Latest / A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast / Trick or Treat...It's Gay Icons, New Prime Ministers, & Family Leave w/ JoAnne Sharp and Bethany Benz-Whittington

Transcript

Trick or Treat...It's Gay Icons, New Prime Ministers, & Family Leave w/ JoAnne Sharp and Bethany Benz-Whittington · A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions and comments on issues of faith, social justice, and church life.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid to write in and ask your question, because if it matters to you, it matters to us, and it just might be a matter of faith,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Whether it be faith in God, faith in others, or faith in yourself.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We are brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound the interactive journal on Christian Social Justice for the Presbyterian Church usa.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Lee Cato,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm your host Simon Doune.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Without further ado, let's dive into today's questions.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to a matter of Faith a Presby podcast.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I am joined as always by the wonderful Lee Cato Lee.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Hey, Simon.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I am good, and yeah, I'm good.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Me and Simon always have conversations before this and it kind of primes us.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: So I am energized and jazzed and and all hyped up because of our conversation.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So nice.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: If only we could record those and not get in trouble.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: That's fair.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But you know, there are those conversations that you need to have in order to, uh, get things going and mm-hmm.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: get the, get the creative podcast juices flowing and, uh, yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And speaking of getting the, the juices flowing, um, I was really, I was gonna say I was really juice, but that sounds like you're using steroids.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: .
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I was not sorry, folks.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I was not orange
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Juice.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Orange juice, Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I, let me tell you, I needed some orange juice.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Um, I wa I was after my race, so, um, I did a race and I was out in, in Boise over this past week, which was a lot of fun.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I'd never been to Boise, Idaho before, but I had grown up a fan of the Boise State football team.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: My favorite color is orange, and I like orange and blue.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Boise State has a blue football field.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: They're colors are orange and blue.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: They're kind of always treated like an underdog.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Um, anyways, I'd never been to Boise, so yeah, went and did a race out in Boise, which was fun.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: And, uh, shout out also to my girlfriend who did her first half marathon.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of her.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it, it was fun to do that.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Um, I also was not entirely ready though.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I should have been for the temperature to suddenly drop.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It was kind of like we, Oh, yeah.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: We like, if you compared the weather this past weekend to the weekend before night and day, I mean, I, I just got cold.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's also my own fault.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't dress for it, so that's on me.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Simon only brought shorts apparently.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So I only brought shorts.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Um, but I do own pants, and I just got some more pants in case people were wondering about my, my wellbeing or my strategic ability to decide to wear the appropriate attire,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: .
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And it's snowing there, right?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, right now it just stopped.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I just looked out the window, but it was snowing for a moment.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: That's wild.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not here.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It's actually kind of like ball me, which I'm ready for it to get cold.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: But I also attended a race, actually it was last night, well, when we're recording this, this last night, but DC is home to the 17th Street High Heel race.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: And if you don't know what that is, it's celebrated as 35th anniversary this week.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: And people get dressed up in drag and, you know, express themselves through that art.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And also where high heels and a lot of people sign up to do it, and they come in themes.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Like this year there was somebody who was dressed as Queen Elizabeth, and people were dressed up as corgis, and they were like all around her.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And there was some housewives and there was like Marilyn Monroe and like all these great costumes, but they, they like two blocks to kind of bring awareness to like rights.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And it was started because of that and, and here in DC and it was just really cool to experience.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: This is our second one.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: The last time we did it, we just kind of happened upon it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it was, it was also a race, but probably very different than yours.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: But sending love to our siblings and everybody who did that race because it was, it was wonderful.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And we gotta see the mayor, I saw it was met with some, some protests during it, so that was also interesting, but Oh,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good, it was a, it was a good race and my weekend was good too.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: It was very relaxing.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I don't do much all, I like not doing things, so I am a couch potato.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I have trouble believing that Lee,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I will work out, but I do, There is nothing like sitting on the couch with my dog and watching tv.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: That's fair.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: And some may call that lazy.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I, it is my favorite pastime.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: It's my hobby, so I didn't do much, and I kind of like it that way.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: But we did do something this weekend, and I can't remember what exactly it was anyway, but something did happen this weekend, this week that we we're gonna talk about.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And if you don't know who Leslie Jordan is, Leslie Jordan was an actor and also an activist, and also a very and gay southern man from Tennessee.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: And I will, I will say that there aren't many, I don't get attached to many celebrities or like, I don't, you know, I have certain ones that, or musicians that I'll listen to or, but I don't have like this attachment to, to celebrities as some people might.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: But I did have an attachment to Leslie Jordan, who, who died in a car wreck.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And they think it was because of some medical thing that happened this past week and only 67 years old.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: But you might have seen him in Willing Grace, which was a great show.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: He also had his own TV show, uh, out there and had an album out with like gospel music.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And he, he was really there in the eighties and early nineties, but have recently kind of like surged because of during in the Pandemic, he created all these Instagram videos that just caught on.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: And, and I just remember the first time I saw Leslie Jordan in a movie, and he was always very out and, well probably during that time, but he was one of the only people that I could like identify with that was out in media.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: He was, you know, he didn't apologize for how he sounded.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: He was a very southern accent.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: He never apologized how he acted.