Eating an Orange: Women and Food
February 22nd, 2012 by Jonalyn
Peach preserving two summers ago
I sat with an unpeeled orange in my lap looking out over the snowy hill. I could see the spot where we buried Lady Lucia, our oldest, loveliest corgi’s body (The Day Lucy Fell Into Shadow), the earth a little more scarred from the effort of digging a grave in the winter (Digging)
I suppose I could thank Lucy for giving me grief and the effect it’s had on my body. But I’m not thankful.
In grief, I frankly just don’t have the energy. And besides, I’d rather have my full sugarplum back and Lucy, too.
Don’t women always seem to have some sort of goofy love/hate relationships with their bodies and therefore, with food?
Some of us eat more when we’re upset, some of us eat less. I’m in the latter group. But this doesn’t mean I’m healthy or fit.
It means I have less energy to grieve and less desire to notice beauty that can pull me out. And you know grief, the way it folds in on itself and forces us into frantic activity without pleasure or ennui without hope.
It’s a killer for good dining, good conversation, good sex. As Virginia Woolf wrote, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” And I don’t just mean crazy healthy food, I think Woolf meant sustaining, delicious, smack your lips and tuck in food.
Our Thanksgiving Turkey this year
The best test I’ve landed on for the gauge of health and food is not my scale.
It’s not my sugarplum belly (which is rapidly losing it’s luscious curve, a happy and sad change, a sexy and yet not sexy alteration).
The best test is not my strength, though I’ve discovered the very sensual and pleasing feeling of working out in a gym in front of MIRRORS. Nothing quite so motivational as seeing muscles spring forth. But also kind of sick and self-conscious. How can you enjoy an activity when you’re constantly looking at yourself? Sort of like skyping, but fixating on the video of your face.
The best test for determining if me and food are having a healthy time of it is taste.
Can I enjoy this orange? Do I want to enjoy it? Can I eat what I want and stop when I’m done?
I peel it slowly letting the waxy rind cake my cuticles. Oranges make you work for them.
I dig out the mandarin colored jewels.
I split the pieces apart and let the juice run through my finger.
I taste it slowly, thinking of the coldness and high snow banks (27 inches fell last night) around me. I think of how I’d like to share a piece with Finn who sleeps and Dale who is working at the library today.
I taste each pocket of juice and notice that I’m not enjoying it as much at the end. It’s a dry orange actually.
But the first few pieces tasted like a waltz in my mouth.
I tasted it. I noticed it. I had space in my mouth and belly and soul to enjoy it.
Strawberry picking last summer
Reminds me of a book I’m reading Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch, a pioneering work on sexuality and relationships (I recommend). Schnarch asks couples who come to him for sex therapy, “When was the last time you touched each other?”
He doesn’t mean something sexual, necessarily, here. He means feeling to touch, not feeling to turn someone on.
Like when I ran my fingers along my new silver necklace, feeling to touch the links and slinky movement.
Like when I rub my check against Finn’s rosy ones, feeling to touch the peachy warmth.
Like when I feel the delicate skin on the orange, gossamer bindings holding banks of juice in store for someone’s waiting mouth.
There’s a lot of sensuality in this world, if we have the stomach for it.
Feeling to touch.
Tasting to enjoy.
My tests for health in this life.
Tags: body, food, marriage, motherhood, pain, sex
Posted in beauty, food, lament, love | Comments (2)
What does Feminism Mean to You?
February 16th, 2012 by Jonalyn
I was 19 years old at the University of Virginia and suffering.
I had enrolled in Women in American Literature and felt instantly intimidated by the strong, articulate and (to my mind) ANGRY feminists (was their a more vitriolic combination?) sitting beside me.
I was so freaked out I ask the professor to let me opt out of the group project (unfathomable for my duty-oriented posture). If he said no I was planning on dropping the class. Unthinkable.
From "Feminism is Evil" site. Photo credit: www.jesus-is-savior.com
I actually called him at home and begged to be excepted from forced proximity to the other women in the class.
I was afraid I’d stop caring about being sexy.
I was afraid that any prospective husband would sniff me out and drop me like a cold potato.
I was afraid feminism would destroy me and all my goals to get married and have 12 children.
I was afraid I would stop wearing long skirts and high button boots.
I was afraid I’d become a pro-choice, women’s libber and immediately unhook and burn my bra.
I was afraid feminism was contagious.
I wanted to keep myself unsmeared by the world and all it’s anti-God beliefs.
Have I mentioned that I was a Christian?
The professor told me I didn’t need to be so afraid.
And I didn’t. It would be four years before I would catch feminism,
and it would be from my husband, not one of these girls.
Confused about Feminism, or Certain You’re Right?
Mary Kassian Photo credit: thegospelcoalition.org
A Christian author and speaker, Mary Kassian, shares on a popular Christian website Revive our Hearts: Calling Women to Freedom, Fulness and Fruitfulness in Christ (a tagline that doesn’t match the little experience I’ve had on their site) that she knows what feminism is and does to godly Christian women.
View the video here: Feminism and the Christian Woman.
Kassian’s work, both in her book The Feminist Mistake and this video are great examples of ignorance. I don’t want to charge Kassian of willful ignorance. So let’s just say she’s unaware.
Kassian and others like her, teach women to be afraid of the word “feminism.”
And teaching others to be ignorant and afraid, too.
It was Kassian’s propaganda in videos precisely like Feminism and the Christian Woman combined with Rush Limbaugh’s mockery of feminazi’s that terrorized me to be afraid of all the females in my Women in American Lit class.
Interestingly, Kassian was raised in Canada.
I spent last week in Ontario, Canada, in a small rural community (hence my late post this week) with friends from Dale’s college years. I walked past their Mennonite neighbors and smiled as the teen boys commented on my baby wearing Finn. They looked at me, curious and somewhat puzzled. I thought of how wordly I might look to them, in my blue jeans and platform boots marching along the frozen road with Finn bouncing on my back.
Back inside I asked these Canadians, G and S, to give me a gut reaction of what feminism meant to them. Don’t think about it, just tell me, I said.
G grew up in a small village in the Asian Pacific. The night before, someone had bemoaned feminism coming into the church. “I just have no idea what that word means,” G said honestly.
