Emerging Women

Changes at Emerging Women

2009-02-18T06:56:00.003-06:00

I am happy to announce that the long awaited changes here at Emerging Women have finally arrived. I'm excited to be moving ahead with this community and look forward to our future conversations. Most of the Emerging Women members already know about these changes, but for the broader community of readers, here's a summary of what's happening and why.

- From now on, Emerging Women will exist exclusively at the domain www.emergingwomen.us. Some of you may already be using this address, but until now it simply forwarded to the blogspot site. We will no longer be hosted at Blogger and are happy to have a cleaner more navigable site, so please update your links!

- The continued growth of Emerging Women means that we can no longer function as a membership based blog - there's just too many of us! But we will continue to be as open source as possible. We still want the blog to represent the voices and thoughts of a wide variety of women, so we are looking for your submissions. We are still looking for articles, book/movie reviews, stories, interviews, creative writings, questions, resources, links, and news items to share on the blog. So feel free to send those submissions at any time to emergingwomen(at)gmail(dot)com.

- But even without membership, Emerging Women desires to be a resource helping connect those in the emerging church to the women's voices in its midst. We will continue to have two blogrolls for this purpose. One will feature any (appropriate) emerging woman blogger who wants to be on the list. The other will include any websites, organizations, or men's blogs who want to be "friends of emerging women." The point is to connect us all together.

- All of the old posts will be at the new blog. It just might take some time to update the author info on each one.

I'm excited to see how the conversation develops and look forward to reconnecting with all of you at the new site!

- Julie Clawson

A Crazy Dream, a Praying Squad of Women Peacemakers & The First Woman President in Africa

2009-02-02T12:33:00.003-06:00

I dropped my jaw in awe, amazement, heartbreak and inspiration reading this article about a woman's "Crazy Dream," and the movement she led of praying, protesting, peacemaking women reaching across the Christian-Muslim divide to end violence in Liberia and ultimately leading to exile of a corrupt leader and the the first African Woman President in Office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/opinion/31herbert.html?emc=eta1

Celebrating my birthday - free stuff in Feb

2009-01-31T20:06:00.003-06:00

I decided to do something new this year and randomly give fun and interesting things away all month to celebrate my birthday. The first item is a leather bound journal, for prayers, or whatever you enjoy journaling. To join in the fun, you can follow me on Twitter, or go to my website which will post details on that day.

It might help beat the winter blues too.

Life is a gift.
Best wishes.
-Lisa

Lilly Ledbetter and Her Sparkly New Law

2009-01-30T07:10:00.001-06:00

It's just too bad she won't accrue any benefits from it.

Maybe you remember Lilly from last year's presidential campaign. Or if you're really observant, from the news in May 2007. If you don't, allow me to tell you a little bit of Lilly's story.

Lilly Ledbetter worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber company down in Alabama. She was an Area Manager (aka plant supervisor). She worked at Goodyear from 1979 to 1998. When she retired in 1998, she was the only female Area Manager, the rest of her colleagues were male. All 15 of them. Another unique characteristic that her colleagues shared was that they all earned more than she did. Every single one of them. Even those who had worked at Goodyear less time than Lilly had. Even those who did a worse job than she did.

Sometime in early 1998, Lilly finally had enough evidence and she filed paperwork with the EEOC (that's the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). She retired in July and in November she filed a lawsuit against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company claiming that they had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender. That's when the legal wrangling began. I'll spare you the details. But it went all the way up to the highest court in the land.

The Supremes got it. No, poodles, not Diana Ross and the Supremes. The Supreme Court. The Nine in Black. However, their decision made just about as much sense as MacArthur Park.

Now you can read the ruling in it's entirety if you'd like. You can download it for yourself here. However, the essence of the majority (5 to 4) decision, handed down by Justice Alito, was that Ms. Ledbetter had missed the boat. You see, Lilly had filed suit saying, in essence, that because there was discrimination in her pay at the end of her employment, there had been ongoing discrimination for a long period of time. Justices Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas (who, being African American, ought to know better) disagreed and wrote, essentially that Ms. Ledbetter ought to have known about the discrimination in her salary from the very beginning and in order to have gained redress, should have filed grievances at every instance. They used plenty of the court's own rulings as precedence for this. Every single one of which as been overwritten by Congress. They ignored the intent and the scope of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and the National Labor Relations Act.

You see, the original court in which Ms. Ledbetter filed her claim she was given redress for the wrong and was awarded $3.5 million dollars in lost income. That seemed a little steep to me when I first saw the number, because at the time of her retirement the disparity in income was not that great. Ms. Ledbetter was earning $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236. However, then I realized that while the immediate difference was not great, this difference would play out for perhaps 30 years or more during her retirement. Ms. Ledbetter had not had the opportunity to save as much for retirement, nor Social Security as her male counterparts and so that must also be accounted for in the redress.

You may be wondering why Ms. Ledbetter won. Well, until the Supreme Court ruling, the presumption was that the clock (180 days) started running on the day that one recieved the most recent (or current) discriminatory paycheck, NOT the first discriminatory paycheck. So the court in which she originally filed suit found that she presented a valid case and gave her redress. Goodyear Tire did not like that answer and filed an appeal. Thus the case wound it's way to the Supreme Court.

Think back for a moment to your employment experiences. Go ahead. I'll wait. Think about the notion that salary decisions might be public knowledge.

Have you finished guffawing yet?

That's exactly what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought too. She wrote the dissenting opinion. Then took the unusual step of reading it from the bench after the majority opinion had been read. If you've never read Supreme Court decisions, this is a good one to cut your teeth on. It's fairly straightforward and you already know what's going on. Even more interesting (to me) are the dissenting opinions. The writing in those are more relaxed and less full of legalese, because they don't count for as much. That is, future jurisprudence will not necessarily be relying upon the dissent. Reading the dissenting opinion from the bench is very unusual. It carries a certain weight; it goes beyond saying, "We in the minority disagree." to also spitting on your shoes. In public. Here is some of what Justice Ginsburg had to say:

The Court’s insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination. Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.

Pay disparities are thus significantly different from adverse actions “such as termination, failure to promote, . . . or refusal to hire,” all involving fully communicated discrete acts, “easy to identify” as discriminatory.

There is so much more. This may not sound like much to the untrained ear/eye, but in the language of the Supreme Court it is a stinging rebuke. Especially since it was delivered in a public address.

And so things stood for nearly two years. But two days ago, President Obama and the U.S. Senate set the scales of justice just a little bit right again. The Senate approved legislation which would establish that the clock starts with the most recent discriminatory paycheck NOT the first one. Then President Obama signed it into law. It was the second law he signed since taking office. It's known as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. And, God bless her, Lilly won't get one thin dime from it. The rest of us will. Or not. But at least we will have gained an equal footing on which to stand up for ourselves.

As Gail Collins wrote in yesterday's NYTimes:

Ledbetter, who was widowed in December, won’t get any restitution of her lost wages; her case can’t be retried. She’s now part of a long line of working women who went to court and changed a little bit of the world in fights that often brought them minimal personal benefit.

I highly recommend that op-ed piece. For two reasons. First, you'll read about women who have paved the way for the rest of us, the un-sung heroines in mostly blue-collar jobs who made it possible for us to get where we are today. Second, many of the cases that Gail writes about, were also used as precedence by Alito, et al; cases the Court ruled on which were then overwritten by Congress.

So, if you think about it today, say a prayer for Lilly Ledbetter and Eulalie Cooper and Patricia Lorance and Lorena Weeks. They fought so we could stand.

Gender Analyzer

2009-01-27T21:56:00.002-06:00

From Gender Analyzer (ht - Andrew Jones) -

Results
We have strong indicators that http://emergingwomen.blogspot.com is written by a man (91%).

okay... apparently we are all men. what????

International Women's Day Synchroblog/Synchrosermon

2009-01-26T14:40:00.001-06:00

Each year on March 8 the world takes time to observe International Women's Day. It is a day dedicated to the celebration of women’s social, economic and political achievements worldwide. In the United States, this official day of observance is rooted in women’s efforts to campaign for rights to work, vote and hold public office, culminating on March 8, 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to sweatshop conditions and child labor. In the early 1910s, the concept gained recognition in the international community and grew momentum as women across Europe continued to fight for the right to work and protest against ensuing world conflict.

This year March 8 falls on a Sunday. I know Sundays aren't typically big blogging days since they are days when we take time to focus on our faith. But for that reason, I think we should make an effort this year to bring our faith to the celebration of IWD. So I'd like to suggest a joint synchroblog/synchrosermon observance of the day for Christians. Too often in the church not only are the voices of women not heard, but the stories of biblical women remain untold. But the Bible is full of inspiring examples of women faithfully following God and making a tremendous difference for the Kingdom. So this year on International Women's Day I invite men and women alike to take the time to explore the lives of these great women through a -

Synchroblog - on March 8 post something on your blog about biblical women. This could be your experience (or lack thereof) with learning about these women, a reflection on the life of a particular woman, an exploration of the ways women led in scripture, or a midrashic retelling of the life of one of these women. Have fun with it, push yourself to discover new things, and let's tell these stories together.

Synchrosermon - these stories of women are rarely told from the pulpit, so I encourage those of you preaching or teaching on March 8 to include the stories of biblical women in whatever you do. The church often wont hear about these women or learn from their example, unless pastors and teachers make a deliberate effort to dwell on the mothers of our faith as much as they usually dwell on the fathers.

It's not difficult. This isn't like other negative or angry IWD blog endeavours I've seen (and participated in) in the past. It is simply a way to positively encourage women and let women's voices be heard.

So if you are interested in participating, leave a comment at my blog here so I can post the list of participants. Feel free to promote this among your networks as well. And thanks for helping women continue to have a voice.

Changes Ahead

2009-01-25T21:26:00.002-06:00

I just want to give a heads up that there will be some major changes occurring here at Emerging Women soon. Members will be finding out more about this very soon, and the changes should be public shortly thereafter. I hope this will strengthen this community and help push the conversation here forward.

What Would You Like To Inagurate?

2009-01-18T15:20:00.004-06:00

"One. Trillion. Dollars."

TIME says that's Obama's take on what we are called to invest to kick-start the U.S. economy.

On Tuesday Barack Obama will take the next step in expressing his vision for this country and inviting us to celebrate and invest in that vision. And when the dude says invest, he is talking about your heart, your mind and yes your your share in one trillion dollars. It will be the inaguration of a ginormous investment. Invest almost enough and you may get modest improvements or even continued loss...Invest fully and appropriately to the situation and you may live to see a fabulous rising of what was dead (can we say that last 8 years!) into new life.

Like, can you imagine a half-dead Jesus limping down off the cross?

Invest Fully and something may come alive in you that was dead before. What could it be?

What is the spirit inviting you to inagurate in your life? What investment would it take to kick-start your Life?

What's state of the union between you and Spirit like in your inner economy: downturn or upturn? What would make YOU a full-out expression of the Creator's greatness as you look toward inagurating a new day in our country's history and a new day in the living herstory of God's Life in YOU?

Happy Inaguration Ladies (and you nice guys out there who like EW),

Love & Peace,
Jemila K

www.leapcoachinc.com

Remembering Father Richard John Neuhaus

2009-01-13T10:45:00.002-06:00

Note to the reader: this tribute originally appeared on The Big Red Couch. As a thinker, a woman, and a theologian, I have deep, rich respect for this man, in an era when "a good man is hard to find."

Last week, I gave a gasp and a shudder, then immediately burst into tears. Someone that I had met once died. That was all.

But that wasn't all. I had heard of his serious illness; heard the call to prayer, on his behalf. I had once heard him speak.

More importantly, he had heard me.

The man spoke with President Bush, and President Reagan. With Pope John Paul II. The President of Poland has issued a statement of grief upon the man's demise. But one day, this man spoke with me.

I was vaguely aware of his political import; I was more aware of his status as a theological giant who lived in Manhattan. There hung about him both wit, and a scent of pipe or cigar tobacco, when I met him. He was animated with energy, gracious in his attention, and radiated the spiritual comfort of a man who, it felt, has spent more hours praying than I had been alive. It seemed appropriate, and familiar, to call him father - a picture of a papa to millions of people, peasants and popes alike.

Father Richard John Neuhaus - for the last week, hearing and reading the name make tears sting my eyes. Not because of his time on "Meet the Press," but because of a few winter hours several years ago.

The cold evening I met "Father John," as George W. often called him, he was wrapped in a thick overcoat and eager to arrive at a meeting at which he was keynote speaker. I found myself handed with a rare privilege, and one which I have only appreciated more as time has passed. I knew I was meeting an important man, and a great man, though I hardly knew how important, and how great. I had not seen the photos of him with world leaders at that time. I knew him as a name on "First Things," a remarkably profound publication. But he was simple, unaffected, welcoming. He and I sat and spoke of liturgy. He listened to my opinions - which I have never been shy in sharing. (There remains in me the rather Scottish certainty that my opinions and thought, carefully measured, are just as good as anybody else's - no matter who they have on speed dial, or what country they run. It is, I think, a Highlander characteristic.)

I remember little of the address he gave that night. It was profound, I recall, and stimulating. We had, I know, a spirited exchange in the car on the way to drop him at his hotel. And though I still don't know if he or I stepped forward first, he gave me a quick, impromptu hug in departure. It felt rather like he had laid his hands on my head in blessing, though it was nothing so grand.

Upon his death I found myself shaken. More than that, I felt myself wanting to chime in - to add my experiences to the community pool of memories that has been collecting in the wake of his passing. I wanted to include that I, too, had personal experience of the man who has helped shape presidential policy on issues as grave as abortion. But it wasn't out of a desire for climbing any ladders, or garnering any accolades. The mark of a holy man is that he brings out what good there is in the people around him. And I think that our communal hopes of having our voices heard by others as we each share personal reminiscences are due to a desire to be like him.

"I want to be that well read," some think. "I want to hone just a portion of that rigorous intellect," others determine. "I want to make people feel that welcome in my presence," "I want to be more disciplined in my writing, like he was..." "I want to wrap all aspects of my life around my faith, like he did..." "I want to know when to take things seriously, and when to laugh them off, like he did..."

We want to be like you, Father Neuhaus. In whatever small way we resemble you, we want to be like you, because you wanted to be like the Father.

We are left, now, without your example, and we fear we cannot model it as well as you did. But, as you would remind us, we are left with the Divine example, we all inherit the same Spirit of the Lord, who empowers us to be more like Jesus.

But we will miss you.

Movie Review: "Marley and Me"

2008-12-30T20:59:00.005-06:00

I haven’t set foot inside a commercial movie theater since 1993. No, I’m not kidding. Ticket prices, higher priorities, other interests and an utter lack of interest in most of the junk Hollywood cranks out these days disguised as “movies” have kept me away from theaters for years. So you know something unusual – maybe even remarkable – drew me into the theater today to see the comedy/drama Marley and Me.

Truth is, I wasn’t planning on seeing Marley and Me - or anything else. But my husband and older sons were on an all-day youth group outing, leaving me home with our youngest. Josiah wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about being left behind. So I called the local cinema center on a lark, got the usual unintelligible recording, but deciphered just enough of it to catch something about a family and a yellow Labrador retriever. I’ve been a sucker for yellow Labs ever since Old Yeller. In fact, our good dog is a yellow Lab. Marley and Me was a no-brainer.

I bought two matinee tickets for Josiah and me and walked into a theater that was two-thirds full, oppressively stuffy, and had the soles of my shoes sticking to the floor. I almost turned around and walked out. Only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to disappoint Josiah. I’m glad I stayed. Marley and Me was a pleasant surprise.

This charming, rambunctious, family-oriented movie is about a “clearance puppy,” aka; “the world’s worst dog,” and the havoc and happiness he wreaks within the Grogan household. Based on the best selling book from ex-Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Josh Grogan, Marley and Me has Owen Wilson playing Grogan with deadpan good humor and Jennifer Aniston as his wife, Jen.

The movie opens just after the Grogan’s wedding in southern Michigan which is accompanied by a blizzard. The couple moves to “some place warmer” – Florida – where both husband and wife land jobs as reporters. Josh reports mostly mundane stories for the Sun-Sentinel until his hard-boiled editor (Alan Arkin) asks him to take on a twice-a-week column. Self-described as “full of surprises,” Josh reluctantly accepts and soon finds his niche writing columns about “regular, every day stuff:” his wife, their growing family, and the uproarious antics of the rascally, rambunctious Marley (named for the singer Bob).

One thing I especially appreciated about this movie is that it portrays the stresses and strains, exhaustions and joys of family life realistically, without stereotypes of clichés. Jen eventually gives up her career to stay home full-time with the Grogan’s sons, who are later joined by “whups,” their third child, a daughter. The family gets a minivan, moves into a larger home in Boca and eventually settles in Pennsylvania where Grogan writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Dissatisfied with hard news reporting, Grogan eventually finds his way back to what he loves most and does best – writing a column about “regular, every day stuff.”

Meanwhile, Grogan’s “regular, every day” family life - complete with dirty diapers, messy houses, thunder storms, unfinished homework, soccer games and snowball fights - is subtly contrasted to the ostensibly more glitzy, glamorous life of Sebastian Tunney, a hot bachelor reporter. A choice scene occurs toward the end of the movie in which Grogan runs in to Tunney - on assignment for yet another plum story - and passing through Philadelphia. Tunney inquires about the family and Grogan proudly pulls out a snapshot of Jen and the kids and of course, the four-legged rascal, Marley. They exchange a few pleasantries before Grogan mentions that he has to get going because his son has a soccer game. The two friends shake hands and promise to “get together some time.” Tunney flashes his trademark toothy grin and roams down the sidewalk, hitting on yet another young woman while Grogan, clearly the richer and more fulfilled of the two, heads back to his wife and kids and that crazy, loveable yellow Lab that has a few surprises himself.

I forgot all about the over-warm theater, the stale air and sticky cement floor about halfway through this movie. It was delightful. I walked out of the theater hugging my son and hurrying home to hug my good dog and the rest of my family.

To be sure, Marley and Me isn’t Gone With the Wind, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a gem of a little “sleeper” and has a gentle, unpretentious quality to it that all dog lovers – and everyone else – can enjoy. Go see it. And be sure to bring Kleenex.

Caution: Marley and Me is rated PG. A few brief scenes and lines may be inappropriate for very young viewers.

Best of 2008

2008-12-27T13:46:00.002-06:00

"Best Of" posts are beginning to pop up all over like dandelions in springtime. They're sparkly and eye-catching. I always like them because they catch the year in review and give the reader a walk down memory lane. But ... you knew there was a "but" coming. So often in church-y circles the "best of" posts are either all men or men in overwhelming proportions. I've been blogging for more than three years now and I keep hoping this will change. That the onset of the internet will bring about changes to this dynamic. But I'm not seein' it yet.

Don't get me wrong. There are some men (Rick "Blind Beggar" Meigs, Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, Brad Sargent, John Smulo, Shawn Anthony and some others to name a few) who are wholly committed to women in full partnership in life, ministry, blogging, you-name-it. They have gone above and beyond to support women and engage them equally.

What does that look like? I know a lot of folks are put off by idea of feminism and I'm mystified by that. But let's look at it from another perspective. We all look at families and tend to agree that a "whole and healthy" family includes a mother (female) and a father (male). No matter what your feelings are about who should be in charge and when, we all know that healthy families require both the male and the female perspective to adequately parent, raise, etc. the children. At the very least, there are whole books on the subject of healthy families requiring two parents where one takes on the feminine role and the other the masculine (in the case of homosexual relationships). We know very clearly what the lack of men does to a family and what the lack of a mother can bring to children. So my question is ... why do we find this lack of the feminine voice or perspective so very acceptable in church/ministry leadership?

It is in the interest of balancing out the perspectives that I present my Best of 2008 ... plus one from 2007 because it was so good.

... in no particular order ...

Erika Haub - The Margins - “the church that came to me”

“When she saw me her eyes teared up, and as she spoke she started to cry. She told me that she could not believe that I had let her into my home, with full access to all of our things, and then closed my door and gone to sleep. She said that she had never felt so trusted by someone; she had never felt so much pride and dignity and worth as someone who did not have to be doubted and feared.”

Kathy Escobar - the carnival in my head - “what could be”

here’s my hope:

that we’d be people & communities radically in touch with Christ’s love for us & continue to risk our comfort, ego, time, money, and heart to offer mercy & compassion to others. that we’d be somehow known as ‘those weird people who love other people unconditionally, tangibly, and in all kinds of crazy, unexplainable ways.”

Tracy Simmons - The Best Parts - “The Rescue Parade”

When people rescue dogs or trees or human beings, they are displaying how much they are made in the image of their creator. He longs to see all things rescued and restored. It's in our spiritual DNA whether we are aware of it or not.

Makeesha Fisher - Swingin’ From the Vine - “Missional: It Sure Ain’t Velveeta”

Being missional is hard work. Getting down and dirty in people’s lives, giving everyone a platform and allowing your voice to form from within the context of community versus individual aspirations and spirituality is not a nice easy package deal. You can’t just cut off a block from the end of the yellow brick and nuke it to gooey perfection. It’s time consuming and risky and generally not very “pretty”.

