TheWalkingDead

A Hot Mess: Seeing Myself in Father Gabriel

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

“You play a bad priest so well,” I said to Seth Gilliam, the actor who plays Father Gabriel on AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead.’  “Father Gabriel is a hot mess! Good job!”

Mr. Gilliam smiled.  “Yes, he is.  He is a hot mess.”

Thank you, dear eight pound, six ounce baby Jesus that Mr. Gilliam *did* smile.  The last thing I want to do is offend this gifted actor.  I meant my comment as an absolute compliment. Mr. Gilliam’s  nuanced portrayal of the fumbling Father often elicits visceral reactions from me: I yell at the tv…a lot.  When we found out he hoarded all the canned goods, I bellowed, “Have you forgotten the story of the manna?!?” When Father Gabriel says to Rick, “The wine’s just wine until it’s blessed,” I grunted “Have you forgotten that in the Beginning God called it ALL good?” GAH!  As a clergy person, Father Gabriel drives me batty.

It’s when I turn off the tv and get back to real life that I realize why: Father Gabriel has forgotten who and Whose he is. He is a hot mess, and if I’m being honest here, this pretend pastor gets a rise out of me because I, too, have been a hot mess of a pastor more than once during my 12 year career.  We all have.

Clergy friends, can I get an “Amen”?

We’re just human, like everyone else, and Seth Gilliam’s Father Gabriel reminds me of that every time I watch.

When we first meet Father Gabriel, he’s up on a rock, all alone, isolated from everyone, surrounded by walkers snapping their jaws. To me, that big rock looked like the place in society where clergy are often placed: up on a pedestal. Ordained clergy are “set apart for special service,” but often times, being “set apart” gets misunderstood. Often, church folk, and non-church folk alike, want pastors to be strong and wise and have all the answers. We want pastors and priests to say all the right things, at all the right times, to kindly remind us we’re loved and beloved, while also speaking truth to power. We want them to care for the widow and the orphan, and be the vanguard of the marginalized, all while not offending any one. We want them to be like Jesus – the nice version of Jesus we’ve cherry-picked from scripture. We want pastors and priests to be perfect.

God forbid our pastors ever, actually, be human beings.

A couple of days ago, I ran into new congregants of mine out for lunch with friends. “Looks like you had a great birthday!” they said, commenting on my social media pics from Walker Stalker Chicago. “We loved seeing your pictures with all those people from the zombie show.” They turned to their friends and explained, “She loves ‘The Walking Dead.’”

One of the friends raised an eye brow, “I hope you’re stronger than Father Gabriel.”

I’ve only just met this person and already I’m up on that rock as clergy-walker-bait.

“To be fair,” I said, “I think we’d all be a hot mess in the zombie apocalypse, don’t you?” The truth is, whereas the zombie apocalypse hasn’t struck yet, we all (clergy and laity alike) have experienced our own personal apocalypses: betrayal by those intimate with us, death of loved ones, financial catastrophe, loss of work, feelings of insecurity, depression, frustrations with family and friends and children, health crises, addictions, grief, and other gut-wrenching tragedies all amidst the daily grind of life. And even though my colleague, the Rev. Elizabeth Dilley, likes to describe me as “the one who would win if there was such a thing as ‘Pastors Fight Club’” the truth is, I’m not always a badass. I’m not always stronger than Father Gabriel.  I’m not always confident or sure of myself, and I do not get it right all the time. Far from it.

I’m human and I’m a pastor and God knows those two things are hard to hold together.

After the birth of my eldest daughter I found myself isolated, with the jaws of postpartum depression (PPD) snapping at me left and right. I felt like Father Gabriel in his inaugural moment: up on a rock, all by myself, helpless, and terrified. As a clergy person watching that scene, remembering the personal apocalypse that was my PPD, when my whole world fell apart and I had to find a way to just survive somehow, I saw that rock he found himself on in a different way. It was like the pedestal we’re often put up on as clergy which I had internalized. I remember being so afraid of what people would think of me as a clergyperson when I realized I had PPD. “But I’m The Pastor. I’m not supposed to be the one who needs help. I’m supposed to be the one who helps other people.”  PPD threatened to consume me, but so did the unrealistic expectations with which clergy are so often saddled, which I had swallowed whole.

