On the Making of Lists

Mma Ramotswe liked to make lists, and, like all people who make lists, she was inclined to take an optimistic view of their contents. So lists of things achieved--cases closed, and so on--tended to include matters that were almost, but not quite finished, and lists of things to be done by noon embraced tasks that might well not be performed until four o'clock in the afternoon or possibly even noon the following day. This did not involve self-deception... well, perhaps it did, but how can anyone manage to negotiate their way through life's complexities without at least a smidgen of self-deception here and there?

Some of these lists were written down on scraps of paper and on a whiteboard on the kitchen wall in Zebra Drive. The whiteboard... hosted lists for other members of the family, the idea being that everybody should look at it in the morning to see what they had to do later that day. So there might be a note reminding Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to telephone the Botswana Eagle Insurance Company to renew the household insurance; or a reminder to Motholeli to take ten pula to school for her new mathematics textbook; or one to Puso to put his football socks in the wash. Sometimes there where lists for hersels--of household supplies running low (washing-up liquid, butter, the hot Mozambique peri-peri sauce that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni liked to put on his roast chicken); or lists of people she had to telephone (her aunt in Mahalapye, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's cousin in Muan--the one who needed the cataract operation--Mma Potokwane about meeting for tea when she next came to town). Lists, she thought, are the stories of our lives; they give a picture of who we are and what we do every day.

—From Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 2016)

On this week's episode of Persuasion, my co-host Erin Straza and I talk about the lists that tell the stories of our lives. With 2017 right around the corner, the impulse to plan and sort and list is nigh irrepressible. But which lists and how? Which system will be "the one" to revolutionize your coming year? We tackle everything from personalized planners to the popular bullet journaling technique to my tendency to menu "plan" after the fact.

Listen in here:

Episode 80: What Your 2017 Calendar Says About You

Further Thoughts on the Shape of Women's Ministry

This week, Kate Shellnutt of Christianity Today published a piece that examines the shape of women's ministry in the white evangelical church. The article comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding popular speaker and author Jen Hatmaker's public support of gay marriage. In response to her new position, LifeWay will no longer sell Hatmaker's books and products.

While I don't agree with Hatmaker's position, I also don't think folks are necessarily seeing the big picture. Hatmaker is not one individual who suddenly and unexpectedly went rogue. She represents the larger shape of evangelical women's ministry that is very often detached from the established Church. Erin Straza and I tackled this question in a recent Persuasion podcast in which we argue that much of women's spiritual formation has been outsourced to the marketplace. We shouldn't be surprised when it's shaped by influences other than the Church. 

Kate's article at CT taps several leaders in ministry and tries to set the larger frame for what's happening, particularly among white evangelical women. For example, while most pastors have probably never heard of Hatmaker, she has a FB following larger than John Piper, Tim Keller, or Gary Chapman. Kate reached out to me for her article and I asked her if I could publish more of our email exchange here:

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Kate: What do you see as some of the pros and cons of having so much momentum around women’s ministry at a national level? 

Hannah: Positively, I think we need to recognize that the Spirit of God is at work. Because the digital age has changed how ideas spread, women (who have historically existed in the margins of theological conversation) have an opportunity to add to the conversation without ever leaving their desks. In the past, a lack of infrastructure would have held them back; but today, women who are gifted to teach, lead, or encourage have opportunity to actualize these gifts in a public way.

The advantage, of course, is that the Church at large can benefit from these gifted women. They become a channel of the Holy Spirit’s power and blessing as they fulfill their calling for the good of the Church and the glory of God. One practical affect is that new topics come up for discussion and application—topics that male leaders simply wouldn’t know to address or can’t address.  Female leaders are also uniquely positioned to apply the teachings of the Church to the needs of half her members.

On the other hand, because so many female spiritual leaders are operating in parachurch contexts, their ministries have the potential to lose the doctrinal and structural accountability that the established Church provides. The digital age may free women from the gendered constraints of traditional ministry, but this means that they also have the potential to become free agents.

Consider how few female evangelical leaders are visibly attached to an institution such as a church, seminary, or non-profit that did not grow up around their personality. Name a male leader like Rick Warren and you immediately think of Saddleback Church. Say Beth Moore or Ann Voskamp or Jen Hatmaker and most of us will draw a blank about which local church these women affiliate with. This is not to say that they aren't connected, but their local church isn't a visible or central a component to their public ministry.

Being distanced from ecclesiastical institutions also means women’s ministry inadvertently becomes shaped by market forces. Nationally known female spiritual leaders are by-and-large entrepreneurs and most often, out of necessity. Because women struggle to find space in the established Church, they end up creating their own institutions, whether as collectives or around themselves. The latter is both fed by and feeds evangelical celebrity culture.

This entrepreneurial dynamic also affects the shape and philosophy of women’s ministry, even if only inadvertently. When a woman has to create her own position and then maintain that position apart from the contribution (both financial and spiritual) of a larger institution, her target demographic can disproportionately affect the shape of her ministry. This is true of many entrepreneurial endeavors, not simply women’s ministry; but if the majority of female leaders are operating in the marketplace (as opposed to the institutional Church), women’s ministry as a whole can reach a point of critical mass where an audience-centric philosophy creates wider expectations about style, topics, and content.

Practically speaking, this broader culture locks both leaders and followers into a matrix built on audience consumption of the personal spirituality of the celebrity. The “product” is not robust spiritual formation so much as spirituality mediated through the experience and passions of the tribal leader. Of course, not all nationally known female leaders and ministries operate this way, but building “tribe” is a significant emphasis for many.

Kate: Also, the tweet from you that stood out most to me was about how female leaders don’t need to “show their work” theologically. Could you expand on that? What is the role you see theology playing? And why shouldn’t we be tempted to write off these women as overly inspirational or shallow? Hannah: I believe that market forces are unduly shaping women’s ministry. And part of what the market wants is simple, practical spirituality. In a robust learning environment, a teacher works to create a curriculum and syllabus that suits the needs (not the wants) of the learner.  But teachers operating in the marketplace must always consider what the market can bear. They themselves aren’t necessarily a-theological (although some may be), but they may feel a tension to craft their teaching in a way that minimizes theological book work in favor of inspiration, lifestyle advice, or practical mission.

The problem is that if lay women don’t see their teachers modeling theological investigation or healthy engagement with the Scripture, they won’t be able to develop these abilities themselves. They won’t even know they need to develop them.  It’s like learning to cook from a recipe that calls for pre-packaged ingredients like “cake mix” vs. a recipe that calls for flour, sugar, dry milk, baking soda, and salt. The shortcuts may seem helpful at the moment, but have we really learned to cook? Have we grown in our spiritual understanding?

I do not believe that all female leaders must have an M.Div. or theology degree to teach or lead. I don't have one myself. But we do need to raise the expectation for what passes for spiritual formation. In an article in the Washington Post last year, Karen E. Yates reflects on the last two decades of women’s involvement in Christian publishing and notes that “women today are publishing at an incredible rate without the title of pastor, without a seminary degree and without a traditional pulpit.”

If nothing else, this should get our attention. Not because women aren’t capable of the higher thinking associated with formal teaching ministry, but because of the very real possibility that half the Church is being trained in mission by people with a limited number of tools in their toolkits. As a woman, this also concerns me because a haphazard approach to theology could reinforce prejudices against women teachers. In some ways, we have to be better and more faithful than our male counterparts in order to overcome entrenched biases.

This doesn’t mean we should write off women leaders as uneducated, un-theological, or shallow. You do not gain the following necessary to be a nationally known leader without a great deal of gifting, self-education, and hard work. What women leaders often are, however, is isolated. Isolated from the very Church they are seeking to build. If Paul is correct that the Church is “the pillar and ground of truth,” the way forward is not to shame female leaders for using their gifts without theological credentials. The way forward is for the Church to identify and support gifted women, partnering with them via theological training and commissioned ministry positions.

If you don’t want women breaking down the doors, simply open them for them.

Beauty Will Save the World

In hard times, beauty is among the first things we abandon; in hard times, beauty is among the things we need most.  

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, David Brooks recounts how Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist, used photography to change the nation’s view of slavery. Renowned as a statesman and activist, Douglass was also something of an artist, carefully selecting his posture, dress, and demeanor to communicate his intrinsic humanity. Near the end of the piece, Brooks confesses

I don't understand why artists want to get involved in partisanship and legislation. The real power lies in the ability to recode the mental maps people project into the world.

Brooks may not understand the temptation, but I do.

When the world is falling to pieces around you, beauty can seem trivial. When the world is falling to pieces around you, it’s so much easier to embrace utilitarianism. Why arrange flowers to set on the table underneath the window where the sunbeam falls when all flesh is grass and the grass withers and the flower fades?

In the span of seven months, this year has brought us terror and death and anger and division and violence.  These may not be the worst of times, but they are, by no measure, the best. And in times like these, it’s tempting to bypass beauty and settle for whatever gets the job done.  Go directly to the punch. Take the shortest route.  Cut to the chase. And then, once your work is done, Cinderella, you can think about going to the ball. Once your work is done, Cinderella, you can sit down to read a novel. Once your work is done, Cinderella, you can write a song.

But what if the work is never done? What if the work can never be done without beauty?

A few weeks ago, I listened to a 2015 interview with Sonia Manzano, best known to millions of children and their parents as "Maria" from Sesame Street. Sonia assumed her alter ego in 1971 and spent the next 44 years showing us a community who lived and loved together, who fought and forgave each other. But that world was not the world Sonia knew as a child. Growing up, Sonia’s world was plagued by domestic violence and poverty.

And in those dark times, beauty became a refuge.

