Surfing the Waves - Feminism

I am currently taking a course on Feminist Bibilical Theology and I have to tell you it has me running to learn all I can. For instance, just earlier this week in our readings and in class we were talking about the "waves" of feminism. After we got to talking, I began to realize that there were several of us in the class who had no idea what the understanding of 'waves' was. So, I did some quick Internet research and pull up over 10 links that led to multiple definitions and descriptions of these 'three waves' - although there are two that seem to speak to two waves only.

What is intriguing is that between the 2nd and 3rd waves there seems to be a lot of contention and indeed anger. Reading through some of this (admittedly a small and somewhat unknown reliability of data and conversation) I have begun to see myself within the 3rd wave. Which really isn't too surprising, simply for calendar reasons. But after learning this I begin to ask why there isn't much positive and growing conversation between a 3rd and 2nd waver? That would be an interesting dialogue - something I am sure both sides could learn from. I can envision this in a 'blog' format - a dialogical blog. Hmmmm....this is something that I will have to continue to think about.

Finally, as a 3rd waver (who's just learned that she is a 3rd waver - or a 'surfer' at all!) I pray openness between all people - openness to our gifts and more importantly an openness to our faults. We are cracked vessels and yet within the love and support of community, and God's gracious action in our world we rebuild and are rebuilt. Let's be real today, knowing and learning from the realness of the past and the hope for full realness in the future.

Alleluia!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Isn't funny that when you stop saying something, like Alleluia, for a period of time, when you begin to again is seems to take over! Throughout this day I have spoken the word Alleluia repeatedly and there is a sense of joy and excitement each time I say it. And this excitement is continually building!

Today is the day we celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead. And I wonder about those who he was close to felt this morning. A sense of shock? Amazement? Disbelief? Wonderment? I am sure this just begins to speak to the feelings of those first friends and followers. But I have tried to imagine today what that would have been like.

Specifically I have been wondering about the women that found the tomb empty. Can you imagine that feeling? Your friend and teacher was just murdered on a cross and you did nothing to stop it. Now, we arrive to the tomb to take care of the rituals related to burial - and he's gone! I can hear them thinking, "This is where we placed him. Who could have taken him? Why? Haven't 'they' done enough?"

And yet these questions and others were quickly put aside with the appearance of an angel who asks them why they look for the living among the dead. That's right! The living! He promised that death would not hold him - so of course he is living! But how? Where?

To be continued.....

Thoughts on this Good Friday

The darkness has covered
The land far and wide
The soldiers have taunted
And pierced his side

He suffered and died
On that cross for us all
The one without sin
For all who did fall

The blood dripping down
From the crown to the cheek
The crowd stood around
No word could they speak

So tonight we sit here
Or we gather over there
And cry with our hearts
As we offer a prayer.

-KSC 2005

Life Choices

All throughout the news and media of late has been the ethical questions surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. And I have to tell you that I am perplexed, concerned and scared. I am perplexed because this has been going on for 15 years and now 'all of a sudden' (although it was apparently in the news a few years back) there is a frenzy around this case. I am concerned because our government has grown immensly in the last several weeks - surrounding this case. Where does this growth stop? How far is too far for the federal government to get involved? I heard tonight that Jeb Bush is trying to seek legal custody of her!!!!!! And I am scared that amidst all of this hype, politics and battle we are losing the fact that at the center of this is a woman, her husband and her family.

I don't know the answer to this question - but I have to say that in the last few days I have been asking myself "If you were this woman's pastor..." or "If you were the pastor of a family member..." what would you do? What would you say? How do you respond to a situation as enormous as this? And this quarter I am in both Ethics and Pastoral Care and we have spoken of this in ethics lightly, and I pray we will in Pastoral Care. If not, you can bet I bring it up!

So with that, I just continue to pray that God would shower Terri, her husband and her family with love, help them to have hope in the life that is beyond our earthly death, and that the community would be able to support both 'sides' of this family in the days and months to come.

Jesus wouldn't like that....

I am on break and one of the joys of being on break is being able to spend time with friends and family back home. Tonight I spent time with my second family. I was able to hold and giggle with my godson, and to play with his two older siblings, as well as talk, laugh and catch up with his parents. It was marvelous!

But what was incredible was the ability of their oldest, 5 years old, to bring us back to reality. She was telling me about some of the things she has been learning in kindergarten and apparently in February that studied African American history. She told me about the woman she did a project on (her name is elluding me right n0w) - she wrote about quilting and the use of patterns and quilts in resistance to slavery and the use of quilting on the underground railroad. We started talking more about that and she asked about slavery. Her dad started to tell her about slavery, "...the white people.." "Daddy, who are white people?" Then her dad realized that her teacher was an african american and that she herself was asian and that they had learned in class about true color - so she couldn't imagine a WHITE person.

But even more remarkable was as she was asking questions about slavery (she is an incredibly gifted and inquisitive girl) she just casually remarked "Jesus wouldn't like that." There was no doubt in her mind and she stated it just matter of fact. "Jesus wouldn't like that." She went on to say quickly that Jesus wants us to love people and be nice to people.

And the children will teach them. The gospel in a few words of a 5 year old. Jesus wouldn't like that. Jesus wants us to love and be nice to people. What more needs to be said!?

Ponder this...

Still trying to figure out how to post pictures directly to the blog.

:-)

Julie says this is the worst poem ever....you decide!