God forbid we allow ourselves as pastors to actually be human.

Thank God somebody showed up before I got consumed by it all. My friend Katie put her own newborn baby in the car, told her husband she’d be back (but I didn’t know when), then drove six hours north to be with me, and spent weeks with us during my leave of absence from church. Katie T., who has known me since I was 16 and is also a clergyperson, knows me without all the pretense – she’d never put me up on a pedestal, and yet, because she’s also a Pastor, she’s often found herself up there, too.  She, and a PPD therapist, helped me climb down from that precarious position.  That which threatened to consume me, both the depression and my own outlandish expectations, lost their bite.  I came down off the rock of isolation and remembered who and Whose I really am – Leah, beloved child of God, wife, lover, mother, daughter, friend, and soul-sister who struggles with health and wellness just like anyone. I am a pastor, an ally, an artist, a writer, member of the creative class, and yes, an avid fan of the Walking Dead.

I am a messy human being, with all the complicated characteristics that make us who we are.  Thank God.

Maybe Father Gabriel isn’t such a bad priest after all.  Maybe he’s just forgotten who he is – who doesn’t when their world falls apart – and I put him up there on a pedestal like so often happens to me.  So, Father Gabriel, and all you real pastors and priests out there, you can be a hot mess and still be a good clergy person – remember who and Whose you are: a human being whose set apart.  Remember that and you’ll find yourself again.

Blessings, y’all…

PopCulturePreacher

P.S. This post was also inspired by going to Clergy Boundary Training this week, and pastors, you know what that’s all about.  If you do find yourself up there on that rock with some nasty thing or another nipping at your heels, call a colleague.  Call your therapist.  Talk to your Spiritual Director.  Take an extra day off.  Take care of yourself.  As Parker Palmer says, “Self care is never a selfish act.”

A Pentecost Moment Among “The Walking Dead”

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

While prepping for Pentecost, which pops up this Sunday in the church calendar, I looked up last year’s sermon and re-watched it on our Community UCC YouTube channel.

And, y’all, I forgot how much I LOVE THIS SERMON!

Know why? Because I talk about ‘The Walking Dead’ in it a lot.  A whole lot. And as you know from the Pop Culture Preacher’s short, little history here on the blog, I love, love, love this show. If you are a TWD fanatic, you will eat this up. If you aren’t a fan of the show, as many in my congregation weren’t at the time….I’ve won them over since…..don’t worry, you won’t be lost.

But I also love this sermon because I really tell it like it is: The world often feels like it is falling apart, and yet, here we are, trying to find our way through it together. It’s the only way — we have to do it together. That’s the way it works in the TWD world, and that’ll preach.

You can watch “A Pentecost Moment Among ‘The Walking Dead’” here.  Spoiler alert: if you are not up to Episode 12, season 5, get on it! Go catch up, then come on back.

Blessings, y’all….

Pop Culture Preacher

 

Slice: the Work of Remembering & Being You

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

{Warning: this post contains mild spoilers for The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 9, No Way Out}

When my mom died, I thought I would break. I felt fractured, like her death fissured my soft middle into sharp pieces, which stayed held together by my skin. The brokenness rumbled, poking from the inside out. Stabbing. Slicing. That’s how grief felt: like the pain would kill me. I didn’t think the sadness would ever leave.

There’s no fast forward button on grief.

I hate that.

It’s completely inconvenient that we’re allotted mere days to mourn in this modern life before we’re expected to be back at work, back in full swing, back to life as usual. Body and soul, heart and mind – they move on when they are ready to move on and not a minute sooner.

Meanwhile, the brokenness inside keeps stabbing. Without warning – slice. Something you see or hear or smell or taste or touch — some something you were not expecting — bumps up against your life. One of those sharp edges from the broken contents of your inner self cuts through a thin place in your skin. Slice. That mask you maintain so well gets slashed, from inside, and suddenly, you’re vulnerable. Conspicuous. Anyone who’s looking can see the big gaping wound.