“I found a lot of comfort on television when I was a kid,” Manzano writes. “So I think it's interesting that I ended up on a show that offered a bit of comfort to children who lived in the inner city… Here was a moment, an hour, where there's order, where there's humor, where there's love in a place that looks like your home.”

Award-winning children’s illustrator Jerry Pinkney, echoes a similar thought:

Our work is to create books that act as wide-open doors—books that allow all children to walk through and feel safe enough to stay.

But beauty is not simply about creating an escape from present difficulties. The work of beauty is to create a vision of the world as it was meant to be. It is a way to see past the present darkness to a future beyond. To the tired, beauty promises rest. To the oppressed, it offers freedom. To the fearful, it whispers “Hope.”

“Poets, prophets and reformers are all picture makers,” Frederick Douglass writes, “and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.”

What poets and prophets and reformers offer us is a vision of the world set right.  This is why beauty is so powerful and why human beings have always made art, in even the most difficult times and most hardscrabble places.  The Appalachian mamaw, fingers bent and eyes straining, thrusts her needle through bits of scrap, quilting together utility and beauty. The island child, malnourished and broken by disease, still gathers bits and bobs to fashion a toy.

This is human heart searching for its home. Searching for safety. Searching for the world as it should be. For in the beginning, it was good; and in the end, it will be good again.

I write this as an act of confession. A confession of what I know to be true; a confession what I fail to do. In the turmoil of 2016, I find myself abandoning beauty in favor of the utilitarian. I find myself focusing on the immediate, preferring argumentation to persuasion. They say talk is cheap and I believe them because talk is easy. It’s easy to pontificate. It’s easy to argue. It’s easy to analyze.

It’s so much harder to hope. It’s so much harder to believe. It’s so much harder to keep faith. It’s so much harder to create.

So hard, in fact, that pursuit of  beauty requires Divine intervention. To live beautifully, to live full of love and joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness and meekness, means being filled with God himself.

And so, as with every other Divine filling, beauty begins with humility. Beauty begins when we repent of our failure to see the world beyond this present darkness. Beauty begins when repent of our failure to see the Power who is greater than evil.  Beauty begins when we repent of our lack of faith, and yes, even our lack of imagination.

St. Augustine, that confessing saint, once wrote of God: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new.”

One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we can recognize the Beauty around us. One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we work to create beauty around us. One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we offer hope to those who themselves struggle to believe. Because this is what every artist knows: Show. Don’t tell.

Do not simply tell us what is wrong; show us what is right. Do not simply tell us what we must understand; show us how to understand it at a level deeper than words. Do not simply tell us what the world is; show us what it should be.

Show us beauty Show us kindness Show us courage Show us faith Show us conviction Show us love

In these hard times, we must not abandon the work of beauty. We must take up our cross and discipline ourselves to celebrate it—the quiet moments, the simple pleasures, the secret joys--even as the world falls to pieces around us.  But we must do more than this. In these hard times, we must take up our cross and discipline ourselves to create beauty. We must discipline ourselves to rebuild the world even as it falls to pieces around us.

So go. Set the table with the good dishes. Pick the wildflowers that will tomorrow die. Compose a song you already know by heart. Write that novel and build that better mousetrap. And in so doing, remind us all of what the world can and must and one day will be.

Hillbilly Elegy

Many of you know that I live in the mountains of western Virginia. We're hardworking bunch, knit together by family, shared sense of community, and a particular love for this region. Here, my kids go to local schools, and my husband pastors a small church at a bend of a long country road. A graveyard sits on the right and a cow pasture on the left. A small stream runs through the pasture and is home to minnows, tadpoles, lizards, and crawdads.

But not everything is idyllic. Like many other communities, we're increasingly affected by income disparity, drug use, & the breakdown of the nuclear family, Travel just a bit farther west and you'll hit the coal fields of southern WV and eastern KY. The challenges these folks face make ours seem like child's play. It's hard to understand the challenges of rural life because outsiders tend to idealize it (Mayberry) or mock it (Beverly Hillbillies). What we don't do is take a careful look at the complexities of it.

In the recently released, Hillbilly Elegy, author J.D. Vance chronicles the story of "his people"--from growing up an Ohio factory town to returning to his ancestral home in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Vance's childhood was marked by family chaos and underachievement. It was a childhood and family that he loves deeply nonetheless. But Vance doesn't mince words: he honors the humanity of these self-described "hillbillies" at the same time he calls them to own their potential.

One of the most enlightening aspects of the book is Vance's take on how religion plays out in working class communities. There's often a deep-seated sense of faith or belief in God, but for the most part, the rural poor are detached from local churches. Vance wonders out loud how much this is their own fault and how much it is the fault of church. I've wondered the same thing myself. Many times.

Are our church's even accessible to folks outside a certain demographic? And if they aren't, how can we change that?

Here's my longer review of the book and a podcast in which I argue that it will be among the most influential books of 2016.

Of Refugees and Christian Duties

Last week, I posted a reflection on the Syrian refugee crisis. It quickly became on of my most shared pieces--as well as one of my most controversial. To be honest, this surprised me; but it also reminded me of the importance of healthy dialogue. In that vein, I've asked my friend, Eve Marie Barner Gleason to offer perspective on how Christians must navigate the calling to be  faithful citizens of their earthly countries and as well as citizens of Heaven.

As a director with Care Net, a network of crisis pregnancy centers offering alternatives to abortion, Eve faces this dilemma everyday--how do we promote Christian values within the framework of a highly bureaucratic and often, less than transparent, government? How can we tackle tough questions without resorting to either pragmatism or sentimentality? How do we pursue truly Christian solutions in both policy and practice? 

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If you are like me, the Syrian refugee crisis has dominated your news feed. In the days since the Paris bombings, I’ve actually learned a lot through the debate on blogs, social media and between friends. But these debates haven’t impacted me as deeply as the stories of people suffering in a region torn apart by war: 200,000 killed, roughly 11 million displaced, 60 percent of the population unemployed.

The arguments themselves can be overwhelming. Here is a brief summary of comments from my news feed alone (I offer these as examples of the debate; I haven’t independently verified all the statements cited as facts in these comments):

Christians should be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. Just because we care about displaced Syrians, doesn’t mean we should bring them all here.  Wouldn’t refugees be better off nearer their homeland than adjusting to a new culture after such trauma? Maybe we should try to make them a safe space in the Middle East.

Jesus would welcome displaced people, so Christians should be filled with compassion and even willing to risk our own comfort and safety to love and share Christ with those who  are suffering. Anything else is selfish and xenophobic. Even if some terrorists slipped through, shouldn’t we trust God’s protection instead of being fearful, cowardly, and hateful?

Refugees have committed acts of terrorism, including Bosnian immigrants charged with conspiring to fund terrorism.

Syrian refugees from the current war have not committed acts of terrorism.

Our screening process is woefully inadequate. ISIS is smart enough to train a terrorist posing as a refugee to defeat any screening measure we can come up with. And it only takes a fraction of a % to slip through screening and cause mayhem.

It already takes 2-3 years to enter the U.S. as a legal refugee. The process includes a background check and detailed personal interviews. In fact, the screening may be too strict, leaving refugees languishing in squalid camps vulnerable to the influence of terrorist recruiters. Besides, terrorists have easier ways to get to the US: across our southern border or with a student or tourist visa.

Since January, only 30 (1.6 percent of) Syrians who arrived on American were Christian, compared to 1,833 Muslims (97.8 percent).

Christians only make up 10% of the population in Syria. Very few now live in ISIS controlled areas of Syria because if they didn’t leave, they have likely been killed or enslaved already.  This makes it hard to know how many Christians are even applying for refugee status.

We should prevent Muslims entering this country as refugees. Islamic faith condones violence and atrocities so we can never trust them.

We should welcome Muslim refugees. Because they are fleeing horrific violence and atrocities being committed in the name of Islam, they understand the evils of extremism more than anyone.

ISIS wants us to take in refugees so there will be more Muslims, who even if they aren’t terrorists, will eventually be loyal to an established Islamic state and caliphate.

ISIS wants us to refuse to take in refugees so they can show the world how selfish and inhospitable we are, and so they can continue to rape, torture, and kill them.

And then there are pictures: A boy washed up on a beach, a bloodied grandfather, bombed out homes, grieving widows and widowers, children sleeping on the ground, orphans trying to protect their younger siblings.

How do Christians process so much suffering? How should American Christians think about displaced people and how many we should allow into our country? Long ago, St. Augustine spoke of believers as having dual citizenship in the city of God and our earthly countries. So, how should our roles as both citizens of heaven and citizens of the United States inform this issue?

Our Duties as American Citizens

American citizens are in a unique position. Not only will the leaders we elect make decisions about how many refugees to accept, from where, and with what restrictions, we can also influence our elected representatives through letters, phone calls, and social media.

Citizens in many countries have no duty except obedience (or civil disobedience if asked to violate their conscience). But it is our duty and privilege as American citizens to think deeply about public policy issues and to pray for and seek to influence those who make policy decisions.

On the complex issues surrounding refugee resettlement, it is important to remember that government does have a responsibility to protect the country. Romans 13:4 refers to civil authorities as God’s servants for the purpose of punishing evildoers. Citizens and leaders alike are called to be just and impartial by Scripture (Leviticus 19:15; Jeremiah 22:11-17; Deuteronomy 16:18-20).

Each elected official in the United Sates takes an oath of allegiance that includes a promise to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Because the duties of rulers involve justice, wisdom, and restraining evil, it is entirely appropriate for Christian citizens, policy makers, and Christian citizens who are also policy makers, to carefully examine the conditions under which refugees are resettled in the U.S., to identify where security vulnerabilities may exist, and whether the risks of resettling certain people within our borders are acceptable related to the intended outcome of justice and compassion.

