On Doubt & Growing up in the Church of (women) “Shouldn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

My daughter pushes me.  She demands.  Before coffee and time to wake up in the morning, she throws out at me like spittle in my face a withering challenge. She says, about my faith, my beliefs, something like ….

You follow some concocted foolishness, if only to comfort yourself, to be a part of something, to be less alone, to feel consoled by the idea you won’t spend eternity in hell.

Ouch.  She’s fourteen.  I listen.  And take another sip of coffee.  Silently wishing that I was more awake.  Wishing that I had time to go to seminary and get back to her.  Hoping that I can remain calm.  And mostly, I am hoping that I am lucid.  Does she not know this is not my best time of day?  Of course she does.  I am not freaking ready for this!?!

“And what sort of religion would sentence people to hell?” she continues.  I’m thinking “Where in the hell is she learning her ideas about hell?”

Yes, that’s the sort of girl we’re raising. 

Questioning.  Doubting.  Testing and pushing.  And I love it, even as it scares me and I long for more preparation.  No, I don’t fear my own doubt, because I have known the One who gives me peace beyond my comprehension.

But I fear her doubts.

She has a wonderful, active intelligence.  How to answer the questions rattling about in her brain— which she throws out with vivid scorn.  How to answer, when it closely echoes the shadows of my heart and mind?  One might think this would make it easier, but it isn’t because I don’t fear my own doubt I pursue it. I have even grown comfortable with it, mostly.

But her doubts loom bulky and cumbersome, large in the room.  I feel them physically as she lurches toward her future.  Away from me.  Yes I feel her doubt pulling her away from me. This is what I must trust, that the One I know will make himself known to her and to each of them, my children.  I only possess them for a short season.  I once thought they were “mine” like a precious possession to be held on to tightly.  Now know I don’t. I can’t keep them for my own.

The day she came squealing into the world, so strong and perfect I should have known then that she was not mine.  In the early months I was uncomfortable letting someone else take her from me, to hold her tight against their own chest in church.  I fought letting her infant body be pulled away from mine.  She was my first and the toughest, impossible, to let go of—I thought that I couldn’t do it.  I began to trust others just a little.  Our nanny.  A nursery caregiver.  Kindergarten teacher, first grade, second and up, over the years.  And now she is learning from pastors at church and from leaders in youth group that are young and barely out of school themselves.  And she learns from her friends.  How much she is learning from equally fallible, impressionable friends. 

I am reminded again, I can’t possess her.    

I look at her speaking this morning, so sure of herself, and  I think “I would hold you in my arms forever, if possible, so enormous is my love for you.”

A mother’s love and possession of her children is irrational.  At first I trusted no one.

And she always resisted me.

She struggles, fights me.  Argues about whether I like her outfits even when I say I do, she says I don’t; her hair, the shape of her nose which I think is quite perfect. But no, she is angry even as she tells me how very wrong I am.  “My nose is not perfect” she wants me to know. And I marvel at the thought.  To me, you are.

Perfection.

This is what I want to tell her.  

You have always questioned.  You were impatient, always.  I couldn’t teach you fast enough — the alphabet, or to read.  All of this could not be conquered quickly enough for you, in the midst of other babies coming along.  Just fourteen short months after you a brother, and he was physically large but quiet, careful and followed you everywhere; happily occupied by his admiration and awe of you.  My job and its demands getting me home at night exhausted, and there you were, already reading, even before I had the time to teach you.  You are ahead of me in so many ways.  At forty-five, I am just barely allowing myself to ask the hard questions, the ones that our faith community wouldn’t allow when I was growing up, somehow my doubt might mean that all of it isn’t true. 

I am only just learning to accept my own questions, to seek the answers out myself.  Yes, I learn from you my girl.

Your mother isn’t sure.  I doubt myself all the time  because I was told long ago in bible class in college (a Christian college) not to question.  As the Bible was opened for me in class, and I began to learn as never before, my heart fluttered and sped up with the dawning, comprehension that I could know the actual Greek words for myself.  I wouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for it.  Just. Like. Anyone. I could study and know for myself.  But when I sought this knowledge out, my professor asked “what would you do with it?” as if, I shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t learn for myself.  There would be no purpose.

Indeed, what purpose would it have served?

Yes that’s the lie I bought into, that I fight against (almost) every day as a woman in the Church, that we shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, learn and teach for ourselves.  It is a lie, but one that is so strong.   I beat it back.  It returns uninvited.  Reading the words in Blue Parakeet, I am once again liberated.  It’s a constant liberation required, when you are raised in the Church of women “shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.”   Scot McKnight liberated me again when he asked of scripture’s Story “What Did Women Do?”

What did women do I want to know?  We aren’t even to be allowed the stories in Bible of what women have done.  These stories of women have been silenced, ignored, overlooked and (not always with bad motives but still) they are missing!   As I have come into my own understanding of these things I have had to accept that to take a stand on this is threatening and provocative, and I am immediately perceived to be “liberal” and suspect, as if I don’t respect the Bible which I do, oh so very much from that moment in college when I had the profound thought “I can know this for myself. “ Oh what a sweet relief it was to read that even McKnight found it challenging to defend these things himself.

I am an evangelical, today anyway and I am only learning that I have read the Bible wrong.   I am learning to read the Bible as Story, even while “many of the traditionalists read the bible as a law book and a puzzle.  Traditionalists read the Bible about women in church ministries through tradition instead of reading the Bible with tradition.” (McKnight, the Blue Parakeet)

It is no small thing (to me) and I have spoken of this before.  My pastors never mention female theologians or even woman scholar’s writings about theology and the Bible.  I want my daughter to know that Christian women are thinking, can be academic, even scholarly, that we are wise and thoughtful.  Yes women.

And yet she doesn’t see that in the Church of  (women) “Shouldn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

What would it be like to grow up never hearing the old bible stories of what women did and are doing like Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah? To be a grown woman before you learn that these amazing legendary women spoke for God; they led the nation alongside men.  They sanctioned scripture and they guided nations.  What is it like to grow up never hearing from the knowledge and wisdom of women?   As my precious daughter shares her questions and doubt, I wake up and I listen, take it in.  I hope and pray.  She is strong and her soul and mind are powerful already.  Yes, I accept her doubts.  I know Doubt like a close friend, even if mine has different origins, nuanced by my upbringing and by mistreatment in my life by few strong men who abused.  I’m not afraid of my own doubt and I don’t want to be afraid of hers.  The Church needs girls like her who soon will grow into strong, articulate challenging women.  Her influence somewhere someday will be strong.  Perhaps even in the Church, if she stays long enough.  Are they ready her?  Or will they remain the Church of shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t?

Is that what you want to tell her?

We live in a culture that doubts everything as a matter of principle. In such an environment, how can even faith be immune to doubt? Can I really trust in the gospel? Does God really love me? Can I really be of any use to God? We are taught to doubt but commanded to believe. Somehow we think that admitting to doubt is tantamount to insulting God. But doubt is not a sign of spiritual weakness–rather it’s an indication of spiritual growing pains. — Doubting,  Alister E. McGrath

I guess we are both having growing pains –this slowly waking, grown woman, and this young girl .  Is the Church ready for us?  Will they echo that women couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t?  Or will they tell us, yes, you can.

-———————

These musings are like a journal and are not perfect.  As always, I hope you will extend me grace as I write to figure out what I think.

Related articles

• Imagine my surprise. I read the Bible “wrong.” (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Blessed, Is She? [Re-imagining Christian Feminism] (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

Imagine my Surprise. I read the Bible “Wrong.”

I never knew  that there was a right or wrong way of reading the Bible.  

I have always thought, naively I will now acknowledge, that all that mattered was how one responded to what they read in the Bible.  Nope, I’ve been all wrong.  I don’t know where I learned this idea either.  I’ve absorbed a way of looking at the Scriptures that I never questioned.

“It’s how I was raised.”  

What do I mean? Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals (and I was taught to believe this but no longer) have a view of the Bible that it’s perfect, as in ” inerrant and infallible” by which they mean, it’s a divine product and its authority comes in “that God literally wrote it” by whispering his intents to people who then wrote it down (like God’s holy scribes).  And unless it clearly was metaphor, most every word was literally the truth, word for word from God.  These people also believe that the Bible is basically all God wants us to know in communicating his will to us, which precludes the work of the Holy Spirit and prayer, among other things.  They believe the Bible has everything we need and is totally relevant to the Christian life today.  That it is simple and plain, obvious; meaning if you just read it you’ll “just get it.”  There’s a morsel of goodness in that idea that anyone can read the Bible.  Unfortunately, even though anyone can read it isn’t simple!  What about the fact that it was written in languages we do not read or speak (most of us) and in a culture and time that we know nothing about. And the last, most heinous thing that simplistic reading of the Bible brings is the idea that one can pick and pull verses out of the context, not believing context is that important.  They read the Bible seeking blessings and affirmations for life.

Guilty. Guilty.  Guilty.

I do believe, and it is important to affirm, as Temper Longman says in How to Read Genesis, that the Bible is:

“… grounded in the ultimate divine authorship of the whole.  Thus in spite of a variety of styles, genres, themes and motifs, it is important to ask how the parts fit into the whole.”

And that is what I have known.  I guess one can make the Bible say pretty much whatever you want it to if you work at it.  People do it all the time!  I’m forty-five years old, been reading the Bible for myself since high school, and in many ways this is how I have always understood things.

That is what makes thinking about it in a new way so frightening.

I have to admit that I’m learning.

That fact should not be embarrassing, but it is.  People don’t like to admit very often that they don’t know something.  We all like  to come off as experts, if not experts than knowledgeable, if not knowledgeable then at least well-informed.  (

(Sigh)).  It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, uninformed, even lacking knowledge.  It is hard to admit but I believe if I’m willing to do that then perhaps others will become open to considering the same.

Do I dare even talk about this topic of reading the Bible?  I am by no means an expert but I’ve read some things recently. I am armed and dangerous but I’ll list my sources so that you can do your own homework.  (And you always should.)

Here’s what I’ve learned.

The Bible is a piece of literature.

It is a book made up of books.  It is a big story of God and the world.  It is made up of stories and poems that tell us about God.  It is also a series of smaller stories.   It is, like any other book you read, written within a genre and knowing the type of genre you are reading helps you know how you are supposed to read it; whether it is poetry, myths, parables, history, legends or a combination.  And like other literature you study you should know a little of the customs and culture of the time it was written.

“The truth of the matter is that the proper interpretation of any piece of literature, and in particular a text as ancient and important as the Bible, deserves our careful reflection.” — T. Longman.

Hermeneutics is just a technical name for interpretation or “how you read.”

There is a way to read the Bible for what it is not just for what we’d like it to say.  And as we learn to interpret the Bible — as literature, within a genre, written in a time and place, a culture, with a certain purpose, we are less likely to be “Biblical Literalists.”  Just because you find verses that supports your view doesn’t mean you’ve probed fully the biblical view.

How we read the Bible has become very divisive among Christians and has been a contributing factor in the “culture wars.”  Biblical literalists fear the “culture slide or culture creep” and tightly hold a grip on the Church and on their ideas; that a few texts yanked out of any context or culture, are prescriptive of how to “do church” for all time. This keeps churches from changing, in ways that may seem obvious to those of us (women and men) being raised with a different way of looking at Scriptures – raised to think, study and apply scripture for ourselves.

I do believe that the Bible guides us and has everything to say to us in the twenty-first century, it can and should guide us, it changes our ideas about our moral and intellectual life, it forms how we think and behave, how we treat others, and transforms us and shapes who we are becoming …

But …

It’s all about how you read and interpret the Bible. 

I think there may be many people in the Church today who were raised to be biblical literalists. I was.  I no longer believe this is correct in fact I know now that it is wrong.  But I don’t exactly know what I do think, yet.  That’s why I’m “developing my biblical hermeneutic.”

I’m learning that there are some that believe there are lots of parts of the bible that you cannot take literally, either as historical fact or direct will of God.

I agree with Tom Wright when he says that the authority of God is embodied in Jesus himself, not in the literal words of the Bible.  (Loosely quoted.)

Of course how you read and interpret is subject to the wisdom and biases of humans.

Everyone comes at the Bible with a “world view.” We are all guilty of cherry picking verses to be factual and literal truth or determining that something is cultural.   Everyone does it.

Take 1 Timothy for instance.

“Women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with hair braided, or with gold, pearl, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.  Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.  Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

If you read it literally, women are not permitted to teach or have authority over men but also they are not to braid their hair or wear pearls or gold or expensive clothes.   Also women are responsible for the origin of sin in the world.  The “good news” is that we can be saved by bearing children.  If you interpret it literally these are God’s instructions/restrictions for behavior and roles of women.  Some churches choose to prohibit women’s leadership in churches because they use this verse to “prove” that God doesn’t approve.  But they happily ignore the rest of the verses as cultural.

That’s cherry-picking. 

But if you look as the Bible as being written by a person in a particular time and culture, if you know the historical cultural setting they were writing in then you see that this is how one man in the early Christian church saw things.

When you read it with context, looking at the contrast between this and other texts in the New Testament, if we recognize or listen to more than one voice speaking about the role of women we can seek to discern which voice to honor.  In the New Testament there are examples of women apostles and teachers, women financing the ministry, women sitting at Jesus’ feet learning from him with the other disciples, a woman being the first to speak to Jesus after his Resurrection.  These stories all empower of women in the early church.  You can see this if you don’t restrict your reading to Timothy’s set of verses, which are very restrictive.

Listen to more than one voice. 

Look for themes and overarching ideas.  I believe one must recognize more than just one voice in trying to figure out anything in the Bible.  And it takes discernment and wisdom and doing your homework in trying to figure out which voices to honor.  I look at how Jesus treated women when it comes to this topic.  I do not look at the verses about early church as prescriptive of how we should run our churches today.  But that’s just me.   But as you can see, a lot is at stake in how we read and understand the Bible.

Everyone wants to read the bible for today – for guidance and wisdom for today’s problems, for today’s trials, for this moment.  The problem inherent in that is that without doing the hard work of asking the questions of the context and placement in history, we endanger our ability to hear God.   I am greatly encouraged with the knowledge that there are essential ideas from God that are clear and reinforced many places in scripture.  Those broad strokes from God are the things that guide us — point us to God and deepen our relationship with the trinity.

Those are my thoughts offered humbly because like I said, I am no expert and I am likely much too opinionated.

On the topic of unlearning and learning How to Read the Bible Again:

1. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight.  He’s a professor at North Park Seminary.  He also has a blog Jesus Creed which is for me critical reading.
2. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by NT Wright.

And to add to my list of commentary suggestions (from why I’m Afraid to Read the Bible):

1. New Testament Commentary for Everyone, by Tom Wright.  They could be in the “For dummies”series.  But not really, for everyone is a nicer way to put it.  These are really good.  They go through books of the bible and explain the background and what it’s saying.  I really like them.  Straightforward, not dumbing it down too much, just enough to make easy.  Not everyone has time to do a lot of study.  These are really informative and interesting.  And short.

Melody

Developing a Habit of Abundance

I am sometimes wrecked by my unbelief.  “Lord I believe.  Help my unbelief.” scripture says Mark 9:24.  I am coming to see.

Must I always put on habits?  It seems that I must choose daily, sometimes moment to moment.  I have to wear my belief like an new sweater or twist the rubber band on my wrist  to remind myself of what I want, what I know, what I need.  I am so full of need, so empty.

Like the havoc of the wind, I am wrecked by my unbelief.  The slang definition of the word wrecked is to be drunk or intoxicated.  I have always gotten high on all the wrong things – shopping, my own panic, books and other “things”, easily addicted even to the lack in my core, in my soul.  I am even hooked on my own sadness. In this I know what I need.  As I come to depend on all these highs that I choose for myself – my inner core isn’t worthy of my own trust.

Have I always been a vessel in ruin?  Shipwrecked.  Does that mean that I cannot be trusted?  That is what some believe and say that 1 Peter 3:7 means : that women cannot trust themselves. That man cannot trust woman who are the weaker vessel. What does that mean?  Others say that “Both Peter and Paul wrote about mutual, reciprocal submission in Christian relationships.”  If I believe I cannot be trusted, I’ll never learn to trust myself.  I’ll never trust anyone.  Can I then learn to trust God?

Growing up in the narcissistic family that I did, it is no wonder I do not trust myself.  Everyone in my family fluttered around one person, my father.  We existed to ensure his happiness and help him succeed at all costs.  The costs were many.  The price was high.   All my life I was told what to do by him.  I learned to always seek my father’s approval.  He was my universe.  What do you become when your “god” is cruel, selfish and destructive?  You cower.  You play the supporting role.  Never learn how to live your own.  Did he really become my god?  I don’t believe that is what he really wanted.  How did it happen?

I’ve been physically “free” of my father for eight years.  I am only learning how to breathe on my own.  Jesus is reshaping my view of the world and myself.  I am starting to see that I may be wrecked, like a ship cast to pieces against the shore and torn to pieces, but I did not create the storm.  And I am slowly being healed by the Jesus who healed, he healed women as much as men.  He empowers me.  He trusts me.  He is teaching me.

I have been fighting him, Jesus, and God, the Father.  As I fight, I am wounded like Jacob who wrestled with God and I am afraid.

I am afraid of my life.  I have been fighting and demanding.

I read and wonder if it is true:

“The Lord has to break us down at the strongest place of ourselves before he can have his own way of blessing with us. “ (James H. McConkey, Life Talks)

As I have healed, I have slowly demanded a purpose for myself, a big dream, a significant place to contribute, and God has been quiet.  At least it seems to be so.

“This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the one whom he has sent. ”  That means cling to Jesus, trust Jesus, rely on Jesus, and have faith in Jesus.

“God created the world out of nothing.  As long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” [Martin Luther]

Really?

I cannot lose this ever present need and instead of making me feel strong, it shames me.  I feel my lack of belief, my frequent anger and pain, absence of joy or gratitude; I feel powerfully this emaciated, hollow life.  Is this what I am known for?  I pray not.  I pray that I can surrender, even now.  Even today give up every part of me, the resilient and the faint fragments , to him.

I tell myself I do not fear my own flaws.  But I fear that it will be used against me to prove that women are weak.   I fear my own power too.

Jesus says, “Lay it all down.”   Let it all go again.  As I am developing the habit of abundance, I doubt that have never responded like Mary did.  “Let this happen,” she said, when told that she would mother the king of kings (Luke 1:38)

Whatever it is, “this life” for I do not know what it is yet.  For I cannot even imagine.   I am learning to respond.

Let this happen.

Melody

P.S. I am inspired by reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts.

Why I am Afraid to Read the (entire) Bible

Here’s the honest and mortifying truth.

I have never read the entire Bible, whole.  I have studied various books at length, sometimes on my own but more often with a group of others.  But I have never opened the whole of the great book of God’s WORD, Old and New Testaments, and soaked it in as a grand story.  Of course, any “sheep” knows, don’t they, that the Bible wasn’t written to us but for us.  The Bible is not a handbook of do’s and don’ts, but rather a beautiful story which we can carefully apply to our lives.  And if we fear what it says, if we are unwilling to challenge and question it, we deserve to be ignorant fools (like I have been.)

I have never put my full attention, put my full brain, toward the Bible.  I have been afraid of reading the entire thing and these are my reasons.

I am afraid of my own ignorance.  I don’t know what I don’t know.  If I don’t know then I can continue stumbling in the darkness.  At least it is a familiar place, my ignorance.  Sounds dumb when you actually write it down.  But how many of us do this in the Church?  Far too many.

I am afraid of what the Bible actually says.  For too long I have simply listened to others and accepted what the “experts” say about spiritual things without really challenging any of it.

I am a frequently boiling pot, kept simmering by the cool head of Tom, my husband.1 He often keeps me from boiling over.  It seems that he will be doing this a lot as we began reading the entire Bible in one year – a challenge from our church they are calling: Eat This Book.

So I would add another point to my list of reasons that I have never the read the Bible in its entirety.

I am afraid of how I will respond to the Bible as a woman.  We all have a worldviews and as such, we read the Bible differently.    I respond as a woman.  How can I not?  And that is different from my pastors (both male) and my husband, and most of the commentary I am reading.  As a woman I have different questions.  I am afraid of what  to do with those?  How do I sort out how much of my response needs to be talked about, questioned, and challenged?

On the other hand there is a lot that excites me about finally reading the entire Bible.

I look forward to diving in.  Already Genesis has perplexed me, made me extremely angry, and left me with more questions than answers when I look at it story by story.  I want to be able to see the big picture — to soar over the parts that jump out to me as problematic and see God and hear God, asking him what he wants me to focus on.   I look forward to how this Grand Story changes my life. 

Just last week, my pastor was preaching on Gen 1-3.  He was explaining a very important idea about how we look at scripture overall, which I mentioned already, that the Bible is not written to us but for us and that much of it is metaphor and poetry. 2  But then he highlighted the verses about man and woman becoming one.  Now I’ll acknowledge that it is beautiful, the whole picture of marriage.  But I actually thought it would have been more important (coming from my worldview, as a woman) at least more valuable to women, if he had taught about how we are both, male and female created in God’s image.  To emphasize and thus explain what the Hebrew word ezer  (helper) actually means. 3 These verses being misunderstood have diminished and hurt women.  He thought the other verses were more important.  We disagreed nicely by email.

I have to admit that how we interacted mattered a great deal to me and I’m learning that this is more important to me than me being right.   I shared my thoughts with him and he heard me.  I felt heard.  And this is a form of giving someone respect.

And so I would add another point to my list of reasons why I haven’t read the Bible it it’s entirely.

I am afraid of the disagreements among Christians.  I hate the way that Christians wrangle with one another over the baggage that goes into “being theological.”  Are you on the Left or are you on the Right?  Are you conservative or liberal?  Are you a feminist.  Egalitarian or a Complementaran?  A new Creationist or …. ?  I don’t even know all the camps of disagreement and I don’t want to.

I just want to read the Bible and get a little help along the way.

If you haven’t  yet, I’d encourage you to read The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight, which will help you rethink how you read the Bible.  Other resources I am finding helpful are the NIV Compact Bible Commentary and the Women’s Bible Commentary.  

The important truth is that I cannot allow

my fear of my own ignorance,

my fear of this faith tradition that I have followed my whole life, or

my fear of disagreement keep me from the next step in my faith journey.

Being that I can be hot-headed, I just might say or do something stupid along the way.  And I would hate that but I cannot allow it to keep me silent.

A friend said to me  this week:  ”I am praying that Jesus would guide you as you study His word.   May we always be in search for bringing glory to Him!”  Amen!  I suspect that I will be sharing more of this as I go along.

I wonder, have you read the entire Bible and if not, ask yourself what are you afraid of?    If we seek to follow Christ we are to live in the Bible today and every day.   The question is how?  Let us join together in our KNOWLEDGE not our ignorance.  Let us be SEEKERS together.  

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christians were known for their knowledge, agreeableness and love?

“Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant me so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that I may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reign with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen”  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Jesus, according to John 16:13

Melody

 ————————————————————————————————–

1 Tom and I have an egalitarian or mutually submissive marriage. And I was challenged by Rachel Held Evans (she does this a lot) this week .  She asked the question of whether more people need to talk about the ways of egalitarian marriages, to give others an idea of what it’s like.  I never talk about mine.  It’s precious to me and I’d not want to ugly it by my bumbling attempts to describe it.  But I’ll be thinking about that and try to weave things into my blog as appropriate.

2 Blackhawk’s pastors have given us a challenge.  ”By reading the Bible every day, our hope is that we’ll become a people who are shaped by the Scriptures – people who are marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  And they are taking it a step further by providing mini videos and teaching tools.  It’s quite good.   I am grateful to attend a church that doesn’t spoon feed, that helps the “sheep” figure some of these things out for ourselves, but also provide solid ways to learn.

The things to look for in reading Genesis are:

1. The main plotline in the book: God’s desire to bless humanity consistently meets human stubbornness and sin, keeping a record of the words for “bless, blessing” as you read: God wants to pass on a blessing, but humans constantly thwart that blessing.
2. Genesis 12, 15, 17 and the covenant with Abraham are the key to understanding the entire Bible: God is going to rescue the world from sin and corruption and restore blessing through his promises to Abraham.  The rest of the biblical story will focus on God’s relationship with Israel, because these are the people who bear the promise for the whole world.  Keep track of how the promises to Abraham keep getting repeated and passed on to the next generation and God works out his plan.
3. Find your story in the characters: All of the characters in Genesis struggle with God, and we are meant to find our story in theirs: the characters wrestle with their own sin and failure, doubt and faith, selfishness and generosity as they try to follow God.  Use each character’s experience (for example, Adam and Eve’s temptation, Abraham’s struggle with doubt, Jacob’s journey from selfishness to trust in God) to find parallels with your own journey with God.
4. God’s faithfulness: notice how many times God rescues people, or stays committed to blessing humanity. Allow Genesis to reshape your ideas of what it means for God to be faithful to you.

 

3 “Helper”- ezer.  Gen 2:18   According to R. David Freedman, the Hebrew word used to describe woman’s help (ezer) arises from two Hebrew roots that mean “to rescue, to save,” and “to be strong” (Archaeology Review (9 [1983]: 56–58). Ezer is found twenty-one times in the Old Testament. Of these references, fourteen are used for God and four for military rescue. Psalm 121:1–2 is an example of ezer used for God’s rescue of Israel: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

he wipes my spilling tears [a poem]

Trying to write my story

is sometimes like cutting back flesh, recently pink and scarred

to find the plain cold truth.

I want to heal and so I wonder if this is wise.  This rending,

backward into ancient despair

to find the open rot inside.  It is a kind of hell.

But I go there.

I climb into that putrid place with

the fresh hope of Jesus.

Tonight, he wiped my spilling tears,

crawled around inside my wounds, and

held my thumping, aching heart

while it was tender and sore.

He took that pain.  Jesus was here

inside my story, so full

of sorrow and regret.

Foul, bitter, wretched I know that

I still am.  Quietly, he’s saying

let me rewrite the end.

What I will “Keep in my Pocket” this year?

Write thy blessed name, o Lord, upon my heart, there to remain so indelibly engraved, that no prosperity, no adversity shall ever move me from thy love.  Be thou to me a strong tower of defense, a comforter in tribulation, a deliverer in distress, a very present help and a guide to heaven through the many temptations and dangers of this life.

– Thomas a Kempis

What will I “keep in my pocket” this year?

Reflecting on the past year, I discovered some patterns – some good, some not so much.  I have had to face that I am can be a negative, scattered, and discontented person. (Ouch.) This is no surprise to those who truly know me. I’m a pessimist. A Cynic. An agnostic by nature?

I prefer the term realist because I know that on one level I will never forget. I believe I will always be a person that sees injustice and screams, an advocate against bigotry and discrimination.  And I will always speak and work for a more just world. And yes, sadly I can be a whiner, pessimistic and well, I’ll go ahead and name it:  I can be a downer!

Many times this year I have been so caught in my own brokenness — to a degree that I could no longer make out God’s voice in the cacophony of my injuries and the world’s throbbing sorrows.  And tragically then one ceases being useful.

And God is speaking.  He never ceases to speak. 

And it is intoxicating and magnificent.  Humankind cannot even imagine the kingdom of God here on earth, the way he wants it.  Even this year, God as has been healing me, I cannot conjure up what he intends. Most days I struggle just to believe. Amid his miraculous work, I only limit God by fixating on all my limitations.

And I know that others, perhaps you, certainly members of my own family, have difficulty trusting me, when I am so frequently scattered and shattered; when I don’t even trust myself.

I want to learn to trust in God, more.  And I want to become trustworthy.  

For 2012, I will focus on Abundance.  (as well as: Peace. Cease. Create.)

I believe this will come through discipline…

The discipline of giving thanks, of daily prayer and learning the WORD of God for myself.

I long for Peace.  I believe this will come in focusing on these things.

Being mindful. Being strong. Being a healer. Being trustworthy. Being healthy.

Some things need to Cease.

Less weight (as in actual poundage).

Less stuff.

Less (focus on my) pain.

I was made to Create. I will do that through being purposeful …

Words. Images. Life.

How did I get this list?

I was helped in thinking this through, by something a friend wrote when I asked about the process of finding three words, with intentionality, for the coming year. It took some time for me to sort this out for myself.

She said:

“the month of dec i spend a lot of time reflecting on the year passing by. it ends up beckoning the hopes for the coming year. i start making lists of words that feel representative of my intentions for the time coming. …  the words end up weaving in and out of the decisions i make, the way i take notice. they really impact the dailies. and since that is the marrow of our living- this daily bit- i love having them in my pocket. “

I love that.  ”Having them in my pocket” whether it is literally or not, it’s a beautiful metaphor.

Really, what do any of us have but today—yes, this one day.  We are promised nothing more. We are given this one life and with it we can be scattered and flighty, erratic, untrustworthy, as I have been; or we can become intentional and resolute and positive, as I long to be.

How are you, as you head into 2012? What things will you keep in your pocket? How will you face today?

Turn the other Cheek? That just makes you a Chump.

Have you ever noticed that the Golden Rule comes with no promise at the end?  No words of hope – do this and you will get this.  Nothing. Do it because it’s the law. 

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.”  (Matthew 7:12, NLT)  The ESV says “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” and the NASB says “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.”

I think that stinks.  I have struggled with a situation where I believe I have the higher ground to stand on.  I have made good choices.  I have done well.  I have been the loving daughter, yes.  I have accepted.

And this Christmas — as always happens, when will I ever learn — I got slapped in the face by my mother again.  I don’t even know that the details or the reasons matter.  I think she is incapable of keeping her promises.  She is unable to do something based on what’s right.  For all my disputes with my father, I can say at least that he lived by his convictions.

I could make a list and this would be a long one, of the significant times in my life when I trusted her and she betrayed that trust.  I’m so tired.  I know that I am to forgive her but when will I learn?  If forgiveness means putting yourself out there to let it happen again, and again, then, well, that just makes you a chump.

But what if the person that hurts you with regularity is your own mother?  And what if that person is almost alone in the world?  Isolated (if by her own choice) and living for herself, impulsive with her generosity and love, unpredictable in her withdrawal?  What if …?

Lewis Smedes in his book The Art of Forgiveness, says:   ”we filter the image of our villain through the gauze of wounded memories and in the process alter his reality.”

And yet, even she was made in God’s image and is loved by Him.  I don’t want vengeance, as Smedes suggests is the next step to forgiveness — surrendering our desire to get even.  I don’t want her to hurt.  She’s lived with enough pain.

She oozes her pain and fear of life.  I actually want my mother to be whole.  I long for, wish for in my deepest sad places for my mother that she would heal and be free.

And I’m just tired.

I want to surrender to the idea that she can no longer hurt me.  But every time I let her close she does just that.  And I’ve been searching mentally for days with my questions and I have been trying to figure out what to do.

“Forgiving is not meant for every pain people cause us.  Never has been, any more than Prozac was invented to cure the Monday morning blahs.  Forgiving is for the wounds that stab at our souls, for wrongs that we cannot put up with, ever, from anyone.  When we forgive people for things that do not need forgiving we dilute the power, spoil the beauty, and interrupt the healing of forgiveness. But when we forgive the things that forgiving is for we copy God’s own art.

God is the original, master forgiver.  Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style.  I am not at all sure that any of us would have had the imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first.”(Smedes)

When I first read these words I was angry, for I have an unreturned call to my mother and I have to figure out what I am going to do.  She asked to spend Christmas Eve with my family, she chose to come to church with us and celebrate with our brood.  And then she called and said she wasn’t coming though she only lives across town.  Ten minutes. “I could pick you up”, I said.  ”No I don’t want to come.” was her reply.   I don’t know why.  Sure, I’ve speculated.  And as I have in the past, I could try to pick her brain to discover what small hint of truth is there that will appease the gaping hole in my soul, feeling her rejection physically.

