SheLoves Magazine

ShePonders: Vulnerability

“My tenderness, rawness, weakness and my vulnerability are, in fact, the birthplace of resurrection.”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

It all began as a normal visit, my parents coming over for dinner (bringing a pizza and some hot wings) to enjoy an evening with the grandkids. But at some point my son did not get his way and launched into an explosive tantrum, the like of which I had never experienced before.

I managed to push him down the hallway and into his room. His arms were flailing, legs kicking and ugly words were streaming out of his mouth at full volume. I pinned him on the bed, trying to prevent him from hurting himself or anyone else. I whispered soothing words in his ear to try and calm him. I prayed for a volume button to activate and, as if by divine remote control, lower the sound of his shouting.

He was out of control. I was out of control. Let’s face it–control had left the building. And then I looked up and saw my mother standing in the threshold of the doorway staring. “We are leaving,” she announced. Enter that “warm wash of shame” that Brene Brown speaks of in her TED talk.

Exposed

It was a painful moment of utter vulnerability–excruciating exposure, utter weakness and taunting embarrassment. I was out of my depth. I would learn in coming days as I consulted friends and professionals that I did everything wrong in that initial moment. What I did, escalated the tantrum. What I did was wrong. What I did, was seared in my mind (and the mind of my mother). It would be months before I could find the courage to talk to her about that night.

In the last 18 months I’ve come to recognize that my greatest moments of vulnerability all center in the vortex of motherhood. I remember when confronted with the reality of discrimination my brown-skinned children will face in this world, I wept uncontrollably on the convention center floor. Or when my son recently asked about his “other mother” and why she did not keep him and if he could meet her, I seized up inside and immediately corrected: “I am your mother, she is your birth mother.”

Or when he told me that he does not like “the way my love feels” after another consequence meted out for bad behavior. As I daily attempt to protect, discipline and form identity in my children, I feel stretched taut on a cross and I feel the nails pinning me in place. I am raw and losing blood rapidly. Vulnerability has never been so real for me before.

With Good Friday not that far behind us, I have continued to ponder the cross and crucifixion. Just the other day I came across a poem by Mary Karr entitled Descending Theology: The Crucifixion.

This portion riveted me:

To be crucified is first to lie down

on a shaved tree, and then to have oafs stretch you out

on a crossbar as if for flight, then thick spikes

fix you into place.

Once the cross props up and the pole stob

sinks vertically in an earth hole, perhaps

at an awkward list, what then can you blame for hurt

but your own self’s burden?

Your not the figurehead on a ship.  You’re not

         flying anywhere, and no one’s coming to hug you.

You hang like that, a sack of flesh on the hard

trinity of nails holding you into place.

The description of hanging with no hug forthcoming, touches something deep in me as a mother.  There are these moments where I am stretched, nailed and hung. I am excruciatingly exposed, my raw mama-heart tender and bruised and soon-to-be-expiring. Like Jesus, I am headed in the right direction but must suffer this pain nonetheless. For me it is the pain between a son’s tantrum and his one-day transformation into peacemaker. (Forgive him, because he does not mean what he is saying; he does not yet know who he is becoming.)

Leaning In

My vulnerability is experiencing weakness and lack of control.  But leaning into vulnerability also is asking for the help I need, confessing that I don’t know what to do.  So I ask for coaching on how to manage tantrums.  I take a risk and approach an African American teacher and ask for her to unpack discrimination for me and teach me how to help my kids.  I gather up some courage and share with my parents what I’m learning about how to raise my children. All this is naked vulnerability.

Then while retreating to my reading chair, this sentence by Walter Brueggemann found me, “The victory of resurrection requires the vulnerability of crucifixion.” I was pierced. My tenderness, rawness, weakness and my vulnerability are, in fact, the birthplace of resurrection. My vulnerability, most-oft experienced in mothering but also in other moments, has a redemptive arc.

Jesus endured the vulnerability of the cross, we are told, for a joy that was set before Him. He knew there was more ahead, something beyond the hug-less hanging of crucifixion. As He experienced excruciating exposure He was also making ready for resurrection. Paul says that is the divine mystery … the cross that appears as scandal, utter foolishness, is actually a deeper kind of wisdom. Brene Brown, no theologian but a wise woman just the same, describes how we feel weak when we are vulnerable, yet others see that very vulnerability as pure courage.  So this week I am seeing that place of vulnerability as cross–foolishness–weakness yet leading to courage – wisdom – resurrection. Vulnerability will lead to transformation … as cross leads to resurrection.

Last night my parents were over for dinner, bringing the traditional pizza and wings. Someone did not get his way and I had to step in to offer discipline. But now I have learned how. And soon he returned to the table in time for the last bursts of laughter.

And my mother hugged me before she left.

_________________________

My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear:

• How has vulnerability been a birthplace of resurrection for you?
• Where have you been surprized by your courage?

________________________

AUDIO

Audio: Vulnerability

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

Dear God, Would You Like a Doughnut?

I want to hand him a box of tissues and ask gently, “Where’s your doughnut, God?

By Shekinah Jacob

There’s a reason why I never have any Mary-Poppinsy updates on my facebook status that read: “Marvelled at clouds with kids, and then we held hands and chanted poetry.” Or: “What a joy to have two children who help with grocery shopping and never ask for bubblegum at the check-out counter.” This is because when I do experience such moments, I’m struck speechless and cannot articulate my happiness, and thus its records are lost to the general public forever.

Before you conclude that I’m an inexplicably unbalanced person who doesn’t deserve to have children (I sometimes suspect the very same thing myself), I assure you that I do have my Oscar-winning moments when they queue up to chant, “I love you, Mama” but then I get busy calling local newspapers to see if they would like to cover the event, leaving myself no time to record it for posterity.

But what I can tell you is that these charming moments never ever occur on a Monday. It’s true that children are “sugar and spice and all things nice”– kind of like doughnuts–but you will agree that every doughnut has a hole. And don’t ask me why, but Mondays are all about the hole.

For instance, last Monday, I’m getting back from the grocery shop and it’s my six-year-old’s twentieth question in the car. It’s a tense moment. I know I have forgotten one item I really cannot do without. The stress mounts because every second we are driving further away from the supermarket. Then Jason pipes up, “SO, Mama, how did dinosaurs travel from one country to another?”

“They just walked, Jason.”

“But didn’t they need aeroplanes?”

