Feedback

Dear Readers:

We have posted some of our thoughts and now we would like to hear from you. We are in the process of reflecting and working on what we would like for this blog to look like and what we really want it to be.

You can help us.

Please let us know what you have liked about this blog. What would you like to read in the future? What topics would you like to "see" us "talk" about? What would be helpful to you visually on this blog?

We look forward to hearing from you.

In the FALL we will be back!

Blessings and Peace,

Susans Out of the Pulpit

Racefest

Dear Readers: Blogspot was not up and running last week so we had to wait until this Friday to post this latest Blog post.

SMilnor: I think our country has had a big wake-up call with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like something you would expect me to say, but hear me out.

SMinasian: I’ll hear you out, but let me just say I am with you. I can’t believe we are still talking about this given he has been in office for over two years. You would think we would be over it by now. But go ahead. What’s up?

SMilnor: As someone who grew up in the South during the Civil Rights Movement and was emotionally and to a certain extent more actively involved in it, I believed we had fought our worst demons around race in this country. Don’t get me wrong: I knew there was plenty of discrimination and prejudice left. Some of the reactions to President Obama, though, have caused me to face that we have not come as far as I hoped, any of us. It’s been a painful realization for me.

SMinasian: It’s almost as though it was yesterday when the whole world was crying and celebrating this moment in history. He was not just the first African American president; he was also a qualified person for the job. Be that as it may, our demons have come out of the closet. I think we get in that space where we actually see things happen in our adulthood we never though possible in our youth. BUT reality bites, and we see once again that we have a long way to go.

SMilnor: When that celebration happened in Grant Park on election night, I didn’t expect everyone to be glad a Democratic president had been chosen. I didn’t expect everyone to be glad to have his priorities and policies. But I honestly thought most Americans might feel pride that we had come this far as a nation. I don’t believe that now. I think everything that night symbolized was deeply disturbing and unacceptable to a segment of the American public, and I believe what we have witnessed since then has been a huge backlash that was waiting to happen.

SMinasian: Without a doubt this is true. I know people were hostile and angry about George W. Bush, but I have never seen such hostility and hateful behavior from the people the president is trying to work with. I expect that from people who I would consider uneducated and not willing to change. Growing up in the South I wonder if our racism has always been out there for everybody to see. Now the people who have been hiding it behind the closet North of the Mason Dixon are OUT! Oh my, I sound like I am fighting the War of Northern Aggression all over again.

SMilnor: Uh, Susan, in East Tennessee we learned about the Civil War. . . In any case, the whole “birther” issue has obviously been a major manifestation of what we are talking about, as have the photos which feature the President or First Lady as pimps, whores, apes – I have trouble believing this even as I write it --- but the one that really brought me to tears and hurt deep was Trump’s accusation that Barack Obama didn’t deserve to admission to the schools he attended, wasn’t a good student, benefited where he shouldn’t have. People can roll their eyes and say, “Oh, that’s just The Donald,” but you know, Trump has been treated as a possible candidate for the presidency, and the media have followed every bit of this rhetoric in excruciating detail. Let’s not forget that Trump soared in the polls, at least for a while. Don’t tell me I don’t have to take what that means seriously.

SMinasian: And so Trump the Grump has never, and I do mean never, had to do what President Obama has had to do through his life. I just cannot stand it. The “average Joe” might support Trump, and yet they don’t get how it’s people like him who get all the breaks while the “average Joe” pays for it. AND the other thing that is so disturbing to me in all of this is how the President is in such danger. There is no other president who has gotten the number of death threats as Obama has gotten. Language is powerful. The language of disagreement on policies because of the values one might hold is one thing. To exploit the race of a person for one’s own gain is another. This “gain” is going to unravel whatever we have experienced as progress, and this time nobody is going to be safe.

SMilnor: I worried a lot about President Obama’s safety at first, but I got distracted from that by worrying about his spirit and his family’s. Seriously, Susan, to do everything right in your life: to emerge from a life of few material resources, learn to cope with racism here and abroad and still be a positive person, go off and get quality educations – he was editor of Harvard Law Review, for God’s sake – be elected to the state senate and U.S. Senate, and the Presidency, and THEN have people say you aren’t smart, you aren’t a real American, you didn’t deserve it, on and on, all because they don’t like your color. Tell me what that does to someone’s spirit.

SMinasian: That’s a good question. What does it do to one’s spirit? I think this is where his personality comes in handy. He has always been calm. He has always been thoughtful. While I don’t agree with him on everything…I did work for his candidacy, and I voted for him. I find him to be a refreshing, intelligent and solid human being. I think his spirit probably goes through some gymnastics. Then, he probably tucks in his daughters at night, thinks about his mom sometimes, and then looks at Michelle, and together they say…this is what it means to make history. Making history the way he is making history is tough. I think he knew what he was getting in to. I just think he might be a little surprised at how ignorant government leaders are. But that seems to be the main criteria these days. I just keep praying for him and his family. Every time I get a CNN emergency alert on my BlackBerry I pray that nothing has happened to him. Hate is a scary thing.

SMilnor: Well, I think you are right about making history and how tough it is. And I should know that after the 50’s and 60’s in the South. My agonizing about this comes in part out of my own surprise and the hurt my spirit has felt. I suspect the extremity of the disrespect with which he is treated – in media interviews, for instance – may have caught even Barack Obama by surprise, but he is probably much more profoundly equipped than little ole’ lily white I am just to keep fighting the good fight.

SMinasian: I don’t think it is just an intellectual thing for either one of us. I don’t think it is just an emotional one either. We both come from people who have experienced hate. You have Native American ancestors, and I have Armenian ancestors. They both know all too well how hate leads to violence. It’s not just about hurt feelings. I also think that our experiences growing up in the South make us even more attuned to what we are seeing and hearing. It is familiar. It is dangerous. So we must keep the good fight going. It is just that. And we will.

SMilnor. Amen.

CONFLICTED

SMinasian: OK my friend. I am having a hard time. As I watch the people celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden there is something in me that wonders if we are all so broken that we can't find any place in us that seeks peace.

I have some friends on Facebook who have a page they like that says thank you to George W. Bush. I decided to click on it and the posts were so mean and hostile against President Obama. I also know that there are Obama supporters who are just as mean and hostile about George W. Bush. I am probably perceived as one of them. And then I catch myself. And I wonder...what is it in us that pushes that button? What happens that causes my head and my heart to have a head on collision. The answer I come up with is that we do not know what to do when we are "caught"!

Smilnor: I know what you mean though in a slightly different way. I have felt like a person divided against herself in the past couple of days. In one part of my mind I see the image of those people diving out of the Twin Tower on that fateful day. My heart breaks, and I think, "No one should get away with that. No egomaniac should be able to put that into motion and be hidden and protected." Then I see people cheering and waving flags and hear of some woman sucked into Bin Laden's life and into the line of fire, and I wonder exactly what we have to celebrate. We should be mourning -- not the death of a mad man, but the death of reason and personal independence; we should be lamenting the human need to turn to extreme ideas and people to save us.

SMinasian: I am weeping inside because I confess my own anger toward Bin Laden. I am weeping inside because I am glad he was killed. I am weeping inside because as a person of faith and as a Christian specifically I want and believe in a justice that is without violence. But I confess constantly because I know that my pain and wounds like (on some level) the retribution. If I prayed more, if I was really a holy woman...could I...would I feel this way?

Smilnor: That I can answer, Susan. Yes you would. Yes you are. Because no human being is holy without also being profane. No one reaches moments of insight and compassion without also slugging through temptation and need. My theological tradition says that the holy is found in the common, and God knows the common can be both beautiful and ugly, joyous and sad, measured and passionate. We can only expect of ourselves to ask the questions and try to answer them with the greatest awareness and integrity we can manage. We are weeping, and our tears are the waters that cleanse us.

SMinasian: I look to scripture. I see all the scripture verses folks are posting on Facebook and I end up at the shortest: John 11:35..."Jesus wept."

You know Easter Sunday fell on Armenian Martyrs Day this year. I sat through the whole service filled with the joy of resurrection and transformation. Our daughter was confirmed into the church. Our family made the trip from Richmond, Virginia. A woman who has been like a grandmother to Anna was also with us.

Before I went into the sanctuary I stopped at the prayer request sheet. There is a sheet at each entrance to the sanctuary. There are some pre-printed items and then it is left there so that people can add prayer requests before the service begins. That list is then used for prayer on Wednesday mornings at an early morning prayer service.

