Mom or Not: Honoring Sisterhood

I've had so much to write about, but crazy days these past two weeks which included writing over a dozen pre-scripts for Real Faith TV, a garage sale, a funeral for a 22 year old, and a 14 hour day trip to Six flags with 30 teenagers. Yup. This is life. The weekend brings a wedding, and ordination, and a birthday party. whew. Thanks for your patience!

Today I found this young woman's youtube video on my news feed, and I thought it was good enough to comment on. The woman in the video basically is describing her life choices to marry and have children, versus her friend's recent career highlight of being featured in Esquire (presumably the friend is not married with children.) Her point, and the reason I wanted to comment, was that (in my own words) women all have different callings, we are allowed by virtue of our free will to choose the life we lead, and if we are using our gifts in a particular moment and have success in doing so (whether it be in an article or as a mom) that is exciting. Harsh judgment of others' choices will only harm our sisterhood... and it's important for us all to remember that what you see on the surface rarely is more than the tip of the iceberg.

The mommy wars thing has raged on since the last century, and I'm not so much wanting to get into that now - SAHM vs WM - but I do want to comment on some of the beautiful ways some of the women I know use the gift of their genius...who they are as woman, and the challenges of their inherent motherhood.

For instance, I have a friend who is a pharmacist who works from home, primarily because in that kind of job she can walk her kids to the bus stop, or take a day off with them now and again. She honors her gift of motherhood by choosing a career path that allows her to be there with her kids while they're young.

Another young woman I know, Colleen Nixon is a gifted singer and songwriter (check her out!). She has been travelling around the US with her family to share her music and their faith. In her twenties, Colleen has made motherhood a priority, but also found ways to share her other gifts.

I have a couple of young girlfriends in their 20s who are not yet married, although they would like to be. They aren't just sitting around waiting for a man to sweep them off their feet. One made a career of service to the Church as a campus minister, and the other has a day job to pay the bills so she can serve others in her free time. They are choosing to live chaste lives and wait for love and marriage, despite how painful the ache can be.

And there are so many others - moms who stay at home because they can afford to, and moms who work because they have to. Women who put other things on hold because they were fully aware of the timing of childbearing, and women who would give their right arm to conceive but can't. My friend who lives out her motherhood as a single woman (so far) who is a gifted teacher and administrator.

Sometimes women are connected with their bodies and accept the "window of childbearing" and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, many times, they long to, and their longing goes unanswered, either because the relationship isn't there, or because their bodies cannot cooperate. But what I loved about that video is the way the speaker shares her excitement for others, others like but not like herself. What I appreciate is that there is no hint of harsh judgment in her voice.

We are all mothers, because that is our ontological gift. But that motherhood - the nurturing, teaching, protecting, giving, loving, accepting nature of the feminine heart - is going to be lived out in very different ways, whether you have borne children or not, whether they have lived and grown, whether you remain single. What seems vitally important to me is that we honor the motherhood in each of us women. That as women, we seek wisdom from those who spend their time in the workplace, from those who are alert to the stirrings of the world "out there", to those who cradle the hearts of one child, or three, or ten. If we do not acknowledge the goodness of a mother's heart in its brilliantly diverse facets, then we keep our own selves from being effective signs of our Creator God.

So, to the women who are physical mothers, adoptive mothers, grandmothers... teachers, doctors, nurses... single women, religious, those dealing with infertility... women at work in all fields, exciting or mundane... poets, artists, lovers and fighters...
I am excited for your joys and I weep with you in your sorrows. But most of all, I unite with you as my sisters in the journey, whatever you do, whoever you are. Because from you I learn what it means to be a woman, and I have the joy of sharing my own self, which brings freedom.

Love Mission

Historically, people have used Scripture to suit their purposes. I don't mean delving into the gritty details of what the Story of Jonah means and Why it is Significant. I mean finding a verse out of context that suits your agenda and manipulating the hell out of it, claiming some kind of authority-through-quotation to make yourself powerful in an argument.

This methodology has pervaded all kinds of issues, but perhaps one of the most misconstrued comes frmo Ephesians 5. It's the one that was completely taken out of context and shoved down our throats when we were young adults in my weird circles. You know, the one that every deacon preaching out there tries to water down, and every priest tries to back off. The one that makes husbands parade their hubris and wives shiver with scorn. The one that says husbands should love their wives AS Christ loves the Church, and wives should submit to the mission of their husbands. Wait. What? Is that what it says? It isn't about men being masters of their domain and aggressively domineering their wives? Or about women being barefoot and pregnant with no voice or intellect or will? #&*% (insert your own expletive), No!

This post is not an exegesis on Ephesians 5. If you're looking for a good one of those, I recommend Bl. John Paul II's Theology of the Body July 28, 1982 talk (and following) (Buy the book) or take a few minutes to watch this video clip. The Scripture unfolds the nature of spousal love. In this case, it explains that a man's model for loving his wife is "as Christ"- the model is laying down one's life, even to death. The wife is called to submission to her husband - to put herself under the mission of her husband - his call to love her... her job is to allow herself to be loved.