S grew up in Virginia. “Feminism makes me think of equal opportunity, everyone gets a shot,” S said. As an afterthought, “Feminism is not very sexy.”
What do you think of when you hear the word “feminism”? Does it mean anything good? Or is it a mostly dangerous, wordly, un-feminine, godless, selfish group of women (and some pathetic men) who are angry most the time?
Demonizing out of Ignorance
It is wicked easy to demonize. Most of us do it every day. We think we know about a group, evolutionists or feminists, lesbians or vegans, snowboarders or pastors. Oh, we know THEIR type.
Christians, particularly evangelicals, do this as much as anyone else. But we hate it when people do it to us.
There is a simply remedy, 3 Tools, whip these out next time you start demonizing.
Tool # 1
No matter how sure you are about any group of people, look up their movement in a good ol’ dictionary. I like dictionary.com or American Heritage online. Find out if the negative associations you have of this movement are accurate with how the adherents describe themselves.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines feminist as someone who adheres to feminism.
Feminism:
1. Belief in or advocacy of women’s social, political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes.
2. The movement organized around this belief.
By the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition, I believe Jesus was a feminist.
Does that sound shocking?
Jesus regularly placed women into honorable, valued, equal places with men. He praised Mary for learning with his disciples at his feet (Luke 10:42 – social equality), he accepted the female patronage of women who financially supported his ministry (Luke 8:1-3, Mark 15:40-41 – economic equality), he healed and forgave women that men were ready to stone (John 8:1-11 – moral equality), he put his stamp on the Old Testament where God appointed women like Deborah to rule and judge Israel (political equality) and propose to men (social equality, see Ruth in the book of Judges).
Kassian teaches another definition of feminism. In the first sentence of her video she says feminism teaches women to treat her own authority as God, let me quote Kassian supposedly quoting feminists, “This is the way I want the world to be, this it the way I want men to be, this is the way I want God to be.” Feminism, according to Kassian, teaches women to disregard and fail to bow to God.
I guarantee you can find feminists that do not love God (or feminists who aren’t particularly loving, feministing, for instance, or feminists who are pro-choice) but you can also find quiet wives sitting at home cross-stitching roses that do not love God. The existence of sites like Feminists or Life, Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus: Feminism Today, blogs like ChristianFeminism and resources like Christian + Feminist should indicate the story is a little wider than Kassian has shared).
For a speaker and teacher like Kassian, I believe we need to hold her to a standard of a little more research.
Feminism isn’t a good litmus test for someone’s god-fearing or godless state.
Tool #2
Don’t judge a thing by it’s abuse. In other words, don’t look at the abuse or practice of feminism and accuse all feminists of guilt. That’s as bad as accusing Jesus of starting the Crusades.
Kassian states that Betty Friedan started the feminist movement in the 1960′s.
Photo Credit: vfa.us/Suffrage.htm
Come ON!
Feminism is not the new kid on the block, nor was it invented with Friedan.
I can think of quite a few people and even some movements that believed in the equal treatment of women. Jesus for starters. The Society of Friends (or Quakers, the denomination of my youth) started by George Fox in the late 1640′s (not 1960′s) believed in the equality of women before God in church and home. For more see footnote 16 in “Far as the Curse is Found”, Ruby Slippers.
The relatively new kid on the block, the United States, has enjoyed two major waves of feminism.
First wave began in the mid-1800s during the Second Great Awakening. Christian women began speaking out, publicly, against alcohol abuse. Prohibition, among other things, revealed women’s social power to change America. With females speaking in public places to abolish alcohol, women became recognized and recognized in themselves a force of political and religious renewal. This first wave of feminism was dominated by Jesus followers who turned this new-found power to talk about other issues as well, the end of slavery and the vote for women. Let me say that again, the first wave of feminism in America was run by Christians. Christian Feminists. Look ‘em up, they’re for real.
First wave feminists used these early feminist’s Prohibition momentum and secured the vote for us today. It is because of feminist’s work and beliefs that you or women you know will cast their votes this the Fall.
Second wave feminism began in the 1960′s and continues into today. It gleaned cultural and politically equality (more famously known for securing birth control and legal abortions). This is the wave most people think of when they hear someone is a feminist. For more about feminism’s waves see History of Feminism. Read more about the way feminism was originally a Christian idea in Janette Hassey’s book No Time for Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry or her summary chapter “Evangelical Women in Ministry a Century Ago: The 19th and Early 20th Centuries” in Discovering Biblical Equality ed. Groothuis and Pierce
Kassian claims that this new movement of feminism (I believe she’s only referencing Second Wave American feminism) took women on a path that was not what God wanted. Even if we only speak of second wave feminism Kassian fails to recognize how much feminism continues to do for women. For instance, a book I regularly recommend, Sex for Christians, came to print because the theologian and author, Lewis Smedes found the 1960′s sexual revolution revealing. Feminists brought problems and questions to light that society had never formally addressed.
We cannot judge the 1960′s simply by failed experiments like free love at Woodstock. The pressure to move women into the full-fledged realm of equality is a direct benefit to women throughout the world. And most importantly, reflects the image-bearer qualities God imparted to the first couple in Eden. Feminism cannot be quite as godless as Kassian wants us to believe, even if adherents use and abuse the term to make it appear so.
Tool #3
Ask a person who is in a group if what you have heard about this group is accurate. If you think vegans are scary healthy and obsessed, get to know one (hint: health food stores) and see if you can have a conversation without lapsing into prejudism or rolling your eyes. If you are think most lesbians don’t know Jesus, take a moment and venture into the My Faith Hurdle Question “What if I’m Christian AND Gay?” and read Cara and my exchange. Scroll down to Dec 3, 2011 to see the beginning of a conversation between two Christians, one homosexual and one heterosexual.
It would have helped Kassian if she could have brought a true, living feminist to interview and glean from before assuming feminists all count their own authority as the most important.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been immersed in a culture so unfriendly to feminism, but it once was a culture I used to eat and breathe. I even made a home video with girlfriends mocking feminists. We called it Ms. Roger’s Neighborhood. It was all about loving Bill Clinton and putting men in the kitchen. I think I broke every tool I’ve just written about here.
