Spiritual Gift Wrap

There is something I have been pondering for a few months now. 

We take our interpretation of scripture and make it THE interpretation. Our emphasis and make it THE emphasis. Our angle and make it THE angle. 

And the same goes with life as a whole, and all the little parts of life that make up that whole. 

We take what we long for...we take our perspective of the day...and claim it is God's way. 

It is ok to have convictions. To have opinions. To have preferences. To tailor make things to our skills and experiences and circumstances. Our longings and our dreams. 

The problem comes when, instead of accepting those things for what they are, choices in a cafeteria of fine and acceptable options, we wrap them in biblical language and proclaim them as THE biblical path forward. And we gift them to everyone else. 

The problem is that, as with all legalism, is that we are placing a law where there may indeed be none. We are placing that law on ourselves and on others. and the consequences of the law are almost always arrogance and self-righteousness if we get it right (and judgment of others who don't) or despair if we fail at the so called "biblical" standards that we or somebody else has set up. 

The other problem is that as our opinions and preferences and convictions change, as they often do as we grow and develop and experience real life, we may be hesistant to move on, to live out life a different way, because we or someone else has labeled anything outside of the prescribed path as unbiblical, dangerous, heresy. 

For those of you who identify as Christians, worry not. I am not talking about basics here. I am not throwing out Jesus. I am talking about all the things we add. All the ways we shore up our fragile egos with declaring our ways are the only biblical ways. We take complex life decisions and boil them down to a template that will get God's stamp of approval...OR ELSE. 

I think I really first noticed this, and I will say, to my shame, engaged in it, as a young parent. It wasn't enough to long to stay at home with my babies, I needed not only God's stamp of approval but God's proclamation that I was doing THE biblical thing. I decided having more kids was more holy (thus my despair when we stopped after only four when so many more "godly" women had so many more). I remember one woman saying she thought not breastfeeding was a sin, her preference and scientific evidence rising to the level of moral law. The Ezzo parenting style brought division and showed me how damaging it was to be on the failing end of the "biblical" parenting mandate, I mean what kind of an apostate are you when you not only don't believe in Growing Kids God's Way, you couldn't get with the program if you tried. The schooling decision brought more guilt and pain. People's convictions and preferences were coopted by a culture of fear and the result was a fracturing of community into the "us vs them" of education. I could go on. 

A couple of weeks ago a young mother wrote a truly concerning article for Desiring God declaring, among other things, that Satan uses the internet to take down mothers. She included this zinger that, thankfully, lit a bonfire of backlash, 

Some of Satan’s best work is accomplished by women talking to women, in the floating world of disembodied souls on the Internet.

The article really deserves its own blog post response, perhaps, but I saw here what I am seeing everywhere: a young woman who has opinions and convictions and has decided that, rather than living out her convictions for herself (avoiding the community of women found on the internet and seeking out only the wisdom of older women in her church and scripture), she needs to wrap her convictions in a package of spiritual language and place that burden on other people. 

I once read an article about how letting your child quit the soccer team was violating some biblical principle and Elisabeth Elliot had a thing for tidy housekeeping and well made beds, proclaiming "A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul.”

Why can't we just have the freedom to like what we like and parent how we have been gifted to parent with our particular children who may be vastly different from our neighbor's? Why can't we vote how we have been convicted to vote and pray the way we pray without being told one is right and one is wrong? Why can't we trust that God his Kingdom is big enough for all of our convictions, opinions, personalities, gifts, and preferences? Minus the spiritual gift wrap?

Paul flipped a biscuit when circumcision was added to the gospel. We would do well to follow suit. 

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On Abortion

Texas has just enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the country and I am dumbfounded. Don't get me wrong, I am not a full-on pro-abortion person, though I have been accused of such. It is a spectrum, people, and I have friends all across the spectrum from pro-life/anti-abortion, those who believe that abortion for any reason at all as well as certain forms of birth control is pure unadulterated evil to those who believe that a woman should be able to make any choice she jolly well pleases with her own body. I actually think that a lot of us are somewhere in the middle and that is because the issue of unintended pregnancy is not a black and white issue. There is a lot of gray. A lot of complexity. A lot of messiness. 

For decades I was in a camp that pretty much believed that your views on abortion were the litmus test of your beliefs about God. The more you opposed abortion the closer you were to Jesus. A step over the line into the nuance of the issue meant a step onto the slippery slope of liberalism. Abortion was viewed as the selfish choice made by women who were too slutty to choose abstinence, too foolish to use birth control, too self-centered to carry a baby to term, too selfish to give it up for adoption, and too lazy to raise it as her own. 

I don't know if I ever believed all that but I do know at one point in my life things seemed a lot more clearly marked than they do now. I was much more naive to the complexities and I didn't have a frame of reference to understand why the abortion issue was so much more complicated than I had ever understood.

All that changed about ten years ago and I got a front row seat to what happens when a young woman gets pregnant out of wedlock. I will say that, for the most part, my daughter's pregnancy was embraced and supported and for those who came alongside us I am forever grateful. And yet I also saw the flip side. When a friend wanted to throw a baby shower for our daughter that friend was told by a church leader that "this is not something to celebrate." Another person said that the concern among many was that a baby shower would be a sign that they were "endorsing her sin." All of the sudden the rhetoric no longer matched the reality. Sure let's trumpet our pro-life stance everywhere we can, let's picket abortion clinics, let's villify any public official who isn't on the pro-life ticket (and chide those who voted for them) but when the rubber meets the road, we just can't go there. We who say that we "love babies" and want you to "choose life" don't mean that when it comes in the form of an unwed mother with a large belly. 

I've written way too much about the needs of single mothers to recount it again here. All this to say that you can't be pro-life and then wave away any responsibility to come alongside women who are doing exactly what you wanted them to do: bearing a child.

