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The stories we tell ourselves

Dec 13, 2020 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Sovereignty

I’ve been thinking about the stories I tell – those of ancient, sacred women who have been absented from our known-and-relied-upon lineage.

I think about them all the time, truth-be-told, but in the past couple of weeks, while working away on Readings and being deeply “with” them, I’ve had another thought:

The degree to which we are supported by the stories of strong and amazing women who have gone before us – the shoulders upon which we stand – is directly related to the quality of the stories we tell ourselves.

 

Said in reverse, it sounds like this:

The stories we tell ourselves, the ones we live (too-often filled with self-contempt, shame, and silence) are directly related to the absence of stories of strong and amazing women – those in our lineage – who refused all of these realities and then some.

 

Think about it…

When the stories we learn as young girls include Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, even Eve – we incorporate beliefs about ourselves because of such. They’re subtle. Subconscious even. Until they aren’t.

It’s not surprising that we struggle with a messy soup of assumed-truths that include “someday my prince/ess will come,” “someday I will awake from this sleep only to find all my dreams fulfilled,” and “its my own fault I’m living in this East of Eden reality.” It’s not surprising at all – given what even these three stories affirm and teach!

Let’s work only with Eve here for a minute…

When you were growing up, what if you learned of her as a bold risk taker? A woman who followed her desire, no matter the cost? The first woman in this recorded text to actually speak of her beliefs, her ideas, her understanding of the divine? A woman whose courageous choice enabled the furtherance of an amazing world?

There’s nothing in that telling that would ever lead you to self-contempt or shame; certainly not silence. Instead, you would have learned to honor and trust risk-taking, your own desires, your own beliefs, and your own choices.

Here’s the good news, as I see it:

If the way one woman’s story has been told (whether Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Eve, or countless others) has had the power to shape everything, then the way that same story is reimagined, redeemed, and retold has the power to do the same.

And that is good news!

The same is true for your story: those tales you’ve been telling yourself, believing about yourself, holding on to like they’re sacred writ? They can be reimagined, redeemed, and retold, as well.

 

And even more good news?

When we retell, the old stories – like Eve’s and so many more – we realize that we’re not alone…that we never have been…that we stand on the shoulders of a long and illustrious lineage of strong and amazing women who offer us all the advocacy, wisdom, and grace we desire and deserve.   

 

No surprise that this is what I do.

I believe-believe-believe in the power of these women’s ancient, sacred stories: not because of how they’ve been told in the past (interpreted through and lost in the lenses of doctrine, dogma, and of course, patriarchy), but because of how they can be told anew. Because of all they have to say, long to say, need to say! Because they have the power to change everything!

These stories – when they are known, heard, and honored – are directly related to your capacity to be known, heard, and honored. I’m certain of this. 100%.

Old Stories Make the New Ones Stronger

Nov 3, 2020 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories

I listened to Brene Brown’s latest podcast – a conversation with Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of the Omega Institute and author of Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. 

I’ll admit, it was hard for me to hear their lovely conversation, given that the one in my head was constantly drowning them out: “Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying! Exactly! Thank you! You’re right!” If I’m being completely honest, I also need to admit that I was irritated. In some ways, Lesser has written the book that I’ve been talking about forever!  

I got over it pretty quickly because more than all else, I was flooded with gratitude. Wise and amazing women talking about the ways in which the ancient stories of women have been maligned throughout time because of the way that men have told them – and the ways in which those tellings still impact us today. That’s the most blissful conversation ever for me! 

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not mad at men. I can hold the big picture, the larger cultural history, all of that. As Lesser names, the time has long passed in which that lens, exclusively, should be the one through which we view ourselves.

  • Blamed for the downfall of all humanity, too full of desire, too curious, too dangerous. 
  • Filled with centuries of shame. 
  • Convinced that we are not enough and worrying that we’re far too much. 

Enough!

