OxFam International Women's Day
International Women’s Day is every March 8. It falls within the month of March, a month designated as Women’s History Month. It’s a day celebrating women and their contributions to our world … and yet. And yet, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I am not comfortable with this feeling and I am angry about its sources.
I am angry because I have a daughter who sits at the edge of adulthood and everything that I know about how to keep her healthy and living up to her potential as a human being is under assault here in my own country.
It is well known world wide, that the primary stumbling block to women’s voices coming to the table is lack of adequate family planning. The inability to have even modest control over the number of children/pregnancies is an insurmountable hurdle to education, to all but the most menial jobs, and access to government.
How on earth should I celebrate when here in my own country access to family planning and women’s health care are under assault from nearly every corner. Poor women with 3, 4 and 5 children in Texas are finding their options driven further and further afield (as of this writing, funding has been cut for 90% of Texas’ women’s health care programming) These women often do not have the ability to drive from one city to another in search of preventative medicine that is affordable. Because of federal cut backs their oral contraceptives are being priced out of their reach. These are married women, struggling to feed, clothe and house the children they already have. The jobs they and their spouses have are inadequate to pay for them to have a car, or reliable transportation between cities. This is under the guise of refusing to subsidize abortions.
Federal money does not now and it never has subsidized abortion. There is no insurance policy which covers it.
This fact while true, does not in fact, make providing an abortion illegal. Nor does it give any governmental agency the right to put women’s health or their health care decisions at risk. While the number of abortions that Planned Parenthood “provides” in any given year is high, it still only accounts for a little more than a quarter of all abortions performed nation wide (~27% of the approximately 1.2 million abortions were performed by PP in 2007). It’s not an insignificant statistic, but it does show that (if you’re opposed to allowing women to make their own decisions) PP is not “the root of all evil.” What it does show is that even in the absence of PP, women are going to avail themselves of a legal, medical procedure.
Every reliable study ever done shows a strong correlation between access to health care & education and women being able to care for themselves (and their families) in an economically viable fashion. Removing access to health care for poor women is one more brick in the wall enclosing them in their poverty. Doing it under the guise of loving children is hypocrisy. The best way to love children is to stop demonizing their mothers, and give them healthy mothers who can provide for them.
This post is part of the March Syncroblog – All About Eve. Check out some of the other fabulous writing at the links below:
Michelle Morr Krabill – Why I Love Being a Woman Marta Layton – The War on Terror and the War on Women Ellen Haroutounian – March Synchroblog – All About Eve Jeremy Myers – Women Must Lead the Church Carol Kuniholm – Rethinking Hupotasso Wendy McCaig – Fear Letting Junia Fly Tammy Carter – Pat Summit: Changing the Game & Changing the World Jeanette Altes – On Being Female kathy escobar – replacing the f-word with the d-word (no not those ones) Melody Hanson – Call Me Crazy, But I Talk To Jesus Too Glenn Hager – Walked Into A Bar Steve Hayes – St. Christina of Persi Leah Sophia – March Syncroblog-All About Eve Liz Dyer – The Problem Is Not That I See Sexism Everywhere… Sonja Andrews – International Women’s Day Sonnie Swenston-Forbes – The WomenChristine Sine – It All Begins With Love K.W. Leslie – Undoing the Subordination of Women Carie Good – The Math of Mr. Cardinal Dan Brennan – Ten Women I Want To Honor
I remember an Advent season 17 years ago. I was expecting our first child and we anticipated the birth in late January. It was a very busy season as I was then working for Prison Fellowship and had found their Project Angel Tree program. I was very inspired by this program and brought it to our church. I loved Chuck Colson’s books, especially The Body. It had given feet to my faith and a place for my passion. I think arch-conservative Chuck Colson would be astonished to know that his book inspired at least one reader to a faith that breathes social justice rather than moral correctness, but that is for another blog post.
I was very, very busy; spending all my free time at our church. I was organizing Project Angel Tree, I was involved with our youth group (Jr. High at the time) and I was working. Since this was the first year our church had done Angel Tree there was a lot of organizing and out right marketing to be done. We could have delivered the gifts to individual homes, but I wanted to have a party (because that’s how I roll). If I remember correctly, the jr. high kids helped me out with this party quite a bit. I don’t remember too much about the party other than that I loved doing it and that the Angel Tree Children were happy for an afternoon … so were the parents and grandparents. They all came in with varying degrees of wariness shrouding their faces, but left wreathed in smiles. We may not have shared the gospel in words that day, but we did it in deed.
As it turned out, I nearly worked myself to death that Advent season. I went for a pre-natal check up two days after Christmas and my blood pressure was sky high; I had all the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition for both mother and child. It was bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy (my due date was Jan 24) for me. I whined, I cried, I tried reason and logic … but the doctor would not budge. Bed rest. On my left side. This was apparently quite serious. And fortunately for me, LightGirl decided to make an early appearance on Jan. 1, so I only spent about 5 days on bed rest rather than 5 weeks.
My intervening Advent seasons have been no less busy, but slightly less health impairing. This season we have between Thanksgiving and Christmas and which has now seemed to stretch to Halloween, is filled with plans, and gifts, and parties; movies, sparklies, decorating, and food … not just any food, but special food traditions. All of it is good. But the pressure and the process can be overwhelming, as LightHusband expressed the other day, “I hate this time of year. It’s just one more responsibility in a life of unmet responsibilities.”
So I began to think about waiting. What is it that we do when we wait? Waiting involves changing what we do. It involves watching or paying attention; being alert to changes that would signal the arrival of that which we wait for. Waiting means being prepared for that arrival. We will have cleaned the house, tidied the bathroom, prepared a feast, and changed the linens in the guest room. Once those tasks are done, we put music on and we wait … ears tuned, eyes watching the road.
