Triumph of the Mediocre = Feminist Advance?

An interesting article on the op-ed page of the NY Times website today about how Sarah Palin is a triumph of feminism. Certainly a controversial definition of feminist progress and equality between the sexes, the piece argues that Palin's advance despite her mediocrity signals a sign of equality among the sexes in leadership (especially in politics) since mediocre men have been promoted forever. Think Warren G. Harding or some other, more recent presidents who don't inspire awe in the abilities department (What ever Would that mean?).

What do you think?

What's Right with the Episcopal Church: Tricia's Sermon

If you missed this post last week, here is George Will's column that Tricia responds to in this week's sermon.

Proper 25A
October 26, 2008
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton



What’s Right with the Episcopal Church

Last Sunday evening I came home feeling tired, but good after a very long day.

Discussion in Sunday School had been so lively that we only got through half of the lesson I had prepared. There was a good spirit in the air during worship. That afternoon the choir, which always sounds good, reached new heights of beauty in the service of Evensong.

After the reception following Evensong, I joined a group of young adults from the parish for drinks and dinner and animated conversation.

I got home late feeling energized by the level of vitality, enthusiasm, and dedication I had felt from so many different parts of the parish that day.

Then I sat down to read the paper, turned to the AJC’s editorial page, and saw this headline about the Episcopal Church on a column by George Will: “Progressive church engineers its own irrelevance.”

Will’s article focused on Bob Duncan, the former bishop of Pittsburgh, who was deposed, or removed from office by his fellow bishops, for “abandoning the communion of the church.”
Duncan was leading an effort to convince the clergy and people of his diocese to leave the Episcopal Church and come under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican archbishop from Brazil.

Will’s column was filled with the usual charges. The church, he said, has “become tolerant to the point of incoherence.” We’ve abandoned scripture and don’t believe in the divinity of Christ. We are too quick to embrace popular culture.

“The Episcopal Church once was America’s upper crust at prayer,” Will said. “Today it is ‘progressive’ politics cloaked – very thinly – in piety.”

There was nothing in Will’s column that I have not heard or read before. But the church he describes bears no resemblance to the Episcopal Church I know. And so today I’d like to use his column as an occasion to talk about what is right with our denomination.

My family joined the Episcopal Church, St Martin-in-the-Fields here in Atlanta, when I was about 10 years old. I’m not sure why my parents left the Methodist Church we had been attending. But I quickly came to love our new church.

When I was in college, like many young adults, I wandered away from the Church. When I came back, more than a decade later, it was to the Episcopal Church, partly because it was the denomination I had grown up in, but primarily because it was a church that allowed for questioning and searching.

I had hesitated going back to church in part because I wasn’t sure exactly what I believed. I had the mistaken, but common, notion that I had to have it all figured out before I could comfortably take my place in the pew, like there was some sort of entrance exam on faith I had to pass to get in.

But at St. Ann’s, the church in Nashville that brought me back into the fold, I discovered a whole congregation full of people who saw the life of faith as a journey. Asking questions was encouraged; no one claimed to have the definitive answers, but wrestling with the issues and discussing sometimes wildly opposing viewpoints was seen as the way to grow in faith and understanding.

There was a time when I had a poster on my office door with a picture of Jesus and these words, “He came to take away your sins, not your mind.” One of the primary strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we don’t require you to leave your brain at the door.

We believe Jesus’ words that we heard in today’s Gospel, that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our minds. Certainly we know that there are elements of faith beyond our understanding, but we also know that God expects us to use our God-given intelligence.

Another strength of the Episcopal Church is our comfort with ambiguity. We know that the world is not black and white, and that efforts to divide it, and our faith, up that way will not sustain us for long.

That does not mean that we do not know the difference between right and wrong, or that “anything goes,” as our critics sometimes charge. It does mean that we recognize that the world is a complicated place, and there are times when there is no absolute answer or “one size fits all” solution to a question or problem.

That way of seeing the world means that you are not likely to receive a checklist of dos and don’ts in the Episcopal Church. “Ten things you must believe to be a Christian,” or “Ten things you must not do to go to heaven” are not sermon topics you are likely to hear in the Episcopal Church.

