Thank you for sharing your thoughts on grieving, living in between denial and resignation. Did you know that Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics (the staple text for Virtue Theory) says that every virtue is the golden mean between two extremes. For instance, courage is the golden mean between cowardice and hubris. I wonder if “acceptance/awareness” or “lucid contentment” is the virtue between denial and resignation. I write “lucid” because I fear too many “Christians” are content without any awareness.

Nice observations about women in ministry and fashion. That may needs it’s one post soon.

Regarding your question in the Unmuted article suffice it to say that we’re in the process of revising and updating this article to reflect our more recent views. Glad you read so closely, you’re keeping us on our toes!

I thought I’d throw a question out there, though off-topic. I read most of Dale and your article on allowing women to speak. The comment that you are not wanting to change the traditional role of male pastors confused me. Perhaps partially b/c I know you are egal, it seemed I could read that section more than one way, and this may have been a matter of diplomacy. Are you saying you do not want to change any particular church or denomination in regard to their views, that you are not demanding a woman in the pulpit where a man is doing well, or that you agree w/ the male pastor view and do not want to see women as senior pastors and would rather only see them as auxiliary speakers?

Feel free not to touch that one in this thread if too off-topic.

Deb

You might find the latest post at the CBE blog scroll interesting on this front….

As for grieving, I suppose I’ve done it a lot and gradually. It helped once I had specific diagnoses, which took awhile. But I’m not putting that old body in the grave. I’ve been sick ever since I was wrapping up college and have not been able to do any of the things God has called me to do, as illness has prohibited even the basic normal life. I can write some but none of the other things that He’s spoken to me about since I was 4 yrs old. So I am anticipating healing. Living in the limbo, neither in denial nor resignation is admittedly tricky.

Btw, having lived in the NE, the midwest, and the mid-South, I would not say that the look is overly regionally specific. Now there are some things, like the Tammy Faye Baker look that may be specific to a certain belief system w/in Christianity. And some denominations show a huge difference according to location, it seems. But I find plenty of it everywhere and diversions from it where you might not expect. (Both of the churches I’ve been involved in here in Tenn. have very simple pastor’s wives, though they are the rarity in town. Most of the churches I’ve been involved in up north have spiffy-polished leading women, though they may not represent the region as a whole. A couple had male-suits-in-a-different-color women playing it safe and respectable in an arena that demands so much of them. One has a pastor’s wife whom I’ve routinely found highly distracting b/c her clothing seems to drip sex appeal to my eyes; I’ve not said anything about it to any congregant but might have said something to her if I knew her well.)

Blessings,
Deb