Common Lot Fall 2015 by United Church of Christ

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CommonLot F O R T H E WO M E N O F T H E U N I T E D C H U R C H O F C H R I S T

Reproductive Rights Re-seen Donna Schaper Three Strikes: A Lesbian, Transgender, and Female Minister Cindi Knox Introducing the Antoinette Brown Society Waltrina Middleton: The Story of a ‘Black Lives Matters’ Activist Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe and…Surf Jennifer Garrison Brownell A Wave of Women in UCC Conference Leadership

A WaveofWomen

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F O R T H E WO M E N O F T H E U N I T E D C H U R C H O F C H R I S T

A Wave ofWomen

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From the Publisher A Wave of Women in UCC Conference Leadership Anthony Moujaes

UCC ROOTS: E-blast from the past making ripples in the present Barb Powell

Three Strikes: A Lesbian, Transgender, and Female Minister Cindi Knox

Reproductive Rights Re-Seen Donna Schaper

Waltrina Middleton: The Story of a “Black Lives Matter” Activist Marchae Grair

Introducing the Antoinette Brown Society Emily Schappacher

Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe and…Surf Jennifer Garrison Brownell

Fall2015 28

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From The Publisher his is a great issue of Common Lot –– if we say so ourselves. We do a bit of looking

back at how far women in the church have come –– and what it’s like to be a woman in the church today –– through the eyes of some fascinating UCC women.

Going way back –– to the Puritan era –– UCC historian Barbara Brown Zikmund, along with the UCC Historical Council, had the great idea to start a monthly email about important figures in our past. The first edition featured Anne Hutchinson. Read about it in “UCC Roots,” p. 9 (and sign up to get the email at ucc.org/uccroots). Fast forward to the 1970s. Women clergy were rare; when you saw one, it was noteworthy. That’s why in 1976 a UCC clergywoman had a t-shirt made that said “Woman of the Cloth” on it –– to wear around town reminding people that clergy can look like this, too (see “Introducing the Antoinette Brown Society,” p. 24). Today, women make up nearly half of all clergy in the United Church of Christ, and we now have a growing minority of women as Conference Ministers in our denomination (see “A Wave of Women,” p. 4). At General Synod last summer, a new Antoinette Brown Society was launched –– and the Antoinette Brown awards honoring ordained women were revived after a four-year lapse. Challenges remain. For all women, reproductive rights issues persist through the generations: Donna Schaper writes eloquently and with some exasperation about this in “Reproductive Rights Re-seen,” p. 15. For transgender and lesbian women, there are serious impediments to employment as ministers. Cindi Knox reflects on her experience in “Three Strikes: A Lesbian, Transgender, and Female Minister,” p. 12. Finally, make sure to read the intense profile of UCC clergywoman and Black Lives Matter activist Waltrina Middleton (p. 18) and Jennifer Garrison Brownell’s funny and touching story of the spiritual side of learning to surf (p. 28). Christina Villa Director, Publishing, Identity and Communication United Church of Christ Common Lot Christina Villa Editor and Publisher Barbara A. Powell Production Manager Common Lot is published twice a year. Sign up for a free subscription at ucc.org/commonlot. Send letters to the editor to CLeditor@ucc.org. A publication of the United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115.

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A Wave 4 Common Lot

The Rev. Diane Weible took the helm at the Northern California-Nevada Conference, the Rev. Anna Kreisle Humble stepped in as interim conference minister of the South Central Conference (Texas and Louisiana), and at the beginning of September, the Rev. Deborah Blood began as conference minister for the Maine Conference. That brought the total number of UCC conferences led by females to 10 out of 38.

By Anthony Moujaes he increase in women conference ministers is a healthy trend that brings diverse views and skills to the leadership of the church, the trio said, and helps the church live into its identity

of being inclusive. However, all three women added that there is still work to be done in lifting up the leadership role of women. “We are the United Church of Christ. We are inclusive and seek to raise up people of all backgrounds and genders to positions of leadership,” Blood said. “It is important that the judicatory leaders [conference leaders] reflect the diversity of the church. Men and women bring different things to leadership, not better or worse, but we lead better with a full representation of humanity — so having people of different genders and colors makes us stronger and a better church.”

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Humble added, “One of the things that drew me to the UCC initially was the idea that we are a champion for women’s leadership, and being the first denomination to ordain a woman. We hold this practice dear, but it’s harder to practice I think. Looking at leadership of conference ministers and national leadership, we haven’t entirely reflected that.” One way women can claim more of those positions, the new conference ministers say, is by going for jobs, even if they don’t feel fully qualified. Said Weible, “I read a study in the Harvard Business Review that women will not apply for leadership unless they feel 100 percent qualified for it, while men will apply and take that risk. I think that may be part of what we are missing — a willingness by women to take the risk even if they don’t feel fully qualified for it. If someone says they don’t feel ready, we need to be bold and ask them to find out if they really are.” In the church, Weible said, “if women seek a position, it’s because they feel called, so trust that call and don’t doubt their skills, and know that the church needs those gifts and skills." Blood and Humble also had advice for women in the church. Blood hopes women seeking positions of leadership will consider conference ministry and leadership in the national setting. “Reach out and explore and participate in the work of the conference