This rending is old — My heart is shredded.

My heart weeps with pain that I don’t understand – the sense of being rejected my parents.  It is an ancient unhappiness, pain that feels older than me, going back a generation to my father and mother.  Neither of them felt loved by their parents.  Both experienced rejection, they tell stories of actual real rejection, which I never experienced.  Not really.  But for some reason I live it.  And every action they live out has become either proof of their rejection of me or proof of their acceptance.

She is set up to fail even before she does.  And she does.  Oh she does!

When she told me over the phone that she was moving with no processing, no reasons, no explanation just fact.  When she chose not to invite me to Mother’s day, with no reasons, or explanation.  “I don’t know why I didn’t invite you.”  “I don’t know why I didn’t process my moving with you.”  “I don’t know why I couldn’t come for Christmas with your family.”

“Forgiving isn’t meant for every pain people cause us.” (Smedes)

And then the moment of clarity comes.

What’s going on inside me is more about my frailty.  I can love without being loved in return, because it is the right thing to do.  And I can adjust my expectations, to none, so that I won’t be hurt so often.  And I can and must stop talking about my feelings of rejection so that my children can have some semblance of relationship with their grandmother.

Without the generations whispering fear and brokenness into their hearts.

That is my challenge.  That is the higher choice.  That is what it means to forgive as you were forgiven.  I don’t necessarily agree with every word Smedes says about forgiveness, or perhaps that too is simple semantics.

I have a phone call to return.  I expect to listen.  And offer simply my ear and perhaps a tiny piece of my heart.  I expect that I will be hurt again, but for today I will not turn away but turn toward my mother.

Offer her the other cheek and who knows, perhaps one day rather that a slap I will receive a kiss.

See there I go again, feeling hope. Thank you Jesus.  

If you love only those that love you, what reward is there in that?  If you are kind to only your friends how are you different than anyone else?  (Matthew 7)

On Silencing Myself

But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.  – Jeremiah 20:9

For days now I have been nursing wounds that feel as new today with each intake of breath, as they have been heavy all these years of living.  Each breath that keeps me alive hurts.  The ache and injury that I have carried for as long as I recall tell me that I am overdue for spiritual healing.   The stones in my heart both compel me and keep me humbled.  But I have allowed them to overpower me and shut me up.

And this limits my service, my usefulness to God.  I have allowed my brokenness to become a crutch.  Ironically, though I want him to I don’t think God will ever take this away completely, the very things that make me who I am. But He may, I hope and pray heal me to a point of being useful.  That is all I ask really to be useful to Him.

I have developed a small following here, a few hundred reading off and on, from time to time.  The more people that follow my words, it becomes a burden, opportunity and responsibility all intertwined.  I am so conscious of all that I have developed, a voice, emerging to be sure but still a voice.   That is one reason why I believe I need biblical studies, because I am all too aware of my own ignorance. And I am becoming aware of the fact that people listen to me.

And this is what I told my friend, and pastor, as I met with her recently.  As she spoke to me of my talents as a writer and encouraged me to take it more seriously, even work to develop my voice and audience, I felt inept, inadequate.  I know my own level of  ignorance biblical and otherwise!   Was it a coincidence that her words echoed with what another important person in my life had said to me only a few hours earlier?  The person that knows me best and in whom I trust the most is my husband.

They say I am to write. 

For a long time I have been asking God what I should do with this obvious ability to put words together in a compelling way.  Coupled with the desire he has given me to care for others, my unusual inquisitiveness and naturally challenging mind, a constantly questioning spirit, and eyes that see injustice all around me.  Compound that with the extra burden of a heart that is utterly broken by the ancient pain and silencing of women in the church.  Why does he break my heart so relentlessly over women who are stifled and smothered, yes silenced in the church? These are the things that others have been affirming in me and I have been asking God what He would possibly have me do with it?  I believe that if we are to live authentically as Christians we are to live by doing justice. (See Micah 6:8) I believe all Christians are to serve the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien which  was also one of Jesus’ more frequent and strongly worded commands (see Matthew 25:31-46 )  So how does all of this fit with how I am gifted by God?      

Before Christmas.

As I mentioned, I met briefly with a pastor from my church.  This person is also my life group leader.  We have many things in common.  We hadn’t met alone for many years and I found myself worrying about whether she met with me as a person in her flock or as a friend.  I felt confused as we talked because, as much as I longed for our friendship to be mutual, I was suffering.

(((Here is where I confess that I am a very controlling person, overly proud and always over thinking and managing my image and reputation before others.  That is why this blog is essential to my desire to be an honest person.  As a recovering alcoholic, I struggle to be truthful.  Addicts are liars, to themselves and to those they love.  And I don’t want to be a liar. )))

I did not want to tell her how badly I have been doing nor confess that I was in the pit of depression.  It felt extremely weak, even threatening to my reputation (for whatever it is worth) at my church.  If I was ever to be accepted into the cadre of leaders at my church, to admit that the state of my self-esteem was lower than it had been in years, was excruciating!  This weakness was unacceptable.  To confess the bleary, bleak thoughts I have been consumed with for months was painful.  I needed a friend, but to share with her my state of mind, my fears and self-doubts, and my anger was almost impossible. 

It was embarrassingly awkward to admit that I was so low, that things had become so bewildering, and that I had actually sat in church two weeks earlier believing that my life was not worth living because I had nothing to offer God.

But somehow I did tell her. As she calmly listened and said that I must have been under spiritual attack (being that the suicidal thoughts occurred in church) I felt such relief, yes a spiritual attack was very likely!  And although thankfully that fog has lifted a bit, I think that I have continued to be under attack in the weeks since, at my core, in the place where I feel the most unloved and unlovable.    Depression is isolating.  You hear lies shaking about in your head that are ludicrous and yet wholly believable in the moment.  These things, which I know are not from God, have hurt so much.  And it has taken everything to not fall prey to the misery, and the pain of rejection and to most of all not fall prey to accepting the evil thoughts as truth.

I have felt in the last two months like the evil one is trying to destroy me via my mind, and my heart, and is trying to crush my soul that I may succumb to some madness but I am clinging to what I know.   He who is within me is a greater than he who is in the world.  

So this is my confession to you, those that read my blog both friends and strangers. I am hurting.  Though I am profoundly weak, I know He is strong.  

I don’t know what the future holds.  I cannot say.  I cannot see anything clearly.  All I know for a fact is that I am inadequate.  I don’t know how I am to be used, to be useful.  I feel inadequate to be a voice for anyone.  I feel inadequate to write about much of anything.

And because of it my human impulse is to be silent, to silence myself.   I have so many good excuses for silencing myself …  That I don’t know enough.  That I don’t have the training.  That I don’t have the knowledge and experience.  That for a long time I have been at home and not actively working.  That I am no longer actively serving in ministry. That I struggle with depression and all that goes with it.  That I am broken.  That some days, just breathing hurts.

Would you pray for me?  That I would somehow know the real Truth and listen well.  And, that I would know when to speak out and when I should be silent.  And more than anything that I would become stronger in Him.  This is the irony, the tension of being broken and still being useful, about feeling unloved and yet being totally loved by God.

Pray with me that this blog, which has become a place of responsibility and opportunity, would honor God.   Would you pray with me that I would know how I am to use it this year — for good, for healing, for teaching and most of all for blessing others? And if he was going to do a work of healing in my life, now would be a good time! And as I actively pursue other writing avenues and even perhaps further education, that I would remain steadfast in Him.  

I hope your new year begins and ends in Him.

Why do you Love me? [Advent Reflection]

That was the question, an aching appeal, a cry of  a sad heart.

Children can be so difficult, argumentative and surly.

They question everything.

They take up space and create messes.

 Interrupt.  They wreck things that once were beautiful.

 Children don’t deserve our love.

Do they?

Why do I love you, I answered?  Because you are my child.  You were a gift to me and I think you are perfect.  Nothing you ever do will change that because you are mine.  My lovely child.  It’s unconditional.  Do you know what that means?  That you can’t earn it.  And you can’t lose it.  I love you.

And still, a little later, she returns.  She wants the reassurance.  The reasons that I love her because she feels so utterly unworthy.

Sounds familiar.

I am often asking God why do you love me?  What can I do to earn or deserve your love?

And God says …

Why do I love you?  Because you are my child.  You were a gift to me and I think you are perfect.  Nothing you ever do will change that because you are mine.  My lovely child, beloved.  It’s unconditional.  Do you know what that means?  That you can’t earn it and you can’t lose it.

I love you.

That’s why we celebrate the birth of Jesus because of what he did for you and me.

Something New [a poem]

Often, I wrestle with God.

I am

a doubter.  I regret my own suspicions and fears

and I am also strangely grateful.

Yes, I am glad.

For to wrestle is honest.

And I have seen that as I face my darkest hours, as twilight turns

to morning and I am awake, still.

As I am fighting and the agony of depression and anxiety seem to overwhelm.

God is my comforter.  Even as I

fight, I know his consolation and that all this comes, unsurprisingly.

All this is for me.

Somehow I know that it is through the dog of depression jumping at my heels

and the albatross  of fear

heavy on my shoulders, and the arrows of anxiety stabbing at my chest,

I know that God is God,

and I am simply and solely,

wholly and fully, unabashedly

beloved.  Oh, I may plead

with God to bless me, but I understand its slow coming.  And my slow

learning that even here, now, today I am blessed.

I may walk through life

with this sorrow, the scars that are constant and deep, so deep

for I have been wounded.  I cry out

begging God to prove himself to me.  Does he mean for my life

to mean – anything?

Can I trust you, God?

Can I count on you for whatever the future holds?

Trust you that my life matters?

I know

these encounters in the dark, the isolation and despair of depression

change me.  Deep within, through my abrasions and soul pain,

God is making

something new.

I bear the mark of my pain, scars.  Perhaps I always will.

But I am also

something else. Therein is promise.  And hope.

I am something redeemed.  So even while I stumble, shattered

I am being made strong – perhaps even useful, resolute

and yes, somehow my life is something good.

I believe

when God made me he was pleased.

And nothing I can do, have done, will do

changes that.

Deep within

my abrasions and soul pain, God is making

something new.

Related articles

• At Some Point (A poem) (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Shall I Dance for You? (A poem) (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

What Can’t our Daughters Do?

I’m reposting something I write a year ago.  It was my most popular article ever written with more than a thousand viewers.  So I thought it was worth posting again. I will probably write an update over the next while.

———————–

Quickly — I want to thank all my visitors from the homepage of wordpress.com. Welcome!  Wow!  A lotta love happens when you get featured on the homepage.  Until yesterday, this was a little ol’ blog visited by some of my friends and a few Facebook contacts. I was essentially writing to myself and my lurkers (I do have quite a few of those.)

It would kill me to have you think I’m some ranting feminist and that’s what this blog is about.  Because that is not true, about the blog, I mean. I am a feminist.  And I can rant (at times.)  Okay quite often.  But I rant — ahem write about many topics.  I post my poetry, and talk about all sorts of things from politics, faith & (dis)belief, family & parenting, depression & mental health.  It’s varied.

I’m a Haus Frau, free-lance photographer and generally vexed person who writes.  If it were not for my faith I’d be mean and ugly.  But if you find anything golden here it is because of grace of God in my life.   Please Enjoy!  Melody

————————————————————————–

I started writing these thoughts about two months ago.  But Nicholas Kristof’s article in today’s NY Times entitled, Religion and Women, got me thinking, again.   I am a regular reader of his Op-Eds.

DO you believe this little girl does not have the right to the same opportunities?  Even if she felt called to be a pastor?

Kristof mentions Jimmy Carter’s speech to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia, which I read when it was first posted online.  (I think I’m “in love” with Jimmy Carter because he lives his life with principles.  And standing up for women is sexy!  But that’s irrelevant here.)  I don’t have complete or even very coherent thoughts on the topic yet, I just want to ask some questions:

• Is feminism as simple as giving women equality in work, home, church life?
• Do women deserve access to anything that men have access to?  Why do men have such a problem with this?
• Do you believe your daughter has a right to every opportunity that your son has?  Why would a loving God say she doesn’t?  What can’t our daughters do?

Personally, I think oppressing  a woman From war lords raping women in the Congo, to Afghani men who throw acid on girls faces, to men who psychologically abuse women, or the British woman who was arrested for being raped in Dubai, all of this should make us sick to our stomachs and even more culturally accepted things like putting women down, objectifying women.  And yes even keeping them from leadership opportunities they are obviously qualified for all give men the chance to believe that women are inferior human beings.  And when you do that, bad things happen in our homes, institutions and relationships.

Sexism is any mistreatment of women, ranging from violence against women, to treating women as inferior, to objectifying a women. Any time women are treated in any way other than a respected human being with every opportunity in the world!

“Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified,” former President Jimmy Carter noted.  “The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo.”

Jimmy Carter sees religion as one of the basic “causes of the violation of women’s rights.”

As a member of The Elders, a small council of retired leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela, he is speaking out.  The Elders are focusing on the role of religion in oppressing women, and they have issued a joint statement calling on religious leaders to “change all discriminatory practices within their own religions and traditions.”

Why do I have a problem with women not being elders at my church? Because in its simplest form it is saying:

• That I am not trusted by God with the complete story, or
• that I somehow don’t have what it takes to lead the church, or
• that I don’t have full access to God, or
• that I don’t have the wisdom and life experience, I do not have whatever it takes.

Oh, believe you me I know (some) churches will allow you to do anything else! Serve, give, teach, be missionaries.  Just not be the spiritual guide.  It just doesn’t feel right.  In my gut.

I’ve recently made a contact in the blogosphere, Eugene Cho, a pastor and leader and all around amazing, wise and prophetic person who has written and thought about this as well.  He asks these questions on the topic of women:
“Shouldn’t we work together to build a culture (even amongst our own churches) of respect and dignity? How do we do that beyond the debates of the ordination of women?  How do we do that in our lives, families and churches (or must it be connected to the issue of ordination?)  What’s clear to me is that it’s really difficult to pursue these things when we don’t hear directly from women. Or allow ourselves to listen to women… aka – that we take a posture of humility and submit, believing that God can actually speak through women as well. Why?”

I’ll tell you why.  Because they do not fundamentally believe they should be listening to women.  You can’t convince me otherwise.

There is a way in a progressive place like Madison that we settle for less on this subject as rarely in Madison are women subjected to overt forms of sexism.  Most of the men I know are loving and open-hearted.  And so, in the church especially, women let a lot go.  We ignore the whole Elder and women being ordained issue, just glad we’re all getting along.  And in fact my church is ahead of many others in the area.

What I don’t like is that we aren’t willing to talk about these things.  We need to talk about these things.  The fact that we don’t talk about it is painful to me. I believe if we want grow, to heal, and to have everyone truly empowered and working out of their gifts and abilities, it is crucial that we be willing to talk.

It takes an immense amount of energy to challenge someone on their sexism. It is much easier to sit here and write about it.  Even a situation that is simple and straightforward, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, sent me into a tailspin for about 12 hours.  I knew it was sexist.  I couldn’t believe how bad I felt and wondered how my sister, an ordained minister in her own church felt being spoken to in such a demeaning manner.  I suppose in some ways I forgot, being out of the workplace and not heavily involved at church, that this is still common, and widespread.

It would seem that sexism would be easy to recognize.  One would think that in a progressive town like Madison people would be willing to discuss this.  As with any type of discrimination, sexism can be both personal and institutional, obvious and much more subtle.  Do you think you could spot sexism when it occurs?  These are all in the category.

• Definitely commenting on a woman’s looks when you should be talking ideas can be a form of sexism.
• The use of pejorative names like ” ‘girls’ at the home office” and other patronising terms can be a form of sexism.
• A teacher or pastor or youth worker offering more attention to one sex gender can be a form of sexism.
• Only hiring people of a certain gender for a specific type of job can be a form of sexism.  (Every support role being filled by one gender.)
• Expecting only people of a certain sex/gender to be interested in specific activities can be a form of sexism.
• Identifying activities, roles and chores as male or female can be a form of sexism.
• Steering students towards specific subjects based on their gender can be a form of sexism.

For some strange reason, my 12-year-old daughter believes she is getting better grades than she deserves and doesn’t seem to be getting sent to detention for being tardy (and she’s testing it believe me!) because her teacher thinks she is cute.  I don’t know if this is true.  I wish she didn’t have to think about this.    She knows she should be in detention.  Objectifying her and making her unsure that she deserves the grades she’s getting, but perhaps being attractive is helping, but this cannot be proven.

More mutual respect, openness and conversation are what we need.

I have rung the bell too many times within my church on the role of women. I try to be respectful and teachable. But I am tired of being told “Talk to so and so, who is a woman who leads…” so that she can tell me why she’s accepted the fact and is okay that she will never be an elder in the church.  Pass.

I’ve decided it’s the denomination that speaks.  Women are not pastors or ordained in our denomination.  I cannot change the Evangelical Free Church of America denomination (Or can I? my son would say.  But I know I cannot.) so I have to decide if I can live with it.

And it comes down to whether I can counteract the message, subtle as it is from the platform, that says to my 12-year-old daughter sitting in the pew — you will never do that job.  You will never be a pastor.  You don’t need to study scripture as seriously as the boys, because you aren’t accepted at their seminary.  Women do not preach.

I just think that’s sad.  It makes me very sad.  That’s where I’ll leave it today.  As I said, I don’t have complete or even very coherent thoughts and this will be continued….

Were I to forgive you, Daddy … [A tale of domestic abuse, Part 2]

I just posted a piece on domestic abuse.  This is a tiny bit of my personal story that I wrote several years ago.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive, but do not forget.  – Thomas  S. Szasz

First published in March 2010.  This was not easy to write and it will not be an easy read.   Although my father was a dynamic, incredible, and beautiful human being he was also the perpetrator of psychological abuse in my life.  The ongoing work of processing that hasn’t been easy.  He’s been dead more than five years.  That’s created some space for honesty.  My goal has been, for many years, to get to a place where I can forgive him.  It has been interesting.

If you were a fan of my father, Dan Harrison, this will be the most difficult for you.  Just as it was unimaginably hard for me to write.

Note:  I DO NOT SPEAK FOR OR REPRESENT ANYONE ELSE IN MY FAMILY.  THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING THAT each of OUR EXPERIENCES WITH MY FATHER WERE UNIQUE.   SOME WERE TREATED MUCH WORSE, SOME BETTER.

If I were To Forgive.

If I were to forgive you Daddy, does that mean I must forget the pulse pounding fear I felt when I was around you?  The acid stomachs you gave me.  The rage dreams I still sometimes have at night.  The shuttering tears that I couldn’t stop, even when you yelled at me to do so and now I can’t make tears come at all.  The stutter you hated, but couldn’t make me lose.

You made me something broken, something messed up.

Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness.  Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

I found some small strength and safety in sarcasm and attempted humor.  And when you made me stop, there was only safety in distance, in invisibility.  Like mine, your words punctured something deep inside.

Sometimes we laughed; it was a shrieking, jaw aching, gut busting laughter from the relief of it — it was almost a sob — until you pounded on the table.  Stop, you would roar!  You felt we came too close to meanness.  You’re damn right we did.  And then, we didn’t.

If I were to forgive you Daddy, does that mean I must forget the yelling?  Door slamming.  Your rage fits.  Should I forget the fearful anxious cleaning when you were coming home – after weeks and weeks of travel while Mother was always alone?  Why did we clean, to please you.  Why were we afraid, because you were never pleased.

Should I forget the religion you forced down our throats?  Say “I forgive you.” Say “I am sorry.”  Say “I believe.”    I couldn’t forgive.  I wasn’t sorry.  I didn’t believe. “You will sing this song and study the Bible, because I say so.  And never, ever argue with me for I am never wrong.”

Daddy, it takes my breath away to remember all the times you had one of us up against the wall, sobbing.  And you wouldn’t stop.  You kept on, and on until you broke us.

You made me something broken, something messed up.

Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness. Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

If I forgave you Daddy, would the bad memories stop?

… When I was about ten we spent Easter at a cabin.  You had certain ideas of what would happen.   But you can’t make me sing.  You couldn’t make me feel whatever you were feeling.

… Or Thanksgiving with the gorging on turkey almost worth being forced to be thankful.    There was no ‘pass’ when it came to gratitude.  Or whatever you expected.

There was no pass. You changed us.  You made us something broken, something messed up. Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness. Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

Were I to forgive you Daddy, I’d have to stop being invisible for within this “super power” I found a certain peace.  If you can’t hear me or see me, you will leave me alone.  I’d hide out in my room — reading.  Reading romantic novels where the hero was larger than life — loving and devoted, trying to be somewhere, anywhere other than home.

There was so much pain.  So much fear. You changed us.

Daddy, would you have me forgive your dying confession that you were addicted to your rage? It made you feel righteous.   At the end of your life, you felt regret but wanted me to know you still felt right all those years.

Well I’m addict.  I know the lies we tell ourselves that ”I can’t stop.” I know a little of what it takes to overcome an addiction.  It starts admitting you are powerless.  That is what you could never do.  Oh, you would return full of regret and self-pity you never changed.

I reject Your Jesus who never freed you from your pain. I reject your life and actions of hypocrisy, serving God and abusing at home.

And yet, I have forgiven you.  Why?  Because that is not the Jesus I have known. The God I have known has expected me to change.  Clearly spoken and told me to lie down, be humble, let go, cast off, and cut away the things that make me broken.  As I give them up, the addictions, the anger, the bitterness, the lack of forgiveness, the depression, the fear, the isolation, the invisibility …  He fills me.

I am filled up, and as I experience going back over two and a half decades sorting memories and returning — making furtive glances and long wretched journey’s back. –  There are things that I do remember and that I will never forget.

But I forgive

You. Because I must.  God said to me forgive as you were forgiven.

And though this brings no justice, I can live with it.  You may have changed me from whoever I was meant to be, and I will always remember that and wonder who I might have been.

ON THE OTHER HAND God made me, not you.  And I have begun to overcome all that pain, a broken spirit.  I have begun to paint a portrait of a life that is visible; a colorful life, with joy, generosity, gentleness and kindness.  I have become a woman with a heart once broken, but pieced back together and strong.  And my heart is bursting with the forgiveness that I have received. And I am laughing.  And some day I believe my tears will return.

You were the sort to put rubbing alcohol on my mosquito bites, because you couldn’t stand how I wouldn’t listen and stop scratching.  You were constantly picking at me, never satisfied.  But, as a child this was something I could control. You can’t make me stop, though I would bleed and it hurt.  It is cathartic to be in control.  But some day I hope I will let go completely and won’t need absolute control of myself.  Someday, God will open up my heart completely from the prison I put it for protection and long ago lost the key.  The day God unlocks it will be a day I can only imagine, but I believe it can happen.  Then I won’t be so afraid of people.  I will jump toward life not constantly be pulling away!

Yes, I forgive you Daddy.  For now I can laugh and love when I want to, I pray and study because my heart craves more from God and I believe I have begun to create the life I was meant to have lived.

Yes, I do forgive you Daddy because there is no justice in love.

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. (Psalm 32:8 NLT)

Related articles.

• Forgive like you have been forgiven – 70×7 (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Serina Modugno (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Always Striving, Never Satisfied (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• [lenten series] thou mayest in me behold (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• I feel a-swirl. I want to walk on the edge! (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• I once was a control freak (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

Gender is Everything

My curiosity peaked, I read a blog post titled: Fatherhood, Faith and Gender Stereotypes.  As often is the case when you talk about gender, the comments went off topic a bit.

What I wrote:

I believe as a female and a feminist, I am not served by God being perceived as (solely) male, but that doesn’t invalidate the role of Father God or human fathers.  I need God to be beyond gender which is why it is so unfortunate that he is male in scripture.  Jesus was male and there’s nothing we can do about it.

One person in particular didn’t like my statement Jesus was male and there is nothing we can do about it.  He was surprised that being male or female could be a bad thing saying, “Without touching issues of headship or roles or responsibility and so on, is gender that much of an issue?”

I was startled by the thought that some people don’t think about how gender affects everything!

How can one live in the current set of realities in and outside the Church and not think about gender and how it might impact one’s relationship with God, with other believers and with the Church?

Perhaps I have been steeped for too long in the belief that gender is everything.

My daughter certainly accuses me of it, often calling me paranoid about women in the church.

But she needs to know that gender is everything when it is your gender that keeps you from being able to do things, to express things, to know things, and carry out certain roles, especially in the Church.  Gender is everything when your perception of love, and mercy, and justice, and your perception of God is colored by him being a Father.  Gender is everything when your human father was an angry, oft times cruel person, who crushed your spirit and controlled your life to the point that you, the YOU that is unique and created in God’s image, died. [At least I thought for a very long time that I had died.  I felt dead.]  Yes, for me gender is everything as I learn to love, or at least like being female in the Church.  And as I learn not to hate a male image of God.

Slowly my perceptions of God have changed as I listened to different voices than the ones I grew up with.  As I hear in the voices of many women (and sometimes in men) the tenderness and gentle grace of Jesus Christ, who is the son of God.  This is not anything like what I have known from my earthly father.

Yes, I bring my experiences to any discussion of God.

On one level it is simple. My perception of God is not enhanced or even helped by God being male. Although I know from scripture that God is not female and I am not trying to make scripture say anything that it doesn’t say I wish God was something “other” than male.

I want to know more fully a God who is not male or female, but greater than anything I might perceive or have experienced here on earth. 

I think that our perceptions of male and female are tarnished by the fall; really everything post-Genesis 1 and 2.  Our conceptualization is broken and damaged (at least in my experience) and so thinking of God as male is (almost) hurtful to me.

A child must know that she is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like her.” (Emphasis and gender change mine)

We are each miracles.  Beautiful individuals who have been given each a mind and heart that is different from the next person.  May we each grow up knowing this!

I would love to hear suggestions of further reading and study on the trinity.  In particular, God the “Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” to figure out what was intended by those names.

The bottom line is that with the fall, with oppression, with the mistreatment of women and girls throughout the ages, there is no easy way to redeem the word Father. At least that is true for me.

– MHH

• Inspired by the writing of Julie Clawson and her thoughts on The Feminine Side of God.
• And Sister Joan Chittister whose writing has changed my life.  She more recently wrote: Ruth, Judith and the Power of Women in the Work of God but is also the author of many incredible books.
• The quotation was from Pablo Casals, who was a Spanish Cellist and Conductor, known for his virtuosic technique, skilled interpretation and consummate musicianship.  He lived from 1876-1973.
• These thoughts are written in response to a blog post by Morgan Guyton on the Pangea Blog.  You can read more of his work on his blog: Mercy Not Sacrifice.

I Thirst [a poem]

I THIRST

by M.H. Hanson (originally posted December 7, 2010, updated December 7, 2011)

I do not know where the
words come from. They are like
water that gushes from a spigot.
I don’t question their existence.  Only quickly place the
bucket of my heart underneath praying my confession.

Come.

And as I try to catch  it I Hope that the drops will fall where they should.

In or outside the cup of my heart, dependent on a fate I do not control.

I have a thirst that lives within me, always with me.

And I must live with it every day.  And with my commitment to be authentic.
This is an adventure that began with my cavernous need.
If it is true that God suffers with us in our grief, then I am grateful for the  comfort of his companionship.
Even for this longing, a thirst that lives ever within.

Always thirsty. I don’t question the
Water’s existence.  Only quickly place the
Bucket of my heart underneath praying.

Come.

Not everyone is a white male, with all access!

Image by Keegan Jones via Flickr

A friend sent me this article in Christianity Today, because of what I wrote yesterday, mentioning Rob Bell.  Upfront, it asked:

“Do you think it is wrong for Rob Bell to question traditional views of heaven and hell? Answer: I don’t care. Do you think it is wrong for traditionalist writers to label Rob Bell a universalist? Answer: I don’t care.
Do you think it is wrong for every Christian with an iPhone to tweet their answers to the above questions from restaurant bathrooms and then go home and blog about it? Answer: Now there’s an interesting question.

Of course, we care about the doctrines of heaven and hell.  As Bell reminds when I heard him interviewed on Good Morning America what we think about heaven and hell informs what we believe about God and how we understand what it means to respond to the pain and suffering around us, here and now.  Informs how we live out heaven and hell right now.  And it informs what to think about injustice here and now.  And that I agree wit.

Oh, a controversy was stirred and it will sell a bunch of books and Rob Bell will survive to preach another Sunday.  But I don’t really care.  In How social media changed theological debate, the author John Dyer goes on to say something MORE IMPORTANT.   In fact the more I think about it, it is critical to this conversation.

But my response is different than Dyer’s.

Dyer says:

“Throughout the history of public theological debate, there was one constant—those debates only took place between a few select people—Moses, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and so on—who gained respect through a lifetime of scholarship….In pre-2004 Christianity (that is, Christianity before Facebook was invented), only a small group of Christian leaders and teachers had access to the printing press—but today everyone has WordPress. In pre-2004 Christianity it was difficult to become a published author, but today everyone is surrounded by dozens of “Publish” buttons.”

He is gravely concerned with the quality of the debate.  The quality of the conversation, teaching and writing on-line because with the advent of WordPress any ol’ person can express themselves.  And I would never argue against a need for quality conversation or scholarship! But that doesn’t answer a more important question of who is writing and teaching?

The culture is changing rapidly.  Books are becoming less relevant, though I for one will always buy and read books printed on paper.  Even so, yesterday I found myself longing for a Kindle because there was a book I wanted to read immediately!  The church needs to catch up to the immediacy of our culture and how it communicates.

Many pastors still do not Tweet or have a Facebook account.  Mine does not and I am sure it is not just because it is too hot — unpredictable — with much opportunity for people to misinterpret.  It’s also time consuming.  And mentally degrading to clarity of thought. If you are working all week to compose your thoughts on a particular topic for a sermon, it can’t be helpful to constantly be distracted by multiple media.  And yet, hipster pastors are online frequently and do these things.  As do many of the younger pastors in my church.  I am sure they spend much more time and energy than they would like thinking about what’s wise to say or not say.

The fact is one thing hasn’t changed, even as the culture does, our need to use restraint, to respond with maturity and self-control .  These are things that one would wish Piper and others had, even when tweeting.  Our words still matter!  Our heart, mind and soul — even more so than in the pre-Facebook age — is out there for the world to scour over!

Here’s what is most important to me about this conversation.

This new social media gives power to people of color and women — to those that have traditionally had less access to theological education, opportunities for preaching, teaching, and writing and getting published. (Even the homeless.)

So while I applaud Dyer’s thoughts about who should speak, teach and write in the specific situation, one must remember that not everyone is a white, male with all access to publishers, to power and to influence.  Yes, everyone needs to exercise restraint when it comes to social media.  But the new social frontier gives a voice to those of us who have traditionally been kept out of the conversation, the board room, seminaries, and these voices and viewpoints need to be heard in these critical times.

Why is it that each book suggested at church for extra reading in the last year was written by a white man?  Or that almost every song sung on Christian radio, and thus in churches, has a man singing or writing it?  Or that all the elders at my church are men?  And the teaching team is all men? Why are conferences full of Godly Christian men, with perhaps one female or person of color, MAYBE?  Why?

So, my response to John Dyer is “You may knock blogs because the level of thinking isn’t on the level of Moses and Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and so on … well, have patience!

• Until the brick and mortar institutions change for women and people of color, we need places like the internet in order to be heard.
• Until you or I can name a Latino or Latina or African-American or female theologian or two, as quickly as you can think of NT Wright or J.I. Packer or John Piper we need the internet in order to be heard.
• Until my pastor can name an up and coming female pastor or theologian, as readily as whatever man is on the tip of his lips, we still need this medium to bring change
• I believe until it is just as commonplace to hear the perspective of a woman or a person of color in your life we need the internet in order to bring change. It is messy, and imperfect, but it gives access. 

