setting an extra place

Christians often speak too narrowly of vocation. Certainly, many of us feel called to medicine, caregiving, or teaching, to public service or art. We have a fire in our bones to wield our passions and talents well to make a difference, yet not everyone is paid for her labor or finds their job fulfilling, rendering many insignificant or invisible in conversations about purpose and calling. But there are infinite ways to make an impact, including when economies slow, life derails our best laid plans, and even our bodies betray us.

I've got a piece up today at The Mudroom about community and hospitality. Come say hello, won't you? It's been a while!

image: jirfy

when life just doesn't add up {guest post lauren}

Lauren is someone I know via Twitter, and I'm glad to host her words here today. She gives voice to some of the difficulties of reconciling the faith we inherited as kids with the frayed-edge realities of adult life, and I think it will be a familiar story to many. It was for me. Thanks, Lauren.

I’ve been angry with God. I don’t know the day it started. I didn’t even realize it until recently. What I know is that some dark, unrelenting force has been lurking under every experience, every joyful moment, every thought for more than a year. The crux of it is this: this is not the life I feel I was promised. I sacrificed and waited, prayed and fasted, casted my cares, and praised my way through. And I’m still not where I imagined I would be. I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that life isn’t fair.

Growing up, we were in church almost every day. Sunday morning. Sunday evening. Prayer on Monday and Tuesday nights. Bible Study on Wednesdays. Youth activities on Saturdays. Underneath all the scripture, books, classes, sermons, lectures, hugs, corrections and honest-to-goodness love, I got this message: Do the right thing, and you will get the right life. Along the way, I made some bad decisions. I wasn’t perfect; I felt like I was punished accordingly. I also saw the ‘saints’ talk about (and sometimes experience) difficult times, like death, divorce, and unemployment. But I still knew, I mean truly believed to my core, that ultimately, if I would just obey God’s word, I would have a good life with mostly joy, mostly stability, mostly peace. Depression would be a thing of the past. Resentment would be something that only sinners felt. Being broke? Oh no. That was clearly a judgement for people who were of reprobate mind…and neglected to pay their tithes. Definitely not for me.

When it comes right down to it, I guess justice and logic have been my guiding lights. 1+1=2. Ice cream and cheese cause gas. Sinners go to hell. You know, things that make sense. But my God, was that wrong. I mean, for one thing, I can eat Kraft Mac & Cheese with no problem, but no Sonic milkshakes?!

Cognitive dissonance is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. Seeing Trayvon Martin’s murderer walk free is one violent example of cognitive dissonance for me. On the one hand, I was taught America was a country of justice, freedom, and brave men. On the other hand, I saw a coward shoot an unarmed teenager through the heart and receive no punishment. How could this be? In my mind, I still struggle with it. One of these has to be wrong. America is bad and killers walk among us? It's a struggle to come to terms with these types of injustices. Nuances aside, wrong is still dead ass wrong.

So with my faith, I really still have not been able to settle in my heart that "Doing the right thing" may not lead to "A good life." Perhaps it’s my foolish Millennial optimism. Perhaps my reasoning skills are amiss. I certainly have sin I haven’t acknowledged or repented for. Whatever it is, the discontent led to an abiding anger with God, and this, of course, led to more poor decisions. But it also led me to re-align my understanding of the world. God probably hasn’t sent disease to punish the wicked. The rapture, as I learned it, may be myth. Unfortunately, dairy still causes awful tummy-aches. I’m still driven by logic, but I question more--and I allow room for more than one right answer.

Still, I kind of keep expecting God to swoop down out of the clouds, say “Just kidding!” and give me my husband, 2.5 children, big bank account, and endless joy. I think, “Fellowship of suffering, got it, now give me my REAL life!” I don’t know if any of this will ever truly make sense to me. Some part of me will probably always feel like I “deserve” more (ignoring my wildly inflated sense of self-righteousness).

But I’m slowly (and I mean snail’s pace) learning to build a life of what is, not what could have been or what was supposed to be. I’m thanking God through hot, reluctant tears and an angry heart because I know, This is my good life. It will never ever be easy, I will probably always battle depression and loneliness, and nobody is going to rescue me, even if I’m really, really faithful. God still loves me, and I believe no tear falls in vain. I’ll shake my metaphorical fist toward heaven, twist and rail against God’s tight grip and collapse from emotional exhaustion, but He won’t let me go.

Lauren lives & works in SC. She loves Jesus, food, nieces, and science fiction. She's working daily to decolonize her own mind as well as the minds of those around her. You can follow her on Twitter @whimsikal.

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#FaithFeminisms: i believe in inequality

My feminism is (almost) done talking about equality.

If we take folks at their word, it would appear that almost everyone already believes in it. We wouldn’t dream of being racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory. We know better. We’re good, welcoming people with the best intentions, but if Wisdom is truly proved right by her deeds, something is deeply amiss.

The Declaration of Independence asserted “all men are created equal,” but history proved white, Protestant, propertied men to be considerably more “equal” in practice, and not nearly enough has changed. “Separate but equal” Jim Crow segregation couldn’t demonstrate anything remotely resembling racial equality, and its shameful legacy persists to this day in our neighborhoods, schools, prisons, and halls of power.

Although certainly not analogous in degree or kind, plenty of Christians profess to believe in gender equality right alongside female submission and a hierarchy of roles in church and home. But more inclusive theologies and progressive politics aren’t a reliable indicator of functional equality either. If they were, certain denominations and communities would be that great Promised Land where none were limited by gender, skin color, ethnicity, status, sexuality, or any other difference, but we’re not there yet by a long shot. We’re not post-racial or post-feminist, yet we’re so eager for progress (and distance from those sorts of people) that we’re ever tempted to claim victories prematurely. Belief in equality of worth slowly morphs into the misconception that structural equality has already been functionally achieved. Mission Accomplished. We did it!

