- Becky, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. I wanna get some background. Could you give me your full name please? - Rebecca Lynn Kiser. - Great, and how is Kiser spelled? - K-I-S-E-R. - Thank you so much. - Simple five letters. - It is, it's an easy one, and are you lay or clergy? - I'm clergy, Presbyterian church U.S.A. - Thank you very much, and when and where were you born? - I was actually born at D.C. General Hospital so I am a Washington D.C. native. - (laughs) Are you really? - Yeah. - There aren't that many of you are there? - No, no, not from back then. - And when was that? - 1954. - 1954, okay, and where did you go to graduate divinity school? - I went to Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and then I did a D.Min. degree with Matthew Fox's University of Creation Spirituality. - Wonderful, thank you. And what work or ministry were you doing at the time of Re-Imagining, that would've been 1993? - I was actually mostly home with children at that point. - Yes. - My youngest son was born in 1990, so a few times in there I had part-time jobs and so I don't know which part-time job I would've been in in '93, but basically I was home with kids. - Sure. - I had three of 'em, yeah. - Yes, absolutely, keeping busy I'm sure. What work or ministry did you do after Re-Imagining? - Well, being trained as a clergy I had been five years as a co-pastor before Re-Imagining and then that time when I was more home I did some part-time churches and, you know, supply preaching and moderating sessions that needed a moderator and various things like that, and then at some point I went back to having two part-time jobs and then finally got a full-time job with benefits and that's what I've continued doing up 'til a couple years ago. - Wonderful, yes. You did intentional interim ministry is that right? - Yes, uh huh, yeah. Both before they had requirements and after they had requirements. (both laugh) - Well Becky, I would love to know when and how you first learned about feminist theology? - I learned about feminist theology when I went to seminary. - Is that right? Wow. - I was raised fundamentalist Baptist, independent Baptist. We couldn't even go camping or go swimming with people that, you know, weren't pre-mil, pre-trib like we were, if you know what that means. - Pre-millennial, pre-- - It's when you think Jesus is coming back, yeah. - Wow. - So after my father's death when I was at college, I, a lot of the content of my faith shifted and reformed. In fact, I didn't quite have any content for a while, except that I knew I still believed in God. (laughs) So, but there'd been a lot of cracks, and you know things led up to that, and then I went home after college and worked for a year and a half in an American Baptist church with a, the senior pastor kinda became like a father-figure for me, and he said, "Well you know those Presbyterians "are ordaining women, and there's women at seminary." So it's like, wow! (laughs) That would be kinda fun, I hope they're not too weird. I'll just go for a year and see. (both laugh) So it's kinda like an experiment. - Were you already thinking about ministry at this point? - Well, I was a musician, I had years and years of piano, and so I figured my way into the church was church music, but I intended to be in the church, hopefully paid, and I even, I thought a lot about, you know, being a missionary. But when I discovered that I could go to seminary I thought to myself, well, even if I don't believe in women in ministry, at least I can have some fun Bible studying and trying to put things back together for myself. - So at that point you didn't necessarily believe that women should be in ministry. - Well, like everything else at that point in my life a lot of questions and opening up was going on. - Sure. - So I was really questioning what I'd been taught, but I, yes, the way I was taught was, you know, that only men were deacons and only men were pastors, but women could be missionaries and out there they could preach. (both laugh) Really! - So how weird were the Presbyterians? - I felt totally at home the moment I got there, you know, even from the orientation weekend. And it was so delightful to be studying the scriptures the way I wanted to study them. And, I have to say, I guess I'm considered second wave, I don't understand all the waves too much, but a lot of the hard work had been done by the women at seminary before me, the ones who walked out of class when the professors wouldn't use inclusive language about people and, you know, the ones who demonstrated and did more things like that. And by the time I was getting there more of the women were kinda like me, like, oh we can be ministers, what? (laughs) So yes, I was exposed, I went to a conference in Louisville that had something to do with feminism, and that's where I started looking at everybody's boards and illustrations and tables and picking up information, and then of course some of the professors were very much feminist, almost militant feminists. And some of the male professors were very anti-feminist, so it was still an interesting time to be at seminary. - And what was your reaction