I would not have my story published if it were not for connections made on-line. 

Shalom!

Melody

Here’s what I said yesterday.

—————–

In Defense of Women.  This was interesting and not just because he mentioned me.  It relates to not having women’s voices as a part of “the conversation.

the ebb and flow

Image by mikebaird via Flickr

Those words, ebb and flow, gifted to me by a friend offer a hint of relief as they innocently imply a constant fluctuation.  She is alluding to the in and out movement of ocean tides –  a perfect metaphor for the dark moods that come over me.  A decline and increase.  It is true the dark moods come less and less for me as the years pass by.

I hate this day. 

I hate the day or two after a I write something like yesterday.  (That was a major dumping — discharge — purge.)  Though the writing is therapeutic for me on one level, in the sharing of it publicly I am left sitting here alone in my study anxiously worrying that people will think I am a narcissistic, egregiously self-absorbed person.  Which I am.  Didn’t I just say I want to be my own God?

But the ebb and flow metaphor only barely works because the moon pulls the tides.  The tides do not control themselves.  The tides are daily, predictable, constant.  Are my moods predictable? No.  Are they known for their patterns?  To some extent, yes. Ironically, as time passes I forget how dismal this mood genuinely is; it is utterly insufferable.  God forbid this thing was foreseen!

I had forgotten how bad it feels to slip into the murky place of in-between.  I go through the motions.  Though some are too difficult, already. I have random thoughts.  Do not kill the dog.  Cannot make the lunches.  I find myself wearing PJs for half the day only because I can’t bear to choose what to wear.  I can lean down and pick up book after book from the library bag that has spilled over on the floor.  I must bring order so that “they”, the ones I love, don’t have to be afraid.  Won’t start to worry.  Don’t worry about me I want to say.  I resolve not to be anyone’s extra concern.  The weight of the day is enough for most people.  I sit and listen to my son tell me about aliens and zombies in the book he’s reading.  It’s noise.  Even though I want to care, because he cares.  I can’t get up and make lunches (the task at hand) even though I know I need to make myself engage.  I try to pretend the cement is not in my veins.

How’d it happen, this time? 

How could I possibly have let this happen? I know.  I think.  I am absolutely dejected about the future and my lack of purpose and even perhaps my inability to accept the purpose put before me.  I am afraid of what others think of me, unless I find a high-powered job or pursue a degree that will puff up my sense of self and be something esteemed by others.  I am afraid to enjoy the garden, photography, writing or family! 

Should I write the book about my spiritual and psychological journey of healing?  Much of it is written here.  And I have more than fifty poems.  I also have a book of photography waiting for printing.  I am frozen and disgusted by my self-pity.  And terrified that once again I find myself anxious about the little things (which intellectually I know I can handle.) And even more so, I am wondering if I have the book in me.  If these experiences would be worthy to put on the printed page to help others.

For today, all I have is my excuses.  My brain, clouded over by this mood, aches.  And all I can do today is resolve to get a little exercise, to not isolate, and I shake my fist at the ebb and flow wondering aloud to the One who controls the moon and her tides.  What do you want from me?

You Are Not Alone – Thoughts on Sobriety.

Image via Wikipedia

At times I detest that I am an alcoholic. It’s damn inconvenient.  Those are the days that it seems the whole world drinks – except me and perhaps James Frey.

I dreamt of drinking last night. That scares me a little, because in my dreams I seem to “forget” that I can’t drink.  Now that’s a nightmare – an alcoholic that draws a blank on their past.  Even if it is only in their dreams.  I recall now that I just wanted a small glass of red wine. No we don’t need to order the bottle. A red, to accompany whatever I was eating.  Harmless.

I have never actually taken a sip in my dreams, thus far.  The dreams come unbidden, which may make you think that drinking is on my mind a lot.  Most of the time, these days, I never think about being an alcoholic. But when I do, sometimes I resent that I cannot drink.

Lest you begin to feel sorry for me and think that I am an innocent former drinker, I must set you straight. In the end I was a falling-down drunk. I had to quit. I would have lost my life eventually. I never hit “the bottom” which some say you need to do to recover. But I got close enough that my conscience, and my husband, and God finally said enough is enough. Some people will need to hit the bottom to change. But most of us feel it building in our lives for a long time and finally one day we know.  We are ready.

For more than five years I had wrestled with the knowledge that I might be addicted. I didn’t know enough about the disease to make a good call on it.  But in my experience your gut is usually right. If you are wondering whether you just might be addicted to alcohol, listen to your soul. Hear the voices that talk to you late at night after drinking too much. Or the ones that pop up with the morning hangover.

Recognizing that we have a problem is a drawn-out and bit-by-bit process, at least it was for me. No one wants to think of themselves as an addict or alcoholic. Unfortunately our culture says getting addicted to it makes you weak. It is shameful and definitely not for Christ-followers! Christians do not become alcoholics, because they “trust in God.” Ironically, addiction is no respecter of race or religion or status. And all that stuff about just trust in God is bullshit.

Once I finally quit, July 17^th, 2008, I have never relapsed.  I’m fairly certain that is because I have a family. They are my accountability. My kids are my Program. I am intentional about talking to them about my addiction to drinking and I think it is important that they know and understand the nature of the illness is hereditary.  And I am not shy about reminding them of the ugly side of drinking.  When I passed out in front of them. Or threw up all over myself in the car. Those memories return for a reason and that is to help them see the unglamorous side of addiction. And remembering keeps me sober.

Seeing others who clearly struggle with drinking is a good reminder for me, but it is not a reason to stay sober. I feel pity and empathy and hope they’ll figure it out soon. Because life is beautiful sober – in full color in a way that being a drunk is living in sepia tones compared to full color, 3D. It is loneliness vs. living in community. It’s living in starvation when you can live with a full stomach. You get the idea. Living in your addiction is like living in an ugly broken-down smog filled factory.   Sobriety is living in the glorious Grand Canyon!

But people do relapse and I hope you know this too is a part of the journey. A few years before I quit for good, I decided to go to counseling to “learn about addiction.” (That’s what I told myself.) I settled into about seven or eight months of not drinking, because that is what they require of you to receive alcohol counseling.  I learned all I could about the issue.

Near the end of my time I asked my counselor if she thought I could be a social drinker.  You know, if I wasn’t “up for” quitting.  I could still not imagine my life without alcohol.  I loved alcohol.  I didn’t go through a day without thinking about it or craving it. I wasn’t giving in to it right then, but after seven months of sobriety I thought I was “strong” and got the notion in my head that I would simply be “a social drinker.” I would just stick with one or two drinks in any given setting and definitely not drink at home.  I would be okay.  My counselor answered the question like this: “If you continue to drink socially, I predict I’ll see you back here in three or four years.” Yeah right, I was thinking, not me.  She does not know me.

She may not have known me, but she knew an addict when she saw one.  It took about one year – Yes, that was all it took for me to fall on my face literally and figuratively. I remember walking out of there, thinking “At least I’ll enjoy the next three years.”  That was how seductive alcohol was for me at the time. I did not believe AT ALL that I could be happy or have joy without alcohol in my life.

I walked out of that building full of the idea that I hadn’t been drunk for a good long time, so it would be easy to limit. Or at least it would take a while for the problem to present itself.  Honestly, I didn’t really care either way.  I was just glad that I could still drink.

Oh, it presented itself alright! More strongly than ever. With a vengeance.

I do wish that I could drink.  It still lures me. It teases and ultimately lies to me that it is a simple thing to drink. But those lies I can overcome and made my peace with in time. I stop them as soon as they pop in my head.  And remind myself that I and my life are worthy of my sobriety.

Sober people are some of the most brave people I know.  And that includes me.

If you or someone you love ever wants to talk confidentially with me about this, I am glad to do it.  I can only share my experience.  The answer is different for each person.  But knowing that you are not alone is important.

MHH

Here’s something I wrote two years ago about being an addict.

Sunday Morning [a poem]

Sunday morning was
the ticking of the clock, each second in my head.
Time stretched beyond eternity, hung over.
Awash with a thousand regrets swallowed the night before.
I thought I knew in my anxious thoughts
what I needed. My thirst was constant.

Fully knowing, the need for living water was
stronger than the thirst that sits
on me,

in me,

around me

smothering hope all morning long.

Sunday morning is
time stretched out, relishing the moments.
Slow and graceful, time is on my side.
Grace is found in Sunday mornings where not only do I wake to the sunshine, but
hope and glory meet me as I slowly come awake to realize the gift
of lingering with my creator.
Sunday morning is undeserved for surely I have toiled at foolish things.
I have wondered what you have already answered, what your word proclaims.
If only I would stop and be here more often, I would find the answers.
I would see that I get to start again when I wake up Sunday mornings.

Can I get a Witness?

I must confess.  I am not a witness. 

I have never understood those people who speak frankly and unreservedly about their relationship with God.  In fact, the only person I have ever met who did that with complete integrity was a friend I made in the last ten years.  She speaks out of her love for Jesus, with a passion and a need, a pure desire that makes me hungry for the same.  Whenever I am in her presence I want to know this Jesus she speaks about, know him more and more.

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: ‘…eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God…’ (John 17)  

When I was a child I recall often being afraid that someone might ask me what I believe. 

I had not put it all together yet.  As a teen, I recollect, on more than one occasion lying in bed late at night after a youth event at church, rehearsing what I would say about my faith if I was ever asked.  I whispered the words out loud, under the covers, uncomfortable with the sound of my voice.  An extreme introvert, I was overly burdened with ideas and thoughts that I was afraid to express.  They remained jumbled up in my head.  And there, under the covers I became sweaty and slightly breathless, as I whispered my thoughts–my imaginings.  There was nothing that I could say with certainty. It was the beginning of conviction. 

In my twenties, I found that if you keep your mouth shut no one would know what you thought.  Genius, huh?

A quiet person is not going to be the one thought to be a fool.  And I am not a fool.

I rarely said what I thought.  I still had little idea what I believed.  I was going along.  It was in college that I discovered a passion for the words in the Bible.  In a rare moment of clarity and conviction–and vulnerability–I blurted out to my professor that I’d like to study the Bible!  I wanted to learn the original languages, so that I could read (for myself) the true meaning of these texts.  I finally knew what I wanted to do.  I had an intensity for it, which up until that time I hadn’t found for anything in college, or in life. I knew that what I wanted to do was to study the languages of the Bible.

My male professor, with a cruelty I now recognize said, “What would you do with it?”

What would I, as a woman, do with a special knowledge of scripture?  Um, right, the implication was clear.  Nothing.

I had no understanding of the possibilities.  I didn’t believe that I was capable of pushing back.  I didn’t know that I was allowed to disagree with him, because no-one had ever given me the example growing up in a conservative Christian sub-culture.  Women were taught it was good, even Godly, to submit. I did not know that I might have something unique to say.  So I stayed quiet. And for the next two decades more or less, I continued on that path, mute.

I was already tragically insecure.  Melancholy and hopelessness were things that I wrestled with and over time I came to believe that I had nothing to say.  Though I was good at thinking and writing, I got the message from my professor, and my parents, my youth pastor and others, that as a woman I had no message.  That is what I thought.  That is in the end what happened—that professor spoke a negative prophesy for my life.

I didn’t find my voice again until my forties. And coincidently, parallel to that, I began to discover my own belief.  Don’t they run hand in hand?  Parallel growth that only comes out of gaining personal power.  By beginning to believe in myself and knowing that I am, now, a person with something to say. I still love the word of God, the Bible, as much as I did when I first discovered it.  I want to lose myself in the real meaning of the original texts.  I want that for myself. I quickly become frustrated by others telling me what it means, mainly men making judgment calls about what the Bible says, and wanting me to take their word for it.  I cannot accept it.

I study, but I lack discipline.  I think, and then I doubt myself, my audacity, to think I might find some truth there that other scholars have not. And yet, the spark that was ignited many years ago still burns.  The legacy of that question rings as loudly after two decades as it did that day in college.

What would you do with it?

I will leave a different legacy for my daughter.  That is why, much to her embarrassment at times, I constantly point out to her the places in the Church and in our church where women still do not have a voice.  Where women are not able to be totally free in their passions, talents and callings.

I have told her what is possible!  That is it okay to push back.  That she is allowed to disagree–with me, with her Father, with her Youth Pastor, even her Pastor.

The evangelical Church is still sending women the message, submit. Wait.  In time, things will change. 

The Spirit will witness to the unconditional love of God that became available to us through Jesus. — Henri Nouwen

——————————————————————-

I highly recommend this article titled Women in Ministry: Between the Pulpit and the Kitchen from the Center for Women of Faith in Culture.

No, Not Seven.

“… forgive, from your heart.” Matthew 18:35

So often, when I think of my parents, I know that I need to forgive.

Truth be told I am afraid, even though I know that letting go of the past is the only way to move forward.  But I fear the unknown of living looking forward–a life of trusting, giving, loving, even hoping.  You see, most of the residual anger, I think, is simply a sense of disbelief that a mother and father could do that.

To say that we lived in constant fear is an unfair exaggeration.  But we were scared all the time (of my Father.)  What did Mother do, you may wonder?  What is she doing now?  My mother detached. And continues to be isolated and aloof from me eight years after my Father’s death. And though she “loved us very much” she let him rage on, and on. And he still has the power, even in death.

She let him rage on and became a passive perpetrator of his crimes.  And to a child growing up in his home, my Father was highly irrational, often cruel, hopelessly aggressive, and in a constant state of potential irritation; to the point that when I was in my early twenties and head over heals in love I found myself saying of the boy in question: “Treat me well. Or treat me poorly. I don’t care. Just be consistent.”

It is far too easy to wander from the point which is my inability to forgive. 

Perhaps it is because I cannot fully embrace the forgiveness I have received–just when I think that I do get it. Do I fully appreciate the mercy and grace in my life — there is no way that I can say I do — with lack of forgiveness in my heart.

I face my lack daily. But even amidst the doubt, questions and distrust (of God and people) I must remember that I am forgiven and because of that I want to know Jesus more. Jesus says, forgive as you have been forgiven.

In the movie Helen of Troy, Agamemnon the commander of the Greeks killed his own daughter to appease the gods.  My step-daughter who is agnostic and I were discussing sacrificing your life for another. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his child. Jesus.  Questioningly, she said, “Doesn’t it take away from what Jesus did that he knew he would end up in heaven with God?”  How revealing that statement is.

Would you give up your life for another even if you knew it would end well?  Would you forgive?  In the parable of the unmerciful servant in Mt 18, Jesus challenges this very thing that I am understanding about myself–my inability to forgive and give up my “rights,” the power of my anger toward my parents and Jesus says, “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven…” (Matthew 18)

Henri Nouwen reminds us that Jesus’ primary concern was obedience to his Father, to live constantly in his presence.  “Only then did it become clear to him what his task was in his relationships with people.” 

It is clear to me.  I need to seek to forgive.  I may not know how, but I know that I must move toward it by seeking the presence of God.

And a life of

trust, love and even hope will come.

What are the 7 Deadly Sins and Why Should we care?

I am no saint.  Most days I find my struggles are so profane and well, human. I don’t want to yell when I am angry at my child.  I don’t want to start smoking again even when provoked by life.  I don’t want spend frivolously, and compulsively, on books or clothes.  I want to be more generous. To be less envious of the success of others.  To respond in love and hopefulness rather than “expect” someone to live up to the low opinion I have of them.  I’m just being honest here.  Life is a struggle!

My children asked the other day if “to lie” was a sin.  “What about to murder?” they asked.  What are the seven deadly sins, they wanted to know?

The only thing that I could remember in the moment was Sloth, probably because I struggle with laziness and lack of motivation at-home.   I struggle to do things that don’t interest me much, like laundry and other forms of housework; to train the dog even though it would make our lives so much better; to be consistent with my kids — book reading before computer, keep your room picked up, clean up after yourself!  I find it easier to just do it myself, than hassle with teaching the kids.

But somehow I could work in the garden all day long, in the burning sunshine, because it doesn’t feel like work.  I could pull a thousand weeds.  Or draw with my kids. 

I might write all day because it feels so wonderful to place one word in front of the other, in a way that I choose.  But sweep, mop, pick up and put away?  I’m loathe to do those things.

I could not remember what the Seven were, so I looked it up.

The Catholic church believes the Seven Sins are:

1. Pride (or Vanity) is an excessive belief in our own abilities that gets in the way of our ability to recognize and experience the grace of God. Humility is seeing ourselves as we really are and not comparing ourselves to others.
2. Envy is the desire for someone’s status, abilities, or life situation.  Generosity is letting others get the credit or praise. It is giving without having expectations of the other person. It is love which actively seeks the good of others for their sake. Envy resents the good others receive or even might receive. Envy is almost indistinguishable from pride at times.
3. Gluttony is consumption of more than what you need, of anything really.
4. Lust is a craving for the pleasures of the body above knowing and craving God.
5. Anger (or Wrath) is the person who spurns love and opts instead for fury.   Its opposite, Kindness, is tender, patient and compassionate.
6. Greed (Avarice or Covetousness) is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual.
7. Sloth is avoiding physical or spiritual work.

Of course there is no “list” of seven in the Bible, though each of these are there in one form or another  If we truly understood how these qualities make us who we are, perhaps we would understand ourselves better and more importantly our effect on others.

I know this. Sin in our lives deadens our spiritual senses and we become slower to respond to God.  And then eventually we drift into complacency, apathy and even disbelief.

And the sad thing is that I am guilty.  Guilty of this and more.  Aren’t we all?

The good news is that the Grace of God offers me hope that not in my strength but with the power of the Holy Spirit I can forgive myself and I am forgiven.

Being Broken by Addiction

My dog Comet is being groomed for the first time today and as I was dropping him off I glanced over at the magazines. I was drawn like a bee to pollen by the cover of  Brava Magazine.  It had an article about the secret addictions of women in Wisconsin, aptly titled The Silent Treatment.

While I am not quiet about my alcoholism here on my blog and person to person I will freely tell you my story, I have never talked about it publicly — as I think that I am ashamed. 

No-one talks about addiction in my circles. And here is what I imagine others are thinking.  Perhaps they perceive that addiction is simply a weakness or a character flaw.  And in some Christian circles a place where you haven’t allowed God victory or healing or aren’t trusting.   How in the world did she “allow herself” to get addicted?  What a mess she must be.  Addicts are just bad people trying to be good.

That’s all bullshit. (Forgive me, but it is.)

And in my clearer moments I remind myself that I am broken like every other person in the world.  We all have some “thing” or more than one, that we have trouble overcoming. Most people’s “thing” can be a secret–food addiction, money problems, compulsive shopping, secret cutting, or pornography.   I won’t pretend to know what your “thing” is.

This article talked about how so many women in Wisconsin have a problem with alcohol addiction.   More importantly, that addiction to alcohol is in some part NOT a “thing” to struggle with, but an illness to work against.  I can tell you gratefully that I am “in remission.”

“[There is a] stigma that surrounds substance abuse in a culture that loves the sound of clinking glasses.” (Brava)

One of my favorite people is Henri Nouwen. 

I would have loved to have known him and even been his friend, as we share a common lifelong struggle with melancholy and depression and need for affirmation and community.  He wrote this:

Jesus was broken on the cross.  He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace.   We too are broken.  We live with  broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits.  We suffer from broken relationships.  How can we live our brokenness?  Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission.  He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God’s blessing for our purification and sanctification.  Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Few understand that addiction is an illness like cancer.

There is a perception that somehow addicts cause their illness.  It is both an illness and an opportunity for self-control and inner strengthening.  As we grow in our understanding of our broken hearts and lives, we can become stronger.  How can we embrace our brokenness of addiction when the Church and (some) Christians make one feel as if you are cursed with a mental illness or lack self-control.

Yes, my alcoholism reminds me (almost daily) that I am a broken person.  The days and weeks when I try to avoid thinking about it, and (almost) pretend that I’ve got it all together, those are the times when I feel the farthest away from who I really am. I become lost in the idea of wellness that denies that I am and will be until the day I die an alcoholic in remission.

For whatever reason, I am an addict.

My deeply thoughtful thirteen year old daughter asked me recently why I can’t just drink socially?  We had been to party where there was a lot of drinking and I was having a hard time having fun.  I have been completely honest with her about my addiction and so I value her questions.  I believe she needs to understand my alcoholism, because it is a family illness and because one in four children of alcoholics become one themselves.

So why can’t I now drink socially?  “There is something in my brain that switches off after the first drink,” I told her.  “After that point, I have no ability to stop.”  I learned from my D&A counselor that every time I drank, my brain sends the signal to have more.  The well-worn pathway in my brain needed more, each time, to have the same impact as the last time I drank. I’m three years sober July 17th, 2011 and if I had a drink to celebrate I would need the same amount of alcohol as my last drink — about two bottles of wine, if I remember correctly — to feel any high.

As a Christ follower, it is even more complicated.

Or perhaps more simple depending on how you look at it. My addiction humbles me daily.  Drives me to my knees.  I go to church in a bar and I laugh, joyfully with the irony!  I don’t mind the reminders of my addiction because then I am drawn to the truth that my life is so improved — clearer, better, more meaningful sober. 

But three years of sobriety brings me to a place of acknowledging that I am still full of pride.  I have not been willing to help others who struggle with this addiction.  I have not been willing to speak out locally.  I have hidden my secrets and tried to live in a drinking world as a secret alcoholic.

The article in Brava was a challenge to me.

No, I am not at risk to drink, because I have created enough awareness of those around me of my illness, that the accountability keeps me sober.

But why am I so silent, so secretly ashamed? More importantly what can I do to give back?  I want others to know that this is not a shameful secret in my life, it is a disease of addiction that has harmful effects on people, families and communities and that recovery is possible with support.  It is not only possible but it is transformational!

Related articles

• You Are Not Alone – Thoughts on Sobriety. (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

The Act of Sleeping (a poem)

Image by -= Bruce Berrien =- via Flickr

the days of late have been quite enough for my heart, mind and soul to keep up … and so…

I was

drifting off to sleep,

taking an illicit nap in the middle of the day,

when it hit me.

I have always loved the act

of sleeping.  It is a thread

that holds my life together, connecting me

                     to health,

                     to sanity,

                     to strength.

It is safety, a place I have run to all my life.

For life is full of danger and pain.

Life is sometimes more than I can bear.

I do not know if there is anything

I enjoy more than sleep.

Walk On by U2: A Christian Feminist Cry?

This song is actually about Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese activist who was sentenced to house arrest in 1989 for protesting her government. Earlier that year, while walking with some of her supporters, soldiers blocked their path and pointed rifles at them. Suu Kyi kept walking, despite orders to stop. The soldiers threatened to shoot her, but didn’t. Her actions have been closely monitored by the government, but she remains an influential leader and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Her house arrest ended in 2010 and she was released. (Source)

THESE LYRICS HIT ME HARD!

What I hear in them– for me– is my heartache and pain, and a cry for freedom in Christ.  As a Christian and a feminist and a woman my heart often heavy with the state of women in the evangelical church.  Where is the progress? And although I love and believe in my church and accept, with only healthy reservation, the leadership and the integrity of my pastors as exceptional spiritual leaders (and some are sound Biblical scholars) and I even accept the leadership of the elders of my church because they were selected (by a process even if that process included that you had to be male).

But I am convinced that my church leaders are wrong to put off for a season, or leave out or ignore, or to dismiss the idea of women as Elders and teaching pastors.  And our denomination, EFCA, is wrong to not ordain women.

I am deeply committed to my church and want to help it think about its practices and to help bring change from within so that women will be admitted to ordained ministries and Eldership.  I have no idea what that might look like or how to go about it, but meanwhile I resolve to continue in love, in hope that the darkness of oppression continues to be lifted, even if slowly.

No one can steal my conviction that the evangelical church will some day ordain women and embrace us in every role in the Church.  I don’t know when, but I believe it will happen.

You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been,

A place that has to be believed to be seen,

You could have flown away, A singing bird in an open cage,

Who will only fly, only fly for freedom.

I RESOLVE TO STAY

I believe that if enough women stay in the evangelical and denominational traditions and continue to voice our beliefs change will come.  We need to do the Biblical study and scholarship, to courageously speak out, and to write.  We must continue on, even on the bad days when it feels like we are nagging because there will be good days, when we just might be prophetic!  If we continue to have faith, and exhibit hope and love … perhaps (some day) true freedom inside the evangelical church will come for women.

WALK ON, sisters and brothers.

MHH

WALK ON lyrics, by U2

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring…
And love is not the easy thing…
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can’t leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight…

You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonightAnd I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home…hard to know what it is if you never had one
Home…I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home
That’s where the heart is

I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Leave it behind
You’ve got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme…

Music: U2
Lyrics: Bono
Produced by: Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno
Engineered by: Richard Rainey
Assisted by: Chris Heaney
Additional production by: Steve Lillywhite
Mixed by: Steve Lillywhite
Additional engineering: Stephen Harris
Assisted by: Alvin Sweeneyfirst time played live: 2000-12-05: Irving Plaza, New York, New York
last time played live: 2011-07-20: New Meadowlands Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

You are Beloved

This post is about being loved and feeling loved.  And what can happen when you don’t believe you are dearly loved — to your relationships and to your hopes and dreams for your life.

GROWING UP, I was not told…

I never believed that I was “dearly loved.” This was partly because I grew up in a frightening and unpredictable home and because of my father’s angry raging behaviors.  I have always been profoundly unsure of myself.  I remember how important it became to simply grow invisible. 

Invisible was safe.  If you aren’t seen or heard, you cannot upset anyone.  No opinions.  Eventually no thoughts at all at home, where you might slip up and express them.  This was okay if he agreed with you.  But if not, there was no telling what might happen.  You might be lectured at for hours, or berated in front of a friend. Humiliation.  Threats.  Intimidation.  Blame.  It just wasn’t predictable.

When I look at my children I’m appalled by my upbringing.  I want nothing more than to see my kids discover and grow into unique people.  I see incredible things in them and I tell them often, out of love and a wish to affirm those truths.

 ”Those are beautiful words you have written.”

“God made you full of joy.”

“You memorize things so easily. That will make life so much easier for you.”

“You are careful and precise and that will serve you well in the future.”

“You make people laugh, what a gift!”

“You care about others.”

“You are gentle and kind and the world needs more men like that.”

“You will grow into someone who washes others’ feet.”

“Yes, that is sexist it pleases me that you saw it.”

  “You articulate yourself so well!”

I speak these truths and other, because I believe children need help to discover their talents and abilities and to experience the spirit of God.  I believe we don’t naturally know.  My place in God’s world, made in his image, is something that I never discovered in that shrouded, hidden place that I disappeared in to for so many years as a child and young adult.

THE CHURCH didn’t tell me …

Secondly the Church sent subliminal, and sometimes outright sexist messages to girls  where I was growing up in the south.  I “heard” that I am a second class person; less valued by God because I (somehow) need men to support me, protect me, and teach me, especially about the Bible.  I was to subordinate myself to men.

Though I heard those things, in my gut I knew it was wrong.  I have always believed that if you believe in the world of Gen 1 & 2, and in the hope of lasting and true restoration by Jesus on the Cross, then you cannot accept the cultural Church practices spoken of in the NT.

MARRIAGE

By the grace of God I married beautiful, ennobling, questioning complex thinking person of faith.  He lives with me in the land of questions and he does not attempt to tell me what the answers are.  Together we began the journey and partnership of marriage in June of 1993.  What he spoke into my life was hope, and goodness, and empowerment. He listened for my voice and I began to heal. 

I was a fanatically hard-working ministry leader when he met me.  I worked for my father (ironically) so at the end of the day, I finally had my father telling me what I was good at by giving me promotions.  The more I accomplished the more responsibility I was given.  I discovered I had many talents, I was a hell of a hard worker and I had a need to constantly be proving myself and my worth.  At the end of the day, week, month, there was always more to be done.  More to prove.  More to do to validate myself as a daughter, as a woman, as a leader, as a human being.

I still didn’t believe I was BELOVED.   Skip forward from my mid thirties to today.

TODAY I am …

44.  I have been out of the workplace for ten years.  I “used” my children as an excuse to leave an acrimonious place where (I felt) I had hit the glass ceiling. I was burned out trying to prove myself.  I didn’t know the grace of God in my life.  I didn’t really believe.

Over the last decade I have walked a painful path but I have discovered that I am beloved.  Oh yes, those difficult lessons (my experience with clinical depression, my alcoholism, losing my parents) were so vital to my becoming human again and the reason that I am alive today.  I got sober, which took courage in the Christian community.  Actually I didn’t get any help from Christians but by God’s grace, my life is living through and beyond being an alcoholic or being depressed.

Today my life is so incredibly rich and full.  And now as a woman, a burgeoning feminist, a feeble follower of Jesus, a sometimes photographer, a frequent writer, hungry student of the Bible, I am asking for others to speak truth into my life now about my unique contribution to be made.

If I let myself, I quickly become focused on what I am, who I am, why I am … and the fact that I am so afraid.  (I think) I want to study and learn and be able to articulate Truth by going back to school. When I look around my community there are needs everywhere.  I see them.  I feel them.  My heart breaks for it.  As a white person with affluence I believe I have a unique responsibility and a unique place of financial privilege.  As a woman, and a feminist and a follower of Jesus I believe my voice is unique.

The Jesus that washes our feet wasn’t a macho oriented, “women should be in the home cooking, cleaning, having babies and bringing me my dinner” kind of man who has been written and preached about in the Church.  He preached that we are to live in peace, he offers us a life full of victory (over our sin), and he makes us generous and loving. We are to speak against injustice. That’s the Jesus I know.   That’s my kind of faith.

But I am afraid and I can no longer blame my upbringing.  I can no longer blame the Church.  I can no longer blame my father.  With no one left to blame, I am here with my convictions and beliefs, greatly needing shape and formation.  It is time to act; to step out in faith that God is with me each step of the way and that there is a reason for each experience I have had.  In some ways I “woke up” just a few years ago.  A late bloomer doesn’t do it justice, but you are never too old to do something.

At fifty, my mother began a process of waking up.  She is now in her seventies and to her credit is a person continuously searching for truth.  I greatly admire that about her.

Andy Crouch, on his blog Culture Making, says disciplines are the key to excellence. Ten thousand hours is a good benchmark—that’s one hour a day, five days a week, for forty years (with two weeks of vacation each year!). If every Christian decided to spend 10,000 hours developing their capacity in a single cultural domain (painting, stress fracture analysis, genomic sequencing, you name it) and also 10,000 hours on the spiritual disciplines that embody dependence on God (solitude, silence, fasting, study, prayer), in forty years we’d have a completely different world. How are you spending your 10,000 hours?

I am a white woman of privilege, blessed by living a beautiful life, a feminist and Jesus follower, who finally knows she is BELOVED and is finding her voice and asking:  How should I spend my next 10,000 hours?

There is a Woman: Reflections on Motherhood

There is a woman who makes raising up children and being at-home seem the most gratifying and beautiful tasks in the whole world. I want to believe it is a noble task and I read her blog, if a bit unfaithfully.  When I remember again, I go there and I seem to gorge on her simple, profound theological insights and humble, breathtaking photography.  She reminded me today of Henri Nouwen’s words suggesting that:

“[t]he word patience means willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”

How can I be so frustrated and impatient in my circumstances?

If there was a sub-theme to my blog it would be that!  If there was a lesson (and there have been so many) I feel I have been supposed to learn from the last decade of life at home it has been to believe that I am where God wants me.  Also, that who I am is more important than what I am doing.  For more than a year, I sought God’s will; I cried and prayed and wanted to know if I should quit my job.  I sought insight from wise people.  I asked myself in my heart of hearts what I should do and then finally made a decision. This is his desire for me right now until he clearly presents the next thing. (And I think he has, but that’s another post.)