Our Duties as followers of Jesus Christ

What about those Christians who are not policy makers (which is most of us)? We may not have a particularly large say in the resettlement of refugees from Syria or elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still have clear duties and privileges: to love our neighbor, to speak up for the defenseless, the foreigner, the stranger in our midst.

“Love your neighbor as yourself...” (Luke 12:33)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven . . .If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

We remember that Jesus was a refugee in Egypt as his parents fled from Herod’s slaughter of innocents. So, we love our neighbor: our immigrant neighbor, our Muslim neighbor, our refugee neighbor, our unborn neighbor, our unpopular neighbor. And, yes, even those who hate us and would do us harm.

Such love must be intensely practical. We must start by praying for displaced Syrian people, but we must not stop there. We may post opinions about the refugee crisis, but opinions aren’t life-transforming love.

How do we love? If you have a refugee or an immigrant in your community, welcome them with respect and kindness, rather than suspicion or judgement. Listen to their stories, offer a meal or a cup of tea, or invite them to a community gathering.

And if you have been moved by the stories and pictures of those caught up in what has been called the “greatest ongoing humanitarian crisis”, resolve to show Christ’s love, whether from near or far. One way to help is to give as generously as you can to organizations who are already helping in Jesus’ name, such as Operation Mobilization, World Vision, or Samaritan’s Purse.

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Together with her husband, Ryan, and their dog, Coco, Eve makes her home in Loudoun County, VA. She serves as Director of Center Best Practices at Care Net. Eve and Ryan seek to grow in grace in fellowship with other believers and service to their community. Eve would also like to thank Ashley Trim for her skillful editing of this post.

Not Afraid

I try not to be political. Don’t get me wrong: I have plenty of opinions about government policy and cultural issues; but for the most part, I try to keep them to myself--if only because online conversation is rarely productive. But occasionally, something will happen that moves me to speak. Things like the atrocities at Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic or those in Syria and Iraq. 

Today, we’re facing a similar cultural crisis. This time, however, the tables are turned. Instead of being “out there,” the dilemma is much closer to home:  In the wake of the Paris attacks, I’ve seen a groundswell of anti-refugee rhetoric among Christians.

I'm not talking about nuanced conversations about the hard work of integrating refugees into western society. I'm not talking about the challenges to properly vet and approve those who have been waiting for 2-3 years for entrance. I'm not talking about the legitimate responsibility of the government  to protect and provide for her citizens. I'm talking about the full-blown fear-mongering that links the terrorist attacks in Paris with all Syrian refugees.

Honestly, I’m not surprised when it comes from political campaigns. If the candidacy of Donald Trump has taught us anything, it’s that playing to our instinctive nativism is politically expedient. But what has surprised me are the memes and Facebook posts and xenophobia I’ve seen from Christians. Despite being people who are “strangers and pilgrims” ourselves; despite being people whose very faith rests on a middle-eastern man who had no place to lay his head, Christians have been among the most vocally opposed to accepting Syrian refugees.

But what's surprised me more than anything, I think, is how quickly we've thrown away our pro-life values.

Over the last several months, my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been flooded with videos documenting Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in infant body parts. We have been sickened. We have wept. We have become angry. As we should. The violence being perpetrated against the “least of these” is horrific and anti-God. So, in His name, we have rallied. We have called our senators and representatives. We have cheered when Congress finally set up hearings. We have shamed those who turn their backs and ignore the bloodshed.

But when similar atrocities are being perpetrated on human beings outside the womb, we are willing to turn our backs, shut the door, and “put it in God’s hands.”

I understand that we cannot solve every geo-political crisis. I understand that we may not choose to involve ourselves in a ground war in Syria. I understand moral proximity and the order of loves. I understand that refugees must undergo a strict process to enter this country, whether they are Syrian or not. But what I cannot understand is how easily we can turn a deaf ear to the wounded man lying on the road to Jerusalem just because of ethnicity. I cannot understand how quickly we’ll cross to the other side. I cannot understand how, like the young lawyer, we can justify our lack of compassion by asking “Who is my neighbor?”

Your neighbor is anyone who God brings into your life--Muslim, Christian, Syrian, French, or Iraqi. When someone is lying bruised and beaten beside the road and you’re taking that same road, he is your neighbor. Run to him. When someone knocks on your door legitimately seeking sanctuary, open it. And if we don’t, don’t be surprised if that same God doesn’t come down in judgment because we’ve failed to reflect his own hospitality. We may fear the possibility of a terrorist slipping through the cracks, but Jesus reminds us that we’d do better to fear Him who can throw both body and soul into hell.

Being pro-life is not about holding onto our rights, protecting ourselves, or insisting that a choice is legitimate simply because it is legal.  This is the rhetoric of the pro-choice movement: Protect yourself first. Don’t risk your sense of security to provide a safe place for another human being.

Instead, being pro-life means having the faith to believe that the God who calls us to do difficult things is big enough to care for us in the midst of them. Being pro-life means being people of courage and self-sacrifice. Being pro-life means being people of hospitality.

So, friends, I’m asking you to display the same welcome that you would ask a pregnant teenager to show to her unborn baby. Instead of succumbing to fear, I’m asking you to open your hearts to the potential of new life. I'm asking you to model God's heart for the stranger and pilgrim. Who knows--He might just be using this refugee crisis to bring more people out of darkness into his marvelous light. It’s happening in Europe. It could happen here.

So let me go on record:  Because God is both strong and loving, I am not afraid. I am pro-life. I am pro-immigrant. I am pro-refugee.

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For a more extensive overview of the challenges of integrating refugees into western society, please read this piece by Alastair Roberts. Alastair clearly notes the difficulties, but also provides a thoroughly Christian framework about why and how we accept those difficulties as part of our Christian vocation. My hope is that we can silence the fear-mongering, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.

Leveling the Playing Field: Professional Sports and the Success of Women's Ministry

This weekend the Indiana Fever and the Minnesota Lynx will face off in the first game of the WNBA finals. Now, if you didn’t know the WNBA finals were happening this weekend, don’t worry; you’re in good company. By and large, women’s professional sports have failed to gain the attention that men’s team sports enjoy. And despite your brother-in-law’s assertions, the disconnect probably has little to do with women being less athletic or less interesting than men. Thank you, US Women’s National Soccer Team.

Famed sports’ commentator Frank Deford recently joined NPR’s Steve Inskeep to discuss why women’s professional sports get less attention then men's sports. His conclusion? Inertia. The media is used to covering sports a certain way, and the public is used to watching sports a certain way. So that even as Title IX invited girls and women into the world of sports, they are still limited by how far they can go.

As I listened, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels to women in the Church. Generally, I’ve been encouraged by how women are taking ownership of their faith and are teaching others to do the same. They love their families, are active in social justice, and committed to personal growth through the means of grace. At the same time, I do worry that this growth could be stalled if we don’t take a hard look at infrastructure.

Like sports’ fans, many of us are accustomed to church ministry happening a certain way. And unless we change this, women’s contributions to the Kingdom will end up mirroring what’s happened in professional sports. Yes, women will have opportunities, but they will continue to exist outside the mainstream. Simply having Christian women top the NYT’s best seller list doesn’t mean that Christian women are flourishing in the Church any more than the existence of the WNBA finals means that women are flourishing in professional sports.

So what can we do? Deford offers some valuable insights to how women’s sports can gain more visibility and credibility, and most of them relate to changes in infrastructure. As I listened, I realized that his insights could be equally valuable to us.

1. Tie it to money. In order to raise the profile of women’s professional sports, Deford recommends that league officials high tail it to Vegas and open betting lines. Without realizing it, Deford is echoing something that Christ himself taught: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So while I don’t recommend taking bets on who will lead your church's women’s ministry next year, I do think money is part of the equation. If we don’t invest our resources in equipping women, our hearts won’t be invested either. For a local congregation, this may mean budgeting to bring in a female speaker, hiring more women on staff, or helping women afford theological education. When resources are on the line, we're more likely to care about the final outcome. In other words, when we place a bet, we'll watch the game.

2. Link women’s efforts to men’s efforts. Another part of the WNBA’s trouble is that their season runs during the summer, with the playoffs hitting just as football season is opening. For many sports fans, this sends a subtle signal that the WNBA is not *really* basketball because it doesn’t happen during “basketball season.” Deford notes that women athletes who enjoy the most visibility are those who compete in tournaments alongside their male peers, such as in golf or tennis. Women and men don’t compete against each other, but they compete at the same time and place. So that in the public eye, women athletes have just as much credibility as the men do.

When it comes to local churches, it is very common for women’s ministry to be siloed from the main mission of the church. For many church leaders, the “women’s auxiliary” is precisely that—auxiliary to the day to day functioning of the church which is often led and conducted by men. This presents several dangers including sending the signal to the congregation that what the women are doing is not truly “ministry” in much the same way the public sees the WNBA as something less than “basketball.”

Because men are already established in places of visibility and influence in the Church, the surest way to promote women’s calling is to tie it to them and the central mission of the Church. When male leaders visibly work alongside female leaders, the congregation learns that female contributions are just as valuable and necessary as male.

3. Work as a team. The third thing Deford notes is that women’s sports will only gain visibility through team efforts. The success of women like Serena Williams or Lindsey Vonn does not mean that female athletes are meeting success across the board. Correspondingly, the success of a Beth Moore, Ann Voskamp, or Jen Hatmaker does not mean that women are flourishing or that their gifts are being used in local churches.

