may, a reflection.

may,

you brought another year of life into being,

(am I really 26?! each birthday since 22 has felt like i have turned the same age over and over again. or is that just denial?)

it was the quietest celebration so far, but still lovely and simple, exactly how i like life to be.

i’m choosing to live a healthier, wholehearted life, so naturally, i splurged on a juicer as part of a birthday gift. i am loving it-besides the fact that i despise anything with beets in it. i must use less beets. yes, that’s it. if you have tried beets and succeeded, please send your wisdom my way because rich, red juice is pretty, and i am all about second chances.

i said good-bye to my staff of another year and came back home from our final retreat to an empty house. i began to miss all the people in my life, e-v-e-r-y last one. some seasons lend themselves to less awareness of the distance between me and the people who know me best; other seasons it’s as real and raw as ever, making me sentimental and teary with lingering thoughts of my kindred friends. i think heaven will be a reunion of sorts, a homecoming of all your favorite people. these people filled my life this year, and i count them as favorites to be sure:

it was a quiet month on the blog, representative of my soul’s current state. i’m trying to learn the language of hope, and more importantly, live and breathe in the Living Hope. for now, that means i need more silence and space to let this breath fill up my lungs, fill the spaces that have become callous and hard, weary and tired. i’m also wondering if the content of this space should change some, as i have been writing A TON about women. i love talking about women, but i want to make sure this space is also one that is open and accessible to all, while also honoring the things that are closest to my heart. i want to constantly be learning.

this has been my meditation from Matthew 11:28 (MSG):

i also found the poem “Have you Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?” by mary oliver this month that made me feel known deep down in all the right and true places. here are some of my favorite lines:

“Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?

Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left –
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

—

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

—-

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daisies,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn’t ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.”

A Different Story: Women in the Early Church

Typically when someone is silenced, they are silenced for a reason. People who silence others always have an agenda- a reputation to protect, a standard to uphold, power to preserve.

When something is labeled “traditional”, it means it has been long-established; it is the way of old in its original, best-intended form.

What, then, would it mean if the traditional way of life was being silenced?

As I begin to read the stories of women in the early church, I am surprised to find 1) how many female leaders there were, and 2) how many of their stories have been hidden or ignored.

In some churches today, women are viewed as “lesser” and “weaker”, believing they are upholding faithfulness to traditional gender roles in the church. While these labels have been and will continue to be challenged, it is important to note that this has not always been the story of women in the church. Jesus and the early church tell a different story.

I’ve always been clear on the way Jesus viewed women; he treated them as valuable, as equals, as disciples. You can see it all over the Gospels in how he sees and interacts with women. You can see it in the story of Mary, the woman he called by name after the resurrection, the woman who ran to proclaim the good news of resurrection to the other disciples. You can see it in the woman at the well, who becomes an evangelist to her town after encountering Jesus. I have never once doubted Jesus’ love for women.

I’ve not been as confident in the church, mainly due to the limited story that has been passed down to me, and also because of my lack of knowledge about church history. When I finally started to search for answers, I found something altogether different than what I had originally been told.

There was Tabitha and Junia and Phoebe and Priscilla, mentioned in the Bible for holding prominent roles in the early church*. There were desert mothers, also called “ammas”, who lead in the desert, whose writings influenced other women and men of their day and still influence the church today. There were women who lead church communities from their homes, where all the early communities met, before Christianity became the official religion of the empire. When this happened, Christianity gained favor in the culture. Only when Christianity moved out of people’s homes and into the public sphere did women’s leadership become socially unacceptable because of the culture’s view of women. Their prominence therefore diminished, but not before we learn of their full acceptance in the early church. According to Laura Swan in The Forgotten Desert Mothers, we are told that women were actually drawn to the church because of the freedoms afforded to them as compared to their lesser roles in culture.

After this change occurred, women responded by finding a new way to lead. Some women, and men as well, found their way to the desert. In part, they were responding to the growing fame of Christianity and feared the loss of their prophetic role in society. They found a spiritual home in choosing subversive, quiet, simple, holy living in the desert. And many followed their lead.

