Last year I did a biblical studies course online that continues to have an active and diverse multifaith facebook following. A gentleman posted this (NYE anyone?) and it seemed like it was made for a judeo-christian toga party! Perhaps once Lent is over... Not for me, you understand, for the men in my & your life (although women play Hamlet these days to great acclaim, don't completely rule the costume out!)
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Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-4 NIV) I'm a fallen woman, don't get me wrong. Please don't make me an angel, either. I am not the person sat in God's 'ear' singing hymns 24/7. I have as great a need to drop to my knees as the next person, man or woman. I'm not inciting rebellion or anarchy within marriage or singleness; I'm not advocating that women don't encourage their husbands, or that they refuse to be sacrificed for. I'd like to receive the sacrificial gifts of time, attention, perhaps even money (!) at the cost of a husband's 'preference,' which is the best way I've heard this put. However, I know that Jesus first sacrificed for me and Jesus loves men and women equally. That means that men and women get to share the spiritual rewards that come from following Jesus, and these must be manifested practically, whether you happen to be single or in a marriage relationship. Theologically I'm a egalitarian. Therefore, I believe men and women are called according to their gifting and unique personality, and should not limited in opportunities by their gender(s). I'm not a complimentarian, because I don't believe that women are tied to a supporting role in their work, church or marriage. However, I'll admit that in relationships where roles tend to diversify due to practical reasons, over time (for example, when couples have children), then the distinction between these opposing theologies can be much less dramatic than is first supposed. To me, the mindset that asserts that women can be equal in influence to men is of greater importance than the checkbox ticking that equal opportunity often engenders. Clearly, if you know me, you'll understand that what I have been though in the last decade is nothing like equality of opportunity with men, so it's hard to not to write about this from a place of pain. I am really asserting my worth here without the crowning glory of a fabulous resume, the sparkles of community affirmation or gold standard of a with honours education. The thing about entitlement is it was the bad product of the forbidden fruit in the garden. Upon eating let's say, the apple (because somewhat ironically, we don't even know which fruit was taken) – Adam and Eve felt they were, by rights, entitled make coverings for their nakedness, because of their exposure. After their sin, they were now vulnerable in every way, in body, mind, and soul. Because of the prohibition upon the fruit tree Adam and Eve were told not to eat from, we can presume that to God believed, contrary to the slurs of Satan (we are told in other places that he is the 'accuser'), that human nakedness was beautiful! God delighted in the body before the fall and didn't require clothing! We can infer from the Genesis story of Eden that the mind is potentially a prison of desire. It was the mind that first tempted Eve. Not from a place of entitlement, but from a position of insecurity (she apparently didn't know what 'evil' was). Eve had only to refuse the serpent initially, and leave the fruit tree in the middle of the garden alone. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, temptation became diffuse. Adam and Eve understood that temptation was inside them and passed through them like 'the apple.' No longer could Adam and Eve focus entirely upon God's holiness, which they had previously understood to be in all things; God was not separated from them before they had eaten the apple: not separated by this terrible new knowledge that they had acquired, which promised them all-power and delivered all-weakness. Basically, following 'the apple', Adam and Eve became hedonists! They were separated from God's goodness and trained to seek it. Yet they could not be pure in their search because they knew of wicked things. And because of their separation they were looking always for a hit. I wish the church would teach male entitlement like this! While we teach 'respect' and honouring male leadership within marriage *, I wish we could also affirm that men are favoured by patriarchal structures which we embrace in the church and in the world outside it. To some women, to whom life is unjust, this is basically the knowledge of good and evil. We know there are women out there who are treated abundantly well, to whom the rewards of a Christian life are tangible. But not all women get to share in those rewards. (*but not at the expense of female authority please!) The tragedy is we cover up with fig leaves that barely fix the problem. Obviously after the fall clothes were deemed necessary, and so are systems in churches, workplaces and in the social sphere, which organise the transmission of norms and protect the status quo -- because no-one wants chaos. We need to simplify and to take care of demands that create gender bias through one gender's legitimate and consistent preference. For example, many women would chose maternity leave and enjoy spending this time with their baby. But how can we best respect women who chose this option, or women who find they have no choice to apply because of circumstances. I wish we could keep at the fore of marriage teachings that women were highly honoured and trusted by Jesus, loved in their sin (because we have a habit of demonising Eve), and respected, like Mary, sister of Martha, when she sat at Jesus feet and set a healthy limit on her obligation to serve guests and clean the house! We should be teaching women a deep respect for themselves that is not based upon their achievements or external beauty. As a community of men and women, we should strive to educate until women know they have freedom to set boundaries, on their time, over their bodies, and in their relationships, not because they are empowered by feminism but additionally, and more powerfully, because they are God's daughters. There needs to be a place where men and women can be exposed to their 'nakedness' and accept their vulnerability without entitlement, and this place is the marriage, and/or the family. At every level of churches we should be asking how we can facilitate men and women to surrender their entitlement for the sake of the cross. That means looking to see who could benefit from what we are (sometimes legitimately) entitled to. For men in marriage that might look like publicly acknowledging the hard work of a wife, it could mean sharing childcare so she can work too, it could mean any number of small changes that pass on the honour that is given to men as a custom. Because, when we don't learn to do this as a society there is a high, and hidden cost. Over the past several years I have been 'disrespected' to the point I have questioned if I am a full member of God's family. While the bad behaviour of others may come from a place of wounding it's not appropriate when the person who is mistreating you has privilege, to excuse their behaviour. Men have good access to information resources. Very close to half the population are women and as such it is extremely difficult to avoid them. If men do not know their privilege is being used to disrespect a woman (or women) then they can jump into the impenetrable world of female feelings and attempt to find out. Great organisations are out there to help equip men and orientate them to female inequality. All it takes is a little initiative and a little courage. I am due to start training soon that will help me to better identify poor quality relationships, especially romantic 'dating' sorts. However, I hope I will also gain the toolbox I need to spot non-intimate connections that could potentially cause me problems and inhibit my freedom -- a freedom that Christ, after all, has died for. I would like to be a stronger person and to perform better in life, I have been flummoxed at times by the extent to which our community closes her eyes to injustices perpetrated against women. My last blog in this series of "re-imagining repentance" (#SYNcreate) will examine how the language of respect, while it is biblical, can enable domestic violence where there is not enough horizontal accountability for men, or sufficient places where women can turn for help. Keep your eyes peeled for part 3! Having been sat in the pews for over 12 months at Holy Trinity, where I attended a wedding & a blessing of couples renewing their wedding vows, not to mention hearing the banns of marriage read regularly on a Sunday, it becomes hard to ignore the million dollar question: will I or won't I? Get married, I mean. Obviously, I can't possibly answer that! I'm not in a relationship. The rest is out of my hands. There are specific views about marriage that have been presented from the pulpit that I've had my time to chew over. I best enjoy marriage sermons when they speak first to values and next to community. Jesus is helpful too. My dream vision cast from the pulpit would have to be that Jesus is the blesser and enabler of married life, that the Holy Spirit can make it less painful and God will not leave us, if we are married or not. Marriage, however, is clearly not about one person. When you're single, it's relatively easy to forget that. I'll take heart, because Jesus did not preach blessed are the married. You can have a vocation to be married or single and neither is better in the eyes of God who made us. We are told again and again that marriage and singleness are equal in God's measures of performance. This is dandy until you begin to explore Christian bookshelves, sermon archives and DVD libraries. I'm thankful I have hundreds of years of art history and the linked stories of the monastic traditions to draw on , since this is what I studied for my degree, because there's a strong bias towards correcting the problems of marriage, including the probable outcomes of most marriages – children, in contemporary Christian life. Less emphasis is placed on nurturing singleness as a healthy, whole and redeemed lifestyle that can feed God's people, saved and unsaved. (Disclaimer: we could say the whole Reformation was a by product of the desire to address singleness and its abuses of power through the Catholic priesthood and some very naughty monks, but perhaps that would be stretching a point.) There are times I find the great divide troubling. I've spent the majority of my adult singleness unkempt, unemployed, seemingly unlikeable much of the time. If this sounds like a hard luck story then you're right. I find I don't tell it well enough. I suppose a dream of mine is to find a man who would help me tell the story of my singleness in a way that is relevant to everyone, married or unmarried. If that man happens to be Jesus then I will be delighted. And if it's not then he will need a strong stomach. Moving on for now, to explore my delineation of married or single further, I've poked around in the Right Now Media catalog and found a few fig leaves. For those not in the know, Right Now Media is a 'Christian Netflix' filled with online video resources to equip individuals, small groups and churches. Why do I say fig leaves? Of course, fig leaves were what Adam and Eve wore to cover their nakedness in the Garden of Eden. What do I believe is being covered? In many teachings I have found the danger of entitlement is covered by modest words (like 'respect') that don't expose the male addictions that have fueled the misery of my single life, hurts from which, I am sure, could be easily taken into my marriage if I married a man who was unaware of how his behaviours and the behaviours of his gender intersected with my personal histories and pain. And also, (and I'm really sorry about this), but also, the behaviours of his father, and the behaviours of his father's father and so on and how those patterns have/will/may affect me and any male or female children I may have in the future. I'm sorry, men, if this seems unfair. Just as all women have to concern themselves with sanitary products until they reach a certain age, and sexually active women must make an ethical choice over contraception or risk falling pregnant, so all men are left with a legacy when interacting with the opposite sex that is not as much about their unique personality, positive traits and achievements, as it is about the hedonistic powers given to their social group. Responsible men are perhaps mortified that there is a small subset who gratify emotional needs at the expense of women rather than with their consent. And if I ever have a husband I would like to fully and wholeheartedly consent to him, and ask consent for him, from the Lord, to always be changing, improving, healing and stretching. Because not all women find, from experience, that they are that fortunate. Hang on for part 2. The Church In Wales celebrated Candlemass last Sunday, where Jesus is presented at the temple. Our congregation hold candles to mark the continuing revelation of Christ since the wise men appeared acclaiming him, which we keep on December 6th as the Epiphany. Since what I received from Paula Gooder's book was a complete illumination of this season of theophony, perhaps it would be timely for me to add a review.
We read 'Journey to the Manger' in our reading group before the 25th of December, took a break, and then began again on the 6th. Another reason I'd like to reignite the flame right now is that last week was #TimeToTalk day. This is an occasion when the UK mental health charity, Time To Change, implores people to start discussions about mental health to alleviate stigma. Conversation happens online and also in real life, during face to face interactions with tea, cake and often accouterments (promotional materials, posters etc.). Talking helps because mental health has, for many centuries, if not millennia been shrouded in mystery. The practices of unscientific psychiatrists left dubious and not always well-intentioned legacies in the annals of history, and the guardianship of families for their mentally ill was not always assured. Therefore, the Time For Change campaign marks a return to the lived experience of the patients as they suffer mental illness, as we perhaps see in the accounts of certain characters of the Bible, for example, King Saul, who suffered mental affliction, or King David, who almost certainly suffered depression. In addition to this folksy wisdom that puts the patient first, the Time For Change campaign is informed by current best practices of the mental health and allied professions. For example, social workers, community organisations, doctors, counselors, therapists, and so on. I mention this because I am terrible at writing book reviews and told our Vicar at the online Anglican Benedictine Community where I read the book, Rev Pam Smith, that I would have a go at responding to what we learned. The best analogy I could come up with for Paula Gooder's 'Journey to the Manger' was drawn from the world of social media campaigns and spearheaded by Time To Change and their several thousand followers who join-in with #TimeTotalk day each year, who cheer lead, make cups of tea and take the time to listen to every day experience of mental illness. Why is this markedly important to me? Well, I took a History of Art degree a decade ago at University after starting a Politics & International Studies program and finding I had become extremely anxious and couldn't cope. I'd studied the Reformation in my A Level history class at school, found it gripping, and in a pinch decided I'd like to investigate further. Not the level-headed pragmatism of today's students for me (my eldest nephew is a Maths nerd). I was slightly starry eyed, and considered myself something of a wise woman. Of course, I overlooked that the wise men were unknown and uncelebrated only by an alien culture to whom they traveled. On their home turf they were quite possibly worthy of a crowd of sycophants, all dedicated to their own homage. So I turned up for of this History of Art Degree not entirely fit for purpose, or sure of my purpose, other than I wanted a better and more graduated view of Jesus that was less paternalistic than my house culture at home, and what I found is a story for another day. Bear in mind then, as I review this, that I have seen hundreds of nativity scenes, rendered in stone, in oil and tempura. I am familiar with the text, as most Christians are, and with the ephemeral beliefs that grew up around them as infallible dogmas or popular iconographies, particularly in the Catholic church of the Middle Ages, but we mustn't be condescending when discussing the nativity, because all of us harbour our own suppositions and personal convictions in relationship to the unknowable God who is Trinity, incarnate, and a conundrum impossible to fathom. What I loved about Paula Gooder's book, and why it impacted me personally was the willingness to bring together opinion without overbearing attitude, scholarship without pretension and some doubts without answers. This left room for a heart response in the style of a painting or a poem, both popular mediums for understanding the emotional impact of God become flesh. Christmas is a time I often feel mentally ill, and over the years I've come to embrace that as part of my 'Mary' experience. The evangelist in me wants new people to know the nascent love of the saviour, and not everyone will reach at first to the cross for salvation. I am still not sure I entirely know the redeeming, saving love of Christ crucified. There are too frequent questions that arise for me who has become extremely distractable due to worry and mental illness . The Christmas story urges me to enter as if I knew nothing. The great victorious Passion will see God, in Jesus, finally collect all the casino chips. As a friend remarked to me once when we were sat in the Christian Union at University, (and which still makes me laugh), “just like the casino, there's no clock in the Christian Union.' Christ's passion was clearest for me in times of great sin, (or shortly afterwards) but God is good and will not keep you in that place. Likewise, I cannot be kept in the comfort of the glowing stable at Christmas. My mind must pry how cold it was, how many babies died and why exactly the wise men stopped to ask their fateful directions from a tyrannical Jewish despot, Herod, with a weak claim to the throne and a maniacal outlook. Paula Gooder's book was beautiful chaos to me because she left these threads like a jumble of wool organised on different spools for her readers to make their own Christmas jumper from. I am still warming myself with it all this way as we journey into February, like the good mental patient I really am. |
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