Emerging Women

Three years ago my mother presented to her doctor with abdominal discomfort and vague nausea that had been going on a while. The doctor located a large growth and sent her for tests. While waiting for the results, Mum was sitting at work one day wondering what the outcome of these tests would be and she began to pray about it. She says that she felt a very strong word from the Lord come into her spirit and it was this:

You will be ill but this is not unto death.

So Mum said ‘Thank you Lord’ and went on with her day. She was diagnosed with a large malignant tumour in her bile duct, was operated on successfully and recovered very well. She was told that there would be no need for chemotherapy as the surgeon was hugely confident that he had got it all. We rejoiced. We praised the Lord. Mum experienced no fear throughout the whole experience and was a huge blessing to the other women on her ward with her faithful witness to God’s peace and promises.

Her three month check came up and sadly the cancer had returned and spread rapidly throughout her body. Her oncologist told her that they would give her chemotherapy to arrest the growth but that there was no hope of it curing the disease. It was maintenance treatment and the focus was on maintaining her quality of life and managing her level of pain.

This was a blow to us as a family. Having lived away from my home country for eight years, I decided it was time to move back – a decision with big repurcussions on other areas of my life. Mum’s response to the whole thing was that God had the last word, despite the medical prognosis and that she was going to still hold on to that promise of God that she would be ill but that it would not be unto death.

Mum’s ministry over the past couple of years has been amazing and she has spoken many times in different churches of God’s blessing and power. She has been remarkably well, and up until six months ago was still working full time in her job.

But in recent months, her health has declined and the cumulative effect of two years of chemo plus the presence of the cancer in her body is really taking it’s toll now. I’m under no illusion as to the seriousness of Mum’s situation but we’re all just clinging to hope of healing, to what we believe is the promise of healing. We’re waiting for a miracle.

My question is this; as emerging Christians we seem to be really good at all the cerebral, rigorous intellectual debate on Biblical interpretation and the practical application of Jesus’ Way particularly amoungst the marginalised, but are we expecting the miraculous, seeing the supernatural, experiencing Kingdom power? I make people very uncomfortable talking about this topic. I’ve had people tell me that death itself is a way of healing for the Christian, that miracles hardly ever happen.

I’m standing with my Mum on this, believing and hoping. Will any of you stand with me and believe with me? Have any of experienced out and out miracles first hand and are you willing to attest to God’s power to encourage me? Goodness knows, there are some days I really need it.

Thanks for reading,
Miz Melly

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about the irony of the Promise Land story: in it we find a tale about liberation from slavery into a land of freedom, governed by laws designed to nurture community and respect for the alien and the poor, yet the very haven promised by God is acquired via a divinely sanctioned genocide based on religious intolerance. In the Emerging Conversation with its stress on narrative, I have not seen this dilemma thoroughly explored. How can we find ourselves in the story of the Israelites, to whom this tale is so pivotal while cherishing human rights and working to rid the world of genocide in the name of the Prince of Peace?

Each week at Midtown Christian Community we rehearse the Lord’s Prayer together. I love the connection this prayer brings to Christians throughout the centuries, and I revel in the almost poetic way it names so many of the things that are important to my faith in the here and now.

Recently I have been thinking about what the Lord’s Prayer would sound like in the context of my church and our current culture. Last week I finally put pen to paper, metaphorically speaking, and tonight we read the result responsively as a congregation. It proved to be a moving experience. It is quite long, so I have provided a link to The Lord’s Prayer for Midtown at my personal blog if you care to read it. Christ be with you.

Good morning, all. Over at our current book discussion, (Colossians Remixed) we’ve been talking about how to incorporate ecological sensitivity into our lives of faith. I just came across a great website that I thought was worth sharing with everyone. It’s very pragmatic, with great, simple suggestions for reducing our [negative] impact on our earth. Take a look at Flick Off and see what you can change! I’ll be letting my dishes airdry today.

Hello all, my name is Amie May and I hail from a small town just outside of San Antonio, Texas. I’m happily married with a fourteen year old son, and an eight year old daughter (though because it’s “close enough” to her birthday, she “counts” herself as nine).

I run a small women’s ministry (womenbeyond.com) which exists to equip, to connect, and to, not empower, but to hopefully illuminate our already existing personal power. I enjoy sharing and talking about biblical perspectives as well.

I couldn’t tell you whether or not I would be numbered as an “Emerging Woman”, and there was a day that not knowing that would have bothered me. I had quite an experience with label-searching and have found myself comfortably able to hang my hat under any label, though not limited by it since not everything would fit well with who I am. I’ve found that the common denominator is humanhood. We truly are all in this thing together.

I look forward to contributing to the conversation, and to listening. Thank you for having me.

From Reuters:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where tradition and teaching held that babies went if they died without baptism.

In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation”.

The 41-page document was published on Friday by Origins, the documentary service of the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which is part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pope Benedict, himself a top theologian who before his election in 2005 expressed doubts about limbo, authorised the publication of the document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised”.

The verdict that limbo could now rest in peace had been expected for years. The document was seen as most likely the final word since limbo was never part of Church doctrine, even though it was taught to Catholics well into the 20th century.

“The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation,” it said.

“There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptise them).”

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I’m sorry. Did I miss something here? “There are reasons to hope God will save these infants…” “Reasons to hope”? I don’t need “reasons to hope” for those precious children and those parents, some of whom are my friends. I know. God is love – every baby is His most precious creation, and should one die when she has barely touched this Earth, who could believe that He would do *anything* other than sweep that soul back up into His arms?

Only people who had never loved anyone deeply could possibly assume otherwise and even consider coming up with a place like limbo.

You may ask, and rightly so, “*Why* did they feel the need to come up with limbo?” Well, if the Church allowed unbaptised babies to go straight to heaven, the next question would be about good people who hadn’t been baptised…and if the babies could go to heaven, then the door to heaven would be open for *them*, and what would be the point of baptism into the Church? Or, indeed, the Church at all?

Hmmm. Does that sound like a clarification of God’s will? Or does it sound like a way of putting God in a box, of justifying the Church’s existence? After all, if there are as many paths to God as people, with only “Remain in God, who is love, and operate from there” as the key principle…there’s no need for organised religion or laws to keep the faithful ‘good’ and separate from their wholeness – whether it’s their anger, sexuality, passion, or pain. There is just a community of people, interconnected through their humanity and divinity, helping eachother on their way home.

No way of controlling anyone, of being more worthy than anyone, of having all the answers. That must be a frightening thought for those who are addicted to a priesthood of any denomination. Maybe even for all of us, much as we’d hate to admit it.

So, goodbye to limbo, which, like the Church that gave it birth, has an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.” (The “If you’re not in the club, you can’t come into the treehouse” view of salvation, I call it. It’s difficult to hate the Church if you think of the Vatican as a bunch of adolescent boys dressing up in red robes, making up ever more complex rules for their club. And actually believing that those rules determine how God, reality and the world work.) Good riddance. Aristotle, go on up!

And hello to the little ones looking down from heaven over the centuries who’ve been having a good giggle about this whole concept:

“You mean I nearly spent 75 years there? Blimey. Mind you, the harp playing IS getting a bit tedious…”