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fec1540
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The disciples' mistake was also my mistake: They forgot that they have a God who created the universe out of "nothing," that can put flesh on dry bones "nothing," that can put life in a dusty womb "nothing." I mean, let's face it, "nothing" is God's favorite material to work with. Perhaps God looks upon that which we dismiss as nothing, insignificant, and worthless, and says "Ha! Now that I can do something with."
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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bf5d4ce
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The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up. And Mary Magdalene is the patron saint of just showing up. Showing up, to me, means being present to what is real, what is actually happening. Mary Magdalene didn't necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think when she encountered the risen Jesus. But none of that was nearly as important as the fact that she was present and attentive to him.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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3182dd6
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If religion has been the venue in which the power of sex is taken most seriously, could it also become the place in which a new conversation about it arises? One that is not afflicted with legalism and shaming, and yet also does not ignore the depravity of human beings in favor of some delusional idea that we are capable of perfect selflessness?
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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27e1dc7
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To connect to the holy is to access the deepest, juiciest part of our spirits. Perhaps this is why we set up so many boundaries, protections, and rules around both sex and religion. Both pursuits expose such a large surface area of the self, which can then be either hurt or healed. But when the boundaries, protections, and rules become more important than the sacred thing they are intended to protect, casualties ensue. But no matter how muc..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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7a3092b
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My full immersion into the world of TBN and a Christianity that can seem like it's from another planet entirely, rather than strengthening my confidence in the sufficiency of my own tradition, has actually weakened it. I see the holes. I hope this shift continues for me because it feels like for so very long the various sects and denominations within the church (including my own) have spent so much energy defending their theological, doctri..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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ba48a7f
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Augustine's shame reportedly took root when, as an adolescent, he got an erection while at a Roman bath. Embarrassing, yes. But Augustine was so consumed with shame of not being able to control his erections that he spent a decade writing a theological treatise. In the treatise, he set out to prove that the main condition of paradise before the fall was that Adam could control his erections with his own will. Then Eve messed everything up. ..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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0d6d447
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The Gospels are the canon within the canon. The Bible, as Martin Luther said, is the cradle that holds Christ. The point of gravity is the story of Jesus, the Gospel. The closer a text of the Bible is to that story or to the heart of that story's message, the more authority it has. The farther away it is, the less its authority.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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7dacb8a
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Sex for Sara was at first incredibly painful, and for Tim incredibly frustrating. They both felt inadequate, angry, and confused, alternately blaming themselves and then each other. They had been told that if they followed the rules, they would have more satisfying and exciting sex than couples who'd had sex before marriage. The kind of sex that was better because it was pure. But when they got married, they found out that all of that was b..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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9eb98ef
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Apparently, thousands of parents had been warned that their children would be exposed to dangerous ideas from scandalous women if we weren't uninvited. Of course if no one had ever been exposed to dangerous ideas from scandalous women, Christianity itself would not have had its unique nor its glorious history, but whatever.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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d301ae1
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I wrote once in a prayer, "Dear God, your work in the world is always done by sinners, or else it would never get done; help us to realize this and practice the grace and forgiveness you first gave us." But when I was talking about sinners in that case, it was just the broken beautiful people like myself and the others in my community, not my theological "other."
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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4aa1f6d
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Trent had just spent an hour describing what he learned as a kid from his church: how the only way to please God, the same being who created him with a sexuality to begin with, was to not engage with his erotic nature whatsoever. As if the God of the Universe had programmed into creation a passive-aggressive test of our willpower.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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ea95bc3
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Too often, the diagram that religion draws up for explaining sex takes the snake's-eye view--it names only the physics of fear, threat, and control, but none of the magic. Likewise, media and advertising thrust the commodification of sex our way, and sex becomes either something to trade in or just another aspect of life in which we are judged and found lacking. But neither of these approaches is enough. Neither points to the whole truth. B..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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393c366
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What happens in the Kingdom of God parable I was given is that a landowner goes out and hires laborers in the morning and agrees to pay them the daily wage. But then every few hours he goes and finds more workers and brings them in. In the afternoon he goes again to the marketplace and sees folks standing around and is like, "Why aren't you working?" and they say, "because no one would hire us," and he sends them into his vineyard to work t..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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936c061
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Church isn't perfect. It's practice.
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lutheran
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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78b1369
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The Gospels are the canon within the canon. The Bible, as martin Luther said, is the cradle that holds Christ. The point of gravity is the story of Jesus, the Gospel. The closer a text of the Bible is to that story or to the heart of that story's message, the more authority it has. The father away it is, the less its authority. It's a story of how the God who spoke through prophets and poets was the same God who showed up later in a human b..