Photo Credit: feministsforchoice.org
So, if feminism isn’t really all about killing the unborn and burning bras, why have Christians made it appear so scary?
Why so much fear-mongering and ignorance about feminism?
A good question. What do you think?
p.s.
I’d like to thank Chrissa for originally asking me to explain Christian feminism in a recent comment on How to Spot and How to Treat a Chauvinist.
p.p.s. Please do not mistake me to be saying that I believe men and women are interchangeable parts. Men and women are different, that’s why I originally wrote Ruby Slippers, I wanted to explain how women are both feminine and free in Jesus’ kingdom. Our differences are one of the reasons, I believe are, God asked man and woman to take dominion, subdue and fill this earth together, side-by side (see Gen 1).
The way you go about achieving feministic goals (man-bashing for instance, verses carefully argumentation and love) is very important to God. So is the reason you want certain “equal” rights. This blog is a place I try to think through the best way to promote equality while maintaining distinctness between the genders. This is, I believe, one of the reasons Jesus came, to set the prisoners of the gender war free.
And many would agree that women are imprisoned today.. if not literally by human trafficking, then socially, politically, religiously. And if women are imprisoned, according to 1 Corinthians 11:11, so are men. For a secular admission of this exact idea see Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. One short example: the USA’s Terrorism Department noted countries where women were empowered as places terrorism would be less entrenched. The increase of power and opportunity for women directly reduced terrorism’s capacity to grow. Sounds like hope to me.
Tags: feminism, loving Jesus, prejudice, reviews, ruby slippers
Posted in Christian feminism | Comments (24)
Hold the Chocolates while I Say Adios to Mr. and Mrs. Nag
February 8th, 2012 by Jonalyn
I think some people get nagging, I mean they get why it’s so tempting.
I do.
Nagging “the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignored and both become increasingly annoyed” defined last Wednesday by Elizabeth Bernstein, in the Wall Street Journal’s Meet The Marriage Killer: It’s More Common Than Adultery and Potentially as Toxic, So Why is it So Hard to Stop Nagging?
Bernstein calls it a vicious cycle.
Comic Credit: Wall Street Journal
I ask Dale about the pile of papers on the table.
He explains it’s work he needs to have out to remember to get done.
I remind him about our lovely wicker basket system (lovely because you can put papers within and shut them from my eyes)
He explains the wicker basket is full.
It’s full? Well, that’s because you haven’t dedicated and organized and prioritized. I then begin to outline a new plan, for him.
He interrupts me to restate his need for papers on the kitchen table. Or else, it won’t get done!
Now, how can you argue with that?
Recently, I believed we solved this problem by purchasing a new kitchen table. It’s antique finish awed Dale enough to leave all the piles of paper on the floor, making it difficult to slide into his place for mealtime.
“You really need to do something about this pile of papers,” I remind him yesterday
Repeat above conversation.
Mr. Nag?
Why do women nag more than men?
“Because we are conditioned to feel more responsible for managing home and family life, we are more sensitive to early sign of problems in a relationship . . . etc. etc” or so say the experts from the Journal. Thank you Ms. Bernstein.
But really, now.
So when Dale asks me, repeatedly to not place my clothes on the ladder (he might slip!) and I tell him it’s easier for me and besides, that’s what eyes are for.
And he keeps asking and asking.
We don't look like this when we're nagging each other.
Is this not nagging?
Or when Dale requests that I do not move his carefully piled papers on the table, again and again.
Oh, men can nag. I bet I can get even the most unrelational, unemotional, unsocial man to nag.
Recipe: find the thing THEY are responsible for and don’t take care of it, again and again.
They will remind you, again and again.
I do not recommend this.
My father was really good at nagging me to not touch his Porshe 911 with my hands (There is invisible dust, Joni, that your fingers press into and scratch the paint. Don’t touch it!). He asked me repeatedly. Somehow the creamy white begged me to forget.
I didn’t try to turn my dad into a nagger, but I did.
If nagging is such a problem and so wide-spread, what can we do? The WSJ suggests that nagging makes men feel like little boys (girls, you’re not being sexy!), that nagging can ruin marriages (scared, yet?). Bernstein says we must begin by admitting it (confess your sins? a good start), doing personality tests, learning better communication.
Nice suggestions, but not that helpful, not foundational enough.
Like most stuff journalists pump out, they’re superb at problem revealing, not at problem solving.
Equally Shared Parenting
I’ve recently picked up a book that was serendipitously displayed at my local library in the parenting section–a section full of book titles that normally make me laugh (Screamfree Parenting, Successful Parenting, True Parenting)
Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents by Marc and Amy Vachon, featured in The New York Times in 2008 article “When Mom and Dad Share it All“.
I didn’t laugh. I just marched over and seized it.
Found within, a husband and wife introduce me to my tribe (EquallySharedParenting.com: Half the Work, All the Fun), the group of people who have chosen, voluntarily and happily to share all of parenting and life’s joys and responsibilities. They call this equally shared parenting (ESP).
The boy who started it all.
Ingredients: 2 willing partners
Goals: full partnership in each of the four domains
4 Domains: childraising, breadwinning, house-work and time for self.
Yeild: a marriage where responsibility isn’t divided along gender roles, but along equality.
Now how in the world do you do that?
First, they believe it’s not fair for one spouse to get sidelined to assistant in parenting (what do I feed him? where are his socks?), they (usually the father) miss out on too much.
Second, they believe it’s not fair for one spouse to get sidelined in terms of career (but I made 1/2 of what you do), they (usually the mother) miss out on too much.
Solution: share.
Their book is a detailed look at how to share, from learning to ask employers for part-time work (The guy tries over half a dozen times before learning HOW to ask), to relinquishing control on typical female or male roles (spoiler alert: the main reason guys don’t help with childcare is because women teach them to feel incompetent), to expecting and giving trust.
What a godly idea, though the Vachon’s don’t profess any faith, their mutuality, respect and equality rivals what I’ve envisioned parenting, career and marriage can be if I were brave enough to try.
I’m half way through and taking copious notes. If I get enough feedback from this post, I’ll post a full review.