The reality is that most women working for the Kingdom are working in isolation. Part of this stems from an emphasis on home and family as a significant part of a woman’s calling. As an eleven-year veteran of the “domestic industry,” I can assure you that home can be a very lonely place. But beyond this, women leaders are simply not networked the way men are. Men in ministry often develop professional ties during their undergrad and seminary years and maintain them through professional conferences. Most of the women leaders I know came into their calling, not through academia, but through their passion and gifting. They are paraprofessionals and lack the professional support and network of other leaders.

Thankfully, the digital age offers women more opportunities to work as a team; but online interaction is not enough. Our most effective efforts happen in community, growing out of our work in local churches. Women leaders need to be invited onto the team of the church; they need to be present at staff meetings, prayer times, and leadership retreats. Otherwise, they will continue to serve in isolation and only a certain type of woman—those gifted with communication and extroverted personalities—will gain visibility and influence.

I’m sure that some will question the significance of women’s contributions to the Church much the same way some question the significance of women’s contributions to professional sports. But given the rampant sexuality, substance abuse, and violence that’s part of the ethos of professional sports, I can’t help but believe that we’d all be better with a stronger female presence. For me at least, I’d rather see women contributing to what’s happening on the field than on the sidelines as sex objects.

If you are a pastor or a women’s ministry leader, remember this: Women make up over half the human population and over 60% of your congregation. As presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina says, “We are not a special interest group.” Ultimately this isn’t a question of representation or fairness; it is a question of organizational effectiveness. When women are free to flourish—whether on the tennis court or in the Church—everybody wins.

Confession and Community

"Take one sleepy seaside town in England, add a pinch of intrigue, stir in a brooding Scottish detective and his engaging local sergeant, and you’ve got the makings of Broadchurch, a British crime drama whose first series was, according to its millions of viewers, basically perfect..."

Last month, our family headed out of town for a week of vacation. We're still figuring out how to do this "family vacation" thing out because neither my husband or I grew up with "family vacation" as an annual reality. Now, before my mother and mother-in-law private message me to take issue with this statement, let me clarify: Neither my husband or I grew up with a specific week built into our families' calendars that guaranteed time away. We always took family trips; we went to visit relatives or went camping, but the idea that you could set aside an entire week at the beach to simply do nothing was not part of our experience.

This is so much outside our experience, in fact, that I didn't realize that you actually have to book a house months, not weeks, in advance. So when we finally decided to plan a "family vacation," we ended up shut out of the area we wanted to visit. Enter grandparents to the rescue. Given our predicament, my husband's grandparents graciously allowed us to use their winter home to go on "family vacation." So we packed up the kids and drove 900 miles to southeast Florida... in August. Like I said, we're still learning the ins-and-outs of this "family vacation" thing.

Thankfully, there is one aspect of "family vacation" that we became experts at very quickly--the art of doing nothing. Sleeping late, lazy days, fast food, and lots of HGTV, board games, and beach reads. This year this included binge watching the second season of Broadchurch, a British crime drama that is just disturbing enough to be perfect. My husband and I had watched the previous season a couple months ago, so when I found season two at our county library, I threw caution (and late-fees to the wind) and packed it for vacation.

Now, when I say that we binge-watched those eight episodes, I mean exactly that. We have no defense, no excuse; we sat fixated for hours in front of the television; and each time, as the credits closed the episode, my husband and I would look at each other, neither wanting to be the one to suggest pushing play on the next episode, but both of us desperate to continue the story. So after two late (late) nights of watching TV well after the children were tucked in bed, I can officially tell you, "It was worth it."

While there are one or two elements that might be uncomfortable for Christians, Broadchurch delves into the human experience in ways I don't often see in pop culture. Life, death, truth, our need for community--it's all there in one small English village by the sea. If you've seen the series, you'll know what I mean. And if you've seen it, you might appreciate this piece I wrote recently for Christ and Pop Culture about how Broadchurch season 2 shows the importance of confession of sin. And this--the importance of confession--is a profoundly Christian idea. We must confess our sin in order to be reconciled to God and each other. Proof is not enough; evidence is not enough. The wrongdoer must own his wrongdoing and speak the truth about it. Without such confession, our relationships break down and we end up isolated from God and each other.

From the piece:

Within the Church, the term “confession” has two usages. The first refers to the affirmation of a specific doctrine: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord…”  So begins the Apostle’s Creed, one of the oldest and most foundational of Christian confessions. With such statements, we are able to create distinct communities based in a shared reality. Creeds and confessions don’t define reality, though. Instead, they form the bonds and boundaries of communities: If we have nothing else, at least we know the truth about these things.

Christians also use the word “confession” in a more familiar way: We confess our sins. Whether this happens within the confessional booth, an accountability group, or in the dock, when we confess our sins, we speak the truth about our actions. But often we mistake the confession of sin as an individual act. At its heart, confession—whether of faith or of a lack of faith—is about building community.

Evangelicals, who have traditionally emphasized the individual believer’s immediate relationship with God, tend to focus on the personal benefit of confession; “unconfessed sin,” as the thinking goes, will hinder your fellowship with God and strip you of your own sense of personal peace. Consequently, we’re encouraged to bring our sin into the light so that it won’t have a hold on us anymore. We’re also told that such transparency will allow others to be transparent with their own failings.

What we don’t always recognize, however, is that the confession of sin also serves a purpose similar to that of the confession of faith: It creates and maintains the bonds of community. When we confess the creeds, we speak together about the nature of God and his world. When we confess our sins, we align ourselves with a shared reality about what is right and what is wrong. We align ourselves with the truth that the community holds in common...  Without shared truth, community is impossible.

One other note, there are some spoilers in the full piece so be warned--go binge watch season 1 and season 2 first.

Pulling Together: Marriage, Ministry, and Calling

Yesterday, Bible teacher, Christian radio host, and conference speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss announced that she will marry Robert Wolgemuth this coming fall. If you’re familiar with DeMoss’s ministry, “Revive Our Hearts,” you’ll understand the significance of this news. For years, DeMoss has been an advocate for Christian women to embrace the “freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness” found in Christ, including the unique calling to home and motherhood. At the same time she has confidently and comfortably embraced her own singleness, believing it to be a gift that has allowed her to commit herself to ministry.

But as God does, just when we think we know the plan, He changes it. Recently, He has brought widowed Wolgemuth and DeMoss together in order “to continue serving Him wholeheartedly, trusting Him to make us even more spiritually fruitful together than we could be apart.”

DeMoss continues:

I love this man dearly and look forward to becoming Mrs. Robert Wolgemuth. But my life mission has not changed. It will now be our life mission to magnify the Lord together… We envision a continued robust Revive Our Hearts ministry. Our longing is for even more women (and men) around the world to experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

And Wolgemuth adds:

My promise to our heavenly Shepherd, to Nancy, to her precious ministry family, and to the thousands around the world who love Nancy Leigh DeMoss, is that I will come alongside her and her ministry with my prayers, encouragement, and support.

And all God’s people said, “AMEN!” This is precisely how we should talk about married women and their calling to Christ’s kingdom.

Unfortunately, I don’t hear this language employed very often. Instead, I regularly hear Christian women being told to seek their callings through their husbands. Don’t get me wrong. I am fully convinced that a woman is called to minister to her husband and family. And I’ll be the first the trumpet the imago Dei-quality of a well-made peanut-butter-and- jelly sandwich or a properly laundered (and folded) pair of boxer shorts. What I’m concerned about is how often we confuse our prepositions—how often we misunderstand the difference between through and to.

In I Corinthians 7, Paul makes it clear that husbands and wives must cultivate and care for each other. Of all the neighbors you are called to love, your spouse is the closest one. This means that being married will naturally limit your ability to pursue other callings in the Church. But Scripture also makes it clear that the call to marry is rooted in a larger call so that even as we enter it, we remember that marriage itself is not all-consuming. It is only part of how we serve the Lord with our whole hearts and lives. This is true for men. This is true for women.

It may sound like I’m stating the obvious. Don’t Christian women understand this? No, I’m afraid that some don’t. Some, in fact, believe that the calling to help their husbands trumps every other ministry calling or desire. Sometimes they believe this because of their own immaturity; and sometimes they believe it because this is what they have been explicitly told. The result is confusion and frustration as women wrestle with their own gifting and place in the Church. They either become weak and directionless, unable to serve apart from their husbands; or they become frustrated and manipulative as they attempt to live out their own passions and gifting through their husbands.

How do I know? I used to be one.

Early in our marriage, when my husband first entered professional ministry, I honestly believed that my calling in the Church would be fulfilled through him. So whatever he needed me to do to further “his” ministry, I did. But I also ended up crossing a lot of boundaries I shouldn’t have crossed. I invested myself too deeply in his career, attempted to do the Holy Spirit’s work in his heart, and meddled in things that were not my concern—all in the name of “supporting” his calling.

What I was really doing was longing for a way to use my own gifting to serve the Church.

God was faithful despite my immaturity, and today I work beside my husband as a wife, mother, and active member of our local church. Out of the Holy Spirit’s gifting, I offer advice, counsel, and support as he needs it; but what he most certainly does not need is for me to confuse my calling with his. As I’ve found the freedom to develop my own gifts, God has led me to a place I never expected. Today, a significant part of my ministry happens independently of my husband’s. It happens through mothering and homemaking, to be sure, but it also happens through blog posts and articles just like this one.

The result? Today my husband and I are more fruitful for the Kingdom than we have ever been.

You may know that I live in the Blue Ridge of southwest Virginia. You may not know that this is railroad country. Our county and the surrounding area was built on rail and to this day, Norfolk-Southern is one of our largest employers. We also have a lot—A LOT—of mountains. So it’s not unusual to see two engines coupled together pulling a load of cars. With hills this big and loads this large, one engine simply can’t do the job alone.