But a presence overlooked and ignored is not an absence. Those benefiting from the continued marginalization of others are in no place to proclaim how far we’ve come or what counts as harm, and despite all our believing in equality, white / male / heterosexual / cisgender / educated / Christian / conventionally attractive / upwardly mobile / neurotypical / able-bodied  perspectives and people are still honored as more “equal”. More authoritative. More respectable and civil. More rational, more trustworthy, more gracious, and more deserving. Gendered and racialized micro-aggressions exist perniciously (alongside other types), even if those in power fail to recognize them.

If a noble concept such as “equality” can be so consistently twisted to include or overlook subordination, propped up hierarchies, and a host of harmful and exclusionary practices and beliefs, perhaps it’s time to change the conversation.

I believe in inequality. I’m seeking confirmation that you believe in it, too – that you believe me – that together we may work to subvert hierarchies and birth another Way.

Can you acknowledge people as experts on their own lives and experience? If people of color, women, and  LGBTQ voices speak up about discrimination, will you write us off as bitter or toxic? Do you assume we’re overreacting, uneducated, or being emotional? Are we “playing the victim?”

If you hear talk of oppression or marginalization, do your eyes glaze? Are your lips quick with a sigh and rebuttal about the un-Christlike perils of “ideology” or “identity politics”? Do you really believe that your own perspective is somehow neutral and above the fray, unmarred by social location, assumption, or worldview? Is it possible that the benefits granted you by systems actively privileging your voice and value over others have compromised your ability to be objective or to assume the moral high ground?

Each of us is biased, formed by our own histories, identities, and experiences. I cannot leave my middle class whiteness at the door when I do theology or anything else, and each situation and perspective I encounter I experience as a woman.

But we can work to cultivate lenses oriented toward the margins and liberation. We can refuse to spiritualize Jesus’ declaration that he brings good news to the poor, recovery of sight for the blind, and freedom for prisoners and all who are oppressed. We can remember that Christ was executed by the state only to rise from the dead, making spectacle of its powers and principalities of violence and domination. We can listen to perspectives unlike our own, allowing ourselves to be softened and shaped by them. We can exercise compassion and humility, honoring Wisdom from the margins where Jesus pitched his tent and dwells.

WISDOM FROM THE MARGINS

Does not Wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?

To you, O people, I cry:
set your hearts on me and listen
for my lips will speak the truth

Sophia is not voiceless.

Have we not listened? We are distracted.
Have we not heard? A gift not ours to give.

Incline your ear and understand:
amplify her voice. Her story is her own
but our salvation is entwined.

For those who find me find life
together and to the full.

------------

The conversations happening around #FaithFeminisms this week are tremendously challenging and inspiring. It's rare to find evangelical, liberal, and radical voices in one place, but it's happening here, and I'm excited to contribute my voice in print (and literally, as well). Spend some time on the site and consider linking up a post of your own. Good things are afoot.

[Archived here, here, and here.]

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a beautiful disaster {giveaway}

Marlena Graves is a wise woman who loves Jesus and knows the Scriptures intimately. Our paths crossed at the Festival of Faith & Writing this spring where she appeared on an engaging panel about race and Christian publishing. Graves writes with the winsomely rare combination of authority and humility, and her new book, A Beautiful Disaster, is a study of truths hard-learned in the wilderness. 

There are no pat answers here--just the wisdom of one who's walked the valley of the shadows and kept the faith. She doesn't romanticize or trivialize the desert but illumines how God can utilize even heartbreak for growth and good, drawing from the wisdom of the Desert Father and Mothers as well as modern mystics like Kathleen Norris, Dallas Willard, and Thomas Merton. I'm so happy to have Marlena here today with an excerpt from her book, a worthy title for personal or group study.

Stability in Community (Especially When Community Irritates Us)

We cannot love well unless we are continually being transformed into loving human beings. How are we changed into more loving people? Through reliance on the Holy Spirit while observing those who love well, allowing ourselves to be loved well by others, and being open to receiving the love of God. Bernard of Clairveaux notes, “The more surely you know yourself loved, the easier you will find it to love in return.”ⁱ

We cannot love well and be loved ourselves if we are not committed to a community of Christians. Loving and being loved require that we become stable and active members of the local body of Christ. Drawing on the wisdom of Abba Moses, Bradley Nassif advises that we “stay put and be content with our lives. . . . We must not move from place to place or dwell on what we do not have. . . . We are to learn how to deal with ourselves and our environment where we are as we are.”ⁱⁱ

It is very important to find a good community. A good community doesn’t mean it will be a perfect community. And sometimes God places us in communities we would not have chosen had the choice been ours alone. Initially, none of the life-giving communities I’ve belonged to met all my expectations (as if they exist to serve my preferences). I had to give up some of my expectations in order to accept the work of God in my life and the work God wanted to do in the community, some of it through me. Once we’ve found a community that accepts the way God has made us and is within the bounds of orthodoxy, we stay. We grow roots. We take a vow of stability.

Stability becomes a spiritual discipline when the theater seating, contemporary music, and strobe lights get on our nerves. Or when the uncomfortable pews, organ music, and liturgy irritate us. Maybe the messages leave much to be desired—or the building blandly frames a Sunday experience devoid of beauty. Nevertheless, we stay, grateful for the many gifts of grace God offers through the community. We don’t flit place to place, rootless, like souls without a home.

I am not advocating that we remain in a toxic and abusive community. That we do not do. In that situation, we do what needs to be done for our health and the health of our loved ones. Employment and other familial circumstances may also remove us from a community. But I worry that too often we let superficial reasons, like laziness and being too busy, keep us from living a life of discipleship in our communities. Dennis Okholm writes, “Stability means being faithful where we are—really paying attention to those with whom we live and to what is happening in our common life.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Changing into a more loving and generous human being is a slower process than we’d prefer. It takes longer than we want it to because our unloving ways are so deeply ingrained. But change in general involves, as James Bryan Smith says, “adopting new narratives, spiritual disciplines, community, and the help of God.”^iv These modes of change do not have instantaneous powers of transformation in and of themselves. But together, over time, they transform us.

We might wonder what a transformed, loving person within community looks like. Jan Johnson provides a concrete though not exhaustive list of loving capacities that will develop in us as we abide in Christ—which as we have noted entails abiding in Christian community. She tells us that abiding in Christ will turn us into people who:

• live with joy and gratefulness

• bless enemies (difficult people)

• don’t hold grudges

• care deeply about others

• don’t run off at the mouth but offer caring words

• go the extra mile

• live with purposeful intentionality

• are humble (letting go of pride and not grabbing credit or engaging in power struggles)

• never, ever judge (that’s God’s job) (Matt. 5–7)^v

Learning to Love Well

We grow the most and learn to love the best when we are around those who are different from us. If our ability to love is never challenged, how will we know if we really and truly love? There’s nothing wrong with befriending and hanging out with those who are like us. But if we are to live with joy and gratefulness, not hold grudges, and learn to go the extra mile, we must be open to living among and befriending those in our communities who aren’t like us.

We might ask ourselves if we have good friends who are of different races and ethnicities, friends with different political views, friends from different socioeconomic statuses, and non-Christian friends. If not, why not? We are limiting our experience of the life of God and our resemblance to Jesus if we do not frequently and closely relate with those who differ from us. We need to tear down walls, not erect walls. In our cultivation of friendships, we must be careful not to exclude others. Our relationships aren’t for us alone.

The wilderness opens our eyes to the intrinsic value of Christ’s body by stripping us of our independence. It shows us how dependent we are on the gifts and graces of God. Most often God infuses these graces into our lives through the lives of other believers. Among others we can better figure out what is good for us. With them we can discern what is necessary for our well-being. It’s together that we live a robust life in the kingdom of God and bring life to others. It’s together that we survive in the wilderness.

Marlena Graves, A Beautiful Disaster, Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2014. Used by permission. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Want a copy of Marlena Graves' A Beautiful Disaster? Leave a comment related in some way to community, the wilderness, or books, and I'll draw a winner Sunday night.

i Bernard of Clairveaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairveaux: Selected Works, The Classics of Western Spirituality Series (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 179.

ii Bradley Nassif, “The Poverty of Love,” Christianity Today, http://www.christianvisionproject.com /2008/05 (accessed September 24, 2008).

iii Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007), 91.

iv James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 189.

v Jan Johnson, Invitation to the Jesus Life: Experiments in Christlikeness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2008), 19.

because white supremacy & misogyny are violence

Writing off what happened in Isla Vista as the work of a madman so unlike ourselves serves only to obscure the misogyny and white supremacy that undergirded Rodger's crimes, conveniently letting us off the hook for the ways those violences are rooted, too, in our own hearts and communities, on our watch. 

Unless we see and name the misogyny and white supremacy in our midst, we baptize a status quo that is inherently violent, hierarchical, and unjust.

Hold it up to the light. Make it visible. Make it change.

I've got a profile up at Micah Murray's site today on Elliot Rodger's racism, hatred of women, and related "aggrieved entitlement" as indicators of violence. Let's not lose this moment further (and needlessly) stigmatizing mental illness. Let's interrogate instead our cultures of violence and light a better way.

on fearless friendship & mentoring well

All too often, friendship is a consolation prize, a means to an end, or a perceived way station on the way to the bedroom or altar. We hear that men and women can't be friends; women inevitably compete and back-stab each other; and men don't even need friends, since emotional intimacy is for girls, useful to men only as currency to buy sex. 

We're largely missing a good, practical theology of friendship as a Church. We need to live a better story as the Body of Christ.

I'm over at Dan Brennan's site today writing about mentoring and friendship between men and women, with a challenge to ministry leaders. Come say hi.

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and the beat got sicka

On my nightstand:

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. This book is incredible, and I'm only a few chapters in. A painful (and potentially triggering) read, certainly, but it tells a crucial side to the civil rights movement that is largely missing from popular history, illuminating many of the activists, newspapers, and organizations that fought tirelessly against sexualized violence and for racial justice. Many thanks to Austin Channing Brown who tweeted the NPR piece on Parks' activism that led me to track it down.

The Fault in Our Stars undid me. I can't recall sobbing at a novel like that since Bridge to Terabithia when I was ten. It's a good one, particularly if you have a fondness for catharsis or YA fiction.

We've also been reading lots of kids' lit. Our library is always such a treasure, but when the weather's this terrible, it's a lifeline for which I am tremendously grateful.

On TV:

My favorite show right now, hands down, is Pretty Little Liars. Make of that what you will, but if you've never seen it, I'm jealous that you have four seasons on which to potentially binge, while I have to wait a whole week for one measly hour. It's a soapy teen mystery set where I grew up, everyone has glorious hair, and it's pretty much the best.