Rose Madrid-Swetman - RMD -

“Building To Serve Others Part 1”
“Building To Serve Others Part 2”
“Building To Serve Others Part 3”

We discussed the pros and cons, the why’s and why not’s of taking the step of leasing a space. Our biggest fear was that we would lose sight of the congregation as the church. You see when we rented a basement room for Sunday worship only, everything else we did as a faith community happened in our neighborhoods, the host community and in homes. Moving into a leased space that we would have 24/7 access to could endanger us to put the emphasis on the building as the church rather than the church being the people.

Heidi Renee - Redemption Junkie - “Great Losers”

I just can't seem to walk past a smidgen of interesting brokenness or discarded story. I am so moved by outsider and found art because deep in my heart I long to be a mosaic artist. I have not yet begun to piece together those precious bits and fragments pocketed along my journey.

Julie Clawson - One Hand Clapping - “Experience and Empathy”

It’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge the need for better health care around the world, I am discovering it is another thing altogether to attempt to imagine oneself in another’s position. I knew the need for equity before, but my experiences have helped me to empathize. I know I am lucky and privileged. I don’t desire to trivialize or cheapen the plight of others by claiming to truly understand, but I am a firm believer that empathy is necessary if one is to truly care and make a difference. And experience helps with that.

Grace - Kingdom Grace - “Disciples or Converts”

I think that we often circumvent the real life of the Spirit in conversion methods, discipleship methods, and in the way that we function together as groups of believers. What are the ways that we tamper with natural growth and unintentionally cause lack of reproduction and other genetic deformities?

Pam Hogeweide - How God Messed Up My Religion - “First Time To Notice A Homeless Person”

He looked over at me. Our eyes locked, me the middle-class teenager from a middle-class Vegas family; him, the ghost of someone’s son now orphaned and phantomed like the nobody he knew he was born to be and die as was. It was a definitive moment for me. In that one glance I saw past the dirty beggar who didn’t have a job or a home. I caught a swift glimpse of a man who was not born for greatness, but was just born. He had no purpose, no grand plan. No derailed American dream to be somebody. For an instance I saw my brother, my father, my son and my husband. This unknown man was more than a Utah phantom. But that one look told me that not only had he become invisible to others, the true man of who he was – this beggar was an imposter of his true greatness – but more urgently, he had become invisible to himself. He did not matter.

Christine Sine - Godspace - “Discerning The Winter Blues”

I was reminded that I once read that the tradition of Advent wreaths actually began because farmers took the wheels of their wagons during the wet winter months and this became the framework for the Advent wreath. Now I am not sure that any of us would consider taking the wheels off our cars over the winter but I do think that we need to build times of rest, reflection and renewal into our schedules. Maybe we should stop driving our cars at least for a few days so that we can relax and refresh. We are not meant to continually live in harvest season. We are not meant to be continually producing fruit or even be continually blossoming. In fact plants that are forced into bloom at the wrong season by florists never recover their natural rhythm. Most of them will never blossom again.

Cheesehead - A Cheesehead In Paradise - “A Sermon for the Celebration of the Reign of Christ”

(Let me say for the record, if any of you are considering running for elected office, and someone comes to church to see what kind of sermons you listen to, and nobody finds anything even the least bit sketchy that I have said—if nothing I preach is found to be even the slightest bit counter-cultural and it’s all perfectly agreeable—that’s probably not a good thing and you should call me on it.)

Christy Lambertson - Dry Bones Dance - Abortion Series

1 - Late Night Comedians, American Politicians & Abortion Week
2 - Nuance is Bad For Fundraising
3 - Put Away the Coat Hangers
4 - Let Me Tell You About Your Experience
5 - We Have Met The Enemy and They Are Partly Right (part I)
6 - We Have Met The Enemy and They Are Partly Right (part II)

That’s why I have declared it to be Abortion Week here at Dry Bones Dance (or possibly Abortion Month, depending how long I go between posts.) Whatever your position is, I’m not going to try to change it. Really. I promise. I just want to take an emotionally charged, extremely polarizing issue, and show how our public conversation about it - from both sides – virtually guarantees that we won’t ever get anywhere on the issue.

Erin Word - Decompressing Faith - “The Tribe”

This tribe is not bound by collective adherence to a doctrine or by a building, but in mutual love for each other and a desire to set each other free from the things which have chained us. My tribe is not a place where anyone has to justify their experiences, but a place where we learn from a myriad of voices. My belief in the value of Jesus in my life is unwavering; many other aspects of my faith are in constant flux as I learn and grow. This I am able to do in a community where boundaries are elastic and belief is defined only by a love for Christ. Searching together for ways to better love on the world and on others, as Jesus exemplified, is the common thread we share.

Sally Coleman - Eternal Echoes “Perichoresis”

Sally writes gorgeous poetry and takes stunning photographs of beaches, sunsets and people.

AJ Schwanz - AJ Schwanz “High Bar”

And then I wonder: am I just being me-centric? Is this something God’s calling me to, or is this me being idealistic and believing the grass is always greener? What if it doesn’t look the way I think it should? What if it’s right in front of my face and I’m ignoring it because I don’t like the way God’s engineered it? When push comes to shove, would I make the sacrifice; or would I be sad, hang my head, and walk away?

Cynthia Ware - The Digital Sanctuary - “Lord Teach Us To Pray, Virtually”

I see the benefits….yet there is a part of me that still feels like something is funny about it. It feels like it should be ‘in addition to…’ instead of a replacement for interacting with your small group or people that can actually pray and stop by and drop off a casserole.

Molly Aley - Adventures In Mercy - “Obama Ushers In End Times”

I literally thought that God wanted me to war against my culture. I believed that culture was out to get me, out to get my kids, out to get my church. I mistakenly forgot the real enemy, and thought it was my culture instead, unlike God, who knew exactly what the real problem was when He came down INTO an equally-fallen culture. He saturated Himself in it, unafraid to pal around with the worst of the lot and, interestingly, the only ones He had a real problem with were the ones righteously abstaining from said culture.

Peggy Brown - The Virtual Abbess - “Abi and Covenant”

What The Abbess is looking for as part of the whole missional order discussion is a "rule of life" and a "rhythm of life" that provides a group of Christ followers with a focus, a framework, for the working out of our cHesed -- our already-existing sacred duty to love God and love each other -- in the context of apprenticing disciples.

Sr. Joan Chittister - From Where I Stand - “A Glimpse Of Oneness For A Change”

The struggle between “red states” and “blue states” in the “United States” may be a political problem but, if truth were told, “oneness” is not something religion has been particularly good at over time either. Religions and religious professionals have been far more devoted over the years to creating Absolutes of themselves. They routinely cast other religious and their scriptures and prayers and beliefs into hellfire. They persecuted and oppressed and either forced people into their own religious tribe or hounded them out of it. They made converts at the end of a sword and divided families and called one another pagans and infidels. Many still do.

Judith Hougen - Emergent Self - “Part Two - Incarnational Reality”

With very few exceptions, none of the people who've helped me understand and walk in incarnational reality have been Evangelical Christians. Which might help explain why conservative Christians can be mean sometimes. You really must deny incarnational reality (except in theory) in order to behave so contrary to the way of Jesus. You would have to work awfully hard to denigrate others while walking in a conscious awareness of God's loving presence. Incarnational reality demands a response--either we open to Christ in each encounter, each breath, or we honor--I dare say worship--our own feelings, agenda, and sense of rightness.

Elizabeth Potter - Still Emerging - “They Used To Call Me Betty”

The lack of fit intensified as I grew older such that when I relocated to a new city a number of years ago, I decided to ‘change’ my name. Rather than introducing myself to new people I met as “Betty,” I asked them to call me “Elizabeth.” It has taken years for my family to adjust to this ‘new’ moniker, but finally I have a name that fits. It is strong, and regal, and seems ‘just the right size.’ They used to call me “Betty,” but I have chosen to rename myself. Hello, my name is “Elizabeth.”

Kim Petersen - Chrysalis Voyage - “Robust Faith”

Maybe it’s why I liked this response from a listener who wrote in: “Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt is faith struggling. Where God is concerned there must always be room for doubt.” Chief Rabbi Sacks picked up on it earlier in his interview by challenging Humphrys: “If you didn’t have faith you wouldn’t ask the question…Faith is in the question.” Humphrys dismisses the statement as a cop out meant to shut down the conversation, but for me this statement contained the crux of the whole issue. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a shut down in intellect and a blind leap into the unknown. There is an intentional ongoing search for Truth and a coming to grips with and peace with that which will always remain a mystery. They are not mutually exclusive. A robust faith encompasses the doubt, the struggle.

cross posted on my blog - Calacirian

Hierarchy, Freedom, and Emergent

2008-12-19T12:18:00.000-06:00

cross posted from my blog...

I was out shopping recently and saw a baby boy onesie (it was blue, so in the strictly color coded baby clothes world, it was intended for boys and boys only...). On the front was the phrase "Second in Command After Daddy." Now as a good feminist that pissed me off. Who in their right mind would stick that on their baby, even as a joke? Even tongue-in-cheek promotions of such family hierarchy encourage the myth that having a penis somehow makes you more important than women.

If you haven't gathered it by now, I'm not a huge fan of hierarchical leadership (even when it's not based on gender). I prefer flat networked structures that allow for input from all. And in truth, it's less about equality or sameness and more about simply respecting people as people. Letting voices be heard and appreciating contributions for what they are.

So on one level, I appreciate that fact that Emergent Village is transitioning to a more decentralized structure. While some may be heralding Tony Jones stepping down as National Coordinator to symbolize the dismantling of Emergent, it was meant as an opportunity to allow a wider variety of people to step up into leadership positions (as the amusing series of I Am The Emergent National Coordinator videos demonstrates). And as Tony mentioned on his blog yesterday, "Any time you can dethrone an overeducated, loud, brash, white man,people just feel more openness for their own voice to be heard." It's all about reducing hierarchy and opening up the conversation.

But will it work? In brief discussions with other women leaders in the emerging movement, I've heard the question raised if the lack of a central leader will actually help women become more involved in the conversation. Many post-evangelical women still struggle to jump into the conversation, much less assert themselves as leaders. For good or bad, they still seek invitations to come alongside and be a part of the in-group. With no one to officially offer that invitation, the question remains if the women will step up or just remain on the sidelines peeking in. I honestly have no idea. It would be easy to say that women just need to get over it and assert themselves, but that would stray into dangerous psychological territory and miss the point. I don't want to need a man's permission to do anything, but an invitation (from someone) is still what many women are looking for.

So I'm curious to see how the decentralization of power affects the presence of women in Emergent. I'd of course like to see a vibrant representation of women in Emergent leadership. I'm encouraged to hear from some that at The Great Emergence event men at times seemed like the token voice. But to the best of my knowledge, I haven't seen any women making national coordinator videos. That's not a criticism, just an expression of curiosity of where this will lead. I hope the speculation of other emerging women will be wrong and we will see an increase of women's voices in Emergent. But at the same time be proactively aware that the opposite could just as easily occur.

"True Woman" - ?

2008-12-18T20:54:00.004-06:00

Are you a "biblical woman" according to the True Woman Manifesto?

"The Shack"

2008-12-11T15:30:00.002-06:00

The Shack
By William P. Young

The Shack is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read. Creative, intriguing, gutsy and a thoroughly engaging read, this remarkable novel addresses the age-old question of why/how a loving God can allow suffering and evil to exist in this world.

Overwhelmed by "The Great Sadness" that threatens to engulf him with tsunami severity, Mackenzie "Mack" Allen Phillips receives a cryptic note in his mailbox one winter afternoon. There’s no return address. No postal mark. No signature. The typed note is signed "Papa" - the word his wife, Nan, uses for God. Unbelievably, the sender asks Mack to meet him at the shack - the site of an immense tragedy about four years prior.

Against his better judgment, Mack gingerly, reluctantly finds himself on the road to the wilderness area where his young daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family camping trip and subsequently murdered. What and Who he finds at the shack travels with Mack through his blistering rage, sorrow, confusion, disillusionment, and accusation as well as infinite amazement, forgiveness, grace, and finally, immeasurable joy and wonder - without the clichés and canned answers on either side of the equation.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, this intense, beautifully written story is “ghostwritten" by the author as “told by” Mack, whose unspeakable personal loss leads him on a Bunyanesque journey into eternity - and some startling surprises.

Refreshingly, The Shack isn't about churchianity, sitting in a pew on Sundays, skimming through a Scripture reading so you can mark it off your daily to do list, or textbook academia that’s as dry as the Atacama. It centers on relationships that are as bold and dazzling and mysterious as a brand new harvest moon. The imaginative portrayal of the Trinitarian God is especially delicious and exhilarating in this regard, and within biblical bounds.

Note: The Shack</ is a novel, as in fiction. It neither purports nor pretends to be a theological treatise. So if you’re of the grim, puritanical and myopic American Gothic persuasion, never mind. Dollars to donuts you won’t get it.

That said, I’d like to add that of the nearly 200 books I've read thus far this year, The Shack is among my top three titles. I read the whole thing (250+ pages) cover-to-cover in just over 24 hours. It's THAT good. As in, brilliant. If you don’t read anything else this year and you’re looking for something fresh, authentic and amazing, don’t miss The Shack.

Give Exploited Women Hope this Christmas

2008-12-02T08:52:00.002-06:00

World Vision offers the opportunity to donate to help restore sexually exploited girls this holiday season.

An estimated 2 million children are ensnared in the global commercial sex trade — most of them girls. Those who escape or are rescued face a difficult physical and emotional recovery process. Your gift will offer them hope through assistance such as medical care, nutritious food, nonformal education, vocational training, compassionate counseling, and, where possible, reintegration into a loving family environment.

Click here to give these women hope this Christmas or to find other ways to give to our global neighbors this year.

Oppression of Women

2008-12-01T09:22:00.002-06:00

Eugene Cho has posted a troubling but necessary piece on the oldest injustice in human history - how women are treated. He tells of Afghani women who have had acid thrown on them because they dared to attend school. And of women in his church who had never been told that they were created equally in God's image. It's worth a read as a reminder of how many women still struggle under lies and oppression.

Eco-Spirituality in Christ

2008-11-24T12:40:00.004-06:00

I came across some writing about ecopsychology which I would like to share:

"An individual's harmon with his or her 'own deep self' requires not merely a journey to the interior but a harmonizing with the environmental world." (James Hillman, quoted in Parenting with Spirit by Jane Bartlett).

I was invibing this idea and imagining that the same is true of our spiritual selves, and not only our psychological selves. We are created from God, from the stuff the earth. What connects us to the earth connects us to our 'own deep self,' and also to the One from Whom all created essence flows and vibrates its creational songs, crying out the Joy! of Being. What's connecting you to you to the earth, to your 'own deep self' and to the One, like you and I, who entered the created order through a natural mother and cried, "I am here!"?

Female Christian Bloggers

2008-11-13T20:23:00.003-06:00

Andrew Jones (tallskinnykiwi) has a post up about Female Christian Bloggers. It's a great resource of a number of female voices out there reflecting on faith, theology, and life. So go check it out!

Elections, Sexism, and Sarah Palin

2008-11-12T15:32:00.001-06:00

In the recent US Presidential election, we experienced both the closest the glass ceiling has ever come to being shattered as well as evidence that sexism is alive and well in our country today. I was intrigued by Jim Wallis's recent post at God's Politics where he implored the nation to not use sexist criteria for judging Sarah Palin post-election. He wrote -

Basing post-election analysis on Gov. Palin’s wardrobe, insults to her family, and whether or not she answered the door in a towel is sexist.

If Obama had lost this campaign, no journalist would be commenting on the color of Joe Biden’s ties or the Scranton native’s trips to Brooks Brothers. On this blog we have already started a discussion around the many opportunities our country has for reconciliation. This can occur not just around race but also gender and the many other things that divide us.

Go ahead. Disagree with her politics and her policies. There are a lot of people who are going to get into some healthy fights about the future of the Republican Party. But like her or not, to reduce Sarah Palin to her wardrobe is wrong and is a great way to start this post-election season off on the wrong foot.

Almost as if on cue, the comments to his post do exactly what he was warning against delving into such controversial topics as whether or not mothers should work outside the home. What has your experience been this election cycle with sexism? Do you think the glass ceiling will ever be shattered?

Book Review: "Grace"

2008-11-08T15:27:00.010-06:00

I finished reading Richard Paul Evans’ newest release, Grace, last week. I held off on writing a review because I wanted to ruminate on the novel awhile, let it roll around in my head and “marinate” heart and soul. I also wanted to take my time because you can’t rush a review of Grace. It’s not that kind of book. Here’s why:

When I read the Author’s Note regarding the 1874 child abuse case of Mary Ellen Wilson, I almost put Grace back on the library shelf. I can’t get near that topic without one of two reactions: dissolving into a soggy heap of tears, or wanting to personally thrash the stuffing out of the perpetrators.

As the mother of four boys and the Children’s Ministries Director for our church, child abuse enrages me beyond words. It also rips my heart out. Frankly, I wasn’t up for either emotion the day Grace came into the library (It took awhile. I was #23 in the “On Hold” queue). Tempted to put it back, I refrained from doing so for just one reason: I own every title Evans has ever written. So, on the strength of Evans’ prior work, I decided to trust him with this new book. I stuffed Grace into my bag en route to the YMCA with my youngest. Poolside while Josiah splashed down the water slide, I gingerly withdrew Grace and started reading.

Grace opens with a recap of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl and some grandfatherly reflections from protagonist Eric Welch on Christmas Day 2006 (p.5). Told in the first person, the story unfolds in flashback fashion during Eric’s teen years and moves from October 1962 to early January 1963.

Eric’s father, a construction worker, is unable to work due to Guillain Barre Syndrome. The family of four, which includes Eric’s ten year-old brother and best friend, Joel, is forced to move from southern California to a rundown, low-rent part of Utah. (I have a good friend with GBS. This is the only time I’ve seen this debilitating disease appear in a novel.) We struggle with Eric through the first four chapters as he endures the slings and arrows of being “the new kid” in middle school and all the attendant traumas and woes that unhappy scenario typically includes. In Eric’s case it’s exacerbated by being poor and from out-of-state to boot.

We meet fifteen year-old Grace in Chapter Five. She’s foraging for food in a dumpster behind “McBurger Queen,” Eric’s part-time (scum bag) employer. On page 34 we find out that Grace is a runaway: “I’m not going home.” But she has no where to go. Besides, there’s something about Grace (and grace) that’s …unexplained. Mysterious. Something that causes us as well as Eric to pause…

Unwilling to leave Grace roaming the streets alone on a cold October night, Eric brings her to the “clubhouse” he and Joel built behind the family’s sprawling, dilapidated home. The next 240 pages detail the tender uncertainties of First Love, selflessness and sacrifice, courage in the face of overwhelming odds, the Cuban Missile Crisis, family and emotional struggles, and Eric’s rage at the people who “coulda, shoulda, woulda” protected young Grace from her predacious stepfather – but didn’t. The willful ignorance of neighbors, school officials and law enforcement receive a withering indictment that’s all the more effective for its understated subtlety: “I sat alone staring at the back of a pew while people who didn’t really know anything about Grace talked about her as if they suddenly cared.” (p. 292). Evans gently but unequivocally shows how any willful blindness or ignorance makes us all complicit when it comes to crimes against children:

“You killed her. You and Dad and Joel and her pathetic, worthless mother and those stupid, idiotic policemen who just couldn’t wait to be heroes. … You all killed Grace…’ (p. 295)

If the story stopped here, it would have been poignant, but Evans doesn’t let it go. Not quite. He doesn’t leave us outraged, wrung-out, hopeless and helpless. Instead, he subtly intertwines themes of God’s grace, redemption and restoration throughout this carefully crafted story of a teen runaway (see the bottom of page 296). This reaches its zenith in an Epilogue that is both hopeful and heart-wrenching. It is in these final, gripping pages that we see how tragedy transforms a painfully shy, self-conscious fourteen year-old boy “with acne and a bad hair cut” into a tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners prosecutor whose life is forever and irrevocably changed by those late autumn and winter months of 1962 and a girl named Grace:

“I have spent my life hunting down and prosecuting people like Grace’s stepfather. I carry Grace’s locket into every trial. I’ve earned a reputation as a fierce courtroom combatant who takes every case personally. What Grace saw in the candle was true of me as well. I am feared. … Today I continue my crusade. I have testified about child abuse before state lawmakers more times than I can remember. I’ve lived to see child advocacy become a public concern. I am grateful that the world finally has the courage to open its eyes. My wife asks me when we can retire, but I tell her I’ll die in the saddle. With my last breath I’ll continue to fight for these children. I cannot save them all, but I can save some of them, and that’s worth doing. There are other Graces out there.” (p. 305, 306).

I was relieved that Evans avoids any graphic details regarding Grace’s family history, relationships or the experiences that led to her running away from home. Consummate storyteller that he is, Evans drops subtle clues and hints throughout the story and allows us to fill in the blanks without assaulting us with additional traumatic narrative.

In terms of format and style, Grace features Evans’ usual short chapters and his trademark “diary entries” that preface each chapter. The style is vintage Evans, luminous and evocative, introducing us to three-dimensional characters whom we come to know, love, and miss as plot, climax, and conclusion unfold with great sensitivity and sagacity. The book closes with A Letter from Richard Paul Evans detailing practical help readers can provide via The Christmas Box Initiative and Operation Kids. Web sites and a toll-free phone number are included.

All in all, Grace is a fast – but not a light - read. I read the book cover-to-cover in an afternoon. I wanted to stand up at cheer by the final page and plan on a "return visit" – just as soon as I restock my Kleenex stash.