“No, they had great big legs and so they just took great big strides.”

I’m still racking my brains for the one thing I know I have forgotten to buy.

“But which country did they travel to?”

In great relief, sensing that it could be the end of this line of questioning, “Oh I just remembered son, there were no countries, because there were no people when dinosaurs roamed the earth, so no countries, see?”

A one second pause. “But IF there had been countries, which country would they have walked to?”

I resist the urge to leap out of a moving car. I take a deep breath. “I would really need to ask a dinosaur and there are NO dinosaurs around, Jason”.

“That’s true.” He pauses long enough to take a quick breath, just enough oxygen for the next question. “Do fish drown in a flood?”

This is a trick question, I know it.

And the four-year-old who currently feels the need to do every single thing her brother does, now decides to contribute to the questioning with “What do germs look like, Mama?” “

Like worms, Sarah.”

“No, I asked about germs, not worms!!”

“Yes, I heard, and I mean that G-E-R-M-S look like W-O-R-M-S”.

Jason then asks: “When will I get a chance to see germs under a microscope?”

“Whenever you get a chance to visit a laboratory.”

Sarah, glad to be bonding during this happy time, asks “What is a laboratory?” And at this point I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember is my husband challenging them to a five-min silence. First one to speak is a loser. Turns out both were alarmingly eager to be losers. One of them began begging him to speak in Chinese. “Speak Dada. I just know you can IF you try. Why can’t you speak just one line of Chinese??”

I think I must have passed out again.

When I came to, I heard “I know that she sat on this side of the car yesterday and it’s my turn but she is sitting AGAIN in the very same place.  I also want the BEST side! (whatever that means.) How come she always gets the best seat? How come you love her more?”

Why?

Somewhere in the back of my mind I begin to feel a small twinge of pity for God, because I’m sure that most of humanity in the throes of Monday-morning-angst lines up to interrogate him; I can almost see him popping an antacid and some paracetamol (and playing some blues in the background) to help him get through the questions which go something like this:

“Why me?” [pause] “I mean, seriously, God, why me?”

“I just know you can speak Chinese. I know you can engineer a happy marriage, why can’t you just do it right now?”

Often on Monday evenings, my daughter who since birth has been very committed to the art of electrocuting herself, reaches the zenith of her potential in this area. Our child is gifted with the ability to connect random wires to sockets and link them up with herself to create a sort of human bomb and I have unforgettable memories of conversations being interrupted with my husband yelling “turn around and grab her before she completes the circuit and disappears in a puff of smoke.” Or something to that effect. I never hear the exact words because one of us has leapt to save her life once again. And then she hollers as if she were Edison just on the brink of discovering the first light bulb and we had halted her progress forever. As the wails climb the decibel charts, I would be staring into the hole (you hold on to the doughnut image, ok?) and I hear one of my own Monday Questions:

“But why me, God? Why are you such a party pooper, always calling the curfew on my party? Why can’t you just let me be? Ok, so you know something I don’t, but SO WHAT? JUST LET ME BE, OK??’

Unforgettable

And in a rare moment of empathy, I want to lead God out of the dock and question him rather differently, “How come you haven’t allowed our stupidities to wipe us all out as yet? How is it that you give me a new chance every single day? How do you resist the urge to send us into oblivion when it’s just been one whine too many? Seriously. “But God” and “why god” and “why not God.” You have a couple of billion kids on your hands, me included, who refuse to grow up. Who do not want to lift our eyes off our minor mishaps and play a responsible role in the world. Who always want what other people have. “But she got two chocolates and you gave them both to her at the same time!” Children who would much rather complain than be grateful. Who think that happiness is our right, as if we engineered our own existence, as if we made the rules that you must now play by. Who think that life is a game where we must always, always win. At whatever cost, to ourselves, or to others. Who, unlike you, can’t see the end from the beginning, but who insist, nevertheless, on giving you advice. And sometimes try to arm twist you into following our bad advice. “Seriously God, if you gave me the new car AND a mansion then I would find it much easier to be pleased with you. Isn’t it crucial that I remain pleased with you, O Creator of the Universe?’

I want to hand him a box of tissues and ask gently “Where’s your doughnut, God? Sometimes I think all you’ve got is the hole. And a month of Mondays. There are times when I feel like a battered rose, that you just don’t treat me with the delicacy that I deserve, but I fail to see that you are still holding on to me by my very thorny stem.”

And so sometimes when Mondays come around and I’m fending off endless questions from my progeny, I really get what a Psalmist once said to God: “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you [still] care for him?”

Although that’s an appropriate question, I don’t hang around waiting for an answer. I walk away, trying to act casual, humming a tune. When you know you’ve hit the jackpot, you’ve just got to walk away while the going’s good …

______________________________

About Shekinah:

Shekinah is a drama queen who lives in Chennai, India, with her knight (not always in shining armour because it tends to get too hot to wear metal clothing) and their two toddlers who make her laugh, and love her on bad hair days. Her idea of heaven is coffee, a good conversation, and cupcakes with zero calories. She likes writing about her family because it’s a good way to preserve the memories, and more enjoyable than taking photographs.

Unbalanced: Learning the Unforced Rhythms of Grace

“In reality, my life is a ridiculously amazing (amazingly ridiculous?) jumble of overlapping intersections.”

By Angela Doell | Twitter: @adoell

I have many questions in life. Zillions. However, I do know one thing for sure. I have figured this out and I will boldly declare it to be true only because I love you and want to be helpful:

Balance is baloney.

After 37 years on earth (twenty of those as a working gal and 16 as a mom) I feel like I can confidently say there’s no such thing as balance when it comes to being a mom, a wife, a friend, a working woman. It’s silly nonsense.

If your days are a constant quest to do it all, do it impressively, and keep smiling–I feel you. I vote that we agree to take the pressure off.

The word “balance” doesn’t work, for starters, because it suggests that my life can be compartmentalized–one area separate and unique from another. Family on one side of the scale, work and ministry on the other. In reality, my life is a ridiculously amazing (amazingly ridiculous?) jumble of overlapping intersections.

To be balanced would further mean that these separate parts of our lives carry equal weight, neatly divided… And yet I feel that what I focus on actually has all of me. When I’m with my family, I’m all in. There isn’t a corner of my heart that isn’t theirs. I love them wholly. When I’m at work, I wonder what my kids are up to at school. And I’m as passionate about the work and ministry that consumes my days. Serving in church, pastoring, creating –it’s where I find my purpose. It follows me home, finds its way into our dinner conversation, shows up in my dreams.