“We are the United Church of Christ. We are inclusive and seek to raise up people of all backgrounds and genders to positions of leadership.” and national church,” Blood said. “A lot of how I arrived here was being involved in the national church and conference ministry. Don’t assume you know what skills are needed for it, and don’t assume you don’t have the gifts and skills. There are many more women who are ready for leadership in the church than there are coming forward.” Rev. Diane Weible

Humble’s advice to women who aspire to become leaders in the church was direct. “Be strong, and be yourself,” she said. Humble followed that advice, and the advice of her mentors, when she sought to become the interim conference minister of the South Central Conference. She acknowledged that it was a challenge for the conference to hire not only a female, but a 31-year-old minister with two young children, ages 4 and 2. But her conference and others are willing to try something new and hear the perspective of women in the church. All three women credit their mentors, many of whom were men, for instilling confidence and supporting them as they aspired toward roles of leadership.

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“There is no way I would be in those roles had my mentors, and the Holy Spirit, not prodded me into it,” Humble said. “It was my mentors who encouraged me to apply for association positions and conference positions. I believe strongly in the power of mentors, and that they build us up and make us bold.” Blood, who practiced law before she was ordained, traces her arrival as conference minister in Maine to support from two pastors — a man and a woman — who encouraged her growth along the way. “Whether

Andrea Kaplan, Maine Conference UCC

Don’t assume you know what skills are needed for it, and don’t assume you don’t have the gifts and skills. There are many more women who are ready for leadership in the church than there are coming forward.

Rev. Deborah Blood

it’s leadership in a local church or at conference or national settings, we grow and learn best when we have people to support, encourage and challenge us, who were ahead of us on the journey,” she said. Weible’s call to ministry came from her grandfather. “In my last conversation with him before he died, he said, ‘I thought you would marry a minister, and now I think you’re going to be one,’” she said. “It made me take seriously my call for the first time.” Weible and her husband spent 12 years as missionaries in Japan before she joined the staff of the Hawaii Conference. It was there that she was nurtured and grew her skills to put her in position to lead a

Common Lot Photos: Joseph Albert

conference. “When I think of the people who mentored me most, all are conference ministers, and none are female. I was told that my gifts for ministry are needed, and not just because I am a woman,” Weible said. “That was from three different conference ministers.” The Rev. Jane Heckles, former conference minister of the Southern California-Nevada Conference, is excited about seeing more women called into “settled” — meaning non-temporary — conference minister positions. “For about five years it felt like everyone being called to settled conference minister positions were white men,” she said. “But the introduction of ‘Designated Conference Minister’ and ‘Acting Conference Minister’ models under Geoffrey Black’s leadership has also added women to these roles in other ways.” Heckles became a conference minister during what she called a “second wave” of Rev. Anna Kreisle Humble

female leadership in the conferences of the UCC some 15 years ago. “I think we can finally say there is a third wave now,” she said. “And I celebrate that with [Edith Guffey’s] installation in the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference, it is multicultural.”

“It’s really time for us to be very serious and intentional about finding all of the people of the church and focus on doing the kind of deliberate, intentional and consistent mentoring for women that has happened for men.” Still, there are many women throughout the UCC who feel that the wider church could better promote the leadership skills of women. “As a church, we have a lot of work to do in this area,” Blood said. “It’s really time for us to be very serious and intentional about finding all of the people of the church and focus on doing the kind of deliberate, intentional and consistent mentoring for women that has happened for men.” “The UCC has always been a champion for the rights of all people,” added Weible. “I think that there is a tendency to believe, or want to believe, that we’ve made progress in equality between men and women,” she said. “It’s too often that I hear [gender equality] was what we dealt with in the 1970s and it’s over. We can’t assume the work is done.” Humble is one of the many who believe there will be more opportunities for women in positions of leadership in the future. “The majority of people coming into our seminaries are women, so I am optimistic about more women stepping into leadership roles,” she said. “I also think we can fully trust and put or faith in the search and call process. If we are open about that, without a picture of what an ideal minister might look like, we might find that the best person to lead is a person of a different race, or LGBT, or even a woman.”

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UCCROOTS E-blast from the past making ripples in the present By Barb Powell

The success of some chance meetings with Puritan heroine Anne Hutchinson and other important women in UCC history who wandered around the General Synod Exhibit Hall in June 2015 has launched an opportunity to learn about their lives and those of other people crucial to the UCC narrative.

CC ROOTS: Remembering our History” is a new monthly e-blast that gives those who sign up a small

“

dose of interesting UCC facts from the past. The posts are short –– about 300 words –– and focus on people, places and events.

