Author Archives: mictori

Single in the Sanctuary: To the Table of Moms

17 Friday Jun 2016

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Dear table of moms at my favorite coffee house,

It was a lovely day. I needed to complete some work and I chose to sit outside. But after a very short while, I had to move inside.

You see, your conversation was breaking my heart.

I’m a childless women. It wasn’t something I necessarily chose for myself. Due to life’s timing and reproductive health issues, having children doesn’t seem like the best option for me.

But you didn’t take into consideration when your conversation was loud enough to hear on the patio.

You first complain about the childless women who make judgments on parenting. I’ll give you that one. We don’t have the right to be a Monday morning quarterback when it comes to your children, especially since we don’t know what challenges your children may have.

But then you started talking about the women who look at their pets like children among some other snide comments. While I’m not one, I know women who do consider their pets like children. There are a number of reasons women don’t have children- out of choice or out of circumstance. But just like you don’t want us to make fun of your parenting styles, we don’t want you to make fun of the way we live our lives. We don’t know what you go through; you don’t know what we go through either.

The condescending tone was too much for me. I haven’t quite transcended the way life has happened for me and attained peace with it.

And that’s when I moved inside.

I thought about chatting with you about your derogatory tone. Maybe I would start a conversation about how difficult it is to be unmarried without children or married with children or married without children and with two dogs.

But sometimes we don’t have the energy to educate you through our pain. So I moved inside on this beautiful day. It was my choice, but it was the healthiest choice for me.

So, if any of you happen to read this, just be sensitive to the women surrounding you. There may still be a piece of us who are envious of your life, of your privilege to connect with mommy groups, of being able to attain the family structure you dreamed of when you were a child. You don’t know what the roads we’ve been on and the dreams dropped along the way. You may not have a cycle or biology that has reminded you on a monthly basis that bearing children would be an uphill battle.

Women of family structure privilege: complain about us or make fun of us if you must make yourselves feel better this way, but just do so in private spaces. Know that there are people surrounding you that are trying to heal and your voice is reopening wounds.

 

Single in the Sanctuary – The Many Stories

14 Tuesday Jun 2016

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red-love-heart-oldEver since starting the Single in the Sanctuary group on Facebook as well as lead a couple of speaking engagements, I’ve had people share their stories with me.  It’s been an amazing experience to learn about the roads our friends have been on over the course of their lives.

After hearing many stories, I see that there are some overlaps to many of our stories.  We share similar sentiments of loneliness.  Often, we wrestle when hope is lost.

But while a few of our stories are alike in many ways, each of our stories of being unmarried has distinct differences just like our DNA and fingerprints.  Because of these vast differences, we can’t speak for someone else.  Again, I was reminded of this – especially in light of the shooting at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando as well as what safety and sanctuary mean to LGBTQ people.

I can only speak for myself: an educated, straight white never-been-married cis-female.  Granted, I’ve gone through some tough times being single throughout my twenties and thirties.  Just by being a woman, there have been times when I’ve felt extremely unsafe.  But my issues have minimal intersectionality issues, and I am extremely privileged.  I’ve never faced what it means to be a person who is queer.  I’ve never experienced what it means to be a single woman of color.  Being a progressive Christian, I’ve also never experienced what a Jewish or Muslim woman has experienced.

As I reflect, some questions have come to mind: How would a person of color experience never being married?  What would it be like to be a person of another faith who is getting divorced?  How many more layers of difficulty in dating exist for a transgender person?  How do lesbian, gay and bisexual people navigate the healing process for abusive relationships?

Of course, no one is required to tell us their stories unless they are ready to talk and they feel safe speaking with us.  But what we as people of privilege within the unmarried spectrum need to understand is that there are friends who must deal with many additional layers of challenges.

All that any of us as people of privilege can do is allow space for all unmarried open-minded Christians to speak without interruption or trying to explain their experience for them, especially those whose stories are vastly different than ours.  And my job, in return, is to learn as much as possible from them when they are ready to share.

I will continue to tell my story.  But it is only one story in the sea of many.  My experience is only my experience, and it is one that is fairly privileged.  May the God in whose image we are all made give us the courage, strength and power to tell our stories and the patience to listen to the narratives of others.