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jesus
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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5fe4b5b
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Very often I will avoid the truth until my face goes red like a toddler avoiding her nap; until limp limbed, she finally stops flailing and falls asleep and receives rest--the very thing she needs and the very thing she fights. When someone like me, who will go to superhero lengths to avoid the truth, runs out of options--when I am found out or too exhausted to pretend anymore or maybe just confronted by my sister--it feels like the truth m..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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60d4f95
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Many of us were taught that if you do not fit inside the circle of the church's behavioral codes, God is not pleased with you, so we whittled ourselves down to a shape that could fit those teachings, or we denied those parts of ourselves entirely.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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4671fc1
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we should not be more loyal to an idea, a doctrine, or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming the bodies and spirits of people, we should rethink those teachings.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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0f9890b
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sometimes the origin of the harm can be the most powerful source of its healing.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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6a1e4af
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As the social philosopher and mystic Simone Weil said, "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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019ae99
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Holiness is the thing I never saw coming that makes me catch my breath because I know the sacred has interrupted my isolation.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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d608dda
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Moments of unity--holiness--actually alleviate isolation, which is not the same as simply distracting us from our isolation.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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401e5fa
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I was slightly irritated to be reminded of Jesus' message by a new Christian when what I rather would've done was rant about the shit that was making me hate people.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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67b5bf7
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all the misguided harmful messages of my religious upbringing, I still cherish that I was raised in a family where things mattered. Our lives bore a continual inflection of faith. I belonged to a community that connected the events in our lives to the divine. We searched ancient scripture for meaning and guidance. We sang our hearts out. We called each other "brother" and "sister." We belonged to each other. I learned that from the church o..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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c7db8fb
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And every single time I die to something--my notions of my own specialness, my plans and desires for something to be a very particular way--every single time I fight it and yet every single time I discover more life and more freedom than if I had gotten what I wanted.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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f2b83cf
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The Jesus whom God sent to claim and save us is what keeps me in Christianity, despite a hundred reasons to pack up and leave.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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d55220c
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Allowing ourselves to name the harm and be angry about the past is not a bad place to be; it's just a terrible place to stay.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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8a1d581
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the violence and fear, it's still always worth it to love God and to love people. And always, always, it is worth it to sing alleluia in defiance of the devil, who surely hates the sound of it. On the Sunday after the massacre, I stood before our congregation, grasping the music stand, which holds my sermon notes, and I looked at my now slightly faded tattoo of Mary Magdalene. In the image, she stands tall with one hand in a gesture of open..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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a639ba0
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the basement of a bar.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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de91362
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Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples. Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we can stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary,
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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efbe7b6
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Christianity is not a program for avoiding mistakes; it is a faith of the guilty. There is no "right" or perfect way to be. We learn from our mistakes; we extend grace to others and ourselves."
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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9defaa5
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Next to Alma on our All Saints' table was an icon of another accidental saint, Harvey Milk (the first openly gay person elected to public office in California, who was shot to death by a fellow city employee in 1978). The icon showed Milk standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge with five silver bullet holes in his chest and a golden halo behind his head. The icon was created by Bill, one of our congregation's artists, who called me late..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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7a85400
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there are times when the truth won't let us go. Sure, I can avoid other people's scrutiny by telling my bullshit side of the story over and over to anyone who will listen. But I know the truth. And sometimes it all catches up with me at night as I lie in bed -- in that not-quite-awake and not-quite-asleep place. In those moments, my ego is turned off, perhaps for the only time all day. In that consciousness-minus-ego state, the truth fights..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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836a35c
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Oddly, it's in these times that I feel closest to God. Not when I'm on a mountaintop, but when I'm lying in bed half-asleep, feeling defenseless. But as soon as my ego reengages, it's game over.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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a4807b7
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my own experiences of personal rejection and my years of theological education, countless prayers, an ordination, and a life centered on serving the church, I still have the same personality I was born with. I am often impatient and cranky. And my first response to almost everything is "fuck you." I don't often stay there, but I almost always start there. I'm still me. Yet the fact that I manage to now move from "fuck you" to something less..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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dc73b1e
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Repentance in Greek means something much closer to "thinking differently afterward" than it does "changing your cheating ways." Of"
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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96902d7
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Mary Magdalene would have very little tolerance for the Christian platitudes and vapid optimism that seem to swirl around these kinds of tragic events. Those platitudes are tempting, but they're nothing but luxuries for people who've never had demons (or at least have never admitted to them). But equally, she would reject nihilism, or the idea that there is no real meaning in life or death--ideas present in so much of postmodernity. Those i..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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8ce9b7e
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from demons.
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |
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22187c9
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resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, and like my friend Don did at Dylan Klebold's funeral, that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because eve..
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Nadia Bolz-Weber |