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This Father’s Day

Jun 17, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

I find myself in a sort of a gray place today. Granted, it’s the Seattle area and the skies are often as they look today: filled with clouds, overcast, chilly. But it feels like more than that.

It’s Father’s Day. My daughters are with their dad – and, therefore, not with me. A new experience this year. Maybe that’s part of it.

In an effort to shift to a brighter or at least clearer space I spent some time reading the liturgy of the week. I came across this excerpt from The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware. It touched the gray and invited some grace-filled shafts of warmth and sun…

The actress Lillah McCarthy describes how she went in great misery to see George Bernard Shaw, just after she had been deserted by her husband.

 

I was shivering. Shaw sat very still. The fire brought me warmth…How long we st there I do not know, but presently I found myself walking with dragging steps with Shaw beside me…up and down Adelphi Terrace.

 

The weight upon me grew a little lighter and released the tears which would never come before…He let me cry. Presently I heard a voice in which all the gentleness and tenderness of the world was speaking. It said: “Look up, dear, look up to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Whatever his faith in God or lack of it, Shaw points here to something that is fundamental to the spiritual way. He did not offer smooth words of consolation to Lillah McCarthy, or pretend that her pain would be easy to bear. What he did was far more perceptive. He told her to look out for a moment from herself, from her personal tragedy, and to see the world in its objectivity, to sense its wonder and variety, its “thusness.” And his advice applies to all of us.

However, oppressed by my own or others’ anguish, I am not to forget that there is more in the world than this, there is much more.

I bought more flowers for the front porch yesterday. When I got up today I spotted them as I picked up the Sunday paper. They made me smile. I bought a few more when I went to the grocery store this morning – wanting even more of their color, their warmth, their reminiscent glimpsing of Eden. They permeate the gray and offer me heaven in the hear and now. As will my daughters when they return from their time with their dad. As will my parents and my brother as they visit here this afternoon. As will even gray skies as I recognize their Creator.

How like God to speak through George Bernard Shaw to Lillah McCarthy. And to me – on Father’s Day. “Look up, dear, lookup to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Indeed, and not just in the heavens, but all around.

Choosing the Storm

Mar 6, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

I’ve been thinking a lot about how strong my proclivity is for calm; for a life that is tame, sedate, and predictable. 

Somehow, I’ve gotten the notion into my head that surely God’s desire for me would be a life of comfort and ease. God’s protection and promised presence would surely look like secure relationships, finances, profession, retirement, future…

I’m aware that at least in part, this incessant and often subconscious demand has come about by growing up and living in Western theology and culture that tells me I not only can, but deserve to have it all and that this is what God wants for me too. Even though I know that this is a lie, it’s hard to shake. I find myself asking questions like, “Can’t things just be easy?” “Can’t my life go the way I want it to?” “Why does life often feel like such a struggle?” 

And then I begin to wonder: if God were to answer these questions the way I want (translate: by granting me a perfect, conflict-free life) who would that god be? Surely not the God I know from Scripture. 

Who is that God? 

It’s the God who sleeps in the storm: 

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were lled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41) 

This is not a tame, sedate, predictable story. This is not a tame, sedate, predictable God. And the natural question to follow: Why would I anticipate my life to be such if this is the God with whom I’m in relationship? 

I’ll admit it: I’m somewhat afraid to let this narrative (and nearly every other one found in the pages of the Bible) define my God or shape my life. If I chose to reflect on, believe in, and live by this image of God – a God who was nonplussed in a treacherous storm – who might I become? That potential – to be like that God – dangerous, risky, not afraid – is more than I often want to imagine or bear…but not in the ways you might think. 

The following two quotes speak beautifully to what it might be like, at least in part, to let the images and stories of scripture define my God…define my life: 

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. (Don Miguel Ruiz) 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Marianne Williamson) 

Ultimately, the disciples’ fear is not about either death or being inadequate. The disciples’ fear is over what to do with a God who can sleep through such a storm, who can choose to calm it, who has dangerous, unquenchable, beyond-imagining power. Who might they become if they really understood, believed in, and followed this guy? 

And like the disciples, our fear is not really over what might happen to us, what might overtake us, what storms might bluster and blow. Our fear is of who we might actually be if we believed in this God of Mark 4, this God of the Bible. Our fear is that we might actually have to let the wind blow; that we might just have to let go of our incessant demand for a life of ease – and the all-too-familiar comfort of doubting God’s faithfulness when things don’t go our way (or God seems to be asleep). We might actually have to get wet! 

