On Putting the Dark and the Light Together

I  find it so interesting that Moses “when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” (Hebrews 11:24 ESV)

I see that as choosing to take on the identity of  being one of God’s people, before his other human identity.   I choose that too.

It is a daily choosing.

Just as a good friend pointed out, being in the 12-steps (code-word for addiction recovery program)  involves being able to admit every day your broken state.  For me that is being an alcoholic.  It it necessary for your recovery and for survival.  Staying sober means admitting your powerlessness.   But can be a way to label yourself.  And it doesn’t create the space for allowing God to rename you, reshape you, even change and heal you, to transform and redeem.

I am rigid and ornery, prone to perfectionism.  Hard on others.  Even harder on myself.  I am a person that doesn’t like to be perceived as weak and is oh, so mean to myself!  How that fits with all of this I do not know completely except that it fits with my revisiting old pain, old narrative, old Story.  I have lived with naming my shaming for years.

But this is false, a false modesty and a false humility.

So says Richard Rohr, that incredible friar who wrote Falling Upward ( I have to admit I have not read this wonderful book, recommended by so many people I respect.  It’s on my to read list! ) But I get his emails.

I opened my inbox today and read this:

“All-or-nothing reformations and all-or-nothing revolutions are not true reformations or revolutions. Most history, however, has not known this until now. When a new insight is reached, we must not dismiss the previous era or previous century or previous church as totally wrong. It is never true! We cannot try to reform things in that way anymore.

“This is also true in terms of the psyche. When we grow and we pass over into the second half of life, we do not need to throw out the traditions, laws, boundaries, and earlier practices. That is mere rebellion and is why so many revolutions and reformations backfired and kept people in the first half of life. It is false reform, failed revolution, and non-transformation. It is still dualistic thinking, which finally turns against its own group too.

“So do not waste time hating mom and dad, hating the church, hating America, hating what has disappointed you. In fact, don’t hate anything. You become so upset with the dark side of things that you never discover how to put the dark and the light together, which is the heart of wisdom, all love, and the trademark of a second half of life person. Maybe that is why we blessed the candles on this day, right in the middle of winter.

“You become so upset with the dark side of things that you never discover how to put the dark and the light together, which is the heart of wisdom, all love, and the trademark of a second half of life person.”

Here’s to living in the Light!

If you Read Nothing Else from me. Read this. ((On healing))

English: The healing of the paralytic : wall p...
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So much to read, so little time. I know that.  If you read nothing else from me in a long while, I hope you’ll read this post.  It will not be long. (500+ words, a record.)

I have been writing (and living) out of a place of brokenness for so long that my story has become cliché and not honest – not dishonest exactly, but lacking the truth of my healing ….  A fractured painful childhood, a tenuous if bullheaded short-lived career, accidental stay-at-home motherhood, and loss, depression and loneliness, even alcoholism.  (And the biggest monster under my bed: being a feminist woman in the evangelical church.)

And now, this season that I cannot label because I am still living it.

Perhaps a place of abundance and healing, if only I would open my eyes and see. 

When you are in pain, you tie experiences together to find truth and your story all too easily becomes stuck.  I know this.  Today.  Living the life of Jesus is one of constant transformation.  Renewal.  Healing.

It is time to live into that healing. 

Be the truth that I have experienced.  Stop being “the abused child.” Stop being the frantic workaholic archetype striving for meaning in my work and looking for personal value in everything others do and say about me.

Stop living so empty.

Allow the One who fills, to fill me up overflowing.

Will I continue to talk about injustice?  You’re damn straight!  But I want to do it differently, do it with hope, and grace and peace.

With every part of me, I have wanted to be useful and in my cavernous need to be important I have invalidated myself.  My story.   For that I seek forgiveness and will endeavor to live out of Jesus’ fullness!

Mine is a story of healing and of transformation.  Not because of anything I have done but out of the grace of God and by receiving love from my husband , my children, and from my community of believers.

But by holding on…

to my anger about my upbringing,

to my disappointment with being born woman into a man’s world,

and to my fear that if “allowed to fly” I will flounder, fall, and I will fail.  Well,

I have allowed fear to rule and this is the day that it stops.

I want to live like I believe that the One who began a good work in me is faithful to complete it!

I am going to step toward trust.

Trust the words that I wrote today in the poem Nothing and Everything.

The Holy One accepts you for everything you are today and sees who you are becoming. For this Creator God made you, even chose you and is the architect of your life. The Holy One heals, because we sure need a healing.  Especially when confronted by the hideous ogre of our envy and pride. The Holy One guides and has a plan.“Even for me?” I cry, in the shadowy, nocturnal hours of fear, anger, twisted truths, ignorance, self-delusion and distrust?“YES, even you” whispers The Holy One.

I am going to step toward a life of abundance.  Even for me, my soul quakes?  Yes, even you.

MELODY

P.S.  I am so grateful for my husband.  And for the community of believers that I am a part of – it is a community of grace and abundance.   And I am grateful for my online community which is becoming a rich source of love and support.

Nothing and Everything

Nothing and Everything

a poem by Melody Harrison Hanson

 

Some Days.

Some days are clues that no matter how far you’ve come,

you are nothing.

(And you are everything.)

 Nothing and everything to the Divine and Holy One who loves – accepts – heals – guides – knows.

 

The Holy One loves you no matter how often you stumble.

The Holy One accepts you for everything you are today and sees who you are becoming.

For this Creator God made you, even chose you and is the architect of your life.

The Holy One heals, because we sure need a healing.  Especially when confronted by the hideous ogre of our envy and pride.

The Holy One guides and has a plan.

 

“Even for me?” I cry, in the shadowy, nocturnal hours of fear, anger, twisted truths, ignorance, self-delusion and distrust?

“YES, even you” whispers The Holy One.

 

The Holy One knows me better than I know myself,

leads me through the dark sheol of my own creating.

Patiently, kindly pulling me back when my motives, impure and self-seeking, make a collision course with life.

