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
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!
The other day I wrote about a Barna survey that will be coming out with full documentation in about a year. The posted statistics are quite provocative as I (and several other women) noted. The data have raised a lot of criticism and left many women scratching their heads, thinking, “That’s not my experience, so how can those numbers be so high?” It will be interesting to see the full report when Jim Henderson publishes his book next year.
FTR, I am still aghast that a man, without any co-authorship from a woman, is writing this book. Upon reading Pam Hogeweide’s testimony about her involvement with it, I am further dismayed. I don’t know Jim Henderson at all so I cannot comment on this. I will speak my own mind and say that to me it feels as though he is stealing our voices for himself. He has said that he is writing this because no woman has stepped forward to write it. That may be. It may also be that the time is not right for a woman to write it and therefore as a man he is taking away our right to speak for ourselves in our way, in our own time and with our own unique voice. Que sera, sera …
I stopped writing about this issue for some time. In fact, I stopped writing at all for a long time because I was and am undone by a lot of this. I am struggling to find my place in the world; struggling to understand my faith without the trappings of church. I don’t always know what is real and what is a reflection in a funhouse mirror. But then I saw this data and began to remember …
I remembered a time when I might also have answered all those questions affirmatively. Or in such a way that I might be part of the large percentage of women who were following the tail in front of them. I grew up in an egalitarian home; a home in which my mother finally decided that she would NOT learn how to use a chainsaw because then she would have to use it more frequently than she wanted to because the boundaries between women’s work and men’s work were blurred (except dishes and laundry). Everyone did everything. I took shop classes in highschool. My brothers took Home-Ec and I was jealous that my brother can still bake a better loaf of bread than I can.
Then LightHusband and I joined an EFree Church. As a new believer I remember that I wanted to be like the other women in my church. I think I wanted it mostly because that was the way to fit in and be part of the group. But it was also the key … the key to being “Godly.” In an evangelical or Bible-believing church, this is the defining characteristic of any adult … are they Godly? I have no idea what that means. What I can tell you is that people stand around looking very serious and hand out that superlative like it’s a crown. It is placed on the head of this person or that person … it was never put on my head, I’ll tell you that up front. Usually the character qualities that seem to be in common with a “Godly” person are those found in the fruits of the Spirit verses in Galatians: self-control, patience, peace, etc. They also have to be really good with their money (aka … rich). Women should be submissive to their husbands. Men should be the head of the family and make all the decisions.
I struggled to fit my round-peg into this square hole for 14 years. I now battle an most likely lifelong case of depression because I so depleted myself from this. I cannot even begin to catalogue the fallout from all of this in my life. I’ve been gone for 7 years now. I’m finally beginning to get my life and my mind back. I have held on to my faith by the barest edge; the evidence of grace and love.
I did some poking around because of a throw-away comment in my earlier post. I said that the Church is like an anorexic who looks in the mirror and sees someone who is fat and needs to lose weight, but the reality is she is wasting away and starving herself. I thought about that some more and did a little research into eating disorders. I found a little known cousin to anorexia called, orthorexia. Orthorexia is like anorexia because people (mostly women) who become trapped in its snare waste away and starve. However, the motivation for orthorexics is different. It is an eating disorder characterized by a focus on eating healthy or natural foods. The person who has become orthorexic feels better and better as they are able to purify their diet. As it becomes an obsession, the person begins to focus more and more time and attention on what they eat. I first discovered this through an on-line journal of a young woman who ultimately died as a result of her obsession with natural/healthy food. As I discovered more about this, I found this helpful Ten Signs Of Orthorexia:
Dr. Bratman suggests that you may be orthorexic, or on your way there, if you: Spend more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food. Plan your day’s menu more than 24 hour ahead of time. Take more pleasure from the “virtuous” aspect of your food than from actually eating it. Find your quality of life decreasing as the “quality” of your food increases. Are increasingly rigid and self-critical about your eating. Base your self-esteem on eating “healthy” foods, and have a lower opinion of people who do not. Eat “correct” foods to the avoidance of all those that you’ve always enjoyed. So limit what you can eat that you can dine “correctly” only at home, spending less and less time with friends and family. Feel guilt or self-loathing when you eat “incorrect” foods. Derive a sense of self-control from eating “properly.” Bratman suggests that if more than four of these descriptions applies to you, it may be time to take a step back and reassess your attitude toward what you eat. If they all apply, you’re in the grip of an obsession.
