Can You Choose Your Hard?

I have seen this posted several times in the past few days. It has floated around as a meme so I don't know who the original author is. I understand what he or she is trying to say but this is a very simplistic, black-and-white view of life. To be fair, these words may encourage some to be more intentional with their choices and not let the hard just happen to them. I get that. But SOMETIMES it just isn't quite that cut and dry.

Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard. 

Obesity is hard. Fitness is hard. Choose your hard.

Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. 

Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard. 

Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely. 

The truth is that you can try your best to choose the right "hard" and still end up with the other, or with both.

You can work your hardest to have a healthy marriage and still be abandoned or abused or betrayed.

You can work your hardest to be physically fit and still be obese, often for reasons others don't see or understand.

You can work your hardest to live a frugal life and still go into debt when an unexpected expenses or tragedy come your way.

You can work your hardest to communicate clearly and still have your words misunderstood or twisted to mean something you never intended.

No, life is not that simple. We don't always have control. We don't always get to pick the hard we get. Sometimes the hard picks us.

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The New Beginnings Shower

Most of us have been to them or at least invited to them. Wedding showers. Here is a couple, often a young couple, setting out on a life together and somebody throws them a party to "shower" them  (or shower her, since it is customarily female only) with gifts for their new home together. It makes sense. I get it. 

Best I can tell, the custom started as an add-on or substitute for the dowry system, a time when the bride's father was expected to provide financial assets or property to the groom at the time of the wedding. An ancient custom for sure but Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond and, if you are more posh, Williams Sonoma sure aren't complaining. 

Even today the wedding shower makes some sense. Couples who marry young, perhaps before or just out of college, may have never lived on their own. And even those who have may have been making do with household items from Goodwill or dog eared hand-me-downs from Mom. And even those who have lived a bit higher on the hog, so to speak, may want items that are not "yours," or "mine," but "ours." 

That said, there are certainly situations where the wedding shower is less of a necessity and more of a formality. A tradition. Professional couples who have lived together may not need anything at all. The showering of gifts is really more of a celebration. 

I'm not complaining at all about the existence of wedding showers. They are certainly needed at times and almost always wanted, to some extent. But I want to propose that weddings aren't the only time to shower people. And there are times when we need to shower people even more. 

One is when a single person is setting up her (I'll use "her" for simplicity's sake) own household. She needs all the things, too. I'm sure the thinking is that she can make do until she gets married and then she'll get showered, but there is no guarantee. And why wait? Why should a single person on a single income have to make do with what she can scare up when her friend over here who is getting married gets all the goods? 

You're getting married? Congratulations! Let's give you MORE! You are setting up a home on your own? Nothing here to celebrate. The reality is that most people want to get married. And it is hard when those who are getting what they want most, get more, while those who, for whatever reason, have not found the right one, stand back and watch, making do with what they have. 

The other time is when a marriage ends. This is a time when emotional encouragement and financial assets are even more crucial. 

Divorce is a death. The death of a marriage. The death of a dream. The death of a family. The death of a household. And with that death comes a division. It's called Equitable Distribution of the Assets. What was ours becomes yours and mine. And even what stays mine can often be saddled with hard, hard memories. Mine may end up being the dishes I was showered with at the wedding 18 years ago. Mine could be the Pyrex I baked his favorite cake in. Mine are the sheets we slept on. Together. Before he slept with her. While he slept with her. 

At the time when she may be having to set out on a new life, a single life, perhaps with children, she has fewer resources than ever. She may be going from a two to a one-income household. She may be taking a job for the first time since she had children, typically meaning her income prospects are considerably lower. She may have used up all her savings (if she has any) on attorney fees. She can't afford the luxury of replacing household items. She may not even be able to make ends meet. And then, all too often, there is the shame. 

While the universal wedding shower pours out support in the form of good cheer and material goods to the lucky couple, what if we had a divorce shower? If you don't like the sound of that (you are afraid it sounds like a celebration of divorce), we could call it a New Beginnings Shower, not necessarily a party but an outpouring. We could shower her over time with gift cards and offers of babysitting. We could fill in the gaps left by the loss of so much. 

