Reverend Taylor and the Church of Swifties

July 5, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

For many millennials (not to mention others), Taylor Swift is a religious experience. One such person calls me Mom. My daughter—the same age as Swift—drove the backroads of rural Tillamook County blaring Swift’s earliest albums from a beat-up sedan that won ‘Worst Car’ her senior year. To daughter Madison, Swift comes close to perfection. Deciphering the genius and intent of her songs, the closest thing she has to religion. Her attendance of Taylor’s Eras Tour later this month will be... Read more

What Did Matthew 10:40-42 Mean in Jesus’ Culture?

June 29, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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Understanding the culture behind the scriptures helps much with certain passages. This week’s lectionary gospel is one example. Without contextual understanding, the passage is cryptic and confusing. Anthropologists call a key element of Circum-Mediterranean culture featured in the passage “patron-client relations.” In cultures where access to power, influence, jobs, and other goods requires the help of a patron, people often gain access to patrons through different “middle-men” or “middle-women.” Anthropologists call these figures “brokers.” A middle-man or broker acts on... Read more

How the Handmaid’s Tale is about the Undocumented

June 23, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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I’m reading the follow up to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale (The Testaments) and again find my mind in Gilead. The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a dystopian United States where the vast majority of women can no longer have children. In response to this crisis, an authoritarian government allows those in power to subjugate fertile women, forcing them to work as “handmaids” (sex/birth slaves/surrogates) for elite families. Taken from their own families by paramilitaries, the handmaids live under the... Read more

In Praise of a Quiet Life

June 16, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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In praise of waking when wakefulness stirs you because you do not own an alarm clock and if you did, would not know where to find it. In praise of grinding coffee or brewing tea or hydrating with water, if that’s your preference, of eating breakfast when you feel hungry and not before. In praise of morning coffee and birdsong out the window. In praise of running a hot bath and listening to good podcasts while bathing and starting laundry.... Read more

Your Body Remembers: The ‘Wolf at my Door’ Series

June 9, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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{For the beginning of this series, click HERE} A bit of truth-telling: I have complex PTSD (C-PTSD). More people are familiar with PTSD proper, which can happen when one has experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event—such as an experience in war, a mugging or sexual assault, a car crash, a natural disaster. Complex PTSD happens when a traumatizing pattern of experience persists over a long period, especially if this happens when you are younger, with fewer resources to cope... Read more

You Can Change! Jairus and the Back of the Line

June 6, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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I often point out how in Jesus’ teaching of God’s vision, ‘the first will be last, and the last will be first.’ This reversal of values is foundational to the ‘realm of God’ Jesus invited us to participate in, and many of Jesus’ stories and action demonstrate this reversal. The scene where Jesus, the leader of his group of followers, gets on his knees and washes his disciples’ feet is a case in point. Jesus goes on to explain that... Read more

Why We Go to the Desert

May 31, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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{These questions—written during the Pandemic—seem as timely as ever.} Sprawled on handmade quilts in a grassy orchard, sharing an outdoor, physically distanced visit with my friend Karen under purple pear and transparent apple trees, I am nowhere near a desert. My Willamette Valley farm home is more Edenic than it is barren, devoid, or austere. Yet when Karen, a spiritual director, asks, “Where are the voices teaching us how to be in the desert?,” she put words to a question... Read more

You Have the Ability to Set People Free: Finding the Power of Forgiveness

May 26, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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It’s been roughly two years since I lost my best friend, Brother Martin Gonzales. Martin had been my closest friend for over 21 years, which was 43% of my life at the time he died—so a lot of my life. We met in 2000 at the reception desk of the Trappist monastery in Lafayette, Oregon where he had been a monk since 1950. To me, Martin was like a conduit of Divine love at a time when I doubted that... Read more

What is Kabbalah and Why Did Madonna Convert To It?

May 23, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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Though I am no expert on the path of mystical Judaism called Kabbalah, my thinking about God has been profoundly shaped by it. This is because I happened upon Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, teacher of Kabbalah, in the mid-2010s, in an OnBeing interview where he narrated an illustration of God that gave contour and language to images impacting my own heart and mind. This image arrived like a long-awaited messenger, weaving together threads of thought, intuition, and longing I’d had for... Read more

Celebrating #Affirming Sunday

May 16, 2023 By Tricia Gates Brown

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June is Pride Month and I’m newly introduced to the upcoming tradition of Affirming Sunday (June 4; #AffirmingSunday). I encourage you to mark it in some way in your own church. This new Christian tradition asks churches both to embrace pride, and to actively demonstrate affirmation of the lives and struggles of LGBTQ people in our communities. Full inclusion and participation are needed if everyone in spiritual communities is to experience God’s unfathomable love and inclusion. If we have experienced... Read more