Grace

By Richard Paul Evans

Simon & Schuster, 2008

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5003-7

A Novel

Casting Stones

2008-11-04T09:54:00.004-06:00

From BBC News "Stoning Victim Begged for Mercy"- full article here

A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped.

Initial reports had said she was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery before a Sharia court.

The witness says she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted with stones until she died in front of more than 1,000 people.

Cameras were banned from the public stoning, but print and radio journalists who were allowed to attend estimated that the woman, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was 23 years old.

However, Amnesty said it had learned she was 13, and that her father had said she was raped by three men.

People were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human rights, this was not good for anything
Witness

When the family tried to report the rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained, Amnesty said.

Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.

I want to weep.

"I Forgive You...

2008-11-03T19:48:00.003-06:00

...but you can no longer be part of my life."

What has made you (or would make you) set this sort of boundary in your life?

I have never actually said it to someone who has lost access to any information about my life, but I have had to make this call a few times in my life. Once it was due to serious safety issues. It's never a decision I've made lightly. In at least one case I wonder if I made the right decision, even though at the time I had good reasons for choosing to dis-engage from a particular individual.

In the church I was raised in, we were taught to forgive seventy times seven. But they never really taught us how to forgive someone without allowing them to continue to have the opportunity to do those things that require so much forgiveness in the first place. I'm thinking of people who do heavy emotional or spiritual or physical damage repeatedly without showing any inclination that they're trying to change, not the everyday sort of forgiveness that one gives a healthy friendship or relationship.

(No, this post isn't inspired by anything that's happened in my life recently. :) )

Femicide

2008-10-21T22:23:00.001-05:00

One of the purposes of this blog is to raise awareness about the issues women worldwide face. Unfortunately women continue to be used and hurt around the world. Today CNN posted a special report about the acts of "femicide" taking place in the Congo. Women and girls (like 3 year old girls) are being raped and brutalized - literally destroyed as pawns in an ongoing war for power in the Congo. As tribes and factions compete for control of the country's resources - diamonds, gold, and cobalt (sold to feed US demand for jewelry and computers) - women are the targets that are preyed upon.

Already having a low status in society, women who are raped are often then rejected by their families. It is emotional warfare that destroys the women and hence the families. Weaker tribes can be more easily conquered. Activists are desperate to get the word out about this ongoing violence against women - but wonder if the world cares enough to come to the defense of dark-skinned African women. Or are we too racist and sexist to even care?

How do you react to these atrocities? Do you think that continuing to advocate for women's rights could help more people get involved in stopping horrors like these?

"FIREPROOF"

2008-10-15T18:36:00.015-05:00

"Never leave your partner behind." From the creators of Facing the Giants.

Reflecting on God in Everyday Life - interview with Ed Cyzewski

2008-10-15T17:30:00.003-05:00

Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life by Ed Cyzewski just came out, and for those who are interested in approaching God, life, and lived out theology not just from an single access point (for instance, like objective truth) this book posits an interesting perspective with a postmodern sensibility.

Ed agreed to let me pick his brain, and ask him some questions about some ideas from his book, at my blog and your thoughts, comments, questions, or even gripes are welcome.

This book offers plenty of resources for additional reading, which is great too. It brings up things some of us often wonder about...like how do we truly live what we believe in light of what we can really know about God, in history, and in all his mystery....what role can, does, or should Scripture have in knowing God. . . how does the church integrate the global church perspective ...where does tradition fit in.. should it? cultral context .. and mission of God and church... lots to chew on and good stuff, especially for a few people to tackle together, I liked the study guide companion for that.

Hope you can participate.
(emergingpa.blogspot.com)

"Finding Christ in the Crisis" (Max Lucado)

2008-10-14T17:27:00.001-05:00

The first response to any crisis is prayer; urgent and honest prayer. Before we turn to money managers and governments, let’s turn to the
Maker of the Universe.

You Have Our Attention, Lord
A prayer by Max Lucado - October 2008

Our friends lost their house
The co-worker lost her job
The couple next door lost their retirement
It seems that everyone is losing their footing

This scares us. This bailout with billions.
These rumblings of depression.
These headlines: ominous, thunderous -
“Going Broke!” “Going Down!” “Going Under!” “What's Next?”

What is next?

We’re listening. And we’re admitting: You were right.

You told us this would happen.
You shot straight about loving stuff and worshipping money.
Greed will break your heart, You warned.
Money will love you and leave you.
Don’t put your hope in riches that are so uncertain.

You were right. Money is a fickle lover and we just got dumped.

We were wrong to spend what we didn’t have.
Wrong to neglect prayer and ignore the poor.
Wrong to think we ever earned a dime. We didn’t. You gave it. And now, tell us Father, are You taking it?

We’re listening. And we’re praying.
Could you make something good out of this mess?

Of course You can. You always have.
You led slaves out of slavery,
Built temples out of ruins,
Turned stormy waves into a glassy pond and water into sweet wine.
This disorder awaits your order. So do we.

Through Christ,
Amen

God will always give what is right to His people who cry to Him night and day, and He will not be slow to answer them. (Luke 18:7 NCV)

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f44f74a55853fe9348a2

"True" Femininity?

2008-10-07T19:45:00.001-05:00

The following comes from Part 1 in a Q&A with Jani Ortlund on the Gender Blog at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Jani wrote Fearlessly Feminine: Boldly Living God's Plan for Womanhood.

GB: How would you define femininity?

Ortlund: Femininity and masculinity lie at the very core of humanity. God created us male and female, so if I don't understand the difference, it is very hard for me to embrace my own uniqueness. John Piper really helps me with this. He says this: At the heart of true femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships. I take those three words—affirming, receiving and nurturing—as the core of femininity. I affirm those around me. I receive leadership willingly, lovingly, joyfully. I receive others into my sphere, into my home and then I nurture them. From conception all the way through life, we as women are to be nurturers. So that to me is at the core of femininity. Beyond that, throughout all of Scripture, God paints for us a picture of what a woman looks like. From Eve all the way through the book of Revelation, we see women and he says, "This is the kind of woman I honor and lift up and this is the kind of woman I discipline"' I want to be on the honoring side, so I look to Scripture for that.

Don't comments like, " I receive leadership willingly, lovingly, joyfully" imply that women are somehow excluded from leadership on the basis of their gender? E.g., a female leader is "unfeminine"? What does Ortlund do with women who have the spiritual gift of leadership (see Eph. 4)? Or is this gift exclusive to men?

"From conception all the way through life, we as women are to be nurturers. So that to me is at the core of femininity."

An accurate statement? A biblically sound model? What do you think?

There's more. Check out the CBMW Gender Blog here: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog

Men, Women, Jobs, and Power

2008-10-01T17:53:00.002-05:00

Jan over at A Church for Starving Artists recently had a great post titled Is Todd Palin Aberrant?. As one man (potentially) chooses to follow his wife to the White House, she asks if this is normal behavior for men. Too often she has encountered the opposite - men ignoring their wife and children's situations, jobs, and needs to climb the corporate ladder or pursue a (supposed) call to ministry. Read her post - it's good.

It reminded me of when I studied the history of missions in grad school. One of the great "heroes" of the modern missionary movement, William Carey, was of course prominent in such studies. In typical churchy fashion, he was lauded as a saint for choosing to follow a call to ministry - even against the desires of his family. While I know he did good (from a certain perspective) things like help stop the practice of Sati in India, I'm disturbed by the historical perspective that praises him for ruining his family. Assuming a call from God, he forced his wife, pregnant with their fourth child, to move to India against her wishes. She was miserable there, the child died there from illness and Dorothy suffered a nervous breakdown which some say eventually killed her. Instead of faulting William for not fulfilling the call to love and serve his wife, she is usually portrayed as a hindrance to his ministry. Even the wikipedia entry shows this bias -

Dorothy Carey died in 1807. She had long since ceased to be a useful member of the mission, and in fact was actually a hindrance to its work. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, "...while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room....". Carey re-married a year later to Charlotte Rhumohr, a Danish member of his church who, unlike Dorothy, was his intellectual equal. They were married for 13 years until her death.

It fails to mention that Carey had become very close to Charlotte while his wife was alive - preferring to spend time with her rather than with his downer of a wife who didn't want to be there to begin with. And he is praised as a great missionary - the founder of modern missions. Interesting.

So is society more okay with men pursuing their dreams and passions at the expense of their family than they are with women doing the same? How often do you see entire families up-rooting themselves for the sake of the woman? is it worse or better within the church?

The Reality of Women in Ministry

2008-09-28T15:03:00.003-05:00

Over at the God's Politics blog there is a post exploring the SBC's recent pulling of a magazine featuring women ministers on its cover from their bookstores. Whether or not certain groups want to pretend that women in ministry don't exist, the reality is that we do and that we are making an impact for the Kingdom.

Walking With God

2008-09-27T12:07:00.002-05:00

"When’s the last time you heard God’s voice? What if it was just a second ago and you missed it? Wouldn’t it be amazing to hear God speaking directly to you; to know His counsel and encouragement for today? In Walking with God, John Eldredge, author of the bestsellers Wild at Heart and Captivating, shows you what it’s like to have “conversational intimacy” with the Father. Through personal reflections from his own spiritual life, Eldredge helps you recognize the sound of God’s voice. You can experience a spiritual life more rich and exhilarating than you’ve ever known. "

I've read over 100 books since January. None is more extraordinary than John Eldredge's newest release, Walking With God, (Thomas Nelson, 2008). For more, click here:

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=25a7575ebf6c3112dbfa

Is the new masculine movement harmful to women, or helpful to the church? -weigh in

2008-09-24T13:54:00.003-05:00

Soon our church is doing the John Eldridge's "Wild at Heart: Road Map to the Masculine Spiritual Journey" (yes that's REALLY the name) for a men's bible study.

I think John may be trying MAN-UP Christianity, and make it more appealing to manly guys. Make it more marketable or something. Does this imply the feminine is bad? I realize that approx 60-70% of churches attendees consist of women in Evangelicalism and things are geared toward them and may tend to be to their tastes (songs and music styles for instance), and this attendance stat isn't true is Islam or Judaism or Orthodox Christianity, so some think new tactics are needed maybe. But it seems superficial, even insulting to men, actually.

Care to weigh in?

50/50 -RED/BLUE??? How about you.

2008-09-13T20:16:00.004-05:00

Many commentators (on both sides of the political spectrum) claim the U.S. is divided pretty much 50/50 -- Republican and Democrat. The elections are simply tight elections... both sides get panicky, and yes, nasty.

You know, I just have not heard the terms "Red States and Blue States" as much as last Presidential election. Have you?

Could this be because the lines are different now because of the issues or maybe because of the candidates, or maybe something else?
I wonder are the lines blurring this time... and also some people jumping to the side they didn't before, etc?
Any thoughts?

AND Do YOU think this country is 50/50?

"A River ..."

2008-09-06T21:55:00.007-05:00

“Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, "Norman, you like to write stories." And I said "Yes, I do." Then he said, "Someday, when you're ready you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened and why."

These are the poignant, mysterious lines opening Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It (1992, PG). I mention it here because the story centers around family, relationships, and faith. Because it turned out to be a surprise.

I missed this movie when it first came out and just saw it recently on video. It was a garage sale cast-off. My neighbor couldn’t sell it and gave it to me. I watched it, didn’t like it, and promptly consigned A River to dust bunny exile until another friend suggested I check out the soundtrack. I did. Something unexpected happened while listening to Mark Isham’s Academy-Award nominated score over and over again: I began to understand the movie’s unspoken undercurrents and emotion. Intrigued by its hauntingly beautiful music, I decided to give A River another go. I’m glad I did.

Set in the early 20th century in Missoula, Montana, this enigmatic story centers around brothers Norman (Craig Sheffer) and Paul (Brad Pitt) Maclean, two sons of a Scottish Presbyterian minister played with consummate skill by Tom Skerritt. The quintessential big brother, Norman is reserved, scholarly and sensitive. Younger sibling Paul(ie) is rebellious, loquacious, a hard drinker, gambler, and brawler. Neither is an entirely agreeable character, neither is entirely disagreeable. Like most real people, these brothers have unique strengths and weaknesses and try to help each other through life without fully understanding who the other person truly is.

While I still don’t “like” A River Runs Through It in the sense that it’s an upbeat, easy-to-watch, “feel good” fluff piece. It's not. Instead, the movie offers a rare blend of affection, distance, dimension, beauty, insight and heartbreak that’s both mysterious and captivating. At times the river seemingly embodies the Maclean family history: placid and serene on the surface, with occasional ripples and swells suggesting deep water or dangerous rapids ahead.

Based on a novella by author Norman Maclean, through whose eyes the story is told, the screenplay brings a literary quality to the screen that’s beautiful and moving. Combined with Academy-Award winning cinematography, solid performances all-around, and a story that’s alternately evocative, taciturn, lively, and tragic, A River Runs Through It represents a formidable cinematic achievement of depth, perception, and substance.

In the opening sequences, both young boys and father are united in their love for nature, the Big Blackfoot River and fly-fishing. Rev. Maclean teaches his boys the fine art of casting to a four-count rhythm cadenced by a metronome. Along the river they share experiences, casting techniques, stunning scenery, stories and life. Fishing scenes throughout the film create the sense that each man is at peace with himself and each other at the river while remaining distinctly separate and alone, as does the whole family in this elegant, elegiac story.

Much of the power of this story is gained from its subtlety, which is created and sustained by the narration and masterful direction of Robert Redford. Rather than resorting to spectacular special effects, mind-numbing dialogue or the gratuitous sex and violence so commonly employed by lesser storytellers with thinner plots, A River doesn't insult its audience's intelligence, but expects us to pick up on cues and clues peppered throughout the screenplay with just enough seasoning to maintain full flavor. A refreshing change from the typical bash-you-over-the-head-with-its-point kind of movie, A River relies on nuance to convey its message.

Some viewers – perhaps the less literary among us – have tagged this movie “boring.” So did I, until I gave it a second chance. The story moves at a graceful pace while requiring viewers to engage their minds and hearts to follow a film that ultimately offers more questions than answers.

Underlying themes may include a covert sibling rivalry between Norman and Paul. It breaks into the open just once – in a kitchen fist fight – but the undercurrents in tone, gesture, facial features and other non-verbals continue throughout the film. The movie obliquely hints at a dichotomy between Paulie “the tough guy” whose ready grin and lackadaisical, lassie-faire attitude belie an inner insecurity and perhaps some envy toward his “Rock of Gibraltar,” respectable older brother. Note Paulie’s reaction to Norman’s announcement regarding the offer of a professorship at a prestigious university in Chicago. Paulie doesn’t respond verbally, but his face and eyes speak volumes. This is coupled with Paulie’s subsequent decline of Norman’s invitation to join him and his future bride, Jessie, in leaving Montana to write for a Chicago newspaper.

“Come with us” Norman urges. “Oh, “I’ll never leave Montana, brother,” Paulie replies, chewing his lip before plunging back into the river with his rod. From the way the line is delivered and Norman’s reaction, you’re not sure if it’s a rebuke, a prophecy, or an eulogy. Whatever it is, the assertion underscores Paulie’s continuing struggle to find his own way in life outside of his big brother’s shadow. He then determinedly skims down the rapids to land an “unbelievable” fish. Narrates Redford, “At that moment I knew, surely and clearly, that I was witnessing perfection.”

“You are a fine fisherman!” proclaims Rev. Maclean as “mother’s pictures” are snapped by Norman.

“My brother stood before us, not on a bank of the Bigfoot River, but suspended above the earth, free from all its laws, like a work of art. And I knew, just as surely and clearly, that life is not a work of art, and that the moment could not last.”

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Norman’s premonition proves true in the movie’s compelling closing scenes. The Missoula police inform Norman that his brother has been found dead, “beaten to death by the butt of a revolver.” We’re not told exactly how or why this happened, but gather that Paul’s murder is connected to his gambling debts and profligate lifestyle.

The impact on the family is quietly immense. Echoing themes throughout the movie, family members are both together and alone in their grief at the same time. Visibly shaken, his mother wordlessly retires upstairs. “Is there anything else you can tell me?” Rev. Maclean quietly asks.

“Nearly all of the bones in his hand were broken” replies Norman grimly, his stoic monotone belying a face etched with pain, shock, and traces of guilt.

Pause. His father, still in his bathrobe, stands and gently asks, “Which hand?”

“His right hand.”

As has occurred before in this under-stated film, the obvious is left unsaid: Paul’s right hand was his fly-fishing casting hand. We get the impression that Norman spends the rest of his days struggling with his brother’s untimely death as well as the bigger question: Who was this brother of mine? It's a universal question, a question we can all ask of at least one other person in our lives, maybe more.

“Maybe all I really knew about Paul is that he was a fine fisherman” Redford narrates. “`You know more than that’,” my father said. ‘He was beautiful.’ And that was the last time we ever spoke of my brother’s death.”

Only at the end does it become clear that Paul is meant to be a beautiful mystery. He’s an enigma to viewers because Norman can’t understand him any better than we can. Shortly before his own death, Rev. Maclean preaches a sermon that sums up the meaning of the film: "It is those we love and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJkzmS_WTQI&feature=related

A River isn’t for everyone. (I found the profanity and alcoholic consumption excessive and some minor scenes objectionable but not unreasonable given the subject and its characters.) It’s not an “easy” movie to watch in the sense that you can allow your mind to wander and still pick up on the visual and non-verbal clues concealed within its gentle subtext. This movie takes some attentive digging. But for those who appreciate a lavishly photographed, skillfully sequenced, superbly acted and subtlely nuanced study of family life and relationships, A River Runs Through It is one of the finest, which is why I'm posting a woefully belated review here. Maybe you missed it like me. If you can find it, A River is worth the time and effort (NOTE: not for young children or the faint-hearted).

“I am haunted by waters” is the final emotion-laden line of this remarkable movie. An old man who’s out-lived nearly everyone he loved, Norman once again stands solo in the river with his fly-fishing rod and his memories. “Alone in the half-light of the canyon with the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. … Eventually, all things merge into one. And a river runs through it. I am haunted by waters.” Bring Kleenex.

Book Discussion: The Chocolate Cake Sutra

2008-09-02T14:47:00.006-05:00

The Chocolate Cake Sutra, by Geri Larkin, is a fun and nuanced look into the lifestyle and actions that lead to a "Sweet Life." Larkin writes as a Jesus-friendly Buddhist and her prescriptions sound familiarly scented not only with "Sweet Life," but with the Abundant Life offered when we live in harmony with the Spirit and act in ways that incarnate the kingdom of God.

You can find a review here .

The prologue and introduction are full of fodder for growth and an interchange of ideas. Let's start with the story Larkin tells of a "young man named Eugene who was desperate to find a truly holy person with whom he could study." After much searching, Eugene eventually happens upon a guy in woods who works for a hot-shot holy woman called Jaya, who has an incredible reputation for what she can do for her students' spirituality. It takes Eugene taking three years and many near-death experiences to even gain admittance into Jaya's complex, where he is instructed to wait in the shrine room. Eugene is told it won't be long before Jaya is able to meet with him.

So Eugene waits. But he really has to pee.

"'I have to go to the bathroom,'" Eugene says to Jaya's assistant.
"'You have to stay in the shrine room.'"

Eugene sure waits his best, and at last, hours later, he aims at a corner of the shrine room and pees like nobody's business, whereupon he is dragged away by two acolytes, with the largest bellowing,

"'How dare you!'"

"'You show me a place that isn't holy, and I'll pee there!'"

"'He stays'."

"It was Jaya."

1. What is your reaction to this approach to the holy?
2. What can communities of Christian disciples learn from this story that can be applied to worship?

In her introduction, Larkin isn't afraid to deal a significant blow (or is it constructive criticism?) to her celebrity crush, on a serious count of spiritual arrogance.

Larkin writes, "The Interview was about a movie he had just directed. It was about Jesus Christ. As a card-carrying Buddhist, I have have always been moved to tears by the last hours of Jesus. Even as I write, I can barely fathom the depth of love and compassion for the people harming him. It is the best love story ever." Larkin goes on to describe the situation that sparked her accusation:

My crush was responding to criticisms of his interpretation of the story...As I remember it, the interviewer asked how he would respond to someone criticizing his film.
A pause. 'I'd forgive them.'
Oh, no. The arrogance in his voice told me he had it wrong. It was that 'I'm-better-than-you tone that gives me the goose bumps because it's the same tone that says 'You don't get God because he's ours.'

3. What is it like for you to read about a non-Christian pouring her heart out over her love of Jesus? What feelings and ideas come up for you?

4. What is your sensibility about what differentiates self-perceived spiritual accuracy from self-deceived spiritual pride?

5. What's your favorite story or quote in the book so far?

Sarah - Breaking the Glass Ceiling

2008-08-30T08:25:00.003-05:00

Will Sarah Palin be the worlds's most powerful woman? She could be one heart beat away.
With either ticket, barriers are coming down, and that's good to see.

The glass is breaking in the ceiling.

Here is an interesting link mp3 from PBS from Alaskans on the unknown and interesting woman who could be VP. Pros and cons.

So, McCain throws a big curve ball.
Politics just got more interesting.

Sharia Law and Sex Workers

2008-08-18T15:44:00.002-05:00

Women in Nigeria who the Red Cross had identified as sex workers (to help stop the spread of AIDS) are being rounded up under Sharia law (story here).

