Sanford anthropologist, Tanya Luhrmann, author of When God Talks Back, explained in a recent Christianity Today article “Why Women Hear from God more than Men Do.”

Why?

First, women pray more.  According to the 2008 Pew and Religious Landscape surgery 2/3 of women pray daily compared to less than 1/2 of men.

Combing frequency this frequency with one major skill: women are more comfortable using their imaginations.  Imagination is a vital soul muscle for connecting with any immaterial substance be it Harry Potter, your desire for a long-term marriage, your love of good ideas, the number seven (you cannot touch the number seven, only it’s symbol in perhaps a sponge letter in your son’s bathtub set) and, of course, God.

I can already hear the atheist’s response. So women are better at making things up and pretending their real? Great, just great.

At patheos blog “Love, Joy, Feminism” atheist Libby Anne writes about “The Psychology of God” and suggests that “hearing from God” is something Christians train themselves to do. And since you can also train yourself to hear a unicorn speak to you, why would this be evidence for God?

Wishful thinking, enough scripture, enough imagination and you will “hear” from God, too. Would you like some Kool-aid with that?

Interestingly enough, Libby Anne’s post was based on Tanya Luhrmann’s research, the same author of the Christianity Today post quoted above.

Same data, differential conclusions. Time to go to the source.

At Stanford’s University site, Luhrmann’s works is featured in an article titled, “How Does God Become Real to People?” where I found “Luhrmann said her research does not intend to prove or disprove the existence of God.”

Luhrmann believes listening to Scripture and training your spirit to detect God’s voice is a form of cultivation. It reminds me of the cultivated skill of listening for my husband’s quieter voice in a large group.

The training doesn’t prove I’m making him up. It does mean, however, that not everyone can hear his voice.

Since ninety-five percent of Americans believe in God, I want to leave the argument that hearing from God is make-believe (since it’s a minority view–ask me more in comments if you’re interested) and turn to the issue of experiencing God.

In Rachel Held Evan’s interview with Ask a Pagan, I found Jason Mankey‘s response indicative of many Americans.

As a spiritual person, I’m looking to connect with deity.  I very rarely felt connected to deity sitting in a pew listening to someone talk about God. I wanted to experience God.  I practice Wicca (one of several Modern Paganisms), and Wicca’s ritual framework allows me to have that experience with deity that I often felt was missing as a Christian.  There’s not a series of complicated rules separating me from the divine; it’s right there waiting for me anytime I want to experience it.  I felt complete and whole the first time I prayed to The Goddess.  

I can see how The Goddess felt more intimate (more in Ruby Slippers’ chapter “Finding the Feminine in the Sacred”).

I can also understand how connection with God is vital to a spiritual life.

Luhrmann explains, “I actually think there’s good evidence that having this kind of intimate relationship with God is good for you.”

I’m inclined to agree.

God talked with his people throughout Scripture (Gen. 12:1-3, Gen. 16:8, Act 9:10-16), I believe he can do the same even now.

How to Have Conversations With God

I haven’t always conversed with God. I used to just give God my laundry list.

Heal, help, save, restore, and I praise you for x,y,z. Amen.

A few years ago I began taking walks, Frank Laubach style, with God.

Laubach, a missionary to the Philippines learned to practice talking to God and then using his own voice to repeat what he thought God was saying in response. He explains,

I have just returned from a walk alone, a walk so wonderful that I feel like reducing it to a universal rule, that all people ought to take a walk every evening all alone where they can talk aloud without being heard by anyone, and that during this entire walk they all ought to talk with God, allowing Him to use their tongue to talk back–and letting God do most of the talking (Letters by a Modern Mystic, 41).

Laubach let God do the talking with his tongue.  Does it sound freaky?

It’s not possession.

It’s not losing consciousness.

It’s simply trying to hear God as best we can.

You listen by talking.

The things you might hear are not prophecy on par with the inspired Word of God, rather what you get is an experience of

1. asking God into your life, to contact you where you are and
2. hearing something tangible to analyze and compare with Scripture.

But isn’t this mysticism and sort of weird? you might ask.

Yes, it is weird, I’ll admit, if by weird you mean uncommon.

And yes, it is mysticism if you mean . . .

read the rest at Positively Human where I blog with other Soulation writers on apologetics and spiritual formation.

p.s. It’s worth clicking over, if just for the comments.

Apologists have earned a reputation for being obnoxious know-it-alls.

