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White-Knuckling Clarity

Sep 4, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Voice & Power

I got an email from a woman today. In an attempt to describe her life these days, she said, “I am white-knuckling clarity.”  I love that! So descriptive. So palpable. So familiar.

I wrote her back and told her I may blog on that three-word phrase, one that feels so indicative of what is true about women: our innate ability to persevere while bearing so much.

It would be one thing to just stay on the side of perseverance: grinning and bearing it, bucking up, holding our own. Any of those sound at all familiar? It’s another to just bear incredible weight: being a martyr, suffering in silence, keeping our truest feelings safely tucked inside. Sounds familiar too, doesn’t it?

But what does it mean to find clarity in the midst? And what about white-knuckling clarity? This woman is choosing to hang on, but not just for the sake of such. She is hanging on so that she can discern where she is, who she is, how she is to be. She is choosing to stay in the tension between persevering and bearing weight. She is holding on tight and keeping focus. She can acknowledge the high-stakes reality of life and the need to see and act with discernment and wisdom.

I could go on and on about this tension, this dualism, this so-very-familiar reality. But where I go for the sake of my own clarity is to the metaphor (and experience) of birthing. A natural miracle that is inherent only and powerfully to women – and not just those who physically give birth. All women instinctually bring forth life. To do so requires much perseverance and the bearing of much pain. To push new life into this world a woman must hold tension. She acknowledges the high stakes and acts with innate focus. She will persevere. She will bear much. She has white-knuckled clarity. Life is the result: hers and that of what she alone can bring forth into this world.

So, for those of you who are living in this tension – the temptation to just persevere or that of hunkering down and enduring endless labor – hang on! White-knuckled clarity is what you know best (whether you can believe it right now, or not). Hang on, stay focused, breathe, and trust in life! It cannot not arrive. Birth is inevitable. New life will come in and through you.

So I say, bring it on! I’m willing to keep pushing – white knuckles and all – even without an epidural! Life’s the result and that’s worth everything!

I went to a Power Lunch today

Aug 2, 2007 | Women's Voice & Power

I went to a Power Lunch today.

I know what you’re thinking: “Really, Ronna?! Are you now going to buffet luncheons and handing out your card, trying to drum up business?” No. Not that I shouldn’t be. There can be much value in that activity when done strategically and in the right groupings.

This was something far different. I sat in the Board Room on the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower in downtown Seattle. As you might imagine, the view was spectacular. If the unencumbered vista of the Puget Sound and the Cascade mountains weren’t enough, the Blue Angels were rehearsing around us for an upcoming performance. What a venue! And no buffet! We were served (as it should be, frankly…).

But that’s only the start of things!

I sat at the end of a long table surrounded by 12 amazing, powerful women. (Get it?! “Power” lunch?) We spent over 90 minutes together laughing, asking hard questions, reflecting, dreaming, inviting ourselves and one another into the most delicious, tantalizing taste of fuller, more abundant life.

I found myself caught up by the beauty of the view and the beauty of the stories by which I was surrounded. I found myself so curious about the lives, hearts, and dreams of these women. I found myself wishing for more and more contexts in which these kind of conversations with these kind of women could ensue!

Before I knew it, our time ended, I descended 76 floors to the street level, and went back to work, but not without taking something with me: a deepened sense of how beautiful women truly are, how much they can and do bear, how powerful they truly are, and how deeply they dream on their own behalf and on behalf of others.

My Power Lunch was hosted by an amazing entrepreneurial organization called Working with Power. Not surprisingly, it was founded by two incedible women who truly believe that we can live, work, and love in ways that enable, enhance, and empower our innate giftings as women; not having to function counter-intuitively, but naturally, spontaneously, freely, powerfully – and easily!!!

It doesn’t take long when in their presence to know that they’ve tapped into something. They themselves are powerful, beautiful, stunning women. But what I found most powerful, beautiful, and stunning was that they deeply wanted that for each of us! What a gift. What a blessing. What a lunch!

I’d encourage you to find a way to have a Power Lunch of your own – even if it’s by yourself. Find some way to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate that you are powerful, beautiful, and stunning.

What might happen if you and all women actually believed this about themselves? What, indeed?

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

I’m deeply sated – and already hungry for the next course!!!

A Daughter of Defiance

Jun 24, 2007 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Voice & Power

I’m working on a slide show for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration. In the process, I came across this shot of my mom – taken 45+ years ago.

There’s something about seeing her in this way – young, seemingly carefree, not knowing what the journey ahead would bring – that is so profound when juxtaposed to the word above her head.

DEFIANCE.

I’m compelled by this word…on behalf of women, my own story, my daughters, my mother.

Perhaps this will be the name of my some-day-hoped-for book: A Daughter of Defiance. And perhaps this photo of my mom should grace the cover…

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.

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.