I'm so glad Scandal returned, but I wish the Gladiators would get back to working cases, cuz I'm not here for President Fitz's White House woes. Or Quinn. She may even be worse than Fitz.

Jessica and I've been watching Veronica Mars, swooning over Logan, and getting pumped to see THE! MOVIE! that Kickstarter built. Yasssss.

In my ears:

Mostly Beyoncé and entirely too many pre-school singalong renditions of Let It Go. Live Decemberists in the car. Rinse. Repeat.

On the interwebs:

• Lupita Nyong’o Embraces Dark Beauty in Black Women in Hollywood Acceptance Speech (The Root)
• Hollywood: Whitewashing the Bible (Ghetto Monk)
• 'I Am Still Called by the God I Serve to Walk This Out' (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
• Leigh Kramer's series on The Enneagram & Blogging
• Toxicity: The True Story of Mainstream Feminism’s Violent Gatekeepers (Aaminah Khan @ Black Girl Dangerous)
• My 13-Year-Old Wants To Shave His Afro Because His White Peers Won’t Stop Touching It (Liz Dwyer @ My Brown Baby)
• The Power Of Love part 1: James Cone’s Relational Theology (Rod @ Political Jesus)
• There Is No Such Thing As A Child Prostitute [TW] (Washington Post)
• Jordan Davis and Unarmed Blackness (Drew Hart)
• Standing Our Ground In Prayer (Osheta Moore)
• On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
• Worthy (Austin Channing Brown)
• Jubilee: Insight From The Next Generation (Deidra Riggs)

On the blog:

We celebrated six years here. (What.) I wrote about baptized abuse apology and the dawn of something better. And I had posts up at A Deeper Story (Out of Ash) and one at Missio Alliance for their Christianity & Violence Series (Christians, Stop Shooting Our Wounded).

[I did pick party favor winners and will be notifying/mailing shortly: Sarah H, Diana, Christina, and Alyssa. Thanks, everyone!]

On the home front:

Dylan is six, and James is four. We seem to be growing out of some of the eating battles and power struggles and discovering a happy new normal, and it's a beautiful thing. Also, they are now both old enough to go to the YMCA's monthly babysitting night and our friend's weekly youth club, which means that Jim and I have gone out more in the past few weeks that we have in the entire first few years of parenting. Having big-little kids is a game-changer, man. Love.

We booked a house with friends on the Jersey Shore for August. Dreaming of bay view balconies and warm sand beaches and remembering it won't be snowy and sub-zero forever.

Fifteen chirping baby chicks camped out in our bathroom 'til the weather warms:

On the horizon:

Spriiiiiiiing. (Let it be, Lord.) Lent. Mah birthday! Tapping trees. Reading Micha Boyett's Found. Seeing Arcade Fire--with tickets I won:) It's gonna be a good March.

What are YOU looking forward to? Did you watch the Oscars last night? I thought it was a really fun show, even though I've barely seen any of the recognized movies. What was your favorite film/dress/speech/anything? What are you reading, watching, or smitten with of late?

 

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all you his saints

We did it! 31 Days of Embodied Faith was truly a group effort, as fourteen fantastic guests proved heartily. Thank you, everyone, for writing and reading, meditating, and walking the questions with me. It was a fabulous month, and we're not entirely done, as we've still got a few guest spots trickling in, and embodied faith is an ongoing theme 'round these parts.

In case you missed greeting any of our great guests, here there are all in one place. The communion of the saints on this All Saints' Day.

Krista Dalton:  on sacramental feminism

Aaron Smith:  the naked ask

Misty Green: fish out of water

Catherine Hawkins: on waiting

Seth Haines: embodied

Morgan Guyton: fasting, my iPhone, and prayer

Heather Caliri: from my head to my hands

Bethany Paget: faith with scars

Natalie Hart: with all his might

Christina Tremill: the resurrection of the body

Sarah Moon: a faith i can live with

C. Wess Daniels: an ounce of action

Micha Boyett: body of Christ, cup of salvation

Osheta Moore: we are pierced women

Thank you, everyone, for helping me get my writing groove back and continuing this needed conversation about what it looks like to honor God and one another with our whole, embodied selves. I really appreciate wrestling through these practices together.

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we are pierced women {guest post Osheta Moore}

Our paths crossed in an online group of faith writers, and I am continuously struck by the boldness and vulnerability Osheta brings to the page, particularly when she's writing about race, faith, and family. She is a woman who loves Jesus deeply, and her blog, Shalom in the City, is one to watch--a breath of hope in a world of cynicism.

This month on my blog, I’ve been writing about finding my tribe. I’ve never thought about a community of like-minded women as a tribe before, but there’s something fitting about this word that takes its roots in the primitive, organic, and ancient. To be a tribe means to push pass the excess to the essential of who we are and what we stand for.

So my thirty-one days have been on “finding my tribe”, my community who pushes pass the excess to the essentials of Jesus, his life, ministry, and death. Every time I wrote the word, “tribe”, certain images and sounds filled my mind.

I heard vibrant, welcoming, rhythmic beating of drums. I felt the heat from a gathering fire as women dance with abandon, laugh from their bellies, and wet the shoulders of their fellow tribeswomen with cleansing tears. At the word, “tribe”, I pictured sable beauties with shorn hair and fascinating markings on their strong bodies. I see women with interesting piercings, naked and unashamed with their tribeswomen.

And that’s the image that drove my series—a tribe of women so committed to Jesus that we’re willing to be inconvenienced, uncomfortable, and forever changed. Like Jesus, who for love was pierced to stand in solidarity with us, I want to be a woman who loves the women in my life well enough that I am willing to be pierced for them.

