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.

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.

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?

As a young girl I played “Mercy” with other friends. The wrist-bending game where the loser had to shout, “Mercy.” The word that meant punishment would end, the word that was embarrassing to yell.

Dale and I watched an episode of Midsomer Murders last weekend. The kind vicar with the bitchy wife was the murderer.  Several times Dale and I made significant eye-contact over the slow harping way she pulled him down to the gutter. She was Wormtongue, she eroded his worth and his pleasure. In the end you wondered how she played a part in his crimes.

A day later Dale and I would talk with hurting eyes and slow words about how we had failed to love each other. I had hurt him in ways I had not let myself realize.  He said, his eyes filling, that the vicar’s wife reminded him, for one splitting moment . . . of me. I couldn’t stand it.

And yes, I had my list of offenses, too.

He had hurt me.

Old patterns, but new ways. The stepping on Dale’s value, the stepping on my time. The juggling of Finn, the lack of sleep, the sexual missing of each other like ships in the night, his desire, my apathy, the current sickness that still keeps my beloved in his bed, too achy to even cuddle against my eager body.

My throat aches, but I will the sickness down, deep into my belly where I am too tightly wound to enjoy food.  Finn pulls out of his double ear infection enough to count him nearly well.

But, today I work alone at the coffee shop.

I talk with a dear friend and text another, the two women who hold my hands up, who listen to me crying at night on the phone and remind me of why I married Dale.

“Because he loves you so well,” one says.

So well? I started weeping, even with weeks like this, I know she’s speaking truth.

But Oh, these wretched weeks of sickness.

Sickness without and within.

So I’m watching Finn solo, again.  December 1st, Dale left for a Jeep trip and got stuck in a blizzard. Not really his fault, was it?

He comes home more than a day late. I’m left with Finn and wondering when I get time. Alone.

Monday comes and I take Finn to a friends with gladness, so Dale can put in more hours on his memoir on spiritual abuse. I feel I’m contributing to good work. I put Finn to bed and write.

Bump and Stumble and Bursting get penned, but I notice the pattern, that I write when Finn sleeps, that Dale writes when I watch Finn.

I wonder if we can call this co-parenting and shoulder on, not without ticking off my time gone, wondering when I get my break.

It does not come.

Finn gets sick Tuesday and I commandeer his care, even when Dale offers.

Wednesday finds Dale sick, a sickness that gave him one day respite. That was the day when Dale works hard (too hard) on installing a new sound system into the aforementioned Jeep, a system that MUST be installed Saturday because it’s the only day the friend will be in town to install it.

Dale also got up extra early that morning and took Finn to our babysitter, because I was breaking down.

Dale breaks down that evening.

I pick up Finn from the babysitter at 11:30, insisting on watching Finn as Dale says the Jeep’s sound will be done soon. It’s 5pm when he returns and I swallow resentment.

Even though, even though . . . Dale offered to watch Finn all afternoon if I needed it. But no, I could watch him.

I.

Can.

Do.

It.

Saturday eve Dale is sicker than he was Wednesday.  The promise of getting Saturday afternoon to rest, of Sunday getting time to me, of Monday, of Tuesday. . . gone

Impossible to keep, impossible to know what to ask, impossible to change.

How can I expect day labor from Dale when light is denied him. He is unwell.

I am well.

Am I?

There are sicknesses deeper than those of body.

I heard God in the wee hours of Saturday night, the hours when I wrench my body from sleep and stumble over to Finn to re-dose Motrin or re-store his fluids with milk, I hear God.

“You are strong,” he said.

I almost replied, “Damn right I am… look at all I’m doing!”

“You are strong,” he said, again, “Strong enough to care for Dale. I made you strong . . .

to serve.”

My badge of honor, my strength, a badge for entry into the hall . . .

of servants.

Can I stay outside that hall?

Lately, I’ve been asking friends to pray for me, for expectation to shift into what is the real, even if it’s a desert of realness.

Desert to me means accomplishing little, it also means waiting without a due date, it means surviving without producing.

My days are slow in passing this December. I’m tired of playing with blocks and doing the dishes.

I’m stunned with ennui and cold.

I cannot make the fire as well as Dale, nor can I clean the dishes or make Finn laugh like he. I cannot make love or make delightful meals, my partner-in-arms is sick. I feel him as a ball and chain around my ankle and instantly feel disgust at the way I feel.