It’s frightening when you begin to realize how many stories of women have been hidden within the church. You can talk about the example of Junia found in Romans 16:7, made more familiar because of Scot McKnight’s book, Junia is Not Alone. Her name has been changed in various translations of the Bible so that people would assume “she” was a “he”. In that passage, Paul addressed her as a leader among the apostles, and we can’t have him saying such things about women, now can we?*

It saddens me that women’s stories in the history of the church are not commonly shared; it has silenced, or at the very least, decreased their influence. It has also created a false picture of “traditional” roles in the kingdom. The actual traditional roles of women in the church were roles of full participation and equality based on the Spirit who was poured out among the whole community.

This reveals to me that there are still many stories to be told and celebrated. One of the gifts of history is its ability to remind us that we are not alone and to teach us of those who have walked the path before. Sometimes we have to search in order to find those who are leading the way.

I hope that we can continue to tell the stories of the past. I pray that it gives us boldness to proclaim our own stories today.

I pray that we would remember.

I pray that those who have been silenced would be heard. I pray that if people continue to be silenced, their lives would have the courage to flow with creativity and influence so that we can learn from them a better way.

I pray that the Spirit, who moved among the women of the past, will continue to move within women, within men, and within the present-day church.

I pray that we would learn to honor the Spirit of the stories of old and trust the same Spirit to continue to move as the wind blows through the people of God today.

*Tabitha (Acts 9:36), Phoebe (Romans 16:1), Priscilla (Acts 18)

*I understand there are also passages by Paul that may be considered problematic as it relates to the role of women in the church. My goal is not to ignore those passages, which I believe are important to discuss and understand, but to simply ask you to consider the many examples given to us in Scripture of the variety of roles women held in the early church.

A Quiet Spirit

I could have used a different word.

Observer, learner, listener.

Quiet is boring; it is too often viewed as weak, mild, timid.

And yet for the last month, quiet has been my experience, my inner state. Some may say quiet is simply an aspect of introversion, but this has felt like a different kind, a quiet of the soul.

I have felt like an observer of other’s worlds and words and rhythms. I have waded deeply into the waters where I desire to learn how to listen. As I do this, I am believing there may not be a greater gift to give the kingdom than a listening ear and an embodied presence.

I have questioned my voice and the voices of others. I became surprised by my  anger toward all the “right” voices. I forgot to steward my anger into something tangible, workable, and healing.

My anger has been a teacher, as all emotions are.

But what will the quiet teach me?

I turn to Henri Nouwen, my spiritual father of sorts, as I often do with my questions. I found his voice saying, “Silence is the home of the word.”

—-

I grew up believing the idea that women were made to be gentle and quiet.

The word the church often forgot to mention here was “spirit”. This verse in 1 Peter 3 finds beauty in the gentle and quiet spirit of a woman. I’m not sure why the church has made it seem like a woman has to choose one or the other, quiet or bold, strong or weak. I’m pretty sure there are women who have bold, powerful messages that have come from quiet, discerning seasons and an active and alive spirit. A quiet spirit brings out the truest and strongest voice. A woman may have a quiet spirit, but when she speaks the word that has been given, as she comes down from the mountain or comes out of the wilderness, it may be time to listen.

A quiet spirit is not weak or mild or boring.

I love hearing of women who are finding their voice, to speak up, to advocate, to live freely into the person they were created to be- strong, loud, wild, carefree, bold, courageous, life-giving, loving, gentle, peaceful, gracious, giving, and the list goes on. No one can be contained to a word or a simple description.

Finding your voice while nurturing the quiet places of your soul will take slow wisdom coupled with courageous words. I still wonder when the right time is to speak and when it is a sacred time to listen. I still question what I have heard in the silence, and I question the things to which my voice boldly wants to speak. I need the wisdom and the patience of a God who sometimes remains painfully silent, while also following this same God who has given mighty words and brave callings to his people throughout history. This God is present and active and moving. Sometimes it is in a quiet voice, a quiet spirit. But it may also be with a shout, a proclamation, a message for all who have ears to hear.