The problem is that the pursuit of abortion isn't just the pasttime of women who are too selfish and irresponsible to use birth control or have the baby. There are just so many situations that are so complex. Situations that are hard enough on their own and then you throw a pregnancy in the mix. 

The reason I cannot applaud the Texas ban on abortion starting at 6 weeks of pregnancy is because I cannot fathom how so many scenarios will be handled. There are too many questions. 

-Should a 14 year-old who has been impregnated by her abusive older brother (or father or grandfather or uncle) be forced to carry a baby to term? Is her body ready for this? Can she emotionally handle it? What does this do to the family dynamic? Will the abuser get prosectuted? Will the abuser get parental rights? Who raises the baby? What does enduring a pregnancy, especially one that is the result of incest, do to her social world? Will she bear the stigma forever?

-What about victims of rape or coercion? Is a woman (or girl) forced to carry the child of a rapist or the cool guy who sweet talked her into making out, only to not stop when she begged him to? Who raises this baby? Who has custody? Who pays child support? 

-What about the woman who desperately wants to find an escape from her abusive boyfriend or husband, only to discover that she is pregnant (and most likely pregnant due to coercion or rape). Any physical abuse almost always escalates during pregnancy. Will he beat her because she is pregnant? Or will he use the baby as a tool to control her for the next 18 years, a pawn in a custody battle. 

-What about the women who don't have the medical insurance to cover prenatal care? Many Christian medical sharing programs will not cover any expenses related to pregnancy or childbirth if the woman is not married. 

-What about the woman who knows that revealing a pregnancy will mean that her parents will disown her forever? Or she'll be excommunicated from her church? Or miss out on her only chance to go to college and get herself out of a cycle of generational poverty? Are we prepared to be her family? Her church? Her village who will help her raise her child while she pursues an education? Will we offer her childcare so she can get her feet under her? 

-What about the woman whose life is now threatened by the pregnancy and the very life growing inside her? Can she make the decision to terminate the pregnancy (assuming it can be done) without bearing the stigma for making a decision that nobody would ever want to be forced to make? Why does the only pro-life stance have to be choosing the possible life of the baby over the probable death of the mother? 

Please understand me. I am not saying that abortion is the answer. I am saying that this is an incredibly complex issue. Women have abortions for so many different reasons. I'm sure some are what we have always been taught they: choices of convenience. But there are so many that aren't and that is what concerns me. 

I think Texas is putting the cart before the horse. BEFORE abortion gets banned in such a broad stroke sort of way, be it in Texas or some other state, we need to deal with some serious issues and, quite frankly, we need to make abortion less wanted. Less needed. I'm afraid an abortion ban cannot be put out there as a neat-and-tidy-one-size-fits-all solution because it isn't a solution at all and it will likely only create a bigger problem. 

I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-support. I am pro-let's-find-a-path-forward. I am pro-changing-the -andscape-so-that-abortions-aren't-needed-or-wanted. If we don't want abortion, then we need to roll up our sleeves, come alongside the women and children, and do the hard work of putting our heart and soul into what we have professed to believe about the sanctity of every life. 

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The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

 There is a podcast taking portions of the Evangelical world by storm right now. It is The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. If you've never heard of Mars Hill, perhaps count yourself lucky. But if you are in Evangelical spaces or even in a church at all, it might be wise to give it a listen.

Mars Hill was a church started in 1996 by a young guy by the name of Mark Driscoll and a couple of other guys. But Mark catapulted himself to Evangelical stardom in the decades that followed by building a megachurch empire on the shoulders of rigid theology, macho masculinity, a win at all costs mindset, and the gross abuse of power.

While I don't know anyone who was involved in Mars Hill in Seattle, I know a lot...a LOT of people, including myself, who find aspects of the church and the culture that fed into and fed off of that church, eerily familiar.

The fear of them vs us. The arrogance. The certainty. The law hammered down with an iron fist.

The big question people ask is why didn't anybody speak up? Why didn't anybody put a stop to this before it ended up in such a train wreck. I'm sure people did speak up. I'm sure there are people who tried to stop it. And if you listen, you will find out what happened to the people who spoke up. And it wasn't pretty.

And I can tell you that this happens all the time. I can tell you what happens when people speak up about something that just isn't' right. Something that is hurting them. Something that is hurting others. Something that doesn't seem to be at all in line with who Jesus was.

What happens? Our concerns are minimized. Our needs are wrong. We are too critical. Too pessimitic. We aren't giving people the benefit of the doubt. We are expecting too much. We are projecting our bad experiences onto the church. We are wallowing in a victim mentality. We aren't respecting those in spiritual authority over us who apparently know better than we do. "Shut up and drive."

If we persist, we are called gossips. Divisive. We might even be accused of being wolves by the very wolves that are attacking the sheep.

If we give up and share our concerns and experiences farther afield we are "making the church look bad." Image management becomes the goal, not the protection of the wounded slumped over in the pews.

So what happens? The wounded give up. They see nobody who listens. Nobody who takes them seriously. Their lives don't matter. Only the teaching matters. Only the theology matters. Only the authority matter. And so the wounded crawl out the back door of the church and don't look back. And nobody comes after them. Becasue nobody wants to know. They have a good thing going.

It's a complex issue, it really is. Good things happened at Mars Hill. It is those good things that enable the toxic culture and abuse of power to grow and morph into a machine of destruction. It seems that great evil is often mixed with great good so that it goes down easier. A spoonful of sugar and all that.

Jesus said that you will know them by their fruit. I think the problem is that sometimes we have a skewed view of what is indeed good fruit at all. Is it numbers? Is it salvations? Baptisms? Theological knowledge? Children who can parrot the catechism or a biblical worldview? Is it saved marriages? Or large families? Is it money? Buildings? Ministries? Is it our political affiliation? What?

All of that can come crumbling down in a heartbeat.

I encourage you to listen. This is a cautionary tale. One we all need to learn from.