I should know. I am an apologist.

Apologetics can easily become the Christian sport where you watch your team fight and hopefully smear the rival.

So why would women aspire to become apologists?  Female apologists are curiosities, somewhat like female wrestlers.

Photo credit: news.3yen.com/2010-10-04/female-sumo-not-as-bad-as-you-might-think/

Female: apologist?

What the what?

What is Apologetics?

For the record, an apologist is a person who defends something. I’ve sat next to Vegan apologists and rode horseback with fashion apologists.  You probably sleep with someone who is an apologist over an issue you’ve privately vowed to never believe. My husband has been a faithful apologist of the beneficial pleasures of video gaming. Bless his heart.

My son, age two, in an apologist for putting all iPhones into “Pocket!” as he instructed me at the park this morning.

We all have things we want to defend, ideas we think are better for all people, for all times, in all places. And we can all defend our beliefs humility or like WWF wrestlers.

But apologetics is about more than defending God’s existence or the Trinity. 

Is abortion a viable option for a Christian?

Photo credit: mercyministriesnews.com

Does Jesus offer something that Buddha does not?

What if you’re a Christian and gay?

Does God value a woman’s voice as much as a man’s?

Is it wrong to be child-free?

Is sex before marriage really all that wrong?

Apologetics questions, all of them.

Culturally speaking I think a female apologist is geared for more potency in this polarized world.

Female apologists can twine the virtues of humility and love in ways many male apologists are missing. We see the need of knowing an atheist before we blast their ideas out of the water.

One example: A woman who has faced, or experienced an abortion is much more persuasive, apologetically, to talk about abortion’s unique issues, to argue for the enormous cost and value of a fetus.

The Hook that Pulled Me In

I didn’t grow up wanting to be an apologist. I grew up longing to be a librarian (the thought of all those books still makes my heart skip). I’m sure my gender played a role in keeping me from apologetics, or pastoring for that matter.

But I got sucked in senior year of high school, when I left my private high school of 500 to become a missionary to the big bad public high school of 2000.  I was sort of crazy for Jesus. But I was not crazy about the confrontations I faced: with the atheist guy in my AP English class or the girl who partied all weekend while making God look outdated.

I remembered them mocking the Bible together.

What did Jesus have to do with them?

That’s when I met Frank Pastore and J.P. Moreland (they were teaching local classes) and I learned that a whole branch of knowledge was devoted to understanding and defending Christianity. I learned of Dorothy L. Sayers and heard Dr. Eleanor Stump. I decided to get my Masters in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. I learned that it was a religious philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe, who gave C.S. Lewis a run for his money.  I realized Biblical woman defended the God of Israel and paved the way for women like me, women like the daughters of Zelophedad, reluctant apologists like Naomi in the book of Ruth, Esther convincing the King of the Persian empire to spare the Jews, the Samaritan woman at the well convincing her entire village to come hear Jesus (John 4:39-42).

Women: Naturally Faithful?

I also learned that, as a female, my concerns were sometimes different than my profs and colleagues.  I attended seminary where women made up less than 2% of the graduating class. Not only did I never wait in line for the bathroom, but when I brought up apologetic issues that interested me (e.g. Are women’s souls different from men’s souls?) I got raised eyebrows, but no distinct guidance.  I felt like no one else was studying gendered souls or comparing the way Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad treated women.*

I found a major reason: people assume Christian apologists are like WWF wrestlers–they’re mostly male.

Photo credit: bellarminenews.com/?p=639

There’s a pesky rumor circulating among religions folks, a myth that women are more spiritually sensitive and therefore don’t really want or need intellectual reasons for the Christian faith.  ”Women are just naturally full of faith, they’ll naturally believe in God.”

Even though I’m itching to delve into this myth, let me merely give two examples.

First, the majority of the churchgoers, Bible study attenders and church volunteers are women (Barna Group, 2010). But, as Jim Henderson has pointed out in The Resignation of Eve: What if Adams’s Rib is No Longer Willing to be the Church’s Backbone? if women do not hear compelling, culturally relevant, valid reasons to attend church, they will stop attending.

Second, there as just as many atheistic women as there are atheistic men.  Why?

Women find doubts with the Christian story as much as men.  Want proof? Check out WhyiLeftChristianity‘s post “Female Atheist Bloggers Who Rock My World“ or cruise through the female bloggers at the Religious Portals, Patheos.com.

