I do not have many regrets in my life, at least in regard to the big decisions: getting married, getting unmarried, having children, attending various schools, working first as a teacher, then as a psychotherapist, and most recently as a minister. These decisions have been to the good, more or less. But I do have some regrets that stick in my memory, as I move into this New Year. I tell myself these are little things, but they are not, for they have taught me how I should live. 

I have been retired from the parish ministry for over two years now, but I remember so many of my congregants vividly. I have been thinking about Margo, an elderly woman of refinement and wealth, but totally unpretentious and simple in her living, and uncommonly generous to the church. I had visited her over the years, as she went into an inevitable decline. Because of a lack of oxygen to her brain, she began to drift away from time to time. When I visited her, I wondered if she knew who I was. I busied myself with the various tasks of my ministry, and I realized that months had gone by without my seeing Margo. One day as I left the church, I had a strong inclination to visit her. I should've known to follow my intuitive sense and drive directly to her home, but I did not. I was tired. I could always go another day, I reasoned. But of course I could not. The next day I got the call saying that she had died. I regret not saying goodbye to someone I loved. Sometimes "now" is not just the best time, but the only time.

Another memory. I had been in a relationship with a man during most of my time in graduate school. He was good for me in many ways. But the relationship was star-crossed and fated to end, so I had decided to break off the relationship. I still cared for this man, of course, but all logic worked against us, and I knew I was doing the right thing by leaving him. A few months into our separation, he called to tell me that his father had just died. He asked me to cancel my plans for the weekend and come to him. I was torn. I considered his request and decided not to go. I wanted to break the bond between us, and I thought it would be unwise for me to be with him during this tender time. I left him alone with his great sadness. I regret not going to be with my friend. 

A third memory. This incident happened many years ago, when I was a young mother, but I remember it keenly. I had gotten a puppy for my two little boys -- an adorable black and white soft, fluffy kind of puppy -- but as it turned out, they did not want a puppy. When I ask my older son why, he said, "I'd rather have a goldfish. You don't have to take a goldfish for walk." So I had to find a new home for the puppy. I put an ad in the local paper, and soon someone called saying they had a good home for the dog. When I got to the house, however, I noted that it was cluttered and dirty, that the children were half clothed, and a couple of skinny dogs were already there. I should have scooped up my puppy and made my exit. But I was raised to be polite, and I did not have the courage to tell this family I felt their home was unfit, so I left our beautiful little puppy with them. I regret not protecting an innocent creature that was dependent upon me.

In each case, my heart was telling me what I needed to do. And in each case, I allowed other considerations to overrule my intuitive sense of what was right. I have learned over and over again in this world that the heart knows a deeper truth than reason can reach. Connection matters. Caring and kindness trump every rationale.

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I am weary of hearing well-meaning friends question the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. They ask, "What do they want? They don't have any clear goals -- how can they hope to bring about change?"

I want to ask:

"What was the meaning of Gandhi's fasts? "

"What was the meaning of the Watts riots?"

"What is the meaning of the young Syrian who set himself on fire because he could find no job, and started the Arab Spring?"

In other words, what is the meaning of a human cry? There comes a moment from time to time in history when a system is so patently unjust and cruel that people rise up against it and say, "No more!" Sometimes the people have not worked out a clear political agenda. Perhaps in their anger and pain, they have not sorted out the issues, or chosen leaders, or created a movement. Perhaps they never will. But this does not mean that their cry was in vain.

Occupy Wall Street has had great significance. If nothing else, OWS has changed the national conversation and shifted the civic discourse. They have made space for the voice of the people. 
Since the country's founding, our national myth has been the promise of equal opportunity for all. Of course, that opportunity has never been there for everyone: we have never been truly egalitarian. However, the ideal was there, calling to us as individuals and as a nation to broaden the umbrella, including more people in that promise. And so we have recognized our theft of Native American lands and destruction of native culture; we have set a course for civil rights for those whose heritage was slavery; we have said that women should be considered equal to men and should be rewarded equally for equal work.

But somewhere during the last 30 years, we got lost on the way to the bank. We came to believe that "greed is good." The best and the brightest of our university students concluded that making a lot of money and garnering many possessions is the great goal of living. A country that understood neighborliness and compassion as positive goods began to look past the hungry, the homeless, the afflicted, as if they were in no way connected with those of us who are strong and able. We began to stop making things and began to spend our working days shuffling paper and making bets on the vagaries of the stock market. We refused to believe that the earth had limits, and we kept sucking up resources as though there were no tomorrow. In other words, we have been living in sin.

As so often happens when change is needed, we left it to our young people, to those strong enough in body and spirit, to wake us up. Occupy Wall Street is calling out the devastating results of corporate greed. The occupiers are saying this must stop. They're saying we must make human need and the care of the planet our central concerns.

At my age I am not healthy and vital enough to go downtown and lived in a tent for weeks, so I have been on the periphery of the movement. But I realize that I'm in debt to those who have been willing to shake the bars of the cage. They are serving as prophets- they have asked us to look at nothing less than the soul of this country. My only response is a deep sense of gratitude. With this new consciousness, there is at least the possibility that we can move to a new place.

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I am interviewing all Portland mayoral candidates in regard to their history and the development of their values.I'm asking questions like, "Can you remember a teacher who influenced you in some important way?" "If you could meet anyone in history, now deceased, who would that person be, and what one question would you ask?" "What is one book you have read recently that has touched you deeply, and why?" These 30 min. interviews will not concern politics or issues, but rather will help the listener know the candidate better as a human being. If you want more than a soundbite, go to rawfaithradio.com
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Less than a year before his death, I interviewed Christopher Hitchens for Portland Monthlymagazine. I didn't want to do the interview. As I told editor Randy Gragg, "I don't like Christopher Hitchens. He is rude. He is a bully. So why should I help get his work before more people?" But Randy prevailed upon me. After all, Hitchens would be giving a lecture -- about God, of course -- in my hometown of Portland soon, and people would be passionately interested. I agreed to do the interview, and I'm so glad I did.

I knew that my job in approaching the interview was to not get hooked by Hitchens' jabs at Christianity, or at me, for that matter. I had my list of questions all ready to go. During the interview, I had the feeling that I was encountering a "bad boy," a playful persona honed to perfection, one that he was totally conscious of and used brilliantly for PR purposes. I also sensed underneath the persona a deeply wounded, angry child. I don't know where that anger came from, but it was a given from which he moved, and then used his brilliant intellect to focus, parse and dissect. No one could encounter that extraordinary mind without marveling. That day Hitchens simply spoke in whole paragraphs of perfectly constructed concepts, consistently, for more than an hour.

After his lecture on Jan. 5, a small group of us were invited to have dinner with Hitchens. There were several of us clergy present, including Marcus Borg, the internationally known Jesus scholar; plus Andrew Proctor, the head of Portland Arts and Lectures; Emily Harris, local radio personality; and of course Randy Gragg. Hitchens was known for his ability to drink great quantities of alcohol and never lose his sharp edge, a capacity in full flower that evening. He downed one glass of red wine after the next, hardly pausing except to ramble on, and managed to insult, in particular, the clergy. An African-American minister mentioned how much gospel music meant to him, and in response Hitchens quoted Percy Bysshe Shelley, and then told the minister that the words of Shelley were much more meaningful than "that gospel stuff." Marcus Borg attempted to speak of his devotional life, but Hitchens would have none of it. Borg left the dinner early, with a kind but oblique remark to Hitchens: "Whatever you are doing, you do it quite well."

I tried to encourage Hitchens to pause from time to time and listen to what others around the table were saying, but I was largely unsuccessful, as you might imagine: He charged on ahead, totally dominating the conversation. I was one of the last ones to leave the dinner, and found myself on the sidewalk in the dark night, still talking with Christopher, who still held a glass of red wine in his hand. Unaccountably, I felt a clean, clear sense of affection for him. I know in my own life the anger that is always there, waiting to be tapped. I know that this rage has its uses, to counter ignorance and injustice, and I know it sometimes bullies and hurts.

The interview itself revealed a surprisingly religious Christopher Hitchens. He ended up using words like numinous and transcendent and soul. He said, "I can write and I can talk, and sometimes when I'm doing either of these things, I realize that I've written a sentence or uttered a thought that I didn't absolutely know I had in me until I saw it on the page or heard myself say it. There is a sense that it wasn't all done by my hand." A bit later he added, "Everybody has had the experience at some point when they feel that there's more to life than just matter." At the end of the interview, I told Hitchens, "I would love to have you in my church because you're so eloquent, and, I believe some of your impulses -- excuse me for saying so -- are religious in the way I am religious." And Hitchens responded, "I'm touched that you say, as others have that I've missed my vocation. But I would not be able to be this way if I were wearing robes or claiming authority that was other than human. That's a distinction that matters to me very much."

Hitchens did not miss his vocation. He has done more than most anyone to focus popular attention on the egregious dimensions of religion. He just wanted the world, and all its people, to be pure. Unfortunately, we are not. Hence, the impulse for religion.

Read the printed interview, or hear the entire audio interview: Questions of Faith

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Kino Lorber, the distributor for our film "Raw Faith," is making the film available online, plus the DVD, during the holiday period. Find out details:alivemindcinema.com/rawfaith
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My sister Donna and I recently took a self-guided blues tour of the Mississippi Delta. It was an extraordinary experience. I grew up in the South, but it never visited the Delta, the emotional heart of the blues. The area runs from Vicksburg, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. This is the rich land which former slaves worked as tenant farmers. The area has a history of slavery, followed by Jim Crow and the Klu Klux Klan.  It was and still is characterized by illiteracy, poverty, and steaming hot weather. It is also noted for some of the most authentic and moving music being made anywhere in our country today. Most people will recognize some of the names associated with the area, such as BB King, and Muddy Waters. If you know about the history of the blues, you will have heard of Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, and Son House, early blues musicians, all from the Delta, and now long gone, but still influencing American music.

We started our tour in Ocean Springs, where my sister lives, and worked our way north. We had only five days, so we missed a lot, and never made it to Memphis, but what we saw and heard touched me and changed me. Greenville and the Walnut Street Blues Club was our first stop, where the legendary John Horton band was playing.  The music was loud and the cigarette smoke was heavy.  Everybody was drinking Bud Light.  We ordered a couple ourselves and settled tentatively into a back table, wondering if we could really handle all the smoke, but the music soon drew us in.  When the band took a break, Horton asked if others in the house would like to make music, and two black men, a guitarist and a singer with amazing talent took the stage. We were hooked. Our tour had begun.

From Greenville we went north to Cleveland and then onto Clarksdale, where we visited Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club. Clarksdale has enjoyed something of a renaissance, I am told, since Freeman started club there, and citizens from the area have opened storefront businesses nearby. But for someone like me, who had never been there, Clarksdale looked like a war zone, with vacant lots everywhere and boarded-up businesses. We were not excited about the group at Ground Zero, so my sister and I visited Red's, which is a real juke joint, with absolutely no commercial flavor. We had trouble finding the place, which was across some railroad tracks, unlit on the outside, and looked as if it were boarded up. Finally we saw the one word RED'S in red paint on the door, so we ventured in. Red himself was behind the bar, and silently waved me off when I offered plastic for a beer. Watermelon Slim was playing, and he was the real deal. He played with his guitar on his lap, and made it yearn and sing with a pick and a miniature whiskey bottle. He also had a half pint of whiskey nearby, which he tippled from time to time.

Other highlights of the trip were a visit to the BB King Museum in Indianola, which turned out to be first rate, and also the Highway 61 Blues Museum in Leland, where we were treated to a spontaneous concert by Pat Thomas, son of the better-known and influential Robert Thomas, musician and folk artist, now long gone. The museum is small and inconspicuous, but has pictures and artifacts of famous musicians from the area; a very knowledgeable young man on-site gave us information not only about the history of blues, but also information about lesser-known sites such as the grave of Charley Patton in nearby Holly Ridge. Our last day was spent at the eighth annual Mississippi Delta Regional Blues Challenge, held at the Blue Biscuit in Indianola. A 17-year-old named Reed Smith won second place, and Sean "Bad" Apple and Martin "Big Boy" Grant took first place.

What struck me about our trip to the Delta was the amazing music that came out of this poverty-stricken area. People sang about desire and betrayal and loss, always loss.  The music is raw, and it is real. So much in our lives these days is the opposite - is phony or stripped of true emotional content. This music of the Delta is from the heart, with nothing held back. It reached a place in me where few other art forms are able to go. I think that maybe its power comes from the universality of the feelings expressed. No matter what station in life we hold, all human beings long and all human beings lose. Maybe it's just that the hard lives of these people in this hardscrabble place enables them to express in a truer form what we all experience.

The other interesting thing is that these clubs and juke joints we visited are the most racially integrated places I have ever been. And we're talking here about Mississippi, a state in a part of the country so widely reviled for its racism. I experienced black and white musicians playing together, and black and white patrons gathered together listening to the music. Perhaps it is the music and its acknowledgment of the common human experience that has drawn the races together here in Mississippi.

I know I have been changed in some subtle way by my trip to the Delta. The music touched some deep place in me that wants to be authentic, is tired of the superficiality of most of American culture. Why is it that we must go to the margins of our society to find what is real? Perhaps it is only at the margins where people have so little to lose that they are free of pretense, unwilling to play the games which draw the rest of us in too much of the time. My trip reminded me that when I hold myself away from those who struggle just to get through the day, I am the one who loses the most.

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Hi, Friends--

I want to announce that I'm now doing an on-line radio show: "Raw Faith Radio," concerning matters of the spirit.  The broadcast is Fridays at 9:00 AM and again at noon, but all the past shows on there and available for your computer, or to download for your I-pod.  I have done shows on forgiveness, on anger, on sports and spirituality, and several others, so far.  I generally start with a short program about the subject of the day, and then do a Q&A, and sometimes I do interviews.  You can check it out at www.pagatim.fm/raw-faith-radio-with-marilyn-sewell/

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Vera Farmiga, in her directorial debut "Higher Ground" about a woman who has fallen in with a group of Christian fundamentalists, gets all of it right: the language, the baptismal rites, the Christian "marriage counselor," the attractive patriarchal pastor. I should know - I grew up Southern Baptist in North Louisiana, and so I've experienced this movie. In fact, I found the film creepy in its authenticity. It took me back to a place I didn't want to go.

Farmiga plays the lead role of Corinne, who becomes pregnant as an 18-year-old, marries, and after nearly losing her child in an accident, gives herself to Jesus and a group of Protestant evangelicals. The strength of this film is that we really like most of these individuals - they are warm and caring, and within the structures they have chosen, absolutely morally consistent. We never feel that the film takes an easy swipe at any of the characters - with the possible exception of the marriage counselor - and we see people, like ourselves, who are struggling to find their way through personal conflicts and the moral thickets of contemporary life. Because they are fully rounded human beings, they are believable, not caricatures, as one might expect in a film of this kind.  Farmiga plays her role with no hint of irony, and with great feminine beauty and sensitivity. 

Corinne's problem is that she is highly intelligent, a reader of literature, and a woman who is deeply intuitive. She wants to be a believer, and she calls on God to speak to her and lead her, but her God is not a God of easy answers. When she prays, silence is the only response. And she can make no theological sense at all of the tragedy which visits her best friend.  When the grieving congregation sings "All is well with my soul," she tries to join them, but the words stick in her throat. All is not well with her soul.  She is sensual and sexual in a social context of repression. She is a woman of subtle intellect thrown in with people who know all the answers all the time. She is with a husband who fails to be her equal spiritually, intellectually, and sexually.

 As we watch Corinne struggle, we wonder whether or not she will escape.  After all, these are her chosen people, and she is loyal to the core. She would rather deny herself than to deny them. We understand this impulse, for all of us want community, want home. But she finds she must try to save her own soul.

I left the theater very troubled. I remembered the priest who told me I was going to hell when I left the Catholic Church at the tender age of twelve. I thought of the gay pastor I knew who died of AIDS, but was never able to reveal his plight, or his sexual orientation, to his congregation. I thought of the evangelical seminary professor who assured me that Jesus was the only way to salvation, and that Gandhi is in hell. I recalled a conversation with my fundamentalist brother, who told me that women should not lead at church.

There was no intentional ill will or meanness of spirit in these people: the priest cared about me and the family; the congregation was devoted to their minister; the professor was warm and friendly; my brother loves me dearly. So what is the problem?

 

The problem has to do with the human consequences of fundamentalist values: these groups value rigid belief over human good.  But any religious group that would deny others the opportunity to grow and contribute because of their gender or sexual orientation, which are God-given, is not a life-giving religion.  Fundamentalists seem to be oblivious of the harm they do, and lay it all to the individuals who are "disobeying God," thereby bringing the harm upon themselves.

Contrary to a liberal relativism, I do not believe that all religious beliefs are equal and worthy of respect. Faith healers in Oregon are now on trial for the death of a child, one of several children who have succumbed to the beliefs of a sect ironically called the Followers of Christ. Faith healing, of course, is an extreme religious position, but I would suggest that every belief system should be judged by its effect on the individual and on society. Does it help the individual break barriers and flourish, or does it create barriers to growth, spiritual and otherwise?

