Morrison, Melanie S.
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- | Melanie, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. | 0:01 |
And, I wondered if I could start with | 0:05 | |
some background material. | 0:06 | |
First of all if you could say and spell your name. | 0:08 | |
- | Yes, Melanie M-e-l | 0:12 |
a-n-I-e. | 0:16 | |
My middle initial is S, Schulten. | 0:19 | |
And my last name Morrison, | 0:24 | |
m-o-r-r-i-s-o-n. | 0:28 | |
And, I'd appreciate your including my middle initial | 0:32 | |
because there are other Melanie Morrisons, | 0:37 | |
I have learned. | 0:40 | |
One in particular who does work, not unlike mine, | 0:41 | |
and we've been confused for each other. | 0:45 | |
- | Well, that's very helpful to know, thank you. | 0:48 |
We will definitely do that. | 0:50 | |
Now, Melanie are you lay or clergy. | 0:53 | |
- | I am clergy in the United Church of Christ. | 0:56 |
- | Great, and Melanie when and where were you born? | 1:00 |
- | Chicago, Illinois April third, 1949. | 1:05 |
- | Great, and where did you go to school, | 1:10 |
graduate or divinity school? | 1:12 | |
- | I got a bachelor in arts from Beloit College. | 1:15 |
A master of divinity from Yale Divinity School. | 1:21 | |
And, a PhD from the University of Groningen, | 1:25 | |
G-r-o-n-I-n-g-e-n | 1:31 | |
in the Netherlands. | 1:36 | |
- | And thank you for spelling that. | 1:38 |
What work or ministry were you doing at the time | 1:41 | |
of Re-Imagining, Melanie? | 1:43 | |
- | I was, in 1993, | 1:47 |
I had just left | 1:52 | |
part time ministry. | 1:56 | |
I was a founder, a co-founder, | 1:58 | |
co-pastor of a new church start in Kalamazoo, Michigan | 2:02 | |
that began in 1988. | 2:08 | |
I worked in that ministry for five years, had left earlier | 2:10 | |
in 1993, but the church was | 2:15 | |
Phoenix Community Church. | 2:20 | |
It later became a part of the United Church of Christ. | 2:23 | |
And, Phoenix Community Church was a new church | 2:28 | |
started in 1988 because of, | 2:32 | |
there were some of us here in Michigan | 2:36 | |
who were feeling the time had come to launch | 2:42 | |
a new congregation that was particularly, explicitly | 2:47 | |
welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual, | 2:53 | |
and transgendered people. | 2:56 | |
So, it began in Kalamazoo, Michigan. | 2:58 | |
It was actually the very first local congregation | 3:00 | |
in southwest Michigan that was explicitly, | 3:05 | |
Christian congregation, that was explicitly welcoming | 3:08 | |
of LGBT people. | 3:11 | |
I left that part time ministry | 3:14 | |
because I wanted to work full time with another | 3:19 | |
non-parish ministry that I had begun with | 3:23 | |
my colleague and mother, | 3:28 | |
Eleanor Morrison in 1987. | 3:31 | |
And, that was a small non-profit called Leaven, | 3:36 | |
like leaven like yeast. | 3:41 | |
Like the stuff that makes bread rise. | 3:43 | |
Leaven, its initial mission | 3:48 | |
was to provide education, | 3:54 | |
training, and resources in the areas of | 3:57 | |
spiritual development, feminism, and sexual justice. | 4:01 | |
I worked with my mother who was also ordained | 4:09 | |
in the United Church of Christ, and a sexuality educator. | 4:13 | |
Had worked at Michigan State University for a number | 4:19 | |
of years in sexuality education, | 4:21 | |
and an author of several books about teaching | 4:26 | |
human sexuality at the university level. | 4:30 | |
We started Leaven, | 4:33 | |
as I said, in 1987 and we worked together for 17 years. | 4:40 | |
And, Leaven is no longer in existence, but was a vibrant, | 4:47 | |
vital organization for almost 30 years. | 4:53 | |
- | That is impressive, and working with your mother, | 4:58 |
go ahead. | 5:02 | |
- | Yeah, excuse me. | |
It was about 25 years that Leaven was in existence. | 5:03 | |
Out of Leaven | 5:07 | |
we began in 1995 the Leaven Center | 5:12 | |
in mid Michigan located between Lancing | 5:18 | |
and Grand Rapids, Michigan. | 5:22 | |
It was a retreat and study center. | 5:25 | |
And, the Leaven Center | 5:31 | |
we did that ministry, | 5:35 | |
I and my partner, April Allison, | 5:37 | |
and the Leaven Board, and with my colleague | 5:42 | |
and mother Eleanor Morrison. | 5:46 | |
We launched the Leaven Center, which was in existence | 5:48 | |
oh goodness, for about, all together, | 5:53 | |
about 17 years. | 5:58 | |
Unfortunately, it too is no longer in existence. | 5:59 | |
- | Did Allies for Change come directly | 6:04 |
after that, your current? | 6:07 | |
- | Yeah, so after I left as director of the Leaven Center | 6:09 |
at the end of 2007 | 6:17 | |
because I wanted to return to full time | 6:23 | |
facilitation of groups. | 6:28 | |
And, I also wanted to return to writing. | 6:32 | |
The work at the Leaven Center was extraordinarily | 6:37 | |
meaningful and important work. | 6:42 | |
It was also very exhausting and never ending work | 6:46 | |
as the administrator of that retreat center | 6:52 | |
in trying to keep it afloat. | 6:56 | |
And so, I wanted to return, again, | 6:58 | |
to the kinds of work that actually my mother | 7:03 | |
and I were doing together which was group facilitation | 7:07 | |
and educational events. | 7:10 | |
And, I particularly wanted to focus on what is really | 7:13 | |
my deepest calling and passion and that is | 7:18 | |
racial justice education. | 7:23 | |
So, I left the Leaven Center to launch Allies for Change | 7:25 | |
which is a network of social justice educators | 7:31 | |
or we sometimes call ourselves anti-oppression educators. | 7:37 | |
- | That is, oh go ahead. | 7:44 |
- | Allies for Change has been in existence since 2008. | 7:45 |
- | Thank you so much. | 7:51 |
And Melanie, do you recall how and when you first | 7:53 | |
became aware of feminist theology? | 7:56 | |
- | Oh goodness. | 8:02 |
Well, I remember when Rosemary Radford Ruether | 8:08 | |
published I think it was The Radical Kingdom, | 8:12 | |
one of her first books. | 8:16 | |
And, I was senior in college at the time. | 8:17 | |
And, I remember reading it and | 8:21 | |
being just, (laughs) | 8:24 | |
it was so important to me. | 8:28 | |
I think I really returned with greater fervor | 8:36 | |
to feminist theology than in seminary | 8:41 | |
which was in the late 70s. | 8:49 | |
After I left college I went to live for three | 8:51 | |
and a half years at Koinonia Farm in southwest Georgia. | 8:54 | |
And, with someone who went to seminary out | 9:02 | |
of that experience. | 9:03 | |
And, became very involved in | 9:05 | |
wanting to at first, I was studying | 9:11 | |
Greek and Hebrew so that I could do exegesis | 9:16 | |
and re-imagining texts. | 9:20 | |
I took courses, I was also enrolled for a while, in Boston. | 9:25 | |
I took course with Phyllis Trible, | 9:31 | |
the Texts of Terror and so forth. | 9:35 | |
And then, at Yale Divinity school, also, was studying | 9:38 | |
feminist theology and that was in the late 70s. | 9:42 | |
So, I think that's when it was really speaking to me, | 9:44 | |
beginning to really speak deeply to me, | 9:47 | |
and become a framework for | 9:50 | |
my own preaching and my own sense of, | 9:55 | |
the theological limbs I was bringing to world. | 10:02 | |
I will add that | 10:05 | |
both feminist theology and lesbian feminist theology | 10:08 | |
became very important to me as well as womanist theology | 10:13 | |
being created by scholars like Deloris Williams, | 10:19 | |
also very important to me. | 10:25 | |
- | Thank you, that's very helpful. | 10:28 |
If we could move to the Re-Imagining community, | 10:30 | |
or to Re-Imagining conference could you talk about, | 10:32 | |
I know you were involved, attended and were involved | 10:36 | |
in the 1993 conference. | 10:39 | |
Can you start with what led you to your initial | 10:41 | |
involvement in the conference? | 10:45 | |
- | Yes, I can't recall exactly how we heard about it. | 10:49 |
That was at the time, with my mother | 10:54 | |
Eleanor Morrison, we were co-directors of Leaven. | 10:59 | |
And, we were offering eight month seminars for women | 11:05 | |
entitled In Our Own Voice, Women Reshaping | 11:11 | |
Theology and Spirituality. | 11:16 | |
So, we were doing feminist and womanist theology | 11:18 | |
in a grassroots kind of way. | 11:23 | |
Bringing women together from around Michigan | 11:26 | |
for these gatherings, this seminar. | 11:31 | |
And, several of us from that seminar so I'm remembering | 11:37 | |
accurately decided we didn't necessarily travel together, | 11:41 | |
but thought let's go to this Re-Imagining conference. | 11:45 | |
Because, it sounds very much like this will feed | 11:49 | |
the work we're doing here in Michigan as women | 11:53 | |