If we are waiting upon the birth of a child, we prepare the nursery. Gifts of vast quantity yet tiny proportion are given. Diapers abound. Depending upon the socio-economic status of the parent(s), there will be car seats and strollers, wipe warmers and night lights, toys and crib danglies to spare. We are raising baby einsteins as our culture reminds us. Mother will carefully put everything away each tiny thing in it’s own special place. As her womb grows more and more unwieldy and uncomfortable, she will slow down and become more alert to the changes in her body that signal the arrival of her baby. She waits.
And I wondered, how do we connect these pictures of peaceful waiting with the frenetic busy-ness that our holiday season has come to represent? The church is no different than the culture at large in this regard. There are special parties, ornament making gatherings to bring your unchurched friends to, extra worship services (and if you’re involved with putting those on – extra practices/development time) … in short, lots of busy-ness. And I haven’t even mentioned the singular craziness of Christmas cards one time in this post!
More and more I was seeing my Advent journey as a road to nowhere, the Advent Sunday mileposts nothwithstanding. Without having the time and space during the season to be calm, aware and alert to changes that signal the arrival of that baby Christ Child, I would plod ahead often distracted by all the shiny baubles, happy songs and pretty parties of a holiday season too busy for waiting. So I learned to build in time. I make Christmas gifts instead of purchasing them and that allows me time to meditate on the recipient, pray for them and love them as I make their gifts. I make food from scratch rather than from boxes and spend time finding recipes … not every day, but some days. Last, I limit the commitments I make to just the things I either absolutely must do, or the things I absolutely love to do. There is only one thing I absolutely must do (in support of LightHusband) the rest are things I love to do.
And I’ve given up on Christmas cards. They were too much for me.
I won’t say this has cured everything. But cutting out some of the distractions has helped my road to nowhere become a little bit more Bethlehem bound; it’s still very circuitous and mostly I don’t know where I’m going (because my donkey does not have a GPS! ). But this has helped my journey be more peaceful and me to be more gracious and kind in a season where nerves are usually stretched thin and fraying at the edges.
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This is part of our December Synchroblog series – Advent – A Journey. Please follow some of the links below for some excellent reading on the subject!
This was a real treat when I was a child. Ends & Pieces. That would be bacon I’m talking about here. The meat packing plant would pack up all the bits that are left over when they are finished slicing up the perfect strips of bacon and they heap them onto a styrofoam tray, wrap some plastic around them and call it good. You get some real treats in there, nice meaty pieces of bacon, but you also get some real duds; slabs of nothing but fat. It’s cheaper than so-called regular bacon because it’s not very pretty. But it’s very tasty. So that’s what you’re getting today … ends and pieces. Cheaper than the regular thing, some pieces might be really meaty, but you might find some that are pure lard. You’ll have to decide.
About 7 months ago, LightHusband and I joined Weight Watchers. We’ve added more than a few pounds over the years and we need to send those extra pounds packing; go find someone else to torment, thank you very much. BlisteringSh33p and BlazingEwe had joined about 5 months before we did, so they were old hands at it. So off we go every Monday night to face the ScaleMiser and listen to our FearlessLeader as he gives us help, tips and pointers for the week to come. This is a long tedious process during which I am coming face to face with my very unhealthy relationship with food and how I use it to feed many things in my life besides my bodily functions. sigh. But that’s another story. Last night as we sat in the meeting, I came face to face to with another gremlin in my life. ADHD. It’s something I’ve often wondered thought I might be dealing with or have dealt with and I laugh at myself about it a lot. But it was not even a diagnosis when I was young, so I was certainly never given that label. And now I’m not sure I want it. But it would be nice to know because then I could figure out how to overcome it. In any case, our FearlessLeader was describing the 4 main ingredients in what WW calls, Filling Foods. These are foods that give you the most bang for the buck (the calories they contain). Mostly they are high fiber/low calorie fruits and vegetables. He said, “blah, blah, blah air, water, fiber, protein …. ” and I had a fully formed vision of Air, Water, Fiber and Protein as the SuperFriends from the Hall of Justice. I could not stop giggling and leaned over to tell BlazingEwe. She started giggling. Then neither of us could stop. And poor FearlessLeader had to bring the meeting to a halt because we were about on the floor! I ‘fessed up to my vision and brought the house down. But my point is, I’m always having visions like this and have had since I was very little. When I was younger, I thought everyone did. As I get older, I’m finding that no, I’m kinda weird. Not everyone thinks like this. In fact, it’s mostly people who have brains which can’t sit still think like this.
I know I can get medicine to help with this. But I don’t think I want it. I think I’m going to read up on coping and figure myself out. I’m going to try and harness this energy for good, not evil 😉 and work with it. This could be a good thing eventually.
