Wednesday, October 31, 2012

With Judah.

I hold your hands
without seeing
the grime under your fingernails.
I reach-out and grasp
the whole of you
and we walk together, 
comfortable,
destined. I am 
thankful. My heart is quietly 
rejoicing.

There is greatness in this hall;

a little body inhabited by a 
soft,
giant soul, feeling deeply;
pouring peace from arms that
encircle, again and again
reflexively healing.

I am the receiver of this
enormous love, of which  you are both a 
conduit, and 
source.

Blessed am I
                 to grow you
Blessed am I
                 to know you,
                 to dwell with you too.
Blessed am I,
                a "place where praise is made".

Thursday, October 25, 2012

In which I thank EmilyW for coming to the table and invite you to join us.


Recently one of my wise English professors told me that when my emotions are stirred by something I have read—when I feel delighted, moved, angry, or full of sorrow—I should probably spend some time discovering “why?” because the words that move us are gifts, pathways to a greater understanding of ourselves and of our world. I’m so busy these days writing what I am assigned that the luxury of writing what will nourish my soul hasn’t happened very often, but when I read EmilyW’s post over at deeperstory.com, I had to write. Emily’s short post triggered many emotions and memories for me, some of them from discussions I have had and others from personal experiences. This is my attempt to get a handle on a few of the threads I started pulling at.

What I heard most loudly in Emily’s post was her desire to see her husband and her boys grow-up to be who they were meant to be. Her love for the men in her life and her heart to see them prosper is something that is very honorable. I want this for my little boy! He is a tiny poet (“Mom, can you feel that? That pushing and pulling is the sound of my heart’s tears. It’s crying because I am so happy.” Oh jeepers. Well now my eyes are crying) with a bold spirit. It is my deepest desire to see him grow to be confident, resilient, and compassionate, and to be strong and love God deeply.

I want it for my daughter too.


I believe Emily’s heart is to see her husband, who to her represents any man within the Church, to become the man he was created to be. When we have a discussion about roles, what we’re really talking about is identity. Identity formation is not a foreign concept for our culture. It is a process that begins the moment we’re born (arguably even before that) and doesn’t end until we die (with a few more tumultuous years here and there). Human identity is never formed in isolation, but always in relationship to community, and to the society around us. How others view us shapes how we see ourselves. If I interpret Emily correctly, what she wants is for her husband to be allowed to form his identity without her role—or the roles of women in general—getting in the way, and usurping his place in the world by stepping out of theirs. I want to offer some thoughts I have about Emily’s concern.

Emily isn’t alone in her thoughts; many people within the Church have been speaking-up with the same worry, which is that there is a lack of male leadership in the Church. They view this “deficit” as being directly related to feminism; Christian women are taking on positions of authority and roles which were previously allotted to men because of the cultural shift that has occurred due to the women’s rights movements. People that are concerned about this believe that men have lost an understanding of who they are because women are taking over ground that has been traditionally men’s.  The order of things has shifted, and where people are placed has changed. Man, whose previous identity was formed, in part, to his higher social placement in the order, is no longer above woman, but looking her in the eye on a level field. This shift, in an order that has been so deeply entrenched, has shaken the formation of masculine identity. Many would say that it has robbed masculine identity.

Here is where I am going to get a little academic, but don’t drift off because it isn’t super complicated. That order of things is a form of hierarchy, a system where one person is ranked above another, and because men are at the top of the ladder in the position of power, it is called patriarchy. Patriarchy has restricted and controlled every aspect of women’s existence; clothing, vocation, where and when they could speak (and who would listen), religious practices, what she could see, who she could see, who her body belonged to and nearly every other aspect of her existence. A hierarchy that has the control that patriarchy does is called a dominant hierarchy, or an oppressive hierarchy.

This is the take home point folks; in the same way that women’s actions are restricted and defined by man, and that her identity is formed by who she is in relation to the power man has over her, the reverse is true for men within patriarchy; man’s identity is formed in relationship to his power over woman as well. Man’s identity, within a structure of patriarchy, is built upon his oppression of someone else, of woman. This is problematic.
What a horrible thing to find your identity in. Nobody’s self-worth should ever be based upon the oppression of someone else.