I need to ask what is God manifesting today and be humbled by the knowledge of God’s sovereignty.  But even as I do, I can celebrate all that I have learned.  And continue to be a good mother, as best I can. (Now the best homemaker, not so much.)

What makes a good mother is a question all mothers ask ourselves.  Only you can sort that out for yourself.  Every circumstance, each child, individual women and men, make each experience of parenting different.

These are a few things I have learned along the way … about being a Good Mother.   A good mother …

• Loves always and in everything.  (I cling to 1 Corinthians 13.)
• Tells her children often and in specific ways how they are unique.
• Thinks before she speaks and if necessary gives herself a time out.  (I have been told it takes ten positive remarks to “do away” with one negative comment.  Teachers should also realize this.)
• Admits when she is wrong.  Just do it.  The #1 best thing you could do for your kids.
• Is accountable to others in her parenting.  I laugh because when heat of summer comes along and the windows are thrown open, the neighbors can hear you yelling at your kids.  That’s accountability.
• Should be less lazy in keeping kids accountable to their commitments.  (I’m preaching to myself here.)
• Speaks biblical truth into her kids lives. We are all theologians.
• Forgives herself for being imperfect.
• Forgives her kids for being imperfect little beings.
• Lets her kids see her affection for her spouse.  (I am not a touchy-feely type, but it’s no matter.  My husband and my kids need me to hug my husband more often!)
• Has her own goals.  (Woops.  But this is important and I’ll have to put aside a whole blog post to it sometime soon.  You cannot set aside all of your personal goals for your kids.  Think of your intellectual and career needs.)
• And from Ann, “even when you sin and fall, cling to grace.”  And I would add, let your kids see it.

What are you learning? Who are you learning from?  Who inspires you today?

And thank you Ann. Below is a link to her blog.

The Illusion of Enlightenment & the Boob Tube

 

My father used to call our television the Boob Tube.  I don’t know where that name comes from, but I always thought he meant if we watched too much we’d turn into “boobs” ie.stupid.

Now that I think about it Boob Tube a horrible name in a house full of women.

He never really said outright that the TV was bad, but we were only allowed to watch four hours a week growing up—yes, that was four hours in a week. Of course we started life in Papua New Guinea with no television at all.  Since I grew up not really understanding what a television was, my first encounter which happened on furlough, was with a small box that showed us the show Sesame Street.

In the early 70s, before remotes, Dad made us one.

It connected to the television with a wire, so technically it was not a remote.  It was basically just a switch to turn off the sound during the commercials.  After all of that sincere effort he was really miffed when my little sister Holly could sing the tunes to the commercials even without sound!  We laughed along with my parents, but really didn’t like it when he turned off the commercials.

I never intended to own a television when I grew up.

Don’t you think it is just what you do?  In the years that Tom and I have been together our lives have been a progression of buying bigger and bigger televisions which then forces us to move rooms around, over and over again, in a desire to create a TV room and the other “peaceful room where we will read, or talk, or listen to music, or make music.”

We’ve called it the Reading Room and the Music Room, but eventually that room, the one without the television, has become a dusty shrine to our lofty ideals and to the illusion of our enlightenment.

We actually spend all of our waking hours in the TV room, other than those spent cooking and sleeping.

Because of this, many times I get pulled into television shows without any willful consideration of their merit.  My youngest likes to watch the show Wipeout (quite possibly the most inane television show I think I have ever seen and yet oddly compelling to my son.)  What comes right after it is a show called Expedition Impossible that immediately drew me in.  I’ve watched it now for three weeks, too lazy to pick up the remote and turn it off.  But this week on Thursday night I have to admit I found myself actually watching the clock for it to start and rushing through washing the dinner dishes, because I’m hooked!

I’m drawn to people being pushed beyond what they believe is their physical, mental and emotional ability.

In this show, a dozen teams of three must work together on mental and physical challenges, with the final team making a bunch of money.    The reason I mention this is that although I am drawn to these sort of things and I am the person who would embrace something like that, in everyday life I’m a wus, a scaredy-cat, afraid of my shadow; these days I feel like a weak and ineffectual person.

Image by bzo via Flickr

One of the teams on the show has a team member who is blind.  Yes, blind.  I watched him jump from cliff this week, forty feet down into a river.  He had to trust that his friend would find him, after he comes up.  It is no wonder they called the episode Leap of Faith.   I was blown away!

And beyond what that says about his bravery and trust, I was impressed just by the jump.  I’ve jumped off cliffs like that on a boat trip to Dale Hollow, in Kentucky, and it’s friggin scary.  Some of the men were jumping off these cliffs.  Now, I know intellectually that I am capable of doing anything I want; I just have to overcome the fear. The only reason I did the jump was that there were no other women jumping and I’d been egging on, for fun, this friend who was referring constantly to the “girls” at the office—challenging his calling grown women older than him, girls. And so “for women” I found myself at the edge of a cliff looking down.  I took a leap and jumped.  And then I did again, just to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fluke.  I did have the courage.  It was horrible and frightening and amazing!

If I am capable of doing that why am I so afraid today?

As I sat and thought about what it must take for Erik Weihenmayer, the man who is blind, to do this trek in Morocco, I am blown away by his courage and inner will and utterly ashamed by my apathy and fear of failure, and unwillingness to take risks.  And so I have been thinking all week about why I am so afraid.  And why is he so brave?  He could have let his disability keep him from many things (including this show!) and yet he hasn’t.  I ask you to consider this question:

If you knew you could not fail what would you do?

And, back to the original idea that the television is a bad influence on us, I would assert that it is the single worst “idol” in our culture that I wish I had the courage to give up.

What do you think about the most?

Image via Wikipedia

In reality, the things of God are not on my mind most of the time.  Just when I think I’ve got the material world beaten, I get sidetracked.  Life is full of opportunities to dwell and fixate on things that keep our mind captivated and not thinking about God.

I am not immune to wondering whether my glasses or haircut make a statement—my current fixation is to get thin again.   Possibly your fixations are not material things or wanting the esteem of others, but you have a secret fear or an emotion that overwhelms and makes you do things that you know are wrong.  The Bible clearly tells us that whatever it is that hijacks our time and energy has become an idol to us—whether it is persons, ideas or possessions.

My life is full of idols—everything I obsess about, stupid inanities.  But, God desires that we wholly and fully worship him with everything in our life.  He said that we must choose to resolve in our heart to be different.  We must resolve every day to change our patterns—to choose Yahweh every day.  This is not just an intellectual “making up of our mind” but on some level we must decide every day where we put our affections.

We all have idols.  It is what we do about them that matters most to God.

Isaiah 40 says, lift your eyes and look!  There are moments living in the city that I feel like I cannot see or hear God because I am so distracted by the noise of my life.  So, I drive outside of town and look up at the starry expanse.  It is then that I come face to face with my Creator.  I know with certainty God’s compassion and promise of restoration, that Yahweh forgives me for my idolatry, and I cry, “Oh God, is my heart truly yours? Make it so!”

God is asking for our mind and heart—in our solitude, spending habits, health, body image, need for human approval, self-esteem, reputation, relationships, financial anxiety—in our fixation on anything other than Yahweh.

Let us worship and live for him.

——————————————————————————————————

This is something I was asked to write for Blackhawk Church‘s Fall 2011 teaching series. 

Three Simple Words

I am broken.  I’ll be quick to admit that about myself. It is no use trying to hide it.  And that is in some part what my blog is about — hoping that I can help someone else.

Most of my adult life has been spent sorting out my broken heart while trying not to let everything fall to pieces.

Eighteen years we’ve been married — I am his second wife.  They’ve been beautiful, and hard, and just yesterday he held my hand, rubbing it tenderly.  And said, “I want you.“  Even so — sitting in the car today with my fingers drumming on the steering wheel, while I wait for the red light to change, — as she says those three simple words my heart hurts.  And my head is spinning.  I knew it!

“Grandma misses Mary.”

His mom.  His ex-wife.  My daughter, innocently trying to sort out who loves whom.  “Do you like Mary, Mom?”

I am quiet.

“Are you mad?”

“Thoughtful.” I say after carefully considering my words, “No, not mad.”  Because I am more than that simply mad, or even shocked — It is so complicated.  My daughter has no idea.  She says, “I always thought I wasn’t supposed to like Mary.”  And, “Molly did too.”  And then I am angry.  Enraged at what feels so unfair. — I tried so hard to be a “good” step-mom.

And I wasn’t.  Good at it – being a step- an other.  I was petty. And fearful. And controlling.  Today, I know how lucky we are, that my step-daughter, Molly, loves me anyway.

But there is nothing step- about her.  She is all mine.  My child.  And yet she is Mary’s child too.

Now Molly is an adult, and these scary and awkward moments that used to invade life with such regularity rarely come up.

Loyalties and love — who’s supposed to love whom — I just try not to think about it.  But, there it was.  The words spoken.  What I knew.  I just knew my mother-in-law still loved Mary.  And misses her.

And why does that hurt so badly? Should it? No.

I felt the air sucked out of my lungs. My heart ached, physically.  I was once again afraid of what it all means.  I know that I am so poor at loving others.  I don’t know what they need.  I fear rejection and fear others’ apathy toward me.  And so, I become apathetic.  I pretend there are no feelings.

I don’t call my husband’s parents.  I don’t initiate in any way.

I don’t even know how to love my own mother and sisters, and mostly do that all wrong; much less know how to love my husband’s parents, since after all I am their second daughter-in-law.  I know they still love her.

I don’t know how to love them, except perhaps to love him.  And love their grandchildren.  Even that — I fear — I know, I don’t do very well.

I am broken.  And yet, still — I — know — I am loved.  Religious people questioned why Jesus would hang out with the people that he did and he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Jesus, I need you.  I am sick.  Help me to love everyone in my life, just as you love me.

Even When She Speaks

Sometimes people listen to me.  And I think,

I have a responsibility to talk about what it is like to be a woman in the Church.

Sometimes people listen, so hear me,

this is what I don’t understand — Why are women oppressed?

And why do (some) men not understand?

Why do (some) men treat women the way they do?
It’s not like I want to live my life angry.

It’s not like I want to live my life on the defensive.

It’s not like I want to be oppressed.
(Some) men will always question “oppressed.”

They will ask:

How are you exploited?

How are you possibly offended when you can be our helper?
Here’s my problem.  I know what ezer means.

Jesus was a liberator.

Women traveled with him,

supported his ministry,

anointed him for burial,

stayed with him at the crucifixion, and

saw his resurrection because they were waiting, believing.

Jesus loved women and wasn’t afraid of us.

He healed us.
He talked to us.
He listened to us.

In the early Church women were teachers, donors, apostles, ministers, laborers.

Why is the Church today so unlike what I think Jesus meant it to be?

I read the Bible and I see

Jesus gave women freedom.  Why do (some) men read it

and see separation? Partitions.

Why do (some) men only see all of our differences?

I am simply a person in love with Jesus.

I look at the Church today—so many men reading and teaching the bible from a masculine perceptive. 

I see the Church today, its teachers and preachers—its magazines—its writers—its leaders —its conference speakers.

Man oh man, it is so full of men.

It is so full of entrenched hierarchy and deep biases

that the Church perhaps thinks is subtle, if they even think about it at all. 

But I see and hear the lack—of a female voice.

And even when She speaks, is she heard?

He said:

“There is no longer male or female.”

And I say, except—

in the Church.

Sometimes people listen.

Are you listening?

P.S. Donald Miller: Women are so much more than simple sexual beings waiting for you to write our story. And you may have erased the “Love Story for Girls” but women have longer memories. You should take more care with your words.

One Perspective. 

Generosity? It’s complicated.

The other night I couldn’t sleep.

This is rare for me as I am a good sleeper.  I go to bed directly after I kiss my children good night.  I want to read.  I drift off many nights before ten o’clock.  But Saturday night I kept waking up feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Additionally I felt anxious about something that I could not name.  This happens to me sometimes.  My asthma acts up from years of smoking.  It was never the less keeping me awake.

As noxious thoughts began to swell and demand attention, circling like buzzards above me, I finally threw back the covers in frustration.  I got up.

I don’t do the middle of the night very well.

Sleepers generally don’t I think as we are not used to how different it is being awake in the middle of the night.  I was aware of all the fears I managed to push away which tend to take over during the nocturnal hours.

Gone is rationality.  Gone is perspective and patience.

And so, I found myself awake, breathing with difficulty at three in the morning and I finally decided to get up.

Creeping down the stairs and into the kitchen, I was going to use my inhaler and then write.  I find writing is the best way for me to sort out what is bothering me.

There were people in my living room!

I was shocked, though it is not as if it was totally unlikely.  Molly is often coming in from work or being out and it is usually in the hours long past midnight.  But she was sitting there idly chatting with our two guests at three in the morning.  They looked at me like I was crazy (for being up) and I looked at them the same way.  I quickly high tailed it out of there!  As I scuttled back to bed, pissed off and feeling as if I had done something wrong, I recalled the two young people who had slept in our basement off and on for the last week or so.

When we returned from Seattle, we found out that friends of Molly were “homeless” and living in their car.  They had stayed a few nights in our basement while we were away, but had cleared out when we returned.  So I invited them back again.

For months, years, I have tried to resolve where to step in to the tragedy of the homeless here in Madison.

I want to do something.  I want to be intelligent and compassionate about it.  We all do the various things like offer a ride or or give money to the person with a sign outside the mall. Bring a bag of food when our church asks.   But those are band aids (and some would say giving money to transients is wrong.  In Madison it is considered breaking the law).

But I want to help real people advance in their life situation.

And so, it was easy to take these two people in and allow them to sleep on our futon in the basement and eat a few meals. When I pursued their situation further, it turns out they are “intentionally without a home, off the grid, dependent on no-one.” Okay, I think.  Why not? We had no idea what their short and long-term plans were.  One more night quickly turned into a week, more…

We have so much.

As the week progressed, it became less convenient to have them in the basement where Tom’s studio is and where we have and do our laundry.  Dare I say inconvenient?  And we soon learned that our guests slept until two in the afternoon and stayed up all night, as I discovered when I wanted to use my computer in the middle of the night.

One day, as Tom and I cleaned toilets, washed dishes and laundry, they woke up late and laid about on the back porch. What had begun as an easy kindness had quickly become something else.  Something you hate to think, much less say out loud to one another in whispered annoyance.

I caught myself thinking “they’re just freeloaders.”  To be sure, by the end of the week, if they had not made their intentions clear to us we were going to ask, to clarify how long they would need our help.

I woke this morning to a note.  They are moving on — going to live with his parents for a while in Cleveland, work and pay off debt.  And though they were polite, and picked up after themselves, and were extremely appreciative, I was kind of relieved to see them go.

Generosity is quickly complicated when it involves real people.

And all too quickly I saw how small my heart is.  I felt willing to be generous as long as it didn’t infringe too much on my comforts and needs, my daily schedule or priorities.  I have to keep asking what’s next for us?  I let them stay with us because I wanted to “do something” for the homelessness.  They were just two people, fairly affluent with a car, cell phones, a laptop and other luxuries but they have no home.   I was surprised to learn that only 18% of the homeless are chronically homeless.  Perhaps more people on the street are like them?  I don’t know.

Generosity — yes it’s complicated.

Understanding homelessness requires a grasp of several social issues: poverty, affordable housing, disabilities, and others.

Having these kids living in our basement brought up all sorts of complicated feelings and thoughts.  Why aren’t they working?  And yet how can I not share the warmth and shelter that we are blessed with?

In a letter to our mayor Paul Soglin’s assistant, Brenda Konkel recently wrote:

Over the years a great many who live homeless in Madison have found daily shelter in either the basement of the State Capitol, or the Public Library on W. MIfflin St. As it currently stands soon neither will be available. Word from the State is that there are no plans to reopen the basement of the State Capitol to the public, and the downtown Public Library at its current location on Mifflin will close in October for approximately two years. The library’s temporary location will offer very limit seating and space.

The consequence of these two factors is to cast out many of our neighbors to the dangers and sufferings of winter.

This will be a grave time in Madison especially downtown if the people of our city do not take note.    What is being done?  What needs to be done?

Luke 3:11. And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise.”

• If you’d like to know the number of homeless in your community, use this interactive map by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
• I just finished reading an article about the needs of single women in Madison for shelter.  These issues are growing.  The need is here and now.
• A homeless shelter directory can be found at www.homelessshelterdirectory.org.
• And if you’re a wonk like me, the NAEH has a fifty page report on the State of Homelessness in America.

It’s a heavy thing all this knowledge–the question is what do we do with our knowledge and our power?  Do we have open generous hearts.  Are we willing to have our lives disrupted and changed by others who are less fortunate than we?

Selah. Yes, stop and listen.  No answers today, just hard questions.

Melody

PS I did not take a photo of our guests.  This photograph was taken downtown Madison of a homeless woman.

Life is Work, Hard Work (but there is a ray of hope)

To want–to strive–to long for more is to be human. Isn’t it?

We are all on that journey of life, which for some comes so easily and for others, I include myself here, is work, hard work.

Jesus says in John 8:32 ”the truth will set you free” and that I believe.  It is what makes me a believer.  The truth will free me from my constant desiring, striving and longing for more out of life.

But in the meantime it also can make you quite miserable don’t you think?

As Richard Rohr says, ”Medieval spiritual writers called it “compunction,” the necessary sadness and humiliation that comes from seeing one’s own failures and weaknesses … Without confidence in a Greater Love, none of us will have the courage to go inside, nor should we. It merely becomes silly scrupulosity and not any mature development of conscience or social awareness.”

 

Desiring. Striving. Longing. It can become a burden.  And a weight.  And before you know it you are running from the truth, any truth.

What does that have to do with my nearly ten-year wrestling with major depression?  That experience made me into a different person.  I stopped running.  I began to face the past, the present and the future and admitted how scared I was.  I began working on my life. And it was hard work.

But I have become a different person.

I am more content and able to just be than at any other time in my life.  I once was filled with the pain of needing to prove myself, heavy with the belief that I had to be significant and do incredible things with my life in order to be loved.  I thought I was unlovable.   Instead, I am different and happy for the first time in … as long as I can remember.

• I found my way back to Belief.  I know I am Beloved.
• I am a more empathetic, genuinely loving and generous person with my time, resources and life experiences.
• I am able to face my addictions:  alcohol (three years in July), cigarettes, shopping, work, to name just a few.
• I have forgiven and I have been forgiven.
• I have learned that in telling my story others are somehow compelled to grow.  It is almost as if knowing what I have been through opens up a place in others to believe that it is possible to be healed.

I took some time this summer to write briefly about my experience and it will be published in a book titled Not Alone – It has stories of living with depression.  The book is available for pre-order.   I hope it helps and encourages others who may suffer with this confusing and difficult illness of depression.

From the book:

Depression is a very real experience for many people. The causes can be varied. Abuse. Chemical imbalances. Divorce. Rejection. There is no one reason that a person might suffer depression. However, one common theme is that it can leave the person feeling isolated and alone. Because of the stigma that is often associated with depression, people often remain silent about it, never knowing that the person next to them is going through the same thing or has experienced it in the past. Instead, they hide away, believing that no one understands, believing that no one cares.

In this book, the authors break the silence, boldly sharing their stories of depression.  Whether sharing how they first discovered that what they were feeling was depression, telling how they sought help for their depression or giving words of hope that depression can be managed, the authors all tackle the lie that you must suffer in solitude. With courage and honesty, these stories give a glimpse into the depressed existence. While you will not find a cure for depression in these pages, you will find a sense of community. You will find words of hope. You will find that you are Not Alone.

And here are links (chronologically and a list) to other things I have written here about my experience with depression.

Do You Trust God? (A response to Blackhawk’s sermon “Stop”)

BE REAL.

One of the ways I’m going to do that – be real — is to write a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church, just my reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

I’m privileged I know.  I don’t have to work.  And through that I have learned I am more than my job.  I am more than what I do.

I’m “unemployed” and have been for ten years, since I left a busy career with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  I quit my job the year of the tragedies of 9/11. But I had worked through three pregnancies.  I had been “successful.”  Why did I quit?  Why did I stop?  I can tell you that today I would have considered that decision more carefully — found a way to scale back responsibilities rather that cut all ties.  But one cannot live in “what might have been.”

In 1991, I had a few months old baby, a two-year old and a three-year old, and a pre-teen and worked in full-time ministry.  I don’t think I would have admitted it then, but I was utterly overwhelmed by my life.   I was tired, burned out, bored with my job, and looking for change.

So I quit.  I thought it would be simple to stay at home with the kids.  What I found was that I was uncomfortable in my skin.  And not emotionally or spiritually healthy.  Produce and get things done was how I operated.  I was competitive by nature.  I was busy by choice.  I was productive, one of the 20% that does 80% of the work in a church or non-profit.

Here’s something I wrote about myself, looking back at that time:

It struck me, how sad it is when one spends their whole life striving, working, driven by the next “important” thing.  Having worked in a not-for-profit ministry for thirteen years and having grown up in Dan Harrison – the missionary leader’s home — I know about striving!!!    I used to work like that.  I used to get such a rush from doing — it defined me.  It drove me.   I would wake in the morning frantic that I was somehow already behind and go to bed at night anxious over what I had forgotten or worse NOT gotten done.  

That sad picture was me!  The world was about getting it done for me. I was my job. It is no exaggeration when I say I got my identity from what I was able to acocmplish.I was always thinking, working, doing.  It was my legacy from my father which he held on to even as he was dying — that he hadn’t finished all he could do!  He wasn’t even able to stop when he got brain tumors.

Stop and Be Filled

But this sermon was not about work being bad, but being able to stop and be filled. It was about trusting God. It was about being mature enough to sit with God, quiet in his presence with an open heart, for periods of your day.

My pastor confessed that he’s constantly on the go and like I once did, he sounds like he also measures his self-worth by his productivity. My pastor is a workaholic, I think, though he manages it.  He seems to have boundaries, he exercises, and he maintains ongoing relationships, and the staff at church seem healthy too and so though I don’t know him personally but I respect his public life anyway.

He is learning after all these years that God says stop in Psalms 46 and the context isn’t one of peace and tranquility, it is chaos.  More like how I used to live my life, than my life now.   The psalmist describes the world gone crazy and things upside-down, where you can’t count on anything — In that moment just – stop.

God is an ever present help in trouble.  I will not fear… This is poetry that shows God offers us refuge —  a “basement in a tornado warning” kind of security.

The Hebrew:  Refuge — Machceh {makh-seh’}; from chacah; a shelter (literally or figuratively) — hope, (place of) refuge, shelter, trust.

“I am your refuge.”   In this poetry, you can understand God is our Safe Place.

Relax! Cease. Stop! Be still!

When the world says go, when things are falling apart, when something reflexive and internal says fix it, do it — God says, when it is most chaotic, raphah!  Be Still!   

“Anyone can stop and not do something but guilt overcomes!” said Chris and went on to talk about how guilty he feels for not “doing.”   How difficult his sabbatical was because he was unlearning a lifelong habit of being a doer.

“Stopping is the same as trusting, which is easy when life is peaceful.  It is more difficult and a sign of our maturity when life is falling apart.”

How is this done practically speaking?  How does one find time to stop and trust who God is for a few minutes in our day.

1. Put yourself in a different location like doing for a walk.
2. Be quiet. Turn off the noise. i.e. i-everything.  Find the off button.
3. Get up early or stay up late.

The world says go.  God says stop.  Relax. Get alone.  Become helpless.  Cease.  Let it go. Loosen your hold.  Wait.  

And this means you have to trust Him.

I Am More (a poem response to Blackhawk’s Sermon “Who Is Your God?”)

I Am More

By Melody Harrison Hanson

The future disturbs,
chases at my sanity and sensibilities.
I am scared of each intake of breath, every thought
and this moment. I am stuck.

The only thing that makes sense is Jesus.
I lean in to Him.  I cry, ready for anything.
If only I could cry actual tears. 
That too soon reminds me I am only partly healed.
I feel barely human.
What kind of person cannot cry?
The weight on my chest is unimaginably heavy. 
Hope is cloying and oppressive.

I am scared of the future, looming dark and cold.
I am afraid of these days I am living now.
I want to believe that eventually this life of mine will have a purpose beyond this day.

I am more than the money I don’t earn.
I am more than the things I do.
I am more than what I give.
I am more than what I take.
I am more than the words I write, slipping them into the cosmos with trepidation.
I am more than merely a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a friend.

Why doesn’t being beloved feel better than this?
In the end I am stuck with myself, I am barely human.

I want it all to mean so much more.  I want
the children I meet to change me.
I want the people I love to make me feel alive.
I want each action I take to mean something.
And yet it is all utterly meaningless unless
Yahweh is everything.

———————————————————————————

This poem is about the greatest of idols self-identity – allowing our meaning and purpose to come from anything but Yahweh.  The sermon at Blackhawk this week kicked off a series titled American Idols.  The premise is that anything in your life, even a good thing, that becomes more important than God is an idol.  In an age of psychology and self-healing, through medicines and talk therapy, self-worth can all too quickly become an idol.

For me, the journey of finding my way back to faith and belief was so huge in my development of a healthy identity.  Still, many days, as I search, as I long for, need, wander, hope and fear — the process becomes an idol.  The process becomes this thing that distracts me from who God is, what it means to be his beloved child, and the few things that he calls me to each day.

Here is what I wrote last week in response to the sermon Stop.  It is a part of a series I am writing called: Be Real.  

One of the ways I’m going to do that– be real — is by writing a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church, just my reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

Just Make the Salsa: Living without Fear

A response to a Blackhawk’s Sermon.  A part of my Be Real Series.

Do one thing every day that scares you!  – Eleanor Roosevelt

f.e.a.r.

The strangest things scare me. I was not afraid to become a mother. But almost every day I am afraid of being a mother who messes up her kids beyond repair.  I am not afraid of travelling the world and yet I am afraid to talk to my Indian neighbor and invite her for tea.  I am afraid to learn Russian or to play the piano again, but I do not fear writing this blog (mostly).  I know that I take beautiful unique photographs, but I am afraid of people paying me for my images.  Every shoot I do, I wrestle with the little demon on my shoulder that says that I should turn them down.  I have allowed my fear to make me stop taking pictures.

I allow my fear keep me from lovin’ on other people, many times, because I need others’ validation to tell me I’m okay. Oh how I hate it!  That is why it hit me so profoundly recently that I was squandering my skills as a photographer mainly because I was afraid. My struggle with low self-esteem and too easily needing the word of validation from others keeps me from living my life.  What is this about?

This is about not getting my identity from Christ.

So for me a sermon on the idol of image — this was profound.  I want other people to validate me and not just that, but the people who I decide are important.

When you continuously seek this validation from others you can never stop.  It is never enough.  I believe that was one of the things my father was plagued by and perhaps what fueled his anger — the constant need to do more because he wasn’t good enough. Thankfully the “do more” piece has been worked out of my life through my depression experience when I quit work to be at-home, but the “I’m Not Okay” hole is huge and intense.  And kind of embarrassing to admit.

Of all the crazy, mixed up ideas!  If I actually found my full identity in Jesus there would be nothing to prove!

That would be a life without f.e.a.r.

I have a friend that makes amazing salsa with fresh ingredients chopped just right, in a way that people love.  And they buy jars and jars of her salsa.  So she keeps making it.  I don’t think she would say she’s an entrepreneur.  She’s a very humble person.  She just saw an opportunity in front of her and went for it.  She didn’t have fear holding her back.  I would have had a thousand “what ifs” keeping me from doing it.  I know, because I’ve had a similar idea to sell Mel’s Soups and Pies out of my home kitchen, but I am too afraid of failing.

Just Make the Salsa!

I want to be willing to just “make the salsa!”  Life doesn’t have to be a place where we fear failure all the time, where we worry about what others will think of our actions, where we are constantly protecting the “image” of what others perceive of us.

This fractured, broken life is not the way that God intended it be.  If I can learn to be a reflection of Jesus in my life, then I can lose my f.e.a.r.

Oh God, please help me to receive my validation from you.  Help me to know that your approval is all I really need.  I am your child.  I am loved dearly — beloved.  The rest of it, success or affirmation of others, acclamation is just extra. Help me to rest in you, the source of everything I am, or ever will be.

⁹ _t Do not lie to one another, seeing that _u you have put off _vthe old self ₄ with its practices ¹⁰ and _w have put on _x the new self, _y which is being renewed in knowledge _z after the image of _a its creator. ¹¹ _b Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, ₅ free; but Christ is _c all, and in all.

¹² _d Put on then, as _f compassionate hearts, _g kindness, _h humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³ _h bearing with one another and, _i if one has a complaint against another, _g forgiving each other; _g as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴ And above all these put on _j love, which _k binds everything together in _l perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let _m the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called _n in one body. And _o be thankful. ¹⁶ Let _p the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, _q singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, _r with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ And _s whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, _t giving thanks to God the Father through him. —  Colossians 3:9-14

Imagine living without f.e.a.r.

I was in Love…with Vodka, Wine and Gin

Image by isante_magazine via Flickr

On the eve of my birth week, I want to take a moment to remember where I have come from, now that I am three plus years sober.   

While purging and organizing books this week I came across a little orange index card that I wrote to myself while I was working hard at accepting my need for sobriety.  I thought I had lost the card and that would have been tragic because the thoughts written on it are very important to me.

About five years ago, I spent more than a year — at two different stages — seeing counselors specifically about my drinking.  At that time, I wrote what I thought of my life without alcohol so far.  I said:

I value my recovery because …..

• I have an improved mood.
• I feel strong.
• I am more present and self-aware.
• I am more willing to face my feelings.
• I am more hopeful about the future.
• I am more in control of my world, actions, responses to life.
• My relationships are more honest.
• I am a good role model for my kids.
• I am a cultural enigma.
• I am more relaxed socially (less No worry about embarrassing myself.)
• I have a higher quality of mental engagement.

All this is true.  And more.  Today when I look back another thing I am so grateful for is that my life partner, family and close friends never judged me. At least I never felt judged. Especially Tom could have. Boy, oh boy, I made some bad choices.  Tom lived with my addiction for many, many years, continuing to love and support me.  At my worst, he wiped up my vomit and put me to bed.  He pulled me out of parties before I could do something stupid.  All those years he was simply loving.  I never felt that I was a bad person because of my dependency to alcohol.  Not from him, but I did judge myself!

In my head, I was constantly accusing myself.

I cannot count, because it happened so many times, the number of Sundays I spent sitting in church nursing the world’s worst hangover, full of shame and self-loathing.   I am not sure which felt worse, the physical symptoms of being hung over or the emotional beating I gave myself.  I just knew I was living the life of a hypocrite.  I didn’t have the courage to give up on churchgoing all together, but I was miserable being there.

For a long time my drinking made family life feel disjointed and a mess, because it was!

I started in on the wine too early in the evening, so I was too “tired” to do anything else in the evenings, except veg in front of the television.  When it was time to put the kids to bed, I was too tired to read to them, something I had always loved.  That memory makes me deeply sad still, but I will forgive myself some day.  Some things are harder to forgive yourself for like driving drunk with my children in the car, even if it was just a few neighborhood streets.  I did that.  I am utterly horrified to think of it now but it happened.  Why do I admit that today?  Why do I force myself to recall the shameful choices I made?

Because I do have fleeting thoughts that perhaps I could drink again.  And those are lies, but it is all too easy to forget.

Back to Tom, he was unhappy with our choices and (very) willingly quit drinking many times with me, for me.  He encouraged me to quit many times and we did quit a few times.  But it was such a part of our lifestyle that we soon were drinking again.