Obviously if there are women sex workers there are men involved as well, but it is the women being punished. Same thing happened at my Christian college - if a girl got pregnant she (not the guy) got kicked out. How do you react to stories like these? Where should morality lines be drawn?

Book Discussion - The Shack (Week 2)

2008-08-14T06:23:00.003-05:00

Well, the best of intentions seem to have lead me down a path of glorious defeat. Still on vacation and I've lost track of my days. Whoops. So I'll post this on the other "T" day in the week, apologize, and give you a beautiful photograph in compensation.

This was taken by my husband at the lake we're staying at. But we're going home soon, so next week I'll be back in the regular swing of things again.

Now we've gotten the matter of criticism out of our systems. We can get down to what we like about this book. There's so much to talk about, but let's start with the global ideas and work our way back to the little bits and pieces.

Three questions up for discussion this week:

First, Eugene Peterson has described "The Shack" as " a book that “has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!" Do you agree or disagree with that statement and why? It's been a pretty controversial statement in the blogosphere and elsewhere, so it would be fun to talk about it here. A corollary question, what do you think Peterson was getting at when he made such a sweeping overstatement?

Second, what do you think is the most important contribution that "The Shack" has to make to Christians? To our culture at large? Is the contribution the same or different? and (of course) why or why not?

Third, (for fun) what was your favorite part of the book? Do you find yourself speaking it out or carefully saving it away in the safe places of your mind?

Book Discussion - The Shack (Week 1)

2008-08-05T16:01:00.002-05:00

Whoops! I'm on vacation and the fact that it's Tuesday and I want to post something almost slipped right by me.

So ... this month we're talking about The Shack. Everybody's talking about The Shack ... good, bad and indifferent it's the latest craze. Ten weeks on the NYTimes best seller list. TEN. It's crazy making that a book published by some little no-name publisher, written by who? is at the top of the New York Times Best. Seller. List. This is a book that started life as a bed time story. As some photo-copies. So ... in the words of Brian Eno, "How did we get here?"

How did this happen? That's where I'd like to start this discussion. There's a lot of people who want to say God did it. It's all God.

Some people say it's a really interesting viral marketing scheme (thanks, Drew).

What do you think? How did a little book that started life with such humble origins, get to such a place that Oprah is plugging it? That's my first question.

Second question for today/tonight ... Here are the links to two pretty balanced reviews of The Shack, written by people I respect. One by Bob Hyatt, who had the opportunity to be interviewed on Oregon Public Radio with (William) Paul Young last week. The other by Ben Witherington. Both reviews are very respectful and both men obviously read the book (unlike some other reviews we won't mention). What do you think of the reviews? How do you think these men handled the book overall? Specifics?

Sony's "Blood Diamond"

2008-07-24T21:41:00.002-05:00

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/playstation-2-component-incites-african-war/1231745

I discovered the above link on yahoo -- a surprise to find something disturbing in a substantive way when yahoo ordinarily sticks with celebrity weirdness. It gives you cause to think about buying your kid a playstation, getting a slick new cell phone or even a new computer!

Book Discussion - The New Christians Week 2

2008-07-22T17:55:00.001-05:00

In The New Christians, Tony Jones explores attributes of the emergent movement. One of the largest components of the movement is its focus on community. People and the cultures we abide in are part of our lives and affect our faith journey. These are not things to be shunned by emergents, but embraced as part of who we are. Two of the aspects of this focus on community include -

- Emergents see God's activity in all aspects of culture and reject the sacred-secular divide.
- Emergents believe that an envelope of friendship and reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma.

How do these cultural approaches to faith differ or affirm what you have experienced in the past?

What are the benefits or dangers of placing relationships before dogma?

Do you see these descriptions as helping or hindering "evangelism"?

Book Discussion - The New Christians

2008-07-15T17:12:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the delayed book discussion this month, I've been kinda out of touch online since my son was born a month ago. But it's the summer, so laid back is all good right? :)

Anyway our book club selection for this month is Tony Jones' The New Christians. If you don't know Tony is the national coordinator of Emergent Village and so is in a great position to tell the story of this new movement called the emerging church. And telling that story is just what he does in this book. From its beginnings as a young leaders attempt to do generational ministry, The New Christians describes the formation of emergent, its main influences, and the ways it has manifest over the years.

So as we start this discussion I want to ask a few basic questions -

- how aware are you of the emergent movement and its history?

- what manifestations of the movement have you encountered?

Much has been said regarding differences of opinions as to what the "real" version of emergent is. Some say that Tony's perspective is just one of many. Given that emergent isn't a denomination, but an organization and conversation, such differences are perhaps to be expected. In light of that, did the story of emergent told in The New Christians resonate with you or did it seem outside your particular experience? Do you think emergent will ever be a cohesive group or is the diversity present in the movement something to be valued and upheld?

Next week we will explore some of the characteristics of the new Christians that are described in the book, but I hope that we can explore the larger issue of the movement as a whole this week.

"Ruby Slippers:" How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home

2008-07-08T17:49:00.004-05:00

Alright. I confess. When I first heard about Jonalyn Grace Fincher's recent release, Ruby Slippers (Zondervan, 2007), it was with a twinge of something between ugh! and egad! This reaction morphed into a full-blown wince when I caught the sub-title: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home.

"Please tell me this isn't yet another worn-out rehash of `the Proverbs 31 woman' or a trip down the `yellow brick road' equating Christian femininity with Suzy Homemaker, June Cleaver, and married with children." It isn't. Carefully integrating philosophy, psychology, theology, history, women's studies and "my own walk with Christ into a primer on the woman's soul" (p. 193), Ruby Slippers is a much-needed and long overdue look at God's ideas about womanhood.

Intelligent and incisive, Ruby Slippers is alert, agile, and penetrating without being pompous or trite. It avoids strait-jacketed "Christian stereotypes" and clears the way of narrow definitions, presumptions and prejudices to find out what makes women different and precious. Through careful biblical exegesis, meticulous research, thoughtful analysis and a well-rounded philosophical approach, Fincher shows us the real soul of a woman and its inestimable worth as a unique reflection of God's nature.

Fincher issues "one important caveat: I am not claiming to have the final words on women" or "an exhaustive index on femininity or the only biblical model for Christian womanhood," leaving the door open for further discussion. She also provides "Soul Care" questions at the end of each chapter for further thought.

In terms of writing style, Fincher's is generally tight, crisp, and lean. She shares personal anecdotes and experiences and analyzes vast quantities of data through a biblical grid. The author also brings an essential that's often lacking in many "women's ministry" paradigms and "women's Bible study" authors: demonstrable expertise and impeccable educational credentials. She's done her homework and has the background and qualifications to give this book gravitas. (Fincher holds a double Bachelor's degree in English and history from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in philosophy of religion and ethics.)

Sumptuously sprinkled throughout the main text are relevant observations from such Christian luminaries as C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers, to name a few. The material bogs down momentarily in Chapter 2, Uncorking the Soul, with a somewhat overlong discussion of soul and spirit, but it picks up steam thereafter. The discussion on The Same Planet in Chapter 3 regarding "gender roles", "equal without being identical" and "similar though not the same" is delicious.

Further on, Fincher masterfully deconstructs John Gray's "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" mythology, and the inadequate, incomplete "helper" rendering of Genesis 2, among others: "... contrary to popular pagan myths, contrary to Goddess Earth myths, and contrary to much Churchianity, God makes Woman to provide and offer the hope, the ezer for Man."
Other myths put to rest include: "East of Eden" femininity, "godly submission," "the weaker vessel" and "boutique form(s) of gnosticism and neo-paganism" which glories "fertile, female bodies over female souls."

More stand-out sections include Prescription Lists, Corsets and Slippers that Don't Fit (pp. 14 - 18), Why the Trinity Dignifies Women (pp. 156 -158), Natural Femininity (pp. 102 -140), Learning from Women (pp. 159 - 164) and Jesus in Female Form (pp. 185 -186).

As beautifully and as nimbly crafted as the Emerald City, Ruby Slippers is a ground-breaking work with much to offer in the on-going discussion of gender theory, cultural stereotypes and authentic Christian femininity. This fine work is perhaps best summarized in Fincher's own words: "I am becoming more free. Not free to live out my dominations or check off my lists or squeeze into a corset. But free to be more like the triune God, the way he has redeemed me: fully female, fully human."

While showing readers how women are unique bearers of the imago dei , Ruby Slippers celebrates the soul of a woman within a thoroughly sound context of biblical truth. These Slippers are as welcome as Glinda's "Toto, too." Five stars.

Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her HomeBy Jonalyn Grace Fincher
Zondervan, 2007
ISBN:-10: 0-310-27243-2
For more, visit: www.soulation.com

Healing Magic

2008-07-06T07:36:00.001-05:00

over at Jim's Blog, Lori wrestles with her struggle to figure out the Jesus of conventional faith, asking, "Why do I self medicate when my emotional pain is unbearable? Shouldn’t I be strong enough? I have JESUS!!! Nothing is impossible with JESUS!!!"

Religious people tend to say that "Jesus" will fill in those big empty holes in us. As if they think that the word JESUS is spackle for the soul and maybe church is the bandaid that holds the spackle in place.

For most of us, or all of us, it does not work like that. Most of us don't wake up one morning, discover this Jesus-figure in our heart, and suddenly find our life laid out in a near-perfect rhythm of bible reading, church attendance and true inner peace.

What is the saying? "Nature abhors a vacuum?" Those holes in our soul are a vacuum. We spend our lives trying to fill them, whether with rage, or helplessness, or self-injury or self-harm or promiscuity or whatever toxic, empty, dark actions or attitudes offer temporary respite from an ongoing awareness of our own emptiness.

It's not until we begin figuring out how to heal ourselves that our holes transform into a less destructive presence. I agree with Jim that healing begins with an awareness of our own value. Scream the word JESUS all you want—but the word itself is not a talisman. Nor is church, nor is the bible.

The magic of healing begins when a person recognizes the hole, then makes peace with its presence. At that point, peace begins soothing, covering, protecting, the dangling nerve endings, dripping capillaries, and torn flesh at the hole's raw edges.

Church and bible-reading and Jesus can play a huge role in this process when they reflect an awareness of humanity's significance in God's grand plan. But—and this is the part that most church-based faith doesn't seem to recognize—healing is a process, not an act. If we push the idea that JESUS will fix everything for us, we short-change our hurting brothers and sisters and neighbors out of the one thing that the Jesus story really provides: A sense that, as individuals, we matter. We matter so much that God created the story upon which Christianity is founded—that God sent his child to die a painful death for the benefit of individual humans.

To Lori, to myself, to you, I offer this: Be brave enough to heal yourself. If you want to bring Jesus into the mix, do it because of what you believe Jesus did for you, and allow your healing journey to be about you and your journey rather than about whether you and your faith in the word "Jesus" are good enough.

For many of us, filling the hole will be a lifelong process. It may never be filled. But we can learn to live peacefully in its presence. And that's pretty good healing.

Missional in Suburbia Seminar

2008-07-01T15:49:00.003-05:00

I thought that I would post this in case there are any readers from the Philly area.

“God always shows up in the most God-forsaken places.”
—Alan Roxburgh

In some ways, it doesn’t get any more God-forsaken than suburban America. This “Missional In Suburbia” seminar will take a look at two important topics: Suburbia and the Church. For some people, there is a sentiment that its impossible to really be the church in the ‘burbs. But for others, we believe that this is the place that God has called us. If we are going to stay, we need to ask what it means to “be the church” in a culture that is defined by comfort, consumerism, isolation, wealth, strip malls and hidden poverty.

This one-day seminar will focus on the development and culture of suburbia and the opportunities and challenges that this context presents the Church. We are honored to have Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian, lead the discussion along with some other local pastors and thinkers.

This one-day conference is open to all and will be helpful for pastors, lay leaders, and members of congregations. Our goal is to have some substantial discussion around practical issues that relate to the everyday practice of the Church and the Christian life.

Event Details:

* Location: The Well (Feasterville, PA)

* Cost: $25 (includes lunch)

* Dates: August 9, 2008 (On Friday night, August 8, there is an optional “open house”/”meet and greet.”)

* In Partnership With: Philly Emergent cohort, Ecclessia Network, and C4ML at Biblical Seminary

Register online now at: church.thewellpa.com

Thinkin'

2008-07-01T12:53:00.002-05:00

I've been thinkin' a lot lately. This isn't new: I often stare abstractedly out the window, or soak in the tub watching bubbles pop and fade, or forget whether I've added salt to something I'm baking because I was thinking. Just thinking.

About sacraments or how I've missed gardening this year; about Luther's experiences with death and the tv show "The Closer"; about African tribal beats and if we're getting low on milk; about the free market and the recent article in the New Yorker on Keats and death and beauty.

Lately, I've been thinking about fracture, breaks, and falling. Ache, stiffness, and surgery. But I haven't broken any bones. My teeth, tibia, fibia, all of it - intact. Never a broken bone. Never a hospitalization. But pain a doctor can't treat. And it's not fibromyalgia.

Two years ago a phone call threw my world into a 9/11-esque blur of crumbling (ivory) towers and smoke and the smell of casualty. I thought someone had died when I heard the message from Mom on the phone.

But it was the death of my parents' marriage: over thirty years of union wheeled into the morgue with a fresh toe tag. Maybe that sounds melodramatic. But "grown children of divorce" is as sanitized as "post traumatic stress disorder" is, as George Carlin observed: language about veterans has changed from "shell shock" - a vivid, live, cutting image - to a clinical, removed phrase. Would we see war, or veteran's suffering, differently, if we kept the brutal language? Would we see divorce differently if we described it's outcome as cold and dead in a morgue instead of, well, "results of divorce"?

I've been thinking a lot about the rending sensation that tore apart a good kind of innocence that day. There goes tower one. There goes tower two. Is it unrealistic to expect that terrorists won't bomb moms and uncles and aunts? That peace and safety are the norm and not the exception? Is it unrealistic to expect that people will love each other and act on it even when it's hard? Which is the real world? The Trade Center standing, or the Trade Center falling? The marriage vows, or the discarded ring? These are important questions, because I am a young woman growing up in this world, and I need to know what to expect. I am recently married, and I love it. Is it childish to expect that people will be kind and giving and generous and helpful? Or is it childish to think that people will be cruel and selfish and vindictive?

Every July my September 11th comes. I don't think the world has to be that way; I should never get used to flames and shrapnel; I should never get used to fracture and decay.

But your presence - your presence - your presence - is needed at home. In the stairwells of collapsing buildings. Beside the kitchen stove. On ash-clouded streets. On the living room couch. Aboard the fire engine. I need you. We need you. We all need you. Never underestimate how important your presence is at home. At the World Trade Center.

I finally noticed some other survivors of their own 9/11's huddled under stairwells, coming out, waving me over. The healing touch of another human is, itself, life sometimes. This glimmer of hands stretching out over the rubble is evident here: http://childofdivorce-childofgod.blogspot.com/ . It shows up many other places, too.

I need you. We need you. We all need you. You are needed at home. You are needed at Ground Zero.

Community: Wherever You Happen to Be

2008-06-29T15:58:00.002-05:00

I “emerged” in an unlikely environment. Just a few notches away from the buckle of the Bible Belt, my hometown of Dayton Tennessee made a name for itself back in 1925 when the Scopes Monkey Trial put it on the map as the last great bastion of conservative fundamentalism. Not a whole lot has changed since then, so my “Obama 08” buttons, AIDS awareness crusades, and shelf full of “liberal propaganda” by the likes of Brian McLaren and Tony Jones have been met with some skepticism and concern from friends and family. I’ve even made to a couple of church prayer request lists.

When I read about Emerging gatherings in big cities around the country, I find myself getting a little jealous. I long to fellowship with other women who want to break through the stained glass ceiling. I’d love to spend an evening in the company of fellow doubters and questioners and contrarians. I’d like to have an honest conversation without getting labeled a heretic. I’d like it if people got my jokes about postmodernism.

Of course it would be easier if I were within driving distance of a more progressive church, but I’ve decided that perhaps it wouldn’t be better. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m beginning to learn that sometimes the best community is the one in which you don’t really fit. Folks around here won’t let me get away with hypocrisy or faulty arguments. They keep me on my toes and pray for me even when I think I don’t need it. They have inadvertently taught me the spiritual disciples of patience and self-control, and I find myself getting better and better at holding my tongue and thinking before I speak. As it turns out, not all opinions have to be expressed, and sometimes unity is more important than winning a debate.

While I have not plans to return to my fundamentalist roots, Monkey Town has taught me not to get too comfortable. Community doesn’t mean surrounding yourself with people with whom you agree. It means surrounding yourself with whoever is there.

****

I’d love to hear from others who have embarked on faith journeys from unusual locations. I welcome your thoughts here or on my “Evolving in Monkey Town” blog.

EW Denver Area Gathering Recap

2008-06-27T08:30:00.005-05:00

There is truth and beauty in shared stories. This was evident as women from across Colorado’s front range gathered together last Saturday evening at Kathy Escobar’s home in Broomfield. With good food in hand, we shared stories of church, faith and God. Diversity of backgrounds provided some good laughs. Despite differences, we found unity in God’s ongoing work in our own hearts.

As part of our evening, each participant wrote down a word or phrase describing what she wants God to create in her life and the lives of the ladies in the group. We combined these all together to create this wordle.

Thank you to everyone who participated! We look forward to gatherings like this here and there in the Denver area so we can continue encouraging each other on the journey!

"Prairie Muffin Manifesto"?

2008-06-20T16:11:00.001-05:00

Is anyone at EW familiar with "The Prairie Muffin Manifesto"?

Here's the link: http://buriedtreasurebooks.com/PrairieMuffinManifesto.php

Is this a group, a model, a mindset, denomination, worldview, a loose association...?

Thoughts on Women in Ministry

2008-06-18T12:11:00.007-05:00

I just published the following post on my blog and thought that I might as well share it here... a little background is that my husband and I have been praying very hard about becoming a part of the "core launch team" for a church plant in our area. We completely share the vision of mission and outreach that the others involved have, but I found out a couple of days ago that the plant will not allow women to be elders.

I titled the post- It's My Blog And I Will Post It If I Want To... (not trying to stir up trouble, just saying what has been on my heart, as well as acknowledging that I most definitely do NOT have all the answers!). Here it is:

Over the past couple of days I have really had the debate about the place of women in ministry on my heart and mind... I have always had my own personal opinion on this, which I have felt in my heart was correct. I have done some research on scripture dealing with this subject in the past, but I will fully admit that I never really made a serious effort to take the time needed to be sure that there is solid material to back up what I believe in my heart to be true. I am now feeling this push that it is time to take my view, which I believe in my heart and mind is supported by the God I have a close personal relationship with, and make sure that I have solid biblical material to back it up in conversation. One thing that I am realizing is that it is all about interpretation and this is a debate that will continue forever.

I am enjoying reading some thoughts on different interpretations of various verses, but if for right now we simply focus on taking the various usual verses that are cited during this debate and reading them in there most literal sense... their are most definitely verses that when read very literally directly oppose the place of women as leaders, but there are definitely other verses that when read literally do support the role of women in positions of importance and authority. (Please excuse the fact that I am not taking the time to include the scripture, but if you have an interest or opinion on this you most likely know what the usual verses are.) I as a woman who was raised to believe that I could do or be anything that I wanted (an artist... an art teacher... or even a stay-home-mom), choose to acknowledge that their is scripture that literally seems to go in both directions of this debate, but in a day when a woman and an African American man can run for president, I believe that the logical way to go is in the direction where women are not restricted from ministry on any level.

A friend had introduced me to Eugene Cho's blog awhile ago and it is great!! This morning I came across a post from back in May on "Supporting Women in All Level's of Leadership" It is a great post and many of the comments are extremely interesting and thought provoking also!

I had really thought that this was the ministry that God has been preparing my husband and I to be a part of and has been leading us toward over the past couple of years, but was taken aback at the idea of women not being allowed as elders. I am awaiting confirmation that women would not be limited in any other areas of service, because if they are that would be a complete deal-breaker for me. I guess what I am most struggling with is if I am told that this limitation on women really is only a limitation as far as belonging to a board of elders... does the fact that there is this limitation at all automatically mean that no matter what is said women have a different level of standing than men within this church plant? The pastor that is heading this up said that he did not want this to be a divisive issue and I was given the impression that it was something that is almost wanted to be kept "hush hush," which makes me feel that there would be this unspoken understanding amongst the people who are aware... that the women involved are of a lesser value. I am just unsure that I can or should compromise my views even though there are many, many reasons that I have felt a pull to this particular ministry.

Any thoughts, suggestions, similar stories?

Thanks!

How to Avoid Dueling Jesus'...

2008-06-18T09:57:00.004-05:00

...or something like that.

So, I'm going to be spending some of my vacation time this summer with extended family members who are in a different place, spiritually and socially speaking, than am I. If history repeats itself, I will probably be on their short list of people to "convert" to the One True Way (tm) at some point during the visit. ;)

I have absolutely no desire to have a Jesus duel during our visit. These aren't individuals that I see very often in person, and If I wanted to have a religious debate I'd stay home and surf Christian message boards.

During previous visits I've skirted around their questions by changing the subject. Most of the time this works pretty well, but there are certain topics (i.e. "You need to find a home church!" ) that just. won't. go. away.

How do you deal with repetitive conversations like these? Is there a good way to say that topics X, Y and Z are off-limits?

