Clowning for Christ

On Saturday, we sorted through our photo albums.  For more on that process, see this blog post.  I've found myself thinking about some of those photos as I've moved into the week.  This one, in particular, keeps coming back into my mind, faded as it is:

That's me on the left, along with a friend from our campus Lutheran Student Movement group.  I remember that we did clowning here and there, and we were part of an Egg and Dairy Festival parade in the spring of 1984 or so.

That picture made me think of the whole Clowning for Christ movement, which was around during my childhood and adolescence but seems to have faded now.  Now when we think about clowns we probably are more likely to think of any number of menacing clowns from popular culture.  Did we have the whole scary clown theme back in the time of Godspell?

Yes, when I think of Clowns for Christ, I think of Godspell, the original Broadway version followed by the movie, which has the group singing on the Trade Center site when it was just being built.  I remember how radical Jesus as clown seemed at the time.  Ah, the Jesus soaked 70's:  Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, Up with People, all those Jesus freaks tramping around. 

In the picture above, were we part of the parade as LSM members or because we were also part of the theatre group?  I honestly don't remember.  The two frequently merged in my small, liberal arts/Lutheran campus of Newberry College.

Plenty of our compatriots went off to seminary, but the two of us didn't.  I've already spent some time in this post pondering why in this blog post.  In my own case, I didn't have the sense of call that all of my male friends did.  In those years, it wasn't very long since the first woman in the ELCA was officially ordained, and I was in no mood to be part of the group beating the door down.  I had a dream of being a poet, teaching English in a liberal arts school just like my undergraduate school, so off I went to grad school.  My clowning friend spent decades teaching special needs kids.

And now, here we both are, headed off to seminary in the fall.  On Saturday, when I found the photo, I made this Facebook post, which seems a good way to conclude:

"In 1984 or so, our Lutheran Student Movement group at Newberry College participated in the Egg and Dairy Festival parade. Now, almost 40 years later, at least 2 of us are headed off to seminary to become Lutheran (ELCA) ministers. We were clowns for Christ then, and although we've got different make up and clothes these days, we're still clowns for Christ all these years later."