 

For Such a Time as This…

13 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by in Current Events, Pop, Social Justice

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“For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’”

Esther 4:14

For such a time as this…

Sometimes we don’t want to shake our current placid state.  Everyone in our cozy corner of the world is (fairly) happy…

And then 50 people are killed and another 50 or so injured by a solo bigoted, biased, homophobic hate-filled shooter.  In our cozy corner of the world, we have the privilege to close our eyes, bask in the sun for the rest of the day and forget that tragic incident happened early yesterday morning in Orlando, Florida.

We dodge conversations on the discrimination that happens to our friends of color, the ugly words thrown at our LGBTQ friends, the catcalls and assaults and violence in homes that happens to our sisters, the ways that Muslims feel threatened just by living in this country.  We can point our fingers at everyone else that doesn’t look anything like us.  It’s their fault… It has to be… I’m just sitting on my cozy corner minding my own business.

But when the hateful rhetoric in our country is getting louder and louder and more people are dying and being abused because of their color, religion, sexual orientation, gender/gender identity/gender expression, then we as people of faith need to stop sitting in our cozy corners and get ourselves out into the world.

For such a time as this, we are called to listen to stories without judgment.

For such a time as this, we are called to open our mouths and speak out every single time we hear hate.

For such a time as this, we are called to be the voice of love in our world.

Esther could have sat in her cozy corner of the world.  She could have allowed her kin to be massacred.  Instead, she risked her own life to stand up for the lives and well being of others.

Are we willing to do the same?  Am I willing to do the same?

For such a time as this, are we willing to call out the voices of hate?  When hearing such hateful words against our sisters and brothers, are we willing to name such animosity?

Are we willing to say that our LGBT sisters and brothers are loved by God for who they are?

Are we willing to say that the lives of our sisters and brothers of color matter?

Are we willing to say that the bodies of our sisters are to be respected?

Are we willing to say that our Muslim sisters and brothers shine the light and love of God in our world and that the stereotypes are wrong?

Are we willing to say that our transgender friends are loved by God just as they are?

Are we willing to say all of these words aloud, risking our lives and livelihoods like Esther?

Will we use our privilege to listen, learn and speak to other people of privilege at such a time as this?

May the loving arms of God surround the survivors in Orlando as they heal in body, mind and soul.  May the peace of God surround the grieving family members and friends as they come to terms with the violence and hate that robbed them of their loved ones.  May the strength of God carry our LGBT, Latinx and Muslim friends as they navigate a world still so threatening.  And may God give all of us the courage to speak out against hate in our world.  Amen.

Single in the Sanctuary – Marital Status Marginalization

10 Friday Jun 2016

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Welcome to Single in the Sanctuary on my site MichelleTorigian.com. Here’s my initial Single in the Sanctuary post. Please follow my blog to continue the journey with me!

mictori's avatarMichelle L. Torigian

By E. W. Russell, Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Starting today, I will be posting a new weekly feature called “Single in the Sanctuary.” The recurring topic will focus on what it means to be a non-married progressive Christian in the twenty-first century.

I doubt I’m the only one who has felt a bit left out of the church based on the fact that I’m over 40 and still not married.  Even when I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s, I felt out of place because I don’t have the traditional family structure.

We look around our churches and, most of the time, only see certain demographics, namely

  • Married with children
  • Married, retired with grown children
  • Widowed

Only on occasions like the Christmas and Easter holidays or weddings, baptisms and funerals do I see my demographic: the never-married person.  I don’t see many divorced individuals, single parents, co-habitating couples, LGBT individuals…

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Herstory

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

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herstory picWhen I was in Kindergarten, we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up.  My teacher had us draw what we dreamed of being when we were older.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see past the 1978 stereotypes and requirements of what careers women should enter.   So I made a teacher-nurse – a career as a person who taught nursing.

As I got older, my plans changed just a little.  For a few years, I thought I should go into dietetics.  Was I passionate about the career?  No.  But again, it was a career in which many women were called.  It was steady and safe.

Teaching and nursing and becoming a dietitian are all beautiful callings for both men and women, but they weren’t my calling.  I couldn’t see past gender limitations for a career.

