A long time ago - or not

It was a really long time ago - and it wasn't, also.

The other day, courtesy of Netflix, the hubs and I watched a documentary about the Woodstock festival, which took place 50 years ago - Aug. 15, 17, and 17 - on a dairy farm in upstate New York. The documentary is not the point, although it was beautifully done. The point is the 50 years ago.

A lot happened in 1969 and 1970. As a result, we've walked through the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing as well as the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. And during the first week of August, the triennial churchwide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America marked the beginning of a year's worth of celebration: 50 years since the first woman was ordained (though the ELCA as a church body dates only to 1988); 40 years of ordaining women of color; 10 years of LGBTQIA+ colleagues being in the light. 

I was 2 years old in 1969. And so it seems like a long time ago. Half a century - whoa. But just this morning, courtesy of Facebook and an article from Religion News Service, I saw a photo of the Rev. Jessica Crist, bishop in Montana, standing arm in arm with the Rev. Elizabeth Platz.

The Rev. Platz was the first. She was ordained in 1970. She earned her MDiv. in 1965. And here she was in a photo with the Rev. Crist. "Alive as you and me," as go the lyrics of the old union song "Joe Hill." Which a young Joan Baez sang when she took the stage around midnight on the first day of Woodstock. The Rev. Platz is not a sepia daguerrotype, a plate in a history book, the clothing, hair and expression all smelling of mothballs.

" 'But you chose not to die.' He smiled, as if we had conversations about out-of-body experiences every day." Dr. Rana Awdish includes this, her husband's response, to her own unimaginable medical crisis in her book In Shock. 

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is experiencing growth that can be transcendent and is also incredibly painful for those so rooted in it that being yanked up feels like death. It's at a crossroads, as is virtually every mainline U.S. Protestant denomination. We can choose not to die, though. We can stand arm in arm with the first woman ordained in the ELCA, part of the great cloud of witnesses. We can choose to hear the prophetic witness of the Rev. Tiffany Chaney, a pastor, a woman, and a person of color, who preached a powerful sermon at the assembly.

We can choose. In fact, we must. With compassion and empathy and love and understanding that being yanked up to sunlight and air can feel like death, although it is life.