Category: Inspiration

Hey Beloveds,

In the spirit of Chris’ word for us this past Sunday, I have no plans on lying to you all today. So, here are some things I think The Church Universal needs to be honest about:

The function of a church is not growing its numbers on its rosters nor in its pews. Growth in numbers/membership is not necessarily the marker of a healthy congregation and, as Chris mentioned, growth in numbers is not categorically “good.”
We as The Church waste a lot of time trying to decide who is Christian and who isn’t. (I have caveats to this, but that’s for another day).
Somewhere along the line, the Church made the mistake of prioritizing worship over following, and thus made a big swing and an even bigger miss when it comes to the ministry of Jesus. We distance ourselves from Christ when we put Christ on a pedestal, even though we (hopefully) know Christ came to meet us exactly where we are at and through the Holy Spirit we are connected directly to Divinity.

So– in a time when corporations run by distinctly gluttonous and greedy men are ravaging this Earth, what are we to do? Are we going to continue to play a game of linguistic gymnastics, or bend backwards pulling stunts to put butts in seats without truly engaging those butts in the work and the struggle and joy, let alone loving those butts, or are we going to continue to assert that God’s love is not for us, and that Christ is to be set aside in a trophy box on display on our mantle as a representation of someone we could never embody, and that the Holy Spirit moves not at all?

I hope not.

Blessings on the remainder of your week,
Taylor

PS – In light of the most recent mass shooting, I want to share this article about getting kids through “unspeakable horror.” While I am not a caretaker of children and I guess I’m not a child either (though that’s arguable), I have to say reading this helped me manage my own feelings. So, even if you are not a caretaker of children, I offer this article for you.

Hi Tab Family,

This past Sunday, Sana preached, regarding Peter’s observance of the Holy Spirit falling on Cornelius, a Gentile, saying:

“If the holy spirit is in Gentiles, then God the creator did not intend to exclude anyone from the community of God’s care. Through the power and witness of the Holy Spirit, Peter welcomes Cornelius and his tribe of Gentiles into the community of believers through baptism. The scripture for today ends with Peter stating to the Jerusalem leaders, ‘If God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder God?’ This is a big deal.”

Who are we, to hinder God? This question has stuck with me all week.

While this story is a revelation to Peter regarding Peter’s preconceived notion that only a few can receive the Holy Spirit, and that the “other” cannot, I’d like to invite us all into a space where we point this question toward ourselves regarding ourselves.

In what ways do we insist we are unworthy, in what ways do we insist we are the “other” unable to receive God’s love? Who are we to say God cannot or will not love us, too?

God loves you even if God only sees the worst thing you’ve ever done. And that is often how we judge ourselves— we see the worst and we position that up against what we attribute to God’s standards. Often those standards are entirely our projection onto God, and not God’s own self. Whether from our upbringing, our societal conditioning, or from pesky intrusive thoughts, we often create a standard impossible to live up to. And then we choose the worst parts of us and we fashion them up against that impossible standard. And then, we judge.

But God sees far beyond our worst. And even if She saw only our worst, who are we to hinder Her love, to say no– that love could not possibly extend to our very worst.

What might happen if you extend God’s love to the parts of yourself you consider the worst? What would you do differently if you not only knew, but acted, like you were loved entirely?

I hope you find space to reflect on this during the end of your week.

Peace and grace to all,
Taylor

Hi Tab Family, 
This past Sunday Joanna preached on a difficult text from Genesis, one that has often been used as an excuse to wield power over people. I for one am so grateful that Joanna shared with us some of her story, both in terms of her childhood understanding of the text, and her soon-to-be-over time working with the Catholic Church. 

What stood out to me this week was Joanna’s story regarding advocating for parental leave at her workplace. To me, it is good and right, and it brings glory to God, when employers provide paid parental leave that is entirely separate from vacation and sick time. Childbirth is not a vacation. Pregnancy and parenthood of a newborn are not diseases (though as many who have been pregnant know, pregnancy transforms the body in more ways than one. It is not easy. It is physical and embodied. But I don’t think I’m comfortable classifying it as a disease to be covered by sick time). 

And it got me thinking — who told the people making decisions about parental leave– who told them pregnancy and taking care of a newborn child are diseases, to be covered by accumulated sick leave? What did their source information look like? Who did they believe? 
When God asks, “Who told you you were naked?” I think about all the questionable sources I’ve believed throughout the years. I think about all the putrid things I’ve believed about the world, and about myself, because I filled in the blanks with whatever less than accurate information I’ve digested. 

What are some things that you’ve digested over the years? What backwards beliefs about yourself and your body have you been fed? What do you think God would say to you if you brought those things to God in earnest instead of hiding in shame? 

I love that in this story, instead of being immediately critical, God is instead curious. God asks Adam a question. Maybe next time you catch yourself hating your body, or hiding your sexuality in shame, or believing the world/humanity is seeking your personal demise, you can ask yourself that some question: 

“Who told you that?”

