A Woman’s Faith

Mar 14, 2013 | Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power

It takes faith to be a woman. Whether married or single; a mother or not; a lover and/or friend; self-employed, other employed, or unemployed; a home owner or renter; physically fit or not; old(er) or young(er); extroverted or introverted; religious/spiritual or atheist/agnostic; sister, cousin, aunt, daughter. Each of these requires something more of us, takes something more from us, and calls forth something more in us.

This is not the Faith of our Fathers: a rock solid, immovable system of belief in a male god, a hierarchical church, a patriarchal theology and all the tenets therein.

This is the faith of our Mothers: oft’ unknown and unnamed by them, but ours to carry, to name, to memorialize, to grieve, and to heal. This is a faith that is fluid, highly adaptable, feminine, and grounded in a belief in self.

This is a woman who knows, relies on, and makes her substance known/seen in every realm – living out loud in unconscious, gracious, natural ways. A woman who understands her power, her presence, her passion. A woman who imbues life and wisdom in every conversation and relationship. A woman who gives a resounding, “Yes!” to all things beautiful , tender, vulnerable, courageous, and justice-
focused.

A woman who risks everything for what/who she loves. A woman who sacrifices and suffers much on behalf of her own heart and the hearts of others. A woman who can see the impact and ramification of her words, her thoughts, her actions and chooses integrity, compassion, and generosity at every turn.

A woman who extends herself and others grace. Who does not hide in places of shame or silence; rather, can and will acknowledge her goodness (sometimes fleeting and floundering, other times bold and amazing) and her truest voice. A woman who knows patience – with self and with others.

A woman who is real. Afraid. Tentative. Hopeful. Dangerous. Weighing. Balancing. Walking a tightrope. Hanging on by a thread. Loving with abandon. Getting burned. Making mistakes. Achieving greatness one moment at a time. Believing in herself. Laughing. Weeping. Comforting. Knowing. Holding.

The Sacred Feminine with flesh. The power, knowledge, and beauty of the ages woven into her heart, her mind, her soul. Undaunted. The goddess within. Not an entity outside ourselves in which we place our belief, our trust, our hope. She is seen and experienced in a strength, a power, a beauty we know in our bones – even if only faintly – as an echo, a whisper, a breeze.

This knowing, this belief, this faith is intuitive, resonant, and wholly ours. We imbibe it/her. We inhabit it/her. And she inhabits us.

Have faith, woman. She is here.

In Me. In You.

Eve Screams “No!” (Part 2)

Feb 14, 2013 | Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power

Part One of this post was written a few days ago, prompted by an all-too-familiar place of self-contempt. Through the din of that negative, internal chatter I heard Eve scream, “No!”

Eve’s scream on my behalf compels an even more piercing one on behalf of her daughters.

Eve screams, “No!” at the angering reality that one in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime.

Eve screams, “No!” at the unimaginable levels of atrocity that are too often ignored, dismissed, politicized, and thereby increased.

Eve screams, “No!” to the excruciating awareness that the very telling of her story has, at least in part, contributed to unimaginable harm to her legacy and kin.

Eve screams, “No!” as she watches girls sold, women abused, bodies torn, and hearts broken.

Eve screams, “No!” to any and all ways in which her lineage are denied their freedom, their desires, their appetites, their longings; any and all ways in which they are told to be silent, play small, take the blame, and feel shame.

She does not scream alone.

Another Eve stands alongside her who champions the same. Eve Ensler is an activist and author of The Vagina Monologues. She is also the leader of the ONE BILLION RISING movement, its culmination occurring today – around the world – as one billion women and men rise on behalf of the one billion women who will be impacted by violence; who will experience anything less than their divine heritage as Eve’s daughter.

ONE BILLION RISING is:

  • A global strike
  • An invitation to dance
  • A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
  • An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
  • A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
  • A new time and a new way of being

Eve’s primal, DNA-level scream of “No!” is embodied in Eve Ensler’s invitation to us: to dance, to walk out, to rise up, and demand that violence against women and girls end.