The Holy One is the perfect parent, understanding what I need, who I am and who I will become.

This Holy One believes when I cannot believe in myself.

For I know I am so frequently frail,

Failing,

falling,

 far,

from the Holy One

who knows all, knows me, knows the future.

Even these days

when through my streaming hot tears of shame and regret, I can only look up.

“YES, even you” whispers The Holy One.

 

Some days.

Some days are cues to humble you.  To learn that no matter

if you are nothing, you are everything

to the Holy One.

On Doubt & Growing up in the Church of (women) “Shouldn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

My daughter pushes me.  She demands.  Before coffee and time to wake up in the morning, she throws out at me like spittle in my face a withering challenge. She says, about my faith, my beliefs, something like ….

You follow some concocted foolishness, if only to comfort yourself, to be a part of something, to be less alone, to feel consoled by the idea you won’t spend eternity in hell.

Ouch.  She’s fourteen.  I listen.  And take another sip of coffee.  Silently wishing that I was more awake.  Wishing that I had time to go to seminary and get back to her.  Hoping that I can remain calm.  And mostly, I am hoping that I am lucid.  Does she not know this is not my best time of day?  Of course she does.  I am not freaking ready for this!?!

“And what sort of religion would sentence people to hell?” she continues.  I’m thinking “Where in the hell is she learning her ideas about hell?”

Yes, that’s the sort of girl we’re raising. 

Questioning.  Doubting.  Testing and pushing.  And I love it, even as it scares me and I long for more preparation.  No, I don’t fear my own doubt, because I have known the One who gives me peace beyond my comprehension.

But I fear her doubts.

She has a wonderful, active intelligence.  How to answer the questions rattling about in her brain— which she throws out with such vivid scorn.  How to answer, when it closely echoes the shadows of my heart and mind?  One might think this would make it easier, but it isn’t because I don’t fear my own doubt I pursue it. I have even grown comfortable with it, mostly.

But her doubts loom bulky and cumbersome, large in the room.  I feel them physically as she lurches toward her future.  Away from me.  Yes I feel her doubt pulling her away from me. This is what I must trust, that the One I know will make himself known to her and to each of them, my children.  I only possess them for a short season, if at all.  I once thought they were “mine” like a precious possession to be held on to tightly.  Now I know I don’t. I can’t keep them for my own.

The day she came squealing into the world, so strong and perfect I should have known then that she was not mine.  In the early months I was uncomfortable letting someone else take her from me, to hold her tight against their own chest in church.  I fought letting her infant body be pulled away from mine.  She was my first and the toughest, impossible, to let go of—I thought that I couldn’t do it.  I began to trust others just a little.  Our nanny.  A nursery caregiver.  Kindergarten teacher, first grade, second and up, over the years.  And now she is learning from pastors at church and from leaders in youth group that are young and barely out of school themselves.  And she learns from her friends.  How much she is learning from equally fallible, impressionable friends. 

I am reminded again, I can’t possess her.    

I look at her speaking this morning, so sure of herself, and  I think “I would hold you in my arms forever, if possible, so enormous is my love for you.”

A mother’s love and possession of her children is irrational.  At first I trusted no one.

And she always resisted me.

She struggles, fights me.  Argues about whether I like her outfits even when I say I do, she says I don’t; her hair, the shape of her nose which I think is quite perfect. But no, she is angry even as she tells me how very wrong I am.  “My nose is not perfect” she wants me to know. And I marvel at the thought.  To me, you are.

Perfection.

This is what I want to tell her.  

You have always questioned.  You were impatient, always.  I couldn’t teach you fast enough — the alphabet, or to read.  All of this could not be conquered quickly enough for you, in the midst of other babies coming along.  Just fourteen short months after you a brother, and he was physically large but quiet, careful and followed you everywhere; happily occupied by his admiration and awe of you.  My job and its demands getting me home at night exhausted, and there you were, already reading, even before I had the time to teach you.  You are ahead of me in so many ways.  At forty-five, I am just barely allowing myself to ask the hard questions, the ones that our faith community wouldn’t allow when I was growing up, somehow my doubt might mean that all of it isn’t true. 

I am only just learning to accept my own questions, to seek the answers out myself.  Yes, I learn from you my girl.

Your mother isn’t sure.  I doubt myself all the time  because I was told long ago in bible class in college (a Christian college) not to question.  As the Bible was opened for me in class, and I began to learn as never before, my heart fluttered and sped up with the dawning, comprehension that I could know the actual Greek words for myself.  I wouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for it.  Just. Like. Anyone. I could study and know for myself.  But when I sought this knowledge out, my professor asked “what would you do with it?” as if, I shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t learn for myself.  There would be no purpose.

Indeed, what purpose would it have served?

Yes that’s the lie I bought into, that I fight against (almost) every day as a woman in the Church, that we shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, learn and teach for ourselves.  It is a lie, but one that is so strong.   I beat it back.  It returns uninvited.  Reading the words in Blue Parakeet, I am once again liberated.  It’s a constant liberation required, when you are raised in the Church of women “shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.”   Scot McKnight liberated me again when he asked of scripture’s Story “What Did Women Do?”

What did women do I want to know?  We aren’t even to be allowed the stories in Bible of what women have done.  These stories of women have been silenced, ignored, overlooked and (not always with bad motives but still) they are missing!   As I have come into my own understanding of these things I have had to accept that to take a stand on this is threatening and provocative, and I am immediately perceived to be “liberal” and suspect, as if I don’t respect the Bible which I do, oh so very much from that moment in college when I had the profound thought “I can know this for myself. “ Oh what a sweet relief it was to read that even McKnight found it challenging to defend these things himself.

I am an evangelical, today anyway and I am only learning that I have read the Bible wrong.   I am learning to read the Bible as Story, even while “many of the traditionalists read the bible as a law book and a puzzle.  Traditionalists read the Bible about women in church ministries through tradition instead of reading the Bible with tradition.” (McKnight, the Blue Parakeet)

It is no small thing (to me) and I have spoken of this before.  My pastors never mention female theologians or even woman scholar’s writings about theology and the Bible.  I want my daughter to know that Christian women are thinking, can be academic, even scholarly, that we are wise and thoughtful.  Yes women.