For now, let me apply their principle to the nagging problems in our lives.
ESP and Nagging
If women relinquish the Mom Power Grab to take all the responsibility (deciding childcare options, scheduling all activities, doctor’s appointments, packing diaper bag, present purchases, bedtime, potty training method etc) and goodies (first time experience at zoo, birthdays, first step, swimming lessons, nighttime snuggles, post-injury comfort, etc) Dads can have a chance to own the responsibility and goodies of child-raising, too.
And the increase of responsibility = lower nagging.
How? A responsible mother or father must in turn learn competence. And there is no quicker terminator of nagging than competence. It eliminates all the bad-mouthing of incompetent, unavailable, disagreeable, insensitive husbands, for instance.
Now, this is not easy. Today, Dale had Finn for the morning hours so I could watercolor. I was to meet them at the Old Town Hot Springs for workout and swim time together. I was right on time, but passed Dale’s Jeep making a left turn in front of me and pulling into (no it can’t be!)
McDONALDS! as drove past.
I was on the phone with a friend, thankfully, which kept me from leaping into the Mom Power grab.
I wanted to call Dale, remind him that there were better eating options for Finn than McDonalds.
I would have liked to text him the extra snacks I packed (a sign I didn’t really trust him to pack food!) in my car that Finn could eat.
I wanted to tell him he was going to be late, as well.
Instead I cruised right by and only miss a few seconds of my friend’s story.
Dale with Finn at 4 months
Dale was responsible.
Could I trust him?
Could I?
Even if he doesn’t father like I mother.
If I want to say no to nagging… YES.
ESP refuses to transfer ownership of any one domain automatically back on one partner for credit or blame. For instance, Finn’s got a blow-out at McDonalds (okay, I go there voluntarily), Dale finds extra wipes in the diaper bag. A nearby mother comments, “Good thing Mom packed extra wipes!” But it was Dad who packed them.
Or say our bank account is shrinking faster than expected due to new home building project. Instead of asking, “Didn’t you plan for this?” of Dale, we work out how we can both make compromises, more savings, less purchases.
With ESP, making money, finding time for our personal hobbies, taking care of Finn, keeping the house (clean, stocked, washed, ordered) is not one person’s sole domain.
Now, of course ESP isn’t for everybody. But it is an attempt to name the thing I’ve been trying to label co-parenting. This equally shared parenting is what Dale and I have been trying to do.
Emphasis on “trying”.
And what’s more exciting, lots of other people are doing it. And they’re not just incredibly lucky, independently wealthy or crazy peeps either. These are couples who want to make sacrifices so that no one parent is shouldered with the primary task of bringing in the income or raising the children.
So back to nagging about those papers. Would you believe it? Nagging goes down if I’m not the only one in charge of vacuuming and dusting around Dale’s pile of papers?
Dale finds his own way and time to tidy up when vacuuming is something he does as well. Do you have any idea of how hard it is to vacuum around papers? You don’t have to argue about it, experience is a lovely and swift teacher.
Getting Rid of the Nag
If you struggle with nagging, one of the sweetest little gifts for a Valentine’s Day present is to back up five paces on the nagging issue.
Who has control over it? Whose domain is getting neglected?
In other words, if the dishes aren’t done, who gets inconvenienced?
If it’s both of you, then nagging won’t be a problem. (Side note: sharing chores does require that you 1- agree what needs attention 2- agree to let the other person clean as they see fit). We both clean as if this is OUR property, not someplace our mom will come after and fix the shoddy job. It also means that my standard of cleanliness may or may not be the same as Dale’s. This is where letting my standard bend to Dale’s (also clean) standard comes in. Very few women can do this.
And this is why we nag.
In our home, Dale does all the dishes, unless he cooks, then we switch. But if the dishes aren’t done, and I cannot make the next meal, the meal doesn’t get made (or we eat cereal out of mugs with plastic spoons). Or I work around the mess, but I don’t complain about the dirty dishes (this is a seven year old skill that isn’t completely in the bag, yet), I cook and make the dishes pile a little larger. It is impossible to make a meal without making some mess (which means more for Dale to eventually clean).
Peanut butter and jelly on paper towels all around.
Dale is not a fan of peanut butter and jelly for all his meals.
The responsibility is shared. We all get impacted by how we do or don’t clean, cook, watch Finn, work on Soulation, take a break. Equality, shared responsibility, even in the areas that seem like the “man’s” or the “woman’s” realm.
And Mr. and Mrs. Nag are slowly retreating.
And with their tail lights in my review mirror, I might just break open that box of chocolates!
Tags: family, feminin/masculin-ity, Gender Studies, marriage
Posted in family, gender roles, love | Comments (23)
Practical Rest: When Busy Women Welcome Sabbath
February 1st, 2012 by Jonalyn
You know I care about resting, that I try to practice Sabbath rest. But I don’t practice faithfully or consistently. In other words, I’m always looking for better ways to practice rest.
One reader of RubySlippers, a woman I met at a speaking engagement in New Hampshire recently explains how she rests. As a mother of three under the age of 6 (Eldan five, Evelyn 3, and Oliver is nine months), married for eight years to a school teacher (Andrew), a regular participant in her local congregation, you could assume Danielle never gets to rest.
Eldan, Evelyn and Oliver
Danielle originally sought me out through emails confirming her prayers for my rest. She’d pray in the wee hours of the night while she was not resting, for me and my sleep. Sometimes we figure we were up at the same time. She’s my encourager that the sleep deprivation will one day end.
Danielle is an experienced veteran on the challenges of rest, she’s also a new blogger at Thinking Out Loud. And she’s figured out a few peaceful practices I think you’ll enjoy. They’ve changed the way I welcome the Sabbath into my life.
~ ~ ~
Danielle, before we talk about how you’ve learned to rest, can you tell me about a crazy moment when resting seemed like the last thing possible?
I can think of a specific instance right after Oliver was born where I was nursing him, Evelyn was screaming from the bathroom because she’d had an accident and Eldan had just hurt himself and was at the same time hollering from his room! Things like that happen a lot;)
I know you live with sleep deprivation. Can you give us a little snapshot?
