Womanist Theology

 

Religion 101. 

That’s where we became friends. 

We didn’t abandon our individual friend groups 

To become best friends 

Yet she is one of the best friends I’ve got

In regards to my faith journey and 

The deeper things of life. 

 

For years, 

When we lived closer,

We had dinner once a month.

We may not have talked much in between those dinners

But every time we were together,

It was like no time had passed.

We could just pick up the conversation with where we were in life

And go forward from there.

 

Now that we live farther apart,

We send the occasional text and keep up via Facebook. 

Our in person visits are few and far between

Yet we still have the ability to pick up the conversation with where we are in life

And go forward from there.

No pretense. 

No surface conversation.

Just deep, honest conversation about

Family, life, and faith. 

 

We had the privilege of meeting for coffee last week. 

She was in town for a couple of days 

So we actually got to see each other and squeeze each other’s necks. 

 

I won’t go into all that we talked about because that is private, 

But I will share this. 

She said, 

“I’ve had a break up with scripture…

But what’s getting me back into that relationship is 

Womanist theology.”

 

Womanist theology critically examines religious texts and traditions through the lens of race, gender, and class, and reinterprets them to reflect the unique realities of Black women's lives. 

 

So much of the way we have traditionally read and interpreted scripture

Has been through the lens of 

White men in power. 

Unfortunately, this reading has come to be 

Hurtful and traumatizing for so many people—

Including women, children, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. 

 

If it weren’t so, then we wouldn’t have to pray these words 

That were prayed in many Lutheran churches yesterday:

 

Protect those who face hostility or oppression for their faith. 

Humble those who would use faith to dominate others and reinforce their own power. 

 

If the gospel is for everyone,

Then we must make it accessible to everyone, 

Not through changing it 

But through seeing it through different lenses. 

 

Now, before you get mad and say that 

Scripture is scripture and

Should be read and taken literally, 

Let me gently remind you that 

Scripture is the living, breathing word of God 

And should be read under the guidance of the Holy Spirit for 

Today’s time, culture, and context. 

Whether we admit it or not,

We all interpret scripture and pick and choose what resonates with us. 

 

We justify what we want justified

And we double down on what we see as absolute. 

But nothing, really, is absolute 

Except for the love of God 

And the humanity of humankind. 

But even that humanity is in question 

Because some believe in the total depravity and sin of man 

While others believe in the belovedness and goodness of God’s creation. 

 

I say if womanist theology is helping my friend reengage scripture and

Dialogue with God again, 

Then hooray! 

I must admit that I have been listening to a womanist podcast in my car 

Ever since our conversation, 

And it is very enlightening and engaging. 

 

God is God, friends. 

God is so much bigger than we can comprehend 

And so much more love than we give credit. 

 

I am thankful for friends who help bring this truth to light. 

From Religion 101 to afternoon coffee and beyond. 

 

Amen. 

Holding the Faith

 

I spent a lot of time in the chapel when I was at Meredith.

From worship services to meetings to handbell practices,

I was there quite a bit.

I loved looking at the cross made by the organ pipes

And I felt safe in the quiet of her sacred space.

 

Neither of those things has changed.

 

I visited the chapel twice yesterday,

And I sat in her space for over four hours.

 

In the morning,

I had the privilege of leading a little choir of three

As they sang the anthem during the Meredith alumnae worship service.

I heard a moving Pentecost sermon that reminded me of the importance of breath,

Of the sigh,

And that helped me reframe my many sighs of late not as points of worry or consternation but

As prayers too deep for words.

I was challenged to “be a breath of fresh air in a suffocating world,”

And I was reminded that sometimes

It is the people who love us who hold faith for us when we can’t.

 

In the afternoon,

I had the honor of listening to Amelia-The-Niece

Sing with her girls choir.

My heart almost burst with pride as she sang two solos,

And my eyes were moved to tears as the group surrounded the audience and sang,

“Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you're broken on the ground
You will be found.”

It was a powerful performance,

And a great reminder that sometimes

It is the people who love us who hold faith for us and carry us through.