It grew more difficult as the years went by for me to even consider quitting, as I was afraid that I couldn’t live without it.  And, suffering as I was from major depression all those years, I was self-medicating with the very drug that furthered my depression.  (Alcohol is a depressant but I either didn’t know it or didn’t want to know.)

The first time I went to counselling for my alcohol addiction it was an intellectual exercise.

My mother was in a recovery program and addiction is all over my family tree.  I was drinking too much, but I was not yet the sloppy, falling down drunk that I became.  I was “abusing” alcohol.  I was addicted.  But I had convinced myself that I was managing.  I learned a lot from those counselling sessions, most important of which was that I should quit for lots of reasons.

In order to have that type of counselling you must agree to not be drinking as you go through it.  And I did that, but I was just a dry drunk.  All of my behaviors were still of an addict who wasn’t using.  I didn’t yet believe the things I wrote on that index card.  I had not lived long enough as a sober person.

I asked my counselor at my last session, after five months of sobriety,  “What if I just drink socially?  Don’t keep it in the house.  Don’t drink every day.  Just have a drink from time to time (like normal people)?  Maybe I won’t have to quit completely.”  I was desperate to not have to quit.

At that point I could not imagine being happy without alcohol in my life. 

“Then I’ll see you back here in about three years.”  And I literally thought “At least I’ll enjoy the next three years.”   That is how far I was into the lie.  Well, I’ve said it before, but it didn’t even take three years.

About a year and a half later I was back and that time I was serious about quitting.  I knew that alcohol had control of me and my life.  I had no power to fight it.  I thought about alcohol all the time.  I was so in love with wine — and vodka — and gin!  I had spent that summer drinking heavily every day and spent most evenings drunk.  I just did it in such a way that I thought I was hiding it from others.

But enough about that.  (Perhaps the rest will go in the memoir.)  Today, I am so grateful for my sobriety.   It isn’t that complicated to figure out if alcohol has power over you.  How much do you think about alcohol? How often do you choose not to drink, because you wonder if you have a problem?  Do you drink every day?  Do you squirm answering those questions honestly?   Although it is certainly not true that every person who drinks too much from time to time is an alcoholic, rather what I think about is, what is the main focus of your life?  Can you live without alcohol?  If you’re not sure , … I would seriously consider talking to someone.

Those are the questions that haunted me and it wasn’t until I quit that I realized without any doubt that I was out of control.

Melody

P.S. Other things I have written about my life  drunk and addicted.

I Sold My Soul to Work: A response to Blackhawk’s sermon “Success”

One of the strongest messages I received from my father was don’t be a slacker. Fairly regularly he communicated to me that he was fearful that I just might be one.  It was subtle, but I got the message that I needed to work harder. He was always pushing.

He was very driven.  I thought being driven was a positive quality growing up.  And Dad’s motives were good I believe.  Dad and Mom were doing the Lord’s work and how could we not give the Lord 120%?  I suppose that is why I was so afraid to quit my job to stay home with my children.  I was afraid that deep down I was the slacker he saw in me.  What would happen to me if I didn’t have fear of failure, or good-natured competition, or general-freaking-out-all-the-time-to-get-things-done pushing me? For those were the things motivating me at the time.

As I sought God’s direction for my life in the decision to stay or leave InterVarsity, I had no idea how much I needed to learn.  And that began a decade long journey.  Ironically, this simple message was taught on Sunday at church about the idol of Success.  I sat there wishing that I had heard the sermon fifteen years ago, perhaps it would have saved me a lot of grief.  But truthfully I likely would not have “heard” it.  I needed to go through what I did, to learn a difficult lesson.  I hope the younger people listening yesterday can learn this earth shattering lesson without living it out painfully like I did.

I grew up believing that I WAS what I accomplished.  My worth was in what I could DO.   I don’t think my parents knew they were teaching me that, but I got the message that the harder you worked, the better you could and should feel about your contribution.  The more degrees you got, the better you could feel about your brilliance.  The more areas of responsibility you were given, obviously, the more of a Star you were and the more respect and affirmation I received from Dad.  I sat at the master’s feet, my father, who was a doer.  He was an extremely talented, hard-working person that motivated others to do great things.   He was always coming up with new ideas.  He was generally a big shot in the mission world, quite important and well-respected.   I learned my ideas about work from him.

I went to work for my father soon out of college mostly because I wanted him to like me.  When he gave me my first promotion I heard angels singing and the sun came out a little brighter.  I had finally arrived in his good graces.  And then I quickly became scared to death, because even though I knew what was expected of me – DO NOT FAIL – I didn’t believe I was capable, or talented, or smart enough.

That began my decade of perfecting the life of a workaholic.  I would not fail, because I worked longer and harder than everyone around me.  (This is what I thought at the time anyway.  There were many workaholics at my side as well as balanced people who worked smarter than I did.)

I sold my soul to the god of success.  The truth was more painful.  My identity was completely wrapped up in what I did and accomplished.  Tim Mackie said on Sunday, “Our culture worships at the altar of success and achievement.”  And how!  He also said, “A counterfeit god is anything that is so central to your life that should you lose it your life would not be worth living.”

That was my job.   I completely lost my way.  I lost my faith, kneeling at the idols of work, perfectionism, achievement and power.  I was ironically doing many good things for all wrong reasons.  Every day at work I attempted to prove to everyone, but especially my dad, but also the doubters and haters who (quite rightly) worried about Dad hiring two of his children for major roles in the Urbana convention.   Every day I thought I had to prove that I was good enough and deserved to have my job.  Deeply insecure, I didn’t know my value as a child of Yahweh. I finally burned out and then I quit—mostly out of a need to get away from all that, from the person that I had become, who I didn’t like at all—to be at home with my children.  I had three under the age of four and a pre-teen step daughter.

Right about now you are thinking, those poor kids.  Yeah, in some ways it is true that you could feel sorry for them but the lessons God taught me have made me who I am today and I wouldn’t trade them even knowing my children had to live with me through several struggles with major depression and my alcoholism.

This breakdown of Ecclesiastes 4 was so beautiful in its simplicity.

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from one person’s envy of another. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.  Fools fold their hands and consume their own flesh.  Better is a handful of quietness than two handfuls of toil and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:5-6)

The same word hand in English means three different things in Hebrew. (And people wonder why we don’t trust the translators?)  Hand is used three times here to mean three different things.

• “Folding your hand (yad)” in Hebrew is forearm, visualize folding your arms on your chest.  That is the slacker or lazy person I spoke of. The person taking it easy dishonors themselves and God, and is a fool.  It is good to use your time and talents to honor the Lord.
•  “A handful (kaph)” is a word that helps you visualizes an open hand, palm up.
• “Rather than two handfuls (khophen).”  This  is grabbing a fistful of something.

When I worked, I was grabbing for everything—the next project, the next department.  I was constantly dwelling on what I didn’t have and could not appreciate the honor and responsibility of what was before me.  I couldn’t enjoy my own successes.  I trampled on people in my department blindly so that I could grab at more responsibility and power.  I was never satisfied with my own work.  I was never content with my accomplishments.  I look back now, ashamed.  I was too young and more importantly without the spiritual maturity to know what I was doing.  Being raised to believe that I was what I accomplished, well, I was doomed — destined to fail.

The open hands of tranquility!  Even now, there are still areas where I push myself out of insecurity and fear and out of a desire to “be somebody.”  And a big one for me is being a feminist.  Let me explain.  I fret continuously about the lack of power and influence that women have – not only in the Church, but that is a large part of what I think about.  The role of women and being a feminist has been  at times an idol in my life in that I have made it the ultimate thing.  I am afraid of personally giving up whatever bit of power or influence i have as a women and think about this for all women in the Church.  I am afraid of women being perceived as lightweights, that men (who already have power) might think we take up needless space in the universe and really only have one significant purpose.  I know!  I have been totally two-fisted toward God about this, distrusting the leadership of the church as well as individuals I interact with on this subject. 

I come to my role as a feminist woman in the evangelical church often suspicious, fearful and distrusting.  I have not been tranquil or at peace about this for a long time.  And here’s an earth shattering realization for me.  I feel like I am letting “womankind” down by being a stay-at-home mom.  As if somehow I should have a career that shows that women can make money, contribute ideas, and make a significant difference in the world just as well as men, and I should be doing that for womankind.  I know how silly and pathetic that sounds.  I care so much more about my own reputation as a woman and I deeply care what others think of me still.  I worry that I am not doing enough or not proving my worth with my choice to be at home.

This remains unresolved in my and all I can do today is admit it, confess it and pray that I can do this work that God has put before me from a place of trust that my life is a gift from God. I must trust that He gave me my mind and heart; he gave me the things that make my heart ache or my soul sing.  All these are from Yahweh!   Pray for the peace found in doing the things He put before me – in raising my children which is profoundly challenging, daunting, and an incredible honor.   I want to approach motherhood openhandedly while bringing my screwed up, sinful, dysfunctional ideas about my value to the Cross every day.  I want to breathe in the peace of knowing I am beloved and that I am forgiven for those years of fretting and striving for significance and meaning in things that would never satisfy.  I am forgiven for the years of trying to earn my earthly father’s and Yahweh’s love.   My task is to wake up every day remembering that I have nothing to prove — not to my father, not to myself, not to men or women, not to anyone.

Melody

———

Here is a poem I wrote in response to last week’s sermon, about the greatest of idols self-identity – allowing our meaning and purpose to come from anything but Yahweh.   The sermon  kicked off a series titled American Idols.  The premise is that anything in your life, even a good thing, that becomes more important than God is an idol.  In an age of psychology and self-healing, through medicines and talk therapy, self-worth can all too quickly become an idol.  For me, the journey of finding my way back to faith and belief was so huge in my development of a healthy identity.  Still, many days, as I search, as I long for, need, wander, hope and fear — the process becomes an idol.  The process becomes this thing that distracts me from who God is, what it means to be his beloved child, and the few things that he calls me to each day.

Here is what I wrote the week before in response to the sermon Stop.

These are a series I am writing called: Be Real.  One of the ways I’m going to do that– be real — is by writing a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church, just my reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

————————

I searched hard for an image from Urbana 96 or Urbana 2000 because those are the events that I did the promotion for, but the website seems to be stripped of the historic images. The image above was taken after I left.  I suppose I should say for the record that I by no means failed at filling the Urbana conventions that I worked on.  They were both more than full, bursting.  If that is what you are measuring as success.

I Regret Not Being Happy (A poem)

I regret not being happy. Or happier if that makes you feel
better. As if I could do anything to change myself.
I doubt that it is in my power at all
to change me. Particularly when I feel this heavy.  Smothered by a lingering gloom.
And I know that disaster sits around the corner waiting. No, I do not choose
my moods. I don’t believe one can
choose to simply be something else. If I did, I would not last long
sitting with this regret.

September 21, 2011

Sleeping poorly and feeling increasingly unsettled the last few days.  I’m not sure what’s going on or what this poem even means, but this was the result of trying to write about it. MH

Someday In September, I Won’t be so Glum

Someday in September I won’t be so glum.  It hits me around this time every year as everything in the garden is dying.

I look out my kitchen window at the wilted and black stems and the herbs that need cutting before the first frost.  I have cucumbers and tomatoes still, but I can feel the death in the garden.  Yes, it is the same feeling I get around this time every year. Have I mowed the grass for the last time? All I can think of is winter looming.

I cannot enjoy the sunny, blustery September days because I am thinking of the cold that is coming.  And I am wondering when the leaves start falling? Thinking that if it is warm this weekend I should clean up the yard for winter.  I will be glad that I did, come spring.

And every year around this time, I think this is the year that I will plant bulbs.  Some years I have even gone so far as to buy Tulips and Daffodils bulbs then I procrastinate, setting them in the garage for “a while.”  Blubs in Wisconsin have to get in the ground before the ground gets frozen hard, so I have months to ponder it, and the truth known already.

I won’t do it.

I think it is mostly because I haven’t the faith to believe that Spring will come.

But it does.

Oh that I had the faith required today to plant.  To wait.  To believe in spring.

Therefore the Lord waits

to be gracious to you, and therefore

he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

blessed are all those

who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18

This is what got me inspired, after having a gloomy wretched day.  I read about hope from Ann Voscamp.  Thank you Ann.

 

 

 

 

The Second Half of my Life, Indeed.

Happy Birthday to me.  

Crossroads
by Joyce Sutphen
The second half of my life will be black to the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, knowing at least two languages and who my friends are. I will dress for the occasion, and my hair shall be whatever color I please. Everyone will go on celebrating the old birthday, counting the years as usual, but I will count myself new from this inception, this imprint of my own desire. The second half of my life will be swift, past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder, asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road. The second half of my life will be wide-eyed, fingers shifting through fine sands, arms loose at my sides, wandering feet. There will be new dreams every night, and the drapes will never be closed. I will toss my string of keys into a deep well and old letters into the grate. The second half of my life will be ice breaking up on the river, rain soaking the fields, a hand held out, a fire, and smoke going upward, always up.

Long and Winding [a poem about aging and perspective]

long and winding

I am glad that life
is a long and winding road.
This gives me space enough
to live and breathe in the Grace of God.
This gives me time.

Time is there, if you want it.
For you to experience change and healing
and then change again.  Growth
and knowledge and then more growth.
Time is there, if you want it.

I feel the fragility of life as it is ever moving forward.
Turning forty-five feels like I’m dying.  I am ever aware
that I am not young, not any more. I can never again be young.
‘We are celebrating my being closer to death,”
I joked with my family. I was struck by the fact that I am half done.

I look into the sad, ancient eyes
of my neighbor. She is turning eighty-five
this year.  She is home bound, pain bound, stricken with the limitations
of her life and yet she must resolve hard within herself, because
she never complains. I need that Holy perspective to remind me
that she is the one that feels like she’s dying, because she is.
Her life is all about limitations and simply what she cannot do.

I am more aware of it today than I ever have been.
I am still alive and, this is for you too my friends,
The road is long and winding for a reason.
And time is there if you want it.

by MELODY HARRISON HANSON, September 27, 2011

Other poetry I have written.

Creativity is an Act of Faith, Like Forgiveness

It’s a simple idea really that life gives us many opportunities to change and we have the choice to continuously grow or remain stuck.  It stuns me when I realize how often and how easily we do choose just that — to be stuck.  We get stuck in bitterness toward another person.  We get stuck in the pain of a transgression or mistake we have made.  I came to the realization recently that I have been stuck creatively for a long time.  And this is connected to lack of forgiveness on my part. It is also connected to putting my achievements artistically and what others think of me ahead of my relationship with Christ.  I took my eyes off Christ and put them on my status and what other people think of me.

Looking Back.

I have long imagined working for an NGO — long before I found my passion for photography.  It started with being a missionary kid and doing that work as my first and only career path. Years ago, I began to see there might be a way to fuse a lifelong passion for service to others with my burgeoning photography skills.  Granted, photographers are a dime a dozen and many are do-gooders that want to serve globally.

I knew my chances were slim to make a living at it, but I was full of passion and enthusiasm in 2008 when I applied and was accepted in a Master’s Photography Class to be held in Cambodia.  When I wrote an email to friends to raise money for the trip I felt honored to be going to Siem Reap to learn.  A close friend that I respected as a photographer wrote back opposed the idea and discouraged me from “wasting my money.”  The details of why he was so sure don’t matter now, but the important thing is that I allowed his comments to become overly significant.  I perceived them to be an assessment of my talent or potential as a photographer and an artist. Too easily I let it crush me and I didn’t end up going to Cambodia.  I talked myself out of it for a variety of reasons and over time that choice and his advice became large and loud in my life.

When I look back I see that this is when I began close down creatively by allowing the idea that I wasn’t “good enough” to wind its way into my marrow and psyche.  I lost confidence in myself and eventually I quit my professional photography pursuits.  More importantly my friend’s untended message eventually became louder in my head than what Jesus thought of me. I was isolated and alone creatively and did not have other voices speaking into my world.

(Although my husband disagrees interjecting here that in his opinion I did have a type of community online.  And lots of other people affirming my work which is true.  I even had someone track me down on Flickr, because of my work.  And that began a creative relationship with Our Lives Magazine which continues today.) But I didn’t know other artists in the community and I felt alone creatively and spiritually.

Let’s be clear. I know that my friend is not responsible for any of the events that transpired after our disagreement.  In retrospect what he said should not have had the power that it did but I lacked creative confidence.  I am only now realizing these things because I am in a healthier place.  I became bitter toward the person and situation. I was unable to enjoy the God-given gift of creativity.  I could not longer enjoy participation with any sort of creative process. And I doubted my artistic talent.  Eventually I quit.  And I was so wrong to do that.

The Healing.

I am working my way through a creative “recovery” of sorts in a book The Artist’s Way.  In it, Julia Cameron says:

“Art is a spiritual transaction.  Artists are visionaries.  We routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance — often visible to us, but invisible to others.

… Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it.”

How true for me.  And I wonder if I had been a part of any kind of artistic community, Christian or otherwise, at the time that I went through this “creative identity crisis” would I have given it up so easily? Why are artists are so isolated and have trouble supporting one another? How do we find community?  

I am not the first to wonder these things.  David Taylor is has thought and written extensively on the subject of supporting artists of faith.  As a pastor at Hope Chapel in Austin, Texas, he oversaw the arts ministry and adult education program. He also edited the book For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts. He has degrees in theology (MCS) and biblical studies (ThM) and is doing doctoral studies at Duke University. He wrote the best thing I have read on the topic A Meditation on the Art of Encouragement.

As I have gone through this experience God has put on my heart the question of how Christian artists help one another in the work of integration growing our faith and our creative pursuits?  If I had a mentor as I was starting out with my photography how would things have gone differently?  To continue with Julia Cameron,

“We must remain ready to ask, open-minded enough to be led, and willing to believe despite our bouts of disbelief.  Creativity is an act of faith and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.”

Artists need one another in order to be encouraged and mature in their craft.  We need to gather and share what we are working on, talk about how we create and discuss any challenges we may be facing as practitioners regardless of our discipline, skill level, or experience.   An artist’s ongoing creativity and belief in themselves are acts of faith that must be set at the foot of the Cross regularly.  Reaching out to other artists for encouragement and to encourage others are acts act of faith and although scary sometimes it is important enough to take the risk, just as forgiving and letting go of bitterness are also important acts of faith. These beautiful actions as believers require faith in the living God, the power of the Holy Spirit and in the death of Jesus on the Cross for us all.

Becoming UnStuck!

If I can only take my eyes off myself and off the views and opinions of others, and put them where they should be at Jesus feet.  And so recently I began to reach out based on the conviction that we artists need one another!  We need to be encouraged in the “faith” of creativity.  And I could do it because I know now that this isn’t about me and whether I’m good or bad at my art.  It is simply, I believe, right!

I thank God that we can grow and change and experience redemption in the form of healing and that through the resurrection we can become unstuck. That in the very act of forgiving we can lose our bitterness.  I thank God for the promises of Romans 6.

I am grateful that time offers us a panoramic view of our life so that we learn and grow by looking backward.

David Taylor seems to understand what it is like.

“If you asked me to tell you the Top Three Most Important Things I Have Observed throughout all my years as a pastor, one would be this: artists need continuous encouragement. This isn’t because they are a particularly weak. All humans need encouragement. But artists need it principally because of the nature of their work. Their work requires them to travel frequently into the realm of their own emotions, and then deeper still into their soul, and this can be demanding, wearying work.

“The two assumptions that inform my work of encouraging artists are that the natural condition of human beings, from Adam and Eve to the present day, is the condition of being afraid. For artists to become all that God intends for them to be, they must pass through many experiences of pain, each experience ushering them to a new level of growth and maturity.”

Amen and amen.  We must be willing to look back and address the things in our past that have made us stuck spiritually, creatively, or emotionally and forgive ourselves.  I’m grateful that this is what I have been able to do.  And I am praying and looking for ways that  I can play a role in encouraging and supporting other artists in the Madison community.

———

This is a part of a series titled BE REAL.  Still, many days, as I search, as I long for, need, wander, hope and fear — the process becomes an idol.  The process becomes this thing that distracts me from who God is, what it means to be his beloved child, and the few things that he calls me to each day.

1. I wrote a poem in response to a sermon about the greatest of idols self-identity. This sermon  kicked off a series titled American Idols.  The premise is that anything in your life, even a good thing, that becomes more important than God is an idol.  In an age of psychology and self-healing, through medicines and talk therapy, self-worth can all too quickly become an idol.  For me, the journey of finding my way back to faith and belief was so huge in my development of a healthy identity.
2. Here is what I wrote the week before in response to the sermon Stop.

These are a series I am writing called: Be Real.  One of the ways I’m going to do that– be real — is by writing a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church they are my personal reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

————————

Who Needs a Heart when a Heart can be Broken?

For one human being to love another;

that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,

the ultimate, the last test and proof,

the work for which all other work is but preparation.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

[I have avoided writing this; dreaded the moment when I force myself to write about the sermon on Sunday about Turning your Family or Friends into an Idol. A part of my Be Real series.]

I have spent the last twenty-three years trying to understand my family and a lifetime of living within relationships that I cannot understand.  It has been long and hard.  Even in my most optimistic moments, yes I do have them, I don’t have much good to say about growing up in my family of origin. I do not idolize family, if anything I have turned recovery from my family’s co-dependence into an idol by spending so much emotional energy on it.  These days, I just want to do and think about something else.  I’m tired of the subject.  It is a stove that guarantees to burn.

My family of origin was dysfunctional.  My family was hard to grow up in.  I got an acid stomach ache every time I walked through the doors of my parent’s home as a young adult, when I was living nearby and coming over for Sunday meals.  My family was (Oh!  You see, there goes my blood pressure rising as I write this.  My heart is beating more quickly.  Anxiety floods into my chest. Cold white panic sits in my belly.)  Just to talk about it still causes me physical pain.

I’ve told this story elsewhere on my blog, so I don’t want to belabor it.  My father was verbally and emotionally abusive.  Home was a place of fear, secrets, and shame.  My family was not all bad – there was love, my mother reminded me recently.  You could call it that.  My father could be tender and loving.  One never knew if he was going to think you were good or bad, pleasing or not, funny and clever or rude and cheeky, insightful and brave or insulting and mean.  It had no logic or rhythm, my father’s anger.  It only had the same result over and over – to me family came to mean fear, anxiety and pulse pounding stress.

My family was nothing you’d want to be a part of and that hurts.  If my father had lived I don’t know what I would have done about his impact on my children.  I am (mostly) grateful that I never had to figure that out, because he was verbally mean and dangerous, and his anger was frightening.  (My stomach lurches again.)  It still frightens me because I am his child — I got his brain and his verbal skills and red hot temper.

I did two decades of psychotherapy to heal.  I spent years in a fog of alcohol and before that as a workaholic.  I was always eager to make my dad happy and he rarely was satisfied with me. This is his legacy.  This is what I have now — and all I can do is stumble to the foot of the cross.  Without Jesus in my life I would be – without Jesus I am a shattered and broken person.  If there is anything good in me, it is Jesus.

So when I hear sermons about how people idolize their family to the point of putting them ahead of Yahweh (which is what any idol is) I feel kind of sick to my stomach.  And my heart feels heavy with sadness that can’t be ignored.  I’m not ignoring it but I’m also trying not to place it too high in importance.

I don’t even feel envy anymore, okay perhaps a little, when I hear my pastor talk about how important his family is to him.  But I’ve lived long enough and had enough hurtful experiences to not even believe in that mysterious thing — familial love — as something special or attainable, at least not for me.

We are not family in any way that our culture says is good.  I don’t believe I can change that.  I’m not sure that I should try.  All I can do is work on my stuff – be responsible for how I treat others – not shutting anyone out when they reach for me.  We are separate, autonomous, and seemingly lost to each other.  I deeply love each member of my family but I know that they have found “family” elsewhere.

Most days it is all I can do to love my husband and kids without smothering, boxing in, shaming, chiding and berating, criticizing, or condemning someone.  You do what you know. I want to know something different, something better.  And Tom has taught me something else, he is beautiful, pure and good.  After almost twenty years of marriage, I can say he will not intentionally hurt me and I believe it.

It is all I can do to try to live in the midst of the reality that I have no faith in the idea family. To me it represents broken hopes and pain.  When people talk about their “precious family” life, I will smile in response and inside I am wondering what the hell they are talking about.

Lest you completely despair for me, I wrotethe following poem last year.  It too is true.

I Never Knew Love

I never knew
that love would be so good.

Our beautiful chaotic life
of music, creativity and ideas. Of
trust, values, and goodness.
Of dreams.

I’ve learned
what it means to give up yourself, yes die
to self. That’s love
to me.

Often the world says
otherwise. But they don’t have
this beautiful chaotic life
we share.

I thought we had to fight,

and disagree
more than not. I imagined
we would be in constant friction.
Because the house that raised me
burned to the ground.

But I learned
the way to live is to give. Then
you get it all back without even realizing you are loved.

My dear, you are, everything.
And from you I have learned
to live.

So how can that be true and all the above as well?  All I can say is that it is and that is the tension of life.  I am learning how be in and make a family.  I am learning about loving, giving, and hoping and perhaps one day I will be able write more about what it means to create your own “precious family.”  Until then, all I can say is, no, I don’t idolize my family.

(Parenting by Free Fall is something I wrote about my fear of parenting based on my experiences.)

Let the Images Speak

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”  – Ansel Adams

All’s Well That Ends Well.

As much as I would like to take it back, I wrote what I did the other day about my family of origin because it was true.  That won’t make it less real.  But, that said, my father is dead and gone and he left us to sort out our lives without him.  That is what I am attempting to do, sort out my life, but I realize that I cannot keep talking about it.  I have to do something to move on.

I love my sisters and Mother dearly.  Whatever happens, I simply want them to know that. And like my dear sister said to me today she is not my father.  I must do something to move on.

It isn’t that easy to move on.  First we must heal.  Then we must figure out how to live!  We must face the fact that we are creating our own legacy.

These conversations about family legacy force this question:  What do I want to leave my precious children with when I am gone?  

Here are a few things I thought of today in no particular order:

• I want my kids to feel like home is a safe place.  This means I will be there when they cry, listen when they talk to me, offer advice or just an ear when they have a problem they don’t understand.  I want to be available for them day-to-day.
• I want my kids to know that they can change anything about their life and they have personal power. That they are in control of their bodies and can eat healthily, exercise and keep in control of their weight.  I must teach this by my example. (Sigh.)
• I want my kids to know they have the intelligence to accomplish anything they set their mind to if they are willing to work hard.
• I want my kids to feel that our home was a welcoming place for others — their friends, our friends, even strangers.  If so then our home should be a place where anyone is welcome, anytime. My kids need so see me listening attentively to my elderly neighbor with love and respect, bringing a meal to a sick friend or neighbor, opening my heart and our home and welcoming others in.  That means keeping the house tidy and if it isn’t “clean enough” then lighten-up.  Relationships are more important.
• I want to pass on our love for music, literature and the arts, so I need to think about creating spaces in our life that cultivates this. This means setting aside time intentionally for bedtime reading (before they or I are falling into bed dead tired). This will mean buying tickets to the symphony and visiting more museums and shows.  Showing them this great love that we have.
• I want to pass on my passion for social, racial and gender justice and live my life in such a way they understand how important it is. I want it to be as natural and right to them as breathing.
• We want to live our lives so that our children know how important it is to treat every person with dignity, kindness and respect.
• I want to regularly and passionately affirm the good in my children — not superficial qualities but those things that are a part of your core person.  
• We want our children to have empathetic hearts so that they see other’s needs and willingly, lovingly meet them.
• I want our children to know that being a follower of Jesus was the central motivation for my life and that knowing and loving Yahweh changed me.  It transformed me and made me the person that I am and it set my life’s priorities.

Whether we set aside time to consider it and be intentional, or not, we are building a legacy for our children every day in how we treat one another and prioritize our time and money.  Even so we have no control over what our children remember about us.  My father would certainly be heartbroken to know what I recall most about him — the yelling more than the hugs, the disappointment I thought he expressed to me over the affirmations that also came.  

What will we be remembered for and what will we leave behind?  I only have a few more years with my children under my roof.   I want to keep thinking about this.  When my children are remembering Tom and me, what will their most powerful memories be? What about you?  How do you hope your children, family and community will remember you? 

Truly Depressed People Scare Me

My neighbor, who is eighty-four, won’t answer me directly when I ask how she’s doing.  ”Tomorrow will be better” is her reply.  It always amazes me that she never complains.  Not even when asked! And in my estimation she’s got some things she could.   She had surgery on her back last year for pain.  It didn’t work.  Now she’s home bound (not allowed to drive any more) and a few days ago, when we talked on the sidewalk, she told me she is suffering from “what you had Melody.”

Depression.  It is huge that she would admit it to me.  At least for me, the telling to others was so difficult! The feelings of shame and failure and personal weakness are overwhelming.

For two days since that conversation, that knowledge has ridden on my back everywhere with me.  It is heavy on my mind and heart when picking up my kids, shopping at the Goodwill for Halloween, chauffeuring children to church and back, walking the dog past her house morning and night, washing the dinner dishes at breakfast. I can’t stop thinking of it. Jeanne told me she’s depressed and I should know what to do.  But I don’t.

Should I bring her flowers? She loves plants.  A happy pumpkin.  A copy of Not Alone and tell her about my essay in there?  What should I do?  Experience does not bring knowledge of what to do.  Everyone is different.  And I’m so upset by the realization that truly depressed people are scary.  

That shouldn’t be – not for me.  I know what she’s feeling (as much as one can.)  I can picture her over there, in her darkened living room, sitting alone, unable to stand at the kitchen sink any longer because of back pain, or cook, or do any chores.  ”The only thing that doesn’t hurt is sitting.” she told me last summer when I asked.

I know I need do something. Give her a call.  And I am afraid.

I think sometimes when we know someone is depressed we get overwhelmed by how to respond.  And so we don’t do anything.

I am here to tell you anything is better than nothing.  All a person really needs is contact with another human being.  How easy it is to forget how very alone one feels.

I will search for my lost ones who strayed away and I will bring them safely home again.  I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak…”  (Ezekiel 34.16 NLT)

I am thoroughly glad to not have had a depressive episode for months and months.  So I can freely say that I am in a good place and I feel so grateful!  I recently had an essay published about my experience with depression called Hope Heals.  It’s published in the book Note Alone: Stories of Living with Depression.   

Whatever the outcome I will give her a call.  I don’t have to fix the situation in fact, of course, I can’t.  I just need to show her that she is not alone.  That someone cares.

Fly Boy (a poem about letting our children grow and go)

 

My baby flew away today with hardly a look back at me.

Motionless, I whispered “I love you.”

He waved and then abruptly he was gone.

I’m not ready! My heart heavy. I am not able

to see him there,

high

up

there

in the clouds

he is spinning golden dreams,

twirling with anticipation and joy,

a steady song on his lips.

And my boy flew straight up and away.

Gone.

Thoughts on the Impotence of Parenting

I’m sitting in the lobby at surgery having an internal hissy fit because I cannot get my wireless to work. Ironically I don’t even need to get online.  I have come prepared with two bags filled with at least four books, a journal and my camera – the bags are heavy with options!  My thoughts alone could keep me busy or at least entertained for hours but instead I’m angry that I cannot get online.  A sad commentary of the state of my mental life.

Note to self: never wait in a healthcare office without headphones.  I forgot how badly this bothered me when my dad was ill and we had endless waits in the hospital as he was treated for his brain cancer.