I have watched so many people that I love dearly enter into the New Beginning with grace and courage. It is incredibly hard. It takes guts to stare the great unknown in the face and move on. It takes stamina to work day in and day out, helping your children navigate the tumultuous world of shared custody. It takes resilience to put one step in front of the other while mourning the death of what you had. I say we ease that burden just a bit. Let's be the cheering section for the New Beginning. Let's shower her with love and support, both emotional and financial, and celebrate the New Beginning. 

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Spiritual Privacy

 A few years ago now I came across something on Facebook that really troubled me. For whatever reason that Facebook does what it does, the powers that be put into my news feed a post that a distant friend commented on. A father posted photos of his grade school son at the pinnacle of some mountain, praying, with the commentary of how proud he was of his son who "prayed to receive Christ." I was shocked and quite troubled. I wasn't troubled because this boy was at perhaps a critical point in his spiritual life, I was troubled because this father felt the need to document it with photos, post it on social media, and then brag about it. 

I have seen this a lot over the years, parents applauding their children's spiritual accomplishments and apparent godly choices and character. And while there is nothing wrong with encouraging your children and sharing about them, there are a couple of things that concern me here. 

One problem is that parents whose children are no so overtly Christian or do not wear their spiritual lives on their sleeves can feel like they are doing something wrong. In a world of "if you do it right" it is easy to compare and find yourself coming up short. The guilt and fear is multiplied exponentially when your child's spiritual condition is a supposed result of your performance as a parent and your failure as a parent could impact the state of your child's soul for all eternity and whether or not your child is playing in the youth group worship band or memorizing the catechism is evidence for all to see. 

The other problem is this public bragging treats your child's spiritual life like a performance. We all know that children want more than anything the approval of their parents. If your children know that you want them to look like Christians and act like Christians in the most Christiany sense of the word based on the standards your particular culture has set up to measure such things, they are likely to try to live up to those standards, whether that is what is going on in their heart or not. This is a grand setup for all sorts of hypocrisy or internal conflict (with perhaps self-medication) or out and out rejection of any and all of it. 

My concern is that kids won't have the opportunity or feel the freedom to discuss their needs and desires and questions and doubts and frustrations and fears and will stuff them all down in lieu of looking like they are supposed to look and making their parents proud. 

One of the things I regret most as a parent is not emphasizing with my kids that it is OK to have questions and doubts and not understand why God calls them to a certain kind of life. I regret that we didn't have the opportunity to grapple together some of the legalisms and expectations put on us all. 

I read recently about the concept of Escalator Christianity, where we are expected to go from level to level, always improving, always getting better, always getting more spiritual and ever closer to God. That doesn't happen in life. Not in an adult's life and certainly not in a kid's. The spiritual life is not a serene ride up the escalator but more of an amalgam of every carnival ride ever with highs and lows and twists and free falls and sometimes dark, dark tunnels (this past year I ended up on a slow moving ride through the bowels of the earth). 

Expecting our children to take spiritual steps at certain times and then bragging about it and even patting ourselves of the back (or patting others on the back) for doing such a good job is just incredibly damaging, as they will often do what they think they are expected to do. This is not the National Honor Society or Eagle Scouts or Bible Verse Memory Award. This is a relationship and God works in each kid's life in a different way. 

Our kids get so little privacy on social media as it is. Let's keep their relationship with God something they can wrestle with in their own way and in their own time and not use it as an occasion to toot our own horns. 

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More Than Objects

An article came out today in Relevant Magazine adapted from the book Talking Back to the Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher. It mirrors a number of other articles I have read lately from therapists such as Andrew Bauman and Jay Stringer, who work extensively with men and sexual addiction. Their message is this: the current strategy of dealing with pornography addiction and sex addiction and lust is only making matters worse by turning women into dangerous objects of lust and seduction rather than creatures of value. 

My husband will say that most men know that women are not the danger. Men are. And yet it is the women getting punished by this method of managing desire. 

Last week a friend heard a sermon where the pastor acknowledged the huge problem of pornography addiction within the church and how incredibly destructive such addiction is to relationships and marriage. Good enough. And yet his advice to men was to "stay far away from the opposite sex." 

Gulp!

That mode of managing desire may work for an alcoholic (just don't go where they are serving alcohol) or an ex-smoker (avoid people who are smoking) or a member of Gambler's Anonymous (stay the heck out of the casinos). But women aren't alcohol or cigarettes or one-armed bandits. We are people. Real, live breathing beings with minds and hearts and souls. 

For the past 37 years of my life I have been in churches that hold to the view of male only leadership. This complementarian view says that, while men and women are created of equal value, they have different roles and, per certain passages of scripture, men are the leaders and the heads of churches and families. Some hold a "loose complementarian view" while others are much MUCH more hardcore. But every church I have been in has had only male pastors. Only male elders. Only male deacons. Any questioning of this becomes the "I didn't create this order. God did." 

I am not a Bible scholar and certainly not versed in the hermeneutics of scripture. But I am a woman in this system and I will ask you this: 

What do you think happens to women in the church when you combine 

A.) a complementarian, male headship only ideology and 

B.) "avoid members of the opposite sex"? You get 

C.) Women lose. Women lose out on it all. 

You cannot on the one hand set up all sorts of restrictions against interacting with women and then on the other insist that only men are allowed in leadership positions within the church without women really, really, really getting a raw deal in the process. The women get no real care and have no voice because the men in power have to keep their distance. 

I have experienced this over and over and over again. Other women share the same story. And it is absolutely heartbreaking. 

I know some men try to remedy this in different ways. I have had plenty of pastors who will meet with me (upon my request) but insist that my husband come along. Do you know what happens? He ends up talking with my husband and I am left out of the game. My voice is lost. My story goes unheard. My ideas count for nothing. I no longer matter. 

My husband says by way of observation that it could be that men are just more comfortable talking with other men. If that is the case, then they either need to learn how to talk with women (practice is always good) or they need to have women in leadership positions who can talk to women. But you cannot hold to the ideals of male-only leadership and avoid the opposite sex without more than half the church suffering from neglect and, quite often abuse. 

(Yes, abuse. I need to save this topic for another post because so many women, suffering abuse at the hands of their husbands are not listened to or believed by the leadership in their churches and are quite often excommunicated or disciplined for seeking to leave their abuser and is a tragedy that deserves to be addressed separately.)

What is so interesting is that Jesus was continually moving toward women. Not away from them. He approached the woman at the well and didn't end the interaction when she drew him water. He didn't send Mary back into the kitchen as she sat at his feet, in fact he said she chose the better way. When a prostitute washed his feet with her tears, he saw her heart and dealt with her so gently, while the leaders wanted to send her away.

It is passages like these that give me hope that I am something more than a collection of cooties or a walking death trap. That I am not invisible. Or dangerous. 

So many women I know long for healthy, encouraging interactions with men. And men need healthy, encouraging interactions with women. 

As Welcher says, "If women are to be viewed as whole person, the male gaze must be addressed holistically. The problem of male lust is not solved by looking away from women, but by looking at them correctly--as more than their physical bodies, the temptations they pose or the sexual satisfaction they provide. They must learn to see them as sisters, image bearers and coheirs of the kingdom of God."If women are to be viewed as whole persons, the male gaze must be addressed holistically. The problem of male lust is not solved by looking away from women, but by looking at them correctly—as more than their physical bodies, the temptations they pose or the sexual satisfaction they provide. They must learn to see them as sisters, image bearers and coheirs of the kingdom of God.

I

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Listen

 In her book When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd writes:

At my darkest moments I did feel as if my heart was groaning. As I write about those terrible sounds, I do so with that odd kind of trepidation that comes from being human in public. Recently I received a letter from a reader who was "surprised at me" because I'd written an article expressing some of my midlife feelings, "Christians shouldn't feel that way," she said. (The implication was pretty obvious.) But the truth is Christians have all kinds of feelings. Their hearts groan in many ways. And frankly, I believe we'll all be better off when we take off our religious masks and become more human. Then we can get on with what really matters--the act of cupping our ears to one another's hearts with compassion.

It is time, people. It is time to take off the mask. It is time to quit pretending that "good Christians shouldn't feel that way." Stop putting people in a box. A tidy, pious box. That box may make life more comfortable for you but it is suffocating to your neighbor. And it looks nothing like Jesus. Take off your own mask and quit insisting other people wear one. And listen. Listen without an agenda. Listen without judgment. Listen with compassion. That is what really matters. 

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