But I can ask God

to

heal

me.

I can become a woman who serves, without storing resentment.

I can call my therapist (which I just did) to request a meeting. For her to teach me about how to serve without being subservient, how to ask and receive help, even (and especially) when the help isn’t the way I want it.

How to give mercy, so I can give it, this Christmas.

Wrapped in my flesh, served without a side dish of guilt.

I just finished A Live Coal in the Sea, by Madeleine L’Engle, a story of wonderful, beautiful, painful life. A novel where the sins of the mothers’ infidelity are visited on the second and third generation, where mercy mingles with resentment.

The title is taken from a thousand year old quote by William Langland, 14th century, “But all the wickedness in the world  which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea.”  

All the wickedness which woman may do . . . or think.

Make me part of your sea of mercy, God,

make me learn the gift of mercy to myself,

so I might give it for Christmas

to those I claim to love.

Inspiration from this post woven from:

~ Spoken word poet, Alysia Harris, Cab Rides & The Morning After , disclaimer for mature content and language.

~ Andrew Peterson’s “Serve Hymn”

~ Midsomer Mystery, Death’s Shadow

~ Madeleine L’Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

~ John Milton’s “On His Blindness”

I used to love them, their hourglass shape. But corsets and I have a longish history of ambivalence.

Their point is to re-shape, re-curve, re-move. As if our natural shape isn’t good enough.  In “Femininity Beyond Fairy Tales” (from the introduction of Ruby Slippers) I make a list of the corsets we wear: the invulnerable athlete, the anxious single woman, the unhappy married woman, the sexy woman, the perfect mother, etc. The point: the corsets make us less, not more of what we are.

Just ask sixteen year old Judy Garland, cast as the child Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz.  She had to wear a corset to minimize her curves. She started to wonder if she could even fit the part, if she was right for the role.

Silly, sad, strange. That women feel they don’t fit in unless they alter core, cool aspects of their body or soul.

Not Good Enough

One of the core lies I dig out of my life is, “I am not really good enough.”

Others put on the rebel corset, or the apathy corset or the self-disgust corset (if these are yours, please comment), but I put on the rule-keeping corset. After a few trysts with disobedience and the swift hand of punishment, my soul was cowed into rule-abiding.

Enough so that I always feel slightly anxious if I don’t follow directions. I’ll even correct my husband, “Dale, didn’t they ask us to x, y, z?  Well, why aren’t you doing what They said?”

The Rule-Keeping corset translates into how I do Thanksgiving.

By the rules.

So I have my turkey in the cool bath of water.  I want it faster, so I heat up the water a little bit, but I’m breaking the rule. Will it mess up the turkey? If it doesn’t defrost right, I’ll know why.

I didn’t follow the rules. I wasn’t good . . . enough.

Corsets and God

This translates into how I see God.

Rule-Giving. Rule-Requiring. Rule-Keeping.

Last month a new Ruby Slippers reader wrote that she had been corseted to legalism and was just starting to breathe fully, again.

In her words . . .

I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church where our female roles were dictated and controlled.  It has taken years to peel away the layers of legalist rules.  

The legalistic corset restricted me from leading – because I was a woman.  It restricted me from being recognized as a “peer” among other Godly women because I was a single, never married mother.  Marriage is still seen as a form of validity in our church culture and often times in the secular world. I was actually encouraged to marry quickly to help cover my sin and shame (this was 24 years ago). Even in my corseted state, I knew Jesus had covered me, and no man could do more.  But this still left me isolated.  This corset kept me in a state of constant shame.

Photo credit: acrosstheages.tripod.com/NewFolder/empireproject.html

The process of loosening the corset began after reading a Beth Moore book on insecurity. I understood it in my head, but wanted to make the connection in my heart.  But I could feel the corset loosening!

One evening this past August I was feeling sorry for myself after being let down by a friend.  I cried and prayed and asked God to help me understand with my heart what I read in that book.  I needed it to click.  After drying my eyes I decided to roam around a store and found myself in their book department, where I found Ruby Slippers.  It took three passing glances for me to pick it up.  When I read the inside jacket I felt hopeful and excited to get home and begin reading.  Halfway through chapter one I heard a click, and a sigh of relief as I could finally breathe with the corset laying in pieces on the floor! 