Maybe you, too, can be curious at first instead of critical. Maybe you can try to get the whole story. 

Blessings on the end of your week, fam! 

Best,Taylor M Silvestri (they/them)

Hey Tab Family,

If I’m really going to let go of some of my shame, I feel like I need to confess a few things first.

Namely, I have to tell y’all that lately I’ve been daydreaming about running away. I’ve been feeling pretty claustrophobic these days. I have caught myself drifting into a place of pure imagination, where I build a tiny house in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by rain and grey skies, bees, flowers, vegetables, and chickens, where the temperature rarely climbs above 70 and most importantly, where I’m in a different time zone, on a coast opposite of a majority of situations I feel trapped in. I dream about packing my bags and leaving.

So when Katie talked about putting our baggage on the converter belt in the airport this past Sunday, I felt a little relieved. Because thankfully the image ended there. We didn’t hop on the plane only to be met at our destination by our shame, ripe and ready for us to drag it everywhere we go.

Our baggage is going to follow us everywhere unless we acknowledge it so we can then simply (or not so simply) let it go. There’s a song by the Avett Brothers called “The Weight of Lies” that goes:

“The weight of lies will bring you down
and follow you to every town
‘cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there.
So when you run make sure you run
to something and not away from
‘cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere.”

And shame is certainly one of the big lies we’ve been fed our entire lives to the point that now we willfully choose to ingest it ourselves. It weighs us down. It stops us from reaching our growth potential, from connecting honestly and fully with each other. It stops us from having truthful and vulnerable conversations geared toward growth and healing because when we operate from a place of shame, we will always downplay the truth of who we are– that is, we are beloved, we are capable, and our worth isn’t predicated on our perfection. And if we see ourselves through a lens of shame, we get to clothe ourselves in the illusion that we are hated, incapable, and unworthy. In that sense, we sort of give ourselves a free pass to be crappy to other people, and we let other people treat us like crap, until we construct a worldview of sheer garbage. We expect the worst because we believe we are the worst. Isn’t that convenient…

But isn’t it also burdensome? Couldn’t we just put it down, pack it up, and let it go?

I think that’s what my shame makes me want to run away from– it makes me want to run away from my potential for growth. It makes me reject the fact that I am beloved, capable, and worthy. It tells me that if maybe I can just try to pretend I’m those things, I can get away with never really allowing myself to be great, and to actually embody those things. I can sidestep the honest and vulnerable conversations that would actually push my relationships into freedom. Lately, I’ve been lying to myself in my daydreams of homesteading in central Washington, pretending like freedom from my relationships and their complications is somehow more desirable than freedom in my relationships when I choose to let go of my shame and be vulnerable. To let go of my shame and be great.To stop telling myself how wrong or bad I am. Or that other people are.

What if instead of eloping with my shame to my little microfarm in the PNW far away from it all, I could instead confront my shame, stare it in the face, stuff it in a vacuum bag and suck all the air out and toss it in a suitcase? What if I could let my shame go? What if I could throw it on that conveyor belt, send it off, turn around and walk out of that airport without hopping on the flight? What if I’m great? What if we could put down our baggage and realize greatness in each other? What if we could expand instead of contract, be curious instead of critical, repair instead of punish?

Listen to the “Weight of Lies” by the Avett Brothers here, and feel free to share what bits of shame you might be shipping off these days, so I can pray for you as you navigate that process.

Best,
Taylor Silvestri (they/them)

Dear Tab Family, 

What a joy and a blessing to have Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart join us this past Sunday. I was struck by the invitation to us all to “tend to the wellbeing of our faith” while we listened to the sermon, and the stark truth that yes– some of us are tired of the cost of discipleship. 
I am often tired. As someone with chronic pain, I don’t go a day without fatigue. Lately, I’ve been especially tired. If I’m being honest, I’m tired of bouncing around, place to place and workplace to workplace. Prior to thinking seriously about answering my call to ministry, I moved over a dozen times in less than ten years. I have spent this time trying as hard as I can, to put down roots somewhere. To feel at home someplace. To find a place to lay my head and rest for a moment.
And what a gift, for Rev Naomi to bring attention to another truth: that Jesus was homeless. That Jesus did not have a physical home base to rest. I find myself, having spent my entire career thus far, putting up with being driven to overwork, over-produce, over-extend, and push myself beyond my own natural capacity to labor for institutions that name me replaceable, to give grace endlessly to the people that populate positions of power at those institutions when they make excuses for each other, and attempt to gaslight and explain away the insidious ways they exploit my labor, and steal my time. 