In many ways, marriage is the same. Both men and women have the same basic calling: We are called to work for Christ’s Kingdom. We have to get the load up the mountain. But just like one engine can’t do it alone, neither can men nor women do it alone. “So God said that it is not good that man should be alone; I’ll give him a second engine to help him.” (That’s from the SWVA version of the Bible which also translates the plural of you as “ya’ll.”)

But here’s the thing: too often, we think of a woman as the coal car that fuels the man’s mission; in reality, she is a strong, second engine tasked with the same mission that he is. His engine may be out in front, and she may even be a different make and model, but make no mistake, they are both tasked with getting the load to the top of the mountain.

I am thrilled to see Nancy Leigh DeMoss and her fiancé confirm the work that God has called her to. I am thrilled that in God’s providence, He has brought them together to serve His Church as husband and wife. But mostly, I am thrilled that they will be able to model this for the rest of us. Because ultimately this is what a truly Christian marriage looks like—two people bound together by a mission greater than either one of them. two people bound together to love Christ and serve His people.

Why I Stayed in the Church

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If you spend time in the Christian blogosphere, you'll know that there's been a lot of talk over the last few days about leaving and returning to the church. Most of the conversation has been sparked by uber-blogger Rachel Held Evans' newest release Searching for Sunday. In it, Evans recounts her journey of the last few years that has taken her out of the conservative church of her childhood to a being part of a church plant to full-on disillusionment to eventually returning to a mainline Episcopal church. Like others of the Millennial generation, Evans believes her process was, in part, instigated by the failures of the conservatism of her childhood. If you follow Evans' blog, you'll know that this is not a new theme for her. Or for other bloggers in her network. In fact, this disillusionment with the church is a major component of what has made Evans so successful--she voices what a lot of people are feeling. As you can image, this makes her pretty controversial or as the Washington Post called her recently, "the more polarizing woman in evangelicalism."

And yet.

And yet, I don't believe that Evans is the only voice for how the Millennial generation is engaging with the church. Nor do I believe that Millennials are leaving the church en masse . But I do believe we are wrestling. We are wrestling with the same questions that Evans is asking, even if some of us come to different answers. At least, I know I have and am.

Part of what I think might be happening is that those of us who are staying, despite (and sometimes because of) our doubts and frustrations, simply aren't speaking as loudly as Evans and others. I know I'm not. In many ways, I'm not speaking up because of how quickly the conversation turns messy and vitriolic, and quite frankly I spend enough time refereeing fights between my kids. I don't need more online.

Still, I wonder if I'm doing a disservice to my peers. What if I could offer good answers for our questions? Or at least, I could offer different answers than the ones we're hearing? Well, at that point, at least we'd have a choice. At least, we'd know that the only solution to our frustrations isn't to leave the church. We could stay. We could stay and be part of the change we want to see.

A few months after I'd started blogging here at SAL, I wrote a post entitled, "15 Reasons I Stayed in the Church." I thought now might be a good opportunity to rehearse those reasons. I re-read them this morning and they are just as true as when I first wrote them.

First a bit of background: my husband pastors a small country church in Virginia. We were both reared in conservativism and have experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of ministry life. We've spent time overseas in mission work, struggled through a difficult pastorate (which we eventually left), and walked through a period of doubt where we questioned both our call to ministry and God's goodness. (It was during this time that I remember telling my husband we had to stay if only because we'd make very bad atheists--even if we didn't want to believe in God, we'd always have a chip on our shoulder and nothing's more irritating than a friend with issues. If we couldn't be happy atheists, it wasn't worth walking away.)

So when I offer these reasons for why we stayed in the church, I do so as a woman who has wrestled with the church's messiness--and my own. In the end, they may not answer your questions fully, but at least they'll be a place to start: Fifteen Reasons I Stayed in the Church

1. I believe that there is no such thing as Church (with a capital “C”) without church (with a lower case “c”)–as messy and as difficult as that may be.

2. I want to be the change in the world that I seek. And that means engaging the problems closest to me. Like in the next pew. Like in this pew. Like in my own seat.

3. I believe that reconciling nations and people starts at home. If I can’t work toward reconciliation in my own church, there is no way I will be able to accomplish it on a broader level anywhere else.

4. I’m not a militant separatist. I don’t believe that everybody has to think EXACTLY the way I do before I will worship with them. Even if they are more conservative than I am.

5. I don’t expect the church to be anything other than it is—a group of difficult, broken people plodding their way to glory. The kingdom of God is coming; it isn’t here yet.

6. I believe the church is bigger than political parties even if the people attending it don’t understand that. Even if the people who leave it don’t seem to understand that either.

7. I believe Jesus can and wants to redeem Pharisees as much as publicans.

8. I believe that by staying in the church I earn the right to speak about the problems I see. It’s the old adage that you can criticize your family but no one else can. By staying with “my family,” I can speak about our failures and the doubts I wrestle with.

9. I believe that 2000 years of church history holds a bit more weight than my personal experience.

10. I have Christian brothers and sisters who have been imprisoned and lost their lives for doing the very thing that I would be giving up.

11. I do not want to lose people I love and who love me and my family. And while there are times that conviction must trump relationships, these relationships act as a grid to help me determine whether my convictions are sufficient enough to risk losing these people from my life.

12. I need the church to regularly remind me about the things that I don’t like in the Scripture. Things like God’s anger and my sinfulness–things that if left to myself, I would conveniently ignore or rationalize.

13. I am not an island. My choice to leave church affects everyone else in the congregation. Remove one part from the whole and it is no longer the same entity.

14. I have children. And while I’ll be the first to admit that it’s dangerous to raise your children in a church that distorts the gospel, it’s also dangerous to raise them apart from church altogether. One way the gospel is expressed is in the loving covenant relationship that happens in the church – I want that to be part of the warp and weave of their experience. I want them to know that real commitment means taking the good with the bad.

15. Jesus hasn’t left the church. I don’t mean this in a sanctimonious way. I mean simply that after he threw out the money changers, Jesus continued to worship and sacrifice in the temple. His work is to purify and redeem, not to alienate or destroy.

I'll be honest with you, even as a pastor's wife, there are days that I struggle with being in a local church. There are also days I struggle with being in a marriage. All of us do. But these struggles don't necessarily mean that something is wrong. Sometimes they mean that something is very, very right. They might mean that God is using my church and my marriage to transform me in to His own image. And if He is doing that, then the worst thing I could do is try to get out of it.

---

Note: I want to make it clear that some church environments (and marriages) are abusive. Please do not read this post as supporting abusive religious contexts. I'm simply arguing for the validity of the church as a whole. Entrust yourself to the True Shepherd and He will guide you.

That Classic Twist

There are many reasons to love classic literature--the chance to escape to another time and place; the sheer feast of language and character; or perhaps, more pragmatically, the opportunity to multitask personal development with entertainment. But of all the things that keep me re-reading “the classics,” the most important is that they have such a direct connection my everyday life. They are (dare I say it?) so very relevant.

Part of what makes a work a “classic” is that it captures something about the human experience that remains true regardless of time and place. The story may be set in a backwater town of Judea, the hustle and bustle of London, or South Africa during apartheid, but the characters’ struggles are my struggles, their joys my joys. On the pages of literature, we see the truth about ourselves.

Classics also have an uncanny ability to predict the future. Every so often, you’ll stumble across a section of text so timely, so applicable that you have to look up for a moment to recover your sense of temporal balance. I’ve even found myself flipping to the front of a book in order to double check the original publication date. It’s not that the authors have some mystical, prophetic gift; it’s simply that they understand their own times well enough to predict the natural result of them.

I had one of these experiences this last week while reading Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. In its day, Madame Bovary was scandalous; a story of wanton love, an adulteress, and a church too ineffective to save her from herself. Flaubert was even brought to trial on grounds of corrupting public morality. But instead of promoting immorality, Madame Bovary is a profoundly moral piece of fiction that shows the consequences of an overly romanticized view of the world. Emma Bovary may be remembered for her adultery, but her main problem was her dissatisfaction with the mundane realities of life. Compared to the dream world she’d discovered in her novels, her doctor husband was too simple, lacked ambition, and would never be able to satisfy the longings of her own deeply-complicated, emotionally superior soul.

It is the perfect warning to a generation of women whose vision of marriage has been shaped by romantic comedies, reality dating shows, and the promise of “true love.”

But of all the things that Madame Bovary reminded me of—including the danger of disdaining the mundane—it’s those prophetic comments that kept me reading. At one point of the story, Emma’s husband Charles is deciding whether to support her request for music lessons. (In reality, she’d suggested the lessons as a guise to cover her weekly rendezvous with her lover.) Not knowing this, Bovary weighs the benefit of them and is finally convinced by these words from Homais, the local chemist:

One should never let any of the faculties of nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that by inducing madam to study, you are economizing on the subsequent musical education of your child. For my own part, I think that mothers ought themselves to instruct their children. That is an idea of Rousseau’s, still rather new perhaps, but that will end by triumphing. I am certain of it, like mothers nursing their own children and vaccination.

And there you have it: Flaubert predicted homeschooling, attachment parenting, and the conversation about vaccinations. Forget mommy blogs; go read a classic.

Persuasion Podcast

So here's a bit of news. Erin Straza and I will be hosting a new weekly podcast on the Christ and Pop Culture Podcast Network called Persuasion. In some ways, this is a departure for me--moving beyond the written word--but in another, it feels very natural. When I mentioned the opportunity to my husband, he asked, "So basically, they just want you to give your opinion about cultural and theological issues?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Oh, you'll nail that. That's what you do all the time around here anyway."

