Walk for Water: We did it!

I'm so excited to be able to share this...the fundraising campaign that we highlighted at the ELCA Youth Gathering this summer, reached it's goal of $500,000 (matched dollar for dollar) several weeks ago. (I'll let you in on a little secret...I definitely knew about it weeks ago, but couldn't post anything about it until it became public). This money will fund water projects supported by ELCA World Hunger in many countries which is super amazing. Watch the video and see how it went! I am honored to be even a teeny tiny part of this during my time in Chicago this summer. Lots of thanks to people that donated and many more thanks to my friends and colleagues who were behind the scenes making it happen. A special thanks to the ELCA family that is matching the donations also. Now it's time to celebrate!!

Dear Church: A Letter on Being a Young Adult

I actually wrote this much earlier this summer after a perfect storm of events, but the final one was a lunch with Bishop Elizabeth Eaton and the other interns. It seemed like I had been hearing just so much about how the Church was dying because we didn't have enough young adults. And I am not really sure that's true. It didn't end up getting posted in the other locations I thought it would, so I figured I'd share it here. Certainly my denomination is not the only one experiencing dwindling membership, but I can only write about my experience in the ELCA.

Dear Church,

I’m not your token young adult.  Please stop treating me as one.

It seems every other week or so there’s some news story or “recent” study coming out to say that mainline Protestant Church membership is declining. And the following week there’s another news story about the best way to get young adults into your church to save it from decline/collapse.

I’m going to be bold and just say it. I hate these articles. I never read them. And I don’t find any truth in them. The notion that young adults will swoop in and save the Church seems harmful and blatantly misleading.   

You see, young adults are already in this Church.  Some have committed to years of volunteer service both domestically and abroad. There are young adults doing amazing work at camp. And campus ministry. And even in your parishes doing any number of things. We are in the trenches doing justice work and on the hill doing advocacy work.

But sometimes you don’t see us. Or sometimes when you do finally see us, you hover and overcrowding turns us off to showing up in traditional worship spaces. And other times you use these gimmicks to get our butts in the pews that we see right through. Big flashy church with lights and professional singers on a stage with the newest and hippest contemporary Christian music is personally not my thing. It’s so shiny and staged.  And I hate it (don’t get me wrong, I love shiny things generally…my favorite color is silver, with glitter being a close second). But I don’t want shiny Church.

I want real.

I want a safe space, rooted in tradition, re-imagined in the modern world, that allows me to question, to converse, to discern, to get it wrong before I get it right, to work, to worship, to serve, to play, to love, and to be loved. I don’t need programmatic experiences especially designed to hook Millennials. I’m not really interested in this. I am much more interested in how Church interacts with the world.

I am much more interested in the intersections of my own life, and the lives of those around me, and how those play out in the world. I am much more interested in how privilege can be used to find voice and space from those that are oppressed. I am much more interested in conversations about how being female in the world and in the Church has shaped my perception of the world. And especially how this femininity both gives me power and also relegates me to second-class citizenship, depending on the situation. I am much more interested in learning how being a child of God should affect how I interact in the world.

My favorite and most transformative moments in my faith journey have been with small groups of people conversing about faith and secular worlds colliding in the justice work they are doing. Other “mountain-top” moments for me include the time I spent in silence at a monastery in France. These experiences are not new and shiny; they are “boring” and “old.”

I’m not asking you, Church, to come up with some beautiful, new, shiny plan to get me into the building. I’m not asking for a strategic 3-year plan about increased membership and offering intake from the under-35 demographic.

I want you to be genuine. Authenticity is what I value most. Don’t try to be hip. I, and others, will see right through it. You know why? Because I’m not hip. I play bassoon and I get really amped up when I talk about neuroscience and Lutheran theology. If your congregation is really great at High-Church liturgies and welcoming people to the Table, do that. If you are really great at being a feeding or clothing ministry, do that. If you are really awesome at inviting others to share their stories during worship, do that.

I am asking you to accompany me, Church, as you have thousands of others before me, on my spiritual journey. I am asking you to accept that Church might be happening outside your four walls and that’s okay. That’s actually part of the imperative we get from Jesus (Matthew 25:35-40 among others) and the example that he set for us (I mean how many times were any of his miracles within the 4 walls of a synagogue?). I am asking you to stop considering me as your token young adult that will somehow change your ministry, evangelize and save your congregation someday.

We are already here. We may not be inside, but we are here. Some Sundays, you may not see our bums in the pews, because we are out and about, doing the work of the Church. Come see us. Come join us. But please remember to invite us back with you, too. We can both learn from each other; let’s be Church together and bridge the gap.

Sincerely,

Jenny

Cleopatra, Elton John, & chocolate

(yeah....this was supposed to get posted last week, but somehow slipped my mind. Maybe a chocolate coma...?)

This weekend was a busy one--local artists, a "food" festival and a legend!