Lesser says this:

Whether we know it or not, whether we have read them or not, whether we believe them or don’t, our daily lives take direction from stories that are hundreds, even thousands of years old…Once metabolized, the old stories are hard to shake from the mind of an individual or the hierarchy of a family or the guiding principles of a country. 

Mmm hmm. (Maybe she’s watched my TEDx talk?)

I downloaded Cassandra Speaks to my Kindle as soon as the podcast finished. I’ve finished Part One – she looks at Eve, Pandora, and Cassandra as the formative stories/myths that have created the mess we find ourselves in today. Parts Two and Three follow, so I don’t want to presume I know the direction she will yet take.

I’m clear on the direction I’ve taken – over and over again in my own life and on behalf of others.

For me, it’s not enough to name the ways in which patriarchal tellings of these archetypal stories have impacted us. Nor am I willing to do away with them completely. What I want, what I’m committed to, and what I do – over and over again – is go back to them, dust them off, breathe life into them, and let them speak. I reimagine how they’d be told when she is the protagonist, when it’s her voice we hear, when it’s her wisdom from which we learn…and are transformed.

Did I mention? Bliss!

When I was contemplating whether or not I had the courage to end my marriage, I was overwhelmed with all the internal and external messages that told me why that was a mistake and why I needed to work harder, try again, keep at it, stay committed. I was working with a Spiritual Director then who asked me to think about the story of Hagar. (If you aren’t familiar with it, here’s the Cliff Notes version: her suffering made mine look like a minor irritation.) She said, “What do you think Hagar has to say to you, Ronna? How might she see what you’re going through? What perspective does she long to offer you?” I opened up a blank document on my computer and answered every one of these questions. I wrote and wrote and wrote – as I wept. I could hear Hagar’s voice, crying out from the desert. I imagined exactly what she wanted me to know, what she hoped I’d hold on to, how she hoped I’d rise up, stay strong, and step forward…because that’s what she did. 

That process became a rhythm and ritual for me that I combined with ongoing academic work and research connected to my M.Div. and study of Feminist Theology. Before long, I’d written missives to myself from countless women – buried away in this ancient text. A bit later, I started writing them for others. And now, almost 15 years later, I still hear their voices whisper (and sometimes shout).  

They tell us what we’ve forgotten, but need to recall – and believe. They remind us that our story is NOT to be theirs – silenced, forgotten, or harmed. And they somehow, mysteriously, in the most sacred and secreted of ways, stay with us…when we look for them, when we seek them, when we ask for their presence, their wisdom, their generous kindness.

More bliss, to be sure!

I could go on and on. But that’s not actually what this post is about. (Hard to tell, I know.)

The reason I’m writing any of this today is because of Elizabeth Lesser and Brene Brown, because of a smart conversation between two women about realities that effect and impact us all – based on ancient stories of women that influence us still, whether we know it or not. 

The reason I write any of what I do, retell and reimagine any of these women’s stories is because I want them to influence us. Their voices deserve to be imagined and heard; their wisdom deserves to be honored. Yes, for them. But also for us, because along the way, our stories get retold and redeemed, our voices get heard, and our wisdom is honored. 

And when that happens? Everything changes…

I don’t know about you, but I’m up for everything changing.

May it be so! 

Listen to the podcast.
Read the book.
Subscribe to my blog.
Get a Reading. It provides you the perfect guidance and generous support you need to (finally) embrace the powerful and provocative story that is yours. I promise.

Bliss. All of it. 

More, please!

My Inner Critic = The Patriarchy

Sep 5, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Writing

I was recently organizing files on my computer (something I do when I intend to write, but instead find busy work…) and came across a piece I wrote just over a year ago. Why I didn’t post it then, why I didn’t work with it more, I do not know…Well, I have a hunch, but I’ll get to that at the end. First, the writing I found…

 

*****

 

Perhaps this isn’t news to you, but I just realized this morning that the voice of the inner critic inside of me is the patriarchy; even more specifically, the patriarchal god.

