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Posted on Oct 30, 2012 in just because i thought it was fun | 16 comments

5 gifts we can give rachel held evans.

blog pic the year of biblical womanhood* this week is launch week for the awesome book, the year of biblical womanhood, by rachel held evans, yeah!  this post is part of a surprise synchroblog to celebrate and remind rachel how grateful we are for the ways she his breaking down walls and paving a road of hope for so many.  a bunch of other bloggers are participating and you can find the link list here.  

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i have had the privilege of knowing rachel held evans through the wild weird world of blogging and also connecting in real life.  she’s brilliant and brave and i have told her that her generation is the real hope for change and so part of my responsibility is to support her as best i can.  sure, us oldies can definitely play our part, but the real rubber-meets-the-road is starting to come behind us.  among all kinds of other amazing things she does, rachel is a prophet (and we all know what we sometimes to do to prophets).

there are some gifts we can give her as she keeps stirring the pot & shaking the status quo & breaking down walls & offering her voice on behalf of so many of us:

1.  remember she’s human.  sure, she’s strong.  but she’s a regular-vulnerable-person-just-like-me-and-you, too.  the worst thing we can do for her is make her a super-hero or put her on some kind of weird pedestal that separates her from the rest of us. but it is pretty cool that she’ll probably be the only person we know who’s ever been on the today show, ha ha.

2.  watch her back.  we all know she takes some serious fire from critics for speaking her heart and offering new perspectives on biblical interpretation.  we can’t shut down her critics but we can step in when people go nuts.  we can stick up for her when we can.

3. encourage her.  everyone can always use more cheerleaders, and little ways we say “we are with you” go a long way.

4.  have our own opinion about what she’s sharing instead of just adopting hers.  it’s really easy when we resonate with leaders and writers to strap on to the whatever they say lock, stock, and barrel.  really, that’s not the idea.  my guess is that she shares what she shares to get everyone thinking from their own perspective, to listen to what God is stirring up for us, to integrate thoughts and implement change in our own ways that remain true to who we are, not who she is.

5.  bravely live from a new place in whatever ways we can.  really, the best gift we can give rachel is to live the solution, to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. to try, to experiment, to engage, to rock the boats in our churches & our circles of influence, to gain strength & courage from God to step into places we’re not used to stepping, to say things we’re not used to saying, to live out our faith in ways we’re not used to living. and to let her know how she played a beautiful part from afar in inspiring change.

here’s a short & simple blessing i wrote for you, rachel.  as the words came out, i thought maybe it’s not only for you but for all of us in different ways as we stand alongside each other and bravely-and-as-best-we-can live and love from new places.

may you cling tightly to God & family & friends who love you no matter what.  

may you strengthen the teflon of your heart to protect yourself from harsh critics.

may you increase the velcro on your heart so that love & encouragement will stick.

may you not take yourself too seriously.

may you take Jesus’ command to love really seriously, but remember it can be fun, too. 

may you humbly & bravely go where God is asking you to go.  

may you have eyes to see the beauty of the really simple things that are easy to miss. 

may God’s spirit of justice & mercy & love & hope & courage be more and more deeply embedded in the fabric of your heart.

and most of all, may you remember you’re loved.  really loved.  no matter what you do or what you write or what you say or what you don’t.

amen.  

we are grateful for you, rachel! congratulations!  keep stirring the pot & speaking from your heart & calling the church to something better…

 

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Posted on Aug 16, 2012 in ex good christian women, faith shifts, mommydom | 2 comments

anger is not a sin

blog anger is not a sin* remember this week i’m just archiving guest posts from other places over the past few months.  you might have read them before.  this one is from the amazing rachel held evans’ series on faith & parenting.  i just realized that i somehow never responded to any of the comments over there (in my mind i did, ha ha).  now it feels a little late to do that over there but if you want to add anything here, would love to hear your thoughts. 

* * * * *

“In your anger, do not sin” 
- Ephesians 4:26

When I was a kid, I was taught that anger was bad.  It had nothing to do with Christianity because I was not raised in a family of faith; rather, in a home with an alcoholic, there was an underground but extremely strong message that negative emotions should be avoided at all costs.

