Piety, Muffins, and the Board of Education

Sitting in a muffin shop at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday is unusual for me. Minus vacations, I’ve been in church at this hour nearly every week for my whole life. I’m not flaking out or going through a crisis: my church moved out of Brooklyn’s John Jay High School two weeks ago, and last week we started worshiping at Greenwood Baptist Church, with services at 4 p.m.

The move was forced by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Board of Education v. Bronx Household of Faith, a lawsuit about meeting space that has been going on between the New York City Board of Education and a tiny church in the Bronx for about fifteen years. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Board of Ed’s suit, and the Supreme Court wouldn’t review their decision, so between 60 and 100 churches have gotten the leave notice. Yesterday was to be their first official day of homelessness. Now a temporary injunction has been issued against the Board of Education until next Sunday. Still, Park Slope Presbyterian is at Greenwood Baptist to stay for some time.

First of all I have to say New York’s pastors are behaving with exceptional quality. They are, of course, opposed to the decision. Many are involved with efforts in the city council and state legislature to intervene for the churches. And the Alliance Defense Fund continues to pursue legal options on our behalf; hence the current injunction. But in articles, interviews, and comments to their congregations, pastors are displaying what it means to submit to the rule of law as per Romans 13, in spite of disagreement with the governing authorities.

The court’s decision deserves to be challenged. Its logic is dicey and insincere, its premises unconstitutional. It waters down our hard-won freedom of religion to “freedom of worship”—the freedom to keep our opinions to ourselves.

The majority opinion creates a convoluted distinction between religious instruction or points of view, which are permitted in schools, and worship services or organized religion, which are not permitted. Supposedly it does not prohibit Christian belief, only a specific class of Christian conduct: “a collective activity characteristically done according to an order prescribed by and under the auspices of an organized religion, typically but not necessarily conducted by an ordained official of the religion. The conduct of a ‘religious worship service’ has the effect of placing centrally, and perhaps even of establishing, the religion in the school” (10).

But churches don’t meet in schools to “establish” religion. If anything, it’s all the more obvious in schools that the building isn’t the church. We’re just passing through. The court’s distinction between religious activities and worship services attempts to say, “You can be religious in a public space as long as you keep religion out of it.” Nonsense.

My favorite part of the opinion is the part that got quoted in the newspapers:

“A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church…[Churches] tend to dominate the schools on the day they use them. They do not use a single, small classroom, and are not merely one of various types of groups using the schools; they use the largest rooms and are typically the only outside group using a school on Sunday. They identify the schools as their churches, as do many residents of the community.

Our pastor, Matt Brown, told the New York Times, “I would love to know who at the Board of Education is theologically capable of making these decisions.” What does the Justice mean by saying a worship service “consecrates” a space? We don’t leave our chairs, much less our banners or religious artwork, standing around. Is the Justice admitting he believes that consecration is real? Is he afraid of it? So much for religion being mindless superstition. The court seems actually worried that lingering shreds of holiness might cling to the children’s shoelaces as they shuffle around their auditoriums and cafeterias. Like dustbunnies. What exactly would those do? No one knows, but clearly a brisk regimen of intolerance is more to be desired.

Christians aren’t this superstitious. The sacraments embody God’s relationship with his people. The redemption of the world is implied and celebrated, yes, but temple rites no longer exist for a reason. The irony of this story is that those who are afraid of religion are religious themselves, but in an illogical, retro-pagan way. The greatest irony of all is that the Board of Education, short of space itself, rents classroom space from churches.

A final quote:

The fact that New York City’s school facilities are more available on Sundays than any other day of the week means that there is a de facto bias in favor of Christian groups who want to use the schools for worship services, compounded by the exclusionary practices of churches like Bronx Household.”

I do not know what Justice Leval means by “exclusionary practices.” Worship services are public. In all times and places, the church has welcomed its community. Hospitality is an essential part of evangelism and service. Where churches cannot offer this safely, it is a sure sign of persecution. The behavior of one church, which may or may not be exclusionary in a problematic way, should not dictate policy towards the rest.

Personally, I’m excited by this opportunity for the city’s churches. We get to be faithful to Christ’s example and obey without violence or threatening. It is a hardship, but hardship seems to inspire the greatest purity and growth. At Park Slope Pres we have the sense of excitement that comes with uncharted territory. It is something, too, that we are counted worthy of this small trial for Jesus’ name.

It’s also tough to complain about how this reshapes my Sundays. A long morning with my husband over muffins and tea is a luxury I didn’t know in the morning-church days. Not to say they’re gone. But this is a special time for us, and I think for the church as well.

So let the Pharisees buzz and bother as they please. God’s people are busy rejoicing.

"Just a Kiss"

The first time I heard a song by Lady Antebellum I thought it was terrifically unpoetic, and first impressions have pretty much held. Now in the spirit of “I’m a little drunk and I need you now” and “I miss the way we sleep…I can’t believe that I still want you,” along comes “Just a Kiss” with its narrative as follows:

WOMAN: “Lying here with you so close to me, it’s hard to fight these feelings when it feels so hard to breathe.”

MAN: “I’ve never opened up to anyone. So hard to hold back when I’m holding you in my arms.”

BOTH: “We don’t need to rush this; let’s just take it slow…I don’t wanna mess this thing up; I don’t wanna push too far.”

At this point, anyone who has read or loved an ounce of poetry should be punching “OFF” in great haste—or, if they’re easygoing types, enjoying a laugh at the singers’ expense for the sorry banalities they use so sincerely to express emotions that can’t for the life of them across as deep.

But then the lyrics change: “It’s just a shot in the dark that you just might be the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life. So baby, I’m all right with just a kiss good night.”

Hmm.

In any current blockbuster the romantic pair would have been a tangle of arms and legs a long time ago. Lady Antebellum has done something, not remarkable, but unusual, with this song: the fictional couple is ending their snuggle without sex. Somehow we are to believe that this relationship is exceptionally important to them, for which reason they choose to hold off from their wishes—whence the song’s title, “Just a Kiss.”

The impulse to handle admiration and desire with restraint is the beginning the reverence or respect that grounds healthy relationships. In this climate, when relationships are so often portrayed as consumptively possessive (and that as a desirable thing), this modicum of self-control is a tiny bit refreshing.

Even if it’s hidden like a needle in the haystack of un-poetry.
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NOTE: I wrote this in November when the song was a tad bit newer.

Thoughts on Pinterest

A few weeks after my wedding last summer, I was invited to join Pinterest—a social media site that lets users pin and categorize images they fancy from wherever online they find them. It’s a whole lot of fun. The site was designed by men, but the huge majority of users are women, who use it to plan weddings (real or imaginary), cook, find do-it-yourself home improvement inspiration, and, notably, daydream. Possibly more time is wasted on Pinterest even than on Facebook.

As fun as it is to window shop, there’s something about Pinterest that irks me. I don’t mean the usual escapist’s guilt over hours frittered away. I think purposelessness is built into the site. The tools are great and I love them, but what are they for? Right now it’s akin to a pictorial version of Facebook—you don’t just share interests and keep in some semblance of touch, you collect bits that reflect your taste and use them to promote an image of yourself.

What first provoked my dismay is that everyone on Pinterest has exactly the same taste. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen the same shabby-chic weddings, the same impulse to stick crystal chandeliers in every room of the house, and the same lace skirt with the sweepy green blouse recurring on the personal and worldwide homepages. Everyone loves this stuff, and nobody seems to be bothered that most users build their content through “repinning.”

It’s groupthink. A very specific image of happiness is being sold to young middle-class women by advertisers and product designers. The image is more traditional than our mothers bought in the 70’s, glitzier and more lighthearted than the imitation-fancy or false-modern décor they now buy at Macy’s, and just as lacking in real elegance as both. It’s painfully bourgeois. One sign of true community is differentiation of personalities, which reflects itself in taste. So it seems Pinterest-people aren’t a community but a demographic. In contrast to Twitter, where each person contributes to a dynamic network that has taken on a personality of its own, Pinterest-people are statistics and Pinterest is the chart. No wonder more than a few minutes of pinning turns stultifying.

How do I console myself? In the stupidest way possible. Somehow, if your tastes are edgy enough and you pin all the time, you hit some kind of algorithm where the Pinterest staff notices you and starts recommending your boards for other people to follow. So I start exercising some quality control on my content and secretly pat myself on the back when I gain followers I don’t know. In the not-very-far back of my mind I know this is a sorry success. I don’t want to become a Pin-Monster; I don’t want to chalk up followers like marbles. I want to know them like you can on Twitter and feel like I’m contributing to something.

So we come to problem #2. Although it claims to be “social,” Pinterest’s incentive structure combines (im)material accumulation with “look-at-me” narcissism, much like the personal exhibitionism driving Facebook. Although Pinterest users can sync with other networks to find and follow friends, Pinterest itself has no networks, no circles, no lists—no social or geographical delimiters of any kind that let you pick your audience. Its messaging capacity was never good and is now gone altogether. And there’s no meaningful way of assigning priority to pins or boards, or of rating content shared by other users. Both the social and content structures are flat and discrete.

It reminds me of an early modern political fiction about how atomistic pre-political society is—the state of nature. The fable was supposed to point out how the state of nature was dangerous, so we formed political societies to protect ourselves. But in reality, it’s boring. People manically pin and repin images from retailers and lifestyle blogs. But I want to connect, compete, achieve, discuss, and flourish—do things that all communities do. If Pinterest wants to gain depth as well as breadth, it needs to allow its users to encounter each other as people—and not just with pin contests on third party sites.

As a side note, my last complaint: their servers are terrible.

The idea of a pinboard is useful and exciting, but the execution so far is dull. You don’t get inspired by fiddling in an imaginary universe. I would love to see Pinterest draw people together instead of handing out free isolation in the guise of a daydreaming tool.

Recommended: The Rookery

Andrew and I are currently reading a children's book called The Rookery: The Adventures of a Belligerent Bird, a Musical Mouse, and One Very Courageous (if Occasionally Naughty and Somewhat Excitable) Little Girl. It's been a while since I read something this fresh and whimsical. I'm loving it. The author, Amanda Hill, is publishing her story in weekly installments over at therookerybook.blogspot.com.

How do you do?

It occurred to me to blog when I started commuting.

I'm a country girl originally and never wished to be more until I visited my cousin's college in the Empire State Building. I only dimly knew what business casual meant then and I was shrinking in my chair at the college president's dare to "embrace the difficult life." But I knew I was encountering something unique in education, and decided to go.

I graduated from The King's College in May of 2011 with a fascinating degree in Politics, Philosophy, & Economics (PP&E), and moved to Brooklyn to be near my fiance, a King's grad whom I married in July. We've been happy to stay city mice so far. I got a communications job at a conservative education and lobbying organization in New Jersey, whose offices are about a third of the way to Pennsylvania. Although I arranged to work from home two days a week, the commute was and remains a beast, a full 2.5 hours one way. Notwithstanding ample time to read, sleep, and call my mom, my head was still fidgety with thoughts about public life, social trends, and things I wished to say.

Hence this page, and its name: I fiddled on the trains.

I'm also still a country girl at heart and deeply appreciative of beauty and everyday meaning. So I'll be commenting on lighter and homelier subjects too...perhaps even primarily. Half the point is to discover where this leads. But, not to wander into meta-speech.

Welcome aboard.