And yet she doesn’t see that in the Church of  (women) “Shouldn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

What would it be like to grow up never hearing the old bible stories of what women did and are doing like Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah? To be a grown woman before you learn that these amazing legendary women spoke for God; they led the nation alongside men.  They sanctioned scripture and they guided nations.  What is it like to grow up never hearing from the knowledge and wisdom of women?   As my precious daughter shares her questions and doubt, I wake up and I listen, take it in.  I hope and pray.  She is strong and her soul and mind are powerful already.  Yes, I accept her doubts.  I know Doubt like a close friend, even if mine has different origins, nuanced by my upbringing and by mistreatment in my life by few strong men who abused.  I’m not afraid of my own doubt and I don’t want to be afraid of hers.  The Church needs girls like her who soon will grow into strong, articulate challenging women.  Her influence somewhere someday will be strong.  Perhaps even in the Church, if she stays long enough.  Are they ready her?  Or will they remain the Church of shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t?

Is that what you want to tell her?

We live in a culture that doubts everything as a matter of principle. In such an environment, how can even faith be immune to doubt? Can I really trust in the gospel? Does God really love me? Can I really be of any use to God? We are taught to doubt but commanded to believe. Somehow we think that admitting to doubt is tantamount to insulting God. But doubt is not a sign of spiritual weakness–rather it’s an indication of spiritual growing pains. — Doubting,  Alister E. McGrath

I guess we are both having growing pains –this slowly waking, grown woman, and this young girl .  Is the Church ready for us?  Will they echo that women couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t?  Or will they tell us, yes, you can.

–———————

These musings are like a journal and are not perfect.  As always, I hope you will extend me grace as I write to figure out what I think.

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Imagine my Surprise. I read the Bible “Wrong.”

I never knew  that there was a right or wrong way of reading the Bible.  

I have always thought, naively I will now acknowledge, that all that mattered was how one responded to what they read in the Bible.  Nope, I’ve been all wrong.  I don’t know where I learned this idea either.  I’ve absorbed a way of looking at the Scriptures that I never questioned.

“It’s how I was raised.”  

What do I mean? Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals (and I was taught to believe this but no longer) have a view of the Bible that it’s perfect, as in ” inerrant and infallible” by which they mean, it’s a divine product and its authority comes in “that God literally wrote it” by whispering his intents to people who then wrote it down (like God’s holy scribes).  And unless it clearly was metaphor, most every word was literally the truth, word for word from God.  These people also believe that the Bible is basically all God wants us to know in communicating his will to us, which precludes the work of the Holy Spirit and prayer, among other things.  They believe the Bible has everything we need and is totally relevant to the Christian life today.  That it is simple and plain, obvious; meaning if you just read it you’ll “just get it.”  There’s a morsel of goodness in that idea that anyone can read the Bible.  Unfortunately, even though anyone can read it isn’t simple!  What about the fact that it was written in languages we do not read or speak (most of us) and in a culture and time that we know nothing about. And the last, most heinous thing that simplistic reading of the Bible brings is the idea that one can pick and pull verses out of the context, not believing context is that important.  They read the Bible seeking blessings and affirmations for life.

Guilty. Guilty.  Guilty.

I do believe, and it is important to affirm, as Temper Longman says in How to Read Genesis, that the Bible is:

“… grounded in the ultimate divine authorship of the whole.  Thus in spite of a variety of styles, genres, themes and motifs, it is important to ask how the parts fit into the whole.”

And that is what I have known.  I guess one can make the Bible say pretty much whatever you want it to if you work at it.  People do it all the time!  I’m forty-five years old, been reading the Bible for myself since high school, and in many ways this is how I have always understood things.

That is what makes thinking about it in a new way so frightening.

I have to admit that I’m learning.

That fact should not be embarrassing, but it is.  People don’t like to admit very often that they don’t know something.  We all like  to come off as experts, if not experts than knowledgeable, if not knowledgeable then at least well-informed.  (

(Sigh)).  It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, uninformed, even lacking knowledge.  It is hard to admit but I believe if I’m willing to do that then perhaps others will become open to considering the same.

Do I dare even talk about this topic of reading the Bible?  I am by no means an expert but I’ve read some things recently. I am armed and dangerous but I’ll list my sources so that you can do your own homework.  (And you always should.)

Here’s what I’ve learned.

The Bible is a piece of literature.

It is a book made up of books.  It is a big story of God and the world.  It is made up of stories and poems that tell us about God.  It is also a series of smaller stories.   It is, like any other book you read, written within a genre and knowing the type of genre you are reading helps you know how you are supposed to read it; whether it is poetry, myths, parables, history, legends or a combination.  And like other literature you study you should know a little of the customs and culture of the time it was written.

“The truth of the matter is that the proper interpretation of any piece of literature, and in particular a text as ancient and important as the Bible, deserves our careful reflection.” — T. Longman.

Hermeneutics is just a technical name for interpretation or “how you read.”

There is a way to read the Bible for what it is not just for what we’d like it to say.  And as we learn to interpret the Bible — as literature, within a genre, written in a time and place, a culture, with a certain purpose, we are less likely to be “Biblical Literalists.”  Just because you find verses that supports your view doesn’t mean you’ve probed fully the biblical view.

How we read the Bible has become very divisive among Christians and has been a contributing factor in the “culture wars.”  Biblical literalists fear the “culture slide or culture creep” and tightly hold a grip on the Church and on their ideas; that a few texts yanked out of any context or culture, are prescriptive of how to “do church” for all time. This keeps churches from changing, in ways that may seem obvious to those of us (women and men) being raised with a different way of looking at Scriptures – raised to think, study and apply scripture for ourselves.