to this, to learning about feminist theology? - It was like, oh wow, yeah, that's a duh. Yeah of course, yeah, of course people are all created in God's image. It was like, wonder why I hadn't ever heard that? I just have to go out and tell the good news to the church! Nope. (laughs) I mean, it just seemed like such an obvious thing to me that I was totally shocked with the church at large's reaction. - Yes. - It was like, why wouldn't you believe it? Look, this is all so freeing. - Yes. - You know? - And was it, you say it was 1989 that you graduated from seminary? - No, '83 was when I graduated. - '83 is when you graduated, okay, okay, good. - And then I was at my first church, my first, as co-pastor, I was there 'til '89. - Okay, okay, yes. Wow, that's great. Well, so you'd been introduced to feminist theology. I would love to know, you went to the '93, that first Re-Imagining conference. What was your reaction, what do you remember about it? - That '93 conference is still one of the high points of my spiritual life, and even before, I mean, even before there was the backlash and I got in a more, you know, realizing what a big thing it was, still, I remember, well, it was the first time I'd done something by myself since I'd gotten married, so it was a little scary to catch a taxi (laughs). - Yeah, yeah. - You know. And to do that, kinda remember how capable I was, 'cause I'd been immersed in the world of diapers and snot and poop and (laughs) that's a very different world. I saw people I knew, and I guess, my pleasure with it started when I saw the first brochures, and the thing I remember the most is seeing that they didn't say a schedule, they called it time flow, and just even the wording on the brochure was like, you could already tell they were embracing feminist ideas. - Mhmm. - And, like-- - What about that phrase appealed to you, time flow? - It didn't sound so structured and hierarchical, and I loved it. - Yeah. - And then I saw that there were some pre-conference events which I went early so I could go to, and one of the pre-conference events was a tour of, I guess something, Minneapolis-Saint Paul area had some artist studios that they bought an old building and there was artists, but women artists in there, and one of the women had done paintings of women in classic poses, you know, like looking over their shoulder and stuff like this and they had all had some form of mastectomy. And it was like, they were still showing their bodies, and I just remember being so moved by those paintings that it was incredible. And another, I think was an extra conference event I went to was some of the Native American tribes had a, like a dinner and a big dancing night and drumming night, and I went to that, and that was fascinating, and then one of their people was doing a workshop that I went to, so this, it was just, the exploring of different spiritualties and indigenous people, and like, like you had said before, intentionally bringing in theologians who were raised in a different, I mean, they weren't white Americans, and like one of 'em came from a, I guess a Buddhist culture or a largely non-Christian culture, and other ones from African cultures, and it was like wow, it really does affect how they look at the scriptures. So it was a, really, awakening for me. - Yeah. - And I loved sitting around in the round tables with the crayons, because I'm a inveterate doodler anyway, (laughs) so it was like, oh, they gave us things to play with. I did not put together in my mind that, you know, the art, I was getting something from my unconscious doing that. So I remember that, and I remember some of the people from my table and we were all encouraged to bring a gift to exchange with the folks at the table and I remember that I brought a little hand puppet of a turtle. (laughs) - Aw! (laughs) - And the person who chose it at my table was just delighted with it. - Aw, how wonderful. - You know? So it's, a lot of the things they did, and then of course you know they moved the tables, you remember how you might set up in the back one time and then your table rotates to the front and then the speakers turned everything around, and so it was just so inclusive. I mean, some people, you know, you weren't stuck in having a side view all the time, or a back view, and you weren't stuck in being back in a corner all the time, so it was just so thoughtful. And of course, being a musician, I absolutely loved the music. And new composed things, or older things, and words that you didn't have to change under your breath. - (both laugh) Yes. - So it was like I could just sing with abandon which was wonderful. - Yeah. - And I was a little weirded out by calling God "she." - Yeah. - But, you know, even those three or four days it had such an impact on years and years, years, years of thinking of God as male, and even though I was trying to change my thinking about God as male, I realized how deeply entrenched that was in me because I had a reaction to using she, and in my mind I knew I shouldn't have that reaction, and so since I was having it I'm thinking, "Oh, you've been more into this than you knew, Becky." - Mhmm. - And so