Happy, thankful, quiet, and easy-going were highly valued but mad, frustrated, hurt, or sad, not so much.  That was reserved for the grownups.

When I became a Christian and started learning more about Jesus in “church”, I discovered that some of the same rules applied.  Messy feelings were ones to avoid.  They were equated with a lack of faith or an inability to turn it over to God properly in the moment.  For me, honestly, it didn’t work half bad because I was already a master at stuffing negative feelings and pretending like nothing was wrong.

20 years ago, my husband Jose and I had our first son.  Two years after that, a daughter.  And two years after that, another son. In a wild twist of events known as “almost the immaculate conception” we had twin sons three and a half years later.  My claim to fame was having five children under the age of seven.

And yeah, there was a lot of emotion in the house.

During the early years, however, Jose and I practiced a parenting style consistent with what we were learning in church—negative emotions were “bad” and somehow needed to be avoided or at least taken care of quick.  For our kids, this looked like being mad at them for being mad (yes, I get the irony).  Things like “Go to your room if you are angry and come out when you’re happy again!” “Stop crying now!” and “You need to change your attitude right this minute!” flowed freely from our lips.

We had good intentions.  We weren’t abusive. We were just following the books that temper tantrums were a sign of faulty parenting and kids needed to learn emotion control.  

I know there are all kinds of ways children need their parents to guide, teach, and set limits on what is appropriate and what’s not.  But looking back, I have learned something very painful about our early parenting years—we sent our children a strong message that we didn’t tolerate negative emotions, only positive ones.

Oh how I regret this!

The church is really good at this, too.  As a body of believers, it does seem like anger, sadness, and hurt are not tolerated very well.  We want people to go to their room when they’re angry and come out when they’re happy again, to change their attitudes quick, to get on with the business of feeling good as quickly as possible.

Even though we say it’s not true, it sends a message to all of us that God loves us more when we’re happy and is disappointed with us when we’re sad. This message gets all tangled up with our faith.  

We forget that Jesus, God in the flesh, embodied a full range of emotions.  He cried.  He yelled.  He lamented.  His blood boiled.

He was human.

Part of my shift in faith and parenting has been about embracing the full range of my humanness. Much of how I was operating in our faith was about rejecting parts of me to somehow “please God more.”

The scripture reminds us that in our anger, we shouldn’t sin.  Not that anger is bad.

And what I have learned, and keep learning, is that God wants all of us, all of the time.  He doesn’t send us away when we are pissed off or turn away from us until we are happy again.  Even though I am human and not God, part of my responsibility as a parent is to reflect to my babies my full, deep, wide, and as-unconditional-as-possible love in the midst of their real lives, their real emotions, so that they can feel more secure and free.

But that shift had to happen in me first.

Part of my responsibility as a woman of faith was to begin to accept that God wants all of me—the angry, sad, hurt, frustrated parts of me along with the happy ones, too.

As Jose and I shifted, how we parented our children did, too. We have made many an amends to our older kids, who received the brunt of thinking that any negative emotion was a sin.  Thankfully, they have offered their grace (and told us that they had been pretty mad about it, ha!).

We keep learning.  We keep stumbling and bumbling and making all kinds of mistakes along the way.  But I’m more sure of this than ever for myself and my kids, too—anger’s not a sin.

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Posted on Jun 8, 2012 in equality | 7 comments

5 verbs each for equality

blog 5 verbsverb [vurb] – a word that expresses action or a state of being.

i have been traveling in the UK with my daughter for the past week and just returned (amazing trip, extremely grateful).  i was so happy to see rachel held evans’ blog series this week on mutuality.  she rocks, and i have great hope that her influence will continue to shape change for the wider church. so many others contributed pieces, too, and i look forward to reading more this upcoming week– inspiring!  i am not going to use this blog post to rehash what’s already been shared related to theology and scriptural interpretation on behalf of equality. she’s done an awesome job with that.

my small contribution to the conversation is to just sing the same song i always sing--the one centered on practice.

on action.

on ways we can actively be the change we want to see.