This actually came as a shock to me – one I am still sitting with and trying to make sense of. But the second I wrote the words (which I will share in a moment), I knew this was true. And now that I know this is true, I have a clarity and certainty about some other things that I didn’t before (which I’ll also share in a moment).

First, how I got to this realization:

As is my normal routine, I journal in the morning. I set the alarm and, with the best of intentions, try my hardest to not look at the emails that have accumulated overnight on my phone. I go to the kitchen, fill the teakettle with water, get coffee measured into my French press, and then open up my 3-ring binder and take out two sheets of college-ruled paper. I take the cap off my very favorite pen and write the date in neat script on the top line.

By then the water is hot enough to pour into the press. I wait the four interminable minutes it takes for the coffee to steep, gratefully pour it into my waiting mug, then return to my chair, my notebook, the paper, my pen.

This morning I was recounting details of my previous day, reflecting on what was ahead in the hours to come, scribing a litany of words and questions and feelings. Nothing monumental. Nothing transformational. Just the practice of pen on paper, page after page, day after day.

In the midst of these musings, I began to write about my writing – this writing – this practice of pen on paper, page after page, day after day. As often happens, I dropped down a level – from information to reflection – and then, not surprisingly, to critique.

Why am I writing any of this? What is the point? What is its value?

And only because I have gotten just slightly wiser to its ways over the years, I began to write out exactly what my inner critic had to say:

What a ridiculous waste of time! How arrogant of you to think that your writing has the capacity to impact anyone. Are you kidding? Just because you’ve filled pages and pages over the years, doesn’t make you some kind of expert. And clearly, it’s not made any difference in your life. After all, you’re still listening to me, aren’t you? Why you don’t finally and once-and-for-all give up fighting me and trying to hear any other voice than mine? You know I’m going to endure, defeat, and conquer. I mean, really! What other voice has this much staying power, this much resolve, this much potency, this much influence? I am undefeatable! I am impossible to silence. I am all-powerful. I am God!

What? What? Wait! Go back. What did I just write?

A smile spread over my face and I immediately knew two things: 1) my daily writing practice which often, admittedly, seems trivial at times, actually matters – made obvious through three small words that are now out in the open and exposed; and 2) that “God” comment needs a LOT more attention!

My writing continued:

There. That’s the bottom line. The critic within me is God. Which is crazy – and not. This IS the God I’ve learned of, at least in part: the God I must fear, the God that keeps me in my place and silent, the God of the patriarchy.

More wheels turn as I speedily scribe and watch myself write these words:

Could it be that the inner critic IS the patriarchy, is the patriarchal God?

So, there you have it. That’s how I got to this realization and awareness. Now, as promised, the clarity and certainty about some other things.

I have understood the voice of the inner critic to come from, well, the inner-me. I have seen it as the collective voice of all those spoken to me throughout the years – negative messages I’ve heard, taken in, and believed. But even more, I have convinced myself that its volume and tenacity is because I have fed and fueled those messages, because I have not had the will or fortitude to disavow them. I have seen the inner critic itself as something inherently within me, as part of me.

And because of such, it is something to be exorcised out of me, something aberrant or wrong about me, something I must be blamed for and ultimately responsible for. The inner critic is clearly and resolutely my character flaw.

The problems with this are so prolific, I don’t even know where to start. Stories flood my mind – each one sticky with shame. And, truth-be-told, shame that has been self-inflicted: I should have done better. I should have tried harder. I should have stopped sooner. I should have said yes. I should have said no. I should have known.

Let me intentionally stop this tirade and go back to my earlier revelation: the inner critic is the patriarchy and even more specifically, the patriarchal god.

This is a big deal. A huge deal. A game-changer.

It’s like the great eye in Lord of the Rings (my VERY favorite movie, by the way). It turns, the focus shifts, and I recognize that the force that has controlled me for far too long and for which I have blamed myself, is something that is not me, something I could have no more stopped or controlled than been able to fly. And this not-of-me external force has allowed my shame because in so doing it has remained undiscovered, off the hook, and fancy free to wreak as much havoc as it likes.

