Henry, Robin / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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Well, Robin, thank you so much

0:01

for agreeing to meet with me to be interviewed.

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Could you please say and spell your name?

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My name is Robin Henry,

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R-O-B-I-N, H-E-N-R-Y.

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Wonderful.

0:11

And are you, well I know you're lay,

0:12

and your denominational affiliation is?

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Roman Catholic.

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Very great.

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Robin, when and where were you born?

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I was born in Old Westbury, New York,

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which is on Long Island, in 1952.

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Wonderful.

0:30

And where did you go to school?

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I lived in Upstate New York and went to high school there,

0:35

and I came out here and graduated from St. Catherine's,

0:38

with a degree in Music Education.

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Great, and you were at Notre Dame at one point?

0:43

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I studied, yeah, one of the summers

0:46

after I graduated St. Kate's, I studied at Notre Dame.

0:48

I actually took graduate classes

0:53

at the University of Minnesota, and at St. John's, as well.

0:54

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Wonderful, okay.

0:57

What work or ministry were you doing at the time

1:00

of Re-Imagining 1993?

1:02

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I was Director of Music and Liturgy,

1:05

which is what I do now at St. Albert the Great,

1:07

which is a small, Dominican parish in south Minneapolis.

1:10

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Wonderful, great.

1:14

Robin, how and when did you first

1:18

become aware of feminist theology?

1:19

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I think probably,

1:23

starting somewhere in the mid '80s to early '90s.

1:27

And then with relationships with people that,

1:30

including Cletus Wessels, who is a writer

1:36

and Dominican priest, now deceased,

1:39

who was doing some writing about cosmology,

1:42

about the world, and the Earth, and the universe.

1:44

It's a jumble up of that, and certainly having graduated

1:50

from school at St. Kate's,

1:54

there certainly was a lot of discussion

1:57

about what feminist theology is and what it means.

2:00

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Do you recall, how did you react to it initially?

2:05

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Oh, I loved it, I thought it was amazing.

2:08

That it was in my estimation,

2:10

not necessarily the rejection of patriarchy,

2:14

but talking about how God can come to all of us,

2:18

not just males or ordained, or whatever.

2:22

That all of us should have an open access to God,

2:26

who is all genders, and no genders, who is a mix.

2:29

So, it's probably a combination of that.

2:37

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Great, thank you.

2:39

Well, I know you were involved in planning

2:41

the ritual for the first conference in '93.

2:43

First of all, say some more about how you

2:46

got involved in Re-Imagining.

2:47

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I had, when I'd gone to Notre Dame to study liturgy,

2:50

I had met Madeline Sue Martin

2:55

and sang at her college chapel choir, was a cantor.

2:56

It was kind of a mind-blowing experience being in a,

3:04

after having worked in a parish,

3:09

and then gone back to school, with people studying liturgy

3:11

and experiencing ritual, and so forth.

3:14

And Madeline Sue was a real driver

3:17

in terms of my learning from her.

3:21

And then she moved up here and was teaching here

3:26

at St. Kate's and I took some classes from her.

3:29

And then she worked at the Seminary

3:33

and I took some classes from her there.

3:35

So I got connected, she asked me if I would consider

3:37

being part of this ritual planning group,

3:40

and met some of the Council of Churches women

3:43

that were also involved in the planning.

3:48

So it was my first experience

3:51

with such a dynamic and diverse group of people

3:54

that come from a variety of church experiences,

3:58

not just the tradition that I was working in.

4:01

So that was extremely important to me to hear other women

4:05

talk about their own experiences where they worship,

4:10

and how could we share what we know and make it better.

4:14

So that was the beginning of it,

4:20

was going to those meetings and talking about

4:22

what are we trying to do with these rituals?

4:25

What are we trying to say?

4:28

I think one of the most controversial ones

4:30

was that the media got ahold of was the milk and honey.

4:32

The biblical origins of that text,

4:38

it wasn't like we grabbed it out of some occult somewhere,

4:42

but it was the fact that it had never been done,

4:45

and that it was done so well.