A common criticism of the Episcopal Church is that we have abandoned the Bible. It is true we do not always go with a literal interpretation of scripture. As I’ve heard someone say, “We take scripture far too seriously for that.”

Taking scripture literally has led to persecution of Jews, the defense of slavery, the subjugation of women, and the condemnation of gays and lesbians. All of these positions can be defended by passages of scripture.

But taking scripture seriously means looking at the overall message of the Bible, not isolated passages taken out of context. It means looking at the good news, or gospel tidings that are found in both testaments of scripture.

It means looking at the context in which a passage was written, and comparing it to the times in which we live. And sometimes it means proclaiming or doing things that a reading of isolated passages of scripture would condemn.

The most recent controversy in the Episcopal Church, the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the life of the church, including ordination and the blessing of relationships, is one that has brought the charge that the church has abandoned scripture.

Yet people I know who support those changes in the life of the Church do so after much prayer and study of scripture. They do so believing that Jesus’ message of love and acceptance of those who society has cast out overrides any isolated verse of condemnation.

They do so because they believe the Holy Spirit is still at work in the Church; and because God is still able to do new things.

One might disagree with the interpretation, but the charge that Episcopalians have thrown scripture out the window is a false accusation.

George Will is critical of the Episcopal Church’s involvement in what he dismissively calls “progressive politics.” But I believe one of our strengths is that we do not isolate ourselves from the world.

We take to heart the admonition that we heard today in both our Old Testament and Gospel readings – to love our neighbors as ourselves. Indeed, we know that loving God means loving our neighbors – which means working for justice and peace, standing up for the poor, being good stewards of the environment, and speaking out against the greed and consumerism rampant in our culture.

We know that being faithful does not mean withdrawing from the world, but instead means working to help make the kingdom of God a reality here and now.

Finally, another strength of our church is that we do not insist that we have all the answers, and are the only path to salvation.

For most of us here today Jesus is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. In Jesus we see both the embodiment of God and what it means to live a human life fully attuned to God’s presence and will. For us, Jesus is our way to salvation.

But most Episcopalians I know also respect people of other faiths, and believe that they, too, are on paths that can lead to God.

Most of us believe that God is bigger than any one denomination or faith; that the God who created all humans in the divine image, who created the diversity of peoples and languages and cultures, has also created different and diverse paths to the divine.

Of course, we have our weaknesses, as do all human institutions.

The leadership of our church, particularly our bishops and clergy, have not done enough to educate and help people articulate the nuances of our faith. Too many times I’ve heard Episcopalians say, “I just don’t know what to say,” when our more fundamentalist neighbors or friends criticize our denomination.

Too often our so-called leaders have simply failed to lead. In the aftermath of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, I heard too many clergy say, “I knew this was going to happen, but I just didn’t want to bring it up in my congregation. I didn’t want people getting angry or upset.”

Clergy who are too afraid to even discuss controversial or difficult topics probably shouldn’t be leading congregations.

But not all the onus is on clergy. People who want to be able to articulate their faith need to regularly be part of a community where those discussions take place.

The only time I feel a little bit envious of Baptists is when I drive past the full parking lots in the Baptist Church on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, even in the summer.

I respect the priority that church attendance is in the life of those congregations, and like most Episcopal clergy I know, wish that it were of equal importance in the lives of more of our members.

We’ve talked a lot at St. Dunstan’s about the need for growth. What we have been more reluctant to talk about publicly is the need for those who are members here to be more active in the life of the church, to be present.

If all the children on our rolls came to Sunday School, our classes would be full. If all our members regularly attended worship, the rafters would ring.

St. Dunstan’s, and indeed, the Episcopal Church, are not alone in this challenge. Last spring, I attended a conference with clergy from several denominations across the country. Our styles of worship and theology were different, but one lament spread across geographical and denominational bounds – how to get people to church on Sundays.

One Episcopal priest from Atlanta confessed the despair she felt when she was told by several parishioners they wouldn’t be at church on Easter Sunday because their children were playing in a soccer tournament that morning.

We as the church have been too reluctant to say what the soccer coaches have no problem saying – we need you. When you’re not here we miss you. We are less than we could be without you.

