(About Allyson, part 1)
“Tell us a little bit about yourself,” is the worst question you could ever ask an Introvert (or at least this Introvert!). We either answer in three words, or spend the rest of the afternoon explaining who we are in way too much detail.
Who are you?” is the question repeatedly thrown at one of the main characters in the 1977 Australian film “The Last Wave”: “who are you who are you who are you … “ I find this the more intriguing question, but deeper and harder.
OK, so who am I? A child of God. A member of Earth Community linked to all Creation through the web of life.
I am a person with deep passions, callings, pullings-at-my-spirit that I can’t ignore. I am passionate about care for and with Creation, about racial and gender/orientation inequality and justice. And about our connectedness to each other and all things. I believe that life is hot-wired for community, for connection. And we humans have forgotten that, and we are destroying ourselves and “our common home”* as a result. And because I feel so strongly about these things, I find myself called to write, to help us return to that sense of community, to help us look at ourselves and the world in a different way.
I believe passionately that the Church is a prime location for developing transformational, prophetic-witness types of living, for sustaining communities of hope and hard work. I have a 40+ year history as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ that has pushed me and called me and given me experience. So I write prayers, liturgies, reflection pieces, and the occasional rant. And I offer them to the Church.
I also believe that we are living in “not ordinary times” – business as usual can no longer sustain; in fact, it destroys. Definitions of ourselves we have always held need to be reexamined, and the “powers and principalities” of this world (say, for example, capitalism) need to be challenged and questioned. A new vision of who we are in relation to Creation needs to be built. And we cannot do it alone. We need each other.
I believe that because we are living in “not ordinary times”, we need to be Not Ordinary Church – business as usual here, as well, cannot sustain here, either. Building on our traditions of faith and practice, we need to respond to these not ordinary times in not ordinary ways.
I am all that, AND I am an individual with gifts and failings. I am a cis-gendered woman, a spouse, a parent, a minister, a writer, a lover of critters (especially dogs!). I like to hike, engage with music, journey through this life with my beloved spouse, go out to lunch with my beloved son and talk Broncos, politics, and Doctor Who, and be with friends, read, cook, and write.
Who are you?
* “our common home” refers to On Care for our Common Home – Laudato Si’; the encyclical by Pope Francis, written in 2015.