The e-blast is the brainchild of the UCC Historical Council and grew out of the historical re-enactors at Synod. Since 2011, members of the Council have taken on roles of key people from all streams of the UCC’s past during General Synod. This year’s seven volunteers –– the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, Marge Royle, the Rev. Yvonne Delk, and current Council president Nancy Nollau Mack among them –– researched the lives of their people before donning costumes and randomly approaching others in the Exhibit Hall to ask, “Do you know who I am?” “We decided that most UCC history is filled with the stories of men, so [this year] it was time to celebrate the contributions of women,” said Council member the Rev. Barbara Brown Zikmund. “Even with name tags, most people could not answer the question. So the costumed interpreters would launch into three-minute explanations of themselves.” “People loved it,” Zikmund said. “In some cases, a crowd would gather and follow the visitor around the Exhibit Hall to find out what else she had to say. Historical Council members went along and told everyone that we wanted to send them more information about UCC history,” and collected email addresses. The historical e-blast is “a direct follow up to what happened at General Synod,” said Zikmund. “We might say that we are doing ‘ecclesiastical genealogy.’ The women who were impersonators will provide more information about themselves. Members of the Historical Council will also write. We will focus on people [men and women] from our pre-UCC history, but are eager to introduce UCC members to key leaders from the past 50 years.” The first blast, about Hutchinson –– a midwife in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s who later was branded a heretic and banished to Providence, R.I., due to her differing Christian beliefs –– was sent out over Labor Day weekend. Previous e-blasts can be read at ucc.org/uccroots. Sign up to receive the monthly “UCC ROOTS: Remembering our History” e-blast at ucc.org/uccroots. Learn more about the UCC Historical Council ucc.org/historicalcouncil.

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The Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree portrayed famous Puritan Anne Hutchinson during General Synod 2015.

As AMA missionary teacher Mary Peake, the Rev. Yvonne Delk answers questions on Peake’s life posed by authors during a book signing at General Synod 2015.

“We decided that most UCC history is filled with the stories of men, so this year it was time to celebrate the contributions of women,” Rev. Delk answers questions in the Synod Exhibit Hall.

Alliene Saeger DeChant, portrayed by Susan Royer during General Synod 2015, was a missionary to Japan.

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THREE A Lesbian,Transgender, and Female Minister

STRIKES

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By Cindi Knox

felt hints of a call to ministry when my age was still in single digits. I was active in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, youth group, and even Christian summer camp. Ordained Christian ministry was certainly a possibility in my very

conservative, suburban church for someone who most people identified as a boy. I say “identified as a boy” because I suspected I was supposed to be a girl, even before we moved to the suburbs and joined this church. I didn't know of anyone else with these feelings, nor did I dare share them with others. However, I did share them with God. I remember praying I would wake up and live as a girl my whole life. I prayed I would wake up and have the right body, regardless of the past. Eventually, I started praying I would wake up as a girl or not wake up at all.

IF I WERE NOT FEMALE, I would not hear people teaching me that only men may be pastors and teachers. IF I WERE NOT LESBIAN, I would not hear people preaching to me that I cannot be a Christian because I'm homosexual. AND IF I WERE NOT TRANSGENDER, I would not be writing this article. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that transitioning to my true self seemed a possibility. This was the beginning of sharing the truth about who I knew I was. My conservative Christian background told me same-sex attraction was a sin, so I began dating men. It took a while for me to discover and accept that I was attracted to other women. It took longer for me to reconcile this with my faith. Years later, my partner and I joined a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), and it was during this time that the sense of call to ministry came back. But now I was female, transgender, and lesbian: three different reasons — according to the church of my youth — I was ineligible to be a pastor. The person I had pretended to be was acceptable; my true self was not.

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While with that MCC, I started working on my undergraduate degree so I could enroll in seminary. By 2004, I found my way to the United Church of Christ, a denomination that has long ordained women and non-heterosexual people. That very year the UCC also ordained a transgender man. I graduated from Chicago Theological Seminary with a Masters in Divinity. The next month, I was approved for ordination pending a call. Generally, my seminary, home church, association, conference, and the UCC are very supportive of me. Yet, I still carry the sense of being an outsider. There are churches that are not ready to call a woman, a lesbian, or a transgender person â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and I'm all three.

BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN, I teach people they can be a pastor or teacher regardless of their gender. BECAUSE I AM LESBIAN, I preach that people can be a Christian regardless of their sexuality. BECAUSE I AM TRANSGENDER, I wrote this article to give hope to others.

And there is no shortage of Christians willing to call me out as being unqualified for ministry because of who I am. Yet, I am qualified because of whose I am. I am a follower of Jesus, and I believe God calls people regardless of what humans may deem appropriate. Can God use who I am to help me to accept others as they are? Can God use my journey to help me to meet others where they are? Can God use my struggle to help me to strengthen others as they become who God dreamed them to be?

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Re-seen Reproductive Rights

Most women under 40 have never heard the proabortion moral argument. One study after another shows this gap in moral education. But we don’t need the studies to tell us this. Just click on “spirituality and abortion,” or “theology and abortion,” or “morality and abortion.” You will find a well-funded technological dominance that is astounding. Bad. Wrong. Evil. Will go to Hell.

By Donna Schaper udson Memorial Church’s Reproduction

What is it about women that the Religious Right can’t

Justice Task Force has dedicated itself to

tolerate? Is it that important for us to be sub-human?

diversifying the moral education on the web

Do that many people really think of women as toys or

(www.judson.org/ReproJustice). We provide materials

hobbies or second-class citizens? Apparently, yes. Or

that add positive moral, theological and spiritual

enough loud people think so that the quiet people are

language and hope that the bread we cast upon the

quieted. The core argument needs to be made again, no

electronic waters will feed women who want to do the

matter how hoarse we are in making it.

right thing when a “problem” pregnancy is discovered.