4:49

I mean, that's the whole thing is that the liturgies,

4:50

the rituals were done so well they were mind-blowing.

4:52

When you think about working in the convention center

4:55

and the space, and the artists that we had,

4:58

and the musicians that we had,

5:01

that it was just over the top,

5:02

and no one had ever done that.

5:04

Even with as many other conventions as there are,

5:08

the NPM, the National Pastoral Musicians,

5:12

even the ordinations of clergy, or whatever.

5:17

There just was never the kind of collaboration.

5:20

People were just, they were sobbing.

5:25

They were so moving, those liturgies.

5:27

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Robin, I wanna hear some more

5:30

about what that process was like.

5:31

What was it like planning the ritual?

5:33

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I think it was kind of like cooking.

5:36

Like you got a group of people

5:42

that talked about what was important for them.

5:43

What part of it, music, the arts, the graphic arts,

5:47

the dance, the ritual elements themselves.

5:53

And so, people would bring their own love to the table

5:57

and say this is what I think we should do

6:03

and then it became, as we worked to together,

6:05

it became what it became

6:09

because everybody listened to others.

6:10

And so, it kind of grew out of that.

6:13

It was like, I can describe it like a cooking class,

6:15

'cause everybody had their own piece that went into the pot,

6:19

and then it became.

6:22

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What was your piece?

6:25

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I was as a musician, I was asked if I would sing

6:27

and be involved in that way.

6:30

One of things I remember most is that there were like

6:32

four stages that had four different groups of musicians.

6:34

So I was on one of those stages helping

6:38

and the music kind of went circularly from one station

6:40

to the other, and that had never happened before.

6:44

It was just the style of collaboration

6:48

and of inclusivity, and that it happened in the round.

6:52

That it wasn't the stage is up there and everybody else

6:57

is down here, but it was we were among the people,

7:01

within the people.

7:04

I was on one of those stages helping with music.

7:10

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I think you're already alluding to this,

7:12

but how did feminist theology, or feminist beliefs,

7:14

shape the process and the result?

7:17

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I think because the World Council of Churches,

7:21

the folks that are involved in that,

7:24

that are not Roman Catholic, which is awesome,

7:26

they came in with we're celebrating the year of the woman,

7:29

or this decade of the woman.

7:33

And so, we talked about how can we celebrate women.

7:35

Women haven't been celebrated for 2,000 years.

7:39

Names are not even mentioned in the Bible.

7:44

There's certain things that have been shut down by men,

7:45

so it was like having the doors and the windows opened,

7:49

and being able to say,

7:53

why can we not think of God in these other ways?

7:55

Reimagine the God that came to us in the Hebrew scriptures,

8:00

in the New Testament scriptures,

8:05

and reimagine God in a way that speaks to women,

8:06

and speaks to men who appreciate that God

8:10

can speak to women and not just them.

8:13

I think that's how it came to be.

8:17

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Exactly.

8:20

You know Madeline Sue Martin, or Madeleine Seid-Martin,

8:21

was so crucial to this whole thing, and you knew her well.

8:24

Could you say a little bit more about what she was like

8:28

as a person, and what key things did you learn from her?

8:32

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She was helping plan a liturgy

8:38

that wasn't involved necessarily with Re-Imagining

8:40

'cause I took a class in Liturgical Planning.

8:43

It was talking about all of the elements,

8:47

so most people will just say, okay,

8:52

so what is the music, so that's it.

8:54

What is the preaching, so that's it.

8:56

And she would ask what are people feeling?

8:58

How are they embodying this liturgy?

9:02

Are they sitting, are they standing?

9:06

And when she worked at the Seminary, apparently she got,

9:08

one of her students I worked with as a first-year priest.

9:14

He had a certain way about him that was so freeing

9:19

as a clergy, because he had experienced being in his body

9:24

and knowing that when you preside you are in your body,

9:30

and you should be in your body and let's not negate that.

9:33

And he had such a way about him because of Sue's teaching.

9:36

They would talk about how your body is part of the liturgy

9:39

and use your body as a drum, and just the physicality of it.