It should be no wonder to us—given the development of feminism and the rise of equality—that man, whose identity has for so long been inseparable from his status above woman, might struggle with how to find his place in this world now that she is no longer subordinate to him.

I want to suggest a few things.

First of all, I love these words, and I love the rebel who spoke them because he spoke them: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.” (Luke 4:18-19) There are many things that keep us in chains, restrictions that prohibit us from living the full, free lives that we are designed to live. Emily’s hope for her husband is that he will not be restricted so that he can be free to live as Christ designed him to; wanting freedom for another human being, and working towards it is one of the most important and beautiful acts that human beings can take part in. Christ’s work is our work, and he came to set the captives free, so that is our work too.

Here’s the deal though; I don’t think that patriarchy reflects the heart of God. As a framework that reinforces oppression, its basic function is to bind, not set free. With Christ, “there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female” (Gal. 3:28). Jesus is interested in getting rid of the structures of power that work against our ability to love and be loved (Matt. 22:37-39). The movement towards equality has taken a long time—2000ish years from when Jesus proclaimed the prophet Isaiah’s words—but it is a movement towards God.

And not just for women.

If I’m a follower of Jesus and my identity is built upon anything else but Jesus Christ, I have missed the point of Christianity. From a masculine perspective, this makes patriarchy a major barrier to transformation; identities wrapped-up in power over another remove Christ from the center. The cultural shift that has been occurring should not be viewed as a crisis of masculinity. It is an opportunity for spiritual fullness, for both men and women. The struggle is good. It is through the struggle that Christ continues to extend his arms, to set the captives free.

The greatest challenge of the human life is to figure-out how to come together with the people around us and have life together. Rachel HeldEvan’s (RHE) A Year of Biblical Womanhood acknowledges this very thing through the voices of the women that she invites to speak through her book. We are all born as individuals with utterly unique experiences of the world and where we find meaning, and how we find it differs significantly within the context of Christianity, or even within different streams within Christianity.  I think undertaking this endeavor is harder to do with people from the Church, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Church people believe their opinions and words carry more weight because they also believe their opinion are God’s.

One of the things I like the most about RHE’s book is that she doesn’t just talk about women—Evangelical women, Amish women, women in polygamist marriages, “Quiverfull” women, Jewish women—but she talks with them. They become a part of Rachel’s personal story and because of that they have become a part of her book as well. Sharing the voices of women is an essential part of understanding the lives of women.

This is why I want to affirm Emily for sharing her voice with us and for entering in to the conversation about the roles of women; her voice matters. Her experience and her questions are important. I think that it took a great deal of courage to speak her heart, share her questions, and voice an opinion on behalf a lot of women who feel the same way.  Thank-you for using your voice and taking part in this discussion, Emily. The discussion is important because it’s where we can hear each other’s stories, and when we can hear each other’s stories, we become real to one another. We understand one another. That shared understanding takes us from being strangers to being in relationship.

I would love to hear your stories if you would honor us by sharing them. Let’s have this discussion. Thanks for reading.




Thursday, October 18, 2012

Ziplining and Proposal Writing: On Being Brave



A few summers ago I went on a trip with my mom to Mexico (I know, right? Who goes on a trip to Mexico in the summer? Did you know your shins can sweat? Yeah, me neither.).  Midweek, we spent a day in the middle of the Mexican jungle. The night before the tour, we read the fine print on the itinerary and realized that in addition to the activities listed on the brochurekayaking, swimming in a cenote, and visiting Cobawe would also be zip-lining and rappelling into a cavern. To many people this day might sound like fun, particularly the last two things we had somehow overlooked. For me and my undeniably chicken-hearted mother, the day had turned from fun to terrifying. For the record, I wasn’t just a little intimidated by the unforeseen addition of a few activities that I might have mild phobias about; my mom has successfully broken her leg skiing (on a bunny hill), somehow drove a dirt bike through a barbed wire fence, fallen off a ladder, and had a variety of other random accidents that cause most of us to seek shelter far, far away from her person in a thunderstorm. She tries to be safe, but still ends-up in the hospital.