The other day (maybe the same day) I had conversation with a young lady about reincarnation. She confided in me that she believes in reincarnation and proceeded to give me some statistics that bore out this belief. I listened politely. Then she asked me if I believed in reincarnation. No, I said, I do not. I do, however, believe that our soul continues to exist past the life of our physical body, but I do not believe that it goes on to live in another body. She wanted to know why I don’t believe that, but our conversation was cut short and I didn’t have a chance to explain myself. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then and the short answer is grace. And, honestly, that’s the long answer too. Oh, I used to believe in all kinds of different things, and yes, I even spent some time believing that reincarnation was a likely possibility. But then I discovered grace and I just can’t get enough of it. I don’t like the idea that we’re born over and over again to atone for the sins of a past life that we can’t remember. It seems capricious and mean and points to a standard of behavior and perfection that really no one can live up to. It reminds of the legend of Sisyphus somehow; always hungering and thirsting for something we cannot have. But the God I found in my late 20’s and early 30’s was giving out love and mercy and grace liberally, to all who wanted it. Believe in me, S/He said, and that’s all S/He wanted; some trust, some faith and some love in return. I can do that. So, no, I do not believe in reincarnation, but I believe in grace and the One who Loves endlessly. But sometimes it’s fun to talk about past lives and imagine … I’ll grant you that 😉
It’s that time of year again … in many different places people are talking about reunions. They are talking about class reunions, family reunions, school reunions, etc. I had a startling revelation about the power of our minds the other day. It was very revealing to me. About 6 months ago, the LightChildren and I joined a couple of homeschooling groups for the purpose of socializing with other teenagers. We get together with one group in particular about once a week and all of us have made friends … me too! It’s been a welcome relief after the past three years in the desert. The moms are all about my age, some a little older, some a little younger. But they are around my age. We all look like a peer group. I admire these women and see them as adults in the middle of their lives. Then one day I was thinking about a couple of my dear friends from highschool who I will be seeing when I go to Vermont next week. It was startling to me that I do not “see” them as being the same age as the women who I am friends with now. For some reason, my perception of my highschool friends is that they are younger than my current cohort group, when the fact is that they are likely older than the ladies here in Virginia. Then I wonder, do my highschool friends and I behave differently when we’re together? Do we revert and act more like our younger selves? What forces are at play here? Or do I behave more maturely when I am with my friends here in Virginia? Or … am I the same and I just play cruel mind games on myself? It’s all very mysterious and makes me realize what a powerful force our minds are when we are dealing with reality vs. perception.
Sunday night we had a huge scare. LightGirl ended up in the emergency room after an anaphylactic reaction to ??? We don’t know what. The best guess at the moment is that she had Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis. This is not common, but it usually caused by a combination of food and exercise. This does not mean that the patient is allergic to the food they have eaten, but it may mean that they are sensitive to it and the increased blood flow, etc. of exercise causes an extreme anti-histamine reaction causing anaphylactic shock. She is going to the allergist tomorrow where we will find out more about this. Her lungs still hurt and she is having trouble talking. I can find out plenty about anaphylaxis on the internet, but nothing about the aftermath and recovery. If anyone reading this has gone through it and knows what we might expect, I’d love to hear your story. It would be a huge help to us.
In a week we go to Vermont for our annual pilgrimage. It’s going to be a somewhat shorter trip this year. But it will be fun nonetheless. I’m looking forward to some porch time to say the least!
A friend of mine recently posted as her status on FB that just when she thinks she has God all figured out he throws a curveball and they win. This statement was obviously made as a praise. Now I’ve known this very kind and gracious lady for nearly as long as LightGirl has been alive. Her faith is rock solid and she is very wonderful. But the statement got me thinking.
We have this notion that God is on our side when we win, and we’re being tempted by Satan when we lose. But what do we do with all of the red words to the contrary … like the first shall be last? Or he who loses his life shall gain his soul?
What if we have it all backwards? What if the temptation is in the winning and God is on our side when we lose? How would that change your faith?
So … my fingers have been itchy and I want to write again. I find myself daydreaming about blog posts … again. It must be time to come back and write.
Thanks to the Holly, I found this site where they are posting a blog prompt every day for a month. I don’t know if I will be that dedicated … maybe I will manage every OTHER day or something like that. But at the very least I will be writing regularly again. Here is today’s prompt:
You’ve just been given a million dollars. You are not allowed to keep it or give it to anyone you know personally. What do you do with it and why?
My first response is that I cannot imagine what a million dollars really is. Really. Can you? What IS a million dollars? What can you buy with a million dollars? What can you do with a million dollars? I simply find myself in the place that I cannot understand the reality of having a million dollars all at the same time.
So I’m trying to daydream about some less concrete. I’m trying to daydream about simply having piles and piles of money that I cannot keep and I cannot give to anyone I know personally. Here are some of the things I would like to do with it …
–> Start a micro-finance program for inner city women, especially single moms, here in the States. I love the idea of Kiva and I think it’s doing huge amounts of good in the world, but I’d like to focus my efforts on women and single mothers, so that they can achieve some level of security and perhaps even raise their level of education, so that the cycle of poverty stops with their generation.
–> Along the same lines, use the money to seed loans and work projects so that those who currently live in inner city projects can participate in regentrifying their own neighborhoods. I love the idea of renewing our inner-city neighborhoods, but not at the expense of those who already live there.
–> Seed money to educate women and girls. There are scores of studies right now showing that the more a woman is educated, the less likely she is to ______ … fill in the blank with all of the ills of poverty, particularly those relating to addiction and sexual abuse.
–> Renew art programs for young people in need. We cannot live by industry alone, children need to exercise their imaginations and creative gifts as well as learn to read, write and ‘rithmetic.
Those are all the things I can think of to do with my million dollars. What would you do?
It’s Women’s History Month here in the U.S. of A.
I wonder if there are any people of color who are equally irked by African-American History month? I mean, I understand the motivation behind having these once a year months to focus on here-to-for underserved populations in our midst. But …
But there is something about the idea of having the dominant population “allow” a month for women’s history or african-american history or whatever history that is vaguely unsettling. Because if the culturally dominant population is still in a position to allow this, then they are also in a position to take it back. Which means … they still hold all the power. I would very much like those scales to be more in balance in terms of race and gender one day so that ML King, Jr.’s dream will really come true for all of us.
So … for me, it’s HerStory month. This isn’t about HisStory. We get to hear HisStory pretty frequently. So here in the Ravine I’m going to be telling some stories about women this month. Women in the long ago and maybe some women in the near and dear.
For starters take a look at a couple of things that lead up to this month:
Our women in the Olympics –
There were Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso – alpine events.
Hannah Teeter and Kelly Clark – halfpipe (snowboard)
Hannah Kearney and Shannon Bahrke – moguls
Meryl Davis (with Charlie White) – ice dancing
Lana Gehring, Alyson Dudek, Allison Baver and Katherine Reutter – short track speed skating
Erin Pac and Elana Meyers – bobsled
21 Valiant women on the US Women’s Hockey Team
Katherine Reutter – short track speed skating
and these were only the medal winners. We sent dozens of other female athletes, trainers and moms to the Games. They all have a story to tell. Of sacrifice and love and joy and pain and passion and fierce dedication. Stories that are not unlike ours.
