Author Archives: Life is For Living book

What Women Need From the Church

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Recently a blog I follow offered that space for women to write as guest bloggers and say what they want from the church. It piqued my interest, and I sent off a post. It was returned and refused because it didn’t affirm the women who were wanting to hear that the church needs to them to be pastors and conference speakers. It made me a little mad that in a place that ostensibly gave women a safe hearing, it wasn’t a safe place for this woman to say that on the basis of the Bible, God doesn’t want women to be pastors.

I know that my blog readership is mostly Mennonite women, and that women pastors isn’t something we talk about very much. It’s generally a non-issue. (Or am I out of the loop?) But we do need some things from the church, so I revamped the original post to suit a more Mennonite audience, and here it is.

What Women Want from the Church: Eden’s Design

My faith tradition is conservative Mennonite, and I choose to live my faith in this sub/counter-cultural church. This is where I’ve experienced that God’s design for men and women is one that works and allows both to thrive and come closer to Eden’s perfection. It’s a creaking, groaning globe we live on, far from Eden, but God’s still in charge, and He’s still a good designer.

In my culture, the average young woman is married by age 23 or 24, and she is usually a mother in another year or two, with more babies coming later. Conservative Mennonite women spend large amounts of their energy doing what women do better than men: have babies, nurture children, and love and support their husband in a million creative, amazing ways.

However, being single and childless at nearly forty, I’m an aberration. Being average is over-rated, but what’s a single girl to do in church when most of her friends have wonderful husbands and several children?

But singlehood is another subject for another day. Back to women and the church.

I have time and gifts and abilities that could make me a good preacher or public speaker. I know how to wing words, and how to organize them to do what they need to. But for heaven’s sake—for the Kingdom of God’s sake—this is not a woman’s greatest or noblest or most needed accomplishment.

Although being a pastor is not an option in my church—and I’m glad of it—my gifts haven’t been squelched.  I’ve been given safe places in which to use my gifts, with the support and encouragement of many good men.

Jesus’ treatment of women in Palestine gave them dignity and significance that no one else had ever given them.  He was counter-cultural then, and He still is. He is tender with our weaknesses, and affirms our strengths.

What women need the church to do is to be as Christ to her women: to give the protection that allows them to bloom fully into Eden’s design. What women need from the church is a restoration of our design as nurturers and helpers and supporters. This includes affirming women’s gifts and protecting their vulnerability. It includes believing their sorrowful stories and defending their tears. It means acknowledging their beauty and affirming their modesty, not objectifying them.

When women are objects, everything goes crazy. When men want a model to dangle on their arms, and a pretty face to look at, or a body to admire, or a person to control, women become something they were never created to be. Women were designed for relationship and heart connection. We are most alive, useful, and true to Eden’s design in these capacities. Objectifying women starts the crazy cycle of proving ourselves, hating ourselves, then screaming about rights and equality.

A woman is most useful, alive, and close to Eden’s design when she’s being a counselor and comfort, a sounding board and giver of hugs.   When God called men to be pastors, He was saving women from themselves and their own innate power.

A woman has power but the greatest power is that which relinquishes itself as Jesus did when He washed feet and served breakfast. There is no limit to ministry when one is intentional about being a servant.

I know this is true, but I sometimes stumble and forget and demand honor that is ill-suited for a servant. I resent lowliness and hiddenness. I want to rest instead of work.

But more servant and less princess is how I really want to live, however poorly I remember it.

In Christ’s body, no one is the greatest. Every part has their own role. Their own glorious, unique contribution that God dreamed up for them. Women can find enormous satisfaction in doing things that men can’t do. Isn’t there a place for everyone to be useful and alive? Isn’t that how He designed us to be?

God’s ways are wonderful and infinite but I am mystified as to how a woman can extrapolate a calling from God to pastor a church, even while she claims to be a student of and guided by the Word. I maintain that if Jesus and Paul could meet any of us this evening in any town on the globe, they’d greet us warmly and laugh with us and tell us stories, but they wouldn’t rescind anything they said 2,000 years ago.  Why should they? The original design of Eden still works.

What would happen if men and women started looking for lower, more hidden places of service? What if we would stop name-dropping and ogling the most popular blogger or speaker or writer, and look instead at the homely, common person beside us and recognized the gold that’s hidden in them?

Seems like that’s what Jesus did.

Seems like that’s what He’d like the church to do.

Dust to Dust

Posted in Family, life by

All this for one person. All these logistics, ceremony, care, dignity. All these people together from all over to remember and bury one man. I remember thinking this as we stood around my grampa’s grave on a sunny day in May. I was in awe.

Just like you ooooh and awwww over news about a friend being pregnant, and wait excitedly as the due date comes closer, and then smile and cheer when you hear the name, and when you get a chance, smell the peach-fuzz hair and kiss the round cheeks. It’s one little person, just one little body, but it elicits endless love and care and excitement.

At birth and then at death, we especially acknowledge and celebrate the physicality of a person. The body is treasured, caressed, washed, dressed with huge attention to details. It happens in sickness too. Doctors and nurses work with skill and finesse to coax health back into a broken frame.

The body matters. Bodies matter.

I saw it when I watched Mandela’s state funeral and the ceremony and dignity it carried. I think of it now while my relatives are gathering to bury my grandma and they will not only talk about her character but also her small form and her blue eyes. They will carry the coffin carefully and gently cover it with earth. Tangible things that help us process the intangible.

In some cultures, for whatever shattering reasons, life and physicality isn’t valued, but I know it is not how we were designed to live. I know this because Jesus, very God, lived in a body and thus gave physicality dignity and significance. With the incarnation, He demonstrated the deep spiritual truths of redemption, showing how much God esteems the physical. He knows our frame, He remembers we are dust. That we are dust doesn’t diminish our value; maybe it endears us to Him more.

It seems natural, even instinctive, to touch and celebrate the body in birth, sickness, and death. What if we I would pay more attention to the walking, breathing, talking frames of dust around me? If I would treasure them as they deserve, respect their dignity, and celebrate their skin and hair and voices?

The Long Winter

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“That’s a terrible book,” I said, and flung it into the middle of the room. “It twisted at the last page and ended terribly. Stories aren’t supposed to do that. There aren’t any good books to read. There aren’t any good blogs either. Ugh. Except…”

“You’re going stir-crazy,” my house-mate said. “I would be too. What can I do to help your boredom?”

I got up and sat in the kitchen while she worked and I could focus on something else. It was  11 days post-op and yesterday was pretty much the worst day.

But it’s true. This week I unsubscribed from a bunch of blogs just because I was sick of reading about Jesus Feminists and waaaaay too much TMI and cheesy “I’m so glad you’re here with me in this space–I like you already!”

Then I slept a long good night and in the morning I felt better and could stand up straight which usually helps one’s outlook considerably. Then I found out that my dad’s mom died during our night, in the evening of her 88th birthday. Going to the funeral isn’t an option, and so the Atlantic feels tons wider right now than it usually does.

This isn’t a Complaining Song. It’s just what happened to me in the last 24 hrs. There’s deep, real peace and joy under all the surface stuff, and that’s a gift. There are friends who call and visit, flickering candles, A Christmas Carol to listen to. And a ticket to Ireland on Thursday!

However, the quest continues for interesting, decent, not-too-deep books and invigorating blogs. Right now the only ones I really enjoy are Journey Mama (who knows the voice of a pepto bismal frog?) and Confessions (who is a friend, and more than a brilliant blogger). Any suggestions for a house-bound girl?

The Most Incredible Story I’ve Ever Read

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I seem to live in expansive statements and superlatives. They make me happy but the sane people around me know that my statements reveal how many details I forget.

“This is the best salad I’ve ever had.” Because right now I’m so hungry and the table is set so prettily I forget all the other salads that have been wonderful.

“Did you ever see a cuter child?” Because at the moment these twinkly eyes and squishy cheeks are the only ones that exist.

So I know this is a pattern of my words, and it’s not always wise and I probably shouldn’t always use so many superlatives.

Even so, I want to say that Island of the World by Michael O’Brien is the most moving book I’ve ever read. Really. Honestly. It doesn’t feel right to call it a novel because it’s so real. The character followed me around town and at work. I would talk with my English students and his words and ethos were in the room with us. Does that sound spooky? It’s a powerful book. The most powerful story I’ve read. Ever.

It is set in Croatia in wars and ethnic cleansing of the 80’s. Since I live in Poland, I enjoyed the Croatian words and names that are similar to Polish. Josip is the main character, and it follows his life from boyhood to death.

It could be comparable to Les Miserables with its epic scope and its grace-filled, super-strong main character. It’s never fluffy or trite or sentimental. It’s not an easy read and it takes a certain level of emotional stability to absorb it. Many times I had to put it down and close my eyes and breathe “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” There were several pages I couldn’t read because there was too much sadness and blood. There were pages where I cried and cried, and later still felt all choked up. (I cry fairly easily but not over books!)

And yet. There was incredible strength of character that invited me back to witness redemption. There was peace and joy on a deep, supernatural level that was more real than any thing peripheral. Now that I’m finished, I find myself wandering around, not being able to settle down with any book. Everything else is pale and insipid.

Isn’t it a basic truth that we are brought to prayer only by passing through suffering? In this respect, the war was a blessing because it taught this generation how to pray, and it taught us the power of prayer. We learned that it was prayer that preserved us through impossible odds and only prayer that brought us independence. Dare I write these words–O God, how dare I write them?–yet I cannot be silent. The war was a catastrophe, but in Christ the worst catastrophe can be transformed into a blessing. –Josip, in a letter to Slavica

 

 

Joys and a Bargain

Posted in books, My Book, singleness by

Because it’s always fun to get a bargain, and because it’s becoming that time of year when you need gifts for girl friends who already have everything, here’s a deal:

You can order my book, Life is for Living from Christian Learning Resources and when you buy one, you get one free. If you buy 10, you get 10 free. You get the idea.  (Wholesalers, you get 70% off orders over 20, that way you can pass on the deal to your customers.  Wholesalers should call 877-222-4769 or email clr@fbep.org to place an order and receive this discount.)

The promotion is alive now on the CLR website, and closes on January 1.

I wrote the book for single girls aged 20 -30 who felt left behind and forgotten and depressed while all their friends were getting married. But mothers and pastors wives have written me to say that they benefited from the book because the gist of it is to embrace life and look for the joy wherever it is because it really is everywhere.

My joys the last few days:

1. brilliant sunsets

2. a surprise box filled with goodies all the way from the US

3. morning coffee with a drop of cream

4. hope of snow

Comforts While Drinking Hot Chocolate

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1. I’m in the middle of Island of the World by the talented Michael O’Brien. It’s a deep, riveting story. I’m always amazed when a novelist makes his character write. I noticed and was fascinated by that skill first a long time ago when I read Emily of New Moon. And now in this book, when it has a fragment of the main character’s notebook, it takes me aback because O’Brien has to write doubly, and write in another kind of personae. I think a novelist like him must have an enormous soul. Other snippets of another of his books are here and here.

It is called the “chambered nautilus.” Nature’s powers are so endlessly ingenious that one must take care not to assume one knows where its outermost (and innermost) frontiers are located. –from Josip’s notebook

2. Pinterest is to me like a cozy blanket at the end of the day. A bit of humor, comfort, inspiration. Not every night, but almost, I treat myself to checking what came into my feed that day. There are women who  sneer at it, and others who deal with depression and envy because of it. That’s not Pinterest’s fault. For me, it’s a tool and a breath of new air that gives me ideas. I control the boards I follow and  when one has too much sarcasm or home dec or fussy hand-made cards, I unfollow it. (Yes, how did that word become a verb?)

I cannot put into words how it soothes  my soul to do something with my hands. During and after a season of dark depression, when most everything else in my life was unpredictable and uncontrollable, (or isn’t that all of life?) my fingers did something with paint or pen or paper or an onion, and the medium did what I asked it to, and the result lightened me as nothing else can. It wasn’t about controlling the medium; it was about finding and creating something that hadn’t existed before and having a little more beauty in the world as a result.

Beauty has many layers. Life is, it seems, about unwrapping those layers.

Words, People, and Chocolate

1. I was showing two women photos of Ireland and my family. Our little crowd of six offspring, several spouses, and 11 children usually blows students out of the water. “When there are so many of you, do you sometimes get angry and not talk to each other?”

“Never,” I said. “Sometimes there are problems and misunderstandings. But I’ve never experienced anyone saying they’ll never talk to me again.”

“My brother said he’ll never talk to me again. What I said to him wasn’t so bad, but it was 17 yrs ago, and we haven’t talked since then.”

“By our nature, we are selfish and unpleasant, but Jesus changes our hearts so we can love each other. Does that make sense?”

“It sounds nice.”

This. This is why I love teaching English.

2. I was playing Taboo with my teens and describing “dentist.” I couldn’t say teeth or mouth so I said, “This is the person you go to when you have a problem with your face.”

“MOTHER!”

3. This is a stressful time, with major surgery on my near horizon. Lolita knew what would make me cheer, and gave me a Lindt bar that says “Hello. My name is Crunchy Nougat Chocolate Bar. Nice to sweet you!” I’m nibbling the chocolate slowly, but I’m not throwing that wrapper away.

Thomas Merton Quotes

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These are quotes from Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. I enjoyed the book immensely. Merton writes with a candor and self-deprecation that is winsome and inviting. I disagree with a great deal of what he says, particularly about the saints and Mary and the cloistered life. But his life story is worth reading and it took me in as soon as I read about his artist parents. I wish I could have been one of his literature students.

The quotes here are just a smattering of his wise words, but which spoke to me especially now. You know how that is? When a book just meets you and speaks your language? This is one of those.

When the Spirit of God finds a soul in which He can work, He uses that soul for any number of purposes: opens out before its eyes a hundred new directions, multiplying its works and its opportunities for the apostolate almost beyond belief and certainly far beyond the ordinary strength of a human being.

Sometimes I would be preoccupied with problems that seemed to be difficult and seemed to be great, and yet when it was all over the answers that I worked out did not seem to matter much anyway, because all the while, beyond my range of vision and comprehension, God had silently and imperceptibly worked the whole thing out for me and had presented me with the solution. To say it better, He had worked the solution into the very tissue of my own life and substance and existence by the wise incomprehensible weaving of His providence.

Being Aware

Posted in life, Poland by

1. First-world problems I’ve had lately:

–I hate when my ear buds get dreadfully tangled even though I try to store them in an orderly way.

–I can’t decide what colors to wear together because I have so many clothes to choose from. (I still intend to prove to my friends and sisters that pink and turquoise go together, but that’s another subject.)

2. First-world gifts this week:

–I Skyped my mom several times. Computer.

–A friend called to ask if I’m ok. Cell phone.

–I had free care and tests and scans that don’t exist in some countries and would be crazy expensive in others. Hospital and doctors.

–We had a free day from work and we could stay at home and drink coffee and read The Alchemist aloud. Leisure time.

Every day I see people in our town riffling through dumpsters and trash cans. I can watch them from my 5th-story living room window and it makes my heart sick. I don’t know what desperation has pushed them to this, but I’m doubly grateful for food in the fridge and cupboards. And for energy to cook it. And for money to buy it.

And for a toasty-warm flat. And that I love teaching English. And that there are days off.

The list goes on and on.

This sounds like I lead a charmed life. I don’t. There are many things I’m angry about and weep over and put up with and try terribly hard not to worry about. My life is not pinnable, as another blogger put it. But I’m rich to the point of excess. Rich in way, way more than things.

I don’t deserve the luxuries that majority of the world lacks and I’m not big enough to come to any resolutions of the vast inequalities. But today I am aware and thankful.

Tigers’ Shining Eyes

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1. I have this group of pre-teens and in the teachers’ room we call them our tiger class. Last Thurs. they completely wore me out with their mischief and naughtiness, and I was quite numb for several hours after the lesson and felt like a colossal failure.

But yesterday they had completely transformed. They focused on their work and came up with amazing things. Their eyes sparkled with energy and intelligence. They acted out and guessed vocabulary with hilarity and creativity. Crazy whirling arms to show a helicopter’s blades, and fierce fangs to show Dracula.   I sat at the side of the room and laughed and laughed with them. Had they transformed, or had I? Maybe both. I only know I fell in love again, with all six of them.  Their shining eyes completely charm me. And they are still tigers because they’re so beautiful and alive.

2. Speaking of shining eyes, I recommend musician and motivational speaker Benjamin Zander’s speech at TED here. I’m not musical enough to follow some of the technical chord progressions he explains. But in general he’s talking about music and passion and I interpret what he says from a teacher’s standpoint. His bounding energy and way of thinking outside the box makes me feel that no problem is insurmountable.

“I have a definition of success. For me, it’s very simple. It’s not about wealth and fame and power. It’s about how many shining eyes I have around me.” –Benjamin Zander