i often draw back on what community organizer alexie torres-flemings says, “the kingdom is not going to drop out of the sky”.  yep, God uses scared, flawed, messy, beautiful human beings like us to create it.

talking about equality won’t create equality. reading blogs about equality won’t create it. these definitely help raise awareness & stir hearts and heads that need stirring.  talking & reading about it is an awesome starting place.

but the only way we can create and cultivate equality is to actively engage in living it out as best we can. to put our hands & feet & hearts into action as men & women dedicated to change. to enter in to new relationships & new forms of leadership & new ways of being together, side-by-side as lovers & leaders & friends.

although there are many more possibilities, here are a few verbs that come to mind as we collaborate together as men & women to cultivate greater and greater equality, here, now.

5 actions for men:

1. “advocate” – i love the Greek word for this–parakletos–because it is used to describe the holy spirit and means “summoned, called to one’s side or aid”.  advocating for equality means coming alongside and using voices & power & influence on behalf of change, supporting women in all kinds of ways, and calling out injustices instead of remaining silent.

2. “invite” – ask and ask some more. invite your wives & sisters & daughters to show up more fully to dreams, to  friendship, to leadership, to heart-to-heart conversations, to partnerships, to life.

3. “risk” – actively risk your pride, power & control, reputations, comfort on behalf of change. these are all things Jesus tells us are worth losing as we follow him. put them on the line and trust God will show the way.

4. “submit” –  listen deeply to each other and respond humbly. let go of winning or being “right”. defer to wisdom and giftedness tempered by humiity. lead and follow.

5. “encourage” – draw out your wives’ & sisters’ & daughters’ gifts and passions and give them love & tangible support to try what needs trying. celebrate what’s good, honor courage, affirm.

and 5 verbs for women, too:

1. “initiate” -  offer to lead, speak, create, participate, care.  step up, step in. play our cards instead of holding them close. try.  (we may feel shame at first but in time, it will lose some of it’s grip).

2. “engage” – say what needs to be said. show up in healthy conflict instead of running from it.  give our ideas. stand up straight and look others in the eye. bring as much of our real selves to our relationships as we can.

3. “risk” – disapproval, failure, making others uncomfortable. being misunderstood–these are all things we will risk as we step out. Jesus tells us these are part of the cost of following him. put them on the line and trust God will show the way.

4. “submit” – listen deeply to each other and respond humbly. let go of winning or being “right”. defer to wisdom and giftedness tempered by humility. lead and follow.

5. “celebrate” – honor every little bit of movement, freedom, and victory we can–our own growth & the growth of others. stand alongside other brave sisters and cheer them on with love, respect, and ongoing support. express gratitude for our husbands & brothers & sons and the changes we see.

i am thankful for you guys out here who are already advocating, inviting, risking, submitting, and encouraging equality.  you are making a difference!  may your presence continue to blossom & grow.

and i am also grateful for all the brave women who i know & see initiating, engaging, risking, submitting, and celebrating.  your courage inspires me & those around you to keep trying to do the same.

those are my 5 verbs each.  what would you add?  i’m guessing you all have some good ones!

if I were fleshing out a few more for both i’d consider “include, support, nurture, create” and the one that really embodies them all–“practice.” the only way to learn something new is to practice it. and practice it. and practice it some more.

God, give us courage & strength to live out these verbs, to be active participants in cultivating equality in any ways we can.   please help us to keep bravely practicing together.

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ps: if you haven’t read my friend karl’s post yet–show some ovaries-do!  it’s so good & definitely complements last week’s ex-good-christian-women post from a different perspective.  also, this month’s down we go column is up at sheloves magazine–celebrating freedom.  may we celebrate every little bit of freedom we can!