There are still children having nightmares because they have been told they are going to hell.  There are adolescents becoming suicidal after being rejected by their fundamentalist families because of their sexual orientation. There are far too many Corrines out there, still struggling to make sense of a faith that denies both body and spirit.

Every religious group and every religious leader must ask one simple question of our faith and practice: does it harm or does it heal? With subtlety and excellence, the film "Higher Ground" asks us to think on these things.

--Hear Marilyn Sewell on Raw Faith Radio: http://www.pagatim.fm/raw-faith-radio-with-marilyn-sewell/

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Just a reminder that "Raw Faith" will be screening at the Hollywood Theatre Sunday, Sept. 18, at 2:00 PM.  This is a benefit for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.  Tickets are $10, students $8.  Peter Wiedensmith, the director, and I will be there to do a Q&A following the film.  Please pass the word on to anyone who may be interested.  This will probably be the last time the film will show on the big screen in Portland.

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When I was a young adult in New Orleans, I attended a prestigious church which fronted on elegant St. Charles Avenue. One Sunday there was a call from the pulpit for used shoes to be donated to the forgotten souls in the parish prison, one of the worst prisons in Louisiana, and I suppose in the United States. I remember being appalled. After church I went to the minister and asked, "This is a large, powerful church. Why don't we demand that the authorities clothe the prisoners properly?" The minister looked at me and said, "All I know is that some prisoners need some shoes." I never forgot that moment.

Churches almost always prefer charity to justice. Let's take, for example, the question of hunger. Churches find it easier to open a soup kitchen, rather than lobby politicians or put pressure on government to feed hungry people or help them get jobs. I must confess at this point that I, too, give money to charity. But just this morning as I once again wrote a check to the food bank, I note that every year there are more hungry people in my state of Oregon. Last year 240,000 people used the food bank, compared to 200,000 the previous year. What's wrong with this picture? To effect change, churches must move beyond charity to justice, changing the economic and political systems that keep people impoverished.

I don't wish to say that all charitable giving is wrong. Certainly, if we have more than we need, we should give some of the excess away. And there is a sound argument for hands-on work by churches, for the act of serving soup to impoverished people gives middle-class people some sense of what the less fortunate are facing in their everyday lives. These experiences may very well motivate individuals to advocate for policy change. So yes, write the check, serve the soup, but don't stop there.

The problem with charity, including charitable deeds done by churches, is that it allows people to believe that a given social problem is being addressed, when actually there is only a Band-Aid being put on the wound. It allows donors to feel good because they think that they have "made a difference." Actually, charity may do more for the donors than for the institutions they purport to serve. The problems that people face in a country like ours, in which there is such a wide disparity of wealth, cannot be addressed comprehensively by charities, no matter how many people of good will donate or volunteer. Charities act unilaterally and piecemeal, and they tend to serve the sexy causes (i.e., anything to do with children), rather than those less emotionally compelling (e.g., homeless mentally ill men).

When I became a parish minister, I began to understand why almost universally churches will avoid political action in favor of charitable deeds. For one thing, churches are populated mostly by middle-class people, who are relatively comfortable. And ministers of these institutions value stability more than mission. We professional leaders are reluctant to do anything that would cause conflict or controversy in our churches, fearing an institutional split -- or at the very least, a reduction of gifts to the church.

Some church people wrongly believe that churches will lose their tax-exempt status if they take a stand on political matters. But the tax code is clear: churches and ministers may speak out at will on any issue, so long as they do not engage in partisan politics -- that is, advocate for one candidate over another.

Other people believe that politics is worldly and not therefore suitable for an institution given to spiritual endeavors. Realistically, however, we must understand that politics determines everything from assuring that we have clean drinking water to deciding when we go to war. And politics determines how the abundant resources of this country are shared -- or not shared. These issues, which are decided in the political arena, have moral dimensions which churches can hardly ignore, if we are to be taken seriously as a religious people.

Church is not just a place where good friends gather to support one another; it is not a place where people go to save their own souls, and ignore the very real pain of their neighbors; it is not a place to maintain nice, middle-class values. The Holy Spirit is not on the side of stability. Jesus did not say, "I have come that you might be comfortable." He said, "I have come that you may have life." Church is a place to take the demands of justice seriously, and to trouble the waters, when necessary. Will there be controversy? Maybe so. But there will be integrity, there will be mission, there will be life.

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