Anyway…I thought...should I do it? Nobody else will. So I wrote: We pray for all the people who mourn the loss of family in the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian Genocide was not on the pre-printed list. I didn't expect it to be.

With all of the pain that experience (the Genocide) has brought to my people and to my family, I do not want revenge. But when I run into people and especially friends who don't even talk about it or mention it, I get upset. I know they want me to shut up and stop talking about wanting justice. What I'm saying is: I know what it is like to want people to pay for what they did. While the Turkish government continues to deny the Genocide and oppress Armenians, Osama Bin Laden admitted what he did. He took "credit" for it...which sounds sick on one level. But he didn't deny it. These are two wrongs. I want restorative justice. Not vengeance.

SMilnor: Of course you want restorative justice for your people. And to give us the benefit of the doubt, I believe that's what Americans around this country have felt for ten years. I don't know whether we always get what we seek, though. What is restorative? That's the question. And I don't really know the answer. But I know that on some level, people's sense of justice is restored if they can believe that the wealthy and powerful and privileged are accountable for their decisions and, yes, for their humanity or lack of it just as the rest of us are. It is interesting to think where Dante would place Bin Laden in his INFERNO.

SMinasian: Bin Laden was a sick man. He did evil things. AND I think God puts a mirror in front of me and reminds me I am no different. If sin is sin, and there is no hierarchy in sin, then, well...we are all fallen. I believe in a God of transformation. So it is my hope, and it is my prayer, that if there is a "maker" whom we come face to face with upon our death, then in seeing that holy one...maybe...just maybe the love Osama will experience will be transforming and the Osama we knew will be dead indeed.

Smilnor: It's a good prayer, Susan. Here I am, a Universalist talking about the inferno. Perhaps I should be focused instead on purgatory or even paradise, where all hatred and, if you will, sin, falls away.

Femms for ALL

SMilnor: Susan, for some months now, it¹s felt like a war has been waged on women's health care and reproductive rights. But one particular development sent me over the edge.

SMinasian: Edge? I feel like I am just off the edge already.

SMilnor: Apparently, the Republicans are set to pass a bill in the House of Representatives that would require Internal Revenue agents to investigate how American women have paid for abortions. They would, essentially, be able to demand proof of rape or incest. What the heck is going on? Am I losing my mind, or is the worst kind of invasion into our privacy? Aren't these the same people who want government to stay out of our lives?

SMinasian: OK. Šo let's talk about sin. This is sinful. You are not losing your mind. I cannot believe how far back we have gone. How could they possibly expect a person to provide proof of rape or incest in that context? I think they hate women, and I think they want to have power over women. This makes me wonder if we have gotten further ahead than I thought and it's scaring them. Listen, they don't want government to stay out of our lives; they want the government to stay out of their pocketbooks. That¹s all. It comes down to money, power and control.

SMilnor: Oh, I think you just said it exactly, my friend, about our lives and our pocketbooks. It is so true. But I want to go back to what you said about these acts being sinful. Granted, my concept of sin is always evolving, and frankly, sometimes skating around on the ice, but it seems to me that sin is what we choose to do that both hurts other people and makes us less whole, more alienated from the force of good. I can't understand why the people who launch these attacks can't see that when they deny women maternity care, they are hurting the children they claim to care so much about. And why would anyone want to deny women pap smears or testing for sexually transmitted diseases or breast exams?

SMinasian: Susan, you have heard the phrase "It's not about the trash." It's used to describe those moments when the thing people are arguing about it NOT what the real issue is. It's not about any of these services. It's about power and control. I think the fact that women have become more powerful and we are now in a season when some younger women don't even know what all the fuss is about is all a part of this. In some ways men in general don't know what the rules are any more. They don't know what it means to be a man. There are also women who are afraid. If they have more choices or more of a sense of agency, then that means there is more responsibility. Let's face it: a world of nothing but black and white is easy, oppressive but easy. So our sin is our fear, abuse of power, and our desire for control. In the meantime people who are in the margins and people who are poor will pay the heaviest price.

Smilnor: I'm not sure I agree that our fear and our desire for control are the sins. I've been thinking a lot lately about what constitutes sin and whether feelings (fear, desire) ever do. But I sure agree that the use of fear to manipulate people for selfish interests and the use of power to control people out of greed are sinful.

SMinasian: Exactly. That's it. It's what those things lead to. When it comes to how our government legislates policy about and around women's bodies, fear and control are what oppress people.

SMilnor: And you know what? I think these legislators and advocates for restriction never contemplate that they themselves (if they are female) or their wives or daughters or mothers or sisters could be affected by these draconian policies and laws. They are the "haves," and they are confident that they will always be the haves. But now what was it that Jesus said. . ."Do unto others. . ." "Treat your neighbor. . . "

SMinasian: Well, I agree again! They don't think they will ever be in the situation to need the very policies they destroy and the people they do not protect.

SMilnor: This is related to what I was thinking about with our title "Femmes for All." What happens to women -- their welfare, their health – affects everyone. Hillary Clinton often says that countries in which women have rights and are accorded justice are countries that do better, countries that progress. It applies equally here. If we do not insure equal protection under the law and basic health care to women and children, everyone, including men, will suffer.

SMinasian: Don't you think it's interesting that we always hear politicians talk about how we go into other countries because they are so behind, and they always pull that "women need access to education" card? Then when the women get an education and make choices for themselves, then say...well...maybe we have gone too far. Let's pull the reins back.

SMilnor: Yes...that is so true, Susan. Education is fine until women get it and try to do something with it, try to change the world. On an even more fundamental level, though, consider how important it is to give women health care because we are, to a considerable extent, the ones who care for the children. And it's also women who bear the brunt of caring for extended families. I'm not saying that we deserve reproductive rights and health care just because we take care of others. We deserve health care because we are people, and we deserve reproductive rights because as full human beings, we are the ones who should control the Choices with which we are most intimately and morally involved. But still, it's stupid policy not to take care of the caregivers.

SMinasian: Equal care for all. That's what "femmes for all" means to me Susan: a world in which we care for all people equally. What would our country look like if classism, racism, sexism and heteronormativity did not have the unhealthy and destructive hold it has on us? I want women AND men to feel valued and cared for. I want women AND men to have access to what they need for health care that protects, heals, and supports them. I want children to grow up knowing that we all care about the value of their bodies, minds and souls. Femmes for ALL. Yes...for all...men, women, children.

Smilnor: Well, Amen to that. And on this one, Susan, there can be no backward motion. The ONLY way is the way forward.

Femmes of ALL

SMilnor: Susan, for some months now, it¹s felt like a war has been waged on women's health care and reproductive rights. But one particular development sent me over the edge.

SMinasian: Edge? I feel like I am just off the edge already.

SMilnor: Apparently, the Republicans are set to pass a bill in the House of Representatives that would require Internal Revenue agents to investigate how American women have paid for abortions. They would, essentially, be able to demand proof of rape or incest. What the heck is going on? Am I losing my mind, or is the worst kind of invasion into our privacy? Aren't these the same people who want government to stay out of our lives?

SMinasian: OK. Šo let's talk about sin. This is sinful. You are not losing your mind. I cannot believe how far back we have gone. How could they possibly expect a person to provide proof of rape or incest in that context? I think they hate women, and I think they want to have power over women. This makes me wonder if we have gotten further ahead than I thought and it's scaring them. Listen, they don't want government to stay out of our lives; they want the government to stay out of their pocketbooks. That¹s all. It comes down to money, power and control.

SMilnor: Oh, I think you just said it exactly, my friend, about our lives and our pocketbooks. It is so true. But I want to go back to what you said about these acts being sinful. Granted, my concept of sin is always evolving, and frankly, sometimes skating around on the ice, but it seems to me that sin is what we choose to do that both hurts other people and makes us less whole, more alienated from the force of good. I can't understand why the people who launch these attacks can't see that when they deny women maternity care, they are hurting the children they claim to care so much about. And why would anyone want to deny women pap smears or testing for sexually transmitted diseases or breast exams?

SMinasian: Susan, you have heard the phrase "It's not about the trash." It's used to describe those moments when the thing people are arguing about it NOT what the real issue is. It's not about any of these services. It's about power and control. I think the fact that women have become more powerful and we are now in a season when some younger women don't even know what all the fuss is about is all a part of this. In some ways men in general don't know what the rules are any more. They don't know what it means to be a man. There are also women who are afraid. If they have more choices or more of a sense of agency, then that means there is more responsibility. Let's face it: a world of nothing but black and white is easy, oppressive but easy. So our sin is our fear, abuse of power, and our desire for control. In the meantime people who are in the margins and people who are poor will pay the heaviest price.

Smilnor: I'm not sure I agree that our fear and our desire for control are the sins. I've been thinking a lot lately about what constitutes sin and whether feelings (fear, desire) ever do. But I sure agree that the use of fear to manipulate people for selfish interests and the use of power to control people out of greed are sinful.

SMinasian: Exactly. That's it. It's what those things lead to. When it comes to how our government legislates policy about and around women's bodies, fear and control are what oppress people.

SMilnor: And you know what? I think these legislators and advocates for restriction never contemplate that they themselves (if they are female) or their wives or daughters or mothers or sisters could be affected by these draconian policies and laws. They are the "haves," and they are confident that they will always be the haves. But now what was it that Jesus said. . ."Do unto others. . ." "Treat your neighbor. . . "

SMinasian: Well, I agree again! They don't think they will ever be in the situation to need the very policies they destroy and the people they do not protect.

SMilnor: This is related to what I was thinking about with our title "Femmes for All." What happens to women -- their welfare, their health – affects everyone. Hillary Clinton often says that countries in which women have rights and are accorded justice are countries that do better, countries that progress. It applies equally here. If we do not insure equal protection under the law and basic health care to women and children, everyone, including men, will suffer.

SMinasian: Don't you think it's interesting that we always hear politicians talk about how we go into other countries because they are so behind, and they always pull that "women need access to education" card? Then when the women get an education and make choices for themselves, then say...well...maybe we have gone too far. Let's pull the reins back.

SMilnor: Yes...that is so true, Susan. Education is fine until women get it and try to do something with it, try to change the world. On an even more fundamental level, though, consider how important it is to give women health care because we are, to a considerable extent, the ones who care for the children. And it's also women who bear the brunt of caring for extended families. I'm not saying that we deserve reproductive rights and health care just because we take care of others. We deserve health care because we are people, and we deserve reproductive rights because as full human beings, we are the ones who should control the choices with which we are most intimately and morally involved. But still, it's stupid policy not to take care of the caregivers.

SMinasian: Equal care for all. That's what "femmes for all" means to me Susan: a world in which we care for all people equally. What would our country look like if classism, racism, sexism and heteronormativity did not have the unhealthy and destructive hold it has on us? I want women AND men to feel valued and cared for. I want women AND men to have access to what they need for health care that protects, heals, and supports them. I want children to grow up knowing that we all care about the value of their bodies, minds and souls. Femmes for ALL. Yes...for all...men, women, children.

Smilnor: Well, Amen to that. And on this one, Susan, there can be no backward motion. The ONLY way is the way forward.

Did I Ask For It?

SMilnor: There has been so much to feel heartbroken about in the devastation of Japan. I experienced a particular kind of sadness, though, when I heard a Japanese woman say that surely her people must have done something wrong to bring down so much wrath from the heavens. I surely understand why people struggle with the “Why us?” question following horrors like this, but disturbs me to realize how easily the victims of tragedy feel guilty and responsible. Isn’t it enough to bear the burden of loss and suffering without also having to bear the weight of believing you caused it?

SMinasian: When you first shared this with me, I was a little taken back. I don’t usually think this way when huge “natural” disasters happen. And then quickly I realized that yes…I do think there are messages that we give people along these lines. I think many cultures have this mindset, and it is indeed very sad. Susan, we are so used to the North American rhetoric of “those people who did this to us” mentality. I also wonder what the faith tradition is of the woman who expressed these words. I hate to say it, but I think Christians more often than not have this idea that if they do things right, nothing bad will happen. The reality is that life is messy, and you can do everything “right” and bad things will still happen.

SMilnor: I think that’s true. Often people believe it won’t happen to them because they are right and God is on their side. After I heard this comment, Susan, I then heard that Glenn Beck said that while he didn’t know what was in God’s mind when God caused this disaster, he thought the Japanese people ought to understand that they haven’t been doing something right. He went on to suggest they should realize they need to adopt the Ten Commandments instead of practicing Buddhism. It’s even worse to use a tragedy like this to blame and judge other people and their religion. Plus, I think he insulted not only a major world faith tradition, but God as well.

SMinasian: UGH. I was afraid of this. I wonder if Glenn Beck has ever read the Gospel of Mark. I’m gonna go Biblical on ya…but just bear with me. In the 12^th chapter we read: “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’

SMilnor: That’s fascinating, Susan. I’ve never thought about these two commandments together and what each might mean taken with the other. The first mandates the second. Wow! Thinking about it that way, it seems like a pretty clear message that we should treat people from other religious traditions with equal respect. I like that. Of course, it was Beck who was making this into a conflict between traditions. I think the poor Japanese woman was just devastated and asking, in a way, “How? Why?”

SMinasian: You know…Beck has a real opportunity to make connections that comfort others during a time like that. “How? Why?” are laments from the deepest part of a person when such tragedy strikes. Did I ask for it? Another question that I can even remember asking on occasion. It’s a powerful question. Some people do not ask that question. Some say…why not me?

I heard another person say that part of the problem of our competing ideologies is that we have such a sense of being special. None of us is special. All of us are special. I move through my life not expecting real life to happen. Sometimes. There are so many things to distract our minds from the possibilities of what could happen and what is going on elsewhere. That’s probably a good thing. But…we are all vulnerable. So “ask for it”? No, I say. YOU just happened to be there.

SMilnor: That’s it exactly. Things happen, and we just happen to be there. Then we deal with those things as best we can with the grace of God available to us all, as well as our own strengths and understanding. If I believed in that other reality, where God punishes that group of people and saves this group. . . all on the basis of what they believe. . . not what they do, not whether they are compassionate and caring, but on what they believe or which scripture they hold sacred . . . I would despair, Susan. Of course, I’ve just worked myself up into a classic Universalist confession, I guess. And I mean it. We are all children of God.

SMinasian: Yes. May it be so. Blessed be!

Raging Revs

SMilnor: In our last – also our first – entry, we talked a little about being women from the South. We might not actually have been Southern Belles (please tell me we weren’t), but we did grow up learning from our culture that we should be “nice.” Nice Southern girls don’t make trouble, do they? They don’t speak out; they don’t have strong opinions. In short, they play dumb. But neither of us could manage that in the long run. How did we end up as women with strong voices who can give a loud, impassioned sermon from the pulpit? How, in other words, did we end up as “ragin’ revs”?

SMinasian: Susan…I may have been born in the South, but I am a second generation Armenian. That made everything very different. The “being nice” in my family was interpreted as “fit in – assimilate”. Now, nobody used those words explicitly. However, I got the message very early. I was called the “N word” in kindergarten because my skin was dark. I wasn’t a part of an ethnic or racial group people could quickly identify. Our Armenian identity was shared in the house, but we were cautious about doing that outside. In those days being “different” was not a compliment and I am not sure it is now. My rage began when I realized I was being judged and categorized without people “knowing me”.

SMilnor: That’s a sobering picture, Susan. And it was very different from my experience. I was so conditioned to defer and accommodate that once I was walking in a downtown area of a city, turned the corner, saw myself in a window I was walking toward, and apologized. I was a long way from raging then.

SMinasian: I can be very pastoral. I really can. However, my rage can get going these days when I watch the news, read the paper, look at some Facebook posts or read some books. I find that my blood pressure starts to rise. There is a rage inside of me that rises when I hear about injustice in all its various forms.

Right now I find that the radical right wing supported by many of the so-called “religious” folks in this country is driving me crazy. I don’t know how a person can be a Christian and support a national budget that oppresses the poor.

How can people complain about celebrities who have babies out of a marriage out of one side of their mouths then throw out slurs to women who seek safe abortions out the other? You can’t win.

SMilnor: I know what you mean. I can be pastoral too, but that same rage rises in me. These days I am deeply disturbed by the assault on women’s rights and health care that you mention. How can mostly male politicians dare to wage this war? My deepest anger rises these days, though, at the concerted machinations designed to strip all political power from the working and middle class. Our elected officials are taking money and opportunity from those who can least afford it, then turning around and giving it to the wealthiest in tax breaks and corporate welfare. And they say that the left is waging class warfare???? This is worse class warfare and redistribution of wealth than I ever imagined could happen in America. How can these people call themselves Christian – or religious at all – when they do exactly the opposite of what Jesus advocated?

SMinasian: See, Susan…I think the Christian call to follow Jesus is harder than most Christians want to admit. Jesus said sell it all and take care of the poor, and yet the mega churches or what I call big box churches preach a prosperity Gospel that goes against that. UGH!

What is it about people voting against their best interests and the care of our neighbors? What’s the deal, Susan? Can you hear my rage?

SMilnor: Sister, I not only hear it; I feel it! Very few wealthy people vote against their economic interests, but a lot of working and middle class folks do. Since the 70’s and 80’s people’s fears and prejudices have been used to get them to do just that – support candidates who not only aren’t going to help them, but who will actually hurt them.

For most people of my faith tradition, there’s not much tension with a text or a tradition when it comes to justice issues. But Unitarian Universalists constantly struggle with speaking out on current issues from the pulpit. Oh, don’t get me wrong: we have a lot of very powerful voices for justice. But many UUs feel that you shouldn’t bring politics into the pulpit and that preachers can too easily use the pulpit to advocate their personal political agendas. I know that it’s possible to do that – and I try to be careful about that when I’m a Susan-in-the-pulpit -- but we UUs proudly declare passionate voices from our past, say, for abolition or woman suffrage, as religious and prophetic. It’s only political soapbox rhetoric if it exists in the present! I always like to imagine that you Christians have an easier time of this because Jesus was so clearly “political;” he spoke truth to power and he did it in service to God. But, then, maybe I’m being naïve. The grass is always greener . . .

SMinasian: Are you kidding? See this is where both of us get into the grass is greener on the other side conversations. It isn’t easier for Christians. The only thing we have in common with each other is Jesus. NOW, how we understand him, interpret him and appropriate what we believe he was about is all over the place. I don’t have an anthropomorphic image of God but if I did this is when I would say Christians make God cry!

SMilnor – Just tell me this, Susan. What is it in your tradition’s theology that pushes you to be a Ragin’ Rev sometimes? I think for me, in my tradition, it is this. If we advocate the worth and dignity of every human being as one of our principles; if we believe in a loving God who “saves” all souls; then we cannot ignore the plight of suffering people, and we cannot deny the importance of having a voice in the public arena. We cannot ignore justice. That great Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson said that real preaching has to be passed “through the fire of thought.” Were I to dare to add to the Emerson’s formulation, I would say it also has to be passed through the fire of compassion.

SMinasian: While many people say Jesus was not political, I cannot help but see him that way. I think all of us are political. Jesus turned tables over in the temple. He spoke out against the radical right of his time. He intentionally lived in the margins and surrounded himself with people who were…let’s say questionable. I think on some level he had to have some sense of rage in him. Now, it is possible that on most days he was calm like Obama (no, I am not equating Obama with Jesus), and on other days he was probably more outspoken. We don’t really know. I just think rage is something that is not always the boisterous in- your-face-behavior. Rage for me is the wrong we see, hear and know that stirs up the call to do something, to respond to the call for change. It’s that prophet gene. I wonder when they will have a test for that? So I preach from the passion of study, reason, experience and I always begin with scripture. Now, if scripture doesn’t spark some rage…at least some of it…well…I don’t know what does. I’m saying that lovingly of course. Oh, and let me say this. Jesus did get nailed on a tree. You don’t get there without being a trouble-maker.

SMilnor: You pretty much said it there, Susan, and in your uniquely effective way. I guess we’re a long way from how we ended up as Ragin’ Revs instead of Southern Belles. But maybe not. Our convictions about the world, and life, have been in our hearts and souls from a young age. It might even, as you suggest, be genetic. And that, my friend, may be the reason we couldn’t be nice.

SMinasian: I think Southern Belles are stereotyped as sweet little ladies who were always taken care of. I know from experience that this is true. I also know that some of the strongest women for justice and liberation have come from the South. There is no way that advances in the South have happened without women. We were both born on land that soaked up a lot of pain, Susan. We come from ancestors in our own blood lines that have struggled trails of tears. So, yes, we are from the South, and we might even be Southern Belles. Why the hell not?! Let’s claim it and rage on!!! Without rifles of course.