Category Archives: Pop Culture

Pokémon Go, Reloading and Sabbaths

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

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Apparently, our church is a Pokémon Go PokéStop.

What does this mean?  While I’m new to the game, I believe a PokéStop is a location where people can reload on supplies they need to capture the monsters.

My church, St. Paul United Church of Christ in Colerain Township, Cincinnati, is a PokéStop.  At first, I didn’t know this, and I’m not exactly sure how we became one.  After watching a few new people walking around our church building and then installing the app myself, I can indeed confirm that we are a PokéStop.

While church may not be a destination for younger people, PokéStops are.  So how can we merge virtual life and spiritual life into one location?

Remember the Sabbath.

Times and spaces to reload are important for all people.  Some choose faith communities.  Others choose sporting activities, arts or fellowship activities.  These are activities that give something back to our souls.

Church was already a PokéStop in the game of life.  It has been and should always be a place in which we can recharge our batteries and reload on spiritual energy for the new week.  Sometimes we get away from the idea that Sabbath is for reloading on spiritual fuel.  While we may come to church to give to God, we are also finding supplies for our soul.  God gave us the Sabbath for us to find renewal.  As Jesus says in Mark 2, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not the humankind for Sabbath.”

In our time of reloading, or Sabbath, may wee all see God a little clearer, each other with more love, and find spiritual supplies to help us manage life throughout the week.

 

 

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: In Search of a “Normal Life”

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Movies, Pop, Pop Culture, Single in the Sanctuary, Television

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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.”

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Single in the Sanctuary: The Last Single Girl

07 Monday Mar 2016

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In the 2008 Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw, 40 years old, gets engaged to longtime love Mr. Big.  The editors at Vogue offer to photograph her in various wedding dresses.  Enid, her editor at Vogue, tells her that the feature will be called “The Last Single Girl.”

“Well, I’m hardly the last single girl,” Carrie exclaims.

Editor Enid replies “No, but 40 is the last age a woman can be photographed in a wedding gown without the unintended Diane Arbus subtext.”

Is Enid implying that the last age a woman is able to wear in a fluffy, tulle-skirted wedding dress is at 40?    Should brides mute their celebratory looks for something more matronly?

And what if we’re not even close to being ready to getting married?  What if we’re over 40 and there’s no proposals on the horizon?  Should we just erase any current Pinterest hopeful board of wedding dresses and begin a new one entitled “the older bride”?

older bride

(By the way… this is what a screenshot of an “older bride” search looks like on Pinterest.  It looks quite Vogue-worthy to me.  And none of these women look like “Old Maids” or “Last Single Girls.”)

So…Does Any of This Matter?

Let’s step away from weddings because I’m sure many of us reading this aren’t ready to get married in the immediate future.  We wonder if society thinks that single women over 40 have transition themselves from vibrant young women to “Old Maids”.  We often inappropriately believe ourselves a rare breed because we didn’t conform to society’s limited expectations and marry before 40.

Yes, there have been times when I feel like I’m the LAST SINGLE GIRL – especially before I met my current boyfriend.  I celebrated my 40th birthday dateless, surrounded by fabulous friends, and filled with a spirit that was well-younger than 40.

Phone Sept 2014 025

See… This is not a girl who was ready to move into the Old Maid category.  

I do look at the lives of my friends, and I’m definitely one of the few never-married single girls.  To see and embrace yourself as one of the LAST SINGLE GIRLS is a difficult realization.  Maybe you’ll think to yourself “When did this happen?  What did I do to arrive at this place now that I’m over 40?”

And, if you’re anything like me, you may look around most churches you’ve attended and feel like the LAST SINGLE GIRL in the church and most contexts in your life… most of the time at least.

I imagine that there will be some of you reading this who feel like the LAST SINGLE GIRL in the world, in the church, in their group of friends and in their families.

It goes without saying… in reality, you are not the LAST SINGLE GIRL.  Hardly!  We are out there in steady numbers!  We are no longer old maids.  We are no longer alone.  We are valid just attempting to live life as fully as possible.  No one is worth any less because of their marital status.

As a clergy member and person who often writes about being a single progressive Christian, I will meet people who have never been married or married around 40 or later.   There are people in our churches who are single of all ages – from 22 to 40 to 65.  And each person is where they are right now for better or worse.   They tell me their stories of meeting their spouse a little later down the road and the bliss of finding a healthy relationship when the time – and their lives – were just right.

It’s not our job as churches to segregate THE LAST SINGLE GIRLS from the rest of our church.  But it’s our job to walk along side of people to bring them comfort in their current status.  It’s our responsibility to integrate them into church life, worship and activities.  And it’s our call to hope with our unmarried sisters and brothers if they yearn to meet a partner in the future.

*****

In the near future, it’s my intention to read the book All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation  by Rebecca Traister.  For more reflections based on the book and how it may impact the way communities of faith relate to unmarried persons, follow me here at michelletorigian.com.