re-imagining theology and spirituality. | 11:58 | |
So, that's what, at the same time, I wanted to mention | 12:02 | |
this too, my mother and I had been, | 12:06 | |
were co-authoring a 10 session | 12:09 | |
human sexuality curriculum | 12:15 | |
for the United Church of Christ called | 12:17 | |
Created in God's Image. | 12:20 | |
And, it just, it felt to us, both the seminars | 12:23 | |
we were offering through Leaven and this work on | 12:27 | |
Created In God's Image that attending Re-Imagining | 12:30 | |
with the announced speakers that were going to be there | 12:35 | |
it just felt like something we couldn't miss, | 12:39 | |
we simply couldn't miss. | 12:43 | |
I wanna say, parenthetically, that | 12:46 | |
in the aftermath of Re-Imagining when we | 12:51 | |
saw statements like the statement from | 12:57 | |
retired presiding United Methodist Bishop Earl Hunt | 13:01 | |
who, parenthetically, was a friend and colleague of my | 13:07 | |
mother's father, who was a district intendant. | 13:11 | |
Now, he was no longer alive at the time of Re-Imagining, | 13:16 | |
but they were friends and colleagues. | 13:18 | |
He's Earl Hunt, so my mother knew Earl Hunt | 13:21 | |
when she was growing up. | 13:24 | |
Anyway, when we saw that he had said, | 13:25 | |
in great distress about Re-Imagining, | 13:31 | |
"No comparable heresy has appeared | 13:33 | |
"in the church in the last 15 centuries." | 13:37 | |
My mother and I had to laugh a bit and say, | 13:41 | |
"Oh, my goodness aren't you glad that we attended one of | 13:45 | |
"the most significant events in the last 15 centuries | 13:47 | |
"of the Christian church?" | 13:50 | |
(laughs) | 13:52 | |
Now, we took that and we registered for this. | 13:55 | |
And surely, also when we were present, | 13:57 | |
even though our analysis was not the same as Bishop Hunt's | 14:02 | |
we knew we were attending something that | 14:08 | |
was profoundly significant. | 14:12 | |
So, so glad that we were there. | 14:13 | |
- | That is wonderful. | 14:17 |
Now, I know it's been almost 25 years now, | 14:19 | |
but I would love to hear about your memories of the event. | 14:22 | |
- | Well thank you, yeah. | 14:28 |
Okay, these are some of the things that really | 14:31 | |
stand out for me. | 14:33 | |
As someone who has helped to plan conferences | 14:38 | |
and who has attended many, many | 14:43 | |
conferences through the years | 14:48 | |
I was in awe of the planning and orchestration | 14:51 | |
of the Re-Imagining Conference. | 14:57 | |
I don't know how long that planning committee | 15:00 | |
worked together before launching Re-Imagining | 15:02 | |
but I thought it was impeccably planned and orchestrated. | 15:07 | |
When I think about things like this, this is things | 15:12 | |
that I remember that we sat | 15:15 | |
at tables that were purposely, | 15:20 | |
the location of our table group | 15:25 | |
was intentionally moved to different locations each day. | 15:29 | |
And, I remember having searched for | 15:35 | |
our folks, our table. | 15:39 | |
It was the intentionality in that was so that none of us | 15:42 | |
of the participants, and it had gotten into 2200 of us | 15:51 | |
who were present, that none of us would only be | 15:54 | |
on the margins | 15:57 | |
in those plenary gatherings. | 16:01 | |
So, that we would move closer to the central stage | 16:04 | |
and podium, at times we would, | 16:08 | |
we were moved back at other times. | 16:10 | |
I just thought that alone was brilliant | 16:12 | |
in terms of equalizing the experience for everyone. | 16:19 | |
I also saw the transparent, light weight | 16:25 | |
podium that the speakers spoke from. | 16:30 | |
I remember the speakers picking it up and moving it | 16:38 | |
during their speeches. | 16:43 | |
This is, again, when we were all together | 16:45 | |
in plenary sessions. | 16:47 | |
So that, during the course of their speech they | 16:49 | |
could be facing every part of the room | 16:53 | |
at some point. | 16:57 | |
Once again, so that some people, because that was | 17:00 | |
in the center of the room, so that it wouldn't be | 17:03 | |
the case that some people would always be seeing | 17:07 | |
the back of the speakers. | 17:09 | |
I vividly remember early on | 17:13 | |
that a blessing was sung for a speaker | 17:19 | |
and then for each successive speaker we sang, | 17:25 | |
"Bless Sophia," as a way | 17:28 | |
all of us of commissioning and blessing each speaker | 17:33 | |
which I thought was beautiful. | 17:36 | |
I remember the artists working on large banners | 17:40 | |
while speakers were talking in the plenary sessions. | 17:46 | |
I remember art materials at the tables and | 17:51 | |
a paper table cloth so that we could draw and do things | 17:55 | |
with our hands while presentations were happening. | 17:59 | |
And, how that was also a gift to people who need to do that | 18:03 | |
to be able to concentrate better. | 18:09 | |
I remember there being no announcements from the podium | 18:13 | |
from the stage. | 18:18 | |
I don't quite remember whether we got the announcements | 18:20 | |
like they were posted or were given to us in printed form. | 18:22 | |
I'm not quite remembering that, but I distinctly, | 18:28 | |
and I have reason to remember this also, for purposes | 18:30 | |
of the negotiations later with the planning committee. | 18:33 | |
But, that meaning that | 18:37 | |
we went we moved from | 18:41 | |
height to height to height. | 18:45 | |
I mean, we moved from one stunning speaker | 18:47 | |
right into the next stunning speaker. | 18:50 | |
I mean, there was singing. | 18:52 | |
There was liturgy. | 18:55 | |
It wasn't just speeches. | 18:57 | |
And, it was very multi-media. | 19:00 | |
But, it wasn't interrupted by that more kind of | 19:03 | |
logistical announcement kind of thing, | 19:06 | |
which I also thought was really, really helpful | 19:09 | |
and moved things along. | 19:13 | |
I remember that it was a spectacular | 19:18 | |
and beautifully diverse group of | 19:23 | |
presenters and presentations. | 19:26 | |
Those in the plenary sessions and in the four main | 19:29 | |
groups sessions, I don't remember what they were called, | 19:33 | |
where we would go into, like 500 of us would choose | 19:37 | |
like Re-Imagining Jesus. | 19:43 | |
I know that was the one I attended with Deloreds Williams, | 19:46 | |
Barbara Lundblad so forth and speakers. | 19:49 | |
I think it was when we got into, broke into those | 19:53 | |
smaller constellations I knew there were very | 19:58 | |
hard choices because I wanted to hear every single speaker | 20:02 | |
at that conference. | 20:06 | |
And, I would say, just for me personally two of | 20:10 | |
the presentations that | 20:15 | |
were most stirring and stand out | 20:20 | |
for me to this day I will never forget. | 20:23 | |
Delores Williams, Womanist Re-Imagining of Atonement. | 20:26 | |
I felt, sitting there, that I was, | 20:32 | |
it was what the Quakers would call a covered meeting. | 20:37 | |
The presence of the spirit it was | 20:43 | |
both content and process, her passion in delivering it. | 20:49 | |
And, just the gift of being there I will never forget. | 20:54 | |
And, a similar sense when | 20:59 | |
Rita Nakashima Brock gave her plenary address, I believe | 21:03 | |
it was on Re-Imaging God. | 21:08 | |
My mother and I then, subsequently, have used | 21:15 | |
those texts and tapes for years | 21:18 | |
in our Leaven seminars, in our own voice seminars. | 21:23 | |
We took those back to | 21:28 | |
Michigan and have listened to them over and over. | 21:33 | |
Not just those, but those are two that | 21:39 | |
really stand out for me. | 21:41 | |
So, those are some of the things I most remember. | 21:42 | |
- | Melanie, you remembered quite a bit, actually. | 21:47 |
That was great. | 21:50 | |
- | Of course, it was also as is the case | 21:53 |
with these kinds of events, it was also an | 21:57 | |
event was reunion time with friends | 22:00 | |
from other parts of the country that I hadn't seen. | 22:03 | |
It was just so happy to be there in Minneapolis | 22:11 | |
with people that I loved and missed. | 22:13 | |
So, that was also another aspect, of course. | 22:17 | |
- | Of course, now I know two ways, important ways | 22:20 |
you were involved were the workshop. | 22:23 | |
So, I wanna hear about that. | 22:25 | |
And also, about the unofficial statement that was made. | 22:26 | |
And, I wanna hear about both of those. | 22:31 | |
Should we start with the workshop? | 22:32 | |
- | Sure, yes. | 22:35 |
So, there were these, what did they call them? | 22:39 | |
Multi-format options or something. | 22:44 | |
I mean, everything was re-imagined at Re-Imagining, | 22:49 | |
including, I don't think they used the word workshop. | 22:52 | |