Dr. Bratman suggests that you may be orthorexic, or on your way there, if you:
Bratman suggests that if more than four of these descriptions applies to you, it may be time to take a step back and reassess your attitude toward what you eat. If they all apply, you’re in the grip of an obsession.
Now you’re probably wondering why I’ve included this here. As I was reading about orthorexics and their quest for a pure diet, the parallels between seeking a pure and undefiled diet and seeking after a pure and undefiled faith became very clear to me. They may not be to you. But I began to look at the Church in terms of this obsession with pure food. I think we all exist on a spectrum here. Some believers have no issue with pure/right faith, others are obsessed with it to the point of starving themselves of any other sort of food than that which they deem pure. Think about those 10 markers in terms of the faith of believers you know or about yourself –
So what does this have to do with women in church and/or church leadership? I’m not sure yet. But I do know that in many churches today there is an unhealthy focus on being “Godly,” on having correct doctrine, and on having a pure faith. For many of those churches, this includes attitudes about women and men that are not reflective of a healthy body. Some of these attitudes run to the extreme (such as a growing trend known as Christian Domestic Discipline, or another growing trend known sometimes as Quiverfull others as “radical family planning”). Some of them are more middle of the road and merely separate men and women into different classes during Sunday School, women are not allowed to teach men either from the pulpit or in a class, etc.
No one can fault these churches or these believers because they really truly are seeking after God and seeking to find Him in the purest way they know how. They get a lot of satisfaction from being a “Bible-believing” church, or having that crown of “Godliness” bestowed upon them. And truth be told, we all get that sense of satisfaction when we’re told that we’re doing something good and pure and right. It makes us want to be part of it and work harder for that cause … whatever that cause may be … so that we’ll get some more of that praise and that sense of satisfaction that comes from a job well done. When we’re part of a group, that’s what happens in our socially-inclined brains.
But what do you do if your group is killing you? I mean that both literally (sometimes women die from trying to have their babies unassisted at home in the so-called “Quiverfull” movement) and figuratively. What if seeking after a pure faith (even walking in the middle of that road) isn’t an obsession, but just a concern … and the “food” you’ve decided is healthy, really isn’t? How would anyone know? How do you know when you’re being slowly inexhorably being poisoned and it’s gone on all your life?
Tell us everything you know about the day you were born.
Okay, first of all I need to say this. I’m beginning to feel very, very self-conscious about these blog prompts and I might begin to go off the reservation soon. While this discipline is really good for me, the nature of these prompts is not what this blog is all about and I really do not like talking about myself nearly this much. So I guess I will answer this one. Then I’m going to spend some time and make up some prompts of my own … for myself.
I don’t know too much about the day I was born.
I know it was a Saturday. It was the first Saturday in May because my mom and dad listened to the radio broadcast of the Kentucky Derby in the car on their way to the hospital. Every year we all three have to look up who won that year (nearly 50 years ago now) because we can’t remember. Well, they can’t remember. I didn’t know at the time and even though I look it up every year, I still cannot remember from year to year. My parents now celebrate my birthday on Derby Day although they/we didn’t when I was a child.
I know I was born at 10:52 p.m.
I know my parents had not yet graduated from college. Somewhere there is a photograph of me all bundled up with my grandparents at the graduation.
I know my arrival was late. I’ve been running behind ever since. My parents had only been married about 7 months. Emmmmm hm. You do the math. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year (October), so it was a good decision all around. They have an excellent marriage and are still very happy together … despite the fact that they frustrate the snot out of their children sometimes.
I was the first granddaughter on both sides and so I was much fussed over and spoiled … for about 6 months. Then we moved to Kansas.
John F. Kennedy was the president and hope was springing up all around despite the spectre of Vietnam and Cuba.
Annnnndddddd … that’s about all I know.
Well, this is awkward. Today’s prompt from NaBloPoMo is –
Tell us about your first kiss.
So.
Just how personal (read vulnerable) do I want to be here in internet land? How much of my past do I want to reveal? And the larger question, do I even remember my first kiss?
The answer to the last question is, “No. No, I do not remember my first kiss.” I do however, remember my first boyfriend. And I remember a much later boyfriend and a first kiss that mattered much more. I’ll tell the story of the first boyfriend, but not the story of the later boyfriend (no, it was not LightHusband) … it’s only the interesting people who have a checkered past, you know 😉 .