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Proper Use of Power

So much of the mess we are seeing today in the Southern Baptist Church is because those in power have chosen to protect their own rather than those who have been harmed at their hands. Whether it is the victims of abuse within the church or of the systemic racism in the church, the focus has been on circling the wagons and decimating those who have tried to speak truth. 

And it isn't only the SBC that is having issues. I have certainly seen some nasty manifestations of this in the PCA as well as other denominations. Really, we see this in all varieties of faith. And anywhere there is a power structure, there is the risk for misuse and abuse. 

We see power lording itself over others. Power denying or minimizing the impact of trauma, suffering, oppression, and abuse. Power demanding allegiance. Power pushing its own flavor of belief and condemning those who differ. Power snatching for itself the role of the Holy Spirit in someone else's life. And most of all, we see power protecting its power at all costs. 

In Lacy Crawford's memoir Notes on a Silencing she says, "It is only when power is threatened that power responds." I have witnessed a fascinating phenomenon: Men with power will sit aside and do absolutely nothing while those around them are wounded and abused. They do nothing until their own authority is challenged.

I've watched the improper use of power wreck lives. I've felt that impact in my own life.

We must realize that any abuse or misuse of power does tremendous spiritual damage to those in it wake because it so horribly misrepresents the character of God. We must remember that any power we have has been given to us and is not ours to use however we fancy.

And yet power exists. It is a fact of life. And power is an attribute of God and we humans are created in the image of God. 

So what does the proper use of power look like, especially within the church?

Power must always be wielded with humility and acknowledged that is has been given. There should be no place for power grabbing within the Kingdom. 

Power must always be used for the protection of others. 

Power is to be used to bring about truth, shed light in the darkness, bring healing, hope and justice. 

Power must listen to the less powerful and seek to understand their lives, their circumstances. 

Power gives the voiceless a microphone and teaches them to speak. 

Power makes a way in the wilderness for those who see no path forward. 

A right use of power, one that reflects the very definition of power Himself, is that power is to be poured out for those who have none. 

After all, that is what Jesus did. 

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On Street Preaching

We stood there. Four of us. In Downtown Asheville. On a Saturday evening. And watched.

Downtown Asheville is an eclectic place, full of buskers and tourists, the wealthy and the homeless. Some nights a drum circle forms in Prichard Park but on this particular night there was no drum circle. Instead, there was an evangelism service. A man held a microphone, preaching to the masses, proclaiming the Word of God. Modestly dressed young people stood on street corners, neat and tidy, handing out pamphlets and yelling to us, "Jesus loves you." 

Jesus loves you, they say. But where does it go from there? 

The young woman next to me spoke. "When I was 16 I became pregnant. My church sent a letter to everyone telling them to shun me. I don't go to church much any more." 

Jesus loves you, they say. But not if...

All of us standing there had encountered this message in one form or another. 

Jesus loves you, they say. But not if you get pregnant out of wedlock. 

Jesus loves you, they say. But not if you leave your abusive husband. 

Jesus loves you, they say. But not if your addiction proves too much to manage.

Jesus loves you, they say. But not if you step outside the box of the Evangelical Industrial Complex. 

We bristled at the sight, at the sounds, at the atmosphere. We know that talk is cheap but love is hard. We know it is easy to get somebody "saved" but considerably harder to come alongside them in their time of need. We cringed knowing that what mattered to these people was getting souls into heaven but caring for them on earth was another matter altogether. One that was above their pay grade.

In college I was told that I had to do evangelism. I avoided it. I hid from it. I hated it. I never, ever thought that walking up to somebody on the beach during spring break and sharing the Four Spiritual Laws with them was really the way to bring God to another person. Some churches still emphasize evangelism. And I just can't get with the program. Nobody wants to be somebody's agenda.

People aren't lectured into the Kingdom. They are loved into the Kingdom. And that is done through relationship. And that is done through relationship that reflects the character of God. The kind of character that comforts the afflicted, stands up for the oppressed, protects the abused, brings hope to the despairing, feeds the hungry, heals the sick, strengthens the weak, and pours out mercy on those who know they need it. 

If you can't show somebody that Jesus loves them, shouting it isn't going to do any good. 

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On Bullies and Agency

"Watch it, especially if you've been bullied." Those were the words my pastor said when he shared Brandi Carlile's stunning song The Joke on Facebook a few days ago. Bullied. It wasn't until recently that I ever considered myself bullied. 

I was seven, eight, nine, ten. One of the oldest in my class but also one of the smallest. I lacked athletic skills, popularity, and force of personality. Your typical wallflower and last to be picked for the kickball team. Give me an encyclopedia and I'll be fine. And yet I wanted friends and a girl my age moved in across the street. She was loud and funny and strong and athletic. What could possibly go wrong?

As was the case back then, we spent most of our time outside. For whatever reason she found it enjoyable to beat me up. Whether it was punching me or throwing firecrackers at my head or tossing me into sticker bushes or doing the "possum stomp" (if memory serves, you shove someone to the ground and get their head between your ankles and jump up and down, with their head beating the ground), or shoving me into a closet while sitting on me and stuffing dirty socks in my mouth...this was just part and parcel of our friendship. It never, ever occurred to me to ask her to stop. To TELL her to stop. to DEMAND that she stop. 

Looking back fifty years, I find this fascinating and, in many ways, such a vivid example of what my current life task is. I need to develop a sense of agency. 

A sense of agency is the idea that your actions can make a difference in your life. You have the right and the ability to choose a path, be it a tiny footpath or a major fork in the road. You have the ability to have some say in the trajectory of your life. A lack of agency looks like having no say in your life. Letting everything just happen because what you need or what you want doesn't matter anyway. Or even if you make an attempt, it will fail. You will fail. It is powerlessness made manifest. 