In less than three months, God has brought amazing opportunities to me that I could have never imagined before.  But that was because the corset was so tight I couldn’t think or see beyond it.  For over 20 years I believed the lie that I could not serve, could not lead, could not minister, and could not contribute.  I do not believe it is coincidence that the miraculous change occurred after reading your book and I know God used Ruby Slippers to reach & change my heart.  I know he used the disappointment I felt on that lonely August day to begin a transformation in me.

The enemy still tries to lie, but I now tune into God’s truth about me, about His thoughts toward me… and I remind Satan of that ruined corset in a heap on the floor.

You Have to Cut the Grass

I recently finished Rob Bell’s Love Wins (ask me if you’d like a review) where I found a marvelous cast on the parable of the two lost sons (Luke 15:11-32). Bell suggests both sons were tempted to believe their own story about themselves over and against their father’s story about them.

What story do I believe?

In the evenings I’m reading Marshall Lawrence’s The World At My Door, a missionary story of his life in Papua New Guinea. It’s a lesser known book given to me by his daughter-in-law (thank you, Susan!). I’m reading it because, well, among other things missionaries help me remember what matters.  Lawrence doesn’t wear fashionable clothes, but  his soul is luminous with humility.

Lawrence shares this story of an elder Oksapmin woman, Ema, a mother figure to him.

Pandanus Nut Tree Photo Credit: oldaussierecipes.com

One warm day, Ema, walks to the church to help the women cut the grass. Upon arriving, she feels unwell and stops to rest beneath a pandanus nut tree.

The women are hard at work cutting grass when they notice Ema resting. They call over,

“Ema, don’t be lazy, come over here and help us cut the grass.” They continue, “You know if you don’t help us, God is not going to be happy with you . . . God will not let you into his heaven, unless you help us.”

Classic, spiritual abuse.

Ema’s response: “When they talked that way it made me feel worse. But I got up anyways and took my knife and walked into the heat to help them. And I told them,

‘I’ll come help you cut the grass, even though I’m not feeling well. But I want you women to know something.  I want you to know it doesn’t make a difference to God if I cut the grass or not. He accepts me because I trust him, not because of something I do. So there.’”

Ema then runs back to Marshall to verify her theology  (p. 63).

Ema’s God is more concerned about her than with trimming the grass around the church.

Friend, Helper

What story do you believe about God and his love? Is your God a slave-driver? Is he telling you to cut more grass? Bake a bigger, better turkey?  Continue the endless traditions that are empty of both meaning and joy this holiday?

Does God want more out of you?

Or is he more like the Pan of The Wind in the Willows.

Remember when Rat and Mole hear Pan’s pipes? They feel the awe not of panic terror, but of peace. Even though they cannot see Pan, they freeze in delight. When they raise their faces, they look “in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper.”

Friend and Helper.

Is that how I see the God of Israel?

I believe God wants us to  know him like this.  God, the Helper, in Hebrew helper is ezer. The one who wants us to feel his help, to rest in the shade of the pandanus nut tree, to tingle with hope when we see his hands making a new sunrise or a flashy rainstorm, when we relax in the goodness he gives. O, taste and see (Ps 34:8).

God the Helper, the ezer, “You are the ezer of the orphan” (Ps 10:14).

“God is my ezer. God is the sustainer of my soul” (Ps 54:4). Read more.

Helper. Ezer.

Close. Strong. Good.  I want to enjoy a God who is like that.

This is the God I serve.  The is the God I reflect.  Remember the creation of woman? “I will make an ezer for him.” (Gen 2:18).  This is the only role I know God wants for me. But it’s too restorative to call it a corset.

Strong, Close, Good.

And I’m going to wear it with or without a perfect turkey and a spotless apron tomorrow.

Happy, Restful Thanksgiving!

p.s. I’d love to hear other corsets you’ve found yourself wearing. What is a corset? any role or pack of lies not designed for you.

I picked up the Wall Street Journal article “Death of the Playboy“ and learned that this author, Steve Garbarino was bemoaning their disappearance.  The independently wealthy, smooth, womanizing playboys of yesteryear can be seen with topless models playing chess, in sports cars or lounging after a polo match. The article opens with the death of Gunter Sachs (I mean, come on, his name alone is peerless) the German-born millionaire who took his life at age 78.  He was believed to have Alzheimer’s. Garbarino points to the way playboys, despite their many sins, had this “élan, taste, discretion and general bonhomie.”