I have a theory about the eighth grade and being 13. It is the year one is at one’s most stupid/foolish during adolescence. That is the year when we engage in the silliest behaviors. Some children chose a path that year which will make all of adolescence and highschool difficult. Others manage to regain their footing and continue through the teen years on a more even, yet still turbulent, keel. I was part of the latter group. I have several friends from eighth (and even seventh or sixth grade) who I maintain contact with. We all shake our collective heads regretfully when recalling eighth grade. It was not a good year.
In particular, my one of my very best friends (maid of honor in each other’s weddings, etc.) and I both “went out” with boys when we were in eighth grade. This begs the question, where did we go? We grew up in the hills of Vermont. It was a 20 minute drive to our highschool (grades 7-12 and it drew from 5 towns). How, exactly, do 13 year olds go on a date? It was crazy. Mostly we were in love with an idea. So, here is the sad, embarrassing story of my eighth grade romance.
He was in ninth grade and an older boy. Blonde hair, blue eyes … the only blonde I would ever date. He played saxophone in the band, and I played flute, so I expect that is how we knew one another. He gave me his ID bracelet to wear as a pledge of his daily troth and short-lived like. I don’t remember much about our relationship except that when it was over, I was embarrassed by it. What was I thinking? There are three events in our relationship that stand out. The first is that one day he came over to my house to “hang out” for a while. We disappeared into the hayshed to “make out.” It was a huge disappointment to me. Neither one of us knew what we were doing, so it was just kissing (this was good), but the kissing was bad (this was probably also good). I remember thinking that if this was all there was to kissing and making out, I didn’t see what the big deal was; it was sort of boring. [Never fear, I found out otherwise later in life ;-)]
The second event was a time when my brothers and I were going to see Young Frankenstein (with Gene Wilder). The 8GBF and I tried to turn it into a date. This was quashed. I was furious with my mother. But the movie was so funny, I got over it quickly.
The last event was breaking up. I was free. I ran to tell my friends. Here was something that I had wanted so badly, but it had become a shackle around my neck. I never regretted breaking up with him. Oddly, I was always slightly embarrassed by the relationship until writing this blog post. Now, I’m inclined to think that perhaps we were necessary to each others’ growing up. Maturing is hardly ever easy, sometimes we are assisted by the mostly unlikely of people.
For today’s snack, we have a walk down memory lane:
If you could go back in time and meet your 16-year-old self, what three things would you tell yourself?
Well … now. Things just got really heavy, didn’t they? And sort of existential or something like it. I’m bleary-eyed this morning because I stayed up too late watching the Chicago Blackhawks win Lord Stanley’s Cup last night. This might be more raw than ordinary because I am less guarded than usual … so here goes.
I would tell my baby girl self (even though she would not listen) that time is a finite resource. When you are sixteen your life stretches out before you in an almost limitless road with countless possibilities. Choose. Pick something, anything and do it well.
I would also tell her to enjoy herself more and be responsible less. That it’s okay to have fun once in a while and be less serious all the time.
Last, I would tell my LightGirl self that all the world really is her oyster. She really is that smart, that good and she really can make it. She really is the sort of girl who can make it out in the world; there’s nothing to be afraid of. When the time comes (and it will) she should just jump in with both feet and swim.
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.
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
I haven’t written in a while and I apologize. Things have have been bubbling here in the LightHouse, some good, some … eh. So I’ll fill in the gaps for you.
Back in July LightGirl was visiting a friend and they went walking in the woods chattering away as girls are wont to do. A few days later, she found a tick in her bellybutton (of all places). She had a rash and some other odd symptoms so I took her to the doctor … who chastised her for not wearing insect repellent and did some blood work. And off we went on our trip to Vermont. Some days later I received a phone call from the doctor’s office saying that the test for Lyme Disease was positive and they were calling in a script for antibiotics. Okay. She didn’t do well on those particular antibiotics, so we changed to a type called Ceftin.
She finished that round last Thursday (a week ago today). But she wasn’t doing well. She was lethargic and achy. Her head hurt and she didn’t have a very good appetite. I had to beg her to go to hockey practice (which is very unlike her). So we went back to the doctor, who put her on another round of antibiotics and got us an appointment with an infectious disease specialist if she did not improve by the end of this round (mid-September). By Tuesday morning, something was seriously wrong with my girl. She couldn’t stand up longer than a minute or two and was complaining that her knees hurt. She would not go up or down the stairs more than once a day. So I called the doctor to get in to see the infectious doctor earlier. It took two days, but we finally got an appointment to see a specialist in Charlottesville today. Our doctor faxed her records to him. Imagine my surprise, when he called yesterday afternoon to tell us that her Lyme blood test results from July were NEGATIVE! They had never been positive at all.
