The Divine Feminine Version: Colossians is now available
I spent August translating the book of Colossians for the Christian Godde Project. You can read The Divine Feminine Version of Colossians here. Please let me know what you think.
Depression and Spiritual Direction
October 2-8 was National Mental Illness Awareness Week. I’m a little late to the party, but this week I’m going to post on my own struggles with clinical depression. This article was originally posted on July 31, 2007. It is also posted on the Spiritual Directors International website.
I sat in my car and took a breath. This would be the first time I met with my spiritual director. I was a little nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I needed to do this. I needed someone to help me find my way out of the depression that had darkened my life and back to intimacy with God. I hadn’t sinned or wandered off–nothing so dramatic. What I had been for the last five years was busy. First I attended seminary plus worked a full-time job. After seminary, the full-time job continued, and I added a part-time pastoral position. Somewhere in the midst of preparing for ministry and actual ministry, I had lost my own way with God. I was tired, burnt-out, and I needed help. I had also been diagnosed with clinical depression and was on anti-depressants. But I needed someone to help me sort through all of the negative images and feeling; I needed someone to help give me hope. I needed someone to talk to without one more person to tell me to hang in there and just “have faith.” I needed someone who could listen to me–listen to my story–then help me to connect my story back to God in my daily living. I found help with my depression from a source I had not known about until a retreat at a Benedictine monastery: a spiritual director.
Depression is a reality of life. One in ten people suffer from some form of depression, with women experiencing depression twice as often as men. Depression used to carry a heavy stigma with it. It was thought we should be able to shake it out of ourselves and get on with life. It was a very painful stigma for Christian women because the assumption was that something was wrong with our relationship with God. If we would pray more or serve more, or have more faith, then surely the depression would magically disappear. Thanks to new studies we have learned that depression also affects us physically and not just mentally and emotionally. There are anti-depressants to now get our brain chemistry right with the chemicals we need to be healthy. Christian women like Ruth Graham and Sheila Walsh have also told their own stories of dealing with depression. There are several treatments for depression: anti-depressants, counseling with a therapist or pastor, and groups to listen and offer help and advice. I found help through these avenues, but I also discovered a spiritual director essential in helping me come to grips with my depression and deal with the root causes of it.
One of the things my spiritual director helped me with the most was my self-perception. It’s amazing how much depression can warp our perception, especially our self-perceptions. When I was in the midst of my depression, I couldn’t see anything good in myself or good for my future. It was a downward spiral of self-loathing and self-negation. I could not see who I really was or what I was capable of. I also had no ambition. All I wanted to do was lie on my couch and channel surf all day. I did not want to go to work, to church, see friends, or move. I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to be in a situation where my own worst fears about myself could be confirmed. If they only knew… echoed in my head. I had become my own worst enemy.
To get out of this cycle took more than one thing. I had gone on an anti-depressant, but I also needed someone I could talk to. That’s when I discovered spiritual directors. A spiritual director is a mature Christian that guides another Christian into seeing how God is working in his or her everyday life. Spiritual direction helps a person to evaluate his or her life and see where God is working and moving. It is a process of making us more aware of the presence of God, and disciplines we can practice to make space for God in our lives. The relationship can be formal between a trained spiritual director and directee, or informally, between two friends at church. Pastors, Sunday School teachers, and small group leaders can also be spiritual directors. I chose a trained spiritual director: Sister Mary Pat. She offered the structure and guidance I needed to see who I really was and what God was doing in my life. These are the key elements she brought to me:
Accountability. I was more aware of how God was working in my life on a daily basis knowing that my spiritual director would be asking “What has God been saying to you?” the next time we met. Instead of feeling like God was so far away, I became more aware of how God was working in my daily life, especially through my friends. Sister Mary Pat also held me accountable on my own spiritual disciplines. I was fine with telling her that I slacked off on prayer once, but to have to report that twice can be a difficult thing. Knowing I would be telling my director about my weekly disciplines was the catalyst I needed to stay on track. This also kept me on track with my daily life as well: getting to work, going out with friends, going to church–the things I needed to do to give me perspective and lead me out of the self-loathing bubble I had created for myself.
Fidelity. My spiritual director told me the single most important thing I could do was to be faithful to God: to both my time with God and what God had called me to do. American society is addicted to quick fixes and instant gratification, but God does not work that way. There is also no one way to nurture our relationships with God. Listening to God and being faithful to what God is calling us to do is the most important thing we can do. As we pray, listen, and obey in our daily lives, our faithful response to God will open up avenues for God’s grace to flood our lives. I learned the importance of being faithful to God, whether I felt liked it or not. I also discovered that God was faithful to show me the areas of my life that needed God’s healing. But I had to give God time and space to do that.
Objective viewpoint. Having an objective viewpoint while I worked through consequences from past actions, as well as some misperceptions about God, was a great help. I found out the roots of my depression went back to my misperceptions about God that I had had since I was a child. I grew up with a very angry God who was just waiting for me to do something wrong, so God could get me. I also had to deal with consequences from a sinful time in my past, and then forgive myself and let God heal me of that time in my life. My spiritual director gave me a balance between seeing myself as a helpless victim on one side and blaming myself for everything on the other. All of us have blind spots, and none of us view ourselves the way we really are. A spiritual director can help open our eyes to those blind spots, and lovingly show us the areas in our lives where we are not obeying God. He or she can also give us guidance in how we can turn away from those ungodly ways and become more like Christ. On the positive side, a spiritual director can also tells us what we’re doing right, and how he or she sees God working in our life, when we’re not seeing anything good in ourselves or our lives.
A friend of mine discovered that having a spiritual director helped her work through theological questions she had. As she went through seminary she had questions about God, and she wished she had someone to talk to. Now that she has a spiritual director, she wishes that she would have known about spiritual directors a lot sooner than she did. We all have theological questions. How does God work in our lives? Our families? Our neighborhoods? Our enemies’ lives? Our world? A spiritual director can help us see where God is working in all of our lives, and not just those areas we consider spiritual. All of these questions also played a role in my depression, and my spiritual director helped me find biblical answers to these questions.
Discernment. After the depression, I continued to see my spiritual director. I wanted to make sure that the habits and things I had learned, I would stick with. I’m glad I did. Not long after I worked my way through the depression, and the root causes of it, I went through major life changes. Sister Mary Pat helped me to navigate and discern God’s will through those changes. I had lived in Kansas City for eight years and been an assistant or associate editor for my denomination’s Sunday School curriculum for six years. I had bought a house, and spent four years getting it just the way I wanted it. Then a relationship with one of my best friends took a turn toward the romantic. The problem? He lived in Chicago.
I talked and prayed with my small group at church and with close friends. I also received guidance from my spiritual director. By this time Sister Mary Pat knew me very well, and she asked very pointed and sometimes hard questions, to help me discern God’s leading. I felt released from my calling as an editor, and not a year later I was moving to Chicago and marrying my best friend. Now on the other side, I can say this was God’s will. I am very grateful for my director helping me to see the new vistas God was leading me into. I also know that if I start sinking back into depression, that I have the tools she gave me to help me navigate through it. (I did find another spiritual director here in Chicago who has helped with discerning God’s calling and my vocation for this time in my life.)
The best benefit of spiritual direction is being more aware of God’s presence in our lives and having a more intimate relationship with God. It was also wonderful to know I wasn’t alone. Sister Mary Pat would tell me of the times she struggled with depression, and how God faithfully saw her through. I didn’t have to feel ashamed. Depression is a part of life. All of us deal with it. I found out that it’s okay to ask for help.
I am very glad that I got out of my car that day. The year I saw my spiritual director, I came to see that God really was working in all of my life, and that God cared about the things that I desired and wanted. I found out that deepening my relationship with God takes time, solitude, and fidelity. But it was worth the time–even when I wasn’t seeing any results. I now know that God is working and moving in my life, and I have resources that I can use to help me deepen my relationship with God. And the next time I feel like I need spiritual direction, I won’t hesitate to get out of my car.
If you would like to explore spiritual direction and find out how a spiritual director can help you in your walk with God, discerning God’s calling in your life, or your vocation in the world, I would love talk to you. Please Email Me .
Throw It to God
October 2-8 was National Mental Illness Awareness Week. I’m a little late to the party, but this week I’m going to post on my own struggles with clinical depression. This post was originally published on October 19, 2007.
I don’t take too much literally. My favorite genre of fiction is fantasy after all. But there is one verse in the Bible I do get very literal with as a way to cope with depression and the anxiety and worry that accompany it (or do the anxiety and worry come first then the depression–chicken and egg, I guess). The verse is: “Cast all your cares on God for God cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7, my paraphrase). I like the wordplay of the two “cares” when translated this way.
This is one of the meditation techniques I use to control worry and anxiety. I sit with my eyes closed and picture a worry or anxiety then I throw it to God. Then I think (or say aloud) God cares for me. Then I go on to the next one and the one after that until I’ve tossed all my worries and fears to God. Now I do mean toss. I don’t picture myself hurling these things at God. It’s more like when my dad and I used play catch in the backyard. My dad was a slow pitch, softball pitcher for years, so throwing balls in the yard was a family pastime. Normally, it was a three way of Dad, my sister, and me. Sometimes Mom would join in (don’t feel sad for Mom: she’s the one who taught us how to swing a bat. She was a better batter than Dad was. Not to mention she was probably glad to get the three of us out of the house and her hair for awhile.) So we’d play catch, and I would throw the ball to Dad, and he’d toss it back to me. That’s how I picture this meditation, but I don’t get the ball back because I have whole supply I need to get rid of. In fact, when I picture my worry, fear, or anxiety, it’s always in the shape of a ball. I throw it to God who catches it, who then says, “Okay toss me another one.” I never see where the balls go. One minute they’re in God’s mitt, and the next they’re gone.
I did this a couple of days ago when the anxiety was getting overwhelming. I find the imagery of the action of literally throwing my cares to God to really help me let go of them and know God will take care of me and the things that are worrying me. That’s why I say or think “God cares for me” after each throw. What I’ve thrown to God is in good hands, and so am I.
Related Links:
Another Journey with Depression
Fogs of Depression
Depression and Spiritual Direction
The Last Couple of Weeks
Battling Depression and Sloth: Routine and Ritual
October 2-8 was National Mental Health Week. I’m a little late to the party, but this week I’m going to post on my own struggles with clinical depression. This post was originally published on December 4, 2008.
I am becoming very content with having a routine: praying at set times (Morning prayers and Compline or Vigils) or doing a little housework and laundry to maintain the order of my house. I like reading and writing in the afternoon and the wee hours, walking in the morning, and practicing yoga in the evening. And I am thinking that routine may be more than the same old drudgery we tend to define it as.
Kathleen Norris started me thinking about the value of routine in her latest book: Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. What is acedia you wonder? Acedia is from the Greek akedos, which means the absence of care. Wikipedia defines it as apathy or laziness. Its more commonplace synonym is sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. This is one of the seven deadly sins I am the most acquainted with. Me and acedia (or sloth) are on a first-name basis. Here is one of Norris’ descriptions of acedia:
One of the first symptoms of both acedia and depression is the inability to address the body’s basic daily needs. It is also a refusal of repetition. Showering, shampooing, brushing the teeth, taking a multivitamin, going for a daily walk, as unremarkable as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance the ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world. But the notion of pleasure is alien to acedia, and one becomes weary thinking about doing anything at all.
Taking care of ourselves and where we live, are signs of self-respect. Signs that we take pleasure in our lives, in others, in what we do, and in who we are. When we let sloth in, it really does suck the pleasure out of life. When I let acedia have its way, I have trouble getting off the couch, let alone writing a chapter or picking up the clutter.
I live these paragraphs more often than I want to admit. Like Norris, I don’t know if acedia leads to my depression, or if the clinical depression makes me more susceptible to acedia. I do know the two tag-team me on a regular basis, if not a daily basis.
So much of the time I just don’t care. I don’t care what gets done and what doesn’t get done. I don’t care if I write or not. There are times I don’t care if I shower or not. I have no ambition, no energy, and no drive to accomplish anything.
I mindlessly surf the net, mindlessly watch TV, mindlessly stare into space. And I don’t want to do anything else. Norris notes that repetition is what fills our days. Life is a routine of daily activities: getting up, showering, eating, cleaning, working, and playing. These are the rituals of life–from putting on clothes to making the bed to rinsing out the tub–these are the daily activities that keep us connected to life, connected to each other, and connected to ourselves.
In prayer a couple of months ago, I asked God to make me aware of her presence in my everyday rituals, to remember God was with me in the making of my bed and in making wholesome meals. That’s when it hit me that everyday routines were rituals. Not only rituals to bring us closer to God, but rituals to take care of ourselves. This is Brother Lawrence’s wisdom that worship in the kitchen making meals was every bit as important as worship in chapel taking communion.
Instead of routine, I am slowly starting to think of the daily motions of my life as ritual. Something I do because I am important, and I am worthy of taking care of myself and my surroundings. It’s slow going, but I think that is because there is no quick fix. It takes a combination of prayer, yoga, meditation, daily routines, antidepressants, and the daily discipline to do small things such as making the bed or taking a shower. But I feel better.
I also think that realizing my routine was not the 9-5 one our world glorifies in has had a major impact on how I feel and function. I am a night owl, and I’ve always done my best and most creative work in the wee hours. It’s after midnight. It’s quiet. It’s dark. I can hear myself think and for some reason, in the wee hours, I don’t mind hearing those thoughts.
Last month I started staying up working until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. I get up around 10:00 a.m., pray morning prayers and practice contemplative prayer then I start working between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. and go until around 5:00. Now it’s time practice yoga, make supper, and spend time with The Hubby. Then sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., I get back to work (usually closer to 10:30 p.m. because I have to have my Jon Stewart fix).
I am finding a lot of self-acceptance in this process. Accepting that I keep different hours, that I need that order and routine of the Daily Office, need to clean off the coffee table and keep the tub somewhat clean. I’ve always enjoyed cooking and crocheting, but now I am finding sacramental moments in creating meals and creating gifts for others. I like the journey I am on, and I hope it gets me through this winter better than the last two.
Chicago winters are brutal if you have depression and tend towards Seasonal Affective Order. Depression and sloth are knocking on my door, and they will be held in check until after Christmas. But January and February. . . That’s when I become a big slug who doesn’t care if I get off the couch. I have not made it through the last two winters well. But I am hoping to do better this year in adding routine and ritual to Vitamin D, B complex, antidepressants, prayer, and yoga. Well, actually, I’m hoping to keep practicing yoga and exercising regularly. That is something I have yet to accomplish in the winter gloom. But I have hope. Hope that the little things do make a difference and that if I keep doing the little things every day, I will eventually become whole and healthy.
Related Posts:
What Are You Saying to Yourself?
Another Jouney with Depression
Fogs of Depression
Depression and Spiritual Direction
Why I Keep Harping on Biblical Women, Equality, & Women Working
Rev. Laura Grimes officiating Mass
There’s a reason why I keep harping on the subjects I do. There’s a reason I’m writing a book called Career Women of the Bible. And there’s a reason I wrote the E-book, Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down. There is a reason why I keep blogging about women in the Bible who were:
- Religious leaders
- Secular leaders
- Business women
- Merchants
- Entrepenuers
It’s because I keep reading things like this:
I believed the “Beautiful Girlhood” spiel. I did it everything the “right way”. I stayed at home, I submitted to my father, I skipped college, I prepared to be my husband’s helpmeet, and I regret it. I had years of my life go by where I was little more than an indentured servant to my parents. My husband and I were forced into thousands of dollars of debt working for an abusive employer that we could have thumbed our nose at if I had been able to get a job. While I was without the commitments of marriage and children, I could have easily gained an education that could have served me and my husband well in early marriage. All those years living as a quiet submissive housekeeper, I could have been discovering interests, and developing as a person.
It’s because I keep reading about lies like this on the Are Women Really Human? blog:
YOUNG LADIES MUST PREPARE TO BE HOMEMAKERS…Prepare to Marry Young If God’s Will; Don’t accept cultural norms and practices…Don’t Assume College or Career:
- Be aware of serving the cultural idol of education and career.
- Be willing to lay aside the pursuit of higher education if marriage comes early.
- Be willing to lay aside a career when married.
- Think of a non-paying (but very rewarding and important) “career” in the home related to your husband and children.
- If unmarried, consider a “feminine” vocation or job that will benefit family later.
Detwiler further divides reasons married women work outside the home into “necessary” reasons and “wordly” reasons. The only “necessary” reasons are a husband’s unemployment or disability, or to save up money or pay off debts. The clear implication is that any woman who works outside of the home when her husband is also employed is sinning if her work is not indispensable to family finances. Meanwhile, worldly reasons for a woman to work outside of the home include:
6) Identity and fulfillment primarily in work outside the home. Not content with obscurity of being a wife, mother and homemaker… [my emphasis] 8 ) Husband and wife may think she can work outside home with little or no harm to the marriage and family. 9) Realization by a woman that it may be easier to work outside the home than in the home as a wife, mother and homemaker.
There’s an obvious disdain here for women and especially mothers who have outside employment. Detwiler clearly implies that such women are lazy, self-absorbed, and unwise parents. He clearly associates a woman working outside the home with “harm” to her marriage and family. He states that there is “lack of biblical support” for women to work full-time outside of the home.
It’s because The Council for the so-called “Biblical” Manhood and Womanhood just released a curriculum for kids and teens with this warped view of the creation stories in Genesis:
While God created men to be generally oriented toward work, God created women to be generally oriented towards relationships of helpfulness and companionship.
This is God’s good design.
A design for male headship — leading, protecting, and providing for the woman.
A design for female submission — submitting to and helping the man; a companion-helper ‘fit for him.’
Some will be doubtful … even upset by this teaching of God’s good design for men and women.
Yes I am upset about this. But not because it’s Godde’s good design. I’m upset because it’s one big, fat lie. If you want to see a drastically different way to interpret these same verses read this: Does It Really Mean Helpmate?
So yes, I keep harping on Women, the Bible, and Equality.
Women’s & Men’s Work
Of course what these people fail to tell you is that not only is there a “lack of biblical support” for women outside of the home, there is also a lack of support for men working outside of the home in the Bible. That’s because EVERYONE worked at home during biblical times. In ancient agrarian societies the home was a self-sufficient farm where everyone worked to make sure the family had shelter, clothing, and food. Few people left the home to “go to work.” The same was true for merchants at that time. If you lived in a town or city and sold merchandise, you lived above or next to your business, and the whole family worked in that business. The only people who worked away from home were traders and soldiers. That’s it. Everyone else worked at home.
The biblical model of family was not destroyed when women started working outside of the home. The biblical model of family was broken when men started working outside of the home at the beginning of the Industrial Age.
Not only did women work to financially support their families: women’s work drove ancient economy. Women’s work–spinning and weaving–making textiles to trade fueled the ancient economy, so different tribes could trade for precious metals and exotic foods. In Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, Elizabeth Wayland Barber shows the monetary value of women’s work for their families. She also shows the power and autonomy women had as textile makers and traders in the Middle East. Women have always worked to financially provide for their families. They’ve also made, bought and traded. It’s nothing new. What is new is this ridiculous modern idea that man goes to work, leaving his family behind for the better part of the day, then comes back home with money. That’s new. Not women working. (For an excellent overview of the work women did do in the Bible to support their families and bring in money see Sunzanne McCarthy’s “Women’s Orientation to Work” blog series, starting here.)
This is a totally foreign concept to most people although it describes well over 90% of our history. (History did not begin with the Industrial Age, the Victorian Era, or 1950s suburbia.)
What the Bible Really Says
photo © 2006 Dale Gillard | more info (via: Wylio)Women working in the Bible, bringing home the bacon, and being leaders is also a foreign concept to most people. Again and again I heard from readers who were amazed at what women did in the Bible after reading Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down. They were amazed to find women judges, military leaders, and women who wouldn’t take no for an answer from Moses, Jesus, or Godde. They were amazed to find a woman negotiating with a general on behalf of her city, and most of them were flabbergasted that Tamar was praised for disguising herself as a prostitute to insure she would have children for her husband’s family through her father-in-law.
They were amazed to find out that the quiet and submissive woman the women in the Bible were supposed to be is nothing but a caricature. It’s what men who have interpreted the Bible for centuries want women to be. It’s not what Godde created women to be.
And that’s why I keep doing what I do.
The time for lies is over.
That’s not what the Bible says.
It never has been. It never will be.
Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down Podcasts
Want to hear about what four of my readers said about the women they met in the Bible in Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down? Here is what we talked about in these four 30 minute podcasts:
Mark Mattison and I talk about how passages in 1 Corinthians are interpreted to keep women silent in church and submissive to their husbands. We talked about the many different ways these verses can be interpreted that make women equal with their husbands and equals in church, preaching and praying in their congregations. How many people know about these different interpretations? Not many.
Catherine Caine and I talk about how the traditional Christian views affect people who aren’t Christians. Catherine is a secular humanist in Australia, and she talks about how the traditional view of women can influence business as usual on an unconscious level. She also loved how earthy and action-oriented the women in the Bible were. She loved how they made decisions and did what needed to be done without any drama or hand-wringing.
Sandi Amorin talks about her experience growing up in the Catholic Church and how her questions about “Where are all the women in the Bible?” went unanswered. Sandi was amazed that she had never heard about most of these women in church. Sadly that’s not unusual. Women in the Bible who go against the “traditional” view of women are ignored and marginalized. We don’t hear their stories because they were anything but submissive and quiet.
Lainie Petersen and I talk about how the lie that Godde made women to be quiet and submissive leads to the abuses we see throughout the church today: domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and the reality that churches are much more likely to blame female and children victims than to hold male abusers accountable for their actions. The consequences of this horrible theology are brutal, and no one in the church likes to talk about it, much less do anything about it.
Stop listening to the lies
Most of all: don’t believe the lies anymore.
- Women were made in the image of Godde.
- Godde calls women to be both religious and secular leaders.
- Godly women have always worked and financially supported their families.
- In the Bible women not only worked–they had careers too.
Don’t listen to lies. Buy Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down and learn what Godde and the Bible really say about women by clicking the button below.
Have You Heard About the Girl Effect?
Did you know?
-
Anita in India (Photo from The Girl Effect)
When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
- An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
- Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)
- When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)
Did you know?
-
Addis in Ethiopia (The Girl Effect)
When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
- An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
- Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)
- When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)
- Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared with women ages 20 to 24, girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely, worldwide. (United Nations Children’s Fund, Equality, Development and Peace, www.unicef.org/publications/files/pub_equality_en.pdf [New York: UNICEF, 2000], 19.)
Did you know?
-
Photo from The Girl Effect
Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school. (Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)
- Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls. (Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.html [December 1999].)
- Girls get less than two cents of every aid dollar. (http://www.girleffect.org/give)
NOW you know
So what are you doing to do about it?
Here’s some ideas:
- Go to The Girl Effect to learn more and donate to girls all over the world.
- Join the campain and write about The Girl Effect on your blog October 4-11. Link back to Tara Mohr’s website here. Then go read about what other bloggers have said about The Girl Effect.
- Also visit Girls Count for even more reports, resources, and ways to help.
- Find a girl in your neighborhood and mentor her. Talk to her her. Make her feel important. Be her friend.
Now you know
What are you doing to do?
One of the Reasons Women Leave the Church: Podcast with Sandi Amorim
In August Adelle M. Banks reported on a study that showed church attendance among women is dropping along with women volunteers within church. I think my podcast with Sandi Amorim offers one of the reasons women are leaving the church: they are tired of hearing that women were created to help men and that women cannot hold any authority or leadership position in the church. They don’t hear about the strong, independent women in the Bible, and they never hear about the many religious and secular female leaders who populate the Bible. The church has told women for centuries it’s fine for us to do all the unpaid grunt work, but don’t dare cast your eyes to the pulpit or church boards.
We’re tired of it.
Sandi Amorim
(Disclaimer: Sandi is my business coach, and she is totally awesome!)
Sandi Amorim is the mastermind behind Deva Coaching: asking the right question at the right time. Here is how Sandi describes herself:
I’m an instigator willing to urge, provoke and incite you to SHINE.
Some have said ruthlessly compassionate. I say I’ll do whatever it takes to have you shine.
Aries. Firstborn. Mediterranean by blood, leader by inclination. It’s a volatile mix but it seems to work.
I ask questions and listen to you in a way that lures you through the turbulent waters of life to a place where you can, once and for all, own who you really are.
That may mean loving you more than is comfortable or socially acceptable and kicking your ass when required.
This is my siren’s song to you. An appeal to step up and be who you were meant to be.
Sandi is a former Catholic who left the church as a young adult because she couldn’t ask questions. A lot of those questions had to do with women and where were they in Bible? And why couldn’t she be an altar girl (in the days before the Catholic Church allowed girls to do that)? Sandi is now looking to renew her relationship with Godde, and she is very interested in a Godde who created women to be equals with men, and a Godde who calls those women to lead, protect, and teach their people. Like Catherine Caine she noticed, when it comes to women in the Bible, they act. They did what needs to be done, regardless of society’s perceptions. She liked the women she met in the E-book, and you can hear her thoughts on a couple of them in the following excerpt:
Podcast: SandiAmorimFull.mp3
Like Sandi, do you think this is something that young girls need to hear about? Do they need to know these stories?
Find out what strong, intelligent and incredible women populate the pages of the Bible. Discover that women can be more than helpers and volunteers. They can be leaders too! Buy Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down.
The Divine Feminine Version: Philippians is now available!
Philippians is now available at The Christian Godde Project. We will be finalizing Colossians next month and will post it in October. Please let me know what you think of our work on the New Testament: Divine Feminine Version.
Paul Was Not an Evil Misogynist: Podcast with Mark Mattison
photo © 2007 Francois Bester | more info (via: Wylio)Earl
A lot of people blame Paul when part of the Christian Church claims that man is the head of the women and the head of the home , and, therefore, cannot hold leadership positions in the church. They say Paul said that:
Men are the head of women & the head of the home.
Paul told women to be quiet in church.
Paul told women they couldn’t teach men.
Too bad for them Paul didn’t say all these things. Paul’s words are interpreted to say these things, but that’s not what Paul actually said.
Earlier this year I posted on why the Apostle Paul was not the evil misogynist he’s cracked up to be. I looked at the verses in 1 Corinthians 11 that are normally used to keep women subordinated to men, and out of leadership positions, and showed that the passage can be translated to empower women instead of marginalize them. My friend, Mark Mattison, posted on the same subject at The Christian Godde Project over the weekend. In this podcast on Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down, we talked about Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthian church and why a few verses cannot be taken out of either letter to be what Godde meant for all time. Here are the verses we’ll be talking about this podcast:
Now I praise you, sisters and brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.
<You say:> ”But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christa, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christa is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonors her head. For it is one and the same thing as if she were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and radiance of Godde, but the woman is the radiance of the man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man; for neither was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.”
But the woman ought to have liberty over her head because after all she will judge the angels. The point is, neither is the woman independent of the man, nor the man independent of the woman, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, so a man also comes through a woman; but all things are from Godde. Judge for yourselves. “Is it appropriate that a woman pray to Godde unveiled?” Doesn’t even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her instead of a covering. But if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither do Godde’s communities (1 Corinthians 11:2-6, DFV).
Mark Mattison
Mark is an independent scholar who was the founder and is still a contributor at The Paul Page, which keeps up with all the scholarship coming out on the Apostle Paul (no small task). Mark is also one of the founding members of The Christian Godde Project and the general editor of The Divine Feminine Version New Testament. Mark and his family live on the wrong side of Lake Michigan in Michigan (key words: lake effect snow) where they get a whole lot more snow than we do on the right side of Lake Michigan in Chicago.
Podcast: MarkMatthison1Corinthians11.wav
Find out what Paul really said about women keeping silent and not teaching men when you buy Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down. (Hint: Paul wasn’t talking about all women for all time. He was talking to very specific troublemakers in very specific congregations.)
The third full length podcast with Sandi Amorin will be posted next Monday (10/3)!
Women, the Bible, Submission & Abuse: Podcast with Lainie Petersen
Lainie Petersen
Women Don’t Need No Education
In May Lainie Petersen and I talked about the danger of women being limited to submissive “help mates” in this podcast for What You Didn’t Learn in Sunday School: Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down. One of the many alarming things coming out of the Christian Patriarchy Movement is the belief that women do not need an education as they will be stay-at-home mothers. They don’t need to go to college as they will never work outside of the home. Lainie and I discussed how this movement is discouraging women from pursuing degrees in religion and theology.
Last month Lainie pointed her Facebook friends to a blogpost that showed the movement discouraging their daughters from going to college and one woman’s regret that she did not pursue more education:
I believed the “Beautiful Girlhood” spiel. I did it everything the “right way”. I stayed at home, I submitted to my father, I skipped college, I prepared to be my husband’s helpmeet, and I regret it. I had years of my life go by where I was little more than an indentured servant to my parents. My husband and I were forced into thousands of dollars of debt working for an abusive employer that we could have thumbed our nose at if I had been able to get a job. While I was without the commitments of marriage and children, I could have easily gained an education that could have served me and my husband well in early marriage. All those years living as a quiet submissive housekeeper, I could have been discovering interests, and developing as a person.
Earlier this year I published a little E-book called What You Didn’t Learn in Sunday School: Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down. I interviewed four amazing people about the E-book to see what they thought about it.
Originally I bundled these podcasts with the book, but I’ve decided to make them available on the blog, free of charge. Why? Because of things I keep seeing like this blog post.
BECAUSE LIES LIKE THIS ARE ALIVE AND WELL IN OUR WORLD.
This is the reason I wrote Women Who Didn’t Shut Up and Sit Down–to show that Conservative and Fundamentalist Christianity is touting only one of the ways to interpret Scriptures. There are other ways (many other ways) to interpret what the Bible has to say about men, women, and marriage.
That’s why I’m releasing the podcasts, and that’s why you’re going to hear a whole lot about both the podcasts and the E-book in the next month or so. Because people are asking women politcians if they submit to their husbands. Because curriculum is coming out that teaches: “A design for male headship — leading, protecting, and providing for the woman. A design for female submission — submitting to and helping the man; a companion-helper ‘fit for him.’” Because women are being told they don’t need an education and will never have to work outside of the home.
Godde made men and women as equals in all areas of life to stand by stand and show people what the image of Godde looks like: male and female working together to building Godde’s kingdom of love right here, right now.
Stop the lies. Learn the truth for yourselves. Then teach it to your children. Buy Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down Now. (Then you can listen to the brilliant podcast of Lainie Petersen.)
Lainie Petersen
Lainie Petersen is a very dear friend of mine. It’s not an exaggeration to say I would not have made it through my year of loss and new beginnings without her. Lainie is an ordained priest and bishop in the Independent Catholic Church. She holds an Masters of Divinity and a degree in Christian History from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a degree in library science from Dominican University. A few years ago Lainie decided she wanted to learn about tea and wound up discovering a new profession for herself: blogging about her tea drinking adventures at LainieSips.com where she is known as the Bishop and the Tea Lady.
In this podcast excerpt Lainie and I talk about why it is so important to bring the women of the Bible out of the shadows and show the range of roles these women acted in. Limiting women to the roles of submissive wife and mother and telling them to shut up and sit down leads to abuse–spiritual, physical, and sexual–along with slowly pushing women out of college and seminary Bible and theology classes. Lainie talks of recent incidents in which patriarchal male leaders have been let off on sexual abuse as well as the fundamentalist drive to remove women from academia.
Podcast: LainiePetersenFull.mp3
Here is a link to the book Lainie recommended: Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations by Mark Chaves.
I was extremely glad that Lainie and I talked about these issues after reading this post from Grace at Are Women Human? Later that day another friend directed me to the Women’s Bible Programs at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. These issues are alive and well in evangelical and fundamentalist cultures in the U.S. I have written about the programs for seminary wives at places such as SBTS as well as introduced my readers to ordained female pastors and evangelists of the early 20th century in the Church of the Nazarene in this post.
Did you know there where evangelical, holiness, and pentecostal churches that ordained women as early as 1851 and continued ordaining women into the early 20th century? What do you think of the fundamentalist move to keep women out of college and seminary level Bible and theology classes?
Find out what strong, intelligent, and incredible women populate the pages of the Bible. See what Godde had in mind when she created women in her image. Buy Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down.
The third full length podcast with Mark Mattison will be posted next Monday (9/26)!