Family and Work are all up in each other’s faces, zero regard for any personal air bubble. 

As long as we’re doing real work, committed to a marriage, or raising complicated children, perfect balance is unrealistic. Add divorce, illness, addiction, or any other complication to the equation and it’s fully overwhelming.

I fell off a ladder recently. I was on the top step, stretching to paint a high wall and lost my balance. My husband happened to be nearby and he actually caught me. (He’s totally my hero.) Once we got over the shock of that little adventure and brushed ourselves off, he started to tease me. I didn’t just suddenly fall over, but it was the slow back and forth of a doomed woman which he found amusing:

- I reached too far with the paintbrush, tipped a little to the right and made a gasping “Whooah” sound.

- I attempted to regain my balance by leaning to the left, an “Ooooah” escaping my lips in the struggle.

- I overcorrected in my fearful panic, causing the ladder to swing. (At this point Rod had dropped what he was doing and was beside the ladder, arms outstretched.)

- I jerked right, thought I had things under control for a second and made a loud rejoicing exclamation sound like “Ahhhhhh”, which set me off again and caused the ladder to fully topple, landing me in the arms of my lover.

Our lives can often feel like the swing of that ladder, causing us to sing and dance in an attempt to make it all work without losing our cool. It’s a funny illustration … but it’s sometimes accurate.

While balance isn’t gonna happen, I do believe it’s possible to find harmony in the ebb and flow, the movement and rhythm, of life.

The key is to recognize my life isn’t my own. I am not in control here. In the still morning hours as I turn my face to God, make a physical and spiritual effort to seek Him first, He reveals the areas that need a little attention in my life, where I’m out of sync. He teaches me through the seasons of intensity, where I hold onto Him for dear life. I bring my stressed, weary cry of help and He, in turn, whispers “rest.” I feel His convicting nudge urging me to move when I’ve been comfortable too long. He reminds me of my purpose, asks me to lean into the stretch that I’m feeling, sets my wobbly knees straight with conviction.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

_____________________________________

My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments:

• What are your thoughts on balancing family, work, life?
• What have you learned through the seasons of feeling off-kilter, out of balance?

______________________________________

About Angela:

Angela and her husband Rod have been married for 18 years and they have two children, Madison (16) and Miller (12). Angela works at Relate Church in Surrey, BC. She loves finding beauty in everyday life and is passionate about communicating the grace, hope and reality of a living Jesus.

TGIF: That Time I (Kind of) Wanted a Boob Job

On Bruce Willis, curling irons and the mishaps of dating on Skype.

by Tina Francis | Twitter: @teenbug
____________________________________________________________

A month ago I got an email from a SheLoves reader. I asked her permission to share it with you today.

(Deep breath):
_______________________

Hello Tina,

I just read your latest post on SheLoves — the one about you without makeup. I’m lost for words … but thanks for really talking about our fears. I don’t wear lots of makeup, just a little gloss and lipstick most of the time.

Now this is personal. I’m Ugandan. I have a big nose.

I’ve had an experience recently that beat down on me a little bit. I’d been Skyping this guy for a while. I was able to see his face, but he could never see mine. I decided to get a webcam one day, to see if his “feelings” for me would remain.

I can’t judge him, because I don’t know what happened. But that day changed our relationship.

It beat down hard on me. I thought, “Yeah, I’m not as beautiful as he thought I really was.”

This incident affected me for some time. I’ve had to face the insecurity in me: that I am not beautiful enough for any guy.

I still struggle with this. I no longer want to take or upload pictures on Facebook. I try to take pictures in a certain posture so that my nose doesn’t look that big.

I know my heart will heal in this regard.

Thanks for sharing.

God bless,
D.

_______________________

D’s email broke my heart. I feel like a lot of girls identify with her struggle. Myself included.

Reminds me of the time … I burnt my boob.

It was 2006. And I was running late for a fancy dinner with some friends. I jumped out of the shower, wrapped myself in a towel and read three frantic texts from a friend telling me to get my butt out the door in ten minutes. Riggght. I still had to: brush my teeth, lotion my legs, put on makeup, style my (wet) hair and pick out an outfit. Sweet baby Jesus! On a good day this takes me 25 minutes! And I had to make it happen in ten?

In the interest of saving time, I started curling my hair, wearing only my bra and underwear. I wrapped sections of freshly shampooed hair around the hot, gold metal barrel. I counted to five, and then released the curl.

When I was halfway done, I checked the time. Ahhhh: two more minutes! I was determined to not be that girl who’s “Always Late”. So I started to take larger chunks of hair and wrapped them around the curling iron.

All of a sudden, I lost grip of the handle and watched the curling iron tumble onto my .. .[gasp] … unprotected boob.

This was one of those slow-motion moments, where you scream “Nooooo…” and try to save the cup of coffee before it spills onto the keyboard of your $3,000 Macbook. Except, the coffee was a screaming hot curling iron, and the keyboard was my partially exposed bosom.

White hot metal kissed my delicate caramel skin.

Then I heard the dreaded sound. Like melting butter in a hot frying pan, I heard my left boob sizzle.

Sizzle.

Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2, I staggered as the mind-numbing pain washed over me. Like Bruce, I powered through. Half-dazed, I quickly curled the rest of my hair, threw on the first thing in my closet and made for the door.

Later at the restaurant, I told my girlfriends about the “hilarious” curling iron incident. Everyone laughed and said, “Gurrrrl, you so crazy!”

At first it was funny, but as the night progressed it got hard to ignore the throbbing pain. So I excused myself and retreated to the safety of a bathroom stall. I locked the door and pulled down my shirt to take a peek.

Mocha Frappucino. It was Saving Private Ryan in there! Ugh, so much blood! I folded up some toilet paper, gently placed it into my bra (bad move), and went back to the table.

By the time I got home, the toilet paper had glued itself onto the wound. When I finally managed to get it all off, I was raw (and so was my boob).

I cried myself to sleep that night.

I hoped that the wound would look better in the morning. It didn’t. It was inflamed, it was bleeding and it was oozing yellow pus. I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details, but it hurt like Hades.

I needed something for the pain. But the thought of exposing my burnt boob to a doctor was more traumatizing than suffering through it.

I knew how that conversation would play out.

He’d say, “So, how did this happen?”

I’d say, “Well, I was trying to curl my hair and, um … I accidentally bludgeoned my boob”.

So … No, thank you. I’ll pass. Instead, I chose to suffer in silence.

“I’m hideous”

I was M.I.A. for a couple days. A worried gf showed up at my door at 11pm and rang the bell like a maniac. I finally answered, wrapped in a towel, sobbing uncontrollably. I showed her the mangled boob.

And with that, we were on our way to the E.R.

After sitting in the waiting room for two hours, we finally got to see a doctor. He was male (of course) and I braced myself as the fear of being examined by him washed over me. After what felt like deafening silence, he finally spoke.

“You have third degree burns. I don’t know how you managed without painkillers.”

My friend and I looked at each other in silence while he wrote up a prescription.

As he started to wrap up, he told me that there would be some scarring because the skin was really delicate. “Come back to me in two weeks if you want to talk about reconstructive surgery.”

The moment he left the room, I looked at my friend and said “I wonder how much that surgery is gonna cost me.”

“Are you frickin’ serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I snapped. “Look at me: I’m a freak!”

I started to cry. My friend touched my shoulder, looked into my eyes and said “Our scars make us beautiful, Teen.”

“Maybe, if I rescued someone from a burning building?” I shot back. “How does burning myself with a curling iron make me beautiful? I’m hideous”.

________________

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “Why are you telling me this graphic story? What does D.’s nose have to do with your disfigured boob?”

What we have in common is shame.

- we’ve both believed that we are “hideous”
- we’ve both experienced fear of ridicule or rejection (real or imagined)
- we’ve both had moments where our vulnerability made us retreat/recoil
- we’ve both considered the reality of being unlovable

Shame makes us feel exposed. It makes us feel like outsiders. It makes us feel repulsive and dirty. It’s devastating; it’s consuming. And it is lonely. It makes us feel irrelevant. It makes us feel weak, powerless, small, disposable. It makes us feel trapped.

In her book, “I Thought It Was Just Me”, Brene Brown defines shame this way:

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

This is exactly how I felt after burning my boob and how D. felt after her video Skype session.

But I’m able to be objective about D.’s story.

Even though I’ve never seen D. face to face, I know that she is lovely. There’s something about her willingness to be vulnerable that radiates courage. And that is beautiful.
________________

And so, sweet D., I’m standing on my tippy toes, one hand on my burnt boob, yelling all the way from Vancouver. You are not flawed! You are beautiful. You are worthy of love.

Even though you “still haven’t found” what you’re “looking for,” I want you to know that you are you are accepted; you belong. You hear that, D.???!!! “YOU ARE NOT ALONE!”

[cue Michael Jackson’s "You are not alone.” Awesome song, creepy music video.]

“Beauty is taking what you have and running with it. It is your one tooth that is slightly crooked, or the way you wrinkle your nose when you laugh. It’s the shape of your finger nails, the dimple on the inside of your wrist, the shape of your earlobes, the curve of your eye lashes, the slope of your shoulders, the shape of your forearms. It is the little things and the big things. It is everything and it is nothing.”

– Collin Slattery, “In Praise and Appreciation of Women”
(The Good Men Project)

And because I choose to believe this about you, I choose to believe this about me too.

My burnt boob, your lovably “big” nose, my friend’s blue toenail; splotchy birthmarks, peach fuzz bellies, cankles, unibrows, saggy boobs, etc. We all have our stuff. Ultimately it’s not the particulars about our body that captures love. Neither is finding the right surgeon (guilty as charged), or the perfect camera angle (guilty again).

I want the man I marry to love: my pear-shaped body, my errant chin hair, my (sometimes) greasy hair, my shaved and unshaved legs, my flabby arms, my thunder thighs, and my lovely love-handles. Heck, even my burnt boob!

Shame only works if we think we’re alone in it. If we think there’s someone else, a group of women, a city full of women, a country full of women, a world full of women, struggling with the same issue, the concept of shame becomes bankrupt. 

– Brene Brown, “I Thought It Was Just Me” (fwiw, it wasn’t)

_________________________________

So, dear ones,

If you were to step out and be vulnerable (courageous) today:

- What parts of your body are you insecure about?
- How does shame show up in your life?

Love you more than Hot Fudge Pudding Cake,
xoxo,
Teen

To read more TGIFs from Tina: Click here.

______________________________________________________

My name is Tina. Loved ones call me: Teen.

Words are my chocolate. Music, my caramel. Photography, my bread. Girlfriends, my butter.

Confession: Some girls dream about Manolo Blahniks or their next Hermes bag. Not me. I dream of freshly baked bread, perfectly barbecued meat & steaming bowls of Pho. My dream lover *cue Mariah Carey song* is someone who would read out a menu to me in Barry White’s baritone voice.

I celebrate food, ask for help, interrupt conversations, laugh and cry hard, acknowledge the elephant in most rooms, fight for the underdog and believe in the power of storytelling.

I was born and raised in Dubai and currently live in the beautiful city of Vancouver, known for some of the best sushi in the world.

Reaching Through the Crowd for Holy: The Power of Tenacity

“Like a stranger in a crowd, she reached through life’s thick noise and laid finger on my skin, asking …”

By Idelette McVicker | Twitter: @idelette

vi. Reach: to move toward something in order to touch or grasp it

Girl gets on a bus and travels three days across the country to reach a place where she’s heard she may find Freedom.

Swiss girl ignores noise and naysayers, pushes through red tape and bureaucratic objections and gets on a plane for the country where she believes she’s meant to live.

Woman thinks doors have closed, but listens to the still, small voice in her heart and tries the one more thing. She pushes in, pushes through and the holy doors finally–finally!–swing open wide and welcome.

It would have been easy not to. Easy to give up. Easy to stop for a latte, instead. Not to push and reach and stretch and lean in to touch the skin of the Holy One.

The crowds were so thick.

It would have been fully understandable not to.

It would have been easy to stay right where she’s at.

But what would she have missed?

______________________________

My phone beeped with a Twitter text. Direct Message (Twitterspeak) on a Saturday night from a girl in another city who is both facebook and Twitter friend—enquiring if perhaps we could Skype sometime? Voice to voice. Heart to heart.

Like a stranger in a crowd, she reached through life’s thick noise and laid finger on my skin, asking for an hour of my attention.