Abortion can be a highly moral choice for a woman.

Along with a remarkably able organization from St.

The distortion of our faiths

Louis, Faith Aloud (faithaloud.org), which trains clergy

to anti-woman and anti-

to answer 800 number phone calls and be present to

scientific and anti-medical

women in every state as they morally make a decision,

rhetoric proves catastrophic

our small task force has set itself a large agenda. We

for women and children and

want to make a moral, theological and spiritual

their families. This argument

argument about women’s procreation and the virtue

demeans the sexuality of

and value of making choices.

women and treats them like

The argument is based on women being moral agents,

children with adult bodies.

fully human people, whose sexuality is a God-given

There is also a pragmatic

experience. The argument of “evil” comes from a

argument, which sneakily

punishmentalism, which is less godly than it purports.

demeans women as moral

I write with great weariness. We have done this before. It is painful to have to fight for what is already won, even more painful for one Christian to have to argue with another one about the freedom of the human to make choices. It is sad as well to see the constant struggle — now funded, ironically, by a toy and hobby company — about women being choice-making human beings.

agents. Unwanted pregnancies cause poverty and release unprepared children into a world that increasingly refuses to sustain them. But that “practical” argument is not why women can have morally good abortions. We can have morally good abortions because we are human beings, with Godgiven rights to human agency, just like men. We certainly don’t want to cause poverty or unnurtured children. But that instrumentality reason is not the only reason we don’t have children we don’t choose to have.

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To repeat something we keep saying: women are moral agents. We are full human beings. Women are capable of making soulful, moral decisions about our health. Assuming that a woman cannot decide for herself if and when to bear a child demeans women. Mandatory childbearing makes the woman a hostage to the will of others — those unfamiliar with her story, her life experience and her needs — and may have disastrous consequences for the children. Medical choices, like terminating a pregnancy, are medically available. Other life-sustaining medical procedures are not considered immoral. Why the complaint against abortion? Our faith traditions teach “soul competency.” This is a Baptist and Protestant principle, which is violated in restricting the right to choose an abortion. Our forebears suffered greatly, even to the point of death, to express their conviction that no one stands between the individual and God. Furthermore, it is a God-given right to hold your own belief and to reject state-sponsored religion. This is the core principle of soul competency — belief in the ability of each person to “rightly divine the word of God” (2 Timothy 2: 15) and act accordingly. Each person and each community of believers has the right to follow the dictates of their conscience, without compulsion from authoritative structures. Therefore, current legislation restricting women’s reproductive choice also restricts moral choice. To restrict a woman’s choice is to refuse her soul freedom. Our faith tradition also teaches the God-given beauty of religious freedom. As powerful as the U.S. Constitution must have seemed at its inception, Protestants were not satisfied that it would protect their most deeply held principles. “We, as a society,” they wrote to President Washington, “feared that the liberty of conscience, dearer to us than property or life, was not sufficiently secured.” The pressure they brought helped in the adoption of the Bill of Rights, in which the very first amendment defines two critical tenets of our society: the separation of church and state, and the free exercise of religion. To privilege one spiritual belief over another violates religious freedom. Theocratic legislation is neither Protestant nor, fundamentally, American.

We can have morally good abortions because we are human beings, with God-given rights to human agency, just like men. Our interpretation of principles and our Christian call to advocate for justice provide a powerful theological grounding for our unwavering support for a woman's individual freedom to choose whether and how to bear children. We also insist on being sex positive. Sexual relations are holy, spiritual exchanges, and as such, should be entered into with consent, respect, and a joyous heart. Consenting adults are free to decide whether or not to have sex. Consenting adults are free to have sex that is not procreative. The state should not dictate reproductive decisions, either in favor of or in opposition to carrying a child to term. As Christians, as Protestants, we wearily say, the right to choose a medical procedure is also a woman’s right. It has to do fundamentally with the freedom of our souls to practice our religion and morality in our own ways.

DONNA SCHAPER is Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church (UCC) in New York City.

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Profile: Waltrina Middleton

RACIALJ

WHEN DEMANDING

LIVE “BLACK

THE STORYOF A

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JUSTICECAN’T ESMATTER”

WAIT

ACTIVIST

Protesters, including Waltrina Middleton (center) and Cornel West, second from right, march to the Ferguson, Mo., police station, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) Common Lot

Being in the presence of Rev. Waltrina Middleton is both calming and exhilarating. The Cleveland activist speaks in a melodic, calming tone, but each of her brilliant words speaks truth to power in a way that demands urgency and activism.