Despite what George Will says, we have a vibrant, vital denomination that offers a perspective on Christianity that the world needs to hear, a message that is particularly relevant for our time.
Just before worship started this morning, Sallie Smith shared a poem with me that I believe sums up the Episcopal Church at its best.

“You drew a circle that shut me out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took you in.”

Let’s not be reluctant to share our circle of love with the world around us.

Amen.

George Will's Column

George Will wrote a troubling column that was published yesterday, called "A Faith's Dwindling Following." In it, Will claims that the Episcopal Church in America has lost its way and does not seem relevant anymore, given all the problems confronting the church. Will's conclusion pretty much sums up his (in my opinion, short-sighted) argument:

Today [the Episcopal Church] is "progressive" politics cloaked — very thinly — in piety. Episcopalians' discontents tell a cautionary tale for political as well as religious associations. As the church's doctrines have become more elastic, the church has contracted. It celebrates an "inclusiveness" that includes fewer and fewer members.

So now popular opinion determines theological arguments? Or is religion a popularity contest instead?

To say that being inclusive is merely "politics cloaked in piety" seems to ignore Jesus' teaching here on Earth. For wasn't it Jesus who hung out with the tax collectors and prostitutes and other "unclean" people, inviting them to join him in God's love? I guess Jesus was just too inclusive and political for true conservatives these days. (Which is, incidentally, the premise of this novel; evidently the Christian NeoCons would have a problem with Jesus Christ Himself).

Tricia's Sermon, 10/19/08

Proper 24A
October 19, 2008
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton

Just a Glimpse

Today’s reading from the Book of Exodus is like the second half of a very complex TV mini series. If you don’t have some idea of what happened earlier, it’s not going to make much sense.


So here is a quick recap of what leads up to today’s story. The people of Israel are in the wilderness with their leader Moses. God has liberated them from slavery in Egypt, and delivered a crushing defeat to the Egyptian army that pursues them.


God has sustained them in the wilderness, making water spring from rocks and manna magically appear each morning. God has actually even been their tour guide, leading them through the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.


By this time, one would think that God, and God’s servant Moses, would have earned the people’s trust. But when Moses goes atop Mt. Sinai to converse with God and receive God’s laws under which the people will live, things go terribly wrong.


The people become convinced that Moses has been gone too long, and that he and God have abandoned them. What they need is a new god, they say, and so they make the image of a calf from the collected gold of the community, and they build an altar and bow down and worship it.
To say that this does not sit well with God is an understatement. Committing oneself to the service of wealth is a sure way to earn God’s wrath.


“Get down there at once!” God says to Moses. “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, are acting perversely.”


God wants nothing more to do with these difficult, ungrateful people. “Leave me alone,” God says to Moses, “so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”


God is ready to do away with the people who were so quick to switch their allegiance to the idolatry of wealth, and to start over again with Moses alone.


But Moses, whose job as prophet is to mediate between God and God’s people, begs God to reconsider. Think how this will look, he tells God. What will the Egyptians think and say about you when they hear what you’ve done?


Think about Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the promises you made to them. Yes, these people are difficult and they have done a horrible thing. But don’t destroy them. You’re God, you’re better than that.


This appeal works. God changes God’s mind, and the people are spared.


But things aren’t the same.


God will let the people continue to the Promised Land, but God will no longer accompany them on the journey. Instead, an angel will guide them.


Give the people this message for me, God tells Moses, “You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you.”


That’s where today’s story begins. Moses is distraught at God’s insistence that the divine days as tour guide are over. He realizes that Israel’s very identity is at stake here.


Only in God’s presence does Israel have any claims of distinction among the nations.


Moses is a prophet of great courage and daring. He has no problem expressing God’s wishes and demands to the people. But he is equally bold in speaking on behalf of the people to God.


“This nation is your people,” Moses reminds God.


God replies, “My presence will go with you,” but this “you” in Hebrew is the singular “you.” God will be present with Moses, but not with the rest of the people of Israel.


Moses will have none of it.


“If you don’t go with us, all of us, then forget the whole thing,” Moses in effect says to God. “Don’t even try to get us to the Promised Land. Without you, we are nothing.”


God relents, saying to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you ask.”