In fact, during my senior year of high school, I gave a speech why women shouldn’t become clergy.  While I backed the speech with various scripture verses, the primary reason I believed this was because I had never seen a woman in the role of clergy.   This wasn’t a valid reason for my disagreement with women in the pulpit.  (I’m extremely positive God continues to laugh at this story…)

As I entered college, something in my gut told me that I should enter a career that wasn’t dominated by women.  After majoring in English and working in non-profit marketing, I eventually entered seminary and began my path to becoming an ordained member of the clergy.

Now I can’t imagine a world where women aren’t in the pulpit.

Today, we shattered another barrier that limits women from certain roles or careers.  This moment in history isn’t just about one particular person.  I know many of you don’t like or care for our one female presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, and that is extremely valid.

Yet, I want us to pause for one minute.  In this very moment, something has shifted.  It was like the shift I experienced when I saw more and more women in the pulpit.  When we see women or minorities finally attaining leadership roles rarely held by them in the past, we change the framework of who is or isn’t allowed to have a particular position.  We break stereotypes and preconceived notions.

When more women and people of color attain positions that exclusively went to white males ten, twenty, forty, seventy years ago, then more women and people of color are able to dream bigger than ever.  Our daughters and sons who never thought they could achieve their goals now believe that they can.  We can all walk a little taller because we have been reminded that all people are created equally in God’s image.

I teared up while watching the presumptive Democratic nominee speaking tonight.  I write this not to endorse or criticize her.  But this is to affirm her role in expanding the hopes and dreams of women and girls.  When we see women in top leadership roles, our daughters and nieces and sisters and mothers will continue to believe anything is possible.  

Our job isn’t to stop here however.  We must continue to encourage all women in top leadership roles – including women of color, women with disabilities, and lesbian, bisexual and transgender women.  When a young African American girl can see a woman like her as president of the United States someday, her dreams will expand.  When a young girl with a physical disability sees a woman like her as president of the United States someday, her dreams will expand.  We can’t just stop with able-bodied straight white women or the women who look like us.  All women deserve to dream.

*****

All opinions here are my own and not connected with any organization or person with whom I am associated.  

Single in the Sanctuary – Living the Fiercely Independent Life

31 Tuesday May 2016

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IMG_4476 (2)This coming Wednesday will mark the 20th anniversary of living completely on my own.  June 1, 1996, I moved into my small, five-hundred-and-something square foot apartment in Largo, Florida.  The space was tiny, and while I only intended to live there months to maybe a couple of years, I resided there for over eleven years.

In August, 2007, I moved from Florida to a one bedroom apartment on the seminary campus in St. Louis.  I felt a bit less alone in that apartment as seminary friends surrounded me for three years.

But school ended in 2010, and I needed to move again.  It was a torturous year because I moved three times, eventually landing in Cincinnati.

Each of those apartments represent the single Michelle – no roommates, no significant others, no family members on any of the leases.

I’ve learned how to kill spiders, usher lizards out the door, open any type of bottle – including the wide salsa containers, get my garbage disposal working again, know when I needed to light the pilot light on the gas stove and plunge toilets.  I can’t say that I’ve never needed help, but for day-to-day operations, I feel confident to be on my own.

And I feel that God has given me what I needed to be fiercely independent.  Psalm 68 says “God gives the desolate a home to live in.”  Through the grace and mercy of God, I’ve had people, strength and comfort to get me through the solo years.

And through my fiercely independent life, I now know that eventually moving in with a significant other will not have anything to do with “need” but “want.”  I want the merged life, the person with whom I spend my evening and weekends whether we are working in separate rooms or sitting together on the couch watching TV.

There is an emotional tug of war with the ideal of living full-time with another person.  As humans, I believe we are created to be in relationship with others.  Ecclesiastes 4 states:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

And yet, I know that it will be an adjustment to live with another person someday.  Being solo, I have my own system of life.  Sometimes, I’ll fall asleep on the couch and sometimes in my bed.  I have my TV or some online streaming video service going during every waking hour because I love the noise.  I will sit in front of my TV and work on various type of crafts and arts – spreading my work out as I know no one will care if a few things are scattered on the floor.  One season four episode on “Sex in the City “calls it “Secret Single Behavior.”

From time to time I do wonder: What would a significant other or roommate think of my life?