That will happen, though, when I forget this one simple truth I have been letting rattle around in my soul since Fall 2020, and that I received again in the sermon this past Sunday: my home is inside of my own body. I am never outside of my home because I carry it in me. I carry home everywhere I go, because my home is the divinity God placed in me the moment She breathed life into these very bones of mine.

I have a divine right to work from home. Try as it may, the antichrist that is a society built upon the exploitation of our labor, the violence enacted on our bodies and our spirits, the evil that is capitalism will not make itself a bed in my home, and it cannot stop me from demanding rest. It cannot rip me from my own body. And everytime it tries, I can return to the promise of my baptism, and the promise that there is always more life. There is always more life.
And I guess if I wanted to give it all up, submit my resignation to the vocation of justice-seeking and grace-giving and repair God calls me to, I could. I could hang up my hat and punch out and instead give myself fully to the institutions that insist I am not allowed to rest, that insist I am nothing beyond the labor they can squeeze from me, that insist I have no home outside of what I can produce for them.
But then I wouldn’t get to be at home here, at Tab, with all of you. I wouldn’t be able to rest and rejuvenate with you all whom I love so deeply, you all who have given me grace, and allowed me to live more fully into the home of my own body. 

Let’s take a breath together, and reflect on these words from Rev. Naomi:

“I demand the time, Jesus, to do something about the domestic wreckage that following Jesus has brought to my life. I demand the right to love myself and my people, without being impugned for doing so. I demand the both/and, to work fully for God during the day, and binge-watch Jeopardy with my wife every night. I demand to work from home.” – Rev Naomi Washington-Leapheart

Today, I invite you to check out The Nap Ministry, and explore rest as a divine right and a form of resistance: 
WordPress: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @TheNapMinistry

I also invite you to listen to The Grateful Dead’s cover of “I Bid You Goodnight.” As a child of two Deadheads, this was one of the songs my parents would sing to me before bed, and the Dead would often close shows with this song during the late 60s and early 70s. They revived it again toward the end of Jerry Garcia’s life, starting around 1989. This version is from a show in October of 1989 in Virginia. Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8gNgiCWlYg&ab_channel=LoloYodel
In grace, 
Taylor M. Silvestri (They/them)

Dear Tab Family,

Today would have been my abuela’s 87th birthday. Elisa Gomez, my maternal grandmother and last living grandparent, passed away Monday morning after many years of living with dementia. I pray that she is with God playing, as Oscar (Pastor Katie and Heather’s son) would say. 

Psalm 121:5 says that God is our keeper (shamar in Hebrew); God will keep or preserve or guard our life. Pastor Katie reminded us on Sunday that in life, God is with us; in death and in dying, God is with us; and in life beyond death, God is with us. God’s keeping has to do with our worthiness and our sacredness. Shamar is a word of blessing as well as promise: We are worthy of God’s love and God will keep us in life, in death and in life beyond death. 

As the people of God, we are connected through the one body of Christ. In God’s love, which includes us all, we believe we are each other’s keeper. We believe our Christian liberty is rooted in our care for our neighbors — liberty that seeks the common good (I Cor 12:7). Our Christian liberty is rooted in radical love – the extent we are able to see one another as worthy of keeping. Sin entered the Bible when Cain killed his brother Abel – when one person acted as if another person was disposable. Pastor Katie said, “sin lurks at the door in all the moments when we refuse to see the life of another as worthy of keeping…How are we doing with seeing each other, even those who we struggle to love, as worthy of keeping?”

I loved my abuela, even when she rejected my queer identity and family. She loved the Lord with all her heart, spending many years of her life sharing the good news. In 2016, in a rare visit with my family, abuela apologized to me and my spouse for any harm she had caused me. In that moment my abuela was keeping me, preserving our relationship and our connection. I am grateful to God for that moment. 

Others may not always validate our worthiness, because unfortunately we live in a culture and society that treats many of us and our siblings as disposable. We can rest assured that in life, in death and in life beyond death, God is with us and keeps us. And, we belong to a church community that lives into being keepers of one another, and keepers of the earth and all living things. 

Warmly,

Sana DelCorazón

UTS Seminary Student & Member of Tabernacle United

To watch Pastor Katie’s full sermon from Sunday, please go here.

Reflection Questions

• How does it feel in your body to say out loud, “I am worthy of keeping?”
• What helps you see and treat others as worthy of keeping, especially those you struggle to love?
• What does it mean to not see each other as disposable or simply consumers? How does this inform your relationship with God and with the beloved community?

Please contact me with your reflection at lanenalinda@gmail.com. I want to hear from you!

The Blessing

By Jobe/Carnes

The Lord bless you

And keep you

May God’s face shine upon you

And be gracious to you

May God’s face turn toward you

And give you peace

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

May God’s presence go before you

And behind you, and beside you

All around you, and within you

God is with you, God is with you

In the morning, in the evening

In your coming, and your going

In your weeping, and rejoicing

God is for you, God is for you

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen.