So I'm sure the Halloween parties are still continuing somewhere, but our celebrations are over. The Clawson family, at Emma's insistence, dressed up as pirates this year. I honestly don't know if she got the pirate theme from Veggie Tales ("The Pirates who don't do anything" which has been stuck in my head this entire week) or from the Dora Pirate Adventure. But we all had to be pirates (Daddy Pirate, Mommy Pirate, and Emma Pirate as she called us).

Last night our church threw a Halloween Party for the people we rent space from on Sunday morning. During the week the space is a community center for mentally handicapped adults. They are a fantastic group who are so transparent in their love for each other and their caregivers. There is a lot we can learn about true community from them. But we wanted to say thanks for letting us rent the space and so threw a big party. It was a great time full of games, crafts, and tons of junk food.

Tonight Mike took Emma around Trick or Treating and I stayed home to pass out candy and hot Spiced Apple Cider. It was really strange having it be warm enough (barely) to sit out on the porch the whole evening and for it to stay light so late on Halloween (I like this Daylight Savings change). The Superhero costumes were way down this year while the scary masks and gender bender costumes were way up. The number of boys I saw dressed as princesses, cheerleaders, and even one French maid was amusing. I saw just one Hermione and one High King Peter (from Narnia) who was really happy because I actually knew what his costume was (I apparently was the only one all evening). My favorite though was the little boy in a Darth Vader costume with instead of the mask a rainbow colored plastic mohawk. I thought it was funny. We all ate way too much candy and have tons leftover. In all another fun Halloween.

Labels: Holidays, Personal

So last weekend we took Emma out to a local farm to pick some pumpkins. She got to ride in a wagon out to the patches to help pick out the ones we wanted. Then Mike got to pull the wagon with her and three big pumpkins back to the front :)

Tonight we carved the pumpkin. Emma really got into pulling out the pumpkin gunk and just started eating the raw pumpkin. I made roasted pumpkin seeds while Mike carved. Emma thought it was the coolest thing ever to put a candle in it and go outside in the dark. Let's just see it if last the few days until Halloween!

Labels: Holidays, Personal

I have a new article up in this month's issue of the Next Wave Ezine called Welcoming the Awakened Woman. Go check it out and leave comments if you want. (And yes, for those who are wondering, I do see the irony of this article written and submitted weeks ago appearing right now given other recent conversations.)

Labels: Gender Issues, Personal

So I seem to be inadvertently pissing people off with whatever I say recently. I basically can't seem to do anything right. apparently just the mere fact of my existence is enough to anger others. To take a silly example that can't get me in more trouble since they hate me so much anyway - one of those "we think people in the emerging church are poopy-heads" sites came across my summary of the Emerging Women lunch at the Emergent Gathering. You know the lunch where we all sat around and told our stories. Really evil stuff there. Well this anti-emergent site wrote, "Here is just another reason to stay away from the emergent church.It is one sad day when "Christian" women and "men who support ‘emerging Christian women’" start sitting around re-imagining God in their own image so easily." What exactly is their issue this time? That we host mixed gender lunches? That men would ever condescend to support women? That we talk about God? I don't get it. The best part were the labels used for their post which included - abomination, feminism in the church, false teachings, and heresy. Wow I always wanted to be classified as an abomination.

Then my lunch today seemed to solidify the fact that I offend people with my mere existence. Emma and I were out running errands and stopped to have lunch at her favorite place Noodles & Company (this was mommy's apology for making her get a shot at the doctors). The lunch started out amusing. Emma had just had a haircut at one of those places that make it all cute afterwards. So with pigtails with ribbons we went into lunch. Usually Emma gets mistaken for a boy (even when she is wearing pink clothing with hearts all over it), but today nearly everyone in the restaurant commented on what a cute little girl I had. I was thoroughly amused by how the girly pigtails (as opposed to her usually disheveled moptop) changed people's perception of her. But anyway, back to the main story...

I ordered my food and went and sat down. The restaurant was crowded and so I was glad to find a table. Shortly after I arrived a businessman and businesswomen sat down next to me. The man was very loud in his complaining about having to sit this close to a toddler (apparently he didn't think Emma was cute). I'm sorry but if you don't want to be exposed to kids don't go to fast food places that serve mac n' cheese. I also got to listen to him berate the restaurant for using such an inefficient serving system, make fun of people whose houses he was working on foreclosing, and talk about why he hates Japanese people. The women never said a word, I doubt she could get a word in edgewise. I did my best to ignore his complaining and his death glares at me for having the audacity to have a child and be sitting already at a table near where he wanted to sit and eat.

But speaking of the actual food. I ordered our food and sat waiting for it to arrive. After waiting for awhile I noticed that all the people who came in after me had already been served. I asked the server about that. She checked and told me they had just skipped over my order. She brought out Emma's food and told me mine was still cooking. After a while I see other people getting the same dish I ordered so I decided to ask again. That really pissed the server off. How dare I want to actually get my food. She then walked over to the cook asked him a question, he immediately threw together my food and she shoved it at me. Things were not going well. First people don't want to sit anywhere near me then the restaurant doesn't want to serve me. Great.

So I start eating my lunch. By now Emma is finished and is getting squirmy. I am spending most of my time leaning over to pick up stuff she is dropping on the floor. At this point I am just trying to finish eating so we can leave. This is when the seriously obese women at the table behind me gets up and leans over to tell me that I need to pull my shirt down. It has ridden up and my back is exposed which is offensive she tells me. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the modesty police? I couldn't even respond to her, I just stared at her until she walked away.

I think my mere existence pisses people off. No matter what I say, people get mad. And now apparently just taking up space in this world is an affront to others. Yes, I know this is an overreaction, but there are just days when I am really tired of all this crap.

Labels: Personal

Maybe I just don't know much about gardening (which is true), but it seems strange to me that I'm still getting produce from my garden in mid-October in Illinois. And it's not just the winter squash either. I'm still picking chard, tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash. I'm not complaining about the food, I made a really yummy chili tonight with those tomatoes and peppers. But mid-October? We usually have our first snow by now.

Labels: Personal

No matter how hard I try to be open and tolerant of others I still find myself slipping into believing my silly prejudices. There are just areas in life where I assume the stereotypes and start judging those I don't like or who are different. Now I'm sure there are numerous prejudices that I am unaware of that I will have to confront and get over at some point, but then there are those that I am fully aware of and still have a hard time accepting.

For example. Shortly after we started dating, I discovered that Mike listened to country music. That was nearly a deal breaker for me. Country music?! I honestly couldn't imagine any intellectual person listening to it. I had to get over that and eventually the Shania craze won me over for a brief period (until the post-9/11 let's stick boots up other country's asses songs started dominating the airwaves).

Then there are the issues I have with "Ss." No, not the letter of the alphabet, I'm talking about "S" versus "N" on the Myers-Briggs Personality tests. Sensing verses Intuitive. People who prefer to focus on the basic information they take in instead of preferring to interpret and add meaning to the world they encounter. I always test completely "N" and it has been a long struggle for me to get along with the "S" crowd. We just see the world and interact with it in very different ways. But it's getting better. Really.

But now it's something new that I've discovered I hold deep prejudices against. Cat bloggers. Yes, those people who devote large spaces of their blog to posting picture of cats (their's or other people's). There is a part of me that just wants to brush them aside as "crazy cat ladies" who have migrated to the technological era. But significant numbers of the cat bloggers I encounter are people who I seriously respect. People who are highly intelligent, good writers, and, given the sorts of blogs I read, articulate theologians. But they are cat bloggers on the side. There was actually a period of time when I refused to read a person's blog if I discovered that she cat blogged. I think I am attempting to be more open, but I still harbor negative stereotypes about cat bloggers. So in an effort to confront my fears and prejudices I am going to post a picture of a cat. For one day I will join the official ranks of cat bloggers and move towards shedding my prejudices. So here we go - cat blogging at onehandclapping -

Labels: Fun Stuff, Personal

If anyone is interested, I am on the latest Nick & Josh Podcast. I haven't listened to the finished version yet, but I think (hope) I was vaguely coherent for it. I talk mostly about Emerging Women and some of the issues women face in entering into the whole emerging church conversation. I'm sure I ramble on at points, but I had fun doing it. So thanks guys for the opportunity.

Labels: Emerging Church, Emerging Women, Personal

So Sonja tagged me for a really fun meme. A six degrees of separation/where were you sort of thing. It looks fun, so I'll play.

The question is - What were you doing ten, twenty and thirty years ago? Or as it was described -

It’s an experiment to see how many degrees we can separate (kind of like Kevin Bacon, only it’s relevantblog). Even if you’re not tagged, don’t be crabby, just take up the baton and run with it. Here’s what I ask: Have folks post their 10-20-30s, and then link back to the Mother Ship (www.relevantblog.blogspot.com) or write a comment here, saying where you heard about this experiment and sharing where you blog. This isn’t to build my empire, it’s to find out how far we can expand the blogosphere. After all this talk about blog tours, it got me thinking. How many people can one blog potentially reach?

So here's my story...

Ten Years Ago (Oct. 1997) I had just begun my sophomore year at Wheaton College in Illinois. I had really not wanted to return to Wheaton that year, wanting instead to stay home and go to UT in Austin. But I went and had the craziest semester ever. I was taking something like 21 hours and literally had days when I started classes at 7AM and did not have a break until I was done at 10PM. It was nuts. But this was the semester when my entire worldview started to change. As I explained it to the guy (not Mike) I had a huge crush on at the time (who told me later he never asked me out because he thought I was a lesbian - long story), my Romantic/Platonic understanding of the world was falling apart and I didn't know how to piece it back together. He, who already understood the implications of postmodern continental philosophy, just told me that was a good thing. Let's just say I took a lot of comfort in reading the visceral modern poetry of T.S. Eliot at the time and spent hours embroidering my jeans with deeply meaningful lines from my favorite poems. Um, yeah.

Twenty Years Ago (Oct. 1987) I was in 4th grade at Martha Turner Reilly Elementary School in Dallas Texas. I had decided in third grade that I wanted to be a writer, so I spent much of my free time writing plays and stories - usually based on whatever I was learning in school at the time. I remember one story was a mystery about a group of kids who were kidnapped and had to use the Pythagorean Theorem to help them escape. Another play was about someone traveling back in time with a nuclear bomb and helping the South win the Civil War. Really good stuff there. I attended a very conservative large non-denominational church in Dallas (Northwest Bible church) and thought that people who didn't go to my church weren't Christians.

Thirty Years Ago (Oct. 1977) Well my mom was 7 months pregnant with me (yes I am turning 30 in a couple of months). So there's not a whole lot I can say about this period. We were in Dallas, I was the firstborn in the family, they considered naming me Barbie...

Now. Oct. 2007. I am a church planting pastor in the Chicago suburbs. I am very involved in the emerging church conversation and enjoy learning more everyday. I'm a mom to a 2 year old. Fun times.

So where were you? If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged. Just let me know if you play!

Labels: Fun Stuff, Personal

That's where I was all last week - at the Lifeway Glorieta Conference Center situated in the mountains outside of Santa Fe. As strange as it is to attend an Emergent event at a Southern Baptist camp, it does make for a stunning setting. Emma enjoying pointing out the "real mountains" (a opposed to the sand mountains we climbed in Michigan). In all she had a wonderful time there which is a good thing since we were really unsure how doing this event as a family would work. This Gathering was the first Emergent event that I have done in "mommy mode" which of course created a new dynamic for me, but I discovered that it is actually doable. Having Emma there meant we both took a very relaxed approach to the event. There was no possibility of us making every workshop or late night option, so we just stepped back and enjoyed the community where we could. So instead of stressing out about being places and becoming overwhelmed with information, we ended up having fantastic conversations wherever we were at. Playing with kids at the playground or letting Emma collect rocks on the hill were all opportunities to connect with people. And I loved that most conversations jumped straight to deeper issues and richer topics. I think everyone there was desperate for a community, a tribe as some are calling it, where those conversations are possible and so we took advantage of them at every moment.

A few random highlights from the week for me -

• - Like I mentioned before, attending a discussion of holistic emerging parenting. I am drawn to alternative parenting ideas and generally don't hold to the typical American style of parenting, but I've had a very hard time finding people to discuss those ideas with, much less learn from their experiences. The few I've found have not been involved in Christianity. So I've longed for other Christians to talk to who share my emerging journey and are exploring more holistic parenting ideas. Ideas that wrestle with spiritual formation of children outside of the assumed model of Sunday School or AWANA. Parents that see their children as people to be respected instead of pawns to be controlled. Parents who don't hit or scream at their children on principle (and definitely don't justify such things with the Bible). It was very refreshing to be in a group that cared about such things (men and women equally btw). We only had a short time at the Gathering to discuss such ideas, but I am in the process of creating an Emerging Parents blog to help continue that discussion.


• - Hosting an Emerging women lunch where we got to hear each other's stories. Women are coming to this emerging discussion from such a wide variety of backgrounds and it is helpful to hear about those journeys. We heard the stories of pain, of questioning, of anger, and of hope. As always those discussions developed into longer conversations about the whole "women in Emergent" issue. I'll post more about those over at the Emerging Women blog later this week.


• - Being involved in discussions about the future of Emergent Village and the role it will play. Will it be a place for newcomers to come with their pain and questions to work through new ideas or will it be pushing forward in developing practice and theology in our postmodern world? Mike has blogged about this issue here.


• - Finally figuring out who/what The Cobalt Season is and realizing that their music is amazing (go buy their CD's right now). And it was also amusing to discover the um, interesting, relationship Ryan Sharp has to my brother...


• - Taking Emma into Santa Fe and trying to teach her how to walk the labyrinth at the Cathedral. She made it through one circuit and the said "I just run," and ran to the middle. There's got to be some spiritual analogy in there somewhere...


• - Hanging out with friends new and old. Finally meeting some online faces. And knowing that yes, there are people in this whole emerging community that I really can connect with and wishing we weren't scattered across the country.


• - New Mexican food. Enough said.

And if you want to see some really good pictures from the Gathering click here.

Labels: Emerging Church, Events, Personal

So I'm home from the Gathering, for a few hours at least. The past few days were full in every sense of the word. I don't think I've really slept in a week (I've decided that I officially cannot do the co-sleeping part of alternative parenting, just being in the same room as my toddler made nights rather sleepless...), but the setting and the conversations were refreshing nonetheless. I'll post some reflections soon after I've had time to collect my thoughts and settle into a relatively unscattered mode once again. But for now, I'm off again tomorrow to Oregon, IL to work at my booth at the Stronghold's Renaissance Faire. In costume. Don't ask. Really.

Anyway, I will attempt to return to regularly scheduled blog randomness on Monday.

Labels: Personal

Hi all. I'm in New Mexico at the Emergent Gathering having a fantastic time. I just went to a discussion on emerging holistic parenting which is something I've longed to discuss with other like-minded Christians for awhile now. So it was good. I'll post details when I get back. But the blog will be slow the next few days as I have fun.

Labels: Emerging Church, Personal

So while we are still wondering when Fall weather will arrive in the Midwest, this morning we participated in one of those quintessential Fall activities - apple picking. A group of us from church headed out to a local orchard and farm to wander through picking (and eating) apples. Emma thought it was great although I don't think she really caught on to what a "ripe" apple looked like. But she ate the green ones she picked, so whatever works.

Then this evening Yorkville held it's first annual Oktoberfest. It had advertised German music, German food, and German beer - so we decided it give it a go. We loaded Emma in the stroller and walked down to the riverfront to end up listening to an 80's cover band, drink Bud lite, and eat brats (but with sauerkraut instead of pickles - hence the German part). But 80's rock anthems work for Emma our "dancing queen" who had a fantastic time running around and meowing (yes, meowing) to the music. In all it was a fun day.

Labels: Personal

Yesterday was one of those days.

I found out rather last minute that I had space at a huge local craft fair that I was on the alternate list for. (Yes in my other life I make and sell raggy quilts). So we set up our tent and wares at the Sandwich Fairgrounds and I tried to sell my quilts to the 6000+ people that came through. The day turned instead to a "all things conspire against us" sort of day. To start with from about 6AM to noon it was FREEZING. I was in a skirt, sandals, and short sleeves and was miserable. Then right around noon, the sun came, the temperature rose about 40 degrees and we baked in the sun (while being swarmed by flies). So not what weather.com predicted.

And then I discovered (again) why I don't do rural craft fairs. It is a different world once one leaves the suburbs. The fashions and hairstyles are like a timewarp back to the early 1990s. You meet the fundamentalist Christians too. My partner, who sells handpainted plates with scripture on them, got an earful from a lady who praised her for using the KJV and not The Message. Apparently The Message is evil because "God doesn't paraphrase" and the KJV is like the Holy Spirit and is gentle with our souls. Um, sure, whatever. I just smile and nod. My issue is that the shoppers were more likely to be stay-at-home moms (or grandmas) with generous freetime on their hands (as opposed to the artificially frazzled suburban moms we generally see at these things). That freetime issue means less sales for us. Instead of people coming by our booth and actually say buying one of my quilts, I had a steady stream of women coming by my booth, crowding around my display, and giving each other sewing lessons on how to make that type of quilt. I've taught such classes before (for a fee) and I paid to have a booth at the fair so I could sell my stuff not so people could just copy my ideas. I usually get a handful of people doing that at any show, but at the rural shows it is a steady stream. So while, there is nothing wrong with rural areas or the people who live there, it just really isn't a good market for our stuff. Hence my need to capitalize on the suburban lifestyle (and yes I am fully aware of the irony of that statement).

Anyway, then I was supposed to pack up from the fair and drive out to the up/rooted panel discussion with Spencer Burke, Alan Hirsh and others. It's a good hour and a half drive up to Park Ridge when the traffic is normal. Well traffic was horrible. It took me close to 45 minutes to get from Sandwich to Yorkville - a drive that should take 10-15 minutes tops. There was no way I was making it to up/rooted before the whole thing was nearly over. So I picked Emma up from the babysitters and went home having had a rather frustrating day. Just thought I'd share.

Labels: Personal

After talking about types of churches in my last post, I thought I should mention that I have a new article up at the Theolog Blog about community churches.

And I have to say that I am honestly trying not to say too much about the latest load of crap issued from Mark Driscoll. I do have to say that I find it amusing that a lot more people are pissed off with him now that he is attacking the big boys and not just women. But what can you expect...

Labels: Personal

I was having a discussion with friends recently about racism and our personal experiences with understanding race issues. All of us were white and everyone but me grew up in neighborhoods that were completely white as well. They all remembered the first time a non-white person moved into their neighborhood. I though grew up in Dallas where the majority of my classmates and most of my teachers were African-American. I then moved to Austin when I was 12 and encountered an even larger ethnic mix. We lived in a mostly Jewish neighborhood, but I had friends who were Korean, Russian, Egyptian, Brazilian, Indian, Mexican, and Iranian. The dividing lines in Austin were less racial and more economic and educational. Most of my friends had parents involved either with the University of Texas or in the lucrative computer technology boom. So I didn't think much about racism until I had to deal with it head on in 8th grade.

Austin spent the majority of the 80's and 90's imposing forced integration on its school system. Kids from one sort of ethnic neighborhood were bused across town to go to school in neighborhoods that were generally of a different racial mix. So for Jr. High I got to catch the bus at 6AM to go to school in East Austin. My school also happened to be the Math and Science Academy to which I applied and joined. Those of us in the academy represented just about every race and nationality, but the kids in the regular classes who were from the local neighborhoods around the school were almost exclusively African-American. And these were very poor rough neighborhoods. Riding the bus through them we would frequently see drug deals taking place and the boys on the bus (Jr. High remember) would toss nickels to the prostitutes on the streets. It goes without saying there there was a lot of tension between the local students and the academy students. Teachers did their best to ignore it and never got involved in inter-racial fights - they valued their job too much. The principal was an African-American woman who also ran a night-club. Two of her husbands had mysteriously died from poisoning. She spoke every morning on the intercom about what a nice happy family we all were, but that did nothing to relieve the racial tension. We students thought she was a joke.

That tension came to a head for me in 8th grade. That year a local African-American girl named Kiva started attending the school. We never had classes together (I was in the academy, she wasn't) but we passed each other in the hall. One day she noticed I was missing my left arm (it was harder to notice then because I wore a cosmetic prosthesis). She freaked out and started screaming. From that point on she would start screaming "it's the one armed girl" every time she saw me and run away from me. It was Jr. High, so that was embarrassing, but then it got worse. She got over her fear of my arm and started harassing me. She would follow me around calling me names, throw my books down the stairs, and rip my folders and homework. She would open the courtyard doors during lunch and let her gang member friends in to harass and throw things at me. Teachers would witness this, but like I said, they would not get involved in inter-racial issues.

One day I was about to walk up the stairs and she came up behind me and told me she commanded me to walk up the stairs. I told her I didn't want to and started walking away. She then told me that even though I was white and thought I was better than her because she was black, I really wasn't because I was missing my arm. She was better than a handicapped person and so could tell me what to do. She then tried to make me give her my watch, and I said, "leave me alone bitch" and walked away.

Things came to a head one day when (in front of two watching teachers) she stabbed me with her pen and it drew blood. I had to tell my parents then. They were of course livid and called the school to complain. So both Kiva and I were sent to the principal to talk. I told her all that Kiva had done to me and then she asked Kiva why she did it. Kiva said because I called her a bitch. And so I got in trouble for using a curse word and not trying to be part of the big happy family. Kiva was asked to be nicer to me.

I had a hard time learning to deal with that sort of racial tension. I had friends from various racial backgrounds, but I didn't know how to cope with being hated for being white, educated, relatively wealthy, and handicapped. I think it opened my eyes to a lot of the underlying issues behind racism and the systemic nature of the problem. But that didn't mean I did anything to help heal racial relations. I left that school for the highly educated IB Academy high school, I went to a nearly all-white college, and now live in a homogeneously white Midwestern town. And I have conversations with friends about racism, but instead of learning from my Jr. High experience on how to tear down the walls that divide I've apparently only managed to build thicker walls. And I don't know how to change that.

Labels: Culture, Personal

So the splint is off. I still can't really use my finger, but the swelling is gone and it actually bends now. I can still barely type, but I don't have that huge splint thingy making all my other fingers completely useless anymore. It's been a really slow week not being able to do anything at all for myself. I discovered I could kinda hold a mass market sized paperback - so I spent the last few days rereading my favorite fantasy series and watching way too many episodes of Heroes. It was fun for about a day, but then being completely helpless, not being able to take care of Emma, not doing anything productive, and having to eat Mike's cooking got old real fast... Anyway, just wanted to give a short update.

Labels: Personal

So I'm working on some real posts, but first I have to ask if you think this is a new good look for me... :)

Labels: Personal

Okay so Mike's computer crashed and is being repaired for the next few weeks... So that means he is using mine all the time now for work. That means I will be limited in blogging, email, and all that other fun stuff. (maybe I'll actually get other stuff done...). and I've got a booth to sell my quilts at a local fantasy faire this weekend. All that to say I may be a bit scarce for awhile. but Mike promised he'd share, so we'll see...

Labels: Personal

A few days ago Erin put up a great post about "Things I Learned From Church (That Didn’t Prove True And What I Am Learning Lately)" It was part of a new synchroblog stared by Glenn Hager. As he describes the purpose of this blog - "I am tackling this issue not because I have an axe to grind with church as we know it, not because I am bitter, and not because I think people who are into attending and supporting conventional churches are inferior. Rather, it is to help me to understand my own thinking..." I was intrigued by the concept and have appreciated some of the posts the participants have put up so far. Then after reading Scot McKnight's post on certainty and faith yesterday I was reminded of an experience in my church background that I have since learned to regret.

I grew up in a traditional, conservative, Texas dispensational church (I'm sure they would merely call themselves a biblical church, but then again so would just about any church...). Most of my experiences there occurred in the youth group. But this was no games and cool music youth group. It was a sit and listen to hour long sermons, read lots of books, attend seminars, and make fun of those not like us type group. Being a Christian meant one crammed oneself with knowledge about the Bible (oh, and avoided sex at all costs as the youth pastor frequently reminded us by recounting his sinful youthful sexual exploits...). We had to know exactly how to argue people into the faith and how to show them that whatever they believed (be they atheist, pagan, catholic, or baptist) was completely wrong (implying we were completely right). I loved it. As an intellectual nerd who prided herself of getting good grades, this was a religion I could relate to. My "faith" was all about facts and knowledge. So while most of the youth group dreaded attending (their parents made them), I and my small group of friends loved being the know-it-all star Christians.

At one point when I was in high school (here comes the Tom Cruise part), the youth pastor choose a new motto for the group. Taken from the popular movie A Few Good Men (back when Tom Cruise still had a career and wasn't the Hollywood freak of the week), our rallying cry became - "it doesn't matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove!" We were treated to sermons about certainty and correct hermeneutics. We were told that if we do not have 100% certainty about our faith then we are not real Christians. Forget saying a prayer and accepting Jesus into one's heart, this was the gospel of intellectual works. Knowledge, evidence, and proof were what got one into heaven when we died (the whole point of Christianity of course). Belief and faith meant nothing, all that mattered was proof.

When I mentioned the new motto to a friend at school, he looked at me quizzically and asked me if such a stance undermined the whole idea of faith in the first place. I'm sure I parroted something about rationalism and absolute truth back at him at that point, but over the years since then I have come to see that he had a better conception of true faith than I did. I was Thomas demanding proof and not accepting that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I cared more about CSI style investigations and converting people to creationism than I did about actually serving others or following Christ.

Now as the idea of certainty or absolute knowledge seems so utterly impossible I laugh at my arrogance in assuming I could ever grasp them. But it was a long journey to move to that point. My grip on certainty held me tighter than my grip on Christianity itself. I couldn't tell if I was more afraid to give up my philosophical system (which defined my religion) than I was to question my faith itself. Or perhaps, I just assumed that they were one in the same. That if I gave up trusting in certainty and empirical proof, I would no longer be a real Christian since I would then have doubts and incomplete knowledge. So the process of letting go was exceeding difficult, but I had to let go in order to discover faith. To discover the mystery and the trust that it takes to believe. To walk by faith not sight.

Now I am sure there are those that will mock me for not being a rationalist. Others who don't see room for doubt and faith in the Christian faith. Perhaps their experiences work for them. This is just my experience of what I learned from church that didn't prove true.

Labels: Church, Emerging Church, Personal, Theology

It has been an interesting experience the past few days to read the reactions to the "My Search for a Justice Bra" article (posted here and here at the God's Politics Blog). There are a couple of things that I want to respond to here, but first the part that caused the most controversy - why did I write about bras for the whole world to see?

Most simply because it was true. It was a true story based on the fact that I really needed a new bra, but it became amusing because of the oddity of writing about a bra. I expected people to smile at the situation and move on. But that proved too difficult for some. Apparently there are a lot of men out there who have the maturity level of a junior high boy when the subject of women and their bodies is brought up (no offense to jr. high boys intended...). Bras are for breasts and the only purpose of those is for sex - or so some seem to believe.

I think I should clarify before I go much further. I have issues with the way the secular media and the Christian church have oversexualized the female body. Of course the body has sexual aspects, but that is a limited and not holistic view. Our bodies are wonderful creations that should be appreciated and cared for. Too often we see them only as shells to be starved and carved into cultural definitions of sexual attractiveness. If the natural functionings of the body don't aid our sexiness, we hide (or seek to eliminate) them. As discussed recently over at Emerging Women, our menstrual cycles have become a thing to be feared and despised rather than celebrated and accepted. Same thing with breasts. They have become so associated with being a sex object that their natural function for breastfeeding has become taboo for many. Hence the issue with bras. For me a bra is just a part of everyday life. Oh, yes, they can serve a sexually charged function, but as one of the basic everyday parts of life I found it appropriate to see if I could bring environmental stewardship and ethical consumption into that area of my life.

But as a few of the reactions to the story demonstrate, there are some who do not think such a thing is possible. Oh there were those who resorted to cleavage and support jokes - lighthearted attempts to deal with the uncomfortable, but there were others who assumed that I could not possibly be serious about justice issues because I was talking about a bra. Some went so far as to claim that I was a right-wing critic who must be making fun of people who care about justice since I dared to talk about bras. Apparently anything remotely sexual cannot be taken seriously. (which is kinda the whole problem with women only been seen as sex objects and therefore not being taken seriously...).

The point of my search for a justice bra was to see if I could live holistically. To see if I could care for the environment, care for the poor and the oppressed, and be a conscientious consumer. Doing such things requires one to be aware - to consider where and how plants are grown, to think about the long term impact of dyes on the environment and our health, to care for the people who had to work with those chemicals or make my clothes. Our food and clothing does not magically appear in the stores - it all has a story, often a tragic and painful story. Being aware of that story and seeking to improve it is just part of what it means for me to let Christian values influence all areas of my life. But I also see living holistically to include accepting and being comfortable with my body. To care for its needs and not to fear the parts that men have defined in ways that divorce them from their natural function. I do not want to clothe myself with harmful chemicals or dump unnatural hormones into my system. I also don't want my body to be commoditized by men who think it is only useful as a sex object. So I will not shy away from discussing natural and normal aspects of life. And that includes bras.

Labels: Culture, Environment, Personal, Social Justice