That’s what I saw in actress Katelyn Nacon’s character, Enid, during the mid-season-six premiere of The Walking Dead. When she read the inscription over the church’s door, “Faith without works is dead. – James 2:26,” it bumped her. Slice. Oh, Enid, babe. I see you. I see how those words, for some reason, broke open the thin skin.

Slice.

How do you survive in this life when the people you can’t live without are gone?

This is the question Enid struggles with every day. When her character was first introduced, I thought she was just another moody teenager, because surely teenagers are allowed to be moody in the zombie apocalypse. Especially teenage girls, right? (I mean, for real, y’all, can you imagine your 16-year-old self on your period in Alexandria – I would’ve taken people’s heads off.) But, seeing Enid’s backstory, we see she’s not moody; she’s grieving. She’s surviving, somehow. Enid is orphaned. All alone. Even in a room full of people, she’s by herself. How will she live life without the people she’s never lived without?

Something about that phrase over the back door of the church bumped her. Slice. Glenn, masterfully portrayed by Steven Yeun, sees. He responds. “People you love,” he says, “They made you who you are. They’re still part of you. You stop being you [and] that last bit of them that’s still around inside who you are — it’s gone.”

Glenn, where were you five and a half years ago when I needed to hear that?

I struggled so much after my mother died, which may come as a surprise to you since I’m a clergy person…aren’t pastors supposed to know the secrets to life’s deepest mysteries and sail through this existence with Zen-like peace and tranquility? Well, if that’s what we’re supposed to do, I missed that lecture in seminary. Somebody send it to me.

In the years after my mom’s death, I felt like I was losing her constantly. When her yellow Tupperware bowl got put in the dishwasher, erasing her signature from the “This dish belongs to…” sticker on its bottom, I cried for days. When the lone voicemail I saved from her got accidentally deleted, then permanently deleted, I did not think I could go on. When my kid got sick, and all I wanted to do was call my mom to ask, “What should I do?” even though I am an adult, who is quite skilled in adulting, who has been adulting, proficiently, every day for YEARS, I crumbled. I needed to talk to my mom. Each time I got reminded of her and felt like I’d lost her, the wound busted open from the inside out.

Each time – slice.

But, then, that pain started to change. I’d be talking to my girls and hear her voice echo in mine, her practical brand of wisdom winging in my words. Or, David, my husband, would make me laugh so hard I’d snort. The snort-laugh: it’s so unbecoming and absolutely perfect – the way my mom laughed when something really got her. See, she shows up in my life all the time. When I’m being creative, speaking the truth, noticing the little details other people skip over, and doing other things I inherited from her, she’s there. She shows up, too, when I’m doing things she never dreamed of doing herself, but would be awfully proud of me for trying and testing, even if I don’t succeed.

When I am who I am, it’s like my mom is alive.

When I forget who I am, I start to forget who she was, too.

“People you love,” Glenn says, “They made you who you are. They’re still part of you. You stop being you [and] that last bit of them that’s still around inside who you are — it’s gone.”

So, here’s the truth, y’all: God needs you to be you in this world. No one else is going to be you. Who you were made to be by the Divine, and molded to be by the people who love you throughout your life, no one else can ever be that. You have to work at it. It’s easy to get swayed, thinking you have to be someone else, or that you should be a better, shinier, more perfect version of who you already are. It takes faith to believe in yourself, and that’s work, but when you do, you come alive, and so do the people who you’ve lost. “People you love…they made you who you are. They’re still part of you….” You stop being you and you’ll disappear right along with them.

So, Love, believe me when I say this: don’t disappear, the world needs you too much.

