Gates, Mary
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- | And, Mary, thank you so much for doing this. | 0:01 |
I really appreciate it. | 0:03 | |
We're going to get some background first, | 0:04 | |
so if you could say your name. | 0:06 | |
- | Okay, I'm Mary Gates, I have been a long-time resident | 0:07 |
of Minnesota. | 0:10 | |
Lived here all my life. | 0:12 | |
- | I love it, go ahead. | 0:13 |
- | I was born in Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. | 0:16 |
- | Were you really? | 0:19 |
When was that Mary Gates? | 0:20 | |
- | Between Christmas and New Year's in 1934. | 0:23 |
- | Really. | 0:28 |
- | And people ask me if my parents | 0:29 |
got an income tax exemption. | 0:33 | |
And I said, No, in fact my father shoveled out grain cars | 0:36 | |
in order to raise money to pay for my hospitalization. | 0:40 | |
- | Is that right? | 0:44 |
- | Yeah. | 0:46 |
- | Oh my goodness! | 0:46 |
- | That was the heart of the depression. | 0:47 |
- | Yes. That's right. Yeah. Wow. | 0:49 |
- | Are you lay or clergy? | 0:54 |
- | I am a lay person. | 0:55 |
- | And the denomination? | 0:57 |
- | I am now a United Methodist. | 0:59 |
Initially when the church was the Methodist Church. | 1:02 | |
- | Right. | 1:06 |
- | But then through the mergers, | 1:07 |
we are now the United Methodist Church. | 1:08 | |
- | And you were telling me that you've been | 1:11 |
in the same church your whole life. | 1:12 | |
- | I have. | 1:14 |
- | The same congregation. | 1:15 |
- | The same congregation, Simpson United Methodist Church. | 1:17 |
It was founded in 1882, I wasn't there then yet. | 1:20 | |
But I became a member. | 1:28 | |
My parents were members there. | 1:30 | |
My grandmother was a member there. | 1:32 | |
And so, yeah, a long history. | 1:34 | |
There are quite a few of us | 1:36 | |
who have a long history at Simpson. | 1:39 | |
- | I love it. | 1:41 |
As we were saying, that's become less common. | 1:42 | |
Where did you go to school? | 1:46 | |
- | In Minneapolis I went to South High | 1:47 |
when it was the old South High. | 1:50 | |
And then I went to the University of Minnesota | 1:51 | |
and graduated from there. | 1:55 | |
- | Did you? | 1:57 |
What did you graduate, what was your degree? | 1:58 | |
- | Double major of Psychology and Sociology. | 1:59 |
- | Well, interesting. Wow. | 2:03 |
And what work or ministry were you doing at the time | 2:06 | |
of Re-Imagining? | 2:10 | |
- | Oh, let's see. | 2:11 |
What was I doing at the time of Re-Imagining. | 2:12 | |
I had very involved with United Methodist Women | 2:17 | |
and I was very active | 2:19 | |
with the Greater Minneapolis Girl Scout Council. | 2:22 | |
And I had leadership positions in all those organizations. | 2:26 | |
I was employed at that time | 2:34 | |
and when you look back on it, | 2:36 | |
you wonder how you had time to all these things, | 2:38 | |
but we always managed to do what we want to. | 2:41 | |
- | Yeah. | 2:43 |
And where were you employed again? | 2:44 | |
What were you doing? | 2:45 | |
- | I was, | 2:46 |
when my youngest child was in first grade, | 2:49 | |
I thought it would be fun to see if I could get a job. | 2:53 | |
If I would be interviewed if I could get a job. | 2:57 | |
And so I started looking through the want ads, | 3:00 | |
and I noticed that Metropolitan State University | 3:02 | |
was looking for, had positions open. | 3:06 | |
And so I went over to St. Paul to pick up a catalog. | 3:09 | |
Well, at that time, you know, they were very innovative. | 3:14 | |
And they didn't even have a catalog. | 3:17 | |
Because you put together individually designed programs. | 3:19 | |
And the position that was open | 3:24 | |
was in the Admissions office, | 3:27 | |
and our main task would be to build the student body. | 3:31 | |
And so I did apply | 3:37 | |
and then they called me one day | 3:40 | |
and they asked me to come in and meet with the President. | 3:42 | |
And I said, Well, I don't have a car available. | 3:45 | |
And he said, Well how do you expect to do this job | 3:50 | |
if you don't have a car? | 3:54 | |
Well, I said, I would expect more than an hour's notice. | 3:57 | |
(interviewer laughing loudly) | 4:00 | |
But I needed a car. | 4:03 | |
But I borrowed a car from my good friend, | 4:05 | |
my Girl Scout co-leader, | 4:09 | |
and got over to the interview | 4:11 | |
to meet with Dr. Sweet. | 4:12 | |
And Dr. Sweet was a wonderful man. | 4:14 | |
And I was given the position. | 4:17 | |
So I answered the question, | 4:20 | |
Can I get a job? | 4:21 | |
And I was with them for 21 years. | 4:23 | |
- | Really. | 4:25 |
Doing that same job? | 4:27 | |
- | Doing that same job. | 4:28 |
And we were recruiting students. | 4:31 | |
I called building the student body, | 4:34 | |
but we were recruiting students | 4:36 | |
and so it was getting the word out, | 4:38 | |
finding people who had two years of college, | 4:40 | |
wanted to finish their degree | 4:43 | |
and could put together this individually designed program. | 4:45 | |
And Metro State has evolved over the years. | 4:50 | |
We would see all kinds of new things come through. | 4:55 | |
And they would say, | 4:58 | |
Oh, you're just resistant to change. | 4:59 | |
And we'd say, | 5:01 | |
No, it's a bad idea. | 5:02 | |
(interviewer laughs aloud) | 5:04 | |
but it was wonderful working, | 5:07 | |
a wonderful climate to work in there. | 5:08 | |
And then I was very active with United Methodist Women. | 5:12 | |
I did a lot of things with them. | 5:16 | |
Eventually when on to be elected | 5:20 | |
to be the Jurisdictional President | 5:24 | |
for United Methodist Women | 5:26 | |
in this upper Midwest Region. | 5:28 | |
And then that put me on the board | 5:30 | |
and then the next four years | 5:32 | |
I was on the board in my own right. | 5:39 | |
I was elected to be on the board in my own right, | 5:42 | |
not by virtue of that office. | 5:44 | |
And also selected to be | 5:46 | |
one of the Women's Division Directors | 5:49 | |
to serve on the General Church Board, | 5:51 | |
General Board of Global Missions. | 5:56 | |
And then, here we're coming up to the twelfth year, | 5:58 | |
or would be the eighth year, | 6:03 | |
yeah, eighth year, | 6:07 | |
and I still had ten year left to serve | 6:09 | |
on the General Board | 6:14 | |
and I was re-elected to serve that term. | 6:16 | |
That's very unusual to serve on National Boards | 6:23 | |
for twelve years. | 6:26 | |
So I was quite blessed to be able to do that. | 6:27 | |
- | Oh, Mary, that is wonderful. | 6:29 |
- | It was fun. | 6:31 |
- | Yeah. | 6:33 |
- | So I said, you know, | 6:35 |
you can do it if you're organized | 6:36 | |
and you have someone to drive you to the airport. | 6:38 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 6:40 | |
- | I'm noticing this pattern of driving here. | 6:42 |
That's great. | 6:44 | |
How did you first become aware of feminist theology? | 6:47 | |
- | I grew up in a very progressive church. | 6:54 |
- | In Simpson United Methodist. | 6:57 |
- | In Simpson United Methodist Church. | 6:58 |
And I think a very strong influence on me | 7:03 | |
would have been Wilbur Gross. | 7:05 | |
I was active in conference youth | 7:09 | |
and Gordy Lund and Perry Haltine | 7:16 | |