Wanted: Female Apologists

Since 1982, females have outpaced males in college graduation (Better Grades and Greater Incentives Explain why Women Outpace Men in College Degrees). While women’s academic achievements have not translated into equal wages or obliterating the glass ceiling, women are graduating from college in higher numbers and with better grades than men (New York Times, 2006). Women are using their newfound power in socially and morally significant ways (Women over 50 initiate divorce in higher numbers than men Wall Street Journal, 2012).

In my experience, the best cultural apologists are women.  (The reasons are worth another post entirely, but you can just look at  Ruby Slippers, Chapter 5 for some researched ideas on women’s uniqueness).  And since many female apologists for other religions were once Christians I cannot overstate the need for women to consider Peter’s beckoning to defend the faith (1 Peter 3:15).

Take Vyckie Garrison, a one-time Quiverfull follower, now single mother of seven who now runs No Longer Quivering. Garrison explained in a June 2011 interview with Politics USA,

My life as a devoted fundamentalist Believer had become a living hell of physical, mental and spiritual abuse. For all our efforts to know God, to love Him, discern His will and live out His precepts for a Godly home according to the Holy Bible, our family was going crazy. We hated ourselves and we hated each other and we all wanted to die . . . I have met dozens of women who have left, or are in the process of leaving, the Quiverfull lifestyle. Not all become atheists, but none escape without serious modification of their faith.

I do not recommend this book

Ms. Garrison is a powerful atheist who tweets to 13,000 followers @NoQuivering and writes extensively with a team of women at NoLongerQuivering.com (250,000 views per month). Her conclusions about the place of Christian teachings have found her more convinced that God does not exist than he does and is good.

Thousands of intelligent females argue daily for everything from atheism to Islam without hearing an articulate reason to believe otherwise.  We need more women on the cultural laywoman level (check out the hopeful list of women in philosophy of religion) dedicating their minds to understanding the cultural persuasiveness of non-Christian arguments so we can “always be ready to give an answer (Greek apologia) for the hope that is in us” (1 Peter 3:15).

We need women who can understand and articulate what Jesus thinks about N.O.W., about Buddhist mums who seem to offer more compassion that Christians, about Fifty Shades of Gray (which I will be blogging about soon). We need women to speak about a better way to educate youth groups about sexuality than “men are animals about sex and women need to be modest.”  We need women to weigh in on why and what to do about Christianity’s tendency to both rip families apart and mend them together (Are You Teaching Her About Jesus?)

As female apologist Mary Jo Sharp explained in my recent interview, “We need philosophically and theologically sound women to debate and challenge organizations that seem to presuppose all women should naturally be in agreement with their philosophy and actions.”

In 2010 Sharp debated a Muslim women in a Toronto mosque where both men and women were allowed to attend.  This was a rare opportunity.  Muslim women are often prohibited from dialog with men outside their family or mosque.  ”Christian apologetics,” Sharp explained, “will need women skilled in Islamic apologetics to speak with Muslim women, to go where Christian men cannot.”

The best way I’ve built my faith is to face some of the best arguments non-Christians can offer.  Anyone can face the opposing ideas if they go in prepared. I suggest reading one Christian apologetic book (suggestions below). Keep a trained apologist site at your fingertips to look up your questions and begin finding how God really does want us to love him with all our minds (Matt 22:37), that God wants childlike humility (not childlike faith) but grown-up minds.

Ingredients of an Apologist

What are the questions you have?  Most often the things that bug you are bugging a lot of people.

Consider that someone may have made your question their reason for abandoning the Christian faith.  We need your particular curiosity to find the answer that satisfies you. You may find in your asking that some answers do not come with a swift answer. As Rachel Held Evans gently explains, “I was pretty confident that I knew exactly what atheists and humanists and Buddhist believed… without ever having met any atheists or humanists or Buddhists in person.”

Women have this wonderful apologetic edge because we tend to more willingly launch into relationship with someone we may not agree with, if only to walk in their shoes, to see how their worldview helps them answer their heart’s cry.

Women, we need you in this work!

Want some resources to begin? A couple of primers on apologetics:

Living with Questions by Dale Fincher (yes, my husband) a most accessible, conversational approach to apologetics I’ve read.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis a practical, philosophical guide to talking about from  objective morality, God’s existence, Jesus’ resurrection.

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher. I know, another plug, but in this book you’ll find the masculine and feminine, the apologetic and the counselor come together to offer tools to talk about faith.