 

These days, heartache is palpable.

Complicated grief.

Childhood and religious trauma.

Abuse and neglect.

Broken relationships.

Struggling to make ends meet.

Not feeling loved or important.

Not feeling seen.

Living in fear.

 

Whatever the hurt,

It is there in all of us,

And it is real,

And it requires safety and light and breath

To make it through.

 

We may not all be able to sit in a literal safe space

Like I had the privilege of doing over the weekend.

 

So in its stead,

May each of us,

As best as we can,

Be that safe space for one another,

Holding faith,

And carrying one another through

With sighs and prayers and groans too deep for words.

 

May each of us,

Truly,

Breathe life into this dying world.

 

Amen.

Defining Moments: Maybe I'm Wrong

The weeks leading up to spring break of my junior year were not very pleasant. The fact that I remember those weeks seventeen and a half years later goes to show just how miserable they were.

I was blessed to be a NC Teaching Fellow and I was blessed to be in the Meredith Chorale, but I was not blessed that both organizations demanded my attention over spring break. I needed both to observe in a school system for a week and to go on tour with chorale for part of the week. The next-to-last stop on tour was in the county where I wanted to do my observations, so it seemed to me that I should be able to miss the final night of tour to complete my scholarship’s requirement. I was wrong.

“When you joined chorale,” my chorale director said, “you made an obligation to be a full and active part of the group. The group depends on you for every performance, so you need to be there for every performance.” And no matter how much I reasoned with her. No matter what my Teaching Fellows Director said. No matter how frustrated I became or how many tears I cried, my chorale director would not budge in her stance: I had to be at all performances on tour or else my grade would suffer. And she knew that I wouldn’t let my grade suffer.

I was not a happy chorale member on that tour. I felt disrespected, unappreciated, and uncared for by someone whom I deeply respected and those feelings colored my attitude about the whole trip. I guess maybe that’s why I don’t remember a lot of the trip—just the night that I’d wanted to leave and the beautiful church in which we were singing in Asheville—and the night that I had one of the biggest realizations of my life…

Fast forward to just before my senior year. When thinking about going to my student teaching placement, I felt sick. I’d worked with a middle school band director the year before, and I was scheduled to work with her for my student teaching placement, but I hated it. I hated it to the point that I thought maybe I’d chosen the wrong career. As I hoped that maybe it was the band director and her teaching style that I didn’t like and as I tried to figure out a way to switch schools without hurting the director’s feelings, my mom said, “Have you ever considered teaching elementary music, Dee?” Then that realization of a few months before came right back…

Sometimes I am just plain wrong.

Not just an I’ve made an error in my checkbook wrong. Or an I’ve misspoken a fact or mispronounced a name wrong. But a way-deep-down-in-the-core-of-my-being-albeit-with-really-good-intentions wrong.

It’s a wrong that comes from realizing that I’ve been so focused on what I think is right that I can’t step back and see the bigger picture of what is best.

I was so totally focused on doing my Teaching Fellows observation during spring break that I couldn’t see another way. I was so totally focused on being a band director in the public schools that I couldn’t see another way.

Yet my professor forced me to step back and see another way. And my mom’s simple question gently nudged me to do the same.

So because I didn’t do my Teaching Fellows observation during spring break, I got to spend a week with my sister before going to the mountains to do summer missions that summer. And because I didn’t stick with band, I got to do my student teaching with a woman who helped me realize that everything in my life had been pointing not to band but to general elementary music.

Sometimes, dear friends, when everything seems frustratingly hopeless, maybe we are wrong. Not deliberately or intentionally or even stubbornly. But narrowly and exhaustingly. So sometimes, dear friends, maybe we need to step back and reexamine things with a fresh set of eyes and ears.

Will it always be that easy? Of course not. But may it sometimes be? Maybe. Because sometimes, maybe we are wrong. And sometimes maybe just admitting that fact is the first step toward making things right.