it was very challenging, but it was also really cool, 'cause I could not go back and do that in my church and I'd never been anywhere else where I'd heard that and it was just, the whole thing was just incredible. - Yes. - And I went home thinking, oh God, what a wonderful experience, oh! And then all the rest happened. (laughs) - Yes. Let's move to that, the backlash. And we'll get back to here, and I wanna hear other things, but I know you're aware of the backlash and there's a couple chapters in Jann Aldredge-Clanton's books about it but tell me how it affected you directly. - Okay, I... When I was writing my answers to the questions I was remembering the little guys sitting hunched over tape recorders, you know, from, I guess it was the Presbyterian laymen, and I chalk a lot of the backlash up to them. - Yeah, mhm? - With their red arrows pointing at weird words and stuff like that. So I was aware that there was people there doin' that but I didn't realize quite the anger underneath all of it. - Yeah. - Personally I just, it was like you took a holy experience to me and you were just tearing it apart, so it was a lot of personal hurt. Like, you know, this was life-changing and life-forming for me, and so affirming of my creation as a woman and my place in the church and in the world, and it was just attacked really meanly, and so I think one of the things I've said about my adult life in other places has been, you know, there's just this, my life has been a constant series of disillusionments (interviewer laughs) where, you know, one illusion after another blows up, but they're supposed to, because that's why they're illusions. - Yes. (both laugh) - You know, you're supposed to be disillusioned, but that hurts, and this was a huge disillusionment. - What was the illusion that was destroyed? - You know, that this kind of exploration into faith and into a bigger faith and into a larger understanding, that should, to me that should've been something that was celebrated, and anybody who heard it and understood it, or I guess that's the key. Anybody that would... I thought people would all welcome this kind of exploration, because I did it so naturally. (laughs) It just didn't seem to be... I mean, and I was raised a fundamentalist, so you know, if anybody shoulda reacted it would've been me. - Yeah, good point. - So there was... You know, I already I guess in my first years of ministry I was a little careful in how I said things and where I said things, you know, 'cause when you're at seminary it's kind of an ivory tower and they say all kinds of outrageous things and you just, and I guess that's why I didn't react to some of the kind of outrageous things that people said at Re-Imagining because that's just what academic people do, you know, they push you. - Yes, exactly. - And then you go oh, I might not go that way but I could go this way, you know, and so then you have fun with it. But it sounds like a lot of people didn't have fun with it. They did not see it the same way. So there was a big personal hurt. As things grew, some churches in my presbytery began to write letters to the presbytery office saying things and investigating, and I was in Eastern Virginia, Presbytery of Eastern Virginia, and I didn't have a full-time church, in fact sometimes I wasn't even workin' in a church. I was the only one who went, you know, because, you know, who... Eastern Virginia has gotten more cosmopolitan since then, (laughs) but at that point it was kind of like we're all from Union Seminary in Richmond and why would we go to anything in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, you know, so my husband at the time and I were the only two people in the presbytery from Louisville Seminary. - Really? - All the rest were Union, and we'd had a hard time gettin' in. We were each grilled quite deeply before they let us in. So that had been a kind of negative experience. But our first church, our first churches together had been up in Wisconsin, and so I was thinkin' oh boy, I'm gonna go back up to that area, you know, and maybe I'll drop in and see so-and-so. I had a real attachment to the area so going back to Minneapolis was kinda fun. - Yes. - Yeah, so that was one of the draws, I could go back to Minneapolis, I could maybe see some snow, and (laughs) and then go to this cool conference, too. - Now did people in the presbytery know that you had gone to Re-Imagining? - I think the word got out. (laughs) - Uh huh, yes? - And I think we also had, and I forgot to look his name up in the paperwork. There was a man, an African American man in our presbytery who I think had been on GA Counsel. - Mhm. - So he and I, and maybe somebody else, I can't remember who they were, were asked to be on a, what they called a town meeting panel, and so we each made a little presentation and then people could talk to us about it, and supposedly this was to like clear the air and get all kinds of things out, and... There were people sitting on the front row with their tape recorders. - Really? - Yeah. And I asked, since I was the only one I knew there was a woman in North Carolina that had been there, so I asked her if she would come