But Moses is still not satisfied. He needs a sign from God that he is in God’s favor. And so he makes one more demand.


“Show me your glory,” he says.


It is an audacious request, demanding to see the fullness of God’s awesome, shrouded, magisterial, magnificent presence, demanding to be allowed into the very core of God’s self.
And amazingly, God agrees. To a point.


“I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘the Lord,’” God says. “But you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.


“See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”


Not even Moses, the most faithful of prophets, can withstand being in the full presence of God. Even at the moment when Moses is closest to the divine, he is reminded of the distance between the Creator and the created.


Moses’ desire to see God, to be assured of God’s presence reminds me of a story about a young child whose mother asked him to go outside one night and put his toys away.


The child went outside, but soon reappeared. “It’s dark out there and I’m scared,” he said. “Won’t you come with me?”


The mother reminded the boy that he was not really alone, that God was with him.


Reluctantly, the child went out again, but quickly was back inside. “I know that God is always with me,” he said, “but sometimes I need somebody with skin on.”


Moses was looking for the same kind of reassurance that the young boy needed. Moses, too, needed somebody “with skin on,” some tangible proof of God’s presence with him and the people of Israel.


Moses’ experience is extraordinary; he comes closer to experiencing the fullness of God than any human.


But his experience is also one that parallels that of many people of faith. We long for God’s presence, for reassurance that God is with us.


We yearn for somebody “with skin on” to be with us, to guide us through our wilderness.


We want some tangible proof of the promise God makes in the book of Hebrews, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Or that Jesus makes to his disciples before he ascends to heaven, “I will be with you always.”


Those promises are still with us. We do not have pillars of clouds and fire; we have not been invited to catch a fleeting glimpse of God’s back passing by. We cannot see the face of God.


By God does still promise to be with us. Sometimes in a thought or dream, or unexplained occurrence. Sometimes in a gentle nudge in a direction we had not planned to take. Sometimes in the majesty of nature.


And sometimes with skin on, in the presence of a person who sits with us through our anxiety and fears and despair, who holds our hand in the dark and rejoices with us in the light.


None of us can fully know God. But we can get glimpses.


And just a glimpse of God’s presence and glory can be enough.


Amen.

Tricia's Sermon for 10/12

As Jesus says in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them," which means that Jesus had a great time grilling a bunch of pork and chicken in a pit next to the beech grove. I bring this up because I helped with the cooking for Sunday's great barbeque. This also means that I attended the early service which was held outside for us cooks. Tricia's sermon was slightlyi abbreviated (by about 95%), but here is the full text which she delivered at the later service.

The Welcome Table

I begin this morning with a confession.
The story we just read from Matthew’s gospel is probably my least favorite parable in the scriptures. I wish it wasn’t in the Bible. I wish it wasn’t in the lectionary. I wish I could just ignore it and preach on something else, but when something this distasteful is part of our Sunday readings I feel an obligation to not let it go uncommented upon.
This parable is an allegory, a story in which each of the characters stands for someone else; a story that has a wider symbolic meaning. When Matthew wrote his gospel, he was addressing members of the new, and very small, Christian movement.
The followers of Jesus were often persecuted by the religious establishment. They were such a minority that they must have sometimes wondered if following Jesus was the right thing to do, whether it was worth the risks they were taking.
This story must have bolstered their confidence and faith. Surely they would recognize that those who ignored the king’s invitation to the wedding banquet were the religious establishment. The refusal to accept the invitation led to their deaths.
And then who gets invited to the wedding feast? The riff-raff, the nobodies, the people off the street – in other words, the very people to whom Jesus reached out in his ministry.
But all of them are not allowed to stay. The king looks over his assembled guests and notices one who is not dressed properly. “How did you get in here without a robe?” the king demands.
Scripture tells us that the guest is speechless, which is understandable. How could he be expected to dress properly if he just came in – was just invited in -- off the street?
A king who kills those who ignore him and ousts people who are dressed improperly is hardly an appealing image of God. What has happened to the God of love, justice, and inclusivity? That God seems to be absent from this parable.
Obviously this is a story about the battle being waged between the religious establishment and the new radical sect of believers who followed Jesus. And it must have comforted that ragtag group to recognize themselves as the winners in this story.
But there is a big difference between those early Christians who heard this story, and we Christians we hear it today.
The difference is that we are not a ragtag group of nobodies. The difference is that we are the religious establishment.
And as the establishment, the ones in power, it is all too easy for us to hear this story as a justification of our own lack of hospitality, our own mean-spiritedness and hardness of heart.
It is all too easy for us to hear this story as a justification of our divisions of God’s world into those who are in and those who are out; those who are saved and those who are damned; those who are blessed and those who are cursed.
It is all too easy for us to hear this story and see ourselves as the ones who have on the right wedding garments and remain at the table and those others – who are not like us – as the ones who do not have the right garments and who are justifiably cast out.
Hearing the parable this way, it is no longer an allegory of God’s love for those who the world casts aside. Instead, it becomes a parable of inhospitality, cruelty and hatred.
And so we who are the establishment must hear this story in a new way. It must be retold in a way that captures the good news of a God who is, as we hear today from Isaiah, “a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm, and a shade from the heat.”
A God who Isaiah proclaims will “make for all peoples a feast of rich food.” A God who will swallow up death forever.
I recently read another kind of parable, one that captures the spirit of the gospel by twisting the parable of the wedding feast. This parable by Alice Walker, The Welcome Table, is an allegory closer to our own time and place.
The title comes from the words of a spiritual:

“I’m going to sit at the Welcome table,
Shout my troubles over
Walk and talk with Jesus
Tell God how you treat me
One of these days!”

* * *
Hear then, this modern day parable.
The old woman stood with eyes uplifted in her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes: high shoes polished about the tops and toes, a long rusty dress adorned with an old corsage, long withered, and the remnants of an elegant silk scarf as headrag stained with grease from the many oily pigtails underneath. Perhaps she had known suffering…
Some of those who saw her there on the church steps spoke words about her that were hardly fit to be heard, others held their pious peace, and some felt vague stirrings of pity, small and persistent and hazy, as if she were an old collie turned out to die.
Those who knew the hesitant creeping up on them of the law, looked at her and saw the beginning of the end of the sanctuary of Christian worship, saw the desecration of the Holy Church, and saw an invasion of privacy.
She had come down the road toward the big white church alone. Just herself, an old forgetful woman, nearly blind with age. Just her and her eyes raised dully to the glittering cross that crowned the sheer silver steeple.
She had walked along the road in a stagger from her house a half mile away. Perspiration, cold and clammy, stood on her brow. She stopped to calm herself on the wide front steps, not looking about her as they might have expected her to do, but simply standing quite still.
The reverend of the church stopped her pleasantly as she stepped into the vestibule. “Auntie, you know this is not your church?” he said. As if one could choose the wrong one.
But she brushed past him anyway, as if she had been brushing past him all her life, except this time she was in a hurry. Inside the church she sat on the very first bench from the back, gazing with concentration at the stained glass window over her head. It was cold, and she was shivering.
Everyone could see. They stared at her as they came in and sat near the front. It was cold, very cold, to them, too: outside the church it was below freezing and not much above inside. But the sight of her, sitting there somehow passionately ignoring them, brought them up short, burning.
The young usher, never having turned anyone out of his church before, but not even considering this job as that (after all, she had no right to be there, certainly) went up to her and whispered that she should leave.
She did not pay him any attention, just muttered, “Go ‘way,” in a weak, sharp, bothered voice, waving his blond hair and eyes from near her face.
It was the ladies who finally did what had to be done. Daring their burly indecisive husbands to throw the old colored woman out they made their point. God, mother, country, earth, church. It involved all that and well they knew it.
Leather bagged and shoed, with good calfskin gloves to keep out the cold, they looked with contempt at the bloodless gray arthritic hands of the old woman, clenched loosely, restlessly in her lap.
Could their husbands expect them to sit up in church with that? No, no, the husbands were quick to answer and even quicker to do their duty.
Under the old woman’s arms they placed their hard fists. Under the old woman’s arms they raised their fists, flexed their muscular shoulders, and out she flew through the door, back under the cold blue sky.
This done, the wives folded their healthy arms across their trim middles and felt at once justified and scornful.
Inside the church it was warmer. They sang, they prayed. The protection and promise of God’s impartial love grew more desirable as the sermon gathered fury and lashed out above their penitent heads.
* * *
The old woman stood at the top of the steps looking about in bewilderment. She had been singing in her head. They had interrupted her. Promptly she began singing again, though this time a sad song.
Suddenly, however, she looked down the long gray highway and saw something interesting and delightful coming.
She started to grin, toothlessly, with short giggles of joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on her knees.
And soon it was apparent why she was so happy. For coming down the highway at a firm though leisurely pace was Jesus. He was wearing an immaculate white, long dress trimmed in gold around the neck and hem, and a bright red cape. He was wearing sandals and a beard and he had long brown hair parted on the right side. His eyes, brown, had wrinkles around them as if he smiled or looked at the sun a lot.