The larger goal of Persuasion is to offer feminine insight on issues of culture, theology, and everyday minutia--without reducing it to a podcast about "women's issues." This is easier said than done, but it's something that Erin and I believe is worth pursuing.

The full name, Persuasion: Fine Ladies, Rational Minds, and the Best Kind of Company, comes from two Jane Austen quotes:

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

and

"My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." '"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company, that is the best.”

We're still getting our feet under us, but here's a clip from the first episode in which Erin and I talk about how it easy it is to define ourselves based on other peoples' lives. Erin works full-time and does not have children while I am a SAHM. We explore the temptation of each of us to define our work in terms of the marketplace and/or domesticity. What are the dangers when we try to live our lives by comparing ourselves to others? How can we avoid it?

[audio mp3="http://www.sometimesalight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Persuasion-Episode-1-mp3cut.net_.mp3"][/audio]

The full podcast, including a discussion of what exactly we hope to accomplish on Persuasion and an interview with JR Vassar about his new book, Glory Hunger, is available here and on iTunes.

How to Debate Vaccines* and Still Come Out a Christian

(*organic food, essential oils, education, health care, immigration, soteriology, eschatology…)

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that there have been several outbreaks of measles across the United States recently. Not surprisingly, this has led to vigorous (if not often, one-dimensional) debate about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccinations. And all I have to say to CNN, FOX, NPR, and every other news outlet that is now covering this story: Y’all are late to the party. We mamas have been debating this for years.

I remember the first time I realized that the questions surrounding vaccines were more than theoretical. I was visiting a friend when she opened her freezer to get some ice. There, sitting next to a chub of frozen hamburger, was a tray of lab vials. When I asked about them, she casually replied, “Oh, those are my kids’ vaccines. I ordered them from XYZ instead of the standard ones. My doctor said he would administer them if I bought them and stored them myself.”

Since then, I’ve watched the vaccine debate play out on blogs, Facebook feeds, and in the corners of church nurseries. And I’ve learned a few things—mostly, that we don’t debate well and that we tend to have an unhealthy relationship with the certainty of our own choices. So in the interest of making the next few weeks easier on all of us, here are some suggestions about how to debate vaccines and still come out a Christian:

1. Realize that we live in a broken world.  One of Christianity’s core tenets is that we live in a world devastated by sin. Not only does this account for the presence of disease, it also means that our ability to combat disease will always be, in someway, inadequate. Learning to navigate the brokenness isn’t simply about having enough footnotes to back up our conclusions; navigating the brokenness requires the wisdom to apply the principles we know, weigh the relevant contingencies, and come to the best possible answer. Even as we accept that we will never arrive at a perfect solution. In a broken world, the questions surrounding vaccines are more an exercise in applied ethics than a simple choice between black and white.

2. Pursue true wisdom. Very early in the vaccine debate, one side will inevitably wallop the other with “the truth”—whether it is scientific research or a secret government memo. And that’s when the trouble really begins. If we believe that we have a corner on “the truth,” we will also believe that we understand things that other people don’t. That we have discernment that others lack. (How sad for them.)

I’ve seen this happen from both sides, but the ironic thing is that this posture is fundamentally unwise. In fact, Proverbs calls this kind of arrogant certainty by another name: foolishness. True wisdom does not boast about what it knows but humbly listens and learns. In fact, the difference between wise people and foolish people isn’t how much they know. The difference is that wise people know that they don’t know everything while foolish people are convinced they do.

3. Consider you neighbor’s well-being. Jesus Christ taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Because of moral proximity, our closest neighbors are those who live within our own homes, and it is our God-given responsibility to care for our children to the best of our ability. But loving our children also means remembering that they are part of a greater family where God is our Father and Christ our older brother.  Unfortunately, too many people parent with the aim of preserving their own nuclear families intact. We see our own families as ends in themselves rather than a reflection of a greater family.

Instead of simply weighing my responsibility to my children, I must also weigh the responsibility that my children have to their neighbors—both today and tomorrow. My goal is not to give my children the safest possible life but to teach them how to love God and their neighbor as themselves. My goal is to teach them how to live within this larger family and draw their brothers and sisters into deeper fellowship with our Father.

4. Do nothing out of fear. Whether it is fear of what may happen if you don’t vaccinate or fear of what may happen if you do, many people approach these questions from a posture of fear. This is why reactions become so intense when you offer an alternative perspective. Honestly, these conversations are rarely about the issue itself but about what we are trusting to keep us safe.

But for a Christian, fear is the worst possible motivation to make any decision. We are to be awed by nothing other than God Himself—our loving Father who is sovereign over all. When we stop fearing the wrong things and start fearing Him alone, we’ll be able to engage the questions with power, love, and sound minds. 5. Trust God. So let’s say you do your due diligence. You research every possible scenario. You humbly submit to counsel. You make your decision before God. Guess what? It’s still not going to be enough to protect your child.

One of the hardest lessons of parenthood is learning that you can’t protect your child from suffering; an even harder lesson is learning that your own parenting failures will cause some of that suffering. Just as the world around you is broken, so too, are you. You are sinful and limited. If your parenting philosophy relies on your ability to make the “right” decision, you’re going to end up one massive ball of anxiety or worse, self-righteousness. And in the end, you’ll model a works religion for your children.

It’s been said that what makes us afraid and what we trust in to keep us safe reveals what we worship. In the case of vaccines, a lot of us are trusting ourselves and our own ability to know enough to make the “right” decision. But by its very definition, this approach is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, the gospel calls us to embrace our weakness, to humble ourselves, and to cast ourselves on God’s mercy. Even when it comes to something as prosaic as vaccines and the safety of our children.

Especially when it comes to something as significant as vaccines and the safety of our children.

Long-Range Writing

"People—particularly women—need to hear that you can start late." --Ursula K. Le Guin

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I had a fight discussion about the role my writing plays in our relationship. Truthfully, our discussion had little to do with my writing and a lot to do with the fact that we had both been neglecting our days off, had not been spending quality time together, and were in the middle of the Christmas season.

Fa-la-la-la-la. La. La. La. La.

Still, our discussion turned out to be a good thing if only because it gave us the chance to clarify what God and we both expected from the other. As we talked, I realized that I don’t consider writing a “job” so much as a low-risk investment in the future. Right now, despite my work, there aren’t a lot of immediate rewards; instead I'm counting on the fact that if I put my time in and slowly grow, they will come.

Like it is for so many folks, writing is a sideline for me. My full-time job (if you want to call it that) is being a SAHM & small church pastor’s wife. My day can include anything from running a pick-up/drop-off shuttle, babysitting, learning a new choir piece, discussing a finer point of theology with my husband, or simply being the only one in our family who can find the 5yo’s missing shoe. In our season of life, one of us needs to be available to handle whatever comes up.

On the flip side, this kind of flexibility also frees me to pursue writing in the in-between moments. But this in itself can also be excessively frustrating; especially when I wake up with ALL THE IDEAS only to remember that I’ve already committed to chaperoning the 2^nd grade field trip to the science museum. I’m coming to terms with the fact that my writing probably won’t peak until I'm in a season when I can devote more time and more grey cells to cultivating it.

This could be depressing, especially since we live in a society that idolizes youth and believes that if you haven’t accomplished your dream (cue the rainbows and sparkles) by the time you’re 35, well then, honey, you might as well give up. But here’s the thing: writing is precisely the kind of work that can be cultivated over the long term because it’s the kind of work that requires keen observation of both the human condition and language. The kinds of observations that can be gathered while you’re diapering babies, working in an office, or chaperoning a field trip.

And while I can’t speak for men, I know that this is especially good news for women. A woman’s prime child nurturing years are in her twenties, thirties, and forties; the same decades that society tells her she must accomplish her greatest professional achievements. But this isn’t simply a problem for women who are married or raising children. Single women feel the pressure of finding a spouse in order to have the babies as well as the need to work a full-time job to keep a roof over their heads. Going it alone is not an easy thing.

So whether they’re exhausted at the end of the day because they ran after toddlers or because they've worked long hours to keep the budget balanced, women often end up at the same place: squeezing writing into “the-in-between” moments with no certain hope that it will ever amount to anything. Sometimes it seems easier to give up altogether. In fact, this piece, “10 Worst Dreams to Chase” actually suggests as much (see # 2).

But I’d like to suggest an alternative: Don’t give up; simply modify the dream to meet reality. And often, this means taking a long-range vision. Just like Katherine Paterson, P. D. James, and Laura Ingalls Wilder did; their first novels were published at 43, 42, and 65 respectively.

The tension between your day job and your dream to write is not a new one. The real problem is that too many of us aren’t content to simply write; at the very least, we want to make our living by writing and at the most, we want to be celebrity authors. This may happen for some, but whether or not it happens for you doesn’t mean that you can’t write.  And having a non-writing day job doesn’t mean that you can’t spend these years learning the craft, taking opportunities as they come, and squirreling away ideas.

This week, you may make writing goals for 2015. I plan to. But if you’re not careful, these goals will quickly mutate from opportunities to demands: demands that you get a book contract or make it onto a list of top bloggers by a certain date. Can I suggest another approach? Put away the calendar and simply write.

Write in the in-between moments. Write on the backs of school papers and discarded envelopes. Write about the things you know and the words you love. And then give them time to cultivate. Give them time to grow. After all, the acorn hidden in the ground doesn’t become a mighty oak in one night. But it might just become one after twenty-five years.

Rachel Still Weeps

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18) It’s happened again--only this time it wasn’t in Connecticut but almost 7,000 miles away in Peshawar, Pakistan. This morning, gunmen broke into classrooms and slaughtered boys and girls as they sat learning. It's a story we know too well: December. School. Children. Death.

