Posts by Michael

I am a husband, father, minister, and writer.

February 1, 2016 by Michael

Friends vs. Strangers

Photo Thanks to Kevin Curtis

In a day I spend time working with three people: participants in mission at church; patients in a hospital setting, usually in medically intensive situations; and students preparing for continued ministry. All of those people are experiencing some thing in life that is calling out to them, emerging within them.

In the church, we are hearing and speaking to one another around an old and almost common event, reflecting upon the life of Jesus and what that life means now. In the hospital we are generally responding to the crisis of the medical moment and the myriad of ways hospitalization matters to people. In the learning environment (and I’m in three of them in one way or another), we are inspecting the materials available to us for preparation, refinement, and formation.

All those settings are identity shaping settings. In each place, we question—and I do this as a leader or caregiver or teacher—what’s happening and how those happenings turn us into the people we are. Jaco Hamman said, “Many of us live most of the time as strangers to ourselves” (From Becoming a Pastor: Forming Self and Soul for Ministry, p. 10).

When I read Hamman’s words, they struck me because they were a reminder that most of the time, we can be distant from our selves, strangers to ourselves. We can be strangers to the things that shape us and to who we are as shaped, identified people.

How do we get to know who we are? Where are the places in life that reveal, construct, critique, reform, affirm, and embolden identity? I’m paying attention to how my working worlds are more than places I go; there are places I’m made. The same is true for home and circles of friendship. Those are the contexts where identity happens. When we sit in those places with open eyes, we get closer to ourselves. We become friends to ourselves.

February 1, 2016 by Michael

Again, Fathers Know Best (Gerald)

I’m repeating a few posts for my own good. Even though, in every case, families have grown and aged, I hope you enjoy this interview.

FF: Describe your family.

Zoe, Vivian, and Gerald Liu

GL: The family is made up of my wife Vivian and I (both 33 y.o. married almost 7 years), daughter Zoe (10 1/2 months), and our soft-coated wheaten terrier Colbie (4 years or is that 28 in dog years?).

FF: How has fatherhood changed you?

GL: I think fatherhood has enhanced my interpretation of joy. Through the challenging early goings of being new parents (with my wife Vivian BY FAR doing the most heavy lifting!) I think we grew to appreciate the small victories like when she first cooed, giggled, or slept through the night. Even just returning home from after a long work day and seeing my daughter’s face or just dancing with her in the living room bring me the most satisfaction and joy. I think it also helped me to have a higher appreciation for my own mom and dad and has given me a new viewpoint of the immense love of God. I sometimes find myself pondering how my love for Zoe is completely eclipsed by God’s mighty love for me and that truth blows me away every time.

FF: What mistakes have you made as a dad? Name at least one and talk about what it meant to you.

GL: Over protectiveness is one of my many mistakes. I guess another result of fatherhood for me is an increased sense of fear for my daughter’s well being. There have been situations where in my anxiety and panic I have spoken a bit harsh or unfairly to Vivian. For instance if I thought a piece of food was too big for Zoe to swallow, I would in a panicked-tone question Vivian why she would give that to her (clearly it probably wasn’t too big. I’m just a freak!). I’m trying to get better, thanks for being patient Viv! I think another mistake would be to take better care of my wife Vivian. I think I some arguments we’ve had stemmed from communication or just the lack of simply asking Viv on how I can help.

FF: What’s the most helpful advice you heard when you were becoming a father or advice you’ve gained since you’ve been a father?

GL: I think people gave us a healthy fear of anticipating the challenges in the first few months. I think that helped us prepare for the nightly feedings and sleepless nights. A realization for me was understanding the statement “they grow up so fast!”. Zoe’s only 10 1/2 months and everyday it seems like she has learned to do something new or something about her has changed (i.e. teeth). So advice I give now to parents is “Don’t blink or you will miss something!!”.

FF: How do you attend to your relationship with your wife outside of your being parents, and has parenting changed your marriage?

GL: People told us how important “date-nights” are for parents and we try to set aside time to connect and concentrate on our relationship. When there is time we try to do things together like workout in the house, take walks, or watch a favorite show. I definitely think our relationship has changed as a result of being parents. I think we both cherish the time we have alone and are more communicative.

FF: What are some of the things you’ve struggled with as a relatively new father? What are some of the things that have given you the most joy?

GL: I think adjusting to new routines as a result of fatherly responsibilities is a general struggle. Also another big struggle is balancing my friendships. I think it takes much more planning and intentionality to get together with friends and its hard at times to relate to friends that live generally care-free lives. The most joy I experience is in small things as I mentioned before. When Zoe learns how to wave, or clap, or just laughs and giggles it makes me proud and happy.

FF: Would you be willing to talk about how your faith has been shaped or changed in the process of you and Vivian becoming parents?

GL: There were some really dark times for us as we struggled for a number of years with our inability to conceive. As couples around us became pregnant and other families grew, we often times felt envious, isolated, and alone in our struggles. It was a load to bear and our focus and anxiety on conceiving became an unhealthy obsession that damaged our faith. It was only after we begun to share our difficulties with others that we realized our situation was not uncommon and as we reached out to others for support we felt the “body of Christ” and its loving embrace for us in our time of need.