Want to ask a hard question? Begin with me tonight as Ask LIVE! a one-one-one chatroom where you can ask any question you like.  

Or begin in the comments below

Or click into My Faith Hurdle  a compassionate, theologically sound, safe place to begin asking any faith question.

The invisibility of female apologists in the culture at large needs to end. And we can change that right here.

* I’ve since written about them formally (Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home) and informally (www.rubyslippers.org).

Photo credit: cook think.com

Talking about God is more like slicing carrots than cooking them. You’ve got to be careful with that knife and the more time you take the better.

Pressure does great things for cooking carrots and building faith, but it does nothing for sharing it.

Pressure Free

If we’re pressured for time, friends or approval, we won’t share good news like Jesus did. Consider that Jesus’ good news is on the same level as a marriage announcement (Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a wedding supper in Matthew 22). A wedding invitation isn’t something you share under pressure or with everyone. Good news ought to be for a moment when you have time to beam and explain.

Jesus shared his faith in God carefully, cleverly and practically. Remember Jesus’ refrain, “He who has ears to hear” (Matthew 8:18)?  He knew some people wouldn’t get it.  When you share your faith release the pressurized feeling that God is biting his nails waiting on you to get it right.

Expect Different Soils

Jesus shared carefully, often hiding his end game (John 2:24-25). He never allowed himself to be pressured (Matt 13:58), or induced to jump hoops (Matt 19:16-17). Jesus never felt he had missed a disciple quota, though his numbers dropped dangerously low (John 6:60-64).  Jesus knew that people with rocky, thorny and, dare I say, organic hearts, walked through every audience (Matt 13).

Jesus knew his words would create barren fields with withered seedlings.  Jesus knew that some eager, fragile sprouts would be plucked by ravens.  Jesus expected God’s good news to be discarded (Matt 13, Mark 4, Luke 8).

We cannot expect more than God expects.

Tina Fey Practicality

In her memoir, Bossypants, Tina Fey explains ,“Studying improvisation literally changed my life. It set me on a career path toward Saturday Night Live. It changed the way I look at the world, and it’s where I met my husband. What has your cult done for you lately?” (p 82).

Most people we meet come from Fey’s perspective.  To talk with them we must move into the meaning of “Jesus died for my sins so I could go to heaven.”  While true, this phrase no longer sounds real or even practical to America. What do your friends miss about Jesus that you understand?

With moms I talk about the way Jesus gave me courage to advocate for my son in the ICU. I mention the specific verse in Psalms that got me through the night of fear.

With teens and college students, I share that Jesus gave me a reason to not have sex with my fiancé.  That culturally bizarre “saving my virginity” actually gave me the chutzpah and clear conscience to break off one engagement and have a chance at a happy marriage.

With strangers who care about spirituality but not religion, I share specific Christian practices that make my life richer.

With Buddhists, for instance, I talk about the virtue of humility and how some spiritual paths produce humility more naturally. I might explain how a higher being naturally builds my humility (he is greater than I) or mention how God humbled himself (Phil. 2).

Recently I told a friend I’d pray for her.

“Thanks for that,” she said, “I can use all the good thoughts I can get.”

Wincing, I realized “prayer” just meant positive energy to her.

Prayer throughout Scripture includes labor and silence, wondering and engagement with a person who sees the beginning and end, who loves with kindness and empathy and who knows how to weave darkness into light.

So I took the chance to explain to my friend I meant when I said, “pray for you.” In realizing I was offering more than good thoughts she thanked me more sincerely.  Next time I saw her I asked her about the situation. She knew my prayer meant something different.

Where has Jesus given you a tip or a motivation, a comfort or a direction that makes a difference in your today?

From one introvert who prefers talking about new recipes and her son to relying on her philosophy of religion degree, let me be completely frank – sharing good news is as simple and complex as being honest about God.

The line is endless, the cashier bewildered, the woman ahead of me writes a check and I’m late to pick up my son.

Where does Jesus’ gospel shimmer?

We can be as clever and careful as Jesus’ “Can I have a drink?’.  He is the best example, full of questions, ready to stop and listen.

I step up and watch the cashier sigh and begin scanning with her left hand.

“How are you today?” she asks attempting a full smile.

I wait until she looks up and say, “You’re pretty popular today.”

“Thank you for your patience,” she replies, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Long day?” I ask.

“I just got here,” she says. That’s when I notice the ace bandage around her wrist.