I do believe that the Bible guides us and has everything to say to us in the twenty-first century, it can and should guide us, it changes our ideas about our moral and intellectual life, it forms how we think and behave, how we treat others, and transforms us and shapes who we are becoming …

But …

It’s all about how you read and interpret the Bible. 

I think there may be many people in the Church today who were raised to be biblical literalists. I was.  I no longer believe this is correct in fact I know now that it is wrong.  But I don’t exactly know what I do think, yet.  That’s why I’m “developing my biblical hermeneutic.”

I’m learning that there are some that believe there are lots of parts of the bible that you cannot take literally, either as historical fact or direct will of God.

I agree with Tom Wright when he says that the authority of God is embodied in Jesus himself, not in the literal words of the Bible.  (Loosely quoted.)

Of course how you read and interpret is subject to the wisdom and biases of humans.

Everyone comes at the Bible with a “world view.” We are all guilty of cherry picking verses to be factual and literal truth or determining that something is cultural.   Everyone does it.

Take 1 Timothy for instance.

“Women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with hair braided, or with gold, pearl, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.  Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.  Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

If you read it literally, women are not permitted to teach or have authority over men but also they are not to braid their hair or wear pearls or gold or expensive clothes.   Also women are responsible for the origin of sin in the world.  The “good news” is that we can be saved by bearing children.  If you interpret it literally these are God’s instructions/restrictions for behavior and roles of women.  Some churches choose to prohibit women’s leadership in churches because they use this verse to “prove” that God doesn’t approve.  But they happily ignore the rest of the verses as cultural.

That’s cherry-picking. 

But if you look as the Bible as being written by a person in a particular time and culture, if you know the historical cultural setting they were writing in then you see that this is how one man in the early Christian church saw things.

When you read it with context, looking at the contrast between this and other texts in the New Testament, if we recognize or listen to more than one voice speaking about the role of women we can seek to discern which voice to honor.  In the New Testament there are examples of women apostles and teachers, women financing the ministry, women sitting at Jesus’ feet learning from him with the other disciples, a woman being the first to speak to Jesus after his Resurrection.  These stories all empower of women in the early church.  You can see this if you don’t restrict your reading to Timothy’s set of verses, which are very restrictive.

Listen to more than one voice. 

Look for themes and overarching ideas.  I believe one must recognize more than just one voice in trying to figure out anything in the Bible.  And it takes discernment and wisdom and doing your homework in trying to figure out which voices to honor.  I look at how Jesus treated women when it comes to this topic.  I do not look at the verses about early church as prescriptive of how we should run our churches today.  But that’s just me.   But as you can see, a lot is at stake in how we read and understand the Bible.

Everyone wants to read the bible for today – for guidance and wisdom for today’s problems, for today’s trials, for this moment.  The problem inherent in that is that without doing the hard work of asking the questions of the context and placement in history, we endanger our ability to hear God.   I am greatly encouraged with the knowledge that there are essential ideas from God that are clear and reinforced many places in scripture.  Those broad strokes from God are the things that guide us — point us to God and deepen our relationship with the trinity.

Those are my thoughts offered humbly because like I said, I am no expert and I am likely much too opinionated.

On the topic of unlearning and learning How to Read the Bible Again:

  1. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight.  He’s a professor at North Park Seminary.  He also has a blog Jesus Creed which is for me critical reading.
  2. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by NT Wright.

And to add to my list of commentary suggestions (from why I’m Afraid to Read the Bible):

  1. New Testament Commentary for Everyone, by Tom Wright.  They could be in the “For dummies”series.  But not really, for everyone is a nicer way to put it.  These are really good.  They go through books of the bible and explain the background and what it’s saying.  I really like them.  Straightforward, not dumbing it down too much, just enough to make easy.  Not everyone has time to do a lot of study.  These are really informative and interesting.  And short.

Melody

Developing a Habit of Abundance

I am sometimes wrecked by my unbelief.  “Lord I believe.  Help my unbelief.” scripture says Mark 9:24.  I am coming to see.

Must I always put on habits?  It seems that I must choose daily, sometimes moment to moment.  I have to wear my belief like an new sweater or twist the rubber band on my wrist  to remind myself of what I want, what I know, what I need.  I am so full of need, so empty.

Like the havoc of the wind, I am wrecked by my unbelief.  The slang definition of the word wrecked is to be drunk or intoxicated.  I have always gotten high on all the wrong things – shopping, my own panic, books and other “things”, easily addicted even to the lack in my core, in my soul.  I am even hooked on my own sadness. In this I know what I need.  As I come to depend on all these highs that I choose for myself – my inner core isn’t worthy of my own trust.

Have I always been a vessel in ruin?  Shipwrecked.  Does that mean that I cannot be trusted?  That is what some believe and say that 1 Peter 3:7 means : that women cannot trust themselves. That man cannot trust woman who are the weaker vessel. What does that mean?  Others say that “Both Peter and Paul wrote about mutual, reciprocal submission in Christian relationships.”  If I believe I cannot be trusted, I’ll never learn to trust myself.  I’ll never trust anyone.  Can I then learn to trust God?

Growing up in the narcissistic family that I did, it is no wonder I do not trust myself.  Everyone in my family fluttered around one person, my father.  We existed to ensure his happiness and help him succeed at all costs.  The costs were many.  The price was high.   All my life I was told what to do by him.  I learned to always seek my father’s approval.  He was my universe.  What do you become when your “god” is cruel, selfish and destructive?  You cower.  You play the supporting role.  Never learn how to live your own.  Did he really become my god?  I don’t believe that is what he really wanted.  How did it happen?

I’ve been physically “free” of my father for eight years.  I am only learning how to breathe on my own.  Jesus is reshaping my view of the world and myself.  I am starting to see that I may be wrecked, like a ship cast to pieces against the shore and torn to pieces, but I did not create the storm.  And I am slowly being healed by the Jesus who healed, he healed women as much as men.  He empowers me.  He trusts me.  He is teaching me.

