Women: Choose the Unfamiliar

Aug 10, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Sovereignty, Women's Wisdom

I am here again, in a familiar place feeling something I’ve felt before, wondering why it’s still here, why I didn’t deal with it more fully before. But I’m glad I have a second chance at it…and I know that if I need a third chance, I’ll get it. I also know that if it comes up again, I’ll recognize it sooner and deal with it more readily. This is growth. And, I am happy to be alive. ~ Jan Denise

I just got off the phone with a dear friend, a wise woman, an amazing individual. She talked to me of a current relationship for which she’s had much hope. She told me how it has progressed, how she has known desire for connection that has not dared surface in relationships-past, how beautiful it has been to be pursued, to be seen, to be heard, to be beautiful. She also told me about some unsettling patterns and behaviors that aren’t beautiful, aren’t honoring, aren’t worthy of who she is. So disappointing. And so familiar.

Why is that? Why do we, as women who are strong, courageous, risky, and beautiful, so often find ourselves in all-too-familiar relationships that are not what we want or deserve?

This is nothing new. I’m instantly reminded of the plethora of bestsellers over the years that speak to this pattern, such as Women Who Love Too Much and He’s Just Not That In To You. Clearly, it’s not an oddity. It’s a pattern. It’s familiar.

What would it mean for women to choose to function in unfamiliar ways; to let discomfort, in many ways, be a discerning tool? What would it mean to be in relational patterns – whether at work, with family, or in love – that are not what we’re used to, that don’t even feel all that comfortable (at least to begin with)?

Maybe we need to do unfamiliar things in order to break old styles and move into new, healthy ones.

I’m thinking unfamiliarity, albeit risky and dangerous, might just be a better choice – professionally, personally, emotionally, and relationally.

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” How’s that for unfamiliar? And how’s that for moving us into realms we’d not normally go, places we’d not normally frequent, careers we’d not normally pursue, relationships we’d not normally consider.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s something to be learned – or at least heeded – when we find ourselves in a place that feels familiar. Maybe that’s the moment when we can best discern that we’d might want to get the hell out of that situation and into something new, something surprising, something unfamiliar…something hope-full.

I don’t know…these are unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable thoughts for me – particularly if I actually apply them!

As is often the case, I’m drawn to the stories in Scripture. I think the case could be made that “unfamiliar,” at least in relation to God, is more the rule than the exception. Many things were asked of those who populate these stories that were scary, risky, dangerous, unfamiliar…and ultimately full of hope. God’s way of relating with us seems to be to invite us into the unfamiliar so that we can know something far more of God, of self, of one another. Hmmm.

Worth thinking about…maybe even worth choosing to actually do!

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. ~ Raymond Lindquist

My Proclivity for Lists

Jul 31, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality

I’m a list-maker, I admit it. I not only make them, I complete them. I can have multiple lists running at the same time: work, home,
parenting, the grocery store, yard work, future vacation itineraries – both fantasized and real. Whether fortunate or not, my brain has the capacity to hold all of these at once, determine which one(s) to work on at a particular time, and still recall the others.

My parents would say I should enjoy this while I can because that now-taken-for-granted-capacity will begin to fail as my age increases. I know what they mean but at least right now I’m not sure it’s a gift that’s all that great.

Lists somehow regiment life. They add order. And though both of these may be good things, I only want lists informing my life, not defining my reality.

Lists have a strange and mysterious power to become the determiner of what was, is, and should be – in many realms, but perhaps most profoundly for a religious person who lives within a text that is filled with more lists than we know what to do with.

I was looking at some passages in 1st and 2nd Timothy last week that had to do with Elders: their role, the qualities of such, etc. And I found myself incredibly frustrated. Too many to-do’s. True, the order thing is there – in spades, but for me, they felt like they’d lost their goodness and moved to something dangerous, something life-draining vs. life-giving. I struggled to think of a way to breathe life into these texts; to offer a larger perspective on how I/we might understand them. I wanted to find and invite something, anything different. I didn’t have much luck.

As I’ve spent some more time reflecting on the palpable tension I experienced in this context I wondered how it might speak to a larger reality in my life these days:

My list-making, or at least my previous understanding of what would provide me order, security, boundaries, safety, and even answers, stopped working the way it used to.

Surely, I used to think, the Biblical text – the mandates, the commandments, the lists (and those who’ve interpreted it) could offer me a rubric through which to understand my life and how to live it: a simple step-by-step process that would make sense of the increasing complexity I found myself in. I went back to the books that lined my shelves, most written by reputable Christians, hoping to find that framework.

They let me down – through no fault of their own. Somehow, between the time I bought the books and read them the first, second, or even third time and now my life no longer fit. The rules and how-to’s don’t make sense at all. I need something that offers freedom, something that gives me life.

Not surprisingly really, I found it in the Biblical text when I went to the stories – especially the women, who didn’t live by the rules and were (still) deeply loved by God. I found story after story that literally drips in freedom, that offers life. I’m incredibly grateful.

Still, what to do with the lists – my own and those in Scripture? At least for now, I choose to understand them in the larger context of the Biblical narrative, in the larger context of a God who desires and promises life above all else. For now, I wonder how the lists themselves, the do’s and don’ts, the thou shalts and thou shalt nots might limit both freedom and life.

For now, I’m fine to just wonder – not worry, about making the lists, completing the lists, crossing off every item.

If nothing else (though I believe there’s more) I’m glad I can remember what I need at the grocery store while simultaneously typing on my cellphone a list of to-do’s for work the next day as I’m waiting in the checkout line, looking at my watch, and thinking about how many things I need to get done before the next alarm sounds on my calendar/phone indicating what’s next on my list…

Enough typing. I’ve got to get on to the next thing on my list! 

Happy 50th Anniversary!

Jul 11, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters

This past weekend my siblings, our families, and nearly 100 others celebrated the 50th anniversary of my parent’s wedding. Stunning. Mind-boggling.

Given that I’ll never celebrate that milestone, and knowing even some of what I do about the complexion and landscape of their years together, I find it even more amazing. All the hearty congratulations, the expressions of pride and honor, and the tears of joy and love that were shed do not even begin to signify the reality of what those 50 years have held. How does one even begin to capture or understand all of what this means? It’s impossible, really.

And it would have been completely impossible for my parents to ever imagine, 50 years ago, what their celebration would look like and feel like. How could they have known of the story that would be told in their lives – separate and intertwined? How could they have known of both the heartache and joy that awaited them in the birth and then life of the three of their children – and then four grandchildren? How could they have anticipated the ways in which they would disappoint, wound, celebrate, surprise, and care for one another?

It’s impossible. And that’s what I love about it. In a world that often leaves us skeptical and doubting; wanting assurances, answers, and safe bets, their marriage embodies blind faith…not always their own, but always God’s on their behalf. Sometimes because of their efforts and perhaps more times than not, in spite of them, their relationship has endured, stretched, and grown. Amazing. Stunning.

And maybe not so impossible. Maybe celebrating 50 years together reminds us that we’re really not in control and still, beauty, life, and love exist, survive, and even thrive. Maybe just being in relationship period – any relationship is completely impossible but sometimes, many times, it’s something that happens, lives, breaths, and continues anyway…a good news of sorts that calls us again and again to something larger than ourselves, Someone larger than ourselves.

For me, my parents 50th was and is the gospel lived out. To celebrate their years together renewed my belief in and commitment to God’s crazy love for us; a love that is amazing, stunning, and impossible – and frankly, is the only thing that enables our own.

Happy 50th, Mom and Dad. I’m so proud of you and love you very much.

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