Tonight, parents will return to empty beds; food will be left uneaten; and a soccer ball will stand in the courtyard, still and unmoving. And just as they did two years ago, despite the divide of language and culture, our own mother- and father-hearts will crack, life and hope leaking out of us, as we wonder how is there any meaning in this?

Why do grown men kill children?

Why do they target girls going to school?

Why does education and childhood threaten them so?

In an official statement, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson, condemned today’s massacre as “senseless and inhumane.” And suddenly we understand. Suddenly we understand why school children die. School children do not die simply because they are easy targets or because education is somehow a western corruption. School children die precisely because their deaths are “senseless and inhumane.”

This is the point.

On the edge of The Great Battle, The Enemy stands in his tent, leaning over a map of the field. He eyes it with cold calculating resolve while his marshals wait silent around him, ready for his command. And then he lifts a finger and places it down: “Here. We strike here.”

“A school? Children?”

“Yes.”

In order to attack a God who is Wisdom, you must do the senseless. In order to attack a God who became human, you must do the inhumane.

As word relays down the chain of command, forces muster. They begin arranging, plotting, planning an assault that would defy the very nature of their opponent. At the same time, mothers wake their sons and fathers walk their daughters to school in pursuit of  the good and true because this is what their Creator God has given them. Made in His own likeness, they pursue what He is, whether they realize it or not. And all the while, The Enemy pursues the annihilation of all that good and true and sensible and humane, for the exact same reason.

This conflict is especially marked during the Christmas season because it is during this season that we celebrate the reality that God dwells with His people. It is during Christmas that we remember that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." It is during Christmas that we acknowledge that Jesus Christ embodies all that is sensible and humane.

And it is a Wisdom and Humanity that was first revealed in a Child.

I’m beginning to wonder if The Great Battle doesn’t intensify during Christmas. And I’m beginning to wonder whether children--those who most clearly reflect the Childhood so central to our hope—don't somehow become more of a target during this season as well. Is it inevitable that Mary’s joy will forever be accompanied by Rachel’s mourning?

But even as we weep, even as we look on the senseless and inhumane, we do not lose hope. If anything, this season of Incarnation reminds us that the good and wise and beautiful will prevail. Because this is what Christ’s birth means to us: A Redeemer. A Savior. A Hope for the Nations. In that manger, we are reminded that life has purpose and meaning and that our God has come to restore it.

There will be no Christmas Truce this season. In The Great Battle, The Enemy does not respect such displays of humanity. And because he doesn't, we must be ready fight against all that is senseless and inhumane. But we do not fight as he does, with meaningless violence; instead, we fight by honoring the One who is Wisdom Incarnate. We fight by engaging in the hard work of joy and faith. And for the next few weeks, we will fight by celebrating the Child who came to make sense of it all.

The Worth of a Soul

Long lay the world in sin and error pining/'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth…

Despite the coming holiday season, the news from around the country has been pretty devastating. Racial tensions, riots, torture, abuse of power, and more. Even if you avoid the major media outlets, you’ll still find yourself confronting the brokenness on social media. Headlines of stories never even read split friends and families along the fault line of  “your interpretation” and “mine.”

For a world that is preparing to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, this is hardly the way to go about it.

We know, of course, the solution to it all. At least, the more enlightened among us do. The answer is that we must see each other as image bearers; we must respect everyone—male, female, black, white, friend, enemy, born, or unborn—as made in God’s image and deserving of our love because God Himself loves them.

But as so often happens, theological jargon and daily life don’t connect easily. Even as we use the correct language and construct proper paradigms, too many of us still don’t know exactly what we’re talking about. “Made in God’s Image” becomes nothing more than a label affixed to a person, like a tag telling you that your sweater has been “Made in the USA.” Proclaiming that someone is “made in God’s image” has no meaning unless you understand who God is, who we are as human beings, and what this daily requires of us.

I was thinking about this when I ran across a lovely bit from Alexander McCall Smith in his book Sunshine on Scotland Street. One of the protagonists, Angus Lordie, a middle-aged portrait painter, is hosting a party when he has a moment of awareness. He looks out over his guests and for the first time, sees them for what they are: souls.

The small crowd… became not just a collection of people conversing with one another at a party, but an infinitely precious band of souls. Souls, thought Angus; that is just the right word. And he remembered reading something that had made a deep impression on him—a small thing, in one view of it, but a very major thing in another. He had read that in the language used for radio communication at sea, the number of people on board was always expressed in terms of souls. “We have ten souls on board,” a sailor might say when asking for assistance from a passing ship. Ten souls. Not ten people. Not ten passengers. Not ten customers. Ten souls.

It was... the idea that each of us, even the least of us, has a rich hinterland of value behind us: the lives we have led, the thoughts we have had, the love we have given and received—the little things of our lives that may not mean much to others unless and until they are granted the insight that Angus was suddenly vouchsafed; that insight that brings love into the heart, sudden, singing, exalting love. To see another soul was to acknowledge the magnificent, epic course that life is for each of us, and to experience sympathy for the other in his or her negotiation of that course. It was quite different form seeing others simply as people. The word soul had a big job to do, and it was the only word that could do it.

That “hinterland of value” that each of us possess is what we’re trying to communicate when we say that we are “made in God’s image.” But McCall Smith’s point is that this value only reveals itself when we acknowledge “the lives that we have led, the thoughts we have had, [and] the love we have given and received.” Proclaiming that someone is made in God’s image is pointless unless we acknowledge the “magnificent, epic course that life is for each of us, and experience sympathy for the other in his or her negotiation of that course.”

This requires a bit of imagination. It requires putting yourself in someone else’s place and learning about their experience. It requires listening to them as they tell us what it is like to “be” them. It also requires dropping categorical thinking. We are not truly engaging people as image bearers if we insist on speaking of them as “crowds” or “enemies” or “fetuses.” We are not these things; we are souls.

Those of us who believe in the direct act of God to make people in His own image must be the first to shift the conversation. It is not enough to acknowledge people as people, to slap a label on them as “Made in God's Image.” We must see them as souls, as great expansive, eternally valuable souls. Until we do, we will never be able to love them the way that God, with His own great, expansive, eternal Soul, loves us.

CAPC & Love in the Digital Age

Every so often, I get to write for this great site named Christ and Pop Culture. My relationship with CAPC happened gradually, as so many do. You start out as friends, you find yourself more and more often in the same place, you realize that he's funnier than you first thought, and smarter too. And then one day, you wake up  to discover that you're meant to be together. Well, it wasn't exactly like this, but I have come to believe that the folks at CAPC are some of the brightest, funniest, and most committed Christians writing on the web.

Christians tend to have a complicated relationship with the culture around us. From our earliest days, we're taught that we are not of this world, but then we spend the majority of our lives living in it--encountering and engaging with art, thought paradigms, and culture that may or may not be consistent with the Christian faith.  It creeps into our worship, influences our buying habits, and affects how we raise our kids. Even those of us who actively try to protect ourselves from its influence are shaped by it, if only in response. CAPC exists to be a guide in this crazy, often confusing world, to uncover what is beautiful and good and to call out what is tawdry and evil in our culture. To do this, they write on a whole host of topics that Christians rarely talk about well: gaming, the music industry, television, movies, technology, and cultural events.

I don't agree with every opinion that every writer presents at CAPC, but that's also one of the things that I love about it --it's a space for vibrant, engaging dialogue and at times, flat-out disagreement. CAPC also offers a monthly membership that allows you access to their fantastic online community  (if you're a blogger or writer, this interaction alone justifies the cost of membership), free book and music offerings every month, and a subscription to their bi-monthly magazine. And that's nothing to speak of the loads of free content that go up on the blog weekly.

Last month, I wrote a piece for CAPC about the struggle of romantic commitment in a digital age. It seems that more and more of us are using social media and technology to keep in touch with friends and previous lovers as a kind of insurance in case our current relationship goes bad. These "back-burner" relationships pose all kinds of questions for Christians. Even if they are not steamy or exotic, what are the potential dangers of cultivating them? How does digital interaction skew our sense of reality?  What does marital commitment require of us?

The irony of commitment—the kind evidenced in marriage—is that it exists because of the what if, not despite it. Without the potential for other alternatives, the concept of commitment is meaningless. If two people are by all measures the clearest, most direct avenue for each others’ happiness, they will naturally gravitate toward one other, bound together by sheer self-interest. In this sense, marriage exists, not because other viable options don’t, but precisely because they do.

You can read the rest here at CAPC.

Getting Married for All the Wrong Reasons

My husband and I have been married for 13 years, and we’ve spent 10 of those years in “ministry.” During this time, we’ve seen the most unlikely relationships blossom into beautiful, fruitful marriages; we’ve also witnessed the disintegration of more marriages than I care to think about. And that’s nothing to talk of the pain and confusion we’ve experienced in our own. It’s no secret that our society struggles with sustaining faithful, happy marriages. And yet, no one wants to go through a divorce; no one enters marriage with the goal of simply exiting it. As a result, there’s a lot of competing advice about what you should do prior to marriage in order to make yours successful. Some folks tell you to wait until you’re “sure” and others advise getting married young. Truthfully, though, I don’t think the problem is when we get married so much as why we get married. A lot of us are getting married for all the wrong reasons.

So, if you're not married already, here are a few things to consider:

1. Do not get married simply to get married. For some folks, the idea of marriage is more important than the individual they are marrying. Do not marry a woman because you want to be a "husband;" and please, do not marry a man simply because you want to be a "wife." If you want to “play house,” buy one of these instead.