So I will back throughout the month with more stories, ideas and maybe even a book review or two. Stay tuned.
It all started with a rainy, windy Saturday afternoon. We took the LightChildren and a friend down to Church Street to see the sights and pass some time because when it’s rainy and windy “dey ain’t nuthin’ doin'” at the cottage. So off we went to find our fortunes … or perhaps a board game and a fresh book. LightBoy in particular was in need of fresh reading material. So once the rain really started we took refuge in Borders. After finding a board game based on Halo, we made our way to the Young Adult section to find a book or two for our young man. There we were accosted by shelf upon shelf of book covers that missed the bulls eye of soft porn only by the narrowest of margins. There were books all aimed at young women wanting to fit in and these days it would appear that fitting in requires merchandizing your body and making an object of it. That was the lesson I took from the book covers. It was difficult to find a book which would hold a young man’s interest in that section and we gave up … and got him Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I’m not certain the books in that section would hold my daughter’s interest either … but that’s another story.
Then later in the week two other things happened. First I had a mini-reunion with my two best (girl) friends from highschool. We’ve maintained sporadic contact in the (cough-cough) years since graduation and get together too infrequently for all of us. This was the longest reunion of all … we got to spend eight hours together all at one whack. It was fabulous. In a funny coincidence, we all three have two children; each of us have an oldest daughter and a youngest son. The daughters are all in highschool and the sons are all in middle school. Among many of the issues we discussed about our children was that of reading and books and from there the larger issue of boys and reading. So it was with interest that I followed the second happening – Open Mic at IMonk Cafe: What Boys Might Read … there was a fairly lively discussion (128 comments at last count) about books of interest to boys at the middle to high school age.
It’s a great thread and is an incredible resource of reading material for all children in the middle to highschool ages. I’m going to be referring back to it again and again throughout the year for both LightChildren. LightGirl has read many of the books suggested, but there are many there she hasn’t. LightBoy would enjoy many of them and has yet to engage them. But here’s the thing that makes me peevish … what the hell was going on in Borders and why couldn’t I see any of those books that day? The only thing I could see were dime store trash aimed at girls. I didn’t say anything, but LightBoy turned to me in frustration and said, “Mom, these are all girls books. Where are the books I’d like.” I had to find a computer and do an age related search to find a book. It was ridiculous.
Then I started really thinking about it. I remembered back to when I was young. I had a blue bike. The only thing that denoted that my bike was a “girls” bike was the cross bar; mine swooped down for my now non-existant skirt. The bikes my brothers rode had a crossbar that went straight across and if they jammed their crotch on them it was very painful. Makes no sense. Given our anatomical differences, boys should have the low, swoopy cross bar and the one for the girls should go straight across. But back when bikes were first developed, girls wore skirts. Now, of course, when one attempts to purchase a bike for one’s child one must purchase a pink flowery bike for a girl or a blue racing-ish bike for a boy. This means that if you have a child of each gender you buy two bikes of every size (or you become adept at painting bikes).
Have you looked at women’s clothing lately? Particularly outerwear? Most of it is pink or purple. Heaven forfend if you want navy blue, then you have to buy men’s sizes. What if you have big feet? Then you are relegated to men’s sizes and men’s (boring) colors. Land’s End/Sears is the worst. I’m fairly certain there are gay men with big feet who want brightly colored foot wear. And there are women with big feet out there who want it too. Like me. And there are women with smaller feet who don’t want to wear brightly colored footwear, they want to wear the boring colors. And short men with small feet. The point is … why the genderism/sexism in all the marketing?
Is this what all of the feminists really fought for? Is this what equality really looks like? Really? Somehow, I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel right, or just or sane at all to me. I’m not advocating for men and women to look alike by any means, I celebrate my difference daily. But the result of this feminist revolution seems to be that we have fewer choices, not more and those choices seem to be based on market forces, rather than justice.
and it all makes me really peevish.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Julie Clawson of One Hand Clapping challenged us to find some unsung heroines of the Bible and celebrate their stories today in a synchroblog. So I pulled up BibleGateway and put “daughter” into their search engine. I think it came back with about 110 hits … or something like that.
Some daughters just got honorable mention. That is, they were simply mentioned as so and so’s daughter and that was the end of that. Others had an actual story attached to their name. Sometimes the story was fairly mysterious. As in the case with Caleb’s daughter. She was married to her cousin, by Caleb’s younger brother because Caleb had promised his daughter to whomever won a particular battle. His nephew won the battle, so he married off his daughter. This is not very acceptable by today’s standards, but in that culture we can understand it. The next couple of verses recount an event that is odd. Caleb’s daughter went to him and asked for some additional land. When he gave it to her, she also asked for a couple of springs. So he gave her those. And there the story of Caleb’s daughter ends. With the gift of springs. It’s mysterious, really. In there for a reason, but why?
So I moved on and found the story of Job’s daughters: Jemimah, Keziah and Keren-Happuch. This story can be found in Job, chapter 42 … the very end of the book. Job has come through his trials with some version of success:
1 Then Job replied to the LORD : 2 “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” 7 After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.
1 Then Job replied to the LORD :
2 “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
7 After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.
This is curious to me, because here we see the result of what happens to friends who might give you (however well-meaning) an incorrect perspective of God during your trials. Those friends will have to sacrifice in your presence and have you pray over them. This is an interesting perspective that I’ve not heard taken away from Job … but more on that another time. I’m just thinking we need to be very careful with what we say to people about God when they are experiencing trials.
In any case, the account goes on tell us what happens to Job in the rest of his life:
10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. 12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. 16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so he died, old and full of years.
10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so he died, old and full of years.
Wait? What? Three short sentences. That is all we have of Job’s daughters. They were part of a family of 10 siblings. We don’t know where they fell in the sibling order. We do know who among the girls was eldest, middle and youngest. We know they were beautiful. Most astonishing of all, we know that “… their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.” That’s it.
It’s a genealogist’s worst nightmare. We have names and nothing else. We know only the most bare facts of their existence. But we know one more thing. Job gave them status. He told the world that his daughters were equal to men. His daughters were not chattel to belong to their husbands. They owned something of their father in their own right. I’m not certain I can fully convey how remarkable this was for that time.
It was miraculous. Unheard of. Women were not considered capable of owning or managing the things that men did. But Job did it.
These are the just sorts of passages I do love. Open-ended, without a tidy message. We don’t know what happened to Job’s daughters. We do know that Job lived to see “… his children and their children to the fourth generation.” I believe that would be his great, great grandchildren if I’ve figured correctly. My guess is that his daughters married and children of their own. So how did they use their inheritance? And … did they pass it on to their daughters? What was their inheritance? Was it land, animals, jewels?
I wonder about those things you see. We have things (land, jewels and the like) that have been only passed to women in my family. Our summer lake house is among them. When my aunt left it to our family, she left it to my mom (her relative). Her will stipulated that if my mother had pre-deceased her, it was to go to me and my brothers. She was emphatic that it stay in her family. In the 100 years prior to that, the house had always passed woman to woman.
They are so intriguing to me. Those daughters. Jemimah, Keziah and Keren-Happuch. They are the opposing book-end to Job’s first three daughters. As I thought about them and let their names rattle around I came to another realization. I’d heard two of the names before. Jemimah and Keziah were common names given to girls who were slaves in the American South.
I started looking for confirmation of that. Of course, I quickly ran into a brick wall … because records of what slaves were named by each other were … um … slim. Nobody thought it was important to keep track of what they called each other. Sometimes just the gender and the slaveholders last name is recorded. Certainly, no inheritance was given to these men and women. It is intriguing to me that Jemima and Keziah were used as girls names though.
I wonder … could those names have been picked on purpose? Are they names of hope? We’ll never know for certain. But we do know some few things. We know that some slaves were given Christian training. Some were even given Bible teaching. We know that some of the stories resonated with their experience and certainly Job’s would have been among them. It’s not a terrible stretch to imagine naming your daughter Jemima or Keziah out of hope … hope that one day you would have an inheritance to leave her, hope that she would be known as the daughter of a man who was blessed by God, hope that your trial would be ended in blessing rather than curses.
I think there might be something to that. None of Job’s other children are named. Not his first ten children (seven sons, three daughters) and not his second seven sons; just these three daughters. So, it seems to me that these names spring to the top as names that are symbolic of the hope of a good outcome at the end of horrible trials … the kind of trials endured by slaves in the antebellum South.
Thus I came to the Aunt Jemima pancake empire. It was begun in the 1890’s by two men who, having created an instant pancake mix, needed an icon to name it and represent. One of them ducked into a black-face minstrel show and there heard the following song:
The monkey dressed in soldier clothes, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! Went out in the woods for to drill some crows, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! The jay bird hung on the swinging limb, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! I up with a stone and hit him on the shin, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! Oh, Carline, oh, Carline, Can’t you dance the bee line, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
The bullfrog married the tadpole’s sister, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! He smacked his lips and then he kissed her, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! She says if you love me as I love you, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! No knife can cut our love in two, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh! Oh, Carline, oh, Carline, Can’t you dance the bee line, Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
Shortly after hearing the name, Nancy Green was hired to represent Aunt Jemima. She was currently working as a servant for a judge in Chicago, but had been born and raised a slave in antebellum Kentucky. Aunt Jemima and her pancakes were introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. It was held from May to November and Nancy smiled, sang, told slave tales, flipped and served almost a million pancakes during that six month period. In the hundred and ten years since then she has become perhaps the most well-known African American female face in history.
Yet, there is something vaguely disturbing about that. This name, Jemimah, started out as a name of hope, blessing, inheritance and beauty had become a term interchangeable with disparagement, slavery and bondage and now … commerce. You never hear Jemimah as a name anymore. There are no young women with that name … no fathers or mothers hoping to pass on that message of hope, blessing and inheritance to their daughters with that name because it’s lost all of it’s power.
We still hear Keziah. You might not recognize it. You’ll hear Keshia or Aisha. Both of those names have their roots in Keziah. A name of hope and blessing and inheritance for girls. That’s just what we need to give our daughters today … a sense of hope and blessing and inheritance. What sort of inheritance will you give your daughters?
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This is my contribution to the International Women’s Day Synchroblog –
Here are links to some others –
Julie Clawson on the God who sees Steve Hayes on St. Theodora the Iconodule Sonja Andrews on Aunt Jemima Sensuous Wife on a single mom in the Bible Minnowspeaks on celebrating women Michelle Van Loon on the persistant widow Lyn Hallewell on the strength of biblical women Shawna Atteberry on the Daughter of Mary Magdalene Christine Sine on women who impacted her life Susan Barnes on Tamar, Ruth, and Mary Kathy Escobar on standing up for nameless and voiceless women Ellen Haroutunian on out from under the veil Liz Dyer on Mary and Martha Bethany Stedman on Shiphrah and Puah Dan Brennan on Mary Magdalene Jessica Schafer on Bathsheba Eugene Cho on Lydia Laura sorts through what she knows about women in the Bible Miz Melly preached on the woman at the well AJ Schwanz on women’s workteenage girls changing the world Teresa on the women Paul didn’t hate Helen on Esther Happy on Abigail Mark Baker-Wright on telling stories Robin M. on Eve Patrick Oden on Rahab and the spies Alan Knox is thankful for the women who served God Lainie Petersen on the unnamed concubine Mike Clawson on cultural norms in the early church Krista on serving God Bob Carlton on Barbie as Icon Jan Edmiston preached on the unnamed concubine Deb on her namesake – Deborah Makeesha on empowering women
It’s just too bad she won’t accrue any benefits from it.