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Posted on Feb 3, 2012 in church stuff, crazy making, equality, ex good christian women, injustice, leadership | 48 comments

plant new trees.

plant new trees“then God said, “let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” – genesis 1:26, NLT

this past week i saw a flurry of facebook posts about john piper’s latest words about  masculine christianity.  i am pretty out of the blog-reading circuit because there are only so many hours in the day and mine are jam packed with people & kids & more kids & more people.  at the same time, i love that challenging conversations are happening and social media is a powerful tool to raise awareness.

i did not listen to john piper’s presentation or link to the blog post.   i don’t have the stomach or time for it, but i got the cliff notes version from rachel’s blog.  i like her idea of helping people consider other views of God that aren’t specifically masculine.  i have no trouble with God being masculine.  the trouble i have is assuming God is primarily masculine because Jesus was a guy and chose 12 male disciples and then building entire systems upon that thought, utterly dismissing a whole other half of God’s image and essence.  along with that half, i am certain we’re missing a whole lot of other things about God that we have been afraid to explore because the systems & churches we have been part of have kept God so contained.

john piper makes caricatured roles for men and women, over-simplifying the image of God placed in each of us.  this denies not only women of their fullness, but men as well.

whether we want to admit it or not, piper’s theology is deeply embedded into most of standard evangelical christianity.  it just is. men do certain things and women do other certain things.  if each sex would just step into “God’s intention for them” (“appropriate” social roles), everything will work just fine and everyone will be “free.”

when God created humans, God made us in in the fullness of God’s image.  not half, not part.  yes, we are unique and different, and that’s why we need each other to more accurately reflect the fullness of God’s image.  the body of Christ is a reflection of God. if that’s the case, then why is half missing, devalued, and thought of as less somehow?

change in “the church” is coming.  a holy stirring is happening and many people are starting to call it for what it is–oppression, sexism, and a fear-based theology that perpetuates injustice.   however, it has become so innate that merely trying to shake it out of our system isn’t going to cut it.  we’re not a few awesome blog posts away from changing these deeply grooved systems of injustice.

when considering change, there are two natural reactions to it that we think of first:

1.  prune off what’s not working.  if we can prune some of these injustices out of “the church”, we’ll be okay.  this is the idea of changing systems by making some adjustments here and there that will shift things.  raise awareness, start to think differently about it, help leaders become more sensitive to issues of equality, influence change from within.

2. raze the ground completely.  knock it all down.  it’s flawed, it doesn’t work, it harms people.  the whole thing is so jacked up that we just need to walk away from it entirely.

i feel strongly that alone, #1  just won’t work. i’m not saying that some systems can’t be changed from within but i think it’s a pretty brutal road and will require leaders who are willing to shrink their churches & ministries, pay some serious emotional, spiritual, and financial costs, and lose all kinds of things they are used to gaining.  honestly, that’s not super likely on a wide scale.  human nature & self protection will strongly work against such courage.  pruning also dismisses the magnitude of the problem.  we’re talking about deeply grooved systems of injustice that go back to the beginning.  the root system is strong;  a little tweaking isn’t going to bring full equality for anyone. 

i also believe that blowing the whole thing up isn’t really an option.  it works for some people.  they believe in certain scriptural interpretations & hold dearly to their tenets. i may disagree, but i don’t think that means there aren’t valuable things that happen for people through their churches and so scrapping the whole thing isn’t really fair or respectful.

i think there’s a much better option:

plant new trees. 

trees that have the roots of equality from the very beginning.

trees that gain nourishment from a free-er gospel and soil that is enriched with freedom and hope instead of fear and absolute certainty.

trees that have men and women and rich and poor and educated and uneducated and black and white and gay and straight all tangled up together from the beginning.

trees that are tended to gently and naturally instead of pumped with unnatural growth agents & pesticides that try to advance the progression of development to “catch up faster” to other churches that will always have the advantage of time and power on their side.

trees that get their strength from the beatitudes not the latest and greatest how-to-grow books and conferences.

trees that are well-watered by people who are tired of talk and are ready for action.

trees that over time will flourish and bring shade and fruit and all kinds of other goodness for generations to come in the communities & cultures where they are planted.

a diverse ecosystem of trees that more accurately reflect the fullness of God’s image. 

these trees can be all kinds of shapes and sizes–individual relationships, groups, churches, ministries, organizations–little pockets of love & freedom cropping up all over that influence people and model a better way, a free-er way, an equal way, a more “oh, that’s what Jesus looks like” way.

yeah, pruning won’t cut it.  razing isn’t an option.  let’s get planting. i have a feeling some of you are really good gardeners.