Hell, I hate the clatter associated with the comings and goings in a doctor’s office.  A moment of total honesty — Humanity’s cacophony gets under my skin.  With the nurse’s numerous interruptions as they are fetching folks in and out, the cable television blaring unceasingly, the elevator’s chimes, and boring conversations on cells phones as people make arrangements for their day.  No, I don’t want to talk to the elderly woman with a novel protruding from her red pleather bag.  So she chats with the stay-at-home mom who has already introduced herself and has already mentioned her four sons and that she is waiting for Kevin, her husband.  I am also annoyed by the two loud women, (it is much too early for loud or conversation) obviously friends, whose smoker’s voices are husky and grating, their tracksuits and year-round tans are simply strange and irritate me.  I have no patience. Stale coffee smells.  Everyone is nervous, chatting with the companion who drove them. Their voices annoy me, made even more so because I cannot resist listening to them and that pisses me off.  The only one that sounds halfway interesting is the gentleman on the phone speaking in Spanish who cannot reach whomever he needs.  He shakes his head in frustration.

This place is depressing.

And all the while my baby girl is in there, knocked out cold, having an invasive procedure on her face.  Sinus and Adenoid surgery and I am thinking about the fact that I never made that call to my friend Mark about natural remedies.  Perhaps if we had done that, changed the phlegm level in her head, she wouldn’t be here today.  I suppose one can always second guess.   I know I will.

It is likely that I am so irritated because I am scared.

This day has been three years coming and here I sit at “the Holy Grail” because we are hoping against all hope that this resolves the consistent sinus infections that have plagued our thirteen year old daughter for years.  I cannot imagine what it is like to live in constant pain.  It makes me work extra hard to be patient with her, to understand that her frequent moods may not simply adolescence.

And I wonder, what is it that makes me withdraw into myself here in the waiting room pissed off that I cannot connect to the internet?

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps I am simply too introspective.

I think — I amagine — that I am in control of my children’s worlds.  And this week I have one under the “needle” and the youngest has traveled to Florida for a trip to Disney with Grandparents.  The truth is I have no control over these circumstances.

Finding a small consolation in the knowledge of my impotence, I begin to read an essay in Not Alone by a young (I’m assuming) woman named Laura Droege.

It is a distressing story and once again I feel anger that a person can suffer for so many years and the very people who should have helped – parents, teachers, doctors, pastors, therapists and friends – all left her alone in her mental illness.  Why?  What is the meaning of this and how is it that we are so unable to understand when someone struggles with an illness such as this.  Something needs to be done to educate the public, I am especially interested in Christ-followers knowing how to help those they love when they come up against someone with the troubles that Laura faced.  Something must be done for people who live for decades with suicidal thoughts, obsessive behaviors, wish for self-harm, depression, and the never-ending feeling that God has abandoned you.

Something must be done.

I wrote my story to help others, but as I was doing that I realized that I could barely say anything in 2000 words.

The challenge to the Church is clear, it is there in the stories of the forty people in Not Alone who shared their experience with depression in that small tomb. The question is how will the church respond?

Can I Prove God Exists? Yes I Can.

I am starting to write for Provoketive, an online magazine, and this article will be published there tomorrow.  I’m really not supposed to post the same thing here therefore, I’ll leave an excerpt but direct you there…for your commenting pleasure. I’ve never really felt a need to prove that God exists.  Before today that is, when my tawny-headed, freckle-faced son looked up at me with his enormous blue eyes and cried If God is real, Mom, why doesn’t he stop all the bad stuff?  Why Mom, why?

Feeling like I’d been slapped hard across my face by the earnestness and veracity of his question, I realized I don’t want to even touch that question.

Honestly I try not to dwell on that now as I sit here with all my advantages – I enjoy my life, drinking my expensive coffee, in my warm house, sitting in my comfortable chair, at my computer that is connected 24/7 to the world.   I try not to think about my fortunate life or those that have so much less.

No I don’t want to touch those questions.  But sometimes that awareness aches inside me and makes my comfortable life not — so – comfortable.  I cannot escape the world when I turn on the radio or television or get online.  It is there that I find out about people being beheaded.  Women who had acid poured on their face.  That going for firewood in some places in the world will get you raped or assaulted.  Or that being born a girl is still something unwanted in many places in the world.   much less and more importantly why God put me here.  Why I am so seemingly blessed?  And others appear less so?

To read the entire post, …

Thankful.

Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday, because of times in the past that were hard, but perhaps this year it can be redeemed.  Since no one is making me perhaps I will talk about gratitude.

“The continuum of words related to gratitude go from greed and jealousy; through taking things for granted and feeling entitled; to appreciation, acceptance, and satisfaction. The practice of gratitude would be an appropriate prescription whichever one of the above describes your attitudes.  The rules of the grammar of gratitude are not as simple as they seem at first glance, however. For example, often instead of rejoicing in what we have, we greedily want something more, better, or different. We can’t be grateful because we are making comparisons and coveting other possibilities.  When this happens on a personal level, when it’s our ego that is dissatisfied, then we are ungrateful. But when we want something more, better, or different for the glory of God or for the benefit of the community, this greed may be a manifestation of our devotion, our love, or our yearning for justice. And then we are grateful for these commitments.”  – Spirituality & Practice.

I read this yesterday:

If God hasn’t changed your circumstances then perhaps he wants to change you.

This has been a long time coming for me. I have asked God to change my circumstances for years.  And seemingly he is either silent or I am not listening well.

I thought I wanted a job that pays money.  I still do want that and a job where I am making a difference in the world, a contribution to my community or to helping others through exposing the injustice with pictures and words.  If I am honest, I also still want position and power for my glory and ego, so perhaps this is why God doesn’t give me back those opportunities just yet.

Instead I am learning to lean in to being a mother, for it is an honorable, risky and challenging job (though the pay is low and the retirement plan stinks!)  In all seriousness, God has given me the four children I have for a reason, they are an extravagant gift. And you never know whose mother you are, who your children will become.

I am learning that I am valuable even though I don’t make money. And learning that my contribution to world just may be through something else — through insight, or creativity, or dare I say a prophetic word (small p definitely) from time to time?  Okay perhaps not.  I don’t know much, but I am learning.  There is so much that I don’t know.  I too quickly go from insecure to proud and satisfied; from cock sure to fearful and hesitant; from mute to long-winded and rambling; from loving my own thoughts to wondering at my idiocy.  But I am learning to be comfortable with my voice and in my skin.

And I am unlearning many things.  Sorting and sifting through what has been taught to me. I am encountering and learning from beautiful people along the way.

Though my house collects dust bunnies – even as my house collects them – I see

all that is growing

in and around me. 

The dust bunnies can wait.

I am being transformed and I am grateful.

October 26th, 2011

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 NRSV

The Female Voice

 

Feminism to me is the crazy belief that women and men are both created in God’s image and that each of us deserves a life of freedom and opportunity inside or outside the Church.

I have thought a lot about the lack of presence and example of women in the Church.  One Sunday at my church in particular, women were simply spectators, the audience, the bystanders, the recipients and beneficiaries … Read more at Provoketive.

Other things I have written on Women in the Church are here:

• Even When She Speaks
• Gender is Everything
• Walk On, by U2: A Christian Feminist Cry
• We are Half the Church
• Not Everyone Is A White Male With all Access
• Why For Women is not For Me.

Or just use the search function.

Related articles

• Gender is Everything (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Walk On by U2: A Christian Feminist Cry? (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

Simplify Stupid. If only it were that Simple.

I’ve done a lot of writing of late and that has led to a lot of chores piling up.  When chores collect one begins to notice how much stuff we have around the edges of life.  Why is that?  A few things occur to me:

• I look around my home and of course I have miles and miles of books — if they were stacked end to end.  There are more books that I will ever read, but they are on issues that I care about.  I have several books ideas of my own in the works and many of those books relate to research topics.  Still, why do I need to own so many?
• Looking in my closet this weekend, my son asked me “Mom, does the Goodwill pay you to take their clothes?”  Ha ha, very funny. Though I don’t think he was trying to be funny.  It was ironic and too close to home.  His point was that I own a lot of clothes!  You can read about my year of no new clothes here and here.  I do have an issue with buying tons of clothing.
• We have some friends who are downsizing from a house to an Airstream with two kids in tow and it sounds like a dream project.  I haven’t had a chance to hear their story in person but I am fascinated by the idea.

Christmas is coming.  How do we face the challenge of consumerism vs. living out our giving with integrity?  And why do we collect so much stuff when in total honesty much of it remains untouched? Is this a matter of simply needing to be clearing out more often to reappropriate things to the next family that could use them whether it is toys, clothing, gaming systems, movies or books?  Or should this be a conversation about buying less.  And about the value of simplicity?

A singer and artist I appreciate for the poetry of her words, Carrie Newcomer, said this on Facebook today:

I have a sense that simplifying is not about denial and lack, but rather about getting rid of what does not ultimately give life and deeper meaning to our lives. If we got rid of what clutters and fills our lives to the very edges – what would happen in those open spaces? What do you think?

How do you teach yourself the discipline of reappropriating things?  Why is this important? What do you do to simplify, remove clutter and create space in your life?  What would you do differently if you had the mental and physical space?  What resources have you found that help you?

Help me to Be

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.”   ― Walt Whitman

Today I slipped into the imponderable place. I am disappointed with myself that this is happening, which only makes it more resistant to my human efforts to change.

What happened? I have some slight success and the furies inside challenge. Their presence in my psyche is a relentless stream, even as I pretend otherwise.

I fear the furies and yet by doing so, I give them sway.

This is new, naming the furies, which have been with me all my life. They are a melancholy; the chaotic anxious thoughts, the doubt and self-recrimination, the clamoring perfectionism and uncertainty and let’s call it what it is, the monster itself – fear. There is also the need for validation and the craving for significance. It is ugly, mortifying, and difficult to decipher. I could add to this list all day long I think.

It’s fitting that I have read for two weeks on Humility in my Prayer Book.  In it I read this:

Teach me, O Lord, thy holy way,
And give me an obedient mind,
That in thy service I may find
My soul’s delight from day to day.

Help me, O Savior, here to trace
The sacred footsteps though hast trod;
And, meekly walking with my God,
To grow in goodness, truth and grace.

– A hymn by William Matson

For many years my faith languished and deteriorated – I could not “see” God, feel him nor know his love. I did not believe. And as I stumbled, broken by depression and then addiction, I was chastened. Every pretense I might have conjured up was stripped from me.

“The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the Saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.” Psalm 34:18

I then I understood Grace.

And from that time I have wanted nothing but this Savior, what he wants. That is not to say that I do not struggle as he challenged me to give things up – there were, are, many idols in my heart. I quit smoking because I heard God say I want you to want me, need me, more than you need Nicotine. And I wanted to want him that much too. Smoking became a metaphor for the sacrifice of praise that he sometimes asks for. He asked of me. I still stumble.  I lean into him.

And yet when the furies swirl, I fear I have become disconnected from the Holy Spirit, allowing a deterioration of intimacy with Jesus.   Sometimes the furies create such chaos, like tiny tornadoes of anxiety. I want to cut myself open and imagine them flying crazily away from me!  Then I can be free, rid of the things that weigh heavily and make me unwise and thoughtless, quick to think or say things that don’t show God’s love.  I want to lean into the Holy Spirit and allow the fresh winds of his spirit to fill me.

I want a deep, deep faith.

One that isn’t hasty or trite. No snatches of scripture, I want to be wading deeply into chapters and books. I want my spiritual roots to go deep into the ground, so that when challenges come I don’t stagger or fall as I have in the past.

Helmut Thielicke said “To work without praying and without listening means only to grow and spread oneself upward, without striking roots and without an equivalent in the earth.”
I want to penetrate life deeply.

These are the things I have been pondering today.  I’ll leave you with one of my favorite writers, Christian or otherwise, Evelyn Underhill, from The Spiritual Life.

“Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the centre foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity …  We mostly spend those lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual—even on the religious—plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.”

Humility and penetrating life deeply.  That is definitely not craving, clutching and needing the attention for myself.

Lord, help me to Be.

Related articles

• What are the 7 Deadly Sins and Why Should we care? (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

in the midst of ashes, hope

Broken Bits and Pieces

I am so bloody tired of this feeling of being trapped and held by the past, unable to live the abundant life that was promised to each of us.

And I am frightened.  Scared to death of the endless looking back to see and remember.  When will I find in the midst of the ashes, hope.  And where is it?

All the broken bits of me are scattered and the wind gusting into my life today threatens to blow me away.

I don’t know what to do with the bits and pieces of memory – those things that hurt.  They cause me to doubt myself.  They are vicious. They are hurtful and dangerous, drumming.   They are clamoring.  They are ringing in my head  louder than my small wavering voice (only just) learning to speak.  Are they a lie from the pit or truth?  When I get like this, when my wounds are oozing as they do today, I cannot distinguish lies from truth.   It is what it is.  I am nobody.  Just another nobody with a story.  Who cares?  I cannot believe that this story would help anyone.  One word put on the page after another – risky only in its admission. Here, now, this, these words, they are nothing.

I am so tired of this place.  My family and its circling pain, all shattered fragments, falling apart more every day.  Who will hold the generations together?  They are slowly slipping away and soon they will be bits and pieces of nothing.

More importantly how do I learn?  When will I be transformed?  

Trust Him

The disciples appear to be sitting around, unsure of what to do, until Peter decides to go fishing (John 21) and the others go along.  Was it aimless activity.  They needed to  eat.  Not necessarily completely aimless but doing the thing in front of them. The disciples do not know what to do, so they do the necessary.  And the story suggests that they have put themselves in a place where Christ meets them.

“Here is the simple truth, attested to by the saints, that when we are uncertain what to do we should simply do our duty and God will guide.”

But that night they caught nothing doing what they perceived as the right thing.  It is suggested that they are being prepared to learn one of the central lessons of discipleship–apart from Jesus they can do nothing (15:5).

Jesus has taught this lesson before, for “never in the Gospels do the disciples catch a fish without Jesus’ help.”

I feel like those fishermen who struggled to believe—they were fishing in order to pass the time and in order to eat.  It has been a long, long time that I have sat with my story, lived it, tried to find something redeeming there in my story.  And my life.

I fear, like the disciples with their nets in the water, that

I. just. don’t. believe.

Yes, I am having trouble believing that you can catch fish here. With my life.  With this story.  It’s been “a long night of fishing and I have caught nothing.”

I need to hear His voice, and I don’t even know for sure that I know what it looks or sounds like any more.   Is it even him they wondered when he showed up?   When He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat”….

What are his promises for a moment like this?

Lay It Down

So I have to set down my anger and disappointment at myself for quitting my job so that now, in the middle of a recession, I have no possibilities.  I have to put my desire to work or “to do something” to support my family down.  I have to let go of my ego and pride and the very real delusion that a job will make me more esteemed person to others or bring me respect.   Lay it down.

I must believe that all of this, my story, is part of a purpose bigger than I am able to imagine or see.  Jesus is teaching me that apart from him I can do nothing.

Even I don’t see it.  It is almost easier to look backwards because that is so much clearer, ah beautiful hindsight.

No the future is confusing.  I think I want to go back to school then I am I’m totally frozen by insecurity, self-doubt, and fear — perhaps I’m not smart enough, diligent enough and more importantly have nothing original to say?  It has all been said, thought, written, done.   Lay it down.

I thought I was going to write my story, but there isn’t even a story.  It is just a story about an average nobody middle child who had a raging rather, became a workaholic while having three kids and a step daughter, who quit her paying job, got depressed, became an alcoholic, and now does what? Lay it down.

Tom says it is a spiritual attack when I start to feel like I have nothing to offer to the world, to my children, to my friends (what friends?), to him.  Lay it down.

Don’t tell me I’m a good mom, because I don’t care right now.   I don’t even know why I am here.

The future is blank.  It requires faith.  Big faith?  A small quavering timid faith is all I seem to have today, a brokenhearted faith.   Whatever it is, it’s immeasurable.

It simply is.  I have to lay it all down and believe what he promises, when he said …

“Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” – Luke 1:45

Lord I believe.  Help my unbelief.

AN INEXPLICABLE THING: Depression

Depression is real, very physically here and enigmatic.  After all this time it remains a mystery to me exactly why it returns.

Granted, there are a few things that I realize I do know, I actually have learned about the illness.  And so for the most part yesterday, I decided to fight because I know I must, even while still disbelieving that it matters if I do battle against it.

It hangs on me —  dead weight.  I go through the motions of my day because if I stopped … well, I fear stopping, getting off this track of ‘life’ would be worse.  I know that too.  It is good that I can cook, show up on time, think (sort of) and write these words. I can do homework-time, do rides here and there (they are almost a relief for they fill up the endless stretches of life being like this.)

I am microscopic fragment adrift in the vast universe, even while the phone is ringing. The irony is in feeling so alone while the phone is mocking me by ringing.   I cannot even will myself to pick up it up.  My mother is calling but I cannot face her.  I don’t have the energy to say what needs to be said.  Years of what is misunderstood smolders around me.  Facebook depresses me.  Why do I need to know who is friends with whom?  It only reminds me how alone I feel.  Grateful, shiny happy people depress (and inspire) me.  Why do some people never seem to struggle?

I hate myself in this moment.  Somehow I thought I was past this.  Past the sinking hole of depression but now I see that I am depression.

A friend says in an email:

“He [Christ] knows how we feel, having been rejected by the ones he loved most.  He would die again if only just for me (or for you).  I’ve also realized that “homesick” feeling is just a symptom of the spiritual divide between us and God.  Those feelings can be put to use to draw us closer to him, but we’ll never quite be home until he returns or calls us there.”

There is something crucial in her last few sentences, an insight that I must try to tease out with my tired foggy brain.  All my life I have felt alone – when I am totally honest.  It is not that I have been literally rejected.  People love me.  I do know that, when I am not so disheartened.

“Have you ever experienced the kind of friendship you speak of when you cry out (in your depression) that you feel alone and so unimportant?” my husband asked me the other day.

I think perhaps this longing is something I need to sit with – too often I am looking to others and to things to fill something that only Jesus can.

I have tried many things to fill that ache over the years from over work, to compulsive shopping, to excessive drinking, and at times a relationship. I know that I so fear that vast ache, that I preemptively withdraw before anyone can hurt, reject or let me down.  I defensively withdraw because I fear that this deep, cavernous place down inside me cannot be filled.    And then I am forced to face my terrible loneliness that only God can fill.

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. — Philippians 4:8,9

In moments like this I know, that I know, absolutely nothing.   But a tiny part of my brain or heart understands what this means – to hold on to this Hope for that is the peace that trancends all understanding.

He is with us and wants to fill us.

But, “we’ll never quite be home until He returns or calls us there.”

Related articles

• Life is Work, Hard Work (but there is a ray of hope) (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

Shall I Dance for You? (A poem)

The sun came out today and I felt its warmth creep into my soul.  It would appear

that I am on the mend.  Believing,

That is the tricky thing.  Knowing and accepting are strange bedfellows.

Where did it come from I wonder — this self-loathing?

Was I born this way?

Or is it the result of rubbing against broken people?

Am I shattered and wrecked – lost beyond repair?  Or, hopeful.  Yes.

Where do we find safety, deep rest except by trusting in the Son.

All my striving and this need to prove, outperform, and achieve isn’t the Gospel.

I have soaked in the lies of culture — an ethos of discontent– so deeply into my pores that I no longer believe?

Where do we find safety, deep rest except by trusting in the Son.

Am I respectable, admired, or lovable without doing?

Shall I dance for you so that you will love me, finally?

It is never enough.

So today, I will lie here in the sunshine and soak in the sun.

Someday Pain

“In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.”  – Denise Levertov

 

 

frequent looks backward,

are killing me.  a betrayal of today.

i want to know why

but yesterday hurts.

aches like a cold, itches

like a wound healing.

i can’t help but think

get over yourself.

and pray, the whispered mantra

i warble at first, hushed

to myself

someday pain won’t rule over me.

What God can possibly expect from a broken-down, brokenhearted, mess like you?

Grace is that kick-start value that breaks through the dullness of one’s self-loathing, recrimination or dysfunction, granting love and favor without the expectation of a return. Experiencing it from God is transformational, offering it to someone else is revolutionary. – Saltshaker 

In some ways, I wonder if my frequent lingering in the pain of the past —  the constant remembering — is a slap in the face to God, to the forgiveness and grace that I have received.

I live with that shame.  I live with the question if God is the healer why can’t I heal, finally, once and for all?  

That question rings out loudly today as I look back over my week of falling into depression, again.  I know that I have some control over it, though not sure how much.  I know that.  I wonder to myself if by slipping down there again, I betray my Lord?  Am I denying him?  ”They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.”

I have always believed that my honesty and truthfulness was my only hope out of the wickedness of a childhood full of fear, self-hatred and pain.   Now I am uncertain.    Perhaps I am doing this in my own strength and I am not really healed? Does my frequent lingering only pick the scab off of a wound that deserves to heal?  I want the Lord’s healing.  I want my life to be proof of God being real.

I whisper a prayer from Jeremiah:  “I know Lord, that our lives are not our own.  We are not able to plan our own course.  So correct me, Lord, but please be gentle. Do not correct me in anger, for I would die.”  

Correction first, healing second.

Really?  This might be it.  The connection I’ve been searching for.  As I open up to God’s correction, then healing may come?  I see it in the words of Julian of Norwich in Revelations of Divine Love:

“See that I am God.
See that I am in everything.
See that I do everything.
See that I have never stopped ordering my works, or ever shall, eternally.
See that I lead everything onto the conclusion ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it.
How can anything be amiss?”

What?

Before time began, this too the Lord knew …

He knew of an angry father.

He knew of a reclusive, fearful cold mother.

He knew of four frightened daughters, full of secrets.

He knew me, full of self-loathing, before time began.

This too, He knew?  He never stopped ordering his works, or ever shall.

How – can – this – be?

What do I do with this knowledge that before time began He knew my pain?

He knew and He knows.  He knows my heart, what it feels like to fear your own daddy and wonder what you did wrong?  He knows what it is to crave a comforting, hug from mamma, a hug of safety.  He knows what horror tastes like, in salty tears streaming down, as you’re berated, over and over, for some failing; that as he yells, you are not even sure that he remembers what failing of yours set him off.  He is so caught up in his righteous raging.  All you know in that moment is the shame and loathing and fear.  You want to escape it, him, home.  If this is love… then there is no safe place.

And over the years you hide inside yourself, eyes wide to the world, cringing.  Expecting life to hurt.   Not knowing whom to trust, if anyone.  Even in that fear, remembered some thirty years ago, you stumble over the question of what God can possibly expect from a broken-down, brokenhearted, mess like you?  But he knew this pain too?

“God only desires that our soul cling to him with all of its strength, in particular that it clings to his goodness.  For of all the things our minds can think about God, it is thinking upon his goodness that pleases him most and brings the most profit to our souls.”  (Julian of Norwich.)

Really?

Cling to the truth that God is good.  Even in the midst of past horrors, pain. Scabs on your heart, thick scarring.  Disbelief.  Knowing, or at least fearing that people will always let you down. Your hurt billows out with the fear from the echoes from a daddy’s rage.

I will cling to His goodness as if it is a prayer, whispered, lifted to the heavens with a tiny billow of faith. 

A prayer of gratitude for his goodness is all he asks.  Not my perfection.  Not any deed or accomplishment.  Not even a big, humongous faith.

Simply cling to his goodness.

See that I lead everything on to the conclusion ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it.

He made life, with power wisdom and love?

Amen.  May it be so for me and you.

On Paying Attention

At times like these.

When I am feeling so poignantly this illness depression, which is chronic and confusing and feels a lot like failure, at times like these  … I have learned to wait and pay attention.  Taste the bitter in this moment.    And see what God intends.

Henri Nouwen says of this patience:

“The word patience comes from the Latin verb patior which means “to suffer.”  Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and  letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants.  Waiting patiently always means paying attention to what is happening right before our eyes and seeing there the first rays of God’s glorious coming.”

I know intellectually that God wants me to let go of this grip I have on my pain.  He says “I will take it — your sadness, pain, fear, and hollow heart and make life out of it.”   This is the promise which gives us our hope.  This is everything.  Julian of Norwich says in Revelations of Divine Love:

 ”God sees our wounds and sees them not as scars but as honors. . .”

It is possible to thank God for our weaknesses, our broken hearts, our frequent “failings,” even our sickness?  I think it is not only possible but necessary.

I believe He has something good he intends to come out of my heart falling over the precipice, shattered.

Yes, I’m weary of being so feeble and human.  Is it possible to thank him, yes and I am waiting expectantly as Nouwen says:

“Waiting patiently for God always includes joyful expectation.  Without expectation our waiting can get bogged down in the present.  When we wait in expectation our whole beings are open to be surprised by joy…, “Brothers and sisters … the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up, because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe.  The night is nearly over, daylight is on the way; so let us throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light” (Romans 13:11-12).

I am paying attention and I choose to be grateful nevertheless, which I wrote about over at Provoketive this week.

My cup is always half empty.  At least, without Jesus it would be.  Even with the Holy Spirit active it is an effort to be positive.   ….  Even in the midst of the hell of depression I am grateful.  God gives us this one life and we are charged to sort it out.   He guides us, truly he does, but much of life is us sifting through the good and the bad.

Life is choices.

… (more)

As we begin the season of advent it feels right amidst our clamoring to wait on Him.  In the fear, wait.  Anxious furtive thoughts, wait.

Pay attention and wait with joyful expectation.

MHH

Quotations from Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr and from Bread for the Journey by Henri J.M. Nouwen.

Lord, make me an instrument

vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit. — these words of Erasmus, translate to say:

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

I think it is important to remember, beauty in the bleak days.

“Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, praising God until we ourselves are a constant act of praise.” — Richard Rohr

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
and where there is sadness, joy

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
– St. Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226)

So often, it is too easy to get caught up in ourselves.  ”Lord, make me an instrument…” Don’t we all just want to be useful, usable?  I know, when I am caught up in my own darkness that I am, or at least I feel, useless.

While life’s dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be thou my guide;
Bid darkness turn to day,
Wipe sorrow’s tears away,
Nor let me ever stray
From thee aside.

– A hymn My Faith Looks Up to Thee by Ray Palmer.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! -- Psalm 26

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment; his favour is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’
By your favour, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face; I was dismayed.
To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:
‘What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!’
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you for ever. — Psalm 30

In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me.
Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.

You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit;  you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. 

You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction;
you have taken heed of my adversities, and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place. 

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.  
For my life is spent with sorrow,  and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. 

I have become like a broken vessel.  But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’  My times are in your hand;  Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me.

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. – Psalm 31

———–

I covet your prayers friends. All I can say is that I know this is an illness.  I also know that it is spiritual attack.  More important, I know that I am beloved.  I will take courage and wait for the Lord.

Giving Thanks for What Is

At first light I wake.

My temples pounding and piercing me with pain, I am angry with the fierce illogic of it all.  I try to understand.  I wake resentful.  Am I thirsty?  Did I wake too late my body screaming for caffeine?  Or is this another manifestation of the depression, the black fog that has clouded my days for – I count them – fourteen long days.  And fourteen hostile, dreamless nights.   I wake wondering if I slept at all?  This morning with a headache, I question it.  Headaches hold messages, ciphers of secret coded understanding; though today’s meaning I am too foolish to fathom.  I stumble downstairs, the dog at my heels.  Coffee.  Migraine medication. Water. Toilet. In that order.  I can only focus on these four whispered words.  Each step, my head aches as I blink and blink again.  My right foot’s bones twinge, piercing through the fog.  Again, foot pain.  Why?  It is always worrying me these days, why all the pain?

This thanksgiving day, I want gratitude. 

I am so blessed.  I know this, it is almost appallingly clear – I have nothing to be depressed about.  But my depression is something deeper, old, even ancient pain that has nothing to do with today’s abundance.

I sit and drink in the silence.  The oldest son is awake, the early bird, tap — tap –tapping keys of his fingers on the keyboard.  Otherwise silence.  It sounds so good.   Even as my stomach lurches, and my head continues to pound, I sit in the wonder of silence and ask God to open my ears.

For He is always speaking, if only I could hear Him, see Him, receive Him.

I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts and I pick it up, again – for what could be better on this day of thanksgiving than a book about learned gratitude?  It hurts to read.  Eyes blurry from sleep, head still piercing I feel a flood of the Tears That Never Come, flood the walls of my heart, full.  Bursting. Pain.  To honor the intent of the book, I’ve begun my own list.  I’ve only cobbled together – I count them — Twelve things this week. I titled it:

A Dare to Name all the Ways that God Loves Me:

1. Health insurance.
2. A husband’s love.
3. A home.
4. The truth of scriptures.
5. Daniel gave thanks.
6. For children’s laughter.
7. For children’s questions.
8. For childlike faith.
9. Imaginations of children.
10. The sound of LEGOs pieced together, clicks and clinks as the youngest boy digs.
11. The click of computer keyboard, as ideas fall onto the screen.
12. The tinkling of guitar chords, rising from the basement.

I add to the list, even through my headache…

1. Skinny boy legs.
2. Coffee, warm and soothing.
3. Enthusiasm of children.

 “For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it.”  Job 33:14

Yes, I hear Him speaking.   And the promise I hear from him today:

“See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me;

It is I who put to death and give life.

I have wounded and it is I who heals.”  — Deuteronomy 32:39  NASB

I am tempted to focus on  his words I have wounded, but I “should” remain, even linger with these words — It is I who heals.

The Thanksgiving Miracle

Being with my family is always something complex – rich and stark at the same time.  My people are full of ancient pain.  Mostly we have learned to carry on, but I the least of all.  For some reason I live stuck.

“I’m sorry you’ve been sad” she said kindly, as I fingered my sweaty water glass.  Standing there, more comfortable in the place just outside the kitchen, where Serbian is being spoken which I do not understand, than in the living room where I will be expected to be something.  I know not what, except that I cannot do it today.   And so I stand there listening to the beautiful Slavic sounds, watching the cooking.  Bread is baking.  Gravy slowly bubbles.

The sun peeks in through the window where a cacophony of herbs is growing, so unlikely in this stark Midwestern winter.  But this kitchen is a place of miracles.  I finger the sage, basil, mint, “Such a wonder, herbs growing.” I had whispered more to myself than anyone.  My brother-in-law looks as me curiously, perhaps he is wondering at my wondering.

“It is not sadness” I quip sometime later.  I immediately regret my correction if it is harsh or sounds mean when really I am only bone tired. I apologize, contrite, in the same breath. And this is the miracle moment I can only see looking back.  It is an instant. A simple choice.  She persists.

And doesn’t walk away as we have done to one another a thousand, even a hundred thousand times.  We, my broken family, are quick to quit on each other in moments like this.  Too afraid of the conflict, of anxiety, of misunderstanding.  Of harsh even mean words, for which I am often guilty.  We become weary of the simple effort of inquiry, wary of the risk and the liar tells us “It’s not worth it” the pushing through, the desire to understand, to heal; to change the ancient rules of misunderstanding.  Persisting, she asks “What is it?”  That moment is unbelievable to me and I know she really wants to know.

“Fractured.” The first word burst out of me for I was ready, longing for the question and I find myself wanting her to know.  “Anxious.  Fearful.  Lacking hope.” The words tumble.  Slowly at first, I persist through my shame.  And she listens to me in those miraculous moments after our mother left choosing football alone over Us. We know where we stand.  I don’t judge my mother.  I feel her rejection sharp.

But as my sister stands there and listens, I talk about the deepest kind of despair. “From ancient wounds,” she asks? And I stare at her in wonderment.  Has she read my blog or poetry, echoing words I have scribbled there?  Or has she read my heart, my mind?  She has never spoken to me of the words I put down there, a selfish scribbling down of the story of my shattered heart that I put on my blog lacking the courage to speak them in real life.

