Emerging Women

By Sherrie Lowly

“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.

By Ellen Stevens

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.

By Adele Sakler

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.

By Julie Clawson

The Time Magazine Newsfeed recently posted an article on a new defense women have against rape – a female condom with teeth, literally. From the article –

As a young physician on call one night 40 years ago in South Africa, Dr. Sonnet Ehlers tended to an emaciated rape victim. As she counseled the victim, she always remembered one important thing she said: “If only I had teeth down there.”

Thus the development and advent of the Rape-aXe female condom, designed not so much as birth control or for STD protection, but more so as a defense against rape, particularly in South Africa, a nation where 1 in 4 men say they have committed the crime.

Without really describing how the Rape-aXe actually works, we can tell you how it is designed: the device is a latex sheath with barbed spines on the inside. It is inserted into a woman’s vagina much like a tampon. When an assailant attacks a would-be victim, seconds later he finds himself writhing in unknowable pain and must have the device surgically removed. About 30,000 of the devices were distributed for free during the World Cup in several cities and will sell for about $2 afterward.

But the device is not without its critics, with some saying it will cause rapists to become more violent, and others saying it could be misued by vindictive female lovers seeking retribution. But on her website, Ehlers has answers to all those questions and more.

Regarding men becoming angry upon getting trapped: Rape-aXe will buy you time to get away, ( I know this from a patient that caught himself in his zipper. Rape-aXe will have the same effect just worse.)…

My first thought was that this is a modern chastity belt. But instead of a rusty spiked diaper locked onto a woman by her father to safeguard her virginity, a woman can choose this option to protect herself. But the reason it’s needed remain the same – men feel like they can control women physically and sexually. In the past it was the fathers prizing their daughter’s virginity for the economic and political advances it could get them. Now it’s men asserting their strength and power over women through violence and rape. The times and methods have changed but the message that women are objects to be ruled and controlled by men is still alive and well in our world. But now women can do something to fight back against their attackers, branding them as rapists in the process.

As long as women are not seen as equals of men, men will continue to oppress and abuse us in these ways. I for one would prefer the world to change and equality achieved instead of something like this being necessary. But at the same time, men still treat women as objects and rape is all too common in our world. Giving women means to protect ourselves is a sad but necessary safeguard in a man’s world.

Julie Clawson is a mother, a former pastor, and a writer. She moderates the Emerging Women blog and has a personal blog at julieclawson.com. She is the author of Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices.

By Julie Clawson

When South Africa was selected to host the World Cup, there was much rejoicing and reflection on how far the country had come. From the days of apartheid where human beings were not treated as fully human, the country has worked hard at reconciliation. The world used to forbid South Africa from even participating in global sporting events like the Olympics because of apartheid, so certainly, hosting an event like this was a great symbolic act for the country. No one is naïve enough to assume that all is well in South Africa. Dire poverty and economic disparity still plague the country. Old resentments still surface as forgiveness is not always easy. As with most countries, racial wounds do not heal quickly.

But amidst this celebration, it is troubling to hear one of the major stories coming out of the World Cup is the issue of all the sex slaves trafficked into the country for the event. While human trafficking is common for any major event like the World Cup or the Olympics, the problem is seemingly worse in a country like South Africa. The U.S. State Department considers South Africa to be a source of sexual slavery and forced labor, as well as a destination for human trafficking from other countries and a transit nation for the modern slave trade. South African human rights groups estimate that 38,000 children are trapped in the country’s sex trade. While there have been disputed reports regarding how many people have been trafficked in for the games, the fact remains that it is occurring.

For a games meant to symbolically celebrate a country’s efforts to see all of its citizens as full human beings worthy of respect, the widespread presence of human trafficking simply undermines that message. But while the country might be responsible for not trying harder to prevent trafficking in their borders, the real problem comes from the tourists and fans that create the demand for sex slaves. When the world gathers to celebrate sport and national pride together and the result is thousands of women and children abused and oppressed, good sportsmanship is nonexistent.