and Bob Bailey, | 7:20 | |
I mean just a lot of, lot of clergy | 7:21 | |
who are no longer living. | 7:24 | |
And many of them | 7:26 | |
dying quite young. | 7:30 | |
By the time-- | 7:33 | |
I lost both of my parents by the time I was 24. | 7:34 | |
And so I had lost | 7:37 | |
five of the most significant people in my life | 7:40 | |
by the time I was that old. | 7:44 | |
Because at the University of Minnesota | 7:46 | |
there was a group for women, | 7:49 | |
Methodist women on four-year colleges, | 7:51 | |
which it sounds like a sorority | 7:54 | |
but it was more like a club. | 7:55 | |
But it's Kappa Phi | 7:57 | |
and it had been around since about 1917 or something. | 7:58 | |
My mother was actually a member | 8:04 | |
at the University of Minnesota when she was on campus, | 8:06 | |
at that time in K appa Phi. | 8:09 | |
But the adult sponsor of that group had died, | 8:11 | |
my grandmother had died, | 8:14 | |
all of these leaders of the youth group had died. | 8:16 | |
And now I lost both my parents within a year. | 8:20 | |
And so I grew up fast. | 8:26 | |
- | Yes. | 8:27 |
- | So I guess I was thinking that your question | 8:31 |
about feminist theology. | 8:34 | |
Without ever calling it that, | 8:37 | |
to come to Re-Imagining. | 8:40 | |
through United Methodist Women certainly | 8:43 | |
has an undertone of feminist theology. | 8:49 | |
And Craig, who was then responsible for spiritual growth | 8:54 | |
for the Women's Division, United Methodist Women, | 8:59 | |
arranged to have the Spiritual Growth Retreat | 9:04 | |
for the Women's Division Board, | 9:09 | |
to come to Re-Imagining. | 9:11 | |
- | Is that right? | 9:13 |
The first conference. | ||
- | Yes. | 9:16 |
And so for them, | 9:17 | |
we're kind of jumping into more | 9:19 | |
Re-Imagining stuff if that's okay. | 9:21 | |
- | That's fine, yes. | 9:22 |
Absolutely. | 9:23 | |
- | You could sort this out in order later. | 9:24 |
- | That's right, no problem. | 9:26 |
This is great. | 9:27 | |
- | So this was a real, | 9:31 |
kind of a dilemma after the fact, | 9:34 | |
because here were directors from the Women's Division | 9:36 | |
who had attended Re-Imagining, | 9:40 | |
and Craig had been the key promoter | 9:43 | |
of them coming to do it. | 9:47 | |
But Joy Soul | 9:50 | |
who was then General Secretary | 9:53 | |
of the Women's Division, | 9:55 | |
it was called the Women's Division | 9:56 | |
because in the General Board of Global Ministries | 9:57 | |
you had international, national and women's. | 10:00 | |
Okay, and that's no longer true. | 10:03 | |
They now are a separate entity as United Methodist Women. | 10:06 | |
Not part of the General Board, | 10:12 | |
a separate entity of a membership organization, | 10:14 | |
they call themselves. | 10:17 | |
And the benefit of that is that the United Methodist Women | 10:18 | |
now have a seat on the common table. | 10:23 | |
Which they didn't have before. | 10:26 | |
They always had to have their representation | 10:28 | |
through the General Board. | 10:29 | |
- | Could you please explain what common table is? | 10:33 |
- | Common table was their then, | 10:39 |
I can't guarantee that it's currently in the structure, | 10:40 | |
the system structure. | 10:45 | |
But the idea would be that the common table | 10:46 | |
would have representatives from Board of Discipleship, | 10:49 | |
Board of Global Ministries, | 10:52 | |
Board of Higher Education | 10:55 | |
all of the network that comprised | 10:56 | |
the organization structure of the denomination. | 11:00 | |
And then they would meet as a body | 11:03 | |
for coordination and implementation. | 11:08 | |
So when Re-Imagining happened, | 11:13 | |
Joy Soul, who was then General Secretary | 11:20 | |
of the Women's Division | 11:22 | |
nor Carolyn Johnson, who was the Board Chair at that time, | 11:23 | |
were there. | 11:28 | |
And they were put in a very awkward position | 11:30 | |
of having to defend why United Methodist Women | 11:32 | |
had been engaged in this controversial conference. | 11:37 | |
And those of us who were at the conference | 11:42 | |
couldn't understand why this gentle, loving, | 11:46 | |
peace-promoting event that we had relished in, | 11:50 | |
was being maligned. | 11:58 | |
Why was this happening? | 12:01 | |
And it was so controversial in fact, | 12:02 | |
that it was on national news. | 12:09 | |
Some of the theologians that had been presenters | 12:13 | |
were on national, | 12:16 | |
Nightline. | 12:20 | |
Nightline was on | 12:20 | |
and did this whole thing on Re-Imagining. | 12:24 | |
We probably should have progressed to that | 12:30 | |
in a more orderly fashion, | 12:31 | |
but what comes to mind right now | 12:33 | |
is that | 12:35 | |
we only planned one conference. | 12:38 | |
And after the criticism started piling up, | 12:42 | |
we made a determined decision | 12:49 | |
to not argue about it. | 12:52 | |
We didn't take the bait. | 12:57 | |
But we felt that if we had something good, | 12:59 | |
let's keep doing what we're doing that's good | 13:03 | |
and not get sucked into this conflict. | 13:06 | |
- | I'm really interested in that decision. | 13:15 |
Was that than easy decision to make? | 13:17 | |
Was there a lot of discussion around | 13:19 | |
how to deal with it? | 13:21 | |
Do you recall? | 13:23 | |
- | There was a lot of discussion | 13:25 |
but I would say we knew what we had done. | 13:26 | |
And you can never let your critics tell you what you did. | 13:31 | |
And so there was confidence in that. | 13:35 | |
That was like the original committee, | 13:41 | |
making that decision. | 13:45 | |
- | The committee that had planned in 1993 conference? | 13:47 |
- | Yes. Mm-mmm. | 13:48 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Yeah, making that decision. | 13:50 |
And a lot of those wonderful people | 13:54 | |
are no longer with us. | 13:56 | |
- | Yeah. | 13:57 |
- | Yeah. | 13:58 |
I think at the time | 14:07 | |
we kind of knew that | 14:09 | |
as with-- | 14:14 | |
there's an ultraconservative faction | 14:16 | |
in the denomination. | 14:18 | |
And they don't necessarily confront issues directly | 14:25 | |
but they will use, | 14:28 | |
like they used Re-Imagining | 14:30 | |
to prove their point. | 14:32 | |
Faye Short, who was editor of a magazine, | 14:36 | |
at least representing the women's portion of the magazine, | 14:41 | |
would come under the guise of, | 14:45 | |
Oh, I'm going to Hamlin to see if my children | 14:48 | |
should go there for college. | 14:51 | |
And she wanted to come to the event, | 14:53 | |
and be a journalist | 14:58 | |
and sit at the table as a participant. | 15:00 | |
And the committee made the decision | 15:06 | |
that you can wear one hat at a time. | 15:08 | |
If you want to be a journalist, | 15:11 | |
you will stay in the press quarters. | 15:13 | |
Stay in the press box. | 15:16 | |
And if you want to be a participant, | 15:18 | |
then you must not be writing about it, | 15:20 | |
exploiting it as a journalistic critique. | 15:24 | |
So she chose to sit at the table | 15:32 | |
and so the decision that the committee made, | 15:35 | |
which I thought was wonderful. | 15:38 | |
We had her sit with Jeanne Audrey Powers. | 15:39 | |
Because we figured that if anything came up, | 15:43 | |