Sleep, ha! I vaguely remember what that is. Evelyn has been a terrible sleeper so I’ve been running on overtired for three very long years! We just moved Oliver to his own room and a glimmer of hope is shining ever so dimly, but it’s coming!
What’s your Sabbath practice looked like in the past?
When I first read your blog post (Practicing Sabbath: Tips for the Practice) I was really challenged. We try and take Sunday off. We attend Sunday school than spend the rest of the day as a family just chilling, but I have a hard time “turning off.” So the first Sunday after I read your post I “tried” to rest! HA! I got so stressed out because my life with three kiddoes is not restful and no matter how I tried to NOT do anything the more stressed I got that I HAD to do things!!! Revelation!!!! Ding ding went the lightbulb.
Rest has little to do with what we are doing but HOW we are doing it.
The next week I purposed to enjoy my family, and do the necessary tasks with the mindset of resting and focusing on the little things that get so neglected through out our busy week. I just purposed to slow down my pace and enjoy the process. AHHHHH! It is still a journey for me where I am welcoming my Savior along to help my find the rest I sooo need each week.
Danielle and her family
What did a typical Sunday look like before you tried to rest?
I remember before we had children and even with just Eldan we really rested on Sundays. We’d watch football, nap, read, or take nice calm walks. As the years went we got busier with Church and just the craziness and chaos that extra children just naturally add. Sundays turned into a catch up day. I rarely even napped anymore. Sundays became very busy and chaotic.
Can you give me two or three examples of tasks you do during your new Sabbath with the mindset of resting and focusing on the little things?
Danielle with Oliver
I spend a lot of time snuggling!!!
My kiddoes like watching football with us so Andrew and I usually have one of the children curled up with us on the couch. We both also try really hard to share the tasks of the day or do them together.
It makes a huge difference to just focus on togetherness. If the older two are really high strung, we will put on a movie for them in their room and ask them to play quietly. We try and limit television throughout the week so there is no guilt involved when it comes to Sundays!
We’ve also, for the most part stopped going to Sunday evening church. This way once we are home after Sunday morning, we are just home. It helps to not be rushing everyone to eat and get out the door. Also, we can still get the kids to bed at a good time which helps in keeping a spirit of calmness. This just works best for us with young children.
What are some tasks you do together as a family on your sabbath days?
Hmm, it can vary ; a few things that come to mind
~ making lunch
~ watching a show together from Netflix and eating on TV trays all in the Living room!
~ We have several Wii games that are for the whole family and we will often play those together.
~ We just bought chinese checkers (its definitely interesting with a three year old, but it sure makes it fun and silly!)
~ We read out of the Message to our children and will often read some passages on Sunday evenings.
My husband has actually been doing something all the time that has made a huge difference. it may seem really dumb, but our kids are young and LOVE competition. He makes every task, a game. He basically says, “Hey, guys, I have a game!!”
They run in and will do just about anything. So much of how we approach things rubs off on our children and their attitudes. my daughter just tonight helped my pick up A BUNCH of Peas that Oliver had thrown all over the floor! She and I laughed the whole time and she high fived me at the end, like it was the greatest thing she had done all day!
Please understand as well that even amidst our search for rest often chaos ensues!! Its just part of the phase of life we are in, but we can keep seeking peace and rest and asking God to help us find it!
How would you encourage other moms of little ones to rest without making it another to do list or guilt thing?
I have been purposing to keep Mondays (as much as possible) a catch up day. That way on Sundays when I’m starting feel overwhelmed with the laundry and dishes and crumbs collecting, I first ask God to quiet my soul, and then I remind myself that I have Monday to, “get it done.”
There will always be things to “do”. I have to remind myself of the precious treasure our rest days are in this busy thing called life.
What is one activity that you recommend for Sabbath days?
Build a Knex creation :)
Loved hearing from you, Danielle. Thank you for letting us into life styles of the purposeful and peaceful.
Consider the way the Jewish command to rest one day out of seven might bring more peace into your life.
I think the attitude Danielle shares about approaching her Sabbath as a day of togetherness is very practical. Imagine who you could share your Sabbath days alongside? Your mother, your friend, your spouse, your child.
Consider how doing things with purpose and pacing follows in God’s footsteps, when he rested and noticed the world he had made in 6 days. Spend one day in seven noticing the world you’re creating.
Picking up peas can become playtime, pulling out all your books and noting their spines and titles, dipping in, letting yourself fall asleep can become worship. Imagine a day where cuddling becomes the end goal.
Any stories you’d like to share of your rest? I’m all ears.
Tags: family, food, motherhood, spiritual growth
Posted in family, Sabbath rest | Comments (11)
When Men Fall: Vulnerability as a Prerequisite for Heroes
January 25th, 2012 by Jonalyn
I believe that our beliefs about our humanity, our femininity and masculinity directly affect what we will do, how we will grow, how we will fail and how we will recover.
I’ve only 200 pages left of Daniel Walker’s “God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue” (these are iPhone pages, out of 2051). The book walked me alongside Walker as he infiltrated countless brothels around the world, including women trafficked in our own Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: modernsocialworker.blogspot.com
Each chapter ends with a page of helpful statistics that reveal how widespread this problem runs. Men who frequent brothels come from every walk and every appearance in life. However, he did say the stereotypical sex tourist was “overweight, unattractive and with few social skills.” What could this mean?
Is there a connection with us in the western world denigrating the unattractive and their search for validation. The cult of beauty doesn’t merely affect women. If men cannot find approval here, will some buy it elsewhere.
While actively fighting to record and amass evidence to incarcerate the pimps of these brothels, Walker also leads us to a place of pity. Henry David Thoreau,
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau
Are these men imprisioned by lust and greed or are they truly living every man’s fantasy? Walker talks about the enslavement and deprivation that the sex tourists create for themselves. This made me wonder, what if we rescued men from false ideas (e.g. conquering heroes deserve the fawning of many women, sexual conquest means men are sexy and wanted, sex with virgins leads to purity, multiple sexual partners of multiple ages, ethnicities multiple times prove they are really Men’s Men) as proactively and passionately as we rescued their victims from human trafficking.
This battle of ideas is precisely where Paul says the Evil One wages war. “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).