She would have known him, recognized him, anywhere. There was a sad but joyful look to his face, like a candle was glowing behind it, and he walked with sure steps in her direction, as if he were walking on the sea.
Ecstatically she began to wave her arms for fear he would miss seeing her.
All he said when he got close to her was, “Follow me,” and she bounded down to his side. For every one of his long determined steps she made two quick ones.
They walked along in deep silence for a long time. Finally she started telling him about how many years she had cooked for them, cleaned for them, nursed them. He looked at her kindly but in silence.
She told him indignantly about how they had grabbed her when she was singing in her head and how they had tossed her out of his church. An old heifer like me, she said, straightening up next to Jesus, breathing hard.
But he smiled down at her and she felt better instantly and time just seemed to fly by. When they passed her house, forlorn and sagging, weather-beaten and patched, she did not even notice it, she was so happy to be walking along the highway with Jesus.
She broke the silence once more to tell Jesus how glad she was that he had come, how she had often looked at his picture hanging on her wall above her bed, and how she had never expected to see him down here in person. Jesus gave her one of his beautiful smiles and walked on.
She did not know where they were going; someplace wonderful, she suspected. The ground was like clouds under her feet, and she felt she could walk forever without becoming the least bit tired.
They walked on, looking straight over the treetops into the sky, and the smile that played over her dry, wind-cracked face was like the first clean ripples across a stagnant pond. On they walked without stopping.
* * *
The people in church never knew what happened to the old woman; they never mentioned her to one another or to anybody else. Most of them heard sometime later that an old colored woman fell dead along the highway. Silly as it seemed, it appeared she had walked herself to death.
Many of the black families along the road said they had seen the old lady high-stepping down the highway; sometimes jabbering in a low, insistent voice, sometimes singing, sometimes merely gesturing excitedly with her hands. Other times silent and smiling, looking at the sky. She had been alone, they said.
Some of them wondered aloud where the old woman had been going so stoutly that it had worn out her heart. They guessed maybe she had relatives across the river, some miles away, but none of them really knew.
* * *
I’m going to sit at the Welcome table
Shout my troubles over
Walk and talk with Jesus
Tell God how you treat me
One of these days!

A new look for Tricia?

I first heard of Skye Denno from the "News of the Weird" website last week. Evidently, Denno has been a big story across the Pond, becoming a very minor Eugene Robinson type. For Denno is the first openly punk minister, and has been profiled by The London Mail as well as The London Paper and The Mirror. So they aren't the Times, but the story is an interesting one.

Technically, as The Mail points out, Denno is still training to be a vicar, and is just an apprentice, or curate at the moment. But still, when she does become a vicar, her congregation will certainly be different. So she is essentially the Tim Black of St. James' the Great of Dursely. And while I like Tim Black, he clearly lacks Denno's style, since she goes to work as pictured. When she isn't wearing hot pants and a dog collar, that is.

But what I like most about this story--other than the possible style tips for Tricia--is that Denno sees her style not as something she should hide when going to work, but actually helps her at work. As many articles point out (and I've probably read too many about her already), she believes that 'it makes me more approachable and I haven't heard any grumbles. At the most people have been a little surprised." She even prays for and with people at the punk shows she attends.

Instead of trying to hide who she is, Denno is just herself, doing God's work as His tool. And in my opinion, that makes already makes her a good priest-in-the-making. If you can't accept who you are and how God made you, how can you help others learn to accept themselves as God has made them?