nobody could know how to handle that | 15:46 | |
better than Jeanne Audrey would. | 15:48 | |
- | Yes. Absolutely. | 15:49 |
- | Do you know her? | 15:50 |
- | I do. I do. | 15:51 |
- | And she's a clergywoman. | 15:52 |
- | Now Faye did end up writing about the conference, | 15:55 |
didn't she? | 15:58 | |
- | Mm-mmm. Faye did. | 15:59 |
- | Yeah. | 16:00 |
- | In fact, we jokingly said they wrote the review | 16:01 |
before they went to the event. | 16:04 | |
- | Why do you say that? | 16:06 |
- | Because it's boilerplate. | 16:07 |
They had items they wanted to prove. | 16:12 | |
And so they looked for things | 16:16 | |
that they felt would prove their argument. | 16:18 | |
- | Yeah. What were some of those things? | 16:21 |
- | Paganism, Sophia, | 16:32 |
I'm not the person to talk about the actual | 16:38 | |
theology of this, | 16:42 | |
but secretionism or something like that. | 16:43 | |
- | Synchretism? | 16:45 |
- | Yes. Synchretism. | 16:46 |
And there were just, | 16:51 | |
but mainly to discredit, | 16:53 | |
yeah, I think if you were to say most of it, | 16:58 | |
probably was the Sophia language | 17:01 | |
which is so interesting because Sophia's show up | 17:06 | |
in the Old Testament | 17:11 | |
as an aspect of God. | 17:13 | |
Yeah, it was a little hard. | 17:17 | |
The only thing that, | 17:19 | |
maybe it was good because it made us think through | 17:25 | |
why we were doing what we were doing. | 17:27 | |
That may have been a good thing | 17:29 | |
about that happening. | 17:31 | |
- | And what, when you say you thought, | 17:32 |
when you though through why you were doing | 17:34 | |
what you were doing, | 17:35 | |
what did you come to as a conclusion? | 17:36 | |
- | This is a bigger thing. | 17:47 |
- | Yes, good. | 17:49 |
- | One of the committee members was Jo Ringenberg. | 17:50 |
And Jo Ringenberg would have been the person | 17:53 | |
who would be like the business manager. | 17:56 | |
It was treasurer, business manager, | 18:00 | |
and I was like her sidekick. | 18:03 | |
We worked together very, very closely. | 18:05 | |
We sought out venues for the conferences, | 18:09 | |
we approved room space, | 18:13 | |
we did all of that negotiating. | 18:15 | |
And we worked with the Convention Bureau | 18:18 | |
to find various venues | 18:20 | |
each subsequent conference. | 18:22 | |
I think the first one, Sally Hill was still very involved. | 18:26 | |
And Sally Hill was a staff member | 18:30 | |
of the Minnesota Council of Churches. | 18:32 | |
And she had, she was given the time | 18:34 | |
to work on this conference then. | 18:37 | |
And she did a lot of this then, | 18:39 | |
but subsequent ones | 18:41 | |
Jo Ringenberg did a lot of that | 18:43 | |
and I was working with her all the time. | 18:46 | |
So when it comes to the actual conference, | 18:50 | |
we were managing the logistics, not attending. | 18:53 | |
It's a little different perspective that I had, | 18:59 | |
but I had come through this wonderful experience | 19:02 | |
of sitting around the table, | 19:06 | |
planning this event. | 19:07 | |
And Sue Syde Martin would pull together | 19:09 | |
the most wonderful, inspirational worship formats. | 19:12 | |
We talked through a lot of things, | 19:18 | |
like the use of the round table, | 19:19 | |
and the symbolism of the round table. | 19:22 | |
The participatory nature of those attending, | 19:25 | |
rather than just sitting at a lecture. | 19:28 | |
There was paper on the table, | 19:31 | |
which meant that you could doodle and write, | 19:32 | |
and do artwork and wonderful creative things. | 19:34 | |
So it was multi-sensory. | 19:38 | |
So those things were deeply ingrained in me, | 19:41 | |
even though at the conference we were doing the legwork | 19:45 | |
to be sure everything happened. | 19:49 | |
So I'm not as good a person to talk to | 19:52 | |
about the theological perspectives, | 19:55 | |
as I am the logistics | 19:58 | |
and how we financed the thing. | 20:05 | |
- | Yeah, and that's really important. | 20:07 |
- | 'Cause it wouldn't have happened otherwise. | 20:10 |
- | No, it would not. | 20:11 |
Actually, could we go back for just a minute? | 20:13 | |
How did you originally get involved in Re-Imagining? | 20:14 | |
- | That's really nice. | 20:17 |
I've often thought I should call Sue Dunlap | 20:19 | |
and tell her where this string is taking me. | 20:22 | |
I think Sue Dunlap was a United Methodist person | 20:24 | |
who was involved with COSROW. | 20:27 | |
And the whole thing came out | 20:31 | |
of the World Council of Churches, | 20:32 | |
Year of Churches and Solidarity with Women. | 20:36 | |
And so when people try to imply | 20:41 | |
that we just conjured this up out of nothing, | 20:43 | |
it came out of the real Council of Churches. | 20:46 | |
And I think COSROW was asked to identify people | 20:50 | |
from our denomination who might like to serve | 20:55 | |
in this capacity. | 20:58 | |
And I didn't know Sue that well, | 21:00 | |
but she said, Mary, if you're willing to do this, | 21:03 | |
I think you should do it because you know people | 21:06 | |
to get other volunteers to do this. | 21:08 | |
And so there were denominational representatives | 21:11 | |
from many different denominations | 21:17 | |
at that original planning table. | 21:19 | |
And we went through everything like, | 21:22 | |
the Re-Imagining name came out of that group, | 21:25 | |
and there's a lot of history about all of that | 21:28 | |
I think in the Re-Imagining and Remembering book. | 21:31 | |
- | It is. Yes. | 21:34 |
Re-Imaging became Re-Imagining. | 21:35 | |
- | That's right, that's right. | 21:37 |
And it was just kind of a typo thing, | 21:39 | |
you know like when you try to write on the blackboard | 21:41 | |
you can't spell. | 21:43 | |
It was like it was supposed to be. | 21:47 | |
And we had wonderful writers and wordsmiths, | 21:51 | |
my role, | 21:57 | |
Randy Nelson's a Lutheran | 22:00 | |
and if you understand denominations a little bit, | 22:03 | |
you'll understand that (crosstalk with interviewer) | 22:07 | |
in general. | 22:10 | |
I said to the table, you just tell me what you want | 22:14 | |
and I'll see that it happens. | 22:17 | |
I'll see that it gets done. | 22:19 | |
And he just started laughing | 22:21 | |
because that's the way Lutheran's think | 22:23 | |
about, think about Methodists. | 22:26 | |
(laughing) | 22:28 | |
- | I love that. | 22:29 |
- | So Episcopalians are figuring out how to word it | 22:31 |
and make it a beautiful liturgy, | 22:34 | |
and the Lutherans are worrying about the theology, | 22:36 | |
and the Methodists are doing it. | 22:38 | |
So that's kind of where ... | 22:40 | |
- | That is great. | 22:44 |
- | It's something that you don't forget, | 22:45 |
those little kind of relational things about, | 22:47 | |
we were so close that whole committee. | 22:50 | |
- | Yeah. And so you said you were Jo Ringenberg's sidekick. | 22:55 |
Could you say a little bit more about what you did? | 22:58 | |
You got the venue, say some more about what your job was. | 23:00 | |
- | When my husband and I take trips, | 23:08 |
I always say, well, he knows where we went | 23:09 | |
and I know how we felt. | 23:11 | |
But I did a lot of work around fundraising. | 23:16 | |
We would ask people how they wanted to help us, | 23:21 | |
and there was a woman in Wisconsin who said | 23:24 | |
she'd be glad to write letters for fundraising | 23:27 | |
or whatever, | 23:30 | |
and so I contacted her and asked her | 23:30 | |
if she'd write a letter for us. | 23:33 | |
Then I was responsible for seeing that it got printed | 23:36 | |
and distributed. | 23:39 | |
- | Who did you send the fundraising letters to? | 23:41 |
- | Well, initially we were getting funding | 23:43 |
from denominations and I wasn't involved at that point. | 23:46 | |
That would have been Sally. | 23:51 | |
But later on when we had a constituency, | 23:52 | |
we were looking for funding from our constituents. | 23:58 | |
- | When the community was formed. | 24:01 |
- | Yes. | 24:03 |
- | After the co-- | |
Yeah, got it. | 24:04 | |
- | And I'd take this bulk mailing to the post office | 24:05 |
and, if you've ever done a bulk mailing, | 24:08 | |
you know that you have to get everything organized | 24:10 | |
by zip code and everything, | 24:14 | |
and I'd get volunteers to help do that. | 24:15 | |
But the postal guy said, | 24:18 | |
I got one suggestion for you, | 24:20 | |
you have a member | 24:23 | |
in every zip code, | 24:26 | |
not every zip code, but every state I guess, | 24:29 | |
every state in the U.S., | 24:31 | |
why don't you get them to move closer together. | 24:34 | |
(both laughing) | 24:36 | |
- | That's another great story. | 24:39 |
- | Yeah. But I think it just shows how our network, | 24:42 |
how extensive our network was. | 24:46 | |
- | Yes. Yes. | 24:48 |
- | And there was a real hunger there. | 24:50 |
Part of fundraising then was to have commemoratives. | 24:53 | |
And so | 24:59 | |
people did want to have memorabilia | 25:01 | |
from the conference that they went to. | 25:03 | |
And so one of the things that I did was | 25:06 | |
to develop the products and arrange to have those sold | 25:10 | |
at the conference. | 25:14 | |
And-- | 25:16 | |
- | How did you develop those? | 25:17 |
How did you work that out? | 25:19 | |
'Cause they're great, Mary. | 25:20 | |
- | Yeah, they are good | 25:22 |
and I'm glad you took some pictures of them. | 25:25 | |
- | Yeah, me, too. | 25:26 |
- | I think that's the best way, | 25:27 |
they tell you that now that when you're old like I am, | 25:29 | |
that you should take pictures of your treasures | 25:32 | |
and not try to save the treasures. | 25:35 | |
Just save the pictures. | 25:37 | |
Because of my long-time involvement with the Girl Scouts, | 25:40 | |
I knew that they had unique things made | 25:42 | |
for the conference. | 25:45 | |
And so I contacted the person who managed the store there | 25:47 | |
to get the name of the contact person. | 25:51 | |
And she was so good, | 25:53 | |
I would meet with her, | 25:55 | |
and we would talk about options | 25:57 | |
and she would come up with new ideas | 25:59 | |
and so we had all-- | 26:01 | |
I think I have more things than I even brought today. | 26:03 | |
- | Say about what some of those things were. | 26:08 |
- | Well, one thing that comes to mind, of course, | 26:11 |
was the conference bag. | 26:13 | |
The canvas bag that we used. | 26:15 | |
And then that became such a hot item, | 26:19 | |
that I sold one afterwards for like double, | 26:21 | |
forty dollars or something, | 26:25 | |
because they wanted it so much. | 26:27 | |
I just wanted, | 26:30 | |
the man said, I just want to go | 26:31 | |
and take it to the critics | 26:32 | |
and flaunt it in front of them. | 26:34 | |
But we had T-shirts, and we had sweatshirts, | 26:38 | |
and for the retreat, | 26:42 | |
the planning team-- | 26:47 | |
this was farther down the line, | 26:48 | |
but from the very beginning, | 26:51 | |
but we had a planning retreat | 26:52 | |
and we had a surprise night shirt for everybody there. | 26:53 | |
And it was called the Re-Imagining Dream Team. | 26:58 | |
And that was very popular. | 27:02 | |
- | And journals, and pens, and water bottles. | 27:05 |
- | Yeah, one person that would be good for you to talk to | 27:09 |
is Jean Justice, who, | 27:12 | |
I don't know if her name has come up before, | 27:16 | |
- | It has. That's a very good recommendation. | 27:17 |
- | And she put together the journal for us. | 27:20 |
And then the artwork was another serendipity. | 27:24 | |
I don't even remember if it got written in here. | 27:29 | |
I don't know how I ran into this person, | 27:38 | |
- | The cover art? | 27:48 |
- | Yeah, the 26th Street Artist Program | 27:50 |
is a (mumbles) creative arts program for adults | 27:53 | |
who are experiencing mental illness. | 27:57 | |
And so they had a lot of artwork | 28:00 | |
and we just cut it up | 28:03 | |
and used por-- | 28:06 | |
so there are at least four or five different pieces of art. | 28:07 | |
But I thought that was just a wonderful, | 28:13 | |
- | Oh, that is. | 28:15 |
- | kind of a holistic thing about | 28:17 |
how the whole world works together. | 28:18 | |
- | Yes. And there was so much attention to that | 28:20 |
in the whole Re-Imagining. | 28:23 | |
Thinking about all details like that. | 28:24 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 28:26 |
We knew that at the World Conference | 28:28 | |
we were going to have women coming | 28:30 | |
from the tropics | 28:31 | |
and equatorial parts of the world, | 28:35 | |
and so | 28:39 | |
socks and gloves and scarves and coats | 28:43 | |
were collected for people to use while we were here. | 28:46 | |
Because they would come with bare feet and sandals, | 28:50 | |
and it was, was it November? | 28:53 | |
- | It was. | 28:55 |
- | I mean it was very cold here. | 28:56 |
Even for us. | 28:58 | |
So it was a very, very important thing. | 28:59 | |
One of the themes was around accessibility. | 29:03 | |
And that's when we commissioned | 29:07 | |
the logo to be made, | 29:10 | |
by a silversmith, into a pin. | 29:13 | |
And I have one extra one of those, too, | 29:16 | |
that can be-- | 29:18 | |
We'll have to have a sale, an auction some time | 29:19 | |
- | Great idea. | 29:22 |
- | And raise money with that. | 29:23 |
Somebody would like to have that, I'm sure. | 29:25 | |
- | Yes. Actually, I haven't heard anyone talk about this, | 29:27 |
do you know how the logo was designed? | 29:30 | |
What the story is behind that? | 29:33 | |
- | I think they did work with a graphic artist. | 29:35 |
- | Okay, yes. | 29:38 |
- | And then | 29:39 |
I always say that that's the, | 29:43 | |
your spirit being released | 29:47 | |
and we no longer can be contained in a box. | 29:49 | |
I don't remember now, | 29:55 | |
my house, | 30:00 | |
my kids called it Goodwill East. | 30:03 | |
It's like an archeological dig. | 30:09 | |
And I have a lot of, | 30:12 | |
I don't throw anything away, | 30:15 | |
and I should really get it out | 30:17 | |
because I probably have things that no one else | 30:19 | |
has given you, | 30:22 | |
because if you sort things immediately, | 30:24 | |
you throw away some really valuable things. | 30:28 | |
- | It's true. | 30:31 |
- | And when there's some seasoning in your materials, | 30:32 |
there's probably some language about the message, | 30:40 | |
with that one. | 30:45 | |
Even the vessels one, | 30:49 | |