Feeling a little bit more known I stammer out the words, finally.  I talk of this family we are a part of and how we don’t know how to be together.  How I long for more.  And it makes me so sad. And yet my husband has a theory that ultimately we all “do what we really want.”  If you want more connection do something about it, is the implication.  But we both know, my sister and I, that it is not so simple for us, having started from a place of broken with no capacity to build something good.  I share that I really long to know her, know my brother-in-law, be a part of their lives.   I share this place of hurt.  Where I become stuck.  These triggers to my depression, of fearing rejection that hasn’t actually happened.

Then I begin to speak of our Father, long dead and it is clear he is inside my head.  “I cannot remember him kind” I sputter as tears begin to flow, the second miracle or third after the questions and the herbs, for I am the woman who cannot cry.  I long to, but my frozen heart, cemented to its pain has been shut solidly closed.  It may have been a decade since tears have flowed.  And I stand there in the kitchen of miracles and weep ancient tears.  And speak of the terror in my heart and head as I hear my father’s rage.  “I am stuck there with him, terrifying and terrorizing me.”  And she comforts me with her presence.  And her tenacious probing attention.  I shudder with the pain of speaking my genuine admiration for her achievements, of living.  She has somehow been able to live.  “The boxes we were put in as toddlers,” she says.  This is a revelation, since we two girls were babes our father has said she was smart and I was somehow something other.  Though he wasn’t particular as he raged about grades.  But for some reason I was the recipient of his anxiety, disappointment and fear.  That is when she voices their anxiety.

She speaks of a class she took on Anxiety and how it spreads in organizations and families and what a revelation that was to her!  The anxiety of our parents was a constant presence and fueled his anger, her sadness and all the sickness in our home growing up.  Even today, every word my mother expresses is laden with fear of rejection, misunderstanding.   I wonder what she really thinks, feels but I will never know.  And I know that I cannot talk to her about any of this, my ancient wounds, because she is too fragile.  The threat all these years has been that she will fall apart.

Every time you feel in God’s creatures something pleasing and attractive, do not let your attention be arrested by them alone, but passing them by, transfer your thought to God and say: ‘O my God.  If thy creations are so full of beauty, delight and joy, how infinitely more full of beauty, delight and joy art Thou Thyself, Creator of all? – Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

We stay a long while, and laugh, and talk and simply be.  We leave more connected.  I am overwhelmed by the miracle.  This tale is supernatural in that it happened.  It is not the tears or the ancient pain spoken out loud though they are incredible.  This is about the persistence of My Sister who gave a thanksgiving miracle to me. Yes in that I can say, thanks be to God.

He did this.  She did this.  We did this.

And what remains is hope.

A Dare to Name all the Ways that God Loves Me

For He is always speaking, if only I could hear Him, see Him, receive Him.

I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. To honor the intent of the book, I’ve begun my own list I titled a Dare to Name all the Ways that God Loves Me.   

I had to rename this list because even if I lost every single thing listed here I know that God still loves me.

I’m Thankful For:

1. Health insurance.
2. A husband’s love.
3. A home.
4. The truth of scriptures.
5. That Daniel gave thanks.
6. For children’s laughter.
7. For children’s questions.
8. For childlike faith.
9. Imaginations of children.
10. The sound of LEGOs pieced together, clicks and clinks as the youngest boy digs.
11. The click of computer keyboard, as ideas fall onto the screen.
12. The tinkling of guitar chords, rising from the basement.
13. Skinny boy legs.
14. Coffee, warm and soothing.
15. Enthusiasm of children.
16. Emma’s laughter.
17. A loyal pup.
18. Ginger tea’s reminder of  many things shared with Tom.
19. A warm, heated home.
20. A trusty car.
21. The prayers of friends, new and old.
22. The hope of Cross Stitch.
23. Full tummies.
24. Silly belly laughing at dinner.
25. Frost on the fall morning’s grass.
26. The stories of Ho-Chunk people ”People of the Big Voice” which I heard about on the radio.
27. Public radio.
28. Public teachers and leaders, truly humble people.
29. The New Yorker magazine.
30. Books. Books piled up in corners.
31. Used book store smell.
32. The sounds of the heater kerchunking in the winter.  (It still works!)
33. A husband who does laundry.
34. Drinking Jasmine tea with a friend.
35. Feeling understood.
36. the Bible plain and simple, that anyone can open, read and try to understand.
37. that the Bible doesn’t have to make complete and total “sense.”
38. my depression.
39. my alcoholism.   Being sober three years and four months.
40. Handel‘s Messiah!
41. Tears, being able to cry again.
42. Tom.
43. Tom’s job.
44. God’s abundant provision!
45. Good health (so far) for our children.
46. Molly living at home.
47. The CIVA project to work on.
48. The illogic of faith.
49. My sisters, strong resilient women each one.
50. That I was able to travel twice to Russia and Ukraine.
51. The hope that I will one day travel overseas again.
52. So many talented, creative friends who make music and art!
53. For pecan pie. 11/28/2011
54. For the ability to express myself in writing.
55. A child who tells me when she’s afraid.
56. A grown up daughter that still listens and grows.
57. And her big, open heart!
58. the smell of rice cooking.
59. the dog growling at baby Jesus and the reindeer in my neighbor’s yard.
60. Turkey curry with coconut milk.
61. Vietnamese Noodles with a good friend.
62. Home made hot cocoa for a sick girl.
63. sunlight in the window.
64. Chai warm and sweet goodness.
65. Mosaics.
66. Clouds in the blue sky.
67. Ice on early morning windows.
68. boy drinking broth with a straw.
69. the agility and ability of children to sleep in any place or position.
70. home-made corn bread cooking sweet in the oven.
71. the grass sparkling with frost. 11/30/2011
72. Learning humility from a dear friend who is constantly insulted by others’ insensitivity to her beautiful Japanese culture & heritage.
73. Vanilla Ice Cream!
74. A night out with Tom and no kids.
75. Dinner with friends.
76. Fires in the fireplace.12/5
77. Classical music.
78. Jacob’s “graduating” from help at school after eight years of speech and language help!
79. Sunsets, the color and majesty.
80. Heat, as in sand and palm trees and sun!
81. That Junia was a woman and that I know it.
82. The honor of serving on the board of Lilada’s Livingroom.
83. Historians, like Doris Kearns Goodwin.
84. Blackhawk church downtown!
85. That “public servants” is not a misnomer.
86. For the teachers, aids, doctors, speech therapists, tutors and interns that have worked with J for the last eight years, giving him language, and speech and the discovery of his own intelligence.
87. Men who aren’t sexist.

God Never Tires of Being our Comforter

The first Sunday of Advent I walk in to church wanting to smell candles and incense.  At this time of the year especially I miss the high church traditions, since we have been going to church in a bar.  As I walk in, late, I run into an acquaintance and he asks how I am.  There is always a pressure within choosing honesty in the midst of my struggle with depression, while still remaining true to being a positive person, as I wrote recently at Provoketive Magazine.   I ask him if he is well?  With a pause he says “I can’t complain.” And I instantly wonder if he read my piece?

As I walk away, I begin to wonder if anyone reads anything I write?  The old dog of depression is under my feet, tripping me up as I walk into the service.  Silly dog, panting with about me with it’s “Doubt. Fear.  Self hatred.  Self loathing.  Is there anything I do that matters to anyone anywhere?”

Shaking it off at the same time I take off my winter coat, I prepare to listen to God, knowing that sometimes you simply must choose.  Choose faith. Choose joy.  As I laid in bed earlier this morning, slightly dreading being alive, I chose to get up.  I “do another day” many days when I am depressed, because this is what I choose to do.

I choose to see and feel the Comforter.   At least this is what I am thinking as the band starts up.  They’re really good this morning.  The A group I think to myself.

We begin by singing…

“Our God is a God who saves… He holds the keys of life, our Lord. Death has no sting, no final word.”

I settle in, in order to stop the hard work of choosing and  let God save me– again.  He is the one who saves.  We are reminded in this song our job is to wait…

We will wait. We will wait upon the Lord. We will wait upon the Lord.”

I raise my hands almost in a plea, a prayer “Oh God, my hope, my Strong Deliverer, you are the everlasting God.” I say the words, choking on them, because I cannot sing them.  Not to worry, my heart tells me, because God doesn’t get tired of being your comforter.

The everlasting God — You do not faint. You won’t grow weary. You’re the defender of the weak.

I am weak, so blasted tired.

You comfort those in need.

I choose you Lord, but I have such a great need.

You lift us up on wings like eagles. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Your perfect love is casting out fear, And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life I won’t turn back I know you are near And I will fear no evil for my God is with me And if my God is with me Whom then shall I fear? Whom then shall I fear?

And I weep with the realization that I don’t have to be afraid — of myself, of depression, of the mess in my heart, of the fear of not ever being useful, of my shame for the way my life has come together.

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me
And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on a glorious light beyond all compare.
And there will be an end to these troubles. But until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth
Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes.

The band launches into :

I will enter his gates with Thanksgiving in my heart 

I will enter His courts with praise

I will say this is the day that the Lord had made

I will rejoice for he has made me glad.

And I’m not ready to “be glad”– this song is too jubilant for me, I am still weary from sobbing my way through worship, barely catching my breath, tears coursing down my face warm and salty.  I feel so loved!  My son, concerned to see me cry twice in as many days and perhaps only a half-dozen times in his twelve years of life, puts his arm around me.  He whispers “Are you okay, Mom?”  Oh yes, I am very okay!

Though I am weary from weeping and knowing and choosing, I know that if I can rejoice, the word in hebrew ‘gil’ means to be glad, yes, I think, even joyful in this, I will endure anything life can bring.  The deep, deep well of despair lifts a little bit more.  I want to shout “Bring it on, Mother Fucker!” with a raised fist to the Evil One who has tormented me.  But that would be inappropriate.  I laugh inside, almost gleeful because the inexplicable darkness, the unimaginable hell is lifting.

Psalm 2: 11 says I will rejoice with trembling.  And that is me in this moment.  I sit in stunned reverence.  For God enfolded me this morning in his love through the music, the kicking keyboard and amazing bass, the beautiful female voice and my friend Paul – all those who led us in to the holy of holies.

And as they did, I fell — stumbled toward my God broken, frail, unable to even be glad I was alive.  Simply hoping, tired of the dailyness and deadliness of depression.

Oh yes! Sometimes, you can rejoice even when you had to choose to do it first.

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth

Until that day comes.

In your Highs and your Lows, God is satisfied

Many, many times after I write, I think I’m too emotional in my writing.  I woke up this morning thinking only of regret.  Too out there (sometimes.)  Too vulnerable (definitely.)  Too emotional and effusive.  It is not always easy for me to put myself so far out there.

I got to thinking of the Psalms and how much they reach me because of their free, outpouring or flowing emotions toward God not unlike what I often do.   And  I was thinking more specifically King David after reading something written by an internet friend.

David was such a mess, at times such a coward and a failure, definitely a letch, but at other times very brave and strong.  What he did well was lament and cry out to God!

I just get embarrassed at myself at times. And disappointed that I can’t just “be happy” like so many of my friends, who have crazy joy in the simplest of things. I have written before that I regret not being happy.  And others I see who model a raucous family life, full of delight and fun.  (I secretly want to be adopted in.)  Or even those that know their place is “home” whether that is their own or with their children, because it is so satisfyingly good to be together.

I have such longing for normalcy, but I don’t think it will ever come nor do I know how to create it, most days I’m stumbling around in the dark unsure how to be an adult child much less a Mother.  I believe at times might find a kind of peace and contentment, but I doubt I’ll ever find true joy.  King David’s life, reflected in scripture shows his highs and lows. 

I hope God is honored or at least pleased by our highs and lows.  If our faith is deep and genuine, I think we are strong even in our weakness; in our days hounded by our pain and in the days when it is enough just to hold on and to be thankful.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  – 1 Timothy 6:6-7 (NIV)

In this season of Advent, of active waiting, I hope that you find, in your high and your low moments, that God is satisfied with you for simply being you.  He knows you — made you — loves you and is deeply pleased with you.  No, you are not perfect.  May you learn this advent season how much our God just wants you to be — to ABIDE with him which means progressively to “await,” “remain,” “lodge,” “sojourn,” “dwell,” “continue,” “endure” with Him.

And of course I am preaching to myself.

The F-word is a Dirty Word in the Church

I have had something percolating for a while — thoughts on being a woman in the church.

• It is good to be human. But is it good to be a woman in the church?  
• And what about the f-word?  It’s hard to be a feminist in the Evangelical church. 
• Do you ever wonder why people of faith don’t talk more about how Jesus treated women?   

 I keep picking at the edges of it, writing, and rewriting.  Here is just a few paragraphs…

It is difficult and painful to be on the faith journey as a Christian Feminist woman who grew up in the evangelical church.  At first, for me, as I broadened my perspective.  I was cautious, suspicious even.  Mostly I was fearful because of what I had been taught.  And I’ll admit it, even angry at some of the assumptions that people made about what the Bible teaches.  It seemed to me that these conclusions were drawn without being willing to actually study it.

As I felt an internal pull, a tugging of my heart toward the truth, I was afraid.  Whereas I had been especially affirmed and promoted at work, at church it was crystal clear that this was not to be expected.  Women were “supposed” to do the receiving and watch men do the vital ministry of teaching and leading the church.

But more than anything, I just wanted other people to talk to about what I heard God stirring inside me.  I could not find anyone to talk to about it.  So I began the lonely venture of studying the scriptures for myself.  I also read theologians, including feminist theologians, with heartfelt trepidation, fearing that I may end up leaving the evangelical church based on what I learned.

The f-word is a dirty word in the Church. 

I went back early this morning to a letter I wrote to my elders last year.   I put everything in those pages, there for them to take in.  My heart out there on the page.  I was told by the elders of my church, not now.  Just wait.  Be patient.  And I think I hear the Lord saying, Sh…………  Stop.  Wait.  Just wait…………..  And be quiet a while.  I have a sense that he wants to work on my heart, my lack of forgiveness, and anger, and so though I have pages and pages I’m waiting.   

In the meantime…

I read a beautiful post on Eugene Cho’s blog that I resonated with greatly.  Pastor Cho is also a great advocate for women.  The article by Dr. Michelle Garred, who is a researcher and consultant in international peace building, talks about experiences at a Christian event as a recently married and yet professional woman, and asks compellingly:

Why does this distorted social setting appear to pit me in competition against my husband and best friend? Why can’t someone meet a couple and assume that these two inter-dependent individuals both have something to offer? Why should I be forced to wield my trump cards as instruments of power, making conversation into a contact sport? Most importantly, what about the many women who don’t have trump cards, but who do have boundless gifts to be shared with the Church? Who sees those women? And who hears them?

I found myself telling the author …

“Thank you for writing so simply and eloquently, with a gentleness that isn’t angry. I found myself resonating loudly! And I have to say that once you lose the credentials of “important work” and you are a “wife” then you seem to have even less stature and credibility, which is partly the culture of “work” being valued over all else. But it is also sexism rearing its ugly head.I know I am very angry and I know that I need to get beyond it to forgiveness somehow. I too resonate when people of colour talk about their experiences with racism, because they echo my own as a woman in the church.  All this to say – amen! Preach it! You are saying something really important and hopefully, PhD or not, others will listen!

I would encourage you to read it: Gender, church, and the art of alternate endings.

I also read and resonated loudly with this article by David Park another great advocate for justice, in the EFCA church.  He talks of  Six Postures of Ethnic Minority Culture towards Majority Culture.  And oddly enough, or not, I found that this has been similar to my response as a woman in the church.   But if you want to read it in its entirety it’s here.   These postures are:

Posture 1: Unaware.
Posture 2: Angry and Wounded.
Posture 3: Silent and Resigned.
Posture 4: Duty and Pleasing.
Posture 5: Unity as Assimilation.
Posture 6:  Equal and Empowered Partnership.

I have lived, am living these.  Park says: In the effort “to build bridges between minority and majority cultures, that there is the feeling that this whole race dialogue is “unfair” to the majority, but it’s really not. It’s hard on both sides to work towards having a relationship, especially a relationship that is part of our witness of a common savior. It takes work, and it is fair. So jump in and assume the right posture. We are in it for the long haul.”

Yes we are in it for the long haul as we work together to build up the Church, to see it as Jesus would and become the beautiful reconciled body of Christ with everyone serving our of their gifts and talents.

I hear God’s call to be a voice for certain voiceless populations, especially for women in the evangelical church.  I am constantly clarifying, are you sure Lord?  And at times I have been unproductive, and not very Godly, allowing myself to be anxious or angry, or even trying to please others rather than listen well.

Each of us must ask ourselves, male and female alike, are we living as an old person or a new creation?  In the flesh or in the Spirit?    And what are we being called to as we serve?

I’d love to know what you think on this or anything.  And in the meantime, as I actively wait to know what I am to do with my writing on women in the church, pray for me will you?

Melody

Carrying depression around is like being punished for a crime I cannot identify

Coming home after a day of chauffeuring that completely disrupts my day I do enough chores to make it look like I do enough chores.

Driving all over town is enough to make anyone get down;  needing to go to the bathroom when you’re late somewhere; nearly running out of gas, running into my husband’s employees in my front yard in my pajamas this morning; hitting the curb and scraping the front of my newish car.  Last night I dented my husband’s fender. Yesterday, I was unable to make decisions on Christmas lights at the hardware store. After twenty minutes of indecision I walked out empty handed and overwhelmed by my muddled head.

I feel it in my bones – I am still carrying depression around.  It feels like a punishment for a crime I cannot identify.  This is wrong.

The skies are not even gray, rather white and as usual it gets me down.

The road on the southeast side of town is bumpy and uncared for, the neighborhood’s buildings are depressed and rundown.  I tell my daughter clearly how wrong this is that this area of town is so neglected, oppressively so.  They don’t even fix the roads here and in our neighborhood in the same city the streets are quite literally washed and swept.  This is wrong.

I think about the economy and the need for jobs.  Perhaps I need a job.  I would do almost anything, I think.  I could do any job.  I’m college educated.  I notice the crossing guard isn’t a retired person like I usually see, but a man about my husband’s age.  What unimaginable difficulties would drive a middle-aged man to be a crossing guard?  I mean I would take that job for something to do, but to need to do so?  This is wrong.

I actually napped this afternoon – an anathema, I can barely live with the shame.  I just couldn’t get my body to do anything else but sneak inside the house like a criminal, so the dog wouldn’t hear me.  I skulked up the stairs with my coat still on, flipped on the alarm so I wouldn’t miss my daughter’s need for a ride,  and fell slowly into sleep.  Although my mind and body cannot figure anything else to do, I feel ashamed of sleeping middle of the day. This is wrong.

I consider cancelling my appointment tomorrow.  Two times I open up my phone to send the email.  Two times I question myself.  Why exactly am I cancelling?  It would be easier to convince her than myself that I have a good reason.  Honestly I think that I just cannot bear it and know that this is just when I need to go.  I still do not know if I will end up going.

I got tired of myself today.  So many random chaotic thoughts. I am an agitator online and I don’t think that’s very Godly.  I ask myself is it for agitation’s sake that you ask so many questions or is it that you actually want to make things better?  Of course, make things better for women in the church I answer.  How does all this idea slinging online accomplish that exactly?  It makes people think.  Yes, but does it actually change anything?  I don’t know.  All I know is I am tired of myself. 

Exhausted by my dissatisfaction.  I’m not sure where it comes from.  When did I become so frustrated with the church?  And how am I helping to be a positive force?  But the last time I got agitated about something – how artists are encouraged in the church – I came away with two jobs to do for them that have nothing really to do with that.  I keep thinking just do this good work so that I build some chips up so that people will listen to me.  Make change that way.  Perhaps, or perhaps I’m just busy doing a bunch of church activities for other’s agenda’s that I don’t even really feel that strongly about?  This is wrong.

I am tired.  What is the root of my frustration about the way that women are perceived in the church?  I cannot clearly identify it.   I flip on my “Happy” lamp, and begin to write.  I am hoping to find some answer in my own grasping for words.

Strongest in the Broken Places: A Tale of Domestic Abuse

Watching this video I was a child again.

It validated experiences I had growing up.  It made me sad.  I grieve watching it for beyond my own experiences, as I know three women who are living right now in this sort of marriage.

• One is married to an elder in my church.  (Actually, he was an elder at the time that she talked to me.  We were in a Bible study together.)  He had anger and control issues, perpetrated in the name of “biblical submission.”
• Another friend stays in an habitually abusive marriage out of love and commitment to her husband saying “Would you leave your husband if he had cancer?  Then how could you leave if he has a mental illness?”  I’m not saying that she should leave her marriage, but I grieve that she is so alone!   And I am ill equipped to help, though I listen.
• Another friend asks for prayer for friends whose marriage that is in trouble saying he “may be abusive” but likely she “may be making it all up.”

You never know when someone is a perpetrator of rage and control.  I can tell you with assurance that is the most unlikely person.

I grew up in a home where my father was in ministry and was a generous, gracious loving God-fearing man.  To this day when I write openly about my experiences growing up (here and here and here  and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and I only stop because the list is endless.  He’s one of the reasons I started my blog.)

Here is the best example of what it felt like growing up.

To this day I have people who say to me “I knew your father…” implying that somehow perhaps I didn’t, though I lived in his home for nearly two decades and worked for him for many years.   They imply by their statement that my experience and my mother’s and my sister’s didn’t happen.  The man in this video could have been my father — except Dad had a lot more personality!

The video below is one of the best that I have ever seen that talked about raging in a home as a domestic violence.  It made me feel “less alone” when it comes to domestic violence which is not always physical!  It was not physical in my home, except one time when my parents were first married my father put my mother’s head through a wall.  This was before I was born, but he put it in his book and that is how I heard about it.  Even though he wrote about his anger he was unable to change.  And it became the Achilles heal for him over and over again, hurting people around him.  It was a significant factor in my spiritual life and my perceptions of God.

It is real and destructive and is painful for me to this day.  I so wish that my father could have found this kind of help and felt it was safe to “come out” the way the brave heroes in this video have.  I so wish the church was better equipped to help women who do suffer in this way and could create a context where it is safe to speak out.  And I wish the church helped men who know they have a problem but don’t know how to get help.

“Statistics show that victims of domestic violence most often go to churches for help. Unfortunately, churches are often ill-equipped and not helpful. This clip tells the story of one couple’s search for help and also offers some advice for creating an environment conducive for recovery.”

Please watch.  If the video doesn’t work you will have to follow the link prior.

This is a hard post for me to write.  By even talking about this others could be at risk and yet that is the great irony.

“Why The Silence?” Forgive me the Cynicism … (on Women in the Church)

I don’t know about you, but when I first read this it shocked and appalled me.

During the times of Jesus, the religious leaders prayed at least three times a day and always thanked God for three specific things:

• Thank God that I am a Jew and not a Gentile.
• Thank God that I am free and not a slave.
• Thank God that I am a man and NOT a woman.

In the Babylonian Talmud, a Rabbi still says that one is obliged to recite the following three berakhot daily: “Who has made me a Jew”, “who has not made me a woman”, “who has not made me an ignoramus.”

Ouch!  I’ll bet a lot of men in seminary today secretly thank God they are not a woman or an ignoramus, that is if they think of women at all.

I love pastor Eugene Cho’s reflection thanking God he is a man (tongue in cheek kind of) saying:

“There’s great privilege and power in simply being a man. This is why I contend that the treatment of women is the oldest injustice in human history. We can talk equality and equity all day long and while we can acknowledge how far we’ve come, we still clearly live – even in 2011 – where there’s great advantage in simply being a man.”

This is why the message of Jesus is so powerful.

The apostle Paul in Galatians 3:28 subverted the dominant worldview by saying in the Kingdom of God, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  Powerful, meaningful words to me of the way God intended things and what he promises to restore in us all.  And yet, I easily become discouraged about the state of things.

I needed prudence yesterday when within the same hour I read two very different posts.

One was this post by a pastor saying that women should not read scripture in church.  Apparently, according to this writer, women are not to read scripture out loud in public. WOW.   I post it just to give perspective to some of my more progressive and enlightened friends about why I always seem concerned with women in the church.  It’s sexist crap  and I found myself  wishing a Bible scholar like Scot McKnight, or Sharon Hodde Miller, or Mary Elizabeth Fisher would please take him on.  I wrote him asking where he got the idea that only MEN should be the ones to do public reading of scripture.  It was is a sincere question as a Christ follower who loves scripture passionately, because I have never seen anything there that prescribes such an action.  He promised to write on it soon.

And then I saw this ebook by one of those wonderful people by Scot McKnight, titled Junia is Not Alone. You must pick it up.  You must read it.  He encourages more women to study, research and speak out on “women in the ancient world, about women in the early church, and women in church history … many whose stories are untold.” Amen!

Amazon says:

It tells the story of Junia, a female apostle honored by Paul in his Letter to the Romans—and then silenced and forgotten for most of church history. But Junia’s tragedy is not hers alone. She’s joined by fellow women in the Bible whose stories of bold leadership have been overlooked. She’s in the company of visionary women of God throughout the centuries whose names we’ve forgotten, whose stories go untold, and whose witness we neglect to celebrate.  But Junia is also joined by women today—women who are no longer silent and who are experiencing a re-voicing as they respond to God’s call to lead us into all truth.

Scot says:

Moving toward my second decade of teaching college students, more than half of whom grow up in a church, of this I am certain: churches don’t talk about the women of the Bible. Of Mary mother of Jesus they have heard, and even then not all of what they have heard is accurate. But of the other woman saints of the Bible, including Miriam, the prophetic national music director, or Esther, the dancing queen, or Phoebe, the benefactor of Paul’s missions, or Priscilla, the teacher, they’ve heard almost nothing.

Why the silence?

Why do we consider the mother/wife of Proverbs 31 an ideal female image but shush the language of the romantic Shulammite woman of the Song of Songs? Why are we so obsessed with studying the “subordination” of women to men but not a woman like Deborah, who subordinated men and enemies? Why do we believe that we are called to live out Pentecost’s vision of Spirit-shaped life but ignore what Peter predicted would happen? That “(i)n the last days… your sons and daughters will prophesy…” and that “(e)ven on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit.”

You can buy the ebook for $2.99.

Sometimes God answers your prayers in strange ways.

Not a direct response obviously, but rather this was an encouragement to me.  Women are quite literally being silenced in the church by men like Tim Challies and Piper who talks about women’s submission even with in abusive marriages.  And movements like Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church and his crazy notions about men and women.

In my article, The Voice of The Feminine I said:

I’ve been thinking about the lack of presence and example of women in the Church.  That Sunday* at my church in particular, women were simply spectators, the audience, the bystanders, the recipients and beneficiaries.

And the more I thought I could not remember the last time one of the teaching pastors suggested a book they were reading written by a woman.  Women are never quoted in my church.  Female theologians or scholars are never referenced or even mentioned, probably because the pastors don’t read them.  I can’t remember the last time, if ever, a pastor in my church has suggested or referred to or quoted a female theologian, religious author, or historian.  Am I the only one that notices these things?

The entire thing makes me very sad.  And so tired.  I am tired of the male dominated culture on the platform, as authors, as experts, as theologians, as speakers at conferences and in the Church at large. Considering women are half the church (some would say more) I do not buy the argument that there aren’t capable women to select from, though I’ve been told that very thing.  “The women haven’t risen up who have the gift of teaching.”

Risen up?   To be honest, one would think in a service-by-gifts based church there must not be any qualified gifted female teachers.   I attend an EFCA church of 5,000. You do the math.

*this is not always true!

But there are wonderful people who are articulating a different reality.  And I am most grateful to them. Perhaps in the coming weeks I will try to highlight more of them.

I worry at times that I think about this topic too much.  My overwhelming focus when it comes to thinking about injustice is the place of women in the church, their identity before God and whether they are using those talents for the purposes of the Kingdom.  I care about whether women, my daughters, who are made in God’s image too, know that they are indeed made to be that way.  I think about it all the time.  How much is too much?

Theologian Willard Swartley talks about the degree to which our ideologies warp our reading of Scripture.

 ”Our willingness to be changed by what we read, to let the Bible function as a “window” through which  we see beyond self-interested ideologies, and not a “mirror” which simply reflects back to us what we want it to show.  Biblical interpretation, if it is worthy to be so called, will challenge the ideology of the interpreter.  It can and will lead to change, because people do not come to the text thinking as God thinks, or even as the people of God thought in serving as agents of divine revelation.  Interpreters [must] listen to the text carefully enough not to like it.  [When they do so] it powerfully demonstrates that the text’s message has been heard and respected.”

This is challenging because I am full of self-interest when it comes to being a Christian woman.  I am a proud woman and this is my tribe which I feel a responsibility to care for, not because I crave authority, but because I long to see every women and girl carrying out every gift from God in their lives, not just in the marketplace, but within the church!  I am hopeful that this will happen in my lifetime.

Much of the church is stifling more than half of the church  and our “interpretations” are silencing many incredible women.  My heart weeps with that thought.

MHH

Other things I have written on the subject:

• Even When Whe Speaks
• Gender is Everything
• The Illusion of Enlightenment
• There is A Woman, Walk on by U2 a feminist Cry?,
• Men Have been Talking About Men for so long…
• We are Half the Church
• Not Everyone is a White Male
• The Big Man, The Little Woman and the Fall, a poem. (Spoiler alert: I use the word penis)

There is more, just search for WOMEN in the categories.

We can no longer take their word for it. [A response to Scot McKnight's Junia essay]

“Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.”–Paul writing in Romans 16:7

This is life affirming and beautiful, I thought, as I read that Junia actually was a woman and that she was outstanding among apostles.

I write often about the lack of women in leadership in the church and the tragedy of this, the reality is that the Church needs our voices.  I try to advocate for how difficult it is to be a woman in the Church and not have our stories told more easily and readily.  How wrong it is to have our children growing up in the church not learning of the many incredible women in the Bible.  They are growing up to watch, and listen, and see all that isn’t there.  

And yet it is there and no one told us.

“Sometimes it takes extra energy to get a silenced voice back.” Scot McKnight wrote in is riveting essay Junia is Not Alone.  “There is no evidence  …  in ancient manuscripts or translations” that Junia was a man.  “The church got into a rut and rode it out.”

A rut is kind way put it — more like a stinky hell-hole in my opinion!

When I was young woman studying for the first time in university, I was expected to take a bible class at my Christian liberal arts college.  For the first time in my life, I learned the fact that scripture was translated from other languages.  I didn’t know that.  (Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention.)

As I reflected on this, my passion to really understand scripture grew!  I wanted to study these texts for myself!  As I began I noticed there’s a lot left to one’s interpretation.  I began to wonder why I should just  blindly trust or believe someone else’s interpretation or opinion?  The longer I studied the more conscious I became.   I saw that my bible professors were all male, the bible translators were male,the  authors we were reading were male, and pastors are male.

Hey wait a second?!  I started looking around the church and realized everyone in authority is male. It’s slow waking up sometimes to justice and truth, especially when you are questioning what you have always been told and injustice as you begin to see it.

Although unsettled, I didn’t really develop an understanding of the priesthood of believers and what equality in Christ means until I was in my late thirties.  My bible professor had actually discouraged me from further language study saying “What will you do with it?”  And it has been a strange and painful path, because I now know differently.  I have found people who are writing about egalitarian ideas and I do not feel so crazy or alone.

Actually often I feel very crazy and very alone which I suppose is why Scot’s essay struck me between the eyeballs.  Junia is not alone.  I am not alone.

I go back to my evangelical free church where women never preach.  And women can’t be elders. And they won’t really say publicly what they believe about women — too controversial and divisive.  And my church is open-minded.  They care about women and work to have women on the platform singing and playing instruments.  They do not restrict women from serving on committees and women definitely outnumber men in participation in the church I was told.  There are even a few women pastors who manage program areas although they cannot be ordained.  So why should I have a problem?

What is my problem?