9:43

That was a completely new way of looking at liturgy

9:49

and the role of liturgy, that it embodies us.

9:55

We are embodied in this liturgy.

9:58

So it's looking at so many more things

9:59

than we were traditionally raised to look at.

10:02

So it's the smell, it's the taste,

10:05

it's the visuals, it's the what are your ears hearing.

10:08

One of the beautiful things that Madeline Sue left us

10:13

is when she died, she had us do a 24-hour prayer vigil,

10:15

reading or singing or naming the Psalms,

10:20

and go all the way through them as many times as we,

10:24

so I took the 2 a.m. slot or something,

10:26

and ended up having to do three or four or five Psalms,

10:30

and sang them, because I'm a musician, I'm a singer.

10:32

That never happened.

10:38

I'd never experienced that.

10:40

Even at Notre Dame, I never experienced

10:42

the amount of incense that was used for Psalm 141,

10:46

let my prayers rise like incense before you.

10:50

And you can smell it, you can see it,

10:53

you could almost taste it.

10:56

It was probably for me the awakening that the liturgy needs

10:59

to take, we need to use all of our senses to experience it.

11:05

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And now this is your ministry?

11:12

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Yeah, yeah.

11:15

This is my ministry, yeah.

11:16

And I had been in it.

11:18

I'm in my 40th year,

11:19

so it's been a good journey

11:22

and a lot of wonderful mentors like Madeline Sue,

11:25

who I so miss her because I would love to call her up

11:29

and say, what are you thinking about this?

11:33

I'm struggling with that.

11:35

And she would be able to talk about it.

11:37

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After you had planned this liturgy and worked on it,

11:41

what was it like to be at the gathering and have it happen?

11:45

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People didn't know what to expect,

11:53

so it was a brand new concept to reimagine God,

11:55

and to bring people in from all over the world.

11:59

So a speaker from Korea, a speak from Africa,

12:02

different groups of women and men

12:07

from all over the United States and all over the world,

12:11

to come together and to say the words,

12:14

to imagine that God is not just male,

12:19

a white male with a long beard, up in the sky somewhere,

12:22

to give people the freedom to think about what we would be

12:26

like as humans to think of God as so much bigger

12:31

than we had been thinking of God.

12:35

It was mind blowing.

12:38

People were so excited to be there, they just couldn't wait

12:40

to get back for the next session, and didn't wanna leave.

12:44

And it was life changing in that you felt safe

12:49

in a group of people that were able to study and learn,

12:54

and explore the same things.

12:58

And you knew that when you went back to your own job,

13:01

you might not be able to talk about God our mother.

13:04

That others might be offended or think that we were crazy,

13:07

or whatever it was.

13:11

So it was a safe place to be, to experience that.

13:13

One of the sessions, it was very spontaneous

13:18

but there were people who were lesbian

13:22

were invited to come forward,

13:25

and we were honored by all of the people there.

13:26

Well that was completely amazing

13:29

because it's not a safe place to be,

13:31

certainly in '93 it was not a safe place to be out.

13:35

The Roman Catholic church, still to this day,

13:38

calls me intrinsically disordered.

13:42

They had a breakout session

13:48

and I went to the breakout session to talk about that,

13:49

and talked about if the church says that I'm intrinsically

13:53

disordered as a lesbian, then the church is intrinsically

13:57

disordered because I am part of her, and I'm not leaving.

14:01

I'm here to stay.

14:06

For me, that was very freeing and it was also scary to think

14:09

is the Arch Bishop going to find out, she's a lesbian,

14:13

she's working in the Roman Catholic church,

14:16

whatever, all of that.

14:19

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You did go up?

14:20

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I did go up.

14:22

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Was that a tough decision to make at that moment?

14:23

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Not at all.

14:26

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Why is that?

14:27

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Because it's who I am.

14:28

I wasn't going to go in the closet for anybody.

14:31

I made the decision to come out and to live who I am

14:34

with integrity, so I wasn't going to let someone

14:37

or some group say, shame, shame, you can't do this.

14:40

So it was very important to me.

14:44

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And what did it feel like to be there

14:47

and to have the reaction?