Last Friday, for her seventh birthday, after a month of pleading and promising that she was ready, I took my daughter to get her ears pierced. Then, much to her delight, I would get my nose pierced.

But my bold and brazen daughter, who can put her brothers in their place with a well-executed eye roll, stood outside the shop and said, “Mama? I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

After a few hugs and promises that I was with her, and even I was a little afraid, she straightened her spine, shyly smiled, and said, “Let's do this.”

That’s my brave girl! I remember holding her hand as our sexy-chic body art practitioner, who noticed her telltale shaky breaths and nervous fidgeting, knelt down and said, “Girl, you’ve got this” to my little woman-child. “When I’m done with you, it’s going to be so cute, you won’t believe it.”

He winked up at me, and I wondered, ‘How does he get his eyeliner to do that?’

Sitting in his chair as he prepped to pierce, my daughter and I held each other. I could feel her heart beating, yet she smiled and played with my hoop earrings.

“Okay, girls” Sexy-Chic began, “I’m going to count to three. When I get to three, breath in, and when I tell you to… breath out.” He positioned the pink tourmaline stud on my baby’s right ear and gave me another wink over her head.

“1…2…3…” he said confidently, and we breathed in together. “ Now exhale,” and as we breathed out in unison, the stud pierced my daughter, marking that moment with both beauty and pain.

We did the same for her left side, sharing breaths and twitches that reminded of me the hours after her birth when she slept on my chest, twitching and breathing with an exhausted me.

Then we did my piercing, and when she saw tears flowing down my cheek, Trinity handed me a tissue while Sexy-Chic cleaned me up promising, “She’s alright, boo. But isn’t your mama’s nose so cute?!”

Today she remembers our piercing date as fun mommy/daughter activity. And it was, but one day when she’s older, maybe on her thirteenth birthday or when she gets her period, I’m going to sit her down and show her this outing in a different light. I’m going give her a pair of hoop earrings—her first pair and teach her about being a Pierced Woman.

Maybe this first pair will be large beaded silver and gold hoops like the ones she’s eyeing in my jewelry drawer now, or maybe they’ll be simple white gold that goes with everything. They’ll probably be made my refugee artisans as this Tribe, this Jesus Tribe, cares about women globally.

They’ll definitely be chosen with love and care because this lesson is one I want her to hold onto.

I’ll sit across from her, who somehow has become more woman than child, and ask her if she remembers when we got pierced together. And then I’ll tell her,

“Trinity, these hoops are for you. Every time you wear them, I want you to think of Jesus who was pierced for us out of his great love for all people. His love is as never-ending as this hoop is round. When you go to wear them, remember, just as He was pierced for us, so we must be pierced for him and press into the hard of being a Jesus follower, baby.

"When you go to match these hoops with your outfit, remember that this Jesus Tribe is diverse and beautiful and quirky and fun, so take chances. Wear them against an odd color or different texture. Celebrate the different. Remember how Jesus was pierced to bring unity among diversity. This is what we pierced women do, baby: we love the diversity and defend the unity.

"When you put these on, remember how we held each other while you were oh so afraid of the pain of the piercings, and ask Jesus to help you hold your friends when they are afraid. This is what we pierced women do: we hold the terrified in our strong, capable arms since we know what it’s like to be afraid.

"Trinity, I give you these hoops and I hope you remember that I, too, was pierced with you. This is also what we do—we are pierced women who love the pierced King, and we stand with one another through celebration and pain. Just as we both celebrated your seventh birthday and shared in the pain of our piercings, celebrate with your friends and share in their pain. Listen to their keening cries that pierce your eardrums when her heart breaks. Hold her hand and let nails leave marks on yours as she bears the weight of sorrow. And somehow find a way to share in her pain. This is what is means to be a pierced woman.

"And when the usurper of relationships comes to cause you to doubt if your tribeswomen have your back, remember the times they were pierced for you. Go back to your ugly cries on their shoulders and the late night with Ben and Jerry’s. Place your fingers in those holes in your soul left by your tribe’s love, and like doubting Thomas, remember that You. Are. Known.”

And someday when she’s moved away and maybe has a daughter of her own, I hope she comes across those hoops while rummaging through her jewelry box. I hope smiles as she remembers Sexy-Chic and his amazing eyeliner. I pray she remembers how her birthstone just happened to be her favorite color—pink. I pray she remembers being held in my arms, trembling and sharing anxious breaths. Then maybe, she’ll puts those hoops on and ask Jesus, “Lord, help me be a pierced woman today.”

Hi, my name is Osheta. I’m an Assembly-of-God-Methodist-Southern-Baptist-a-teryn turned Anabaptist. I love Jesus who is THE MOST scandalously loving person to walk the face of the earth. I love to dance and you can find me doing the Robot with my husband and three kids in our tiny apartment in Boston. Someday...somehow...somewhere I will be in a flash mob. All the better if we dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"! When I'm not dancing, I'm planting a church with my husband, writing on my blog, Shalom in the City, or watching "Pride and Prejudice" for the eleventy billionth time. 

body of Christ, cup of salvation {guest post Micha Boyett}

At the Festival of Faith and Writing last year, a notable highlight was spending time with Micha over drinks and good conversation. In the time since, she wrote a book, which I cannot wait to get my hands on this spring. She is a gifted wordsmith with the heart of a mystic, and I love the post she bring us today.

I remember the first time I took communion as a kid. I’d been watching the adults do it all my life. I’d been waiting for the day I’d be brave enough to make a confession of faith, to walk the aisle toward the front of my church’s sanctuary with it’s huge golden chandelier and 80’s orange carpet. One choice, one decision to follow Jesus, and I was welcome at the table.