“What happened?”

How does Jesus speak to the woman behind the conveyor belt who is alone in the heat of the day, thirsty for living water?

To read more, watch Dale and I share about more conversations, or buy Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk  and download the free discussion guide by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher.

Have you found it difficult to talk to others about your faith?

Dale and I realized we needed to think harder and write more on this subject. A few years I authored “Boutique Religion” a Fledge series (spiritual formation articles on how to be Positively Human) with tips on communicating Jesus’ message to those we know and love who have created their own spirituality. I’m sure you can think of people like this, those who’ve added daubs from each religion to fit their personal style.

The series was a hit, so much so that we wrote our first book together, Coffee Shop Conversations (Zondervan, 2010) out of it’s success and interest. Finn was born two months before it released.  Here we sit in our cabin in January, recording the audio version while Finn listens comfortably from inside my womb.  I wonder how much he will remember?

Last Saturday our friend and colleague in writing (see Breakfast Reading), Brandon Hoops wrote a review, originally posted at Jesus Creed, Scott McNight’s comprehensive blog on “exploring the significance of the Jesus and the Orthodox faith for the 21st Century.”

Some of my favorite highlights from his review . . .

In today’s world, as in Jesus’ day, one of the most effective ways of interacting with people about the gospel is through relational dialogue — outside of the church’s walls, between Sunday’s, among the daily, commonplace and ordinary. 

The challenge, I’ve learned after six years of campus ministry, is this path is untidy, it takes time, and Christians prefer gospel-manufacturing (streamlined programs and cookie-cutter souls) to gospel-gardening with its potential for dirt and weeds. 

That’s why I appreciate Dale and Jonalyn Fincher. They aren’t interested in an evangelistic easy button or the pressures of prescription. As I read their book Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, I didn’t feel confined to a box or stuck with some techniques for more “effective evangelism.” They show that freedom and originality, especially in everyday conversations, may be our greatest assets in going and making disciples. Not only that, they encourage us to get to know our neighbors beyond their labels, showing the beauty of getting into the mess of people’s lives and wrestling with their questions.

 At one point they say, “We hope you will customize your conversations to the unique gifts God has forged in your soul.”

If anything, the Finchers desire to free up our unique humanness to freely love and care and tend to others in their humanness.

It happens every year. Someone will come around to our church for a month or so and then they disappear. When this person stops showing up to Sunday services or small group meetings, I amazed at how easily we lose interest in our relationship with them. We think getting them to our services is sufficient, that if they leave, they must not be interested. 

The problem, say the Finchers, is, “We often masquerade as loving people, but behind our masks we avoid plunging headlong into the grit of each other’s lives.” 

On Sundays, we are comfortable. We know the language, and we know what to expect. But between Sundays, it’s different. We spend time with people who are not following Jesus as we have been. They’re spiritual designers and, “since church authority and traditional church attendance no longer claim people’s loyalty,” they have any number of misconceptions about Christianity. We can’t anticipate what will be said to us or happen to us with these people. The connections points and conversations are different. Like the other day on campus when I heard some students in our union talking about “those crazy Christian apocalyptic people.”

Probably the most notable chapter in Coffee Shop Conversations is the one entitled, “Loving discourse,” in which they give seven manners of loving discourse.

1. Respect one another
2. Step into their shoes
3. Wrestle on your own
4. Never judge a thing by its abuse
5. Update your opinions of others
6. Share your personal experience
7. Allow others to remained unconvinced

With these manners, the Finchers have already given us some “rules” to practice at home. Making the “rules” personal helps us bring Jesus into our own neighborhoods without being pushy or close-minded and cultivates empathy and space for our neighbors to struggle and think. Like the farmer who sows seed and then steps back, we tend to the plant’s needs with water, fertilizer and pruning. We don’t impose our timeframe. We are patient, using these manners to “preserve friendships and allow them to grow.”

The youth have been a problem in my hometown for years. Crime. Gangs. Drugs. The list goes on. A few years ago, the mayor called the city’s spiritual leaders together to talk through the issues. A local pastor invited me along. Afterwards, I was approached a television reporter. He asked me one question, “Will this succeed?” The question reminded me how easily we strive for tangible things to hold up and say, “Look this is working.” 

It’s no different with evangelism. We like to point to success stories. We don’t like to wait 20 years. That seems like too long. That doesn’t seem like successful evangelism.