Think about it this way. We have all heard about the fight or flight response to stress or danger. But the third response, and a common one, is freeze. It's what possums do when they play dead. There are times in life when there is no way to flea a situation. And fighting would only make matters worse. And so some of us freeze. 

I recently read (and posted on Facebook) a fascinating article about function of depression. That depression may be a survival technique, causing us to shut down when we have no way of being free from our circumstances, when we have no agency. Similarly, a lack of agency is the hypo-function aspect of stress. Some people under stress move into overdrive and hyper-function. Others shut down and hypo-function. 

Now, some people have no trouble with agency. I am recently read No More Faking Fine by Esther Fleece. Her response to her horrific childhood (and I mean really, really horrific) was to excel in everything and pour herself into every activity, every sport, every leadership position. Her response to her trauma was to become the ultimate overachiever. 

For whatever reason I did the opposite. I don't know what it is that makes one person's response to stress and trauma to try to over control their world and another's response is to assume that there is no control whatsoever. Maybe my wiring plays into it. Maybe my life experience. Maybe the messages I received both as a child (crazy, immature, incompetent, the cause of all the family problems) or as an adult (my needs, desires, thoughts, concerns are secondary to my husband's and he is to call all the shots. Those messages about the submissive wife did not come from Matt himself, but from the culture we were in.)

And once you have kids, you just kinda go with it. It is like getting swept into a set of rapids and using all your strength just to stay afloat and not drown. Perhaps a sense of agency would be learning how to paddle. I just barely kept my head above water (sometimes not even that), crashed into boulders, and let the chips fall where they may.

In his book Strong and Weak, Andy Crouch discusses what is needed for flourishing in life and he shares it on a nifty 2x2 chart. High authority and low vulnerability leads to exploiting. Low authority and low vulnerability leads to withdrawing. Low authority and high vulnerability leads to suffering. And high authority and high vulnerability leads to flourishing. 

I've always had the vulnerability stuff down pat. It's like I don't know any other way to be. But I have rarely had much in the way of personal authority, or agency, in my life. 

Getting that has been a challenge. First, I have to recognize all the times that I don't even consider that I can have agency. That I don't even feel like I have either the permission or the ability to speak or act. Then I have to practice having agency. It is a undeveloped muscle that needs practice, strength training. 

And perhaps the hardest part is sticking up for myself when using my agency gets me push back from those who might prefer that I not use it. After all, there are still bullies out there. Minus the firecrackers and the smelly socks, perhaps. But bullies nonetheless. 

So be patient with me as I get my legs under me in the agency department. I might be pretty clumsy at it. I might say too much or the wrong thing at the wrong time. I might make a stupid decision. But I'm gonna have to give it a shot. 

At the foundation of having a sense of agency is the belief that I have something valuable to offer the world. And the belief that I matter. And that it is OK to have wants and needs and take action to see those fulfilled. 

I think I have some work to do. 

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To Fathers of Daughters

We parents are all aware of, or at least should be aware of, the impact that our lives have on our children. Not just our words, though those matter more than you know, but our actions. Because even if our words are good and right, our actions can tell a different story. 

One of the most convicting things for me has been the idea that my acceptance of my own body will impact how my daughters perceive their bodies. As someone who has spent a lifetime wrestling with body image, it is terrifying to think that my own pathology could be passed down to my daughters. That my inability to love my body might somehow communicate to my daughters that theirs aren't good enough. When they are. They are beautiful. 

But this isn't about that. I'm not going to speak to mothers right now. I want to speak to fathers. I understand that hardly a man out there might read this, but but I'm going to say this anyway. In the words of Jackson Grimm, "I'm throwing all my words into the wind." 

I'll start with a story. It was almost 20 years ago when we lived in town. I was in the front yard raking leaves when a neighbor walked past and struck up a conversation. He was a single man, several years older than I was, and also a father of some older teen/young adult age children. He began telling me about his excitement to finally reconnect with a female friend from high school and how they met for dinner and how disappointed he was to see that she had gained a considerable amount of weight since he had last seen her. He then sheepishly admitted that he was just no longer interested in her, explaining, as he gestured my direction, "I mean, I want somebody that looks like you." 

I won't lie. For a few seconds...well...maybe a few minutes I was flattered that somebody out there saw me as attractive. What woman in her late 30s whose body has created, carried, and shoved out 4 kids and is worn to a frazzle doesn't want to know that there is still something about her that is pleasing to the eye (especially in a culture that emphasizes physical beauty above all else)? But it was all quite momentary and whatever warm fuzzy emotions I had morphed into two very different emotions: anger and terror. 

Anger. I was angry. I was angry on behalf of this woman. I was angry that her weight gain was seen as an obstacle to companionship. I was angry that women have to deal with this. That any of us have to deal with this.

And then terror. Did this mean that if I couldn't keep a handle on my own body I would one day be viewed as unworthy of relationship? And where is that line? 10 pounds? 20 pounds? Or is it years? Or both? What happens if I can't maintain myself? What happens if...or when...I slide down that slippery slope of middle age with its slowing metabolism and saggy skin. Will that mean that I am no longer worthy of affection and love? 

For those who know us know that I have an incredible husband who loves me completely and without condition and yet I still struggled with this. I understand that my personal experience may have made me oversensitive to this message. After all, my own father left my 56 year-old mother for a 39 year-old woman with blonde hair, perky boobs, and stylish clothes. 

It is a tale as old as time, these older men going for younger women. I'm sure evolution biology has the explanation that a man looks for women to carry his seed and populate the earth. But I still think it sucks. 

We've all seen it. Husbands trading Wife #1 for a younger, prettier Wife #2. And sometimes moving on to yet an even younger, prettier Wife #3. And so on. 

 Dads, have you ever thought about what are you telling your daughters? 

You are telling them that at some point it is totally OK to trade in last year's (or the last 30 years') model for an upgrade. You are telling them that at some point THEY might be traded in. You are telling them that at some point youth and beauty and fitness will trump history and  life experience and wisdom. You are telling them that one day they, like their mothers, may no longer be enough. You are telling them that at some point they won't matter any more. 

Is this a message you want to send to your daughters?

I understand it may be more complex than that. It may have less to do with the attractiveness of the old model and more to do with your own withering self-esteem. It may boost your ego to know that a hot young thing wants to be with you. It may make you feel less "old," less powerless in a world that exalts youth and puts even the middle-aged out to pasture as irrelevant and has-beens. It may feel oh, so good to be back in the saddle, so to speak, to be looked up to and admired by someone younger and less experienced.

But if you are struggling with those issues, please, please PLEASE, before you trade in someone closer to your age for a young hottie who will worship you and grace your right arm as your trophy wife, get some therapy. Get some therapy, if not for you, for your wife, for your children. Especially for your daughters. So that they do not grow up believing that one day they will no longer be of value because time has washed away the shine. 

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On Ramona Quimby and Parenthood

Every so often something transpires that gets you thinking yet again about an issue that you thought you had wrestled to the ground. 

Beverly Cleary died. Now, if you don't know who Beverly Cleary was, she was an amazing and prolific writer of children's literature and, most notably, the author of the Ramona Quimby series. While I didn't read the Ramona books as a child, I certainly read them as a parent to my own children.

Ramona was a spunky kid. My mother would have called her a "rascal." She was full of mischief and fun and so very outside the box. She was perhaps the kid who, in my timid compliance, I was afraid to be. She was so much like the kid I had living in my own home. She was a relief. Here was a lovable kid in literature who was, well,  just a kid. She made being a spunky kid OK and not a sin. 

I was reading Ramona to my kids at a time when the Christian culture and its views of child raising were a very dominant force. And it was all, all, ALL about obedience (first time and joyfully, by the way). It was all about training (I had one mom call me and ask me how I trained my kids to make up their beds because her 2 and 3 year-olds weren't making up their beds completely and neatly). It was all about making sure the kids' needs came second to any parental needs. It was all about seeing the sin in every action and weeding it out via strong discipline and the intentions of the heart. It was all about doing so much more. So very much more. It was exhausting and I just couldn't get on board. 

And yet I felt the judgment. And I suppose I still feel it. I know that I can't say much to parents with children younger than my own because I have little credibility. After all, none of my kids have followed the desired path that most Christian parents have for their children: homeschool or Christian school followed by Christian college followed by marriage to a Christian spouse followed by adorable Christian grandchildren. 

After all, I have a daughter who had a baby out of wedlock at age 20. What can I possibly know about parenting? I obviously did it wrong. In fact, all of my adult children have gone through rough periods in their teen and adult years. Life hasn't been a pleasure cruise on the highway of life for any of them. 

I am sure that there are plenty of people who look at our family and think, "If they had done X and Y and Z, then these things would have turned out differently. If they had been more structured, more disciplined, had family devotions, had higher expectations, required more, weeded out the idols of the heart...then adulthood would have been a pious piece of cake." 

But you know what? Any regrets I have are actually very different. I don't wish I had been more rigid, I wish I had been less so. I don't wish I had been more strict about how some of my daughters wanted to dress, I wish I had made less of a deal about it. I don't wish I had been more insistent on obedience, I wish I had been less focused on conformity and more on what was going on on the inside, not in an inborn sin nature sort of way, but in a "What is happening developmentally inside my child right now and what does he/she need?" sort of way. 

And you know what else? I LOVE my adult children. I LOVE that they have had so many different life experiences that are informing and enriching their perspectives and their ability to relate to others. Every one of them has a compassion and acceptance for people that is amazing and humbling and beautiful.

And I love that having children who have made mistakes and bad decisions and also good decisions and decisions different from what I would have chosen...I love that having kids who have their own minds and their own needs and their own lives apart from my management has made me more understanding of all sorts of families. 

I can cry with the mother whose child has walked away from the family and God. I can encourage the shocked parents that this unexpected grandchild will desperately need their love and care. I can sit with frustrated singles who desperately want to but can't find a spouse because I have seen up close and personal the challenge it is to find a mate. I can go to bat for single mothers because I know the oppressive burden they carry. I can see the red flags in abusive relationships and come alongside those who need encouragement and support. I have realized that God has a different path for everybody and some of those paths are considerably messier than others. And I have realized that messy can be insanely beautiful. 

Perhaps that is what made Ramona so very special. She was messy. She had her own way of doing things. And in all of it she was so very lovable. Ramona, in many ways, gave me permission to raise regular, real kids and love them for it.

Thank you, Ramona Quimby. 

And thank you, Beverly Cleary. Rest in peace. 

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Missing Fruit

David French posted an incredible article about Beth Moore leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. But it wasn't just about Beth Moore leaving the SBC, it was about the cruelty directed at her as she gradually rose to challenge some of the deep-seated ideology and tipped a handful of their sacred cows. His article was about what was missing in response to her. The Fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 

I see this all the time. I see this everywhere. Ideological war means that there is no weapon off limits. It's your job to defend your system of belief, no matter what means you use to do it. And the most preferred weapon, it seems, is cruelty.

Names are called. Charges are trumped up. Insults are lobbed. Accusations fly. The road to reasonable discourse is blocked by intricate policies, procedures and the assault on one's character. A minor difference in cultural preference or a distance, debatable theological stance comes front and center as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and if you are on the wrong side of that truth, you are on a slippery slope. You are a heretic. You deserve to be burned at the stake.

There is only one word for such vitriol. Evil. This is pure, unadulterated evil. 

And yet it can be evil cloaked in the most pious of garments. 

Make no mistake. This is about power. 

In her memoir Notes on a Silencing, Lacy Crawford makes the astute observation: 

It is only when power is threatened that power responds. 

Jesus encountered it. Beth Moore encountered it. You may have encountered it. 