Maybe you remember Lilly from last year’s presidential campaign. Or if you’re really observant, from the news in May 2007. If you don’t, allow me to tell you a little bit of Lilly’s story.
Lilly Ledbetter worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber company down in Alabama. She was an Area Manager (aka plant supervisor). She worked at Goodyear from 1979 to 1998. When she retired in 1998, she was the only female Area Manager, the rest of her colleagues were male. All 15 of them. Another unique characteristic that her colleagues shared was that they all earned more than she did. Every single one of them. Even those who had worked at Goodyear less time than Lilly had. Even those who did a worse job than she did.
Sometime in early 1998, Lilly finally had enough evidence and she filed paperwork with the EEOC (that’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). She retired in July and in November she filed a lawsuit against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company claiming that they had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender. That’s when the legal wrangling began. I’ll spare you the details. But it went all the way up to the highest court in the land.
The Supremes got it. No, poodles, not Diana Ross and the Supremes. The Supreme Court. The Nine in Black. However, their decision made just about as much sense as MacArthur Park.
Now you can read the ruling in it’s entirety if you’d like. You can download it for yourself here. However, the essence of the majority (5 to 4) decision, handed down by Justice Alito, was that Ms. Ledbetter had missed the boat. You see, Lilly had filed suit saying, in essence, that because there was discrimination in her pay at the end of her employment, there had been ongoing discrimination for a long period of time. Justices Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas (who, being African American, ought to know better) disagreed and wrote, essentially that Ms. Ledbetter ought to have known about the discrimination in her salary from the very beginning and in order to have gained redress, should have filed grievances at every instance. They used plenty of the court’s own rulings as precedence for this. Every single one of which as been overwritten by Congress. They ignored the intent and the scope of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and the National Labor Relations Act.
You see, the original court in which Ms. Ledbetter filed her claim she was given redress for the wrong and was awarded $3.5 million dollars in lost income. That seemed a little steep to me when I first saw the number, because at the time of her retirement the disparity in income was not that great. Ms. Ledbetter was earning $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236. However, then I realized that while the immediate difference was not great, this difference would play out for perhaps 30 years or more during her retirement. Ms. Ledbetter had not had the opportunity to save as much for retirement, nor Social Security as her male counterparts and so that must also be accounted for in the redress.
You may be wondering why Ms. Ledbetter won. Well, until the Supreme Court ruling, the presumption was that the clock (180 days) started running on the day that one recieved the most recent (or current) discriminatory paycheck, NOT the first discriminatory paycheck. So the court in which she originally filed suit found that she presented a valid case and gave her redress. Goodyear Tire did not like that answer and filed an appeal. Thus the case wound it’s way to the Supreme Court.
Think back for a moment to your employment experiences. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Think about the notion that salary decisions might be public knowledge.
Have you finished guffawing yet?
That’s exactly what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought too. She wrote the dissenting opinion. Then took the unusual step of reading it from the bench after the majority opinion had been read. If you’ve never read Supreme Court decisions, this is a good one to cut your teeth on. It’s fairly straightforward and you already know what’s going on. Even more interesting (to me) are the dissenting opinions. The writing in those are more relaxed and less full of legalese, because they don’t count for as much. That is, future jurisprudence will not necessarily be relying upon the dissent. Reading the dissenting opinion from the bench is very unusual. It carries a certain weight; it goes beyond saying, “We in the minority disagree.” to also spitting on your shoes. In public. Here is some of what Justice Ginsburg had to say:
The Court’s insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination. Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves. Pay disparities are thus significantly different from adverse actions “such as termination, failure to promote, . . . or refusal to hire,” all involving fully communicated discrete acts, “easy to identify” as discriminatory.
The Court’s insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination. Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.
Pay disparities are thus significantly different from adverse actions “such as termination, failure to promote, . . . or refusal to hire,” all involving fully communicated discrete acts, “easy to identify” as discriminatory.
There is so much more. This may not sound like much to the untrained ear/eye, but in the language of the Supreme Court it is a stinging rebuke. Especially since it was delivered in a public address.
And so things stood for nearly two years. But two days ago, President Obama and the U.S. Senate set the scales of justice just a little bit right again. The Senate approved legislation which would establish that the clock starts with the most recent discriminatory paycheck NOT the first one. Then President Obama signed it into law. It was the second law he signed since taking office. It’s known as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. And, God bless her, Lilly won’t get one thin dime from it. The rest of us will. Or not. But at least we will have gained an equal footing on which to stand up for ourselves.
As Gail Collins wrote in yesterday’s NYTimes:
Ledbetter, who was widowed in December, won’t get any restitution of her lost wages; her case can’t be retried. She’s now part of a long line of working women who went to court and changed a little bit of the world in fights that often brought them minimal personal benefit.
I highly recommend that op-ed piece. For two reasons. First, you’ll read about women who have paved the way for the rest of us, the un-sung heroines in mostly blue-collar jobs who made it possible for us to get where we are today. Second, many of the cases that Gail writes about, were also used as precedence by Alito, et al; cases the Court ruled on which were then overwritten by Congress.
So, if you think about it today, say a prayer for Lilly Ledbetter and Eulalie Cooper and Patricia Lorance and Lorena Weeks. They fought so we could stand. Cross-posted at Emerging Women
“Best Of” posts are beginning to pop up all over like dandelions in springtime. They’re sparkly and eye-catching. I always like them because they catch the year in review and give the reader a walk down memory lane. But … you knew there was a “but” coming. So often in church-y circles the “best of” posts are either all men or men in overwhelming proportions. I’ve been blogging for more than three years now and I keep hoping this will change. That the onset of the internet will bring about changes to this dynamic. But I’m not seein’ it yet.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some men (Rick “Blind Beggar” Meigs, Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, Brad Sargent, John Smulo, Shawn Anthony, Patrick Oden and some others to name a few) who are wholly committed to women in full partnership in life, ministry, blogging, you-name-it. They have gone above and beyond to support women and engage them equally.