I already had to postphone once, so this–her second ask–compels me to look at my calendar. The seven times 24-hours of the week brimming with the demands and joys of life.

Monday. Booking a birthday party for the seven-year-old. Buying invitation cards. Writing invitations. Driving kidlets to and from school. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Same Monday–pushing through the details of booking a three-city trip to Africa. Arrangements and travel plans and emails and phone calls.

Tuesday. Mom, far away, going in for surgery. Calling South Africa on the other side of our day to be “with,” somehow.

Wednesday. One meeting in the morning. Two meetings out in the evening.

Thursday. Hosting ten bookclub darlings at my home with papaya salsa and shiraz and connecting over written words.

All week: Spiritual mom fighting her own fight, a little closer.

And through this life-that-is-a whole-lotta-life, I also make dinner and school lunches and pour Rice Crispies into three blue porcelain bowls and squeeze in a hug for husband on his way to work.

But she asked. And there was something in the asking, the persisting—the reaching through the crowd—that crystallized into an appointment on my calendar.

Friday. 11am.

Speak to the Bones

When Friday morning came, my four-year-old had a playdate. The house fell quiet and I opened my pink Message–time feeling so much like the most delicious luxury–to a favourite passage in Ezekiel. The 37^th chapter.

“Breath of Life,” the heading. About dry bones: a picture of death, finality, impossibility. A story of God and prophet, standing side by side and the Divine directing the human to speak Life to the already-past-hope emptiness.

And as prophet spoke, the bones started to rattle and stretch and move and come together. Until prophet-man saw that the bones had no breath in them and he’s instructed this time: “Prophesy to the breath.”

I opened my exercise book with the blue cover. Black pen moved to curve out sentences of scripture … a quiet practice to calm the rush within and let Spirit speak. Copying, like ancient scribe. I slow down and watch my pen move, writing these holy words on such ordinary paper.

Then it’s time. We Skype and in I hear about a past threaded with both filling hunger and denying hunger.

Moments of decision I know so very well in my own bones: whether I would choose good for my body because I have a body worthy of good things. Or whether I would give in to the inner battle, that wanting to deny deny deny self.

I have heard those words shouting from within: You are not worthy of a good feeding. You are not worthy of the nutrition and the time and the effort of feeding your body of what is good.

I have fought that voice over many feedings—including hasty Mommy days when I would chop veggies for the kids, but would neglect to set a plate for me. Who has time to sit and eat when you’re serving and feeding hungry mouths?

We talked about Jairus’ daughter and she shared how different it was to sit with this story in a room of women who struggled with denying self of good food. And how Jesus specifically instructed those around the awakened daughter to feed her.

“ … he told them to give her something to eat.” –Mark 5:43

With the words from a holy hungry Friday post one week earlier still echoing powerfully in my spirit, I finally asked: May I pray for you?

Yes, please, she said.

We prayed and invocation streamed from lips and heart.

Speak to the Hunger, I heard.

And I thought about Jairus’ daughter and girls everywhere who need to rise up and eat, eat, eat and so I prayed more, all the while doing my best to listen from Above  …  Praying:

That she would eat from the goodness of God

and the feast of friendship

Eat eat eat

from the gift of community.

Eat from a table of purpose and know what she is to do in this world.

Eat from unconditional Love.

Eat, girl, from Value. Even swallow Worth whole, if you like.

Eat from Heaven and be nourished, satisfied, full …

Amen.

Talitha Koum

I dolloped it out in words as best I could from a heart so hungry for more girls to awaken and rise and eat and get well.

The words flowed strong and when I looked up, she was wiping tears.

What gift, I thought. For me as much as her. What gift that we could meet and she could find nourishment in these prayer words. What gift that I could find such inspiration in her faith–this woman-girl reaching through the crowd, asking for what she needed. 

That holy holy holy moment on a Friday morning reminded me:

- What power in this faith-stretched Asking for what we need.

- What power in sharing stories and bending hearts together before Heaven.

- What power, so readily available when we are willing to sink our teeth into the knowing-that-we-know and push through the crowd to find Holy right there at the end of our reach.

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My dear SheLoves friends:

• I would love to hear a story of when your tenacity led to a Holy touch.
• What do you need or want to push through the crowd for in this season? Today?
• Who or what represents the crowd keeping you from where you want to go?
• O, so many days I need to eat from patience. Some days I need to eat from forgiveness. Today I need to eat from quiet confidence. What do you need to eat from today?
• Any other comments or thoughts?

_________________________________

About Idelette:
I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.

I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.

My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.

I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.

I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.

Down We Go: Why Prepositions Matter

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

When it comes to serving Jesus in the trenches, there’s a huge difference between “to,” “for” and “with.”

By Kathy Escobar | Twitter: @kathyescobar
________________________________________________________________

Many people I know are tired of just talking about theology or participating in yet another Bible Study that increases knowledge but not practice. They are hopping off the “upwardly mobile” path that’s focused on bigger, better, and more successful and choosing instead the slow, scary path of descent–into the trenches, the margins of life and faith … the places where Jesus seemed to go.

But where do we start? What does it mean to live out the wild ways of Jesus in practice, not theory? To me, it means cultivating a life of extending love, mercy and compassion, welcoming pain, honoring doubt, diffusing power, practicing equality, pursuing justice, expressing creativity, and celebrating freedom. These eight core practices are explored deeply throughout Down We Go: Living Into the Wild Ways of Jesus.

But first, before diving in, we need to continually consider the importance of three prepositions that matter when it comes to a downwardly mobile life–the difference between “to”, “for” and “with.”

Power Shift

I was first exposed to this idea through my friends at the Center for Transforming Mission (www.ctmnet.org). They are dedicated to equipping grassroots leaders who are journeying with people in hard places around the world. Their work is built upon the premise that authentic transformational relationships cannot be built upon power or inequality. Even though many of us would nod and say “of course!” the reality is that many of the missional models we’ve been taught perpetuate a divide between “us” and “them” that is sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious.

Considering these three prepositions has really shaken up so much of what I believe about living in the trenches with people.

• The Preposition “To” is Paternal and Creates Oppression

In most Christian and typical mission-oriented circles, the most prevalent preposition has become the word “to.”   The style of the preposition “to” is paternal. This idea is built on principles like:

“I have something I need to give to you.”

“I have wisdom I need to impart to you.”