These Eve’s together – their screams (and their hearts) compel ours. And ours, united, can change the world.

Join ONE BILLION RISING. Scream-and-rise-and-dance-and-walk out on behalf of your forebear – the original Eve, in solidarity with Eve Ensler and one billion others, and on behalf of all Eve’s daughters.

We cannot return to the Garden of Eden (nor would we want to), but we can reclaim a world imbued with a loving God; where both genders are equal, empowered, and honored; where choice and freedom and unbridled desire reign; where endless, tenacious hope swells.

Worth screaming for. Worth rising for. Worth dancing for. Worth living for.

Eve shouts, “Yes!”

Elegance & Crudeness

Feb 4, 2013 | Spirituality, Writing

A quickly-composed and deeply-felt post in the middle of my day…

Despite all obstacles placed in my way, many of which I erected myself, I am writing today.

I am writing about the Divine Feminine.

My history in regards to such, misconceptions that abound, and ways in which She is experienced both within and without. I am writing about my own religious tradition and the ways in which even the uttering of Her name would have well been understood as heresy from the pit of hell. I am writing about the ways in which that has confused me for so many years. And I am writing about how my movement toward Her has invited me into expansiveness, empowerment, and faith beyond-compare.

As I write, I have been reflecting on words spoken by artist and activist Callahan McDonough:

“I look for that balance of elegance and crudeness in my work and the daily reference in the ‘doing’ of the work. My desire is for my work to be experienced out in the world, to make a difference that touches people’s lives.”

Yes, this.

There is a balance of both elegance and crudeness in writing. Even more, in life. When I allow for both, I then extend myself grace and forgiveness. When I allow for both, I am compelled to higher levels of creativity without incessant second guessing. When I allow for both, I find myself in a place where darkness does not overcome light, nor does shadow or resistance overwhelm.

I am writing today. About some of the hardest things: my own story, my own doubts, my own fears. But in each, allowing confidence and doubt, hope and despair, and yes, elegance and crudeness; the jumble of emotions, talents, insecurities, and stories that are me.

Oh, that we would live our lives in such a place: aware of the elegance and crudeness innate in us all – allowing for both and calling forth ever-more. What might we yet create? What might we yet imagine? What might we yet birth?

Yes, this: birth. The primary and original place in which elegance and crudeness coexist. The primary and original place in which women bring forth their innate and particular power. The primary and original place in which miracles occur and the Divine Feminine makes herself known. The primary and original place in which God is made manifest in the world. Elegant. Crude. Beautiful.

I’ll take more of that, please.

A Lament

Jan 23, 2013 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom, Writing

I’ve been tricked. ‘Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus is playing on Pandora. What? It’s an instrumental station – conducive-to-writing music – not old hymns! Aaaaaaugh! Every word cycles through my mind – even though I try to resist; even though not a one is actually sung. All I can do is angrily, uncontrollably weep.

Really? Trust in Jesus? Believe that God is at work in my life? How am I to do so in the midst of such excruciating heartbreak? Is this God’s will? Is this God’s plan? Is this God’s desire?

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus when I’m getting my way, when things are as I want them to be. Not so much, when life feels like it’s going to hell in a hand-basket. When relationships fail. When wounds penetrate deeper than we thought we could ever bear. When disappointment feels like a crushing burden. When sadness catches in our chest so painfully that wee can hardly breathe. When anxiety nearly consumes all sane thought.

Where is the sweetness? Where is the hope? Where is the love? Where is God?

Thank, God. The song just ended . . . 

*****

At any given time I probably have 20 draft posts sitting in the queue. I think of something, see something, ponder something and jot down just enough to jog my memory later. Sometimes I return to what I started and craft something more. Often, I end up trashing most of it.

The words above were one of those drafts. I stumbled across it just today. Excruciating memories flooded as I pieced together the scenes of when I wrote it and why. Thankfully, the circumstances of that particular day have passed, but the reality and rawness of the emotions can still be felt, even now.  I considered trashing it, but then stopped. Here’s why:

It’s all good and well to skip merrily through our days – full of faith in a God who loves and provides. Until our faith fails because God seems to.

How are we to understand God in such places? How are we to hold on to trust? How are we to believe? How are we to hope? And what are we to do?

I wish I had answers. (Well, I have a few, but they just don’t suffoce in such places and those who tell you different are, in my not-so-humble-opinion, lying.) Here’s the best I can do:

Sometimes (if not often) we just need space, time, and frankly, permission to rage…at God.

So here it is: permission.

Take it. It’s yours. No lighting will strike. No coal in your stocking. No plague of frogs (a story from Exodus – or, if you prefer, the movie, Magnolia.) Be furious. Be pissed. Storm. Curse. Rail. Scream. Weep. Whatever. God’s OK with it. I promise. And if you don’t want to take my word for it, how about these? You are in good company:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
(From Psalm 13)

Why is life given to those with no future,
those God has surrounded with diffculties? I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water. What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true. I have no peace, no quietness. I have no rest; only trouble comes. (From Job, Chapter 3)

*****

What I shared at the start of this post is hardly the first of such drafts I’ve written, but never published. Many have been trashed. And many more exist on untitled-but-saved files. They show up in journals scattered throughout my house. And had I kept the thousands of pages onto which I’ve poured my heart over my lifetime, we’d be buried; more lament would be present than praise.

It’s not that my life has been harder than others. It’s not that I’ve endured anything even closely resembling the stories of some. Hardly.

But my life is my own – just like yours. And my life, just like yours, is filled with heartache that deserves to be expressed; that must be expressed. There is no other way. Not really. So says Holocaust survivor, Elie Weisel:

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

So pour out your heart. Lament like there’s no tomorrow. And tomorrow will come. I promise.

Happy 47th Birthday to Me!

Nov 30, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

After writing posts for both of my daughters on their birthdays, I thought it only fitting that I do the same for myself!

Happy Birthday to me!

This has been a full, rich, painful, beautiful, long, amazing, surprising, miraculous, arduous, labor-filled year. I have known many tears, much frustration, and deep anguish. I have also known more laughter and life than ever before. I have been struck again and again by how amazing it is that both can coexist and frankly, be enhanced when juxtaposed to one another.

I’ve had many conversations with Emma and Abby this past year about what it means to let more than one thing be true at the same time: disappointment and hope, sadness and joy, frustration and desire. And this has been a year of that being enfleshed within me – on their behalf, certainly, but powerfully, on my own.

I have found much strength within me these past twelve months; strength that has enabled me to make difficult decisions and then live with the ramifications of such, strength that has allowed me to survive – and even thrive – in places I’d feared (and avoided) for many years. And that strength has, amazingly, not made me tougher, harder, or colder; rather, its enabled me to feel more tender, compassionate, and “present” to my own heart and the heart’s of others. I’m grateful.

Last year at this time I could have never been convinced of or prepared for the twelve months that were about to commence. Note to self: be glad you don’t know the future! Out of curiosity, I went back to the past – to my blog posts from about a year ago to see what I was writing. I came across some October, 2006 reflections on the women of Proverbs 1 and 31 that were amazingly prophetic for the year that was to come:

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, dignified and fearless, forever laughing with the abandon of a child. God knows and loves this woman. I am becoming this woman.

Indeed, I am. I feel more wise, more able to listen to those who are unseen, forgotten, or harmed, strengthened through perseverance and certainly struggle, more dignified, more fearless, and often laughing both with the abandon of a child – and with my own children.

I am this woman. Amazing.

That’s a year worth celebrating in the midst of acknowledging and grieving its losses and pains.

Another year older. Another year of being the grateful recipient of consistent, unpredictable, mysterious, and precious life.