But, it was essentially a workshop. | 22:56 | |
Yeah, it was multi-format option group. | 22:59 | |
(laughs) | 23:01 | |
And the title of that group that | 23:04 | |
I led co-led with four others, | 23:08 | |
I'll name them in just a moment, | 23:13 | |
was Listening With Our Hearts: | 23:14 | |
Prophetic Voices of Lesbians in the Church. | 23:19 | |
And, I co-led that with Diane Christopherson, | 23:25 | |
CathyAnn Beaty, Jeanine Spahr, | 23:32 | |
and Nadean Bishop. | 23:36 | |
- | I am sorry to interrupt, would you mind spelling | 23:39 |
the last names of, I know Nadean Bishop, | 23:41 | |
and Spahr-- | 23:47 | |
- | Of the other presenters? | |
- | Yes. | 23:49 |
- | Okay, | |
Christofferson is c-h-r-i | 23:50 | |
s-t-o-p-h-er-s-o-n. | 23:55 | |
CathyAnn, let me just spell that, too. | 24:02 | |
It's spelled C-a-t-h-y and then | 24:04 | |
capital A-n-n but all one word. | 24:10 | |
CathyAnn Beaty, B-e-a-t-y. | 24:15 | |
Jeanie Spar, S-p-a-h-r. | 24:20 | |
And Nadine, N-a-d-e-a-n | 24:26 | |
Bishop B-i-s-h-o-p. | 24:30 | |
- | Thank you. | 24:34 |
- | Sure. | |
And, that group workshop | 24:37 | |
was held on Friday, November fifth | 24:42 | |
from 3:45 to 5:15. | 24:45 | |
And, we shared, | 24:51 | |
each of us, shared how we experienced | 24:56 | |
lesbian women re-imagining | 25:02 | |
theology and Christology, and so many different things. | 25:07 | |
What the gists were, the theological re-imagining | 25:12 | |
that lesbians were bringing as gifts to church. | 25:17 | |
I recovered, I don't have the notes of what my | 25:26 | |
co-presenters said that day. | 25:30 | |
But, I did find just some scribbled notes | 25:35 | |
of what I talked about. | 25:39 | |
I'm not going to give you my whole spiel, | 25:41 | |
these are just scribbled notes | 25:45 | |
But, I talked about | 25:46 | |
my experience, because I'd just come | 25:52 | |
from five years of pastoring a church | 25:55 | |
that was about 90% lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. | 26:00 | |
Only about 10% of people identified as heterosexual. | 26:06 | |
And, so I shared some of my experience at | 26:10 | |
Phoenix Community Church. | 26:13 | |
But, I particularly was talking about | 26:14 | |
some of the unique ways, as lesbians, how we come | 26:19 | |
to sacred writings, including scripture. | 26:27 | |
And, how we listen, what we hear because of the | 26:33 | |
experience we bring, where we find | 26:38 | |
holy writs, holy words. | 26:43 | |
And, I'll just say, in terms of the where | 26:53 | |
this is something I don't know, I know, | 26:58 | |
I don't know that there was some spies at the workshop. | 27:01 | |
We learned afterwards that there some people | 27:04 | |
who had come with the intent of them getting | 27:07 | |
the word out before the planners | 27:10 | |
of Re-Imagining could get out intp the world | 27:15 | |
what had happened there. | 27:19 | |
People who'd come to really sabotage, I mean, | 27:21 | |
in terms of their later publicity about what had happened. | 27:26 | |
And so, I don't know whether there were people | 27:30 | |
in that very workshop, I think there may have been, | 27:31 | |
who were taking notes. | 27:36 | |
And, some things that I said, I'm not saying, | 27:38 | |
I'm not attributing it only to me, because there were other | 27:43 | |
people who were saying similar things, but it felt like | 27:46 | |
maybe some of us got into | 27:48 | |
the furor that resulted. | 27:52 | |
Because, I said things like in terms of | 27:55 | |
the where do we find sacred texts. | 27:59 | |
I said that we as lesbians know, by experience, | 28:03 | |
that the canon is not closed. | 28:07 | |
That it cannot be closed because we know | 28:11 | |
we would be bereft | 28:14 | |
if there were only, the only writings | 28:22 | |
we considered sacred and holy were those in what | 28:26 | |
has been canonized as The Bible | 28:31 | |
we know we would be bereft if that were true. | 28:37 | |
And, because we have encountered wisdom | 28:40 | |
and sacred writing elsewhere. | 28:44 | |
That The Bible, for us, as Christian lesbians | 28:47 | |
is indeed the central source, but it is not enough. | 28:49 | |
Because, it alone cannot bring us into right relationship | 28:53 | |
with the Earth. | 28:58 | |
It cannot bring us into right relationship | 29:01 | |
with our sexual embodied selves | 29:04 | |
as lesbians, that we need, we need the writings | 29:10 | |
of Adrienne Rich, and Audrey Lorde, | 29:15 | |
and Carter Heyward, and (mumbles) | 29:17 | |
and so forth. | 29:18 | |
To place alongside | 29:23 | |
Ephesians and Corinthians and the Gospels and so forth. | 29:28 | |
And that at Phoenix Community Church | 29:33 | |
that we would announce that we were reading | 29:38 | |
some sacred writings. | 29:41 | |
And so we would say, "I read to you from the prophet Isiah." | 29:43 | |
And then, we would follow up with, "I read to you | 29:48 | |
"from the prophet Audrey Lorde." | 29:52 | |
And, after reading both of those texts we'd say, | 29:55 | |
"Thanks be to God for this holy word." | 29:57 | |
So, that's some of what I talked about. | 30:01 | |
(laughs) | 30:03 | |
I truly came through all of that. | 30:04 | |
Again, this is my memory, that it was at that workshop | 30:09 | |
I have in scribbled notes that I asked | 30:15 | |
and I don't know that I was the | 30:19 | |
I said I am longing for there to be someone | 30:22 | |
in our plenary sessions who speaks in a lesbian voice, | 30:27 | |
who brings some of this perspective. | 30:33 | |
We were happy and grateful that there were workshops | 30:35 | |
where lesbians were speaking | 30:40 | |
in our own voices. | 30:46 | |
But, when it came to all of us being together | 30:48 | |
in the plenary sessions I think we knew, because we knew, | 30:52 | |
personally knew some of the plenary speakers that | 30:58 | |
there were lesbian women speaking in the plenary sessions, | 31:01 | |
but thus far in the first two days of the conference, | 31:07 | |
so this workshop we have Listening to our Hearts, | 31:12 | |
Prophetic Voices of Lesbians in the Church, | 31:18 | |
that took place Friday afternoon. | 31:20 | |
So, there had been two days now of speakers, | 31:22 | |
thus far in those first two days of the conference, | 31:26 | |
when we were all gathered together none of the plenary | 31:29 | |
speakers was speaking openly in a lesbian voice, | 31:34 | |
or perhaps just as significantly none of the speakers | 31:38 | |
thus far had called that entire gathered community | 31:42 | |
to ask what it's mean to stand in solidarity | 31:47 | |
with lesbian, bi, and transwomen. | 31:53 | |
And, so my memory is that is was out of that workshop | 31:57 | |
when that question was kind of raised, the longing | 32:02 | |
that that would happen, that some of us stayed | 32:05 | |
after the workshop and began scheming about | 32:08 | |
(laughs) | 32:13 | |
how we're gonna find out whether it's gonna happen or | 32:19 | |
it's just not okay given the fact that here you had | 32:24 | |
at this Re-Imagining conference | 32:29 | |
people gathered from just about every | 32:35 | |
conceivable Christian denomination. | 32:37 | |
And, that still, in 1993 | 32:43 | |
most of those Christian denominations | 32:48 | |
had disciplines or policies | 32:54 | |
that prohibited the ordination | 32:59 | |
of openly, of people who are out | 33:03 | |
and open about their sexual orientation, about being lesbian | 33:09 | |
or gay, or bisexual, or trans. | 33:14 | |
And, it just felt to us, | 33:17 | |
this was here we are at the end of decade | 33:25 | |
in solidarity of women and there's a significant | 33:31 | |
part of that | 33:39 | |
women, a significant community | 33:46 | |
that is marginalized, excluded, oppressed | 33:52 | |
still within the church. | 33:57 | |
And, there's dead silence in the plenary about that. | 33:59 | |
And so, I've now segued, as you can see, | 34:05 | |
into your other question about the invitation | 34:09 | |
that was offered from the podium. | 34:14 | |
Shall I continue talking about that? | 34:16 | |
Do you have anything else you wanted to ask? | 34:18 | |
- | No, no this is wonderful, this is great. | 34:20 |
And, I assume you'll talk about the negotiation | 34:22 | |
and then the experience of it, good. | 34:25 | |
- | Just, of course, like everything else I've named | 34:27 |
to date, this is my memory. | 34:30 | |
I wish, right here, right now, Jeanie Spahr, | 34:33 | |
and Celise Berry, and so forth and so on, | 34:38 | |
Barry Hahn and others were here sitting with me | 34:42 | |
so that collectively we could better recreate | 34:45 | |
how this came to past. | 34:49 | |
So, this is just my memory. | 34:50 | |
And, had my life not been so busy the last weeks | 34:55 | |