These men were ladies’s men and men’s men, which makes me wonder . . .

What is a man’s man?

Do you know?

Determined? Type A? Leader? Decision maker? Intelligent? Athletic? Smooth? Winning? Fast? Vision-setting? Provider? Protector? Full head of hair? (List adapted from B. Burbach’s, a true “man’s man” and his off-the-cuff definition of masculinity. Thanks, Mr. Burbach!)

Last Friday (as in five days ago) my husband sank to the floor after his first cross-fit training. At first I felt embarrassed as the larger, bigger men looked at him with anything but pity.

Gyms are seductive that way, they give you a place to prove you’ve got something, that your body will move and sweat and perform as you want it to.  Gyms give you measurable progress and they let you strut your progress out in front of men and women. And they permit, nay encourage, clothing to show your stuff.

Gyms can make me feel more like a woman, with my tight workout tops and every pull on the rowing machine.

Who is watching?

Well, plenty now as I breathe heavily from my final run. But they’re not watching me. They’re watching my husband.

I sat down, waiting for Dale to get up.

But when he failed to get up after 30 minutes, when his skin lost all it’s color and his legs and arms gleamed with sweat, I realized. His blood pressure was dropping, his body was going into shock.

Dale was facing another vasovagal episode.

When he asked for oxygen, 9-1-1 had to be called. His pulse felt irregular so he left the gym on a stretcher in an ambulance headed for ER.  After an EKG, a chest X-ray, and a quart of saline he was given a clean bill of health and a heap of bills we’ll be facing in the coming months.

We left the hospital with less than 30 minutes before our speaking engagement, where Dale was expected to speak alongside me.

After rest, PB and J and a shower, Dale slowly pulled on his suit. We left together and he spoke full of clarity, warmth and power.

He shared the story of our ER stop with the audience of 300.

He exposed his weakness.

October 2011WSJ Magazine offered its first issue dedicated to menswear

I saw his strength.

My husband is not a playboy. He doesn’t have that smooth je ne sais quoi.

And I’m not sure I want him to. I mean some try to prove their masculinity by being the playboy in their sphere, dragging the beautifully sacred moments of sexual intimacy into the harsh light of public scrutiny. Christian men might brag about what stallions they are in bed with their wives.  Single men might brag about what girl they got last weekend.  Playboys, WSJ explained, were always discreet.

Okay.

They were also James Bond-y.

Okay, that’s hot . . . but . . .

for how long?

Not how long will they be hot, but how long will I only want that kind of hotness?

Playboys don’t make good husbands or even friends. They certainly couldn’t co-parent and co-speak and co-write and co-lead a non-profit.

But, hey they look so good they don’t have to.  They look so good that they don’t have to work a day in their lives (something Gunter Sachs bragged) and that means they don’t have to know how to cultivate a soul to face the depth and tragedy of Alzheimer’s.

I will notice the playboys, but I will park on the men who know how to face their own weakness without shooting it in the head. These are the men I will befriend, they are also the men I will honor.

Which brings me back to . . . Dale.

And you know what? I lied, my husband does have that je ne sais quoi, in certain lights, but I’ll not drag that into the limelight of this blog.

He does have something I can talk about here, it’s called fortitude.

Speaking last Friday at the Sheraton, Steamboat Springs CO

He lives authentic courage from the floor of the Health and Rec weight room to the gurneys in our hospital to the podiums around this country.

Even without strength, he can look me in the eye and reflect strength back into me.  He was the first man who helped me realize how strong I was.  He can share the stage, literally, with a woman.

And I know that, if faced with a debilitating disease, Dale Fincher would have more courage than Gunter Sachs. I know because I saw it all in his body, in his soul, last Friday.

Dale and Finn his first week home.

I’m reading Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle, some post-therapy work since I graduated from therapy last week.

My therapist recommended I read this young adult novel to get acquainted with a very full, very honest, very healthy family.  They are delightful, perfectly zippy, and heart-warming. So far the parents disagree in front of the children, the family’s dynamics get understandably rocked by the addition of an orphan and the protagonist (who tells the story) feels all kinds of unmanageable emotions. Oh, yes, now this is a book to cozy down with, to learn about love that accepts each other and lets the other change. My favorite line so far “It was so beautiful that for the moment the beauty was all that mattered; it wasn’t important that there were things we would never understand” (41).

This week I wrote this about shoveling snow in my evening blog on Finn, SecondYearMom:

“This year Dad and I have stepped off the stage to do small things well.

Today was Sabbath, it would have been a good day to excel at small things. We did a lot of small things, but not all with love and even fewer well.

I felt so frustrated with Dad I went outside and shoveled snow with more energy than I’ve had since before you were conceived.

You joined me after Dad kindly put your shoes on (even though we were in the middle of an argument). I gave you the sand toy plastic rake and you experimented moving these huge piles of snow on our deck.

We’re already behind.

I remember this one bumper sticker “Romeo, Romeo, where the hell are you?”  One thing is certain, Romeo, should he ever show up, is already behind.

I feel behind most the time.

The snow keeps falling and I can’t shovel it fast enough.

When I get outside to really chip it off I chunk off the deck in my anger. And I tell myself I don’t care.

But I do.

I care that you’re watching Dad and I argue not because I want to hide it, but because I want to model healthy conflict resolution to you. I want you to be unafraid and open-eyed to the shoveling work of intimacy.

Your rake left you unequipped, so Dad fetched the gardening shovel.  ”The strong scoop-y one” I yelled after him. He found it.

Dad and I began re-hashing while you moved small mountains of ice.

Why was he hurt?

How had I trampled him?

But what about how he made me feel?

I want to build strong tools around you so you can forge into the pain of love and not find you’re snapping in two when you need to dig deeper.

I want you to see me tell Dad I was wrong. I want you to hear him say he wants to change.

I want you to be clear that marriage is no snow blow.

It’s more like shoveling than snow angels.  It’s more the satisfaction of seeing a deck dripping with melt than organizing a library. For the work is never done, you barely enjoy it when it snows again.

But you keep at it, because the deck needs to be walked on if you want to get into the warmth inside.”

Shovel well, my son, the muscles you build will let you, one day, love like a man.

When Dale and I were nearly married our pre-marital counselor talked about the way the Wheaton lawns fell under the layers of autumn leaves.  ”Sometimes,” Dr. Jerry Root explained, “you’ll pass a lawn that has been raked clean, not a single leaf on the whole green square. And you know,” he paused, “that didn’t happen by accident.”

Marriages and green lawns, marriages and shoveled decks, marriages and sex and kids and dusty baseboards and little sleep and hobbies packed away and unexpected crises waiting around every turn.

Dale and me our second year of marriage in Rome on the Appian Way

When Dale and I first married we made our bed together.  We washed the sheets and tucked and folded them around our queen.  Now, with our king-size it’s a mammoth task, wrestling the velvet comforter, trying not to hit our heads on the A-frame eaves.

The first times we snapped the sheets down and around our bed, I felt there was much room for improvement. We talked a lot, we worked so much annoyance out with careful time spent arguing, explaining, re-stating, failing and then trying to use our feeling words.

“Your side is lower,” I’d protest, “See the line, it dips down on your side, make it even with mine.”  Dale would fix it, but not enough, not enough for me.

“Does it have to be perfect?” he’d finally say exasperated.

The last few weeks I’ve felt more disconnection between us, another season, one that is familiar, but always hard.  Feels, sometimes like we’ve made such little progress, even though in two months we’ll celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Feels like I’m shoveling a deck with snow falling all the time.

This week, we forgot the sheets in the wash and it was way late, of course.  After Finn slept in his PeaPod next to our bed we had to smuggle the warm sheets upstairs and try to make the bed.

In the dark. We couldn’t even see each other’s faces.

He stood on his side and pulled and slid the fitted sheet. I waited until his more difficult side was done and then I leveraged my weight to yank the final corner down and fit, snap into place.

We smoothed the sheet and pulled it even.  The fisherman’s knitted blanket pulled up and lined up, equally hanging on both sides.  In the twilight we slid the down coverlet up and over, the velveteen monster of a comforter, all spread out, the icing on the layers. The pillows stacked, the square pillow rest in the middle.

Task complete we descended the ladder, Finn still breathing evenly.

Making our bed in the dark, fast, smooth as silk and not a word spoken.

Complete, luminous silence.

It was so beautiful that for a moment it spoke louder than any sound.

It was like we could see it, our marriage, a lawn without a leaf in the height of autumn.

And it didn’t happen by accident.