A Little Background (MMOW1)

7 years ago, I started this blog to speak into the violence and hatred of our culture (you can read about that here).  If feels as if the world has grown more and more hate-filled.  But I continue to write and teach and preach the good news of God’s love because that is what God has called and equipped me to do.  And in all of my humanness I try with God’s help to love well and yet I know there are times I don’t love very well at all.  I ask for and receive God’s forgiveness and I offer myself the grace of trying again.  And again.  

This daily trying again and paying attention leads me to insights about who God is, who God made me to be, and how being present to God’s Love is the antidote for all things that distract me from being who and Whose I am.  It still feels somewhat pretentious to think that what I have to say will have any impact on anyone but I hear from you and you tell me it does so I keep writing and preaching and teaching.  I may not be able to influence the whole world, but together we can help each other be more and more present to God’s Love, to try again and again, and to pay attention. And that, I am certain, is how Jesus teaches us to live in the Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven here and now.  

I’ve spent my whole life trying not to take up space.  I was born small, 4.5lbs, and am now only 5’1” at my full height (I’m at the age I know I will be shrinking losing physical height as I get older).  Yet, I have always felt as if I was in the way.  I have never felt the freedom to be my full size, literally and figuratively.  

I grew up in a world in which women were expected to make ourselves smaller to accommodate men’s egos.  I can’t fault the men necessarily because they too were taught that women were supposed to do this.  Boys who were assertive were praised as natural born leaders and girls who were assertive were scolded and called bossy.  It was the water we swam in.  I’m not saying it’s acceptable behavior, just that it’s the way it was and since so many have never pondered these undisclosed biases, the way it is.  We all need to be better at checking our egos so that we are neither smaller or larger than we should be.  But both our culture and our society on a larger scale, and our families and communities on a smaller scale still in many ways live a pattern than continually enforces the idea that women have to be less so that there is room for the men.  We have to remember that God made the world with room enough for both – for all of us! – to be fully and boldly human.  

Part of me growing into my full humanness in this Journey with Jesus is to speak and write the truth I know, the truth I am discovering, about who God is and who we are as God’s beloved. And I pray it will give others the courage to do so as well.  So, stay tuned.  I’ll add to my musings a bit each week (in addition to my regular sermon and Sunday reflection posts and the occasional post on what’s happening in the world).  I’d love to hear your thoughts so please share a comment with me below.