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: He was always active in the gay community and, and was just one of the sweetest people that is a part of that kind of celebrity status type of thing.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And so when I found out he died, I didn't realize how much he like meant to me in those senses that he was one of the few people I could identify and how he sounded and who he was.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: He was just not very apologetic about it.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And so it was hard for me this week to see that.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And there aren't many people out there like that who kind of, who are in the public eye, but you could connect with automatically and it takes special people and it takes a special spirit for that to happen.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just sending love to Leslie Jordan right now because I think that he was a gift to a lot of people that he didn't realize, and a lot of southern boys that are out there who could be themselves.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And I get emotional about it because that, that just wasn't a thing.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Uh, and to see him on Will and Grace and to see him in movies, and he did Sorted Lives if you've never heard about that.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And he dressed in drag and he talked about Tammy wnet, and so he sang country music and, and seeing somebody who was themselves just living into who they were was very special.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And I know a lot of southern people are all the better because of, of who he was.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: And so we're sending love to him and it's just a sad day for the community to lose somebody like that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: So we had to mention him on the podcast.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: We like to thank those who are able to champion and trail blaze, um, in different career paths and different contexts and settings.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And so yeah.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you Leslie, for, for everything that, that you did, uh, for the community and in entertainment.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And, uh, we're just, yeah, we're grateful for Leslie to pass on as certainly a change that I think some people are, people are definitely sad about.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: There are also some changes that people are very happy about going on across the pond.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in Europe and specifically in the uk.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: People have not heard about this, uh, la uh, over the past week, well now former Prime Minister, but I guess should should say, um, at that time, Prime Minister Liz Trust announced that she was resigning as Prime Minister of the uk.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: She, is the shortest serving prime Minister in British history at serving for just about, I believe it's a month and a half.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It's
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Like 44 days or something.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this, uh, it's mostly come down to the Conser, a conservative party leader.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And she had this, i, she had this plan to sort of reorient the government's economic agenda by slashing taxes.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Uh, and then this comes from the Washington Post.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Um, but without saying how the decision would actually be paid for, the result is that markets responded very poorly to this and she never recovered.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And it's just been a downturn, one after another and a constant spiral.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Uh, so she stepped down and there's been, I think she has had some of the lowest approval ratings via polls that like anyone has ever seen in a long time in the uk.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I, and there were also some pretty funny things on the internet about this.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I won't lie, I don't know if anyone has seen this.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Uh, someone had posted a, a, uh, well, I should back up.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Uh, British newspaper columns again, this comes from the Washington Post, poked fun at Russ predicting that her career would have the shelf life of a lettuce, which is about 10 days.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: And then, uh, one tabloid the Daily Star went a step further, setting up a 24 hour live video of a head of lettuce at times dressed in a wig or glasses next to a picture of, of trust asking viewers, which would wilt first the lettuce one.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty funny.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I have to admit.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Again, we don't, we don't wanna champion completely, uh, you know, ridiculing someone by any means, but that is kind of, kind of clever and kind of funny.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And the sort of the other side of this in the follow up is that a new Prime Minister, hope I'm pronouncing his, his name right, Rishi Sumac.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Orsak.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: is taking over as Prime Minister.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: He is the first Prime Minister that is a person of color for the uk, which is kind of exciting.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Um, and it'll be interesting.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: He has, I think it's a little less than two years or a little bit more than two years to kind of turn this around around in terms of the economic crisis now and try to solve some of the economic challenges that the UK is facing.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens, uh, with, with this new Prime Minister and how everything unfolds.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: It's British politics is interesting.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: It is interesting.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: But also the new Prime Minister, he is one of the most wealthy ones that has ever been, uh, put into power.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I think he might be the wealthiest, He's got more money than the royal family does, which by double, I think, I think there was something put out by the Washington Post that he's worth like 800 million pounds and the, and the royal family's worth like 425.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And I think this is one of the first times ever that that is the case.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: And yeah, he's a person of color, which I think, you know, people were talking, some mps were talking yesterday that none of them, although they definitely disagree with the politics of it all, we're very much saying that this is a great moment for the UK to, to have him be in this position.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And so that was interesting too, to see.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And just add a little more details.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Um, Sun Act is 42 and he's the first Hindu and the first person, first person of South Asian descent to lead the country.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: And as for folks that dunno, this also comes during the time of Diwali, which is very important in, in the Hindu religion and faith, and to the people who, who practice it.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Um, and particularly a lot of people of South Asian descent, uh, do practice that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And so it was very neat.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I was reading, uh, it was really neat for him to be able to talk about becoming Prime Minister while also lighting.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I believe it's like a Diwali candle outside of, um, what is, what is the place that, uh, the British Prime, Downing Street, the Downing Street residence.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of neat.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Number 10.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, number 10.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So neat that he's able to, to celebrate, you know, his culture and heritage and, and faith while also about to be leading the uk.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: So we will see what happens.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Wish I'll see.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And another thing, wish I'll see
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: There's some great.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, the next thing wish I'll see is some great Halloween costumes, hopefully.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Are you gonna dress up?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I want to, I always enjoy Halloween.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I love costumes.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I love dressing up, so I'll find something, even if it's not something super complicated.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Have you seen, whenever you said, I love Halloween, have you seen that video of that little girl with the bats in the background?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I, well she, it's just like as freaking bats.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I love Halloween.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: .