It’s clear to me that my pastor’s (who I love and respect) don’t read books by women, don’t study commentary by women, nor have trusted advisors who are women (except their wives, which is cool if they actually respect them and the women speak up for these things), nor do they appear to have major influences on them who are women.  How do I know?  They never quote women, or suggest books by women.  And I think this matters.

Reading about Marie Dentière for the first time I felt angry for her and I often feel like her, as McKnight described “her tone was preachy, her mood was argumentative, her hermeneutic was clearly liberationist, her biblical knowledge vast…”

Screech.  Halt!  No my biblical knowledge isn’t vast.   I had never even heard that Junia was a woman, rather that she may have been but it was unlikely.  I could not tell you the stories of almost any of women listed below.  I am a simple person.

I believe in Galatians 3:28  – - that it liberates women to use the gifts God gave us!  God gave me this gift of putting words together compellingly, compassionately, and sometimes even clearly.  When Scot McKnight asks these questions I want to shout AMEN!

“Why the silence on the stories of women?

Why are men and women so obsessed with studying

the subordination of women?

Who says translations are not political documents?”

Halle-fricken-lujah Scot!  That’s what I’ve been thinking and saying all along, even with my ignorance and lack of theological study and lack of penis.

I am challenged by what he says.  Women need to study for themselves.

We need read the Bible for ourselves.  This almost sounds  silly to write because in the 21^st century it is so obvious — duh, read it for yourself!  But it is not so in the church!   I am challenged to look up every single woman in scripture, now with several translations open, and a suspicious mind (already had that) to see what those women actually did.  What was their role?  How did God gift them?  If scholars and translators have been able to turn a woman into a man just because they said so, what else might they possibly have done?

These are a few of the women I jotted down from Scot’s article… Many of which I have never heard talked about or have just briefly referenced in Church.

Huldah famous prophet that helped provoke israel’s revival 2 kings 22; Miriam the prophetic national music director; Esther the dancing queen; Phoebe the benefactor of Paul’s missions probably the first to read Romans aloud in public. The first to defend and commentate on Romans. (Scot asks “Why the silence of woman commentators on Romans?”; Priscilla the teacher of Apollos; Rebekah mother of Jacob; Ruth; Esther; Mary mother of Jesus; Phoebe was a Deacon, not “deacon”; Shulamite woman in song of songs; the Proverbs 31 woman; Deborah;  and finally Junia  (married to Andronicus) was “outstanding among the apostles.” Romans 16:7

McNight says that all early translations of the New Testament translated Junia as a woman. From Tyndale to the last quarter of the 19th century, Junia was a woman. Then Luther played an important part in turning her into a man.

“Look at Junia in several translations:

• NIV 2011: Junia was woman, but apostles unclear about their opinion of her. “Outstanding among the apostles.”
• ESV: Junia may be man.  May be messenger.
• CEB: prominent among the apostles.
• NRSV and Holman Christian Standard Bible:  MIX the options.”

(Noted from Junia is A Woman by Scot McKnight)

Peter the Apostle said: “In the last days our sons and daughters will prophesy.”  And he said, “Even on my servants both men and women I will pour my spirit.”

My conclusions:

1. Always look at more than one translation for any and all references of women in the bible.
2. Never blindly trust what you are told about interpretations.
3. Study it for yourself!  If we don’t we have no one to blame but ourselves.
4. And personally, God gave me this gift of putting words together compellingly, compassionately, and sometimes even clearly.  I need to write about women.

Yes, it is sad that we have to do this for ourselves but if not me or you, then whom?  It is clear that we can no longer take their word for it.  Also, it is redemptive and life affirming.  Just as this essay by McKnight was significant for me, so will the other stories of women in scripture be on the future church!  It will be a call, a challenge, a cry for the girls and women and men who do not know the truth.

It is our challenge, our obligation, our honor to tell these stories.

May it be so!

————-

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois).

Blessed, Is She? [Re-imagining Christian Feminism]

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished! Luke 1:45 NIV

Mary learned that she was to be mother of Jesus when she was only a child herself. And all of the social implications had the potential to ruin her life.  I am sure, as she was being told by the angel that this was her destiny — doubt, disbelief, and dismay all ran through her. And yet what did she say in response?  Not, “Yes, but…”  Not, “Oh no!”  Not, “Do you have any idea what this will do to my life, for that matter my reputation?!”

She did not question it or seek clarification.  She said only, “Yes.  Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said will be accomplished.”  She believed.

Two thousand years later the Church is made uneasy by conversations about the role of women.  Today, if they could change it, I wonder who “the Church” would choose to be the first to know of the Savior’s coming?  Who would the Church choose to be caretaker of the babe?  

When Rachel Held Evans said recently on her blog, that she doesn’t really know what a feminist is, I was mildly surprised though I think she was kidding, kind of.  The truth is that in the Church we don’t talk about being a Christian feminist.  The words are laden with ancient history and pain, not blessing.  With the climate surrounding even the idea of feminism in the Church, it begs the question:  What do you mean when you say you are a Christian feminist?

I did not think of myself as a feminist for a very long time. Slowly I have gained confidence in my understanding of what I mean when I call myself a feminist, but my path of discovery has been bumpy. For years I did not really know what to call myself.  But it became clear that I needed some way to make it unequivocal what I believed.  If I was going to stay in my evangelical church, I had to figure out how live with myself and learn to defend my view that God meant women to fully use our gifts and talents in the Church. I needed language that was clear.

For years I asked everyone else to tell me what they believed. I wrote many letters to my pastor asking for his thoughts, ideas, book recommendations, and for suggestions of people to talk to.  My thoughts developed in a fractured way and I had a fearful and insecure tone.  Always being put off, I became concerned that I needed to adjust my attitude.  I “worked on my attitude” because I was being sent the clear message that I was wrong. I continued to study, but I just could not let go of the fact that there were no female teachers at my church and that eldership was restricted to men.  Coming out of a Presbyterian background this was a step backward in my mind.  I had been an elder at my last church.  Every time the elder nomination process started the pain — the wound was scratched open.

When I asked why there were no women teachers I was told that teachers will rise organically.  To me this was short sided and underestimated how important it is for anyone, but especially women, to be celebrated, mentored, cheered, invested and believed in with whatever gifts they have.  Women and girls are less likely to put themselves forward and rarely self-promote. And, when the church doesn’t have models of women teaching and there is thousands of years of church history one is going up “against” it is a rare person who is able to stand up say “I have a gift!”

When I wrote my elders (all men) and received a lengthy letter in reply, they said they really do agree with me.  But I needed to know how difficult it is to change things and it hasn’t been looked at in more than two decades.  I was told that the likely controversy that would arise out of changing this was more than they were prepared to address at this time.  Clearly they are afraid to talk about the issue of women, fearing it is too divisive. Did you catch that, they actually agreed that it was time that women were teachers and elders but it’s “too hard to change.”  What kind of a message is that sending?  That women and girls are not important.   

This apathy and fear will produce a whole new generation of ignorance and is another reason why we must talk and write about it.   It is gravely sad for me, as I raise my children in the church that so many men and women have no idea that there is any theological debate about the role of women in the church.  The these things are up for debate.  That there is more than one biblical perspective.  My own daughter looks at the status quo and listens to me and shrugs saying “Mom, why are you always on about women’s rights?”  Even with her own mother trying to teach her differently she thinks what she sees and experiences is the way it is supposed to be.

Leaving is not the answer.  My friends outside the evangelical church tradition just shake their heads at me asking: “Why are you still there? Come over here where you will be valued and appreciated.”   While it is true that most people at my church just don’t want to think about it and it would be easier to just leave, I don’t for two reasons.  Firstly, yes I am a feminist, but I am a Christ follower first and when my feminism rises above that in my life then I believe it is an idol for me.  Secondly, I continue to be spiritually challenged. This issue does not totally hamper my ability to learn and receive from my church. So I remain, believing that perhaps I am supposed to be there.

But there is no getting around people’s strange ideas about feminists.

Here are some of the generalizations I run in to:

• Feminists all hate men and are angry!

That is just not true.  Let me give you an example of how hard it is.

We are studying attributes of God at church.  Commenting in a small group made up of ten to fifteen men and women that we meet with weekly, about my perceptions of God as Father, I tried to talk about the fact that my perceptions are skewed and harmed by my relationship to an angry and abusive human father.  As I stumbled over my words, trying to be as clear as possible (I really hate thinking out loud and find it challenging) and trying not offend anyone, the men in the room seemed to physically recoil, as if I was saying that I hate men.  “Do I want the men to all leave?” one of them joked.   I found myself saying “No, of course not. I don’t hate men.  I don’t, obviously, hate my husband for being a man.  I just don’t find it helpful that God is characterized as father/male when my experience with my father was so difficult.” 

I think it is absurd the pretzels we have to twist ourselves into trying to explain ourselves sometimes, because people think of all the negative generalizations about feminists.   But that is because of the lack of women willing to speak out about their experiences. And the current climate surrounding the role of women in the Church makes it hard for women who label themselves as feminists in the Church.

•  Feminists are offended by any song or creed with male pronouns.  

I have been there. When I was first on this journey everything hurt, male pronouns especially.   Gratefully I have come to a place where male pronouns in ancient hymns no longer offend me but I do notice them, every time.  I find it unfortunate that we have to be distracted by this while worshiping God.  I don’t choose to be offended, I just notice it.

And scripture readings still give me a twinge – though I know (because I also read the inclusive translations) which of the verses are strictly and only written to men and which (most) are referring to people.

I do that extra work because it is meaningful, and crucial to me. 

• Feminists are just out for power.

Questioning the Church’s ancient rules isn’t about power.  These are things that need to be questioned.

Based on a recent e-book written by Scot McKnight, I have concluded even more strongly that my desire to know scripture for myself is important.   “Sometimes it takes extra energy to get a silenced voice back.” Scot McKnight wrote in is riveting essay Junia is Not Alone.  “There is no evidence … in ancient manuscripts or translations” that Junia was a man.  “The church got into a rut and rode it out.”  A rut is kind way put it — more like a stinky hell-hole in my opinion, if a woman was completely cut out of the story in scripture and most people in the church don’t know. 

What else are they interpreting or changing?  We have an obligation to study if for ourselves.  The reality is that the Church needs women’s  voices.   It is wrong that our children growing up in the church not learning of the many incredible women in the Bible.  They are growing up to watch, and listen, and see all that isn’t there.  And yet it is there and no one told us.

Together we can re-imagine Christian Feminism.

• Men and women, use your platform and speak!

Things are changing.  There are many and varied platforms for people to educate themselves if they choose to.  The internet has opened up the world for us.  Gratefully, one can jump on FB or twitter and instantly feel connected to others.  Blogs are another incredible resource for connecting with intelligent and inspiring women and men willing to engage in these important topics.

As society has changed and women’s opportunities have expanded, as women have gained responsibility and influence (and dare I say power) in the marketplace, sadly the Church remains static and seems to have a narrow view of women’s potential.  For a thousand years, the belief was held that women were not included with men as image bearers of God.  Though the church has mostly abandoned that idea, they have not abandoned the authority structures that perpetuate the subjugation of women.

• I think as feminists, we should forgive as we have been forgiven.

An important part of my development as a feminist, and my spiritual maturation, was forgiving the ancient church fathers and the current ones (though this is harder for me) for this divisive and ugly interpretations of scripture that damage and harm women.  I had to take my pain to God for “allowing” these practices to exist, ones that limit, stifle and repress women in the church.

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished! – Luke 1:45

Rachel Held Evans, who I mentioned above, is a firecracker commentator on the current climate for women in the church.  She recently posted 13 Things that Make Me a Lousy Feminist.  What I like about Rachel is that she is courageous and willing to use her platform.  She stirs the pot, but her blog has respectful conversations.  Her tone is winsome and she laces her thoughts with humor, forcing us to think about our own inconsistencies.  And she receives some crap from people, but she is learning to put her opinions out there humbly and then listen to others.  That is a quality of a Godly leader.  I read with her list and reflected on what it means to me to be a Christian feminist.

These are (some of) the things I wish others understood about being a Christian Feminist.

Being a feminist is complex and is as different for every person just as is being male or female.  It cannot be summed up easily.

For me at least it means that women should have equal opportunities at home, at church, and in their professional lives.

Christian feminism is to me is the crazy belief that women and men are both created in God’s image and that each deserves a life of freedom and opportunity inside or outside the Church.  When the church’s systems keep that from happening we should speak up and challenge them with grace and aplomb knowing this may take years, even decades, to bring change.  It will certainly take patience, prayer, and perseverance.  It will take a loving yet persistent voice.  It will require us to build relationships with and trust and respect from the leadership structures. That too takes time.  I have not achieved this yet in my church and I have been there for ten years.  But I remain hopeful.

• We all have a role to play.  We are all necessary.  We all have a voice. We must take every opportunity that we can to share a positive, healthy perspective of feminism.  Women and men have a job ahead of us to change the opinions of others who do not understand what it means to be feminists, who are Christians.
• Being a feminist is a mindset and worldview.  Anyone can be a feminist – men and women.
• There are feminists who are decidedly feminine and those people actually might have more access and a voice in the Church than the stereotypical hard-core militant feminists.  (While I am no princess, I sometimes wear makeup and I shave my legs, these things are not the antitheses to being a feminist.)
• While one can be a feminist and personally opposed to abortion, taking away a woman’s right to choose is an inherently anti-feminist position.  I know that is controversial, but I would push back and say that human rights and dignity should be heralded at the beginning and end of life, each are a life and the position of many in the Church on death row executions is equally murder in my estimation.
• Making sexist comments against men, in favor of women, is un-feminist and only enforces gender stereotypes.
• We must respect others choices. There is nothing wrong with the choice of being a stay-at-home mom and the male in a relationship be the breadwinner.  That is what we have chosen right now and it came with a high price for me.  But those that choose this admittedly very traditional lifestyle must also respect those with both spouses working outside the home or those that choose to have the man staying at-home and a woman being the breadwinner.  These are all options that are good and different for each family.
• Work in any area of life should be based on talent, skill and passions as well as spiritual gifting.  This goes for everything from cleaning the house and mowing the lawn at home, to leading and managing teams, to teaching or ministering to others.    That said; don’t give any woman a job or a role, because you need a token woman. Do it because she is good at it.  Always work hard to find the best person for the job but know that in order to reconcile the injustice of institutional sexism and racism, work even harder to be sure that women and minorities are represented.   Like someone said “we’re all trying to be successful within a hierarchy of privilege.”
• I took my husband’s name, but only because I was tired of having my father’s name.  Women should be able to choose their name without feeling slammed from both ends by their choice.  I want my own name but there isn’t a way to achieve that currently and I don’t have a solution for it other than make up or choose a new name.

These are just a few of the ways that I have felt misunderstood as a Christian feminist.  What have you run into?

It’s hard to talk about injustice anywhere, but especially in the Church, without others developing a posture of fear and defensiveness and even condemnation.  I would simply ask that the next time a woman raises an issue or talks about their experiences as a woman in the church, try to remember a few things.

1. They may be in pain.
2. They may not have worked out exactly where they stand.
3. They may not have a full biblical worldview developed.
4. They may not be able to defend their position.
5. They may just want to be heard, understood, and loved.

Let’s respect one another’s differences, ask questions, and be open to change.

Our Lord came into the world in the womb of a young girl.  This teenage child was entrusted with the care and development of God himself, in the form of a babe.  She was told “You are blessed” and she believed she was!  Her faith was huge.  Her role was incredibly important.  The church today seems so caught up in what women and girls can’t do.  Let’s enlarge our faith and ask what can we do?  What are we being called to?

Another blogger that I love to read recently said this:

“It’s always befuddled me that people could think of women’s standing in the church as some sort of unimportant secondary issue, something to be held loosely and regarded coolly. Do we not realize that this has a significant personal impact on more than half the church?  Do we not acknowledge that the limits we do or do not place on women impact ministry efforts, evangelism and world missions? Do we not consider the implications this has for women’s understanding of their standing before God?   (Not to mention men’s understanding of a woman’s standing before God–and before them.  Ideas have consequences, and the consequences of subjugation tend to be ugly, like the thistles growing up in the field, hindering the work God has for us to do in the world.)”  – Jenny Rae Armstrong

I believe it is imperative that all believers in Christ (individually and corporately with whatever power and influence each has been given) learn to speak about the injustices that plague humanity — war, poverty and hunger, and sexism and other forms of prejudice, bigotry and racism.  And the next time someone wants to talk about women in the Church how refreshing it would be if we were open, embracing and full of love.  

Ask yourself, “Blessed, is she?”

“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”  Luke 1:45 NIV

Related articles

• Voice of the Feminine (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)

I am a Reformed Control Freak (Advent Musings)

I am a reformed control freak.  By reformed I suppose I mean that I know I am, was, can be a controlling person who wants things just so. Christmas is a perfect example of what really gets my ire up.  Ok, once again I’m showing what a wreck I am.  Yesterday I found myself at the hardware store ready to purchase lights for the house.  Yes, outside lights.  Just that is progress for me, twenty years it took.  Colored lights and all the glitter and s*** that we’re supposed to buy for this holiday, and Halloween, and all the other supposed “Hallmark Holy Days” — Well I rebel.

Yes, I have been told that I am “no fun” when it comes to decorations at holidays of any kind.  I don’t do ghosts in the trees at Halloween.  I don’t do little plastic hearts on the windows on Valentine’s day.  And I’ve felt sort of righteous in my snootyness.

Most especially at Christmas.    From the year I had my first tree we had our first tree, I have tried to control it.  My need for control being off the charts I would allow no colored lights, only clear ones.  Not home-made ornaments, matching ones with a theme.

((Sigh)).  I am reformed because we do have home made ornaments.  And this year, after eighteen years of marriage, I have decided that it would be “festive” and “fun” to have lights on the house outside for all the world to see in their glorious tackyness.  I mean isn’t really all about the kids?  And their imaginations?

And this didn’t help.  Driving home the other night, I heard my ten-year old son counting out loud.  When asked, he said, he was counting the number of people on our street that had “Christmas spirit.”

I knew this was the year.  I was going to get some spirit, let go and lighten up and have a little fun.  Who cares if the house is garish if it makes kids happy? Screw Martha Stewart.  And so I found myself at the hardware store putting down the lovely-green-genuine-pine-wreath-that-matches-my-house, for the front door.  And buying a bright red, bow that lights up.  And colored lights. (Picture forthcoming.)  Yes, I am a reformed control freak.

This isn’t about me.  This year for Christmas I’m giving everyone a decidedly much better time.

Isn’t everyone controlling at Christmas, with expectations ramped up to 110% for perfection!?

In all honesty Christmas never lives up to expectations because it isn’t about us and whatever experiences we can conjure up.

It’s about a babe born to a girl, quite unexpectedly and miraculously, who grew up to give his life up for me. And you.

Empty and Waiting

I must apologize in advance for this essay.  I could delete it, I almost did.  Perhaps I still shall. 

———————————————————————————————————————

I stopped dreaming.  I realized this as I sat in church yesterday.

It’s hard to feel hopeful when you no longer dream.  What you conceived for your life is not this, when you look around and hate who you have become.

[It takes me a long time to learn things.   I am hard-headed. ]

Perhaps, it is too much to ask?  I just wanted to be significant.  I imagined that I would do something amazing with my life — all those years of working on Urbana conventions, I felt I was doing something important.  Now what?

Is this it? I am a mother and not that good at it, seemingly always failing my children, a wife which I will never write about, a terrible homemaker, yes I mean lazy and bad at it, an infrequent friend and missing sister, ungrateful daughter who just feels forgotten, a hobbyist-at-best photographer and a sometimes I put words together on the page and call myself a writer  … Even this blog is simply an exercise in navel gazing.  And here I go again.

My fight with my maker is almost daily – my depression or remission, anxiety seems constant, recovery from alcoholism, battling with the isolation, feeling only loneliness.

I know that I am foremost an ingrate.  I don’t need reminders.  I have so much!  Four beautiful children, a home and husband and all I can think is, …  I thought I would be something, more.  I put these words here  for what?

I feel empty. I feel useless.   What purpose does my life serve?  Yes, I am looking for evidence of good, any good that I do, and hope.

God is faithful to his promises.  What are they, his promises?  What has God promised?

I’ve already lost whatever I heard in the sermon yesterday. 

He said “God’s results will look different than what we dream or imagine, what we prescribe for ourselves.  The book of Isaiah is filled with a promise that wasn’t fulfilled for 700 years.  God is not predictable but he is faithful. “

I am filled with longing — sick with it.  Perhaps this too is the waiting of Advent.

At times, we wait just for hope. We know we are ungrateful.  We know we are useless to Him.  He doesn’t need us.

We are simply empty and waiting.  

“In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.” — Hamlet

(I am) Under Construction: I Believe in the God who keeps time and has a long view that I cannot comprehend

I am grieving my father’s absence today.

I miss him terribly. (This is true, even while it is also true that I was afraid of him all my life.)  He was my father and I loved him.  He was wise and could be gentle and kind.

Yesterday while reflecting on where I have come from, I realized that my perceptions of what I see as my “successful” years are a direct result of my Dad’s view of the world and his active presence in my life.

The way he viewed one’s personal value was that it comes directly from one’s significant contribution to the world, the “great” things you would do for God. 

This has messed me up.

I went to work for my Dad soon after college.  I wanted to be near him, to come to know the man who others seemed to revere so highly.  As a child, I missed out on a lot of time with my father because of he was constantly working and frequently traveled.  I thought that this was a way to be close to him.

Those years working for him at InterVarsity and on Urbana conventions were full, busy and challenging.  I learned a lot of good things:  the value of being a hard worker, of doing things excellently, of receiving correction, of trying things even when not an expert (basically taking risks!), and the value of pursing your passions.

I also learned some things about myself — one is good, that I loved hard work.

But I also came to believe that work could fill the empty spaces in my soul – places of loneliness, need for relevance and love, and the insidious fear of being a failure.

All of my life it was those people who served others, who worked hard, who accomplished many things, who were pioneers in their ideas and accomplishments, who challenged the status quo, who took risks, who “made a difference” – those were the people admired by my father! 

And that is what I learned to do and believe mattered most.

Growing up the things that were okay to sacrifice were family, friendship, and knowing and accountable relationships.   I even saw that it was okay to not live up to the great character qualities aspired to in Scripture, if you meant well or asked forgiveness afterward.  Growing up in a missionary family it was made clear to us that you should be willing to work for less, less money as missionaries and nothing in terms of payment for my mother, who worked for the mission but received no monetary compensation.  And we learned that God would always provide.  We lacked for nothing materially growing up.

Dad was driven to do many “important things” and I admired him for this, even as I missed having a daddy in my life.   It is only as an adult that I accepted the power and impact of being driven on one’s priorities, relationships and family for the worse.

When I left work to be at-home, I had become my father — driven, passionate, crazy busy and “weary from well-doing,” as well as lonely and constantly fearing failure.  No matter what I accomplished, I was unsatisfied and rarely felt good about it or myself.   It just made sense to leave, if I was that unhappy at work.  We had three children in diapers and a budding teenager, my stepdaughter, at home. When I quit I was a mess and didn’t know it!

I am now grateful to have learned, after more than ten years at-home, that there is more to life than what you do but even now, even yesterday the devilish ideas return saying that I am nothing without what I am doing, and it better be something significant!  Accomplishments are heady things and degrees boost the ego, but they do not offer one the solid, sweet confidence that comes from knowing who you are in the Lord – beloved, fully known and loved.  I thought that my father would love me more if I was able to do more!  He had spent his whole life driven by this need as well.

This was what I knew “You are loved, more lovable, when you are doing important things.”

It was in November, 02, that I got the call that my dad was sick – he’d been having what they thought were TIAs, losing the ability to speak in mid sentence.  Through some connections, my parents always had connections, Dad got in quickly to see a brain specialist who made the diagnosis of cancer.  It was tumors in his brain.

The first of December found us in Colorado, with brain surgery on.  I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the only time, in the months that he was sick, that Dad would allow a conversation about his possible death.  He could sometimes be a pragmatic man.  Going into surgery held risks and a conversation needed to occur with his children just in case something went wrong.  

I wish I had known that this was the only time he would allow such a conversation.  I still have so many questions, things that remain unspoken, proper goodbyes, … 

But that was his way … He lived absolutes and when he came out of surgery alive, he believed that God would heal him and more importantly that he would return to work.  ”God still had plans for him, things Dad was to do.  It was unacceptable, lacking faith to be quite honest, to talk of his possible death.”

And so he and I went to tea.  It was a conversation that changed my life.  For the first time, I knew I could say whatever needed saying.  I was admittedly terrified!  He could be volatile and capricious.  And later, in a conversation with my sister he proved how much so.  This was partly due to the tumors changing him but he was erratic and mean many times over the years, which made it hard to trust in the benevolent moments.

At great personal risk, I told my father how his actions throughout my life had hurt me — his anger, his raging, his criticism, his absence had injured me. And this was his reply.  Yes, regret and he sought my immediate forgiveness.  (It was a transaction for him, forgiveness.  One asks.  One receives.  End of story.)

But he also said something that struck me as strange , a non sequitur, which I have reflected on many times since. It was new information.  He said, “I didn’t know how to be a parent.  I felt incompetent.  But I was good at doing work …  accomplished, affirmed and admired. And so that’s what I did, I worked. “

Yes, I felt that growing up.  Both that being a parent was not his priority though I didn’t know why.  And that what you do was a way to feel good about yourself.  And I also did that for many years and when work became untenable, even the accomplishments weren’t enough, would not fill the hole in my heart and made me feel like there was continuously more I need to do.  Have.  Accomplish.  Take on.  Achieve.   And so I quit.

I was unprepared for the full stop! Of all of a sudden, not being significant in the world’s eyes.  And what I had done in the past was irrelevant.  

And it wasn’t that being a parent was too hard but rather that I didn’t believe in its value.  In many ways still don’t.  I mean intellectually I do know the value of parenting, but I cannot seem to convince my heart and soul.

This is the root of my discomfort with being at home.  My depression came on very soon after.   I wasn’t happy but not because of being at-home, or being a mother, or even because I no longer had “a job” to make me feel important or worthwhile.

I had never been that happy.  I was only now coming to a place of acknowledging that reality.

I had a very good friend and mentor years ago, Pete Hammond, that wrote this wisdom:

“Being a sinner means having the terrible ability to misuse every good thing!  That ability to misuse includes relationships, possessions, passions and pleasures, citizenship privileges and rights, freedoms, work and jobs, family, etc.  Thanks be to God that Christ offered to help us break this terrible pattern on the cross.” – Pete Hammond, Re:Learning Family.

The good news is that though I am broken and lost, I have hope.  Paul progressed in his transformation, he said,

“Christ died for our sins … I am the least of all the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle. … But, by the grace of God, I am what I am, and this grace toward me has not been in vain.”

“I know that nothing good dwells within me… Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me?… Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“I, too, had reason for confidence in the flesh (religion, ethnicity, family, profession, temperament, citizenship) … but I have come to regard these as loss… and regard them as rubbish… I want to know Christ.” 

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the greatest.  For that reason I received mercy…making me an example … To God be the glory for ever and ever!”

Transformation seems to take time.  I have to trust in God who keeps time and has a long view that I cannot know, comprehend, but I can believe in.  Looking at Paul, he was also growing in his understanding of himself from being a dangerous pre-Christian to becoming a mature and humble leader.  Paul changed.  In his life, I find hope!   He was being changed, he was “under construction” and when he said “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ”(In 1 Cor. 4:16, 11:11 and Phil 3:17, 4:9) I understand what he meant!  Not that he was perfect, but that Christ was still transforming him.

I long for a day when I will have arrived to full maturity and not have days like yesterday when I sink into depression.

I pray for the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in life.

For serenity and healing, I pray.  And I believe that Christ is still transforming me.

Amen.

What is lost when the Church echoes with the sound of women’s silence?

Image via Wikipedia

In many respects I am too strident– because of my lack of “role”, my current joblessness lacks authority, lack of higher degrees, perhaps this is why I find myself speaking out more often, and more loudly.   I have finally accepted that one cannot command respect at church or anywhere.  It must be earned.  And I have not earned the respect of the leaders in my church and so I have no real voice there. But this being true does not negate the veracity of what I have to say.  Because it is that which isn’t heard, which needs to be heard.  ”Not to speak is to speak.”

And even more so, from within the Church needs to hear the sounds of women’s silence.

In “the Church” what I hear all too frequently is the voices of men.  I see the male faces on the platform, on the bookcovers that are recommended, and in the Christian magazines, blogs and conferences.  Women are relegated to their own blogs or their own tracks in the Church and at events, yes that are “For Women.”  The reason I have such a problem with these things “for Women” is that although women may be talking to each other, are our ideas being heard? 

When women are unrepresented at “the table” or underrepresented then it goes without saying that half the church, or more than that statistically, are silenced.  

What is lost when the church echoes with the sound of women’s silence?

When I learned recently that Junia was a woman I felt angry, filled with a level of fury that shook me to the core.  And then a degree of apathy came over me.  You see, I have always believed and worried that the voices of women were stifled in scripture.  For most of my life, I chose “forgiving possible human error” because this was the “inspired Word of God.”  But in actuality, we are talking about a misrepresentation of the truth.  This is a way of looking at scripture that doesn’t allow for any understanding of the characters that are missing from the biblical story because they are never directly mentioned, given voice, or described or simply rewritten as in the case of Junia.

Is it important to ask what other stories are squelched by the translators or simply quieted by the culture in which the stories were written? I think so.  Scholars are needed to investigate the tensions between the story of scripture and characters large and small, depending on emphasis.  The conversations in the church are continuously around all of the well-known biblical characters most of whom are male.  Others are only briefly mentioned and this simply reinforces the silence.

The sounds of women’s silence run deep.
Let us attune our ears to the sounds of women’s silence,
to attend and listen to what is not said,
what has never been said,
what is only now beginning to be said.
Let this silence cry aloud in our ears,
let it resound and reverberate inside our heads,
let it deafen our whole being with a colossal roar.
This silence is eloquent, articulate of women’s pain and women’s lives.
It is compelling, hypnotic, fearful, overwhelming.
It speaks louder than words.
It utters volumes of speech.
It drowns out all other language.
Where are the women in our history, in our heritage?
Where are the stories of our women heroes, mystics, leaders and teachers?
Who will guide the footsteps of our daughters?
Born today into a deafening silence about their ancestors, about themselves?
So many women’s voices have been lost in the pages of history,
erased and blotted out and passed over in silence
by the rulers of patriarchy, the makers of culture.
So few have survived in the pages,
and their stories have so often been ignored,
trivialized, marginalized, distorted.  (Praying Like a Woman, Nicola Slee)

What is louder in the Church today than the sound of women’s silence?

There was a woman, who spoke from a place of no authority.  She brought the only resources she had which were not many.  She came boldly to Jesus.  She broke open and poured out oil, a blessing, over Jesus.

Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious at the waste, in their indignation over her actions. But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”  (Mark 14:3-9)

Are we talking about this woman that risked all her personal resources, public ridicule and the possibility of being rejected by Jesus, by Simon, by her community?  Still she came and anointed Jesus. Are we talking about her courage, and faith and importance?

Oh, that we would have the courage of this woman.  She stepped out of all of the comforts of her culture and Jesus affirmed her for it!

So I end with where I began.  I don’t have the affirmation of my church, I am not really listened to I know.  I am known for my view or position, possibly in a tiny way for being strident about my views on women.  But I need to let that go and simply listen for the ways and places in which I do have a voice.  And speak to those that are listening.

Amen.

Advice for Women in Ministry

Related articles

• Blessed, Is She? [Re-imagining Christian Feminism] (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)
• Even When She Speaks (logicandimagination.wordpress.com)