If silence is the home of the word, I will welcome the quiet. When the quiet is embraced, there we can find our voices. And where the wisdom of silence and the power of voice come together, there we will find the Spirit.

Finding Faith

In several recent posts, I have examined the need to be free to ask questions, to not let fear reign in theology, to search God’s heart and to open up our hearts to allow God to search us.

For some, this may be an extremely liberating word- you have desperately desired to open your heart and ask questions, to seek to know God intimately through your questions, your emotion, your pain.

For others, this may lead you to wonder if there are questions that will ever reach a resolve. You may feel eerily uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. You may wonder how someone can have such a question-asking faith. 

Question-asking faith is grounded in a firm belief that presence is more powerful than any question that could ever be answered. This is precisely why Jesus came, in human flesh, to dwell among us. If God had so desired, he could have written the answers to life and resurrection in the sky or on the ground for all to see; he could have put an idea in our minds so that we could use logic and deductive reasoning to reach a conclusion. Instead God chose to put on flesh, the fullness of his presence to earth. He became the “yes” to all the promises of God. (2 Corinthians 1:20) 

Following a person will always be more ambiguous than believing in a clearly spelled-out theory. Another’s presence is at once dangerously mysterious and yet intimately closer to reality than anything we’ve ever known. 

While the presence of God in our midst may not always settle our feelings of confusion and inner turmoil, we do not have to lose belief. A life lived in questions does not have to be a life without belief.  

When we stop asking questions, I would contend that we have lost our hope. When this happens, we stop believing things can be different. We become apathetic, content and lifeless. We deny our longings for peace, hope and restoration. But when we search, we find what makes us come alive. We ask questions because we want to know more, when we hope there is another way. We know all things are not right in this world, so we ask the radical questions and pray the radical prayers to ask that all would be well, all would be healed, and all would be restored.

As we read of Jesus’ life unfolding on earth, we cannot deny his complexity. He answered questions with way too many questions for our comfort. He made complicated, definitive statements, and he occasionally explained them later. His life was a statement in itself. Even once he had died and rose again, he still was asking if they could truly see him. 

I find comfort in my questions, not because they ground my beliefs, but because the person of Jesus welcomed questions. He patiently showed those with whom he interacted that they were often asking the wrong questions. He extended compassion and mercy. He pushed people forward. He would not allow them to stay comfortable, especially the religious people of the day. People rarely left his presence with their old faith paradigms. And yet, when the ones closest to him did not understand him, his faithful presence remained with them. 

Jesus is always propelling us forward, to seek this wild kingdom, this hope of heaven come to earth. Our questions reveal our desire to learn, and he is our great Teacher. But he also promised something greater for us: 

His presence. 

So please, keep seeking, keep knocking, keep asking questions.

But do not forget in the midst of your questions that the presence of Christ dwells in you richly. It is leading you forward in love and into questions that bring forth the fruit of the mysterious, surprising and loving Spirit. So live in wonder, in questions, and in his ever-present love. And this is where you will find faith. 

Safe Places in a World of Questions

Were any of you the little child who incessantly asked your parents or parental figures, “why?” after every answer they gave.

“Daddy, can I roll down the window?”

“No, it’s too cold out.”

“Why?”

“Because it is snowing outside.”

“Why?”

“Because the water vapor cooled to below freezing and formed into snow.”

“Oh.”

Were you ever this child? This interchange is one I commonly hear from parents with endlessly curious children. I love the wonder of a child.

Our childhood wonder fades quickly, whether by force, cynicism, education, or a myriad of factors. Once you get a little older, you realize that not everyone is as patient as your parental figure. Did anyone else hate it when people said to them, “no question is a bad question.” No one ever means that truthfully, do they?

Several of the most basic human needs are to know we are safe and secure. We will often do whatever it takes to feel safe. At times our need for safety sacrifices our authenticity.

As I grew into adulthood, I began to question if my environment was a safe one in which to ask questions. I was confronted with the reality that there were many invisible limits and boxes to the scope of questions that were acceptable to ask within the church. I also wondered what other factors enhanced our fear of unveiling our most genuine, pressing questions.  I didn’t see others asking, and so I assumed my questions were not worth asking. So I begin to keep them contained within me.