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: It is, that's one of the best videos out there.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And I followed that girl and she is a lot older than what she is and she's still just as funny.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it, it is amazing.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: She's, I mean, she's wonderful, but it just made me think about that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But yeah, Happy Halloween y'all.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Happy Halloween.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And we have a question written in, which is kind of similar to something we talked about last year, but I think it's important that we revisit this topic because especially in, in the span of the last year where politically things seem to become more divisive, it'll be interesting to see how things that maybe at one time was divisive, is now just kind of part of Halloween for some people is huge for other people.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It's almost just like nothing.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's not even, it's not that it's a problem, it's just kind of nothing.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: So the question reads, you talked last year about how churches and faith communities at one point and maybe still are uncomfortable with Halloween once again.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think that will change?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Why or why not?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, what is your favorite part of Halloween?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I, I do feel like it feels a little different than it did last year because of politics and, and everybody's like, everybody gets, so not everybody, but like certain demographics get so uncomfortable with Halloween.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: And I don't, it's hard for me to live into that space.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: But I do know, and if you haven't seen this vi we've been bringing up a lot of, uh, social media today, but if you haven't seen this video is this lady in Texas and she is talking about hocus pocus too.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: And if you haven't seen it, y'all, you should just go see it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: We're gonna endorse it.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: We're not, we're not sponsored by Disney, but we're gonna endorse, uh, endorse Hocus pocus too.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: You should go see it and you should see the first one too.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And, but this, this per this woman in Texas got on Na, not got on like state news and was talking about Hocus pocus too, because it had just come out and she was saying that Halloween and like these witches and all this other kind of stuff were like infiltrating the minds of kids in like this demonic kind of way and spurring all of these like, very evil spiritual things that are going on during Halloween.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: And it just made me really think about how we are framing and, and how we're, we're discussing things like spirits and, and all this and all this stuff because it was obviously something that was very religious about her that kind of was in response to this.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And so I think peop those, I think people are still out there that say Halloween is of the devil and all of these types of things.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And you know, speaking in Hocus focus too, I mean, it was a great message.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: You know, it was a good message at the end that like, you know, not everybody needs all the power, like power.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: This was the main thing.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna spoil it for anybody, but the main thing was that every power should not be centralized to anyone.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And when it is, you lose the things that you love.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: You will do anything to get power.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: And now that's a message that'll preach.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: You can do, you'll do anything to get power and you will sacrifice everything in your life to get it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: But this, in this movie, having power so much so that you lost the thing that you love the most and then realizing it and then trying to, trying to, to, to, to make it right or to fix it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: And so it takes people to point that out to you.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It takes a group of people to kind of keep you accountable.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And so that was the message of this whole movie.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And then we wanna turn it into somebody talking about demons coming out of the tv.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: So it's just interesting that, you know, we're in a time now of like culture war, that anything that is not Christian centered, that anything like that is considered to be of the devil.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: When in reality there are many things within faith and Christian things that could be considered evil that we have perpetuated.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: So I think it's just interesting.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I don't think it'll change.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: People are gonna have their feelings about Halloween, but my thing is just don't watch it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: You know, if that makes you uncomfortable.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: If it's something I don't watch horror movies cuz it scares me to death.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Like I don't, I don't watch that kind of thing, but it's all about entertainment and it's all about kind of, Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: So
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I should go watch that video.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Do you remember growing up when Harry Potter was on the Rise?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: It was the big thing.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I know that there were some people who were like, Oh no, I don't want my kids to read that.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Or My mom won't let me read that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's banned.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Because it's magic.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And I guess the assumption being, oh, well magic is bad, witchcraft bad.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want my kids or my, I don't want my kids to, or my students to think that that's real.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Which is interesting because now we have certain educators and politicians trying to ban books about real history because they're worried that either kids can't handle it or kids will believe that it's real because it is.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And from that perspective, it's very interesting then to look at Halloween, which is something that is like, oh, at one point this was a big deal and now for some people it's still a big deal and for a lot of people it's like not a problem.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: For some it's a celebration.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: For others it's borderline like apathetic.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, Oh, that's, that's a thing.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But we don't really do that.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily, it's not even a judgment thing.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: They just may not like want to participate, which is okay too.