I might have called some of those folks to check it out. | 34:58 | |
But anyway, didn't have the time to do that. | 35:00 | |
So, my memory is that | 35:04 | |
two or three of us representatives from Clout, | 35:10 | |
mow Clout was an organization, | 35:15 | |
shall I say just a little bit about? | 35:21 | |
- | Yes, please do. | 35:22 |
- | Yeah, so Clout was an organization | 35:24 |
that we began in 1990 | 35:28 | |
when at the invitation, actually, of Carter Heyward, | 35:34 | |
CathyAnn Beaty, and myself | 35:40 | |
10 lesbian women gathered in | 35:43 | |
Deb Harrison's living room at Union Seminary | 35:48 | |
to talk about the fact, | 35:54 | |
to talk about the possibility of starting | 35:57 | |
a new organization of lesbians | 36:01 | |
who would be really, | 36:05 | |
who would from the first moment be publicly out | 36:09 | |
and that we would be challenging our respective | 36:15 | |
denominations to really struggle more with | 36:19 | |
policies that forbade the ordination of lesbians, | 36:26 | |
of out lesbians, okay. | 36:30 | |
And so, how it was started in | 36:33 | |
1990, and it's first | 36:38 | |
international, we called them global gatherings, | 36:43 | |
was in Minneapolis, actually, in 1991. | 36:48 | |
Yes, and we called it a Clout of Witnesses. | 36:52 | |
(laughs) | 36:57 | |
Playing on a Cloud of Witnesses. | 36:59 | |
And, oh, I would say | 37:02 | |
at least 100 of us were there, maybe more. | 37:06 | |
People came from all over the country. | 37:10 | |
It was a record breaking snow storm weekend. | 37:12 | |
We actually got snowed into the, I think it was | 37:17 | |
a congregational church, UCC church where we were meeting, | 37:21 | |
but I can't remember that detail. | 37:25 | |
And, we had some | 37:27 | |
invitations to our, | 37:33 | |
to lesbian women who, for us, | 37:37 | |
were our foremothers, our elders | 37:40 | |
in the movement. | 37:46 | |
People who had, in some cases, suffered enormous | 37:47 | |
persecution at the hands of the church. | 37:52 | |
And, we sent invitations for them to be with us | 37:56 | |
or to write to us, send messages. | 38:02 | |
And, it was just an incredibly powerful time together | 38:07 | |
for that weekend. | 38:12 | |
And then, every two years Clout would have | 38:15 | |
another international gathering. | 38:17 | |
We had a newsletter. | 38:20 | |
We took some actions in different places. | 38:22 | |
We had regional gatherings. | 38:24 | |
And so, we were still a fairly young | 38:28 | |
organization when Re-Imagining took place. | 38:33 | |
And, it stands for, Clout stands for | 38:39 | |
Christian Lesbians Out Together. | 38:42 | |
And so, two or three of us approached | 38:48 | |
some folks on the representatives of planning committee, | 38:54 | |
the Re-Imagining planning committee. | 38:58 | |
I believe it was after that workshop. | 39:00 | |
So, I think it was Friday afternoon. | 39:02 | |
And, we said to them that we would like to have | 39:05 | |
five to 10 minutes at most | 39:10 | |
in a plenary session to make statements | 39:15 | |
from the stage calling on people to wrestle with, | 39:18 | |
think about, what it would mean to stand in solidarity | 39:24 | |
with lesbian, bisexual, and transwomen in the church. | 39:27 | |
And, those representatives, this is my memory, | 39:32 | |
were very hesitant about that. | 39:39 | |
Expressed great reservations. | 39:43 | |
They said, among other things, | 39:47 | |
that they were clear that this would cause | 39:52 | |
consternation in some of their denominations. | 39:56 | |
They also said that they purposely planned | 40:00 | |
Re-Imagining, as I mentioned earlier, with no announcements | 40:03 | |
from the stage, no spontaneous announcements. | 40:06 | |
And, they said, "We've turned down other groups | 40:10 | |
"and other people who wanted to make announcements. | 40:13 | |
"So, why would we make this exception for you all?" | 40:15 | |
Well, we persisted. | 40:19 | |
That logistical reason was not sufficient for us. | 40:22 | |
(laughs) | 40:24 | |
My memory is that those women said, "We need to gather | 40:30 | |
"as a whole planning committee and we've really | 40:35 | |
"got to ponder this. | 40:37 | |
"We can't give you an answer right now." | 40:37 | |
Hoping that it was going to take place | 40:44 | |
the Clout folks asked me, I was co-coordinator of Clout | 40:50 | |
at that time, and they asked me to be the spokesperson | 40:55 | |
if it came to pass. | 41:01 | |
So, I remember beginning to make notes about | 41:03 | |
what I might say. | 41:06 | |
Still waiting for the word whether it was going | 41:09 | |
to take place. | 41:11 | |
I don't recall whether we contemplated | 41:13 | |
seizing the stage like if they said no. | 41:21 | |
I really don't, I just don't recall and that's one of | 41:25 | |
the things I wish there were others gathered here with me | 41:27 | |
right now, maybe somebody else would have | 41:30 | |
a different memory about that. | 41:32 | |
But, it was either very late that night | 41:34 | |
or early Saturday morning that a couple of the people | 41:39 | |
from the planning committee came to us | 41:43 | |
and they said, "Okay, you can have | 41:46 | |
"about nine minutes. | 41:51 | |
"But, we want it to be very clear that it | 41:54 | |
"would be wholly unofficial." | 41:59 | |
That they were not sponsoring our statement. | 42:04 | |
And that, none of them could introduce us | 42:09 | |
or stand on the stage with us. | 42:14 | |
And, I remember one of the committee members | 42:17 | |
turning to me and saying, "If I were to stand | 42:20 | |
"on that stage with you, Melanie, I would lose my job." | 42:23 | |
Which I do not minimize that statement. | 42:27 | |
I knew, we knew there was a lot at stake here | 42:34 | |
but their response, her response and so forth | 42:38 | |
only made it clearer to us why we were asking to do | 42:41 | |
what we were asking. | 42:46 | |
Because, things were that | 42:50 | |
oppressive, actually within mainline | 42:56 | |
Christandom in 1993 in denominations | 42:59 | |
like The Presbyterian Church USA, United Methodist Church, | 43:04 | |
and so forth and so on. | 43:07 | |
So, what they said was that it seemed best to them | 43:09 | |
that I would come to the podium after the last speaker | 43:18 | |
on Saturday morning. | 43:22 | |
And, that speaker was Mercy Amba Oduyoye, | 43:26 | |
am I pronouncing her name right, Sherry? | 43:32 | |
- | Yeah, I think that's right, yep, mm-hmm. | 43:35 |
- | And, my memory is that they said they would alert her | 43:41 |
that I would be coming to the microphone. | 43:46 | |
But, I and the other Clout members, | 43:50 | |
and I feel this to be true also of the planning committee | 43:55 | |
people. we were very clear | 43:58 | |
we wanted to honor her presentation | 44:02 | |
and in no way intrude upon it. | 44:07 | |
She was good theologian, | 44:12 | |
really one of the foremost, at that time, | 44:17 | |
voices of feminist theology coming out of | 44:23 | |
an African nation. | 44:27 | |
And we, in no way, wanted to intrude upon | 44:28 | |
what she was doing. | 44:32 | |
So, if I could, | 44:35 | |
if this were a visual, a video tape that | 44:40 | |
we're doing right now you would see me. | 44:45 | |
So, what I did was I was standing with my sisters. | 44:48 | |
(clears throat) | 44:54 | |
Out by one of the doorways into one of the plenary | 44:56 | |
that had a pathway to the center stage. | 45:00 | |
And, what we knew was that when the speaker | 45:08 | |
was concluding her remarks there would be | 45:13 | |
perhaps standing ovation, I mean, there would be applause | 45:19 | |
for some time. | 45:21 | |
And then, the planning committee told us, | 45:23 | |
and then there's a break. | 45:26 | |
And, people will be getting into talking circles. | 45:28 | |
So, people are going to break and they're going to | 45:30 | |
be here to break because I think her name was Lois Wilson | 45:31 | |
who was speaking before the speakers. | 45:35 | |
So, people had been sitting a long time. | 45:37 | |
So, you're gonna have, the planning committee | 45:39 | |
goes, "Good luck, because you've gotta capture | 45:43 | |
"the attention of the folks there when they're actually | 45:47 | |
"ready to break." | 45:51 | |
So, and they were not going to be anywhere present, | 45:53 | |
the planning committee members. | 45:57 | |
Nobody was going to introduce me besides myself. | 45:59 | |
I'm going into all this detail because I think | 46:06 | |
it's important in terms of | 46:08 | |
what we were intending | 46:12 | |
in a sense of not wanting to disrupt | 46:17 | |
what was happening, but also to bring now | 46:20 | |
a needed new or another dimension | 46:23 | |
to the gathering. | 46:28 | |
