My name is Rachel. I’m from Nashville and I still live there. For reasons that are unclear to me. I am an actor (the stage kind). I’ve recently begun listening to rap music. It’s, um, it’s… well folks it’s angry. Throws my chakras all to hell frankly. I only listen to it now right before I have to yell at someone for work. I just started listening because I wanted to know what all the hubbub was about. The same reason I do a good three quarters of the things I do in life. I’m fairly domestic, a Virgo, dislike confrontation, like Adult Swim, I like to sing jazz songs and I’m currently taking Japanese lessons. I sometimes laugh so hard that sound stops coming out of my mouth and I stop breathing. My family has lived in the south since they stepped foot off the boats and I enjoy ragging on the south. But if you do it, I’ll kick you in the shins.
Here is a random list of unmarketable skills I possess: I can play the piano. I can fold fitted sheets. I can make macaroni and cheese. I speak broken French. I can recite the Greek alphabet. I can kill my own spiders (although I do carry on about it). I can sing all the words to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. I can apply mascara and drive at the same time. I can parallel park. I can preserve peaches.
Why “Martini Ministry”?
I grew up southern Baptist. Well, my mom dragged my brothers and me to the southern Baptist church when we were growing up (my dad never did get into it surprisingly, despite their get-in-the-kitchen-and-make-me-a-pie stance on women, which men of his generation tend to support) and then I got really into it in high school, ultimately attending Union University (which they love to tell you is the oldest university in the southern Baptist convention.) I was very active at Union; Baptist Student Union, theatre (don’t worry, we performed at least one spiritually sound show every year and omitted all curse words in all the other ungodly ones), played the piano on revival teams, did spring break mission trips and, it’s true I cannot deny it, was an active member of BOTH the clown ministry team (scaring people into the Kingdom!) AND the sign language ministry (“Hands for Jesus.” I really can’t make this stuff up.) But always, I felt something was amiss.
Upon spending an academic year in France, and thereupon meeting my first real, live gay person, learning to hold my wine and seeing that good Baptist girls do not, in fact, spontaneously combust upon walking into a Godless Catholic church, I returned to Union understanding why these previous attempts at ministry were fruitless and unfulfilling. I was misusing my gifts. I was in the wrong ministry. Many others had experienced this at UU; many a music ministry student was actually called to youth ministry, several musicians found they really should have been at the pulpit, and at least a full third of the divinity students in general turned out to be gay (and therefore, according to the SBC, enjoyed making Jesus cry.) So upon graduation, I returned to Nashville (miraculously still loving our lord. Praise!) and became close friends with some recovering Church of Christ girls, whereupon I found my calling.
I’m not full of good advice, folks. Surprisingly un-quick with a bon mot (although brilliant about two hours later), I learned through trial and error that I am terribly good at buying people drinks and listening to them talk. It’s a gift. It is, as we say in the Baptist church, my ministry. I’m thinking of making up some tracts to hand out.
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