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But I do think that that's kind of interesting.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I will say I love getting dressed up for Halloween.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: That is my favorite part.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's getting dressed up, going to a party, having kids come by and pick up candy.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You get to see so much creativity.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It allows for a community to come together.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Cuz let's be honest, how often am I just gonna like, interact with random kids in my neighborhood?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Not, not that often if I'm not a parent myself, if I don't already have a relationship with those people.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But it provides an opportunity to interact with community members.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And I know that there are ways to do that and not around a holiday and giving kids candy and dressing up.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: But there is something about the, the spirit of that that I really enjoy.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And that really means a lot to me.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I mean we used to, it was amazing what we came up with when we were young to dress up for Halloween and to think and encourage kids to use their imagination.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Why is that a bad thing?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Like, I mean, there are many things in our, in our world that we can't explain.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And if we wanna talk about magic, I may, I might say something that may be controversial, which is not new for me, but I do think in some ways in the Bible there was some magic going on in there.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, we turned, Jesus turned water into wine.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Like that was kind of a, a thing that was kind of mysterious.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: And we may attest that to the spirit, but also I've heard that like, you know, people were obsessed with Jesus because Jesus could do these things, but they were only obsessed with it because of the spectacle and because of He could do this type of magic thing in a way, but deeper down it was a way in which, you know, the spirit was working, but also there was a deeper message to all of it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: And, and every time I see something, you know, Harry Potter has a deep deeper message than just the magic.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Like there are, there are some things that are a lot deeper where it comes from.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And so I think we miss that too.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: And I just hope that we can continue to encourage kids and whoever out there that it is a time to express yourself and a time.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, we shouldn't have to have a holiday for that, but I do think it is a great time to kind of do that and to live into it because as a person of faith, I believe, I believe our creativity is very divine.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And I don't think God gets mad at us using that creativity and dressing up and having a good time.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And I think it, I think it's just interesting that we focus on things that, you know, bring people life and bring people happiness and bring people way to create and demonize it because it might not be something we understand or it might not be something that we do ourselves, but it gives people some kind of outlet and some kind of way of just enjoying life in general.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And I think it is interesting, especially from the community where there is now Halloween costumes and drag are very different things, but I do think in some ways that creativity element is more lived into, in a lot of spaces than it is, you know, and ones that are not.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just interesting that we pick this to be the thing when a lot of other stuff that is a bigger deal are happening right now.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, hocus posi good movie, we endorse it, but then the, and then the scheme of things, it may save somebody's life.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: You know, like there are, there are media, I mean, I just got done talking about, um, Leslie Jordan, there are many times where growing up people see things on TV that they identify with or they get really into and people love Harry Potter and kids really got into that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: And in many ways it was a, it was an escape from their real life.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: And so how do we, you know, also encourage that, but also change our real lives so they don't have to escape from it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: You know, it's, it's just this continuation of, of that.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: And then we see Christian versions of Halloween, which is terrifying.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: If you've never been to a judge Judgment House, I'm not saying you should go, but I'm saying you should research it, Right.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Because this is what happens, right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Is what happens.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And I, Yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Well I also appreciate that, like you said, it allows you to tap into creativity.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And I think it also, as you become more aware of the world and injustices, you're able to start thinking about what are the ways that, if I'm gonna dress up in a certain way and when I do this, is this appropriation or is this celebration and what is the difference between that or Yeah, maybe it's not the best choice that I wear this kind of, these kinds of things or dress in this kind of a style for this particular outfit or costume because I'm not of that community.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And that's okay.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Um, I think that that's, I think that that's okay and I think that it also, in the same way that I think anyone could dress up as Captain America, but maybe not everyone should dress up as Black Panther.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And I don't, and I don't say that to mean kids should not look up to Black Panther.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people should really, really look at Black Panther cuz he's a very cool superhero and representation matters, but it means something different a little bit when people who maybe are not black or African American or of that community or have that particular identity, if they dress up as Black Panther, I'm not saying that they can't, I'm just saying that there is a bit of a question that maybe people should have when choosing that.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And that's not something that's gonna come up in everyday life Yeah.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Per se.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: In the same way that, uh, you know, if you want, if you're gonna gender, have you ever heard of gender bending a character?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, okay, what does it mean to gender bend this character?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And for those people that don't know if there's a character that you are, uh, trying to dress up as that is typically male or female and then you dress up the opposite because often it's to be more in alignment with your own gender.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: What does that mean now in a, in a time where we're trying to be more understanding of thinking outside of the gender binary?
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's just me.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: This is just that character because that character is awesome, the gender doesn't matter.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But you're able to tap into these types of creativity and these kinds of questions, um, when given the opportunity.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: So I love Halloween.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I do too.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I'm like that little girl.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I love Halloween.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: And I will say my favorite part though is the candy.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I'm a big candy corn person and I know not everybody's on that boat, but Candy corn all the way and the little candy corn pumpkins.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: That's my favorite, that's my favorite thing about Halloween, the candy.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Now we might have to get some, we might have some anti candy corn people out there and that's fine.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: You can share your opinion and we're all here to do so.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: But I do love a candy corn.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Uh, brand bros, maybe?
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I can't remember the name brand, but
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: By the way, Candy my favorite.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's definitely Candy Corn for
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, see, there we go.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: We don't have to fight about
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: That.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Now I'm, I like Candy Corn a lot.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna eat it in Fistfuls.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's something I wanna have a little bit of every day.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Kind of like a little bit.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: But you don't wanna, you don't want to go too.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: It's a savory thing.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You don't want to go, you don't wanna go in deep or hard on the candy corn because that will,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: That
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Will rot your teeth and make you feel pretty bad.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Or not.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: But, but,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Uh, it's good stuff.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Folks.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Write in and let us know.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite part of Halloween?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Do you think church faith communities will ever grow to completely understand or accept it?
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of churches love and really embrace Halloween, um, but not all of them do.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And what's your favorite part of Halloween?
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And also if you work for Candy Corn, you wanna sponsor a matter of Faith a Presby podcast
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: .
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I will, I will gladly just like have a, a moment where I was eating candy corn as part of the recording and
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Say, Yeah, we'll make a video.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: We'll make a video, we'll make an ad.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll eat the candy corn all day long.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I'll dress up as a piece of candy corn.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I think I did that one day.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: One one year.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, let us, let us know folks right in at Faith podcast at P C S usa.org and happy Halloween,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Have Halloween.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Well, joining us today on a matter of faith as our special guests.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: We actually have two this time and we're very excited to welcome Joanne Sharp, who is the co-moderator of the Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice and the Reverend Bethany Bins Witton owner of Sacred Calls.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: It is so nice to have y'all.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Thanks Lee.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And we're really grateful to have both of you with us to think through a pretty important issue that I don't think it's talked about as much, both in the church as well as just sort of in society in general.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And this is actually a topic at this year's general assembly as well, and that's the topic of family leave.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And so our question for today is, how is family leave a justice issue?
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: What do you all have to say to that?
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll start.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: It's really pure and simple.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Families need time to take care of themselves and their loved ones.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Prior to General Assembly, when my committee was hosting our, um, Riverside conversation for commissioners and other interested folks, a person pose a question, Well, shouldn't family leave be something that a female pastor negotiates during the call process?
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: And my response was, this isn't a female issue, it's a parent issue, it's a siblings issue, it's a child's issue.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: We've, we've worked for many years, and I won't say how many years to get to this point, to have family leave as part of the standard of call.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: And this policy gives a parent time to welcome a new family member.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: It also gives those children who have aging parents time to sit with their parent as they transition to eternal life.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: And for some of us, it's a sibling issue because we can then sit with our siblings who don't have children or a spouse or a partner to sit with them at those critical moments.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: So that's how it's a justice.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: We wanna take, We say we wanna take care of our ministers of Warden Sacra, this is how we do it.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: We don't leave it up to individual sessions who aren't always kind to their folks.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Bethany, you got anything to say about
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: That?