LightHusband looked up her antibiotic on the internet and it seems that the symptoms we had attributed to Lyme Disease are also less common side effects of the Ceftin. She has not taken any of the antibiotic since that phone call (she’s missed two doses) and she is steadily improving. She has no joint pain and her soul is back there in her eyes. She’s laughing with us and eating normally again. She has a lot of her sass back … which I may regret, but I will enjoy.
So there have been quite a few ups and downs over the past few days. I’ve been reading the political news fairly avidly and will probably be sharing some of my thoughts on that soon. I have a few more book reviews to post in the next couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to get school organized and begun … but of course, with LightGirl sick, no school has happened. However, LightBoy has begun making SockMonsters from all of our singletons this week. He is also using LightHusband’s old ties as accoutrements. He is busy dreaming up an internet kingdom selling these recycled toys. So, this is an education of a different sort.
Sigh … onward and upward.
UPDATE: And now the rest of the story …
We had an appointment with our primary care physician this afternoon and an education at the same time. So … it turns out that there are “strict constructionist” doctors, just as there are strict constructionist judges. Who knew? When testing for Lyme Disease there are these things called bands. I have no idea what those are … but they … um … are. In any case, there are five of them. For a strict constructionist doctor, you must have five of five positives to get a diagnosis of Lyme Disease. Now, our primary care doc, saw LightGirl … saw that she was presenting with a tick bite and a rash AND three out of five positive bands and decided to be conservative. She does this all the time. She said that only one of her Lyme Disease cases presented with all five bands positive this summer. It’s a gray area, as she freely admitted.
LightGirl is doing better and better the longer she is off the meds so all is well and we are all breathing a little easier now.
“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” Mother Theresa
That’s a pretty well known and ubiquitous quote by Mother Theresa. It’s been co-opted by the folks who believe that life begins at conception and would like to pass laws to that effect in our country. I still remember the sense of shock I had the first time I saw it on a bumper.
I know people who’ve had abortions. Some are very close to me. Is that really what they’d done? I had to think it through. I knew their reasons very intimately. Most had gone on to have children later in adulthood. Having the child would have been disastrous for both child and mother at the time of the pregnancy. Some of the pregnancies were the result of rape, others the result of very protected intercourse but the protection simply failed. In every case, mothers (and fathers) go on to mourn the loss eternally. It is a drastic decision made during a time of crisis in a situation that is kept secret in most cases. Very few terminated pregnancies are made known before they are finished.
It seems to me that it’s become far too easy to make snap judgements, and reduce a nuanced topic, such as abortion, to a pithy sentence and slap it on a bumper sticker to make your sentiments known to everyone else. So I was wondering the other day, which was the real poverty? Who is impoverished? Where are we now that we have polarized ourselves into tidy camps. Right and left. Red and blue. Take it or leave it. For us; against them.
Then LightHusband sent me this story about a feral child discovered in Florida a few years ago. Beware if you read the whole story. It’s very graphic and full of lurid details about the filth the little girl lived in. Terrible really. It’s likely that her biological mother is ill and or at least terribly self-centered. Because of the neglect she suffered, this girl may never be able to talk or communicate on a meaningful level. Her brain may never develop past six or seven years old in terms of her ability to process information. No one really knows. There have only been two or three feral children in recorded history. One in France in the 1880’s and another in California in in the 1970’s that were reported in this news story.
Don’t for a moment make the leap that I am suggesting this child would have been better off aborted. Not at all. No, I am suggesting that we are all impoverished for not knowing. Not knowing our neighbors. Not loving our neighbor. When we do know, we do not take their hands and walk with them, we call CPS. We rely on the law to transform, rather than relationships. We want to make laws, call policemen, stand at an arm’s length away and point out the flaws in one another.
What struck me most about this story was the unknowing. The secrecy. The darkness. The lack of love. That is the nexus that this story has in common with mothers who face the choice to terminate a pregnancy. They make choices in secrecy, without the love and support of most of their network, in crisis; hard, difficult choices that hurt everyone including themselves.