Then, communion was a symbol. Only a symbol. They said this to us over and over until it was ingrained in our minds. And I understood symbol. I loved metaphor, even as a child, my nose stuck in books.

But then, why would Jesus ask us to do this very physical thing if it only had the power of symbolism? If it was just a symbol, couldn’t we just imagine the bread and wine? Why couldn’t we draw pictures of it and experience it in the same way? Why ritualize it if it only stood symbolically?

No, there was something more to it. That was before I learned about sacrament and liturgy, when ritual was still a dirty word. All I knew was that I wanted to take the Lord’s Supper with gravity. I wanted the bread and wine to do something to me, in me.


*

By the time I was pregnant with my first son I was learning to pray using contemplative practices. I was embracing the liturgy. And I was in a church that celebrated communion every Sunday with real wine in a shared chalice. My husband and I had been at this church for two years prior to my pregnancy and during those years, I had taken to putting my lips to the shared cup and gulping, despite my husband’s more sanitary bread dip. 

I had this physical need to live the metaphor each Sunday. I wanted to experience the burn of the wine in my throat. I couldn’t help putting my lips to the chalice where all those lips had gone before me. I wanted connection to our community, germs and all. I wanted a physical faith.


*

Pregnancy is the most physical work I’ve ever done. I felt it in every part of my life. It wrecked me in the hardest and best ways. My body could not build the lives it built without remaking every part of me: how I comprehended, how I experienced emotion, my physical shape, my view of the world. So how could it not also shift my faith?

In those early days of placenta-building and limb-forming, when my stomach rejected every morsel of food given to it, I came to church and begged God to nourish me. I worried, should I gulp that wine in the chalice, me with my early pregnancy and all those studies forbidding alcohol? I dipped for a few weeks, like a good pregnant lady. Then, I couldn’t stop myself. I took the sip straight from the cup. Instead of worrying about the wine or whether or not I’d be able to hold that small bit of bread down, I asked Jesus to go straight through my body and into that little life in me.

Jesus, using me as the vessel, blessing my child.

The thought was too much for me. And so it continued every Sunday, as I grew fuller and fuller with life. Jesus came through bread and wine and I prayed for my little boy in a way I never could with words. I prayed in images, bright colors. I watched the wine and bread flush straight through my organs and nourish my child’s soul. And then I watched Jesus prepare my son for the world. I watched and knew that God had purpose for the little one in me. I believed.

And when my baby arrived, needing my milk, I still took communion with the reverence of a begging mother: Come to my baby, here, through me, I’d pray. Arrive in some way I cannot comprehend.


*

I love metaphor. I love symbol. But, the resurrection of Christ is bigger than symbol. It happened in the Body. So here we are, heart’s beating, flesh and blood, needing God to meet with us in this cracker and single sip from the chalice. Arrive. Be here, Emmanuel.

Sometimes, we need to see what God is giving us. We need the Spirit world to collide into physical. And, thank Mysterious God, we get to experience that great collision each week. And whatever it is, however it happens. It happens. We are nourished.

Micha Boyett is a youth minister turned stay at home mom attempting to make sense of vocation and place after three cross-country moves in four years. She is mama to two blonde boys and wife to a very tall Philadelphian. Her first book, a memoir of prayer, will be released from Worthy in April 2014. She blogs at Patheos about motherhood, monasticism, and the sacred in the everyday. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

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an ounce of action {guest post C. Wess Daniels}

Our path didn't cross all that long ago, but I've been encouraged a great deal by Wess' writing at Gathering In Light and am glad to host his words in this space. He offers a worthy challenge here, particularly for cerebral, academic sorts and any of us who hesitate to walk the questions.

{Doug Neill,  the graphic recorder}

A couple years back on The Colbert Report, Bon Iver was interviewed before playing some of his music live for the show. During the interview I was interested to learn that Justin, the lead singer and songwriter, majored in feminist studies in college, and I wondered if maybe his music is more interesting than I considered. After the interview and commercial break the camera panned to Justin and his band made up entirely of men. My heart sank. Here was a band led by someone who had the opportunity to put his action where his theory was and he utterly failed.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all too frequently. Recently, I wrote a post about the John Howard Yoder scandal considering how eloquently he wrote about the peace tradition while perpetuating violence against women.

Both of these examples reveal the disconnect between theory and action, idea and embodiment. They betray our desire to be politically correct all the while stacking up more and more blind spots and hypocrisy. We cannot write these things off as “Oh well, truth is still truth” any more than we can assume that a feminist studies professor would be someone who doesn’t take advantage of his female students.

I believe that the challenge is about emphasizing the importance of action over theory. When we dismiss this kind of disconnect, we not only perpetuate blind spots but create all kinds of possibilities for abuse. The Gospel story is one in which truth is embodied, theory is wrapped up in a fleshly body. I recognize that we are human and succumb to ego, but even Jesus pointed to the difference between the Pharisee whose theory and action didn't line up and and the tax collector who knew that his life was out of sync and wanted mercy to change (Luke 18:9-14).

An Ounce of Action for the Church

Sitting on my desk, I have an image of this Friedrich Engels quote from the graphic recorder to remind me daily that talk is cheap and that as Quakers we try to put our emphasis less on speech and more on doing something with our bodies. As John Woolman, a 17th century Quaker minister and abolitionist, wrote:

Conduct is more convincing than language; and where people, by their actions, manifest that the slave-trade is not so disagreeable to their principles but that it may be encouraged, there is not a sound uniting with some Friends who visit them.