(As an aside, I'm pretty good at saying "no" or "I don't want to talk about that" with family members that I see more often. It's the ones that I see once in a blue moon that I have more trouble setting boundaries with.)

Looking for God -- Part Two

2008-06-16T15:51:00.005-05:00

by Nancy Ortberg

One of the best parts about Nancy's book for me has been her simple style of clearing out clutter -- spiritually speaking. For example, she tells the story of a woman named Babs, who gave a kidney to a friend of a friend who happened to desperately need one. A friend of a friend. Not her mother, child or sister. Not her best friend or even her favorite childhood babysitter. A friend of a friend needed a kidney and Babs said, Yes. Nancy writes, "Love is such a difficult word to define. Except when a kidney is involved." ( 127)

Another place where Looking for God calls us to act, instead of talk about beliefs and consider potential actions is in her story about when Shane Claiborne visited her church and asked everyone to give up their shoes so he could distribute them to homeless people that evening. Her co-worker clarified the invitation: "Shane is not telling you to go home and then next week bring back a pair of shoes to donate; he is saying right now." (79)

These two illustrations got me thinking: What if we were as impulsive about simple, bold acts of kindness as we are about impulse purchases of snacks and caffeinated drinks? Or what would happen if we impulsively gave away something of value to us every time we impulsively act NOT in accord with our values -- like when we snap at someone we love or let our vision of abundant life get sucked up in the vacuum of surviving day-to-day to-dos?

I appreciated Nancy's chapter on CouldaWouldaShoulda, in which she tells a heartbreaking story about a woman with little money, two kids facing terminal illness and a husband who just left and what Nancy almost did to organize assistance and blessing for this family. A spirit-fire brainstorm of inspiration didn't become incarnation, because the list with all the ideas kept getting shuffled and covered with other papers and priorities until it got thrown out and the vision lost. I could so identify! I have so many wishes to be a conduit of grace and so often inspiration turns into procrastination that trails off into...nothing but lost good intentions that breed a feeling of guilt and paralysis. I wonder, is our habit of forgetting to act while our intention is fresh off the press a piece of what feeds our cynicism, our gnawing suspicion that we can't make an important difference in other's lives or the world?

1. What keeps you from acting on your best intentions?

2. What kind act will you undertake right now?

3. What sacrifice will you make this week for someone who isn't personally important in your life?

4. What habit would most help you create a life open to inspiration and grounded in follow-through actions? (A will-do list for the day that ONLY includes important, rather than urgent goals? A question for the day? A walk past the homeless shelter?...)

"I Will Find You"

2008-06-14T19:40:00.002-05:00

“I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far -- I will find you.”
-- Nathaniel to Cora in The Last of the Mohicans.

My oldest son, Daniel, was missing for five of the longest days of my life. Trying to escape ballooning pressures at school and with friends, my eleventh grader bolted and hung out at a friend’s house. He didn’t tell us, and the house didn’t have phone service.

We reported Daniel missing to local law enforcement when he didn’t come home last week. We called all his friends, the school, coach, youth pastor, other parents. No one had seen him. We checked his usual hang-out places like the library and the YMCA. We drove up and down every street in town and the two adjacent burghs. My husband took the north part of town and I took the south and walked every street. We activated every prayer chain we could, on four continents. We didn’t sleep for five days. I wrote: “This feels like a bad nightmare. I keep waiting to wake up and then realize I am awake.”

Unimpressed with police efforts to help find Daniel, we contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, something no parent ever wants to do. But we were desperate. That’s one crackerjack organization. Within an hour we had a case number, a case manager, a branch office on board, forms emailed to us for media alerts and access to an emotional support team. One teary phone call and the gears of a massive, nationwide search-and-find machine swung into action, even while every horrible scenario imaginable kept shoving itself into my head. Choking down panic, manning the phone and concealing my red, puffy eyes became a full-time job:

"I feel like I’m losing my mind. No. That’s not it. I’ve lost it. Every mom-ism in the world has been summoned from every corner of my mind, every fiber of my being. I will throw myself from a moving vehicle, step in front of a truck, move heaven and earth with my teeth to find my son. If I have to call out the National Guard or lead a Marine battalion with fixed bayonets, I will find you. I don’t care what paper blizzards I have to plow through. I don’t care how much it costs. Or how long it takes. I will find you."

The parables of Luke 15 leapt into a focus as never before. In this chapter Jesus includes three “losts” in just 32 verses – sheep, a coin, and a son. Just think of the massive search-and-rescue effort launched by the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in open country and goes after the lost sheep “until he finds it.” Or the woman with ten silver coins, who loses one. She sweeps “the entire house” and “search(es) carefully” until when? Until she finds the lost coin. Same with the father of the thankless son who squandered his inheritance and returned home repentant.

Notice what happens next. Once the lost item is found, there’s joy, rejoicing, a party, celebrating, and more rejoicing. Think party hats and noisemakers at Mach 3 with your hair on fire. Think beating a kettle drum the size of Alaska, a dancing-like-there’s-no-tomorrow, jumping-up-and-down celebration with all the trimmings. Think cartwheel-turning, all-the-candles-burning, crowing-with-glee-till-the-cows-come-home elation.

I know the feeling.

Turns out Daniel was at a friend’s house a couple miles away – without phone access or any other contact info. Someone who heard we were looking for Daniel showed up at our front door. It was a God thing: “I don’t know the address, but I can take you there.” He did. We knocked on that door and there was Daniel, safe and sound and a little dazed by the commotion.

Angels rejoicing over found sheep, coins and a son has a whole new ring to it now.

Have you ever thought about it? About what the Lord Jesus Christ did – and does for us? He didn’t leave us in our lostness. He’s a search-and-rescue Savior, a never-give-up God. He invaded a fallen world to find us. He gave his life to redeem *lost* humanity. You and me. And my son. Think of it this way:

“I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far -- I will find you.”
-- Jesus

Book Review: cold tangerines

2008-06-12T10:37:00.001-05:00

cold tangerines:
celebrating the extraordinary nature of everyday life (all lower-cased)
By Shauna Niequist
Zondervan, 2007

I needed this book. I didn’t realize it until about halfway through, but “better late than never.”

Painted with a “Faberge egg” brush – stunning, exquisite and slightly outrageous – cold tangerines (lower-cased) is divided into four parts. Stand-alone, first-person stories in each section include: spark, french class, carrying my own weight, lent and television, broken bottles, writing in pencil, island, and my favorite: old house.

cold tangerines is spunky. Profound one moment and whimsical the next. At times you feel like you’re seated in the front row at the Improv; at others you’re sniffling and reaching for Kleenex. In each section the author sweeps us into her everyday life with pitchy observations about family, unexpecteds, writing, Africa, vacations, friends: “True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broke, fragile parts of ourselves… Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways…, an opportunity to act on God’s behalf inn the lives of the people we’re close to.

Like when her calendar is crammed with to-dos, events and activities and she sees a tall tree in the park, “twice as high as a two-story house,” that’s “the brightest, most insane, lit-from-within red I have ever seen.” Along with weddings and adoption celebrations and dinner parties, baby showers and fall colors, Niequist comments, “This is a masterpiece just here for the week, our very own wonder of the world, and I just about missed it.”

Don’t we all?

Maybe what I like best about cold tangerines is that the author is Real. Genuine. Humorous, hearty. Disarmingly candid. She’s flawed and knows it. Niequist asks the tough questions and avoids the canned answers: “What if I’ve missed the cosmic bus to my best future because I was watching E!?” The author has an “eyes open” storytelling style about babies, loss, vulnerability, disappointment, being overweight, motherhood, heart attacks, “the healing effects of a barbecue” and jealousy “like a house fire.” The slice-of-life vignettes are Christian themed without being preachy or pompous. They reflect an author who’s cracked and chipped. Human and hopeful. Daring. Kinda kooky. Someone I can relate to.

This book is crunchy and quirky. As succulent as a cold tangerine on a sizzling August afternoon. Reading this book is like walking into a dark living room on your birthday, bummed that no one remembered, and having people in party hats jump out and yell, “Surprise!”

I’m keeping my eye out for another serving.

Family-to-Family Crisis solution

2008-06-10T09:15:00.003-05:00

My husband and I, along with 5 other families, recently started a local chapter of Family-to-Family. Yesterday I received the following email from the founder of the organization:

FAMILY-TO-FAMILY NEEDS YOUR HELP!

There’s a crisis at our nation’s food banks and F-to-F wants to help.

Our friends at America’s Second Harvest tell us that their member food banks across the United States are reporting huge increases in the numbers of families coming forward in need of emergency food supplies. At the same time food donations are way down so less food is available to give away. Many food pantries are turning people away altogether, and many others are giving out less food to each person who comes in. People are going hungry.

PLEASE HELP US HELP BY PASSING THIS EMAIL ON TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST!

Family-to-Family and the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger have come up with a “crisis solution” to help these families… The Family-to-Family Hunger Relief Registry... a cyber-adoption program where you and your family will be linked to a family in one of the four desperately poor communities listed on our website’s cyber sponsorship page. … If you are able to sponsor a family in need of help for one year ($25 per month), please click here Family-to-Family | Sponsor A Family to join our “cyber-sponsorship” program. 100% of your monthly contribution (minus Paypal’s fee of about .80 cents) will be used to purchase groceries every month for 12 months for “your” family.

In an effort to make an immediate impact, please forward this email to your own email list, or to anyone blogging… so that we can, as an extended, grassroots, cyber-community, help feed hungry American families.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL

Connecting families with more......to families with profoundly less.
Family-to-Familywww.family-to-family.org
Office: 914.478.0756
Cell: 914.391.3220

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead.

If you are interested in getting more information about Family-to-Family please visit their webpage or feel free to contact me at quakertownFtoF@verizon.net. Also, if you happen to be interested in reading my notes from the announcement that I recently made at our church services about our local chapter of Family-to-Family please check them out at my blog.

The Clothes Make the (Wo)Man

2008-06-10T06:38:00.002-05:00

This photo is from the on-line gallery of Phillip Toledano (thanks to fellow Scriber, Ben).

Sit with that photo for a minute. Allow your emotions to bubble up and give them names. Let them have their own stories just for a moment or so. See what those stories might be, if you don't just shove the emotions down or wave them aside or tell them what to do.

Now, think for a moment about how intimidated you feel when standing in the presence of someone who is dressed "to the nines." How intimidated you feel when you walk into a room or space and suddenly you realize ... you are not dressed the same as everyone else there. You'll never be able to dress like everyone else there.

Now you have the sense of modesty that Paul was trying to instill in Timothy when he wrote, "I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God." His concern was not for sexual purity, but that the women would set a tone of hospitality and welcoming.

Our clothes tell people something about us. They tell a story about who we are before people ever get to know us. When we use those clothes to engage in power and manipulation to subdue others in our presence ... by whatever means, we are negating the power of the Gospel in the very space that the Gospel is to be transcendent.

So ... how should we dress? Well ... that's up to you and your particular dance with the Holy Spirit. See, none of us is the same. The rules are all the same, yet they're all different. All we can do is ask questions of each other ... where do you live? How do your neighbors dress? What are the local standards? What is welcoming amongst them? How do you create a welcoming environment in your space, where you are free to proclaim the Good News to people so they will hear it from you?

Hillary's Speech

2008-06-09T14:41:00.003-05:00

My apologies to our non-US readers for the political post, but I thought this could be of interest to many of us here.

Over the weekend Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic primary to Obama. I know that in the US this was a bitter battle and emotions run high when the "Hillary topic" arises. But whatever your politics or opinion of her, I thought her words on what it meant to be a woman running for President of the USA were significant.

Together, Sen. Obama and I achieved milestones essential to our progress as a nation, part of our perpetual duty to form a more perfect union. A woman running for president, I always gave the same answer, that I was proud to be running as a woman, but I was running because I thought I'd be the best president. But ...

But I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.

I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter's future and a mother who wants to leave all children brighter tomorrows.

To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay and equal respect.

Let us resolve and work toward achieving very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits, and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.

You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States. And that is truly remarkable, my friends.

To those who are disappointed that we couldn't go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.

Always aim high, work hard and care deeply about what you believe in. And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on.

As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.

That has always been the history of progress in America. Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes.

Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot soldiers who segregation and Jim Crow.

Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote, and, because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together.

Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States. And so when that day arrives, and a woman takes the oath of office as our president, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream big and that her dreams can come true in America.

And all of you will know that, because of your passion and hard work, you helped pave the way for that day.

So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself "if only" or "what if," I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

You can read her whole speech here. So what do you think? Will such things ever become "unremarkable"?

Book Discussion: Looking for God by Nancy Ortberg

2008-06-03T08:18:00.004-05:00

Week One

I have truly been enjoying this book about life in God opening up afresh. Nancy has a wonderful voice and it's easy to connect with her and uncover insights with her in a way that's inspiring, convicting and simple without being boxy or formulaic. And this from a woman who is from an evangelical orientation. It is rare that I feel connected with God without too many abrupt interruptions when I read books by evangelical writers, so this is high compliments for Nancy and the one who breathes in and through her work. I appreciated both Nancy's references to life full with days parenting young children as well as her chapter devoted to work as a valuable avenue for loving God and living an abundant, dynamic life. On page 27 she argues biblically for why we ought to have sermons on men cooking, based on John 21 where Jesus cooks breakfast for the disciples. I like that view of godly manhood.

On page 14 Nancy says, "The power of gratitude is breathtaking and centering. It is along the lines of nuclear power."

1. What inspires in you breathtaking gratitude?

Nancy talks about watching her grandmother make homemade jell-O and writes of the molds, "Molds are rigid, predetermined boundaries that create shape but leave no room for movement." (29)

2. If molds didn't exist, what shape would you be?

3. Without molds, what ways would you move freely as a lover of God?

Nancy discusses the issue of wanting to trade callings with someone else and how this is something that gets under Jesus' skin when the disciples get into a dynamic of, "Well what a about him?" Nancy describes an experience of feeling jealous of a fellow speaker and how she handled that. (30-32)

4. Describe a time you wanted to trade lives or callings with another person.

5. What obstacles stand in the way being aligned with your Life in God?

On page 62, Nancy discusses the gift of ordinariness. She says of enjoying the ordinary,

it gives us a sense of purpose even in the mundane, a kind of freedom that releases us from the need to be important -- a need that can weigh us down and sink us into our own pitiful selves. Ordinary gives a peace and joy and centeredness that turns us toward God and builds him deep inside of us.

6. What is your most cherished ordinary time?

7. What will you do today to celebrate WHAT IS in your life?

Motherhood, Guilt and God

2008-05-31T16:59:00.002-05:00

One of my young adult (age 22) children has a serious chronic illness. In fact, he’s in the hospital this weekend. This is the third time this year that he’s been admitted to a hospital through the emergency room.

He insists upon living on his own in a major city which is a 3.5 hour drive from our home. He has only a high school education and wants to go to college, but spends all his physical energy at a minimum wage job which allows him time off when his illness flares. We help him out financially. We try not to think about his living conditions (at his age, the idea of living in a house of seven college students is still considered an adventure). Besides, in this city he has access to specialists who treat patients with his illness every day.

I am glad that it’s him and not me. I don’t want to trade places with him, and I don’t wish for one second wish that it was me that had this illness instead of him. Yeah, so there’s some guilt, for you: I don’t feel guilty that he’s sick instead of me. But I do feel a bit guilty for not feeling guilty.

I swear, every mother I’ve ever met has said that she would much rather suffer illness than allow her child to suffer illness. Where in the Big Book of Motherhood is that written, anyway? Did I skip that chapter? Was that page torn from my book?

Despite the lack of desire to assume his burden, I do feel great distress that he has a serious illness. But to convince myself of this, I keep evidence: Proof that I am in fact a good and caring parent.

Exhibit One: When he was first hospitalized a few months ago I broke down into blubbering sobs at the bank as I asked how to get power of attorney to help us manage his meager finances long-distance.

Exhibit Two: In private, I cry for him. A lot, when he’s really sick or we’ve had a visit with him.

Exhibit Three: I cruise the Internet looking for treatments and/or ways to help finance his healthcare.

Exhibit Four: In January I dragged him through an entire day of visits to the Welfare Office and Hospital Social Worker in order to get the paperwork processed to get him steps closer to receiving state health insurance and free medicine. At $1200/weekly treatment, we, his parents, do not have the financial resources to purchase the medication he needs. This meant that while the paperwork ground through the system, our son went with no medication for six months.

Yep. That’s pretty lame. Sounds like my feeling sad is more about me than about him. I look for ways to intellectualize the sadness: At least he has access to healthcare now; it could happen to anyone, why not someone I love; only he can walk his path, etc.

Upon the advice of a friend, I read Psalm 91. I see now where some people get the idea that God is a benevolent genie who dispenses magical protections to the faithful. The psalm is nonsensical in the literal sense and offers no comfort in the physical sense. I remember back to our church days, where I would have made the psalm fit into congregational doctrine. I remember when I would have spent 20 minutes convincing a hurting friend that the psalm provided just the comfort and hope they were seeking.

I think back to the story likening church membership to burning coals which depend upon each other to retain their heat, the sermons warning that the Bible makes no sense to the unfaithful.

I consider my new understanding of God. Of how I have recast God as a creator of universal, not just Christian, proportions. I intellectualize the sorrow a bit more, reminding myself that the here and now is only one manifestation of God’s creation. Even the Christians believe that.

I am left with this: This experience belongs to everyone it touches: The illness itself is my son’s path to walk, his burden to bear. Our family’s path lies in learning new ways of living with each other through sorrow and concern and changed expectations. Our path lies in developing bonds that strengthen our relationships, finding ways to accommodate the emotions and reactions that come when a beloved members lives with chronic illness. I don’t know where God is in all that, but I am confident that there is a God, and that God is really, really big. Bigger than the bible, bigger than the church, bigger than Christianity. Big enough and good enough to provide meaning for our existence, even if it’s not in Psalm 91.

Our Bodies Matter to Jesus

2008-05-31T08:52:00.011-05:00

As some of you may imagine, one of the most frequent search engine terms that bring readers to my blog is the "sensuous"+"posted in blog". I clicked on this search this morning, and found a daisy chain of beautiful thoughts which I will share with you today.

The first link that caught my eye was "God's Sensuous Prescence". Y'all know, I am all about God and all about sensuous, so of course I was curious. This beautiful article is what I found:

"Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense. The Saviour of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body."

At first glance this sounded at once beautiful and potentially sacreligious. Because when my woman-who-was-sexually-abused brain hears the words "an object for the senses", I recoil. But there was that beautiful phrase "in His great love took to Himself a body" and I believe that lock, stock and barrell, so I deliberately let go of my CSA thoughts and took another closer look. And what I saw astounded me with it's beauty.

I visualized my beloved Jesus extending his hand to Thomas, such a human loving inclusive gesture all by itself, and then he speaks "don't believe it's really me? Touch me. it's me, Thomas. Touch me, and remember all the many other times you touched my hand and were comforted. It's me. really. Touch me, and believe."

Of course, by then, poignant tears had gathered in my eyes and I was on board with the phrase "He became Himself an object for the senses." Oh yes he did. And there's my favorite name for Jesus too, Himself. A gift with purchase. Confirmation.

I wanted to hear more, so I clicked on the link provided by the blog author Eric Daryl Meyer (shown here with he and his wife. look at them! aren't they precious?)

This took me to Faith and Theology, a guest post by Oliver Davies. And what a treasure trove I found there!

Get a load of this!

"We constantly treat Christianity as though it were a philosophy or a work of literature (I am not against philosophy or literature) rather than a disclosure to practical intellect which calls us into the radical freedom of action in and for Christ in the world (i.e. the ascended, wounded and glorified Christ). Faith is faith in Christ who acts rather than thinks."

Seriously, y'all. I don't wanna just be smarter. I wanna be CHANGED.

Wait, there's more.

Instead of allowing ourselves to be opened up to the revelation of Christ in the world, communicated through command at work through the senses and the particularity of space and time events ("the command of grace", in Janz's phrase), we focus on the mind as the place of insight, generativity and meaning.

I'll tell you what this means to me. All my life, up until the point of my spiritual and sexual awakening, I thought it was true "Spirit good, mind good, body bad." I really did. As hard to believe as these words sound now, coming from from a woman who experiences God in every orgasm and feels the sweet nearness of the Spirit in every cool breeze on my sweaty face when I run, I used to really believe that. The condition of my heart, the condition of my marriage, the quality of how despised or cherished my sexuality was to me is a living lab test of what those ideas look like in behavior. When I believed my body was bad and my mind was good, I shrank from every touch from my husband and generally rolled my eyes at the depravity of man every time he got an erection. I'm not proud to admit it, but that was my reality. Oh but I was a good Christian girl who "selflessly ministered to her husband" by laying there and taking it. What a martyr! Not even good enough to be called a real martyr either, like Jim Elliot or the first disciple to be stoned to death, because I was laying down and dying for a cause that was contrary to scripture and so FAR from the life of joy God had called me to! What a senseless wasteful non-God-honoring martyr.

But you know my Jesus, he loves us just as we are and loves us too much to leave us that way. Read on.

"And here the third problem arises which follows from the first two: we have lost an understanding of the way we can and should access and be attentive to the presence of Christ in this way. We constantly bypass with mind the very place in which he is present for us in the here and now, which is to do with the senses and with command, since this is a place where the mind does not necessarily want to go."