The biological mother in the Florida case had been trying unsuccessfully to keep her family together. She failed catastrophically. When the little girl was found both mother and daughter were nearly in a catatonic state but with different origins. The mother was arrested and convicted for breaking various Florida laws concerning child welfare. She was given a suspended sentence with the proviso that she rescind her maternal rights. So the little girl has been adopted into a home with very caring parents, who are doing their best to help her develop on a more normal trajectory. In many respects the story has a happy ending. The little girl is learning, growing, loving and is loved. Her biological mother is alone. Alone with regrets, blame and an empty home. Many would say that she earned all of that and then some. Maybe my heart is too soft. But then I read Larry Vaughn and I wonder what might have been …
My theme becomes concrete: What would it be like to be known fully and loved completely? Most people know of this tension. Most adults, anyway. Fortunate children know what this is like. But because they don’t know anything different they take the situation for granted. Somewhere along the way to adulthood we start putting price tags on people and become capitalists of humanity. We also pick up a few undesirable qualities along the way.Another meteor. I am known and I am loved. But not completely. I think my brain would melt from sheer pleasure if the confluence of these two principles ever occurred. The air is brisk and I cannot hear another sound except for my breathing. Another meteor. And then I feel it. I am being watched. My anxiety rises. You have had this feeling before, haven’t you? Out of necessity I have become good at paying attention to my surroundings. It is a casualty of my profession. I look around expecting to see a deer or a raccoon. Maybe a person. Maybe (it’s 2:00am) the dead owner of the abandoned house. Nothing. Another meteor. My anxiety ebbs but the feeling of being watched doesn’t. I used to enjoy watching my girls play when they didn’t know I was there. Sometimes they would talk to their dolls or draw pictures or play house. Sometimes they would sing silly songs or have conversations with the air. I always felt a sense of magic when I could witness this play unnoticed. When they played without an audience I always got a sense of purity. Whatever they were doing or saying was complete truth. If you’re a parent you know exactly what I am talking about. Like the feeling of sneaking into the movies, I had a sense that I shouldn’t be here. I wasn’t invited to the tea party or the dance or the play. But as a parent, I couldn’t look away. This always, always made me smile. I tried so hard to be quiet. Partly because I didn’t want to interrupt the beauty. Partly because I didn’t want the tea party to end, which it surely would if my presence were made known. Another meteor. My feeling of being watched begins to transform. My mind begins to slow down and I stop thinking about thinking about thinking. I am quiet. And still. And small. Another meteor. Another tear of St. Lawrence. I am being watched. And the person watching is smiling. Hiding behind a cosmic door. Peeking around the corner. Another meteor. Another tear. I am not alone. Another tear. My brain begins to melt.
My theme becomes concrete: What would it be like to be known fully and loved completely? Most people know of this tension. Most adults, anyway. Fortunate children know what this is like. But because they don’t know anything different they take the situation for granted. Somewhere along the way to adulthood we start putting price tags on people and become capitalists of humanity. We also pick up a few undesirable qualities along the way.Another meteor.
I am known and I am loved. But not completely. I think my brain would melt from sheer pleasure if the confluence of these two principles ever occurred.
The air is brisk and I cannot hear another sound except for my breathing.
Another meteor.
And then I feel it. I am being watched. My anxiety rises. You have had this feeling before, haven’t you? Out of necessity I have become good at paying attention to my surroundings. It is a casualty of my profession.
I look around expecting to see a deer or a raccoon. Maybe a person. Maybe (it’s 2:00am) the dead owner of the abandoned house. Nothing.
My anxiety ebbs but the feeling of being watched doesn’t.
I used to enjoy watching my girls play when they didn’t know I was there. Sometimes they would talk to their dolls or draw pictures or play house. Sometimes they would sing silly songs or have conversations with the air. I always felt a sense of magic when I could witness this play unnoticed. When they played without an audience I always got a sense of purity. Whatever they were doing or saying was complete truth. If you’re a parent you know exactly what I am talking about. Like the feeling of sneaking into the movies, I had a sense that I shouldn’t be here. I wasn’t invited to the tea party or the dance or the play. But as a parent, I couldn’t look away. This always, always made me smile. I tried so hard to be quiet. Partly because I didn’t want to interrupt the beauty. Partly because I didn’t want the tea party to end, which it surely would if my presence were made known.
My feeling of being watched begins to transform. My mind begins to slow down and I stop thinking about thinking about thinking. I am quiet. And still. And small.
Another meteor. Another tear of St. Lawrence.
I am being watched. And the person watching is smiling. Hiding behind a cosmic door. Peeking around the corner.
Another meteor. Another tear.
I am not alone.
Another tear.
My brain begins to melt.
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This is a synchroblog on poverty. Please read what my fellow bloggers have to say on the subject below:
