At lunch we talked about dual faith families

7/14

Early morning meeting.  Serious things to talk about. Decisions to weigh. One thing is clear...we've got to get a construction manager asap and get the work started. Pat O is assigned to contact RL's friend Jerry and set up a meeting to get this moving. By mid-afternoon, it;'s done. He's coming Thursday.

Day getting more and more ominous. Sky getting darker. Leila, Berik and I meet at the 85th street entrance  for our annual Philharmonic in the Park night to meet Don and the gang. But the sign is already up Due to inclement weather and concerns for public safety, tonight's concert is cancelled. We walk back to the church together. Always more work to do. Until RL invites me upstairs and pulls out some old tapes and I hear some early versions of songs I've grown to know, like his rich cinematic take on Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee.

Another early morning meeting coming up tomorrow.

7/15

The Center board gathers. Mim back form her place in the Berkshires. Ted from Costa Rica. I remember my old church journalist friend Jim Gittings  who said If  when i die I can't get into heaven, I'll settle for Costa Rica. At this point in the summer, we're prettynmuch on the same page.Marsha's third go at a memo of understanding moving the Center into building management seems close to done.  Next we'll taken it to the Session.

My old friend Sheila G come by. For over 20 years, she and her Interfaith Community of New York have been pioneers in providing resources for dual faith families. Ranging from education to support groups to celebrations, helping couples to  feel that they are not alone. And as they meet with other couples, discovering that there are no rules here, each interfaith couple creating their own reality , their own understanding, model, of family and practice, but in dialogue with others. Of course, the latest data shows that this is the wave of the future. And it's already here. In some respects, demand is getting smaller as dual faith families become more normative.

What's really needed, however, is an understanding by  seminaries that students training to be clergy need to be prepared for this growing reality. To help create communities as places of welcome and acceptance that do not push towards conversion. And that two faiths can be lived in parallel with out having to join together in a universalist mash-up or secularized life. I admire her work, enjoy being an advisor and promise to work on this educational angle. One more place where the future is already here.

The day crawls slowly by. Jeremy and Priska are in. The keys to the music room are missing. A thorough search turns up nothing. Frustration. 

There's an open window in the balcony. Danielle found a sick pigeon in the office and had to chase him out. We get David S to secure the window. 

Feeling very tired. Tonight, one more Philharmonic concert will be rained out. I'llurban  toggle back and forth between the All-Star game and a streaming live video of Amanda's concert in Chicago with her jazz vocalist friend Erin. 

Tomorrow's another day.

No champagne today

7/2

Walking down 86th, I see a familiar form. Sean tucked under the railing against the wall again. As I approach, I see he’s asleep. Flies buzzing. This time I don’t feel anger. Just defeat. I wake him, Sean, you can’t be here. 

I know. 

You have to go. Don’t make it hard for me, OK?

I have to stay here until dark....accident...don’t know why....until dark...

Sean, that’s like 8 hours. You can’t lie here for 8 hours....

OK, OK just give me a few...do me a solid...

OK, I have an appointment. I’ll be back in a hour or so. Help me out, OK?

Call Reachout. They’ve already been here. Sent a doctor. Says it’s not an emergency. So....they’ve done their bit for the day. I also talk about Rob. His desire for a solution, a plan. They’ll keep their eye out.

I’m thinking about madness. How when you enter into that world, it’s hard to get out. You feel the earth has shifted, nothing stable. Unsettling. But equally shaking is the world of addiction. Some of my best counselor /therapist friends won't go near it. All he has to do is accept the help that is being offered. But he can’t. Why? That’s a mystery. My tradition doesn’t allow me to judge. Jesus didn't give me the gift of casting out demons. But I also have to set boundaries.