When our questions are not welcomed, we begin to live in fear. The fear slowly teaches us that it may be better for us if we stayed silent. Our silence then takes us into places of isolation. We come to believe that we are the only ones wrestling and working out our thoughts and beliefs.

As a restless, curious person, I get abundant energy from asking questions. I have learned that this inner turmoil can bring about great realizations, serving to change my perspective and enhance my passions.

The beauty of processing questions out loud in community is that we begin to see how we can shape and sharpen one another. We define a new kind of safety, one that is secure but not always certain, a home that is safe but always evolving.

In this home, we know that our questions represent more than mere words; they represent who we are, with the good and the imperfect and the not yet known. We cannot process our questions without a listener. A listener not only hears a question but sees the whole person. A listener reminds the person that we are on this journey of faith together.

Henri Nouwen says in his book, Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith:

“To be a witness means to offer your own faith experience and to make your doubts and hopes, failures and successes, loneliness and woundedness, available to others as a context in which they can struggle with their own humanness and quest for meaning. Instead, we often hide behind our many emotional, mental, spiritual masks. Who really wants to make their struggles available to others as a source of growth and understanding? Who wants to be reminded of their weaknesses and limitations, doubts and uncertainties? Who wants to confess that God cannot be understood, that human experience is not explainable, and that the great questions of life do not lead to answers but only to deeper questions?”

Our questions remind us of a forgotten phrase in today’s culture: “I don’t know”. Our questions help us fathom the nature of God’s heart. Our questions remind us that we need others; we need to ask for needs to be met, for beliefs to be talked out, for another’s presence to be our comfort in the dark, stormy places of this world and of our hearts.

Everyone needs safe people and safe places- to ask, to journey, to wrestle out faith, to cry, to laugh, and to simply be. Everyone needs a home.

What does it mean to be a safe person?

How could you become a safer person for those around you?

Are you afraid of your questions?

When Imperfect is Enough

In prayer, we bring all that we have before God and ask that it would be enough. 

We crave perfect theology, perfect people, perfect formulas. 

We believe if we achieve perfection, we will find comfort. So we lay down our lives in search of all things perfect. 

In a world of perfection, there is no need for grace. 

I am learning that the only thing I truly have to give the world is me. My mind, my body, my heart, my hands. Anything else has and never will be mine. God has graciously given us these bodies in which we learn to tread lightly on this sacred earth. All I can do is be faithful with this one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver would say. 

We offer up our bodies as living sacrifices, something that teaches us to lay our whole selves flat on the ground and confess, “this is all I have”. I give my whole self, all my brokenness and imperfections,

and You make it enough.  

This body, this imperfect flesh, 

this is all we have,

and this is all we can give-

As sacrifice, 

as obedience,

as love,

as broken.

Our dear, late friend and fellow ragamuffin Brennan Manning would call this an act of grace, saying, “all is grace, and grace is enough.”

Live in grace, and you will find that it is enough. That you are enough. 

The One who taught us how to be human takes our imperfection and makes it enough. 

Amen. 

When Women Become Angry

One of my favorite scenes in the documentary, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”, is the scene where Leymah Gbowee proclaims, “We are tired and we are fed up with the war.” (Let’s pause for a moment and marvel in the strength of this Nobel Prize Winning woman. Her life and story continuously inspire me.) She is a woman who surrendered her whole self to a prophetic vision from God. She understood that working for peace did not mean silencing anger, but using it to bring about the greater good. Women were united by this tangible and spiritual non-violent movement. They experienced anger, defeat, tears and resistance yet they persevered. When their righteous anger led, it revealed their passion and brought results to a country and a people in need of peace.

In the search for peace and justice, sometimes women need to get angry. 

Emily, who has taught me much through her writing, wrote recently about what she is learning from her anger. I found this statement of hers profound: “God’s anger is never without cause.” Therefore, strong feelings around causes and people can be some of the holiest of feelings. Anger does not have to draw us away from God; it may even have the ability to draw us closer to the heart of God.

Recently I have been increasingly aware of my protective mama-bear tendencies. When I see injustice or bondage created and perpetuated, specifically for my sisters, I become angry. As I am becoming more comfortable with my anger, I am also learning how to respond to it. Sometimes responding means this: writing furiously, exercising while listening to the new JT album, and possibly in the most-dramatic fashion, laying on my living room floor conceding that some days I don’t even know what to do with the world. And once I do those things, I am moved to action. To partner with God by putting feet to my anger and to my prayers.

Anger reminds me that I am alive. That I have values worth fighting for. That I have those in my life for which I will declare loudly, “don’t mess with my people”. That I believe Jesus experienced anger at unjust systems inside and outside of the church. That I have a growing concern with how many people are put in bondage, especially within the church. That I believe in a God who interacts with us through intense emotion as seen throughout the Psalms, in the words of prophets, and in the God who put on flesh- physical, emotional, human flesh- and dwelt among us. 

Yes, there are definitely harmful ways in which anger can be expressed, and I am guilty of these reactions as well. In a culture where men’s anger is normalized, women are taught to express emotion only through tears or not at all, producing a culture where both men and women do not know what to do with their anger. We forget the complexity of each person and how it is often expressed through emotion. We don’t always get the expression right, but the answer cannot be to suppress.

The answer comes in learning how to express in healthy ways, to not be consumed by it but to gain awareness around all of our emotions. When we express them with close friends or through written words or art, we may find we have been holding on for too long, or we just may find there is a reason to be angry. And then, beautiful ground is laid before us in which we can respond with strength and grace. This is the power of righteous, mama-bear anger to bring about change for the common good.

Have you felt as though you need to suppress your anger? Have you seen healthy displays of anger, whether in yourself or in others? How do we use our anger to move us forward?

What Fear Can Do to Our Theology

I found myself in a conversation the other day that went something like this: I said, “some say this sounds new age-y, but…” And then I realized, what I was about to say wasn’t new age-y at all; it was quite spiritual. So I said that.

But then I realized I needed to clarify that I didn’t mean spiritual in the “spiritual but not religious” sense because apparently that is a dangerous phrase in Christian territory.

It is rather exhausting to live in this clarifying state of fear that someone will react to all of our words and ideas, especially as they relate to God. I didn’t need to convince myself that these terms were okay; I needed to convince my listener.

Convincing my listener was code that meant I was trying to protect how I was seen by this person, rather than explaining how I view God. I have learned that God can handle my language and honesty, my questions and imperfect theology. I fear that others cannot, and therefore I clarify, qualify, and often withdraw. 

What naturally flows from trying to protect God is a kind of extremism. We react with extremes when we have something to protect. It make us feel in control. If you entertain a new idea, everyone is up in arms about your belief and questions everything about you. They list all the reasons why you are wrong and defend all the reasons they are right.

A place where everyone needs to clarify everything they say is not a safe place. Instead it creates an environment that lacks trust and generosity of spirit. I need to clarify for fear that you will think differently of me, question my salvation, and never listen to me again.

Don’t get me wrong; explanation and understanding are important things. Clarification, on the other hand, comes from an internal radar that is telling us “this person isn’t safe” or “this person won’t understand”.

It is refreshing to meet people who do not feel the need to clarify every little detail for fear of others. People who just say things as they are- no BS, no qualifiers. They know themselves well enough to know that others can judge them if they want; it does not tear down their identity. They know it is both okay to hold their thoughts humbly while also speaking them boldly. They know much of life is lived out in the gray spaces, but they are going to live it to the full all the same. 

They do not let fear rule their actions. They do not pretend to know everything. They may need forgiveness often, but they have learned to offer it. They welcome others with their bold voice because an open, honest voice is surprisingly inviting. A voice that says, “it is okay that you don’t have everything figured out. People who act like they do are pretending.”

I often find that the more extreme one’s defenses become,  the smaller the chance is that they actually know why we believe what we do. Fear and control have consumed them.

And yet I’m learning that letting go does not have to mean I am letting go of God. In fact, it is a letting go of fear and control so that I can receive God. 

