Feminist Mutuality: Embracing Female and Male

As a feminist, I sometimes lean more toward the radical end of the spectrum. Not in terms of religion, though—I've long been convinced that Christianity helps to inform and support a feminist theology of liberation. No, my identification with the left-wing of feminism comes in the form of anger: pure, infuriated hatred of what male systems have done to females, and the identification of males with that system. In other words, sometimes my anger against patriarchy leads me to hate all men. It's only sometimes, but it's certainly been a part of my thought processes for some time.

Up to this point in my life, I have had plenty of male friends. But they would inevitably make me angry, too, and my moments of hating all men would continue to buttress a lurking antagonism toward males for much of the time. Now, though, I'm in a relationship with one of the most incredible men I've ever met. It occasionally crosses his mind to undertake feminist analysis on common cultural relics (which I adore). It's impossible to bend him to gender stereotypes: in addition to rock climbing, he loves flowers, dancing, and other “pretty” things (his own descriptor). More importantly, he has an uncanny unselfishness that makes me want to cry at its beauty.

This one man, and my linkage to him, quells my rage. My feminist self, instead of being able to hate him, loves all that is good in him—and there is much (as his girlfriend, I think I find myself loving even the parts of him that are less than good, simply because they are parts of him, but that's another matter). The good in him causes this feminist to celebrate: our being together, his love of the world, his inherent value as a human being regardless of gender, and his beauty in being uniquely himself.

In working on a project, I came across a quote that specifically related to women, but that I desperately want to apply to Brandon as well, because I believe that it does apply to Brandon. And if I want it to apply to Brandon, I find myself also wanting it to apply to all of humanity's men and women:

… we believe there is wisdom in the perspectives of women, who are striving day to day... to create their lives and to recreate culture and community for their children. There is value in the stories of these regular common people who do the mundane but richly detailed work of sowing seeds and harvesting fruits, preparing foods and cleaning homes, fixing remedies and stitching cloth, selling goods and listening to the stories people share when they come together to celebrate, to grieve and to pass on traditions. (A Passion for Life Committee, qtd. in Metz, “Passionate Differences”)

I have, in the past, paid lip service to the ideal of mutual care between genders, of caring for the male and the female. My anger toward men, though, has sometimes overshadowed this conviction. I don't think I apologize for that anger—it has been a part of my intellectual and experiential journey as a feminist. Instead, I hope that I am taking the next step toward true reconciliation, to celebrating us all, together, and hoping that women and men of all places will be able to find this beauty in the other. In so doing, my hope is that we can go beyond “battles of the sexes” of all types to envision and live in a world of true mutuality. Further, I hope we can shed those stereotypes and boxes in which we attempt to constrain ourselves and Others.

I'm finally beginning to take in, to attempt to embody and internalize in the deepest sense of knowing and being convicted, this ideal of mutual love and mutual empowerment of true human selves. If that isn't a beautiful mercy of God, I don't know what is.

Laughing at Theology

As I sat in the midst of 100 pages of reading this evening, following a fairly intense day, I ended up laughing at myself. This is almost never a bad thing.

Earlier today, Brandon and I talked through theological differences (Hebrew Bible discussions in which one can ask anything are wonderfully dangerous). He's a tad more conservative than I am, and I had to know that he was okay with me being as I am--you know, crazy hippie heretical liberal. It wasn't an easy conversation--we have some real differences--but we both ended up feeling good about it at the end. I definitely needed a nap afterward, though.

And then this evening I got to read all about theology of religions. I love this topic, actually, in part because it holds a lot of unanswered questions for me. Who is Jesus to me when I want desperately to affirm and learn from other religious traditions? What does it mean to be a Christian who's also a pluralist? How do I reconcile being a part of the same faith tradition for, well, pretty much my whole life, and having it look so radically different over the course of the last decade?

All these are loaded questions. Any theological question ends up having a lot at stake, especially depending on who you ask. As I read about theologies of dialogue this evening, I began to identify strongly with a particular ("Mutualist") model. And then, of course, the author posits all sorts of negative critiques of said model, which made me defensive (I am not a relativist! Or an imperialist!) and unable to actually defend myself (I am a baby theologian), but I still wanted to hold onto the good, the truth that I found in being a mutualist. In good theological fashion, the author goes on to say that the next and final model tries to overcome the weaknesses of this one. Of course it does.

And so, I laughed. I laughed at Paul Knitter for being unknowingly and obnoxiously biased (but, I think, in mostly good ways). I laughed at myself for being unknowingly and obnoxiously biased. More than either of those, I laughed at how finely we theologians parse things. I agree quite a lot with Raimon Pannikar and with Mark Heim, and yet they don't necessarily agree with each other. It's like how I agree with Brandon on a lot in practice, and yet when we start talking about finer theological points we find that we have some significant differences (he's for total depravity, I'm for total hopefulness).

And so, I keep laughing. I'm remembering that part of what it means to learn is to laugh at oneself, to realize that you don't have all of the answers at once, and that you'll keep changing. Theologically, though, I just hope it all comes down to love. That's a horribly unrefined, obtuse claim that should really be explicated further before I decide to posit it as a basis for my entire theology.

But I don't really care all that much, despite all the theological wrangling that I've done today. I think it all comes down to love, which makes some differences seem so much less important. Love is my ethic, my modus operandi, my Christology, my ecclesiology, my soteriology, my eschatology. And, perhaps most pertinently, my sleepy-girl midnight answer.

I just want to love you, and everyone else in the world. (Oh, and I want to laugh, too.)

Evening Prayer

For friends: those far away, those who eat with me, those who call me--all those I love.

"Our Father, we thank thee for all the friendly folk who have come into our life this day, gladdening us by their human kindness, and we send them now our parting thoughts of love through thee.We bless thee that we are set amidst this rich community of kindred life with its mysterious power to quicken and uplift. Make us eager to pay the due price for what we get by putting forth our own life in wholesome good will and by bearing cheerily the troubles that go with all joys. Above all we thank thee for those who share our higher life, the comrades of our better self, in whose companionship we break the mystic bread of life and feel the glow of thy wonderful presence. Into thy keeping we commit our friends, and pray that we may never lose their love by losing thee."

--Walter Rauschenbusch

Reading Dearth

I've been having the hardest time reading lately. It's not that I haven't tried: I've probably picked up about ten books in the last week. Two that I was actually committed to, I gave up on. The others, it was more of noncommittal browsing, waiting for something to catch me and say "this is it! The perfect book for right now!" Sadly, this hasn't happened very much. Or at all. I reread Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, which was good, but I want to read something new, something to grab my mind and attention and lust for knowledge--or at least for a good story. A really good story.

Instead, I keep giving up. I love to read. I get completely enamored with books, with characters, with stories, with subjects. But nothing is quite catching my attention these days. I started wondering if it was a problem with me, whether it's an attention problem--I've been accused of ADD before. Truth be told, I don't even feel like reading Wendell Berry right now (and that's when you know it's bad).

Dear readers, have you ever gone through this? Is there some curse I'm under, and is there any magic to defeating it? Tomorrow I may wander through bookstacks, hoping again that something will catch my eye. Wish me luck.

Pathways

"I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, so much disillusionment and sorrow... But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself.... Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it."

-Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

Life Cycle

It's a sad thing that I don't want to write about the things I have due tomorrow. They're awfully important, but so is what's actually at the front of my mind—the cycles of life and death. Specifically, at the moment, the end of that cycle. Yesterday morning, one of my great-uncles, my grandmother's brother, passed away. He's the first of my grandmother's siblings to die, and I can't imagine how she's feeling about that. Her brother, someone she's known and been kin to all of her life, is no longer a part of the world. Or, at least, not a part of the conscious and present world.

I'm reminded of a summer a few years ago that saw three of my grandmother's siblings-in-law—spouses of her brother and my grandfather's sisters—pass away. Uncle Herb; Aunt Marian; Uncle Ken. Aunt Anne has since joined them, and now Uncle Don is included in their number. How must it be for her, to have lived 75 years in a world of life and death, and to now have the members of your generation passing away almost faster than your grandchildren can keep count?

She's been there before, my grandmother. My grandfather died in 1984, around the same time that two of his brothers, my uncles Charlie and Mart, also passed. How did she feel then? She was relatively young—around 50, my parents' current age—and already dealing with the death of her own generation in the family she had married into.

How do I deal with it? I still shed a couple of tears for Uncle Don, though I barely knew him and I don't think I've seen him in years. In part I did so because I don't understand death, and it just happened to someone who was somehow connected to me. More so, I think it happened because my mother, my grandmother, and my newly-widowed great-aunt flashed across my mind. Though I don't understand death, I understand well the pain that goes with it; just eight months ago I mourned the loss of my cousin Kayla, the first family member in my generation to leave this world. I know that death is a natural part of life, I know that loss is something to be grieved, I know that pain cannot—and should not—be avoided. And yet, I find myself not knowing how to deal with it, let alone wanting to do so. My western self likes its tidy boxes, its happy-ever-after stories. But life has circles, not ever-afters.

Dear Grandma, how do you deal with it year after year? Dear reader, how do you?

Heron

I must've looked ridiculous walking down the alleyway. In an attempt to preserve a dignified look, I had thrown a black peacoat over my old hiking pants and trail runners. Thankfully, the late hour kept onlookers from having a spectacle.

I was walking down to see a heron. The heron, actually. Herons return to the same places; one has chosen a creek near my house as its haunt. I've seen her a few times, almost always at night. Tonight, I had been driving home from the library when I saw her. My first thought was to jump out of the car right then and there, but a better thought told me to go home and actually put warm clothes on. Thus, the hiking pants with long underwear underneath.

I walked over a patch of ground that once held a house, one that I'd lived in for a time during college. Crossing the railroad tracks and the hill leading to the creek, I was back at another place I call home. That creek has been a veritable siren for me, calling me back and entrancing me. The heron was in her usual spot, where Trout Run feeds into the Yellow Breeches. Instead of bare rock, she stood in floodwater, courtesy of the 36 hour-long rain we'd had until yesterday morning. She doesn't scare too easily if I give her wide berth, so I walk across the road from her and cross down to the stream.

The water is slower than usual, thanks to the flood. The night around me is pretty silent—it is January, after all—so it's still most of what I hear. It still slaps trees and rocks it normally lies far from, though it's receded in the last day and a half.

I pull a hand out of its mitten to feel the water. It's icy, though not as much as it should be this time of year. Winters here tend to depress me. Where I grew up, we have foot-deep blankets of snow covering yards and fields for most of the season; the whiteness makes the cold and the gray overhead more bearable. Between my parents' home and my own, though, the mountains catch the worst of the weather, making it more “moderate” in Harrisburg than in Punxsutawney, and also infinitely more dull.

The flood and the heron, though, serve to enliven me. I love the rain. It cleans cars and driveways and souls. It pushes creeks upwards and forces the creatures at the top of Earth's food chain to confront the fact that they cannot control everything. Rain comes whether or not we like it.

There are some things humans can screw up without even trying. We've killed the dodo bird and regularly smash up trees to have something to write on. Some things, though, continue despite our unintentional and stupid efforts to kill the earth. The rain continues, the moon continues, the stars continue. Thankfully, the heron that inhabits the mouth of Trout Run continues, despite our best efforts to ruin her habitat and her migratory patterns. As I see evidence of the earth's ability to endure and to heal itself, I have hope that we humans aren't big enough to destroy her—uh, nuclear catastrophe notwithstanding.

25 List

I'm now 24. Here's my pretty-much finalized 25 List:

1. Go skiing.
2. Read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.
3. Volunteer--maybe at Joshua Farm.
4. Find another church community (in addition to my house church).
5. Take a trip.
6. Spend a day in the Philly museum all by myself.
7. See D.C.
8. Go on retreat.
9. Write.
10. Spend no money for a month other than necessary groceries, gas, and rent.
11. Clean my room (I hear you laughing, Erin).
12. Go ice skating.
13. Can and freeze like a crazy woman: tomatoes (of course), broccoli, strawberries, spinach, etc.
14. Learn how to make cheese.
15. Grow herbs.
16. Read my friends' favorites: Yoder, Allison.
17. Clean my car.
18. Go to a flea market.
19. Hike and camp.
20. Learn more of languages.
21. Get (and keep) plants.
22. Build something.
23. Go to the farm show and/or relief sale.
24. Start taking grad classes.
25. See friends far away--even if only via webchat.


We're all set now: I'm keeping some things vague because I like to. That's how I roll. Besides, it's more of suggestions than actual rules, right? :)

Pt. II

Small update, for those who may be interested... I went back on the Prozac. I snapped at one of my roommates today (in my passive-aggressive, mostly-in-my-head kind of way), and it was the last stroke. I've had too many sobbing breakdowns and too much social phobia over the last couple of days. Not to mention just being "mopey" and angry at the world. That's not who I want to be. So, now what's left is to figure out how to deal with the side effects that made me want off the drugs in the first place.

I covet your prayers and your thoughts. I'm frustrated with feeling stuck in pretty much everything, and I can't tell you what I'd give to sleep normally again. I hate asking for help, but, well, here I am again.

Life Unknown

First, two years ago, it was depression. I couldn't think, couldn't write, couldn't work, couldn't hold myself together. I couldn't function. For months I fought it, tried to ignore it and work through the pain. That tack didn't work. Finally, my life hung in the balance.

I went on the Prozac, was messed up in a different way, still felt powerless, but at least could see the light of day again. Even if it was just mist and gray.

A year and a half later, I'm sick of suffering immobility and barren melancholy. I quit the Prozac, and I think I might be okay. This has yet to be determined. [By the end of this post, I'll think better of this.]

But at hand are still my old procrastination, my inability to work, my lack of focus. I still can't move myself. I can't write. I can't even sleep. On talking to my counselor last, she wonders if I have ADD.

ADD. A new name for what I've felt for so long. Or is it? What if we've been wrong all along, as I had once hoped and now dread? Some things can't be explained by it: social phobia, crying for no reason. But other things can be explained better: lack of motivation, procrastination, my sister's charges of laziness.

I'm back to feeling powerless again. As if unknown forces are labeling and controlling my life, and I'm just a toy, a puppet to make miserable. So much for her dreams, her aspirations--we'll let her fight, and push, and fail.

Some days, it's only friends that get me through. Some days it's just the mercy of the universe.

What if, in the end, nothing can get me through far enough?

Sympathy

“Christ, so the scriptures tell us, bore the sufferings of all humanity in his own body as if they were his own—a thought beyond our comprehension—accepting them of his own free will. We are certainly not Christ; we are not called on to redeem the world by our own deeds and sufferings, and we need not try to assume such an impossible burden. We are not lords, but instruments in the hand of the Lord of history; and we can share in other people's sufferings only to a very limited degree. We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in other people's sufferings only to a very limited degree. We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ's large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and action, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.”

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven

"If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line--starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King's Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led--make of that what you will."

-Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

Writing

I can't write on command. I've never been able to, which is probably why I'd never be able to be a career writer, or at least a writer with any sort of contractual time constraints. If I set out goals and time slots and checklists, I'm done. I might as well throw in the towel and avoid the humiliating failure. Even if I seem to have "all the time in the world," it will do me no good.

No, I'm one of those writers who has to have inspiration hit her in the head, brick-like. I can labor over the structure of a paper for hours and days and weeks until I'm at my wit's end, only to suddenly one morning be eble to plot the whole thing perfectly in 20 minutes. I've done it. I've also gone for weeks without writing, then go to bed exhausted one night only to find that an essay is brewing in my head. I may have to work my day job again in the morning, but the writing can't wait. An hour later, I have a strong body drafted and excited to be edited and finished. (Did you know that an essay can be excited? I can feel it.)

When I put off writing said essay, it consumes me. I write it in my head. I say sentences out loud. I search through my mental resource book on word choice and sentence structure. Yep, I said word choice. Finally, while laying curled up in bed, I resign. The alarm clock says 12:30am, but for some bizarre reason it's time to write.

And so I do. And because my mind is a glutton for punishment and is in hyperdrive, I then (at 1:30am) commence writing about the writing process. Because I can. Because I must. Because I'm a neurotic, obsessive, ruminating writer. And because, clearly, I love it.

Oddity

Or, my aunt just friended me on facebook.

Over the last few weeks, I've been friended by a few family members that make me take a second look at my profile. I don't like this. I don't like thinking that my Aunt Sandy will think less of me based on my facebook profile, or that I am so paranoid about the issue. I like to justify myself by saying that I don't like the way Aunt Sandy, cousin Missy, and Aunt Tina find out how I've changed and now view the world. But, it probably should happen.

Maybe my aunts, cousins, and sister seeing my facebook--and thereby some small part of who I am at this time and place--is a good thing. Maybe it'll make the world (and my family) a more understanding place.

Maybe. But I have my doubts.

Contemplations, commitments, and callings

I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself. Here are general thoughts:

MSW/MTS—Get my master's. This is looking most likely at the moment. Do I know what I want to do with this degree? Nope. I want the theology work, and I want the MSW degree and skills. And hopefully I'll figure out what I can do to be helpful in the world. Hopefully.

Farm—Stay in Pennsylvania. Keep loving the land I already love. Learn to farm, live in a big house with lots of space for others. Keep investing in the community here.

But,...

-I don't know a darn thing about farming.

-I don't know if I can live in Boston.

-I really want to live in the middle of nowhere.

-I want to live near other people I love.

-Can my depression handle Boston? Who knows? My dad doesn't think so.

-Staying the way things are is not an option.

-I have no money to try the farm thing.

-I have no marketability in what I want to do, whether it be in farming, social work, or theology.

-I still feel a pull to spend time abroad.

-I have no idea where that would be or what it would look like.

-Basically every option scares the crap out of me.

-And every option makes me really happy.

-I really just want to live in community and love people. I just don't know what that will look like.

Eek. Have I mentioned that I'm scared??

Why God Never Received Tenure at any University

1. He had only one major publication.

2. It was in Hebrew.

3. It had no references.

4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.

5. Some even doubt he wrote it himself.

6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?

7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.

8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.

9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.

10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.

11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample .

12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the Book.

13. Some say he had his son teach the class.

14. He expelled his first two students for learning.

15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.

16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

From: http://funnies.paco.to/GodTenure.html

Conversations

Transcript of my roommate and I this evening, as I watched Planet Earth:

A: Erin, can we get a polar bear cub?
E: First thing tomorrow.
A: Hooray!
E: Do you think we can get them at Agway?
A: Dunno. Ask Renee.
E: Okay, I'll text her.... Do you think Nevin will let us have one?
A: Of course. It's a polar bear cub. Who could say no to that?
E: Right. Because it wouldn't make any messes.
A: Nope. Wouldn't eat a thing.
E: Would you potty train it?
A: No idea.
E: Yeah, you best do your research on that.
A: True dat.
E: Wait, did you just say "true dat"?
A: Uh, maybe...
E: Have you had anything to drink tonight?
A: No!
E: Well we better get some.
A: Wait, why?
E: Because no one should say "true dat" while sober.

Ruminating

Today is a better day. I still hate my job, I still don't have a clue what I'm doing with my future, and I still have carpal tunnel and depression. But today is better. Two from Rumi, that helped center me last night:


"A Great Wagon" [excerpt]

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~~~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
don't make any sense.

"Unmarked Boxes"

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and change shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make anyone fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.

Tatatumtum tatum tatadum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,

as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.

The misfortune of inheritance

This evening, after coming home from a rough day of work, I headed straight for the chocolate liqueur. It was completely premeditated, I'd been thinking about it for hours before I busted out the bottle.

Yes, I drank. Despite being on Prozac, and knowing that the alcohol would mess with my emotions for the next few days, I downed it. My roommate, on hearing me get out the ice, warned me not to drink, that I would regret it in the morning. She's right. But I did it anyway.

Growing up, I never thought I'd get mixed up with alcohol. I hated what it did to my aunts and uncles, how changed they became after a few drinks. The thing is, these things run in families. So, the habits of these aunts and uncles became my habits. My grandmother's method of self-medicating her depression has become my method when the Prozac just doesn't stretch far enough to cover the day's stress and hard emotion.

At some point, I hope to be beyond the alcohol and the Prozac. I hope to find a place in which I am at peace, with enough hope and faith and resilience to keep going under my own strength. Unfortunately, today is not the day. So, to forget the alienation, the anger, the uncertainty, and the carpal tunnel, I drink.

There are some things I'm grateful for having inherited. This is not one of them.

What goes up...

Yeah, we all know the old cliche. For about a month, I felt fantastic. I was ecstatic about life, and so motivated to live it well. I thought about going off my antidepressants, and was excited about the future.

Then reality hit again.

Now, I'm struggling with my self-esteem. Having a friend insinuate that I'm fat, seeing guys swoon over another friend, and generally feeling invisible to the world has left me feeling worthless. I'm still fighting, for which I'm proud of myself, but some days it just feels impossible. I'm trying hard to remember the good days, and wondering when I can get back to being "myself."

Whatever the heck that means.