In the meantime, join the conversation on being unmarried and a progressive Christian here.

Joey and the Ones Who Teach Us How to Die

05 Saturday Mar 2016

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By Burningkarma – via Wikimedia commons

I’ve never been a super-huge fan of country music.  There are a few country artists whose music I enjoy and a few country songs I have on my mp3 player.  So when I started seeing article after article about Joey Feek and her battle with cancer, I was a bit confused to who she was and somewhat understood why I had never heard about her previously.

As the months progressed and more articles about her would pop up in my newsfeed, I would find myself clicking on the news articles about Joey.  The posts would record each step of her dying process.  From her final Christmas to the last days of her life, each article shaped a narrative to sacred to keep silent.

Through these accounts, Joey Feek showed us what true courage in the face of final days looks like.  She showed us what it meant to live fully in the present and show those close to you how much you love and value them.  Joey’s life was one where discomfort and pain didn’t stop her from continuing to live the best she could.  She embraced faith as part of the process.  And, most of all, she was able to be vulnerable by allowing the world to walk with her on the final steps of her journey.

Joey’s legacy will include her music.  But what I believe was greater included her display of bravery and the way she taught us how to die.  Dying is not pretty or glamorous or what’s supposed to happen when you’re 40 years old.  Joey gave us a vivid picture of the ebb and flow of life and how raw and vulnerable it is to walk alongside of someone in the final stages of life.

We thank Joey, her husband Rory and their family for allowing the world to see the scary, authentic, beautiful and awe-ful world of hospice, palliative care, final breaths, last kisses and living fully in the moment.

Who are the people in your life who gave you a beautiful example of what it means to die with dignity, grace and vulnerability?

Tamar’s Sisters

29 Monday Feb 2016

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Photo from justjared.com

Did you see Tamar’s sisters tonight on the Oscars?

Did you see how this disgraced daughter of David’s story never died?  It keeps happening.  But it no longer stays silent.

Did you see how her twenty-first century sisters’ stories continue to rise?   The powers that be tried to control them. The powers that be tried to silence all of them.  And like the phoenix rises from the ashes, they remain quiet no more.  They sing.  They write.  Their voice is released from the closed box of shame.

Stop for a moment.  How many of Tamar’s sisters do you know?  How many young women on college campuses or in cars or apartments found their bodies invaded?

We all know someone, even if they’ve never told us their story.  Maybe their too embarrassed.  Maybe they believe that no one will believe them.  Maybe they’ve been told that “it never happened.”  But it did.  It happened.

Tamar’s sisters keep moving.  They keep living in ways that Tamar herself couldn’t.  They learn to love fully.  They find ways to heal – at least down to one remaining scar.

To Tamar and to her sisters: we will believe you.  We will listen.  We will make you feel like your story matters.

And like Tamar, your resilience will rise.

Beautiful performance tonight by Lady Gaga at the 88th Academy Awards ceremony.  Click here to find out more about the It’s On Us initiative to stop sexual assault.

My Annual Midlife Crisis

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Last night, I was watching Noah Baumbach’s recent film While We’re Young.  A forty-something childless couple begins to hang out with a twenty-something, spontaneous, energetic couple.  Being influenced by the junior husband and wife, the elder couple (which, of course, is only a year or two older than I am today) starts to change their activities to revive their aging lives.  Without giving much of the plot away, their new lifestyle finds its expiration date, naturally.

In the ebb and flow to life, the two Gen-Xers eventually face the missing elements of their lives with honesty.  Josh (Ben Stiller) says to Cornelia (Naomi Watts), “I’m 44 and there are things I will never do.  Things I won’t have.”

Josh’s words ring true to many of us who have crossed the threshold into our early middle-age years.  We begin to take inventory of what we’ve attained and what we haven’t.  We stop running from the mirror which indicates our current lives and our actual ages.

And, for the first time, we admit that there will be things that we’ll never do or have.

Each year, in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I take stock of what I’ve accomplished in the past year as well as the mistakes I’ve made.  I try to offer myself some grace as I confront shortcomings.  But mostly I sit with the melancholy of not having certain things in my life and the achievements that I haven’t yet grasped.

Admittedly, there are always tears in the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

I’m 42 years old.  As much as I’m 19 years old in my heart, I’m a middle-aged woman.  There are some things I will never do and never have.  At this point, I probably won’t have a child and definitely won’t give birth to one.  I’ll never win any major awards, run a marathon, skydive (totally fine with that one) or become a US president, senator or congresswoman.  I won’t be a millionaire or a physician.  I’m ready to leave some of those possibilities behind, and others may take a while to toss aside.