2. Do not get married because you don’t know what else to do with yourself. Back in the day, we called it “senioritis”—that mysterious illness that descends late in college and leads to the unexpected pairings of those not already invested in a serious relationship.  Now, I realize that trends change; fewer and fewer folks are getting married right after college. But the phenomenon still exists. Folks reach a point in life where they’re not entirely sure of the next step so, in lieu of patience, they commit themselves to the most demanding and significant decision Of. Their. Entire. Lives.

3. Do not get married because it’s expected. Maybe it’s pressure from family or a church culture that idolizes marriage. Maybe it’s the notion that says once you begin a serious relationship, you can’t leave it. In a day when weddings are a $161 billion industry; when planning one takes upwards to a year; when deposits are signed, reservations made, and announcements sent months in advance, it takes a lot of maturity to walk away from a troubled relationship before walking down the aisle. It’s also exactly the kind of maturity you’ll need once you do.

4. Do not get married simply because you’re “in love.”  By “love” I mean that complicated feeling of attraction and desire that may or may not be based in reality. While I’d never encourage someone to marry without it, attraction alone is not enough because attraction can be rooted in a whole host of factors, including the fact that someone doesn’t challenge us or push us outside our comfort zone. The truth is that we tend to “love” people who “love” us regardless of whether we’re good for each other or not.

5. Do NOT get married to fix something in your own character.  Over the years, I’ve discovered that this is by far the worst possible (and I mean, the very worst possible) reason to get married. Maybe you’re a man struggling with sexual temptation and you believe that marrying a “good” girl will somehow solve it, that somehow her purity will make you pure. Or maybe you’re a woman desperate for affirmation so you marry the first man who gives you a second glance. Here’s the problem: you take your issues with you into marriage. Simply changing your relationship status will not solve them; another person cannot solve them. Only Jesus can. And while He may choose to do it in marriage, He doesn’t need marriage to make you holy.

If you’re like me, you might have gotten married for some, if not all, of the wrong reasons. Thankfully, God is bigger than our mistakes and His grace is kinder than our failures. He’ll use your marriage for good. Because here’s the thing: ultimately, marriage isn’t only about us. It’s about something much bigger. Marriage is one way that God is reconciling the world to himself. It is one way he is making “every sad thing come untrue.”

So why should you get married?

You should get married if God leads you to someone with whom you can make this world a better place--a better place than you could alone.

It’ll be someone who shares your goals and values. It will be someone who complements your weaknesses and who already exhibits maturity and faithfulness. It will be someone who’ll work side-by-side with you to cultivate your place in this world and nurture the generations to come. And it will be someone you can trust to grow old with you. Because, when it comes to marriage, there's a rumor that the best is yet to be.

Think Before You Write

This is a second post in a recurring series that addresses questions of craft for those writing in “the-in-between.” ______________________________________________________________________

Q: My friend Rachael and I were talking a few days ago when she brought up this question:  How do you find time to write, especially in the busy seasons of life?

A: Those of us writing in “the-in-between” have a lot of questions, but this is THE question. Whether you work a full-time job, are invested in a busy season of ministry, or are running after toddlers, finding time to write is one of the biggest obstacles to actually... writing. (Case in point: While I was in the middle of writing this post, my husband came down stairs to ask me to cut his hair.) Last week, Taryn Hutchison offered some helpful tips at Redbud Writers Guild; and when I posed Rachael's question to a group of writing friends, several sagely pointed out the need to keep reasonable expectations. Some seasons of life will simply be more productive than others.

Still others swear by early rising, spouses who pitch in, and dedicating space in your weekly calendar. Truthfully, though, I’m not that organized. In our house, no two weeks (let alone days) look the same. And while I do sometimes stay up late to work a piece, it’s usually because I can’t sleep, not because I’ve reached a new level of productivity. But I have found one technique that I swear by. In fact, if I didn't do this one thing, I'm convinced that I'd never have enough time to write.

So what do I do? I write on my feet. More accurately, I think on my feet.

Many people mistakenly believe that writing is the work of arranging words on a page, of finding just the right sequence of letters and punctuation. They believe that "writing" happens with pen and notebook in hand or sitting in front of a computer. But writing is NOT simply about words; it is just as much about the about the ideas behind the words. And until you learn to think through your ideas, all the time in the world won’t be enough to write about them.

The good news is that you can think anywhere. Ideas bombard me in the shower, at the grocery store, listening to the news, and scrolling through Facebook; the place they are least likely to form is sitting in front of a computer screen. If I wait to begin "writing" until I plop myself in a chair, more often than not, the words won’t form because the ideas haven’t formed yet.

So I’ve learned to think on my feet. And as the ideas come, I’ve learned to capture them and squirrel them away. Forget Scrivener; the first draft of Made for More was written on the backs of church bulletins, restaurant napkins, and grocery receipts.

I also make notes on my phone, send myself emails, and record myself talking if my hands aren’t free. (Nor am I above asking my 10yo daughter to act as my secretary—“What’s trans-sub-stan-ti-a-tion mean, Mommy?”) By the time I actually sit down in front of a screen, it’s just a matter of arranging the bits and bobs into a coherent whole.

Don’t misunderstand. When I say “bits and bobs,” I mean a thesis and all the examples that support that thesis. For me, the process of collecting these can take anywhere from a couple days to several weeks, but I don’t sit down in front of the screen it until everything “clicks” –until all the random thoughts actually form into a concept. And then once I know what to “write,” the time I do have to write is much more productive.

That doesn't mean that I don't struggle once I sit down, but when I do, it’s usually because I need to step away and think about the ideas some more. If the words don’t come easily, I don’t waste my time sitting in front of the computer because I probably need to spend more time thinking. So I go clean a toilet, make dinner, or do laundry. But I keep thinking while I do.

I don’t want to make it sound simpler than it is. I don’t want to minimize the time that good writing takes. And I certainly don’t want to suggest that you check out of your real life in order to puzzle out the mysteries of the universe. But you probably have more time to write than you realize because finding time to write well doesn't begin with hours in a coffee shop, long walks along a placid lake, or evenings spent scribbling in your moleskin notebook. Finding time to write well begins with thinking well.

The Whole Woman

 

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and like most moms with young children, I completely forgot about it until my husband reminded me. The irony of Mother’s Day is that mothering is the kind of work you celebrate by actually doing it. And in the midst of laundry, prepping for a yard sale, and running kids to ball practice and piano lessons, the last thing I have time to do is to cultivate expectations of Hallmark moments, breakfast in bed, and keepsake necklaces.

Still there is a tension that surrounds mothering and I’ve recently read several good pieces that explore motherhood as it relates to the questions of work, calling, and gifting. In pieces at Her.meneutics, Sharon Hodde Miller asks whether we should talk of motherhood as a “calling” while Courtney Reissig explores the false construct between being a stay-at-home-mom and being a “working” mom. (In this Slate piece, Ester Bloom argues that we need to do away with the term “stay-at-home-mom” altogether and return to the more encompassing title of “homemaker.”)

But my favorite piece is Jen Pollock Michel’s review of Matt Perman’s new book on productivity, What’s Best Next? While Michel has good things to say about the book, she points out that it doesn’t address the very real work that it takes to manage a home and nurture a family. She writes, “When does Perman do his laundry? Make dinner or do the dishes? Where does he fit in carpool? And once his children are tucked into bed, who is packing the lunch boxes?”

Michel's point is this: productivity and work cannot be defined by an office or job description. All people work because all people—whether SAHMs or CEOs---are made in the image of a God who works.  And because of this, the questions women ask about “work/life balance" are not really questions about womanhood or motherhood at all. At their core, these questions are about what it means to be image bearers. These are questions about what it means to live holistically in the image of a God who is wholeness Himself.

One of the lesser discussed attributes of God’s character is His simplicity--the truth that the various parts of His nature (even the three persons of the Trinity) exist in perfect union and peace. But God’s simplicity is more than a good “work/life balance.” In the purest sense, He cannot even be separated into parts. He is love; He is justice; He is peace. All at the same time.

The implication for us as image bearers is that we are made to live holistically as well. We simply cannot divide our existence into categories. There is no such thing as "work" vs. "home" vs. "gifting" vs. "motherhood." I am a wife, mother, writer, extrovert, saint, and sinner --all at the same time. In fact, we damage our own humanity when we try to separate them.

And yet, achieving simplicity is not a simple thing. Over the course of a single day, the responsibilities of life will pull us in a hundred different directions and if you are anything like me, you’ll find yourself asking,

• How am I supposed to pursue my gifting when the laundry hasn’t been done and my five-year-old had to borrow his older brother’s underpants (yet again)? 
• How am I supposed to live “missionally” –to take a meal to my neighbor when my own family is eating very non-organic, nitrate-laden hot dogs tonight?
• How am I supposed live this multi-dimensional existence, to live in the image of an infinite God, when I am so very limited?

The thing that few of us acknowledge and that fewer of us want to embrace is that we are limited. We cannot reflect God’s simplicity on our own. We cannot achieve wholeness by simply being more or managing our time better. We must achieve wholeness through His wholeness.

In many ways, our limitations are the very things that God is using to draw us to Himself. Just like the opposing facets of a diamond work in coordination to refract light, God is using the different facets of our lives to display His glory. So that as we grow in dependence on Him, as each facet of life is aligned to His nature, we will begin to experience a bit of His wholeness.

Categories like calling and work and motherhood are not wrong; but they are limited. Alone they will never be large enough to contain creatures who bear the image of a infinite God. Alone, they will never be able to reflect the complexity and brilliance of His nature. Nothing but God Himself can do this. But as He becomes the unifying element of our existence—not simply our ability to multi-task or draw boundaries—His Light will suddenly come bursting forth in brilliant splendor.

And in this Light, we will finally see.