Blessings, y’all,

Pop Culture Preacher

‘We ain’t ashes’: thoughts on Ash Wednesday

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

{Spoiler Alert – this post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead, Season 5, Episode 6, Consumed}

In a deserted office building overlooking a burned out Atlanta, after escaping human and undead threats alike in an attempt to locate one of their group, Carol Peletier and Daryl Dixon talk about how they’ve changed since the world fell apart. Actors Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus play these parts with such authenticity and woundedness. Their performances couple together vulnerability and strength in ways that are True with a capital “T”. It’s  no wonder that they are the most beloved of the TWD characters.

Carol and Daryl are survivors – and not just of the zombie apocalypse. As they talk between bites of stale vending machine snacks, Carol recounts the cycle of violence that trapped and isolated she and her daughter in their former life. Daryl listens. The scars on his back tell us he understands. “Who I was with him…” Carol confesses, “She got burned away…And at the prison I got to be who I always thought I should be, thought I should’ve been. And then she got burned away. Everything now just…consumes you.”

Daryl looks at her for only a moment, then offers, “Hey…we ain’t ashes.”

His words caught me off guard. “What do you mean, ‘We ain’t ashes?'”

See, I know a lot about ashes.

Tomorrow, I’ll take the dried, brittle palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration and burn them. Come Wednesday, Ash Wednesday in the liturgical year, at noon I’ll stand on the corner outside the church and at night I’ll stand in the sanctuary by candlelight, dipping my thumb into those ashes, smudging a delicate cross on the forehead of whomever stands before me. Face to face, close enough to feel each other’s breath, when I mark each person with the ash, I won’t look them in the eye and say, “We ain’t ashes,” but rather, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Daryl’s words appear opposed to what I will say. Yes, at first, they seem different. What’s really different is the context.

We live in a world where people avoid death, and anything, really, that hints at how fragile our human existence is. We insulate ourselves with miracle headlines promising perpetual youth. We use plastic surgery and hair dye. Viagra. We no longer wash the bodies of our loved ones after they’ve died in the same way mommas wash their newborn babies. No. We leave that to the professionals, gloved and gowned and paid to deal with death daily.

I know a lot about ashes – as a pastor, I get to wade in deep with people when firestorms lay waste to their lives. Freak accidents, debilitating illnesses, broken promises. Terminal diagnoses. Suffering of all kinds. Unexpected and anticipated deaths. Our best intentions gone awry. Our worst intentions acted upon. Life catches fire so easily. We get scorched. We get singed.  Who we are gets burned away. Things happen, each and every day, that remind us we are not as invincible, as young, or as perpetually happy as our Pinterest perfect profiles would suggest. And yet, we avoid death. In our context, we pretend like it’s not there, like we’re all not going to die someday. Maybe if we stopped pretending, we’d find the beauty that’s buried in the ashes, what gets refined in the fire, strengthened instead of destroyed.

In the context of The Walking Dead world, death cannot be avoided. They’re immersed in it daily. They see it. They smell it. They fear it. They fight it. Death is all around.

And so, when Daryl says to Carol, “We ain’t ashes,” what he’s really saying is, “We ain’t dead yet, don’t act like you are. You will be one day – but you’re not now. So live. Live fully in this life while you still have it.” And that is the essence of this Wednesday’s ritual reminder, just from a different perspective, a different context. When I say to folks this Ash Wednesday, “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” I’m really saying, “You aren’t dead yet, but you will be one day. So don’t act like you won’t be – instead, live. Live fully in this life while you still have it.”  It’s not the meaning that’s different. It’s the context in which it’s cast.

Carl Jung once wrote, “Life is a luminous pause between two mysteries that are yet one.” Both Daryl’s affirmation and the one I’ll whisper to folks on Ash Wednesday point to the luminous pause that this life is. This precious life that’s filled with love and loss, joy and heartache, hope and sorrow and everything in between: it’s all the luminous pause.

Maybe the luminosity shines brightest when we realize that out of ashes, phoenixes rise.

So, you – whoever you are – just remember that. Out of ashes, you will rise, too.

 

Blessings y’all…..

