Faith of Our Mothers Revisited

Conversations with my cousin.

Last week I posted a memory about Mother's Day in the church I grew up attending.  My cousin, June Davis Fish, regularly messages me about my posts.  Last week she did not, so I got worried. I messaged her to make sure she is okay and our conversation went something like this.  

June:  "Yes, I  am OK. Thanks for checking. I did see the blog about your mother.  I remember now why I didn't comment.  Lately,  I have been having an inner struggle with any post or comment about the Father God even though they are talking about 'his' love and grace as opposed to the 'fundamental God' of law and punishment."

Me:    "I better go back and read my blog.  I rarely refer to God as Father unless it is in the context of somebody else's speech."

June:  "I don't think you did say Father God.  Some have said Papa and Daddy as if that makes 'him' less patriarchal and more loving. I just want to scream at them, Papa, Daddy, Father, ... where the hell is Mother God?  Anyway, that is the foundation for why I didn't comment on your Mother's Day Blog.  I guess I was pissed that only on one day of the year the women/Mothers get any recognition and are allowed to preform certain duties and even then they had to clean up.  Understand me, it was not your blog but how 'gracious' for the men of the church to condescend to 'honor' the women on their one day of the year, Mother's Day.  Without women how would men become fathers?  Without a Sacred Feminine Mother could Father God be a father? I didn't want to comment because it would only have sounded like I was ranting against you and your blog, which certainly wasn't what I felt."

Me:  "I think you got the point.  One day of the year the women serve communion.  An honor the men of the church usually reserved for themselves and the women still prepared and cleaned up.  As a child I was indignant.  P!@#$% off did't happen until I was older and saw how systemic this marginalization is.  Before my book was published a man was asked to write an endorsement.  He said he could not because he detected, 'An echo of frustration.' I thought, 'Wow, I am a pretty good writer if all he detected was and echo of frustration because I am, 'F@#$%^& P!@#$% Off.'" 

June:  "I am getting new perspectives on a lot of old fundamental teachings. It has been difficult to throw off old religious programming, but once I get going on it, it has been freeing and peaceful."

Me:    "One of the things I am hoping the book will accomplish is to get people to question all of these old fundamental teachings.  That is why the subtitle is, Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.   

Gratitude to my cousin!

When I first started writing last weeks blog I purposefully took my anger out of my writing.  I edited myself as so many women do.  I wanted the post to be more about my wonderful mother than about my anger.  Thanks to June, what I feel about that experience came to the surface. My nephew once asked me, "If women cook every day, why are the best chefs men?" This was when Julia Child was the only woman chef on television.  My answer, "What men do is considered more valuable than what women do. 

On those Mother's Days, it was an honor for the deaconesses to do the deacons job of serving communion.  The deacons would not condescend to doing the job of the deaconesses.  

Women's Work

I think about the value ascribed to "women's work" by patriarchy and I am disheartened. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law is recorded in the canonical Gospels.  She is said to get up and serve after being healed.  The word, diakonei translated as serve, in reference to Peter's nameless mother-in-law is translated as minister in reference to the angels serving Jesus in the wilderness.  Same word, different value and the subject of another blog. 

I ask the same question as June. "Where is Mother God?" Imagine a faith in which female is valued in the same way as male.  

Mother's Day

"Faith of our Fathers! Holy faith! We will be true to thee till death." That was the song we sang in church.  Except on Mother's Day. Then fathers was changed to mothers and the church secretary put an insert in the church bulletin in case we forgot to substitute mothers for fathers. 

On all the other Sundays the deaconesses prepared the communion trays and set them out. When the service was over the deaconesses sent the children scurrying around the church collecting the tiny communion cups. The women washed the cups and polished the trays for next week.  

On all the other Sundays the deacons served the communion. They walked up the aisle during the communion hymn, stood with heads bowed at the front of the church, prayed aloud at the end of the hymn, distributed communion and replaced the trays on the table for the deaconesses to clean after the service.

But on Mother's Day the deaconesses got to do it all. Prepare the communion, say the prayers, serve the communion and clean up after communion. As one of those children who scurried around picking up the communion cups, I was surprised to discover that the deacons were not in the little kitchen cleaning up.

I was confused. Why weren't the deacons helping? The deaconesses always helped them. So, I asked my mom. "Oh" she said, "We're just better at it." 

Faith of our Mothers

My wonderful mother had faith and she passed it on to me and my sisters.  We were in church every Sunday. No sleepovers on Saturday because we couldn't miss church. I didn't want to miss church. I am a confirmed religion nerd. I have often heard it said, "You can't teach faith." I think that is probably true but you can look at the life of someone who has faith and learn from that faith. 

I cry at the sappy commercials on television as we get closer to Mother's Day. They remind me of how much I love her and how much she loved me, us. I cry because I treasure the faith I learned from her. I cry because, unlike my feminist self, who wants to be upset by the unfairness of the deaconesses cleaning up on the one day of the year they serve communion, my mom knew she and the other women did it because they were better at it.

Faith of my Mother! Holy faith! I will be true to thee till death.

Happy Mother's Day

Eight Lessons Learned From Pain

My sister said, "Well, if the doctor had just found out what was wrong in 2012 you could have avoided all this pain.  I didn't say it but my first thought was. "But then I would have missed the lessons."I knew there were lessons to be learned from this experience and I didn't want to miss them. I even said little prayers from time to time when the pain was particularly bad or the lack of mobility extremely frustrating.  "Please don't let me miss the lesson in this." This is what I learned.

1. Be Grateful. Pain gives faith a whole new meaning and it is gratitude. In the hospital I practiced gratitude for all the things I take for granted. Simple things like being able to get out of bed by myself, or walk unassisted, even going to the bathroom became an activity for which to be grateful. 

2. I am not alone. Pain and the isolation of rehabilitation can be depressing. But friends showed up at my bedside, or sent cards that made me laugh, and called to check on me. Friends sending prayers and positive thoughts helped. When I saw my name on the church prayer list or on a FB post I knew prayers and positive energy were coming my way.  

3. It is okay to rest. Psalms 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." In that stillness, that rest there is a space for the divine that would not have existed without the pain. Rest is also essential for healing.

4. Self care is vital. Mark 12:31 says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." We sometimes miss the, "love yourself" part of that verse.  I cannot take care of anyone else if I do not take care of myself.  Part of taking care of myself is deciding that I am stronger than the pain.

5. Listen when others want to share their pain.  I think this might be the hardest lesson.  We all carry our own pain or the pain of someone we love.  My experience is that people just want to be heard or want you to know that they understand what you are going through.  Listen.

6. Be kind. Matthew 7:12 records what we often call the Golden Rule, "In everything do to others as you would have others do to you."  There are good Samaritans and angels everywhere.  They are sometimes disguised as doctors, nurses, physical therapists or food service workers. Even my neighbor, who works at the hospital, showed up every morning, before work with Starbucks. If I am grumpy and impatient or unkind I will miss the good they are trying to do for me.

7. My attitude is the most important factor I bring to my healing.  I confess was scared.  Scared of the surgery, the pain and the recovery. So I had my sister, Hilary make me a pink tutu.  When physical therapy got me on my feet I wore that tutu with my pink boa, pink polkadot socks and a tiara. Not only did I cheer myself up but I cheered up everyone who saw me. 

8. See other perspectives.  Being "disabled" even for the short time I was, has given me more empathy for the people walking slowly or being pushed in a wheelchair. 

I take faith for granted when I feel good, but lying in a hospital bed in pain and dependent on others for my most basic bodily functions required faith. Faith in myself, faith in my care givers and faith in my creator.  It is blessing that God gives our magnificent brains the ability to forget the pain, but I hope I never forget the lessons learned from the pain.

Not All Surprises Are Good!

Surprise, there is something wrong with you!

5/4/15 Riding down in the elevator from my hip replacement pre-op apportionment, I got a call.  The conversation went something like this:

ME: "Hello."
HER: "Paula, this is Dr. D*****."
ME: "Oh hi." (but in my mind, Oh S#^*) I mean getting a phone call directly from you doctor is never a good thing.  
HER: "Based on the results of your last pap, I have made an appointment for you with a surgeon on Friday.  Can you make it?"
ME: (Not in my head) "Oh S#^*!!!"

Surprise, we messed up!

Back up from the story above to June 1, 2014. My first book Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women was published. It was and is a dream come true.  Five months after publication I went to the American Academy of Religion / Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, in San Diego.  It was another dream come true.  My book was to be at the IPG booth in the exhibit hall.  When I got to the booth I had another "Oh S#^*" conversation,

HER: "I have been dreading this moment."
ME: "Why, you don't even know me?"
HER: "I recognize you from the picture on your book. Your book is not here."
ME: (Head hanging) "This is the most anti-climatic moment of my life. Why?"
HER: "The woman who was charged with sending the books quit and didn't tell anyone she hadn't sent them."
ME: "I have books in my car."
HER: "Well, if you want to go get them we can sell them and send you replacements."

So, in my cute, new, black wedgies I walked back to my hotel, got a heavy bag of books out of my car and walked back to the booth. Have you ever been to the San Diego Convention Center? It is miles long. Something went seriously wrong with my hips.  I had been having a bit of discomfort but now I was in serious pain. I left the meeting early because I could not walk.  The good news is IPG sold out of my book.

Surprise, do you want the good news or the bad news?

Fast forward to January 2015 and my book wins a gold medal from Illuminations Book Awards. I go for a long walk with God and say, "Thanks God for this award! This confirms for me more than anything that I am on the path to which you have called me." I wrote a thank you note to the awards director and related this story. He said, " I agree, you're on a divine path with their book."

I may be on a divine path but I could not walk the day after my walk with God. What ever happened at the AAR / SBL meeting happened again and I wasn't even wearing my cute, black wedgies.   That brings me to the elevator story above and the reason I have not posted a blog in about a year. Pain is a great distractor but if you pay intention there are lessons to be learned. More about the lessons learned from pain,  next week.

Don't Call Me a Guy

This is a speech I gave last week at Toast Masters (Mavens) 

 Equality of the Genders

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

I want to be clear about who is included in the group of women created equal.  We are the white, educated women of property and means.  Men, the working class and poor women are not created equal to us.  They must labor to support themselves, their families and to provide goods and services for us in our pursuit of life, liberty  and happiness.  

Now, I know there are some men who believe that, as we form this more perfect union, women should not rule over men.  John Adams, bless his heart, in a letter to Abigail, while we were writing the Deceleration of Independence asked, "In the new code of laws I know it will be necessary for you to write, I ask that you remember the men, and be more generous and favorable to us than you ancestors. Do not put unlimited power into the hands of  the wives.  Give up the harsh title of mistress for the more tender and endearing one of friend.  Do not give power to vicious, lawless women to use us cruelly with impunity.  Women of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat men only as vassals of the female sex."  Abigail was swift to let John know that the revolutionary war was not fought to prove that all men were created equal.  Abigail replied, "As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh."

Argument From Creation

Man clearly was not created equal to woman as demonstrated by the second story of creation, found in the book of Genesis.  He was created from the dust of the earth,  He was put in the garden of God to tend it, but was incapable of the task, so woman was created.  She was created superior to man, not from the dust of the earth but from living flesh.  She is the final and crowning achievement in God's act of creation!

Woman was endowed with the almost God-like ability to produce life, with the assistances of the tinniest male seed.  And where would we be if one women had not been courageous enough to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  She wanted to be more like God.  She wanted to be wise and so she took and ate while the man sat passively by and ate the fruit she gave him.  The fruit he had been told not to eat.  Woman had not been created when that command was given.  The truth is, life as we know it, could not have existed within the confines of the garden.

Using Our Brains

Does this argument sound absurd?  The Declaration of Independence written only for white, women of property.  Men created as lesser human beings than women.  Women divinely ordained to rule over men.  But the reverse of these arguments are some of the arguments used by patriarchy to marginalize and control women.

Women and people of color read the gender specific language of the Declaration of Independence and think, "Oh, that means me."  But it doesn't.  John Adams thought it was laughable that his wife Abigail requested that laws be written to protect women from the cruelty of vicious, lawless men and to this day the Equal Rights Amendment has not been passed.

The second story of creation, in the book of Genesis, has been interpreted to prove that men should rule over women.  That women are responsible for the sin in the world.  That it is God's will that women should suffer in childbirth.  This interpretation also implies a literal, historical understand of an ancient story told and reload by an ancient people to explain the world they experienced around them.  It also ignore the simultaneous creation  of female and male, in the divine image, in the first story of creation.  

Language creates reality and "those who control how language is used control the most powerful instrument for shaping human consciousness."  (Kevin Giels. Priscilla Papers vol. 29, no. 1)  If we call human beings mankind, we make invisible everyone who is not male or does not conform to societal norms of what a kind of man is.  If we were to use woman kind to refer to all humanity, men would know they were not included.  It is considered acceptable to insult men by calling them girls or ladies.  Women want to believe that unmanned, manmade, chairman and mankind somehow includes us.  It does not.  Addressing a group of women or a mixed gender group as, "You guys" is culturally acceptable.  Addressing a mixed gender group as, "You gals" is not and you guys is used to refer to groups of women.

Many of us worked in the seventies to change male generic language.  Fireman became fire fighter.  Policeman became law enforcement officer.  Mailman became mail carrier and with the change of language came new career opportunities for women.

The erasure continues.  The original Star Trek used inclusive language but second generation Star Trek does not.  I was in Victoria's Secret and heard a woman's voice say, "Dude, look at this bra."  I looked up expecting to see a girl and boy shopping together.  I saw two girls.  Their culturally encouraged language had erased their gender.  Male generic language, dude, guy brotherhood, mankind simply express male as normative and female as other, non-normative.

To quote Albus Dumbledore, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, are our most inexhaustible source of magic.  Capable of both inflecting injury and remedying it." It is sad that John Lennon was killed at such a young age.  He might have learned that we are not a "brotherhood of man." IMAGINE

The Puppy on the Leash

God Leads By Your Heart's Desire

But sometimes the heart is like a puppy on a leash.  The puppy is really happy to be out with her person and really wants to go on the walk but she sits down or she tries to go the other way or she whines.  Somehow she doesn't trust that the hand holding the leash will take care of her or knows which way to go.  My heart was the puppy on the leash.  Religion, especially feminist theology, has always been my passion, my heart's desire.

