{"id":3255,"date":"2021-02-17T22:57:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T03:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/?p=3255"},"modified":"2021-02-17T23:07:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T04:07:20","slug":"the-end-and-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/2021\/02\/the-end-and-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"The end and the beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Glitter
Image: Glitter Ashes in a small terra cotta dish. They are on a woven blanket of rainbow colors in the sun. There are candles and other bowls in the background. Provided by the Rev. Lyndsey Godwin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Read a blessing for the imposition of ashes >><\/em><\/a><\/h3>\n

An Ash Wednesday reflection by the Rev. Laura M. Cheifetz<\/p>\n

Maybe I am just familiar with the ways white supremacy works<\/em>
\n Maybe my familiar reminds me<\/em>
\n to always call a thing<\/em>
\n exactly what it is\u2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0J Mase III<\/p>\n

Some say the only constant is change.<\/p>\n

Others say the only constant is God, the holy that surrounds us.<\/p>\n

Truly, the constant is white supremacy.<\/p>\n

It binds us together because none of us are free of it, not even those of you who slide under the radar.<\/p>\n

Story time<\/p>\n

Feb 19th<\/sup> is the Day of Remembrance, the day FDR signed 9066, imprisoning Americans of Japanese descent.<\/p>\n

White supremacy removed 120,000 people, men, women, children, citizens and aliens ineligible for citizenship, entire communities, displaced from farms and cities and small towns to the horse stalls at fairgrounds, and then to hastily-constructed desert prisons \u2013 my grandmother, her father, and their neighbors registered as a single family so they wouldn\u2019t be separated, reduced from complicated relationships to an assigned number they wore on their clothes. Before leaving, my grandfather buried his most precious possession, and at 13 years old, it was his bb gun, out in a field, to keep it so safe he never found it again.<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s Japantown was emptied out by white supremacy, and those empty apartments filled by Black people moving into the Fillmore, leaving the Jim Crow South as shipbuilding and other wartime jobs became available. They were the first to lose their jobs as the war ended and white men returned.<\/p>\n

The fullness of white supremacy can only be perceived if we pull in all the threads of oppression<\/p>\n

We who experience vulnerability because of who we are, because of our bodies and the people who survived so we could be here, are bound together<\/p>\n

And we have a choice \u2013 to play oppression Olympics, to measure pain over pain, to turn against each other because of our powerlessness against white supremacy and its primary beneficiaries, on our enraged insistence that the specificity of violence against each of us nullifies our togetherness in it<\/p>\n

Or we can choose solidarity<\/p>\n

We thrive in spite of it all<\/p>\n

Because we are created in the image of God<\/p>\n

Our bodies named problems by white supremacy contain the divine spark<\/p>\n

Even in prison camps, Japanese Americans made art, got married, had babies, chose resistance, and two generations after, choose solidarity, showing up for Muslims in the wake of 9\/11, Latin American asylum-seekers in detention centers, Black Lives Matter<\/p>\n

Black trans faithful people make prayer, bring beauty, are generous in their living witness, reflect the sacred among all of us, and show up in ways the world does not deserve<\/p>\n

\"CloseupAshes are creation, too<\/p>\n

On Ash Wednesday, we who are a part of this family of faith may take the joy and resistance of Palm Sunday, carrying it throughout the year so it becomes the sign of the cross, of a claimed-ness, on our foreheads<\/p>\n

The epistle reading for today comes from 2 Corinthians, 5:20b-6:10:<\/p>\n

we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.\u00a021<\/sup>For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.<\/em><\/p>\n

6As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.\u00a02<\/sup>For he says, \u201cAt an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.\u201d See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!\u00a03<\/sup>We are putting no obstacle in anyone\u2019s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,\u00a04<\/sup>but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,\u00a05<\/sup>beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;\u00a06<\/sup>by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,\u00a07<\/sup>truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;\u00a08<\/sup>in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;\u00a09<\/sup>as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see\u2014we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed;\u00a010<\/sup>as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ash is the end and the beginning<\/p>\n

It is death and sparkles<\/p>\n

It is art made behind barbed wire, of fruit pits, gardens made of rocks, jewelry made of scavenged prehistoric seashells and mail-ordered nail polish. It is fresh vegetables grown on an abandoned lot, prayer emerging from grief and belovedness, beauty and joy knowing how very close we are to death. It is insistence upon showing up, gorgeous and free, no matter what.<\/p>\n

As the prayer says:<\/p>\n

Maybe my familiar reminds me<\/em>
\n to always call a thing<\/em>
\n exactly what it is<\/em><\/p>\n

And I\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

call\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

–\u00a0J Mase III<\/p>\n

\n

\"laura-circle\"Laura Cheifetz is the assistant dean of admissions, vocation, and stewardship at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is multiracial Asian American of Japanese and white Jewish descent. She was the fourth generation of her family to be born in California, and grew up in eastern Oregon and western Washington.\u00a0Laura\u00a0and her partner, Jessica Vazquez Torres, the National Program Manager for Crossroads Antiracism Organizing & Training, live in Nashville, Tenn. with two rescued Shih Tzus. They enjoy all their nieces and nephews, and hope to be such fabulous aunties that the kids smuggle good booze to them in their retirement home. In their free time, Jessica bakes and\u00a0Laura delivers the baked goods to friends and neighbors.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read a blessing for the imposition of ashes >> An Ash Wednesday reflection by the Rev. Laura M. Cheifetz Maybe I am just familiar with the ways white supremacy works Maybe my familiar reminds me to always call a thing exactly what it is\u2026\u00a0–\u00a0J Mase III Some say the only constant is change. Others say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6668,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1069,1068],"tags":[1079,1080,1082,1081],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-spirituality","category-worship","tag-ash-wednesday","tag-glitter-ashes","tag-japanese-internment","tag-lgbtqi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3255"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}