“Here’s the advice, biblical truth or kernel of life-changing knowledge I have to give to you.” 

The problem with the preposition ”to” is that it begins with an “I’m up and you’re down” perspective of power that is patronizing and disempowering. Someone has more resources, knowledge and put-togetherness than the other.  This posture often ends up making the one on the receiving end feel like a project or even a loser.

• The Preposition “For” is Maternal and Creates Codependence

The preposition “for” is another easy reflex for most of us.  The style of the preposition “for” is maternal.  It’s when we want to do things for a hurting person.

“Let me makes these calls for you.”

“I don’t want you to hurt, so let me fix this part for you.”

“Your anxiety is giving me anxiety, so let me do what I can to take care of this anxiety for you.”

This is my reflex and the one I continually have to guard against in the work I do. The problem with this kind of approach to others is that it creates codependence. Helpers get sucked into helping and end in a one-up role where we need to take care of the person, make things happen for them, or remain in a position where we are always “serving.” It stays on those terms and remains a one-way relationship.

• The Preposition “With” is Incarnational and Creates Transformation

The preposition “with” changes everything. It means:

“I am with you in this moment, will stand alongside you, and am not walking ahead of you but alongside you.”

“I am in the same boat; I struggle, too, but my struggle may just look different.”

“I want to share life with you, not just take care of you or tell you what to do.”

“You have some things I need to learn from you, too. Let’s learn from each other.”

“With” removes imbalanced power from the relationship. It recognizes the fundamental dignity of the person and says, “I am here with you.”  It begins with listening for the deeper story that informs the suffering. It waits patiently for the person to ask for help, if needed, because sometimes people aren’t ready for help–sometimes people just need people to sit “with” as they work it out on their own.

Authentic

There is no question—”with” is scarier.  It means I let others know me instead of hiding behind doing good works at a protective distance. I make myself vulnerable and let others into my life, experience and heart, instead of just taking care of them to feel like I’m “helping.” Within the professional, clinical culture, as it is customarily taught, these kinds of “with” relationships may look like bad boundaries.

I understand how easy it is to stick with “to” and “for” modes of relationship. They protect us because they keep us in a place of power. They keep the focus off of us and on the other person. In the end, we don’t need “them;” they just need “us.” Even though that’s easier, I believe that “with each other” relationships create true transformation and are core to a life of downward mobility where there is no divide between “us and them.” 

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I’d love to hear your thoughts:

• What do you think about the difference between “to, for, and with” relationships?
• Which one is easiest for you to default toward?

_______________________________________________________

About Kathy:

Kathy Escobar co-pastors The Refuge, an eclectic faith community in North Denver dedicated to those on the margins of life and faith. She blogs regularly about life and faith at www.kathyescobar.com and just released a new book called, Down We Go–Living out the Wild Ways of Jesus in Action. She lives in Arvada, Colorado with her husband, Jose, and five kids.

Image credit: Chairs, by Peter Hellebrand

Between Isaacs and Samuels: The Space Where God Disappoints

“What is the name of the space where God disappoints?”

By Enuma Okoro | Twitter: @TweetEnuma

God keeps tripping over my beggar bowl and spilling its meager contents.

So I am going to stop begging.

My heart is weary from begging.

I know why Sarah did what she did with Hagar and Abraham. I know how Eli found Hannah, drunk with the pain of prayer. Right or wrong, God disappoints. Me. You. All of us at some time.

Yes. God is faithful. I know of Isaac and Samuel. God Laughs. God Hears.

But what of the space between laughter and hearing, between Isaacs and Samuels? What is the name of the space where God disappoints?

That space is the place where many people dwell, where temporary settlements and makeshift camps start to take on the permanency of home. So what is the name of that place? I want to validate the reality of that place with a name. I want us to learn to speak openly about that place and to remember the people who live there.

Where God disappoints.

Where children are not born.

Where men and women walk one-by-one instead of two-by-two.

Where loaves and fishes do not multiply.

Where the poor in spirit or body do not seem blessed.

Where the faithfulness of God seems to be just a rumor.

Who are the priests that dwell with the people between God’s laughter and God’s hearing? What are the sacraments in the nameless place where God disappoints? If nothing else, I want the bread and the wine, the faint reminder that when the body of God was broken and the blood of God was shed, and the Son of God cried out words of forsakenness, that at one time God even disappointed God.

So maybe that is the name of the place–the long sad sing-song name of “Eli Eli lama sabachthani?”

I can live with that naming because it comes from the very mouth of God. Have you heard of that place? Do you know people who live in that place? Can you serve from that place? Can you love from that place? Maybe it is possible to set up camp in that place because I know that God has been there and whatever spaces God has been in, God somehow still remains.

And I know what happens after the Golgatha cry, after Sarah’s scheming and Hannah’s weeping. God moves from disappointing and invites us to new realities, new places where we shuffle our feet reluctantly, tiptoe carefully, uncertain if we can trust the ground, if we can move from pain to healing. Uncertain if we can trust the  God who Rises, who laughs, who listens.

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My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear:

• Have you ever found yourself in that space where God disappoints?
• How have you met (or are you meeting) God in that place?
• What do you name that place?
• Any other thoughts or comments?

________________________________

About Enuma

Enuma was born in the United States and raised in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and England. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School where she served as Director for the Center for Theological Writing. She is an author, speaker, spiritual director and continues to lead workshops and retreats on varied topics engaging the literary and visual arts, and spiritual disciplines.

Her spiritual memoir, Reluctant Pilgrim: A Moody Somewhat Self-Indulgent Introvert’s Search for Spiritual Community (Fresh Air Books, 2010) was a winning finalist in the 2010 USA Best Books Award and received the 2011 National Indie Excellent Book Awards Winning Finalist in “Spirituality and African-American Non-Fiction.” She is co-author with Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove of Common Prayer: Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

Okoro’s new forthcoming book, “Silence,” will be released in Summer/Fall 2012

She blogs at Reluctant Pilgrim on Patheos about women’s ways of knowing and engaging the holy. You can find her online at www.enumaokoro.com

Image credit: Woman with bowl, by Justin Hubbard

This time, I’m running

“I’m running for the freedom and wholeness of our beautiful women right here in Canada, for the physically and sexually abused, the sex trafficked, the prostitute.”

By Sarah Bessey | Twitter: @sarahbessey

When you all ran the SheLoves Half-Marathon for Living Hope last year, I felt so ripped off.