When I come back, Danielle is here. Just as Stephen comes in, he and Danielle tell me Sean is still there. But a young couple has come in to talk about getting married. Interfaith. Catholic and Jewish. The young man is a lineman for Con Ed. A pole climber. Sounds pretty exciting to me. I explain how I, like a rabbi, am not a mediator (between the couple and God, like a priest) but a facilitator, like a rabbi.It is the couple who marry each each other. And friends, family, people who love you can carry the Jewish parts of the ceremony. The young woman seems to be relieved.

Back to the reality at hand. Stephen explains the NO. I still don’t get it. Not his time. But NO it was.  And is. And shall remain. Can we get a plan B? Yes, but time running short. The existential realities are closing in. As we are talking, a woman walks in. Excuse me, I live down the street. There’s a terrible smell wafting down the street. I saw a man....there’s a terrible smell...

I shake my head. Yes, I know. We’ll take care of it. I know what happens next.

Time for the yellow gloves. Stephen heads out to get bleach. I get the gloves. Damarius comes with us. We get to the site. Damarius says, You think he’s coming back for his clothes? 

Not these, I respond. No one else is making a move. So it’s me gathering the soaked cardboard, blasted clothes, Damarius opens the large black bag. I carry it off. Stephen follows  quickly behind with the bleach.

I look at Damarius. So anything I ask you to do now, you gotta do, right?

Shakes his head yes. He looks somewhat amazed. I say to Stephen and Damarius, lifting up my hands, That’s the boundary, right there. When we get to yellow gloves time.

So that’s that part of the equation for the day. But no champagne on the horizon. Not today.

Creation as resistance

7/11

Meghan comes and in and I take her out to the back (recently reclaimed) patio for a conversation. She’s obviously traveled a long road since last we met.  Her conservative Christian background had raised for her all kinds of questions as to whether she could truly commit to an interfaith marriage. But now those questions have been, for the most part, resolved.  What’s at stake now is planning such a ceremony that truly honors both traditions but doesn’t impose one tradition over another. It’s hard to honor the Christian tradition in such ceremonies. If Christ is central to being a Christian, it’s hard to keep him from the wedding. 

When we talk about the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, I mention that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water to wine at a wedding. And we talk about how a unity candle ceremony can be used to talk about the integrity of both traditions. The traditional banning of Jesus from interfaith events is on the one hand appropriate in that this name was always associated  with the power  of the dominant over the minority.But on the other hand, to maintain that ban only delays the necessary dialectic conversation between Jews and Christians that needs to take place. We are after all, Christians. 

Eventually, we have been able to talk through these issues  and help Meghan move towards a ceremony  that maintains her  integrity. It will take place in Houston. I won’t be involved. But  have helped her find herself in that conversation. 

John comes in. We talk about Melisa. How we still need her involved. How we need ti make that conversation happen. He’s here for the dress rehearsal of Ludovica’s new play, Final Analysis, set in Vienna, 1910. 

It’s one of those what if plays that brings all kinds of real historical characters who were in the same place at sometime into contact with one another. Gustav Mahler and his wife Alma, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stalin, Sigmund Freud and an extremely intense angry young man.

It is clever, well written, fast paced and and  engaging  as you piece together the young man’s identity. But the dramatic high point comes when the young man paints a vision of his dreams of apocalyptic destruction should his artistic dreams not be realized.

As I listened to the words, saw the vision, I was transported back to Ground Zero on October of 2001.Riding on a gator with military personnel through the center of the still smoldering seventeen acres, the eviscerated skeletons of nearby buildings, the still falling ash, the smell of burned jet fuel and incinerated human bodies. It was an experience of hell. And at the same time, the ultimate obverse of art. The ultimate power of destruction, deconstruction, death. For the first time I felt its power.

And also felt for the first time that creativity, therefore, creation, is ultimately an act of resistance. That when we create we act as partners with God in the ongoing work of creation, of life itself. And thereby made my commitment to the intersection of beauty and justice and of ethics and aesthetics. That this must always be part of my ministry and any church that where I would serve. Of West-Park. The seeds of the Center were planted there. 