I have been fighting him, Jesus, and God, the Father.  As I fight, I am wounded like Jacob who wrestled with God and I am afraid.

I am afraid of my life.  I have been fighting and demanding.

I read and wonder if it is true:

“The Lord has to break us down at the strongest place of ourselves before he can have his own way of blessing with us. “ (James H. McConkey, Life Talks)

As I have healed, I have slowly demanded a purpose for myself, a big dream, a significant place to contribute, and God has been quiet.  At least it seems to be so.

“This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the one whom he has sent. ”  That means cling to Jesus, trust Jesus, rely on Jesus, and have faith in Jesus.

“God created the world out of nothing.  As long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” [Martin Luther]

Really?

I cannot lose this ever present need and instead of making me feel strong, it shames me.  I feel my lack of belief, my frequent anger and pain, absence of joy or gratitude; I feel powerfully this emaciated, hollow life.  Is this what I am known for?  I pray not.  I pray that I can surrender, even now.  Even today give up every part of me, the resilient and the faint fragments , to him.

I tell myself I do not fear my own flaws.  But I fear that it will be used against me to prove that women are weak.   I fear my own power too.

Jesus says, “Lay it all down.”   Let it all go again.  As I am developing the habit of abundance, I doubt that have never responded like Mary did.  “Let this happen,” she said, when told that she would mother the king of kings (Luke 1:38)

Whatever it is, “this life” for I do not know what it is yet.  For I cannot even imagine.   I am learning to respond.

Let this happen.

Melody

P.S. I am inspired by reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts.

Why I am Afraid to Read the (entire) Bible

Here’s the honest and mortifying truth.

I have never read the entire Bible, whole.  I have studied various books at length, sometimes on my own but more often with a group of others.  But I have never opened the whole of the great book of God’s WORD, Old and New Testaments, and soaked it in as a grand story.  Of course, any “sheep” knows, don’t they, that the Bible wasn’t written to us but for us.  The Bible is not a handbook of do’s and don’ts, but rather a beautiful story which we can carefully apply to our lives.  And if we fear what it says, if we are unwilling to challenge and question it, we deserve to be ignorant fools (like I have been.)

I have never put my full attention, put my full brain, toward the Bible.  I have been afraid of reading the entire thing and these are my reasons.

I am afraid of my own ignorance.  I don’t know what I don’t know.  If I don’t know then I can continue stumbling in the darkness.  At least it is a familiar place, my ignorance.  Sounds dumb when you actually write it down.  But how many of us do this in the Church?  Far too many.

I am afraid of what the Bible actually says.  For too long I have simply listened to others and accepted what the “experts” say about spiritual things without really challenging any of it.

I am a frequently boiling pot, kept simmering by the cool head of Tom, my husband.1 He often keeps me from boiling over.  It seems that he will be doing this a lot as we began reading the entire Bible in one year – a challenge from our church they are calling: Eat This Book.

So I would add another point to my list of reasons that I have never the read the Bible in its entirety.

I am afraid of how I will respond to the Bible as a woman.  We all have a worldviews and as such, we read the Bible differently. I respond as a woman.  How can I not?  And that is different from my pastors (both male) and my husband, and most of the commentary I am reading.  As a woman I have different questions.  I am afraid of what  to do with those.  How do I sort out how much of my response needs to be talked about, questioned, and challenged?

On the other hand there is a lot that excites me about finally reading the entire Bible.

I look forward to diving in.  Already Genesis has perplexed me, made me extremely angry, and left me with more questions than answers when I look at it story by story.  I want to be able to see the big picture — to soar over the parts that jump out to me as problematic and see God and hear God, asking him what he wants me to focus on.   I look forward to how this Grand Story changes my life. 

Just last week, my pastor was preaching on Gen 1-3.  He was explaining a very important idea about how we look at scripture overall, which I mentioned already, that the Bible is not written to us but for us and that much of it is metaphor and poetry.

But then he highlighted the verses about man and woman becoming one.  Now I’ll acknowledge that it is beautiful, the whole picture of marriage.  But I actually thought it would have been more important (coming from my worldview, as a woman) or at least more valuable to women, if he had taught about how we are both, male and female created in God’s image.  To emphasize and thus explain what the Hebrew word ezer  (helper) actually means. These verses being misunderstood have diminished and hurt women.  He thought the other verses were more important.  We disagreed nicely by email.

I have to admit that how we interacted mattered a great deal to me and I’m learning that this is more important to me than me being right.   I shared my thoughts with him and he heard me.  I felt heard.  And this is a form of giving someone respect.

And so I would add another point to my list of reasons why I haven’t read the Bible it it’s entirely.

I am afraid of the disagreements among Christians.  I hate the way that Christians wrangle with one another over the baggage that goes into “being theological.”  Are you on the Left or are you on the Right?  Are you conservative or liberal?  Are you a feminist?  Egalitarian or a Complementaran?  A new Creationist or …. ?  I don’t even know all the camps of disagreement and I don’t want to.

I just want to read the Bible and get a little help along the way.

If you haven’t  yet, I’d encourage you to read The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight, which will help you rethink how you read the Bible.  Other resources I am finding helpful are the NIV Compact Bible Commentary and the Women’s Bible Commentary.  

The important truth is that I cannot allow my fear of my own ignorance, my fear of this faith tradition that I have followed my whole life, or my fear of disagreement keep me from the next step in my faith journey.

Being that I can be hot-headed, I just might say or do something stupid along the way.  And I would hate that but I cannot allow it to keep me silent.

A friend said to me  this week:  “I am praying that Jesus would guide you as you study His word.   May we always be in search for bringing glory to Him!”  Amen!  I suspect that I will be sharing more of this as I go along.

I wonder, have you read the entire Bible and if not, ask yourself what are you afraid of?    If we seek to follow Christ we are to live in the Bible today and every day.   The question is how?  Let us join together in our KNOWLEDGE not our ignorance.  Let us be SEEKERS together.  

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christians were known for their knowledge, agreeableness and love?

“Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant me so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that I may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reign with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen”  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Jesus, according to John 16:13

Melody

 ————————————————————————————————–

1 Tom and I have an egalitarian or mutually submissive marriage. And I was challenged by Rachel Held Evans (she does this a lot) this week .  She asked the question of whether more people need to talk about the ways of egalitarian marriages, to give others an idea of what it’s like.  I never talk about mine.  It’s precious to me and I’d not want to ugly it by my bumbling attempts to describe it.  But I’ll be thinking about that and try to weave things into my blog as appropriate.

2 Blackhawk’s pastors have given us a challenge.  “By reading the Bible every day, our hope is that we’ll become a people who are shaped by the Scriptures – people who are marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  And they are taking it a step further by providing mini videos and teaching tools.  It’s quite good.   I am grateful to attend a church that doesn’t spoon feed, that helps the “sheep” figure some of these things out for ourselves, but also provide solid ways to learn.

The things to look for in reading Genesis are:

  1. The main plotline in the book: God’s desire to bless humanity consistently meets human stubbornness and sin, keeping a record of the words for “bless, blessing” as you read: God wants to pass on a blessing, but humans constantly thwart that blessing.
  2. Genesis 12, 15, 17 and the covenant with Abraham are the key to understanding the entire Bible: God is going to rescue the world from sin and corruption and restore blessing through his promises to Abraham.  The rest of the biblical story will focus on God’s relationship with Israel, because these are the people who bear the promise for the whole world.  Keep track of how the promises to Abraham keep getting repeated and passed on to the next generation and God works out his plan.
  3. Find your story in the characters: All of the characters in Genesis struggle with God, and we are meant to find our story in theirs: the characters wrestle with their own sin and failure, doubt and faith, selfishness and generosity as they try to follow God.  Use each character’s experience (for example, Adam and Eve’s temptation, Abraham’s struggle with doubt, Jacob’s journey from selfishness to trust in God) to find parallels with your own journey with God.
  4. God’s faithfulness: notice how many times God rescues people, or stays committed to blessing humanity. Allow Genesis to reshape your ideas of what it means for God to be faithful to you.

 

3 “Helper”- ezer.  Gen 2:18   According to R. David Freedman, the Hebrew word used to describe woman’s help (ezer) arises from two Hebrew roots that mean “to rescue, to save,” and “to be strong” (Archaeology Review (9 [1983]: 56–58). Ezer is found twenty-one times in the Old Testament. Of these references, fourteen are used for God and four for military rescue. Psalm 121:1–2 is an example of ezer used for God’s rescue of Israel: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”


he wipes my spilling tears [a poem]

Trying to write my story

is sometimes like cutting back flesh, recently pink and scarred

to find the plain cold truth.

I want to heal and so I wonder if this is wise.  This rending,

backward into ancient despair

to find the open rot inside.  It is a kind of hell.

But I go there.

I climb into that putrid place with

the fresh hope of Jesus.

Tonight, he wiped my spilling tears,

crawled around inside my wounds, and

held my thumping, aching heart

while it was tender and sore.

He took that pain.  Jesus was here

inside my story, so full

of sorrow and regret.

Foul, bitter, wretched I know that

I still am.  Quietly, he’s saying

let me rewrite the end.

What I will “Keep in my Pocket” this year?

Write thy blessed name, o Lord, upon my heart, there to remain so indelibly engraved, that no prosperity, no adversity shall ever move me from thy love.  Be thou to me a strong tower of defense, a comforter in tribulation, a deliverer in distress, a very present help and a guide to heaven through the many temptations and dangers of this life.

— Thomas a Kempis


What will I “keep in my pocket” this year?

Reflecting on the past year, I discovered some patterns – some good, some not so much.  I have had to face that I am can be a negative, scattered, and discontented person. (Ouch.) This is no surprise to those who truly know me. I’m a pessimist. A Cynic. An agnostic by nature?

I prefer the term realist because I know that on one level I will never forget. I believe I will always be a person that sees injustice and screams, an advocate against bigotry and discrimination.  And I will always speak and work for a more just world. And yes, sadly I can be a whiner, pessimistic and well, I’ll go ahead and name it:  I can be a downer!

Many times this year I have been so caught in my own brokenness — to a degree that I could no longer make out God’s voice in the cacophony of my injuries and the world’s throbbing sorrows.  And tragically then one ceases being useful.

And God is speaking.  He never ceases to speak. 

And it is intoxicating and magnificent.  Humankind cannot even imagine the kingdom of God here on earth, the way he wants it.  Even this year, God as has been healing me, I cannot conjure up what he intends. Most days I struggle just to believe. Amid his miraculous work, I only limit God by fixating on all my limitations.

And I know that others, perhaps you, certainly members of my own family, have difficulty trusting me, when I am so frequently scattered and shattered; when I don’t even trust myself.

I want to learn to trust in God, more.  And I want to become trustworthy.  

For 2012, I will focus on Abundance.  (as well as: Peace. Cease. Create.)

I believe this will come through discipline…

The discipline of giving thanks, of daily prayer and learning the WORD of God for myself.

I long for Peace.  I believe this will come in focusing on these things.

Being mindful. Being strong. Being a healer. Being trustworthy. Being healthy.

Some things need to Cease.

Less weight (as in actual poundage).

Less stuff.

Less (focus on my) pain.

I was made to Create. I will do that through being purposeful …

Words. Images. Life.

How did I get this list?

I was helped in thinking this through, by something a friend wrote when I asked about the process of finding three words, with intentionality, for the coming year. It took some time for me to sort this out for myself.

She said:

“the month of dec i spend a lot of time reflecting on the year passing by. it ends up beckoning the hopes for the coming year. i start making lists of words that feel representative of my intentions for the time coming. …  the words end up weaving in and out of the decisions i make, the way i take notice. they really impact the dailies. and since that is the marrow of our living- this daily bit- i love having them in my pocket. “

I love that.  “Having them in my pocket” whether it is literally or not, it’s a beautiful metaphor.

Really, what do any of us have but today—yes, this one day.  We are promised nothing more. We are given this one life and with it we can be scattered and flighty, erratic, untrustworthy, as I have been; or we can become intentional and resolute and positive, as I long to be.

How are you, as you head into 2012? What things will you keep in your pocket? How will you face today?

Turn the other Cheek? That just makes you a Chump.

Have you ever noticed that the Golden Rule comes with no promise at the end?  No words of hope — do this and you will get this.  Nothing. Do it because it’s the law. 

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.”  (Matthew 7:12, NLT)  The ESV says “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” and the NASB says “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.”

I think that stinks.  I have struggled with a situation where I believe I have the higher ground to stand on.  I have made good choices.  I have done well.  I have been the loving daughter, yes.  I have accepted.

And this Christmas — as always happens, when will I ever learn — I got slapped in the face by my mother again.  I don’t even know that the details or the reasons matter.  I think she is incapable of keeping her promises.  She is unable to do something based on what’s right.  For all my disputes with my father, I can say at least that he lived by his convictions.

I could make a list and this would be a long one, of the significant times in my life when I trusted her and she betrayed that trust.  I’m so tired.  I know that I am to forgive her but when will I learn?  If forgiveness means putting yourself out there to let it happen again, and again, then, well, that just makes you a chump.

But what if the person that hurts you with regularity is your own mother?  And what if that person is almost alone in the world?  Isolated (if by her own choice) and living for herself, impulsive with her generosity and love, unpredictable in her withdrawal?  What if …?

Lewis Smedes in his book The Art of Forgiveness, says:   “we filter the image of our villain through the gauze of wounded memories and in the process alter his reality.”

And yet, even she was made in God’s image and is loved by Him.  I don’t want vengeance, as Smedes suggests is the next step to forgiveness — surrendering our desire to get even.  I don’t want her to hurt.  She’s lived with enough pain.

She oozes her pain and fear of life.  I actually want my mother to be whole.  I long for, wish for in my deepest sad places for my mother that she would heal and be free.

And I’m just tired.

I want to surrender to the idea that she can no longer hurt me.  But every time I let her close she does just that.  And I’ve been searching mentally for days with my questions and I have been trying to figure out what to do.

“Forgiving is not meant for every pain people cause us.  Never has been, any more than Prozac was invented to cure the Monday morning blahs.  Forgiving is for the wounds that stab at our souls, for wrongs that we cannot put up with, ever, from anyone.  When we forgive people for things that do not need forgiving we dilute the power, spoil the beauty, and interrupt the healing of forgiveness. But when we forgive the things that forgiving is for we copy God’s own art.

God is the original, master forgiver.  Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style.  I am not at all sure that any of us would have had the imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first.”(Smedes)

When I first read these words I was angry, for I have an unreturned call to my mother and I have to figure out what I am going to do.  She asked to spend Christmas Eve with my family, she chose to come to church with us and celebrate with our brood.  And then she called and said she wasn’t coming though she only lives across town.  Ten minutes. “I could pick you up”, I said.  “No I don’t want to come.” was her reply.   I don’t know why.  Sure, I’ve speculated.  And as I have in the past, I could try to pick her brain to discover what small hint of truth is there that will appease the gaping hole in my soul, feeling her rejection physically.

This rending is old — My heart is shredded.

My heart weeps with pain that I don’t understand – the sense of being rejected my parents.  It is an ancient unhappiness, pain that feels older than me, going back a generation to my father and mother.  Neither of them felt loved by their parents.  Both experienced rejection, they tell stories of actual real rejection, which I never experienced.  Not really.  But for some reason I live it.  And every action they live out has become either proof of their rejection of me or proof of their acceptance.

She is set up to fail even before she does.  And she does.  Oh she does!

When she told me over the phone that she was moving with no processing, no reasons, no explanation just fact.  When she chose not to invite me to Mother’s day, with no reasons, or explanation.  “I don’t know why I didn’t invite you.”  “I don’t know why I didn’t process my moving with you.”  “I don’t know why I couldn’t come for Christmas with your family.”

“Forgiving isn’t meant for every pain people cause us.” (Smedes)

And then the moment of clarity comes.

What’s going on inside me is more about my frailty.  I can love without being loved in return, because it is the right thing to do.  And I can adjust my expectations, to none, so that I won’t be hurt so often.  And I can and must stop talking about my feelings of rejection so that my children can have some semblance of relationship with their grandmother.

Without the generations whispering fear and brokenness into their hearts.

That is my challenge.  That is the higher choice.  That is what it means to forgive as you were forgiven.  I don’t necessarily agree with every word Smedes says about forgiveness, or perhaps that too is simple semantics.

I have a phone call to return.  I expect to listen.  And offer simply my ear and perhaps a tiny piece of my heart.  I expect that I will be hurt again, but for today I will not turn away but turn toward my mother.

Offer her the other cheek and who knows, perhaps one day rather that a slap I will receive a kiss.

See there I go again, feeling hope. Thank you Jesus.  

If you love only those that love you, what reward is there in that?  If you are kind to only your friends how are you different than anyone else?  (Matthew 7)

On Silencing Myself


But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.  — Jeremiah 20:9

For days now I have been nursing wounds that feel as new today with each intake of breath, as they have been heavy all these years of living.  Each breath that keeps me alive hurts.  The ache and injury that I have carried for as long as I recall tell me that I am overdue for spiritual healing.   The stones in my heart both compel me and keep me humbled.  But I have allowed them to overpower me and shut me up.

And this limits my service, my usefulness to God.  I have allowed my brokenness to become a crutch.  Ironically, though I want him to I don’t think God will ever take this away completely, the very things that make me who I am. But He may, I hope and pray heal me to a point of being useful.  That is all I ask really to be useful to Him.

I have developed a small following here, a few hundred reading off and on, from time to time.  The more people that follow my words, it becomes a burden, opportunity and responsibility all intertwined.  I am so conscious of all that I have developed, a voice, emerging to be sure but still a voice.   That is one reason why I believe I need biblical studies, because I am all too aware of my own ignorance. And I am becoming aware of the fact that people listen to me.

And this is what I told my friend, and pastor, as I met with her recently.  As she spoke to me of my talents as a writer and encouraged me to take it more seriously, even work to develop my voice and audience, I felt inept, inadequate.  I know my own level of  ignorance biblical and otherwise!   Was it a coincidence that her words echoed with what another important person in my life had said to me only a few hours earlier?  The person that knows me best and in whom I trust the most is my husband.

They say I am to write. 

For a long time I have been asking God what I should do with this obvious ability to put words together in a compelling way.  Coupled with the desire he has given me to care for others, my unusual inquisitiveness and naturally challenging mind, a constantly questioning spirit, and eyes that see injustice all around me.  Compound that with the extra burden of a heart that is utterly broken by the ancient pain and silencing of women in the church.  Why does he break my heart so relentlessly over women who are stifled and smothered, yes silenced in the church? These are the things that others have been affirming in me and I have been asking God what He would possibly have me do with it?  I believe that if we are to live authentically as Christians we are to live by doing justice. (See Micah 6:8) I believe all Christians are to serve the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien which  was also one of Jesus’ more frequent and strongly worded commands (see Matthew 25:31-46 )  So how does all of this fit with how I am gifted by God?      

Before Christmas.

As I mentioned, I met briefly with a pastor from my church.  This person is also my life group leader.  We have many things in common.  We hadn’t met alone for many years and I found myself worrying about whether she met with me as a person in her flock or as a friend.  I felt confused as we talked because, as much as I longed for our friendship to be mutual, I was suffering.

(((Here is where I confess that I am a very controlling person, overly proud and always over thinking and managing my image and reputation before others.  That is why this blog is essential to my desire to be an honest person.  As a recovering alcoholic, I struggle to be truthful.  Addicts are liars, to themselves and to those they love.  And I don’t want to be a liar. )))

I did not want to tell her how badly I have been doing nor confess that I was in the pit of depression.  It felt extremely weak, even threatening to my reputation (for whatever it is worth) at my church.  If I was ever to be accepted into the cadre of leaders at my church, to admit that the state of my self-esteem was lower than it had been in years, was excruciating!  This weakness was unacceptable.  To confess the bleary, bleak thoughts I have been consumed with for months was painful.  I needed a friend, but to share with her my state of mind, my fears and self-doubts, and my anger was almost impossible. 

It was embarrassingly awkward to admit that I was so low, that things had become so bewildering, and that I had actually sat in church two weeks earlier believing that my life was not worth living because I had nothing to offer God.

But somehow I did tell her. As she calmly listened and said that I must have been under spiritual attack (being that the suicidal thoughts occurred in church) I felt such relief, yes a spiritual attack was very likely!  And although thankfully that fog has lifted a bit, I think that I have continued to be under attack in the weeks since, at my core, in the place where I feel the most unloved and unlovable.    Depression is isolating.  You hear lies shaking about in your head that are ludicrous and yet wholly believable in the moment.  These things, which I know are not from God, have hurt so much.  And it has taken everything to not fall prey to the misery, and the pain of rejection and to most of all not fall prey to accepting the evil thoughts as truth.

I have felt in the last two months like the evil one is trying to destroy me via my mind, and my heart, and is trying to crush my soul that I may succumb to some madness but I am clinging to what I know.   He who is within me is a greater than he who is in the world.  

So this is my confession to you, those that read my blog both friends and strangers. I am hurting.  Though I am profoundly weak, I know He is strong.  

I don’t know what the future holds.  I cannot say.  I cannot see anything clearly.  All I know for a fact is that I am inadequate.  I don’t know how I am to be used, to be useful.  I feel inadequate to be a voice for anyone.  I feel inadequate to write about much of anything.

And because of it my human impulse is to be silent, to silence myself.   I have so many good excuses for silencing myself …  That I don’t know enough.  That I don’t have the training.  That I don’t have the knowledge and experience.  That for a long time I have been at home and not actively working.  That I am no longer actively serving in ministry. That I struggle with depression and all that goes with it.  That I am broken.  That some days, just breathing hurts.

Would you pray for me?  That I would somehow know the real Truth and listen well.  And, that I would know when to speak out and when I should be silent.  And more than anything that I would become stronger in Him.  This is the irony, the tension of being broken and still being useful, about feeling unloved and yet being totally loved by God.

Pray with me that this blog, which has become a place of responsibility and opportunity, would honor God.   Would you pray with me that I would know how I am to use it this year — for good, for healing, for teaching and most of all for blessing others? And if he was going to do a work of healing in my life, now would be a good time! And as I actively pursue other writing avenues and even perhaps further education, that I would remain steadfast in Him.  

I hope your new year begins and ends in Him.

Why do you Love me? [Advent Reflection]

That was the question, an aching appeal, a cry of  a sad heart.

Children can be so difficult, argumentative and surly.

They question everything.

They take up space and create messes.

 Interrupt.  They wreck things that once were beautiful.

 Children don’t deserve our love.

Do they?

Why do I love you, I answered?  Because you are my child.  You were a gift to me and I think you are perfect.  Nothing you ever do will change that because you are mine.  My lovely child.  It’s unconditional.  Do you know what that means?  That you can’t earn it.  And you can’t lose it.  I love you.

And still, a little later, she returns.  She wants the reassurance.  The reasons that I love her because she feels so utterly unworthy.

Sounds familiar.

I am often asking God why do you love me?  What can I do to earn or deserve your love?

And God says …

Why do I love you?  Because you are my child.  You were a gift to me and I think you are perfect.  Nothing you ever do will change that because you are mine.  My lovely child, beloved.  It’s unconditional.  Do you know what that means?  That you can’t earn it and you can’t lose it.

I love you.

That’s why we celebrate the birth of Jesus because of what he did for you and me.