So, I had just a split second, really, | 46:29 | |
when you get down to it, to get to that microphone. | 46:34 | |
She was going to hand it to me, or she was going to step, | 46:39 | |
she knew I was coming, the speaker. | 46:42 | |
But, so what it meant is that some of lesbian truth is | 46:48 | |
I started walking very quickly, I felt like I was running | 46:52 | |
down that aisle as the applause was waning. | 46:56 | |
And, got up on the stage, got to the podium | 47:03 | |
and people were beginning to kind of, | 47:06 | |
the applause now had ended. | 47:10 | |
I didn't wanna speak before it had ended. | 47:11 | |
But, I didn't want there to be a second | 47:15 | |
when they're done applauding where 2200 people | 47:18 | |
could get (vocalizes) talking to each other. | 47:22 | |
I think some of that began to happen, | 47:25 | |
but I then | 47:27 | |
quickly introduced myself. | 47:29 | |
I introduced myself and explained that I work with, | 47:37 | |
that I'm a co-coordinator of Clout, an ecumenical movement | 47:43 | |
celebrating the miracle of being lesbian, | 47:48 | |
out, and Christian. | 47:52 | |
Now, I will say that | 47:55 | |
there were probably only about 10 people | 48:00 | |
in that room that knew I was going to say anything. | 48:03 | |
Other Clout members, maybe 10 or 12 or so | 48:09 | |
and some members of the planning committee. | 48:13 | |
And, the other night I remember that when I said | 48:17 | |
those words, and I said them forcefully, | 48:22 | |
trying to get people's attention. | 48:24 | |
I introduced that I am Melanie Morrison, co-coordinator | 48:26 | |
of Clout, Christian Lesbians Out Together, | 48:30 | |
an ecumenical movement celebrating the miracle | 48:33 | |
of being lesbian, out, and Christian. | 48:38 | |
And, I said just that much some spontaneous whooping | 48:40 | |
(laughs) | 48:45 | |
woo-hoo, and ears went up around the room | 48:46 | |
in different places. | 48:50 | |
And then, I'm going to go ahead and read what I said. | 48:56 | |
I recovered what I said. | 48:59 | |
- | Oh good. | |
- | Not very long. | 49:02 |
And then, I went on to say, "We are keenly, | 49:04 | |
"painfully aware that the world is not safe | 49:10 | |
"for lesbian women. | 49:15 | |
"And, that often the least safe place is the church. | 49:17 | |
"We call upon all of you, whatever your sexual orientation | 49:23 | |
"not to leave this holy place without wrestling | 49:30 | |
"with these questions. | 49:34 | |
"What does it mean for us to be in solidarity | 49:37 | |
"with lesbian, bisexual, and" I said transsexual | 49:41 | |
because that was the language then, | 49:47 | |
"transwomen in this decade? | 49:49 | |
"And, how can we together re-imagine our churches | 49:53 | |
"so that every woman may claim her voice, her gifts, | 49:58 | |
"her loves and her wholeness. | 50:03 | |
"Acknowledging that my white skin may put me | 50:07 | |
"in a place where there is less at stake in coming out | 50:11 | |
"I now invite every lesbian, bisexual, and transwoman | 50:16 | |
"who is willing and able to come forward | 50:22 | |
"and join hands encircling this platform facing out." | 50:26 | |
This is my memory of what happened. | 50:34 | |
Remembering saying it, I wanna say again, very few people, | 50:39 | |
it wasn't that people were prepared for this. | 50:44 | |
Very few people in the room knew this was going to happen. | 50:48 | |
But, as I looked out over them | 50:52 | |
those 2200 people | 50:57 | |
it seemed to me, and I think this is hyperbolic, | 51:01 | |
that somebody from every table in that room | 51:05 | |
stood up and people just started streaming | 51:08 | |
towards the podium, the stage. | 51:13 | |
And, I had invited people to come | 51:19 | |
and circle the stage facing out, | 51:24 | |
and I remember they were encircling the stage | 51:28 | |
several rows deep and spilling up onto the stage. | 51:33 | |
It so far surpassed our expectation of | 51:38 | |
who might respond and I saw people that I knew | 51:43 | |
who, until that moment, were not out publicly in front of | 51:50 | |
their district superintendent who may have | 51:54 | |
been sitting there, or their bishop, | 51:56 | |
and who knew, I mean they were taking enormous risks. | 52:01 | |
But, they women started, and my intention was then | 52:07 | |
once the women had come and encircled the stage that | 52:15 | |
my intention was to ask those who were willing | 52:21 | |
and able to stand, those who wished to stand | 52:25 | |
in solidarity with us and were able to do that | 52:29 | |
to rise and we would sing together. | 52:34 | |
We're gonna keep on moving forward, never turning back, | 52:41 | |
never turning back. | 52:43 | |
And gosh, I didn't even get to that because | 52:45 | |
as the women started streaming forward from all parts | 52:49 | |
of the room people were on their feet. | 52:54 | |
And, in my memory, I wish I could describe it | 52:59 | |
as the roof of the convention center disappeared, | 53:02 | |
I mean it went off with the | 53:07 | |
the word is pandemonium that broke out. | 53:12 | |
I could see tears streaming down the faces | 53:16 | |
of people coming forward but also those | 53:20 | |
who were at their table. | 53:22 | |
I could see people have have their arms in the air. | 53:23 | |
They were cheering these women on. | 53:26 | |
Now, there may have been some people who remained seated | 53:32 | |
who not for disability reasons, | 53:37 | |
but I didn't see them. | 53:41 | |
As they were coming down I was just saying, | 53:44 | |
"yes, yes, yes," into the microphone | 53:47 | |
cause I listened later to this | 53:51 | |
on the Re-Imagining tapes. | 53:53 | |
The whole thing from the clapping was | 53:58 | |
just went, it was like thunderous. | 54:01 | |
And, then I invited us to sing and my memory, | 54:06 | |
is again, overwhelmingly everyone joined in | 54:10 | |
to sing we're gonna keep on moving forward, | 54:16 | |
never turning back, never turning back. | 54:21 | |
We're going to keep on loving boldly. | 54:24 | |
We're gonna keep on speaking truthfully. | 54:29 | |
We're gonna keep on loving women, never turning back. | 54:32 | |
We're gonna work for change together. | 54:37 | |
Never turning back, never turning back. | 54:40 | |
And, when we finished that song, all of us together, | 54:44 | |
again we just, I don't know whether | 54:48 | |
those talking circles every happened because | 54:53 | |
people were hugging one another. | 54:57 | |
And, the people coming to the podium to hug the women | 55:00 | |
who had dared to come forward. | 55:04 | |
I just remember it went on and on. | 55:08 | |
I mean, the cheering and the hugging | 55:09 | |
and the tears and the laughter. | 55:12 | |
And, it was absolutely | 55:14 | |
a sacred time. | 55:19 | |
- | How did it feel to be in the midst of all that, Melanie? | 55:27 |
- | Oh, my goodness, I mean I know that | 55:30 |
I just felt carried out of, | 55:39 | |
I felt very embodied, but also carried out of, | 55:44 | |
I felt we, this is a palpable-- | 55:50 | |
- | Can I stop one second, I apologize. | 55:54 |
I'm getting another phone call, which is unfortunate. | 55:56 | |
I think it's stopped. | 55:58 | |
Go ahead, keep talking Melanie, sorry. | 55:59 | |
It was a palpable? | 56:02 | |
- | I felt this was a palpable foreshadowing | 56:04 |
for all of us present. | 56:11 | |
In the words of Doctor King, "The arc of the moral universe | 56:15 | |
"bending towards justice." | 56:20 | |
We were witnessing something of the kingdom | 56:23 | |
here and now on Earth, as it is in Heaven. | 56:28 | |
But, we were also witnessing a foreshadowing | 56:31 | |
of what was going to happen in our denominations that | 56:33 | |
this was too good, too right, too holy, | 56:40 | |
not to be lived into. | 56:46 | |
That was my feeling. | 56:47 | |
I felt so full of hope, that moment, | 56:49 | |
that people had expressed that kind of solidarity | 56:55 | |
so visibly and audibly. | 56:58 | |
And, I know that | 57:02 | |
person after person came up to me | 57:07 | |
but they were also coming up to | 57:09 | |
all the women who had come onto the stage | 57:10 | |
and offering, saying, "What can we do? | 57:13 | |
"When the fallout comes, how can we be there?" | 57:18 | |
So, it was, I remember that time | 57:21 | |
when I grow discouraged I did for years afterwards, | 57:27 | |
and in the aftermath I remember somebody, | 57:32 | |
I was speaking somewhere and I must have been | 57:37 | |
telling this story and | 57:41 | |
I remember a man in the audience getting up and asking, | 57:46 | |
"So Doctor Morrison," I wasn't a doctor yet, | 57:52 | |
"Reverend Morrison," whatever I was called, | 57:55 | |
"Reverend Morrison, looking back | 57:58 | |
"and knowing now what you know now | 58:03 | |