Yes! Yes! Yes! I used to do that all the time, and folks, I'll tell you why. Because of my own sin and the sin of others, my senses were associated for me with sensations of pain, emotions of pain, shame, doubt, fear, self-loathing and just an overall sense of "ugh get me outta here". Maybe some of you can relate.

But here's the good part. Jesus still lives. And His Lordship in the nitty gritty details of our lives is the way we are to live not just as prescription (take 2 pills and call me in the morning) but as invitation. Invitation to the path to healing we are walk (come walk with me this way my darling and let me heal you, my love). That's my paraphrase and I paraphrase it that way because I have lived it that way. This is the path I've been walking for 16 years.

Oliver Davies puts it this way:

"Getting it" entails seeing that incarnational revelation still comes to us through the senses ("Jesus still lives, and his Lordship in the particularity of our lives is the mode for us of that life"), and that the senses cannot be absorbed without remainder into mind. Thus ascension allows that our faith in Christ can be far closer to that of the apostles than we might ordinarily admit, not on our own account, but on account of the nature of the transformation effected in Christ. Doctrinally (theologically) and anthropologically (philosophically) we have lost the tools and practices which help us to "recognise" him in his transformed state in the everyday reality of our lives where he comes to meet us.

As so often happens in my reading since the internet, I connected the dots between three unrelated poets and writers that from my point of view seem tailor made for each other. On one hand we have these brilliant intellectuals—theology professor no less!— saying in essence, "Excuse me, everybody. Something precious has been lost. And I'm going to do my darndest to show you what and how and show you why and more importantly, show you how to get it back."

For as I read the scholarly article, I remembered the last time—the only time—I've heard a scholar talk about these ideas. It was when I heard Christopher West speak about Theology of the Body at a Created and Redeemed Seminar. I remember Christopher's main point being "Jesus had a real body and our bodies are important because God Almighty thought to inhabit one so we should believe our body is important too and inhabit it well and with truth and honor." That is my paraphrase after attending the 7 hour seminar. (By the way, I do not believe that using birth control violates this cherished concept, since I believe any lovemaking between a husband and wife has the fruit of pleasure and oneness if not the fruit of children) So first as I'm reading, I'm reminded of Theology of the Body.

And then, I'm reminded of the song I sang in church last week. The song that so grounded me and comforted me by reminding me that every area of my life matters to God and is inhabited by God. The song that gave me opportunity to respond to this newfound hope and comfort by pouring our my adoration upon Jesus, or as we say in the South, "singin' my little heart out". Listen to this!

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
there in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

be my everything
be my everything
be my everything

God in my hoping
there in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
there in my breathing
God in my hurting
God in my healing

be my everything
be my everything
be my everything
be my everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me
the hope of glory
you are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me
the hope of glory
be my everything

be my everything
be my everything
be my everything

be my everything
be my everything
be my everything

God in my hoping
there in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
there in my breathing
God in my hurting
God in my healing

be my everything
be my everything
be my everything
you are everything

So yes, beloved friends, our bodies matter. They matter to Jesus too, as he—by living in us—inhabits our bodies every single day. And everything we do in these bodies matters very VERY much! If it's sin that we're doing with our bodies—slapping our children, abandoning our husbands in the marriage bed, or using drugs or food or the absence of food to numb our aching hearts— we need grace and healing to get to the root of that sin and let Jesus heal us. And if it's not sin that we're doing with our bodies—laying our cool hand on our child's fevered brow, welcoming our husbands and drawing them into our body with passion and tenderness, or caring for and cherishing our bodies in beautiful small ways like eating with gratitude in an attitude of self-care—then we are in the acts of doing these very things, bringing the hands and love of Christ into our world, which is a humbling, immensely gorgeous thing to think about.

Isn't it?

Love,
SW

Epilogue:
Parenting
Once in the course of my life as a mother I lost my temper and slapped one of my children. It was listed as a sin in the article and also listed as a sin I am living in active repentance of. I don't refuse my husband anymore or do emotional eating anymore either. I don't believe there's a mother alive that hasn't lost her temper and slapped her child once or been sorely tempted to do so. But my experience of losing my temper like that disturbed me enough that I took myself to a licensed marriage and family therapist and learned some better parenting strategies. I also took my child to a child therapist and got some treatment for them and we're all doing much better on that regard. The licensed marriage and family therapist who treated me counseled me that my unresolved guilt over slapping my child that one time was far harmful to my effectiveness as a parent than the slap itself because that guilt gave me a propensity to cave into their demands and not keep firm loving boundaries. I hope any parent who reads my story will not hesitate to seek wise counsel for their parenting challenges.

Singles
I want to cherish my single readers by saying that there are many beautiful ways use use our bodies to bring the hands and love of Christ into our world, many many more than the 3 ways I listed. The reason that drove what I listed as ways to bring love is that I began with listing 3 ways I personally used my body to sin and 3 ways I used my body to repent and to love. You're not excluded, beloved darlings, or exempt from embodying the love of Christ just because you are not a wife or mommy. Never meant to imply that, beloved. Not in a hundred years did I mean to imply that. (squeeze your hand and look you in the eye for good measure) Love, SW

Blogging Invitation

2008-05-27T19:32:00.002-05:00

I wanted to pass on an blogging opportunity from Rachelle Mee-Chapman to the community here -

Hello! We might have already met at an Emergent Convention, or at your blog or mine (Urban Abbess or Magpie Girl). Now I’m the contributing editor for Religion and Spirituality at BlogHer.com I'm trying to rustle up great posts to feature in my Monday column on Religion and Spirituality.

I've been following your blog for awhile now, and was wondering if you'd like to be on my mailing list of Spirituality Writers. It's a select group of bloggers, and I’d love to have you along. You wouldn’t get a ton of email from me. I would just send out periodic requests for gridblog participation on a given topic. Then I would feature some of the most relevant posts on BlogHer, and maybe at my personal blog as well.

If that sounds interesting to you, reply to this email and ask me to include you on the Spirituality Writers mailing list. I'd love to have you along for the journey.

Shalom,

Rachelle Mee-Chapman

Contributing Editor, BlogHer.com

http://www.blogher.com/blog/rachelle-mee-chapman

P.s. Please feel free to pass this email along to women bloggers you love, even if they only write occasionally about religion and/or spirituality.

Rachelle Mee-Chapman

moi (at) magpie-girl (dot) com

http://www.magpie-girl.com

Be Still, My Soul

2008-05-27T11:50:00.002-05:00

Chaos: proofreading, feeding the dogs, running out of hair conditioner, asking my husband where I put the...stop.
And then the silence erupts. One time when I was little and my impoverished family took a rare trip to the city, I chose "The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Birthday" to take home. And every once in a while, I think about it. Sister Bear gets overwhelmed by the good things of her birthday and crashes.
I love life. I love the changes, the ups and downs. Every once in a while, my overenthusiasm for, well, everything tanks the spirit, and a tugging ensues. Psyche? Brain chemicals? EQ? I don't know. Maybe it's the Holy Spirit. But my soul is put in the time out chair, my mind laid down for a nap under a favorite blanket, my groove put on pause. The silence erupts.
One time a personality inventory told me that my personality craves balance. Probably because that same personality likes to go hog wild, as I learned my Sophomore year of college. Join what? Of course!
What people call wisdom in me has rarely come from the whirlwind. It comes from the calm after the storm, the nap under the blanket, the deafening silence that longs to embrace my thoughts and shake them free from inner nagging.
You know that verse? "Be still and know that I AM God"? To me, that usually reads, "sit down, shut up, and know." My grandmother, when I was a toddler, cast a knowing glance at Mom and commented about my temperament, "she's going to talk early - and a lot."
I have begun to learn silence. The beauty of stillness. The peace of the absence of information. What do we learn when we're quiet? Much is said these days of dialogue. But what of stillness? Some will always be doers. Some will always be contemplatives. I hope, wherever you find yourself on the pendulum, that there are loud moments of serenity. The kind where you can almost hear the trees growing, as the wood between the worlds shows in "The Magician's Nephew."
Perhaps blasphemy is casting out the still, small voice. Strange things happen in the quiet - the quiet of the room just before the Holy Spirit began banging shutters and ruffling rugs, ensconcing Pentecost on the shoulders of the praying. The quiet of a leafy garden surrounding a bent figure pleading with his Father, drops of blood falling on a rock. The quiet of a cemetary at dawn on the first day of the week. Perhaps a split second of silence as a rock hammered a Philistine in the skull before a deafening roar from the army ensued. Stillness when Abel's blood soaked into the dirt, muddying humanity. I think Paul probably had very few words during his hours of blindness as Saul. Quiet prayers humbly aiming at heaven in repentance for his former blindness.
Does a moment of silence really do it to honor the dead? How can the world be redeemed through blaring noise? Maybe the earth will be reborn not only in the trumpet blast (heard Over the Rhine's Trumpet Child album?), but in the moment right before and after, when anticipation and closure beat the air.
Forget inside voices. Let's be quiet.

Weekly Round-up

2008-05-24T21:01:00.002-05:00

Time once again to enjoy a round-up of thoughtful posts from Emerging Women around the web this week. If you have read (or written) a post you think should be included in a weekly round-up please email the link to emergingwomen (at) gmail (dot) com. Enjoy!

Rachel wonder what are the next issues evangelicals will eventually change their minds about.

Rebecca reflects on the danger of turning the church into saviour.

Heather asks how we might view Biblical stories differently if we were to stop reading them through the lenses of patriarchy.

Heather K-D gives her thoughts on the spiritual themes in Prince Caspian.

and Jan comments on her ecclesiastical non-negotiables.

Should the votes count? weigh in

2008-05-22T13:21:00.002-05:00

What do you think . . . ?

Should the Democratic votes cast in Florida and Michigan count?

What do you think the DNC will do?

Denver Area EW Gathering

2008-05-22T10:19:00.001-05:00

you are invited to our 2nd
denver emerging
women's gathering
fanning the flames
saturday june 21st 6pm

join us for an evening by the fire...an informal gathering for those in the denver, colorado springs, fort collins, boulder area. our agenda is relaxed with the goal to continue building relationships and support

saturday, june 21, 2008 at 6:00 pm
appetizers, desserts & conversation

at the home of kathy escobar
for directions and additional information, please rsvp to:
kathy@therefugeonline.org or
amy borjas at eaborjas@comcast.net

this invitation is open to anyone interested in coming so feel free to pass the word to any women you know who might want to come. everyone is welcome!

if you are able or willing, please bring a dessert or appetizer to share.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 3

2008-05-21T17:44:00.002-05:00

In continuing our discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I want to turn to the obstacles that often stand in the way of our choosing to eat sustainably. While it can be easy to read about how other people switched to organic or local food habits, making that transition in our own lives can prove to be a challenge. I have not fully made that transition, but I have learned to do what I can. What I discovered along the way were that there are a number of common obstacles (or excuses depending how one looks at it) that I had to overcome. These included -

1. Information - I had to discover what was good to eat and where I could find it.
2. Cost - I had to adjust how and what I ate in order to pay the full price of the food I was eating.
3. Time - I had to be willing to sacrifice convenience in order to grow, make, and eat sustainably.

In reading Kingsolver's account, the time issue seemed to be the most all consuming factor. Not everyone can grow all of their own food. But they did discover that by putting their own effort into the process they saved significant amounts of money over the course of the year. For them it was all about developing a different perspective and making it work.

What obstacles stand in your way? Are they too big to overcome? What has helped you overcome them?

"Trigger-Happy" Forgiveness

2008-05-20T11:09:00.004-05:00

"Forgiveness" is an oft-used and frequently mangled, muddied, and misapplied concept within much of Christendom. Many use the term and/or the concept interchangeably or synonymously with reconciliation. This is a mistake. As Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott (Seattle Pacific University) point out in the following excerpt from their fine book, A Good Friend, forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things (food for thought):

"Trigger-happy forgiveness is not forgiveness at all. Given out quickly, too liberally, forgiveness becomes watered down. The quirks and cranks of our friends’ annoying behaviors do not deserve forgiveness. Generosity? Yes. A sense of humor? Yes. Some tolerance? Yes. But not forgiveness. No. Forgiveness is reserved for a more serious mercy. Not for annoyances but for the deeper wrongs friends do us.

There’s another important point about forgiveness: When a good friend forgives another, it doesn’t guarantee reconciliation. Forgiveness requires something of the offender as well as the offended if it is to restore the relationship. My former professor Lewis Smedes is one of the nation’s leading experts on forgiveness. In his best-selling book Forgive and Forget, he said something about what it takes to be reconciled after we forgive:

You hold out your hand to someone who did you wrong, and you say: 'Come on back, I want to be your friend again.” But when they take your hand and cross over the invisible wall that their wrong and your pain built between you, they need to carry something with them as the price of their ticket to your second journey together… What must they bring? They must bring truthfulness. Without truthfulness, your reunion is humbug, your coming together is false.'

Forgiveness will always heal the wound in our memory, regardless of how a friend responds. But reconciliation requires that our friend own up to the truth of his or her fault and see the pain it caused. (Emphasis added.) No mask or manipulation is allowed. If you forgive a friend for breaking a confidence and your friends denies it ever happened, the relationship will remain in limbo. There’s no way around it. Reconciliation is a two-way street, requiring both grace and repentance. And good friends know it–whether they are on the giving or receiving side of forgiveness."

Les and Leslie Parrott, A Good Friend, pp. 75, 76

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

2008-05-19T07:51:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I saw Prince Caspian, the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. While this movie didn't follow the book it was based upon as closely as the first Chronicles of Narnia movie followed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it did do a good job of capturing the spirit of C.S. Lewis' _Prince Caspian_.

In particular, I was intrigued by how the movie approached the concept of "blind" faith. How much justification (or maybe reinforcement is a better term?) of our convictions do we need in order to continue to have faith?

If anyone else has seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

First, Reconcile Your Heart

2008-05-18T07:03:00.003-05:00

...so tell us about the last time your church community practiced reconciliation and restoration with a local convict.

How receptive was he or she to the experience?

How did the church community react or respond to the divergences in values, perspective and expectation between itself and its new member?

What was the long-term plan in terms of providing on-going spiritual and social skills development and support? As well as job-skills, not to mention finding an employer who was willing to hire this person?

It's a great concept, the church being the organ of reconciliation, but the bottom line is that the local congregation is made of people. Those same people are members of the same society which has bought into the flimsy "tough-on-crime/soft-on-crime" approach to justice and in the process contributed to the development of a massive prison complex. Those same people who put bumper stickers on their cars that say "meet me in church on Sunday"—they sure as heck don't mean You/Me, the convicted child molester; You/Me, the mentally ill former addict; You/Me, the unkempt; You/Me, the bitter; You/Me, born a wonderfully unique person whose circumstances led You/Me to make choices that seemed as natural and as reasonable as selecting white or whole wheat bread.

If the church truly wishes to be an organ of justice and reconciliation, it should begin at the beginning, before there is a need to reconcile. A congregation which limits its concept of justice and reconciliation to a rescue operation without a serious focus on examining its role in the society which creates criminals is not practicing justice. It's showcasing or grandstanding. It’s playing with Godliness, dabbling in good works. It’s naïve. It’s self-serving.

It's padding the “good-works” side of the ledger with feel-good projects while ignoring the rickety foundation of its own unwillingness to create change where it counts: In our own, personal attitudes; what we teach our children; and the social values we are willing to tolerate in the name of politics.

Sabbath, Rest, and Guilt

2008-05-14T14:24:00.001-05:00

I was sitting in the swinging chair enjoying the spring Phoenix day. It wasn't too hot, and the breeze was refreshing. And I was feeling guilty. Why? Because I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't working. I wasn't being productive. I was on vacation and feeling guilty for being on vacation. How American is that? It took me a whole day, but I finally did it: I stopped feeling guilty about taking a break and resting. I found out what true rest, true letting go feels like. Or may be I remembered how to let go and rest.

Genesis tells us that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and then rested on the Sabbath. Keeping the Sabbath and not working one day a week is one of The Ten Commandments. It is also the commandment that's most often broken by Chrsitians and non-Christians alike. We can wax eloquently all we want to about not taking God's name in vain or not committing murder, but bring up keeping the Sabbath, and the room gets very, very quiet. Why do some branches of American Christianity insist that God created the earth in six literal days, but then fall silent when it comes to taking what God did on the seventh day literally?

And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation (Genesis 2:2-3).

Why is it so hard for us to stop and rest?

On of the reasons is that we have believed the lie that we are what we do. We believe the myth that what we do is who we are. So we work. We perform. We jump through hoops. One of the reason for keeping the Sabbath is to remind us who we really are: children of God. The Sabbath also reminds us that everything we have comes from God. God provides for all our needs. The Sabbath is for remembering: remembering who we are and remembering who God is. God rested on the seventh day, and God commanded us to do the same. If it is okay for God to rest, then it is okay for us to rest as well.

In fact, it is imperative to rest. We need a day where we let go of the worry and stress and our work, and we trust God to take care of us.

The last three Sundays I have rested. In fact, I've even been taking naps. I rested, and I did not feel one iota of guit.

What about you? Do you take time off? How do you rest?

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 2

2008-05-13T12:27:00.002-05:00

"Take a minute to study this creation – an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest. We’ll call it a vegetannual ..."

As Barbara Kingsolver and her family embark on a year of living off the land, they realize that they will be eating whatever the land is offering at that particular time of year. If the asparagus are in season, you eat a lot of asparagus. And for the times of year when the land isn't offering up much food, you prepare ahead by freezing, drying, and canning the harvest grown for just that reason. In December one didn't go to the grocery story and buy a tomato that was picked unripe in South America, shipped thousands of miles in refrigerated storage, and made to look red with ethylene gas that doesn't taste like much of anything. No they ate the fruits of their own garden that had ripened naturally and they had taken the time to preserve for the winter. They ate a much better tasting tomato and didn't waste the transportation gas and refrigeration energy to get it either.

But eating food in season from local sources is not the norm for most Americans. Kingsolver writes, "It had felt arbitrary when we sat around the table with our shopping list, making our rules. It felt almost silly to us in fact, as it may now seem to you. Why impose restrictions on ourselves? Who cares?" Kingsolver advocates the pleasures and ethics of seasonal eating, but she acknowledges that many people would view this as deprivation "because we've grown accustomed to the botanically outrageous condition of having everything always."

Do you believe that American society can—or will— overcome the need for instant gratification in order to be able to eat seasonally? How does Kingsolver present this aspect in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? Did you get the sense that she and her family ever felt deprived in their eating options? How can eating seasonally be seen as a spiritual discipline?

Weekly Round-up

2008-05-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

So this is turning into a bi-weekly round-up... But there are some great posts out there right now from (and about) Emerging Women. Check them out, join the conversations, and enjoy!

Jan examines our willingness to share the indiscretions of our past (and how that relates to gender) in her post The Secret Life of Moms.

Sally shares her thoughts as she prepares for Mothering Sunday.

Lisa explores the different forms of justice.

Heather questions what it means to take ones faith to the next level.

Anne looks at the nature of disenfranchised grief.

I (Julie) reflect on if Christians should apologize for our communal sins.

And this has been an interesting week for bloggers to examine issues related to gender and women in ministry. A few conversations to check out -

Jenell Paris has created a (so-far) seven part series on the topic. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Eugene Cho addresses the Biblical defense of women in ministry.

and Rose Madrid-Swetman writes on the need to change power structures in the church to give women more access to leadership.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 1

2008-05-06T11:33:00.002-05:00

Today we start our discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Telling the story of her family's experiment at being locavores for a year, this book turns one's thoughts to the food we eat. Kingsolver and her family chose to move to an area where they could connect with the community and the land. Their goal was to grow or raise most of their own food and get the rest as locally as possible. In essence, they took the plunge to put into practice their commitment to sustainability, family, and community. Personally, this was one of the most engaging books I read this past year. I enjoyed her storytelling ability to chronicle their day to day adventures and struggles and still manage to be engaging as they detailed the ecological, economic, and justice reasons for why they chose to do this.

In her own words -

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

For more information about the book and eating local, check out the book's website at www.animalvegetablemiracle.com.

To kick off our discussion, I have a few questions -

- Have you ever considered where your food comes from or done the research to find out?

- Is eating healthy, ethically, and humanely a priority for you as a Christian?

- What do you know about sustainability and eating locally?

I look forward to our discussion this month as we use this narrative to explore these issues.

Armageddon outta here

2008-05-05T13:42:00.004-05:00

In my view, the need for the cross was there because there was nothing that we could do or think that would make us righteous, therefore there is nothing we can do to be readied for a judgment of any sort. What if you were wrong in your doctrine? What if you were born into a Muslim family and Jesus came? What if you were a tribe in the woods that knows nothing at all? Those questions are rhetorical but also demonstrative of a life of fear in the face of saving grace imho.

Many religions believe that there will be an end of everything culminating with a final battle between good and evil. A large portion of Christianity subscribes to this view as well. Personally, I am not among those who do. I want to share that with you in effort at being open about my own point of view and hopefully demonstrative of my not having a hidden agenda in bringing this up.

I watch the "Ultimate Fighter" reality tv show with my husband. Before each match it is common for the fighters to say a prayer and victory means that God heard them and was with them. Does that mean that God is not with losers? I don't think so. I don't know that all of the "losers" would agree with me. I'm sure that at least some sit in the corner, head in hands, feeling utter abandonment.