During one Sunday (Check out the podcast on thenewcom.com from 11/21/2010 towards the end 45 min or so in) where Viv and I were probably feeling the least hopeful, Pastor Peter preached on Jonah and talked about “rival gods” and how anything that we tell ourselves we “must” have is our real God and idol. As he was preaching, I could not help to think that even our “good” and “reasonable” desires to have children was keeping our selves away from God. Our “idol” was in having a baby and I realized that my hope was in our future family and not Christ. After the sermon, Peter asked for people to come up and pray. Without talking to each other or hesitation, both Viv and I stood up, walked to the front, and were in tears. That moment confirmed to Viv and I where our hearts and minds were and that we were going to try to be, from that point on, ok with whatever God had planned for us. Child or no child. We both wanted God without condition and with an undivided heart despite our circumstances.

Little did we know, God was about to give us miraculous news. Three days later, right before thanksgiving we confirmed that we were expecting. God has a funny sense of timing and I truly believe that our journey was meant to be a testimony of how even the “good” things we naturally desire have the ability to wrestle our hearts away from the God who loves and desires our undivided hearts.

Now when I think of God while holding my daughter I am reminded of our family’s journey and know that as much as I love Zoe that my ultimate source of my joy, love, and salvation is in my God. I hope to teach my Zoe that truth one day.

FF: What surprises are there along the way for parents? What do you wish you were told to expect?

GL: I would say that the surprises are in the amount changes to your own life, personality, and character are so many that after being a parent you may never comprehend how life was before your baby. I wish I was told to expect how much baby stuff costs! Yowzas!

FF: What is one recent memory you made with your child?

GL: Swimming with Zoe for the first time. While on vacation in Florida I’ll never forget how Zoe loved being in the pool and her enormous smile as she splashed the water with her hands.

January 30, 2016 by Michael

Estimates of Your Leadership

Skitter Photo Last month I had the opportunity to visit my mentor and father-friend, Dr. Johnathan Alvarado, on the occasion of his 50^th birthday. His wife, Dr. Toni Alvarado, invited a collection of colleagues, parishioners, friends, and extended family to a party. I stayed for the full weekend as we celebrated him. I had the chance to represent those who JEA have mentored over the years—in my case, nearly 25 years.

The weekend and the writing of my reflection ahead of it gave me an opportunity to bring to mind all the things which he’s been to me, to my marriage, and to my family. His (and their) exemplary ethic in the practice of wise, enduring, faithful, intellectually responsive, and Spirit-led ministry mark me in my attempts to do similarly. I’m part of the fruit of his life. I’m part of the estimate of his leadership.

Bishop Alvarado shares me with other people who’ve mentored me. He and they are regular parts of my growth. As I described his impact upon me, I couldn’t help but visit my own ministry, teaching, and service to the world. I couldn’t help but question my own family life when I heard his daughter (their youngest) speaking so lovingly about her dad.

Bishop Alvarado esteems others well, and to participate in a public affirmation of his life was splendid. To review–even in my own life–how his life mattered and how his effort provided a currency for our own development as a person was of double benefit. It underlined my sincere appreciation that he is alive.

Listening to earned tributes has that impact on a person. You hear and you want to emulate what you hear. I want the estimates of my leadership to sound and look and feel like those did in December. I want to be the husband, father, leader, pastor, educator, caregiver, and writer who loves well and is loved well. I want to see the estimates of my leadership as I lead and to count them worthy.

January 28, 2016 by Michael

The Trouble & Beauty of Wheaton College

Mlecezek I’ve been reading occasional media reports for two months as one of my alma mater’s has been in the news. Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian college, in a western Chicago suburb, has been on screen as some administrators and board members have tried to remove from the faculty Professor Larycia Hawkins, the school’s first tenured female African American scholar. She is a political science scholar who wore a hijab in an expression of solidarity with Muslims being persecuted in the political sphere. She also wrote on her Facebook wall sentiments about standing as a Christian with other people of the book, Muslims in this case.

The administration’s initial response, putting Dr. Hawkins on a forced leave, was on theological grounds. They quibbled with her theological articulation which included a quote from Pope Francis about who God is. Very recently faculty members responded by questioning those grounds, Bible and Theology faculty included. The faculty voted unanimously for the administration to revoke the leave and restore Dr. Hawkins. More information can be read here, here, and here.

There is trouble and beauty in what Wheaton’s done. As an institution, the place where I did my first master’s degree, has singled-out a sister scholar and chastised her for publicly showcasing the thing the college stands for: Christ and his Kingdom. They didn’t like the way she did it, of course. And they unfairly chose to punish Dr. Hawkins and not follow a similar course for other faculty members who made similar testimony of faith in relationship to political issues (i.e., theologically informed ethics in society).

Do something a black sister scholar, tenured mind you, and there’s theological and historical refuge. Overlook the white sisters and brothers doing the same, and it’s something else altogether. There’s trouble. I’m ashamed of Wheaton’s administration.

