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Tiptoeing

Feb 24, 2007 | My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I can’t tell you how tired I am of tiptoeing; of having to navigate through so many potential landmines that I feel I’ve traversed twice the distance required to get to my destination.

Why do I do this? Why do any of us? 

I sat at a conference today that was really not good. I’m being kind: it was horrible. And I needed to be there. It was important that I represent my employer, that I pick up my nametag and packet of information, that I check off the appropriate attendance box. What I wanted to do was stomp and scream and make a scene. But I didn’t. I tiptoed. 

I got an email today that implicitly asked me to tiptoe instead of stomp and scream. And so I did. I actually walked through a mine field and dismantled any hidden bombs so that others wouldn’t inadvertently get hurt. And as I tiptoed, I felt small, squelched, silenced. 

I could articulate all the details, but more than anything, I’m aware of how much ruckus is created when one attempts to walk firmly, boldly, even loudly into areas that most would prefer remain hidden and quiet: feedback on poorly conceived and run conferences, needed conversation about issues of gender and women in leadership, asking for shared participation and repentance in stories of harm… 

Tiptoeing is usually seen as a delicate and endearing way of remaining unheard and undetected; like a small child who wants to surprise a parent with a hug or a handmade card. I know that kind of tiptoeing, too. But today all I want to do is put on my loudest, heaviest, bulkiest shoes and stomp, stomp, stomp. I want my thoughts, feelings, motives, and heart to be heard and understood. And I don’t want to have to gather up all the potential landmines first. 

It’s late and I’m tired. Too much tiptoeing today. I might try stomping through tomorrow…not second guessing my every step but trusting that I know where I’m going and that I can actually get there without getting blown up.

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 

Whose Story Am I In?

Jan 21, 2007 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

I just finished writing this entire post, went to read through it from the beginning before hitting “publish,” and lost the whole thing. That somehow seems appropriate given the subject matter… 

I’ve been reading Genesis this month. I’m attempting to stick with the plan and get through the entire Bible in 2007. This morning I must have read 2/3 of Genesis, which gives you an idea of how far behind I am already. If you must know…I should be to Exodus 14 by today. ‘Got a ways to go. 

Anyway, as I’ve been reading I’ve been struck by the endless drama and ever-present crisis that seems to be in the midst of someone’s narrative nearly all the time. It feels familiar, certainly within the text, but also in my own life. 

What am I to do with this text; this collection of stories that seem to be about particular people (and are, of course, to some extent) but are really about God? What do their stories – filled with such drama and crisis tell me about this God?

For one thing, this God is not so concerned with individual plot twists and turns; mistakes and foibles and minutae that are constantly creating such messes. That’s comforting. This God is weaving a much larger story that inculcates individual stories but is far more redemptive, passionate and powerful than any one story could possibly be. Comforting, yes – but also a bit disconcerting. 

Frankly, I want my story to be the one in which God is a part, not the other way around. Seems like if that were true, then drama and crisis and pain and struggle wouldn’t have to be the experience du jour, but instead, peace and calm and ease and freedom. Apparently that’s not the way it works – for anyone in the Biblical text or for me. 

Perhaps it’s the very reality that I want things the other way around that creates the drama and crisis in the first place. 

Will I let my life be a part of God’s story? Will I allow my own drama and crises to be evidence of God’s grace, kindness, redemption, and love? Will I rest and breathe deeply in the reality that my story doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all? Will I allow the plot twists and turns I experience on a daily basis become the gentle (and sometimes bellowing) call to a larger story, to God’s story, of which my narrative is a part? 

In my best moments I don’t want to be in charge of my story…not really. Sure, I’d like to have not lost my previously typed blog text (even though it was nothing like what I’ve now written). But I want rest and peace far more than control. I want to know that the drama and crisis of my life are not the end of things; that the God who loves stories, certainly those in the Biblical text, but also mine, is writing, directing, and producing a story that is far bigger, better, and more beautiful than I could imagine or dream. That is comforthing. I will rest…maybe after I’ve read a few more chapters yet tonight.

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!

Power & Privilege (and me)

Sep 6, 2006 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power

These words: power and privilege, have been part of numerous conversations lately. Some of those conversations have considered both from the perspective of not having either. Others have considered what it means to acknowledge both the words and their reality in our own lives and be aware of the “other” more intentionally. In all of them, the words seem to be tricky, hard to pin down, misunderstood,
confusing, and hard to stay focused on or do anything about.

Toward that end, I’ve been thinking about the story of Hagar – and Sarah – as example of power and privilege gone bad…on a number of levels.

Sarah is clearly the person in this relationship with power and privilege. Not as much as her husband, obviously, but still more than her maidservant, Hagar. When tension rises, Sarah uses her power/privilege card to get her way and Hagar is sent into the desert – twice! The
first time alone and pregnant and the second time with her young son.

This story disturbs me, in part because the conflict is between two women. Power and privilege belong to one and are used against the other, seemingly without any consideration of how that might be harmful, unfair, etc. I would hope for better. And, it still happens. So sad.

It also disturbs me because Sarah’s behavior has no element of self-reflection. It seems second-nature for Sarah to get her way – a mark of privilege’s familiarity for those who have such AND a lack of how such can be so profoundly damaging to those without.

I’m also disturbed by this story because historically as it’s been exegeted, we’ve focused on Hagar’s “insolence” and then implicitly assumed that she deserved to be cast away. After all, Sarah was the chosen one – the wife of Abraham, the bearer of God’s covenant. We’ve excused her behavior more often than not and have nearly ignored the plight of this powerless woman who is banished into distant lands, never to be heard from again. This common textual emphasis in itself, speaks loudly to our own comfort with power and privilege as predominantly white, middle-class Americans.

There’s enough to struggle with just in these realities but I think there’s more:

When we look more closely at Hagar’s story we come to see that she has a powerful and privileged encounter with God…unlike Sarah. She, the marginalized, powerless, unprivileged one is seen by God and sees God. She, the outcast, is the first theophany in all of Scripture. She, the one we’ve too often ignored, is the one who knows God in far more profound ways than Sarah, certainly, and frankly most of us.

What are we to learn from this? For me, it makes me wonder what I “miss” of God as long as I hold on to my own power and privilege. Power and privilege are woven into everything; they are not all or nothing “qualities.” I have them both – and both are used in ways that harm me and those around me.

These are hard conversations and they seem to me to be at the core of much, if not all, of the struggles of which I’m so acutely aware: issues of gender, race, inclusion, diversity, social justice, politics, theology…Is there anything untouched by these two words?

May I be a woman who is aware of her power and her privilege – its benefits and its potential to harm. May I be a woman who is not afraid of naming the misuse of power and privilege as it harms me – and those around me.

A quickly typed post. Lots more thoughts spinning in my head and heart. Undoubtedly, more to follow.