Mom went on the balcony to have a cigarette, and then we had a drink and discussed whether or not we still had time to back out. When you’re in Mexico on vacation, backing-out of plans just means that you stay at the resort in the sunshine and lay on the beach; cancelling wasn't a terribly disappointing option. What finally convinced us to do the unthinkable was considering our family memberswho know how much we hate heights and how completely unadventurous my mom isand  their shock when we showed them the pictures of our adventure. 

Thinking about it today, I am still surprised by her decision to go. And go we did. We bought the pictures—for way too much money—because no one would have believed us if we just told them about our adventure. We both did at least 3 things we were terrified to do that day, and with dignity I might add; no panicking or hysterics. I was so proud of her. It was one the best days I have ever had with my mom.

I have done a lot of brave things this week, and I have to say that my levels of joy and adrenaline—which are accompanied by a near constant feeling of nausea— are pretty much at an all-time high.

The brave things I have done this week haven’t involved scaling pyramids in the jungle, but they have made me feel sick with anticipation. My worries have been over sentences and ideas, and butterflies have risen at the opening of emails, and the reading of text messages. I have wanted to push this process to the side at least once every day, to quit. There is no one telling me I must apply, write, revise, or connect; there is only me. The brave things I have done this week have been about pouring into my future – academically, professionally, and relationally.

Their commonality is that they have all involve hope. These seemingly insignificant moments are made enormous in my own head because what I am required to invest is much more costly than just my time. I don’t like to admit weakness in myself, but hope within me is fragile and tentative.

Hope is intertwined with faith, which is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) As I have rebuilt my identity this year I have walked into hopefulness without realizing it; my rest is in the adoration of God and His desire for me, and that love, the love we share, inspires me to hope.

When there is devastation, we rebuild, and rebuilding takes time. I have already spent a lot of time on rebuilding; rebuilding identity, rebuilding vocation, rebuilding faith, rebuilding my capacity to love and be loved. I’m realizing while I write this that my moments of bravery have not just been thrust upon me without warning. I have been walking paths to get here for a long time, but I am terrified that who I am is not enough, that I am not enough to love, that the work I have done isn’t enough. I fear the devastation of failure.

When I talked with my friend Ted about my struggle with hope and fear, he suggested that I should not be afraid of the possibility of failure; failure means I’m trying and that I’m learning new things. He also suggested that we celebrate our failures because they teach us things that success rarely can. Unfortunately, I think Ted is probably on to something; the most significant failure of my life is also responsible for more revelation that any of the things have gone according to plan. Ted is a cup half full kind of guy.

 It’s easier to consider reliving that day in Mexico—sweating shins and all—a hundred times more than it is for me to relax into the possibilities I feel stretching-out ahead of me. Tomorrow I will do another brave thing; that second zip line jump was less terrifying than the first one.

Monday, August 27, 2012

You know who you are.


My grandparents have a farm on a small off shoot of the Gwynne Valley. The Battle River runs through the property and in the spring when we walk down the hill to watch the spring ice break-up, I am reminded of the natural cycle of change; the river was deep and narrow when my mother was a teenager, but now it is wide and shallow, its water eroding the banks a little more every year. Eventually it will become so wide that the river will flatten into a lake. I don’t like to think of the valley under a puddle of water, especially one as muddy and polluted as the Battle. I should say that we have a farm on a valley; my grandparents have died, my grandmother first, seven years ago, and then this last spring, my grandfather followed her.
            During my childhood years I spent a lot of time on the farm. My grandma taught me to pull weeds and dig potatoes, and how to tell when apples were ready to pick off the apple trees. I learned how to ski on the hill in front of the house standing between her knees, holding onto her ski pole across my chest. One wet day when we were picking mushrooms, the cows chased us down that same hill. Grandma tossed me over the fence, jumped it, and cleared the barbed wire without even snagging her jeans. I learned to appreciate the smell of the breeze on our sheets and towels and to listen for the loud bee buzz of the hummingbirds. We knew that the felled trees on the valley floor were the work of the beavers that slid down the banks and swam in the river.
            As I got older and I was allowed to go further from the house on my own, I would walk to the edge of the valley. After a while, if I was quiet and it was the right time of day, I would catch sight of the animals that lived in the valley; porcupines, which always appeared first as a trick of the light (is that dirt hill moving?), making their way slowly up an indecipherable path, deer grazing in twos or threes, coyotes, always alone. I remember sitting there in anticipation, just waiting for something to happen, like I was a part of some kind of secret, or I could be, as a voyeur of the natural world.
            In my early adult years I lived there with my husband and children. After the kids were in bed I often walked to that same hill, but for different reasons; now I wasn’t waiting for life to appear before my eyes, but trying to escape it. The days seemed very long, alone and miles away from town and other people, raising two kids under the ages of two inside of a marriage that was broken. I craved conversation. Every time I sat on that hill, I wanted to be comforted. Comfort was what I asked for when I sat on the edge of the valley and talked to God. Instead of feeling better though, I began to see my life more clearly which, as it turns out, is much more useful.
            For a long time I didn’t understand why sitting in that space gave me so much clarity, and a clarity that didn’t leave me crying my eyes out and feeling hopeless. It was like I was able to see myself for the person I was – diminished and frustrated – from a simply expressed honesty. By being around insects and plants, by watching the sunset or getting soaked by the dew on the grass, I was learning about the world outside of myself and my species, and being in non-human nature was like having a mirror thrust in front of my face; everything around me was so comfortable in doing and being what it was created to be that I saw all of the “unnatural” parts to my existence, inconsistencies in my character and life that showed disease. I came to identify my perch on the edge of the valley as a sacred space, where I felt the heart of God, and where something mysterious and unidentifiable was happening between me and the rest of nature as well.
            Over the past year or so I have been focusing on what it means to rest in God and learning about what it means to make that rest the seat of my identity. One particular day I spent time sitting in the tall grass on the hill above the valley. Tree is a response to my impressions on that day, which made me consider the Old Testament image of a tree planted by streams of living water. It is found throughout Jeremiah specifically and in different places in the Psalms. On the hill that day, as a part of nature, I realized both my insignificance, one thing among infinite created things, as well as my uniqueness, one deliberately crafted and deeply loved. I saw how settled and unquestioning the non-human world was in living-out its life. In a moment all of my worries about being a good parent and student, my wondering over the future, my concerns over everything, were diminished and I found a place of rest. 

            I wish that I could say that I am so convinced of my identity that I exist in that place of rest always, but it’s not true. It’s the change that does it, that brings me back to that spot of asking my God who I am. The change is a gift; it reminds me that I have forgotten. I see in my mind a picture of a Poplar, tall and strong, arms stretching towards the sky, bark pale against the blue, and I hear a whisper that says, you know who you are. It is said with warmth and affection. I am like that tree. That tree is full of integrity, does not betray itself or its maker. It is exactly who it is created to be. This picture, the whisper, the love that accompanies this impression, reminds me that I do know who I am. 
 
-->
Tree

There is a barrier between us,
a panel of glass
that removes from me the pleasure of
the caressing hands
of the wind,
that tangos with the grasses
and shivers the spine of the spruce
leaving it trembling, alive in its want.

When I stand on the earth
my feet ache
for the itch of the thin, silken fibers
that mat the ground,
to pull
with my toes at the most tender spot,
and feel the tight hug of soil
tugging back, and know it will not let go.

There is no confusion on this hill,
no crisis
of identity or anxiety about the
composition of choices,
what cup
to drink from, or fear that I am not
enough. Hesitation gives way to
peace. Clarity is coupled with hope.


It rises high above me,
roots sinking,
stretched in enamored thirst,
deeply. Holding hands with
Living Water,
never quenched but always
full, branches plump with buds
on the verge of bursting.