dear patriarchy

bob at the corner linked to this letter/article written by science fiction/fantasy writer elizabeth bear. she writes:

Dear Patriarchy:

I don’t care what you think.

I’m not here to convert you. I’m not here to enlighten you. I’m not here to try to earn your respect. I don’t need it.

I am not scared of you.

You see, I can win without you. I can make a living without you. I can reach a broad readership of women–yes, and men too! lots of men! men who are enlightened, and emotionally secure!–without you. It’s really kind of awesome. After fifteen years working in corporate America, actually, where I usually had to do what a particular type of authoritarian men wanted if I wanted to keep my job, these days, I can pick the audience I care to appeal to.

nolove, Bear.

wow. this is so powerful i think i'm going to write my own! she ends the article with this line:

Because nothing is more terrifying to an extant power structure than a frictionless surface. And the magic of it all is that they have no power over me.

i think that is one of the things the internet has done to/for the church - it has made the kingdom a frictionless surface - the women sitting under neanderthal teaching have access to truth now - they can't build the walls high enough anymore. and there are no footholds on this frictionless surface for them to stand and abuse anymore.

they have no power over me. i LOVE that phrase. i found out last week from my aunt that my father freaked out when she told my aunt that i was preaching at church, right in the middle of a restaurant, which is so not his style. i joked with her he'd rather tell his conservative friends who ask about me that i have backslidden and am a crack whore than i am using my gifts in the church and god forbid "teaching men"...

dear patriarchy,

the walls of power you have built in the church can no longer hold me in, keep me down or silence me. you have no power here, the kingdom of god is bigger than the fortress you have built to keep us in check. you tried to keep us making the coffee, cooking and cleaning up and making you fat with our meals.

i am not afraid of you. i don't need you anymore. there are women and men who love jesus all over the world who know the truth now. you can't stop this because we're taking our wallets with us. your source of income will dwindle to the size of your small, shrunken hearts.

and just so you know, it really is awesome out here, you're welcome to join us, the kingdom is wide and deep and full of life. you will have to set down your power though. it doesn't work here. you see true kingdom life is the kryptonite to patriarchy. jesus came to set the captives free. and we are free indeed.

no love, bobbie

patriarchy and pornography

stephanie at just etchings is doing some important work on her blog right now. this quote is so good i just can't let go of it and wanted to honor it here too:

The war on women is not a war of men against women. We naively assume that this war has been declared by and caused by men. That’s the big lie! This war is being fought against both sexes, against all of us. Men are not the author of this war, Satan is. This cause of the war on women is Satan, who uses the fallen powers and principalities of this world to keep us in oppressive traditions and structures. Jesus has taught us to know that the enemy is always the Enemy! Pg 106/107

Both man and woman participated in the Fall. Adam and Eve were both responsible (Gen 3:6; Rom 5:15-21; 1 Cor 15:21-22). A direct result of the Fall, gender mutuality was disrupted and woman became dependent on man and man became an authority over women. Sin, not God, destroyed the partnership between man and woman. Patriarchy is worshipping the curse. Pg 109

Calling Patriarchy God’s will is like calling pornography God’s will. The analogy between patriarchy and pornography is quite fitting because the two are very similar in their effects. Pornography objectifies persons by turning them into property to be owned, demeans the feminine, trivializes sexuality, and perpetuates violence toward women. This is precisely what patriarchy does. Patriarchy treats women as objects, demeans and trivializes them, and provides a subtle theological framework for the right to abuse women. Calling patriarchy God’s will is theological pornography! pg 114

All quotes from Is it Okay to Call God Mother? Considering the Feminine Face of God

By Paul R. Smith

wow - i'm ordering this book today!

power and authority

today's post from wes about the recent nouwen daily meditations and an email sent out by stephanie have been weaving together my thoughts on power and authority.

stephanie and i both come from a background (although her's was far more severe than mine) where male power and authority was unquestioned and god-like in it's influence in our lives. so unpacking and redeeming thoughts on these topics are very important to me. the authority and power we experienced is nothing like the thoughts i've been reading these past couple days.

stephanie's quote from the wounded healer

The (one) who can articulate the movements of (their) inner life, who can give names to (their) varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of (oneself), but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. S/He is able to create space for Him whose heart is great than (their's), whose eyes see more than (their's), and whose hands can heal more than (their's).

This articulation, I believe, is the basis for a spiritual leadership of the future, because only (one) who is able to articulate (one's) own experience can offer (themself) to others as a source of clarficiation. The Christian leader is, therefore, first of all, (one) who is willing to put (their) own articulated faith at the disposal of those who ask (their) help. In this sense s/he is a servant of servants, because s/he is the first to enter the promised but dangerous land, the first to tell those who are afraid what s/he has seen, heard and touched.

i kept stumbling on the 'he' and 'man' so i unisexed it, as i'm sure henri, now that he is in heaven totally would do himself! :)

wes quotes the meditation from the 12th:

The Authority of Compassion

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are "subject" to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose "subjects" we are willing to be.

It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to.

in re-reading it on his blog i recalled a part of parker palmer's definition of authority from a hidden wholeness, pg. 76-77:

"The authority such a leader needs is not the same as power. Power comes to anyone who controls the tools of coercion, which range from grades to guns. But authority comes only to those who are granted it by others. And what leads us to grant someone authority? The word itself contains a clue: we grant authority to people we perceive as "authoring" their own words and actions, people who do not speak from a script or behave in preprogrammed ways.

In other words, we grant authority to people we perceive as living undivided lives."

oh, the undivided life. palmer speaks of life on the mobius strip, it is the image below - where the inner and outer ring are both visible and open to the self and the surrounding community. there is no divide between the two.




these are the people i grant true authority in my life. all others are suspect.

sexuality was immediate endowment of authority in the first 30 years of my life. if you were male you were given authority by god in my life. it didn't matter if you spoke truth, spoke love, had god's or my best interests at heart, you had authority. much confusion, and consequently much destruction and anger stemmed from that distortion of scripture in my life.

i still struggle to this day to distinguish truth from falsehood if spoken by someone in authority. the tapes in my brain kick in and i am left with much confusion until the truth is distinguished from the lies. it is a process of untangling. i'm getting better at it, but it still brings me a lot of anxiety.

that is why what nouwen writes about compassionate authority almost brings me to tears. what would the church, better yet, the kingdom be like if those 'in power' lead with compassionate authority? my husband liam is one of those men. it's suprising that many are threatened by this. many of the students who are raised to respect 'powerful authority' don't respond to his teaching and shy away from his ministry.

people living out true authority and compassion call us to a higher plane - call us to live lives of authenticity and compassion ourselves. my friend wes is that kind of leader too. liam and i are reading his book reclaiming god's original intent for the church together each morning. it is so refreshing to hear of the hopeful call to restore what has been lost, to reclaim those things that have been stolen. to redeem those places that the locust have eaten in the church.

these are the kind of people i grant authority to. people who live those undivided lives. who practice what they preach. who own their own junk, and do it in a way that makes me want to own mine. i love these men. they restore those places deep in my soul that have been wounded, strip mined and abused. they restore my faith in humanity, and the divine. thank you!