let go
To part with sarcasm’s drips, acid
burning on my tongue, corrosive and scalding
a hole in my soul;
I know the true beneficiary, me.
Tag: my poetry
Hatred’s Sweet Kiss (a poem)
Hatred’s sweet kiss deceives,
leaving me battered, shattered, and alone.
Only holy soul work undoes
the damage of deep aching;
ravages of original toil,
wanting to be God.
Logic & Imagination
Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle. — Phylo of Alexandria
I am still processing time I spent today, alongside my mother and a lot of mostly grey haired women, at the Holy Wisdom monastery. And my ten-year old turns eleven tomorrow, so life will be a little full over the next twenty-four hours with ice-cream cake and video games, rides here and there, and the flow of life as a mother of four.
While I mull on what I have learned, I thought you might enjoy seeing the list of the top ten articles on my blog this month. A few are recent work, but I was surprised to see that several are oldies but goodies like What’s a Woman of Leisure?, On Parenting Deeply and Well, and the ebb and flow.
It is an incredible honor to know that you all are reading and walking with me.
My Sobriety and My Sin
“… And lately I wonder if Christians aren’t the most miserable of addicts–and if the fact of our faith itself isn’t part of the reason. After all, aren’t we supposed to be new creations in Christ, freed from the power of sin? Because we tend to think of addiction this way—strictly as a moral failing—we try to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps. We pray harder, repent more fervently, and fight temptation until we’re blue in the face.” – Sober Boots, a blog by Heather Kopp
After reading Heather’s thoughts last night I read several of the comments from those who had extremely judgmental view of a person’s addiction recovery.
I was left with a hollow feeling inside. I found myself saying that addiction is not a sin. But then, thinking long and hard about it this morning, I realized that although I have never dealt with it there was an element of sin involved in my alcoholism.
I am always helped by talking to my husband Tom. I sought his comfort in the question, “It wasn’t sin, right, that I became an alcoholic? It wasn’t sin, was it? Is it?” He’s one of the least judgmental people I know, so when Tom said “Yes, it is in part it was sin, you had a choice . You cannot discount free will.” I had to listen.
(And then we launched into a wonderful conversation about James 3, our hierarchies of sin and the power of our tongue. “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not to be so.” James 3, ESV)
How is it that I fell into addiction?
How is it that I am sober today? My sobriety has taken inner strength of will and conviction. Was it God that has given me the strength to remain sober for three and a half years?
How much of my sobriety was tangled up in my conversion path, my faith walk, the gentle work of the Holy Spirit?
In some ways living free of addiction is a form of conversion, as Alyce M. McKenzie says, a turnaround from bondage to a self-destructive behavior to freedom that comes when we commit ourselves to the power of God.
But honestly I don’t recall some grand transaction, or moment, whereby I asked God to help me become sober and whamo I was healed. No, it was much, much slower. It was through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a final ultimatum-of-sorts made by my husband converging within twenty-four hours, that I made a choice to finally quit.
But the conviction had been building for some time – though choosing sobriety took years.
I was pretty sure I was addicted to alcohol when my sisters and I attended the family program at Hazeldon at the request of my mom. It was there that I learned for the first time about the illness of addiction, more importantly about the brain pathways of an addict, about codependency, about the hell we create for others by our words and sarcasm, about the strength sometimes to be found in Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous. (**I say more about AA below) After meeting with a doctor there, acknowledging my depression and how much and how often I was drinking, she said they could justifiably commit me to the residential program. But I couldn’t do it — couldn’t accept the need to quit totally. Didn’t believe it was that bad. I went home and spent the next five years or so on a slow decline. Not every day at that point. Not drinking to black out, yet. Not even really in that bad of shape, but an alcoholic for sure.
How many nights over the next few years did I go to sleep almost blacked out drunk. Only just able to stumble to bed – falling into the protective down covers, pounding head on the soft accepting pillows, heart aching with the pain of it all. Thinking – praying – crying out to God.