So many thoughts inside my mind
So many doubts inside my heart
I want to believe
But I don't understand your plan

I ask but it's not given to me
I seek but I do not find
The answer that I'm looking for
Must be behind the closed door

With my heart's desire
But maybe I'm wrong
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong door
Maybe I'm wrong
Maybe your will is not mine

So not my will but yours be done
I'm laying my life down on the line
The weight of the world has paralyzed me
So Lord I give it to you
There's nothing more I can do

Lord take my life from me
I'm down on bended knee
Oh Lord

Don't Let Anyone Tell You Who You Aren't

I’m not very good with the DVR. Sometime last week, in the middle of my fight with flu, I accidently told the DVR to record the whole series of The Mentalist instead of just the one episode I was trying to watch. I watch The Mentalist because of my dad. He was watching it one night and I got hooked. This tends to happen to me when watching TV.

At the beginning of this week, during my dad’s fight with a sinus infection, my mom told us that we needed to clean off some of our episodes of The Mentalist because they were was filling up recording space. Being the good daughter that I am, I have since spent every possible moment watching The Mentalist in an effort to clean off the DVR, even if it’s meant sitting beside a coughing, hacking dad.

Last night, as I was fitting in one final episode of The Mentalist before going to bed, a minor character said some really mean things to Jane, the mentalist. I like Jane. He’s highly intelligent and quirky and he always drinks hot tea. So when that man said something mean to him, it made me mad. In my anger toward a minor character on a fictional TV show, I posted the statement:

“Don’t let anyone tell you who you aren’t.”

I was talking to Jane, on a recording of a TV show from 2009, but I knew the non-fictional, real-life truth in the statement as I was writing it. I also know the truth of its opposite when the teller is speaking from fear or ignorance: “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are.”

When I woke up this morning, I found a short conversation between two very unlikely people on my wall. They had both responded to my statement to Jane, and then Dr. Colby, my college English professor, told Christina, one of my dearest friends from divinity school, that she looked fully alive in her profile picture. Christina simply said thanks.

What Dr. Colby doesn’t know is that Christina is fully alive—that her current profile picture, while demonstrating happiness and life, isn’t the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Christina is full of deep joy and a giving, hospitable spirit that has reminded me many times to breathe and to remember that I am exactly who God created me to be.

What Christina doesn’t know is that Dr. Colby made a huge impact on my life in college. While it’s true that I made my only B in Dr. Colby’s English class and that I couldn’t, for the life of me, write a thesis statement to her liking :-), it’s also true that the many hours we spent together because of my writing difficulties built a mutual respect that has stood the course of time. I suppose that in an ideal world I would have sailed through that English class, made an A, and graduated with a 4.0. But, in the real world, struggling through Dr. Colby’s class, having a crisis of belief in myself and my ability to write (a crisis lasted for well over a year), having a mentor to walk the course with me and teach me, and emerging from the crisis with my own voice, means way more than a perfect GPA. It's not like anyone walks around asking about my college GPA anyway! Through the ears of my perfectionist, people pleasing, self critical, self damning college self, I heard Dr. Colby telling me that I couldn’t write—that I was not a writer. But she wasn’t telling me that. She was trying help me be the best writer and self that I could be.

I am blessed to have parents with whom to watch TV and share these days of life. I am blessed with their DVR and sofa and electricity that allow me to see the world through different characters’ eyes. I am blessed to have friends like Christina and Dr. Colby—friends who believe in and support me not for who I’m not or should be but for who I am. And if you are reading this then I am blessed to have you, too. I am blessed that you care to read words from a girl with a blemished writing past and that you have given your time to my thoughts.

Don’t let anyone tell you who you’re not, friends. And don’t let anyone tell you who you are unless they are affirming what you know to be true in your spirit…that you are a loved and cherished person of worth and value, created in God’s image, redeemed by God’s grace, gifted by God’s spirit, freed by Christ’s forgiveness, and held in God’s love even when you do not know it is there. God’s love is there, my friends. It is there. Actually, it is here. It's what Christmas is all about. And it can never, ever be erased.