Walker showed me how the brothel was as much a part of God’s creation as a crystal cathedral, that God has not surrendered this ground to anyone, and that women and men working there were as much his image bearers as you or me. Walker adequately teaches that human trafficking isn’t the main or only problem, that this atrocity flows from poverty, sexism, gender inequality and addition. I believe sexism and gender inequality is something I can actively do something about today in how I write and think about and love men and women. This is why I co-run Soulation.
In the final chapters I saw Walker break. His story explains why and how, a story I will not tell you here.
Suffice it to say, I believe Walker makes it clear that his broken theory of gender (masculinity means men must have adventure to be happy, women cannot handle certain hard things about life) led to certain decisions (I can’t tell my wife how bad it is out here, it would be cruel to hurt her with this information) that paves the path for his double life and pushes him down a slippery road that forces him out of undercover missions.
He find he needs rescue just as women and children need rescue.
If you have any interest into the problem of forced prostitution, reading God in a Brothel will help you see the layers of reasons behind why women and children continue to be trafficked, raped, destroyed. The problem may begin with men’s demands for sex, but it doesn’t end there.
You may even find yourself part of the problem.
What I appreciated most was Walker’s honesty of the messiness of rescuing others. Especially when you think your own stance is mighty enough to lift others up.
Walker realized, rather late, that his “work inevitably and insidiously began to affect my attitude toward my own wife . . . perhaps most destructive was my growing inability to be completely vulnerable and open with Alice about all that I was seeing, doing and becoming.”
Bingo. Whenever men think invulnerability is key to masculinity the evil one has reared his head. This is a lie.
Neither male nor female can become appropriately human if they are trying to be invulnerable.
Walker’s work reminds me of another person’s. She is also engaged with rescuing children from human trafficking. A new friend, Melissa Hartwick, is moving to Nicaragua in a few days. As she explains,
I’m moving to a place where I will have to have a guard outside my house at night. I’m taking on the responsibility of 5 children, with another 10 or more likely to join me within the first year. I’m becoming a full time mother to teenagers at the age of 23. We won’t have hot water. We don’t even have a kitchen counter. We will live mainly off of rice and beans and water. We’ll be battling lice, ecoli, and parasites, and have very little medical care in the case of anything serious. I’ll be feeding these kids, giving them clothing, overseeing their schooling, and teaching them trades.
I’m leaving my entire family. My sister just had a baby. I’m giving up years of playing with my niece and time with my brother and his new wife. I won’t be able to come home to visit often at all, because I can’t just up and leave my children. Which means that I will only be able to see my friends about once every other year. I’ve also sold everything I have in order to help fund this home.
I had a dream job. I was a bridal gown designer, and I even had some of my dresses in local fashion shows and magazines. But I shut my company down in order to love these children. And yet, and I want you to really get this point: it does not seem like a sacrifice. Because these children are the most important thing in the world to me. I cry knowing that one of my daughters is being beaten, and I am not there to save her from it. I ache knowing that my children are going through pain, and I am not there to help them through it, to love them and hold them and tell them everything will be alright, that Papa God loves them so very much, and so do I. That they are part of a forever family now, and I will never leave them, just as their Papa God will never leave them.
What’s perhaps most interesting to me is that Melissa, like Daniel, longs to rescue as well, and yet, she doesn’t believe her sex is the stronger one. She grew up learning that women are naturally subordinate. While struggling against the idea only recently did she land on RubySlippers and other blogs helping her see another way to understand God’s idea for women. Just a few weeks ago Melissa wrote me for the first time,
I want to let you know about my life work, as I think it will be encouraging to you. 
In 23 days I am moving to Nicaragua to start and operate Casa de Gozo, a rescue center and home for orphaned or abandoned children and children at risk of sex trafficking and prostitution. Please keep me in your prayers, especially as I will be living there and running this by myself. Thanks so much, Jonalyn!
Melissa Hartwick
Melissa Hartwick
I began writing Melissa, sending her books to prepare her heart and mind and praying for her.
I see that Melissa’s desire to help is already accompanied by a believe in her own personal vulnerability. She isn’t winding her gender identity around her mission to save the Nicaraguan children. Instead, she’s giving up her trappings of identity, her career and her family, her comforts and her American future to slip her hand into Jesus’ hand and follow. I pray she will not break like Daniel Walker.
But, if she does, I know the God of the broken remains near. And that this God is ready to use the broken (God Wants the Broken) of this world. The story isn’t over for Daniel Walker, nor for Melissa Hartwick, nor for you or for me.
Daniel Walker got it right, his mission was about Rescue: men, women, children. We need salvation, not by another human, but but a Being great enough to understand our human weakness and great enough to pull us up.
Tags: feminin/masculin-ity, Gender Studies, loving Jesus, motherhood, reviews, sex, vulnerability
Posted in gender roles, God in a Brothel | Comments (8)
How to Spot . . . and How to Treat a Chauvinist
January 18th, 2012 by Jonalyn
I thought they were my friends, they were strong, attractive, Spanish guys. We were in the same honors math classes together.
Photo credit: redbookmag.com
I wore a powder blue fitted dress with white patent leather pumps. The heels were carved of stacked wood, but the dress hit the 4″ above the knee rule.
That day those men started talking.
In Spanish.
About my legs.
Having taken French I wasn’t exactly sure what they were saying.
But the way they said it.
The tone, the eyes, the elbowing.
I knew even before the translation.
The dress changed the way they saw me. And I had worn it, not to be eye-candy, but because I felt delicious in those colors.
Chauvinism in my high school?
Or was is simply appreciation of my legs?
What is a Chauvinist?
Photo credit: digitalmusicinsider.com
According to The American Heritage Dictionary (my fav) chauvinism is “Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s own gender, group, or kind”.
Prejudiced belief, that means beliefs untried with the people of this world.
I’ve met chauvinists in church green rooms after a sermon. I’ve shared a stage with them. I’ve worked for them, lived with them, shared meals with them and even dated them. They don’t all look like Dwight Schrute or talk like Michael Scott or score like Jack Donaghy.
Some of the men I’ve loved the most are chauvinists. They assume things that blow their cover.
They eat first.