As long as the patriarchy can keep me thinking that I am the one to blame, it has accomplished its greatest feat and highest aspiration.

And oh, how successful it has been.

I write some more.

Now you have revealed your cards. Now I know what I’m dealing with here. And now I know exactly what is needed to soother the beast, to tame this savage, to calm my very soul.

I need the God who speaks just the opposite, who reminds me who I am, who blesses and honors, who loves. I need the God of the women I know and the stories I tell. I need the God who speaks wisdom and grace. I need the God who is mother. I need the God who is feminine. I need the God who is far more fierce and powerful and all-consuming than the little god who isn’t one at all, but has somehow become confused.

And this God, though not often enough named as such, is alive and well and waiting within.

She rises still – and strong. She will yet roar.

Me too.

*****

Do you have a hunch as to why I didn’t post this piece until now, until just happening to stumble across it almost a year later?

Well, there’s this: the patriarchy (and/or the inner critic, and/or the Imposter Complex, call it what you will) is still alive and well – within me. The subconscious messaging that tells me to keep such things to myself, to only say what’s acceptable, to not expose it…ever.

Well, until now.

Maybe you, too?

The Day I Spoke Up in Class

Apr 24, 2015 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

For most of my life I’ve been a rule-follower. I am really good at figuring out what’s expected and then never disappointing.

Especially true in school, I transitioned from smiley-faces at the top of my papers to 100%’s and straight A’s. Though I’ll take some credit for being smart and doing the work, I am also aware that at least a portion of good results was because I was willing, able, and highly committed to complying. Nothing other would have ever crossed my mind.

The day in class that I shakily-but-firmly said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” shocked me more than anyone else in the room.

 

I was 40, in my Master’s degree program, and listening to an in-class discussion about when the Judges ruled the Israelites. One of the stories told was of Samuel: a boy who grew up in the house of priest and heard the voice of God. He lived there because years earlier, his mother Hannah, heartbroken-yet-endlessly-hopeful, made a vow. She promised God (and Eli, the priest) that she would give her child away (to the temple, the priest, the God) if only she could have one in the first place.

A fellow student – a young man in his early 20s – decided to express his opinion: how crazy a woman would have to be to promise her unborn child. “What woman would do that?!? I can’t believe any woman could make that kind of a choice! What’s wrong with her?!”

As memory serves, my blood boiled and a switch flipped. The highly-honed and years-
practiced parts of me that had always done the right thing and said the right thing (which usually meant saying nothing) said “no more.” I turned from my front-row seat toward his in the back and said (at a volume that increased word-by-word):

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what you’re talking about! How could you? You’re not a woman. You couldn’t possibly understand. I do. I know. Any woman who that desperately longs for a child will promise anything, anything to get what she wants – even if it seems like it’s the craziest thing in the world! I made promises like that! Hoping-praying believing that if I just offered enough, gave enough, prayed enough, suffered enough, waited enough, was faithful enough, that maybe I would be granted my only wish, my deepest desire, a child of my own.

Frankly, I didn’t care what it cost me. I’d deal with the consequences later. In fact, I would have lied, stolen, and done nearly anything to get the only thing I wanted, the only thing that mattered. And it wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t crazy. I was willing to sacrifice what I most wanted to get what I most wanted. That’s what a woman knows. That’s what a woman promises. That’s how a woman lives. You don’t know.”

I turned back to the front of the class. Discussion continued. I don’t remember a bit of it. I do remember that I was never the same.

That day I heard a woman’s story being told in a way I knew wasn’t true, wasn’t accurate, wasn’t right. She was being misunderstood and misinterpreted, even maligned. And though I couldn’t quite see it at the time, it seemed as though his words were being spoken about me. It seemed that way, because it was that way. If I allowed Hannah’s story to be told in a way that felt shortsighted, lacking in grace, and frankly, just wrong, why would I expect that I should feel anything different on my own behalf?

The way in which I hear and tell the stories of other women is directly proportionate to the way in which I live my own. (The same is true for you.)