By Marchaé Grair

he social justice champion sees her role as clergy, specifically working with young people, as an implied call to action in the Black Lives Matter Movement. She joins Black and Brown youth who organize using hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and create responsive protests to reinforce the value of all humanity and dismantle the chains of police brutality on people of color. The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson was a

rallying cry Waltrina answered by heading to Missouri to join the movement, but she didn’t know the killing of a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland, and later, the killing of a close relative during a racist mass shooting in Charleston, would amplify her voice to join a national stage of organizers who were ready to challenge white supremacy and the systems that sustain it. The Rural South Births an Activist When people picture a radical activist, they don’t necessarily imagine dirt roads, a barn, and a conservative upbringing. Waltrina grew up with all three. She remembers spending time with her grandparents in rural South Carolina worshiping and volunteering at the local African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. “Even though I grew up in a very conservative church, or in a conservative faith community, where the ideologies I grew up with are certainly not what I hold today, what it taught me was responsibility for community,” Waltrina said. 20

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Her concept of God and community service as a spiritual practice was formed at a very young age when people from the A.M.E. church would respond to others in need. Her grandparents even had a small shelter for people to use for worship when the roads were too bad to reach the church. “I can’t just offer you prayer when you don’t have any food or need your lights turned on,” Waltrina said. “What I saw was that faith and justice were not possible without people, without the community. It’s not this vertical faith where God is a healer and you wait for blessings to trickle down on you. Because I’m God. You’re God. And we live out and model social justice through our love and care for each other.”

A Calling to Serve the Young and Unheard Waltrina always knew she would have a job making a difference, but a job without an authentic voice just wouldn’t do. She spent time working at her hometown newspaper after she graduated with her bachelor’s degree from Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C. She knew the job wouldn’t last when she realized the editor had a peculiar occupation with only telling stories in favor of certain communities. “I knew then, as much as I loved journalism, I wanted to find an avenue that would allow me to tell the true story or make a difference that wasn’t controlled,” Waltrina said.

I LOOK AT MINISTRY THROUGH THE LENS OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY. YOU CAN’T DO MINISTRY ABSENT FROM SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Waltrina didn’t just learn to take stands for the good through her local church. The A.M.E. denomination is also inherently political, as its formation was a result of African Americans creating their own space for worship when they were denied spaces in all-white Methodist churches. “I look at ministry through the lens of liberation theology,” Waltrina said. “You can’t do ministry absent from social justice.” That liberation theology was enough to get Waltrina interested in seeking to liberate those beyond her South Carolina roots.

She headed to graduate school to study nonprofit management, and she would get her first tests developing reorganization efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Nonprofit efforts took her as far as rural China before she realized her call to help people meant a call to ministry. “I didn’t go to seminary to be ordained,” Waltrina said. “I didn’t go to seminary to be a minister. I went because I’m always in pursuit of learning and knowledge, and I wanted to learn more about these communities I was in.” It didn’t take long for Waltrina to realize recovery missions weren’t her only calling; she also had a soft spot for the youth who were often misunderstood.

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She had a brief outreach for youth in her hometown, but small-town norms didn’t mesh with her “come as you are” mentality. “They would tell me things like, ‘I really like this guy and I want to have sex.’ Or ‘I really like this girl and she’s a girl,’” Waltrina recalls. “That didn’t make a lot of the parents happy because they felt like I was encouraging them in their ways and started to sort of resist my leadership in the church. They’d say, ‘You’re encouraging so-and-so to be gay. How can you call yourself a Christian and you’re teaching them these things?’”

Even though she knew the children needed her, she knew it was time to leave and find her next calling. She couldn’t have known it at the time, but the groundwork was already laid for a “Black Lives Matter” leader to be born. The Cry from Ferguson She Couldn’t Ignore Michael Brown’s body lay in the streets for four-and-a-half hours, and that’s when Waltrina knew it was time to mobilize. “How can I say I’m a minister for advocacy and an 18-yearold child is killed and I say nothing and I do nothing?” Waltrina asked. “So I’m called by profession. Called by ministry. But I’m also called by heart because seeing Michael’s body in that street — even though I didn’t see it personally — the imagery was traumatic.” After organizing a vigil at the United Church of Christ headquarters, where Waltrina serves as Associate for National Youth Event Programming, she received a call for clergy to head to Ferguson. And she knew she had to say yes.

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She drove all night from Cleveland to Missouri and started meeting with young organizers immediately. What started as an all night drive turned into weeks of rallying with other faith leaders, being arrested in the streets of Ferguson, and having Thanksgiving dinner with people solely connected by a cause. Even though Ferguson needed Waltrina, Cleveland needed her, too. She realized it was time to return home to organize after the shooting and death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park.

Waltrina actually believes God’s purpose for taking her to Ferguson was to make her a better organizer in Cleveland. “Coming home, the first thing I did was get on social media,” Waltrina said. “And just put in every search that related to Cleveland and the movement that was happening here. And I just started messaging people. Who are you? Where are you? And how do I get involved?” Organizing Brings New Life and a Devastating Loss Since #HandsUpDontShoot, the war cry for Michael Brown, Waltrina hasn’t looked back. Bail funds managed by people of color. A Cleveland “action” network for protesting and organizing training. Public support and fundraising for families planning funerals for victims of unarmed police violence.

Her humility precedes her and follows her, so it would take an insider to connect Waltrina’s impactful efforts with her name.

you love being killed or people you love impacted in a way that is traumatizing.” So Why Should We Cry “Black Lives Matter”?

She was an organizer of one of the largest gathering and healing sessions for the black lives movement in recent history this past summer, as “The Movement for Black Lives Convening” in Cleveland sparked national conversations.