They are exempt from serving someone outside their gender, group, class.
They are in charge, no matter what the subject, place or need of the moment.
They are top dog.
Three Ingredients in Chauvinists
If you want a quick test for the first tell-tale sign of a chauvinist, look for lack of empathy.
The second is their drive. Chauvinist are driven by the dual engine of immaturity and insecurity.
Take my friend, Saul, for example (don’t worry, that’s not his real name). When we get together, he assumes everyone wants to hear his stories. He rarely asks others for their opinion, nor does he ask them about their experiences. And he cannot listen without spring-boarding, using my example to tell a larger, louder, longer story.
Saul never got a chance to grieve some very damaging events in his teen years. He is emotionally immature. So in some ways after dinner with him, I feel like I’ve had dinner with a junior higher. I feel like I’ve served him, but he’s assumed he entertained me all evening.
His Me Monster behavior indicates, also, that he cannot tolerate competition or someone else gaining control.
Saul’s life is a model example of fallen masculinity, the third aspect and philosophical foundation for male chauvinism.
The code of fallen masculinity says that a “real man” will out-compete others, out control others and finally (and most significantly) have a steady disdain for women. For more see, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen’s My Brother’s Keeper.
If a man disdains a woman (just as if a woman disdains a man) he will not come right out and state it. Rather, he will show you, by small freighted statements.
Photo credit: blog.amigram.com
Let me give you some examples.
“You throw like a girl.” A clear example of disdain for women, letting a novice female arm insult a boy’s desire to learn. Let’s just say you throw poorly, as we all have to learn.
“Sissy, pansy, pussy.” All of which use slang aspects of women to insult a man.
“Dumb blondes.” Are they ever thinking of a guy with yellow hair?
“Woman drivers.” Not usually a compliment.
“Women can’t publicly preach (or lead, or direct, or manage) men. They are distracting (or too emotional, or weak, or irrational, or just plain unfit). If you think, as I did, that the Bible is clear about this and a woman’s role, compare Judges 4:4, 2 Chron 34:22 with 2 Tim 2:12-15. For more see my essay with Dale, Unmuted.
“Putting on a little weight there, aren’t you?” to a pregnant woman. How could you ever mistake a woman’s new life in her womb for extra cellulite?
“My wife could never be the main bread winner.” This one needs follow-up. Why?
“I bring home the bacon, I don’t cook it.”
“Gotta check with the wife.” This one is subtle disrespect, as it includes a statement of asking permission, but all while reducing the personhood of one’s spouse. Another version, “The woman can’t get out her in time.”
“You have all day to vacuum the living room. Don’t do it now while I’m in here.” I heard this statement this last week
“Women have roles.” Though a non-chauvinist could say this, it is less common. I find it most interesting that it is often men commanding women at large to get back into the role God ordained for them (insecurity over what will happen if a woman is in charge of . . . a man?!). Even if Scripture mandated roles (something I no longer see) it would be women’s responsibility before God to find that place, not a man’s to put her there. Also, interesting that the opposite is less common, “Men have roles!”
“Sorry, honey, but this might be just an area you have to submit to me.” Ignoring Ephesians 5:21.
“Since Paul says the marriage bed is undefiled and I am the head of this home, my sexual gratification should be your number one priority. And I want this . . .” Refusing to see the context of the marriage bed being undefiled (for more see Heb 13:4). Refusing to understand that head is a metaphor literally turned on its head in Eph. 5, to mean first of all service, giving up all rights, including the right to live (“laying down his life” Eph 5:25 and 28).
and my personal favorite,
“God made men more rational, therefore He asked men to have the tie-breaking vote, to make all final decisions in the home.” What root grows this statement? Some might say it’s the natural outworking of submission or headship from the New Testament. I disagree, as the healthiest husbands I know do not pull the submission card, nor state how they make final decisions. Rather healthy marriages in practice look like two equals working out of their giftedness, not playing their prescribed gender roles. (for more on this please see Unmuted: The Welcome Colors of a Woman’s Voice).
Think these statements are outdated?
I’ve heard them all in the last 10 years.
Can you tell how each of the above statements are motivated by lack of empathy, insecurity, immaturity and fallen masculinity? For more on one of the roots for male domination of women see the book or my review When a Man You Love is Abused, by Cecil Murphey.
If you’d like more elaboration or explanation of any statements in this list (e.g. How exactly is is chauvinistic to think that the man should make all final decisions?), please ask in the comments.
Not all Chauvinists are Men
Here’s the most important part of this post: you and I are in as much danger of chauvinism as any white male. Why?
First, women are a (small or large?) part of keeping chauvinists enabled, empowered and cheered forward simply by believing that men are inherently better.
Often, it’s because we actually believe there is nothing so magnificent or noble as a male. Part of this is good, think of the old marriage vow “with my body I thee worship.” But another part is not good . . . I think of Kate Winslet’s character’s comment to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the excellent book and movie, Revolutionary Road.
Photo credit: static.moviefanatic.com
“Don’t you know what you are?” Winslet.
“What?” DiCapprio.
“You’re the most beautiful thing in all the world . . . a man.” Winslet.
Now I’m for mutual admiration and desire in marriage, but a man is not the crown of creation and neither is the woman. If you want a crown of creation, it’s the two working together (Gen 2:23-25).
And if you believe women are overall better human beings just by virtue of their femaleness, you are also a chauvinist… a female chauvinist. I’ve seen it in church circles when men or women claim to be more spiritual, more moral, more enlightened, or in any other ways superior in worth to a man. Want some female chauvinist statements? ask me.
How to Treat a Chauvinist
How do you treat a child who is immature, insecure and wounded?
You love her. You listen, you wait and you empathize with her world. Until you find her open to hearing from you. Unless she is your student or child, you do not blast into her world with statements like “You are an immature, insecure mess!”
How do you treat a full grown man who is immature, insecure and wounded?
The exact same way.
I’ve bit my tongue more than once when grown men with beards and degrees and power tip their chauvinistic cards.
I recall a crowded room dominated by testosterone where I met a well-traveled apologist. I invited him to engage with me about the subject of Christian feminist with the question,”How does that argument line up with what Christian feminists believe?” The room quieted.