What does that look like? I know a lot of folks are put off by idea of feminism and I’m mystified by that. But let’s look at it from another perspective. We all look at families and tend to agree that a “whole and healthy” family includes a mother (female) and a father (male). No matter what your feelings are about who should be in charge and when, we all know that healthy families require both the male and the female perspective to adequately parent, raise, etc. the children. At the very least, there are whole books on the subject of healthy families requiring two parents where one takes on the feminine role and the other the masculine (in the case of homosexual relationships). We know very clearly what the lack of men does to a family and what the lack of a mother can bring to children. So my question is … why do we find this lack of the feminine voice or perspective so very acceptable in church/ministry leadership?
It is in the interest of balancing out the perspectives that I present my Best of 2008 … plus one from 2007 because it was so good.
… in no particular order … UPDATED to include a recent post by Peggy Senger Parsons that is a must read.
Erika Haub – The Margins – “the church that came to me”
“When she saw me her eyes teared up, and as she spoke she started to cry. She told me that she could not believe that I had let her into my home, with full access to all of our things, and then closed my door and gone to sleep. She said that she had never felt so trusted by someone; she had never felt so much pride and dignity and worth as someone who did not have to be doubted and feared.”
Kathy Escobar – the carnival in my head – “what could be”
here’s my hope:
that we’d be people & communities radically in touch with Christ’s love for us & continue to risk our comfort, ego, time, money, and heart to offer mercy & compassion to others. that we’d be somehow known as ‘those weird people who love other people unconditionally, tangibly, and in all kinds of crazy, unexplainable ways.”
Tracy Simmons – The Best Parts – “The Rescue Parade”
When people rescue dogs or trees or human beings, they are displaying how much they are made in the image of their creator. He longs to see all things rescued and restored. It’s in our spiritual DNA whether we are aware of it or not.
Makeesha Fisher – Swingin’ From the Vine – “Missional: It Sure Ain’t Velveeta”
Being missional is hard work. Getting down and dirty in people’s lives, giving everyone a platform and allowing your voice to form from within the context of community versus individual aspirations and spirituality is not a nice easy package deal. You can’t just cut off a block from the end of the yellow brick and nuke it to gooey perfection. It’s time consuming and risky and generally not very “pretty”.
Rose Madrid-Swetman – RMD –
“Building To Serve Others Part 1” “Building To Serve Others Part 2” “Building To Serve Others Part 3”
We discussed the pros and cons, the why’s and why not’s of taking the step of leasing a space. Our biggest fear was that we would lose sight of the congregation as the church. You see when we rented a basement room for Sunday worship only, everything else we did as a faith community happened in our neighborhoods, the host community and in homes. Moving into a leased space that we would have 24/7 access to could endanger us to put the emphasis on the building as the church rather than the church being the people.
Heidi Renee – Redemption Junkie – “Great Losers”
I just can’t seem to walk past a smidgen of interesting brokenness or discarded story. I am so moved by outsider and found art because deep in my heart I long to be a mosaic artist. I have not yet begun to piece together those precious bits and fragments pocketed along my journey.
Julie Clawson – One Hand Clapping – “Experience and Empathy”
It’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge the need for better health care around the world, I am discovering it is another thing altogether to attempt to imagine oneself in another’s position. I knew the need for equity before, but my experiences have helped me to empathize. I know I am lucky and privileged. I don’t desire to trivialize or cheapen the plight of others by claiming to truly understand, but I am a firm believer that empathy is necessary if one is to truly care and make a difference. And experience helps with that.
Grace – Kingdom Grace – “Disciples or Converts”
I think that we often circumvent the real life of the Spirit in conversion methods, discipleship methods, and in the way that we function together as groups of believers. What are the ways that we tamper with natural growth and unintentionally cause lack of reproduction and other genetic deformities?
Pam Hogeweide – How God Messed Up My Religion – “First Time To Notice A Homeless Person”
He looked over at me. Our eyes locked, me the middle-class teenager from a middle-class Vegas family; him, the ghost of someone’s son now orphaned and phantomed like the nobody he knew he was born to be and die as was. It was a definitive moment for me. In that one glance I saw past the dirty beggar who didn’t have a job or a home. I caught a swift glimpse of a man who was not born for greatness, but was just born. He had no purpose, no grand plan. No derailed American dream to be somebody. For an instance I saw my brother, my father, my son and my husband. This unknown man was more than a Utah phantom. But that one look told me that not only had he become invisible to others, the true man of who he was – this beggar was an imposter of his true greatness – but more urgently, he had become invisible to himself. He did not matter.
Christine Sine – Godspace – “Discerning The Winter Blues”
I was reminded that I once read that the tradition of Advent wreaths actually began because farmers took the wheels of their wagons during the wet winter months and this became the framework for the Advent wreath. Now I am not sure that any of us would consider taking the wheels off our cars over the winter but I do think that we need to build times of rest, reflection and renewal into our schedules. Maybe we should stop driving our cars at least for a few days so that we can relax and refresh. We are not meant to continually live in harvest season. We are not meant to be continually producing fruit or even be continually blossoming. In fact plants that are forced into bloom at the wrong season by florists never recover their natural rhythm. Most of them will never blossom again.
Cheesehead – A Cheesehead In Paradise – “A Sermon for the Celebration of the Reign of Christ”
(Let me say for the record, if any of you are considering running for elected office, and someone comes to church to see what kind of sermons you listen to, and nobody finds anything even the least bit sketchy that I have said—if nothing I preach is found to be even the slightest bit counter-cultural and it’s all perfectly agreeable—that’s probably not a good thing and you should call me on it.)
