Undisciplined Versions: Trying My Hand
Some updates, and something that endeavors to be poetic
“Undisciplined Versions” will (hopefully) be the Tuesday* posts of some of what I’m working on around the dissertation, and whatever other kind of research I’m doing that has to do with religion and race…gender, purity, etc. and other things. I’m hoping that this will 1) keep me accountable to making this work broadly accessible, meaningful and useful for understanding how to engage religion especially in people, places, and spaces that are unexpected. Because religion is everywhere! And it’s so interesting. When it’s not terrifying, I think.
“Undisciplined” comes from Frances Tran’s work to think with and beyond disciplinary borders and boundaries in order to imagine different ways of being and belonging in the world. I think, too, about how so much of this work is translation: a version of another version, and a conversation within a larger conversation. And, of course, I’m thinking unruly, rebellious, alternative.
*TBD
It’s been a minute. Looking back I see my last post was in April, and I started the Substack at the end of October, which means, somehow half a year, no, a whole year has gone by. And I barely blinked.
A few updates:
So close to the end of the dissertation, maybe.
And (still) writing a book (and discovered Scrivener is helpful).
Oooooo…Anna got her braces off! Desmond is close but he needs to wear rubber bands 24/7 for the next 9 weeks, and Ozzie maybe will get his on in 6 months.
(Everyone is in middle school.)
I’ll be out and about in 2025 for the first half of the year: Southern Lights Conference in January, presenting a paper (Zoom) for the “Women and Religious Leadership: New Herstories, New Perspectives” at Smith College in early March, Calvary Episcopal during their Lenten Preaching Series in March, First United Methodist for their Lyons Lecture in April, then St. Bart’s Episcopal preaching and speaking the last Sunday in June…Trying to stay useful. Would love to see you.
Des played tackle football this past fall. So many thoughts - maybe good for a post later.
Andy and I are in our fifth year of co-pastoring First Pres - Annapolis. #Miracles.
I’m lately really into cottage cheese.
Trying My Hand
It’s been a minute since I last tried to write anything
that didn’t require research or footnotes done correctly, Chicago-style,
as they say, for the humanities
now when I think Chicago, it’s the bean and the lake
as huge as the Atlantic that greets me here on my walk to and from work, although technically it’s the Chesapeake Bay, which I still cannot spell
correctly, the first time, thank you spell-check, and speaking of spell-check, millennium is another one that requires it, as in
Millennium Park, which is where the bean is housed—
it was rainy not snowy as we had hoped in December the day I took him for our Mommy-Desmond trip,
now 6 years ago but he still remembers our reflections on the magical bean,
our wet faces,
our cold feet,
so when we got to the car we took off our socks to dry on the heaters
before we drove to meet 할머니 and 할아버지 for lunch
now
할머니 and 할아버지 live here
near us
so we see them for lunch or dinner or church instead of driving
6 hours one way to be together
so we can be together easily
and make memories, as they say, like holiday meals,
김치 during Advent, and 미역국 for birthdays
but the best is when they simply drop in unannounced
and I find them in the backyard watering our/their garden
to check on the usual perilla leaves and Korean green peppers
or they walk straight into the house without knocking
and our kids greet them most of the time
with laughter and hugs
like we hadn’t just seen them last Sunday
kind of like how Beatrice our boxer dog greets every single human in the world like everyone is her BFF
sometimes Anna stands there
holding 할머니’s hand for a while
I look at their hands together
their fingers intertwined so naturally
I can’t tell where one ends and one begins
like the branches of a tree or a grove of Colorado aspens
roots entangled like those thousand-year old California sequoias (spell-checked)
holding each other up
building each other up
growing
each other
We’re supposed to hold each other up with hands and hearts
hands to hearts
to promise
but the promise of humanity is
not an exceptionalism
a conquering or winning or yielding good results
it is a promise to enter into solidarity
which is like a holding each other up
at least, that’s what Jesus says and shows us
the most
even if I don’t understand you or even really like you
(likely you don’t like me)
which is what paralyzes me right now
how do I love my neighbor
because who is my neighbor is the question
tripping me up
who am I holding up
whose face is reflecting my face
whose fingers are intertwined with mine
I’m trying