“Christian feminists?” he snorted. “They don’t exist.”
I smiled briefly and went back to the buffet to calm down. I knew what I wanted to say,
“I beg your pardon, you’re speaking to one.”
But, I don’t think that was the way to win him. He certainly wasn’t looking for relief from his misconception, neither were the other men in that room.
Instead, I worked with respect and peace on the panel next to him. I disagreed about some of the ways he answered the theological questions and I shared them.
But I did not disarm him of his view that Christian feminists don’t exist.
Jesus said it well, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
How do we keep from chauvinism ourselves? How do we foster empathy and ward off insecurity, immaturity, the fallen male code?
That’s for another post, for I can say right now . . .
If you can battle your insecurity with courageous voyaging into your soul . . . (for instance, discover what keeps you from having an open mind in certain areas)
If you can discover the places you are not yet an adult (I recommend Changes That Heal by Cloud and Townsend and the Holy Spirit for that journey) . . .
If you can cultivate empathy so that you can understand the root of chauvinism, then . . .
you are living worthy of being called a child of the Most High. You are refusing to be a clashing cymbal, rather . . .
you are a fragrance of the kingdom that has no end, where Truth Slips her hands through Beauty’s arm and Goodness graces every person, ever race, every gender.
Postscript . . . Chauvinism is NOT the Same as Chivalry
Photo credit: karenswhimsy.com
Because I have a deep concern to love the men in my life, because I’m also wary of being called a flaming femi-Nazi, I want to be clear about a few things that are NOT chauvinistic.
It is not chauvinistic to open a door for a woman, just as it’s not chauvinistic for a woman to bandage a man’s sliced arm. This is what it looks like to use our strengths to serve the opposite sex.
And it’s sexy and cool and utterly fitted to this fallen world where we need each other. We are not independent one from the other, as Paul said, “However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (1 Cor 11:11).
When the Spanish guys in my high school complimented my legs I don’t think they were being chauvinists, not yet. It began when they began referring to me by “Legs,” when I stopped being a peer with them and went to being an object for them.
Chauvinism is the enemy of friendship, love, servanthood.
So when L on our construction site asks me if I need help along the icy hill, I accept it and appreciate him, knowing he is using his awareness and strength to help me out.
Helping those outside of our gender, group or kind is not chauvinism, rather its the opposite.
Tags: feminin/masculin-ity, Gender Studies, loving Jesus, marriage, prejudice
Posted in gender roles | Comments (45)
New Year Wantings & Co-Parenting Safely Through Rapids
January 11th, 2012 by Jonalyn
Dale doesn’t think new year resolutions are all they’re cracked up to be.
I tend to disagree, mainly because I’m a lover of opportunities to change in grandiose ways, ways I can write about and check up on. Dale is a changer in bits and pieces, he’s also big on changing when the need arises. As he says, “I’m not waiting until a new year to change something.”
And he hasn’t. A few weeks back we struggled to find a place for us both to feel like we weren’t drowning (Mercy For Christmas). I felt annoyed and terse and unappreciated. I know he felt the same.
We were working hard, but often not wing-to-wing, more like two whirling tops. Nothing like this morning when I looked up from my laptop and say to him, “I can’t believe how many emails I still have to just read,” putting my cold hands on my flushed face.
He pauses long enough to cool the smoke from his racing fingers on my laptop and looks back at me, “Take them one by one.” I smile and feel known and like he’s in this with me. I feel togetherness as I dive back into the inbox.
We’ve found a new way to co-parent, a way to find time when we need it, a life-giving change.
Dale decided to give up his writing, any creative writing, any book ideas, any memoir hopes. He’s pulled them all off the stove because he couldn’t, in his words, “Do it all.”
How many men can say that?
I don’t know.
But I was relieved to know Dale understood he dilemma that so many women face. The 2:3 ratio.
You can have 2 of the 3: a husband, kids, a career.
You can have a husband and a career, but not kids, not well-loved ones.
You can have a career and kids, but no husband, not a happy one.
You can have a husband and kids, but not a career, not a good one.
But not all three. Not if you’re a woman.
Of course, that’s an overstatement, but does it resonate with any of you?
I sure get it.
Dale’s decided to take a hit in his career so he can be more present with Finn.
And you know what? Just a few breaks mean a world of difference for me, for Finn, for him. I’ve even begun brainstorming ways I can watch Finn longer so Dale can get back to writing. But we will see.
I can’t do it all, either.
We’ve both agreed that we don’t want to see Finn as time punched into a chore we dread. Finn is not time we waste or time we have to just grit our teeth and get through to get back to Soulation. Finn will pick that up, and he’ll understand that he’s not as attractive or interesting or important.
And we don’t believe that.
So, for now, Dale is waiting on his writing. As the resident true artist in our house (yes, I’m an artist, too, but I don’t have the artistic temperament ), he needs lengthy bits of time to write.
It was hard for me to watch a man I know is a gifted writer put that aside. He will work managing Soulation, writing emails, managing writers and video ideas.
And he will work alongside me, continuing to make time for me to write in my fits and starts (like this morning).
For now, we’ve found a boat to carry us through another rapid. It’s safe and dry and cozy–that’s a nice word for small.
And, for now, we’re smiling into each other’s eyes, watching the water and peeps rush by.
We’re not as fast, but we’re together.
New Year Wantings
This year, I’m wanting to read weekday nights and watch fun things like Mad Men weekend nights. Last year’s “Year of the Book” lit up my hunger for reading again. I’m not letting it go. It’s too wonderful.
I’m wanting to watercolor once a week. I will not feel bad about not doing more.
I want to learn Spanish and talk more with Finn in Spanish.
I’m wanting to practice my Spanish with my sister (thank you, Abby!) each week on the phone.
I’m wanting to save energy so at night I can talk and listen and make love to Dale.
I’m wanting to leave my house a little messier and leave those I love a little more peaceful.
God give me my all my wants and save me from them, too.
10 Year Anniversary at Huntington Beach - see Finn's foot?
Tags: envy, family, feminin/masculin-ity, Gender Studies, marriage, motherhood, spiritual growth
Posted in family, gender roles, love | Comments (6)
