where do daisies grow?

as the fall draws to a close, i am always overwhelmed by what i've learned - over the course of a semester, a year or several, in a single day, a season, a collection of moments and sayings and kisses, actual and imaginary. i'm sure i learned many things this year worth remembering, but one refrain is stuck in my head, a call and response - 'where do daisies grow?' 'in the end zone.' [knowing that i am new to football, some of you may laugh to know that i wrote 'in-zone' here, thought it looked fishy and looked it up online; good thing i did because 'end' is so much more interesting from a theological perspective] so what does this refrain mean? in the grand narrative of football, i think it's pretty clear, but i wonder why it has tangled up my consciousness like a knot in wet hair.

several weeks ago, i was at a gathering at a colleague's home. i was chattering away about lesbian football to anyone who would listen. one of my dear friends said playfully, 'but j, what about church?' [this is probably funnier to us because we are theologians; church would seem like a required activity for sunday morning] knowing he was teasing, but always taking an opportunity to get serious [this is my way], i started gushing again about true, true community and exclaimed that daisy football was more like church for me a this moment than the sacramental table, where the food has been spoiled by centuries of patriarchy, violence, corruption, apathy and complacency, not to mention the fact that my invitation has been [officially] suspended on account of my sexuality. i was then struck by the audacity and absurdity of calling football church, especially since i grew up in a culture where sports, and especially football was religion, a religion i did not subscribe to. however, i think the difference between the diesel daisies and the throngs that gather in massive NFL and college stadiums, is analogous to the difference between the mega-churches popping up all over the US, with their own private starbucks, and the intentional eucharistic communities emerging on the margins and in the spaces in between.

The simplest and clearest notion of ecclesia given in Xian scripture is Jesus' statement that whenever two or more of you are gathered, i will be there. [ekklesia in ancient Greece referred to the democratic governing assembly, an assembly of equals; the early Xian writers adapted the word to refer to the early community, the church, also individual congregations; now, 'ecclesiastical', 'ecclesiological' and/or 'ecclesiological' refers to theories of what it means to be and what constitutes 'Church/church'] more and more i contemplate this idea of two or more, and at this juncture, i am more concerned with two or more queers than with two or more confessing Xians. i am also interested in the notion that two or more of the marginalized is better attuned to political and social liberation as the principle of the gospel and Jesus' preferential option for the oppressed. so where is it that i find ecclesia most authentically incarnated? it is among those whom the world has rejected.

another theological concept that occurs to me as i think about queer church is 'eschatology.' this term refers to Xian focus on the 'end time,' both the realized future of salvation and the not yet. for me, the 'end zone' could be symbolic of the desires and commitments that surface within this community of women called the diesel daisies. 'daisy love' represents the mutuality, respect, care and unconditional support we offer one another in play and in life. this love manifests in sexual and non-sexual relationships, in friendships and mentorships and families. it is inter-generational, inter-racial, inter-classed, inter-gendered love. as a community of queer and/or lesbian women we live and love OUT the future we crave, the future that is now. we love out our liberation.

i am not attempting to make a church or a religion out of daisy football. this, i think would be dangerous and inappropriate for many of our community. i am trying to honor this experience and the women who have made it possible through the language i know best. as a Xian [because i am one], i am also trying to learn what Xian identity should be/mean in the contemporary world, and i think daisy love as much to teach. i write also to challenge my Xian friends, particularly in the advent of another liturgical year - do you take seriously the fact that Jesus was born in a stable with shit and hay clinging to his skin and swaddling clothes [thank you Marcella Althaus-Reid], that he was born to an enslaved people? my question is, where are you worshiping this advent? is it in the palace of transnational corporate frenzy, the pew of a church where eschatological vision has lost its social and political dimensions [either theoretically, practically or both], the comfortable living room with heat and coffee and cookies, or will you worship in the stable, in the cold and lonely streets, in the company of an odd congregation?

this advent, i am a daisy, and i am growing in the end zone. sunday was the day after my colleague's party. i remember sitting on the sideline watching the yellow leaves swirl down from a tree on the edge of the far end zone, like a sheet blowing on a clothes line. i remember the exhilaration of the moment before the pitch, of running as fast as i can, the thrust of bodies colliding, the weight of being rolled over on the cold ground. I remember breaking bread together, sharing stories, toasts, and plays drawn on napkins. I remember the crushing intensity of my love for these women and how different attractions over and again affirm my queerness and instill joy in being a woman loving woman.