makes my heart sing. It’s not a bad thing… just something to ponder.
Below is the video and script for my thesis project, a 30-minutes chapel service called Nameless, held Monday, March 3, 2014.
Juliana Bateman– Samson’s wife (Judges 14)
Natalie Renee Perkins – Jephthah’s daughter (Judges 11:34-40)
Ranwa Hammamy – Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2:1-10)
Ashley Birt – Lot’s wife (Genesis 19:15-26)
Jessica Christy – Job’s wife (Job 2:1-10)
Shamika Goddard – the witch of Endor (1 Sam 28:3-25)
Emily Hamilton – the woman from Tekoa (2 Sam 14:1-22)
Sandra Rivera – widow of Zarephath (I Kings 17:8-16)
Lindsey Nye – guard
AJ Turner – the narrator
Zach Walter– the rhythm
As people enter, Lindsey will be seen guarding the Tomb of the Unnamed Woman.
Zach will be lightly playing a military beat on the cajon.
AJ:
Samson told his father and mother, “I saw a Philistine woman at Timnah; (Juliana perks up) now get her for me as my wife.’ But his father and mother said to him, ‘Is there not a woman among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?’ But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, because she pleases me.’ His father and mother did not know that this was from the LORD; for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines.
As he returned to Timnah, a young lion roared at Samson, who tore the lion apart with his bare hands. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, (Juliana perks up again, a little) and she pleased Samson. After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see that there was honey in the carcass of the lion. He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went.
His father went down to the woman, (Juliana a little less enthused) and Samson made a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do. When the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. Samson said to them, ‘Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments. But if you cannot, you shall give the same to me.’ So they said, ‘Ask your riddle.’ He said, ‘Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.’
But for three days they could not explain the riddle.
On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, (Juliana visibly and audibly annoyed) ‘Coax your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?’ So Samson’s wife…
Juliana:
Sheesh.
AJ:
…wept before him, saying, ‘You hate me; you do not really love me. You have asked a riddle of my people, but you have not explained it to me.’ He said to her, ‘Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?’ She wept before him every day that their feast lasted; and because she nagged him, on the seventh day he told her the answer. Then she explained the riddle to her people. The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, ‘What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?’
And he said to them, ‘If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.’
Juliana:
Seriously?!? (stands, begins ranting)
AJ:
Then the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and …. (Juliana confronts him) … WHAT?
Juliana:
“Samson’s wife” this and “Samson’s wife that.”
AJ:
That’s who you are… isn’t it?
Juliana:
I have a name! Without me, this whole stupid vendetta against my people wouldn’t be close to fulfilled. Without me, there is no story. Samson gets a name. Even his second wife, Delilah, gets a name. What’s MY name?
(AJ is visibly shaken with the realization, sits)
Juliana:
All I did was fall in love with a handsome foreigner. I didn’t know I was going to be used. I didn’t know I was going to be accused of being unfaithful and deceitful just to further some warrior’s tale. The least you could do is the courtesy of a name. What’s my name? WHAT’S MY NAME?
(whisper, in time with drum) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Ashley:
I supported my husband Lot when he asked us to leave my home. Of course I turned back to look once more on Sodom, the town I loved. I sacrificed my life for my husband and daughters, whose own future was uncertain in these terrible times, whose lives I could have protected. But you only call me Lot’s wife. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Ranwa:
I saved a Hebrew child in an act of civil disobedience, knowing my father had ordered all the Hebrew children to be killed. I raised him like my own son, and risked further exposure when I let him go to his people to lead them out of Egypt. Without Moses, there is no Exodus. But you only call me Pharaoh’s daughter. What’s MY name
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Jessica:
I lost everything too. I lost my home, my friends, my children, my livelihood too. I stood by my husband Job through all of the pain and suffering. I was angry at God too, but I also remained faithful to my husband and to my God. But you only call me Job’s wife. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Shamika:
What people forget is that Saul came to me. He sought counsel, and even though I eventually recognized him, I saw how terrified he was, and I not only helped him seek wisdom from the spirit of his father, I fed him. Without me, Saul might not have become a great ruler. But you only call me the Witch of Endor. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Emily:
I stood before King David to lobby him on behalf of Joab. I alone was strong enough to stand before the king, using my wits to political advantage. And I wanted to – I wanted to ask this king why he had planned destruction of the people of God. I was a powerful political voice for my time, but you only call me the woman of Tekoa. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Sandra:
I was a widow without family or means, the poorest of the poor, when Elijah arrived in my town. He demanded of me a meal, when I could not even feed myself or my young son. Yet this man was compelling, and I did feed this stranger, who went on to become a beloved prophet and miracle worker. But you only call me the widow of Zarephath. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Natalie:
My father was returning, triumphant from battle. How could I know he had made a vow to God that would put my life in jeopardy? I only wanted to welcome him home, but he blamed me for bringing him low, when I was the one to be sacrificed. I lost my life because of my father, but you only call me Jephthah’s daughter. What’s MY name?
(joins whisper) What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?
Lindsey:
(stops marching as guard) What of all the other unnamed women? The widows? The wives? The daughters? The sisters? The lovers? The sick? The faithful? The outspoken? What of their names?
All:
(joins whisper, which now gets LOUDER) What’s my name? What’s My Name? WHAT’S MY NAME?
SILENCE.
Natalie moves to “her” headstone, places a rose, and sings “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”. At end, Zach begins to drum a heart beat.
Kimberley:
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to remember these women.
These women – who walked among us.
(Juliana places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who lived and breathed, who loved and lost.
(Ashley places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who played as young girls, who learned to cook and sew, who learned to love their family and their God.
(Ranwa places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who felt and thought and sang and prayed.
(Jessica places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who made choices.
(Shamika places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who were chosen.
(Emily places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone)
These women – who are only known in relation to someone else.
(Sandra places rose and sits at ‘her’ headstone; Lindsey sits near the tomb of the unnamed woman.)
These women lived in a long ago time in a far away place… but they have been living in me for nearly three years. Their stories – their heartbreak, their pain, their suffering, and their joy – have filled my thoughts. I want to stand next to Lot’s wife as she makes her final goodbyes to the home she loved. I want to comfort Samson’s wife as she finds herself torn between the men of her family and the man she loves. I want to hold Jephthah’s daughter to shield her from her father’s shocking pronouncement. I want to stroke their hair and hold their hands and call them by name.
But we have lost their names, and with them the fullness of their stories.
In this holy book, this Word of God, women are largely unnamed, unnoticed, unremarkable.
But let us be clear. God didn’t do this. This is not God’s problem. We did this to each other. Over centuries and millennia, through tellings and retellings, through writing and redacting, through additions and deletions, women’s names got left on the cutting room floor.
What we are left with is a text that along with serving as inspiration, is a model of how we are to live with each other. This model, which says it’s okay not to name women, even women without whom the story wouldn’t happen. This model, which says it’s okay to withhold names as long as the woman has no family or no means of support. This model, which says it’s okay to rape and dismember, as long as the woman is a concubine. This model, which finds no reason to name daughters who don’t obey… or daughters that do. This model, which says women do not actually get counted, but simply come along, among the masses. This model, which says even powerful and influential women don’t need to be remembered by name.
You might think that God is okay with it. But God didn’t do this. We did this to each other.
And God’s not okay with it.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who gave their lives in the Triangle Shirt Factory fire, or in the name of women’s suffrage, or in one of the many devastating wars we have fought, or in back alley abortion clinics.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who cross the borderlands and give up their given names in order to escape the notice of INS officials.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who are losing their lives while protesting in the streets of Turkey and the Ukraine and Venezuela.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who have been sold into slavery or the sex trade.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who have been raped and who are shamed into hiding the truth of their trauma.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who sleep on the steps outside our buildings and whose basic needs cannot be met by a system that is increasingly ignoring them.
God’s not okay with our not knowing the names of the women who serve us and care for us and protect us every day – the woman at the front desk, the housekeeper, the visiting nurse, the beat cop, the barista, the cashier, the soldier.
These women have names. They have stories. They have influence. But they too are in danger of not being remembered, of joining the unnamed in the great cloud of witnesses.
But we don’t have to keep the cycle going. The scribes and clerics gave us this sacred text, full of women placed in only one particular part of the story, known only in relation to someone else, known only for a place where they existed, known only by the terror of their texts. These scribes and clerics gave us a model we must reject. What happens when we actually speak their stories? Phyllis Tribble suggests that we must speak for these women, to “interpret against narrator, plot, other characters, and the Biblical tradition – because they have shown … neither compassion nor attention.”
Imagine if we give them our attention – how much harder it would be for us to accept some of the situations the Bible describes for us. What if we knew that Jephthah’s daughter was musical and had learned new songs to play for her father when he returned from war? What if we knew that the widow of Zarephath had been known to bake the best bread in town, back when there was plenty? What if we knew that Pharoah’s daughter found out she could not bear children of her own yet loved them desperately? If we had stories like these, suddenly, we might not accept the fate of these women – we might not accept that they weren’t that important to the stories in which they appear, and we would not accept that we should not call them by name. Just as we cannot accept the damage and disregard namelessness does to women today.
Today, let us make a change.
Dearly beloved, let us pray.
God of many names known and unknown,
hear our sorrow as we mourn these unnamed women…
in their death, we are all diminished…
their stories are alive, but all is not well.
Hold us as we take one step today to right this wrong,
to stand for these women,
to hear their stories and bear witness to their power,
to feel their presence and confess their present reality.
God, be with us in our struggle to make sure everyone is known,
to show even the long forgotten their inherent worth and dignity.
Bless us, God, with ever opening and softening hearts
as we remember the women.
Amen.
We will never know the names of these unnamed women in the Bible – those are lost to history. But there are names of women who have touched our lives that should not be forgotten. They are mothers, and aunts, and cousins. They are teachers, and counselors, and neighbors. They are activists, and preachers, and thinkers. We have all been touched by the lives of incredible women, without whom our own stories would not progress. Let us celebrate and name those women – let us turn this tomb of unnamed women into a space of remembering women and their names.
Folks are invited to write these names on stickers we pass out, and place them on the tomb. Meanwhile, the beat changes from heartbeat to an Afro-Caribbean rhythm.
As people gather, Ranwa leads us in Israel Naughton’s “I Am Not Forgotten”
THE ART OF MEANING 