Waltrina says she won’t stop the rally cry of “Black Lives Matter” until our world acts as if they do. She said it’s time for everyone to join in the movement, and white folks shouldn’t let their discomfort with the phrase stop them from supporting it. “Too often, racism often prevails when people say, ‘I’m not going to act because you haven’t been specific enough,’” Waltrina said. “I’m not going to act because I haven’t been

IF YOU ARE TRULY A PERSON WHO CARES ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE, YOU WILL ACT. YOU WILL DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO RESPOND.

Waltrina even organized during one of the most painful experiences of her life. Her first cousin, the Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, was one of nine people killed earlier this year at Emanuel A.M.E. (Mother Emanuel) Church in Charleston by white supremacist Dylann Roof. After the shooting, Waltrina and more than 200 people marched through what was previously the slave market in Charleston, directly past Mother Emanuel, which Waltrina says demonstrated how “a tradition of oppression of black bodies continues to exist and is perpetuated by symbols of hate like the Confederate flag.” She walked the streets of Charleston with the rarest type of courage, but even in that courage, she recognizes the need for self-care. “It is trauma,” Waltrina said, referring to fighting for black rights while watching the abuse against people of color. “People don’t understand; the movement is traumatic. It’s pretty much like going to war. Because you’re seeing people

invited to. Or I’m not going to act because I don’t feel welcome. You’re hurting my feelings; you’re offending me. If you are truly a person who cares about human rights and justice, you will act. You will do whatever you can to respond.” “I always talk about Ubuntu,” Waltrina said. “It means ‘I am because we are’; it recognizes that I am incomplete without you. It was Ruby Sales who said white people don’t really have the right to call themselves allies because for you to say you’re an ally means that you are helping me to redeem my humanity. She says in actuality, black people are the allies to whites. Because for us to allow you to be a part of this liberation movement gives you a chance to redeem your humanity. We’re really your allies.” She’s done defending herself to people who think the Black Lives Matter movement has no constructive demands. “I think the demands are very specific,” Waltrina said. “Stop killing people.”

Common Lot

Introducing The Antoinette Brown Society

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At General Synod 30 in Cleveland last June, the United Church of Christ launched the Antoinette Brown Society, intended to support female clergy in the denomination. The Society honors Antoinette Brown, ordained by a Congregational Church in 1851, the first woman to be ordained as a mainstream Protestant minister in the United States.

By Emily Schappacher

art of the reason for instituting the Society is to cultivate the next generation of powerful, innovative women clergy who are “cut from the same cloth as Antoinette Brown,” according to the Rev. Elizabeth Dilley, UCC minister for ministers in local

churches. “The purpose of the Antoinette Brown Society is to multiply women’s innovative leadership in church and society through creating opportunities for UCC clergywomen to collaborate and share wisdom for transformative leadership.” The Society is open to anyone, not just women, who wants to help grow women’s ministry, and presently has 60 members. More than $26,000 in gifts and pledges has already been secured from inaugural members. The donations kicked off with a lead gift of $5,000 from an anonymous donor, and quadrupled during the Antoinette Brown Society launch party held at General Synod 30. “We were so thrilled by the interest,” said Dilley, “but we feel like this is an important moment in the life of the church to focus on innovative women’s ministry, so I wasn’t really surprised.” Dilley said the funds will be used to create opportunities for UCC clergy women to get together, engage and share wisdom, including the first ABS conference, which will take place in April 2016. Plans are for that gathering to happen every two years, during non-Synod years. Previous Antoinette Brown Award winners will be invited to give the keynote address.

Common Lot

General Synod also saw the return, after a four-year hiatus, of the Antoinette Brown Awards, which both celebrate the life and ministry of Brown as well as all women in ordained ministry who exemplify Brown's spirit of trailblazing leadership in church and society. The Rev. Sharon Ellis Davis, founding pastor of God Can Ministries UCC in Chicago, and the Rev. Traci Blackmon, the minister of Christ the King UCC in Florissant, Mo., were honored as the “trailblazers” in women’s ministry. RevGalBlogPals, an online community for bloggers, women clergy, church professionals, as well as supportive male clergy and lay people, was recognized as the “catalyst” this biennium. UCC minister the Rev. Martha Spong, RevGalBlogPals director, accepted the award on behalf of the group. Blackmon was a leader in the religious community after the police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in St. Louis, and has been at the forefront of a peaceful presence in the aftermath of the shooting, creating space for grieving mothers and civic leaders to connect in conversation. Ellis Davis’ path has taken her from police officer, to police chaplain, to advocate for victims of domestic violence. “Like Antoinette Brown, each of these 2015 Antoinette Brown Awardees: Martha Spong (representing RevGalBlogPals), Traci Blackmon and Sharon Ellis Davis.

women embodies the spirit of Christ who blazes a trail where there was once no path, and catalyzes new possibilities in the world,” Dilley said.

In the United Church of Christ, nearly half (48 percent) of all active ministers are women — a significant increase from 33 percent in 2004. However, nearly two-thirds of all senior or solo pastor positions are occupied by men. The Antoinette Brown Society, says Elizabeth Dilley, hopes to help change that statistic and “to be part of an integrated strategy to lift up the pastoral leadership of women in the church.”