Friday night I had the privilege to watch Ballet Nebraska in their season opener, Cleopatra. I've been hearing all about the show for weeks, so I'm happy to have finally watched it! It was also wonderful to have Kelsey's parents come for the weekend. So much ballet love! I somehow made it out of the theater without taking any pictures with any cast members (perhaps because I didn't want a close up of the blue make up...? ;)--kidding!), but it was fabulous nonetheless. Amazing job, Claire and Ballet Nebraska!!

We prepare for Elton differently...
one representing some of his best musical work
& the other representing his fab-u-lous & fashionable sense of style! 

On Saturday, we headed to see Elton John. I heard somewhere recently that he was going to stop touring so much so he could see his kids grow up, so I grabbed the chance to see him before he was done. Whoa. What a concert! It was a solid 2.5 hours of him performing. It's pretty impressive that he's been at it for 47 years now. I can understand the desire to slow down on touring after that long too. He wore a sparkly suit and I was elated that we matched (AND gold shoes which were amazeballs...do you think he'd share them with me?). My friend Laura even wrote a column about the experience.

Bennie and the Jets

Philadelphia Freedom  

Crocodile Rock  

On Sunday, my parents joined Laura and me for Omaha's Chocolate Festival. While I think the whole Sharrick clan was hoping for more chocolates, instead of so many chocolate desserts, it was overall delicious. We decided that chocolate tea--no matter if it's flavored with caramel, raspberry, peach or some other mystery flavor--tastes mostly just like tea. Our favorite booth was the Iowa Western Culinary student booth because they brought truffles around the whole place for people waiting in lines and because they were teaching the kiddos how to make chocolate roses. It's a little bit disappointing that they didn't offer to teach Laura and me, but still their truffles and other chocolates were delicious. They even had a little tasting booth where you could take bitter or dark chocolate and put different spices on it--cinnamon, ginger, and others. It really was an informative booth. My second favorite was the Stam booth because 1. I've always loved them and 2. it was nice to catch up with a friend from college's parents who own the store--Hey Laura B-M! My Dad called me as soon as they got back to Hastings to inform me that he had consumed all of the chocolate except for the 3 pages of fudge he purchased. That man is truly a legend and should be an inspiration to us all.

my haul

Jim's haul (plus things already consumed & fudge)

Deb's haul

chocolate teas

my tiny chocolate mousse mug! 

United Nations Commission on the Status of Women: Part 2

Got my UN flag to add to the collection! :) 

Welcome to part 2 of my UN Commission on the Status of Women experience last March! This post actually has the bulk of the sessions I went to, but for my reader's sake (and to prevent your poor eyeballs from tiring out on my ramblings) I wanted to split it into two posts. There was an incredible amount that happened in that short week--and sleep was not really one of those things. A special shout out to my roommate, Erin, for putting up with me for the week in our teeny tiny Ikea hotel with all of the stuff I over packed :) 








Maternal Health (Tuesday)

UN member state flags lining the stairwell the ambassadors take
while going into the GA chambers 

Truthfully, the only thing I remember about this session was that it was underwhelming. I didn't even take notes in it. I vaguely remember being upset that the conversation was around older ideas of maternal health and wasn't really talking about anything that has come out of the Maternal and Child Health field in the last 20 years. Granted, this is my concentration and focus in school. I've had several classes specifically devoted to maternal and child health (5 classes last year alone...and all of my other classes mention it also). I understand that I have a pretty deep understanding of the field, but I also would have appreciated if they didn't present concepts to improve maternal health (and reduce maternal mortality) that have been around since the Beijing Platform for Action was written 20 years ago. 

I was lucky enough to go visit my friend Em and see the view
from the top of the Bloomberg Tower!
(I totally wasn't supposed to take photos...)

Sacred and Safe: Building Capacity of Faith Communities to Address Gender-Based Violence (Tuesday)

life goal to have a tapestry portrait...?
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General 

This one was a hard one for me. We know that gender-based violence (sexual assault, domestic violence, child marriage, garden variety sexism, etc) is happening in our world and in our communities. How do we, as people of faith, respond to that? There was a panel of speakers that are doing things in their own context (all US based) and some shared stories of incarcerated women who were victims of gender-based violence and ultimately of the justice system too.

"I know there's no violence in heaven and I'm grateful for that. But we need Heaven to touch down here on Earth."-survivor of sexual assault 

"Out of fear, after several instances of reporting the abuse, I killed him. But the jury didn't hear anything about the domestic violence. My situation could have been prevented if the law would have done their job." -survivor of sexual assault/life without parole server

"You can deny domestic violence, but it will come into your sanctuaries. Don't make victims choose between faith and their safety."- Rev. Dr. Whitehead 

"Religion has been part of what has sustained violence against women and children. It's so darn useful. That's why it's hard to eradicate. It controls women." -Rev. Dr. Fortune  

my view for worship one morning

Morning worship (Wednesday)
We hosted worship this morning for the Ecumenical Women. I presented a testimony on the lifecourse approach to healthcare and women's health (my health is affected by my Mom's health from before the time she was born--so my Grandmother's health--and the environment in which I grew up...this is what leads to intergenerational habits and cycles of violence and poverty for many people). There was song, more testimonies and an overall great time worshiping together!