I don’t feel like I’m too set in my ways even though I’m used to solo life and being fiercely independent.  I’m willing to compromise and change some to merge my life with another person.  But in the meantime, I will watch the Kardashians, eat dinner while sitting on my couch, color in my coloring books while lying down in bed, stay up until 3 AM working on cleaning out a closet and keep my clean laundry in a bin instead of sorting, folding and placing in a drawer.  I may always partake in these secret single behaviors.  At 43, I’m allowed to be authentic whether alone or with another person.

I love my life today.  And I would love to merge lives with someone someday too.

 

Single in the Sanctuary: In Search of a “Normal Life”

10 Tuesday May 2016

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© 2004 Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

True confession: I have had many moments when I wish I was a Stepford Wife…

Now, 90-95% of my life I wouldn’t want to be a cookie cutter girl.  And if you know me, you know that I’m far from being cut from the same cloth as everyone else.

In my twenties, I was a member of the Junior League.  As most of the members were wives with husbands who made upper-middle to lower-upper class salaries, my single self who made a lower-middle class non-profit salary felt extremely out of place.  There were more times in those early years when I wanted to have the lives of the women who surrounded me.

The harder I tried to have lives like theirs, the more I was being called away from that lifestyle.  I was a trapezoid-shaped peg attempting to fit into a round hole.

Since my twenties, I stopped caring about living the rich or semi-rich life and having a bazillion square foot house – especially now that I’m a pastor.  I appreciate being able to support myself and take pride in not “needing” a man to take care of me but rather having a man in my life to walk besides me.

Being single past your early-to-mid thirties is hard to swallow – mostly because we’re different than most of society.  Some days adapting to this is not exactly easy.  I remember questioning God and shaking my fist to the Divine.  Why can’t my life be as “ideal” as most of those around me, God?

Of course, ideal is what it looks like on the outside… We don’t know what happens offline…

Remember when Carrie Bradshaw says to her friends in a season two episode of Sex and the City “The world is made up of two types of women: the simple girls and the Katie girls.  I’m a Katie girl.”  The “Katie girl” is in reference to Barbara Streisand’s character in The Way We Were.  Carrie was another trapezoid-shaped peg trying to fit into a round hole.    There are people who follow social graces, speak well, dress impeccably, have perfect home and look like a polished human being.  That was not Carrie Bradshaw.

That is not me.  And at 43, I’m pretty resigned to the fact that it will never be me.

I wasn’t made to be a Stepford Wife or president of Junior League or a simple girl or a cookie-cutter life.  I wasn’t called to have a life that mirrors most everyone else.  I wasn’t made to be the same as most of my friends and colleagues.  I am quirky, nerdy, weird and wonderfully made.

I aspire to one day own a townhouse.  I hope to have a smaller wedding someday that reflects who we are as a couple and looks much less like a production.  I hope to keep preaching, keep writing, keep advocating and keep being just slightly more quirky than most people I know.

Simple Girls, Stepford Wives and normal people who fit the mold of a cookie-cutter (if they truly exist) are just as much made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God.  And those of us who are “Katie girls” who don’t fit molds and are weird and nerdy and complicated in almost every part of their lives are also made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God.  We are all just asked by God to share God’s love in a variety of ways.

In the words of Oscar Wilde “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

 

 

 

Single in the Sanctuary: Walking Away

02 Monday May 2016

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imageYesterday marked the 18th anniversary of ending a very unhealthy relationship.  I had just turned 25 years old.

This former relationship was toxic, verbally abusive and robbed my soul of its joy.  I thought I could change him.  I thought it was me that was causing the issue.  I tried to better myself as much as I could for him, but all of it wasn’t enough.

About every other night while dating him, I could tell he was drinking, and on those nights he would tell me everything I was doing wrong.  He became a different person on those nights.

I could not stop him from drinking or from the result of alcohol in his system: ugly words being tossed at me and accusatory statements being hurled my way.

After being degraded to small pieces within this relationship, I felt like nothing.  I wasn’t sure who would want me because he told me repeatedly that he was the best guy with whom I would ever date.  I had been worn down.

Of course, all of us have faults within a relationship.  But when verbal abuse is present, our agency to better the relationship is limited.  Whatever that is holy within any type of abusive relationship no longer exists.

My greatest fault was that I couldn’t convince myself to walk away sooner.  I couldn’t focus on the value of my own heart and soul and being.