Making promises. Promising that tomorrow would be different. Promising myself that tomorrow I would not buy any wine. Tomorrow I would not drink myself to a disoriented, forgotten, insensible place. Hopeful that tomorrow would be different, only to fall into the same habit, experiencing the same amnesia as I was purchasing more alcohol.
The psychologist and spiritual counselor Gerald May in his book called Addiction and Grace defines addiction as “any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire.”
I found myself, day after day, month after month, year after year, for more than five years being fairly certain that I was an addict and yet choosing the same path. I thought I could be a social drinker. I didn’t want to stop, not really, for a long time. Wine and other alcohol was like a lover. I look back now knowing it clearly, seeing it objectively that it was an idol, yes, more important than anything else. Alcohol was my reason for living. I gave it the space and place in my life much more important than my health, or the welfare of my family, or my commitment to God. So, yes, there is an element of choice. And in that free choice it was a sin.
But sadly as Christians we have a hierarchy of sin – infidelity and addiction being at the top. Why? I suppose it doesn’t even matter ultimately. They were my choices, though compelled by the illness in my brain and the broken state of my heart. I made them. I chose.
And where was God? Well, I stopped seeking him. I closed off from him the part of me that was an addict. I cannot fully describe how I lived with myself spiritually in those years except to say that I was numb even while being wracked with guilt. I was self-medicating. I was depressed. I felt hopeless. I turned away from God. This is a poem I wrote at one point in my recovery, titled Days Without God.
she walked away from hope,
traveled the road of unkept promises.
and god was far away.
days without number
she ran down that road,
of fleeting pleasures
and god turned away
unable to see
unable to be with her.
though she can never deny going,
after a time, she turned
and walked back.
she was broken and bleeding.
the moment she turned back
she felt the presence
and then, god forgave.
For these choices I had to ask my husband’s forgiveness. Someday I will do the same with my children when they are old enough to understand. From the friends who lived beside me and saw the destruction of alcohol in my life, I covet their forgiveness. Family members who saw and lived and wondered and were wounded by me, they too I need forgiveness and grace.
I live with the knowledge of my walking away from God. I live with the knowledge that I did that every day, I chose it. I cling to God now. I relish his forgiveness and I acknowledge my sin. His grace is enough.
To those accusers, the ones that throw out the accusation of “sin!” like Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, I say this. No matter who we are or what we have done, in Christ we are given a new life of repentance and dignity where there is no place for legalism and guilt. This is a life of grace. Only God knows our hearts. He is there with us, if we cry out to him. But recovery, that is a long difficult walk and by no means something that just happens by surrendering to God. I know this.
But I also know that He walks it with us if we ask him. Look at John 8, Jesus asking where are your accusers? “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Do I know how that transaction works, ultimately? Not really, but it is for me now found in the daily choice to be sober. Did Jesus think she’d be free of sin them then on? Nope, not likely and there was parts of her life she had to choose to walk away from. Alcoholics must do this in order to recover.
I cannot cast stones at others, no matter their “sin.” Grace and peace is found in the knowledge that I am not judged either.
“… and I’m still learning how to hack and slash through this beautiful jungle of grace.” Stephen
MH
** I do not work my sobriety with AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I don’t personally find AA all that helpful, though for a time I was greatly encouraged by attending a weekly meeting with women. I walked into that room and experienced like I never have in my life a level of understanding, empathy and acceptance. No condemnation. We were all alcoholics and other forms of addicts. No pointing of fingers. In a way that the Church doesn’t seem to be able to live out — the idea that we’re all sinners together in this mess of a world. All sinners. All saints. All walking the path together. Why is it that (some) Christians are the most judgmental of all?
I longed for (and still sometimes do) church to be a safe place for me to go and find help with my recovery, but my church at least doesn’t offer anything for addicts. Not sure why when they have divorce-care, and grief-care, and cancer-care among many other kids of “care.” It does feel like they are strangely silent on this. I was helped by an addiction specific counselor, fortunate enough to have it covered by insurance, and spent more than six months in weekly therapy working through many aspects of my addiction as well as learning about the disease’s power.
Lent: My Agenda or God’s?
I am looking to Lent as a way to make space. In our cluttered congested lives we have no space for God. Then we act almost indignant that he won’t speak (I’m talking to myself here.) So often I have an agenda with God and even in the practicing of Lent. I can’t hear what he wants to say.
What if Lent was a way of creating more space for God? While knowing he is preparing us for his death and for his resurrection.
Instead of being ruled by social media. I could read all the day long the blogs and whatnot of people I like and respect. But what if I could make space for God?
Because at the end of the day, if I don’t make space for the Holy One, I will be empty. Bereft. Spiritually limp and disbelieving. I will not have done the simple profound work of inquiring of God what he wants to say. Can it be that simple? That so often I don’t pray. I don’t ask. I stay too busy.
And it feels then, like he’s silent.
But I have a feeling it is simply that I was too distracted to be still enough to listen. To recognize him.
So the giving up of things is good if we allow the Holy One to fill our spaces of fear, regret, pain, selfishness, anger, pride, shame. He wants to take them. He is leading us, to the cross.
There is no room for his Voice. The way I create space is likely giving things up.
Stop looking to others to fill me, inspire me, motivate me.
I want to hear from my maker, so I should let go of all the other voices. If I can bravely crack open that space in my day.
“Let the things of this world fall away so the soul can fall in love with God. God only comes to fill the empty places and kenosis is necessary – to empty the soul to know the filling of God.” –– Ann Voskamp
It isn’t really anything I do, or don’t do, that matters. Not really.
It’s making space for the Holy One. Waiting for his filling up. Asking for his agenda with me.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” — Ephesians 2:8,9
Uncluttered, Exposed and Present: Touching the Unknown (a poem)
I carried so much hurt
a world of injury, so much so that
often I couldn’t breathe.
my chest ached of it. I couldn’t
hear the spirit, blowing windy about me.
wouldn’t heal, my open sores were evident to all.
I had no space left inside
for the mystical, Holy
One to speak.
Making space for God sounds so suspect
(as if)
even though,
often
I was thinking
if God is there, why won’t he just talk
to me?
Then I let go. I let my fear fly free.
Then the glorious, lavish days
came, spent
listening.
days I look forward to sitting, there. waiting
a while
setting aside the albatross.
Let it go, though
the grip
I had was strong,
and wrong
The scars ran deep
the pain furrowed my brow and at my core
there was only sorrow.
Now, I touch the Unknown
I am uncluttered, exposed
and present,
open for God to speak.
Perfect Practice (A poem about Lent)
Practicing lent
sounds slick. My gift,
heart-full-of-pride. My rituals,
my restriction, my sacrifice.
Then I throw out my arms, open-handed.
Looking up,
giving up.
Let go, let up.
Incarnate,
the One who comes
have me. I let go,
practicing lent.
To Lent or not to Lent, that is the Question
After spending the evening watching the Grammys and tweeting my snarky thoughts, last night my dreams were in Tweet format. Needless to say it was a long night. And when I woke this morning I was more than a little disturbed by it.
I got to thinking about technology’s power in my life.
Earlier this week, I read an article by Albert Borgmann on the subject of Taming Technology. For Borgmann, philosophy is a way of taking up the questions that live at the center of everyday life — questions that are urgent but often inarticulate. The philosophy of technology, which has been the principal focus of his work since the mid-1970s, is about bringing to light and calling into question the technological shape and character of everyday life. How do we gather technological devices together into the good life? How does technology shape a way of life? It is an interesting article. You should read it.
Lent is coming.
For Christians, the 40 days (plus Sundays) of Lent — the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday — is a time for reflection, renewal, and rededication.
But Lent has been a part of the Church life from the 2d Century on, and it’s a discipline and a season worthy of the entire Church. What is Lent? Essentially it is a time of preparation. As during Advent we prepare to celebrate the Advent of our Lord, so during Lent we prepare to enter in and participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it is a time for us to recollect our minds and hearts toward the saving events of our faith. The Church Calendar is designed to keep our lives connected week by week to the life of Jesus. — Scot McKnight
I’ve written about Lent before and have some links below. Many Christians don’t participate in Lent or take it lightly; perhaps giving up chocolate or caffeine as way of depriving ourselves. But Julie Clawson author of Everyday Justice and blogger at One Hand Clapping says about this most misunderstood event: “Lent isn’t about denial, it is about transformation. It is the season in which we prepare to encounter Christ’s sacrifice by endeavoring to become more Christ like ourselves. ” (Emphasis mine.) I could not agree more.
In preparing for Lent, I sometimes ask myself:
- Is there a habit (or even a sin) in my life that repeatedly gets in the way of my loving God or loving others? Ask God to get a hold of that habit over the next 40 days and help you have the discipline to give it to him, forever.
- Is there any one in my life with whom I need to pursue forgiveness or reconciliation? This may take longer than Lent. Here is a poem that I wrote during a time of profound grieving, knowing that I had done and said something that I thought was unforgivable. It’s titled Longing for Mercy. Ask God to begin to work in you and in the other person to ready you both for reconciliation in God’s perfect timing.
- What am I willing to give up to carve out extra time for daily contemplation and listening for the season of Lent?
- Lent begins next week, on Ash Wednesday, leaving time to ask God to show you what you need to stop doing to have more time with him.
I’m seriously considering letting go of Facebook for Lent. It often makes me anxious and confused and I wonder about its power over my mind and heart. Could I just let it fly away into the abyss of cyberspace for forty days and see what other more meaningful things I can fill it up with? I don’t know yet.
A Pastoral Word from Dr. Mark D. Roberts:
Let me note, at this point, that if you think of Lent as a season to earn God’s favor by your good intentions or good works, then you’ve got a theological problem. God’s grace has been fully given to us in Christ. We can’t earn more of it by doing extra things or by giving up certain other things in fasting. If you see Lent as a time to make yourself more worthy for celebrating Good Friday and Easter, then perhaps you shouldn’t keep the season until you’ve grown in your understanding of grace. If, on the contrary, you see Lent as a time to grow more deeply in God’s grace, then you’re approaching Lent from a proper perspective.
This is a good reminder. What about you? Do you take part in Lent and if so how has this been a powerful event in your life? Or not?
MH
A clear and powerful description of Lent by Dr. Mark D. Roberts , Senior Adviser and Theologian in Residence of Foundations for Laity Renewal, in the Hill Country of Texas outside of San Antonio.
———————-
Other things I’ve written on Lent:
Lenton Series: Winter Slowly Receeds
Lenton Series: If you Were Homeless
Ordinary Time [a poem]
Mine is an ordinary life
and it has taken me all my life to accept that idea.
I thought, dreamily
I was made for Big Things. Contrary, it seems.
I live ordinary days and ordinary nights.
I’m a simple person really, but something inside me
is constantly seeking more.
That means, I am never satisfied.
That means, I am always questioning.
That means, I am rarely happy.
Mine is an ordinary life, and I am new to accepting ordinary time. I crave
comfort, satisfaction, answers and joy. I long for
peace. I know ultimately that I am an ordinary person,
set on this glorious planet Earth.
I live ordinary days and ordinary nights.
Jesus came that we might have life, abundantly.
How should that change me? It changes everything.
He is a big God, I am a small, ordinary soul.
Get that straight — yes, therein lies joy.
If you Read Nothing Else from me. Read this. ((On healing))
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.
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:
- 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.
- 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):
- 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
Logic & Imagination 