SAVE THE DATE:

The Antoinette Brown Society is sponsoring a UCC Clergywomen’s Leadership Event April 18-20, 2016, in Carefree, Arizona, featuring the 2015 Antoinette Brown Awardees as keynote presenters. For more information and to register, go to ucc.org. 26

Common Lot

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

VINTAGE CLERGYWOMEN’S T-SHIRT MAKES A COMEBACK At the 2015 Antoinette Brown Society Awards Luncheon, two vintage “Woman of the Cloth” t-shirts were auctioned as a fundraiser. Vintage? Yes. Let’s go back to 1976.

young UCC pastor named Laura Hoglund came up with a clever idea for a t-shirt: “Woman of the Cloth” in simple white letters on a black t-shirt. A quite radical concept for a t-shirt, considering that in 1970, women made up only 3 percent of the clergy population, and in 1976, there still were very few clergywomen. In fact, the Episcopal Church — much larger than the UCC — didn’t start ordaining women until that year. Hoglund pursued her “shocking” idea and had ten t-shirts made. She sold most of them to other clergywomen, including the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, who purchased two. “Since I was unemployed in 1976, that was an investment!” Crabtree added that she proudly wore the t-shirt to “large, almost exclusively male church gatherings” she attended. This raised many eyebrows, she recalls. Fast-forward to 2015, when, thankfully, there are thousands more clergywomen. The vintage “Woman of the Cloth” t-shirt was such a hit at the auction that members of the Society decided to bring it back. The new version resembles the original 1976 design and is a fitting tribute to the trailblazing UCC “women of the cloth” — as well as a statement for a new generation of clergywomen.

“Woman of the Cloth” t-shirts can be ordered online from uccresources.com or by calling 800-537-3394.

Common Lot

Swim, Ride, Breathe andâ&#x20AC;Ś

Run, …Surf ONE WINTER, JENNIFER GARRISON BROWNELL, A MIDLIFE PASTOR AND DEDICATED NON-ATHLETE, DECIDED ALMOST ON A WHIM TO TRAIN FOR AND RUN A SPRINT TRIATHLON. IN THE PROCESS, HER SPIRIT WAS AS TRANSFORMED AS HER BODY. THIS EXCERPT IS FROM HER MEMOIR ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE, SWIM, RIDE,

RUN, BREATHE.

Jennifer Garrison Brownell

efore I went to Hawaii to learn how to surf, I joked with my friends at home about the surf instructors I would meet in Hawaii because their real names are Summer and Eduardo.

They are both exactly like you’d think from their names. Summer is lean and tan and friendly and very beautiful. She has that long blonde hair that you’d think would make her a native of Malibu, although it turns out she is from Texas. Eduardo is Brazilian — wiry and gorgeous and confident. When he takes me surfing the first time and I want to cry from how hard it is, he zooms past me, standing on his head until I laugh, get back on my board. “I’ll teach you that in tomorrow’s lesson,” he promises. The next morning I meet Summer for yoga on a patch of damp grass looking out toward the Pacific Ocean. She balls up her tiny fist and gently whacks her pubic bone. “You can do this,” he says, “You just have to trust your body.”

“You need to get your strength from here,” Summer says. That day, the second surfing lesson is harder than the first.

I am stiff and sore from yesterday’s repeated fallings and gettingsback-up and my knee was doing that throbbing/stabbing thing that I had finally learned is something simple according to a physical therapist called a “lack of engagement of the quads.” “Your quads are not used to being used,” he adds. “You have to remind them to engage.” As Eduardo pulls the surfboards out of a truck parked in the beach lot, I stretch, lean down to touch my toes, and make eye contact with my disengaged quads. “Engage, ok?” I whisper to the spot where I think my quads are. I don’t hear anything in response but I hope I’ve communicated. I push the surfboard out to the break, get on it, fall down, get on it, fall down, while Eduardo offers encouragement and instruction and the occasional high five.

Common Lot

IT MAY SEEM RIDICULOUS TO COMPARE MY OWN LITTLE BODY TO THE WHOLE BIG WORLD. BUT THEY ARE MORE CONNECTED THAN I USUALLY BELIEVE.

“You can do this,” he says, “You just have to trust your body.” “Yeah, you make that sound so easy,” I complain, then shoot off the wave, crash into the water again. I do not trust my body. Certainly not since middle school when I shot up six inches or so, got a permanent that gave me Van Halen groupie hair, started menstruating, wet my pants during a play, and started getting crushes on boys that made me blush and grin so uncontrollably that this seventh grade guy called Curtis nicknamed me Chipmunk Cheeks. As I’m paddling the board back to the break, I carry on a conversation in my head, “I mean, honestly, is this a body you would call trustworthy? Sometimes when I’m tired my body won’t sleep. Sometimes I’m so dizzy I have to lie down. My left knee hurts. My right knee strains to bend. My ears don’t hear; they get achy in even the slightest wind. My left arm goes numb and my neck hurts from being on the computer or driving a car. My bladder lets loose at inconvenient times. I get anxious and suddenly I can’t breathe. My skin does not tan in bright sun or even burn – it rashes. Speaking of rashes, did you know if I eat chocolate I get a rash? Also a headache and heart palpitations.” Tired of the conversation in my head, I try talking out loud. “Trust has to be earned,” I mutter to my knees, my bladder, my left arm, my head, the sunburn on the back of my legs. When I get back on the board, Eduardo suggests I think of yoga, imagine warrior pose. Both feet firmly planted, one knee straight and one bent, arms straight out. My favorite pose! I can do that. “Warrior, Warrior, Warrior,” I chant as I turned the board around, get ready to try again. The water is warm, saline, green. I grew up on the shores of Lake Superior, and her cold waters felt alive to me. I had a friend named Karie who came from the East Coast and was used to the ocean. She complained about the lake. “That’s not really water, that’s not living, it’s dead.” When I told another friend from my hometown about Karie’s complaint, she nodded thoughtfully. “I can see what she means. To me, the ocean seems alarmingly fecund.” Alarmingly fecund. So alive, so ready to give birth, so bursting forth with living things that it startles. I pop up to my knees, still chanting, “Warrior, Warrior…” Under there, the ocean is alive, is alive, is alive. And up here, I am alive too. What if I stopped haranguing my body, stopped shaming it for all the ways I could not trust it, and started trusting it? After a while, Eduardo gives me a break from surfing because really I am a terrible surfer, and we