In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford acting professor Patricia Madson jokes that she wishes Quakers would preach more what they practice. But in all honesty, it’s a lot harder to live up to this than we would like to admit. And Quakers, too, are guilty of getting lost in ideas without ever standing up, walking out of the meetinghouse, and acting.

Jesus’ exhortation to “love your neighbor” requires the disciple to act, not contemplate, summing up the whole of the Law in practical action.

Stepping Into First-Hand Experience

There are a number of ways my life has been shaped when I took a risk and stepped into action.

One of the clearest turning points for me around action and theory came in the second year of my PhD program. I had been working on the question of how faith traditions might renew themselves within modernity in a way that is both faithful to its past and innovative within our contemporary context. I was reading some really good theorists and philosophers, engaging with some of the best theologians on the subject, and even doing some field research, but almost all of it was being done from the comfort of my desk.

Everything seemed like it was moving in a good direction until one afternoon while I was sitting in the basement of the library at my seminary. During one of those moments when you kind of drift off and forget what you're doing, God made it very clear to me that something was wrong. As I sat with that feeling, my heart began opening up to just how crazy it was that I was writing about the renewal of the church from the basement of a library! I was completely disconnected from the embodiment of community life, buried under the theory of someone else's lived experience.

This challenge was a wake-up call. It was a challenge to step into my own experience, take the risk and see where it could lead. Shortly thereafter, we moved to the Northwest, just outside of Portland, to a small paper mill town called Camas, WA. I entered into a Quaker meeting there as pastor and academic, and over the course of the last four and a half years I have had my own re-education.

My theories and ideals melted away before my very eyes only to be reconstructed in the tendons and ligaments of embodied community.

By moving out of the confines of academic life and into the vigor of life enfleshed, I am challenged by what I learn within this diverse community that has been planted in one place for seventy-five years. I had to let the neatly tied theories and idealistic visions of “what the church should look like” be redefined within the everyday lives of people who experience and see the world differently than I do. In this case, my action led to a reshaping of not only of my theory but my entire life.

I believe that action bearing the weight of a ton of theory behind it may still make missteps, but it is open to learning from its own flaws. Right action is born out of both a concern for living and loving the people for whom you are called to care. It is about stripping away all of the things that sound good but justify actions that are inappropriate. It is about not just paying lip-service to a school of thought or carrying some label that says you’ve read all the right books. It’s about recognizing that “conduct is more convincing than language.”

C. Wess Daniels / @cwdaniels

Wess is a papa of three little ones, Quaker minister in Camas, WA, PhD in Intercultural Studies, and adjunct prof at George Fox Seminary and Earlham School of Religion. He enjoys dance parties with his kids, good remixes, liberation theology, bourbon, and a wool vest.

{Top image: Doug Neill, the graphic recorder. Used with permission.}

a faith i can live with {guest post Sarah Moon}

Whip-smart and passionate, Sarah is one of my favorite people on the interwebs. She has endured more pain than many people twice her age, and I admire the way she keeps wrestling, listening, and speaking up.

Content Note: brief mentions of a suicide attempt/suicidal thoughts

Last year I got sick of Christianity.

I got sick of Jesus and heaven and God and the Bible and the whole deal.

Last year I was sick, and that didn't matter to my Christianity, so I got sick of Christianity.

Two years ago, my depression reached a point where it was so severe that I attempted suicide, and I spent nearly all of my time last year (and most of my time this year) struggling to mentally recover from that. My faith almost didn't recover. In fact, in a way my faith didn't survive that suicide attempt and the long period of depression, fear, shame, and self-hatred that followed.

My faith didn't help me through that period. It wasn't there. It meant nothing.

I'm looking over a post I wrote last year in which I wrestled with these feelings about my faith:

When you start asking questions, they give you Faith to cling to. I never really knew what that Faith was faith of. Faith that something magical happened on the cross that we don’t understand, I guess... 

...If our salvation has nothing to do with this world and with these bodies, than why did God come to this world? Why did God become a body?

I couldn't take this kind of faith seriously. This faith that was all about living forever (which was a horrifying concept for me while I was struggling with suicidal thoughts—living forever sounded like torture at the time) somewhere up there, but that never intersected with my life down here.

I couldn't live with a faith where my sick body didn't matter. I didn't want a faith where my chemically imbalanced brain and my self-injury scars and my exhaustion and my body memories from PTSD didn't matter.

It frustrated me to hear people tell stories about Jesus physically healing people and casting out demons, only to end these stories with “Jesus can heal you today, too...by healing your SOUL!”

That's what it always seemed to come back to—this idea that once God cared about bodies but now God only cares about forgiving souls.

My faith was intangible, and it couldn't survive when depression killed off all of my hope. That was tough—losing my faith. But I think it was a good thing.

It's given me space to explore a theology that starts with my body and with my experiences.

I've been thinking lately about a wonderful piece Alan Hooker wrote, My Body is My Bible, in which he asserts that our bodies can be the “text[s] from which [we] pray.” We don't have to start with the Bible to understand God and ourselves. We can start with our bodies.

What theological insight can I gain from my body and from my bodily experiences?

In my depression, I can meet with the suffering God who weeps and mourns and will not be comforted.

In touching my own self-injury scars, I can touch Jesus' side. I can stop doubting and believe.

In my pain and anger at the injustice that's happened to me and others, I can wrestle with God and demand something better.

In surviving and healing and beating death, I can find solidarity with the risen Christ, the surviving God.