I think, maybe, that’s what I want… 

Maybe – by Mary Oliver 

Sweet Jesus, talking 
his melancholy madness, 
stood up in the boat 
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry. 
So everybody was saved 
that night. 

But you know how it is 
when something 
different crosses 
the threshold—the uncles 
mutter together, 
the women walk away, 
the younger brother begins 
to sharpen his knife. 

Nobody knows what the soul is. 
It comes and goes 
Like wind over the water— 
Sometimes, for days, 
you don’t think of it. 

Maybe, after the sermon, 
after the multitude was fed, 
one or two of them felt 
the soul slip forth 
like a tremor of pure sunlight 
before exhaustion, 
that wants to swallow everything, 
gripped their bones and left them 
miserable and sleepy, 
as they are now, forgetting 
how the wind tore at the sails 
before he rose and talked to it— 
tender and luminous and demanding 
as he always was— 
a thousand times more frightening 
than the killer sea. 

No, I’m certain of it: this is the God I want to follow – tender, luminous and demanding, a thousand times more frightening than the killer sea. 

This is the God I want to reflect. This is the life I want to live: choosing the storm.

Choose Life

Feb 22, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

I spent a couple of lovely hours with a young woman this morning who asked me what I thought about spiritual oppression.

“Do you think that the deep insecurity I feel, the fear of saying what I most know to be true, the anxiety over how others will perceive or understand me could be spiritual oppression?”

This is a paraphrase of her story, her words, her experience, but it captures what I hardly believe to be unique to her. 

What does it mean for us to truly believe – and act upon – what we feel and hear deep within ourselves? What do we do when we can anticipate – far ahead of time – how others will respond to our “truth” or our actions? How do we quiet the voices that tell us it is better to remain silent, behind the scenes, hidden, adaptive? And how do we honor the deeper voice that tells us we are beautiful, strong, wise, gifted, powerful, worth hearing? Not easy questions. And they are familiar questions that are imbedded deep within our souls – particularly as women. 

My spiritual director has often said to me, “Ronna, what God offers and invites is always life. Do the questions (and their answers) with which you struggle bring you life or death? If the latter, they are not of God. Choose life!” 

As I listened to this woman this morning I wondered what her life would bring: what realms of ministry, relationship, struggle and hope will she step into? What will her questions invite both in her own choices, as well as in the lives of others? How will she totally change her world – and the world around her – by choosing life, over and over again, no matter the cost? I believe that this is what God wants of and for each of us: changing our own world and the world around us by choosing life – no matter the cost. Splitting the world open… 

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” Muriel Rukeyser 

I Am This Woman

Oct 1, 2006 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

I wrote what follows for the women’s event, Conversations (mentioned in my last post). As the days have progressed I’ve marinated in these two realities and wondered – even more than when I wrote them – how they might be true for me. 

In the first chapter of Proverbs, a series of verses appear that speak about wisdom – wisdom described as feminine. 

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks…Proverbs 1:20-21 

What if “wisdom” at the city gates is not just the use of the feminine pronoun, a descriptive metaphor, but really me?

As a woman in leadership, this image feels more than familiar. I often feel on the outside. I’m near the city and can even see what’s inside, but I’m not ever let completely in. I often speak, raise my voice, and yes, even cry out; but am not heard.

And I know that I am wise – not in metaphor, but in reality. From my on-the-edges viewpoint I see different things than those inside. From where I sit, and sometimes stand, I hear different things than those inside. From where I live, work, and love I experience different things (personally, institutionally, relationally) than those inside. These sights, sounds, and experiences gift me with wisdom.

It’s a painful reality: growth and beauty coming from misunderstanding, exclusion, and pain. Will I continue to cry out? Will I continue to speak, hear, and act in (and as) wisdom? Will I continue to raise my voice in ways that call others to see beyond their walls, their perspectives, their normative realities, their privilege and power?

These verses are more than a metaphorical use of the feminine pronoun for me. I know this woman. I am this woman. 

In the last chapter of Proverbs, a series of verses appear that have been understood as a prescriptive text for the perfect woman/wife. She is clothed in strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. Proverbs 31:25 

What if this woman is not just the perfect wife, but a metaphor for God’s hope on my behalf; imagery of how God invites me to live?

In these words I simultaneously see a glorious woman and a captivating little girl. The woman stands tall. She walks with condence. She is unafraid. She has seen much, heard much, experienced much and survived. She does not compromise herself and she can be gentle, graceful, and kind because she has known much pain and harm.