I have known people though, that feel abandoned by God, or disowned, disapproved, and/or not loved because their lives have been hard. They look at their life and the world around them and see that as a testimony as to goodness and evil and many find assurance in their beliefs be that doctrinally related, per a religion, or even a denial of God all together.

According to the bible story, Adam and Eve were naked and without shame up until the point that they noticed. Before that though, God knew that they were naked and didn't shame them - shame was self-inflicted. Coming clean for consuming the fruit meant making themselves vulnerable before God. They were afraid to be exposed and naked, and hid - they were "bad" in their minds, because of what they did.

God had lovingly warned them previously that if they ate poison, they would die - so don't eat poison. The fruit of the tree, where there was knowledge of good and evil meant death and they indeed were buried beneath that fear and shame. This wasn't cured immediately following, the problem created other problems.. like the need to prove one's worth for one.

God put that problem under a magnifying glass through Israel and then solved it in Christ. YET, how in the world did Jesus solve what was came into the world through our knowing good and evil? I think, because unconditional love makes moral judgment, even according to the law given Moses, obsolete.

Some argue that abortion is morally wrong and evil. I knew someone in high school who got pregnant and she was too underdeveloped to carry a child. She will have died trying and the baby wouldn't have made it either. A mistake? Yes, and she surely suffered sorrow for it. Would we condemn her? Or children who are even younger and become pregnant whether voluntarily or through rape? Would we condemn them? Definitely this has been holed up in moral courts for years now and we still don't have a consensus on who the bad guy is - and especially don't have a relational solution because none of us are interested in perpetuating sorrow.

While we argue over good and evil, each religion owning their view of it, and each sect within each religion, and each individual we also forget God's warning: "You shall surely die".

Moral court would have us condemn the enemy when love on the other hand doesn't keep score (ie 1 Cor 13:5, 2 Cor 5:19). Love makes good and evil obsolete. Parents love their children even when they grow up to be serial killers. Just look at Dahmer's dad. That doesn't mean that he would say "Well, I love you son so go eat more people." The absence of condemnation does not mean the lack of boundaries. He sure wasn't out buying pom-poms to wear to his son's death either. Is God not as graceful?

"Sure my child is bad", God said through the law, "Do I not love them?" he said through Christ. How do you think he would want humanity to respond to a sibling in trouble? Does our goodness evidence that we have a higher worth? ("The first shall be last")

The issue becomes one of love and relationship, and how to thrive among one another. The idea of the moral war will fade the more love is reflected in humanity because it just won't matter anymore. And then humanity might question if it ever mattered to God.

We don't have to put down the fruit, love rendered it powerless. I could say that I know that because of how I understand the bible story, sure. I could say even further that I know that because my heart tells me so -- when does law ever trump love after all. OR, I could say so because it is reality.

God used to have a people who believed that they were his people because he turned a river to blood for them. There was an "us" and a "them", a "clean" and "unclean", "good" and "bad" -- albeit their purpose was intended as mediator. They became corrupt and monopolized God on earth. They began to determine who was in and who was out, who would live and who would die - and they based those determinations on a law given them by God himself -- though it was interpreted without true righteousness as Jesus did. We still fight like siblings over who gets our Daddy's love - who is good and who is bad.. BUT whose side does God actually choose? Does a won war actually say that God was not with the losers? We can hold our breath until we pass out, blow one another up, throw bibles at each other and the cross is still demonstrative for all. Because who is not a sinner? This was about God's demonstrative acceptance of sinners. Isn't this the gospel? ...the war of good and evil, internally as in the garden, and externally as that played out, defeated by love.

I'm not presenting this as dogma, but in hopes of a great conversation :-).

Women in Emergent

2008-05-02T11:53:00.003-05:00

Jenell Paris has a great post up exploring the integration of women into the emergent and young reformed streams. She asks some telling questions. I especially liked her statement -

"If your movement excludes women from full equality with men, then just call it a men's movement and don't try to make me pay attention to it."

Anyway, click here for the full post. I'm interested to hear the responses to this.

How to Choke a Camel

2008-04-30T16:19:00.002-05:00

Cell group. Growth group. Small group. Bible study. Prayer fellowship. Sunday school class. The usual “work camels” of many women’s ministries programs.

Having participated in and led all sorts of “camels” in the past 30 years or so, I’ve learned a few things about these “critters”: they can be either boon or bane. The reasons are legion. But with tongue planted firmly in cheek, here’s my wholly unscientific and purely subjective “short list” of Twenty Sure-Fire, Never-Fail, 100% Guaranteed Ways to Choke a Camel (in no particular order. Do any of these sound familiar?):

1. Avoid a clear-cut group goal. Meander aimlessly from one disconnected text, topic or curriculum to the next. Make sure to aim at nothing so you can hit it every time.

2. Do everything yourself. Make sure "your" small group revolves around one personality: you*. Nix the concept of "team" or "leadership development." Never ask for volunteers or vary roles. Use a straight lecture format to squelch any meaningful interaction or participation from group members. (These options might add freshness, zest and relevance to your group - and we wouldn't want that!)

3. Never prepare in advance. No one notices seat-of-the-pants, fly-by-night “leadership” sans adequate preparation. If you don’t know what you’re doing, neither will anyone else. Just pray a lot. Expect God to bless your lack of commitment and irresponsibility.

4. Pattern your leadership style after an M-1 Abrams tank. Anyone gets in your way or *dares* to “question your authority,” just run ‘em over. Bulldoze. Obfuscate. As a leader, purposely cultivate the “approachability” of a porcupine.

5. Demonstrate favoritism, exclusivity and cliquishness at every opportunity. People will ride into your "camel corral" in droves as soon as they figure out they’re not one of your darlings.

6. Be sure to allow unresolved conflict to fester. Ignore and neglect all conflict. Always take the ostrich approach and stick your head in the sand. Gloss over any “issues” without ever addressing them or creating a forum for constructive dialogue and problem-solving. That way the conflict can become a cancer and spread, infecting the entire group over time.

7. Never connect outside of your designated meeting time. Isolate yourself and make sure all members do likewise. Keep relationships as superficial, artificial and shallow as much as you can for as long as you can.

8. Keep your commitment to your "camels" as flaky as a box of Corn Flakes. Place your group and its members so far down your “food chain” of priorities that they rarely see the light of day. Make sure you cram your calendar with all kinds of “more importants” and more pressing priorities.

9. Maintain a hidden personal agenda that you can bash people over the head with at every opportunity.

10. Never come alongside someone who’s hurting or offer a kind word, a warm hug or engage in meaningful acts of service and compassion. Instead, inject knee-jerk judgments, canned answers and trite clichés into every sticky situation so you don't have to do the hard work of thinking, listening, empathizing or cultivating authentic relationships. Disinterest and detachment are great relational building blocks.

11. If a regular attendee leaves your group for no discernible reason, don’t bother to follow up or find out why. (You may have to check into item #6 above, and that could take work!)

12. Never reach out to or invite anyone new. This way you can corner the market on ingrown myopia. (After all, you don’t want anyone “new” coming in and messing things up!)

13. Allow one person to dominate the corral and monopolize every discussion. A twist on this theme: Blame shy members for being shy. Never bother trying to create or cultivate an atmosphere where everyone is accepted and can feel “safe.”

14. Cancel constantly. Always leave people hanging so they never know when or if you’re meeting. Consistent inconsistency is terrific for achieving group cohesion, unity and purpose. Variation on a theme: never start on time. Constantly disrespecting other people’s time by keeping your starting time in a perpetual state of flux and flakiness. This is always appreciated.

15. Gossip and rumor monger as much as possible. Eliminate confidentiality right off the bat, and never track a rumor back to its source.

16. Make decisions unilaterally without soliciting feedback or opinions from group members. You know it all, so don’t bother getting anyone else’s opinion, feedback, or preference.

17. As a leader, be as detached and unresponsive as you can. Never return phone calls in a timely manner. Never check or reply to email. After all, you're a leader and you’re busy!

18. Pay more attention to the clock than to people. Make it clear that you intend to drop kick members out the door the minute your time is “up” and the “regular programming” has concluded. Cut off discussions and freeze dry conversations so you can be tied to the clock rather than relationships.

19. When (not if) you make mistakes, never admit to or own up to them. Instead, find someone else to blame, frame, or defame. Whatever you do, NEVER apologize or try to make amends.

20. Finally, and especially – be sure to lead your work camel in your own strength. Never pray for anyone or seek God’s guidance, wisdom or help. Do everything yourself and always in the flesh. God will certainly “bless” your hard work!

* The word "you" is used in the generic sense.

Weekly Round-up

2008-04-27T11:35:00.001-05:00

A bit delayed, but we have a great weekly round-up this week. Enjoy these posts from Emerging Women around the web!

Wilsford gives some insights comparing the church to a social institution.

Shayne shares her spiritual experience in yoga class.

Amy discusses leadership, strengths, and servanthood.

Nadia addresses modern idolatry in her typical witty and sarcastic fashion.

Heather comments on repentance from religion.

Ellen writes on worship, creativity, and manipulation.

and Kathy reflects on the conversation she had when her niece asked "Auntie Kathy are you sure it's not wrong for you to be a pastor?".

Zimbabwe

2008-04-24T15:55:00.003-05:00

I really want to encourage you all to pray for Zimbabwe at this time. I think the next few weeks are crucial. It is clear that Mugabe has lost the election and is attempting a recount to presumably "claim" victory. If this is the case I can imagine that there will be a lot of violence, some have even suggested a genocide. We are connected with people who work in Zimbabwe as missionaries. Life is really tough for everyone with inflation at over 1000%. A loaf of bread today will cost twice the amount tomorrow. There are many things going on which the outside world does not hear about. I think if the world takes a stand that there could be real change for this country, a hope and a future. The Zimbabweans need their freedom. You may be interested in reading these two articles: CNN and BBC

Lily Ledbetter (not bedwetter) Fair Pay Act

2008-04-22T12:39:00.002-05:00

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and top Democrats just introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which remedies impending fallout from a recent Supreme Court Ruling against Lily Ledbetter, who sued for gender discrimination in pay. According to the AFLCIO blog,

When Ledbetter retired in 1999 after nearly 20 years as a supervisor, she was making $44,724 a year. But as she told a House committee June 13, the lowest-paid male in the same job was earning $51,432 a year, while the highest paid man doing the same work was earning $62,832. She told the committee she had long suspected she was being paid less than the men in the same job, but until she received two anonymous packages showing the differing pay rates, she had no hard evidence of the pay discrimination.

These are words from the Rep. George Miller, who introduced the Fair Pay bill: "The Supreme Court told employers that they could escape responsibility by hiding their decision to discriminate and run out the clock."

Miller is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. If you care about equal pay for women, you can help by making a very easy call, even if you don't know the name or contact info of your representative.

The AFL-CIO set up a toll-free phone number just for people to call in support of the Fair Pay Act:

(866) 338-1015

This number will work through Wednesday, which is the day of the vote. Thanks for helping out!

Women's Ministry - What is it Good For?

2008-04-22T11:49:00.004-05:00

As a continuation of the last post and a few other things I have read recently, I thought I would just bluntly ask the group here the question - "what good are women's ministries?"

This is not to assume one answer or another, or to necessarily question the existence of Emerging Women, but to get honest responses. Have you benefited from such ministries? Have you been hurt? Are they a good thing in general? What dangers do they hold? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Cleaver & Conundrums: Why I Don't Do Women's Retreats

2008-04-17T14:27:00.003-05:00

Cleaver and Conundrums - Why I Don’t Do Women’s Retreats

Oh, joy. 'Tis the season for spring women's retreats. These annual events are staples on many calendars. But not mine. Here are some reasons why:

 In my experience, women’s retreats (as well as most “women’s ministry”) usually serve up the Christian version of lite beer: half the calories with half the taste. They invariably focus on that infamous, overworked icon, The Proverbs 31 Woman or its kissing cousin, Created to be His Helpmeet. The result: a bland, flavorless brew seasoned with too little (or sloppy) theology, bare-bones Bible, and a douse of June Cleaver that could choke a mule. (Pardon the culinary metaphor. It seemed to fit.)

 The average women’s retreat doesn’t engage my mind, which gravitates more toward academic and scholarly pursuits. (Granted, these aren’t everyone’s cup of sunshine, but a few occasional rays would be nice.) I’ve been told that I think more like a man than a woman. I haven’t yet decided whether that’s a compliment or something else. Whatever it is, it rarely puts in an appearance at the retreats I’ve attended.

 An over-emphasis on emotions. There’s nothing wrong with emotions, but my emotions aren’t the sum total of who I am in Christ. I crave exegetical accuracy, depth and relevance, careful research, scholarship, razor-sharp hermeneutics and the application of critical thinking and analytical skills in theology, history, science, literature, fine arts, economics, social science, and philosophy. (Is there a place for those elephantine doses of emotional, crying jag, touchy-feely, Kleenex-clutching retreat sessions? I suppose. I just don’t see why we should begin and end there – or why they’re sometimes deemed the sole point of connection between women.)

 Weekend themes of “getting them grounded in the Word” and “growing in Jesus” and such. Nothing wrong with that, but implicit in these themes is the assumption that “women of the Word” is the exclusive territory of the retreat planners who will now teach the rest of us what we’re missing.

 Retreats billed as “ya’ll come” that focus on young married women with kids. I’m within spitting distance of age 50. I also have an eight-year old. The conundrum: I’m apparently too long in the tooth to qualify as a “young married,” but haven’t sprouted enough gray hair to qualify as a Titus 2 “older woman.” Betwixt and between. Retreats don’t seem to know what to do with women like me.

 I understand the need to make the best use of limited time, but I find the jam-packed, frenetic pace of many retreats to be overwhelming and exhausting. As an introvert, I need time to decompress and process between sessions. I also don’t see the point in departing a “retreat” feeling more fatigued and depleted than I did when I arrived!

 The atmosphere at some of these shindigs is a Xerox copy of a weekend-long Tupperware party. Nothing against Tupperware per se, but frankly, I have better things to do with my time. I also don’t want to get stuck in a cabin (again) with a bunch of slumber party retros who want to stay up all night and giggle. When I turn in for the night I want to turn in for the night, not regress back to junior high. Boil and bubble, toil and trouble, grump, grump, grump!)

 Logistics. Since my husband works weekends, I have to make special arrangements for child care in order to attend a weekend event. This doesn’t always work out. It’s nobody’s fault – just a fact of life.

 My husband isn’t invited. This may sound oxy-moronish as in, “Hello? It’s a women’s retreat. No testosterone allowed.” However, as I said, my husband works most weekends and on the rare occasions when he gets a Saturday off, I want to spend the day with him.

 Sinking to “the lowest common denominator.” I dislike retreats that revolve around themes such as Healing the Broken-Hearted, Restoring Your Wounded Soul, etc.. IMHO, these areas of one’s life are best kept private unless I choose otherwise. I balk at artificial attempts to put them on public parade.

 The last time I was “invited” to a women’s retreat (2006), I gingerly accepted against my better judgment. Mistake! The person who offered to pay my way and watch my kids for the weekend extended the invitation in such a way that I felt trapped into her plans and agenda, bereft of a gracious way to decline without igniting some Hindenburgish fall-out (long, boring story).

Whether I choose to attend a women’s retreat or not – for whatever reason – is my decision. I don’t need to justify it to other women, nor do I need to defend my choice to those who insinuate — sometimes with the subtlety of a freight train – that if I was “as spiritual as they are,” I’d make retreat an annual event, too. (My personal favorite was the woman who suggested I’d be “letting Satan rob you of a blessing” if I don’t attend the next retreat) Now I just smile and say, “No thank you.”

 The “women’s ministries/retreat” paradigm that never gets beyond telling me how I can better submit, pray for my husband and children, have a quiet time, or how you, too, can be a better Suzy Homemaker, Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but do we have to grind that gear forever? Can we move on? These focuses represent only a small fraction of the incredibly intricate, mysterious, and glorious complexities of Christian womanhood that are rarely discussed, explored, or applied.

Lessons Learned:
1. June Cleaver and The Proverbs 31 woman are not synonymous.
2. Trying to manipulate emotions to generate a contrived “catharsis” is usually invasive and often insulting.
3. Trust my best judgment instead of someone else’s – no matter how well-intentioned. “No” is a perfectly valid response. Use it.
4. Bring a book. If nothing on the retreat docket interests me, a good book will.
5. Avoid going to these events solo if at all possible. There’s nothing like showing up at a women’s retreat alone when everyone else is “buddied up.”
6. I am no less a Christian woman because I choose not to attend women’s retreats than are those who do. Neither my faith nor my walk with Christ is validated by doing or not doing something just because “everyone else is doing it.”

Finally, retreat planning isn’t for the fainthearted. It’s not easy planning a retreat “menu” that will nourish a group with such diverse backgrounds, educations, interests, ages, experiences, and perspectives. Kudos to those hardy souls who undertake this Herculean task. Given that, why not spice up the standard “retreat recipe” with some “fresh ingredients”?

Instead of spooning out an anemic, warmed-over stew of Ten Steps to June Cleaverdom, How to Be a Better Wife, Mother, and Haus Frau, or Help-meeting 101, how about a more filling version that starts with a question? (Aw heck, why not several?) Like, “What IS a woman?” Not what does she do, but who is she? Where’s her heart? What’s her design? Why did God create Eve? How has God revealed Himself by creating ishshah, Woman, and what can we learn from Him about How, What, Why, When, Where, and Who we are in Christ?

With a “menu” like that on a retreat calendar, I just may dive in for for another bite!

The Year of Living Biblically Week 3

2008-04-15T17:53:00.004-05:00

The Year of Living Biblically is a humor-filled, yet fantastic entry point into a discussion of biblical interpretation. Hopefully you've been enjoying the book! Even if you haven't read it, here are a few questions to get at how interpretation shapes our lives:

1. What's one contemporary issue about which you have changed your mind?

A) Did experience cause you to reexamine your biblical understanding or did your biblical understanding cause you to reshape your approach to the issue?

2. What do you think is the most commonly misunderstood/misinterpreted bible passage?

A) What are your feelings toward people who hold this view with which you disagree?
B) What do you think is the best way of approaching touchy yet important topics with others of varying persuasions?

3. What do you think is the most damaging or dangerous widely-held misunderstanding about the bible as a whole or a specific scripture, in your opinion?

4. What has been the most life-giving practice/belief/way of being in the world you have gleaned from the bible?

Weekly Round-up

2008-04-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hi all. I just wanted to point out a few blog posts of note from Emerging Women bloggers this past week. Enjoy!

Shayne explores what it means to live with trauma.

Sally reflects on Woman as Eikon (God's image bearer).

Jemila asks about what is our true identity.

and for your theological amusement ... The Doctrine of Feline Sedentation.

Learning to read again

2008-04-10T20:47:00.007-05:00

I have definitely earned my brownie points for Bible reading.

In fact, throughout my many years of following Christ, growing up in a pastor's home, relishing my "Jesus freakness", and serving as staff for large "mega" churches, there is no doubt that I've read the Bible more than any other book. (Calvin & Hobbes doesn't really count as a book, does it? Naw. I think I'm good.)

Yes, I can definitely say I've had the scripture part down pat. I mean, that's what we do as Christians, right? Read the Bible. Check.

However, beginning about five years ago reading is just not enough.

What began as a quiet stir in my gut, has become a raging onslaught of shifting, course-correcting, self-eroding transformation in my soul, spirit, mind, and body. Slowly I'm ditching the traditional views I was fed, stretching my spiritual wings and seeking out Jesus via scripture alone, unencumbered by preconceived ideas or inherited interpretations. While I've always had a highly intimate prayer life with my Creator, my relationship took a fresh turn as I began hungering to go beyond reading... to understanding. Oooohhh. What a concept.

So in my new pursuit of understanding scripture, I've found myself shifting from one method of Bible study to another. Sometimes I've scoured entire passages. Other times I've researched a topic or phrase. However, if I were to speak honestly, at times my study was driven by my desire to validate my thoughts through scripture, rather than to allow scripture to transform my mind.

And this, my friends, is where you come galloping in.

As a "recovering" Christian from a highly legalistic background, I'm currently in the midst of a quandary of sorts. I'm studying out a topic that seems to be ambiguous, partly because it is only mentioned once in the entire Bible. However, due to the serious context and writing surrounding the passage, determining if the instruction is cultural, required by all, or merely an account of what happened, can be tricky.

So I'm curious... how do you study the Bible? What guidelines do you use for interpreting and applying God's word to your life? What are your personal hermeneutics?

For more detail, discussion, query, discovery, and general mayhem on this issue, pop over and visit me at - www.ellenstevens.com.

Emerging Men

2008-04-10T14:18:00.004-05:00

Hey, ladies - question for you, from the perspective of a single gal with a knack for somehow messing this up:

How can godly women best encourage their brothers in Christ to be the strong leaders that God has made them and called them to be, without becoming doormats in the process? And is there a way for single women to be in on that for their single brothers (as we don't just magically become good at playing the roles we'll play as married folks by simply saying "I do"), or should we just steer clear of men altogether?

The Year of Living Biblically Week 2

2008-04-07T18:43:00.004-05:00

1. What does it mean to live biblically?

A.J. Jacobs shares the insight he gets on biblical interpretation from Steven Greenberg, the first out-of-the-closet gay orthodox Jewish Rabbi:

"The whole Bible is the working out of the relationship between God and man," says Greenberg. "God is not a dictator barking out orders and demanding silent obedience. Were it so, there would be no relationship at all. No real relationship goes just one way. There are lways two active parties. We must have reverence and awe for God and honor for the chain of tradition. But that doesn't mean we can't use new information to help us read the holy texts in new ways...Never blame a text from the Bible for your behavior. It's irresponsible. Anybody who says X,Y and Z is in the bible -- it's as if one says, 'I have no role in evaluating this.'"

2. What ways have you experienced a happy cooperation between mind and Spirit in the Word coming to life for you?

3. Have you ever used "the bible says..." as a cop out when you didn't actually believe what you were saying?

4. What, in your opinion is the healthiest way we can approach biblical texts with which our spirits deep down cannot agree, at least in terms of a traditional interpretation of the passage?

Prayer and Advice Needed

2008-04-04T12:41:00.001-05:00

I recently heard about this need -

One of our readers is married to someone who has been having panic and
anxiety attacks for the past several weeks. This person's spouse is not
interested in seeking professional treatment for it at the moment, and
our member doesn't know what do any longer.

Do you have any advice?

Weekly Round-up

2008-04-04T12:39:00.001-05:00

Time once again for our Weekly round-up. Check out these posts by Emerging Women from around the web.

Jemila gives her thoughts on the church as social structure.

Jan reflects on art in the worship space.

Nadia writes about prosperity preachers for the God's Politics blog.

Heather reflects on the nature of sermons.

and I comment on how it is easier to be an activist in hindsight.

Upcoming Book Discussions

2008-04-02T14:30:00.001-05:00

As you might have noticed, we recently posted the list of upcoming books for our Emerging Women book club discussions. Thanks for the input many of you have given and the interest in participating in a variety of ways in these discussions. We tried to select a variety of options that represent different genres and opinions. I hope these books can lead us into some meaningful discussions. So over the next few months we will be reading and discussing -

May -
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver

June -
Looking For God
by Nancy Ortberg

July -
The New Christians
by Tony Jones

August -
The Shack
by William P. Young

September -
The Chocolate Cake Sutra
by Geri Larkin

If anyone is interested in leading part of the discussion on any of these books, just let us know! I'm looking forward to the discussions.

Book Discussion: The Year of Living Biblically

2008-03-31T12:17:00.006-05:00

by A.J. Jacobs

"My quest is this: to live the ultimate biblical life. Or more precisely, to follow the bible as literally as possible." So begins A.J.'s year-long sojourn, which he has made into a funny, informative and thought-provoking book. You can learn how You too can live biblically, see before and after pics of A.J's hair (see if you agree he resembles the unibomber,) and view a link on How to be good at at A.J's website.

At the project's start, A.J. decides to get himself some good biblical studies resources. Upon walking into a Bible bookstore, a sales clerk offers A.J. some advice, as he points to a suggested bible, which is, "designed to look exactly like a Seventeen magazine: An attractive (if long-sleeved) model graces the front, next to cover lines like, 'What's your spiritual IQ?" Open it up and you'll find sidebars such as 'Rebeca the Control Freak.'"

"This one's good if you're on the subway and are too embarrassed to be seen reading the Bible,' says Chris, [the sales clerk] It's an odd and poignant selling point. You know your in a secular city when it's considered more acceptable for a grown man to read a teen girl's magazine than the Bible." (p 9)

This interchange caused me to think about this quandry/opportunity:

1. What does it mean to be unapologetic and open about our humble walk with God when so often we feel ashamed and very apologetic about certain aspects of our religious "families of origin." and the dogmas that often supplant life in the Spirit? What can we claim from our origins that abides in light, love and truth in place within our spirits where deep calls unot deep? And what could it look like when we let that Light shine?

On page 39 A.J. writes:

...one of my motivations for this experiment is my recent entrance into fatherhood. I'm constantly worried about my son's ethical education. I don't want him to swim in a soup of moral relativism. I don't trust. I have such a worldview, and though I have yet to commit a major felony, it seems dangerous.

I thought it was funny to observe that A.J. actually agrees with fundamentalists about relativism, even though this is the view he espouses. I wondered,

2. Is there an alternative to relativism and absolutism?

3. Have you wrestled with "what to tell the children," either in your family or spiritual community? I am curious particularly in areas of sex, salvation and evangelism how your own journey/ambiguity or ambivalence impacts what you say, avoid saying or otherwise communicate to a younger generation.

4. What approach do you take to instilling, offering, modeling and otherwise helping nurture young disciples, whether they are your own children or spiritual children you feel are entrusted into your care in friendship and/or ministry?

Weekly Round-up

2008-03-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

We have a great collection of posts for our round-up this week. Take the time to read what these women are writing about and join in on the conversations!

Amy has some insightful thoughts on learning styles.

Sonja reflects on clay jars.

Lyn writes about her identity crisis is accepting the emerging/emergent label.

Heather reflects on the moral lessons of "Horton Hears a Who."

To point out Emerging Women in the news - Kelly Bean is highlighted in The Oregonian.

and I highly recommend Jenny Baker's article Rediscovering Heart on gender differences and the church. (ht - Jonny Baker).

An Interview with Sarah Taylor

2008-03-28T12:12:00.004-05:00

So, we recently discussed the idea of posting interviews with women who are involved in one way or another with the emerging or Emergent church. I thought I'd jump-start this idea with an interview I recently had with my friend Sarah Taylor. To the best of my knowledge, Sarah does not consider herself to be Emergent. She is, however, long-time participant at the The Ooze's message boards where I have often seen her endorse ideas related to the emerging church. Sarah is a student at Brigham Young University. Recently, I spoke with her about her experiences at BYU as someone who is not a Latter-day Saint.

Lydia Schoch: What made you decide to attend BYU?

Sarah Taylor: The idea of attending an LDS university struck me as novel, but theclincher was really the price; BYU provides a great education for a fraction of what similar schools cost.

Do the people you've met at BYU prefer to be referred to as "Mormons," "Latter-day Saints" or something else entirely?

Most prefer to be called Latter-day Saints (at least by outsiders). Many Latter-day Saints call themselves "Mormons," but the more respectful term is definitely "Latter-day Saints."

Gordon B. Hinckley, the President of the Latter-Day Saints, died recently. What was your first reaction when you heard of his death? How did your classmates react?

I think the moment I heard about the death of President Hinckley (is it weird that I call him that?) is one of those moments that will end up being etched in my mind forever, which is strange to me, considering that I'd never heard of him a mere three years ago. Many Latter-day Saints my age don't remember a time when he wasn't leading the LDS Church, so it was a big deal for everyone around me. My first reaction was probably mild shock - mild, because he was 97 years old, for goodness' sake, and shock, because he's a major figure in the lives of everyone around me and because it always surprises me when people of whom I know die. Probably my next thought was to wonder what the atmosphere would be at school the next day. And I wondered what the protocol was for the death of a prophet, how the succession would take place, etc.

I'm taking a Book of Mormon class this semester, and my professor threw out his lesson the day following President Hinckley's death and let the class discuss it. Most students said they felt happy for President Hinckley that he was reunited with his wife, some cried and said he'd influenced their lives in major ways, many bore their testimonies that he was a prophet and talked about when they'd first sensed the Spirit confirm that for them, and some asked questions about what would happen now with the leadership of the LDS Church. The general mood was sombre on campus that day and the next, and many student missed classes that week to attend his funeral. I was probably most surprised by the students who had been greatly personally influenced by President Hinckley. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did.

Tell me about a typical day for you when school is in session. How often does the topic of God or religion come up?

Religion classes usually begin with a prayer and a hymn, and about half of my other classes begin with prayers. A class period rarely goes by without some sort of reference to the LDS Church. At BYU, a shared worldview (based, obviously, on LDS beliefs) is assumed, and nothing is unaffected.

I took an American history class my first semester at BYU, and I remember seriously questioning whether I'd be able to make it through college there. My professor was quoting people I'd never heard of (LDS apostles) discussing people groups I'd never heard of traveling among places I'd never heard of. It took me a week to figure out that she was talking about Jews who had (according to the Book of Mormon) populated the Americas. I felt as if I had stepped into another country upon entering that classroom. I was taking the class with people who spoke the native language and belonged to the native culture, and I was entirely out of my league. I think what saved me was that it was all so interesting; here were these kids who were close to my age, most of whom had attended public schools, many outside of Utah...they looked like me, grew up watching the same TV shows I had, and were American to the bone. But there was nothing mainstream about what I was hearing, and that was intriguing enough to carry me through a semester of being the class ignoramus.

In everyday conversation with other students, matters of religion and church are omni-present. Life at BYU revolves around the LDS Church, and naturally discussions reflect that. The social lives of many of my LDS friends consist almost solely of church-sanctioned activities. I doubt more than a couple of days went by this year during which I didn't utter the words, "I'm not LDS" to some unsuspecting fellow student who had launched into a soliloquy about the [LDS] gospel or archaeological discoveries which support the claims of the Book of Mormon (a surprisingly common discussion topic). My disclosure usually sparked interest, and a series of questions would follow (Why BYU? What religion are you? Are you considering converting? What's the main difference between Mormonism and what you believe?).

How have they reacted to the fact that you haven't converted?

Hmm. Well, I have had people lose interest in friendships with me, but it may be awfully conceited to assume that that's due to my failure to convert to Mormonism and not some character flaw of mine. Most people are gracious and kind, but there are definitely times when I sense discomfort. And it's understandable. I've read the Book of Mormon, taken 6 religion classes, met with missionaries, and lived among generally missionary-minded Latter-day Saints for the past three years, and yet, a traditional Christian I remain. I think at times it feels to some people as though I'm rejecting the thing that's most important to them, and so I'm rejecting them, in a way. Then again, maybe that's not true at all. Who knows; this is the type of stuff people don't talk about.

What has surprised you the most about the Latter-day Saints you've gotten to know so far?

How bold and confident they are in sharing their faith. When people think "Mormon," we quickly think "missionaries," but I really wasn't expecting everyone to be so missionary-minded and comfortable 'bearing their testimonies' to virtual strangers. That still consistently surprises me, and I've lived here for two years now. The LDS Church is adept at preparing its people to publicly discuss issues of eternal significance at a young age.

What do you think is the biggest misconception other Christians have about them?

I think probably our biggest mistake has been to confuse contemporary Mormonism with the Mormonism of the early 20th century. They're vastly different. I heard a BYU professor say this year that trying to nail down Mormon theology is like trying to nail jell-o to the wall; it's just not a simple thing to do. This is not what our theologically systematic ears want to hear, and Christians seem to have the tendency, when interacting with LDS, to define their beliefs for them and accuse (or suspect) them of lying when they deny believing in the picture of Mormonism we paint for them.

What is their biggest misconception about us?

I don't think Latter-day Saints realize how united the Christian church is as a whole; as Christians, the phrase "the Church" conjures up for (most of) us an assemblage of people linked spiritually, by virtue of our belonging to Christ. The Church supersedes denominational lines, cultures, vastly differing peripheral beliefs, methods of worship and evangelism, etc. It's easy for an outsider looking at the Christian world to see confusion and dissension rather than diversity, and that's precisely what the LDS see (and I should probably note that we too often give them reason for thinking so). The average Latter-Day Saint, though very unfamiliar with where the differences lie between a Baptist and a Lutheran, is quite aware that there are differences there.

LDS churches across the world will usually teach the same lessons within a week of each other; a Latter-Day Saint in Miami will most likely hear a lesson on the same topic on the same day as a Latter-Day Saint in Tokyo. This uniformity is so important to them that they refuse to establish churches in areas where interest is high until there is someone available to go and organize it properly (which can take years, which is what happened in Nigeria). Given the high degree of organization and uniformity of the LDS Church, it's not hard to understand why they look at Christianity and think, "fragmented and lost" and look at the LDS Church and think, "one true church."

How about your plans for the future? Do you think they will include further interactions with people who are LDS?

At this point, I can't imagine my future not involving Latter-Day Saints in some way, but I have no idea what that looks like. My concrete plan right now is to finish up at BYU and then attend law school.

A Room of One's Own - Week 4

2008-03-26T16:13:00.001-05:00

As we wrap up this month's discussion of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, I want to turn to the question of expectations and costs. Woolf constantly seeks to understand what exactly it is society (popular opinion) expects from women. It is easier to understand why women are the way they are if one understands the constraints on who they are allowed to be. She quotes a common opinion on what was suitable for women writers - "female novelists should only aspire to excellence by courageously acknowledging the limitations of their sex." While she was shocked that such a statement came from 1928 and not 1828, it is one we still hear today.

In the church especially we are used to there being certain expectations and limitations for women. Even when the church or group is egalitarian, those assumptions regarding what is suitable still exist. Often if a woman writes a book it is assumed to be a book for women, even if the spiritual themes are broader than that. I've come to expect that if there is women present in a line up of conference speakers I can almost guarantee that she will be speaking on social work in urban settings, AIDS in Africa, or overcoming sexual abuse, eating disorders, or being a lesbian and not anything strictly theological or from the Bible. Not that most of those things are bad topics, just that they are "acceptable" topics for women to address.

Yet to move beyond those expectations comes at a cost. Woolf presents an interesting perspective -

Moreover, in a hundred years, I thought, reaching my own doorstep, women will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all the activities and exertions that were once denied them. The nursemaid will heave coal. The shopwoman will drive an engine. All assumptions founded on the facts observed when women were the protected sex will have disappeared—as, for example (here a squad of soldiers marched down the street), that women and clergymen and gardeners live longer than other people. Remove that protection, expose them to the same exertions and activities, make them soldiers and sailors and engine–drivers and dock labourers, and will not women die off so much younger, so much quicker, than men that one will say, ‘I saw a woman to–day’, as one used to say, ‘I saw an aeroplane’. Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation, I thought, opening the door.

Much has been said of the costs of women finding equality. Lifestyles and family structures have changed and often women are made to bear the full guilt of the vicissitudes of those changes. Women and men have had to make sacrifices and surrender their pride. Women have been maligned and ridiculed. We have been accused of seeking power when all we want is to be ourselves. We still in the church are subject to harsh criticisms, asked to be quiet (in the name of unity of course), and told our passions are unimportant. Pushing expectations comes at a cost.

So I ask. What expectations do you see in play? How can they be challenged? What costs have you had to pay? Are the costs worth it?

Weekly Round-up

2008-03-21T14:21:00.001-05:00

So we're back with a round-up for this week. Enjoy these posts from emerging women around the web and have a blessed Easter weekend!

Becky gives her thoughts on Phyllis Tickle's new book The Words of Jesus over at the God's Politics blog.

Jan gives some insightful thoughts on true love and marriage.

Kim reflects on the show Oprah's Big Give.

Megan comments on the honesty of the Psalms.

Kathy writes on living with uncertainty in faith.

and over at Wonderings and Wanderings, a humorous reflection on what a church service would look like if it was done Stephen Colbert style.

Pubs, Clubs, and Alternative Worship

2008-03-20T08:09:00.013-05:00

I recently returned from London, where I helped lead a college class exploring alternative forms of [Christian] worship. The class was taught by Kevin Corcoran, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, a close friend of ours. Components of the class were filmed by my husband Kurt Wilson, and colleague Matt Burnell. As a team, we helped 23 students engage a whole new approach to faith and explore what worship might look like in a postmodern context.

Personally, I found the time profoundly restorative and hopeful. The Brits with whom we connected were overwhelmingly hospitable, and gave us a great deal to think about. I came home wrestling with some new ideas, and grateful for the following challenges:

What might church look like in my own context? I've tried, too often, to find "just the right answer" to the question "What is church?" Each of the folks with whom we met answered that question differently, and each service we visited reflected diverse perspectives. This leads me to believe that God gives us the freedom to work out that answer uniquely for our specific context. What freedom!
Who needs perfection? It seems we Americans feel tremendous pressure for a strategic, fully developed plan before we begin to implement. Relatively speaking, the folks we met with in London were remarkably laid back. When they felt the urge to start something new, they just did. It was clear that mountains of effort and time & energy went into their services, but very few groups had started out with a long-term plan. The excellence and beauty they achieved were, at least initially, on a "case-by-case" basis. And when things went amiss, they chalked it up to experience and kept going. Again, what freedom!

If you're interested in a visual story of the time, we've posted several short films. You can view clips of services we attended, as well as interviews with a number of leaders who graciously indulged our curiosity.

It was thrilling to meet with folks who enjoy the freedom of living into new ways of faith, and I was challenged to find ways to do the same, even back here in the heartland.

Template???

2008-03-18T18:04:00.002-05:00

I'm assuming the template is messed up for everyone trying to view the blog. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Edited - it should be working now. The host server was down for awhile.

A Room of One's Own - Week 3

2008-03-18T14:56:00.001-05:00

As we continue our discussion of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, I want to turn to the issue of families. I first want to fully acknowledge that this isn't an issue for every women nor should it have to be. I completely respect the multitude of ways women choose to live and work in this world and the reasons why many desire to not have kids. I don't want anyone to feel excluded from this conversation either, but the issue of the ability of women to have children and do something like write surfaces in Woolf's writing and is a huge issue for some women.

In her questioning the lack of resources of a women's college, Woolf (writing in the 1920s) wonders how things would be different if our foremothers had been out making money and receiving an education instead of bearing and raising child after child. What different memories and opportunities would women now have? But then she surmises that such questions are meaningless because we then wouldn't exist at all. The assumption is that one can't be a mother and write (or teach, or make money, or be intellectual). These days (amidst much controversy still) women have far more opportunities to work and some men are (rightly imho) stepping up to their fair share of parenting responsibility, but nevertheless women still bear the majority of the childrearing load. As Woolf would say, it's hard to have the time, privacy, and money to write with children underfoot. And it is a choice that women still struggle with. Family or career? Or both? Woolf saw the choice basically as an either/or, but others obviously have challenged that dichotomy.

My favorite challenge came from the writer Margaret Atwood in her poem Spelling (I blogged through it regarding these issues here, here, and here). In the poem she addresses the very issue of women choosing between children and writing. She choose to do both and saw both as a way for women to have a voice and participate in the act of creation. While she acknowledged the intense struggles of choosing both, she also thought that to deny women either creative outlet was an act of violence. As a working and writing mother I tend to agree - even though I face struggles every day. This is what is working for my life, but I know each of us faces something different.

So where do you fall on these issues? How have you made both work? Or why did you choose one path over another? I'd love to hear your stories.

Fellowship

2008-03-17T15:13:00.003-05:00

For me the question of fellowship is defined by socializing with other people ("believer" or not). Recently, some people that I have been in conversation with have responded with strong disagreement, one suggesting even that "unbelievers" are unable to love/agape.

If you will.. Is your relationship different with "unbelievers" than it is with "believers"? Why or why not?

Thanks ahead to those who share.

Theology beyond experience

2008-03-15T17:25:00.004-05:00

In my ministry / relational interactions . . ." on the street" research lately I have been running into a lot more wafer thin theology among devote Christians. (Like if you poke a stick at it, (MAYBE) it could collapse like a bubble gum bubble.) For instance, one guy... I'll call him Bazooka Joe, explained that experience precedes (or overshadows) theology. For his faith walk with Jesus this is the deal. No distinction could be made for anybody's experience in a spiritual sense, good or bad. He didn't want to determine what that was, b/c who's to say? It becomes individual, if not almost arbitrary to sort that out, he seemed to think.

I thought about this, but then something didn't seem to quite fit, so we interacted a bit him more. When I asked him about his conversion from atheism, and if that experience would then have more weight, he admitted, logically it couldn't, of course, based on what he said, and what he believed to be accurate about experience.
So experience is. . .well, not like Theology.

How does Theology fit into experience, and experience into Theology?
or for you, does one inform the other?
how?
discuss. . . .
: )

Weekly Round-up... not really

2008-03-15T11:34:00.002-05:00

Hi all - I've had a bit of a crazy week and just have not had time to pull together a round-up of posts this week. My apologies and we will resume next week. Have a great weekend!

Headless Women

2008-03-12T11:29:00.001-05:00

I don't read a lot of modern fiction outside of the fantasy genre, so I was unaware of this trend I saw described in the Chicago Tribune today. Apparently it is the current thing in the publishing world to depict headless women on the covers of books. These women aren't missing their heads, they just aren't shown in the pictures. Instead one sees a generally sexy body devoid of the expressions and personality of a face. It's trendy, it's the current style, but why?

Some accuse the trend of giving into the sexist stereotype of the "ideal woman." This is the "male fantasy of the woman who's totally available and can't talk back and doesn't think and doesn't judge" - if a woman has no head, she has no voice. Others though point out that these books are marketed to women not men and so instead present women with an ideal body they can fantasize is their own. "The covers may be in some ways playing to the anxieties that women have, which are not about being smart and using their brains and being successful, but are about whether they're going to be able to attract men and get men to make commitments and be able to get married and have egalitarian relationships and have children and keep their careers."

Either way, I personally find it a disturbing trend. As many of us here seek to claim a voice for women in the church and learn how to use our own voices, this tendency towards headless, voiceless women seems like a step backwards. I don't think I've read any "headless women" books, so I don't know what the books actually convey. Like I said, my fiction tastes are in the fantasy genre which usually portrays very strong women on the covers of books - celebrating women more than anything. But this tendency to obscure women on the covers does not seem celebratory to me, but reminds me instead of the days when women had to publish under male names in order to be read. Remove a women's identity and she ceases to threaten.

What are your reactions to this trend? Is it harmless, or disturbing?