"of the furor and the controversy that erupted | 58:09 | |
"because of what you did | 58:13 | |
"do you regret doing that | 58:15 | |
"because it caused such divisions within the church?" | 58:20 | |
I remember saying to him, I asked him, "Were you present? | 58:28 | |
"Were you present at Re-Imagining?" | 58:33 | |
And he said, "No, I wasn't I just heard about it." | 58:35 | |
And, I said, "If you had been there chances are | 58:37 | |
"you would not be asking me this question. | 58:41 | |
"I don't know, you would have yourself | 58:44 | |
"experienced something so right | 58:50 | |
"and so good that you might not | 58:55 | |
"be asking me the questions. | 58:57 | |
"But, maybe more to the point sir, no I do not regret | 58:59 | |
"issuing that invitation because | 59:05 | |
"it was not the source of division within the church. | 59:10 | |
"The division long pre-existed that invitation. | 59:15 | |
"The division had been caused by centuries of sexism, | 59:20 | |
"heterosexism, and other systems | 59:26 | |
"of privilege and oppression. | 59:28 | |
"So no, my answer is no, I do not regret. | 59:29 | |
"I know that some people have suffered enormously | 59:37 | |
"in ways that I have not," I said to him. | 59:42 | |
"Some people have lost their jobs, some people have lost | 59:44 | |
"the chance to be ordained. | 59:47 | |
"They've been targeted with inquisitional | 59:49 | |
"kinds of gatherings. | 59:57 | |
"And as they come up for ordination, | 1:00:00 | |
"were you at Re-Imagining and so forth." | 1:00:03 | |
I said, "So, I have not suffered as some other | 1:00:05 | |
"people have, but I also know it was not | 1:00:09 | |
"this invitation anymore that it was Doctor Delores Williams | 1:00:11 | |
"Re-Imagining of Atonement that was the problem, | 1:00:17 | |
"or that cost people their jobs. | 1:00:21 | |
"It was the entrenched, still entrenched sexism | 1:00:23 | |
"and heterosexism within the church." | 1:00:28 | |
- | Well, you have now, Melanie, brought us very nicely | 1:00:36 |
to the backlash. | 1:00:38 | |
From what you said it sounded like there was already | 1:00:40 | |
an awareness at Re-Imagining that there was going | 1:00:43 | |
to be this kind of backlash. | 1:00:46 | |
And that, you were already thinking about how | 1:00:48 | |
to respond to it, is that correct? | 1:00:50 | |
- | Well yes, certainly the conversations, | 1:00:54 |
well folks who were part of Clout, we called Clout | 1:01:01 | |
into being because there were many lesbian women | 1:01:06 | |
who could not be ordained, could not be safely out | 1:01:10 | |
within the church. | 1:01:15 | |
I mean, we knew the kind of possible backlash for people. | 1:01:15 | |
And, the planning committee members, their hesitance | 1:01:22 | |
about letting us be on the stage, letting me | 1:01:26 | |
come to the stage was also signified their fear | 1:01:29 | |
already of backlash. | 1:01:33 | |
Now, this was but one piece | 1:01:36 | |
of the backlash. | 1:01:39 | |
My memory of | 1:01:43 | |
the backlash or the furor that erupted | 1:01:49 | |
within particularly like the United Methodist Church, | 1:01:54 | |
The Presbyterian Churches USA | 1:01:58 | |
was caused by people who were in attendance | 1:02:01 | |
and, I guess were in attendance, and then | 1:02:10 | |
quickly published their interpretation | 1:02:15 | |
of what had happened at Re-Imagining. | 1:02:19 | |
And so, there was a kind of inquisition spirit | 1:02:21 | |
happening in different places. | 1:02:27 | |
And, the focus of the furor was fourfold at least. | 1:02:30 | |
As I kept seeing it articulated by those | 1:02:37 | |
who were in distress, not by the planners, | 1:02:41 | |
or most of us who were present there. | 1:02:45 | |
And, that was around language for God, like Sophia, | 1:02:52 | |
language, the ritual of milk and honey, even though | 1:02:55 | |
that has profound ancient roots within both | 1:02:58 | |
Judaism and Christianity, the critique of | 1:03:03 | |
atonement theology, and then the | 1:03:07 | |
what those folks called the celebration of | 1:03:13 | |
the sinful homosexual lifestyle. | 1:03:17 | |
And so, at times in those publications | 1:03:21 | |
they quoted snippets from what I had said. | 1:03:28 | |
And, I guess I don't know | 1:03:35 | |
that I anticipated, | 1:03:40 | |
I didn't have any way of knowing. | 1:03:44 | |
I'm not sure anyone knew that | 1:03:46 | |
the furor would be as fierce as it was. | 1:03:50 | |
So, I remember, and I don't remember exactly when it was, | 1:03:55 | |
but not long after Re-Imagining, I was sound asleep | 1:03:58 | |
and my sister Stephanie called me from Cleveland | 1:04:02 | |
and said, "Turn on Nightline, turn on Nightline. | 1:04:04 | |
"They've got your voice on Nightline." | 1:04:10 | |
And, I couldn't find where the TV was | 1:04:14 | |
for long enough to see it. | 1:04:18 | |
Ted Koppel was talking about Re-Imagining. | 1:04:22 | |
And then, the 700 Club played a clip of what I said | 1:04:26 | |
and other things from Delores Williams. | 1:04:30 | |
And then, there were all these publications | 1:04:37 | |
that started coming out. | 1:04:39 | |
Stuff like the Presbyterian Layman, The Good News, | 1:04:43 | |
Hopes Within United Methodist Church | 1:04:47 | |
which were publicizing what had happens, | 1:04:50 | |
publishing their interpretation and what had happened. | 1:04:53 | |
I don't think that | 1:04:55 | |
even though I found it profoundly important | 1:05:00 | |
that people were singing and the workshops | 1:05:06 | |
and the plenary sessions. | 1:05:08 | |
And, yeah I was ecstatic about what I was hearing. | 1:05:10 | |
I didn't necessarily think it would create | 1:05:13 | |
the kind of backlash it did. | 1:05:17 | |
Now, it didn't, as much in my own denomination, | 1:05:19 | |
the United Church of Christ. | 1:05:23 | |
So, I have a bit more sheltered life there | 1:05:26 | |
in the United Church of Christ, but also, | 1:05:31 | |
it had to be said that partly why that backlash | 1:05:34 | |
happened within the United Methodist and the Presbyterians | 1:05:36 | |
is because they were also contributors, | 1:05:38 | |
the Presbyterian Church, for example. | 1:05:41 | |
Like Marianne Lundy served on the planning committee | 1:05:44 | |
and was able, I think, if I'm not mistaken, to get funds | 1:05:48 | |
of support through the Presbyterian Women and so forth. | 1:05:52 | |
I don't think the United Church of Christ | 1:05:58 | |
had a central role in planning it, but I didn't know | 1:06:00 | |
the answer to that. | 1:06:02 | |
So, I do remember writing something | 1:06:03 | |
for Faith Johnson who had been working with us on the board, | 1:06:06 | |
what was then the board for homeland ministries, | 1:06:12 | |
in the United Church for Christ writing a document for her | 1:06:14 | |
about my experience at Re-Imagining that might be used | 1:06:17 | |
in case there was backlash within | 1:06:22 | |
the United Church of Christ. | 1:06:24 | |
On the sort of flip side of all of that | 1:06:32 | |
and not to minimize what people suffered, because I don't | 1:06:37 | |
in any way minimize the cost, | 1:06:41 | |
what was at stake for some people, the cost for them | 1:06:46 | |
in terms of employment, another thing that I did not suffer. | 1:06:50 | |
So, I don't minimize that. | 1:06:55 | |
And yet also, I remember feeling like | 1:06:57 | |
wow, this is an incredible testimony | 1:07:03 | |
to how powerful theological work can be in the world. | 1:07:08 | |
It's like the Gospels are just like women speaking | 1:07:16 | |
in the early church. | 1:07:20 | |
And then, texts maybe attributed to Paul or others | 1:07:22 | |
saying, "Women should be silent in the church," | 1:07:26 | |
Elizabeth Schusler for your own said it's written about | 1:07:29 | |
all those texts that got into the new testament | 1:07:31 | |
of the Christian Scriptures about women not speaking | 1:07:35 | |
and not having authority over men. | 1:07:38 | |
But, those were all a reaction to women speaking | 1:07:39 | |
and claiming authority | 1:07:43 | |
and the power of that. | 1:07:46 | |
So, the backlash, the backlash comes | 1:07:50 | |
as it has happened now in terms of white supremacy, | 1:07:55 | |
and recent elections and what were seeing backlash | 1:07:59 | |
to the meaning of the first black president and stuff. | 1:08:05 | |
It's also a testimony to the power of change | 1:08:08 | |
that has been wrought. | 1:08:12 | |
And so, I felt not to minimize the suffering | 1:08:16 | |
I also thought this is an incredible testament, | 1:08:21 | |
if those of us who sometimes feel ourselves | 1:08:23 | |
on the margins of the church think that | 1:08:27 | |
the church has no more work in the world as a change agent | 1:08:32 | |