The young girl holds her hand over her mouth as she suppresses peals of giggling. She has been given a secret to hold and it’s all she can do to keep it to herself. She runs and leaps and dances through her days because she is filled with the joy of what this secret means – for herself and for others. She is unafraid. She is spontaneous, playful, and even mischievous. She knows no pain or harm.

These two, combined, speak to me of what I most desire for myself. All that has gone before and all that is yet to come enables me to be clothed in strength and honor. And what I know and hold deeply in my heart of God’s love and care for me and others is what enables me to laugh, even if only to myself.

Will I stand tall? Will I wear the strength and dignity that are uniquely mine because of the pain and harm I have known? Will I laugh because of the God who shares a secret with me that no one and nothing can destroy? These verses are more than just a description of the perfect wife. I know this woman. I am this woman. 

These women – metaphorical and real – are who I want to be: wise, listening to and living with those on the margins, gaining strength through perseverance and struggle, dignied and fearless, forever laughing with the abandon of a child. God knows and loves this woman. I am becoming this woman.

Women Together: the best kind of danger

Sep 27, 2006 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I just returned from three glorious days on the waterfront in Gig Harbor, WA. If that wasn’t good enough, I was in the company of 15 amazing women – half of whom flew in from all over the U.S. and the other half of whom are located here in the Pacific Northwest.

Sally Morgenthaler was with us as the “host” of what she calls Conversations. Together we reveled in each other’s company and the beauty of not only the location, but the faces, hearts, stories, and lives of those by whom we were surrounded.

I’m exhausted tonight, but I am also overwhelmed by the beautifully dangerous power present when women are together.

That danger is not to be feared, but embraced, welcomed, and aggressively ushered into many places that are deeply in need of the power women have to offer. It is not a command-and-control kind of power, but power that is deeply connective, deeply intuitive, deeply generative, deeply creative, and deeply committed.

16 powerful, dangerous, beautiful women in one place for 3 days are now disbursed into their larger communities. They came strong, broken, tender, wounded, growing, struggling, rejoicing. They left more powerful, more dangerous, and more beautiful – with even more to offer, more tears to shed, more voices to raise, more eyes to open, more lives to change, more worlds to alter, heal, and lead.

I am not the same woman I was on Monday morning. Their voices have shaped and changed me. I am now more powerful, more dangerous, more beautiful, and more heartbroken, more committed, more compelled, more prepared, more tender, more strong. And I am not alone.

I am surrounded – in heart – by 15 amazing companions; women who have and will continue to labor on behalf of one
another and all that we are yet to birth. I’m grateful to every one of them. I’m hopeful for many more such conversations. And I love that danger abounds in their beauty and strength – and in my own!

Prophet as Female

Aug 9, 2006 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

While I was still a student at The Seattle School, I remember hearing one of my professors lecture on the categories of Prophet, Priest, and King. He said that a prophet “dreams of that which will one day be. He exposes and invites. And he is not liked. We try to silence prophets with shame by telling them that they are too emotional and/or that they just see too much.” In another class, when covering similar material he said, “The prophet is the guardian of hope. He envisions glory as it will one day be.” 

Let’s change all those pronouns, shall we?

I think these statements sound exactly like the soul of a woman.

Most of the women I know see well. They can name what they see – even if at great personal cost. And when they speak what they see and reveal what is true, many attempts are made to silence them – culturally, institutionally, and interpersonally. 

So what would it be like for women to intentionally embrace this persona as prophet as theirs? 

For me? I would know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the potential for misunderstanding, dislike, and harm would be high. And I would still speak. I would name what I see, reveal what is, and repeatedly invite hope – functioning in ways that feel profoundly more true and consistent with who I most truly am. 

The bind here, of course, especially when we look at examples of prophets – particularly in Scripture. is that a) none of them are women; and b) none of them lived lives we’re remotely interested in! They did crazy things and had crazy things done to them. They weren’t heard. Or if they were, they were seen as practically diagnosable. Their own self-doubt was mammoth and their questions of the God who had purportedly “called” them were laden with conflict and angst. All because they spoke the truth. They called the people back to the God they’d forgotten. They spoke with kings and confronted corruption. They brought about change. And usually at great cost to themselves. 

Yes, that’s the bind. But it’s also the beauty.

Choosing to see myself as a prophetess  changes the way in which I choose to engage. It alters my readiness and expectation of potential harm. It increases my stamina, courage, and capacity to persevere. And I consistently hold on to hope and continue telling the truth. Beautiful, to be sure.

Rise up, prophetesses. We have much to say, much to offer, and redemption to bring about!