It would seem this is a rather sweet deal for us women. Let myself be loved? Sure! No problem! But one realizes, ever more fully when in a relationship with the "other" that when love comes freely, it often comes unexpectedly. For instance, sometimes my husband loves me by buying me chocolate, not even aware that I just signed up with Weight Watchers online and threw out all the other carbs in the house. Does this diminish his effort? Not in the slightest. Sometimes he washes all the dishes, when I really hoped he would change the lightbulbs upstairs. Does this act become less loving because it was not part of my plan for the day? Absolutely not. But sometimes, if I give in to that particular selfishness women have - the one that looks like I am taking care of everyone but myself, the one that seems to be planning and nurturing and providing, but is really about my own desire for control and my own kind of power - I can find it very hard to submit to the love that is offered. I can miss the sacrifice, and jeopardize the sacrament.

In my own marriage and life, this concept has grown more and more concrete. There are times when I need to guide my husband with kindness to teach him how to love me. You know, the times when you just need a hug, not a solution, for instance. And there are times when I need to allow him to love me with his gifts and his person, like being told to sit down and relax while he makes dinner. These interactions are rarely perfect, but they have become more and more a part of what it means for us to be the sacrament of God's love for each other, the sacrament of marriage.

This has become ingrained in my spiritual life in a very real and physical way - the meeting of husband and wife, the culmination of years of marriage. So I have to admit to being a little surprised when God spoke to my heart this week in prayer, and asked me to submit my will to His love. I mean, if my husband can love me well, if not perfectly, then isn't this a shadow of the Spousal love God shows to His bride? So I reasoned with my Bridegroom. Ok, Lord, but I gotta say that my husband is doing a pretty amazing job of loving me with kindness and patience and honor, so I expect a heck of a lot more from YOU.

Part of me groaned at the admission, you know. I mean, I know that when I say yes to God in this way, there's no going back. To say yes, I am going to submit my heart and my will and my body to Your love for me... well, it's a big deal. But it seems to me that if I can say this to my human spouse, I ought to be able to say it to the Bridegroom, and mean it. Maybe the celibates have been on to something all along... but this is not only "their" way. This is "our" way, is it not? To learn from the beautiful analogy of Christ and His Bride. Christ continually offers Himself in the sacrifice on the altar, and we are invited to meet Him there and let ourselves be passionately loved.

Spousal love isn't for the faint of heart - our culture screams it at every turn. And so all I can do is ask the Holy Spirit to fill me with the courage to say yes, and yes, and yes again.

Dancing With the Stars Goes Sacred

I remember the bad liturgical dance thing in the 70s and 80s. Those were dark days in the church, although they did provide plenty of food for fodder - those poor women in swooshy skirts whom we made fun of for years when we were kids...

But when I heard cries of "sacrilege!" yesterday coming from the office I wondered what was going on.

It seems that the night before, one of the passionate fans of Dancing With the Stars, who works in the parish, had seen a waltz danced to the Bach-Gounoud Ave Maria. When she mentioned the performance to a co-worker, he was horrified, without even seeing it. And it was his voice which decried the dance as sacrilege.

Once he left the room, she called me in to watch. Now, this is my opinion, folks, and you have every right to disagree, of course... but I do want to make a couple of points. What I didn't really notice the first time round, but noticed just now when I re-watched, is that the woman dancing had a dress cut down to there, and I understand how uncomfortable this could make people. No prude myself, I do think there may have been a more respectful costume choice. Ok? 'nough said. Let's move on.

Many of the comments on the video went something like this: eww, tacky, this should not have been the background for a waltz, etc. Fine. But sacrilege?

I beg to differ. Whether the choreographers really thought this through or not, they hit on something - perhaps by the inspiration of the HS, because art has meaning, and good art points us to God. Regardless of personal preferences, the dance is beautiful. The dancers intertwining in such an intimate and even "loving" way spoke to me. The Ave reference- well - this could be Mary dancing with Joseph, or perhaps better yet... Mary dancing with the Holy Spirit. It was beautiful art in either case, my taste or no. And when art hits on one of the transcendentals - Beauty- God is not far behind.

I think as postmoderns our challenge is in fact to find beauty where it exists, and to cull from that beauty the goodness of God. Maybe a little girl who sings like she's forty years old is bizarre. Maybe dancing the waltz to the Ave Maria seems incompatible. Maybe the low cut evening dress and the idea of the Virgin is incongruous. But perhaps, just perhaps, we can look beyond the awkward attempts of the production staff and see goodness, and learn something.

When the DWTS fan next saw the naysayer, she shared my suggestion that this might be an image of Mary and the Spirit. He was not convinced, but at least listened. So I walked back into the room and said that there was another image to find in the art - these people dancing in honor of Mary as David danced before the Ark. And even though the critic was not convinced, I still challenge us to consider this metaphor in the dance, and not throw it into the trash as something irreverent or without merit. I don't believe irreverence was the intention, but more importantly, I believe that God can work even in the mundane, the unintended, and the ignorant.

A pretty dance to a lovely song? Sure.
Tacky or misunderstood? Could be.
But maybe it is something more. And maybe we need, not only to open our eyes to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but also to honor those ways in which the body reveals the person and reveals God. Maybe this was not merely a competivie performance, but rather an invitation to the Dance...