14:48

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I had no idea there were that many of us that were there

14:50

(laughs) because you don't wear a badge that says,

14:53

well this is who I am, you know?

14:56

At that point in time,

15:01

it could be a climate of secrecy and hatred.

15:02

I know women that were relieved from their jobs.

15:06

A certain Catholic woman, lesbian,

15:11

was going to receive an award

15:15

for being a religious educator.

15:17

And once the Arch Bishop found out

15:20

that she was lesbian and had a family,

15:22

then they pulled the award because God knows

15:24

you couldn't possibly honor her.

15:27

She is who she is, and she's living a life

15:29

and she's got this wisdom to impart as a religious educator.

15:31

But they had to shut it down.

15:36

So with those kinds of things happening, you start thinking.

15:39

I did talk with a pastor I was working with.

15:43

He certainly knew I was out as a lesbian.

15:46

He wasn't really sure what he would do if the Arch Bishop

15:51

called him and I said, well, you gotta do what you gotta do,

15:53

and I gotta do what I gotta do.

15:56

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So you have been able to be an out lesbian

15:59

as a liturgical minister?

16:02

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Yeah, mm-hmm.

16:03

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That's amazing, wow.

16:04

And have you served many different churches?

16:07

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I've just served in two, and really I came out

16:09

at the church that I am working at right now.

16:12

So it's really probably only been St. Albert's

16:15

that I've been out as a lesbian.

16:17

But it's certainly been more than 25 years

16:22

that I've been out.

16:26

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That is great.

16:29

Let's talk about the backlash for a minute.

16:33

Talking just kind of about the potential for backlash.

16:35

First of all, were you personally affected

16:38

at all by the backlash?

16:40

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I was only affected in that I thought it was so wrong

16:41

that Madeline Sue got fired from the seminary

16:45

for her participation in it.

16:48

There was so much negative press and incorrect.

16:51

It was not only negative, but it was uninformed.

16:59

So whoever was writing the articles,

17:03

I read one last week before I looked at this,

17:05

the oral interviews questions.

17:09

And there were so many lies in the article that I read

17:13

that came out, and I thought,

17:17

how is this possible that the people

17:19

that decided that they should write about it,

17:23

did not come or did not know what they were writing about?

17:26

That they could be so off base.

17:30

That's part of the, I just couldn't believe it.

17:33

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Do you happen to recall

17:37

where the article was from, what publication?

17:38

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I don't.

17:40

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That's fine.

17:41

What are some of the specific lies or misrepresentations

17:42

that were made about Re-Imagining?

17:45

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That the people in that conference were worshiping Sophia,

17:48

and worshiping the goddess.

17:53

That it was so off the mark that you couldn't imagine

17:56

that you can think of God in both male and female terms,

18:02

which is really what the conference was trying to say.

18:05

Let's open up our image of God.

18:08

And so, I think the milk and honey was too messy.

18:10

It was like, is that the milk of our breasts, or whatever.

18:15

They could not wrap their heads around it

18:19

and thought it was so heretical,

18:22

that we were heretics of some kind.

18:26

After being at the conference

18:32

and reading the articles afterwards,

18:34

I couldn't believe that they were

18:36

at the same conference I was at.

18:38

So it led me to believe

18:40

that they did not know what they were writing about.

18:42

That they came in and experienced 10 minutes of something,

18:45

and didn't have any of the history or the experience,

18:48

and came in with an attitude that I'm gonna shut this down.

18:51

This is ruining Catholicism.

18:54

This is ruining Christianity.

18:56

Instead of why are we not big enough

18:58

to think of God in more terms?

19:01

There should be more than a hundred names for God,

19:03

not just Father.

19:05

People were so threatened to think that this group of people

19:09

was changing the world, or whatever.

19:12

Which I think is what the intention was, was to open

19:16

the windows and say let's look at God in other ways.

19:19

Sophia is the term of wisdom

19:22

in the wisdom literature in the Hebrew scriptures.

19:25

And Sophia is the feminine part of God,

19:29

which if we are all created in God's image,

19:32

then God's both male and female,

19:35

not just male and ordained.

19:38

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When you said threatened, what do you think specifically,

19:42

how do you account for the backlash?

19:45

What was it that was so threatening?

19:46

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I think it was threatening to think that people

19:54

could think of God without thinking of the umbrella

19:57

that they have grown up with.

20:02

So if Roman Catholics say God is male,

20:03

women are only allowed to do certain things.

20:08

God forbid girls could even be servers.

20:13

I mean, all of those kinds of things.

20:15

And when girls were allowed to be servers,

20:17

there was a disclaimer that said this will in no way

20:20

ever imply that women will ever be ordained as priests.

20:24

To me, that says that there's a lot of fear.

20:28

What would be the big fear

20:30

to let women be ordained as priests?

20:32

They're running out of them right now.

20:34

They're certainly running out of the good ones.

20:36

And the young guys that are coming up right now

20:38

are so stuck up on their pedestals.

20:40

They are so threatened by those of us that have been in it

20:45

for so long, that we know what we're doing

20:50

and we're not gonna be pushed.

20:52

We're not gonna be silenced anymore.

20:54

I really think that's the fear,

20:57

is that those that are in power, so therefore,

20:59

I think Arch Bishop Roach needed to fire Madeline Sue

21:02

because what would it say if a teacher at St. Paul Seminary

21:08

was imparting so much more about our God

21:12

then they were allowed to be teaching.

21:16

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Do you know what sort of motivated that,

21:20

that it was brought to his attention?

21:25

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I don't know any of that, I don't.

21:28

I knew after the fact that she had lost her job.

21:31

I just was shocked

21:37

because of the publicity that was incorrect.

21:38

Negative, incorrect, misleading and lies.

21:46

And so therefore, you take that as word.

21:50

He obviously had his little spies or whatever,

21:53

which is just so wrong.

21:57

I certainly don't think that the church that Jesus wants us

22:00

to be a part of to impart his love in the world,

22:05

would ever have had anything to do with all of that,

22:09

with letting people go,

22:12

getting fired because their God is too big, or whatever.

22:13

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I wanted to talk to you again

22:19

about the milk and honey ritual,

22:19

'cause as you said, that was very controversial.

22:21

There were a lot of stories told about it.

22:22

First of all, were you involved at all

22:24

in planning that particular ritual?

22:25

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Not that I remember.

22:28

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What did that ritual mean for you?

22:31

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Well, the Old Testament scripture that it came from

22:34

is something that I grew up with as a kid and heard that.

22:37

It was to me, no one had ever used that since I was

22:43

in high school and we sang a piece that had it in there,

22:47

which is probably why I remembered it.

22:49

But no one had ever used that ritual or those elements

22:52

in a liturgy, and I was just blown away because God

22:57

is bigger than the elements of bread and wine,

23:02

or water, or oil, or incense.

23:05

There was a communion liturgy that happened for,

23:11

what is her name, Roseanne Chigere, when she passed.

23:17

And it was a communion of strawberries.

23:19

And everyone communed each other with a strawberry,

23:23

and I thought this is our God, alive within us.

23:25

It doesn't have to be the elements that are approved.

23:29

It's the Earth.

23:33

We're all of the Earth, that kind of thing.

23:35

So I think that was the earthiness of it,

23:37

was very threatening to people.

23:39

That you could talk about giving birth, or whatever,

23:42

that those things are very threatening, and I think,

23:47

not to necessarily old men,

23:51

but it's not part of their lived experience.

23:54

You don't see, you don't live through,

23:57

you haven't given birth yourself,

23:58

so you don't wanna talk about those things,

24:00

about the embodiment of the incarnation,

24:02

like Jesus came through the birth canal.

24:07

(laughs) They don't wanna talk about it,

24:10

so I think that's part of the threatening part of it,

24:12

is that it's scary for people,

24:15

we're asking them to move beyond their comfort zone.

24:19

And that's what the liturgies were intending to do is to get

24:23

people to think of more than they had experienced in ritual.

24:27

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Very good.

24:33

How would you define Re-Imagining?

24:35

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Re-Imagining, I think,

24:40

was the dramatic way to look at God

24:41

through lenses that we never looked at before.

24:50

So to take our ordinary rituals and say,

24:53

how can we improve upon these,

24:58

how can we make these more alive, more living,

25:00

more part of our everyday life,

25:05

our everydayness of being human beings?

25:08

So it's that using all the senses, but it's the audacity

25:11

to think of God differently than just white male.

25:16

And people were so hungry for that.

25:22

The native peoples who have a different kind of experience

25:25

of God, and that they were told to get rid of all of that.

25:29

Don't talk about the gods, or whatever,

25:33

instead of being able to embrace their own rituals

25:36

and incorporate whatever they believe of God

25:39

in their liturgies.

25:42

Africans, from Africa, Koreans, whatever, just all of that.

25:44

I hadn't experienced a lot of other people of the world.

25:51

So to hear all of these speakers come in and talk about

25:57

I'm a mother, I'm an African, I'm a mother

26:01

and I live in such and such a tribe,

26:03

and my children, and this and that.

26:05

We are all the same but we are from different corners

26:09

of the Earth, and to come together

26:12

and talk about how can we, all of us,

26:14

reimagine what God would be like if we were all free

26:17

to reimagine and not threatened

26:21

by the liturgical police, or whoever.

26:23

-

Now you attended other gatherings, too.

26:28

Are there certain things that stand out,

26:30

moments or impressions from those other gatherings?

26:32

-

Not as much and I think I was disillusioned

26:37

in people getting let go of their jobs with Re-Imagining.

26:41

Just the fact that prior to this,

26:46

I didn't go into this with any kind of fear,

26:50

and maybe that was very naive of me.

26:53

When you start looking at the world differently,

26:57

I think it's hard to go back to the way

27:00

you used to do things, and it's also fearful.

27:03

You think okay, so-and-so got fired

27:05

from the first Re-Imagining conference,

27:08

what's gonna happen after this one?

27:10

Who is out there?

27:12

Why are we giving them that kind of power in our life?

27:14

-

Yeah, yeah.

27:21

In the end, and I think you've kind of talked about this,

27:24

but I found it's helpful to ask explicitly,

27:25

what aspects of Re-Imagining

27:28

were most significant to you and why?

27:30

-

I think the most striking one was to be able to come

27:40

into a convention center that was completely transformed

27:43

to look like a different place, so four stages,

27:52

dramatic colors of fabric,

27:58

people dressed in a variety of clothes.

28:01

Just the fact that it was in a circular fashion,

28:06

that the world looked different.

28:12

You walked in there and you were like how can this be

28:14

the conference hall that I've attended other events at?

28:16

It looked completely different.

28:19

All of the elements were thought out well.

28:24

So it was when people come to the convention hall,

28:28

what will they receive, what will they look at?

28:31

What will be their experience?

28:33

What should we have ready for them?

28:34

It was really mind changing,

28:37

mind blowing to walk in and see this hall

28:43

and these people that are leading us in prayer,

28:47

transform us, that's really what it was.

28:56

They were like the potters, we were the clay

29:01

and things were changed once we experienced those rituals.

29:03

So then you would come back the next day

29:09

and you were wondering what, and of course,

29:10

I was in on some of the planning, and you knew some things

29:13

but you were still wondering what could they do today?

29:15

What's going to happen today?

29:18

-

When you say they changed you,

29:23

how did they change you, Robin?

29:24

-

I think it was the beginning to be able to ask

29:30

why can we not think of God in bigger terms.

29:36

Why have we not reimagined God before this?

29:39

Why have we been so stuck in what the world would say

29:43

we should do, the church should say we should do,

29:47

the community should say we should do?

29:50

Instead of talking with everybody that has experienced

29:53

God in their life, and it was maybe the sharing

30:00

of those stories that we don't do at a local level

30:04

in a community and a parish.

30:07

And we should, because you can't journey with people

30:09

in their joys and their sorrows,

30:13

unless you know their stories.

30:15

And so, that was transforming, to hear people's stories

30:17

and say, oh my god, I can relate to that.

30:21

I felt that.

30:23

Or I can see why you feel the way that you do.

30:24

It was probably the stories, too.

30:30

The music and the stories and the rituals

30:32

that you can't undo those, you can't go back.

30:35

And now it is a part of you.

30:39

-

And when you say stories,

30:42

do you mean the stories by the presenters,

30:43

the stories at a table you were at, or both?

30:45

-

Both of 'em.

30:48

So it was at a big level when you hear a speaker come in

30:49

and talk about her experience and impressions of God

30:53

the mother, God the Goddess, whatever you wanna call God

30:57

the feminine face of God, which is why they call it Goddess.

31:02

But it should be God/Goddess if we're talking about God

31:07

in all genders, and not just the male gender.

31:10

And then at the tables, we would have questions

31:15

and people would be sharing their stories

31:17

and talk about their lives,

31:19

and how they feel that God is acting in their lives.

31:22

And I don't think we've had that before.

31:27

We haven't had a chance to do that, to invite people.

31:29

People have been afraid to do that

31:32

and there was such freedom.

31:33

There maybe should've been some fear in the room.

31:36

(laughs) I don't know, but I never felt that.

31:38

I felt the freedom to be able to listen

31:41

and ask and experience.

31:45

-

As a Liturgist, what would you see as the contribution

31:48

of Re-Imagining to liturgy?

31:51

-

I think it's the permission to think outside the box.

31:57

If you've been given, this is your Roman Rite,

32:01

this is what you need to do,

32:04

that you can say,

32:07

why am I doing that?

32:10

Why can't I do something else?

32:11

Or asking the questions or pushing the envelope

32:13

to be able to say I want to use a different reading.

32:16

Classic example is the Easter Vigil greetings.

32:21

They're all the old salvation history and all that's fine,

32:25

but why are we talking

32:28

about people getting killed in the Red Sea?

32:29

So we're not doing that any more.

32:32

It's part of salvation history,

32:34

but I don't see how that is bringing us forward.

32:36

So we don't.

32:39

We choose some other readings.

32:40

I guess I feel permission to be able to do that

32:45

because I'm not thrilled

32:46

with all of the Old Testament history

32:51

that talks about a murderous God.

32:52

That isn't the God I want to reimagining.

32:57

-

And you're talking about in your role

33:03

as Liturgic Administer at this church,

33:04

you have the freedom to do some of this?

33:06

-

Yeah, and I've actually, even before Re-Imagining

33:09

have asked the questions.

33:14

But Re-Imagining gave me permission to be able to say

33:16

the world would not end

33:20

if we didn't do exactly as we had done.

33:21

With regard to other things, if a family comes in,

33:25

they're planning their father's funeral and they want thus

33:30

and such a song, and it's not in the approved list,

33:34

I don't really care if it's not in the approved list,

33:39

we'll do it because the song or the recording,

33:41

or the experience of it

33:45

is what will help this family grieve,

33:46

and that's more important than the rules.

33:49

It's not necessarily an indictment,

33:54

but it's listening to the voice of the people

33:55

that we're ministering to and what their needs are.

33:59

I have to think Re-Imagining has helped on that journey,

34:03

giving me the permission and the freedom

34:08

to ask the questions and find a different answer maybe.

34:11

-

Oh, great.

34:16

As we look toward the future, what as you look back on it,

34:18

what do you think is the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining?

34:21

Or important legacies of Re-Imagining?

34:23

-

I think that they could bring such a diverse group

34:29

of people together to talk about the elephant in the room,

34:34

or what experience of God people have had,

34:39

and have been asked to be quiet about or not to share about.

34:45

It's okay to talk about God in our lives

34:54

and not just the male God,

34:57

but it's okay to talk about the feminine face of God,

34:58

if you will.

35:01

And God in the Universe, not just God

35:04

in what we have been allowed to talk about God in.

35:07

I'd like to think that the legacy

35:17

is that the windows of the church were opened.

35:18

The windows of the ecumenical church were opened,

35:21

and that all of us, no matter what tradition

35:23

and even just world religions, Buddhism, whatever,

35:26

that we could come together and experience a liturgy

35:30

that celebrates all of us,

35:36

and all of our experiences of God.

35:37

-

Oh, great.

35:42

What do you think Re-Imagining means today?

35:46

And I'm not just talking about Re-Imagining the gathering

35:48

or the community, but what needs to be reimagined,

35:50

or what is being reimagined today?

35:53

-

I think the conference itself was a beginning,

35:58

and I think we need to keep pushing it,

36:01

that we can get stuck in the old ways that we've done things

36:04

instead of just keep the doors open, keep the windows open.

36:10

And keep talking about how we experience God

36:13

in the world today.

36:17

And that it is not from one source,

36:19

that is from many sources and many traditions

36:24

that we should be able to embrace those other elements

36:26

in those traditions, so that we all can experience God

36:31

and the feminine face of God, in our world today.

36:36

And that this conference, the beginning of this conference

36:39

in '93, would not be the beginning and the end,

36:43

but it would catapult us into continuing

36:46

to reimagine, rename God.

36:51

I believe God is ever-changing, as are we.

36:55

So God isn't the same experience in '93

36:59

as God would be today in 2016.

37:02

-

And that brings me to my final and very specific question.

37:06

The Reimagining Community has reincorporated

37:09

and is doing a website, and part of it is historical,

37:11

preserving the speakers and the rituals and everything,

37:16

and making them accessible so people can build on them.

37:19

But also, doing links,

37:22

providing links and resources for people today.

37:25

So I wonder, we're just looking for ideas

37:28

about who would benefit from it, what would you suggest

37:30

what links or resources would be helpful

37:35

to have on a website?

37:38

-

I think if people hadn't experienced

37:47

the original conference,

37:50

they wouldn't know the resources that they used back then.

37:51

So for instance, the speaker from Africa,

37:56

the speaker from Korea,

38:01

the woman who was the chair

38:05

of the World Council of Churches,

38:06

their own writings or books, or whatever,

38:09

there have to be some resources that they used that would be

38:15

very important if you've never read so-and-so's book.

38:20

If you never had a chance because that's another piece

38:23

of the conference itself is that many of us

38:27

were never exposed to that, so we didn't know

38:31

of this theologian in Korea, or this theologian in Africa.

38:33

It was mind blowing.

38:37

So those resources, those books,

38:40

and even from subsequent conferences,

38:44

whatever the resources that they used.

38:47

For me, I think the thing I wish that it had been recorded,

38:56

I wish they had had a recording of some of those rituals

39:02

to see how they, it would be like a movie or something.

39:06

But I don't think we did any of that.

39:10

-

Do you mean video taped?

39:13

-

Yeah.

-

Yeah, we didn't

39:14

Yeah, you're right, and especially after the first

39:16

conference, there was fear about doing that.

39:18

-

I think there were audio tapes.

39:22

-

There are, on cassette tapes

39:24

and we're digitizing all those.

39:25

So at least we'll have them.

39:27

-

Yeah, that would be very essential.

39:29

If people don't know anything about the Re-Imagining

39:32

conference, it would be a way to start.

39:35

Say, well, listen to these speakers and you can get

39:37

a flavor of what it was like, or at least what they said.

39:39

And I do believe some of those words were twisted

39:46

for the media to impact how people would feel about it.

39:49

It was that big fear.

39:54

Like you say, they didn't video tape it

39:56

and it was probably out of fear

39:59

because what would, you know?

40:00

-

Good.

40:05

This was wonderful.

40:07

Is there anything that we haven't discussed

40:08

that you would like to mention, Robin?

40:10

-

No, not necessarily.

40:18

I think the most impactful thing was to get so many people

40:21

from so many places, so many musicians from the Twin Cities

40:26

and elsewhere that came together to do all of these things,

40:30

it was just the best of the best.

40:34

It was just unbelievable.

40:37

And that was transforming, just the experience of the music.

40:41

To be in that space and to be part of that.

40:47

-

Thank you so much.

40:53

Henry, Robin

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture