So after all this time reading about the joys of PresbyLand, you know you want to work here…. (Please disregard comments from the first paragraph of yesterday’s post. That was my evil twin Delsey who wrote that.) And now, your moment has come—there are no less than three awesome positions that have just opened up for your application pleasure.

The first two come along every year, and are particularly good if you’re just now graduating from college. They are the Young Adult Internships offered by Women’s Ministries every year. The first is in the Office of Women’s Advocacy, working with lovely Associate Molly Casteel. The Women’s Advocacy Internship is great for those of you who are concerned about justice issues surrounding women, and feel called to see how the church addresses those issues. You get to work with the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns, a group that helps shape the policies of the church’s General Assembly when it comes to women in the church. You also serve as a voice for women’s issues in the larger church, interpreting the PC(USA)’s policies on women to the folks “out there.” If you really want to tackle women’s issues, this is the job for you!

The second internship is in our wonderful office—the Young Women’s Ministries Internship. Working for us means working for the women of both NNPCW and REYWT. And what does that mean? We work with constituents to design and implement events like NNPCW’s Leadership Event and REYWT’s Retreat. We implement the programmatic will of the Coordinating Committee and the Core Group (which means working directly with cool college and racial ethnic young women). Sometimes we travel—the intern may have the opportunity to do the World Tour in the future, and we often send interns to church conferences and events (Brianne just went to Washington, DC). And the intern manages our Internet communications and edits office newsletters like Sisters Together. YOU could be Sophia the Sock Puppet!!!

The final job opening may be a bit of a surprise to you all, and is actually kind of hard for me to tell you about. The last position Women’s Ministries just posted is the Associate for NNPCW—my position. After three years of working with you all, I am resigning on July 21.

I never expected to be around this long, to tell you the truth. When I came to this office in June 2003, I was here for a year-long internship before moving on to graduate school. But that internship stretched into another year-long position, this time as a program assistant while Women’s Ministries recovered from the staff downsizing of 2004. And when Gusti resigned in 2005, it just made sense for me to stick around as the associate. During this time, I have never felt more strongly called by God down a particular path.

But now I’m feeling called in a different direction, due to a variety of circumstances. I finally feel ready to go to graduate school, but not in my undergraduate fields of English or history—I’m going to get a Master of Divinity degree so that I can continue to work in the faith-based non-profit sector, or even teach. My decision to come to PresbyLand in 2003 seemed kind of random at the time, but I don’t think I ever would have considered theological education otherwise.

Some of you may have guessed at the other transition I’m going through right now—David and I have decided to marry. Yup, I’m taking the plunge (perhaps drowning in the details right now is more like it). We will have the wedding on May 20 in my hometown in Washington State. I will then move to the PC(USA) Young Adult Intern Retirement Community in Boston, Massachusetts (three interns I served with in 2003-2004 currently live there, and Gusti is there, too). Either Harvard Divinity School or Boston University’s School of Theology await me.

In all my time with NNPCW, my utmost goal has been to provide stability to the Network in the midst of change. This latest transition is no exception. Mary Elva and I have talked about the transition to new staff for our ministry, and I will be with the Network through both General Assembly and the 2006 Leadership Event in Louisville. We also hope to have the new associate selected before my wedding takes place in May, so that person can attend the Leadership Event and train with me before the end of my time with NNPCW.

If you are out of college and are interested in my position, please feel free to contact me with questions you might have. And for the college women NNPCW works with, know how confident I am in your ability to remain faithful to the work God has given us and the strong, justice-oriented legacy of NNPCW’s ministry. And know that until that day in July, I remain committed to the ministry and mission that we carry out together.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” --Isaiah 49:15-16

Kelsey

It is hard to think about summing up the World Tour, perhaps because the flood of other pressing work here in PresbyLand has overtaken me. The paperwork we’re doing on the new Mission Work Plan is particularly delightful, I can tell you. To put it bluntly, a good chunk of us staff are consumed with writing reports about what we do and how it relates to the Plan, so that our ministries don’t go the way of Marie Antoinette. This, my friends, is why we have to have the annual “Please Don’t Quit Your Jobs” staff picnic every summer. But I will say no more on that subject, lest those of you who count yourselves enthusiastic Presbies don’t become too jaded right out of the gate.

No, I have more exciting news to announce. Thanks to the work of our heroic web designer, Amy Tuttle (round of cyber-applause), Network Notes is now syndicated!! This means that you can download this blog to your newsreader or website, and it will automatically update when we post! Just look for the tiny icon under the PC(USA) cross on the sidebar. No more checking back obsessively to see if we’ve posted!

We’re syndicating in preparation for an even bigger launch. In fact, NNPCW hasn’t done anything like this since we started Network Notes to begin with. Within the next month or so, NNPCW hopes to start a vlog on this site, hosted by Brianne, me, and Sophia the Sock Puppet. CoCo member Hillary Mohaupt spent long hours at the General Assembly Council meeting constructing Sophia, and she’s now ready to go.

What will the vlog be about, you ask? Well, right now we’re thinking that this will give you an opportunity to meet all these random people I talk about in Network Notes, and find out more about what they do here in PresbyLand. Imagine Wayne’s World meets Gloria Steinem, with a little bit of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood thrown in the mix (he was a good Presbyterian minister, you know—can’t say the same about Gloria). We’ll do short segments, stopping by the offices of folks like Mary Elva or Curtis Kearns to have them show us around and tell us a bit about their jobs. We’ll end with some sort of service announcement by Sophia about upcoming events or news you should know. Now, the Coordinating Committee specifically requested that we have Sophia interview Clifton Kirkpatrick, PC(USA) Stated Clerk, but I don’t know how comfortable Cliff would be talking to a sock puppet.

The vlog won’t replace Network Notes, and it won’t be every day—in fact, we’re only going to do a trial run right now to see if this is even feasible. But if it is, the Coordinating Committee has budgeted for us to get our own digital camera and editing software. This could mean that, just as you’re able to read all about the World Tour now, in the future you’ll be able to watch clips from the Leadership Event, experience some of General Assembly, and visit other church conferences, too, with NNPCW. You’ll hopefully be able to download the vlog onto iTunes, giving you your own little window into PresbyLand. And that’s enough to make any Presbyterian geek smile.

So if you have suggestions, I’m all ears. Party on, Presbyterians!!

“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” --Isaiah 66:13

Kelsey

Ah, to be home… I think my World Tour sum up will have to wait until next week, as I’m in the midst of rushing off to a Presbyterian Women meeting regarding our Leadership Event this summer (which you should all consider attending!!!). But I did want to say hello before I left the office for the day.

I must say that I’ve grown rather fond of Kentucky in the nearly three years I’ve lived here. Mentally, I was waxing rather eloquent about it as we soared overhead on our way into Louisville airport last night.

I had finally calmed myself down by then—you see, I’m currently in the process of developing an inexplicable fear of flying. It ticks me off quite exceedingly, road warrior that I am, but what can you do? These phobias come and go as they please. Anyway, I saw the flat, brown, barren dots finally curl into rolling hills and then fade away into houses. In the outlying areas, the houses were large, imposing, with swimming pools and tennis courts in the backyard. As we came closer to the airport, those gave way to the cozy homes of comfortable middle class urbanity. Cars rushed by as I gradually recognized the steady stream of traffic below as workers speeding home on Interstates 65 and 264. I even saw the ugly office complex building that marks the area where I live.

Louisville is a town that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Perhaps it has been humbled by its rough beginnings, by its association with a state that gets a bad rap around the country. But I see Louisville as a city of comfortable dignity, a funky elegance. It is the kind of place where people really do live with some element of grace, regardless of their circumstances, a place where your neighbor will always have a cold glass of ice tea waiting for you if you drop by for a visit. Follow the car with the “Keep Louisville Weird” bumper sticker through the Highlands neighborhood, and you’ll see indigenous coffee shops, shimmering sequins adorning Lynn’s Paradise Café, peace activists on the corner, crazily painted horse statues standing guard on the sidewalks. Louisville never fails to surprise us.

Perhaps the Kentucky Derby, where you don your best hat to let your hair down in the mud and muck infield at Churchill Downs, really typifies the Louisville experience. In this capital of Kentuckiana (the local news’ way of talking about Louisville and southern Indiana), Southern elegance meets Midwest casual to create a different sort of “down home”… one where even a girl from the latte-sipping Pacific Northwest can find a niche.

And yes, in Stephen Foster’s words, the sun does shine bright on my old Kentucky home—at the far western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, we’re still seeing sunlight at 6:30 pm in February.

That sure warms the cockles of my heart, I can tell you.

“On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.” --Psalm 145:5

Kelsey

I'm surruptitiously looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone at Goucher to discover that a.) I've been on this computer kiosk in the dining hall way too long, and b.) I'm not a student checking e-mail (shh...). So like most of my posts on this trip, this will probably be short. I feel like (to use an analogy my peace-loving friends won't care for) a war correspondant sneaking out reports between the action. Between the extensive road mileage is more like it.

Last night I visited a Presbyterian all-women's college, Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA. Like Hood, Wilson is also struggling with identity and the challenges of remaining viable as an all-women's college in a co-ed world. There are parallels between the struggle of such institutions and the state of the church at large-- groups like Presbyterian Women are also questioning their identity right now. The reason? Most of such organizations and institutions were born in the days when women were shut out of the male-dominated avenues of power. Women-only institutions were the only places where our foremothers could find their voice and claim autonomy in the larger society. Today, however, women can attend the best colleges in the land, colleges that used to be exclusively for men. Women have been serving the church as elders for 76 years now, ministers of Word and Sacrament for 50. In such a world, where women's struggles have now moved directly into the traditionally male dominated hierarchies, what purpose do women's organizations and schools serve?

(Sidenote: The boys [and I do mean boys] sitting at the table next to me are having a foodfight. One just fell sideways out of his chair. Ah, there are days when I definitely do not miss college life.)

In spite of all these questions, I still firmly believe that women's organizations have a vital place in our contemporary context. We are not a truly equal society, not a truly integrated society. Women have become part of traditionally male-dominated structures, but those structures still show the influences of centuries, if not millenia, of male perspectives in the way they're organized and run. A women's organization can serve as a training ground-- a place where women can find their voice, find alternative ways of doing things, and carry that to the world at large. From that light, perhaps women's organizations, women's colleges, are more vital than ever.

The boys just hit me with the food, so I think it is time for me to log off. I fly out this afternoon, so I'll summarize the tour tomorrow. Until then, safe travels for me!!

Kelsey

"Wouldn't it be great," Mary Elva leaned over and whispered, "if the GAC would elect two women to lead the GAC?"

Yes, that would have been great. Most of the four days I spent in Louisville attending the General Assembly Council meeting's I was either at Mary Elva Smith's side or somewhere near one of the other "strong woman" presences at the meeting. Still, when the election of the GAC's chair and vice chair came around, I have to admit that I wasn't even thinking about gender representation.

Ok, ok, I was a little overwhelmed by the notion of spending four days at the Brown Hotel in Louisville (note to self: see "Elizabethtown") listening to the people in power discuss and decide the future of the Council and the Church.

Because I was identified as a visitor to the meeting, I had no official voice and no vote, but thankfully Carol Hylkema (remember her from the 2005 Leadership Event?) and Karen Breckenridge from the Advocay Committee for Women's Concerns, along with other bigwigs with big hearts and mouths, were quick to officially vocalize the words I said. I sat in on the committee meetings for the National Ministries Division, one of three administrative divisions of the church, and learned so much not only about how the church works but also about some ways to tackle an issue are more effective than others.

A lot of the four days were spent talking about the Mission Work Plan and the restructuring of the Council itself. There's a more detailed version of the Mission Work Plan online that points to young adults specifically, and the end product of the restructuring process was to meant improve communication and representation. Check out www.pcusa.org/gac for more on those issues.

Of course, the GAC elected Allison Seed, a charismatic and fair pastor from Kansas, and Charles Easley, an astute African American man with years of experience, to lead the GAC after General Assembly this summer, and that guarantees some diversity. On the other hand, the Council rejected an amendment to the proposal to restructure the GAC that called for intentional representation of people with disabilities. Young adults will now occupy four of the 39 seats on the restructured Council, but one member of the National Ministries Division Committee protested that young adults were overrepresented in relation their actual activity in the church -- instead of questioning why young adults are leaving the church more often than ever before.

Ted Wardlaw from Austin Theological Seminary spoke to the GAC on Friday, the last day I was there, about the church's dwindling membership. "By 2040 there will be one Presbyterian," he said, "and he or she will spend all of his or her time on a plane back and forth to Louisville." People laughed, but it's something to think about. How effective is the work we're doing? "There's no retirement from the Kingdom of God," Allison Seed told a woman who had just left the Presbyterian Center after 30 years. She's right: we have to keep plugging along if we want to see some change.

Peace to you all,
Hillary

After a very relaxing weekend, in which I took in Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Valley Forge encampment of Revolutionary War soldiers, I'm back on the road again. I visited two groups associated with the University of Pennsylvania here in Philadelphia, First Presbyterian Church and the Campus Christian Association. One is struggling with how to reach out to Presbyterian students on Penn's campus while the other avoids denominational labels. Both were interested in how NNPCW might play into their particular ministries.

First Presbyterian's problem is that undergraduate students won't make the trip across the river from University City to Center City to check them out. For them, grad students are where it is at. The Campus Christian Association, though it has ties to the Presbyterian Church, serves a very different population than many campus ministries. They work with those who have been scarred by other churches, seekers who are skeptical of mainline churches, people seeking the moral language to articulate their justice concerns. While they weren't particularly excited about identifying with NNPCW as such, they were very interested in the possibilities presented by our discussion resource for small group study. I think First Pres would be more likely to send students to the Leadership Event, but the Campus Christian Association will use the resource itself. Both visits were very good "planting seeds" events.

I'm staying in Flourtown, Pennsylvania with a woman who has two "Labradoodles"-- poodle/Labrador Retriever mixes with all the white hair of poodles and energy of labs. Interestingly enough, I learned that the breed was born to help a blind woman who was allergic to dogs-- labs make great service dogs, poodles don't shed a lot of hair, and both breeds are known for intelligence. The lady I'm staying with also takes care of 4-5 children per day, so it is a bit crazy!!

Also, an update on the "healthy eating strategy"-- I haven't been so good about following it of late. All my eating out has forced me to reintroduce carbs into my diet on a limited basis. I will say, however, that I've only eaten meat once since February 1-- but could you honestly expect me to visit Philadelphia for the first time and not partake of the infamous Philly Cheesesteak?? And yes, I had to have my first piece of cake in nearly a month to celebrate George Washington's birthday at Valley Forge. It was Martha's special recipe ;).

I'm sorry for the lack of exciting news... I'm afraid this has been a rather dull trip in terms of adventures. But better nothing at all than something bad!!

Kelsey

Whew! This trip definitely keeps me on the road... I have to leave any minute for my 3+ hour trip back to New Jersey to meet with students at Rider University. But I wanted to make sure that I got a chance to blog before I left my easily accessible Internet!! But basically, this trip has consisted of driving, presenting, and sleeping, driving, presenting, and sleeping. There hasn't been a whole lot of time for anything else.

Last night I spent time chatting with a group of women from Hood College here in Frederick, Maryland. Historically an all-women's school, the college went co-ed about two years ago for financial reasons and women there are still dealing with the aftermath. Their story was a case study about how the presence of men affects social dynamics and campus culture.

Some of the changes were kind of funny-- the women present complained mightily about how noisy men were in the newly co-ed dorms, bouncing basketballs in the halls at 2 am. But the transition went deeper, too. One student talked about how before the campus went co-ed, women used to go to the library in their pjs-- they really didn't care what anyone else thought of them. Now the new students on campus dress up for class, mainly to look good for men. Women's ways of doing things, their slow, deliberate, emotionally sensitive responses to tragedies on campus such as 9-11 or deaths of students, was making way for decisive "act now" decisions. The switch has changed the whole climate of campus.

Now the group admitted readily that change was needed for the college to stay alive. But how do we embrace nescessary changes while also retaining our own traditions as women? It is interesting how this campus feels a need to change to accomodate and attract male students-- do they really have to change the fundamentally open and nurturing environment that they were before? It is a larger question for women, as we attempt to involve men further in our work for justice and to transform the larger male-dominated society around us into one that better accomodates the values of women.

Perhaps rather than catering to men in society, it is time for us to demand that they cater their traditional institutions to us.

Kelsey

Yes, I know... I am a horrible blogger on this trip, especially after I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath to see what my next adventure is :). Nothing to compare, I'm afraid, with locking myself out of Beth Ruhl's house back in November in Kansas, I can assure you. I've been a true road warrior this trip, criss-crossing four states and the District of Columbia in the past three days. So you haven't heard from me because a.) I've been in the car way too much to do anything else, b.) I haven't been staying at places with Internet access very much this time around. But I will try to squeeze out an update in the half hour I have before people show up at my presentation here at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.

It is hard to summarize all the places I've been in the last few days and the conversations we've had-- they've been so different. I've talked about women's ordination at Virginia Tech and studied the daughters of Zelophephed with women at the University of Virginia. I've been part of deep "Where is God?" conversations at the University of Delaware, and ruminated on the changing landscape of campus ministry at the University of Richmond (where, by the way, I got lost and was half an hour late for an hour long appointment with a professor and the chaplain. I'm still trying not to beat myself up over that one). But I'll lift up a few thoughts about what makes a successful campus ministry that have come from several of the places I've visited.

I was talking to Peter Hazelrigg at Princeton University following breakfast this morning. At 8:30 am, he had more students showing up for his program than many campus ministries get for their regular Sunday night worship! He told me, though, that not too long ago Princeton had boasted maybe eight students involved in the Presbyterian ministry there-- right now he works with about 40. I asked him how he got people involved. His answer reminded me of what I've seen at other campuses, something I'll term the "ministry of presence." I've noticed in my travels that successful campus ministers are those who enmesh themselves in the larger fabric of the university. Peter teaches students at Princeton facilitation skills in an outdoor sports leadership program. The chaplain at Houston Community College puts up a talking post daily for students in the commuter school's cafeteria. The campus minister at Virginia Tech is a leader at campus rallies on social issues. They don't do all the work, and their students drive their ministry. But these ministries aren't prospering because they put up the most fliers on campus-- they're growing because the ministers are seen on campus beyond a particular religious community and are people that others can trust.

Why isn't everyone doing this? One word: time. Campus ministry is a full-time job, and too many congregations, presbyteries, and synods are expecting one person to work part time on it. The result is that a minister can't do it justice (or is getting a part time salary for full time work). Growing a ministry is hard work, from establishing that presence on campus apart from what one does at Sunday worship to following up individually with each person who shows the least bit of interest in what the group is doing to providing the tools for student leaders to take on some of the outreach.

The reality of campus ministry that I've seen, anywhere in the country that I go, is shrinking funds and lack of support. And the truth is that campus ministers are soon going to have to become their own fundraisers, too, if they want to keep the part-time jobs they have. But as students, we have to ask ourselves how much these ministries mean to us. Are we willing to get out there and do some fundraising of our own? Are we willing to donate money as alumnae to keep the ministries that nourished us in college alive?

Think about the answer carefully-- the future of mainline Protestant campus ministry is hanging in the balance.

"The rich and the poor have this in common; the Lord is the maker of them all." --Proverbs 22:2

Kelsey

Good afternoon, everyone, from sunny and bright Blacksburg, Virginia! I've just finished spending a wonderful soup lunch with a group at the Cooper House Campus Ministry at Virginia Tech. I have to apologize for not blogging yesterday, but I've had a bit of difficulty accessing the Net. Even here I'm borrowing the administrative assistant's computer while she's downstairs washing dishes. So this will probably be a short post.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to tour all the sites of DC, although I did spend some great time at the US Holocaust Museum and the Smithsonian. I particularly found their exhibit on the First Ladies interesting-- these are women with real political power and influence (regardless of how much the larger society wants to deny that), and yet it still comes through the traditional conduit of their relationships to men.

The Holocaust Museum, on the other hand, made me rethink my understanding of pacifism. As I read about the men and women who took a final stand against the SS in the Warsaw Ghetto rather than be passively hauled off to the death camps, I really questioned whether a non-violent resistance would have been an option for them. I don't have time to really explore the musings here, except to say that I certainly can't condemn them for choosing to take up arms in the face of certain death.

And I have met with some great groups, from Presbyterian Women to George Washington University students to awesome alumnae of the Network Rebecca Morrison and Logan Alley. I particularly enjoyed meeting with Rebecca and Logan in Rebecca's new house-- she went out and bought a tablecloth just for the occasion! The snowstorm of last weekend did result in one cancellation, though, which allowed me time to see the Lincoln Memorial. I still would have rather gone to George Mason University, though.

Well, I've borrowed this computer long enough and I must go. I may have a guest blogger lined up for sometime this week, but I'll keep the travel stories coming. Off to the University of Virginia I go!!!

"My God be gracious to us and bless us and make God's face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations." --Psalm 67:1-2

Kelsey

PS-- Happy Valentine's Day, Singles Awareness Day, whatever you'd like to call it. To quote some cheesy V-Day card, you're swell!!

I hung two of my bras on the back of my office door at work this morning, hoping that no one would notice them. No one did, until we held a closed-door staff meeting for Brianne’s mid-year review….

You’re probably asking right now, “Kelsey, why are you bringing your bras to work and hanging them on the back of the door? That’s very unprofessional of you.” Well, yes, yes it is. But it’s World Tour time and you gotta do what you gotta do. They need to dry and I’m leaving for the airport at 2:30 pm.

That’s right, the World Tour is finally here! I think I’ve already posted my schedule a couple of times on the blog, so I will refrain from doing so this time around. But among the highlights of this trip, besides meeting with very cool young women at colleges and universities all around the mid-Atlantic, are a weekend with my cousin in Washington, DC (including, apparently, a Bon Jovi/Sinatra party tomorrow night—just by mentioning that, I’m going to have “Livin’ on a Prayer” stuck in my head the rest of the day) and President’s Day with David in Philadelphia.

This will also finally expunge my parents from the incident, all those years ago in 8th grade, when all my friends went on the school trip to DC, Philadelphia, and New York and they wouldn’t let me go. Although I’m not going to get a whole lot of time to tour our nation’s capitol, I’m hoping to at least hit the highlights… perhaps the Capitol building, maybe if it works out the White House… shoot—I just read in my AAA guidebook that you have to have a group of ten or more to tour it and you have to request it through your congressperson. Bummer.

Of course, I’ll also do work while I’m there. First up tomorrow morning is the Presbyterian Women of National Capitol Presbytery Prayer Breakfast around 8 am. So be praying for me, and checking in regularly for reports of the trip! I’m going to take the digital camera this time and try to post photos, so you can really step into the action with me.

I’ll report soon from DC!!

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.” --Psalm 131:2

Kelsey

I’ve noticed a lot of hype surrounding blogs these days. I guess they’d been hyped even when NNPCW started its blog, more than a year ago, but I don’t think they were a big deal back when I first heard of them in 2004.

I was still an intern for the office back then, and Gusti had charged me with coming up with a communications strategy. I went surfing the web in order to see what kinds of technology were generating the most buzz, and hit upon the Howard Dean presidential campaign website. Now, you can say what you want about Howard Dean, but his site was super-interactive. Since my goal was to make people actually want to come back to NNPCW’s site, I took several of the cutting edge ideas from that website and made them part of my communications plan. A blog was one of those strategies.

When we first started the blog a year ago, most of my elders here in PresbyLand had no clue what they were. Times, however, have changed since then. Mainstream media has picked up the scent, and now we hear all about the power of blogging to revitalize democratic media. And about those older Presbyterians—this morning while leading worship at the General Assembly Council meeting, several people mentioned how much they had appreciated yesterday’s post on Girls Gone Wild. Viola has been on board almost from the beginning. Shoot, even David’s parents started a family blog at Thanksgiving.

Yet how democratic is blogging? An article I read this morning talked about how the proliferation of blogs has made it increasingly difficult to have your voice stand out over the din. The blogsphere has developed an A-list of its own, those pundits you see on CNN who claim to speak for the blogging world. To get noticed today, one of these premier bloggers has to link to you. Unsurprisingly, especially when it comes to politics, these bloggers predominately consist of your stereotypical computer geek—young, financially well-off, white, and male. At the least they’re young for a change….

But if we’re assuming that blogs are the riotous pits of populist democracy that we’re led to think they are, then perhaps we’re fooling ourselves. Because although women and people of color are increasingly taking to the blogging trend, how are their voices going to be heard if no one reads their blogs? And how are they supposed to get an audience where everyone reads only the blogs they saw featured in Time?

Most of the A-listers tell you that blogging is a meritocracy—if your blog is good stuff, people are going to read it. True. But it seems that with alarming speed the world of blogs is developing an establishment of its own. And wasn’t it the original bloggers who claimed that the “establishment” television networks and newspapers shut their views out in the cold?

When we look at blogging as some new democratic force, we also have to remember that what we say here cannot speak for the majority of the world—a world where many can’t read our words, have never even seen a computer, where debating the nature of democracy and the role of technology is irrelevant to the daily struggle for existence. It seems kind of narcissistic and self-congratulating to assume that the blogs of the privileged few are going to revitalize worldwide democracy in the face of such extreme want.

I look at this reality, and I look at the A-list political blogs that are primarily about gaining political or social power. And in the midst of all these high-stakes power games, I wonder if they really get it at all.

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” --Matthew 6:24

Kelsey

PS—You may or may not have noticed that I have a longstanding policy of not linking to other blogs. Sometimes I wish I could—I would love to lift up the voices of many NNPCW members and alumnae broadcasting their thoughts out there. But mainly, I don’t do it because I’m limited by PC(USA) policy in terms of endorsing other sites and what might be contained therein. But that wouldn’t stop NNPCW members from forming their own sort of blog community, linking to one another so that you can all share thoughts and ideas together.

I am blogging today at the express request of my colleagues here in PresbyLand, who have uncovered a shocking travesty of epic proportions. The General Assembly Council, one of the church’s highest governing bodies, had better keep to their hotel rooms this Friday night and pray. Because right across the street from the Brown (the hotel featured in the Orlando Bloom-Kirsten Dunst film Elizabethtown, by the way), the Girls Gone Wild Tour Bus is coming to Louisville!!

According to the ad featured in the local news weekly today, “Come be a part of all the excitement as the ORIGINAL GIRLS GONE WILD Crew takes Louisville by storm.” At the top of the full page ad is a large photo of four bikini-clad, seductively smiling young women. It is unclear whether the crew filming will be staying with the Council members at the Brown Hotel. Also unclear is whether Snoop Dog, whom I’m told plays a prominent role in previous Girls Gone Wild videos, will be chatting it up with GA Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase in the lobby. Perhaps the Presbyterian News Service can score an interview.

Honestly, I must admit that my first impulse is to laugh hysterically at the juxtaposition of the Frozen Chosen with this epitome of American secular debauchery. I’m sure that there is no way the event planners could have seen this coming, or that they could have done something about it if they had. And anyway, Girls Gone Wild just seems kind of ridiculous to begin with, something of a big joke.

But really, perhaps GAC should be praying about Girls Gone Wild at this meeting, a meeting where the Council just last night celebrated the anniversaries of women’s ordinations during worship. Because the continued presence of Girls Gone Wild, 50 years after the doors were opened to women as full participants in the church, is something of a commentary on how much we’ve failed our women.

Our foremothers fought so that their daughters could be seen as something more than baby-making machines, be understood as humans with thoughts and feelings far beyond their physical bodies. Opening the church doors, opening the work world doors, opening all the doors to women that the Jerry Falwells of the world argue should be closed, was supposed to tell us we were more than the body we could offer men. We were supposed to discover that we were made in the image of God—not because God does or does not have a vagina, but because God is the source of love and all humans, female and male, have the ability to reflect that equally.

Yet 50 years after our full entry into the church, nearly 45 years after the late Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, too many women still feel that the best way to be validated is to show their breasts off to a camera for millions of ogling men. And it isn’t because of some innate, natural tendency on the part of those women, it isn’t because they don’t have other options, it isn’t because they’re just trashy and sinful. It is because we tell them that their bodies are paramount, pure and simple.

I recently watched an ad that the Presbyterian Church has available right now online to attract young families back into the church. It features a young woman giving birth, with a voiceover saying, “Ten years ago, your life was your boyfriend, your clothes, your weekend,”—cut to newborn baby crying—“now it’s Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer.”

As long as our society, and our church, keep telling women that their ability to sexually please men and bear children are the most highly valued gifts they have to offer, Girls Gone Wild will be alive and well.

“Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, ‘How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ The people did not answer him a word.” --1 Kings 18:21

Kelsey

My friends, for the first time in my life I’ve started an honest-to-goodness diet. Okay, so we’re not calling it a diet—Brianne insisted that I dub it a “healthy eating strategy,” since diets never work, you have to make long-term life choices, blah, blah, blah. But the bottom line is that the sweets obsession was growing out of control. In one week, I ate almost the entire mini-cake that David’s mom made for my birthday. My co-workers will tell you that I mooched a steady stream of chocolate off them on a daily basis. I think my teeth are rotting.

So I have temporarily liberated myself not only from desserts, but from all meat and most carbs. David and I are carrying out the strategy together, holding one another accountable to avoid the temptations of such things as bread and chicken. He has lost several pounds already.

You’re probably thinking at this point, “What the heck are you eating, then?” Well, my new healthy eating strategy consists primarily of fruit, vegetables, some dairy products, and beans. Yes, I am learning all about the joys of beans. I’m not sure whether beans are a vegetable—David says that they are a plant product. However, beans are low fat, low carb, and high in protein, an important factor with a meatless healthy eating strategy. There is a bean for every day of the week, too: kidney beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, navy beans, chili beans, and butter beans.

When I first started the healthy eating strategy about a week ago, I whined prodigiously about giving up most carbs (we still permit healthy cereals, oatmeal, or grits for breakfast). What would I do without my turkey and mustard sandwiches? My quick quesadilla and pasta dinner at night? Yet I’m finding that beans are not such a bad substitute, in addition to Gardenburgers and lots of salad. For a quick meal, you can stock cans of vegetarian chili. Beans are cheap, too. I bought several cans last night for less than 50 cents each. If nothing else, this experiment has taught me that bread and/or rice are not essential to a good meal.

Now, I’m not recommending this healthy eating strategy to everyone. I was never a fan of the whole Adkins diet fad, since I didn’t think it was particularly healthy to replace bread with a greasy quarter-pounder every night at dinner. And it takes a fair bit of discipline to eat so many beans in one week. I will say, though, that I do feel better since cutting a lot of the junk out of my diet. Yes, I may miss my daily diet of Dove chocolates, but I know that my body feels much happier with all the nutrients it is getting out of my regular dose of fresh spinach.

But I’m not going to complain when healthy eating strategy ends officially on March 1!

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” --1 Corinthians 6:19

Kelsey

PS—Not sure how the healthy eating strategy will play out on the World Tour… I don’t always have much choice in what I eat. I will at least avoid all meat.

So the CoCo meeting is over… sigh. It is so much easier to get things done when the people you rely upon to do them are all in one place. After they left yesterday, I went to a friend’s house to watch part of the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, Seattle didn’t win, and that’s all I have to say about that. But on a side note, the Rolling Stones are looking pretty old to be gyrating up on stage. Bless their hearts, I said at one point during the halftime show that it sounded like someone singing a bad karaoke version of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” But who am I to judge? After all, at 25 I can’t move my hips like Mick Jagger did last night.

Among other actions taken this weekend, CoCo commissioned a task force to study the possibility of developing a new worship resource for college women. Students reported that it is extremely difficult to create a worship that is inclusive and engaging with the resources available. CoCo’s vision for the project included inclusive-language songs, prayers and liturgies, templates for young women’s Bible studies, and an art/music accompaniment CD. We will be convening a group of young women to explore the feasibility of this project, and to set the wheels in motion for it to happen.

However, the meeting wasn’t all about business. One of the rarely discussed but crucial pieces of any CoCo meeting is the time we spend together as a spiritual community. Frankly, I think we create one of the most unique and empowering spaces in the church for spiritual and personal growth.

CoCo meetings try to allot a fair bit of time for community building. This time certain CoCo members discovered a passion for the murder game “Mafia” (Sheena made us play it four times in the wee hours of Sunday morning), while others flexed their acting chops in “Charades.” Thankfully for me, a member of the other team had to attempt to act out “Leviticus”.

More importantly, at every CoCo meeting we spend the late part of one evening checking in. Now, if you’ve ever served on an NNPCW committee, you know that we generally try to check in on one another before we start the call. Check-in at the CoCo meeting, though, takes it to a new level. In this case, it is kind of a “talking stick” thing—we set an object in the middle, and when you’re ready you pick it up and start talking. A woman can share anything on her mind or in her heart, whether that is school or relationships, the Network or otherwise. Everyone else just listens. We are not there to judge, not there to condemn, not there to question. We provide only silent love and space for our sister to share.

At the spring meeting, we also take time to share with one another during the Farewell Celebration. In addition to gifts from the committee to its outgoing members, we also express to each departing young woman what her gifts and talents have meant to us. The point is to build each woman up as she leaves us, to share with her all the wonderful gifts we see that God has given her. It is a powerful and emotional time.

On Saturday night, as I was listening to NNPCW women share these goodbyes with their sisters, I realized that perhaps this is what the church really needs. Think about it—when it comes to church fellowship, how much time do we spend with our sisters and brothers in Christ lifting up their strengths and thanking God for that? How much time do we spend telling one another that we have been good, and faithful, and that we’ve made a difference to others?

I think part of the reason CoCo works, in spite of the differences people have, is because we take the time to build an affirming and positive community. As one CoCo member said , there are pieces of God in all of us. CoCo is a community that makes an effort to point out and nurture those pieces. Isn’t building one another up what Scripture calls us to do?

“Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” --1 Thessalonians 5:11

Kelsey

Hello to PresbyLand! My name is Maisha, and I’m a member of NNPCW CoCo. Since the wonderful women of CoCo have gathered here in Louisville for the Spring CoCo meeting, Kelsey asked me to be the guest blogger for the day. I’m so excited about this. I love doing these things. I regularly update my livejournal, which only my friends read, but I like to go on rants and pretend that the whole world is reading. And now that I have the opportunity to have all of PresbyLand reading my thoughts (okay, so maybe not everyone in PresbyLand will read them), I can’t decide what to write about.

I love when Kelsey writes about what’s going on in the world, but some of my favorite blogs of hers are when she’s doing self-reflection. One of my favorite things about blogs is the chance to invite the world to be a part of your learning about yourself. So self-reflection is what I’m going to do. I invite you into my brain (be careful, it can be a scary place).

One of the major things on my mind right now is considering seminary. This is on my mind at the moment especially because this morning Carrie S. and I led worship here at the Presbyterian Center. I was pretty nervous about it (especially as it came down to some of the preparation at the last minute – ah, procrastination), but at the same time it was exhilarating. I couldn’t help but use the experience to dream about a day when I could be leading worship services every Sunday.

This is a fairly new idea for me, or at least serious consideration of it is. I’ll admit that I actually began thinking about it the moment that I walked into my church in Los Angeles for the first time. Honestly, at first I didn’t even expect to have much of a religious life in college. I thought that I’d address my own spiritual needs on a personal level, and perhaps attend church once a month to keep my parents happy, but besides that I’d avoid religion – from which I’d learned that faith and feminism were opposing values, among other things. As soon as I read the Back Page, a summary of what my church stands for, and met Susan Craig, the fantastic woman who was the pastor at the time, I pictured myself as the leader of such a church. Before then, I never even knew that churches that stood for such values as peace, justice, and feminism existed.

In November, CoCo sent me to the REWYT retreat, where two women, Theresa and Heather, spoke to young women of color about the need for more representation in positions of leadership in the PC (USA). Somehow I felt like they were speaking to me. Immediately after the retreat, I set about planning my life, because I tend to do such things. Changes in my plans included changing schools, so I’m currently taking a semester off from the University of Southern California and I hope to transfer to the University of San Francisco in the fall. I’m also reconsidering my plans for life after undergrad, which previously included getting a Masters in Creative Writing, but now may involve putting that off until later and going to seminary instead.
This is only my second CoCo meeting, but I’ve already been influenced by the leadership development aspect of NNPCW. I think that spending time with the intelligent, ambitious women of NNPCW, and knowing that the PC(USA) has such an organization, and therefore has faith in the abilities of college women, gives me the confidence to pursue things that I may not have seriously considered before. Coretta Scott King passed away recently, and while saddened by that I was reminded that women like Mrs. King aren’t just working as individuals, but also hoping to inspire others to follow in their example. Just because she is no longer with us doesn’t mean that her work shouldn’t continue, and I feel being a part of NNPCW is my opportunity to learn about leadership and prepare to take on a leadership role in standing up for what I believe.

Okay, so this has definitely confirmed my belief that blogs help self-discovery, because just since I began writing this blog my desire to go to seminary and eventually get ordained has increased. But I still have a while to decide for sure, so we’ll see. For now, I thank you for reading and taking part in my reflection, and thank Kelsey for having me as guest blogger. Have a wonderful day.

Peace,
Maisha

Today is a rather ho-hum day, with ho-hum events taking place at 100 Witherspoon. The action heats up tomorrow, though, with the arrival of the Coordinating Committee in Louisville. You’ll probably be hearing more from them in the next couple of days rather than me. Rumor has it that even National Ministries Division director Curtis Kearns is a bit nervous about meeting with CoCo on Friday. Maybe it was all the e-mails I sent out to our staff guests warning that I didn’t know exactly what to expect from these wild women….

I’m reaching the latter stages of the World Tour, though, and can confirm for you several events I’ll be attending. If you’re connected to any of these institutions or want more information, feel free to e-mail me.

I’ll be making appearances at:

Presbyterian Women of National Capital Presbytery’s Prayer Breakfast, Washington, DC
George Washington University, Washington, DC
United Campus Ministries of Northern Virginia, Alexandria, VA
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
University of Richmond, Richmond, VA
University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Lafayette College, Easton, PA
Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA
Goucher College, Baltimore, MD

I’m also hoping to visit several other schools (assuming the campus ministers ever get back to me), so keep checking in to see where I’ll be next! And of course, if you would like me to come to your campus group or church, don’t hesitate to contact me.

One last thing—some of you might know that the Seattle Seahawks are in the Super Bowl this weekend. While I’m not a big fan of professional football, I’m going to stake my claim and say that I am officially rooting for the Hawks this year. If David’s White Sox can win the World Series, then it is time for a Washington state team to win a major sports championship. Go Seahawks!

Because I’m lacking in anything else to say, I think I’m going to maintain a sphinx-like silence and stop writing. Because there is always,

“A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” --Ecclesiastes 3:7b

Kelsey