A Mexican and a white guy in a box

5/14

For the first time since the Occupiers have been here, I find myself sweeping the steps myself again. Good to remember what that feels like. It’s why I feel so much a part of the building, problems, karma and all.....

John H comes in, excited, emotional. Wants me to think again about the vision. Not let it get lost. As the brutally honest business voice I so often need, I appreciate this coming from John.  This day calls for a new reality. What it could be, Christians, Jews, Muslims sharing a building together with a commitment to justice and a home for the arts. He believes we can still have it all. You have all the pieces, he says, they’re all there.  John sees things. When everyone else thought OWS was a distraction, he felt it could help center the church. He was right. 

Teddy has just waked up. A bit sleepy. But ready to dig in for today’s work. The clearing up, cleaning out phase has turned up some very strange finds in unexpected places.  It’s all being timed for the next city pick up days. 

Chris and Runi come in for a consultation, join Teddy in the work. I do not want them on the steps.

Sandy comes in. She’s got a lead on some property upstate. Woodstock area. Possibility of growing flowers. She still has the dream of an Occupy intentional community. She was one of the first to come in to West-Park with a work crew. And a dream. It got overwhelmed. But she has never lost sight of it. The Coop that came together came close. Her idea was right. I catch her up on what’s been going on. Sadly, even if they had all stayed together, keeping a Woodstock community together, paying the bills, wouldn’t happen. Maybe there’s still a way to gather a select Occupy group more interested in the social movement than the protest movement. How to do it?

Hugo and Arcadia come in to plan their wedding. This will be a true celebration. A real moment for our community. While we are talking, a man comes in. At first I think he’s speaking Spanish, but as we all look at each other, we realize it’s not. Turns out it’s Romanian. His name’s Dmitri. Looking for the Romanian Orthodox  Church. Hugo and I figure it out. It’s on 87th. Arcadia draws a little map. Hugo takes him outside to point him in the right direction. 

Sekou has arrived early. Sandy has cornered him. Chris and Runi are here again. Someone is playing the piano. Steve talking about the Chicago bus trip. Before I go in to meet with another couple, Sekou says, I’m tastin your world, my brother. They should set up a hazing program for new ministers. Make em spend a day with you. Anyone makes it through, get in...and he laughs his full body laugh. 

This is an interfaith couple. Referred from the Interfaith Community I still advise.  At first, I think its simply a question of planning  a service, but I can see from the woman’s face there’s more to it. How much do you have to sacrifice? How do you give up wanting your kids to believe that Jesus is your personal lord and savior and necessary for salvation? When you can’t imagine life without the one you love?  Lots to talk about. This isn’t one conversation. Hugo and Arcadia. Chris and Runi. This couple. Couples. 

Finally time for Bible study. Sekou shares his letter responding to the black clergy that have been on Obama’s case for proclaiming his support for marriage equality. (That’s what it is...civil rights...) I answer Anna ‘s question from last week. Turns out the fishers of men is not just about organizing. It picks u on an image fro Jeremiah about bringing judgment to rich and powerful. This is not about evangelism as we think it is. It’s a direct action campaign. The call repentance is a call to turn your back on all the powers of the structure that is, the structure of domination and control. Not only turn around, but turn away....

We get into exorcisms, healings. The demons know Jesus. And he knows them. That training in the wilderness. 

And then the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law. A widow. A cut off one. It is restoration. And that restoration, that rreclaiming of one’s life, is followed by service, we pass it on. 

He keeps healing. Casting out demons. Keeps them silent.Tactical choice. Don’t draw attention until the time is right. Time to gather the forces en las montanas. 

Anna has been right on target again. Marsha sees the connections with IAF. Bobby has come in, wearing m NYPD hat from 9-11. How’d that happen? Yes, I know, Condaleeza Rice is a concert pianist. He won’t rest until I get her here. John brings in teBivle study fro another church, another perspective. Always wants to know how it helps anyone live a better life. Teddy says, Let me get this straight, this is the very beginning right? We nod. I got it, he says, Zucotti Park, September. I got it.

That’s it. Outside, there’s a Mexican and a white guy in a box I’ve never seen before.

Jamie says, Yesterday would’ve been the perfect day to sneak in the blessed Mother. You know, Mother’s Day. She needs to be here...

She’s welcome, I say, just need to find the right place. Her own altar/prayer place. I need all the help I can get. 

A few thoughts on interfaith marriage: The ocean refuses no rivers

1/11

Lina, a Columbia University journalism student, has come to interview me about intrfaith marriage. It’s actually a break to talk about something other than Occupation for a change. She comes from a city in Russia with a tradition of a place where Muslims, Jews and Christians live together. From a secular Jewsih background, she’s married to an Italian recovering cathoic.(For me, there’s no such thing, you just always are. In ways you don’t even realize. Deepet than what you believe.) She’s got a special interest in interfaith marriages with Muslims, with Muslims seemingly at the center of so much controversy in the western world right now.  

I remeber the marriage where the one partner walked out the day of the ceremony. And the stressed yet beautiful marriage between a Korean Presbyterian and a Bosnian Muslim. The couple had worked out their issues, the parents, well, another issue. 

She asks me if interfaith marriage is good or bad. Doesn’t matter, I say, it’s inevitable. What we do with it makes it good or bad. Why inevitable? Because we live in a word where we live side by side with one another. The other is always right in front of us. And our whole word is increasingly global. Sooner or later, we get curious about the neighbors. Sooner or later, we want to join and make a new reality. It’s the story of civilization. Who thinks they can hold that back is like trying to keep the earth from spinning. Can’t be done.

It’s also good because it challenges each party to wrestle with who they are in the world. What is religious? What is just cultural? What is imoortant to me? What I can’t give up? That’s where it starts. And there are no rules. Each couple is unique. But this much is clear: the more together a couple is on what they want, the more clear they are,  the less problematic the parents will be. 

Planning the wedding ceremony itself is a good  in critical  clarification. And can be the first experience in what makes interfaith partners stronger, having to work through these things together.  But also that any decisions made front end, about children, etc.,well,  you never know how you will feel when you actually face the siuation. For example, the woman                                                                                                                                         who converted to Judaism but feels a profoubd pain when her  a child won't be baptized. It goes beyond the rational to the very depest palces of the heart. 

As for children, yes, basically raise them one way or another. But children  will say they are both. Because they want to feel connected to both  parents And belong to both. And as they grow up, they’ll make their own decisions as to how to live that out. 

All our traditons are just the confluence of everflowing streams and how they have come together at  a paticular  point in time. As Rumi said, the ocean refuses no rivers. 

It’s a good conversation. I rememer how back in the ’90’s I chaired a task force that wrote a pastoral guide for interfaith marriages for the presbyterian church. We were one of, if not the first, to wrestle with Christian-Muslim as well as Christian -Jewish marriages. Remembering what a big part of my life this once was.

Philip, the free lance Wall Street Journal photographer has come to do some portrait shots for their article. For an hour he follows me all around the church, taking different shots he follows me up to the 4th floor where Jason and a crew are hard at work repairing and installing new showers. He’s from Berkeley, knows for now he’s in love with New York City, but knows thay some day he’ll be back to the Bay Area. Another Williamsburg(Brooklyn) kid who loves what he sees at West-Park. 

Occupiers at West-Park

Then its the Associated Press on the line. They’re onto their own story. They’ll be coming tonigt for photos. As this is  becoming more a story, how do we control the narrative? 

Soon it will be time to meet Jane at Starbuck’s for conversation. And then dinner with Katherine. I may well pass on tonight, AP or not. 


The Wall Street Journal article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577155090035636750.html?mod=WSJ_NY_LEFTTopStorie


The Associated Press:


http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8502419&rss=rss-wabc-article-8502419