 

It doesn’t matter that nearly 15 years have passed since the day I spoke up in that class. The stories of staying quiet, following the rules, and doing what’s expected are still being told within my psyche. I can hear the doubts, the insecurities, the fears. I  desperately need to (re)tell stories of  women in reimagined and redeemed ways so that I can reimagine and redeem my own. (The same is true for you.)

And so I do. I (re)tell the ancient, sacred stories of women – over and over and over again.

The more they are understood, the more I understand myself. The more their voices are heard, the more mine is. The more they are seen as brave and beautiful, the more I see myself as such. The more I bring their wisdom forth, the more my own does the same. And the more I free them from old, tired tellings that silence and shame, the more I am freed, unsilenced, and unashamed. Did I mention? The way in which I tell the stories is exactly the way in which I live my own. (The same is true for you.)

Listen to the stories you’ve been told (about yourself, your past, your history, your lineage, your culture, your beliefs). Listen to the way in which they’ve been told. And especially listen to the ones you’ve been telling yourself. Stand up to misunderstanding. Disallow misinterpretation. And put a stop to the maligning. Then look for the stories you need; the ones that will invite you to living your own the way you most desire and most deserve. (I’ve got just a few of these to tell…)

It might be that once you have some reimagined and redeemed stories in your own queue, your own psyche, your very soul, that you, too, will speak up in class, stand up at work – at home – in relationship; that you will say “no,” shout “yes,” step forth, and shine. May it be so.

********
The woman’s story I defended that day? She did get her heart’s desire – and then some. Call her crazy if you want. She knew better. So did I. So do you.

Easter and Eve

Apr 4, 2015 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

What if Easter was about Eve? What would it be like if the entire “Christian” world celebrated the day that Eve ate the fruit and exited the Garden? What if we painted eggs to symbolize the embryo of all women yet to-come, her “birthing” of a new world, her breaking free? What if we covered the ham with apple slices instead of pineapple? What if we wore snakeskin shoes instead of patent leather? What if we wore hats adorned with  fig leaves?

Does all this seem scandalous, sacrilegious, shocking? I’ll admit it does (a bit) to me, too. But here’s the thing:

You get to decide what you imbue with meaning and significance. You get to decide the symbols that hold sway. You get to decide the stories that speak. You get to define the Sacred – for you!

To have it prescribed, decreed, or demanded never works out all that well.

Believe me: this is not to decry the beauty and mystery inherent in the resurrection story. Not at all. Nor am I arguing that centuries of religious tradition should be abandoned.

What I am saying is that were we to hear and embrace other stories, especially those of women, we might just have a different affnity for the Sacred – both within and without.

This is what I most want for you: an experience and understanding of the Sacred that is unbound and imaginative and extraordinary.

 

  • Perhaps that comes through remembering the empty tomb, Jesus’ resurrection, and the glorious singing of Handel’s Messiah.
  • Perhaps that comes through painted eggs and chocolate bunnies and family ’round the table.
  • Perhaps that comes through a morning of incense and yoga or a cup of coffee and the New York Times.
  • Perhaps that comes through a walk in the sun and the spotting of Spring’s return.
  • Perhaps that comes through holding close the story of a woman who was created in the image of the gods and infinitely loved by the same; who risked everything for the life she imagined was just on the other side of boundary and border and rules; who made dangerous and bold choices; who trusted the know-that-I-know-that-I-know voice within; who survived and persevered and labored and birthed and lived outside Eden; from whom we all descend – her daughter, her lineage, her kin.
  • Perhaps that comes by believing that it is possible to be freed from all that binds (like the darkness of a tomb) through stories and symbols and all-things Sacred; that maybe impossible-to-explain faith somehow endures (like a resurrection).

Ultimately, that is what Easter and the Sacred and Life are about: being loosened from the grip of hopelessness and despair and ushered into the profound awareness that life and joy and miracle not only await, but actually exist.

May it be so.