it's still that sort of springing forth, | 30:53 | |
- | Yes, the Re-Imagining, | 30:56 |
from vision to vessel, yes. | 31:00 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Creating communities of justice. | 31:02 |
Yeah, you're right. | 31:05 | |
Interesting. | 31:06 | |
Not the same but similar, yeah. | 31:07 | |
You know I was going to ask you, | 31:10 | |
you said you were busy during the 1993 conference. | 31:11 | |
You were doing, what were you doing with logistics? | 31:13 | |
What was your responsibility? | 31:15 | |
- | Oh gosh, let's see. | 31:17 |
Well, I was responsible for getting somebody | 31:21 | |
who would be in the office and mimeograph stuff. | 31:23 | |
We had, you're always troubleshooting | 31:29 | |
when you're doing something like that | 31:31 | |
because you have microphones in rooms | 31:34 | |
and lots and lots of rooms. | 31:36 | |
Yeah. | 31:40 | |
Was that the one that was ... | 31:44 | |
Yeah, when I was getting ready to come here, | 31:47 | |
I thought about how many miles we walked. | 31:51 | |
Because the Minneapolis Convention Center | 31:53 | |
is a pretty big place. | 31:56 | |
- | It is. | 31:57 |
- | And then we had all these breakout rooms. | 31:58 |
- | Right. | 32:00 |
- | And of course one of the biggest brouhahas | 32:03 |
was about lesbians coming out, | 32:07 | |
and that was so painful | 32:12 | |
because I thought, | 32:13 | |
they're just being honest about who they are. | 32:17 | |
And maybe for the first time in their life | 32:20 | |
they can publicly be honest about who they are. | 32:22 | |
- | Were you one of the people that consulted | 32:26 |
about whether to have that happen or not? | 32:28 | |
- | If it came before the committee, | 32:34 |
it came before the committee. | 32:35 | |
- | Yeah. | 32:36 |
- | It would not have necessarily come under my, | 32:38 |
well, the only way it would have impacted fundraising, | 32:46 | |
is if it had been a deterrent. | 32:49 | |
And actually we probably gained more sympathy | 32:51 | |
than being a deterrent. | 32:55 | |
I was just trying to think what ... | 33:03 | |
You know one thing I do know, | 33:11 | |
is I cost them money because we had these, | 33:12 | |
communication systems were more like walkie-talkies. | 33:17 | |
And I left one in one room and so we had to pay for that. | 33:21 | |
(laughing) Oh, Mary. | 33:24 | |
- | Now were you involved in the community | 33:28 |
the whole ten years? | 33:29 | |
- | Yeah. | 33:31 |
- | I thought you were. | 33:31 |
And so did you keep playing kind of that same role? | 33:32 | |
- | Yeah, that same role. | 33:35 |
- | Yes. | 33:36 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 33:37 |
- | It was great to have somebody with your experience | 33:39 |
do it all those ten years. | 33:41 | |
- | Yeah, that's probably true. | 33:44 |
Jo and I used to kind of talk about that, | 33:46 | |
that they'd probably have to force us out. | 33:48 | |
- | They would never want to. | 33:53 |
- | We were performing. | 33:56 |
We were doing what needed to be done. | 33:58 | |
- | Yes. | 34:00 |
- | Well, the other thing that I spent a lot of time on, | 34:00 |
you wondered what's involved with logistics. | 34:03 | |
Nancy Chen was at one of the conferences | 34:06 | |
and she's an artist | 34:10 | |
and as she was working on this artwork | 34:11 | |
right at the conference, | 34:16 | |
and then afterwards, | 34:18 | |
there was artwork from Nancy Chen | 34:21 | |
that we were going to have made to be sold | 34:25 | |
at another conference. | 34:28 | |
And her son was going to do the setup, | 34:32 | |
the graphics and everything | 34:36 | |
because she's in California | 34:37 | |
and we're having them printed here. | 34:39 | |
But printers do all of that by computer now, | 34:42 | |
because colors have numbers | 34:44 | |
and, you know, the whole thing could be done that way. | 34:46 | |
So, yeah, I spent a lot of time | 34:50 | |
trying to get her son to do it. | 34:53 | |
And he just kept putting it off and putting it off, | 34:54 | |
and putting it off, | 34:57 | |
and finally I had to call her and I said, | 34:58 | |
Nancy, your son does not realize how important this is. | 35:01 | |
And so she called him and, | 35:06 | |
he said, Mom, I'm sorry. | 35:10 | |
(laughter drowns out rest of sentence) | 35:12 | |
I just thought it was another commission or ... | 35:13 | |
(laughter drowns out rest of sentence) | 35:15 | |
- | And so what came of that? | 35:17 |
We had copies of paint-- | 35:18 | |
- | They were big like this. | 35:20 |
And we sold them, | 35:22 | |
they were quite lovely. | 35:24 | |
I remember writing the description for it, | 35:25 | |
which is really a joke, | 35:28 | |
because I'm not a writer. | 35:28 | |
But I said, and the colors are like California sunset. | 35:31 | |
(both laughing) | 35:33 | |
- | I love it. | 35:38 |
- | When you don't know what you're doing, | 35:40 |
you can do anything. | 35:41 | |
- | You know you were talking earlier about the backlash, | 35:46 |
and I'm just wondering | 35:47 | |
how it affected you personally. | 35:48 | |
What happened to you? | 35:50 | |
- | Yeah, well, | 35:53 |
at the time I was on | 35:57 | |
the National Board for United Methodist Women. | 36:00 | |
And | 36:03 | |
the more conservative factions in our church | 36:07 | |
were not happy about Re-Imagining at all. | 36:10 | |
And in one of their fundraising letters | 36:14 | |
they talked about how horrible it was | 36:19 | |
that I was on the Women's Division Board | 36:22 | |
and involved with this Re-Imagining conference. | 36:26 | |
And that the Women's Division should take steps | 36:29 | |
to have me removed from the board. | 36:33 | |
Well, there's absolutely no basis for that | 36:37 | |
or grounds to do that | 36:41 | |
or even a process to do that. | 36:43 | |
And we just basically ignored it, | 36:46 | |
but what irritated me, | 36:50 | |
is that they were using my name | 36:52 | |
to raise money for their cause. | 36:54 | |
And just like our original decision to not take the bait, | 36:58 | |
I never challenged them on it. | 37:03 | |
What would it have done? | 37:06 | |
- | Right. | 37:07 |
- | But yeah, I thought that was pretty personal, | 37:10 |
to use my name that way. | 37:13 | |
- | Absolutely. | 37:15 |
- | When Joy Soul was no longer Executive Director, | 37:22 |
she retired, | 37:25 | |
then Janice Love came in, | 37:26 | |
and Janice Love is now like the Dean of Students | 37:28 | |
at a seminary that's in Atlanta, | 37:31 | |
- | Emory, or? | 37:37 |
- | (Mary whispering) Yeah, I'm not sure. | 37:40 |
I can track that down. | 37:41 | |
The Women's Division went over backwards | 37:46 | |
to have dialog | 37:49 | |
and meet with people | 37:51 | |
and do everything they could | 37:54 | |
to get this out in the open, | 37:55 | |
and get it resolved. | 37:58 | |
Well, it never could be resolved, | 37:59 | |
because once it was resolved, | 38:01 | |
it wouldn't be an issue. | 38:04 | |
So they had to keep the issue alive. | 38:05 | |
But that's all taped, | 38:11 | |
and I need to get a hold of somebody, | 38:13 | |
the Executive Director now is Harriet Olsen | 38:18 | |
and I need to talk to Harriet to see | 38:21 | |
if you need to have access to those films. | 38:24 | |
- | That would be great. | 38:28 |
Exactly what are these films again? | 38:29 | |
- | It would be the dialog between the Women's Division | 38:31 |
and Good News and Faye Short. | 38:35 | |
- | Oh, that would be really important, yes. | 38:37 |
- | Because it's like banned in Boston. | 38:42 |
We have to give them credit. | 38:48 | |
They were the ones, | 38:50 | |
well it's like Trump, | 38:51 | |
they're the ones that gave us the publicity. | 38:52 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 38:54 |
And that made the community happen. | 38:56 | |
- | That's right. | 38:58 |
That's right. | 38:59 | |
And we don't know, | 39:01 | |
it probably would have evolved in time, | 39:02 | |
but even now in groups I talk about, | 39:07 | |
where are women in the church now? | 39:11 | |
Are we continuing to make progress? | 39:13 | |
Are we in the doldrums? | 39:17 | |
Where is the church going? | 39:18 | |
Are we in religion lite, | 39:20 | |
I mean like no substance, | 39:23 | |
or, I don't know where are we going? | 39:29 | |
- | Do you have thoughts on that? | 39:31 |
- | I don't have any, | 39:33 |
I have concerns. | 39:36 | |
I don't know if I have any positive helpful thoughts. | 39:37 | |
- | Well, what are the concerns? | 39:41 |
'Cause that's helpful, too. | 39:42 | |
How would you, what would you say are the issues right now? | 39:43 | |
- | Somehow or other I don't think we're continuing | 39:53 |
to tap into | 39:56 | |
younger, vibrant age groups, | 40:00 | |
even if they were to be spin-offs, | 40:07 | |
you know, they used to talk about | 40:13 | |
every corporation needs a little squirrel cage over here | 40:14 | |
doing it's innovative stuff. | 40:17 | |
We're under the pressure of funding, | 40:22 | |
we're trying to-- | 40:27 | |
in our denomination, | 40:28 | |
we're trying to maintain an international church, | 40:30 | |
primarily being funded from the U.S. | 40:39 | |
That's a major concern. | 40:42 | |
A lot of, | 40:46 | |
you just need to look at the delegates | 40:49 | |
for General Conference now. | 40:51 | |
When I went to General Conference, | 40:56 | |
I was a voting delegate three times. | 40:57 | |
And there was, | 41:00 | |
now if the international delegates, | 41:06 | |
south central and southeastern jurisdiction, | 41:09 | |
decide to vote in a bloc, | 41:12 | |
there's no way to overcome it. | 41:14 | |
And so we have people coming | 41:16 | |
from the Democratic Republic of Congo, | 41:18 | |
voting on our pension programs, | 41:22 | |
our social justice issues, | 41:24 | |
and, | 41:29 | |
oh my goodness, | 41:30 | |
she's an African American bishop | 41:31 | |
from the New England area, | 41:34 | |
I don't think her name is going to come to me, | 41:38 | |
but anyway, I can visualize her. | 41:40 | |
And she would say to these delegates | 41:42 | |
from the Democratic Republic of Congo, | 41:45 | |
If you go back to your conference, | 41:47 | |
and you deal with infanticide, | 41:50 | |
and polygamy and she had a whole long list, | 41:52 | |
then you can come to our conference | 41:55 | |
and deal with these things. | 41:57 | |
Now a lot of effort, | 41:59 | |
Bruce Robbins was one of them, | 42:01 | |
a big effort to try to get | 42:02 | |
those issues that pertain only to the U.S., | 42:05 | |
be voted on by a U.S. delegate body, | 42:09 | |
and not by the whole thing. | 42:12 | |
So that's a concern that I have for the denomination. | 42:14 | |
When they cut the conference down to 600, | 42:20 | |
yeah, it used to be a thousand delegates, | 42:25 | |
now it's 600, | 42:27 | |
or is it six thousand and ten thousand? | 42:29 | |
Anyway, I'm not good on the details, | 42:31 | |
that's why Jo did the money. | 42:33 | |
(laughing) | 42:35 | |
I can raise it, | 42:37 | |
you can raise it with enthusiasm. | 42:38 | |
(more laughter) | 42:41 | |
Yeah and you can count it that way, too. | 42:44 | |
One, one and a half, two, two and a half. | 42:45 | |
But anyway that's beside the point. | 42:48 | |
- | So cutting the delegate numbers, | 42:52 |
however the numbers work out. | 42:53 | |
- | Yes, it's increased the weight | 42:55 |
of international delegate numbers. | 42:57 | |
You can pull them off and see it might be ... | 43:01 | |
You know they just go on for lists and lists and lists, | 43:02 | |
because their way of counting members | 43:05 | |
is not the same as ours. | 43:07 | |
- | Oh really, how is it different? | 43:10 |
- | Well they just-- | 43:13 |
Yeah, we have a thousand people show up, | 43:14 | |
let's count 'em. | 43:16 | |
A thousand people. | 43:17 | |
- | Ah, okay, yes, yes. | |
- | And we, you know, we don't count, | 43:20 |
I think some other denominations, | 43:25 | |
they count baptized people, | 43:26 | |
and then churches, | 43:31 | |
well, we get somewhat penalized | 43:35 | |
by having members because we have | 43:37 | |
to pay apportionments on them. | 43:39 | |
- | Right. | 43:41 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Exactly. | 43:42 |
- | Those are not necessarily Re-Imagining issues.. | 43:44 |
- | Well, it all ties in | 43:50 |
with the social justice issues, right? | 43:51 | |
Is that the connection that you were thinking of? | 43:53 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 43:54 |
Well we used to talk about that, | 43:55 | |
the theme wasn't churches in solidarity with women, | 43:57 | |
it was women in solidarity with the church, | 44:01 | |
because if it weren't for the women, | 44:03 | |
the church would be really in worse shape than it is. | 44:05 | |
(both in agreement) | 44:08 | |
- | How would you define Re-Imagining? | 44:12 |
What did Re-Imagining mean to you? | 44:14 | |
- | Inclusivity. | 44:20 |
Freedom of thought. | 44:23 | |
Faith deepening in the sense | 44:33 | |
of your deep, deep spirituality. | 44:35 | |
It was personal and corporate all at the same time. | 44:41 | |
- | Was Re-Imagining experience | 44:46 |
of deepening spirituality for you? | 44:47 | |
- | The committee work was. | 44:50 |
- | That's interesting. | 44:51 |
Not many people say committee work did that. | 44:52 | |
Say some more about that. | 44:55 | |
- | Because the committee itself | 44:56 |
functioned as a spiritual support group. | 44:58 | |
And that was mainly because | 45:05 | |
we were like observers, | 45:09 | |
the administrators were observers of the conference. | 45:12 | |
Always worrying about temperature and logistics, | 45:16 | |
rather than participants. | 45:20 | |
But when we were planning and meeting as a group, | 45:22 | |
we were all participants. | 45:27 | |
And I think probably, | 45:31 | |
what would you call it? | 45:38 | |
Mode of operation was, every voice was heard. | 45:42 | |
Every voice had equal value. | 45:45 | |
- | You know this is bringing me to my next question. | 45:48 |
I think you're already answering it. | 45:50 | |
How was the, how did feminist theology | 45:51 | |
affect the structure in running of the community? | 45:54 | |
Sounds like ... | 45:59 | |
- | Yeah, those were characteristics. | 46:00 |
We delight constantly when we see something | 46:03 | |
that we felt was really demonstrated and lived out | 46:06 | |
at the conference. | 46:11 | |
- | Could you give an example? | 46:14 |
What do you mean by that? | 46:14 | |
- | Well, round tables, | 46:17 |
we toyed with two things, | 46:22 | |
whether to assign seats | 46:24 | |
or let people choose their own. | 46:26 | |
And people came back and we got more people | 46:31 | |
wanting us to assign seats. | 46:34 | |
Because then they knew they had a place. | 46:37 | |
- | How interesting. | 46:41 |
- | Yeah, it's | 46:42 |
it's sort of like if you go to, | 46:46 | |
well, if you go to a conference with a group of 10 | 46:48 | |
and you always stay together with your group of 10, | 46:52 | |
we had a lot of people just coming alone. | 46:54 | |
On their own. | 46:58 | |
I don't know how that influenced it. | 47:00 | |
- | So this was meant to be more hospitable to them, | 47:04 |
to the people going by themselves. | 47:07 | |
That they'd have a place set for them. | 47:09 | |
- | Yes. I can't remember what we would have known, | 47:11 |
I think about it, | 47:13 | |
we could have asked people, | 47:14 | |
how you'd like to be seated. | 47:18 | |
Sometimes the richness of having to learn | 47:29 | |
who your co-tablemates were, | 47:31 | |
is kind of part of the fun of an event. | 47:37 | |
It's a long time ago now to try to recall | 47:42 | |
some of those things. | 47:49 | |
- | But you never got to sit at a table, right? | 47:52 |
- | Never got to sit at ... | 47:54 |
No, we just got to sit at the planning table. | 47:55 | |
- | Wow, yes. | 47:57 |
- | And you're right, that is significant because, | 48:00 |
well I'm a church junkie. | 48:04 | |
(laughing) | 48:05 | |
I don't fret the process. | 48:10 | |
I'd rather ... | 48:13 | |
Walter said to us when we were talking | 48:18 | |
about a critical issue for my local church. | 48:21 | |
Who's going to come and just blow this whole thing up? | 48:24 | |
And I said, probably nobody. | 48:28 | |
They left long ago. | 48:31 | |
Because we have tremendous transparency. | 48:33 | |
Things go through discussion | 48:38 | |
at a couple of different venues, | 48:40 | |
and then people can vote on it. | 48:44 | |
There's a lot of compromise until you can agree on it. | 48:49 | |
So that's kind of a feminist thing, too, | 48:53 | |
where you don't legally vote on things | 48:55 | |
as much as you work. | 48:58 | |
Who's within consensus? | 49:02 | |
And who's not within consensus? | 49:03 | |
- | Mary, I love that phrase, church junkie. | 49:06 |
What do you mean by that? | 49:08 | |
(laughing) | 49:10 | |
- | A church junkie, | 49:13 |
well you just pay attention to all these little things. | 49:18 | |
This was a good appointment | 49:22 | |
and that wasn't a good appointment, | 49:23 | |
and you can't, | 49:25 | |
you know once Pretorius is at, | 49:27 | |
a couple of generations ago, | 49:30 | |
Pretorius, you know, everybody all the way down the line | 49:31 | |
is going to be measured against that person, you know? | 49:34 | |
I was in this elevator here once, | 49:38 | |
and this was not the Pretorius but his son-- | 49:41 | |
- | Was he a bishop or something? Who was he? | 49:45 |
- | Well, that probably came, | 49:51 |
you know there's still a little bit of family history here | 49:54 | |
between the EUBs and the United Methodists. | 49:58 | |
So he probably came out of the EUB tradition. | 50:00 | |
And so I'm in the elevator with Tim | 50:03 | |
and Tim was probably about four. | 50:06 | |
And these two men are really talking, | 50:08 | |
they're really talking about personalities | 50:11 | |
and what happened, | 50:14 | |
and on and on and all of a sudden | 50:15 | |
(makes hissing sound) | 50:17 | |
dead silence. | 50:18 | |
He turns to this little boy and he says, | 50:19 | |
Oh, is your dad a pastor, Sonny? | 50:22 | |
He wants to find out who I am, | 50:26 | |
because he all of a sudden realized | 50:28 | |
I heard all of this. | 50:30 | |
Now I'm a church junkie or I wouldn't care, see, so ... | 50:32 | |
(laughing) | 50:36 | |
- | Oh, Mary, that is great. | 50:38 |
What challenges, when you look back on this, | 50:43 | |
what challenges were faced by the community? | 50:45 | |
You were involved all ten years, | 50:47 | |
what challenges were faced | 50:48 | |
and how were they addressed? | 50:49 | |
- | Well, we maintained an office here, | 51:01 |
and so there was constant staffing | 51:04 | |
and Jo got really involved with that | 51:09 | |
more than I did. | 51:12 | |
But staffing and coming up with the rent. | 51:15 | |
I mean that was quite an undertaking. | 51:19 | |
We, you know Mary Ann Lundy was a big supporter of us | 51:24 | |
and she lost her job because of it | 51:29 | |
with her denomination. | 51:31 | |
But then she became an officer | 51:33 | |
with the World Council of Churches, didn't she? | 51:36 | |
So we said, she didn't get fired, | 51:38 | |
she got fired up. | 51:40 | |
That's a classic one out of our community. | 51:44 | |
Responding to the challenges | 51:53 | |
or responding to critics | 51:54 | |
or how did the critics affect us, | 51:56 | |
didn't make as much difference after a while. | 51:58 | |
As do we want to keep this going? | 52:04 | |
And should we keep this going? | 52:07 | |
And do we need to keep this going? | 52:09 | |
And that's when we came to, | 52:11 | |
now I'm a Capricorn, | 52:14 | |
so you have to tell me when I should quit. | 52:15 | |
'Cause I would just keep working. | 52:17 | |
But we came to the conclusion | 52:21 | |
that that was a group decision pretty much. | 52:24 | |
And this is where Sarah Evans kind of came in. | 52:27 | |
She was really a latecomer to Re-Imagining. | 52:30 | |
But the feeling was that maybe we should see this | 52:39 | |
as seeds have been planted. | 52:43 | |
And there is a point where, | 52:48 | |
this isn't her words, these are mine, | 52:51 | |
but there is a point when even the gardener | 52:52 | |
has to just let the seeds do their thing. | 52:56 | |
And yeah, and so in that sense, | 53:02 | |
there was a farewell. | 53:05 | |
And I think it was really important | 53:09 | |
and I hadn't thought about this before, | 53:11 | |
but, you know, sometimes | 53:13 | |
you try too hard to replicate what you were doing | 53:17 | |
and you should be trying to do something new. | 53:21 | |
But until you can get-- | 53:24 | |
I mean this is why new church starts succeed. | 53:26 | |
And revivals are hard. | 53:30 | |
And I say that coming out of a church | 53:37 | |
who's tried to keep itself alive. | 53:38 | |
But anyway, yeah ... | 53:40 | |
- | Did you feel like near the end | 53:45 |
Re-Imagining was repeating, | 53:46 | |
trying to repeat itself, | 53:49 | |
or was it time to end? | 53:50 | |
- | Yeah, it seemed like it was probably the time to end. | 53:53 |
It wasn't like you could technically see, | 54:01 | |
yes we started this, | 54:04 | |
we did this, we did this, we did this, | 54:05 | |
but I don't think we were accomplishing any more | 54:09 | |
what we maybe could have, or would have, or wanted to. | 54:14 | |
It's the perfect question, | 54:23 | |
but I don't know if | 54:25 | |
I've thought about it enough. | 54:28 | |
You know there is | 54:30 | |
there's a life cycle to agencies | 54:34 | |
when you're visionary leader | 54:38 | |
and you fulfill the vision | 54:41 | |
and then do you fade away? | 54:43 | |
Or do you decide, | 54:48 | |
this is closure? | 54:51 | |
And I think the decision was, this is closure. | 54:52 | |
Is there time for more? | 54:58 | |
I don't know what the time is. | 55:00 | |
General justice issues are still unresolved. | 55:08 | |
- | What issues are you thinking of? | 55:16 |
- | Well, of course, I'm thinking | 55:19 |
about the political situation. | 55:20 | |
And what I might think have been great strides | 55:22 | |
for the U.S., | 55:27 | |
other people are saying how horrible it is, you know? | 55:29 | |
So it's really good for me when I see | 55:33 | |
Warren Buffet as saying, | 55:36 | |
The economy is better than the critics are saying. | 55:38 | |
And 20 million people have healthcare | 55:42 | |
who didn't have healthcare before. | 55:45 | |
And so it's a little bit like what we went through | 55:46 | |
with the Re-Imagining, | 55:49 | |
is you cannot let the critics | 55:50 | |
define what you did. | 55:53 | |
Because what you did is, yeah. | 55:56 | |
There seems to be a hunger, | 56:00 | |
we keep hearing about people who want | 56:02 | |
to have those small group experiences | 56:08 | |
and everything else, | 56:10 | |
but I'm also surprised at how few people | 56:12 | |
respond when we send out that long distribution list. | 56:15 | |
Now Judy Kim did respond to something you had put in. | 56:19 | |
Yeah, it's sort of like, | 56:25 | |
I think maybe those of us who were there before are weary. | 56:29 | |
- | Yes. | 56:33 |
- | Not wary, but weary. | 56:34 |
So it's, | 56:38 | |
yeah there's plenty to do. | 56:42 | |
I'm not a good person to even talk about | 56:48 | |
women and the church now. | 56:51 | |
We're seeing the young women think | 56:57 | |
there is no longer an issue with women getting ahead | 57:00 | |
and that's a myth. | 57:05 | |
You've certainly been in an environment | 57:11 | |
where there could have been times of challenge. | 57:14 | |
So we'll see where our general conference goes. | 57:24 | |
- | So when you look back on it, | 57:30 |
what do you think is the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining? | 57:31 | |
- | Oh my goodness, that is really good, | 57:37 |
because how do you count | 57:40 | |
what happened to individuals? | 57:43 | |
And books that are written, | 57:49 | |
was it an encouragement or a deterrent? | 57:55 | |
Boy, I think that's really hard. | 57:58 | |
It certainly was significant in the moment. | 58:02 | |
I had some very conservative women | 58:10 | |
at the conference | 58:11 | |
working and helping | 58:13 | |
and they couldn't even believe | 58:15 | |
what they read in the paper about the event. | 58:17 | |
- | Really? That didn't reflect what they had experienced? | 58:21 |
- | That's right. That's right. Yeah. | 58:23 |
And so | 58:26 | |
we were talking yesterday, Saturday, | 58:28 | |
Dwayne Sarazen, who is certainly in the Evangelican | 58:34 | |
and a very good friend. | 58:39 | |
We were on the general board together. | 58:41 | |
And he took a trip to, | 58:46 | |
he took a group | 58:48 | |
to Palestine, Israel. | 58:51 | |
And we really pressed him | 58:53 | |
to be sure they got | 58:57 | |
to the camps. | 58:59 | |
Be sure you get where the real Palestinians are living. | 59:01 | |
Don't just go to the Splash Dance. | 59:05 | |
And he came back and said to us, | 59:09 | |
I had a completely 100% turnaround | 59:13 | |
after going there. | 59:18 | |
I no longer feel | 59:19 | |
that what I felt before is right. | 59:24 | |
I'm completely siding now with the Palestinians. | 59:26 | |
So can we say we've had that kind of experience? | 59:33 | |
I don't know, | 59:35 | |
I don't mean around that issue. | 59:37 | |
But around any. | 59:38 | |
And women's issues are just decisions, too, | 59:40 | |
when you think about it. | 59:42 | |
- | How about for you? | 59:46 |
What was most significant for you about Re-Imagining? | 59:47 | |
- | Well, (laughs) once I come up | 59:54 |
with a plan to do something, | 59:57 | |
I get great pleasure to be able | 1:00:00 | |
to cross it off the list that I did it. | 1:00:01 | |
(laughing) | 1:00:03 | |
So, yeah, just | 1:00:06 | |
having it happen | 1:00:09 | |
and have everything that I was responsible for happen, | 1:00:10 | |
is one good thing. | 1:00:15 | |
I've always been pretty spiritually grounded. | 1:00:22 | |
So I didn't have any great aha's in that sense. | 1:00:26 | |
Like I didn't have to get over all of this. | 1:00:29 | |
I still have trouble | 1:00:34 | |
with the crucifixion | 1:00:36 | |
because how could you do that to your child | 1:00:39 | |
and you know, | 1:00:41 | |
those are different kinds of issues. | 1:00:42 | |
- | You know, a question I just have to ask | 1:00:47 |
occurred to me, | 1:00:49 | |
you've talked so much about your relationship with Jo, | 1:00:50 | |
which was so important, | 1:00:52 | |
and sadly we lost her a few months ago. | 1:00:53 | |
Did you know Jo before Re-Imagining? | 1:00:55 | |
- | Very casually. | 1:00:58 |
Very casually. | 1:01:00 | |
We were both involved in Church Women United. | 1:01:01 | |
And she had served as President. | 1:01:04 | |
I was their keynote speaker | 1:01:10 | |
and trying to get them off track | 1:01:12 | |
and get them to go off, you know, | 1:01:14 | |
get something to happen here. | 1:01:16 | |
And she finally said, | 1:01:23 | |
I'm just leaving, Mary. | 1:01:26 | |
She says, I've done everything I can | 1:01:27 | |
to get that group to function. | 1:01:29 | |
And it's never going to change. | 1:01:31 | |
And so she just got out of it. | 1:01:34 | |
So yeah, we knew each other quite well, | 1:01:36 | |
and she's very tolerant of me. | 1:01:43 | |
But also I was doing the kind of thing | 1:01:47 | |
that she didn't necessarily want to do | 1:01:50 | |
and so it was a good partnership. | 1:01:52 | |
- | It sounds like it. | 1:01:55 |
You complement each other really well. | 1:01:55 | |
- | And she just died suddenly, you know. | 1:02:00 |
And that's really a shock. | 1:02:02 | |
- | Yes. | 1:02:05 |
- | We've been trying to get her material. | 1:02:06 |
See I feel that I have some materials | 1:02:08 | |
that she probably had, | 1:02:10 | |
if I could find time to dig them out. | 1:02:12 | |
- | (laughing) In that archeological dig? | 1:02:17 |
- | Yeah. | 1:02:18 |
- | Oh, Mary. | 1:02:21 |
Is there anything we haven't discussed | 1:02:22 | |
that you would like to add? | 1:02:23 | |
- | No, I may think of something later | 1:02:26 |
and bring it up to you. | 1:02:28 | |
- | You can do that, absolutely. | 1:02:30 |
- | Yeah, yeah, I know. | 1:02:32 |
I'm well aware, even when I was doing it, | 1:02:34 | |
that I wasn't as good a | 1:02:37 | |
I couldn't provide as good an analysis of content | 1:02:47 | |
as I could of process. | 1:02:50 | |
- | And that's important. | 1:02:52 |
Every person I've interviewed | 1:02:54 | |
has brought something different. | 1:02:55 | |
And you have, too. | 1:02:57 | |
And that's important. | 1:02:58 | |
You give a different perspective. | 1:02:59 | |
- | Well that's good. That's good. | 1:03:00 |
- | It was really rich. | 1:03:01 |
- | Yeah, it was just a real, | 1:03:04 |
like you said, | 1:03:08 | |
if anybody wants to go to a committee, | 1:03:09 | |
there must be something good happening. | 1:03:11 | |
(laughing) | 1:03:13 | |
- | Absolutely. | 1:03:14 |
Thank you, Mary, so much. | 1:03:16 |
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