up and be my moral support or if she would be willing to sit up on the panel with me and she agreed at first, and then backed out, 'cause she was already feeling repercussions in her North Carolina Presbytery. - And this was like a presbytery sponsored town meeting? - Yes, yeah. - Okay, mhm. - And after we gave our presentations and it was open for questions it was a harass the heck out of you type thing, it was very, very negative. - What kinds of things were they asking or saying to you? - Well, you know, they had listened to the laymen and it was like, how could you call God a child abuser? You know, that Dolores Williams thing that pushed the envelope, you know. - Yes, yes. - But, you know, thinking all of us did that. How could you, you worshiped a goddess, that's not even Christian, you know. So they had taken things every way. They had taken 'em way to the outsides, you know, passed legitimate, and why aren't you, doesn't Paul say that women should keep silent, you know, all this, they brought out everything, people who were still unhappy with women clergy. But their churches had not left the denomination at that point, like a lot of 'em did, but you know they still had angers over a lot of things, anything that was changing. - And how were you reacting to all this, Becky? It's a tough place to be. - I did a lot of praying beforehand and I did some centering. If they'd known that they probably would've got me for that centering stuff (interviewer laughs) before the service, and I just thought it was my opportunity to tell people how important this was to me. I think I stayed in my center pretty well. - Did you? - I think so. - Yes. - And on the way out, one of the pastors of the presbytery who was also in counseling came up to me, and he just whispered, "We're not gonna let you "get so far out on a limb "and we're not gonna let 'em saw the limb off on ya." - Really? I wondered. You did get some support? - One person. (laughs) - One person. - Verbally said that, and then there's a lot of people who were legitimately more interested. - Yeah. - Couple women came up to me in the ladies room (both laugh) and said "Becky, that's really interesting, "how did you," you know? (laughs) "What do you think about," or "maybe we could talk about" you know, and so some people who were, they'd never heard this stuff before but it intrigued them - Yes. - So I got some of that kind of response as well. I kept getting preaching, and being asked to supply preach, because my style was never really militant or never really, I didn't really embrace the prophetic (laughs) thing. What my own private beliefs and thoughts were I think undergirded the sermons that I gave but I didn't, you know, denounce or anything like that. So it's like, "Well she might've been there "but she's okay, you know, we can still ask her." Like my very first church that I got called to was like, very small church, said, "Well, you know we weren't allowed "to ask what race you were "but your voice wasn't shrill anyway." - Oh my goodness. (both laugh) - That was the weirdest remark I got. So it's like, well we know Becky, you know, she'll be okay. we can still ask her to preach once in a while. And I preached quite a while for a church right down the street from me, and when they were ready to call somebody I interviewed for that church, and was pretty sure I'd get it because I'd been preaching there for eight or nine months, you know, a couple times a month and I'd been moderating their session and they liked me and everything. And the chair of the committee was still angry over Re-Imagining. - Wow. - And he sat in the interview with almost his back turned to me, lookin' out the window for my entire interview. And after the interview was over he caught me in the hall and he said "You only got this interview because everybody loves you." - Really? - But you will have this church over my dead body. And it was all from the Re-Imagining brouhaha. - Wow. - And another-- - And they didn't call you? - No, they did not call me. So that was a shock. - Yeah. - And later they called me again to preach and fill in for a weekend and I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought about it. I said, he was right, the rest of them love me and I love them, and so I went back and preached for 'em. And my son said, "I don't know mom, "I don't know about this, mom, they were mean to you." I said, the one man was mean to me. And at that point his wife was sick and I asked about her, and he actually came up and talked with me about how his wife was doing. So it's like, I guess he'd got his licks in and now (laughs) or somethin', I don't know. But I tried not to hold it against him too much, but you can tell I've never forgotten it. (laughs) - Yes. (laughs) - The other thing that happened was I did get a little bit braver as I went on and I developed a sermon about names for God, and in it, as an aside, and I was talking about wisdom, the figure of wisdom in Proverbs, might've been the sermon that Jan references. - Yes, yes, yes? - No this was different. - It was different? Okay, yeah. - This was a different one. And as an aside I just sorta said, you know that's