Christy Lambertson – Dry Bones Dance – Abortion Series
1 – Late Night Comedians, American Politicians & Abortion Week 2 – Nuance is Bad For Fundraising 3 – Put Away the Coat Hangers 4 – Let Me Tell You About Your Experience 5 – We Have Met The Enemy and They Are Partly Right (part I) 6 – We Have Met The Enemy and They Are Partly Right (part II)
That’s why I have declared it to be Abortion Week here at Dry Bones Dance (or possibly Abortion Month, depending how long I go between posts.) Whatever your position is, I’m not going to try to change it. Really. I promise. I just want to take an emotionally charged, extremely polarizing issue, and show how our public conversation about it – from both sides – virtually guarantees that we won’t ever get anywhere on the issue.
Erin Word – Decompressing Faith – “The Tribe”
This tribe is not bound by collective adherence to a doctrine or by a building, but in mutual love for each other and a desire to set each other free from the things which have chained us. My tribe is not a place where anyone has to justify their experiences, but a place where we learn from a myriad of voices. My belief in the value of Jesus in my life is unwavering; many other aspects of my faith are in constant flux as I learn and grow. This I am able to do in a community where boundaries are elastic and belief is defined only by a love for Christ. Searching together for ways to better love on the world and on others, as Jesus exemplified, is the common thread we share.
Sally Coleman – Eternal Echoes “Perichoresis”
Sally writes gorgeous poetry and takes stunning photographs of beaches, sunsets and people.
AJ Schwanz – AJ Schwanz “High Bar”
And then I wonder: am I just being me-centric? Is this something God’s calling me to, or is this me being idealistic and believing the grass is always greener? What if it doesn’t look the way I think it should? What if it’s right in front of my face and I’m ignoring it because I don’t like the way God’s engineered it? When push comes to shove, would I make the sacrifice; or would I be sad, hang my head, and walk away?
Cynthia Ware – The Digital Sanctuary – “Lord Teach Us To Pray, Virtually”
I see the benefits….yet there is a part of me that still feels like something is funny about it. It feels like it should be ‘in addition to…’ instead of a replacement for interacting with your small group or people that can actually pray and stop by and drop off a casserole.
Molly Aley – Adventures In Mercy – “Obama Ushers In End Times”
I literally thought that God wanted me to war against my culture. I believed that culture was out to get me, out to get my kids, out to get my church. I mistakenly forgot the real enemy, and thought it was my culture instead, unlike God, who knew exactly what the real problem was when He came down INTO an equally-fallen culture. He saturated Himself in it, unafraid to pal around with the worst of the lot and, interestingly, the only ones He had a real problem with were the ones righteously abstaining from said culture.
Peggy Brown – The Virtual Abbess – “Abi and Covenant”
What The Abbess is looking for as part of the whole missional order discussion is a “rule of life” and a “rhythm of life” that provides a group of Christ followers with a focus, a framework, for the working out of our cHesed — our already-existing sacred duty to love God and love each other — in the context of apprenticing disciples.
Sr. Joan Chittister – From Where I Stand – “A Glimpse Of Oneness For A Change”
The struggle between “red states” and “blue states” in the “United States” may be a political problem but, if truth were told, “oneness” is not something religion has been particularly good at over time either. Religions and religious professionals have been far more devoted over the years to creating Absolutes of themselves. They routinely cast other religious and their scriptures and prayers and beliefs into hellfire. They persecuted and oppressed and either forced people into their own religious tribe or hounded them out of it. They made converts at the end of a sword and divided families and called one another pagans and infidels. Many still do.
Judith Hougen – Emergent Self – “Part Two – Incarnational Reality”
With very few exceptions, none of the people who’ve helped me understand and walk in incarnational reality have been Evangelical Christians. Which might help explain why conservative Christians can be mean sometimes. You really must deny incarnational reality (except in theory) in order to behave so contrary to the way of Jesus. You would have to work awfully hard to denigrate others while walking in a conscious awareness of God’s loving presence. Incarnational reality demands a response–either we open to Christ in each encounter, each breath, or we honor–I dare say worship–our own feelings, agenda, and sense of rightness.
Elizabeth Potter – Still Emerging – “They Used To Call Me Betty”
The lack of fit intensified as I grew older such that when I relocated to a new city a number of years ago, I decided to ‘change’ my name. Rather than introducing myself to new people I met as “Betty,” I asked them to call me “Elizabeth.” It has taken years for my family to adjust to this ‘new’ moniker, but finally I have a name that fits. It is strong, and regal, and seems ‘just the right size.’ They used to call me “Betty,” but I have chosen to rename myself. Hello, my name is “Elizabeth.”
Kim Petersen – Chrysalis Voyage – “Robust Faith”
Maybe it’s why I liked this response from a listener who wrote in: “Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt is faith struggling. Where God is concerned there must always be room for doubt.” Chief Rabbi Sacks picked up on it earlier in his interview by challenging Humphrys: “If you didn’t have faith you wouldn’t ask the question…Faith is in the question.” Humphrys dismisses the statement as a cop out meant to shut down the conversation, but for me this statement contained the crux of the whole issue. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a shut down in intellect and a blind leap into the unknown. There is an intentional ongoing search for Truth and a coming to grips with and peace with that which will always remain a mystery. They are not mutually exclusive. A robust faith encompasses the doubt, the struggle.
Peggy Senger Parsons – A Silly Poor Gospel “My Bus Karma”
“Bon Chance, Madame” is one of my code words with God. It usually means “Heads Up Peg – this may get rough”. With no great leading on the line, I should have taken my bag back, called my daughter and gone back to their house for another week of baby snuggling. But one of my character flaws is a severe allergy to anything that feels like going backwards. And one of my consistent delusions is that the normal rules of the universe don’t apply to me. The combo gets me in trouble all the time.