I haven’t written much about it in detail.  As time goes on I will write in detail how my mom had to comfort me on mornings when my eyes were puffy from crying the night before.  I will write in detail how my sister used to tell me that this was an abusive relationship – even though I wasn’t being hit.  And I will write in detail how there was a small piece of me that wished he would hit me so I knew definitely that it was a toxic relationship.

Walking away was hard at the time.  But now I can’t see how I could have stayed so long where I was not truly loved and appreciated.

Single in the Sanctuary: To My Never-Existed 18-Year-Old

28 Thursday Apr 2016

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merrygoround2When I was young, I thought I was going to have children.  I thought I was going to have my first child at 25 after getting married at 22.  I was so sure that this was the way that my life was going to turn out.

For years I wanted to have children.  And then something changed.  Maybe it was turning 40 before meeting an appropriate significant other.  Maybe it was enjoying my child-free life the way it was.  Maybe it was meeting someone who I could see spending time with as a couple… not a family.

As I see my friends’ children growing more and more as each year passes, I think to myself “there is no way that I could be a mom of a child of this age.”

And then it hit me: if I would have had my child when I planned on having one, I would have an 18-year-old now as I am now 43.

I would see her or him graduating high school and making decisions on where they would go for college.  I would see them getting ready for their senior prom.  I may be facing the beginning of empty-nest syndrome.  I’d be warning him or her about the dangers of drinking too much, setting your drink down at a bar or party, making sure to call when they got to where they were going and reminding them to be safe when it came to sex and driving.

I would think about how quickly those childhood years went and hoped it would have gone more slowly.  And a small part of me would be relieved that they were finally an adult and I could begin the next chapter of my life.

Instead, I don’t have any of this.  Do I wish I would have had these experiences?  Maybe?  Probably?  Do I feel sad that it never happened?  Not too often at all.

Will I regret the way my life turned out?  Probably not regarding children.  Occasionally, twinges of wonder rattle my soul.  And occasionally the musing that I may have missed something sacred.  But I’ve found mothering moments.  I’ve given birth to dreams.

And I look forward to watching my dreams grow from their infantile stage into mature realities.

 

Prince, Tabitha, and That Which Ceases to Die

22 Friday Apr 2016

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imageDearly Beloved… We are called today to get through this thing called life…

In the midst of our difficult days and questions floating through our heads, we cringed yesterday afternoon when hearing that one who brought the tunes to our childhood and early adult years ceased to be.

No more concerts.  No more physical presence among us.  No longer here.

I remember the soundtrack of my life.  I remember when the ever-so-edgy “Darling Nikki” was sung at the top of my classmates voices during a 1984 slumber party.  I probably didn’t know very much about its meaning – I was only 12 – but it was solidly embedded in my culture.

I remember when the words of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U” comforted me the night of my first real breakup, hearing the soothing melody ring out from Sinead’s voice.

I remember our pom pon routine to the latter part of “Batdance” – the routine we performed on the night I started dating my college boyfriend.  And I remember that Arms of Orion was really my favorite tune of his Batman soundtrack.

I remember riding over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge as the song “Little Red Corvette” blasted from the tapedeck during the great spring break of 1993.  And when I hear that song, I think of my friend who is no longer alive.

I remember the moment in the past year or so when I realized more years had passed since year 1999 than existed between 1984 (the year the song was written) and the actual 1999.  And I remember really, really listening to the lyrics of 1999, knowing how frightened I was in the mid-1980’s of the world exploding one day because of nuclear weapons.

It is with great sadness that Prince is no longer alive.

It is with great joy that Prince is still alive.

Here’s what the resurrection stories of all sorts – especially the story of Tabitha in Acts 9 – reminds us: that even after our physical death, our gifts don’t die. While the narrative includes a physical resuscitation of Tabitha, the real miracle was that she was alive before her resurrection through her talents.   Like the women surrounding the body of Tabitha at her wake celebrating her gifts and showing off her arts, we have spent the past 24 hours sharing tune after tune of Prince’s most meaningful tunes.  We have shared stories passed on to us of what his music meant in our greatest and worst moments of our lives.  We have mentioned the narratives we heard about the great things he had done under the radar.

Through the great resurrection narrative of Jesus the Christ, resurrection happens.  Songs and stories and shared talents keep people alive.

And that is why Prince remains with us forever.