 The Finchers pack their book with countless examples of conversations they’ve had over the years, some good and some bad. What’s refreshing about all these stories is that they’re not shared as trophies to brag about. They don’t say, “Hey, look at how I led this person to Jesus.”

 As the Finchers said, “Let us tell you straightaway: both of us have made the gospel look ridiculous or paltry, either with our words or our actions. Yet Jesus still uses us, and we’re learning as we go. God’s work is not dependent on our “success”—God isn’t nervously watching from heaven, hoping we don’t get it wrong.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is right, “The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not the former but in the latter is the lack.” The Finchers relieve the pressure of brilliant and point me in the direction of faithful. For this I am grateful.

Today, Dale and I will greet nine new friends as we open our lives to another annual Soulation Gathering. This one we’ve called “Gold” for the lovely leaves turning and falling around us.  We anticipate having lots of spiritual small talk and deep talk relaxing along hikes and meals, smiling that God isn’t biting his nails.

No sir! God is grinning ear to ear about us, and that’s some good news worth sharing.

Photo credit: Jeff Lefever, taken Sunday for our new promo shots. Thank you, Jeff!

Now I know Jesus wasn’t a masochist, but when a childhood friend drops you like a hot potato, when she tries to hurt you and talks behind your back, when she makes your life miserable and you consider unfriending her on facebook (gasp!) when you want to move toIceland to get away, where does Jesus get the gall to say “blessed are you”?

This unfriended, discarded puddle is where I found myself after college.

Splashing and muddy, I hear Jesus murmer, Blessed are you.

What in tarnation is that supposed to mean? I reply indignant. What is blessed about this situation? Have you forgotten that blessed means in the Greek?  In case you forgot it means HAPPY.  (I get sort of snappy when I’m suffering).Blessed are you when people persecute you.

Really?

How is persecution happy?  I asked my good friend, Su, between hiccups and tears.

There is no happiness in being misunderstood. No zippy spring in my step.

Su wondered if the time hasn’t come yet. If this is a time for patience in what God is doing.  She knows waiting. We’ve walked alongside her and her family as life savings disappeared in the stock market.  She knows patience and its ploddy growth. Even patience grows slowly, like gamble oak. A centimeter every, say, ten years.

But the fruit of His Spirit is patience.

“And you might feel more peace as time moves you through this,” Su adds.

I sniffed a little, already wondering.

“Actually Su, I feel peace right now.”

That’s sort of weird. Peaceful, painful me.  That’s VERY weird as in supernaturally weird. My anxiety has fallen off like a sundress. And I’m bare, cold and still very peaceful. VERY weird.

The fruit of His Spirit is peace and joy.

I know people say joy is not a feeling. “Joy is based on reality not on happenings, like happiness.”

But Jesus said I would be happy. That’s what blessed means.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 

Who else got this bizarre painful happiness?

All those prophets that Jesus footnotes.  Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah.

Weren’t they the happy ones.

Then, there’s Mary, who was pregnant and unwed. And Ruth who had to propose to an older guy at night in his barn.  Sounds terrifying, mortifying, “asking for trouble” and so cheery.  They must have had all kinds of false things said about them, and all on account of God and his plans.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Okay, rewards. Let’s talk about that.
What kind of rewards are you taking about, Jesus?

Kingdom of heaven rewards, stuff that won’t need polishing or get moth holes.

Could you let me peek into the kind of kingdom life Hosea and Amos, Rahab and Mary are enjoying right now. Maybe a dream tonight? Maybe just a hope of what’s to come.

Faith, hope and love.

Splashing about in my suffering I wonder what kind of supernatural God could make me feel compassion for my persecutor. What kind of God could do that. In me.

My compassion child, Anita from Ecuador, draws me pictures in carefully shaded crayons on the backs of her letters. She is now a young teen and realizes I’ve been calling her a princess for the last decade.

She calls me Princess Jonalyn in her replies.

Anita sent me an installment during that time that included an embellished printing of 1 Corinthians 13:13  with pink scrolls at the corners, the verse written in nearly flawless English.

I re-read her crayoned lines.

Now abide. Faith, Hope, Love. But the greatest of these . . .

Love,

Princess Anita

Blessed.

first appeared in Breakfast Reading, where I post monthly with seven writers on what it means to follow Jesus in real life.

Caryn Rivandeniera posts on the trouble with Democrats including evangelical feminists as serious biz at Her-meneutics blog hosted by Christianity Today.