We often hold on ever so tightly to our theology because, obviously, it is what we think about God. If our view of God changes, then our whole world feels rocked. We feel like God needs us to defend him. When in reality what we are doing is protecting our idea of God, therefore protecting ourselves, not God.

Because we have spent all of our time protecting, there has been no time to create, to explore, to dream, to consider. Only when we let go can we begin to create and receive new things. We can ask new questions in partnership with God knowing that the Spirit is not one of fear, but brings new life, freedom, and peace.

A Freedom Letter to My Sisters

dear ones,

there are some words that have been forming, building, bubbling in me for quite awhile-

songs of peace and freedom,

words of grace and truth.

see, God has given you worth, created you in his glorious image-

your giving heart, your wise intuition,

your beauty inside-out and your gracious, strong mind.

the more you live into who you are,

the more you will give the One glory.

you, yes you, are wise to make decisions,

you are free from another’s control,

you have so much good and beauty to give the world;

you are bursting with worth.

do not let anyone look down on you because you are woman

if he or she tells you “you cannot” or “you should not”,

please consider if these words are wise and true,

do not fear your questions. 

please weigh their words (are they calling you into more freedom or bondage?),

do not lose yourself in another human’s expectations (or your own).

When you have lost your way, when another’s expectations have created unnecessary turmoil and fear,

consider what our Friend and Lord would say-

a Voice full of life-giving freedom,

always creating and planting and growing life in you.

The Lord says, “woman, I see you, I do not condemn you, you have an irreplaceable role to play in the Kingdom.”

As you learn to hear this,

slowly start to join in the chorus,

start singing along to the freedom song he has already been singing over you.

learn to let go of the words of fear, condemnation, control-

let the Savior teach you who you are, let the Spirit guide you into truth.

I pray that you are not bound.

I pray that you would know your fullness and God’s fullness, 

so that this partnership would come together to bring about glorious beauty, beyond what you could ever imagine.

Run toward freedom songs, gracious words, a peaceful spirit, and the ones who believe in your uniqueness, your calling, your ability, your beauty.

You are loved.

Sincerely,

another sister just trying to be free

Your Voice and His Tears

We sat alone together in the infamous prayer chapel on a Friday night. We were alone and yet the space was full. Full of our silence, full of our singing, full of our prayers.

I walked up to the statue in the front. In most holy places, we see Jesus depicted on the cross, and as we gaze we remember the work that was completed in that moment. We wonder how it felt for the disciples to see the death of their supposed savior. We doubt with them and we become afraid. Was he really who he said he was? We have no hope of resurrection. And yet, I move quickly from this image. Show me Jesus and the empty tomb, tell me of death AND resurrection. Do not let me sit with fear, doubt, or death.

As I walk up to You, I see a different kind of statue. You are laying down, hands outreached. You are in the garden; I know this not because of your surroundings but because of the look in your eyes. I know those tears, I have felt emotion like you, I have also offered up a prayer unanswered. You are anguished, you are broken, you are human, you are approaching your death. Yet there is something that is inviting me in your presence. This is the God who understands. This is the God who knows what its like to be alone. This is the God who enters into human pain and does not run from it. I imagine and I wonder what you felt that night. I  look at you in amazement, in awe of your promise, your commitment, your faith, your love.

And we sit in silence, because that is what you do in a prayer chapel, and that is what you do when you see Jesus face to face in the garden. After some time, we sing together. We sing a hymn, you put psalms to song because your voice always transcends the earthly and I need a beautiful, freedom song about now. I need to cry and I need to rejoice. We sing and we know the lament of David; you sing it and know it well. We join with Jesus in his tears, we sing hymns with all we have, and you lead. We have this sacred way of knowing when to sing and when to remain quiet. This is what the Spirit creates in sisterhood.

Did you know the moment so holy? Did I know?

Will I remember his face? Will I remember his tears?

Your voice- transcendent, holy, worship-full. When you sing, I remember.

A humble, holy, human Savior- who I met once again in that chapel.

It was a holy night. 

(Photo Credit: 
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22633334
)