People. Listen to me. Let go of that power. It is not your ideology that makes you significant. It is not your piety that makes you holy. It is not your purest of pure theology that makes you acceptable to God. That is all a lie from the pit of hell. 

We bring nothing to the table. NOTHING. That is the whole point. So if we bring nothing to the table, then someone whose views diverge from ours, that person can take nothing away. They are not a threat. 

Let go. Let it go. Let go of your "precious" (yes, think Gollum here) that you feel so rallied to defend. Let go and embrace a God of love and compassion. A God who can himself defend truth. 

You can embrace those who are different than you. You can make room for other ideas. Other perspectives. It is possible to disagree and still treat the "other" as of value and created in the image of God. 

Last I checked there were two commandments: to love God with all we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Last I checked, loving our neighbors as ourselves didn't involve name calling, slander, insults, and threats. 

Don't worry. I know. I need to remember this, too. After all, what good does it do for me to defend God my ideas of God if I am not reflecting the character of God? The next time I post something I need to check and see if there is a spirit of cruelty in my words or if they reflect the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 

 

 

 

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On "Why?"

I am an insanely curious person. When something happens, I want to know why. I want to know the reason behind the reason behind the reason. I want things to make sense. They may not be pleasant, but at least they make sense. 

Remember as a kid? Remember asking why? "Why?" "Because." "Because why?" 

I used to think that in order to be a good Christian I had to have answers. All the answers. I had to be able to articulate the truth and debate the doubter. I needed to have the final trump card to turn the skeptic devout and to comfort those who, like me, were always asking why.

But as I have gotten older, scrambling for answers hasn't done a lot for me. In fact, it has left me with just more questions. The snake eating its tail in the shape of a question mark. There is so much I just don't know. 

Job's friend assumed they knew a lot. When he was sitting in his ash heap turned home place, his friends all decided that what he needed was a good explanation a la theology class. They oh so confidently dished out their explanations, their reasoning, their proclamation of God and his ways. Only they were wrong and they went down in history as Exhibit A in bad theology and what not to say to one who is suffering. 

What makes us think we have to have the answers? After all, God tells us that our ways are not his ways and our thought are not his thoughts. Certainly there are more things than not in this world, in this life, that are hidden, and hidden for a reason. And wasn't the temptation to eat from the knowledge of good and evil? Then they would know it all. Then they would be like God. But they aren't. And we aren't. 

Then we need to stop it with all the dogmatic decrees. For over 2000 years those who believe in the God of the universe and all creation have disagreed on so very much. If God wanted it so clear, would he not have made it so? 

Austin Fischer in his excellent book on doubt, Faith in the Shadows, says that "...when we claim the Bible clearly teaches something that has been rigorously debated by the best and most faithful minds for thousands of years, we could at least have the decency to blush. A couple thousand years of mercurial biblical interpretation suggest we're not very good at being honest with ourselves." 

When we think we have to have not just an answer but THE answer, we grow frantic. We grow grumpy. We grow proud. As if the whole of creation depends on our understanding of it. And when we think we have all the answers, we then become highly prescriptive, shrinking the Kingdom of God down to our preferences and dishing it out in student handbook form. Homework turned in late gets a zero. No skirts above the knee. No chewing gum in class. There's a place for everything and everything is in its place. If this, then that. Vending machine Christianity. 

I no longer try to understand a lot of things that don't make sense. I no longer try to have just the right answer to every question. And I actually no longer trust anybody who thinks they have all the answers. 

I've learned to say, "I don't know" in an awful lot of situations. Because, well, I don't. 

In the 1993 film Rudy, Sean Aston plays Rudy Ruettiger, a young man who is desperately grasping for his lifelong dream of playing football for Notre Dame. In his conversation with a priest, Father Kavanaugh (played by Robert Prosky) he asks some hard questions. The priest's response is the best line in the movie, and my favorite movie line of all time.

"Son, in 35 years of religious studies, I have come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: there is a God and I am not him." 

If you ask me hard questions that will likely be the answer you will get. That is about all I know at this point. I think it is OK to let the questions be, to sit in mystery and uncertainty. Because, after all, I am not God. 

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What If?

A while back I wrote a post about healing. I shared about my frustration that, at my age, I'm still not "fixed." I still struggle with so many things. Sometimes intensely so. And I shared my epiphany that, just as alcoholics are called "recovering alcoholics" not "recovered alcoholics," so I will always be, at least in this life a "healing Ginny" and not a "healed Ginny." 

But that isn't really an accurate picture. Healing typically implies an previous injury to be healed from. And while I have certainly had my share of painful life experiences, some I have shared with you and some I have not. Some are "flashbulb" memories in my life, etched on my brain and some more vague senses of something terribly wrong etched in my soul. But there is more to all that.

While we can certainly have physically injuries we need to heal from, sometimes we don't heal from injuries. Some car crashes result in temporary handicaps. Some maim for life. 

Or sometimes we have conditions that don't require healing from, but coping with. 

The most obvious one I can think of is type 1 diabetes. There is currently no cure. Management is where it is at. Genetics can play a part. While lifestyle choices can create risk factors for type 2 diabetes (but not always so stop the finger wagging and shaming), that is not the case with type 1. There is no healing from type 1 diabetes. There is only management. Coping. 

Thus is the case perhaps with much of one's interior life. It is certainly the case with mine. I hit the genetic jackpot when it came to mental health (I refuse to call it "illness"). My paternal grandmother suffered from severe depression. My maternal grandmother was the most anxious person I have ever known. My mother dealt with both anxiety and major depression and obsessions over health and food safety. My mother was a chronic dieter with an abysmal body image (eating disorders are 50-60% genetic). My paternal grandmother and both of my parents were only children who suffered intensely from a loneliness they could never escape. 

I come by my pathologies honestly and, unfortunately have been exceedingly generous in passing them along (sorry, kids!). I have struggled since age 11 with anxiety, depression, OCD and since puberty with intense response to hormonal fluctuations. I am by wiring a Highly Sensitive Person. 

A few years ago a counselor told me that part of maturity is learning to manage your biology. So that is what I have to do a lot of the time. Sometimes my intense sadness is not a result of some still unhealed soul wound within me (though there are still way too many of those to count), sometimes it is just a result of my biology or "the weather," as my husband calls the storms that slam against my soul. 

Sometimes management means adjusting the dosage of my hormone patch (don't you mess with my hormone patch!) and sometimes it means taking some much needed down time to do a jigsaw puzzle or sudoku. Sometimes it means just sitting with the feelings and letting them near, without being so afraid of them. Sometimes it means waiting them out until they go on their way. 

While I will always be pursuing healing for those things within me that can be healed, I need to give myself grace and patience for those things within me that can't be healed because they are just part and parcel of who I am. Perhaps some of my issues are the result of a "broken Ginny" and others are just part of "wonky Ginny." They are how I am made. Who I am. 

We all have to learn to manage who we are, to work with our strengths and weaknesses. We also need to learn, to a certain extent, acceptance of who we are and who we are not. I was recently struck by these verses and a specific word in it:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.  -  Psalm 139-13-14

 

Inmost. Inmost being. Could it be that when God created me he not only decided to give me blue eyes and a small bone structure and crappy knees but also a brain that sometimes gets stuck, undulating hormones, and a sensitive spirit? 

When it says "inmost," could it mean that the parts of me that some people think need healing and that I often wish would get "healed away" are the way God made me? Could it be that I can use those to speak truth and sit with another in empathy? Could it also mean that I need to manage some of my inmost being with medication (I'm talking to you, Paxil) in order to improve my quality of life and better love those around me?

I know many who sit in shame because of their inmost being. They wonder what is wrong with them that they still struggle. They don't have the promised peace or the victorious life. But what if that doesn't come now? What if "healing" and not "healed" is where it is at? What if managing our inmost beings, the wiring God gave us, is part of our accepting ourselves as finite creatures living in a fallen world? And what if those parts of us that we, and sometimes others, view as curses are actually just challenges, or even more, what if they are gifts because they make us more real? More relatable? And more dependent on God and each other? 

What if? 

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"You Hate the Church!"

Last summer I received a message from someone I had known for a very long time. She leveled at me a number of accusations. One of them was, "You hate the church." I can see how people might think that. I speak often about the church and the harm it has caused. I don't speak as often about its beauty. I don't rush to defend it. I don't push it on other people.

My relationship with the church has been a complex one. But I don't speak out against the church because I hate it. On the contrary. 

In November 1989 I sent an 11 page letter to my mother. It was a letter explaining to her why I had distanced myself from her. I tried to spell out the dysfunctional and unhealthy patterns that I had seen and that I had endured, I gave examples of what those patterns looked like and I let her know the effects those had on me. I let her know that I wanted a relationship with her, but I wanted a healthy relationship with her. And I couldn't go on with the status quo without speaking out against so many of the harmful dynamics that were destroying our relationship. 

Why did I do this? Because I hated her? No. Because I loved her. The fact that I loved her made me more vulnerable to her dysfunction and abuse. So in order to shine a light on what was marring our relationship, I spoke up. 

I do the very same thing with the church. I don't hate the church and yet I hate very much of what it has become. Just as I could still love my mother but hate the criticism and the guilt manipulation and the toxic enmeshment that she expected, I can love the church universal while hating the cultural manifestations that we see front and center. 

If I had hated my mother, I wouldn't have given her the time of day. I would have cut off contact and just vacated her life without an explanation and without hope of a future. I didn't do that. I told her that, in order for us to have a relationship, these issues needed to change. In order to have a relationship, I suggested she seek out some counseling to help her understand what I was saying. I did this because I loved her. She was destroying herself and she was destroying me. 

So when you read my sometimes harsh words about the church and think, "Oh, there she goes again. That girl just hates the church and I need to put her in her place," please know that that is not the case. I long to see the church as it really is and as it should be: a body of those caring for one another and bound together by their need for a Savior, a refuge for people in need of kindness, compassion, and redemption , and a truthful representation of the character of God. 

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When Billy Graham Is Wrong

Three years ago today I stood in a quasi-paved area between a Swannannoa gas station and Athens Pizza and watched as Billy Graham's body made its way through the Swannanoa Valley before leaving the mountains he loved for his burial in Charlotte. It was a moving experience. Saying goodbye often is. 

I have always had so much respect for Billy Graham. While his calling and his methods were not my cup of tea, he always at least seemed like a kind and compassionate man, able to bridge many gaps in our fractured world. He seemed to me a more accurate representation of the character of God than many or even most notable Christians out there and certainly a vastly different man than his famous son. 

Because of this I was surprised, dismayed, and even angered last week when my sister sent me the screen shot of his "My Answers " column in the Chattanooga paper. 

Q: I am addicted to some prescription drugs. Is that the same as addiction to drugs and alcohol?

A: From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham

Volumes could be written on the problem of drug addiction. Millions of barbiturates are swallowed every night to help the nation sleep. Millions of tranquilizers keep people calm during the day. Millions of pep pills wake people up in the morning. The Bible warns that these flights from reality bring no lasting satisfaction.

There is widespread anxiety in people’s hearts today. While battles rage around the world and storms gather in the human spirit, depression steals rest from our souls. This is an unfolding phenomenon that grips hearts with indescribable fear. Society is caught up in a powerful windstorm by turning to drugs to calm their hearts and minds.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported that anti-depressants are now the most prescribed drugs in the United States. They are sometimes called the “designer drug.” In an interview on CNN, one physician stated, “It’s hard to believe that so many people are depressed, or that antidepressants are the answer.” This doctor is wise, indeed. Drugs are not the answer to man’s troubled condition. There is only one answer to the travail of this present age, and it is found in the pages of God’s Word, the Bible.

While it is important to be under the responsible care of physicians when battling emotional trauma, do not dismiss the peace of mind that comes from the Great Physician. Jesus brings deliverance to those who are weighed down. The Bible encourages us to think on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. It is good medicine for our minds and hearts (Philippians 4:8).

(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)

My head exploded and my heart broke when I read this. Here is the most respected man in the Christian world equating taking antidepressants with prescription drug addiction and basically saying that the only answer to depression is the Bible. The insinuation is that if you have Jesus, you don't need antidepressants. This is the mentality that has pervaded the church for decades upon decades and has been used to marginalize and oppress those who have struggled with anxiety and depression. 

While I don't believe that Billy Graham intended to be cruel here, the result is cruel, nonetheless. This is what happens when misinformation gets passed on as gospel and when someone who is proficient in one area (theology) makes pronouncements about an area where he has no training and apparently little understanding (mental health). This happens all the time. Unfortunately, these words are coming from likely the most trusted human in Christendom. 

My thoughts as I read through his answer:

-Yes, people take these medications he mentions for a host of reasons: some responsibly and with the careful supervision of a physician and others out of a need for self-medication and addiction.

-It is often the untreated mental illness or unresolved trauma that leads to self-medication and addiction to opioids, benzos, and stimulants. Opening the Bible, while a wonderful step in seeking spiritual truth, will NOT in itself heal trauma or manage mental health issues. 

-"Turning to drugs to calm our hearts" with regard to depression is a harsh way of putting it and that mentality is what causes so many people who might benefit from antidepressants to write them off as unbiblical. 

-"Drugs are not the answer to man's troubled condition." Oh, sheesh! Antidepressants are a tool. A TOOL. And, might I add, a very useful tool and sometimes the only tool available to many people. There are so many reasons a person might benefit from antidepressants even aside from depression management. This isn't to say that they are the ONLY tool, but they are a useful one. 

-It is totally possible that many, many people need both Jesus AND antidepressants. I know I do. 

I don't know WHEN Billy Graham wrote these words. It certainly wasn't recently, unless somebody is receiving his telegrams from heaven. I don't know who thinks that, in light of all of the new information we have about the physiological and psychological effects of trauma, the impact of hormones on mental health, and the physiology of depression, and the causes of addiction, it is a good idea to publish in newspapers across the country antiquated views of the use of antidepressants. 

All I know is that this ideology is still out there and it is still being perpetuated and used as a weapon against those who suffer intensely. While I certainly agree that coming to an understanding of a good and compassionate God who sees us and hears us is incredible comfort, we often need more. We may need therapy. We may need community. We may need medication. 

I have watched so many people I know suffer because they feel that they must not have enough faith in God if they need medication. I have watched entire families suffer when a person refuses to acknowledge their depression and take medication which could hugely improve their quality of life and relationships. 

How could this wise and compassionate man be so misinformed? How are we going to change this if the Powers That Be keep perpetuating misinformed and dangerous ideas from powerful people? 

I long for the day when those who have the respect and authority and the voice within the Christian world can grasp the complex maze of mental and emotional health and speak with compassion, intelligence, and wisdom, without offering simplistic solutions. 

-

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Birthday Apology

If she were still alive, my mother would turn 97 years-old today. But she's not. She died almost 12 years ago. Some days it seems like yesterday. Others it seems like an eternity. 

It is no secret that I had a strained relationship with my mother. She was a kind woman, much of the time, and a generous woman, but she was a very self-absorbed, emotionally needy woman and she looked to her children to fill that gaping void in her life and give her the validation that she craved, even if it strangled the life out of them. 

I spent years as an adult trying to walk the fine line of loving and honoring her without being sucked into the vortex of unrealistic expectations and a dysfunctional, enmeshed relationship. I wasn't terribly graceful at it. 

While I was there at her side when she breathed her last, I was not able to have that deathbed conversation like you see in the movies. Sometimes death is a very private and intimate affair but hers was not, what with family members filling the room, none of us ever having witnessed the end of a life. 

Then again, I wouldn't have known what to say anyway. Some things need time and life experience before you have that kind of clarity. 

The past several years have beat my faith to a pulp. I have had to do a lot of dismantling. Deconstructing, if you will (though I know that word means different things to different people). Before you call me a heretic, please know that I have not thrown everything away. Only the non-essentials. I have stripped it all down to the very basics. I had to. 

But sitting amid the rubble of my faith, one thing stood out to me and broke my heart: my arrogance. My arrogance that it was up to me to correct my mother in her beliefs, in the way she related to God. My arrogance that my churches were better than hers because mine taught all the right beliefs and hers was wishy-washy. My arrogance that I knew better what the Bible said. My arrogance that knowing the right theology was better than a childlike faith. 

Oh, that arrogance didn't form out of a vacuum. It was taught. It was pushed. I was told it was my duty to save my family members. I was told that a proper "worldview" would fix everything. In attempting to keep my mother at a needed emotional arm's length, I often used my superior theology to put her in her place. I say this to my shame.  

To be totally honest, I was relieved when she died. The relief came on so many levels, as did the grief. But one thing I took comfort in: even if in life she couldn't believe that I loved her because I couldn't love her in her in the language of enmeshment, I am convinced that now she knows. She sees clearly. 

I can't go back to that day in May 2009 when she let go of this world and stepped into the presence of God, but if I could, I would say this: I'm sorry, Mama. I am so, so sorry for my arrogance and for my trying to stuff you into an Evangelical box. It was so wrong on so many levels and I know it did so much damage for me to insinuate that God could only accept you if you jumped through the right hoops. I am sorry I didn't leave room for you to wrestle through your relationship with God in your own way. I am just so, so sorry. 

I couldn't say it then so I'll say it now. 

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mama. I miss you. I really do. 

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