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: So many things.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: Um, no, I think you said it really well.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Um, the only thing that I would add, you know, you mentioned, uh, spouses and, uh, partners to that question of shouldn't female pastors be negotiating this it, and you said it's, it's about more than, than women.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: This is about, uh, our pastors who are, um, in same sex relationships and may not be the one carrying a child or the ones who, uh, are adopting children or, you know, there are families Right.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Come in all different, uh, varieties.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: And so, uh, one of the things that we're really excited about is that the language in this particular overture is very supportive, very broadly of families.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: And I'll say that having a seat at the table during the task force meetings that crafted this particular, um, language, we were very intentional about making it as broad as possible because families are cha the way families look are changing just like the church.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And for our listeners out there, I think some of us are well versed in the Presbyterian church and some of us are not.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And so when we're speaking about overtures and when we're speaking about, uh, some of these things that we're saying we're bringing before general assembly and just a precursor for everyone.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So family leave for ministers in the Presbyterian church was not necessarily a given and it was not something that came with the job.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: And it's not something that came with whenever you feel co or whenever you answered the call to go to a church or a congregation.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: That was not a part of what was happening in our church.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: And so this is kind of the context in there that when we're talking about overtures, when we're talking about general assemblies.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: So I did wanna mention that just to give everybody a context, but I really appreciate saying that this is not just an issue to a specific context that that expansion of family and what that looks like.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: And I wonder what, what each of you may think about, you know, in a broader sense where this is not necessarily within the constructs of many occupations within our country.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Um, it's not something that whenever you're in the US you automatically think you're gonna get family leave, like maybe other countries have done.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And so I wonder about like, you know, where that comes from.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: What do you think about like, how, how did we get here basically when we, when we don't expect or when we don't have that as something integrated into our society.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Like I wonder what y'all think about how did we get here when it came to that?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Because other countries, this is not an issue.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: You know, that's a big question.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Well, it is.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, do you want my cynical answer or
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I want Yeah.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: I want your very honest answer.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: We love it.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: We love that.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: So I think that, uh, that, you know, like you said, uh, when we go to other countries, we, we don't have the same experience of having to fight for leave.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Many of our, uh, Canadian colleagues, um, I frequently hear about nine months or more of leave.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: One of the the driving factors is, uh, just our general Americanism.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: We, we are to each year to each their own.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: Um, everybody's out for themselves.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: The, the main thrust of, uh, of the workplace is to make more money.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: And if one of our workers is gone, then we're not making any more money and we're having to pay for that worker to be gone.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: So, um, we're losing money on this person and it doesn't matter what the, uh, you know, what the consequences for that individual is, um, if the company is suffering.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: So a lot of it is uniquely Americanism and capitalism and pull yourself up by your bootstraps kinds of stuff.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Specifically in the church.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: And this is true across just all the denominations, um, the only denomination that has anything even close to this is the umc, which is, uh, eight weeks.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: So, but in the church specifically, this is an outgrowth of when only men were pastors and women, their wives, stayed home and had babies and kept the house.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: And we see a lot of the effects of that still over work and burnout and lack of boundaries, um, in, uh, in our pastors.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: And, and this is absolutely a remnant of that as well.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: And I'll add that some people are under the impression that everybody is under the federal mandate of family leave.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And we're not we're not because there's that lovely thing that, um, non-profits are exempt.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: And so, like Bethany said, it's part of, it's part of the culture that, that we, that we keep dragging along with us.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: And we le we've, I've been working on this since 2016.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: There was a group before me, but that's when I came onto the Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: And we have wor we have gone before General Assembly every year that for it.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: And you know, I, I was thrilled when in 2018 when they formed the task force so that we could really sit down and hammer this out.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: And we sat at the table with the Board of Pensions and they brought some wonderful things to the table and we, and AC SWAP was there and there were some very dedicated people because we only had one medium person.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: And it was abbreviated because all of the airlines got messed up and we were all delayed.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: But we met faithfully on Zoom before Zoom was popular, Y'all and, um, hammered it out.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it, it's been a long time coming, but it's time.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that you talked about sort of how this compares to the wider, I guess, context of family leave, not just in the US and also not just within the family dynamics that we always consider traditional.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And even in the, I would say in a very traditional quote unquote family.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Those dynamics are changing too as time goes on.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And I, something that I really appreciate is when I hear we shouldn't be applauding men for just being around, for lack of a better word for their children, uh, they should be playing an active part in their lives or those that are, that, that identify as male.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And that in means taking some time off of work, especially in that early part of life.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And so also thinking about what that means from a, um, not just a, I don't wanna say a justice issue, but from an expectation level as well.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Cuz expectations are changing with that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: And we have to, and the, and that means that policies have to adapt with that as well.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: And so it's, yeah, it's really complicated.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious where, so I think what we should do now is let's get into what the actual recommendation was a bit more fully, and we'll be sure to put a link to the full, uh, recommendation from General Assembly in the show notes so people can reference that.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: So the recommendation is, uh, that it be included in the book of order in a pastor's required terms of call.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: So, you know, a again, just for general context, uh, when a pastor goes to a church, it, uh, we sign a contract essentially, and it's our terms of call and there are certain things that are always included across the board.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: Every pastor gets it up to this point, it has been participation in our medical and benefits plan.