Women and Men partnering in the Elimination of Sexism (Wednesday)
So this wasn't my favorite session, but I do know that it was powerful for many people in the group. The organization that put it on, is a sort of decentralized counseling group that has partnered talk therapy sessions about how patriarchy/sexism/reverse sexism has affected their lives. I spoke with a wonderful woman from Maine, but other than microaggressions, I didn't have much to talk about how sexism personally affected my life. Many others had much more extreme things to talk about. The idea of having partnered talk therapy is really powerful and one that I think should be used elsewhere (you have 2 people partnered together...you set a timer for say 5 mins and one person talks and the other listens. The listening partner cannot verbalize anything for that 5 mins and should just listen. Once the timer has gone off, you switch roles). The act of just listening...and not hearing to respond... is so powerful.


Silent No More: How Can Faith Communities Address Sexism and GBV? (Wednesday)

UN member state flags lining the UN campus

This was the other meet up that we hosted and it was quite successful. I actually spent most of the event waiting for the caterer to bring something, so I wasn't part of it, but the participants had small group conversations, reflection, artistic expression, prayer, and saw examples of the ELCA's work on gender based violence and gender justice. It was so successful that we actually got kicked out of the building because we were taking so long!

Creative Interventions Addressing Critical Health Issues in the Post 2015 Agenda (Thursday)
This was hands-down my favorite session of the whole week. This was also the presentation most rooted in public health core concepts. They pointed out that 25% of our health is determined by the healthcare system and the other 75% is other determinants of health (most notably socioeconomic status and other social status indicators. One presenter worked in Uganda and was explaining that Uganda had the perfect storm of bad health outcomes for women. They had soldiers standing outside of hospitals preventing women and children from getting healthcare. 80% of women give birth with a traditional birth attendant (TBA), despite the fact that they are illegal. So an organization tried a novel approach--they gave the traditional birth attendants some "heart strings." They are simple a string of red, green, and white beads used for illiterate TBAs to measure the pulse of fetuses to detect distress. Rather than perpetuating poor health outcomes and criminalizing women who use TBAs, they decided to do something to improve health. These TBAs often provide holistic prenatal and postpartum care to women and are already within their communities, so health outcomes have improved drastically. This presentation also talked about a really great lifecourse study of post-menopausal women. All around, this was just the best one! 

Three Lives of Women 20 Years After Beijing (Thursday)

Ms. Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate 

The last of the events that we sponsored, this portrayed three women from Palestine, Kenya, and the US about how women's lives have evolved since Beijing and what the role of faith-based organizations have been in the evolution.

“What has really sustained sexual violence is the silence. Once the silence is broken, you have to face the consequences--poverty, more violence, hunger, etc.”-Dr. Fulata Moyo of the World Council of Churches

“I consider education to be a sacred mission.” –Suad Younan on involving male allies in conversations about women's rights and empowerment on the road to gender equality

"Because when a woman flees [from violence], she does so responsibly." -Jen Engquist on her mother wrapping up loose ties when her family had to flee from an abusive father/husband 

"It's hypocritical to speak outside the Church about gender based violence, when we still have it inside. Society is modeled after the Church." -Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate (and a Lutheran!)

Best Practices in Policing and Mental Health Care: Efforts to Promote Gender Equality, Empower Women and Girls, and Reduce Violence Against Women, Children, Minorities and Victims of Human Trafficking (Thursday)

I utterly love this globe sculpture and the flags behind

Often times the justice system does it wrong. They don't end up protecting the victims of violence. However, that's not to say that there aren't police officers, prosecutors, lawyers, victims advocates and others that aren't doing it right. This presentation was put on by them. It was really interesting to be part of considering my relationship with the Douglas County Jail correctional officers (I see them as colleagues when I'm there and testing/educating inmates about STDs and the Hastings Police Department (my Grandma is the chief's secretary))--I know many of these officers personally and know they have best interests at heart. Sometimes the system fails though. 

"I call "violence against women and human trafficking" slavery because it dials up the seriousness, even if some people are uncomfortable with that."-police officer

Human trafficking is a shadow situation. It's not like the slavery before. Everyone is underground now. 17-20 million people are projected to be living as modern day slaves. Even here, at UNCSW, when we think about "international," we don't often think about violence here in the US.

You may think people are being trafficked by strangers, but it might actually be their brothers, fathers and other family members. Most people that are trafficked in the US are from the US.

If we tell women to report domestic violence or sexual assault and they get beaten or have to pay money to press charges, what are we teaching about speaking up?

We also have to be fair to male victims. Most perpetrators are men, but some are women. And those male domestic violence victims are often forgotten.  

My experience in New York was amazing and powerful. And truthfully it has taken me 6 months to be able to write about it. The conversations I continue having around these topics and with the people I was with are so amazing. Just last night we held a conversation/book club about Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (Jon Krakauer). It was a hard read, for sure, but I am very thankful for the community to support me while I read. Even more, I'm thankful for conversation partners about these issues since UN-CSW ended.