Twas the night before Tuesday
and all through my house
I was behind on my schoolwork,
And really a grouse!

Final paper on mission,
Then there was some shame
Pastoral leadership,
Am I even in the game?

And the biggest of all
Theology to construct!
I t's due tomorrow,
And boy, am I..stuck!

A missional thought
Is needed ASAP
It's God mission first
And my poem is crap!

-Julie Martin

Julie - let's work on the ending! ;-)

GENDER & SPIRITUALITY - QUOTES

These are some quotes (some lengthy) that have stuck with me in my readings...more will be added as time allows....food for thought!

"Christ' message that every human being - woman, man and child - was made in the image of God was very radical for the culture in which he lived." - "The Heronine's Journey" by Maureen Murdock, pg. 172 --> Is this still radical for our culture today?

"The preserver of life is one aspect of the positive feminine, whether embodied in a woman or a man. The postive feminine is concerned with networking and affiliation, with bringing communities together to work for the common good. The feminine sees similarities between all beings and exhibits compassion and mercy. It also demands protection for the young and less fortunate." - same as above, pg. 125

"Women do have a quest at this time in our culture. It is the quest to fully embrace their feminine nature, learning to value themselves as women and to heal the deep wound of the feminine." - same as above, pg. 3

"Our heroine has learned how to perform well, so when she feels a sense of discomfort she tackles the next hurdle: a new degree, a more prestigious position, a geographical move, a sexual liason, another child." - same as above, pg. 5

"This obsessive need to stay busy and productive keeps her from having to experience her growing sense of loss. But what is this loss?" - same as above, pg. 66 - The never ending question...

"When a woman can find the courage to be limited and to realize that she is enough exactly the way she is, then she discovers one of the true treasures of the heronine's journey." - same as above, pg. 69

"She has so pushed, so long and diligently along the heroic path that it surprises her that she cannot dismiss the feeling of missing something in her life." - same as above, pg. 72

"A woman loses her 'inner fire' when she is not being fed, when the soul's flame is no longer fueled, when the promise of the dream held for so long dies. Old patterns no longer fit, the new way is not yet clear; there is darkness everywhere, and she cannot see or feel or taste or touch. Nothing means very much anymore, and she no longer knows who she really is." - Marti Gleun, pg. 74

"Many women are afraid of the term feminine, it has become a tainted word." - pg. 23

FUN QUOTES - UPDATED SOMETIMES :-)

"I don't know what we are sitting in, but whatever it is it sure feels good!" - Rip Torn :-)

"Confident things can stand and stay." - Gwendolyn Brooks

"Violence, like a thin but noticeaable thread, runs through every inch of the fabric of children's literature." - Carl Tomlinson

"You know its strange, you all are about five to six years younger than my sister, but you seem much older. Really." - Kyle Halverson @ the Bowling Alley

"People only see what they are prepared to see." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Anybody who has survived his own childhood has enough material for a lifetime." - Flannery O'Connor

"I pulled a Jonah - we should've gone out tonight." - Kyle Halverson

"Look at us...Indiana is playing Kent and we are here watching a hockey game!?" - Greg @ the BlueJackets vs. the Captials in Columbus - 3/23/02

"You are like the ultimate in a planner. A bit nuerotic but practical at the same." - Kyle Halverson

"Fifty-nine years ago today, my life became possible." - Kristen - teasing my mom on her 59th birthday

"Sometimes too much knowledge prevents innovation." - Rhines, 60 Minutes II

"Celebrities are people who make the news. Heroes are people who make a difference." - Unknown

"The leader is the slave to history." - Tolstoy

"There was no middle ground between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man." - Alexis de Tocqueville

"What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Democracy is no guarantee of virtue and intelligence in government, for the voice of the people is not neceassarily the voice of God." - Albery M. Schlesinger, Jr.

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." - George Horace Lorimer

"The man who dos not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." - Mark Twain

"The whole world opened to me when I learned to read." - Mary McLeod Bethune

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix

"How can you be on one side when both sides lose?" - ME

"It's like fans talking about a hockey team - they don't know what's going on behind the scenes, behind the doors, the details. They don't know anything. They think they know, but they don't. It's the same thing with us and politics. They let you know only what they want you to hear. So that's why I don't make an opinion." - Jaromir Jagr

Some rambling thoughts....to be continued....

We are living in an illusion
an illusion of ownership
For who are we?
Or better yet - whose are we?
The illusion that we are in control
that we own what we have

(thanks to Mark Allan Powell for prompting this line of thought! ;-)

Being Real

Living in the tension of the day
Holding up the black and the white
The fear and the joy
The rush with the peace

Being real is being real

To be the servant and the served
but running from the latter
Being the caregiver and the one in need of care
and denying that innate need

Being real is being real

Living in the now of the moment
Fixing to the task at hand
Holding in the present
The stillness of the thought

Being real is being real

Gazing off on down the path
Planning for the journey
Dreaming toward the fuzzy line
Of today meeting tomorrow

Being real is being real

Living in the tension of the day
Holding up the black and the white
The fear and the joy
The rush with the peace

*KSC - 2005

Women Mystics

I created this for a class - a few typos that I need to fix, but something that I had fun and learned a lot from.

Sleep....

heavy and burdensome
drooping and lagging
the eyelids reaching for their rest

the hours seem never-ending
the days just keep trudging
looking for the light, the breeze

to be found in the sleep
the rest of the mind, the soul
the restoration of the life

*KSC - 2005