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: And every presbytery then is able to set its own standards, otherwise vacation continuing ed.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: Uh, other kinds of benefits.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: So this one has always been, um, family leave has always been very piecemeal.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: Some presbyter require that 12 weeks, uh, family leave be included for all pastor.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: I I can, I can think of one two Presbyter where that's the case.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: Some of them offer nothing.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: They, they don't put anything.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Um, and, and, and then we've got kind of everything in between.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: What we're trying to do with this recommendation is to standardize it across the board, uh, so that all of our pastors have this same benefit.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: One of the things that we found is that particularly young women pastors and um, and pastors and black women pastors will look at a presbytery's required inclusions.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: And if they don't see family leave or if they see kind of a crappy family leave, they're like, I'm not going to that presbytery.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: You know, some of this is like helping presbytery out, get your, get it, get it together and like make this part of your, uh, compensation package.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: But it's to include it for all presbytery, all pastors in the whole entire denomination if you are in an installed position, which is another justice issue we can talk about on a different podcast.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: So it is 12 weeks fully paid of family medical leave.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: And what I love about the, the recommendation is that their rationale for it goes to great lengths to include, again, the, uh, the breadth of families, uh, that, that a church can encounter.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: But it also works really hard to include staff at churches.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: One of the things, I was working on this issue back in 2016 as well, and we really struggled to find a way to include staff in this because a book of order presbytery can't, can't really mandate the way we, uh, staff our churches.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: But the task force that was formed in 2018 did a really good job of including staff, uh, in that as well to say, um, again, this is a justice issue.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: This is not because you're a pastor because you have the education and because you have the credentials and the, and the status, then you get more leave because you're like a different breed of human than a person on staff at a church.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Like people who give birth need 12 weeks to recover, whether you are the head of staff or the custodian.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: So, um, they went to great lengths to include staff, uh, in their rationale.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: It includes adoption, it includes, uh, time to grieve for miscarriages and still births, uh, the care of elderly family members as sick family members.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: You know, uh, lots of pastors with, um, sick or disabled children, siblings, like Joanne was talking about.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: It really, really goes to great links to, um, to care for as many people as possible and to make that a standard of care across the denomination.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: And
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: Bethany, don't forget, it also includes placement of those who come from within the foster system.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: .
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: And even as you were comparing that to say some of our siblings in Canada, it's actually more comprehensive and goes even, uh, even farther, which is, which is really great to hear.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: And it is interesting thinking that it's that going back to the beginning of our conversation that that that was something previously a pastor would be expected to negotiate as part of like a job interview mm-hmm.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that puts so much, so much pressure and emphasis on the person to make a choice about like, do I want this job or not?
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: And I have to make this decision now when my family may not even start to bloom in that way for years or months down the line.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Talk about, talk about, talk about stress.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: And I will tell you that in my last installed call, I wanted to ask for more money than they were offering me.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: And I wanted to ask for 12 weeks of paid family leave.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: And I decided that I could only ask for one.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: I couldn't ask for both.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: And so I only asked for family leave and they didn't pay me enough, but I had the 12 weeks and, and, and it shouldn't be a trade off like that.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: And you, a a lot of times people don't think about family leave when we're negotiating our call.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Um, I I, I've got a friend who, um, they got pregnant and same sex couple, and she went to her session and they said, Well, you're not the one pregnant so you can have two weeks.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: And that is such a common story, like, I'm making all these choices about how ridiculous that sounds.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: , but I really think it's important to convey how common that story actually is.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: Two weeks.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: I have heard that more than I, more than anything else, honestly.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: Um, some people will talk about, you know, their six weeks or their eight weeks, which is also just a travesty.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: But two weeks is, and I have heard that so frequently
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: And, and you know, to be fair to, to, um, our, our male siblings wife's in labor late into until early Sunday morning, and your congregation expects you as a new dad to be in the pulpit at 11:00 AM No people, we, we got to do better for, we got to do better across
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: The board.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: And that's, uh, something that is often, you know, I often wonder about is also how in which this is integrated into the culture of work and the culture of the church.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: and that people come to their, come to these positions and feel called to these positions with this mentality that I am worthy of this and I am in need of this in case one day we do make this decision that we do, um, have a family, or if if my parents get sick, or if my sibling is sick or my child is sick, that we cultivate a culture that that is expected because of our theological grounding, that we are, you know, made in the image of God.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: And we are made as people and as humans to take care of ourselves and take care of our bodies.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: And so I and I, and so I just wonder also about how do we, how do we continue to have these conversations and even move forward in this conversation in not just family leave, but all types of things that we might need to, that come up in our lives, that we need to take care of ourselves in ways that may not be, you know, supported by the church or whatever work environment we are.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Like, how do we continue to, you know, push and have this kind of expectation within the people that we, that we hire or that are called to do this work?
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: So, um, no, and I, and I appreciate that you, that you brought it back to our theological grounding, um, because the, I feel like the refrain, particularly for the last two years during, uh, pandemic times has been, Love your neighbor, love your neighbor, love your neighbor, love your neighbor.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: Which as it should be like that, that absolutely should have been the refrain for the last two years.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: The, you know, the scripture that comes to mind for me, uh, is John 1334 when Jesus says, uh, I give you a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: And one of the, you know, one of the ways that we are able to, to love ourselves and to care for ourselves is, is by knowing that we are loved by others and that we are loved by God in, in, in all I feel, I think in all clerical professions, um, clergy professions, um, but but more broadly as well.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Um, we spend a lot of time talking about self care, which is fine or whatever, but you know, every time I get a self care question, like, how do you care for yourself?
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: Like my, my, in the back of my head, I'm like, Well, how do you help me do that?
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: And and this is one of the ways that we help each other to do that.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: We like, if I can show that, that I think that you are worthy, I think that you are important, this institution thinks that you are worthy and important, then hopefully that will lead to, uh, a similar mindset, um, in in your own head, heart, body, soul.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: The, the, the best way for us to care for ourselves is to know that we are cared for by each other and by God.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And I, when I keep, as I keep thinking about everything that you've told us about throughout this episode, I also keep coming back to the question that we have in the broader P C O S A, but also main lines and nominations in general, which is, like, we've talked about it on the podcast before, The church is dying, the church is getting older, there's an older demographic.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And with that, you would think that we would want to put as many opportunities out there and make it as easy as possible for people to come into positions of leadership, um, whether it be earlier or in sort of middle in life.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And that in includes people who at one point may want to have a family and in putting barriers up that make it difficult for people to feel like they have to choose at during the job interview stage between their, the potential future family and the job that is being offered them in the moment.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: That's just not right.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: So I'm really grateful for everything that you both have done to try to move this forward.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And we pray that, uh, this message will be heard and that presbyters will work to try to make this a standard across the denomination because it's something that's really needed.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: And Simon, let me add one thing.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: We are working on a list of resources mm-hmm.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: for presbyters to offer to their congregations to help them live into this 12 week because we, we know that it's scary to a congregation Oh yeah.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: To, to have somebody out.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: And, and that's been one of the big questions is how do we do it, Joanne?
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: We're we're working on those resources and we're gonna get them out.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Of course, we need to get'em translated.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Um, we're gonna get'em out to the presbytery so that they can share them with their congregations.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: And we are also working on getting this past through all the presbytery, because that is actually the next step.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: It, it's actually not part of our, uh, our book of order yet.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: Um, so passing it through the presbyter is the next step.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: And uh, and we're doing a lot of organizing working, uh, on that as well.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: There are 170 ish presbytery, so it's taking some time, you know, if you go to a presbytery meeting and you see someone standing up speaking in favor of this, um, just know that there is, uh, uh, a whole cohort of people behind them who have been preparing and working and really want to not just do this, but to, to, to show our love and care in this way.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: And Simon folks can always reach out to a c WT J We can resource.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: We're happy to resource, we're happy to show up at presbytery meetings if you want me to come in by Zoom
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: .
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Fantastic.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Well, folks, if you wanna check out more about this again, we'll be sure to have a link to the recommendation in the show notes.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: And you also can feel free to reach out to the AVO advocacy Advocacy Committee, for Women and Gender Justice as well, to help you think through what do we do when we, we, like, we wanna offer this, but we also don't know what to do in the 12 weeks that our pastor and their spouse are not gonna be, be around.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: What does that mean for our community and for us in terms of leadership?
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: And we pray for those that are already adopt, maybe thinking about adopting us and saying, Okay, we want to, we want to take that step and go on that journey and just want, just want resources and support.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Because I think also as we're thinking about this, there's nothing scarier than a, a church to probably, to a church than not having leadership in direction when they're used to having it.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: And we just need, and really what this is a question about also then is letting people live into that unknown in that discomfort and recognizing that they're actually not alone in this journey.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Other churches and congregations can, and have done this before.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: And that means that, that your congregation can do this as well.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: So, Well, one of our, one of our ordination vows is that we will be a friend among our colleagues mm-hmm.
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: , and this is, this is no different.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: We will, uh, you know, the, the whole thrust of this is we care for one another.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: We, we help one another.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: And, uh, and if you're going on leave, then I want to come fill your pulpit for you, you know, I want to offer some pastoral care to your people.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: So, um, this, this covers a wide range of, uh, of the ways that we take care of not just each other, but of God's
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Church.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Well, Joanne and Bethany, thank you again for coming on the podcast and for all the great work that you are doing in our denomination.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: For having us.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: This has been the Matter of Faith Podcast brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program in Unbound.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for discussion, you can do so at Faith Podcast at P C O S a.org.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: We look forward to hearing from you.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: See you next time.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: See you next time.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Y'all Of a matter of fate, the Presby Podcast, we are just so excited that we are approaching a hundred episodes and we just cannot wait.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: So thank y'all for listening and we love you, and we hope you subscribe and we hope you leave us some reviews and we hope you also listen to our Spanish sister podcast, Una Dee with our friends, Rosa and Edwin who host that with us once a month.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: And so check it out.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: It is out today as well.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: And we hope you all have a very, very happy Halloween.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And remember, remember it's okay to celebrate and it's okay to be creative.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: And again, we love you and we will talk to you again next week.