Not Following God's Lead

When it was time to go to college I knew I had to go to Chapman and study religion. I got my BA in religion.  I was called to go to graduate school or seminary, but like the puppy who tries to go the other way I did not trust that the hand on the leash knew which way to go.  Instead I moved back to the desert to substitute teach.  The stated goal was to pay off my student loans before going to graduate school.  A couple at the church I attended went to seminary.  I could hardly stand to be in the same room with them because I wanted to go to seminary so badly.  A pastor at a church in Big Bear left her congregation to "follow her call" to a church in the mid-west.  I couldn't read the article in the newspaper.  I knew I wasn't following my call.  

Eventually I got my multiple subject teaching credential and began a career in elementary education.  When it came time to get an MA, so I could move over on the pay scale, I said to my husband, "Well, I better find an MA in religion program.  It is the only thing I have ever wanted to study." I got that MA from Liberty University.

I continued to feel called to the study of religion.  I thought it was a Ph. D. I was called to until one day I saw an advertisement in a publication titled, Christian Century. The add seemed to have my name on it.  It said, "Paula. do you long to study international feminist theology with women from around the world?"  Oh, yes please! So I got my Dr. of Ministry in International Feminist Theology and went back to kindergarten.

I have a favorite quote from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.  It says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Sometimes God Has To Tug On The Leash

My last two years of teaching were very difficult.  I won't go into details about my next to last year except to say I had a very difficult group of children.  My last year I had the most wonderful group of children and the most difficult group of parents I had ever experienced.  One afternoon, after a particularly difficult encounter with a parent I walked from my classroom to the office and said, "God, why am I having such a hard time with these parents?  With children like these I could do this forever." That still, small voice that I am getting better at listening to said, "Paula, you are not supposed to be here."  "Oooooooh!"

So I retired.  I think of it as I finally graduated from kindergarten.  I wrote the book that had been banging on the inside of my chest to get out.  I brought forth what was within me and it saved me.  My book recently received a gold medal from Illumination Book Awards.  I am realizing my heart's desire.  

The puppy on the leash is no longer sitting down or whining or trying to go the other direction.  The puppy on the leash is trotting happily along, trusting that the hand on the leash knows the way to go and will take care of her. 

The Sacrifice of the Virgin Daughter of Jephthah

Where to find the story of Jephthah's Nameless Daughter

Jephthah's daughter is found in Judges 11:1-11 and 29-40.  Her father makes a vow to God that if he is successful in battle the first person to greet him, on his return, will be sacrificed   

Jephthah's Daughter Tells Her Story

I could see him coming from a long way off. I put on my dancing skirt and picked up my tambourine. I am his only daughter, his only child and I wanted to be the first to welcome him home in victory.  

"Why have you done this to me?" he yelled.  He started tearing his clothes and throwing dirt on his head. "You have caused me great trouble!  You have brought me very low."   

All I could do was stand there and listen to him rave about what I had done to him. He blamed me for his vow, for the violence he was about to do to me.  Who did he think would come out to greet him?  My mother and I were the two most obvious choices. He had vowed to sacrifice the first person to greet him and it was me.  He must have know it would be me or my mother.  

I hated him in that moment!  I knew that he would not relent.  I was doomed and I had to get away from him.  I left for two months. I told him I was going to bewail my virginity. That was something he could understand. My life was of no consequence to him.  He had decided how I would die but I decided when.  

The women of Israel will remember me. They will lament the sacrifice of a virgin daughter to a God who does not demand human sacrifice. 

Observations on the story of Jephthah's Daughter

Abraham vows to sacrifice Isaac but God intervenes at the last moment and Isaac is saved.  No such luck for the nameless daughter of Jephthah.  Ironically, Jephthah has just defeated the Ammonites who worship the god Molech.  The Ammonites practiced the sacrifice of their children to Molech.

Leviticus 18: 21 warns the Israelites not to sacrifice their children because the act profanes the name of God.  Leviticus 20: 2-5 prescribes the punishment of stoning to death for anyone who does sacrifice a child.  Where is the justice for Jephthah's daughter?  Not only is her father not stoned he is made the head of the elders and commander of the army.

One can only wonder at the motivation of a father and husband who vows to sacrifice the first person to greet him on his return home. He seems to have his, "Look what you have done to me" blaming the victim speech, all made up.  The story of Jephthah's daughter is tragic and the male biblical writer seems to believe that the fact that she is a virgin is even more tragic.  He sends her off to bewail her virginity, not her life.  But the women know and Judges 11:39b-40 says, "So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." NRSV