My body is not just extra baggage that I have to carry around until I get to go to heaven. My experiences are not just tests and trials that I have to overcome so that my soul can someday be free. My body and the things that happen in it lead me to God. They are important, essential theological texts, as Alan Hooker puts it.

This is a faith I can live with, because this is a faith where my life matters.

Sarah Moon recently graduated from Oakland University with a degree in Women's and Gender Studies. When she's not reading feminist theology, playing the Legend of Zelda, spending time with her husband and her cats, or trying to figure out how to be a responsible adult, she blogs on Patheos at Sarah Over the Moon.

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the resurrection of the body {guest post Christina Tremill}

Oh, friends, savor these words. They are a gift and Christina a poet. I'm so honored to host her wisdom here today. 

When I turn eighteen and become a woman, my father begins aging backwards, becoming a child again.

I have memorized words from SAT flashcards, gleaned them from thick novels. When I finish studying, I learn one I do not want to know: glioblastoma, a cancer of the brain.

My father is a strong man. He stands six feet, seven inches, weighs nearly three hundred pounds. He loads tubas and drums into band trailers.

He falls for the first time on September 11th, 2001, the same day the towers do. As the firefighters rush into the rubble, my father lies on the bathroom linoleum for three hours, unable to get up. Later, he watches coverage on CNN for hours. “Think of all those people dying just like that,” he shakes his head. “Just think of it.”

I see the towers collapse again and again. They were strong. They were not supposed to fall, but they did.

When I was young, I read sentimental books about girls with terminal illnesses. “The cheesy death books,” my friends called them. The girls had leukemia or waited for heart or lung or kidney transplants. I imagined them dying gracefully. I imagined them wearing white dresses at their funerals, dying young and beautiful, pale and thin.

Dying is not beautiful. My father is a man, and he becomes a child again. He first sips morphine, then gulps it, always wanting more. Each week is a milestone in reverse: His legs forget how to walk, his mind forgets to remember. One week before he dies, I feed him orange sherbet with a spoon. As it pools in his mouth, I realize he has forgotten how to swallow.

My father dies in a hospital bed in our living room just after Thanksgiving. Four weeks later, the Word becomes flesh, and I cry. I am eighteen, a woman but a girl still. I have never made love or grown a child inside my body. Don’t do it, I pray to Jesus. It’s not worth it, all of this.

--


At twenty-five, I begin seminary with the youngest seminarians in the country.

We are young, and because we are young, we are beautiful. Because we are young, most of us are strong. The bodies God gave us, lo, they are very good. We do not give it a second thought.

We are in our twenties. Most of us have not seen death. Our young bodies awkwardly make love. They give birth to babies, most without complication. We talk about the goodness of the body with lips that do not stutter. We dance at parties with legs that do not shake. We kneel in worship with knees that do not creak. We write about incarnation and resurrection and God’s good creation, and we do it with hands that do not ache.

In seminary, we sing the goodness of the body. We write about creation and incarnation and resurrection. Over beers at the pub, we talk about church people and how they are so escapist, always thinking about heaven, always singing I’ll fly away, oh glory, never looking at God’s good creation here.

---


Sometime during college, my brother sheds his faith like baby teeth. He is interested in religion: zen koans, Daoist philosophy, Jewish midrash. But not faith, as we knew as children.

One day, our conversation drifts to what I am studying in seminary. After a semester, we are nearly through the Apostles’ Creed. “The resurrection of the body,” I say.

His eyes narrow. “You don’t believe that people will have bodies in the afterlife,” he says. “That doesn’t even make sense. The definition of a body is that it is mortal, that it breaks down and dies.”

I try to clarify. “Well, not Jesus,” I say. “He was resurrected with a human body.”

My brother shakes his head with skepticism. “That can’t be right.”

He was sixteen when he saw my father die in a bed in our living room. He knows what bodies can do.

---


I once heard that Episcopalians make the sign of the cross at this moment in the Creed: “the resurrection of the body.” Creation, virgin birth, crucifixion--on the right day, we can believe if we say the lines fast enough. But the resurrection of the body needs something else, something to push us over the hill. So what the Episcopalians do is cross themselves. Head, heart, shoulder, shoulder. 

Don’t do it, I said once to Jesus. I wanted to save him from the body. Not just death, but a thousand little indignities. Desire, waxing and waning at the wrong times. A cold that begins in your head and travels down into your chest. Wet beds and wet dreams. And, yes, from blood--the blood flowing from a skinned knee and a cross.

Sometimes I still want to save him. Sometimes I want to save us all from bodies that betray us: bodies that guzzle alcohol without being satisfied, bodies that will not conceive babies, bodies whose cells go rogue until we lose our hair and poison ourselves with the cure. Bodies that are raped or violated, bodies that are kept from pulpits because of their breasts and curves, bodies that cannot see, cannot walk, cannot hear.

Sometimes, I am breathless at the goodness of it all. The impossibly long eyelashes of a five-year-old. The rush of pleasure as you make love. The vibration of vocal cords that bring forth music. The feel of warm sand, the taste of good pasta, the sound of a mandolin played well.

But sometimes, I would have us float, weightless, above the world. I say it anyway: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” God, in his mercy, will not let us give them up. I cannot imagine these resurrection bodies, human and yet immortal, broken made whole.

So I take my hand and make the sign of the cross over my broken, beautiful body--head, heart, shoulder, shoulder. I push myself over the hill.

Christina Tremill is a seminary graduate on her way to becoming an irreverent Reverend. She enjoys good coffee, good books, and a good theme party. She lives in San Diego with her husband Josh and their cat, Rascal, who more than lives up to her name. She tries to write beautiful and write brave at her blog, A Holy Fool.