But there is beauty too. Students and teachers have reacted in Christian ways to an administration that in its hyper-evangelical consciousness lost hold to the message of evangelicalism. And I saw the name of the scholar who taught me principles of hermeneutics, which a class about how to read and apply the Bible. And what he said was freeing, moved me to actually write a quick blog.

Dr. Greene called Professor Hawkins’s gesture(s) beautiful. And he wasn’t alone. A unanimous faculty, in its own way and for its own collective reason, joined together to underline the beauty of Wheaton. If they hadn’t done so, I’d have a whole load more of trouble with Wheaton. And I do have stirrings for the school for sure.

Nonetheless, I pray for Dr. Hawkins, that her faith would not fail, that it would flourish. I pray for Wheaton, that the entire community would live deeply into the values and acts of the person of Jesus.

December 22, 2015 by Michael

Supervision Helps

She needed to turn aside and name what was unexamined and unfinished in her own life story as she continued in ministry to this woman. Were she simply to react to her as she had to her mother, she would have seen clearly neither her own story nor that of the patient, who was different from her mother in important ways. These parallels can be named and examined or referred for therapeutic work. Particular themes of grief or abandonment or abuse may provoke anxiety in the minister who has these themes as parts of his or her own history. Supervision helps the minister to learn to walk between the perils of overidentification and detached aloofness. Ministry in depth will always raise themes for the sensitive and reflective minister that are in need of attention in his or her own story. Recognizing these themes and remaining responsible in pastoral relationship are the goals of supervision that looks at life stories of parishioner and pastor.

(From Steere’s The Supervision of Pastoral Care, pg. 122)

December 18, 2015 by Michael

Ways I’m Changing

My clinical supervisor asked me a question a couple weeks ago after I opened our supervisory meeting with an agenda to discuss our relationship and our training work together. As we talked, he arrived at an illuminating-for-me question: how are you changing?

Photo Thanks to Annie Spratt

Here are some of the pieces of my answer as I consider my supervisory and clinical training:

I’m seeing my relationship with those I observe develop as a relationship in itself. I watch what’s happening in students’ experience, and that observation is a relationship itself.

I’m noticing how it feels to observe myself. In CPE words, I’m observing myself as an observer.

I’m developing another identity. I’m many things, one of which is a supervisor of pastors, and that identity is in particular development these days.

I’m using clinical materials differently. I’m developing the ability to read a person from her/his “application materials,” the renderings she/he offers in a moment.

I’m seeing myself. As I keep going, I’m growing to see the many parts of me and to value those parts, to evaluate those parts, and to elevate those parts of me.

I hope you are in relationship to people you trust who can ask you, in their own words, how are you changing because the question itself is a gift.

December 17, 2015 by Michael

Something I’m Thinking About

Photo Thanks to Tim Swaan

As I see one semester end (at seminary) and one unit end (in CPE) and one year end (at the church), I’m reading over a book that will likely find its way into one of my theory papers. It’s a book Dr. Scottie May introduced me to in grad school.

Parker Palmer is such a helpful teacher and guide. Here’s a taste about education but that can be said of preaching, speaking, parenting, and any other way of learning/educating:

If you want to understand our controlling conception of knowledge, do not ask for our best epistemological theories. Instead, observe the way we teach and look for the theory of knowledge implicit in those practices. That is the epistemology our students learn–no matter what our best contemporary theories may have to say.

…If this is the case, then as a teacher I can no longer take the easy way out, insisting that I am only responsible for conveying the facts of sociology or theology or whatever the subject may be. Instead, I must take responsibility for my mediator role, for the way my mode of teaching exerts a slow but steady formulative pressure on my students’ sense of self and world. I teach more than a body of knowledge or a set of skills. I teach a mode of relationship between the knower and the known, a way of being in the world. That way, reinforced in course after course, will remain with my students long after the facts have faded from their minds.

(From To Know As We Are Known, pg. 29, 30)

December 15, 2015 by Michael

Ann Morgan Reading the World

Quotes, Reading
Ann Morgan, Essays, Fiction, Memoir, Short Stories, TED Talks
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Reading a book by a writer from every country in the world. That’s what Ann Morgan did. This isn’t a bad goal for us readers as we think of what we’ll read in the coming year. Be inspired.

December 14, 2015 by Michael

Teach Your Daughter (and Son)

Photo Thanks to The Typical Female Magazine

Teach your daughter how to cook kale.

Teach your daughter how to bake chocolate cake made with six sticks of butter.

Pass on your own mom’s recipe for Christmas morning coffee cake. Pass on your love of being outside.

Maybe you and your daughter both have thick thighs or wide ribcages. It’s easy to hate these non-size zero body parts. Don’t. Tell your daughter that with her legs she can run a marathon if she wants to, and her ribcage is nothing but a carrying case for strong lungs. She can scream and she can sing and she can lift up the world, if she wants.

Remind your daughter that the best thing she can do with her body is to use it to mobilize her beautiful soul.

Read Sarah Koppelkam’s full article here.

Michael Washington

Reflections on the Spiritual Life

Author / Michael