But as I look ahead, there still is life.  I still have the chance to walk a marathon, write a book, influence lives and advocate for the voiceless.  I will sit with people as their life slows down.  I’ll meet new people and speak my truth in new ways. Life may not yet be quite half-over for me, so some of the things I dreamed about are still possible.  And while my body doesn’t look or work the same way it did 10 or 20 years ago, my mind continues to grow and my confidence blooms.

What 2016 will bring – I’m not sure.  But as my body ages and the expected aches begin to intensify and multiply, my vigorous mind and soul will continue to listen for God’s relentless call for my life.

Star Wars, Sandy Hook and the Scene I Want Erased

18 Friday Dec 2015

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star_wars_episode_iii_revenge_of_the_sith_posterThis afternoon, I wait fairly patiently to see episode seven of the Star Wars movie series.  I recall the first one I saw in the movie theater: Return of the Jedi.  When the three first episodes of the series was re-released in 1998, I went to see each one.  Although they were altered from their previous release, the magic of each episode superseded any technology that was or was not added from the first release.  And then in 1999, 2002 and 2005, I went on opening day to see Episodes 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

Today, I’ve been thinking about various scenes in the movies – from Han replying to Leia “I know” when she tells him she loves him to the scene where Luke discovers Leia is his sister to the scenes where Anakin begins to transform to the dark side.

Fortunately, the blood was minimal in each of the first six movies.  Faceless Storm Troopers were eliminated here and there, and Han shoots Greedo before we can become invested in the character.  (Still not right, Han.  We know you shot first.)  Yet one scene sticks with me as the most traumatizing: the bodies of Younglings on the floor after Anakin stages a massacre.

In 2005, all we could believe was that this was a movie, an illustration of how someone transforms into an evil being.  This is what soaking in fear and anxiety will do to someone who has the potential to allow toxic messages to penetrate their soul.

But it was just a movie… Right?

And then, Sandy Hook happened seven years later.

At the time of Sandy Hook, my nephew was also in first grade.  There was one other child with his first name.  The image of the Younglings popped into my head.  Imagining a scene where bubbly, lively children are no longer alive was too much.  Thinking of the tears falling from the eyes of the moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles of the Sandy Hook Younglings was too intense.

It’s still too much to think about…

I don’t want other scenes in movies or real life when Younglings or first graders are massacred.  I don’t want to hear of any more shootings or slayings or rapes.

I don’t want to vision a scene where children’s bodies – or any human bodies – are lifeless on the ground.  To me, this event was the most sinister of any event that has happened in this country during the course of my life – as much as September 11.

This week, with the anniversary of Sandy Hook and the release of Star Wars episode seven reminds me that scenes like this can happen – that the Force, our agency, can be used to hurt as well as heal.

And so we pray that the Force will be used to love one another, to heal our divisions, to turn our lightsabers, swords and guns into ploughshares and anything else that will help us build and nurture.

Advent Day 2 – The Valley of the Mean Girls

30 Monday Nov 2015

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From the Detroit Card Co. – See http://www.detroitcardco.com/shop/art-print-be-kind-even-to-mean-people?category=8×10+Prints

Whew… Middle school and high school are over!  Time to move away from the simple-minded drama that comes with being a teenager and move ahead with the more important issues of life.

Wait a minute… Who’s that?  Is that… A MEAN GIRL?  A MEAN GUY?  Didn’t they set aside their childish ways when they moved on to adulthood?  Didn’t they figure out that childhood antics and vapid drama doesn’t work in adulthood?

Didn’t we think that we could get away from their whispering in corners and selective snubbing once we headed to college and adult life?  Unfortunately, we will each run across people in various parts of life that forgot to leave behind their messy middle school mentality for a more enlightened way of living.  They will use their “mean girl” attitudes to manipulate others.

Even Jesus met his share of “mean guys” before the end of his earthly ministry… None of us are immune to their ways…

In many situations, mean girls and guys can be disregarded as children.  Yet there are times they get in our ways when we are trying to move forward trying to follow the call of God and they stand in our way.  They attempt to derail us from our paths, not because they are trying to accomplish something…

Frankly, I’m not sure why they are mean people.  Maybe they thrive on drama.

But God isn’t calling us to be mean girls and boys and handing back hate to those who drench us in hate.  Instead God is calling us to “set aside our childish ways” and turn their swords into our plowshares.  We are called to assertively work with them as we know that God has given us the wisdom to love our enemies.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. states “returning hate for hate multiplies hate.”  Given the choice between hate and love, I will once again go with Dr. King: “I have chosen to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

A prayer for those facing “mean girls:”

God of our holy tweens and teenage years
of our growing pains and terrifying transitions,
give us the courage to walk in the valley of the shadow of mean girls.
Prepare a table before us even when our enemies refuse to let us sit with them.
May their voices become heard when they whisper stabbing secrets
and may their voices become silent when they scream criticisms.

Give us the strength to extend grace when they extend their hands for help.
And help us to forgive seven, seventy, seven-thousand times
Whether we are seventeen or thirty-seven.

Amen.