my final project for one of my classes

…..“we are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey”…..


To my parents

The more I study psychology, the more I know that we are products of what we are given from the most formative ages. You two are the most fundamental relationships in my life; the cornerstones for my identity, built from before even my earliest memories. And even before! I have memories of how beloved I was that are not memories at all, but rather engrained stories from you. You told me about how Mom rode her bike to school until she was bursting with two babies at five months and ate crazy homemade protein shakes and liver once a week to ensure we would be as healthy as possible when we were born. I have seen pictures of Dad in the homemade jersey that says “Twins are twice as nice in felt letters”. I have seen the images of your ecstatic faces as you throw us in the air and hold us peacefully to your sleeping chests. You cherished us, of that I have no doubt. And only now am I beginning to see how very rare that is. That is more real and genuine to me with each passing year, the more I get to know who you really are and what you are passionate about. I am probably not the child you expected; not the apple of your eye. I never liked the science kits or the grocery store math object lessons. I became the extrovert whose energy made you tired just to watch. I became a Christian against some of your distaste and fear, and now my faith will be a part of all I do, even my profession. I am so different from you in so many ways. Yet you do not accept me or tolerate me. You continue to cherish me.


To my twin

You almost don’t even count as an other. I cannot term you my “best friend” because that puts you in a category that cannot contain me and you. You are such a part of me. You truly are my other half. You are all the mysterious parts of me that never developed, for better or worse. We fill in the blanks of the other. We have always had each other as a living mirror. You have always feared losing me. We always struggled with comparisons. People always compared us. It is built into my thinking to wonder how I measure up to everyone and everything. That part of me often feels like a curse. Yet I can think of no one who believes in me or thinks more of me than you do. What would it be like not to have someone like that? How do I forget this unbelievable gift? Yet one of the biggest challenges of growing up has been to learn who I am. Just me. Who am I without you? It feels almost like a betrayal. But I have to be able to get there. And so do you. We cannot be afraid of losing our closeness. I have come to believe that knowing more deeply and fully who we are can only be good and draws all else that is good into our lives.


To all the friends I lost in middle school

All this time I thought it was because I was white. I thought that I got singled out and scrutinized and picked apart because I was white, and if only I did not stick out like a sore thumb, I could have a shot at fitting in. Or at least getting by without the trite misery of pre-adolescence. But I didn’t. And I got through it just fine. Maybe even better off. And what I came to realize is that after middle school, you didn’t fit in either. According to the rest of the world, you are the one to watch and scrutinize and fear. The older we get, the less it is about being cool or uncool. The more the distances between people become about more disturbing things and more (sometimes but not always!) insurmountable differences. I guess most of us don’t get to fit in. For whatever reason, we stick out and it feels to our detriment. People can be cruel just about anywhere, especially around the age of thirteen. But maybe its like a rite of passage. Maybe if I had fit in, I would not be here right now….in one of the oddest places I can think of…at seminary. And now, I’m glad I knew you even after you didn’t know me anymore because I think you might like me now.



To my “godfather”

If you really knew me now, I wonder if you would be disappointed. You helped me to “get saved”. You saw me in my most awkward stage and saw a Christian leader. And ironically that is what I am, now more than ever. But would you approve? Because my faith is not what you trained me up in. I no longer memorize Bible verses or worry about who is going to Hell. I am not even sure if I believe in Hell anymore, and I almost did not write that………because I knew it would scandalize you. You would worry that I was “backsliding”…………. “falling away”. I feel this anger at the pit of my stomach for Christians like you. I feel as though Christians like you are the impetus for wars against the foreigner, crusades against the sexually deviant, rants and raves against everything that is not proof texted. But is there anyone quite like you? You are more than just another one of those scary conservative Christians that I have grown apart from. You are my mentor, since before I knew who I was talking to when I talked to God. You called yourself my “godfather” because you knew I hungered for someone to walk along the way with me. I am on a different way now, so where are you? Where can I find you now?


To all my ex-boyfriends (age 15, age 17, age 20, age 22, age 25)

I am not over you yet. Maybe I will never be.



To my Grandpa Doerrer

I know you worry about me. You grew up in a generation that knew poverty. You cannot imagine why anyone would invite it upon themselves and pursue a job (a “calling”) with a very low ceiling for salary. Why achieve a Masters Degree only to make less than the person who fixes my car or my plumbing system? I don’t know why. I can’t answer that. At least not to your satisfaction. I am blessed to be in a different generation; one with enough choices to be able to listen for a call or a leading. Loving people, especially unlovable people, has never been a particular prestigious or lucrative market. It is just what makes me feel like my very best and truest self. And really, all I can say is I know you worry about me. But I don’t worry about me. Not anymore.


To my “soul friend”

This is a new concept to me. I gave you this language to describe our relationship with bashfulness and fear that you would laugh at me. But you didn’t. You got it. And you get me. We are friends who maybe should not be friends for all intents and purposes. I still remember seeing you in my first semester here; a stunning black woman with a head of thick curly hair, a sophisticated fashion sense with all the right accessories and strutting with the confidence of a woman over six feet tall (you had to tell me later that you were only two inches taller than me!). You spoke up for the controversial position in a class filled with black peers, including men who were no doubt sizing you up, and you did not apologize for it. When I said I wanted to know you better, you had me over on Halloween for cider and candy. We fasted together for Lent and prayed for each other. We performed together in the Vagina Monologues, giggling about all that we were supposed to take so seriously. People did not get us and I don’t think even we “got” us. But it felt right to invest in our friendship. I have continued to admire you more and more, but admiration has given way to vulnerability on both sides. When I lost what I thought was the love of my life, you came and picked me up without any questions and tucked me in on your couch and prayed over me when I could only cry. You have seen the worst of me at my lowest low and I have talked with you about decisions that you regret, but this only seems to deepen the conviction of our friendship. Our friendship is still so new and fresh in my life that it is the only thing I write about now that makes me cry. I feel called to you in a way that I thought I could only feel called to a man, to a romantic love. You have enlarged my concept of friendship and I will never be the same.


To God

…………………………………………………..I never expected to have you in my life. You have taken away so much of what I longed for and trusted in. You have crushed so much of what I had built. Yet you have given me what I did not even know I wanted or needed, and filled hands that I did not even know were outstretched………………..