your glistening eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em when they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman

Sometimes, I'll just be walking along, having a normal morning, and It'll hit me: the gratitude. This morning, it was Kate Floyd. I've been friends with Reverend Kate Hurst Floyd for about 11 years. She so honestly embodies everything earnest, seeking and cool I can think of in this life. Mild-mannered, sweet, genuinely compassionate, fiercely feminist and equality-oriented.

When you think about what organized religion needs in the 21^st century, my answer is easy: Kate Floyd at the pulpit and anywhere else we can put her. She’s thoughtful and cutting and wise and never abrasive.

She’s one of those people you always kick yourself for not being able to spend more time with. She has a soft and understanding laugh. She is a comrade in faith. A simple faith in the world. 

And trust me when I say,  without exaggeration or dramatic flare, that I’m a Buddhist who persists in a belief in a God because of 3 books and 2 people, and one of those people is Kate Floyd.

If I could stream live over the internet her sermons, I’d do it. Oh, wait! I can.  If I lived in Chicago, I’d attend Methodist church every Sunday to hear her.

She and her grad school mates had a little dance that went the Indigo Girls’ “Pendulum Swinger.” It’s an adorable dance. And when it’s easy for me to sometimes feel pessimistic about the world, I think of this song and Kate dancing to it, and then I’m smiling ear to ear and laughing and crying a little bit on the street. Because I know there’s pendulum swingers out there like Kate, (that want to be friends with me!) who not only try to change the way things are with their "passion for justice" and brand of optimistic, diligent progress...but inspire me to swing that pendulum myself.

This video is a bit literal for me...I prefer just the lyrics. But this song could be about any time you'd hang out with Kate. :)

I meet you for coffee
We get together periodically
I got a bad case I can't shake off of me
The fevered walking round wondering how it ought to be
You work in the system
You see possibilities and your glistening
Eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em
When they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman

I dream like a mad one
Brutal fantasies I catch as catch can
I'm a psychic and a laywoman
I see love and I like to make it happen
What we get from your war walk
Ticker of the nation breaking down like a bad clock
I want the pendulum to swing again
So that all your mighty mandate was just spitting in the wind

It doesn't come by the bullwhip
It's not persuaded with your hands on your hips
Not the company of gunslingers
The epicenter love is the pendulum swinger
She is she is she is

It's fine about the old scroll Sanskrit
Gnostic gospels the da vinci code a smash hit
Aren't we dying just to read it and relate
Too hard just to go by a blind faith
But they left out the sisters
Praying to a father god so long I really missed her
The goddess of benevolence
You should listen to your mama if you have a lick of sense left

Pushed under by the main press, buried under a code of dress
Relegated by the Vatican
But you can't keep a spirit down that wants to get up again

If we're a drop in the bucket
With just enough science to keep from saying fuck it
Until the last drop of sun burns its sweet light
Plenty revolutions left until we get this thing right 



Also see: these excerpts from my novel RISE: May 27th & May 19th