Scholar-in-Residence
April 02, 2012
Sometimes, when we open our meaning-making to a trusted circle of
friends, we see things we cannot see alone. We see images and hear
whispers of connection that elude us in solo quests. If we carefully
prepare our hearts and minds, we might even sense one another's "shy
souls" coming out of hiding to bask for awhile in the mysterious
presence of God among us.
People of all ages can step onto this holy ground, and I believe
congregations are places where that sometimes happens. What if we found a
way to allow that to happen more frequently? What if we got serious
about creating spaces for intergenerational meaning-making?
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January 20, 2012
About a year ago, my faith community formally blessed me and the gender transition
I was in the midst of undergoing by including a re-naming rite as a part of our regular Sunday
liturgy. In addition to being a parishioner at House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO, I
also happen to be transgendered. For me this means that at birth I was not declared to be the sex/
gender that I am currently living as. So I grew up as a female named Mary Christine Callahan
and then did a legal name change, began hormone therapy with testosterone, went through
puberty a second (and infinitely more enjoyable) time, and now live as a guy named Asher
Herman O’Callaghan.
Like many of my fellow parishioners, I am a religious refugee. Some of us were or are
walking wounded from...
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January 05, 2012
God knows women's bodies always have a way of getting our attention. This is not breaking news. But in the past two weeks two storylines have been breaking out and gaining traction on the female body, and I have been both painfully and gratefully reminded that there are always at least two sides to any story.
The headlining of the two stories started back in January of 2011 when Egyptian men and women joined in the collective unrest and civil protests against political and social injustices in North Africa and the Middle East known as Arab Spring. But the story reached a new chapter last week in Tahrir Square in Cario, where the Egyptian military and governing forces offered the world yet another powerfully devastating example of what seems permissible to do to a woman's mind, body and spirit. It is difficult to shake the images from...
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Scholar-in-Residence
December 13, 2011
This Christmas season I received a gift I love so much I can’t help
but give it away. I took my 13-year-old daughter, donned the dorky 3-D
glasses, and dove into 127 minutes of delight: Martin Scorcese’s new
film "Hugo."
I rarely see first-run films. At $13.50, it seems absurd not to wait a
few weeks until it comes to the dollar theatre. But I raced out to see
Hugo after an email from a friend who said the movie reminded him of our
work at FTE. Indeed, he was right: the movie hit me where I live,
reminding me why I do what I do, love what I love, and care about what I
care about. Hugo creates a space to celebrate all the things we embrace
in the work of VocationCARE: holy listening, story-telling, community
as source of healing -- and perhaps best of all -- unlikely friendships
across generations, mysteriously in service to finding (or re-finding)
one’s place in the world.
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December 09, 2011
As protestors camp out in city parks across the nation over the last few
months, the word “occupation” has dominated the media. Here in Denver,
the Occupy movement is particularly vibrant, with many of the members
of the House for All Sinners and Saints community
participating, distributing supplies to protestors and homeless persons
alike. For these folks, “occupation” is merely an extension of their
sense of the prophetic aspects of their “vocation.”
What if the church learned from the Occupiers how to re-occupy and
re-claim our own space, the space of God? What if, by observing the
revolution on the streets, we also learned how to embrace the revolution
we already have, the revolution of grace upon the human heart? What
if, in renouncing the quick fix, the easy answer, and the jam-packed
schedule, we as a church discovered again for the first time the song,
the grand vocational fugue, God is singing through us to a tired and
over-taxed world?
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Co-Founder of Contemplatives in Action, New Orleans
November 15, 2011
So I went...to an extremely broken place and reality, because my friend had friends he wanted to help.
New Orleans’ entire infrastructure was compromised by hurricane and flood damage and our nation struggled to respond adequately with resources and more importantly, a plan for recovery.
Enter God. Enter Mercy. James Keenan, SJ, defines mercy as the “willingness to enter into the chaos of others.” I found myself in the chaos of soggy homes, inadequate insurance coverage, limited resources, frightened and overwhelmed leaders, a growing desire for security and stability, and a hunger for what “used to be.”
I had no intention to stay in New Orleans much less begin a Christian Community. But things just seemed to make sense. People from all over the world were coming to help...
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FTE Undergraduate Fellow ('09) and FTE Congregational Fellow ('11)
Candler School of Theology
October 21, 2011
Fifty years ago, someone would have guessed it was just a fancy
sandwich: LGBTQ. Now, it has become a global game of tug-of-war with
communion bread, inevitably creating a “winner” and “loser” dichotomy.
Churches around the world—and certainly across America—are spinning
themselves nauseous over what to do with lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people, and I think it is
time we reevaluate things mid-spin.
The conversation about LGBTQ people and the church needs to happen in a
graceful space that is outside of the loom of legislative consequence.
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