Photo credit: www.feministfatale.com

My favorite quote came when she pulled from Anne Graham Lotz (Bill Graham’s daughter), a woman who has had men turn their backs to her while she spoke to mixed audiences.

In her Washington Post article, Lotz writes that it is, “A privilege to be an ‘evangelical feminist,’ though the moniker is new to her, Lotz fills out the term as describing Biblical women from Eve to Ruth.  Lotz subscribes to label, “if it describes women who are strong, bold, free-spirited leaders inside and outside of their homes, unashamed of their faith in God, his Word, his Son, and his Gospel . . . .”

I think both words are highly explosive, but not necessarily counter-intuitive.  Both are growing to be “dead words” they’ve been whipped into submission of politically pushy and slightly abhorrent (at least to many) groups of men and women.

At the moment, the cultural meaning of feminist often runs the gamut from bra-burning angry felines which I’ve encountered in Christian circles.  For instance, as the only female on the Christian panel for an apologetics conference in the midwest I asked one of the speakers what he thought of Christian feminists.

“What Christian feminists?” he joked back to the all male group’s delight.  ”They don’t exist.”

I kept my mouth shut to reveal one was actually in his presence.  Feminism can also mean anyone who believe women deserve the same amount of dignity, value and treatment as men.  Feminists, can even believe men and women are not identical.  I’m one of those, which is why I wrote Ruby Slippers, to show that woman are distinctly and fully made in God’s image.

I’ve considered renaming my blog FCF: Feminine Christian Feminism.

Do you think more or less people would want to read? And why is that?

Of course, the further problem with the label “evangelical feminism” is that I’m not entirely sure what “evangelical” means anymore. Such a freighted term. Do you think you could describe the meaning of “evangelical”?

Scott McKnight highlights that evangelicalism is at least: inerrancy of Scripture, evangelism and Christian nation.  Not sure these definitions adequately describe my beliefs, anymore.

Today I’m wearing a shirt from Image that says “Beauty will save the world.” Gregory Wolfe, who recently penned a book with this title, lifted this enigmatic phrase from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Nobel Lecture” who in turn borrowed it from Dostoevsky.

I’m wicked tired, so I’m not really illustrating that with my haggard face, unless, of course, beauty is more than bright eyes.

The shirt still stops people. Once the girl at the Elk Farm and Feed asked me, point blank,
“What does that mean?”

Curious?

To begin with, beauty stops us, it gently teaches us about valuing the stopping spot.  Beauty pulleys us to a place where goodness and truth have more meaning. Beauty can lift us out of anxiety and into trust.  Beauty can help us love Jesus.

Beauty gives us conviction even when we are solidly against an idea, even when the craft of rhetoric, political stumping and sophistry confuse our confidence.

“A work of art bears within it its own confirmation” said Solzhenitsyn, “If the crests of these three trees (Truth, Good, Beauty) join together . . . and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light–yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three.” (from “Nobel Lecture” as quoted in Wolfe’s Beauty Will Save the World).

If this sounds strange to you, check out Jeff LeFever’s interview with Father John for a wonderful illustration and explanation.

Jeff, a good friend, compatriot in the Soulation work and long-time artist in Laguna Beach has invited us into his photography. Many of his works hang on the few walls in our cabin.

A few of my favorite quotes from his interview with Father John.

~ Not all are painters or composers but a life well lived with integrity is perhaps the greatest art form.

~ Noticing and appreciating enriches life.  Such acuity can tell many things even to the point of learning the subtle sensations of our body so when there is a change we recognize it. Paying attention may save our life.

People constantly communicate with very subtle signals that we recognize if sometimes unconsciously.   What is kindness but a gentle response to the signals from another. So for me “noticing” is a much greater enterprise.

~  if churches were socially central in their communities – I mean, replacing the local movie theater/shopping mall/food court as a socialization model (which I understand is more convenient toward maintaining and perpetuating a commodity driven market) – and if such a church model offered creative programs fostering the high arts, those arts that discover and expand humanity, critical thinking, cultural analysis (active not passive as much of today’s entertainment is passive).

~ In many ways we face the prospect of re-introducing people to the scriptures, practices and faith of Christianity. Doing this is slow and incremental. This work is done person to person not machine to machine. Soul work has always been done one at a time, not very efficient as a business plan but spot on for relationships.

~ My work is the cure of souls.

Thank you, Jeff for sharing these words with us.

How have you seen beauty save?