So what causes a celebration of national identity and a love of sports to end up in the oppression and demeaning of women and children? Is it an expression of power? Misplaced masculinity? There’s been much talk about what the governments did or did not do to prevent the trafficking, but why aren’t we talking about how to get fans to stop raping children as part of their celebration?

Julie Clawson is a mother, a former pastor, and a writer. She moderates the Emerging Women blog and has a personal blog at julieclawson.com. She is the author of Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices.

By Mihee Kim-Kort

There’s a huge tree in front of our house. It’s the tree that I fell in love with when we first saw the house, and eventually bought it and moved in. We’re situated on top of a slight hill so that our front lawn is basically a small, steep slope, and we have to climb two different sets of stairs to get to the front door. The master bedroom is right above the front door and porch, with three windows that face out to the tree. It’s one of those trees that seems to be the last on the street to grow in green, and perhaps the first to shed its leaves during the beginning of autumn. When it is full, its leaves are a bright Irish green that fall down in truckloads planting themselves all over the front yard and sprouting into little trees that I unfortunately have to pull up like weeds. It kind of breaks my heart in a way, like I’m preventing the tree’s offspring from growing up and reaching their fullest potential.

It’s a comforting presence with branches that hang low and cover the porch a little while still letting in bits of light and warmth. I love laying in bed sometimes and just letting myself drown in the green that fills the windows. On those days I don’t want to crawl out of bed, it feels like a soothing balm for my tattered spirit…

New life is springing up all around us now, and living in PA, it is particularly undeniable and beautiful. There’s something about this area where everything kind of explodes to new life – flowers, plants, trees. And…it’s even more poignant as A- and I struggle to create our own little life. I’ve only talked about this struggle with a few folks already, and though I find it difficult to share, I am realizing that I need to start accepting this as a part of my own journey, my own process, my own…story. After a couple of years of trying to get pregnant we recently found out that the only way for us to have our own offspring is through in vitro fertilization. I am grieving…the loss of all and any romantic notions of this whole getting-pregnant process in general…and not being able to be a part of nature’s cycle in a “natural” way…But even while that specific dream is still-born, I am feeling thankful for the inkling of other possibilities…and how I can bear hope in other ways even if it isn’t the “natural” way. Even as I watch little seedlings sprout all around me, whether it’s flowers or children, though painful, it’s healing, too. And in that healing, there’s always new life…

The tree has become a mothering presence to me…a reminder of all the mothering spirits in my life…and a picture of what I might be, too…

Mihee is an associate pastor at a Presbyterian church for youth and children in Pennsylvania. This post originally appeared at Mihee’s blog First Day Walking

By Julie Clawson

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a recommendation which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises. The Policy Statement “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors”, issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is on one hand intended to help protect young girls. The reasoning is that often families from certain cultural traditions will leave the country or find alternate sources to perform FGM on their daughters, so the AAP is suggesting that if doctors here perform a ritual prick or minor incision of a girl’s clitoris, it will prevent families from inflicting the harsher forms on their daughters.

This recommendation has of course been met with some outrage. FGM is illegal in the United States and a new law is currently being proposed to make it illegal to transport girls out of the U.S. for the purpose of FGM. While this is a cultural tradition for some, others see it as simply another form of violence against women. FGM is the removal of all or part of a woman’s genitalia for the purposes of controlling her sexuality and insuring she is a virgin until marriage. Women in cultures that practice FGM are often not accepted by their culture unless they have had it done to them. Advocates of women’s rights argue that women should be permitted to control their own bodies and be free to experience sexual pleasure as adults.

So it is shocking to many to hear the AAP’s recommendations. While the proposal is supposedly meant to protect young girls, it still sanctions the mentality that women’s sexuality must be controlled by men. The idea that doctor’s in America could do this to young children is abhorrent to those who fight to protect the voiceless.

Of course, this is only a recommendation from the AAP and may never become reality it raises some serious ethical questions. How do you react to this recommendation? Do you see this as protecting women or oppressing them?