PopCulturePreacher

Lori’s Light

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

{TWD Spoiler Alert}

A confession: I think about who should be shipping who on TWD because, y’all — for real, there is *not* enough sex in the zombie apocalypse. But, because I am the PopCulturePreacher, I also spend plenty of time wondering, “What was Maggie saying during the prayer in Alexandria’s garage chapel?” and “Why is Father Gabriel such a crappy priest?” and so on.  That’s why I’m launching this mini-series, “Faith Journeys: TWD Characters” here on the blog.

It’s fan-fiction for churchnerds.

Each installment will explore what I imagine to be the religious history of a TWD character based on my professional experience as a clergyperson and personal experience as a progressive Christian. You may have another take.  Do comment!  Let’s talk.  (Don’t be a troll. Jesus loves you, but if you are a jackass, I’ll ban you.)

Lori Grimes…complicated, conflicted Lori Grimes. Sarah Wayne Callies plays her with such conviction. Just watch her eyes when Rick confesses to killing Shane (S 2, Ep 16). Masterful.

Lots of clues pop up in Lori’s story line about her religious history. Here’s what we know: Rick, Lori, and Shane grew up together in 1970s/80s small town Georgia. According to Gallup, only 7% of Americans claimed no religious preference in 1978 (Gallup Poll: Religion). Odds are, Lori grew up in a religious household. Currently, residents of the Peach Tree State claim some brand of Baptist (hello, Jimmy Carter), followed by Methodists, followed by the ambiguous category of “other Christian,” followed by Roman Catholics.  So which might she be? Lori never struck me as Catholic. I grew up Protestant in a Catholic town. Catholicism is as much about religion as it is about culture. When the zombie apocalypse hits, even if you haven’t been a practicing Catholic for most of adulthood, the rote nature of the liturgy still lives in your bones; it would rise to the surface. We see none of that in Lori, nor do we see any Baptist leanings.

Odds are Lori grew up in a big Methodist church where, I imagine, her daddy was a deacon and her momma headed up mission projects for United Methodist Women because Lori comes across as the kind of person who grew up in a house where “being someone” in the community mattered. Participation mattered and so did appearance. Think about what she’s wearing to pick Carl up from school (S 2, Ep 2). Fancy! I just want to pull her aside and say, “Really, it’s ok to just wear yoga pants, Lori. Be lazy like the rest of us. Dial it down…” But I digress.

In this vein of keeping up appearances, I imagine she and Rick had a big church wedding and her daddy walked her down the aisle. Perhaps her colors, like another Georgia girl we know, were also “blush and bashful.” Lori would have been content to continue to go to church, following in her momma’s footsteps: to see and be seen on Sunday morning, and to serve, too. But, at Rick’s prompting, I do believe, they stopped going – we’ll explore that in the next post.  And so, they became “the kind of family that had pancakes on Sunday morning.”

Lori ceased participating in organized religion, but continued her private practice of faith. At the CDC, she sends Carl off to bed and tells him to say his prayers.  She sits with Carol as Carol prays for her lost little girl. I suspect Lori is praying, too. The world fell apart long before the dead started roaming the streets: her marriage was a mess, then her husband was shot in the line of duty. Rick’s dead, then he’s not dead. She’s with Shane, then she’s not with Shane.  Rick’s back, then he’s gone. They’re together, but they’re not really together.  Geez, I hope she’s praying.  Because even without the zombies, Lori’s life is one whiplash inducing disaster after another.

Remarkably, though, she leaves this world filled with light. Lori had every reason to rain verbal garbage down on Carl in her last soliloquy, but she imbues him with love. Perhaps that’s the greatest clue to the faith journey of Lori Grimes. We can see that her life has been built on hope, because in in end, that’s what she passes on.  She says, “…You are smart, and you are strong, and you are brave. And I love you.  You gotta do what’s right….It’s so easy to do the wrong thing…don’t let the world spoil you…” I love it — it’s like the line from the Gospel of John, “…you do not belong to the world…” and the line from Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” all rolled into one. Lori knows that life is beautiful and ugly, filled with moments that make your heart sing and moments that wreck your soul – she’s lived both. And yet, in the end, she lays her life down with conviction and courage, love and light, help and hope.

Obsessed: The Walking Dead

Posted on by PopCulturePreacher

{Spoiler Alert — there are spoilers here — consider yourself warned.}

Mr. RM is a good sport. We didn’t spend our anniversary together, nor will we share a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. Why? The Walking Dead Season 6 premiered on our anniversary, the mid-season premiere is on Valentine’s Day, I’m obsessed, and TWD gives Mr. RM nightmares. Sorry, Love-of-my-life, we’ll be romantic, sans zombies, another day.

I am o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d.

I’m so obsessed with TWD that it served as the main metaphor in my 2015 Pentecost sermon at Community UCC, Champaign, IL. (You can watch that here: A Pentecost Moment Among The Walking Dead ). As a result, some of my congregants started watching the show. For the next few months, I got TWD-related emergency texts from the church Moderator, a 60-something Grandmother. When you’re a pastor, emergency texts are never good news. Either the church has burned to the ground or someone’s dropped dead…or both. But for a few blissful months, her messages read, “OMG! They shot Carl! Call me,” and “The Governor is nuts.” It was a nice change of pace.

I am so obsessed with TWD that during a funeral luncheon, one my church members approached me, smiling, and said, “Happy Walking Dead Premier day! I know you’re watching when you get home. Here….” She handed me a package containing an itty bitty Rick Grimes who now lives in the Pastor’s Study at the church along with my Michonne and Daryl bobble heads. These bad asses typically stand guard around the Holy Family. (Jesus is a Buddy Christ bobble head, because, why would he be anything else?)

I am so obsessed with TWD that the church secretary gave me an all-things-zombie Christmas gift this year, including a Zombie Doodle book, a Reedus Nation t-shirt which I sport proudly, and a Saint Daryl Dixon candle she decoupaged herself. I light it when I’m writing sermons. 12338703_933579796725713_874268080_n

I am so obsessed with TWD that when Josh McDermitt (aka Eugene) liked one of my tweets, I jumped up and down for ten minutes and texted one of my bff’s, the one who introduced me to TWD, who was equally excited. We’re going to a Walker Stalker convention to celebrate my big 4-0 later this year.  Happy birthday to me.

I am so obsessed with TWD that I’ve started a regular Instagram series: #liturgiDaryl (Liturgical + Daryl Dixon = LiturgiDaryl, a Daryl Dixon bobble head clad in the liturgical color du jour). I’ve made tiny vestments for Daryl to wear as he poses around the sanctuary or in the altarscape in my Study.  You can enjoy this internet oddity on Instagram by following @revlkrm.

If a Pastor who’s obsessed with The Walking Dead seems odd to you, maybe you don’t know that one of Jesus’ best friends was a walker: Lazarus – Jesus raised him from the dead after he had been dead long enough to stink. Now that’s friendship. To read this story, which is pretty great, actually, see the Gospel according to John, chapter 11, verses 1-44 (which you can read here: John 11:1-44).

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about TWD and its characters. Being the PopCulturePreacher, though, these daydreams happen under the banner of my own personal genre of weirdness and churchnerd-dom. I see the theological themes in the show (and have the extensive notes to prove it). Most interesting, to me, is what I imagine to be the faith journeys of each character.  Why does Carol spout a litany of “I don’t know whether I believe” statements about heaven, hell, good, and evil at Daryl in the parking garage?  Why does Lori tell Carl to go say his prayers, yet Rick says that Lori wanted them to be “the kind of family that has pancakes on Sunday mornings”?  Why has Glenn, the moral compass of the show, struggle through a silent prayer on the Green’s porch, yet Merle, one of the most morally conflicted characters of the show, readily prays while hand-cuffed to the roof?

I love thinking about these questions and mapping out the journey that may have gotten our favorite characters where they are today. Think about it with me, would you?

For your theologitainment, beginning tomorrow, look for PopCulturePreacher to feature an on-going series, “Faith Journeys:  TWD Characters.”

Blessings, y’all…

PopCulturePreacher