32 Common Lot

oar a paddle board out beyond the wave breaks. Maybe ten feet from the bow of the board (does a paddle board have a bow?) a Something surfaces, a sleek body that rises and just as quickly is gone again. Eduardo: “Whoa, did you see that? What was that?” Me: (thinking) How am I supposed to know? Aren’t you the one who’s FROM here? (And saying) “I don’t know, but if it was a shark, I’m going to freak out.” Eduardo: “I think freaking out is the worst thing you can do, right?” Me: (Breathing, breathing, breathing. And getting calmer.) Eduardo: (reverently) “It’s a turtle. Look.” And behind us now and off to the other side, a turtle’s head bigger than my fist peeks up. I am not breathing now. I am holding my breath, but in a good

There’s life there, in the cloudy salt water, stirred up by the feet and falls of a hundred novice surfers here on the easy beach in the early morning. And there’s life inside me, too. way, in the way of someone in the presence of the Holy. There’s a creation story that says that the earth was created when the Turtle went down to the bottom of the ocean and came back up covered with mud and growing things. And that’s how everything was born. I am not going to die, not this time. I am going to be born. There’s life there, in the cloudy salt water, stirred up by the feet and falls of a hundred novice surfers here on the easy beach in the early morning. And there’s life inside me, too. At home, I often dash to my car each morning without stopping even for as long as a breath to see the spindly lavender growing in my front yard, the robin pulling worms out of the wet leaves or the way the clouds each move at their own speed like people moving along a city street.

Common Lot

In the same exact way, I ignore my body, shove food into it without paying attention to what is being shoved, refuse to exercise, sleep at odd hours or not at all. Later, I get back on the surfboard, stand and chant and then ride. My body, with all its failings, is trustworthy after all. Not only trustworthy, the ocean reminds me. Not only useful or even beautiful, but sacred, a sacrament, a visible sign of God’s invisible grace and worthy of love and respect and honor. It may seem ridiculous to compare my own little body to the whole big world. But they are more connected than I usually believe. If all of creation is sacred, that includes the turtles that surface at just the right time, the dolphins that jump around our boat in musical pods, the roaches in my rented room that no one can seem to get rid of, and my own untrustworthy, trustworthy body. I am no athlete, but it doesn’t matter. I’m a sacralete. I tap my fist on my pubic bone and think, “My power comes from here.” I stand and then the surfboard is moving. I’m moving along with it for a few seconds of pure unbelieving exhilaration. And

Thank you! Thank you for all of it! then, instead of falling, that time at least, I remember to crouch back down to grab the edges of the surf board, to sit up and pump my fist in the air, and then to lay back into the ocean’s milky embrace. I paddle back out to the break another time. Every moment of my life — in hospitals and summer camps and van rides and churches; all the frustration and love of marriage and parenthood; all those hours in pools and on bikes and lacing up running shoes — made it possible to be here now. I roll on my back into the alarmingly, astonishingly fecund water and look up at the sky and shout, getting salt water in my mouth but not caring at all, “Thank you! Thank you for all of it!” And then I stand — terribly and exuberantly — and surf again.

Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe can be ordered from uccresources.com or by calling 800-537-3394.

34 Common Lot

You were made in Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image.

And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something to

celebrate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to be interested in any of these sports to be drawn to this book. Because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about love and family; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about our beautiful finite bodies in all their strength and limitation; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about where we feel alive and where we feel fear, and the intersections between them.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;MaryAnn McKibben Dana, author of Sabbath in the Suburbs

Jennifer Garrison Brownell is a UCC minister and writer for the Stillspeaking Daily Devotional. Find more of her writing at 46thpsalm.blogspot.com.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;With the passion and determination of a young father, Dolive tackles the issue of body image from a perspective of Scripture, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s media, and personal stories. A fresh look at the understanding of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self as Imago Dei in the shadow of a 21st century culture.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Dani Loving Cartwright, AVP for Operations, National Benevolent Association, St. Louis, Missouri

Evan M. Dolive is a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Associate Minister of Family Life at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Longview, Texas. Visit his website at evandolive.com.

ORDER FROM UCCRESOURCES COM s

CommonLot United Church of Christ 700 Prospect Avenue E Cleveland, Ohio 44115-1100

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