Re-Imagining is a testimony to something | 1:08:37 | |
very different than that. | 1:08:42 | |
Re-Imagining is really a testimony to the power, | 1:08:44 | |
the Earth shaking power of women Re-Imagining | 1:08:47 | |
and theology and spirituality. | 1:08:54 | |
I didn't think it was only bad news, | 1:08:59 | |
I mean that there was a lot of good news | 1:09:01 | |
sort of at the heart of the backlash. | 1:09:04 | |
There was one thing that happened, I feel it's insignificant | 1:09:13 | |
in contrast to what to some people experienced by way | 1:09:19 | |
of loss of jobs and so forth after Re-Imagining, | 1:09:23 | |
but I will say I just wanna tell this one story | 1:09:26 | |
of something at Leaven, | 1:09:30 | |
that my mother and I experienced as backlash, | 1:09:34 | |
tangible backlash from Re-Imagining. | 1:09:38 | |
We, in our work with Leaven, the non-profit that we | 1:09:42 | |
were directors of, we were invited to lead retreats | 1:09:48 | |
for clergy women in different parts of the country | 1:09:53 | |
and in different denominations. | 1:09:58 | |
And, a few months before Re-Imagining we got | 1:10:01 | |
an invitation from some RCA clergywomen, | 1:10:06 | |
Reform Church of America clergywomen. | 1:10:12 | |
And, I don't know if this is accurate, my memory is | 1:10:15 | |
that they were asking us to lead the first ever retreat | 1:10:18 | |
for RCA clergywomen. | 1:10:23 | |
That may not be true, they may have had prior ones, | 1:10:26 | |
but it was going to be a significant event for bringing, | 1:10:28 | |
because it was still in 1993, I don't know what | 1:10:32 | |
the percentage was, but it was a small percent | 1:10:36 | |
of all the clergy in the RCA were women. | 1:10:40 | |
And, they felt, many of them felt very isolated | 1:10:44 | |
in their churches in different parts of the country | 1:10:48 | |
and they were longing to come together. | 1:10:51 | |
We felt deeply honored. | 1:10:53 | |
That is not our denomination. | 1:10:55 | |
They had heard from other clergywomen about | 1:10:57 | |
the retreats that we lead and so they asked us to come. | 1:11:01 | |
They wanted us to provide leadership for | 1:11:04 | |
a two or three day retreat. | 1:11:09 | |
And, it was going to be I think it was at | 1:11:10 | |
Western Seminary in Holland, Michigan | 1:11:14 | |
which is an RCA seminary. | 1:11:17 | |
They were very excited about, they were calling it | 1:11:21 | |
Sisters in a Strange Land. | 1:11:23 | |
And, I kind of wondered about using that title because | 1:11:25 | |
that was the title we used for an event, | 1:11:28 | |
a retreat for Christian lesbians | 1:11:30 | |
we were holding annually. | 1:11:32 | |
So, I said, "now be careful, 'cause that's a," | 1:11:34 | |
They said, "Oh no, we just loved that | 1:11:36 | |
"Sisters in a Strange Land, that's how we feel | 1:11:38 | |
"within the RCA." | 1:11:41 | |
So it was, Sisters in a Strange Land, a retreat for | 1:11:43 | |
RCA clergywomen something like that. | 1:11:46 | |
Okay, fine, feel free to use the title. | 1:11:49 | |
It was gonna, I don't remember exactly when it was | 1:11:56 | |
gonna but several months, a few months after Re-Imagining. | 1:11:58 | |
Several weeks after Re-Imagining I get a phone call | 1:12:03 | |
from a representative from the commission for women | 1:12:07 | |
of the RCA, the Reform Church of America. | 1:12:13 | |
And she was, I think, located in New York. | 1:12:16 | |
And she said, "Hello Melanie, thank you for all | 1:12:19 | |
"the work you've done. | 1:12:23 | |
"We're providing financial support for Sisters | 1:12:25 | |
"in a Strange Land, that retreat that's going to happen. | 1:12:28 | |
"And, we thank you and your mother so much | 1:12:31 | |
"for all the work you've done | 1:12:34 | |
"in helping to design this but we have decided | 1:12:38 | |
"that we, on site, we're going to use other facilitators." | 1:12:43 | |
And so, I said, "Excuse me, | 1:12:50 | |
"are you calling me right now to say that | 1:12:56 | |
"we're being dismissed, fired? | 1:12:58 | |
"You're terminating a contract we have?" | 1:13:01 | |
She said, "yeah." | 1:13:07 | |
I said "Well, do the clergywomen who've been planning | 1:13:08 | |
"with us know about this?" | 1:13:11 | |
"Well, they will shortly." | 1:13:12 | |
- | Oh my goodness. | 1:13:15 |
- | Uh-huh. | |
And I said, "Could I ask you please what this is about?" | 1:13:17 | |
Now Sherry, I had a hunch but I wasn't going to | 1:13:23 | |
do her work for her. | 1:13:27 | |
I said, (laughs) | 1:13:28 | |
"Can I ask what is this abrupt announcement? | 1:13:30 | |
"We're very surprised, we're very excited to them. | 1:13:34 | |
"We're honored to have been asked. | 1:13:37 | |
"We've done some great, laid some great groundwork, | 1:13:39 | |
"got this thing designed with these clergywomen | 1:13:42 | |
"and why are you calling with this news?" | 1:13:46 | |
"Well, we just," | 1:13:50 | |
I don't know, she kind of tried | 1:13:55 | |
to walk around the edges and not name it. | 1:13:57 | |
I said, "I would like you to be, please, direct with me now. | 1:13:59 | |
"What's going on?" | 1:14:04 | |
And, she said, "Well, we are aware | 1:14:06 | |
"that you work with Clout." | 1:14:10 | |
I thought, "How in the world did she know this?" | 1:14:14 | |
And then, I was like, oh my goodness. | 1:14:16 | |
I'll bet there's some women from the Commission for Women | 1:14:19 | |
sitting at Re-Imagining when I began speaking. | 1:14:24 | |
This is my imagination, she didn't say all that. | 1:14:30 | |
This is my imagination that they thought to themselves | 1:14:31 | |
and sitting there, "We know that name Melanie Morrison, | 1:14:34 | |
"Oh we know that name, how do we know? | 1:14:36 | |
"Oh, my goodness | 1:14:38 | |
"she's one of the leaders of this retreat." | 1:14:44 | |
She finally said, I asked her, "Well, how do you | 1:14:49 | |
"know about Clout?" | 1:14:52 | |
And she goes, "Well, we know that you spoke | 1:14:54 | |
"at Re-Imagining and we know," | 1:14:57 | |
and then she said things like, | 1:14:58 | |
I have to be a little careful here. | 1:15:05 | |
But, this was 25 years ago. | 1:15:05 | |
She had actually, she said, | 1:15:08 | |
"We have to be really careful about | 1:15:11 | |
"we're going to have seminarians there. | 1:15:15 | |
"We need to protect our seminarians and so forth." | 1:15:18 | |
I said, "you don't even know what we're going to be | 1:15:21 | |
"presenting at this." | 1:15:25 | |
Anyway, so as soon as I got off the phone with her | 1:15:27 | |
I called the clergywoman who had been working | 1:15:32 | |
most closely with us, who had initially contacted us. | 1:15:35 | |
Then, she was enraged to hear, from me, | 1:15:38 | |
that wasn't the commission | 1:15:43 | |
and lodged a protest and took, I don't know | 1:15:45 | |
whether that retreat ever took place. | 1:15:50 | |
There was talk for a while among the clergywomen | 1:15:52 | |
about they had asked us, "Would you consider | 1:15:56 | |
"leading a retreat in exile in the same town | 1:16:00 | |
"that we'll just leave the commission there | 1:16:05 | |
"at the Seminary, we'll find a little location. | 1:16:07 | |
"And, we will exit that and leave them holding | 1:16:11 | |
"the bag financially. | 1:16:15 | |
"Would you lead a retreat?" | 1:16:17 | |
We said, "Sure, we'd do that with you." | 1:16:19 | |
And, that never came to pass. | 1:16:20 | |
And, I don't know what finally happened with that retreat. | 1:16:23 | |
That was one small piece of fall out. | 1:16:28 | |
But, I certainly | 1:16:33 | |
heard from all kinds of people throughout the country | 1:16:38 | |
in different denominations | 1:16:42 | |
about the backlash that was going on | 1:16:46 | |
and how my name was being invoked or Clout's was | 1:16:48 | |
and so forth. | 1:16:51 | |
And I'll just say it's kind of insignificant but | 1:16:52 | |
strange that what got attributed to me | 1:16:56 | |
in different places was actually sometimes | 1:17:01 | |
what I really said there fell out of | 1:17:05 | |
like what was said in the Christian Sentry | 1:17:10 | |
about what took place and the protests that | 1:17:13 | |
were being lodged add it that Melanie Morrison | 1:17:16 | |
prayed to Mauna, | 1:17:19 | |
M-a-u-n-a, our creator. | 1:17:21 | |
Now, I think that that was indeed a prayer | 1:17:24 | |
that was issued, but was not by me. | 1:17:26 | |
But, that kind of got attached to me and showed up | 1:17:29 | |
in lots of different publications | 1:17:32 | |
that I had said that prayer. | 1:17:34 | |
I in no way wanted to be dismissive of that | 1:17:36 | |
Earth centered prayer, as I remember it. | 1:17:40 | |
But, I did let it be known some places that | 1:17:45 | |
no that's not what I did, but here's the speech | 1:17:48 | |
I did give. | 1:17:51 | |
(laughs) | 1:17:52 | |
In the full text of wanting to carry our witness forth. | 1:17:54 | |
- | Wonderful, oh Melanie this is great. | 1:18:00 |
I was wondering, what do you think, I know it's | 1:18:04 | |
25 years later, almost, what do you think | 1:18:06 | |
is the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining | 1:18:08 | |
as we look back on it? | 1:18:11 | |
- | Well, I think that | 1:18:21 |
I know that I was so thrilled at the time | 1:18:28 | |
that different communities that were doing important | 1:18:34 | |
Re-Imagining work were brought together | 1:18:41 | |
in that one place. | 1:18:46 | |
So, women from the Philippians and from the continent | 1:18:51 | |
of Africa and from different geographical locations | 1:18:56 | |
also women of color, different communities of color | 1:19:01 | |
and white women doing feminist theology and such, | 1:19:05 | |
that we were in the same place sharing | 1:19:09 | |
more deeply, in some cases from each other | 1:19:14 | |
and the challenges that were being posed to each other. | 1:19:17 | |
I mean, that was a wonderful gift of Re-Imagining. | 1:19:23 | |
And, I think that | 1:19:31 | |
I know that I would hear in years afterwards | 1:19:36 | |
that the movement was continuing | 1:19:43 | |
because people, such as yourself, who would, | 1:19:45 | |
you were carrying on these Re-Imagining communities | 1:19:48 | |
so that new generations of women who were hungry | 1:19:54 | |
for Re-Imagining church | 1:20:00 | |
and Re-Imagining God, | 1:20:05 | |
Re-Imagining Jesus, Re-Imagining spirit | 1:20:07 | |
and so on and so forth, that there was a place | 1:20:10 | |
and a memory of a place | 1:20:13 | |
that they could feel some anchoring in. | 1:20:17 | |
So, I think that's been a tremendous contribution. | 1:20:20 | |
- | Thank you, a couple of final questions here. | 1:20:26 |
What do you think Re-Imagining means today? | 1:20:30 | |
And, I don't mean specifically the Re-Imagining community, | 1:20:32 | |
but what needs to be re-imagined today? | 1:20:35 | |
- | Oh my. | 1:20:46 |
(laughs) | ||
- | It's a tough question, I know. | 1:20:47 |
- | Yeah. | 1:20:50 |
- | Well, you're doing | |
in your Allies for Change it seems like you're working | 1:20:51 | |
to do those kind of changes. | 1:20:54 | |
- | Some of the work, I mean most of the work | 1:21:05 |
that I do with Allies for Change that is work | 1:21:08 | |
it's anti-racism education and consulting and so forth. | 1:21:13 | |
Most of it is done with colleagues of color | 1:21:18 | |
in multi-racial spaces. | 1:21:22 | |
I have also, for 23 years, been co-facilitating | 1:21:25 | |
something called Doing Our Own Work. | 1:21:32 | |
Fixed day, intensive, anti-racism seminar | 1:21:36 | |
for white people. | 1:21:42 | |
Because, it was our experience actually, | 1:21:46 | |
actually in 1994 we launched Doing Our Own Work. | 1:21:53 | |
So, about the same historical epoch, | 1:21:56 | |
and era as Re-Imagining. | 1:21:59 | |
We launched Doing Our Own Work at the encouragement | 1:22:02 | |
of colleagues and friends of color who said, | 1:22:06 | |
"I am just weary of educating white people. | 1:22:10 | |
"It's really time for you all to do your own work. | 1:22:14 | |
"But, also do your own work in helping each other | 1:22:18 | |
"move through the places where you so frequently | 1:22:22 | |
"get stuck, in places of denial, fear, | 1:22:24 | |
"greed, guilt, shame. | 1:22:28 | |
"That work is yours not ours. | 1:22:32 | |
"And yes, it's really important that you show up | 1:22:36 | |
"along side us, in solidarity with us, but how you | 1:22:40 | |
"show up is also very important. | 1:22:44 | |
"So, you all need to do some of that work | 1:22:48 | |
"to come up to speed, to dive deep. | 1:22:51 | |
"Ask, how do you feel about being white. | 1:22:54 | |
"What does it mean to be white?" | 1:22:58 | |
So, I feel like some of that | 1:23:00 | |
re-imagining, re-inventing what it means to be anti-racist, | 1:23:05 | |
white people to understand that racism is our history, | 1:23:11 | |
the history that our ancestors gave to birth | 1:23:16 | |
to white supremacy. | 1:23:19 | |
And that we do some really deep work | 1:23:21 | |
around re-imagining and this is | 1:23:25 | |
I am embodied and here I have many identities | 1:23:36 | |
in this body and one of them is that I am a white woman. | 1:23:40 | |
So, I re-present that | 1:23:48 | |
in every space I move into, and how I | 1:23:52 | |
re-present that matters profoundly. | 1:23:55 | |
So that's, I don't know if I have said it in the way | 1:24:01 | |
adequately, but that's some of the work | 1:24:05 | |
that's most important to me right now is to | 1:24:08 | |
first and foremost to dismantle structural racism | 1:24:15 | |
and the devastating toll it still has on communities | 1:24:22 | |
of color and people of color. | 1:24:26 | |
That's the most important work. | 1:24:28 | |
But also then, to be asking | 1:24:30 | |
how can we as white people show up in this struggle | 1:24:35 | |
in better ways | 1:24:41 | |
so that we might really be | 1:24:46 | |
co-conspirators and accomplices in this | 1:24:52 | |
work that is unfortunately, it is a lot, | 1:24:58 | |
it's so, so, so much work yet to be done. | 1:25:04 | |
- | Thank you, thank you. | 1:25:09 |
One last question, we have a Re-Imagining website | 1:25:11 | |
that is set up and it includes, you mentioned | 1:25:15 | |
listening to the cassettes. | 1:25:18 | |
We are in the process of digitizing all the conferences, | 1:25:20 | |
the first few are on there including 1993. | 1:25:24 | |
And, it includes the presenters and the rituals | 1:25:27 | |
so people can now listen to them. | 1:25:30 | |
We also have resources on there. | 1:25:33 | |
We have events, we're planning several celebrations | 1:25:35 | |
for 2018, which is the 25th anniversary. | 1:25:39 | |
And, I'm just wondering if you have thoughts about | 1:25:42 | |
what would be helpful to include in a website like this | 1:25:45 | |
resources or other things that might be useful to people? | 1:25:49 | |
- | Is this something I can get back to you? | 1:25:56 |
- | You sure can, yes, I kind of sprang that, absolutely yes. | 1:25:58 |
You don't need to answer right now. | 1:26:01 | |
- | I'd like to ponder that question. | 1:26:02 |
- | Sure, of course. | 1:26:04 |
- | And, I'd like to see what is there now and what | 1:26:05 |
you're fashioning and then maybe make suggestions, yes. | 1:26:08 | |
- | That would be wonderful I will email you the URL | 1:26:12 |
so you can kind of look at it and let me know | 1:26:16 | |
what you would suggest to include. | 1:26:18 | |
That would be wonderful. | 1:26:21 | |
And finally Melanie, is there anything we haven't discussed | 1:26:22 | |
that you would like to add? | 1:26:26 | |
- | I don't know of anything, no, I really have | 1:26:33 |
deeply appreciated this conversation | 1:26:37 | |
and the opportunity to search | 1:26:40 | |
for some of my files and to go into | 1:26:46 | |
the remembering the experience of being there. | 1:26:49 | |
So, it' been really good to remember what it meant | 1:26:54 | |
to me then and what it continues to mean. | 1:27:00 | |
So thank you, thanks for this invitation, Sherry. | 1:27:02 | |
- | Thank you, Melanie. | 1:27:06 |
- | Thank you for the work you're doing. | 1:27:07 |
I have just | 1:27:09 | |
completed a book that I spent | 1:27:13 | |
nearly 10 years writing, researching and writing. | 1:27:19 | |
It's going to be published by Duke University | 1:27:23 | |
Press next year. | 1:27:24 | |
It's historical narrative mostly, so I have spent | 1:27:28 | |
a lot of time in archives and my appreciation | 1:27:32 | |
for the people who archive materials | 1:27:37 | |
and for the fact that archives exist | 1:27:41 | |
and for archivists is enormous, and for historians. | 1:27:43 | |
In doing that work I'm just so grateful | 1:27:49 | |
and so I'm very grateful to you and others | 1:27:52 | |
for putting this together for our collective remembrance. | 1:27:55 | |
- | Yes thank you, and I have come to appreciate | 1:28:00 |
archivists and archivists as well. | 1:28:03 | |
What is the title of your book? | 1:28:04 | |
Does it have a title yet, Melanie? | 1:28:06 | |
- | Yes, it's called Murder on Shades Mountain: | 1:28:10 |
the Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson | 1:28:18 | |
and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham. | 1:28:22 | |
- | Oh, I did see that on the website. | 1:28:26 |
That sounds fascinating, Melanie, | 1:28:28 | |
I'll have to look for that. | 1:28:30 | |
- | Okay. | 1:28:32 |
- | Great. | |
I'm gonna turn off the recording now and so | 1:28:34 | |
just give me a second. | 1:28:37 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund