“Woohoo!” I thought, as the 4B stopped next to me in the High Street. “Hi ho, Hi ho, off to Littlemore we go!” It had been a full day – talk to the Research Induction School; Dean’s Forum; the usual first week frustrations with a new intake. Now off to a 7pm case study.

It was just after 6 when I got on the bus (I like early, especially in rush hour) and was rooting through my pockets for gum (which, of course, I’d left on my desk) when my hand came upon an odd texture.

Beads.

I have a ROSARY in my pocket? Since when?

She is eternal:

Curious to see which one it was, I surreptitiously pulled it out – and found myself smiling. It was the one brought back for me from Israel by my beloved teaching colleague, Helen Raucher, and her husband, Steve, shortly after I’d converted. Blue crystal beads, silver chain, ‘Terra Santa’ where Our Lady’s image usually is. Yes, I’m a wooden bead girl, but a rosary given with love – especially from Jewish friends acknowledging and wishing me joy in my conversion to Catholicism – trumps that a thousandfold. It’s my favourite, and was a particularly appropriate one to find as Erev Rosh Hashanah was about to begin.

I gazed at it with trepidation. Anyone who reads this blog knows of my deep love for Our Lady, the dream I associate with her, the fact that I said the ‘Hail Mary’ long before I was Catholic…

long before nations’ lines were drawn – when no flags flew, when no armies stood, [her haven] was born

…but I have a shameful secret. I DREAD saying the rosary. I would rather dental floss an army of cats without body armour than have to say the rosary, especially in congregation after the 10am mass (sorry, guys!).

But I feel torn. Our Lady is what holds me in the Church, and this is really THE form of prayer that focuses on her, and I can’t abide it. I know I’m not alone; that doesn’t make me feel less guilty. “Ok,” I thought, “Let’s give it a go. Best way over guilt is to stop avoiding it. You can do it for an intention, right? Just…start.”

I tried the Apostles’ Creed, but got as far as…”We.” Hey, at least I got that far.

I looked at my phone as soon as I got off. 18.30. Not due in till 19.00. Maybe try it walking through the church graveyard at St Mary’s and St Nicholas’? Had time to spare, what did I have to lose?

I wiggled through the gate and turned left, starting the Apostles’ Creed, as I tried to remember WHICH mysteries…Tuesday…sorrowful. Crap, it’s been so long, what ARE they?

Our Father, which art in heaven…

I passed the grave of the lad who died at 19 yrs and 6 months in France in September 1918, and though I continued reciting the rosary, my heart broke with sorrow for one lost so young, so near the end of a war.

And you ask me why I love her – through wars, death and despair. She is the constant; we who don’t care

And as the beads slipped through my hands…

Hail Mary, full of grace

…I finally got it. Fr Richard told me ages ago, when I told him I couldn’t do the rosary at home or in bed, that the rosary was a prayer of motion. I kind of got it at Walsingham and on Newman night walks.

In the graveyard, I *got* it. It’s what any Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim would have told me. The rhythm of repetitive prayer allows your mind to let go and drop deeper into prayer – even if that prayer is the fact that the plumber needs to come and fix the sink. Even if it’s about a 19 year old boy I never knew. It’s all prayer.

Glory be to the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit…

As I wandered amongst the graves, beads rough against my fingers, slipping from decade to decade, I thought about love, life, loss, being forgotten and remembered, what I’d left behind and where I was going, the constant, deepening struggle between the institutional Church and my unfolding faith.

You wonder will I leave her – but how? I cross over borders, but I’m still there now.

As the sun lowered in the sky, I could feel the internal stillness deepen, and a sense of peace came over me.

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy…aw, crap, how does the rest of it go? Fuck it. Salve regina, mater misericordiae…

Then I turned the last corner, and the gate came into sight again…and I had the answer. Well, I’d always had it; I’d just been letting too much get in the way, too many well-meaning people decide what KIND of Catholic *I* had to be: you’ll be a good Catholic when you receive on the tongue; if you fall in line here; if you stop thinking about this, it’ll be so much easier, dear, won’t it? And if you stop looking too hard and too deeply and seeing what’s really going on, it’ll all be fine. Will it, fuck.

I can’t say the rosary just like anyone else: others prefer kneeling, saying it together, in bed, in the car, wherever. But that’s not for me. The rosary works for me when I’m walking in a graveyard: maybe it’ll work when I’m walking on the railway line at Walsingham or somewhere else. I don’t know. What I DO know is that tonight, I made the rosary mine. Now, it is always mine.

I need to do the same with my faith: stop looking around; stop listening to even the most well-meaning when they try to change me; stop trying to fit in a mould that doesn’t work for me. The other thing I need to stop doing is getting infuriated/drawn into politics, ideological arguments, hard as that is for me, since I love a good argument. But this isn’t genuine argument; it’s polarisation. And I can only imagine Our Lady’s sorrowing eyes as she looks down on it.

How can I leave her? Where would I start? Let [the Church's] petty [factions] tear themselves apart…

Not too long ago, a friend said that I was ‘a mix’ when it came to my faith. He’s *right*. My faith is what it is – it’s ME. Complicated, light, dark, sharp, tender, angry, loving, sad – all of it. Take it or leave it. I suspect – or rather, I hope – I know which one Our Lady will choose.

…[Mother Church's] only borders lie around [her] heart.

Happy birthday.

Irim lives in England and is re-training to be a psychotherapist – after having been a teacher and a librarian. She was born a Muslim, taught at an Orthodox Jewish School and became Catholic. This post first appeared on her blog The night and half-light of dreams.

Recently, in the New York Times, I read this story about the class action suit female employees brought against Wal-Mart in 2001. One of the original plaintiffs, Stephanie Odle, tells of her initial complaint in finding out that one of the male employees, in a parallel assistant manager position, was receiving 23K more per year than she was. When she brought this to the attention of her supervising manager she was told that the male assistant manager had “a family and two children to support.” At the time, Odle was a single mother of an infant.

This situation occurred in a secular arena, but I see parallels to the church today in the message that is being sent to women who serve and lead: for some reason, women’s time and work is less valuable than the work of their male counterparts, as evidenced by the way they are compensated (or not compensated). In my extended family network, I am related to male youth pastor and his wife (a preschool teacher, grad student, and mother of three). About 10 years ago, when they were just starting out as a married couple, Rob* got a job with a very low starting salary at a rural Lutheran church in the Midwest. With his hiring came the “understanding” that Megan would also be overseeing the adult Sunday School class administration as well as other areas of church life. Rob was officially paid the salary. Megan was expected to work for free. I should mention that quite soon after “they” took the position, Megan gave birth to their first child. Wobbly and exhausted, she was back at the church doing unpaid work within five days of the birth because it was expected she do “her” job. Now she says she should have known better. But shame on those church people for turning a blind eye.

This sort of situation doesn’t happen in the secular, regulated business arena as much as it does in church infrastructure these days. What’s occurring is a two-for-one: the church gets double the labor and the woman works for free because, somehow, her work doesn’t quite measure up as being worthy of remuneration.

What are your experiences and observations on this topic? How and why do you think churches get away with rationalizing their failure to compensate women as they do men? Is there spiritual rhetoric being used to justify it? If so, what?

*names are changed to protect privacy

Heather Weber is a part-time assistant pastor in Iowa City, IA, and a homeschooling mother of three. She has an MFA in creative writing and blogs about (among other things) the intersection of life, culture, and faith at www.onravenstreet.com.

The air was surprisingly cool and crisp this morning as I set out from our property in rural central Virginia for what was supposed to be a 10 mile ride through the country. It is a ride I have done many times before and I was starting to get a bit bored with it. I decided to press on past my normal turn around point expecting to go just a little further.

I had not gone very far when two very fast, very fierce dogs began to chase me. I paddled as fast as I could up the hill and managed to escape unharmed. However, as I turned and looked behind me, my pursuers were poised in the middle of the road daring me to return. I did not have the courage to undergo another attack so I kept riding with no idea how I would get back to our cabin.

I soon found a road I recognized. I assumed it would get me back to familiar territory which it did. However, I was coming from a different direction, took a wrong turn and ended up going an additional 5 miles before I finally found my way back to our property. In total, I biked 17 miles which is quite a long ride for an old woman like me.

While I really wish the snarling dogs would have been napping when I rode past, without my fear of being eaten for lunch, I never would have found this new path. What I saw on these new roads was well worth the risk it took to get me there. I ended up on a ridge overlooking rolling green fields, came upon a creek as I passed through the Buckingham Appomattox Forest, and discovered I am biking distance to Holiday Lake State Park. Most importantly, I learned I can bike 17 miles and live. This one unexpected venture will yield months of new biking expeditions. I also grew tremendously as a biker from the experience. I learned to take a map with me, a cell phone, and will be investing in pepper spray as a nice surprise for the next pack of dogs to challenge me.

This weekend, when I was not biking through the country, I was reading Mike Breen and Steve Cockram’s book Building a Discipling Culture. I discovered why I seem so prone to adventures like the one noted above. According to the assessment tool in the appendix of the book, I am an “Apostle.” I never thought of myself that way before. However, as I read the description, a few things started to make sense to me. Breen makes the argument that every believer is given one of the five roles found in Ephesians 4:7, 11-13.

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it…It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Breen describes the Apostles as follows, “It is from the Greek apostolos meaning “one who is sent out.” Apostles are visionary and pioneering, always pushing into new territory. They like to establish new churches and ministries. They come up with new and innovative means to do kingdom work.”

Breen then goes on to describe the pioneering nature of the Apostle and how this spirit of adventure and the resulting changes can be unsettling to those whom he describes as “settlers.” Breen explains “Settlers look to put down roots, while pioneers are hacking through dense jungle growth in search of new territory.”

Breen warns that “The tension between Settlers and Pioneers must be understood and managed to keep from being swallowed by division. Pioneers naturally want to move into new ways and ideas of advancing the kingdom. They are willing to take risks and join the Lord in new endeavors, often long before the settler even knows the Lord is moving in that direction. Off goes the pioneer, with excitement that cannot be contained, but that disturbs the settler who is working to preserve what has been handed down by previous generations. “It worked for them, so it will work for us,” is the settler’s life motto.”

What I realized is that I have entered a whole new territory culturally, economically, and racially during a time of tremendous cultural shifts and have left some behind. They simply cannot see the critical need for new methodology to adapt to this new environment. In short, I have failed to bring people along into this new territory with a new paradigm for doing ministry.

There is no doubt in my mind that God is doing something very exciting across this country and I want Embrace to be a part of this movement of God. Some will want us to follow tried and true paths from the past. Some will see the snarling dogs blocking the road and will want to turn around and stick with the ground we have already gained. I recognize the truth of Breen’s words “Without Settlers we would never keep the frontier that was won by the pioneers. Settlers must come to build and occupy, to maintain and to increase through steady, deliberate efforts.” However, I am a pioneer. I can’t help but take Embrace down unchartered roads that may take us in the wrong direction at times. We may have to travel out of our way, face attack, and feel lost and confused some times. But, I trust that in the long run, we will find the path designed for us. It will not be exactly like anyone else’s path and it will be hard work clearing and claiming this new frontier.

Breen not only helped me see myself, my gifts, and my calling more clearly. He also helped me understand why I often feel misunderstood and why it is so hard for me to explain the things I am seeing to those whose focus is on past experiences. I have learned that if a pioneering ministry is turned over before a new paradigm is firmly in place, it will return to what is tried and true. Breen helped me understand why my unconventional ways seem so dangerous and unnecessary to some and I pray I am more sensitive to these issues in the future and do a better job of stabilizing a ministry before I move on.

Wendy McCaig is the founder and Executive Director of Embrace Richmond (www.embracerichmond.org), an urban ministry in the inner city of Richmond, Va. Her first book From the Sanctuary to the Streets: How the Dreams of One City’s Homeless Sparked a Faith Revolution that Transformed a Community was released earlier this summer. Wendy blogs at www.wendymccaig.com about social justice and Christian practice. (this post first appeared at her blog here)

First, tell us a little bit about yourself—where you live, what you do.
I live with my husband Dan in Dayton, Tennessee—home of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. We’re both self-employed. I write books and articles from the dining room table and he runs a video production business from the basement. The most interesting place I’ve been is India, though my faith journey has taken me on a strange ride as well—from a place of absolute certainty, through a dark time of doubt, to a path where I am free to explore and grow and change. I blog at http://rachelheldevans.com.

Can you describe Evolving in Monkey Town in a couple of sentences?
Evolving in Monkey Town is about growing up in the apologetics-drive evangelical subculture of the 80sand 90s and then wrestling with doubts about my faith as a young adult. It’s about learning how to embrace those shades of gray after years of thinking in black and white.

What prompted you to write the book?
Well, I dressed up as an author for career day in third grade, so writing a book has been on my mind for a while! I decided to focus on this part of my story after reconnecting with old friends who said they struggled with some of the same questions and doubts after graduating from college. It seems to me that young evangelicals across the country are experiencing a sort of collective crisis of faith. When I first started asking questions about Christianity, I longed for a friend that could relate, so my hope is that Evolving in Monkey Town will be that friend for readers who are on a similar journey. I’ve heard from a lot of people who say they feel like I’ve shared “our story,” not just my own, and that makes me feel like I accomplished that goal

What has been the hardest question you have had to wrestle with in your faith journey?
Gosh. You name it, I’ve had a faith crisis over it! Coming from Dayton, the evolution issue was a big one. I struggled with some feelings of betrayal when I learned that rather than being a bogus theory made up by a bunch of godless scientist, evolution makes a lot of sense and is supported by the data. Working through the implications of this is an ongoing process, but I’ve found a lot of support from places like the BioLogos Foundation.

Perhaps the most troubling issue for me has been questions related to religious pluralism. I grew up with the assumption that all non-Christians (including those who never heard the gospel….as well as Catholics) went to hell for eternity. Even as a child this bothered me, especially after I realized this meant that people like Anne Frank would suffer eternally at the hands of an angry God. When these doubts resurfaced in college, they were dismissed as representing a lack of faith on my part. While I have come to hold a more optimistic view of God’s love for the world, I still have to deal with people who continue to insist that God will damn most people to hell for either being born at the wrong place and the wrong time or for not being among the elect. This still gets under my skin.

Was it difficult to share your story so openly with the world and has that caused you any trouble along the way?
The book has been really well received outside of Dayton, and the friends and family closest to me are incredibly supportive… but of course there’s been some gossip around town about my rumored plunge down the slippery slope! Fortunately, my “target audience” of fellow skeptics seems to get it, and that’s all that really matters to me.

How has your perception of what it means to be a woman in the church evolved on this journey as well?
Growing up I was just so confused by all the mixed messages girls receive from the church about their “biblical roles” that I never knew exactly what it meant for me to be a woman of faith. Fortunately, my mom has always been a strong-willed and free-thinking woman, so taking cues from her, I just sorta made my own way in life. I strongly support women taking leadership positions in all areas of church life and I am really lucky/blessed/fortunate/whatever to be part of a small missional church plant here in Dayton that supports that.

What other books have helped you along your faith journey? And/or what women (writers, mentors, friends) have shaped you along the way?
I love me some Flannery O’Conner, Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott, Sara Miles, and Phyllis Tickle. Also really enjoyed “How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith” by Crystal Downing and “Everyday Justice” by that Julie Clawson chick. I have a copy of “Doubt: A History” by Jennifer Hecht on my bookshelf, but that’s mostly just to impress people.

—

And yes, her plug of my book was completely unsolicited.

Rachel would love for one of the readers here to win a free copy of her book. To enter to win just leave a comment here by midnight next Tuesday August 17 and we will randomly choose a winner. Now, you could just leave a “I want to win” comment, but it might be more interesting if we took the opportunity to share some of the big questions we have wrestled with or simply ask Rachel a question. So good luck winning the book, and thank you Rachel for sharing with us a bit of who you are!

***Update 8/19 – The contest has now ended. Congrats to Rachel T. for winning the book! ***

- Julie Clawson

Fresh from their success in parliamentary elections, a group of female politicians have posed for a calendar to highlight the growing presence of women in Czech politics. Members of the Public Affairs party will feature in a 2011 charity calendar posing provocatively in revealing outfits. The party’s racy calendar comes after a record 44 women were voted into the 200-seat lower house of the Czech parliament.

Predictably the response to this is mixed. Some are praising the women for being empowered – in their bodies and in their careers. It is classic third wave feminism, women taking control of their sexuality and using it to their advantage to show that they are in control of their own lives. Others though are mocking these women, saying that they are demeaning themselves, setting the women’s movement back thirty years, and playing into the idea that women are only useful as sex objects.

I’d be interested to hear how the readers here respond to something like this. But beyond that I’d like to hear your thoughts on women’s sexuality. Does a woman being sexy imply that she is an object for men to consume or can it be an expression of her reclaiming ownership of her body and being comfortable in her own skin? For Christians, is there any place for a woman to look good or sexy, or is that automatically condemned as sinful or tempting? What options are there for Christian women to affirm her body without sending the wrong message?

I love to hear how the readers here navigate these issues in a world where there are obviously drastically different points of view.

1. Sharon Baker: Her new book, Razing Hell, will put her on the front line of Christian thinkers asking important questions and responding to them in helpful ways.
2. Phyllis Tickle: I’m one of many who has found in Phyllis a wise big sister and mentor. (The Great Emergence)
3. Joan Chittister: She is a force of nature. Her books have enriched me for decades. (The Gift of Years)
4. Rita Nakashima Brock: Rita’s book Saving Paradise is a masterpiece.
5. Cynthia Bourgeault: Cynthia reminds me of Thomas Merton — she is a mystic with a brilliant mind who deserves far wider readership. (Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening)
6. Sallie McFague: Sallie explores the boundaries of theology and feminism, ecology, and humanness. I find her ideas stimulating and challenging, page after page. (The Body of God)
7. Nancey Murphy: Fuller Theological Seminary is fortunate to have this thought leader in postmodernism, science and faith, theological anthropology, and related issues. Her books have influenced me a great deal. (Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism)
8. Jo-Ann Badley: Though she hasn’t published yet, this professor from Mars Hill Graduate School is one of the best Bible expositors I’ve ever been exposed to.
9. Diana Butler Bass: Diana radiates balance and insight as she writes on church history, ethics, and politics. (A People’s History of Christianity)
10. Sharon Watkins: She hasn’t published either, but her leadership of the Disciples of Christ denomination is exemplary, and her theological instincts are superb.
11. Ruth Padilla DeBorst and Elisa Shannon Padilla: These two sisters, daughters of Rene Padilla, are formidable theological thinkers who deserve a far wider audience — not just as Latin American theologians, but as theologians of an emerging, holistic world Christianity. Both contributed to The Justice Project, which I helped edit.

I’ve read a number of these women and just added a few more to my to read list. Obviously, I think it is important that the voices of the whole church – men and women – get heard. All too often we only end up hearing from the male voices, so I appreciate the suggestions of women who are speaking important and transformative ideas into the church today. To that end I would love to hear your suggestions of women we should be reading. Please add your recommendations in the comments!

Jim Henderson of Off the Map is working on a book on how the church treats women. As part of his research he commissioned the Barna Group to conduct a survey of women’s experiences in the church. They (Barna Group) spoke with 603 women who met the following qualifications: 18 years or older, described themselves as “Christian” And had attended a Christian church service at least once during the past six months. Among those women, 63% met the survey criteria for being a “Born Again Christian.”

Here’s a bit of what the survey discovered –

1. 84% say that their church’s perspective on women in ministry is almost identical, very similar, or somewhat similar to their own.
2. 83% say that their Senior Pastor is somewhat, highly or completely supportive of women leading in their church
3. 82% say they can tell by their church’s actions that the church values the leadership of women
4. 81% say that their church provides women with the same degree of leadership opportunities as Jesus would.
5. 72% say they possess a lot of spiritual freedom in their life
6. 70% say that the media has little influence on their decision-making
7. 71% say fear is not something they experience ever or often in their life
8. 62% say that ALL leadership roles are open to them in their church.
9. Only 1% say they often struggle with jealousy
10. Among those who feel they are capable of doing more to serve God, and should be doing more, only 4% say that their fear of failure is holding them back from doing more to serve God.

Jim admits that these results seem almost unnaturally positive and asked for other women to comment if these results actually represent their own experience. Here’s what a few Emerging Women wrote on their own blogs concerning the results -

Pam Hogeweide responded -

When I first saw these stats, I had to reread them three times just to make sure I was understanding the data. It then became apparent to me: if a woman in church believes she is only meant to serve and lead other women or children, then yes, of course she is content within her church experience. If today’s Christian woman is convinced by the men in power who teach her that she is to remain dutifully in her biblically mandated role, then this is the perception she will report from.

To answer Jim’s question for myself, No, these stats do not match my experience, nor the experience of many, many women on the road of faith I have known for the last 28 years.

Kathy Escobar commented as well –

once i look up and out at the reality of women in the typical evangelical-y church system i get really, really sad. and really, really mad. when i read these statistics i honestly thought it was a joke. they are not representative of the majority of women that i know and their experiences. but then i remembered that most of the women i hang out with on a regular basis are, on the whole, no longer drinking the christian company kool-aid.
what do i mean by the company kool-aid?

i mean the things that the system tell us to believe. the things that leaders engrain into the community’s culture. the things that are backed up with “we’re 100% certain this is what God meant.” the subtle and direct messages that “good christians believe this.” the herd mentality that is so strong in any homogenous culture–this is the direction everyone’s going so i better tow the line and walk this way, talk this way, too.

And Sonja writes –

It made me angry to read these statistics. It made me angry, not just for the women … but for all the people involved in those churches. They are losing out. This is not the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, or as he walked with his disciples or at any time. Would even Peter, or John the beloved disciple be able to answer these questions so affirmatively? How about Mary Magdalene? Good grief, if even the disciples struggled with jealousy why on earth can only 6 women out 603 acknowledge it? Perhaps it was the word, often, that threw them off. Maybe they decided that they could deny that jealousy was something that strolled in and regularly did battle in their hearts. I know I will stand up and say that I am jealous all the time. It doesn’t make me mean anymore, but acknowledging it to myself and being able to laugh at it has made it easier.

Then this report made me sad. The kind of sad that aches in my bones. Because when I look at it I see poverty. The church in North America (like the US) may have a lot of money. It may have a lot of stuff. We may also have a lot of people for all I know. But we are starving to death. Emaciated and dying for lack of food, water and oxygen. Worse, we are doing it to ourselves. With a huge smile on our faces. We are a people with anorexia or bulimia. When we look in the mirror we see fat and happy, but the reality is we are starving. Dying.

In all truth I lost my faith in the Barna Group’s ability to conduct meaningful surveys years ago. The way they ask their questions, and especially who they ask them of, doesn’t exactly represent reality as I know it. But I get that for women in churches that tell them that “1. Women must not lead in the church, 2. To question that is to question the Bible, and 3. That to question the Bible (or admit there might be different interpretations) is a slippery-slope into unchristian liberalism” OF COURSE they are going to say that they are in agreement with their church’s confining views of women. I bought that lie hook, line, and sinker for years, I know that world.

So like the other women have expressed, these survey results sadden me. They do represent a segment of the church – one where patriarchy rules disguised in biblical clothing. These women don’t have the freedom to question their position without fear of being mocked or excluded from their fellowship. They don’t even have the freedom to admit they experience fear or jealousy (what sort of sick repression is going on here in our image first church world????) They don’t believe that they are allowed to be happy in any other setting. I get that that part of the church exists. But it’s not my experience anymore. Maybe the women who have escaped that world might not fall into Barna’s strict definition of Christian (didn’t a few years ago they define a Christian as one who believes in the Bible’s inerrancy?) I don’t know, I just know that some of these results are disturbing on a deep and visceral level. There is much we can learn from the results, and I am eager to read Jim’s response in his book. But I also think there is a real danger of these statistics being grievously misused in defense of the continued oppression of women and the silencing of half the church. I pray that is not the case.

“Now I become myself. Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density!”

I began saying “no” to desserts and experimenting with my control over food intake at a very young age. No one ever told me that I was fat or not fat. This disorder of the mind and body takes place inside, in the stomach and the soul. I grew up hearing my Dad make jokes with my Mom; “I think I’ll run off with Mina,” my dad would joke (Mina Feikema—a single woman at the church who was quite thin and always trim and a friend of my mom—in comparison to my mom’s rounded body). My mom’s learned silence in deference to my father lay like a stone in my stomach. In my body I identified myself with my mom while desperately wanting the power and approval of my dad.

“Do you think you really need that piece of pie?” said my Dad with a smile, blurring the lines for me between need and desire; between pleasure and need; between eating as a function of bodily nutrition and eating as a social and physical event. I ingested a web of control; of withholding approval tied up with religion, with discipline, with saving money, with power of the will over all that is not “good”. I carried with me a constant perception that I am fat. I caught myself between two worlds—male and female gender; fat and thin; pretty and not pretty. What I put into my mouth or did not put into my mouth was one thing over which I had control. I thought it was the way that I could gain my father’s attention and blessing; the way that I could gain my self-esteem.

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
~Frederick Buechner, (author and theologian) was interviewed about his daughter’s near death experience with anorexia nervosa and tied it to his own depression.

I left my father’s house for Central Michigan University carrying in my stomach the stones of silence and control, of saving money and being “good,” no, not only good, perfect. “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. I chose a cafeteria meal plan with no breakfast and I had a work/study job serving food in the cafeteria of the men’s dorm. It was the perfect set-up for feeding my secret desire. I made up the rules of this secret world as I went along; no breakfast; no drinking milk; nibbles of food rather than a full meal. It was a secret, this not eating. It was a secret way of covering myself up; of desiring to look like the boy-child that could be like my Dad. I could not please him being a rounded, curved woman, yet secretly I could make him look at me and make him be pleased with me because of how thin and boy-like I could become. Combining my stomach control with rebellion of house and church rules I drank alcohol and joined in the cruel jokes of fellow roommates and dorm mates of a “nerdy” and “ugly” woman I shared a room with. This led to a thinness of body and spirit that barely contained my secrets and guilt. I don’t know how much weight I loss that year—getting down to 110 or even 100 pounds or below was a goal. I often fell asleep in class and I went without my period an entire summer.

I believed that I could not find unconditional acceptance as a “fat” woman. I could not feel my own weight and the density of myself. I lived lost in my secret middle world, caught in a web of making myself sick by being good. To unweave this web is nearly impossible without friendship and growing a community of trust coaxing the secret soul out of its prison. One of the first of such friendships for me was with Lois Dorman. I admired this woman whom I met in a campus Christian fellowship group. Lois was tall, big-boned, and beautifully rounded. She, along with some other women friends taught a female sexuality class as part of their studies at CMU. Feminism with all of its liberation and freedom was new to me. Lois introduced me to this world and I found a community of women who were living and exploring them selves with gusto. I ate it up and it sustained my body and spirit. Yet the community of university is short-lived and I returned to my father’s house after graduation. Unable to reconcile the growing density of my self-image within an environment where I blamed a heavenly father for inaccessibility and an earthly father for indifference, I searched for communities of acceptance and for women who loved their selves and their bodies.

Through many years I see sawed up and down in my body weight. I carried with me a depressive weight of shame at the pit of my stomach that I could not let go of. Anorexia nervosa—this lingering image of myself as fat—remained with me. The birth of my daughter Temma with severe brain damage began the final unraveling of the tight web of shame, guilt, perfection, and secrets. Temma’s severe and profound mental and physical disabilities nearly crushed me. I starved my love and fed my guilt and shame. The church community that I was a part of at the time of Temma’s birth kept me alive. When I had no hope, other community members kept hope for me and for Temma.

For her sake, I could finally break the silence and gain the professional help that I needed to work at reconciling my inner and outer images of self. Within a supportive community of twelve, all of us together studying at a Master’s degree program in Pastoral Counseling, I engaged in my own therapeutic relationship. I spent three years unraveling the knots of shame and silence tied up with pleasing authority and punishing myself for my daughter’s brain damage. Three years into the therapy I remember the exact place that I was sitting when my counselor repeated to me something that now, finally, I could hear and allow to sink inside of me. “You did the best that you could,” she said. And I had done the best that I could. I began the long process of forgiveness, to settle into my own self and my own weight.

Sherri Lowly is currently pastor at Berry United Methodist Church located on the north side of the city of Chicago. She lives with her husband and daughter in the parsonage of Berry Church and they have living with them a wonderful couple and their two beagles. Their small intentional community home life revolves around care of her daughter Temma who is severely, profoundly impaired, and 25 years old in September.

He woke with a certain sense of confidence; an assurance that everything was going to be okay. Toby is normally extremely positive and upbeat, but this was beyond the norm. When I asked what happened, he told me.

He had a dream last night: a God dream. One of those where God speaks to you with insight and encouragement. In the dream, God spoke peace and light into our situation giving Toby the confidence that all would be well. It was an amazing gift and well-timed. The coolest part? God was a hippo!

Awhile back, my friend Wendy had a God dream. I don’t know what he said to her, but it was obviously impacting. And in her dream, God was Donald Sutherland.

Now, I fully believe that God speaks to people today, and I know he often uses dreams to connect with us. I’ve heard person after person tell me stories about God coming to them and speaking in their night. In these moments, God speaks to us in a way that resonates within us, that communicates in a manner that we can hear. But, as talking animals and movie stars? Seriously? How awesome is that?!

I seemed to get ripped off.

Every night, I dream about rescuing people from burning buildings, stopping hijackers on planes and tearing kids out of the grips of traffickers. I wake up exhausted, with sore muscles, having battled all night long. I’m certain there is a reason I have these action-packed, thriller dreams, and I’ve often thought I could certainly draw on my midnight experiences to write an award-winning screenplay. But they do wear on me.

Every once in awhile, I’d like a God dream; a nice, calm inspiring one. And I’m completely okay with white-haired movie stars and talking animal God-characters.

One night, maybe he will show up in my adventures. I’ll be trapped, trying to figure out which wire to cut on a ticking bomb and hear a voice speak to me. Ellen. Ellen. I’ll turn and see a beautiful butterfly land on the red wire. Follow me. I will lead you into all understanding and peace. Then, I’ll cut the red wire. The digital readout will stop. Silence.

Then maybe I’ll finally, truly sleep.

Until the next dream.

This post originally appeared at Ellen’s blog ellenstevens.com.

Joan Ball’s journey from Atheism to a Christian faith in her first book, Flirting with Faith (Howard Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.) resonated with me because I have gone through those similar experiences in my past. It’s just that I am finding myself no longer able to relate much anymore. Today I claim to be an Agnostic Christian who does not believe in many doctrines and interpretations of the Bible that run the gamut in evangelical circles. I am standing on the precipice of A/theism because I am falling out of belief of my human constructs of G-D. Yet, I really enjoyed Joan’s journey, and I will share some of my favorite moments from the book.

It is an honest and authentic journey that never bordered on preaching. She always owns her experiences and never tries to say that is how everyone else should believe and/or do things. Her experience of having her own life and being in control of her own destiny made the leap to belief in G-D all the more compelling.

The revealing things about her misery resonated with me as well. “I had yet to read the clear indications that I was at the root of my own misery.” (p. 63) This gut-level honesty is one of the things I love about Joan! Her child-like faith became a motif throughout her journey. It all started from the beginning of her conversion: “Within weeks of my conversion, my journal was peppered with erratic talk of surrender and repentance and desperate pleas to be changed from the inside out” (p. 81) This continued in decisions from leaving her job and selling the home her and her husband had built together.

Joan is a very creative and expressive person. An example of her open and poetic heart is when she said this: “I felt like a human zipper coming undone as God opened me up and showed me the best and the worst of myself through the lens of day-to-day life.” (p. 122) She is also realistic in her approach to faith in Jesus: “Jesus is no genie in a lamp. All the happy thinking in the world will not keep life from being life” (p. 165)

There was a terrible church experience that rattled Joan and her family. How they waded through it all and came out on the other side inspired me. Joan says, “I can never be completely sure, but I think that God allowed my comfortable church existence to be shaken up so that I could learn what it means to forgive radically and to love beyond reason, even when dealing with people I would have preferred to hate.” (p. 179)

Joan is now a teacher at a university and through her friend, John, learned what teaching is really all about. I loved this as I can see it reaching over to faith as well. John told her, ‘It is not about knowing everything and dispensing wisdom from on high. It is about reaching each student individually, heart to heart. It is about connecting with them as human beings in a way that meets their needs, not your convenience.’ (p. 188) Now, if more people like Joan could enact this in their daily lives when living out their faith we’d be in a much better place spiritually!

Now, I admit I am a walking contradiction, and scoffed at a lot of what Joan writes because I have been there, done that with so many similar kinds of stories. I just do not experience G-D in those kinds of ways anymore, let alone sensing the Holy Spirit at work. Maybe I am jaded or maybe it’s a season. For this I do not know, but I find myself slipping from faith to atheism, the reverse order of Joan’s journey. I feel like there is no plan for my life and feel like a waste of space at times. Chronic illness ravages my body. Not sure where I will end up on this odyssey but I want to thank Joan for sharing hers.

Adele Sakler currently resides in Sacramento, California with her partner, and their cute Tibetan Spaniel named Mushu. She suffers from, and is in treatment for Chronic Lyme Disease, a few other Tick-Borne diseases and Heavy Metal Toxicity. She considers herself at this point in her journey a Christian agnostic because she just can’t seem to sign on the dotted line and ascribe to all the doctrines and long-held man-made traditions of Christendom. She loves G-D and is a failing Christ-follower. She blogs at www.existentialpunk.com (where this post first appeared) and is the creator and site administrator for www.queermergent.com.