Just afterwards, I wrote on my own blog:

I had a chance to be a part of something really amazing, to tell a very cool story of love and sweat and work, and I said no.

So much of life is like that, isn’t it? We feel a nudge, an invitation, a passion, a burning, a bothering. I once heard that if you want to know where you’re called, take an honest look at what makes you angry. If something makes you angry–an injustice, in particular–that is as good as an engraved invitation to do something about it. And oh, I admit it, sometimes I’m so angry about women’s issues (in the church and the world) that I want to burn down the Internet for every lie told to keep women down, to placate and patronize and neuter the strong voices of women, for every injustice done to our sisters and our own selves from the daily mundane lies to the violent abuses.

But we all have a long list of reasons for not stepping out, speaking out, writing it out, singing it out, running it out, confronting, praying, laying on hands, working it out, being bold and courageous. It’s risky. I might fail. People may not like me. I may irritate people. I might be called names or receive a bit more nasty email. (People don’t like it when someone else gets out of the boat, do they?)

It’s easier to stay home and write tweets celebrating the ones actually doing something. And even though I want to live boldly, speak truthfully, love madly, work for justice, sometimes when I hear the Voice, the invitation, I shrug, “Meh – I’m tired” and I’ll just cheer on the women and men actually doing something instead and convince myself that it’s enough.

I work a few hours a week for Mercy Ministries of Canada. Every year, we hold our main fundraiser, the Run for Mercy. And every year, I organize and plan, set up tables and lend my hand to the undertaking. I hand out sandwiches or sign people up at the registration, I write letters and recruit. And I love it. I love gathering together with the Mercy family, with our residents, our graduates, our supporters, our churches, our friends.

But this year, I’m running.

This time, I want to sweat, I want to hurt, I want to be physically there, every step of the way, my heart focused on the long journey of our brave girls.

My sister downloaded that Coach to 5K app on her iPhone, and she’s doggedly walking beside me while I wheeze and hobble around our small city track three nights a week. (I believe that runners call this “training” but that might be a bit ambitious in my case. My feet are moving though and that counts for something, I hope.) It won’t be pretty, but it will be done.

I’m running for the freedom and wholeness of our beautiful women right here in Canada, for the physically and sexually abused, the sex trafficked, the prostitute.

I am running for the drug and alcohol addicted, the broken, the hurting.

I am running for the anorexic, the bulimic, the depressed, the frightened, the anxious, the self-harming.

I am running for my daughters, for our mothers, our sisters, our friends. I am running for you.

I am running for our current residents, for the girls still in our application process, for the girl sitting there with an unfinished application absolutely terrified of change but more scared of staying the same.

I am running for our graduates, for our most recent graduates, Christina and Jessica, because all of our graduates are my heroes.

I am running because I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one, and that it is a plan for good and not evil, a plan of hope and freedom.

I’m running for Mercy because it matters for Mercy Ministries of Canada, of course. But I’m also running because, now I know, it matters to me, too.

There are three ways to support Run for Mercy:

1. Join us. Register here, recruit a team from your church or neighbourhood, volunteer or fundraise, show up on Race Day

2. Spread the word for us.

3. Donate or sponsor the Run for Mercy.

___________________________________

About Sarah:

Sarah Styles Bessey lives in Abbotsford, BC with her husband and three tinies. She’s a happy clappy Jesus-lover, an advocate for Mercy Ministries of Canada, a blogger, writer and simple living/social justice wannabe. She blogs at www.emergingmummy.com and tweets from @sarahbessey.

Loving Myself, An Introvert

“I’ve always thought you had to be loud to make a difference and aggressive to succeed.”

By Stephanie Motz Skinner | Twitter: @stephmotz

Photograph by Fakeleft for ©Watoto.

After about two weeks in journalism school, I was sure I’d made the worst mistake of my life. For some reason, when I imagined myself as a journalist, I thought I’d be working solo, wouldn’t need to interact with many people and stories would magically fall into my lap. I didn’t think of group projects, interviews or stopping strangers on the street.”

As I observed the other students, I picked out the ones I thought would become the successful journalists. They were similar in character to many of our professors: outgoing, gregarious, ambitious and even aggressive. It all felt very different from me.

Hi, my name is Stephanie and I’m an introvert.

Often times, a few short hours of mingling and small talk with a large group of people can feel like a whole day. I enjoy meeting others, but it does require a lot of me and can sometimes seem exhausting. I’m soft spoken, and it’s not unusual for me to remain silent during a debate at the dinner table. It may appear as if I’m bored or indifferent, but I’m actually absorbing and processing everything inside my mind. Then it’s not unusual for me to give my opinion a day later–often to the only one who will listen a day later–my husband.

I’m better at making few but long-lasting and loyal friendships, than having a wide circle of acquaintances. I’m out of my comfort zone in large groups. At parties where I don’t know anybody, I feel the urge to hide in the coat closet.

Over time I drilled this idea into my head that if I do not change my personality and adapt to the way the world really works, I wouldn’t ever see my dreams come true. That scared me. So, I felt a certain need to reject these intrinsic qualities that define me.

My Myths

- I’ve always been convinced–deep inside of me–that because of the limitations of my personality, I’d never achieve as much as I might like to.

- I noticed that those who were more assertive, self-assured, outspoken and outgoing were often also the most celebrated.

- And I’ve always thought you had to be loud to make a difference and aggressive to succeed. I guess it’s only natural then that, because of my personality, I convinced myself that my voice is unnecessary.

In trying to conform to other people’s standards, I denied my true nature. It seems that as I try to run my race at the pace and rhythm of others, I’m thrusting aside my authentic and unedited voice, and the strengths and qualities that make me unique.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Gandhi

Recently, however, I’ve been learning to accept my quiet introversion as an essential part of my identity, and I’m starting to be okay with it. I was encouraged by Susan Cain’s TED talk about the power of introverts, and in Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders writes about a more compassionate approach to business. At times when I compare myself to others–especially extroverts–I wonder if I can ever be good enough. For me, these writers are opening a conversation that says emphatically, “Yes, you can.” And when I ask, How? the answer seems to be, “By being who you really are.”

I believe that God created each one of us with specific and special personalities for a reason. We all have different experiences and see the world through our own unique lenses. We each have something valuable, something necessary to contribute to life. Maybe, in accepting our personalities as gifts from God, we can begin to come to a better understanding of what it means to live with purpose. By combining His character with the unique perspectives He has given to each of us, perhaps we can live out a life that brings value to our communities.