where the name Sophia comes from, because it's the Greek translation of wisdom, that's the Greek word for wisdom from the Jewish word hokhmah and the Greek translation came out Sophia, so that's where that name came from. It was just an aside, and a guy got so angry he wrote letters, he asked to have me investigated. - Who did he write letters to? - The presbytery exec, and the Committee on Ministry who called me in and loved my sermon. (laughs) - Oh, good! - That church actually, the pastor there invited me back after a few weeks because their session got to talking about theological issues, and session members were saying to me, "Wow!" You know, the session is our local governing body, and said "Wow, we actually went to a session meeting "and talked theology and not business." (laughs) - That's wonderful. - So they invited me back to talk. - Yeah. - And we had a nice discussion. - Was it about images and names for God, or-- - Yes, yes, and about Sophia. And so we had a nice talk, although I was very scared, but we had a nice talk. And then about a year later with some turnover in that church the new chair of the Worship Committee invited me back to preach again (laughs) and I just said, you know, I love you all and I'd love to come back and preach for you, and for your own safety would you ask around a little bit before you confirm this invitation? (both laugh) Just to be sure we're all in the clear and you don't get in trouble. And so she called me back and she said, "Oh Becky, I have to dis-invite you." - Seriously? Really? - Seriously, yeah. - Wow, really? - Yeah. - Even after that positive? - Yeah. - Wow. - Yeah, 'cause there was still enough weirdness floatin' around, I guess, with some people, and... I'd stirred 'em up, and I guess they were afraid I'd do it again or somethin'. But those were really the only two. I mean, I don't know if there was other places I didn't get invited or whatever, I don't know. Couple of the churches in there that wrote letters about Re-Imagining I actually preached at several times. - Did you? - You know, over the years. - Just to clarify, before or after the letters? - After. - After the letters? - Well after the letters. - Yes, okay. - 'Cause we were there until... So we were there from '89 and then I got divorced in '99 and just moved over to Norfolk, which was still in the same presbytery, and I was there until 2009, so I was in the presbytery for a long time. - You were. - And I held several different positions on presbytery staff as they were needed. So I preached a long time and it kinda went under the rug or somethin' or back into the back of people's minds eventually. - So Becky, as you look at this, how do you account for this backlash? What caused it? - Well like I said, I credit the laymen and their red letters and big arrows and just really huge hatred campaign for stirring things up a whole lot. But there were things there to get stirred up. - What things were there to get stirred up? - I think many people have a very male image of God, or did, and probably still do. I had one man tell me, "If God wasn't male "how did he make Mary pregnant?" - Oh, goodness. - I mean, he said that out loud. It's like, holy moly, (interviewer laugh) how can you even ask us things like that? Really, it's very anthropomorphic, you know. So there's people out there that think like that, and bringing in the feminine was just way threatening. And of course they weren't introduced to the thoughts in a sympathetic way, it was like thrust at them with underlinings and all this kind of stuff, too, so it was kind of an in-your-face campaign against the Re-Imagining. I thought it was just gonna disappear like other good conferences, you know. It just sorta goes into your own personal history and that's it (laughs). - Yes. - And of course people who are angry can, the anger kinda grew on itself, and then Mary Ann Lundy, you know, 'cause we gave money to the, we gave money to this, oh she was the reason we gave money to this, oh, get her out. So it just sorta grew, but the God as male thing I think was really hard. And I guess the conference at the very end at our last worship meeting a lot of the lesbian women who were there came up and I can't remember whether they made a declaration, or they just said "We're here" or something like this. So as far as I know that was just a spontaneous thing that they did. But that was probably the first time some of the LGBT issues got put up in front of the church as well. There was no background of that that I knew of, so I think there was a lot of things in the conference that scared people and the people with the tape recorders. So that's my thoughts. - Yeah, oh that's very good. How would you define re-imagining? - Just the word as the word, right? - Yeah, yeah. - I love the word imagination and I think that's the way theology grows and that's the way theology moves, things that don't fit together well, and you imagine. So re-imagine was, you know, let's think some more. Let's push the envelope a little bit. Well if it's not this way, maybe it's this way. You know, so it's kinda realizing that things aren't set in stone, which might've been another reason people reacted, because they liked things set in stone, and I was realizing by that time in my life that things are more in flux than I ever thought, including faith and theology. So yeah, it was a very intriguing word to me. I had people argue with me that the real word was re-imaging. - Is that right? - Yes, and they got mad and pounded the table that the real word was re-imaging, and I was like, no it wasn't. - People who weren't at the conference. - People who weren't at the conference (interviewer laughs) trying to tell me what the name of it was. (laughs) - Now I don't know if you've ever heard the story, the word was supposed to be re-imaging - Oh was it? - And someone wrote it on the board wrong. - Oh, I've never heard that story. - Yes, and then everybody said we like that better. - Yeah. - Yes. - Well, re-imaging's a good word too. - It is, it is a good word yes. - And I, when I was writing my answers down it was like, a few years later it became real cool to slip the word re-imagining into the title of your article. (both laugh) Or to slip it into a speech. - Yes. - You know, people kind of started revealing their sympathies by sneaking that word into things, and I began to notice that and it just made me snicker. - Yes, yes. Oh, and I was gonna ask you, you actually wrote for the Re-Imagining Quarterly? - Yes I did. - Tell me a little bit about that. - Right before my last son I had a child who was born in a hopeless condition, and we had her at home with us for the six weeks while she died, and it sent me into like an ongoing depression, and it also opened up all kinds of issues of family and everything. I mean, it was like my imagery of that was, see, I like imagery stuff anyway. - Yes, you do. - Well it's like, okay, there was a crack in the crust and now all the volcano comes out. You know, so it wasn't just, it started off with my grief, but it became the crack where a lot of stuff came out. And I started journaling and I started writing poetry just as a way to try to express myself. - Had you written poetry before? - No, uh uh. - Wow. - And I haven't written a lot since, I have to be in a really emotional place to write poetry, and then it's really great to do. So I sent in, you know, they would announce in the magazine what the upcoming themes were, and so I said I could probably fit in some of those themes, and we'll see what happens, I'll just send 'em in. So that was really neat. - Yes. - And one of the poems was about the birth of my daughter, and how I felt about that. I had not had a good relationship with my mom, and, you know, there's still all those lingering things about oh, you're just a girl. No matter what you've changed in your thinking the other things come out, and I'd been afraid to have a daughter. I was glad I had a son, you know, 'cause he was a lot easier to deal with emotionally and I said, I don't want the relationship with her that I had with my mom, what am I gonna do? So I kinda worried about that, and when she was being born she was as broad-shouldered as I am and she got stuck, and they had to work on her to get her out. (laughs) - Oh goodness. - And so the doctor is saying, well the nurses had guessed it was a girl, and he said, "If this isn't a girl "it's gonna be a football player." (both laugh) And, but then when they got her out and I saw her, I just ripped off the front of my gown and put her right on my naked chest and I loved her so fiercely. I mean, it was like a redemption of a sort, and I said yep, she's got the shoulders and she's got the hips, so she's gonna have some body image trouble. (laughs) But, you know, she was my daughter, so I wrote the poem about that. - And what was her name? - Cacey. - Casey, Casey. Wanna remember Casey, I love it. - She's my living daughter. - Oh she is, okay. - Yes, she's now married and has a grandbaby. - Awww. - And she's a wonderful girl and we have a great relationship. - Aw, Becky, how wonderful. - It healed a lot of things. - It really did, yeah, yeah. - So that's what I wrote about that, 'cause it's, you know, the female image and what the images we have of ourself, and a lot of people said oh I just want a girl, I just want a girl so we can do all those things together and I'm going, I don't know if I want a girl. - Yeah. - You know, so... - You know, you talked about loving images and I know you've written about this or it's been written about, but I wonder if you could talk about Jesus and the casserole? I love that. - (laughs) Well that probably came about because of the Re-Imagining, and freeing my imagination to think of God and expand my vocabulary and my understanding of God. This was, again, after my daughter Emma had died, and part of working through my own anger, which I didn't think I had, because, of course, theoretically and mentally I understood that things happen to all people and that, you know, ministers aren't spared, good Christians aren't spared. In fact, sometimes they have worse things happen to 'em and God doesn't rescue us, and you know, there was all those things I knew in my mind. But there was also a big deep part of me that was very angry that, you know, God didn't seem to do any more for me than the people in church did when they brought over casseroles. Which doesn't really help your grief, but it, you know, you're fed for the night. (laughs) And my spiritual director that I was talkin' with at that point kept trying to say that "God is with you, God is suffering with you, "God feels your pain," and "Jesus is present with you" and these kinda nice things, and I'm saying, well, you know, what good is it if he just brings me another casserole? (interviewer laughs) So, I think, and when I was writin' about it, it's like, some of those old pictures from your old Sunday school quarterlies, you know, where Jesus is knocking at the heart's door, and I pictured Jesus coming with a casserole, that was where my imagery went. Knock knock knock, chicken. (both laugh) And I actually sculpted it in some clay stuff and it came out a feminine figure, it came out havin' breasts. It was like, most of the people who brought me casseroles were women. - Of course. - Or paper plates or all the other desserts and whatever they brought. So I sat with that figure for a long time until the clay kinda started breaking down, but it was an important figure and it became important in my work with God. Not only the feminine aspect, but I'd looked at her and I couldn't tell whether, she didn't look like she was sad for me, she didn't look like she was crying. She didn't look like she was mad at me. She just looked like she was, you know, just there, and accepting and I could rage at her but she didn't go away and her face didn't change and I think I finally started to find some of the things my spiritual director had been saying, which, you know, she's present, and yes, that's what she does. She doesn't fix it, but that's... That eventually started to become closer to enough. Not totally enough, but closer. So it was a real important image in my own grieving and my own dealing with, you know, those feelings that are still in there, the anger and loss. - Of course, yeah. What an image, thank you for telling, talking about that. You know, you mentioned earlier, I wanted to talk about the significance of Re-Imagining for you. You said earlier it was one of the most transformative spiritual experiences of your life? - Yes, it was just a high point, it was like ecstasy. - Wow, and what about it, what was most significant to you and why? - Some of the times of just being in there and it was a huge, you remember, it was a huge building, a huge auditorium, and people were saying things that were what I'd thought, or maybe a little further than what I'd thought, and stretching me, so it was a mental experience. And then I was surrounded by people, other women who had come to hear that because they were thinking like me so it was a communal-type experience and then I think it was the singing, that I could sing without having to change the words and I could just sing out, and with all these other people that were singing out, and do the grape vine step or whatever, you know? So it was embodied, and I think all of those, they just rolled up into being a high point, just a real high point. - Yeah, yeah. And... Sorry, one minute here. Did your experience at Re-Imagining change your perspective on feminist theology or the church? - Hmmm. I guess, another one of my images, okay? - Yes? - I had already started to picture, you know, growing up as a fundamentalist in a real narrow thing, and I was reminded of, you know, kitchen funnels. They got, and then they make a turn, and then they're not too totally wide all at once, but they keep going out like that. - Yes. - And to me that was a picture of my life. Raised in this part, and then at some point I made that turn, which was probably around the time of my father's death, which was another place where things fell apart. And it just kept getting broader, so I guess I was ready for the Re-Imagining Conference. It didn't have a big, besides being a very important spiritual experience, it just continued in the broadening of my thinking, and yeah, so that-- - You're great at images, I love the kitchen funnel image. (both laugh) - My brain works that way - I love it. They're great images. In the end, what do you think is the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining? - Hmm, well I think that all the backlash just served to get all those issues out there in a bigger consciousness. And books came out, people started talking about theories of atonement, and I think things made it into the church awareness, a more larger church awareness, and the first reaction was big, and yet the articles and the books and the stuff that started coming out and people were listening. I think it was like, it was the kick-off, you know, I think it was the big, the big bang (both laugh) of getting a lot of those issues out there. So I, that's a wonderful legacy, the legacy of those of us that were there and felt that it was such a huge and wonderful experience, too, in our personal lives, and of course one of the big responses was, I guess the women who in Minneapolis-Saint Paul who had done so much of the wonderful planning and put the conference together, I don't know whether they had planned to become a group or whether it was just, we need to hang together because of what's happening. - So let's become a group. - It's the latter. - And that's kind of I figured. - Community came out of the backlash, yes. - Yeah, and so then that was formed, and that's a huge legacy as well to carry on. - Well Becky, let me get your impression of this. Re-Imagining wanted to bring inclusive language to churches and feminist theology to churches. What's your perspective on where we are in that in our churches today? - Quite a few of our Presbyterian pastors are very aware about language about people, maybe less so language about God, however, I'm attending right now, worshiping a church in Myrtle Beach and our pastor, who's a 50-something male, is very much a feminist, a feminist sympathizer, a feminist whatever, anyway. His language about people is totally clean and his language about God is mostly clean. (both laugh) He still wrestles to do with when the scripture says he all the time, he still wrestles with that. And me, I just decided a long time ago to just go ahead and change it. - And what would you change it to? - Even when I'm reading it. I just say God over and over again, or Godself. - Yes, yes. - When I'm at an EEWC conference I can say she. (laughs) - Yes. - And practice going back and forth or something like that, but generally in worship I just stick with the name God and sometimes I'm picturing it spelled with D-D-E (coughs) in my mind, but it's still pronounced God. (laughs) - Yeah. - I think that, you know, Brian Wren wrote a beautiful hymn about, Bring Many Names. - Yes, I love that hymn. - I've used that in worship services and people think it's really cool. - Yes. - It's now, I think it's in our new Presbyterian hymnal. For a while I had to write and get permission to photocopy. Jane Parker Huber also, I went to something where she was a presenter and she said, "I'm just gonna go ahead "and give you all blanket permission "to photocopy where you need to." (laughs) - Oh, nice! - So I felt really free to use her hymns. You know, the little insert in the bulletin that people drop on the floor, but they like the songs, they do like the songs. Most of the people coming out of seminary, like when they come to your presbytery to be presented, and then they're gonna be examined and everything, 'cause that's our procedure. If they have not used good language about people in their writing, usually the Committee on Ministry challenges them to change it, so there's that kind of awareness. - Would they do it for language for God? - No. - Mhm, mhm. - And the presbytery has outlines when you're leading worship or participating in worship for the presbytery, like at our presbytery meetings or presbytery events, language about people is to be inclusive. A lot of, there are people who will play with images of God from the scripture, kinda like I do. - Yes, yeah. - So I'm not the only one doing that. There's some people who still use exclusively he and him talking about God. So, you know, it's more out there into people's awareness. Especially language about people, that one's a little easier to grasp I think. - I have one last question for you. - Okay. Re-Imagining is developing a website and part of it will be history, will be digitizing the conference presentations, for example, and giving some of the background. But we also wanna include resources, so I wonder if you have any ideas about what would be good to include in the website, who would benefit from it, any thoughts you might have. - Well I think people would wanna go click on it and see what's there and see what, I think, put the right tags in it or whatever you do to make it accessible for search engines. I was sitting at lunch with a woman who said she found EEWC just by sitting down in front of Google and writing "feminist christian". (laughs) - Really? - Putting those two words in, so you know? - We're having a professional web designer 'cause I have no idea how to do that, Becky, but we are gonna try to do that. (laughs) - I know that it is possible to do it. (both laugh) - Right, exactly. - Well, Jann Aldredge-Clanton's songs. Her new composed songs are wonderful. - Great idea. - Brian Wren's songs are wonderful. The person that, one of our little speakers just mentioned, She Who Is. - Yeah, Elizabeth Johnson? - Elizabeth Johnson. - Yes. - I think her books are wonderful treasures and almost mystical, I mean, when you read them you kinda go off in the mist, mystical realm. How beautifully she describes the divine. Those are just a couple thoughts. - Those are great suggestions. - Okay. - Now, is there anything we haven't discussed that you would like to add, Becky? - Let me look at the paper again real quick. - Of course. - See if anything else comes back to my... Yeah, I was not involved in the making of the community except for reading the magazine, so I couldn't add anything about the making of this structure and function of the community. - I loved your story about the poems, though. - Yeah, okay, thank you. Okay, I think I covered everything. - I think you did a great job, thank you so much. (Becky laughs) I'm just gonna turn these off.