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here are a few other links i wanted to highlight:

many of you have probably read it, but if you haven’t check out rachel held evans’ post this week: they were right (and wrong) about the slippery slope.  i slipped off the slope a long time ago and sometimes tell those that wonder, “yeah, i completely slipped off the slope and somehow found the most solid ground i’ve ever stood on.” 

our walking wounded online class starts monday february 6th.  registrations are possible until then, so if you or someone you know want to be part,  you can sign up at that link.  it’s going to be good! i also am not sure when we’re planning on running it again so now’s the right time if you’re on the fence.

i wrote a little post for provoketive magazine last month that i forgot to share called stories that matter.

lastly, i posted this on facebook & it made some pretty good rounds, but if you missed it, here’s the trailer from my awesome friend pam hogeweide’s new book, just released at the end of january–unladylike: resisting the injustice of inequality in the church:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted on May 5, 2011 in fundamentalism, healing, identity, relationships | 14 comments

the golden rule

the golden rule**this post is part of rachel held evans’ synchroblog this week on the rally to restore unity.  there’s some fun stuff over there this week!

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when i was a kid my mom had a plaque on her wall that said “whoever has the gold makes the rules”.  looking back, oh how true those words can sometimes be in the systems that we live in!   it was years later before i read the real golden rule, Jesus’ words in the sermon on the mount–“do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (matthew 7:12).

every other world religion has something else close to the same idea:

  • hinduism – “this is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” – mahabharata 5:1517
  • islam – “none of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” number 13 of imam al-nawawi’s forty hadiths
  • judaism – “what is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. this is the law: all the rest is commentary.” talmud, shabbat 31a.
  • confucianism – “tse-kung asked, ‘is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?’ confucius replied, ‘it is the word ‘shu’ — reciprocity. do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.’” doctrine of the mean 13.3
  • baha’i – “ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not…blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.” – baha’u'llah
  • taoism – the sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. he is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for virtue is kind. he is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for virtue is faithful. - tao teh ching, chapter 49

the world would be a different place if we honored those words.

but i wonder also if a huge part of the divide between people is that inside we don’t like ourselves, either.  if we don’t like ourselves, how in the world can we like anyone else?   if we hate ourselves, then we pass on hate.   if we’re used to being treated poorly, then that’s what we pass on to others.  if we have a God of doctrine & dogma, then we will pass on that God to others.

we all know that bullies are bullies because inside they feel insecure somehow.  unloved.  unvaluable.  somehow lacking.

my experience in christianity is that  most people don’t really love themselves very well, either. we actually are “loving our neighbor as ourselves” and that often means “not too nicely”.  for many,  there’s a deep insecurity inside, some kind of void that leaves a lot of room for defensiveness and fear. (oh, i lived this way for a long time & did my share of unity-destruction, that’s for sure).  the “i’ve-got-to-prove-this-or-else-i’ve-got-nothing-left” mentality that robs joy, life, and free relationship with other people.  many of us are indeed loving our neighbors as ourselves–out of fear, anger and hate instead of love, hope, and peace.

my hope for unity is that we’d all become people with a deep sense of love in our core, a strong sense of knowing who we really are as people–accepted and free. and that out of that quiet strength, we’d be able to roll with others’ differences, not need to defend what doesn’t really need defending, and retain our own identity.  that we’d be secure people who have nothing to prove.

open people, willing to listen.  kind people, willing to agree to disagree.  loving people, willing to respect others’ dignity.

when we have nothing to prove, we are released to love others more freely, more fully.  no agenda.  no bullying.  just a desire for mutual respect.

God,  let us know the true love that you have for us.  help us to accept it as our own so that we may give it  freely to others.

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ps:  more coming soon on this, too, but i wanted to let you know that we are in the final stages of production for down we go: living out the wild ways of Jesus. i am very excited about this project for all kinds of reasons, mainly because it’s the topic i’m most passionate about–the weird wild beautiful upside down ways of Jesus.  there’s now a facebook page which will be updated with info about it. it’d be great if you could go over there and “like” it when you have a chance.




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