Ultimately, this reminds me that our individual voices do matter.

For my part, I’m beginning to love the idea of embracing my true and raw voice, and as Susan Cain expresses, “of having the courage to speak softly.”

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About Stephanie:
I believe in the power of storytelling. I’m a photographer and writer for Fakeleft. Together with my husband, we love sharing stories of courage, of strength in the face of adversity, of triumph and hope. I truly believe that by partnering with others who want to bring change and justice to our world, we can actually make a difference.  I’m learning to walk in my nascent faith, but it’s not always easy. It’s an interesting journey.

I am currently living in Uganda, but my heart is everywhere. I’m a proud Latina from Choluteca, Honduras. I wish I had a Latino accent. My favourite meal is dessert and my favourite sport is tanning. I blog at fakeleft.com/blog and tweet at @stephmotz

ShePonders: Ruth the Moabite

Who are the Moabites in our community? Do we exhibit the hospitality of Naomi or the courage of Boaz toward them?

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

I’ve always found Ruth to be a lovely person–kind, gentle and good to her mother-in-law.  I just never found her to be very compelling. From time to time I have read commentaries on the Book of Ruth in an attempt to connect with her–after all, we are part of the sisterhood. But still, this story failed to captivate me even a little bit.  Until I came across a new lens which reframed the narrative for me.[i]

What if Ruth is not just a beautiful story, but a parable meant to challenge the way we think?

Rebuilding

When the story of Ruth was first told, Israel was just hobbling back from the destruction of the temple and exile in Babylon. The Persians, after conquering Babylon, decided to send the Israelites back to their homeland in the hope that they would stimulate that local economy and increase the tax base for the Persian Empire. So, under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, the restoration began–rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and redefining what it meant to be a good Jew. What the Jewish community craved in the aftermath of national tragedy was certainty about their geography and clarity about their identity.

Now returning to the pages of Ruth, we notice something quite curious. There is a steady drumbeat; a word repeated so often that no self-respecting Jew could miss it: Moab/Moabite. The writer of this story does not let us ever forget that the story began in Moab; it crossed the Jordan into Israel with a Moabite in tow. As a matter of fact, the writer refers to Ruth the Moabite in each of the four chapters of the book. Again, we are not allowed to forget that the protagonist of the story is a Moabite woman. If you were Jewish at the time of the temple rebuilding, this would leave a rather bitter taste in your mouth. It is a lovely story, but why all the mentions of Moabites?

In their hunger for defining their new place in the world, the Jewish thought leaders of the day made one thing very clear: No Moabites allowed. 

According to Deuteronomy Moabites were not allowed in the assembly of the Lord, not allowed to ever convert to Judaism. According to both Ezra and Nehemiah, no Israelite was allowed to marry a Moabite.  There was to be no hint of Moabite blood in the new Israelite lineage and no trace of them in the temple. Moabites were the clear enemy during this time of history, and Israelites were making a clear line of demarcation that they were not allowed in.

So, you can see why Ruth the Moabite created a bit of awkwardness as they read this lovely story. But the real sting came at the end of the story, saying  “They named him (Ruth’s son) Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.” And again (for emphasis) the closing line is a mention of Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David. Period. What a Jewish reader would have immediately heard, loud as a fire alarm, is that King David–the ultimate Israelite and most revered king–had Ruth the Moabite as his great grandmother. The primer Jew has Moabite blood running through his veins.

What does a good Jew during the Persian Restoration do with this story?

- Moabites were persona non grata in Israel–and yet: Moabites are part of the bloodline of King David.

- Moabites represent all the hostility to our ancestors–and yet: Moabites gave us the genes of a King.

- Moabites are bad, impure, pagan–and yet: this Moabite woman is loyal, hard-working and humble.

Amid the angry rhetoric about the unclean, never-to-be-converted-or-forgiven Moabites, comes this story that raises soul-searching questions. If there was no Ruth the Moabite, then there would be no King David. So, is intermarriage to a Moabite really the zenith sin? If King David, so passionate in his worship of God, has Moabite blood then can other Moabites worship with such abandon too? If Ruth the Moabite was such a good woman, then might there be others like her in Moab?  The story of Ruth becomes a challenging parable within the biblical story itself about how we encounter “the other” or “the enemy” as we seek to worship God with greater purity. It forced the Jews then (and us now) to ask hard questions about radical inclusivity of every “other” in our world.

Closer

Sometimes we cross paths with Ruth the Moabite in our community.  It happens when we listen to a story that upends our personal, inherited or cultural prejudices. When you think all the people on welfare are lazy–and then you meet a woman who gets food stamps, but works 12 hours a day cleaning homes to provide for her family and make her mortgage payment. When you think any woman wearing a hijab supports violent jihad–and then you befriend a Middle Eastern woman who shares about her hunger for peace in Jerusalem and desire to see her sons contribute something beautiful to the world.  Or you think all homosexuals are hedonistic and bent–until you have conversations late into the night about theology, the wild ways of Jesus and the joy of fidelity with a woman married (to another woman).

Meeting Ruth the Moabite and listening to her can redefine how we think of “the other” and compel us to ask good soul-shaping questions.

As we read the Book of Ruth we would do well to heed the story’s challenge and consider the Moabites in our community. Who are they? How do we treat them? Do we exhibit the hospitality of Naomi or the courage of Boaz toward them?

And one last challenge Ruth the Moabite has left with me: Can I envelop those radically different from myself into my very story?  King David had a bit of Israel and a bit of Moab in him, embracing enemies in his very flesh. Can I let “the other” that close–that deep? Can I recognize “the other” that is present in me? Richard Rohr wrote a book entitled “Everything Belongs.” The title really says it all. But I have been wondering today–can everything, and everyone truly belong?  Can I embrace opposites and others, seeing that they are within me and make me who I am meant to be in this world?

Now I find Ruth the Moabite to be a stunning story that compels me to think in new directions.

So, my SheLoves friends:

• What has the story of Ruth meant to you?
• Who are the Moabites in your neighborhood?
• Any other thoughts or comments?

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AUDIO:<<< ShePonders: Ruth the Moabite>>>

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

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[i] ‘The Power of Parable:  How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus“ by John Dominic Crossan

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.